Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

Tattoo Guy - I fucking love Judas Priest. Man, I used to listen to this stuff 20 - 30 years ago, and I thought Rob Halford was the coolest thing in the world. And I got the leather jacket and the biker boots. I wanted to look just like him, you know? Like a biker. We all did. And then holy shit, man! We find out he's gay, for some reason we're all surprised! Man, what were we thinking! How did we miss that? And I look at the pictures: what he looked like, and Jesus Christ what we looked like!

Me - Oh relax. We were all gay little bikers in the 80's.

Tattoo Guy - Yeah, that's true. It really is true.

Me - And I'll tell you something else. Anybody that tells you they don't love Judas Priest is a fucking liar.


"The power-mad freaks who are
Ruling the earth
Will show how little they think you're worth.
With animal lust they'll devour your life
And slice your world to bits with a knife
One last day burning hell fire
You're blown away
If the man with the power
Can't keep it under control
Some heads are gonna roll!"
- Judas Priest

In the Nothing

As voyeurs, we have to be able to keep some distance.
But not too much.
We have to care. We just have to be able to separate ourselves from the story,
So we can enjoy it.

I enjoy Dexter. I don't enjoy Californication. Californication is making me ill. Physically ill.

Because I'm not a serial killer. I am a writer. A writer that relates to so many of the underlying themes. A writer that has been plagiarized. The story started out amusing. Relative, and amusing. Then it became eerie.
Now it's downright scary. Too close to home. Too painful to enjoy. Too much.

Because this is what I have to offer. This is it, this is all of me. This was everything.
This was my everything.
The living and the dead parts, the sacrilege and the prophecies.

You took my breath when you took my Words.
Jesus Christ... I just can't shake this.
You have no idea what you did to me. You have no idea what you took.
And if you do,
And you took it anyway,
God fucking help you.
I lay here every night and wish you had just stabbed me because that wouldn't hurt this much.

ON THE AFTERSHOCK OF THIS,
I ...
drove to... I made my way to...
But that way was hijacked.
And it went someplace where there is no god.
And all the other great things "said" there can't be believed.
Even the One that's true.

"And no one talks about when one might stop and need to rest
Or how long you sit alone before you stop looking back."
- Shawn Colver

I might have quoted it, correctly,
If I wasn't haunted by the idea that somewhere else there is another writer with a
broken heart and a hijacked line.

"Protected. Words." But who'll protect them from you?


"All the salt in the world couldn't melt that ice."
- Jimmy Eat World

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Wolves

Sometimes.
Sometimes the absolute best you can do is crawl.
So you crawl. You do it.
As well as you can.
You have to get through this one moment at a time.

Because there's a glimmer.
Because you're a pack animal.
You really don't want to be alone.
You have undying loyalty.
You have connections...
Connections to people you never imagined.
You get it.

And so do I, my friend. So do I.

You have to be available to the possibilities.

"And the gold dust in her eyes won't reform into rain."
- Joshua Radin

You see it. You see forever. And it's not all it's cracked up to be, is it. You want more. Don't you deserve more? Aren't you more? You're wild and free, and you aren't going to give that up again. Look away. Look down. Look any place but here.

You wouldn't lie. So why would anyone. It's supposed to be unconditional. It's supposed to be unspoken. It's the code of the pack.

You expect a certain honesty. You expect a person who has claimed to love you, to show a certain amount of truth, no matter what. But the great loss and ache in her was so much more than that.
So much more than truth.
Pain outweighs truth.

"And I was facing prison...
I wasn't that person."
- Chris

And it went someplace else.

I know.
Believe me.
I get it.

Pack animals.
Connected. And believing. And responsible.
And god has nothing to do with it.

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Plagiarism

Being plagiarized is like being mentally and emotionally violated.

I don't know if you can see me, fetal and whispering.

What are these people thinking? Where are their hearts and consciences?
What goes through their heads after. After they steal. After they appropriate. After they do it and it's out there. After my Words, my soul, are out there kidnapped and ...
Do they think about it? Do they experience any feelings? Victory? Anxiety? And what happens after they're found out. What do they think then? Do they feel sorry? Or just busted? Do they envy me? Hate me? Worship me? Loathe me so much, so very very much, that stealing a piece of my soul means absolutely nothing to them? I have no idea. I have no idea how it is. I don't understand.

"How? How does it work? How do you do this to someone?"
- Closer, by Patrick Marber

Why is that so hard? Keep your flow, write your Words, and give credit to the Words from another you've echoed.
Why is that so much to ask?

It's like a betrayal of everything. So very much worse than a cheating spouse or an assault or a physical rape. My heart has been raped. It's inexpressible.

I wish you could understand. It's like, little pieces of your soul that you can never get back. It's gone. It's everything from your dignity to your life raft. It's every important or defining tone in between.

Delete and disappear doesn't cut it.

I wish you had just stabbed me and made this a million times easier.


"And so it is.
The shorter story.
No love, no glory.
No hero in her sky."
- Damien Rice


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Drops of Love

Me - I have my period and I feel like crap.

LD - What did you have for breakfast?

Me - Half a bottle of wine, and icing.

Billy - I didn't realize your period gives you a free pass to eat like a crack whore.

Me - Don't look at me! Stop looking at me! Fuckers...

Billy - I thank god every damn day that I'm gay and never have to deal with this shit.

LD - Oh Veronica, that's so not balanced. It's just not right. You need salt. What's wrong with you? I'll go get you potato chips.


Billy - [following long pause after LD leaves...] What kind of icing was it?

.

He wasn't. And then he was.

He isn't threatening. He isn't a presence. He isn't the kind of man that draws or holds attention.

He is not the kind of person you remember. He blends in, and fades away. He isn't. He is.

"I want to hire you to write again." He passes me a single sugar pack.

I open it and put it in my coffee. I am impressed that he remembers how I take my coffee. Then I see he puts one sugar pack into his, too. Maybe he didn't remember, maybe on some subconscious level he's already figured out that everyone is the same. Everyone wants the same things. Just differently. We are. We aren't.

"What do you need written?" I stir the coffee. I've written for him before. Very dry science papers. The kinds of things you don't remember 10 minutes after you've read them.

No one knows all my secrets. No one knows the darkest corners. Not all of them. I think most people are that way. That secretive and dark way. Most are. Most aren't.

He says, "I need this to be clear. I need it to answer all questions and leave nothing to anyone's imagination. I need it to explain everything. This has to be the best thing I've ever... not... written." He sips his coffee quietly.

I watch him. I nod. OK, this is important. But, "What is it?"

He unfolds a paper and looks down at it. "I wrote a rough draft. I wrote everything I could write for it. I'll have to work with you to fill in the gaps. Tell you what needs to be explained."

I can't see the paper. No one can really see the paper. No one can see him. No one sees. No one doesn't see.

"Can I read what you've written?"

"Not until you promise me you'll take the job." He flattens his hands over the paper. I can see the importance. I can see maybe a little. Or maybe it's just that I want to see.

I look a little surprised. "I don't know what the job is."

He's shy. It isn't raining outside. It isn't sunny either. It isn't doing anything. It's nothing. It's something.

"I just need your Words. Because... because I don't have any." He sips the coffee again. He's very calm. He's very soft spoken and calm and quiet, and he is.

I reach. I put my hand on the paper and I slide it toward me. I read it and take it in. I know what it is after the first sentence. I don't know what to do by the second:


I don't think that any one of you will actually miss me after I'm gone. I don't know if knowing this makes it easier or harder.


"I'll write this. You can't do anything until I write this. OK?"

"OK."

"Promise?" I still don't know what to do now that I know what he's doing.

He is. And now maybe he isn't.

He looks tired. He looks complacent. He looks at me. He looks at everything, and he looks at nothing. "I promise."

****************

He opens the front door at 2:00 in the morning. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed to give you this right away. And in person." I hand him the letter. He sits down right there on the steps and opens it.

He reads it. And he reads it again.

And we held hands in the silence.

And that's where we remained until sunrise. Sitting on the steps at his apartment, in the night, in 1992. In the nothing. In the everything.


Dear Lou,
There is no one on this planet that hasn't felt alone and insignificant at least sometimes. There is no one that is one hundred percent perfect.
We are all flawed,
and dark,
and confused.
We have all missed a step or lost our way.
But we are all decent.
And found.
And worthwhile.
All of us.
None of us.
And you too, my friend.
You too.
I promise.


.

Want

"You know I told you once tonight
That you could always speak your mind.
You work so hard to say what's right.
I watch you do it all the time.
And when I called you on the phone
You said that I could be the one
But here I'm standing all alone
And you're out lying in the sun."
.....- The Monroes


Because the heart wants what it wants.
Not what you can offer. Not what you can find.
The heart wants what it wants.

You can't reason with that. You can't plea bargain or buy-out, or sell-thru.
You can't.

The heart wants what it wants.

It wants to be engaged.
It wants to be enthralled.
It wants to be consumed. Enraptured. Elevated.
It wants to feel the inconceivable, like "forever", and "only."

"He's so fiction." - Katrina

I can invent the person I need you to be.
I can script you. I can create you, and put the Words, my Words, into your mouth.
I can breathe you, and believe you.
Even when you aren't,
Even when you're not,
I can see what I want to see.
I can.

"He just tripled his fiction." - Katrina

I can give the heart what it wants.

What I can't do,
Is be your invention.
I can't be what your heart wants.
I can't take my Words out of my mouth.
I can't.


"Do you think we both should let it show?
Do you think we both should let it go?
Or is it just another game
That you and I pretend to play?"
......- The Monroes

Full of Me

He knows.
He just doesn't know what he knows.

That's because he was told, not taught.

You can't trust some people to think clearly.
You can't give them your thoughts and expect them to come up with their own.
You have to be responsible when people listen to you.
You're obligated when you know better.

I know.
And I know what I know.


"I am the conscience clear
In pain or ecstasy
We were all weaned, my dear
Upon the same fatigue.

Staring at the sun
My own voice
Cannot save me now
Standing in the sea
It's just
One more breath
And then
I go down.

Your mouth is open wide
The lover is inside
And all the tumults done
Collided with the sign
You're staring at the sun
You're standing in the sea
Your body's over me."
... .-TV On The Radio
.

One Song Per Week

You have something to say
And no way to be heard
Over the ice clinking against the sides of a bucket glass
Of Maker's Mark bourbon
That you hold in your hand,
A hand that makes music
And poems
And way too many latte's for minimum wage.
The spiders of mediocrity hide
But they're there...
Aren't they.
The spiders are there
In the corners
And the darkness.

And in a blogspot of brilliance
You find a way to be heard
One song at a time.

"You can’t hold on to nothing if nothing don’t want to be held."

Please continue, J Elliot.
We're listening.

Assignments

She's smaller than she was. Smaller than she used to be.
She's less, she's diminished.
It's as if she was never eleven. It's as if she is just getting to that now, to the emotions and thoughts any one of us would have spent at eleven years old.

She became a teacher.
There are so many bad jokes that could be attached.
Like, those who don't do, teach.

They may be bad jokes because they apply. And many a truth comes out in jest.

"I want to tell you something, Dina."
But she can't listen to me anymore. She's too busy judging me. She's too implied. She's too absorbed by thoughts and illusions of superiority and moral just.

If she's happy with her marriage and her kids, you'd never know. She seems miserable. She speaks the depressed language of teachers and musicians. She settled for mediocrity and squints at everyone who didn't.

I wonder if she can remember being happy. I wonder if she can remember when everybody liked her.

"Why don't you ever call me anymore?"
Because you called me morally ambiguous.
And didn't even realize that that's where the calls stopped.



"You're already falling
It's calling you on to face the music
And the song that is coming through.
You're already falling.
The one that is calling
Is you."

- The Moody Blues


.

My Favorite Secret

"I can't forget the small siren that sang to me so sweetly,
You are a beautiful ghost that lives in the ruins of my broken heart."

- Anonymous, at Postsecret, where we are all ghosts.



Thank you El Guapo my friend, for the translation.
I miss you. YOU are a beautiful ghost.
Thank you Bob for the help, always.


.

For the Most Part

For the most part, you don't get too many chances.
For the most part, people are just trying to get by.
They are just trying to have a life, and a home, and a chance,
And a few people they can call "friend."
For the most part, we're all hurting, or haunted.
We're all vulnerable to a degree. We're all flawed some where.
Like the hero of a book,
Or a shelter dog.

For the most part.

Sometimes we just do what we can do to make it through the day and not break down.
Relationships are hard. All of them.
Even the little ones.

Because for the most part,
None of us are little.

Actually, buying a 9 year old's pee isn't such a bad idea...

LD, driving - You want to go to my house and grab some lunch?

Me, pointing to a little kid's lemonade stand - Sure, but first let's stop there and get some lemonade.

LD - Ewww, no! There's probably pee in it!

Me - WHAT??

LD - Didn't you used to do that? Pee in the lemonade you sold when you were little?

Me - Ummm, no.

LD - Ha. Oh well. So, back to my house for lunch?

Me - Yeahhh, thinking I'm gonna pass on that one. We're going to the diner.

LD - Why?

Me - I'm not up for the Electric Kool-Aid Piss Test today.

LD - You have to take a piss test today?? Oh shit! You're fucked!

Me - Oh I'm fucked alright.



"Slowride
Easy
Slowride
Sleazy!"
-Foghat

.

The Point

"Hey, isn't that Nancy's ex?" He's pointing. He's pointing at the guy in the suit.

I'm pointing too. "Him? Yeah. That's him. He's in publishing." I have one hand on my martini and the other on my ego.

"Seriously?" He pops a few more peanuts into his mouth. "Did you ever ask to get a meeting with him?"

"Of course I did." Retard. I ask everyone even slightly connected to publishing. "She said he said no, couldn't do anything for me, didn't know anybody, all that shit." I'm pointing at the peanuts. I'm drinking.

He pushes the nut bowl closer. "Didn't know anybody? How could he not know any body if he's in the field." He laughs a little as if that absurdity is humorous for me instead of embarrassing. The world is pointing at me. I'm alone and that's the point.

"Yeah, imagine that." I'm waving to the bartender. I'm pointing at my empty martini glass. Why am I sitting here so long with an empty martini glass. I shouldn't have to be pointing.

He's pointing at the guy in the suit. "He's leaving." He shrugs. And he's pointing at the obvious. At the stupid truth of it. "Maybe it was just his mood the day you asked. You know how it is. You have to strike at just the right time. Timing is everything. The moment your manuscript is opened. And by whom. And their mood that day."

He waits as the bartender sets down my fresh drink and walks back to the sinks behind the bar. He's pointing at my martini. "If they couldn't get a cab that morning. If they got laid last night. If their drink was made right."

I'm pointing at the air, at the point. I'm pointing. I'm pointing at how frustrating it is to have to jump through these endless futile hoops to begin with. I'm pointing at how the equation complicates when you add in the variables of moods. "So you think if I send that guy a great drink and a good hooker he'll read my fucking novel?"

He's smiling. He's seeing that I need it. I need the smile. "It couldn't hurt." He's having some wheat ale I've never heard of. He's eating these stale peanuts. He's been dreaming like the rest of us. He's been wanting the big break his band deserves. He's pointing at the same hoops I jump through. He's pointing at the same variables, and the same frustrations. The same futility. The same smiles. And he's pointing. He's pointing.

I'm sipping. I'm tasting Grey Goose. Angles and conclusions aside, this isn't what I ordered. This isn't what I drink and this bartender knows better. This happens all the time in here. I'm pointing at the Ketel One on the shelf. I'm waving. I'm pointing.

He knows the face I'm making, and the drink I order, and the waving and pointing. He knows the pointing. "Is today the day this bartender has another mood hoop to jump through?" Something else to point at.

The bartender is back quickly. "Shit, Veronica. Sorry. Did I Grey Goose you again?"

And I'm quiet. And I take a twenty out of my pocket. And I leave it on the bar. "It's OK." I'm pointing at the clock. "I gotta go soon anyway. It's fine. Nevermind."

"Thanks." He smiles. He isn't pointing at anything. There is no point.




I need you to hurry up now
'Cause I can't wait much longer
I know I got to be right now
'Cause I cant get much wronger."
-Kanye West



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