I had the strangest dream last night. It was so vivid. I was out a a condo with my family who were swimming, smiling, and hanging around the pool ready to get a group photo. Most of the dream my brother and I were just driving to find the condo, having vague directions, found my friends and family swimming and it felt real. Then while driving back through the condo parking lot to find a spot I saw a guy I work with here in California at the pool and waved at him and then as we parked, I thought that's odd, what's a California native doing, oh, it's a dream. It's strange that the human mind has a virtual reality simulator. Also a balder member of my friends had more hair, that clued me in it was probably a dream.
'Dreams seem real when we're in them don't they, it's only when we wake up we found something was wrong' - maybe that's what was strange. When I woke up and recalled my dream it seemed so . . . normal.
My brother says "What Dreams May Come" is one of the best written books he's ever read (though not his favorite) I just started reading it. (When I'm done either Battle Royal or American Psycho or perhaps more Matheson) but after reading the first few pages I can see the way it floats.
How I became me: - An un paraphrased, stream of consciousness, essay-rant, on what goes on in my head within the span of a waking moment. -
"Dreams are unfounded rumors in the cascade of waking life. Complete gibberish. As great yogi mystic once said 'Do or do not, there is no try'.
I have a soft spot in my heart for cheesy pop love songs…they remind me of simpler times, high school based puppy love. () - this song makes me wonder if life would be easier or at least more fun if people just sang their feelings - (What a weird video, also I blame girls I work with for getting this song stuck in my head) Violent and inexperienced.
My thoughts stagger down like inward spirals of a complete lunatic, raised on divorce, suicide, blackness, acting, tragedy, unfounded drama, cartoons, cereal, soda, and the occasional home cooked grandma meal with two sides of platitude and honest open advice. 'I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me'. It's the opening line of a film called "The Departed" a film of such grace, poetry, fluidity, and resonance that it's recognized as great.
But such is what my life would be if it were a film…not like a mafia film more like if Terry Gilliam directed Kramer vs. Kramer meets The Social Network. 'Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it'.
I am a hyper detailed person. I cannot help it. Though over the years I've tried many remedies all of them universally stupid and pointless to castrate the very thing that makes me annoying as shit is to lobotomize the very thing that my good friends, the great ones, like me for. And that would be like cutting my nose off despite the fact that if I do I wouldn't be able to 'wake up and smell the roses' anymore. What a shame.
I know how news works, web videos, magic tricks, satellite dishes, genetics, and it's made my weary and listless for a something that I don't understand . . . . something that I don't understand and can marvel at . . . . that's why I'm attracted to semi-abstract art, or art that you can imbrued your own meanings deep into and make your own.
'Intimacy is in the eyes' - Drew Barrymore. (Watch out, a sane man quotes Shakespeare a crazy man quotes an Entertainment Weekly article he read 6 years ago) But it is. One of the last girls I had sex with was boring compared to a girl I used to just hang with smoke a little and get drunk and laugh about the stupid inconsistencies of our wild unkempt misfit lives. It's strange how certain things can touch you deeper than other things meant to.
I am no longer chasing after my dreams to feed my friends . . . I am also no longer chasing after dreams to feed my ego . . . and I am no longer chasing after my dreams to get laid or get paid, I'm told my charm takes care of that. (My penis and work ethic help) Anyways I am now only chasing after my dreams for one thing only. . . . the thrill of the chase, 'like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to with one if I caught it'. And I'm very close to catching one and went though my bucket list and it's nearly empty. I've conquered most of my fears and the abyss at the end of my bucket scares me and is also liberating. 'Ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight' . . . if by devil you mean 'woman', than yes.
I started reading the book 'What Dreams May Come' - by Richard Matheson - 1977, and it has reminded me . . . . what if their is only a great Abyss after death. The experience of a first kiss and that tickling at the back of your neck the first time a stranger tells you 'I love you' and means it, is enough for 10 lifetimes because it echos and cascades and reshapes itself in my memory. But that's not the most intimate moment of my life. 'Intimacy is in the eyes' - - - - - - - -
What makes me tick? Fear essentially, fear of losing my mind, fear of losing my friends, fear of being poor, fear of being unhealthy, fear of my friends being hurt. I have no fear of death, having come close enough to touch it, lick it, and feel it once . . . . I know that it won't be coming for me for a very long time . . . . and if it tries I can probably kick it's ass.
'Your friend has cancer…I read it on myspace (He's fine now by the way), We're getting a divorce (They're fine now by the way . . . . well for the most part, they're happier :) ) I think I might kill myself tonight, I'm sorry, I love you so much (Now that one I don't know about)' - These are all transcripts from my memory, from phone calls I've got, or conversations that I've had. Most of them one sided anyways.
I once told a woman I worked with that sunflower seeds reminded me of a prison yard and I remember how bats looked like birds in the moonlight there. And people look at my boyish face, boyish charm, and semi-sweet demeanor and wonder where all my past came from. Because I have no accent, am white, wave when I talk to people on the phone, know a great deal about movies, and sometimes randomly hug teddy bears in the store. Most people either think I'm insane or a spoiled rich kid who was kept away from the world in his youth…both of which aren't true. (Well maybe the insane part is true)
"I think I might kill myself tonight, I'm sorry, I love you so much . . . ." (Ever run into a girls arms and it's like an explosion of happiness . . . . ever been asked about a girl you barely remember from 7 years ago by friends who told you 'you'd be together forever') For the record I barely remember that girl in details, like remembering a dream after you've woken up.
I still think once a week though about how that experience changed my life forever.
When I was a kid I was afraid of everything…and I mean everything. I would hide behind the couch to watch X-Files…when a horror movie came on my Dad and Brother would laugh at how illogically silly it was and I would cower at how illogically cruel it seemed. How could such cruelty exist in people's minds I thought? And then I discovered later that great cruelty and pain exist in the real world…and that's why fiction, as fun as it seems, like a simulation ride, is ludicrous by comparison.
I rant when I type and talk but it's ironic that I hate reading rants. That's why I'm not a fan of 'Fight Club' and Tony Bourdain's show took me a while to get into. But it's like a stream of consciousness with a theme, which is how I think naturally….jumping, sometimes unnoticeably, from one thought to the next….like teleporting. But now I'm dodging the subject.
How I became me:
The experience of clinical depression pills, my first girlfriend, and my move to California.
1 warm night. It was her birthday, or not, I can't remember. Is there a great blackness at the end of life? 'Intimacy is in the eyes', my bucket list is almost empty when it's gone there will be a void, an abyss.
I remember three things . . . . knife goes into wrist (not mine), blood, hand goes over knife (my hand), grabs it and shoves it onto a dresser drawer, still ribbons of blood pour out, no chance of death, not deep enough, just scaring for attention, but at what point does attention move to turning the blade another way, a drama-queen or legit, I'm not sure . . . . I had fallen in love with a crazy person, whose mind was almost completely lost and at sometimes almost completely numb, and not in an I'm stoned this is great numb, but simply 'not there' numb . . . . I spent the next four hours staring into the shapeless voids in her head most would call eyes, like staring into the blackest night or deepest pits of nothing whispering 'I love you, I'll always love you, it's going to be okay, I'm here for you' and all the things you would in that situation….until the glint came back in…tears flowed out of nothingness and I was happy just to see an emotion other than nothing and great loneliness, finally came a hug, some drying of the eyes, and 'lets relax and get some dinner'. I felt like I had revived my best friend. Even though all I did was wait and stare at unquenchable pain without flinching. It wasn't much of an accomplishment, but felt like the accomplishment of a lifetime.
4 years before that moment I used to have ADD and mild panic attacks…due to my irrational fears of things. So someone (who shall remain nameless) thought it would be a good idea for my future to 'put me on medication', which might have just as easily been 'shoot him up with heroin so he can sleep better' would have had the same result, anyways. Well whatever the drug was (I remember it's name clearly, it started with a 'P' and that type was recalled later, due to extreme side effects) anyways . . . I went from ADD (a normal hyper kid) and mild panic attacks, to extreme panic attacks and complete depression. For a period of about 3 months when I thought I was the last person on earth and the only person on earth, complete and utter inability to relate to other people or even understand them only going through the motions of life and mostly sleeping. It was like the very worst kind of nightmare…sleep paralysis….but being awake and having to function. Yet that experience allowed me to relate to someone I wouldn't have normally have the chance to have related to, fallen in love with and after getting my heart broken by her some 2 1/2 years later . . . . given my the courage to say fuck it, I'm not going to be afraid of anything anymore, I'm going to pursue my dream and come to California and I'm not going to do it to work in this town….I'm coming out their to own the fucking town!
Before that films were something I loved and knew about and after that moment they became a passion a necessity to understand and be the best at making them and understanding them.
'controlling me, I am hell-bent, my walls are closing in'
Love is as powerful a drug as heroin . . . . and sometimes both require a belt to be wrapped around your arm."
'Hold fast to dreams for is dreams die they are like a winged bird that cannot fly'
'Come away oh human child to the waters and the wild, with a fairy hand in hand, this world is more full of weeping than you can understand'.
'Oh my brothers' - 'To my beloved reader prepare yourself for the most impure tail to ever sprig from the mind of man' . . . are quotes from the book 'A Clockwork Orange' and how the book 'Salo - the 120 Days of Sodom' and the film 'Quills' open and is how I will end this.
