The Friendship Reprise

Been doing a lot of thinking about friendships and how quickly they can be formed and how even quicker they can fall apart. From an old entry written over a year ago...

Ultimately, a friend is someone who you can lean on for support and they can lean on you. It sounds simple, but that’s all there is to it. And yet, everyone needlessly complicates such a basic premise. Be there for you, I’ll be there for you. I know I’m not the best at forging relationships, but I’m still at quite a loss as to what actually creates lasting bonds. Is it just an innate compatibility among friends? Is it a unique shared experience that binds people together? Or is it something… more?
The best of friends are those who understand me. In other words, they can parse out the bullshit from reality, and force me to deal with issues and events that may otherwise remain buried. I can say whatever I want to them and they won’t get offended or bitchy; instead they’ll throw it right back.
Friendship is not an unwillingness to sacrifice even a second of your time for a friend. It is not the pointless “how was your day?” and “fine” conversations that loveless marriages are made out of. It is not going out together many nights in a row. It is not judging someone time and time again for little reason than spite. It is not an an inability to recognize when friends are going through a rough time.

Friendship is sacrificing time for a friend, because they need you. It is the 2 a.m. conversations where all is laid bare. It is spending a minute, a day, a month with them merely because you know that it’ll be a good night as long as they’re with you. It is dispensing objective advice without scorn, even though it is likely that said advice will never be followed. It is an unconscious ability and willingness to
ask, “what’s wrong” even if they’re aren’t shouting their feelings from the rooftops.

Friendships are what they are. Hold on to the ones you have, and try and nurture a few more while you’re at it. Life is too short to waste on lifeless nights, dull conversations, and false friends.

Great Moments in Male Friendship

Me:
blargh
american women suck
J:
oh yeah?
Me:
no real reason to say it
just needs to be said
i mean, dont get me wrong
ALL women are crazy
but american women are the craziest
J:
naturally
we had a big party last night
and i have a couple leads im workin on now
Me:
see, i've been out of the party scene for awhile now
and I was like
hey, i'm going to try and talk to these girls sober
jesus christ that is a terrible idea
J:
i mean, these are all girls i've known for a while but havent been able to act toward cuz i've been in a relationship til now
Me:
ah
yes
go man go!
score for all of us
J:
workin on it!
Me:
yeah, i'm fairly sure "getting to know them" is a dumb, dumb tactic
"lets go out for coffee" might as well be "here are my balls, please take them from me"
J:
last night i was doin well i thought then this one girls roommates made her leave...then another i was even more sure i was in but i think itll happen another day
hahaah
yupp
Me:
its just a fact
drunk steve has more game than sober steve
J:
oh same here
no question
Me:

i'm half thinking of learning to fake a british accent so I can get tail in canada
J:
ho damn
such an actor
Me:
heh
if only if only
but seriously, this country is driving me to celibacy
it's like I had an abundance of riches thrown at my feet, and then I woke up one day and the goods were shoddier and the prices higher
J:
oh man
i mean its not THAT bad here
Me:
haha
dont mind me, I'm just bitter
A and I are just kinda... whatever
she was sick this week and i was busy so we havent talked all wee
and I ended up halfassedly asking out another girl
who... eh
and most of the guys I know down here are of the "sensitive, love and respect girls and they will love you back" philosophy
which is why it's great to get online and talk to you and just say "'dem girls are crazy bitches"
J:
hahah
oh yes
but i am A SINGLE GUY WHAT THE HELL
Me:
see, eventually that becomes IM A SINGLE GUY.... MEH
J:
haha word
i have prospects now at least...in chi its gonna be rough
Me:
bars
yeah, i have no idea
i'll be shooting blind in canada
but I do my best work that way

"If heaven is for clean people, it's vacant"

I'm fairly sure I'm falling apart.

One Week, Three Poems

For my spoken word class. Credit to Professor Herrera for throwing us out into the deep end early and often.

Fuck to Feel Alive

I’m lost surfing through the tidal waves of the day to day, the week to week, the end all be all do-what you can never enough existence that we try to call “Living”
It’s as bleak and as bright as ever, like a cascading orange burst adjacent to our perceptions.

As I feel the razor slice through the layers of my life I’m desperate to recall anything, anyone, anywhere that makes me feel like I’m something meaningful, someone divine, somewhere spiritual.
Instead the blood begins to seep out like droplets of a past I never had, a present I loathe, and a future that’s as fated as it is damned.

I try to tap into the glowing arms of nostalgia, but all I can find are girls with paper thin personalities, wafer thin bodies, and a shocking sincerity towards submission.
All I want to believe in now is the girls who taste like sin

Every word she says is lathered in seduction, so confident in her belief that every step has a purpose, every word a meaning, every gesture a sign.

I can still picture her in the hazy distance like sepia-toned Perfection
Did she break out of the chains of her expectations or is she still struggling, grasping, holding onto the arcane notion that her place is to kneel just a little lower at the feet of her newest escape?

We want to feel pain because we live painless lives
We make love to feel loved
We fuck to feel alive
The bleeding has stopped, but I still enjoy the scars.

Nostalgia

My mind works overtime every night, throwing out ideas and promises and thoughts and musings too often to control them. I feel as if at any moment I could float away into the clouds, either because I’m that worthless or that important. I thought I’d think about one thing while drifting off but instead my mind has veered like a runaway train between sanity and fulfillment. Mostly though, I think about the past, about nostalgia, about the way it was.

Objectively, I know that my four months in Ireland were good but not as good as the memories suggest. Laughing with Dave, Kevin, and Robin over Dave’s solemn insistence that he was more likely to use his penis as a comic prop than for sex. Trying to explain to many a drinker that Bush wasn’t evil, just very very incompetent. Getting drunk because of the moment, instead of in spite of it. Girls with something more to say than agreement and a nod. We’re all too busy popping pills and heading towards a vague sense That Everything is Wrong but It’s Not My Fault.

Maybe the Irish have it figured out. Or maybe nostalgia has sunk into me the way it did to Don Draper. All I know is that there is that there, life was worth chasing. Here, Life is too new to truly judge, but at least I’ve got my running shoes on.

Another election, Another Audition


Another election, another audition
I’m overwhelmed by the carefully calculated,
Audience approved, mandatory message masturbation
Promoting another pointless Celebration
Of our broken down and bastardized
Assembly line, Pre-packaged Bullshit
by the best at K Street

There’s the battle damaged, war ready
GI Joe of a man
More apt to punch Cobra Commander
Than contain the careers of combat
Where men hold their rifles high,
But Hang their heads low,
As they stand united in prayer
That the Gambler didn’t gamble
Their lives away

Then there’s that empty suit of a man
Balls not included
More content to hurl words like “Hope”
“Change” and “Believe” in the air like
potpourri for the masses
Than challenge the charity of his contributors
300,000 from Stanley, 400,000 from Chase, 650,000 from Morgan
9 million from Wall Street
The numbers speak for those who cannot

This talk of
New Frontiers, New Deals, Contracts, Promises,
Revolutions, Revelations, and Change
Have been thrown around longer than our faith in them
The only thing new about Obama is the
Color of his skin, not the Content of his speeches
And if you think “Yes, We Can” then all I can ask
Is if it’s better than the magic act of the disappearing
Straight Talk Express

Myth of the Maverick
Myth of the Message
What’s the difference?

Touched by An Angel

You know, despite my cynical facade I'm actually a fairly optimistic guy. Our nation has dealt with worse, failed more spectacularly, and has enough dirty sins and proud achievements to fill a few dozen history books. We're a nation borne by and has now given birth to enough paradoxes to boggle the mind. In America, symbols have always been more important than any smidgen of objective reality.

Some days though... it all gets to be a bit too much. No, I'm not talking about the recent economic collapse. I'm talking about a poll that shows that 68% of Americans believe in Angels (Yes, Fucking Angels! 68%!).

Then we wonder why we can't be get along perfectly with the rest of the West in Europe. Well, Europe doesn't believe in Angels. Perhaps it's better that way, but after reading Matt Taibbi's infiltration into those crazy conservative Christian bootcamps in The Great Derangemetn I do truly fear for our country.

I don't want to sound like Mr. Liberal Atheist here. For one, I'm not really a liberal nor am I an atheist. I believe that my deeply personal struggles in understanding The Powers That Be are mine and mine alone. Sometimes though, I do wonder if you can ever truly divorce America from it's papacy.

The Slam, The End, and A Beginning

Being back home in California usually leaves me feeling vaguely lost as I stumble around the same house I spent most of my life in. This time, things are different. I spent part of the weekend looking at future homes near UCR, where I will no doubt spend most of my time hopefully getting shitfaced off terrible beer and writing a lot. Hope springs eternal.

However, this entry isn't about being back in California. It's about saying goodbye to Boston. Really there was no better ending I could have imagined than finally taking part in a slam poetry competition before I left. After warming up with a poem I originally wrote two years ago, I finally stepped up and delivered Heavenly Father Forgive Me. Originally written at the August 4th Slam while listening to other poets perform, I couldn't dare to miss the chance of standing on stage and delivering what is, in many ways, an ode to Boston.

After I finished performing it and getting pretty good scores (combined with the first poem, I placed third out of fourth), I had a few people from the audience come up and thank me for my poem. One guy even declared it the best he had heard that night. And really, that alone is enough to keep me writing for atleast another month or two. While I was in front of the mic, I could feel my pulse risng as I hurried through the words. But when I hit the second half of the poem, I instead felt my voice grow ever louder as I rang out a new declaration. Although supposedly written for a competition, I think I wrote it more for my own inner peace than needless applause.

Heavenly Father Forgive Me

Heavenly father forgive me, but I’m tired of being me
I’m tired of being told that male masculinity is the religion to which I must aspire to.
Every waking moment in my all too constrictive life when all I see is arbitrary disillusionment, willful abandonment, and meaningless pleasantries
Why must I congratulate the swollen swagger of a peer as he raves about how he “tore that shit up”, as he lectures endlessly about our duties as Men, while he condescends every woman he meets?
Macho is a word best used for the primitive, those that still cling to gender roles out of tradition, necessity, or desperation.
Why does your scripture damn assertive woman for daring to do more than kneel at your feet like an always willing and waiting doormat?
Yet despite the toxic filth that you espouse, there are still so many women who worship you.
I have seen so many of them damn themselves to secondary silence just because of your so called Holy Word.
Heavenly father forgive me, but I cannot be me unless I reject you.
I cannot ascribe to your maxims, kneel in your pews, or pray for your continued domination any longer.
All I have is this, the redeclaration of my independence.

To hell with your arbitrary standards of masculinity!
Yes, I not only listen to but I actively enjoy Madonna, Kelly Clarkson, and all manner of kickass chick rock!
Yes,I like a good romance film every now and then because watching when harry met sally reminds me of how I felt when I met her.
And Yes,I get emotionally torn up after breaking up.
Because even though very few of us will admit it , we men don’t just remember our ex-girlfriends. We worship you in silence, too afraid of admitting that we feel pain through our supposedly impervious armor
So yes, I'm passive and indecisive and exhausted from the expectation to always take charge.
But as I return to you, the false prophet I realize that I am stronger than you will ever be.
Because your mask of masculinity only hides a well of insecurity.

Poetry Slam: August 4th

When I first started this blog I envisioned it as a chance to creatively dig in my heels and really get to the writing. For a while, my time in Dublin made everything briefly make sense. And then.... well then I returned to Boston. Here's what I recently posted on Girl with a One Track Mind's blog:

"I made the "mistake" of publicly linking my blog to my facebook account a few months ago and apparently I was a bit too honest and open about my sex life for most to handle. I lost a lot of friends because of what I posted, but then I realized that anyone who is going to demonize me because of my honesty isn't worth having in my life in the first place.

The problem is that now I'm constantly aware that people I know will be reading what I write and looking to criticize me on every tiny detail. Sure, I could go back to being anonymous but that somehow feels like a cheat.

I've taken to writing back in a notebook, far away from the internet and ever-watchful eyes. "

---------

It was my first real taste of criticism for criticism's stake. People weren't criticizing my writing style (which, let's be honest, has a long way to go) but they instead seemed to challenge the very idea that I could write so bluntly and honestly.

Which is why tonight was such a treat.

I've been meaning to go to a poetry slam for ages, but usually end up getting sidetracked/making lame excuses/legitimately get barred from entering. Freshmen year I performed Rafael Casal's "Barbie and Ken 101" in a communications class as an example of my favorite poem. Slam Poetry has always intrigued me by it's shameless raw emotion, brave proclamations, and a relaxed intensity difficult to describe. With no real commitments for the rest of my time in Boston and the knowledge that Boston will soon be but a memory, I resolved to hit up the poetry scene.

I met and talked and listened to an absolutely wonderful mix of people. I struck up a conversation with a guy next to me and we chatted about the struggle between wanting to be a writer and the knowledge that it's a shaky career path at best. We ended up being one of five judges for the Slam Competition. From an angry screed delivered by the angel Gabriel to a brilliant riff on Wall-Mart's limits to an ode to lover's gone by, I was blown away from start to finish.

Then the featured poet Jade came up and delivered some deliriously lyrical poetry that somehow struck me as something more than just spoken words. There was a "love" poem in particular that I'm still fully digesting.

For the first time in weeks, I was inspired to write.I threw open my notebook and hastily scribbled down a few thoughts that had been bouncing around my skull for the past day or so. Before the night was over, I stumbled over to the mic and hurriedly performed what I had written. Even though I skipped verses, mumbled words, and spoke three times too fast I felt liberated. There's another Poetry Night on wednesday; if I gather up the courage I might polish and perform "Lord Forgive Me" again at the Open Mic.

The MC, Jeff, repeatedly talked about how this Sunday gathering was his own version of Church. As I sat there compelled by the raw emotonal honesty of strangers, I thought to myself that I couldn't agree more.

This entry is a complete mess, but I could care less. For the briefest of moments, I feel inspired and ready to grab life by the throat and tell it that I'm not done yet.