Shots Hits and Drags.

Rain

2010-03-03T22:57:00.001-08:00

It'd been raining for days on end. No breaks, no spots of sunshine, just one big dark cloud looming over all of the LA County and the constant trickling of it on the roads and sidewalks and windows and rooftops. The ground choked with water and couldn't carry anymore so the rain gathered in great stagnant pools on top of the grass. Many streets were flooded thigh-high and even the drains spat back up. In the hills, a few houses slid right down the mud. The hotels were packed with suburban refugees who fled and could only wait and pray that nature would be kind to their property. But the news wasn't good. The screen behind the weatherman always showed the same thing - a big orange spiral swirling about over the whole county, not showing any signs of letting up. Sometimes the colors changed into hopeful shades of yellow and green, but the orange always swept right back in. Most people couldn't make any sense of the weather. Cold fronts, humidity, barometric pressure - none of it really equated into the immediate and apparent effects of all that water. Without any understanding of the science, they left it all up to the great big man in the sky himself. And they felt he wasn't too happy. Perhaps he had in store an act of just paternal fury, and Los Angeles was finally going to be damned straight into the sea. Thereafter, all would be right with the world. Amen.

A Bullet Story

2010-01-11T22:02:00.000-08:00

On bullet serial numbers: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/01/ammunition-accountability-act/

Yannick Rinel , according to Google research, is a somewhat popular choice of name for boys in Congo.

Bullet 53672 was ejected in the hot, humid, and generally miserable jungles of the Congo. Of course, the weather was of no concern to the bullet, seeing as it didn't even have the time to sweat before hitting its stop and final purpose. One could say it was a fine bullet with a beautiful performance. And it did its fine job ending up in Yannick Rinel's head, just above the left brow. Before coming to rest, 53672 made multiple trips across the dome of the inside of his skull. If one were to trace curves through the different points of deflection, a very nice set of circles would turn out. This had the effect of stewing Yannick Rinel's brain into a fine mush, and it was like strawberry-flavored apple sauce pouring out of his head after he fell. Now this all sounds very graphic and atrocious, but the thing is, Yannick Rinel was much less than human before the bullet hit him. He looked very ugly and mangy standing there in the brush, with his tongue hanging out, panting, and heaving. His dirty pores, his oily cheeks and nose, and the splotches of mud on his face - all of it showed clearly in the heavy light of the Sun. His eyes no longer seemed the luminous brown jewels given to him by his mother, but they stood dark in the sockets like two burntout coals. The heat and the battle had flattened the great arrangment of his thoughts and memories and dreams into one hollow, flat note. He only stared dumbly when the prostrate beasts with faces - familiar and vaguely human - waved their arms at him to get down. He forgot why there was a rifle in his hands. He couldn't recall what he was fighting for. He even lost the idea of who he was or why he was living. So when 53672 pecked his skin, no bother or grief was to be had. Yannick Rinel just saw an explosion of white heat behind his eyes and then he licked the ground. After that, there was no longer a man to consider. Only silence and decay.

L and the Counsel Continued: The Laborer

2009-07-12T12:23:00.000-07:00

L: While the comedian is left to his laughter, you with the tanned skin and parched hair, you only shake your head. Your eyes reflect a calloused despair. Your stature is bent as if a heavy stone settles on your back. Skin peels at your chapped lips. And you gaze at nothing. Tell me, what measure does life have to you?

Laborer: Life is a measure of sweat and hunger. For men like me, there is no relief from either. My eyes were softer and my skin was smoother when I was a child. But age has brought me the burden of my stomach, and so I labor. Before, I used to curse the heat of the Sun, and the bitterness of sweat lashed at my tongue. Now my skin is dark, familiar with the Sun's hot rays, and the bitterness of sweat has given way to the dull taste of dirt. Only when there is a repose and a cool breeze sets in can I close my eyes and remember the joys of my youth. Those moments are fleeting, however, and easily forgotten, for the bulk work of my muscles makes my mind empty, and this is why I hold the gaze of an ox tilling the soil, heaving beneath a heavy sky, looking at nothing. When the Sun goes down, I go home to rest. My slumber is blank; I have no dreams. The morning starts, and so does my toil. Many think my heart to be made of stone because I do not laugh or smile nor do I frown or weep. There is no desire in the man who possesses the plight of the laborer, the soul of a beast. I only look forward to the final sigh when death will bring upon me a release.

Note: Although I worked longer and harder on the segment of the Comedian, I like this one the best out of the set so far. It's short and simple, but the voice carries the whole sweat-and-toil world of the laborer real well.

L and the Counsel Continued: The Comedian

2009-07-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

L: And you, Comedian, why are you suddenly convulsing with such fits of laughter? Your sides are quaking with it like you are possessed by a force I cannot fathom. Tears form at your clamped lids and you fully bare your teeth revealed beneath a bent upper lip. You shake your head as you spew that disruptive, unsettling noise. Tell me, what are you laughing for?

Comedian: I cannot take this preacher's sincerity seriously! Nor can I keep still in quiet respect of any man who seems so adamant in his beliefs. Who do they think they're kidding? Tell me, where does man find truth? Is it in a flash of light? Is truth whispered only to lone men in mountains? Do dusty tomes in some ancient labyrinth hold truth in volumes? Can I subscribe to truth with an annual fee? Is it beneath the carpet settling with the dust? Does it reside in the mold with the cockroaches? Or perhaps truth lies tangled in the hairs of a woman's crotch? In the scent of a warm release of flatulence? Can truth be held in the hand? How much does it weigh on the scale? What is its value on the market?... The absurdity is too much! These questions make as much sense as the word truth does in itself. And that is none, none at all! Now death, death is logical, it's a cold, solid fact. A fact that many men simply cannot accept fully although it stares them right in the face at every moment. So they try to compensate with these so called truths in order to deny the impotency of their lives. Many assuming-holders-of-truth, particularly those who are well-groomed with a pedigree of prestige, assume staunch positions, grow beards, have their suits properly tailored. They seem large in size with their backs straight and their chins raised. Their brows are unusually thick and daunting! Others actually take these men and their elaborate babble seriously because they see authority in them. But, like truth, authority exists in this world only as one of the most successful cons! When I look at these men of truth and authority, all I can see are lofty dwarves on stilts! A dignified procession of freaks! A carnival sideshow, natural in its vulgarity, attempting the pristine! And then I'm not able to keep myself from laughing. Hilarity builds an enormous pressure at the pit of my stomach, and it can't just sit there or I'll burst. So I open my mouth and let the cathartic cackles hold me through.

L and the Counsel of Men: The Preacher (Rough Sketch Exercise)

2009-07-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

L: Tell me, Preacher, you who spend many days in the presence of the Lord, you who immerse others in the waters of baptism, you who command a congregation in a solemn, sombre mood at the heel of the cross, you who reign behind a pulpit - a man of God... what is the meaning of this life?

Preacher: Son, I will tell you what the Lord has taught me through my regiment of faith and constant prayer. This life the Lord has bestowed you is not your own. You should not seek what pleases you or comes to you in your low state of ambition, for what is inside man but an unsettled mind and heart never fulfilled? Man should not seek purpose from within for man holds nothing inside him but a set of vestibules, and true salvation cannot be found in the hollows. Many men who do not look towards God, who determine themselves to have the final word and judgment, will folly in their search of meaning and demean their souls with false pursuits which bear the least nutritious fruit, and they will find themselves eternally hungry; for man does not know any better; he is naturally a fool. And I must make you aware of the many dark possibilities the path of the fool can lead you to. Many men who turn their eyes from the Lord will bite into the most rotten nuptials. The initial taste will be deceiving and devilish in its pleasure, but past the skin which Satan has laced, the flesh once ingested will be a source of corrosion to the body and the soul, and depravity and despair will naturally follow the fool's temptation. So you must seek purpose only in the Lord for the Lord Almighty is the sole mean to a life bathed in the warm light of glory and eternal truth.

An Attempt at the Apocalyptic

2009-01-05T23:19:00.000-08:00

A toxic wind blew and it blew hard enough to cast almost everything away. When it happened, most tears went to the way of vapor the moment they formed. I don’t know. It was a terrible thing. That’s what Terry said, old Terry, whose face had deep crevices that seemed to fall into the oblivion beneath the film of his eyes. I couldn’t know if it was a terrible thing or not because I was underground from the moment I started in this world. The things I did know were resigned to the cavern world of steel and canned foods. Nina fed me a lot of sardines, although, I didn’t like the eyes. I would ask Nina for twinkies or those other sugary sweet Hostess snacks, but she didn’t want to spoil me. Once I got into the storage and ate a box full, but my stomach decided to come out of my mouth. Bringing a handful of rags, Terry made me get on my knees and clean up the mess of goo. The goo was soggy and I remember the sour smell was enough to make my eyes sting a little. But I didn’t want to fuss about it because not many people fussed or cried or complained. It was just stone faces all around, impenetrable like the steel walls that lined this little ant farm we lived in.

I once heard stories about the sun. They were my favorite stories.

We were all supposed to do water checks routinely when it came, dripping out of the mess of pipes jutting from the walls. You would have to check with the clicker and if you heard an epilepsy of clicks, it meant to not drink the damned water. I never knew what the clicks meant, but it was an absolute thing to do to pour the water into the dirt, even if I was panting, my throat feeling gritty sandpaper, my flesh like sundried tomatoes. There was a time when Charles, I forgot his face, he always sounded like he was whining, though, and nobody liked that, well there was a time when Charles wanted to drink so much he forgot the absolute thing. He poured the damned water down his throat, I was there. Charles said it tasted sweet and oh so good and he opened his mouth and his tongue glistened with it. Days later though, we were watching whiny Charles whining more than ever before worming around on the floor looking so pathetic. He was an ugly thing then with his face yellow, I couldn’t bare to look at him for too long. Sometime later, Charles died. I remember seeing Terry and some other man, now gone like Charles, carrying his corpse through the lower tunnel, the man said they were gonna berry him. Terry gleamed some of his rotten old teeth and said something like, “Berry him? We’re all already berried right down here.” The other man, now gone like Charles, shared with Terry a grin, but I really didn’t get the humor in it, maybe cause I didn’t know what it meant to be berried.

Len is a corpse now. So is Rudy, Marty, Alice, Lucas, Michael, Mary who was quite a looker, Gabriel, there were many others. I know I forgot some names because they were all my friends. But they were all gone and berried just like Charles. When Len died, I went to Terry to talk cause I missed Len. He just grinned, said I would get used to it. Thought Terry was being mean at the time so I called him a worthless wart and walked away. But Terry was right all along, wise old Terry. He was right because I can’t, even now, recollect their faces, no matter how hard I try to squint my brain. And he’s right because I don’t even care...

The Volley, the Crash, and the Whirl

2008-12-30T15:07:00.000-08:00

The room capsized
And gave way
To the weight of our howls.
I couldn't decipher it
As much as I strained
To wade the water
Of the depths of it all.
First there was penetration of the surface
Then it sunk
Deep
Past the light shallow;
I couldn't view
What lied
Beneath the pressure
Of seconds, minutes, hours,...what?
Comply to the...
The dark.
I have no choice
But to inhale the few pockets
I can catch
With an alien...
Breathtaking.

Pissant

2008-12-30T15:06:00.001-08:00

Pressure at the tip
And release.
A clear stream
Arcs over the bound,
Joins the pool
And I stare at it.
Nothing.

Untitled

2008-12-30T15:02:00.000-08:00

Fear is locking your doors.
I chose to walk
Through the power outage
And into the woods.
I felt the teeth of myths
Sinking into my throat.
Stalkers snored from the bushes
As I crept on by.
And though there was nothing at all
Breathing down my collar
I still shivered
And looked behind me.
A mouth opened up before me
And I fell into its gape,
But it was fatigue which took me away
To shelter and to bed
Where I would finally awake.

A Light Ring Over Horror

2008-11-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

Three shots of whiskey. Apple grape juice. With this concoction, I will channel the spirit of Emmett J. Wispy.

Trail tunnel lopsided sunrise
Gleams on the slicked coats
Of disease with dented teeth.
An abyss the size of a nickel
Where Sun tangles branches of voice
Escapes a cutting shriek.
Distant cratered orb
Creams on an amorphous black thing
Sharpening its leaves:
A light ring over horror
Which God gave reprieve;
Does not look to let alone;
Does not look to let be.

Courier New

2008-11-07T15:14:00.000-08:00

Courier New is a font with the perpetual existence of fasting and contemplation. The thin lines, the slightly jagged pixels, the short tails and ends exude minimalism, protest flamboyancy and opulence, and take on the monk’s robes of quiet humility and a fortified inner peace and strength. Courier New does not boast a loud personality, does not put on a showy edginess like that of the reluctant youth, but it contains within a sharp wisdom grinded by experience and hardened by time. Each letter is defined, fulfilled, and stands apart from one another, and each word is firmly separated from another with enough space to retain their own individual potency, but not too much space so that they stray from the context that stems from their contingencies. Courier New is the ideal font for the expression of thought, of remembrance, of dreams, of nostalgia that follows from remembrance, of nostalgia that follows from dreams, and of nostalgia that precedes remembrance and dreams so that it may not properly be called nostalgia anymore – although it remains just as profound and nebulous, if not more. This is why I possess a preference for the font – Courier New – for its very appearance and non-appearance is ascetic.

For only the thin and haggard remain closer to God.

August 27th - Exercise 2: Tommy's Super Fantastic Diary, July 22nd, 2008

2008-08-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

Well, this was fun to write. Just wanted to see if I could get the tone of a child down right. Well, a child who's too smart for his own good, anyway. Take note: My own childhood has no resemblance to this at all.

When Mommy told me she was taking me to the doctor's today to get a checkup, I wanted to scream and cry and kick my legs. But I didn't. Because I did exactly that the last time I had to go to the doctor and Mommy got angry and started yelling and told me that I was being difficult. It made her cranky that day so I didn't get any cookies or McDonald's or anything nice, plus I ended up going to the doctor's anyway because Mommy picked me up and carried me to the car no matter how much I tried to wriggle like a caterpillar out from her arms.

So instead of being difficult, I just gave Mommy a pouty face and crossed my arms so she would know I was not happy about it. Seeing my pouty face and crossed arms, Mommy compromised with me and said she would get me ice cream afterwards if I behaved and wasn't difficult. Ain't I such a smart nine year old to know the word “compromise”? It's a grown up word Mommy taught me and it's a thing grown ups do to get along with each other. Daddy taught me the words “selfish” and “society”, which have to do with the word “compromise”. Selfish people always want things their own way and never compromise and nobody likes selfish people because if people never compromised then society, which means all the people living with each other, would be a disaster like earthquakes or tornadoes, which are obviously not good things.

Mommy and Daddy tell me lots of things and talk to me like I'm a grown up just like them. When I don't get something they say, they try to explain it to me. I like that very much. I very much hate it when a grown up talks to me like I'm stupid, like I won't get anything they say. Just because I'm nine years old doesn't mean I don't have eyes or ears! I'm living in the same world as them!

Anyway, I am “digressing”. Another grown up word! My teacher used that word when she read my diary. She likes reading it and tells me I should keep on writing. The word “digressing” means to not get on with a story and talk about lots of things that have nothing to do with it and aren't important. But I think the things I am digressing on are things that are important! But my teacher said I shouldn't digress too much when writing so I will stop and get on with the story.

So after Mommy compromised with me, I decided that I would behave real well since I really like ice cream! We went to the garage where the Chevy Lumina van was and I didn't have to be carried this time. We got in, put on our seatbelt, and zoom! We were off!

On our way to the doctor's, Mommy took out a pack of her favorite Camel cigarettes and then started smoking one of them with the windows open. I didn't feel good about it. Because I remembered my friend Cody's grandmother, who was our neighbor and coughed a lot, and how I always saw her smoking cigarettes (her favorite was Marlborough) in her front porch. Then one day, poof! She disappeared! I overheard Mommy and Daddy saying that she was in the hospital for lung cancer, which happens when you smoke a lot of cigarettes. And then later I heard that Cody's grandmother died. I remembered watching Cody's parents, who looked really sad, move stuff out of her house. Then the house was empty with a big sign that said “For Sale” in front of it. It was like somebody took a big eraser and wiped it over Cody's grandmother.

I didn't want Mommy to get lung cancer and then have a big eraser wipe over her. So I asked her, “Mommy, why do you smoke cigarettes?” She said, “It makes me feel relaxed.”

We went back and forth like tennis balls.

“Aren't cigarettes bad for you, though?” “Yeah, it is a nasty habit.” “Then why don't you stop?” “Oh, I will, sooner or later.” “So what if I started smoking?” “You will absolutely not, not while you're around me, anyway.” “So why can you smoke and I can't?” “Because I'm a grown up, dear. We can make these decisions.” “But isn't part of being a grown up learning not to do things that are bad for you?” “Yes, but-” “Isn't that what Daddy said?” “Yes and he's right, but listen-” “Aren't you going to get lung cancer?” “Now, wait a minute, who said that?” “Isn't that what happened to Cody's grandmother and then she got erased?” “Well, yes, but you shouldn't say the word erased, hun. That's actually quite morbid of you.” “So why don't you stop?” “Like I said before, I will, soon, okay?” “Why don't you stop now?” “Oh GOD! I feel like I'm being interrogated by MY mother.”

The way Mommy said that last thing, I could tell she was becoming annoyed, like she does when I'm being difficult. So I shut my mouth and felt a little sad. We were both quiet for a while until Mommy did something that made me happy again. She took the pack of cigarettes and threw it out her window, although there was a lot left! She then smiled and said to me, “You know, you're right, hun. I should start quitting right now.” I felt like hugging her with lots of love, but she was driving so I didn't.

Oops, well I didn't write about the doctor's or the ice cream, but my hand is starting to hurt and I want to watch TV. The ice cream was really good, though! I got mint chocolate chip, which is the best flavor.

Okay, well, that's the end.

August 25th - Exercise #2: Passages

2008-08-26T01:28:00.000-07:00

In today's published exercise, I wrote short blurbs experimenting with different tones.

Today, it's around the time of noon, and the sun is high and its beams are strong. The air is as dry as the dust of the earth. The heat is oppressive and inescapable. We are resting in the shade of a tree, but it gives little relief. Nature, at times, bids man to suffer; suffering is as holy and pure as God's will. Our chests are heaving with long, parched breaths. A crown of sweat builds on the dome of our foreheads and over the squinting eyes gazing out at the field. The field: there is work to be done. But the bodies are tired from the extinguishing effects of the heat. Chapped lips open revealing dry mouths that utter low groans at the idea of labor in these conditions. The work must be done, however; the field must be maintained. If not, then the sun will turn it to dust. “So let us move beyond the shade and into the field.” At this command, we stagger out from the shelter of the tree and we sweat and we moan amongst the crop like beasts...

An ominous chord from the belly of a rummy organ coupled with the click clack of industrial percussion – this is the sound of the phantom train heard, but never seen, miles away, following its predestined route through the track near Los Feliz, gliding past dilapidated warehouses and sketchy strip joints, and skimming the rusty fringe of downtown Los Angeles. I hear it howling through my window only at nighttime, never during the day. It is because during the daytime, the space is crowded with the noises of daily life: the rumbling and roaring of cars streaking down the street, the chirping of old Armenian women taking their healthy walks, the buzzing lawnmower, the chit chitting of sprinklers. All these sounds, evidence of the day's vitality, reverberate through the hours. Eventually, the sun retires folding itself gradually beneath the veil of the horizon and then the day noises filter out. And as the beginning of the day brings awakening to one world, the coming of the night is followed by its own set of creatures and designs. Time enters the realm behind the closed eyelid. Things of the night operate in the negative space – the unseen, the stillness. Like the howl of the phantom train, spirits float through the shadows like hallucinatory echoes. Dreams emanate out from profound pits. And in the realm of the night, I am often visited by dim images from a life I once had. These ruminations of the past are obscured by their own shadows so I can never recall them to completion, but only in fragments...

George exits the apartment and fumbles for the set of keys in his pocket. Now this action would be simply done with and disposed of in the narration of more usual lives with more usual people and would not give way to the extensive description that proceeds, but George is not making this a banal act, rather, he is executing a strenuously long scene that reveals many things about this classic buffoon of a man as if he were engaged in a silent monologue. The keys are deep inside the large left pocket of his oversized khaki pants; he always keeps the right pocket empty, finding a peculiar comfort in keeping his right hand within it while he promenades. The passage to his keys are impeded by the various other objects that are always attached to him like a habit wherever he goes: four Werther's Original caramel drops, a swiss army knife, a small package of soft tissues, and loose change. Now the abnormally long time it takes for George while he grunts and sweats to get to his keys should not only be attributed to the obstacle course of objects in his left pocket, but also to his very physical build. His fingers are like knobs and clumsy in functions that are simple to the sleek and elegant fingers of whom he refers to boorishly as the “snobbish bourgeoisie intellectuals.” There is a certain absence of grace, not only in his bulbous fingers, but in his whole figure. Firstly, he is of a disadvantageous weight, a result of all the rich and hefty meals his mom serves him lovingly, three times a day (he still lives with her, and at the age of thirty-two, can you believe it?). The second thing one would notice about him is his terrible posture, which his mother tries to correct by smacking the center of his back and screeching, “Stand up straight like a proud man! Oh your father wouldn't have this at all, no, not at all!” - but to no avail, for George continues to sink his shoulders and hunch over, which produces the unfortunate effect of emphasizing the rotund shape of his body, and gives him the appearance of a round ball. His short torso and legs are another addition to this living, breathing caricature...

August 21st - Writing Exercise #3

2008-08-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Memories of Santa Monica in the late night and early morning, sometime back then:

We saw bums lay out rags and tattered jackets so they could hug the shore and listen to the sound of the water – the steady rhythm of the ocean waves that roared coming in and then purred when receding. There was a certain feeling of warmth at seeing them sleep in the sand for they sunk into it so that the grains retreated and then conformed to their bodies. Against the unchangeable and indifferent form of concrete upon where I would usually see them sleeping within the city, they would shiver and squirm. Along the shore that night, they were perfectly still. You brought a half bottle of wine for my pleasure and I was faithful taking periodic gulps from it while looking at the pier that struck out into the water. The ferris wheel was on top of it, as it always would be, blanketing the shore with an alien glow giving it the ethereal quality of a dream. It filled me with an unexplainable nostalgia that made me contemplative. Time passed with silence between us, but I did not feel anxious; I looked at you; you looked peaceful staring out; I followed your eyes looking for the divide of the horizon; it was not there. The sky blurred into the water, an infinite congruous mass. When I stared long enough at a singular point of that expansive darkness, I felt a divine sensation of weightlessness and I swear I would have floated up into it if my eyes did not adjust their focus. Around us were other visitors who would enter and exit the scene only as silhouettes. Their words were undecipherable. The voices seemed to come in from another plane only to exist in our world for a fleeting moment and then volley back into theirs. Only the sound of the ocean remained constant. And as I listened to the waves, my thoughts took on the ambiguous shape of my existence. I concentrated hard on the shape. The lights of the ferris wheel started to dim. The lapping of the water eased away. Santa Monica melted into the void. Then as I became immersed into nothingness, the shape transformed; then, there was clarity. I saw my mother's gentle face lit up by the aura of the living room television. I saw the crows feet at the corner of my father's eyes. A parking lot that descended into a creek. Two hamsters in a glass cage on display at a garage sale. His angel face and a tuft of golden hair. A maze of sidewalks bending around towering brick apartment buildings. Sewer tunnel entrances tagged with ominous graffiti: “Welcome to Hell”. My mother aging, blemishes starting to spot her face like bruised fruit. Lines drawing themselves at the corner of my father's eyes. A U-haul, then whispering spirits beneath a dark red stucco rooftop. Weed persistent growing beneath the persistent lawn mower beneath the dome of apple tree branches. Wind chill burning up faces till they turn pink like frozen raw meat. Scribbled love notes put inside desk compartments with hopes of returned scribbled love notes. Falling leaves, then snow, then melting snow, then summer sticking to the skin with dew drops. Sticky love notes of hand jobs and blow jobs. Fucking. Scarfing down porno three-ways with hot fries and cafeteria meatball sandwiches. Another U-haul. Another unfamiliar place. Unfamiliar saliva and tongues and hands and sweat. Hurry up and roll that spliff, I'm wanting to ride. Fades, trips, wastes, shocks, buzzes, fiends, hits and can't feel good no more... Bruised fruit... Crows feet... Come down... Melting ice cream cones. Pink strawberry liquid streaming down tiny fingers dropping onto stove top asphalt. Strange pink strawberry blobs. An ambiguous shape... The pale lights of the pier ferris wheel came back in with streaks. I returned to Santa Monica at the bottom of the bottle and with a sadness settling in my body as lukewarm as the wine. A cigarette felt good between my lips and I found myself having another, then another, and more until my pack was fully dispensed. My legs felt stiff so I took a walk close beside the water, kicking sand, dipping my toes in – the water's chill was refreshing. I came back to you and you were wrapped in a blanket with your eyes closed. Your chest was rising and falling gently as you breathed. Another rhythm humming along with the waves. I felt the time ticking away with the completion of each of your breaths. And each present moment came in with a roar and receded with a purr, back into that vast black space. And there would be a certain measure of breaths, of waves, before we would no longer be figures on the shore. The sun would come and quake the bums from their stillness. Grains of sand would collapse into the imprints of their bodies disappeared. The ferris wheel would stand in the sun casting only a shadow. But time would go on, a relentless force, and cycles would not be hindered. The night would come on again blending the sea and the sky together. Figures would again stalk the beach and sink into it. And the glow of the ferris wheel would again embrace the darkness of their dreams.

An Event of Nothingness

2008-05-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

During the time between this post and the last, I tried to write something with meaning and I have failed to. When I came to the realization that I have nothing to write about, I wrote this. This is not a finished piece and I will post up the finished work later.

I wake up and it is today, Tuesday May 20th, 2008. And this is all I know at the moment. My initial disorientation with sudden consciousness goes away when the light sets in and the room materializes, instantly familiar. I hear the artificial blaring of the alarm clock and I realize my duties. I tilt my head to look at the alarm clock (which is dark red, I tell you this because I remember this) and it reads 8:00 am. My first class is at 12:30 pm so I know that I have time and then I feel no motivation to get up because my body is tired and I have no reason to feel urgent. So I remain in a state of half-consciousness, lapsing in and out of the room, for roughly two hours - I say roughly because it is an estimate and it is certainly not an exact figure.

When the room sets back in on the second hour, I regret lying in my bed for so long because my head pulsates with great tension and the rest of myself feels sluggish and I also feel guilty with the idea of laziness. When I fully awake and sit up, my leanings towards romanticism makes me look out the window and stare at the road and the houses and the yellow mustard patch and it brings me some form of happiness when I observe that the Sun is a half-circle cut by the horizon and this position of the Sun produces an effect with the light so that it seems bright yet washed dimly over all that it touches. This moment is poignant to me; it is only at a specific time of the morning that you can see this.

When I get up to put on my sandals, my roommate walks in from the living room and sits at his laptop - we usually do not speak in the mornings...

A Holy Man Encounters Lust

2008-04-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

The poems are just filler, really. I'm not confident in the medium, but I enjoy exploring it. Will get back to some real sweaty pieces when I'm out of this slump I'm in.

I look at her.
She is across the street.
She bends down
To adjust her heels
So that they fit comfortably.
I do not look away.

I notice these details:
Her heels are red,
She is a wearing a dress
That cuts neatly
Far above her knees;
I can see her full leg.

This moment lasts
No more than four seconds,
But I think of Job.
There has been an agreement
Between Devil and God
To test me: A woman.

I see demons in her soft hair
Parading around the delicate roots.
And I see more crawl down
The long of her neck descending
Into a forbidden crevice.

When she bends down,
There is a shape.
I want to see and feel it,
Even if I know it is sin.
I think of her lower back -
Touching the gentle dip: A pit!

Out of the shape comes her legs.
Her thighs induce in me
Evil imaginations -
Fantasies of the flesh.
I recite the Lord's Prayer.
It is a useless gesture.

Because I am weak:
The calves curve
Down to the ankles
Which feign innocence,
But fail to conceal
The total creature
Of my most ungodly temptation.

Sleep boy, give up the night.

2008-03-02T17:11:00.000-08:00

He set the heat level
Of his electric blanket.
It was at a comfortable level.
He creased the window open
So that only a small cool breeze would set in.
He changed into his loose pajama pants
And lied on his side facing the window.
He closed his eyes;
Couldn't go to sleep.
He could only linger
In an unwavering consciousness.

She slept in the room close to his.

He gave up his rest
Craving more time with her.
In a fit of playfulness nurtured by his impulsion,
He took a box of loose change
And a cigarette.
He leaned half-way out the window
And he lit the cigarette.
He picked pennies from the box
And took aim at her window.
He threw six of them.
Three were caught by the wind and didn't make a sound -
Only plummeted.
The other three were slightly off
And met the wall
With a light tick.

He smoked his cigarette thinking.
He licked his lips.
He felt foolish.

He started whistling -
The notes oscillating between high and low.
He tried whistling like a bird
Improvising melodies.
He blew staccatos.
He attempted songs.
But he couldn't whistle well enough
To wake her up.
After one last good try,
His mouth was dry, his lips were chapped.
He felt light-headed.

He flicked the cigarette
And leaned into the cool air.
He wondered if anybody was observing him
And his little game.
Any witnesses remained undeclared;
The moment was confidential.
He looked at her window for a moment
And he withdrew.
He lied on the couch.
He wrote
And then he forgot her.

Student 76156899 - PBLs and Grief.

2008-02-26T22:21:00.000-08:00

This was an e-mail I sent to my Bio 9D professor.

PBL stands for "problem-based learning" and "PBLs" are basically worksheet assignments. Story is I missed out on a bunch of 'em unknowing of their value to the course grade. So, I tried to write myself out of the situation.

It was a failed attempt promptly met by rejection, but on the plus side, the professor was thoroughly entertained by the e-mail.

Dear Prof.,

I have committed a series of small follies, reckless and stupid, that have amounted to a great burden of stress. Not exactly the model individual of academia, I missed out on numerous lectures due to a thoughtless cocky action of signing up for your 9 o'clock lecture (which I can hardly wake up for) and working about 20 hours per week (some of the shifts being late night). This has led me to becoming one of your more dysfunctional students; I am wobbling insecurely on the track of this course. Because of my confusion and general disorganization, I have missed out on four out of the five PBLs you assigned. And looking at the syllabus again, I've realized that PBLs are actually worth 30 percent of the course grade... Woh!

Please don't mistake me for being lazy or unconcerned with furthering my intellect and knowledge. I am very grateful for my college education, but at the same time, my devotion to my own personal ambition (which is writing) sometimes makes me stray from the going-ons of my courses. I may not be very disciplined, but damn it, I am severely invested and impassioned in the one thing that gets my blood going - materializing my mind's ventures through the pen. But anyway...

Normally, I would suck it up and take what I righteously deserve. But, in my current situation, a bad grade's not just a bad grade. Already having made my GPA rather shaky through the antics of my first year, the situation stands that if I screw up again this year, my financial aid will seriously suffer and thus unload a burden onto my parents - a truly dishonorable act. I have been improving this year and my GPA's on a steady climb up to the 3.0+ safety point. A D or an F, though, would really knock me down a good couple of steps. Don't mistake me, I am not asking for your pity, but I am asking for some generosity that can come from human sympathy.

Let's get to the meat of it already: Is there any way you can give me a personal assignment to make up for perhaps two or even three (if you're feeling it) PBLs? You don't have to be easy on me either. Make me suffer for my missteps, make the assignment hard. Hell, give me a good diseases-related paper to write. I might even enjoy writing it and in turn, make it enjoyable for you to read. Guaranteed, I won't half-ass this assignment. Looking back, just doing the PBLs would've been much easier. But lost time is time lost. Can't do anything but shrug it off.

So I only ask that you give me a little boost out of the fire pit and make me feel a bit more comfortable. Anxiety's a bitch, excuse my cursing.

At the mercy of your decision,
Thomas Lee

Two Men and a Mountain

2008-02-20T18:18:00.000-08:00

Two men met at the base
Of a mountain.
And they gazed at the rock-
Aged millions of days.

One man said,
'A man can surely climb to the top."
The other agreed:
'And for certain, man can build something taller.'
So the two men nodded
And concluded that man was great.

The two men left.
The mountain stood.
Man or mountain:
Which is absolute?

Independence, Missouri

2008-02-20T13:45:00.001-08:00

This is the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. It is located in Jackson County of Missouri.

Built in 1941, Lake City is operated by Alliant Techsystems, a multibillion-dollar weapons company headquartered in Edina, Minn.

It is the primary U.S. military supplier and it has the potential of pumping out 1.5 billion rounds per year.

That's a lot of bullets.

Anyway, this is little peek at my upcoming short story.

It's gonna be good.

The Great Conversation

2008-02-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

Originally written on paper. A passage that flows weightlessly with the fluidity of the pen.

Relax yourself and read this out loud. Pause at the commas. Inhale at the periods. Get into the rhythm of it. Let it go by itself.

The air is hyper electric, the sensation is inescapable. Exaggerated gestures, wild eyes, God-man personified in the truth of an orgy of ideas that moves the cigarette smoke to tumble and weave fluidly - an improvisation that will never be governed by natural laws and can only possibly go to infinity ascending the bone, flesh, and skin that can tear and rot and break and ruin, collisions of the souls of you and me and her that impart waves which bounce off walls and ceilings never deaccelerating, never losing momentum, seeping out the window and straight into the sky and more and more into the vast space of dark matter reaching the mouth of God as it inhales and exhales as we feel it.

A. Prolonged. Breath.

Late night hours and cups of coffee but no dark circles around our eyes nor the body tired nor the burden of the body itself felt, but we are up in the air in that infinite space between our glowing eyes staring right into each other as we laugh and feel alive, but not just simply alive, but alive in that we can feel and hear and see and taste the warmth of our most intimate unification - our spirits dancing and tangling and flowing into one another producing a matter with limitless potential, waiting to explode and explode indefinitely, never to be exhausted.

Slow times at the cigarette lounge.

2008-02-05T23:13:00.001-08:00

I hate to look at the date of my last entry. Having not published anything for that long of a time guilts me. It nudges me and gets in my hair and yells in my ear - it's discouraging. I can't pump out solid stuff every week, I've tried. I'm invested into every individual piece I write. When I'm writing, the moment I feel forced and uninspired, I drop it. Right now, I have seven different incomplete letters, thought pieces, even some flow of consciousness crap. They all started fresh, but as they went through, they went right to some real rot. Not publishing that shit.

Perhaps this public blog shit wasn't a good idea after all. People are demanding!

Look, I've got my own pace. This ain't no hobbies blog with daily updates and whatnot. This is a fuckin' literary blog. Let me be, hungry readers. I'll update when I've got something I actually want to publish.

An Excerpt from the Preachings of an Angry Man

2008-01-13T21:45:00.000-08:00

"Embrace your headaches! Your sores and your bad days! Learn to love the perpetual emotions of anger, frustration and discontent! Reject the illusions that comfort you! Become intense in your loathing of all the wrong in this world! And claw your way out of the stale womb!

Never accept low-key! Never hold a position of subservience! Never be meek! Never be shy! Choose to explode and avoid fizzling out! Inactivity is your greatest enemy! It will cause you to atrophy and rust and crumble! Pathetically.

Suffer hard for the sake of expansive consciousness! Destroy your ignorance with great prejudice! Engage your mind in the most impassioned violence - against complacency, against fear, and against all that is responsible for the devolution of the human!

And always keep in mind that the first thing a baby does when it enters the world is cry."

EDIT: Angry men shout.

Fuck da po-lice.

2008-01-12T22:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_7938419

Give me one good pig and I'll give you two exceptions.

I know this isn't entirely appropriate to my blog, but it feels fucking good to just even type "Fuck da police."

Territorial Minds: Intellectual Property and the Public Domain

2008-01-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't posted anything up for a while, here's an article I worked on for the upcoming Forest Fire issue. This is the first tasty raw draft of the article before it goes to the slaughterhouse to be chopped up, nicely packaged and released to the public. Truth is I didn't know shit about intellectual property laws before writing this article. A couple of nights' worth of research and a spoonful of bullshit made this entirely possible.

And be easy. This is my first attempt at serious journalistic writing.

But if you want to do me a real favor, rip it apart.

Intellectual Property is the umbrella term for the exclusive rights writers, musicians, inventors and other creators have in relation to their product. Laws include copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial design rights and trade secrets. The term “intellectual property” was first notably used on October 1845 at a Massachusetts Circuit Court ruling in a patent case in which Justice Charles L Woodbury wrote that “only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man's own...as the wheat he cultivates, or the flocks he rears.”

Intellectual Property regulations exist to protect the personal interests of the developer and to ensure credit and rewards from a product rightfully goes to the maker. Without these laws, theoretically, creators would be under compensated for their ideas and other contributions to the public domain. Thus intellectual property policies take the same approach to abstract products of the mind as policies that are applied to physical property – only the creator should be able to reap what he has sowed and do what he like with it.

Many of America’s bureaucratic systems have a trend of providing supposed rights and protections to the public, at the surface, but when implemented are flawed, unequal and unbalanced as to who receives the most benefits from the system. The IP system is not guiltless of this trend. It also holds its fair share of rough edges and blemishes that need to be smoothened and polished by debate and improved policies.

To apply concrete, cold regulations to abstract “properties” conceived by the mind is a flaw in itself. Because of this, a problem lies in the “monopolizing” power of patents and copyrights often utilized by large companies and corporations. For example, a dominant pharmaceutical company gains proprietorship of the patent for an extremely effective cure for a widespread disease. It is costly and developing countries that may need it the most can’t afford it at the price set by the company. Due to the legal restrictions of the patent, companies in developing countries are red taped from creating and distributing the cure at a more affordable price and are instead limited to less efficient generic medicines and treatments. The patent successfully fulfills its selfish duty.

Although ideas, unlike physical property, are indefinite and can be re-used and duplicated indefinitely, the public domain is at the mercy of the companies who hold the intellectual property – products that could benefit all of humanity. Only those who have the money actually benefit from the discovery. This unfortunate situation can also be applied to many other corporate-owned intellectual properties like college course books, efficient car engines and other essential designs, inventions and innovations.

Many copyrights are directly tied to large corporate entities that have the power to enforce the policies, but may also hinder creativity and innovation due to the influence of corporate ideologies. Musicians are especially affected by this when they agree to work with major labels that obligate them to a set of policies that dictate what they can and cannot do. Also, major label contracts tend to contain a mile-long list of technicalities pertaining to royalties that weigh heavily in the favor of the company. So in the end, the musicians can get screwed over while the company cut-and-runs with the money.

With free global information exchange made possible through the internet, precedents set in the music world by Radiohead through their optionally priced album In Rainbows, and the start of the community-based licensing group Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/), the masses are starting to take back the power of intellectual property from the rich few. However, the issue remains full of complexities that cannot possibly be covered in this one article. It’ll be a long while before we attain the ideal equilibrium between the interests of the public domain and the creator, and a world in which great ideas can be freely distributed, used and improved by the people.

Updates are a' comin'.

2008-01-10T18:03:00.000-08:00

A letter to a close friend. Speculations on human sympathy, fate and free will.
Thoughts on the failures of my and our generation.
An introduction to a short story - a project that's been boiling in my head for a while.

So just wait. Don't phase out. It'll all materialize soon.

2:25 AM Fear

2007-12-29T02:24:00.000-08:00

Shit. Shouldn't have done it. Something dark is coming on. I can feel it.

I hit the water pipe again, all alone in my parents' house bedroom. This was some potent, devilish stuff. High-grade marijuana, kush, they call it. Now I'm overwhelmed. After years of experiencing this modest plant, my toleration's boosted leading to gentler trips. But, this is kush, a whole 'nother animal. And it's sitting fat on my chest. Never underestimate the high-grade. Valuable piece of knowledge to have in Southern California.

...

A few cigarettes later and I'm still not cured. I'm wide-eyed and looking often to the right. The corner of my eye is suspicious. Wasn't something just there? The shadows are shifting. Dark figures are forming and fading simultaneously. My mind is falling to pieces. I am questioning everything and unfortunately, everything isn't pleasant. Doubts come up of my ambitions, my ideals and my purpose. The ego stands alone. It is being interrogated. Ruthlessly.

...

Nightmare scenes play in my head. A large audience is reading some of my written work projected onto a white screen. There is an unbearable moment of silence. I become congested with the greatest anxiety. Soon, it becomes apparent. My anxiety becomes justified. Nobody is convinced. Faces change from disgust to gleeful ridicule. They are jeering at my words. My sentences. My paragraphs. "Boo."

It is confirmed - I have absolutely nothing important to say. They know it. I know it. How could a middle-class, had-it-easy suburban kid like me achieve anything meaningful? I've been comfortable. I was socially acceptable: not too ugly, brushed my teeth everyday, not a goat fucker. Made it into college. Was mostly polite. Clean police record.

Oh Jesus. My fate's spelled out for me. I'm just going to follow a career path and live a true American lifestyle, complacent in shallow success. I am already boring as hell. My life's been devoid of any color of great strides. I haven't proved myself to anybody. A deathbed submerged in defeat awaits.

Paranoia's disguised as truth. Its voice is terrible. Says I haven't suffered a true suffering. Says I was always fickle and lazy with my passions, quickly hopping from one to the other. Smart enough to start it up, too much of a coward to follow through. What if writing's just another temporary fix? Another futile and eventually abandoned attempt at producing something eternal?

The "Fear", as Hunter would put it, dictates that I will die like the rest of them. Just another corpse goin' to worm feed, righteously buried with their rotten wasteful lives. One unfortunate existence joining billions of others. A sad story of wasted potential that has become a redundancy.

The night, along with the "Fear", will die when I go to bed. Will feel better in the morning.

Dear Reader

2007-12-27T16:04:00.000-08:00

I only ask of you to contribute your honest, most brutal opinions. I cannot afford false compliments and superficial feel-good comments. That will only instill in me a false sense of security in what is in reality a pool of shit, piss and filth. And that would be the end of me. So please consider my state of well-being with constructive criticism and genuine opinion. There are some things I can't do alone.

I only got into the "writing game" just recently, so I am still in an infantile state. And just as a child learns not to touch a hot stove by actually enduring the painful and stupid experience of touching a hot stove, I can only possibly learn how to write better by the contribution of your most searing, corrosive criticisms. Point out any boring clichés, insignificant drivel and amateur mistakes I may and most assuringly will make. Also, point out anything specific that you liked, for the sake of my most sensitive ego and waning motivation.

You have my most heartfelt thanks for braving the reception of my hopefully thought-provoking pieces.

In complete and utter love of the most vile and most heavenly qualities that make us human,
T. Lee

This was December 24th.

2007-12-27T14:57:00.001-08:00

It's almost 2AM and it's almost Christmas. And I am bleeding America onto this paper. Happy Holidays.

Today I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked most of it in one night. I have no regrets.

My friends are sleeping in New York City dreaming of New York City. I am hopelessly awake in Los Angeles and boy, is it lonely.

To my loved ones in the East, look outside of your window and to the West. Squint your eyes real hard and focus. Now, can you see it? Herds of 2 ton metal boxes blinking in the night?

Can you see it?

A God-loving bum sleeps cold and dirty somewhere on the shoe prints of his brothers and sisters. Oil rigs rest and suck on the open wounds of the Earth. An immigrant, his hands calloused and pricked by thorns, smells of tomatoes and dirt. The Los Angeles river is caked with sludge and it moves lumpily.

Hollywood contemplates suicide with dark circles around his eyes. Melrose sinks into the sheets, comfortable and fat and dreaming of vampires. Venice Beach is strung out and drooling into the sand. Beverly Hills is rotting, putrid with the stench of indulgent swine and complacent corpses. Compton, savagely beaten, bruised and raped by the American way, slumbers with one eye open.

A cop fucks and sleeps with the whorish law, a happy gun underneath his pillow. A real estate agent removes his skin and scrapes it raw against jagged metal. Money tumbles out. A business executive is on his knees, praying at his bedside to snakes slithering out from underneath.

And woe to the failed dreamers and the dreaming failures, their heads resting on pillows made out of their hair.

Los Angeles sleeps alone tonight.

And another voice enters the fray - an endless, wonderful debate on the identity of that intriguing, infinite force we label "God".

2007-12-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Purpose is mutual.
I write.
You listen.

Got it?