Rose Tinted Glasses.

Imagine all the emotions on the spectrum you go through in a single day. Imagine anger, joy, happiness, loneliness, love, enthusiasm. Imagine feeling incredibly regretful for something you did. Imagine self-deprecation putting yourself down to the point where your heart is pounding in your chest with regrets regrets regrets. Imagine that ten times stronger, ten times more passionate. And imagine hatred for having such intense feelings, hatred ten times stronger.

And imagine bottling it up. Bottling it up so much that your outer image is perceived almost cold and emotionless. Bottling it up so that one day I’ll explode and shatter into a million pieces into the earth that will bury me, forgotten. This is who I am. This is what I have become.

birthday

It's my birthday, today. I feel like this guy.

Re:

Nights like tonight when I just want to pick up everything and get the fuck out of here.

hotel room

Something Pointless

Pain comes and goes. It comes more often than it goes, however, just like everything you actually want goes more often than it comes.

I want to cry all the time but I don’t want to cry at all anymore. Nothing good comes from crying. Crying makes you wish you hadn’t started crying in the first place. Just like forgetting makes you wish you had remembered. Just like remembering makes you wish you had forgotten.

I don’t wish to forget. Not anymore. Memories are torturous, but it is a good form of torture, perhaps. I won’t forget those lonely nights—those nights where I walked until my feet hurt, thought until my brain hurt, remembered until my heart hurt, those nights where I watched the train come closer and wondered if I would feel it knock me into the tracks and lacked the courage to take a few more steps forward. Maybe it wasn’t courage that I had lacked. Maybe it was courage that I had gained.

And I won’t forget the people who have fucked me up. You never want to forget the people who have fucked you up, for those are the people who make you stronger. I won’t ever forget names, faces, dates, times, places. I will remember it all, for it is everything I remember that makes me who I am. I won’t ever forget those nights where I felt like it was me against the world—those nights where I watched my gas tank emptying by the minute, where I watched nearly everything crumble to pieces in my hands, where I felt like I had run out of time to escape the tide. It is always you against the world, and that is something you can never forget. The wine in your glass—if you ever get that glass filled—always does taste sweeter after an unbelievable drought.

Hipster.

Hipster. A term that originated describing those who were hip to the groove, it once represented a beautiful group of individual and ideological people - the open minded poets and artists and writers of the Beatnik generation who listened to jazz and smoked marijuana cigarettes and drank deep into the night, discussing social evolution and a collective rise in consciousness. They were the ones who literally paved the road for revolution into the next decade.

Now this adjective has been besmirched and manipulated to mean the exact opposite of what it once stood for.

The hipsters of today are nothing more than the posers of the new century. The emos were just proto-hipsters. Pathetic little twats, with no unique personality of their own, these screamemoscene kids who witnessed their trend disintegrating, simply moved on to the next ‘cool thing’ they could get their monstrous little mitts on.

Before my very eyes I’ve witnessed girls cut their scraggly pin straight scene hair and ditch their scarykidsscaringboyswholikeprada band T's for Beatles shirts when the only songs they know are on the Across the Universe soundtrack. Boys forsake come overs for mutton chops and sweatbands for hemp bracelets. Kids who crave recognition as being independent individuals, without knowing who they as an independent beings are. It’s almost like these zombie coyotes in sheep’s wool have so long been striving to be apart of the pretentious herd, they have forgotten and lost what they really are, and how to think for themselves, as they parade around in their faux skins.

I feel like they have basically hijacked and raped an entire culture. The beauty that was bohemian has been accosted and abducted by creatures who know not what they have done. They attempt to adopt trends that they do not comprehend to be genuine ideals. They wear peace signs without believing in peace. They act like they care about the environment, when in truth they couldn’t give a single fuck, they just want that cloth “feed bag” proclaiming to the world what a good person they must be because they threw $15 some society’s way. Shallow and beyond egotistical, they are literally wasting themselves as people. Falsely advertising something that they do not understand, and indeed should not even be advertised, they dumbly strut about in their scarves and head bands and talk pompously without speaking any real substance. It sickens me.

What sickens me even more, however, is how I keep getting mistaken for one of these assholes.

It’s not because it’s trendy, it’s because that’s just who I am. It’s where I come from, and what’s more, these are all things I once was horrendously ridiculed for. So the fact that my beliefs, my lifestyle, and that of so many others who exhibit genuine compassion and devotion for said way of being, has been turned into some sort of trendist cultural immersion really grinds my gears. When I get mistaken for a hipster it’s just as insulting and infuriating as for a punk being mistaken for an emo. We, being of the aforementioned groups, are those of enigmatic revolutionary minds craving changed and social evolution- not brain-dead posers looking to look cool. So please, if you’re gonna attempt to label somebody, make sure you know what the fuck you’re talking about.

curled into a hollow ball

Your lips were too heavy, your tongue too vicious, your hands too restless, your heart too loud, your sighs too forceful, your requests too pathetic. My blood was too full of liquor, my lungs too full of smoke, my skin too cold, my lips too raw, my hips too terrified, my protests too weak.

You crash landed on your bed (it seems you didn’t see me laying there first) and I kicked and I screamed and I clawed and I thrashed blood onto the walls (yours or mine?) and I recoiled and I attacked. You may be a weak little creature, but your arms carry the strength of a hundred battalions, and not even I, in my frantic oppression, could overtake you.

You whimpered, you sniffled, you wiped your nose, you curled into a hollow ball. I laughed wickedly, I dragged my battered body into the light, I saw the bruises and the scratches, I saw your skin and blood under my fingernails. I did not cry, I did not panic, I did not run away.

I heard you sob, then I heard you snoring. I poured the rest of your fruity liquor down the drain while staring at my eyes on fire in the mirror.

You may have taken me down, but I won this fight.

The Way It Is Is The Way It Is.

All that really makes sense to me these days is writing. All that makes me feel happy is writing. All that makes me feel at peace is writing. It allows me to get away for a while. To be someone else, in a way. Sleep provides some release but waking up is inevitable. And when I wake up, everything comes crashing down on me. All my worries, struggles, and insecurities. Every day is the same, yet when I look back it all seems different. I’m never sure where I belong or who my friends are or what I want to be.

I’m so out of place.

But when I write…I’m home.

Dig it.

BELIEF AND TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house

4. Be in love with yr life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29. You’re a Genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

As ever,

Jack

Your Stupid Minds.

I was told today that I am the Ed Wood of writers. Is that good?

John Carter

Saw John Carter that opened today. Like many others, I have waited decades for Edgar Rice Burroughs fantastic novel to be presented on screen. I understand that it is very difficult to translate a book to film and several things were changed and/or left out. However, I had found it very well done and I highly recommend it.

The Pain is Internal and It Never Stops. Never.

An hour ago, I was sitting in the plaza, editing my work, when this vato came rolling up on his bike and stopped in front of me. "Hey! You remember me?"

I stated no, in fact, I didn't recognize him.

"It's me, Javier!"

Of those of you who had read my book PUTA, the character Oscar was based on Javier. As a fact, it's Javier on the cover. I hadn't seen him since 2004. The guy that stood in front of me was stooped, misshapen, and dirty. He was missing the entire top front row of his teeth. His eyes were canceled and full of sadness. He face was lined and weathered from years of hardship and bitterness. I did not recognize him. After a flashbulb moment of him confessing past adventures with me, sure as shit, it was him.

After small talk and what-ever-happened-to-so-and-so, I told him that I'd written a book based on our relationship we had. He stated timidly he was quite honored and requested a copy.

I then began about my other books. As soon as I mentioned TWEEKER, he pulled out a baggy of meth and attempted to pawn it on me. "No", I said, "I haven't touched that stuff since '97 and I'm not about to now." He asked for my address and number in which I scribbled down fakes. Then he took off "To sell that shit in Segundo Barrio."

How emotionally depressing. Yet, it was to be expected.

To those of you who had read my blog and comment on how "exciting" or "romantic" my life is - this is why I always simply comment back, "It's horrible, too." Everyone I had known from those wild days are either dead or their lives are wrecked in lieu of their vices. (Mostly dead. Oh, how much death I have had in my life concerning past friends! Too much death to the point that it has numbed me.)

Though today was a depressing encounter in which I had experienced untold times over the years, I deal with it the best I can: I simply go on living.

rabbits

Dirty Fedora and Rancid Cigarettes.

Don’t know the time and don’t care to know. With the blinds pulled I sit when I want to sit and sleep when I want to sleep. Shit to shit, eat when I’m hungry. I shuffle from small room to small room with dirty britches and a dingy robe. It’s warm and feels soft on my dried out skin. I scratch where it itches and I also masturbate at the faintest hint of sexual arousal. There are dirty dishes piled up, waiting. The television comes in fuzzy. I don’t care for lights, so mostly it’s an apartment filled with a digital glow - greens and blues.

Had a hustler over once. He didn’t like my place or me for that matter. I fucked him during the commercials, but paid for an hour, so he stuck around and during the next show, I fucked him again ‘cause it was a show I didn’t care for. When I sent my seed over his chest he stared at me, in my eyes. It was weird and ruined any sensation I was supposed to feel from ejaculating on a whore. I stood over him dripping and apologized. I sincerely apologized, and I didn’t even know I was doing it, or that I even felt guilty to begin with. But his eyes, those brown fucking eyes, looked up at me like I was supposed to be helping him and instead I fucked him pathetically and shot pathetic fucking come on him like he was trash when he was just a guy trying to make some fucking money. He said it was ok, he’s used to it. I said something stupid like he shouldn’t have to be or something like that. I didn’t know what to do but get a towel and wipe him off. He said something I couldn’t make out and put a peck on my cheek. We were both on the ground then, and I asked him to dinner. “You’re not the only lonely guy I see. Don’t get romantic now. You’re a nice guy. A really nice guy.” He kind of shook his head a little, like I was a silly boy. “This is just business, homie.”

I saw him once again after that night, at a cheap Chinese take-out joint. He was with somebody and I thought about walking up to them and asking the guy if he knew his date was a whore. But I didn’t and I shuffled back to my dark little hole and scoured the internet for naked pictures of him to jerk off to.

It's Hitting Rather Hard.

The Black Pink

Past the sun and over the stars, beyond black and the vast, space turns pink and the one planet there thrives with vegetation and intelligent life. Stars are still white, but with a pink backdrop they’re a lot harder to see, so the people don’t wish on stars. They are a level-headed folk who find happiness in the now and the already existing. Their evolution is unmitigated irony and yet their overall simplistic happiness is an abundant resource, fueling the quality of their days rather than hindering it with dreams and plans. Love exists, and it’s always right in front of them. They don’t have to look because everyone is beautiful. Love is easy. Being happy is easy. The sky is equal and with the blue oceans it reflects back a purple tint. And when they send people into space, their planet portraits looks like candy. It’s a calm planet, with calm lives and calm days, and if there is a dispute then there is also a well-behaved discussion with each party getting an equal allotted time to explain their side.

Fuck.

I don’t want to write about reason and pretty fucking planets. The gist is: people fucking suck.

But ‘people’ is too broad a term and I don’t have the energy to take on everybody. If you want to do something nice today, that would be great. If you want to, or are about to, do something that would classify you as a ‘dick/bitch’, stop. Don’t. Instead, do some kind of dance. It will be funnier. The unexplained is always funnier. And read a tombstone. Or plant some flowers where there are no flowers. Buy a homeless soul a meal. Follow a butterfly. Stare at the ocean ‘til it gets dark, then stare at the stars. If you do those things, I don’t think you can be an angry person. And not being angry is the first step to being happy.