The Fountainhead Is a Blackhead (Re-post)

Fuck Ayn Rand and her big bag of bullshit! So I finally read (finished) it.

I'm more pissed than I was when I started it.

Selfish, "success"-driven (monetary success - houses, cars, buildings, THINGS), self-centered people eat it up.

I want to call an Ayn Rand appreciation group together in a dark basement some night soon... and promplty at 20:00 lock the doors behind me, turn on some fucking Patsy Cline, and one by one cut all the fuckers into pieces.

I think the world would be a much better place.

And on a more superficial note - has anyone ever thought to mention that maybe Ayn (poor thing) was so fucking self-righteous and "motivated" because she was such a fucking ugly ass bitch!?!? Have you seen what this chick LOOKED like?!?! No wonder she wrote such a goddamned huge book - she couldn't get a date!!! I HATE HER!

I'm done.

PLEASE Ayn lovers, make your snide and holier-than-thou comments. It will be my post-pizza-on-Thanksgiving dessert.

Currently reading : Manhattan Loverboy By Arthur Nersesian Release date: 24 April, 2000

Home - fantasy, history, and settling (Re-post)

I was offered the chance to go back to Indiana (where my parents live and where I moved here from) for the holiday. It was originally the plan, but upon further review, I realized a trip "home" would be less like a vacation and more like a puppet show cum trip to the Old Country Buffet (aka Hungry Heffer).

No offense to my hoosier readers, but honestly - I also wanted to avoid the questions about my new and fabulous life (?!), New York, crime, Broadway, clubs, boys, sex, and bla bla bla. I wanted to avoid the people who have not, and will not ever change. I wanted to avoid the people who hurt me and whom I hurt when I lived there, and especially those who still jump at the opportunity to twist a dagger in my aorta.

I guess I'm still healing. So this loneliness is worth it. I'm in it.

Some background - I was born at Ohio State University Hospital at 8:20 a.m. on June 5, 1980. We lived in Columbus until I was five.

Then we moved to a suburb of Milwaukee called Waukesha. We lived there until I finished second grade.

Then we moved to a small village even further out of Milwaukee, WI, closer to Madison, called Wales. This is where I would consider my "upbringing" to have taken place. We lived there until I was almost fifteen. And when I'm drunk or tired, the accent is still there to prove it.

Then we moved to a suburb of Denver called Westminster. I had forensic meets at Columbine, I learned of raves and dance music, travelled to Europe, and began falling in love with boys I could never have.

Travelled to Munich, did the prep school thing for a few months, figured out the world was a big AND a small place.

My senior year of high school we moved to Indianapolis. Carmel to be exact. Culture shock, to say the least. Kicked some redhead's ass for calling me a flamer on the first day of school. After that, nobody fucked with me, and I didn't really care to make friends there (I wonder why). The cool kids all went to Broadripple and North Central anyways - if anything, cool by osmosis since that's where all the black kids went.

I graduated and fled to Chicago. Boystown woohoo.

After a semester at Columbia I transferred to University of Wisconsin and moved back to Cheese Country to be with a boy I loved very much at the time, and still hold dearly as a friend.

After two years of this life - smoking pot, required college courses, figuring out what a relationship is and how to love and be loved, laughing on kitchen floors, music, clubbing, and obsessing about cats and vintage couture... I moved back in with my parents who still lived in Indianapolis and continued my studies at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI).

Met a new boy. Fell madly in love. The crazy kind of love that only happens... well who knows how often it happens... but I don't expect often.

Graduated in 2003.

Went to Europe for a few months. Travelled extensively. Trains, busses, cars, feet. Stayed on floors, apartments, hostels, hotels, on beaches, and on benches.

Cheated on that boy on a drunken night with a friend (don't ask me why - he had a boyfriend too!), and of course it wasn't until afterwards that I knew what a good thing I had. Isn't it weird how things work out like that? Never thought I'd cheat on someone. Never thought I could do that to a person. But the most valuable lessons are often the most painful, eh?

Came home defeated and changed by my experiences lovely and celestial, moved out of the 'rents' place, the boy wanted to move in with me and a friend, so I thought I still had a chance to make things right. Got in fights with friends and enemies. Burned bridges. Broke ribs. Made coffee for yuppies. Made pizza for hipsters and yuppies. Drank a lot. Made new friends. Got deservedly dumped (fast process) and then spitefully slighted (10 month root canal/gastric bypass), but figured it all karmic, you know?

Dreams and voices and fantasies lead me to skyscrapers and spirals. Trains and cabs. Parties and tears.

Almost a year later I'm living in New York. I'm thinking about home and what it means to have this place. I have never felt like I had a home. The only home I think I'll ever truly know is the one I've created for myself in my own heart and mind. For the most part, I am comfortable with myself and my surroundings. I have always felt attached to everyone and everything without feeling truly connected to anything.I think my lack of home and my tendency toward nomadic existence is a large part of why I am a writer and my writing itself. There's almost always this uncomfortable intimacy in my words, but teamed with a cold removedness. I have always been a world unto myself with two distinct poles and everything in between AS significant, just maybe not in the immediate spotlight. Surrounding me is an awkward foreign quality that is complex and beautiful, but frustratingly impossible to pinpoint.

I find the people I unnerve the most are the ones who need to pigeonhole themselves and those around them.

I used to long for a home. I used to get so upset when people would ask me where I'm from, because I really don't have a good answer. Lying is too easy, and though it satisfies an unaware listener, it leaves me feeling cheap and immature.

Now I think I am okay with being homeless. My voice and my SELF are the only homes I know. Unlike many of my friends, I never feel this regret about not being myself that I hear so much about. I never try to hide where I'm coming from, where I'm going, or where I am at RIGHT NOW. I not only understand people better, but feel I can relate to an almost infinite amount of experiences humans are capable of on this (or any other) planet.

A small part of me is waiting for my new home. I don't expect it to land on me. I know like everything, that it is a participatory thing. I must co-create it. I am not ruling out the idea of crafting a home by myself or with someone special. But I don't think it necessary any more. I also know now that New York is my home more than any other place I've ever lived has been. At times it feels like a city of the lost. The restless and homeless. The thrill-seekers. The opportunity-seekers. The hungry.

I am at home. I guess I have that to feel thankful for.

Currently listening : In the Aeroplane Over the Sea By Neutral Milk Hotel Release date: 10 February, 1998

Of the Lavender Persuasion (Re-post)

I got a bunch of new cds at the Virgin Megastore yesterday, and having heard the whole Madonna cd already at this bar in my neighborhood (Urge), I fully intended on picking up her new ALL DANCE effort. I not only dig it as an electronica aficionado and a house dj/e-music producer, but honestly people, it's just good Madonna. It touches back to the great stuff I love from her like Erotica's "Deeper and Deeper", etc. Sidenote: Erotica got panned by reviewers!?!

Well, I had it in my hand, and then when I am four-deep in line, I look around - there are four people in front of me and three people behind me. Three of the four in front have CONFESSIONS in their hand, ready to repent their fag-sins and dance with wild abandon in their rooms while they masturbate to Antonio Banderas. Two are twinky party boys, but the older is a perplexing 40-something "is-he-gay?" kind of homo.

Bringing up the rear are two black guys, obviously boyfriends or somehow related by semen, one so obviously a top, the other so obviously a bottom.

The caboose looks like he was at Stonewall. THE Stonewall. Remember that?

Finally my turn comes... but where is Madonna? Stuffed into a display of "Virgin" headphones.

Not only will I refuse to be that guy buying the Madonna when it first comes out, but I feel maybe, just maybe, if I get it on vinyl some day soon then at least then I'm not worshiping her. I'm using her. She's helping me to make people dance or feel SOMETHING. I'm not asking her to tell me how to live. I'm not likening Madonna to Oprah, as so many faggots are wont to do. If anything, she will be MY bitch. On my Technics 1200s, I will play her like a baby plays a rattle. And I will love that rattle just as much as mommy watching from the kitchen loves that fucking baby.

Here's my confession, Madonna - I'm ok. You're ok. But the world doesn't need you or your Kaballah beads and Hindu chants to tell them how to live. Just keep makin' the beats and melodies, and the people will dance. Trust me. They always do.

Currently listening : Playing the Angel By Depeche Mode Release date: 18 October, 2005

I'm Melting! I'm Melting! (Re-post)

I was walking down 14th street to my apartment, and it seems the bums have been very busy in the last couple days peeing in the alcoves of closed storefronts and restaurants. The nose knows, and the smell is especially noxious since we have not had ample rain as of late.

I imagine legions of homeless arm in arm, swaggering down the street slurrily chanting pirate ditties, loudly muttering to themselves; lamenting their lost loves and lost legs.

"That bitch took my heart, and then she took my whiskey!"

"I was ambushed outside a village and before I knew it, I only had one eye!!!"

Like a parade of fools they saunter down the block until their vagabond bodies demand rest, whereupon they find a box or some discarded clothes and bed down for the night until the next day.

Sol takes over the sky, and like everyone hustling through Times Square, weaving through the tourists on their way to work, the bums have to make their living too.

As I punch in the code to get in, I hear a rumble and the clouds close any gaps of clear sky overhead. Then I hear it, and I smell it before I feel it. Rain. The door shuts behind me, and I'm thankful to have missed the storm. I wonder where the neighborhood derelicts will find shelter tonight. In my room safely, I imagine them peeing - making hasty waste - in the nearest/darkest corner they can find before the rain comes. They don't want to do anybody a disservice... the smell of piss cultured and fermented on asphalt is not something humans enjoy, even the homeless... at least I would like to think they don't. Perhaps our instincts are to thank for that threatened angry feeling so many are overcome with when smelling piss on a street. Maybe it's like a dog - do they feel their territory is being invaded and defiled?

Tonight I will go out. I will drink cheap swill and then go home stumbly, singing pirate ditties to myself, and going over stories in my mind where I lost love, and lost face. Maybe I'll pee in a corner. Maybe I'll pee on someone's chest?Circles upon circles upon circles. Endless circles.

Currently listening : DE9: TransitionsBy Richie HawtinRelease date: By 15 November, 2005

write-offs, deposits, withdrawals & withholdings (Re-post)

why are not all of our intentions clear and known to each other?

what do we hope to gain out of putting people on pedestals they may not even know exist? withholding feelings, information, or a perspective is an assumption that the other person cannot handle the information or the truth OR more sinister - that they will perhaps DO something with that information that the person withholding finds less than desirable.

How can I possibly live up to someone's dream of me if I have no idea what that dream tastes like?

We are all products of each others' intention, as well as our misgivings.

Our collective hang-ups make our experience easy to categorize and thus shelve, or literally - continue to hang the item up.

I don't want to be an item but rather a force to be tapped and recorded.Maybe that's my audio coming out and feeding back?

It's late.

I'm just so bloody sick of people (who can't let go of their own feelings of insecurity and/or ignore the constant throng of crap our culture and our societies feed us) who feel the need to tell me what MY faults are.

As Morrissey (bleeding heart of all bleeding hearts... bless his heart) once said:

"Don't rack up my mistakes.
I know exactly what they are.
And what do you do?
Well you just sit there.

I've been stabbed
in the back
so many, many times
I don't have any skin...
But that's just the way it goes."

**** now step back and look at the whole thing.

Sort of resembles an old school space ray gun, eh?

Love fuckin' hurts. Bang bang.

Currently listening : Those Were the Days By Dolly Parton Release date: 11 October, 2005

In Search of Duende by Federico Garcia Lorca (Re-post)

This is a favorite poem series of mine lately from an amazing book about the Spanish concept of duende.

Poem of the Saeta

ARCHERS

The dark archers
approach Seville.

The open Guadalquivir.

Broad gray hats,
long slow cloaks.

Ay, Guadalquivir.

They come from remote regions of sorrow.

The open Guadalquivir.

And they go to a labyrinth.
Love, crystal, and rock.

Ay, Guadalquivir!

NIGHT

Candle, lamp,
lantern, and firefly.

The constellation
of the dart.

Little windows of gold
trembling,
and cross upon cross
rocking in the dawn.

Candle, lamp,
lantern, and firely.

SEVILLE

Seville is a tower
full of fine archers.

Seville to wound.
Cordoba to die in.

A city that lurks
for long rhythms,
and twists them
like labyrinths.
Like tendrils of a vine
burning.

Seville to wound!

Under the arch of the sky,
across the clear plain,
she shoots the constant
arrow of her river.

Cordoba to die in!

And mad with horizons,
she mixes in her wine
the bitterness of Don Juan
and the perfection of Dionysus.

Seville to wound.
Always Seville to wound!

PROCESSION

Through the lanes
come strange unicorns.
From what fields,
from what mythological forest?
Nearer,
they look like astronomers.
Fantastic Merlins,
and the Ecce Homo.
Enchanted Durandarte.
Orlando Furioso.

PASO

Virgin in crinoline,
Virgin of Solitude,
opened like an immense
tulip.
In your ship of lights
you go
along the high tide
of the city,
among turbid saetas
and crystal stars.
Virgin in crinoline,
you godown the river of the street
to the sea!

ARROW

Brown Christ
passes
from the lily of Judea
to the carnation of Spain.

Look where he comes!

From Spain.
Sky clear and dark,
parched land,
and watercourses where very
slowly runs the water.
Brown Christ,
with the burned forelocks,
the jutting cheekbones
and the white pupils.

Look where he goes!

BALCONY

Lola
sings saetas.
The little bullfighters
circle around her
and the little barber,
from his doorway,
follows the rhythms
with his head.
Between the sweet basis
and the mint,
Lola sings
saetas.
That same Lola
who looked so long
at herself in the pool.

EARLY MORNING

But like love,
the archers
are blind.

Over the green night
the arrows
leave tracks of warmlilies.

The keel of the moon
breaks purple clouds
and the quivers
fill with dew.

Ah, but like love,
the archers
are blind!

Currently listening : I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor By Arctic Monkeys Release date: 12 November, 2005