2012

I was a fucking case when I moved back home. I didn't leave Boston, I fled. The walls were coming down around me. So I went under. I bathed myself in the waters of anonymity and let a cocoon wrap around me and I fucking GREW. I rose from the banks a new being, twenty four years fell from my back as I stood in the light of all existence, flooding through me, casting no shadows, forcing no alarms. Almost Not-Being, but present, an unembellishable witness. I took in the sights again with fresh eyes and let the light bounce around in my empty cranium, casting grim shadows on the walls. The day I died I went to a store with my Mother to buy paint for those walls and I could feel pulses in my body that threatened to tear me apart every time I saw another human. We took the paint home and I threw my guts up, and with that I emerged into the skin you see before you.

The first three months are mush. Incidents occasionally occurring, but the majority has been discarded to make room. There were a lot of stabs in the darkness, one that didn't happen but could have, in the back of a film screening, sobbing silently on the floor, trembling in blind fear. I'd said I'd do it, but in the end didn't have the nerve. I'm not sure if that's the Lowest I've ever felt, but it was heavyweight. I met a French filmmaker, documentarian. "Charlie. Soon we will talk." That was the last time I saw her. I vanished into the night and hid under my covers. I'd like to talk to her now, hear her story, but it's too late. I wasn't ready.

February 24, 2012. That was the day I died.

The scene is like this: Bronson's doped up, proper, he's drooling, stuck to a chair, struggling to control his heavily altered vessel. Another Man comes up to his chair and begins talking about sexually abusing minors. Bronson is sneering and screaming through clenched mandibles, foaming at the mouth. You can FEEL it, the way he felt. I felt it. I lived in his shoes and I saw myself in his skin when I looked in the mirror. I wasn't going to do that to my parents. I wasn't going to do that to anyone. The only life you may alter is your own. So I made an alteration.

When I threw my guts up, I threw up the chemical equivalent of about 35 tablets of a drug I can't remember the name of. I spent the next three days in bed, hoping there was enough left in my system. I checked into an Institution three days later and was still on suicide precautions when my birthday came around. My 6th birthday was tear-drenched chili dogs and a leather journal I tried to use but which still has so many empty pages.

Algernon is the name I remember, but the guy that really opened up to me I can't remember. He was from Pittsburgh, repped a place called Homewood, told me three friends of his killed themselves, he was supposed to die with them. If I could see him again, I would ask him what makes him continue. Everyone there had a reason, none of them told it to me. I went almost a full week in that cottage and I didn't get any solid reasons from anyone. In there it was "right" and "wrong". No one questioned that and they made it clear that the Machine must keep running as if it was unquestionable. I wasn't ready to cook on that, so I missed learning a lot.

I sat in the main hall of the cottage one day and looked over at the nurses' desk as if it were an exhibit at a Zoo. I was witnessing creatures I could not comprehend, creatures I had no attachment to, we were not the same in that moment. In that moment I understood all languages but could not speak them. In that long, stretching scene I watched these creatures make noises and move things around and make strange marks on sheets of paper, I was looking at the World with New Eyes. What a World to be looking at.

Zaxby's has wonderful buffalo chicken.

Although the time before my Death remains a blur, one thing did come of it. Somewhere in January or February I cast off the cloak of the Artist and made ready to take on the cloak of the Nurse. It was a sudden decision, a flash of good vibes, I was on cloud 7 when that hit first time. I wanted to be a Doctor, it was there in my mind. I was giddy, overflowing with energy. All my life I've been a Mimic. All I've ever been good at is mimicry and memory. I was drugged with the thought that I couldn't be an artist because I didn't have anything original to offer and without that, why bother when you could be doing something Important, like be a Doctor and help people. As time passed, the track quickly changed to Nurse for a multitude of obvious reasons I won't bore you with, and by the time I was out of the Institution I was meeting with an advisor and choosing classes.

There was a long moment at the end of April I've retained. I went to South Carolina to visit an old friend, on the road my mother called me and said "Say goodbye to Grammie." I don't get fright on Stage, I get fright in Real Life, and I was in the headlights on that one. The other day I realized what I'd wanted to say to her. I'd wanted to say "Mazel Tov, my Love." I went to Boston a day later, I can't remember why. I think I went to New York as well. All I can remember is happiness in that period. I came home, got a nice suit from Goodwill, endured the ceremonies and the rituals, then dove into a pool of sound and ground out Noise for a solid Month.

My resolve began to chip away towards the end of the summer. I found a notebook that contained the storyboards for a Trailer I'd intended to shoot but never did. No Lies, No Excuses, No Apologies. I still believed in Nursing.

 (for further reading on the Summer Semester, see "Letter to a Former Maths Teacher")

On one of my last days working at Zaxby's I was leaning against the Table, staring at the raw tenderloins and flour in front of me and the missing piece to a puzzle that'd been fucking me for so long finally fell into place. I was drugged with Art, I'd confused Artistry with Industry and was beefing, looking at the flour, thinking about drawing in it when it hit me. Every human being devotes their life to something, be it the all-encompassing Work, their vision of the betterment of Humanity, or just for the Fuck of it. Those last ones you need to watch, like Bronson. I realized what Art really is in moment of clarity that rang out like this: "If we all just worked Life would be dull as SHIT. That's what we're here for. To make Life Interesting. To make it beautiful." That day I went home and told my Mom "I think I've got my Life figured out." I hadn't, but I'd made big steps and was a lot further down the Path that day. I decided that day that the Nurses' cloak didn't suit me, I wanted to try the Artist's cloak on again. It fits much better with the weight I've gained, but there's still something not quite right yet: it's not Mine.


Jo Ann Fabric and Crafts didn't need to give me paychecks for at least a month, I was pouring everything I had into that place. Not much came of it. A comical pair of pants I hope I never fit into. Good practice for the ones I've got planned. When I started at Jo Ann I was enrolled in three classes. I dropped the Sociology course after the first real lecture, the first was a post-coital spurt of shit, just a reading of the syllabus, the first Lecture was the stuff of Night Terrors. I knew I was dropping that class twenty minutes in when I'd heard the same phrase twice as many times. About a week later, a week after the end of the Add-Drop, I withdrew from Statistics. By the end of the semester I was barely in the two classes I still attended. I don't know what my grades were and it doesn't matter because I'm not wearing that cloak anymore. My cloak is still in pieces, I'm still pinning them together and making crude zig-zags across their edges, but it's coming together. It's been the product of a year.

2012.

Tell me a story

In the middle of the night, the crew deserted its captain at 35,000 fathoms. He awoke in the gentle clutches of a Kraken, sinking ever downwards. I don't need to remind you how desperate a move it is to evacuate a sub at such a depth, at any depth at all, it is entirely possible all those involved forgot the captain in favor of themselves and just left the sleeping fellow lie. The Kraken had strength enough to smash and grind the captain's sub to dust, but held it gently, pulling it deeper and deeper, darker and darker, kicking it's way through the water.

He awoke when the tail of the sub struck a chunk of Earth as the Kraken dove into its cave, jarring the unsuspecting captain to the floor, fracturing his hip on hard metal of his sub, well it wasn't really HIS sub, well, who knows whose sub it was, who knows whose anything is?

He struggled to his feet, his sub now at a downward angle, diving with the Kraken. The captain held his weight on one side to avoid tumbling inferiorly. He trembled as the Kraken's great limbs caressed the sub and pulled it tighter to itself as it drifted deeper, darker. The sub leveled out and the captain struggled to make himself erect in what he could feel was the direction of up
.
The descent stopped and the sub rocketed into the Kraken's bosom, came loose from the creature's limbs, and began to spin about. Before the captain's eyes the floor became the ceiling. He hit the new floor with a groan, his hip splintering on the impact.

the Kraken fumbled with the sub, unaware of its inner workings, unaware of its captain. Its feelers felt and felt until every surface had been touched by a part of a limb, and the data was stored and an image was formed. The Kraken's eyes glowed in the darkness, literally emitted light from within its monstrous cephalic structure and out of its eyes, creating an aura that danced across the walls of the cave, casting harsh shadows on the surfaces of the structure it held in its limbs.

The captain struggled to his feet once again. He groaned in agony and picked himself up from under the contents of a bookshelf. Water was beginning to leak through the first membrane of the sub. Pools began to form on the walls. The captain stumbled through the door of his cabin and into the depths of the sub.
A limb got fresh and took a great squeeze of the sub, just to see what would happen. a torrent of water gushed into the sub and drenched the captain. He fell out of the fountain and made his way down the hall, the dark, cold waters hot at his heels.

The captain was thrown into the bridge, tumbling to a heap before the vast glass nose of the sub, the light from the Kraken's eyes giving slight shadow to the inner workings of the bridge. The captain saw a limb approaching the glass frame as its feelers pressed against the great glass panes and plummeted the captain into darkness, save the emergency lights of the sub. The sudden clenching of the Kraken had destroyed the main generators for the sub. Water was sinking in fast.

The captain took up his pistol and shot himself in the head. The Kraken felt the shot reverberate and drew back a limb. It tore the sub in half. Water mixed with blood as the captain was flushed out of the broken vessel.

Weeks later, his body drifted to the shore. There were talks of mutiny.

Riff Raff

It always feels like the end of times, always has, always will. We have persevered through so much, we have witnessed so much, dreamt so much, felt so much, but it's all just swimming in a bioliquid-like Machine. Dok V sees molecular, and his vision is starting to creep into my own. It's terrifying, to see the muck we swim in. We call it walking, but we're always swimming, suspended in gases, in molecules. We are molecules that function with other molecules in a universe of molecules, and that's all there is. Atom.

It's time to nut up or shut up. We've been through this so many fucking times and we keep coming back to the mirror to talk it out. There's a comically absurd twinge to fueling my life on the hatred of life, but if done right it does burn. But do we want that? Do we really want to be a force of end times?

"Yo, both of us don't give a fuck, so what's the problem? We're both worn down, bitter, cynical Radical ME Machines, why can't we get along and laugh at everyone else's sorry ass? Why can't we be friends? Bond on our bitterness, our suffering? We're in it together, Brother, and we're more important than anyone else. Look out for Number 1, baby, the first thing you realize is you, and it hits you in waves, man, like a fountain, gushing from your arms into pools of blood in an apartment bathroom that is our eventual coffin, let us find some modest fortune in this Everyday Struggle, peace, B.I.G."

We're the failures. You thrivers keep doing your thing, this ain't a knock, but god DAMN you make a man suffer sometimes. I understand, that's how you've gotta do it. I will never give in. I don't think we should continue. Holy SHIT, is that part of getting old? Why don't we just devote the rest of our lives to making our extinction more enjoyable? Why don't we just die off naturally? Will We reach that point? Where our thoughts take over our instincts? Our hard wiring? The Program.exe

The Eternal Record is The Internet. It is the new Bible. The new Newspaper. The New Extravaganza of Moving Pictures and Sound. The New Spectacle. I wonder what will render the Internet obsolete? I wonder if I'll see it. I wonder if I'll care.

We are such delicate creatures, we are so fragile, it amazes me we remain unbroken.

"We've gotta keep going."

I'm not convinced.

Nut or Shut.

Two-Faced

"You can't get rid of me, but I can sure get rid of you."

I have Stockholm Syndrome for my Alter-Ego, and my AE’s an Ender. Violently so. He’s a Super Villain. He’s very comic-book, and I’m suddenly wondering if I could do a comic of him. I know I don’t have the artistic skill to draw anything, but someone does, and I’m pretty confident I could relay my mental image as well as I could. Moore’s a goddamn genius, and he knows it.

I can’t let go of my Alter-Ego.

I can’t let go of my Alter-Ego.

I can’t let go of my Alter-Ego.

I can’t let go of my Alter-Ego, Alter-Ego, Alter-Ego. Alter-Ego… on into infinity. Letting the resonance just hum through the night, ringing, vibrating. Sound waves. Deaf man on a dais dancing to the steady pounding of Sound, bumping against his flesh, wave after wave, in a slow foxtrot. Beach Boy Jazz. This joint is Wild.

A eunuch takes my order. Give her an extra big tip. She’s one of us.

Fried Calamari and a salad, my shits have been hell lately. My tubes are in ill repair. Drano makes a lot of sense right now, except the agonizing feelings you’ll experience as you drown in your own blood. "My husband says he's too busy if I ask him to take me out to dinner," she told the emergency room staff. "But for this he makes time." My Alter-Ego Loves it.

I can’t let go of my Alter-Ego.

The soup arrives and I can’t wait to be out of here, but I’ve made my commitment; I’m not going anywhere. The most grotesque couple sits in a booth just in the corner of my vision, no matter where I turn my head, there they are. They make me sick to my stomach. He’s got his hair cut High and Tight, his polo shirt tucked in, a rigid seam in his khakis. Hell, he’s probably got pennies in his fucking shoes. Squaresville? Not necessarily, dear reader. He’s just decided to play by the rules. Not all of us choose to. Such blatant submissiveness just puts me right off, but lately I’ve been wondering if it’s the better option. Make a go of it, just for giggles, never raise a fuss but always toe the line, just one step away from being a problem, one step from being a saint. His partner is a Factory Fresh model as well, and with short hair she’d still be hideous to me. Something about Southern facial features just doesn’t do it for me, but nowadays nothing does, and I am grateful for this mercy. No more falling for every female light bounces off of, no more scares, no more problems. Life is made much simpler when you decide to decline reproduction, but it does make for some uncomfortable conversations, and that's just something to endure for the Eventuality.

There's not much Ender press these days. Occasional electric impulses, action potentials, but the majority of us are just waiting it out, some of us are trying to make the best of it, but not many of us are actually trying to make it happen sooner. We seem above this now. I'm all for Extinction, but I'm digging this joint and there's a wave of relaxation rippling down my body. If I could only remember what I'm doing here...

"I need you to remain calm. Pretend you know me."

I jump out of my seat. I didn't see this fucker sit across from me. What have my eyes been doing? I don't remember granting them vacation hours. Oh right, there's a part of my optic cortex that's being impeded right now. Forgot about the Civility Drone this join carries. No one gets one of these to be chic. These days you can't have a business without one, and there haven't been written laws in over a century, we're that feral now. Sorry to be the bearer of ill tidings, but I'm just a reporter here.

That's right, I'm on assignment. Fuck, I let the Pigs get their hooks in. I'm probably wearing that fucking orange shirt with the geishas on it.

Nope. Thank fuck. That thing never starts a good conversation.

"Well say hello or something."

Shit, this cat's still there. Here. He's talking to me.

How've you been?

"Mahoney has a posse. We need to get you out of town."

I can't leave now, I'm expecting someone. I'm on assignment.

"Idiot, I'm from Headquarters. The deal went South. Johnny's old lady blabbed about it to her Snake who deals to Mahoney."

He gets up to leave, stops dead when he doesn't see me following him.

"Johnny ain't coming. Mahoney's got a posse, and they're coming. We have to get you out of town."

So this is what the dilation of a God's eye sounds like.

I leave a twenty for the eunuch and slide out with this cat from Headquarters. One thing bugs me: I don't know anyone named Mahoney. Well I know ONE, but it can't be Balls he's talking about. If the bad vibes hit this late, should they be heeded? Should they ever? Maybe this cat's a hustler. I'm a pimp's biggest disappointment. No, sir, I am not interested in any reproductive activities. Thank you for asking, have a nice day.

Just two corners and I'm lost. This city exhausts me. We pass by a convenience store. I try to buy a pack of cigarettes, but the mug from Headquarters yanks me out the door before I can get my wallet out.

"Is your fucking head screwed on right?"

The head's fine, it's the brain that's fucked.

"Oh, well that's fucking terrific. Does The Boss know you're still dosing?"

Controlled doses. Nothing habitual. I wanted to be in the right vibe for this job.

"Ok, well snap out of that vibe and get with it. We need to get you out of here."

I try and flag a taxi, he jerks my arm down. Very forceful. I feel like I can trust him.

Look, I feel like I can trust you. I'm having a tussle with amnesia. Can you remind me what I was doing?

"Shit, you really are out of your head. C'mon, this way."

to be continued.

Letter to a former Maths teacher

This is mid-April, 2012, Warner Robins, GA, the admissions office of Macon State College. I'm sitting with Tia Stephens, my academic adviser, plotting out the next seven months of my life. I'm still recovering from a major depressive episode, a month later and B.I.G. still spits truth, Everyday Struggle. I've got a BA in film production, graduated, Christ, two years ago? Where'd that time go? What did I do with it? So much nothing amounting to a blur of memories stored in the cerebral cortex, frames flash back when a smell hits or I find a picture from those days. Wild times. Self-medication, big dreams crashing down around me, excitement in sheer doldrum. Tia tells me that despite my four years of college, despite my 3.0 GPA from those days, I've still got at least a year's worth of classes to take before I can be considered for their nursing program. That's a heavy thought for my manic mind. I saw the Beast in all its glory and swore I'd never be a part of it, but my philosophical conviction left me in a place without happiness, so I turned to nursing. Nurses do a great deal of good, though not as valuable as teachers, they've got nothing to worry about when Lenny's Tribunal comes. The Kardashians can watch their asses. First thing's first: the summer semester. Anatomy and Physiology is a must, since A&P2 needs to be part of my fall semester. I need to take a US history course (history of the World from Emerson didn't count), so I sign on for US history since 1865 and go about two and a half weeks and drop the class because A&P is taking up all my study time. But there's one more class on my summer schedule, one I didn't drop, one I can now tell you the results of, but I'll save that for later. I need a maths course, Tia tells me. I can't hedge that one, I didn't take any maths courses at Emerson. I opt for what Tia hints as the easier of the two choices: Intro to College Algebra, Mathematics Modeling.

First day of class and I'm quaking. I remember maths courses. I remember being rubbish at them. In college I took a physics class, had to withdraw halfway through, should have after the first day. I'd spend hours on one problem and still feel lost. I wasn't ready then. I'm ready now.

Spring to July. I'm down to two classes, struggling to keep up in A&P, but coasting through Maths. Made a 99 on the first test, feeling good about it, understanding it. One day I come home frustrated because I wasn't getting a problem on a worksheet but I worked through it and felt better. Next test was a disappointment: 89, but Dr. Aiken drops the lowest test grade and replaces it with the mean of the other two test grades, so in the long run I made a 97 on it. This is so wild, I can't stop marveling at how easy this is coming, especially when the all the students around me are flailing madly for handholds and I'm just gliding up the face. We start studying quadratic functions and a memory sparks! Your classroom, the Quadratic Formula, -b+or- the square root of bsquared - 4ac all over 2a. We learn a new method of factoring our prof is particularly fond of. He calls it the "X" method. I'd have to draw it out to explain it to you, but when a quadratic function can be factored it works without fail. I still use the Quadratic Formula, just to double check.

The first two years of college at Emerson were nightmarish. Struggles on all levels, trying to find where I belong in this collection of beings, IF I belong. I was still in my high school mode of scholastics: classes were obligations, and any time that didn't HAVE to be devoted to them was not. I didn't have a passion for those Gen Eds. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to spark revolution. Then reality hit and I found myself ill-suited for such lofty ambitions, but I kept at it. Around my final year a change began within me. I started to care about some of my classes. Time I would have spent lounging with friends, playing games, general larking about, that time was spent reading, studying, writing feverishly. Still scraping knuckles on deadlines, but thinking more and more about classwork outside of the classroom. I'd found out what school was all about: learning to be a functional human being in this mad mad world we've created for ourselves, finding our spots in the ruckus and being the best that we can be at whatever we're best at. I'm still trying to find that. I'm still trying to find a lot of things.

On the day of the final exam for Maths Modeling we were let out of A&P early, which left me four hours before my maths final, so I drove downtown to scope a location for a film I'm hoping to shoot next month, then went home and played video games until it was time for the exam, strolled out to campus, and passed with a 94.

When you knew me I was a frustration. I wish I could have been the student I am now back then, but that may be the most common wish of all beings: to go back and try again, knowing what we know now. We forget that we wouldn't know those things were it not for the ones that took the time to teach those things to us. Teachers are the most noble human beings I know, short only of agnostic missionaries, people that devote their lives to improving the quality of life for others. Teachers do that every day. You made it possible for me to be who I am today, to know what I know. It took a long time to set in, but in the time since I last saw you I've grown a lot.

I'm writing to you to urge you on. I've no doubt in your conviction, but with a new semester at hand and the youth as stubborn as ever, we all need a little encouragement. The Human Race is a thing we've devoted ourselves to preserving. It seems to get harder every year, but there's always hope. You've given that to me through your efforts. I hope my message can give some to you.

Take care and good luck in all that you do,
Charlie

Machine Meditations

holy shit we're 1984.

we're paranoid as shit.

holy shit..

The Music Industry and the Film Industry are out to control our behaviour, but they're in on it together

I find light oppressing...we're paranoid as shit.

Some of us are just the scared ones, so scared of what's next it sickens us to our kidneys, to the backs of our throats, that we're locked almost fetal to whatever

FUCK my brain wants me to die. That's what depression is. The system choosing the trauma is not worth it and shutting down and getting absorbed into the machine, rather than keep the pace and be active But The Machine must insist you keep active, regardless, to feed its curious greed, to see us continue to function for any purpose. Holy shit this is it. The Machine's takeover of Humanity. It's going to fucking happen. There's no way to avoid it. Humanity is doomed by its own hand and the doom is nigh at hand. The Dentist is quaking in his boots cuz Toothpaste's gonna put his ass out of business pretty soon. We're coming to understand our Nature better, our atomic structures, we're getting closer to figuring it out, how to be the most effective cogs in The Machine.

shit. i got too close. they're gonna shut it down. gotta keep it going.

but why?

see. there's my problem. There's Dok V.

because I know someone's watching. I got scanned in the shower today, I know there's something keeping this machine running, I just don't get checked on very often so i try to shutdown and be a less active part of The Machine.

Piercings are reminders of pain. Why do we do that? Remind ourselves daily with the constant regeneration of hyaline cartilage squeezing pus out of a constant, inescapable boil to be crushed by a thin iron bar, something to make us pay attention. things that hurt us seem to keep us going, i think. But My Brain wants me to die, so who cares what I think. You've all committed to The Machine and will ride this fat dick wank all the way to the bottom of the toilet, and you'll get all the kicks you can but you'll stay active.

"Come and take your lumps with the rest of us."

There was a man that understood depression. He was a bit condescending, but he knows what he's doing, and, y'know, maybe it's part of his job to be condescending, just to really set the record straight for you. That you've got to keep moving for The Machine.

Smokers know they're gonna die, but they're gonna enjoy it as much as they can while they can and pray they go quietly.  Doctors are some determined sons of bitches. Jesus, their existence for so long is a vocabulary test, almost constantly. That's a load, there.

It's only a disease in a sense of vocabulary. It's internal error, in a Machine sense, yes, but in a different way. It's the brain trying to shut The Machine down, and thereby provide less energy for The Machine.

"you need a heart that's filled with music." Yeah, to be a Cog.

That's Dok V th- Hi there Cogs! Dok V here, reminding you that brushing your teeth is just a part of traumatizing your cells to a hardened bone. One of these days I'll have a machine of my own, one that'll eliminate ever atom of your existence. I will use my machines to stop The Machine and you can't stop me.

 "Come and take your lumps with the rest of us."

Lumps. Interior leakage of fluid. Caused by severe blunt trauma from moving parts of the Machine.

Well. Time to go to work. See you later, Cogs.

I want to be the Voice of a Generation.

Not like Morgan Freeman. Not the Voice-Over, the Voice OF.

There, I said it. That's my fucking dream.

I've got news for you. Voice of a Generation ain't necessarily a paying gig. Ain't necessarily the most enjoyable either. But there it is. I want to be Lenny Bruce, I want to be Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, Faulkner, Hemingway, Pollock, Bob Marley, Carl Sagan, Obama, Mos Def, Q-Tip, Bob Burden, Mort Sahl. I want to stand up and speak on our behalf, give our two bits on the whole living thing. I want to say that we're worth a damn, but I'm not so sure about that. Hell, things could be a lot better off if we weren't around. Give the other species time to evolve a bit further, so they don't have to move around us in their path. We weren't very generous to them, no wonder they hate us. We built our evolutionary chain in the path of theirs, and now they trip all over us, trying just to get to grips with this whole "living" thing.

God, I feel like such a fucking failure.