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I've been feeding from a corpse.
Unless I change my mind for some reason, I've decided that this website will be shutting down at the end of September. I will offer more explanation as soon as I get around to putting it into words. Check back in a week or so.
Yes, I will entertain offers for the domain name, but don't bother calling unless you've got some deep pockets. I'm thinking a porn site, consumer product or meth dealer will offer the right amount of dough. Other zines and unsigned bands named "Crank" need not apply.
Start the mirror now, if you care so much.
This originally appeared on the New York Press website.
Better Off Dead
Darby Romeo, who published the now-defunct Ben Is Dead, was a fixture on the zine scene back during its mid-90s heyday. What is she doing with her considerable talents these days? Stringing for a failing webzine? Working on her next wacky book about lost pop culture? Whatever it is, she’s certainly not maintaining a Ben Is Dead Web archive.
Apparently, old URLs don’t die. They get hijacked by smut sites and redirected into the gaping pink hole of online porn. Cali Ruchala tipped me off to the new website at benisdead.com. Instead of offering back issues of BID–or, dare I wish, updates on Darby and her friends?–the new and way-improved www.benisdead.com offers visitors:
amateur teen sex
teen porn gallery pics
nudelolitas
little teens
hairless teen girls
free russian teens
barely legal babes
girl teensex
free teen pictures no adult check
forced schoolgirl sex
teensex
teens with small tits
little teens fucking women
All this and more, according to benisdead.com’s meta tags (which are used by most websites to help search engines catalog and categorize them). Pity for the well-meaning fans and critics of the original Ben Is Dead who still have links on their archived pages. Take, for example, a Yahoo! Internet Life column by Bonnie Burton, the sincere, pro-chick chick who founded grrl.com. Her link to benisdead.com follows the introduction for "Grrls Online," which proclaims that:
"The Web isn't just for geeky boys anymore. Whether it be a riot grrl rant or a teen advice column...all are platforms for a new breed of feminism, where girls can sound off about social stereotypes."
Unless Burton’s readers are "hairless" grrls or grrls having "forced schoolgirl sex," I doubt the current benisdead.com is going to be much help in their struggles against any stereotypes.
She stank a bit because used hippie deodorant. Or none at all. I’m not sure. But still, there were a few drinks in each of us, so I rolled around with her. Eventually she blew me, and I responded in kind. She said she got off, but these things confounded me at the time, so I couldn’t be certain if I’d done a decent job of things, or if she was simply being polite.
The next day, driving back to where she went to school, I could barely talk with her. I was acting like a real shit, I knew, but I couldn’t help it. Without those drinks, I felt embarrassed and exposed. I’d always had trouble with morning-after intimacy, and this time my discomfort was compounded by the fact that she’d been a good friend and I never, ever should’ve let it turn into something involving reciprocal blowjobs.
I made record time on the highway, dropped her off and went about my business, with an unspoken plan to steadily lose contact with her over the next couple weeks.
These were my dark days, living in my parents’ house, working my second full-time job ever, dating a woman I knew I didn’t truly-deeply-madly love, working toward something and nothing at the same time. I wasn’t--and still am not--a bad person, and not a bad boyfriend. My eye didn’t wander too much, and my hands never wandered. Except for that one time, at that time.
My real problem wasn’t the hippie, but the crush--a little punk the same age as my girlfriend, but her complete opposite. The girlfriend was fairly prim and proper, with just enough radical nature to justify my dating her. But not so much that she’d challenge my own inflated, false sense of outcast.
There was no true rebellion in me, just a taste for independent productions. Just a desire to witness and absorb the energy of those who produced themselves for themselves. I never had the guts to strike out on my own, to say fuck-all and just go.
So it went with the girlfriend. But this other girl--
I’d find out some nine years later that this little crush had felt the same way about me, but she’d refused to make any moves because of the girlfriend. The crush, it seems, had some morals, whereas I likely would’ve jumped on her as soon as she’d made the first move.
But she never made the move. And neither did I--ever. One of my many flaws was inaction. I’d never make the move--never had and never would. I would, instead, skim through life on patches of indecision, getting by just enough and being happy just enough.
I held down a decent job as a typesetter, working noon to eight on weekdays, turning in decent work, albeit entirely uninspired. The late mornings afforded me time to drink heavily on weeknights, yet still cruise into the job fresh and refreshed. Good schedule for drunks, bad schedule for those with pretenses of ambition. Too much opportunity for slothful drinking. If you’ve been there, then you understand that such an opportunity is appealing, but ultimately destructive.
Some mornings, I’d rise early and make the thrift-store circuit of North Jersey. Pick up a new t-shirt here, a new book there. Naturally, I was a writer, but failed to write anything. I’d drink, downstairs in my parents’ basement where I kept my Mac SE/30, and attempt to hit the keys with my brilliance. Bad poetry, mostly, as I was a student of the drinking poets. They didn’t have to rhyme, had no need for structure. And talent was entirely subjective. So fuck it. Get drunk and--
And do nothing. Claim to be writing a screenplay, pound out forty pages, then naught else. Do nothing, write nothing, claim the good fight was being won. Talk with the girlfriend throughout the day, maybe visit her some nights. Skim through.
Get drunk and talk to the crush on other nights. Talk about things we had in common--bands, writers, movies. I was smitten, but totally unable to cut free from the safety of the girlfriend, who would ultimately suffer greatly at my hands many years on.
The crush would’ve been a great match. Not that I have any significant regrets looking back on my life ten years later, but not breaking free in my youth was represented by letting that girl slip through my fingers. She slipped through because I was too busy clenching at security. All I wanted was a kiss, even now, looking back--I should’ve at least had a kiss.
Get drunk and talk to the hippie chick on some other nights. For some reason, I’d flirt with her on the phone, probably because she responded and I was utterly miserable. She was smart, and not horrible to look at, but what the fuck?
Years later, I’d respond to misery the same way--flirt with friends and strangers and neglect the secure girl. Those years later, though, at least I had the guts and compassion to cut the secure girl free. This is, incidentally, the same woman who’d been the girlfriend back during those dark days.
The pain I’ve caused weighs me down some nights. How can other men live with their actions, which at their least are still tenfold the worst that I’ve done? I can count the incidents of flirtation gone to action on one hand, and even then I never fucked anyone. How can these men--and more than a couple women I know--live behind that false front, confiding only in themselves or other false people?
I swear, the next time I’m approaching a life led wrongly, I’ll cut free sooner.
Get me the fuck out of this basement, once and for all. Let me kiss the crush, and not work for something I don’t believe in.
And where are the other 80 pages of that screenplay, for fuck’s sake?!
I should clear up one point regarding the 3/15 note (below): I have quit my full-time job as the Media/Production Director for New York Press (which was a promotion from the position of Production Manager, described here in Crank #7), but will remain associated with New York Press in a part-time capacity as the web developer. That's the key to the below tirade: I'm getting out of the position which causes me agony and redefining my job as one that revolves around functions I'd rather perform and contributions I'd rather make.
I understand the hate, the rage. The passions. I know why acts of violence explode from seekingly meek souls.
Everyone wearing the same shoes, talking about the same things, in the same or similar tones. We spend our days among people we either disregard or dislike, right or wrong. These days pass, one after another, and sometimes it's a quick loss, other times ungodly slow. Time is stolen from us like family heirlooms taken by hoards of greedy, marauding soldiers.
If only we were the ones pillaging. If only we were at the top of the command chain. We'd be entitled to plunder and sack the lots of our fellow men. We could take their time away from them and make it our own. We'd be the chronological vampire, slaking our empty souls' thirst with the blood of others.
Even the moment before setting these thoughts down on the page of the pad I was accidentally carrying in my bag, I was snaking through the crowds between subways platforms, rushing from one line to the other, to find a bench and sit down and hurriedly write these words. These are my minutes, I was raging. Move, you motherfuckers. Get out of my way and let me have at my destiny. How dare you be leisurely. How dare you to presume to not fill your every second of every minute with something that will contribute to the greater good. Like I am.
And so we are held under the thumb of a despot. My bag is packed with items from my desk at the job I've just recently quit. I'm walking away from a stable, high-paying, full-time job so that I might see more clearly from the perspective of someone not held under that thumb.
I refuse to die at age 50 from a heart attack brought on from years of slow deaths on the job. I will not squander my life for the goals of others. I've loved my work for the majority of the time I was there, but now that time has passed.
I've been cashing the check too long. (If you know me, then you know that "too long" was about 1 month, not 1 decade; I'm not one to take advantage of any situation.) I've stayed for the money and the false, fleeting sense of reward. The satisfaction I felt from contributing was once valid. I was a good and useful part of the whole, and I agreed with the aims of the portion of the whole to which I was a committed loyal servant.
But now I'm changing my relationship with the institution. I'll remain attached, but only on the periphery. I will contribute my skills as needed, and no more. I will work for the goals of the portion of the whole to which I can comfortably remain committed.
And no more.
The whole is whatever or wherever you allow it to be. Might be your dayjob, or your family, or relationship. You can commit yourself to it for the right reasons, or the wrong. Incidentally, sometimes, the wrong reasons are actually the right reasons. For instance, if you're in something just for the money, there's nothing wrong with that. Retain your soul, take the dough. That's the right way to approach what others with shorter sight and narrower minds might consider wrong.
Ideally, we all would allow ourselves to become absorbed for greater reasons. Money is a fine pursuit, but know that there is nothing more petty than money. In fact, if you find yourself with a surplus of money, you should calve your glacier of wealth--at least a little bit, even over a long period of time--and allow those small chunks to fall into worthwhile seas. In that way, you've added true worth to an essentially worthless construct.
Money is obviously designed to keep the working at work, and credit card companies do not want the balance paid off every month. The need to keep working now comes from the need to pay off one's debt. If one has no debt, one has no obligations, one no longer needs to remain in the engine rooms, shoveling in one's very soul to power the ship's engines. Society, at this point in time, could not survive the elimination of individual debt. (And I'm not talking about potentially empowering, elected, investment-oriented debt, such as a mortgage. That should be clear.)
So work for the whole as long as you wish. Work for as long as it serves your needs. But be aware that, at some point, you will relieve yourself of your individuality, much in the same way a criminal is relieved of his weapon. This analogy is not made lightly, for your individuality is your weapon. It is a threat to the whole. To move forward and grow--which must necessarily be demonstrated by some manner of wealth indices--the whole must be as close as possible to a homogenous entity, populated by the entirety of the middle of the relevant curve.
Don't be fooled by your superiors: your particular skills may grant tolerance for your individuality, but at some point, at some mark on the time vs. growth chart, your skills will either be duplicated by another, or rendered obsolete. That leaves you with your individuality which is not crucial--and may be quite demonstrably detrimental--to the operations of the whole.
The savvy individual(ist) knows this, yet can still perform in fair, respectable service. One must isolate the important aspects of one's self as related to the whole and then concentrate on revealing, developing and utilizing them. If money is important, then make the money. If it's a particular accomplishment--or battery of accomplishments--then accomplish whatever it is you wish to accomplish. Then get the fuck out.
Be you then in service to your self.
Time is stolen from us. Take it back from those who demand it. The whole will certainly survive, and your contributions will actually become more meaningful. If you are a plumber, do not also volunteer to act as the electrician just because you know how to twist wires together. Be the best fucking plumber you can be, and only be the electrician if it brings you satisfaction.
Do not spend your time lightly, but also do not give more to those asking you for your time than they would give themselves.
Do not fight against those who don't understand what's at stake. You will never win such a fight.
Do not jump higher than everyone else just because you want to look better than everyone else. Do not jump higher because you're afraid that only the highest jumper will get the chance to jump again. Jump as high as you can because you like the view.
I've learned enough about the capabilities of humanity--both in terms of charity and destruction--to last my lifetime. People in seek of profit at the expense of all else make me sick. They can disguise it however they want, but pure profiteering is despicable and shameful. These are the people who should be shot and then spat upon in the town square.
(This does not contradict what I noted above about pursuing money. Pursue money if that's all you want, just cause no harm in the course of that pursuit. Profiteering has an inexhaustable tolerance for infringing upon the rights of others.)
Now, at the end of this particular segment of my life, I'm rushing like mad to reach the finish line, but find myself struggling against a tide of sloth and selfishness. The end is in sight, but as in a dream where I can't punch my enemy with those rubber arms, or can't wade through the molasses-thick shallow water, I can't seem to reach the tape. So what do I do? I rush even more, desperate to be free.
For a short period of time, I chose to fight an unfightable fight. I had no choice: I'd invested so much in something that was once so noble, but is no longer... And there comes the hate. I hate seeing the influence of forces thoughtlessly put forth by those who don't even exist in the same moral and ethical universe as me.
I will no longer fight the battles. I've fought too much, and I've seen the rewards diminish over time. I'm too far along on that graph, and I've decided that, for the rest of my days, I will only fight for what I know to be right while not being foolish enough to assume that everyone in the ring appreciates the consequences of the match.
For some reason, the gin and tonics were served in tall water glasses. Last night, I considered them generous. Now, the next day, just barely on the dawn side of the hangover’s horizon, they were idiotic. I’d already had three or four pints on an empty belly, and then put down three of those three-shot tallboys. In the bar, I felt fine. As soon as I hit the fresh air though, I was absolutely and completely drunk.
Subway home. I was that guy, nodding off, fighting desperately to not pass out. Now, no outward-bound train line is much better than the others, but I absolutely, completely did not want to find myself deep sleeping on this train. The L travels through some sketchy areas: Bushwick, Ridgewood, East New York. Bad scene, that would be.
Got home, walked the dog, threw up all of that beautiful Beefeater, went to bed. Just before drifting off to a dead man’s slumber, I saw the clock: 11:30. Somehow, I’d managed to get myself utterly, despicably drunk before midnight.
I made it to work at a sane hour, pushed through some easy messages and emails to give my brain a chance to dry out. Went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror for the first time today: My left eye has a fissure of red running through its lower hemisphere. I broke a blood vessel while vomiting.
Christ. What a stupid asshole I can be sometimes.
"Just ten more minutes," she begged, squinting against the bits of sun poking through the flimsy curtains.
"Sure, baby," I said, "ten minutes."
I gave her twenty.
Saturday night, 7pm. Half a dozen Upper West Side types ride the 3 train downtown with me. All well-dressed, all well-made. Good stock, if they were racehorses. Five women, one man. He doesn't seem to be gay (in New York City, a duck looks, walks and talks like a duck, if you get my meaning), so I can only assume he's either dating one of the women and tolerating her friends, or trawling for pussy by hanging out with the whole gang. If the latter's the case, then he's a lock-in for nailing the chubby one. He's decent-looking, and she doesn't have a chance of competing for external cock with this comely crew.
Speaking of ducks... I'm heading home to watch Lucio Fulci's "Don't Torture a Duckling," which, according to the DVD's liner notes, was originally called "Don't Torture Donald Duck." They changed it in the translation to avoid a lawsuit with Disney. I've also got the Jap film "Nobody," which I fear will suck. I've likely fallen prey to the roundeye misconception that Jap imagery and a facade of pomo violence indicates something more than mediocrity in a movie. Or if not not-mediocre, then good-enough because it's Japanese. Or not-American. Or whatever.
That's what led me to rent "Black Cat," a yellow remake (or retelling, if you would) of "La Femme Nikita." Less than halfway through--way, way less--we hit Stop to put an end to the pain. And I never stop movies midway through. "A bad day at fishing," is the way I usually enjoy bad movies. "Black Cat," though, was absolutely fucking miserable.
And speaking of miserable... My god, but Rush's "2112" is ungodly pretentious. I'm listening to it while I type these words and re-program the page. Did I really admire this album when I was 14? Did I think these metaphors were interesting? These symbol crashes dramatic? No wonder no girls would kiss me.
Amy has finally signed the divorce papers, putting an end to some minor squabbles and petty fiscal bullshit. More about that in the near future.
Now, the courts will rubber-stamp them, and I'll have an official ex-wife within six weeks. In the meantime, what did you do for New Years? Here's my story, courtesy New York Press.
That perfect moon saved the night. I’m still a little growly, still in a bit of a cantankerous funk, but a little bit less than an hour ago.
I’d gone to Red Hook to check out an apartment. My cocksucker landlord is going to fuck me over soon. My lease is up, and he’s not offering me a renewal. I’m not entitled to much, since the building isn’t rent-stabilized, but I know I could push him--by means of legal action--to offer a renewal. But then he’d jack the rent up a few hundred bucks per month, just to fuck me hard and drive me out. So I’m letting this sleeping dog stay asleep, paying my usual rent month by month, hoping for a little slide.
In the meantime, I’m not being stupid. I’m scouting for a new apartment. New York City is miserable. It hates its people, doesn’t want them to get ahead. I want to spend about $1000 per month for a decent 1-bedroom apartment, but there’s no such thing anymore. At least not where I want to live, and I’m very, very liberal about my environs. I’m looking in neighborhoods away from the gentrified hotspots of the boroughs. No Williamsburg. No Park Slope. Not even the fringe of Brooklyn Heights or once-desolate Greenpoint, where 1-bedrooms now list for more than $1500 a month.
So out to Red Hook where I was scheduled to look at a 1-bedroom with a two-car garage listing for $1100. I don’t particularly care about the garage, but I could use that space for storage, or as a studio. Red Hook’s a great area, the former waterfront of Brooklyn (with some shipping activity continuing). But it’s rather out there, 30 minutes from Manhattan. Bus to the train, every day, each way.
That’s a nasty commute when your rent is still more than a grand. For $500 a month, I’d suffer the trip. For $1100? It’s monstrous. When I moved into this city five years ago, my apartment in Little Italy was $1100. That space now goes for $2400. (My soon-to-be-former wife has the lease on that apartment.)
So I got out of the subway depressed and defeated. Then I saw that moon, perfectly full I think, risen just over the two silos which act as East Williamsburg’s landmarks. A wisp of cloud was covering it, but it still glowed bright and white against the almost-black sky. Bright white, the face clear as day, against deep, deep blue slipping into void.
I walked down Metropolitan Ave., watching the clouds move on to other targets, leaving the moon free to stare back at me unobstructed. On a lark, I turned into a neighborhood bar and had a drink. When I was done, I stepped back onto the avenue and found the moon a couple degrees travelled south, but still unchallenged in the sky. I felt better, the small liquor offering a small warmth, but the passing of time in the sky helping me more.
I’ll find a place to live, I’m not worried. This city does hate itself, and many people hate themselves and each other, especially when they try to succeed. I’ll pass my time the best I can and wait for the obstructions to pass, doing my best along the way to attend to more important matters of the heart, mind and profession. The just always triumph. Eventually.
We were in Ypsilanti, Michigan, for a couple days. Ypsilanti is just to the right of Ann Arbor and just to the left of Detroit, which puts the Yip somewhere between God’s asshole and the Devil’s balls. In other words, it’s nowhere you want to spend any considerable amount of time, though one is preferable to the other. I needn’t apologize to our hosts for such an observation, as they’d be likely to put more emphasis on their geographic despair than come to their temporary hometown’s defense.
Friday afternoon, we went to the Detroit Institute of Arts, which wasn’t that bad. A decent Pop Art exhibit and a curious (permanent) Diego Rivera mural were notable highlights. And the parking was convenient.
Otherwise, Detroit’s everything that everyone has ever said. The economic interests refuse to admit that heavy industry is dead. The pushes toward cultural development seem to revolve around the new sports center and new casinos. Thank god Canada is only a river away, note the locals.
Someone, somewhere, must’ve noted already that Detroit represents the death of a previous Age. Car culture is alive and well, sure, but it ain’t like it was. You can support the Teamsters all you want, but every other fucking house in Detroit is a burnt-out husk of its former vibrant self. And that’s no accident. It just can’t be.
///
Steve Bjorkman, Technical Sales Specialist for GM/Delphi in Wixom, MI, seems to have given his business card to someone in the bar that night. Friday, 11pm, Ypsilanti. A hellish place called Wicked Mickey's. We were there to kill time, have some drinks, see the local nightlife. We'd considered going to a bar in Ann Arbor--after a fantastic Ethiopian meal at that town’s Blue Nile restaurant--but decided against the 20-minute drunken drive back to Yip and, instead, stayed closer to home. 5 miles. No sweat.
I found Bjorkman’s card sitting on a ledge, presumably left--forgotten, ignored--by one of his attempted prey. Besides the lonely business cards, the club is populated by uptight young men pounding pitchers of the usual dickhead swill, all lustfully watching the ugly girls who use belly tattoos to get attention. Wrongly, of course, since their bellies hang lower than the aforementioned Devil’s balls.
That new Ricky Martin song pounds through the speakers and two skanks I’d earlier seen slithering around the club’s periphery take to the floor. The one wearing the cowboy hat is absently grinding her pleather against some local boy's crotch. Her friend is dangerously close to bumping into me--me, at the fringe of the dance floor, for kicks, waiting for the liquor and sense of anonymity to kick in before I dare move my hips even the least little bit--but soon notes my lack of enthusiasm for her nasty, infected Ypsilanti cunt, and moves away.
The trip was great. Until I came down with a vicious flu immediately upon touchdown at JFK. I then spent the next 24 hours throwing up the entirety of the weekend’s meals, which was fine in a teenage-girl-with-a-self-image-problem way. All that pie. Really now.
So apparently, the landlord has decided to let Sling Blade live in my basement. Oh, ok, you purists--so "Sling Blade" isn't the character name. So what? Point is, there's a retarded fellow living in my basement.
The landlord--a presumed scumbag, though I haven't yet met him face-to-face--tells me that the 'tard is only there temporarily. "And he doesn't smoke or cook," he adds, putting my fire-hazard fears to rest. Sort of.
I suppose the 'tard isn't dangerous. Or, to be more accurate, he certainly isn't any more dangerous because he's a bit daft. "Slow," they'd call it in dinner conversation. His name's Willie, and he seems nice enough.
But there's still someone living in my fucking basement. No shower. No toilet. Certainly no kitchen. It's a fucking basement. The landlord is most certainly full of shit about Willie's situation being "temporary." My guess is that I'll be hearing Sling Blade's rustling around beneath me for many months to come.
Got back from work and walked the dog. Stopped by the deli for two bottles of Rheingold--I just can't get enough of their customized New York City labels--and a large cup of coffee. Got back home, washed a few of the many dishes in the sink, sat down on the couch. I settled in like a clumsy sack of dirty laundry, misshapen and unbalanced, with one of those bottles in my hand. The coffee is cooling on the table; it should be drinkable by the time this first beer is gone.
I rode my bike from the subway to my apartment, but not all the way from Manhattan. I won't ride over the Williamsburg Bridge this long after dark. I don't suppose I'd have any problems, but fuck it. At 11:30 at night, I'm not inclined to put myself in any position where my entry and exit points are easily blocked, and that bridge--like all the bridges attached to Manhattan--is nothing more than a long, narrow corridor suspended in the air. As I said: I wouldn't expect any problems, but why bother? Why not buck up the dollar and a half for the L-train fare and play it safe.
Ignore what you may have heard: the subways around here are quite safe. Most lines, anyway. And for most people. I'm not an asshole. I'm not presumptuous, nor boisterous, not inviting of danger. I keep to myself, reading a scrap of the Times I took from the trash outside the station entrance, and bide my time. I think of those two cold beers and a hot cup of coffee, side-by-side, arguably my favorite lowbrow symbol of highbrow dichotomy.
And here I am, half a bottle into this minor segment of the evening. On the couch, sitting upright unlike that bag of laundry I resembled just a few minutes ago, tapping away. 1:25 Tuesday morning, no plans to sleep soon. There's that second bottle, plus a bottle of red on the countertop, plus maybe some of that white from last night in the fridge. How long will the coffee fight for life underneath all the booze? Another hour, with luck.
Work wasn't particularly bad today, though these 15-hour Mondays can be rough on the soul. I've got big plans for later this week, and as much as I'd like to be well-rested and clear-headed for them, I'm too anxious and anticipatory. I'm crushed under the thoughts of the potential life to be lived. So many things to be done.
Impatience has long been a burden, and despite my efforts to the contrary, I've still got a shorter attention-span and less patience than many 8-year olds I've met. These past 10 months have taught me many lessons, and there's so much more to learn, but I'm still anxious to get on with it.
My blind cat teeters on the edge of the coffeetable, feeling for the hardwood with one outstretched paw, then jumps trustingly to the floor. The floor is there to catch him, of course, but in that raisin-sized brain of his, there was never a certainty. I wish I had his guts.
I've emptied the paper cup, and have opened the second bottle of Rheingold. After that, I think I'll skip the wine and, instead, hit the bed with all the life and vigor of a dead fat man collapsed under the weight of his life and sloth. I will sleep like a baby, and rightly so. For the very young sleep very soundly with their pure hearts, bright skies and memories of wrongdoings no worse than the most harmless of fibs. So should I be rewarded for this night of simple pleasures, pure motives and honest observation.
Crank #7 drags. All I need are the covers, then it's done. But the covers are taking far longer than I'd imagined, due to many, many factors. Money, work, travel, paperwork. All those conspire to keep Crank #7 out of your hands. Soon, though. Soon.
Tough fuck anyway. You want to hear about my potential for delayed response? I just went through a pile of old paperwork and found several orders which were never honored...from 1997! What a fucking asshole I am, huh? About 2 dozens orders that I'd never even acknowledged: just threw them in a desk drawer and forgot about. But on this Sunday night after this weekend of housecleaning and home-cooking, I decided to clear out some skeletons from the Crank closet.
Those envelopes containing old checks were discarded wholesale; those with cash from 1999 and 2000 were mailed out; those few with cash from 1997 and 1998 were tossed (after I removed the cash and put it in my pocket, naturally).
The following people got fucked over. I took their money and didn't send them shit. If you know one of these people, or are one of these people, please get in touch. You can tell me your address from that time, and if it matches up, I'll meet my end of the bargain.
Dan Feldman, Rich Johnson, Tiffany from Hawaii (yes!), Jeremy Wood, Richard Hammerstrand, E. Pluribus Unum (Athens, GA), Debbie Daughtry, Barry Johanneson, Claire Odom, Bradley Whittle.
We're sitting on the back patio on the edge of my very modest backyard in East Williamsburg. We've just had a fine meal of chili and cheese hot dogs, tortilla chips and white wine. The meal I've been wanting all day. She's got a sketchpad on her lap; I'm scribbling on these sheets.
The dog runs through the weeds which have grown to tree height. It's a particular breed of Brooklyn weed: they're vaguely fern-like when tree-tall, with a broomstick-thick trunk, but in the beginning of the summer, when they popped up in the yard by the hundreds, they were simply weeds. Looking at them a little more closely, though, trying to snap one in half to clear some space around my only eastern-facing window, I consider that maybe they're trees that look like weeds when they're small, not weeds that appear to be trees when large.
And so my big, troublesome brain gets to work. I wasn't a married man with an occasionally wilder streak. I wasn't a mostly respectable guy with a perverse soul. I know what I am now--it's clear now---but at the time, when the changes were happening slowly and invisibly and with a benevolent malice, I'd no idea.
I thought I was heading to where I wanted to be. Stable life, plotted growth. No room nor allowance for mutation. But mutation is the agent of change, so they say, and I'd forgotten that my mandate had once been to continue to change with the world, not to remain solid and static. Not to fight the chaos with that alluring veneer of respectability which I'd cultivated so desperately.
I want to have a core of stability in my values and the way I approach problems and crises, not in the discreet decisions that I make. I'm not hypocritical when I claim contradictory beliefs: rather, I'm infinitely objective. I always consider the source and the motive, even--especially--when their my own. So while I might not always come to the same conclusion, I've always reached that conclusion by way of a consistent value system.
So my last few years were misleading, even--especially--to me. I thought I was a typical man thirsting for the typical life punctuated by bursts of nonconvention. Turns out the flip is true. I'm not the weed mistaken for a tree. I'm the tree who appeared a weed in its younger days. Make the mistake of mistaking me for something less, and you'll miss the whole point.
This kind of behavior will be funnier when I'm 80. I rise from the couch after a few glasses of this swell, sweet sangria we bought yesterday at a winery upstate, and I almost fall over. It's that half-stagger, my feet caught in my shoes, not really grounded in drunkenness. But the drunkenness doesn't hurt--this sangria is strong. I don't normally drink bottled sangria, but this concoction was worth the $10 (1.5L). Maybe it'll be better--acceptable to the average taste, that is--in a pitcher with a few oranges and apples and a fuckload of ice, but in the meantime I'm working through glass after glass simply because it's the open bottle in the fridge.
The hoodlums on the corner regarded me and the dog with smirks, understanding immediately that this 31-year old was staggering not humorously with vulnerability, but a bit sadly. As I mentioned, when I'm 80, maybe it'll be amusing. An instant get-out-of-jail-free card. The criminals will leave me be only because I'm that guy in the neighborhood: the old drunk guy who walks his dog at 2 a.m. with a glass of red wine (shhh! it's actually sangria, but they'll never know!) clutched precariously in his hand.
At 31, the effect is similar: they don't bother me. But the cause is different: I'm not useful to them. Obviously no money, and obviously not likely to get riled up by their obnoxious behavior. So where's the fun?
In my glass, back at home, an old Screaming Trees album spinning unevenly on the turntable, the dog at my feet, two cats skulking about. That's the fun. It's 2:10 a.m. and I've just refilled my jelly-jar glass with more of that sweet, sweet sangria. Even without the stoneware pitcher and fresh fruit, it's been just fine so far.
How far can a dog run into the woods?
I’m
walking along a nice road of balanced optimism. Life feels fairly good,
despite the bits of bureaucratic bullshit which clutter the day-to-day.
It will all come to pass, certainly. It’ll all work out, as so many
friends and acquaintances are inclined to tell me. I know, I know, but
that doesn’t mean that hard work, patience and integrity aren’t
integral to the process.
So many
people think that just because “it’ll work out in the end,”
life then guides itself. That because you expect, in hindsight, to see
the events which are to be behind you as obvious, that there was just
no other way things could’ve possibly worked out, you can let things
unfold of their own accord.
Hard work,
patience and integrity are the three things one must have in order to
reach that point where hindsight reveals your present as a self-evident
path of pasts. I’m currently pushed to my limits with two of them:
integrity is not the problem, never has been. I’m quite usually the
bigger man, willing to watch my goodwill evaporate moments after it rains
down on the recipient. I’ve learned, time and again, that when you
act kindly to people, when you act with integrity and consideration--only
because you know it’s the right thing to do; otherwise it’s
goodness by means of some sort of coercion and has nil to do with integrity--they
come to expect that. They calibrate themselves to that level, and if you
ever fail to act with that same amount of integrity and consideration,
you’re a fucker and you’ll never recover without twice again
that much effort.
I’m
tired of working hard, and my patience is near exhaustion. I’m lately
convinced that every man, woman and child on this earth should go fuck
themselves. I don’t care how many stepdads are fingering their new
daughters after mom drifts away to her drunken slumber. I care not of
the pack of teenage boys raping retarded girls. Care not if the elderly
are respected and revered. Care not for the welfare of the downtrodden.
Not that I ever have, really, but I’ve lately been moving to the
side of the fence where I want this stuff to happen. Not by my own hand,
but there’s hardly a shortage of malicious, heartless sonsofbitches
on this planet. Evil walks the earth in the minds of everyone and, quite
frankly, I don’t much care anymore whether or not they can keep it
inside.
In the
meantime, my left foot is cramped up. The big toe is contorted, clamped
in on itself and writhing inside with a muscular agony. It feels good,
in that weird sadistic way, so I let the cramp take its course. My right
foot wants in on the action, so Imake a fist with my toes and feel the
beginning of the cramp take hold. The cramp encouragement is akin to making
yourself vomit when you’re drunk and afraid to go to sleep with a
full belly of booze: you feel your stomach muscles convulse and you’re
not quite sure if there’s enough power to push you into a complete
upchuck spasm. So you sniff the toilet again and, depending on the condition
of the bowl, either catch just-enough or an ungodly nose-full of odor.
And one of those times, you push your stomach over the top and the white
porcelain gets speckled.
Such are
my feet after a couple days of walking across the city, then riding my
bike to and from Brooklyn, maybe a brief run with the dog with shitty
sneakers on my own dogs. Their instinct to curl in on themselves is rooted
in good cause: I’ve been active and they need to stretch a bit. They
want the cramps. They’ll ultimately feel better.
So I let
it happen, and my feet do feel a bit better.
That’s what this stinking fuckhole of a planet needs. A nice dose of genuine pain to get us past this agonizing, teasing state of almost-grace. Class war, race war, species war. Nuclear warfare, biological warfare, traditional club-over-your-head warfare.Bring it on and let’s see how we feel afterwards.
More in the meantime: the dog is at my feet, and he smells incredibly bad. Like old Fritos. That bad. My own dogs don’t fare much better after this active day in sneakers without socks, but he’s worse than them, so the person on the couch next to me can’t blame the stench on me.
So: How far can a dog run into the woods? Halfway.
I recently returned from a trip to Louisville, KY. I went to see one of my sister Kim's kids ride in a horse show. She and her family have become horse people: they've got a farm in deep Jersey where they raise and ride show horses. This is the Christian sister Kim about whom I've written in Crank; we've gotten back in touch over the last few months. She's not as hardcore evangelical as she once was; I'm not as venemous toward Christians as I once was.
The horse show was also part of the Kentucky State Fair--another reason to go. So I spent two days in Louisville, then an evening in Roanoke, VA, then the afternoon and evening in Baltimore.
While there are certainly scads of highlights to the trip (oh, maybe I'll write about them one of these days), at this time, I'm only prepared to mention three:
Virginian vegetables are splendid.
The side dish
known as
"hash browns served seven different ways"
is truly splendid.
The pork-chop
sandwiches in Louisville
are more than splendid--
they're worth writing about.
"Big E" wrote me yesterday with this little tale. (I get a lot of email about crank the drug simply because of the domain name.) I'm posting it here in case anyone can help him. Oh, and also because it's a great bit of crackpot paranoia, which I mean in the most respectful sense as I don't doubt the possibility that this kind of thing happens all the time. If you want me to pass along any information to "Big E," email it to me.
"Dear Sir: I got hit with some shit while working at the local Akron, Ohio Census Bureau and I think it was crank they gave me. yeah, in my coffee or planted right on some envelopes I was handling probably absorbed it right through my fingers some damn powerful crap wound up with a serious nasal congestion, like an allergic reaction for days, and a whopping headache, too HUGE BUZZ but not pleasant let me tell you. DOC said I was very anxious and paranoid can't sue Census, can't prove they did it to me. was talking some 'war stories' they didn't like plus I'm FAT, 450 pounds my theory is they wanted me to lose weight, bigtime. they liked my work ethic, tho. so what's up with crank? have you done it yourself? know anybody who has? I'd like to know just what kind of SHIT they gave me. was it what they call "crank" or what? I've been perscriibed FASTIN for losing weight but it was nothing like this vit. E neutralizes speed like dirty amphetamines like FASTIN and what they gave me. Any ideas, I would sure appreciate it if you have any. later just call me, Eric Big E, for short"
The coffeeshop/laundromat at the corner of Olive and Metropolitan only has 8-ounce cups. The counterchick tried digging underneath the counter for her stash of larger size cups--10 ounce! whoa! step back!--but was unable to find the appropriate lids. “Some people drink a lot of coffee,” she said absently, after remarking that maybe she should buy even larger cups (and, presumably, matching lids). The comment rang of curiosity, which was curious itself: she was refilling her extra-large mug when I walked in.
I asked for 3 of the small ones at 50 cents each, came home and got down to work in the writing room. I piled a few records near the turntable: I’m going with 1990-era, old-school, painfully self-serious, pre-emo powerpunk for the next couple hours. Snuff, early Doughboys, the like. Maybe slip in that Die Kreuzen with “Elizabeth” on it. Die Kreuzen doesn’t dovetail with the others, strictly speaking, but they come from the same era in my memory.
Eight ounces in the belly, barely noticed, with the second eight at the ready. After the 24 are gone, I suspect I’ll go back for another three shots.
The dog’s good. "Sweet," even, according to my pal Tom who visited two weeks ago. But certainly good. I don't need to rush home by any certain time to prevent him from shitting on the floor.
So I took my time tonight. I stopped at an East Village restaurant for which I do freelance graphics work. Part of my payment comes in the form of a bar tab. I had a pint of Bass and a bottle of Sam Smith's Nut Brown Ale along with my order of shepherd's pie. I signed the $25 check, threw down an $8 tip and took off.
On bike, back home to a neighborhood in Brooklyn where the rents are still relatively cheap and there's only one coffeeshop in walking distance. Over the bridge, the setting sun, through the Spanish neighborhood and to the Pourhouse, the closest bar to my home.
One pint of Brooklyn White with plans to head home right after. But then I asked for another--though I hadn't planned on another--when the curious man delivered the lobster in a canvas bag to the bewildered bartender. She put it near the ice, but not on the ice, rightly conjecturing that some drinkers might not appreciate a shellfish taste with their booze.
Home by
9, and the dog has waited patiently. I walk him, check the mail and settle
down on the couch with a bottle Yuengling from the case I bought last
week while visiting Philadelphia for Stef's wedding.
These three hours have been perfect.
At the risk of repeating myself:
The way I see it, there’s not much to it. Work hard, do your job, meet your responsibilities. Then, you can do whatever you want. But above all, meet your responsibilities first. Then you’re free to impose your will on others. Of course, if you’ve got no responsibilities, no one waiting on you so that they can then meet theirs, then fine. But I doubt that’s true.
I won’t
stand for any more bitching about miserable dayjobs. Of course your job
sucks, chico, all jobs suck. But if you’ve chosen to accept
that job, then do the fucking job. Or just leave and find something better
to do. It’s as simple as that. And no, we’re just not talking
about jobs here. And yes, I’ve done it myself, so I can fucking
talk.
I also
won’t tolerate any more small talk with people who pose ambitious,
but then sleep all day. It’s not like you’re up all night smacking
the keyboard or painting murals. You’re drinking all weekend, or
smoking pot all night, or doing coke in the middle of the day. Don’t
think I’m posing self-righteous: I’m a drinker like few you’ll
meet. I simply love the stuff. And I smoke pot on occasion, and
I’ve done enough coke to know it’s not my thing. There is a
great place for leisure in my world: Weeknight binges and wasted, drunken
weekends are to be coveted. But as soon as the clouds clear from my head,
it’s time to get back to work, if only because I run off at the mouth
so much about what I've got planned. It would be embarrassing to not follow
through.
I’m more ambitious than most anyone you’ll meet, but I'm also willing to undertake the grunt action to counteract the patronizing high-talk. Meaning: I’m allowed to sit up on this horse. As I’ve noted countless times in conversation and in print, if you don’t want to work hard for what you want--or claim to want--I don’t rightly care. Just shut the fuck up.
Click for legibility (124K)
They’re called the “flock” for a reason, you know. But I shouldn’t, really, need to go into it. I’d expect my flock to understand. I’d expect you to know why I hold them in contempt, why I struggle against the collected urge to join the slow, tiresome walk to a fictitious eternal reward. If you think there’s anything more than a dark oblivion awaiting you at the end of your days, then you’ve bought into something sold by someone.
My
something is just as valid, and even more realistic and beneficial for
this world in which we live:
1.Open
doors for women
2.Don’t
refer to your children as pronouns when in their presence
3.Say “thank
you” and tip
generously
4.Wait
patiently and quietly in line
5.Never
keep your thoughts to yourself when the forum is appropriate,
but always keep
your thoughts to yourself if the forum isn’t appropriate
6.Respect
and love your family whenever possible but never ever be treated
poorly by them
7.Be humane
for the sake of being humane
8.Always
offer fidelity if you expect fidelity
9.Keep
kicking until they stop moving entirely
10.Never
be afraid of a fight and always throw the first punch
11.Never
ever take comfort in a higher power
12.Be punctual
when it’s important; don’t worry if it’s not important;
do your best to know the difference
13.Be as
arrogant as you please, so long as it’s justified
14.Never
judge without the experience to back up the argument
15.Keep
your trap shut until it’s your fucking turn
There were two empty cocaine baggies on my coffee table, the remains of Friday night spent with two friends. I don't use myself--I have, but I don't--but I don't object to anyone else's usage. Well, that's not entirely true: Frankly, I don't fancy the drug, and I think it's mildly problematic for a lot of people, people I consider my friends. But just as the government should keep its nose out of my fucking business, I try to steer clear of judging others' choices in consumption and behavior, so long as it doesn't affect me too greatly.
On Saturday, I woke up in the mid-afternoon, having slept off most of the effects of booze I'd consumed until 6am, sitting in my living room chatting with the two friends responsible for emptying the baggies. They left well past dawn; one of the neighborhood's many car services spirited them back to Manhattan where they, too, I presume, proceeded to sleep most of this beautiful day away.
The night started at a rooftop party in Williamsburg, then moved to a nearby bar where I came perilously close to getting into a fight with a monstrously large black fellow nicknamed Mojo. Mojo is the "Mojo" from the Beastie Boys' "Eggraid on Mojo," and he likely would've clobbered me but good, despite his drunkenness. It's possible that I could've landed a couple good shots and run; I'm certainly in better shape than him. Ultimately, though, I'm glad the short-lived tension was just that: short-lived. I bought him a beer and handed his crankiness off to another group at the bar, like a big, black baton in a conversational relay race.
From the bar, three of us went back to my apartment and stayed up for another couple hours, arguing about the dissolution of my marriage and the choices I've made in my life since then. I woke up a couple hours later--my usual 8:30 a.m.--and decided that I could certainly live with the inevitable nagging guilt for wasting much of the coming day. Fuck it. For once, I wanted to spend a Saturday like most everyone else in this world: wistfully. I wasn't worried about crossing anything off my to-do list. I refused to clean the apartment, repair the curtain rod or even change the sheets. I'll do all that tomorrow, assuming I don't see another dawn as the tail-end of the evening.
I
recently got this e-mail from one of the many visitors to crank.com. It
seems that this little pisspot objects to my new front page.
"...I
had a question or two about your website. I have been a cheap fuck ever
since I saw your website and
I have yet to pay a dime for your mags. I am thinking about buying #7.
But I will never buy anything with a naked girl with her clit exposed.
What the fuck! Tell me your giving thought to moving that somewhere else.
I miss the old crank where everything was in truetype and there was a
picture of you with rael. That's fucking it."
My
reply:
"I wish I could believe you're joking, but it doesn't seem
so. From here on in, you are forbidden from visiting crank.com. I don't
want the likes of you as part of my readership. Oh, and the only way you'll
get the free iron-ons from crank HQ is if you promise to shove them up
your ass."
Let this be a lesson to us all. If you don't like something on the web, go visit eonline, where everything is just so funny, clever and harmless.This website isn't for pussies like peter__brown@hotmail.com.
Nature hates a vacuum, just as losers hate the winners. They--usually, that is, you--seek to fill the space left behind by them--usually, that is, me--with incessant pestering, transparent bitterness and a curiously aggressive, sniping envy. Take, for instance, the stance taken by so many self-declared artists that their work has been marginalized because it's just too dangerous for the critics or society or the establishment. In their world of unrealistic accomplishment and subjective, deferred blame, their talent is just so scary immense that no one could possibly grasp the significance of whatever it is they're putting forth. Unfortunately for them and the parents and working friends who support these artists so inexplicably blinded by their own dim bulbs, they're wrong. Maybe, just maybe, your work sucks ass. Maybe your film didn't secure distribution because it's an unholy piece of shit, not because it's so controversial. Maybe your lack of talent is to blame for your lack of recognition. Just because one tries one's damnedest does not entitle one to succeed. So keep trying, sure, but until the needle on whatever barometer it is that you use to measure success shows the proper numbers, shut the fuck up. More work, less talk.
In the meantime, a bit of life: During the moments of a night like this, after a day like this, I know my life as changed. I'm sitting in bed, the midnight classical music show beginning through the old radio I took from my dead grandmother's house. The shaking in my hands has subsided; I may have Parkinson's for all I know, or I might simply be a raging drunk. Either way, for many months before the split with my wife, my left thumb was shaking like mad. But tonight, all is well. Most likely, the simple pleasures of a day like today have calmed me. My thumb hasn't shaken in about a hundred days (except, of course that one day while waiting on line to cash my paycheck, but I barely count that as equal to one of the times when it would shake). When it did, it would just shake like a washing machine out of balance, rattling alongside my other four fingers, each as still and orderly as a team of well-trained dogs on display, while my thumb--that fucking thumb--was twitching. But, as I said, that hasn't happened in a long time, at least not to any serious degree. And certainly now, at this moment, my thumb is as calm and still as the night sea after a day of the season's most turbulent storm.
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