Completely unaware of the electrical impulses she was made up of

She sat in her broken chair

Firing like an uninterrupted 30 foot piston powered endlessly

Catalyzing it’s own velocity exponentially through friction

This piston generated an intertwined stream of physiological and psychological need

This need pulled together various and necessary components to complete a thought in her head

Said thought needed a place to go and was running out of time

Said thought alerted the troops, established an objective, built a strategy

Strategy was the foundation of the very necessary action

The total synergy of the full process supercharged muscle groups

She lifted her arms, eyes gazing at the screen as if it were a clean slate

Her index finger on the “F”

Her other index finger on the “J”

Everyone else fell into place

She began to fuse the organic process

It’s causes, it’s effects, with the rest of us

Trying to find the exit

He sat up quickly and looked down at his 21 year old feet

He somehow knew that these feet would be able to recollect and support his life in a way he’ll probably never fully understand

In the doorway was the apparition of kindness, staring at him with such painful contempt

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever recover but he knew his choices were no greater than the number one

With his left leg still tingling from the knee down to the end of his biggest toe

He grabbed the corner of the dresser, knocking over all the pictures of his understatedly estranged father

His mom who had a big heart but always seemed to just be half a click in the red

His twin older sisters that had begun their cycle on earth 15 years before him

Such a distance in age that he wondered if the whole thing had been concocted to make him feel falsely whole

As he hobbled over to the door

He stopped in the doorway bracing himself

More like catching himself

Out of breath already?

Fuck it

Let’s get this show on the road

Down the old victorian stairwell he went

Intimidated by his less than formidable depth perception

He could feel his leg arguing with him the value and purpose of being alive

If life and everything contained therein is a cycle then nothing is new

He was promised a jetpack and all he got was an action figure

No matter, he was almost down to the kitchen

A place crawling with silver appliances that cooked up processed commercialism

New. Improved. Fat Free. Organic. Cage Free. Open Range. More Fiber. Hormone Free.

He pulled one the boxes out of the cabinet and poured 8oz. of tasty fruity logos, commercials, and banner ads into a bowl

5C :: …wishes he had more time this morning.

12B :: …thinks her hair looks good just the way it is.

32C :: …has about had it with that one kid at school.

24F :: …hopes she can keep it together tomorrow.

4A :: …is finally accepting who he is after 20 years.

16D :: …is feeling happy and convinced about her new job.

17D :: …is feeling sketchy about traveling with his new child for the first time on a plane.

2B :: …wonders what knee surgery is like.

10B :: …has a weird pain in his arm but won’t get it checked out.

18A :: …wants to fly away.

24A :: …is determined to be nice on this flight.

1C :: …is wishing he was anywhere but here on this plane.

3B :: …is hoping there was no way in hell those test results were correct.

12E :: …is in the zone.

I’ve always loved top 10 lists.

John Cusack likes top 5 lists but I think those are too claustrophobic.

A top ten list less often is better than a top five list more often.

My top ten lists are not intended to be evergreen and final. They just are.

Here’s today’s list:

1. Celebrity Gossip for it’s emptiness.

2. Pyramid Schemes for their gluttonous nature.

3. High brow art for the pretention.

4. Zoos for their sadness.

5. Chain restuarants for their mediocrity.

6. Cheap cars for their lack of safety.

7. The cost of bottled water at festival events for it’s blatant theft.

8. Bottled water for it’s backwards thinking.

9. Cigarettes for their emotional and physical cancer.

10. Fear, because that’s just messed up.

The Foundation

On day one of his life, the dark alleys, sinister figures, alpha dog stares, laid the foundation for a permanent state designed schematically for long-suffering. It’s like putting a shock collar on someone their entire life setting it to randomly and lightly shock them until they die. Not a day went by where he didn’t have some sort of knot in his stomach. Every morning he’d get up, put on whatever clothes were lying around, head downstairs, hoping that mom would be making breakfast and not be dead on the floor after the hurricane that stormed our living room at what seems to always be 2:37AM.

He often wondered to himself while walking to grade school if today would be the day, the day someone died in front of him, the day he finally experienced the anguish of a stray bullet from an ostracized serial number-free MAC-10 that would paralyze him for the rest of his life. He knew it happened every day in his neighborhood but fate or God had for the time being only allowed him to be a television spectator in this socio-economic social experiment gone horribly wrong.

The Stage

I woke up in a haze on the bus. Who are all these people and why are they using all my shit? Time for a quick smoke. I need to call home.

The kids seem to be ok. I’m not totally sure if what I’m doing is “right” but I do know that it’s breathing life into my only alternative. I know nothing else.

I talked about the same stuff at all 3 radio stations today but my head hurts and all I want to do is go to bed for 3 or 4 days. “In prison” is all relative I guess.

Next week is my last show for awhile. I hope you all miss me. I already miss everyone and I’m still standing here having a conversation with them.

The Hiatus

One last fist held high up in the air, one last salute to all. He scanned wearily the wide open space, slowly from the far left to the far right. His exhausted smile only made them want more. Now hearing only the muffled high pitched tone heard when a bomb goes off at close range, he turned, grabbed his coat jacket and hat and headed off the platform. On his way, following the reflective tape arrows on the ground, directing him off, he looked up at various crew members in passing. They looked at him, knowing where he was headed. he held his chin up high like it was no big deal but inside he was awash with feelings of dread and doom, but walked like he was 10 feet tall.

“Please empty all of your personal belongings and effects into the tray. They will be returned to you when you leave. “

“Excuse me Miss? You are on in 5 minutes. I’ll be back for your two-minute warning.”

She caught herself staring blankly at the production assistant as he gave her the standard spiel about showtime. As she stood up and looked in the mirror, hairdresser fidgeting on her left, makeup artist prodding on her right, she was feeling good tonight and continued to sell that to the public, just like she could sell her shell of a self when she was a little girl. Now as an adult, she could sell the Pope a double bed if she wanted to. That maniacal whimpering little girl voice in her head that sounded the presence of a giant tunnel, “Look at me, my hair, my posture. I’m going to be so great. I’m going to be the one that fixes all this. I’m a game changer.” “I’m a game changer” she whispered aloud. She wiped the tear away from her left eye, passing off the motion as her just merely wiping excess eyeliner with her finger.

The red guys have failed her and her people, a decade or two of complete deflation and collapse over physiological stupidity that manifested itself as a Tommyknocker that only saw it’s own belly button, machining secret wars in assembly-line fashion.

But change was nigh. She was different. She knew she’d always be ‘the one’ and now tonight was her night to shine. As she gets her last curtain call, 3 men in suits, earpiece monitors in place, move in, flanking her on each side while the 3rd stood behind her. The door to her dressing room opened. She took a deep breath and charged forward, security at her sides. For a split second her senses failed her as everything and everyone, all around her, seemed as if someone had pointed a remote control at them and just hit the “Mute” button. Crowds of people cheered and screamed, fists in the air, sleeves rolled up on every starched dress shirt that witnessed her take the podium. The children wave their little flags as vigorously as their blonde pig-tailed hair, the flags “issued” to them at the door.

That voice came back again, “Why can’t I hear them? I can see everyone in slow motion, the streamers and balloons all floating around me, the huge crocodile tears made out of hopes and dreams that are supposed to be caught by my proverbial tissue. Men, women and their little children, they want me to be the one so badly. I’m glad it’s my time now. I’ll be good. Right?”

She rose to the podium, soaking in the furnace-like stage lighting, ready for it to be over before it even begins.

Traversing through the words on the teleprompter felt like a soldier’s experience taking Normandy. Each word felt like the last 50 yards of a marathon in 110 degree weather. As these tones and vibrations thrust through her vocal chords and turned into sound waves, the crowds emotions erupted as if to say, “You fill all of our voids. Thank you. These tears of joy are for you!”

Did she finally arrive? It felt like they were not even really listening or watching her but the sheer velocity of her denial kept her believing all of it, every word, every response, every teary-eyed family that lifted their hands towards her when she looked at them and spoke.

After the final “Thank You” to the red minions of the past, present and future, the crowds lept to their feet in an eerily syncopated fashion, as if they were merely designed to do so. She waived her hands, smiled the smile that helped her stick out in a state that never even really made the news.

I recently read the following article in Wired titled “Obsessed With the Internet: A Tale From China” written by Christopher S. Stewart. Appalling but affirming at the same time, this article talks about the story of a boy in China was ‘internet obsessed’ so his parents dropped him off at a one month long ‘internet rehabilitation camp’ where they would ‘fix’ this boy’s addiction.

I’ve always believed that when something developmental psychologically that is natural in a human being is repressed over a period of time, especially from a young age, that a normal life with the standard set of ups and downs is no longer possible, at least without a massive recovery effort. One myth among certain cultures is that if you repress a behavioral trait in a human that you don’t like or that just isn’t acceptable, it’ll just disappear….and this, is where shit goes sideways. The bigger problem is that those natural behaviors still do exist and they still need to be exercised somehow, they still need to develop. So….they find a way. Unfortunately those natural behaviors, whether they be sexuality, sociability, anger, etc…become warped, skewed and are responsible for a rippling effect of psychological damage that is almost irreversible, including influencing crime rates, etc. If children live in a culture where repression of some of the most basic fundamental behaviors is repressed in them, you are going to get high suicide rates, addictions to fantasy worlds where there’s freedom of thought and experience. Your brain will always find a way to follow the natural progression as best it can, regardless of the tools it was given going out of the gate. The result of your brain having to make the call without you present emotionally on how to deal with developmental growth is most often not pleasant.

China, while a beautiful place to visit, has been known to have high teen suicide rates and I believe the upswing of the information age is probably only adding insult to injury. The governmental thumb pushing down hard on their own people there has to create a pressure cooker in families because of the competitive workaholic nature, with an emphasis on minimizing emotions and outside influence because they aren’t ‘efficient’. I think this Wired article is a little bit of a window into the implosion of the teen psyche after exposed to how other parts of the world have the opportunity to live more or less free. They are definitely privy to how much information is being hidden from them and now the government is trying to fight the internet side of it by blocking sites like Twitter and Facebook, whose entire premise is free-flowing thought with little to no limitations.

A post from back in 2007 written by Xie Chuanjiao (China Daily) has a few stats that are pretty mind-blowing.

“Half of the suicides on the mainland are of women in rural areas, who commonly drink pesticide to end their lives. They may do so because of family disputes, low-educational levels and restricted social communication.”

“A two-year survey by researchers at Peking University found over 20 percent of 140,000 high-school students interviewed said they had considered committing suicide. And 6.5 percent of the students surveyed said they had made plans to kill themselves.”

Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not limited to China. Check out this page on Wikipedia, “List of Countries By Suicide Rate“. The possible pattern I’ve noticed and that others of have noticed is that the highest rates are in the communist and ex-communist countries. I’m sure there are other variables that factor into this – bad economies, etc. Saying Communism is solely responsible for suicide is definitely an oversimplification and is not what I’m saying here but one has to wonder if the more extreme versions of communism that basically try and make everyone the same economically, also maybe trying to make them the same socially and emotionally, whether inherently or otherwise. If any part of what I say or speculate is true here, it’s probably a safe assumption that a good percentage of the population of these countries are living in an unnatural state of mind and being. This yields unnatural culminations of very basic behaviors and can be very destructive over the long term. We witness it in zoos and animals in captivity everyday. Unnatural behavior from unnatural environmental conditions. It’s obviously not working for simpler creatures, should we expect it to work on us?

There’s a really great discussion about this here:

“Why do the (ex)communist countries have the highest suicide rates?“

Red is a wildcard. In the tattoo world red dye has this wild unpredictability about it. It’s the one color that tattoo artists need to warn their clients about. It may flare up, get really infected, or not take very easily in their skin, OR it might work out just fine. It’s harder to predict how the color red in particular will present itself after it heals and is under your skin. Parts of my tattoos that are red, looked red going in, but either have morphed into a pink, off shade of magenta, or burgundy. Even if I go back for touch ups, red is stubborn and it didn’t make a difference to go over it again. Red is always the wildcard at the tattoo shop. When people say that they had a life experience where they were ’seeing red’, it’s meant to create a sense of wild unpredictable behavior due to an overwhelming rush of emotion that apparently renders us completely helpless in controlling the actions that are about to follow said life experience.

Red is a menace. Red has always been associated with evil. Even before The Red Scare or The Red Menace, even the campiest of war movies latched on – Red Dawn (anti-communism message with Cubans/Russians somehow being defeated personally by Patrick Swayze and C. Thomas Howell). Some of the most sinister artwork, manipulative propaganda and subversive advertising is either dominated by the color red, the primary focus of the piece is red, or in some cases the background’s primary color is red to make the rest of the piece dark, intense and heavy. It’s the one thing that even the undead can survive on if they consume it (in comic books and movies at least).

Red is attraction. When Sarah Jessica Parker flips her red locks around while narrating her Garnier commercials, you know what time it is. Over the last century, women, at least when it comes to fashion, have been in pursuit of the purist red they can create or get a hold of, the Holy Grail of red, to accent their lips and nails. Pay close attention while watching TV, next time a flurry of cosmetic commercials graces your big screen TV. Look for the color red in the spokes models, the logos, the design of the packaging. Fashion-centric females are drawn to it.

Red is philanthropy. In an era of awareness and technology, red represents health, life, caring and empathy. Several charities, non-profits, and institutions created only to help others, have popped up that use this color. Some examples are Project (RED), The Red Ribbon Campaign, the longest standing one of these, The Red Cross.

Red is urgency. Whether it be flashing red lights or the color of emergency vehicles, when we see red, we know something is happening that requires immediate attention. Red has a way of systematically getting the adrenaline going in all of us.

Red is a temperature. Red isn’t even though hottest color in the spectrum of heat, yet we want it to be. Red Hots candy, The Red Hot Chili Peppers…you name it, we’ve used it. Just about every logo I’ve seen promoting heat, sensuality, anger,

Red is in charge. Regardless if it’s in photos, when there is an intense sunset, whether it be a large graffiti mural across an urban sprawl, even the most ridiculously small percentage of red in an object, always stands out and makes itself known. Whenever I’m working on an oil painting, when it’s time to mix the color red in with anything, it just dominates the mix and I never feel like I have control over it. I can put a huge pile of any color on a palette, and then drop only a tiny pinch of red in it, and depending on the color I mixed it with, most of the time, the entire mix ends up overwhelmed by it.

Red is unique. Red is a force. My theory about this color is this…..

….the reason why we’re compelled to lean towards it to make an important point, the reason that we use it as the ultimate augmentation of anything visual when there’s something missing but we can’t put our finger on it, the reason it scares us, the reason it makes us excited and passionate and feel like we’re alive, the reason that it generates a feeling of urgency like no other color can do, the reason why vampires are capable of creating a cultural and social craze that is unstoppable in every generation all the way back to the Nosferatu days…..in my opinion, is because represents the one thing that is required for all living things with a heartbeat to exist. If you were to remove all red blood from the planet, there is nothing. Sure plant life might flourish for a little bit but only until it’s overgrowth strangles itself due to the lack of red-blooded herbivores to balance it out. But, essentially that would be it, done, FIN. Our use of this color in everything is an indication of the magnitude and importance of why we are here, and how much we realize it – consciously……subconsciously.