on writing a novel

aka on giving a damn

the more you write, the more you realize it is an asinine impulse. but it is an impulse, an annoying, screeching kind of thing. you sit down at a word processor and you write an inordinate amount of words and it all makes sense and you feel compelled to write more regardless of if you are happy/sad/tired. where the 'giving a damn' comes in is decided to 'abandon' your ideas, to rework old ideas and go for completely new ideas. if you want to be a writer, ideas shouldn't be the problem.

it shouldn't be comfortable.

i ain't talking iron maiden level of discomfort (primitive device or band), but a nagging feeling in your spine telling you to play videogames or go to bed. stick your finger down your throat and cough up some ideas.

on a side notes, i really like calling my coughed phlem 'cheese wheels'.

give a damn about everything going on. the characters and the setting and your own progression. if you can't find the write words currently, never stop. write past it. use the worst line you can think of, and edit.

i have a few novel ideas i consider 'legitimate'. i had to lasso myself away from the concept of 'that is not a proper idea for a first novel' or a 'mainstream novel' or 'this novel will not sell'. well placed apathy and arrogance. apathy battling giving a damn.

i had an english prof that playfully told us every writer had an addiction, whether it be coffee or cigarettes or the more legitimate kind, and i remember hearing that and immediately rejecting any platitudes i have heard or understood about writers.

on workshops, follow the advice of people you respect. if you don't respect anyone, you are an asshole. you can still be a writer, but you will be an 'asshole writer'. people will playfully call your corner of the room the 'genius convention'.

right now i got that nagging feeling resting firmly between shoulderblades and i am contemplating finishing out a chapter and watching sons of anarchy on the computer and neither one seems like a legitimate or worthwhile goal

the vast majority of people will read this and go "what is the point"

Two dogs are hanging out by the water cooler, chatting.

“bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark”

then they try to drink out of the water cooler and get the water all over their sloppy jowls.

“So how is your wife, Rover?” Scrambles says.

“She is a dog and so am I,” says Rover.

homeless

Jeremy was sitting in a motel room watching America's Funniest Home Videos when he realized he was homeless.

Damn, am I homeless? he thought.

He was. Then a man got hit in the testicles. The cameras panned towards the audience. The audience was all wearing formal wear and applauding.

I am not the homeless, I can't be. The homeless wear rags and ask for change and get drunk with that change. The homeless smell bad. The homeless population is mostly schizophrenic, he thought.

Do you have a home, Jeremy? He asked himself.

No, I do not, he thought, I am homeless.

He muted the television and microwaved a hot dog in perfect silence. Most days involved this, mainstream television accompanied by timid introspection. Jeremy would eat the hot dog on a slice of wheat bread with ketchup and mustard. He wondered if mustard was nutritious. Ketchup was a trick, he knew, full of sugar. Mustard was still redeemable.

I am not homeless in a metaphorical way, Jeremy thought, I literally don't have a home to live in.

Somewhere, something was rumbling. Jeremy listened. There was a quiet pounding on the wall in the room next to him. It was not the sexy kind. He heard a mumbled 'Jeremy' through the walls.

The man staying in the room next to him was named Clinton. For the last week, they had shared a wall. Clinton was an obese black man in an electric wheelchair. He loved Sammy Davis Junior. They met when Jeremy helped Clinton into his room, once.

"Are you Jewish?" Clinton had asked.

"No," he said.

"You just got that curly hair. You know I was Jewish once?"

"Really?"

"Yep. Married a Jewish woman. She was all kinds of New Left liberal; she thought I was in the Black Panthers when we met. Just because I wore sunglasses and black leather, I guess. She was funny about stuff like that," Clinton said.

"And you aren't Jewish anymore?"

"We got a divorce," he said.

"Oh."

Jeremy walked outside to the front of Clinton's door. He knocked.

"What is it?" Jeremy said.

"Latch locked me in. Nobody answering the phone up front. Go up there," he said.

Jeremy walked towards the front desk. He arrived at the front desk. He didn't see anyone. He hollered, a bit. It was a meek holler, but a holler nonetheless. No one emerged from the back. He thought about climbing behind the hotel desk but then saw some video cameras. Jeremy waved at the video cameras, and fixed himself a cup of coffee. No one seemed to be anywhere. He looked outside and saw no cars. This made him think about a made for TV movie based on some Stephen King book, where a bunch of meatball looking things flew around and ate everyone, so a bunch of people arrived from a parallel dimension or something and so no one. In the movie, one man beat another more hysterical man with a toaster held in a bed sheet. Jeremy looked at the toaster and felt nervous.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Can I help you?"

A woman emerged from the back. Jeremy didn't know her name, but she worked a few of the evening shifts at the motel. Clinton called her 'perfect breasts'. Clinton had pestered Jeremy to try and have sex with her, but Jeremy knew she wouldn't, because he was homeless.

Most women like men that live in homes, he thought.

She had red hair and 'perfect breasts'. She had thick legs that connected to her butt. She had the proper number of legs and arms. Her nametag said Denise. She had a slightly crooked nose, like a boxer.

"Oh, uh, yeah," Jeremy said, "Clinton locked himself in his room, with the latch on the door. He can't lift his arms enough to take it off."

"Clinton?" She said.

"Room 138," he said.

Denise grabbed a weird, oblong shaped tool and walked with Jeremy to 138.

"How did he do it?" She asked.

"I don't know. He can't do much, I guess. I've only been here a week and I've had to help him basically every day."

"Oh. Where are you from?"

"Chicago," Jeremy lied.

Jeremy lied for no reason. She walked up to 138. She knocked. Clinton opened the door. It only opened an inch wide, and then stopped.

"Hello," Clinton said through the inch.

Denise put the flat, oblong tool through the doorway, and hooked the ball of the latch. She slammed the door and the latch flew open. Jeremy thought that she looked like an Amazon woman in the best way possible. The weird oblong tool looked fearsome.

"Anything else you guys need?" She said.

Jeremy didn't say anything and slipped back into his room.

They were announcing who won ten thousand dollars on America's Funniest Home Videos. A baby who laughed at a burping dog won. Balloons were dropped and everyone celebrated. Jeremy pulled his hot dog out of the microwave and ate it.

What am I going to do after this, Jeremy thought.

There was seven hundred and fifty seven dollars in a checking account in his name. He could either put a deposit in on an apartment and look for a job, go to Phoenix and convince an uncle he didn't know to help him out, or he could just sit around, being homeless.

He paid for a twelve pack of beer on his debit card. He walked back to his room. He watched Cops and got drunk.

I am drunk and homeless, he thought, I don't feel that bad.

Later on he saw other people swimming in the motel pool. He drank his last beer and put on swimming trunks. He greeted and intermingled with them. They were local kids, between nineteen and twenty, not staying at the motel. Their friend, Denise, said they could swim here.

"Denise," I said, "The one with the perfect breasts?"

Jeremy felt proud of himself when they all laughed. They asked him if he was twenty-one. They asked him if he could buy them beer. He did. They asked him if he wanted to go to a party. He did.

Jeremy was extremely drunk and making most people uncomfortable. Those he didn't make uncomfortable were equally as drunk. Jeremy cloistered off with those people, and continued to get drunk and alienate himself. He couldn't remember their names, but he said he loved them. He blinked and looked around. He was in a dilapidated living room full of rotten couches. The wooden floors were riddled with cracks and the white paint on the walls began to chip. It was summer, and the house felt like it was sweating.

"Denise!" People yelled.

Denise walked in with her perfect breasts, and people greeted her. For a while, Jeremy does not remember a thing. He remembers walking by Denise and her looking uncomfortable. He remembered talking to some guy.

Then he woke up, and took a shower. He threw up in the shower. He let it all rinse down the drain, then sat down, and placed his face in his hands. His movements were meticulous, efficient, and sparse.

Then he remembered Denise saying "please, don't talk to me, we aren't at the motel."

Then he remembered some guy putting him in a taxicab.

Then he remembered arriving to the room, unable to open his door.

Then he remembered saying "fuck it, fuck everything, I am homeless."

Then he remembered a man walked quietly past him, almost sneaking, trying to get to his own room. He remembered yelling at that man, telling him to help, and the man scurrying away. He cannot remember a single detail about the man other than that he wore khaki pants.

Then he remembered Clinton rolling outside, struggling out of the room, and getting his door open for him.

Then he remembered earnestly thanking Clinton. Then he remembered telling Clinton everything.

Jeremy held the tiny motel bottle of shampoo in between his thumb and pointer. The shampoo slunk into his hair. He half-heartedly rubbed it in. He considered soap. Housekeeping knocked on the door, and he hoarsely yelled for them to "please leave". He considered Denise and decided that he needed to immediately leave. He decided to try and call his estranged Uncle in Phoenix.

Then he remembered Clinton saying "us fucked people got to stick together. Ain't no good looking for good on anywhere but the bottom, if you are on the bottom, ya dig? Help from any damn respectable person might as well be divine intervention."

He dried off and lay down naked in his bed.

Then he remembered Clinton saying "throw up in this bucket, if you need it".

Jeremy saw it, and did.

see america right

there is a small thrill when someone realizes i am alive
let alone real
like this reality permeates me
weaves me into itself
to where i cannot wriggle free
and now i live a humble existence
day by day with dirty shoes
and a Fucked ego

when poets describe locations
like wind-swept moors
there is a parallel universe
and a parallel poet
describing a location
like a bargain motel room
with a spider
strolling over a semen stain
like the spider is irving berlin
and the semen is park avenue

when the strands of reality
wither from time
and i emerge from it
like a cellophane monster
i will be showered in gin blossoms
and celebrate
my one big day off

sex as a series of ones and zeroes

I was playing a videogame
a lame game about dragons and elves
and the like
you know the typical fantasy setting
with the myriads of predictable monsters
and huge breasted women
one woman offered to have sex with my wizard
I thought that sounded okay
but another woman
a bard that I traveled with
wanted to have sex with me I guess
and got mad at me
for the aforementioned sex excursion
and I can tell that I am Fucked
when even the videogame women
are turning against me
and disappointed in my life choices

avatars

meher baba was jealous of lsd

because it could do in a few moments
what he had tricked his brain to do over the course of his own life
but who am i to judge
if a man becomes jealous of a drug
he is only human

and who cares where we find god
if he is in a pill or an abyss or an infinite light
I found my god in a pickle jar

i cannot fathom the concept
of a man wanting to be god
the power is appealing, yeah
but you are the one being
in charge of an awful world
like the manager of a dominos pizza

that is on fire
battling the flames with pasta sauce

smoking room

I am working the front desk at a 

budget motel in the throes of winter and
there is snow everywhere and a woman walks in
and asks for a room
being the face of a business
I oblige
I notice she is extremely pregnant
garishly pregnant
so pregnant it is almost like her uterus is bragging
waving it’s baby at other
more empty
uteri
in the general vicinity
and she is string thin
barely standing
even her jeans seem to have anemia
I am looking at her and knowing that everything is not all right and questioning my own compassion wondering how much should I care about this woman that obviously doesn’t
and I give her a room
and she goes “wait,
is this a smoking room?”
and I go “oh, I am sorry
I thought that since you are pregnant
you wouldn’t want to smoke”
and then she glared at me
like I was the idiot
have a smooth one on me, little man
I thought as I handed her the keys
it’s marlboro time