Contrast

There is an unwavering violence to sadness. The increased heart rates speeds up the flow of blood in the pipes and pump harder to catch your breath as pressure builds in your sinuses and behind your eyes. Forcefully, water flows through an orifice not built to handle the volume coming through it. The body convulses and hands tingle, fighting for a limp cloth that cant sustain the blunt trauma of your dampened face driving through it. Like a true antagonist the suffering creeps in and utters words of woe into your ear, spiking up past hurt as if to start a vagrant conversation with the current issue.

At this definitive state there is no drug, no booze, nor medicinal therapy that can drag you out of the position.  With your knees held between your thin arms – as if to allow yourself to get closer to your insides that boil at 244, before the flame burns out and you sit luke warm, drained, and incoherently sad.

Why was the human body designed to respond this way? Im sure it’s a fight or flight piece of bullshit that makes complete sense, but that makes it all more the violent. Even to all the sociopaths in the room, this happens from time to time, I know, I am one.

There is an insatiable reaction that occurs when the perfect tune flips on a mobile device thrusting through your ear drums in beautifully compact buds. Everything connects, the wind off the ocean in a foreign country elevates the sound of artists momentarily delivering its beauty to you and only you. Taking the winding staircase down our ear canals and back up to your brain to give it an amazing orgasm, twice, and still have time for the rest of the body. The water amassing 70% of our bodies is effervescent and cool making out bodies fizz to the our momentary Jesus; whomever the artist(s) may be. Whilst completely being a slave to the music that embodies you there is nothing more freeing as you take light steps forward and let the music project onto others through your pores.

Again, at this state there is no drug, no booze, no fucking pric behind a desk that can fight this feeling and its electric as hendrix’s guitar.

Perhaps this is why there are so many dead musicians who have succumbed to the needle, the drink, the pills or the introvert hideaways. For maybe they delivered the beautiful sound that drove them to walk lighter, and fear nothing and when the music stopped and the heart grew weary, it made a vacancy for the sadness to creep in.

Thoughts on Flight Take 2

Another trip to Montpellier, 2 hour flights have become as commonplace as masterbation and I’m tired. My carry-on BRICS suitcase’s has failed to make it one year without the handle mechanism malfunctioning. There a few unknown stains that could be anything, and I cringe at the thought of security rubbing the contaminate swab over the top of it. Im sure there is nothing too explosive, i mean if its gone up my nose I doubt it can blow up an aircraft…you never know. 

Im staring down the barrel of this weak pessimistically optimistic. Excited to learn and develop new products to foster revenue, pessimistically unsure that any of the tech team enjoys my presence. In my 1st year here i have made about 20 people dislike me that I know of, and could give less of a fuck about what toilet paper is in the woman stalls. Ive realised that most of the time I’m an optimistic pessimist. Im excited to go on a date, but concerned about how her pussy may feel in bed or my the portentous gesture of whiskey dick. Im optimistic about my career but blindingly aware of its finite nature and  could end up handing out CV’s like Tmeout magazine on Tuesday morning. 

I’d like to blame 30 years as the main culprit; an amorphous one-third life crises  with a mind binge on ego driven compliments…but I have been feeling this way for a while. 30 just brings a couple antiquated high fives and glances to see how many grey hairs are sprouting on my thankfully thick bed of hair. I don’t pretend that my anxiety is genetic. No one in my family really behaves as I do. Its just a series of habits that have formed over the years causing me to be 60% neurotic, 20% smart, 10% crazy, and a smattering of other things. Im good at what I do but could be better. Im good at drinking but could drink less. Im bad at football so I don’t play. Its all all choice.

So as the land comes into focus in the 6x12 frame window if this budget airline flight - Im optimistically cautious about the next few days and those that follow. In one light i feel the most alive that I have felt in 5 years. But, on the contrary theres a craving for a benzedrine, xanax, bottle of wine and a room corner. Theres an urge to buy a guitar and get back to the music. Theres an lingering infatuation with the written word and the longing to be more like Mailer, more stoic and poised like Turgenev. So the fingers tap away and the google searches commence for an overpriced 6-string that Ill play worse than an 8 year old Justin Bieber. Thats okay though. Im optimistically excited to be free, play music, write, fuck drink, smoke and breath. However I’m pessimistically bound to the fear of solemnity and its transformation on my character and grip against sound sleep. 

Citrizene

How many seconds does it take to know someone, how many to fall in love? My guess is just as many as it takes to break a heart - one. Like the flick of a light switch , a bat connecting with a ball,  a finite moment. (break in thought) enter through curtain into bar (late 1950s)

The lighting is dim, the atmosphere is “showy.” You can tell the owner is a pretentious gentleman who sits high above his adoring guests and accepts compliments like flowers on Valentines Day. There is a comfort in the scent of sin surrounding an often “stuffy” community. The half-naked dancers come as a surprise, burlesque is sort of outdated, but found in some trendy northeast locations. Inhibitions were falling to the floor like the dim light from the classic chandeliers. The place was sexy, pompous, entertaining, and above all, new.

The entry way, as I was escorted through by Jacob and his tall obnoxious friend who had skipped telling me his name, was a velvet curtain. I believe his name was Alex. You had to whisk your way in and move the heavy garment. The curtain was behind an empty pawn shop that was used for show and décor, giving the appearance that you were in a dead, outdated store, but they gave way to an extravagant lounge.

A thousand figures moved in a jackson pollock like formation, ebbing and flowing to the tunes that moved them

She didn’t seem real to me at first site. It was as if something was created right there and then but I was all knowing of its fallacy, all believe of its impending malice. I knew it was delusions of grandeur, the way the light dances off her skin and acted as an accent point to her pearls draped elegantly around her neck. She was Marilyn Monroe without the smoke, she was beauty with no the filter. She was a Bukowski novel save the booze, hatred, and pain that he carried in his words – leaving only pride, description, and clarity. Like a child taking his first glimpse around the corner at a Christmas tree spilling out gifts, I stared in awe. She was a figment of my imagination, I was certain. Nothing this beautiful could live, nothing like this could last – just a momentary blip, a confirmed oasis in the sand.  

At this instant, the daily dose of cynicism, forced in a pill or heaved up my nose had dissipated, I was no longer dependent or influenced. I had taken the Frostian road less traveled - the guidance of optimism had blown me in the right direction at the forked road. Soon my nerves will take over and I'll take to the bottle, drip they syrup like an elixir to a cold. But she makes me want to feel the air crips and clean, dark and cold and perfect all in the same breeze. And before my heart goes up in flames and i start throwing stones, I need to speak to her. 

A few steps and the crowd takes on its raindrop form, thousands of ants marching to the beat of of testosterone and estrogen bubbled up and releasing. 

Pegged Holes

In my short time here my mind has acted like a 14month old tri-lingual babies mind; taking in everything but not yet finding too much use from what I have grasped. Its a process, a bit slow and arduous, but tiny break throughs come about like oil swirling in a bucket of clear water.

I have learned these admittedly over generlized truths; Italians are the most loving, welcoming and kind. The British will warm up to you as soon as they start having more than two season all year round. The scots talk political and persuade you with their booze, they sing like the boy on the futbol field, forever blowing bubbles. The nordics are thick-skinned, intelligent, and their humour is the closest to american I can find.

The sun is strongest in the morning as the skylight opens up the windows in my cylindrical living room. The light creeps in like a candle lit behinds cracked door and before you know it you find the need for sunglasses. As the day wears on the clouds from thicker dulling out the light but creates no worry during a busy work day.

"Cheers" and "mate" have replaced "thank you" and "man" while merci tips its french hat into the ring from time to time. The black crows left for murder scare the shit out of me as my leg appears to be their next prey. 12 degrees celsius is when the tops come down on the lamborghini's and porche's around a crowded oxford circus. Young musicians take to their six strings collecting three pence from those just happy to catch a sunny walk, joyed by youthful melodies.

I've thought about buying a 10 pack of smokes, but pass it up every time. For now I'll stick to having one too many espressos a day and tinting my teeth that way. Tea will be coming next, but my coffee addiction doesn't love company. Out of all these truisms, the one I find most often is; no matter where you are, where you go, you are you. Because you go to another state, another city, another country, you don't change. Experiences alter the way you see things, taste things, feel them, but you are you to the core.

I still can't help but to feel as a tourist, trying out foreign prepared meals in the food shops and listening intently to isolate an accent that seems different in each and every neighborhood.
From Oscar Wilde; To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. There is no shame in living a simple life, but there is regret in time poorly spent. 

Ode to The Air We Breath

I've been thinking a lot lately about the human senses. The fragile nature of them all and their lack of dependency on each other. We ebb and flow through our days without a hint of recognition for what they bring, until one of them is taken away momentarily, and are left with an irreplaceable absence. The brisk London air irrigates itself from the inevitably damp pavement. It twists through espresso shops and curry kitchens. Then weaves its way through oriental grocery marts packed with rice noodles, american potato, gnocchi, fois gras and enters back into the open atmosphere decorated with more width of culture than the store it came from. Later this evening I'll share shisha with a pakistani dubliner with a gaelic accent who left his family who relocated to Russia for university in Whales. The air he has consumed was never the same for longer than 3 years.

We cannot know what will make our stomach turn at the drop of a dime or make our tongue drip like a pup with rabies. Can we make assumptions? Yes, but haven't we all been wrong? The Italians here want to fit in more than ever, at least I gather that from my first couple encounters. They mask their accent and remove telling facial hair that would have been trending in Naples. With this, they take away an extra opportunity for an American to press his harsh english accent on them, which they understand better than the Brits; since American's speak slowly and with less fluidity.

I can only hope as Notting Hill turns into blue overground trains in Montpellier, France or to the floating docks in Hamburg, Germany, that the people allow my senses to consume their life. That they dont hold back and let me understand them, or at least try. It's is no secret they will either try to interpret me or view it as a useless platitude.The only real risk in a life worth living is is not to be present. Breathing deep, tasting long, speaking true, and seeing far, can make for a beautiful way to feel human. For those out there with one of these senses gone, certainly its a shame. But as the human body fights for equality, the others will pick up the slack to make you feel whole. Breath life.

How it usually goes.

Stop lying. You’re losing track. The weight is even on both sides of the bar but the metal hinges to a tipping point. Don’t think. Each twinge of thought reveals a maze-blocking wall forcing a search back to the start for clarity on what is real.

You have, a girlfriend.

No I don’t

Yes you do she told me so

I don’t know.

You’re lying, I know it.

Who told you?

I told you, she did.

Who’s she?

She knows, You know it.

No she doesn’t.

Don’t, playing dumb is below you.

Stop it please!

Why, do you do it?

Do what?

Cheat, lie, fuck..around.

Who cares?

I care, you know it.

Do you enjoy…

Excuse me, go on…

Wasting time?

Caring? Let me be a fool

I don’t want that.

And her?

She’s a fool.

You’re, wasting time.

I am young

Not that young

Yes, but bold.

Well, do you know him?

Who is him?

Your girlfriends, boyfriend.

Now you lie?

Well, you should know it?

And I don’t

Open your eyes

I’ll play blind

Then, I cant do it.

What is that?

Keep it, I can’t.

More clarity?

Your child.

Blood on the Print

I used to write a plenty and in full color. Sometime a bit purple, one may say, but nonetheless words hit the page in a loud Jackson Pollock like way. Recently then have been deflecting off screens, notepads, journals, and sticky notes like a limp dick failing to find a hole. I wouldn't call it writers block, but more - a writer in peril. If I didn't write something today, I felt I would die. Not in a heart stopping, brain-aneurism way, but in a life-changing, "shit my life is too uninteresting to talk about" way. I'm trying to locate the paradigm shift that slit the wrist of my creative writing prowess...if i can be so vain. When did the blade clip the vein that let the words bleed out of my mind and drift
aimlessly into the abyss?

The search didn't last long. My last entry was August 2014. That same month I moved into an apartment with my girlfriend. I spend a lot of time alone, but NONE of it feels alone. I am completely suffocated without being at all surrounded for the majority of the day. If I was Hemingway with Gellhorn I'd be balls deep in a bottle of scotch writing the next greatest novel about a post Paris fishing trip. Instead I'm saving sips for the sober me and looking for typewriters online, believing that a vintage tool may be enough to erect a sentence from my diabolical mind. Even now, as I type, the words feel foreign, and I am yearning for a thesaurus becoming duplicitous to my old self. Is it gone? Has this thing that has since long been a part of me leaped from my bedroom window in search of a better home?

I have tried drinking which leads to blackouts, lack of productivity, and emotional distress. I've tried Dylan but his songs make no sense. I've tried the Beatles and all I can taste is cliche. Jim Morrison makes me cry and Hunter Thompson makes me envious...Fitzgerald makes me all of the above. I read a little less since the print volume creates a visceral hate and a cramp in my hand for the lack of typing exercise. I've been working out but I'd rather be thin and frail and published than strong, full, and concealed.

Til' I figure it out I'll just keep peeling off the skin to find leftover remains of an all too distant past.