I was sleeping a mountain and coughin' up earth. I slept for days and buried my curse somewhere in Texas, somewhere with a pile of gold and a pistol. We were beggars then. We're bankers now. But we can call it one too many games of three card monty out in the desert. Ride our horses straight into the sunset. But what came? The future rolled with with lighting and thunder, wrecking the dark skies with pale blue and white. So, so pretty, we all said.
But these were days of hot suns and hot damns and the summertime gatherings. Mariners in the lake, darlings in the creek, love awash in dueling streams. There were no need for strings then. No harps, no nooses. We just built our houses with stone. No hanging, no swinging, no playing anthems for choir angels. Though we could use the light, you best ride your horse as fast as you can before the silver screen burns.
This is the future blow, kid. We've got the theaters and the parks for orphan youth to bury the hatchet. We've still got the criminals and crooks. We've still got the roller-coaster that never stops, not in any of us. We've still got the sunsets, the gardens, the fairweather prayers. What was ever wrong with this roof? We could watch the sky send sunshine through skin, breaking the solstice, tickling sparks through the small towns nearby.
I remember these pages of books. I recall these campfire tales of loneliness and grief. No kid grows up wanting a second chance. Why wouldn't we get it right the first time? I looked at my dog once and realized he'd never smoked a cigarette or broken a heart. No one hated him, nobody ever bothered him. I took one last sip of my orange juice and stared at him while he napped. When he woke up, he licked my cheek and everything settled. But, for one night, I figured my dog was smarter than me.
I also remember driving you home in a white dress, I remember losing my heart before my head and I remember coming home with slumped shoulders and a prizefighter grin. I drank honey that summer. I drank cold water. I drank rum in the shade. And that's when I found prayer, though only to the ghosts of history. After too many cigarettes, ask me for a ride home. It's time I should leave.
See you on the other prairie, rhinos.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Old Flames III: The Golen Light of Night
In the bar, there was a mood. Maybe it was a fever. It was scarlet something either way. The dapper yellow dots came from a horn and bounced off the mirror, spilling black notes everywhere, along with the crashing of a melody. We coughed on the gin and told each other stories. She was in pale blue and I was in pale everything. Well, my suit was black, but my soul was ghost white. One too many promises broken to the gods. The worst bookies they were, the lot of 'em. Let the band play, let the friends cheer, let the last drink go down easily. I want one prayer ceremony after another before the Devil finds this dive. We've got a fistful of great days ahead of us and I'm not slipping into a bidding war with the man who steals from the darkest of graves. We could sell our halos for more. So, pry my grip from these tarot cards. We'll see who was dealt a fair hand. Just wait to tip your hat for the bartender still, as he'll be slinging us shots until the end of the world. Drink up, for this soul is all we had and now this fiery glass of regret is all we have. Make waste the cackle, glory in the highest, said the drunken priest. It's just one more man among us. It's just one less god in the world. Can we take home the sky now? This better be the last chant of the tribes of the endless fields and water of the great planet. Now, where were we? Were we in the bellows and howls of the midnight winter slurs? Well, maybe, mariner, you have sailed too far from home. We are value here. Talk to our pirates and chat up our boxers. We have one long journey ahead of us. The cemetery is just down the street, but we'll take the scenic route for a while. Step up, keep up, for this is grand brickwork we tread. Sleep, sleep, says the priest when he can't. This is one harbor stare I won't soon savor. Not enough boats and bells nestling the breeze. And all we did was drink rum inside, laughing cheers to the the battles while heckling our history. This was one long joke told too long. This is last call, folks and mates. Drink up. We have blood on our hands.
Friday, October 7, 2011
My Manliness: An Essay
"Where do you have to go for your errands?" Grant asked me, as I put shirts away in my closet last week.
"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Or, shit, I definitely have to replace my shower nozzle. So...probably, what, Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
"No, dude, you need to go to Home Depot," he laughed.
"Hmmm. I think I was just looking for a reason to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond."
"You should be looking for a reason to go to Home Depot!"
"Oh my god, have you ever been to Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
This is my existence as a man. It's one long misunderstanding of what manly men are supposed to do. Or I imagine that's not entirely accurate. I guess a lot of the time it's me understanding what manly men do and then very purposefully ignoring it. Oh, what, I'm supposed to eat red meat, tell you all about the UCLA/USC rivalry AND know what's wrong with my car? I've got romantic comedies to watch, people!
But it always comes back to my dad telling me and my brother at the dinner table years ago, "I failed you as a father." It was definitely light-hearted, clearly not true and one of the funniest things the man's ever said. But, when it comes to knowing the manly things, my brother and I are somewhat, if not totally, inept. And I'm worse than my brother. We can't build shit, we don't understand cars and we won't follow sports. But at least my brother can barbecue a steak while talking about Game of Thrones or Call of Duty. Hell, he was probably already in the lead when he asked me, "What the hell is Two Weeks Notice?"
Recently, I took a wild turn and joined a fantasy football league. Why? Because my roommate and friends were doing it and I wandered into the basement on Labor Day wearing a bathing suit after partying my ass off on a Sunday evening. They needed an eighth person and they promised me it wouldn't be much work. Well, now, I'm in first place. In fact, I'm undefeated, leading one friend to check the standings once and drunkenly yell, "Jake doesn't even fucking like football!"
It's true. I only watch the sport one or two days out of the year: Super Bowl and New Year's Day (if I'm not in Mexico). Some years ago, I was at a Super Bowl party with an ex-girlfriend. Her friends' boyfriends talked about sports in the '90s and I laid down all of my knowledge about basketball and baseball from the decade, admitting I was a huge fan up until I was a teenager. They were taken aback, as they had heard the rumors that I was some pansy writer vegetarian. One of them asked, "What the hell happened when you became a teenager?" The girl I was with leaned over and answered for me, "He discovered poetry."
That had some weight and truth to it, though it was also because I realized I didn't give a good goddamn fuck about baseball. And then writing and music pushed out my dedication to basketball, though I still follow the playoffs.
I was on the phone with a friend, discussing football players' stats (because I look that shit up now for fantasy reasons), my brother stared at me, grinned and said, "You happy? Talking about sports makes you happy now? So you're into sports now? Just gonna leave your ol' brother behind, eh? Fuck you! I have to start talking about cars now!"
My old roommates were huge Angels fans. Needlessly to say, they stopped inviting me to watch games with them in the living room, because I'd just get drunk on cheap beer and heckle the television. I wasn't rooting for anyone but me then and watching baseball on television is usually tallied up as a loss in my book. Once, they invited my brother over. He said all kinds of solid observations about trades, injuries, RBIs, ERAs and made thoughtful suggestions about what he thought would improve certain players' games. My roommates were impressed. They all told him how much manlier he was than me and that it was cool to have a Kilroy watching sports with them. Then, around the seventh inning stretch, they realized he kept sneaking looks at his phone and took it away from him. After going through his phone's text messages, it became apparent that everything my brother had said in the last hour was actually his friend coaching him. My brother cackled and then made one last observation of the game: "That pitcher's name is really long." They didn't invite him back.
Thus is the Kilroy Brothers' charm: a resonating mockery of most things manly.
The two of us thrive on refusal. If someone tells us to be interested in anything, especially something manly, we automatically become less interested in it. And, not only that, but we also become obnoxiously uninterested in it. This, I believe, has lead to our ability to talk shit better than the average citizen. We actually don't get much flack for not knowing what tools are which, what team won what championship or what makes any car run. But we take serious interest in everything (another Kilroy Brother trait). We want people to tell us about building and mechanical projects. The two of us are sincerely interested in someone telling us why something is interesting to them. We just don't want someone to tell us we should or need like it. Because then it becomes twenty minutes of us making fun of that person until they feel like a dopey fuckard. Nobody in there right mind would put either of us on their list of Top Five People To Have On Your Side In A Physical Fight. However, I think we'd make it to a lot of lists if they fights were verbal.
At some young age, I imagine we were presented with a crossroads: get interested in manly things or get good at talking shit. We very definitely went with the latter. Nobody really hassles us anymore. We love being invited to do manly things, but we'll goddamned if someone's gonna make us do anything. Example: Both of us get invited to go rock-climbing, though neither of us actually rock-climb. Our friends know this. They invite us out to the spots, very nicely ask us if we want to climb and we very politely refuse. Why do we go? Because we love hanging out, camping and drinking. Our interest in sports goes about as far as makeshift games with friends and doing our best to not die of a heart attack.
But, as for general manly interests, I had an imagination that wouldn't tolerate the main interests of manly stereotypes. I built with Legos and my tools were plastic, so I never asked my dad for a real tool belt, since, to me and my wildly delusional brain, I already had one. I never asked my dad to explain an engine to me, because I had bicycles and go-karts. When he tried one time, I was 12 and told him, "This sounds like math."
For the most part, my dad never pushed any interests on me. But he support and/or paid for any interests I discovered, from drums to website software. He never told me who or how to be. His philosophy was, "If I'm a good father, I'll raise a good son who has good interests of his own." However, my dad was a half-breed: half-manly man, half-not-so-manly-man, which is, in all honesty, probably where I truly fall. My dad's the editor of a racing magazine who self-published a poetry book. He can fix things around the house, but he always says he just barely did it. Realizing my meek frame and spazzy outlook on life as a child, my father probably assumed it would've been dangerous for me to do anything with hammer.
I mean, I'm the son of a journalism father and an English major mother. All I did was read. And maybe my brother looked at the television when an old war or cowboy movie was on (they were on at my house all the time) and then looked at me reading some chapter book in bed and made his decision to be the slightly manlier son, and, lately, he seems to only read books about history and environmentalism.
But, still, my brother's manly by family's standards. The influence of cinematic manliness has never really been there for us. My father's brothers want to drink good beer and discuss Irish music, literature and history more than anything else. My mother's only living brother is a reformed backpacker and current artsy carpenter. However, the one who passed away was a football-watching business owner who left this world when I was in elementary school. And then one grandfather taught me how to play the tin whistle and the other took me to see musicals.
I'm a product of my upbringing and my upbringing was whimsical.
Nobody in my family was fixing up a classic car or following hockey. Also, I'm selling my father, uncles and grandfathers short here for a good laugh. Everyone took me camping and fishing, though my interest in fishing died away when I stopped eating meat as a kid...which, come to think of it, probably sent me down this path in the first place. I mean, what, you're gonna explain power tools to a boy who thinks lambs are fucking adorable?
No, because that boy is going to grow up into a man who was legitimately thrilled when he realized he had to buy home decor for his new place. Shit, a few days ago, I had to buy a standing light. Did I go to Home Depot? No. Instead, I went to Lightbulbs, Etc. Is that because I'm not so manly or because I have really dope taste? Well, it didn't matter either way because I certainly don't have very much money and Lightbulbs, Etc. is crazy fucking expensive apparently. So, keeping son of a bitch manly man Grant in mind, I ended up going to Home Depot, which my friends call "Homes Deeps," a la Lord Of The Rings, and scored a really nice lamp for a totally good price. Good job, Home Depot.
Also, that reminds me of the time that Chase took my brother and I to Home Depot when he was going to build my family a new garage door. It was like the cool uncle taking his two sissiest nephews to carry stuff for him. When Chase would say, "Oh, I also need to check out somesortofsomething," my brother would do something like knock on wood and say things like, "Maple, eh? Pretty strong stuff here. You know, you could build a mighty fine shed with this." This line of silliness would lead to me laughing like an idiot and Chase just shaking his head in sympathy. Sometimes, Sarvas would invite the two of us along just to see how the other half views Home Depot. Guess what the answer is? It's like a way less exciting version of Target, where there's no popcorn or pretzals and we can't buy season two of any goddamn TV show.
The friends I see regularly are men who love Home Depot but also maintain lots of half-breed tendencies. The three guys I probably hang out with the most frequently are Grant, Rex and Chase. They all rock-climb, two of them surf, two of them wrestled in high school and they've all been in fights. I don't do any of that. I've rock-climbed a handful of times, but I mostly go with them on trips to hang out in the wilderness. I've surfed a few times, but I almost always prefer reading on the beach. I played junior varsity basketball for one year and then got over it when they put me on varsity. And I've talked my way out of every fight I've ever talked my way into.
However, I've also watched Love Actually, Grey's Anatomy and The Notebook with those dudes. Also, we definitely maybe saw Definitely, Maybe together in theaters on Valentine's Day one year. So...those are the sorts of half-breeds I hang out with. My high school friends, on the other hand, will never understand why I like anything.
I see manhood as the ever-changing existence. It's an entire spectrum. Sure, I've been known to do yoga while watching several episodes of Sex And The City, but I've also gotten drunk as hell on whiskey in the woods of Missouri. I write poetry, but I also swear like a sailor. My brother once had a long discussion about the properties of being a man. We decided that he saw man as the hunter and I saw man as the poet. That's where it stands, I suppose.
And, in all honesty, the spectrum is so wide that I probably do lots of manly shit by default. But it's a lot more interesting (and manly?) to observe the differences than the similarities. From a distance, I can't imagine it'd be obvious that I own both Sleepless In Seattle AND You've Got Mail when I get all hammered-ass drunk on Jameson and threaten to kill everyone while cackling. It's just a strange balance being a man sometimes.
Ah well. Whatever. Grant went with me to Bed, Bath & Beyond last night so I could buy pillows. And guess what? Bed, Bath & Beyond was totally amazing!
"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Or, shit, I definitely have to replace my shower nozzle. So...probably, what, Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
"No, dude, you need to go to Home Depot," he laughed.
"Hmmm. I think I was just looking for a reason to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond."
"You should be looking for a reason to go to Home Depot!"
"Oh my god, have you ever been to Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
This is my existence as a man. It's one long misunderstanding of what manly men are supposed to do. Or I imagine that's not entirely accurate. I guess a lot of the time it's me understanding what manly men do and then very purposefully ignoring it. Oh, what, I'm supposed to eat red meat, tell you all about the UCLA/USC rivalry AND know what's wrong with my car? I've got romantic comedies to watch, people!
But it always comes back to my dad telling me and my brother at the dinner table years ago, "I failed you as a father." It was definitely light-hearted, clearly not true and one of the funniest things the man's ever said. But, when it comes to knowing the manly things, my brother and I are somewhat, if not totally, inept. And I'm worse than my brother. We can't build shit, we don't understand cars and we won't follow sports. But at least my brother can barbecue a steak while talking about Game of Thrones or Call of Duty. Hell, he was probably already in the lead when he asked me, "What the hell is Two Weeks Notice?"
Recently, I took a wild turn and joined a fantasy football league. Why? Because my roommate and friends were doing it and I wandered into the basement on Labor Day wearing a bathing suit after partying my ass off on a Sunday evening. They needed an eighth person and they promised me it wouldn't be much work. Well, now, I'm in first place. In fact, I'm undefeated, leading one friend to check the standings once and drunkenly yell, "Jake doesn't even fucking like football!"
It's true. I only watch the sport one or two days out of the year: Super Bowl and New Year's Day (if I'm not in Mexico). Some years ago, I was at a Super Bowl party with an ex-girlfriend. Her friends' boyfriends talked about sports in the '90s and I laid down all of my knowledge about basketball and baseball from the decade, admitting I was a huge fan up until I was a teenager. They were taken aback, as they had heard the rumors that I was some pansy writer vegetarian. One of them asked, "What the hell happened when you became a teenager?" The girl I was with leaned over and answered for me, "He discovered poetry."
That had some weight and truth to it, though it was also because I realized I didn't give a good goddamn fuck about baseball. And then writing and music pushed out my dedication to basketball, though I still follow the playoffs.
I was on the phone with a friend, discussing football players' stats (because I look that shit up now for fantasy reasons), my brother stared at me, grinned and said, "You happy? Talking about sports makes you happy now? So you're into sports now? Just gonna leave your ol' brother behind, eh? Fuck you! I have to start talking about cars now!"
My old roommates were huge Angels fans. Needlessly to say, they stopped inviting me to watch games with them in the living room, because I'd just get drunk on cheap beer and heckle the television. I wasn't rooting for anyone but me then and watching baseball on television is usually tallied up as a loss in my book. Once, they invited my brother over. He said all kinds of solid observations about trades, injuries, RBIs, ERAs and made thoughtful suggestions about what he thought would improve certain players' games. My roommates were impressed. They all told him how much manlier he was than me and that it was cool to have a Kilroy watching sports with them. Then, around the seventh inning stretch, they realized he kept sneaking looks at his phone and took it away from him. After going through his phone's text messages, it became apparent that everything my brother had said in the last hour was actually his friend coaching him. My brother cackled and then made one last observation of the game: "That pitcher's name is really long." They didn't invite him back.
Thus is the Kilroy Brothers' charm: a resonating mockery of most things manly.
The two of us thrive on refusal. If someone tells us to be interested in anything, especially something manly, we automatically become less interested in it. And, not only that, but we also become obnoxiously uninterested in it. This, I believe, has lead to our ability to talk shit better than the average citizen. We actually don't get much flack for not knowing what tools are which, what team won what championship or what makes any car run. But we take serious interest in everything (another Kilroy Brother trait). We want people to tell us about building and mechanical projects. The two of us are sincerely interested in someone telling us why something is interesting to them. We just don't want someone to tell us we should or need like it. Because then it becomes twenty minutes of us making fun of that person until they feel like a dopey fuckard. Nobody in there right mind would put either of us on their list of Top Five People To Have On Your Side In A Physical Fight. However, I think we'd make it to a lot of lists if they fights were verbal.
At some young age, I imagine we were presented with a crossroads: get interested in manly things or get good at talking shit. We very definitely went with the latter. Nobody really hassles us anymore. We love being invited to do manly things, but we'll goddamned if someone's gonna make us do anything. Example: Both of us get invited to go rock-climbing, though neither of us actually rock-climb. Our friends know this. They invite us out to the spots, very nicely ask us if we want to climb and we very politely refuse. Why do we go? Because we love hanging out, camping and drinking. Our interest in sports goes about as far as makeshift games with friends and doing our best to not die of a heart attack.
But, as for general manly interests, I had an imagination that wouldn't tolerate the main interests of manly stereotypes. I built with Legos and my tools were plastic, so I never asked my dad for a real tool belt, since, to me and my wildly delusional brain, I already had one. I never asked my dad to explain an engine to me, because I had bicycles and go-karts. When he tried one time, I was 12 and told him, "This sounds like math."
For the most part, my dad never pushed any interests on me. But he support and/or paid for any interests I discovered, from drums to website software. He never told me who or how to be. His philosophy was, "If I'm a good father, I'll raise a good son who has good interests of his own." However, my dad was a half-breed: half-manly man, half-not-so-manly-man, which is, in all honesty, probably where I truly fall. My dad's the editor of a racing magazine who self-published a poetry book. He can fix things around the house, but he always says he just barely did it. Realizing my meek frame and spazzy outlook on life as a child, my father probably assumed it would've been dangerous for me to do anything with hammer.
I mean, I'm the son of a journalism father and an English major mother. All I did was read. And maybe my brother looked at the television when an old war or cowboy movie was on (they were on at my house all the time) and then looked at me reading some chapter book in bed and made his decision to be the slightly manlier son, and, lately, he seems to only read books about history and environmentalism.
But, still, my brother's manly by family's standards. The influence of cinematic manliness has never really been there for us. My father's brothers want to drink good beer and discuss Irish music, literature and history more than anything else. My mother's only living brother is a reformed backpacker and current artsy carpenter. However, the one who passed away was a football-watching business owner who left this world when I was in elementary school. And then one grandfather taught me how to play the tin whistle and the other took me to see musicals.
I'm a product of my upbringing and my upbringing was whimsical.
Nobody in my family was fixing up a classic car or following hockey. Also, I'm selling my father, uncles and grandfathers short here for a good laugh. Everyone took me camping and fishing, though my interest in fishing died away when I stopped eating meat as a kid...which, come to think of it, probably sent me down this path in the first place. I mean, what, you're gonna explain power tools to a boy who thinks lambs are fucking adorable?
No, because that boy is going to grow up into a man who was legitimately thrilled when he realized he had to buy home decor for his new place. Shit, a few days ago, I had to buy a standing light. Did I go to Home Depot? No. Instead, I went to Lightbulbs, Etc. Is that because I'm not so manly or because I have really dope taste? Well, it didn't matter either way because I certainly don't have very much money and Lightbulbs, Etc. is crazy fucking expensive apparently. So, keeping son of a bitch manly man Grant in mind, I ended up going to Home Depot, which my friends call "Homes Deeps," a la Lord Of The Rings, and scored a really nice lamp for a totally good price. Good job, Home Depot.
Also, that reminds me of the time that Chase took my brother and I to Home Depot when he was going to build my family a new garage door. It was like the cool uncle taking his two sissiest nephews to carry stuff for him. When Chase would say, "Oh, I also need to check out somesortofsomething," my brother would do something like knock on wood and say things like, "Maple, eh? Pretty strong stuff here. You know, you could build a mighty fine shed with this." This line of silliness would lead to me laughing like an idiot and Chase just shaking his head in sympathy. Sometimes, Sarvas would invite the two of us along just to see how the other half views Home Depot. Guess what the answer is? It's like a way less exciting version of Target, where there's no popcorn or pretzals and we can't buy season two of any goddamn TV show.
The friends I see regularly are men who love Home Depot but also maintain lots of half-breed tendencies. The three guys I probably hang out with the most frequently are Grant, Rex and Chase. They all rock-climb, two of them surf, two of them wrestled in high school and they've all been in fights. I don't do any of that. I've rock-climbed a handful of times, but I mostly go with them on trips to hang out in the wilderness. I've surfed a few times, but I almost always prefer reading on the beach. I played junior varsity basketball for one year and then got over it when they put me on varsity. And I've talked my way out of every fight I've ever talked my way into.
However, I've also watched Love Actually, Grey's Anatomy and The Notebook with those dudes. Also, we definitely maybe saw Definitely, Maybe together in theaters on Valentine's Day one year. So...those are the sorts of half-breeds I hang out with. My high school friends, on the other hand, will never understand why I like anything.
I see manhood as the ever-changing existence. It's an entire spectrum. Sure, I've been known to do yoga while watching several episodes of Sex And The City, but I've also gotten drunk as hell on whiskey in the woods of Missouri. I write poetry, but I also swear like a sailor. My brother once had a long discussion about the properties of being a man. We decided that he saw man as the hunter and I saw man as the poet. That's where it stands, I suppose.
And, in all honesty, the spectrum is so wide that I probably do lots of manly shit by default. But it's a lot more interesting (and manly?) to observe the differences than the similarities. From a distance, I can't imagine it'd be obvious that I own both Sleepless In Seattle AND You've Got Mail when I get all hammered-ass drunk on Jameson and threaten to kill everyone while cackling. It's just a strange balance being a man sometimes.
Ah well. Whatever. Grant went with me to Bed, Bath & Beyond last night so I could buy pillows. And guess what? Bed, Bath & Beyond was totally amazing!
Monday, October 3, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Old Flames II: Salting Old Wounds In The Desert
I was halfway to Mexico when I called my mother from a bar pay phone. She let me know that the woods were on fire and I had best flee the country. All fire stops at borders, she told me.
"Thank God we believe in crossin' 'em," I said, spitting tobacco and wiping my chin. "Right, boys?"
Two amigos stepped outta the white Cadillac backseat, sifting through the desert wind and gripping Spanish pistols. This is the land where we come to build angels. Yet this be the pale grim grin of the Devil's teeth, raised of mountains and sunk with bullets.
"One more notch on your belt buckle, Johnny," one ghastly voice will bellow from the Heavens.
And one more song will play, sounding like gun blasts and dynamite lights. Bring out the mariachi band to play us this ballad. Revere the guitars, savor the taste and beg for mercy.
That should've been the end. It truly should've been. But where would the story keep if not spoil in this box without a closed door? So, perk up those ears, this is and was the truth.
I grinded my teeth and cursed my cast bones. This here is a last chance. But, then again, every chance is a last chance. How do you know you're always gonna make it out? There be gangsters and mobsters out there, chums. Slip up the accent and they'll grind your old battle wounds up for soup to feed the prisoners.
So, here, with this desert rough, where castles lay in the sky, a view comes with tears as rain. It's just one more storm to bare, you'll pray, and wait for the gods in a parade of self-pity and self-worth.
Now, what if you just turned up the stereo and hit the gas pedal?
These stories are always better.
GO.
"Thank God we believe in crossin' 'em," I said, spitting tobacco and wiping my chin. "Right, boys?"
Two amigos stepped outta the white Cadillac backseat, sifting through the desert wind and gripping Spanish pistols. This is the land where we come to build angels. Yet this be the pale grim grin of the Devil's teeth, raised of mountains and sunk with bullets.
"One more notch on your belt buckle, Johnny," one ghastly voice will bellow from the Heavens.
And one more song will play, sounding like gun blasts and dynamite lights. Bring out the mariachi band to play us this ballad. Revere the guitars, savor the taste and beg for mercy.
That should've been the end. It truly should've been. But where would the story keep if not spoil in this box without a closed door? So, perk up those ears, this is and was the truth.
I grinded my teeth and cursed my cast bones. This here is a last chance. But, then again, every chance is a last chance. How do you know you're always gonna make it out? There be gangsters and mobsters out there, chums. Slip up the accent and they'll grind your old battle wounds up for soup to feed the prisoners.
So, here, with this desert rough, where castles lay in the sky, a view comes with tears as rain. It's just one more storm to bare, you'll pray, and wait for the gods in a parade of self-pity and self-worth.
Now, what if you just turned up the stereo and hit the gas pedal?
These stories are always better.
GO.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Old Flames I: The Highway Season
There was a season of highways once. Twas the rainiest, dirtiest, funniest days of our time; peculiar indeed. We cackled lightning and belly-laughed thunderstorms. What god left us this wasteland of roads, with one utopia after another, always one more oasis dying in the breeze of the distance, we'll never know.
We wailed guitars out in the fields that gave us tornadoes. We wept in the great plains of a dying breath country. We bested our kin in the stretch of a foot race. We swam in rivers, we smoked on porches and we laughed everywhere. We had diaries of dreams and journals of jokes. We watched fireflies spend the summer with us, we sipped liquor with mint snd we heard the world spin its slow, heavy grind.
There were rocking chairs, long sunsets and enough fireworks to keep the great conversation of this nation burning. What was this country becoming? We all wondered that Fourth of July, looking up at the black disappearing in the ghostly parade of the sky. But all we came up with was more backyard dinner parties.
So, when the country settled, what did we have? We had the shoeboxes of letters, the albums of photos and the etched memories of lost causes and lofty effects.
But it all started with a car speeding down the spine of this country. It all started with a joke taken too seriously that ended up having a killer punchline. It all started when someone loved something more than something else.
And it gave us all a long history of escape artists.
We wailed guitars out in the fields that gave us tornadoes. We wept in the great plains of a dying breath country. We bested our kin in the stretch of a foot race. We swam in rivers, we smoked on porches and we laughed everywhere. We had diaries of dreams and journals of jokes. We watched fireflies spend the summer with us, we sipped liquor with mint snd we heard the world spin its slow, heavy grind.
There were rocking chairs, long sunsets and enough fireworks to keep the great conversation of this nation burning. What was this country becoming? We all wondered that Fourth of July, looking up at the black disappearing in the ghostly parade of the sky. But all we came up with was more backyard dinner parties.
So, when the country settled, what did we have? We had the shoeboxes of letters, the albums of photos and the etched memories of lost causes and lofty effects.
But it all started with a car speeding down the spine of this country. It all started with a joke taken too seriously that ended up having a killer punchline. It all started when someone loved something more than something else.
And it gave us all a long history of escape artists.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Bathtime vs. Playtime
I was at Target today with my brother, buying things for my relatively new bathroom. Holding a bath towel, I asked him his opinion of two different soap dishes. He pointed at the bronze one and I nodded, spacing out at a dozen different soap dishes on the shelves in front of me, and all I could say was, "Holy shit, remember when we used to come here to buy toys?"
Age gets you in the strangest moments sometimes.
Age gets you in the strangest moments sometimes.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Disheartening MILF
You know what's disheartening? Driving and seeing a hot-ass MILF flag you down and naturally assuming she wants to find out what you're doing around midnight, but then realizing she actually just wants you to slow the hell down right the fuck now so you don't run over her idiot kids.
Also, two questions: How did these kids score shirts that match the color of the sky at sunset? What kind of hot-ass MILF lets her kids wear said shirts at sunset in the middle of the street?
ANSWER ME THAT, YOU HOT-ASS MILF TERRIBLE PARENT.
Also, two questions: How did these kids score shirts that match the color of the sky at sunset? What kind of hot-ass MILF lets her kids wear said shirts at sunset in the middle of the street?
ANSWER ME THAT, YOU HOT-ASS MILF TERRIBLE PARENT.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Jake's Stupid Day of Idiocy
5:15 a.m. - Jake's alarm goes off.
5:50 a.m. - Jake gets out of bed.
6:05 a.m. - Jake is on the road.
6:30 a.m. - Jake notices that his engine light is on.
6:31 a.m. - Jake notices his temperature gauge is past the H.
6:33 a.m. - Jake exits the 405 and pulls into a residential neighborhood to open his car's hood.
6:34 a.m. - Jake blames himself for not knowing cars better or generally at all.
6:35 a.m. - Jake recalls the folks at Jiffy Lube telling him that he might have a coolant leak about two months ago, though there haven't been signs or trouble since, so Jake didn't really do anything about it.
6:36 a.m. - Jake curses himself for never doing anything about it.
6:40 a.m. - Jake fills his radiator with coolant.
6:45 - Jake starts his car, only for it to rumble as his temperature gauge flies past the H once again. Jake opens a book and starts reading.
6:50 a.m. - Jake starts up car again with a slightly better sound, but then turns the car off and goes back to reading.
6:53 a.m. - Jake calls his father to ask what overheating a car is like. Jake's father doesn't pick up, so Jake leaves a voicemail and then goes back to reading.
6:55 a.m. - Jake gets out of the car and goes to check the engine again, but very quickly notices that the asphalt is covered in coolant.
6:56 a.m. - Jake decides that the people at Jiffy Lube were right about that whole coolant leak theory and goes back to reading.
7:10 a.m. - Jake texts work that his car has practically blown up and he will most likely be late.
7:20 a.m. - Jake's father calls him back, but Jake misses the call because he's standing on a stranger's lawn, sighing rather loudly to himself.
7:23 a.m. - Jake calls his father and leaves another message.
7:24 a.m. - Jake leans his against the steering wheel, continuously exhaling audible sighs.
7:45 a.m. - Jake's father calls him back and tells him what to do.
8:00 a.m. - After hoping everything would just fix itself if he kept doing nothing, Jake calls AAA.
8:10 a.m. - Jake becomes a member of AAA again after forgetting to renew the past two years.
8:15 - Tow truck is dispatched by AAA.
8:20 a.m. - Jake watches two kids leave a house for school and approaches the house to ask if he can use the restroom.
8:21 a.m. - Seeing as how nobody answered, Jake spends a full minute listening to someone shower, yet still hopes that the door will be answered. After a sense of creeperdom overcomes him, Jake flees the yard.
8:25 a.m. - Jake wonders if he has enough time to run to the nearby elementary school to use their restroom facilities, though the tow truck should be there by 8:35 a.m.
8:30 a.m. - Jake decides to go for it and jogs to the local grade school.
8:33 - After debating which is the office entrance for several minutes, Jake watches a tow truck drive by and sprints back to his car.
8:37 a.m. - Jake gets sound advice from AAA guru, who suggests Jake take his car to nearest AAA-approved auto shop. Jake agrees.
8:40 a.m. - Jake changes his mind and ignores sound advice, so he can pay $100 to drop car off at family friend mechanic he trusts.
8:41 a.m. - AAA guru decides Jake's an idiot and doesn't see any reason to further speak with him.
8:45 a.m. - Like a stupid low-budget comedy, the three wacky men (the gangly uninformed white twentysomething with the broken car, the older and wiser Philipino AAA tow truck guru and the near-30 Mexican nice guy driver learning the ropes) all pile into the tow truck bench seat and set off for adventure.
8:46 a.m. - Nice guy asks Jake if his full name is Jacob. To which, Jake shrugs and says, "Nah, just Jake. My parents hated the named Jacob for whatever crazy reason."
8:47 a.m. - Nice guy tells Jake he has a nice watch and then tells a story about how his girlfriend bought him a fake cool watch that broke within the week. Jake laughs and the two talk about Target watches while the AAA guru in the middle doesn't say a word.
8:55 a.m. - After several minutes of silence, Jake panics and asks how long they've worked for AAA. Nice guy says a year and guru says 14 years. No one talks to Jake for the rest of the drive.
9:20 a.m. - Jake and crew arrives at beloved mechanic. Jake asks how business is. Mechanic informs him, "It's good. I mean, you keep bringing me a lot of business."
9:21 a.m. - Jake realizes how much doctors and mechanics must love him.
9:30 a.m. - Jake's mother picks him up.
9:40 a.m. - Jake wakes his brother up, so he can borrow his car. Sleepy brother agrees.
9:45 a.m.- Jake notices how dirty his brother's car is, so he gives it a quick hose-down.
9:46 a.m. Jake carelessly throws the hose down to go turn it off, but said hose lands on the ground with the push-handle down and the spout up, suddenly spraying Jake like a sprinkler. Jake yells and frantically dashes out of the water, as his mother, brother and dog watch speechlessly from the window.
9:47 a.m.- Jake sits in his brother's car with soaked pants and starts his drive to Los Angeles for the second time, arriving sometime around 11.
5:50 a.m. - Jake gets out of bed.
6:05 a.m. - Jake is on the road.
6:30 a.m. - Jake notices that his engine light is on.
6:31 a.m. - Jake notices his temperature gauge is past the H.
6:33 a.m. - Jake exits the 405 and pulls into a residential neighborhood to open his car's hood.
6:34 a.m. - Jake blames himself for not knowing cars better or generally at all.
6:35 a.m. - Jake recalls the folks at Jiffy Lube telling him that he might have a coolant leak about two months ago, though there haven't been signs or trouble since, so Jake didn't really do anything about it.
6:36 a.m. - Jake curses himself for never doing anything about it.
6:40 a.m. - Jake fills his radiator with coolant.
6:45 - Jake starts his car, only for it to rumble as his temperature gauge flies past the H once again. Jake opens a book and starts reading.
6:50 a.m. - Jake starts up car again with a slightly better sound, but then turns the car off and goes back to reading.
6:53 a.m. - Jake calls his father to ask what overheating a car is like. Jake's father doesn't pick up, so Jake leaves a voicemail and then goes back to reading.
6:55 a.m. - Jake gets out of the car and goes to check the engine again, but very quickly notices that the asphalt is covered in coolant.
6:56 a.m. - Jake decides that the people at Jiffy Lube were right about that whole coolant leak theory and goes back to reading.
7:10 a.m. - Jake texts work that his car has practically blown up and he will most likely be late.
7:20 a.m. - Jake's father calls him back, but Jake misses the call because he's standing on a stranger's lawn, sighing rather loudly to himself.
7:23 a.m. - Jake calls his father and leaves another message.
7:24 a.m. - Jake leans his against the steering wheel, continuously exhaling audible sighs.
7:45 a.m. - Jake's father calls him back and tells him what to do.
8:00 a.m. - After hoping everything would just fix itself if he kept doing nothing, Jake calls AAA.
8:10 a.m. - Jake becomes a member of AAA again after forgetting to renew the past two years.
8:15 - Tow truck is dispatched by AAA.
8:20 a.m. - Jake watches two kids leave a house for school and approaches the house to ask if he can use the restroom.
8:21 a.m. - Seeing as how nobody answered, Jake spends a full minute listening to someone shower, yet still hopes that the door will be answered. After a sense of creeperdom overcomes him, Jake flees the yard.
8:25 a.m. - Jake wonders if he has enough time to run to the nearby elementary school to use their restroom facilities, though the tow truck should be there by 8:35 a.m.
8:30 a.m. - Jake decides to go for it and jogs to the local grade school.
8:33 - After debating which is the office entrance for several minutes, Jake watches a tow truck drive by and sprints back to his car.
8:37 a.m. - Jake gets sound advice from AAA guru, who suggests Jake take his car to nearest AAA-approved auto shop. Jake agrees.
8:40 a.m. - Jake changes his mind and ignores sound advice, so he can pay $100 to drop car off at family friend mechanic he trusts.
8:41 a.m. - AAA guru decides Jake's an idiot and doesn't see any reason to further speak with him.
8:45 a.m. - Like a stupid low-budget comedy, the three wacky men (the gangly uninformed white twentysomething with the broken car, the older and wiser Philipino AAA tow truck guru and the near-30 Mexican nice guy driver learning the ropes) all pile into the tow truck bench seat and set off for adventure.
8:46 a.m. - Nice guy asks Jake if his full name is Jacob. To which, Jake shrugs and says, "Nah, just Jake. My parents hated the named Jacob for whatever crazy reason."
8:47 a.m. - Nice guy tells Jake he has a nice watch and then tells a story about how his girlfriend bought him a fake cool watch that broke within the week. Jake laughs and the two talk about Target watches while the AAA guru in the middle doesn't say a word.
8:55 a.m. - After several minutes of silence, Jake panics and asks how long they've worked for AAA. Nice guy says a year and guru says 14 years. No one talks to Jake for the rest of the drive.
9:20 a.m. - Jake and crew arrives at beloved mechanic. Jake asks how business is. Mechanic informs him, "It's good. I mean, you keep bringing me a lot of business."
9:21 a.m. - Jake realizes how much doctors and mechanics must love him.
9:30 a.m. - Jake's mother picks him up.
9:40 a.m. - Jake wakes his brother up, so he can borrow his car. Sleepy brother agrees.
9:45 a.m.- Jake notices how dirty his brother's car is, so he gives it a quick hose-down.
9:46 a.m. Jake carelessly throws the hose down to go turn it off, but said hose lands on the ground with the push-handle down and the spout up, suddenly spraying Jake like a sprinkler. Jake yells and frantically dashes out of the water, as his mother, brother and dog watch speechlessly from the window.
9:47 a.m.- Jake sits in his brother's car with soaked pants and starts his drive to Los Angeles for the second time, arriving sometime around 11.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
A New House & Motto
My New House
I love my new house. I swore I'd never live with three guys in a house again, but, my goodness, what a little extra rent and maturity can give you.
I loved The Madison (21-24), even though it probably stunted my emotional growth and infected me with diseases that won't become apparent until my twilight years. Back then, I'd come home to a group of employed and thoroughly fun dudes and we'd spend the days adventurin' and the nights a-drinkin'. There were parties all the time and, if there wasn't, it was still kind of like a commune, complete with muddy footprints on the ceiling and a fake gun stabbed into the wall. The Madison was maybe the most continuous fun I'll ever have in my life, as it was like a second childhood (with all these new cool things I didn't have or do in my first childhood). But, again, The Madison was loud and crazy almost at a horrifying constant.
Considering I'm now in my mid-twenties, it's incredible to spend the day alone in a quiet, clean house you can call your own. My roommates and I are in and out during the day, mostly seeing each other at night, all before a reasonable bedtime. We've only been in there two weeks, so it's not much to go off. It's a super mellow house during the workweek and we have friends over on the weekend, I suppose. But the whole thing seems surreal, to have so much living space and be able to play pool and drink in your own basement bar before calling it an early evening so we can read and write in bed. I love it. The house is full of creativity, patience, respect and giggles.
My New Motto
The whole "Cowboy Spirit" thing started about a year ago and it lead to a whole season of blurry evenings. When the new year came around, I asked if we should keep it going. Chris said, "I don't think I can keep it up." Rex said, "Honestly, I'm pretty exhausted from these past few months." Grant said, "It'll kill us, Jacob." So, we left the legendary spirit of modern cowboys in 2010 and dubbed 2011 for Bill O'Riley's famous quote, "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" And we've done it pretty live this year, but, lately, I feel as though my mantra has mutated into "Hey, why not?" Alas, I've learned that this phrase has lead to some misguided choices in recent months. Well, I'm restarting myself for the umpteenth time and gonna go with a slightly varied motto, "Hey, why?" So, let's see how long it lasts until I start answering the question at hand with a whole batch of bad decisions. Woo!
I love my new house. I swore I'd never live with three guys in a house again, but, my goodness, what a little extra rent and maturity can give you.
I loved The Madison (21-24), even though it probably stunted my emotional growth and infected me with diseases that won't become apparent until my twilight years. Back then, I'd come home to a group of employed and thoroughly fun dudes and we'd spend the days adventurin' and the nights a-drinkin'. There were parties all the time and, if there wasn't, it was still kind of like a commune, complete with muddy footprints on the ceiling and a fake gun stabbed into the wall. The Madison was maybe the most continuous fun I'll ever have in my life, as it was like a second childhood (with all these new cool things I didn't have or do in my first childhood). But, again, The Madison was loud and crazy almost at a horrifying constant.
Considering I'm now in my mid-twenties, it's incredible to spend the day alone in a quiet, clean house you can call your own. My roommates and I are in and out during the day, mostly seeing each other at night, all before a reasonable bedtime. We've only been in there two weeks, so it's not much to go off. It's a super mellow house during the workweek and we have friends over on the weekend, I suppose. But the whole thing seems surreal, to have so much living space and be able to play pool and drink in your own basement bar before calling it an early evening so we can read and write in bed. I love it. The house is full of creativity, patience, respect and giggles.
My New Motto
The whole "Cowboy Spirit" thing started about a year ago and it lead to a whole season of blurry evenings. When the new year came around, I asked if we should keep it going. Chris said, "I don't think I can keep it up." Rex said, "Honestly, I'm pretty exhausted from these past few months." Grant said, "It'll kill us, Jacob." So, we left the legendary spirit of modern cowboys in 2010 and dubbed 2011 for Bill O'Riley's famous quote, "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" And we've done it pretty live this year, but, lately, I feel as though my mantra has mutated into "Hey, why not?" Alas, I've learned that this phrase has lead to some misguided choices in recent months. Well, I'm restarting myself for the umpteenth time and gonna go with a slightly varied motto, "Hey, why?" So, let's see how long it lasts until I start answering the question at hand with a whole batch of bad decisions. Woo!
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