LIVING

I READ A BOOK

recently by Eric Fromm, a psychologist and philosopher active in the decades following the second world war.

He claims that love is more of an interpersonal creative activity than an emotion to be experienced.

oh great more intellectuals telling us how to live

You might be surprised to find he relies a lot on the bible and religion for his examples, believing Christianity to be the moral foundation of the western intellectual tradition.

tell me more about this great man of god

I don’t think he distinguished between the benefits of having a literal faith in God and merely using the concept and traditions of Christianity as a form of moral instruction.

Most intellectuals walk this line, admittedly or not.

Their canon rests on interpretations of monotheistic myths such as Paradise Lost or Dumb & Dumber.

the most annoying sound in the world?

Yes, the bible claims the soul of western literature with its language and symbolism resurfacing in all later epochal works.

christianity is the basis for civilization, everybody knows that

Have you not been reading along with the rest of us?

But since as you pointed out I’m not an expert, I thought it would be useful to reference one when discussing that which I myself have lived but not exactly distilled into a science.

So as much as we can talk about the art of LOVE in scientific terms, let’s start creating a framework for being better to each other friend.

Or else I fear no one will be willing to continue to read these dissociative rants.

I told you I’d burn this mother down

But you’re not the addict anymore.

That was so last chapter.

what am I now?

A partner in dialogue.

are we still using the HM tree-fiddy?

The HM 1300?

Why not, unless you want to relive 36 years of memories.

there’s sharing and then there’s oversharing

So let’s see, galactic time to homo sapien sapien evolution evolution time time.

following so far…far

Then we scaled down further from 100,000 to 400 years to one, going from species to social evolution.

boys to meme I remember that, some good material in there

And finally the last chapter we slowed to a ratio of 16-1 in order to explore the addictions of the country of yours truly.

god?

I can tell by now when you’re just messing with me and it’s endearing.

I’ve always been messing with you ‘cause you’re actually quite gullible

Sociopath.

See, we’re back at it again.

We have to learn how to act more loving or we’re not going to be able to get anywhere.

The pattern seems to be a multiplication of 2.5 scaling up or down logarithmically, or by a factor of 10.

that’s not really how logarithms-

So let’s use this ratio to relate one year of my life to 2.5 in our HM 1300.

you mean each section to 2.5 yrs in your life

Uh…yeah, sure.

That should give us 14 sections to discuss how we got to this point arguing with ourselves for free on the internet.

are you going to lay another timeline of development over those 14 sections?

Think we’re skipping it this time, already December 29th and I promised myself I’d finish this by the New Year.

dialing it in at the end huh bruh

We’ll group them in pairs then and add couplets to the end, Lucky #7.

bless you sir

So onto section the first, covering the years zero to two and a half as well as two and a half to five.

there’s a tiger blood joke in there somewhere

What?

what?

Anyways, our metaphor masheen is back in action and ready to go.

Exiting by way of our mom’s vagine, hello my future constituency-

see, that’s why you need me here.

she had a caesarian section, remember?

she’s a small lady and we have a rather big head, as the kids on the playground would later so kindly remind us

As yes, slicing free with a sword we fashioned from the femur of an unrealized twin-

audible sigh

normal operation

you were a normal if very hairy baby

they said you looked like a little raccoon and you immediately started crying until mom in her exhaustion yelled out

¡cállate niño!

and then you looked at her silently, and have been questioning her authority ever since

Really pushing this unresolved mother issues narrative are we?

as christian scientists, eric and I lay claim to modern behavioral science, so yes

Give a guy one reference point and he’s an expert.

Our brain was still working out the kinks in its memory.

Which is why they thought it would be ok to give my little tree the trim, a practice I’m starting to question as an adult but I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now.

blood everywhere, we screamed

Scarring your jaw to save from shaving.

Visible shudder.

It’s interesting how many historic patterns of violence are executed in the name of cleanliness and conformity.

we were on grandpa’s lap at three months, called us riggoberto

Saw that picture.

Gramps offered babysitting duties to free up the folks that birthday party. No one expected him to die of a heart attack three months later.

Hope we appreciated him.

we did, he told us about family and the war

how he was a navy pilot, then an instructor, then the commander of an entire base in Hawaii

talked about courting grandma, disarming and then kicking a would-be mugger off a los angeles city bus on their first date

I remember that story. Grandma said “How could I not marry Bob?”

he was a wild man

shrapnel in his leg from being shot at in his tours over korea

never was actually shot down though, lucky for the rest of us

Yeah, all those bullets our ancestors dodged in order to allow us to be born to tell their stories, it’s humbling really.

On mom’s side, her dad shooting another would-be robber in the groin while he had him in a headlock.

why are people always trying to rob us?

Some dangers we pursued, like pops chasing dude in L.A.

Remember how he describes it?

slow motion

he saw the guy in the car first, then the gun, and he said “you don’t want to do that” while giving himself a split second to jump out of the way

Didn’t dodge a bullet that time though, did he?

Although it passed right through him an inch below his heart, exiting out his back without hitting anything but soft tissue.

lucky for us

The bullets we dodge.

The stories we tell ourselves about who we are.

What other earlier memories are there?

Watching the Lakers with pops from our crib.

Learning how to escape said crib.

We never did like cages did we?

Did we ever stick a fork in that electric socket or did we just think about it?

pretty sure we tried

Being picked up, crying because we didn’t want to be picked up.

Being put down, crying because we didn’t want to be put down.

A general unhappiness about not being able to express what we want.

These aren’t exactly memories but memories of memories.

Thoughts that I once had upon waking that become more infrequent as more life is lived, more experience is piled on top of the old data.

Until what you once believed to be real becomes an echo of the thing.

echoing an echo

Your memories of dreams and dreams of memories both still guiding you like the tail on a kite.

I don’t think that’s how kites work

That’s exactly how kites work.

They produce drag in-line with the axis of flight, creating stability.

sometimes they’re just for decoration though

Sometimes people post to social media just for attention.

I think we were a happy baby.

Until they put us in pre-school for two years, that was like prison

we didn’t even talk to anyone that first year, when we were three?

Fuck that, everyone was crazy.

You checked bikes out from here, you napped there.

You painted but only at a certain time on this day.

And then we could only play with the blocks during these hours.

I wasn’t tired and I had to lay on that mat and pretend like I was sleeping.

Everyone knew what to do automatically like a bunch of robots.

It was weird.

so we hid in that cement tunnel thing on the playground and just watched them right?

What else can you do?

We hadn’t decided to join the circus, not just yet.

That first year we developed our me against the world philosophy.

Maybe it also had to do with that memory of watching Rambo, which had just come out on VHS.

We filled little hollow toys with water to make them grenades.

Young SHAZZBARBARIC, orphaned mancub.

I tried to tell my parents about this early feeling of isolation but they just took offense to the thought they abandoned me by putting me in school so early.

they don’t take criticism well

It wasn’t even criticism, at least that wasn’t my intention.

It’s just me trying to explain how I became who I am.

I eventually got with the program the second year, so that would be four.

I slept when I was supposed to, blocked with the block heads at block time, figured out how to check out those tricycles.

with the flat backs that you could stand up on and push off like you were riding a scooter?

those were sweeeeeet

Pooped our pants ‘cause we didn’t know the boundaries between interrupting adults and holding it in, until we couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Winding up in the principal’s office because we chose wrong, waiting for mom to come with clean clothes.

Sometimes we shit ourselves before questioning authority, before realizing no government has the right to tell you when you get relief.

Well I guess in prison they do, and America sure believes in prisons.

dramatic music intensifies

We wanted to be a painter, remember?

switches to playful melody

But then the pastor told us we were destined to be a preacher.

ah yes, the first questioning of authority

fuck that guy painting rules

tortured artist soundtrack, siri please play contemporary kanye

But by five we figured out the game.

We memorized our alphabets and our numbers.

That adult who pulled us aside during movie time, not the teacher but that stranger, the one who tested us.

We could tell he was impressed.

kids can read behavior…montage of the faces of the adults who’ve lied to me over a sweeping score

Yup, we figured out the system.

We built that ginger bread house.

We pitied that kid with the headgear for his teeth.

We got scratched by the kittens at home.

We lied to moms about those matches we found and played with, and then were shocked when she called us out?

that was some black magic shit, how did she know we were lying?

soft sax, never slept on the dame after that, not after I knew what she was capable of, put two and two together is what she did see, but how?

I’d been played is what it was-

Sulfur dude, she smelled the sulfur on our fingers.

ooohhhhhhh

Was that a dream or an actual memory, the ants and cockroaches on the floor as big as turtles?

Asking moms why people didn’t believe in God if he gave them babies after they were married.

audience sighs aawwwww

Her repeating it to our aunt with a laugh.

That feeling that there was more to the story.

The intuition of children when adults are lying to them, or at least leaving out important details.

Brother approaching that homeless man we were told to avoid.

We stayed back so only brother got attacked, hit over the head with a broom handle to run crying into our apt.

Pops chasing crazy down the street, holding him for the cops.

Thinking. Observing.

∼
soldier’s son weds business daughter bride

ambition and adventure with eyes wide

waiting for the world to show its score

memories of wanting to know more
∼

not bad, might have to explain grandpa’s businesses, the fancy cars, the young new wife after grandma died, the older brothers disinheriting themselves and taking moms with them, then grandpa passing in couple years

but not bad for four lines

I try, that’s all that’s required to love.

Just care enough to try.

Which is also the first category in Eric’s breakdown of the art of loving: CARE, the active concern for the life and growth of that which we love.

The ‘rents weren’t perfect but they loved us.

They cared enough to try their best.

Which leads us to our second section composed of two parts, from five to seven and a half and then from seven and a half to ten years old.

not sold on the poetry but I’ma let you finish

We move out of Glendale around this time, something to do with those muggers and pops I think right?

They didn’t know if the guy was gang affiliated, might be retribution for testifying.

Where did we go, Corona?

It was Home Gardens elementary for those first couple years of elementary school.

good ol’ home garbage

First grade we got that note from that one girl, the brunette right?

Do you like me check YES or NO?

that was not cool!

we knew we weren’t supposed to play with girls

although, reflecting now, I don’t think anyone ever explained WHY

that was trouble, kids dating and kissing and shacking up and other stuff people lost in the world did who were going to hell

siri, play classic kanye

Yeah we ignored that girl’s note for a reason right?

But maybe it wasn’t so much for religion.

Kylene Kristoff was our girl.

Or was it Kayleen Kristofferson?

Something like that.

She was blond like the movies and she smiled a lot.

Superwhite like Elmer’s glue and we were twice as stuck.

She had her crew and we had ours.

We’d play near them at recess and pretend to trip over gopher holes, until we actually tripped and broke our collar bone.

Back in the principal’s office waiting to be taken to the hospital.

wait that was second grade, you’re skipping a whole year!

How could I forget our house in Moreno Valley at the end of the cul-de-sac!

Jumping off the roof into the pool, The Legend of Zelda for Christmas, New Kids on the Block dance routines with the neighbors.

Launching off that bike ramp doing a flip and landing on my face.

we were apparently made of rubber

Entertaining ourselves outside because we didn’t have the most toys to play with inside.

No sodas, no junk food.

Fruits and vegetables and plenty of this might be our last meal graces said before dinner.

we definitely were aware that we scraped by

But the folks had that business down the street, the mailing service with the post & parcel, pops also selling insurance.

We were maybe like lower middle-class during this period I’d guess.

That’s the last house they’d own until after I’d joined – and was kicked out of – the military.

montage of 1st grade to militar-

Wait wait wait! We have a lot more memories to go before then.

record scratch

Remember when Mr. Micro-Wheels flipped his mom off from out of sight downstairs ‘cause she wouldn’t let him play outside?

And how you said “don’t off flip your mom” and he got grounded?

don’t put that on me, see shit like that is why we got in fights

We countered his mall-karate well enough though.

Pops trying to talk us down after one scuffle, the kid giving me that compliment.

I never took him seriously.

he was a wannabe bully

his fam didn’t go to church and he had way more toys than us

It was always interesting going over to other people’s houses.

Most people seemed to have more stuff than us on that block.

most of their parents spoke nicer to each other too

Or at least didn’t escalate to the level of yelling matches that ours would with or without friends over.

The frequent threat that we were going to be taken by FAMILY SERVICES.

Pops going for cigs and coming back a couple days later.

Moms staying with her family.

Learning how to explain the fam to the friends: “that’s just the way they are.”

So stressed about money we sell the house and move to that apt in Corona.

so back to my point, our first crush was that girl with the braids we called burnt biscuit-

I don’t think we should call her that anymore…

naw she didn’t care, and she was the smartest kid in class

well, the second smartest, since we got there

we had to let her know what’s up, and she was round headed and beautiful like a perfectly formed biscuit, only burnt…

We came home singing that playground rhyme we’d memorized and moms stopped us, again with that face adults get when they’re not quite giving you all the information.

yeah what was up with that?

“Say that in front of Brother Benson.”

The Pastor of our little church who inadvertently killed what could have been our early artistic period.

Who was also African American.

a fight, a fight
a nigger and a white

what’s the big deal?

it’s just poetry

How do you think burnt biscuit would take to us calling her that now?

she’d crack up, burnt-ass biscuit always talking in class then chasing me all over

we were friends ’cause we sat at the smart table

though just ‘cause I could put people on blast didn’t mean I wanted to be the class clown

we learn not to say everything that immediately comes to mind

Eventually, to some extent.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps we should allow for the unrehearsed.

Perhaps character is the earned right to be spontaneous.

We did recognize that there were roles to this school thing.

We were suspicious of the attention that talking too much brought us.

We played the quiet observer for the most part, when we weren’t trying to impress girls.

The Simpsons had just started.

We were younger than bart but next year we’ll catch up.

and we’ve passed him

And now we’ve caught up to Marge, quickly gaining on Homer.

cue existential crisis

Save that until we’re approaching Grandpa Simpson, the show will probably still be on.

stay at home mom with a single wage earner holding down a mortgage and three rugrats fantasies are becoming more delusional each market cycle

All of these stories we tell ourselves are like markers in our declining standards of living, even as technology and management improve economic efficiency.

Mr. Burns blocking out the sun to charge the inhabitants of Springfield for merely existing.

speaking of which, have you heard of a “dyson sphere” you can build to capture the sun’s energy?

Is that the guy who makes those vacuums?

I think so

We’re getting sidetracked.

Third & fourth grades we’re in these combined classes with a grade higher.

Insider information a year ahead of the other losers in normal classes.

We’re starting to get ahead of the curve.

we read a lot didn’t we?

and we were proud that we read so much

Always trying to make sure the numbers on the back of the book were a couple years above our reading level.

That’s when we read through the whole “Chronicles of Narnia” series.

Which seem a little preachy upon reflection, when I reread that first book a couple years ago.

don’t you dare besmirch the good name of c.s. lewis

What other books were there?

Moms would take us to the library often.

All of “The Great Brain” books, those were fun, stories about being smart but also being tough.

We wanted to know what was going on but we still had images of Rambo in our head huh.

jumping off tall things ‘cause he jumped off that cliff?

then sowing up your injuries

so badass

probably best we didn’t jump off the roof with that plastic bag though

Our first flirtations with irresponsibility in the 4th grade.

Eric calls RESPONSIBILITY the second component to the art of love, responding to the expressed or understood needs of others.

School, on the other hand, called responsibility finishing our first long term project.

fuuuuuuck thaaaaat

We had a good topic though, ring-tailed lemurs.

but then we had to write a whole bunch of stuff

there were just so many other things to do

we read and learned about them, that was good enough

Good enough for that first parent teacher conference.

The lesson learned was that we can’t just ignore school, these adults are taking it all very seriously.

counting down the years to be done while we waited out this latest crib, time until we’re free

Time for more ‘lets;

∼
eyes that wandered to the fairer sex

broken bones that kept one’s own perplexed

stresses unseen, authority hidden

we learned how to act, what was forbidden
∼

seven out of ten with rice

Way too much internet.

that’s where the people are

Where were we, from ten to fifteen?

oooh our edgy teenage years

I think we were pretty laid back though

Sure, we just made enemies with the classroom bully within the first week of fifth grade.

ah yeah mike, good people

Eventually we became friends sure.

But first we made the mistake of sticking up for a kid he was picking on at our table right?

probably trying to impress that dina girl

An ill-timed your mom tag line to Mike’s comedy routine, after which he followed up with the clearly escalating “what you say about my moms?”

lights dim, cue the byrds, pull focus across the table passing dina on the left and dorky kid to our right, voice over;

narrator: I didn’t realize it at the time, but a little piece of my childhood had slipped away, forever

(beat)

It was one of the many red lines our mouth would help us discover.

Him spotting us after school, his first volley of “that’s your ass!” before we countered with the at-the-time all too clever “you’ll have to catch me first!”

And we were off and running like a little brown TIE fighter.

they were black and mike was big as the death star

He throws us up against a car port and we have one last move to play;

“Why were we fighting again?”

And then he pauses, his crew in the background instigating.

Get him. Beat his ass.

then mike was all like, “I don’t remember” and we laughed about that forever

I think Mike did eventually whoop our ass for that.

he was way bigger than us!

I wasn’t worried, I’d said it.

He was just showing me what he was all about.

Don’t talk shit about the black kids’ moms, life lessons.

mike would say that he believed in greek gods and made fun of us when we said we were going to stay virgins until marriage

Sleepovers were educational.

Staying up late to watch Chris Rock joke about the n word, a word I couldn’t say anymore because Mike and the rest of them took it away from me.

And then it fell out of practice.

And then I just accepted the censorship.

but not without a fight though, which is why we had that running joke about “what’s up my nig-oww!”

“I think you broke my jaw!”

Some parts of Mike’s identity weren’t accessible unless you’re black, was what it was.

Clowning him for saying he had to brush his hair, what hair fool.

he didn’t know white people had to brush their hair, said he thought it just fell in place all natural and shit

How do we learn if we don’t ask questions?

And then some of us destined to always be in the middle.

“where are you from” always asked within the first minute of an introduction

Yup, the good old “where are you from?”

As in, “not from this white-ass town.”

there were a bunch of mexicans and pillipinos though

Not in the classes we took.

The Loma Linda hospital gave the area a bigger influx of immigrant kids for sure.

But we didn’t necessarily hang out with the children of doctors.

mike’s mom worked at the post office

She recently survived breast cancer.

woah

remember when he showed us that porn?

Plumbing, or some other reason for them to be in the same room at the same time.

Maybe it was a pizza delivery guy.

It looks like he’s hurting her.

But she tipped him.

We couldn’t stop talking about it the next day.

That girl who knew my family overhead us and told on me.

why would she do that?!

Moms talked to Mike’s mom, everyone got grounded for life.

By then we enforced our code with the sleeping bag of horrors.

not the sleeping bag of horrors!

That old military sleeping bag that Mike had that we’d zip one of us up in.

Chicken out of Truth or Dare?

Act like a bitch?

Get the bag.

Every sleepover we’d get someone into that sleeping bag.

Everyone eventually got their turn.

Pretty sure we got Mike in there at least once.

justice doesn’t work unless it’s impartial

We all feared the bag.

it was more like a rough massage, you learn to turtle up well

In 6th grade that girl liked me and let people know about it.

Seemed like everyone was all about the gossip back then, those first relationships people begin to talk about.

Learning vicariously through the experience of others, good choices and bad.

that girl who dated the senior in high school

Yeah that was like a six year difference, then she had a baby the next year in 7th grade.

But that one girl, who liked me, I made a deal with Mike one day that if he’d forgive a sleeping bag of horrors debt I owed then I’d prank her.

So I walked up to her with him next to me and said yes, yes I’ll go out with you.

and then we hit her with that “psyche!” man, that was classic

we need to bring psyche back

I wondered about her, she seemed chubbier the next year.

your rejection did not give some middle schooler diabetes don’t be too hard on yourself

What effect do we have on the people we interacted with when we were younger?

how about you and mike competing for the same girl

Wrote more during that letter war over her than any of my classes.

we still made the academic pentathlon

Because they wanted underachievers like us who were smart.

we set a record with all those trophies

We were pretty smart for the amount of stupid we acted.

Eventually we just stopped going to class.

this is only middle school through 9th grade though

we were still trying back then

Yeah, I guess we were.

Remember that one teacher who looked at us in our eyes and called us a flake the end of the year?

yeah what was up with that?

People were shook by our confidence I guess, or perhaps a better term would be irreverence.

We didn’t do anything in most classes but we were still in with the advanced kids.

I think she took it personal that we didn’t try.

I always assumed it was a tool of hers to inspire, some kind of motivating shame.

But the thing is, a cheap trick understood no longer has the same effect.

Just kind of felt sorry for her.

Thought it was kind of an immature approach.

I try not to do stuff I don’t want to do, don’t know what to tell you.

we have always taken our honor into our own keeping

Maybe it was just laziness.

But then again, what is that concept?

Who gets to decide the important tasks in your life?

We eventually proved we knew how to put in effort, the benefits of hard work.

All of these questions seem to come back to authority.

School was clearly about following the rules not discovering your own path.

Then you’re shamed when you question those rules and these supposed guidance counsellors.

we were all about breaking rules

Well, testing the boundaries for sure.

Children want to feel secure in the authority that governs their lives.

We checked truth as it came in.

Truth of the bully turned friend.

legit thought he’d catch fire when he came to church

I saw steam coming out of his head for sure.

Truth of God-

brother benson

the truth of school.

Calling out truths, as we’d later say on mushrooms.

call out some couplets son

∼
how to dance with wolves, and when to run

what words, once they’re said, can’t be undone

what friends, once they’re made, will last for life

what others expected from our life
∼

13/10

what else we lifting from eric?

I’m sure that Eric would respect our purpose.

RESPECT is a concern for the autonomy of others.

In other words a lack of exploitation.

We’re not exploiting we’re exploring.

columbus was an explorer

But that’s a good point.

Each of these categories of the art of loving are left to interpretation.

Who’s going to measure a person’s active concern?

How can we make sure that people are responsible for themselves?

How much should we be responsible for others?

Doesn’t the very nature of any relationship involve compromise?

Isn’t exploitation embedded into society itself?

love is complicated

Eric’s last category was KNOWLEDGE; penetrating to the depth of a subject or being.

The union of the lover and the loved.

maybe by growing all of these categories we grow our capacity to love, which is possibly what we talk about when we talk about character

That’s quite moving.

viagra for the soul

Uh…

10th grade saw us joining the wrestling team.

This section covers years 15-20, high school through the military.

ah yes, we entered an E-2, exited an E-1

Two steps forward, one E-step back, story of our life.

it was like wrestling, a good outlet to be physical, always wrasslin’ mike anyways

And then he moved out of town huh, so we weren’t as distracted during those final years in school.

naw we wouldn’t even have stayed in wrestling if our team wasn’t so bad, we weren’t the joining type

somehow we made captain and stuck around because it was interesting and it felt like we were needed, good group of guys

Yeah we didn’t really subscribe to that whole prepare for college narrative did we?

everyone was a bunch of phonies

Yup, we read “Catcher in the Rye” and other antsy lit.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X and other character classics.

But I think we had other reasons to initially take a pass on higher education.

what, bad grades and no money?

No, our SAT’s were good enough to get money if we needed it.

And even with the bad grades, the captain of the wrestling team attaboy as well as the Academic Decathlon stuff we did later were enough accolades to sell us.

The University of Hawaii as well as UC Santa Cruz both offered us some sort of packages, from the few envelopes we actually opened.

But the same way I’m exploring my character now, that’s all I seemed to care about back then.

We didn’t identify with the people going to college.

We’ve seen where they’ve ended up.

This is half a lifetime ago.

We’re 36 now.

People have made decisions and lived through their consequences.

The ones who went to the Berkeleys, the Harvards.

The ones who decided to have children, or careers, or both.

what were our decisions?

Well, there was that Army recruiter.

But we wanted to get into the military before he contacted us, right?

We were in economics class when we read about how old you had to be to run for president.

We made that calendar of what we could do with our life before then.

step one; currently 18, step two ???, step three president 2020

Or we could be like that Asian girl, so excited about becoming a dental hygienist.

Were people really this happy to become so many square & round pegs in such predetermined square and round holes?

I don’t think we said as much though

There was that one time that we were walking down the hall and we thought I guess I’ll be president.

the old adage that if you shoot for the moon you might just blow up on launch and save yourself the trip

What did Skip say when we borrowed his sisters bikes to ride through the mud after the rain?

If you’re gonna lose might as well lose big?

so then we jumped those bad boys into the pool, yeah that was epic

man we terrorized that apartment complex

But the Army didn’t work like that did it?

our shenanigans were not appreciated in the military

They weren’t even appreciated in High School.

remember that restaurant?

Remember our underground newspaper?

that was epic

The internet verified that the stories we were told were garbage.

No context, relevant facts purposefully omitted.

at least they stopped those “cannot tell a lie” founding father myths

About that, the one underground issue I still have exposed George Washington as having died from pneumonia caught while visiting his lover-

politicians have always been horndogs

but the thing is, I’m not sure if that’s true.

I just looked online and I can’t really find much to corroborate it.

Georgey Boy wrote some spicy letters they found, sure.

But it could have just been his own sexual frustration.

whitehouse letters

And does it even matter?

I’ve noticed this about being lied to, from youth to school to later on when we learned about love hands on.

Injustice creates an ecosystem of the abused.

There are those that are empowered by the lie and then those who are deceived.

But then there are those who are empowered in a different way, wielding secret knowledge like our own feeling of moral superiority over America’s first president.

Hidden truth can empower the ego.

False narratives bring with them all of these reactions which aren’t so obvious from the outside;

survivalists, false believers, truthers, hypocrites, cynics.

It gets complicated quickly.

Though nothing seemed more complicated than the opposite sex.

some people love the same sex

And the exception makes the rule.

that’s going to be an angry letter

How is exploring heterosexuality exploiting homosexuals?

We’re aiming for the fat middle before investigating the narrower paths of life.

oh so now all gay people are narrow

We’re NOT GAY, why would we speak on their experience?

oh so now gay people are imaginary

We’re starting with what WE know, based on what WE’VE lived.

we didn’t know anything in high school though, you couldn’t even get us a girlfriend

There was that smart girl with the big boobs.

We made out with her at her house, our friend at the foot of the bed.

awkward. I think he liked her

She stopped us when we tried to get that dress off.

that’s what you’re supposed to do right?

no one tells us any of this

Yeah, make out to sex, all we needed was the pizza box.

in our defense we were super horned up from those playboys we inherited

Uhhh…I don’t think horniness is the best defense buddy.

You know our favorite issue, the girl who’d become Playmate of the Year?

Our president banged her.

no!

Yup, Karen McDougal.

Our president had sex with our high school fantasy fuck.

now I know what the JFK era felt like, should I be disgusted or proud?

Male adoration is odd.

Our biggest fear is inappropriate behavior-

sorry for that whole rapist thing btw, was in a dark place last chapter

yet our priority in life is to attract a partner.

That means learning when to pursue and when you need to ease off.

maybe that’s why they have that round the bases analogy

But how do we stop it from becoming a cheap competition?

how do you stop anything from becoming a competition?

I thought we were talking about character

you do your best and let it shake out in the end

relationships are between the parties involved, not to be litigated in the court of public opinion

But then the concept of the public is where relations clash with autonomy, as in, your rights end where mine begin.

The idea of society seems to have a lot in common with idea of love.

Both lead to nagging questions of authority.

Who’s judgement is most valid?

Should the state concern itself with modifying human behavior?

Do we really want to institute a morality police?

And character is earned not gifted, no?

So there will be times when our best judgement still hurts other people.

Doesn’t life already have a way of punishing us for living outside the accepted code of conduct?

Is there such a code still, was there ever one?

you think you hurt that girl’s feelings huh

Naw, she just probably thought I was a jackass.

She shut that shit down real quick and then we didn’t hang out again.

Someone tried to mediate, let me know she liked me but it was just too fast, that she was still into me.

I think she wanted to go to a dance or something.

She definitely didn’t look like the girls in my magazines.

I was just trying to do what my body and mind knew how to do up to that point, have the sex.

And maybe the pizza after.

we were admittedly judgmental asshats back then

The way I’m starting to piece it together, kids are sensitive to aesthetics.

Without good role models, feral like we were just bouncing off experiences learning as we went, they mimic patterns.

We digested a specific pattern of beauty in the media from an early age and that’s what we then valued, competed for.

It took correcting from life to mellow out that asshattery.

I guess that’s one explanation

I know we’re not as judgmental anymore

yeah because we’re older, everyone knows your appetite broadens with age

This is how you end up dating 6th graders.

gotta be this tall to ride, ask for that ID

So gamifying the sexual experience?

Racking up points for youngest and hottest levels passed?

I don’t think love works like that.

I’d like to think these days we believe in sincere connections that leave people better off than how we found them.

look dude, from what I can tell there’s a crisis of a lack of good orgasms in the world

there’s sex and then there’s love

We were lucky to get both the first time though, right?

our middle school crush, circling back to that house party we threw when our parents went away for that wedding

We were 19 and still stationed at the Presidio of Monterey, but drove the six hours to Southern California to hang with the crew.

We found out she was in town and invited her over.

played it cool too, didn’t even make a move that first night

What moves?

We were mad that nothing happened, we thought we were being rejected.

but then we learned the most important lesson about love AND sex…

patience

Yup, the next night that douche playing Dave Matthews Band on the guitar was going hard at her and we knew we had to get her away from the competition.

So we took her into the back room and she showed us what she’d learned in college.

what do we always say we learned how to do in the military?

Drink, smoke and play guitar.

아마도 일부 한국어를 배웠습니다.

9/11 from inside that rec room

2nd plane into the tower.

Moms saw the devil’s face in the smoke.

your dumbass saying don’t be mad we signed up to do that too

Kill the enemy.

Always playing the devil’s advocate.

yeah ours was a mutual breakup

Countless beers and cigarettes, one Top Secret clearance.

∼
blacklisted newspapers were our scene

blue balled until wearing camo green

orange man would wrassle with our dream

while we learned from our mulatto queen
∼

I…don’t think that term’s used much anymore

She loved that word, we said it all the time.

It’s ok if you own it.

I think.

I call myself a mutt.

Who gets the right to tell us how we can define ourselves?

When does the outrage of others override the sincere creation of our own identity?

Can honesty be insulting?

Aren’t insults supposed to be malicious?

Otherwise you risk creating unchecked authority in the form of censorship, no?

hey I’m all about pushing the envelope preaching to the choir here

we still talk to ms. mulatto right?

Messaged her last time I had facebook.

Remember the miracle of early social media, classmates dot com, looking up those old connections?

the connecting energy of the universe might be loneliness

That’s one of those rare statements that’s both romantic & crushing.

I hope mulatto is doing well

we don’t keep in contact with many people

Too many adventures, boundaries to test & militaries to get kicked out of.

then we got that meth apartment right?

UNDER the tweakers.

Three generations, that girl her mom and then her little baby daughter.

and when she’d call from prison after being locked up the caller id always said “inmate”

Damn inmate always monopolizing the phone.

But we tried to help her out.

our peoples in the more humble neighborhoods

Until no one was paying rent anymore.

And then it became your peoples.

I didn’t invite everyone

A handful of recovering addicts from high school-

not the best place for them

There was also that one girl who had been living out of her car.

oh she was cool!

I think she’s in venice now

Still on the street? What options do townies have as their town goes down the drain due to historic patterns of predation?

How can people live well if they’ve never seen what well means?

Is happiness comfort?

Or is it a level of care, respect, responsibility and knowledge of yourself and others?

Can people believe in love if they’ve never experienced it?

Or if they’re forgetting what it once felt like?

Are we replacing mature love with infantile desires to control?

grow your heart and when you get that itch scratch away and say ten hail marys

So Christianity is cool with letting the boys be boys?

oh yeah, totally, mary’s the virgin, all the dudes are players

king david spotting a ten showering was straight out of porky’s

It’s true, you do get a completely different take on the subject if you ask the random religious man or woman.

How long until we have the courage to break from bad ideas?

I flipped a switch at least, from saving myself for marriage to fuck it, quite literally.

one of the few things in life that weren’t overhyped

But Eric says that erotic love isn’t the highest form of love but rather it’s the union of man and woman in some kind of vulnerable co-creation of spiritual insert-buzz-word-here jambalaya.

maybe one seeds the other

scratching that itch sure feels like heaven

And that’s how bites become scars.

hot water, all the pleasure none of the blood

Sometimes I think you make sense and sometimes I think you’re just rationalizing your own impulsive behavior.

And then sometimes I’m afraid to give you praise because I can’t tell which is which.

the clever recklessness of young masculinity

The Iraq War started around this time, twenty two and a half through twenty five.

We’d driven seventeen hours to pick up Mike in that Texas town and take him back to SoCal.

he took us across the border but you wouldn’t pay to go on any of the rides!

We ran out of money!

yeah spending it on girls for the other guys

We were still romantic at heart, didn’t yet equate sex to bug bites.

deet your meat and have fun boys

I remember that day we caught homegirl’s eye in her brother’s hotel room.

She had just come out of the bathroom in that towel and was doing her hair in the mirror.

Then we got that house with him in Yucaipa and she started to crash.

we played guitar with her that night after everyone passed out drunk

ended up cuddling and shit

Asking her for her number the next morning and she was like, “I live with you, SILLY!”

always tripping over our words

And then for a couple nights that became our habit

they’d wait for the house to fall asleep then sneak into bed

Cuddling.

Staring at each other in the morning under the sheets.

That was cute.

Innocent.

yeah cause she had a secret boyfriend at the time

We almost caught her in that lie, when we chased her in the car.

we almost got the cops called on us

we’d never get laid if you hadn’t learned to chill the fuck out

So you’re the laid back cool me doing what seems to work for everyone else?

I’m whatever you need me to be buddy

I’m your rhetorical device

Then help me process that time we flew to Florida because our cuddle buddy we thought was our girlfriend tried to commit suicide.

borrowed $500 from matt the matt-matician to make that trip

And the look on her mom’s face when we showed up in that trailer park in Gainesville?

same look our own mom gave us when we made that comment about god and babies

We didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle.

And then it started to come together.

she’d driven out to cali w/dude then went back to florida w/him

we’d had a couple nights but this girl was double dippin’ that dipstick

above your paygrade soldier

top secret clearance

So she took our gifts in the hospital and told us to go home huh.

what are you doing here?

you shouldn’t be here.

go home.

yup

kind of get a reputation after stunts like that

Still trying to figure out what kind of reputation though.

By then our Army Bros were done with their enlistments-

we were always advanced

and so we went up to Santa Cruz to put some distance between ourselves and this episode.

and also cause it’s frickin’ gorgeous

Once you visit you never want to leave.

they warned us about that indian curse

We brought some friends out from under the meth lab and created a nice family by the beach.

Before abandoning it to go live in Big Sur for the summer as a park aide.

got fired from that job too

Pretty sure that job and the Army are the only ones that fired us.

I did this before; mag subscriptions, army, pizza delivery, night stalker-

lol

night stocker, East Bay Express-

forgot about our short stint in berkeley, that was before santa cruz but after we flew to florida I think

we rented a room in that one frat, homegirl we took to that one ballet said she was date raped

There was like this entitled male buzz to that place, didn’t really sit right.

Their chef was fucking amazing.

They were just so sure of their path, those college kids.

or maybe we’re projecting ’cause we didn’t have any clue how to round those bases

We were striking out as soon as we opened our mouth.

we weren’t even swinging at a lot of those

That psychologist grad we’d watch Gilmore Girls with, we had a vibe.

another one where she had a boyfriend!

that one was not over the plate

and he was drummer in a local band too!

she friend-zoned us with a vengeance

Maybe we should have kept in contact with some of these friends though.

See this is the problem with those competitive sports metaphors.

Despite the context of how we got to know each other she was actually a really amazing person.

You can enjoy someone’s company, someone’s spirit, without having to immediately sexualize the relationship.

cuck says wut?

You said yourself you can leave it as a seed.

I say a lot of things when I’m hard up

I thought you were clean?

take heroin subtract guilt & add a pair pumping cravings 24/7 – that’s what having a dick feels like

And I’m the reason we never got laid.

Developing relationships could just be a series of enjoyable moments.

You don’t have to project your anticipation or insecurities – or desperation – onto every possible interaction or person.

Let things happen without labels or judgements.

Respect the autonomy of the moment and the person who’s sharing it with you.

Trust there will be more.

Despite the common phrase, it is not “everything.”

This is one special thing.

That person is another you.

Appreciate them as such.

still learning to chill I guess

We didn’t learn these lessons in school, experience taught us.

not that we didn’t try

a couple community colleges, back to socal for that stint in cal state san bernaghetto, then back north to “audit” classes at ucsc

That was funny, sneaking onto the campus and sitting in on those UC & the Bomb lectures.

always pushing boundaries

Learned how completely enmeshed the UC system is with the nuclear war industry, running both the Los Alamos & Lawrence Livermore Labs.

But then we all were supporting this MIC by paying tuition.

we weren’t paying shit, curriculum is theft

Yes I too have recently read Proudhon.

Those impromptu discussion groups among the redwoods;

Who will be the voice of our generation?

Where is reason to respond to these attacks on democracy; 9/11 cover up, the invasion of Iraq and now the PATRIOT act.

What will be our response to this flaming shit show we are all witnessing as 43’s presidency?.

they didn’t care about that shit man, should have tried to smash homegirl

UCSC used to grade in paragraphs but now it sucks fat corporate cack

Even Berkeley expelled the few antiwar activists who dared to organize any significant protests.

so we worked

The fam biz, internet sales, Starbucks.

internet guy trying to hire a naked maid

Always with our character studies.

We quit Starbucks to move to Santa Cruz-

you forgot our date in LA with that burnt biscuit model-

See, now that’s racist saying it as an adult with no context.

sustained, the fine negress who told us to shut up while we held her at the beach

One of the many times people asked us to stop running our mouth.

She had awesome slam poetry though.

I would like to think we learned to slow play the constant dialogue so as to not overwhelm people.

you would

Back to the resume, HFC Household Finance in Salinas, a salesman’s mouth the cause of and solution to all of his problems.

Hondas for a week, a couple of insurance agencies and then summer in Big Sur.

the order’s a little blurry

we moved back into the house in Aptos for a couple months with the socal homies to read all the books we’d been accumulating

Asking ourselves if we were merely living to work?

were we becoming who we wanted to be?

With both school and our career paths equally uninspiring we tried the autodidact route and slept during the day to read at night undisturbed.

I swear those months were the first time I noticed our hair thinning

If you want to know what makes your hair fall out it’s not books it’s stress.

I never had any grey hairs before I did real estate.

that’s way ahead though, we still need to go to meh-hee-koe

So let’s go. We were in SoCal giving the family insurance agency another shot.

no shame in that game, they still carry some of the clients we brought them, fam business represent

And then our addiction friend was back in town, the longtime flame that had survived despite the time and experiences in between.

fire on our side, cold water on the other

she still didn’t want anything to do with us

Then why did she agree to move in together?

hello junkie meet mr. free rent

She carried her weight

yeah she did

I mean she didn’t always use us.

It wasn’t only about that.

Yeah, she got into jams where we’d help her.

But we developed a friendship.

We respected each other’s creativity,

we could have had more

But we started to recognize that she wasn’t in control.

There was other stuff going on.

the beginning of our respect for her as a person

but then why did we get so butt hurt the next time she rejected us that we moved all the way to fuckin mexico?

Oh yeah that was an impulsive rideshare we found on Craigslist.

We only stayed down there for three months.

timing was sure coincidental

n-e-wayz

We rented that little house to ourselves after we moved out from her apartment though and before Mexico.

We had a car and were walking distance to downtown Redlands. We were trying to make a go at writing.

But when we’d sit down we had nothing to say.

confidence

I don’t think so, we’ve always been confident, delusionally so.

But there were more lessons out there, and not just in books or women.

We craved more travel and 1st hand experience of the world.

I too remember us reading siddhartha

“100 Years of Solitude” read while walking through Guadalajara.

trying to keep from blowing off that roof

Realizing that she loves us as she stands there in the doorway.

A sincere pause followed by familiar roles once we return.

That moment of opportunity before we play it safe and fulfill expectations.

The space in between all of the things we think we should be doing, we think we should be.

The space for the new.

still didn’t give us the time of day dude

It wasn’t about her.

We were starting to build a life about ourselves.

We were creating our own story.

everyone knows you had a thing for this girl

I had a thing for figuring out how to be a good person.

I wasn’t always, but I was trying.

I didn’t want to see her lose this stupid game of life.

I was starting to see how the odds stacked up against people.

I was recognizing cages not just of cribs or institutions, but of ideas.

That app on her laptop that made her desktop look like a mac before she could afford an apple.

We were just kids who didn’t grow up with much trying to be happy, me with my adventuring and her with her habits.

What would she always tell us?

it’s never too late to have a happy childhood

May Day 2006 I drove the cousins to Los Angeles to be a part of sleeping giant which was awakening.

And then the immediate ICE crack downs that followed.

back to bed with you brown giant

I was learning how to actually see a woman.

And at the same time I was witnessing millions of people overlooked by their own government, the supposed keepers of our story.

My friend risked becoming another statistic.

And my complicity was evidenced by the simple example of how I had no idea what or where was Puerto Rico.

She had said that’s where her mom was from but her history hadn’t made it up through my public education.

She claimed she was half Spanish but she didn’t look Mexican.

I had always dismissed it.

Why die her hair blond?

Why drive to L.A.?

Why does history have losers?

I don’t know but I think we were still tryin’ to bag shorty

The world’s been fucked up & stuff for a while now.

At least from my perspective.

Least for my people.

Am I myself the exception or am I the rule?

What are the rules we live by?

∼
hero fighting for his heroine

colleges, careers that let us in

cynics and the cowed who let us down

these beans couldn’t compete with what she’d found
∼

props for fitting the whole of our insane mexican road trip with a rando off the internet into one word choice

Cherish economy if nothing else.

so we’re what, twenty-five-ish then onto the big three-oh?

Sounds right.

did we try CSUSB again?

I’d have to check the transcripts.

probably dropped all our classes right before finals like the last time

We always had a flair for the dramatic huh.

burn those bridges ’cause jesus knows we’ll go back

Does he though?

Checking your blind spots means sometimes revisiting previous decisions to make sure you made the right choice.

and the time we got a DUI?

jesus take the wheel

Going to have to go with bad choices on that one.

Pitchers & playoff games don’t mix apparently.

not when the game starts at 6:30 but the bar closes at 2

I was in SoCal trying to spread my sexually frustrated wings-

you’re a peacock they gotta let you fly

and bars are where you meet people.

We met homegirl with the baby-

ah yes another junkie

I don’t think she was a junkie yet, she just lived in a junkie apartment with junkie friends

ah yes the angel who walks like a duck and talks like a duck

Life was hard on her.

That guy had knocked her up in high school and her family wouldn’t help her.

His family wouldn’t let him marry her because she wasn’t Indian.

But then they had that gas station empire so they paid for her apartment.

He came to visit and fuck her when he wanted.

She didn’t need a drug habit to make it a tragedy.

But it was probably on the path ahead of her, I’ll give you that.

her bathroom had mold from the tiles to the ceiling

although if she had a habit there’s no way those thousand beer cans would have stayed on that patio, them shits would have been recycled

She was just a kid fresh out of school, used to be a cheerleader.

We went through her old photos with her remember?

She was gorgeous.

we hit that right?

After bringing some Pollo Loco for the kid, yeah we would get down.

What did she say that one time?

What, you’re trying to be dad of the year?

naw honey little man’s hungry

People who aren’t used to love can be cynical as fuck sometimes.

Playing the hands we’re dealt.

How did she slide across?

sipping our beer smiling, queen of hearts with her two year old

Doll-face card, full house on the river.

hi-low split

But we needed to fold & reshuffle this hand so it was off to Manhattan.

bro came through and let us crash on his floor in Williamsburg

We had that lead on a Greenpeace job street canvassing.

More sales, more mouth.

a little smarter this time, we cruised the internet for more booty and less baby duties

We weren’t able to avoid tragic though were we?

but sha was wild not tragic

Craigslist ad she posted mentioned killing herself.

that’s how kids talk these days, it’s provocative

She didn’t sleep with us right away though.

see, I’m going to both compliment and criticize you back then

it was smart of you to give us options before that date

but sha had way more options and we needed more urgency

you almost got played before you closed her

Then she cried.

Do you even remember that first time?

She just rolled over and said “condom’s over there.”

She was tired of fighting it, tired of our whining.

And then she just quietly sobbed after.

and then she got addicted to this d

If we’d pushed it sooner we would have just been another asshole in her life though.

It’s about that patience my dude.

Why not fill your life with as many special moments as possible?

At some point impatience becomes avoidance

any longer our nuts would have exploded

it’s cuddling after sex but foreplay before

the damn thing leads somewhere

this ride goes one way…into the tunnel

Want to be like the guy who slapped her while she rode him?

didn’t she say it was the greatest orgasm ever?!

Then why did she quit being a dominatrix?

because you made her soft

And you’re afraid of not being hard.

something something phrasing

We navigated friendship and romance, eventually finding ourselves in new territory.

anal

Love, dude

she did follow us back to cali

Couldn’t shake her.

I get this whole trying to reconcile all the different pasts and parts of your own identity it’s cute it really is

but let’s just take a minute to appreciate sha’s journey

she went from wild party girl tearing up williamsburg to domestic housewife without skipping a beat

sha really was willing to be anything I needed her to be

We ended up in Berkeley after my tour of the areas that shaped who I was becoming.

I stayed home working on my leads for a future insurance agency while sha worked.

her friend was mortified when she found out sha was just working to hand her paychecks over to you

I’d done the same for her in Santa Cruz.

We trusted each other completely.

they’d throw on men’s shirts and call them dresses, stay at hotels on the cards of admirers, feral as fuck

she was tamed

We all just want to be happy.

you just wanted a threesome

that time you reached for her friend in bed?

Yeah…that was a little bit of a break in the trust between me and Sha I guess.

or when you posted ads for a fuckbuddy while she was at work?

This is not the time to analyze my behave-

ah fuck.

Well…When a man is trying to develop a sense of who he is in a complicated society in which-

you’s a dirty dog, why deny that we get down

see a moon, we gon howl

we didn’t choose what we were born with but fuck if we ain’t gonna share it with the world

I am a man.

Our actions define what that means.

You can pick and choose the attributes from this animal or that, this study or that one to defend any selfish behavior.

But that’s not being intellectually honest.

Reality is the explanation which includes all others.

I gave you autonomy over your names for your paradoxes.

I gave you space for your beliefs that match up just as well as any less romantic, less culturally grounded scientific names.

But when your explanation contradicts reality, data observed & recorded, then we have to take a step back I’d think.

what am I contradicting by saying a man’s gonna be a man?

Sha’s feelings.

We hurt her.

That’s not what being a man means, taking what you want at the expense of others.

Growth without restraint is cancerous, as is desire without love.

At least it can be I’d imagine, I’m not a doctor.

We should probably at least keep an eye on such things, get them checked out by the dermatologist if they’re growing or changing colors.

Reading Web MD always freaks me out.

sha was a freak

What is a freak?

Remember when she cheated on us that night when we were in California and she called us crying in the cab ride home?

drunk and high we were like, talk in the morn, proud you told me babe, need to process

love you though, but morning babe morning, good talk

We were expecting it.

We’d seen enough patterns.

We knew she was still playing, still learning how to settle down.

But then the following year same scenario when we cheat on her with that hometown homegirl we knew, and then called her to tell her about it?

Almost the same scenario a year apart but…

she lost her shit, cried for a minute

Precisely.

It’s not the same a year into a relationship is it?

we’re just way more chill, it wasn’t that we liked homegirl better we just knew we had an excuse in the bank

Did we though?

Sha’s reaction was a lot more severe.

She was good to us, even when she was still figuring out how to be.

We didn’t have a right to hurt her

These are the lessons in life that are more subtle.

You can have bullet-proof logic and still be wrong.

We don’t have a right to hurt someone else just because they hurt us, or could have possibly hurt us.

This is the logic of preemptive war defended by so many emotional children.

It’s the same way that we don’t have a right to make someone feel uncomfortable due to our own uncomfortable loneliness.

Or anger at being lied to, chasing them in cars just because we know we’re right.

you love arguing with people until they feel uncomfortable

That’s the wisdom of life, right?

Knowing when to push the issue, in the name of truth or whatever value you’re upholding.

And then knowing when to back off, because the person across the argument from you is still a human being worthy of love.

Care, respect, responsibility and knowledge, as Eric would say.

Micro to the macro.

The other person in any relationship isn’t ever going to be perfect.

Mistakes are going to happened

There are going to be imbalances.

But if we perpetuate this back and forth cycle we’re going to just end up destroying each other.

In love and in life in general.

so you don’t think there’s any ethical way we could have swung that threesome?

I guess if we had communicated better to Sha about what we wanted and were more open about our previous actions looking for fun outside the relationship.

Do right & fear no woman.

Those girls had got down like that in the past, why not with us?

But that’s the difference that some men seem to confuse with a need to be cold.

You can have the clear communication that opens up doors to all sorts of crazy sexual experiences in your life and still be an asshole.

Who is anyone to determine appropriate behavior between consenting adults?

It’s when one or both of those adults don’t know enough to make an informed decision that things get tricky.

Like letting a young man join the military without knowing his country’s actual imperial history ahem.

That was a bit of an asshole move America.

We got an open conversation now.

What’s that one quote, acting cool is pretending to not give a damn but being cool is caring?

eric was a cool guy, us christians usually are

It’s not a club.

It’s character.

Besides, most of these actions are projections of insecurity.

Not sure if I’m going to agree with your unresolved mother-issues analysis, but there is something to us being a late bloomer and then trying to make up for lost time.

When you take a step back and ask yourself what you really want usually it’s not what you think.

What did those girls say last year in Manhattan?

The dancer we were dating at the time and her friend?

We were all flirting and you asked dancer’s friend if she’d be your girlfriend too, joking not joking?

they both whispered to each other and then said “can you afford two girlfriends?”

those girls were more down than four flats on a dump truck

another time you slow-played our ass away from the table

If you always got your way our dick would fall off.

Both sides have their own motivations; male and female libidos.

But if you lead with instinctual desire you can get played, by others or worse by yourself; the blind spots you never investigated.

The desires you never questioned that kept you running in circles all your life, kept you distracted because you never stopped to wonder what actually makes you happy.

Perpetuating the same bullshit patterns of endless war to fuel mindless consumption that requires endless war to function.

two girls dude

How long is sex, as a fraction of any interaction?

hey don’t put us on blast like that

I mean, what do we want out of a relationship?

Those couple minutes-

more than a couple don’t do us like that

compared to all of the intimacy, before and after.

All of the memories, the inside jokes.

The mornings where you wake up first and you’re simply happy

You’re like, I get it.

This is it.

Enough.

And you’d rather cut your off your arm than wake her up cause you just wanna keep watching her sleep like that.

droolin on the fuckin pillow

The beginning of a little galaxy family, your own universe.

Now how long does peace last compared to our idiotic organized murders?

two girls doh…

Two more unique human beings.

Two more possible projections avoiding themselves.

It’s not as simple as your lust would lead you to believe my energetic friend.

this is why we don’t have fun

We have fun dude.

We just are trying to also be honest about the consequences of our actions so that we don’t have blind spots that allow us to be manipulated by others.

Manipulated by our own biology when it comes down to it.

As wise wise man shouldn’t we spend more effort to live up to the name?

sha did do the whole citizen’s audit thing with us

those were good memories

That was a romantic time sleeping out of the Honda Civic while we drove across California with a halfbaked idea about running for governor.

we were mostly baked if I recall

Naw, that was a mostly sober writing project to stop in each county seat and interview people.

It was a perfect storm of not being satisfied in the relationship – or maybe even monogamy – as well as our chosen career path and our disgust with American politics.

electing sons of governors and kids/spouses of congressmen
mayors defying term limits

Dynasties everywhere

mold from the tiles to ceiling

Sha stuck around for that quixotic ride despite our frequent dumbassery.

Sitting in that Berkeley apartment, admittedly probably high at the time, we watched that documentary about Granny D running for office and thought maybe we’re making it too complicated.

“I want them to make our cars not our laws”

Maybe we were caring too much about the right answers.

drowning like seals in orphaned facts

That was a confused call back and tortured metaphor.

tortured like iraqis by orphaned…seals?

Mentally water-boarded by our own watered down history.

See, it’s not that hard if you just put a little effort into it.

was totally about to make that line blue

Maybe democracy just needs to be used like a tool to create the truth, instead of like a toy to distract us.

We envisioned the solution to our pacifier politics.

we needed a practice run for 2020

We had grown our love from a seed, even if it was probably now being neglected.

Maybe we could grow a response to the bullshit around us the same way.

maybe we could start a podcast to shill fleshlights and supplements

That’s what fuck-you love will do, give you the confidence to take on the world.

Sha stuck with us for three months and on her dime until the money ran out and we sent her packing back to New York.

told you we should have sold those pocket pussies

There are enough pocket pussies in the world.

Some of them even started out by shilling fleshlights and supplements.

shots…fired

Sometimes you only realize you’ve taken too much when you can’t defend your actions.

hello boundary I’m shazz

Have we earned perspective?

well you finally let us out to play when we went to live in puerto rico

finally got that threesome holla

What, me being shit-faced next to some guy fucking his girl mumbling “you’re doing a great job!”

All that was missing was the thumbs up.

our hand was on her thigh so it counts

and there are more creative uses for our thumb

And we never spoke of that night again.

until now, shout out to my bal’more freaks

Life isn’t always as sexy as the copy claims is it?

but all our tourist hookups

Like the one we tried to follow to Seattle?

You can’t just turn off your heart.

Can’t deny the universal human craving for intimacy beyond conquest.

LOVE

what could have been if we weren’t arrested en route

Yup, another plane ride to Florida.

Another suicide attempt.

Same story, different boyfriend, both deep into pills.

Are you going to say we were only trying to smash this time?

Because we had that flight already booked to Seattle the following week.

That one was clear-cut friendship mode.

why you still try later in ny?

Why you always try to skip the linear narrative?

We went to Florida to check on her, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

me thinks thou protests too much

I protest getting arrested because her punk-ass boyfriend called the cops saying she was trying to kill herself and they busted into the apartment S.W.A.T. style.

That wasn’t cool.

Getting locked up for two weeks for $20 of weed until the public defender sprung me wasn’t cool.

The friends she set me up to crash with were cool.

Ms. Seattle waiting alone at the airport because we were in jail was definitely not cool.

we had a very nice physical connection

That’s the wisdom of this time in life right?

Learning how different aspects of ourselves interact with each other?

When was it just horniness and when could we trust that we were actually being inspired.

we’ve learned to call it quick

We’ve learned a lot from trying to interact as honestly as we can with the world.

Taking responsibility for ourselves and the people we love in our life.

Defining for ourselves what constitutes being a man.

homeboy overdosed

Who, our friend’s boyfriend?

yeah him too, but also the kid we crashed with while we were down there

remembering that story he told us, his moms asking him for some smack

he didn’t want to share

an hour later he hears a shotgun blast

new year’s morning

Why did he tell us that story?

so it would outlive him

And then we just listened to that song on repeat; home let me go home…

home is wherever I’m with you

A real dude.

They wanted to bail us out but didn’t have the money.

we broke back into the apt and scared homeboy’s girlfriend

threw on her dress before going drinking downtown that one night

He gave us his dad’s kimono to take with us on our travels.

another one disconnected from his narrative

I don’t think we should transition to OWS on this note so let’s combine age 29 with the last section.

shall we?

∼
consequence of actions, ours and others

lived the single life with single mothers

eventually got wise and took our lovers

caribbean skies and star-crossed brothers
∼

What did we first think when we arrived at Occupy Wall Street?

calcutta

never been but for some reason it came to mind

there were a lot of dirty clothes

Yup, it definitely had that worn-in squat vibe with sleeping protestors everywhere.

so many hippies we cut our hair

We weren’t there to blend in.

We were there to witness the movement first hand.

Sometimes your passion aligns with circumstance in life.

We’d been working on that book proposal in Puerto Rico:

“The Complete American’s Guide to Revolution.”

It was the latest iteration of that California trip I kept coming back to.

Our friend paid us to drive his car from Chicago to Cali-

good ol’ matt the matt-matician

and we picked up those ride shares.

anarchist hip-hop head and ms. fat booty

Ms. No Booty, she rejected our ass.

’cause we didn’t have a condom

She said no dude.

she mounted us

whispering in our ear and shit “no I can’t, nooooo tee-hee”

She did not “tee-hee.”

And yes, there were mixed signals.

But she was upset enough to later say we took advantage of the situation.

She didn’t speak to us the rest of the drive.

’cause we stopped

Because we started!

then why ask us for the condom!?

You’re going to have to ask her, I was high AF.

she was sober as fuck!

Well I’d feel violated if I didn’t just confuse myself.

we flew to new york to grab the lead role like robert de niro

Pacino, always go with Al Pacino.

she’s got a…GREAT ASS!

And we had our head all the way up in the revolution.

we really need to rewrite the communist manifesto sometime

Milton’s Dumb & Dumber.

would mention don quixote but think you’ve already got that covered

You’re gonna say that our time in Occupy Wall Street was mere tilting at windmills?

you’re gonna say that anyone took us seriously?

We changed the narrative dude!

People were using the language of class consciousness!

“This is what democracy looks like,” goose-stepping in the street like good little brown shirts.

goose-step?

Like a two-step but with more waddle.

you make a person want to get back on drugs

Back on topic!

OWS.

What can we say that hasn’t been said?

that girl gave you an std

I think I’ve told that story plenty of times already.

we came, we saw, we got it checked out

Thousands of people violently arrested for protesting on Hopey Changey’s watch and no one seemed to care.

thousands?

There was at least us.

fusion centers were used to eliminate protestors w/plans that included targeted assassinations, per the fbi

Already done in Ukraine.

but the ukraine happened after-

Some talk show host did a bit dressed as Che Guevara.

They called it.

We were a joke.

because we went after their fuckin’ bosses!

No didn’t you read the paper?

It’s because we didn’t have any demands.

Besides like everyone says, we were just a bunch of college kids.

we weren’t in college, our folks were losing their home at the time

No I mean the rest of the protestors.

the kids we met at that squat we stayed at later weren’t going to college either

remember that one girl who came in off the street only to get turned out?

she wasn’t even in high school

I think legal is going to want us to remember she was well out of high school dude.

dude she was yoooouuunng, she got tricked out real quick

Aaaaand now these are officially unreliable memories.

the city came to test us for diseases and half that house had hep

Told you if you always had your way it would fall off.

and if you always got your way we may as well not even have a dick

The protest movement dude.

we came

we saw

it fizzled

Like a solitary sparkler on the fourth of July.

a whole lotta solitary sparkles

at least we got some decent documentary footage

That was genius.

This time I hired a real cameraman instead of just sleeping with one.

17 hours of high-def behind the scenes.

only for youtube to steal it

They didn’t STEAL it.

They just disabled our account

we had like four videos of copyrighted content and 100’s of our own

what gives them the right to deny us access to our OC?

It’s their website dude, it’s like we’re on their property.

but didn’t you say if elites own all the land it’s called feudalism?

a specter is haunting the internet–

We’re not rewriting the Communist Manifesto dude.

Besides, you can create new online property easier than new actual physical land.

then why do the peasants stay on these fiefdoms?

You’d have to ask them I’m high AF right now.

That youtube serfdom smackdown was a blow to our creative ambitions.

We’ll get our content back though.

We just first have to prove it has value.

No one cares in this world until money’s involved.

look who’s being cynically unloved now

I was traumatized man, so much so that we went back to PR to clear our head.

check in with sha who was living there now

try to rub those familiar sticks together to get some of that home-cookin’

The love that keeps us going.

The gardens we’re glad we tended.

And then we returned to New York to compete within the capitalist arena and be boring like everyone else.

we’re incapable of being boring dude

it’s been a tear these past couple years

I guess it has.

Took us eleven apartments and four hostels to find the right one to get evicted from.

I think the original goal was to create a real estate empire but yeah

you shouldn’t always take my advice btw

Are you why we stopped working last year and started writing again?

I just suggested that we look into those military documents

you’re the one who turned it into a complete life review

Well my old friend was the one who gave me the idea of turning my apartment into a lily pad, inspiring me to return to my old squatter ways.

we created a place where artists could come to just live and create

But it was also a reversion back to our more romantic self, how we went after our first real love.

How we later turned Sha’s heart, not with our whining but with our words.

we was smoov

How we knew we’d have to be if we wanted to earn dancer’s love.

we’re our best self when we’re our sincere self

so is this all a ploy to marry yaya then?

I don’t know dude I haven’t written 2020 yet.

Sill trying to close out this year, or actually the year before so I can finally tackle 2018.

Shit, we’ve run out of time.

Just came back from a joint & walk.

There were fireworks.

your folks were praying in the living room

I didn’t want to say anything but I also didn’t want to be rude so I kind of closed my eyes

It was like a really bad game of hide and seek

As are most religions I suppose.

Wait I thought you were a voice in my head?

I should have taken you with me on my walk.

And I thought you were Christian.

naw I was just fuckin w/you, I think we’ve settled on me being your rhetorical device thing

2nd perspective

saintly insight

Devil’s advocate?

Those five years where we built ourselves up from 2012 to 2017, from thirty to thirty-five, we started holding our cards a lot closer to our chest.

But the macro has been starting to remind us of the micro more and more.

the world’s been getting a little funny for sure

Society’s devolving emotionally.

maybe we’re maturing

God forbid.

always knew you’d come along

Jesus.

The lily pad idea always seemed stupid.

Like, I know how these things go.

We’d had that first apartment under the meth house.

And then how about those hostels that fell apart when people stopped paying.

until that russian lady gets smart and hired a heavy

Human nature is just to take.

I thought we were trying to write a positive story?

Operative word trying.

we didn’t invite strangers dude, we invited our friends

homegirl’s been clean this whole year

And I can honestly say that we didn’t have any ulterior motive this time.

a loved lion becomes a housecat

It became a good house.

I think we all healed a lot.

My friend cleared her head.

I finally finished some writing projects.

did we sell anything?

Yup, finally finished some writing projects.

I’ll take that as a no

It was nice to be able to read and write full time until we got evicted.

cause your ass stopped defending our case in housing court

I thought you said we were winning?

Why would I keep fighting for a cockroach infested apt I didn’t even want anymore?

why were we sneaking onto the roof to sleep after the eviction?

We were homeless.

eventually we crashed with friends, but you even slept on the landing once they locked the roof

just to be near your precious already re-rented apt

It was hard to let that life go.

took a lot of work to get to 13 Carmine #13 New York NY 10014

Since we first started real estate we had wanted to live in the village.

sold pops guitar for the money to get that license

They said get a job in occupy so we set out to do just that and make a lot of money.

stop asking so many questions

stop caring about stuff no one else cares about

Be normal and fit in.

Fuck bitches

Make money.

Go to cool parties.

we did decent for ourselves

A couple family vacays for the folks.

that five gram eight joint party was epic, champagne after party was even better, another three-way opportunity blown

Our girlfriend at the time was not about that Russian girls energy, and she also had a boyfriend.

when you’re an old man on a park bench you won’t be remembering political theory you’ll be remembering my boldness

Ah yes, elderly gentleman masturbating in public.

What a wonderful retirement plan.

It’s been nice to treat the fam with money when we were making it. All the cool clients we met, smoking out with that model girl-

a swing and a miss

Yeah she was definitely too cool for us, or maybe too jaded.

both too young and too old

She seemed hungry.

they call that thirsty

But she was making bank so I don’t really have a right to speak on it.

We play the hand we’re dealt.

Mushroom crowing at the moon from the roof with dancer girl and her friends.

unti the neighbor comes up all like, uhm excuse me I don’t want to be that guy but it’s like right over our bedroom

You didn’t say shit you let the girls talk.

speak to my chicken priestesses sir, the shazz is busy traveling the astral planes

Dancer almost freaked out when the priestesses discovered the coconut oil.

she didn’t tho she gets down

Cycles man, that’s how we get caught up.

I just wanted to fuck neighbor lady down the hall in town from paris

you’re the one who insisted on yaya that same morning

We fucked first!

dude you knew that was the last night for the parisian!

it was then or never and we hadn’t put that time into the real housewives for nothing

we already knew we were liberating the furniture she was leaving behind

That entryway shoe bench with the cushions was everything.

You know that real estate money is what gave us the stability to finally become the Shazz, legally and all.

I’ve always been the shazzman

america’s the invention

And finally pay off that DUI.

Clean up our credit, which we’ve again ruined.

Those nights we went shirtless with that emerald necklace we’d put on when we tripped; the soul that straddles all worlds.

bet neighbor guy wasn’t upset we got evicted

Our landlady seemed pissed.

she never gave us a lease!

she can wait for her money

So how many open conversations does that make it?

Let’s see, youtube, America, the landlady.

I made some enemies on reddit…

That’s not too many loose ends to tie up.

how much we making from this proposal thingy?

About that, see this is a new innovative concept where you work before you’re paid.

wait what the fuck are we even doing here?!

It’s kind of like a minimal viable product.

Remember all of those tech clients we had and those buzzwords they used?

Or a third party.

Or pacifism.

Or just an alternative to individual and collective suicide.

Haven’t really decided the reason.

are we running for office or selling a book?

Yes.

saving the world or getting laid?

Porque no los dos?

I hate it when you’re me

You should be proud.

I got the poems this time;

∼

calcutta with butt-ass rot and squats

turning thots at crossroads in our life

gave up on our dreams just to survife

scheming for more threesomes cause why nots

yaya will you marry us

∼

Dogs chasing cars.

Oh, and you don’t have to misspell words to rhyme.

And we’re not marrying fuckin’ Yaya.

 

love is the acorn planted which grows into the oak