Issue #6 - re-evaluation came out February 2001
It took a long time for this issue to come out, many delays, and personal things. It was the last issue I completed and put out, despite intentions. the red heroine cd came out around this time. there's an idea in one of these pieces that evolved into in my sole lyrical contribution to that band ("Green or not, there are other pastures, far from here. I am not running away"). I was pretty bitter about something, I can't remember. I think maybe Jarod (actually, I don't think it was him, but a few other friends combined, I can't remember) and I had a little fight or something. The piece on "the poop house" and the bat is one of my favorites. I should do some reworking and editing sometime or something. Yes we actually called our house "the poop house" - you'll see why.
It's probably hard for everyone to keep track of all the different Chris's that get mentioned in the issues. There are three total: Chris Lawhorn (played drums in Cataract Falls and is Ramona and Beezus), Chris Pownall (played bass in DLA starting in summer of 1999 and broke the band up more than anything or anyone else), and Chris Leaman (Lint's owner and me and Josh's roommate in "the poop house"). There are also two Johns. John Cheesebrew (roommate multiple times and drummer of Dead Letter Auction multiple times, I think from 1998 - 1999 and then again in 2004 and singer for red heroine) and John McCormick (also the drummer of Dead Letter Auction from 2001 - 2003, we kinda shared a bed and stuff). These guys all were very awesome and still are!!! and have accomplished other things besides the above mentioned. Look them up someday in the future and you'll realize they were ahead of their time.
I'm just going to re-type up almost the entire issue. This one, I am almost proud of.
*** = new page/or section. you're smart, you'll figure it out.
***
And here we are again.
This issue was supposed to be (a recurring theme) a split issue with Jeremy J Jacobs (also affectionately known as Jeremy J Jackass, aka jeremy xabstentionx, aka that kid on the cover of the Birthright CD "Out of Darkness"). Like always things change, and this is not a split issue. Maybe someday we will put one together.
Who am I kidding really? Progress is being made, albeit baby steps, it is being made, and that has to count for something right?
I shouldn't tell you about the things I intend on doing because tomorrow I will change my mind and then who knows? Never cry wolf. I am doing one more printed issue (#7), then I am taking a break. I am at a point where I think I need to take a step back and think about the relevance and (un)importance, but that's this theme's issue, if you will; reevaluating things I am doing and those around me, especially. It's an endless process too often over looked.
Stand By Me is a great movie, it is one of my favorites, because of the message it sends; the importance of friendship. I think about my friends all the time. Last night I watched it with a relatively new friend and the part that stuck me this time was something to the affect of - don't stick around your friends, if your friends will drag you down. That's an awful thought to have, but it makes sense. And I have been walking away more and more.
A lot has changed since the last time we met like this.
There was a period of time where my mindset was it seems I have lost a lot of the things I held most dear to me, proving either nothing lasts forever or nothing is what it seems. I have been staying home and away from everyone as much as possible. Now I think I am beginning again.
I hope this finds you well. Please write. Thank you and take good care.
Damian - September 1999 - January 2001
***
I write with a pen that has run dry.
***
I write with a pen that only bleeds.
[um what was on this page doesn't need to be reprinted]
***
I trace with this pen, not write.
you have heard it all before.
not only from me, but also from those that have come before me, you will hear it from those that will continue to come. If you are alive, you have heard it in your own thoughts.
I am alone.
I am restless.
I feel empty.
I am surrounded.
I am confined.
I long.
***
tonight I made sure that my intake of caffeine was high, almost an overdose, if you will. I feel the effects, my right arm aches which in turn makes it hard to keep hold of the pen I use to write this.
Recently I have been toying around with the thought of running away. It's a strange thought to entertain at 22 years of age. Running away sounds like something straight out of high school. I also associate it with escaping one's parents; I am not currently in either of my parents' home. It seems we have been getting along pretty well lately. It's been longer than lately, Things between us took a turn awhile back. I don't know maybe we just don't see enough of each other to realize how much the other is a fuck up.
I don't know if I am really trying to escape anything, or just trying to leave it behind, move on. It would be running away, just the same.
I have grown tired of being frustrated due to the people that surround me. I know I will run into this anywhere I go, but....
I can't help thinking that it would be better. Green or not, there are other pastures. My thoughts are with my heart which is so distant from here.
I watch so many of my friends, even close ones, accept things they dislike and speak in disapproving tones of because it's all they can get. I follow so close behind at times. We are all so impatient. Our destinations lie so close, but we are all so stubborn, or lazy, or two steps away from becoming jaded. Those of us that do work together make little progress. We are all poor. And no one wants to give young people an ear for an afternoon. So I feel like I am treadmilled. I need to feel like I am making some sort of progress, even if I am only fooled, I have made that abundantly clear by now. Since I feel no sense of progress, I keep thinking that I should leave the things that seem to confine me. yet I stay put, because of attachment.
Attachments are evil.
there are always exceptions.
If you could/would come with me, we would burn all of this to the ground; never to look back, never to come back.
The sun is coming up.
I think I said what I needed to.
Thanks for listening.
***
I would say that it's the better half of us that are concerned about or at least immensely aware of the adverse affects of little sleep, or complete deprivation has on us; meaning, we live it. All the while loving tiredness' embrace, I despise sleep under the assumption that sleep is actually a waste of time; there is the whole world waiting to have me explore it with my own eyes. However, I rarely get out of the confines of this city, or even these bedroom walls.
I have recently realized that my lack of sleep has fed paranoia. I may also happen to note that this is probably equally fed by the house I am currently residing in.
I moved out of my parent's home, which I was temporarily staying in after our ill fated, but equally fun tour (see issue 5). It's a comfortable enough house, but it's my parent's house. I felt suffocated. It's weird. I feel that I must be reserved and respect my parent's normal sleeping patterns. I wouldn't have even thought of it eight years ago. This is made more ironic by my sisters obsessive and excessive partying and loudness throughout all hours of the night. I also no longer have a room to call my own. I was stationed in the guest bedroom which used to be my sister's room. She moved into my old room after I moved out almost four years ago.
It is equally weird and cool hanging out with my little sister until 4 am in a room I once considered home. It sends me back to the days when I would have friends (actually girlfriends), come over after school and then somehow manage to sneak them out after my step-mom returned from work, without getting caught. We weren't willing to part until after she came home and it was absolutely necessary for them to leave, none of this before she comes home business. The thrill provided for some great fun. This is the room I taught myself how to play guitar in.
I think combined factors made me slip into intense insanity and an extremely low feeling, it made me seriously feel like a loser. I just couldn't take it anymore, so I moved out.
The house I moved into has a great many more faults, very few pros actually. In fact, the only one is to be away from my parents. Maybe being able to practice, but again the inability is traceable back to being in my parent's house. Which, when I really think about it, this place is worse than being there. All of this I failed to take notice of, or even consider as a possibility prior to this desperate act of freedom seeking.
I hate all forms of insects and rodents (including those that take on the human form). This house must serve as some sort of fallout shelter or safehouse for these species/orders. I have had a great number of run ins with these residents. Even though I am vegan and an advocate for animal rights, I cannot find it anywhere even remotely close to my heart to find sympathy for these disgusting creatures. There are mice, which the thought frightens and completely disgusts me to no end. There is some form of a half-bred centipede that we are surely convinced of being some sort of alien race come to claim our home, then the rest of the planet to enslave all of the humans.
Then there is Lint, our faithfully shitting as soon as you turn you back to, dog. He is still a young puppy but already half my size (which is larger than Jarod) and he likes to pee wherever, whenever, and as much as possible. He will eat ANYTHING within reach; CD players (I think he claimed the lives of 2) CDs (100's), shoes, dishes, clothing, trash, tools, furniture... His excrement creates such a stench that you can smell it before even reaching the steps of the front porch to enter the house. Which I am sure members of Dead Season, Outhud, Charm City Suicides, and Appleseed Cast will attest to. Which is quite embarrassing.
The house also serves as a place where underage kids come to drink with the other housemates, who seem to only be around to enable such atrocious acts. I say it's an act of genocide, but again, I haven't been sleeping much and am quite paranoid.
Which brings us to the bat that terrorized me and others for four days. For sometime after I would still get freaked out by the whole situation. I was in bed in my sleeping attire, which I offer isn't much at all, reading Henry Miller's Black Spring at approximately 4 am, when all of a sudden this bat just appears in my room circling at head level, getting way too close. Dangerously so. I freaked and pulled the "covers" over my head and began screaming for help. My attempt was futile. There were 3 doors, 2 stereos and a floor separating me from Josh, who happened to just move in the night all of this occurred; which I couldn't help but think it was Josh just messing with me, or maybe he is that bat! (in my sleep deprived madness). He had actually just returned from a walk ten minutes prior to all of this, and had to climb to the second floor to get in, because the front door was locked and I couldn't hear him knocking.
The bat finally left my room and began circling the hallway in a pace like pattern. I shut my door and proceeded to put on clothing that covered every part of my body. I peaked out and it was gone. So, I quickly ran down the stairs and opened the door to find the bat had somehow managed to get through a closed door. Again I started yelling for Josh and brought Lint's attention to it. He started barking. Josh has an equally disliking for critters. So he screamed and slammed his bedroom door. He reappeared ducking, with more clothes on and a ball cap, obviously as some sort of wishful thinking type armor. We proceeded to turn on every light we could. Bats mustn't be too fond of light, being they're nocturnal, or so we figured, knowing full well bats are actually blind.
Lint continuously jumped in a circular pattern, barking. I opened the front door and told the bat that it should kindly get out. Lint took this as a cue and bolted out the door and down the street. I was half tempted to just let him go. Josh and I hated that dog. We went and fetched him out of respect and empathy for the dog's owner, Chris (Lehman).
We didn't see the bat for the rest of the morning or day. It was rather unsettling. Which provided provisions to further prevent me from sleeping. The mice running around the house is something that just feeds the sleep deprived induced paranoia.
The next evening we left Chris's girlfriend, Jessica alone and we went to watch an "illegal" showing of a movie.
I received reports at 6am the following morning that the bat had literally chased Jessica out of the house. She had her dog, Zoe with her too. I was told that Lint and Zoe had possibly attacked the bat!
The next morning I awoke around 5 am in a sweat after hearing "the bat is in your room" repeated repeatedly only to hear mad shuffling from under my bed. I turned my light on, thinking it was a mouse. The shuffling moved into the center of the room, which my room is such a mess, it provided for plenty of cover. I turned on another light and what looked like to be a jet black mouse, but in fact was the injured bat. This was immediately followed by screams for Chris. Chris managed to capture it in a shoebox. The bat did put in a pretty good fight, hissing, showing it's teeth and carrying on.
I couldn't fall asleep and kept brushing myself off in a paranoia stricken fear that it may have actually been in my bed, or even worse yet, it may have touched me. I recalled seeing a black shape under my bed against the wall, when Jarod was over and I was trying to find something for him, I dismissed it as some type of paper or some other sort of trash. So I got up to check, and sure enough, it was no longer there.
I slept for three hours today. the day before maybe five, and the day before that not much better. At times I do wonder how much longer until I go completely insane?
***
On Saturday, May 30, 2000, my van broke down. I decided to abandon it, after 2 long years, and a few major repairs. I left it where it sat, untraceable for over five months in the parking lot of a shut down gas station. They had to work around it to remove the gas tanks. Some of the kids and I joked around about totally destroying it, setting fire, and endless other combinations.
You can get comfortable thinking that people are alright, then a situation presents itself shedding new light and you find they aren't all you made them out to be. this is a great flaw of mine; hence "romancing the actors."
I lost my job at a record store, due solely to a fellow employee, a known felon, who was knowingly stealing from the place exaggerated quite extensively. After explaining my position I was asked to come back. I refused. Again my dad bails me out with a job. Ironically, I am now back at the record store and I am the manager.
I went on tour again, July 11-16, very short. I went to places I've never been. Dead Letter Auction played one of our best shows ever in the least likely of places. I met Tyler and Simon, of the Falling. They will leave life long impressions on my heart. I come home and someone I either seemingly mistook or forced to be one of my best friends breaks my heart in the most elementary of ways. This was my fault, somehow. But "all is fair in love and war" and forgiven.
Time can be so easily misspent that you can waste an entire lifetime.
My greatest fear is wasting time and/or life.
Where am I going?
What am I doing?
one letter difference life - lie.
As I'm writing this, Al Pacino, in the movie Heat screams "Don't waste my motherfucking time" at someone. I repeat these words daily)
I catch a trace of her shampoo. I arch, squirm, stretch, and sigh. She's gone. I am not lonely. Of course I miss her. This thought traces other thoughts of how the way certain smells people have; lotions, perfumes, shampoos, etc, can crush you and make your heart ache.
I write when I cannot sleep. What else can I do? Right now, I almost wish I had weird computer or video games, but I swear on all I know that they mess you up.
I think about sanity a lot. Brad Pitt's character from the movie se7en starts asking me if I know how insane I am. No.
I keep thinking that things will work out and that I am well taken care of, if I can just wait it out, take care of a few responsibilities and obligations and stay optimistic. and it does.
you have to lose to win.
while spring and summer seem to have been pretty rotten, autumn has been good to me this year. letting everything fall into place, back on course. for what? success, of course - in terms of being able to stand on my own and be as happy as I can possibly be. Winter promises it will be even better.
I keep wanting to just roll over, turn the light off, pull the blankets over my head, curl up, and just let go. I can't. I know it will be futile, in vain.
I am ready to rock out.
these thoughts are far from complete or being resolved)
***
this was a gift I gave you.
I don't have any answers. I miss the innocence. I miss the friendships. but at the same time, you turn a corner and hear the things said about you, when you are not around. It's sickening. We're not even friends anymore and I don't want to be; only in your absence am I able to see clearly.
Chances are this will be misunderstood, no specifics, just abstract thoughts. I think my friends are better than they really are. I counted on too many people and things far too much. I am not putting anyone down, just moving on. such is the process.
this is not about you.
It would be foolish of me not to mention Sara, John McCormick, and even Byron for in the very least providing the ears, encouragement, advice, and or understanding, in the last few months.
I owe some of you an apology and wish you all the best of luck.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment