it went like this:

Upon Further Examination

2011-05-06T21:21:00.000-04:00

Continuation:

Maybe not cognizance so much as crossing a very real, very visible, very tangible threshold where I am passing from a state of mind of pure consciousness, a primal sort of naturalistic being where I am more closely related to a mockingbird or a night owl, with his deepened vivacious questioning, and descending from the moist trees upon, clumsily clinging down the tree out of (dare I say) curiosity, landing upon the earth on my ass as a human being, full of doubt and worry, responsibility and the need, if not unbearable want, for transcendence.

It is a natural progression, one I am not too thrilled about but recognize and accept as order and the will of existence.

One I am happy to have someone to share it all with, though I hope she knows what I know.

Isn't that a true sentence: I hope she knows what I know.

How could anyone?

I certainly don't.

Let Go The Errors

2011-05-03T02:26:00.000-04:00

It is a haunting experience, the current one I am going through, to be in the full knowledge, to be completely, utterly, cognizant that every choice that I make will irrevocabaly change the course that my life may, or may not be on. Everything from the apartments I sign leases for and the locations upon the globe I chose to live, to the professions I aspire toward or the friendships I start or keep. For the meals that I chose to order at resturants. Whether or not to stop and tie my shoe or let that bitch ride out. To take a moment and breathe, or to trust my body to breathe for me.

Daunting, absolutely daunting, to be aware of the intricacies of existance. That to order soup, I will never be able to have THAT salad.

I've been warned of such trains of thoughts, and while I do not dwell, I certainly play with the ifs, and I most definately hope, if not pray, that the choices I make are the ones that are going to make me-us-happy for however long we are meant to be happy for.

I look around, in all the corners of the world, in all the walks of life, to the people I've only heard about to the people I speak to everyday...

...and every one seems to be bitching. Complaining even. Thinking of what could, should, would be. And maybe for right now I am one of them. Forgive me.

I do not like the world I did not create. I enjoy my fantasies. My dream world. A world where nothing takes place but understanding. Where people are people, and not the horrid devils they are so easily made out to be. Where love is. Where true, unconditional, human, love is. It has made me happier then any one man has ever been with a heart pumping blood. To exist in a world where the swooping night owl only wants the see the ground. Where the news only shows the weather and the weather bares no tragedies. Where bombs do not drop. Where death is a trumiph. Where money bares no improtance because no one has it. Where the people who do not know me I love. Where the people who know me I love more. Where the people who know me and love me I worship as Gods. Where the art of the earth, and the art of man's recreation of earth, bare all importances.

I have lived in my world for a solid year now.

I am happy. I am happy to know how to dream. I am so happy to know love.

It took me so long.

I'm going to try your world for a while.

Be easy on me.

I will not proofread this post. Let go the errors.

Remember That Scene: The Sting

2011-02-10T04:44:00.001-05:00

Remember that scene in The Sting when Paul Newman pretended to be drunk? And then that scene where he wasn't pretending?

Remember That Scene: Paris Blues

2011-02-02T22:17:00.003-05:00

Remember that scene in Paris Blues when Paul Newman played "Mood Indigo" and Joanna Woodward thought she had figured out something so much more to him but, really, she hadn't?

Remember That Scene: Winning

2011-02-02T22:10:00.003-05:00

Remember that scene in Winning where Paul Newman got his step-son drunk?

Remember That Scene: From the Terrace

2011-02-02T22:06:00.002-05:00

Remember that Scene in From the Terrace when Paul Newman got the promotion and then declined it?

Paris Blues

2011-01-19T14:18:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I feel really lost, like the world is just one big inside joke and I'm the kid standing off the to side, just outside the circle, no idea what is going on, but laughing just to fit in.

Sometimes I don't.

I'm searching for a job again, something I seem to do every so often, something I am generally confident about... then grow increasingly anxious over. I'm coming close to the end of this spectrum now.

I don't need much. Just a couple bucks here and there to survive. I certainly don't want many things. A good meal for Alice and I. A plane ticket to a new place. A couple Paul Newman movies.

The bear necessities, you know.

My Daughter's Boyfriend

2011-01-03T11:47:00.004-05:00

I want to have a daughter one day. Not because I have heard that daughters love their father's more then son's do, but because I can't wait till my daughter brings home her first boyfriend, some 16 year old little boy, all nervous to meet me for the first time and I'll offer him some whiskey, and when he declines I'll say...

"I don't trust a man who doesn't drink."

Because I think its funny to tell a 16 year old such a thing.

Plus the statement is true. I don't.

The Kitten Apocalypse

2011-01-03T10:48:00.005-05:00

I'm starting to distrust cats.

This is not brought about because I don't love my cat anymore. I am still very much enamored by the little fur ball, all cats in fact I am completely and utterly in love with, but I am becoming a little wary of their [the cats] intentions.

One might be thinking now, "If you don't trust cats how can you still love them?" Easily. If being in relationships had taught me anything over the past 26 years it is that love and trust have absolutely nothing to do with one another, kind of like orange juice and malt liquor, and similar to orange juice and malt liquor, love and trust can be mixed into a delicious concoction that will make you feel all warm on the inside and impair your judgments.

But this isn't about the idiotic decisions we make over women, nor is it about brass monkeys, this is about cats and how, I'm pretty sure, mine is trying to kill me.

My case:

Exibit A- every single morning the feline in question sits outside the bedroom door and will audibly wake me. At first these pleas were for food, but as time progresses the ear-piercing cries have continued even pass feeding. The reason can only be that her unsanctioning meows are a strategical ploy to deprive me of sleep, rendering me unfit to contending against her in fight to the finish.

Exhibit B- the kitten eats and ungodly amount of food. Sure said food is just pellets of some freeze dried mechanically separated chicken parts and Chinese newspapers, but each day she grows with her consumption. Shes already a fat ass and has doubled in size over the course of a month, at this rate she'll be woolly mammoth status by April.

Exhibit C- training. Every day the kitten roams around the apartment looking for objects to destroy. Shoes, headphones, pens, notebooks, computer cords, window drapes, the rug. She is not particular about what she obliterates, but that it is agreeably dead when she is finished. Quite often she can be heard underneath the wooden table, sharpening her tiny little battle axes, the grinding of claws against wet stone, the flashes of sparks behind the table cloth. Seriously, does she really need so many claws? 18 claws? Velociraptors didn't even need that many.

Exhibit D- at night the kitten does recon, getting close to me under the pretense of 'cute' and gaining valuable information to be used at the moment of attack. When I am on the couch reading, cozy under my blanket and restful, the kitten will quite often join my, settling on my chest and sleeping. But she isn't asleep. The cat is taking careful note of my vitals, checking to see where all the major arteries and my weak spots are. Even before resting she will massage my body where she is about to lay down, or at least I thought it was a massage until I realized she was tenderizing.

Look. I don't know what will become of this. I'm pretty sure the only reason any of us are still alive is because cats don't have thumbs can cat open plastic food wrappers, but that day in evolution will soon draw to a close. I don't know when D-Day will strike upon the calender and this hairy sleeper cell will awaken into some bloodthirsty beast, probably on 2012, but I can tell you this, I will be ready. I've been stocking nail files all over the house and carrying around a loaded spritz bottle full of water. I wrote a strongly worded letter the cat nip factories to stop jacking the cats up. I even started to torment my kitten, I call her fat and ugly all the time trying to lower she self-confidence.

I was ready for Y2K. I've been ready for zombies. And I'll be ready for the Kitten Apocalypse. Its going to be the cutest nightmare of your life, I hope your ready too.

Tonight to Hell With Everything Else, We'll Drink Hard, We'll Drink to Outselves

2010-12-29T15:57:00.006-05:00

I told her that life was funny, which is a realizations I seem to be coming to more and more these days, I told her that life was funny, but mostly it was mundane. That days come and they go and every one of them is so much like the other yet each keeps us moving forward. That no single day holds some triumphant or tragic accomplishment but when looked at through a time line it is amazing the distances that were traveled.

She said she already knew, that all of us do really. She said it was like seeing a pubescent cousin for the first time in a year or two, that when you picture them in your mind they are short, hairless, timid. But now, after all that time, they sit across from you at the Christmas dinner table, tall, dark, sounding much like a man, but not quite yet. An evening shadow of themselves upon the ground.

And that's what this post is, a picture of your cousin, all grown up, not quite there yet, but surely more along then before. This is that end of the year post when I try to figure out just what the hell happened.

In one year I have:

Gotten my heart broken and recovered.
Backpacked across Europe.
Fallen in love with a woman and asked her hand.
Moved across an ocean to Granada, Spain.
Written a book about it all.

It is all pretty weird to think about, even weirder to type it all out and see it before me. I, for what might be the first time, am proud of myself. But there is something inside of me, something that even through this past year has not left... I do not feel accomplished. This is not to say that I am not happy with the things that I have done, my peacock feather as quite furled right now. But sitting here now, in front of my computer as I do every morning to write, I do not feel accomplished. There is still so much more. Let me try to explain better...

It is as if, for years, I have starving, hungrier beyond belief, and for twenty-five years I had only snacked, only nibbled at food, gone off to college, partied here, traveled there, moved to Philadelphia, a couple of good poems written every once in a while. But this year, this year was the first time I have ever feasted, and oh how I gorged! I sat at life's dinner table and licked my third fourth fifth plate clean. I ate dessert, drank a cup of coffee, and skipped home. But the unavoidable truth is, I will be hungry again. No matter how much you eat, you will be hungry again... and I am a growing boy, I eat a lot. And that is what I feel, not hungry, not yet, but I have the knowledge that I will again need to feed.

And I couldn't be happier about it. I'd hate to be one of those people who fill themselves that once, become satisfied and then become complacent and go back to snacking. I feel unaccomplished because there is still so much more to do. I just feel blessed at the moment because I have found someone who is just as hungry as I, and isn't afraid to feast.

There is another feeling too, one of elation, one that keeps me pretty high afloat, and it is this: while a large majority of my generation (and all others) reads books about adventure, and watches movies about romantic love and giving it all up for love, and listens to songs about how trite normal life is and how they just want to buy a plane ticket and run away, or posts pictures in their blogs/tumblrs of places where they would rather be...

...I lived it.

And that is why, when ringing in 2011, I can pat myself on the back.

Forgive me is that seems like gloating. It truly isnt my intention to do so. I have been long past the point of caring what anyone thinks enough to feel the need to gloat, plus anyone that I would ever feel the need to bolster myself to certainly doesnt read this blog. Also, forgive me if it seems like I'm pointing any fingers. That isnt my intention either. I am just simply proud of myself, because this year, I did exactly what I always wanted to, damned the concequences, and I got more then I could have ever dreamed for as a result. And then I wrote it all down.

If you would have told me a year ago that I would be here now... its just so crazy to think about.

365 days ago I was miserable. Drinking alone at bars dreaming of places I would rather be.

Today, I am in Spain with a beautiful woman who I've fallen for.

Maybe I am gloating.

I love you all. I truly hope that you all have gotten exactly what you wanted for Christmas and out of 2010.

Thank you to everyone who has been writing letters and keeping up with me on Facebook. Shout out to Momatron and Greg, I miss you guys. Shout out to the bff in Queens, Matt. And big shout out goes to all you who made this year what it is, its been a long string of events for me and if you were a part of it thank you, truly.

Heres to a hundred years and if the drink should fall let it fall for the drinker.

Broetry

2010-12-17T15:08:00.002-05:00

Quite possibly the World's first Broem:

She was like a flower, you know?
All delicate and stuff.
She smelt pretty good too.
We took a walk at night,

the air was like a wave on the beach
I rode it with my love board.
I had this feeling inside of me
like I'd drank too much beer, but I didn't!

Weird, right? The hairs on my body
stood up, like I rubbed my body in hair jel
but I didn't do that either! There was none left.
I told her she was cool

She said I was cool too,
we kissed, I slipped her some tongue.
It was pretty sweet.
And then we got to where we were going,

but it wasn't where I expected to be,
so I went home.
It was pretty heavy, man.
You should been there.

Quizás: A Preview

2010-12-13T13:27:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to drop off something I've been working on. This is a section of prose, from a collection of concise non-fiction I've been gathering about my experiences in Granada. It needs work, it has only been roughly edited. Tell me what you think.

---

Quizás

She is intoxicating, slowing my mind, incapable of quick reactions, talking foreign words in foreign ways and familiar words in unusual ways. I cut the deck seven times and slide them across the table, in front of her, and she turns over the first row of cards.

I am in an old apartment. Not so much that the building, itself, is old, but it is apparent that an old person has been there. A grandma apartment. Cold. Sterile. Everything is orderly. So much of everything and all so orderly. Immaculate clutter. Rows of Spanish encyclopedias in soldiering rows detailing a history I wasn’t even aware existed, until just recently. Oil paintings like frosted glass windows, scenes of carriages in front of fruterias and plazas, pale streetlights barely glimmering against gray stone. Trinkets and figurines and sepia tone pictures that weren’t taken in sepia tone by choice. Pictures of men with mustaches. A private museum. I suppose, after so many years, sentimentality collects.

The second row of cards is turned and she tells me what they tell her. I have affluence in my dealings. It takes a moment to get past her words, the lullaby she is singing, to think how this might apply to me.

Our legs folded under the lightly pattered tablecloth upon the table, knees against the heater hidden beneath, warming the blood as it passes through.

The third row and I have fortune in love, but one by one all the face cards reveal themselves upside down. “No es bueno,” she says. “The people…”

Another row is turned over and the same, all the kings and the queens and the jacks of my life, all upside down. “This is not a good time for you and people. Maybe language…” she puts her hands in front of her like a boxed mime, “…from people.”

She flips the rest of the cards and not a face deviates, even the jesters are standing on their heads, they appear correct to me, they look to me properly, but she reads different.

“Impossible,” she says. “No puede ser. The cards…” she waves her hand above them as if she were trying to sell me the set, some sort of game show host. “…but look at you.”

I give an apprehensive giggle. I want to tell her, tell her what I feel, what I’ve felt for so long, how at home I feel in the book, buried under words. But how, how could I convey—anything—to her? “Gracias,” I say.

“Maybe you are like child,” she says. Her voice, elegant in its gentility. “Maybe you just watch like child. Just take in.” Her words blanket my body. “And maybe one day you say…” She waves her hand like the sun, rising across the sky and setting. “…‘Hola. I am here’.”

“Maybe,” I say.

X-Mas in the After

2010-12-10T12:33:00.002-05:00

There are just some people you can't send Christmas cards too.

Dear America

2010-12-02T13:12:00.005-05:00

Alice and I didn't talk for the first two hours of my arrival. I just stood in her doorway, soar for the oppressive luggage and the 35 hours of travel from Astoria to Granada. We could do nothing but constantly reaffirm that I was there, that this wasn't a dream, a premonition, a fluke.

After two weeks this feeling hasn't faded. Every day I wake to a dream better then any I could have slept to. We, Alice and I, at many moments during the day, suddenly realize that I am there, where we are, what we have been though, and we are set off again. We spend our nights together, drinking the cheapest whiskey and the cheapest cola, talking about the things that matter the most to us in this world (mainly one another), or laughing about that make the least sense in this world (mainly one another). There is not a love deeper then that which I have felt from this woman.

Then there is Spain. Then there is Granada.

I have traveled. I have been to Rome. To Berlin. To the vineyards of Northern France. To the beaches of California. To New York City. I have never seen a place more hospitable, more beautiful in is habitability.

I am truly blessed that Alice ended up living here.

The city is utterly beautiful, it is that perfect mixture of old and new, with buildings older then America yet still having all those modern marvels that make life that much easier. It is also somwhere between a major city, and a small town. Not too big in that you might get lost in it's clutches, yet not to small that you grow bored of its monotony. Granada's porridge is just right. The small cobble stone streets separate the old walls of the buildings. Fountains in the center of piazzas lit up so wonderfully at night. The smells of all the restaurants dive a man wild. The Sierra Nevada mountains in view from this valley city.

Living next to snow covered mountains... I serious don't know how I spent 26 years living anywhere else. Mindblowing.

I'd love to update with pictures, but I think I left my camera in South Carolina. I'm figure this out soon.

Flamenco... ugh, such a passionate music.

Everything is cheap. I mean cheap cheap. The supermarkets are more like dollar stores, I'm serious, Alice and I go shopping, 25 items for 25 euros. And I'm talking everything I normally buy at a grocery store is about a euro. Its great.

The food here is quite amazing as well. One of the highlights are tapas.

Tapas, Dude. Tapas.

The idea is there, you go to the bar, spend about a euro-fifty on a beer, and they give you a beer and a tapa. A tapa is basically a small meal. So with every beer, you get food. Food and beer. Two birds with one Euro. Its insane. I will never be over this. Try to think of something better then snacks... for real, try it.

The bars are cool. Tapa bars are awesome, then there are the dive-type bars, bunch of punk ass kids doing a bunch of punk ass things. Alice and I sit on ripped couches in rooms with ripped wall paper, talk our English, smoke our cigarettes in the bar, and just make each other laugh all night.

My Spanish is coming along. It's been two weeks and I have made significat progress that I'm impressed with. I'm not exactly confident enough to speak just yet, but I'm starting to understand what people are saying. With time.

Unfortunately the language barrier is also a major part holding me back from a job. Plus slim pickin's. But again, with time. I'm not totally hard up just yet and it isn't like I don't know how to live without. Booze, smokes, and a little bit of food. Alice and I keep a pretty modest lifestyle.

Chupacabra (the kitten) on the other hand, is a fat ass and eats us out a house and home. Seriously. This cat is a piece of shit. All it does all day is play when we want to sleep and sleep when we want to play. Wakes us up every morning because her fat ass cant open up the cabinets to feed herself, it isnt my fault you don't have thumbs bitch. I don't know how someone can look at themselves in the mirror everyday, shes just that ugly. The beast cant even hold her booze, always stumbling all over the place, meowing some dumb shit.

I love that little ball of fur.

So I'm still getting into the swing of things here. Not exactly sure where I fit in yet, but I do not mind. To be honest, I am quite content just watching Spain right now, just observing and not really participating as the metaphor was told to me: "like a child, just watching without language, that will one day when ready say, 'hello'."

Alice keeps me pretty insanely happy, so it isn't an issue of loneliness. Nor boredom. I write everyday. I have been, and still am, working on a longer piece. Have been working on it exclusively for about 5 months now, and I am excited about the way it is turning out. Besides we with Alice, it is about all I want to do everyday.

So basically, life is tits right now.

And I am so interested to see what will happen in the future. I really haven't the slightest idea.

I'd genuinely like to thank people for their kind words. It is nice to know that the choices I have made in life are so highly regarded by others. A couple have said I have guts. But I'll be honest, I was/am/will be scared shit-less about this all. But fear, I've learned, is nothing but a hurtle to happiness.

Or some BS like that.

Anyway, I truly miss you all. I hope all is well. I will, eventually, write to people personally. But due to time and monetary contains, check the blog and facebook for updates. I do not have the internet at the apartment, I have to come to the library to use it (which also makes concentrating rather hard), so most of my internets time is taken up doing Drunken Boat things, but send messages. Send love.

And I'm serious, I truly love you all.

And again, thank you so much for the help, the inspiration, and the kind words.

I'll see you around the bend.

Grandpa Canle

2010-11-14T15:35:00.000-05:00

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.

Conflicting Impulses

2010-11-11T12:09:00.003-05:00

As the day approaches where I am to embark on the biggest adventure of my life thus far, I cannot help but laugh at a certain fear I had harbored in my youth... and by youth I mean every day proceeding this one.

The fear was this: that life is boring. And if not, then life is confusing.

I believe one of the greatest attributes of humanity is confusion. That one of the traits that truly separates us from all the other animals as a highly evolved being is the ability to have conflicting impulses.

And I have always wonder why I've had conflicting impulses, that is it say, how is it possible that two different life choices can both seem so right (or so wrong) and be unable to definitely choose between the two.

This use to stress me out. Now I love such contradiction. It is an inarguable sign that you are truly alive and conscious. But this still doesn't answer the questions as to why these situations arise.

Confusion, in this sense, is extremely simple to define, it comes about when a person if faced with the choice between what one SHOULD do as defined by the societal standards bestowed upon such an individual, and what one WANTS to do.

Myself for example...

I SHOULD get a job that gives health insurance and start working my way back into graduate school and be on my way to a career and a fruitful life where I am financially stable.

I WANT to the adventurous and follow my heart and blow with the wind and carry no anchors but only helium balloons.

One choice is safe, comfortable, warm. It is smart, rational, respectable. It is a good choice.

The other is dangerous. It is reckless. It is still respectable but only to a certain extent (the musician who at 50 still haven't given up the dream of stardom and lives in a basement, is depressing).

Which path I choose in the long run is yet to be seen...

...I dont know where I'm going with this.

Just wish me luck.

An Important Announcement From Brent Michael Canle

2010-11-05T00:22:00.005-04:00

This is a long one so bear with me...

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls,
Family, Friends, Acquaintances,
Readers,
You,

First (and dare I say foremost), I'd like to thank everyone who supported my Jurassic Park status updates on Facebook. The venture was unbelievably well-received in the community. It was a long and very wild ride and please give yourself a round of applause if you joined me on it. To be honest, I didn't, and still don't, want to stop. I would have gone on forever quoting the greatest movie ever made, without repeating a single line, until there was only the's and a's left to post.

Quoting Jurassic Park for all of you was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. It gave me purpose everyday, to reaching into the vast cookie jar that is my brain, and pluck out a nugget of JP gold, it could have been my life's ambition had it not been for my pursuits in other, lesser, disciplines (literature, pffft). But unfortunately, ~~nothing gold can stay~~ life finds a way.

And if you were paying attention, I just said quoting the movie Jurassic Park is a discipline in and of itself. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise... I mean, did they do it? No. I did. So how the fuck would they know? It is an art to be crafted and perfected.

Special shout out goes to Jeremy James Roman, one of my favorite friend who I bump into maybe biannually.

Okay, next order of business, lets get down to brass tax here:

I am moving to Granada, Spain in 10 days to be with a woman named Alicia Patricia Lopez Canas.

A woman who's name I can barely pronounce, so Alice Lopez for short. For those of you who do not know the story, we met in Nice, France, fell terribly in love with her on a train ride to Marseilles, and when I returned Stateside I worked for 5 months straight for a plane ticket. Now I am on my way back to her. November 14th I fly. There is much much much more to the story, but nothing further will be aired over the blogger forum (though I did just finish the first draft and just started the second draft of a memoir, the story between Alice and I being about 50% of it. Who knows if anything will ever become of it one day, to be honest, I wouldn't mind it was destined to be just for me. This is also partly the reason for my most recent elation, my writing is going great.).

There is a whole gamut of emotions about this move. I could not be more excited to be reunited with Alice and explore the seemingly limitless possibility between her and I. I am struck by the wonder of all our coming tomorrows. I am also a bit scared to move to a country where I do not speak the language and will need to find a job as I shall arrive in Spain with a couple shinny coins in my pocket and nothing of value.

But money, in the end, is laughable.

Fear is fairly humorous as well.

I am ecstatic to think of what lay in the future. In fact, I can not remember a time in 26 years of life I have been happier.

When I use to lay down to dream, this is what I saw.

So with 10 days left in America, here is my plan:

I am to leave Philadelphia this weekend, either the 6th or the 7th, and see some family in New York.

Then I am to drive to South Carolina to hang out with and say good-bye to Momatron.

Then I am to fly to New York City on the 11th of November where I will be in Astoria to spend the remainder of my American time with my best friend slash life partner slash confidant slash male soul mate, Matthew McNally.

Now here is the part that will probably concern you. Matt and I want to rage. Matt said something about a going away party, I'm down for anything with the word party in it. Now I know there are a bunch of you in Brooklyn and Long Island and scattered all over the place, but the weekend of the 12th...

...COME TO QUEENS!!!

I would love to see everyone. Old friend. New Friends. Friends I have yet to meet. I would love to see you!

Yes you!

You reading these words right now.

Because chances are if you are reading this right now, I enjoy your company, and maybe you enjoy mine too. I'm willing to wager people who don't like me could give a shitless about what I post in a dumb ass blog. And if you could give a fuck less I'm leaving (and you are still cool), well fucking come anyway, its a party for Christs sake.

So if you are reading this right now, if you have gotten this far into reading this post, well then that's grounds to come down and have a good ol' time with your long lost friend Brent.

If you are interested in joining the festivities, please contact either myself, or the lovely Matt McNally.

I would love to come see each and everyone of you an individual visit before I leave, but to my regret, money and time do not allow such luxuries.

For everyone who I will not be able to see before I leave, I love you, I'll miss you, and this is not forever. I will be back to America one day...

...I could never get too far from Miller Highlife, Marlboro 27s, and Texas Pete Hot Sauce...

...and, of course, you.

But for now:

Adios Muchacho!

Explosions

2010-10-26T10:09:00.002-04:00

Explosions in the Sky- Day 3

From The Rescue

I never really gave this song much thought... nor this album for that matter.

But somehow I stopped, and listened, finally listened to what they were talking about...

...and it is utterly beautiful.

Its a tale of woe.

Its a tale about nothing really.

I feel like there are so many out there who know this band.

But I feel like so few actually listen.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Some say that Post-Rock is dead.

Anyone who says this is a music snob.

Post-Rock cannot die, nor do I think it was ever alive, thats what was so beautiful.

Post-Rock isn't about innovation, its about ineffable human emotion.

Excerpt from Where Silence Reigns

2010-10-24T23:16:00.003-04:00

Excerpt from 'The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke'

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Written 1899

From the collection Where Silence Reigns: Selected Prose

---

The little Marquis says, "You are very young, Sir?"

And von Langenau, half in sorrow and half in defiance: "Eighteen." Then they are silent.

Later, the Frenchman asks: "Have you too a sweetheart at home, Herr Junker?"

"Have you?" retorts von Langenau.

"She is fair like you."

And they are silent again, until the German exclaims: "Then why, in the devil's name, do you sit in the saddle and ride through this cursed country to meet the Turkish dogs?"

The Marquis smiles. "So that I may return."

And von Langenau is sad. He is thinking of a fair-haired girl, with whom he used to play. Wild games. He longs to go home, for a moment only, only long enough to say the words: "Magdalena-forgive me that I was always like that!"

What- was? thinks the young officer.-And they have gone so far.

Skype

2010-10-20T13:31:00.003-04:00

Skype is the equivalent to that point in the Pavlov test when you ring the bell and don't give the dog meat.

All the sights and sounds point to a treat, so I sit there patient and waiting, drool pouring out my mouth.

But not for that much longer.

The Jerk

2010-10-18T19:30:00.002-04:00

Did not expect such a tender moment while watching this for the first time...

On a Train to Paris With a Turk

2010-10-18T11:26:00.002-04:00

A transcribed conversation on a train to Paris with some Turkish kid:

What are you writing?

Poetry.

You are a poet?

I think so.

What do you write about?

Life. Love. Thoughts. People. Traveling.

You travel a lot?

Yes, for two months.

What did you see?

I don't really know how to answer that, I'm sorry I'm a bit tired.
I'm on my way to the airport to fly to New York.

You are from New York?

Yes.

I hear many American students come to Europe for holiday.

Yes they do.

Are you here on holiday?

Something like that.

And after you go back to school?

I'm not a student.

Oh, so what are you?

Careless.

Ah. Yes, my friend. It happens.

Rnodam Aosretnmst of Lrtetes

2010-10-13T11:35:00.007-04:00

In response to the post Art, Who Knows? Ian said this: You're not the first to ponder this. The point of art is that the visceral connection to the piece is hopefully more real to the viewer than the reality of the piece. Getting down to brass tacks, painting is mud or plastic on a canvas; a poem is a random assortment of letters. The artist contextualizes and gives these elements meaning. If the viewer or reader was engaged by the piece (or rather, engaged the piece), then they WERE involved. Without someone perceiving the work, then it is simply the sum of its materials.

In response to his response:

First, I am going to argue against and then for a part of Ian's statement. Though I understand fully what he is driving at, and agree, I see an opportunity to play with concepts.

A poems is not a random assortment of letters, but rather a construction of letters what build upon one another like legos (or to use a more adult example, architecture).

This, however, is a random assortment of letters...

klajdbfakhbdflalskjdbfausbdnf;jnafg

...which, coincidentally, is how I digitally communicate to my girlfriend the frustration of missing her so tremendously. But it does bring the point that maybe, in the age of keyboards, a random assortment of letters could be a message, and thus a poem, as I do use the above jumble of symbols to convey an fairly complex emotion to another person, which she properly receives and is able to relate to. I mean, what else is art but that?

So maybe it is possible for an utterly random collection of letters to be a poem.

Great job!

Second, Ian's entire statement is correct. And I much enjoy the idea of this Collective Art, like a poetic potluck. One thing that has always stuck with me since college is this idea of borrowing. I have had professors say, and I paraphrase, that every story and every concept has already been written and that it is alright to borrow what you like from each work and make it your own. As the Alcoholics Anonymous slogan goes, "take what you like and leave the rest."

With this a caveman used mud to draw on cave walls, next generation still used mud but added the nectar from fruit to color the mud, the next generation painted on stone tablets , the next on stretched animal hides, the next used a stick instead of their fingers for finer lines, the next used a brush... until paintings, or rather painters, evolved into Dali.

Maybe art now-a-days is this intellectual cherry picking. That really were are all sharing our selves and building upon one another, building up and up upon the past to create huge monoliths of artistic achievement. That basically, as we evolve as human beings our art would be like science and technology and continually advance upon the creations and discoveries of previous generations.

But then where are all the Shakespeares? Where are all the Nietzsches? Where are all the Platos and Homers and Dantes?

Where are all the writers that superseded Eliot and Whitman?

Why am I an imbecile compared to human beings who shat in outhouses? Or at least, why do I feel like one?

Why is the everyday man incompetent when Freud and Voltaire and Kierkegaard wrote down their idea?

I could speculate, I could try to answer these question, but I'll end it here for now. Because really their are no definite answers and the theoretical conversation we could have about this would be never ending and be mostly based on personal opinion, not that I am against such verbal fencing, but I mean, this is a blog, it is terribly one sided.

And who knows, maybe the greatest poet to ever grace this earth is a child right now, and after a tragic car accident is currently in a coma, having the most beautiful and intricate dreams that any subconscious mind has ever had, and we, the inept or indolent common man, just has to wait for this heteroclite to awaken and spill their fantastic visions upon us like milk upon the kitchen floor of our imagination.

Maybe the world is just a random assortment of letters, people being the letters, playing out an endless Scrabble game where some us are worth more points then other and some us have the fortune of being place on on triple word scores and some of us are just filler to complete a word and come of us are just useless and uncreative leeches like an "s" placed at the end of the word "innovation."

Or something. I'm not completely sure what I just said.

I will say this though...

Dante was one mean muggin' motha fucka...

"Tell him it's his birthday, then tell him you don't give a fuck it's his birthday."

Letter to B. Heyman

2010-10-12T13:08:00.003-04:00

Dear Brian Arthur Heyman,

I want to make a movie, and was thinking if it might be possible to take Dada-esque elements and apply them to film...

...that is to say, our movie would be comprised of only famous lines from other movies, with an ascending plot, climax, and resolution as any other storyline.

While, it would be funny to make a story by cutting each movie together, it would get rather tedious to watch, so I say, we shoot an actual movie in the same vein as this hodge-podge, with the same dialogue and action, but keeping the actors and directorial styles in sync.

What do you think?

Is it possible?

Also, still digging the tandem blog idea. I have a new idea for a solo project I'd like to run by you as well.

Love,

Brent Michael Canle

P.S. please keep in mind that making such a movie would entail copious amounts of watching great movies whilst drinking copious amount of the booze.

Sometimes the World Just Doesn't Make Sense to a Child

2010-10-12T10:36:00.005-04:00

[10:28:38 AM] Brent Michael Canle: ive been on a huge foo fighters kick recently

[10:28:41 AM] Brent Michael Canle: but they were never bad

[10:28:50 AM] Brent Michael Canle: i was just bias

[10:28:55 AM] Brent Michael Canle: for a while

[10:28:57 AM] Alicia PLC: thats always great to go back to

[10:29:08 AM] Brent Michael Canle: because i was a die hard nirvana fan in elementary school

[10:29:37 AM] Brent Michael Canle: and thought cortney and killed kurt and dave stole his songs

[10:29:40 AM] Alicia PLC: OHHHHH yesssss

[10:29:46 AM] Alicia PLC: i know right?

[10:29:50 AM] Alicia PLC: im marrying you

[10:29:56 AM] Brent Michael Canle: '94 was a rough year for all of us

Who in the hell would have thought that the Foo Fighters would become one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and that Ghrol was a living legend?

I certainly didn't while I was watching this video in 1995 on Mtv.

Have the Terrorists Won?

2010-10-12T09:55:00.005-04:00

9/11 was a very difficult time for us all. America, in that moment, lost so much: innocent lives, two towering symbols of human achievement, and a sense of American security, that we were untouchable. But there is something else we lost, that few have ever had the courage to mention, as the mere fact is crippling to those who can remember a day before September 11th, 2001.

We also lost the song "Bodies" by Drowning Pool.

In the wake of the collapse of the World Trade Center, "Bodies" was banned from the radio due it its repeated chorus of "Let the bodies hit the floor" and the extremely ominous counting brutalizing the reality of just how many bodies are indeed hitting the floor.

Who knows there this piece of audio gold could have gone had it not been for an unthinkable act of terrorism. Could it have topped the charts? Could it have ended world hunger? Could this have been the second coming? Was it Bin Laden's plan all along to deprive us of this angelic composition of music?

No. It wasn't.

In fact, the song is so incredibly horrible that it was played repetitively at Guantanamo Bay in 2003 to "stress out" prisoners during interrogations. Inevitably each inmate would crack, spilling any and all information they knew about their terrorist faction. Afterward, jock rock soldiers would listen the song again on their iPods while doing squat thrusts, insisting that it was the heaviest song they had ever heard and how they could hit it twice as hard while listening to it.

But in the end, the American public is deprived.

So I pose the question...

...have the terrorists won?

You be the judge.

Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!

The Human Factor by Graham Greene

2010-10-12T09:28:00.002-04:00

In case you didn't know, and really I don't know why you would know this, but one of my favorite novelists is Graham Greene.

I started reading The Human Factor and came across this little gem, a couple of lines I was just so attracted to...

(just a little note, I'm in love with the cover art for Greene put out by Penguin)

---

"I wonder what I would do without you," Castle said.

"Much the same you are doing now. Two doubles before dinner at eight."

"When I arrived and you weren't here with the whisky, I was scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Of being left alone. Poor Davis," he added, "going home to nothing."

"Perhaps he has a lot more fun."

"This is my fun," he said. "A sense of security."

"Is life outside as dangerous as all that?" She sipped from his glass and touched his mouth with lips which were wet with J & B. He always bought J & B because of its color-- a large whisky and soda looked no stronger than a weak one of another brand.

Excerpt from an Untitled Memoir

2010-10-12T00:59:00.002-04:00

So, if yall are paying attention, I have mentioned several times of a longer memoir I am currently writing about my trip to Europe. The piece started as a letter to my Grandfather and a simple retelling of events, but has become so much more and adapted into a exploration into love, both with and without, both external and internal. And all that sappy shit.

I promised I'd post and excerpt when I could.

Well I can now. I'm still working on the rough draft but came out with this the other day. Tell me what you think of it.

Its a couple of paragraphs from a night I had in Florence, Italy. This was about the moment the trip turned around for me, this is about the moment everything started happening:

---

Her question was all I could think about that night, me. What was I going to do? What was I going to do for myself, with myself? When I left America, I hadn’t left much and there was even less waiting for me now. I had no one waiting for me, no one that I wanted to be waiting for me anyway. I didn’t even have anyone in Marseilles, or in Barcelona, or any other towns I was planning on visiting. I had gotten what I wanted, I was free, but it came with unforeseen complications, a loneliness crept over me and rained down upon my body, clouded my brain, and turned my cloths to lead. Decided on staying in that night as I was tired and it was raining. I laid in the hostel for a while, thinking, or rather sulking, in the first bed I’ve experienced for well over a week, letting myself melt into the otherwise wholly uncomfortable spring mattress, trying to relax my body as best as I could. Trying to hold my eyes close. Trying to calm my mind. Nothing worked. I thought I would take a quick walk to the corner market store, buy a couple beers and smoke a cigarette or two, let my body and mind tire themselves out, but as I exited the store, I wanted to walk more, so I decided to go to the park. When I reached the park I had finished one beer and opened another, with each step a lust expanded within me, a certain exuberance about the world and about life grew with each passing building, each passing street, each Italian sign I ignored. Without stopping I kept on to the train station, from the train station to the bridge over the canal, I just kept walking. Walking aimlessly, furiously.

While crossing the bridge to the south side of the city, I stopped for a while to watch the rain hit the water and the rippled reflections of the city, before continuing on.

A sound slinked along the streets almost unnoticed like a stray cat. It was an organ, playing erratically through the thick night. I followed the sound, across intersections and down alleyways, and found the church in which the sound originated. The doors were open as if inviting, but the organ was so powerful a heavy wind passed through the doors and tried to push all listeners out. I fought my way through and sat in the first pew I came to. The sounds wasn’t deafening, it was the crack and roll of thunder, it shook the heart, it was as if two of God’s angels came to earth to sing about life beyond dead, to extend their arms to the bosom of the here-after, to invite us all to join them. I sat like a quadriplegic, conscious of nothing that was tangible.

After the organ concert I wandered the streets again and I found a lonely carousel, lighting up the night with its iridescent bulbs and song and dance but with no one around to enjoy it’s reasoning but me. It played traditional Italian music in a low tone but there was nothing else to hear in that city square but its whispered tune. Not a single bulb was burned out as it spun and it cast my shadow giant on the halls and churches of the piazza. All the animals leaped in joyousness for me, just a grown man and a carousel.

I thought about my father and so many others that I have loved who passed. Could they see me now? Do they look down and finally understand me as I pretend to understand them? I thought about all those yet to be born. Then I got more beer. There were some kids my age outside, I wanted to talk to them but held back. I didn’t realize until now that they wanted to talk to me as well. Instead I sat on some steps and thought long thoughts about a little boy I saw on the subway earlier that day. The train was packed and the boy, happy as only children can be, sang dissident notes at the top of his little high-pitched lungs. Just singing his heart out, smiling and laughing. I saw everyone around getting angry and for some reason their anger pleased me. How could anyone get angry with a child for being so happy? I supposed the opposite would be true as well, for what if the child had been crying? It is amazing what youth can get away with.

I walked passed a bar named Cuculia, a three piece band was playing, consisting of an accordion, upright bass, and a percussionist banging on various things with his hands. No one sang and I was glad they didn’t. They were in their mid to late 20s, playing music that I can only describe as classic folk mixed with contemporary jazz. Going from slow and melodic to fast tempos and giddy moods. I was amazed and thoroughly entertained. I stood outside the bar for a long time, smoking and drinking my beer, trying to watch as best as I could. Every moment I felt more in love with the moment. Smiling like I hadn’t in such a long time. Smiling like the world were going to end when they stopped playing. A gorgeous tall brunette saw me lurking outside, and approached me and asked in heavy accented English to come inside. I explained to her that I didn’t have any money and to which she told me, “You don’t need money to listen.” I found her words extremely prolific though I was fairly lit at the time. I sat right in front of the band with the brunette. The three men loved playing, it was inspiring to see anyone enjoy what they do as deeply as these three men did. It came through in their music, so light and fun. I stomped to the beat and smiled right along with them and suddenly everyone in the bar was on their feet and dancing between the tables and on the chairs and I clapped my hands and we all jumped to the rhythm and the girls were looking at me and I was looking at the girls and I laughed and laughed and everyone laughed just has hard. When it was over we were all drunk and I shook everyone’s hands. The band called themselves the Skype Trio and they had only practiced three times before this show, which was their first.

The night was empty and the wet streets glowed with the yellow streetlights and red neon signs of the local businesses. I walked back to the hostel heedlessly taking detours that would otherwise get me utterly lost. I didn’t care to get back to anywhere; I had found what I didn’t know I was looking for. It was the state of mind. It was the Yes. As I walked down the alleyways, I started to sing, I sang songs that didn’t rhyme, I sang songs that I hadn’t heard in years and ones that have yet to be written, in English or in languages I didn’t speak. I sang loud and raised my hands to the canals of black sky betweens the Florence buildings. As I crossed the bridge again the rain had stopped and the water was still. I smiled as a cicada smiles as he clumsily flies by his molted skin, still clinging to the bark of a tree right were he left it.

< 3

2010-10-12T00:54:00.000-04:00

Love is half and half slowly poured into black coffee

Dirty Three

2010-10-07T16:50:00.002-04:00

Hey. Just wanted to share this.

Some of the greatest music I've heard in a long time.

I got hip to the jive a little late on this one...

..maybe there some of you out there like me.

The Dirty Three

Who's Keeping Score?

2010-10-07T00:46:00.005-04:00

I generally don't like posting personal things in the blog, I would much rather update with random thoughts, examinations, interpretations, so on and so forth... but, well, I just feel like talking about myself right now.

I have always been someone who was low, that no matter what I had going for me it wasnt enough or it was of the wrong variety of what I was looking for. For about as long as I can remember, I've been cynical, depressive, self-deprecating, abusive, destructive, and just a bad person.

6 months ago, I was going out to the bar alone every night. Getting smashed drunk every night. Stumbling home every night. And some how, when this was happening, I thought it was alright. I thought it was cool even.

It wasn't.

I am pleased to announce, I'm actually fucking happy. And not that fleeting I just drank a six pack and some chick is going to sleep with me tonight happy.

The good ol' fashion happy. The kind of happy that can only happen after months and months and years and years of utter suck.

My past is dead and buried.

I have accomplishments I am proud of.

A minimal amount of friends who I care about dearly.

Great great jobs.

And a plane ticket to a place I have always dreamed about living...

...and a woman waiting for me I never dreamed I'd meet.

I'm not gloating. I'm not looking for praise. And I don't think I'm patting myself on the back either. Rather, what I hope, is that I am reveling. I am enjoying myself.

You are reading my masturbation.

Lord knows there are only about 5 or 6 people who read this blog. A couple more that stumble on it by accident. And a few that read the notes that automatically spring up on Facebook.

But for me, I'll read this post weeks from now, even months from now, and know that if only for a moment, I did it.

If I am to ever revert to the jerk off I've been known to be, at least I'll have this post, at least this moment will be documented.

Because I'm sure you don't want to read about this shit. I know. I read too. If a person is talking about how great things are going for them, I immediately think, "what a bunch of indulgent crap."

Which I'm sure most of you are thinking now. And if you are... whatever dude.

I feel some tension from a select few out there. People who, for some reason or another, don't like the choices that I've made/ I am making. To those who don't understand, to those who think my actions unwise, I love you regardless and I apologize for nothing.

This is for me.

So...

Dear Brent,

Good job.

It turned out for the best.

Love,

Brent

Now I'm on my way home.

Art. Who Knows?

2010-09-28T13:49:00.002-04:00

I've got this theory:

That anything can look great if you package it right.

Example: I was at a party, way way back when. I think I started dating a girl and it was her friends birthday party, and I didnt really know anyone. At some point they play a video that someone made, just old pictures of that group of friends in a slideshow with music in the background. And I though, this is really meaningful, it made each one of those pictures beautiful. But in reality, I know the moments when those pictures are taken, it just a normal bland moment, that its just a regular party or whatever. But when we have to reminisce, we get nostalgic. So all it took, was a couple of random pictures and a slow song, and it was this epic testament to their friendships.

Life is boring. The big picture, to see it all at once, is too much to take.

But to put a frame around a tiny aspect of the big picture. To take a second and say, "Hey, look at this." Now that's art.

Or maybe art is trickery, to make people think that they were a part of something that they weren't, that reading that novel, you felt like you were there, but no, essentially, you sat for a prolonged period of time and did nothing...

Or maybe art is the combination of things that don't matter in to things that do. Artist are Alchemists. Canvas, paint, brush, and an idea. Individually these four things don't mean shit. But together...

Who knows.

That gets me everytime.

Fuck You, Future.

2010-09-28T13:13:00.004-04:00

I was in the shop while Bird was getting his head tattooed, and he starts talking about living in the now. That people are caught up in the past, and too anxious about the future. That to be happy one has to live in the now. I've heard this discipline throughout my life, even preached it a couple times.

But I don't know about all that. Time that has gone by, the moments that culminated into this one, the past, is the most beautiful of the past, present, future trinity.

To have a past, is to be human. To have regrets. To have triumphs. To have had love and to have had loss. This is what makes a person. And thats why abortions in totally cool.

I dont really know what I'm saying here. I'm really hung over, jacked up on coffee, and putting off writing real shit. But I wanted to tell you this.

Living in the now is alright.

But, I mean, art isnt the now.

Art is a representation of the past made in the present for the future. Art is a tangible perception of the things that we have SEEN, whether they be in our day to day lives or in our subconscious dreams.

The past is beautiful, the past is what makes now possible. The past is how I plan to make my living as a writer. So why not revel in it? Why not relive the past? Essentially thats what all of us are doing anyway. We certainly arent the first to live.

And fuck the future. The future def does sucks ballz. If I ever get the chance, I totally punch the future right in its stupid face.

So dont worry if you cant get over shit in the past, I mean, at least something happened to you.

We're all going to die anyway. And dying is uber original.

And 'what if 'can be fun

Watch:

A list of things I would have rather have been in my life had I not chosen to be a poet/fuck-up:

-Pilot in the Navy

-18 Wheeler truck driver

-To have written the song "My Name is Mud"

-Salt trader

-Private detective

-A monk

-A cat

I invented the internet, but its made of wood.

I Gave Up On This Post

2010-09-28T12:23:00.004-04:00

Contrary to what my mother says, I'm not that smart.

Fairly fucking stupid actually. I blame it on a deficiency learned as a child where I was unable to determine left from right and right from wrong. Decision making is not one of my strong points.

I feel small. I feel insignificant. I feel like I've gotten myself in over my head and I have no idea how I am going to overcome the odds I have pitted myself against. So basically, I feel like a child.

I'm planning on going back to Spain, and if I can pull that one out of my ass somehow, it means I'm going back to Spain broke as fucking shit. Like broke broke. Even more broke then I was last time I was there.

Now I'm not one to really care about money. To be honest I hate the stuff. Money, at no point, has made my life better, and I curse everyday that I HAVE to work and make money to be a functioning member of society. I hate money, but I love people, strange I know.

Last night I went out to dinner and drinks with some good good people I know. I had a great time and it was the first time I saw JL Schnabel in like 5 months and I told her some of the highlight of my Euro-Trip. Told her about Alice and the ring and some other points.

She looked at me like I was insane. They all did.

I do weird stuff sometimes. Hell, two days ago I spent 6 hours aging paper for no fucking reason.

Sometimes I wonder why I do this shit, why I cant be happy just sitting still and getting a good job and working and making money and having health benefits and forwarding my career and being alright. I wonder why I get so anxious. Did you ever see a person with tourettes try to fight off his tick? Thats me when I sit still for too long.

Whatever. I dont even feel like writing this anymore. I kind of feel like I'm boasting, which is never good. So I'll stop.

Look, my whole point is, some people think cucumbers taste better pickled.

I suppose why I write.

Well, sorry to waste your time if you read this:

Here an oldie but goodie for you:

Three Updates

2010-09-11T22:45:00.004-04:00

Yo,

For the select few who might actually still read this.

Just wanted to give a couple updates.

First...

Check out my latest publication for "We Want to Be Birds" in the literary magazine SWEET. I have been an avid reader of this zine since it started and it is a real honor and pleasure to be a part of of the latest issue. Check it out at: http://www.sweetlit.com/3.1/index3.1.php

Second...

While we are on lit mags, check out issue #12 of the literary magazine I work for, DRUNKEN BOAT. Its been real enjoyable work and I am extremely excited about this issue. There is a whole wealth of poetry, fiction, flash fiction, non-fiction, a tribute folio for Eugene O'Neill. Flip through it, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Third...

Here comes my monthly apology for not regularly updating my blog. I have been working on a non-fiction project that takes up about 2-3 hours a day, I am uber pumped about it, when I'm sitting at my computer, this blog does even come to mind.

Sometime soon, I'll edit a sample and post it up. But for now, love you all.

A Small Update

2010-08-30T22:07:00.003-04:00

Job List:

The Toothless Cat// Art Gallery

Drunken Boat// Literary Magazine

Olde City Tattoo// Tattoo Shop

Creep Records// Record Store

Accomplishment List:

Publication in the forthcoming Sweet Magazine

Prominent start to first memoir

Literature intake at an all time high

Poetry output exceeding expected quality

Bank account growing in bounds

Leading the life I had always wanted

Happiness

On the Horizon List:

Cross continental trip coming up soon

More poetry publications

Issue #12 of Drunken Boat

Completion of a dramatic one man play

Tattoo appointment at the beginning of Oct.

Using the knowledge I have acquired properly

Continual happiness

Wish List:

Learn Spanish

Camaron de la Isla

2010-08-30T21:58:00.000-04:00

Thats Whats Up.

2010-08-25T23:20:00.001-04:00

The End of the Affair - Graham Greene

2010-08-25T15:07:00.002-04:00

The End of the Affair
by Graham Greene

Pg. 139-140

Henry had forgotten to bring a pillow and lying with my head on a cushion I imagined I could smell her scent. I wanted things I should never have again- there was no substitute. I couldn't sleep. I pressed my nails into my palms as she had done with hers, so that the pain might prevent my brain working, and the pendulum of my desire swung tiringly to and fro, the desire to forget and to remember, to be dead and to keep alive a while longer. And then at last I slept. I was walking up Oxford Street and I was worried because I had to buy a present and all the shops were full of cheap jewellery, glittering under the concealing lighting. Now and then I thought I saw something beautiful and I would approach the glass, but when I saw the jewel close it would be factitious as all the others- perhaps a hideous green bird with scarlet eyes meant to give the effect of rubies. Time was short and I hurried from shop to shop. Then out of one of the shops came Sarah and I knew that she would help me. 'Have you bought something, Sarah?' ' Not here,' she said, 'but they have some lovely little bottles further on.'

'I haven't time,' I begged her, 'help me. I've got to find something, for tomorrow's the birthday.'

'Don't worry,' she said. 'Something always turns up. Don't worry,' and suddenly I didn't worry. Oxford Street extended its boundaries into a great grey misty field, my feet were bare, and I was walking in the dew, alone, and stumbling in a shallow rut I woke, still hearing, 'Don't worry,' like a whisper lodged in the ear, a summer sound belonging to childhood.

Life Is Fun

2010-08-24T15:16:00.001-04:00

Sebastian Krüger

Drunken Ramblings

2010-08-06T16:34:00.003-04:00

Time for nothing. Time from sleep.
Pray the greatest secret keep.
Fire for life. Life for death.
Master my bodies finite song.
Hold tight the dreams of yesterday.
Live the life presented before you.
Say yes. Say yes. Especially when no is yes.
Yes to glory. Yes to void.
Yes to to conflicting desires.
Hold the power from honor.
Hold the power from the beggars.
Keep true to the sea and learn from my sky.
Time is controlled from behind the eye.
Smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey straight.
Revel in the choices that I make.
See the future with a careless smile
and know nothing is determined but the past.
Left or right. Up or down.
Tie your shoe. Clean your teeth.
I'll find my way to love, while it seems to find me.
Sharpen my nails on the bark of a willow tree.
Dance light. Dance talk. Dance sing. Dance song.
Dance for tomorrow for tomorrow holds no wrong.
The night is dark, what else was to be expected?
Crickets keep strong like stars
who watch the scampering of a thousand hearts.
Who records our motions on notebook paper?
Sleep now, darling, sounds and true
of oceans red and fields of blue
One day the rains will wash me down
and every sound will be exceptionally loud.
Sleep in color, dream in light.
Dream of nothing but the night.
I will rest at some one or some two.
I will rest when I am home with you
Sleep now, darling, wild and true.
One day I will come home with you.
One day I will come home to you.
One day I will come home for you.
And one day I'll just come home.

Poetry Is The Art of Juicing Life Like Fruit

2010-08-06T12:55:00.007-04:00

I'm back from Europe. The most amazing adventure of my life, I'll never be the same, I fell in love, so on and so forth. This is all true. But I've recently have been on a personal debate on what exactly this trip has done for me as a poet.

My mother made the comment, that such a trip as I have taken is an investment into a career in poetry. Basically, as she thinks, that I had to go away and accumulate stories and memories, this way I'd have something to write about. And while I'll admit such experiences do not hinder writing, anyone who with a childhood and has been outdoors has a wealth of information in front of them, enough to write for the rest of their live. But on my mother's rationalization, I have taken on a professional lifestyle that requires not only traveling, but adventuring the world. I cannot think of another profession in the contemporary society which allows such standards. Even behavior scientists that study chimps in the wild are bound to the chimps. There is nothing that binds me, save for love, love is a good reason to stick around somewhere.

And while poetry isn't only for the Indiana Jones' out there, I must admit my feet do get pretty itchy. So I pose the question:

Did I find poetry because of my wanderlust or did a poetic life spawn such wanderlust?

To be honest, I believe it to be the former. For two reasons. First, I was restless before I was a poet. While an adolescent, I was just never quite right, I knew I didn't belong, I knew I couldn't be happy and thus couldn't survive in the world presented before me. The dreams I would have were not normal, they were far too romantic, dreams of running away, of poverty and hard times, of love in it's most glorious art, of our responsibility to one another as human being and our irresponsibility to our personal mortality. I dreamed as a kid, and I ran away as an adult (though this is a debatable term to describe myself, I have been recently quoted as saying, 'I'm a 25 year old boy.' Please know that this statement will be said, but slightly changed, every year). It wasn't until later I started writing it all down.

Second, I have had some great experiences reading poetry, even more so writing it. But nothing in my poetic career has amounted to the tiny moments that I've been blessed enough to be a part of. The wet night streets of Florence that glow under the lamps. The rocky shore of the Mediterranean, the life within it, and the blue water that stretches out pass it. The stoop in Marseilles Alice danced on, the jazz band that nodded at us as they played. The love of the Balderas Family. The free bread in Sete. The cherries from the tree. The stairs we ate it on. The conversations on a perch over Roma, the graffiti on the street. The desperate phone calls made a desperate moments. The deafening hum of a million bees buzzing around the vivid lavender field. That train ride that she and I snuck on without buying tickets and found a place to be alone and smoked cigarettes out the window and she looked up at me as I passed her the cigarette and she smiled and I knew how complicated my life had just gotten by that smile and I could not be more thrilled or nervous or passionate and I whispered to her, 'I wonder where we are going.'

A poem is just a metapor for these moments. These moments would still exist without a poem. Not visa versa. Poetry is the art of attempting to mastering these moments. No. Poetry is the art of juicing life like fruit. Getting every single nutritious drop out, exploring the rind, filtering the pulp or leaving it.

Poets make important moments in life fantastic. And mundane moments in life interesting, with his words and his eyes. But the poetry does not exist in the poets words, poetry is not the poem. Poetry is the life, or perhaps, the practice of life. The poem is the poem. And I am the poet who chooses poetry over the poem.

I don't know, I'm confusing myself here.

All I know is I'm hungry. I'm so hungry.

Basically, life understood is not life lived. But I am unsure if life lived is not life understood. I'm sure some advocate a balance. But one does seem to be more essential than the other, don't you think? Or is it just me?

Anyway, none of that shit is important. What is important is that I'm broke and only getting broker. I have been presented with a blank slate, a pure untouched stone which is up to me and me alone to chisel my future into. I have no where to go, no where to be, nothing to do, and only faint premonitions about the desirable outcomes of my coming days. Really, all I want to do is to make some money as quickly and as easily as I can to get back to Spain. I can hear my name being called from there.

One Day

2010-07-27T19:07:00.004-04:00

It hasnt rained like this in a long time, at least I havent seen it, or I wasnt paying attention. She calls from a pay phone on the side of the road, I can hear so many cars in the back ground, and I know everything will be alright for the rest of the day. I tell her that everything will be alright, that we will be together again, that we will be happy one day. And we will one day. But today it rains and it rains hard and the petals from the Crape Myrtle tree fall and fall slower than the heavy rain and I watch them fall. Greg and I smoke cigarettes after tiling the floor inside so if I want to go inside I have to walk to the backdoor through the rain and the mud and I think about doing it but decided otherwise. Thunder cracks like a live stick, the wood splinters and then explodes across the sky and I know where I am. She said she'll cheers to me tonight on the shore of the Mediterranean, in notification of one month of nothing and everything and I know she will. I know where she is and we are okay with it. One day it will rain like this and never stop and there will be no oceans anymore and people will drown, some of us will float, but most will drown. Thunder. Thunder. And I wonder if we are prepared for what is about to come. One day we will be.

And if you aren't careful, everything is poetry.

About The Best Damn Picture I've Seen Of The Man

2010-07-27T19:05:00.001-04:00

Thanks for this one.

I'll Worry About Tomorrow Tomorrow

2010-07-19T22:35:00.004-04:00

Jet lag can do some weird weird things to a human's physical and mental being. After 32 hours of consecutive train travel from Catalonia to Paris to Frankfurt with no sleep as I am plagued with restless leg syndrome while sitting upright, chain smoking to ward off hunger, and a brain chock full of the greatest memories, when I finally made it back stateside my head was spinning. New York didnt leave much time for rest either, and my nights and days were littered with hilarious conversations, booze, and extremely expensive cigarettes.

Anyway, let me get to the point.

By the time I got to South Carolina, I was just messed up. Jet lag. Time differences. Hang overs. Yesterday I was having these weird paranoia attacks. Mild schizophrenia, or something like it. I had an overwhelming distrust for my fellow human beings and a sensation that I was going to die because of it. The pilot was incompetent and was going to take the plane down. The kid in Wal-Mart had a knife and was going to stab me. The cop in the gas station was going to shoot me. And on a much more general sense, an encompassing feeling that the world was going to end any second and it was all our fault.

It was the strangest fucking feeling in the world. It was terrible. Never before had waves of conceit for humanity swept over me so intensely. I'll be the first to admit that I am not always the latest fan on homo sapiens, but not like this. Not with such a sense of impending doom.

And it could really have only stemmed from two things. Either the physical and mental strain of such relentless travel, or a catching up... a return to normalcy. Let me explain. No, actually, let me hypothize.

Whilst I was in Europe, for that second half, I was invincible. Nothing could touch me. Not one moment in my life before hand had meant anything while I was living that dream. This world was my play thing, and I played. Like a kitten on catnip, playing with a feather on a string in a padded room. I would never die. I would never get hurt. I would never deteriorate. I would live forever, happy, careless, and content. I did some of the most dangerous things I have ever, and doing them without a second thought. Completely fearless.

Then I came back to the states. Maybe I just had to make up for it. Maybe I had to be afraid of everything and live on the opposite end of the spectrum as penance. Like just before a large wave, the waters recede a bit further from the shore.

I suppose you dont really care. I mean why would you? It was just a crazy feeling to have gone through.

Basically, I made it out alive. I'm in South Carolina now. I've got a full belly. Smoking my brand of cigarettes. The sun waters my skin. The wind plays the wind chimes. Listening to the frogs and cicadas sing to each other on the porch at night. I think about love. I think about love and myself and myself with love. Myself in love. And the summer breeze blows my hair into my eyes and I push it back and await for its return. I am sober and tired. I am tired and I will rest soon and sleep sound tonight. I am so tired but I will stay up late just to revel in that fact that a comfy bed and clean sheets await me.

Last week I was bullet proof.

Yesterday, you all wanted to kill me.

Today, tonight, Miles Davis plays soft through tiny speakers and I am alone with the night.

And I have all night to dream.

What a great feeling. Its the little things. Variety, you know?

I'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

Now What?

2010-07-18T21:37:00.001-04:00

Now what?

Hey Gorgeous

2010-07-14T09:55:00.001-04:00

Dont Bite Your Time

2010-07-12T16:36:00.003-04:00

"We had everything here before, but then we broke it all so we figured if we just made stuff we could break it so...

I use to piss me off, but now its just life." - Charles Benjamin

Blue in Green

2010-07-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

Dogs Don´t Smoke

2010-07-10T17:01:00.003-04:00

One day there will no tomorrow, or at least less of a tomorrow than there is today.

One day getting struck by lightning wont hurt, and trees will pick our fruit.

One day we´ll live on a boat that we´ll never sail, just stare at the sea and know its there.

One day we´ll realize how easy love is.

One day we´ll never grow up and have to make decisions.

We´ll eat with our hands and make utensils into jewelry, the crumbs will become part of us.

One day all our cloths will be made by the ones we love but we cant wait to shed them.

Today I watched Loren Juan make a shirt in Barcelona. He says he wants to make something like a net. He doesnt say it will be sexy, but we both know it will be. I watch him cut the fabric and weave it into itself. Sustaining its own state. He speaks for it once, then it speaks for itself. Alice watches him over his shoulder, making love with his hands. She adopted a puppy from some crust punks in a bar the other night, it hasnt stopped pissing and shitting on Loren´s floor. We all ignore the smell. And I have known love since Marseilles. Alice hands me what is left of the last cigarette and touches my ear with her foot as I try to write on the couch. The puppy pisses on the floor and we say we should stop giving it water. I ask her what is wrong and she says nothing and I believe her. Maybe thats the problem; there is nothing wrong. Loren throws his mannequin against the wall and the shirt is done and beautiful. We rub oils on free tattoos and debate on what to do with the rest of the day though it is already 8pm. Nothing has ever made so much sense. Except for this dog. The dog makes no sense. It sleeps on the couch, four legs stretched outward, and quivers from a dream. What can something one month old dream about? Is it afraid how big this world can be? How can I teach a puppy wonder?

Look What I Did

2010-07-07T10:57:00.002-04:00

So after a month of radio silence I am about ready to post in my blog again. I would love to post stories and tales about this crazy adventure I just had and am still currently on, but to be honest, sometimes you have to let the dust settle to see what you've got (or have got left).

I spent all my money. I ripped most of my cloths. I smell like strange cigarettes. My skin is really dark but its half tan, half dirt. I hitch hiked across a country. Slept outside train stations and napped under bridges. Ate out of the garbage. Ate four course meals for free at five star restaurants. Blah blah blah. But really its all about the people Ive meet along the way. The people that have changed my life.

For a little bit, I wasnt enjoying myself. I saw all these other travellers, all these other people with all this money, getting to eat the food I wanted to, buying the booze I wanted to drink, getting into the museums I couldnt afford, visiting the cities I couldnt get too. But somewhere along the line, I lost all common sense. I lost all fear. I gave up yesterday and everyday before it. And I gave up tomorrow and everyday after it. I reached a state of being Ive only dreamed about. And I loved. Ohh god did I love. And when I did I realized how beautiful this world is, and I realized how the things Ive seen and done, no one else on this planet will ever get to experience. No one before spend the raining night in Florence like I had. No one before saw the Alps at night and saw what I saw. No one else sat by the Mediterranean and saw the beginning to the end. And only one other person smoked out that window of the train, and wondered where we were all going. And it only made me more elated. My joy grew and grew and I am ready to explode.

Thats probably hard to read. Its hard to explain. Ill try in person with you one day soon.

Before I left a friend sent me this:

Check. Check. Check. Check. Pending.

I am returning on the 15th. But Im not the same person. Not after what I've seen. Not after what Ive experienced.

The point is, I can't wait to tell you all about it.

Stories to come.

I Cant Wait To Show You All How Alive I Am

2010-07-07T05:48:00.003-04:00

Germany and The Great Beyond

2010-06-16T07:20:00.003-04:00

For the next couple weeks I wont be getting to the internet too much, and if I am it is only for a limited about of time, so not to many post will be happening for a while.

I will make a couple notes however:

Berlin- It is like Williamsburg on crack. Totally legal to drink in the streets. So everyone just parties in the streets (or bridge).

Munich- It is beautiful, but STOP FUCKING RAINING!

Hostels- not for anyone mentally over 18 years old. It is a pool of retarded drunks from all over the world where everyone has hard-ons. I kept to myself mainly.

So far, the worst part of Europe is the Americans. It is amazing the world doesnt hate us more. My suggestion to anyone wanting to travel Europe, do not do it during the summer, and do not do it alone. And do not leave someone behind. Or something like that.

Anyway, this is not my only trip over here. I feel so rushed heading from city to city, which is mainly due to the fact that Im rushing myself. This is generally do to the fundage. My greatest stresser right now is money, I dont have a lot of it, not enough to be comfortable at least. Mainly my meals have included a load of bread, a package of salami, and fountain water. I splurged yesterday on a beer from the bar because I saved some money to get to Roma. Spend a days worth of food on it. It is amazing the enjoyment brought forth in commonalities by rationing. But I feel like I am missing huge portions of Europe and each city not being able to afford museums or even shitty restaurants. But then I have collected some pretty amazing experiences by what I´ve had to do sans cash.

To be honest, this trip, however I thought of it in the past, has become something totally different. At one point I thought it was a vacation, its not. At another point I thought it was something I had to do alone, I was wrong. Im sure at a certain point this was about life experience, only somewhat true.

To be honest, Im not sure exactly what it is. A survival test I guess. I stacked the odds against myself to see if I can overcome. Mentally, physically. Is it a mistake? I don´t know. Will I regret it? Probably not.

To do this trip I had to flip the bird to my jobs, to money itself, to my responsibilies, to my apartment, to you, and to all the comforts that I once new. I am sorry for that. But I did all this to follow a dream. A dream I´ve had since I was young. When I bought that ticket things were different, and after there was no turning back. If I had stayed, I would have regreted it forever, and I would have held resentment. Even if I went and failed, at least I tried. I suppose the torture of being away is better then the alternative.

But I digress.

I have a lot to say, but no time to say it.

Send me love.

And money if you have it.

Or some 27s.

Conversation With a Stranger

2010-06-10T09:06:00.003-04:00

This is an excerpt from a conversation I've been having all my life with someone I've never meet in the flesh, so to speak. It takes place while packing:

You can't bring everything on this trip.

"I know. I know. I already brought too much."

You didn't leave much room to bring anything back.

"I'll deem what is a necessity later, and throw the rest out."

Like what.

"Like if the choice comes between a couple souvenirs and a stack of Hanes Classic V-Necks which are stained yellow around the collar, there is not choice at all."

So what are you going to bring?

"I dont know"

Do it deductively.

"Well I dont need the Bible, its bulky as shit, or Blake for that matter, this Frost book I bought in the airport has been doing me just fine, little piece of home."

What about these candles?

"Leave them."

We need the train tickets. Need the batteries. Need the sunglasses. You have three pairs of pants, do you need them all?

"No. Leave the 510s, they are dirty anyway."

You have 5 button downs, pick two.

"The dark red SV she got me and the black one from HM."

Why the black one, you don't care about that one.

"Its a good idea to bring cloths you don't care about to places you've never been."

Why's that.

"Because then you'll care about them."

Good point. All these underwear and socks?

"All of them!"

A Company of Strangers

2010-06-06T13:08:00.009-04:00

I started the day full, after a long and difficult conversation which spiralled into some romantic revelations yesterday. Im just not who I thought I was, I suppose, but who is?

So decided to go for a walk through town. Then I saw a corner store which sold old francs, the coins were worn wonderfully and I had to sit down and swallow the lump in my throat because if he were still alive that is what I would have brought him back. I still want to buy a coin but the store was closed being that it was Sunday. Everything is closed on sunday, Europeans aren't much for working. And I decided today was a good day to be someone else...

...and I was right.

Today was the celebration of Joan of Arc bringing the king of France to the Cathedral. The streets were filled with performers, vendors, knights, peasants, blacksmiths, nobleman, and everyone dressed like they listen to black metal. It was a dream.

Moist breads stacked into pyramids, tall and wide. A technicolour universe of candies and taffies line sidewalks. Cheese wheels larger then truck wheels. Sausages hanging for ropes like christmas lights, glistening with sweat in the mid-day sun. Displays of impressive yet useless weaponry. Handmade jewelry. Sculptors and painters. Powdered and leafy and oil incenses burned on every corner. A leather smith, who was the best smell of all. There was a leather fox mask I saw, that I wanted very badly and tried to haggle the Sprite down a bit, but it would still have cost about a weeks worth of food, so I convinced myself I didnt need it, though I dont think I convinced myself very well. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, but I suppose, it is better to not have and want then to have and not. It is something I am trying to teach myself, but I dont believe it.

A small battalion of German Red Berets walked down the street in full garb. They were young and smoked cigarettes and looked around too much and smiled with the sides of their mouths. And I pretended for a second it was WWII, and I hated them, but what could I do, and I missed Ilsa. And I lost myself within myself for a while.

Then I saw a fake sword fight and it was pretty impressive. Then I saw a real sword fight and it was pretty lame. Saw some young crust punks and they scoffed at me. Saw an old crust punk and he gave me a nod. I wander around like a lost child, everything was so big and amazing and different. And when I wandered far enough I found a parade.

There is only one thing better then a parade you go to: its a parade you didnt know was there and find. Including this experience, it has only happend twice in my life, and they are both the best parades I have ever seen. Parades, when you think about them, are pretty fucking awesome, so a found a place to sit on a high wall, ate a lamb Kebab and drank an orange soda, and watched the parade make its way towards the massive Cathedral of Notre-Dame. If I were alive during the middle ages, I would have been a gypsy. I have no respect for the higher classman that throw meat scraps to the dogs, rather, I'd be the surf, the wanderer, the hungry peasant who knows the love of chicken leg, the meat between joints and stock of the bone. It reminded me of a letter I once wrote a friend. Plus gypsies just seem to have more fun. Less worry. Someone passed by with a fabric shield that said, A Company of Stangers and I felt like I understood something more about the world but I wasn't sure what. Then Joan of arc came, a divine virgin, and every one cheered then left, and kids laughed at the horse shit on the streets.

So I wandered again, walked by the fox mask a couple more times, debating the usefuless of food. Many of the little children had these wooded bird whistles that sounded very much like a bird. They were annoying as shit at first, to hear this noise everywhere, then it was more beautiful then words can describe. I closed my eyes in a side street and let the little birds in baseball caps whisk around me. I walked around trying to find a store which was open to buy a coke but everything was closed and I cursed them. There is nothing like a 7-11 on this side of the ocean and I would have killed for a Big Gulp right then. Then I saw some serious goth girls.

Then it was time for the Joust in front of City Hall. They filled the entire traffic circle with white sand and I wondered how they would remove it all tomorrow. Everyone in the city crowded on stadium seats and lined the arena, thick and pulsating, and climbed on fountains and traffic meters and children sat of parents shoulders and I found a high window sill to stand on above it all. Then the knights came from a side street and were to enter the street arena from my side, but one the the horses collapsed, the rider in full metal uniform was thrown onto the cobble stone before the sand. Everyone ran to him, but he rushed back onto the horse, and they all sprinted into the arena. It is my belief that if a 9 foot-tall, 1000 pound animal suddenly and for no reason falls, propelling its metally clad rider onto the street, everyone should take a second, make sure everything is fine. It is a really weird sight, disturbing, to see such a majestic and massive beast take a dive. If a child falls, he has no where to go, and gets up unscathed. If a adult falls, he falls from much higher and hurts. I cannot imagine for a horse. But very few noticed. And the show started.

And the announcer blared in a deep voice words I didnt understand. And the streets boomed with cheers. It was deafening. And there were good knights, who bowed in front of the queen and waved to the public, dressed in red and yellow. And bad knights, who dissed the royalty and spit and cheated, dressed in purple and black. Everyone cheered for the good guys and I was happy because that seems to be rare these days. Too many accounts in contemporary stories the villian is complex and somewhat justified, and the hero is conflicted between right and wrong. Too many Jokers for Halloween and not enough Batmans. But here, the bad guys were bad, and to be hated. And the good guys were good, and to be admired. And evil was boo'd. So they all rode horses really fast and they swung axes, and cut apples wth swords, and hit targets, and then they jousted and the wood lances splintered and flew into the air and riders were thrown from their horses and sand launched into the ravenous crowd. Horses sprinted without riders around the arena and women and children screamed. And the good guys and bad guys fought with axes and the bad guys one. And then they fought with fists and the bad guys won. And then the hero, the best of the good, fought all of the bad guys with swords and was losing, and we cheered him on as loud as we could, and he prayed to God, and he slain each of them down upon the might of his will and sword, and the streets exploded with applause and screams and cheers, and I weeped openly, perched on a window sill far above eyes, and for that moment I was apart of this world, and all my disdane for humanity drained out of me, and I finally loved and understood every living thing upon this earth, and I knew that the love I have to give is boundless if it is shared with you and I never wanted to leave.

When I finally came down, everyone was going home. I walked across town through side streets to the only gas station that I knew would be open. I got a coke and it was the best I had ever had in my life. They make it differently here, no high fructose corn syrup shit. And I walked to the park, thinking about that sign, A Company of Strangers, and knew exactly what it meant.

2010-06-06T06:15:00.002-04:00

Row, row, row, your boat

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream

Now, Now,

2010-06-06T05:38:00.001-04:00

Rot

2010-06-04T05:56:00.002-04:00

verb, rot·ted, rot·ting, rots. v.intr.

1) To undergo decomposition, especially organic decomposition; decay.

2) To become damaged, weakened, or useless because of decay:

3) To languish; decline.

4) To decay morally; become degenerate

Paul Newman

2010-06-04T05:15:00.003-04:00

The pinnacle of man.

One EuroPass > One Month Rent

2010-06-03T10:31:00.004-04:00

Dear Berlin; Munich; Rome; Florence; Marseilles; Barcelona; Madrid; and the whole of the Mediterranean Sea,

Say your prayers. I'm coming. And I'm hungry.

Love,
Brent Michael Canle

P.S. Now look what you made me do.

Nieves Traidoras

2010-06-02T09:04:00.010-04:00

When we got to Lyon it was night and everything was different, the city was large and vibrant, trains almost completely made of glass, large hills with cathedrals on top of them lit up like Disneyworld. Waterways and bright bridges over them. Man-made rivers and wade pools which shoot mist over the water and floats around fake rocks which are an anomaly to me. Everyone was on bikes they owned or rented. We met Cyril but I couldnt pronounce his name properly so we agreed on Cereal. He showed us pictures from his birthday party the night before and the costumes they made of cardboard, there was broken glass all over his apartment.

And so we all went out to a bar in a tiny old boat, bottles and spiders hung from the wooden planks on the ceiling, gnats flew in and around our drinks, everything spelled moldy and looked wet. The bartender was a squirrelly little man with a quaft haircut and stone features, he was shorter and thinner than I am but experience had hardened his skin much more, he spoke english and we talked about America and New York and the comparison to France and all the basic things europeans want to talk about. Then we tired to guess his nationality and after a half hour and with only five countries left he ended up being Czech. A drunk frenchman started talking to be and was nice enough at first but he was just asking for some of my beer, I told him no and he ignored me for the rest of the night. Another drunk, much younger, straight slammed his glass down by our pitcher, and we denied him too, he later tried to grab the pitcher and we threw him back to land. One man played guitar in the corner while the other beat a drum, they were pretty alright, and it was too quiet when they stopped playing. I smoke cigarettes and realized the men in the boat bar had a much different look, they were hard drunks, they didnt drink for fun any longer, though say they do. Cereal tried talking english to me, it wasnt that bad but we still couldn take, we tried telling jokes the other didnt get but laughed at anyway. And as we left some kid was trying to take our picture so I grabbed his camera, he didnt get mad like I though he would. I pee'd under a bridge and took the long way back.

In the morning we walked around the mall and did some shopping, I tried on a bunch of shirts you'd would have liked, the shirts with the buttons down the middle, but I just couldnt find the right one so I bought an expresso instead. Then went to lunch with Cereal and an intern for his graphic design company, it was his first day and he seemed nervous. We went to a little corner luncheon called the Machon Lyonnains, the owner seemed displeased to have us as we were louder than his usual customers. I ordered the Brick de Poisson a la Tapenade, but he said they were all out and while I was being the read the menu again, the waitress said there was one left so they made it for me, it was a crispy fried white fish over white rice with a light tomato sause and something that looked like fish eggs on the side, it steam furiously when I cut it. There was an old man sitting at the table across from me, he was alone and in pain, either mentally or physically, he ate methodically and I wrote down every action he made. Then had Mousse au Chocolat served in a mug that looked like a plant pot and condensation rolled down the side, it sat in my stomach heavy and I had to sit outside for a while before venturing on to the park. There were four fathers in a rose garden lazily walking around and smelling all the different type of roses, I took a lot of pictures of them, the roses were nice but I prefer the ones you randomly find through the day, the ones to be placed on wind shields. There was a zoo in the park and I felt bad for all the animals like I always to at zoos, there was a lion making the deepest, loudest, and saddest noise I've ever heard a living thing make. So I left and listened to a carousel.

Then we made our way to the center of town, got keys made, the locksmith noticed me looking at all the old keys and such so he asked me with one I liked the most and I pointed to some old skeleton key, I hoped he would give it to me but he just agreed. Then he took out an old lock and showed me how it worked, then took out a new lock and showed me how it worked, he loved his job and he told me to come back when I wanted to learn more. Then we bought Heinekens and sat on the steps of a building that over looking Bartholdi Fountain and waited for the sun to come out of the clouds, then it did, and it was hot. I smoke some cigarettes drank the beer and had my first vitamin water since I left New York. Then I almost sat by the Rhone river but felt so sick to my stomach I had to leave. So I didn't. I thought about starting a poem with, "Let me revise" and I like it but dont know what to revise just yet.

Then we met up with Cereal and his roommate and started drinking. Hard. Then went to a bar in the center city called the New York Bar, it was packed and I felt old, everyone was 18 and going apeshit. I wanted to do drugs for some strange reason. They played a lot of Queen. Then we did shots. Met some kid who is an amateur film director and looked exactly so. Then we went to another bar, to do more shots, everything is hazey after that. Apparently we walked by a cathedral and I flipped out and didnt want to leave. Cereal said that "it was just bricks and stone" and I said "exactly" and they had to drag me away. I have flashes of memories of walking through the streets, some girls in a bakery, some arabs on a corner we were fighting for some reason but didnt, peeing on cars, a gigantic bottle of beer, yelling at everyone for talking french, and I have no recollection of the last bar we went to.

Then it was morning and I was hungover and wanted to sleep all day but had to leave so Cereal's roommate could watch French dubbed anime. We walked through the old city and through the winding stone streets. Saw the Cathedral Saint-Jean Baptist de Lyon that I didnt remember from last night. It was beautiful and huge, then broke into the court yards of peoples houses and sat on spiral staircases. I was showed a spot where I smashed a bottle in the street, it was a perfect little market and I wrote on my hand that I have no respect at night. Everything hurt on my body but my mind was alive. Did some tourist shopping and saw a collection of music boxes. We each picked one out, played it and sung as many words as we knew, Marie reached for one that played 'Hey Jude' and I said dont and she asked why, and I said that that song was too beautiful for such ears. It really is the most beautiful song I ever heard. In a surplus store I saw a bunch of things I wanted but they were all expensive, then the creepy owner hit on Marie right in front of me, then winked and stared at me, I told him "the french are weird" and walked out. Later I bought post cards of posters of movies I've never seen, and one I had seen.

Then we climbed the stairs and hills to the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere. The entire city could be seen from up there. I got excited to go into the Cryptic, but it wasnt like it sounded. Our bodies were tired so we took a lift down the hill, then a subway, I realized how much I hate subways, I felt depressed, then we went shopping and bought food we didnt eat. I took a nap and didnt feel better when I woke up, so we all watched a really weird American movie called projected on the wall. Then Cereal projected a vag on the building outside the window, then we went to sleep.

In the morning I still felt hungover and drove back thinking about my life and where I'd like it to go and so on and so on and so forth. Some young crust punk at a rest stop asked where I going, didnt know where it was but wanted a ride there anyway, I admired him, but there wasnt enough room for him and his girlfriend in the car, I felt terrible. I wish I had money to give them or something.

Now I'm listened to Elvis and, well, yes to every question.

2010-05-30T11:25:00.001-04:00

tripping the light fantastic

De Nile

2010-05-30T10:38:00.003-04:00

I never told you, I've held it a secret, but I have extremely powerful binoculars, that can see around the curve of the horizon, between the trees, through the mountains, and I watch your love through them all day, everyday. I watch it rise and fall with the tide. I watch it rise upon shores other then my own. Erode coasts. Destroy villages. Children play in it buckets and shoves. Some drown. Some poor lover gets swept away, and never sees land again. A new born is baptized and is forgiven. And I stand on the beach, on my tippy toes, trying to see the next wave that will come my way to wash my skin from the blistering sun, to deposit minerals upon my feild, to quench my thirst, to feed me. I will continue to watch, continue to sacrifice to the Gods for rain, in hope that the floods will come, and let me live again.

I Hadnt Thought About Him In a While

2010-05-29T13:52:00.002-04:00

Then I did. Wonder what he'd think about this trip.

A

2010-05-29T12:11:00.002-04:00

Every song is a love song.

One Fine Day (Chiffons Cover)

2010-05-29T07:21:00.002-04:00

... the arms I long for will open wide.

Probably weird to say, but I've been drinking Johnny Walker all morning so I dont care, but the people who have ever existed that have truely reached the potential of humanity, those peoples that have evolved further then homo sapien, the entities that make the rest of us look like ignorant monkeys:

-Nietzsche

-Shakespeare

-Darnielle

A Fathers Advice/ Alt-Conservative

2010-05-29T06:01:00.005-04:00

First:

"Son, you want my advice? Fuck a lot of women.

Men need to conquer. Men need to hunt. It is inherent in our blood. Some men might think that they are above it, that they have shed their animalistic traits, but they are liars. And if they truely have lost that beast inside of them, they are boring.

Went you settle down, and are ready to get married, and you had only laid with your soon to be wife, and maybe a handful of others, you'll start to see all the little pretty flowers down the street that you havent smelt yet.You're mind will drive you crazy of what could have been. And then you'll resent your wife for it, you'll resent her for holding you back, for only having one pussy.

But if you fucked before. Climbed many mountains and explored many valleys. Hunted the wildest game. Stuck your flag into many foreign soils. Then when you meet the one that you are going to spend the rest of your life with, you wont wonder about other women, you'll be able to concentrate on your love. Because when some little filly comes prancing down the street in just enough cloths to be legally outdoors, you won't have to wonder about her, because you already had her, and dozens just like her, or some variation. And then you'll go home, and feel the touch of your wife, the one, and be able to appriciate, in the full knowledge of the world, her, for as beautiful as she fucking is."

"I know, Dad. It is nice to be done with all that."

Second:

Its funny, the things we want to do to/for our children. Mohawks and skateboards. Guitar lessons and Sex Pistols Y-S tees. Tiny tiny little converse. Childrens poetry books and serious finger painting.

In our generation, and basically all the generations before us, the things that we became, the alternative lifestyles that we have found, were in rebellion of our parents and their values.

So really, if you want to raise a cool kid, an artist, a musician, a rebel, make that little fucker play baseball and attend catholic school. Tell them how dangerous drugs and sex are. Read them bed time stories about Princesses being saved my a Prince. Make them listen to James Taylor.

You Alt-Conservative.

Because when they first hear that Clash or Cure album. When they first read Ginsberg or Kerouac. That first note they make on guitar. That first Wes Anderson or David Lynch movie they watch. When they take that first puff of grass. Or the first time they get that adrenaline rush from doing something they think you wouldn't like, they'll explode.

Just like we did.

And you can quote me. I pose this as a joke, and not true for all parent/child relationshiops, but no one has said it before, so at least I tried for something today.

You-th

2010-05-29T05:32:00.002-04:00

My Middle Aged Hair Wizard and I

2010-05-28T09:04:00.004-04:00

It was time. I left the states with a terrible haircut from a chick who didnt seem to care about me or my hair. I have no time for such mane negligence. So I cross the seas with a luscious tuft.

I wander around town for a about a half hour looking for the right homme coiffure (there is a hair salon on every corner, but no barbers to be found), peering into windows trying to find a computer on the front desk, because I figure, if they dont speak english I can just look up what I want.

The one I stumble into, isnt so technologially advanced, nor does the woman speak english. So its a game a shirades. I take off my hat and she laughs. After a while of pointing at spots of my head and making measurements with my fingers, we can finally agree on one two words, and one name... James Dean.

So we dive into it.

After two washings, I know I'm in for a ride. I always noted the thought that men who are not privy to the touch of a woman must get more haircuts because of the wash. There is something intimate about anyone running their fingers through your hair (there is also something to be said about people who make their profession about touching the flesh of a stranger). This isnt to imply that there was anything sexual between my middle aged hair wizard and I, but I'm also not implying that there wasnt.

I sit in the stripping chair while she combs my wet flop, she laughs to herself again, mutters, "James Dean," and explodes upon my dome like a race horse out of the gates. Furiously combing and chopping with all sorts of scissors and razors, pullingly my hair every which way, buzzing, combing, eight different scissors, three razors, hair flies off my head like Edward Scissorhands where behind the wheel. I swear, she cut every single hair, every single hair individually, each with a different tool, like lightning.

Needless to say, shes a pro. And as she works Spring Heel Jack quick, she is taking her times, the whole haircut takes a while. Furiously long time. And I just sit there and watch as she works, nothing is said, no one speaks, some 70 year old woman in the seat next to me just watches, curlers holding up what little grey-dyed-brown hair she had left, creepily. I start to worry that this is going to be a lot more expensive then it originally seemed. I wasnt planning on spending any more then 20euros, but she just keeps going, silently, masterfully.

Until she says, in terribly broken and accented english, "beautiful hair." And she points me to the sink for another washing. Then blow dry, then combs, then mooses the shit outta my head, then combs, then forms, then molds, like Im about to be on stage in a moment. And I know, its going to hurt my pocket. But in the end, no. 18euros.

18euros to watch someone give a shit. It was nice to be a part of that. It was nice not to go to the Lemon Tree.

I feel lighter.

u-1

2010-05-28T05:52:00.000-04:00

2010-05-27T09:45:00.001-04:00

"Gogol died screaming. Diaghilev died laughing. But Ravel died gradually. That is the worst." — Igor Stravinski

This Stream of Consciousness: I'll Buy You A Coke If You Can Get Through It

2010-05-27T09:20:00.011-04:00

Men under umbrellas play broken accordians, as the rain pitter patters like so many lovers hearts. Such an extraordinary sound you wish to go deaf after hearing it, or naked at least, lest you know you are both. Children sing songs inside windows, oblivious, and grandparents say they love the tune; but do not, no one does but them, they know and dont care. And you, oh you, you are the taker of souls, and carry one in each hand where ever you go, crushing them together when you get excited and clap. Making them love one another when you pray. Time is a tangible construct. Time is a pacifyier. Time is God's way to keep our attention. You are my God and I hate you for it. I was nothing before you, not that any of us are much now. Mothers clutch babies to their bosoms. Babies kick and scream, they dont understand. We write notes to them, for them to read when they are eighteen, that they wont understand until they are forty, if at all. And I am the opossum, and play dead whenever the little girls come, with their gifts, or love. I roll over and pretend, something I learned when I was young. This is the eye that loses what it watches. This is the memory forgotten. This is the tranquility of all that have ever been rememebered after their time, for the love that they have produced, for the inspirations they have endured, for the shares of reality they have taken. Now the living place them to inhabit dark dank graves and we hoard the light from dismal eyes; light that we think shines unbiasedly; School boys shit their pants and get to go home early. School girls have their period for the first time and its all over. Father walks home repeating to himself, "you can only kill youself once." And Mama has wet hands and ignores her feelings. But they are a happy family, really. I'm being honest. It would have be his life if he only believed enough to get it, sparrowed out of fifty cents he kept in his blue jeans for eighty five days. Belief. Belief. Never resign to grief. Belief. Belief. Only truths the leaf. Belief. Belief. The hook is baited. So over rated. Belief. Belief. Spend your life to find the motif. Quartz clocks crack signals from far away and scholars transcribe, say unintelligable things unintelligably. And we keep ourselves busy this way. I myself proscribe to the tortured filosophy: its better to starve and want then have and hate. And I try to guess yours everyday, though I do not think it is too dissimilar. You said you have never been happy, sitting on stairs, the threshold of in and out. We get drunk and love each other, and sober and love each other more only cant express it so freely. The moon is the eye of a nothing night, and the stars are a riddle only some care about. There is no hell. There is a heaven. You have been there but went in search of something better. I did too, so dont worry. And we dive head first into the earth; afraid of spiders and things that hurt us, our vision blurs like frost upon glass and we breathe heavy in tiny rooms. Im in love with love and hug the sky. Fuck all the rest. God, Dear God, Please take away my pain, and give me my love back. Please tell my mother I love her. Please tell my mother you love her, too. The smart man says a simple thing complexly. The wise man says a complex thing simply, but it means nothing. The idiot says nothing, and it the one you should listen to. The poet says things to himself, it doesnt matter how complex or simple they are. You are my God and I love you for it. I hadnt existed before you. Yet you forget me now, to scamper off with other creations. Pray Pray to Stay Stay. Lay Lay this Day Day. Dawn goes down today. My heart beats this May and summer comes to say, "be happy and be gay, it will all be okay." He comes home with petaless flowers, he sent the petals across the sea in envelopes he closed himself, to a woman who told him she would not be there for him, but oh what a woman. The threw out the stem; she'll get it faster. Trouble Trouble. Toil in rubble. Your words are subtle. Boil in bubble. Trouble Trouble. Tonight we'll see double. Im in love with God and God loves me for it. I am the disciple. I am the lover. I am the husband and father. I am the poet. I am the dreamer on the terrace dreaming. I am the dream. The worker and his union on strike. The philosopher. The loner. The doctor. The shrink. The oceanographer. The garbage man. The mail man. The police man. The skunk. The coward. I am the letter on its way to you. I am your mother's countenance. I am Paris. I am the deer no one will ever see. I am the cigarette thrown into the puddle washed into the gutter. I am the fly and the windsheild. The bus that killed a child. The gun that saved a country. The cloud over the sea. The city under an ocean. The mountains. The gravestones. The bridge. The feather. I am everything you ever thought to be yours and yours alone, and anything that you have ever held with your own two hands, and every thought that brought on every tear and every smile, and every feeling you have had yet to be able to expain I am. I am the ghost in your life. I am the faint. I am the dead. I am struck dumb. I am a soul with a body. A body with the world. I am alive. I am hunger. I am in love. I am you you am I you are I am. And we are more infinite then the stars in such a finite universe; Do you understand? Let me make that clearer for you: Infinite and real as long as we keep dreaming and crying and loving and dying and so on and so on and so forth and the stars are so far away but we love them anyway and ask for so little from then and so on and so on and so forth and we draw maps of the stars to find our way home in an otherwise empty space and so on and so on and so forth and draw figures into the heavens with our fingers creating shapes and lives and destinies for our children to find and complicate and we are just happy to give them something to do and so on and so on and so forth and so on and so on and so forth and we will make life in such a vibrant world and slow down to watch fast things and teach creation to the created and love, oh god how we will love and so on and so on and and so forth and we, and we will know forever and so on and so on and so forth and love, darling, love, and so on and so on and so forth, dont you feel it? and so on and so on and so forth and so on and so on and so forth and and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on thump thump, thump thump, thump thump, thump thump, and so forth. I'll buy you a coke if you can get through it.

Go With God, Sushi

2010-05-26T17:45:00.004-04:00

Well, the Good Lord officially took Sushi away from me.

Just like He did Texas Pete.

The last few times I had such Japanese treats, I pee'd out my butt and was doubled over with stomach cramps. Same happend now. So I swear it off.

I use to love sushi, it was that one food I could gorge on and still feel like I could run a marathon. No longer will I be able to schmooze with buisness man over spider rolls. No longer enjoy glassy eyed dates with plum wine and spicy tuna. No longer suki bombs with asian owners, full of salmon and avocado. Sigh. Ok, Ill probably still hit up some suki bombs.

The first time I ever tried a California roll was with the SCC faculty, and had to spit it out into a napkin. Like a first cigarette or first shot of whiskey. After that, hooked.

Its so easy to look back when its all over.

But miso soup is still the shit.

So Sushi, vaya con dios, mi amigo. Its been fun. But enough is enough.

Oh, to be young again.

If It Isnt Clear, This Is A Love Letter

2010-05-26T12:54:00.001-04:00

A Fucking Fairy Tale

2010-05-26T06:14:00.008-04:00

So I havent been updating my blog. I havent been updating for a sort of really lame reason. Because Im a lame person, and do strange things sometimes.

So sorry.

Here we go:

A Life Update:

Since I've been away I got an internship for a literary magazine called Drunken Boat. It is amazing, totally great people, and pretty fucking awesome they are letting me do it from the other side of the world. Pretty fucking stoked on it, it is an great opportunity and it is relieving to be traveling and still have forward momentum in my professional life.

A Travel Update:

I was in the Belguim/Holland the last couple days, drinking what is undoubtabley the greatest beer in the world (for extremely fucking cheap), snacking on what is undoubtabley the greatest chocolate in the world (not so cheap, but fuck its chocolate), and eating so much fried food the inner lining of my stomach has pimples.

Belgium has places called Frituurs; which is place in a buffet style where you pick what you would like to eat, ranging from hot dogs, to sausage, to tacos, shiskabob, cheese balls, meat balls, vegetables, steaks and various other delicacies. Then they take it, deep fry the living hell out of it, then serve it back to you with a dish of mayo.

They smother everything with mayo.

Went to a beach town called Knukke. Watched the sun set over the water, the windmill out in the middle of the sea are only visible at dusk. Drank some "manly beers." Layed out on a couch on the beach and listened shore and the gulls that yell at one another. I told Marie how terrible life was. Then met some Dutch kids and got drunk, I drove a manual drunk around the back woods of Belgium, to their house, I never really drove a manual before. They loved America and dressed like west coast skaters, their english was incredible until they smoked a lot of grass and had me try different beers, then we all got more drunk and I kicked their asses in Super Mario Brothers 3 for Nintendo. Woke up in a farmhouse, with no doors on the bathroom.

Went to Holland, to a town called Sluis, which is famous for its sex shops. Its been a long time since I've frequented such businesses. There were a lot of hardcore things. A lot of bondage stuff. A lot of really brutal porns too, like chicks bleeding and stuff. A lot of nipple electrocution devices. Chains, whips, hog tie ropes. The usual. They did have an anime blow up doll which was disturbing, and a little arousing (its something in the way they moan, its so helpless). I saw a butt plug and laughed.

Went to Bruges. Canals running through the city. The churches and cathedrals and old building reaching into the sky. The clatter of horses as they parade down the stone block streets. Technicolour shops selling chocolates and beers and wines and pastries, selling happiness. Old windmills that surround the town. Boats lazily puttering along in the canals, which breathe cool air into the hot sunny streets. How quite the alleyways are, how you could be the only person alive. We bumped into Marie's adopted cousin randomly in a park. He was stoned and talked weird. Marie said he had a hard life because he was one of the only black people in Bruges. Visited a stone church, Veneration of the Precious Blood, it was mind blowing. In Bruges they have a vile of Jesus Christ's blood, once a year it turns liquid again and they have a party in the streets. Then I got drunk off wine, and beer, and Johnny Walker Red Label with Marie and a man named Jack who shed the better part of his hair and teeth a while ago. We talked about Obama and Bush and the healthcare reform, then talked about the meat packing industry, Jack couldnt believe the things I was telling him, he had too much scotch in him to believe anything other then what he had known for the last 65 years, plus the way we harvast meat is unbelieveable. Jack called my grandparents Japanese because I took so many pictures, said you can't trust yellow people because their faces are emotionless, you cant tell what they are thinking. He fed us fresh shrimp and squid and I realized I smoked all my cigarettes. Then we told jokes and showed all the parlor tricks we knew, we woke up Jacks wife from laughing so hard, Jack laughed even louder when she screamed from the other room.

In the morning we all went to the bar, they bought me different Belgian beers. I got a nice buzz on before noon and I told them that we have fancy bars in America dedicated to only Beglian beer. They werent as surprised as I was. Then I ate Fish Soup. We loaded the car with as much beer and liquor and chocolate as it could hold then drove to France through the lazy hills of the countryside and a thunderstorm that engulfed the sky. For hours the storm was ahead of us, spewing fire and lightning upon the earth, I wanted to stop and watch it but it wasnt the right time. When it was finally crackling upon the car, Marie said it was bad for the vineyards, the hard rain destroys the flowers. I thought of a sentence I once heard a long time ago, "How could you do something to romantic without me?" and I wanted to cry but I didnt. I'm not. Then I thought of a chestnut hand against a face other than mine and said the sentence out loud. I wanted to cry and I did.

When we finally got back to France I was still jacked up on coffee, so I drank champagne and ate a white fish Kelly's parents had brought her from somewhere I cant pronounce. It was raining there too and I stared out the window a long time and wondered why you hadnt tried to contact me yet, and I hated all the conclusions came up with. Then Marie, Kelly, Brice, and myself all got drunk from the things we brought back and showed each other all the bad music we were into in grade school. I slept and didn't dream.

And now, I just destroyed an entire baguette and a bowl of tomato soup.

I wish I had a better camera.

I wish I had a tape recorder.

I wish Matt McNally was here.

I wish I were rich.

I wish I never had to start life, and just wrote poetry all day.

I wish for A.

I wish it were all just a fucking fairytale.

(It is though, isn't it?)

Pomp

2010-05-26T05:56:00.000-04:00

My Life. My Life!

2010-05-21T13:24:00.004-04:00

I scream into the blackest night, "My life. My life! Where are you?"

And My Life says, "I am here."

"Where is here, My Life?"

"In a beautiful courtyard of a beautiful castle," My Life says. "Guarded by a beautiful Prince. You will not be able to find me."

"But My Life," I say. "Yell to me. Yell my name. I will be able to find your voice in the dark."

"I cannot," My Life says. "For surely, he will awaken if I do."

"Then fragrance yourself with beautiful purfumes, I will hound my way to you," I say.

"I cannot," My Life says. "For surely, he will awaken if I do."

"Then blow into the air. I will glide against the breath upon my hairs."

"I cannot, for surely he will awaken if I do."

"Then open your eyes into the candle light, and I will be guided by the faintest glimmer."

"I cannot, for surely he will awaken if I do."

"Then kiss into the wind, and I will recognize its taste to be yours."

"I cannot, for surely he will awaken if I do."

"But My Life," I say. "How will I find you?"

And My Life says, "Don't you understand, Dragon? He is sleeping because he has rescued me from you. I shall not walk him. The castle is big and full of ripe fruits and gold coins. I do not need to leave its walls. I do not need the adventure of your wings any longer and the fire of your breath."

Whomp Whomp Whooooooomp.

MJC

2010-05-21T07:35:00.003-04:00

Hey Jude, don't let me down, you have found her, now go and get her

I Can Get Us Out Of Here Tonight

2010-05-19T08:58:00.002-04:00

I have concocted wild and outragious plans for us.

That will only make our already extremely interesting story

unbelieveable, to all those who hear it. And the children that will run around our feet

will grow up to feel inadequate by the love that we radiate,

we will teach them what we know, but they will only be confused

and disgusted by two old farts kissing on the streets

far far away from anything they made us call home.

And Sometimes When You're On...

2010-05-18T11:16:00.001-04:00

...You're really fucking on.

If You Go, Can You Take The Trash With You?

2010-05-18T06:52:00.002-04:00

And if you come back, could you bring a case of beer?

The Poet. The Toursist

2010-05-16T11:19:00.001-04:00

The poet and the tourist are not too dissimilar.

They are both the child.

Between Heaven And Something Like Heaven That Sucks A Bit More

2010-05-15T08:31:00.006-04:00

...then I wont talk about it.

Im not even here.

Im no where.

This is no where, in a void where nothing is different.

And nothing changes.

Please, Its Only You

2010-05-15T07:29:00.001-04:00

Putain Merde

2010-05-13T10:22:00.005-04:00

You know what I just figured out?

I dont speak French

I will try my best to post updates here, but to be honest my personal journal gets priority. If I get some time and/or write things that arent totally private, I shall post them. Also, facebook messages are the best way to reach me, whether to ask questions or just send some love.... and please, send some love.

Like I said, I dont speak French.

And I have to talk really slow and word my sentences differently.

And speak English without an accent.

I didnt even know I had an accent.

Oh, one quick story that just happened, trying to work a french microwave, fucking fiasco. I was cursing in languages yet to be spoken. Stomping around this apartment because I didnt want to eat cold pasta. Giving up for two minutes then furiously hitting buttons again. This goes on for like a half hour.

Turns out the fucking start button was jammed.

Stupid Americans.

Masterpiece

2010-05-11T10:32:00.000-04:00

Yes I'm running away.

But I'll be running back even quicker.

This Is No Where

2010-04-28T13:43:00.004-04:00

When I was 13 years old no one took me seriously.

There was no stock in my words.

There was no gravity of my actions.

And I hated them for it.

Now I'm 25.

And I'm the only one who doesn't take me seriously.

Charles IX of France became king at 10 years old.

And Orson Welles wrote Citizen Kane when he was my age.

DINO DNA!!

2010-04-28T01:16:00.001-04:00

I would happily scar my body, forever, with you.

Jew Sexy

2010-04-26T14:30:00.000-04:00

Sonny Boy Williamson

2010-04-26T14:21:00.001-04:00

The Artist Formerly Known As Brent

2010-04-23T17:17:00.007-04:00

The follow is a list of celebrates that I have been told I look like by the inhabitants of North Philadelphia:

Randall Batinkoff

Johnny Depp

Robin Thicke

Rob Lowe

James Dean

And my personal favorite:

The King

I dont know. Please keep in mind these aren't the sharpest tacks. Every single person I have introduced myself to in North Philly thinks my name is Prince. Here are the conversations:

"Whats your name?"

"Brent."

"Prince?"

"BRENT!"

"Oh, Brent"

Literally, every single person. I must have had that exact exchange of dialogue like fifty times. I'm starting to think I talk with cotton balls in my mouth. Seriously, I've been saying my name repetitively trying to figure out what the problem is.

Its just weird.

It is trying.

Conversations are about to go like this:

"Whats your name?"

"Brent."

"Prince?"

"Exactly."

Effin, A

You Mention A Lot Of Dreaming:

2010-04-21T01:33:00.001-04:00

Your Dream

Was that me in your dream?

Am I the one whose arm stretched for two years
like a comet through the night sky
finally long enough to touch your belly?

How much comfort did it bring?
How much was promised by the touch of slender fingers?
The songbird heard deep in the woods.

My hand is just a hand
when the body is lost with me.

It was me, darling. But go back to sleep,
I didn’t mean to wake you.

Last Case Scenario

2010-04-20T21:52:00.002-04:00

I Have Two Big Hands And A Heart Pumping Blood

2010-04-19T13:50:00.007-04:00

I havent been posting much lately. It started that I was writing a lot of poetry, A LOT of poetry, which I dont post here, and didnt have the time or energy for the blog... but now its moved on to a creative lethargy.

I'm taking a couple days off.

April is the cruelest month.

I declarre this the calm before the storm that May will be.

It is a very weird moment in life to see, to recognize, to understand, that what it right around the corner will change your live irrevocably.

Essentially, every single tiny moment of our time on earth is the same, every heart beat is a choice we make, but generally we are only cognizant of it during large events (i.e. weddings, births, deaths, moves, etc.).

So when you read this, really think how your today will bleed into your tomorrow. Try to pin point a moment of your day that changed your life, if only in a little way.

For me it was this video:

and this one:

and the rare recording I just found of Standard Bitter Love Song #1

It is astounding how much I love everything this man has written.

It is astounding I can love so immensly.

It is astounding how much I can love.

Surprises me every day

and last night.

You should know that.

The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that its you, and that your standing in the doorway.

Listen To Me Baby. Try To Understand.

2010-04-17T01:30:00.002-04:00

If Only

2010-04-15T23:21:00.000-04:00

Did You Ever Hear The Sounds A Turtle Makes?

2010-04-15T23:05:00.001-04:00

"then you started to make humming and I woke up. I woke up and kept saying 'no.' I lost again."

And I lost again.

She Moved Through The Fair

2010-04-13T11:19:00.006-04:00

St. Patrick's day:

I sat at the bar alone, but for a half dozen older men with no were else to be, and we were making fun of the sprite jumping around the bar. His guitar blared, strapped to his body, as he danced and sang, trying desperately to get some crowd participation, but we wanted little more to do than the beer, and to throw rocks at the jester. We were in a ruckus about him, rhyming words in his songs better than we was. Kicking and screaming, laughing, as only strangers can do with one another... and with whiskey of course.

And so the sprite sat, and his feet up, and strummed lightly, and began playing "She Moved Through The Fair."

And we became soft and silent, and breathed to the strumming, and we remembered.

The exact opposite of what we came here to do.

We remembered what her foots steps sounded like as they rhythmically faded into the night.

And remembered all those days we felt low, but didn't know why.

And remembered what grief is.

And remembered.

And so his performance went on unabated.

And when he was finished, no one dared talked, we just cheersed to them.

She Feels Safe Around Him

2010-04-13T03:48:00.000-04:00

Always Waiting For The Next Big Thing That Could Save Me

2010-04-05T12:38:00.006-04:00

She called me a lion, a lion walking down the hall, wanting everyone to see how beautiful I am, and that I didnt want to hold her hand down that hall, so all the girls could think, and dream, and hope... maybe, one day, maybe.

This is only partly true.

I am the lion. But I do not walk down the hall, I am on rollerskates, all four paws, yet I cannot rollerskate. I cannot figure out how to coordinated my four limbs into moving myself forward, I tried once, and I fell, and those who saw, laughed. So I stand in the hall on rollerskates, too prideful to fall, too prideful to move myself forward, to afraid to skate on my own.

So I wait for someone to come along and push me. Push me towards a hill, so I can coast to somewhere new, new people, new hallways, where I'll stand and wait, like I meant to be there, tall, strong, and proud.