Thursday, April 23, 2015

My brother had a globe of the world in his room when I was growing up and when he wasn't home I would sneak into his sacred space, knowing he would kick my ass if he ever found out, and I would locate my home near San Francisco then spin the globe, stop it randomly and wish I was there.

Right where it stopped I'd find myself in another world within a world. Mongolia, Russia, Argentina, Java would stop below my pointed finger and more often my finger pointed to the middle of some ocean or sea. I understood the globe was covered mostly with water but what fascinated me was what was it like in the middle of the ocean. And it fascinates me today and probably will till I die.

I've never been more than a 125 miles offshore, out of sight of land. So, I have a pretty good idea of what it literally looks like, but the thought of being thousands of miles from any point of land feels like freedom. Not the comfortable, familiar freedom that one feels when leaving work or going to recess at school, but the insecure uncertain scary freedom that maybe a child feels when learning to swim when they push off the wall into the deep end for the first time. That's a freedom most of us forget about. The "fuck it, here I go" freedom. 


I will cross an ocean to get to the other side because I want to grow up.

I don't want to play in the shallow end anymore.

I want to be a grown up without a job, responsibilities or dependents.

A selfish man on a quest to find himself in the middle of the ocean like some foolish aquatic astronaut looking into the vast open space, using celestial bodies to guide him away and toward a shore faraway. 

I will arrive tired and weary.

I will sleep and dream in this foreign place. I will be an alien of a different skin color.

I will speak another language and they will ask where I'm from and I will point to the sea. 

They will understand. 

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Remains

The time traveled spectrum of a spent life runs ragged and true

The end is where memories are left for those who remain

If they wish to remember...the remainders

What remains will you leave behind?

Colors of a distinct life which can be scratched and sniffed and peeled away to get to the flavor...

or white washed walls all bland and tasteless

Maybe you wish to remain anonymous to sink to the bottom of the sea of a life well lived

An ocean of happiness

All that remains are thoughts of the heart and never your name

An immortal existence within the spirit of the living, all cozy and nameless

Yes!...That is how I wish to be forgotten

I'll leave my name and body for someone else to use and my soul will be mine



Sunday, April 19, 2015

Secrets in the Mirror

Dear Son,
I'm sorry I kept secrets from you. I'm sorry that I kept secrets...period. I'm sad and I will show you how I'm sad and why I'm sad. I'm scared and I will show you why I'm scared and how I get scared. After that I'll be glad and you can be mad. I know what it's like to be mad...very mad.
I was mad after my father beat me. I would run from him after I pissed off my mother for some forgotten reason. It doesn't really matter why. I just remember he would say, "...come here you  little shit!" before the slap across the face, the back, then the face again. It stung red like shame, indignity and hate. That was a good day. He missed my ear. The worst was when he hit my ear. It would ring and I would hear voices that whispered. They whispered shameful things yet they weren't words I could understand, but they were definitely words.
I learned not to run from him that just made him even more mad. I took it standing and afterward I would look in the mirror to see the welts, the redness and tears. The tears from the pain had gone and the tears of shame remained.
I got really fucking mad one time after a beating and tore my room apart. My dad had to replace all the dry wall on one wall and rehang the shelves.
There were times my mom had to pull my dad off of me. One time I heard her say, "...you're gonna kill him. Stop!"
The worst was watching my brother get beat. I would watch and cry for him. Afterward I would check on him in his room. He was checking his face in the mirror. He would look at me and say, "I'm okay." Of course he wasn't. The mirror didn't lie.




Tuesday, April 7, 2015

The Zen of Crawling Under the House

Don my coveralls and I will move through time upon my belly

Spiders are my friends and they will not mind that I destroy their webby nests, but welcome the challenge to create. I am their teacher.

The rabid racoon only exists in the dark, damp space of the mind and not within the crawl space of real time... and if it is so, my Mag Lite will light the way and crush the bandits skull into oblivion

The seismic condition of the earth will hold my life in the palm of its hand and show mercy

I shall be immune to the claustrophobic confines of my fears and the Hantavirus which has just been liberated from its dead mouse fecal tomb I just disrupted with my hand and inhaled deeply its dust

I am one with the dark musty universe and abandoned wiring that lay across my back

I will go forth brave and undeterred to repair that which needs be and return a holy man baptized by dust, dirt, and crawly things unimaginable and parasitic

I am...





Friday, April 3, 2015

66 Days At Sea On A Capsized Pearson Alberg 35...Yeah , Right!

The media must have this info wrong. I can believe this guy survives 66 days on a upright Alberg 35 looking like he does, but no way did he sit on an "overturned " boat for 64 days (he claimed his boat capsized 2 days into his trip) and come away looking that good. If it is all true, then this dude is a fucking specimen. More than likely the media misreported that the sailboat was "overturned" when he was rescued. A narrow beamed, heavily ballasted, full keel Alberg 35 is going to right itself quickly or sink after being capsized.
Here's a link to a post that I thought explained it very well: http://wavetrain.net/news-a-views/659-louis-jordan-in-the-gulf-stream-rescued-after-66-days-adrift-on-an-alberg-35
Update:
I'm feeling better now that the corporate news networks are correcting their initial reports on this incident to reflect something more believable (i.e. the boat righted itself after being demasted).