Unfavorable Topography: 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

One year ago today this here blog was created and gee golly we're so glad to have it here. The Doobie Brothers' "What A Fool Believes" still holds a special place in my heart.

Merry Christmas. Santa's on his way, but I have to fall asleep first. No problem... I worked 8:30 to 3 and battled some last minute shoppers so I'm tuckered out.

I think that our mini-Mix CD madness was a success. I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to what everyone threw together at the last minute. Lots of music that's new to me... always a good thing. I hope that I get a stack of discs from the (Say Yes to) Michigan kids in a couple of weeks.

Now everyone get happy / give gifts.

Sunday, December 21, 2003

So I guess it's kind of a weird story, maybe funny now in retrospect. I remember walking around one autumn night in that south Jersey town across the river. I just needed to clear my head after being inside with my nose in a book all day long, so I walked over to, I think, a Wal-Mart or something to buy a watch. All I ate that day was some crackers I kept in my desk drawer so I planned on stopping by the 7-11 first (it was on the way) to get a fountain soda and something substantial to eat. It was dark out by this time and a little chilly, so I threw on my jacket and began the short trek. I crossed some streets and rounded some corners, as too many words jumbled around in my head... I think I became preoccupied with nothingness, or at least my empty stomach. Suddenly.

"You! Turn around! I bet you didn't think I saw you back there! You're a fucking peeping
tom!"

OK. This man pulled up in his car, opened his driver's side door and stepped out. Agitated. Holding a shotgun to my person some ten feet away.

"No, believe me I'm no peeping tom. I'm a law student. I... I know better than that."

"A law student?! You can help me with this problem I'm having..."

So I listened for a little while to some legal matter he's having, nodding, cautiously smiling. He finally put the gun away. Thinking all I really want is something to drink and a pretzel. I told him it's just my first year but wished him good luck and waved as he drove off. But something was very strange about that night... maybe it was just the chemicals in my brain that were making me think these things. I remember I had to go to Wal-Mart, like I said, to get a watch. This Timex watch that I still have but it hasn't run in years. And I just remember walking in there and thinking everyone in there was some kind of reptile. Like they had webbed feet or something. Just different than me. And I don't want to seem... not discriminatory... I guess, "elitist" or whatever. It was just this overwhelming discomfort and I missed the dog barking and the backroads to your place and a decent night's sleep and home.

Thursday, December 11, 2003

dont call it a come back
So many times people expect you to be thankful for them taking the time to acknowledge you. Its like being forced to wirte a thank you note to someone you hate for something you didnt want. Perhaps im being selfish, but thats seems to be a theme in my life and work. I came to the realization that the work i do, i do for myself, and everything else i do for other people. What the fuck. I dont deserve awards, i dont deserve your pity, i just want to make it clear whose life this really is. Mine, and for whats its worth im happy with it, im no saint, no martyr for a cuase, ill never save a life, ill never make an impact in the world. i make things, beautiful things. they come from my head and i want people to see them as much as i want to see them and have them in physical form so i can hold on to them forever. thats my artist statement. I want to hold on to everything that has ever made me happy. I want to forget the unhappy moments, but hold on even tighter to the lessons ive learned from having been through that shit. I wanna be a kid, i wanna go to toys r us and ride the tricycle, i wanna get excited about the new toy on the market, i wanna fucking run around in the rain during summer, and i wanna eat cereal and watch cartoons on saturday morning. I want my mom to come home and give me hug, i want my dad to actually be proud of me for once. i want my sister to be happy with her life, and i want to be happy knowing that the world can be a good place. And i want to be able to go there whenever i want. i would put it in a frame and hang it on my wall for everyone to see. i just want it to be beautiful.

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

Hey man, do you...Do you remember that time I waited back there? Oh wow, that must have been ages ago. Look at that place, what a dump. What an incredible waste of time I spent back there. It wouldn't have been worth it other than I thought I saw God. There was ripples in the puddles. Remember it had rained the night before. But the ground was dry at most points so it was cool, at least I didn't sit back there for such a long amount of time on wet ground. But there was this puddle...it rippled so much. It was incredible. I saw a reflection, but it was the moon's face smiling at my own. The man on the moon sure knows what's up. But he wasn't the God that I saw. No, man, the rippling puddles surfaced in my heart. It was incredible. Laugh at me now, man, but I felt them, I felt my heart elongate, it breathed and let go of the rope. One of my arteries whipped up my body so fast that it hit my spine and sent the most...unbelievable feeling up my spinal chord into my brain. Wow dude. I wish, well, it was incredible. But that's not what God feels like, no, I haven't even got to that part yet. The artery triggered some sort of death inside me, well for good reason, it had detached from my heart after that rippling thing I just told you about. But the artery felt so good just lashing about in my body, I couldn't believe how awesome, in fact it was awwwweeee..., I can't even describe it. I'm sorry. But okay, cool, all right, that feeling. The ripples proved God was there. He saw me, he saw me staring at those ripples. I couldn't believe the time I sat behind there, behind that ugly place where God lived. Those ripples, I felt like I was on a hill, so elated with grandiose mountains, green forests and the yellow sun peering down. But it was dashed with a raindrop. That wasn't God, I didn't see him yet. It was not him, those ripples. God appeared much later, almost in a dream. I cannot see him, I was standing in a mall crowded with people in the middle of the night and all the stores were closed. Signs were going out left and right and people started chattering about in nonsense, it wasn't a language, their faces contorted to the way the words sounded from their non-mouth. In fact their words weren't words but sounds that their faces made when they pretended to say words but were just contorting in a way to cause the skin(?) to shake and vibrate. That dream, wow, I couldn't believe God was standing before me when I woke up from the dream when I wasn't sleeping. Later he came to me. It was still much later. He appeared out of nowhere. The raindrop had dissipated. It saw me when it was falling but failed to recognize my gaze on the rippling puddle. It didn't have time to get out of the way. I don't blame it. I can't get out of the way of many things. Several times I thought of leaving that place, sitting behind there for so long was a pain. I couldn't stand it. But then, not then, but then, God came out and took my hand. He walked over from a shadow in the park near the dumpster where the raccoons and possums I assume get their sustenance before they flee to their homes in the woods there, over there, see, I bet they come from there almost every night and snag a piece of our trash, yours and mine, I know I've dumped food in there several times hoping that some little guy would snag it and take it back to his family while they slept pretending to dream, but not dream because they are animals and to dream is impossible to them. They sit motionless in sleep and pretend to be God. They don't know how though because he comes to me, well, he came to me...once. I have yet to see him again. Those ripples sit there, motionless, still in a freezeframe. I can't believe someone preserved that scene. They must have come to that place immediately after I saw God and left, crying, in shame and proud to be...near him, with him, him, him...he...left...me...

So now I sit every night nowhere near that place. Someone preserved the ripples, like I just mentioned, someone had them frozen in time. In time I will be again near them, the wavy footsteps of the moon danced a ballet in those ripples, the wind had a waltz with a leaf, the air grabbed hold and took a ride, even if it was only for a split second. Everyone got in on the action.

Sunday, December 07, 2003

I don't mean to be scared, but it does scare me. All of those yes-sir-blackouts and three-in-the-morning free for all's filled with hatred and red hats. Not to mention hating reds, the volga version, not the crowley field version. Alas I joke. But to throw in humor with something so serious almost eats at me. The romanticizing effort goes only so far when your eye is dry. Of course, I brought this upon myself, an earlier lunch, a no-name, a delicious treat lead into constant, constant, sitting and thinking. No, I find myself being a coward, having conversations with myself, eating at me again and again and again, constantly fearing some unknown creature to sing me an opera. "Creature", are you listening? But not the one YOU think I am, the other one, its HIM isn't it, he finally wants to know what the f*** I've been doing for the last 21 years; all those thoughts, jokes, constant shuffling of mindsets and ideologies. It can't be, I would have seen HIM or HER eat at the cafeteria or around somehow in this town. So many people know my secret. Its rough to figure it out for myself though. Silence is 'golden'. Ne govoryu - zolotoy. Funny little phrase, I probably have it wrong somewhere since music plays over and over in my head, in my body, even outside in the night sky. Conscious stars try and get the moon to read every once in a while. I finally got to the reading they suggested, yet I refuse their teachings. I don't want to find it the same place other people do, I want to be different about it. Everyone knows that. So why the...damnit, why can I not even see outside. Fuck these f***in' walls, this artificial light. I've never been a big fan of you. Stems from the time...oh wait, jesus, it goes all the way back to then does it not?

Yea, it does. Yes, it does. Yay! Don't be happy you sad, sad fool, you had a chance. Sometimes people help out each other and it comes out spectacular, other times (I don't know why this is so vague) my eyes can't see a damn thing and I live in a fog inside my head (on accident I typed god instead of fog, but of course I typed fog instead because that might have just gotten a little weird without my knowledge, at least conscious knowledge.)

My digression has led to another thought process entirely. My whole point has been denied, destroyed, delivered (elsewhere), diminished. A long time ago I was not right, tonight I am right, tonight I am not right, tonight other people see right and not right, not necessarily wrong, because no one in my book is wrong. My book, the book of what? C'mon, these rants last ten minutes, eat out the eyes of anyone not reading it and then return back to the place inside the ear where it belongs. Rats! I apologize for anyone reading this to try and find something in it. This is a cattle prod. This goes nowhere and everywhere in two seconds but comes back the other way a little slower because of some cold weather approaching from an angry Tuesday.














Nothing. Sleep deprived. Angry. Myself. I just need sleep. No more of this bull-ish nonsense of pulling my hair out because I am not creative. This doesn't exist.