BLEEDING INTERNALLY SINCE 1971

HELLOOOO CLEVELAND!!!! (Tour pt.3)

2012-02-07T00:22:00.000-08:00

Pulled into Cleveland in the late morning. Dead trees are a sure of me not wanting to step off the bus, wrapping my scarf tightly around my neck, I brace myself for the 7 second walk from the bus to the hotel lobby. After a few minutes of room switching and roommate confusion, I grab myself a grande soy chai from the Starbucks in the lobby, and head upstairs to once again, throw my lufa in the shower, post my toothbrush up so it's not touching anything on the bathroom counter, and shove my face in the pillow for a nice, hard, power nap.
After a shitty burger and a band meeting in the restaurant downstairs, I go back to the room and start digging around on the internet for the underdog strip clubs. It's Monday, so I find the places that have the most girls, call them ahead of time and tell them that we are in the rock band playing in town tomorrow night... that way we are assured no cover, and will usually get a vip section roped off for us, which is exactly what happened. I was a little bummed Sebastian didn't come, with him there that just assures every girl in the building will notice us, and flock like uummmm..... a stripper to a bottle of Grey Goose.
We did just fine dominating the strip club without him, and stealing all the girls from the 4 creepy old dudes sitting in the corners. I danced, I high fived the guys, and chugged redbull until I felt my heart skip. I don't do strip clubs usually but hey... when you're in a place like Cleveland Ohio with an entire day off, there isn't much else to do except stare at halfass strippers with lazy eyes, band aids, and shittier tattoos than me. The dj played a little metal for us, giving us a break from all the techno/Buckcherry fuck party that they usually grease the poll to, and I just sat back and watched everyone get hammered, while the band aids fell off in my lap.
Now all jacked up on redbull I sit on the bed chainsmoking, and listening to a Foo Fighters mix, while Jimbo types an email in the next bed... I'll probably sit here staring at the tv until about 7am, pass out, then wake up and start gearing up to rip the fucking faces off everyone in Cleveland tonight.

The tour pt.2

2012-02-05T01:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight's show in Michigan was my favorite so far, I finally got my legs a little more stable and feel more comfortable on the stage with the guys. You would think that growing up on the east coast I would be adjusted to this shitty cold weather, but I'm not, I'm a total baby about it ever being under 60 degrees. The house was packed tonight and I think we put on a kickass fucking rock show for everyone, I'm still all weirded out when people ask me to sign shit or take pictures with them, but I went out right after the show and met with the fans to hang out for a bit. I honestly don't know how my friends do that shit on the daily, I guess it's something you just get used to... hopefully I will have the opportunity to "get used to it."
Sebastian and Corey are very similar in the sense that they just have rock running through their veins instead of blood at all times, I am a very blessed mother fucker to have both those guys in my life, in different ways they show me how to be humble and appreciate what goes on in this crazy unpredictable world of music. Corey's sister came to visit and brought my favorite little girl in Detroit Jaylynn, they came to soundcheck to watch us work out the kinks I was having trouble with the past few shows. It's nice to see the fam on the road man, it really centers me and makes me feel good that people will actually drive an hour out of their way just to give me a hug.

I'm starting to get more comfortable around the guys and don't feel like "the new guy" anymore, even though I totally am and absolutely know my roll around here, it's just nice to be around a bunch of really nice guys that get it. They are just here to rock the fuck out and make the crowd want more... thats all I give a fuck about. Talking to fans after the show, you always get the "how could you live on a bus for that long?" question... Honestly, if it's with the right people, I could live on this fucking thing... as long as I get to do this shit 4 or 5 nights a week and my neck holds out, I'm totally ok with playing the rock music as long as they will let me.
Like I said before, I been very lucky to play with such amazing people, who are not only huge musicians, but also very good friends. It's not like work at all... it's like I've been at summer camp for like 3 years now, and it doesn't look like summer is going to be over for a while. These mother truckers laugh, eat, smoke, drink, and kill it on stage... It's a tour so of course people get cranky or shitty at one another from time to time, but for the most part so far it has been a very respectful crew.

Playing with Bobby Jarzombek is also pretty fucking huge. That guy is a fucking metronome made of solid steel, and one of the nicest dudes you will ever meet in your life. So yeah, I get to rock with that dude every night, he makes feel like I'm just playing along to the cd. Nick and Johnny are also ripping guitar players, nick is 21, adorable, perfect long rock hair, totally rock skinny ripped when he takes his shirt off on stage... if I was even just a little gay I'd totally fuck that kid in his sleep. Johnny not so much, nice guy though.. and an absolute shredder.
I feel like I'm starting to belong somewhere finally, I've done so many shitty tours, coming home broke as fuck, starving, playing to like 20 people (if that) a night, all across the country in some shitty converted van that's always breaking down, with at least one super aggravating asshole around me the entire time... Now it's like God or whoever the fuck has got my back was just like, "here dude... you earned it, take a year off and be treated with a little respect for doing the only thing you've ever loved for so long."

I stay humble, remain forever grateful to play these packed houses full of rabid fans, with people that I would no questions asked take a bullet for if I had to, and never... NEVER take a shower in the dressing room without throwing a towel on the floor first.

Tonight's show makes sitting in a parking lot staring out the window at some shitty ghetto liquor store window all day long... totally fucking worth the wait.

The first days of tour pt. 1

2012-02-02T01:39:00.000-08:00

Got a pretty decent nights sleep last night, with no sleep the night before, a 6am flight, a 2 hour layover, then rehearsal till midnight... I should have knocked out as soon as I got back to the hotel, instead I dicked around on Facebook and kept going down the the lobby to smoke. Bobby the drummer got back to the room and we chatted for a bit, finally knocking out around 4am, as soon as my face hit the pillow I was done. Woke up with bones cracking and sleep staining my eyes around 11am, an hour till check out, and 2 hours till bus call... just enough time to shower and throw all my shit in the bathroom in the suitcase.
I was feeling a little more confident after last nights rehearsal, just tripping a little on all the breakdowns and segues I needed to learn for tonights show... but hey, I'm a fucking professional now so no problem right? Besides, after Sebastian high fived me about 97 times I started to feel a little more comfortable, he's real excited to play with me which is awesome.

I thought about my Father a lot today, wondering if I was passing his house on my way to Guitar Center, or if anyone else in my "family" was near where we were playing. I heard everyone moved here from the east coast years ago, but I don't really give a shit enough about most of them to track them down. There's a few cousins that I still care about and will put on the list if they ask, but for all I care, my "Dad" could live in Africa and I wouldn't know the difference.
I finally make it to the lobby of the hotel and the first thing I do of course, is look for the coffee. I float into the restaurant looking bewildered and completely out of place. The waiter asks me if I'm in a band, then gives me free coffee and a super firm handshake... after I make it well known that I could give two fucks that he plays drums, I hunch down and start rolling my suitcase towards the big white bus parked out front. I have to stay hunched because the airline broke the God damn handle on it. I toss the bag in the first bay, and step onto what used to be George Jones' production bus. I might as well have stepped into a guest room in the Scarface mansion. The bus is so fucking rad, completely white with Christmas lights wrapped around the mirror on the ceiling, a swordfish etched into the glass separating the sink from the couch, grey carpet running from the drivers seat to the back, with another etching of a beach setting with palm trees on the glass in the back lounge. I claim my bunk, then take a walk with Jimbo to find a Starbucks. The daily mission of any tour I've been on in the past 5 years has been to find coffee... and keep drinking it until I can't feel my face.
The venue was close, so right after we jacked up on caffeine, me and Jimbo decided to not wait for the rest of the guys to finish breakfast, and walked over to get things rolling. I was hoping to get one more rehearsal in before tonights show. Sebastian didn't sing last night and one of the guitar players missed a flight and didn't arrive till 11pm. So I was a little on edge, the coffee was not helping that situation at all... but I kept drinking it anyway. I had to go pick up a new bass head, graciously provided to me by my family and other bandmate. The one I had been using for the last 10 years just wasn't cutting it anymore. Unfortunately I had to spend about 3 hours in the Greensboro North Carolina Guitar Center to get it... which in real people time is like 5 days. Everyone was very nice, but it's fucking Guitar Center, I can't be in that place for more than 30 seconds before I want to kick the little bass slapping emo douchebag in the back... it's cool man, I get it, you know your scales and can play some sweet Avenged Sevenfold riffs. Now get back in your room and jerk off to the girls that I have sex with until you get a sweet job at Starbucks, and make sure you practice making soy chai late's for when I come back next year you hopeless little dickfuck.
I finally get the bass head in the back of the runners car, and 3 hours later we start to drive down the freeway in the now pouring rain back to the venue. By the time I get back everyone is all done checking their shit, so I throw my new bass head up onto the 8x10 and plug it in. I didn't even hit a note on my bass before I felt the difference in size, this thing is a fucking monster. Bas finally showed up, high fived me a few times, then ran through some songs. It was my first time playing with him and I thought it went pretty well, then after soundcheck he high fived me like three more times... so I knew I must have done ok.

Touring looked so cool when I was a kid... I would sit on my couch and watch this brand new channel called Mtv, dreaming of one day getting to lick the neck of my guitar and have girls fall all over me. I would stare into the mirror next to the tv practicing my moves with wooden sauce spoons or a broom, my mood would sometimes switch from being a drummer one day, to be a guitar player the next... Videos like "Home sweet Home" or "Dead or alive" would come on, and I would dream of being on the bus with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a grossly hot blonde from some beach village. I would watch bootleg Metallica shows and Live after Death, wishing I could play like Cliff Burton and Steve Harris... now back to the day.....

I'm pretty sure I've got all the segues and little nick nacks down, and I am more confident about the show, even though just a couple of hours before we hit the stage I realized that I had learned 2 of the songs in the wrong key... and had to relearn them all over again. So just to be sure, I threw on the headphones and jammed the songs a few more times in the hallway before we went on. Dave the TM comes out of the dressing room and throws both of his hands in the air giving me a 10 minute warning. I take a deep breath, give my bass to Jimbo, and go into the bathroom to make sure my hair is ok...
Honestly, a good show for me is having a good hair night.

I take a quick peek out into the crowd, see that the room is just about packed, take one more deep breath, then go into the dressing room for a few more high fives and a 10 minute headstand. I like to walk on my hands a lot, and before a show I'll usually go upsidedown against the wall for a generic version of a Keith Richards blood transfusion, just to get my shit pumping..
I walk down the hall stretching and flapping my arms, making sure not to knock my hair out of place. I come up stage right to grab my bass, Johnny the guitar player on my side is already there smiling. We don't high five....
The crowd starts screaming because they see us warming up on the side, it's always a good feeling stepping out onto that stage... even when you know they aren't screaming for you, they could give a fuck if it was me or some other hired gun up there. I'm just stoked cuz in about 35 seconds I'm about to bust into "Slave to the grind," a song from a band I was not to into 25 years ago...
and if you would have told me that when I was 16, sitting in Terry whatever her last name was' T-top Firebird, in the parking lot of the Garden state Plaza mall, smoking Marlboro reds and hating the music her hair sprayed, white tassled leather jacket wearing ass was listening to.. that 25 years later I would be touring the world with the singer of that band, I probably would have punched you in the face... but here I am, standing on this stage, staring at a club full of people screaming for him.
The intro starts to roll, the lights get lower, the crowd gets louder... and as I start to make my way across the stage with bass in hand, I remember why I do this. At first when I was a kid, it was totally about girls, money, and booze... it was the only way I knew how to think, I had never ever picked up an instrument, and I already wanted to be in the back lounge of a tour bus getting a blow job with some stupid sunglasses on. Now it's different, I do like taking pictures with people and signing shit, with an occasional chick to hang with or whatever, I don't drink or do drugs anymore so that's out of the picture... but the real reason I do this, is so I can't move my neck when I wake up in the morning. The feeling that is produced when I lock in with the drummer, and everything is at the right tempo, is undeniably better than any speedball I have ever done. Ok... let's not get too carried away here, maybe it's not as good as a giant speedball, but holy fuck does it come close. The intro stops, Bobby hits the high hat 4 times, and we start Slave... I see Sebastian out of the corner of my left eye, just smiling and waiting. This guy has been doing this since I was in fantasy camp on my living room couch, and it looks like he's about to take the stage for the first time ever. I love that about him, Sebastian is the epitome of a rock star... we roll through the intro to the song, and as the song kicks in, Sebastian runs up on stage screaming, swinging the mic over his head like a helicopter blade. I look up, and he turns back and points and smiles, it's on and we are killing it. About 7 high fives later, we are almost through the 5th song... I am nailing just about all of the stuff we went over during the small rehearsal we had, hitting every ending, and with only a few glitches... I successfully make it to the end of the show. He makes up all come to the front of the stage to take a bow, which totally freaked me out. I'm not in Queen, or Van Halen, I just want to go backstage, crack a bottle of water, and light a cigarette. The best cigarette for me ever is right after a show... I'll suck down like three in a row. Baz tries to get me to come sign some shit at the merch table but again, I know my place.. so I grab like 9 slices of pizza, a coke, and sit on the stage watch it all go down. After about an hour of watching that, and signing some shit here and there, I head back to the bus. I get a light round of applause for a job semi-well done, and I hit my bunk with sweaty balls as we drive to Baltimore...

Disguises.

2012-01-13T00:43:00.000-08:00

We all have guardian angels, they quietly follow us and do their best to protect us from the evil seductress that would love nothing more than to help us go down in flames. Mine is my great Grandmother, I believe she is the voice in my head that makes me feel guilty when I am doing something like lying or cheating, she's the voice that tells me I'm a good writer and musician, and that I should call my Mother more than once a month.
There is also a Dark Lord in all of us as well... most people are genetically structured to ignore this voice and automatically do the right thing, I unfortunately was not born with that convenience. My Dark Lord uses a megaphone, wakes up at least a half hour before my guardian angel, and stays up well past anyone else in my head. He also disguises himself as my angel, masking something that will soak me in shame as a warm ball of light.. only to strip off his fake wings after the fact, and point his blackened crooked finger at me as I hang my head in complete remorse.
Escaping this voice just won't happen, it wasn't there when I was a child, and I'm not really sure what night it was when he floated through my bedroom window, riding on a warm breeze past my poster of Farrah Fawcett, and gently streaming himself up my left nostril into my brain. It doesn't make any sense to me a lot of the time, my Grandmothers spirit is way stronger than anything I had ever seen, or unseen... before she died her connection to God was so intense that all she did was sit in a chair with a knitted quilt over her legs, praying in Italian... from the time she opened her eyes in the morning, until she fell asleep. I'm pretty sure she even prayed in her sleep. The safest I had ever felt in my life was when I would sleep in her bed as a little boy, resting my eyes to the sound of her heartbeat and the whisperings of one hundred Hail Mary's.

I'm pretty sure I handed the Dark Lord a megaphone when I was about 12, and listened whenever he spoke. The more I listened the more powerful he became, and before I knew it, I was trapped in the grips of a hopeless state of existence, disguised as an easy carefree life. Believing that the path of the numb was the easiest way to live... until it gets so dark you have no way out except to want to die. Wrapping around my brain like a squid, shedding black ink to cloud any type of sanity. The angels voice is now in all lower case letters, and the bold, and capitalized Dark Lord types fear and judgement into the keyboard on my tongue. There are brief moments when I hear my Grandmother praying, and it scares the shit out of me. The sacred place where I used to rest on her chest is now well decomposed and gone forever, and my only hope is to quiet my mind enough to listen to her, so she can tell me where my new resting place is... it's somewhere, it's somewhere real close. All I have to do is find her voice again and listen carefully. God is in the pause... maybe the resting place is somewhere in her Hail Mary.

The first two years..... part 1

2012-01-10T20:46:00.000-08:00

I have always been way to detached to actually have a real feeling, unless I'm about to get my ass kicked or something... anything having to do with physical pain always scares the shit out of me. Emotional? emotional pain is overrated. Unless it's good old fashion rage. If my girlfriend is coming home with a load of some other dudes curdled up cum in her mouth every night and kissing me with it, that would make my entire body turn red, but when family members or close friends die, I usually have to either pretend to cry, or just look bummed. When honestly I really just don't feel any different. I mean yeah I'm sad that people in my life are gone, but I don't get people that get so emotional that they cry hysterically at funerals and hug each other and whatnot. I'm always there consoling someone, and pretending i'm really sad. I'm surprised I didn't grow up skinning cats and burying them alive in the woods half the time....

So when we pulled up in front of the Onyx cafe on Vermont st. in Loz Feliz California, two days before Christmas, with two guitars, and two dollars to our names.... there wasn't an ounce of fear in my bloodstream. I knew we were doing the right thing, no matter how ridiculous everyone thought it was. Driving across the entire country on nothing but blind faith and a whim of boredom to "look for a drummer" and be rich and famous rock stars should have taken a little more planning than a 30 second conversation on the New York State Thruway, then turning onto Rt. 80 west and going for it. It was a real "Welcome to the Jungle" kind of moment for us. Thank God we didn't really think it through, who knows where we would be today.

Even though we had no money, nowhere to go, and no friends in town because everyone was elsewhere for the holidays, I had this unbelievable amount of faith that I never had before, about anything in my life... I dreamt about this moment for years while I sat on my Mother's couch, smoking her Virginia Slim 120's, drinking my Stepfathers vodka and smoking his roaches. I watched the news about the earthquakes, the riots, the famous people dying on the strip... I wanted it all. I remember watching those two bank robbers in North Hollywood in the armored suits, walking down the street shooting at cops, and all I could think was, "man it's fucking February and it looks so warm out there!"
The whole drive cross country I just kept cracking my window to see if it was getting warmer, the closer we got to California. I literally pictured this place like the Europeans probably do... I pictured myself walking barefoot in the sand down Hollywood Blvd, with a hollowed out pineapple full of rum and heroin, while I watched Tom Cruise blow James Cagney on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. The air would be warm, breezy, and salty. Then God would drop a record contract out of the sky while I stood in front of The Whiskey and I would sign it, and never have to work again.....

Gems from the past.

2012-01-04T23:04:00.002-08:00

I found a bunch of shit that I had written over a 10 year period in a folder deep in the bottom of a box. Reading through most of it has surely made me grateful for what I'm like today, but this one in particular really stood out to me, and kinda made me a little dopesick...

4-11-04

If I die tonight, this was nobody's fault but my own. I have been dying to stick a needle in my arm for a long time now, and the more I drank, smoke, and started taking pills... I knew it would eventually come down to this.
Yesterday I did a speedball for the first time in 7 years, and the feeling was so fucking amazing, not a care in the world. Now I couldn't find dope because I had to work, and it was too late when I got off, so I got some coke... and I can't stop shooting it. I have no pills to come down off of, and I feel like my heart is going to explode. I shut my phone off and am cleaning my room like it's never been cleaned before. I said many times over those 7 years that I would never do this again. I'm supposed to go on tour friday, and if I make it till then I'll be fine, and if I live long enough for Corey to call me tomorrow, I will also be ok.
I want help, but I don't want to live anymore. My band is good, and they are the best thing I have ever done with myself. Honestly, they are the only thing that has kept me alive and off the needle for this long. But once I get that feeling, a whole different monster takes over.

It's 6am right now and I'm washing the shower curtain. Two nights ago I smoked freebase up until I had to go to band practice. I went home, took 4 valium, and barely made it through the day. I slept all through sunday and most of monday, called up my friend in Venice who I knew got high. He gave me this pager number and 20 minutes later, I was in Tower records parking lot waiting for heroin. Met the guy, walked down to my coke dealers house, found another friend with syringe, and within an hour I was doing speedballs. After 7 years it only took me one hour and I didn't have to walk more than 2 blocks all together. It was to easy.
My cousin asked me what was wrong with me at work tonight... I told him I was sick, but he knows what's up.
Ok I'm going to do one more shot then finish cleaning my room...

I love you.
Jason

Gems from the past.

2012-01-04T23:04:00.000-08:00

The Devils Reject...

2011-12-28T02:28:00.000-08:00

The dusty old heater dries the blood in my nose, caking it to the sidewalls like a slug on a window. I would normally pick it out, but it just rained in Los Angeles. The smell of discarded dog shit, bum sperm, and party-girl vomit rises off the streets like a fucking helicopter, resting high in the air, just long enough to wrap around the center of my face. A clear passage would surely make me vomit after the night I had, so today I am grateful that I can't breathe because of shitty cocaine. The sunglass arms resting behind the tops of my ears aren't pressing to hard, but they are still giving me a headache. I don't dare take them off though, not only am I afraid you will see right through me, my eyes wouldn't be able to bare the sun for more than 5 seconds before turning to a pile of ash, falling onto a red velvet cupcake wrapper. My mouth is full of sand, and every sip off this Arizona plum, ginseng tea bottle feels like tiny shards of glass flailing around my esophagus like the red spiders in a game of Tempest.
A beautiful redhead wearing a tiny white dress, covered in black polka dots walks by me. Her scent isn't a cheap Victorias Secret body spray... it's expensive. Her well manicured toes creep out of her strapless red shoes just enough for me to figure out that she has a well kept vagina, probably with a tiny little strip of hair just above her perfectly tucked lips. I'm so blown out from the night before that not even a droplet of blood seeps into my dick, so I store her in the memory bank for later that evening... when I might be able to get hard and have a fantasy or two for a change. As much as I would have loved to chase her down the street and say something witty, and completely out of the ordinary, something she never heard before to spark her interest in my dumb ass, I just wasn't interested.

I should take some pills, they always make the hangover a lot less painful. I walk down Hollywood blvd, trying not to shit my pants as herds of persian store owners soaked in shitty sweater cologne burn the hair off my face, stinging right past my heart. Making the noises from my stomach sound like two pitbulls trying to fuck a decomposing gorilla on a broken down fence.
It's not really a bad day, I mean I have had way worse. It was just the kind of day where you don't turn your head to fast, and try not to let anyone smell your breath.

I wanted to die. I swear to fucking God I wanted to die, but I was worried that I might miss a threesome from these two porn chicks that were supposed to call later that night. They called, came over, borrowed my car after they fucked me, and got it impounded. They took a cab to come fuck me, and I wanted them out of the house before they even got there. So when I came in both there mouths at the same time and made them kiss each other, the only thing I could think of to do after that... was give two 18 year old porn chicks with no license and a purse full of vicoden my car. I wanted them to shut the fuck up so bad that I couldn't even wait 10 minutes for a cab to get them the fuck out. They did cure my hangover though, not from the sex... from the pills. I got the warm fuzzies in my nose and my cheeks got all warm. The fact that my car was gone didn't really matter at that moment, all I wanted to do was lay in bed and chainsmoke in my stink, while watching the only dvd I hadn't pawned. I can recite that fucking movie to you line for line. I haven't watched it since.....

Fashionista...

2011-12-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

You paint the red rings on the paper and tack it to your forehead, when there are too many holes in it you just rip it off, and make a new one. You walk around with a limitless supply of ammunition, just handing it out to people, then walk away so they can blast your entire body with it. You are a human target and you don't even realize it.
People that walk around in a full Ed Hardy outfit don't look in the mirror before they go out and think to themselves "everyone is going to call me a fucking douchebag behind my back tonight!" They look in the mirror and say "I am the fucking shit buddy dude!" Girls that leave the house in their muffin topped sparkled shitshirts, cramming cankles into high heeled open toed refugee boats so the toes look like they are trying to win the ufc championship belt leave the house thinking they are going to be the hottest girl in the club. You would think these people might have some real friends that tell them what they REALLY look like, and not what they perceive themselves to be, but the sad fact is, that water seeks it's own level most of the time, so the friends are just as, if not more clueless than the target itself.
I have been the target before. Nothing as brutal as Ed hardy, just the occasional mullet with an earring, or a colored wifebeater that might have been a little to tight for my torso. Just rolling with the times, in the area I was placed in at the moment. A victim of my surroundings so to speak. I heard a promoter at one of the clubs we were playing a few weeks ago, the conversation of "Affliction" or one of those shitty clothing companies came up and he said something to the affect of, "I hate when something cool comes out and then douchebags ruin for everyone." That had to be one of the douchiest statements I have ever heard in my life. In turn making him the biggest douchebag ever.
Don't get me wrong, it is VERY necessary to have these people around your life at all times. Not IN your life, but AROUND it. Unfortunately everyone has the half slow cousin that was diddled as a child or the mid-life crisis-ed uncle that just divorced your aunt after 30 years of marriage, that will show up on Easter with some bedazzled buffoonery ripping across their chest, or settling nicely on the back pockets of some sweet boot-cut denims. Those are exceptions that must be dealt with gently, only to be laughed about after they have left with the normal part of your family. The rest of those fuckwads that aren't related to you however, deserve absolutely no sympathy, and must be told that their sense of style should be thrown in the east river along with the scent of their heavily burdened vaginas.
I am lucky to have just been a t-shirt and jeans type of guy for most of my life, there was that brief stint in jr. high where I walked around thinking I was Turbo from Breakin'2 "Electric Boogaloo," and I had my Mom dye a blonde strip on each side of my head, reaching all the way back to a flippy piece of hair that we used to call a "tail." I secretly listened to Twisted Sister in my room, but walked around school in parachute pants and a dangling earring. Black parachute pants to be exact, that when you pulled the zippers down on the side it was bright red inside. I walked around with one glove and a big square piece of cardboard, and I couldn't even breakdance.... Every ten years or so I will look at pictures of myself from the decade prior and be like "what the fuck was I thinking?" Having no fucking clue that I would be thinking that in ten years.
So what the fuck... ten years from now am I going to look at a picture of myself in what I am wearin g right now and be like "what the fuck was I thinking?" Fuck this.....

Reflection....

2011-12-08T23:05:00.000-08:00

The attitude adjusted accent of the east coast came out strong at lunch today, as I sit with my family for pizza and mussels in medium marinara sauce, in the place that I ate at least three times a week growing up. Still the same owners, and I swear the same fucking dude was behind the counter taking my order that was there when I was in 9th grade. It's the best marinara in Jersey.. in the world as far as I'm concerned. The chill in the air wasn't that bad today, but it was just enough to remind of what is coming, and why I moved to warmer climates. I do wish I lived closer to my family so I can watch my little nephew grow up, help my stepdad shovel the driveway because of his bad knee, and watch my sister do well in school.
After lunch we drove into the city to meet up with my Grandmother, it had been a few years since I had seen her. Her hair was longer than I had ever seen it, and the lines on her face had gotten a little deeper. It was nice to see her turn from the "crazy cat lady" she had slowly become, into someone that was happy to be around family once again. She never leaves her apartment on the upper east side anymore, unless it's to go cut hair at the Waldorf for a few hours a day, three or four times a week. She was having lunch with a friend of hers that I remember from when I was my nephews age. Two old ladies sitting in a little Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan, having a glass of white wine and kvetching about the world's problems today. We hung out for a few minutes, I paid for their lunch, and drove my Grandma back uptown.
I kinda felt like a kid again being with her... I held her hand the whole drive, and told her that I missed her. I got really sad when I dropped her off in front of her apartment building. She's getting up there in age, and it's at that point to where I'm not really sure if that's the last time I'm ever going to see her again. So I make sure to tell her I love her just in case.
After dropping Grandma off at the Crescent Towers, I took my Sister and my Nephew back to the hotel we were staying at. A swanky mid-town shitbox, built specifically for the euro-trash that dumps itself into Manhattan on a daily basis, to sip on apple martinis and mutter senseless bullshit under the overlapping torture of a fuckwads techno version of "Crazy" by Seal.
I couldn't help but feel like a little bit of an asshole when I opened the door to my swanky ballsack of a hotel room. So I did what any broke ass dick would do, and called down to room service to order my nephew a $20 dollar ice cream sunday. I sat there on the big white bed eating it with him, as he stared at the "caramelized bananas" in disgust.
My Sister had to leave before the $50 valet went into affect, so I jumped in the shower and got ready for Corey's birthday dinner at Ruth's Chris.

I'm running through my day like this in a moment of reflection. Exactly 4 years ago to the day, I had 1 day sober, no job, no place to live, no big moves in my future, and had just landed back in Los Angeles returning from a 7 week gnarley ass heroin kick on my Mother's couch. I had moved in with my x-girlfriend and her 4 year old daughter in a one room "apartment" on Wilcox and Yucca, and had nothing else to do except take the bus to AA meetings 4 times a fucking day because they both drove me up a fucking wall and I couldn't stand to be around them for more than 20 minutes at a time. All my instruments were in random pawn shops scattered all throughout the Hollywood area, and I couldn't afford a pack of cigarettes... or even a bus ride. My x fed me and gave me an allowance until I was able to get back on my feet a little bit. Which basically consisted of my dear friend giving me a job at the front desk at her gym a few hours a day for like 10 bucks an hour. Eventually moving out of the nuthouse and onto her couch.
I could barely form sentences when I got back from my last relapse, too many words jumbled together confused me. I would trip over stuff all the time, forget shit constantly, and playing music wasn't even a thought anymore. I had fucked it up real good for myself and honestly thought there was absolutely no coming back from this one. I had done serious damage to my brain, and my motor skills were completely non-existant. I could barely do what was put in front of me, but as time went on, little by little I started to form a life for myself again.

Within a months time I was back in my old punk band that I had gotten kicked out of years before, and getting ready to embark on a tour that would eventually take me overseas for the first time ever. Slowly but surely I started caring about how I looked again, showering on a regular basis and putting some grease in my hair. I would eventually build up a level of confidence from nothing, that would give me the ability to turn on my amp and face a crowd of people.
Over the past four years I had absolutely had my days where I wanted to just fuck it all and get loaded, not wanting to feel feelings is what people like me do best. But going against every grain in my body, and trusting people that had been in my situation before that had broke through and came out the other side, I stayed sober. Instead of wondering how much money my Grandmother had in her purse today, I was able to take the check from them and pay for lunch. I was able to take the check at lunch with my stepdad today and pay for that as well. Instead of throwing up orange foam from opiate blocking pills out the side of my sisters car, I was able to take her to my hotel room and order my nephew ice cream. And because I stayed sober, I am able to show up for people who believe in me, even when I don't believe in myself, to play my guitar in front of a shit ton of people every night and get paid to do what I love to do.
Do I deserve the life I am living right now? In my mind, absolutely not. But it's not my plan, it's just a path I was given as a result of trying to be a better dude and just show up, even when I don't think I'm good enough. So yes, I will sit in this very expensive hotel room, full from my very expensive steak, and wake up to play another sold out show in Jersey tomorrow. And let everyone else believe I deserve this life until I am actually able to believe it myself....

Today.

2011-11-26T19:01:00.000-08:00

Aaaaah yes, one more caffeine induced panic attack in the dark underworld of yet another showerless dressing room. A few surprising autograph's asked of me after Corey's meet n greet, washed down with a few mentholated halls, and a sweet backing vocal for you got lucky by Tom Petty at soundcheck, made the long bus drive in worth every back ruining turn. Today was an Ipod shuffle kind of day. The Gotham tainted skyline of Chicago is washed off by a rain that can't seem to make up it's mind, but at least the air is warm. Walking around is never really an option, but we are in a section of the city, that it would have been nice to go sit and have a nice slice of deep dish somewhere instead of ordering in.
This life of mine fucking rules.

West bound and down pt.1

2011-10-28T01:42:00.000-07:00

Have you ever kicked heroin on a cross country Greyhound bus? I have, twice.

The first time was when I robbed my Grandmother blind of all her jewelry, and hocked it for about $900 at the pawn shop. I had lived in Los Angeles a few years prior and had come running home with my tail between my legs, and a small heroin habit. My hustle in NYC was short lived, and I had nowhere else to go... again. My best idea was to buy a bunch of heroin and cocaine, a few fresh rigs, a hot dog, and a bus ticket at the Port Authority so I could go back to the glamorous lifestyle I had been missing out on in Hollywood. I said goodbye to the last 2 running partners I had that would talk to me, filled a brown shopping bag with some bleach spotted long sleeve shirts, some shitty cd's, and my Yamaha bb300 bass with no case. I found myself a spot in the back of the bus where I wouldn't be noticed shooting speedballs in that tiny little bathroom that splashes blue shitwater out of the hole every time the bus rocks.
I remember wrapping the shopping bag with silver duct tape just in case it ripped, I had a long journey ahead of me and I couldn't afford to lose the last of my belongings, which really didn't amount to dick anyway. The bus ended up filling up with people, but I was so out of my mind I didn't give a fuck, and proceeded to climb over the guy sitting next to me every 15 minutes to get high. Every time I came back to my seat I was a little sweatier than the last. He eventually told me that he was in Alcoholics Anonymous and attempted to give me his number. Thank God that fucking rain cloud got off the bus somewhere in Jersey. It was the last bus out of the city that night, so it was around midnight. After a few stops here and there I was eventually left with the back of the bus all to myself, and by the time the sun came up somewhere towards the end of Pennsylvania, I was almost out of coke.
I should have been a little smarter about spacing my shots out. That trip across country is exactly 2 days and 23 hours long, and I had bought just enough dope to last me the full ride, and a day or so in Los Angeles until I was able to figure out some sort of nickel and dime hustle out there. Buying the coke was my biggest mistake, a speedball only lasts about 20 minutes until the need for that rush through your body again becomes so over powering, that you are forced to do it over and over, until it's finally all gone... and even then you're not even close to being done. I could have brought a barrel full of each and it still would have been gone by the time I got to Texas. It's just never enough... ever.

I had a couple of bundles of dope left, but by the time we got to Ohio, my rigs were all worn down or jammed. Trying to play Mcgyver with your rigs isn't really do-able on a bus half full of people in the middle of the day, so I had to resort to snorting what I had left, which meant having to double up on my dosage since I couldn't inject anymore. By the time the bus had gotten to New Mexico, I was out of everything.
I hadn't eaten in days, so my body was already beaten down and weak. It didn't take long for the heroin to drain out of my system and leave me sprawled out across the three back seats, which are equivalent in size to the length of a small pitbull. With no comfort in site for the next 24 hours or so, I had no choice but to just sit there staring out the window at the passing dirt. The worms that had been asleep in my stomach were now fully awake and body slamming each other inside my intestine wall. Tears rolled down my face every 2 minutes, followed by sneezes that would leave dark green slugs all over the back of the seat in front of me. I was to sick to crawl to the bathroom that was right next to me to piss, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by the way my leg was bouncing up and down from the panic energy that was surging through every pore in my body. My only thought was that I had again, made the biggest mistake of my life. I started thinking about all the shit I had shot into my veins on the first night of the ride, and how I would have been fine if I had just.... paced.... myself. Luckily I was still very young so the kick wasn't going to last more than a few days.
I don't remember the rest of that ride, all I remember is the bus finally pulling up to the station at Cahuenga and Hollywood blvd. I had already gone through one full day without heroin and was right in the middle of the kick, but like I said... I was young, I was still able to walk if I had to. Not like these days where the kick takes three months and you have to have someone wiping your Mr. Magoo ass the entire time. It was early morning, so early that it was still dark out. I don't know if it was really that cold or if I was just sick as fuck. The bag had been thrown out of the bay of the bus by one of the attendants, and had ripped completely open, so everything that I had left in the world was now sprawled out all over the parking lot of the bus station. I was so sick, I just picked my bass up by the strap, swung it over my shoulder, and started walking east down Hollywood blvd. It was damp everywhere, it had obviously been raining at some point, thankfully I was spared of a soaking wet walk to the middle of nowhere... for a little while anyway.
I had absolutely no game plan, and nowhere to go. I could go west a few miles and sit in front of the Viper Room until someone got there around noon, and try to not act sick, or I could head east to my old guitar players house who I hadn't seen since she threw me out of her apartment a few years prior for shooting dope in her bedroom. Either way was a lose lose situation, but east to my guitar players house was closer, and less challenging than dealing with my cousin who owned the Viper room,and had been sober for many many years. She always had a soft spot for me and I could most likely manipulate her into letting me stay there for a few days till I could get somehow get some money for dope, kick all together, or ummm... I don't know, those were really the only two things I had left in my bag of hustle. Jenn (my guitar player) lived on Lyman place, that was all I could remember at the time. I didn't know what apartment building she lived in, and it was about 2 miles from where I was. My legs were like two unpeeled bananas, mushing their way down Hollywood blvd. The bass felt like a huge boulder on my back, and if my Mother didn't buy it for me for my 18th birthday, I would have just leaned it against a garbage can for a homeless musician to maybe start a new life with.

The Rockland Files pt. 1

2011-10-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

You could tell that at one point and time, the walls in this room used to be white, at first glance they looked yellow. Not like French's mustard yellow, more like the shitstain in all your underwear when you were a kid before you properly learned how to wipe your ass kind of yellow.
The chairs were big, and might have even been comfortable if the cold red pleather wasn't making my already aching bones even colder, and the cigarette burns all over wooden arms from all the people kicking heroin before me, make me squirm at the thought of just how much funk and sweat had actually been dug into all this furniture over the years. The only thing separating me from the crust of some other dudes ass sweat was a thin, blue, backless hospital gown. The polyurethaned arms of the chairs may as well have been a sheet of ice when I rested my arms on them, causing a chill up my spine that made my teeth ache, creating goosebumps in my forearms giving my abscesses lonely little heartbeats, that were so fucking loud in my head I could almost hear them talking to me... telling me how much pain they were in. Cigarettes don't even taste good at this point, I could barely hold one in my shaky little fingers anyway. My senses came back so strong that the 60 year old african nurse behind the front desk was giving me a boner. There were cigarette burns all over the shitty red carpet that matched the pleather of the chairs, and the coffee table only had reading material on it that wouldn't strike up anyone's issues.
The art hanging on the wall was made from previous clients... I remember thinking how many of them were probably dead by now, or sucking dick in some crackhouse on 123rd and Broadway. You could barely see any life in these paintings from the dead eyes of the hopeless junkies that have sat in these same crusted seats before me. Pictures of families, sunrises, and smiling stickmen hung from the walls by old yellow strips of scotch tape, that looked like they had been there since the depression. All I could do was one day hope that I could raise my tortured arms up high enough to one day paint my own glimmer of hope. The halogen lights buzzed from the ceiling attracting my attention, drawing my severed, stinging, bloodshot, eyes to the water stained covers over them, infiltrated with dead bugs. My attention was drawn back to the lifeless paintings on the wall, hanging over a table where a balding man with a mustache suffering from alcohol withdrawal, played checkers by himself.

I used to be a good kid. I was a little crazy and in desperate need of attention, but I never thought I would end up here. The bow the nurse made in my hospital gown was rubbing the back of my neck raw, my clothes were so dirty and stained with blood that they took them to be washed, so it was all I had. I had no other belongings with me, or anywhere for that matter, so I just had to deal with the February chill of the New York air that was creeping through the cracks in the windows, and running right up the back of my dry, ashy, white, legs. I could barely move, but my brain was so awake that I couldn't sit still for more than 30 seconds without thinking that some other chair, in some other part of the room would somehow make me feel better. Plus my senses were so keen that every time I took a step on that disgusting carpet, sat in another crusty chair, touched a doorknob, or hovered over a toilet... I was sure I was going to die of mysterious rehab disease.
I was lucky enough to have a room all to myself for the first day or so, before they moved some whacked out ghetto bird into the other bed. the beds were small, smaller than a twin, and if you took the plastic mattress out of it, it might as well had been a coffin for a big dog.
I spent the first two nights moving from bed to bed, that idea didn't work with the chairs in the smoke room, but it might have worked here. No such luck... I would crawl to the bathroom, desperately needing to shit, I hadn't taken a proper shit in weeks... months... years. Pulling myself up to the toilet from the handicap rail seemed like it took days, but I finally got myself up onto the cold, white, porcelain, and proceeded to try and push out this boulder stuck in my ass, like a ninety pound girl would try to push out twin babies if she were to be knocked up by Godzilla. I would think about taking the plunger that sat behind me and seeing if that might work, I was willing to try both sides of the plunger at this point. I unfortunately was not ready to drop this "opium bomb" I had been accumulating over time for the next few days or so.
My brain was racing so fast that I couldn't keep a solid thought in my head for longer than two seconds. The only feeling I had was pain, the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. I could feel my toenails growing, the dried boogers in my nose forming, the sweat slowly dripping out of every tiny pore on my forehead, and it all hurt. The only thing that would make all of this go away in an instant, was a shot of dope. Just one little bag in a spoon, and I would be running down the halls doing cartwheels naked, laughing and joking with everyone. Making triple decker peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen, and eating all the black and white dixie cups in the freezer. Then topping it all off with a wonderful night sleep, waking up sometime in the mid afternoon.
Unfortunately at that time in my life the gig was up. I had no more hustle, no more family, and no more friends. If I was to leave that rehab I would be stuck in the middle of Rockland County NY with no money, and nowhere to go. I was forced to sit with the life I had created for myself, and all the pain and regret that came with it.

Blind Faith....

2011-10-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

I was watching Dexter in HD just now and it hit me. When I first started watching HD televisions I would trip out, I hated it. It was like watching a daytime soap opera, and the movement of the camera made me dizzy. Now I don't even realize I'm watching it... I'd probably flip out if I watched a regular television, just the way I flipped out when the HD started. It got me thinking about all the other stuff in my life I just adapted to without even really noticing, the shit that I have become "comfortable with."
It's on a ridiculously different level that a television, but still...

My fear of needles growing up was a big one, I vowed by watching my friends be junkies, and what it did to their lives, and my Mothers friend overdosing in a bathtub when I was a kid, that I would NEVER stick a needle in my arm. My Father's alcoholism was also a big one... the few times I did see him, most of the time he was hammered drunk. My Mother drilled into me at an early age to be very careful with my drinking, or I would turn out just like him... I ended up turning out worse than my Father, and most of my junky friends. I also never saw myself being on a homeless couch tour most of my life, but I adapted to it. I adapted to rarely ever having a car or a license, and having to take the bus everywhere at an age where you should have a car... and your own place to live. I got comfortable with the fact that I can't keep my dick in my pants or have a successful relationship, claiming that "I love being alone," which is total bullshit. No one likes being alone for this long, and if they do, they probably sucked some candy off the end of their creepy Uncles dick when they were little. That wasn't the case with me, so I really have no excuse. Unless you consider my hot older Cousin molesting me in my Grandmother's basement a creepy Uncle with candy on his dick... I never really considered it molestation because she was a hot chick, I guess I have some therapy to be attending.
Just because I'm comfortable with most of these things, doesn't necessarily mean I'm ok with it. I know that sounds stupid but to me it makes perfect sense. I don't want to be the typical musician tragedy, that you see day in and day out, roaming the streets of Hollywood when the sun goes down. Looking for the next free bump of coke, or the next young girl to validate the lines in my face. I hate calling my friends for rides all the time, or taking the bus with crazy homeless people, and the stinky mexican guy that's been slabbing mortar all day that reeks of cheap tequila, shitty beer, and a horses armpit. Horses don't have armpits I don't think, but if they did, it would smell like those Mexican dudes on the bus. I just played in front of over 100,000 people for christ sake, and I don't want to go sleep on my friends couch because I have no where to live, but I will because that's what I have adapted to doing.
I'm tired of only having a few hundred dollars in my bank account to just get by with, although I am extremely grateful to at least have that... because before this past year, that never happened.
My tolerance level for my shitty comfortability status has gotten way to high, and it's time to bring it down... People that are really close to me get super pissed because they see what I am actually capable of, and what I actually do with that capability. Which is nothing really, I got lucky enough to go on a few cool tours and I'm a decent writer... big fucking deal. It doesn't mean shit if all I do is stay up all night watching netflix and jerking off to weird creepy porn, because I used up my tolerance level for regular porn.
I also have a not giving myself enough credit problem. I know what the fuck I am, I know what I am capable of, but at the same time I have this self made darkness in me that I let rule my life and control every move I make, I also have an entitlement issue that is off the charts, and that keeps me from ever actually DOING anything to better my life because I think I'm so awesome, it should just be handed to me on a silver platter.. I don't need the validation of a thousand girls to know that I'm a kinda cute, semi talented dude... but I fucking do it anyway, thinking that sleeping with every girl that smiles at me will one day make me the king of some mountain other than the steaming pile of shit that I post up on right now. It doesn't matter how many people I play in front of or the status of the people I play with, I still feel like a piece of shit every time I get off that stage... because I'm letting that little piece of darkness infiltrate my entire soul. The drugs couldn't take it away, the most golden pussy on a private plane can't take it away, a mutli platinum rock band with police escorts in Brazil can't take it away... nothing can take this fucking thing away but me.
I don't need to piss in a Suicide Girls mouth to feel better about myself, although that is pretty damn fun and makes for one hell of a story.
I need to fake love. Until I actually feel it for myself. It's in there somewhere, I fucking know it is, I just have to dig till I find it... and hope that everyone was right.

Little girls don't talk...

2011-10-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

I gotta stop watching paranormal thrillers. I was watching just a little bit of some cheezy netflix movie, with the worst acting ever, and still... that was enough to make my heart beat so hard it made my pillow shake as I lay on my stomach. Visioning the invisible children sucking me off the bed and bouncing me against the ceiling at a hard, fast pace. I think Corey just woke up and went downstairs, I hope he did anyway. I'm starting to hear creeks and cricks that I never heard before. My minds playin tricks on me...
Last time this happened to me I was living on Wilcox in what used to be one of the biggest crack buildings in the neighborhood with my X. I was loaded out of my mind, but still... I woke up one night to her 5 year old talking to the door, my X sat up and asked her who she was talking to and she replied in the calmest voice ever, "I'm talking to the little girl Mommy." Like that wasn't enough to completely freak me out she started telling me that the manager was telling her about people who died in the building and that it was definitely haunted. She used to sit up real quick in the middle of the night gasping for air and sweating, when I would ask her what was wrong she would just shake her head, say it was nothing, and go back to sleep. I never really thought much of it until she actually told me what that was all about one day. She said every once in a while a black spirit would grab her foot, or sit on her, and it didn't start again until I started sleeping in the apartment, which meant it wanted me out. I'm not really one for believing in fairy tales, but I do have a pretty deep respect for the unknown, and a massive fear of it as well.
One night I was watching her shitty, no cable having, television. It was late, around 2 or 3 in the morning, and the draft from the open window was making the green silk blanket we were laying under colder than the bathroom floor. Her daughter was breathing heavily in the bed next to ours, and my X was fast asleep. I started to doze off to an infomercial, but before I did, I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to tuck the blanket under my feet. The blanket was to short, so I just let my feet hang off the edge. The man selling his weird towels voice was getting blurry, as my head sank comfortably into the pillow. I would normally be getting up and leaving every hour or so to run back to my house and do another speedball, but that night I was comfortable enough to just lay there and sleep. My brain started drifting off into a dark place of happiness, when all of the sudden I felt something grab hold of my toe. I shot up like my X did many times before, and as I rolled onto my ass and put my hands at my sides I saw something. Something resembling the dark shadows from the movie "Ghost." As my blurred vision quickly came back into line sight, I saw this black shadow that almost looked like it was being lit by a strobe like sinking into the floor. staring at me the whole time, as it crept backwards into the shitty carpet. I was now sure that whatever she was talking about was real, and did NOT want me there. I got up and quietly got dressed, opened the door where the little girl was talking to her daughter, hoping not to see her, and made my way quickly down the hallway that might as well have been pulled from the set of "The Shining."
The dirty fingerprints on the walls were waving at me like kids in the back window of a school bus, as the bright yellow paint starting closing in slowly around my peripheral vision. The front door at the end of the hallway seemed to be getting smaller as I got closer... I could feel the presence of whatever had crawled into the floor sneaking up behind me. I ran... kicking open the front door and jumping down the three front steps leading up to the building. It was a weekend night and the ghetto birds were flying low, as the hip hoppers stood on the corner by Pla-boy liquor mad dogging me, but they were no match for what was following me down the hall, and what I may have brought out into the streets with me. As soon as I hit the street I felt a calm wash over me, I took a deep breath and made my way through the backstreets of Hollywood to my apartment. I never slept over there again, and never talked about it with anyone...

The Wolfe

2011-10-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

I wonder what Sasha would have been like now if she didn't kill herself.

It was 1997 when I got sober in Nyack. I had moved there with my family a few years prior, but only lasted about a month in that middle of nowhere suckhole, before I jumped on the New York State Thruway with a backpack and a thumb. I went back up to Woodstock where I could successfully complete my very first bottom in life. A few years had gone by and I had managed to destroy what little life I had up there, and was forced to come back down to Rockland County to hide at my Mother's house. I had done some real scumbag, junky type shit and was forced to go into rehab in Nyack, (I figured that would lessen my jail sentence once they figured out where I was). The feelings I was going through are not important at this moment, but I will tell you that there was tons of confusion and fear... a lot of fear of the unknown type shit, I had never really HAD to get sober before. The party had been over for years now. I was trying to keep the torch lit, but the great spirit just kept dumping buckets of water on me...
When I got out of rehab, I had to go back up to Ulster County for a few to 6 months. I kinda had no choice, as the cops were waiting on my Mother's doorstep the day she drove me home from rehab. After finishing that lovely stint of awesomeness, I went back down to Mom's to start my new life. I now had about 6 months sober under my belt, a nice little chest happening, and was finally able to wear short sleeve shirts again. It had been a few years since I had been interested in anything but heroin, so there was a lot of time spent on this new thing called the internet. I didn't have much going on, actually... I didn't have a fucking thing going on at all. I would sit up all night in my Mother's office in "tattoo & piercings" chat rooms, chainsmoking her cigarettes and jerking off to message boxes with people I was hoping were girls. Every once in a while I would get a girl to send me a picture, and would have to wait like 45 minutes for it to download... click ~ click ~ click ~ click. Finally getting a picture of a girl that said she was a lot skinnier than she actually was, and jerking off to it anyway. Trying not to look at the stretch marks on her boobs.
I eventually started to venture out onto my own in this huge community of sober people in Nyack, about 20 minutes away from my Mother's house. Girls in real life were much better than the ones in the chat rooms, and if I sat home all day and night I would eventually just leave again to go shoot heroin somewhere. So I started going to meetings down there and just hanging out at the Starbucks all night long. This is where I met Sasha. A tiny little jaded jew, who was just as pissed and newly sober as I was. Right out of the gate we got along, because we liked to rip into peoples defects the same way... giggling with each other as we made each others insecurities almost disappear through the flaws of other people. I had met a bunch of people my own age who had a bunch of years sober, and they taught me that you didn't need to be drunk or high on heroin to have a good time. That you could actually have WAY more fun making fun of the drunk people in town, rather than wishing you were one of them.
A few years had passed and Sasha moved to Los Angeles to go to school. Under a set of completely different circumstances, I had ended up out there a few months later. Again, entering unfamiliar sober territory, I clung to Sasha who had been out there a few months already, so she had the lo down on where to hang and who to hang with. We hung out just about every day for quite some time, doing the same shit we did in Nyack. Running to meetings together, hanging out at diners and coffee shops talking about everyone elses misfortune.
I would go to her apartment in the valley and lay on the floor watching television, while she did school work or whatever. I didn't really have much going on out there at the time either, so when she wasn't in school or working I was always with her. When we were super bored and lonely, we would sleep with each other, then talk about how empty and loveless it was, laughing about how fucked up we were. She moved up north to go to another school, and I relapsed after a few years. We eventually lost touch for a while, only keeping in contact through instant message on the computer, but she was very distant because I was loaded. One of the last times I saw her was when she came down for a visit, and I was trying to get sober again. In her car, loaded on pills, while she lectured me. We went to a mall with some friends, had a few laughs, and that was that. I eventually got sober and tried to reach out to her, but over the years she had become very depressed and isolated constantly. She barely returned the messages I would leave on IM.
I just figured she would eventually get out of her funk and we would someday be friends the way we used to be, which is why I was totally surprised when I got the call that she had put a plastic bag over her head, taped a hose that was attached to a helium tank to her mouth, and killed herself. They found her in a chair she used to study in, in her dark, lonely, apartment in Oakland or something. She was so isolated that she had been there a few days before her Mother called one of her friends to go and see if she was ok, which obviously, she wasn't. I didn't really know how to process this new information I had just woken up to. It had been years since I'd seen her, and even though we used to be super tight, I felt like I had no idea what she had turned into. She was always a miserable person, but so was I. I never thought she was so bad that she couldn't stand to be on the planet anymore.

Our friend went up at her Mother's request to clean out her place. he brought me back a few books that I had bought for her over the years for her birthdays and stuff like that. Some old pictures of us she had hanging on her mirror, and her Ipod. The one she was listening to when she ended her life.
I can't help but think that a part of her spirit was sucked into the ipod while it was in her ears, when her soul left her body. Sometimes when I miss her I will put her Ipod on my speakers, and listen to the happier music she had on there, passing by all the "Smiths and Joy Division," and going right to the "Aggrolites." I know she is with me when I'm playing her Ipod.
I'm a much happier person these days, and have changed a lot over the years. I wish Sasha had hung on just a little longer to see that, and maybe even changed herself. I don't think about her as much as I should, but when I do, I miss her dearly. Her Mother ended up committing suicide as well... a year to the day Sasha did.

Dead cigarettes in the ash tray.

2011-10-12T03:10:00.000-07:00

The right side of my face stares out the window from the end of a pillow. The leafless stems of the tree sit still, but I stare at them until they start moving, and I don't blink until they have turned into the blackened hands with long rotted fingernails of the demon that rests on what used to be a branch. Lyrics to a song I am working on come into my mind, they are profoundly poetic and will make a fine addition to the sweet melody I have created, but I forget them instantly as I raise up to find the switch on the lamp. I lay there staring at the paper, shaking my head trying to knock the words back into place.
I can't stare into the dark for to long, if I do the invisible children that live here might appear, and I will never sleep again. My best bet is to light a cigarette and ponder on how many peoples lives I have affected over the years, It's what keeps me up at night anyway... The ashes singe my chest as I blow them onto the dark yellow sheets. I try and come up with things to entertain the mind, but all I can come up with is negative rants about nothing important. So again I sit, staring into the jagged fingernails of the demon outside my window, hoping he doesn't start tapping on the screen. the dead leaves on the ground rustle in the wind, making me believe someone is lurking in the back yard, I wonder if I locked the door. If I didn't it would be too late anyway, the man is already inside the house, waiting around a corner for me to come see if everything is ok in the house. The dark side of my brain thinks he would be doing me a favor by grabbing my head and slicing my throat, but the light inside me tells me to stay upstairs where it is safe. The invisible children need to play now, so I must pretend to sleep.

Lies....

2011-10-10T18:03:00.000-07:00

In 3rd grade, Mrs. Canella made us write an essay entitled "How I spent my summer vacation." It was our first day back in school and I wanted to make a great impression on the teacher, so I wrote in great detail about my trip to Africa. I think I wrote about lions and tigers, and black people. It's all I really knew about Africa when I was that age, and that's pretty much all I know about it now. I have obviously never been there. We handed in our assignments.
I sat back in my little plastic chair, trying to make out all the engravings on my desk from last year while I waited for Mrs. Canella to bring me to the front of the class and praise me in front of all the other students. Instead, she came over to my desk with my essay in her hand, and said "if I called your Mother and asked her if you had been to Africa over the summer, would she say yes?" Not knowing the consequences, or even what a lie really was, I froze. My face turned beet red and started to tingle, I knew that if she called my Mother and told her what had happened, I would get grounded for sure. I quietly told her that I had never been, hoping none of the other kids would hear me getting caught in a lie. She explained to me what lying was, and never called my Mother.

I used to watch Laverne & Shirley every tuesday night on channel 7, that and Happy Days were my reason for living at that age. I started mixing my Pepsi with milk, just as Laverne used to on the show. One night my Mother came into the kitchen while I was mixing up a batch and asked me if I was doing that because of the show. I looked at her like she was crazy and said, "no... I don't even watch that show!" I knew that she knew that I watched it, because she used to watch it with me, but I lied anyway. I had no reason to lie, but I felt embarrassed because I knew it wasn't my idea. No wonder I liked carbombs so much when I drank, they taste very similar to a milk and Pepsi combination.

My lies slowly progressed over the years, I had eventually graduated from telling my Mother that I had lost my GI Joe's, when I really burned them and buried them, to, "no I'm not shooting Heroin!"
Chris lived up the street from me when we were kids in Jersey. One New Years Eve I got stuck babysitting my little sister while My parents went out to some party, I was either 13 or 14 so I had just been moved into the "practice stages" of drinking. We had somehow got our hands on a gallon of white zinfandel, and a liter of peppermint schnapps. I was excited to have this little secret mini party behind my parents back, and my sister was so young she wouldn't know what was going on anyway. It was one of my first real "parties," even though it was only 2 of us, it was still very exciting. I tucked my sister into her My Little Pony comforter, and waited for her to fall asleep, closed her door, and went back into the kitchen. I knew no one would be home for hours, and we had the whole night to do exactly what we wanted, and pass out before anyone got home and knew what was going on. My Mother would have killed me if she knew what we were doing, I was already fucking, smoking, and drinking at 12. I look at kids nowadays at that age and think to myself... no fucking way did we look or act that young. We may have looked it, but no fucking way were we acting our age at all.. I find that to be pretty amazing about the alcoholic, we grow up so fast, and as soon as we get older, we turn into 12 year olds.

We ordered a pizza... I remember singing Crazy Train in the kitchen, I remember watching Chris spin around while dancing, I remember drinking that entire gallon of wine by myself, as chris polished off his bottle of sugar piss. We were laughing and falling all over each other, while my Sister slept innocently in the next room. It was the best time ever! I had never had that much fun getting away with something before, and was excited it was going so smoothly.

All of the sudden Chris stopped dancing, and the yellow painted walls in the kitchen started spinning on him. He put his hand on the kitchen table and started slurring something to the effect of, "I don't feel so good." I didn't have a chance to get 2 words out of my mouth before he just started projectile vomiting pizza and peppermint schnapps all over the rust colored linoleum tiled floor. He wouldn't stop... it just kept pouring out of him like a fucking broken fire hydrant, except there were no little kids running down the street to splash in this shit.
I ran to the closet to get towels. I just kept hearing it hit the floor, it sounded like someone dropping a huge rock into a pool, over... and over.. and over. I called his older brother to come pick him up, as I started to panic figuring out how I was going to clean this mess up, and get away with it. It was around 11pm so I didn't have much time to figure this out... but even at 13 I was a pretty crafty dopefiend.
Chris' Brother finally came to pick him up and get him out of my house. I was completely offended that he couldn't handle his liquor, I had drank an entire gallon of wine and all 120 pounds of me was just fine. He completely ruined my New Years even more than it already was from having to babysit while everyone else was at some crazy party, and now to top it all off, I was going to be grounded for the rest of the winter. I helped drag his puke covered, slurring dead weighted body to the car, pushed him into the passenger seat, and ran back up the stairs. It smelled like candy cane and feta cheese soup in the entire apartment, it smelled like Smurfette's pussy after the entire village had gangraped her, then Pappa Smurf ending it all by jamming a giant tube of Provolone into her ass and sticking her in an oven. I had no idea how I was going to pull this off. I didn't even know how I was going to clean this shit up, let alone get that smell out of the apartment. I'm surprised I didn't puke myself after witnessing that whole thing.
I Grabbed a bunch of towels and whatever cleaning product I could get my hands on, and began working my way from one end of the kitchen floor to the other. I was so drunk I could barely see, and now I had to make sure every speck of that sticky, chunked up, vomitous mess was cleaned off of the table legs, the stove, the chairs, and most importantly... make sure the floor wasn't sticky. Schnapps is think, thick as fuck... almost impossible to get all the way up off of a linoleum tile grooved floor, but I did my best. I couldn't do anything about the smell though, it was so thick in the kitchen, that no matter what I tried, nothing was working. The later it got, the more I started to panic. I was so fucked man, my mother was gonna tell my stepdad to wack my ass with his belt, then they were going to take my cassette deck boombox away from me and not let me go out past the front porch for months.

Then all of the sudden it hit me...

This is where my life started to turn to the dark side a little I think. I walked into my Sisters room, woke her up, and convinced her that she was sick. I convinced her in her sleepy daze, that she had thrown up all over the kitchen after eating a bunch of candy canes off the tree... wait, it gets worse... then I put an extra blanket on her so when my Mother came home and felt her head, she would assume she had a fever and totally buy my story. It may sound kinda fucked up, but it TOTALLY worked..... I got away with it. My Mother walked in the house, while making a face saying "what the hell is that smell!!??" with my stepdad right behind her doing the same thing. I told them that Aimee threw up because she ate too many candy canes and they both ran into her room, turning the light on and picking her up. "Ricky feel her head! she's burning up!" My Mother worrily whispered to my stepdad as my sleeping, sweaty, little Sisters head bobbled off my Mothers arm. She woke up a little and my Mother asked her "Aimee did you get sick baby?" I stood there... heart pounding, sweat forming, mouth pasting up. My Sister barely opened her eyes and said "yes Mommy, I got sick." I'm pretty sure you could see the smoke of relief burning off the top of my head, as my heart rated slowed down to almost a complete stop.

The house smelled like minty vomit for a good few months, but I never got caught for it. I still don't think they know about it to this day actually... I guess I'm going to be getting a phone call or two in the next few days.....

Who's on first....

2011-10-09T21:35:00.000-07:00

realizations... sometimes they are fun and inspiring, sometimes they are just totally horrendous to the point where you just want to crawl under a rock and never come out. Embarrassing and unholy, they wind down your spirit, and it feels like there will never be any way to come back from it. Then there are the ones when you realize something positive about yourself, and it seems like a whole new world is beginning for you. The clouds part in your head, you have never taken a deeper breath, and you feel like the eight year old that finally got the GI Joe he wanted for christmas after never get it 3 years in a row. You have to be careful not to let those realizations go to your head, because they can be shattered quicker then they were found. Staying humble is key to having steady flowing spiritual experience like this, much easier said than done though.
The realizations I have are usually false ones. They are given to me by the broken part of my brain that tells me I am a no good piece of shit who doesn't deserve anything he has. So when someone talks shit about me behind my back and I hear about it, instead of sticking up for myself I automatically believe it, which sends me into the wicked funnel of hate. Hate for myself, hate for everyone I fear, hate for every girl I think is pretty, hate for every musician that has actually accomplished something. I turn myself into the jealous little Italian boyfriend that thinks every guy is trying to fuck his girlfriend. Starting fights for no reason, lashing out at people that have done nothing to deserve it... starting this vicious cycle of self torment and obnoxious behavior. Instead of taking a deep breath and two steps back, knowing deep down I am one amazing mother fucker, I go straight to the easy and bash the fuck out of myself until I actually believe what was said about me.
The lie that feeds my insecurity is like water on a plant, it hits it about once a day, and over time slowly grows into this festering vine of disgust over the actions I have taken to prove the lie correct. Climbing up the side of me until my entire body is covered in leaves of fear and I can barely leave the house. Interaction with other humans is impossible unless it's nothing more than an internet level, and my room becomes the rock I wanted to crawl under and never leave.

Today was my breath of fresh air, I finally felt something good inside me. I'm not the guy they say I am.

You....

2011-10-09T01:59:00.000-07:00

You are the king of the ant hill. The blackberry jelly you buy by mistake, it's ok I guess, and you eat it anyway, but it's never as good as grape. You are the tiny shell in a huge bowl of raw eggs. The hard centered root of the tomato on what would have otherwise been a perfect sandwich. You are the crust on an infected nipple ring. The ingrown nail on a big toe. You are the tag that won't stay inside a t-shirt. The cop that follows you for miles really close, and never turns on his lights. You are the scuff mark on a day old pair of chucks. You are the tiny patch of hair that you missed while shaving, not realizing it till you look in the rear view mirror in your car, miles away from home. The buzz on a bass string that just won't go away. The piece of dead skin on your palm while you are trying to masturbate...

Baseball... who really has the time anyway?

2011-10-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

I used to look at all the zits on my face in the mirror, popping white heads, scorching my face with hot towels, just trying to be pretty. All I ever wanted to be was cool and pretty. I hated my face, and I couldn't be cool, so I just acted like a dick. That seemed to work for a while, and then I suddenly became kinda cool. I don't know how it happened, it just did... but then it stopped again, so now I'm just back to being a dick because I'm afraid I can never be cool again. The zits have been gone for years, but they might as well still be there, because I feel exactly the same. Only now it's a double chin and wrinkles on my forehead. Never easy, never satisfied.
My once semi-ripped torso has now morphed itself into somewhat of a Harvey Keitel body from the Bad Lieutenant, you know, the part in the movie where he is smoking crack and shooting heroin in the kitchen with his shirt off? Yeah... that's what I've turned into. Sitting around the house in Iowa for an undisclosed amount of time will do that to someone... anyone. Sitting is the big thing around here. We sit on couches, in cars, at restaurants, and on porches. While smoking the entire time. Smoking and frying things, that's a big one as well. We fry shit almost as much as Scottland does, I found that out the hard way on my way to Edinburgh castle. The line of restaurants on the cobblestone walkway leading up to the castle offer you nothing but deep fried, deep fried. By the time I made it to Braveheart central, the only thing I could do was ask someone where the bathroom was, with a face and stance that looked like I had just been stabbed in the stomach. Kicking open the bathroom door, knocking over children to get to a stall, finally exploding the deep fried half chicken I had just consumed not even a block away. The noises that were coming out of me were so embarrassing, that I ran straight out of castle with my head down.
It's not like I couldn't unseal my brain and actually use the treadmill and the weight set in the basement. I'll tell you what though... every fucking night when my head hits the pillow, that's the first thing I'm going to do when I wake up in the morning. 50 push ups, chug some orange juice, and go into the basement to hit the weights and jog on the treadmill at the same time. Maybe even take a nice walk outside in the fresh air. Unfortunately, not 3 minutes after I wake up I'm already sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I somehow manage to pull at least 30 push ups out of my ass at some point in the day, but that's about the extent of my massive morning work out. By the end of the day, when I climb the stairs to the bedroom... I have to sit on the end of the bed because I am completely winded. I do however, find the energy to jerk off at least 4 times before I actually go to sleep.
I need a serious flame under my ass, maybe guided by a therapist... It amazes me that I have actually grown in leaps and bounds in the past few years. Especially after reading this back. I used to be an actually pile of shit... not I'm just a caricature of my old self, kinda fucking awesome.

He who refuses to burn... gets burned.

2011-10-07T00:02:00.000-07:00

I am a grain of sand standing on this emotional rock, staring into a universe that holds my destiny. I see nothing in front of me but what is in my hands, it is neither faith, nor fear. Blank pieces of paper with the imprint of something that looks like it could be a map land at my feet. If I shade it lightly enough will I be able to follow the road and find the hidden treasure that I keep hearing about? Or will I press down to hard, blackening the creases in the paper until they disappear, and I am once again left to stare cluelessly into the stars of my Great Grandmothers eyes asking for her guidance.
I was told to follow the light, and that if the flame gets to hot, to remove my hand. My faithless mind tells me that the flame is the light, and there is no fucking way I am walking through that fire... Pressing down on the hot coals of my past will surely leave scars that will never heal. As the sweat from my brow singes into my skin, I am left with a mind of potential, nothing but boiled up ideas for other people to make their own, and conquer the world... Will there be a collage of pictures streaming into each other on a movie screen on a stage, where people cry and tell happy stories about my short meaningless existence? Ending up a worn out picture on my Mother's refrigerator with some shitty yellow ribbon attached to it?

It would be stupid of me to think that fear not lay in an empty hand, I would be dead by my own hand if that were truly the case. With fear laying heavy, yet invisible to my unconsciously awake thoughts, I tremble down an unknown path. The engraved pages blowing erratically behind me, as the winds of change place them gently into the fire, vanishing for what may be an eternity... . I walked around the fire as to not get hurt, but hurt myself just as much by not putting it out as I passed.

Blood, Sweat, and Fears...

2011-09-29T22:47:00.001-07:00

Rikki was one of those chicks I had been jerking off to for years. I would have attempted to fuck her at some point but she was always fucking one of my friends, and always seemed very disinterested in me anyway, like I wasn’t man enough for her. Deep down inside I knew I wasn’t man enough to handle that anyway, I wasn’t ready for what she was throwing down yet… yet.
I knew she was a dirty ass fuck from all the stories I would hear, stories about her loving to be punched in the face and choked out and shit, real fist in the ass kind of stuff. I’ve always been attracted to the dark side of sex, and the fact that she loved to fuck scumbags turned me on even more. A good friend of mine told me that he had locked her in his closet for three days once with nothing but a rice hat to wear, he told me this while she was actually locked in his closet, when I ran into him at the strip club he was a DJ at. It was at that moment that I knew I wanted to fuck her.
I saw her a few times a week, we were both sober and hung out in the same circle of people. Monday night was the big meeting in West Hollywood, the meeting was annoying me so I went outside to smoke, I walked out the big brown doors of this log cabin type building to find her standing there just as annoyed. There she was at the bottom of the steps, almost like she knew I was coming out to talk to her.
She had on a tight brown backless shirt that gently hugged her huge fake tits, tied up in a bow around the tattoo on the back of her neck. Her ass was bouncing in this really cute Stevie Nicks type dress with some corked, platform fuck me heels. Her freshly manicured toes were poking out the ends just enough to make my foot fetished dick move a little in my dickies. Her long, shiny, black, hair feathered over big gold hoops in her ears. Her sleeved arms shadowed the sidewalk under the streetlights of Melrose as she shot me a look I had never gotten from her before. I’ve gotten that look many times… just not from her.
I didn’t really think too much about why I was getting the look from her, apparently my hair was greased back just right that night or some shit, who the fuck cared really. All I knew was that I had to seize this moment right away, or there was a good chance it would never happen again. When you are getting that look, the only thing that matters is not to fuck it up, which isn’t hard to do if you’re a guy like me. There is no chance of knowing if you have seconds, minutes, or hours to seal that deal, and unfortunately it’s the luck of the draw with what you choose to do… or not do, to get that girl naked and crying in your bed.
Looking back on it now, it really didn’t matter anyway. She had already made the decision that I was hers, could have been a month before she decided to make it known for all I know, all I knew was… it was happening. The only thing that would have changed it now was if I went back inside the meeting and started blowing a dude… actually now that I think about it, that wouldn’t have made a difference either. I was finally going to get to punch this crazy bitch in the face while I impaled her with my cock.
We got real close, but barely touched each other, nothing but real heavy flirting. She was circling me like a lioness closing in on a wounded doe. We exchanged numbers and left it at that for the night, something I rarely do these days. After a few days of texting back and forth, I was finally able to find a hole in her busy schedule. I remember the excitement I felt when she said she was on her way over, I was like a junky waiting for a bag of dope. I set it up so she could just walk through the door and come into my bedroom, strip down, and climb under the covers with me. As I lay there naked and rock hard, I could feel my heart beating in every area of my body, from my fingers to my toes. My mouth was dry even though I kept drinking water, my lungs felt short of breath, my head felt like I was on extacy as my face flushed red with excitement. The fear of cumming as soon as she walked through the door started running through my head… should I jerk off now? She’s on her fucking way! What if I cant get it up when she gets here??! I was a complete wreck, and had to keep my fucking cool… this girl was used to playing with the big boys and I was finally getting my shot. Even though I had slept with hundreds of girls by this time, I was entering a whole new level of darkness. My entire world was about to change. My dick was so hard and sensitive that the blanket might as well have been an untouched 18 year old pussy. Then, I heard her walk past my window towards the front door… I literally raised my hands in excitement as I lay under the glowing red light in my basement room. The door closes gently in the kitchen, as I hear those corked fuck me pumps slowly making there way over every white tile on that kitchen floor. Was it really taking twenty minutes for her to get from the front door to my room? No… but it sure as fuck felt like it. My bedroom door was open just a crack, as her fingers wrapped around the door and slowly pushed it open, the breeze coming from the kitchen window carried whatever scent she was wearing right into my face. I snorted her like sweet, pure, cocaine and smiled as she dropped her bag and denim jacket onto the floor. The moment had finally arrived. She slowly climbed into bed pulling back my comforter, exposing my entire naked body, immediately wrapping her tongue around the shaft of my cock. I sat up letting out a deep sigh as I pushed the back of her head onto me, forcing her all the way down till I felt it pierce the back of her throat. She gagged a little, and I felt her spit drip down past my balls into my ass, which she quickly licked up. I ripped her mouth from my cock, kissing her softly but grabbing the back of her hair until she squealed. I threw her onto her back and ripped off her jeans and her panties in one fail swoop. My mouth was watering as I grabbed a leg with each hang, and started running my tongue from her fake ass titties, down to her tight little babyshitter. I couldn’t believe how tight she was after banging all those gnarley dudes, I also couldn’t believe I had my mouth down on her like I did after she fucked so many of my gross ass friends. But it was hot and in the moment… I didn’t give a fuck. I broke free of anything I had ever held back from before and just let shit happen, and before I knew it she had tears running down her face as she just started cumming over, and over again.
After numerous orgasms and her mascara completely run off her face onto my sheets, I slowly entered her tight, soaking wet pussy. I could have sworn I felt blood trickling down my back from her nails, but I didn’t care. I just kept pushing harder and deeper. She cried more, and started shaking uncontrollably. I pulled out after a short time and shot my load all over her stomach, chest, and face. I sat back wiping the sweat from my face, feeling her juices from my hand coat over my lips. As I lay there licking my lips and trying to catch my breath, I could feel the bed vibrating from her legs… the fear of not being man enough was definitely gone.
No sooner did I crack my knuckles and light a cigarette, and she was gone. I flipped the soaking wet comforter over, turned on the tv, and fell asleep on a soaking wet pillow.

De plane boss... De plane...

2011-09-27T17:38:00.000-07:00

I have always been bored with the business of it all. I would always rather be the one who deals with all the pleasures of life.
Deeming myself the “George Hamilton of punk rock,” and living a hammering lifestyle has put me on a less than permanent couch tour for most of my life. Scraps of togetherness have been forced onto me by my occasional will to succeed, but for the most part I have lived off the generosity of my friends and family my entire existence. The days rage with handouts as I grift from womb to womb.
Most would call this a lonely soulless way to live, and to be completely honest, when I am actually awake and totally aware of my surroundings, it sucks so bad that I would rather eat a razor blade sandwich on Chlamydia bread washed down with a razor blade milkshake, then have to sleep on one more of my friends couches, or ask for a ride to wherever I don’t even really need to be anyway.
When I actually take a step back and look at the “stuff part” of my life, the materialistic section of it all, it makes it real easy to get depressed… but not enough to actually do something about it. I don’t have a license… take the bus. I don’t have an apartment because I’m “on the road a lot…” so I crash at friends houses and apartments. I have always been either a great starter but never ever finished anything really, either that or I just completely half ass a whole thing… complaining the entire time about nothing.
I could be on a leer jet with the Rolling Stones, getting my dick sucked by an 18 year old virgin, all while shooting non addictive speedballs with Keith Richards, as he shows me how to play “Moonlight mile” on his acoustic guitar that he is going to give me when he’s done… I would still find something to complain about, and by the way I only said 18 because it’s illegal to bang 16 year olds, but it would probably be more entertaining to show a 16 year old supermodel how to… fuck, I’m just gonna stop right there with that one before I start getting all Polanski.
“Oooh Jason… you’re soooo honest in your writing… we love you.”
Go fuck yourself, this is the only thing that keeps me alive 80 percent of the time. I don’t write for you, I don’t write for anyone but myself. That’s why it’s so God damn repetitive.
Ok…. so I may not be on a private jet with the Rolling Stones, but…. I am on a huge 747 with Slipknot and Stone Sour, on our way back from Brazil, one band for which I played bass for 2 nights ago and rocked the fuck out of over 100,000 people. There isn’t an 18 year old girl blowing me, but let’s just say the girls like to travel in pairs down there, and just sit in your hotel lobby. The absolute true meaning of “shooting fish in a barrel….” and I’m sitting here complaining… see? I wasn’t fucking lying.
I could take a million dollar scratch off ticket to Vegas and turn it into a coke dusted Ziploc bag and a sticky shot-glass covered in fruit-flies while driving Biz Markie’s Ferrari right into the back of a cop car with a family of four strapped to the hood. I actually won the $100 roll at the cee~lo game backstage before Slipknot went on last night, so with the 4 people with balls big enough to drop a bill on one or two dice rolls… I got my room service bill for the weekend handled.
Nothing fills the hole completely… Nothing. It’s just a temporary fix, but then again everything is a temporary fix. Nothing is forever.

If I got my head out my ass far enough to live comfortably, I think I might have a shot at being kind of happy. Definitely happier than I am or have been ever in my life. It’s like…. almost there.
I was on stage a few months ago in front of 60,000 people, feeling like a complete fraud. I wanted to blow my head off the entire time… so much for a dream come true fixing you right? So I come back to Los Angeles and start going to the place that I can get my “medicine” talking about my stupid whiney feelings and what not, and low and behold… playing in front of 100,000 a few months later and not wanting to blow my head off, at least not till the show was over. I totally enjoyed the show though, and didn’t feel like a total piece of shit till like 5 minutes after I got off stage…. Progress.
I’m flying over Venezuela as we speak (I type). I have a few hundred dollars in my pocket, and a few more in the bank. I just watched Arthur and cried like a little baby when Hobson died so I know there is a feeling in there somewhere… but none of it is enough. I will sit here thinking about how my back hurts and my neck is killing me, how I will never be an Arthur and fall in love with a Naomi, and how there is 3 hours and 45 minutes left of this 10.5 hour flight from a weekend people only dream of. The type of shit I used to watch on television when I was a kid, the type of shit I still watch on television today. Barstool dreaming becoming a reality isn’t enough for this little manboy. I need something bigger. I’ve had something bigger. I just refuse to accept that this Great Spirit actually exists most of the time, and that I am the same as all the rest of the whiney AA faggots. I tell everyone I am the same, but deep down I know I am different… and unfortunately, that will eventually kill me. It will kill me while I’m not even paying attention… because I’m rarely ever paying attention.
The Great Spirit is in the adrenaline… not the “jump out of a plane” adrenaline, the kind of adrenaline that gets you killed. Like stealing some shit from a store kind of adrenaline, fucking your friends wife kind of adrenaline, the kind of adrenaline that makes you feel so shitty… you don’t even want to be alive. Once you get to the other side of this behavior is when you can start enjoying the Great Spirit.

For guys like me…
The Great Spirit is the stink on a stripper pole, It’s finding a vein and hitting it on the first try, it’s an all access backstage pass… My Great Spirit has been a mirage for years.

GRATITUDE.

2011-09-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

Be grateful for what you have... because it's all you have.

I am grateful to not be dopesick.
I am Grateful for my friends who carry me when I can't walk myself.
I am grateful for this coffee I am drinking.
I am grateful my dick got hard this morning so I could escape reality for a few minutes.
I am grateful for the smoking hot young woman that lets me kiss her naked.
I am grateful for old Beastie Boys and Otis Redding.
I am grateful that when I walk anywhere in this town, I run into someone I know that kinda likes me.
I am grateful for my beautiful nephew who just started kindergarten.
I am grateful that my Mom still lets me kick heroin on her couch when I need to.
I am grateful for my Sister who will do anything for me, anytime, anywhere.
I am grateful that at 40 years of age, I can still walk on my hands longer and faster than any kid I know...
I am grateful that rock stars want to play with me.
I am grateful that they don't want to play with C**** F*****.

The dark red

2011-09-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

The transparent orgy of fear and judgement enters my soul, I can feel it when I sleep staining me like a white sneaker on a freshly mowed lawn. The lines in my face drawn by the mascara pens of heavily clowned strippers that go bump in the night. This is not me... this is the me that sleeps.

When my eyes are drawn to the light, I step to the edge of my window. This is where I see the children playing wiffle-ball in the street, chasing ice cream trucks while mothers dish pan their hands humming to the tune of Jackson Brown. I see my grandmothers shape in the clouds of a piercing blue sky watching over me, whispering hail mary's on her rosary until she falls asleep. The birds whistle Frank Sinatra like my Grandfather, occasionally interrupted by a blood filled ball of flem that would rip out the car window, eventually turning his loving hair-greased body into a rotting cancer corpse. I'm the kid in the candy store with a 20 dollar bill.

The transparents fear the light for they know it will turn them to dust, not a permanent fear. The dust never really disappears, it sticks to you, it hides in every crack in the floor and walls. Patiently waiting for you to sleep again.

Writing about writing....

2011-09-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

Writing everyday is very difficult. Training yourself to actually sit at the computer and not watch porn, or gaze at some fantasy facebook life you have created for yourself is a lot harder than it looks. Especially writing every day. If you write like I do, it's just about what is in your head at that very moment. But if the moment hasn't changed in days, weeks, or even months. That story gets old for people who read your shit, and you can only imagine how tired I am of writing that I feel like a total loser. I'm not tired of feeling like that, that is a very comfortable place for me. I'm just tired of writing about it.
Let me tell you that there is no bigger fail in the world than having one of your childhood dreams come true, and not be able to enjoy it because your head won't shut up. The last show I played was in front of about 55,000 people I believe. I faked it, and put on a real good show.
But as I was standing there... banging my head, making cool rock faces, and hoping everyone would love and accept me because I was such an amazing musician with a cool rock vest and wallet chain. I knew I was a total fraud and I wanted to blow my head off.
The nerve of me to have even one ounce of doubt in myself. Coming so far in my life, where most people would have just given up their dream or passion years ago to pursue a career in sheep-ism. I stuck it out... not for any other reason than I just can't (or won't) do much else. I'm a very smart and talented person, it's just my "skills of application" are seriously lacking. I'm actually almost convinced I don't have any. I see people hustling in this town all the time to get what they need to survive, and with the amount of people I know, surely I could be one of these "hustlers." I just don't have it in me... Even though I feel like a total fraud, the fact is I'm not. My head wakes up at least 30 minutes before I do to tell me what a piece of shit I am and that getting out of bed is pointless. Most of the time I tell it to shut the fuck up and go about my day, but sometimes it seeps in, rings true, and gets me... BAM! Like when I am on stage, or kissing a beautiful girl, or telling a story in front of a group of people. It takes everything in my person to push through those moments and come out the other side, when it's happening it feels like it's never going to end. Everyone is just staring at you thinking "what a fucking douchebag," the girl is thinking "he is the worst kisser ever!!" and you are the worst storyteller known to man...
The fact that I get to do what I do now is total right place at the right time shit. My best friend needed a bass player, i'm a bass player, and a pretty fucking decent one at that. This is also a very temporary situation, I am blessed to even have been able to do it once, but I get to do it a bunch of times. I just need to do what I have to do to shut my fucking head up so I can at least enjoy one of these moments before it goes away forever, and I am back on the side of the stage asking that talentless hack of a hipster where he wants me to put his bass cabinet.
I should just go back to school and move in with the sheep... at least they have their own barn to sleep in.

Sunday Sunday part 1....

2011-08-18T17:16:00.000-07:00

The smell of the bean bag ash tray my Grandmother used to keep on the dashboard of her light green 71 Chevy Nova just passed through my smell bank. Lipstick ended butts of the Marlboro 100 variety overstuffed the tin topped hacky sack.

We drove to church in that car every sunday, picking up all the other old whining widows on the block. By the time we got to the stop light at the end of our street, the car would be full of cankles covered with thick brown panty hose, stuffed into what I know now to be orthopedic nursing shoes. Back then they just looked like weird clogs that the hipsters all wear nowadays. My Grandmother put a plant in one, she kept it on the top of her television. The aqua net hunger force was so heavy that I can't believe the car didn't explode every time my Grandmother lit up a cigarette. Even with the windows rolled all the way down, no ones hair moved a fucking centimeter out of place, except the hair above their lips of course.

The church was in a nicer part of the ghetto in Passaic NJ. A predominantly black area, but the church was mixed pretty much evenly with big greasy buckets of fried chicken, and bread so white you could sog it in milk and make meatballs. With a chainsmoking, perverted priest spouting out lies from the book I played tic tac toe in, while pouring cheap wine and shitty crackers down everyone's throats. I would sit with a girl I would kind of want to fuck a few years later, even though she had developed a mustache like my Grandmothers friends.

Aunt Mary sounded just like Patsy Cline, the man at her karaoke bar used to tell her that. I never knew the words to any of those fucking church songs, I just couldn't wait for cake and milk after the sermon in the big room. I would play hide and seek with the mustache girl, laying low under the marine layer of smoke that filled the room. All the old pigeons pecked away at whoever wasn't there that week. While the men in maze colored turtle necks with big sideburns pervily stared at the young daughters in their sunday best, hoping to get a quick peek of the 9 year olds bloomers, and have a quick wank in the car before the afternoon football events commenced... all n all they were pretty good sundays, I got to dress up in corduroy and hush puppies, junk out on cake, and learn how to kiss girls. All while getting to chug a glass of wine at the ripe old age of eight. I loved the smell of the red juice that came out of that gold lamp looking thing. The chainsmoking perv would tilt my head back and pour it into my mouth, the whole time wishing it was his balls.

D.

2011-07-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

The morning sun made the clowns disappear, as the footprints of the invisible children were covered by snow. Clouds casted the shadows of arms finally long enough to reach me, as I stood in the middle of the road breathing in the cold air. I stared into the sky waiting for it to happen, but it never did. I waited for the clock to stop ticking, but grew less concerned with each breath. The room turned red which made it feel smaller, warmer, less petrifying. My chest opened up leaving everything inside ready to be loved or hated. It didn't matter anymore.

Staring fear in the face I smashed the mirror, it was time to let everything I thought I knew fall to the floor disguised as shards of reflected glass. I was free, I had opened a door that had been locked my whole life. I finally heard the music... and it was beautiful.

The Fighter pt. 2 (King of the hill)

2011-07-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

A few years had passed and I was now in jr. high school, an enormously red bricked fortress that was gated by black bars and silver fence. In some ways jr. high was really like a prison to me. When entering jr. high school, nobody really prepares you for the level of social skills required for that type of scene. The girls all wear make up, the guys all play football, and there's about 300 more bodies than you are normally used to. Most of the teachers are jaded and uncaring, and it seemed like nobody in the entire school had a Twisted Sister album. I never had any problems after Todd, I wasn't a very confrontational kid, I just wanted to hang out and have fun, but I now felt very alone, and for some reason, felt like I had to look over my shoulder most of the time.

I somehow ended up in a screaming match about mothers with Nick miller in the middle of the entire 7th grade class and was challenged to a duel after school. There was a football rally at the end of the day, and I was to meet Nick behind the gym right after to defend my dear mothers name.

Completely uninterested with the end of the days events, I sat in the bleachers of the gym, watching cheerleaders I would never fuck, cheer on the jocks I would never be like. I felt no fear as the cold hard stare of the 6' 3 inched black man sat across the gym pounding his fist into an open hand.... There was no installation of fear for that category because it had never happened to me before. So I sat there waiting, I was going to show this dude what happens when you talk about my mother, and besides... the whole fucking school was talking about it by now so I had to do it.

The rally was now over, and my heart beat with excitement to show the entire school that the little guy was NOT to be fucked with. Back then racial tension was still kind of high in school, and it literally looked like a race war was about to happen. All Nick's black friends were waiting for me and all my white friends who completely outnumbered them. The entire fucking high school was out back, in a circle, waiting to watch the cock fight.... I was never a racist, and didn't really have any close friends in that school. So when this kid John that was walking next to me whispered in my ear "make him say his mother's white," my skin crawled. I just kind of looked at him and with my desperate need to be accepted and smirked. This was really about to happen... My first fight as a young man.

I walked right up to Nick and told him to hit me, which he did... right in the center of my fucking face. I fell to the ground and smashed my head on the hot black asphalt. My eyes immediately filled with water and the taste of blood filled my mouth. I felt a pair of knees hit my shoulders, just like I had done to Todd. I was completely stunned from the two hits I had taken. Nick hitting my face, and me hitting the floor. Finally someone pulled him off of me, I opened one eye slowly, only to see all the cheerleaders standing there with their hands over their mouths, some giggling, some crying. I had just gotten the living shit kicked out of me in front of about 400 people, thankfully I was way to lumped up to feel any sort of shame or embarrassment. I lifted my head up off the ground and felt something gooey, warm, and moist hit me. Nick had finished me off with a huge gob of snot... that landed right in my left eye. Through the pasty boogers that were running down the side of my face I could see my friend Cindy, she looked worried. I remember yelling "who the fuck spit on me!" Nick replied, "I did mother fucker!" and all I could do was say "oh ok... as long as it was you that's cool," as I laid my head back down onto the hot tar, hoping everyone would just disappear. I wasn't mentally prepared for this sort of thing, It was the first time I realized that my mind could play tricks on me...

Someone helped me up, and I remember walking home feeling like the Elephant man. My eyes were so puffed up I could barely see where I was going, and I kept chewing on the skin hanging off the inside of my lip, that was broken by my teeth. My Mother freaked out when I walked in the house, and my Stepdad was just pissed that I let him hit me first, and basically told me I got what I deserved. So from that moment on.... I never let anybody hit me first.

I learned a valuable lesson that day... Never underestimate anyone, especially if they are a foot taller than you and black.

The fighter pt 1.

2011-07-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

When you beat the fuck out of someone in your first fight ever, no matter how old you are. You think that it's going to be like that every time... This is what happens when it's not.

When I was 11 years old I had a "Three O' Clock High" moment with Todd, the bully of the neighborhood... He had called me out at a wiffleball game in front of his house. Everyone was there and I was completely petrified of him, but I had to agree to fight him otherwise it would have gotten really ugly. You can't be called a pussy ever, it just sucks... but when you are ten years old and all of your friends are standing around it could be life changing.

We agreed to meet at the senior citizen section of the projects we all lived in. Unfortunately it was right by where my Nani lived, and it was sunday so my entire family was in her tiny apartment for dinner... Most Italians get together on Sunday for a big pasta thing. They drink wine and pretend no one is getting physically or mentally abused by the men in the family every other day of the week.

I was petrified but I just couldn't show it, my neighborhood was kind of like A Bronx Tale in that way, you didn't show fear or talk about your feelings... and if you got caught jerking off you denied it. Nobody jerked off.... ever.

So an hour after the wiffleball game I was supposed to meet with Todd and he was going to punch a new hole in my face, leaving me with a permanent scar for the rest of my life. I got my neighbor and friend Ronnie and one other buddy to just hang out with me in case Todd and his friends jumped me, but Todd was like 200 pounds at eleven years old and I was about 45 pounds so I couldn't really see a need for that. It was finally time, I stood there trying not to let them see me shake as Todd walked around the corner with that reddish blonde crewcut and stained white t-shirt. He has two friends with him as well, and I could only hope that Ronnie and the other guy could handle them while Todd was on sitting on my chest pounding the back of my head into the sidewalk. Todd approached me talking a bunch of smack about me with this shit eating yellow toothed grin, waving his hands like a baboon. I balled up my fist and socked him right in the face. I had no idea where it came from or how I did it, but he fell to the ground holding his face. The adrenaline was so powerful that it made me roll him off his side onto his back, and while rolling my knees onto his shoulders so he couldn't move, I started initiating control of the situation with a Generals authority.

Todd started crying and trying to block his face, but my hands were to quick and small and just kept sliding inbetween them, smacking his nose and forehead... blood was flying everywhere and I was loving it. I hadn't even seen the movie Bad Boys yet. I was so young I didn't really know any better, but I was having so much fun that if my Uncle Vince hadn't ran out of Nani's house from all the screaming and pulled me off of him, I wouldn't have stopped till he was dead. The smile on my Uncles face was pretty funny though, it's a lot different walking into a house full of Italian women after you lose a fight. They all get hot towels and ice cubes, flailing their hands in the air and moaning a lot, as for when you win a fight they all kiss you and call you a tough guy.... then tell you it's wrong to hit people whilst scrunching your cheeks with their garlic stenched fingertips, always leaving a small piece of parsley or some shit stuck to your cheek when they are done.

I didn't become King of the hill or the town bully, everyone just kinda knew not to fuck with the small kid. I didn't let it go to my head, but I never forgot that feeling it gave me... it's always better to have total control rather than feel like a total pussy.

Ride with me...

2011-07-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

It was a 2 hour drive from Jersey to Woodstock, up the New York State Thruway. We took this ride just about every weekend my entire life, up until I was old enough to stay back in Jersey while my parents went away and destroy the back yard with a 2 day long keg party.

The drive was much more fun when the weather was nice, half way through the drive, you could literally smell the air get cleaner. In the fall the leaves would change colors making it look like you were driving in a rainbow, and along with the crisp clean air flattening my face as I hung my head out the window, it might as well have been heroin for kids. Everything was ok when my head hung out that window. I would raise my hand into the gusting wind, pretending it was superman racing to save the world.

Sometimes when my mother was feeling a little adventurous, she would let me ride in the back of Dad's pick up truck. I would have to lay down the entire time so the cops wouldn't see. It was the coolest thing ever! Dad would lay down a bunch of moving blankets and I would lay there bumping around, hoping the vortex wouldn't suck me up and pull me under the truck while I made out the shapes of the clouds..... The tops of the trees whizzed by, as Dad's cigarette ashes occasionally scattered into the wind, burning my eyes and salting my tongue. When we got to the toll booth I would have to hide under the blanket so the attendant wouldn't see me, then when it finally got dark I would be able to sit up against the back window. When I was very young, and even to this day, whenever I am in a car and a nice breeze is blowing all over me, I can't help but feel like being in the scene of a movie. It's never a pleasant movie and we are always being chased or pretending we are leaving the scene of some brutal murder, but there is something about the wind, the scenery flying by, the right song on the radio... Makes me feel like i'm in "To live and die in LA" or some shit.

That was the first thing I thought when I first got to Los Angeles.... The palm trees all rowed up nicely along the freeway, tiny little lit up mansions scattered all over the Hollywood hills in the far background, the smell of excitement and adventure mashed up with a little urine and smog. I can remember Wang Chung banging through my skull as sweat misted my face. I lit a cigarette, took a very dramatic drag, and blew it out my nose as I rested my elbow on the rolled down window, resting my thumb on the side of my head as I gazed out into the new chapter.... I felt like Willem Dafoe being chased by Grissom down the 101.

Eyes of a stranger.....

2011-07-27T16:46:00.001-07:00

I stare at the back of my eyelids until the rainbow trails turn into shadowy steps that lead into the end of my skull. Disappearing into a Q-bert like universe. I open them fast, like I had been startled by someone sneaking up behind me, firmly placing my palms on the sink counter of the bathroom, while my chin rests into my chest. Without blinking I stare at myself in the mirror until my face begins to demonize itself. If I blink my face changes back to normal, but if I don't move a muscle, don't close my eyes, not once... I start to age. My ears start to form points at the ends as my nose slowly melts into the back of my cheeks. I start to hum, vibrating my vocal chords to make a slow stuttering sound that rattles my brain into a state of confusion and paranoia. I see shadows behind me, I can also feel them hovering above me. Lost souls wandering around the house only to be seen in my altered state. My spirit is now at purgatory's door, and my mind is in a feared dimension. I speak their language but I don't understand what they say, and I have no clue what they want. I just know they never leave my side, and they never stop talking to me.

Frightened that one last time I will never come back to reality I blink, and everything changes back to normal. I immediately snap out of paranoia, the demons have disappeared once again. I fill my cupped hands with cold water from the faucet, and gently spread it across my face, keeping my eyes open to wash out the evil. In a few seconds I won't be scared anymore, but I know that they are still hovering, I just can't hear or see them anymore. I open the bathroom door hoping nothing from this terrifying experience has escaped into my reality, if they do then I will surely understand what they are saying to me now... and I will be forced to listen.

Thoughts...

2011-07-25T21:42:00.001-07:00

You can continue to do the same shit, as long as you don't expect anything to change. Don't bark about your life sucking if you never take the actions to change it.

If you do take the action and it doesn't help, then you should just kill yourself. I don't have time to listen to the hitler mustache tattooed on your finger. Maybe take a picture of it under your nose one more time as you are bringing the gun to your fucking head, post that one last picture before you finally do us all a favor and hit the big "purgatory chat room" in the sky.

I don't even cry when people die anymore, I've become so numb to it... used to it. When you've been getting that phone call once a month for about 20 years now, you kinda just learn how to adjust.

My right kidney has been spazzing out for the past few days, I don't think I'm getting enough water.

I saw a cheerleader in best buy and she was so cute I wanted to dropkick her in the back right into the comedy section of the blue rays. I don't want to talk to girls anymore, I just want to kick them really hard when they aren't looking, and run away.

I am getting to the point where I need glasses, I wake up in the morning and it takes a few minutes for shit to get adjusted, there's more sleepy shit than there used to be, and my back always hurts when I get out of bed. Then I go to the sink to brush my teeth, coughing up some grandpa smokers shit that wasn't there last year... but now it's just something that happens every morning now. I'm well on my way to an electronic voicebox. I'll just smoke through the fucking hole in my throat, make a commercial about it, and die in the back bedroom at my Grandmothers house.

Why is it so fucking hard to just be nice...... fuck me for thinking out loud constantly.

The only reason I ever talked to you is because I thought you were easy. I wasn't going to proudly walk you around town on my arm or something, so fuck you for not fucking me... She tells all her friends I tried to fuck her, it was just a weak moment late one night. I knew it was gross when it was happening but I couldn't stop myself, now it's out there for everyone to laugh at. It's ok... I laugh too.

I want to ride a motorcycle just so I can talk about it with real men, maybe watch a football game and yell at a player on the tv by name instead of not having a clue what is going on, feeling like someones stupid blonde girlfriend that's just there so his friends can say "dude she's so fucking hot" when she goes to the bathroom. Then she eventually breaks up with him and fucks one or two of his friends... then there's no more football parties at the house anymore. So I guess it's pointless to watch football. Fucking whores ruin everything.

I don't really enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches, but I eat them anyway... a lot.

I will knowingly leave my phone at the house, but still think it's vibrating in my pocket... knowing it's not in my pocket, I will check anyway. Now I need to get home because someones calling me and I might miss something. I been thinking I would miss something if I left early my whole life, by doing that I missed everything.

Some days I'm going bald, then some days I wake up and I'm not.. it's weird.

I don't understand how people know stuff... I never remember anything.

I don't really watch television anymore... but it's always on, and I'm always staring into it.

The Dark Side of the Moon....

2011-07-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not who I think I am. Everything is going to be alright. Stay in the moment and enjoy what is happening right this second. I am not a piece of shit. I do have a reason to get out of bed. People love and care about me.

This is the insanely corny shit I have to tell myself on an hourly basis, as to not destroy my life. I try time and time again to find that loophole, hoping i'm actually not this run of the mill alcoholic that everybody keeps saying I am. I want to be different, not different like "just have wine with dinner" different. I absolutely know with every hair on my asshole that I would have a better chance of surviving a month of unprotected sex in Brazil, than I ever would of ingesting any type of mood altering substance ever again. The only time it completely sucks is when I'm in a situation like I am right now... On the couch, watching "Which ones Pink" on Vh1 Classics, in Des Moines Ia. No better situation to be stoned in. Just smoke a joint, eat some ice cream, and wish I was getting a blow job.

I want a new brain. I want a brain that shows me how talented I am, I want a brain that automatically tells me to do 50 push ups as soon as I wake up in the morning and have a glass of orange juice. Instead I have a brain that totally thinks about doing that the night before, but then as soon as I wake up makes me have a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I haven't been to a meeting in months, and my brain is as dry as a rock in the woods. This is the loophole I speak of. I think that just because I haven't touched drugs or alcohol in a few years, that I don't need to do what I'm supposed to do and everything will be fine. Once again I am reminded that it wasn't the booze and heroin that was my problem, that was all the solution. The only solution to this problem is the same fucking thing that has worked for a million other dickfucks just like me... helping people. All my old ideas are coming back strong, and sound pretty genius. I will start acting out slowly, maybe just a little to much jerking off at first, then the isolation kicks in, because who the fuck wants to hang out with my miserable ass anyway right? Then I just stop hanging out all together so that when I actually do drink, everyone expected it to happen anyway and it's not that big a surprise.

The first shot of whiskey is always the deceiver. As my tongue smacks the cool burn on my lips, the fire flows down slowly into my stomach. Giving me the deepest breath in I have taken in years, followed by an exhale of complete relief as my hands rest gently on the edge of the sticky wood that corners the entire bar. I stare into the empty shotglass realizing what I had done, and all the time I had just lost. But the warmth of the burn is so overpowering that I must order just one more, before my search for cocaine begins. Before I know it I am laughing and carrying on with all the people I couldn't stand for years, like I had never left. I wake up on a dirty couch with the light scent of cat urine floating in the air, and a girl with a shitty Hollywood mohawk and red bumps around her vagina. I am still drunk from the night before so the shame doesn't fully set in like it should. Once I realize that I have no place to go, because now I'm "loaded" and can't hang out with nay of my sober friends without it turning into some bummer of a lecture or a trip to another rehab, then the shame starts to kick my ass, and no amount of booze in the world can cover that up. It is kinda fun to try for a while though.

I finally come back to the place where we don't drink and am greeted with judgmental hugs and pats on the back by people who are stoked to now have more time than me, as the real friends look at me and say "how was it?" Fuck you.... that's how it was.

The novelty of being a newcomer isn't so novel anymore, I am feeling the full affects of shame and regret, wanting to hide under a rock until I have a year again. The year finally arrives and it's not enough... I need more time. It will never be enough, whether it's a year, a cigarette, a girl, a donut, a cup of coffee, a pair of jeans, an episode of Dexter, anything.... The only thing that will ever be enough is something that goes against every grain in my soul... helping people.

Sunsets....

2011-07-15T09:33:00.001-07:00

The wind hums a familiar tune into my once again shattered ears. Sitting on the beach listening to the ocean didn't help my sickness like I was told it might. Now i'm just dope-sick with sand in the crack of my ass. The sunset hurt, the sound of the seagulls over my head hurt, everything hurt, and now I can't get up off the dune because my joints have hardened into the position i'd been crouched into for the past hour or so. The wind extinguished my half smoked cigarette, and I was just too fucking ill to reach into my pocket for the last match. My teeth felt like they had been upholstered, and my tongue as dry as a cats litter box. Venice was still pretty gnarley back then, and the only hustle I had left, was hoping to find a loaded rig buried in the sand. I started raking through the tiny shells with my fingers, hoping to dig up a forgotten or dropped rig. I would ask people walking by holding hands in the romantic sunset if they had any heroin. The shame of where I had ended up at 25 years of age washed up onto my face like the dead Jellyfish at my feet. There was no way I was going to be able to crawl back to the twins apartment on the speedway, but it was the only safe place I had left, and there was no heroin there. The pain in my bones was going to last forever, I just knew it.

The boy in the bubble...

2011-07-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

I like to isolate from all the rapes, mudslides, murders, earthquakes, hurricanes, bombings, plane crashes, congressmen sending out pictures of their dicks, baby murders, presidents promises, wild brush fires, governments withholding cures to keep the insurance money coming in.... blah blah blah.... by NEVER watching the news.

Sure "enough people can make a change," but i'm not one of them . When it is time to grab a gun and play Red Dawn trust me, I will be the first one over the fence into the compound. Until then I will keep my mind numbed with Family Guy and Snapped.

I like my little bubble just the way it is, filled with music, friends, family, and the occasional girl thrown in. When my lovely city breaks off into the ocean, the bomb hits, or zombies take over the Beverly Center, I don't want to fucking know about it until it happens. I'll just grab a gun and sit on the porch eating a cold can of kidney beans... waiting for some poor hungry family to try and open the fence door, so I can watch my friends slice their throats until the heads are dangling off their backs by a tiny strip of skin.

Changes....

2011-06-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, I was subletting a little one room apartment from a friend in Hollywood. When I rented the apartment I was sober, had 2 jobs, a nice car, a great band, and was killing it in life for the first time ever. I had self esteem and finally felt like a part of the universe. Eventually my head got the best of me as it usually does, and not soon after I had gotten my life together I started drinking again. It didn't take long at all before I was drinking and doing coke every night, having to take pills to fall asleep. My infatuation with sticking a needle in my arm overpowered my vow to never do that again, and before long I was spending most of my time in the bathroom shooting coke. I got my hands on a pager number for a heroin delivery service and lost the car, the jobs, the band, and was about 4 months back on my rent.

My insanely big life had become smaller than the tiny bathroom I was spending most of my time in. I was afraid to come out, fearing someone might be at my door and I would actually have to interact with human beings. Even though my windows were completely boarded up with magazine covers and postcards, I still thought people could see through. All my friends knew exactly what I was doing and stayed far and clear of my house anyway, but I would still panic that someone might show up to intervene on me. When I wasn't in the bathroom I would creep around my apartment, just in case someone was outside my door, I didn't want them hearing if I was inside.

My life was the size of the keyhole I had jammed broken with a screwdriver so my building manager couldn't just come in and check on me, and if I was to die in that apartment, it would have been weeks before the smell crept out into the courtyard arousing suspicion. The hot water had been shut off for weeks, there was no internet, and my phone had been disconnected for months. My only communication with the outside world consisted of a dope-sick hobble to the pay-phone at the end of the street to call my dealer. Then standing on the corner waiting for him as I watched the living drive by on their way to do life stuff, hoping no one I knew would see my pale, skin and boned ass shaking on the corner waiting for the balloon of isolation and regret. No matter how sick and cold I was, as soon as that shitty Honda civic pulled up and I jumped in the back seat, the smell of shitty mexican cologne would fill my nostrils and everything would automatically feel calmer. That spit covered balloon shaking in the palm of my clammy hand was going to wash all the shitty feelings that were rushing through my veins away like a piece of driftwood, and for a few more hours... I was going to be as ok as I could be in my situation.

I had successfully pushed just about all of the love out of my life, surrounding myself with nothing but dark, sticky, piles of disgust, covered in blood. It was always there waiting for me, I just had to go and get it. The laces in all my shoes had become ties for my arm to try and find a vein, my feet and hands were so swollen from missing, that I couldn't use them anyway. It got to the point where it took me 20 minutes to get to the end of the block in the morning to use the pay-phone, because I could barely walk. Most days it was a no brainer decision to buy food or drugs, drugs... won... every... time...

I hadn't eaten for three days, just shooting speedballs and smoking butts that my neighbors had flicked into the bushes by my apartment. There was a tiny piece of Trident gum that I had been staring at on the table, and was saving for when the time was just right, and when that time came... it was the best fucking piece of gum I ever had in my life.

Teaser from "Needle in a Whorestack"

2011-06-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Awakened by the pain of a plastic tube that had been inserted into the head of my dick and the florescent brightness of a buzzing tube hanging over my head. Piercing through my eyelids, making them vibrate like wings on a honey bee. I had no idea where I was or how I had gotten there, but a seemingly large black man in a white uniform stood over me like an information booth, waiting to let me know. His eyes were sad and caring, his voice deep like sexual chocolate. I watched the wrinkles on his big bald head move as he spoke. "We almost lost you little man," he said as I started to feel the cold chill of dope-sickness run up my spine. It was then that I realized I was on a gurney in an emergency room, and something had gone terribly wrong...

My hands and feet were so swollen I could barely move my fingers and toes, my ribs were cracking through my pale, dry skin like a fish breaking through water into the sky, my lips were sore from chewing on them, and my sight was blurry and painful. At 37 years old this is where my awesome decision making had taken me, and all I could think about was how I could get back for just one more shot. I politely asked the large black man if he could remove this long piss filled tube from my dick, so I could go back to my house and not be cold and sick anymore.

Woodstock nights.

2011-06-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

I feel good. I'm just bored out of my mind....

Woodstock has changed quite a bit since I was a young derelict on the Village Green. I just took a stroll through town and staying home staring at my computer screen seems to be a much better option. It's a beautiful, breezy, t-shirt and cigarette kind of night, and not a soul was to be found anywhere. I was literally the only one in town, standing there with a cigarette in my mouth, and a thumb up my ass, with an occasional stinky, scraggly, hippy walking by just to bum me out even more.

Real truth is, i'm not really happy anywhere anymore. I have been spoiled with a tour bus and have been able to play in front of thousands of kids for the past few months and honestly, it's the only place I want to be right now. Not sitting around "editing my book" which really just means jerking off to weird German pee porn hoping my mother doesn't walk in the room, because it's the middle of the afternoon... I don't drink or do drugs anymore, and i'm not as spiritual as one who hasn't done any of that in a few years should be so... fuck you.

The boredom that rapes my soul in this town is almost enough to make a 40 year old man drop acid just to see what would happen. I hated that shit when I was a kid, and i'm sure it wouldn't be any different now, just a whole other level of paranoid suck.

Everyone has families and real jobs that require actually doing work. Two things that I want more than anything, and nothing to do with equally at the same time. Maybe I should get a fish first, see if I can keep that alive for a few months before I go having a kid. Sex has once again turned into masturbation with company, and I would rather sit here alone on my bed listening to my dead friend Sasha's Ipod, while I stick my hand down my karate pajama bottoms smelling my balls to gauge whether I need to take another shower or not, rather than have some half drunk daughter of someone I grew up with come over and annoy me for an hour. I'm done taking showers and still feeling dirty afterwards. I love girls, women, whatever... I just hate when they are here. The fantasy is so much more full-filling than the real thing most of the time. Fuck I need some serious therapy....

Mary Nightmare......

2011-06-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

I brought her home to my Mother's for Christmas. I thought she was the one. The snow on the ground was hard and lined with dirt from the passing cars, the air was so cold that every-time you took a breath in through your nose, the frozen snot would clog the passage ways. My Mother hated her, she made a comment about the sweats she wore the morning we woke up after our arrival because they said "JUICY" across the ass.

We had been living together for about 2 years at this point, so I figured a week long holiday trip to my hometown wouldn't really be that big of a deal, boy was I wrong. After a few nights hanging out in town with some old friends, drinking and doing blow till 5am, she started getting really annoying. My Mother was pissed because I wasn't sober anymore, and breaking the screen window to get in the house at 5am didn't really help matters much. The couch that folded out into a bed was only made for one person, and the bar that went across the middle dug into your back, so sleeping in general on that thing was a fucking nightmare, let alone trying to come down off a few bumps with your annoying girlfriend talking your ear off next to you.

She was pissing me off so much that I didn't even want to fuck her anymore, all I did was lay there trying to figure out how to get her the fuck out of my house. About 3 or 4 days had passed and I was getting more and more aggravated at this stunningly hot coke-whore. Every sound or move she made was like nails on a chalkboard, and the time for her to go was getting closer. The night before Christmas eve we sat in the local bar as I tried to pawn her off on one of my friends, begging him to take her home and fuck her so I didn't have to deal with her anymore.

The next morning we woke up and went at each others throats for no real reason at all, until I finally made her pack her bags and put them in my Grandmothers little silver Mazda Miada.

It was Christmas Eve day, and my "meet the family" Girlfriend experiment had failed horribly. It was my first one so I really didn't expect it to go that well anyway.

The snow started to fall really hard as we pulled onto the Thruway, I made my Mother book her a flight back to Los Angeles no matter what the cost, it was either that or drop her off on the side of the road somewhere. My Mother hated her so much she didn't even flinch when I asked her. I had to get this stupid bitch out of my house before I buried her in the back yard. It was the most silent, uncomfortable drive I had ever taken in my life, we stared out the windshield as the flakes of snow hit the windshield melting instantly, listening to shitty radio rock, and chain-smoking one cigarette after the other. The snow was getting so bad that my Grandmother's poor little sports car was getting tossed around the slippery road by massive tractor trailers flying past us, we almost died about 9 times. Every once in a while I would have to put my hand out the window and slam the ice build up on the windshield wiper, until mine eventually flew off into a massive pile of snow on the side of the road.

We pulled up to the airport, she got out and slammed the door as I popped the trunk from the inside of the car. I didn't even help her with her bags, and as soon as I heard the trunk slam I pulled away, I didn't even wait to see if she got on the plane ok. I just planned on ignoring her calls if something happened, she was a big girl and her family was rich so she was going to be fine. I could have fucking cared less if the plane crashed at that point anyway.

As I pulled back onto the thruway the snow had accumulated to about a foot on the road, I could barely drive in it, but I was determined to get back to my Mothers house to celebrate Christmas. The load off my head was insane, I was hungover and emotional. I started crying so bad that I had to pull over for a few minutes, to be honest I was kind of hoping that a semi would rail me from the back and take me out. I felt like a total douche for what I did, but I really had no choice. I couldn't stand to be with her another minute. I started to drive very slowly on the Thruway, I could only do about 15 miles an hour the whole way back, and what was normally a 45 minute drive took me about 4 hours. That Chevelle song "seeing red" came on the radio, I started singing along as I rolled up the window so no one else would hear, as it was one of my guilty pleasure songs, not like anyone on the Thruway was going to hear me anyway, but I just wanted to be sure. The tears were streaming down my face as I screamed along with this ridiculous song, I was sad for being such a douche but was also equally relieved that I didn't have to deal with this dramatic whore anymore.

I made it back to town safely and without getting arrested for driving with no license. I slept like a baby that night not giving a shit whether she made it home or not.... Opened presents the next morning like she was never there. Then moved back in with her when I got back to LA......

COACHELLA...

2011-04-09T21:01:00.001-07:00

Let me start off by saying, that I never have any clue what I am doing... ever. Either that or I have been pretending not to know for so long, that I actually believe my own bullshit. I have been at Coachella for about a week now, doing basic stagehand work, lifting heavy things and giving them to people that know how to put it together. Slamming my hands between things nearly breaking my knuckles, gashing my forehead open with 8 ft. pipes, and trying not to make my knee blow out worse than it already is. I don't know how some people can sit in the sun for so long, going tanning and falling asleep on the beach and shit. I literally feel like a burnt piece of toast that has been used to wipe someones ass after being out in the desert all day, I didn't know I had freckles on my forehead... apparently I do.

Out of the many many bands performing this year, there is not one that has raised an eyebrow of interest, not even Duran Duran. I am here for the money. I am not here to join in on the shoelace headband, skinny jean brigade that is about to invade the "safety zone" in my head. Maybe I'm just a bitter old man now, or maybe I just have my own sense of style and don't really get into the whole follow the hipster thing. This summer I will be in Europe performing on stages just like the ones I am building, so that gives me a glimmer of hope to carry on with this muscle straining life I have created for myself. The crew I work with is rad, just a bunch of dirty, assbusting, ballbusting, scumbags, with shitty tattoos just like myself. They make the long, hot days rather entertaining. Danny calls it "scumbag summer camp."

I love my life and have absolutely no regrets, except for maybe not putting a condom on with a girl or 20.

The garbage can effect...

2011-03-08T03:50:00.000-08:00

The only time real creators are able to truly dig deep into the soulcraft is when they are in the most morbid, depressing, or heartbroken time of their lives. Hitting the trifecta with all of the above usually makes for a journal or a song, sometimes even an entire album that can bring the reader or listener to tears. Ripping open the soul and setting free a spirit that they never knew existed. I have been deeply inspired by many an album written from the most broken of hearts and from the sickest of junkies.

I will sit in my self hatred just long enough for me to release it through a song or journal. I don't really know I'm doing it, until something comes out of me that is so strong it affects everyone that touches it. I don't ever want to be happy for fear of me losing that creative side. Like when Aerosmith or Metallica got sober, it just put a total bummer on anything written through the hands of people just stoked not to be trapped in purgatory. I prefer my music dark and painful. When I read something I actually want to feel the pain of someones heart getting ripped out, or a needle piercing the skin causing a rush of lunacy, ending with the greatest orgasm known to man. When I am in a good place I rarely write, and I never play my instruments. That stuff has always been used to release the demons onto the ceiling of my room, so I can watch them float around as I lay there awake until the sun comes up, because my head is so damaged from all the things I have done it makes it impossible to sleep. I think that's why most great artists commit suicide or overdose, and the ones who live through their own private Idaho should just stop making art. If you made yourself the greatest cheeseburger in the world when you were drunk, chances are it won't taste remotely as good when you are sober. I hope to one day find the balance between good and evil, where I don't have to wait until I want to blow my head off before I am happy with what I have created. Hoping a good story or a song will temporarily take that pain away. I don't want to be a broke, tortured artist... That just seems to be the way I worked my life out for itself. The disgusting beauty of it all is that the artist himself will think everything he does is shit, no matter who tells him how amazing it is.

Scorching Peter Cottontail...

2011-03-04T03:38:00.000-08:00

It was one of those lust at first sight moments, from the moment I saw her I knew I had to have her. The only bummer was, that she was a virgin, and was waiting till marriage to break the seal on her veeger. I would have flowers delivered to her house, I would feed her rabbit when she had to go away for a night, I even waited for months for a small kiss on the lips. I would fall asleep with my pager on my chest, hoping the vibration would wake me up if she hit me with a “911” at 3am.

I would do anything for her just to get a glimpse of a smile.

She went away for a weekend, and left her rabbit with me for the weekend. I put him in my back yard in the cage that morning and went to work. It was the middle of the summer in Nyack, and when I left the rabbit, he was in the shade. I spent the day humping buckets of bottles, cans, and newspapers into a recycling truck while the hot summer sun beat the sweat out of the top of my head, running down my forehead and burning my eyes. Scratching my face with the dirty gloves I was using to wipe away the sweat left swipes of dirt down my face and chest. I stopped at Dunkin Donuts to get a medium coffee light and sweet, and a toasted coconut donut after my long hard day. When I finally arrived back home in the late afternoon the sun had moved, and turned the cool, shady, cage into a toaster oven. The rabbit laid on its back, with it’s tongue slithered under the bucked teeth off to the side of it’s furry little face, paws curled into complete rigor mortis. I had killed her rabbit. I quickly removed it from the cage, laying it on it’s back on the grass. I pried open it’s mouth and started CPR on the poor little varmint. Pushing my fingers on it’s chest while counting to five, then breathing into it’s buck teethed mouth once again. In a complete panic I called for my roommate rob, who started laughing hysterically when he came downstairs and saw my panic stricken face. My first thought was to find a pet store and buy another rabbit identical to the one I had baked and murdered in the sun. She wasn’t supposed to be home till late the next night, so I had time to replace it. That was one of the most sleepless nights I had ever had in my life. The next morning I decided just to tell her that I killed the fucking thing.

The lust of my life finally arrived home and finally, after hours of hanging out I told her. She laughed and basically thanked me for taking the burden of caring for a smelly rabbit off her hands… I buried it in the back yard and it was never spoke of again, and I never got to fuck her either…

Moving on...

2011-03-02T01:06:00.000-08:00

There's a good reason for this defect I have

I'm sure I'll find out what it is someday

These pictures I have of you are driving me mad

I hang them up because you would have wanted it that way

Of all the times I thought I had it made

To someone else it might have seemed a joke

You say the life I live is starting to get played

I'm nothing but a joke

So I'm moving on

I think about you every night and what you've done to me

That wasn't right

You broke my heart and ripped apart my self esteem

Told me to go fly a kite

I'll be your friend when you are gone

I'm moving on

Leah

2011-03-02T01:03:00.000-08:00

Blew my head off today, this time was a close one

Got no reason to stay, for this one

I'm going to a better place I know

Maybe this time, I won't have to go

Blew my head off today, I should have listened

To what my friends had to say, I miss them

My skin is burning and I have no place to run

Maybe I'll wake up

And this day will be done

Mugged....

2011-03-02T00:46:00.000-08:00

A frosted morning with a cloud to soak up the pain

I can’t bare the light again

I got my warning, the red light is meant for suffering

There is no way to make it green again.

Is there any way to make it out of here alive?

A distorted memory to tell about a better day

Where I can see my unborn child

A breeze takes the cloud away and I leave this hell

There will be no answer falling from the sky

It won’t go away

You can ask the question but you will always wonder why

It won’t lift the stain

See the better man drive around in his car

I’ll just wait here for the bus

Watching everyone around you reaching for the stars

They don’t thank you very much

Punch...

2011-02-23T23:09:00.000-08:00

I got picked on a lot as a kid. In grade school kids used to kick me all he way home. Sometimes I would put my arm in a fake sling in the hopes that maybe, just that one day I could walk home in peace. They would hide behind bushes and jump out and scare me, knock my books out of my hands and onto the ground, pull my hair, spit on me, all kinds of gnarley shit. It wasn't until I found alcohol that I was able to get the guts up enough to start defending myself. It was then that I traded in my fake arm sling for a wallet chain and a tattoo. I was still a scared little punk, but getting drunk pushed a lot of that fear way down and I was able to defend myself when an Iroc full of guido's pulled up to whatever factory parking lot we were drinking in.

I carried that fear way into my later years, and as an adult, I was quick to booze it up and find someone smaller and more vulnerable that me that I could pick on and make feel exactly the way I felt when I was a child. If i did enough coke with the booze I would find someone bigger than me, that way I could prove to everyone around me that I was no joke and you better stay the fuck away from me if you knew what was good for you. My hands became just as big as my mouth and I would look for any opportunity to prove to anyone that would listen, that I could kick your ass if I wanted to.

I was so scared of everyone and everything I thought that if everyone just thought that I could fight, that no one would fuck with me and I could just do whatever I want. Big black Nick Sills kicked the shit out of me in front of the entire High School in 7th grade after I spent the entire day telling all my friends how I was going to destroy him. I relived that day for a good 20 years, David Weingarten picked on me every day all of Jr. High, I carried that as well. Instead of breaking the cycle and turning what happened to me into a positive energy force in my life all I did was become one of them... A man that was so scared of his own shadow he could never see the light. I had become a hipster bully. I always say that I never have any regrets in my life until I'm checking I.D's at a door, and some tiny guy walks up and says, "hey... you broke my nose for no reason 5 years ago." I want to crawl inside myself and die, I never know what to say to that guy. Do I apologize for being a scared little punk?

I haven't been in a fight in over three years. The more I stay away from violence, the more I realize how ridiculous I was. The more I learn about myself and why I do what I do, the easier it is to spot that fear in others.

There's a point in a mans life when it is time to hang up the wallet chain.....

1994

2011-02-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

We worked together...

Sometimes she would give me a ride home at the end of the night

I would try to convince her to take me to buy heroin

I used to shoot dope with her husband who's band had a song on the rock radio station at the time

She was a sweet girl

When she killed herself me and her husband would sit on the ledge of the billboard on the roof of my building puking up the tea we just drank at the Onyx as the street lights lit up the parking lot of the Dresden room.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy would play down the street at the derby

Marty & Elaine would entertain the after party till the wee hours of the morning

I would sit on the ledge with a giant bottle of vodka yelling at all the swinging cats in the parking lot

I didn't know why I hated them I just did

Crying out the window to Hank Williams while the girl I had unprotected sex with went to get the abortion

Calling the girl I left behind in Texas confessing undying lies

Strapped to the sidewalks of Sunset trying to break free of the impenetrable womb polluted with scars and chlamydia

Take me home please... All I want to do is go home. I heard that's where my heart is

Total nonsense......

2011-01-29T20:21:00.000-08:00

Sitting in the basement of studio 1 in Newark NJ waiting to open up for Mucky Pup. I was in a band called I.D.K. (I Don't Know). Mucky Pup was a pretty big local act at that time, i'm pretty sure they were huge in Germany as well. A few of the members of that band later went on to form Dog Eat Dog when they all got thrown out for drinking or whatever. I was brand new in the band and we had a pretty big following ourselves so the place was sold out. I had honestly thought that I'd arrived as a musician. A friend of ours from a few local bands was the new guitar player in Mucky Pup, I remember thinking he had made it. Sitting at the table across from me putting names on the guest list, getting ready for a European tour. I wanted that so bad at the time i could taste it. I wore stupid clothes and walked around like an asshole. I was drinking rather heavily and felt superior to most anyone I came in contact with because I was in this band. Sitting in the dressing room was a huge deal to me, I had never experienced that before. People gazing in as they walked past to get to the main room where we were playing. The sound of a few hundred emo/punk North Jersey kids muttering what a great show this was going to be one floor above us getting ready to dance their asses off when we hit the stage. I wasn't nervous, i was excited. I was finally going to get to play in front of a packed house. Before that i was in a progressive thrash band that was rather amazing, but would only play to about 20 or 30 of our friends anytime we played anywhere. Plus I had only been playing about a year or so so I was still worrying about things like my hands cramping up and what I looked like as a performer.

I didn't quite have a grasp on the whole passion thing yet, I was only playing to get free beer, bang chicks, and be able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Total welcome to the jungle attitude. I didn't understand that music was art, and being on stage was performance art. Drawing whoever was watching into your soul and making them feel what you feel. After a few shows with I.D.K. it was a mutual decision that i leave the band, honestly they were glad to get rid of me. I was a decent bass player and was a total goof off on stage so I fit the bill. But I started going to a lot of New York Hard Core shows and was being heavily influenced by bands like Merauder, Sick Of It All and Biohazard. So the pop punk that IDK was playing just made me feel like a total fag and I thought people would make fun of me. I quit and rejoined with Onceover, my progressive thrash band. They were following in the same realm of Pantera and that shit had just exploded everywhere onto the scene. All I wanted to do was be cool, look cool, have kids tell me how awesome my band was, and fit in to whatever was the hardest scene available to me. I was a punk... Not like Punk Rock, more like a Punk Ass.... It wasn't till years later that i started coming into my own, playing whatever i wanted to play. Listening to whatever i wanted to listen to and not giving a fuck about what people were going to think of me. I would open the windows and blare Slayer so people thought I was "metal", but behind closed windows and locked doors I was playing shit like Autograph and Dokken. Don't get me wrong I am all about Slayer and shit... And listening to any of that hair metal now makes my skin crawl. I just wish I had always been the way I am now. I will sing the fuck out of some Sarah smiles by Hall & Oates and not give a fuck what my neighbors think.....

Fahrenheit.......

2011-01-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

It's a nice thought to actually live every day like your last. Some people through either tons of meditation or a life threatening circumstance have actually achieved that goal. I on the other hand like 90% of the population only think about how I take my life for granted when a friend dies, or a building blows up, or when a friend dies in a building that blows up.

At the moment I am unemployed and have no car, so waking up is optional. The past few weeks I have been forcing myself to call people for rides and go to the gym so I don't feel like a complete waste of space. But this last week I have blown off every day and just laid in bed until something came across my path that was worth getting up for. Watching reruns of crime shows that I have seen at least four times, reliving my youth through episodes of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, burning cd's into my itunes.

Yesterday I was so bored I took all the furniture out of my room and ripped out the rug. That made me feel a little more like a human being. It needed to be done anyway, the last sublet I had when I was out of town didn't go so well so I had to do a "cleansing" to the extreme that just burning some sage could not handle. So I sit here as it nears the end of the month, staring at my guitars figuring out which ones I don't use that much so I can put them in loan at the pawn shop so rent gets paid. And hoping to get a call for a job or a tour soon.

Funny thing is that normally one would be freaking out in this situation, not being able to sleep from fear of financial insecurity, not knowing where the next meal is coming from, most of the time not even able to buy yourself a cup of coffee.....

The day before I turned 40 I had a mild panic attack about my entire situation. Then on the actual day of my 40th birthday I just kind of realized that this is my year. I don't even really know what that means exactly, all I know is that no matter what I have always been taken care of. I'm a good dude and have great things inside me that are slowly starting to come out. Just not in my time... I have never wished to be a spoiled Malibu brat that sits in a bubble wondering what it would be like to actually want something. The people that have always had everything have absolutely nothing as far as i'm concerned. I have had an amazing struggle my whole life. From making ketchup sandwiches and being grateful there was bread, to ordering everything on the late night menu at The Met in London just because I could... While trying to figure out who the fuck I am and why I do what I do all through the process...

There is no destination for me, no end to my journey... I'm just trying to find the coolest ride in the amusement park.

Beast...

2011-01-26T18:53:00.000-08:00

It was another bone chilling winter in Woodstock. The barn we were recording in was insulated with nothing but the wood that was used to build it, and the ceiling was so high that the sound of george hitting the snare drum would bounce from one end of the splintered wall to the next so fast you could barely hear the echo. The fact that I was slightly dopesick did not help much either. But back then I was young and able to actually get out of bed and somewhat function without heroin.

Our friend Ted was mixing and recording us from a warm, carpeted loft just above the barn. The wires ran from the huge bitter space the three of us were standing in up over the beams into a room clouded with pot smoke. I'm pretty sure he just pushed the reverb nobs as high as they would go and just rolled joints for himself the rest of the time we were playing. Jenn's voice echoed through the barn like an angel soaring over our heads, that blended with the feedback from her Fender strat was temporarily replacing the heroin that I needed. Her music was like a drug to me, I could get lost in the music like I never did with any other musician I ever played with. We froze in that barn all afternoon, the strings on my bass were ice cold and would numb the tips of my fingers with every touch of a fret. The smell of wet wintery wood, the pot smoke layering over our heads like a stratus cloud, and the angelic music wooming out of our amps while George's gloved hands smashed the drums lightly matching everything up perfectly in my head, made it the perfect day.

I found out later that day that George and Jenn had split a bag of heroin before we got there. I remember being livid. All I needed was a tiny little line to snort up my frozen little nostrils to warm my bones just enough to flow like I needed to. It was a magical day for music anyway, but with that little bit of heroin it would have been perfect. The reverb on the snare would have been amplified in my head surrounding the thoughts clouding my visions making it halfway dealable. The bending of the strings would have come from my heart and not my head. It took a long time for me to learn how to play without drugs or alcohol. That was not the day that i started to take that into consideration though....

clouds

2011-01-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

I can't breathe. The rattling in my brain clogs my nose. The weight of the confusion in my head is so heavy on my eyelids i can barely see. The sight of it makes me wish i was blind.
It wakes up and I immediately wish I was somewhere else. It speaks and I wish I was deaf. It is the thing in me that I hate the most, that with every fiber of my being I try not to be.

Happy New Year?

2011-01-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

It's a new year. A time of reflection for most. Reflection on everything that I could have done to make this upcoming year a little easier, reflection on what I did do to make it a lot harder. I'm a guy with dreams, dreams of successfully sitting on a barstool burning my throat with a warm glass of mashed whiskey, a dream of never getting fat or going bald, a dream of everything coming out of my mouth being earth shatteringly funny. Dreams of actually meaning it when i tell a girl I love her and that she is the best fuck I ever had. Dreams of driving around town in a car that I actually paid for, and not having to borrow money for rent or eat off a gift card I got for Christmas. Dreams of living in a world where I am appreciated and not tolerated.
A dream of actually seizing a day instead of wishing for it to be over, hoping the next one will be better. Believing what comes out of my mouth when and if I pray to whatever it is that is supposed to make my life easier from doing it. Wishing health and prosperity on people instead of death and failure. Turning "it" over completely and trying a new way of life instead of waiting for a pot of gold to drop out of the sky. The way my life goes, when the pot is finally dropped it will land on my head cracking open my skull rendering me brain dead so I couldn't enjoy it.
Smashing the glass off the table instead of wondering if it is half full or half empty. Opening a curtain and letting in the sunlight instead of stapling it to the wall so no light ever enters the room.
Forgiving my father for being such a deadbeat piece of shit my entire life, giving another family all of his good qualities leaving me only with his alcoholism and assholic tendencies. Taking deep breaths before I make a snap judgment on someone because of a pair of shoes or a hairstyle. Letting people be who they are instead of chastising them for not being up to my standards.... Thinking I am a talentless waste of space and not good enough for anyone or anything.
This all changes in this new year.... Starting with my license. And a real job. My self hatred grows from what I think others think about me, when really it is none of my business... I never cared before, why the fuck should i care now. This ends today

Until the wheels fall off......

2010-12-29T10:58:00.001-08:00

I sometimes wonder where amusing myself with a ball, a stick, or a rock went….for days I would run through the woods fantasizing of being chased throughout the streams by cannibals or wild animals, climbing dead trees and ripping off the dead branches like the great warrior I pictured in my mind. Stealthly sneaking back to my house and slamming the door as the bells that hung from the outside echoed through the house, once again….succesfully escaping the clutches of the evil that hailed in the dark forest behind my house. I never really watched tv and there was no such thing as video games like there are today. So imagination was important. Me and my oldest friend would do the weirdest shit. We were definitely the original beavis and butthead of our generation, sometimes I would watch that shit and actually think someone was watching us when we were kids and later made a show out of it.

From shoving bottlerockets up frogs asses, to slamming wiffleball bats into the bulbs of innocent unsuspecting lightning bugs in the front yard at dusk. We terrorized anything we could get our hands on. I remember one time standing across from the big church on rt 212. We found an old pair or gross dirty underwear in the bushes and picked it up with a long stick. As cars drove by we were trying to swing it onto the antennas. Successfully completing this mission on one car and almost ripping my arm off in the process as the car quickly slammed on the breaks. There was plenty of cover to run into, for we lived in the woods…..the bearsville flats didn’t offer much as far as child entertainment went. There was a tiny ghetto playground behind the church, my buddy had a treehouse behind his house in the woods, and on the weekends the public pool down at the local bar would open. But I barely remember going their. It was all about skipping rocks, slamming branches off of trees with other branches, and setting shit on fire.

Im in iowa writing all of this, I had to get out of the distraction that Hollywood has been nothing short of kind giving me over the past 15 years or so. And it is fall. The air is crisp and thin, the leaves are changing color, the smell of fireplaces and burning leaf piles are in the air. It is quite a refreshing change from the annhilation of bus fumes and another 75 degree day with no clouds to be seen anywhere. I actually mowed and raked the lawn the other day. The shit I grew up doing on a daily or weekly basis has basically become nonexistent and a memory till just now. Maybe once every couple of years when I go home for a few days around Christmas or whatever that shit pops back into my head. But im here for a couple of months, most likely into winter. My winter clothes for years have been a hoodie and a pair of chucks. I might have to borrow someones jacket or actually go buy one.

It’s the kind of weather that makes you take a deep breath everytime you step outside. You can do that in los angeles but it smells different. There is a lingering scent of forced hate in the air that sucks up into your nostrils when you breathe like that and slowly starts to take over your brain. Making everything right, wrong, and beautiful that is not in your possession completely disgusting and unattainable. Hollywood is my home though. The scummy swine filled streets crawling with douchebags and starfuckers . the way the earth moves my little town and throws everyone into a complete panic once or twice a month to keep us on our toes. The sunsets I take for granted every single day. The bus loads of clueless tourists, with their fannypacks and digital cameras wrapped around their hawaiin shirts and hanging off their docker shorts, with those weird crock shoes or whatever the fuck they are called…who thought THAT was good idea. In a way I feel bad for them all. Hollywood as seen on tv is a totally different entity. Before I actually moved out there I literally thought that everywhere would look like Venice beach, or santa monica or something. Like there was sand on every sidewalk, and the sound of the ocean in my ear everywhere I went. With a saltwater breeze tickling my nosehairs while I would sit on a sand dune and watch the sunset every night while tom cruise and Katie holmes played catch with their baby where the ocean met the sand.

It was a pretty rude awakening for me when we drove over the 405 into los angeles, and you can see the entire city from the break. I thought to myself out loud “wow it sure is cloudy out here”. Much to my surprise it wasn’t a cloud overlooking the city like gotham. It was pollution, A big smoke ring of toxins. I just wonder if all the European people that come here think the same thing. Like its all one big E channel, TMZ on every corner just hoping they will get in the backround. I mean to an extent that is definitely true, but for the most part you just see these poor saps wandering up and down Hollywood blvd looking into the exact same store 50 times over down the stretch, as CRAZY homeless people lunge in for change….or just lay there on willie nelsons star stinking to holy hell soaking in their own piss and shit. As the tourists step over them and slip in semi dried vomit from some whore train that couldn’t hold their alcohol the night before. Probably some fat mexican chick in a dress 5 sizes to small for her, with black feet because her shoes are in her hand. while some Persian cokehead tries to pull her and her friends into his yellow sports nightmare, her friends just yell for him to keep driving.

Finally.......

2010-12-26T08:32:00.000-08:00

The air is so cold it feels like God is turning the handle on a vice grip attached to your head, slowly building the cabin pressure around your skull as the ice cold air seeps into your ears like worms in your coffin. The "Merry Christmas!!" texts flow in all day from unrecognizable numbers to which you reply fearlessly with "who is this?". When there is no response you can only assume it is a girl who is now offended that you deleted her number. Like sleeping with you wasn't offensive enough in the first place, now she can't even come back for seconds. She tries to weasel her way back in by throwing you into a holiday mass text. Hoping you will respond with "what are you doing?"..... But all she gets is the oh to familiar "who is this?". Maybe she shouldn't have gotten that tattoo at such an early age, or actually paid for the school she told all her regs she was stripping to get through.

It's union suit weather in Iowa. Not very conducive to the Hollywood winter outfit that consists of chucks and a hoodie. I stare out the window at the now ice covered snow on the deck as my ass cheeks are heated by the gas lit fireplace in total fear, knowing that i will eventually have to go out there. One of the creepiest feelings in the world is when you take a deep breath through your nose and the snot freezes instantly, alomst suffocating you.
The first time i ever saw a turkey fly was yesterday afternoon. I didn't know they could fly until i saw them perch themselves at the top of the trees as a pack flew into the back yard. The love is all around me and it's nice to actually feel it... Let it in. Not cast it out like a hot piece of Spam disguising itself as a cool piece of mango.... I have a good life, and I am proud of myself... Finally

The meat went bad......

2010-12-08T03:49:00.000-08:00

A hundred showers in the hottest water wont wash it off… A million bristles on a toothbrush wont remove the stench. You are the rape victim sitting on the floor of the shower as scolding water runs over the immoral compass under your scalp, constantly guiding you to this place of absolute shame…… The painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable sticks to the inside of your skin. You stare into the funhouse mirror, as dancing evil clowns fang at the back of your neck, swarming like a grounded nest of yellow jackets irritated by the blades of a rusty lawn mower. So embarrassing that you don’t speak a word not even to your sickest of friends.

You wished you were different. You wished it never happened. It will happen again….

You will happen again….

Your brain floats around your skull like oyster crackers softened by what feels like a hot can of tomato soup. It pours out of your eyes onto your lips, tasting so sweet and tangy that you run your tongue over your lips, wishing it didn’t taste so good. Knowing the suicidal outcome you drink it once again. The venom wears a mask disguised as something from your grandmother’s kitchen when you were very young, when the only pain you ever felt was scraping your knee on the sidewalk.

Eventually sending you tumbling head first into the funnel of hate for yet another round of unworthiness and disgrace. The warm feeling of nana’s kitchen is now being violently ripped from your guts, crackers morph into shards of glass…. And the reality of your biggest defect slaps you in the ears with an open hand stinging you to your knees… You can’t hear the love, you can’t see the light…. You’re a rainbow in the dark

Smells like vomit and children.....

2010-12-04T02:57:00.000-08:00

Walking down the street minding my business when all of the sudden, a smell comes out of nowhere, bringing me back to the pleasantries of childhood… Such a bittersweet moment giving me goose bumps, normally making me think of some shit that’s all warm and fuzzy, or something completely uncalled for.

I could walk by hundreds of dryer vents coming out of the basements of apartment complexes, but it's that certain one.... That certain brand of dryer sheet that makes me think about my old apartment in Carlstadt. I have opened a lot of refrigerators in my day, but there will always that one that reminds me of the fridge in Woodstock that was always stocked to the doors with ice cold green cans of Genessee... God I loved that shit.

Being able to walk by a bum on Hollywood blvd. Laying in a pool of his own nastiness and not think of the A train stop down the street from gray's papaya.....

The candle store in the mall brings me back to my old apartment in Nyack, certain cheap incense reminds me of mom vacuuming the living room rug to Jackson Brown on Sunday mornings.... Sometimes a coffee shop is always a good one for waking up at Grandma Agnes’ house. And if it's mixed with cigarette smoke I actually think I’m waking up in 1976..... If I walk into a Pinkberry or some sort of shop like that I go right to the Carvel that was next to the Boys Club my grandfather taught me how to shoot bumper pool at, and the first time I ever punched someone in the face, his name was Pat, and he had a glass eye.

Certain lotions or body sprays are infamous for making me wish I was a better judge of character..... Or had morals, ever. There is one certain lotion that a lot of girls wear that reminds me of this English cougar that picked me up at the Viper Room one night and took me home with her. She was kind of hot, but old as fuck and not really my thing at all. But when you are a sex addict and there are no twenty two year old girls waiting outside the club for you to get off work, you kind of just have to go with what you can get. Her house smelled like biscuits. Her bed had too many pillows on it. She put on something lacey and attempted to talk sexy to me, but just sounded like Austin powers. A total fucking turn off… But being a man committed to my craft I was in for the long haul. She made me rub her feet with this lotion, it smelled like wild berry Kool~Aid flavored Victoria’s Secret body spray. As I rubbed her feet little black balls of dirt starting forming on the palms of my hands from her old, dead, dirty skin. I couldn’t go on anymore and finally had to just fuck her and get it over with. She started moaning shit like, “oooh baby you know how mamma likes it”… seriously, I was trying extremely hard not to laugh and vomit the entire three minutes I was inside her old, leathery rust pot of a thing she used to call a vagina, back when it still worked. I almost dehydrated myself from spitting on that dry piece of toast so many times just so I could fucking cum and walk home feeling like the king of shit mountain. It doesn’t matter how hot the girl is, the smell of that shit to this day is a total deal breaker. A reminder of just how low down and disgusting I used to be, and still can be from time to time. If a girl is wearing it and I she is near me I will just start being mean to her for no other reason than I hate myself so much for fucking that old Austin Powers cobweb that I want her to feel just as bad as I do…

Today was the wood paneling that lined my grandmothers attic in Garfield. It's where I was read Horton hears a who.... Where the wild things are..... It's where I listened to the Guess Who and Steppenwolf for the first time, I would hang my G.I. Joe's from a shoelace and set them on fire to "Sookie Sookie" and “No Time”.... It’s where I learned how to sneak around late at night because that house was a creak palace and my grandmother slept like a bird.... The mothballs were so pungent in the closet that they fumigated the entire attic. I blame my alcoholism on the mothballs reaction to the Jersey summer heat. And yes, fresh cut lawns.... Few and far between in Hollywood, but when I do walk by an army of home depot convicts pushing shitty lawn mowers in funny straw hats I always go back to a hung over Saturday morning somewhere in 1986.

Mom banging on my door as the sun breaks through the crust covered slits in my eyes, fighting with the yellow rope of coke phlegm that refuses to come out easily causing me to vomit all over the front yard for the entire neighborhood to see.

Hoping I don't cut my foot off or run over a hidden Yellow Jackets nest in the ground while I mow a giant Twisted Sister logo in my back yard...that was always fun.

The crawl......

2010-11-30T05:47:00.001-08:00

You have done so much cocaine that you have to pause between words as you are talking someone into cocaine hostage territory… anyone that will listen at this point for the simple fact that there is just so……....much......... Information.......... In............................ Your........... Head, you can’t make it come out fast enough.... You get stuck. Your pupils are as black as the tires on the cop car that just drove past really slow and freaked you out because you were standing in the curb.

The pack of cigarettes you bought two hours ago is just about gone. You cant wait to tell the super hip douche wad that is dressed like a pirate to take off his white belt so you can throw it in the trash and say "if you go in the garbage and get that... I will break your fucking nose" (true story, really happened). Constantly reminding yourself to take the xanex out of the cellophane of your almost now empty pack of cigarettes, before you finish the last smoke and toss the empty pack like you had done so many times before. If this happens you will surely be up all night hating life... But you keep forgetting, now you have 2 cigarettes left.... You are old, cranky, and more interested in getting fucked up rather than charm the pants off a cute girl, and no one really hits on you because you always look skinny, pale, and tired. Its not like your dick would get hard if you got lucky anyway…

You have snorted so much shitty cocaine mixed with speed that you drank the bar out of baileys from doing so many carbombs... Bon Jovi is still fun to sing along too... You have one cigarette left....... Now that you are feeling so brave and honest it is absolutely necessary to go up to just about everyone you have been judging all night and tell them exactly what you think.... I mean who really cares its not like you will remember it anyway........ You suddenly realize that your last cigarette is broken because the pack was in your back pocket.... You try to fix it while you get her voice mail... And the empty pack falls on the floor.... You pick up the empty box as you hang up the phone not leaving a message, upset that your number was on the caller ID... Crumple it in your hand and toss it in the blue can on the corner.....

You walk into the bar across the street hoping for better atmosphere, something to take your mind off the dark mood your favorite bar has just put you in, but the happy hipsters dancing to a song that has been annoying the fuck out of you for two months makes you want to choke someone with a torn limb. The DJ waves to you as you creep to the waitress station to get a free shot from the manager because you used to work there a long time ago, but got fired because you just stopped showing up for work…...... You do the “what’s up man” dance for a few minutes, do the shot, look for another pirate faggot wearing a white belt and bail...... Back across the street for last call...

You know you are one of the special scumbags that wont get kicked out until the last employee is out the door.... The lights are up, and everyone is chewing invisible gum.... Except you... You are chain smoking and thoroughly annoyed..... As usual.... Finally you stumble home to your empty little studio, fumble the keys in the iron gate.... Empty out your pockets knowing that at least you have a few beers in the fridge and a half a baggie full of shitty speed cocaine……. and the xanex to knock you out... The xanex... Fuck.... It’s in the blue can on the corner.... And you forgot to buy a new pack of cigarettes.... Birds are a very pretty sound when you are hiking or sitting in a back yard.... Not when you are sitting on the edge of your bed with your head in your hands because it rained and all the ashtrays on your porch are filled with water.......

It’s a pathetic stroll down Cahuenga to dig through the garbage can on the corner. As a homeless guy that just shit down his leg, and a car full of Persians that you can smell from the red light they “buddy dude” at make you want to vomit into the can of ripped apart Popeye’s chicken bones you are digging through looking for this shitty little pieced of plastic with a skinny white bar in it. Your mission is successful and you take the pill, tipping your head back to wash it down with the purple metallic raindrops that are falling from the sky, turning into bus fumed clouds of cancer as they explode onto your tongue.

This ritual is the most comfortable and familiar feeling you have to offer yourself… You are too mellow to cry yourself to sleep. As the dream of being an old man sitting on a porch in a rocking chair smoking a corncob pipe full of weed becomes as distant a reality as you being a success in life. And the nightmare of one more rehab becomes your reality with each minute the sun rises….. A fish caught in the mud on the side of the riverbank, all you can do is stare at the sky until you run out of breath and hope there is something better than what you have created for yourself on the other side… What if there is no other side… your name dies in bed with you because you are to polluted to breech the womb. The seeds of your loins have turned from raging sperm into maggots at the bottom of the blue garbage can on the corner…. You never see the sun set again.

Joe Rappise......

2010-11-26T02:48:00.000-08:00

The hatred I had for my father growing up was unintentionally installed by my mother at a very young age. It wasn’t her fault. She did her best to raise me with absolutely no help from him. To this day he still has never paid my mother a dime of child support for the years he was never in my life.

It was Christmas 1978 I believe... I spent most of my Christmas' at my real father Joes parents house in Garfield NJ, which is where I spent weekends when I didn’t go to Woodstock with my mom. The guilt my real fathers parents carried because their son was a deadbeat dad / raging alcoholic must have been a heavy one. I woke up while it was still dark out in hopes of catching Santa eating the cookies I had left out the night before. I ran down the hall and woke up my grandma Agnes, with grandpa Jim slowly following behind her. As aggie lit up a Marlboro 100 grandpa grabbed a wrapped box from under the tree and brought it over to me. It was wrapped in gold and red patterned wrapping paper and had a big green bow on it. The tiny folding card taped to the box said, "open me first!!"... I remember the pattern of the wrapping paper oddly matching the dark yellow (or maze if you will) rug and the green plaid couch covered in plastic.... As I ripped away at the box with a big smile on my face I looked up at my grandparents. They were both smiling nervously and looking at me in eager anticipation of my reaction, Aggie smiling with smoke coming out of her nose like an old Italian dragon…

As I ripped away the carpet paper I saw the words “POLAROID” across the box. My eyes lit up like I just did a huge shot of pure coke and my mouth dropped so far that I almost got cigarette ashes on my tongue from the ash tray on the kitchen table...... The card on the inside said "TO MY SON....LOVE DAD...I MISS YOU!!"...... I knew my mom was wrong!!! All those years of calling him every name in the book under her breath as she worked two jobs and went to night school to give me a better life, I knew she was wrong about my dad! Maybe all the child support checks she never got were just going to the wrong address? Maybe he had the wrong number when he tried to call on my birthday? Every.....Year.....Aaaanyway...

I was more excited to get this shitty Polaroid camera from my father than I was to get the huffy with the big number 59 in the middle of the frame. I took pictures with Aggie and Jim and they said they would send them to him.. I quickly changed out of my one piece green Whinnie the Pooh footy pajamas, and changed into my church outfit. We took pictures to send to dad in wherever the fuck he was shoveling cow shit that month for beer money.

I wondered why he never called or why I could never call him to thank him.... A year or so after that me and my mom were walking through the Paramus Park mall and we walked past a shoe store. My mom started laughing and said, "hey...you want to see your father?" And low and behold there he was in a cheap blazer jacket on one knee measuring some old mans foot just like Al Bundy.... The fraction of that memory that I have in my brain from that day is my mom laughing under her breath as we were leaving the store. I love my moms laugh….. She has the cutest snicker..... Every time I cry when writing I think that maybe I wasn’t ready to write this certain passage....but I guess its better than sitting here saying I don't give a shit when it is very obvious that I do. And it only took me about eight or nine years to have the revelation that my grandparents bought that camera and signed my “fathers” name..... Not him…..

So apparently Joe was back in town for a while…. I can only assume now that the reason they were hiding him from me was just to keep some sort of decent memory of him for me while I was still impressionable.

It turns out that being a parent to him was taking me on a beer run… Come to think of it, I believe that was my first trial run at lying and being deceitful. After our father son time walk to Foodtown to get a bag of chips and a six pack of Strohs beer. While grandma went to get her hair done and grandpa tooled around town in his little blue car looking for broken televisions on the side of the road he could fix in the basement. The whole way back telling me not to tell grandma where we went or he would get in trouble…. Even at that age I knew he was too damn old to be talking like that, that was the kind of shit I said… and I was nine.

He hid the beer behind the iceburg lettuce under the bag of tomatoes in the crisper, inside the big white metal refrigerator smothered in family pictures…. With only one of him when he was in the Marines, thank god I didn’t get his ears.... We sat on the couch and watched game shows. I didn’t know my father was an alcoholic. I didn’t even know what an alcoholic was, I was very young. But I was old enough to know that what he was doing was bad enough for him to have to hide it. Making me get him a beer every twenty minutes or so until he fell asleep in the chair.

When my grandmother came home you could see in her face that the house smelled different. She went right to the fridge and started snooping around until she found the last beer under the bag of tomatoes. I was terrified that she would ask me what happened, and when she did I told her we went to the store, but I didn’t remember daddy getting any beer. It was one of the first lies I ever told.

Grandma walked into the living room as he snored on the green plaid couch at three in the afternoon whistling beer fumes out of his nose for the whole block to smell. I quickly sensed something was wrong and went into the attic to play with my G.I. Joe’s.

My father was a horrible drunk. He was always gone so I never really witnessed it, but the few times he actually did come home I remember. One 4^th of July in uncle sonny’s back yard, he got so excited when they brought out the Coor’s beer ball. You could the mood in the family air go from happy barbecue funtime to “oh fuck…Joe’s drinking”.

These were my first real experiences being around my real dad, he left when I was two and I was about nine at the time of his return. Being rushed into the back seat of my cousin Donnas car as we sped off to go see the fireworks. Right before we pulled off he kicked open the screen door screaming and slurring because we were leaving without him. Donna’s eyes in the rear view mirror as she stared back at me will be forever burned into my brain. I wasn’t supposed to see that….

It was in that same patch of time that I remember him living in the back garage at uncle sonny’s place, I’m pretty sure that’s where it was anyway.

Dad was at “work”. I don’t really know what that was, But I remember a girl there with longish kind of curly dirty blonde hair and glasses… I’m pretty sure it was his girlfriend. She was vacuuming the house naked and dancing around. She told me to get naked as well. So there we were, dancing around naked in the house together while she vacuumed the rug. Laughing and carrying on… I was having a really fun time.

She ran over my big toe with the vacuum and it started gushing blood. While I sat on the counter not knowing being naked with this woman was wrong. I kind of figured it out though when my dad walked in and she was putting a band aid on my foot completely naked. I don’t remember anything else about that part of him being in my life, so I’m guessing he disappeared soon after all that went down. Because I didn’t see him again for years and years.. not a letter, word, or phone call... and definitely no checks.

You is Me......

2010-11-19T22:33:00.000-08:00

It takes a tragic event for most of us to realize that life is too short. And even then we only think about it till a few days after the funeral or whatever, then it becomes a fleeting thought at the supermarket quickly overtaken by the decision to buy raisin bran or froot loops. To some being grateful all the time is like being nice all the time, it just isnt possible. You never think about true love until you see a movie that makes you cry. It makes you think of all the one night stands you have had and how over the years it has beaten you down to a level of no return. You cry for no other reason then that is the one thing missing in your life. And the pain of never knowing it is so intense it brings tears to your eyes. You want to so bad to be the man in love, but you know it's not possible. Sharing your life with another person and giving them everything you are is so foreign to you. You wouldn't know true love if it smashed you in the face with its warm loving hand.
You think the healing process for any ailment is finding someone or something to use up and throw away like a piece of toilet paper. And you wrap your hands around your legs banging your head into your knees, as you sit naked in the cold dark basement of a bleak meaningless existence that once had the potential to be a gentle loving life. You have chosen this path. What you once thought was breezy summer day has now become a cold dark ice storm stinging your naked body as you stand on the ice with no cover. The blanket that once protected you is now buried under a frozen lake. Time is the only thing that will melt that ice and it is the one thing you cannot grasp..... If you are unable to fix the clock..... There will never be a sophia.

I35 north......

2010-11-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

The chilled night air blends into the heat from the vents.... rolling me up into a sleeping bag with a hole in the foot laying in the middle of a december desert..... millions of wandering souls stare at me from the sky as the live version of heaven and hell sores into the universe through the half cracked window. i fly down the highway with a thought that crosses my mind often... what happened....
what happened to the tony iommi's......the lemmy's....the devo's... and when did it become cool to dress like a pirate.... when did my life become so wrapped up in what people are going to think of my facebook headline that i cant even write a song anymore... will there ever be another record that affected me like slayers reign in blood, or neil youngs harvest.... a movie that will influence kids like the outsiders... or a comedian like eddie murphy in raw.... an R&B singer like stevie wonder....
will there ever be a music scene again... kids going to hard core shows and bands not having a million myspace fans... you had kids making there own concert t~shirts and waiting outside the club all day just to get smashed on the front lines for one hour. getting the weekly every thursday lining up your week of support.
is there ever going to be a movie that will make you get to the theater the night before to make sure you get a ticket like return of the jedi..... that line was out the mall and down the street.

the fashion statements of today are the fashion statements of every generation... and in 20 years i will be writing the same thing about that generation and quoting crap from this generation... not really... i will most likely still be sticking to the guns of my generation still getting inspired by the vocal stylings of ronnie james dio on the live version of heaven and hell just like i did tonight.
i highly doubt i will be referencing a "muse" song...... or talking about how "kesha" really started a fashion trend with that slutster cowboy manson children thing she's got going on.....

THERE IS NO TICKET WITH A NUMBER ON IT.....

2010-10-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

A hundred showers in the hottest standing water wont wash it off… a million bristles on a toothbrush wont take the stench out. You are a rape victim sitting on the floor of the shower as the hot water runs over the immoral compass under your scalp, constantly guiding you to this place of absolute shame…… the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable sticks to the inside of your skin. You stare into the funhouse mirror as the evil clowns in your head fang at the back of your neck, swarming like a ground nest of yellow jackets irritated by the blades of a lawn mower. Its so embarrassing that you cannot speak a word not even to your sickest of friends.

You wished you were different. You wished it never happened. It will happen again….

You will happen again….

THE INTERNET.......

2010-10-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I couldn’t wait to get out of the house. When you got punished it meant you had to be in the house all day, weekend, or in some of my cases….entire summers. And it was the worst thing ever, listening to your friends outside running around screaming, or watching them from the window as they played stickball in the street, or manhunt when the sun went down…. Im pretty sure when parents punish their children these days they have to make them go out and play in the fresh air…its very unnerving.

We rode our bikes and played in the woods, most of the time making up games or creating characters for battles or whatever. Even a good old rock fight behind some trees was mandatory if you wanted to be in “the gang”. And when we got old enough to be interested in girls you went to the mall or the skating rink and were forced to follow them around like a horny dog chasing a bone. Scenes were formed from going to shows and hanging out behind factories or burger king parking lots, You fought with other towns and football teams. And every day was a different adventure, based around the same old shit.

We didn’t have internet or cell phones. There was no texting each other in class or leaving the house whenever you wanted and getting a call later about the plan for the evening. You passed notes and hoped you didn’t get caught, and when you got home from school you waited by the phone until your friend called and told you where everyone was meeting. When you got a girls name and number there was no running home to look her up on facebook and then telling her what you really wanted to say.

There was no hoping to get a text a little later from her. You went home and waited to call her, and hope to god you weren’t so drunk that she was fat and ugly. I remember when I got my own phone in my room with my own actual number…I felt like a fucking kingpin. And then when answering machines came out, if you came home and that red light was blinking you knew some good shit was going down. you were already out all night with all your friends so it could only be a girl…sometimes it was grandma and it just fucked the whole mood up.

Please don’t get me wrong…I am grateful as fuck for the internet and cell phones. I have been a big fan since aol came out. like back in the day when instant messenger was all there was and I would sit in my moms office waiting for “beautyqueen666” to email me a picture…and then sit there for 45 minutes with a limp dick in my hand while it downloaded line….by…….line…..click……..click……..click. then you would wait 45 minutes to find out she only sent you a picture of her face, or her left boob with no face in it….or she was just fat and ugly. Then finding another chatroom, working on another girl, hoping it wasn’t a guy, and cybersex consisted of holding down the “M” key….”mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”. there was no skype, ichat, or facetime. Now you can do that shit from your phone….…lucky little fucks. ….…we had it very rough back in the day….

So now I am completely sucked into the childrens world of text messaging and chatty internet sites. I could sit on this shit all day and night if I have nothing to do, usually doing nothing but creeping girls out and staring at the buddy list, like a fucking lion in a bush waiting for a wounded fawn to come limping into the open field. Now a days I really try to do more constructive things on here but I used to be just god awful.

I guess im just grateful that I didn’t grow up surrounded by this shit or I most likely would have grown up to be a serial rapist / murderer….or just a fat lazy piece of shit.

fuck it

2010-10-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

i feel like everything i write is shit.... i took the day off today because i just cant wrap my head around anything. i dropped off coreys wife at the airport a little bit ago so now im in the house all by myself till thanksgiving. its good that im alone because certain shit i write about makes me feel really weird and being around people is the worst case scenario for that. i make myself dopesick or horny constantly depending on what i am writing. either that or completely shut down and cant talk because i fucked over so many people that love me for so long...and the whole constantly destroying my life and the attempt at putting it back together gets a little tiring and heavy as well.
now if i need to curl up in a ball behind a closed door i can actuall leave it open. and scream at the top of my lungs if i need to. i havent even tapped into the super gnarley shit yet.....i hope i dont end up in a straight jacket over this. because a needle just isnt gonna happen. i cant even believe im here writing as much as i am, actually setting a goal and going for it is completely against everything i normally do.
i just want to jerk off and chainsmoke all day....ok i do do that alot but the rest of the time when im not at supertarget im sitting on this bed breaking the keys on the computer with my italian sausage fingers, getting distracted by my ipod. i stopped listening to coltrane while i write. it makes me feel like im in a late 70's scorcese movie or some shit and i start trying to use words i dont know the definition of and end up spending more time on dictionary.com than i do on my book...thats not me. anyone that knows me knows i dont do big words, and i dont want anyone who doesnt know me thinking i do.
i have to remember that this is for me and nobody else....fuck the outcome....and fuck the result.
well now......that was easy

2010-10-19T20:24:00.001-07:00

weekends.....

the rain would bring the smell of the wet woods and the overflowing stream through my window every morning. mixed with the smell of coffee and bacon from the kitchen it was always a warming sensation to wake up to. my first thought would be the hope for a still warm apple turnover strategically placed on one of the blue laced china plates my grandmother would lay out on the butcher block. the cake box had the best apple turnovers EVER. i would wait ll week for one of those things. the long oak table would be decked to the max with bagels and lox, danish, a huge plate of bacon over a greasy paper towel, slice of red onion and tomatoes....it was a bummer that grandpa was dying but the benefit was that grandma sure knew how to spend his money at the house. we would sit at the glass table on the front porch staring out into the big grass field that was our front yard. i wuld fantasize about being a rich family, it sure seemed like it at the time. i could forget about the fact that my mom had to work all the time and i had to watch my sister cuz we couldnt afford a sitter. i could forget about the fact that we lived in the projects in garfield n.j., and that all my friends parents had no teeth and miracle whip in the fridge. i would stand at the edge of the tiny cliff in my back yard and stare into the swimming hole that was now eroded into a tiny guppy pond. skipping rocks into the stream that ran past. it was so awesome when it would rain. just the smell of the wet leaves, the sound of the stream overflowing, walking past trees and shaking them so whoever was walking behind me would get soaked from the wet leaves. frogs would always end up in the pool for some reason when it rained. and we would have to get them out before the chlorine killed them. i would find mice in the filter all the time, mom told me i would get a disease if i touched them so i would grab a stick and fling it into the woods. if scott or eddie were there we would sometimes perform some light poolside operations. i think my biggest fear as a child was the shallowend of that pool. jaws was huge back then and everytime i would jump in the deep end and open my eyes under water i would picture a shark or a dark shadow at the other end waiting patiently for me to swim into its evil clutches...if i was alone forget it i wouldn't even jump in, or if i did i would jump out immediately thinking something was grabbing at my feet. same reason i could never swim in the stream unless i was with scott or someone....kind of a bummer when gram sold the house...especially cuz i was living in it and in my party no rent paying prime....thus began the couch tour from hell........

show me on the dolly where she touched you......

2010-10-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

I don’t really care about your fantasy…noone really cares about anyone elses fantasy. Mine is better than yours anyway….

i could care less about most peoples reality. I hate small talk, I hate when I ask how someone how they are doing and they get all confused and think for a minute that I actually give a fuck and start telling me….you are basically switching me to asshole mode and making me say “settle down my friend….that was a surface question”…..

i barely give a fuck about myself most of the time so its just about impossible for me to ever take anything that comes out of anyones mouth seriously.

I used to actually pretend to listen to girls….like I would go out with them to bars or dinner or whatever and pretend I cared. Hoping I wasn’t going to get a quiz before the panties actually came off. Listening to them talk about NOTHING for hours, the whole time just wondering if she was going to let me stick my middle finger in her vagina, and hoping if she did that it didn’t smell like hot garbage.

I would buy a girl a drink from across the bar, eventually make my way over to her, and feed her every line of bullshit my drunken ass could muster up in hopes of getting a phone number to I could call her and talk to her on the phone, in hopes of getting to meet up at another bar later in the week. Then eventually hoping to get her naked. I have absolutely no recollection of when that stopped. Like I really just don’t give a FUCK anymore. I tell girls exactly what the deal is and if they don’t like it they can go find some poor sap that will play them their “demo” or hold hands with them at the grove or some shit…..maybe even pay for a few movies.

A lot of people including myself find this behavior to be sad and childish. I just think its weird that when I was a child I acted a completely different way…and now that I am an “adult” (yes we take that word very lightly in my case), I have absolutely no desire to fall in love with someone, take the time to get to know them, wake up in the morning and see them laying next to me….maybe rubbing the ball of her foot on my leg. A best friend to laugh at my jokes and rub my back in the bathtub. Someone to shop for on valentines day. Someone that throws me a surprise birthday party or that stands next to me at a family funeral so I have a shoulder to cry on and a neck to kiss……

I have no idea why making a 21 year old girl piss on my chest while I jerk off on the back of her leg and stare at her cute little feet appeals to me more than than all of that wonderful “time of your life” shit……

im pretty sure all of this started happening around the time i wasnt able to just drink anymore and needed cocaine to stand up straight......

bruce willis...please press the button already

2010-10-07T23:13:00.000-07:00

missing home a tad today.
frustration at the mall trying to find out why the computer just likes to shut down while im in the middle of a story, frustration at the att&t store standing there for an hour staring at the guy holding my phone for an hour....doing the shit i was doing at the house. yes douchebag...i took the fucking battery out already, ITS THE ONLY THING I KNOW HOW TO DO WHEN THE PHONE FUCKS UP. the internet on my dingleberry hasnt worked in 4 or 5 days. so no bbm's, no facebook, no aim....no connection with anyone back home really. it's not like i actually dial the fucking phone and call people on it....who does that anymore anyway?
my plan could literally have 100 mintues a month and i doubt i would use them. but i will send 5,000 texts of some sort a day. and thank god they cant open your picture messages. >:)
then after sitting in the phone store for an hour while he was on the phone with the death star he hung up, looked at me and said........."they said its a problem with one of the antennas and it should be fixed in a day or so"......i nearly lost my shit. what do i look new to this fucking guy? you think i havent fucked a hot girl that worked in a phone store before? i know this game better than he does. so after i sternly correct him and tell him no...thats not the fucking problem. you dont know what the problem is......i want a new phone. so tomorrow i get to go back and get a new phone...unfortunately in a fit of rage after i found out i couldnt back up my phone on my laptop because the software i have on it might as well be cooking brontosaurus burgers, i wiped the phone clean in a hard something or other...i forgot what the "other guy" at the phone store called it, but he said that if i do that then the phone will probably work. so now i need to get EVERYONES info back into my phone. its funny...when i put up on facebook that i need everyones contact info back, the only people besides a couple that gave me their info were people i never fucking talk to...ever.....like 4 people i talk to on a regular basis gave me what i need.....eh...whatever ill get it back. its not like im in a crisis, nor do i plan to be anytime soon....im in iowa for christ sake. the most dramatic thing going on here right now is that my sister brenna and my niece october are in vegas right now and i fucking miss them.....
other than that its nothing a trip to supertarget wont cure...god i fucking love that place.
i might go tomorrow.....i been diving into some pretty gnarley writing and its making me feel uncomfortable. but not bad enough to stop writing it....i am actually kinda turning it around and getting off on it. i have never dug this shit up like this before...sure i've done 4th steps and whatnot, but nothing this in depth and detailed....im reliving every funny, painful, and mortifyingly shameful moment i can remember...and i remember a lot. you would think i wouldnt remember shit, but most of my blackouts have come back to me in great detail over time.
i take these feelings i am going through and look at it like the last time i kicked heroin...i kicked on my moms couch for seven weeks, with my little sister taking care of me while my 1 year old nephew (who is now fucking four! jesus...) waddling around the house giving me the love and hope i didnt have. i sat on that couch for what felt like years every night, in the worst pain of my life...knowing that it would be over one day. it was a feeling i rarely had in my previous attempts to stop. i was licked...i knew i didnt have the hustle it took to stay under the table anymore. i had no choice....so every bonechilling night i sat there praying, telling myself its not going to last forever, and embracing the pain knowing if i chose to...i would never ever have to feel this way again.
now that i think about it these feelings aint shit compared to that.so fuck it.....i miss my friends...even though i dont ever really see them when im home anyway anymore. my phone doesnt ring or buzz barely ever unless i send something out. it seems my only contact with people anymore are the comments i get under my facebook headlines....its a sad existence when all you have to look forward to is what im going to write.....the even sadder existence than that is me....the one writing for your comments. thank god its all temporary, and in a year who's gonna give a shit anyway right? i cant wait till we resort back to caveman times when we come full circle....and im sitting where swingers used to be with paulie, cyrus, and ray sparking up two rocks to grill up some rat we just caught running down beverly.........at least then i wont have to worry if the cute waitress wants to fuck me or not. ill just club that bee sting over the head with a stick and drag her to the nearest pile of burnt out cars. im pretty sure i better stop here...thisa can only go more downhill then it already has.........

in the hole......

2010-10-05T15:53:00.001-07:00

I don’t really have anything today. My brain is full of stories both funny and horrific. But nothing is coming through my fingers. I have been staring into a blank sheet of paper on this computer screen since I woke up (which was hours ago).

People say I have this “gift” for writing. But I don’t see it. I don’t see most of the things I do as having any talent. I see the bad for sure though. If I make a list of my defects and my assets, the defects always come out first and there is like 50 more than the assets. Probably a hundred if it’s a real self loathing kinda day. I would kill anyone that said half the shit about me that I say about myself. It’s the most brutal thing to be around such positive, successful people. And just feel like the biggest piece of shit on the planet. There is people on welfare, there is people good enough to get by, there are the completely successful, and the there is me…….

If I hear from one more girl that I break up with “I wish you saw what I saw in you”. To be born and to die with the same story “he had so much potential”. Who the fuck wants to read about my bullshit life, with my halfass exciting stories about catching herpes, and Chlamydia about 100 times. Who wants to read about a 39 year old man with no license and no real focus on the future? I guess it would be a good book if you wanted to feel better about your situation. Kinda like watching some shitty reality show like the bad girls club or tool academy, or any of those fucking soul dragging nightmares for that matter. Fucked up thing is I DO feel kinda ok about myself. I know im can be a really good dude when I want to be, just like I can be a complete bag of shit when I want to be. It all basis itself around what I do to maintain my spirituality. I don’t do much, so that’s probably a good indication of why im in a writing hole right now. I told myself I was giving myself a few days to regroup. Its amazing that I can totally lie to myself and believe it. I did that for years with drugs and it didn’t really get me anywhere. So im forcing myself to write…then im gonna post it and force you to read it.

Then im gonna take a shower, cook dinner for the fam, and go to a meeting. When I get home hopefully I will be in more of an ambitious mood…..and not watch house and jerk off to porn till 5am.

Have a good day…give a good day….do whatever the fuck you want to do with your day…its your choice.

Jason christopher

holes of silence......

2010-09-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

taking the power back....believing the lie my head tells me.......in one day my simple, beautiful little life becomes a shooting gallery of lies and torment. all the good i have done to change my behavior means nothing. five hundred people can say good things about me but the one whore who thinks she knows me tells someone something negative and it gets back to me.....and there i go again, believing the lie. i become that person....
i am a fraud and someone has finally figured me out. it doesnt matter that i dont do what has been spoken of anymore, all i see is an old pattern shaking its finger in my face, letting me know that everything i do is pointless and i shouldn't even try. so i stop trying, i stop praying, i stop making my bed, i start lying, i start stealing, i start having numerous one night stands to fix the bleeding hole in my stomache. jelly beans become little balls of hot tar searing the roof of my mouth and cracking my lips. the handle on the shovel is broken and splintered but i use it anyway, to dig the hole of hate.....glovelessly wrenching the dirt into a pile on the sidewalk....the heartbeat in the splintered scars on my hands trickle fluids green from envy, red with rage....sparks fly from the rocks i hit, blinding me with fear and isolation....i cant breathe anymore....the old pattern is done shaking its finger and is now burying me with the pile of dirt that sits patiently next to the hole...my chest grows tight as the air thins in my lungs, i pass out from exhaustion....only to find out its all to happen again....because i haven't changed a thing

life, death, and the lightning bolt.....

2010-09-06T23:13:00.001-07:00

life, death, and the lightning bolt.....

am i scared of anything good in my life because i lost all the men i looked up to in my family at a very young age to slow painful deaths? sunday dinners in the basement at grandma and grandpas house, i would wake up to the smell of the 20 gallon silver sauce pot on the stove simmering for days. grandpa made the best sauce and it would always be ziti. uncle phil always sat at the head of the table. going to pop pops apartment on park ave and staring at the lifesize painting of his daughter leah in the living room. she commited suicide when i was a baby. that painting still creeps me out when i think about it. we would go to an italian resteraunt somewhere uptown, i have no clue where it was all i know is that i haven't had better spumoni since. pop pop died of alshiemers, grandpa died of lung cancer, uncle phil just disappeared.

sure i'll let people close to me, but i will never let them in. ill sit here and type my heart till there is no blood left to pump for the whole world to see but you come anywhere near me and i shut down. i was the youngest grandson, and the favorite. both my granfathers at one point and time looked at me and then asked my grandmothers who i was. i guess maybe that has a little something to do with something. i remember being so pissed at my real dad for not coming to his fathers funeral. but the truth is that if my father died tonight i wouldn't even think about shedding a light tear. i have never boo hoo'd about my life ever i've always played the hand i was delt the best i knew how. i;ve always been slightly reziliant with anything negative that popped up in my youth. i never understood how we could go visit my grandmother on the upper east side and eat at a fancy italian resteraunt, then drive through the lincoln tunnel back to our little apartment in the projects of garfield new jersey where we were on welfare. all my mom and my stepdad did was fight about money. i would look forward to easedropping on my mothers late night phone conversations in the kitchen cuz she would always tell whatever girlfriend she was on the phone with some pretty private shit. dad was a sound sleeper and aimee wasn't even born yet so she thought noone was listening. i would always leave my bedroom door open a crack so i could sit in my bed and listen. it always seemed like as the conversation would start getting really juicy a train would go by. not like a commuter train like one of those trains with 80 cars attatched to it and took forever to go by. i would get so pissed that i couldn't hear that i would start punching my pillow. i would do the same with there arguments in there bedroom. but what i loved the most was when she would talk about me and what fucked up thing i did this time. being the attention whore that i am i learned at a very early age that if you made people laugh or think you were crazy that they wouldn't really have any need to try and get close to you. you were just there for amusement purposes only and that was fine by me.

my grandmother got so drunk at pop pops wake that she started pulling her black dress up and mooning people. well i remember her mooning me at least. and when grandpa jim died grandma agnes was yelling at cars from the back of the limo that were ignoring the funeral precesion. there was no more sauce and no more spumoni. no more wet cheek kisses from uncle phil, no more whistling frank sinatra and dodging green and red lung cookies from the back seat of grandpas car, no more sitting on pop pops lapand driving around the circle driveway in the fire engine red alfa romeo convertible.

i was 16 and still avoiding my mom when i would come home stoned. one thanksgiving i got super baked with my friends and then had to go home for dinner. that was fine cuz the holidays were different. mom was always so busy cooking and getting buzzed on wine that i probably could have lit up a joint at the dinner table and she wouldn't have even noticed. what once used to be a big family deal was now reduced to maybe 5 or 6 people. the dining room table extensions stayed in the basement, and it was now just the ladies and my stepdad rick. grandma angela is a hairdresser in manhattan and has been since the 60's, so i was raised around gay people my entire life. frank and collin were a staple on the holidays. that shit never freaked me out cuz i was raised around it being ok. so i never even thought twice about it even when my friends would clown me for it. so i walk in to the house kinda paranoid, those were the days when we walked around with a plastic bristle brush in one back pocket, and a bottle of visine in the other. frank and collin have been around since before i knew what gay was. i walk up the steps gauging my eyes out with the pointy tip of the visine bottle, stop at the door and take a deep breath and prepare myself to listen to my mother and my grandmother fight over nothing, while frank and collin tried to intervene unsuccesfully, while my dad sits on the couch smoking his kool milds and watching the animal channel. i open the door and my mother is mixing something in a bowl in the kitchen. unfortunately for my completely roasted ass the kitchen was eyelined to the front door. (i think i just created a new way to say that word). my mom sees me and comes straight for me with this worried look on her face. right there i know im busted. she grabs my hand and walks me into her bedroom. fuck not only am i busted now im gonna get a sit on the bed lecture about how drugs r bad nnkay? she sits on the bed and grabs both my hands, her eyes fill up with tears as she proceeds to tell me frank has aids. why she couldn't wait till after dinner to tell me this i have no idea. my face starts getting hot and prickly, and all of the sudden i feel like im on acid.
she tells me not to say anything and to just pretend i don't know. all im thinking is how the fuck am i supposed to act like everything is ok? maybe now i could sure....but you have to understand this was 1987, and you couldn't even say the word aids on tv yet. but this wasn't my first run in with this, like i said my grandmother cuts hair in midtown manhattan. jay died of "phenemonia" in 1985. and my moms best friend from high school and famous classical pianist joseph villa died of aids shortly after jay....

mom goes back into the kitchen and i go into my room. i want to cry but i can't, it hasn't really sunk in yet. dinner is finally ready and it's time to stop hiding in my room. this wave of information has put me completely on tilt and im baked out of my skull. pot up until just recently has done nothing but make me think to much and i used to get really insecure and paranoid. i sit down at the table and like i said, the family has dwindled down to almost nothing. it was me, mom, dad, aimee, grandma, frank and collin, and my moms best friend marylou who apparently my stepdad was fucking (but we didn't find this out till years later). i can't even look up at him. everyone is talking and carrying on like nothing was wrong. im afraid to look up in fear of seeing a legion on his face or something. eventually after almost 30 minutes of me pushing my food around my plate frank looks me dead in the eye and says "so hows school jason? everything ok with you?". i tried to swallow the light bulb size knot in my throat and answer him but i was so freaked out and stoned i just said "im cool"...the whole time he's looking at me i'm thinking that he must know that i know. aids was so new and there was so little information about it that i just kept looking at the silverware he was using, and if he was coughing at all. i tilted my way through dinner and called billy my best friend in high school to come get me. when billy came i said goodbye to everyone and frank got up to hug me. physically i made everything look fine but mentally i fucking freaked out. i hugged him anyway, put on my denim jacket with the twisted sister pin, flat ironed my mullet a little more and flew downstairs to billy's car.
billy and his family were born again christians or something to that affect. they didn't have tv cuz it was evil, and went to church 3 times on sunday. when i told him what happened he said "see??? god is punishing him for being gay..". i wanted to punch him in the throat but since he was driving i let it go. billy was always saying dumb god shit like that anyway so we were all used to it. one time he was having a god freak out while cruising me and john roth around carlstadt one rainy schoolnight. john had a joint and we were trying to get billy to smoke with us. he just kept saying "i don't know guys this is so wrong. i don't want to go to hell". poor kids mother had him so freaked out im suprised his head hasn't exploded by now. especially with the crew we ran with. we were always drinking, or on acid, or banging someones sister, or all three at the same time. and billy would always freak, especially when we took acid...jesus christ....sometimes we would be so fucked up that he would start making sense and scare the shit out of all of us. like the rainy night when we were trying to get him to smoke. we were driving up my street. it had been pouring all day and now it was just a light drizzle, but it wasn't a thunderstorm it just rained all day. there wasn't a flash of lightning or a rumble of the clouds all day.. we were nagging him for like 15 minutes straight to get stoned. finally he grabs the joint all mad and says "fine you want me to go to hell ill go to fucking hell give me the joint!!". i swear on my mothers eyes we were coming to the top of central ave which was a really steep hill and as soon as we started to come over the top of the hill he put the joint in his mouth. from the back seat i reached over with my lighter, and with my evil peer pressure tone i said "yeeeah thats my boy" and lit the lighter. at the same time i lit the lighter a bolt of lightning came down and hit the tree right in front of us. billy slammed on the brakes and threw it in park. me and john were out of the car running down the hill screaming before he even stopped the car. none of us smoked weed for like 3 or 4 days after that, and i think i almost went to church with billy and his family that sunday morning. we were also a half a block away from the cop shop when it happened so seeing three 16 year old kids stoned out of there gourds running past the cops screaming at full volume was pretty amusing im sure....that thanksgiving was also the last time i saw frank. collin never got aids and now it's collin and victor...not frank and collin....billy now lives somewhere in south jersey, heard he got married, has a kid, and drives a poland spring truck or some shit....i haven't spoken to him in over ten years....

2010-09-06T23:07:00.000-07:00

on the weekends i would usually go from our tiny little apartment in the low income housing projects of garfield new jersey, to my grandmothers huge 12 acre house in woodstock ny. but sometimes i wouldn't go up with them.....my mom would drop me off at my real fathers parents house, grandma agnes and grandpa jim. joe ( the sperm doner) was somewhere in the midwest drunk shoveling cowshit and had been gone for years. last time i saw him when i was a kid me and my mom were in a mall and he was working in the shoe store....suprise, suprise....on friday nights (might have been saturdays i was like 6) i would take the ride with grandpa to chicken delight, while grandma stayed home and set the table with quilty flowered placemats and wooden handled silverware. i had my special plate and fork though. the kitchen always smelled like chicken and rice i don't know why. and the huge grandfather clock would go off every hour...fucking thing was so loud it used to scare the shit out of me when i was sleeping.
it was always the longest ride home from chicken delight cuz grandpa would never let me pick out of the bucket until we got home. i would run down the driveway into the house and sit at the table. grandma would always make me get up and wash my hands. so i'd go wash my hands and always hear the sarcasm from the kitchen "and use soap this time!"....my mouth would be watering for fried chicken, cole slaw, and grape soda. the police scanner was buzzing behind me as i sat at the table scarfing down chicken legs, wondering if grandpa was gonna give me a sip of his vino. if im not mistaken grandma smoked so much that in one hand she would have a chicken leg, in the other a marlboro 100, and the phone pinned between her ear and her shoulder talking to one of my aunts. grandpa would always tell me to slow down and watch for bones. then tell me some story about "a guy he knew" that once choked to death on a chicken bone cuz he was eating to fast. he also knew a guy that lost his arm from hanging it out the window, a guy who made a funny face and it stayed that way permanently, and a guy who fell into the paper mill cuz he was standing to close....you get my drift. sometimes we would go to uncle phil and aunt carols after dinner. i used to love that cuz they lived right up the hill from carvel. plus my cousin philip used to fly me around the house over his head and tickle me until i pee'd a little. but on the nights we stayed home, after dinner we would go into the living room and put on either the dean martin or the lawrence welk show depending on what night it was. and once a year we would watch dean martins man of the year roast. grandma loved center square paul lynde.they both had there recliner chairs and i would lay on the pladue green couch in my one piece whinnie the pooh pajamas with the footsies. the feet in those things used to freak me out cuz they were half suede or some shit. when grandma was done playing solitaire in the kitchen she would come into the living room with one of the multi~colored plastic boths from the cabinet filled with vanilla and strawberry ice cream and cool whip, topped off with hershey's syrup out of the can. then she would sit and do her crossword puzzles and chainsmoke. she exhaled the smoke so loud i used to hear her in the morning from my room when she was in the kitchen. usually on the phone gossiping about some lady in church. i would swirl all the ice cream and cool whip together until it was soft like carvel ice cream. grandpa would sit in the middle and sing along with dean while occasionally letting out a little fart, until he started snoring. he always went to bed before me and grandma and slept like a rock. one time i came into his bedroom to wake him up and when he opened his eyes he had this weird look on his face. he opened his mouth and pulled out three nails. he was hammering something in the basement and forgot to take the nails out of his mouth before he went to bed. he woke up on his back dont ask me how he didn't swallow those fucking things.
when grandpa went to bed grandma would put on one of her crime shows. i would go up to the attic and listen to my dads old 45's of the guess who and steppenwolf that he left behind on my little 45 record player, while swinging my g.i. joe's from a string attatched to the ceiling. the attic had two sections, one was where i played and sometimes slept when i was feeling like a big boy (the attic steps were creepy and scared the shit out of me usually), and the otjher section had a desk and office type shit in it. with a wooden plaque of snoopy in his flight gear that said "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance...baffle them with bullshit" hanging on the wall. i never went ovewr to that side at night and used to run down the stairs when it was time to go to bed. there was always a man chasing me when i ran down those things. and if i stayed up there grandma would come up around eleven and read me a bedtime story. we were all down with the walt disney book of the month club. so once a month i would get a brown package in the mail. i used to love that...like clockwork every night grandma would lay in bed at 10pm and watch the news. and shut the tv off as the grandfather clock was striking eleven. once in a blue moon she would stay up for an extra fifteen minutes to watch the odd couple or mash. if i slept upstairs my friend tommy would come to his granparents next door. his room was in the attic as well and our windows were level to each other with nothing but the driveway between us. we would yell to each other until we both got yelled at. when i finally layed down a mild scent of mothballs would woft up my nose from the cracked closet door as i tried not to make the headboard smack against the wall from trying to get comfortable. i never really liked sleeping up there cuz i woke up before everyone. and i would alwasy wake them up cuz i was right over there bedroom. no matter how quiet i tried to be the cold tiled floor was creeky as hell. and the wooden bannister on the staircase was kinda loose and would hit the wall if i touched it echoing through the whole house. i couldn't wait to wake up because at my house all we had was cheerios and toast. but in the little cabinet attatched to the stove in grandmas kitchen there sat usually 5 or 6 boxes of straight sugar. apple jacks, sugar smacks, frankenberry, cocoa krispies, and frosted cherry pop tarts. it was fucking paradise...

airplane...........

2010-08-21T01:59:00.000-07:00

No matter how many times I get on a plane I
never get used to the long
uncomfortable ride.  Its not as bad as it used to be,
I mean fuck.....I remember
when all you had was a giant movie screen in the front
of the plane, and the
only relief besides that was the ability to smoke on
planes....now there are so
many things to make the time go by quicker. T.v's on
the backs of the chairs,

ipods, ipads, nanos, nunos, prunos, junos....
you name it they made it to
distract you from actually having to sit with
a stranger and have a mild
conversation for a few hours...or god forbid
sit with yourself. If you are like
me both of those options are never a very good idea.
So I sit here writing on my
blackberry whilst listening to after the gold rush,
my all time favorite neil
young song....but still, I look at the time
and realize I have the longest hour
and a half of my life ahead of me....
I was so sleep deprived the week I spent in
london that as soon as I got on the plane
I passed out cold and woke up an hour
before we landed in chicago....I couldn't believe it.
I NEVER sleep on planes
ever. I have also never flown business class before...
the seats turn into beds,
they automatically roll you over so the stewardess
can wipe your ass with a warm
wet towel while another blows you from underneath....
business class is the way
to go always on long trips.
I woke up and the stewardess asked me if I wanted a
snack. Of course with a sass mixed with
a little bit of freshly awoken
crankiness I snapped back with "a snack??
Shouldn't you be serving
dinner??"....corey looked at me and said,
"dude...you have been asleep for like
8 hours...you missed both dinners".
I couldn't believe it....I finally slept on
a plane longer than 10 minutes.
Honestly I have a lot of trouble sleeping on
planes because one time I was flying home to
visit the fam and I was sitting
next to this super hot chick...
we were doing the "look...now look away!!"
Thing
to each other for a while untill we took off
and my head rested against the
window. Unfortunately I had stopped at mcdonalds
for breakfast and had 2 egg
mcmuffins, 2 hash browns, a cup of mcdonalds coffee
(which fucking rules by the
way) and a large orange juice....
I figured I'd catch a few zzz's and wake up in
plenty of time to get a number...
the fantasy of getting sex in a tiny bathroom
is always there as well....
hey you never know, much stranger shit has happened
to me. Instead of being woken up by some turbulance
or by the annoying
loudspeaker....I was awoken by quite an
unexpected rumble from my ass.....my
eyes opened and it was like a fucking dream.
I didn't know if it really happened
or not, until I geered my eyes to the right
and saw the lucious young future victim sitting there
with her shirt pulled up over her nose.
Then before
anything else happened I heard the person
in the seat in front of me say
"daaaammmmnnnnn...that's messed up".
I was fucking mortified. Then it finally
wofted its way up from the inside of my shirt
into my nostrils....it smelled
like I had sausage mcmuffins not egg...
it was fucking awful..Needless to say I
didn't get a phone number, and was
stone cold fucking sober.....
so now that I think about it.....
that was the longest hour and a half of my life...
not
this......this is a fucking breeze now that I think
 about it......ok time to strap in. I can see the grated
lights of misery from my window....
and soon the smog will set in just like reality....
dark and coudy with a chance of hope.
I
should have stayed in iowa and waited
for the baby to be born.......and as I sit in amasement
at how many baseball diamonds there are in los angeles, 3 people
sneeze in my general area and it becomes like fucking outbreak...
thank god
we are almost there....
these diseased fucks should learn how
to hold that shit
in for appropriate times like this......

the curse of 1850 cherokee........

2010-08-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

once again i was sitting at the table i had been killing myself at every day for the better part of 07 .......there were no more after parties, no hot water, no phone, no internet, no girl, no job, no friends.....no god

when i first decided to drink again months before the curse of 1850 had shown me what it could really do. life was prety fuckin good. cahuenga was booming, the drink and drug were basically free, and i was a happy coke filled drunk most of the week. i would take days off here and there to replenish the color in my face, but soon repeated the pale drive that hollywood offers us on a nightly basis. soon after the pills had run there course gently through my body i was slipped a cell phone number that would be the end of all ends for me....

prior to this i was dabbling with the steel horse and some coke here and there. but nothing to really concern myself with, or anyone else for that matter. but the day i called the matadors and jumped into the back seat of there chariot would be day i would never forget. and repeat numerous times on a daily basis to assure my remebrance.... (sorry red bull makes me think i actually know the definition of half the words im using)...anyway....it wasn't to long before i was making my last dope run in 96 look like a walk through central park on a saturday afternoon in the early 50's. me and a friend were selling everything we owned, borrowing from everyone we could, and getting fronted every day..we hustled our asses off to keep our heads above water every miserable day we were forced to wake up. as the months went by my habit grew and my status in hollywood shrank to nothing. everyone stopped coming over which was the only way i was able to be reached aside from me checking email at my neighbors once a day. i would use there phone to call the matadors at least 5 times a day. everything that had power in my house or strings on a fretboard was now the property of elliott salters.

the smell of the little green chariot was so familiar to me that if i smelled it now i would probably shit right here on the carpet...just thinking about it makes my stomache a little knotty. my x who had been hanging on by a thread had given up and started dating someone else. this is what put me over the edge. i remember reading the last email she sent telling me that she was done. i walked back up to my misery and began throwing everything that wasn't at the pawn shop against the wall while tears streamed down my face...i was done and i knew it. unfortunately at that time in my life there was only one way out for me. so i loaded a syringe with 3 balloons of heroin and a shitload of coke, sat at that fucking table once again, and hoped that this would be the last time i stuck a needle in my arm. i woke up half on the bed and half on the floor with blood coming out of my nose, sweat pouring into my eyes, and my hands and heart shaking uncontrollably. the fan still running but knocked on the floor, and my nieghbor standing at my door with a completely freaked out look on his face...i couldn't believe i was still alive....i shouldn't have put the coke in my spoon......

i started sobbing uncontrollably. it felt like the moans coming from my throat were echoing into the open windows of buildings blocks away. i looked up from a noise at the door and saw my x in a blurred teary eyed vision at my door. i had just posted a completely irate bulletin about the situation but there was no way she could have seen it and gotten to my apartment so fast. she told me she was going to europe for 2 years and we were done. i was almost chanting "you cant leave me" over and over while tears streamed down my face. i jumped up and started to fill the spoon again, popping a few of mommies little helpers to get the motor running a little faster. my spirit for suicide intensified greatly at that moment, i couldn't wait to fill my last syringe and end it...... as i melted my last balloon she got on her phone and walked outside. i took everything i had left into the bathroom and locked the door. she came back in frantically pounding and kicking at the door as i sat naked on the toilet jabbing myself vein unfriendly....

after i had opened the door a few times to show her i was just "taking a shit" the fire department showed up...it was taking forever to find the bloodline that would send me to another dimension. gently the young studly men in blue called my name and knocked on the door as blood poured from every hole i made in that 15 minutes...i would open the door a crack and tell them i would be right out. only to close it again and start jabbing myself. finally after 30 or so failed attempts at a connection, i just stuck the needle in my arm and pushed the plunger down. there was so much shit in the needle that i almost broke the plunger trying to get it all in there. the rest of the trip is pretty much a blur. i remember being carried out on a stretcher, and the hot fire dicks hitting on my x as they carried me out. she says they thought i was her brother. then she told me as they were closing the ambulance doors that i asked her...."baby...will you go get my cigarettes??".....i heard one of them say "he's going out" and when i woke up......

i thought i woke up in the alhambra psych ward. until i started getting bills from hollywood pesbyterian and she had told me thats where they brought me. i have absolutely no recollection of being brought back to life. there was no shocking awareness from the narcan, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel before they hit me with paddles. i only know this happened from nurses telling me and the life support/transportation bill i just got from the hospital. (it costs 900 dollars to get brought back in an ambulance in case you were wondering).

this is basically what happened as told by my x and my friend...cuz i didnt remember shit..........

i woke up in a white room strapped to a gernee with a big white tube sticking out of the head of my peehole. the lighting was equivalant to that of a cosco or an AM/PM . there was a giant black man dressed all in white as well standing over me. he sounded like the mouseman from the green mile when he said...."you lucky to be alive little man...they brought you back twice". i looked him dead in the eye and said "get this tube out of my dick i have to go home".....even after all that i still wasn't done trying to die. after a slight chuckle followed by a very dissapointing fatherly stare he ill informed me of my 72 hour suicide watch. that was when they transported me to alhambra psych ward. that whole experience was a brown out. i would come to here and there but basically all i remember is staring at the clock waiting to go home and shoot dope....my x told me she came to see me and they let her give me a cupcake that her daughter had for me. but all i kept doing was asking her to use her phone so i could call my neighbor...i have no idea why i needed to call him so bad....i remember taking a tray of fish from the "hospital lunch rack" that made me puke.... i kinda remember the crazy guy in the bed next to me moaning....and i definitely remember making them call a cab for me 5 minutes before my suicide watch time was up......

I was found face down on my bed crying.. asking her why? why did she have to leave me. she looked around and saw that i had destroyed my apartment. she had no idea what i was trying to do, she hadnt talked to me in over two weeks and was worried about me. she had a gut feeling that things were not ok, so she came by the house and found the worst situation one can find. We talked for a little bit and she realized that i was going to try and kill myself again. so, she called a friend freaking out not knowing what to do. she called the cops and when they showed up, i had fooled all the dumb ass fireman into thinking i was taking a shit. she kept telling them i was getting high but they didnt believe her. They started pulling shit off the walls and taking needles from every single corner in the apt. They put me in the ambulance and all i kept saying was i loved her and wanted her to go my hat and cigs... so they took me to the er and she stayed on the phone with the nurse begging her to not let me leave the hospital. a friend convinced me to tell the doctor i was trying to kill myself because they were going to release me on my own recog... they put me on suicide watch and transferred me to alahambra. i was there for three days. i refused to release any information to anyone but my x which made some of my friends irate. a friend was there when she couldnt be because of her kid. she went to see me while i was there despite what everyone said. i kept yelling at the nurse to let me leave with her. she brought me a cupcake and some notebooks to write in...but i couldnt lift my arms or close my hand enough to hold a pen from all the absesses...... she called my mother and sister and talked to them about sending me home. i am a hard headed s.o.b. so talking me into anything much less moving to the woods was not happening.... it took me almost losing my life actually...losing my life and being brought back... i thank god it was almost...... this world wouldnt be the same without me. :)

2010-08-06T15:54:00.000-07:00

its really sad that the only thing that has inspired me to write since i started not to long ago, is the lack of individuality in this fancy little town i call my home. my friend and i were attempting to enjoy some light conversation over a cup of coffee and a fried egg sandwich at our favorite place with the semi decent jukebox, shitty overpriced food, and probably the worst coffee in l.a..... this shit is so bad that as soon as it hits your bloodstream its like it cant wait to get out of any hole it can get close to.....
in the midst of our light shit talking session i noticed mine and her attention getting distracted away from the conversation. she looked at me in disgust and said "it's so fucking hip in here i cant stand it"...i could only nod in disgust as well...but the way she said it almost made me spit my coffee across the table. it was like all of the sudden we were in a living room somehwere at a birthday party in the hollywood hills....and the roots were playing........you know when you accidentally end up at one of those shithole parties cuz the chick you are trying to bang drags you up there with the promise that "it will be fun"...so you go hoping she doesnt meet the kinda famous guy with the coke and leave you in the kitchen with the eurotrash owner of the house for an hour. and all you want to do is get your dick sucked and watch dexter reruns while you finish the last of the froot loops........as soon as you walk in you see gilby clarkes retarded uncle sitting on the couch crooning to some old ass wine breath cumguzzler with brown stains between her teeth singing some sheryl crow song...moving her head like "she"s feelin it".....and theres some black dude in the corner with dreads in some fucking rainbow pants losing time with a tamborine doing some weird dance with his knees.......the weird guy you kinda know from around but never liked cuz he's a fucking tool corners you by the bathroom and wants to "know who you really are" cuz you've seen each other for years but never really talked...and all you want to do is smash his head against the shitty million dollar painting hanging from the yellow piece of sheetrock and chuck his faggoty ass boots of the edge of the balcony that overlooks the place that you love so much...but makes you write this garbage.......god i love eating at swingers.......
.

sweet sixteen.......

2010-08-06T15:52:00.001-07:00

the high school was across the street from wawa...god damn i miss those fucking heroes. for like $2.79 you got a hoagie the size of your arm dripping with shredded lettuce, mayo, and your choice of some sort of pressed intestine....wash that shit down with a yoohoo, some shitty brown weed with seeds popping up your nose and into your eyeball out of some shitty brass screw pipe you bought over at a 42nd st. head shop and a marlboro red and you got the fixins for a great day of cutting school....i was way to cool to wear a real winter jacket, and denim isn't really below freezing wind chill factor savvy no matter how many iron maiden patches or twisted sister buttons you have on the fucking thing. my bright red cracked hands would shake the cigarette that was almost out from the wind to my purple lips while the sword dangling from my left ear froze my lobe off...my hair was way to wirey of a mullet blowing in the wind to give me any type of protection on my neck...and scarves were just fucking gay. my workboots were usually steel toe in case i had to kick a guido in the face...again, not very winter savvy, even with 2 pairs of socks....especially wearing my ball hugging blue jeans with the huge rips in the knees...its a wonder i never froze to death holding the bud nip, thats what we called the little 8 oz. bottles they dont make anymore i dont think...not like that anyway. when we were that age one 8-pack would do the trick just fine......it made it ok to wear an autograph shirt that i had cut to the point that you could see my belly button....jesus christ i cant believe i just said that.....

2010-08-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

late night at a bar.......

if i walk into the bathroom of a dark dingy waterhole to use the freshly sanitized urinal, to coat the pink urinal biscuit with a liquid slightly resembling green gatorade for my lack of water intake.....occasionally i will be blessed with a patron or two in the stall next to me, making the sweet sounds that drug addicts make when a bill becomes unfolded in the sweaty hands of an intoxicated douchebag that just scored some cocaine......stone cold sober i am repulsed at just the thought of doing it, and i want to kick the door down and smack it from there hands into the toilet, to stop the sniffling and the whispering.....but you give me one shot of whiskey and i am climbing the walls to join in and make them my best friends for the rest of the night.....or at least until the cocaine is gone.

i can go from waking up every morning, doing 50 push ups and eating a banana....to not going to bed until the sun comes up having to pop a xanex to rem the sleep in a 2 hour period. my life immidiately becomes a whirl winding nightmare of red lights and bad breath, punching metal gates in dumpster reeked alleys, and avoiding phone calls from the people i love. jumping in cabs with strange men with accents and funny shirts, venturing out to the middle of nowhere in hopes of a better time then where i just was. then once i get there and the conversation about tommy lees drumming becomes mundane, i will walk 15 miles back to the place i was before....hoping it will be better than the last time i was there......always tired......always wondering what would have happened if i made a left instead of a right. four rights only make a left in the spirit world.....stopping occasionaly to forget a conversation......and constantly remembering that the sun shouldn't be taken for granted, and is never overrated......

2010-08-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

its friday august 6th....10:06 am

i have already chucked down 2 cups of coffee and a cigarette. the mugginess of the midwest has let up a little the past 2 days and you are finally able to drive with the windows down. i don't know what it is about air conditioning but i always feel like im standing in front of a microwave when that shits blowing on me...like its not real air and im gonna get some weird crystalization disease in my lungs....not like the "fresh air" of the open road is any healthier these days, it just makes me feel a little less trapped under ice.

i have been in iowa for about a week now and will be here for 7 more days. it never seems as long as it should because my family is here and it goes by way to quick all the time. and maybe this is me getting old or whatever, but i really enjoy the quiet out here.....hollywood just gets way too much for me these days...mom bought a patio set the other nioght and me and pops spent the evening putting it together, then last night we just hung out on the porch and smoked cigarettes. totally what my parents and their friends used to do when i was a kid. the smell of the citronella candles burning under the table brought me right back to woodstock in 1981....

my sister had just been born and my grandmother had just spent basically all the money my grandfather left her when he died remodeling the old house. so every weekend we would drive up from the projects in garfield nj to this huge mansion in upstate ny. pretty confusing for a 10 year old kid...but i adjust to situations pretty quickly....sometimes i would cry when it was time to go upstate....and sometimes i would cry when we had to go back to jersey. i am just as confused now as i was back then......but one of the worst things that ever happened to me was when my grandma sold that house........

i used to catch the big moths and drip candlewax on there wings and watch them walk around till i felt bad for what i did...then i would rip there wings off and throw them in the candle, pull them out and light them on fire. lets not even get into what me and scotty used to do to the frogs in the woods when we were kids....total beavis and butthead shit. me and brenna bought a bug zapper at bed bath and beyone last night but it was a small one, not like the big deep fryers we had when i was a kid. i gotta go find one of those cuz 30 years later.....watching bugs fry is still the coolest thing in the world to me.....is anyone reading this garbage? im gonna shut up and smoke another cigarette on the porch....."have a great day, it's your choice"~jack g.

sincerely..

jason christopher

look around...leaves are brown....and the sky.....

2010-07-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

impulse........An impulse is a wish or urge, particularly a sudden one. It can be considered as a normal and fundamental part of human thought processes, but also one that can become problematic, as in a condition like obsessive-compulsive disorder.

when i was first getting sober this would happen to me every few days or so. i would be sitting in a chair watching tv, or i would be in an AA meeting really enjoying it, and before i knew it i was out the door with a piece of my mothers jewelry and jacking a cab to cop some drugs. i didnt want to do it, i didnt mean to do it...it just fucking happened. i am a firm believer in listening to people that say "you're bottom is when you stop digging". i don't listen to people that say "i dont have another run in me" or "next time i drink i will die"...i used to believe that...because my bottoms would be so bad they would keep me sober for at least a year or two just on the straight fear of ending up like that again. but shit would get better, then shit would get boring, and that fucking impulse would come back like i never had a day without drugs or booze...and before i knew what hit me, i would be drinking in a bar with over a year or so sober.
my life would seemingly get better very quick...i would go from having absolutley nothing. to getting my own apartment, car, etc.....soon forgetting all the people that had helped me accumilate these "gifts" for staying sober and doing the right thing. i am a low bottom alcoholic, which means that i could have a billion dollars...but if i get loaded i would figure out a way to blow it all within a year or so.....leaving myself homeless and begging my mother for a plane ticket back to her couch so i can kick one more time.
i really feel for the people i see standing up in meetings on a weekly basis coming back time and time again...never getting the grasp of actual sobriety. not like im some spiritual giant but i have had enough time before, and i have a nice chunk now to know that going down the dark path again would be so fucking lame.....yeah i live room in a nice house with some rad people, i get to do some pretty rad fucking shit for work, and i basically get to do whatever the fuck i want. some people dont like me because im an asshole and thats ok....its a fuck of alot better than what i was. trust me...you'd rather have me being an asshole and ignoring you then paying attention to you and stealing everything of value you own.
im still working on playing nice with others...marlo told me she didnt really like me anymore because i wasnt a very nice person......instead of me saying that she forgot to ask me if i gave 2 shits i just deleted her.....i guess thats progress....in my own fucked up way.

the bottom line for me is that hell.....i might not be done by a longshot. my life is ripping right now and i would love to fuck that up with a shot of whiskey or a speedball in the dillusion that this time i might be able to hold it together....reality is that i wont die....id be stuck here to enjoy my miserable existance as the biggest piece of shit alive. or end up in prison on some stupid shit....maybe get murdered for ratting someone out cuz i'd be to dopesick to go to jail......man...thats tiring just writing about. im not a slave today.....im not standing up as a newcomer today.....and i love myself for who i am and who i am going to be......
thing is with this whole sober thing....i never know whats gonna happen on a daily basis...and trust me shit really gets thrown at me that blows my fucking mind......when im getting loaded, i know exactly what i get every....fucking.....time........
people always say you never know whats gonna happen the next time you get loaded....i can pretty much tell you whats gonna happen down to the very last detail........who knows what the future holds.....but today is one of the best days of my life. and im gonna enjoy it....so fuck you

douchefest

2010-07-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

i dont understand the attraction to las vegas...i mean i get it....but i dont get it.

i mean i have had my share of amazing times out here.....drinking at circle bar for like 29 hours straight, waking up with 8 balls of pure cocaine in my pocket having no idea how it got there, fucking a different girl in pretty much every room in the venetian,,(yes im talking about the AVN awards).......but living here is just fucking pointless unless you are a naked beggar.

i mean now that i am sober, hate strip clubs, and dont gamble there really is no point in coming to vegas unless im playing music. planet douche was evacuated...and the mother ships landing point was las vegas.. "pajama parties" are especially entertaining. its like these girls have no real friends that tell them "baby...maybe you shouldnt wear that tonight". i saw a 300 pound black girl climbing into a cage with a stripper pole last night....with everyone watching her all she needed was some chains on her wrist and it could have been a scene out of a king kong movie.

this is also the place old guys in the club can feel safe and be creepy as long as the drinks keep coming....if the useless pile of silicone cant order grey goose, be sure she will be jumping to the next table very soon. the d.j. with the fohawk playing some limp biscuit balls cuz he's "feeling edgey". its just all a mess.......it used to make me very agitated...now that shit just makes me laugh, and the very sad fact is that people LOVE this shit, and actually look at those dudes and think "man....i wish i was that guy".....

and lets not even talk about the fucking heat here....my hair grease melted walking from the house to the car yesterday. back east when i was a kid i remember my mom having to wake up an hour early before work just to go outside and "warm up the car"....out here you gotta do that shit to cool off the fucking car.....its like walking around in a big fucking dryer. we were pumping gas yesterday and had to clip it early cuz the car was off and it was just too fucking hot to deal. thank god you can smoke everywhere out here cuz smoking outside is not a good scene when its 120 degrees outside.

it was pretty fun playing with everyone last night, but im pretty sure the kicker was when carrot top and chris angel walked into the dressing room together after the show.....im still on tilt about it so i cant really get in detail right now...but i will soon....

i have 7 days left here in las vegas...and i will do my best to try and keep my head out of my ass and above water....shouldnt be to hard if i dont leave the house

2010-07-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

the day i wake up and think about doing things for other people is a day that i might actually enjoy being alive. i have been throwing sticks in my spokes for years now. everytime i get on the right track, instead of going around the crack in the street i drive straight for it. tossing myself over the handlebars and busting up my chin.
this past week was no different...... im the kind of guy that doesnt know how good he has it until it's gone....then i become the 15 year old girl crying in the dark corner of the roller rink when its time for the "couples skate" because once again....i sit alone. constantly acting out of fear and self will leaves me in a purgatoreous land i would wish on no man. and here i sit...on the loneliest mattress in hollywood, trying to comprehend why i would break my own heart for no reason....again.
the cuts heal but the scars never fade....constantly reminded by the cold as they turn from white to purple. scars on my face from anger and sadness.......scars on my heart from a constant trail of fear based decisions....scars on my hands from pounding them on the sidewalk washing away the "why me's" in broken glass.....scars on my feet from running away from everything that is good for me....scars on my knees from a foxhole prayer..........i will always be broken.....i will always be fixable......will i ever find.............

stoned.....

2010-04-02T01:50:00.000-07:00

the clacking of the dogs nails on the hardwood floor seems to be never ending as the smoke from an extremely long mentholated cigarette runs through my eyelashes. creating a burn in my eyeball i only feel when i pee after having unprotected sex with a girl in the valley who's name now escapes me.....it feels like years since a hot shower seemed to wash all of the slut off of me, spiraling down the drain as my livelyhood was soon to follow. aging has a funny way of settling you down against your wishes. and the true meaning of life as unclear as it may seem most of the time, shines like the sun through the windshield of a boxtruck on an early los angeles morning on the 405 freeway.
the pain that a shot of heroin used to push down into the bottom of my soul is now staring me in the face. and all i can do is laugh and jump over the crack in the sidewalk.......

i never meant to be a junky......

2010-03-30T01:14:00.000-07:00

.they skipped me from preschool right to first grade because i had a 3rd grade reading level....i never went to kindergarten....
in 5th grade i evened it all back out by getting left back....sister mary elephant in most sacred heart thought it would be best since i spent the better part of the year at the desk in the back of the class. this was where i started getting high.
i would pinch my nose and my lips closed and blow really hard until my ears popped. this created a sensation i had never felt before. silver sparkles cluttered my vision as a light ringing formed in my ears making me dizzy to the point where i would have to put my head down on the desk panting like a dog until i came to. on the playground my favorite ride was that round thing with the bars on it that rested in the sand. getting 5 or 6 of your friends to spin it so fast until you got so dizzy you flew off nearly snapping your neck on the tar paved lot...i also liked spinning until i almost puked.
scratch and sniff stickers were pretty big back then as well...i had a pepperoni pizza with eyeballs that i stuck on the shade of my fire engine red desk lamp....i sniffed that thing 100 times a night even when i knew the scent had been rubbed off. i would cover my hand in elmers glue and wait for it to dry, peel it off, then obsessively smell my hand for the next 3 hours while i played combat on my brand new atari 2600 .....

waste....

2010-03-13T04:24:00.001-08:00

Distancing himself between the thought of him as he sees him and the actual him. The failed musician sits in the 20 ft. Box truck on the exshaust filled freeway of the 101 freeway. Watching the "marine layer" cast over downtown skyscrapers like a gotham storm... Occasionally slapping his legs to a song that he has heard a billion times on the radio but doesn't seem to annoy him as much as the rest. Some relief comes from waving to a familiar face 2 lanes over for a brief moment...as the beatles come on and put him right back into annoyance mode. recently proud of being a non smoker after 27 years of consitantly juicing black tar suicide into his lungs, he lights up a marlboro red to kill some time and feel the burn of defeat once again...Just get to figueroa and make the pick up. try not to think. The musk of a tailpipe brushes through the window as the sun ages his face rapidly. And he can't shut it off....there is no radio loud enough, there is no joke funny enough, there is no tour cool enough, there is no pussy tight enough...... there is no love.....there is no god.......he just can't shut it off

2010-03-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

every weekend we would go up to our house in woodstock. scott's house was pretty much right next to mine. there was probably a 400 ft. patch of woods that separated our houses. i couldn't wait to get to the house, i would drop off my bag and run through the woods to scott's house. scott's kitchen had the spaghettio's with meatballs, and the double stuff oreo's...my house never had that shit. we would hang out in the playroom and watch t.v. and eat crap, it was alot of fun...the only cable station known to man at that time was channel 68 on uhf and on friday nights they would play horror movies. we would sit there and watch friday the 13th, or halloween, or i spit on your grave, and fucking shake like little bitches..see watching a horror movie actually takes on a whole new meaning when you are actually living in the woods...

and everytime it never failed. the movie would end, scott's dad would poke his head around the wall and say, "ok jase it's time for the kids to go to bed now". and i would look out the window at the deep dark night, and realize that i had to go 400 ft. through the woods to get to my house....by myself.....i would hesitate as long as i could and then make my way through the kitchen to the back door. i would hit the switch for the porch light and with the combination of both lights from scott's house and mine there would be enough light for me to run my ass off across the field and make it home unscaved. unfortulately scott would always follow me to the door and as soon as i took the first step off the porch and the screen door slammed shut he would flick the porchlight off...dickhead...

there was a dogline that stretched from one end of the yard to the other. i would always either clip it with my face or come very close to decapitating myself with it (not really it was coated in blue plastic) as i began my 400 yard sprint to the safety of my own home..... everytime i booked through the woods the lights from my house would make the wierdest shadows on the trees. you would hear a stick break in the distance and just know that your life was surely over in the next 3 minutes....a voice very similar to the one narrating city confidential or one of the court tv murder shows would always be running through my head. like the voice of merlin olsen was narrating my desparate attempt to get home safely..."JASON NEVER MADE IT HOME THAT EVENING"...the faster i would run the more i would think i felt the machetti blade almost hitting the back of my legs because the man in the jason mask was so close to catching me..i would jump up all the steps and slam into the frail wooden green door trying to open it, mom would always yell at me for almost knocking it off the hinges.

one night i was over at scotts and my stepdad called and told me i had to come home for something, so i ran my ass off through the woods and he was hiding behind a tree. as i flew by the big oak tree he jumped out and made this really loud growling noise. i lost my breath, my face turned red as the stars formed before my eyes, and i dropped to my knees with my mouth wide open unable to make a sound. my worst mightmare had finally come true and i was going to die in my front yard. it took me a little while to realize who it was and after i stopped crying i got up and walked home. i had never been that scared in my life...growing up in the woods and being afraid of the dark sucks.....

dropped....

2010-03-03T11:27:00.001-08:00

pieces of my mind coming unglued by the burning light of temptation.....evaporating into a mist of gasoline fumes being huffed out of a plastic baggy by a 13 year old girl on the streets of never ending rain........

guided by the great spirit.

2010-02-26T19:05:00.000-08:00

i have to be careful.....i have been on a very short fuse lately. injecting myself with quick fixes of food and women, like i was a roman emporer with a herum and a turkey leg...taking breaks from the carnage to hustle some grapes off a vine dropped slowly over my tilted back head. screaming at the jester to amuse me.

quickly drifting away from the good energy and finding myself standing in a dark room with a locked window and a broken heater. injecting my soul with instant gratification leaving me empty and feeling abandoned. people always wonder what the difference betweens gods will and their will is....the answer is simple.....my will is a quick fix with a long painful recovery, and another black mark on the spirit....gods will is doing something that doesnt feel good right away...but in the long run is completely beneficial to the soul. in turn leading me to a healthy accomplished life.

fear

2010-02-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

FEAR........

it was the first time i felt strong since i beat up todd in front of my grandmothers house in like 3rd grade or something...i been scared pretty much my whole life. fear of my stepdad beating my ass for me taking his weed or porno or whatever. fear of my mom screaming at me for being a drug addict loser, fear of my 7th grade bully david, fear of being found out. i got my ass kicked and got pushed around alot in school my whole life up until high school. and even once in a while i'd get punked there too. and when i hung with geoff and ian and those guys i always felt like fredo...maybe it was cuz they treated me like fredo. being from jersey really sucked sometimes. when we would get all drunk they would always throw a blanket party on the drunkest or weakest guy there. one night it was my turn. they threw a blanket over my head and started pummeling me. i freaked out and drew up some whiskey strength out of nowhere. i just started tossing them all until they stopped. if im not mistaken we were all on acid as well.
this was when i was living in the big house behind the fruit stand with barry, my grandmothers husband. barry was an old drunk player who should have been in the ratpack. barry would have been the guy that sammy davis jr. picked on if he was though. he was drunk most of the day and passed out all night. so i ran free and did whatever i wanted, it was an amazing time in my life....me and eddie ( r.i.p. you fucking redneck...i miss you)somehow ended up laying in my front lawn staring at the sky talking about how i overcame everyone. i was pretty much scared of eddie growing up too. he was always crazy as fuck and punched people and shit for no reason all the time. so for him to be saying how amazing that was really made me feel good. i was the kid from jersey. i always felt like the last kid to get picked for kickball when i hungout with them. i learned how to be cool on my own terms from those guys.
my thing became "i don't give a fuck what anyone thinks". it was a good front and still works. some people actually still believe that shit to this day. truth is im scared shitless of mostly everything. i hate fighting cuz i really can't, and i know im not cool especially now. im the most pathetic ive ever been actually. someone once said to me " i could never picture you tripping over a sidewalk ". i work hard to walk, talk, dress cool. and make cool faces when im pretending i don't see you looking at me from the corner of my eye. when im sober i truly believe in how i look, dress, and act. but when im loaded it all becomes an act. i trip over shit thats not even there. i lose sight of what and who really matter, and i sleep with a baseball bat cuddled in my arms. im scared to walk down the street that i would normally walk down on my hands in broad daylight at 3am. i start washing my clothes in the shower and drying them over the bannister cuz im afraid to go to the laundry mat. and relationships are a blinking thought.
it happens every fucking time. the pattern almost like clockwork. i stay sober for a while until the sudden urge to get loaded comes out of nowhere and consumes me till i drink. i have to do blow when i drink cuz im a lightweight and get drunk off a shot and a beer. then i do to much blow and need pills to come down. living in hollywood you can pretty much make any day you want a friday night. there is always something going on. so three days in a row of the same behavior and all of the sudden i have a pill habit. "anthony" said it best, he saud..."dude you get a pill habit walking down the aspirin aisle in cvs". then all of the sudden everything starts getting taken away from me. or i just choose to throw it away. then i end up in my bed laying next to a votive candle cuz the bigger ones are to bright, waiting for the doorknob to turn. sitting there staring at the door....awesome....i remember a few years ago i was in my room watching the shadow people dance in the corners, charlie called me to do some back up vocals at taime's house. my heart was about to explode and he wanted me to walk 3 blocks in the afternoon to go sing.....right...those times are usually very short lived.
normally i would go running back to aa and stay for a while. but fear drove me away that time again. fear was running and ruining my life.........its nice to be able to see again

the toolbox murder......

2010-02-22T01:25:00.000-08:00

my 3rd day without a cigarette.....i havent gone this long since i was 11 years old. i have been smoking way longer than most of the girls i fuck have been alive. my brain feels like in in a microwave and my truth censor is completely unfiltered now......its really bad.
i am a dirty old man with a thing for looking cool. when i walk up cahuenga at 2:30 in the morning and im lighting a marlboro red from a zippo with my black blazer, black t shirt and my silver st christopher medal on...i can't help but feel like charlie in the pope of greenwich village, even though most of the time i feel like paulie....

i have a ton of energy now and shit comes flying out of my mouth that normally i wouldnt say. im really trying not to be mean these days and im not intentionally doing it when i open my mouth, i just happen to be in a super honest mood the past few days and feel compelled to share it with everyone that needs it....this is hollywood, there is alot of people who need it. this is good. i feel like this one might actually stick, im gonna start going to the gym on a regular basis because if i dont i'm going to be the fattest piece of shit ever. yesterday i ate like 17 times. and the day before that was worse.......im craving tons of chocolate and sugar, but i am also craving fruit and vegetables as well. i feel like this is the first step to actually taking care of myself since i have been sober. all this past time has just felt like i was biding my time to get to this moment, and from here on in its all gonna flow nice and smooth. and if it doesnt who gives a fuck..at least im not dopesick.

i been walking on my hands alot again, thats always a good sign. that means im enjoying my life. im 39 years old and took 6 steps at cedars tonight....ill get back to a point where i can walk up the whole fucking thing soon enough. about 10 years ago i was able to walk around the entire fountain at washington square park in the water. my head would be full on submerged while i was doing it and i would have to pick my head up from the murky spit infested toejam of new york cities finest drinking water and gasp for air while trying to keep my balance. the attention is just what i needed back then, by the time i made it all the way around there would be a crowd so big you would think tic and tac were performing.....i miss the days of sitting on the steps in the fountain, staring at the redheads in their summer dresses, and the brunettes in their wifebeaters and combat boots, watching the douchebag with the perfect actor hair read his kurt vonnegut jr novel holding it up high enough and sitting in just the right place so that hopefully one of the girls will walk by and notice how deep he is. while i harmlessly take all his attention away on my hands. hehehehe......aaaah the good old days. i wish i could snap my fingers and make it april in 1997 again just for one day.....noone would make fun of me for ruling at hackey sack, and i could walk around with my shirt off without realizing what a fucking tool i was.......

2010-02-19T16:04:00.000-08:00

its hard to be thankful in AA sometimes.....it's hard to listen to people with way more material shit than you whine about needing more shit. all i can think is...."if this fucking douchebag had to walk in my shoes for a month, surely his toes would fall off "...... not like i live some hard ghetto thug lifestyle, quite the contrary actually. i am a spoiled child who always gets enough to survive but never works enough to flourish or succeed....i only find myself resenting those falling out of gratitude these days though, huge change for me...ok honestly i am judging the douchebag that tucks his pants into his boots just as much as the fuckhole that pulls up to a meeting in his BMW and bitches about the valet not being fast enough.....if they are the same person then he's really fucked.

i will text shit to 4 people in a meeting at least and we will all be rolling over in our uncomfortable metal chairs before you are halfway over with your pathetic whiney share....and here is the deal with the burning desire....it is for people who want to drink, kill themselves, or kill someone else. it is not a burning desire to hear the sound of your own voice.....so always remember that when the burning deisre is taken and you start out with "well..its not really a burning desire but..." watch me go for my phone. then look around the room to see who laughs.

i could go on for days about this shit but i think i will end my little part in lifes rant with this....
i am no better or worse than anyone in AA.....i just like to think i am sometimes

skull and bones......

2010-02-19T01:02:00.001-08:00

i got food poisoning yesterday.....i was awoken yesterday morning by a violent blood boiling ice chill that ran through my body like i had just swallowed a glass of blended razor blades, immediately followed by uncontrollable projectiles from every hole in my body for the next 15 hours or so.....

it was a feeling i had experienced many times before while kicking opiates, but had never experienced it from anything else. at first i thought it was a nightmare, or that i had waken up from a long beautiful dream and it was the early months of 2007 again....i couldn't control it and it wasn't going away. if i made any sort of movement wether it was to roll over onto my side or blink my eyes, i was right back in the bathroom. the feeling is so similar to being dopesick i had to really lay there convincing myself that that wasn't the case, and that it would eventually pass...

the cold hardwood floor being the friend of any junky violently shaking and sweating uncontrollably is the first place i felt comfortable. and my first thought was that now would be a good time to chug some nyquil or find some tylenol pm....anything to take away the feeling i was having.....

it brought me back to the time i was kicking dope at my moms house in rockland county in the late 90's.....it was around 3am and i was laying on the couch listening to all the normal people in my family sleep like babies. the worst thing for a heroin addict when they are withdrawing is to hear someone being comfortable. i had slowly crawled to the upstairs bathroom and started looking for any kind of jar with a skull and crossbones on it. i had found some of my great grandmothers sleeping medication, next to that was a perscription for haledol. i had no idea what it was but the bottle said "slows down heart rate....take one pill every 8 hours or as needed.

one pill was surely not what this heroin addict in dyer need of sleep needed, so i took 6 of them..as the taste of the screen filtering the water in the bathroom sink hit my lips and i felt all those pills massaging the inside of my throat, i knew this was a bad idea. but my brain doesn't work properly and i couldn't feel what i was feeling for one more second.....i crawled back downstairs and layed back down on the sofabed. i felt every spring in the thin mattress that barely separated me from the long black bar in the middle of it that was paining my back even more. i put the tv on to maybe numb my brain a little but didnt have the energy to change the channel so i sat there and watched blues clues until the pills kicked in. all i could do was sit there and think about how that weird creepy dude in the striped shirt talking to a blue dog had it better than me, because he wasn't dopesick......

about 30 minutes had passed and the pills weren't kicking in, i kinda felt the sleep meds but my brain was going way to fast for them to knock me out and my body was way to out of sync with any normality that the only thing taking me down was more heroin. about 45 minutes after i had ingested the strange little pills i started feeling something, but it wasn't good....my arm started moving by itself and i couldn't control it, shortly after that my legs started torquing. i was overdosing on the heart medication..my jaw was moving uncontrollably to the point where i thought it was going to snap. my fingers and toes were spread as far as they could open and i was laying there trying not to scream. i literally layed there for hours in the worst pain of my life wishing my heart would just stop so it could all be over.

i managed to lay there still enough while everyone woke up at dawn and left for school and work, and i had made it to my sisters bedroom to hide from the nurse that came to watch my grandmother during the day. i made a few calls to have some friends come pick me up and bring me drugs to end this pain, i knew that all i needed was one little bag of heroin for this all to be gone. but i couldnt talk, my jaw was pressed against my cheekbone and all i could do was slur, i had to pick up the phone with my face and my neck because i couldnt move my arms or close my hands. my mom had called and the nurse came down to tell me she wanted to talk to me, i couldnt talk, i couldnt move.....20 minutes later the ambulance showed up and carried me out of the sweet suburban set up for all the neighbors peering out there windows to see.....my mom freaked when she heard my voice and called the paramedics. chalk up one more for mom saving my life.....

i remember being in the hospital bed in the emergency room and crawling to the phone on the wall when the nurse left. frantically calling my friends to tell them to come to the hospital instead of my house, but this was before the age of cell phones and they had already left. it had been about 15 hours since i had taken those pills and nothing had changed, i was in the most excruciating pain of my life jerking uncontrollably.....finally this indian doctor came in with a team on interns, half of them extremely hot young med students.....laying there in embarrasment trying to talk out of the side of my drool filled mouth he says to his interns "now this man is overdosing from haledol....." and injects me with about 500 milligrams of liquid benadryl. which starts working before he pulls the needle out. that had sparked about 20 good ideas after that day to try and shoot benadryl when i was sick, trying to break up nyquil gelcaps and force them into the back of the syringe, only to clog it or break the needle from pushing so hard......

before i was laying on the hardwood floor wishing to god this feeling would pass......and after thinking about that time in my life i found myself laying on the floor thanking god it did....and how grateful i am for food poisoning.....

nitey nite.......

2010-02-14T04:47:00.000-08:00

i walk to work...... i could have gotten a ride tonight but i decided to walk, it helps me get my mind prepared for hip~switz......standing in front of the velvet margarita on a weekend evening is like being the last stop on the douchetrain.....reading these fancy shirts that walk by me on the way to the worst fucking nightmare clubs ever, shirts that say shit like "inflict pain" or "retribution"....those stupid fucking smet shirts and whatever else christiana audouche' has destroyed our society with....most of the tools that wear this shit dont even know what it says, and for sure have never gone through any type of pain...unless you consider the prince of the oil factory not getting the silver benz off his fathers lot that friday night.

i walk to work with my ipod so loud i cant hear myself think. breathing deep into my nose and slowly out of my mouth..

stretching my lungs a little harder with each breath, and occasionally shaking my hands out to keep my blood flowing. its my own soundtrack....my score to the stupid streets of hollywood.

as i approached the southwest corner of hollywood and cahuenga, unchained by van halen came on....i stopped to wait for the light, and as i gazed into the window at popeye's thanking god i dont eat that shit anymore the biggest riff eddie van halen ever wrote engulfed my ears so strongly it felt like the whole world could hear it....i swear to fucking god it felt like it was the attack of the "fifty foot drunk rock dad" smashing buildings with his feet while playing guitar.

people walk by me every weekend at work rapping to there own little things or singing as they walk by. waiting for that light to change i got it....i got what they felt. i am normally the first one to laugh or call that person a tool, but i was in it.....i wanted to play air guitar while jumping on the hood of the waiting cop car as i crossed the street it hit me so hard but i just contained myself and kept walking.....i can only laugh at myself to a certain extent....you never go full retard......

and can any guy please tell me what the secret is to actually cumming BEFORE you talk to the girl (girls)?? how many texts would not be sent..... how many weird creepy moments in public could have totally been avoided......if we just came before we decided it would be a good idea to talk to them.....probably be alot less traffic in hollywood.......

just the good ol' boys......

2010-02-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

i want to go back to the time when the only thing that mattered in life was having the perfect underoos outfit....

my weekends were spent at grandma agnes and grandpa jims house, my real fathers parents. they lived in garfield nj on a horseshoe block where everybody knew your business. johnny socha lived a few houses down and would always have a big jar of superballs that he gladly shelled out on a daily basis. my skypeck was the creepy jr high school teacher at the end of the block that would always be riding his 10 speed around the neighborhood, he also painted his nails with clear nailpolish....back then it wasnt cool to be metrosexual. mr. and mrs. yorgatus lived next door and there grandson tommy lived with them, he was my best friend from the ages 5 to 8 i guess....i remember laying on the rug in his living room watching cheech and chongs nice dreams when HBO was the only cable channel available. the guy across the street from my grandmothers house always had these industrial size bags of popcorn, i spent alot of time on his porch like a horse with a feedbag on my face. i would ride my bigwheel hard over the cracked sidewalks trying to catch a little air, and when it got too hot we would bust out the little clown that you could attatch the hose too. the water would come through the top of the clowns head raising his hat, and you had to jump through the stream of water and try not to knock the clowns hat off...i wonder if they still make those things.
the smell of fresh cut grass mixed with the thick humid new jersey air always put a smile on my face. at dusk the lawn chairs would come out on the cement walkways. and all up and down the street the old folks on the block would be watching there little black and white t.v.'s or smoking there cigars yelling at the ny yankees, or the mets in in white socks with brown leather sandals, wifebeaters with all kinds of weird long grey hairs popping out of them... a mild scent of OFF and citranella candles perfumed the neighborhood....me and tommy would be running around the house with our yellow wiffleball bats swatting the lightning bugs that cruised slowly through the sweaty factory piped air, while my grandmother smoked her marlboro 100's one after the other.
anxiously awaiting mr. softee, you could hear him from blocks away and he never got there fast enough...something that would carry on to my way later years waiting for my drug dealers.....

the mr softee song fades into the blocks to come as the ash tray on the steps slowly filled with brown filtered cigarettes, and the vanilla/chocolate swirled soft cone had dripped off my tiny little hand staining the cracked sidewalk covered in dead lightning bugs. it was just about time to wipe the gutfilled glow of the wiffleball bat clean and watch the dukes of hazzard. every friday night at 8pm on channel 2. i would run into the house barreling into the back bedroom to put my superman underoos on. i always wished i had a red cape so i could ACTUALLY BE SUPERMAN...but the red towel would just have to do for now. i would tuck the red towel into the back of my blue t-shirt with the red collar and iron on S........and flail myself onto the green pladue couch that was made of a fabric that used to scrape my skin. grandma would be in the kitchen chainsmoking, playing solitaire, talking to one of her church friends on the yellow rotary phone with the exrta long spiral chord, and making me a swansons fried chicken tv dinner.....a multi tasker she was. back in those days it took 45 minutes to an hour to eat a tv dinner, and the house would smell like fried chicken for about a half hour before it was actually ready....that shit never cooked fast enough, again...something that would carry into my later years of addiction.
after running from one end of the living room and jumping onto the couch pretending i was superman coming in for a landing for a good hour my tv dinner would be brought to me and set down on the stand up tray. i would sit in grandpas big comfy chair and put the tv dinner tray over my legs, i had to finish it before dallas came on cuz i was too young to watch that show...i would quickly empty the metal tray full of greasy fried chicken, potatoes soaked in butter, and green peas mixed with carrots, i would convince my grandmother to give me more ice cream.....she always had hersheys syrup in the can and cool whip to put on the ice cream. i would swirl my napolitan mix in the pink plastic bowl until it was all brown and almost a liquid....i would pile all that down and get into my green whinnie the pooh pajamas with the footies and make grandma read me at least three stories from the walt disney book of the month club....every month a new book would come in a brown paper bag in the mail, kinda like how porn comes to people in the mail today......weekends at grandma agnes' house are one of my favorite memories of my childhood....sometimes i will walk by a lawn that has just been cut and light a cigarette just to blend the smells and make it feel like home again.

enjoying the day....

2010-02-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

I can't seem to break my silence today. Sitting at a table with all my friends
and all I can do is thank god I'm wearing sunglasses because I'm so self
loathing I can't even open my mouth, let alone look at someone in the eye....
Looking at everyone and everything in disgust, but its nothing to do with anyone
or anything except what I feel about myself. I am grateful I am not strungout
but that's about it today. I am not happy to be alive, I am not happy to be a
member of the human race, I just want to go home and put my face in a pillow and
sleep this off....AA meetings I go to make me a walking timebomb exploding in
resentment and judgement. I'm so tight in my chest I can't breathe, and I wish I
had the ability right now to start my day over....unfortunately I am very
comfortable in this place...nothing more comforting than being a walking ball of
lust, resentment, fear, and anger....the glass is not half full nor half
empty....it has a hair in it so its useless and just needs to be dumped
out....that way its just a stupid fucking glass

2010-02-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

sometimes i like to beat myself up over the less than pathetic life that i have made for myself....instead of actually getting off my ass and changing my behavior i would rather sit and whine about it to anyone that will listen, or bottle it up inside until i drink. on a daily basis i like to think of what would have happened if i actually had a 9 to 5 personality..that just wasn't in the cards for me......never was. no matter how much i beat myself up over shit that can very easily be fixed there is always someone that makes me glad i am me..in hollywood it is very easy to find a lower companion, some douche walking around in a bandana with a fedora over it, some true religion jeans, thinking that the chucks they are sporting maks them "punk rock" or "edgey" to make you feel much better about yourself............
i never understood the whole clone fashion, although i have fallen victim myself....but when i was a kid it wasnt really cool to rock your ripped levis tucked into your untied workboots in my area...i lived in a town that was raised on football, it seemed like what you did was go to high school, then get a job as a cop, firemean, or D.P.W. worker.......everyone looked like the situation or ronnie d, except for a handful of us metalheads who would find someone to buy us our 8 pack of budweiser nips (pony's), make sure the batteries in the boombox were fresh, and find a nice bus bench on the boulevard. trick was to find the benches at the red lights because back then 8 out of 10 camaros were full of hot girls soaked in hairspray and oddly colored clothing aimlessly cruising down the blvd listening to snow or poison chainsmoking virginia slim lights 120's that they stole from there mothers.....if they got caught at the light, they were yours for at least 65 seconds. the avaiable ones always seemed to be a three pack in a fiero, and never able to fit you in, they alwasy screamed "we'll come back we promise!!!" fucking douchebag guidettes. ......ripping the cellophane off of my brand spanking new blizzard of oz cassette tape and popping it in the deck to listen to randy rhodes slide into the first riff of "i don't know" while i glugged down my ice cold bud was all i really needed anyway.....i could never keep the top of the marlboro pack from ripping off back then....my jeans were so tight.

the shame remains the same.......

2010-02-03T03:40:00.000-08:00

i was ready to go to sleep three hours ago..i could have easily closed my eyes and fallen asleep in ten minutes, but i thought it would be a better idea to bring a little more shame into my life, like i dont have enough already. awakening the creepy old man in me i scan the porn pages of redtube like the sweaty fat guy standing at the picture wall at the AVN's with his camera waiting to get a shot of his favorite piece of jerk off material, calling her name when he see's her like she's going to run over an kiss him. going back and forth from redtube to facebook, hoping there is a message from a troll with no self respect who will talk to me like i am a piece of garbage long enough for me to use the last of my lotion and wipe it all clean with a dirty pair of underwear in my hamper...the actual mess might be wiped clean...but the painful memory lasts a lifetime and grows stronger as each night ends and the sun begins to rise ..the internet has brought us a world of shame and guilt so pleasurable that it almost feels like we are doing the right thing. there is nothing wrong with a little harmless flirting and like the old saying goes "if you use a condom it never really happened".......like when we talk dirty to people we personally know on the internet, you see them in public and it's almost like it was a dream, and most of the girls i see on a regular basis have no idea how much i defile there pretty little pictures night after night......unfortunately this is my nightmare......so i give it to you, the world..putting it out there to be judged by all...... exploiting myself so there is nothing that can be talked about behind my back...for i have already put it out and the power is now gone....but the shame remains......

chainsmoking......

2010-02-02T16:35:00.000-08:00

she straddles me like i was her prize horse right before the gate opens to the kentucky derby. she grabs the back of my neck and looks deep into my eyes as she grips the back of my head firmly and pulls me into her soft warm tongue as it slips through my shaking lips...her lips match mine perfectly, our mouths are open an equal amount so there is no room for breath but only hard streams of heat from the nose everuy 20 seconds or so.... screaming to be pulled out of my boxers she waits....the heat from her light blue booty shorts is almost unbearable to my scrotum as she gently rubs her covered lips back and forth on my cock...seperated by two thin pieces of cotton. i take my eyes off her amazing boob job long enough to look down at her panties and see the warm dark strip of horny that has seeped through her panties, making a little stain on my underwear.

the kiss is so wet and deep its almost enough to finish me off right then and there, instead i feel her soft lengthy black hair caress my nipples as her lips slowly make her way down my chest. looking up at me occasionaly making me feel a little uncomfortable. my legs spread apart and my feet stretch out, my toes curl cracking the knuckles knowing whats coming. her soft long fingers run up the crack of my ass and gently comfort my ballsack as her soaking wet mouth runs along my shaft. i grab her hair not pushing, but folliwing the motions of her head as she runs her tongue up and down my cock, around my balls...i free one hand to grab her face and tell her to spit on me as a large gob of spit and drool fall from her mouth onto my cock.. i watch the bubbly white spit drip from the head of my cock over my fingers as i firmly grab hold of myself. she sits up and looks at me with piercing blue eyes and proceeds to grab hold of my calves and pull them up over her shoulders. she closes her eyes and proceeds to lick my asshole, spitting on my cock for more lube as i grab her hair with my other hand. the feeling is so intense i want to cum right away but i dont....i stop in just enough time to watch the precum drip from the head, which she quickly comes up to lick off.....i wrap my legs around the back of her head to push her tongue deep into my ass while i stroke my cock hard and fast. seconds seem like minutes as she moans for me to cum...i grab a fistful of the back of her hair and pull her mouth up to my face....she pushes her spit dripped tongue into my mouth as i explode all over myself and immidiately start wondering what is in her refrigerator.......i hope that ice cream is still in the freezer.......

brrrrrfttttt..........

2010-02-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

halfway through a pint of vanilla swiss almond as my lactose intolerant behavior takes a toll for the worst...my stomache doesn't feel as bad as it did last night when i was occasionally stopping by the"GRAMMY CHANNEL" to soak up some of the worst songs ever written in the history of music. the medleys and the collaborating artists were just way to much for my judgemental hating persona to take for one sitting. ritchie sambora looks like an emplyoee at sunset tan and jon bon jovi should just play the 3 songs that everybody knows from 1986...noone wants to hear anything he wrote after he got his haircut.
green day is one of my favorite bands to see live but seeing them last night with an orchestra was like watching metallica play with the san francisco symphony orchestra.....kind of like watching paint dry in the bathroom of a bathhouse. i would like to be recognized for my talents and i guess im totally hating on people more succesful than me but fuck it....that whole event just sucked dirty sweaty gym balls and im glad im not a part of it, (but if i got a call to play bass for bon jovis new haircut i'd be there in a second). as the gas slowly squeaks out of my exit only gloryhole i thank god i dont have to lay next to anyone tonight....im not very good at holding anything thats not in my hand...sometimes when im on a plane and i eat at mcdonalds when im waiting at the gate i sleepfart. i can never sleep on planes, i just kind of pass out momentarily from time to time. and i wake up farting really loud. but it only really happens when there is a hot girl sitting next to me...there is no covering that up, and you cant really apologize...you just kind of sit there and pretend it didnt happen. occasionaly it will happen in a strange girls bed at 6am when the sun comes up, and i wake up to a rupturing asshole hoping it wasnt me...the flatulant trumpety sound will wake me up but in my sleepy eyed haze im not really sure if it was me or her...i try not to eat gassy foods when i know im getting laid that night, cuz sometimes i cum so hard ill fart on myself....man this blog sure did turn into something i didnt expect it to....im pretty sure im gonna stop right now..nitey nite

2010-02-01T03:26:00.000-08:00

it is now 3:26 am.....it has been hours....since i have glanced at the tv. but i know whats on and if someone came in and changed the channel i'd be pissed...i put a borrowed parliament to lips numb from the lotion i used to ungracefully stroke my cock for 3 hours, reaching a point of climax and stopping....then starting again to a new piece of ametuer gold on pornhub. its really hard to masterbate while to catch a predator is on in the backround, but i seem to muddle my way through it listening to the sick mind of a 50 year old man walking into a house to meet a 12 year old girl....only to be met by chris hansen.
flirting with girls online that i see in the real world on a regular basis. nothing seems real until i cum, then i immediately wish i could erase all things typed in the little magic box of shame, and regret soaks in like the ashes dropped on my bare chest...and the little driblets of cum that remain stick to my leg like my reputation sticks to the souless streets of hollywood...

one of the many reasons i am bothered by meetings....

2009-10-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

spirituality is something that should'nt be bragged about....spirituality is something that is seen, not heard. people that claim to be spiritual are pretentious douchebags and should be stayed as far away from as possible.
welcome to AA where most of the girls think they are hotter than they are and most of the guys think they are tougher than they seem....where most people think helping a newcomer is saying hello if they are sitting next to them, then leaving with there friends after the meeting to go eat. spiritual "experiences" should be talked about like "i helped a bunch of newcomers and my life got better"....nobody wants to hear the grandiose story of how you didnt take the purse that was left on the counter or how you put 5 dollars in the basket cuz you were "so bad"......AA is filled with people i would only get loaded with if they had the coke...like the annoying guy that you HAD to hang out with cuz he had the good shit...no matter how much you hated him.....i walk up to a meeting and just put my head down avoiding all the douchebaggery that stands outside pretending they are cool...and wearing those stupid fucking outfits. a shirt doeant make you "hip"...it makes you look like you are trying to hard. and trust me.....we notice....and we talk about you behind your back.....