Filed under: New Mexico
Or else, umm, we’re driving in this shitty van, me, Hawaii and Tattoo. I feel like I might hyperventilate. The past six months flashes before me as Madonna is on the radio, expressing herself. Tattoo says:
“What a great song for your first visit to Fairyland.”
Fairyland.
Filed under: Love
My first foray into online dating began in the Anne Rice chatrooms on AOL. I was a senior in high school, stealing off to the office in my house, getting onto the computer (turning the volume down so no one would hear the Microsoft theme song), and going on a search for porn and chat. My handle at the time was “Astroboy,” unless of course, I was doing something a bit steamier with fabricated dimensions, in which case I probably chose a more porntastic name like “Brad” or “Luke.” Embarassing.
Filed under: New Mexico
Or else…ummm…I’m still back at my computer sitting at a cubicle in my office in New York on Fifth Avenue, across the street from my bank, down the street from gym, across the river from my home, the fifth floor of an old diaper pin factory in a neighborhood sandwiched between two bridges going left and right.
And I’m looking around on the web for something to read, something to pass the time as I pretend to be fact-checking or editing financial data or whatever it is today. This website is all black and red and potentially subversive. Articles on ‘magik’ and ‘occult’ and ‘gender politiks.’ What is so subversive about the k-for-c thing?
And there’s this article on alternative communities. This bunch of gay guys living out in the desert in houses they built and I love the desert. I picture swarthy older men bathing in outdoor showers surrounded by trees. The desert.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I thought this was a funny sign to see…
Thinking about it, it represents a deeper idea that people can die, bad people, good people, whoever…but ideas, abstract concepts, intangible things never die. They can be forgotten, lost, deconstructed, mislabeled, miscommunicated, etcetera. But they cannot die.
I was thinking about how in the past, our abstract data was relegated to the unreliable realms of memory, cave walls, animal hides, paper. Then the conjectures of future humans rummaging through the wreckage made inaccurate stabs at reasons, purposes, rites, facts, cultures.
Assuming (and it’s a big assumption) that our data storage only continues to get more sophisticated with increased capacity and security, it may be possible that we could have (in the future) a direct link to our past.
Can history or culture ever be continuous? Has it ever been? There have been long stretches but what of humanity has been at work uninterrupted? Perhaps the only true link to the past is the wizardry of the human body. Some say that hidden in our muscles lie memories, in our blood, our bones, our genes are keys that are unlocking everything these days.
But the body is a tangible thing and the body can definitely die. And in time, I’m sure we as a species will. But what is the immortal idea of humanity that will continue? What are the lessons, the accomplishments, the mysteries of the human body?
The answer is somewhere between Punk and Jerry Falwell, surely.
Filed under: New Mexico
Like that moment when you’re not sure whether this is awake or a dream.
That moment when you’re not sure if you can feel your body.
That moment when the terror rips across your spine and you’re not sure if you exist at all.
Like repeating a word over and over until it’s just silly putty sounds. Greengreengreengreen.
Umm…how did I get right here in this van with this dude in a Hawaiian shirt in this shitty old van in the desert heading to Pep Boys to pick up a part for the shitty van, waiting in the parking lot for this guy to come back and then he does and he looks at me kind of evaluating me as if he’s not sure he picked up the right person but then decides what the hell and jumps in.
And he has this crooked kind of smile that is not completely trustworthy. I keep flailing, grasping for some sense that this is safe. That this was a good idea.
We pull up to a Laundromat and another dude gets in the van. He is some dude. Tall, skinny, and covered in tattoos. His face covered in snakes and butterflies. Arrows on his bald skull, big fat plugs in his ears and he’s carrying an old green army bag full of laundry.
“Oh, queen, that was hysterical. They loved me,” he says to the Hawaiian shirt guy.
“I thought they would,” Hawaii says to Tattoo.
“Yeah, they kept staring at me, and then one of them came right up to me and starting asking me about what it all meant, my tattoos, the symbolism. They were all giggling and shy-laughing.”
I want to relax. I do. I want to trust in the divine rightness of the moment. I want to breathe into it and trust. I do. I can’t.
Filed under: Imago
When I lived in NYC a few years back (1999-2003) I wrote a novel. Granted, I was drunk on whisky and pastrami sandwiches while doing it, so I don’t remember much ( I call it my Bukowski period) but I did finish it. I think it would be better as a graphic novel or an epic TV series…but I think I’ll post some chapters. So Here is part 1 of Chapter 1 of Imago:
Filed under: Music
The Magnetic Fields, “I”
The Shangri-Las, “Remember”
Rasputina, “Frustration Plantation”
Ulrich Schnauss, “Far Away Trains Passing”
Thom Yorke, “The Eraser”
The Smiths, “Hatful of Hollow”
Joni Mitchell, “Hissing of Summer Lawns”
Gang of Four, “Entertainment”
What I’m not Listening to:
Bjork, “Volta”
Tori Amos, “American Doll Posse”
Wow. I loved these two, but there most recent efforts are sonically irritating and leave me reaching for my copy of Boys For Pele and Post….
Filed under: Love
sitting here, remembering my first experience with loving another person, toying with the concept at 13 at theater camp. Falling right in line, I was infatuated, in love with, in lust with Stuart, the actor who played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, and who was tall and thin with big green eyes and a really really whiny personality. And for some reason I went up to him and said, “I just want you to know you look good.”
Uhh. He looked at me for a moment, translating what i had said into its implications. His face went from neutral to a sneer and he told me to get the fuck out of his room.
Well I went downstairs and laid in my bed and thought, huh. I must be gay. And that was that.
right off the bat, you know. dismissed.
