Sex Life Of A Man Without One #5

I am in the midst of a slight predicament. Lately I have been seeking out pleasure more than normal. I have heard it said that this is what human beings do who are in the the midst of suffering. As of late I have been spending more time in the bathtub than normal. My bathroom is lined with blue tiles and the rusty faucet drips small oval water drops into the warm bath water. I will sit there until my heart starts to palpitate and think so many thoughts that my head is spinning when I get out from the tub. The bathroom at midnight is the most quiet place in the world for me to contemplate my life.

Lately I have been looking at the Craig’s List erotic postings more than normal. I have been drawn to not only the pictures of scantily dressed women but also the the titles of the add. “Best Head Doctor In Town,” “Three Sexy Holes For The Price Of One.” It seems as if the titles are exciting me more than the actual erotic pictures of women. And then yesterday it occurred to me- I am obsessed with the fantasy. My life has become so mired in struggle that I am escaping through the mechanisms of fantasy. I am becoming a man obsessed with naughty words.

My wife is fed up with me because in the midst of this obsession I am failing to take care of real responsibilities. Rather than spending my days searching for the raunchiest title I can find that will throw my depressed body into spasms of ecstasy (yesterday I found an add that caused me to immediately gesticulate- “Petite Young Pussy Wants To Snuggle Up With Lonely Cock“)- I should be paying for bills, exercising, cleaning our home, taking the dog for walks and looking for work. But instead, I have become a man stuck in a limbo of pornographic memorabilia.

In the bathtub I use all my might to stay away from my penis. It is not an occasion to indulge my need to orgasm. Taking a bath for me is a time of meditation, of renunciation. I sit there trying to cultivate the silence that alludes me all through out the day. My wife (who is suffering from a chronic cough) will knock on the door every ten minutes to ask me how I am doing. The answer is always the same (“fine, thank you” or “still simmering in hell and high water”). Occasionally I will take a whiskey straight into the tub with me but as of late I have noticed that this simple pleasure has created more suffering for me in the form of uncomfortable irregular heartbeats.

Last night while sitting in the tub I started to think about if there could possibly be a way out of this predicament of not having sex with my wife and being obsessed with the Craig’s List erotic postings. The therapist that I have been seeing has told me to remain patient, “to accept myself as I am without judgment and strive to make little choices that will make my life a lot happier.” She is a Buddhist and is always quoting from the Buddha. The other day she told me, “the Buddha said, seek not pleasure from pleasure but pleasure from suffering.” “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked her. “You seem to be caught up in a cycle of trying to seek out pleasure so that you can escape from your deeper feelings about your life,” she said looking me straight in my eyes. “Yes,” I replied, waiting for this to make sense. “When you can begin facing your deeper feelings, being present with where you are at and feeling it, rather than running away from it by seeking out sexual fantasy, than you can begin to start cultivating pleasure out of where you are at!!“

I have been confused by this, but last night while soaking in the tub I may have experienced a revelation. While sitting there in the nude- I noticed that deep down were feelings are felt I was experiencing discomfort. My innate reaction was to reach for my penis and create a feeling of forced pleasure. But rather than masturbating I decided to just sit with my discomfort, to be present with it rather than run away into fantasy. Everything started to come up- all my months of dissatisfaction and failure. There I was naked in front of it. Now I was able to start to process all this heavy baggage that was beginning to cause me real physical discomfort in my body.

And then just today while sitting in front of my computer staring at a brunette who has sticking her index finger up her vagina and smiling for the camera, I got it. Seek out pleasure from suffering. This means- be present with my discomfort and learn how to transform it into pleasure rather than run from it and go shopping or look at pornography (or whatever my means of escape may be). Just be with the pain…..feel the pain.

So I have been doing this all day and have now broken out into a rash and have a slight fever. My wife says that something is coming out of me that seems to have been stuck deep down for a long time. She has been bringing me hot water and lemon and warm soup. I look at her and smile and realize that there may be a possiblity that I can learn to really make love to my wife. Last time she brought me hot water I thanked her and said “do not worry, sweetheart- I am only in the midst of a slight predicament.”

A Man Out Of Tune.

As a younger man I played the piano more often than I may have wanted. My Grandfather was a violinist for the San Francisco Symphony and he noticed a particular talent in me. Despite his weakness for promiscuous women, he was a committed father and husband who dedicated himself to teaching me “The ways of Beethoven.” As I played he would hummmm along a bit out of tune with the piece I was playing. I would ask him to stop but he would always furiously respond that “the world is not a friendly place! You must learn to play along when things are out of tune!!”

So along went our daily lessons and over time I noticed that he would fall asleep during the middle of our sessions together. He had taken to drinking whiskey and had developed thrombosis in his leg. He no longer took my musical career with as much seriousness as he once did because “I was incapable of playing along in a world that was out of tune.”

I studied music in college and ten years after my grandfather passed away (he was run over by a train) I developed the same obsession for promiscuous women. My first real love was with a bisexual young lady who drank more than a fifth of whiskey a day and collected rare birds. She was often drunk when we went out for dates and passed out by the time I took her home. With my music I had wanted to cure a world from all its imbalances and with my first love, well, I wanted to save her from herself. I wanted to be the knight in shinning armor that would come along and rescue her from the booze that eventually she chose over me.

My heart was broken but I poured my despair into the keys of the piano that I played mercilessly. Unrequited love had caused my soul to separate from myself and turned me toward a punishment that Psychologists refer to as Bulimia. I felt as if I did not deserve the food that I ate and whenever possible I would relieve myself with a pencil or pen down the throat. It was also around that time (my mid-twenties) that I was hired to be the lead pianist for the Oakland Symphony. My career as a maestro of the piano seemed to be budding but my weight and spirit was descending.

It was also around this time that I started to develop GERD (Gastro Intestinal Reflux Disorder). During my performances I would be overcome with a terrible need to burp and release gas. On the piano the microphone is hooked up close to the chest region of the pianist so when loud gas is released or a burp accidentally escapes- it can be heard in the middle of Bach, Brahms, Rachmaninoff or whatever piece I would be performing. This happened often and I remember the day that I saw in the San Fransisco Sunday Chronicle an article entitled “The Pianist and his Intestinal Sonatas.” I was mortified by the fact that the journalist wrote about my inability to refrain from farting during my performance of Brahms No. 1 in D minor or burping during a Beethoven Paino Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major. He also noticed that I was suffering from some horrible wasting disease. The word was out, people started judging me unfairly and I felt completely at a loss to accept myself. I started what I now refer to as the years of self hatred.

Self hate only drove me into a long winter of alcohol abuse. I drank two bottles of red wine a day and developed a serious obsession for eating cheese. Nothing brought me as much satisfaction as sitting alone in my rented room and eating cheese and drinking red wine until I passed out. I especially enjoyed eating warm brie or white cheddar cheese and drinking a bottle of red wine before my performances. But this indulgance also cost me my job, because even though the errors were subtle- I was throwing off the entire symphony because I was “out of tune all time,” the director told me.

In my attempts to create a world that was in tune through my music, I had strangely become out of tune myself. I was 28 years old and addicted to wine and cheese. I had managed to overcome my bulimia but I was afraid of eating food the was not made by my own person. I slept with strange women and started to develop a sexual addiction that lead me into some of the strangest whore houses in Amsterdam, Spain and Carson City Nevada. I was a man whose only purpose had become to forget about the musicality of life and seek out desperate pleasure at whatever cost- so that I could avoid feeling the pain of a world that was out of tune.

At the age of twenty nine I found myself broke and with little prospects for the future. Working in a gourmet shop that sold various kinds of cheeses and wines allowed me the time to take up tennis. I stopped playing after a few months because I found myself always frustrated by my inability to return a lob. I started meditation but could never stop hearing my grandfather voice saying over and over “you have got to learn how to play along with a world that is out of tune!!” The world had become like one big muted tone and I often reminded myself of my grandfather, sound asleep during the middle of a lesson.

The End.

The Hairbrush and The Thief.

I have been in need of a good quality hairbrush for some time. My hair likes to gather together in lumps and locks which refuse to let go of one another. I am at times subjected to the most excruciating pain when combing my hair. Often I avoid this task, letting my hair have the freedom to form whatever shape it wishes. I was told that if I purchased a better quality hairbrush, the pain would not be so great when brushing my hair.

My parents invited me to go with them to view a possible home that they were considering for purchase. It was a large home, still decorated by the current owners modern furniture. There were sputnik lights all over the ceilings and Andy Warhol rugs covering the heated hardwood floors. There were all kinds of bookcases and credenzas filled with books on art and artists along with numerous antique objects. Whom ever the owners of the home were, they obviously had not only much more money than myself but also a collection of culture that very few people could compete with.

The home was a celebration of modernism and the rewards of financial success. It was designed by the innovative architect Alvar Aalto- and was a complete reaction to the dull aesthetic of box homes built for form and function. This home had winding staircases, spiraling hallways and domed ceilings. The real estate agent led us from room to room describing the home with his refined English accent and educated explanations. I could smell the rank scent of alcohol on his breath when he laughed.

My father and mother were pensive. The real estate agent did what he could to paint a picture of the home that no man/woman could resist. I became bored with his pragmatic descriptions and asked which bathroom I could use. Down this hall, around that corner and through some door I traveled until I reached a bathroom that was surrounded with mirrors and heated by radiant heat. The sinks were made of gold and the toilet was marble and had an electronic device that flushed the toilet and activated a fan with a cedar scent. It was at that moment that I realized my parents pensiveness was the result of a realization that there was no way they could afford the house.

I pulled up my pants and proceeded to wash my hands. By chance I opened one of the bathroom doors for no reason at all and inside I found a large black hairbrush. The bristles were made of sheep’s tail and the rest of the brush was made out of ivory. On the handle of the brush was an engraving which said Holmes Hairbrushes For Men, London, Since 1886. When I brushed my hair with it, there was a tingly, almost ecstatic feeling on my scalp. This was the nicest brush I had ever come across. I had to have it.

Fortunately I was wearing a thick coat and had little guilt about stealing from rich people. I stuck the brush in the inside pocket of my coat, washed my hands again and made my way back out to where my parents and the agent were gathered.

“How did you like the bathroom?” the agent gregariously said to me expecting a fascinated response. “Quit an experience,” I replied with a slight cynical smile. My mother then told me that they were just talking about the owner of the home. “Yes, he invented teeth whitening,” the agent said with a contrived look of pride in his eyes. My parents were impressed but all I could do was think “oh, well that explains all the ostentatious wealth.” I then heard my father release gas when the agent said “I talked to the owner today who said that they would be willing to sell the home for $3.4 million.”

I had lunch with my parents afterwards. My father kept bemoaning the self declared fact that he had worked hard all his life and that he deserved to live in whatever kind of home he wanted. My mother tried to be sensible and tell him that he could live in whatever home he wanted as long as it was less expensive. “You guys are too old to go into debt,” was all I could add. “Son, I have enough money to afford that home if I wanted to,” my father said with a hint of frustration in his voice. It was like he was trying to convince himself of something that he knew to be untrue.” Okay dad, you can have your dream home, fill it with all the debt you want,” I remember thinking to myself.

At home, I stood in my freezing cold bathroom (my house is without heat) and brushed my hair for at least an hour. Every frustrated lock in my hair came undone. My scalp was tingling with such joy that I can swear that my hair grew an inch. I rubbed the bristles of the brush against my face and under my chin. I basically took a head bath in that wonderful brush. I then spent a few hours reading One Hundred Years Of Solitude until my wife came home from her night shift. She noticed the beautiful hairbrush on the counter in our bathroom. She asked about it and I could not tell a lie. I may be a thief but I am not a liar.

“You stole this!! What kind of man of integrity are you!!! You want me to have your children!!!! Just last evening you were talking about the virtues of honesty and respect. How could you violate another’s property, no matter how rich they may be? You are 36 years old and do not need to steal other men’s hairbrushes. Get a job and buy your own!!!!” She went on and on until I started to feel a tightness in my chest. Had my small act of theft compromised my integrity? We both have been struggling to make ends meet and the last thing I could afford to loose was my integrity. “Beside,” my wife said, “don’t you know that using another man’s hairbrush could make your hair fall out?” I then looked down at the book I had been reading and noticed a smile pile of hair that had collected upon the page. “You have to return that brush,” my wife said.

My wife packed the brush in a brown paper lunch bag. On the outside of the bag in black pen I wrote I borrowed your hairbrush for a few hours. I did not leave my name. Instead I just wrote the hairbrush and the thief. I drove my car up into the hills where million dollar homes lined the sky line. After a long search I found the Teeth Whitener’s home illuminated with blue and white lights. I pulled up beside the mailbox, rolled my squeaky window down and reluctantly placed the package inside. I could smell the cold midnight air. The air always seems cleaner to me in the neighborhoods where rich people live. It’s almost as if the abundance of money filters out all the pollutants. I took a few deep breaths and looked at the panoramic view of the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Fransisco all lit up in the full moon night. As I put my car into second gear and began my descent back to the lower income neighborhood in which I reside, I noticed that my scalp was beginning to itch.

Brunch With My Wife.

My wife woke me up this morning at the early hour of ten a.m. She told me that she wanted to take me out for breakfast. I tried to be polite and say that she did not have to pay, but after a minimal struggle I decided to relent and let her buy me breakfast. I climbed out of bed, put on a cap, changed into something comfortable and we headed out into the cold morning.

I noticed a small itch in the back of my throat and hoped that it was not an impending sickness. I watched the gray building pass by as my wife drove to a particular restaurant she likes in downtown Oakland. I had not much to say on the drive to breakfast and admittedly told her I was feeling a bit low and under the weather. Being that my wife still experiences the good health which is the result of being in your twenties, she always seemed to be in good spirits.

We sat in a corner where a hint of sunlight made its way through the white blinds. The restaurant was recently opened and celebrated the roaring 1920’s with its Art Nouveau style and elegant old world charm. I ordered scrambled eggs with sausages and my wife ordered eggs and toast. To drink we ordered fresh squeezed orange juice. We where unusually silent staring at everything other than one another. There was only a few other costumers in the restaurant and I could feel a pressure between my wife and I that was soon to come undone.

My wife then cleared her throat and said, “Look I am feeling the need to talk with you about certain things.” “Okay honey, please,” I said welcoming any form of communication. She was hesitant and then began “well…I am worried about you.” “You are worried about me?” I asked- trying to pretend that I was surprised about such a statement. I was not surprised at all.

“Yeah, I am worried. Don’t you have a feeling that anything is wrong?” “What, could be wrong?” I responded feigning a false ignorance. I knew that a lot is wrong. “Look, in the past week you have been experiencing frightening heart symptoms, you have tried to have sex with me in your sleep and you have been sleep walking again, you sit around the house all day doing and saying very little, you are running out of money and are a unemployed high school Teacher with so much talent…. and, and.. last night you were all most arrested while taking a walk and I have noticed that you have been depressed. I feel like something energetically is off with you….and I am concerned.” Then she went silent and seemed to be thinking of other things to add to her list.

I did not know how to respond. Being a male it seems as if some innate mechanism within me wants to deny being helpless at whatever cost. Most males deny their helplessness by gaining wealth and/or power, by over working themselves- but I had and have very little to cover up my helplessness other than a straight silent face.

“I mean common honey none of what is going on with you concerns you? Don’t you feel like you need to take a good look at your life and make some effective decisions that will allow you to make positive changes…so that you can be happy?”

Of-course everything that my wife was saying was accurate. I could not disagree with her but something inside of me wanted to resist her argument. I wanted to say that everything would be okay and not to worry, but I was unable to mumble this obvious delusion. So all I could muster up from the depths of my soul was “things are difficult now, I know…but it only temporary.”

I have $2,400 dollars left in my bank account and no prospects of a job lined up on the horizon. Yesterday I went for a job interview as a drug and alcohol counselor but it is my belief that I sabotaged the interview by wearing jeans and asking the panel interviewing me, “so there is not much bureaucracy in this job is there?” They did not know how to respond. When one person on the panel asked me how my parents would describe me I said, “a nice kid, but a big disappointment.” The interview only lasted twenty five minutes.

“How did the job interview go yesterday?” my wife asked me. “I’d rather not talk about it,” I said staring down at the white table cloth. The waitress came with our food and kindly asked us if we would like anything else. I smiled at her and told her we were fine, “thank you.” As I watched her walk away I felt a chill run up my spine when the thought came into my mind that if I did not find a job soon I was going to have to return to the work of being a Waiter. I did this job (which almost always left me feeling like I had been dragged behind a car across asphalt for hours) for many years and I AM TERRIFIED OF HAVING TO RETURN to this world of contrived smiles and disappointed dreams.

“How are your eggs?” my wife asked me. “They are good, how about yours?” “They’re a little under cooked and soggy, but it’s okay,” she said while chewing her food. “Sorry about that,” I said not knowing if I really meant it- and we continued to eat the rest of our breakfast in silence.

The Stranger

I was almost arrested for being a stranger in my own neighborhood. I had failed to notice before today the sign postings which say “Neighborhood Watch: Please Report Any Suspicious Behavior Or Persons To The Police Department.” I have a tendency to walk with my eyes plastered to the ground rather than staring at the sky. As a child my father would always tell me to keep my chin up.

I have been spending a large majority of time inside the confines of my home. My wife had noticed that I was wearing the same outfit at dinner time that I had slept in the night before. I was feeling out of shape, depressed and concerned about a lingering arrhythmia that I have been noticing in my chest. After dinner I told my wife that I needed to go for a walk. “But it is freezing cold outside,” she replied- to which, I responded “the cold ain’t gonna be what kills me baby.”

I am a tall man. Almost six foot seven to be exact. I have long hair and a strangely long and asymmetrical face. My nose is almost the size of my feet and I have arms which are droopy and mis-proportioned to the rest of my body. I dressed in many layers, stuck on a ski hat which covered my elfin ears and headed out into the great outdoors.

The neighborhood was quiet. Deep in the distance I cold hear cold fog horns. There was an icy bucolic feeling which hung around in the air. Christmas ornaments and lights filled the windows with a strange surreal quality. Inside families seemed to be warm and tragically in love with their lives. I on the other hand was rubbing my hands together for warmth and feeling the alienation that a Jewish man feels around the time of Christmas. I walked slowly, trying to be present with my breath. My footsteps sounded to me like muted knocks against a castle door. I wanted to walk for enough time that it would take the cold to freeze all my problems.

There is a Buddhist mantra that I recite whenever I feel the need. To warm up my lungs and blood I decided to recite the mantra as I walked. Om Mani Padme Hum. I sang this mantra over and over as I walked along, forgetting about time and the loudness of my voice. As soon as I began to forget about the cold I felt the warmth of a white light engulfing my entire body. I turned around and saw the multi-colored lights of a police car flashing and coming directly toward me.

“Sir, can you please step over to the side of the sidewalk and take your hands out from your pocket,” one officer said as he walked toward me with his left hand on the handle of his gun. Another officer stood by the passenger side of the police car shinning a bright flash light directly into my eyes. “What seems to be the problem officer,” I said as I covered my eyes with my hands. “Sir keep your hands by your side,” the officer said to me as he approached where I was standing.

“What are you up to this evening sir,” he said with an official tone of authority. I wanted to say what damn business is it to you what I am up to, this is America and in a free country I have a right to be up to whatever I want without having to tell some low ranking man in a silly uniform what I am up to. “I’m just out for a walk officer,” I said too afraid to express my real feelings. “Do you live around here sir?” What business is that of yours, “Yes, sir I live a few blocks over with my wife and cat.” He looked at me from foot to head as if there was something that he found suspicious about my person- beside my unusual height. “Why are you out for a walk when it is freezing cold outside?” he asked getting a little closer to me. “Because I spend too much time inside.”

I could hear on the police radio a female voice saying that there was a domestic abuse complaint called in on Harrison street. Harrison street was only two blocks from where we were. “Don’t you think you should respond to that since it is so close,” I said suggesting that I was an innocent man out for a harmless walk. “Sir, you need not tell us how to do our jobs,” he said with a tone of contempt in his voice. My tax dollars go toward paying your salary but I can’t tell you how to do your job? I wanted to say but kept the peace. “Can I see some form of identification?” the officer then proceeded to ask.

This reminded me of times in Nazi Germany or any Fascist country when you would be out on a walk minding your own business and an officer would approach you and ask to see your papers. “Why do you need to see my identification,” I asked. “We received a complaint from a home owner in the area who said you were acting and looked suspicious.” “Suspicious?” I replied surprised by what I had just heard. “Look, I live in the neighborhood and have just come out for a leisurely stroll.” “That is all and good sir but can you prove to me that you live in the area and that you are who you say you are,” he said not wanting to let me go. “I did not bring any identification with me.”

The officer than proceeded to pull out pen and a piece of paper and asked me for my name and address plus my drivers license number if I had it. The other officer continued to stand by the car door holding the flash light pointing directly at me. “What is this, am I a stranger in my own neighborhood!!” I asked frantically. But the officer stood there waiting to take down my info.

Across the street, behind the Christmas lights I noticed faces staring out from the warmth of their homes watching the events that where taking place. I was the central protagonist in this realer than real Reality television program. I was the stranger in my own neighborhood.

“He is cleared,” the officer holding the flashlight said as he got confirmation of my identity from the operator. I had given them all the info that they wanted so that I could get out of this humiliating situation. The officer who was standing closest to me said “you are free to go but if you could keep your voice down while you are walking around we would appreciate it.” “Keep my voice down?” “Yes sir, the home owner said that there was a really tall man walking around singing loudly in some kind of tongue language.” “I, I was……,” but I decided to forget it and not even try to explain. “Have a nice evening sir, and make sure you don’t stay in the cold for too long,” he said returning back to his police mobile. Like the law really cares about my well being, I thought. I stood there in a kind of silent stupefaction trying to process what just went on as I watched the police car race off down the street to answer the next call of duty. As soon as the police car disappeared, so did the curious faces behind Christmas lit windows.

I had forgotten about the cold, forgotten about my pain, forgotten about everything that had seemed so important to me not more than twenty minutes before. I walked home as quickly as my nimble legs would allow. Who could the home owner that reported me be, I kept saying over and over to myself looking in the windows of strangers homes seeing if anyone looked like a possible candidate. When I finally arrived back in the warmth of my dimly lit home my wife came out and said, “what took you so long I thought you had frozen to death or gotten arrested.”

A Meditation On The Art Of Blogging

“To be is to be perceived.” -George Berkeley (1685-1753)

The blog has no beginning and no end. It occupies a gray, formless limbo into which the hero passes at death. The place is probably the inside of his/her distant skull where he/she is bound in time and words.

The “I” that writes is a voice inescapably perceiving its own continuance, the voice of the creature who has been concealed behind and spoken through a computer. He/she slips into the blog with the hopes of learning something about his/her self.

Words are supposed to imprison the infinite, the solution has never been more desperately needed, it has never seemed more impossible. What emerges from this “I” attempt is fragments: chips of meaning, short descriptions, changes of direction, stories rapidly abandoned, all vomited out into a whole that defies the restraining techniques of criticism.

The blog views man/woman and the word as valueless- a zero.

At one point the blogger compares himself/herself to Prometheus- in whose exile he/she notices certain similarities. But the blogger insists that “between me and the miscreant who mocked the Gods, invented fire, denatured clay, and domesticated the horse, in a word obliged humanity, I trust there is nothing in common between us.” Blogging like knowledge, is only a way of multiplying the zeros.

The blogger believes that time is circular, without beginning or end but with repetitions continued into eternity, and each revolution of a blog entry separates one cycle from another. Thus it is conceivable that he/she should exist, excluded from the infinite, within eternity itself.

The blogger dissociates him/herself from him/herself by creating blog entries resulting in a culmination which is an attempt to eliminate everything that is superfluous to the self. The blogger is a “tiny blur in the depths of a computer screen,” pure existence which lacks an authentic relationship. Being looked at is fundamental to human relationships. When looked at we become an object that is definitely located within space and time. “I” exist though unknowable to myself because the other perceives me. Therefore since the blogger can not be perceived he/she suffers the subjective isolation (perpetual dissatisfaction)/freedom- which is the art of being “inconceivable.”

Screeming For Freedom In New Orleans.

I have been appalled lately by these billboards that I am seeing all around that say “New Orleans, The City Where Anything Goes!” These advertisments are brought to you by your better tourist bureau who is basically trying to create enough revenue to turn OLD Orleans into a modern day NEW theme park. It’s a simple ingredient and it has been made in various cities such as New York and San Fransisco and soon to come in Baghdad. Remove the elements of diversity and culture from the city (gentrification) and bring in big business which will create a clean corporate mono culture. A city safe enough for tourism. Clean enough to eat off of the streets. But lets not be fooled. It is no longer a city (which means a diverse economic and culture population of people all co-existing together in a small space)- it is more like a simulation of a city which is a simulation of a corporate think tank on how to turn the citizens into consumers. Our cities are becoming occupied by the forces of greed.

No better place can this be currently seen than in New Orleans. Just today, what took place could not be a better demonstration of the workings of this corporate restructuring. A large croup of citizens all gathered together to raise their voices about a particular issue that was being debated by the city council. They patiently waited outside while city officials decided their fates inside. The irony is that what was going on inside had nothing to do with what was going on outside (this is a symbol of the split between government and people).

Inside the city council was debating whether or not to tear down large amounts of public housing. Thousands of citizens in New Orleans have been without housing since Hurricane Katrina and thousands more have been living in trailers without running water or electricity. On the outside the crowd was gathered together not only to protest the moral authority of a body politic that would even think about tearing down public housing when so many have not even had housing for so long. They were also protesting the utter destruction of their quality of life and the constant neglect that is the result of a corporate occupation of a city. They are fighting for the very substance and survival of the city that they love and are being systematically cleansed from.

Police officers, growing wherry of the large crowd that was gathering tried to control the situation through a means that only made the frustration of the crowd turn to anger. “They are tired of being controlled and manipulated into submission by strangers who claim to be the authorities,” one activist/friend said who called my from the event. “They are a people that feel as if they are being ethnically cleansed from their city. They feel that they have a right to be a part of any decision making process that involves their fate,” he said before hanging up the phone because things were heating up. Gathering together their human dignity they pushed through the barriers that the police erected and attempted to make their was into the city council meeting (in case it is not obvious to you, the majority in the crowd where African American).

Those unlucky enough to be in the front lines were wrestled to the ground, hit with police clubs and “electrocuted” by police who were committed to violating the human rights of American citizens. Watching this sad scene on my computer I felt as if I was watching footage from the civil rights clashes of the fifties and sixties.

What we need in this country is a new civil rights movement. A commitment to apprehend power from corporations who are stripping each and every one of us of our freedom (did you know that over 300,000 American citizens go to Tijuana every year for medical care because they can not get it in America). The citizens of this country are viewed as tools to maximize profits for corporations (this is what education has become- an organized system the trains students to become workers, or maximizers of profit. No wonder our educational system is in crisis) and if they can not do this are “washed out of the city,” as one citizen said who was apart of todays peaceful turned violent gathering. “What is happening in New Orleans is a symbol of that which is taking place in all of our souls. Anything that is diverse and unique is being flushed out and turned into a corporate ethos which turns human beings into classified consumers,” said my Buddhist Teacher when I talked to him about todays events.

If we continue to allow what is going on in New Orleans to continue we are allowing the corporate take over of our very souls. We are allowing injustice to become the norm and allowing innocent people around the world to be displaced and murdered in the name of Democracy and Freedom. Yes, I am bothered every time I see a billboard on the side of the road that says “New Orleans, The City Where Anything Goes!!” It is a blatant lie and an assault on our intelligence. Yes, I suppose anything goes in New Orleans, unless you are poor, neglected, displaced, sick, American and screaming out for freedom.

The Man Who Walked Into A Black Hole

 

If you fall into a black hole you will never return. I remember hearing this. I do not remember where but I remember hearing this. I do not want to believe it.

 

 

Around me there is no oxygen. Thinking thoughts is all I have yet it is so difficult. I am able to listen to music in my mind/head, which is a piano concerto by Mozart or Satie. I prefer somnolent sound. It suits my incorpreal state, which seems to be nothing but a gradual but beautiful unfolding in time/space. Myself has been reinvented into a thought. Or should I say, my ego is but a dream. This is all that is left of me. A thought or an ego that believes itself to be residing someplace in the center of the galaxy. I am no longer with physical butt or penis or face – but I see stars dying all around me and I can I attest to the fact that I am not dead.

 

 

The genesis of my current condition is peculiar. I remember everything. I finished my job waiting tables and I was walking home some time after midnight. I was feeling very negative from a feeling of dissatisfaction with my job, my life and the peevish middle-aged man who was dissatisfied with my wine pouring capabilities. I suppose frustration mixed with despair would be fair ingredients to describe my mental state. I was aware of an overwhelming smell of carbon in the air. I walked past a home with a sullen woman playing a grand piano in the window. I could hear the subtle cords moving with the candlelight that sat on the mantle. As I walked past the home I looked up into the night sky and noticed a full moon and a mass of glistening stars. It was almost as if I could see the formations of galaxies and hear the pull of planets. I began to feel a bit fluish and light headed as I heard the piano chords change into a static hummm. Suddenly I was filled with a magnetic feeling that…. attracted the center of the galaxy toward me.

 

 

Everything went dark. Everything vanished and I was surrounded by what I can only refer to as invisibility. I felt my body begin to fall through a space, which seemed to be the shape of a ring. There was a loud gurgle accompanied with a sensation of weight or matter falling apart. I noticed that my disintegrating body looked like a dark shadow hiding behind a curtain of light. It was then that all gravity and matter was absorbed and I lost all sense of detail and form. I was leaving the territory of gravity where fruit hangs from trees and life is lived on solid ground.

 

 

As I passed through time I felt an incredible sense of tranquility. It was the feeling of a soft trace of silk caressing its way around my skin. I was almost bubbling with emancipation from my physical body. I had surrender into the situation without a sense of resistance. It was then that I repeated to myself several times a word I no longer remember.

 

 

As I moved through space I could see the entire history of the future universe in a very finite period of time. It was remarkable to see all of time, past and future unfolding before me in what felt like a brief moment or two. I saw everything that has ever occurred in human history within the blink of an eye. I watched a child born, grow old and be buried in a cemetery all in the time it would take to rub away a spot from a glass window. My favorite part was seeing large civilizations grow out from farmland and then collapse as a result of arrogance and the abuse of power.

 

 

Now there are only very few objects around me. Stars, space and what looks like an occasional bird. I feel as if I am looking through an open widow at objects that are billions of light years away. Light goes on as far as I can see, a constant succession of echoes and big bangs. I am alone and never tired. In fact I do not believe that I sleep. I know that I dream but I believe that this occurs while I am awake. Somehow matter takes form in my thoughts.

 

 

There is some light around me which seems be created by the energy ingesting some sort of matter. I am not certain about this because dust particles obscure the light. At various times the light will fall away and turn into a massive wind. The sound that is created reminds me of the summers that I would spend as a child singing and crying in an empty pipeline. It is a hollow sound that makes me long for a past that I have forever lost. The only evidence of my tears can be traced back to my thoughts.

 

 

I may be twelve billion light years away from my home. I become homesick when I am surrounded by the terrible sounds of constant explosions, which create such high temperatures that even sound eventually burns up. Everything around me begins to pulse and shine a bright luminescent light. It is as if I am within the beginning stages of creation. The light is so bright that it is like having a large searchlight shined directly into your eyes. The pulsation throbs like an irregular heartbeat and for a brief moment I can see what looks like a large piece of plasma floating through space.

 

 

I do not believe that I fell into a black hole but rather I attracted it to me. The immense amount of negativity that I was carrying home with me that evening caused the entire universe to be attracted to me. The degree of my negative energy attracted an equal external energy. This is the only way I can describe the phenomena. It was a self-induced condition in which my negativity burned away my physical life form. I was not pulled, stretched or forced- but rather walked right into a hole. For a brief second I was standing at the edge of the earth before I was propelled forward through a curve in time. I could see photons and electrons interacting in front of me, causing the light to flicker as my physical body disintegrated into ribosome’s, lysosome’s, mitochondria and nucleus’s set free from the bondage of a cell wall. I was slowly vanishing.

 

 

My main light source now is primarily light concentrated right above my head, like a cone, which is shinning directly down upon me. It flickers, goes out and radiates brightly all at a single time. When it grows dark for extended periods of time I experience a longing for home. I crave interaction with the outside world and attempt to dream scenes of escape and entertainment. I recreate my favorite Fellini films, re-living the entire script in my thoughts. I dream of sexual interactions I once had over and over refusing to let the experience end (I have become perverted in my incorporeal form). But it is the simple things I miss most. Walks with my wife, conversations with strangers or lying in bed reading a book. I see my wife’s face and I am overcome with a longing, which is strong enough to create a frantic light in the darkness. It is amazing to me that I can still think and feel; yet I have no physical body. I am only a series of thoughts exploring itself in the eternity of time and space.

 

 

In one of my dreams I held a conversation with a professor of Astrophysics. We were sitting on a white couch talking about how I could escape from my nebulous circumstance. The professor had created his own time machine, which could stretch time like a pretzel. He insisted that his machine could manipulate the energy of a star, which could then manipulate the past. “Like say you had the ability to go back in time and shoot your parents before you were born. Or you could go back in time and become a doctor or find work which fills you with joy so you could avoid the negative energy created by your job as waiter, which attracted the black whole towards you to begin with,” he would tell me.

 

 

He insisted that he could bend time, which would allow me to be freed from my immaterial condition. “By exploring Einstein’s theories and coming up with solutions to his equations I can free you from your present state. Think about cosmic strings, which have been left over from the big bang. If I can find one cosmic string then I will be able to solve a way to bend this string and allow you to arrive back home before you started.” I shook his hand and did not want to let go until he promised me that he would set me free. I had put on my finest suit for our meeting and was left sitting alone on the white couch waiting for a time, which would never come.

 

 

Day upon day I think within this endless cycle of interacting photons and neutrons, which seem to imprint context into my mind. I always find myself thinking about various ways of escape but these thoughts lack the matter to create any tangible device that would reward me my freedom. It is strange. When I was a physical body I always felt restricted by the society that I lived in. I was angered by the constant assaults on my freedom. I protested and rebelled and struggled to remain free. Now I am alone and without form, levitating for an eternity in the wide-open freedom of space and all I can do is think about how I am going to escape. I wait longingly for the professor to appear with his time machine and return me to a world I never was happy living in. I want to go back in time, get in my bed and finish the book that I was reading. I want to kiss my wife good night and learn to be happy with what I had before walking into a black hole.

Copyright © 2007 Randall Sokoloff

Sex Life Of A Man Without One #4

  It is raining out. There is a calm contentment in my chest. The air is pleasant to breathe and I am home alone. I was looking at clever erotic adds on the internet- “Sexy Freak 4You” “Young And Eager To Please” and as I was going through the adds my wife called to tell me that she loved me. She also told me about a new form of therapy, called EFT, which she thought might be good for me. I was in a bit of a hurry to get off the phone because I felt guilty about the naked brown haired lady spreading her legs on my computer screen. This throbbing lust seems to rarely leave me alone.

Last night I decided to venture out into the city on my own. I parked my car and wondered around the Tenderloin. It was drizzling. There is something magical about a city when it is raining. I met all sorts of characters from the streets, including a man with a moving nipple (whom I will talk about at length some other time). I sat in a dark smoky bar and drank ginger ale and decided that my body could benefit from an Asian Massage.

I had been thinking about doing this a lot recently but I was always unwilling to spend the hard earned money. However I was able to sell a few paintings the other day for a large sum of money- so I decided to celebrate.

Next door to the bar was a joint called “The Sun Spa.” I rang the rusty buzzer and was greeted by an older Asian lady dressed in a white dress. She offered me a cup of tea but I declined. I was shaking and a bit apprehensive about the situation I was walking into. “Did I really need to do this,” one half of my brain said while the other half shouted, “Yes…Move forward and Relax!” A line of scantily dressed Asian women lined up before me and I was told to pick which one I wanted. It was a hard decision to make because my anxiety would not allow me to see straight. The ginger ale rumbled around in my stomach as one of the girls said, “he is so tall and looks like a movie star.” I thanked her but she giggled and looked down at the ground.

I choose a woman who was dressed in black gown, which revealed her nicely shaped breasts, which hung like adornments from her chest. Her hair was black and straight and pulled back into a ponytail. She took my hand and lead me down a long hallway and into a red neon lit room. She went over to the shower in the corner and turned it on. “You like water hot?” she asked me in a high-pitched accent. “I do,” I said as I took off my pants. There was a small mattress on the floor covered with clean white sheets. Floor to ceiling mirrors surrounded the room and there was a long bar which hung down over the bed. By the side of the bed I noticed a table with all kinds of lotions and towels.

“You shower and I be back soon.” I did what she said and washed myself well from head to foot. I could feel my heart rapidly beating and I started to think about “what if I dropped dead now and my body was found in a massage parlor. What would my wife and family think!!” This thought made me even more anxious so I quickly washed the soap off my body and stepped out from the shower.

I wrapped a towel around my waist and sat on the side of the mattress awaiting the masseuse’s return. She came back into the room holding more towels and a cup of tea. She offered the tea to me and said, “I noticed you shaking, tea help you calm down.” She then set down the towels and told me to go ahead and lie on my stomach…., which I did.

I was starting to feel more relaxed as she walked on my back holding herself steady with the bar hanging over the bed. She walked up and down my spine saying “do you hurt” “is this okay” and beneath the pressure of her weight all I could do was say “yes…fine…fine…” I looked in the mirror and watched her hourglass shape walk up and down the length of my anxious body.

She then rubbed baby oil all over my legs, back and arms. She asked me if it felt good and I then asked her what her name was. “Amy, I know next you asked me where I from,” she said in broken English. “Yes, where are you from?” “Vietnam.” She continued to gently rub my arms which created a release of stress so great that I was finally able to be very comfortable in the present moment. She pulled on my fingers and toes, pounded my back (which made me burp) and did some sort of acupressure on the bottom of my feet, which made me laugh. “You ticklish?” she asked with a smile. “Very,” I replied.

She massaged my legs and testicles and stuck her fingers between my butt checks. I was not sure how to respond to this but it felt good so I let out a little mone of pleasure. “You like balls rubbed?” I took a deep breath, how was I to respond other than to say, “it feels very nice, thank you.”

While she continued to massage my body we had a small conversation. She told me that she comes to San Francisco for a few months a year to work for weeks straight earning enough money to return home and support her family. Her mother is dying and her father she said died at a very young age. I began to feel the guilt come over me but I stopped it as soon as she took off her clothes and asked me to turn over.

My heart began to rapidly beat again. This was the first time I had been in the presence of a beautiful naked body in some time. My first reaction was to reach out and touch her breasts but I was able to hold my self back. My erection was so strong that when she grabbed my penis in her hand and bent over to whisper in my ear “do you want to have fun with me?” I had an orgasm. I had lost all ability to restrain the biological impulse to cumm. It was something that happened without my own awareness, like the explosion of a valve. She was surprised when she noticed what was happening and let out a whooping, “mmyyyy gossshhh so quick!!!” I apologized profusely for my ”accident” and all she could do was look at me and say “you no have sex in long long time.” I shook my head and said, “no long long time.”

Amy was incredibly generous. She cleaned me up and led me back into the shower where I could get the residual sperm off my body. While I was in the shower she changed the sheets and told me maybe next time if I come back I would do better. All I wanted to do was get out of there and return to the bar and drink more ginger ale.

While I was dressing, she sat on the side of the bed and stared at the clock. “You still have ten minutes left,” she said. “It’s okay I feel good,” I replied for lack of something interesting to say. I then asked her how many times a day she has sex with men. “I have sex with ten to twelve men every day. Some days like today are good day. I see twelve men but today a few men like you. They cumm so fast, so no sex. Usually men stick penis in me and cumm fast, so no big deal. But sometime men take to long and it hurt.” I was surprised. “You have sex with that many men every day?” Yes,” she said with a sad giggle. “How many days in a row?” I asked. “I work for three weeks straight and take five day off. I do this for two or three months and then go back home to my family.” “That’s a lot of sex,” I said. “I know but its okay, I am young and like sex.” “How old are you?” She got up from the side of the mattress took the dirty towels from me and said without looking me in the eye, “twenty four.” I did not believe her.

She led me by the hand back down the hallway. I walked behind her looking at all the fish tanks filled with various kinds of fish and statues of Asian deities. I had not noticed this on my way in. I was more relaxed now and felt a calmness that only comes after the release of sperm. There was not an ounce of longing or lust present in my body. I was a man at peace.

She opened the gated door for me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “ You such a nice man, make sure you come back soon…and have more sex with wife!!” I walked out onto the street and was trying to figure out how she knew I had a wife. Then I noticed that I was still wearing my wedding ring. I returned to the bar and drank ginger ale and watched a fat elderly man fall asleep on the bar with a cigarette in his mouth. In the corner two lovers kissed and smoked cigarettes. They were very thin and looked as if they had not eaten for days. I wondered if what I had just done could be considered cheating and the answer to that I am still as of yet unable to come up with. All I know is that as I am writing this I feel calm, all except for the lust that has returned. I know it is only a matter of time before my lust takes control of me once again.

“This Could Be Madness.”

I have been painting for over twenty years and now when I am done doing so I have a plethora of unsettling symptoms. I get dizzy, my lips stick together, short term memory loss, headache, chest pains and a general feeling of being poisoned. I have tried a respirator (but I feel claustrophobic and sometimes will get a panic attack). I paint with all my windows open, even though it is ice cold outside. I have tried everything from switching to using acrylic paint to painting with watercolor. But this will not work. I live in a world that has gone mad. People communicate in a detached manner and barely know the person they sleep with. The sky is turning black and the air we breath is filled with so many carcinogens that we should all be wearing respirators. The frightening thing is that most pretend as if nothing unusual is happening. No, as an artist it is my responsibility to depict the nature of the times we are living through with whatever means necessary. If it means poisoning myself with my materials, so be it- extreme times call for extreme measures.

Van Gogh experienced similar symptoms which lead to his madness. It is obvious that the man was poisoned by paint. In his letters to Theo he talks about how he was feeling dizzy, lightheaded and a cacophony of other symptoms. He also talked at great lengths of developing loss of self. The same loss that I believe myself to be developing. But I do not know if this is because of the paint I am inhaling or the world in which I am living.

I went to consult a Homeopath, an Allergy Specialist, a Chiropractor and a Somatic healer. All had various things to say about my condition, and all were helpful in various ways but I still feel this deep sense that I am loosing myself. So I decided to consult a Buddhist Teacher and what he said made sense.

“Our culture poses the ultimate threat to not only planetary life, but to all human beings that live within this eco-system. We are deploying the five-horsemen of our immanent man made apocalypse; population explosion, epidemic disease, unlivable pollution, resource depletion and wars of mass destruction. The urgent need, therefore, is that we bearers of this imbalanced, dis-connection culture rediscover our interconnection with the rest of life, to conquer our own inner negative habits and to cultivate our inner capacity for love and joy. Sometimes we need to loose ourselves before we can do this.”

So I have felt better. Even though my loss of self may be attributed to paint fumes rather than spiritual encomium. I must continue, despite the numerous disabling symptoms, to paint- but I have warned others that if they see me walking around without an ear to immediately take away the paint and call the nearest psychiatric hospital.

Sex Life Of A Man Without One #3

Now look. I do not always remember things being this difficult. I once had a sex life and it was quite prodigious. I had girl friends, mistresses, prostitutes and strangers all engaging me in my various fantasies. When I look back on my twenties I am reminded of a passionate commitment to indulge myself as much as possible through the sexual act. I was a young man obsessed with ovaries, estrogen, clitoral crura, vagina, uterus, glans clitoris, labia, vulva, pereneal urethra, hips, rounded jaw, buttocks, thighs, boobies- basically all things female.

But as I have moved into my thirties, something has shifted. It is almost like when you ferment a pickle, its entire biological and physiological structure shifts. It trans mutates into something chemically different than it was before. This is what has happened as I have grown older.

The more I feel as if I have gained control over my sexual whims the less I seem to comprehend the core of my sexuality. This core is beginning to fill with rust and starting to control its subject without asking me first. I feel like a victim of my own repressed sexual drives which are starting to manifest in peculiar ways.

I started sleep walking shortly before I was married. I was found across the street by my neighbors who said that I was ringing their doorbell yelling out for “hot footsies.” I do not know exactly what this means but my psychoanalyst told me it could be related to a repressed fetish that I have for feet. I disagreed with her but then I remembered a time when I was in college and I had a fellow student stick her large toe up my anus. We were drunk and had done everything else “sexual” together. This idea came into my head only because she had a particularly long big toe. It was long enough that she was able to write my name on my chest in fine cursive with a pen and her left foot.

After I was found yelling “hot footsies,” on my neighbors porch- my neighbor and I began avoiding one another. It seemed as if they became afraid of the “strange man across the street.” Then another episode occurred. About a year ago I was pulled over by a police officer at 4 a.m. while sleep driving in the nude. I was violently awoken by the sound of the sirens and the flashing lights. Shock, would be the only word that I could think of that could describe my reaction to finding myself driving my wife’s car in the nude. I immediately stepped on the brakes which caused the police officer to rear end me. I was frantic and tried to explain to him that “I had no idea what I was doing, I have a sleep disorder!!” The officer looked at me as I stood in the early morning suburban street in the nude pleading with him to take me home. The officer was bereft at how to respond to this so he parked my car on the side of the street and drove me back home. The following morning my wife received a phone call from the police department recommending that I receive psychiatric attention and that she hold on to my car keys.

My psychoanalyst was certain that these episodes of what she called noctambulism had something to do with my sex drive which she felt was being locked up behind bars. I needed to find ways to set it free with my wife, or at least with my wife’s permission. So I asked my wife how she would feel if I received a hand-job from a prostitute, got a lap dance at a strip club or had a little tiny affair and the conversation was one of the shortest we had ever had. “If you do sexual things with other women, why can’t you do them with me?” What was I to say to this? I had no answer.

The episodes seem to halt for the past few months. My wife had found me taking a shower dressed in a t-shirt with a picture of Sigmund Freud on the front (this was the t-shirt I felt most comfortable sleeping in). Other than this and a few minor episodes, no great sleep walking ordeals had occurred until last night.

I woke up when I landed on the floor, beside the bed. I noticed that I was again naked (which was strange because I went to be with my Sigmund Freud t-shirt and sweat pants on). My wife was standing above me in her black night gown yelling with a gasping and bitter tone in her voice “what are you thinking, what is it you are thinking!!!” I did not know how to respond because I did not know how I ended up naked on the floor. I looked at the clock which said 3:13 a.m. I recalled glimpses of a dream where a strange middle aged women was showing me her finely trimmed pubic hair and asking me over and over “do you like it?” I was puzzled. Dreams and my wife’s pleas where spinning around in my brain. When I asked her what happened she yelled back in tears, “you were humping me in your sleep!!”
Today my wife and I went to a Somnambular sleep clinic where they treat various sleep disorders. My wife told the Doctor and I that she was awoken by me thrusting my penis in between her thighs. She sleeps on her stomach so I was lying on back of her, humping her in between her thighs. “It was like being molested by a dog,” she told the Doctor. I sat there holding her hand and silently felt the consequences of being a man without a sex life. We left the clinic an hour later with prescription medication and the recommendation that I masturbate every evening before going to sleep.

No One Ever Dies From Marijuana?

You may or may not want to know this, but I thought I would tell you that I am writing this essay in my underwear. You see I feel more room to write when I am not restricted by the confines of clothes. I also feel less inclined to be dishonest in my writing because I feel less restricted by the false impression that clothes can give. I woke up this morning remembering my long-lived love affair with marijuana. I have not revisited the neural delights of the cannabis plant in some time but this morning it was as if I longed for a rekindled encounter with my longest-lived-love affair. This encounter could be more easily referred to as a quickie. The only way that I felt I could deal with this nostalgic rumination which was slowly turning into longing, was to climb out from bed and without changing into more formal attire write an abbreviated essay in response to a much decried postulate that I often attested to. You cannot die from smoking Marijuana, right?

My love affair began haphazardly in 1987 without any formal planning. It was a love affair that was not fiery and passionate from the get-0-go, but rather slowly developing and refining until it was solidified into a sure thing. I was in my junior year of “high” school and attended my first rock concert (without parental escorts) at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I was excited and nervous about seeing Jane’s Addiction play, whom I believed had revived rock and roll out from the slumber of the leg warming eighties. My friends and I grabbed an opportune location from which to watch the band play on the balcony directly above the stage. We stood in anticipation for the forthcoming show like rabbits anticipating organically grown carrots. The excitement that I felt still makes goose bumps rise on my thinning scalp.
Behind us we heard a loud banging followed by high-pitched yelling. My friends and I shyly turned around and noticed what looked like a gypsy caravan. A long faced fellow with rainbow colored braids, black beaded turkey neck covered in crucifixes; wearing tall black sewage boots and a red plastic coat used by sausage workers, pounded on the backstage door. Beside him was a shorter young adolescent who looked like a duplicate copy of him self but had many more holes and metals in her ears, chin and nose. Saying, “I can’t believe it!” besides the two of them was a tattooed and tall lank of a young man with bleached blond stocks of hay for hair and big enough eyes to see God with.
Turned out that the three locked out castaways happened to be Perry Ferrell (the lead singer for Jane’s Addiction), his then girl friend Casey and the bass player for Jane’s Addiction, Eric Avery. They were locked out from back stage and I was witnessing a moment that would be written in the historical annals of my life. Perry kept yelling “come on man let us in, the shows gotta begin, come on man!” while pounding on the door with a hand covered in rings, painted black nails and bruise marks. Occasionally he would look over at me and smile like a child trying to be coy and hide embarrassment. That smile has been tattooed on my brain.
I was a small town boy never having seen or imagined seeing my idols close up in the flesh. In my high school at the time Jane’s Addiction was the biggest thing since Def Leopard or Duran Duran. When someone finally came and opened up the back stage door, Perry handed me a joint and said, here kid, take this. I almost wet my pants as I extended my numb and star struck arm to take the joint from his hand. For me it was like that Michaelangelo painting where Adam reaches out for the hand of God. It was the end of my innocence.
My friends and I jumped up and down with idiotic youthful glee. I looked at the joint as if it was Achilles’ sword or a sacrament, put it to my lips, inhaling deeply: solidifying my connection to not only Perry Ferrell but also Marijuana.

The show was the most hallucinatory, carnivalesque not really real but seeing it with my own eyes experience this small town boy had ever imagined being possible. I spent the majority of my remaining high school days stoned, attempting to re-kindle the neural lights that were compelled into synapses by the Jane’s Addiction extravaganza. I started to dress like Perry Ferrell, and as a consequence was often beat up by red neck cow kids who ripped out my purple braids and forced me to go home and change. They would not stop me because I was high.

Every love affair has that single moment where the course of events changes for better or worse. Love either begins its onerous descent or is clapped further into existence by a profound realization of its meant to be qualities. For me this moment occurred briefly after my roommate and I had smoked from a pink bong in our dorm room before dinner. I was a sophomore in college and struggling to maintain skills and aspirations to become a professional tennis player. My roommate and I walked to the cafeteria for dinner under the setting sun stoned out of our minds and driven by an ecstatic spirit commonly referred to as Euthanasia. My feet felt as if there was a space between them and the ground. I was so high that I was able to walk directly through an oak tree, freed from the confines of the material world. I understood the meaning of high by experiencing that moment. I was moving along the grass effortlessly transcending all time and space. I looked to my roommate who was trying to fly and said I want to stay in this state for the rest of my life. I had not known happiness like this before.
After a seven year college career that cost my parents more than $100,000 dollars I barley graduated with a BA in Media Studies and found myself without any aspirations other than to sit in the sun, pursue sexual escapades, play basketball and smoke weed. I was twenty-nine years old.

I began to make the journey by train from Palo Alto to San Francisco reading Jack Kerouac and longing for beatnik days filled with read wine, orgies and poetry. I laughed my way through the financial district watching the poor souls who spent days on end cooped up in artless offices made from greed and struggle, while I remained penniless and proud. I would buy books at City Lights and read in the bars of North Beach while wondering about times past which I could not recall. In my journal I produced poor prose longing for a time past and fulminating about time present.
I remained stoned through three serious relationships and dozens of jobs. I watched Pearl Jam explode onto the grunge scene and grow old before I could really identify the passing of time. Chris Cornell had just been the lead singer for Sound Garden and now he was playing with some band called Audio Slave and looked like a middle-aged man. The words of T.S Elliot resounded in my mind each time I tried to justify to myself the path in life I had chosen to take:

Time passed and Time Future
Are all contained in time present

Like my prognostication fifteen years before, I had managed to remain stoned through the most formative years of my life. I prolifically painted and waited on tables while sleeping with prostitutes and wasting away the days in strip clubs which made me feel as if I was dreaming away my afternoons. I got fired from a shoe store for telling a costumer that her feet stunk. Weed elevated my sensory faculties and made dishonesty impossible. Weed made me feel as if I was the entertainer in a play about me. I rode my bike through parks high as a bird and traveled like a dharma bum through the sierras and city ghettoes. I dreamed and then forget what I had dreamed.

Always the passionate advocate of the virtues and health benefits of smoking weed I postulated again and again that no one had ever died from smoking weed. I read book after book about the healing benefits of marijuana. I took great enjoyment in teaching others about the way of weed. It calms the nerves, enlarges the heart so blood flow is improved and the heart muscle strengthened, clears phlegm and toxins from bronchial passage ways improving lung capacity, accelerates metabolism, improves concentration and has anti-carcinogenic properties. Meanwhile I was suffering from wheezing and palpitations refusing to blame my symptoms on my true love. I did not want to admit to my self that the love that I had spent the past fifteen years of my life with was slowly destroying time present.
I reached the age of thirty-nine still pleasantly pre-occupied with denying the effects of my relationship with weed. I had watched friends die or begin the obvious descent into middle age. Perry Ferrell had devolved from rock star status into dusty memorabilia from a time passed and forgotten. An illegal war in Iraq raged on in its corrupted fury and through out all these life cycles I had managed to remain high.

I was working as waiter and celebrated my working class status because I had my days free to smoke weed and ride my bike around Berkeley in search of an herb or elixir that could cure my chronic cough. I developed allergies and a terrifying irregular heartbeat as I wrote non-sensible essays in the afternoon and meditated under parking cars. Was I loosing my mind as I aged my way towards fifty? I often wondered. Then I married a woman who could no longer tolerate my anxiety attacks, constant fear of death, feelings of failure and Walden Pond philosophy that espoused that the cost of something is the amount of life that you are willing to exchange in order to have that thing. I wanted life not things. Your Thoreau is keeping us poor and working class and your marijuana is going to kill you, she would often attest.

The night was warm and now the summer morning seems to be working it’s way into a quick boil. After I finish writing this, I will put on pants and go out for a long bike ride around town. I am almost forty-two years of age and I have not smelled the aromic scents or inhaled the tropical mists of Marijuana smoke in close to half a decade. Even though our relationship has ended- I am left with the scars of our almost twenty year affair. I have a chronic cough, an inability to recall the location of my parked bike or home.  I am fatigued enough that I have a tendency to fall asleep in the most inappropriate of places. I have watched time pass and my face grow old. In an attempt to maintain a state of physical well- being I exercise by standing on my head for an hour a day and ride my bike to and fro the places I need to go. Otherwise I spend my time tending to my garden, sleeping in my underwear and trying not to think about the past that I seem to re-live day after day. It is as if my mind is trying to bring forth the years and years that I spent stoned so that I can now become accountable for the life I lived in the light of sobriety. I talk about these moments with my wife and I have built a writing career off of writing about my times passed, but still I am left in a state of duress or uncertainty when I ask myself and others the question, marijuana can’t kill you, right?

The End.

$50.00 Cup Of Coffee.

The rain has been pouring down for three days straight. I am wondering if melancholy is starting to kick in. I awoke at around 10:30 this morning but would have stayed in bed if I did not have to drive my wife to work. So like the responsible husband and man that I try to be, I climbed out from under the warm blankets and dressed.

When we opened the front door to leave, our cat came running in wet as a used mop and whining at the top of his lungs. He was obviously feeling neglected and angry because we had forgotten to let him in the night before. To be honest the past few days my cat has been perturbing me, so I did not really forget to let him in, I just hoped my wife would not remember. It was reciprocity for all the scratches on my arm and the flees in my bed.

I dropped my wife off and then began driving back home. The inside of the car was warm from the high heat and I was uncertain if I wanted to return to my cold and over one hundred year old wobbly home. So I decided to drive for a bit. I listened to the radio and watched the world go by in the warmth of the car. There is something very enjoyable about driving around on a rainy day.

I decided to stop and grab a small coffee. I rarely drink coffee- if ever. It makes my body shake unpleasantly and my heart race. So I try to stay away from the acidic liquid. However, this morning I was feeling the need to have the bitter taste of coffee in my dry mouth and the aromatic smells in my nose.

There was no parking to be found on the busy street- besides a yellow zone which sat empty right in front of the coffee shop. I decided that I would quickly park in the yellow zone, run in and out- no problem. I could not of been more incorrect.

I tipped the somnolent looking woman who served me my coffee a dollar and then put half and half with a bit of sugar in it. The smell was already awakening me to the pleasures of existing. I took a brief sip of my coffee and walked back outside.

There where two UPS trucks blocking me in. Behind my car was a police car with its lights flashing and behind the police car was a small meter maids truck. I rushed to my car pretending as if I was not the subject of this mass gathering. Once out of the rain I decided to wait patiently for the UPS trucks to move so that I could leave. I kept my mind focused on the scent of coffee.

Then an ugly man with nose hairs, covered in a black rain coat knocked on my window. It was a police officer. I opened my door frustrated by all this commotion. “What is wrong officer?” I asked stupidly revealing that I may have done something wrong. “Can I see your drivers license and registration?” he said with a seriousness that indicated that he may not be human but rather a clone. “What have I done?” I said with the innocence of a child. “We have a report that this car may be stolen.” “What?”

In the meantime one of the UPS drivers came up behind the police officer and said to me “hey man!! This spot is for commercial loading not for the convenience of people to get their coffee!! You need to never park her again. You have blocked up traffic because I have had to park in the street!!” I looked behind him and noticed that traffic was blocked up for as far as my eyes could see. People were honking their horns and trying to get around the UPS truck. “See what you have done!! Jerk!!!” And then he was gone.

Meanwhile I handed the officer the requested information and told him that I have owned this car for years. “We will see,” he said with a tone in his voice that suggested that I was already guilty. “Wait here, while I check out your information.” “Where am I going to go?” I said with a sarcastic tone in my voice. I remember thinking to myself with indignation, “the police are everywhere, they even watch you when you sleep. they are like phantoms!!”

There was another knock on my window, but this time it was a black meter maid who looked rather swollen in her cheeks. She wore a yellow rain coat with the hood over her head and handed me a green ticket which was already wet from the rain. “What is this for?” I asked with a hint of anger in my voice. “For parking in a NO PARKING spot.” “But I was loading some boxes into the coffee shop, I am the owner!!” I decided to lie. “Then why don’t you get commercial plates!” she said walking away and leaving me helpless. I am not normally prone to anger or disrespect but I lost control of myself in my moment of helplessness and yelled “bitch!!!”

It was bad timing, because as I yelled out the police officer was approaching my car. He looked startled and unsure of how to respond. “What did you call me??” he asked. I took a deep breath and said “I did not call you anything, I was talking to the ticket lady.” “What ticket lady?” he asked. “The one that just gave me this ticket,” and I held up the green ticket to show him what I was talking about. “Sir, that was placed on your window while you were inside getting coffee,” he said suspicious of what was going on. “What the hell are you talking about… she just gave me this ticket!!” I was frantic and did not know what to do. Was this officer of the law accusing me of being crazy, of seeing things? “Sir I suggest that you try to calm yourself down and sign this citation.”

“What citation?” “It is a fix it ticket.” “I thought I was being accused of possessing a stolen car?” “No we had the wrong vehicle, but your back left brake light is not working and you have thirty days to fix it,” he said with a hurried sound in his voice. I assumed he wanted to get out of the rain so I took my time. I read over the pink citation and noticed that I would not be charged any money if I proceeded to go through all these various steps to absolve the citation. “Sir you will be given a list of everything you need to know,” he said impatiently. I then signed on the dotted line and returned the clip board to him. I took another deep breath and could feel the residual anger and frustration in my chest. “You are lucky that I do not site you for your conduct towards an officer of the law,” he said staring me straight in the face. I decided to stay quiet. He ripped of a portion of the citation handed it back to me and said “I know you slandered me sir, happens all the time.” And then he returned to his bat mobile.

I sat in my car for a moment trying to register everything that had just happened. My coffee was cold and I felt like I was just the subject of a terrible prank. I waited for something to happen like someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress. I listened to the rain pitter-paterring on the roof of my car. I then heard a loud honk and looked out the drivers side widow. There was the same meter maid driving down the other side of the street!! She looked at me waved and I could barley make out her lips saying “have a nice day, sir” with a malevolent smile on her face. I felt like I was going to be sick. I tried to yell out “wait!!” but it was I futile attempt. I looked down at the green parking ticket which said in black ink hand writing “your fifty dollar cup of coffee, sir!!”

Now I am back in my cold wobbly home. I am confused and forlorn. Once I am finished spell checking this post, I will get back in bed and try to sleep. Then maybe I will wake up and things will make sense.

Writer’s Block

I have been staring at a blank page for most of my life. I have done all I can with not just my left hand but also my right. I have tried yoga and long walks. My therapist recommended to me that I take up singing. So I have done this each day. I have taken cooking lessons, taken up meditation, started burning incense, moved to the woods, eat vegan, and participate in S&M parties. I do a headstand every morning for thirty minutes and chew sugarless gum through out the day. Still there is little evidence of a Writer on the paper before me.
Since the age of six I have dreamed of becoming a Writer. My parents took my sister and I on a family outing in Napa Valley. As we were driving along a desolate country road I noticed a small cabin. A man sat smoking what looked like a pipe on the porch. I asked my Father about who that was and he said, “probably a poor Hermit or failed Writer.” From that day forward I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Thirty-three years later and I am still unable to write. People ask me what I do and I use the noun, Writer. When I am asked if my work can be read I utilize the pronoun, aspiring. It is a course that I navigate with trepidation. “Will I ever write anything?” is a question that lingers in my head like a chronic migraine. It hurts. And every so often I take aspirin.  Days before my father passed on I assured him that I would be able to make a living as a Writer.

“But you don’t write.”
“I can’t but I will.”
“When?
”I try every day.”
”Son, when will you see?”
“When I write.”
“But you can’t write.”
“I will.”
“Son you can’t be a Writer if you don’t write.”
“I will write.”

My father passed away with a knot in his gut tightened by my incapability to pragmatically reason. Every day I look at a blank page and am reminded of my failure. I see emptiness and small circuitous hints of a letter. I have become so acquainted with the color of a blank page that I can tell time by the way it reflects shadow. Each morning, I sit at my desk to write my unfulfilled potential off the page. Still nothing comes. I sit there and breathe deeply. I straighten my back as if that will help awaken an idea. “Maybe, it will slip through my spine and out onto the empty page, and then there will be the story,” I think. A narration so profound, that my career as a Writer will be unleashed.  But my spine is tight from all my hunching and my right hand has been waiting to write a word since my left hand refused to wait anymore. “It is a lonely heart that has no hope,” my father once told me.

I visit my therapist in town twice a week. She is a skinny woman who suffered from anorexia most of her life. Years of struggle have carved lines into her face and make her an asset to those who face similar struggles. She slowly eats a banana while we commune. I am confident that she can help me because of her past. She always allows me to stay longer then my allotted fifty minutes.

“Have you been singing?”
”I sing every day, mostly in the shower or on a walk.”
“How does it make you feel?”
“Good, I forget about my Writer’s block.”
“Have you been thinking about new ways to live your life?”
“I have.”
“What have you decided?”
“To think less.”
“This is why I thought singing would be good.”
”It helps me to stop thinking.”
”It is your thoughts that keep you blue.”
”I see.”
“Do you still do head stands?”
“Every morning.”
“Do you still think about your father?”
“All the time.”
“One day you will change the story you tell yourself.”
“I want to write my story.”
“You will.”

After therapy, I drive my old truck back to the house in the woods feeling renewed and hopeful. The story that I tell myself is slowed down. The thoughts in my head are not as filled with failure and doom. There is space for better thoughts to appear.
But the page remains blank. It sits there upon my desk like a neglected pet awaiting my return. I tell myself only a matter of time and I go to work doing other things. I keep myself busy with household chores and I keep introducing myself to strangers as a Writer.

“Want a good story,” she said to me dressed in leather straps that barley covered her holly trinity (breasts, butt and ass). I pictured it happening differently but decided to go along with it anyways. The party was filled with middle-aged voyeurs gathering around small dungeons set up with enough equipment to destroy Eros. I followed her into a section called The Den Of Inequity and felt the air around my head grow warm. She told me her name but I have since forgotten. All I really remember is a small hole on the bottom of her foot that she told me was the result of an accident.
“You want to play, right?” she asked me, wanting to asssure herself that I was certain about the consequences of my decision. “I want a story,” I replied with a hint of fear in my voice. I took off my shirt, pants and underwear and was dressed in leather briefs. ”I’ll give you the story of your life pervert man,” she said as she strapped my wrists and ankles to a disinterested wooden board. After being lashed, electrocuted, stepped on, spit on, spanked, tied upside down, laughed at, called coward, whipped, humiliated and then applauded by a group of spectators- I got dressed and anticipated the story I may finally have to tell. I drove home quickly so as not to forget.

Nothing wanted to come out, despite the sores and bruises, which I hoped would help me to remember. Not even and, if or but. I struggled to remember any words that could describe the feelings that I experienced. All I seemed capable of thinking was “its got to be good.” There was once again no story to be written on the blank page. No words willing to lend themselves to the perfection that I demanded to describe my experience. It was as if words had renounced the man before he could even give them an opportunity to live. I was not frustrated but becoming hopeless again.  In my head I wanted to live but on the page I could not exist. For one hour that evening I lay on my couch with ice over various parts of my naked body feeling like a failure.

“Why did you let her do those things to you?”
“You are my therapist, not my mother.”
“I understand but it is important that I know.”
“Because I wanted a story.’
”You wanted a story?”
“I thought that an experience would give me something to write about.”
“And did it?”
“No.”
“And why do you think this is so?”
“I am not sure.”
“Maybe its because you can not stop telling your self the old story.”
“What old story?”
“The one we talk about here.”
“I do not understand.”
“The story of hopelessness, failure, guilt, worthlessness.”
“Oh.”
”Maybe when this story goes away you will have a new story to write.”
“Maybe.”

That afternoon I went to my cooking class and then stopped at the market. In the evening I went to a yoga class and a bookstore. I purchase a popular book about water. The premise of the book was strange and had nothing to do with anything I had ever thought. It was a book written by a Japanese Scientist who studied the ways that water molecules responded to thoughts. He photographed water crystals and studied how they formed in relation to various thoughts or words. He observed that positive thoughts or words formed beautiful water crystals while negative thoughts or words created ugly and deformed water crystals. His conclusion was that since human beings are mainly a collection of millions of water crystals, the thoughts we have and words we use create our health and disease.
For dinner I made a pizza and read the book by candlelight. Outside the silence was loud enough that I could hear it vibrating in my ears. I chewed my food without the sensation of eating and quickly made my way through the book. I thought about the story I told myself and noticed the scenes from my life that lined up in my mind as if on paper. It was a story of unfulfilled potential that went all the way back to my fathers remark: “probably a poor Hermit or failed Writer.” It was a negative unraveling that was set up in me from the moment that I decided to become a Hermit and a Writer thirty-three years before. My water crystals were destined to grow deformed. I went to bed that night thinking that my father had unknowingly put a curse on me.

“Do you think this realization is true?”
“I do.’
”Your Writer’s block is the result of your fathers curse?”
“Maybe not a curse, but a negative imprint.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I am toxic water.”
”Toxic water?”
”Yes, I am polluted and filled with deformed water crystals.”
“You read the book about water?”
“Yes.”
“And what did it reveal to you?”
”That I can change.”
“So you see how the story you tell yourself creates your life.”
“Creates deformed water crystals.”
“Yes, and these deformed water crystals are you.”
“I see.”
“Change your story, change your life.”
“Easier said than done.”

I don’t know if the Writer’s block will ever go away. I stand on my head every day and I try to think pleasant thoughts. Rather than seeing the block as a silence that is permanent I see it as an oppurtunity to express potential. Recently, I have been experiencing a strange phenomenon. When I wake in the morning and sit before the empty page I look into it with the determination of an artist. I am fascinated by its depth and dimension. Outlined in vague print I can see a scetch of my new story, fully realized on the blank page. There it is before me, a story written in the most beautiful prose. It is a story that will continue on indefinately until the end of all blank pages. Every writer that has ever lived and failed to write is apart of this story. It is the story of my entire life.

The End.

The End Of The World?

    I always find that it perplexes my mind when I think about sitting still. I am noticing more and more that friends, neighbors, lovers and strangers seem to be constantly going someplace. Every time I lift my heavy head from the book I am reading to peer out the window, I notice dizzying displays of entropy. All different kinds and colors of people, cars, buses and airplanes are quickly moving toward a destination that seems to become more illusive the older we grow. Maybe it is because I work from home and rarely leave my third floor apartment that I notice these things- but I fear the worst. I fear that the closer our world is coming to a kind of end or transformation, the more people have to come and go, occupy themselves or spend as little time with themselves in order to ward off the unsettling, collective anxiety which sits someplace inside all our hearts. The busier we are the less we have to feel and contemplate. I know that it is more complex than this, but as I watch my cat who sits silently on the windowsill day after day, I wonder why we humans are so incapable of just sitting still.
I have always thought of my cat as my teacher. I watch with great reverence towards his mastery of Vipassana meditation. There he sits gently breathing in and out, for eight or nine hours at a stretch, confined to a small apartment for the entirety of his life- practicing the art of preserving heartbeats. In Taoism it is believed that the key to longevity is preserving the heartbeats. I live in a society that is addicted to using up the heartbeat, in order to maximize profit, minimize body fat, maximize muscle, minimize reality by maximizing work and consumption. Anxiety is usually the end result of this manic cycle, which has created our modern world. I look out my window into the veritable gridlock of bodies in motion and wonder about the degree of damage/stress that all this movement imposes upon our hearts. Is it any surprise that in America there is a massive proliferation of injustice disguised as justice? An epidemic of greed and separation, which is really only a syndrome called dissociation? Is it any surprise that in America the leading cause of death is from the heart no longer being capable of sustaining life? Our hearts are worn out.
These days I go out very little. My way of life may be unconsciously closer to that of a Taoist than an American. I wake up every morning and sit in meditation for forty-five minutes. I chant and then proceed to do an hour or so of Yoga and by the time I am finished it is time for work. My desk is situated in front of a window that looks out over a main artery or street that runs through San Francisco. I work as a fiction writer, so when the narrative I am channeling ceases to come into my head I will often look up and ponder the scenes outside my window, for hours. This becomes my afternoon meditation.
I believe it was Pascal who said that all the ills of human kind could be avoided if we could just be content in our rooms sitting still in a chair. I understand this to mean that a great majority of the problems that each of us faces collectively today could be avoided if we could just preserve heartbeats. Taoists believe that you preserve heartbeats by moving slowly, sitting still and practicing love. Today I observed a man run up behind a woman and steal her bag. I noticed two men in suits arguing and then one man pushing the other in anger. Several times I noticed one fellow driver flipping another fellow driver off. I witnessed several arrests and a great deal of well-dressed human beings, with large amounts of shopping bags rushing to get someplace while homeless people begged them for change.
I thought about the year 2012 and the Mayan prediction that this will be the end of time, as we know it. There are two postulates. The first one is that there will supposedly be a great transformation in consciousness that causes all life on earth to become unified as one loving people working together to create and maintain balance and harmony on our planet. We will move from the age of technology and materialism into an age of wisdom. This is one postulate. The other is that because of our inability to preserve heartbeats and our constant need to drive, fly and consume resources we have irremissibly used up our heartbeats and brought all life on earth as we know it to an inevitable end. As I sit and watch the pulsating urban landscapes outside my window…it is the second postulate that seems to concern me the most. We have failed to maintain what we have because we always are rushing to acquire more, not realizing the damage this imposes upon our world. I look at my cat who is sitting still on the windowsill and I am reminded of something Franz Kafka said almost a century ago. “You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen. Simply wait; just learn to become quiet and still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

The Sex Life Of A Man Without One #2

Jail is not the kind of place that I thought it would be. I had always imagined jail as a place where one would have time for contemplation and relaxation in the locked up privacy of a cell. I imagined it as a place where one could recover from the stress of the rat race. I could not of been more deluded in my idealistic perceptions. Jail was a nightmare. It was a claustrophobic torture chamber. It was a denial of my rights as a human being and a punishment beyond my crime. It is good to be back at home writing this.

My wife is furious with me and I can not blame her. Not only did she have to pay a thousand dollar fine but she has had to deal with the knowledge of my crime. I was caught but I am not guilty. I was apprehended for doing nothing more than entertaining a fantasy.

Last evening I found myself bored and apprehensive. I decided to take a drive around the city and listen to music and chain smoke cigarettes. I drove and drove through Chinatowns and missionary districts as entertained by what I was seeing as a middle aged man could be. The city at night is a theater of the absurd in which all mischief and color seems to come to life. I saw crimes being committed and lovers strolling hand in hand all from the safety of my car window. I saw derelicts hanging out on street corners shooting dope and I saw a very attractive young prostitute hanging out on a corner. Before I had a chance to think about the repercussions of my decision, I was pulled over to the side of the curb waiting for her to make her way into the passenger side of my car. I had no intention of committing an act of infidelity, I simply thought I would pay her ten bucks to show me her breasts. It was a moment where I found my higher self apprehended by animal lust. I was unwilling to measure my action against anything but a need for the flesh.

She stepped into the passenger side of my car and immediately asked me if I was a cop. I told her I was not in no way so, but she still insisted upon seeing my cock. So their I was corrupted by my own lust. She touched the tip of it with her index finger and said “not that big for a man like you.” I was a bit reluctant to ask her about my desire to see her breasts so I remained quiet and waited for her to finish talking on her cell phone. “I’ll be done when I done,” she said without much interest in her voice and hung up the phone. “So what you looking for” she asked me and as I eyed her voluptuous breasts I decided to speak without shame.

“I know a perfect place to park,” she said and we drove around looking for the spot. I tried to entertain conversation with her. I asked her what she was studying in school and what her favorite books were. I wanted to somehow humanize the situation so that I could feel less like the man I was being.

We parked behind a Longs Drug store where the only light came from a flashing incinerator. I gave her the twenty dollars and watched her slowly take of her shirt. “Can I touch,” I asked with timidity in my broken voice. “Of course,” she replied. This would of been enough for me. My perversion was fulfilled and I could return home a satisfied man.

We are living in a country that is under martial law. This means that wherever a slightest crime is being committed, out of nowhere will appear a cock…I mean cop. They are everywhere, like flees on a cat. They occupy every crevice and corner and have systematized the control of people. Out of the darkness appeared two men dressed in full state issued police uniforms shinning a flash light upon my face and upon the prostitutes breasts.

“What are you little deviants up to here,” one of the officers said to me. I could do nothing but offer him a cigarette.

I was not allowed out from jail until seven a.m the following morning. I spent the night shaking from the fear of being locked up. My body reacted to this imprisonment in ways I could have never imagined. All night long I suffered from palpitations and not a moment of pleasant contemplation. I listened to locked up men yell things I could never have imagined in my mind. “This is America….this is what we have become,” I remember thinking. I felt like a man who had his very soul violated. For what??

Now I am home quiet and forlorn. An energy healer has come over to my home to work my spirit back into a higher vibration. My bones are still shaking and the rain is coming down hard outside.

Searching For Eddie Vedder.

I have been searching for Eddie Vedder for over a decade and a half. From the grunge clubs in Seattle all the way to the epic recent concerts in Italy. I have made my way low on funds, at times without home or hope, in search of Eddie Vedder. My wife thinks that I am obsessed with the man but this is no more true than saying that a brother is obsessed with his younger brother. You see, in an indirect way- Eddie and I are “brothers.” He is six years older than I and much more acclimated to the world than I- but none the less we are brothers. How could I think such a ridiculous thing you may be thinking? You are Jewish, six foot five, lack any singing ability and you are allergic to booze- you say. There is no way you could be the brother of Eddie Vedder!! This is true on the physiological level, but brotherhood is much deeper than body or biology- brotherhood is an energy, it is a shared soul. We share the same soul.

When I first met Eddie Vedder I was beginning to experience panic attacks. I was a member of Generation X not knowing what my life was for or who I was. I was searching for a soul. Confusion embalmed me like a dark fog and the result of this imbalance was a panic so ferocious that all I could do was measure my life by each inhalation. I lived in fear that the next exhalation would be my last.

I attended a small private college and fell into a love affair with wine, women and marijuana. It was under the influence of all three of these vices that I first heard the music of Nirvana. It was my birthday, May…1992. The sounds spoke to me of a new beginning, the possibility for an identity. And then before I knew what was happening the grunge movement was underway and I was wearing boxer underwear, flannels, ripped jeans, black Doc Martins and my hair was nearly down to my shoulders. I was sitting front row at a Pearl Jam concert watching this new beacon of hope for my exiled generation sing like a Shaman and run around like he was trying to bring purpose back into a blank society. It was then that I had my first meeting with Eddie Vedder. He fell off the stage and landed on my head.

After college I moved to Seattle, bought a dog, drank too much and worked in a bookstore. I lived alone in a small cottage and read books that I had stolen from the store (I returned most them when finished). I smoked weed with Chris Cornell (who was a frequent costumer) in a park and everywhere I went I hoped to run into Eddie Vedder. I attempted to find out where he was living from Chris…but at the time I was told that he rarely came out of his home and had constant security guards meandering around his grounds. Besides, Chris would never tell a person like me where this legend in the making rested his head. I was a stranger to stoned to zip up my pants who could barley hold down an honest job at a book shop.

Skip ahead to the year 2007. I am a sober (don’t even eat sugar), vegetarian, married, hypochondriac, childless unemployed blogger who rarely leaves his house. I am introverted and frequently I will watch Eddie Vedder interviews and Pearl Jam live footage on You Tube. In my chest there lingers not only a nostalgia for the grunge era (which seemed to pass away quicker than a heart beat) but a chronic feeling of failure. Just yesterday I was young and now I am closing in on forty with chronic anxiety and little to show for my years on this earth. This is my sixth day without leaving the house- but I find consolation in knowing Eddie Vedder is living the life I only wish I could.

It’s not the fame or the notoriety that I envy but rather the artistic integrity of a man who is able to live out who he truly is. Most of us have to cut our hair and work at day jobs that have nothing to do with our soul, in order to put food on the table. We have to forget about the idealisms of our youth and retire who we really are into our back pockets. This is punishment for not finding your “niche.”

Now I am nearing middle age, and for the sake of family I have put aside my aspiration to write novels and picked the second choice…I will be a high school Teacher. I will not live the life I had imagined for myself a decade ago. But my brother is living it for me, and I live it vicariously through him. His protests are mine, his success is my pride. At 42 years of age he can still sing like a maestro while being a smoker and an avid wine drinker. Eddie is able to intoxicate stadium after stadium of people with his humble soul. This is one of the many differences between us.

I am unable to find teaching job because I refuse to cut my hair which is the bond that holds my soul together. Along with my Pearl Jam t-shirts and buttons…I am often referred to by others as “Eddie Vedder like.” I pretend to be surprised, but the truth is this is the exact effect that I am going for. At times I find myself pretending to be Eddie Vedder (I did this when I was a younger man as well. I would wear the “Beat It” jacket with shoulder pads, white glove, white socks and penny loafers- pretending to be Micheal Jackson. I was a white man living in a hick community and brought on many beatings from red necks because of my desire to be like Mike). I lost my last job as a high school Teacher for making my students watch one live Pearl Jam concert after the next. I tried to explain to the administration that I was teaching my students what it means to search for Eddie Vedder- to remain true to that one thing in us that is the real reflection of our soul!! They could not understand.

It will never happen my wife says. “I could write novels, I could act in a film…there has got to be something that I can do so that I do not have to sell my soul!!” “Eddie Vedder has been doing what he does for a long time and he is an icon,” my wife says “you are almost 40 and you just have not been on that path my love. You can not be Eddie Vedder!!” Sometimes I get so depressed I spend the entire day in bed. There is Eddie Vedder, 42 and still rocking out on stage. He drinks wine, smokes cigarettes, is in top physical condition and is an icon. He is a voice of the anti-war movement and good friends with Sean Penn (someone I have always wanted to speak with). I on the other hand get sick if I drink or smoke a cigarette, can not walk up a flight of stairs without chest pain and have very little money in my bank account. The tires on my car all need to be replaced, but I can not afford to do so. I live in an old home which is freezing cold in the winter, smells like toxic glue and wobbles when ever anyone walks around.

I am not feeling sorry for myself but I envy the man who I call my brother. I told him this not long ago. It was after a Pearl Jam concert in San Fransisco. I waited with a group of a dozen die hard fans until about three in the morning for Eddie to exit from the back stage exit. It was cold and desolate in the San Fransisco early morning. The only people out on the streets pushed shopping carts filled with their meager possessions. I was about to turn away when suddenly I heard the crowd erupt into loud salutations shouting “Eddie!!” “Eddie!!!” He kindly got everyone to calm down by saying “please calm down, I will get to each and every one of you. we just need to be quiet.” I could feel my tired heart racing in my chest as I awaited Eddie’s glance. He signed set lists and talked with one lady about how great she thought he was aging. He seemed very comfortable, a little drunk, almost Buddha like in his demeanor. Then I caught his stare and stuck out my hand. He shook my hand and it was then that I said “You are doing a great job, I envy you your success.” He looked at me square in the eyes as if he was trying to remember if we met before. He then said “thank you my brother, but do not envy me, I’m just doing the best I can…like you.” And then he was gone. He got into the front seat of a black van which I imagine took my brother to his hotel room.

Now I sit here writing. It is raining outside and I spent the entire day reading in bed. I watched a few Eddie Vedder interviews tonight. I feel like my life is on hold while he is living life to its fullest. I have been wondering. Am I doing the best I can? And I have to say that my answer to this is no. No I am not. I have always been rather lazy and short of finding that one thing I love to do and then doing it all the time. No, I am not doing the best I can…and this is exactly why I am searching for Eddie Vedder. He is a man who is doing the best he can. I watch him and I am in awe. “So this is what it looks like when one finds their soul purpose,” I say to myself. Slowly my awe turns to inspiration…and I am reminded of something that I seemed to have almost given up on. My search for Eddie Vedder.

The Man Who Feared Fascism.

I have been on unemployment for three months now. My wife is starting therapy tomorrow. My cat has been on a strict course of antibiotics for a week now because a wound from fight we got in. When I turned down a job offer the other day my wife and cat both stopped talking to me.

The job was in San Fransisco and I live a distance away. When I was initially offered the job, I thought why not give it a try, but deep down I new that it would never work. I was going to work as a ninth grade high school English teacher in a school that was located in a basement. There were no widows and I noticed asbestos on the ceiling. But for months no school wanted to give me a job so I thought I would take what I could get. I shook the Italian Principles had and told her that I would be ready to work the following day. She had a perpetual sniffle that I knew was the result of working in a basement.

That evening my wife and I celebrated the end of my unemployment with a bottle of wine and pork chops. We talked little at dinner and then watched a film. Since I had to be up early I made sure I was in bed before midnight. That evening I slept little. I thought about all the things that could happen working in a basement. Would I get toxic poisoning? What if there was asbestos present? What about earthquakes and fires? All the worry gave me palpitations into the early hours of morning.

When I awoke my heart was still frustrated. I dressed, skipped breakfast and left the house as quietly as a large man can. I walked outside and was stunned by the smell of early morning air. I had not been up before eleven a.m. in months. Now I was a Teacher, condemned to early rising.

The train was full. I thought I was seeing things. It was 7 a.m. in the morning! I thought the train would be empty but instead I found a train filled with cell phone addicts and news paper reading junkies. I squeezed my way in between a fat man wearing a tweed suit and a women in military uniform. Unexpectedly, I could feel my anxiety rising up in me like an electrical serpent. By the time I made it off the train my palms were wet, my head dizzy with fear and my heart beating me into a silent cry for help.

Watching the train move on I felt like a man freed from a sentence in hell. Suffering from claustrophobia or anxiety is a modern day metaphor for the crucifixion. I walked ten blocks through the city streets which were already filled with the hustle and bustle of capitalism. When I made it to the school I was ten minutes late an greeted by the Italian Principle who told me to follow her. We went into an administrative room where I filled out some paper work and got fingerprinted. While I was being fingerprinted I felt strangely violated. These violations have become common place in our paranoid American fallacy.

The principle asked me if I was ready to teach my first class. “I was,” I told her with a subtle enthusiasm. “Good because I am tired of teaching them,” she said. A profusely thin women walked out and handed the Italian Principle something which the Principle then handed to me. “What is this,” I asked. “It is your name tag,” she replied as if nothing was unusual about this situation. “What do you mean a name tag,” I said with some reluctance. “All employees of this school are required to wear name tags,” she said like an official enforcing an obvious law. I then looked down at the Principle’s droopy breast and noticed the name tag which said Patrizia Tabbuchii, Principle.

During the darkest moments at of my previous jobs I allways consoled myself with the thought that no matter how bad the job was “at least I did not have to wear a name tag.” For me a name tag was like a negative mind always aware of its own failure. A name tag is an invasion of privacy- a direct symbol of mediocrity. It stinks of fascism. Name tags are my a threat to my security as an individual.

I began to shake as I tried to reason with the Principle. I tried to tell her that I had an allergic reaction to name tags, but she could not find the humor in my attempt to decline her demand without offense. “Wear it, wear it- it is no big deal, everyone does it,” she said with an aggressive tone . “You must wear the name tag!!” “Take it!!” I saw snot fall from her reddened nose as she began to loose patience with my unwillingness to obey. “I am sorry” I said, “I can not wear a name tag. It goes against everything I believe.” She looked mortified by my failure to honor her command. I was a Teacher after all and Teachers always obey the law.

“Than you can not work at this school!!!” she drooled as I already was turned around making my way to the exit. There was a moment of silence only filled by the sound of my receding footsteps. She stood there watching me leave. “What is wrong with name tags?” she shouted from a distance as I was close to the front door. “They kill your soul…and besides, Teachers don’t wear name tags!!!” I shouted back feeling good having defended the holly institution of Teaching.

I was unemployed again. I walked around the city for a few hours thinking about how I would tell my wife about the job that I quit before it even started. In North Beach I drank tea and dreamed of the days when beatniks listened to jazz on the streets in mid afternoon. I listened to the footsteps of all the people that quickly moved down the street towards their destinations. It was almost eleven a.m.

The Sex Life Of A Man Without One #1.

I have not had sex with my wife in over a year. Sometimes when I am without a thing to do I “surf” the erotic section on Craig’s List. It has been a long time since I have felt a nipple in my hand so I have to do what I can to maintain some interest in sex. Cheating on my wife is out of the question, not because I am an adamant monogamist. No definatly not; in fact I believe that monogamy may be an abnormal practice for the human species which leads to all kinds of stress induced ailments. I would not deceive my wife simply because it would fill me with a brick of shame so heavy to carry around that I just can not perceive how ten minutes of pleasure (more like three minutes) could be worth a long term burden of guilt and shame. I have carried that burden for decades and the one thing that I appreciate about married life is that it gives me an opportunity to be free from this weight. So occasionally I masturbate and look at naughty pictures.

It maybe a near cousin of voyeurism but what gets me off most about looking at the erotic adds on Craig’s List is the whole way these women (and sometimes men) market themselves. Now of course, I also enjoy looking at naked women, or scantily dressed women sticking their fingers in inappropriate places, but there is more to this minor hobby of mine than perversion. I fall for the fantasy of it all. The mere idea that fucking or a blow job is as easy as finding a picture of an over sexualized young lady with a phone number and price beside it…and bang!! The sexual act made simple and possible in the privacy of my own home. Sex delivered in less that an hour!!
Looking at adds titled “Let me show you all the things I can do,” “Naughty Bombshell,” “Sexiest Fhatt A$$ On The Planet” or “THREE OPEN EAGER HOLES” fill me with such a sense of awe and wonder that all the problems in my life easily flow away and I am in a space of complete fantasy. I would be lying if I told you that I have never called any of the adds that have offered a hand job with a naked sensual massage (I rationalize to myself that this would not be considered cheating since it is just like masturbating but with a live naked woman- where’s the crime!). I have called, but I am guilty of hanging up the phone the moment the female voice says “hello.” Often times I will see a picture of a naked young lady so pure and sexxxy that I can not contain my need to run into the bathroom and masturbate. It is the sexual life of a man who has none.

Lately I have been trying to practice more meditation and abstinence from the Craig’s List erotic section. I accept my life as it is and I trust that my love for my wife is great enough that everything will work out with a little help from some divine intervention. I trust that one night I will loose all my inhibitions and rip off my wife’s clothes and make passionate love to her which may then manifest a child for the two of us. For now however, we are childless and sexless (I am also jobless). I spend a lot of time sitting around the house and wondering about whose sexy photo may now be posted on Craig’s List.

Some days when I am home alone I will relish in my minor hobby and spend hours investigating the degienerate annals of prostitution and perversion. My confession is that this is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Mid afternoon and on my computer is a sexy photo of a naked stranger holding her oval breasts in her hands with a title above the picture that says “STICK IT HEAR(they are almost all bad spellers) DADY!!” Then after about an hour of this degeneracy, I gather the strength to turn off my computer, pull up my pants and force myself to go sit outside and read a book before the burden of guilt and shame arrives.

Writing About The Cock.

I would be more than happy to write upon themes of penis enlargement since I know all to well what the experience is like. I am not saying that I have had my penis intentionally enlarged- but I do know what it is like to have an enlarged penis. Two years ago while swimming naked in the Amazon river (an especially dangerous part call El Temallo) I had a particular underwater run in with an eight legged water tick. At first I felt nothing, the mere presence of an itch. However this initial symptom did not last long. As I was swimming back to shore I was overcome by the cutting pain of eight little knives clawing there way down my urethra.

When I squirted out from the river (running in circles like a frantic dog with its tail caught on fire) screaming for help, I was calmed by our indigenous tour guide who gave me a coca leaf to chew on as he examined my swollen cock. He looked me in the eyes and said “you catch little devil…no good.” I did not sleep for almost two weeks. Peeing was an act more painful than love. I was on a steady diet of antibiotics and pain killers. My penis had swollen up to the size of a large turkey baster. The Doctors told me they could not surgically remove the water tick for fear of pushing it in deeper. It could get into my blood stream and lodge in my brain. I would have to wait a month or so for the little devil to die from suffocation and then pee it out.

So for about a month and a half I experienced the pain and pleasures of natural penis enlargement. Not the ideal way to gain an experience of watching your penis grow to three times its size, but the experience provided me with an idea of what it would be like.

The End.

“the falling sky”

I was talking to my grandfather today (who still does head stands and smokes at the age of 91) and he told me that he was glad that he was not my age in this day and age. I asked him why and he told me that it was because times seemed really hard for most decent people. It almost reminded him of the depression. “Everything is so expensive and everyone has to work all the time to afford to live in this society. Government does not care about the people anymore, politicians are greedy and the environment is saying enough is enough. This ain’t living it is more like a perpetual state of worry.” I could not disagree with him but I had to mention that yes for most these were very trying times (violence and disease rates are at an all time HIGH- the effects of stress) but lets not forget that the few, the very few- the rich are living like kings and queens as we speak. This is what is inherently wrong- there is a great imbalance between rich and poor and this imbalance eventually will tip the boat. My grandfather said “you said that right” and then proceeded to do a head stand with a cigarette in his mouth.

Thoreau said “that the cost of something is the amount of life that you are willing to exchange in order to have that thing.” The bigger the pond you swim in or the more advanced the technology is on your automobile or computer system- the less time that you have to live (free from work or worry). Those who are unfortunate enough to have mortgages or car payments that they can barely afford are the ones who are being robbed, literally of their life. Those who have more material possessions to up keep have less time to live. This is what many theorists refer to as the myth of capitalism. It is a trap.

I try to ride my bicycle whenever I can. This not only gives me much needed exercise, but I also feel as if I am waging my own strike against high gas prices and the epidemic dependency upon cars. Yesterday as I was riding my bike I was thinking why not sell my car, sell as many things as I can and live simply? I decided that it was more important to me to have time to live (to take naps at three p.m. or to play my guitar at a cafe around noon with not a care in the world) than to work. Am I trying to afford not only my social status but also the very things that have given me a sense of self or would I rather have less but gain time?

When one starts to identify themselves by the things that they own or the work that they do…some form of basic life is surrendered for work (the need to make money). As I rode my bike past all sorts struggling to get back to work after their lunch break, I thought of my grandfather standing on his head. I giggled and thought to myself- it does not need to be so difficult, just live simply, need less, learn to value what you have (for the long term) and ride a bike or walk when possible. If more people could do this the end result would be the solution to the social, psychological and environmental catastrophe we all now live within. My grandfather likes to call this catastrophe “the falling sky.”

What The Wise One Said.

What if you were able to surrender to the present moment. To let go of all ego identifications and simply rest in the present moment. So much of your discomfort would fall away because there would be no resistance. Once you surrender you exist in a deep state of peace that allows room for authentic creativity to arise……Simply be here now and allow for any thoughts of past or future to pass away. This is a state of true Enlightenment.

Peace.

Sitting Still.

I always find that it perplexes my mind when I think about sitting still. I am noticing more and more that friends, neighbors, lovers and strangers seem to be constantly going someplace. Every time I lift my heavy head from the book I am reading to peer out the window, I notice dizzying displays of entropy. All different kinds and colors of people, cars, buses and airplanes are quickly moving toward a destination that seems to become more illusive the older we grow. Maybe it is because I work from home and rarely leave my third floor apartment that I notice these things- but I fear the worst. I fear that the closer our world is coming to a kind of end or transformation, the more people have to come and go, occupy themselves or spend as little time with themselves in order to ward off the unsettling, collective anxiety which sits someplace inside all our hearts. The busier we are the less we have to feel and contemplate. I know that it is more complex than this, but as I watch my cat who sits silently on the windowsill day after day, I wonder why we humans are so incapable of just sitting still.
I have always thought of my cat as my teacher. I watch with great reverence towards his mastery of Vipassana meditation. There he sits gently breathing in and out, for eight or nine hours at a stretch, confined to a small apartment for the entirety of his life- practicing the art of preserving heartbeats. In Taoism it is believed that the key to longevity is preserving the heartbeats. I live in a society that is addicted to using up the heartbeat, in order to maximize profit, minimize body fat, maximize muscle, minimize reality by maximizing work and consumption. Anxiety is usually the end result of this manic cycle, which has created our modern world. I look out my window into the veritable gridlock of bodies in motion and wonder about the degree of damage/stress that all this movement imposes upon our hearts. Is it any surprise that in America there is a massive proliferation of injustice disguised as justice? An epidemic of greed and separation, which is really only a syndrome called dissociation? Is it any surprise that in America the leading cause of death is from the heart no longer being capable of sustaining life? Our hearts are worn out.
These days I go out very little. My way of life may be unconsciously closer to that of a Taoist than an American. I wake up every morning and sit in meditation for forty-five minutes. I chant and then proceed to do an hour or so of Yoga and by the time I am finished it is time for work. My desk is situated in front of a window that looks out over a main artery or street that runs through San Francisco. I work as a fiction writer, so when the narrative I am channeling ceases to come into my head I will often look up and ponder the scenes outside my window, for hours. This becomes my afternoon meditation.
I believe it was Pascal who said that all the ills of human kind could be avoided if we could just be content in our rooms sitting still in a chair. I understand this to mean that a great majority of the problems that each of us faces collectively today could be avoided if we could just preserve heartbeats. Taoists believe that you preserve heartbeats by moving slowly, sitting still and practicing love. Today I observed a man run up behind a woman and steal her bag. I noticed two men in suits arguing and then one man pushing the other in anger. Several times I noticed one fellow driver flipping another fellow driver off. I witnessed several arrests and a great deal of well-dressed human beings, with large amounts of shopping bags rushing to get someplace while homeless people begged them for change.
I thought about the year 2012 and the Mayan prediction that this will be the end of time, as we know it. There are two postulates. The first one is that there will supposedly be a great transformation in consciousness that causes all life on earth to become unified as one loving people working together to create and maintain balance and harmony on our planet. We will move from the age of technology and materialism into an age of wisdom. This is one postulate. The other is that because of our inability to preserve heartbeats and our constant need to drive, fly and consume resources we have irremissibly used up our heartbeats and brought all life on earth as we know it to an inevitable end. As I sit and watch the pulsating urban landscapes outside my window…it is the second postulate that seems to concern me the most. We have failed to maintain what we have because we always are rushing to acquire more, not realizing the damage this imposes upon our world. I look at my cat who is sitting still on the windowsill and I am reminded of something Franz Kafka said almost a century ago. “You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen. Simply wait; just learn to become quiet and still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

The Disappointment Artist.

The rain is coming down hard outside. I have been staring out my window wondering about how it all happens? My bones are a bit achy from too much sleep and there is a gentle irregular throb in my chest. I am a sensitive man who feels the weight of the world. At least I hope this is true. Disappointment

The phone rang and for some reason I answered. I was just thinking about masturbating but instead I found myself talking to my mother. She asked me in her tender vernacular if I wanted to join her to the museum. I was hesitant, but since I was unemployed and sitting around thinking too much, I told her I’d meet her there at noon.

I took the train into the city and stopped at a small tavern where I quickly drank down a couple of scotches. When I left the joint I could feel the stench of booze coming out from under my arm pits. Had I forgotten to shower? I walked hurriedly through the rain which was as relentless as my conscience. I was tempted to smoke but I did not want to upset my mother with the lingering scent- I promised her last year that I had muscled my way through the habit for good.

When I arrived at the museum entrance my mother was waiting for me with ticket in hand. My mother was like a like a life preserver in rough waters. She was the only island I had to rest upon. We walked arm in arm through the annals of art and observed many paintings and sculptures that I found less interesting than the walls that they hung upon. The Rothko and Klien paintings that made my mothers head spin in fits of passion, gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. She celebrated a painting by Modigliani which only stimulated in me an erection. I became bored quickly and asked her if we could go down to the cafe and get a cup of coffee. She said, I thought coffee makes your heart palpitate. It does, I replied, it’s the only time I feel alive.

We walked down stairs past sculptures by Hans Arp that I found fairly appealing- but I was put off by the whole idea. In the cafe my mother said, but you are an artis, how can you not like art? It’s not that I don’t like art, I just find it boring. There is something about hanging a man’s painting on a wall to be seen by strangers that does not sit right with me. I don’t understand son? I was having some difficulty breathing, the air in the cafe was stiff. All the museum goers and academics and culture whores stuffed in a small cafe on a rainy day having serious conversations about nothing important. I could feel my heart palpitating. Good coffee.

Daniel, how are you ever going to make a living as a painter if you do not show your work? My mother was concerned and I understood. I was 39 years old and without a job. The shoes on my feet were three years old and I had not the will to gather the money to spend on new shoes. These things were unimportant. I paint because I got to, I told my mother. I do it for no other reason than that. If I did not paint I would die. Painting is a physicaal process for me, much like the beating of my heart…it keeps me alive. I am not painting for any other reason and I believe that any art that is created with the intention of making a buck or being recognized aint worth the canvas it conceals. My mother looked dissapointed. Now look, I continued, if you want to hang my work on a wall after I am dead this is fine, but it is not my intention. My intention is to paint, to make art…..this is what I do. I aint got a clue how I am going to make a living, but thats alright. Its all part of the journey…..keeps art from becoming boring. The moment you put it in a museum, it looses its life.

I kissed my disappointed mother good bye. I was sad that I could not make her happy. Why can’t we all just be happy since sooner or later we will all be dust, I thought as I walked through the rain. I stoped back in at the tavern and drank another scotch. After I spent my money on the train ride home I was broke. I spent the rest of my night sitting on my couch, staring at the blank white wall in my studio apartment. I listened to the same Goldberg Variations performed by Glenn Gould over and over on my radio. Next door the the tenant who was always crying was still crying. The rain stopped outside but I didn’t care- I wasn’t going anywhere.

Coherence

My eyes opened at close to eleven a.m. this morning. All is a fog. Foggy windows, foggy mind. I have alway been a late waker but I have noticed that my sleep schedules have become more imbalanced. I have been thinking about how imbalance as a state I am stuck in. How does this state affect my physiological and psychological health? Is it true that the human organism is a well ordered system that needs pattern and regularity in order to thrive? Am I out-of-order?

Coherence is a state of being where all action is maximized and little energy is wasted. When one is existing in a coherent state they experience little stress and maximized health and vitality. Incoherence can be refered to as a state where the majority of ones energy is spent on simply maintaining the highly damaging reactions to stress. Incoherence takes a large toll on the body and mind usually leading to eventual disease and or chronic anxiety.

Creating a coherent state of being requires mindfulness and discipline. These are two virtues that I am trying to cultivate but I find it very difficult to do so because I have become habitual in my lazy and incoherent ways. Staying up late, falling into negative thinking and sleeping in because it is comfortable, have all lead me down a path of chronic anxiety and depression. The key to getting back on path is cultivating coherence. Meditation, positive affirmations, exercise, spiritual practice and living honestly are tools to help one come closer to living in a coherent state of being. The end result I am told by my acupuncturist…is a consistent state of well-being and longevity. Be patient and give it time, she said. So I will.

Morning Exercise.

    I step outside into the cold, frigid morning air. I take a deep breath and bend over. My back is stiff and I can barely touch the ground. I hang there for a few moments in time. The cold air rushes to my brain causing what tastes like a metallic tang to settle into my mouth. I remember certain glimpses from dreams I had the night before. I then slowly rise back up, one vertabre at a time.

There is a slight weeze in my lungs, a constant reminder of the city in which I live. I try to cough out the pollution but it is ineffective. I then raise my hands above my lethargic head and breathe deeply into my chest cavity. There is a tightness that is slightly loosened the deeper I breathe. I think about what I am going to do with my day and then try to focus on my breath. The dark sky is still covered in morning fog. I can feel my heart beating rapidly in my chest so I lower my arms.

I then take several full breaths of morning air up into the deepest corners of my nasal passages. With each inhalation I repeat a particular affirmation: “beautiful birdies in a tree” or “loving the free heart of a cat.” A bird causes a branch from a tree to fall near me. i remain undisturbed and keep inhaling and exhaling, slowly and with a calm rhythm. This is how we train our minds how to be still. Clam, slow breathing….but I still find myself thinking about what I am going to have for breakfast. I then bend back over and repeat the whole process three more times.

The Shaking Man.

I met a young man the other day who suffered from a very strange pathology. I am not sure that I had ever seen a thing like it before. He told me that he had been suffering for many years and had finally reached a point in his life where he was turning his pain into hope. Still, I felt like he had a long way to go. While I was talking with him I was able to see his malady first hand.

For no apparent reason he begins shaking. It could be a word, a thought or a particular kind of food that instigates the shaking. The fits can be from mild to severe, thankfully the one I noticed was mild. He refers to these shaking episodes as “redundant twitches”, meaning an electrical twitch that repeats itself over and over. He told me that these episodes could take place at any time, without a moments warning- so he has become agoraphobic.

I was invited over to his studio apartment to talk about a possible job as a ghost writer for a book that he wants to write. The premise for his book would be upon the ability of thought to create reality. I was a bit skeptical about this since I had always considered reality to be something that happens to someone. We live in-between chaos, subject to its every whim, with little power to influence this, I told him.

This is not true, we create reality by the way in which we think about it, he told me. For example, If I have negative thoughts about my body..these negative thoughts will translate into negative sensations in my body. This negative feeling in my body will cause me to experience my reality in an unpleasant way. Energy follows thought. I don’t know, I told him, but I am a good enough writer to write upon any subject- even if I do not believe what I am writing about. He offered me a cigarette.

In the corner of the room was a meditation alter. I asked him how often he meditated. He told me that he was a practitioner of Zazen meditation, which he did every morning for one hour at 5 a.m. I asked him if he was a Zen Buddhist to which he replied, I do not know.

After about an hour into our conversation, I noticed that he was beginning to shake. Excuse me he said but I feel an episode coming on. His hole body began to twitch and rattle. I was a bit frightened because to me it seemed as if he was going to have a seizure. His teeth began to shiver like a man caught in a cold snow storm. The….only…..thing……that…….seems…..to……calm…..me……down……is…….wine…..and…..heat, she said as if he had a stutter. I went into his small make-shift kitchen and poured him a glass of red wine. When I returned back into the front room he was gone. The front door was still open but there was no sign of him. I waited for awhile for his return, but he never returned.

I did not hear from him for a few days. I did not know what to think. When I did finally receive a phone call from him I found myself being a bit angry for what he had put me through. He apologized profusely and told me that he had panicked. He had gotten up to turn on the heater and felt a terrifying sensation in his body. His heart was racing and he thought he was going to die. All he could do was panic and run. He ran to the hospital a few blocks away where he waited for desperate help for hours until they told him they could not help him since he was without insurance.

I forgave him the moment I heard the sincere apology in the tone of his voice. I asked him if there was any medication that he could take for these strange episodes to which he replied….the purpose of my life is to learn how to live with my discomforts so I can discover something deeper about myself. Medication would only blind me to the true cause…I would rather suffer than live like a sedated victim. I understood this.

Would you still be interested in ghost writing my book? he asked. I told him for the right price I would be willing to do anything. Why don’t you come over this evening and we will discuss your fee, he said. I will be there at seven.

Wasting 25 Minutes.

My wife just called me on the phone and asked me if I could pick her up in twenty five minutes. I said sure honey and we got off the phone with a pleasant I love you. Twenty five minutes, I thought to myself. What would I do to pass the time?

My wife works at a rather hip fine fine dine restaurant in downtown Oakland. I have been at home all this evening in a rather depressive state. My emotions have crossed the spectrum of fear and contentment and back and forth again over the course of the past few hours. At a certain point in the evening my anxiety grew so great that I found my body shaking and my mind racing. Over time I managed to calm myself by playing the guitar and reading some passages from Rilke’s The Book of Hours.

Maybe I should meditate more or try and cultivate qualities of emotional maturity. I read a passage in a book this evening that said that emotional intelligence means having self awareness, seeing the links between thoughts, feelings and reactions; knowing if thoughts or feelings are ruling a decision: seeing the consequences of alternative choices: and applying these insights to choice.

I have always found such discipline difficult. I have always tended to be someone who acts from impulse. Over the course of my life this has rewarded me with temporary feelings of exhilaration but these feelings have almost always passed away and mutated into feelings of guilt and shame.

My wife is determined to turn me into a positive thinker. I feel sick, I say to her and she replies- but what is good about your life? At times these attempts and passifying my negative thoughts are as confusing to me as mathematical equations. I do not know how to respond.

Stress is the body and mind’s response to any pressure that disrupts a persons normal balance. This is why I seem to be in a perpetual state of dis-stress. My normal state of balance is seldom in balance. The world outside my door has become a crazy place. The world inside my mind and body is even crazier. I can hear my wife asking but what is good about my life…and to this I reply that the twenty five minutes are up and I can now go pick her up!

Lunch Time Therapy.

“The significant problems that we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Mr. Albert Einstein

I had lunch with a friend today who was arguing with me about my ideas of the present moment. He agreed with my statement that we can find complete satisfaction in our lives if we could keep our minds directed on what is here NOW. But worry and desire creeps in, he said. For example, I am always wanting for my daughter be safe, happy, financially secure and I am concerned that these are not realities for her in the moment. So he worries. I asked him whether or not he thought he was projecting his own fear and insecurity upon his daughter? He shook his stern head at me and said, listen I agree with what you are saying- but I am still a parent who wants only the best for my daughter. Yes, I said but do you want the best for yourself? Do you fear not having financial security, safety and happiness? Of course not he replied and it was at that moment that our conversation grew tense.

We are all so busy nowadays that we have little time to contemplate anything but what we would like to have in some future space. We have become so crowded in a personality of our own making that to look around at it and describe what we see is much to painful. Can’t go there so lets go else where, we say. Our personality has become such a habit that it is comfortable. Being fully present in this world where everyone is so busy, is unpleasant. When I told my friend, who swallowed his second glass of red wine, that he was creating the very thing that he feared by not addressing his own inner state, his own feelings- he immediately asked me how I thought this was so. If you want your daughter to be happy and secure, I told him, than you need to create happiness and security within yourself. Once you have achieved this state of “awareness” you will then naturally create these things for everyone around you. By wanting security and happiness for your daughter, you are suggesting that they are not there now. And if this is true the only way you will create these conditions for another is by creating them for yourself. Where you put your attention creates your experience.

He looked at me with a blank expression. He was confused or distressed. He asked me if I was in therapy or had become a Buddhist. I told him, no, I was just trying to figure things out for myself. You see, I said- if how we have been thinking has created all our fear and frustration we need to change this very form of thinking within our self first, before we can help others. The old ways of thinking have created our lives as they are now. We still have fear that we project onto others. By being present we can learn to understand how we are feeling and transform our feelings into positive expressions of love. This is all there is to it even though it is the hardest thing you will ever do.

I see, he said, things are not so bad, I am dealing with it. Don’t think that I am suffering inside, I am just trying to figure it out as well, he tried to convince me. At that point my friend ordered another glass of wine from the waitress and told me that I should become a Therapist.

A Brief Introduction.

It is getting late into the evening. I am waiting silently in my cold home for my wife to arrive back from New York. My feet are freezing but some how my upper body feels warm. I have had the good fortune to find out that my third short story Writer’s Block was published on this day. Not bad for a lazy writer who would rather drift off into a dark window than put words together on paper. I am one of those writers who writes only because he must. If I ignored the bug it would turn into a full blown sickness. I know not where this need to orchestrate ridiculous short stories comes from, possibly from an earlier life lived as a lie proceeded by the profound pursuit of honesty in my older age. This would be a fair summation of my work. The characters I create and the situations that they find themselves in are all absurd fictions that desperately want to relay a glimpse of truth to the reader. The only literature that I seem interested in creating is a literature that compulsively lies but is dead honest in its message. For some reason I am always trying to pass along some kind of message through my strange tales. Sometimes I feel like such a stranger in the times in which I am living and writing is my way of crying out for help. Everything is in the message.

Once again I poisoned myself today. While driving I ran over a thick plastic bag which has melted all over the muffler and fuel lodge. Each time I drive I am intoxicated by the fumes that ascend up from the melted plastic (I have scraped off as much as possible). I become dizzy and am left with a lingering cough and headache. The only cure for this malady is time and a lot of water to pass the toxins through my body. My strategy to get rid of the remaining melted plastic is to drive around in the evening with a respirator on until I am able to melt the remaining plastic off into infinity. If this does not work I will pray that someone steals my car, taking the burden off of my sticky hands. Why things of this nature seem to happen to me I am unaware. I suppose it is the cosmos or the god/dess of writing filling me with unnerving struggles so that I am forced to connect the parallels between absurdity and real life. And from this possibly the literature shall flow…..