January 15, 2006:
Momentum art show
yesterday
worked long for no profit, the lit Review trying something the
world doesnt get, that bleeding on a page, forgotten soon
the
people, artsy, pretentious, cocktail benders, Nichols Hills
No one bought
anything, hell, shouldnt it be like this? Many are called few are chosen, like
mass consumption, consuming the masses.
Friends didnt come, the day and night before, barroom talk, beer
translation, oh yeah well be there
but really, no
respect from friends that are frat boys who think they are the shit,
so
Ill get the apologies, the pathetic ones, from six of my friends not
showing for my readings
Theyve said it before, dont respect
what I do, see it in their eyes, they cant hang a dollar sign on it. Theres a lot of shit thats
hung with diamond ornaments, popular and grotesque
. but Im trying
something beautiful in a black cave of a world. Stood out of the way
.I like the
corners of solitude, dont like public readings, small spotlights, they
make me nervous
rather have them say, Have you read that shit by
P.L. George?
dream one day they say Hell, I knew that drunk, I used
to drink with him
and theyll still be sitting in their shitty
little cave bars, living the same lives they were meant for.
Dont have to push Brian my editor. Not like David, local filmmaker,
bohemian, content with coffeehouse talk and musings on David Lynch
Shoved
an eighteen-pack in Brians backpack, downed six before the show
started. Dont want to tell
people about January twenty-first, my CD release, let them guess where I
am
dont want to pull teeth
good quote from my girl, an adage
really, If they wanna come, theyll come. If not, fuck em
a nice
slice of words. Im in the
sea, surrounded by writers I pretty much have no respect for, but I hang
around, I got no other choices
The warehouse that hung the Momentum art
was a maze, twenty five hundred people squeezed into a claustrophobic closet,
but didnt realize, being toasted by seven
Me and my girl will travel
to my readings, secretly let the rest all wonder where Im at, this is how
it should be. I was born for
misunderstanding, this is how it should be. Removed that cloud of Momentum hanging
for forever. Get on with my own
shit, promote a little, gain some ego and balls and wait for fate or
chance
and then be a hero somewhere in some corner of some bar or a quiet
room. Its always gone like
this
choose the thing a tiny few that you could hold in a thimble would
give a damn about
I shove all this back in my ambitious mind, to fuck them
over when Im big
keep the ones, treat them holy, that were
sympathetic and came to dwindlling readings as the night wore on
to the
others, they can fuck off, at least this week, until Ill need a drinking
buddy. I get mad and then
forget
all that liquor. I
need that
to get away from the seriousness of art and putting something
down.
January 17, 2006:
So the apologies came, at least
two
one I expected, one not.
Not, Andreas mom forgetting the Momentum show was Saturday, my
semi- coming out. She had a
toothache. Me understandable on
the phone. Trying every corner to
get notice, respect. The other,
wont name names, with a bitchy, needy girlfriend, whos hooked on
coke, craves attention, as if the world spun around her. Ive stomached
his frat boy stories from Norman, OU football games, drunken stupors, treating
women like shit. Now, no balls,
she wont let him go out without her
oh how the mighty have
fallen. Another friend, Jason, the
best man at my wedding, hes been missing for three months, not returning
my phone calls. Comes out of the
shadows, me drunk at Hudsons pub, thought I saw a Fatima vision
he,
dressed immaculate, Adidas white, angelic. Through all that beer, said he had two
hours before his new girl started bitching. I dont think men live anymore,
dress, demeanor, submission, only the young college kids, but they exhaust me
with their trashed, drunk fuck stories.
Skye, Jasonsgirl, left a kid in Dallas with the father,
divorced. Within a month, her name
was on the checking account, she stays home or goes to school, the same
thing
Jason just wants love, someone to take care of, someone to put up
with his pills, his personality of neediness and suffocation. He used to open and close Hudsons bar
down
now just a ghost
if this is adult, grown up, stick a knife in
me, Im done. Shes
pregnant, second child, my reaction, shit
everything usually ends in a
train wreck for him
suicide or love, they may be sisters. Our wedding video, Jason made comments,
P. L., dead man walking
I never walk dead. My girl lets me be, things only change
slightly, no overhauls of life
Andrea, my wife, a saint, no bitch or
control in her body.
So I go to the artist, or he used to be, now a graphic artist, whatever
the hell that means, too much capitalist in him now I suspect
said
hed be at the Momentum show, wasnt
though he and his girl drag
us to midnight bowling out in the outskirts of Edmond
drunk I always turn
there, This is boring, lets hit that new bar Bakers Street,
somewhere out on Memorial Road
Were having fun,
his girl says. I am, but I want to
turn up the gears
whats happened to everybody? Age, I think
maybe theyve
been there, done that
me, chained in Catholicism for most of my life, now
I extend adolescence out into a dream
I like my strange development.
Got my CD release, a collection of tired stories, Ive gotten
better over the two years, should be a drunken mess out at the bookstore on the
south side of OKC, where no one ever goes. Im not telling anybody, only my
girl, wholl be there, because she knows what I am
keep working,
building, get a spotlight for the stories. Hell, Brokeback Mountain
was a short story, published in the New Yorker
. make the theme gay,
handicapped, transgender, they lick it up in Hollywood, these themes makes the
dollar signs rise, the grease
So the graphic artist who never calls, in his youth days, wins a
scholarship to the echelons of an Atlanta art institute, even more prestigious
than New York
he suffers from that resting, on past youth laurels still
gleening ego from it, Im turning towards to hate
I know Ill
turn drunk one night, I know me.
To our circle of friends
and cut an irreparable string
I
really have no needs.
January 18, 2006:
I call Brian (the editor), he
returns it
he wants to take over the Red Cup prose night, first Thursday
of every month. Now run by a girl
thats drugged on the poetry scene, the pretentious, the Galilean
coffee-housers, the poets
Id like to tip them over, spill their
guts, and find nothing inside
everytime I see this girl
she teaches
at one of the schools in the city
I get them mixed up, OCC, OCU, UCO, hell
no one cares
she speaks two minutes not wanting to be sullied by the red
dirt faces, thats doing something more ambitious than the stick up the
assers of education. We go like
Jesus, out to the masses, away from the university temples, to the people.
Bukowski you saint, you uncommon, ordinary, deep, you had all the answers in
your alcoholic lungs. I want a
fire, to upset some cemented, established tables, offending the ones I
dont respect, to make a name
.
January 19, 2006:
Hungover
went out midweek
to take my girl two stepping to country music. A friend of hers, Travis Linville,
plays acoustic at the Wormy Dog saloon.
My disposition defeat
seventy-five bucks Ive made in three
days waiting tables
failure
writing and art a bitch, a poor one at
that. Questioning everything now,
those tumbling doubts, no escape, as I push the forty- year marker. But there is no other way for
me
when in the darkness of my mind, some light springs and drags my
weariness to the top. God or me,
something invisible I cant define
Travis came through with a line,
Ill paraphrase, cant do the nine to five, I want a beauty
grave
Guthrie, Thoreau, something theyve said, but rings true
at the Wormy Dog tonight
My girl always encouraging
tells me about a
talk she had with her friend before the Momentum show. Stacy C. says shes never met a
guy like me, at my age (thanks) who will hold out for art when others have
given it up for a prosperous road
maybe thats who I am, a
definition, the reason in a bleak world, the fool who keeps doing it, keeping a
flame in a windy age, its been blowin and thundering this
week
but I needed these messages, pulling bootstraps, growing rejuvenated
balls, stick the stories in hungry eyes, save someone. Theres hope in this book Im
writing, the memoir, the philosophy, Ill never self-publish, like some
friends who have, who will never make it
Ill peddle it, get the
critiques, this writing is coming easy, flowing, it must be right, gonna attach
the story Bullet at the end, not because Im lazy, because
what I am cant be said any better.
Todays my Friday, gonna wait the dreary tables for four hours,
come home to my girl, lay naked, rent a video, get ready for my CD release at
Book Beat, fifteen minutes of my small pure glory, read the Dinner
story, an anthem to an artistic path, make someone take notice, I believe in
this. Dinner
starts, another purgatorial holiday was approaching, and my brother,
Phil, with his new silicone wife, was coming to Christmas dinner. Hes everything the American male
dreams for. A hot sixth sense for
business, trophy wife, houses on both glistening coasts. The life for him, the life for most,
but death for me. That says
it all.
January 20, 2006:
So I sit in the midst of a lazy
Saturday at silenced Galileos bar in the corner, scribbling, smoking,
wasting time for my CD release tonight out at Book Beat. Came unglued last night in the midnight
hours of two-thirty a.m., indicting my wifes friends with my insecurities
as an artist. Mostly hurt, with my
slivers of pretentiousness, me always painting myself with the misunderstood,
undiscovered genius brush that I think I am. All my drinking buddies, that which
Ive labeled them now, and only that, I dont think they have it in
them to support anything cultured, so non-evolved. Hell, look at me, so evolved? I shouldnt be saying such things
in all my fucked-up hangovers, the tumbling regrets of Saturday and Sunday
mornings. New friends Ive
met, maybe seven months Ive only known them, support me more than a lot
of these fucks that have insulted me a trillion ways. But they dont know how I take
these slight cuts, so hard, as rivers of forever. They want me to come over, to look at
their dogs or cars or new couches or boats, to drink.
Im not such an enigma to do this, so hermetic as a writer, no
pretentiousness lingers along these lines. I can get drunk with the best of
them. Ive got a long record
of wobbling and sleeping in bars.
Maybe its suffering fools moderately. Maybe its the scars of
abandonment from my family that I draw on, at even the hint not caring. And my tongue got loose last night,
hurting my wife. Shes always
supported me regardless of dreary, artsy readings or whatever. Only love she is, a true
definition. But I let anger get
the best of me. I felt thrown out,
left in a cold blood rain, isolated in my mind. And my heart was a splitter and poured
all the acidic words on her because she was the closest. For this, Im sorry.
I talk a big game, but one, I think, of my good qualities, is too
forgiving, too quickly. Angry
quick, but in the end, temperate.
Im not inviting out anyone again to anything of art or
writing. Id rather have two
that would want to be there than a trillion pulled by their teeth out of guilt
and obligation, Shilo, my publisher and bookstore owner, and my girl. But Shilo was the only one before the
stage in support at Momentum, giving me confidence. And while hes new and fresh, I
still cling to him in love as a brother.
Those I thought, now labeled pseudo-family, didnt have it in
them. Exchanging my important
debut for a mechanics birthday, though this guy never showed up for our
wedding, planning a camping trip or something like it.
So I indicted last night, everyone on the face of the suffering earth,
that could be
and Ill probably regret, I do that, dividing in my
head of what was appropriate and what wasnt. Many a time though, Ive had to
endure a lot of get-togethers I had to be coaxed in to. Drunken OU football bullshit, suburban
get-togethers, cars and motors
all those things. Dragged to the city of Edmond in a
blurr, way out to midnight bowling
which I had fun, no doubt
put
twelve beers in front of me and Id think poets were brilliant.
Then I go back in my mind about karma, mostly by my girls
accusation that I didnt show up to a shitty local friends bands in
dingy bars. Yeah, shes
right, maybe Im doing penance now to the magical force of Indian
mantras. My one saving defense is
that Im not shitty as far as writing is concerned
the bands are,
save Headroom, I always think my brothers are gods, though they never call,
mostly cause theyre money has left
hopefully.
Im an extrovert but have a lot of introvert pondering in
me
maybe thats what makes people leary
they pick up the
judgement I exude, sometimes. But
pleasing almost to the point of pandering, to others views, keeping quiet
with a head nod
Im an actor, a good one, you have to be to hide
sometimes the contempt you have.
Im by nature a pleaser.
Maybe thats why writing is, as Roberts book is entitled,
The Last Lethal Outlet, at least for me. To corral all that hate and contempt
till its about to bust out of my brain and veins, and then, finally, at
its most lucid point, bleed it on a page, the pen a scathing rapist.
Ill go back today, apologize, because I know at some point I took
the wrong path, insulted, when I should have understood
my girl makes me
nice and societal, women, the smooth-overs, tape the frayed relationships, glue
the fabrics of society, apologize when all I want to do is throw a Molatov into
them and throw them over the cliffs and dash them on the rocks forever. But somehow, shell keep it all
together, the grounding.
Im not ready to hang out with them, not just yet
Ill
miss a few of their so-called important occasions
maybe drop a birthday,
an anniversary, Lake Eufala on the Fourth of July, hell, let them just sit
there, knowing inside, but wondering through their mouths of why I didnt
show
And a so-called artist friend, resting on laurels and awards of a teen
past, that didnt show, who couldnt call for going on a week and a
half now, though he blowhards over beer in bars at how talented he is
this
to me is disrespect for what I do.
I gave him the website for Dinner, it says it all
he
could have been a theme, either Phil or with a little more time, one of my dead
uncles in the story, kissing their demise at the end as I wish they all would
do
Hell hath no fury like a writer scorned
I dont think women can
compete
I know what motherhood is, protecting your art and ways, like a
mother bear.
When this so-called artist, who gave up the dream, commented on my work
with this sentence, Dont you think Dinner is
harsh?, maybe he fell under conviction. I preach with the fervor of a camp
meeting preacher under a tent in a dust bowl prarie.
So this day has turned into, at least on this page, my anthem and
mantra, these rude thoughts. And
Ill write them, till I make amends.
Ill go to Veronicas birthday party at Hudsons because
she came to hear me read, wanted me to be there. Drink a couple of cheap draws to take
the edge off, sell some CDs on the outside, where I dont want any
of my friends to attend, save my wife, because shes rose. Ill make amends, only to her,
because she and my mom know somewhat how I bleed in the quiet moments of
holy. Isolated, alone, reading in
front of people I barely know, as it should be, these are the ladders,
monichers, genes, growing pains of a man non-normal
a writer.
Till tonight
P.L.