A Lost Angel

( I am drunk) Do you know what it is like to be riddle with anxiety- stuck in a darkened room? You can see outwards but within it is blurry and riddled with fear. Smoke lingers between the palpitating curtains and there are sounds of restricted breathing and muted yells. Flowers glow in the corners; windowns are covered with exhaust and I am neither here nor there wondering how and when I am going to get out. On the outside I look calm and ready to suggest a walk or a drink, but on the inside I am clamoring, stricken with a constricted terror. The reality of the situation is as difficult to perceive as truth or energy- but it is as tactile as salt and water. I fall away into a blue state where the room becomes dull- unequal to any other experience. What do things like reputation and money matter when you are upon the edge of panic? Superficiality is stripped away like rust when confronted with your mortality. I smoke a cigarette and contemplate driving down the freeway or stopping off in a lonely topless bar. Until then, I am stuck here and trying to figure out what to do with all this madness.

Sitting On Buddhas Head.

The palest ink is better than the best memory. This quote was written upon a small paper tab that was attached to my tea bag. I had awoken in a fog unable to remember where I had eaten dinner the night before. I remembered my wife waking in the middle of the night in a slight panic but other than this my past was as illusive to me as notions of god. While lying in bed I tried to recall a few things from my past. I was able to remember the faces of a few women I had slept with many years ago. I remembered the first car that I received upon turning the driving age (but I was unable to recall the color) and I also was able to remember a small park in Berkeley that I enjoy sitting in. Other than these few superficial details of my life I was having difficulty recalling the events of the previous day. I arose from bed, made some tea and found that relevant quote dangling from the tip of my tea cup. I am always startled by the way forces collude to create coincidences.

After eating an egg I was somehow able to recall a very large steel Buddha that a local artist constructed in a park around the corner from my home. I dressed quickly, feeling a strong inclination to go visit the Buddha. I had no understandable motive- other than seeking out a wisdom that may shed some light upon my lethargic situation. I put on mittens, a heavy jacket, and a cotton cap and walked the block or two to where the steel Buddha sat still upon the grass. A few dog owners were out throwing disturbing objects to salivating fur balls to chase after. I admired the contentment from which these dog owners watched their dogs run. I could not remember how long it had been since I felt that kind of contentment.

I stood beside the Buddha and looked up at it’s over-sized features. It’s height was no more than twenty feet. The artist created the Buddha sitting in the lotus posture, with hands coming together in the center- I assume to portray a state of nirvana. The Buddha’s eyes were shut and there was an expression of quiet rectitude upon his face. I stood in front of him and observed a very slight inhalation and exhalation coming from the statues belly. This did not surprise me since I was well aware of the scientific finding that within all inert matter there is moving energy. While breathing in the damp morning air I felt a strange desire to climb to the top of the Buddha. Like all my desires which I am seldomly able to control, I began my ascent.

After stepping on the hands, pulling at the nipple, hanging onto the nose and dragging my way up onto the crown of the Buddha’s head I had reached the summit with a rapidly beating heart and a feeling of being short of breath. I sat so that my long legs fell over the Buddha’s face and I looked straight out into a pasture of green grass. The sun had fully risen to its place in the sky and my mind was slowly becoming more relaxed. I breathed deeply and tried to find a place in me that spiritual aspirants refer to as a center. I slowed the erratic quality of my thoughts by listening to the squirrels chew walnuts in the trees. I could feel an intense vibrating energy coming from the Buddha’s face. It was such a strong energy that my legs and butt were quickly warmed up. The dog owners noticed this strange apparition sitting on the Buddha’s head and glanced at me with suspicious eyes. All I could do was smile and enjoy the morning sun.

Gradually I remembered various images that I had taken in the day before. I remembered the salad, orange and chicken that I had eaten for dinner with a few glasses of red wine. I remembered the bike ride that I had taken all around Berkeley and Oakland the day before. Fragments of my life started to come back to me the more I relaxed and quited my mind. Slowly I was re-introduced to a self I had forgotten. I was inspired to stand up tall on the Buddhas head and reach out towards the heavens. I was filled with an exhilarating feeling that wanted to touch the sun, the stars, all things divine. As soon as I stood up, I noticed my left foot loosing connection with the Buddha’s head. Soon after that my right foot lost its connection and before I knew it any sense of mindfulness that I had achieved was gone. I was falling twenty feet towards the dewy grass and all I could think on my descent down was this is going to hurt.

I was awoken by a feeling of wet sandpaper sliding its way along my face. When I opened my eyes I noticed two dogs gathering above me. They were licking the remnants of enlightenment from my face as their owners asked me if I needed them to call an ambulance. One owner told me not to move because I may have broken my neck. I felt bruised and battered but not in enough pain to feel as if I had been badly damaged. I landed in soft grass upon my back. I took the liberty to ask one of the dog owners to help me up, and then I dusted my self off. I was sore and my back felt like shards of broken glass. I will be okay, I told them as they watched me with carefully eyes. I am just going to slowly walk home and makes some tea. I slowly limped back towards my home- which I was having some difficulty finding. After a few moments it occurred to me that I was lost. I decided to sit down on the side of the road. My back refused to sit straight so I lied down on the ground. Looking up at the morning sun I decided- I would wait for as long as it took for the past to return to me so that I could slowly find my way back home.

Growing Pains

      The string that holds my soul to my body aches. The joints in my feet are constantly perturbing my mood. My spirit is inside out and there is an ominous worry that makes its way into my mind. My Doctor, who is also my mother and financial guardian- tells me that these are only growing pains. She is a Jungian Psychoanalyst, and she tells me that she sees many cases such as this from men and women in their mid-thirties. They are people who have a tendency to long for more than they have and feel much more accomplished than their reality might demonstrate, my mother tells me. They are individuals who are dreamers, and so far their dreams have not come to fruition so they must start to think of other ways to support themselves, she also told me. So far this sounded like me.

My growing pains began when I realized I may have to go back to school. I have always considered myself an artist but this imagination has not turned a profit. I have earned less than a $1,000 from my art and am now faced with a mid-life crisis. What am I going to do now? I am signed up and ready to attend a graduate program which will miraculously turn me into a psychotherapist. But it hurts. My eyes are heavy and my arms feel longer than normal. I have been stricken with constant headaches and a chronic cough will not leave me alone. I have never imagined myself a professional, let alone a Therapist- but there needs to be money in the bank and I am weary of my art being able to provide for my future family.

Madness is a disease that will keep your families stomach full and a warm roof over your head, the admissions counselor to the Psychology program told me. There is no shortage of psychological ailments to treat, you will be a rich man in no time. I can see it in your eyes, he said as we shook hands and I left his office. I returned home with palpitations and a pain in my side. What could he see in my eyes, I kept thinking. I was angry and decided to sit down and write this entry with the hopes that it might make some sense to a stranger out there who can relate to my pain. I am overcome by the world and the way I had imagined myself in it (writer, artist) seems to be changing into something else. It hurts.

I took a shower this morning and felt a painful knot in my stomach. I have been burping a lot lately which makes me think that I may be suffering from an ulcer. My worst fear other than death, is being ordinary. I have done every thing that I can to avoid the trappings of the ordinary. Now that I may be becoming a Therapist and a family man the trappings of ordinarinesses are seeming closer. I feel anxious and have to remind myself to stay present. I am currently enrolled in a stress reduction mindfulness course that is helping me to just this. Stay with the breath, when the mind starts chattering away, just bring your attention back to the inhalation and exhalation.

This morning I went for psychoanalysis with my mom. She has a nice leather couch that I lay down upon and the smell of redwood trees fills her small office in the Berkeley hills. I talked about my deepest fears- one being my inability to make money doing something that I love. I talked about how unhappy the prospect that I may never be successful at my chosen craft makes me. I shivered and felt my heart beating from my stomach. My mother told me that Apocalypse means to reveal what is hidden. It is a kind of renewal. She made me aware of the personal Apocalypse that I was going through and how the growing pains that I was feeling were symptoms of this Apocalypse. Be patient, allow the renewal to take place and stop judging, she said. Humans are supposed to be joyful.

I returned home this afternoon with a perpetual burp. The string that holds my soul to my body still aches. Today I will sit in meditation for a few hours and try not to worry about rent, what I am going to do for money, or my health. I will just sit still and inhale and exhale. This is it. All of my attention will go into being present in the moment. This usually relieves the headaches, palpitations, chest pain, back ache, ulcer, and feet aches. I have no idea how long these growing pains are going to last but I am getting close to forty and it is my hope that they are resolved by then.

Working With The Dead, Part 1

The first dead body I picked up was a fat man lying on the floor in his underwear in a motel room, in which he seemed to be living. A few days ago I received a phone call from a friend of a friend. “Hey, this is Fransisco, I hear you need a job.” “I do,” I said. “Well I own a mortuary and I need someone to pick up stiffs.” I had never seen a dead body before and thought, why not…it would be an interesting experience. I started later that day. Fransisco gave me the keys to a blue mini van without rear windows and a solid handshake welcoming me aboard.

“The first thing I want you to do in the morning is come into the refrigerator and mop up all the goo,” Fransisco said. He took me into the refrigerator where the dead bodies were stored until they were buried or cremated. I saw stacks of bodies under white sheets with feet sticking out. Most of the feet were black. “Overnight they ooze and the stuff is stinky, so we got to get it up first thing in the morning.” “What do they ooze?” I asked. “They are roting, so their fat slowly falls off. It is usually the ones who ate a lot of meat and drank a lot of liquor that ooze the most,” Fransisco replied. He then showed me where the boxes were kept to put the “stiffs” in after I picked them up. He showed me how to label the boxes and where to place them in the fridge. “You okay with all this?” Fransisco asked me.

When I walked into the mortuary on my first day, there was a handsome man in his mid thirties lying nude on a stretcher. He had long hair and a woven hemp bracelet around his ankle. He looked as if he was in perfect physical condition, a hippie in the prime of his youth. The only disturbing thing was that he was dead. “What did he die of?” I asked Fransisco. “AIDS,” Fransisco replied while lighting some incense which was always burning in the mortuary. I had never imagined that someone could die of AIDS yet look so healthy. While I was staring at the body I was introduced to a lady with long black hair and a face that reminded me of Aphrodite. She wore a short mini skirt, and when she bent over to collect ash from the cremation machine- I noticed she was wearing a garter belt. Fransisco told me that she was finishing Mortician’s college, working as his assistant and that he was fucking her on a regular basis. It was more information than I needed, but Fransisco was an ego maniac and a sex addict who liked to brag about his conquests.

Bruce, who was training me that day, did not know how we could get the fat man onto the gurney. I had no clue either. This was the first dead person I had ever laid hands upon and I was hesitant. “Just grab the ankles,” Bruce said as a police officer who was on the scene helped us to lift the fat man up. The lady across the hall was crying and kept repeating that “he was such a nice man.” I could not help but notice that his motel room was filled with picture of Bob Dylan and Samuel Beckett. Once Bruce and myself finally got the fat man into the mini van we drove to Summit Hospital to pick up a second body. On the way to the hospital Bruce talked about his love for cocaine and prostitutes. He was a certified Mortician who was in his mid forties and lived with his mother due to financial problems. “There is a street near here where on a break, if the van is empty, you can pick up a prostitute and have a quicky,” Bruce said with a look that showed he meant what he was saying.

On the way to the hospital we got a call from Fransisco that we had to first go pick up a body on the corner of Claremont and College Ave that had been run over by a cement roller. “A cement roller?” I said. “Just your luck man, on your first day you get to see blood,” Bruce said with a giggle. I was apprehensive. Deep down I did not know if this was going to be the job for me. Seeing death so up close instilled a fear in my bones that I knew I would never be able to set free.

The scene at the accident was not as gruesome as we expected. The woman who was run over by a cement roller was not flattened out as one would imagine. She was badly bruised and battered but otherwise- everything on her body was in its right place. We were told that she was a local Architect who was walking to get into her car when the cement roller came around a corner too quickly and ran her over as she was getting into the drivers seat. We stuck the body which was nicely dressed in a modern black suit- into a white body bag, lifted her up onto the gurney and then placed her in the mini van besides the fat man. I also took her black leather suitcase which I found beside the trunk of her car.

With two dead bodies in the back of the van, Bruce decided that we should stop and have lunch. I was not feeling hungry but I had a beer while he ate a burrito. We talked about the job and he let me know that it got easier as the days went by. He also told me that Fransisco was the craziest man I would ever come across. When we arrived back at the mortuary Fransisco was waiting for us besides the back door through which we took the dead bodies. While smoking a joint, Fransisco showed me how to stick the bodies in cardboard boxes and then load them into the refrigerator. I wrote both their names on the side of the boxes and then we stacked the Architect and the fat man together in the fridge. Fransisco then handed me a mop and said “Here kid…it’s starting to stink in here.” It was only 12:30 p.m.

The Looser.

“You are such a looser,” my wife said. It was a truthful judgment. I am a looser. I could argue with her no more than I could argue with my mother about my birth date. “I am getting so tired of it,” she said with a defeated look on her face. “I just don’t know what to do about it, in fact I do not think that there is anything I can do about it.” I stood there solemnly listening to all of her contentions. It is true that in the past week I have lost my house keys, my wallet, our cat, my job, my hair and a very sentimental guitar pick that my great-great- grandfather left for me. Ever since I was young I have had a particular tendency to loose things. As I have aged this tendency has grown into a full blown psychological disorder. It is true- I am a looser. I loose everything.

“The cat, your wallet, the house keys, all in the past three days!” my wife puffed at me. “It has got to end, you can’t keep being a looser. What is it going to take for me to feel like I can trust you with my things? What if we have a child and you loose it??” The week before I had borrowed her car and forgotten where I parked it. It took me hours to find it. “I really think that the problem is a chemical imbalance in my brain. I am simply forgetful,” I said. “Well get both of your feet back on the ground because I need a husband who can be accountable for our things!” I did not disagree with her even though I was angered with her for the way in which she was registering her complaints. And then the thought occurred to me….I could loose my wife. I pictured my self as a lonely man waiting for no one to come home in a desolate apartment without any love. My bones shivered and my eye lids went cold. I could not allow this to happen. I could loose everything but I did not want to loose my wife. I looked at my wife with an unmistakable look of seriousness and said, “I will try my best not to be a looser. I’m just so used to loosing things.” “I understand baby,” she said “but I know you can do better in life than being absent minded looser.” “Where there is a will there is a way,” I said with a determined look that hinted at my ability to change. We hugged and exchanged a sweet marital kiss and then I decided to head off into the evening and look for our lost cat. As I was walking away my wife yelled, “now that I think of it- you are actually a winner.” “Oh yeah, why?” I asked. “Because you have me.” I smiled and continue to walk on into the night.

The Man Who Wanted To Stop Time.

I needed to find a way to stop time. The constant passing succession of calendar days was making me dizzy. By the time I bought a calendar for the new year it was already the next year. The years keep passing like wind. As I get older the months pass so quickly that I am all of a sudden balding and going gray. I seem to have less time as I grow older in time and I am afraid that before I know it everything I love will be demolished by time .

In an attempt to stop time I have tried perpetual masturbation, week long meditation, month long episodes of fasting and drinking binges that went on for years. I have tried to become a Buddhist and accept the inherent emptiness in all things, but the thought made me sad and anxious. My meditation teacher worked with me to be more accepting of time rather than trying to do away with it all together. “Courage,” he said “is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” He kept trying to get me to have the courage to accept time but all I wanted was to find a way to stop it, dead in its tracks.

Our society is made up of little excerpts of being on time. “Rapid Service,” “Overnight Shipping,” “The World On Time.” It is almost as if we think that we are lengthening our lives by speeding time up. A stranger who I happened into an interesting conversation with at a cafe said, “Time is a man made construct to express time as an illusion. You see, time is a concept that we use to express birth, growth, degeneration and death.” Interesting I thought. Maybe I could stop time if I can learn to forget about the past, loose all my memories and forget about yesterday. Then the thought came to me, “If I do not have a job, friends, wife or places to be- then I would never have to worry about being on time. I could live outside of time!!”

I thought about this for a few days and realized it would never work. If I forgot about my past and gave up my responsibilities I would end up lonely and poor. I do live in a society that is addicted to time. We use time up quicker than we can appreciate its passing- this is why I always hear people lamenting the passing of time. We exist in a psychological state that feels the absence of time. We live with a loss so great that the only thing we can do to medicate our pain is move quicker or drink and eat more.

I suppose that it is impossible to stop time. Time is a movement forward and no matter how much I try to sit still or walk backwards..time still seems to pass me by. I grow older without even having the time to experience being young. The more I look in the mirror the less I can see an image of myself reflected back at me. Time seems to be erasing all things that I felt to be familiar. My aquarium remains unwashed, my clothes stay dirty and my heart seems to grow more weary with the passing of each day.

I woke up this morning realizing that time is apart of being human. I could stop it no more than I could stop rain. If I concentrate hard enough during my meditation, I can forget about time- but still my hair turns gray and wrinkles appear on my skin. I returned to my meditation teacher this morning who quoted T.S. Elliot. He said, “Time past and time future are all contained in time present.” Then he handed me a pen and asked me to write a few Haikus. This is what I wrote:

Look at the dust/this is me,/tomorrow.

Inquire mind,/tell me,/nothing.

Not knowing/My days pass/I am free.

Stuff becomes/Nothing./So unstuff.

The Confusion Of Empty Paintings.

I drew a window upon the wall and tried to look through it. All I saw was a reflection of my face stuck some place in time. I drew another window on another wall and all I could see was a sea which was a lexicon of blueness. On the floor I drew another window through which all I saw was a multiplication of lips all reaching out to me for a kiss. I sat on the side of my bed and watched my feet turn into roots which stretched themselves all the way beneath the earths crust. I have been confused, not knowing who or what I am. My confusion seems to be ink and the world is paper upon which I write poems which remain unread. The world is at war in a culture not my own and I am stuck in my room drawing windows on walls and floors through which I see dreams about places that I will never be. My motivation is empty of any steam and the only goal I uphold is to live another day. What will become of me when the lips, the sea, the ink and the reflections of my face all start to become a city in which no one inhabits and no sounds are heard? I must sleep now because my head is becoming heavy and there is still much work to do.

The Haunted House.

Today I saw a ghost for the first time. It scared the shit out of me. It appeared more like a shadow than a person, and went away as quickly as it appeared. I have always been apprehensive about ghosts, but after today I am convinced that there is more going on than meets the eye. I was so startled out of my mindless stupefaction, that I jumped out of my chair and ran out of the house. I urinated on my leg and kept yelling out “what the fuck was that!!” I was home alone so there was no way that I was going to return before the police arrived (I managed to calm myself enough to call on my neighbors phone). Once they arrived, I told them that I saw a life sized shadow slowly make its way across the wall. The officer asked me if I thought it was a person and I said no, it was a ghost. “How do you know?” the officer asked. “Because I felt the air go ice cold, and felt the presence of something abnormal.. something really frightening.” Both officers went into the house with their guns out, and when they returned fifteen minutes later one of the officers said to me with a shivering voice, “there is definitely no person in there, but son..that is one hunted house.” They too, left as quickly as they came, and I decided to spend the rest of my afternoon at a cafe.

The Fashion Police.

    I have not been leaving the house much lately. Without a job there is little need, and besides I have figured out that each time I step out my front door I will spend at least $10.00. Going out into the world is not cheap….in fact it is downright expensive. So I elect to stay in. I paint, write, meditate and sit around doing less than nothing. I have accomplished Pascal’s maxim which says “If man could be content sitting in a chair, alone- all the ills of human kind could have been avoided.” Perfectly put. Not only am I content sitting alone in a room doing nothing, but I am quite preoccupied. I think about things and go through the film strip which is my life. Part by part.

Just today while I was sitting in a chair in my backyard observing the various kinds of birds that were dangling around in the trees, my wife asked me if I ever had any plans of changing. “What do you mean changing?” I asked. “Your clothes,” she said very directly. “What do I need to change my clothes for?” I asked unaware that I have been wearing the same thing for the past week. “You are starting to stink,” my wife said. “What?” I was shocked. “Yes, you are starting to stink and I am finding it bothersome. I understand that you have no place that you need to be, and I have nothing against you being comfortable…but I am concerned about your hygiene,” my wife said with real concern in her voice. “You think I stink?” I asked again to make sure that what I was hearing was true. “You have been wearing those same droopy brown sweat pants for a week and that t-shirt has been on your body for as long as I can remember. What has happened, you used to be one of the nicer dressed men that I had ever met?” “What happened?” I rhetorically asked. “What happened is that I am comfortable and have no need to change.”

My wife began to squirm in front of me. She looked restless and uncomfortable. Her hands where struggling to remain still. After a moment of silence I asked, “what is it?” She stared at the ground as I continued to look at the birds in the trees. I stuck my hands under my armpits and smelled them. I checked in between my testicles to see what that smelled like. “I’ll make you a deal,” my wife said. “I will buy you dinner at any place you want tonight if you just shower and shave.” I thought about this for a moment. I have not had a lot of loose change the past few weeks and this has meant eating lots of canned foods. A good fresh meal tempted me to appease her even though I felt like she was behaving like the fashion police. “Okay… deal,” I said as my wife shook my hand and bent over and gave me a kiss. “I love you,” she said. As she was walking away I said “Do you know that Pascal said……” She turned around, gave me an awkward look and said, “I don’t want to hear about Pascal….just take a shower, so we can get something to eat.”

The Glamorous Life.

I woke up later than I should have. Lately I have been trying to get out of bed earlier than 9 a.m- but I have yet to do so. There is something very enjoyable about being asleep. I had my head beneath my pillow (to keep out the light) when I heard my wife say “It’s almost noon. You have got to get out of bed.” I stupidly asked her “why?” She left the room and then came back with a frown on her face. “You need to get out of bed! You are so irresponsible!!” Nothing perturbs me more than being called irresponsible. I pay my rent, keep food in the fridge and have money left over for superfluous things (even though I lack a job and have a handful of bills collecting dust on my desk). “What do you mean I am irresponsible?” “Oh common honey, irresponsibility is your middle name.” I could not believe she was attacking me when I was defenseless and still in bed.

I got out from bed and kept asking “how do you think I am irresponsible?” My wife would not reply until I sat down and stopped being malicious. “Okay, I am fine,” I said waiting for her response. “You are irresponsible in everything. I ask you to do this and that and you don’t do it. I asked you to pay the parking tickett which you did not and now it is double the price. The list goes on and on and I am sick and tired of it. You’re gaining weight, becoming cynical and spending your time writing some ridiculous blog, for what?” She started to pick up her things to leave, and I let her since I was terribly offended to be called “irresponsible.” I heard my wife walk out the front door and I got back into bed. Ten years ago today I was in Medical School and quickly moving toward a successful career as a Doctor. I had published a book of short stories and was being advertised as a young Writer who is in Medical School (which I never finished). I had potential. Now its past noon and I am unemployed and still in bed.

Sex Life Of A Man Without One #8

What a strange life we are all stuck inside of. Some may be better at disguising the strangeness of life behind the normalcy of convention, but no one can escape from the mysteries of change and the passing of time. I am always amazed by the ways in which change and time impact my life. Just when I think that everything is becoming manageable everything falls apart. Just when I think that I am fully present in the moment- I seem to become stuck in the past. Maybe this is why people become so heavily addicted to sex. It is the one activity that defies change and time. There is a safety in sex- the safety of familiarity. In this ever changing odd world, familiarity is like raft or a life preserver. It keeps us afloat.

This morning I found myself back on Craig’s List looking at the erotic personals. My wife has gone out for the day and once again I am using my alone time to pursue sexual fantasies. I am terribly tempted by adds such as “How Many Licks Does It Take,” “Smother Your Face In A Catwax,” or “Super Sexy and DEELUSHIZ.” I am entertained by all of the possibilities that lay behind each of these adds. They are like little erotic stories waiting to be experienced. All I have to do is pick up the phone and dial. I could of never imagined that sex could be so easy.

The only problem is that I rarely ever call. I may dial quickly and then hang up when I hear a voice. Or I will ask a few questions like “so what do you do?” or “how much would it cost to get an erotic massage?” The girls are always nice and hungry for business- so conversation is never difficult. What is difficult is doing away with my guilt or shame and pretending that nothing is wrong. I have no desire to be unfaithful to my wife, and even the simplest thought that I may be betraying or deceiving her makes me feel like dirt. An object of scorn. A failure. But then again, I know that these feelings go way back before my recent obsession with the Craig’s List Erotic adds.

One of my earliest memories is of waking up in the middle of the night one summer and looking in my backyard where I could see over two dozen naked adults around a large wood hot tub, having sex in various primal positions. Steam from the hot water covered their bodies in a strange mystique and I was fascinated from the moment I saw this. My mother and father were swingers and would always host the most “active” of sex parties. They always started long after I would go to bed, but I was never quite fully asleep between the moving/gyrating floor boards above my head and the strange, languorous sex sounds that emanated from the bellies of participants in the throes of pleasure. I was always curious about these sounds because they seemed to express something about adults that I never heard expressed in words. It was almost as if all the clues about the meaning of life were hidden in these primal pleasure sounds.

As I grew older it seemed as if my parents became less interested in promiscuous sex. They had been hassled by police and even humiliated by a write up in the local press. I remember the headline read “Is Your Psychiatrist Hosting Sex Parties?” They wanted to become a normal suburban Jewish family and forget their infamous past. Occasionally they would have some friends over from the Temple and watch pornography behind closed doors but for the most part as the mid-eighties approached my home was free from the Debby-Does-Dallas clamourings of sex crazed adults. The only problem was that as my parents interest in promiscuous sex faded away mine grew stronger. By the age of thirteen I was masturbating like a mad man to my fathers dirty magazines and calling various phone sex services on a daily basis. I would stay up late at night and for hours try to unscramble a sex show on television. Often times I would manage to get a clear picture after hours of desperate unscrambling- with which I would proceed to watch with my penis in my hand until the picture scrambled out. I would make the strangest sex sounds from deep in my belly and somehow feel like I was finally acting like an adult.

My parents had no clue what was happening to their son. At my Bar Mitzvah I convinced a friend of mine to perform oral sex on me in the country club bathroom stall. When I was fifteen I remember taking the liver that my mom brought home from the butcher shop and having sex with it in the bathroom ( a friend at Sunday school told me that doing this felt like a vagina). By the time I was sixteen I had various sex crazed girlfriends (and a life sized blow up doll) and I was sneaking into strip clubs where the dancers knew me by my first name. I was so young and cute and they wanted to be the first to initiate me into a life of degeneracy. At that time in San Fransisco the strip clubs still had a seedy personality and smelled like sex and sleaze. They had a strange kind of animal luster in them that was decorated with red lights, candles and lots of hidden rooms. The strip clubs were dens of iniquity where no fantasy was too much and everything was legal. It was what I imaged the red light district in Paris at the turn of the century must of been like. Any time I could find a way out from my home and into the mire that was San Fransisco- I would do so without resistance. I would stay in the clubs until closing and at times, very special times…leave with a stripper and return to her residence. I was a young man out of control. By the age of twenty one I was unstoppable, broke and in weekly sessions with a sex therapist.

Now I have little interest in getting my penis licked by a stranger in a red lit room for sixty dollars. The Strip clubs in San Fransisco have all lost their charm. So, my final vice is these Craig’s List Erotic adds. Adds like “Suck You All Night Long,” or “Sex Kitten Wants To Purrrrr On You,” all make me feel young again. I realize that it is kind of pathetic to be spending my days caught up in the transgressive print of a seedy add. I also understand that behind the sexual lingo are broken dreams and desperate measures that are being taken to earn a buck. I am a married man, who should be spending his time learning about investments and savings accounts. Adult matters. Instead my head is still rapped around the pleasure or obsessions of my youth. It is familiar. A habit that keeps me from feeling the gravity of what my life has become. Rather it keeps me distracted- so I can not notice all the change that is happening around me, all the time that is passing away.

Sex Life Of A Man Without One #7

I have decided to make a long pilgrimage to Tibet. This week has been a road paved with all kinds of sharp hurtles and treacherous turns. I made the best decisions that I seem to know how to make but still the lines have been blurred. I am baffled by my life and unclear about the directions that I am heading in. I am a married man with little to show for my successes other than a book shelf filled with half read books. My sex life has turned clinically dysfunctional and I see no end in site. The love I have for my wife is greater than all the water in the world, yet my simple ability to make love to her is as remote from my mind as mechanics. Deep down in my bones, I am feeling an immense urge to find a way to get to Tibet.

I don’t know when or where I will get the money to go on this pilgrimage…but fear and worry are not the point of a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a coming home to the land of your dreams- and dreams are more real than the plans of our brain, provided they are dreams that mirror the deepest yearnings of our soul, the very center of our being.

I want to travel to the land of turquoise lakes and golden hills under flowering shrubs in an unknown oasis- and sit by a campfire with a little wise man who is the mere image of the Buddha and hear him say to me:

“Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:

A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightening in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom a dream.”

I will sit in silent meditation far away from the temptations of sexual activity or the negative influence of the Craig’s List erotic adds. The harmony of my mind will return to me uncontaminated by lust and guilt. For the first time in years I will feel holly because I would have freed myself from the bondage of perversion. No more blonds licking their breasts and offering me their tongues, or brunettes with their legs spread wide open enticing my genitalia to grow so stimulated that I can barely contain my self. I will be a free man!

In my minds eye I have the whole pilgrimage planned out. It is all quite simple and I plan to spend six months away. I will journey from the upper Nyang Valley down to Nyang-to-Kyi-Phug where there is a place called Kyi-phug, “the happy cave.” One can make a reservation to stay in the cave for up to ten years. The cave is sectioned off into various living quarters where meditators spend the entire day and night in meditation. Each cave dwelling is locked from the outside and there is only a small shelf in the bottom of the door where food is slipped in. The food is all high quality vegan food and the rates are decent. For $220 American dollars I can choose to be confined to a cave for a period of six months with two meals a day and a weekly maid.

My wife is terribly unhappy with my decision. She does not understand the strength of purpose that is buried behind my intention. I need to do this. Not only for my own spiritual enlightenment but also for the well being of our marriage and future family. “But what will you do for six months pent up in a cave?” she asked me. I wanted to tell her that I would not be out searching the Tenderloin at 3 a.m. for sexual interactions or spending my day surfing the Craig’s List erotic adds but instead I told her that I would work on becoming a holly man. Not only would I be celibate but I would also be committed to cultivating the highest virtue through the practice Vipassana meditation and renunciation. My health would return and I could create self- confidence, something I have been missing for a long time. As I told my wife all of this she seemed very apprehensive.

I am uncertain exactly when this pilgrimage will commence. I think the summer would be a good time, but I am hesitant because in summer where I live women are scantily dressed and I enjoy watching from the the sidelines as these women make their way around. I know that there is always sacrifice involved in great transformations- but I am rather unwilling to sacrifice my summer. Maybe I will leave in August. This way I can have a partial summer before taking off to become holly. Whatever the case may be I am committed to the process of my enlightenment. It is time for me to turn inward and try to understand the deeper reasons and behaviors behind the sex life of a man without one.

Xenodochium?

The rain. The rain. It has been coming down relentlessly for days. Their is also a strong wind that blows over plants and creates a haunting sound in the trees. I sit on my bed watching nature play out its stormy dance in my back yard. I have not worked for months and am at a loss when I try to figure out what to do with my day. Normally, I come up empty and return to the thick blankets of my bed and beckon sleep to come upon me one more time.

This morning I got out of bed late. Last night I could not sleep. I ate eggs for breakfast and sat in front of the rain filled window watching wind blow violently against the ground. This latest storm has been like no storm I have seen in California for some time. I took a long shower and washed away my worries with cinnamon soap. My home is freezing cold and wind chimes refused to be silenced by the storm.

There was a knock at my door. “Excuse me sir but I have a favor to ask you.” Before me was a middle aged man with gray hair who was dressed in a black suit that was soaking wet. He had no umbrella nor did he seem to mind his current condition. “What is it?” I asked wanting to be of help. I noticed that his eyes were excessively blinking and he was having some difficulty getting his left check to relax. “I need to ask if you have ever heard of a cure for Xenodochium?” I was confused and asked him to repeat himself. “Xenodochium?” I had never heard of this, I told him. “We’ll, let me tell you, it is my cross to bear my constant affliction. It is with me at all times. never goes away.” “I am sorry to hear this,” I said and asked him if there was anything else I could do for him. The wind was getting hostile and the rain was blowing onto me and getting the inside of my home wet. I tried to shut the door.

“Xenodochium, is caused by a fear of sleep. Why do I fear sleep? I used to love sleep, but over time I have become terrified to fall asleep,” he said holding out his hand to prevent me from shutting the door. “It is an unpleasant disorder that causes my eyes to constantly blink- with my eyes always blinking I can never get to sleep. It keeps me in the dark- condemns me to a fate of lonely sleeplessness. You are looking at a man in hell.” He said wiping away water from his face. “I am very sorry sir, but I am trying to understand what you need from me?” I said a little frustrated by this sudden invasion of my space. “I need for you to understand sir,” he then said. “I need you and all your neighbors to understand how alone I am.” HOW WAS I TO RESPOND TO THIS? What could I do but offer him proof that I understood so that he would go away.

He finally did go away, but under quit unpleasant pretexts. “You will never understand because you care only for what is yours. You don’t know what it means to live in a constant state of wakefulness because you have never had to. I will see to it that one day you all understand,” he said with a tone of indignation and then walked off into the storm. Later this afternoon I saw him making his way through the trees and rain in my back yard. He was now wearing a long black coat and smoking a cigarette. He is probably sitting someplace down by the river behind my home. I have called the police to come investigate further.

On Radiohead.

I normally abstain from doing any kind of review on this blog. I mean who am I to give out my opinions on other peoples creations. But today has been filled with guilt and rain and the beautifully experimental sounds of Radiohead’s new album IN/RAINBOWS- got me through the lugubrious day. I listen to all sorts of music, but within this album are some of the most sublime and intelligently erotic/sensual sounds I have ever heard. It is an epic record that accentuates everything the band has ever done together into a cohesive album that is not only mature but also highly skilled. It is a record of complex music weaved together into what I would call a conceptual work of art. Only the concept is difficult to decipher (it may not even exist) but someplace deep down after a few listens to the album you feel it, right under your soul.

I began my painting career a few years back while listening to Kid A. The sounds brought forth images that I never had dreamed of creating. Radiohead has always been able to unleash my introverted imagination with the orchestration of particular sounds that act as a catalyst for creative explosions. Each time my imagination seems to thaw I listen to Radiohead and am amazed by the work I produce by the end of a day. With IN/RAINBOWS the degree of creativity that is able to flow forth from listening to this amazingly beautiful album is just as strong as when I first listened to Kid A. The new album is multi layered and built as a collage with so many heterogeneous sound images that one is intellectually, emotionally and physically in a state close to rapture while listening to this masterpiece. IN/RAINBOWS is reminiscent of some of Brian Eno’s Ambiet work combined with the experimental sounds of Faust or Can’s more melodic/bucolic sounds. I am terribly grateful for this new album and I recommend it to anyone who is need of a soul revival to plug into IN/RAINBOWS. You can also watch a new film that the band has released at, You Tube . Enjoy.

Sex Life Of A Man Without One #6

Boredom has been tugging at me like a strange ache which refuses to let go. The days have been filled with a sharp cold and my will has dissolved into a kind of lazy melancholy. If you would of asked me a year ago- I would have told you that there was no way I could suffer from boredom. I would have told you that people who are bored lack true wonder for life and that I am fully occupied in my life just sitting by a window and watching the clouds drift by. Boredom had no grasp upon me then, but now a year later it is threatening to put its nappy little hands around my neck- and cut off the air supply.

It is my belief that boredom causes men and woman to do certain things that normally we may not do. We want to feel alive again, and are desperate for anything that will make us feel this way. So I did what I do best, I called a very attractive escort and told her to meet me at my parents house. It was time for me to take a small vacation.

My parents were out of town for a few more days and they lived in a rather decadent home not to far from where I am struggling to live. The add that I responded to on the Internet said “XXX Erotic Massage By Young Nympho….p.s. no full service.” This was perfect for me since I was uninterested in the sex part but wanted some small element of a sexual encounter. I was basically horny and wanted to see a young beautiful woman in the nude. If I could get her to take a shower and let me watch, even better. I had been stuck in a world lately that was heavy in disappointment and failure. After getting sick I was plagued by the what am I doing with my life? syndrome. This ridiculous blog that I keep repelled me like blue cheese and I was in need of an erotic holiday.

I arrived at my parents home with enough time to get the place comfortable and looking like it belonged to me. I took down a lot of the pictures and changed into my fathers silk bathrobe. Then directly at ten p.m. she promptly rang the doorbell. I was shaking a bit because of the anxiety that always seems to overpower me when I am about to do something that maybe I should not be doing. What life is worth living if you are not constantly breaking the boundaries that you have set up around yourself? I opened the door and before me was one of the most beautiful women I had ever beheld with my eyes.

“Wow, what a beautiful home!!” she said with her hands over her mouth, making her way through the marble and mirror filled entry way. I took her long blue coat from her, under which she was wearing a one piece very tight fitted blue dress that stopped right beneath her butt. She took off her heels and allowed her long brown hair to fall down by her shoulders. “So this is your house,” she asked. I nodded my head in the affirmative. “Wow, you must make a lot of money?” “I have my days,” I said knowing full well that I only had less than a thousand dollars left in my bank account. I showed her into the sitting room where I had lit a fire and had a glass of vintage port waiting for her. “Oh thank you but I do not drink, I am allergic.” I could relate I told her because it seems like lately whenever I drink I get palpitations and chest pains for the entire night. “Ouch,” she said.

“So what do you got on your mind?” she asked me curiously. “What do you mean,” I said surprised by her question.” “You know, what do you want me to do for you?” she said crossing her legs and letting me notice that she was not wearing underwear. I always felt uncomfortable about this question because I was afraid that my reply may make the women feel as if I could be a pervert. You see, most men want to have sex- but I just like seeing the girls naked and maybe orgasming by my own hand. When I tried to explain this to the escort, whose name was Rain, she could not of been more willing. And she suggested that I take a shower with her to get comfortable.

The hour we spent together could not have gone away quicker. We showered together and then I watched her petite yet substantive body dance around my parents bedroom and mimic acts of orgasmic bliss upon their bed. She at one point even did a head stand while playing with herself, followed by a back flip right into my lap. I was like a kid in a candy store and there was no trace of my boredom to be found.

A few days later my parents returned. This morning I received a phone call from my mother who was in a very frantic state. “I think your father is having an affair. After all I have done for him, the ungrateful son of a bitch is having his way with younger slutty girls!!” I tried to interject. “Mom…mom, what happened….calm down and tell me what happened?” Once she was able to calm her fury she told me that some strange women by the name of Rain had just come to the house and told her that she was here the other night and left a very valuable earing in the bathroom. My stomach dropped. “She was not older than twenty five and I know your father likes them petite brunettes with poppy personalities, and all this after we took that wonderful vacation together in India and shared so much love together.” My mother was now in tears.

I did what I could. I told my mother not to worry, that my father would never do anything to intentionally hurt her. “Oh I know he would that son of a bitch,” she kept responding. I was unable to confess my crime for sheer embarrassment of telling my mother that I had called a prostitute over to their home. The guilt of admitting this to my mom is too great. So now my father is sleeping in a motel, furious about the false accusations that are being leveled against him, and I am sitting here at home, uncertain what to do next.