going

.
.
listen
.
.
happy thoughts, happy thoughts

it seemed like a good idea at the time
it doesn't seem like a good idea now

since you forgot what it was like
you must endure the end again
the beginning of the end again

hellclouds over liverpool
cannibals under new orleans

art will save me
shade will save me

hallucination is salvation
is hallucination

control is fakery, creating a reality
reality is control
control is fakery, he's making my reality
reality is control

control is fakery, creating a reality
reality is control
control is fakery, they're breaking my reality
reality is out of control

so much grit in luxury
it's modern fugal history
reality is control

this will save me
this will save me
this enslaves me

going, going, going, going, gone

why am i here? where is the way?
i've tried the will, it didn't pay
am i the savior, like they said?
can i just crawl back home instead?

since you forgot what it was like
you must endure the end again

Some Other World Convention

Conventions. Webster’s dictionary defines “conventions” as the plural of convention. It’s the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence. What was I gonna say? Something about selling out. Get to the bloody point, man.

Societal conventions. I used to watch David Bronson or Broadside or Brawnstein or Whatever’s “dating” phoneline infomercial on CTV, every night at 3 am, on my little fuzzy TV in my bedroom, because it was on, on my own TV in my bedroom, even if it was shitty reception. It was that or CBC, and if there was no good foreign film on, or at least one with nudity, I would watch whatever was on CTV. The Dating thing had a lot of clubbers showing skin, up to, but not including, genitals. The females, that is. They seemed like adults to me, then. After interludes of aggressively non-hip music in some middle-american dance-club purgatory, they would cut to video personal ads. One of them was a tall blonde. “My name is Sharon, I’m 28. I know, I’m old. I’m looking for...”

Oh forget it. Can’t recall what insight was so profound I had to write it in essay form. I just have to end this downtrodden day with a few words, some verbal defiance. I’m edgy in the burbs. Micromanaged. Waiting for my ship to come in. I’ve set the bar lower for a homeworld. The last world would do. Oh, this oh so earnest striving for starched collar mediocrity.

Can’t wait for the night to fall. Things will be better, I’ll be alone to work on my album. Still, can’t remember ever feeling this soulless. Even when burned out, drugged out, and defeated, there was soul implied by the void. Now I’m staying clean, running a rat-maze with no discernible exit in job hunting limbo, hoping to bootstrap myself out of this rut after i’m hired by the hundredth employer, the one who values something other than bullshit, so I can raise enough capital to, I dunno. Jobs come in three flavours, the nine-fifty, the ten-fifty, and the ten. I don’t like the curve that implies. No wonder I feel whatever this is.

Watching paint dry

beats flagging - but it's all academic.

What are my silly likes today? What are my silly fears today? Why am I walking amidst the commoners today, hiding? What trip am I on, that makes me question everything, not rhetorically, but futilely?

Do the hectrizm, it's a chizm in yo chasm. That's not a suggestion, it's a commandment. You can do the locomotion if you want, but it's a tertiary objective.

the dead and the naked

Senorita Viva loves the lie. Anything she says can and will be used against her. Let's not make an issue out of this. Let's consign it to the filing cabinet. There's money in selling furniture with image, personality, charm. Love the leather. If you smile long enough, you'll feel good. Fake it till you make it. Objection your honor, calls for speculation. Sustained.

I'll go into the witness protection program. Senorita Viva is my name. I'll order some badly cooked Italian food, it will be alright. I won't think about that thousand dollar night. If people need to mention their compromising fantasies at meetings, I'll think about something else. Plenty of things to think about. No spirit. The spirit got sucked dry. This is my anti-meditation. Then there's the stop smoking medication. Maybe it will flatten me, inure me to indignity, do I deserve any less? If you're culpable, make it cope-able, at least, Senorita Viva, and trim those sideburns, it's called grooming, make a habit of it. The stock market don't depend on it, but your bank account might.

Yo, thou, you're due for some nerves, remove the stone of shame, attach the stone of TRIUMPH! Nobody said it would be easy. Just easy enough so you don't get hardened. So you keep coming back, running that prodigal circuit, transistors. The tents are for former child molesters, the kids don't go out in the woods anymore, so, former molesters. The woods are tranquil, there's ancestor spirits there, until the news crews shows up, a COMMUNITY of sex criminals! But that's okay, no news is bad news, it's an indian casino compromise, exposure, haha. Ha. Ah. Fuck.

spoiler alert

I'm breathing, sharing air molecules with the earth's population in aggregate, sharing atoms with my ancestors. God's breath. Whoopdefuckindoo. What a time to foist deeply spiritual literature on myself. I made it through the Glass Bead Game. I even wrote notes on some parts I thought were cool. Some of it stirred something in me, like the future society within society: art and thought has progressed to the point where nothing new can be created, and a certain honesty and acceptance about this has dawned. Hence, the glass bead game, a godly passtime. That is something that resonates for me, horrifying yet tranquilizing. And the end, the death of Joseph Knecht in the glacial lake, that was a shocker for me, I admit, and beautiful in a way I can't justify. And the maya epiphany of the Indian Life, I haven't overdosed on Hinduism yet, so there was room in my blood-pumping organ for a bit of maya. All in all though, it was a chore slogging through those 568 pages. It found me at the wrong time. I appreciate the gift Rose, you're so sweet. I should try the Bukowski book you bought me. I brought it with me to this rock.

I'd never call myself an atheist. The word is too specific. It's a merit badge for boy scouts, self-satisfied, self-proclaimed intellectual realists. I'm non spiritual, that's what I am. Spiritually dead. Tried to read Spiritual Quest. The more pages I read, the more disgusted I became. The meaninglessness is overwhelming. Life is like a box of chocolates. Stupid is as stupid does.

The incredible string band is playing in my head. Maya... Maya... All these things. Lovers, his Loins. Thanks again Rose, you reminded me of that cool song, and the fidelity of my mind's ear has increased exponentially, in the midst of this cabin fever delirium, a kind of sensory deprivation. I forced down some seafood stew here at the Wiseman Center, it was alright in a weird sort of way, I even allowed breath through the nasal passage after it was all gone. I've been the Ugly British Columbian today, ungrateful, letting loose, bitching, cursing this province, as if it needs the hindrance. Checking myself by remembering all the cool people, the charm, the love. I'll write a checklist.