I can't believe it has been three weeks since I updated this last. Unbelievable. I mean, I have a vast archive of material to post here, and this is the site where it's supposed to be easy for me to just go "Bam! Here's a thing i wrote one day in Buffalo when I was alone drinking coffee" or "Here's some shit I wrote in Seattle, while drinking coffee alone" or "Yeah, here's something I wrote in Borders Cafe a couple months ago, while drinking some lonely coffee." Without further ado, let me submit to you something I wrote on a cold day in Buffalo in the year 2000, while getting coffee, alone. I think it contains some hopeless optimism sorely needed at a time when we are now faced with the prospect of war, so that people can die for oil. Needless to say, this was my naive hope in a world gone cynical. Okay, fine, with a little bit of ado, I present to you: "Jello Biafra For President"

Jello Biafra For President

Riding on the Metrorail reading Ray Bradbury’s "Something Wicked This Way Comes," when I notice the man who sits down next to me. More specifically, I notice his fingernails. His nails are longer than any Christ-boy I’ve ever seen before -- and they ick me out. He looks like a vagrant, but he has nice corduroy pants. He’s wearing a ski-cap pulled down over his face, covering most of his long hair and hiding his eyes from those prying train people.

My eyes flit away from my book as I check the stop, and i feel as if this could be the type of person who would not only picket an ob/gyn counselling center, but also go that extra mile and cause some death -- hunting an endagered species out of season. Visions like this one and the very existence of a bumper sticker that says “Buffalo For Jesus 2000” make me hopeful for a candidate like Jello Biafra to get elected.

Even if he was to win, he would never get Congress to pass any of his bills. Even Clinton, the most right-wing Democratic Prez yet, was reviled by those crypto-fascist Republicans in Congress, if only because he was just like them, only he called himself something different. Even so, Jello as President would definitely stir up some excitement. He could replace all the talking heads in the Cabinet with real people, I’d like to see that. That would make the state of Kansas shit their collective brick! Maybe the South would finally secede from the Union. Maybe California could become two states --> Crunchyfornia (North) and Fascistfornia (South)... That would liven things up.

It's been bugging me that I haven't updated my blogs in a few days, and by days I mean weeks, so I decided I would at least put something here to tide you all over, since the idea of this blog was to put things I've already written on display for all to see. So here is something from July of 2002. I think it only fair to mention that some of the dialogue contained in the second section was inspired by (and lifted pretty much verbatim from) a conversation I was having with my friend Bridget at a Bar-B-Que Party in the park earlier that day. And to almost no one's surprise, it all goes back to my life seemingly revolving around "High Fidelity." Note to those who haven't heard the news -- I quit working at Tower Records in November. I no longer work at a record store. Oh, and thanks to Matt Dallow for saying that had it come out first, my book (the one I'm working on now) would have been better at being "High Fidelity" than anything Nick Hornby could write.
---------

...Much like the fictional Rob Gordon (who may as well be my alter-ego, be it slightly older and less mature, but pretty much the same character as myself) put it, for the longest time I thought it was about what you like, not necessarily what you’re like. Thusly, I found that I kept throwing in my lot with women I had no business being with in the long run for various reasons, but especially due to their personalities being so destructive to my own. Recently, it has come to my attention that I’ve had it backwards this whole time. Especially after the Naomi disaster. Dating an 18 year-old. What was I thinking? Maybe we could have been good friends, but focusing so much attention on her was just a bad idea. I really should have known better. Too cool for school, barely capable of dealing with emotion. Just because she liked all the same things. I made her out to be so great because of what she liked. Meanwhile, the one thing she didn't seem to like was being involved with me. Oh, how we overlook minor details, eh? Nevertheless, I’m a better, more equipped person after the whole ordeal. And yes, I had fun. I wouldn’t take back most of it, but I’m not going to repeat it anytime soon.

*************

“I think men like to have a string of relationships, to give themselves something to refer to...almost like accomplishments...”

“I don’t think so...well, not everyone. I don’t like having to refer to moments in time by who I was with, but sometimes, the events or episodes you’re relating leave little choice but to mention the person who was with you at the time, and hiding it with euphemisms, or playing with pronouns, saying “my friend” or whatever just doesn’t help the flow of the narrative.”

“I just don’t want to be a part of someone’s back-catalogue, like a record or something. I think it’s degrading and insulting.”

“I completely agree with you, but I just hate the process of meeting people and dating and stuff. I just want to find someone I am comfortable with and hang out. I’m not sure I really need anything more than that right now.”

***************

I like being alone sometimes, and I like not answering to anyone, not having to make decisions for two people all the time. I just finally got used to sleeping alone, I think...Unless the reason I never go to bed early enough is because I am still afraid to sleep alone. And I can’t just get used to that again if it just going to be an ephemeral experience like the last time. I need the feeling of semi-permanence - something I can settle into, rather than a flash-in-the-pan.

I am not good at letting go, and I get too quickly attached. Not a good combination, I know. I’m loyal, like a stupid puppy that you can slap around a lot and it will still lick your face. It takes a while before I wake up and smell the rotting corpse of long-dead romance. I don’t have casual relationships or one-night stands. I don’t know how. I can’t meet that many people to simply use them once and discard quickly.

I like to surround myself with people who are like me, in varying degrees. I’ve met people who are nice enough, but unless we share common musical or cinematic tastes, I feel distant. I also need physical contact to feel close. I am very big on hugs from everyone. That’s just my nature. I’m a hugger. And a damn good one, so I’ve been told. Just give me a smile and a hug and talk to me about music and I will probably take a bullet for you.

Why is it all so complicated? Why do we get so wrapped up in emotions anyway? They don’t make sense. Our brains and our bodies share the same house, but they disagree on everything. I can talk to someone, feel like I’ve known her all my life, develop affections for her, think that it is mutual, but then a completely different story gets read back to me.

Do I make it all up in my mind? Or do I take one moment and try to use that to define the present? Is it real for that moment, but only that moment? Is an event defined only by that moment in which it occurred? Does it not carry forward to other moments? Am I the only one who carries a torch for repeating emotions from moments passed? Do passed emotions stay only in the past, or do they still hold validity in the present? Do they just vanish when that moment is gone, or do they linger?

All things begin, thus they must end, as long as the middle is worth the time you spend miserable. I never knew her mind from day one, never understood what I was to her. The field of play seemed to constantly change, I never got a firm grasp of the rules...kind of like playing a new game with a little kid who constantly cheats, knowing full well what an easy target you are.

All the times she said I was lacking confidence was all because she kept changing the game. When I realized how I felt for her, I only wanted her to feel the same. But she didn’t or she wouldn’t and it just made me feel really dumb. I don’t think I will ever say those words again unless the other person says them first.

There are so many questions I can’t ask her that my mind wants me to. But I know she will never talk to me if and when I do. I don’t know why that bothers me so much. I know I would be better off if we both stayed out of touch. But I am drawn to her like a moth to a lamp, I’ll get stuck to her and then I’ll burn.

I know torturing myself won’t help heal my heart, I knew it wasn’t going to work from the start. The more I tried to fight, the more I started to fall. And now I’m Timmy O’Toole at the bottom of the well. Like the Bart who cried wolf, if I was being truthful how could you tell?

I can’t turn off my feelings with a flick of the switch. How does that work? Did it just seem like a good idea at the time, and now it doesn’t? If it wasn’t a mistake, why does it upset her? If the feelings were real, what kind of feelings were they really? For a moment, I felt close to her. For another moment, I thought I was important to her. The next moment, she acted like I was nothing. Nothing can erase that, not even the memory of the other moments. I still am kissing her and feeling her supposedly genuine affections in a nonlinear form of time, like Billy Pilgrim with Montana Wildhack in the zoo on Tralfamadore while being on top of the stairs in Ilium, New York; I simultaneously feel her scorn and derision - telling me that talking about emotions is self-indulgent and for the weak-minded. These moments all coexist now, I cannot enjoy or feel the hurt of one or the other at will. I feel it all at once, and it ties me in knots sometimes, and it scares me, and keeps me from wanting to share any more moments with anyone.

This mood I’m in is all my own doing. It’s not about her, it’s not about anyone; how can it be? Other people can sometimes affect our moods, but how seriously can they affect our well-being? To what degree is it normal? How much is too much? When does it teeter on the brink of obsession?

And if it is because of her, isn’t that indicative of a larger problem within? Besides, I always get like this. Obviously, it’s some sort of internal turmoil; the rest is either catalyst, coincidence, or something in-between. But it’s easy to blame it on external forces. I’m not going to this time. No, really.

Tonight's piece of archival J-Ro clippings is called "James Taylor Is The Jesus Of White Liberals." The title came from an ex-girlfriend, who was musing about how much James Taylor symbolizes many of the problems casued by the Baby Boomer generation, and their subsequent cannibalization of society, molding it in their own image. This is intended to one day be a spoken-word piece, recited in a Scottish Burr just thick enough to sound cool, but not too strong as to make the message unclear. I have yet to record the music for it, because I have yet to find a Scotsman to read it for me. Maybe you know one? Maybe you are one? Drop me a line... thecrazypablo@aol.com Now on with the show:

james taylor is the jesus of white liberals, do you know what i mean? he’s made it through things like divorce, popularity, drug addiction and getting his hair ripped out of his head while riding a motorcycle, so now he looks like a skeleton skarekrow with a guitar, singing the same 60’s and 70’s songs about fighting drug addiction, getting married, getting divorced, being bald because of losing your hair to a motorcycle, colonizing “third world” nations with white, “liberal” do-gooders who don’t understand that by “helping” these people, they are making them dependent on a foreign way of life, much as the missionaries from europe did to many “uncivilized” people all over the globe in the majority of the last millenium. the same kind of thing that damaged entire family structures in the 70’s & 80’s, by telling african women to use carnation powdered milk instead of breast milk, only they needed water to instantly “create” the milk, and the water was tainted and the babies all got sick and died. I await his official coronation and subsequent crucifixion.

It's been too many days without something new. So, here's something that is most likely new to you, even though I wrote it in February and July of 2002. The second part is a work-in-progress... a snapshot of a conversation that never happened to me, but darn well could have. I don't know where it came from. Enjoy.
--------

Does a series of events related in detail describe and give form to the individual? Or just paint a picture of a subject without character surrounded by character the likes of which he or she will never possess?

**********

“I’m sorry, I just can’t deal with you anymore. This has to stop. We can’t keep living this...this...lie!”
“It’s about the lint in my navel, isn’t it? I can clean it, I swear! Just don’t go!”
“What the hell are you talking about? Is something living in your bellybutton? Honestly, i don’t care if that’s true or not...I just can’t live with YOU anymore. Do you understand me? Of course you don’t. If you understood me, we wouldn’t have to have this conversation, now would we?”
“I can change. What do you want me to do? I’ll do it. For you. Just give me a chance to prove it.”
“That’s just the point, though. You shouldn’t have to change to suit my tastes, to satisfy my whims. Be your own person for once. Stand up for yourself. You’re not afraid to be by yourself are you? Be a man, not some cowardly lion. If you could think about yourself a little more, you might be able to satisfy someone else as well.”
“I’m not afraid to be myself, I just don’t particularly care for it all that much. If I wanted to be alone, I would live in the desert and never bathe, and subsist solely on Funyons and Mountain Dew.”
“Are you talking about being alone, or dying before you hit 40? I just can’t communicate with you anymore. It’s like you’re speaking a different language.”

This was one I wrote almost two years ago about the last place I lived. I hope it treats you as well as it treated me. Whatever that means. xoxo

"Buffalo for Jesus 2000"


I wasted five years trying to curry the favor of a woman I no longer know.
In that time I tasted the flavor of life more than I ever had before.
So maybe I shouldn’t say it was wasted, I guess that’s not the right word.
But it’s true I lost track of myself at the time,
could have used a lo-jack to find me before it all became a blur.

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you look at the world all skewed.
If your heart doesn’t die after something like that,
it will rise like the Phoenix to make sure that you get screwed.

They had to use the jaws of life to pry me from the wreckage.
My soul circled overhead watching my twisted body twitch
like some St. Vitus vs. St. Valentine grudge match fought in a steel cage.
Since I stopped watching wrestling in 6th grade,
having realized it would not encourage others to talk to me,
I went for coffee instead.

I watched TV with the owner and her very large cat,
the ironically titled show “Popular.”
Very few people disturbed them that afternoon,
just like they did every other afternoon.
It was a punk rock vegan coffee shop with a smoking section and a bar.
The smoking helped keep away people like my ex,
catering more to people I might call friends.

We drifted apart the way lovers often do.
I knew it was over by the bored look in her eyes.
She never really had a sense of humor for the absurd or the dark.
I felt we were in trouble when she stopped
pretending to laugh at my jokes.
She started falling hard for another man,
who was my only friend left in the town.
Tall, dark and handsome, a fugitive from Iran
Nicest guy i ever met, lived with a beagle named Peaches.
I lost visiting rights when the shit hit the fan...

Driving down Main Street was the surest way to pick up the blues.
All the closed-up storefronts told the story
of urban flight and suburban sprawl,
everyone shopping only in suburban malls,
and two fat old white guys protesting Planned Parenthood everyday.

I got stuck doing time temping in the mailroom
of a large HMO-slash-health insurance combo-corporation.
Conflict of interest was never really discussed.
Customer Service were chained to their desks,
their headsets were always on.
Never met so many suburban housewives
who were either pregnant and/or smoking.
I think it was the only way they could get out of their chairs.
All the women were named Barb -
it was the surrealistic phase of my life.

One day I was strolling on my way to work
doing tech support over the phone
(where I tried to explain to the average Joe or Jane
why that Zip Drive no longer functioned -
which is extremely difficult when
they can’t even find that elusive reset button)
when a walkman fell off a minivan and into the street.

I picked the radio up and cleaned it off,
asked the man in the van if it belonged to him.
He said “Thank you very much, you are so kind,
you must be a true Christian.”
I shrugged and I smiled because I didn’t have the heart
to tell him I was a Jewboy.

Undeterred, he said “Whether you believe in him
or not, God wants you on his team someday.”
I laughed on the inside as I said my goodbyes,
and continued on my merry way...
Entertaining thoughts about being Christian,
as in Christlike, at least for just one day.

And the most popular bumper sticker was
“Buffalo for Jesus 2000.”
How can you argue with that?
Can you really argue with that ?
You can’t really argue with that.
“Buffalo for Jesus 2000.”

Greetings From Howard Johnson’s Asbury Park, NJ

I wrote this over the summer...

Greetings From Howard Johnson’s Asbury Park, NJ

I’m sitting on the patio of the last remaining Howard Johnson’s in New Jersey...beautiful downtown Asbury Park, right on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean... this location has been run by the same family since 1959!! If you don’t believe me, come on down and read the freaky fun facts on the menu! I am eating what was intended to be a chocolate ice cream cone. Apparently, they are out of chocolate and out of CONES! Styrofoam doesn’t taste as good as a sugar cone. Go ahead, debate that with me! It is chilly and raining now. The cute girl who was sitting here drinking beers with her friends is gone now (I will see her later, during the Descendents’ set, with her boyfriend. ugh.).
Inside the Convention Hall, music is blaring from every orifice of this building. The acoustics in the lobby were not meant to showcase live music. I feel bad for the bands who have to play this stage, worse for the rest of us, whose ears are forced to bleed. Why did I spend seven dollars to eat a slice of Domino’s (imitation) pizza and drink a 20 ounce Mountain Dew when I could have gone outside and got a hot dog or something and a can of soda for 2 bucks? Why did I eat so much today? Why is the entire boardwalk dilapidated except for ten feet of new boardwalk? Why is Howard Johnson’s the only thing not boarded up? Why is HoJo’s still open in this ONE location, with all of New Jersey to pick from? How can I, in good conscience, call Buffalo a vast wasteland, having been to Asbury Park, NJ? Sorry Bruce, but now I know why you had to get out. Speaking of, the cd player in the car just kept skipping when we tried to play “Thunder Road” as we were leaving....broken down American Dream, indeed.

This new blog is going to be for more writerly endeavors, like excerpts from my book, and less about me ranting of the top of my head, unless that ranting has been previously formatted and found to be worthy of going to "the next level" or something.