midnight kiss

I was going through the numbers in my cell phone this morning, not really looking for any one in particular, just kind of intrigued with myself on how rarely I do this. If you know me fairly well you will attest that I am HORRIBLE at calling anyone. I'm blessed to have friends that check up on me regularly because if by some awesome fate I should be electrocuted by my juicer, my poor corpse would be left undiscovered for quite some time. So anywho, flipping through my numbers I was puzzled by how many nameless phone numbers I have. I counted 7 anonymous people who somehow made their way into my phonebook. The most obvious explanation for most of these is a night filled with mixed drinks and flirting, resulting in sloppy digits exchange.  If you're not aware, the common practice of phone number exchange between two drunk people is handing your own phone to the other person, dialing your digits on their phone, calling it then hanging up, thus saving each others digits in the other persons phone. It's a simple and almost intimate moment between two cheeky drunks who instantly bond after trusting each other with each others phone ("OMFG, we have the same phone only mine is bedazzled in jeweeels OMIGOD we're meant to be, dude!!")
The only problem with this practice is that when you go back later that night to check on the phone number you realize.. you have completely forgotten what this persons name is. All you have is an "unknown caller" in your ID. I know, it's terrible. It happens. After you shared such a magical moment giggling into each others phone too. Such tragic occasions have left me to resort to substituting for their name anything that remotely reminds me of this person, in case I happen to remember their real name at a later, sober time. This will explain why one mysterious number was casually saved as "OMG BOOBS". I know, how sexist and shameful of me, but worst yet that can be anyone within the local San Diego beach community. That mystery girl, who's bosoms must have been of such epic proportions to have elicited such an endearing response from me like -OMG BOOBS-, as much as it shattered my soul to do it, was promptly deleted from my phone today.
Which finally leads me to the one mystery number who I gave a split second thought to before deleting. I actually remember meeting this girl. It was this last New Years, Hollywood. She smelled of coconut and the ocean. Which at that moment had me completely and utterly intoxicated. I couldn't get enough of smelling her, of tasting her. Not that we did anything but kiss, but that was enough. We didn't talk much, I know nothing about her, we shared drinks and that's all. The clock counted down the last precious minutes of the year as she sat on my lap, laughing at my stupid jokes and as the last seconds ticked off the clock to midnight, she grabbed my face with both hands and proceeded to slobber all over my lips. Anti-climactic, I guess. She still tasted great. She was narly enough to go the trouble of actually saving her name and number in my celly phonebook afterwards, as opposed to just dialing it. But instead of entering her real name, she simply put "YOUR FUTURE WIFE". Awwww. Cute. Or psycho-ish, depending on how jaded you are. So now, FINALLY, this brings me to my main point....

The midnight kiss phenomena.

Let's imagine: A social gathering, the mood is right, perhaps even against one's better judgement one has had a flute or two too many of the bubbly stuff (By the way, when will we as Americans learn that Champagne or any sparkling wine is good everyday, not just for New Years? Why do we insist on making Europe cooler than us?) and one is feeling just a tad frisky, less aware of their previously crippling inhibitions. This could also be affected by the mood of the evening. The ending of what was and the beginning of what we hope will be the better new. Such is the psychological pre-dispostion we have with the "New Year" as a period of rebirth and I feel it is best encapsulated, best expressed, by the midnight kiss.
This event is so colored by one's own subjective take on what actually is occurring that it is laughable, if not a bit perverse to give it half as much credit as people do. All of them, sincere as they may be, are working off the basis that 1. At the moment your lips lock you'll be the only two people on the planet. 2. The fact they have been chosen to be your midnight kiss grants them a mythic proportion in your life, for such is so important a choice, it must have been given great forethought. This mistake leads to 3. The kiss will set the entire romantic tone for the rest of the year. Get a great kiss then, surely you'll be getting more later.
The reality is that a midnight kiss has far more to do with random proximity and how much one had to drink that night then they have to do with anything else. Truth be told, I am a romantic, and I'd love to believe that a midnight kiss is the metaphysical barometer of my future passions. That the kissing gesture would serve as a talisman and keep my whole year as enthused and electric and wonderful as those few seconds after the clock strikes midnight, but my inner pessimist knows better. Which brings me back to my last midnight kiss. Sweet tasting mystery girl, self proclaimed bearer of my future children. After parting ways that night, I hardly gave her more than a half seconds thought to, until the guilt of leaving what could very well be my soul mate waiting by the phone finally convinced me to call her. After a few seconds of refreshing her memory to who the hell I was, which made it tougher considering I had no idea what her name was, ("Hi, we met at Teddy's last week, its Joey!" "...Who? Who are you calling for?" "Umm.. You?" I learned that she lives in Arizona and was only in LA visiting her sister. She when on to tell me she remembered me as being super adorable (pfft) and she had never been so shitfaced in her life. After a few more awkward minutes we said our goodbyes, and I never spoke to the girl again.
Do I have a point? If so, only this. The people you choose to make privy to romantically should already wish to make you happy, and shouldn't need to take part in such a spectacular stunt to ensure the feeling lasts. In other words, why look for fireworks in the sky, when you can seem them in her eyes? Have a midnight kiss with the right person all year long.
Then get sloppy drunk.

life

Today I sat in the bookstore (you know how I do), picked out a book and sat down in an overlarged, out of place chair. To my right there was a woman looking at New York travel guides and a few Cosmos. She flipped through pages of beautiful women advertising expensive perfume and I realized we live in an exaggerated, and misrepresented world. Escape your reality, hun. It'll be here when you come back. I looked up, distracted by hearing James effin Blunt playing, and noticed a display of maps in front of me. Maps everywhere from mexico to london, from ireland to egypt. I couldnt help but feel like there was something more I could be doing. So many places to go. But what would satisfy me? Backpacking through Europe, just me and my acoustic guitar and few pairs of fresh boxer briefs? Could someone ever fully be satisfied with their life?

I looked around me. A man trying to read his own palm, two women discussing buddhism. Was this it? One of the ladies stood up and walked away, and as I heard the distant sound of her flat shoes flapping against her heel, I looked to the window, outside there was a man, a bum a homeless, if you will. He was sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette. Was he looking back at me? I couldnt tell, but intrigued, I kept looking. Whats his story? Maybe, when younger, he was a brilliant underachiever. Blew all his money and chances on booze and unrealistic dreams. He's not so different. That could very well be me, someday. A girl with a fashionably coordinated green outfit walked past him, blinding my sight of the man and I took the opportunity to look away.
I recognized a girl from my school, sitting by herself at a table with her laptop, sipping a chilled cappuccino. Incredibly adorable, smart girl wearing pink Chucks. She stared at her laptop screen intensely, her brow furrowed. She then giggled to herself. I wondered what's on that screen. She catches me looking at her and smiled shyly. I smiled back, a little embarrassed for staring, and I go back to reading.
Alittle while later, another man ( bum..must've been friends with the other one?) came and occupied the empty chair next to me. Picked up a car magazine and let out a genuinely narly fart. Not even kidding. (didnt think the story was about to end like that?) Well, hey. Life is crazy.

some people make all this worth it

I havent slept much at all in 3 days.......
:

Usually when im in this kind of bind its due to a staggering night of alcohol and friends but this time its different.

1. I'm not drunk (in fact i havent had any alcohol since i was awake yesterday at 7 am. First time in almost a month).

2. I'm not terribly inspired either. Occasionally i will stay up to the early hours because im stuck on a certain song and really want to finish it.

3. I'm not playing guitar hero or Fifa world cup on playstation.

4. I'm not having sex way past my bedtime.

This time i'm up because my heart is pounding too hard to sleep. I'm thinking too much about what the days ahead of me hold. Sometimes things can happen that show you just how fucked and crazy the world can be. Too crazy to escape for the few hours we usually have every night to dream. How do i put my racing mind into a chokehold? Probably a bottle of cough syrup or some T3s will do.

yet, some people make all this worth it.

in love and death

Damnit all if I haven't been away in awhile. Of course as you can tell merely by the intro I'll probably have nothing interesting to say short of "Whoa, I've been gone..." and "Whoa, now I'm back". And indeed you would be correct.
Or at least very nearly correct...
You see as well as planning to say something interesting in the near future, I'll do you one better and bring up the idea of something interesting, thus possibly leading to more interesting dialogue at a later date. (How many times am I bloody going to say "interesting" in this blog?)
Has anyone ever watched "Sparkhouse"? Very well done English drama, which correct me if I'm wrong, takes place in Yorkshire? And follows the lives of two young lovers, Andrew and Carol. (Carol played by the thoroughly lovely Sarah Smart.) I say well done because Sallyt Wainwright, who wrote the teleplay, really seemed to know intimately and capture the strange and rare bizzarities that love is always coupled with. And not just lusty puppy lets fuck and never speak to one another again love, but love beyond station, income, marital status, indeed anything and everything until blood stops bounding through your veins. The real thing in other words, but there begs my question, in pertaining to, big surprise, the American mindset.
In the end, Andrew, despite the fact he's married and has a child, begs Carol, just recently married herself, to run away with him. After a scuffle, he gets his ass beat and tossed off the farm. Later he is found dead after opening up his own veins. Suicide. Pfft, figures.
Albeit a rather Japanese ending, I know that most Americans see what Andrew did as a lapse into weakness. I've heard this same Barbaric, Neanderthal mentality applied to psychology. No one is ever really mentally ill, they just have flaws of character. Aren't disciplined enough. That attitude reflects itself in our love stories. It's almost always the man going to some insane lenght to get the girl of his dreams who doesn't know he exists. Occasionally the girl who really loves him is his secretary or goofy best friend.
The frightening thing to me is both scenarios are horrible Capitalistic punchlines. Sheer propaganda. If you want a girl, no matter how bizzare and unpractical it may be, just get a really good job and buy her shit until she succumbs. Sky write her name, have Michael Jordan come out of retirement and play and exhibition game in her honor. Buy her a big shiny rock that people die daily to provide the love-stricken of our country. She'll shag you sooner or later. Everybody has got a price.
Or even better. Look, you've been shit on by the system. You'll never make enough money to get that girl. Why not settle for the girl who lives in the same dump you do? Lord knows she'll be low maintenance, and she'll probably make you more happy anyway. Let the guys with cash go after the Charlize Theron's of the world. Go home and appreciate the Cate Blanchet you ended up with.
I'm not a fan of suicide. I don't think it solves much. Often I think it's a bit cowardly. But I am a fan of being sincere. Of being genuine. Andrew was controlled by his parents his whole life. He found himself making the same mistakes over and over and he was only getting more miserable. If someone could have been there for him, he probably wouldn't have killed himself, but let's not start calling the guy names. Let's not say he was weak, or crazy or undisciplined. He was in love. That brings with it its own set of circumstances.
I'd rather make fun of the guy in the Cialis commercial. He can't get it up. What a loser, what a sexless, neuter freak. What a failure as a man. How undisciplined, how weak of him not to be hard. How pathetic...oh wait, that's a medical condition you say? Not fair of me you say? Well I say depression, tragic tortured love, is just as, if not more of a legitimate condition. So lets stop all the name calling bollocks.

when i met bukowski

Sometimes as an intellectual
and I use the term loosely
you get into a habit
Whether you mean to or not
of disliking things that the herd
and God yes they earned the name
tend to like, perhaps for spite or
perhaps for a real reason but
the end result is identical

A punk with a hemp courier bag
and a shaggy ass mohawk started in
on me about the Beat poets and the
power they commanded over the spoken word
How they re-invented tonal meaning and
introduced a harmonic revolution of words
"I thought rap did that." I said
We stopped talking
Pfft, white guys...

Since then me and Beat weren't on speaking terms
and floating around in the tenement of my mind
Bukowski equaled Beat
Maybe some asshole English professor gave me
reason for this causal link or
maybe I wasn't paying attention as I
scanned the poetry section at a second-hand bookstore
Perhaps as I leaned in to the bottom shelf
trying to find Anais Nin and wishing
women like her still existed, (If they ever did...)
and I glanced over a hand-written shelf marker
BEAT
And there he was, the German bastard

In any case
I didn't read him and
like any jerk who judges that which
he does not know, I questioned the
merit of those who did
Mind you, I read Beat
Plenty of it
And if I could get that precious time back
I'd spend it drinking
It wasn't until I got a smattering of
Hank's prose shoved in my face
that I shut up
A girl from a Philosophy class
She followed me out and started
snapping photos of me walking
Now as gorgeous as I think I am
a mugging ham who prances amongst
the bulb flashes I ain't
On the other hand, I ain't no
Ludite camera-smashing Sinatra type either
Always more a Dean Martin man myself,
So I let her play at being paparazzi and
afterward had a chat
She had a volume of Hank jutting out of
her backpack, and offered me a read
I politley ordered two coffees,
handed her one and
accepted the offer

Never had I read such hard nosed wisdom
boiled down truth
revelry in self-destruction
no, self-destruction framed as a virtue
and goddamn it is sure is!
Profane irreverence
depression spoke of as a reality as
opposed to a temporary state and
the cold joy of isolation
Celebration of violence and failure
hatred of the cant, the sycophants
the hangers-on, the gutless suit and tie set
the intelligencia, the holier than thou and
the acknowledgement that love is a ghost
often best left undiscovered lest
we be haunted while we sip on our third Old-fashioned
and that life at its best are the minute moments
that on the surface mean nothing but
mean everything in our minds

After our introduction, I had another coffee
thanked the girl, and went home
I felt like a jackass at first
Having allowed my assumptions to keep
me from reading those words
But then I felt sort of like a down and out
prospector, finally having hit paydirt
I went outside, chicken salad sandwich in one hand
a coffee in the other and
a volume of Hank under my arm and
as the sunlight played amber streaks through my drink
I said out loud
"Now that is a fucking writer."

thoughts on a lovely girl

*Note: In response to a request as to the caliber of my poetic skills, currently being non-existent, I am submitting this prose to you a somewhat willing public. I make no claim to being a poet, and have no discernable attributes of a poet, save the temperment. That being said, read on.

I heard her before I saw her
A tender voice that neatly folded every sentence
At a corner where sidewalks join, we met
She acknowledged my presence with a nod and a smile
We were meeting for a lunch date
But I only hungered for her, to devour her whole
To crawl into her clothes, while she wore them, and skulk about
Doing as she does, seeing as she sees, as she likes it
She reclined her cleft chin atop clasped hands
An archway of auburn hair enclosed her alabaster face
Pink and wet, pursed lips pouted, and punctuated her point
I don't necessarily stare
But demand every minute detail from my lazy eyes
And with each gelatinous second that passes I become giddy.
My head swoons like a Manzarek organ frenzy
That rises like a missile from a hidden silo in my spine
She, oblivious of her violent affect on me
I resigned myself to embark on a noble crusade
As self proclaimed cartographer of her raw youth
Every inch, every crease, every mole, every dimple
Was recorded at length in my manifest
Then as I cradled her naked form, back melting into my chest
I found a petite scar on her neck
An incident with a chain necklace she later tells me
At last, a flaw! She is certainly human
All the more perfect in my opinion
Flesh blood and bones
Real.

nature of the party

* This topic came up (mostly in my head) at a get-together last weekend. I wish to god I was as articulate drunk as I am sober so I could've done a better job of laying out my theory to the random fellow who bought me a double shot of jagger and tipped the bartender with beads (in his defense, they were the ones that light up!!) and the cute lil' brunette who after listening to me INTENSELY, merely giggled, tugged at my collar, flashed me, then ran away, laughing like a loon. Cheers.

Parties can be great things. People gathering for the purpose of pleasure. That pleasure can come about in many ways. Loud music, dancing, random violence, (Wait, that's me, Freudian slip...) or the frenzied fumbling of hands on skin as emotions reach a zenith and reason gives way to instinct. Who could begrudge one for answering the ancient call to intimacy? Not sex necessarily mind you, just contact. Genuine human contact. A gentle touch, as simple or complex as the stroke of one's hand across a face, or a firm embrace. Lips on a neck, hot breath warming and tickling at the same time. A confident kiss which sparks a myriad of frightening, yet delightful sensations and reminds you of what it truly is to be alive. To re-affirm the belief of all romantics, (Myself included.) that love can be and is as basic a function as eating, or sleeping.
Parties can be terrible things. A lot of assholes show up to your friend's house, and none of the assholes are ones you invited. That cute girl you asked came, but brought four masturbatory male extensions of herself to boost her confidence and make her feel better about herself, and they drink all your sake. (And they don't even warm it first.) Your other friend's girlfriend starts dancing and singing along to a Lil Wayne song and the whole choir of derelectical youth chime in, a cacophony of off-key insanity.
Finally you go outside, only to find one of the many guys you don't know is admiring the steam coming off his urine as he relieves himself on your friend's porch. You resign yourself to this bog, this quagmire of stupidity, and figure you'll watch a film with plenty of gunfights which will cheer you up, only to find the biggest TV is already claimed, and the other girls are watching "She's All That". (Which is cool, you've just seen it too many times. Ah, that Rachael Leigh Cook...)
Then you meet the un-official tag along. The desperate social outcast the cool chicks brought. She isn't ugly necessarily, physically that is. What is ugly is her desperation. Her resignation to station. When her friends finally stop coddling her, introducing her to everyone and quit referencing inside jokes all in an attempt to make her feel more comfortable (Which doesn't work.) and actually start enjoying themselves, she retreats to her all too familiar downtrodden attitude. Go ahead, ask her what's up? She'll tell you everyone hates her, (Translation: Not center of her friend's attention for five seconds.) her friends are ignoring her, (Trans: Talking to other people.) and she hates herself. (Trans: She wants you to feel sorry for her.)
In my experience, someone is usually designated to seek out and isolate this girl, who usually always snaps and makes a stink, killing any genial mood regardless of how much effort is given to making her happy. These people, (Many men included I should add, only they usually just break stuff.) truly prove my theory that some people can only gauge their life in measures of pain. That makes me extremely sad, because although they seem justified in their own mind, they exile only themselves and miss so much of what is out there to receive.
As the party winds down, people are usually either getting sick, already sick, taking off, hooking up, (God, I hate that phrase, but it works.) or falling asleep. Unless you are like me and finally turn on around this time, finding yourself too curious about the bizzare species of human you find yourself watching, as though an utter non-participant. You can't avoid the obvious question, "Is this portrait a distortion of how these people are or a clarification? Do parties transform us or do they reveal us? Does this agreed upon social interaction allow us to put on masks, or take them off?
Alas, we shall never know with a scientific level of certainty. Such is the nature of the party.
Or at least, so I've been told...