This essay could be nearly 30 pages if I wanted it to be, but there are a few simple things that I can address to explain my stance. The fact that all American Males are suppose to be a part of an organized sports team sometime in their youth is in-in-of-itself enough of a pain in the ass for a person of my size and stature. But it’s also assumed that I should know about and follow religiously any and all competitions that may be taking place in any given season we happen to be in. The guys at my work talk about it to no end all day and I can’t stand it. I do not care about any of it, and I’d rather stick my head in an oven then listen to what that kid I can’t stand in Tech Ops thinks about some over paid gangster rapper’s potential to chew up the defense or out rebound anyone who has ever walked the Earth.
I think whole heartedly and with my deepest conviction that NASCAR is just a waste of gas. We are running out of Mesozoic Era microplankton and you diks are going in circles for 7 hours!? There is a reason you have to change your tires so many damn times; It’s because some redneck made a simple math mistake and turned yards into miles and now it takes all day to accomplish what could be done in 14 minutes: that is to tell us which guy named Dale is faster… And on one single set of tires no less! (This is exactly like the architects who screw up inches and yards and end up making tiny Stonehenge models that are in danger of being smashed by the dancing midget druids). Just leave me alone already.
Now onto Sports most coveted signature; The High-Five! The high-five is to sports what Ronnie James Dio’s Devil Horns is to metal fans. It is the identity by which to show others that you are not to be fuked with unless you are dressed in the same exact color as the person with his open hand in the air. The high-five is best used in situations where you’ve just scored and you are in fact in your house and everyone around you should know whos house they happen to be in. The same concept applies to being hammered at a bar and watching the sports team from the state you happened to be born in while they are doing the same thing. (e.g. scoring ungodly amounts of points on the other teams asses, and there by “owning” their collective asses. Not in a gay way though).
The reason I hate high-fives so much is twofold. One is that it is just simply retarded looking. The other is that it reflects on who you are as a person, which usual amounts to an upper middle class white kid who has a hair trigger temper (due to being told he was the smartest and best at everything he did his entire life from his parents, and was applied to literally everything he did from finger painting with his own boogers to crashing his dads car into the back of the garage in the 9th grade), and who’s entire outlook on life is molded around what other people should be doing for them. So pretty much acting like the kids on any MTV reality show. Most post-collage doughy sports dudes will talk of their glory days on “The Team” and about “Coach” who use to call him T-Bone or Smitty and demanded said doughy sports dude’s absolute best everyday in practice for the “Ultimate Game”… LIFE. So throwing high-fives some 3, 5, or 13 years later drunk in a bar is a way to show other doughy sports dudes that you did in fact use to “Rule” and that you are one of them. (And still currently 'Rule' at stuff now). Now this all seems harmless until a certain intoxication level makes them long for the glory days of “ruling” and can most easily be recaptured in being a total dik to anyone without an Official Champion Jersey on. That is 99% of the time me or my friends. I’ve never actually been beat up before (see my close in encounter with this under the story about Sissys). But I’ve come really close a few times and every single of them evolved high-fives in some way.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Untitled Number 2
I’ve turned myself into a monster for countless reasons… most of which seemed like a necessity at the time.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Jay’s Guide to Pumpkin Carving
(updated)
I've never actually been to a real pumpkin patch, only the whole sale distribution centers that sling them to the public from someone's front yard or at a semi-busy intersection. Sometimes they’re set up in a wayward parking lot where a Fashion Bug or Fashion Bug Plus once flourished. That same spot will be used the day after Halloween is over for the 'Christmas Tree Blow-Out Extravaganza'. I asked Comagirl Sam about pumpkin patches and she informed me of the correct behavior one would display at a pumpkin patch. It in tales dressing warmly and frolicking amongst the many various shaped specimens in a search of the perfect match to your personality. That idea got me thinking of pumpkins and pumpkin carving. Once I thought about it for a short while I realized there was a rhyme to my reason when it came to pumpkin related events in my life. I realized I always look for the weirdest looking pumpkin I can find. I like the long skinny ones or the oblong squished ones. In fact the weirder the better. I'm just not a fan of the round ones so much. I'm too much of a germaphobe to like the ones with the weird tumorous growths on them. You know what I'm talking about right; they’re usually like greenish in color and bubbly or pock marked... You'd think you could use that in making a more grotesque and monstrous display, like your pumpkin is crying out in anguish at his unfortunate skin circumstances, but I'll stick to the oddities of geometry for the purposes of this blog.
My favorite design is this: One HUGE round eye, one small round eye (sometimes with strait edge on top to imply anger or fear) and stitches for mouth. This guy has had his mouth stitched up and can now only express himself with wild and exaggerated eye movements. I also enjoy the wide open mouth from time to time. This is great if you have a really big (and hopefully terribly misshapen) pumpkin. Then you can even set a smaller pumpkin with a totally distraught and terrified look, half way into the mouth opening of the larger. This set up is sure to please the kids. "Look mom that huge one is eating the small one!" (What a great metaphor for society). With a simple scene set up like that, you're single handedly entertaining the youth (who will then think your great and not TP your house when they are teenagers), and being snarky enough that the adults will appreciate your wit.
Pumpkins with one side dangerously out of shape, or even flattened completely are great for scenes too. Use their oddity to your advantage. Make one cheek of the pumpkin the flat side like he is getting punched in the face or hit by a bus. You can use a Barbie Corevette and set up a horrific drunk driving crash scene. Any normal blonde Barbie will work great as a Paris Hilton or some tramp from The Hills, they’re all the same. I mean its Halloween its okay to be twisted. Try carving an open mouth and let the pumpkin insides come out of it like he's puking. I call that the Frat-guy pumpkin. Add a small Golden Tee game behind him and 4 more pumpkins with baseball hats on and you've got your self a fantastic ‘Any Lincoln Park Bar’ scene
In fact, let’s look at some more scenes we can set up in what I like to call:
Jay's Multiple Pumpkin set up ideas:
1. Get one very angry looking pumpkin and put him up on a box of some kind, maybe set up a microphone made out of a Cattail or some corn husks. Then, surround him with a half dozen or more smaller pumpkins like they are listening to his fiery and charismatic speech. (add tape recorded crowd cheers every 48 seconds for effect).
2. I've always enjoyed the idea of 2 mad scientist pumpkins operating on another pumpkin. You can open the ‘patient’ pumpkin up too; don't be afraid to get wild and gross with it. Leave some of the gross pumpkin innards coming out of the surgical opening like they are butchering the poor patient. And don't forget to put surgical masks on the 2 mad doctor pumpkins. And one surgeon needs that round thing doctors wear on their forehead, you can use a soup can lid for that.
3. Pumpkin Reenactments... Set up your pumpkins in famous historical or pop culture situations. Try:
- Storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day - (Note: this requires anywhere from 20 to 137 pumpkins so plan this one with friends and neighbors unless you own your own pumpkin patch and/or have access to untold numbers of them)
- Salem Witch Trials - few girl pumpkins swing from ropes while townspeople pumpkins look on in shame and fear. (You can make those funny hats they wore with cloth table napkins).
- The moon landing. One small step for pumpkins, one giant leap for vegetables... (Make a flag with a carrot on it or something cute like that). Tin foil covered boxes make great Moon-lander ships
Great Movie Reenactments...
- The court seen in A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson is berating Tom Cruize "... But deep down inside of places you don't talk about at cocktail parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall!" (Don't forget a 'cute as a button' Demi Moore pumpkin behind a table watching intently).
- 2 pumpkins with scarves on in a Barbie Corvette going over the edge of your porch like the last scene of Thelma and Louise.
- 2 pumpkins with bras on their heads making a hotass girl pumpkin like in Weird Science. Hook up electrodes to the hotass pumpkin and give her huge puffy Kelly Labrock lips (don't hate her cus she's beautiful).
Or some music related set ups:
- Janet Jackson pumpkin exposing herself to a Justin Timberlake pumpkin on national T.V. (try and add angry soccer mom pumpkins calling their state representatives and complaining about the state of pumpkin society)
- Try and find some really bland put perfectly shaped pumpkins and give them all head set microphones. POW. Pussycat Doll Pumpkins You’ll need to have some really talentless pumpkins; you may have to ask the sale guys for help, usually the talentless pumpkins grow right in the front of the pumpkin patch).
- Bono Pumpkin. I'm not 100% sure how to do this but it’s worth a shot. I'd go for the sweet 80's Mullet Bono pumpkin look, possibly saving Africa by meeting with heads of state pumpkins around a oval (not square) table.
- Bigge Smalls and 2-Pak pumpkins. Maybe a pumpkin with MC Hammer pants on hanging around too.
Well I hope this helps, Halloween is right about the corner so get to work. Let me know if any of these work for you, send pictures if you get a really sweet set up done.
I've never actually been to a real pumpkin patch, only the whole sale distribution centers that sling them to the public from someone's front yard or at a semi-busy intersection. Sometimes they’re set up in a wayward parking lot where a Fashion Bug or Fashion Bug Plus once flourished. That same spot will be used the day after Halloween is over for the 'Christmas Tree Blow-Out Extravaganza'. I asked Comagirl Sam about pumpkin patches and she informed me of the correct behavior one would display at a pumpkin patch. It in tales dressing warmly and frolicking amongst the many various shaped specimens in a search of the perfect match to your personality. That idea got me thinking of pumpkins and pumpkin carving. Once I thought about it for a short while I realized there was a rhyme to my reason when it came to pumpkin related events in my life. I realized I always look for the weirdest looking pumpkin I can find. I like the long skinny ones or the oblong squished ones. In fact the weirder the better. I'm just not a fan of the round ones so much. I'm too much of a germaphobe to like the ones with the weird tumorous growths on them. You know what I'm talking about right; they’re usually like greenish in color and bubbly or pock marked... You'd think you could use that in making a more grotesque and monstrous display, like your pumpkin is crying out in anguish at his unfortunate skin circumstances, but I'll stick to the oddities of geometry for the purposes of this blog.
My favorite design is this: One HUGE round eye, one small round eye (sometimes with strait edge on top to imply anger or fear) and stitches for mouth. This guy has had his mouth stitched up and can now only express himself with wild and exaggerated eye movements. I also enjoy the wide open mouth from time to time. This is great if you have a really big (and hopefully terribly misshapen) pumpkin. Then you can even set a smaller pumpkin with a totally distraught and terrified look, half way into the mouth opening of the larger. This set up is sure to please the kids. "Look mom that huge one is eating the small one!" (What a great metaphor for society). With a simple scene set up like that, you're single handedly entertaining the youth (who will then think your great and not TP your house when they are teenagers), and being snarky enough that the adults will appreciate your wit.
Pumpkins with one side dangerously out of shape, or even flattened completely are great for scenes too. Use their oddity to your advantage. Make one cheek of the pumpkin the flat side like he is getting punched in the face or hit by a bus. You can use a Barbie Corevette and set up a horrific drunk driving crash scene. Any normal blonde Barbie will work great as a Paris Hilton or some tramp from The Hills, they’re all the same. I mean its Halloween its okay to be twisted. Try carving an open mouth and let the pumpkin insides come out of it like he's puking. I call that the Frat-guy pumpkin. Add a small Golden Tee game behind him and 4 more pumpkins with baseball hats on and you've got your self a fantastic ‘Any Lincoln Park Bar’ scene
In fact, let’s look at some more scenes we can set up in what I like to call:
Jay's Multiple Pumpkin set up ideas:
1. Get one very angry looking pumpkin and put him up on a box of some kind, maybe set up a microphone made out of a Cattail or some corn husks. Then, surround him with a half dozen or more smaller pumpkins like they are listening to his fiery and charismatic speech. (add tape recorded crowd cheers every 48 seconds for effect).
2. I've always enjoyed the idea of 2 mad scientist pumpkins operating on another pumpkin. You can open the ‘patient’ pumpkin up too; don't be afraid to get wild and gross with it. Leave some of the gross pumpkin innards coming out of the surgical opening like they are butchering the poor patient. And don't forget to put surgical masks on the 2 mad doctor pumpkins. And one surgeon needs that round thing doctors wear on their forehead, you can use a soup can lid for that.
3. Pumpkin Reenactments... Set up your pumpkins in famous historical or pop culture situations. Try:
- Storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day - (Note: this requires anywhere from 20 to 137 pumpkins so plan this one with friends and neighbors unless you own your own pumpkin patch and/or have access to untold numbers of them)
- Salem Witch Trials - few girl pumpkins swing from ropes while townspeople pumpkins look on in shame and fear. (You can make those funny hats they wore with cloth table napkins).
- The moon landing. One small step for pumpkins, one giant leap for vegetables... (Make a flag with a carrot on it or something cute like that). Tin foil covered boxes make great Moon-lander ships
Great Movie Reenactments...
- The court seen in A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson is berating Tom Cruize "... But deep down inside of places you don't talk about at cocktail parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall!" (Don't forget a 'cute as a button' Demi Moore pumpkin behind a table watching intently).
- 2 pumpkins with scarves on in a Barbie Corvette going over the edge of your porch like the last scene of Thelma and Louise.
- 2 pumpkins with bras on their heads making a hotass girl pumpkin like in Weird Science. Hook up electrodes to the hotass pumpkin and give her huge puffy Kelly Labrock lips (don't hate her cus she's beautiful).
Or some music related set ups:
- Janet Jackson pumpkin exposing herself to a Justin Timberlake pumpkin on national T.V. (try and add angry soccer mom pumpkins calling their state representatives and complaining about the state of pumpkin society)
- Try and find some really bland put perfectly shaped pumpkins and give them all head set microphones. POW. Pussycat Doll Pumpkins You’ll need to have some really talentless pumpkins; you may have to ask the sale guys for help, usually the talentless pumpkins grow right in the front of the pumpkin patch).
- Bono Pumpkin. I'm not 100% sure how to do this but it’s worth a shot. I'd go for the sweet 80's Mullet Bono pumpkin look, possibly saving Africa by meeting with heads of state pumpkins around a oval (not square) table.
- Bigge Smalls and 2-Pak pumpkins. Maybe a pumpkin with MC Hammer pants on hanging around too.
Well I hope this helps, Halloween is right about the corner so get to work. Let me know if any of these work for you, send pictures if you get a really sweet set up done.
Untitled Number 1
I could write a thousand and one songs... and they’d all have the word you in them.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Sticking around...
...maybe it's your morbid voyeuristic side that's a direct result of a swirling concoction of jaded Gen X-er, throw away pop culture, and too much reality TV. Maybe you just want to hang in there to see how I turn out... It can't be normal you know, it can't be just some semi-manicured greenish-yellow lawn with dog and SUV and a 401K... It has to be a 'Crash and burn' or 'Fizzle and burn' or a 'Fuk are we ever gunna fuking light this thing and burn here or what?' kind of outcome, there can be no sunset fade-out ending for Jay...
You stick around because you have VIP seating to an ultra low budget Greek tragedy and you've already read most of the script... you just have to hang in there for the 3rd act so you can answer all the exclusive 'insider questions' outside the theatre after the play...
You stick around because you have VIP seating to an ultra low budget Greek tragedy and you've already read most of the script... you just have to hang in there for the 3rd act so you can answer all the exclusive 'insider questions' outside the theatre after the play...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
J in L.A.
My trip to L.A. was amazing! I landed on Wednesday night and jumped a Super Shuttle van for what felt like 37 hours of going around in circles thru LAX fishing for more income for the driver. Made it to hotel around midnight and made instant friends with a young lady from NYC. I called her Parker Pose because she smiled a lot and had strait dark hair. The Standard Hotel is a 21+ only hotel (thank god), but doesn’t allow outside alcohol inside. This is a strange paradox to the hotels in the Midwest that all but encourage their patrons to fill the tub with ice and chill a case of Busch cans for the weekend. I went down to the over price diner and had a drink and then to the adjoining night club that was blaring hip-pop jams and got a drink 12 seconds before last call was announced.
Now, in Chicago “Last Call” means: “Hey everyone, we’re gunna close up soon so try and finish your drink while I tighty up my bar and dip these lipstick stained martini glasses into 3 sequentially less soapy sinks of water”… But in L.A. “Last Call” means large bouncers violate your personal space holding busboy tubs giving you thug looks while saying: “Let’s go, Let’s go, Let’s go now, NOW little man”, until you drop your .75% full drink that you just paid 8 dollars for into the bus-tub and walk away hoping you can make it to the door before getting pistol whipped.
After getting forced out of the club (right in the middle of T-Payne too), I retired for the evening.
The next morning I went shopping on Melrose… Now anyone that knows me knows that I do not swim… in fact outside of the spur of the moment cannon balls I did in St. Louis last summer with Tommy and 2Fresh in our underwear, I haven’t swam with premeditation since 2001 when I was in New Orleans. But when in Rome…
I stopped in a surf shop in what I then figured out was L.A.’s Boystown and found some sweet little Euro-Trunks. (I also found my 2010 Pride outfit but that’s for another blog).
The L.A. G-star is nice, albeit light in the cool jackets department, but the girls in the store were sweet and good re-folders of things I tried on and promptly discarded. One of them liked my pants so she was my favorite. I stopped in a few other stores and nosed around at a lot of bejeweled and distressed garments for the fall, nothing of which sparked much interest. I walked nearly 400 miles that afternoon in 176 degree heat so I needed a nap before rolling out to the show.
Apoptygma Berzerk was playing Knitting Factory and Brandon put me on the list so things were working out smooth. The show was full… full of L.A. Goths! I mean wildly dressed individuals in all manors of menacingly black layers of black on black in black with black accents. Some of them were so clad in black that they left a black trail of ashen liquid behind them – not unlike a squid or octopus would do – as their huge boots and tattered layers washed by me.
Aerodrone was on stage when I entered and I saw Carlton from The Dreaming looking a lot like Johnny Radtke. Tza was flipping her inhumanly pin strait hair around and looking cute as ever.
I talked with the dudes from The Surrender (who are fantastic by the way) and found about the after party plans. I watched Apop from the side of the stage. Logan played a song with them as did a heavily tattooed short guy in a little hat.
The after party was across the street at a club called Perversion. It looked like a lobby of a convention center with pounding goth jams in the main and side rooms. It felt like I was at Vampire High’s Home Coming 2009. No cool lights and no fog, just dark. I was at the bar waiting for a drink when a short guy covered in tattoos bellied up next to me and said hello. The music was pounding loud but we spoke back and for a while and he asked me where I was from. When I told him Chicago he asked if I knew Kill Hannah and I said that I was friends with Matt and he told me to tell Matt hello. I said I would and asked him his name, to which he replied “Vindy”. I remember thinking “Vindy is a strange name” but you know people have made up names all the time and he looked like a rock dude so Vindy it was, fine by me. So I texted Matt:
JR: Vindy says hello… P.S. I’m in L.A.
MD: Who’s Vindy? What, you’re in L.A.? Cool.
JR: Shorter guy like myself w/ little hat, covered in tattoos… how’s SWR tour?
MD: Vindy… No idea who that is, does he have a cane?
JR: No visible cane… little hat though
Hung with Apop and The Surrender at the Surrenders compound in West Hollywood till 4am talking about amps and drums and whatnot… Thanks for the ride Tyler… :D
----- next morning -----
MD: Yeah, no idea who Vindy is… have fun in L.A.
The next night I headed down town to an Art show that Kendra’s Chicago friend was having and ran into my friend Margot, promptly texted Peter in Boston to let him know I was having more fun then him now. I met up with my boy Hans who then brought us to the coolest night club I’ve ever been in. (Besides maybe Ghost Bar in Vegas). It was called the Edison and was in the basement of the historic Edison building down town. It was like a brick and Iron boiler room with LEDs and candle light accents. I guess this is 'Swank L.A.' Hans works for the club air brushing the models so he gets the hook up. After that we head to Das Bunker to catch the ‘secret’ Apop show. I begin to think that I’ve come to L.A. to study West Coast Goths versus Neo Goths for a compare and contrast term paper.
After the show (which sounded amazing), I’m back stage hanging with Brandon and in walks Vindy… I felt compelled to tell him but at the same time a bit nervous… finally I just say: “Matt said he didn’t know any Vindys”. He said “I’m Benji. Benji Madden” (from Good Charlotte). I then feel like a huge dick… Both of us pull out our phones and to text Matt. I can see what he’s typing
BM: You don’t know meeee mutha fuker? I’m with Jay Ramirez right now!
JR: I suck, it was Benji Madden from GC
MD: Tell him he owes me a steak!
We talked about the new GC record, which I guess is going to be huge and he was honestly the nicest guy ever, so down to Earth and cool.
Thanks for the Apop hoodie Stephen… (not pictured)The next day my friend Margot took us up into the hills and I saw L.A. in the daylight. It was hot as all hell but very pretty. I saw a horse and a few thirsty dogs along the way as well.
That night I was ready for some L.A. glam rock so I went to Viper Room on Sunset Blvd. There was a dirty punk band playing upstairs and right before I was going to leave Vinny Appice got up and played Rock you like a Hurricane with them. Totally sweet! Then to Rainbow, which is like a rock-n-roll Denny’s with dirtier floors and smellier bathrooms. I met some Australians, talked about crocodiles, music and Squid Billies. Talked to Johnny Haro for bit and that was it. (Everything closes at 2am remember).
Sunday was my last full day so I planned on taking it easy. I was at Skin Graft trying on stuff when Sara T called me. When I told her I was in L.A. she screamed “WHAAA… So is Dan”. Turns out Madina Lake was in town shooting a video for Welcome to Oblivion. I met them up at Rainbow that night and we caught up. I guess Dave Navarro was there and I remember for a second being mildly amused by the idea of inspecting his perfectly manicured facial hair but soon lost interest in all that noise…
Cut to around 3:30am
Me to Mathew: “Are you sure you know where the Chamberlin is?”
Mathew: “Yup, dude yup, I know right where it is”
Dan texted me yesterday, him and the twins wondered around lost just after that… HA.
Nathan trying on Kendra's jacket, (the same one I had to wear to get into The Edison, 'L.A. Swank remember... they don't take kindly to t-shirts with Motley Crue on them I guess)... Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Last Night...
The blast went off some hundreds of miles in the distance, but I saw the rushing wave coming for me with amazing speed, I fell into the ditch outside of my high school and buried my nose into my hands and my hands into the soft earth as the purple rush of radioactive debris flooded over me, I couldn’t breath and I might have screamed but the sound of a million gallons of water dumping into my ears was all I could hear. It was over just as fast and when I got up the landscape around me was deadly silent. Everything was light grayish-white and huge flakes of soft purple carcinogen snow floated lazily around me.
For the most part, the structures around me were still standing so I must have been farther from the blast then I thought. I contemplated how I could have witnessed the angry mushroom blast into the stratosphere and yet the flash didn’t instantly burn the eyes out of my head, or how the wave of irritated debris didn’t rip the flesh from my bones as it rushed over me at 250 miles an hour…
No matter for that now… I need to get home and load some guns, what if this is a movie and hordes of post apocalyptic zombie mutants will be coming for me… hungry for my brain or something.
I ran to the farthest northeast entrance of my high school and kicked the door in (something I always wanted to do), and looked around. It was pretty empty; it must be a weekend, or maybe summer break. I ran up and down the halls slipping on the freshly fallen purple snow. Aside from a few burned out corpses and charred books I didn’t find anything useful for any sort of zombie army defense. A boy I don’t know came around the corner and looked at me in horror. He didn’t look mutated or melted or anything but maybe I did… I simply grabbed his shirt and told him we better cover our noses because nothing purple should ever really be ingested. We both made makeshift surgical masks and I told him that he could tag along with me if he wanted but that I was headed for my parents house to make sure they were okay and to load some weapons.
We ran down the road to U.S. 31 and saw a small shack with 4 or 5 U-Haul vans outside in the dirt parking lot. There was a decaying dog still tied to it’s leash outside the door… I kicked the door in and found a few people inside huddled around the desk looking at papers. I told them I needed a van as I grabbed for the keys hanging on the wall. The eldest lady, who must have run the business didn’t seem willing to let me have the keys and began to raise a fuss about how she didn’t have the gas in them to just lend them out to whomever. I gave her a hard push and she toppled head-over-feet backwards. The purple snow had begun to subside over here, and as I looked out the tiny window next to the keylock box I saw some fires burning in the distance, toward Holland… toward my parent’s house… toward where I was headed. I looked back at the now decaying people sitting in there chairs, still studying the withered papers but now with empty eye sockets and leathery faces and I said: “I’ll return the van when I can… and you should have covered your mouths when the purple wind came”… I walked out without closing the door and found myself alone again. The kid must have run off, I didn’t need him anyway.
The van didn’t start right away and when it did it didn’t run very well, the air intake was choked by the nuclear fall out and it kept stalling on me. There were no other working cars on the road, just a few flipped over in the deep ditches along the sides of the highway. The sky was getting darker now, a deeper purple then the snow, but the ground was glowing softly like a low watt incandescent light… I thought about Chicago at 3am on a Wednesday night in January, when the ground was brighter then the sky like someone painted the landscape thinly on top of the surface of a huge light blub and you could look in every direction and see no living things. Just steal and concrete humming with a faint glow in soft fresh snow.
I crashed the van into the neighbor’s car next to our house, and then jumped out without turning it off. I ran up to the northern side of my parent’s house, my heart was pounding out of my chest, but something caught my eye in the backyard. Down near the creek where my birthday-tree was planted there was something shimmering golden-white. I had to run over to it to see what it was. On the edge of the creek embankment a fresh well had sprung and was pouring an opaque green liquid into the creek. It looked like Absinthe, frosty white-green and swirling with movement under its smooth surface. Under the shallow wake I saw coins of all different shapes and sizes, gold and silver and bronze coins, from ages ago and from millions of years in the future. I was afraid to reach into the water for fear my hand would melt off or freeze. I tore a branch from my birthday-tree and poked around in the shallow riverbed until I had pushed one of the coins onto the soft muddy bank. I picked it up and rubbed off the years of dirt that had crusted over the deeply cut design. The coin wasn’t in English but I could read the numbers: 08052057.
I know those numbers, August 5, 2057. It’s from my favorite short story from Ray Bradbury. It’s part of the reason I came up with the name of my band…
Without worrying about my hand melting off from the Absinthe colored spring, I shoved my hand deep into the opening and it was freezing cold inside. I shovel-cupped my hand and dredged out a huge bounty of coins and soft mud. I looked up into the sky and smiled at god for a moment. I kept digging for the next few minutes each time digging deeper and deeper into the increasingly larger hole and each time removing all manors of coins from throughout humanities existence. A great record keeper had made his stash right next to my birthday-tree and it took a nuclear accident for me to find it. I was sure that my life’s worries were over now. I wouldn’t have to pay any bills ever again… But was it because I found this strange treasure or because the Earth was destroyed and no one would come looking for me now? The deeper I dug the more I pulled out: Clumps of my curly hair as a child, my favorite childhood teddy bear that my niece accidentally burned when she stood him up against the electric space heater in my sister’s room when she was 6 years old. The dark blue plastic army guys I buried in the front yard when I was a kid… The car keys to my first car, my brown and green button down shirt that the paramedics cut off of my collage roommate Brent in the ambulance on the way to the hospital when he fell off the balcony at Michigan State and landed on his face. The tiny star necklace I bought for Mandy that she lost at work, my neon green drum sticks, my favorite drawing book with the dragon on the cover, the picture of Becky when she was a sophomore in art class, the shoebox with my marching band gloves and the broken snare drum parts I had under my bed… my stainless steal silver box my dad made that I had my 13 lucky buffalo nickels in. The coins were running out by my past wasn’t. It was pouring out faster then I could dig now, like if someone on the other side was pushing it out. Expelling it from the cold Earth onto the scorched and sickly post-nuclear landscape that I may have asked for just before I saw that blast tear open the sky back by my high school. But that’s where the dream began, there was nothing before, and I wouldn’t ask for that, I would never ask for a place for everything I had once been to be reborn, and even if I had, it wouldn’t have been a burnt and dead version of what my world was before that moment... That’s not worth reliving.
For the most part, the structures around me were still standing so I must have been farther from the blast then I thought. I contemplated how I could have witnessed the angry mushroom blast into the stratosphere and yet the flash didn’t instantly burn the eyes out of my head, or how the wave of irritated debris didn’t rip the flesh from my bones as it rushed over me at 250 miles an hour…
No matter for that now… I need to get home and load some guns, what if this is a movie and hordes of post apocalyptic zombie mutants will be coming for me… hungry for my brain or something.
I ran to the farthest northeast entrance of my high school and kicked the door in (something I always wanted to do), and looked around. It was pretty empty; it must be a weekend, or maybe summer break. I ran up and down the halls slipping on the freshly fallen purple snow. Aside from a few burned out corpses and charred books I didn’t find anything useful for any sort of zombie army defense. A boy I don’t know came around the corner and looked at me in horror. He didn’t look mutated or melted or anything but maybe I did… I simply grabbed his shirt and told him we better cover our noses because nothing purple should ever really be ingested. We both made makeshift surgical masks and I told him that he could tag along with me if he wanted but that I was headed for my parents house to make sure they were okay and to load some weapons.
We ran down the road to U.S. 31 and saw a small shack with 4 or 5 U-Haul vans outside in the dirt parking lot. There was a decaying dog still tied to it’s leash outside the door… I kicked the door in and found a few people inside huddled around the desk looking at papers. I told them I needed a van as I grabbed for the keys hanging on the wall. The eldest lady, who must have run the business didn’t seem willing to let me have the keys and began to raise a fuss about how she didn’t have the gas in them to just lend them out to whomever. I gave her a hard push and she toppled head-over-feet backwards. The purple snow had begun to subside over here, and as I looked out the tiny window next to the keylock box I saw some fires burning in the distance, toward Holland… toward my parent’s house… toward where I was headed. I looked back at the now decaying people sitting in there chairs, still studying the withered papers but now with empty eye sockets and leathery faces and I said: “I’ll return the van when I can… and you should have covered your mouths when the purple wind came”… I walked out without closing the door and found myself alone again. The kid must have run off, I didn’t need him anyway.
The van didn’t start right away and when it did it didn’t run very well, the air intake was choked by the nuclear fall out and it kept stalling on me. There were no other working cars on the road, just a few flipped over in the deep ditches along the sides of the highway. The sky was getting darker now, a deeper purple then the snow, but the ground was glowing softly like a low watt incandescent light… I thought about Chicago at 3am on a Wednesday night in January, when the ground was brighter then the sky like someone painted the landscape thinly on top of the surface of a huge light blub and you could look in every direction and see no living things. Just steal and concrete humming with a faint glow in soft fresh snow.
I crashed the van into the neighbor’s car next to our house, and then jumped out without turning it off. I ran up to the northern side of my parent’s house, my heart was pounding out of my chest, but something caught my eye in the backyard. Down near the creek where my birthday-tree was planted there was something shimmering golden-white. I had to run over to it to see what it was. On the edge of the creek embankment a fresh well had sprung and was pouring an opaque green liquid into the creek. It looked like Absinthe, frosty white-green and swirling with movement under its smooth surface. Under the shallow wake I saw coins of all different shapes and sizes, gold and silver and bronze coins, from ages ago and from millions of years in the future. I was afraid to reach into the water for fear my hand would melt off or freeze. I tore a branch from my birthday-tree and poked around in the shallow riverbed until I had pushed one of the coins onto the soft muddy bank. I picked it up and rubbed off the years of dirt that had crusted over the deeply cut design. The coin wasn’t in English but I could read the numbers: 08052057.
I know those numbers, August 5, 2057. It’s from my favorite short story from Ray Bradbury. It’s part of the reason I came up with the name of my band…
Without worrying about my hand melting off from the Absinthe colored spring, I shoved my hand deep into the opening and it was freezing cold inside. I shovel-cupped my hand and dredged out a huge bounty of coins and soft mud. I looked up into the sky and smiled at god for a moment. I kept digging for the next few minutes each time digging deeper and deeper into the increasingly larger hole and each time removing all manors of coins from throughout humanities existence. A great record keeper had made his stash right next to my birthday-tree and it took a nuclear accident for me to find it. I was sure that my life’s worries were over now. I wouldn’t have to pay any bills ever again… But was it because I found this strange treasure or because the Earth was destroyed and no one would come looking for me now? The deeper I dug the more I pulled out: Clumps of my curly hair as a child, my favorite childhood teddy bear that my niece accidentally burned when she stood him up against the electric space heater in my sister’s room when she was 6 years old. The dark blue plastic army guys I buried in the front yard when I was a kid… The car keys to my first car, my brown and green button down shirt that the paramedics cut off of my collage roommate Brent in the ambulance on the way to the hospital when he fell off the balcony at Michigan State and landed on his face. The tiny star necklace I bought for Mandy that she lost at work, my neon green drum sticks, my favorite drawing book with the dragon on the cover, the picture of Becky when she was a sophomore in art class, the shoebox with my marching band gloves and the broken snare drum parts I had under my bed… my stainless steal silver box my dad made that I had my 13 lucky buffalo nickels in. The coins were running out by my past wasn’t. It was pouring out faster then I could dig now, like if someone on the other side was pushing it out. Expelling it from the cold Earth onto the scorched and sickly post-nuclear landscape that I may have asked for just before I saw that blast tear open the sky back by my high school. But that’s where the dream began, there was nothing before, and I wouldn’t ask for that, I would never ask for a place for everything I had once been to be reborn, and even if I had, it wouldn’t have been a burnt and dead version of what my world was before that moment... That’s not worth reliving.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
