Captain’s Log

I used to have an imaginary friend, ’till he fucked with me too many times and I ate him. I used to have a girlfriend, too … same story. There is only me. I killed the rest. They couldn’t hack it, anyway. Like the emperor’s new clothes, the light shone right through. They couldn’t be near me, the light just radiates.

I’m sitting here, now, in the darkness of the back porch, watching the cherry of my cigarette burn bright orange like an exploding star against a black sparkly landscape. The moon drifts slowly through the sky; I can see it moving if I stare at it. Early morning rush hour roars at me from the distant freeway. It’s a beautiful picture … but as the fire burns, I hunger again.

Twilight shadows beseige imagination

Softly, slowly distort all creation

Daylight’s burning rapture

Has silently been captured

By the night

In darkness lies the truth behind the light

Sickly, sweetly smiling in fixation

Soaking, steaming, lewd transfiguration

Passion starts to stir

Lurid fantasies endure

Throughout the night

In darkness lies the truth behind the light

Shield your eyes against the burning of the hostile sun

Truth in light is a lie that can’t be seen

Find in darkness

The power to be free

Only then can you belong to me

Gentle, tender, caressing trepidation

Trembling, shaking let loose imagination

Set your spirit free

For in shadows there can be

All that there might

In darkness lies the truth behind the light

Together we can be all that we might

Help me find the love behind the light

The elephant perches on the steeple at midnight, but beware for the rhino blows bubbles in the bathtub.

Sanity is over-rated. I’m getting paid by veterans affairs (I’m an Iraqi war vet) for being 100% mentally disabled. I’ve learned a few tricks to getting by.

First and foremost, be okay with who you are, whoever you may be. No matter how fucked up you might or might not be in the eyes of the world (and especially in your own eyes) … be okay with it. Accept it. Only then can you exist in “here and now.”

Once you’re “here and now,” you can find the most interesting thing happening right in front of you at any given moment. Follow it. It is the white rabbit. And it will change on a moment by moment basis (because, of course, interests change.)

The world is what it is … the way I see it, it’s the sum of all things. Good or bad, right or wrong … these things are all relative. And relativity is based on location. Be aware of whatever your white rabbit is … and change your own location (worldview/physical location/religion/whatever else may need some changing) to whatever helps you best chase it.

Be okay with not having fun. Learn how to enjoy the unenjoyable. Be okay with the world and everything in it (from the “best” of the “best” to the “worst” of the “worst.” Remember, it’s all relative to you.)

Now, I’m no shrink, I don’t get paid to help people with their problems … but I do know how to deal with my own. And those are a few of the ways I do. Maybe it won’t work for you, but there it is.  Hope your life (and death) is everything it’s supposed to be!

this is not,
Jack Wolfe

Change and revolution are not produced by opposition.

I’m going to start in the middle. Then I’m going to write the beginning. And then the end.

I need a sewing kit. I don’t need a sewing machine, but a really useful hand sewing kit. Thin needles, thick needles, big needles, small needles, fine needles and needles for leather.

That’s the middle.

Loveless. I’ve always wanted to see it, even though I know it’s really nothing more than a billboard in the video game Final Fantasy VII. I think it’s supposed to be a play, or maybe a movie. I’ve been Midgar for far too long. I’ve been Loveless for far too long. The things I’ve surrounded myself will all seem as though they are only half real. There is no love in goods crafted by lifeless machines. They serve their purpose, and over long periods of time I can even instill my own love into them, but they are like dolls … I want people. I want love. I want life. I want them like my lungs want air and my body wants water.

I bought this beanie that does a fairly decent job of seeming alive, for something clearly made by a machine. I like this beanie. I also bought some t-shirts, and even though they are covered in clever and meaningful symbols, they still seem insubstantial … that is to say, they lack substance. I suppose when I say they lack substance, I particularly mean the ephemeral sort of substance. The key ingredient in good food is love.

I need to go visit some art exhibits, maybe buy some things if anything speaks to me, to hang on these empty walls.

That wasn’t a full paragraph, and neither is this. It’s just two sentences.

I’ve been feeling rather ugly lately … rather heartless. Maybe heartless isn’t so bad, but if anything could use some aesthetic sprucing, it’s a void where a heart should be. Black velvet, and suede, and the smell of roses and cinnamon … clothes hand stitched by the recesses of the psyche … instruments played on deft hands … outside the sunshine or a warm, breezy starlit night. Wine in the glass after dinner, followed by a quiet evening. The ruffians can stay in the streets where they will be so picturesque, and I will call them friends. The rest of the world tucked away in it’s tangle of politics and religions and sex-crazed media, worshiping the violence and gore displayed on 800×600 for the daily news. The celebrities dancing in front of them like so many daffodils. And I will work, and play, and meditate wide-eyed on on the wonder of it all. The world is mine, and I love it.

Now … about that sewing kit … and some material to set to work on … can’t get it right now. It’s 6:24am and I’ve been awake for well over fifty hours now. So I’m going to watch Wall-E. I haven’t seen it yet, but it seems like just the right movie for me right now, based on the reviews.

this is not,
Jack Wolfe

Thanks to the war, the Great Plains had once again turned into the Great Dustbowl. Miles and miles of endless high winds and dust stretched on as far as the eye could see. The jeep had broken down nearly a day ago, and the four of us had no water. We marched on. We had no choice. The two large blonde men, myself, and the auburn haired object of my poorly kept secret affection.

The winds kicked up, and a roaring sound was heard overheard. In an instant, a ball of fire shot down from the heavens and landed in our midst, sending yellow flame and sparks in a shower of brilliant light all around us. Jet planes. Everyone was twirling about and looking skyward with hands shielding faces from the dust and cold midwest sun. Canisters fell from the sky and spewed forth dull green smoke into the dust clouds and dirt devils, and I knew what it signified.

I reached out for her, that red-haired angel, and held first her hand in mine, wrapping my other arm around to press her into me. Her hair flying in the wind whipped me in the face, and her eyes looked at me with a pleading confusion. Everything … the dust storm, the jet planes, the smoke signals, even the dazed and frantic adrenalin pumping through our veins … everything faded away as I felt the softness of her lips against mine for the first time.

Pulled apart by gloved hands whose twins bore the latest high-powered weaponry, my mind made everything quiet, almost still. We struggled to reach each other against the strength of many grasping arms, helplessly dragged apart. There, in the periphery, our two companions also dragged apart, one unconcious, as we were each forced into separate armored vehicles. They had captured us at last. The battles … the Mayans … it had all been in vain.

Last night I … well, I wiped out rather suddenly. It was as though my body was trying to force me to sleep using brute intimidation. “Go to sleep now or you’ll be sorry sooner rather than later.” It was almost like it is when I’m on deaths door … like an out of body experience, being called to some other plane of existence by strange, otherworldly dream beings. Well, I passed out (didn’t even get up or move really when Jeff spilled the hooka coals onto the floor … incredible) and then had the most intense … dream? … that I’ve had in years.

I don’t remember all the details … it seemed like it lasted all night, literally, minute for minute (1 minute dreamtime = 1 minute real time) and it went a *little* like this …

I land a boat (piloting solo) somewhere on the tip of that “finger” thing that comes out of southwestern Alaska. Everything is very frozen. I work my way around some cliffs and ice and come to … I remember someone in the dream, before this, having told me about it … a huge dump, like a landfill kinda only just sitting there on the ice. Seagulls are EVERYWHERE. By the tens of thousands, even! It is terribly rancid all around and I remember having to resist the urge to puke (I’m in survival mode, gotta keep those bodily fluids.) I keep on wandering east/northeastward and eventually find …

A prison. I walk in through the front entrance and the dude behind the counter gives me a very skeptical look before quickly deciding I’m okay. I explain to him that I’m from (can’t remember) and that I landed on the western tip out there. HE gets me something … can’t remember what … and there are two inmates behind the counter. They each have their own little room and tattoo guns set up. They are tattooing themselves. Only the ink was kept at the front desk. The guard explained to me, when I asked him about it (”Are they tattooing themselves?”) that they didn’t like the colors available in the ink, which he promptly showed to me. It looked like fingerpaint in a little urn/jar. I forget why, but for some reason I ended up mixing some of the colors up (all still inside the jar) and making a sort of blueish color. When the second inmate came back for more ink he seemed pretty excited about it “How’d you do that!?” … I told him I didn’t know. Some more stuff happens that I can’t remember and then I …

walk outside, to go find the nearest town. Except maybe … yeah someone picked me up but I have no clue who. Maybe the guard arranged a ride to town for me (memo: I checked the map, the town in the dream is most likely Anchorage) and YES someone did come to pick me up, though I can’t remember for the life of me who it was. As we were driving out of the parkinglot (I was sitting passenger) I saw this couple that I *always* saw in Eugene, some housey punks … the girls name was Kelsey I believe, and I rolled down my window and shouted out to her “What the hell are *you* doing here?” to which she simply replied, “I think you’re here to find her.” and I shouted back “Who?” thoroughly confused as we were pulling away down the road and she shouted back “Cassandra” in a barely-audible-due-to-the-distance shout. This … was a strange riddle. That was my response. How strange. Anyways, we drove on … 

to the town. I walked into some kind of restaurant that also seemed like it doubled as a place for people to come in out of the cold and hang out. It was very crowded, but I had an idea that this mysterious “she” person was supposed to show up. And she did eventually walk in with a group … it wasn’t Cassie, though, and I knew it wouldn’t be … it was the girl from Thriftway (I have the hugest crush on this girl that works across the street at Thriftway.) We looked at each other, my from my seat and her as she was walking by with this group … I was a little aggitated with the location though and got up and left, walking RIGHT by her without saying a word. Then I was back …

… outside, in the cold snowy city. I guess we had each others phone numbers, though, as she quickly called me. She had come outside after me, but I was already a block or two away and she apparently thought I had gone in a different direction than I did. She told me she wanted to meet with me and that I should come back … so I tried but ended up getting lost in the city.

Must have been the red light district, because all of a sudden it seemed like every seedy and over-stylized strip club in Nevada had moved to Alaska. Strippers, half naked waitresses, and alcohol were everywhere. And I had no clue where she was.

That’s when the apartement maintence dude knocked on the door, hard, and woke me up. So he could install a smoke alarm. I haven’t been able to go back to sleep. Too disturbed.

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I had to dig deep, but I can recall having one good Christmas.

I must have been either 3 or 4 years old. We were living in Orange County, down by Disneyland. My mom was still married to her first husband … that was a happy time. I remember learning how to make cookies (for Santa) and oatmeal (for the reindeer) on Christmas Eve … 20 or 21 years ago … in my Alf onesey pajamas. I know it was a good Christmas because what I remember about it was all the attention I got … but it wasn’t really focused on me … it was focused on Christmas itself. Trying to put that somber cheer into the house by decorating a tree, making cookies and oatmeal for Santa and his reindeer, home movies on the new tape recorder … I don’t even remember being asked what I wanted for Christmas. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t about wanting … it was about that mystical experience that I can only poorly label as finding warmth in the coldest part of the year. Everything might have been bleak, but there was still comfort to be found in home and family, and enjoyment can always take the silliest of forms … like bringing a dead tree into the house and putting shiney stuff on it. It wasn’t about the tree, or gifts, or snow, or even Santa … it was about making the best of the worst, it was about creating a warm little spark when nature itself seemed bent on making the world dark and dreary and cold. It was … home. Probably the only real home I’ve ever known.

It’s funny how my experiences have crafted my knowledge. The past sets the stage for the present. With only one good Christmas, and a very poorly remembered one that happened a lifetime ago, it’s no wonder I have no interest in the holiday.

Every Christmas after that all I can remember is the tangled mess of family politics and everyone obsessing over what to buy or getting what they wanted.

Tomorrow is Christmas. Maybe I can try to create that special warmth in the darkness in the new appartment this year. Unfortunately, it’s looking like it’ll be pretty lonely. At least I won’t have the family politics to navigate.

So it turns out Spinnerette booked a few gigs (yes, GIGS … not SHOWS … not CONCERTS … but teeny tiny little gigs … ::cries harder::) at the end of this last October, down in LA … and I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THEM! … the chance to see Brody … in the flesh … just feet away …

… maybe it’s for the best that I didn’t know about it. I might have exploded or spontaneously combusted or gotten a restraining order put out against me or something. At least thrown out. Getting thrown out of a gig starring Brody Dalle … that would definately be a dream come true.

Well, I’ll have to keep a weather eye out on the horizon for any new gigs … I hope I didn’t just miss my last chance … that would … well, I think I’d honestly really regret that. One of those lifelong regrets things … it’d be like if you were a hippie back in the day and you missed woodstock because you weren’t paying attention … 

If you want to make me explode, get me to a Brody gig.

Slumbering dreams from the deep
Lucid light of wakefulness
And the blurry barrier between

Madness
Unintelligible gibbering
The crocodile smiles
As a drop of crystaline joy falls from its soul

Ghosts in the darkness
Spirits shine in the machine
And music flows from the bottles

What happens when they talk?
From what universe is the idea?
Reality bends on a whim
And the jungles fight against the stagnate souls of the dead

The Savage Garden (Thing One)
Conglomorate Paradigm (and Thing Two)
Forget the measurements
Drink the ambrosia

The story unfolds as the teller tells it
And if untold
It finds its own way
Through the quagmire of socialites
Harpies and Saints
They bicker, and they dance
And the whirlpool they form sucks it all down
Down and sideways into inevitability

I love burritos.

Lately I’ve been thinkin’
‘Bout a little bit of beauty
And a whole lotta love

There’s naught to stop it
But what is
And what is: naught

And I watch the willow fade
Before the shade of ghosts
And I see that it’s beautiful