:)
Really?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Sockless Rich
The Sockless Rich
My wife and I made friends with a couple, the husband a decent well meaning man who perhaps pushes the threshold of parental discipline than I would like, and his bleach blonde slave to the treadmill social climbing counterpart. They don’t quite fit in, but they are desperate to. So we’ve been hanging out with them for the last year, and it has been nothing short of uncomfortable. But since we don’t fit in, we had something in common, or so we thought. Since my wife told her “friend” of our separation, she is understandably conflicted as to how to proceed. She has not returned my wife’s calls.
And I know why.
Married people see couples that separate become liberated in some way, they grow from the truth, and survive, and most importantly, thrive. The statistics prove me out. A stagnant marriage exists in the womb of denial. And unfortunately, no marriage is immune to stagnation; indeed, it is the nature of the beast. And make no mistake; marriage is a beast that will not stop until it has consumed truth. And so, the ones brave enough to sound the alarm, that there is indeed a fire, a fire ignited by contempt bred from familiarity and sustained by fear of change, and those couples who question the feasibility of marriage are pariahs , a threat to the status quo. Most who are married are unhappy, within the context of passion, change, growth, self renewal , and they all live in fear of admitting this, and when two married couples who related to each other in the fraud of marital bliss, and one of them jumps up out of the cocktail couch and shouts, No, there must be more! This truth becomes a virus, that is feared and reviled, and the couple that chooses the path of denial and mediocrity are terrified that this virus will infect them. Perhaps if a separation paid better and got us a table at L’Escale my wife would be worthy of support. But our separation and pursuit of personal growth and happiness threatens the robots, and so they make some beeping sounds, turn on their Jimmy Chow heels, and walk longingly towards the promise of more money, more house, a better blackberry , the new Audi , and an invitation to a proper country club where they can touch the hand of God, or, in their case, rub not elbows but ankles with the sockless rich.
My wife and I made friends with a couple, the husband a decent well meaning man who perhaps pushes the threshold of parental discipline than I would like, and his bleach blonde slave to the treadmill social climbing counterpart. They don’t quite fit in, but they are desperate to. So we’ve been hanging out with them for the last year, and it has been nothing short of uncomfortable. But since we don’t fit in, we had something in common, or so we thought. Since my wife told her “friend” of our separation, she is understandably conflicted as to how to proceed. She has not returned my wife’s calls.
And I know why.
Married people see couples that separate become liberated in some way, they grow from the truth, and survive, and most importantly, thrive. The statistics prove me out. A stagnant marriage exists in the womb of denial. And unfortunately, no marriage is immune to stagnation; indeed, it is the nature of the beast. And make no mistake; marriage is a beast that will not stop until it has consumed truth. And so, the ones brave enough to sound the alarm, that there is indeed a fire, a fire ignited by contempt bred from familiarity and sustained by fear of change, and those couples who question the feasibility of marriage are pariahs , a threat to the status quo. Most who are married are unhappy, within the context of passion, change, growth, self renewal , and they all live in fear of admitting this, and when two married couples who related to each other in the fraud of marital bliss, and one of them jumps up out of the cocktail couch and shouts, No, there must be more! This truth becomes a virus, that is feared and reviled, and the couple that chooses the path of denial and mediocrity are terrified that this virus will infect them. Perhaps if a separation paid better and got us a table at L’Escale my wife would be worthy of support. But our separation and pursuit of personal growth and happiness threatens the robots, and so they make some beeping sounds, turn on their Jimmy Chow heels, and walk longingly towards the promise of more money, more house, a better blackberry , the new Audi , and an invitation to a proper country club where they can touch the hand of God, or, in their case, rub not elbows but ankles with the sockless rich.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The lease I can do
It’s The Lease I Can Do
I woke up to sign the lease to rent a house for me to live in day. An auspicious day to say the least. My family will stay in Old Greenwich, which has become the lair of the rich hedge fund robots, the house my father built and the house I grew up in. Now, or should I say up to now, I was raising my son and daughter in the house my father raised his son and daughter in. Now I must move to a stranger’s house, a couple of exits away on I95. For the first time since I can remember, I will be completely alone. I hope I don’t kill anybody. I will still see my children, almost every day, as my production studio (I am in the music business, such as it has deteriorated into), and my studio is on the same property as my home. I mean her home. Their home. My father’s house. He built it from a kit from Sears, back in the forties, I think for about fourteen thousand, we “fixed it up” with borrowed money and it is now worth about two million. We’re in a very nice little area in New England, called Old Greenwich, although perhaps it should be called New Whitewich, because of the void, the perfect dearth of ethnic diversity. This is a hedge fund paradise. It’s where the white, and khaki, strive and thrive. I have socialized with many of these subjects, been forced to, because of my sons school related events. These are “men” that are shockingly devoid of personality, humor and light. This is a town, and we’ve all heard the cliché about epicurean Connecticut towns, but this is a town which whole heartedly deserves its reputation. This soulless “more is more” mentality has been cultivated to an art form. The tear downs, the Macmansions as they are called, the BMW’s, the convertible Lotus, the five hundred dollar loafers WITHOUT SOCKS, the combed side part, the bleach blonde bleached toothed fake tan fake breasts tennis playing social climbing “women”, who have no substance whatsoever, but believe that they are the cream of the crop, a crop I would consider rotten, this is the place I leave behind. The only problem is that my children are here, and I feel like I am feeding them to the lions, but the lions are wearing pink polo shirts, with the collar starched and raised, like a flag from a country of lost souls, and they wave the flag, and shout “I hate myself but money makes me good, my wife is a robot and I have lost all sense of what really makes a man, and I wear our uniform, which lets the others of my ilk easily identify me, because if I don’t fit in, than I am a gypsy, a pariah, a threat to the collective, and I for one, do not have the stomach to be Locutus.”
I woke up to sign the lease to rent a house for me to live in day. An auspicious day to say the least. My family will stay in Old Greenwich, which has become the lair of the rich hedge fund robots, the house my father built and the house I grew up in. Now, or should I say up to now, I was raising my son and daughter in the house my father raised his son and daughter in. Now I must move to a stranger’s house, a couple of exits away on I95. For the first time since I can remember, I will be completely alone. I hope I don’t kill anybody. I will still see my children, almost every day, as my production studio (I am in the music business, such as it has deteriorated into), and my studio is on the same property as my home. I mean her home. Their home. My father’s house. He built it from a kit from Sears, back in the forties, I think for about fourteen thousand, we “fixed it up” with borrowed money and it is now worth about two million. We’re in a very nice little area in New England, called Old Greenwich, although perhaps it should be called New Whitewich, because of the void, the perfect dearth of ethnic diversity. This is a hedge fund paradise. It’s where the white, and khaki, strive and thrive. I have socialized with many of these subjects, been forced to, because of my sons school related events. These are “men” that are shockingly devoid of personality, humor and light. This is a town, and we’ve all heard the cliché about epicurean Connecticut towns, but this is a town which whole heartedly deserves its reputation. This soulless “more is more” mentality has been cultivated to an art form. The tear downs, the Macmansions as they are called, the BMW’s, the convertible Lotus, the five hundred dollar loafers WITHOUT SOCKS, the combed side part, the bleach blonde bleached toothed fake tan fake breasts tennis playing social climbing “women”, who have no substance whatsoever, but believe that they are the cream of the crop, a crop I would consider rotten, this is the place I leave behind. The only problem is that my children are here, and I feel like I am feeding them to the lions, but the lions are wearing pink polo shirts, with the collar starched and raised, like a flag from a country of lost souls, and they wave the flag, and shout “I hate myself but money makes me good, my wife is a robot and I have lost all sense of what really makes a man, and I wear our uniform, which lets the others of my ilk easily identify me, because if I don’t fit in, than I am a gypsy, a pariah, a threat to the collective, and I for one, do not have the stomach to be Locutus.”
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Resurrection and Frogs
Resurrection?
My wife is a child of an alcoholic. Her mother would drink herself into a coma for months at a time. She was only ten when it started, and it never abated. Her dad couldn’t handle it and split. Till death do them part? He eventually drove himself into a ditch, spilled his brains all over the steering wheel, and she got a new liver paid for in cash and is now drinking it to death too.
But ironically that isn’t what is killing my wife’s mother; it’s the doomed dream of her dead husband no longer loving her. But he stopped loving her long before he was dead. But she was dead long before he stopped loving her.
So my wife has some issues.
I married her to save her. She needed to be healed, and in some way I did. And then I abandoned her just like her mother and father. I stopped adoring her, and it was too familiar a death for her to bear. So we died, but now, we know we died, and we’re no Jesus Christ, but we might just not be breathing, and if we’ve already buried the corpses, but they’re not really dead, then I wanna exhume us.
I want to kiss her one more time, and I want her forgiveness. And I want her to know that I am not her mother and I am not her father, and that I love her. Such as I am, I love her.
And then, when I let myself feel things of that ilk, it hits. Remember, she doesn’t love me.
Frogs
This is what I do best, gravitate to the sadness, because sadness is very strong, and of all of the feelings a creeping, crawling, grabbing, flailing, stabbing in air, shit to the fan throwing idiot can have, sadness is the best for art. And so if sadness is what I inadvertently choose, then what chance do I have for happiness? I don’t think I like it. It’s trite, and if you find happiness, and try to hold on to it, it will, there can be no doubt, die. Like keeping a frog in some little plexiglass series of chambers. I liken the frog and it’s false habitat to a relationship, eventually outgrowing the chambers, but not able to admit it, because of the fear of what might await them outside the plastic prison, and so accept it, and give up, and ultimately live for the sad little frog food that comes to them at the whim of the plastic tube God, or, the creator, whoever that is, whoever it is that has made us so afraid to leave our tubes and chambers, lined with little algae ridden pebbles and fetid cloudy water, our jobs our yards, and our lives, the only environment we ever knew, our homes, our marriages, our little prisons.
And so we wait for frog food. But it can’t compare to flies, grabbed in midair with free tongues. Do frogs get tired? Tired of trying to escape? Does one ever get tired of hoping things will get better? I’m tired. Sleeping dead tired.
My wife is a child of an alcoholic. Her mother would drink herself into a coma for months at a time. She was only ten when it started, and it never abated. Her dad couldn’t handle it and split. Till death do them part? He eventually drove himself into a ditch, spilled his brains all over the steering wheel, and she got a new liver paid for in cash and is now drinking it to death too.
But ironically that isn’t what is killing my wife’s mother; it’s the doomed dream of her dead husband no longer loving her. But he stopped loving her long before he was dead. But she was dead long before he stopped loving her.
So my wife has some issues.
I married her to save her. She needed to be healed, and in some way I did. And then I abandoned her just like her mother and father. I stopped adoring her, and it was too familiar a death for her to bear. So we died, but now, we know we died, and we’re no Jesus Christ, but we might just not be breathing, and if we’ve already buried the corpses, but they’re not really dead, then I wanna exhume us.
I want to kiss her one more time, and I want her forgiveness. And I want her to know that I am not her mother and I am not her father, and that I love her. Such as I am, I love her.
And then, when I let myself feel things of that ilk, it hits. Remember, she doesn’t love me.
Frogs
This is what I do best, gravitate to the sadness, because sadness is very strong, and of all of the feelings a creeping, crawling, grabbing, flailing, stabbing in air, shit to the fan throwing idiot can have, sadness is the best for art. And so if sadness is what I inadvertently choose, then what chance do I have for happiness? I don’t think I like it. It’s trite, and if you find happiness, and try to hold on to it, it will, there can be no doubt, die. Like keeping a frog in some little plexiglass series of chambers. I liken the frog and it’s false habitat to a relationship, eventually outgrowing the chambers, but not able to admit it, because of the fear of what might await them outside the plastic prison, and so accept it, and give up, and ultimately live for the sad little frog food that comes to them at the whim of the plastic tube God, or, the creator, whoever that is, whoever it is that has made us so afraid to leave our tubes and chambers, lined with little algae ridden pebbles and fetid cloudy water, our jobs our yards, and our lives, the only environment we ever knew, our homes, our marriages, our little prisons.
And so we wait for frog food. But it can’t compare to flies, grabbed in midair with free tongues. Do frogs get tired? Tired of trying to escape? Does one ever get tired of hoping things will get better? I’m tired. Sleeping dead tired.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
the mirror is the window
if you can't live in the moment, you can't live.
so many mistakes, or so you think...but they're not mistakes, they are lessons, constant.
litmus tests.
i could, we could, all of us, second guess, but that's the ruse, that's the challenge. I may have burned plastic in the fireplace tonight which is not the best of head gas experiences but it was a small christmas tree with a plastic base and wow does my house smell not great...and but hello motrin.
every single experience is an opportunity to reset re-ask re-think.
nothing is a mistake.
how do you like them apples?
no mistakes, none.
everything is what you need it to be.
your bitterness is your mirror. or i should say the mirror is your window.
there is said it.
the mirror is the window.
so many mistakes, or so you think...but they're not mistakes, they are lessons, constant.
litmus tests.
i could, we could, all of us, second guess, but that's the ruse, that's the challenge. I may have burned plastic in the fireplace tonight which is not the best of head gas experiences but it was a small christmas tree with a plastic base and wow does my house smell not great...and but hello motrin.
every single experience is an opportunity to reset re-ask re-think.
nothing is a mistake.
how do you like them apples?
no mistakes, none.
everything is what you need it to be.
your bitterness is your mirror. or i should say the mirror is your window.
there is said it.
the mirror is the window.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Initial Separation
I’m holed up in my studio. I’m a music producer and I built a post production suite over my garage. Normally at this hour I would be watching TV. But I don’t watch TV anymore. I used to watch so much, and each night was in part about what I would watch that night. And I would sit and drink and watch them. I could never get used to how soon 11pm came. Because then, nothing was on, and then I was chasing the dragon, anything but going to the marriage bed, that abyss of unrequited emotion.
And eventually, drunk and relatively painless, I had to go to bed where she lay, asleep, yet palpably resentful of a man who could not provide for her. Now, I realize that I did not provide for her in ways it never occurred to me to do so. Or her for me. Even in sleep, I felt the cold coming off her. That bed was like a coffin, without the peace. A prison, without ever really being convicted. No official verdict, but the sentence was life nonetheless. I guess the jury finally walked in now though. Not guilty, by reason of an insanity born of and cultivated by ennui.
She says she wants me to try and find someone else, and she is convinced she is not the love of my life. I don’t know if she is right, how could I? Love of your life? I would settle for love of my day.
So we are separated. And trying to put on a good face for our two children. The real loves of my life. And every moment feels alternatively like ascension and demise. But mostly, demise.
I’m holed up in my studio. I’m a music producer and I built a post production suite over my garage. Normally at this hour I would be watching TV. But I don’t watch TV anymore. I used to watch so much, and each night was in part about what I would watch that night. And I would sit and drink and watch them. I could never get used to how soon 11pm came. Because then, nothing was on, and then I was chasing the dragon, anything but going to the marriage bed, that abyss of unrequited emotion.
And eventually, drunk and relatively painless, I had to go to bed where she lay, asleep, yet palpably resentful of a man who could not provide for her. Now, I realize that I did not provide for her in ways it never occurred to me to do so. Or her for me. Even in sleep, I felt the cold coming off her. That bed was like a coffin, without the peace. A prison, without ever really being convicted. No official verdict, but the sentence was life nonetheless. I guess the jury finally walked in now though. Not guilty, by reason of an insanity born of and cultivated by ennui.
She says she wants me to try and find someone else, and she is convinced she is not the love of my life. I don’t know if she is right, how could I? Love of your life? I would settle for love of my day.
So we are separated. And trying to put on a good face for our two children. The real loves of my life. And every moment feels alternatively like ascension and demise. But mostly, demise.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Troublesome Truck
I’m a troublesome truck, you’ve done nothing wrong Thomas, you’re still a very useful
engine, but I was born with furrowed brow, and the need to run you off the tracks, and
may be, you needed all along, to be derailed and forced off, by the likes of me, off your
safe, shiny, go nowhere rails. I’ll see you at the quarry, I mean no harm. I have to
somehow let you go now, you pull away, I’ll push. I’ll look into your beautiful green
eyes that once adored me, and stay with you, in your eyes, as you steam away.
The Sadness Calendar
Some days are earmarked for sadness. It seems to me there is some schedule I am unaware of that dictates what will be a good day and what will be a terrible day. I think there must be some cosmic schedule. I don’t want to see it though, would you? It would include the day the love died, the day you found out you had breast cancer or the day you realized your parents were closing in on death. The calendar of the future, if you could glance at it, would have a date on it when you watched you aging father hobble to a chair and ask for his scotch refilled for hours on end. Unending hours. There would be a date and time on this calendar that you first realized your mother more closely resembles your grandmother, an aging decaying relic, holding on, because of a non existent alternative, and she is confused and tired. Most disturbingly however is watching her in servitude to a more immediate victim; her time ravaged betrothed. My father, the icon, literally fading away before my eyes. Shrinking, drinking and waiting. Playing out his hand. Playing the cards he was dealt? No, I think not. HE did not choose wisely. He gave up too soon. He waited to see what was around the corner instead of choosing which corner he wanted to turn. I love him, I love my father, I love my mother, but I can’t repeat them, I can’t be like them. They sit, and commiserate, and go over the days events. What events? They drink Cutty Sark of all things by the fucking gallon and talk about I can’t imaging what.
I can’t be like them, or like the old me for that matter. I am a reeling vessel in space with no connection whatsoever to what or where I’m supposed to be. I am Major Tom, lost in space. I’m the chimp stabbing at a short circuited control panel. I’m waiting out my air supply in my strapping white and orange space suit, running out of O2, running out of answers, running out of the will to live. Let me go gracefully though, not like the elderly, not like the common folk, not like a shadow with a bottle of air, a plastic mask on my face, a diaper on my torso, iron wheels with rubber tires and a colostomy bag like a spoiler in the back. Let me lead me not to the fiscally prudent brown tinted macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria of the assisted living half way house to inevitability. Save me Jesus? I wish. Save me me.
But how?
How?
I’m a troublesome truck, you’ve done nothing wrong Thomas, you’re still a very useful
engine, but I was born with furrowed brow, and the need to run you off the tracks, and
may be, you needed all along, to be derailed and forced off, by the likes of me, off your
safe, shiny, go nowhere rails. I’ll see you at the quarry, I mean no harm. I have to
somehow let you go now, you pull away, I’ll push. I’ll look into your beautiful green
eyes that once adored me, and stay with you, in your eyes, as you steam away.
The Sadness Calendar
Some days are earmarked for sadness. It seems to me there is some schedule I am unaware of that dictates what will be a good day and what will be a terrible day. I think there must be some cosmic schedule. I don’t want to see it though, would you? It would include the day the love died, the day you found out you had breast cancer or the day you realized your parents were closing in on death. The calendar of the future, if you could glance at it, would have a date on it when you watched you aging father hobble to a chair and ask for his scotch refilled for hours on end. Unending hours. There would be a date and time on this calendar that you first realized your mother more closely resembles your grandmother, an aging decaying relic, holding on, because of a non existent alternative, and she is confused and tired. Most disturbingly however is watching her in servitude to a more immediate victim; her time ravaged betrothed. My father, the icon, literally fading away before my eyes. Shrinking, drinking and waiting. Playing out his hand. Playing the cards he was dealt? No, I think not. HE did not choose wisely. He gave up too soon. He waited to see what was around the corner instead of choosing which corner he wanted to turn. I love him, I love my father, I love my mother, but I can’t repeat them, I can’t be like them. They sit, and commiserate, and go over the days events. What events? They drink Cutty Sark of all things by the fucking gallon and talk about I can’t imaging what.
I can’t be like them, or like the old me for that matter. I am a reeling vessel in space with no connection whatsoever to what or where I’m supposed to be. I am Major Tom, lost in space. I’m the chimp stabbing at a short circuited control panel. I’m waiting out my air supply in my strapping white and orange space suit, running out of O2, running out of answers, running out of the will to live. Let me go gracefully though, not like the elderly, not like the common folk, not like a shadow with a bottle of air, a plastic mask on my face, a diaper on my torso, iron wheels with rubber tires and a colostomy bag like a spoiler in the back. Let me lead me not to the fiscally prudent brown tinted macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria of the assisted living half way house to inevitability. Save me Jesus? I wish. Save me me.
But how?
How?
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