Gee Oh Dee

My mother was the only other person in the room, the only other sound was the persistent beat of Gramma’s heart monitor. Mom motioned for me to sit next to her beside the bed and said to Gramma “ Mom, Jack is here to see you.” Gramma’s eyes were glued shut with sleep secretions, her face hung sallow off her bones. I watched her lips tremble for a second and heard the faintest of wheezes. That’s when I turned my heard away to press back the stinging in my eyes and sinuses. This is it, she is going to die today. Mom held her hand, which was blackened with constant bruising , heavy medications had left her flesh the consistency of overcooked chicken and the slightest touch liquefied her muscles and turned her skin a dark viscous color. She had been like this for almost a year, in this “home” filled with the mediciney smell of industrial cleanser, all alone with her memories and the other elderly who had given up
and were waiting to die. This was a bad place, a place that I hated and never wanted to be. This was a forlorn state of being, and as I sat there watching her, watching this fading image of a person I only knew in living color, I wondered what would make a person persist in this state, when death was within reach, why they didn’t float down the tunnel and into the light, why they didn’t leave the pain and suffering of this world behind and ascend to the next glorious level of existence at the promised right hand of our father. Was it a passion and reverence for life? Was it to settle unfinished business and bid farewell to loved ones? Was it waiting for the gates of eternity to open and to rise out of the mortal coil, carving a blazing trail of ethereal beauty through all seven dimensions of God’s divine creation?

No.
Of course not.

They persist in their tortured corporeal forms because their alternative is the abyss, the inky black void of non existence, and they are afraid. Yes, afraid because life is warm and life is good and death is colder than outer space. They say death is the unknown but I disagree, death is so terrifying because we ALL know what the void is, it’s where we came from, and somewhere deep in the recess of our beings we know the horror and agony of Nothing.

“the dead know only one thing, it is better to be alive”-Pvt. Joker Full Metal Jacket

I heard someone once speak about how the here and now is heaven, the best its going to get, and to start enjoying it because it’s the only respite we get from the big dark empty. The terror must be unspeakably powerful to make person choose constant agony, the worst experience in life, the persistent state of incredible pain and torment, over the cold comfort of nothingness. I don’t believe in god or heaven but not because it’s all stories about clouds and saints and puppy farms where we can chase squirrels forever. No, I don’t believe because people have to be convinced that a deity exists, they have to be threatened with punishment to obey the odd social morays and taboos of their particular sect or religion. I don’t believe because If my mother hadn’t built an invisible boogeyman in my mind to keep me from kicking my sister and playing with my peepee than never in a million years could I have dreamed up such a ridiculous circumstance. I just would have known, this is what is and it is good, and I shall cherish it throughout all my grass stained dirty faced days. Most of all I don't believe because I watched a woman wither and die, and never once did I see a glimmer of hope in her eyes that something better lay beyond. I only saw pain, fear and pain.

Don’t misunderstand me, this doesn’t make me amoral, far from it, I am big on life and living. I’m all about getting along with each other and attempting squeeze the maximum fun factor out of every minute of my lifetime. If I had things my way, we would all be running around in an H.R. Puff n’ Stuff ,tripped out, super fantasy porno, constantly eating awesome food, drinking the good wine, and getting our sex organs pampered with over stimulation. I guess in lieu of that reality I’ll just have to make due with what I got. I’m just not about to live my life in accordance with arcane rules and standards in order to gain entrance into some misty fairy land at the other end of the space time continuum. Especially when it generally requires depriving myself of some of life’s finest pleasures and arbitrarily hating someone else, who otherwise could be an potential super friend and good time pal, based on their race, creed, color, belief system, or a thousand year old blood feud. All set.

Now for any of you who are true believers out there, for those of you who think that my heathen ass is going to perish in eternal heck fire for my blasphemous stance on the afterlife; I sincerely hope that I am mistaken. I hope there is something beyond the inconceivable lack of substance that awaits us in the end. I hope I die and wake up in the supermarket, with all the pizza and peanut butter cup ice cream I can eat. I hope I end up in the Elysian fields (Elysian Park will do; on a Sunday afternoon in springtime when the Mexican families are having barbecues and their kids are taking swings at piñata stuffed with sugary goodness.). Hell, I hope I wake up in the DMV in Pawtucket Rhode Island, a fate worse than death some might say, but hey, something , ANYTHING is better than nothing. The problem is, it remains very much unknowable so I try not to worry about it and attempt to deal more with the here and now. As far as Mr.Death is concerned, the check is in the mail, it’s not like we won’t find out eventually, so in a hopeful conclusion to this otherwise dour and troubling piece, I say we all should cross that bridge when we get there, because maybe the reason nobody comes back from the dead to tell us all about it is because its so sweet, so RAD that they don’t want to ruin the surprise.

…and they better not eat all the god damned pizza, lest afterlife asses need kicking.

Riot Face, Strong Heart

I had tried to wake up Artie, but he just farted and went back to sleep. I waited in the cold alone, blowing into my hands because the heater in my car was broken. The bus was supposed to have arrived at 6:30am and it was almost 8:00 before it showed up. One by one we piled on, until the greyhound was filled to capacity. I didn’t know anyone else on board but we shared one thing besides a mutual destination, we didn’t want our country to go to war and we were meeting half of a million other like minded citizens in New York city to let the world know.


It started off as a riotous cacophony of voices and chants. People brought instruments and there was music drifting out of the long serpentine river of bodies that drifted through the city. We sang and we danced and it was good, it felt like we were doing something, like all of us together might make a difference. It was two years after September 11 and the nation was still shaken, the impetus to get revenge was palpable, but we in the streets had the will to resist the temptation. We weren’t going to give in to our baser instincts, we would rise above and persevere.

The police closed in around three o’clock in the afternoon, they bisected the parade at the intersections using horses and shields. People resisted but most dispersed, for the stubborn they had tear gas and hoses, for the fearless they had clubs. I saw a girl get kicked flat in her chest that day, I saw a boy being dragged face down along the asphalt. I didn’t know what to do, it seemed so wrong that they could just push us around like this, wasn’t this our right, as citizens, to peacefully assemble? I was really scared, there were riot cops, faceless, with shields and batons pushing us back, the gas was drifting down our way from a spot up the street. Someone had given me and orange handkerchief earlier, he said "in case you need it". I thought he meant if I needed to sneeze. I tied the rag over my nose and mouth, and clasped my hands behind my back, I dropped my weight and centered my stance and with all my secret kung fu knowledge resolved not to be moved from where I stood.

I don’t know why I did it really, I don’t know what I thought it would do, I just didn’t want to let these anonymous enforcers dissolve me, silence me, make me obey. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, it was my country that was committing the crime, the war on terror was a travesty and I didn’t want my to be any part of it. They had the horses buck their steel bridles on top on my head, they kicked me from their mounts, and finally one of them came from behind and hit me behind the right knee with a billy club. I quickly found myself being zip tied and thrown into the back of a paddy wagon.

All around me kids were being beaten up and dragged away, it was chaos and the police were efficiently and enthusiastically breaking this protest apart. I felt both terrified and galvanized in my position, there was a clear line as to where I stood, for the first time in my life I suppose. These cops looked at me with disdain, but mine was greater, they pulled the rag off my face and tried to be "bad cops" but I just stared. I had nothing to say, scared to death at what was going to happen to me, but my eyes held the accusation, the challenge that made them look away. They might have just been doing their job, but they were wrong and they knew it.

Inside the wagon I met a few other nice guys, we all shook hands in a silly back to back sort of way with our zip cuffed hands. One of them, Brian from Virginia, had a cell phone that we each took turns calling our friends on. I remember leaving a highly excited message for my friend Jay whom I was supposed to find somewhere in the masses of collected faces that day. The others assured my nerves that what lay in store for us was just a process, a lot of waiting and not much else. I guess they had done this kind of thing before.

They drove us down to central processing, by this time my cuffs were cutting my wrists, drawing tiny droplets of blood to the surface, my arms were numbing up and I wore a sort of grimace. They pulled us out and filed us through and it was there I noticed the most pronounced difference in the police attitude. While the front line cops were frothing at the mouth and spitting their most hateful epitaphs at us, the rear quarter cops looked ashamed of what was happening. I guess that’s the way it goes when you watch almost a thousand people, mostly kids being dragged in, beaten, bloody, and abused by the very people who have sworn to "protect and serve" them. They would offer off handed apologies like " I think you guys have the right to do what you’re doing, we’re just doing our job, it’s not our fault." or even " I’m just waiting to get into the fire department, I don’t want to be a cop." They took more pictures, I for one would love to see mine someday. All brash and defiant in my self righteous 22nd year, sporting my FUCK THE WAR hoodie and the kindling angst that will typify my Millennial generation.

We were held in what I understand is a " drunk tank", huge cells that accommodate hundreds and most typically used for St. Patrick’s day and Puerto Rican day parades, where serious drinkers and gregarious mischief makers can cool off after a long day on the job. It would have been bad if I was alone, but that cell was a pretty good place to be if you had to be stuck somewhere indefinitely. I got thrown in with about two hundred other fist lifters like myself, I was immediately congratulated and welcomed into the flock, I was amongst the others like me, the ones who stood against the tide, I was home. When they brought Jared in I could only smile and say "what’s up man?" he was shocked to see me, and he gave me a big hug, and pretty much became the best jail buddy you could ask for. I had grown up with Jared in the town of Lincoln, we played football together at Lincoln high, and we went out causing trouble together on many occasions, once he even called my Mother when after a run in with Police I ended up stranded on the other side of town way past curfew and he, being older and class president, tried to smooth things over (unsuccessfully) . He was a the same age as my older brother and had gone on to become a outspoken local activist and poet. Funny. It was funny to see us both sitting there, I was still totally overwhelmed by what was happening and terrified of the consequences of what I had done. Was I a traitor? Were they going to deport me? Am I going to trial? Am I going to prison? I didn’t voice any of this, but Jared could tell I was nervous, he helped calm me down, and I was grateful to have friend there, I knew he would look out for me. That’s when one of the other detainees got on top of a bench and started to speak " Hi, my name is Michael and I am an attorney at law, and I want to tell you what your rights are, and what they can and can’t do to you".
Dumb fucking luck.

We spent eight hours in that cell. Michael, the lawyer, gave us the lowdown ; basically they were going to interrogate us, idly threaten us and let us go. There was nothing they could really do, after all there were at least five hundred of us in this building alone, and they couldn’t possibly supply adequate and humane facilities to us, we were in the shade. We passed the time by talking to each other, retelling our story of how we got nabbed, and listening to impromptu freestyle sessions between those so inclined, while drumming out beats on the bars and benches in the jail cell. It got a kind of feel good hippie vibe in there, it was all "we shall overcome" and " peace , love and civil disobedience". While we were together we were the good guys and we were united against the dumpy boys in blue on the outside of the cell, we told them jokes and sang their praises when they came in and they couldn’t help but laugh despite their impenetrable veneers. They had separated the men and women into different cells, but when they started the interrogations and releases, they had to parade the women by our cell to the interrogation rooms. We cheered, beat the bars, chanted love songs, and feminist slogans. They blew kisses, shook their hands together like champions and screamed populist rally cries, and we couldn’t help smiling knowing that release was eminent and once we hit the street again we will have our voices back we will have won.

The fat detective asked me a lot of questions, but I didn’t answer any of them, I just replied " no comment". He told me If I didn’t cooperate I was going to go downtown to the city jail, with some bad black men who would love to get their hands on me.
I laughed because Michael had told us the cops would say something like " they will bring you downtown or to Rikers Island and you’ll get sodomized by row after row of big scary black men" as one of their idle threats. The fat detective didn’t appreciate my disrespect so he got close and did the whole "super close spit talking routine" in my face, I just averted my eyes and repeated my mantra " No…Comment". He dragged me back to the cell and told me to have fun rotting in there. Before the cell door even closed my name was called again, I was cut loose.

After you’ve been in a small room with three hundred other guys for eight hours straight, no food, water or bathroom facilities, coming out into downtown Manhattan is some kind of surreal revelation. I was greeted by a large group of supporters, other members of the protest or affiliated groups, that had camped out in front of the central processing building, with hot coffee, doughnuts and hugs.
RULE. Yes, it kept being reaffirmed, I did a good thing this day, took it to the fullest extent, went on the record to say that this war and the new slate of foreign and domestic policies were a mistake, were against our own best interests, were bad for America. I stood with many others who felt the same way and could probably articulate their thoughts and feelings much more eloquently than I can, but I was there to say no, no more blood, we have suffered enough already.

Back at the University of Rhode Island, not many people shared my view, frequently during class discussions of this critical topic I was called a "traitor" and " Un American" .I’m sure many of the other people who I shared that cell in March had to absorb these same kinds of insults. Five years and 4003 dead Americans soldiers later, public opinion has finally caught up to us, finally sobered from their hate laden bloodlust after young members of their own communities came home in boxes or missing limbs. 29, 541 American servicemen and women have been wounded since this whole affair began, and finally people have had enough. They want to call it quits, want to call it a mistake, want to pin it on Bush like they didn’t go along with it the whole time with their American flag stickers on their SUV’s; but it’s too late to go back., it’s too late to withdraw. What amazes me most is that the entire Baby-boomer generation, which prides itself on it’s youthful political activism and its valiant championing of civil rights and the end to violence in Vietnam, could have wholesale sold their OWN CHILDREN down the river to the same kind of imperialist war of occupation that they struggled so hard to end? How did they not see the writing on the wall? Was it not obvious how all this would play out? I was only a child, 23 and greener than a golf course and I knew that this would end bad, it would be nothing but blood and tears. Now they want a big change, now everyone wants out, get out of Iraq, end the war, bring the soldiers home. Well I wish they could come home too, I wish they never left; but if there is any hope for us, if there is any hope for a free Iraq and a stable middle east and a safe America, we cannot back out now.

There comes a time when we all have to grow up. We have to accept responsibly for ourselves and our actions. The United States is a young culture, a strong culture, and a very immature culture. We came to the opportunistic rescue of our European allies sixty years ago and watched as the old imperial power structures crumbled and the new American free market became the dominate force on the planet. We used our power recklessly, over turning popularly elected governments in favor of puppet states our companies could exploit (cough, Vietnam, cough) We created Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin laden, all "assets" funded, supplied and trained by fat Yankee treasures. Our grandfathers never had to realize their own consequences, as they had passed into senility and dust by the time one of our "assets" drove two jet airliners full of American citizens into the twin towers of the World Trade Center . Let that be the lesson, let us learn. We went to Iraq for the wrong reasons, we waged a war that was by all rule and principle , a criminal act. That war is over. Now there exists a fractured society, that was once held together by fear and fist and now has been haphazardly glued with good intentions. Iraq is a state that was carved
out of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the Great War, it’s borders were arbitrarily drawn by British bureaucrats. It has bound tightly disparate tribes of peoples (Sunni, Shiite, Kurds) who have a history of "not getting along" and no experience with self rule. These people have been under a autocratic regime since prehistory, they are used to one strong voice telling them what to do. If we leave now, there will no one strong enough to resist the well funded , well trained, and zealotous forces of Radical Fundamentalism from taking control of the state.

I don’t want to be mired in an almost endless struggle to stand a fledgling Iraqi state on it’s feet, or wait the thirty some odd years for reconciliations to take place amongst the various tribes and ethnic minorities. I don’t want to dump trillions of tax dollars into the desert just to say we did what we said we were going to do, bake up a free and democratic Iraqi cake.
No.
I want to do those things because WE OWE IT TO THEM.


We owe it to the kids whose fathers got blown up because they worked next door to a viable target, we owe it to the mothers whose children were "collateral damage", we owe it to the Fathers who were kidnapped and stolen to Guantanamo or murdered by a rival tribe in the chaotic aftermath of the invasion that we headed, brash, brazen, hooting and hollering. We owe it to the simple people of that country, who went to sleep one day with a very stable government , albeit headed by a sociopath but a reliable sociopath ( maybe not so much different than ourselves?) and they woke up the next day to a living hell that has persisted for the past five years. We promised these people everything, we told them they would get schools like ours, free choice like ours, clean water , power, and food, PEACE we promised them PEACE. IF the forces of Fundamentalist Religious Extremism take hold of their lives then they will never know peace, they will never know the freedom that we know. Believe me I have my qualms with this broad nation of ours, but I know that it is the best thing going, I want those people to have what I have because, goddamn it ,THEY’VE EARNED IT. They have bled and suffered enough, over a million total deaths, and if we disappear on them now there is no telling how bad it will get. Guess what, when the kids are grown and look back and the misery that is their lives you know what they will see? Some semblance of stability before WE came, then terror, chaos , blood and loss, and how we left them to fend for themselves because we only care about ourselves and our money. They will hate us. Then you have on your hands, the most cunning and inventive weapon of all, a hate filled human mind. I’m sure through the forces of social construction and indoctrination their hate can be finely crafted and honed until ten years from now WE, the Millennials and our children, not our parents, will be faced with a entire generation of weapons, deadset on reciprocating the chaos that we have visited upon them.

That is why I say we stay. That’s why I say we have to eat this one. America needs to shut up, grow up, and MAN the fuck up and deal with the mess we have created. The entire world watched us do this, and they will watch to see what we do next, if we really are force of freedom and democracy, if we really are a nation full of good, compassionate souls who are trying to raise the world out of the strife and despair that it has known for ten thousand years, then we need to show that we are mature enough and strong enough to admit we were wrong and to use our power to correct our mistake. It is still possible to save them, it is still possible to give them the bright and glorious future promised, they will stand up and claim it for themselves if we can be the light that shows them the way. This would be the greatest work of our young nation, this would make us great, not our wars or our television shows, but our heart and our commitment to doing right no matter the cost. I think we can be that great, the question is, do you?

I stand up for what I believe in, and I’m an American whether we are right or wrong, I will do my best to help steer this nation in a responsible direction. I support my troops, and very much believe in their mission, I am against the war, now and forever, but I am also against giving up on the people we have promised to help, I am against giving in, I am against letting them suffer. This isn’t going to be easy, this will cost us dearly, but on the other end we will have learned, grown smarter, done good for the world, and we will not be fooled again.

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.

The Indy Go! girls (cover your heart)

Everything I know about women, I learned from Indiana Jones.

The Indiana Jones films posit that there are three primary female archetypes:
The Marion, The Willie, and The Elsa. All woman are a combination of these three distinct personas, and the great quest for modern man is to find a women with a personality make up complementary to our own, in essence our "perfect" woman.

Let’s examine some of the essential traits comprising each archetypal model:

The Marion-

When we first meet The Marion she is beguiling the ignorant Mongolian herdsman with her astonishing ability to punish a handle of whiskey despite being of small frame. Soon, she proves herself handy in an all or nothing scrap with the big ugly forces of imperial fascism. This is a woman who can hang with the boys. Despite these masculine overtones, when the time comes to make pretty, she is able to pull of breezy bazaar style or Paris high fashion formal ware with barely a fuss and a fling of her hair. You might be saying case closed, search over and you may be right…if you can handle a woman with a mind of her own. Now I personally love a spirited independent lady that will call me out when my dizzy dream-eyed, emo scale, starts inching into the red, but there are a lot of men who still harbor an innate castration anxiety and the idea of having to submit to the will and authority of a women, no matter the circumstances, is out of the question.
Well to these guys I have but one thing to say:
"you’re a bunch of pussies"
The Marion is more than ready to ride shotgun on your crazy high adventures, but you better be ready to back her up on adventures of her own or she will cut you loose like bi-plane from a dirigible.


The Willie-
She knows a good diamond when she sees one, she can charm the pants off a Chinese gangster, and is featured in the dictionary under the entry for HIGH MAINTENANCE. Man, what a handful. You practically have to drag this women anywhere unless, of course, you are offering to have courtesans CARRY HER and all her BAGGAGE. She’s a princess and when the chips are down, not worth the weight. Such a weak representation of a heroine, when compared to The Marion, aided this follow up effort to be overlooked and forgettable; for me the only redeeming part of the whole caper is the introduction of Shortround as the ideal wingman. Distrustful and intolerant of the Willy’s need for attention and totally clutch when some effete metro sexual prince is voodoo jabbing you in the back, he beats out the other two best friend archetypes The Sallah and The Brodie (just barely). The Willie, of course, can come around to more of a grounded and self sufficient attitude but it takes an enormous amount of effort. A little bit of a Willie goes a long way (read: headache city), her overwhelming need for reassurance and the sense of security that material comforts provide, make her a poor choice for an adventure buddy, unless of course you hate getting dirty too, in which case you’re a whiny bitch and the two of you will be very happy together. Unfortunately a lot of men would opt for this sort of "trophy" relationship, which just proves that these men are dimwitted, even more unfortunate is that too many women are conditioned to believe this the extent of feminine identity, all Willie’s seem to need is to realize their inner Marion.

The Elsa-

Oooooooohhohohohho Elsa. This is a tough one boys. Smoking hot, Blonde, Slut, NAZI. I have half a chub just thinking about her. How can something so wrong feel so right? She’ll give you good chase, then blow you in a Venetian library catacomb, romp with you halfway across Europe, and then sell you out to some evil fascist rich boys who can buy her more coke and chardonnay. Why then, is it so hard to let her fall to her own selfish doom in the temple of the holy grail? Because even God knows a good fuck is a terrible thing to waste. This is the woman that posses raw sexuality and wields it like a weapon. I’ll hand my grail diary over to this uber-bitch every time, as long as she tells me that I’m very bad and that I’ve let my country down as she fucks me sideways. Just remember that it’s all fun and games until you start getting soft, to quote Hall & Oates "if you’re in it for love, you ain’t gonna get too far" so listen to your wingman Shortround and cover your heart. You don’t want someone this malevolent tinkering around with the pink squishy softness living beneath your iron clad exterior, no sir knight, you will have chosen poorly.

So in the end you have to choose for yourself, after all you’re going to have to live with each other, just be honest with yourself and what you’re into. There’s nothing wrong with having a Willy that has a Marion streak in her, in fact that would be pretty cool, I think all well kept girls want to get down and dirty and closed fist knock some teeth back every once and awhile. If you’re into getting stepped on and slapped around go and find an Elsa, go get your fascist dominatrix, but if you intend on living with this person you better hope there more than just the abuse, hopefully a little Marion or Willy to mellow the brew.

I personally can’t deal with a Willie, I just don’t want to put in the time and effort. I’m left with Marion and Elsa and while Marion is very pretty, Elsa is a grade A slice of Aryan wet dream, she’s got the lips, hips and finger tips, to make you a penitent man; but would you rather wake up in the morning with a knife in your back or next to a smiling natural beauty that is ready eat pancakes and get swept up in some serious world saving adventures? At the end of the day a Marion will not only lie on her back for you but watch yours while you’re drinking from the grail. Besides, how can you kiss Elsa and not think of how your old man had already blazed that trail? Gross.

Like the mythical quest for the grail, a young man’s search for his ideal counterpart is a long and possibly endless pursuit, a fools errand. However, I think you can find someone who fits your needs and whose needs you fulfill and together you can figure out how the adventure unfolds. You make sure she doesn’t step into the light and trigger the poison darts, she’ll make sure you don’t get your heart ripped out of your chest and thrown into molten pit of magma to please the black goddess Kali. That isn’t a quality that is easy to find in people, so if you find a special lady who is willing to jump out of an airplane on an inflatable raft, you better not hold it against her when she hits you with the mirror. No, just thank your lucky stars then sneak off the boat and onto the submarine so you can save her from the scary Jewish ghosts (close your eyes, dear) and rejoice that the opposing forces of darkness and tyranny will be puddles of their former selves. Take the highs with lows, be kind, considerate and caring and by all means Jones, let the lady buy you a drink.

Look Sidewalker

The streets are lined with birch trees, the sidewalks are slabs of granite. The large smooth stones are splotched black with old chewing gum scars and deep wounds of grime, but by and large they remain intact. The Trees vary in age and size and occupy little blanks in the puzzle piece walkway that follows the road almost endlessly as it wanders around the city. There are a few places where the trees have grown to a ripe old age, their trunks are thick and fat with maturity and health, their roots expressing their will by dislodging the large granite pieces wherever they see fit. It becomes like a landscape in and of itself, some of the slabs point skyward at incredible angles, displaced solely by the roots of the birch tree. It's a beautiful thing to wander this modernist terrain, created by natures refusal to bend toward mankind's aesthetic principals; a blatant rejection of cages and convenience. It's like a memo in the "Inbox" of the city reading:

"Dear Civilization, you can have your way for now, but once your not looking I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want. Remember who lets you live here, bitches."

Or something like that...if nature was an asshole. Which i don't really think it is. Uncompromising, yes; unemotional, always, but a jerk? I dunno, jerks don't grow awesome things for you like marijuana and apples. Not that I'm back on the wacky weed or anything...I'm just saying.

So it's while I'm gliding down Alvarado ave, being as much myself as possible with my paper back copy of "The Hobbit" in my back pocket and all infatuated with the trees and my own cleverness, that I come upon a person that I have never seen before. He was legless, rolling through the intersection on a motorized wheelchair. It appeared, as he went by, that his head and chest where balancing upon a large jello filled pilates ball stuffed underneath his over sized orange T-shirt. His abdominals were lax from disuse and his face drawn and gaunt, his bulbous gut was no doubt a product of his involuntarily sedentary lifestyle. It made me quickly remember myself and my relative strength and ability, and made me recall the low times when I would moodily remark (to myself) that my body was a prison keeping me from a truer form of expression. Seeing this man reminded me that I am a complete ass (correct), and that if anyone had a right to gripe about physical condition it was this man and even then I bet he didn't. I reminded myself of the "posi-jack" philosophy on physicality;
" My body is my favorite toy" (in more way than just THAT way, you sickos )
and promised to run and swim and climb more trees.

Around that time I passed by a Mexican restaurant called " Colima 20" and remarked (to myself, maybe Mr.D) on the trend of L.A. restaurant chains to include their number in the signage. I suppose to give each particular location a certain identity. Like
" Hey where did you guys get those Burritos?"
"Oh we got them at Colima!"
"Not Colima 12, right?"
"No Colima 20, why?"
"Colima 12 sucks eggs, but the others are really good"
or something like that. I dunno, I still think it's a little weird. Maybe the owner just gets off on advertising how many "Colimas" there are. Like if he has twenty burrito places it must mean he is incredibly virile, with a ham sized peen.
I guess it could be like a scavenger hunt too, like if you did the top twenty "Colima" countdown you would get a special prize. Like a clown to live in your sewer.

This is generally what it's like inside my head as I walk down the street, I'm sure it's like this for you too. Maybe not the same, but similar. I used to think we were really different from each other, that I was unusual, but i don't think thats true anymore.No sir, I think we're more alike than we are different. In fact I don't think we're that different at all. Come 'ere and give me hug.

Dreamtime

The Aboriginals of Australia speak of Dreamtime, an everywhen from which all things were created. When they speak of their lives, they speak of their "dreaming" their current lives as a subjective experience. This is in direct oppositions to western philosophical thought, which describes our linear waking consciousness as an experience of "objective" reality. Basically, we here in the west are brought to believe we exist in a reality and a universe that exists independent of our experience of it and if we did not exist it would continue without us. In opposition to that, we have the aboriginal concept of reality, which basically asserts that the universe and reality is a product of our consciousness. This radical and often heretical interpretation of reality finds a scientific foothold in the recent discoveries by quantum physicists relating to the nature of phenomena under observation ( that it alters the outcome of experiments), and the seemingly random behavior of subatomic particles and irrational composition and functioning of the universe at its most minute and detectable levels. This brings up many new associations, such as the influence that Taoism and other Asian mystical systems have had on the expression of these new ground breaking ideas in quantum physics, the seeming overlap of systems of thought that have existed for over three thousand years and the most recent efforts by the comparatively youthful western scientific inquiry is astounding, if not unnerving.
As we learn more about the "nuts and bolts" of our universe, experience , and reality, we come to see that isn't as objective as we once held it to be, and that we "the observers" have a much more important or at least influential role to play, at least from the vantage point of our own experience. I for one find it comforting, that we do not exist in the cold logical laboratory universe that the science of my father's generation had told me I did. To find that there is still a great deal unknown, and even more that is unknowable, gives me hope and in many ways a reason to keep exploring and keep searching this life for clues, answers, and experiences that may broaden my perceptions, deepen my knowledge ,and lead to a greater understanding of my own dreaming. It always rang true for me, the idea of Dreamtime, it always seemed right. Dreams are a wondrous and joyful thing, devoid of the anxiety and terror of nightmares, the word dream only conjures that fluid and boundless place, beyond rationality and logic, less substantial but more honest. If ever there was a place that such a thing as "this" could be imagined and born, the realm of dream, the Dreamtime would be such a place.

Supermarket Sweep

( one for Ms. Chloe Mandel)


Whenever I imagine what heaven would be like, I automatically cycle through all the Judeo-Christian artistic representations, you know, billowing cumulus clouds, pearly gates, choirs of white robed angels singing in glorious cacophony to the greatness of "He who is called I AM". That shit is all pretty stupid, and god awfully boring (sic!) so eventually I come back to what my personal idea of heaven is.

...and it looks a whole hell of a lot like the Stop n Shop at three in the morning.

I've done it a bunch of times, just rolled on up in the middle of the night, the place is still 100% lit up because its in the suburbs and nothing makes any sense out there. I grab a cart and start sliding down the isles, the one other person in the store is the night manager and he's in the back room drinking coffee and watching anime porn. I bust a big smile and ride the back of that shiny shopping cart down the fluorescent rainbow isles, crammed with sugary goodness and savory dreams. The bright whites reflect of the freshly waxed floor giving everything an ethereal glow and the lemony fresh scent of pine-sol reminds me of my Mom's kitchen floor. Fleetwood Mac is bringing that soft rock lullaby somewhere very high above me and drifting out of an old half blown out speaker. I think it's something about the abundance that I find comforting, and I suppose it says a lot about me that my idea of heaven is a warehouse full of food, but hey, I never claimed to be anything other than a basic unit. I just drag that back foot as I roll from the soft drinks to frozen foods, I think I'll get a pizza to go with this ginger ale, then maybe some ice cream...the kind with peanut butter cups in it.
I mean really...
What else is there?