waiting it out

when your favorite band sells out, but you still love their music, new and classic, what do you do? do you shout how youve loved them all along? do you pretentiously quiz anyone listening to them and give them a embellished story of how you met them before they were famous at a tiny venue in a tiny town?

or do you, as i have before, keep quit and keep listening. wait for the storm to pass. popularity seems to pass with musicians weekly, so i keep quiet, keep my head phones on and ignore them being dragged around and over played on the radio. it will pass.

but what about authors?

my favorite writer, of which the same scenario applies, is postered about college dorm room beds at state colleges and frat houses. his dirty writing and lifestyle that went mostly unappreciated during his lifetime, has now been secured a place among young readers, name dropped in every community college writing group i can find.

shouldnt i be glad that his message is affecting more minds? that ideas ive long held may now be accepted? that some fucking rich frat boys might lighten up and learn how to think? i should, but im not, all i find are kids wearing tshirts and naming their bands after his stories and pseudonyms. rich kids taking weekend safaris into the gutter, calling themselves factotums and rebels, badges they can show off at cocktail parties years after they become citizens.

who knows, maybe they will carry some of it with them, back into america. maybe the effect is greater than my cornered little view. ive stayed quiet, im sure im not the only one. ill continue, to read with my book covers hidden and my pretentious words only spilt into blogs. but lets cut it out with the t shirts, please. poets or south american revolutionaries, lets leave the t shirt propaganda for rodeo crowds and bush fans.

security

a lady at my work was diagnosed with some sort of melanoma cancer. three to six months. she is fifty, barely a grandmother, and she won 50000 off a scratcher ticket the first week i was working, two months ago. she used every penny on getting out of debt and rebuilding her kitchen.

the other day i was working at a secondary high school. the ones for all the kids who got kicked out of normal high school, but cant handle folding burritos at tacobell. in the teachers lounge there was a bulletin of past students, a few local cops, a few baby pics, and a separate corner for students that over dosed. next to their name and age at death was either oxycodone or heroin. we work in the carlsbad police department as well, they have a similar board in one of their offices, of bums listed as constant trouble or deceased or disappeared.

this job is more interesting than i have been giving credit. i go into peoples homes, peoples offices and vaults and lives, snoop around and find out why they want motion censers, what they are afraid of. most women are afraid of someone being in their home when they walk in, most men are afraid for their tvs and cars, business owners afraid of employees stealing.

we charge 2800 to 6000 for total security, not including monthly fees. we cause more false alarms and panic than we could ever make up for in actual safety. we help rich people sleep better with their maseratis locked up safe and help keep their children hidden the rest of the world.

its a funny job. everyday, different stories and new ways to hate people. i dont know if i am connecting with people, or learning anything, but it should at least keep me blogging and opinionated. but when cancer comes, and so long as i dont overdose on redbull it will, ill still be in debt, still pretending to be writer, and just as afraid as everyone else.

sharp words for peaceful people

i guess i havent been paying attention lately, to where i am and who i am around.

i sat down for lunch with my roommates at the lotus cafe. we live in leucadia, the beach and hippie district of encinitas, california. we have a shared living arrangement that has been calm and easy for almost three months, but i have avoided these sorts of meetings. i have avoided these meetings because i dont believe in astrology or acia berries or the invisible healing auras of crystals and organic cheeses.

my landlords wife, a sweet and cheerful girl, handed me a gift as soon as we sat. it was a slice from a crystal embedded with minerals and stuck to a piece of double sided tape.

"its for your phone"
i didnt understand.
"let me see your cell phone"
i handed it to her. she unpeeled the tapes cover and stuck the piece to the back of my phone.
"now you won't get cancer. the positive energy of the crystal pulls away the negative waves, keeping your brain safe."
i thanked her, but i dont think my face matched my words.

my landlord is heavily into yoga. i dont mind this, it looks helpful and he seems nonjudgmental of his wifes practices, while holding to the pure physics of his exercise. it keeps him limber for his daily surf at swamis beach. swami means master or teacher in hindu, above the beach is the ashram where he learned and studies meditation. he is a great median between everyone in the house.

the new girl replaced rob. rob was a drunk and a pothead and a genius with sports stats. i cant believe it took them a year to kick him out, nice guy. he had a threesome with some cokehead girls in our all natural hot tub. i dont know what makes our hot tub all natural other than it has no chlorine, but i miss the chemicals, that burned clean feeling that seers into every pore. the new girl would have hated a chlorine tub. it might have cleaned the fucking bushel of hair under her arms or drown the crabs i imagine fester in a messy jungle below.

she is offended at everything- tv, clothes, meat, food in general, baby raising practices, anything that doesnt start with green and cant be purchased at trader joes. she is a single mother, she has no job and takes two classes at the community college. who supports her? how can she afford similar rent to myself? i have no idea. i wished the restaurant served veal or something cruel to animals, but eggplant was the meatiest entree. it was ok.

i like the earth, i joke some but i like animals too, really, i dont have anything against driving less and think solar energy could solve a lot of problems for us. but fuck. come the fuck on. fuck.

i nodded and smiled, bit my lip and stayed. i dont suppose this new religion of being green and organic is anywhere near as dangerous as the christians and muslims, but i dont see them really putting up a fight either. it doesnt seem like the 60s version of these people won, it doesnt look like they will either, but still, it cant be worse.

people need to buy into something. some sort of cause, crystals or witches or gods in clouds, its easy to stop wondering and start following. wondering is dangerous, rationality as well, raising questions the worst. i guess i didnt put up much of a fight, fuck me, stopped at wendys on the way home to get full as well.

sophistry

we start blogging in secret. fake names, real stories, bias views. we make fake friends with real people in our fake universe. they read our bias view, we read theirs, then we comment on and applaud our "openness". we take those arguments and convictions into the real world, into our real relationships, thumping lame convictions over our loved ones heads. no one is moved, concussions are made, we toss and turn in our beds - next to real people, until we return to our open diaries.

diaries aren't meant to be public - not until we are dead anyway. my girlfriend leaves her diary next to her bed, or under a pillow she knows i will use. i'm scared to peep, it tempts, but what would i learn? i've pryed my way in deep enough, people scare me.

i have my own, hand written and fallen apart before filled. a stack of them, unkempt and sporadic, useless for posterity. now i have this, a second attempt blog, a journal with a comment section. fucking hypocrite. boredom? i don't know.

blogging in secret; my fake name, real stories, one sided thumps on the head. all lies, even the true parts.