Meat Hook pt. 4

It'd been two weeks since I'd last seen Chelsea, quite a bit of time since we'd see each other at class normally, but she'd been sick, or avoiding me.
One time when we were drunk we'd hooked up. I suppose that was the night when we entered our relationship, and departed (?) from our friendship. She had passed out in my bed, not an entirely uncommon event and I discarded a modest amount of clothes and put the covers over both of us. In the middle of the night she reached out for me. We hadn't been drinking that much and while I'd always been attracted to Chelsea I hadn't made any moves that I didn't consider relatively platonic. When she put her arm around me I laid there for a moment or two and then internally shrugged. Wanting her, and worrying about future consequences I decided on an optimistic future. Its funny how little moments like that one can set a whole series of events in order, or maybe it wasn't that moment but one of the ones that followed, when I kissed her, when we fucked, when I hugged her in the morning.
We had a tumultuous relationship, not that the relationship itself was ever very bothersome, actually it was quite good in many ways, but rather our youth and inexperience hampered us. We were in the constant process of breaking up and getting back together. This process was tremendously emotionally tiring. The hopes, the dreams, and the constant disappointment all added up. I began to drink more during these stints, when she was gone, something I've always tended to do during periods of emotional turmoil. I sincerely hoped that she didn't smell the reeking stench of alcohol that oozed out of my pores during lunch.
During the periods of disappointment and heartbreak I would usually sit in my room and write, or read Kurt Vonnegut novels. A few times I'd ventured out to find another young lass who might make me happier, even if only temporarily but my body and mind acted more like those of the porter's in Macbeth.
ACT IV Scene III
Porter

'Faith sir, we were carousing till the
second cock: and drink, sir, is a great
provoker of three things.

MACDUFF

What three things does drink especially provoke?

Porter

Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and
urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
it provokes the desire, but it takes
away the performance: therefore, much drink
may be said to be an equivocator with lechery:
it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,
and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and
not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him
in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

Maybe it was the left over alcohol that induced me to show those juvenile pictures to her. Maybe it was because I felt to incapable of showing her what I'd been working on, a crappy love poem. The poem was about a young man who would spend days upon days in a row boat in a lake practicing singing with his guitar. The young mad went out to the middle of the lake as he was so embarrassed by the very idea of ever being heard or seen attempting to practice a song that would make his “true love's” heart swoon. The woman he loved lived next door to him, and he'd see her hang up the laundry every few days (this was the days before laundry dryers but after clotheslines). She wasn't terribly attractive, but she wasn't quite plain either. The same could be said for him, the young guitarist. What drove the guitarist on was the idea that she might just be a woman with whom he could spend his life with, what he feared though was the rejection of being tossed aside like a mechanic's oily rag. One day, however, when he knew she would be out hanging the laundry he ported his boat on the grass near the clothesline, which was no small effort as the small lake he practiced in was half a mile away. His hope was that by having the boat there he would imagine the rhythm of the waves, and would play beautifully. When she came out with a wicker basket full of sheets he began to play. He didn't look at her but rather looked into the sky and played the songs he'd always played while in the boat. His hands shook, his body trembled...

I hadn't gotten much beyond that point in the poem. Having the bad habit of always wanting to rhyme my poems made things terribly difficult. It took me a good week to think of an adequate ryhme for oily mechanic's rag, that didn't imply the woman was a hag. Maybe it was my inability to come up with clever rhymes that prevented me from showing her the poem.

What exactly would happen at lunch was beyond me. It was hard enough seeing her.

Meat Hook pt. 3

When the class ended Chelsea looked over at me.
"Sure let's go to lunch." I said.
We walked out of the classroom and outside into the lobby where other students were beginning to crowd.
"Let's go out to eat. I'm sick of the cafeteria sludge." Chelsea said.
"Where do you want to go?" I replied.
"Let's go to that chinese place downtown," she answered.
Downtown was about 6 city blocks away, although in this small city town it was called a mile. It was a brisk walk, Chelsea who was from new york made the jaunt more of a double time march. Her feet would slightly tap the sidewalk and shuffle forward, it was odd to watch, almost like she was floating along the concrete. My feet, however, ambled along. Falling behind her I would have to occassionally speed up to a light jog.

Its Friday and I'm in Love

The radio sang out a cure song, the volume was so low that you couldn't make out Robert Smith's words, only his sad melancholy. Sitting cramped next to various pots and pans, crates with donated clothes, and other miscellaneous items the ride back from the Kingston Inn to New Paltz was a long ardous twenty minutes. We were coming back from our weekly charity trip. Food Not Bombs went to the Kingston Inn every week on fridays to serve bland food to poor people in section 8 housing.
Greg was in the front seat driving us in his parent's four door something or other and Kristine was sitting next to him looking out the window. Greg started talking about how he first met Robert Smith. It was in 2000 when Greg had just transferred to SUNY New Paltz where we all met and went to school. Robert Smith was doing an album signing in the city for Bloodflowers, the first album out by The Cure since Wild Mood Swing in 1996. Greg stood in line at some record store, maybe it was tower records, for over 4 hours. The woman in front of him started to cry when she got in front of Robert Smith. She was overcome with emotion as she saw Smith in his hockey shirt, his eyeliner, and his black poof of hair. Her record was signed and she moved on. Greg started to bawl as well, not because he was particularly sad but because the woman in front of him was crying, and that made him cry as well.
I didn't cry when I heard that story, but in retrospect maybe I should have.

Meat Hook pt. 2

My shitty alarm clark, a holdover from the domestic bliss of living with my parents blares in my ears. It screams out like a banshee, a long opera of one note. Rolling over, smacking the alarm off I roll off my bed, literally. Falling to the ground forces me to get up and also slightly sobers me up. The night's boozing comes back to me like the tide, slowly then quickly invading my brain. Wine hang overs are the worst.

Mike isn't here, he must have stayed at his girlfriend's. Noticing that I was able bodied enough last night (I suppose) to have taken off my clothes I proceed to get dressed for class. I have fifteen minutes to get to my social theory class in which the professor will grind out Marxism into a paltry form of socialism that is palatable for the liberal lap dogs who quietly take notes to regurgitate on their next exam. That's the price to be paid for being a sociology major though, boredom. Not that my art major friends, if they can be called that, are particularly engaging in exciting material. Mainly they end up talking about how to best represent people of color in their mixed media presentations.
"I think we need more black people in this video Robert."
"No, I think that we should just incorporate some rap music, or maybe some Billy Holiday, then it will be a more authentic cultural experience."

The only reason for hanging out with them is that they have booze at their places which a young alcoholic such as myself can snatch. Paid for by their parents, much like their college educations.

Throwing on some jeans and a black t-shirt, my converse and grabbing my notebook I head out my door room. Locking the door behind me and heading outside I smell the leaves of autumn. That wonderful sharp smell of decaying matter, of cold wind, of fall is in the air. Its a bit cold and upon leaving the dormitory building I wish I'd grabbed a hooded sweater or a long sleave shirt. Its just a short walk to the lecture halls though. Hurrying along are other students, many wearing long shirts, or light jackets, the garment that is so coveted by my cold body. Thoughts of mugging them for their clothes fills my mind like a clogged toilet, all my thoughts seem like shit.

The lecture hall is a brick building, one fo the older one's on the campus. On the corner of the building is a plaque talking about some bastard who helped found the college and how he's such a great bastard. Two small flights of stairs lead to the glass doors which swing outward and bring me into warmth. Another flight of stairs brings me to the second level. Down the corridor of classrooms to room 213. The third on the left. Opening the classroom door I take in the scene.

The professor, Mr. Lankton is seated behind a small desk which has a wooden podium on it. His lectures notes are on them. About half of the students are in their seats. Chelsea, a marxist friend of mine and drinking buddy is doodling in her notebook in the second row. Taking a seat next to her she raises her head and glares at me.
"What?" I say.
"Nothing." She replies, and then continues to doodle.
Opening up my notebook, and looking over my notes is like looking at a corner store porn magazine, except that the pictures are more like cave paintings, and the text instead of talking about slutty wives who fuck random guys is filled up with Marxisms.

"Money is a commodity which has value like any other commodity. In becoming the universal equivalent, that commodity serves to express the universal, social, character of the relations between commodity owners: It marks the transition from exchanges as a discrete relation between private individuals to exchange as an expression of social relations between interdependent individuals. Thus the fetishism of money corresponds closely to that of commodities."

I sketch a picture of two women fondling each other and poke Chelsea.
"Look lesbians." I say to her.

Chelsea doesn't even bother to look in my direction. She's not amused. Its too bad as my pictures of women fondling each other are getting a little better. R. Crumb would like them though, and that's what matters.

Professor Lankon is doing a diagram on the board of how money has become a universal equivalent. In chalk is C1-M-C2. After scrawling a little more obscurities on the board he opens his fat ass mouth.
"Simply as a means of circulation money is merely the servant of the movement of commodities. In fact, expressed as a result, the simple circulation of commodities becomes merely..."
At this point he breaks off and writes on the board again. He turns around and works his jaw, his jowls and double chin shake a little as he wags his head in the excitement only an academic socialist can get. Pointing a fat sausage finger at the C-C on the board he goes on.
"The formula for the simple exchange of commodities as if in barter. Money consequently vanishes from view, other than as a fleeting symbol of the value of exchanging commodities. As Marx goes on to explain..."
At this point I start doodling again in my notebook. Mainly just circles and spirals as I picture Chelsea naked.

If I can not prove the lover in these idle times....

The Last International Playboys

The Krays were the most notorious criminals of the 1960s, heading an organised underworld empire of protection rackets, violence and murder.
Ronnie and Reggie Kray were identical twins, born and raised in the East End of London - Charlie was born seven years earlier. The family moved from Hoxton to Bethnal Green when they were small, and the twins were soon involved in juvenile crime. Both were promising amateur boxers, but the sport - and National Service in the Army - did little to instil discipline or control the violence which was to become a hallmark of their lives. In the 1950s they set up an East End protection racket and in 1960 moved into the West End to open a gambling club, Esmerelda's Barn, in Knightsbridge. They even persuaded a peer to join them on the board to give the club an appearance of respectability. With Charlie providing the business brainpower behind the operations the twins became the public face of The Firm. Obsessed with celebrities, they entertained actors, pop stars and sportsmen and anyone else with a claim to fame in the club.

Homosexual scandal

They were not well known to the public until July 1964, when the Sunday Mirror ran a story that Scotland Yard had been investigating a homosexual relationship between a prominent peer and a leading thug in the London underworld. They were not named, but it soon became clear that they were Ronnie Kray and Lord 'Bob' Boothby, a media personality and former Conservative. Boothby denied any impropriety, explaining away a photograph of them together as simply Ronnie's wish to be pictured with a celebrity. The Mirror backed down, sacked its editor, apologised, and paid Boothby �40,000 in an out-of-court settlement. Over the next four years the Krays imposed a reign of violence in the London underworld, before being arrested for murdering two other gangsters.

Murderers jailed
Ronnie shot George Cornell in the Blind Beggar public house in Whitechapel in 1966 for calling him a "fat poof".A year later Reggie stabbed Jack 'The Hat' McVitie in a flat in North London. His body was never found.Scotland Yard had been on the trail of the Krays for years, and in 1968 they were arrested by Detective Superintendent 'Nipper' Read and charged with murder. They appeared at the Old Bailey in 1969, along with members of their gang, including Charlie, who got seven years for other crimes. The twins were jailed for life with a recommendation that they serve 30 years.

Kray legend
The twins started serving their sentences in various jails, until Ronnie was committed to Broadmoor as criminally insane. But their incarceration did little to suppress the Kray legend.

Spandau Ballet
-A Matter of Time

He lays alone cries on his own
for horizons he'll never reach
and all of those dreams are washed on the beach.
She's drowing in oceans of shackled emotions
going round and around in her head
while out on the streets people forget
that it's love you want
love you want
love you want.
She speaks of hoping he speacks of fighting
and tells her that they will come through
'cause he wants to feel the shock of the new
people that hurt you and they burn you
with acid the falls that falls from the sky
while out of the silence your voice says why ?
If it's love you want
love you want
love you want
It's a matter of time a matter of time
but you're asking why oh life makes you cry?
Turn moss into roses and blood into wine.
It's a matter of time a matter of time
but all of your past still plays on your mind
and maybe tomorrow you'll live by design
it's a matter of time.
This isn't giving this isn't living
oh just days that pull you apart
and tears turn to rust that fall on steel hearts
so swallow youe maybes and cradle your babies
tell them that they will come through
their gonna feel the shock of the New
and if it's love you want
love you want
love you want
It's a matter of time a matter of time
but you're asking why oh life makes you cry?
Turn moss into roses and blood into wine.
It's a matter of time a matter of time
but all of your past still plays on your mind
and maybe tomorrow you'll live by design
it's a matter of time.

Death in June

Its been cold out here the last few days and my head is beginning to feel it. My nose its stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey, my nose when taken outside of my semi-warm abode becomes a like the underpants of a two year old who has drinken too much coca cola, wet and drippy. Nevertheless my bicycle brought me down to Pacific Ring.

Mike told me I should probably take it easy, he's been out with a fever for a few days. Shadowboxing in the cold gym for a half an hour before the muay thai class started seemed like a good way to take it easy rather than to start doing bag drills, or squats like the day before. One round was spent entirely on footwork both my regular stance and southpaw. Moving forward, backward, sliding side to side to slowly acheive the grace of a dance, a completely instinctual series of movements. The second round was spent shadowboxing purely defensive moves. Leg checking, leaning backwards, and skirting kicks. A final round was spent practicing knees. After three rounds of skipping rope, I led the class in calenthestic stretching, nothing out of the ordinary. Neck, shoulder, and hip rotations followed by some simple leg stretches. It being a large class Mike had us pair up (per usual Carl and I trained together), half of the class did pad work while the other half did bag work. The initial drill was; jab, cross, left hook, right leg kick, right body kick, right body kick, left tep. After a round of that the drill was switched to: jab, left inside thigh kick, left body kick, left body kick, right tep. Carl and I moved around the ring practicing the drill and mixing things up a bit. I've read a few muay thai books now, which for the most part are a reiteration of things I've already learned but sometimes they provide some interesting tidbits that I hadn't thought of. For example blocking a tep kick to the body with a cross knee, which I read about in the poorly named Muay Thai: Unleashed.
After two rounds of pad work each we moved onto bag work. The first drill was: cross, left hook, cross two left kicks, the second round drill was; left hook, cross, left hook, two right kicks. Often when attacking the fighter will mix things up, high/low, left/right, so often after a right cross a fighter will follow up with a left kick. Most drills follow a logic of alternating the right and the left. The third round consisted of ten right kicks, ten left kicks, twenty skip knees, until the end of the round. The final round consisted of ten front tep push kicks, ten rear tep kicks. We all joined together for some conditioning.
Fifty leg checks with each leg, then twenty squat-push kicks. Carl and I did 100 sit ups each, and three sets of 25 push ups intersperesed with 25 burpees. We are training to fight in febuary, at a place in Antioch. This fight I may make a weekly training schedule and try to adhere to it, not because my training isn't rigorous now, but as an experiment.

Hic Niger est!

Before my trip to the east coast Artnoose took out the tattoo gun and sunk the needles into me. Having chosen a short phrase from Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science was easy, its short and elegant. Incipit Tragoedia - The Tragedy Begins. It reminds me of the Birth of Tragedy, of his views on beauty and form. There's a strong possibility that my choice was an attempt to remind myself of the futility and meaningless of life.
Covering it up later on is a possibility, certainly my little heart is a sore on the eyes, although I've taken a liking to my new tattoo. My preference is to have an entire style which would consist of more black blocks, or designs on my body.
Artnoose did it in two sessions one before my trip and one when I came home.

Meat Hook pt. 1

The ceiling of my dorm room is covered in white chipped paint. Laying on my single bed developing a neurotic fear of an asbestos cave in seems cliche to me now. Our bedroom is split evenly, not tape down the middle of the room, but still evenly. My roommate Michael Strauss is a jew from long island, he likes magic the gathering, and dragon ball z. In his spare time (when he's not looking up magic the gathering card values, downloading anime, or trying to cop a feel from one of the girls down the hall) he's in our room listening to Dave Matthews. Beginning to associate Dave Matthews with death was an easy transition, like shifting from second to third on my old man's riding lawnmower. The more I listened to "Crash into me," the more my thoughts roved to taking a step off of an obviously fixed playing field, a finely mowed playing field.
Tonight was a bit different. Mike (that's short for Michael as his mother said when we were first introduced that awkward day six months ago) was off chasing tail at a local frat party. He had made friends with a few guys in the hall, some of who were pledging, which involved all sorts of dumb ass activities, none of which included licking my scrotum... so what did I care. Mike seemed to enjoy their company and the equally mentally retarded girls that lounged about in the handicap section of off campus housing (read frat house). Mike doesn't tend to drink that much, but once in a while when he can't find anyone to play Magic with he'll go out "with the boys."
So tonight I'm staring at the asbestos ceiling wondering how long it will be until it caves in. If it doesn't cave in, how long will it take me to get lung cancer? Maybe if I scrap the ceiling a little and let some droppings fall onto my mouth... the cancer will form quicker.

Its not often that my attention is caught on anything artistic, or anything to do with that mastubatory world called art but the other day while browsing through the stacks at the library, where work study has me shelving books, a book by Antonin Artaud caught my eye. Talk about fucking wretches, now there's a man whose entire life could be entitled "I pissed razor blades." What particularly caught my attention was this passage about how he believed himself to be already dead, already suicided. He was just a weird waking corpse, in some sort of nebulous area. Artaud died of cancer, cancer of the innards, his digestional tubes rotted on him, or they rejected him longing instead for their own growth. In January 1948 Artaud was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. He died shortly afterwards on March 4, 1948. Artaud died alone in his pavilion, seated at the foot of his bed, holding his shoe.
What makes me think of this is that Artaud saw pain and decay for what it was, a medium, a way in which life expresses himself. His theatre of cruelty, was nothing more than an attempt to shatter the perceptions of the everyday. With everyday almost if not the same I grow used to the pain, the nauseau of everyday is so deep that it becomes inperceptible, sometimes its only through a violent shattering that I recognize that maybe I am really alive.
Not that I can really feel any of this long self monologue, despite my abstract ideas my body just recognizes the heady feeling of drinking most of a bottle of wine. My older sister visited me about two weeks ago and was nice enough to buy me, or rather buy for me (I gave her the cash) a variety of liquors. Tonight staring at the ceiling of death an open bottle of red pinot noir was open. It was a shitty table wine but cheap, so my sister got two for me.
Tomorrow I'll forget.
To-morrow, and To-morrow and To-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllabe of recorded time
And All our yesterdays have lighted fools

Reduced

Seeing old friends is nice, but also reminds me of the different life choices we've made. The most blatant difference is geographical. Many of my peers are still in the new york area, they just migrated an hour south from our college town and are now engulfed in the flow of the city. In many ways its a comfortable and easy choice; "So many of my friends have moved down to the city why shouldn't I? Plus my family is close by." Starting over in an entirely new area, being forced to recreate yourself is uncomfortable, but it allows you to have an understanding of who you want to be. Most cities are the same, banal. Tall buildings, shitty public transporation, mediocre bars, the only difference is who you end up spending your time with. The people you hang out with, the relationships you form, that's who you are. Moving to another city, to another area, allows (and forces) you to redecide what style of people you want to be around, who you want to become.

"Big City"

Too late to go back home
Stranded in the streets
Sweatin' in the heat
Don't care to be a star
Poundin' on the doors
Sleepin' on the floors

Big City... ain't too pretty
Big City... nice and loud
Big City... don't want no pity
Big city's one big crowd

No chance to make the big time
I've been tryin' hard
Got to take it far
No love along the way
I been moving fast
Gotta make it last

[Chorus]

They say no no no everywhere I go
But I'm gonna win
Fight the odds against God
Here in the city of sin... in the city of sin

I gotta get ahead
To many schemes
To many dreams
I gotta be somebody
Gotta bleed
For the things I need

And when it rains you're shining down on me

1.12.06 Friday 1:12am Depeche Mode Catching up with Depeche Mode

I've decided to post here rather than other internet sources as I enjoy the formatting on these free sites a bit better than say myspace, or friendster. Hopefully the site change will also mediate a slight change in content, gearing myself and my writing towards more thoughtful writing than reports of my daily life. To some extent this was done occassionally in my previous blogs but hopefully a stronger effort will be put in this time.