The Origin of my Blog's name

February 18th, 2004...

The wind was biting my cheeks, crisp in the winter evening. I couldn’t feel a thing, my whole body was swimming in the warmth provided by camaraderie, merriment and about forty dollars worth of whiskey. Each hand was absent from their typical duties, gripping the handle bars of my rugged ten speed road bike; instead they grasp the black plastic garbage bags packed full of baker’s work, the warm sweet breads I had so skillfully pilfered fresh from the day old dumpster. I was flying downhill well ahead of my following companions, drunk on the freedom total recklessness provides. If I noticed the glare of the on coming headlights I didn’t care, I had lost breaking ability days before; I had never seriously considered repairing it and so in fact, I had no intention of stopping.

I woke up at some point while I was still lying on the street, frosted in sugary crystals of safety glass. Two friends were holding me down, telling me not to move. There was something very wrong, I was in pain so severe I couldn’t quite comprehend it and now looking back I have no real memory of it at all. My shoulder was way out of it usual place, my skull was dented, my brain bruised and my body feeling about as good as it possibly could after the head on meeting with the frame of the late model Japanese coupe. Apparently the driver hadn’t noticed me at all, he was on his cell phone with his girlfriend, which was good because I was drunk as sin and in the throes of the ultimate "I don’t give a fuck" period in my life. We met in the intersection, I kissed his windshield and he never even bothered to call me back.

The street was littered with my pilfered bread, which seemed to confound the police. They couldn’t figure out where the cinnamon rolls, raisin bread, and baguettes could have materialized from. It was three in the morning on a Thursday night, there was a mangled bicycle and kid lying in the street, a Subaru with it’s windshield smashed in, and a about three hundred dollars worth of bread lying around, It just didn’t seem to fit together. Eventually the vanguard of the homeless and junkie populations that inhabited my neighborhood came out to investigate the excitement and lo and behold they were treated to street snacks as they took in all the commotion. It was likened to a George Romero film, by my friends who were there; the emergency lights painting the world alternating shades of red and blue, the lurching void of dope sick vagrancy, the authority figures with their hands in their pockets. I remember a police officer asking how I was doing as I lay writhing in agony on the cold pavement, I screamed at him as loud as I could, jacked up on booze, adrenalin, and more endorphins than I ever remember tasting " THIS FUCKING SUCKS!!!" ,The cop turned away and off handedly announced " He’ll be alright" like there was someone else listening.

I woke up again in this hospital, this time fully myself. I lie on a stainless steel operating table with a great deal of commotion going on, I began to sit up ,felt the searing pain all over my left side and decided to just hang out. The doctors all looked down at me, I looked up at them, sighed loudly and said "This is just perfect" They snickered and went about their preparations confident that I had a full grasp on the situation. Fact was, I didn’t remember what happened, I didn’t remember who I was, my brain had swollen from the trauma casting a thin fog over the world . The nurses asked me a lot of questions I couldn’t answer, I knew the information they were looking for, but the fog was hiding them from me, like I could make out their outline but not the distinct features. I wished I could have pointed and said " yup your answers are right there but it’s no use trying to see them it’s like pea soup in here!." I just stared at the ceiling trying to stay awake and wondering what I had done this time, because I knew for sure this wasn’t the first occasion I had seen the inside of an emergency room.

After the morphine I became a whole lot more optimistic about the situation. I smiled as the doctors popped ol' lefty back into place.


















"Lefty, left-o, Lou, Louie my boy, my ace, my number one hand, how you doin’ baby? You feeling better? Alrighhhhttt, me and roger here were real worried about you."

While I sat in the unit waiting to be discharged, I puked all over myself. I honestly had tried to call the nurses but they were busy, and my voice was weak. I didn’t really care anyway, I was doped up and didn’t feel like bothering them, I had done quite enough already. My friends came in laughing, they said the nurses were making fun of me because I just sat there and made a mess of myself; I just shrugged, Morphine offers little resistance and makes no apologies. I was glad to have my friends around, even if I couldn’t remember their names, there is just a feeling, a warm color pattern in your chest that resonates when you see them, they are known and you are happy, it feels safe and good to be near them.

Later after everyone left my Mother and Father showed up to pay the bill and drag me home. They always knew it would be like this with me and they really didn’t seem to mind. After all,at least I was still alive. The real kick in the teeth was when I woke up later that day. I had come back to my parents house and been put to sleep in my old room, in my old bed. Now this wasn’t the last place I slept before being thrown out of the nest at age 19, no this was my OLD bed, My OLD room from when I was a child. It was all arranged the same way, the major furniture where my Mother wanted it, before I was big enough to move things around on my own. When my eyes opened I was still suffering from amnesia a bit. By and large the fog had lifted as I sat in the Emergency room waiting to leave but things still weren’t crisp, I was pretty slow on the draw. So was the case, when I peeked through my foggy eyes at the room I recognized from boyhood. It was only a second, maybe half a second, that I didn’t remember but it was enough; enough time to break my fucking heart. I woke up and looked at the same wall, with the same window, the same house and trees that I had for the first ten years of my life. The TV was in my room and there were scrambled eggs, English muffins and orange juice on the nightstand...

"Price is Right is on, Bob barker, "Come on down!", Bid one dollar it’s the best bet!, it’s all here I remember! I’m home from school I ’m sick and mom is taking care of me, and I just had the most horrible dream! I was grown up and I wasn’t anything like I thought I was going to be, I was cruel, I was reckless, I had no job, no future, I had no hope, no love, and more so I was sad, sooo incredibly sad and I knew that it had to be a dream because I was happy with all manner of beauty and goodness inside of me, the world had a special place for people like me. It doesn’t matter, I can do it all different oh thank god I can do it all…"






















Then I move slightly and feel my body feel my length, feel the throbbing ache all over and it flipped on me, like I had sealed my self in a tiny glass bubble out of self defense. With a shatter and a crash it all came rushing back.

I cried. I hurt bad and I cried. I cried for all the things I did to bring me to this point, my body was broken, my heart was broken and I was right back where it all started; do not pass go, do not collect 100 dollars. I cried for a life I regretted, for the manifold of missed opportunities. I cried because I was being brought back to a world where the future was uncertain, where anything was possible. Brought back to a world where you could be riding high one minute and half dead on the pavement the next. I wasn’t any good at living life in this world and I knew it, so I did the only thing I possibly could. I resolved to get better. It was here bruised, beaten, unable to walk or think clearly that I closed the door on a dark and confused room in my life, and I began building the new room, the great work in progress that most of you are familiar with. Fighting Jack, the Dynamo, Boxcutter, Manpower,The Captain, and a myriad of others, in retrospect it didn’t take all that much, just getting the pride and despair knocked out of me by two tons of steel and finally going home, getting in bed and letting my mother and father take care of me until I could stand on my own again.

And that was it, my friends came around and cheered me up as best they could, I went to physical therapy and got a settlement from the insurance company (they never did find out how inebriated I was) and I moved back to the city to try again. Six months after the accident I won my first professional Mixed Martial arts match in a little over a minute, I was performing in bands like JEFF and Pirate Snakes with my mammoth broseph Amil and I met my first real love in the doe eyed artist Beth Brandon. It’s kind of a sick joke really, but it made feel like I owned my small time calamity, when I chose the name for my fancy new online journal. It made a lot of sense, about me, about my reckless nature and caution to the wind attitude, about my relentless pursuit of the extremes of experience that is perhaps both my greatest asset and failing. I’d like to think I learned a few things since then but the name is probably is still true. From girlfriends, to living situations, taking jobs to taking off across the country and lets not forget, while riding a bike with no hands, no brakes and two garbage bags full of day old bread. It’s my E-dentity, my general philosophy and my tragic flaw. So if you want to find me I’m here at
http:// Jackgoesfacefirst.blogspot.com.