Racing Home ( Jason's Mask)

"And me I'm in a rock'n'roll band Hah! Ridin' in a Stutz Bear Cat, Jim,You know, those were different times!"
 -Velvet Underground

  To say that Jason Mascaras was a fan of Jackson Whitlock's poetry wouldn't be accurate. It would be better to say that Jason Mascaras was a fan of Jackson's daughter Elise. Elise Whitlock was not only in Jason's math and history classes, but she was in his head  nearly all of his waking hours. 
Elise Whitlock was the only child of Jackson Whitlock and his ex-wife Rosario. 
Jason spent hour after hour trying to figure out how exactly to get Elise to notice him, give him at least the time of day. 
Nothing seemed to work.
He wrote songs for her.
He anonymously sent her flowers.
He "accidentally" bumped into in the hallway, in the cafeteria, at the mall - basically anywhere he could see her. 
All for nothing.
Then one day,finally, he struck gold.
Jason overheard Elise praising her father Jackson's poetry.
To say that Jason Mascaras was ignorant about poetry would be an understatement.
He wasn't simply ignorant, he ridiculed and hated it.
To him, it was effeminate and boring. It was for nerds and chicks.
But, it was a foot in the door.


   

Some New Thoughts...

   So now maybe the new trick is not giving a fuck.

It sounds so easy, so rock and roll.

The question is not only how, but when, and where? 

The bigger, more important question is should I even try to start giving a fuck.

Is it even possible ?

For fuck's sake, sometimes I even cry during sad or "inspirational" scenes in movies. 
Maybe it's all a bit like magic - in the illusion, in the slight of hand.

I just have to pretend to not give a fuck. 

Don't show my cards.

Keep everything close to my chest.

No need to wear anything, ( like my stupid heart, for example), on my sleeve.

No need to boast or brag.

Just keep quite.

Don't reveal.

Don't tell stories about "how one time, I did this or that..."
Don't fall in love.
Don't share.

Don't let them know how you feel, not too much anyway.

Because in the end, everyone gives a fuck about something, even if it's nothing more than the fear of other people not thinking that you don't give a fuck about anything.

Hyperactivity, Excessive Drinking, Over-active Libidos and Drugs - cont.

But, oh well, fuck it. 
No regrets, right ?
Just get tougher stronger.
Keep learning.
No one can be happy all the time.
Or funny.
Or the life of the party.
Or the person that everyone wants to be around.
It's better to just embrace the hyper-activity.
Accept it - no regrets, right?
So, by not drinking excessively I'm left with myself.
Alone.
Not alone on an island.
I am the island. 
Sometimes it's sunny and warm.
Sometimes it rains.
Sometimes it's overcast and cold - freezing.
Sometimes there are rainbows and sometimes there is fog.
But it is always changing - never static.
And if others don't like it, can't deal with it, won't accept it, fuck it, no regrets, right ?
No reason to continue the half-assed notion of change - of trying to be someone different. 
Maybe if I was having more sex, none of this would be an issue.
One of the ways that hyper-activity manifests itself is in the form of  an active libido. Makes sense right ? 
If I was fucking more, I'd have less time to be bored. 
Less time to think about all the crazy shit flying around in my head.
When a person goes from having sex three to four times a day to once every other month, there's a lot of free, dead time.
Time to contemplate and feel guilty.
Time to imagine and get paranoid.
Time to drink.
Time to take drugs.
Time to dull and numb my over-active brain.
Time to try to forget.
But the memories always come back.
They can not be escaped from.
Trying to drown them with whiskey, wine, or smoke only makes them stronger, more viscious.
So fuck it, embrace them. They are mine. 
No regrets, right ?

Hyperactivity, Excessive Drinking, Over-active Libidos and Drugs

" It's getting dark, too dark too see..."
   - Bob Dylan, " Knocking on Heaven's Door".
  
  Hyper-activity, that's the answer, that's the huge problem that has been dominating, fucking-up, destroying my life.  
At least that's what some people have told me in the past, ( mostly the "grown-ups" of my life, teachers, etc...) - that I'm hyper-active, hyper-emotional, and hyper-rebelious. 
But what really does that mean - hyper-activity ? Why shouldn't I just be myself- at the end of the day, I like myself alot more when I'm allowed to be myself.
Other people like me more too, when I let me be me...

What does it really mean -  over-active imagination, over- thinking, being too perceptive, too inquisitive ?
Basically, thinking too much.
Over-analyzing.
Not being satisfied.  
  I remember so well all of the reports that my Ma recieved from my schools -
"Jeremy really seeks attention. He's quite hyperactive, disruptive in class. He calls out in class with either the correct answers or just jokes - sometimes they are a bit of both."
I was so bored.
Unless I was doing something, ( normally, only something that I wanted to do), I was bored, uninterested. 
Not satisfied.
Then I discovered alcohol.
I probably discovered masterbation first, but alcohol seemed (and was), more effective. 
More numbing, more mellowing. 
Masterbation only made me hornier, more restless.
They couldn't complain that I was too hyper,too disruptive - if I just could just get drunk and quitely hide in a corner.
I may have actually discovered tobacco first. It also seemed to calm me down, mellow me out. 
Relax my hyperactivity. 
But in the end, it's never enough.
 So, the alcohol did it's job - not that the job was very noble, or at all helpful to me. It basically only helped me and taught me how to lie.-not just to lie to the people around me, the people I care about - but also to myself. 
It almost worked.
I became lazy. 
Weak.
I tryed to use alcohol to try to change who I was.
I didn't want to misbehave, I didn't want to get yelled at, didn't want to get reprimanded, but most importantly I didn't want to feel the restlessness of hyperactivity. 
I didn't want to have the strong personality that I was born with - the strong personality that my Ma always tried to cultivate. Even when I was getting yelled at as a kid, my Ma would try to make sure that I learned something, some kind of lesson. 
She trained me, taught me to be strong.

I was too weak to handle it.
I gave up.
I became soft
Sad.
Not funny anymore, not interesting, not challenging. 
Alcohol did it's job.
The world told me that I was hyper, I was out of control.
Fuck that !
No regrets, right ?
The people, who in the end, don't give a fuck, who only want to make their own little pieces of the world peaceful, they don't care.
They don't want the Jeremy that questions everything.
They don't want the one who analysizes everything.
They don't want the one who creates.
They don't want the who who cries or the one that sings.
They don't want the one who dreams or the one that screams.
All they really want is the fucked-up version. 
The one who drinks too much and is easily manipulated. 
The one who secretly gets drunk and because he doesn't want problems, because he doesn't want to get in trouble - tries to remain secret, but in the end is so ridiculous,
the one who lies,
so obvious,
and finally, in the end seems so sad.
"Big mouth strikes again."


   

Remember When I Said... / Sobriety on St. Patty's Day ?

  So, I recall writing a while back that I wanted to have sex with a prostitute. Well today the opportunity presented itself.
 It was just  past sunset and I sat down to have a cigarette in the lovely modern park with the interesting fountain that resembles a castle wall with knights peering over the top. A girl walks up to me and asks if I speak English."Yes", I answered and she sat down. I'm thinking, "wow this girl is kind of pretty, maybe I would, I dunno ? She's got a nice body and she looks between 30-35, maybe she has a nice fuck." She then asked me if I wanted company. Without thinking about it, I said, "yeah sure no problem". I thought she just wanted to have a chat, sit on the bench, maybe she was gonna ask me for a smoke. Then again she asked me the same thing, "Did I want company?". The second time, I understood what she meant - she was a prostitute.
This was my chance - fuck it, no regrets, right ?
 I causally answered, "No, I'm fine". She asked if I was sure and before I could answer she asked, with desperate lost eyes if I could give her five euro, or even one euro -something.
Any sexual urge that may have been tickled was now bathing in freezing ice cold water. It was too sad.
Truly pitiful
Nothing can take a piss on a libido like sad desperation.
I told her that I didn't have anything - sorry.
She left and it was then that I remembered that I'd written that I wanted to have a fuck with a prostitute.
I also remembered that it's St. Patrick's day and I'm totally sober.
I guess I'm not ready yet.    
Or maybe I am. 

Thoughts of Today on Stuff -continued

   I want to stop trying to make things around me perfect, to stop searching for perfection. To stop using that evil fucking word.
It is a waste of time, a neverending persuit - like a dog chasing and trying to catch it's tail.
Frustration.
Nothing is perfect.
There is no perfect husband or wife.
There is no perfect boyfriend or girlfriend.
There are no perfect families, parents, or people.
Sorry Lou Reed, but there are no "Perfect Days" either.
Maybe there are images of perfection, but they are only illusions. 
We can however feel perfection. Like an orgasm, for example, the climax.
Perfection.
The Rolling Stones aren't the only who who can't get satisfaction. No one can.
All we can do is search for those perfect feelings and cherish them, appreciate them.
Love, of course is not perfect. But the feeling of love is or maybe that's just the orgasmic feeling again.
No regrets.
The point is that we have to stop rating, compairing, complaining, analyizing,over-analysizing every person, place, and thing untill it all ends up looking like an aborted elephant man that got butt-raped by a grizzley bear.
But, again, fuck it. No regrets, right ?
This doesn't mean that we have settle, we just have to keep ourselves busy - keep searching, keep laughing, running, jumping, singing, screaming, smiling, dancing, crying, eating, traveling, drinking, loving, dreaming, liking, fucking, (there's that orgasm again ) for those perfect feelings.
And in the end, maybe the climax really is the only perfection.
That or chocolate.
But in the end, fuck it !
No regrets.

Thoughts of Today on Stuff

   So I've got loads of notes flying around in my head - things that I want to do, things that I shouldn't have done (said, thought, etc...), and things that I don't want to do.
I suppose we all have lists of this sort and most of our regrets are basically pointless in the end - just keep on learning.
   I'd like to have sex with a prostitute for one thing. Why not ?
No commitment, no effort, no real work involved.
Except for the sex, unless you're totally lazy.
Notice I didn't write, "I'd like to have sex with a whore". 
Are those really two different things, two different statements ?
I think so.
Quite often we are all whores - we whore out ourselves and say the hell with dignity.
We take jobs we hate - which are demeaning.
We sacrifice our minds and bodies for money.
We sell out.
We live existences that we are not proud of -like working as a cleaner in a certain Belgian hostel -but fuck it, regrets are bullshit.
  So if we're all whores sometimes, then we've all been fucked before - sexually or not.
Without dignity, without money.
At least prostitute sounds nicer, more professional,  like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman".
Actually, call girl sounds better still - classy.
A slut or an easy woman is a different story altogether and that's been done, ( I won't even start on the topic of the hypocrisy of male/female sexual activity). 
No regrets.
  In the end, I doubt that I will go with a prostitute, but if I do, I have a strong feeling that I won't feel good about. Who knows ? 
Masterbation's cheaper.
But again, fuck it, no regrets, right ?  

  I'd like to learn French. I'd like to learn Italian. I'd like to learn Japaneese, I'd like to learn Portugeese, etc... This one's obvious - just move my ass.

  I want to travel to Asia - Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, etc... again this one's obvious - move my ass, plan it and do it.

 I want to buy a motorcycle. Not just any piece of crap. Not the one that's the cheapest - the best deal. No, I want a Harley- Davidson - rock and fucking roll !
No explanations.
Of course, no regrets.

  So, now on to the things I don't want... (this could also be better entitled things I hate, or at least don't like)
I don't want to drink - at least not two bottles of whiskey in two days.
Sometimes the things we like or even love the most are the worst for us (eg. Single malt whiskey, Guiness, women, cocaine,etc...)
I refuse to say some kind of bullshit like,"I'll never touch a drop of alcohol ever again".
That is ridiculous. Anyone who makes a statement like that is unrealistic and stupid.  
Imagine - Penelope Cruz walks up to me and asks me to take multiple shots of tequila off of her naked body.
No brainer, right?
Of course, I would do that anyday,everyday, forever,(feel free to insert any of your own personal fantasies into this statement, I've got loads of women and scenerios regarding this. Another list...).
No regrets,right ?

Racing Home (A Bit On Sergio)

  " Most stories, most good stories at least, have a conflict or even a disaster - burned bridges, vomited in someone elses diary, drunkenly falling into a birthday cake. If there's not alcohol involved, then there's drugs, danger, Hollywood-style explosions, espionage, treachery, jealousy, blood, guts, shit, fornication, longing for love, clinging to love, lost love - it almost always seems to return to love", Sergio Williams announced to the young students on the first day of creative writing class. "Your masterpieces, and yes, you do all have masterpieces inside, may never be performed. They may remain unfinished - perpetually changing, improving. The most important thing is the opening - the first notes - for they should ring -out majestically. They are the cornerstones, the building blocks. The first notes must soar. They will draw the crowd. They will announce something lovely, something important to the world, to the heavens, to the gods." 

  What a load of pompous bullshit, thought Jackson Whitlock, as he sat in the back row of his first creative writing class. He began daydreaming about baseball when something Williams said took a strange hold of the 18 year-old Jackson - "You must dig, excavate, discover, and define all words, so that they will be set free to shine radiantly beneath the sun. Set them free from the cavernous depths of your memories."

  Even though, he thought 90 percent of what his professor was preaching on about was flowery crap, the image of words trapped in a deep cave appealed greatly to Jackson. It gave him the sense of discovering buried treasure - of adventure.   

Racing Home ( More About the Poem)

 "Under the Kerosene Lamp", was not first written by Sergio Williams. In fact, it was not written by Dominic West - the poet Williams had "acquired" it from. It was actually written in 1936 by Quinton J. Arnsberg. Arnsberg was a relatively well-regarded author of children's fiction. He had written the poem while on what was discreetly referred to as a "spa holiday".
  Nineteen hundred and thirty six was the year that Quinton J. Arnsberg retired from writing children's fiction - he made this decision after spending two months in the Bon Secours Catholic Hospital Rest and Rehabilitation Home. He voluntarly entered the rest home after he was discovered by his wife and son digging in his backyard for what he described as "his buried soul". In total he dug seventeen holes of varying depths. Not only he he state that he was searching for his lost soul, he also said he was going to dig a hole to Korea, where he said he," just wanted to stop in and say hello".

In 1936, no one really used to words mental health clinic, or psychiatric hospital, or even looney bin - but that's where he was. 
It was while sitting in one of the pristine gardens of the home, that he began composing the poem in question. He had just finished one his, "Peaceful Meditations with Watercolors", classes and as he watched two squirrels race up and down a mammoth maple tree, the poem began to impregnate his mind.  


  Dominic West began his unorthodox journey into the world of poetry in 1920 by pure accident. 


His father, Clinton West a simple farmer had given the seventeen year ago Dominic a mandate. "Put up that damn tire swing before I get back from the grocery !" It was the end of April, the time of year  when sometimes even the smallest of Indiana farms could be filled with a simple basic optimism - it may be a great year, good yield, might get enough to make it through the winter."This could finally be my big year...", was a quote that seemed to linger over nearly every market, feed store, dinner, gas station, bingo hall, church parking lot, liquor store parking lot and bar in Indiana. 
Normally, this lasted until no later than the fifth of May. Then, the optimism would blow away, like a balloon let go at a county fair - maybe, someone else would find it...? 
In the end, most people returned to their cynical, down -on everything selves. 


With the West family this flirtation with optimism and joy ended much sooner and much more abruptly than for most. 

Dominic was always quick to follow his father's orders. He was a good student, a starter on the varsity high school basketball team, a member of the student government, a member of the Future Farmers of Americas, and a dedicated Catholic.
As he dragged out the eight foot step ladder, a long portion of rope, and an old truck tire, Dominic too felt the springtime surge of hope. He had recently had a favorable meeting with a college recruiter from Perdue University and the girl he fancied the most in school, Margret Lloyd, had agreed to go with him to the "Sons and Daughters of the Prairie", spring social.The world was smiling.
Dominic set up the ladder beneath the sturdy branch of a walnut tree twenty yards away from the recently whitewashed barn. After securing the rope to the tire, he tossed one end over the branch and climbed up the ladder. Once he got to the top, he started to tie a strong knot around the branch.
At exactly 12:48 pm on Tuesday 11th, 1920, Dominic began his unusual journey into the world of poetry. It was at this particular moment in time that Clinton West returned from his weekly trip to the grocers. " Son ! What are you doing ? Help ! Someone, Help !", Clinton desperately screamed at the top of his lungs. As Clinton threw his grocery bags on the ground and rushed to his first-born son dangling from the walnut tree, millions of thoughts flooded his brain - " What did I do wrong ? - Why God ?- Was he depressed ?- Is he alive? No, please Lord, don't let him be gone..." Clinton grabbed the boys legs and managed to place them on his shoulders, relieving the pressure on his neck. His face and lips had a blue-ish tint. "Boy, are you okay, can you hear me ?", Clinton now gently spoke. He heard a muffled cough and what he imagined to be a whimpered "Da", coming from his son above him. "It's gonna be okay son. I gotcha." Clinton managed to manouver the ladder closer so that he could place Dominic's legs on one of the rungs. He then climbed up, removed the rope from around his neck, slung the seventeen year-old promising student's nearly lifeless body over his shoulder, and proceded to carry him down the ladder.

Dominic West had only spent 3.5 minutes hanging from that rope. Not only was it the longest scariest three and a half minutes of his life, it was also the most important three and a half minutes of his life. Many years later, he would look back gratefuly to the events of that fateful day.
How exactly it happened Dominic never quite explained. He stated that he "just lost his balance"and somehow - maybe divine intervention, maybe something else, he was caught in mid-air with a rope twisted around his neck and the ladder out of reach.   


     

  

Racing Home (The Thing About Rosario)

  Rosario de la Cruz was born in Denver, Colorado in the middle of one of the biggest blizzards the state had seen in over one hundred years. In fact, it was so bad that her father Victor de la Cruz refused to drive Teresa Garcia de la Cruz to the hospital. He argued," estos pinche Gringos don't know to drive in snow !" The independent-minded Teresa shouted in reply, "No, no, tu no pinche sabes, pinche pollo!" A woman in labor has no time for sugar-coating anything - especially when she's correct. Rosario was born on the middle of the kitchen floor, by Teresa herself.

Victor fainted at the sight of his daughter's head.

  The wicked blustery winds that were howling outside of the de la Cruz' small Colfax Ave. apartment in some way seemed to shape the infant Rosario's future disposition. In every personal relationship, she was cold, harsh, mean, and, unforgiving -in every relationship except for one: Jackson Whitlock, the shamed poet, her ex-husband. 

Racing Home, ( The Part About the Poem)

  " Under the Kerosene Lamp", was the title of the poem submitted to the 21th annual Renfard Kincade Poetry Competition by Jackson Whitlock, it was also the poem that led to his sacking from the university's English department. Additionally, it was this same poem( attributed to an even lesser-known poet named Sergio Williams), that was the catalyst of his first marriage -a young literature student named, Rosario de la Cruz.

 He had indeed stolen the poem from Williams and openly admitted to it. Arguing before the university board he shouted ,"With the changes I made - that I had to make, (in reality only  9 words out of 124), I've given this poem the proper birth it deserves, it has been liberated"! 

 This was three years before he started talking to pidgeons.

Standing in a Waterfall

It is said that we are hanging on the edge of  Earth - now is the end of words.
Literature has fallen.
What unholy secrets do they know ?

We are archetypes, mental images, heavenly sparks, hatched from the statues of ancient gods - we can not perish.

We will be transformed.
Transformed into bright neon campfires, 
into lighthouses on the banks a vast river, 
into brilliant torches along subterranean paths. 
As iridescent moths we are drawn to luminance.
Like the note of an omnipresent song, we resonate.

We are words.
Poetry is battle.

Serena de las Rosas

Walking the kids down shiny avenues.

"Maria santa, madre de dios, llena de tolerancia, el señor está con nosotros."

Up stairs to apartment - stench of heat.

"Bendicen le entre mujeres."

Scrubbing the floor, in the humid/quiet eve.

"Se bendice la fruta de su matriz, Jesús."

Drops of dirty water are catching a light.

"Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores."

Rosary beads bounced as she ran from guns -
hiding, huddling in the jungle -
crying to the moon, crying to above.

"A la hora de nuestra muerte ..."

Now in the new country, with more dreams than war -
washing away :
memories, 
rats,
cells,
midnight screams.

"Amén".

Racing Home (part 1)

"And I didn't notice that I wore no shoes."
 - Pramoedya Ananta Toer,"Footsteps"

  The last message that Anne Singer sent to the hardly known and nearly never read poet Jackson Whitlock, went unopened for nearly seven years.
It was around the time of the sending of the message that pidgeons, and almost exclusively pidgeons, were the only creatures he communicated with . Really, he was just bribing them, paying for their attention with old bread. They never answered back.

  Earlier that year, Whitlock had published his third book of poetry entitled, "Reeds of Sorrow". It was generally trashed by the few critics who had even noticed it. At the time it seemed to Jackson that the only champions of his efforts were -

Anne Singer : pediatric nurse, former ballet dancer, Whitlock's former work colleage.

Jason Mascaras : Seventeen year old senior and bass player/ founder of the garage -punk band, "Eric Please Don't Fuck the Puppy".

Rosario de la Cruz : Whitlock's ex -wife, long-distance truck driver.

Elise Whitlock : Jason and Rosario's seventeen year old daughter.

Even Jackson Whitlock himself, could not be counted amongst the fans of his work. Unfortunately, he was totally unaware of his most dedicated, loyal, and important fan. He was frustrated and depressed - two facts that manifested themselves in Whitlock's newest behavior : talking to pidgeons.