The Poverty Ride

(The Crow - Return to the Grave)

Life has crushed me from time to time, and I feel as if it's roshambo'ed me, kicking me in the balls in a manner befitting a villain. Am I a villain? A cruel joke played on the Living of this city, or am I a parody of a human life executed to disrupt life and cause misery, wanting and sadness in many directions?

I wonder: What is my purpose on this planet?

I've been an actor, a defender, carried a gun as a living, wrote for love, found and lost more pleasures than some people would ever know in two life times.

I have run away.

I have hidden my heart deep in the blackness of the oceans of agony and despair.

And I have accepted the inevitable.

Soon I'll be a teacher; I just turned 41. Maybe that's my worry that my life floats away like tears in a monsoon. Little to recall or to separate from the old or the new, and I fear I will leave no mark. Noone will ever know I was really here, and noone will have ever missed me, much less alone know me like I'd like to be known.

And at the same time, I don't want a lot of people, knowing the real me. The guy who skipped two class reunions, who is recognized with tales of chaos, wild expectations and dizzying failures, who doesn't see if he's really got talent or not, and plans but has so many problems executing.

Maybe I have mental impotence. Emotionally flaccid.

Lacking a spin: bone-less.

Maybe that's why books, movie, songs with lots of passion make me smile ... arouse me. Maybe they quell the monster lurking inside me, inside of all of us. Maybe that's why in my last blog I wrote about my blinding hatred and anger and fury, but when the chance arose, I skipped a battle/confrontation with my neighbor and just walked my dog in another direction.

The artwork of Vincent Van Gogh has always fascinated me. Working hard all his life, addicted to chaos and currently thought to have been an undiagnosed schitzophrenic or manic-depressive. And of course, by looking at his artwork, considering the days he lived in, his ideas to master the realistic world of art would have been seen as nothing more than an attempt at parody as opposed to his true artistic soul being expressed. He and many others of the time were seen as dilutions of the previous masters, always in comparison and not as successful as they were.

I've been told I could be an undiagnosed case of ADD (attention deficit-disorder), like the t-shirt that says "I don't have Attention deficit dis-* Look! A Kitty!"

Maybe I'm bipolar. Maybe I lack a conscience. Maybe I'm manic or just sad and crushed from some long forgotten trauma, and I've never learned to cope with it or deal with life around me. Maybe this is my life ala "Jacob's Ladder", in which I died or am dying, never seeing the end, a personal hell, wondering ... wandering, afraid of my final fate.

When I was 09 years old, I was a safety patrol in elementary school. One day I and a chubby kid (name Phillip) were asked to take a small dog (or cat) that had wandered onto the school over the fence into the next lot and to rush back for class. I think the principal sent us; I really can't recall which authority figure sent us. We walked either carrying or pulling the dog by it's fur past the opening separating the elementary school to a vacant lot and near the businesses which were a Ben Franklin's and a supermarket. We told the animal to scoot, and then we walked back to the opening, stepping quickly, trying to leave the small animal behind.

I turned, looking at him, maybe thinking about grabbing some dime-candy from the Ben Franklin's store, when my eyes caught the grill of a BIG fuckin' truck. I mean semi-type truck, used for cargo or stuff like that, rushing towards me. Phillip grabbed me, pushed us both and we went through the gape in the fence, cracking the ground around us, slipping and then standing. I don't recall looking back for the animal, or ever seeing it again. Maybe it was crushed coming after us even after we escaped the truck, or fled into the distance. I just remember Phillip looking at me, saying "C'mon, we gotta go to class."

Did the truck hit me? Is the small animal looking down at me with sad eyes? Is Phillip rushing back with the authority figure who sent us to my death? Is the truck driver trying to comfort me, as I glaze over, his eyes wet with tears as I slow die, seeing the crushed body under the wheel of the truck?

Have I found my temporal delusion or is my imagination overactive for a man my age? Am I just sad and reasoning the misery out with this need to escape being a loser, or am I just trying to get past the moment I am having by expounding with the supernatural and obscene? I feel horror and it makes me tingle more than porn ever will.

I am currently reading Russ Meyer's biography "Big Bosoms & Square Jaws". Poor Russ; he was sadder than I was amid all the lust available to him. His lust was all-consuming, and he was unable to do anything more than just revel in the display of the work, not in the pleasure of the moment. He wanted to frame women like people collect art, not lust for them and enjoy them and make the eperience visceral.

I DON'T WANT TO DREAM IT - I WANT TO LIVE IT! ALL OF IT!

Life flows faster; the stream moves much quicker and I see the there's a fuckin' waterfall that will toss me like a early 20th century barrel rider over Niagra sans the barrel to keep my bones from being crushed or pummeled with the rocks below. What will my dream me?

Artist? Porn star? Movie star? Erotic writer? Teacher? Priest? Script writer? Comic book author? Can I really do anything as I grow older, fatter, lazier, scarier ... sadder?

Am I going to try committing suicide again like I tried in 1990? Or in 1984? Or am I just making a cry for help and a cry for underwear? Is this a satire of life or art or am I delusional and deranged?

Maybe I am looking for a person to cradle my tears.

Maybe I need to stop fuckin' crying.

Maybe I need to accept that people DO love me and that I am loved.

Lots of maybes.

But no answers.

Adios for now.


~j~





(The Crow - Birth of a Legend)