The Terrible Reader

The pages are too long. The words spread out. The words slip out. The words move through the brain and back out into the nowhere place from which they came. The brain no longer able to retain the words that live in a book. The brain is slipping away into a kind of digitalized maze. Only tidbits of information and pictures are able to stick. A book filled with words is a marathon, which a person is too out of shape to run. The words are a threat to a person’s limp attention span. No longer capable of the longer sprints and solitudes that a book filled with words requires, The Terrible Reader reaches for her phone.

The Terrible Reader is no longer capable of being alone. He needs to know what is going on on-line. He needs to know what texts have come through. He needs to carry on a conversation that was begun on his phone. He needs to find new emails in his inbox. He needs to check who has checked his frequently checked Instagram and Facebook accounts. There are things to do. Likes to be given and had. Comments to be left. Photos to be seen and loved. The terrible reader has no time for a book. A book keeps him off-line. There is no excitement in these printed words.

The Terrible Reader can no longer sit with herself. It is too uncomfortable. Toes curl and uncurl. Nails are bitten. Fingers are picked. Hair is pulled. It is a continual struggle to keep her attention fixed. She feels restless. Anxious. Just sitting there alone with a book is no longer enough stimulation to keep her attention fixed. She tries to hold on with the book in her hand but it is almost painful. There is an antsiness that won’t go away. And when it does, she feels bored. She feels ready for sleep. The Terrible Reader is in a continual struggle between restlessness and sleep. Her attention span can’t keep up with the attention that words in a book demand. Instead she needs the digitally illuminated screen. She needs the fake light to get off. She needs the high-resolution pictures and live time conversations to feel engaged. When The Terrible Reader is on her phone toes do not curl and uncurl. Nails are not bitten. Fingers are not picked. Hair is not pulled. There is no struggle to keep her attention fixed. There is no battle between restlessness and sleep. Her attention is completely transfixed when on the phone. When on-line, her attention span is dialed in. She is immersed. Like particles of dust sucked into a vacuum machine, she is gone.

The Terrible Reader can read books no more. The Terrible Reader still tries to read books but most of them remain unfinished. Worlds only partially explored. These unfinished worlds pile up like dead leaves in the fall. Discarded and no longer needed, they are left to die under the weight of newer books which will also go unfinished. Unexplored. The Terrible Reader is yet to come to terms with the fact that they have become a terrible reader. They do not want to admit this painful fact to themselves so they continually try and read some more. It hurts too much to make an honest appraisal of what they have become, since humans never like to admit the truth about themselves to themselves. Every time The Terrible Reader sits down with a book their smartphone pulls at them. It won’t leave them in peace. Come to me, come to me, check me, see me, it whispers in The Terrible Reader’s ear. For the fifth time in an hour The Terrible Reader puts the book down and must reach for the smartphone. They no longer have a choice.

View at Medium.com

Conversation With A Record Store Clerk (#Post 419)

*This will be my final post for a week or so. I will be finishing a short novel, which I hope to self-publish in full on this site. Thank you.

I am not a conversationalist. At least this is what I tell myself. When I do engage in interesting conversations with certain people, I often find it a relief to get out of my own head for a bit. I then wonder to myself, what would I be like if I was more of a conversationalist? What would I be like if I actually struck up conversations with random strangers? But I don’t. Normally I keep to myself and pretend not to see other people.

Maybe if I took a small dosage of a certain psychiatric drug I would be more of a conversationalist? Or, maybe if I drank beer or consumed marijuana on a regular basis I would be more interested in talking with other people? What would it take? In my normal state of sobriety I don’t really want to talk to anyone. This is why I was so surprised when I walked into the record store yesterday and started up a conversation with the record store clerk.

I startled even myself when I said, “Hey, how are you doing?” Startled, because when I said this I was actually interested in hearing his response. Normally I am not. I use this question in the same way I use soap, it’s a habit. Do I really care about the response? I’m not certain. I am often asking the question before I know I am asking the question. Hey, How Are You Doing? It’s a question in a can that I have been trained to pull from without thinking about it.

Hey, How Are You Doing?

I feel bad about how often I have disingenuously utilized this question. I try not to do that anymore but like all bad habits, it sneaks in. For whatever reason, I meant it this time. Maybe it was because I have a deep respect for anyone who works in a record store.

Walking into a record store (for me) is always a feeling of walking into a happier place. A record store is a place filled with endless possibilities, endless new discoveries. Very rarely am I more excited about life than when I walk into a record store. What new discovery will I make today? I am no different from a child walking into a toy store or a religious person walking into their holy space. My mood is instantly lifted every time I walk into a record store.

“Oh, I don’t know. I am existing I guess,” the record store clerk replied in a defeated kind of way. Shoulders hunched, back bent from carrying too much psychic weight as Sade played on the sound system. I don’t know why or what this says about me but immediately I could relate. I stopped at the counter and he moved towards the counter. I wanted to hear more of what he had to say.

“Other people just really suck, you know? The mass human beings just fill me with such disdain and disgust. I really don’t like other people at all. Such a selfish and ugly species, destroying everything we touch. Like cattle or something. Just a really stupid people. You should see the crap I have to sell everyday. I don’t know man, I just don’t like other people one bit,” he said while looking me straight in the eyes.

He looked like a nice guy. A guy that was once a cute kid deeply loved by his parents. He had wide brown eyes and a boyish smile. His hair was short, black and parted to the side but his style (Guided By Voices t-shirt and black jeans) indicated that maybe he stopped caring about fashion after the nineties ended.

“I understand man, I really do.” I meant what I said rather than saying something I did not mean just to be nice. I have found myself thinking similar things about other people from time to time.

“Other people can be really troubling, I know. I get it. We are in a really difficult period in human history. I get it man,” I said.

“You do?” he said with a smile breaking through what I assumed was a permanent grin on his face.

“I do, I really do.”

“You know, I think my day just got a lot better. I am so happy to know that I am not insane for feeling the way I do,” he said.

“No, you are not insane at all. I get it and don’t disagree with you but the question is what are you going to do with the set of circumstances you have found yourself in? You live in this society surrounded by people you have immense disdain for. What do you do?” I asked. I was hopeful that maybe he would provide me with an answer.

“Suicide?”

“Didn’t Albert Camus write that the only real question is whether or not we should kill ourselves?” I asked not thinking that he would know.

“Yeah, but Camus advocated against suicide in favor of making life as meaningful as possible within the meaninglessness of life. In his book The Myth Of Sisyphus, Camus wrote about how we, like Sisyphus, are doomed to have to roll the boulder up and down the hill every fucking day for a lifetime and that we should learn to make the best of it even though none of it means anything and it all sucks,” he replied. I was impressed.

“I thought Camus thought that suicide was the only reasonable answer given the situation human beings have found themselves in?” I asked.

“No, he argued for making the best out of a life that would always be filled with suffering and ultimately has no meaning. That is existentialism,” the record store clerk replied.

“I see, I guess I had that one backwards.” I was slightly embarrassed by my ignorance but glad to finally get it straight.

“So then what do we do?” I asked him again.

“Roll the boulder with a smile? I don’t know man, I just spend most of my time reading and listening to records. Outside of work that is all I do. I am a consumer of culture. A culture whore. I consume but do not produce. I don’t produce anything. All consumption with no production. I just read and listen to records. It’s pathetic, I know.”

“I dont think its pathetic at all. How old are you?” I thought he might say 32 or 33.

“I am 40 man,” he said as if it was something to be ashamed of. As if he should have all of this figured out by now.

“40, that is tough. It definitely gets harder at 40, I know,” I replied sympathetically.

Again his eyes opened wide and his back straightened. “Really. Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that. Everyone is always telling me that No Everything Will Be Fine, Everything Is Ok, Don’t Get So Down but no one seems to acknowledge how much harder it actually gets. I am glad you do.”

“Yeah, it does get harder,” I said. I wanted to say: Yeah it does get harder especially if you have a lot of self-judgement, are working retail and have a strong dislike of other people.

He kept looking around the store trying to see if his manager was looking at him and getting frustrated that he was taking up so much time having a conversation with a customer. I didn’t want to get him in trouble, so I started moving the conversation towards an ending point.

“Reading and listening to records all the time is not a bad thing. Someone has to do it in order for there to be writers and musicians,” I said. “Some of the greatest artists, musicians and writers were obsessive consumers of culture.”

“Yeah I know but I am not producing anything, just consuming.”

“So what? That is great that you have something you love to do!”

“Yeah but I am not consuming stuff that the mass of people consume. I can’t stand all that crap. I consume obscure books and records that no one reads or listens to so it can feel really alienating and isolating,” he said while looking around the store.

“I know man. I like all of that stuff as well. It does make you an outsider,” I replied.

“Thank you, an outsider. That is exactly what I am. A doomed outsider.”

“Oh common, you are fortunate to have discovered and cultivated an interest for music and books that the mass of people have no idea exists. Don’t look at it as a bad thing. By working at a record store you are just buying time. Buying time so that you can spend the rest of your time reading and listening to records. It’s a very noble pursuit in a time where most people’s interests are shaped by massive advertising and entertainment companies making a fortune from figuring out how to feed the mass of people a steady diet of mind numbing crap filled with propaganda,” I said.

I really wanted him to know that he was not alone. That we were floating along in the same boat.

“Maybe so, but I’m not producing anything. A person should produce something.”

“You just need to stop judging yourself for that one. That is your real problem. You got to just let yourself enjoy what you love doing. Stop beating yourself up about it. Listening to obscure records and being a reader is a perfectly productive way to spend a life.”

It seemed like he was becoming a bit lighter. Like his mind was backing off from the beating it was always giving him. He told me about his two divorces and his recent break up with his girlfriend. I asked if the decline of these relationships had anything to do with his misery. He said no, then yes, then definitely his first two marriages but not the recent break up with the girlfriend. I asked him his name.

“Anthony,” he said.

“I’m Randall,” I said reaching out my hand to shake his. I felt like I was meeting someone who I could be good friends with but probably never will be. We seemed to be similar in many different ways except that he was still spending much of his time beating himself up. I like to think that I finished with that long ago.

He looked around the store again, this time he looked worried about being reprimanded by his manager who was walking around the store pushing a cart filled with records and then filing them away into their correct resting place.

“Well, I am going to go buy a record. It was really nice talking with you,” I said.

“Really nice talking with you as well,” he replied.

I walked further into the record store, ready to make a new discovery.

Ten Ways To Escape From The Outside World (Post #417)

Sure, it is good to go out and get in to the outside world. But the opposite is also true, it is just as good (if not better) to escape from the outside world. For those who love peace and calm the outside world can be a very difficult space to navigate. While it may be healthy to go out now and then, here are ten tips (which, I have tested out myself for weeks at a time) for periodically or permanently escaping the outside world:

#1. Procrastinate. Don’t think about it, don’t worry about it, don’t care about it. Just leave it alone. Stay present and let the future work itself out. Just enjoy your time now and don’t worry about what may or may not be coming up ahead.

#2. Really try to stay offline. Turn your phone off as much as possible, don’t check email, don’t go online. Try to live your life as if none of that existed. Do anything else but use the internet.

#3. Be creative. Write a story or write in a journal. Paint something. Make a detailed drawing. Build something. Garden. Make a sculpture out of wood. Think up your own philosophy about something and write it down. Talk to yourself about something interesting. Play a musical instrument. Move the furniture around in your house or apartment. Do anything that feels like you are engaging the more creative parts of your brain.

#4. Listen to music. Find interesting music that engages your creativity, or imagination and listen to it. Currently I am listening to the earlier work of Klaus Schulze, who is a German electronic musician. If you have yet to listen to much Krautrock, I recommend starting there. Give Kraftwerk’s earlier albums a try. Or listen to classical music. Listen to records. Listen to cassetes. Listen to the radio. Spend quality time really immersing yourself in musical sounds.

#5. Don’t worry about stuff. This is so important since the outside world really gets its hooks in you through worry. This is how the outside world holds you hostage. So do whatever you can to stop worrying. Meditate, play music, listen to music, go for a walk, drink a glass of wine, do deep breathing, make art, write in a journal- anything to get control of your worry.

#6. Watch cats, birds or dogs. Notice what they do, how they spend their day and try to learn from them. Eat, play, go to the bathroom, rest, listen, observe, sleep.

#7. Just sit there. Pascal, the French writer, mathematician, inventor and philosopher (he made good use of his time while escaping the outside world) said that most of what ails human beings would be avoided if we could just learn how to be content sitting in a chair, alone in a room. So just stay where you are. Hang out. Control yourself. Stay put. Relax. Chill. You really do not need to be running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off.

#8. Don’t drive anywhere. For the most part, once you are driving a car you are immersed in the outside world. Driving a car involves you in the affairs of the world. You are subject to the legal system, stress and other driver’s personality disorders. There is no way to escape the outside world when in a car. Walk wherever you need to go. Stay on foot. You can walk all around in the outside world but still be free from it.

#9. Stay Home. I know this will be difficult for many, but and ideal way to escape the outside world is to not go into it. Stay home. Many of the above recommendations are things to keep you occupied while home. If you are really involved in your creative work you will have no need to leave your home (other than possibly for food). Find a space in your home where you like to be and just stay there. Don’t go online. Don’t talk on the phone. Don’t text. Read, write, meditate, listen to music, clean, sleep, watch films, cook- just be home.

#10. Read. This is the number one way to escape the outside world. Have you ever met a prolific reader who feels like they are all there? Probably not because the reader exists mostly in their head, not the outside world. If you are not a reader, chances are that you are completely swallowed up by the outside world. Reading prevents this from happening. Read novels, read non-fiction, read magazines. Read. I recommend reading really obscure, independent fiction. There is so much good stuff out there. Start with independent presses like Penny-Ante Press, Coffee House Press, Akashic Books or Two Dollar Radio. Engage your intellect and imagination. READ. If you become an engaged reader, this will guarantee your escape from the outside world.

How I Lose My Self (Post #403)

My self is an onion. Concise layering but unevenly designed. Also stings the eyes when opened up. Sweet, sour, spicy, crunchy when bitten into (I am sure there are other flavors but this is what comes to mind). A confused pallet (or is it spelled palette?) but a continual desire to go back for more. My downfall or my uplift? Maybe my self is both. (What they hell am I talking about here?) (I have really gotten away from my point.) (Not a good way to start.)

Carl Jung asked Sigmund Freud, “What is the self anyways?” Freud did not supply Jung with an answer that pleased him so Jung went off on his own.

My self (I say this as if I own it) is complicated. It has always been complicated and I presume that until I find a way to chase it out or consistently distract it, it will always present me with complication.

It’s a continually boiling pot that rarely simmers down (my self I mean). Always some kind of judgement, craving, criticism or dissatisfaction boiling up (I realize that by using the boiling pot analogy I am using a ready-made rather than making my own). As much as I do like my self, it is a real pain in my ass (being honest here).

Here is the most agitating thing about my self: THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING THAT IT SEEMS TO THINK I SHOULD BE DOING. The thing will not let me rest. I need to be writing. I need to be making art. I need to be listening to music. I need to be writing. I need to meditate. I need to create a more interesting and engaged life for myself. I need to be writing. I need to exercise. I need to watch more films. I need to call back billing agents. I need to wash car. I need to become a happier person. I need to make my life more exciting than what it is. I need to be writing. On and on ad infinitum. (Is that how you spell that?) Ceaseless and never ending. Rarely will my self allow me to sit in my lawn chair and simply enjoy being showered by sun. (The sun has now been obscured by clouds.)

Fortunately, I have found a way to trick, manipulate and silence my self into submission. (I am a pleasant and non-violent person and realize this might make me sound sadomasochistic. I’m not.)

Inside a book. This is where I make my escape and hide. Not from the world but from my self. (Ok, maybe a bit from the world.)

A Freudian psychoanalyst once told me that this is the behavior I have developed in reaction to my unruly self. She called it escapeeism (not escapism). It is a strategy to lose. (I never understand what she meant by this. Did she mean a strategy to lose in life or a strategy to lose my self? Was this meant positively or negatively? This is now one of the great mysteries in my life.)

However, this strategy of hiding from my self in a book (being absorbed in books) is not reliable or sustainable. The moment I put the book down my self comes back with such vehemence and indignation that I am beyond being able to control it. It is obviously pissed for being tricked and suppressed. You son of a bitch. Your life is shit. There is so much that you should be doing and have not done. You are going to fail in life. It is all going to fall apart. You will get sick if you do not get up. People are mad at you. If you do not stay on top of things everything will fall apart. I pick the book back up. Gradually, as I read, I reach a point where my self is no longer there. This is the only strategy I have found that consistently works.

I realize that no one, not even my self, likes being silenced.

There always comes a point where I must put the book back down (even though I know I should not).

What are you doing with your life? You’re avoiding everything by losing yourself in a book. This is the highly educated way that you put everything off. All in the name of consuming culture. But you no longer create culture! You need to be writing and making art with severe dedication if you really want to turn your life into what you want it to be. But you can’t do this. You won’t do this. Instead you keep losing yourself in a book and telling yourself it is ok. This is good enough. You think you can really pacify me with such a lie? I know what you are doing. You are sacrificing your full potential in life just to get away from me! Loser! (Sometimes I can not help but wonder if my self is just my father immortalized in my head.)

My self goes on and on (and on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on,on ,on, on, on, on, on and on). My self is relentless. Reading is self inoculation.

“First and foremost, I think of myself as a reader,” is what Borges said. If I said this it would be very similar but slightly different (I realize that even if something is slightly different it changes everything). I would say, “First and foremost, I think of myself as a reader by necessity!”

I really can’t think of anything I find more pleasurable and rewarding than losing my self in a book. Not even eating my favorite food or seeing an attractive woman nude is better. What greater pleasure is there than when the sting of the onion has gone?

Time to go make myself (or my self?) a radish and humus sandwich. When it comes to food I never know who I am feeding. Am I feeding myself (body) or my self (head)?

What a wonderful space, to live and read in this place, when my self is gone. (I did not write this. Some forgotten poet whom I have unfortunately forgotten did.)

My Work Ethic?

Fuck. I don’t know why this word comes to mind as I stare into the blank screen thinking about what I am about to write. Fuck. Why fuck? Maybe fuck is the word that comes to mind when I think about my work ethic. Fuck. See, right when I think the term work ethic the next word that comes into my mind is fuck. Fuck. I need to think this one through a bit more.

The other day I was listening to the writer, musician and monologist talk about his work ethic. He was discussing how he came from a working class background and always needed to be gainfully employed. Ever since he was young he said that he has had this drive to work for a living. The idea of waking up in the morning and not having at least ten things that he has to do mortifies him. His worst fear is waking up in the morning and having nothing to do. Maybe this is why he has written over thirty books, made more than a dozen albums and still to this day travels around the world, performing his one man show more than 300 hundred days out of the year. The guy is terrified to stop. He would not know how to live without a hard days work.

I on the other hand am that guy who is happiest when he wakes up in the morning and has nothing to do. I am not driven by what Henry Rollins calls, “a deep need to pull your weight in the world.” Instead I seem to want to shed this weight, to be weightless. Henry Rollins seems to love being in fifth gear whereas I often feel stuck in first gear. Recently I have been thinking a lot about this feeling of being stuck in first gear. I have been wondering if it is a choice or just a bad habit. Am I lazy or enlightened? Have I chosen to not work my life away or do I just lack a work ethic?

Henry Rollins said something that really got my attention. He said that he thrives off of obligation. Obligation is the wind that moves him forward. He lives for obligation. I don’t know why but when I heard this the hair on my arms stood up. Obligation? He loves being obligated? I he kidding? Is this the link in my non-working chain that I have been missing? I can’t stand obligation. When I feel obligated to do something I feel pushed into a corner. I don’t want to do it. Obligation creates immense resistance in me. I seem to do everything that I can to avoid obligation. It is as if I have been hiding from obligation for as long as I know. Well maybe this is not true. I do not mind a small amount of obligation but I do know that in the course of a week I need much more time that is not obligated to anything or anyone than I do time that is obligated. Hmmm.

My wife said something to me the other day that made a lot of sense. She said that I love having money, I just don’t like having to work for it. It is true- I do love having money so that I can buy good food, records, clothes, books, treats for my dog, furniture, supplements and whatever else I may want. I enjoy the security that money brings to me. When I have money I no longer live in chronic fear of having to wait tables, bartend or ask my parents for money. I feel at ease. The problem is that I do not like to work for money. I do not enjoy working, never have. I prefer to spend my days floating around. Having the freedom to do what I want to do. The problem with this is that I know that money is not going to just randomly show up in my mailbox. I need to work for a living.

So I ask myself what is my work ethic? Fuck. But when I go deeper I realize that I do not really have a work ethic in the traditional sense. My work ethic is that I do not like work. I avoid work because work has never been pleasurable. Somehow I have managed to spend considerable time in my adult life in what some workaholics might refer to as retirement. Being free from the terrible and dehumanizing world of managers, bosses, fellow employees and obligations is one of the greatest victories of my life. I intend to keep it this way.

I really do not think that it is fair of me to think that I do not work. As much as it may sound absurd to say, to live the way that I do within a culture that is obsessed with work- is no easy undertaking. It is a kind of work to not get caught up in the proverbial rat race. To maintain a life that is based in being as opposed to doing. When I meditate, read, write, draw and paint it is fair to say that I am working, but the work that I am doing is pleasurable. It does not feel like work. I am doing what I am doing because it is fun and freeing as opposed to motivated by any ambition to make my work about turning a profit. I am as uninterested in making money off of the work that I enjoy doing as I am in watching whatever sports team is playing on television tonight. But I also recognize that this may be a lie that I tell myself so that I can avoid working. So that I can spend more time living.

I suppose I am envious of people like Henry Rollins. He has found a way to do the work he loves and turn a profit from it. His work does not feel to him like work at all- it is just what he does. His strong work ethic pushes him to remain obligated, to get his work out into the world, to pull his weight in the world so to speak. But on the other hand Rollins discussed how he realizes that his need to work all the time is a way that he runs from having to deal with him self. He talks about how sitting still and doing nothing terrifies him because, then what? Then he would have to be with himself.

So maybe this is my work ethic. Fuck. It is a kind of non-work ethic. It is an ethic of being with myself, learning about myself and a desire to experience my life as it unfolds. It is an ethic of learning and growing as opposed to earning and working. I don’t know, this explanation of my work ethic does not fully satisfy me. A part of me feels that I am just rationalizing the fact that I am lazy, that I do what I can to avoid work. It is true- I love being. I love sitting still. I love being free enough to be able to watch the day unfold. I love how I have learned to spend my time. There is a quiet kind of satisfaction that I live with. It is this satisfaction that is my greatest wealth. But there is also this itch to do something more, to live a life that is relevant and accomplished. An itch to pull my weight in the world. A desire to help others. To work with my fellow human beings in a way that helps them to struggle a little bit less. Without this component of helping and interacting with other human beings (as opposed to the desire to make money off of them) something feels incomplete in my life.

In a sense my non-work ethic is a work ethic, it is just not a work ethic that is based in turning a profit and needing to stay busy everyday. I am more than comfortable with not being busy, with having nothing to do, with sitting still (and I am also aware that that in my society these ways of being can land a person in the poor house). And maybe this is ok. Maybe I can stay this way and things will continue to work out. I was in a bookstore the other day and the title of a self-help book caught my eye. It was called “Stay the Course and Keep Doing What You Do.” I liked the title so much that I took a picture of the cover so I could have it as a reminder. Stay the course and keep doing what you do. Things are working out even though I am far from being the hardest worker in the world. Some may say that my non-work ethic is working for me. A part of me agrees and feels that I need to keep riding this thing out and see where it takes me. But I also need to work. I just need a little help getting into second gear.

Interview With Myself #2

I am again sitting at my round breakfast table. The time is 10:42am and I am preparing for my second interview. Since I awoke at 6am this morning and then went back to sleep at around 7:30am I am getting a late start. My German shepherd is currently resting beside my ankle eating a biscuit of some sort. The morning is overcast and there is a breeze that is blowing leaves off the trees. I think my dog is impatient to go for walk but she will have to wait. There is dog hair all over my dark hardwood floors. My hair is a mess and I am still dressed in my pajamas when this interview begins.

Interviewer: Good morning Randall.

Randall: Good morning.

Interviewer: Good morning.

Randall: Good morning.

Interviewer: Good morning.

Randall: Ok. Good morning. Let me make myself a cup of green tea real quick.

Interviewer: Take your time.

[Randall gets up to prepare his tea. Ofcourse his dog follows]

Randall: Ok lets begin this interview. I have a lot to get done today so let’s get going.

Interviewer: Yes it is already late.

Randall: It is.

Interviewer: Just out of curiosity what do you have to get done today?

Randall: Well I have to take my dog for a long walk. I need to water in the garden and possibly finish a drawing I have been working on. I want to do some reading and I need to spend six minutes doing my shake a weight. I also need to shower and get dressed, do a bit of meditation and check my bank balance. I am also driving into Pasadena with my wife today so that we can go to the art store and visit a vintage furniture store that we like. We will probably have dinner in Pasadena tonight.

Interviewer: Sounds nice.

Randall: Yes.

Interviewer: What are you reading at the moment?

Randall: I have actually had a difficult time finding things to sink my teeth into latly. I have an extensive book collection and have been picking books off the shelves trying to get myself into one of them. I have tried to read novels by Haruki Murakami, Tom Robbins and William Burroughs but I seem to have little interest in reading fiction right now. I have also tried to get interested in some non-fiction. I have started to read a book of John Cage’s essays called “Silence” and I have also tries to read Damien Echols memoir called “Life After Death” but I have not been able to get into either of these books. Last night I picked up a book by Gabor Mate called “In the Real of Hungry Ghosts” and like what I read so maybe I will be able to go deeper into it.

Interviewer: Why do you think you are having such a difficult time starting and finishing books right now?

Randall: I’m not sure. As you know, we have always had a really difficult time finishing things. I think that the reason why we enjoy reading literature so much is because we would often finish novels and that would give us that much needed sense of completion. But as you also know for every novel we have finished there have been two that have gone unfinished. I am not sure if as I have gotten older my attention span has shortened or if my use of the internet has caused me to develop ADD, which makes it much more difficult for me to be attentive enough to follow a narrative for hundreds of pages. I find that after ten pages of reading I am easily distracted and check my facebook or get up and do something else. Then I come back to reading. This makes it difficult for me to really sink into a narrative.

Interviewer: Have you finished a book recently?

Randall: I have. A few weeks ago I read Victor Frankel’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

Interviewer: If I remember correctly that is a rather short book is it not.

Randall: (looking a bit embarrassed) It is, yes.

Interviewer: Have you finished a longer book recently?

Randall: What do you mean by longer?

Interviewer: Say longer than two hundred pages.

Randall. Hmmm. Let me think. Yes in fact I did. About a month ago I finished a brilliant book of short stories called “Orientation” by Daniel Orozco.

Interviewer: How many pages was that?

Randall: (now looking a bit indignant) I believe that was around 160 pages.

Interviewer: Only 160 pages?

Randall: Yes.

Interviewer: And how long did that take you to read?

Randall: Probably a week.

Interviewer: A week to read 160 pages?

Randall: (silent)

Interviewer: Any books OVER two hundred pages?

Randall: A few months back I read Spalding Grey’s novel, “Impossible Vacations.” I believe that was just over two hundred pages and the print was small.

Interviewer: Is it safe to say that you have a difficult time reading books?

Randall: (some what rhetorically) What do you mean by this?

Interviewer: I know this may be a difficult question to answer since at one time you considered yourself to be a prolific reader. Now it seems as if you struggle through a two hundred-page book.

Randall: (taking a deep breath) Well I suppose I do. I don’t quite understand it myself. When I sit down to read I just feel distracted- as if there is other things I should be doing. I have trouble sinking into a book as I once was so able to do so easily. I don’t know maybe as a man grows older he feels like he should be spending less time lost inside the pages of a book and more time in his life.

Interviewer: Or maybe you have developed ADD?

Randall: Look what is this interview about? Did you come here to criticize my reading abilities and to point out how I have developed a mental handicap in my older age?

Interviewer: First of all I did not “come here.” I am already here. I live with you on a moment to moment basis so I am well aware of the inner turmoil you experience. I know that lately you have really been struggling to immerse yourself in a work of literature and I thought I would use this interview as an opportunity to get to the bottom of it.

Randall: Ok. Ok. I am well aware of your good intentions and I appreciate you wanting to help us out but I suppose I am not in the mood to talk about it at the moment. It cuts to something very deep and personal for me.

Interviewer: And what might that be?

Randall: (silence)

Interviewer: We don’t have to talk about it if you do not want to.

Randall: (after a moments pause) I guess it is that I am changing. That I may not have the same interests as I once did. Maybe I am just not as interested in literature as I once was. Maybe I am not as interested in writing or needing to be an artist as I once was. It is strange and I am trying to figure it out for myself.

Interviewer: Or maybe you have developed ADD?

Randall: Look I don’t think that is it. I realize that I have a difficult time concentrating but that may have more to do with lack of interest and facebook than it does with ADD.

Interviewer: Lack of interest?

Randall: Yes.

Interviewer: What are you not interested in anymore.

Randall: It is not that I am not interested, I just have a more difficult time losing myself in a book now. A part of me prefers just being in my life: walking, listening, communicating with others, gardening, listening to music and just being. I often feel as if reading gets in the way of doing these things. Reading takes up a lot of time for someone like myself.

Interviewer: Because of ADD?

Randall: Look there are still few things that I love more than sitting down with a good book. I just need to find that book which will keep my interest and allow me to feel like I am not wasting time. This has nothing to do with ADD.

Interviewer: Ok, I will let you believe what you want. We will agree to disagree on this point.

Randall: Fine.

Interviewer: Well I think these are all the questions that I have for you today. Anything else you would like to add?

Randall: Nothing. I need to take the dog for a walk.

Interviewer: Ok well thanks for speaking with me today. I look forward to doing it again some time soon.

Randall: (silence)

A Note To My Readers

I know that I have not written regularly in quite some time. I wanted to let my readers know (all two or three of you) that I will be making more of an effort to write regularly while I can. At the moment I have nothing but time- I have finished graduate school, am living rent free and am in between jobs. Other than my love of doing nothing, I should have no excuse but to write more often. Sure there is a part of me that tries to convince the other part of me that I should no longer sell my soul for free but that other part of me needs to stand strong and remember what I used to say as a young writer: “It is not about the money. I don’t write for money. If I can write and have a beneficial effect upon one reader than it is all worth it.” I am now trying to keep the older writer with more bills and more status anxiety from infecting the idealism of the younger writer. To be continued….

A Downpour of Black Cats

I was sitting in a café this morning reading a book that threatened the more rational sides of my brain. I resisted the pull, focused on the fresh smell of white paint that emanated from the walls. I sipped my green tea, scratched my nose and fell away into the illusory reality of the book. Before I knew it I hear a visceral sounding “splat.” I lifted my head from the book and noticed that black cats where raining down from the ceiling. Two minutes before it had been s quiet freshly painted white ceiling sky but now the color had turned black, colored by a deluge of falling cats. As I stretched out my tired arms to protect my head, I realized it was a black cat downpour. Aging women dressed in the finest of clothes (that put them further into debt) began to be covered in black cats. Cats hit costumers in the head and covered the hardwood floor. It was a fierce downpour because within minutes everyone’s feet were covered in cats. Women screamed, cats meowed and men looked perplexed by what was going on. Employees fled through a stream of black cats into a back room. It was chaos but I felt surprisingly undisturbed. As quickly as the downpour began, it ended. I lifted my head, which was planted in my book, and looked around the room. Everything was back to normal. Nicely dressed women sipping their cappuccinos, freshly painted white walls, glossy hardwood floors and the smell of fresh pastries in the oven. I was perplexed. Even more so when I took a sip of my green tea and noticed a single black hair floating in it.

Invitation to a Beheading ( from the archives)

I used to love sitting alone in a chair and reading a good book. Nothing brought me greater pleasure. I would read a novel a day while enjoying the background sounds of birds chirping and cats meowing. Nothing was as effective in diminishing my stress and anxiety as a good book. No matter how bad the conditions of the world or my life- the printed words on a page could lift me out from my psychological squalor and re-plant me in a space of wonderment. I look back upon these times with utter envy. I even become emotionally enraged towards the man I was in my twenties. I am not only jealous of the large chunks of time that he had to drift of into the pursuit of knowledge but I am furious that it has all gone away.

Now I cannot read a book without having to get up and do something after twenty minutes. I become aggravated, nervous and I am distracted by these demons that seem to be hovering over me and disrupting my concentration. My thoughts begin to race and I struggle to stay focused upon what ever story or non-fiction work I have chosen to read. But no sooner than I can get past a few pages is there the loud voices of little demons that whisper scary things into my ears and poke sharp objects into my chest making me fearful what might happen next. I try to tune them out and push them away with positive visualizations or a smile- but they are ferocious and do not easily relent.

I know nothing good lasts forever, but there are still so many books left that I want to read. I want to return to that time when I could read peacefully for hours, day upon day- without the little brats whispering in my ear: “is your heart beating irregularly?” or “shouldn’t you be doing something more constructive.” Some times these little demons keep shouting things at me like “watch out, watch out- your head might explode!!” or “run, run, run for your life…death is coming, ha ha!!” My own inner monologue is not loud enough to silence these intruding voices and rather than continuing to read I give up and go do something else.

I have not been able to read a book from front to back for months. These little intrusive demons are getting the best of me. They also sneak into my head when I go for walks and drive my car. If I am not constantly reciting a mantra in my mind or singing a song- they will sneak into my silence and cause me great anxiety and grief. The little demons are wearing me down, forcing me to drink more wine and taking me away from the one thing that has always been of great importance to me- my intellectual life.

Without my practice of diligent daily reading my intellectual acumen has become as watered down as a cheap cocktail. I have not been able to think or write upon the great themes of philosophical dialectics or cultural theory like I had once planned upon doing. I have not been able to write great novels that compare with the best of works by Tolstoy, Kafka or Bernhard. I have not been able to go into my career as an honorable college professor who specializes in Ontology and Samuel Beckett. Rather- to defend myself against these little demons and attempt to save my own life I have had to go towards the New Age. I have had to practice meditation, do Yoga, recite mantras and start wearing beads and stones to defend myself against negative energy. I have had to seek out healers and been told by many that I must get out of my mind and start to become more grounded in my body. The very thing that I put so much work into cultivating has become my demise. My intellect has become the very portal from which these demons can access my nervous brain causing me such scary afflictions as to make me consider taking medication. These voices and disruptions get louder and louder every day- if it continues I may send out invitations to my own beheading.

photograph by Keith Purdy.

The Booky.

There are more books that I want to read than I can stand to think about. A mass graveyard of books waiting for me to resurrect them. I am so over whelmed by the amount of books that I want and need to read-that I have difficulty reading through one book from cover to cover. Half way through a book, I suffer such anticipatory anxiety by the thought of what book I will read next- that I loose interest in the book I am reading. Occasionally a work of fiction (which is all I read) will take a hold of me and I will complete the book (below I will cite the twenty books that have done this to me). In these rare and holly circumstances the book becomes an altar, a ritual and a prayer that I carry with me through out the day. I take the book with me wherever I go, like a doctor carrying his medicine bag. When I am finished reading the book a sadness comes over me because I know have to leave a part of me behind. There is a small death, a short grieving process and then like a true Booky I set off to the bookstore in search of another book.

I resent work because it keeps me away from my true work- which is reading. I have always said that the worst job to have in a capitalist society is that of a reader (this is why some of the most unhappy people are those who think that their happiness depends upon time that they get to spend reading). You spend a lot of time working/reading but are not payed for the work you do (this is why most Bookies are well educated and poor). And make no mistake, reading good literature is work- it requires complete attention, dedication and time.

As a Booky I also resent anything that resembles responsibility because it swallows up time that could be spent between the pages of a book (this is why a lot of Bookies avoid having children and friends). A true Booky shares an apartment, where the rent is to high (I say apartment because a true bookie could not afford a house), filled with half read and unread books and a stack of books by a reading chair that they are currently attempting to read (but will most likely never finish). As a Booky I spend a lot of time wishing that checks made out to me, would just show up in my mailbox. This way I could avoid the dreaded thing often referred to as “the job.” I also spend a good amount of time in bookstores but I do not always walk out with a book in hand. The book that I buy must be thought about, contemplated- because it has to be intriguing enough to take me away from the book that I am currently reading. Being a Booky is not without its downsides, life is hard for a Booky- but a true Booky spends the majority of their time lost within the pages of a book so that they do not have to think about the downsides.

I am fortunate to live in the San Fransisco Bay Area because there are a plethora of independent bookstores that I can meander around in. For me, the act of entering a bookstore is what I imagine entering a Church or a Mosque would be like for some. It is like entering a realm of endless possibilities. What I may stumble upon could forever change my perception of life- and this possibility is the high that keeps me in a kind of dedicated, hyper aroused pursuit.

My two favorite bookstores- City Lights in San Fransisco (stomping ground of Beat Writers and Poets which is owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti) and Moe’s in Berkeley are universes unto themselves (that have swallowed the large majority of my income). Every time I enter these bookstores I am carried away into a different time and space. I am possessed by a holly ghost. My worries and fears leave me. The burdens of my life let me go. I am at one with myself and as excited to find a new book as a beggar is to find God. I sometimes catch myself drooling over my chin as I search the isles of books looking for a title that will change my life. I spend hours in the endless, solitary investigations (this is why no one who knows me will go into a bookstore with me) until my back and neck hurts and it is time to go home.

Most often I walk out of the bookstore empty handed, dismayed by my inability to find a book worth reading. In these situations a small depression comes over me and I usually end up drinking too much booze to wash away the despair. But every once in a small while I will find the book. On these rare life affirming occasions it is a customary ritual for me to leave the bookstore with a new book in hand and go to the nearest liquor store where I purchase a cigar. I then find a comfortable lit spot to sit someplace along the street and smoke my cigar like a man who just been given second shot at life.

Twenty Books That Have Taken Hold Of Me From Cover To Cover (in no special order):

1- The Trial/Franz Kafka

2- The Looser/Thomas Bernhard

3- Ulysses/James Joyce

4- Women/Charles Burkowski

5- The Stranger/ Albert Camus

6- The Dharma Bums/Jack Kerouac

7- The Noodle Maker/ Ma Jian

8- Hard Boiled Wonder Land And The End Of The World/ Haruki Murakami

9- Crime And Punishment/Brothers Karamazov/ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

1o- To The Light House/ Virginia Wolf

11- The Key/ Junichiro Tanizaki

12- The Satanic Versus/ Salman Rushdie

13- The Diving Bell And The Butterfly/ Jean- Dominique Bauby

14- Dance, Dance, Dance/ Haruki Murakami

15- Siddhartha/ Herman Hesse

16- Too Loud A Solitude/ Bohumil Hrabal

17- Journey To The End Of Night/ Louis-Ferdinand Celine

18- The Death Of Ivan Illiych/ Leo Tolstoy

19- The New York Trilogy/ Paul Auster

20- The Woodcutters/ Thomas Bernhard

oh and

21) Three Novels- Malloy/ Malone Dies/ The Unnamable/ Samuel Beckett

My Idea Of Fun

“I am worried that you are not having enough fun in your life,” my wife said to me. “I have had too much fun in my life and now I am having fun not having fun,” I replied. She looked at me like one does when they know that you are lying to yourself. I considered what I had just said to her and then realized that I did not know what I was talking about. “When you go out and have fun, it sustains you into the future. It makes your life a little easier to handle.. a little more enjoyable to live,” my wife said. ” I have fun staying home and reading, writing or watching a movie. I don’t feel the need to go out to have fun,” I replied- but then I thought about what I said. “Am I really having fun staying in all the time, do I really even remember what it feels like to have fun?” I asked myself. “I think you are afraid of fun,” my wife said as she kissed me and left for another evening out with friends that I once again elected myself out of.

I have been staying home a lot lately. My wife goes out and has fun quite often but I stay in. I make up excuses and tell my wife that I have work to do. In reality I am avoiding the world. All through out my twenties and early thirties I indulged in the world. I went out night after night and indulged in what people like to commonly refer to as fun. I socialized, drank too much, smoked weed and went off on insane adventures that lasted until the sun came up. When I turned thirty I decided that friends were a waste of time and I began having fun alone. I spent my weekends and a few weekday evenings and afternoons in various strip clubs where I knew no one and no one knew me. In the darkness I somehow felt complete in my solitude and as I watched naked women dance for me upon a red lit stage- I was the happiest man alive. I would end my evening in massage parlors where I received shiatsu and a hand job- and then return home early the next morning and sleep until noon. This was my idea of fun.

Now that I am married I have lost touch with a feeling of fun. No longer can I hang out in strip clubs and massage parlors without ending up with a twelve pound suitcase filled with guilt and shame. It ain’t worth it. I hate keeping secrets from my wife so I have broken up with my idea of fun. I have few friends that I enjoy spending time with and solitude has become my favorite form of company. Last weekend when my wife and I went on a dinner date with another couple I felt like a man who was wasting his time. I drank too much so that I could force my self to have fun. All I really wanted was to be at home swimming around in the pages of a book.

“You are becoming reclusive and a curmudgeon,” my wife told me the other day. “Why because I don’t like to have fun?” I asked. “You don’t like to do anything,” she said. “That is not true!” I protested quickly. ” “Though doth protest too much…when was the last time that you had fun?” she asked. “I had fun last night being at home alone watching a movie and doing some writing,” I said. But then I thought about what I said. Was I really having fun being home night after night watching movies, writing and reading? Or has doing these things become my idea of fun because I have forgotten how to have fun? Have I given up on fun because I know that it only lasts for a brief period of time before you are right back where you were before that fun began? Fun drops you off right where it left you- stuck in the middle of your life (and usually with a hang over). Is this why I have given up on fun?

And then I realized that my idea of fun was no fun at all. I have become discouraged with fun, I have lost hope in fun. After decades of having fun I am still stuck in the realities of my life. I got tired of the fun ending. No matter how much fun I had the night before my life was still awaiting me in the morning. By refusing fun, I have learned how to stay present in my life. This way I am not disappointed, I am not let down. Fun for me is kind of like a lover who is always making you feel bad in the end. After years and years of this maddening relationship I have broken the cycle. I have left fun for the reality of my life. I have left fun for quiet evenings at home- a relationship that I feel is more dependable and certainly more consistent. “That’s my idea of fun,” I told my wife as I tried to describe why I was no longer interested in having fun. “Well do not forget,” my wife replied, “tomorrow night is your sister’s birthday and we are going to go out illuminate ourselves out from this funk you live in and have some damn fun!”

If You Build It They Will Come (i hope)

I am glad to see that 43 living human being visited my blog today. Even though the biggest blogs have hundreds of thousands of visitors a day I am content in knowing that a few, a select few are reading what some consider to be the writings of a mad man. It is not often that I am told this but it is less often that I am told I am sane. It is my belief that I oscillate between sanity and insanity. My faith is entirely constructed upon the meanings which can be extracted from this strange nether world in which I reside. I have faith that over time, maybe many many years- others will come to my blog in search of a space that is beyond common sense or rationality. My convictions tell me that I am no fool, no ordinary mortal- and that what I have to say may change the minds of more than a select conservative few. Maybe I am intoxicated by too strong a belief in the words (rhetoric) that I write, but I know that some day I may be seen by the many as one of the sanest, more frequently read and studied bloggers on planet earth (i hope).

An Invitation To A Beheading.

photograph by Keith Purdy.

I Swallowed My Wedding Ring.

This evening while I was sitting on the couch reading a novel, I accidentally swallowed my wedding ring. You may be wondering why, or how? Well, I believe that I suffer from certain oral fixations or obsessive compulsive disorder. When I am writing or reading I seem to need to have something in my mouth- constantly. Tonight I pulled the ring off my finger with my lips and sucked on it in my mouth as if it was a candy. I stuck my tongue through its hole and ran it around along my teeth. I was not terribly aware of what I was doing since I was so engrossed in the book I was reading.

My wedding ring is made out of one ounce of white gold. It is a thick ring that rests on my finger like a small weight (reminding me of my eternal commitment). How I managed to have it in my mouth without noticing boggles my mind. I first became aware of what was taking place when I felt the metallic sensation of the ring passing down my throat. I choked for a moment and then started to cough when I realized what I had just done. Panic came over me and I ran into the bathroom and tried to make myself vomit. I thought that I could die as a result of swallowing my wedding ring. I thought about my obituary- man dies by swallowing his wedding ring, as my whole body began to shake. When minutes passed and I was still alive but unable to regurgitate my wedding ring, I called my wife into the room and told her what happened.

As she stood in front (I was on my knees in front of the toilet bowl) of me aghast at what I had done, I felt the a cold metallic sensation skipping around in my intestines. I was not sick but terribly uncomfortable. “You are so absent minded! You forget to turn off the heat, to feed the cat and now you swallow your wedding ring!! When are you going to get it together- you need to wake up!!!” I knew she was letting off steam so I allowed her to freely vent. She had spent her last two thousand dollars to buy me this ring and now I had just swallowed it. As far as she was concerned the ring was gone, buried in the penetralia of my intestinal regions. “Baby don’t worry, I’ll either shit it out or have it surgically removed,” I said to her as she dropped to her knees. “When are you going to wake up!!” she kept repeating as I sat on the floor with my hands on my stomach and a feeling of anxiety in my chest.

My grandmother always told me that if I was going to be a reader of fiction, that I should prepare myself for not being in the world. What she meant was that a symptom of reading fiction is being absent minded in day to day life. My grandmother felt that fiction readers (and poetry readers) lived in a world of thought and fantasy rather than reality. I disagreed with her until I was in my ninth year of reading fiction every day. I started doing stupid, absent minded things like rear ending cars and forgetting to pull up my zipper because I was thinking about the plot of a book. But now I have swallowed my wedding ring. This act of mine makes me feel like my grandmothers words were a prophetic warning.

My wife was able to get control over herself and called a poison control center. They told her that if I do not poop out the ring by tomorrow morning that I should go to the emergency room. They recommended that I eat prunes and lots of fiber to move my bowls. My wife slowly came to a state where she could take pity upon my state and began to treat me like a man who needed help. She made me prune tea and put a blanket over me while I lied flat out on the couch. She has been rubbing my head and cynically uttering comical comments like “you are so silly.” I am yet to poop out the ring but it is my hope that after a few more cups of prune tea and a good nights rest that I will be wearing my wedding ring by lunch time tomorrow.