Cigs, Chicken, Jesus, and Lok.

It’s June 1, 2014.  Been quite some time since I tapped these keys.  And for some reason, the words linger and refuse to hit the screen.  Perhaps I need more coffee. It’s nine forty eight.  As soon as I finish this macaroni, chicken, cauliflower, and cheese…

I’m back.  Anyone got a ...?

“Hey,” can I bum a smoke?”  I said to Lok.  Flames flicked and licked. Barbecue sauce and chicken fat sizzled. Smoke rose from the coals.   

“Sure,”  he said as he tonged a breast.

Coffee’s done.  Um, perhaps I made too much.  Phsshht, nope. No way one can make too much. Not even if it’s Gevalia from Gälve.  My friend Ronnie lives there. Nice town. Nice coffee.  It’s in Sweden by the sea. Damn, I miss her...

“Wait ‘til I flip this,” Lo said.

I stood there. A mild nic fit crawled from the back of my brain.  I smoked my last cig a few hours ago.  Had to sacrifice for groceries.  One needs food ya know.  Wife and I went to Aldi.  At one time you could buy a sweet amount of grub there for 30 bucks.  Spent 35.  Couldn't even buy everything on the list. Damn.  Was thinking about getting some cheap smokes,  American Eagle 20 lights, but couldn't. We spent five more than planned.  Shit. 

My brain blanked.  

“Here,”  Lok said, lifting his beer. He took some Reds from the dingy shorts that dangled from his hips. His eyes remained fixed on the grill.

“Anyone got a light,” I said. 

“Oh, sure,”  Jesus said. Fire sprang from his fingers.  Smoke ebbed from the corner of his mouth, caressed his beard, and disappeared.  He sipped on a can of Busch Light.

“Thanks,” I said and sat down on the white stairs.

“You look like an artist,” Jesus said.

Lok poured BBQ sauce over the chicken and took a brush from the table.

I sipped my Pabst and inhaled.

Lok gazed at the grill, sipped his beer, paused, hit his smoke, broad brushed the chicken, paused, and brushed it again.  “I know.”  He looked up and smiled.

....It’s eleven eleven.  Got laundry in the drier and food to fix.  The wife works from six to six. It’s her first day at Target Distribution.  I’m gonna make her some grub to eat when she gets home.  I work from 2 pm until 11.  So, I guess I gots to go.  Cheers. 

Once a Writer: A Digression.

Literature is the study of writing. Literature is the study of history and culture. Literature is the study of those who write. Literature is the study of form and structure of what they write.  Literature is the study of...

Once a writer now a man who wishes he could write. Once a writer, I am now a man searching for a place to place his words. Once a writer, now a man mentally boxed in, afraid to jot his thoughts on the page.

To write one must feel free within them self. Free to place words on the page, to lace the white spaces with inner, outer, wispy, crispy, or crazy lines. Lines which the writer or others wish to inject snort, or phusshh push straight into their brains.  In order to write one must feel that words matter to at least him, her, the dog, the cat, or a tiny piece of shit.  In order to write one must knock or block the inner, the outer, the twirling barbed wired, electric spire criers that zip, zing, flip, fling doubt lines and shards shot wrapped in membranes of snot by jitter critters binging in the mind.  To write one must at least have confidence in what they wish to, want to, or are about to jot, scribble, babble, spew, or say.  Many times I lack confidence.

"What the fuck?" those of you who have known me for years might say. “What the fuck, man you've been tossing words for over twenty years. You love the written word?”

Yes, I do.   But the more I jot my spew, fling my mental pencil, paint and primp my literary injected, infected, crass worthy wordy ass, the more I find that many folks like boxes.  Yes, boxes. I'm not talking about the prim and proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation. Sure, I bulked against that stuff when I was a kid. I now understand why folks arranged words neatly into those understood notches, sturdy nails, and familiar boards.  It packages ideas in ways that others can understand. The boxes I'm talking about are the boxes of form, the boxes of ideas, and the boxes which encapsulate those ideas and forms. 

Form?   Form is how something is written. Haiku is a form. Sonnet is a form. Essays have an understood form. Many story types have forms. Journalism has accepted forms. Shit, even free verse is a form. Form is a box made constructed by sets of conventions. These sets of conventions help folks keep comfy.  They let the reader and the writer know how the words are gonna lay on the page. Many times they dictate what images are to be used, what ideas are to be discussed, or what topics might be popped and tossed about.  In fact, I'll be bold enough to say that  for many comfy folks, who like to sit comfy in their comfiness,  it's sets of conventions that makes their favorite form of writing important and meaningful.  That's okay-- if you like to convene and restrict writing to forms of comfiness.

I don't.  I like to create forms, ignore forms, or take forms and play with them.

Take Haiku and free verse for example.  Rhyme and time. I like make an image by 5-7-5, free verse it, and mixed win an occasional  ab, aa, or bb rhyme. Free verse ain't supposed to have time. It ain't supposed to follow 5-7-5.  Haiku ain't supposed to have rhyme. Free verse is supposed to mimic how people talk. Aw, man please don't balk.  I've heard folks speak in rhyme.  It happens all the time. Shit, if you break up small exchange between two kids you might even hear it in 5-7-5.....

Literature is the study of one's self and the written expression thereof. Literature is the study of one’s own forms, the forms that live within them, or the discovery of ways to express one's self by using forms already discovered. Literature is authentic and spiritual.  But I digress, I guess. Anyone like Herman Hesse?

Cheers.

Why Study Literature?

Let’s get going.

Why do I read? I read to discover. I read for enjoyment. I read to cope. I read to connect. I read to escape. I read to learn. I read to see. I read to relate. I read to feed my soul. How does reading do that? How does literature…

Why literature? Why explore the lives and minds of fictional characters? Why ponder plot, structure, genre, alliteration, rhyme, and style?  What importance does literature hold for this technical world?  What importance is it to the nontechnical world?  What does it show us?  What power do well placed words hold upon the reader? Can we apply literature to the life away from the text? How does it affect the mind? How does it affect society? How does it enhance one’s life and the lives of others?

Is it important?  And why?

Why do I ask these questions? Because…well...I guess I got me an inner drive to do so. How am I going to find the answers, you might ask, and is it possible? I’m going to search for the answers. How? Well, by answering them myself and by asking other people.  I’m going to spend long hours thinking, talking, and writing.  Most likely, I make a discovery while tying my shoes or handing someone change for a donut, gas, or a cup of coffee.  Perhaps, I gain insight from a pal or professional on facebook. Perhaps, I’ll gather words of wisdom from a stranger while drinking beer at Chasers. Most likely, I'll make a discovery while tying my shoes or handing someone change for doughnuts, gas, or coffee. Who knows?

Now back to my Gevalia and The House of the Dead.

Cheers.

Dispelling the Myth of Jack.

Cunnell knows Jack.  Fast This Time: Jack Kerouac and the Writing of On the Road by Howard Cunnell does a damn sweet job of explaining the process of how Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road.  He then shows the process of how it was published.  He dispels the myth that Road was a raw, first draft, scrolled out in a three weeks benny binge.  He shows that it  took years (from 1947 to its publication 1957) of experimentation, conversations, note pads, journals,  letters, and miles and miles of road. Did you know Jack struggled with voice and style?  Road was not an instantaneous blurt.  Its publication was not immediate. Jack drafted, redrafted, cut, versioned, and re-versioned.  Did you know that in 1953 Malcolm Cowley— an influential literary man at Viking who help Hemingway and Faulkner in the 20s but who wasn’t much of a fan of Jack work—took interest in Road only after Ginsberg wrote him a letter asking him to take a look at it? No shit.  So, even though it had already rejected the book once, with Cowley’s’ prompting, Ginsberg’s nudging, and Jack’s reworking and removing of sections—some of which were seen as too obscene or libelous—, Viking published it in 1957.  This essay shows Jack as a person, as a writer and not some iconic, pie in the apple sky, beatnik king. Cunnell dispels the myth and makes Jack Kerouac real.  Nice.

Fear

No one's reading this thing. That's all well and dandy.

Fear.  What is fear? Fear is the shaking and quacking of the body.  Fear is crawling into a corner, crouching with you head down and your eyes up, peering in all directions-darting pupils dilating.  Fear is your gut vibrating as you lay on your bed with your knees tucked under your arms. Fear is tears beading.  Fear is the force that keeps you from harm. It is also the force that keeps you from risk. Fear is the inner force, the instinct guides and keeps you away from faces, places, and situations that might hurt you.  Fear is a force that protects and thwarts you.

I want to get my thoughts out.  I want others to read them, to listen with kind hearts, and to empathize.

Long ago, eons in time, some small being crawled past a larger being. Let's call the small one Tiny and the larger one Biggie.  Well, as Tiny crawled past he  knew not whether Biggie was friend or foe. I doubt that the idea of friend or foe even crossed Tiny's prehistorical mind.  He was on his way to the local pond to sip the ancient water, to swim in its pristine coolness, and to eat the tender flora along it edges.  Biggie to Tiny was just an animal like him, just bigger.  Size meant little to Tiny for nearly everything in this world towered over him. In his small mind, Tiny figured that Biggie was just another on of the things that towered over him. So, he  just crawled on thinking about the coolness of the pond and the sweet taste of the flora that awaited him.

Are you reading this?

A rumble vibrated along the ground and up Tiny's legs....

Waiting.

Here I go again.  Don't you hate it when you try to edit a post and your fingers walk along the keys like a drunk trying to place his key into an unlit hole? Click, click. What the...happened?  Dang it. Poof, it all disappeared. I know, I should've saved the blinking thing. Oh, well.

So, what was I saying?  Oh yah, I was saying that I can't find anything to write about.  I was going on and on about Ms. Black and her wonderful way of snooping. She was hired to merely observe and supervise...

Who TF is Ms. Black? Well, she's an MSW, LSW in the wonderful Garden of the Gods town of Colorado Springs, Colorado. What was she supposed to observe and supervise? My wife's long fought for and finally awarded by the Court visitations with her girls, Lyssa and Anna. Instead, she decided to investigate the reasons for the situation.  She claims to have been objective. Her claims appear to be false and one sided. She did great, knee slapping job of gathering information from the ex, his parents, his wife, and the crack pipe quack MA, who acts like a PhD, the honorable therapist, the extraordinary E.F. Bellville the Third. She failed to speak to speak and listen extensively to look into the side of the person who hired her, my wife.   She failed to speak in depth with my wife's parents, me, or my wife's therapists.... Then she had the gall to send a letter to the Court  claiming objectivity and expressing a professional oppinion that my wife should't see the her kids until some far in the future, unknown date.  Dang.

 Ah, I could go on, but I won't. Well, maybe for a second. What gave her the right to do that which she wasn't hired for? So what if investigator is one of the functions she does and is used to doing? She wasn't hired to investigate.  Why should I care? Well, my wife has been through nearly 4 years of psycholiogacal probes, social worker wonderings, lawyer longings, and other helpful hopegful hoops and found ready and eligible by the Court to finally see her kids. Can't Ms. Black trust the word of the Court, leave well enough alone,and do the job she was hired for? I guess not. 

It looks as if my wife is done with her final in Psychology of Gender. She just tapped on my shoulder and handed me a Snickers. Time to go. Sorry about the rant. Thanks for listening.

The Inner Negative Blues

Yawl wanna know what?  I'm sure ya don't. Or if ya do, it's  just because you're wasted and have nothing else to do but read the batherings of an idiot. Yawl wanna know what? Yes?  Well...

I'm about to...  I'm tired. My family notices and so do my friends. I like to write. Some say I do it well. My cousin Karen even says that it's my calling. I know it is; however, it ain't calling cash to my door.

I ain't got the time. I ain't got 3 to 5 uninterpreted hours a day to sit down and tap away at a story, to struggle with an worded idea, to be alone and free with my thoughts.  I ain't got the time to wander around to places in my head.  I ain't got the time to poise my skinny fingers above qwerty keys and plop my low fat ass down when an urge, a thought, or an inspiration breaks and  flashes.

Who comes up to me as says they care? Who encourages me to find a private space and stroke my word organ?  Who says to me that they understand? Who  listens as I rant about the nagging words and ideas inside me? No one. No one. Who takes my hand and whispers hope and support in my ear? Who? Who? Screw it. My writing ain't important to anyone anyhow. Who's gonna ask me why I just said that?

I need outward voices to counteract the inner negative. The inner negative? Yah, ya know the things inside me that tell me stuff like: it ain't worth it, no one wants to hear your words, no one wants to hear about your life, your words are good but aint' that good, no one will publish them, and (my personal favorite) you're poor and need to work on something that'll for sure make ya money--this writing thing ain't gonna do it.  The inner negative many times overwhelms me. It jib-jabs, thrish-thrashes, swooosh-crashes, and drags me into its swirling undertow. It's waves rip at my my dangling fingers and severs the lines which pass words from one frizzled creative synapse to the other. It drags me under and bounces my head against submerged regrets and self doubt. It washes over me pieces of gnarled funked up downer words.  

Yer words are shit.  Good  shit but still shit. 

Folks ain't wanting to read crap. It be ignorant.

Ya tend to twine good words into a yarn of crap. 

Take yer tard yarn  'bout a sperm. No one wants to read a gross detailed tale about a sperm caught in a condom. Ain't no one wants to read some metaphoric crap about writers block. 

Mr. C., way back in 1993, said that it's was good but nonpunishable-too a vulgar.  He'd know. He's a professor.

And what about The Fag. Come on now the title is a turn off. It be ignorant and offensive. Who wants to read a story with that name. Even if'n it's a story 'bout a red neck walkin' his dog and meetin' his first homo. Shhhit, as the teach told ya, good but too edgy. No one'll wanna read that shit.  No one wants to read a redneck speaking redneck and using the word fag like he's eating chips.  Duh. 

You dropped it cuze the teach wasn't your style. Idiot, she might've taught you somethin'. 

The inner negative takes hold. Thrash. Downer words. Scrap. Self doubt. Bump. Regret. Glug. Splish. Splash. Glug, glug, glug. Gasp. Thrash.  I'm done.   Another piece written. Gasp. Spit. Bits of debris cling to me.  I can breathe. The inner negative hasn't beat me. Someone will read this word spree. I'm tired. 4 hours has past. Yippee.