Shoot and Kill

I have only held a gun once in my life. I can tell you that it was an awful out of body experience. No one ever really wants to kill anyone, or so I thought, but in my situation I really wanted to.

See, I was harassed and robbed my first month to this city. Some Mexicans jumped me when I was walking home from the bus. They called me "Gringo" and "Maricone." I wasn't quite sure what all of it meant or what I had done but I knew that this was the end of it all. Up until this point I had never feared my own safety but that night the robbers took something from me I would never get back.

It was almost like a purity or innocence stolen. Maybe even a naivety that you don't have but develop by living in a fucking bubble.

After the men took my shoulder bag and kicked the shit out of me, I went into a state of shock. There were others around but no one gave a shit. To them this was normal and by staying out of the way meant they were safe.

Weeks later I found myself in a shooting range and exacted my revenge against those son of a bitches through the target. The kick and smoking barrel somehow snapped me out of my transit angry shock and after that I never touched the shit again.

Now the sight of a gun makes my stomach turn and in my mind I shame the owners because I realize man was not meant to carry this kind of power around. It only goes to waste.

Confess.

Ever since birth my ear canal has been a strange phenomenon. It started when I was young enough to explain. Every now and again my ear drums would perform a sort of feedback performance and my head would swell like a watermelon. The pressure and weight seemed to be too much and I would black out.

My parents said it was for nearly an hour but to me it felt like seconds.

During the blackouts I would only remember seeing weird men performing autopsy's on my brain. Except it wasn't what most would think it was. It actually ended up being normal humans with suits and ties slapping their pink, elbow high, gloves on before probing my ears. They were no aliens but their faces always seemed to be blurred out like on the show COPS.

It's still a phenomenon I can't explain especially since it only happened during my childhood.

As I got older the blackouts became nightmares, which progressed into daydreams to memories till eventually they were things of the past.

Now the only thing that triggers these things of the past are high pitched frequencies or the tolling of church bells. Only then, do I see the men, old and withered. Their blood soaked gloves replaced with IV drips hanging out of their brown spotted hands. Their faces remain anonymous but I can tell the pain they administered to my brain has eaten away at their lifespan. It has consumed their own knowledge to rot, becoming nothing but dust.

This is my confession.

Christmas Vacation

The thing I miss most about Christmas, isn't the insane, mad dash to open presents, the food, or time spent with family, but the option to be the laziest son of a bitch on the planet for weeks.

Yes, some, get time off if they're in school or have forty hour full time jobs, but us simple folk who work more than one part time job, get the shit end of the stick. Just the other day I was trapped within the gates of hell (a bookstore) on Christmas eve. The nerve that people are even scrambling last minute to buy some sort of lackluster present from a bookstore is beyond me, but they couldn't even have the decency to show some respect and honor to those trapped within the confined dust trap.

Thankfully, Christmas allowed me to unwind, forgetting all the bullshit I have put up with over the past couple months. I wasn't even phased that I spend Christmas alone. I spent the day more envious than happy.

There was the occasional Skype conversation with family from the Midwest, where I preceded to stay perky and not act like I was stoned out of my mind. (The only way I can deal with family is excessive drinking or drugs.)

Getting stoned relieved some of my tension but not all. The calm and peace I got from that two hour high was like heaven. I literally took a few hits, lied back while the sun peaked out behind my half closed blinds and rubbed my head/face across the pillowy comforter for hours. It was like it's own Christmas present to me.

For months on end, I have been killing myself to please friends. One in particular. Not only have I had to muster up some drive and determination, but also stay up to date within the film community, read and write every day, work sixty hours a week, apply for new jobs, find an internship but I've also had to deal with running into Kimber any place I go.

So those of you who think you have it rough working a full time job while getting up with some sort of routine and your head on straight. I say Merry fucking Christmas and Feliz Navidad. Sometimes you don't know how good you have it, till it's gone.

A Mad Dash

More of an observation than a gripe today. It's a part of the commuting life whether we want it to be or not, but one of the most embarrassing things (especially for anyone over the age of 21) is running for the bus.

Since I commute fairly often, I've had my fair share of drive-by's. I even had the bus blow by me entirely one night.

Running to catch a bus invokes a sort of free falling feeling for me. For some cats they like it, but me personally, I hate the look on the pedestrians faces when they see me struggle. It could quite possibly be a personal pride inside.

I've often been the observer as well and feel a huge wave of sympathy for the public display of embarrassment. It's like slipping on a banana peel or yawning so hard spit comes out of your mouth.

Never again, will I force myself to flee for help, because the only person one can rely on is, yourself.

Generational

What is it about the past that people find more interesting than the present? Growing up, I always hated history...or parts of it. I didn't mind getting into the 40's and on, but once we reached the 90's I was over it.

After all does anyone ever really care for the present? Some of my best writing isn't from present moments but recalling the past and I wonder...is the rest of the world doomed?

Take for example the way customer service is. The way people act, especially younger generations. Since everything is automatically at your finger tips, do we take these objects for granite?

The other day I found a box of mixed tapes that I hadn't listened to in years. I remembered that most of them had three or four versions of the same song taped off from the radio. None of them had the complete start, but it was my attempt at hearing the important parts.

If you asked me to record a song off the radio today, it would probably take me a few tries to rig the cassette player and tape up.

Simple things like that, make me hate the present and wish for a better past. Things I never liked before I do now.

My grandpa, R.I.P, would always smoke a cigarette, drink coffee and listen to his radio in my grandparents kitchen when I was growing up. Anytime we'd visit him, he'd prop a jar of windmill cookies on the middle of the table for me, and give my parents two cups of black coffee. They'd all sit and talk, my dad bothered by the smoke, and I used to find it incredibly boring.

Today, the idea of incredible conversation and down time from this mad capped world is something I feel is missing. No one sits around and talks anymore. Hardly anyone knits, draws, reads, paints or expresses themselves, unless you're a serious artist.

I guess the point of my ramblings today is that the world progresses with the future, but how much of it has taken away our values? I often wonder what the world would have been like if Y2k, had hit? Would people have been ready to face one another so jarringly?

Skittles

Going to parties where the host is a friend of a friend is extremely awkward. Since I can be quite the social anxieter I made sure to be armed with a handful of hallucinogenic pills that conveniently look like Skittles. Anyone in this town knows it's not hard to find drugs so I didn't have to search long for them. The only problem is you can never quite tell what you're getting is legit or will make you wake up in a pool of piss and vomit.

One of the mexicans from my part time job coherst me into this knew form of happy, and only told me its street name which does happen to be called Skittles ironically. I wasn't really sure what would happen or if the small neon bunches sold in a small plastic baggie were actually sour skittles but I took my chances.

Jon-Jon, my good pal from the restaurant thought it'd be a good idea if I checked my shit at home and finally got out of my single apartment. Considering I haven't shaved in two weeks or regularly bathed, I found an opportunity to do something motivating.

So I armed myself with these Skittle, finding it the perfect opportunity to try out my new recreational drug, and quite possibly become the man I used to be, before Kimber of course.

This party was way out in Burbank, far from my expectations and hopes. Anyone who lives out in those god forsaken suburbs must be in need for some company because as anyone in the city knows, it's far from anything exciting or fun.

We arrived about 11:00 p.m, early for party people, and were surprised to find some beer left in the tiny keg that definitely wouldn't suffice for the estimated guest list, so I sparred a party goer my beer and went to the bathroom with skittles in tact.

Staring into the mirror I watched as my handful of drugs became instant gratification. Usually most drugs made me paranoid and schizophrenic, but the wave of relief and pureness washed over me like a wave crashing onto the beach. I closed my eyes for a second and opened them on the beach. I wasn't quite sure what had happened or how I got there but I had done it. Skittles was like playing a mind trick on yourself. Whatever you wished, you'd get it.

While flying high in the bathroom I envisioned those moonless nights where Kimber and I often walked solo and barefoot through the chilling edges of the ocean. It was our favorite past time, because the rest of the world was tucked away in bed or packed in a crowded club. In that moment we were together and all the bull shit we fought about didn't matter.

To this day I still can't remember or explain how I got from the bathroom to that beach, but I can tell you it was a bitch finding my way home.

Down Pour

Ah, the rain. It barely rains here, but when it does people act like it's a foot high snow storm or the apocalypse.

I quite like it. It's soothing to watch. Even when I'm at work I steal a moment to sit under the exterior covered break room table and gaze. There was always something fresh and inspiring about it, especially during the night time.

When I was in school, Kimber managed to take free range of my car leaving me the bus to and from my campus. Most of my classes were at night and I didn't get home until a late hour. At that hour, no one was really around especially when it rained. Since it barely rains, I was always caught off guard, like so many of the freak out drivers commuting around this filthy city. I would stand in a downpour with nothing but a hoodie for protection and watch the rain pound the glittered cement, as I waited for the bus.

After a while of staring I visualized a type of beauty. I loved the way the wet cement reflected business lights or neon signs on its surface. I especially liked the look of a wet covered man hole. The sight of it was utterly breath taking and transported me back to a time when things weren't so obese and distasteful. When men were courteous and women were classy. When people used the words ma'am and sir sincerely and not as a form of punishment for old age. When it used to rain more often. When everything was lush and green. Where roads weren't cluttered with dog shit and styrofoam.

All of these things I saw from an old, slick, plate of steel. And yet when I snapped out of it I had a harder time finding beauty within the present world in front of me. Even within Kimber.

Day 16

It feels like day three hundred and fifty, as I stare into the empty shadows that outline my silhouette. Kimber is gone, but I can't forget the reasoning behind it. Some would say I have the opportunity to get my life back and become a better man. The emptiness, forces my eyes to roll into the back of my head and experience that warm fuzzy utopia I haven't thought about since my youth.

I remember closing my eyes, after staring at the sun for too long, and experiencing a bizarre cause and effect of shapes and lines that danced underneath my eye lids long enough to keep me entertained for hours. It was like spinning in circles extremely fast before falling backwards onto a bed, or lying upside down then to suddenly sit up and feel a rush. I miss those free highs from my youth. Maybe I should resume these activities to ease my own personal hell.

Kids have it all, freedom, imagination, a naivety that I'd kill to gain once more. Where does it all go wrong? I blame junior high and peer pressure.

Monogamy

MONOGAMY

Monogamy Jones had it all. Beauty, courage and most of all confidence. Because of the name and the deadly combination all girls wish they had she endured years of cruelty and hatred making her not jaded but humble. The older she got the cleaner her soul became. This purity drove men and women wild. Many tried, but it wasn't until she had met Rivers Cullen that she gave into the wicked ways of man.

Everything about him screamed art and beauty. It was like the first time she had ever seen an old french film and invoked a particular passion within. Nearer, and nearer the flame pulled her, but she knew she was only a moth and that diving head first would cause an emotion inside to erupt.

So she resisted, and eventually became the worlds most sought after and respected virgin in the entire history of man. And as years passed, and she lied on her death bed, she wondered what it felt like to be touched by another man, by Rivers, or even a woman for that matter. She wondered if she was a lesbian, or if that passion during sex others talked about really did exist or what had happened to purity once their lives were over.

And so her light was extinguished, along with a fallen dream and a world of unanswered questions.

Dust to dust, ash to ash.

Jingle Jangle

Loving, losing,
Fighting, crying,
smiling, happy,
losing, dying.

I woke to an unpleasant feeling, but I couldn't explain the noise. My head felt like a giant balloon slowly gravitating toward an inanimate pin. As the pin got closer, I felt a sudden burn as if my eye was directly lined up to it but my body was too stiff to move.

Do you ever have those unexplainable dreams, like this one, where something traumatic shakes you awake and leaves you with a claustrophobic feeling? I remember waking to a short breath and my chest pounding harder than a bass drum.

That, was the start of my incurable eye twitch that would attack with no rhyme or reason, catching me off guard and leading me to an untimely death.

The Dance

Going to 60's soul nights around here kind of reminds me of the poor mans hipster sock hop. Everyone is decked out in their most ironic 60's outfits, get hammered, and try showing off to one another.

I think the most puzzling thing about it is that everyone makes all this effort to get gussied up and then refuses to do anymore work, once they're out. Every one's attitude in this fucking city is that the men (0r women, in some cases) should come to them. No wonder they bitch and moan about their sexless empty lives.

One would think that I just described myself but I'm proud to say that the most idiotic yet impulsive thing I've ever done is go up to the beautiful Kimber at this so called 60's night and ask for some digits. I can only recall specific moments from that night, especially the awesome line up of hits the DJ kept playing.

I had only heard about these nights through various co-workers who joked that these 60's retro nights were now over run with young punks. Kind of like any 80's flashback club you step into today. Where as us mid twenty year old's are the nuisance of Motown lovers, anyone born before 198o at New Wave night is an automatic head ache.

So, believe it or not I used to be quite impulsive in search of some sort of inspiration or change in my life and I visited "The Kitty Lounge." As soon as I stepped in I was hit in the face with "Love Man" by Otis Redding which made me feel like I was stepping on set to the poor mans "Dirty Dancing." I couldn't believe the amount of wall flowers dressed to the nine ignoring one another. Literally people were fighting back their urge to dance like it had been outlawed. Immediately I jumped from one bad 80's movie to another.

This was 60's night! I had waited to attend a night like this since I had gotten my Paul Pfieffer glasses. I wasn't going to miss this. After consuming three shots of whiskey and a beer to get me going. People were inching toward the dance floor waiting for those first people to get things started.

That was when I spotted Kimber. It was destiny. For the first time in a long time I felt this gravitational pull toward something and an emotion inside me was sparked. I hate to throw around the word soul mates, but somehow my spotty blackouts from the whiskey brought me to this sudden and new conclusion.

Kimber was my inspiration.

Glasses

Call me old fashioned but glasses are not a fashion accessory. More and more you see pictures of celebrities and common day people toting around a pair of bulky glasses when they don't even need a pair to begin with. Just the other day I stopped in to an Urban Outfitters and found a cheap pair of black frames with clear lenses called "Buddy's." It was almost offensive. Not only were they fake but also charging thirty bucks. That gave me enough reason to renounce my service to them for another ten years until that god forsaken "vintage" store cleaned up their act. Maybe I'm biased because my eye sight has always been bad, but what was once considered "old fashioned" is now a hot commodity. The irony of it all.

When I was fourteen going on fifteen, my parents took me to an eye clinic for a free exam because my teachers complained that I needed glasses. To my surprise, they were actually right, but unlike other kids I didn't bitch and complain about owning a pair. I knew exactly what I wanted. A pair of horn rimmed glasses like Paul Pfieffer from the Wonder Years. And to this day, I still have them. They've been through hell and back, but they're a part of me now.

Back when I was young, other kids didn't understand. Being different wasn't part of their curriculum. Most people hated Paul, didn't think twice about the 60's, and barely knew who Buddy Holly was until Weezer came along. Suddenly every one's slapping them on their face and partying like it's 1984 (a 60's redux) all over again .

Those of us with glasses aren't easily fooled. It's like when you hear about people with gay-dars. Those of us with glasses have a four eyed radar...like a four-dar. You think we don't spot the fakes but in reality, we do. Just like women and purses. So please, spare us with those eccentric fake frames and save them for costume parties or Halloween because unlike you, our frames define our character. Do yours?

The Bus

I find it odd, how soothing a bus ride around the city can be. While others lay on their horns and drive around psychotically, I manage to sit back and meditate during my twenty minute commute.



For the longest time I kept getting these terrible stomach aches which would feed my neurotic hypochondriac mind. I would start to get diarrhea, and even find mucus and a little blood in the toilet. Since my grandpa died from colon cancer and the family was plagued with early colon screenings, I reasoned that it was only a matter of time before the statistics passed by every living relative and found me.



The thoughts of dying have crossed my mind bi-curiously. I'm not really sure what I believe due to my religious upbringing and my now realistic outlook on life. Where do people like me end up? Or better yet...do we even end up anywhere besides in the ground or dust in a river?



Kimber used to always say "life's a preview of the big party we're meant to rock out to." I never really understood that. Either it was incredibly profound, or the most shallow and conceited thing a person could say. You decide.

Beginning of Kimber

2:36 A.M and counting....
My eyes grow tired of this shit wrecked ceiling fan but my body feels too stiff and pained to move so I continue to watch it make a mockery of me. Here I am, living the dream in this god forsaken shit hole of a town. I never believed I'd be another one of the statistics swallowed whole by the lies, deceit and whores of this town.
I used to be a respectful and loving person with close friends and an even closer lover...but now I'm a washed up has been who hasn't even seen the light of celebrity day. What I wouldn't give to go backwards in time instead of forward. To detox the heat, the smog, and my Spanish filled ears. When I was a virgin, when i wasn't gullible, when I was young, when I gave a shit, when I had a drive, when I didn't drink at the crack of dawn, when I had friends, when I had family, a life, a job, respect, believed in love....before I met Kimber.