Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Becuase I'm a Wanderlust King

http://www.backstage.com/backstage/photos/2008/10/EugeneHutz.jpg
This beautiful man wrote a lovely little diddy that inspired this little rant i am about to go on. I am one of the most restless souls i have ever met. I have no desire to stay in one place for too long, or do one thing for longer than necessary. I'm always anxious to be in a new place with new people and new sights smells sounds feelings etc etc. Especially with college coming up, it has made me realize that i'm always lusting to wander, to be somewhere foreign.
Alot of people in my grade are and always will be townies. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but they love Scituate/Boston, and have no intention of ever living somewhere else in their whole lives. Thats something i cannot possibly fathom. I have lived in Boston for 18 years. I love this city, but 18 years in the same place? It almost hurts me, pains me, to think that there is so much territory out there that i have not touched. My mark on the map is like a fucking grain of salt on 10,000 beaches.
I have been fortunate enough to have traveled a bit thus far in my glorious youth. Not many people can say they have been to England once and Italy three times before they were 18, and i am really grateful for that. Some of the best expierences of my life have been getting mind blowingly lost in the streets of York or getting shit on by pigeons in Rome, but its not nearly enough for me. I'm thirsty thirsty thirsty for more culture. I cant get enough of it.

I want to have tea with this man and hear about his life and understand the look in his eyes
http://g.virbcdn.com/cdnImages/resize_510x1500/Image-177-72194-012.jpg
I want to wipe this fucking adorable babies little nose and then give them some candy to keep that smile on their faces
http://www.praisephotography.com/uploaded_images/categories/China.Butuo.sister%20with%20sibling%20on%20back.jpg
I want to make music with Gypsies
http://nigeldickinson.com/albums/gypsymusicdancebears/gypsy_music_dance02.jpg
and not wear shoes and drink vodka with russians and go clubbing with eurotrash and feed the hungry and nurse the sick and get lost in some other culture and pay for things in euros and eat lots of foreign food and always be on a plane and never be in the same place for too long and go where nobody knows my name but make them remember it and make wine in the italian countryside and smoke cigarettes in paris even though i dont smoke and meet people and just go i really really really just want to go.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

my main man

If this man, W.H. Auden, wasn't dead at this precise moment, I would track him down and force him to spill the contents of his brain, empty his soul, and talk to me for hours. I have never been more fascinated with a man than i am with him. There are about 5 people that i would do anything to have a nice porkchop dinner and share a bottle of wine with, and he is for sure one of them. He is a poet, and the one of the only poets that i have felt this strong and intense connection with. Anyways, he really kicks ass, and if you haven't, please read his work. it will do a body good.

The Unknown Citizen
by W.H. Auden

(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard


i got inked

(that's my wrist)

So i guess i have jumped on the bandwagon and got a tattoo. I didnt really do it for anyone else but myself, or to be "cool" or anything, but i guess that is just how it will look to some people. I am a big proponent of the attitude of not caring what anyone thinks, and most of the time i don't. But the reality is, however awesomely out of this world i may seem, i am human, and therefore i do care what people think of me. What bothered me most about getting my tattoo was not that people would judge me or whatever, but it was people telling me i'm going to regret it. Suprisingly, my parents (maybe minus my father), were pretty calm about the whole thing. But it was people i didn't know very well, my boss and teachers, and even friends who thought that maybe they knew better than me. I think what bothered me most about the whole situation was the fact that nobody can tell you how to feel about something except yourself, and getting this tatto felt right and meaningful and perfect. Even if for some reason in 20 years i regret it, i will look back on it and think about this time in my life when it meant something, it's a georgeous part of my youth and even if i regret it (which i don't think i will) that doesnt mean it will loose it's meaning.
I would never get a tattoo if it didnt mean something. This one does. An elephant with it's trunk up is a sign of good luck, but thats a superficial meaning. It reminds me of my family and my heritage, something that will never get old and i will never get sick of. When my grandmother (my dad's mother) was young, she had an elephant pendant she got in Sicily and it was her good luck charm. She eventually lost it and was heartbroken, so my grandfather who was a dentist made her another one out of the gold filling used for cavaties. He made one for each of my uncles when they were born, and each grandchild got one as well. My grandfather now being dead, i can't think of a better homage than this. I'm sure if he was still alive he would shun me for getting a tattoo, but he isnt, so he'll just have to be pissed from beyond the grave.
I didnt really write this post do validate what i did or get any closure, i was just trying to make the point that i dont think people have the right to tell me how i'm going to feel in 20 years or what decisions i should make, and they have no right to affect my actions in any way. This also isnt a run of the mill teenage angsty Fuck tha police rant either, i just thought i'd share how i felt.





So bottom line: Fuck tha police

Sunday, February 8, 2009

What happens when everything has been taken from you and all you have left is your pack of cigarettes and a really long driveway

i wrote this short story after about 7 years of observing the person i based the story on. so here it is.


He had not been happy in a very long time. There were brief periods of contentment, but never the kind of unadulterated bliss that brings with it unbearable lightness of self. No- he hadn’t felt that in a very long time.
The sorrow he felt had entered like the plague on that October day, through his nostrils, mouth and eyes, coursing it’s way down his trachea and leaving it’s mark in his retinas. Burning, burning, burning, always-
It had settled in his core, taking up residence in his arthritic bones, with every bending of his joints and crack of the knuckles, he released it into his bloodstream, like a quick poison bringing speedy death.
He stood at the top of his long driveway with his almost finished cigarette threatening to burn the skin between his pointer and middle finger. But like most other things, he was numb to it. Sometimes, or more like every afternoon, he would pace up and down this driveway. It was if pacing up and down the cracked tarmac would bring some sort of resolution. He felt that by reaching the end of the driveway he would arrive at a conclusion of sorts, and every time he was disappointed when he didn’t, and had to turn around and walk back with shuffling steps filled with despair. Once he reached the top he turned around- down again.
He fantasized about reaching the end of his driveway and having a car there waiting for him, waiting to take him away to some comfortable place, somewhere warm and compact and comprehensible. Somewhere not here, not scratchy and stark and baffling. Somewhere-
Maybe he did this because he had nothing better to do. Maybe because watching the hours melt away or the seasons change before his eyes would alter something, or make anything better.
This past year everything that could have possibly gone wrong did. Dead son, lost job, it went on and on. It wasn’t that he didn’t have anything left to live for- that wasn’t the case. The damnable weight he felt pressing on his rotting soul wasn’t the result of fatalistic or suicidal thoughts. It was his desire. Desire for hope, salvation, even some form of fucking comfort.
He was the grape in the proverbial vineyard of life. Waiting to be crushed, waiting for his insides to squeeze through the toes of whatever sadistic fucker decided to play God. Everything that made him whole was slowly being taken away. As he flicked his cigarette away, he looked up at the sky and with whatever bit of passion or fervor he had left he screamed
- Just do it you motherfucker, and then at last,---

He turned around and walked back up the driveway.