A Reticents Dream...

Just then a passing stranger -
and the music played,
no sleep in the house of Us

There It Is

I had so many things - just little. I cannot recall all of 'em now, but I will press on with what I still have access to before it is too late. Tonite I learned several things, as I usually do in a night's unravelling, but one important lesson was the revelation of one man's life. This man, who shall remain nameless - he is too good to give up, a secret dandy I will guard closely until I can further investigate come the warm blooming months of summer - I have already given too much - leads a lifestyle that I have dreamed of living for almost as long as I started forming thoughts, certainly as far back as I can clearly recall. O, what a life this man leads. He has done with society and so-called norms what I wish to do every Thursday morning with my trash bags; kicked 'em to the curb for someone else to deal with, and, rightfully so (we are both tax payers, I think...I know I am). This man, in his outlandish and desireable dealings and lack of concern for the acceptance of him by others, has become a complete and self-suficient and very rich vagabond. O, saying more would give him away, probably to no readers of this Dream, but taking the chance is not worth risking such a hopeful and very possible prospect for a sit down of breeze and shit and bull shooting. I'll come fully loaded to this man and fire! Bang. Bang. Bang. Get ready, Lil' Darlin. I've got my eyes on you and my life just might depend on it.

I also learned, from a very insightful drunk, that there, on average, is one drunk at every party. I think what he meant, and I have to cut the guy some slack (he was drunk), was that there is always someone drunk before the rest...although I do feel bad for the people whose table and floor (hardwood, luckily) he spilled hot candle wax and decorative pepper all over. But hey, tis the season.

A few days ago I missed out on a free coffee at the nearest Tim Horton's. Turns out somebody felt the need (kudos to him) to pass across the counter one $100.00 banknote as an early gift, leaving instructions for Tim's employees to use it to pay for as many coffees as would be allowed until the money was all gone, into the hands of Corporate Canada. Ok, so it was a great and unselfish and fitting gesture for the times. The young man, slightly older than myself and wearing a long knee-length beige wool coat looking rather bohemian, stuck around long enough to greet the last lucky exiting customer: a surprised and upbeat older man exited the building where the Santa imposter (good human imposter?) was enjoying seeing the benefits of his good deed come to life while smoking a butt in the cold. I only caught the tail end of the man who brightened several dozen mornings for the working dreary, but I was able to piece together the account with lingering talk of amazement and wonder and delight back inside the shop, and I witnessed his quiet and strange exit as he hopped back in his Bobcat A300, tucking in his coattails as he took a seat between the joysticks and bumbled off to face the day. I wasn't as impressed as most were. I do things like this, on a smaller scale, almost daily. I certianly did appreciate his act of kindness, however.

Finally, I have been mourning the loss of Kerouac lately. Four more years and he will have died 40 years ago. Reading Desolation Angels is hard for me in the sense that he defies, at least stretches, all realms of reasonable and acceptable writing style. Stream of Consciousness, Sontaneous Prose, whatever. How does this help in my studying of the craft? Still, Kerouac writes from the heart and soul and very outer edges of the thought producing mind, leaving all behind in place of the truth. I ache for the man - not now, but in his past life. Mostly, I guess, I just ache for my yearning and my self-pity, for the fact remains and always will that in this lifetime I will have only the long written words of he and his friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, along with several films, recorded interviews, and literary criticisms to further develop my understanding of the man, although I don't see how anyone could come up with the latter.

Criticism? Kerouac? No.

I love and idolize a dead man. I love Jack for at the very least giving us this: "Offer them what they secretly want and they of course become immediately panic-stricken."

I can't say for sure what Kerouac was thinking or referring to when he wrote these words in On the Road, but I can say for sure how I apply them in my tiny ripple of existence. They apply to the people who have such problems in life that they must incessantly, and probably unknowingly, use people to make themselves feel superior, or just better. For when I meet people such as this, I simply turn up the juice and give it to them in all the kindness my heart can afford, which happens to be a lot. People see, hear, and feel this kindness and are at a complete loss - they become panic-stricken, immediately. They don't know what to make of your pure and severe kindness. They don't know what to make of your love. They are stumped, and most importantly and hopefully they experience a change, whether slight or large but always significant, inside themselves. This is easy because most people, secretly or not so secretly, desire nothing more than a little love and attention from the things that they can relate to most in this version of lonely life: other people.

It's a shame we have rules and laws that govern most (not most, but some...and that is a lot) of our abilities to love one another. The few ruin it for the many; the brave trod on and love all.

Where's My Blog?

Something the good women possess when they reach that age of affirmation, when they become self-confidant. It seems to be only something that I can describe as: an assuredness about themselves regarding just what exactly they are; their ultimate functionality and dominance over any other living being this side of Heaven. They reach that certain age, and this depends greatly on the societal stature, but mostly with how they present themselves, and, subsequently, how they perceive themselves…. How dignified they seem. Do you not feel the same way? A woman can reach that status before you ever even know her, and, certainly, before you even afford your eyes to feast upon her. There is definitely something warm and special and strangely lascivious about portraying such sure kindness and refined charm. How many like this can there be? I feel it with the formation of a new smile – the initial parting of the well kempt lips and the brazen white of always uniquely placed, but extremely sexy, teeth. It shocks me with each flutter of tell-tale eye-lids, the kind that offer a thousand promises of hope to the yearning hearts and eager eyes of young boys and big-hearted men. What is a fair measuring tool of such stuff? All one can do is add up the softness of touching hands, the sweetness of slinky ‘s’ sounds, and that one electric moment when the tongue snugs itself 'tween the upper front teeth and lower fronts, in a soft, cradling vice, in order to further tantalize with the beginnings of a perfect “Thank you.”

Three nights ago I had the first dream that I have been able to recall in long time. I hadn’t realized it, but, until that point, I had not remembered dreaming for a long period of time. As it turned out, I had a second dream in as many nights. Both dreams seemed to stretch all governing factors, even as dreams are regulated – or, not regulated. The first had me putting my pigeonholed trust – it seemed I had no other choice at the time – in, not only the hands of a strange old hippie, but in the care – at the hippie’s suggestion – of several Great Lake Manatees in order to safe my compromised and soon-to-be-abandoned self. I had just previously been hosted to a very fine tropical paradise just across the lake, opposite the city of Toronto. A hidden oasis where nothing but fun and games occurred and the people were all very fantastic and the women were all very special, in all their unique ways. I also remember being magically brought back to a warm reality in a mysterious and unbeknownst fashion. The Manatees had, after-all, brought me back to my safe life the well-known normalcy of strangeness that makes me feel all the better. However, when I come to I find myself walking down an alley. Not a stereotypical dark and spooky and ya shouldn’t go down there but you do because you are starring in a 70’s Cult Horror Film and you have no real choice as if you exist for someone’s enjoyment, but not your own. This aforementioned alleyway took me to the back of an aged shop that revealed itself to be a great ol’ bookstore. Dammit, would you believe this bookstore, filled wall to wall, floor to roof, with books of many varieties and categories, but only one theme: that hidden oasis that had just hosted me with it’s harmless and completely hedonistic activities, like some sort of Roman Atrium amongst the scavenged sylvan surroundings that lie just across the lake from that opposing, and terribly imposing, city, behind that corporate retailer with the brightly lit signs.

The second odd fiction placed me somewhere unknown, perhaps old memories strung together in a new mixed setting creating something of sense for that time and place in my sub-conscious. There was an issue of having to deal with hiding two lifeless bodies, at least, somehow being involved – not having taken the lives, but being stuck, again, somehow pigeonholed unfairly, to deal with the mess. That, coupled with the trailing terrorist group and law enforcement agents respectively and the inherent and implicit responsibility I felt to take care of this toddler that always seemed to be in the picture, but that remains to be of mysterious origins, really had me on my toes.

I had a vision the other day, I call it a vision because at this point I cannot recall it, but I most definitely remember experiencing it’s occurrence, and it seemed to come to me in a daze. The place that I was first taken to (the hedonistic utopia, of sorts, that I first described), after being blindfolded and surreptitiously sedated, was just beyond a store with a bright high-standing pole sign, as well as a large and equally as bright sign adorning the side of their building; a Canadian Tire or Blockbuster, that sort.

Of course, so much more happened as I have only given a small gist – serving as a reminder of each strange play; each foreign account. I will probably look back with bewilderment on these two abstracts and remain as lost about the subject as I presently remain about the meaning.

-Part 3-

March 10, 2005
10:00 AM
Sta. Elena, Costa Rica

Directly out of my travelogue:

The standoff is over. The papers read: 9 dead, 17 injured.

At our hostel, the Pension Sta. Elena (very nice place and conveniently located), smooth jazz tries to touch some part of the mind that has not been poisoned by the events of the past 36 hours. Perhaps the DJ feels the mood will be brightened, even slightly, by such happy melodies. But I say BEWARE.

Beware of the jazz; the music that can turn on you faster than you can say Charlie Parker. Jazz is a musical storm of mixed emotions, taking you to the highest high and then, almost instantly, and before you know it, dropping you down into the dirtiest, sad low. I honestly don’t see how this will help, although I suppose it is more appropriate then Eminem singing about Jessica Simpson’s ass. And, besides that, the music must come on again sometime.

The standoff is over, but the painful reminders are seen everywhere: riding on the backs of ATV’s, sobbing, clutching tightly to the driver – not for safety, but because they may be all that is left; are marked with ominous placards on the streets; are the still closed cafes, restaurants, laundry services (where all my clothes happen to be – worse things have happened); are the pock-marked buildings that took, aside from human lives, the brunt of the wildly fired bullets. Yellow ribbon reminders are rolled up in the trashcans reading, “DO NOT CROSS LINE.” The mood and the talk are reminders enough.

Slowly, the town will regroup, re-open and continue on because they can. We will stay. I think it is a poor time and a poor reason to choose to leave at this point. A lot of tourists have already abandoned the good people who depend on them. Some of the locals are right back to work while others still sit on corners, or stand aimlessly, in disbelief; still surveying the remains of a violent and deadly 36 hours. Jokes are cracked here and there, and why not?

A new age Hunter Thompson (less writer, more photographer), who I first saw in the bar we took refuge in when the standoff was still in its infancy and getting into our hostel (a small parking lot away from the bank) was completely out of the question, has always turned up with his dirty vest, gator boots, ripped jeans, Imperial hat and vintage yellow-tinted glasses. He usually toted a digital SLR camera and an opened beer, or two (thank goodness for carrying straps on cameras).

Apparently the proprietor of an advertising/marketing company in town, and, as I just now overheard, a former marine who has seen “worse,” the new Hunter’s concerns seemed to lie with getting the dirty shots and then following them up with a celebratory beer whenever possible. “I just got some crazy fuckin’ shots, man. Let’s go have a beer.” Yes, he was, in his mind, ‘the Shit.’ I heard him gloating about bullets flying past his head as he lay low on a rooftop adjacent the bank, where a number of hostages had been kept in the vault: some shot, some released in exchange for ‘Super Pollo.’ He joked, mostly to his own amusement, about shooting right back with mega pixels. How clever.

This guy was a real piece of work, as they say, but I doubt he will be anything more than a small fish in an overflowing pond, forever gesturing the act of licking another female photographers asshole and using his camera as his, clearly overblown and disproportioned, penis as he simulated ‘giving IT to her.’ Yes, I watched him do this while the innocent lady trying to do her job continued on as having no idea what was happening behind her, or simply just ignoring the shithead.

I’m sure the long-faced, traumatized locals really appreciate somebody like this, an American no less, living in their town and gloating about the violence that he has glorified with his phallic prosthetic.

I was finally able to pick up my laundry, which the nice expatriate woman gave to me free of charge. I was stunned at such a simple act of kindness (the price was $2 – not out of my budget by any means) during such difficult times. I really felt for these people, for this small and usually peaceful town in the clouds. I offered, very sincerely, any help I could to the nice woman that gave me my clean and folded laundry, but she just smiled and thanked me and walked away.

What could I do? These people had been through a catastrophe – they needed time to heal. The next day we left Sta. Elena. As the bus pulled onto the road I could see shopkeepers opening up for the first time in days, making the first order of business to replace the white bows that adorned their windows and doors (used to show support of a water treatment system) with the new black bows that I could only assume were for the victims of the shootout.

Adios, Santa Elena. ¡Buena Suerte!

If you come to my door, you will get a pie in the face

First off, I would like to say what a sham it is to have a Political Party attempt to be the next leaders of the country under the name “Progressive Conservative.” Oh, very clever, friends. You seem to be saying, ‘We will move forward, but maintain the same atavistic values and platforms.’ Jeez, you really had a lot of people duped – I’m sure there is a percentage out there to prove this, but I’m not interested.

Progressive Conservative.

You oxy-MORONS! You think you can win by being wishy-washy on everything, except for the rights of “ordinary” citizens, as you wish to keep some of those citizens from enjoying the freedoms this country has to offer because of their sexual preferences. Hey, let’s not allow graying idiots named Harper to run for politics because he doesn’t fit in with our ideals of government.

I look forward to seeing someone, just once, in my political following lifetime, with huge BALLS, figuratively, of course. Someone who says what they want, not what they think will get them a cushy seat. Where is the courage in politics? Where are the original ideas and the convictions? Where are the people who have a goal for Canada, and not simply a selfish interest in finding themselves a prominent job?

Where are the people with beliefs? Where are the great speakers? Stephen Harper is easily as useless as a screen-door on a submarine. His banter is about as intelligent as a ‘one-eyed cat, peeping in the seafood store.’ Yes, that is a reference to a penis, which, contrary to male popular belief, has no actual brain, although some people ‘think’ with it on a regular basis.

Canada is a world-leader in rights and freedoms and one of the best countries in the world. Political Scandal aside (find me a country without scandal), which has been used and abused, and, I assume, will be for the next eight weeks, as a tool for the PC’s and NDP’s alike, Canada is a nice place to live. Canadians realize this and will not abandon the prosperous ideals that make us such a welcome place.