Eternity with black ink

Words. There is this compulsive fixation on the letters of a sentence that I can't seem to get around. There is ADD in my head that breaks the boundaries of modern science and compells me to do ridiculous things. Sometimes I stop myself and say, slow down and back up, turn around and jump up, half twirl, round the back with a double swiss backflip. The pot is sizzling with fiery anticipation. My massive pupils are open so wide that half the room gets sucked into the abyss. Two heavy buckets of eye juice spill under the pressure and my papers become soggy. The ink runs down in perfect circular patterns to make three disinct and beautiful letters.

There's this "p". In my head I'm saying praise, people, pirates, panick, puke, party, play...etc. This goes on.

Then I see "h". Fuck "h". H is that piece of unknown ground material in your shoe that you anticipate removing all day but ignore for just another 5 minutes, just another 5 minutes.

And then comes "i". I! What the fuck am I going to do with an I.

So I realize my false sense of artistic need to write and do and say what's necessary to convey to the people that life is a joke and everything we live and breathe for is meaningless in the end is really just an infinite manifestation of the bullshit that's pulsing through my veins, pulsing and throbbing and breaking the skin onto my soggy lined paper.

And this goes on, and this goes on, and this.

Dropout

It was right then when I realized how significant the last ten minutes were. We fought for the last time tonight. The culmination of everything horrible with her life was just targeted at my sad existence. I'm standing in the rain now. It's pouring down onto my face and dripping into the ankle deep puddle around me, and I don't give a shit. I'm shocked. I'm surprised even. I'm alive.
You tell yourself that you can get better, that things can get better. But they don't. All the bullshit you surround yourself with piles up so high into the air that it blocks the sun and you live in darkness. All year you wake up to the darkness and live in it, you breathe it in. You let the shit smell consume your world and you accept every filthy second. Then one day somone carves a whole out through your big heap of waste and the sun breaks through. It feels like a new era, like the first day of life. It's difficult to even open your eyes in the light it's so goddamn bright. You finally see the world around you for what it is, and it's not pretty. It's not what you expected. It's not what she expected.
So she dumps your dumb ass and moves on. And you stand outside in the rain for two hours wondering what went wrong. And so is life, so is my unfortunate life.
When we would stay out late and drive for hours on end with no purpose or destination she'd listen to me like she was interested. I was still a novel subject, I still had things to say. Those days are long gone. I've given her everything I have and it wasn't enough. I've said every annecdote and told her every joke, some twice. I'm reciting lines from books I recently read to spark conversation, I'm telling her about the people from work. I'm watching the news every night and reading the newspaper for material. You can only maintain the conversation for so long, and then what? Then this.
It's the day you both lose touch, the day it all falls apart that you remember the most. And it's not even the specifics of it that I can recall, just silence. The silence was deafening. It's the sound of blood rushing past my ears. It's the sound of each nerve firing. It's the sound of her door shutting behind me and the distant rainfall.
I feel the beating of a nervous heart inside my chest. Why bother? Maybe I can convince my selfish circulatory system to just give it a rest. Take a break. Relax a little. I'll get oxygen later, right now I just want to be alone.

Untitled

The list they don't want you to see

So this may seem to stray a bit from the kind of things I normally post here, but I feel compelled to do it regardless. This year has been great for music. There was a time in my life (around the time Layne Staley died) where I thought that the music industry was really going into the shitter for good, but 2005 has given me hope. Yes this list is biased, and no I don't give a shit. These are the albums I've been obsessed with in the past year.

1) NIN - With Teeth

Just when everyone thought NIN was old news, this work of art comes out. Easily one of my favorite albums of all time. Trent Reznor has outdone himself and formulated an excellent sidekick to The Fragile.

2) Opeth - Ghost Reveries

The way metal is supposed to be played. It's not for everyone, it's got rapid time changes, its loud as fuck, and Mike Akerfeldt churns out demon cries at every turn. It's their first album on a major record label so this may be the one to capture everyones attention. Reminiscent of Blackwater Park, Ghost Reveries is a metal masterpiece.

3&4) System of a Down - Mesmorize/Hypnotize

Cracked out lyrics, beautiful harmonies, government propaganda, and a wonderful array of drug/sex imageries. This album duo sets out to claim the masses with radio friendly pop spoofs like BYOB and Hypnotize and draws the underground pre-SOAD fame crowd with Old School Hollywood, She's Like Heroine, and Attack. If you've ever liked SOAD, these albums have something for you.

5) Mastadon - Leviathon

Moby Dick themed metal. The album is Ahab's hunt for the infamous great white whale. I usually cringe at concept albums, but this one works. They have an incredibly unique style and they bring a lot to the genre. People who think metal is one dimensional and repetitive would benefit from giving this one a listen.

6) CKY - An Answer Can Be Found

They progress, and it's good. Chad hits the CKY pedal, Deron uses his voice to enhance and diversify the CKY catalogue, and Jess plays drums like he's in Clutch. This album takes CKY to places they haven't been to before. It's a more relaxed sound than the previous hard rock Infiltrate.Destroy.Rebuild. but it really brings their sound full circle. They will lose fans and they will gain fans. Listen to CKY.

7) Trivium - Ascendancy

Young band from Florida rocking out harder than anyone else. This is the heaviest metal album of the year, and the singer is 18 years old. This album isn't exactly changing the scope of metal as we know it, but its catchy as hell. The guteral scream vocals are unique and the riffs are mesmorizing. A modern day Metallica?

8) Dredg - Catch Without Arms

Nothing I say will interest people in this album. They have a unique sound that will NEVER catch on. Anytime I need a relaxing tune I turn this on. Stoners will eat this up. (No pun intended)

9) Gorillaz - Demon Days

Second release from The Gorillaz causes millions to dance their asses off. Despite the whoring of the tune Feel Good Inc. to Apple ,the song is still awesome. Many tracks on this album are designed to keep people flocking to the dance floor in droves (Dare). They retain their style in songs like Every Planet We Reach is Dead and Kids With Guns. Simply put, it's fun.

10) Children of Bodom - Are you Dead Yet?

Finnish glam metal upgrades. The lead guitarist/vocalist can pound out riffs like the best of them. This album is packed full of the Bodom we've all grown to love, with a slight upgrade. The album flows better than those of the past and songs like Are You Dead Yet? and In Your Face will soundtrack your dreams. The one thing that keeps Bodom off of my definitive best of metal list is the lyrics. They are usually battle oriented, but not in a good way (Manowar). This album contains one of the dumbest lines I have ever heard. "It's my world. You're in it. It'll take you down in a minute." Despite the weak lyrics, they don't get in the way of Bodom's epic sound.

Honorable Mentions

The Fall of Troy - Doppelganger

Three piece post hardcore progressive rock insanity. The first listen I was annoyed, the second time I started hearing the complexities of the music, the third time I couldn't get enough. If you like fast paced guitars and high pitched vocals this is for you. A lot of the tracks on this album are heavy enough to make you want to punch yourself in the head. Recommended to anyone with an open mind as to where the underground scene has brought us.

The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute

Inventing new emotions with this unique blend of prog rock. The Mars Volta is a case of love it or hate it and this album is no different. If you liked De-Loused in the Comatorium give this one a listen.

Shitstorms of the year

Coldplay - Way to make the most generic sounding boring piece of shit humanly possible
Weezer - I'm just dissapointed
Green Day - You take the cake for biggest tools in the music industry. You must be laughing your asses off in your million dollar homes paid for by the very Americans you shit all over.

A special shoutout to the chick from Black Eyed Peas who I thought was hot before I saw the video for Lady Lumps. Nice job making yourself into a dumb whore.

So you might be thinking at this point, Hey Dan who the fuck do you think you are putting all this angry sounding music on the list. What are you, a nazi? To quote the great Bill Hicks:

When the end comes, I'm going to be surfing the lake of fire ROCKING OUT.

Hard Nights and Bar Fights

I woke up with a gun pressed up against my temple. Colt 45, I read in a haze of morning dissociation. As the light of day catches the corner of my eye I'm aware of the mistake I made the night before. You see, drinking in the shittiest part of town can lead a man to some bad places. This gun is loaded and the marksman is growing impatient. I wonder how long he's been sitting here waiting for me to wake up? You'd think that if somone was going to bust a cap in your noggin the last thing he'd feel bad about is interrupting your sleep. But this guy was considerate. Less considerate than I the night before.

The bar was a colorful dive in a back alley road somewhere far away. I went with a buddy of mine but even he didn't know where it was. We walked in and I began drowning myself in a glorious display of alcoholism and madness. I guess it was a rough week and I was trying to unwind. Pour me tequilla. Pour me whiskey. I really liked the taste of Jack Daniels that night.

The gunman clenched his pistol tight and brought it straight above my head. I breathe in deeply and prepare to receive what will be known as the pistol whip heard round the world. The butt of his pistol actually moves segments of bone from one side of my face to the other. A steady stream of blood seaps through the crack in my face and it runs into my eyes, around my nose, and past my lips. I taste Jack Daniels.

I was drinking like it meant something, like it was my last chance. A shot of rum, a shot of vodka. It all goes down into the pit of my abdomen. I'm completely numb to the burn of hard liquor; I would've drank cyanide had the bartender put it in a shot glass. Three hours go by until I feel the cold marble sink on my forehead. The weight of my body is resting on my head in the bathroom sink and I'm wondering what would be more inconvenient, walking over to a toilet to take a piss and most likely puking on myself or just pissing my pants right there. Weighing the pros and cons and testing the absorption level of my denim jeans with sprinkles of shitty water from the sink I hear something from the parking lot outside. The window in the bathroom is creaked open just enough to see what's going on.

Isn't it a little too early to be tasting blood? Couldn't this have waited until I've at least gotten a shower or a decent breakfast? I think I still have a whole box of Cornpops in the kitchen. We could all grab a bite to eat and then, when we've all had a proper meal, we can think about the bludgeoning and senseless beating. You think about the night before, why you're in bed with another man, why he's pointing a gun in your face, and you remember...there should be somone else.

It's hours later. I'm in this very bed and I'm with a woman. I've never seen her before, I don't even know her name, but we're really going at it. We're going at it like it meant something, like it was our last chance. I'm still wearing all of my clothes, with the exception of the zipper I seem to have ripped clear off of my pants. She looks as though she was prepared to fuck at any time. She's wearing no underwear, tons of makeup, and sporting a deadpean erotic stare that could turn a man to jello. I'm getting the impression she does this a lot. This is one friday in the mix with a million others. I'm too drunk to give a shit.

Somehow I'm turned around in bed. With my face in the pillow I hear muffled voices and can feel movement on the mattress. There's somone else here. It's her. Suddenly nails are scratching the back of my head as I'm lifted off the pillow by my hair. Some of the pillow stays with my face because of the sticky blood that has accumulated. I spin around to get a better look. The figure of a woman, but I don't recognize her. The man is farther away now, still pointing a gun at me.

Back to me finishing my romp with the worlds classiest dame. If I wasn't so damn drunk I'd ask her name, I'd open my eyes to see what she looks like. All I have is the smell in the air. The stink of bar sex mixed with strawberry perfume. Even with the foul whiskey taste in my mouth I can still take in that horrid smell. This strawberry smell is on everything, it's crusted beside me where the wall meets my mattress. She's already asleep next to me, so I do the same.

I've been awake for a good three or four minutes now so Im starting to get my hearing and vision in order. The muffles turn to into screams. The screaming becomes more and more cohesive until syllables and sentences start forming. You Fucked My Wife. You Goddamn Mother Fucking Sicko, You Fucked My Wife. Let's not jump to conclusions, I say. I don't know what you're talking about. The gun is waving back and forth and the man is screaming at the top of his lungs in my apartment. More sentences take form. I Should Kill You. I Should Shoot You In Your Fucking Head. A different voice emerges, female. She speaks clear as day.

"He thought he could get away with it. But he dragged me back to this room and had his way with me!"

And the oscar goes to...

"He breathed his nasty booze breath on me and told me that if I didn't have sex with him he'd kill me!"

Tears are streaming down her face as fast as blood is streaming down mine. I'm completely astonished. Did I rape somone last night? Can I plead temporary drunkedness? She leans in close and I start feeling sick, I feel really nauseous.

"You thought you'd get away with it! Didn't you! You sick Fuck!"

The strawberry smell is seaping out of her every pore and into my red soaked nostrils. I'm gagging on the smell. As surprising as this visit is, I'm even more shocked I had sex with this woman. She's hideous. She's your last shot for getting laid after last call. She's usually lurking in the parking lot picking up the remains of men. She must've scooped me out of the bathroom. The man speaks, softly this time.

"I bet you thought you were a real hero back there. Hitting me when my back was turned and taking my woman. I know you're regretting it now. How about a shot to the other side of your stupid face? You're looking a bit uneven, let me fix that for you."

In the time it takes this man to aproach me I'm confronted with a painful glimpse of what happened in that parking lot. A man and a woman were fighting with each other, screaming and making a scene. I must've intervened, I must've done something about it. I thought I was doing her a favor but the truth of the matter is that I was deceived. I played into their sick game and now it was time to suffer. These guys were pros and I'm just a sheep. This man was my friend. He led me to the bar earlier that evening. I was too far gone to notice at the time, but I'm sure of it now. And now he's in my bedroom, and he didn't even have to track me down. I played right into their scene, their dimented final solution.

The next hour of my life was a blur. The only memories I have are feelings of pain. A dull throbbing pain in my side and a sharp scratching pain across my face. My eyes were closed tightly until they were gouged out with what I believed to be either an ice cream scooper or a wooden ladle. I didn't really give them too much of a fight since they had already disposed of my important limbs. He must've brought a machete or an axe, he must've been prepared, a seasoned veteran at work.

I was found by my brother a day later with little life left in me. He lept onto the bed and started wailing, I guess I wasn't much to look at. There was blood everywhere, it was a fucking mess. They really took care of me. He tried dragging me out of the room. I was still clothed, with the exception of the broken zipper. Different sounds passed through my head as I faded in and out of consciousness: the sound of my horrified brother, sirens, people gasping, doctors rambling technical jargin, and then my breath. My breath and the beep of my heart rate monitor. Now I'm on what I believe to be a hospital bed. Beep, Beep, Beep. What an annoying fucking sound. I shimmy awkwardly towards one side of the bed to find on off switch and realize that I have no arms to use. It feels like they are still there.

A week later I'm diagnosed with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and so is my brother. It's a rare mutated form of the virus that has never been seen before. I hear about my brothers death from my mother who hasn't left my side. He died quickly, and I'll go soon. The couple responsible for my end are in prison now, death row. The sad part is they were already on death row and a lethal injection is a sweet relief compared to what my brother went through. They came forward and confessed after hearing that their scuffle with me inadvertantly claimed my brother's life. Apparently they saw my case as the final hurrah to a masterfully planned homicidal blood fest. There's pain, there's suffering, and then there's this. I take a breath like it means something, like it's my last chance.



If this reminds you of anything, it should. I wrote it around the time I saw Sin City.

The Feast

There is a panic in his eyes that I haven't seen in years. There is a cold sweat across his brow that reminds me I have places to be and things to do. But right now I just can't stop myself. I'm standing at the top of this massive ditch. This huge 20 foot ditch has claimed a victim. Fully engulfing and digesting my friend, I can't stop myself from standing tall and marveling at its power. It's just dirt and he's helpless at the bottom. He's clawing at the earthen walls now. He's ripping into the trachea, the esophagus, the intestinal tract. Soil is backed up so far into his fingernails and he can barely get a decent grip. The dark hole he's in, it's really spectacular. It's moving and it's growing all around this sorry fellow. This poor chap, he's really gotten himself into something big. When you're dealing with a monster of this magnitude you have to remember to keep your composure, breathe slowly, and think slowly. The undertow of dirt pulls harder and harder with each forceful leap he makes. What's this? His voice, or should I say the sound coming out of him, it's incredible. It's what you'd hear in the last minutes of time. The last shriek for salvation, the final plea, the last confession of a terminal patient. The vibrations of his voice echo up and out. Tiny granules of soil near my feet dive into the abyss along with several friends below. The shrill screeching of human sorrow is a catalyst to the end. A digestive enzyme in the belly of the beast. It won't be long now. He's entered that desperate phase where hope is burned away. You tell yourself that there is a way out, that there's going to be a way out of this, but it's only a matter of time before gravity takes hold. Inevitability is an applied science. A pile of dirt has blanketed his ankles now, he's shackled in. It extends up over his legs and to the hip. I think he realizes now. He looks straight up at me and there is a moment where I can hear the blood rushing past my ears. It could've stretched out for days had I not done my part. It was just too pathetic, too easy. I give the earth insentive to take the rest of him. I fuel the fire. I shovel in mounds of shit brown redemption. My mythic creature, it takes the earth and swallows it whole. I pause when the dirt has just reached the tip of his nostril. I watch as he takes one breath too many. Some microorganisms can live in nitrogen rich environments. Thank god for evolution.

The Bookseller Diaries

So this fatass walks through the doors of Barnes and Noble. I use the term walk but what I really mean is waddle. Picture a penguin with asthma. This guy walks in and immediately catches eyes with me. As he makes his way over to the customer service desk I can't help but feel this growing sickness in the pit of my stomach. It's almost as if my organs knew how atrociously ugly this man was. He reaches the counter and slaps his meaty apendages down. Breathing heavily he says, "HEY! How ya doin' there boss". I really hate it when people call me boss. It always comes out horribly demeaning.
"Alright, how can I help you?"
"I'm looking for this book. I think it's...err...ya know...new." He pauses for a good five seconds as if he actually thought I would pull some mysterious voodoo act and deduce which book he was looking for. I continue to talk to him, but at this point it is officially work.
"Do you know an author or the title or anything?"
"It was on The New York Times Bestseller List. I read it this morning."
He moves his arms across the counter to a more comfortable standing position, even though just standing in general seems like a ongoing battle for this beefcake. As his arm travels across the countertop I can hear his chunky skin fat sticking to it. The guy walked from the parking lot to the front desk and is sweating like he just completed the Tour De France.
"I don't know anything about The New York Times, all I know is the Barnes and Noble bestsellers."
"It's not the same thing?". He questions me.
"Not exactly, no." I dignify it with a response and investigate further. "Are you sure you don't know the author?"
"No, I can't think of it. But I know Dan Brown wrote it."
This fuckin' fat piece of shit.
I give him his overpriced, overhyped, overkill book and he leaves me alone. My conversation with him has me questioning each potentially dysfunctional customer I have to deal with for the rest of the day. Any one of them could be carrying their own special mutation. Fit for replication and payable by charge, these mutants could be selling sperm to lesbian couples whos children go on to pass the defect onto others; until we are all so fat and sweaty that the world is just one poisoness body odor cloud and only those who could muster up what little strength they have left to roll into the ocean would be spared. Picture the corpulent Cheldridae or the pungent Plethodontidae. I still feel sick.
A couple minutes later and I'm still at the customer service desk. Still bothered I tell my coworkers about the highlight of my day. I'm quickly interrupted by a tall woman with large sunglasses. She's carrying a dog the size of Pamela Anderson's left tit and chewing on a piece of gum. I've never been good with animals, mostly because I am allergic to most of them. She asks me, "Do you know where I can find books by Sophie Kinsella?"
"Yeah, it's upstairs in fiction." Thank god I don't need to expend any more of my precious time and energy trying to decipher some cryptic dumbass code. But just as I tell her where the books are located she is leaning in closer.
"I just finished one of those shopaholic books and I really loved it. It was so good, ya know. How she writes it."
Normally I'd be thinking, was that a question? Is she serious? But in this instance only one thing is racing through my mind, and it's that damn dog. She leaned in too far and this little mut is uncomfortably close. So close, in fact, that I can feel my allergies erupting through my pores and sinuses. I gasp desperately for air and breathe in real deep. She stops her thoroughly informative and riveting analytical breakdown of the shopaholic series to let me sneeze. I sneeze and spew saliva and mucous all over the tabletop, some of it even hits that dog. She seems horrified but not half as horrified as me and my coworkers. What we know is that this was not just a reaction of the nasal cavaty. Amidst my panicked sneeze I let out an uncontrollable burst of flatulence.
Silence hit the room.
All eyes were on me as I clutched my driping nose.
Picture a room full of nurses awkwardly staring at the patient who thought super glue would make a good lubricant.
I shuffle slowly towards the back of the desk in search of a tissue when I feel it. I look up and realize, they know. With that one faithfull step my pants slide ever so slightly across my bottom and reveal to me a world of anguish I didn't know possible until that very moment. It seemed probable although not likely. But here I am, at work in front of various well respected coworkers, my boss, the tall lady, and the semi-retarded fat fuck, and I shit myself. Every second lasted hours, days even. People panicked and desperately scanned the room for something to take the attention off of my shitty khakis. My face boiled red as I was still driping snot all over myself. Employees scattered, the woman backed off and her dog just stared at me. I slowly manuevered myself over towards the front door only to catch a glimpse of the group of teens passing me by through the other set of doors. I can hear the mallrats for an instant.
"...smells like shit....fuckin embarrasing as hell."
I went home early that day. No one questions you when you experience something like that. That's the kind of trauma you're left to stew in, to ponder and live with. No one calls you out on it because it's just too damn awful for everyone to acknowledge, especially your boss.