the end
41, and very healthy.
her heart fluttered, skipped a beat
she faded
she fell
and i didnt understand.
shes stable
shes able to get through
i wish i could rewind it all.
...
death stalks us in the latter years
touches gently or throttles violently
and eternity opens its arms of shadow
in a forest of bleached sky,
epileptic sun and rainbow trees
i wander aimlessly
went to a KFC protest on friday....
life is killing me.
Reflections on The Bouncing Souls Show.
last night was a chaos of thrashing bodies. a river of mohawked heads, handkerchifed faces, random crowdsurfers (being thrown and throwing themselves around from every in every direction) ....irrelevant fashion motifs in the context of flying fists, making motions more intimidating then dangerous.
i had to watch carefully to make sure the crowdsurfers didnt accidentally fall on me. had to keep up my hands to catch them when they fell.
the Unseen, a hardcore punk band that opened for the Souls
this is not the violence of nihilism. this is the violence of brotherhood and sisterhood...the violence of being young, the violence of love.
arms always reaching out to help those that fall, making a barrier around those who need it, who search vainly on the floor in a forest of combat boots and argyle socks and fishnets looking for eyeglasses or contacts or things fallen out of pockets. mouths inquire soundlessly; the barrier fades and all along the show goes on.
the names change, the music changes and the music stays the same. fashions evolve, devolve, feed on their former lives like reincarnated social scavenger carrion. but, like the Deviates said, [The years go by and the names change,] "yet teenage rebellion remains the same, just pissed on kids living pissed off lives, pissed on lives." and the songs stay strong, stay simple, stay alive.
kewpie doll fun time!
this is the kewpie i bought today on ebay. isnt he a cutie?
this is the kewpie that i wanted the most, but i got outbid by a dollar and lost him.
this one may have been the cutest of all, but he was too expensive.
i wrote a poem while i was in work today. its part of a series of poems that im writing....theyre about fast food culture and consumerism and shit like that, ive been writing them strictly within the work environment.
i guess theres a lot on my mind...a lot to write about...but i should make this brief, since ive spent too much time in this digital existence already.
the youth activism was a lot of fun. in some ways not as fun as last year, because there wasnt nearly as much music (no open mic or "jamming")...but there was still the bakeoff and some other things. on the first day me and brandon and our new 13-year-old friend Blyn and his little brother made bizzare cookies with chocolate chips peanut butter and bananas in them.... when the cookies got burnt, we just put the same batter into a cake shape...and called in "bananachocolatechipcinnamonpeanutbuttercookiecake" or something like that. Jonah made his "Squash the State Pie" ....which has squash in it, predictably. it was yummy but it didnt have enough sugar. then josh showed up and made these fancy pastries that were so good they beat the hell out of everyone elses food...
and yet it wasnt much of a competition.
there were workshops on poverty, on gender (me and brandon did that one, actually), on the victory gardens project,...and on other stuff. i should have done a zine workshop, but it just never occured to me.
on the second day some very familiar service dogs were running around greeting everyone, and so...i knew that jessie had come. she did the poverty workshop. shes extremely passionate and kind of profane, its great. she did a lot of talking...there wasnt a whole lot of time for questions because her workshop was kind of on a tight schedule, but there was some interesting discussion...on what it is thats causing the gap between the rich and the poor...i think we generally agreed that globalization was the main reason...and that corporate america likes it that way.
she told us a story about a group of so-called "welfare-moms", and their husbands who all lost their jobs when the mills and factories in their towns closed down. their whole situation was just sort of hopeless, because there was no work for anyone, and the economy of the whole town was screwed up. kids had nothing to do and no future so they just roamed the streets getting in trouble. so eventually a lot of these parents came together...and started to figure out ways to solve the problem. they noticed that there were abandoned buildings all over town, that no one was using. there was a housing problem, so these people just moved right into the abandoned buildings and set up community centers there. soon they had places for homeless people to stay...and there were things for kids to do cause they could help out with the whole project and stuff. then....the town council brings in the fuzz and arrests them all...says that theyre trespassing and breaking the law. its bullshit cause the buildings were abandoned and there wasnt anything else for them to do. so things are looking pretty bad, but the judge in the case actually rules in favor of the "welfare moms" ...because their motives had been so pure, and they were only using abandoned buildings... it was interesting...
it is almost 10:30. ive lost too much time, and yet ive been unusually productive today.
im going to the youth activism gathering tomorrow....i cant wait, but theres so much that has to be done to prepare for it. and i havent even told my mother that im going yet.
i keep thinking about jimi. i got to see him on saturday...something that i wouldnt have missed for anything. hes changed so much...and i needed to see those changes for myself, to understand them.
hes involved in hip-hop culture a lot more deeply than i had initially realized: the fashion, the mysterious love of Detroit, the do-rag underneath the baseball hat. etc. in some ways its kind of cute (i dont mean that in a condescending way) and in other ways it doesnt seem like him. but then again its not really my place to judge.
at some point i realized...that underneath all the changes...hes always jimi. he will have the same face...the same beautiful eyes: without innocence but with so much love,.......the same Jimi mannerisms. some things dont change, and those are sometimes the best things of all.
other thoughts....
there was a lot of family tensions...mostly between jimi and his mother. she looks so much better, and healthier...like shes really getting her life back together. she really wants him back...but he seems like hes afraid. hes afraid that shell let him down again...relapse into a haze...is it worth the troubel to go back? he seemed to think it wasnt. i really shouldnt speak too many personal details about jimis family in here...but its on my mind....it involves me. its hard to censor these things.
the state sent a letter to Jimi's mother, saying that shes improved a lot, and things like that. the letter was precious to her...she showed it to jimi with something like abrasive hopeful pride. his reaction was slightly cynical, but his skepticism is completely understandable.
she does have an abrasiveness, but underneath it there is so much love for her children. and for that reason i really hope that the state gives her another chance.
plus....if jimi came back to live with his mother...he would be right in bangor...and me and brandon could go see him...yay!
when i saw him on saturday...it was such a beautiful day. me and brandon went to the hope festival first...which was lots of fun, but we didnt stay long.
his mother lives right by jon bapst...in an apartment...a bangor suburb. the house smells good. and its kind of dimly lit.
it got cold...and we went inside. i played with a really crappy keyboard for a little while, the tune to "joey makyntyre" making candy eyed smiles
then jimis mother asked brandon if she could take her to shaws to recycle some plastic bottles. jimi was kind of uncomfortable with it....it was kind of like a small part of the bigger tensions underlying everything. but it turned out okay.
when we parked in the shaws, jimis mother got out and we all waited in the car. i wore brandons fuzzy steering-wheel cover as a hat when i went into the lobby to buy cheap little toys that come out of those little machines. i got a pewter ring for brandon....two homies and a fun sticker for jimi. he loved the homies...espescially the clown. i was happy to make him happy.
it was sad to say goodbye. when he hugged me, we lingered on the embrace....
"arent you gonna kiss me goodbye?" i said. he smiled but he seemed like he didnt hear me. I didnt really want to repeat it...so i just dropped it like it had been a joke. ...but it wasnt...
the triumphant return of the punk pirate
later that night me and Brandon went to a show in orono...:
at first the show seemed pretty poorly attended, but things picked up later...more kids showed up. definitely not the biggest show ive seen, but it was a lot of fun.
the pit was pretty tame most of the time. when jonee was playing their set, there was 4 kids in there (including me)...but it got better when DTK showed up....i fucking love them...definitely the best hardcore band around here.
on JEB's last song, Jonee just goes fucking nuts, staggering around in this wacked out guitar solo, staggering all around the audience like hes going to fall over, but with purpose. it wasnt like a drunken staggering at all. he doesnt seem like the drinking type. anyway...hes coming my direction, and he gives brandon a guitar pick, like he wants hir to do a guitar solo...it was fuckin swanky. but she doesnt know what to do coz she dont play guitar...so i somehow get my fingers on the strings and play this tiny little shitty solo...it was so chaotic and spontaneous...and so much fun.
and at some point: it occured to me.
there are so many walls in the music world. walls between audience and performer. walls between those that stand and passively watch, and those that dance. walls between journalists and musicians. et cetera.
pink floyd understood those walls better than most bands. thats why their performances while touring for "the wall" consisted of putting up an actual literal wall between them an the audience. the point is, the wall was already there. they just made it visible. that was the whole concept of the album. the walls that keep people apart and suffocate them.
the purpose of punk rock is to destroy those boundaries, those walls. everyone is included in the experience. its not about being passive, its about being involved,...ideally, everyone gets involved. thats whats so great about it.
think of it this way. if jonee earthquake was a snotty pop star, do you think he would have let me even touch his guitar, much less play it? hell no! but hes a fucking punk rocker....he doesnt give a damn about whose supposedly better than everyone else. he doesnt see himself as a god or a celebrity. thats fucking cool.
theres so much more to say, but no time.
some of this is things words that were said by me to someone a friend.
bills due the 16th didnt get the time off what to do oh what to do just fade out like the roll credits roll up the circus roll up for the freak show who is what is now is where is nothing just disapear
my finger has a bandage on it because its cut and i have a show next week with my band have to practice for it get a distortion pedal buy the adapter have to finish the mural for service learning spanish do the worksheet ready prepare the presentation for musicand arts class work on friday work on saturday cash the check copy the zines bind the zines finish the watercolor painting
when i got home i walked down bricks to gleaming porch stars dripping drops of sky on me and everything is black and i have all these monkeys on my back and in my head all these impossible things to do and for the first time in so long i think "ill kill myself" but it seems so ridiculous because that would be escape and the universe does not allow escape
we are no longer humans. we are words of text and these moving hand contraptions are not mine
i wish i could talk to brandon right now but i cant i just cant because hir dad is on the internet and ze will probably be asleep
but i guess id better get used to being alone . brandon is moving away . and even if jimi wasnt locked up he would never want me.
i do not want to own anything i want to be nothing i want to be oxygen i want to be a bubble a cloud a mist a nothing just dissipate and fade out.
too much too much too much i cant do it i cant do it i cant do i just want it to go away just make it go away
where to start? do i explain these things chronologically, from morning to noon? do i just ramble on however i like? i dont know.
i guess that i had a really good day, but it didnt really start to go well until i got out of school. academically everything has been pretty overwhelming. i found out today that huge sections of my spanish workbook are blank, and as a result my final grade for quarter three will be barely more than a 70. at orono this is a passing grade, but its still a D.
the fucking bizzare thing is though...a lot of the pages that were blank: i dinstinctly remember doing them. beyond a shadow of a doubt, i remember doing that work so vividly, and yet...those pages were blank. either i wrote them in dissapearing ink, or i accidentally wrote in someone elses workbook.
maria wanted us to see one of the first dandelions, in an area outside of the school were we werent supposed to be. it was so quiet on that end of the school. no henpecking obnoxious kids making noise. no grouchy teachers stalking around. just warm air and sky and earth and crappy school lunch.
maria got searched and adam got called into the office, because we had been sitting outside of the gym unsupervised.
on thursday lechner (guidance councelor) was trying to con me into staying for another semester. her manner of speaking reminds me of ms. jackins: shes really polite and nice, but really sneaky and slightly condescending at times. the type that tries to trick you into doing something, all while pretending that its for your own good. anyway, she basically acted like there are NO summer school programs available to me, so if i want to get into college, i have no choice but to stay one more semester.
i told her that if i find a summer school, im going to it, and that im going to get my diploma before the fall, because i cant take any more of this shit.
fucking high school...its sucking the life out of me.
on a lighter note, i drew a cartoon today, of me and my new friend Tim in our "action tank". our tank fires buttercups and hearts. maybe ill upload it later.
theres a ton of other shit on my mind, but i have no time to write about it....
im supposed to be doing homework.
instead im doing this, and uploading pictures of my new dolls. i say 'new' because i bough 5 for myself at a cute little doll shop in Holden.
well, theyre not all new. some of them are old ones that i repainted. looky looky.
i know theyre ridiculously huge. i WILL resize them, but i cant now, since i have stuff to do at the last second.
other things going on in my life:
the george clinton concert was fantastic, but george himself was kind of worn out and dissapointing.
one last thing. i had an epiphany today. its really important that i write this down.
i remembered something that i had read in "understanding comics" by scott mcloud. there was one part in the book, where he explained the difference between the stick figure and the detailed character; an explanation which led to a very interesting revelation about human psychology.
if you create a fictional character that is a basic stick figure, then it will be abstract enough so that ANYONE can project THEMSELVES into that image.
but if you create a character, or icon, that is more developed, more complex, more detailed, then its harder for people to possess it. its harder for the viewer to project his/her conciousness into the image, because theres less room for THEIR identity.
its a model that mcloud used to explain comics. but it can actually be applied to all kinds of things. (this is the epiphany part. )
when i applied the above model to the dynamics of fake celebrity culture, and the entertainment industry, i realized things. Celebrities are DESIGNED and molded into bland, basic, boring personas, for one reason: so that they can be marketed as blank slates, onto which the audience can project THEIR collective conciousness.
look at it this way.
Avril Lavigne is marketted as an "everyman" character, or an "everywoman", perhaps. she is seen as a reflection of everything that "teen" girls go through. she is marketted as a reflection of teen culture. in reality she is a blank slate, onto which millions of teenyboppers are projecting THEMSELVES. THEY are creating her, molding her, shaping her. they see themselves IN her. she whores herself to their emptiness, their want. their need to see themselves in something "bigger".
thats why celebrities are chastised and punished whenever they do something that might "alienate" their audience. every time a celebrity does something unique, distinctive, different, they add a layer of depth to themselves. if they do that often enough, eventually they come to have faces. if such a process continued exponentially, then they would soon no longer be blank slates at all. they would have faces.
but its not easy to market a real face to a consumer audience of energy vampires that hunger for the blood of the faceless.
im supposed to be in school.
im home...
im glad, because after what happened last night i really need some time to myself.
theyll give me a lot of shit for it tomorrow, since my mom told them that i would be coming in. but i really dont give a fuck.
i wrote some things here last night...but somehow it was deleted.
i almost got arrested last night.
[stomping boots floodlight eyes demands and drilling questions probing my skull. why did you say that?[are you contradicting yourself ] you kids were smoking pot werent you? werent you?! where is it. i want to see it. now.
the officer concluded that my salvia was pot. he took my pipe and gave the salvia to my mother.
i still feel the shock hasnt really worn off.
im sort of ...distant...lost....dissasociated, disconected
on the bright side, brandon sent me a nice picture of ryan.....
last night i dreamed that i was at school (orono) during lunch. i was talking to some jock kid about something that i dont remember. (in waking life, i know him only as someone in my gym class that i play floor hockey with; as someone who is an extremely talented athlete and not much else.) and then there was this androgynous little person, who i have also seen before in waking life. i think sie is a girl, but i am not sure. sie may be an 8th grader, but looks much older.
in the dream, the two people described above wanted to have sex...really kinky, hardcore sex...during school. they decided that they would lock themselves into the handicapped bathroom to do it. i saw the older boy put bondage ropes into his backpack....
in the dream i was nervous about them doing it, but i had a perverse desire to watch.
i didnt see them fuck, fortunately, but i saw the younger person tied up, tightly, with a ton of rope. i expressed suprise that the rope had been used in that way.
what was really bizzare was that while they were doing it, there was a little kids play rehearsal going on in the lunchroom just across the hall. mister lutine was there bossing everyone around.
there was such a perverse contrast: childhood innocence....and adolescent kink.
then...the dream slowly morphed into something much more surreal. there was a group of people standing in front of a giant screen, somehow imprisoned and controlled by some strange force, manifested in an indistinct entity that was standing there in strange clothes giving us orders. we were still in the orono school hallway, but everything was darker, different, and there was no one there but us.
on the screen was a complicated network of lines and moving dots and changing colors. it was like a computer game, but it was really intense and surreal and overwhelming, because i had to play it, and if i failed at the Game, one of the humans would dissapear. they would only reappear once i did something right. i dont know where they went; maybe they died.
it was like i had a tiny little space jet thing that i had to manipulate so that it wouldnt touch these epileptic little 2-D dots.
and then it got more and more surreal and yet it was becoming reality for me. i was in this little jet thing flying around a canyon, shooting lasers at other wierd little jets, and yet i saw it from the outside.
at that point it didnt really have any emotional relevance or anything. it was just random brain candy wierdness.
as to whats going on in my life right now...
when brandon was here, we had a really intense debate on whether or not non-human organisms have conciousness. it started when we were reading an article in Adbusters magazine, which, in one paragraph, said that humans are the only species to have conciousness. brandon pointed it out and started saying why ze disagreed with it. i said that i didnt really know if i was sure what i thought. ze was suprised, and started picking me apart as soon as i disagreed with her. i guess ze is just a lot more passionate about it than i am. ze ranted for quite a while on what perception is and how its definition isnt up for debate and how if animals have feelings then they must have conciousness "im not angry at you, its just that this is so important to me. just [thinking about it] makes me [want to cry]". once ze saw that i had shut down, we ended up discussing childhood programming, and how it affects us.
what i mean by "shutting down" is this: i have a nasty habit of attaching a neurotic amount of importance to my opinions. my opinions are me. without them i am nothing. if they are defeated, then i am defeated. if they are proven to be wrong, then my entire existence is undermined and i feel like i have no reason to live.
intellectually, i recognize that thats all pointless and counter-productive. but i also recognize that its just one symptom of a deep emotional childhood majadjustment.
i dont completely understand the maladjustment. but im certain that there is a very strong connection to the way that my dad would attack me for disagreeing with him and twist and distort everything that i said, to the point where i couldnt ever argue with him. so i always just shut down and let him say whatever he wanted. and it undermined me, totally and completely. because if i couldnt defend myself against him, i would doubt myself. so i would defend myself desperately and furiously.
and ive been a mess ever since.
its something that i have to just...overcome. but its really hard.
Brandon had the same problem. whenever ze heard people yelling or shouting at each other, angrily or not, ze had a sudden urge to withdraw and hide, because ze felt like the shouting was being directed at hir.
ze eventually realized that the reason for it, was because, as a child, thats what ze had always done. whenever hir parents were screaming at each other (before they got divorced, things were ugly), ze felt like it was hir fault, and wanted to hide. and ze did.
and now as an adult, ze still has the urge to hide and withdraw when ze hears shouting or screaming. but ze is overcoming it, ze is getting in control.
and i want to do the same. im sick and tired of being a slave to my past. i have to realize the epiphanies that i had so long ago...i have to take control....
my dreams about my father are getting progressively more and more violent.
i miss one here or there, or forget them. so there are gaps. but based on the ones that i do remember, ive concluded that theres this pattern...
in the first dream about him...he invaded my life and smiled too much and wouldnt go away. and i didnt say anything.
second dream, i forgot.
fourth,? fifth.? etc.? i dont know.
but then i had one in which he came home and was acting like a cartoon character, and i screamed
