Non ducor duco…

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The death of DMX wasn’t caused by an inability to deliver his words, his message. He was, fortunately, able to have the opportunity to do that and the world is better for it. But, too many young rappers never get that opportunity in the music industry.

Tendencies to fall prey to the toxic masculinity of proving how tough they are catches them in a spider’s web of guns, drugs, violence and sometimes crime and murder. Sometimes, it’s their own murder.

The world of Hip Hop and Rap has given us a plethora of artistic wonders but what we actually get to hear and what actually is pushed by the industry is only a fraction, a tiny fraction of a world of truly gifted poets and auteurs, who aren’t seen as marketable by an industry only concerned with scraping dollar-sized slices of their flesh into their coffers but if you’re an artist that has climbed that mountain and achieved success, you have my respect and I congratulate you for that.

However…

The list of Hip Hop artists slain because they were caught up in the bullshit of fame, fortune and machismo is miles long. Since 1987, that we know of, only 17 were aged 30 or above. From Tupac to Pop Smoke to Nipsey Hussle, the murder game amongst Hip Hop and Rap stars is a young person’s mouse trap. In fact, in 2015, the website The Conversation did a study that showed 51.5% of American Hip Hop musicians’ deaths are from homicide. [1]

NameDate of deathAge at deathCause of death
Scott La RockAugust 27, 198725Shot and killed
Paul CJuly 17, 198924Shot and killed
D-Boy RodriguezOctober 6, 199022Shot and killed
CharizmaDecember 16, 199320Shot and killed
StretchNovember 30, 199527Shot and killed
SeagramJuly 31, 199626Shot and killed
Tupac ShakurSeptember 13, 199625Shot and killed
Yaki KadafiNovember 10, 199619Shot and killed
The Notorious B.I.G.March 9, 199724Shot and killed
Fat PatFebruary 3, 199827Shot and killed
Big LFebruary 15, 199924Shot and killed
Freaky TahMarch 28, 199927Shot and killed
BugzMay 21, 199921Shot and run over
DJ Uncle AlSeptember 10, 200132Shot and killed
Jam Master JayOctober 30, 200237Shot and killed
SabotageJanuary 24, 200329Shot and killed
CamoflaugeMay 19, 200321Shot and killed
Half a MillOctober 24, 200330Shot and killed
Soulja SlimNovember 26, 200326Shot and killed
Mac DreNovember 1, 200434Shot and killed
Blade IcewoodApril 19, 200528Shot and killed
ProofApril 11, 200632Shot and killed
Big HawkMay 1, 200636Shot and killed
VL MikeApril 20, 200832Shot and killed
DollaMay 18, 200921Shot and killed
LeleJuly 1, 201023Shot and killed
Magnolia ShortyDecember 20, 201028Shot and killed
Bad News BrownFebruary 11, 201133Beaten and shot
Adán ZapataJune 1, 201221Shot and killed
Lil PhatJune 7, 201219Shot and killed
MC DalesteJuly 7, 201320Shot and killed
Pavlos FyssasSeptember 18, 201334Stabbed to death
DepzmanSeptember 21, 201318Stabbed to death
Doe BDecember 28, 201322Shot and killed
The JackaFebruary 2, 201537Shot and killed
FlabbaMarch 9, 201537Stabbed to death
Chinx DrugzMay 17, 201531Shot and killed
Bankroll FreshMarch 4, 201628Shot and killed
3-2November 10, 201644Shot and killed
XXXTentacionJune 18, 201820Shot and killed
Jimmy WopoJune 18, 201821Shot and killed
Smoke DawgJune 30, 201821Shot and killed
Young GreatnessOctober 29, 201834Shot and killed
FeisJanuary 1, 201932Shot and killed
Kevin FretJanuary 10, 201925Shot and killed
Nipsey HussleMarch 31, 201933Shot and killed
Pop SmokeFebruary 19, 202020Shot and killed
HueyJune 25, 202031Shot and killed
King VonNovember 6, 202026Shot and killed
Credit: Wikipedia

Now, I’m perfectly aware that gang violence, diss tracks, beef and murders aren’t going to just vanish but all of these artists are all equally talented and this list is just a very small sample size of lyricists that have been cut down in what, at its core, is the pursuit of expression, getting their message out to others and connecting with others who have experienced what they have experienced or to enlighten and educate the ones who have not.

Of course, there are individuals who just rhyme words and desire to make bank and garner millions of views and followers but fuck them, I’m not talking about them.

In and of itself, sex, drugs and violence in lyrical, spoken word or prose are fine. They’re forms of expression but when you introduce direction to those words, such as so-and-so is a bitch or I’m gonna put so-and-so in a coffin, that expression becomes a threat. This is targeting and targeting is okay too but it’s how you cultivate it. Saying “I hate Trump!” or “Fuck Trump!” is much, much different than attaching a violent act to it.

And…

Directional expression is also fine…again, when done in a vague, general way that still allows the writer to express their emotions but does not target an individual or group of individuals. Creative Writing is tricky sometimes but the majority of these artists put a deep amount of thought and effort and critical thinking into their works and sadly, one of the best ways, aside from social media, to fire those verbal bullets is through song and a song on YouTube or Spotify is going to go viral much faster and blow up much larger than a tweet or an Instagram diss.

But, what if there were an outlet, a way for these young writers to express themselves and have that message delivered to an audience, albeit a smaller audience than the music industry provides, not with censorship but with guidance, advice and a choice. A choice to take the lazy route, targeting someone with violent threats, or, the more intellectual route, finding a way to deliver those negative feelings in a manner that maintains their intensity but doesn’t lead to incitement and retaliation or…murder.

It can be done…and I want to do it. I want to at least try.

I want to start a business.

A publishing company.

I only used the music industry and Hip Hop as an example and stepping stone to a much larger idea. I want to sign as many young, aspiring artists, and, I’ll be honest up front, I want to sign young people who are in situations and environments that you hear about all too often these days. Poverty, hunger, a lack of employment access, substandard educational opportunities, an absence of mental healthcare, police harassment, violence, drugs, sex, teenage pregnancy and yes, crime.

The youth of our nation…the disenfranchised, the abandoned, the ignored, the used and abused. And it doesn’t matter what race, gender or genre either. I’m not interested in offering opportunities to young people with access to money or privilege either because, and, I’m not singling out any section of society but you know who you are and if you’re remotely wealthy and are a shade on the color spectrum that is treated far better than others, you have access. You have the ability. You already have opportunities.

I’m looking for young men and women that have none of those things. That have a voice that needs to be heard, that no one will listen to. That have no way to express themselves emotionally without fear. That have no direction or guidance, life skills or how to construct and further develop, to hone their creative and artistic abilities. I want to take their art, whether it be poetry, photography, painting, graffiti, I want to show them that there are multiple roads of expression and I want to put books of their words, their thoughts and their images in the hands of others.

I want to give them an opportunity to speak their minds, share their ups, down and experiences but most of all, I want to amplify their voices and existence. I want to, even if on a small scale, help change what is a bleak and hopeless outlook into possibility.

And with the right funding, the rewards are endless. From scholarships, an appropriate amount of money for their work, healthcare, educational, employment, childcare, help for their loved ones and other benefits and opportunities.

Opportunities for expression are a core concept but providing pathways to hope, self-sufficiency and a better way of life for these kids is the ultimate goal. To show them that an industry that makes a fortune off of their art, while they continue to suffer and die for it is not the only route from Point A to Point B. That dollar signs and designer clothes are just an interstate where velocity and youth are a deadly combination.

And for every artist out there that the “scene” deems irrelevant or a has-been. No. I want and need them too. To be mentors, role models, guides. To take these young people’s minds on the scenic pathways and avenues, so they can see life as it develops. To appreciate the moment, the details and to see the unseen. Not a blur of chemicals and excess.

It’s also about tangibility and reflection. Being able to physically hold a book full of your artwork and knowing that others out their are being inspired by it, that it is being appreciated and revered shows a person worth.

And that’s the penultimate goal; to show the disenfranchised youth of a repressive and oppressive society that they are worth it.

All the Corridors…

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The human brain is a marvel biologically. We can dissect it, scan it, test it and even communicate with it but the one thing we cannot do is truly see past the surface of it. It’s this massive warehouse with no windows or exits. Much like a roach motel, things check in but, often, they never check out.

Inside this complex and paradoxical organ is an intricate and disorienting labyrinth of hallways and corridors, lined with identical doors. Doors that are bolted and locked, having no descriptive indications as to what is inside. The human psyche has the skeleton key to each and every door and most of the time, it takes some grand epiphany to realize that we can unlock any of them whenever we want, should we choose to but the psyche operates not as something that holds you hostage but rather as something that holds the contents of those rooms hostage from you.

Now, I’ve had psychiatrists, counselors, social workers and psychologists tell me of the necessity of unlocking all of those rooms and taking inventory but I’m not going to advise anyone reading this to do that. It’s not a good idea. Because, if you imagine a haunted house and behind every locked door could be a demon, ghost or ghoul, you wouldn’t just let them all out at once. Much like in Ghostbusters when that prick forced them to release all of the spirits they had trapped. Wasn’t a good idea…

Plenty of my locked rooms have things from my past locked inside for a reason. Like the deaths of beloved pets, friends and other horrid events like being raped by my ex-wife. I’m perfectly aware that those memories and events are locked away and it doesn’t mean I haven’t dealt with them or processed them at least a little over the years but they’re locked in there because I do not want them running loose in my conscious headspace. I know where they are and I know that they’re not able to cause a mutiny.

I also had the realization that, after unlocking one of those doors, that some things need to stay imprisoned. I know the details and remember the pain well enough that it still sometimes feels real. I just don’t need to have a chat with those particular demons. Some people might though and if you do, you have to be prepared to relive some things, to think about events that scarred you mentally, physically and/or both.

If you’re not ready, it’s like climbing Mt. Everest in a thong.

My goal, yes, is to help people, to be a pillar of hope and strength if they need one and I failed to realize that a graphicly detailed horror story doesn’t help people relate. Instead, the goriness of those details has a tendency to shut people down because, and I still believe this, we’re caring and compassionate creatures and we don’t want to know each minute, microscopic facet of an atrocity. Simply knowing it happened in a general sense is enough to engage a person to the point of being empathetic.

After all, the reason we watch and enjoy horror movies/novels is because once the credits roll, we know it’s over. It’s fictional and we can rationalize that away into conversational fodder and it’s really interesting to me how we can spend hours, whether it be a YouTube video, a podcast or a lengthy article actually talking and discussing movies that are fiction but we can’t seem to have a real, meaningful conversation about topics like racism, rape and religion without it breaking down into an argument or judgemental bitterness.

The one thing that bonds and connects us as sentient beings is communication of thoughts, feelings and ideas and somewhere along the dirt road of time, that became almost taboo. No society claiming to be enlightened and highly evolved can make such a claim when it grossly toxifies education, science, reading, expression and most of all…communication.

You see and hear it all the time in relationships and marriages. “We just stopped talking to one another.” or “We just grew apart.”

How??

No. You didn’t just stop talking to one another, someone, maybe both of you stopped listening and it all starts when you stop caring about what purse your girlfriend/wife bought or how much fun your boyfriend/husband had at the football game. Sure, it’s not something you’re interested in but it is to them. Ignoring them or dismissing their interests, no matter how boring is the start of disassociation. Pretty soon, you don’t care about their interests and soon after that, you don’t care what they say at all.

I’m not a marriage counselor. But, this is exactly how my former marriage began to fall apart. She stopped listening to the little things, then the big things and then she didn’t care what I said whatsoever and that built up a lot of resentment and hurt my feelings terribly because I no longer felt like my voice was important or that it mattered. It doesn’t take five seconds to listen and say “Cool!” or “I’m happy you had fun!”. It takes the same amount of energy to ask, unsolicited: “How are you feeling?”

If you aren’t happy or content being single, you won’t be happy in a relationship or marriage.

Happiness comes from within…

The Dense Green…

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Every choice we make throughout our daily lives requires, much like in The Matrix, us taking a pill. A red pill or a blue pill and most of the times we take those pills, or, make those decisions and choices instantaneously. Almost through muscle memory but it’s much more complex than that. It’s not mere memory or repetition that triggers those instantaneous determinations and depending on which pill you take, the outcome can be grave and dire or serendipitous and fortuitous.

Now, I’m not naïve to the fact that those outcomes come with x amount of variables but you can’t control other people and their actions or inactions or which pill they take or even Mother Nature’s temperament at that moment. Figuratively speaking, of course, whichever pill you take is completely up to you, by your own volition.

But, that’s the paradox of the red pill/blue pill theory. Each pill has a different outcome printed on it for each choice. The problem arises when we fail to look at those imprints. An example: You’ve been out with friends to a club and had a few drinks. In the median of your consciousness those two pills sit. One says “Drive. What’s the worst that could happen?”, the other “You’ve been drinking, don’t be stupid!” but 95% of the time we pay no mind to those imprints and act rather than react.

This can’t be blamed on a poor parental upbringing or on a substantially underfunded school system. Comprehension and critical thinking are not always inherent. More often than not, they can be acquired through experience and prior lessons learned or picked up like gum on your shoe. Technology may share some of the blame but even that requires a choice.

This is called common sense…

Our world is split between two realms; the physical and the spiritual. While there have been a lot of creations in the physical world, there have been far more negative and abhorrent ones. I’m not a bleeding heart liberal and I’m not a right wing zealot either. I’m not an independent either. I dance to my own tune. I belong to as few man-made ideologies as possible but I’m off track. The point of that is that at some point one of those three political ideologies made the choice to create darkness and iniquitous conceptions and ideals. Sometimes, all three chose blood on their hands.

When Plato said “No human thing is of serious importance.” he wasn’t referring to human beings, he was referring to human matters, possessions and/or physical appurtenances. He simply meant that transience, precarity and eventually devastation is the rule of the land when it comes to physical invention. Everything is ephemeral.

This materialism and decadent dependence on property, assets, money, fame and possessions is antithetical and in direct opposition to the spiritual realm and when bad things happen because people choose not to think, to read, to learn and to expand their library of knowledge I often hear: “God only knows I…” or “God knows I___________” but the reality is that no one knows God. You can’t know God. God is an enigma. Esoteric.

Knowledge liberates our anima, allowing light to clarify, inform and expound. Material objects and concepts are a necessary evil in our current world but without wisdom, comprehension and conscious perception, they’re mere artifacts of useless intent.

As the saying goes: “Think. It’s not illegal…yet.”

Alacrity…

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There’s this, alarming awareness that we all feel at one point in our lives. Where our actuality, our viability, existence is very much on the precipice of departure. Many refer to these occurrences as “near death” experiences but aren’t they really “near life” experiences?

Don’t they make us aware of our animation in the greater macrocosm?

We approach death every second of every day. It’s an inevitability and as a culture, we’re paranoid, obsessed and completely and totally phobic and neurotic about dying. It’s going to happen to you, to all of us and we as a species or at the very least, a massive collective of livestock seem to focus half on one end of the spectrum and the other half on the opposite end

One long, chaotic game of tug-of-war and the verity is that no one is focusing on where the flag in the middle of the rope is. Death is not stronger than life. Life is not stronger than death. They are equally powerful but, neither force commands or even demands our obsessive compulsion.

A car accident, turbulence, a mugging; all of these things force us to pull harder toward life and sure, the flag may move but ask yourselves just how far it will?

While standing in my bathroom shaving I felt an overwhelming pull, bright light, a loss of all senses. I wasn’t going blackout or lose consciousness. It was a schism and I consciously knew that. I won’t bring in religion to this conversation with myself because it’s purely an existential, metaphysical one.

The alleged light we see at the end of the tunnel, in my belief, is not at the end of the tunnel. It’s us…leaving the body, this realm.

We are the light.

Where that light is going, I don’t know but I wasn’t ready to find out just yet and I focused deeply to bottle it up again but the point is, I could have. I could have just let my inner marrow give up the ghost and dissipate but I’m not interested in the game of life vs. death right now.

I’ve been close to death in a medical sense more times than I can recollect. A drug overdose, that my shit-sucking friends cared so much about that they left me next to a KFC dumpster in Arcata, CA. I’ve slit my wrists twice. I was stabbed in the neck in Biloxi, MS and I damn near jumped from a 4th story window of a building under construction in Bismarck, ND but I wasn’t seeking death. I wanted out of this body, out of this skin.

That was in 1998. Things have not changed…much. I still loathe being in this iron maiden of a body. Sure, I could change a lot…physically. But, that won’t change this body’s malformation, nor will it change the ugliness it masks inside.

What changed was this: I realized that it didn’t fucking matter which side the flag on the rope ended up on because there is no clear winner. Life and death are not a game and eventually, I realized the flag was the point, the answer.

It was right in the middle…where we all should be focused. Perfectly aware of death on one end and what really amounts to eternal life on the other. If the flag ends up on death’s side, you’re dead, gone, done. If it ends up on life’s side, well that side is a lie. Because that flag will always find it’s way over to death’s side. It’s just that death is patient, if not opportunistic.

Doesn’t mean you should be reckless, careless or stupid about living. It means relax, stop obsessing over death or the perfect life or even if you’re living life like you should be. Just be a good person, do the right thing and live by that code.

One day a proverbial gust of wind will blow your flag over to death but in the meantime…just exist in the middle. Be centered.

Wait it out…

This Is All I Have To Give…

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Graffital Aorta
Gold keys, to a trap door in the sky
While anger keeps me warm at night
Self exceptions, to every rule, and I keep
violating all, and it is written in granite,
“He was laughing too much.”
This is all I have to give…
Spinning windows, reappear, lifts me to the
silo and returns myself to you.
Pyramid crystals, shimmer in the sun, terrify me
isolate myself from the truth.
This is all I have to give…
Suns rise and they will set, time disappears,
I sit here, and decompose.
This depression, is growing on me, like an infection
and I am scared of every mirror I’ve been shown.
I have nothing more to offer, out of options
and I have nothing else to give!
Dead end mazes, hole in the spine, better off dead
keeps eating me alive.
From the inside, this holy war, left disassembled
torn apart…I find myself…missing you.
Your deviant hundred proof, my sacrifice.
This is all I have to give!
This is all I have to give!
Held out your hand, I took a grip, the microchip,
I’m yours to wield as your device.
I took the pieces of your broken tribe and
and put them back in line.
Pieces of puzzles, mixed and matched,
Don’t think I’ll make it out alive!
Just like a reaper, on the shoulder,
you pretender, making sure that I had died!
I took the bullet, jumped in front, just like
I was taught.
Only with my last one breath, I saw the gunman
and it was you that fired the shot!
And this is all I have to give!

I lived across the street, literally across the street from a JW educational type place for about five years in Florida and I never encountered anyone unfriendly, pushy or bat-shit. I don’t know much about their beliefs but they were good people. I don’t know. There are a lot worse things one could be into. I have some serious issues and problems with Scientology. I mean, that’s just an opinion. Personally, they don’t believe what I believe. I’m Gnostic, however.

No, you can’t control it and, from my own experiences, having no hope and nothing to hold onto, not specifically talking about religion but something on the skyline, to reach for, it is beyond desolate and bleak and lonely. I’ll tell ya a quick story, which will end up long because I don’t how to keep things simple and short.

In 1996 I was 17 years old and living outside of Bismarck, North Dakota. I had just moved from Eureka, California. I spent a lot of my most impressionable years running between Eureka and Redding. Even when I was younger, I knew I was different. I was born in the south and as I grew up, I started to notice things that didn’t make sense. I just didn’t fit into country music and churches and all of those stereotypical “southern” archetypes. I liked Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister and the Beastie Boys and The Clash, Pink Floyd and I was into nerdy stuff like reading and comic books and that wasn’t what the “Country South” was about. So, when we relocated to California, that burden of feeling repressed and stifled because I didn’t give in to that lifestyle was totally lifted. There were mountains and the ocean and snow and everything was wide open and relaxed. Hell, right before we moved, a young black man was dragged behind a truck and lynched in a tree! Fuck that place. I will never go back there.

Not too long after moving there, I had a girlfriend, a small group of diverse friends and I started playing guitar and writing songs in a punk band but what went unnoticed to me was how that freedom opened the door for indulgence and before I knew it, I was on uppers and drinking heavily every day and every night. I started skipping school. Eventually, I dropped out to pursue music but instead, drugs, alcohol and eventually a few months in a juvenile detention center later and my Mother had seen enough. It wasn’t her fault. She set rules. I broke them. She had standards. I played limbo with them. She tried to get me help. I said “fuck you”.

I wasn’t a bad kid either. I tried to spare her from my addictions and disobedience because I KNEW it would hurt her. My Grandmother had died just prior to moving and I KNEW it would hurt her too, even though she was gone. Ultimately, her death may have been the catalyst but that’s another rabbit hole for another day. I was still a pretty decent kid, still intact and in-touch with reality. I had a job. I did chores. I didn’t talk back…but…at night, I was out the door. So, she did what she thought was the right thing. She moved us to North Dakota. She wanted me to reconnect with Nature and my faith and spirit and the Dakotas are a wonderful place to do that. Absolutely beautiful landscapes and a rich indigenous heritage that much later in life would bring me full circle BACK to North Dakota. Have I told you about that yet??

But, at 17, none of that mattered. I lost everything I had by moving and to a small town that, yeah, wasn’t Southern AmeriKKKA bad but it was its own form of repression and stagnation quickly set in. I still struggled with addiction and eventually I was back on the wrong track and on Christmas Eve at about noon-ish, I was high as a kite and all by myself because the assholes I ran with in Bismarck left without me. So, all of this hopelessness and anger and pain launched a piece of particle board through a window of an office-type building that they were constructing.

And that was it. I was done. So, sitting on the frame of the window, hands bloody. I remember it was really REALLY high up. Maybe fourth or fifth floor and the wind was just gusting these massive walls of frozen air at me. I still cared, but I was done trying. Ready to descend. End it all. But the sunlight’s shimmer on the shards of glass and the ice frozen on them ignited a process. I was tucking tail and running like some bottom-dwelling invertebrate. I was running from the truth and the truth finally caught me. I began to question if this was all I had to give. Is this what I was worth? And forged in those frozen crystals of ice were oracles. Every shape was different and unique. Yet they were all connected as one. Glimmering, almost a locomotion of function. It’s all about encoding your meaning, your thoughts, your feelings into something beyond recognition.

Then…epiphany. Vision. Clarity. If I jumped, I would never learn what singularity I was connected to. Much like an Owl and its prey. The prey sees nothing in the darkness. The Owl…sees everything. I had to stop running from the darkness and start learning to exist in it, love myself in it. Infinitesimal saviors. To think something so tiny as crystals of ice, frozen to glass and a beam of light illuminating them in a way that I may never have noticed until they were right in front of my face saved my life that afternoon and inspired me to find a way to cope. To search for hope again.

And no, it hasn’t been easy…at all. Clearly. But I think that one moment, that one rare instance that can never be replicated sown the seed of a mighty Oak Tree. And despite all of the stormy weather, the hurricanes, the tornadoes and volcanic eruptions, it has endured, the broken limbs and lightning strikes and toxins and insects boring into its core…it still stands. It still lives.

Told you that was gonna be long. My point is that when all hope is gone, when you have nothing to reach for, you wind up seconds from that darkness eating you alive. We must have hope.

I think confidence, in a way, one source of it, comes from not comparing ourselves to others. That’s hard not to do. I think it’s not so much who we are that holds us down, it’s who we think we’re not. And, as the saying goes, doubt, kills more dreams than failure. The fact that you are aware of your fears and what they specifically are is smart thinking. It means you have choices. Some people never identify their fears and they’re forever a slave to them.

But not to be a little indelicate here for a moment. You know what got you where you are. When you get that freedom, you’re certainly not going to make those same faulty decisions again, right? Right. You’re already rewiring the mainframe. The REAL failure is not even trying in the first place. So, that’s a piece of confidence right there, that you already possess. Now let’s build on it. We’re not perfect. We’re not always going to hit the nail on the head and sometimes we’re just gonna smash the shit out of our fingers but it’s YOUR house you’re building. So it makes no sense to lay the foundation, erect a wall and abandon that construction because you missed a swing.

But don’t get me wrong. I truly do know what that fear and doubt and lack of confidence and esteem is like. I know what I’m saying makes it sound easy but I’m not dismissing any of the emotions you’re feeling right now. They are all fully valid. They’re also totally manageable. I know it’s difficult but try to tell yourself that as long you give it your all, as long as you try, there’s no win or lose. There’s win or try again…

Be patient. This is necessary…

Because I Can’t Decide…

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No. I don’t. I don’t have it under control. Is that what you want me to say?! That everything is fine?? When relapse and rehab are both laughing at me this time?!

Tearing myself down inch from inch with little bombs made of my prayers but you think God has me in mind??

Look at me in BOTH my faces when I’m not practicing what I’m preaching but I can’t quit and I can’t admit that the only way out is through an amber bottle of this shit and don’t fret about my future endeavours or love or bliss, this is agony and I’VE BEEN DEAD FOREVER!!

Up or down, inside or out, awake or asleep, permanence is the only thing that means anything.

And I gotta make that decision…

Alas, Poor Yorick!

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“… I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it!”

“(ahem) But, Hamlet?”

“Horatio! Wherefore wilt thee vexeth me during this, mine own moment of sorrow?!”

“Hamlet, I begeth of thy forgiveness but…is yond…Yorick??

“Huh. Well, fuck me liketh a goat.”

“Yond’s…”

“‘Aye. Tis only Hymen Scroop, the asshole! Had no more brains than a stone but…haply he wast right about the myristic acid. (shrugs)” 

Abnormal Prodigy: It’s Hard To Fight Naked…

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Ahhh, the PCP story. Not my finest moment but funny none-the-less.

I’ve always been socially withdrawn and fairly misanthropic. Just the tedium and monotony of partying, people constantly trying to get laid and then doing it all over again bored the hell out of me. I socialized but with the group of friends I knew. I was a classic wallflower but I wasn’t before that. I was a serious consumer of all things alcohol and plenty of other illicit substances and when I woke up naked in a bathtub in some person’s house that I didn’t know…for the second time, I started to get tired of it. And then, one night in a pool hall, when I was 15, someone gave me a joint. I, of course, took it, but…didn’t know it was laced with PCP.

It was just after midnight and I was behind the Neon Palace, in the dumpster lane, with trash and red solo cups and shit just everywhere, pants around my ankles in my boxers, no idea where my shirt and jacket were. I was screaming bloody murder and doing this duck waddle/run back and forth begging for someone to let me in because it was going to kill me. It was a 20 foot tall polar bear, blood dripping out of his mouth, I thought one of my arms was amputated and he was right on top of me.

Then I was trying to climb into the big green dumpster to hide from Forrest Gump but I couldn’t get in because my pants and boxer shorts were around my ankles.

My deadbeat friends were at the doorway laughing like it was the funniest damn thing anyone had ever said or done. They dragged me in and I blacked out. Next afternoon I woke up with a massive headache and the first thing I did was check for my arm, which was obviously still there. Later they explained that I wasn’t screaming about a polar bear at all but that I was Batman and that I was stuck in my batsuit and I had wrecked batmobile behind the Walmart in Baltimore. I wasn’t in Baltimore, I was in Redding, CA. I’ve never even been to Baltimore but I was totally freaking out because Willie Nelson and Forrest Gump were on their way to the FBI to tell them I was Batman and I was panicking, trying to get my batsuit off before they could find me, so, I’m screaming at them about getting this armored rubber suit off but in reality I was just getting naked.

Then I was trying to climb into the big green dumpster to hide from Forrest Gump but I couldn’t get in because my pants and boxer shorts were around my ankles. But, what was actually going through my warped little brain was this massive polar bear that was trying to murder me and despite pleading with my friends to help, they were just laughing at me.

I have no recollection of how I got home or who brought me home. The most embarrassing part? Having to explain to my Mother why I was sleeping naked with my sneakers on.

15 years old and it just fucked me up and I stopped drinking and smoking stuff. Until the next year when one of my friend’s talked me into speed and scotch and I got busted for burglary. I don’t remember any of it but served several months. When I got out, I withdrew from it all. Then it turned really dark and really gruesome. Our center, our core, the friend we all turned to for love and laughter and comfort killed himself on Christmas Eve. A year later, another of us overdosed on heroin.

And just like that…it was…over.

Never do PCP! You’re gonna have a bad time. I can’t fathom why people intentionally do it!

Shark Story…

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Shark Story…

So, when I turned 20, I started playing games on a website for shits and giggles. I began talking to a woman on there and things escalated pretty quickly. Now, my first red flag should have been that she lied about her age and was twice as old as I was but that didn’t matter to me because here was this older, beautiful woman who was totally interested in me and heaping all of this attention on me and so when I turned 21 we began planning a trip to meet up with each other.

Both of us flew to Orlando to meet before going to Ormond Beach where she had a condo. So we meet up, grab a bag of liquor and head out. The first night we were just tired and slept but the next day the weather was okay, overcast and rainy but we were sloshed and wanted to go swimming. It was windy and grey but we did our swimming thing for a while until she wanted to come out and sit for awhile.

I stayed in the water. It was at this point that I noticed I was in water so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom. So, I’m floating on my back and she’s just a little dot when behind me, this splattering rang out. I started treading and turned around. About a foot away were all of these small fish. Some were medium sized mullet breaching the water. It was kind of cool watching them but they were getting closer and closer until they were jumping all around me, some of them hitting me in the chest and face but then they just moved on and I started floating again.

A minute goes by and I hear this splash behind me. Harder than the little fish, bigger. I turned and saw nothing but when I turned around to face the shore a huge splash happened to my left and in front of me cruised a dorsal fin, about 9-10 inches tall with a black tip. I froze and it went under to my right as it curved around me.

This is the only time in my life where being drunk actually saved my ass.

I immediately start swimming toward shore when this massive splash happens in front of me and this time I saw its body all the way back to the caudal fin. It was definitely a shark and probably about 7-8 feet long too. I stop swimming as fiercely and start creeping forward.

And that’s when I felt the huge thud into my left thigh. It was rough like sandpaper as it slid across my leg. I then surfaced and circled me again but I didn’t panic. I slowly went back to floating on my back and started stroking forward to the shore. As I got to where I could stand, the water was still up to my neck and the shark surfaced again. Now I started to move with urgency because the shark was tracking me. It was stalking me. Getting closer to me, inch by inch at first. Inches became feet.

As I got to shoulder level water, my legs were swept from under me by a rip current. I tumbled in a cartwheel and I knew to just ride it out but I was being pummeled with a shark nearby. The rip current dragged me all the way to the shore and I came to rest right by a Horseshoe Crab. I was pissed at the current so I stood and yelled “Fuck you!!” at the ocean just as a huge wave crashed into me, breaking my nose. I had been swept a quarter of a mile down the beach by the current and had to stagger all the way back to her and she had no clue that I had just gotten really lucky. Although, in retrospect, the river of blood pouring out of my nose was probably more jarring and alarming.

So, after I went back home, I was watching the news and they were doing helicopter fly-overs that showed thousands, and I mean thousands of sharks swimming right where I had been swimming. In fact, experts named that summer the “Summer of the Shark” because of all of the attacks. And, to top it all off, there was a major tropical storm to the southeast of us at the time.

My own personal Perfect Storm.

I had a friend who was a Marine Biologist and she said the only reason that shark didn’t bite and tear me apart was because I was too drunk and they apparently don’t like the smell of alcohol and so it moved on.

This is the only time in my life where being drunk actually saved my ass.