My drug fascination started early, when I started hearing about these miracle pills that could make you feel fantastic, give you all sorts of energy, let you see beautiful colors, and expand your mind. I was a curious kid, still am, and it will probably be the death of me (almost has on numerous occasions), but hearing this sort of stuff was enough to set the hook on the line that pulled me towards drugs forever after.
It was early in my teenage years that depression first reared it’s ugly head, and for me, it was a menace, a vicious hell hound that sucked the joy of life out of me, tore my dreams from me, and left me cutting my arms to try to feel something, anything at all that was not just this terrible inner pain. This was when I decided that it was my fate in life to become a writer. All writers must suffer, I believed, and it was through this suffering that they gained the insights into life that created great works of literature. And I was not going to be just any writer, I was to be great.
I wrote page after page after miserable page, documenting my struggles, my self doubt, my deprecation’s, my failings, my pain, filling journal after journal. Someday, I thought, somebody will look upon all of this and realize just how talented yet tormented I was, a savant drowning in his own words and sorrow. I knew that it was just a function of time before somebody came across all of these pages and would realize my genius.
I could never understand why, when I offered, nobody seemed all that interesting in reading all this shit I had written. I occasionally picked out the best pieces, assembled them into a manuscript, and gave a few acquaintance’s, friends copies, only to never hear a word about my words. Of course, now I realize that they were being kind. When I go back and read over what I had written, all I find is page after page of pain and blackness. Some of it written occasionally well, maybe even a few pages that has some sense of style and finesse to them, but they were nothing but just on ongoing recollection of all the dreary and dreadful thoughts go through the minds of countless depressives all around the world. And lord knows that we have more than we need of published accounts of teenage angst, anger, bitterness, and pain, and there are thousands of books, blogs, and articles written by people in the death throes of depression, wringing every last drop of misery that they can out of what they think of as their death garments. The last thing anybody wants is to read through somebodies constant, unchanging, and endless refrains of how they hate themselves and want to die.
That wanting to die part, that I understood well. I wanted that too. I even tried. I will spare you the melodrama, but to say that a great friend of mine took me seriously, instead of just laughing it off as me being attention seeking, grabbed me, and stopped me from what I was doing.
And so I was introduced into the world of mental health, antidepressants, sleeping pills, and all the others that have come and gone over the years.
Much more to come as describe how my understanding of psychopharmacology, consciousness, freewill, cosmology, string theory, and was shaped and constantly remolded by experience, learning, understanding myself, and others, and so on.
I miss you so much
My heart breaks whenever I think about you
I could always count on you to listen to whatever was on my mind
To always laugh at my jokes
To give me a hug when I needed it
To tell me to just hang in there, things will get better
I miss you so much dad
I just needed to tell you so
I can`t think of how
to say what I want,
those final moments, so fleeting
yet indelibly burnt in my memory
I cannot understand,
I can`t believe how it happened,
my last kiss on your shoulder
the last breath leaving you .
Was it merely chance
that the two coincided?
Or was there some reason you held on
till this last embrace.
I think that
you waited
till I,
in tears and in sorrow
finally, with a peace
and acceptance
both far beyond me
finally realized
it was time
to let you go
I am continually frustrated, incensed, surprised, outrage, angered, and baffled by the vitriol spewed out by people on the right wing. First, we have the leadership of the right wing, politicians beholden to their corporate sponsors, trying to placate and enrich the already filthy rich, working to crush the civil liberties of the working and middle class in order to keep them from organizing, protesting, and voicing their concerns, anger, disappointment, and frustration with the powers that be.
The police and military are enlisted to intimidate and disperse protesters, fire tear gas, sometimes rubber bullets, pushing protesters around, blocking them into corrals, moving them away from the protest site, and using mass arrests to scare away any remaining protesters. The media, in the service of their corporate masters, portray these protesters and ordinary civilians as dangerous anarchists (as if all anarchists are the same). It is made to look like chaos, violence, and mayhem have broken out. Selective editing of video footage is employed, along with exaggeration, implication, and lying, in order to justify the violence, denial of rights and freedoms (as layed out in both the Canadian Charter as well as the US constitution), mass false arrests, beatings, and the use of military force against their own people.
These arrests are made under facetious grounds, detaining people for several days, never actually laying charges so protesters, never have their day in court, sending out a chilling message to all those who wish their voices to be heard. Raise your voice, and you will be detained, humiliated, beaten, prevented from protesting, and then let go without ever getting the chance, unless you can afford to file a civil suit, to have your day in court. This tactic is being used more and more in Canada as well as the USA (Ultimately Servile Americans).
This is only the beginning of the journey down the road to fascism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, oligarchy, plutocracy, and rule by the elite.
How does a political movement so antithetical to the concept of democracy, so bent on controlling, beating down, and controlling the population, serving the interests of the few, rich, and powerful at the expense of the vast majority of the working, middle class, professionals, and the poor. How does a movement that is interested primarily interested in decreasing the taxation of the rich (which does not lead to trickle down enrichment, as the super rich tend to keep their money, invest it in stocks, bonds, and their own companies (but not in increased payment to their workers), while decreasing social programs, health care, social insurance, medical programs, education, and other programs which benefit society as a whole, but do little for the rich? You would think the lower 90 to 95% of the population (economically speaking) would be vehemently opposed to such a movement, yet somehow they have captured to imagination and the hearts of many of the very people it hurt.
Somehow, the Right has managed to convince the middle class that the Left is out to give away their money to the poor, that the Left will tax them mercilessly, that the Left will cause government to grow massively, creating a bloated managerial class that will intrude into their daily lives, that will restrict the ability of entrepreneurs to create new jobs, and allow the country to slide into a moral morass, forcing all women to have at least one abortion every five years, encourage teens to experiment with drugs until they find the right drugs for them, and in the US, decrease their ability to pay insurance companies vast amounts of money to insurance companies in order to gain access to substandard medical care, with most of their premiums going to pay for the massive amount of clerical work needed to sort out all the billing issues. In Canada, the Right wing believes that health care should be privatized, so the wealthy can pay to jump the queue and get a high level of health care while those of a lower class can get third world medicine, if any at all, because obviously, if you are poor, it is because God does not love you, or you have not worked hard enough in your life (because only the lazy are poor, it has nothing to do with the class into which you are born, the sort of education your parents could afford to buy for you, nor the amount you are willing to sacrifice your morals and values in order to flourish in the financial sector by taking advantage of others and loop holes in the law, manipulate the markets, and generally behave as a parasite on the economic system by sucking out value while creating nothing of value).
The Right has managed to do this by never campaigning on the actual issues that the intend to support. Instead the campaign on issues of morality, attacking the immorality of homosexuality (their point of view, not mine) and gay marriage (like that is an issue that really will affect how our economy will behave, will affect how straight people act, or will change the life of anybody to any extent, other than to make those homosexuals who choose to marry happy). They also make social programs seem like gifts to the undeserving, when really it is a safety net which provides a very moderate level of support to those who have fallen on very hard times. The right wing also makes sure to make the recipients of these social programs seem like some sort of alien beings, people very, very different than you and me, so that we forget the fact that we, ourselves, may one day depend on these programs to survive without having to resort to begging or crime.
The Right also likes to talk about their tax cuts, implying that the common man will benefit from these tax cuts, when in reality, these cuts are for the wealthy. What the Right has done over the last 60 years is offload the tax burden from the wealthy, those who can amply afford to pay income tax, to the middle and lower class, those who cannot afford it. At the same time, they have increased hand outs to large, multinational corporations, many of which are registered off shore in order to pay no income tax. Large portions of the research done by Universities, government institutes, and government sponsored programs is basically funding for research, the results of which are licensed out to large corporations to allow them to make huge technological advances at the expense of the public.
This amounts to socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
…. More to follow at a later date.
Over the years I have come to the realization that I am haunted by many ghosts, plagued by problems that, if allowed to run their full course would lead to my demise, and struggle with self defeating and self destructive urges, desires, and behaviours.
It is for this reason that I have enlisted help from the medical community in an attempt to keep me safe, sane, and sometimes even happy. They have helped, some a lot more than others. The doctors I saw in the early years helped me about as much as my back up plan when they were unable to provide any relief, which was to self medicate with copious amounts of alcohol, marijuana, and whatever else I could occasionally get my hands on. Of course, this second course created a slew of new problems that I would later have to learn to deal with, but at least this plan of action provided some, albeit temporary relief from the pain and anguish, the horrible shyness, social phobia, and general anxiety, the deep depression and the terror of my nightmares.
Later, and till the present, I have found physicians, counsellors, and nurses that have been able to provide me with the means to deal with my problems in a much more effective, less dangerous, and in the case of my counsellor, some long lasting relief from the terror that is my mind at times.
However, in exchange for this, I have had to give up the only effective treatment I have ever found (besides drugs such as morphine and cocaine, and the most dangerous of them all, alcohol), and instead just grit my teeth, hold my self tight, and live with the horrifying attacks of anxiety that haunt me every evening. I had to once again sink into social anxiety and phobia’s to the extend that I am mostly stuck at home, other than the working day, have not made a new, close friend in many years, and have lost all but a couple of friends all together, and even they never call, I have to call them.
I have also learnt that every time I bare my soul to my so called “providers”, they offer me the advice I know they will, having gone through this many times, they also offer some compassion and somebody to talk to, but at the price of them acting, based on some misguided paternalistic instinct, on misguided ideas and placing restrictions on me in various ways. I may have to pick up my medication more often, instead of once a week, twice a week, maybe three times a week. Never mind that I need this stuff first thing in the morning, but having to pick it up more often means I have to slug through the first five hours of the day feeling subhuman, feeling sick, feeling like a prisoner to this medication regimen, and being reminded that I have lost a significant degree of freedom in my life. I frankly don’t know what to do about this situation, the only thing I can think of is to just keep things to myself as much as I can, at least till the point where things get so bad that I am desperate for help. I can’t imagine the other patients at this particular clinic being anywhere near as forthright and open about what is going on in their lives, are they cheating on their doses, buying dope on the street to supplement the program, etc.
I can’t even pick up my regular antidepressant a couple of days early over the course of a month because “the doctor has said so”. Mother fucking doctor, this is my antidepressant medication, I am not going to abuse it. Pharmacists usually tell their patients not to wait to the last day to refill their medication because then there is a much higher chance they may forget, something might happen and they will be unable to make it to the store, or something beyond their control may have shorted the number of pills they have. In my case, I spilt some water on 3of my tablets lying on the table without noticing, when I came home after work, both pills had totally crumbled.
Despite that, I had to wait to get my medication on the exact day it was due, what stupidity. Needless to say, I lost three nights of sleep, which lead to two days loss of work, I ended up on the verge of psychosis from sleep deprivation, and I could go on and on about how awful it was, but why bother, nobody really cares what a pariah on the margins of society has to go through. I am just another patient that needs to be told exactly how to live their life, to be punished when things go wrong, through fault of mine or not, rather than just offering some compassion and understanding (it is not like I have been gaming the system or trying to manipulate my way through the program).
I guess that even those whose job it is to help the addicted and depressed, the stigma and stereotype of the manipulative, scheming, always looking for a way to get more drugs in some vainglorious attempt to get high (on an antidepressant no less), and who only learn from being punished by some external authority rather than willing change on their own, still exists, is deeply entrenched, and I doubt that any of the professionals working in these areas see how acting upon this incorrect picture of those at the margins of society reinforces in the patient the feeling that they really are second class citizens, that they will never be trusted in any regard, and I am not talking about being trusted with drugs.
Better to just offer up the happy face, swallow my self respect and bow down and kiss the feet of those who walk all over me.
I am wondering what is the point of all this bloggerism. Is it really about communication, or, rather, and what I am beginning to suspect more and more every day, really about narcissism, about wanting to be heard because we all feel that what we have to say is so important that it should be published, that it should be broadcast, proclaimed to anybody who bothers to read it. I don’t know. Then again, I am probably the most narcissistic, seeing as I am my only audience. But writing to myself is useful, if for no other reason that as a tool of self reflection. A mirror of the inner world.
There is no such thing as Freedom of Choice, there is no such thing as Free Will.
However, the Goodwill store will remain open during regular business hours.
However, that does not mean we live in a deterministic universe in the strict sense of the world. Quantum mechanics rules that out. And even when it comes to the neural processes in the brain, 100 billion neurons connected by 100 trillion connections, how could we ever even hope to model such complexity to be able to predict what decisions any individual is going to make at any point in time. And even if we could accurately model it, the brain is a living machine, constantly changing over time. Our model would have to be perpetually changing.
Thank You
(…more to com…)
I have come to an unsettling conclusion, one that was always there in the background of my thoughts, one I would have reached if I had ever dared to allow myself to follow the logic of argument through from the knowledge of the world and myself through to the fact that there is no such thing as free will.
My view of the world is an entirely materialistic one. There is nothing beyond the world of matter and energy that we exist in. There is no such thing as the soul. There is no such thing as the spirit. There never has been any evidence for them, just a lot of hopeful thinking (or lack of thinking).
Since there is just the physical world, our existence is entirely on this plane. Our mental inner lives are entirely the product of the workings of our brains. Our self awareness (the limited amount that we have), our consciousness, our sense of self, are entirely the products of the workings of a material brain. This sense of being is an emergent phenomena, the working of a vast and immensely complex net of neurons communicating with one another. Evidence for this includes the fact that a wide array of drugs, entirely physical entities, are able to cause a wide range of effects upon the functioning of our brains, and our minds. Drugs can do everything from causing feelings of euphoria and happiness, to sleepiness, forgetfulness, make us depressed, scared, produce personality changes, produce hallucinations and perceptual changes that seem as real as anything else we experience, all the way to totally shutting down consciousness and producing a state identical to that found in a state of coma.
How such small doses of purely physical small molecules could produce changes in our minds if they existed on a plane separate from the physical has never been satisfactorily explained. The reason for this is simple, drugs act on a physical brain to change a physical mind, there is no meta-physical mind that needs to be altered for drugs to produce their effects. It is that simple.
An argument for the mind being a physical phenomena is the fact that physical insults and injuries to the brain can give rise to an even wider array of changes in the functioning of the mind than even drugs can cause. The reasoning is basically the same as for drugs, but is even more effective. It can be seen that very small, very local damage to various parts of the brain can cause very specific and predictable (in many cases) changes in the functioning of the mind. For example, damage to the fusiform gyrus often causes the loss of the ability to recognize people by looking at their faces. The knowledge of various persons is not loss, nor is the ability to recognize them by other means, but visual recognition of their facial features is entirely lost. Thus it appears that the ability to recognize people by looking at their faces resides largely in this one small part of the brain, and is not found in a non-physical mind but in a physical mind. A large number of other loss of function injuries can be produced when other, various parts of the brain are injured.
Thus, it seems evident to me that our experience of being conscious, self aware, thinking, and reasoning human beings arises entirely from the functioning of the brain. The mind is an emergent property of the functioning of this complex network of neurons, information passing from neuron to neuron by electro-chemical means. Patterns of interactions between various widespread areas of the brain are essential to the production of the mind, and I would argue that the physical body is sufficient for producing the entire spectrum of human experience.
Bottom Feeder
March 5,
Today I have fallen below suicide. Paralyzed with an unholy fear, a dread of all that has been, all that is, and all that is to come. With no real alternative left other than to wait, I suffer silently. Each step is harder and harder, each footfall drives more nails into me. It is not one thing, it is just everything. So sad that I can’t even drink. If I would, it would be the beginning of the end.
With no hopes for the future, no plans for now, no fond memories of yesterday, my friends have all left me, I have left all my friends. I grew apart from my family, I have burnt all my bridges, I have lived twenty-one years and have nothing to show. This is the beginning of the end of nothing, and with me as the center it is better left forgotten.
Today I will sit silent like all the days before, and torment myself with my silliness and sorrow.
I know I have no reason for being sad, that is what makes it frustrating. It is just an endless cycle of thoughts, dwelling, obsessing, possessed by some sort of ambition to always be sad. I don’t want help, I only want to be left alone. There is nowhere for me to go. Maybe I should just runaway.
Consider this notice of intent to leave. We will leave to where it is warm, where there are no people. There is some strange glory in anonymity, a special, harsh sort of freedom that is both good, and tormenting.
March 8,
As far as I am concerned, mental illness sucks, and everybody else should be held accountable.
Life at the bottom is peculiar. Looking up to see the sun dimly reaching to the green-blue-black depths, with the little fish passing overtop of me, unaware that there I sit, tangled in the weeds, lying on the muddy floor of their world. It can be lonely at the bottom, but it is better if nobody notices me, otherwise I turn into some sort of a circus freak. Down here it is very sleepy, kinda dreary, sort of tiresome. But it is safe, just don’t try to breath.
Not breathing is the most important thing to remember. Do not breath, hold it all in, It is ok to breath out, but do not inhale. Sit silent, feel the slow undercurrents that flow through this secret world, this kingdom of soft deep mud, with the cast offs of that other world, the old tires, missing bodies, broken cars, empty beer bottles, and assorted fishing lures (try not to bite into these no matter how hungry you get, they are a trick, they want to snare you, to drag you back up to the world of air, so they can stuff and mount you and hang you in their living rooms, a dead testimony to their prowess.).
Not that life in an ocean does not have it’s advantages. There is always Pamela Lee swimming by every once in a while.
The water drowns out any screams you may try to make. Besides, if you already have let out your air, it is impossible to scream. But water is a great medium through which to carry sound. It becomes almost second nature to not become alarmed at the screams of others, those struggling to stay afloat, to not come down. These are the ones that drown. They struggle vainly against the pull of the depths, gasping and thrashing, they swallow and die. Generally it does not help if you tell them to just grin and join you at the bottom. I have found that a position at the bottom is a good position from which to push people back up. They will thank you for the help, and then they swim away. It is usually not because they are ungrateful, just would rather not look down into the blue green black whose grasp they slipped away from. Besides, water makes people forgetful, especially when they can leave it behind.
I almost drowned once, actually twice, but the second was the result of some sort of delirium. Quite rudely I was yanked back up. At the time I was glad to have been aided, but now I realize that either way is fine. The other possibility is not that much different from where I ended up.
Music seems to ease the pain, seems to make me again sane, seems to drive away the pain, seems to drive away the rain.
But now I sleep in my watery home, so deep down, I don’t remember what the sunny beach is like anymore, what the forest beyond, the plains and mountains, the clouds and sun, and sunset and sunrise, all this is beyond my memory,
There was a king, I remember, and he said that people just ain’t no good. They just ain’t. In there hearts they are good, but that is just bullshit. Now, I don’t know all that much about people, just the little that I remember, and the little that I remember. And this is ever growing smaller,
And it is sad to lose memories. Loss of any kind can be sad, but losing all fond memories is tragic, but on the bright side, I don’t really now what I am forgetting, because I am forgetting it, I just have this feeling that It may have been sweet.
I sort of have a sweet tooth, or I think I did. All I eat now is brine and salt water. Choke on bread, my pet turtle bled,
I can still laugh though. It sort of sounds like a gurgle, and it seems to come at the wrong times, and mostly at what I say to myself, but that is alright.
I talk to myself much more than anybody else, Sort of tragic, I would rather talk to somebody whose company I enjoyed a bit more, but Andrea says that before you can love somebody else, you have to be able to love yourself. That is why she left me to torture myself, a mess. She was trying to help me love myself by giving me nothing to live for, and I appreciate her for it. Besides, I was no fun and she did not like me anymore either, but that is different. Instead, I learnt to not trust anybody, but she wasn’t the only one, lots of people have been my teachers. I would like to thank them all. They have been very instructive.
Nick was right, people just ain’t no good.
March 9
Slip slip slipping away, down and around and far underground. Spirals and crashes, bouncing, free fall, below the bottom, can’t hear you at all.
Gone and again, lost in myself, nowhere to go but still moving so. Inward and out, the currents unseen, upside and inside and nowhere between.
Catch my breath, coming up for air, look at the stars, fall down the stairs, deep blue eyes that stare at eyes that stare at eyes that stare through eyes that stare.
It is all true, especially the lies, always believe those losers, they are a lot easier to laugh at.
Besides, Syd Barrett lives in my head, he fights off the worms that would be my master. And if I ever wake up will the nightmare follow me into the day. Is it a dream, a dream within a dream. A life not totally real, surreal, cerebral, cerebellar, interstellar, chocolate confetti streamers and Christmas trees and lots of macaronis with coffee and nicotine stained fingers, always looking for a sunny Sunday afternoon nap,
Someday we all will snap. The exploding inevitable, inevitably exploding
March 12,
This is easy to understand, when you cannot see the others, when they all have faded in the twilights disappearing light, lingering, silent song of wonder, and it begins to darken, the stars come out and we fall silently to sleep, huddled next to each other around the flicker of the fire and the heavy smell of smoke drifting around us, so close, so very far, distant I have always been, with each step toward you further back you move, each step towards me, downwards I fall.
The morning brings rude wakening, distant rumble, storm on the way, clouds in my head, rain in my eyes, wind blowing thoughts in my mind, with a soul cold and wintery, never spring thaw.
Sun rising, hopeful pause. That moment before it all starts again, the first moment, that most precious and rare of things. Like morning dew, pure and undisturbed. That first moment, no worries or doubts, no regrets, no thoughts, no problems. An instant of clarity, clear water 10 miles deep. Bright blue skies, and then it all rolls back in.
Come on, understand this, this is not understood. Nobody listens and I don’t talk. The more that I think about it the less I know. The more that happens, the less that I remember. A few more nights of drinking and me, amnesiac.
March 14,
The great bottomless fear grips me. The cartoon character who ran of the cliff, and hung in midair. Only to fall when he looks down.
I may have accidentally looked down.
Hanging suspended motionless, unsure of the next moment.
Up or down. Where will I go?
A slight tremor, a worry, trepidation. Anxiety without form or object. Incapacitated with thoughts of what might happen, of what has, of where it will all lead. To scared to even drink. To scared for anything that will loosen my slight grip on what is about to happen. I need all my faculties to handle what is happening. I need to get back those pieces of my mind I gave away, the chunks of my heart that were stolen, the soul that I have practiced killing for so long.
Enough, the fear says that I must stop, says I must run from myself, says that I can not do anything but watch and wait as it slowly eats me alive, as it spits me out, grinds me down, cuts me up.
March 16, 1997
Mornings are the best time of the day, with their aching stupid feelings and the emptiness that reaches out to drag you through the day, another day to scream and struggle and laugh at everything because it is all wrong and none of it makes any sense. We are headed straight towards some sort of end and nobody knows what sort of end that may be, just that it is inevitable.
Onward I go, hesitant, each step slowly, unwillingly before the next, stumble around, bouncing from disaster to accident to horror to farce. I wonder where I will end up when all the games have been finished?
March 21,
Every morning, when I wake up, I just want to leave
Sitting in rooms, with all the people, and I just want to leave
Leave all the people with their silly little jokes
Leave the party with all the beer and smoke
The music eats my mind, the laughter taunts
And all the vacant smiles
Everyone talking in foreign tongues, language I don’t understand
I just want to leave
I just want to go home, far away, anywhere but where I am
But even when I have left, I still want to go
Somewhere else, always away, far from them
far from me
Far from the pretty girls, far from the fun
Away from the whispers and shouts
The conversations that I just listen too
Away from the trouble that I will cause
Away from expectations that I will talk
Away from how I feel
Away from who I was
Away from who I have become
Who am I this time, and where do I go from here
Only away, always away
Slowly leaving, out the back door
Quietly slipping away, unnoticed
No goodbyes, no see you later
I see nothing now, I hear nobody, I feel nothing but away.
So far gone, so far to go, with not much left to say except that it was fun once, but it isn’t anymore. So I just sit alone and laugh at what is not funny. Hope that nobody will hear me, and nobody does. Why does nobody hear me when I don’t say anything, and why do I not say something. Anything is always more than nothing, but I have neither.
Friday, March 21 (10:24 PM)
And it seems to me that I know exactly what is going on, I am going straight to the top. It is all under control, the monsters are mine to command. No fear can possibly topple the mightiest dynasty ever to begin begun began so long ago rant rave foaming at the mouth and never again make any sense nobody else will ever understand how it all happened but it is all so very very very very simple that only the truly simple can understand
Friday, March 21 (10:30 PM)
and don’t you know that I am only thinking of you, if you can hear me. I am only doing this for, I will die so you may live, but nobody hears and so it spins faster and faster, can you hear this, it is white hot and it is rage, pure and untempered screaming through straight at you, all of you, you are so wrong. It is not the end but the beginning and then it will go on, there is no tomorrow except that which will come and it doesn’t matter what we do anyway so I will do it all and I will do nothing and what happens happens, so watch out, here I am ready to fuck you up, and there is no more and no less, and it builds to progress. Excel and defend, abduct and pretend. Make believe that it is all right, pretend to be sick. It does not matter you will die either way. Choose your poison choose your friends, make them happy, get the bends. Kneel down to what you want, forget the rest, it is all everywhere and so it does not get here, and there, where did I go now. Check your beliefs at the door, I dropped mine on the floor.
Saturday, March 22 (11:42 PM)
Bad memories in the making.
And hey, I’ve looked death down the throat, and I can see where it ends. Hours I have spent dreaming of soft endless nothing, that eternal heaven which finally is nothing. We are all become untouchable, there is no thing that can touch, beyond all this lies the great empty, the deep black silence. And well, it can seem scary, it freaks me out too, to realize that this goes on can all seem a lot spooky and shudders do run through my life, constant shaking, trembling, trying not to let things change, stop time, reverse, run home before the storm gets here, to hide under the blankets and sleep till it is all over. Sleep, sleep, sleep, and wake up in the bright summer morning of summer holidays, soft sweet, long lazy hazy, dreams of our own, that nobody can touch or steal or see. Worlds where we ruled. Where things were just good and there was no pain. It was all picnics and playing and mowing the lawn under the hot noon sun. And that was all that there was. There were no worries besides the immediate. The only variable was exactly what we were doing. No procrastination in the present is possible.
Sunday, March 23 (10:05 PM)
Today I found salvation. It was hiding under the sink laughing at me, so I kicked it.
Wednesday, April 2 (12:16 AM)
And although he had realized several months before today that it was really all over but didn’t really matter he kept moving along so as not to disturb the otherwise peaceful flow of traffic around him. Stalled cars only get honked at and it is more than a miracle when someone stops to help them out. Cup after cup of coffee to stay awake, and rye and vodka to help the dreams stop.
Monday, April 7 (8:37 PM)
Farther down and away. I do not know how to say what I want to, and I do not want to listen. I wish it would leave me away, stop persecuting me, stop haunting me, stunting me, cramping me, stopping me. I just want to cry.
Wednesday, April 9 (11:33 PM)
I must get home he said, I must get home. Knowing that the weekend and escape were only 2 days away, he steeled himself to survive. The road was very hard, but it’s shortness, in comparison to forever, made it seem bearable.
Thursday, July 17 (9:18 PM)
And still the time drifts by. Getting along on miracles and grace and the mercy of unsuspecting saints disguised as strangers. Nobody smiles much these days. I just want people to smile at me. I try so hard some days. I try to smile, because then other people do the same, but only rarely. Everyone seems so bitter. All fighting their own battles. If we would only join forces and stop fighting each other it would be better. But you can’t change others until you change yourself, or so she told me. She also said that nobody can help you but yourself. That one hurt deepest because it was then I knew she didn’t even care enough to attempt the impossible. This is alright, some things are not worth it. She is a very good teacher. I might still love her, at least who she used to be. I have got to stop talking to who she has become, it does no good to try to relive the past.
Teacher, preacher, high school gym bleacher. Home of the worst and the best. Fond memories that I am not sure ever happened. And all those people that I never see anymore. I wonder what happened to them all. When I go home, I never see them. Then again, that is probably good for them because it means they are not whittling chunks of time away at the coffee shops and bars. Sometimes I wonder how I ever became so different than them? Strange to think how things turned out with things and stuff and I don’t know what to say, but I hope they are happy.
One Thousand Ways to Pluto
Although far away, it is not that hard to get to my home. Across trackless voids, past asteroids and comets, planets with moons and rings, satellites and spaceships. The phone with cobwebs and hidden in the closet. There are lots of things in the closet. My mind, my papers, the TV, some skeletons, empty bottles and oily beer bottle caps. Beer cans with pin holes in them, bottles of cough syrup, pieces of tin foil. A bunch of bottles, old letters, a stack of text books and unpaid bills. Personal debts, my voice, and all those words I’ll never use again.
To get here is easy, but it is the path less traveled. That fork in the road that people just don’t see.
And sometimes an ecclesiastical fervor will grip me and I will preach to the rocks. And they listen well, and even obey when I beckon them to remain silent. A collection of alms is taken and given and I spend the money on things which never arrive. A echo drifts around the planet, through the cold clear air and we all shudder, me and my books and bottles and bruises. And I remember what you all told me, when you all wanted to help. And I remember that I didn’t say anything, just listened, knowing that I couldn’t do it.
Probably I just didn’t want to do it. I think I can do anything I want to do. I just want to do things that nobody else wants to do.
There are oceans here, hidden far from the eyes of the voyeuristic scientists with their microscope stethoscope, mind numbing drugs, endless search for what we think, always trying to conform me into their mold, into their mold. A fungal growth constantly growing and expanding, eating up the dead parts, threatening the rest. The only good mushroom is a magical one. And they know what is really going on. Someday they will tell me, and I will let you know why God lets bad things happen to good people. And good people are in short supply, large demand these days. We need more of them. I know good people. Good people have good hearts and don’t mind if you don’t. They will share and even listen to the silence that I spit out. Good people are beautiful. Someday I will be a good person hopefully.
To get to Pluto is to live on the far side of tomorrow, which is always coming, never arriving.
A few drinks later, she called me, stalled me, turned me inside out…
Your are keeping keys inside my head and I can’t get them out. They are ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Stupid dumb heads rocking around. And they will not stop. It is very funny stupid weird. And you call me when I least expect it. You call and I am drunk, and those keys resound resplendent and I cannot figure out how they have managed to stay here. But they are here and will not leave. So I am left with an ear aching heart. But it is somehow better because you will listen to me blunder on about how I drank to much then (although I still do). And it does not really heal wounds but it does distract and reminds me of where they came from. And from this I know how to avoid future disasters. Disaster; earthquake, tornado, lightning, fire, hurricane, drought, flood, hail, volcano, meteorite, it all comes raining down from above or strikes us from below. Never something we can reckon with. The ferocious fists of fury of the damsel in distress wrenching us from complacent silence and sounding the death knell of the ones we used to know. No more future for them except that which we do not know, the forever after which philosophers and religious types will argue about forever after. Does it matter where we came from, except to know that however we managed to arrive here, these moments are somehow sacred and to waste them with petty jealousies is a waste of time because if there is no more after this then silly disagreements amount to nothing more than a waste of energy when we could be trying to enjoy ourselves more, and helping other people to be happy, or at least comfortable. So the keys keep clanging. She has pinned me to the cross. Only she knows where the nails have been driven in. The only problem is that she never knew she was hammering away at my soul. Tattered and bruised, soiled, confused. Me or her, I don’t know who got the harsher beating. Tomorrow I drive, and then I drink. The proper order for the legions of law who think that they can control us all know with petty laws and penalties. Parties I have gone to, things I can’t remember. Stones that ended in a bittersweet surrender. The nights that I puked out my guts to the toilet. And those nights when Michelle held me tight and it was alright. And now, these days, I sleep more alone then ever. More lonely than alone because to nobody I surrender. I hear people all around and they talk to each other, somewhere there must be a place where I can lumber around so sanctified and pure that it doesn’t matter that I don’t know where we are going, or why we want to get there. There have been times that were good, times that are blurry. And I have time to laugh, there is never a hurry. Smack and a slap and I keep on going. Does anybody know where the airplane is heading. Why are we flying so fast to perdition, why insist on mass extermination. We need to live forever for this life to make any sense. We cling to immortality because it is the only thing that makes life worthwhile. But if life is worthwhile only if we can continue on afterwards, than what is the worth of life except for a tiny drop in the ocean of infinity. It doesn’t seem to matter unless you look to the idea of a god with rewards and punishment, but that seems so bleak because none of us have really learnt the lesson of life until to late and isn’t it his fault at least a bit for letting the world evolve into what it is and then expecting us to withstand it all with a smile and a willingness to help each other. Every man for himself is the general idea. Maybe we should all jump ship at the same time and see what lies in store for us in the ever green and sunny gables of heaven or the torch fires of hell. So fuck everybody who says they know what is going to happen. I am going to happen. I am happening now, why can’t he just accept this and let me go my own way. What is with these rules and all these stipulations that his priests have managed to attach to this supposedly immutable code of existence. And if there is only one way, how can he say that justice is served by sending the rest to an infinity of hell. There is no crime that I can think of that deserves a sentence of an infinity of anything. Are we really that worthless that he can, with a flick of his finger, cast off billions of people to eternal perdition. I hope not or he is really callous.
Enough for now. Pluto lies just beyond our waking dreams and dreamful wakefulness.
Friday, July 18 (11:03 PM)
And again I am here with a few dollars less and a bit less liver. I is funny only when you close your eyes and wake up 6 hours later to realize that a quarter of the day disappeared and nobody has ever figured out where it goes. It just vanishes without a trace and there is nothing we can do except try to enjoy it. Of course, there is always that first smoke to look forward to. And the weekend ahead, the end of the day. Supper and another sleep.
Don’t mix alcohol ‘n drugs, my mom always said. One or the other or you’ll wind up dead. She was always concerned about such things, and made sure to remind me every time I went out. That and I am a god.
She also taught me other things, like how to avoid a hangover by drinking lots of water the night before, and how to pace my drinking, and which pills go well with which. How to lie to yourself about your habits, and that it is alright to drink by yourself, just try to find a way to enjoy it. It is a waste of time to just drink, at least read or clean or something, at least until you start to pass out.
Step by step along the trail of cookie crumbs to grandmothers house to fight the dragon and eat his porridge with Bert and Ernie and throw water on the wicked witch and jump over candle sticks and climb up a bean stalk to smoke up with the Time Counter.
The Time Counter lives in the sky, and he keeps track of all the time that passes. Merciless and particular in his accounting, he is the only won who knows how much time the monster has stolen from us. All the blackouts, the dreamless hours, the times when you were distracted or high or drunk or sleeping or bored or fucking or otherwise enjoying yourself to the extent that you forgot about time, that is when the monster sneaks in to steal seconds minutes hours days and they add up to years and decades and lifetimes. This is how the Time Junky gets by from day to day. Sucking out the lives of the inattentive. So keep good books, watch every second of every minute of your time.
Burroughs watches his time very carefully. I don’t think he has let a second slip away. Bukowski was bad, Kerouac was even worse, as was Cassidy and Morrison and Janis and Hendrix. In fact, Burroughs is probably a Time Junky, how he managed to work up from Place Waster to Infinity Collector I don’t know. The path he took is one along the sides of high cliffs, along the narrow trails whose one side is a vertical climb and the other a six mile free fall into rocks and rapids. Don’t fool yourself, he knew exactly what he was doing when he got into the stuff. He knew the score, and relearnt it every day. He knew that the penalty of ever quitting is never one that can be paid off. So he get on going, and still is to this day. And it will all catch up with him someday. Or maybe it won’t. I think he will live forever. He already has.
So be on guard, but if you have extra time that you want to get rid of, remember Bill, or even me.
Stumble off to bed now wee little boy, and lay your weary head to rest so full of drink and pill you’ve had your fill. Not everyone knows, nobody knows, you don’t know to where you’ve arrived. And it All seems quite strange if you just try and rearrange the deranged apple fights in Rachel’s backyard when we threw overripe fruit at each other, and that time me and Wendell went storming through the neighbors gardens hurling soured cucumbers through the air and sometimes always getting soaked with the belching mess of inner squishiness.
Monday, July 21 (7:16 PM)
Sometimes it hurts just to be awake. It hurts to write or think or talk to someone or be alone. And it doesn’t matter where you look but everybody is hurting and it makes it worse to know that I am not hurting alone. I am not an exception, I am the rule. And it seems a wonder that we don’t all off ourselves all at once, but rather we all do it slowly. Sometimes I think that we are all in heaven now, but just don’t realize it, and for some reason we are all intent on reaching hell. If only we really knew where we were going. And I don’t mean any of this wishy fishy faith crap that is just somebodies idea of the best guess which you just grab hold of with closed eyes and hang on as you jump into empty ever after black someplace beyond where everybody goes and nobody knows. Of course they all have their own ideas, and sure they are all right, that is what I tell him. Life is too short for enemies. There is time for chess and sleeping, enemies take to much energy and besides, they only give grief which I have in plenty.
So sing me a sleeping song in the blue deep sea and watch the brine shrimp float blissfully by while the drunks flirt with death in a midnight swim and the jellyfish won’t sting you unless you step on them. The jellyfish don’t hurt you unless you step on them. The jellyfish, the sniggle bliss, mumble fist, jungle mist.
If they read these words a hundred times it still won’t be enough. Nothing is enough. Nothing is enough nothing is enough nothing is a broom with which to sweep the bad dreams under the pile of bottles under the bed and laugh about in four months when I finally get around to cleaning them up and wondering what was I thinking when I spent all that money on all those empty bottles. Of course they never used to be empty but they all have holes in them and tend to leak into my head and well it sure beats being dead.
And so driving around all day gives pause to the thoughts but then I see all the thoughts walking around, all the people walking around unsure of where they are and never knowing what they are doing but they are all going somewhere and that is all that matters, hoping for the miracle that will clean it all up and sanctify them to that pure white bright of infant first breath that miraculous first day when everything was new before humdrum blues sank in and it was just another day another dollar that I don’t have and whatever happened to all that innocence, does the Time Junky collect lost innocence and use it to help himself fall asleep at night when the guilt comes to give him bad dreams.
Last night I had dreams, which surprised me considering all the hash I had. And there were bears, three of them, a big one, a medium, and one so very small it was almost not there. And there was a reason for it, but we had to get rid of the biggest one, he had to move on. His turn as biggest was over but he wouldn’t move on. He was stubborn and would not give the second bear her turn as mondo bear. And so we dealt, me and the second bear. We would get rid of the first, the big bear, with violence because it was necessary. And I had a gun, I had a few guns. A .22 semiautomatic, like my dad had, with a clip that was faulty and would stick just when you wanted to get off a couple or ten shots real quick like, and all it needed was a bit of oil where the spring was catching on the side but I never did get around to it. And the other was a .303, but it was a bolt action single shot type deal. Much more of a punch, but so slow. But I thought maybe one shot with it in the bear’s head could take it out. Of course it didn’t so I had a angry and wounded bear chasing after me. And the second bear, although it had said it would help me out, started to chase me. I guess it was just their turn to eat fresh meat. I just couldn’t load that three oh three fast enough. And the twenty two just kept jamming. I got off shots, many many shots, all right in the beast’s head, but it kept coming. And I would run and hide and reload and shoot and hide again. And another shot, all right in the black, the back, smack in the head. And it was nothing, slow it down for a bit so I could load, then angrier then ever. The second, treacherous fink, always coming from the other side. And I would shoot it to, but some sort of sadistic rage would come over it and it would swipe at my head. Ducking and running and loading those useless guns which seemed to shoot potato peel and feed the big black monsters. I couldn’t kill the fucker so I woke up later and can’t remember the rest. Maybe it was over for me, I died in that dream and woke up in another so here I am.
You know man, you drink to much, I’m beginning to worry a bit
So what are you trying to say, I’m an alky or something
Yes
No, course not, don’t worry, I don’t drink that much
Then what is up with all these bottles
I collect them asshole, no way are they mine.
Then why are so many off them the same kind, what, you collect lots of the same thing
Fuck off asshole, I’ll collect what I want, and if I have to empty them myself, well it ain’t my fault
He, come on man, I am just worried about you. I ain’t judgin’ you, just trying to help. You gotta be careful with shit like that, it can just sneak up on you, especially when you are feeling sorta blue.
Whatever, it never snuck up on me, I grabbed it by the balls and dragged it in here. I know exactly what I need, and I took it. If it wants to leave it can, but as long as it stays, I’ll drink it down and piss it out and do it again the next night. You fuckers don’t know the meaning of the word blue. Blue is that deep black feeling you get when you are lying alone deep in the bottom and you look up, way up, and you can sort of see in you’re dreams where the sun should be shining, and you can almost remember the sound of laughter on the beach, but all you really know is that black blue all alone all around color. And you drink it in through your mouth and eyes and ears and everything you touch crumbles and drinking only makes it seem a bit better for a while, or a bit blurred, and what do you know about anything. You want to help like a missionary wants to give salvation. And as soon as it becomes obvious that not all problems have two piece solutions you write us off as hopeless. So high above, it strokes your ego to think you are so powerful that you can pull someone up, not to your level of course, because you are a demigod, but just high enough to breath real air. Well I’ll drown in my bottled friends before I stroke you. Don’t need no help. She told me, they all told me, that only I could help myself, and I help myself to whatever I want and I’ll keep on doing it till I can’t.
Lock the door and disconnect the phone, it don’t matter, there ain’t nobody home. Silly and dumb with drink and some same stupidity. Watch TV until I can’t understand what they are saying, write a few letters and then a few words, and wait for the saints to come marching in. I’ll drink me under the table and still be able to go for a few more rounds.
Wednesday, July 23 (8:52 PM)
It’s nine in the evening and again I am drinking but today I had to, after I hit that building with the truck at work, and then on the way home after a long shitty day I had a flat tire, and yesterday I noticed my windshield was cracked, and I hadn’t eaten all day and was never sure if I was doing things right. And all my friends are gone or forgotten and some of them are with me but only in spirit, and I have my spirits and libations and railroad stations. I must go on and outlive them all and then it won’t matter and I can finally disappear into the hills. The place of peace and calm without the screaming and yelling and bitching and complaining where I can just be content without anything and I just stop eating and join them in the after where things will be different. The wind is blowing freedom to all of us. Kerouac writes how his dying brother would say that we are all in heaven now but just don’t realize it and maybe he had something there, maybe we are in heaven, it just seems like hell because we are all too concerned with how things are going to get better when really they don’t get any better than this. But what do I know, I’ll never be famous nor fabulous just vaporous. Vapid and rabid the rapid typist screeched his two scents of nonsense into somewhere far away and hoped that someday he could forget all he had ever learnt and find someone who would just hold him and tell him that it was alright and the night would pass and he would never have to spend another night knowing that every night would be like this and the morning would not make things better because he would always be alone and to hope otherwise would be a strange gamble.
Well I’ve been where you are hanging
And I think I can see where you are pinned.
When you’re not feeling holy
Your loneliness says that you’ve sinned
Leonard Cohen
Pinned nailed and stapled to the plywood cross every morning I climb back up it and stick myself to it and every night I fall off of it, laughing convulsively the nails tear through the muscle and bone and down I fall bleeding and laughing and fall asleep and climb back up to that sacred position and all my lonely fears gather round as silent witness to my silliness and the hammer rings out but I can’t shout the dirt stuck in my mouth and the vomit I choke on drown it all out and nobody wants to listen to justice being served because we all deserve to die but we all want to live and because we cling to life, it is given to us. And for those who hate life, who want it to end, these are the sinners and their punishment is meted out every morning when they wake to find themselves still alive and their punishments are the rewards of others and it will never make sense why any of us are here but here we are and we should all try to be happy but I just can’t.
The drinks and cigarettes just don’t fill up the hole anymore and the pot only makes me stupid and the mushrooms just are a vacation and the pills just put me to sleep or kept me wide awake or made me feel very little except great but constipated and are too expensive and too soul capturing.
The best sleeps are with valium and family. Barbituates will definitely knock you out, but are a lot more dangerous and more of a hangover. Alcohol is okay, but the sleep is more demented than serene. Pot can make you fall asleep, and it will kill your dreams, but sometimes it can make you very sleepy but keep you from really falling asleep. Speed and zoomers definitely will keep you from sleeping. Ephedrine, the poor mans stimulant, will keep you awake for 3 to 4 hours but then you crash so hard you have to sleep but it is almost the same as a drunken stupor, or more like a mushroom after trip where you just lie there so tired but you cannot fall asleep, but you are too tired to actually do anything at all.
Monday, August 11 (8:10 PM)
I don’t need my phone anymore, not really anyways. Nobody calls and it is good that way because I seldom feel like answering, and when I want to phone someone they are never home or don’t want to talk to me, and I could just as well use the pay phone.
The bottles are tired of me already, so are these walls and this chair. My bed kicks me in the night and rolls me off. My lighter refuses to cooperate and the truck is just an asshole. The fridge is ambivalent, the keyboard is just a whore, the door keeps slapping me in the head and the floor would rather be puked on than have me pass out on it again. So I burnt them all down, burnt them real good, with 200 foot flames that woke the entire neighborhood and it was a three alarm night. The police man just could not understand the idea of revenge, but I think the guys in the mental ward were more understanding. They just nodded their heads in silence.
They locked up my friend, said she was schizo, and she spends all days talking to some constipated whacko with a 200,000 dollar a year salary and a beautiful wife and three kids, never cried a tear in his life and has always been in touch with the approved reality. And this guy and all the rest of them, just love to get their hands on heads like hers so they can try to screw it on the way they want and it all seems so helpful but it is useless and it just makes me sad to know that while she wants to feel better, she doesn’t want their better, but it doesn’t matter because they got her in there now. Someday I would like to be able to rescue her and take her to that place where she wants to be, that place where she could be free. If I only knew where that place was I would waste no time. But instead I sit here and just drown. And there are too many people thrashing in the water overhead for me to get a glimpse of the sun, when one climbs out, three fall in. I jumped in and dove straight to the bottom because I thought it would be the quietest down here. I was right and it is deathly quiet. Nobody here says a word, we all keep our mouths shut to keep the air in, holding our breath for that day when the oceans all disappear. Someday they will dry up and we will all be just lying on the beach, but until then we