Monday, August 20, 2007

walkie talkie

"I want to be an actress."
"That's cute. I wanted to be an actor once."
"Did you?"
"When I was young."
"Aren't you still young?"
"Are you a journalist?"
"He's a journalist," she tells her, leaning in close, pointing to me.
"Oh. How do you like it?"
"It doesn't pay the bills."
"Then why do it."
"Heard of Bayern Munich?"
"No."
"Soccer team. In Germany. My dream is to get a press pass."
"Back stage access?"
I tip my drink.
"Really?" She asks.
"No." I say. "Only thing I'm good at."
"Really?"
"No."
I wink.
Later in the shower I think about the actress. I'm looking for inspiration. Before I left we said:
"We just walked her home." she points with her thumb in a general direction behind her.
"What about me?" I say.
"You can take care of yourself."
She throws her arms around me.
"Have fun in L.A."
"New York," she corrects.
"I'll never see you again." And maybe that is aweful to say because that means she'd fail as an actress, but, whatever.
I think as I leave that I wish there was a train station close and another one close to where I need to be so I could just step on, step off and be there. Without all the traveling my legs would have to do.
I wave good bye.
"No random quirp? No quick jab as you leave?"
"No, I tired."
The best 'The End'.
"See you never."
I wave good bye.
Gertrude Stein once said remarks aren't literature.
But I'm in the shower looking for inspiration.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Another Saturday

The world seems out to get me.
Can't blame it, though.
Too good looking, I tell myself. Too potent....if that makes sense.
If it doesn't, then it's like everything else in the world: unimaginable.
I don't understand a lot of things. And I can't blame myself for that. Too uneducated.
Or at least that's what they tell me.
I say I'm beyond them. And maybe I'm not. But I like to think that way.
I don't like being treated like scum, and that's why I am me. And they'll continue to be them.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Last Train to Lexington

Wake up.
Eyes Flutter.
Slap alarm.
Brush teeth.
Play Music.
Louder.
Add bass.
Bass.
Walk outside.
Wear Sunglasses.
Too hot.
Wish it wasn't
Too cold.
Wish it wasn't.
Step in. Close door. Key to ignition.
Play Music.
Louder.
Bass. Bass.
It's raining. Windsheild wipers. On/ off.
Step out. Climb stairs. Step in.
Hello. Volley back. Not friendly. Fake smiles. Fake tans. Fake views. Fake lives. Fake dreams.
They talk. You listen. Pretend to listen. Can't stand it.
Play the music in your head while they talk.
Bass.
Stand up. Shake hands. Smile, fake smiles. Walk out.
Down the hall. Camera on you. Long shot, first. Then a close-up. Just your face. Maybe your eye. Inside the soul. Something deeper, maybe. Let them think that. Camera fades out. Like a huanting dream.
Music plays.
Meet people. Fake people. Eat, breath, talk, listen, think, remember, dream and wish. Check her out as she passes. Check him out as he passes.
Think of the beach. Summer nights on the beach. Think of her. Or him. Think. Maybe remember. Remember. Like a haunting dream. Fade out.
Walk out. Step in. Close the door. Play the music. Windows down. Wind blowing wonderfully through your hair. Summer night. Stars above. Quaint. Let down your guard. Feel good. Fall. Drive 65 on a 55. Speed. Breath. Turn up the music. Feel. The stars above glitter. The moon shines. Nothing is fake. Not here. Stop the car and get out and order another drink just to order another drink. Another day lost somewhere in the empty glass.
Stumble home. Lock door. Lock windows. Set Alarm. Lights off. Eyes closed. Sometime around morning fall asleep.
Fade out.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Tanning in the Evening Sun

Things seem impossible.
Like tanning in the evening sun.
Walking home alone around midnight I find a man laying face-first in a bush and I ask him if he's alright.
His girlfriend, a few feet away, tells me he'll try and kill me if he wakes up, if I wake him up. She has a bandage around her arm; a casualty of some sort. And I laugh and I shake his arm and he roars to life, just past midnight in the half moon light, a giant of a man with hot death in his eyes.
And then he's throwing punches. Wildly. And I'm dodging them. Like a boxer.
All the time I'm dodging punches.
Too many times I'm always dodging punches.
I need a new past-time.
But dodging what they say will get me has always been what I've done.
They tell me I can't do the impossible. But all the time I've grown up learning to do just that. Nike tells me 'Impossible is Nothing.' And I want to say that it's everything.
No it isn't. That doesn't make sense. What does any more?
A bridge falling, a plane crashing.
I still hear the screams of the dying at night.
Who cares?
Who cares about the adventures we fall into, the punches we dodge?
I've worked tirelessly only to come to the conclusion that I need to work harder in order to get what I want and need and dream. A sprinter tired and asked to run a marathon. They tell me that I can't get what I want and need and dream.
And I'm thinking, one hot afternoon, that life is good and that there is a thousand more days to be lived and in those thousand days there are a thousand more victories to be won. I'm at the pool and the sun is setting and I take out sun screen because I want to tan in the evening light.
Might as well do the impossible, I think.
And then the night comes and the vampires arrive and there is no more dreaming, not until dawn at least, and the vomit and sicknesses of reality and faith that has been lost is hung in the air like the thick haze of that afternoon. Dodging takes your breath away. The punch that hits you knocks you out.
And I want to run away again. I want to dream again. I need to be alone again.
Forty days until I leave for Europe. Forty nights of searching.
I've been happier there.
I've learned to be happy here, though.
I've taken sunscreen out in the setting sun.
They say you can't do that, that the UV rays aren't hitting you directly enough to get a tan. I've never believed in science. I've always dreamed instead. Makes it easier when yo don't think about the world around you and just...lay back and tan.