12 apr: the killing moon was playing when i saw the letter.
3:58 am

10 apr: the hostage situation in china has been resolved.

she got in touch today. the hostage situation here has been resolved.
5:27 pm

7 apr: some people can only be loved at angles. theyre just never apparent enough to be taken as a whole. an isosceles corruption in the vanishing point. a cruel defect in the science of perception.

when was the last time you got a good look at yourself?

im going to stop addressing you here in this body of text. this isnt mine to blatantly personalize. it sure isnt yours to be dedicated to.

different topic:

technology is the modern day lingerie. or at least, in terms of the internet, the function it provides a majority of its users is very similar.

new topic:

hypochondria suggests the best excuses - catered in whispers too. but when it comes down to it and it will, ill just go milk carton for a day - i wont play sick. though i realize that i am. sickness has thickened me. im petrifying. im just a wizening into an old rotten tree with secrets for roots, with a desperate grip on the dirt. my food for thought has gone sour, my mind is just a bitter fruit, ripe in its old age, its my darkened mood. a bruise on paradise. im all bark now. my bite isnt worth explaining.

i waste my time now. ever since i started working to earn my keep, keep on living, since i started driving the machines.

i make hollow gestures hoping that im disguising my idle time with a demonstration of my intentions to use it well, instead. i pretend these good intentions all the way until its time to go to work. and by then its too late to get upset that i faked it just to get to the rest of it. by then im already furiously preoccupied with nothing at all.

as ms. golightly said 'im a phony but at least im a real phony'. i hate her. i really do. that trite statement too. that little line is personality defect antacid. and here i am writing it down. yeah, i know, if you dont, well, go figure it out.

so this is what has happened to all the time i bargained for. for what i said was for living more completely. life that was busy. making history. life that made poetry so that, for once, it wouldnt have to be written on the infinite ambition of blank paper and therefore ruined just to then rest in peace and clutter the other second printing failures in an awkward aisle at borders bookstore. where even the store clerks get tired of ignoring and eventually decide to buy into poetrys repeating wasted breaths. my name just another jumble of letters clogging up the library of congress card catalog drawers.

somehow, however, im still living up to the biography i had in mind so clearly a year ago, im going along with it all, im exercising the empty freedom that came packed along with the health threat benefits of living whim to whim instead of paycheck to paycheck. my HMO is lying somewhere around here, crushed from crystal to powder. and, of course, theres my penchant plan. the equivalent thats stress test killing most business men, taking them before their time, is the thing thats got me believing that ill live forever. right now if i wanted to.

its a crude joke and its painfully funny, like laughing with broken gums and a listerine smile, from wakeup till worktime. my foul mouth. exhausting. unmuffled. failed my smog test, im dangerous to the environment now that im un questioningly armed. i could change my mind at any time. i cant be bound by the luxury masks of corporate bait and hook promises.

when you subtract the hours that im waiting and working, im left alive with a luxury of minutes. three quarters of a day cycle and its all mine all mine mine mine. i spend it every day on a pretence of moments. im paid under the table or rather from under her skirt but im still being taxed. i get audited each day and i think theyre rewriting my will behind my back. this is just so old testament: well its my turn to make another testimony illustrating that you just cant beat the system. but i will. ill miracle.

i have a cause. but not one to get behind. no hiding. no grand theme to disguise the simple reason of my contention. the point is simply to instigate conflict. break pattern. and observe what is reinforced and what breaks as a result of this resentment im promoting. this is not at all careful but it quite deliberate.
5:27 pm

6 apr: tonight i am keeping balance despite local tremors easily evolving into decembers that eventuality may decide to see these current themes manifest to reality.

i am thinking about leaderless movements, artistic governments, dialog politics, being the anonymous catalyst for a revolution that recognizes the work of my career only by the identity of the art and not by an irrelevant signature like my name or a nice soft focused Nikon camera composition of my scholarly picture in a frame. ive been thinking about being famous without having the brand name embraced and revered, dictating how the messages need to be heard. undeveloped and indefinite thesis; finepoint meaning, hyperdeveloped and connective statements. ive been thinking about creating things only to give ownership of these things to everybody who interacts with it. credit belongs to anyone who can read the work not the one who reads it. im thinking about the author is truly the conglomerate society, the culture who believes in it and allows it to exist by participating with it. as if the author is a composite brain, a dna cocktail of every person ever to come in contact with the work. and im thinking about watching the separate lives and tracking these overlong periods of time - studying the effects of such a thing. how their lives take shape around the impact of a work like the work id want to provide. ive been thinking about bellydancers. the difference between finite and infinite sexual expression. the respect of native emotion in opposition with the an envious initiation and the inspired urge to covet what has been promoted as the ideal. i was in the passenger seat of a grey streak on a road, melting girls steps on either side, end ups and let downs, heat distortion playing visual basic for rubbernecking, hallucinogenic hickeys on the retina stem of my conscious mind. there was a barefoot girl who was flowing to the hollowed out sound of arabic voices right outside in the hundred degree sun. bellydanicng. i asked her to teach me. she pointed at her footprints in the sand and then left me to the poetry on the ground.

ive been thinking about how many people despise movement. the idea of insecurity, instability - it sickens people. and then there are people who find wandering to be a kind of meditation. infinitelysoulsearching.

i found a jacket i used to wear alot back during the insightcycle days. its an old ratty blazer, oversized for me and adorably outdated in trend.

navybluegrey plaid. schoolteacher fabric. it was abrasive when i buried my face in the neckline to try and recapture the trace scent of anything i may have put to rest, saturated into the fibers. time elapse synthesia snapshot. for a brief moment i thought i might have caught a hint of her pheromone watercolor stain above the dense murky smell of old attic environment cloth. but the scent wasnt significant enough to convince my brain to negotiate for the release of hostage memories. i wasnt surrendered the pleasure of absent thoughts of that age when she and i were runaways back in february, spring, summer, that long free fall of ninety eight. i emptied out the pockets and, like time capsule style, there i was robbing one of the stephanie dynasty tombs.

archaeology report; discovery inventory:

one movie stub, alphaville at the red vic, seven fifteen, faded designs. the paper sheds little pulp snowflakes in my hands. melting in sleight of shaking hands. disappearing into the rest of the dust in the comet tail of the basement.

a folded piece of paper, a college ruled papyrus scroll, unfolds into airborne penmanship scrawled out with what had been a dull tipped blue pencil. it had been ripped from its bindings, jagged paper teeth grin at me from one edge. i absent mindedly take to dentistry and even the page out, removing the wisdom scraps from the side of the sheet which had once lockjawed its place among hundreds of other pages. on the back of the paper are detailed doodles which are unmistakably telephone call scrawls of my own idle timing. phone numbers that mean nothing now to me are placed around the borders of these scribbling. the other side is completely covered, more ink stains than the white of paper. i react to her handwriting as if it was being rewritten along the skin of my face with a sharp point. i feel water, grace running along the center aisle of my chest cavity. down into my stomachache. more phone numbers. times, reminders, dates. im late. im late.

receipts. with dollar amounts i was once able to afford appearing on the bill of sale sheets i was collecting.

a blacklabel patch. 'neverbebought;neverbesold' it says.

diane j. henry's business card. i dont remember her. its something i guess i collected when i was in los angeles that year. i barely remember.

a price tag from buffalo (s)exchange. fifteen dollars.

a muni transfer dated tuesday march third nineteen ninety eight. purple colored. the top portion of the ticket has been removed. it was good until ten am. i probably got that on one of my trips in to crystal. unless i skipped work that day like i often did if prompted by the little storyteller girl.

there are dozens of other scraps of paper all immortalized by cooperative writing, dueling calligraphy by the both of us back when we meant everything just by being around each other. i dont try to read what had been written. i remember how important it felt to put the words down together on these little papers, stopping everything just to record a beautiful and frail letter combination, our newborn baby poems. reading them now wouldnt honor these forgotten children. and i dont deserve any such reward. because we failed them. were not around anymore to validate their creation. to read this by myself is like aborting a fetus long into the third trimester. its too late. its dangerous and proposes great risk. life or death. it just cannot be done.

suddenly the radio is crawling: crust, anarcho(peace)punk, dropdead, aus-rotten, subhumans, destroy. the bad punk rock. bakunin. the norco instigator punks will rock your world, the instigator yells.

im going to work again: for them.

idle hands

eight thirty, thirteen hours before this settlement, the alarm clock spells out the consequences. long unwavering run on sentence. a buzzer that feels like a beak. wake up. woodpecker heartbeat. dreamscape autopsy tool jack hammering a fracture into my brain, bypassing skull, beyond reaching, cracking the shell of my brain, all these grey matter egg shards falling into the garbage dump of my mind and disarming all my better thoughts. the ones ill forget that i have dreamed into a static cling revelation version of things. the aurora borealis blindfold is gone. before my eyes can focus into the visible light spectrum conditioning ive already recited my eulogy for the peace i felt. no last request, no countdown compassion, no cigarette yet. everyone out of bed. the noise is a convoy of painful artifacts. show (of hands) and (william) tell of an echo, bruised grade school memoirs, associative reminders summoned from the execution style of this routine. i start the day in fear. death row wannabe. everyone that participates in this silicon valley mutation of the american dream.

(unanimous vote; impeach the debt record. bill burroughs' adam and eve impression; take the apple, who needs eden, leave it for the rest of them . . . making a killing, lions trapped in paradise, that circus, that hells parody, the coliseum: perfections rat race.)

shots are heard around the world from alarm clock speakers, exaggerated flinches turn into strangle holds on snooze buttons, attempted assaults having us leaping out of bed, reflexive save-the-day adrenaline reducing all of us to greasy blurs. the countries population begins the aerobics of the workweek begin again.

im standing naked in the middle of my room. morning chill isnt shy. im too weak to pay attention. i just stand there like sense will return if i scratch my scalp through the shape my hair has taken to after making love to the pillow. when the snow melts from my eyes i start to see clear details emerge from the grey temperature of morning vision. im there looking down at the device. its quiet this time (eight thirty one) without any signs of violence. i merely put it to sleep. rock a bye baby. i resisted beating it, breaking it down, making it slave to destruction as a return favor for playing the pied piper. somehow, even half asleep, i manage to keep my urges aligned with my prior decisions to keep my reactions balanced with rationale, walking the border zone between instinct and inhibition and ignoring the impulse toward inspiring the wake up machine with a sort of disaster.

theres a hush in the room. its too loud in here, the quiet roars with sudden absence like evidence of murder. a pool of white noise hovers like a thought bubble in this cartoon like a pool of blood from good mornings exit wound. waking up bleeds from this minute to the next. im still in shock. therapy. about to begin circulation. we work just to move money around. dont fool yourself. you dont acquire anything. were just living word problems for the nations. honing their pluses and minuses.

i rub my face with my fingers as if it had come undone, misshapen while i was gone, face down in the deep end, pillowtalking obscene phonetic close calls. i stop playing with the clay of my face and pause again, looking at deadspace, at some image frequency that my mind scrambles before it hits the associative part of my brain. after waiting for something that doesnt happen i take a look over at this mornings nemesis. i unplug the clock without bending down and getting a grip around the head of the plug, but instead, just jerking it out of the socket the way some paternal figure, i cant remember which one, told me explicitly not to do. ive got some clues as to why that childhood rule exists but i cant decide on the definitive one. so i disregard the instruction. the led digits close their eyes as the plug reluctantly loosens its parasite grip in the wall. sleepytime for a dangerous animal. play possum for awhile. i tie it up with its own tail, wrapping the cord around the hardware until the forked tongue is put neatly aside, harmlessly quiet. no electricity taste. snickering aftertastes. what does a machine become when it no longer has the means to act on its own?

there are scars, nicks and gauges, like leopard print all over black plastic gloss of skin. weve gone through counseling but its i will snap sooner or later. im a time bomb. its a time countdown. were a perfect couple, ideal for explosions. i may have this disguise of control, hidden all domestic abuse warning signs, kept myself from hitting it to the floor, overextending the snooze suggestion, but my tolerance is just a thin coffeemaker filter. soon its not going to keep the insulting wake up order from hitting a perfect chord on my nerves. and then . . .

sure, this morning, no more fists for unnecessary appliances. black and decker isnt a suggester. i can keep my cool for today. but this is just a patent marriage. patiently waiting for divorce proceedings. biding the only time it cant count, the seconds left before our separation comes through. i know. now the clock and can will live apart. someone else, everyone else can learn to love it for themselves. but im leaving it behind. im going to give up time. i decide to give that sony amfm robot upandat'em to my roommate (i always thought the phrase was upandadam until i was corrected at age eighteen. the misconstrued biblical reference made such a mess of my old school day early to bed early to rise regiment. get out of bed, begin your exile from your dreams of heaven. start your day off with a bang. get a worm in your freshly manufactured coffee syrup).

i sneak through the hallway, a metropolitan amazon in terrycloth rag. savage just before breakfast. casually, right as im tip toeing onto the chill of bathroom floor tile design, i leave the clock in a brown paper bodybag, propped against my roommates semi closed front door. he cant close it all the way because the frame doesnt fit the shape of the door. expressionist and dysfunctional, you get glimpses inside whether you want it or not, just slivers of partial peeks into that different household, as you pass it by. i wonder what he will do with jane doe, the brownpaper bag daily special, when he finds hes now the proud owner. he usually dismantles objects with insides. a mortician when it comes to mechanisms. its partly why i picked his doorstep to abandon it upon. i hope ive been ethical about the whole thing. indirectly delivering it to its premature occupance in some automaton afterlife. like babies on doorsteps, i slide away into the rest of my life, leaving someone else to adopt my mistake and my indecisive resolutions.

shower. mr. blister bath, lather, rinse off. i take my showers quick. im done by nine oclock. ive already pulled on my patchwork pants and layered chapters of cloth around the binding of skin and skinny bones. hair gel and hair spray and foundation, eyeliner application. the architecture of the dress rehearsal that i continually live through. a glance up and down and deeper in a full length mirror. timid steps, like the approach taken toward unfamiliar creatures, gauging hostile manner or docile attitude before offering a hand as a surrendering gesture, attempt to avoid painful complications, rabid attacks, contempt for the careless hands that feed them, i come close up to the summary reflection of flaws eager to observed. each eye carries invisible scars on the lenses. i always think im misshapen due to the way they warp my insight. swollen veins and dark circles. swollen retinas. my line of sight hubble telescopes, it magnifies, zoom lens sees past the slowlight and into hideandgoseek, into the nebula spacescape on my face. that deep space glimpse at that discouraging palette of colors made up by the off white and red of the (when it rains it) pores on my face. physics demonstrate how ugly science can be when it comes to hangover sleep deprived states.

this is my morbid self attention getting its full return for the deposit of the mild mannered self esteem i get to walk around for most of the day with. the one i walk around wearing. double knotted. choking kisses. the affectionate slaughter house of my self image. dont mistake what i say. i like it this way.

when im gone none of these moments stay up, keep living, during the day, they pass away. after ive left, gone working out at the company, my home video past gets erased so that doing it again feels safe, alright, not at all like the groundhog two-timing play sequence where i am stuck repeating one single day and summing up my twenty three thousand day existence with it. a lifetime lived through the reinforcement of a single routine. one day at a time.

time is a vice. work is like methadone. im rehabilitating my life away.
4:59 am

5 apr: played laser pointer interaction side show in the ninth dimension with streetlife citizens late into last night. sliced through stagnant times; sliced through borders. friendship to be reminded by. lost it in chinatown. the people were making too many faces i couldnt remember which one i recognized, who it was i knew when i came to in this overpopulated hive facility here snuggled up in the throat of the city, here where they make 'honey, do you love mes' for the tourists to take back home.

my daring attempts to go outside have left me with swiss cheese breathing, my eyes ache, too much to move too far left or too far right. sinus pressure. i am stuck inside with television. just television. still cant find equilibrium. dizzy. still, something is wonderfully ecstatic about my body, rapture and reeling from vitamins and sickness.

ventured into the cold, my lungs cant take the cold air. they resist the impulse requests to take breath. i didnt bring a scarf. i hold my breath all the way to the store. lost in space. i hold my breath until i get back through the front door. houston, forget about it. no problem.

i got so used to everything being fragile, nursing you, that i am now breakable.

crippled by your handicaps

transference. my intense interaction is only understood as small talk; their tiny genuine gestures are my reasons for putting up with the daily reuinion of light and darkness.

ive been a representative of the idealized version of myself that youve needed to cope with the last month. im only what you were able to see. i was so much more.

now i have to make myself up again. im mostly make believe anyway. its okay.

you say you admire these qualities of mine? and youve decided to defeat yourself with them; you say you cant be with me because im too intense making it my fault that you werent capable enough of trying to be or even be better than these things about my character that you picture framed instead of loved.

as a last resort youve dragged me down, you made the situation so ugly that just by being involved im less than who i am. your character assassination was just so you could feel a little more equal in the interaction between us. we were over when you compared us. in our hearts competition, didnt you realize, i bleed far worse?

you took some of me away with you . . . im waiting for you and whats worse im waiting for a little bit of me for me to come back. when im whole again im not sure ill want you staying around.

jack scratch, i should have trusted him. he knew you were more made of james than one of my kind. he never liked you, you know.

why is possession is nine tenths of the law. well, who can hold on to anything? noone. its lifes safety catch. its the definite of human loss. and someone elses recovery. it keeps everything changing hands. to make sure life is interesting. that it doesnt get boring. that the suicide hotlines dont get too many calls all the time.

win some lose some lose some more . . . keeps you trying. just to get back what youre already without.
2:07 pm

4 apr: im gonna have head phones on all night. im gonna record the same conversation over and over and over again. im gonna lose my mind at the end of the eleven oclock news and when the sun comes up ill get ready for work. in the last 72 hours ive slept for 12 i think. didnt i melt into an empty bed this morning and then melt in a dry shower this afternoon? thank god for slow drains cuz now i get to do this again. all night, all day, the world sounds funny when you record it. headphones really narrow your focus and yelling and laughing and falling and fighting are really too loud without amplification. quiet, you? solace, too? dont want to feel my muscles ache. dont want these string cheese arms to shake. i thought i was in control and now realize im over board on that stupid log jam ride they should have replaced years ago. i should be asleep. i cant. i should. i dont want to either so its really working out for me actually. im not doing anything im supposed to lately. i shouldnt have acted on the feelings between us, we both know that now. couldnt break that habit. an addiction slipping into reconviction. but hey, i hadnt been drinking much. i would love to slip back into that michelob haze the golden sunshine of pushing you away. there was a crow in my dream today eating chinese food from a box in the tree at my childhood home. i shot him with one of those guns that shoot little spinning discs. i think i really may have lost it now. he swooped down on me and attacked my neck. he was big like a pterodactyl. i think you kissed me there before or maybe i just wanted that. sleep deprivation, loud conversation and living with reservations. ill make music for you when i get back on track. death march. oh, are we in april now? i forget. when sleep patterns arent so distorted ill write this all down. write a book about falling for my old lovers dressed up in new people. ill put it online and call it a day when the sun comes up tomorrow morning ill have worked all night and be so unready for another minute at my day job. caffeine and nicotine will only keep me going till the next dream session all day long. i only wake up for vices anyway. i realized i dont have sweet dreams when you tell me to. so, maybe we should stop talking. but, youre not calling and you didnt leave a number for me to reach you out there in jersey anyway. so maybe its all working out.

just call me up, collect, tell me its over. release me. i dont want to be waiting up anymore.

thats all it would take, you know. ive already gotten over you. i just cant get on until you agree.
10:12 am

3 apr: how embarassing. ive run out of clothes. im not far from looking like the bum ive been. i always thought i could dress the part of someone good at covering up the poverty line on his palm. its plain. ive lost touch. ive let things go too long. ive let them fall apart. i forgot to make the last ditch effort. saving graces.

is it better to regret the things youve done or did not do at all?

the only pants ive got left are a pair of white slacks that had a muni transfer from 1992 in the left pocket. theyre the only pair without a rip somewhere. everything else is tattered. it would be too obnoxious, even for me, wearing sweat pants as an under skin, trying to pass it all off as a failsafer. a lazy punk get together, the disguise ive been giving my excuses for wearing all the falling apart of my wardrobe, wearing sizes too not my own and past that goodwill time, well into clothing afterlife. well, all else fails - ive got nothing else. today, im wearing all white. its my costume until i can talk someone out of the shirt off their back. knock their socks off. talk the pants off a stranger. ill be a perfect canvas, color naked, for the rest of the days ive got left. these fabrics, these holy robes, will be my initiates clothes. i feel like im on safari, really. i guess it all fits, doesnt it? its the orders habit. this is a healers outfit.
6:02 am

2 apr: latelastnight skipped across the surfaceof a dance floor likesurfacetensionnever existed. and i planted footsteps to the car, running across the street coldlamplit and damp to drive the milesthatnevertaketoolong to where she used to live. the light was off where her room had been, to the left of the center of the structure, when i had met her. when i was just a funny face in the backseat. just a boy.

i - i drove asidethe cracksinthe pavement toward a booth with a seven halfwayreflectedb in greasyplasticcovercase and an eleven glowed in the rejected light on the surface of an oil spill staining the ground of the parking lot. the receiver smelled like perfume and my breath smelled like kerosene. spokewith my answering service to see if she called to say she had made it okay, i listened for a message over lines that only stretched a few months away. desperatetoseethemouththatihopedwouldbespeaking. revealed - the topic of absence. she left no message, anyway. i realized it may be in fact days, if this was the case, before i heard the smallest word to pacify the concern for her deliverance and her safe keeping therefarawayfromme. i hang my hopes up with the phone and i know im late getting back to the club. aremydancefloorscheatingonme withanyone?

wespeakandplay kraftworkandtwinsandrawromanticgypsysongs and slow songs thatseemedhaunted and heardstories that i reflected - back some certain perspective - told stories that went digested and perfected. she says these things you see - these things that strip it all down. what i love about what she says is the fact that she is speaking. i know im hiding behind the principal of courtesy just to feel justified in being disappointed that she hasnt called me to tell me shes alright. she landed just fine, i know that. i dont need her to phone in direct. ive got the psychic bell network. no, i dont need to be reassured that shes alive and well . . . i just want a little nothing. . . justgivemeamoment anyway. as courtesy. or because you cant keep yourself from doing anything different.

i clublife the rest of tonight into grey.

lost time. 3am andileavefeelinglike i tooktoomuch for granted. likeididnt keep it all in mind. i shouldhave handled the restraint. i shouldkeep it in mind before it takes me too far. idontunderstand. somespeculations might make me feel a little washed out. tonight is a mistake made by a number two pencil held miserably. erase the rest of this, then, its easy. idfeelaloteasier.

houseguests torture exquisitetimeicouldhavebeenleftalone. im forced toleavemyhomeifiwanttomaintain myself composed.

lady and her girlfriend are walking towards - passed me now. i overheard her say, 'do you believe in love at first sight?' her companion didnt get a moment given to say a word because the lady followed up, speaking with a cute accent that probably would accessorize rather well with a gesture wherein she might wave her index finger up in the air to underline the suckerpunchline, 'it saves allot of time.' by the time they had recovered from the gag i was out of earshot. what i could have learned if only i were exposed some more.

please read the disclaimer:



aprilmayjunejulyaugustseptonov whattime? when? exactly?

the text here is just a nice collection of excuses; no harm was intended. behind it i am kept safe.

saw too many people who knew me too much about these things around close to me far from this mudflapped smokecaked club with pancake faced eyeshadow scaredy cats; they asked me to dance too much, got off on the wrong foot, right in that big mouth, grapevine between the teeth, im not here for anything else but the steps but they expect me to pay a fee for the glamour glitter rumors that theyve been so delightedly waiting to ask me for fill in the blanks - drank vodkacranberry (badddddliquor?) coughed all day - through two movieshows - danced around on sidewalk, tightrope act on the cracks. JohnLeeHooker said hello as he walked through the intersection im fooling around on the corner of. he asked me to come in, into the bar he owns, his hideout, his shelter, from pigs on the wing, where he keeps the liquor under the bottom arc of his eyesight and the cocaine right under his nose. we sang robert johnsons famous juke joint blues tunes until six into the morning, left after shaking his hand, dusted for grinning fingerprints, and ran to catch the buses, hopping bus lines like tarzan grabbing a succession of vines by the hand and swinging, spenttherestofthetimeremaining on marketstreet talking with the nothing of my conscience.

interrupted by streetpoeple askingtoomanyquestions. one drooled . . . and threw a punch.

dawning on me. alarm clock. carpool in . . . the fellow at the steering wheel, the one turning two and a half hours (public transit) into thirty minutes for me, i love him for it, listens to junk music, bubblegum indie sonic wallpaper, i hate him for it. i duck duck goose, barely there barely here mostly everywhere, i fast getaway from last night in the mild mannered honda accord that winks and blows me kisses when hes not watching. im writing this at work and now im going to waste my lunch hour napping, well hidden in this cube. maybe dreaming of never dreaming at all or anytime soon. 11:38 am

1 apr: i found a history to blame for this joke thats been played, coincidentally, on april fools day. even funnier now. you can clap and giggle if you want. the laugh track is all set to go off on its own anyway. it doesnt care if any of us approve. its job is to insure that appearances are kept, that the folks at home think that this is all in good fun. its all for the ratings, you know. no expense is spared in getting good ratings. the neilsen familys should know.



in fifteenth or sixteenth century france april first happened to be the new year, it was the day that the calendar year flipped its last page over and there you are, time for a brand new one. apparently the occasion was principally celebrated the same as the traditions suggest we do it now, with the exception being that were done singing the last lonely verse of that touching song 'old langsign' four months earlier than they did, then. the tenses in that last sentence confuse me too, its not just you.

anyway, sometime during the hundred year span of either the fifteenth or sixteenth century (so, actually, sometime during that two hundred year span) the pope introduced the christian calendar (a little editing to the social structure? good idea. reinforce the religious agenda by rooting it deep into the nature of the measurement of time alive). the calendar, the same one we use now, describes the new year as falling on january first. well, apparently news traveled slow and there were those, as well, who felt hesitant to alter the celebration that they had taken part in all their lives even if it was just moving around the timeline of things, so a number of people, come april first, would live it up just as if it were the same old new years holiday as it used to have been.

and so, those people who had taken to the new order of things would, excluded from and unwilling to join in on the false parties of those who resisted the new calendar, these people faithful to the new true new years day would play tricks on the merry makers and it was common to call them 'april fools.' the petty little jokes developed, over a few years, into more intricate, in one instance, these new years advocates would send these april fools on 'fools errands' or tried to make them believe that something false was, perhaps, true. eventually, the little feuds lost the legitimate argument behind it and it instead became a novel idea, a different tradition. it all became good natured fun.

this is my third new year for two thousand one. so far. what a fractured number of months.

sidenote: this morning, before this april fools investigation turned out to be the discovery of todays origin, the radio, i guess, was fortune telling. the first song i listened to, 101.3 put new years day by U2 through the airwaves here in my room.

and what about you? by now you must be flirting with some exploration of that city you landed in yesterday. the city of brotherly love. you know, sometime around the turn of the century philadelphia was described as 'corrupt but content'. i hope you find some silver streaks that lead you to a different part of town than what, i suppose, is assumed to be the central territory of that benedict arnold slum. are you peeking into those new england mannerisms, little one? keeping your head high? still even enough to see eye to eye with those sunset lives, sunset to your old sunrise life that you live rather well if i remember you well from just those few days ago. give a gentle hug to your siblings there. what an extended family? make yourself at home. your blood, remember?

hey you? shh, whisper, keep this quiet: if you get the chance could you carve our initials into the liberty bell? just for fun. just ironic vandalism. just a lie on the freedom bell. another april fools prank, you know? c'mon . . . its funny. at least, im trying to laugh. one of us has to have the last one.

this is the worse (im)practical joke that ive ever fallen for. april fools! pranksters and class clowns. dunce caps. its hard not to fake laughing along with the glee of this little better late than never trick or treat. ive been had. and you, happy april fools. who sent you on youre little fools errand? this purpose youve prioritized above everything else? this philadelphia experiment? i know better than to think anything different than in favor of this but i cant help it so maybe i should think better to avoid thinking about this at all. ill just believe that youre sincere about the whole of this. if im wrong about this i dont think ill care. its april fools afterall. just a little prank. just a little ridicule. a kick in the pants. another footrpint there. another set of tracks made by everyone who likes to walk all over, instead of along side, of me. dont make a fool out of us, dear. i hope you make me eat those words later. if you do, with my mouth full, ill make amends very gracefully, maneuvering around the mess of being proven wrong. ill be chewing on the sole of my shoe for quite awhile, if i am mistaken. all that ive said today was with toxic materials. down in the dumps. rubber and tar and oil slick. should i wash my mouth out with soap? clean up? would i kiss my mother with this mouth? you bet . . . shed appreciate it. but thats not the point, is it. i should fight fair. this should be a clean fight. ok. be right back.

while i was gagging on lever twothousands antibacterial formula, i guess the soap greased up my thoughts and they fell on top of one another and this is what they came up with, domino urge - this is a practical solution, a laundry list, to do, check your limits, its a list for today, my first (understood) all fools day. this is how ill save my april first. this is for me: and . . . this is just a start: im going to cover the bathroom with billboard blow up photographs of my friends. write letters to people i havent seen in ages and invite them to stay at my place. redecorate the street sign so that all traffic will end up in the water. steal a map of the city and try my hardest not to follow it. borrow someones heart for just an hour. play soccer with 3 goals and no referee. cross out words like truth, oppression and boredom in every dictionary i come across. change my identity with someone for a minute or two. rob a bank and burn the money. organize a wildcatstrike at my job. drop everything and go to the one place in the world that i have always wanted to go regardless of bullshit considerations or excuses. steal books and distribute them to strangers. go to art museums and sneak my own work into displays. run for every public election in the city and stress the qualifications that i dont have. change the time on all clocks that i encounter, at peoples houses. in public places. alter all of the street signs with names of places in the world which are currently in a state of war. stuff the suggestions box at your nearest video store demanding that all of the out of print films must be available for rental. write something on every piece of money that passes through my hands and by spending the bill i will have self published my writing. using this method my writing is guaranteed to have an amazing distribution. im going to spend more time naked. call every crappy radio station and demand that they . . . forget that one? what are you listening to lately? upon first meeting a new friend, while first impressions are still even okay to mention, im going to get both of us arrested for something embarrassing and stupid and im not going to let the other person in on my plan. if i see people chasing pigeons, im going to chase and pretend to kick those people. laugh a lot. more. out loud. if i have something stupid to say, make sure that it gets said real loud. celebrate every holiday in my terms. put everything else in terms i cant understand. treat every day as a holiday; invent celebrations and share them with strangers. bath in public fountains, particularly ones in front of commercial or municipal buildings. falsify invitations to art exhibitions and pass out keys to homeless people. reinvent and make up. drift. make believe. im going to squat in a church, seek sanctuary - im going to seize ownership of grace cathedral. you should too. everyone should have their own cathedral.

asylum. shelter.

a youth hostel.

i suffer from hostile mood swings - heres another one now, it barely misses, knock out, hit, hurt. this is mine: hostility, undefined, swollenlooselipped enough that it cant direct itself at anything . . . or anyone. but its here. takeovers, hangovers. left overs. take out orders. these aimless resentments are handmedowns from an older catalyst . . . its radioactive, toxic waste dumped back then into my future which im now knee deep in, this is the fallout from that manhattan project . . . this is just the unresolved little itches from before, back during that nuclear winter that just melted dirty on into a cardboard cut out summer. this feeling is just an orphaned element of a feeling from the past, during that month of underwearing our . . . i think, its best, actually . . . that i talk about this later.

its going to require a meantime. but before that . . . i think ill refer to my list. i think ill make nonsense of the day. confuse all of that other noise to wander away. that anger is just a salesman, i know. and im not interested in being solicited by an employee of happy endings & co. department store discounts on lifeline landscaping, loveline interior decorations, just about everything you might need to be complete . . . with the help of manufactured brand name episodes and themes, of course. but whose counting? well? some people go in for that kind of thing . . .

no, i want to enjoy this comedy of errors thats really page turning, quick! were through with another one already, the storyline is slithering all around me, 'go ahead', i think i hear it say sometimes . . . 'eat the expletives. god wouldnt know it if just one or two were missing . . . '

if it bite i know ill get thrown out of the play forever. this time i resist despite that i think that tempter is probably right on to everything. better perspective than god anyway. watching from arrogant distance at the story unfolding their full significance, exposing us to all the dramatic irony thats covering everything. the stuff i keep stepping in on my way to work. and later im here scraping the open mouth shock from the sole of my shoe before i come in through the front door each and everyday.

its a living. im a going.

ive got to go, ive got today to trick into making me forget about that other half of the world - its hemispheres and its geographical similarities to the shape of . . . well, take a look. youll see.

and im the fool. happy new year, by the way.

(we should celebrate new years three times a year, every year. well skip two years ahead to the future every one of their december thirty firsts. post-futurists. deillusioned? well, sometimes? sure. . .)

so the joke was on me. i could, kicking and screaming, stuck in my paper bag politeness, i could hyperventilate, imitate a smile with gasps . . . with patience and caged anger as the joke confides in its player. . . but . . . the whole arrangement, the way its domino cascaded into an abstraction of everything intended, its one of the best cosmic white lies ive ever been told. funny enough, so, ill indulge everyone else, maybe ill even enjoy it myself, playing dress up, ill be the fool and laugh along with all of you. pour a glass of wine in the water cooler. to me, ill toast.

funny though . . . hours later, i cant get to bed tonight. when i was a kid, it was christmas eve that kept me restless, waiting for the day to relax into anticlimax, the conclusion that was such a conscience orgasm pepperjacked with self fulfilling prophecy windex streaks on the surface of my thought bubbles. i was desperate for christmas to come, less for the event itself or even the presents - i just wanted to stop feeling the anticipation itches that go around like the flu each and every year. youre forced to feed on it no matter whose kid you are. christmas morning was such a relief, i was allowed to quit worrying about what inevitably was to be regardless of any interference i might try to make.

something tonight has me anchored to the livestream of being awake. something urging me to come back to the computer - to stare into my terrarium - to paralyze, still, rodan sculpture, wondering what some part of me, the part that keeps me from closing my eyes for real, real enough to sleep, what some part of me feels unfinished about - maybe, to say something which i havent, i cant, perhaps its unable to have been said yet i still have this particular sentiment, yet, to say.

the world is quiet, here. everyone is waiting for my stomach, growling sounds, barking worse than biting, more than, less than, greater than i ever could be. equal to, not equal to. again. times tables. which flawed remark should i give you so we can both sleep on the rest of this?

overwhelmed. theres a number of papers that want to write themselves tonight (im just conduit) but . . . im giving up, ill rest my case, calling silence to the stand . . . just in case theres still respect for all thats understated. yeah, everything im not praying to. but maybe we still understand.

what a punchline afterall. at least im laughing. i guess after all this, i really didnt want to say anything at all. this was what would be, were we in the same bed at this moment, just a goodnight kiss on the cheek. if only you were here . . . id be content. lied to myself. to you. pacified this with the brainwashing of your skin. gone to sleep. ignorant. none the wiser. damned. that much the better. knowing better is torture.

sleeptight.

happy new years day . . . 12:41 pm