It must be something in the water. A wandering amusement of archetypes, a stylized placement of articulate formularies that constructs the smooth flow of summer winds in December, something that is both impossible and pleasant. The music ranges from Mellencamp farm rock to the majestic “Bloody Well Right,” full of synchronistic organs and keyboards to Billy Squier and his dirty guitars, all distortion, but both styles, and everything esle in accompanyment is in that “fine” sort of haze, like a lover from the past. The strands of a thousand songlines spill out from beneath my winter cap and get partially free of constraints before dying out in single strands and graying territory. Between the music and the memory of driving madly across two counties at top speed, rushing through cigarettes and open wondows, getting lost in the newer parts of Loudoun county and disregarding the helpful advice of two different Exxon clerks. It was an afternoon that defied simple characterization, and tasted of sparkling wine and kerosene.
Numb lips smile easily, and mine are no different. Red eyed wonder and amusement that circles and doubles back with a lazy applomb and garish (not to mention ostentatious) technology that isolates each moment like a photograph. Time passed in a constant variance, speeding up with the hum of the car’s wounded engine and slowing with the currents of wind, with no apparent logic but persuasive, a wind of litigous propoirtions. The afternoon exploded in choreographed movements, first west, then East, the larger patterns lost on the single particiapnt to the madness of a summer afternoon in December.
With traditional uncertainty, unverifiable evidence suggests a massive change in the attitudes of the faithful. Personally, I always thought there was something to the aggressive passion that was so clearly limited by a coopted soul, but to this day, she denies this sort of tripe up and down. Maybe the limitations are simply flaws in the observer, rather than the observed? It cannot be known, but I’m going to have to stick to my guns on this one and say that what defines her casual extravagance is the same thing that destroys whatever castles she builds. Of course, I’m not a trianed psychoanalyst. (Cue the laugh track, that was fucking funny. Buh-duhm-duhm-che!)
Dropping the fast talking jivester attitude for a more subdued blues riff, some Canadian fusion blues-folk that did the stutter dance like a sexual predator. It was entrancing, a smooth flow of words and notes, a marriage of loving convienience that stumped the experts and ignited the first wet flutter of girls for miles around. It was the kind of moment that obsequious boys deem “inappropriate” and speak of with hushed laughs and flippant tongues. All the same, my purview of simple causes was stocked for just such a moment, where there was nothing to fight for except the joy of defying expectations and asserting some manner of will over a situation under no semblance of control. Words became tools for expressing meaning, that specialized usage so frequently ignored by the lords of the manor and kings of the castle. And people wonder why nobody pays a dowery these days!
For now, this parlour game is getting old, and there is every manner of job to do before sleep finds us dreaming of ocean breezes and the eternal summer. For such a straight-forward proposition, it beguiles me that this little weltanshauug is so completely misunderstood. It isn’t romantic, or postmodern, or any other subcategory of literary criticism that boxes reality like so much cheese to be shipped from a factory. Why fight a battle that is unwinnable? Because what else can you do? To acknowledge our shared temporal limitations is to admit defeat, but not the method of said defeat. The way I see it, if I’m going to lose in the end, then the loss will be on my terms, without any hint of regret. Ceremony intended to honor would instead mock, and that is something I can never accede to. Ah well, no explanation would be complete without that sweet refrain we all sing out whenever the conditions call for hysterics. It ain’t me baby! It ain’t me! We who are the cosmic joke begin to laugh, because we know that from the very beginning, it’s me baby. Now, try not to bleed on the carpet, I don’t want to pay to clean it up.
Filed under: Uncategorized
My psychiatrist tells me I’m a bi-cameral personality, and that I need more time with the good kid inside my mind rather than spending so much time with the sonofabitch part of me that fights for time at the throttle with the goody-goody. I looked this woman dead in the eye and told her where she could stick this bullshit diagnosis, but when I focused my vision after rubbing my eyes the bitch was gone. She pulls this disappearing act every time she knows I want to reply with violence. the thing is, she’s gone before I’m even aware I’ve reached this stage. Fucking doctors, what the fuck do they know anyway? Like Carlin says, it’s just guesswork in a white coat.
Before this starts to come off surly or pathetic, let me just say the violence is always metaphysical, my last reaction before acceptance. Some cunt noticed this a long long time ago, and during one particularly vicious assault on my person made ready reference to my penchant for internalizing a physical act. I called the fucking whore crazy, and it was only then that she fucked me!
Get this, because the next time your bird is acting strange or neurotic, you can tell her about this and she’ll calm down and laugh. Back before the turn of the century (it amiuses me to phrawse it like that because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. Small goals when you characterize survival and success with the same words. Don’t that beat all!!!!) I was living out in Escalido Junction California. There was this snatch I was living with by the name of Melinda Ellen Hracio. Melinda was a cut above all of the normal girls you tend to meet in Escalido Junction (or anywhere else as near as I can tell) and possesed an amazing sense of self-humor. One night, while laying on the bed watching cartoons, I see Melinda come out of the bathroom totally naked. Much to my surprise, she’d painted a mustache on her upper lip with makeup. Then I looked toward her girly parts. Hanging halfway out of her pussy was a condom. Before you start laughing or get that curious furrow in your brow, here comes the best part. She had blown the condom up and tied the back end balloon style. The following conversation is only approximate, as most of the words have faded from memory, though the image is still remembered with ease…
Me: You have an unused condom hanging out of your pussy.
Her: Baby, you’re so observant, that’s what I love about you.
Me: That may be true, but for the moment the reasons why you love me are of less interest than why the fuck there is a condom balloon hanging out of your pussy.
Her: Oh, well, I was in the shower kind of daydreaming, and for a brief moment I was wondering what I would look like as a male. I painted on a mustache and affixed a penis because Marissa borrowed my strap-on.
Me: Oh. Well, right on, that makes sense. Why don’t you go trim your mustache, pull your dick off and come to bed.
But that was the way things happened back in Escalido Junction. It was a small town without that much going on, and you really had to be some kind of nut job to live there. The town was crammed with burned out red eyed men escaping reality, and the women were uniformly gifted with a type of been there done that existentialism. Not a bad place to live if you could appreciate shiftlessness.
Sitting and waiting at a kitchen table, the first aroma of lasagna beginning to waft from the oven, feeling really really good. On the table was a dirty bowl, smoldering. In the positive state of a junkie achieving transendescence, I stood up quickly, knocking the chair back across the kitchen. I jumped on top of the table, inhaled deeply of the lasagna, and screamed at the top of my lungs “I am screaming while standing on the table smelling lasagna. Why?”
Desperation settled like a thin teflon coating on the couch. It hung everywhere, suspended on disbelief. Dave Edmunds music echoed and bounced off little molecules of desire, impinging on the sensation of blanket applications momentarily blocking the sun from getting past the glass of the windows. Being alone, awakening to the certainty that something was missing from the apartment, but being unable to remember what was missing was at first terrifying, but then liberating. If I didn’t know what was missing, why would the certainty that I was missing something be that big of a deal? Obviously, whatever it was that had gone missing wasn’t of any kind of imperative importance. It wasn’t really even something that would be important later, and I don’t even believe in later, so no worries there either. I laid in bed, smoking a cigarette and enjoying the unimportance of this missing widget. Ironically, I couldn’t see the ashtray anywhere. However, I was too busy reveling in unimportance to care. I ashed in a mostly empty cup of coffee and laughed like a fucking madman.
From The Journal of Sir Marshmellow Trowell
Lately, I’ve been feeling slightly less than eponymous. The problem, however infantile, is trying to make sense of the cognitive dissonance that has characterized my decision making over the last few weeks. Despite the fervent assurances of friends and aquaintences that this problem is only noticeable to me, my own sense of the situation is somewhat more stultifying. Usually, this would inspire a tremendous amount of frustration, but instead there is more of a relaxed acceptance of the present situation.
The point of this little flight of fancy can be traced to my incurable lust for dissonance while I spontaneously search for some sort of idyllic calm that could be mistaken for balance by a casual observer. As complicated as that sounds, it requires only a willingness to disregard immediate emotional sensations and concentrating on the greater goal. This would be a relatively painless process except for the idea of dissonance. Both the cognitive and emotional varieties are dangerous to judgement because both forms can warp context, which is itself the basis for judgement. The hard part is to ignore the statistical probability of a given event and place a great deal of desire into the nefarious “unknown.” I suspect that the pull between apparently discordiant ideas/beliefs/opinions is variable, rather than fixed, and that one of the primary functions of self-aggrandizement results in the inherent authority of the individual to define context and “reality” as each indivdual sees fit. However, our system of perception is so overly attuned to changes in specific relationships between our “selves” and the exterior world that the realm of routine and potential dissonance is ignored. The sad result of ignoring a probable source of negative and problematic perceptions should be fairly obvious.
The end result of this sort of mental excercise is not the formulation of a philosophy nor an attempt to define simple rules to deal with dissonant idealization. Dogmatic structure excazerbates the problem by installing authoritative command structures compelling adherence to rules the individual had no voice in shaping. If we are to assume all individuals are unique (at least in terms of self-perception and socialization) then by definition no single rule governing any sort of belief can be rationally supported. It is at best farcical, and at worst dangerous. Before you object and claim this entire train of thought as simple anarchy, let me stress that while rules governing thoughts or beliefs may be excercises in futility, rules governing behavior must take into account the effect of a given action. For instance, consider the question of why murder is illegal. Putting aside any acceptance of the 10 commandments (in the Judeo-Christian tradition) there are more primary needs fulfilled by discouraging the taking of a life by premeditated action. (At this point, assume that unmeditated action cannot be compelled because it is by definition unplanned. It would be more effective to find ways of minimalizing the situations giving rise to unplanned action resulting in grievous harm, but that would be almost impossible.)
The most important need fulfilled is self-preservation. Simple and basic, obvious and an important trait for any being with any degree of self-consciousness. Discouraging murder increases the chance to pass on genetic material to the next generation and continue the evolutionary process another short step in a long chain of change. (Rest assured I am being generous with my characterization of fucking. For the one action so basic to life and the means of continued existence to be so constantly pilloried is perhaps the greatest example of group dissonance to be found. Amusing doesn’t even begin to sum up the ridiculousness.) Is everything about fucking? No, not everything. Just most things.
Well, with my head spinning in ten million directions at once and the first snowflakes falling from a dark pink sky, one last cigarette to mix with the ashy air and cold winds then off for a few hours sleep. Time to spin the wheel, and hope for warm water. And poetry. And sleep…
Sir Marshmellow Trowell
For a dirty evening such as this, even the classic splendor of historical films could not rescue the underlying thoughts of uncrafted verse. Lately, all of the mistakes that had built up over the last month or so all crashed together, collapsed into something unformed, and ran across my chest in an effort to find a way out. Alternating between anger and frustration, each building off of each other, rising in a rhythmic swell (like the swell of your lungs when you breath as I watch you sleep) that is loathsome and shameful. This could be any room, or any place, and I can’t see anymore because my eyes are swollen and dry, and my incendiary machinations turn to cheap parlor tricks in this quiet house. It’s cold, and I’m the only one awake.
In these hours, the only sound is the hum of the house around me and the music seeping weakly out of tiny speakers, playing tricks on my mind with twisting shadows and waves of light. For a moment there is a separation between selves, and questions appear on the walls, written in laundry detergent, glowing in the dark. The writing is all paraphrased questions, with the occasional declarative statement added for effect. Something in the way the language rubs against my mind is so fierce, yanking the last few inches of me out of sleep into forcible awareness of the inexplicable behaviors of the past few weeks.
Amidst all the words, the crossing shadows and tinny music, momentary enlightenment has never seemed so distant. That’s alright, being smooth was never my forte, and with three Thanksgivings having come and gone since this new beginning began, I’m rapidly running low on excuses and bullshit to tell myself. When I tried to explain all of this, the order of events got all mixed up and the story wrecked, leaving characters and plot fragments scattered across the floor. When I picked them up, I could only throw them together on assumptions, this moment goes with this person, that memory fits in nicely with this song. That kind of thing. Trouble is, I got them all kinds of bollocksed up, and now the memories contain pieces of songs that belong with other people, and some of the emotions that used to strike with certainty now descend in momentary stupor only to disperse without effort or will.
It is moments like these when my most frequent hope seems to stand out in silence against the noise and mistakes. Wherever the lost tribe of the long-haired flip-flop cut-offs has gone, I hope they come back soon. Or, if they aren’t coming back, I hope they’ll send word so that I know where to find them. I refuse to believe that they have gone for good, and the thought that I’m the only one left sends me searching for psychedelics and amphetamines in the errant belief that enough of one or the other will bring enlightenment. It usually doesn’t, and those side effects are killer. Having a ready supply of cigarettes and a purple tank for cruising certainly helps, although what people might think of someone driving the streets searching for one of the lost tribes while barely hanging on to anything resembling sanity is anyone’s guess. Certainly, this is just the beginning of something, and while I’m currently dark, unshaven and ready to tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself, by morning time, I’ll start pretending again that this fucking nowhere job and this fucked up town actually mean something, and they aren’t just a temporary hazard and heartache. Darling, I barely know your name, and you expect me to give you the truth? Ha! Welcome to the evening you crazy bitch. I’m just a little crazier than you. (Now put that in your pipe and smoke it, because if you don’t, I will.)
Filed under: talking pizza boxes
First off, I thought I stepped on a cat. Then I remembered that we don’t have a cat. Luckily, it turned out to be a ball of yarn, and that brought on all kinds of relief, because with the overall level of distraction keeping my mind troubled and without peace, stepping on cats is simply bad karma. Now, the truth is, three sheets to the wind hardly begins to explain the very real state of of my recent mentality, and I wouldn’t even demean the term blasted by using it to describe this set of affairs. I feel like the alcoholic who begins to feel the first sharp stab of boozy courage, and I don’t even drink. Somewhere, buried beneath reams of paperwork and the ritual motions of day to day life that I pretend to make in order to preserve the few hours a day of how shall we say more enjoyable lifestyle is that recurrent sensation of forgetfulness. It’s almost like when you turn around for a brief moment amidst a face to face conversation, only to turn back towards the person you were talking to and find that they’re gone. It’s bittersweet, like chocolate chips or maybe sour patch kids.
To take the mind off of this maudlin enterprise would be a tall task, but I baked a couple of cakes and stacked them on top of each other to make a king sized marble cake, then covered it in chocolate icing and about 7 varieties of sprinkles. The various sprinkles seemed like a good idea before being thrown on top of the mammoth cake, but really didn’t look all that great covering brown chocolate icing. Well, live and learn I suppose. It did make me feel a lot better about life, but then, it’s hard to remain depressed when your holding a gigantic slab of chocolate covered yellow cake. And let me tell you, it was good. Not great, and certainly not perfect, but it was a nice reprieve from pacing through the house engaged in some foolish self-debate trying to make a judgement call on the behavior of the past week.
The cake was better than that, for what it’s worth. Fuck me, there is still four more days of this.
This glorious Sunday morning is perfect for over-stimulation. and I am up to the task like motherfucking gangbusters. Not one, but two stereos playing different kinds of music, a movie playing, a distinctive heady, and two different realities arguing back and forth in my head at the same time. They’re currently engaged in an argument about breakfast. The first insists that no breakfast is a complete breakfast without bacon and eggs. It doesn’t matter what else is on the menu, without bacon and eggs, we are, to borrow a metaphor, simply monkeys throwing steaming feces at each other with our pretensions. The second maintains that any meal served between the hours of 5:00 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. can be called breakfast, regardless of content. As for my own opinion, well, I stay out of these little battles or else my head starts to spin and I don’t need that right now. This serendipitous morning, filled with sounds from various machines all competing for my attention, a huge plate of sausages and bagels, and motherfucking marshfuckingmallows warming in my hot cocoa. Who says you can’t have it all?
Now, while all this is going on, I realized that some bastard left the damn door open from the last cigarette enjoyed he or she enjoyed. I don’t remember leaving the damn door cracked, but it does feel very cold in here. Despite the fact that three souls inhabit the townhouse, I represent the 33% of the house population that smokes. So, there is a good chance that I’m responsible. Because I might have been responsible, I got up to smoke a cigarette. Now, some people would have simply closed the door, resting comfortably that the problem has been solved with efficiency and aplomb. Not so fast Cochese. A w ise executive would realize that the proper utilization of the current list of assets tells us to smoke a cigarette with the door open, having negated the cold winds that rip through these comfortable flannel pajama pants like shrieking eels. After finishing my coffin nail, I closed the door and freshened my now cooled hot chocolate with another hand-full of marshmallow’s (Since Trowell’s been on vacation, I’ve really been digging eating his food instead of mine. HA!)
In a strange way, this has been quite the weekend. I won’t lie, most of it has been a bit of a blur, and today promises to be no different, and most likely, it won’t be as memorable as some recent weekends, but still, it feels so deliciously and marshmallowy good that it very well might be illegal. All the same, why bother with trifles when there is NFL football to enjoy, some hella good bar food to gorge on, and then, cartoons until the break of dawn. Let me not leave you with the impression that htis windfall is somewhat undeserved. On the balance of the whole week, I was due. Of course, we could sit here and argue semantics until we’re both blue in the face, but where would that leave us? As men, or as monkeys hurling peanut infested butt nuggets at each other while shrieking? That may be OK for a workday, but for this glorious Sunday morning, we require the eloquence, the collected calm and ease that is our finest mark of distinction. We stretch our feet and enjoy the arts, maybe not as naturalists or theologians, but as a gesture of solidarity to all the poor fuckers not free to realize that limitations only exist inasmuch as we agree to be limited by them. Bah! Utter nonsense and foolishness! Just the way I like it.
Usually, after I spend my days ensuring that my life is as fucked up as possible, I spend the evening either trying to undo the vicious bullshit I achieved earlier in the day or ruining my skill at destroying things. However, today, I am in no mood to try and make the bed. Instead of searching for absolution or forgiveness, tonight, I am settling for debasement. First off, it involves less admittance of wrongdoing, and second, even if it was possible, it would simply reset things to “sort of fucked up” a s opposed to “completely fucked up.” Realistically, what’s the difference? As far as I can tell, I’ve dug this hole about as deep as it needs to go, and instead of filling it in underneath my feet, I’ll simply jump out and let it go for now. Furthermore, slipping back into a late 90’s country record and debating my prior lives may seem pointless, but it does provide the small touch of nostalgia that an evening such as this practically requires.
Before you lose faith that your ever humble servant is simply hiding from the world to lick his wounds and whimper like a dog searching for his newly removed testicles, let me assure you that will not be the case. Days like this may be made for sleeping and resolution, but I will do neither. Fuck no, I’m ready to go do something completely childish and without cause. Hence, I think it is time to ready my purple tank for a jaunt to the beach to obtain….duh DAH! BEACH JEWELRY. Cheap, crappily made rings and necklaces, maybe a sharks tooth, or perhaps even a new piercing or tattoo. (Yes, a setting sun behind a palm tree, same as ever.)
Now, I do have one problem, and that is something that’s been bothering me for some time. Usually, when my curiosity is aroused, I will do what I can to unravel the mystery. For some reason, this is one of those psychic questions that I can’t simply forget nor easily solve. Where is Huey Lewis? Why isn’t he famous anymore? What happened to The News? Now, for a brief shining moment, I thought I had located Mr. Lewis in Tulsa. Unfortunately, this proved incorrect when I was informed to my chagrin that Mr. Lewis hadn’t been seen in Oklahoma. Now, that just leaves the rest of the world, minus a few places we can be reasonably certain don’t contain him.
At this point, you may be wondering why it is so important we find this man. Well, I don’t have a specific reason, just a seemingly endless fascination with his whereabouts. Plus, I really like the song “Back In Time.” I go back and forth on “Power of Love” All that minutae aside, mostly, the quest for Huey is something akin to the idea of a mental walkabout. Sometimes, right now included, it is a great way to let this strange week and awful Friday drift away. The best thing about fucking something up is coming to the realization that I’m not perfect, and one small fuck-up is just another step in the path to…..a bigger fuck-up. HA! You thought I was going to say greater success, or something pansy like “Let’s all learn and grow and fucking be good mature adults.” I am no adult. I’m a kid. With grey hair. Now, all of these adults around me with marriages, or kids, or mortgages, or whatever the fuck is so important to these sheeple, they are welcome to enjoy the suburbs, and have hobbies and such, and you know, do whatever it is all of these people do. Because at this point, I don’t even know what that is anymore. But you know what? One of them may well know where Huey is, and maybe, if I asked right, they’d tell me too.
ps – Upon rereading this, I realized my penchant for idealism is a little too present here. Do me a favor, and try to ignore that, if you don’t mind. I mean, seriously, are we people, or monkeys wearing clothes sitting around the dinner table flinging our feces at each other? And on that note…
