Dead before I hit the ground..

Completely miserable. Haven't slept well in days. Haven't cared what I look like in public or anywhere. Keep wishing that it would rain and hope that they play depressing songs on the radio. Spent my spare time trying to get as wasted or as blunted as I could so I wouldn't have to feel all of this and it only screwed me again. "This" this "phantom limb" syndrome like a person that has just lost a leg. This guy lost it before he knew what he had. Severed. Taken abruptly leaving a neatly cleaved wound to fester and cut short his chances in the "rat race." Sometimes you love something so much that it hurts to leave it, but you must. Sometimes it hurts too much to hold on to that thing you love. And sometimes you let go of what you love because it hurts, but then just sometimes... you get it back and live happily ever after.
I miss her a little, I guess you could say, a little too much, a little too often, and a little more each day. But this chapter ends begging the question "Does he ever get the girl?"

Elwood P. Dowd

Being honest isn't easy. Lying, "disguising the truth" is so much more pleasant, sanitized. People become accustomed to the person that you portray in front of your audience. I'm sure that professional actors/actresses could tell this better than I, but this is the story as I know it.

The air out here is frigid. I can see my breath floating away in steamy puffs. The numbers on my cell phone are 2:34. I remember distinctly saying "2:30 AM" and "where is she?" My memory is a bit blurry from the past couple days but I wouldn't forget what time to be here. The wind howls across the semi-lit walkway leaving my nose as numb as my thoughts. "Propped up against this wall at this time in the morning. I must look like a vagrant" I think to myself, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
I had met her two weeks before and she didn't seem all that dazzled by my theatrics, even now. We constantly had tried to "one up" each other on our nightly excursions. Emotionally unattached, just using one another as a witness to the reality that we were alive. Having just turned nineteen I figured that being jaded and tactless was the persona that was called for in this particular relationship.
Cutting through the thoughtful fuzz, foot steps thud overhead. Someone atop the roof covering the walkway under which I waited, yelling as loud as possible under the circumstances,
"DAN Z!" Recognizing the handle and having a passing thought that I should approach the voice with caution, but disregarding I promptly walk out from under the covered walkway onto the parking lot. Looking up to see if I can identify the obvious source of the voice, then replying "yeah?"
"Can you catch me?"
"What?.. Seriously? Your going to break your leg!" I reasoned to the voice.
Perched on the edge of the slanted roof, her dark hair fluttering about desperately trying to escape this madness, apparently intoxicated
"Stop fucking around! I'm gonna jump Dan!" She states unreasoning my reason. Instinctively opening my arms to try to "catch" her or at least break her fall. She leaps suddenly, awkwardly landing into my arms, and knocking both of us down to the asphalt.
"Shit."
...
"Dan, I think I'm gonna puke."
"Shit."
Rolling off of me urgently, onto her hands and knees, then vomiting all over a parking spot with painted stick figure of a man in a wheelchair. Looking on with a disgusted fascination, thinking "I am not going to get laid tonight." I ask the required
"You OK?"
"Fuck off. I told you to catch me." Her voice strained, trying not swallow. Considering this as a valid response I try to help her up and steady her drunken legs.
"What the hell were you doing on the roof?" I ask her a bit pointedly. To which she response' with a pained chuckle. Trying hard to be angry, I don't return the amusement.
"Do you even care? Tomorrow you won't remember this, and hopefully neither will I." She says to me without needing or wanting an answer. Pulling a flask from my pocket I take a hard swallow, and look down into her dilated pupils.
"I'm leaving in a few hours. We've got some shows in L.A."
"Well, Dan I won't be here when you get back. I'm getting as far as fucking away as I can get from this town." She says pointing a finger off into the distance.
"Ok. Well let me walk you home." I say trying to calm her down.
"No, Dan you don't understand. Do you?" I look away from her face trying to think if there was something to understand.
"I am not who you think I am Dan. The shows, all of this partying, and craziness. I don't want to pretend anymore."
"What? You were the one who always wanted to party after shows. Everytime I see you, your either drunk or high or both. Why?" I say waving my arms around for dramatic effect. Then she stands there for a long second looking at her shoes.
"Goodbye. Don't call me." She turns around and walks down the street trying hard not to stumble.

I never understood what happened that night. I always thought that everything was going along fine, then boom she leaves me. Now years later I think that I'm starting to understand a little. There is this frustration of acting up to a part in the script. Honesty is the big white rabbit that we have to acknowledge when no else is around.

Gimme twelve steps..

If wishes were fishes I'd never go hungry.
Being human I wish for anything that I don't like or that makes things difficult to just be different, easier. It seems to be that life a lot of the time is unfair and down right cruel. Is it any wonder that people will spend their entire life buying lottery tickets and dreaming about, and praying for the day that they will win. Then all their problems would melt away and they could just be happy. But money? Does this ever fix their problems? I am tired of buying into the idea that money = happiness. We, Americans, are addicted to the omnipotent dollar. People that win the lottery a majority of the time are more unhappy after they've won millions of bucks than before when they were living week to week, paycheck to paycheck.
In a nutshell don't wait for "your ship to come in" to be happy. Problems are the road to happiness. So don't wish all of them away.

My love
These words an offering to you

A drink of spirits and a dark soul this night
A candle on the porch in the face of a cyclone
Your guilt my love a severance of mediocrity
A hole in the reasoning of our conscience
It is the stinging whim of destruction

Your parents my love
Puppets on the stage of all his children
Controlling they jerk them about at their conviction
Some break the strings free to die in peace
Yet others tangle in their hearts
Disoriented without hope

So my love take your sugar pill
And forget the days we lived before
Put on your pretty shoes
And paint your face with the love in my heart
Live your years like the end will come
This the beginning of forgiveness and faith

The "wave" speech..

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Sometimes I am afraid that I will forget. I write down thoughts desperately and stow away keepsakes as if by compulsion. I sit by the river on nights when the wind blows through the trees and over the water, almost carrying my very soul away, and write down memories in my journal.
I wake in the middle of the night trying to remember something just out of reach. Some thought or face that has been lost to time and deteriorating brain cells. Is it possible to forget the beginning of the story? And if so can we ever remember the ending?

The life and times of people you know.

Here's a little bit of what I've been writing. It's still kind of a rough draft.

.... Life being so unpredictable most of the time leads most of us to believe that purpose is elusive in our short unenchanted minute here on earth. However consider that if life in itself is not an end but rather a means to an end, or different yet means to a means of a never ending end, the unpredictability is the “carrot on a string dangling in front of us” luring us on toward the ending, or the non-ending ending, and the purpose. Depending entirely on your view of life I suppose. And so the experiences of life, good or bad, and the daily struggle to survive these are what make up life and the world as we know it....

.... Being born is just about the most unmemorable yet utterly significant event that happens to us. More so unmemorable for us than for our parents I’m sure. My own mother tells the tale of her being in Kaiser Hospital in Vallejo, California with me in her womb refusing to budge an inch. My father, who had already been through this ordeal with my older sister, was nonchalantly at the barber shop getting a haircut. Half way through the haircut the nurse calls the barber shop telling the barber that “If my father wanted to see this baby being born he had better get down to the delivery room.” My father after hearing the news, having only half a haircut, made it to the hospital just in time to see the beginning of my journey into the world....

.... My grandparents lived right across the street from the beach and when I was little my parents tell me that I would just look out the window and watch the ocean swells roll in. Pointing out boats and seagulls to whoever would listen. I would play on the beach pretending to be a pirate, a sailor in merchant marine, or a castaway stranded on the “deserted beach.” I have vivid memories of learning to surf when I was young. My father had rented my younger brother and me longboards and wetsuits then set us free in chilly northern California Ocean. We splashed around for a couple days trying to figure the whole “catching the wave” thing out and then it happened to me first then my brother. I caught my first wave. From that moment on I couldn’t shake the feeling of being propelled atop the water pushed by the powerful hand of the pacific. Times meaning and significance seemed to melt away into the abyss which I was suspended above atop my fiberglass board. My teenage years were spent pursuing the adrenaline addiction of the ride and rebelling against my parents, society, and whoever or whatever other means of outside control of my self indulgent surfing fix....

Azusa

At the bottom of everything you'll see we were dead from the start. Drowning our conscience in the deep blue lies we told. Leaving the door to sleep cracked open for our beautiful disgrace. We'll shake our heads and drink the day. Or taste the barrel of the gun to drain joy cold in our heads. The innocent condemn the sinners and the guilty will forgive the saint. Here at the top of hell we found in paradise we laugh and sing already done. So very happy to find we were upside down. So please hide our pride and shine this little light all alone against the sunshine on Azusa.

Hang up!

My friend Brian has recently written and actually has been for awhile I suppose writing about the inconsistencies of the beliefs of the church that we grew up in. So after reading his posts I've done a lot of thinking recently on my feelings of religion and church. Most that I've tried so hard to hide from being public. I have come to the realization that 1. a man that is above question or doubt has put himself in a position to become corrupt. 2. A man himself cannot accurately judge reality without perspective. And so how can a man get perspective without counsel? Needless to say there are a lot of angry and confusing memories that cloud how I perceive the church. It has taken me a couple years to even get to a place where I'm "ok" with just attending a church again. I sometimes wonder if I can ever have a normal place in a community of believers. There have been so many times that I've wanted to just walk away from all communities that even loosely resemble that of my childhood. Though not to face my "hang ups" and outright anger isn't at all healthy or what I'd want in the long run.

I missed the boat looking for a plane

I often wonder what life would be like if my decisions along the way would have been different. Would I like the music that I like? Would I go to the places I go, or do the things that I do? Would I love the people that I love, and would I have trouble loving the people that need love? People make a point these days at trying to "be themselves" contrary to being a person untrue to their roots or untrue to their character on the stage of life. Is anyone truely one way or another? I mean I know people prefer certain ways of being as opposed to another, but aren't we all creatures of free will and decision? And being that decisions shape the "person" that we are trying deprately to be, aren't we all just playing or acting up to the decisions we have made? The choices we make and paths we take change things around us, and make us feel nostalgic about how things were before we chose. So is it therefore destiny driving our life or is it in fact the decisions we make? All of this begs the question who will I be in ten or even five years? Would I recognize my future self if I met him today? I can't help but wonder what will I be like? Would I like the music I like, the people I like, or the choices I make? Would I like myself and life I chose? Sometimes I feel like "the man of the sea." The one I wrote about before. I feel like I missed something.

Thrust SSC (Super Sonic Car)

One of my instructors at school fabricated brake and chassis parts for the Thrust SSC in the 90's.

The Projects: '89 Camaro>Big Block Chevy>Drag Racing Machine> part 2

Here is a picture of my engine..So I haven't really done anything since my last post except....take a picture of my engine! Enjoy..

Drag Racing>best face forward

What I want to do when I grow up..

The Projects: '89 Camaro>Big Block Chevy>Drag Racing Machine> part 1 of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

So here's a look at what I'm doing in my spare time. I've been welding, grinding, and fabricating in this little beauty for months now. My Grandpa Zivney hooked me up with a 402ci (cubic inch) BBC (big block chevy) that has stock about 400 horse power. After I'm done rebuilding and modifying it though it should be closer to 700hp. Right now I'm trying to get some money together to finish the roll cage and subframe connectors so I can slide the new engine in. Stay tuned for more.

Are they here?

One of the interesting questions that has confounded men for centuries, maybe millennia, is "Are we alone?" This question has been ignored, counted as frivolous, and put into the category of "Science Fiction" by the powers that be. Movies like E.T., Signs, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and hundreds more, countless books and articles pose this question to the populous. There are people that absolutely believe that there are extraterrestrials in this universe and maybe living along side of us. NASA adamantly denies the existence of aliens from outer space, but has a number of programs trying to make contact with such intelligent beings by radio waves and the such. Incidents such as the Roswell, New Mexico crash, the Phoenix lights (which has thousands of witnesses), and hundreds of thousand of other sightings have been reported. So the question remains amidst the mountain of evidence "Are we alone?" What effect would contact with extraterrestrials have on society? On religion? On the fundamental existence that we know today? Myself, I am undecided on what to think. On one hand I can see that they would change us, yet on the other hand would we change us. I mean would we throw all our hard earned beliefs and philosophies out the window when the flying saucer lands on the white house lawn? What do you think? Is there someone out there? Up in the stars?

Forever Young

Remember the '80s man?

alphaville

A Clockwork Dan: The Journal of a delinquent: Friday July 14th 2000

I went to see Scary Movie with the lads tonight. It was a little weird lots of breasts though. Afterward a complete stranger kissed me as I was exiting the theater. Which took me by surprise as that doesn't usually happen to me when I leave a movie. She told me that she did it on a dare from her friends, who were giggling in the background, and I asked her if she'd have sex with me. She gave me her phone number and I gave her a wink. I probably won't call her though you never can tell what you'll catch at a movie theater. Ha! You heard that in sunday school didn't you! You plagiarizer you! Well they probably don't have the copyright anyway. After the theater excitment being bored as usual in this dumpy vine town I plotted to rob Val's Liquor store! An elaborate plan involving blood and carnage. (Val's where I'd buy beer at twice the normal price) It would have taught him a lesson ripping off minors of our fair community. I woosed out though and just stole a pack of gum. Besides if I shot Val where would I buy beer? And besides that where would I get a gun? Too many questions for this cool summer night. Maybe I should dare the chick from the theater to rob Val's. She'd do it.

There we were all in one place, A generation lost in space with no time left to start again.

They say in ramblings abroad that home is where the people that you love are. Some say home is where your mom lives. Or there is that ever popular "home is where your heart is." I think that may even be a song. The town I have grown up in has never been "home" to me. It may be that I have never felt that I belong here or it may be that this town lacks a community I can relate to. I've lived here for most of my short life. About 17 years I'd say. I've lived, worked, and loved in this town. The band I poured my youth into played open mics and shows around this town from one end to the other. I've had jobs full spectrum all over the town. My immediate family and even some cousins, aunts, and uncles live here in this town. Pretty much all of the girls that I've dated lived here at one time or another. So that said I can't say that the life I've lived here has been a bad one, but in past couple of years I've been feeling cramped inside the city limits. I want to feel the open road again as it was when I was younger. I need to brush off the dust of this sleepy town and go out into the world to find what I've been looking for, what has haunted my dreams. As the wise have said "A life not lived is a life not risked."

Inside of Love

Nada Surf

The death of an actress washed up and put away. Like an old friend that you smile at in the post office. She lays seeping, her body, she closed her eyes. Her wrists are soaking the carpet with a life time of sadness. If she would have thought; it would matter. That it would matter to you. The stain on the ceiling means so much these last moments of the end. The black spots claw at her picture of the world. The world that was sweet once upon a time.

"Ride into the sunset"

she says in her mind. The faintest smile of a memory caresses her thought.

"The love is all lost in a pill. They're on my mind."

Their name spins on a lazy susan. As counting hours for a knock on the door.

"When it comes I'll answer."

she says into the dimming light.

"It'll come tonight."

Defiant the phrase of denial permeates in the silent.

"So come on, come on tell me the difference between here and there? This time. I would span the years of falling in love again. If the years would span."

Years so few in between. The color will turn this around. Around the magazines, the movies they're all dead.

"For first time in years a reason to stay. Should have a reason stay."

A reason to lose what would not delay. What couldn't delay. Chance a life of gambling on the after. Life that is losing virtue of flavor. Virtue of dissonance.

"Virtue will come tomorrow or a day after. As I sleep alone."

Fill my empty room with the sun

I've been having strange dreams the past couple of nights. It usually starts with me walking down a hallway or so it sounds because I can't see the walls it's all completely dark. As I walk I can hear progressively louder what sounds like a party or large gathering of people talking and carrying on. The hall remains dark, but the sounds becomes so loud that it sounds as if I'm in the middle of the crowd. I pause and listen to see if I can discern what is being talked about, but all of the words don't seem to fit together in any logical order it's just random words. I continue down this hall of complete midnight until the sounds of the crowd fades to a dull roar then to an utter lack of sound. I travel further down this endless abyss of a hallway until I see a faint light. As if the sun were cresting the hills of the sleeping valley this light reaches for me and I walk toward it. The closer I get to the light I see that it's a window. A window peering outside of this mournful hallway and it's party of phantoms. As I approach the window I can see the ocean below it's sill and hear the waves breaking on the beach. This window above the ocean at the end of the hallway makes me feel lost and cold. I turn to look back down the hallway expecting to be greeted with the endless dark, but instead seeing a lighted room filled with people back in the distance apparently a party. Then I wake up. I can still see the dream and remember the feeling. An odd feeling. A feeling like standing on a tall bridge looking down at the water below and a gust of wind blowing the hat off of your head. For an instant when you see the hat falling you try to reach out and catch it but your hands grasp only air. This morning I wrote about this dream in my journal. I think it must mean something.

Salvation

Come on baby won't you show me what you got?

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

Global warming one of the most widely spread theories across America today. That's right just a theory not a truth Al. It's more like inconvenient propaganda. It is being pounded into our heads without solid scientific evidence. Since when is it wrong to challenge scientific fact. Does anyone still think the the world is flat? Or has anyone had a grilled moon cheese sandwich lately.(sounds pretty grub by the way) Anyone who questions these conclusions is said to be blind to global events, but maybe we should do a little scientific footwork before we blame your SUV Mr. Gore. The Martians planet Mars is also experiencing "global warming" and it is theorized that other planets orbiting our sun Sol are not exempt from this phenomena. Sol has been experiencing the most violent solar cycle recorded. Massive solar flares a few short years ago blinding satelites and increased stresses on the earth aided in hurricanes and tsunamis. Mr. Gore please get off the internet and get to a confessional booth near you. Confession is good for the soul especially when concerning the apocalypse.

Testify!

It's right ouside YOUR door!

Closer than ever before

Just 54 more days until I'm graduated with a degree. Life up to this point seems to verge on maddness. I've been stranded on the side of the road at 3 am. I've witnessed incredible Accidents involving Semi trucks and automobiles almost weekly. I've seen apparitions in my rear veiw mirror. I've driven right into the middle of a police action involving hostages. I've lived through weeks of only 20 hours sleep for the whole week, working 18 hour days and not even a dime to my name. I've been pulled over numerous times for sleeping at the wheel though never cited. All of this in the past seven months. I feel that once I'm graduated I'll have accomplished one of the greatest feats in history. My personal history anyway. Even though this feat does not stand in competition with the conquests of Cortez or the voyages of Magellan it has forged character into my heart. A boxer when he has fought an opponent 12 rounds taking punches that have rearranged his organs he is said to have a lot of heart. Even though it might be a bit conceited I have to say that it has taken a lot of heart to make it this far, but after this next step into the world I pray to God that my heart does not fail me.

Benny Hinn: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor!

Benny should be a pro wrestler.

A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

Being young is really the most beautiful thing. Your trust in humanity is complete and hope for the future is bright. You never worry where the road ends. As the years grow we follow it's yellow bricks and burn our bridges behind us. The future always seems so far off ahead of us surreal in it's importance. As the smoke from the bridges of our past loom over us the people we have burned along the way seem so innocent of the pain we caused them.

I've forgotten the songs that I would write. I have forgotten the loves I would write them to. I can't remember their names or how they captured my soul. My dreams are desolate these days. I close my eyes but what I see isn't beautiful. I'm always color blind in these dreams of deafening silence. The person I was at the begining of road is locked away in my dreams. He is there always doing whats been done; never changing what was. I've seen those eyes a million times. I can no longer tell where I end and I begin.

Looking down on judgement

Do you ever get those times when your problems seem to just get bigger and bigger? It's like you'd like to just move away and change your name just to be rid of all of it. Despite my best efforts I've made some stupid mistakes the past couple of days, and months, but life is unforgiving. No matter how sorry I am I pay recompense for my stupidity. There is no mercy for the guilty. There are those days that when my alarm goes off at 10 am I want to just roll over and forget the world and all it is. Reality is subjectively real. It is dictated by your state of mind. If your state of mind is different from everyone elses your said to be "out of touch with reality." However individual reality is dictated by what you have percieved or been told to be true. Lifes decisions are delicate. Small ones affect big ones later in time. The thing that is killing me about this is that I know what to do, but I'd rather just be miserable than be what it would make me. I can't stand being by myself right now. I think I'll take a walk.

"You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs."

When I was a child I would wake in the night and be afraid of the darkness. I was afraid of what I saw in my imagination. Afraid of what was in my mind. I've been acutely aware recently that society as it is today and in recorded history have been fascinated with darkness and all that is in the dark. I heard a story on the radio the other day about a man who obsessed with "Freddy Cougar" from nightmare on Elm st. made a razor sharp claw like "Freddies" in the film and slashed a sleeping man. In ancient time they made legends and myths about evil creatures that killed and destroyed and sacrificed animals, even humans to the gods to protect them from these beings. We today make movies and write books about horror and grotesque beings and spirits. Millions, maybe billions, of men and women every year flock to theaters and bookstores to feed this fascination of the dark. We as a society analyze, study, and sometimes even honor criminals and psychopaths. Is there an effect of this fasicnation on society? What is this force that drives society to seek out the darkness? To seek out the dark places of the mind? Growing up in a superstitious religious community that believed that Satan, a fallen angelic being, was the force behind this eclipse of darkness in our society. Personally I tend to believe that in the ongoing search of man finding himself and who he is the dark is a reflection of our minds and desires. This assumption though presupposes that man is basically evil and is himself a fallen being. This point is widely debated among philosophers and theologians with whom my thoughts are of no consequense. Even so if man is basically evil why does he find satisfaction in seeking out the darkness? Is it affirmation of himself; the foundation of his being? Are we really just looking at the darkness in our imaginations? In our minds?

Home,.....home where I wanted to go

Writing this blog is like therapy for me. I have all of these thoughts on life, indirect questions, rants, and memories that it's good for me to write them down somewhere. I used to keep a journal on and off from about the age of fourteen. There are a lot of funny, strange, painful, and even sad memories in those pages. It's funny whenever I get the urge to read through one I usually can only read like two entries before I just kind of zone out and playback in my mind what those days were like and what I was feeling at that time. One thing that I've noticed about myself is that no matter how great I would be feeling one day the next day or two I'd be writing about how much life sucks and vice versa. My life has changed so much yet so little in the past seven or eight years. They say hindsight is 20/20. It's hard to see yourself in the big picture of life and the story of the world when your living in that moment, but take a step back and look at what has been. There were crazy times I came so close to crashing and burning and then there were weeks that I'd spend staring at the ceiling reading latin prayers. I'd write about pretty much anything and everything. It's kind of ironic how years make the moment clear in our minds. An edited entry from August 16th 2002 about a girlfriend I had: "Oh my God, this hurts like hell. I had that dream again where you were lost for good in space. A waking nightmare that is only worse when I am sleeping. Your just someone I used to know now. I never told you that it's not so easy, caving in. Your eyelashes falling and wishes washed away. Bottle up the rain my dear and keep the color in your hair. And get to church cause you're a good girl. It's not so cold out here in the fall only in my dream. Go to sleep now and forget about her man. This only makes it worse. Listen to those hazy eyes." It's crazy I can still remember that day. This girl that I had been dating told me that God told her that we had to breakup because we had made out a few times. I think it was her parents though now that I think about it. Looking at the big picture in hindsight I always seem to get where I'm going.

Teenage angst has paid off well.

I have those days when I just hate my mediocre life. I'm sure most of you have felt this at one time or another. For me it's that I see other people doing so well and talking about all the good times that quite simply I'm envious. I'm tired of always being so close yet not close enough. I know the last page so well. I just can’t see the first. So I just don’t start. People say that I have no life, because I'd rather stay home and drink than hang out with perfectly fine people(girls). I'm becoming a cynical bastard. I'm rude, even a bit of an asshole, to those girls that are attracted to me. Why? It's a valid question. I really don't have an answer. My friends, family, even complete strangers think that I'm just going through the "drinking anti-social" stage. You know? But I'm not going "through" a stage. I'm stuck right in the middle of one and I can't see a way out. It's an endless cycle. I just say "Come on out. We’ll both get right off of our heads and float up off the chair. We’ll go on vacation tonight under a sun of neon light. I almost love this town when i’m by your side so I’m putting this night down to bed. 'cause I was sitting at the bar hoping I was dead. You'd walk in the door and there'll be no more waiting no more. You melt all the ice in my head. You woke me from a long sleep and i’m almost back closer than ever to finding those secrets. If I told you the truth you wouldn’t like what i said. I get secrets at night but they don’t stay. I get secrets at night but then they go away. They'll fall off my lips into yours. I'll find them locked. Locked not like all those open doors. Forgive yourself in the morning when the day can see. But I need no forgiveness when my bed is empty."

You're all by yourself but you're not alone.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm being watched when I know that no one is there. Or I see something out of the corner of my eye but when I turn to look nothing's there. I know that's crazy. Right? I've been told that it's probably just bad pizza or an overactive mind, but still it feels so real at the time. I do believe in supernatural beings and the spirit world, though I tend not to take it to the extent that people from my childhood did. "People are afraid of what they don't understand" is the cliche, but the truth to that is evident in observed behavior.

That being said here is what happened to me the other night believe it or not. I was driving home from school a little after 2:30 am on wednesday morning last week. I'd turned off the radio because of my dislike for commercials and popular music at that moment. I had my window cracked and the morning air was brisk with clouds shrouding the moon in a dull glow. There were no other cars on I-80 except for me and no street light to speak of. My mind was wandering after a long 16 hour day and the road noise lulled me into its droning symphony. After a indeterminable amount of time I was vaguely aware of a hissing sound from the direction of the back seat. The sound grew progressively stronger in volume so I twisted my head and body around to see what it could be. Swerving with the movement of my body to look in the back, but I didn't see anything that could or would make that sound. Puzzled I looked into my rear view mirror and I swear to God to what I saw there. I saw a shadow that could have been a face, but what struck me were two piercing blue eyes looking back at me. Using a four letter word I swerved again ,this time almost getting the car sideways, and slammed on the brakes. I jumped out of the car in the middle of the freeway almost afraid to look in the back, but when I eventually did there was nothing there. After a few moments which felt to me to be centuries a truck passed by honking his horn at me the obstacle in the middle of the road. I reluctantly got back in and continued home. The rest of the trip I kept looking back and in my mirrors to see if I'd see it again, but nothing else happened that night.

Hallucination of a tired mind? maybe. A demon or an angel? Maybe. I can't explain what I saw, but every now and then I feel like someone is watching.

The killer in me is the killer in you.

Have you ever wondered what it is exactly that makes you acceptable to society? Is it your good manners, your regard for life and justice or is it just the fact that you don't "rock the boat", "make waves" in our little pond of society? I have often wondered how for instance that classes came to be in society. In medieval times there were those men that were of "noble" blood and those of "common" lineage. How is it exactly that noblemen became so "noble" and common men became so "common?" I've been watching Borat clips on YouTube and the one thing that i've observed overall is that Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) see's the absurdity of our cultures. He says and does all the "wrong" things in the feign of ignorance. Peoples reaction most of the time is stunned silence or they talk to Borat as they would a child. Why do we delude ourselves that somehow not talking about or acknowledging a subject makes it disappear? Why do we train ourselves and our offspring to sweep "unpleasant" subjects under the rug and pretend that everything and everyone is fine? I'm just as guilty as the next guy in trying to be acceptable to society, but why is it this way? Why are we not straight forward and honest with ourselves and each other? Are we so ashamed of how far we have fallen?

At the bottom of everything...

Today I woke from a dreamless sleep and felt days of summer in air. Summer my favorite time of year. It's the end of things like school and rainy days. The sky so blue it's hard to remember the gray. Sunday afternoons on the beach with the girl you love and parties in the backyard with all your friends. Going to drag races with my dad and my brother and drinking ice tea. My memories of summer are mostly happy days riding my skateboard around downtown. My mom would drop me off at the skatepark downtown and I'd just ride for hours. There were days though of sneaking in the backdoor of the theater and watching like three movies in a row. At night we'd go down to the cemetery sit on somebodies tombstone and tell ghost stories. Other nights we'd get our guitars and drums together and jam all the songs we knew. As you got older you'd make love with your girl on the living room floor. And spend those days just staring at those floating mountains of white talking about your big plans. At the bottom of everything we were happy. It was before we found this liquid cure for all the bumps in the road. I think this summer will bring all those feelings back again. There's just something in the air.

The limits

There is something so very profound in pushing the limits of what we know can be done. Man since his conception has challenged what he knows to be true. "Why?" The citizens of drowsy, lethargic society ask. Why not just accept what is known to be true? Because it is simply that we are what we know. We mortals appearing but for a moment on the battlefield of the immortal titans of good and evil look at ourselves and ask "why?". Our questions are answered in the limits of what we know with the paradox of another question "how?".

In my own life I have found many questions of "how?" and "why?" but the one that is the most real to me the most tangible is "how fast can I go?" From a child my father took me to automobile races of all kinds. At these I witnessed man and machine moving arcoss space and time at speeds that just a few short years ago would have been considered unable to be. There is a change in being at tremendous speed. Time seems to slow and thoughts and reasoning seem to come to you faster than you can comprehend exactly what you're mind is processing. The human struggle to propel ourselves across distance in shorter times is so gritty so real to me. A boy that I had been aquainted with at school lost his life this past week in an automobile accident. The instructors told us that he had been going in excess 250 mph when he lost control of his vehicle. I wonder what he must have felt? The adrenaline pumping through his veins. The sound in his ears the deafening roar of this earth, this time. Most will scoff at his boy wasting his life for this thrill, but what is life without thrill? Without knowing? Is it meaningless? This question of "how fast can I go?" is it any different than the other questions? Any less significant? The limits are there, but are we willing to push?

The loneliness of change

Loneliness is something that I have grown accustomed to. Not apparent if by my own choices, but nonetheless alone. Somehow separated by decisions made. Made by me, made by someone else? I can't tell anymore. The end of all that I have loved and I have hated is close. I can feel the breath of change on my neck and I'm sorry to see it come. I have poured myself into this mold to cast my life differently from the crowd. But the view is not one that I can enjoy alone. There is no one to see the things I see, or hear the things I hear? This fear is certainly my demise. As the man waiting by the oceans edge for his ship to come in year after year, I too have been waiting. Is it by some wrong that I have commited and now reap the fruits of my labors? It's true. I've not been a saint in any definition of the word and have wronged more than a few in this life. But still is there not even another malefactor to share my misery? Here I am waiting. Waiting for my "fishie."

The man of the sea

A cold gray sky over a restless green sea brings the memory long forgotten. Forgotten? Na not forgotten but buried. Buried under years lived.

"A gift from th' gods these days o' mine."

The man whispers to himself with a furrowed brow. The damp cold wind dances across his wrinkled ruddy face and the sea. The sea dim in his ears now as he listens to a voice from days before. Before scars of the struggle to live had marked these rough hands and the light from the sun grew dim in his eyes.

"ye 're but a man Silas. A man with the twilight of ye
years on the horizon. Have ye forgotten the Ammaring? The
Ammaring that show'd ye the way?"

The familiar yet strange voice of the past inquires.

"Na, I h've not sir."

The old man answers the voice under his breath. Looking
up into the sky to see but a glimps of the white cloud. The
Ammaring.

"Na, I h've not, but I fear it has me sir. Ne'r a day has fall'n that it hasn't dark'ned me thoughts."

At that the old man sat on a drift log and waited for a sign. He stared at the sea looking for the shadow, a sign of the cloud. The Ammaring."

The old man waited an hour maybe and said to himself.

"Thy hours ar' few Silas. Has 'e forgott'n his promise to me now?
I pray thee Ammaring don't leave me to the sea and its cold
hands."

...the winds as the chaff...

There is a time in life to start over some would say. Even so others would object, and say that it is more noble to keep what you have been handed. That in the hands of fate your time is carried away on the winds as the chaff is from the wheat. Who knows just where our bones will rest? To dust I guess. Forgotten and below.

I remember one late summer night a long time ago it seems. When I still felt invincible and the world seemed to welcome me like a son it had long been waiting. It was about two maybe three AM. I was walking home after a night of mischief with my pals to sneak back in my bedroom window before my parents saw my empty bed. As I marched along a lone solider in the quiet warm california night I passed a man lying in the gutter. It was an unusually dark night, and as he was just outside the curtain of the streetlight I had made no attempt at stealth or passing him discreetly. He lifted his head and said to me

"Boy, shouldn't you be home asleep?"

In hindsight I should have erred a tad more to side of caution, but me being the somewhat rebellious and extremely ignorant teenager that I was I replied

"Why? You're not at home, asleep. Why should I be?"

To that he chuckled a jolly little chuckle under his breath.

"If I had a home to be asleep in do you think I'd be sawing logs here?"

He said rather ironically. "Sawing logs?" I thought. Missing the euphuism.

"Home. I can't remember where that is anymore."

He said lying his head down again into the gutter. I stood there in awkward silence a long moment and then continued on my way into the night.

I lay awake that night on my bed thinking where that man had been and how he'd ended up lying in a gutter "sawing logs." What adventures and perils had befell this man and how had they made him forget.

Is there a time in life to start over? Some would say that. Even so others would object, and say that it is more noble to keep what you have been handed. That in the hands of fate your time is carried away on the winds as the chaff is from the wheat.