bad times
I’m sitting here smoking a cigarette, and I’m not very good at it
I never was
but then again, I don’t want to be good at it
if I ever get good at smoking cigarettes, I mean to the point where I never get smoke in my eyes and I always know just when to ash it, consider me lost
bad times
after three or four days of moping around, walking from one end of this city to the other, never wearing warm enough clothes, sitting in restaurants for hours staring at nothing, throwing things around my apartment, drinking lots of beer, and generally hating everything, I’m finally able to write
don’t know how long it’ll last though
never know anything when I’m in one of these moods
I might just stop writing right now
well I guess I’m still writing
what was I talking about- oh yes, bad times
there have been good times, and there have been bad times
but mostly bad times
thinking good thoughts and doing good deeds doesn’t necessarily get you ahead in America
on the contrary, it actually gets you behind in most cases
“we hold these truths to be self-evident” they said so many years ago
but these days I don’t see much evidence of truth around
only bits and pieces here and there in conversation or in art
and they usually don't make it out into the larger world
just a lot of good ideas stored away in our minds for some other time
I hate seeing people when I have to pee
I just walked home from the library and I had to pee the whole way
if there was an alley I could have waited in, I might have stayed there until everyone else had gone home for the night
I just get the feeling that everyone knows I have to pee
just like I get the feeling that everyone knows I’m in the worst mood ever
they don’t of course
but that’s the kind of paranoia that comes with the mood
anyway I saw this girl on the way, Crazy Amy (she calls herself that)
she was standing around in this empty lot between a coffee shop and a bar with two other people, holding her skateboard, which she always has with her
she was rapping something, probably freestyling
she does that
god I hate cigarettes
even more so, I hate how predictable and useless we've become
everyone just accepts everything as it is, and if we manage to add anything to it it’s so minute it can’t be accounted for
like how everyone grows up saying “god I hate this” or “god I hate that”
if there is a god, why would he care about what you hate?
but really I do hate cigarettes
what do they do but make you unhealthy and broke?
except for the wealthy, who could buy ten packs a day and never be broke
and then to top it all off, people become addicted to them, so that after a while they end up controlling you, instead of you controlling them
just like everything else
but back to Crazy Amy
she looked like she was having a pretty good time, being a misfit and all
and here I am, feeling like I myself am an outcast
but are we all just playing our parts?
could there possibly be someone “outside” of society, even though they’re physically within its boundaries, or are we all stuck here?
renounce everything, and you’ve won-
and I do-
everything-
I hate this place
don’t get me wrong though
somewhere deep inside me is a lot of goodness, yeah, goodness
and someday, if the wind blows in the right direction, it’ll all come out and it’s gonna be glorious, like what people feel on Christmas, but a thousand times more
if that made any sense
but I’m not too happy with America at the moment
you see I’m already getting soft again
I mean I really hate America right now
I should go get drunk and then write, if you wanna see how ruthless I can be
last night I almost got in a fight with this homeless guy because he was saying that he was gonna beat up this other homeless guy if he didn’t give him the five dollars he owed him, but instead of fighting anyone, I ended up giving ten dollars to the guy who owed him the money, after telling them several times that I was at the end of my rope, and meaning it
I was pretty drunk
and it’s not like I have ten dollars to give away either
a few more days of drinking and eating and I’ll be declaring bankruptcy again
at least I have a job at the moment
but why the hell am I thinking so rationally right now?
I should go get drunk and look for Crazy Amy...
Well, I’m halfway on my way to being drunk
and there goes everything
there goes the best and the worst, all disappointing me once again
I just had the oven on for forty-five minutes because I forgot that I was gonna cook a frozen burrito
okay, this is America, in one sentence: “now 33% more, free!”
if they decide to change the size of a product, they’re not giving you anything for free, they're just changing the price of the product, so the free thing is there to throw you off
it's all to throw you off
computers and the internet...
SUVs with four wheel drive and leather seats...
basketball games being aired every night on fifty different channels...
designer dresses and diamond necklaces...
skyscrapers and probes on mars...
a 7-Eleven on every corner, and they’re even open twenty-four hours...
does all this mean that the quality of life has greatly improved as compared to a hundred years ago, or ten thousand?
and even if it does, how many of us have any understanding of just what that requires?
the present day, where people are supposedly civilized- unlike the past, where people were supposedly brutal, greedy, and ignorant
do you really think all that much has changed, or is it just more difficult to recognize?
if we’re all so much smarter now, then the oppressors are too, and whatever we know, they know
I wish Crazy Amy was here...
the method has become so complex by now that we don't even notice most of it is happening
because of the textbooks, the television shows, the massive buildings where all the business takes place behind closed doors, the speeches given by our government officials, the prevailing winds of culture, the bewildering infrastructure, and so on and so on, people think that the way things are is the way things must be, give or take
there is so much a person can learn these days that the majority of careers one can choose have absolutely nothing to do with survival in general but only with contributing to the system
there are people whose entire job consists of analyzing other people's buying habits, because it's not about what we need or want, it's about what they can sell us
with every decision we face, whether it's choosing what to say or what to eat for dinner, there are literally hundreds of options, sometimes thousands
mastering all this machinery can take a lifetime
with all the work it takes just to learn the ropes every time we take on something new, how many of us are going to have the time to step back and try to understand what it all means?
tell me, how many?
the world today is a casino...
the bright lights, the chance of winning, the chance of losing; you can barely escape it, and if you do, you’re lonely as hell, because no one else is willing to leave
I left the oven on again last night, this time for three hours
it was maybe one in the morning when I finally found my way home, and I thought I might be hungry, so I turned the oven on and took out a burrito
I knew I would fall asleep waiting for the oven to warm up, so I set the alarm clock for ten minutes later
I woke up what I believe was about three hours later, the oven still on, the burrito still sitting in a pan on the counter
I was now sure that I must be hungry, because a few hours had passed and I still hadn’t eaten, so I put the burrito in the oven
when I finally got out of bed the next morning, after waking up six or seven times and having six or seven dreams, I immediately thought about how I had left the oven on before, and went to make sure I had turned it off after removing the burrito
the oven was off, but I had forgotten something else-
there was the burrito, sitting in a pan on the counter as before, only this time it was cooked
I laughed out loud a little... and then I ate that fucker
~
2001