Marky, The Introduction

So that night, Christina and her boyfriend Edward, drove me to a party and I really for the life of me can't remember what took place. All I can remember was a grey and white tabby cat, various smokes of different tastes and inebriation, and more beer than I thought was humanly impossible to fit inside a one bedroom apartment.
After that fiasco, Christina and Edward took me back to their pad to wait for the professional couch surfer Marky who had been living on her couch for the past few weeks. When I got their, I had just been comming off a speed trip that had grabbed me by the balls, so of course I did what any other speed freak would do at a time like this, I cleaned. I white tornadoed that womans apartment, scrubbing and washing dishes in the hopes that perhaps I could show Christina that I was somewhat responsible. Let's also not forget the come-down I was nursing.
About two or three hours later, Marky showed up and introduced himself. He was a short, portly fellow with a single streak of pink dye running down the side of his black hair. I remember he had just gotten home from seeing Hank 3 and Assjack live at one of the bars in downtown Austin. He told me all about how cool it was and how after the show he got a chance to smoke a joint with Hank himself. Now at that time, none of that meant shit to me as that was the first time I'd ever had the unadulterated splender of hearing Hank 3.
The best way to derscribe Hank3 is a chaotic, honkey-tonk fusion of country, punk, blues, and metal. To my young and virgin ears, this was a very pleasent change to the street punk noise I had been emersed in for so long.
So when Marky arrived, he of course brought two bottles of whiskey and about a half ounce of smoke. That night was the first night I met this cat, he didn't know me from Adam, but he gave me all the herb I wanted and all the whiskey I needed. That was when I knew that me and this guy were going to be pretty tight.
I can now honestly say I wouldn't be alive today if it hadn't been for Marky. He showed me the ropes and the best spots in the city to get food, change, and what have you. He also showed me the parts of town to avoid(not that there's really such a thing in Austin). I can think back and remember when he and I got totally slammed on two bottles of Evan Williams and made tin foil vests for all four of Christina's kittens. It was a glorious night of drunken sillyness and feline humiliation. Unfortunatly the next morning, with the remnants of a forgotten night and a space kitten fashion show lying astru in Christina's domicile, When she finally got home, she did not find it as humerous as me and the couch surfer found it the night before. She was so upset by the "kitten catastrophe" in fact that she kicked us out.
Marky and I strolled down familier roads and parking lots until Marky was able to get in touch with some of his old pals from back in the day when he lived in Corpus Christi. It was funny, because just about everyone I came in contact with on that Austin endeavor was from, or had at least lived in Corpus Christi. Sounds like a pretty happenen place.
When he got ahold of his friends, we found out where they lived, grabbed our bags and started hoofing it the four or five miles to their pad.
When we got there I was surprised to see something I hadn't seen before, a Mexican skinhead. Up until that time I was under the false presumption that there was "race rules" for that perticular sect of people. Oh how wrong I was. These Mexican cats could hang and they could jam to good tunes. Both racist and non-racist skinhead Oi! music(Oi! music is a sub-genre of punk rock that celebrates the working class and the hardships and drunken nights they endure. It's also an easy way for either side of skinheads to spread their "message" of either pro-racism or anti-racism through angry, preachy-type propaghanda)
So we stayed there that night, got stupid drunk on cheap beer, and passed out on their balcony. I still cannot remember how or why we ended up on the balcony and since everyone else at the pad had been just as sloshed as we'd been the night before, no one else could tell us either. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and blew it off. After all, Christina had called me that morning saying that I was not kicked out for good and that she had basically had a "bitch-fit meltdown" about her poor little kittys and I was welcomed to come back when I so chose.
I can't stand cats. I hate them. I hate their whole attitude towards existance and life in general. I'm not saying I have the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation with a cat(if there could ever be such a thing) I'm just saying that when I look at a cat and it looks back at me, dead in the eye, as it shits in my house in a bag of sand, it irrates me. Fills me with feelings of disgust and deviance towards what I'd love to do to the animal. Like making foil space vests for it.
So I got back to Christina's without Marky later that day and we hugged and she told me everything was alright, just as long as I leave her cats alone. I'm glad now I didn't tell her about how a week or so later Marky and got drunk again and put on a cat gymnastics show. If you know me at all from my past entries, you could probably guess that all this consisted of was me and Marky flipping the cats backwards and heaving them in the air. You would guess correctly because that's exactly what happened.
Marky was always that guy that sympathized with me and my plite of never having a certain bed or couch to crash on for the night. I can remember on numerous occasions when after a party or after we'd get through getting drunk at a bar, him always making sure I had a place to rest my head at night. I wish I knew what happened to him. I'll always remember him with the tattoo of the Germs' "Circle one" on my wrist. Marky had the same one so now in some twisted sort I guess, a part of him is with me and a part of me is with him. Thanks Marky, and always remember, CONDOLEESA RICE!

The glory in a restless love story.

I don't know and I don't understand because living as and asspiring to be societies everlasting pimple has turned off any form of social skills I should have and could have inherited in a decades time. Relying on and depending on no one else but yourself for any form of entertainment, conversation, love, and happyness builds up nothing but confusion about any socially involved situation.
I don't know
And I don't understand
however yours truly would love to explain
if he could just weave these words together
to make sense like they do in his head
I really can't for the life of me figure out why nervousness and paranoia seem to engulf me on the nights when I need to lose them the most. Hanging by my neurons and presenting themselves to an audience that needs not their opinion. I sometimes sit back and think of all those nights I spent by myself and try to convince myself I felt fine back then. Upon the latest realization however, I have made the conciencious desision that those long and lonely years were spent in a fog of self-propelled lies and destruction. I think now(know rather) that showing two blue pools what its really like when a person loves the temperature, maybe too much, is a fuck of a lot better then living off trash and nickles found on the sidewalk. Maybe it's too much but it is what it is in front of my face and in my dreams. Just keep quiet and keep it to yourself, that should fix all thats wrong in the animal kingdom. If it doesen't(God forbid) then sadly maybe these animals were never meant to evolve to a happier state and lay stagnent in their caves, slumbering blissfully as the war wages on outside. I'd love to awaken them though with the soft touch of senserity and serenity as they roll on their backs and stretch and rub there eyes filled with sleepies that had blinded them for so long. Maybe one day, hopefully and longingly I can show them a better day with passion so strong and love been there all along.
la de da de da de lazy days come with a stronghold gripped to ones neck by apathy, nihilism, and pestilance not this time welcomed, exaulted, or wanted. Feelings? I miss numbness. But give me pain and sorrow to go along with all of the joy to help format all of this into a love story.

clown with a banjo

as we walk down the drag
smokes in hand
another wasted Sunday
we look at the dirt
upon our backs
and thank God we're so lucky

We aint got dime
to call our own
no finances to make it through
this night, this life
this town, don't gripe
we'll make it there one day real soon

Look not down your nose at me
and call me your family
on this rock its so hot
were all we got
the ship will set sail eventually
(2)

one day it will happen
cuz our lives will be fastened
with weights and chains
and locks and brick
enslaved by your own selfish luxury

so for now lets just turn back our heads to sing
our revolution put to a harmony
one day it will end
a day far too soon
lets just hope its not a travesty

you all know about the kid
the one that dropped out and said fuck the world

lets hear it for them cuz their travels don't end
forever pushing them home.

Own Your Own Circus

Living day to day such a marathon
no need for self-preservation
why bother?
there's no need.

Paranoia.
Lovestruck.
Pleasure.
Nervousness.
How can these all be brought together
Like a simultaneous void
of both positive and negative
feelings so foreign
So Pure
so different
so welcomed.

there's a light illuminating the tunnel that had once been ripped and broken
now whole
now complete with a thirty-foot tall candelabra
warming the innards of a dread locked vagrant
like the Old Forrester consumed so lonely and long ago

any love and every love thy heart shall desire
is what I posses and can give away without a hitch
malleable and tangible luxury's however
is not what I can provide with ease or consistency

Please look not down your nose
at my finances, so meager and lame

please look past at the boy with his arms outstretched so wide
wanting and awaiting your embrace
to make one whole and complete
free and irradicated of misery, loathing, and heartache

All I want for you happiness
All I need for you is joy
All I want from you is heart
All I need from you is love

Underneath the warmth of the street light
I'll hold you and never let go
Lips locked and tongues engaging in battle
On this night so dark and full of hope.

Old Friends and Drug Abuse

I can remember the taste of dirt as I awoke from underneath the 29th street bridge that morning/afternoon. I couldn't remember what had taken place that night before except those pills I had taken at about 7pm. I couldn't remember what they were, Xanax? Ambian? Hydrocodone? I didnt know. What I did know is that the fuzz that had overtaken my head and my psyche was unberably strong and I had to get some malt liquor on it. Stat. So me, Justin, Liz and Huck made our way to the nearest gas station we could find(I think it was pleasently named "Stop&Rob) and we set up our signs and managed to get about five bucks between me and Justin. So of course we bought two of the finest Old English 40ounces we could get our hands on. I also think I should mention this all took place before noon. I think it was about nine o'clock. It was beauty in it's rawest form. two conquistadors sailing the seven seas of self-degradation. The true grit of the American Dream. The greatest form of a capitalist trade; two kids make up some bullshit sob story about how our pet rat(Scumfuc) was a "fancy rat" and he needed "fancy food" to go along with his...general "fanciness". Then Huck, in all his glory used his cousins i.d. he had stolen a few years back and bought the booze. Liz was a poon and could'nt hang, but between me, Huck, and Justin, the two fortys were gone in about five minutes. As we walked down the road(I believe it was Guadalupe St.) I noticed some college kids looking my way and coovering their mouths almost in surprise. I walked up to one of them and he grabed my arm almost forcefully and ran me to this table in front of this resturant that was apparently "too upscale" to ever let me in. I mean shit, the people that work there have matching aprons and matching hats. This place is baller right? Anyway, this weird-ass college kid had dragged me in front of this place and I was suprised to see my old friends, Fat Tom, Lillit, and somebody else important. So important in fact that I have forgotten them. Damn you and your agenda drugs. It was pretty funny because all Tom could speak and remark of was how typical it was to run into me on the street like this. almost as if by some outter force, an outter personna; Fat Tom had known all along the fate of your humble narrator. Or he was being a pretentious prick, I still do not know. It kinda sucked though because that was how I found out what really happened to Sean. He hadn't od'd against a wall in Deep Ellum all glamorized, he had actually been at a party. All Tom was able to tell me was Sean had gotten some phone call from his dad, told everyone he had to shit, and the next morning his girlfriend(or random slut) had opened the bethroom door and found him, slumped over on the toilet, face cold and blue. He had gotten what he had tried for so long to find through countless addictions and overdoses. He finally went home.
It made me think back, I've lost a lot of friends/brothers because of that one little thrill, drugs. Kids that never got the chance to ever live, or even attempt to. No one get me wrong, a party's a party, but know your fucking limits. All of them, cut short at so young. People constantly ask, " why would you do drugs if that's whats plagued so many you knew?" Well the answers this, those drugs didn't kill those poor children, they themselves did. Everyone I knew and have known personally who has "accidently" overdosed, there was something wrong. Their smiles were different, almost embarassed. their eyes werent right either. You can tell a lot about a person just by looking into their eyes, you can see their inner soul for however beautiful or damaged and broken it really is. I worry today about some of my other brothers as their glow looks to be dwindling to this day. There's nothing that can be done for them though. once that glow is gone your already dead. just a shell of a human mindlessly and monotonously living out their pathetic and meaningless lives until one day it finally snaps. That little and minut inconvenience that finally sends them over the edge in which they then go to the bedroom(or bathroom), sit down and in a drugged stupor, take a lethal dose of their drug of choice or whatever they can get their hands on. Drugs kill, but at least you get some sleep.

God

I hate Christians. I hate them. I can't deal with their constant displays of arrogance and sanctimony. The majority of them, with their perfect jobs, their perfect wives, their perfect kids and cars they put themselves so high. All I can ever see comming from these pretty looking people is how they are so much holier than thow because of how they go to church or how much they "help" poorer communities and people with the two or three dollars they give to a bum once every blue-moon. What was it that Jesus did again? That's right, he helped people and gave back to those less fortunate. These people who just go to church to show off thier new suv or how well their kids are doing are the biggest sinners of them all. They go to church or whatever form of worship they so choose, they sit down and pretend to sing along with the chorus while little Billy and Whittney sit next to each other poking and hitting each otherr all service. They don't do anything to help their fellow man, they don't give back shit, all they care about is themselves and their selfwish wishes. I'm a kid who never goes to church, I got tattoos on my fingers and blue dread-locks. Do I look like your typical Christian or worshiper? No. Do I do what other Christians do? No. I enjoy skateboarding, smoking reefer, and hopin on the good foot to do the bad thing with my ol' lady. Does that make me bad or less "Christian" than the next guy? I don't believe so, because to make up for it I'd do anything for anybody and never ask for nothing in return. Now I'm not trying to sound arrogant but I'm just saying, I ain't typical.
I hate the way the media and modern telivision and movies alike make people who believe in Jesus look. It's almost a shame to call yourself a "Christian" anymore because of all the hype and bullshit that's tied to it. The majority of people, when you say you are a Christian, look at you as if you grew a toe out of your nose and your some3 freakish leper because you choose to instead of selfishly just existing, believe in something more powerful and more beautiful than anything you could ever imagine. Most people will tell you they are a Christian for their own self-worth or to make themselves feel better about the family they just evicted or about that worthless bum outstretching his hand with shame in his eyes and they just turning away. This is not a Christian, this is not someone who(by no fault of tyheir own) have not seen the great and awsome power yet. I am lucky(blessed rather) to have seen this first hand. I was pronounced dead in the middle of the street for thirty seconds. That might not sound like too long, but to paramedics and parents alike, it is an enternity. I'm out of a coma and walking, talking, and wiping my own ass despite what the doctors and neurosurgeons said. I was supposed to(according to them) die or lay in a coma for the rest of my days having my poor mother tend to her in valid son for the rest of her days as well. I didn't. The only reason for this taking place a neurosurgeon told my family was because of God. Now these neurosurgeons have studied the brain and its functions for nearly half of their lives andf have put their sole trust and beliefs into medicine and textbooks. What happened to me and how I recovered went completely and totally against everything they had ever read about D.A.I.'s. Look it up, thats the kind of head injury I got. But not even all that got me to believe. I was still pig-headed and stubborn even after the gift of life I haD recieved. What really got to me personally actually took place on my escapades of allyways and the Salvation Army. I was walking down a lonely, dark street one hot and muggy Austin night. I had with me two dudes I had met a couple miles back. We'd been walking together for a while conversating about everything from beer to Pixie(this hippie that ran this hemp stand on the drag. She was pertty) until God came into the conversation. I started talking about how I really wasent sure about who or what was "up there" but I was definatly certauin there was indeed something there. The other guy we were with began to rail and chastise God saying there was none and even if there was, what good is He? This kids homeless, why should he believe in anything higher than himself? The other kid, the one who brought up God in the first place just smiled and shook his head almost solemly and turned and said to me, "you see man, you see how you don't write Him off in a single breath? Trust me bro, he sees that shit and you'll find your way, trust me, you will man."
I couldnt remember that kids name or even really what he looked like to save my life, but those words will stay with me until I die. This kid, who had nothing, no backpack, no food, no water bottle, was so happy and thankful at these "brand-new" pair of shoes he'd gotten from the drop-off. The drop-off was like Goodwill almost, people would drive by and "drop off" used and old items that had worn out their welcomes at their humble abode. He was so excited and so happy that he had shoes because he told me that before all he had was two pieces of cardboard and ducktape to protect his feet from the harshness of street living. I looked at this boy, so gratefull and content with what he DID have as opposed to miserable and bitter at the thought of what he DOESENT have and it changed me that night. It made me become very humble and just at peace with what was going on around me. I felt an overwelming sensation of calming and warmth take over my entire body. The only thing I could say to explain the cause of this feeling was that God himself was saying everything was alright and not to worry just yet. I could feel him carry me and support me forever since then.
After that kid said that to me I just hung my head in thought. Was this real? Is this God thing something to look into? Yes, yes it was. Every night on the street after that, I'd pray and just ask God to keep me safe. Sometimes I wonder what happened to that kid. I know for a fact he will never know the impression he left on me my uttering that small and insugnifficant statement.
I just hope that he's seen as many blessings in his life since then as I have.

"Yeah man, I'm squatting with this one chick at her pad and she said ya'll could stay there for the night", is what I answered MC on the phone. I had gotten MC Devlin's phone number when I joined the Mad Conductor street team a few weeks back. The mad conductor was a psychedelic/trip hop group from Nazareth, Pennsylvania that had members of the former ska-core group No-Cash. I had come in contact with the street team in the first place using the ever elusive Myspace(yes I too was a part of that whole fiasco at one time). I remember hearing them when I was stoned out of my mind on some really good New Mexico kush I had smoked at a friend of mine's house. I remember seeing their page on No-Cash's page and it had mentioned that the lead singer from No-Cash(Chris) was also the lead singer of Mad Conductor so it had to be good. And good it was! Spacey, tripy, and just plain pleasent.
So Chris had told me that they could'nt do the song that they had had lined up for the night because of the rain and the ice so they just needed a place to crash. I extended my welcome to them on account I had been staying with this crazy bitch who's name I will withhold from this paper for her own benifit. Nothing romantic, just a stupid, smelly, and indescent bitch I'd meet at the venue. So I had bought an ounce of smoke the day before and I was ready. They showed up at about eleven p.m. and we helped them find our place. When they came in we met all of them, but as my brain was in and out of vacation back then, I can't for the life of me remember anyone but Chris' name. They all came in and we had the bong, Willow, waiting on them. Since Willow was but a tiny water-pipe, the amount of bowls that we actually ended up ingesting into our prune-like lungs was a number impossible to count, but it was good. So we'd been getting down while getting high for about an hour until one of them finally popped up and said, "Hey, do you hackey sac man?" Whatever, I'm a little white-kid stoner I should be good at this, let's do it! Oh no, I was not at all. "Fuck this man, I got change, let's get some beer." Is all I could say after about half an hour of this silly game, they said sure, I through my cash in the pot and they went to get everything you need for a guaranteed good night, a case of Old Millwaukee, and four 40 oz. of Colt 45. To be continued, class is over. bye.

What is This?

My knee shakes quickly as I bum yet another ride from her. Godamn, two months in and I'm still just as nervous as that night. That night two perfect months ago. That night, the day after I had gotten beaten up by four "gangstas"
that overstayed there welcome at my place. Black eye shinning brightly as I take my seat in the front. I had looked around for maybe twenty minutes while sipping(chugging really) my beer. Looking around just further feed the fire of misery and self-loathing that had plagued me ever since that last bitch. I wanted none of them, nothing to do with the beauties that passed me by. Alone. That's it man, safe, alone, beer, drink it, what's that on my shoe? Just don't look up. Annie came skipping by happy and head in the clouds like always, "Hey that girl I've been telling about you is here, wanna meet her?" I thought to myself no. I was dressed in the height of vagrant atire. blue braided hair, cut-off corduorys, green hawian shirt that was too small. But whatever right? I'm sick and tired of doing the dress up routine anyway, if she can't hang with what I got then who needs any part off this? She came out from behind the curtain, eyes ablaze with orange Mac make-up, and bright pink fishnets. An irradecent display of perfection and beauty. No. Not again man, keep the walls up. She made a bee line in my direction and helped herself to a seat on my lap. I can hang. She started talking and carrying on an actual conversation. Different from anyone else. The back of my mind kept telling me to stop and just send her away to make her living. The front of my mind, The one I tend to silence, said fuck it and see what happens. I'm glad I listened this time.

"Do you feel that? Do you feel that connection between us?" She leaned over and screamed into my ear. I didn't want to but, "Yes, yes I do" I replied back. More laughs and exchanges of personal experiances, favorite drugs, and piercings. This girl sounds different man, give it a chance and see what happens is all that ran through my head. I tried to shut it up and make it go away but it wouldn't. There was something about her, I still don't know what yet. I was nervous as balls, stammering and stuttering as I tried to respond to this angel that was atop my lap. I felt like a noob. A drunken, poor, punk rock nerd. But then, "I guess I'd just really like a little punk nerd that can cook for me." Excuse me? Get the fuck outta town and burn the ticket, are you shitting me?

I'm the nerdiest of punk nerds on the face of this planet. I can tell you the date of the formation of choking victim/leftover crack and that crack rock steady beat(1990 if your interested).As far as social situations, partys, and people in general go, I fall short on networking knowledge. Nervousness is generally all I feel around people I don't know or are meeting for the first time. Especially a girl as gorgeous and kind as this one. For whatever reason this particular night, I put myself out there, said why the Hell not? I'm unhappy and socially inept anyway, what's yet another girl thinking I'm wierd or outlandish? So I told her some of the stories and tales the best of my ability as it was loud and we had to leave soon(my friend and I). She didn't once slap me, tell me I was strange, or looked down her nose at me in disgust. She smiled happily and contently at her new found friend. Little did she know my heart was pounding so hard with nervousness and intimidation that it felt as if it would jump out of chest and bitch slap me for putting it through the stress.

As me and Josh left and drove home, she was all I could think about. Whirling through my head like a hurricane as I tried to push it aside. We got back to my pad, walked up the stairs(I seemed to almost float with lightheartedness and excitement) I got a new text. Who could this be? I certainly have no one who is in dire need to talk to me, must be Annie or something. Flipped open my phone and read it, it wasen't from Annie at all, It was Her. The one I'd met earlier and for Christs sake shes saying how cute and sexy I am! What the fuck's wrong with this picture? This shit doesent happen to me. I'd go, meet Her, have a couple laughs, and leave. Always to think of and remember, but never able to reach out and grasp Her like I so craved to do. That's the way it's always been and that's the way it always will be. This time something different happened, She likes Me. That's a funny concept your humble narrator couldn't for the life of him comprehend. It seemed to be so though. What is this? This feeling that no matter how hard you try, you can't kill it. No matter how hard I tried to think, I couldn't. Absolutly and utterly stupid over this new female that had walked into my life and into my head. I was Hers and I knew it. Godamnit. The trials and tribulations of yet another hopeless romantic. A dying breed of people who want to make the one that has chosen them happy no matter what the cost. To add insult to injury though, that's all I can see ever on Her mind too. What is this? This feeling so foriegn and strange. Not strange in a bad way like seeing a suburban family of W.A.S.P.S. driving through Plano all singing "She's a lady" in unison, strange as in something that has never happend to me. A feeling of warmth running through my body all at once like when you chug a handle. Only better because I'm not throwing up. Why won't this feeling leave even to this day. As I sit and write this right now, all I can see is Her face growing smaller as I watched her drive away this morning. What is this? This feeling in my chest that burns when She's away and is so uplifting when She's around? I can hang with it though, I can live with having a smile on my face everyday. This is probably the first thing in my twenty two years on this planet that hasn't been so inane and stupid that I can't just shrug it off and say, "fuck it" like I've done in so many instances in my life. Although that would be the simpler and "safest" thing to do, I just can't, I don't want to, I don't Need to.

What can I say? I love her.

Money

We live in a world, or society for lack of a better word where money makes up the difference between the upper and lower class of people. I for one believe those terms, upper and lower class, are separatists in themselves. Even if money wasn't an issue and it was based on something else, like the amount of cardboard we all possessed, it would'nt matter. There would still be that difference of people, that dreaded name used to describe how much or how little you have. If all you had was a cardboard box, then you would be considered the worst off or "lower class" of the cardboard people. And vise-a versa if you had a whole acre lot of cardboard boxes. You would be the Don Mega of the corrugated colony. Money is a drug, like all things that we crave and desire. One of the best ways to describe this I have ever seen had to be the nineteen eighty something classic, "Trading Spaces." It was a comedy starring Dan Akroyd as a "well-off" stock brocker and Eddie Murphy as a dirt poor, drunk, vagrant. The details to this movie in relationship to this blog entry is quite inconsequential. But basically what happens is Eddie and Dan trade spaces as to say, dan becomes a hobo and Eddie becomes a millionaire. The two of them have no idea what to do with themselves, Dan goes out of his mind, drunk and adorning a Santa costume. Eddie does what every honest American would do in a situation such as this, he milked it until the tit ran dry. Now what I'm trying to say by explaining this 80's flop is that it shows truthfully and honestly what happens to us when money is either added or subtracted to our lives. We turn into different people and have no idea what do with ourselves. The exact same can be said for heroin or cocaine. The only difference is money doesent make us feel good physically when we possess it. We feel good while spending it, just as a junkie on 6th street feels amazing shooting up his next mainline. All money ever has been since it's creation to replace what? Something that man has coveted since the dawn of ages, gold. Why you might be asking yourself? Well thats's simple, with gold you can make things. You could make a gorgeous necklace for your significant other, or you could gold stamp that leaf you found when you were seven in the ally and keep it forever. Money, what can be made out of money for our enjoyment or posperity? Nothing. All that can be done wityh money is purchase. Buy. Spend. Now! Don't hold onto that green piece of paper you worked so hard to earn and save, come over here and give it to me so that I can in turn, GIVE you this golden stamped leaf that's fake that I just got through making in the back. We need to stop putting all of our faith, our love, our asperations behind the shadow of the mighty dollar because no matter how hard you try to make that next 6k figure, it won't be enough to fill and feed your thirst for more. Once you come into money, you become dependent on it and you find that new little thing that you must have for whatever reason and then you think, "If I just spend three more sleepless weeks at the office, I could finally get this thing that I must have." Now whether this thing is a mortgage or something unimportant, your still a slave to it and wanting it. People think that the more money you have, the better you got it, and this isn't true. The more money you got, actually the MORE bills and bullshit you have to put up with from Uncle Sam. But, with all that money also comes the inevitable change in thought and attitude towards your fellow man and the world in general. As with everyone, The psycological change that takes place is the fact you have nothing to worry about. If your hungry, go up the street to the grocery store or better yet, why not, go to the resturant a little ways down the road and pay someone ELSE cook it and prepare it for you. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of this is wrong or bad. I'm simply trying to get people to take a step back and just look at themselves. Just to look and see what we've become as a people, as a society, as a whole. All we are to the untrained eye is a slew of crackheads. Except it's not a glass tube with a rock in it that we're lighting and it's not smoke we are inhaling. It's the basic morality of a human being that we're torching and it's our soul that we exhale instead of inhale. Mindlessly and monotonosly we drudge through our day, dragging our feet all the while as we strive to make more and earn more or worse yet, steal more. Some people want to tell me that human beings are the stronger race, the more intelligent and less animalistic. This is true in a sence, but when the dollar isd introduced into the equation, we turn right back into our most primal and simplistic beings. We'd do anything for that money, wether it's sellingstocks to the wealthiest and most important people on Wal-street, or selling your body for twenty-five dollars a fuck behind Elm Street, we're all whores for that green paper. People these days just walk completly numbed and descensitized to this fact. It's everywhere you look. Turn on the t.v. and what do you see? Buy this! Invest in this! Your ugly unless you buy my product! Spend More! Always More!!!! Never Enough!
Media and music alike tells us everyday that we constantly need to spend more money. Your life's asperations, your goals in the world amount to shit if you can't get paid for it and no one cares about what has happened to humanity. All anyone cares about anymore is how hot they're latte is or what time the new episode of America's Next Top Dancer is. Have we really become so emotionless and pathetic that we can't even see the destruction taking place right before our very eyes? Are our wallets really that important that basic morality, feeling, and self-respect go out the window? Look, I understand we all need it to survive and it's a kill or be killed world out there, I'm just pointing shit out. I'm simply saying that humans need to quit holding ourselves so high on the list of animals cuz believe you me, we can be just as instinctivly cruel as a lion munching on a cute little bunny when our sacred paper is fucked with.

The Begining

Way back when I suppose about four years or so, I was a drug-crazed youth with what seemed like nothing to fuel my fire within. That is to say I had no set out plan of life, no treasure map. I just had a head full of ideas(some right some wrong) and a thirst to venture outside of the sanctity of my pacified world of culdesacs and clean neighborhoods. The anger and hatred I had towards everything and everybody around me was exponential. I hated the mere site or sound of anybody or anything. every dude was an asshole and every girl was a bitch.
So I did what every other confused, angry, and wayward-bound kid does at a time like this, I gathered up some of my belongings and called Billy, this guy I met while milling about in front of my Narcotics Anonymous class. Billy was a "tattoo artist" and had told me if things at home ever got sour, I was welcome to move in with him at the Airport Inn. So that night my folks and I had one last knock-down drag-out fight because I put my Mom's cashmere sweater in the dryer. Apparently as the sweater wasn't even big enough to put on the dog, your not supposed to put things like that in the dryer. So after the conniption fit that soon followed, I called Billy and was on my way to Wal-mart to meet him. I remember that night at one A.M. it was a bit chilly. A cool breeze that blew my mohawk back as I walked grudgingly down that empty street toward my final destination.
I arrived in front of Wal-mart about twenty or so minutes later and set my things on the ground. I lit another cigarette and sat quietly on the cool, hard concrete. I waited and waited for Billy to get his ass there for what seemed like hours because of the Xanax trip I had embarked on the day before. Finally I saw Billy walking quickly and faced paced up the driveway in front of the store.
I walked up to him and punched his arm and said, "What the Hell man? I've been waiting here forever bro, what happened?"
"haha" he snickered, "Look man, do you have any idea how far away we are from my pad?"
I shrugged my shoulders and started walking next to him. We walked a few yards and we were next to the entrance ramp to I-30 somewhere in Irving. I guess I was walking too close to the road because a car sped by blaring its horn comming with about a yard of my feet. So we kept walking, crossed a couple highways and walked under a bridge and then we were there. my feet were new and virgin to the amount of walking that we had done.
When we arrived at the pad, I could notice spray paint and magic marker etched and paited on the walls. I looked up and saw a big red and black anarchy symbol covering the entire cieling. Various spots of dried lugie spit covered the walls. I had a cigarette lit and I asked him where the ashtray was. He looked at me, walked up and grabbed the smoke out of my hands, threw it on the ground and ground it in the carpet with his shoe while saying, "Fuck it man, the floor's your ashtray."
I thought to myself that I would fit in fine here.
About a week later we started "working" for his grandfather refurbishing and doing warehouse work for ten to twenty dollars a day under the table. We had about fifty or so dollars saved up and Billy told me he was going to look for more pot in the motel complex. I just said, "whatever man" and took another drink of my Old English forty ounce I'd bought with a little change I made.
About an hour later Billy came back up to the room saying, "Hey man, ever tried ice?" I had smoked it once or twice years before that so I shrugged my shoulders and said, "yeah, but I didn't feel nothing, why?"
He responded, "'Cuz dude, this guy that lives down the way has some for sale, you in?"
So I thought to myself, "hey, my first step to vagrancy and utter self destruction is dependency on something foreign. I'm as good as lost anyway so why not? live fast and die young."
So we went to that guys pad. His name was "J" and it wasn't his pad at all, he lived with this woman who was around forty-five, crack and meth addicted, and who had a fourteen year-old son. I should also say that the entire time we smoked those drugs, her child was sitting on the bed. Had it not been for my own feeling of apathy, I might have felt bad about doing something like this in front of the boy. I remember the look in his eyes like it was yesterday. The look of complete disapproval, sadness, and disappointment at the sight of what his mother, the woman that bare him from her womb, was doing right in front of him.
"You want another hit honey?" The decrepit old bag asked me.
I broke concentration for a second and looked at her. Her eyes. Those eyes just filled with nothing. Two brown and black orbs that contained nothing. No soul or heart, just emptiness and an infinitely long void of blackness and nothingness.
But no time for thoughts of empathy and human feelings I told myself, there are drugs to be done here, lots of them. That train of thought is what led me to this seedy motel room in the first place. I remember wondering to myself when in God's name will it derail.

I put my lips to the end of the pipe(I can remember wondering if sharing a speed pipe with some shwilly kid and a crackhead was really all that great of an idea. But I shrugged it off. Live fast die.) I remember not being able to taste it. All I can really say is it felt just like when you pass out and they wave that little thing with menthol in it over your nose. I went there originally wanting to just have a little with Billy, go home , load the bowl, and pass out like we did every night. But not this night. Not this life changing, depraved night that I was introduced to the greatest and worst thing I have ever experienced. After we got done with our little “shame session”(I call it that now because I still see that kid, and until the day I die I will never forgive myself for contributing to the delinquency of his upbringing) I ended up talking to “J”, getting in pocket with him, and bought forty dollars worth for twenty. Not a bad deal seeing as how we had Raaman, Saltines, and peanut butter at the pad so we had food for the week; not that we were even thinking of eating. So we got back to the flat and Billy started making drawings for more tattoo flash and I started doing sit-ups. About three hundred, more or less. Then after about an hour or so of athletics and art class, we got bored and sober. So we did what any other newly budding addicts would do, more drugs.

After about a week of continuous drug abuse and about four hours sleep, I decided it would be a great idea to ask this modern day(and artfully misguided) Dali for a tattoo. So after buying a case and a couple forty ounces, it was set. I browsed his flash on the wall and picked one I wanted him to permanently etch onto my arm. It was a stiletto with a banner going around it that read “No Regrets”. With my head full of hops and barley induced intoxication, I laid my arm out for what was going to be drawn onto it forever. “No turning back now,” I thought, “This is the first page of the new story I had started in my life. Until the day I die, I will never forget this night.” He drew it out and cut out the drawing. He then proceeded to place it on my arm and vigorously rub my arm with a stick of Old Spice deodorant. Then he pulled the paper off my arm and it left a copy of the drawing on my arm right where I wanted it. Then it was time for the pain. His tattoo gun was a professional gun at one time, but now all that remained was the skeletal remnants of what WAS a tattoo gun. The control of the speed of the needle didn’t work anymore and the “plug” was two wires that you would put in the electrical socket. As he put the needle to my forearm the pain really wasn’t all that bad. It kind of felt like being stung by a bee and then having some snot nosed kid pinching it, the entire time. When he finally finished after about two hours, I looked at it with eyes full of inebriation. It didn’t quite look like the drawing, but that was ok. The more primal, the better. Until I got a good look at it, the stiletto looked great. Then I noticed the spelling of “regrets”. It did not say “regrets” as I previously intended, my brand new tattoo said, “No Regets”.

“Hey man, somethin’ ain’t right here, YOU MISSPELLED REGRETS RETARD!” I shouted at him.

“I told you I was dyslexic, and I’m drunk. Fuck you, I’ll fix it. Come here.” He responded back to me.

He concentrated real hard and finally the fiend got it right. A few weeks after that, we heard that the group Roger Mirret and the Disasters would be in town. The night of the show finally arrived and we were ready, we had Amber(one of the Dead End Cruiser’s old ladies) giving us rides so we wouldn’t get stranded, an ounce of pot, and money for forty ounces galore. We got the beer and arrived at the show. Amber got out and looked at the sign on the front door. It read, “Show canceled. Roger Mirret tomorrow night in Austin. Amber came running back and said, “Pack your shit were going on a road trip tomorrow.” So that night me and Billy got to packing. I put my skin tight jeans, and my Lower Class Brats t-shirt in the bag and the next day I wore my bright blue boots so I was covered for a couple days. That morning went off without a hitch. Tommy, Jerry, and Amber came to our place and everyone piled into Amber's green Rav-4. There was no room because of the beer for me to sit so I rode in the back of this vehicle the entire way there. It was pretty nice because I’m so small, I just got wasted, curled up, and went to sleep. It was a great nap until I awoke to see Tommy turned back, snickering with a magic marker. I knew he had drawn something on my face, but because I didn’t have the ability to speak let alone argue with a six foot tall muscular guy with a Mohawk, I let it pass.

We arrived in Austin about four or so hours later and right when we did, my phone rang. It was Christina, a woman with pink hair, tattoos and her septum pierced who had worked as an attendant at the latest rehab I went to. She told me she was drunk and that one of my favorite bands, The U.S. Bombs were going to be playing at the Darkside Lounge that very night and if me and a friend wanted to accompany her and her friends, she’d pay for us. I jumped at the chance but because gas finances, or lack there of, they couldn’t drive us. “Fuck that, I’m walking” I said. So I set out on my journey. I walked a couple blocks and realized I was spun, high, and drunk and had no idea were I was going. I’d ask passersby but because of the racial diversity of Austin, Texas, no one understood me. It was right about then my phone rang a second time. It was Christina wondering what was taking me so long.

“Where are you Colin and what’s taking so long?”

“Christina, I’m pretty messed up and I don’t know where I’m going.” I said back to her.

“Go to the nearest street corner, tell me what it is, I’m on my way.” She replied to me.

So I did what she said and walked to the first intersection I could see, told her what is was and hung up. I waited for a little while until I saw her red F-150 drive into the parking lot across the street. I ran across the street with excitement and embraced her.. The first thing she said to me after not seeing me for over a year was, “You look skinny, what drugs you been doing?” I tried to talk but all that came out was a collection of fast paced stammers and grunts. “Lemme guess, a lot of speed?” I looked down and nodded my head with disgust. She shrugged and told me to get in the truck. As we were driving, Christina started a little drunky talk saying how I didn’t need to be in the place were I met her and that if she had the chance she could have straightened my ass out in a jiffy. I didn’t really pay to much attention until she asked if I wanted to stay with her. I said, "Really? you'd really help me out like that?"

She nodded and told me how my living conditions didn't seem all that great and that she was extending her motherly instincts on me. Well that's nice, I thought to myself.

We arrived at the venue and got out of the truck, We walked in the door and to the back of the club where the stage was and she introduced me to her boyfriend Edward and a couple of her friends that I can not recall at this time. During the show(about midway if I recall correctly) I saw Billy, Tommy, and Amber run in the club and dog pile me. It was all a feeling of brotherhood at that concert, of complete comradery. We were all punks, dirty, grimy, drug dependent, and unhappy. Coincidentally though, that had to be the happiest night I've ever experienced by far in my twenty two years stuck atop this dirtrock orbiting in outter space. Duanne sang all of those punk rock anthems passionatly and heartfeltly for what seemed like all night. Needless to say it was a night for the books.

After the show, I explained to Billy what was goin on and how I would not be accompying him and the rest of the Cruisers home to Dallas. All he said to me was, "whatever man, just lemme get that Slackers cd."

Cool, I had a place to sleep for the next few nights and a whole new chapter was beginning. I knew I was in for something new and different and the only way to prepare oneself for total self-destruction and depravity is to do exactly what I was doing, nothing.

Less Than Thin Liz

So that night I had been thrown back and booted out of the apartment. Thrown out of the apartment my friend and ex-rehab attendant Christina lived in by her FRIEND, a skinny single mother of two who had been staying there because she was in between houses. Her boyfriend and children were coming in town to stay a few days and since i was the odd-man-out with the couch-space I had to go. I had been wandering and meandering for that entire day until nightfall. I was deep in thought about the idea that I was going nowhere on the account I had nowhere to go. So in theory I was lost but not the feeling of panic and horror you get when you don't know where you are going physically, but a new feeling of freedom and awareness to the surroundings around me. It was a weird place to be at that time, my head that is. So I took yet another long drag off my cigarette and looked up and I saw a kid who didn’t look to unlike me. A sight such as this even in Austin were few and far between so when I caught a glimpse of this boy in an old ripped and stained Oxymoron shirt, I knew I had to make myself known. So I just walked up to him, introduced myself as the name I had been given by fellow travelers I'd met along my way(Checkers on account of my hair). He said his name was Justin and he told me about this girl whom he'd been squatting (for those who don't know, squatting can be best described as a more scenic route to drifting. For those who don't know what a drifter is, stop reading 'cuz you won't understand any of this.) with for about a month. I thought to myself, "What the Hell? I got nowhere to go, why not?" So I asked him if they were interested in having an addition to their vagrant collection. He said he'd run it by her when she came to pick him up about a mile down the way. We walked and talked, and drank and stank. He told me all about how he and this tramp (train hopper that rides freight) named Huckleberry, or "Huck" for short, had hopped a train out of Spokhan,Washington and that’s how they ended up here. I asked where Huck was and he told me I'd be meeting him later when that girl (named Liz) picked us up. We sat in front of the 7-11 and waited until she finally pulled up in her 87 or 88 Cutlass. I peered into the front window and saw her, a portly looking gal with a shaved head all except for a green and orange piece of hair flowing in front of her eyes. I shrugged my shoulders and got in. I learned that Huck was still at the pad and I'd meet him soon. So we drove and she leaned over to Justin and said, "Another little squatter for me to take care of?" Justin shrugged his shoulders and muttered something I couldn’t understand. I took that time to let her know that I appreciated her letting me squat at her place. When we arrived at her apt., I noticed that it was a clean and fairly kept up place, all except for the gargantuous piles of dog and rat feces that had accumulated in the corner. As I walked in I was greeted by a ginormous fellow with a tattoo of a cat with blue balls running after a cat with a bow in its hair. these tattoos were on his, in plane view of anyone who looked in his general direction. This must be Huck. I walked over to him and outstretched my hand and said, "hey man, I'm Checkers." He looked up from his beer and said back, "hey I'm Huck." Bingo, 'cuz I'm that good. We three rolled a couple joints and bought a case with the money we had "earned" and got down with a pretty nicely orchestrated party. While I was stumbling through the hall Liz walked up to me and said, "you really don't expect me to make your cute ass sleep out there with them do ya?" I did, but I wasn’t going to let her know that. "I don't f#@$in know" was all I could get out before she lunged all her bodyweight(which was a lot) in my direction, tackling me and rendering me helpless to the fairly large woman gyrating on top of me. I laid back and cracked a half effort smile and thought silently to myself, "Pretty good day, wonder what’s next."

The Taintalizing Tale of Hippie and Hair Dye.

As I walked down the road (I believe it was 6th street or Guadalupe) I lowered my face from my ciggarette and thought about how I ended up on that street. I think I got dropped off by that chick I met at Arby's.
I remembered sitting down at the booth-bench seat with a copy of whatever free newspaper i picked up the night before at the bus stop. I looked in the empty pack of ciggarettes i had been putting change in that I'd spanged and panhandled along the way and I noticed I had about a dollar fifty or a dollar seventy four or so. I realized I had enough to get an order of those fried cheese and potatoe things. So I walked to the counter and dumped the change on the table. The girl working there could easily notice my clothes were far from new and personal hygene had not been at the top of my priority. So I guess either out of pity or her just wanting to meet someone interesting and new, she gave me the potatoe things for free and threw in a free onion bread Arby's melt sandwhich. She ended up starting a conversation with me and I ended up telling her how all I'd wanted to do was just go to a local show and try to weasel my way into whatever scene I could. So I ate my free sandwhich and my potatoe artery cloggers(for free I might add) and browsed the newspaper I had walked in there with. I noticed some record shop accross town that said they had a bunch of underground albums so I thought, "What the Hell? I got nothing else better to do with my day." So Arby's girl told me to get in her car and she'd drive me at least a couple miles closer to the shop than where we were. I happily obliged as my feet were huring from the six or so miles I had just walked.
We arrived at my designated stop and I bid her farewell with a thank you and I started hoofing it towards the general direction of the shop. It seemed like a millenia I had to walk until I finally got somewhere besides the shady nieghborhood I had been seeing. I arrived at what appeared to be, by the crude drawings and images of senseless and painful fornication, had to be a sex shop. I entered this horrid place and some of the things I saw were so depraved and horrible, if I were to repeat them everyones mind who is reading these chronicles would implode with disgust and fear. So I'm in this place for one reason and one reason only, to find out where the Hell I was and how the Hell I get to the record shop. I was directed accross the street by a man dressed in what I saw was a rabbit costume. I got to the shop and found out they were putting on some local metal show. I thought why not? Why would'nt a homeless punk rocker want to get pummeled and beatin to a pulp by a bunch of steroyd pumping metalheads? I could'nt find a decent enough excuse to keep me away so I set my sign and started the ever boring process of panhandling. I managed to make about three dollars the first twenty minutes. Not bad except I needed five. I walked over to the bookstore next door to widen my bumming options. I met up with two girls I had seen walking about earlier. I walked up to them and explained my predicament. It was hard for me to believe they took such a likeing to a little nomad with a backpack bigger than him but they did. As a matter of fact they both ended up taking me home to thier house and sharing whatever alcohol and other mind-altering devices with me. Then we all got the crazy idea to dye my hair like a checkerboard. The girl who I could only imagine was a present day hairy hippie took control of the whole operation. Her fingers felt like little spider legs as they danced and picked at my hair. All the while careful with whatever she was ingesting at that present moment. After we sat and talked and killed a small bottle of Hypnotic it was time to call it a night. They walked into thier room and I sat. Quiet and collected in the darkness and silence. I took one last swig of an already warm beer, gathered my belongings(at that time a backpack) and headed for the door. These people I had just got through encountering I will never forget until the day I die, but I had to see what was next on this escapade I had embarked on.

Blogs are supposed to be a place where people can go and bitch and chatter to themselves all about whats wrong or right in thier life. Sort of like a digital pacifyer for the isanely board or sanctamoneous. I for one do not aggree with blogs and/or public posting sites like Myspace and Facebook. And since everybody else here is humping this "Blog Revolution", I decide to get me a piece of the action. I sit here in utter amazment at what is considered "cool" or "in" these days, grumbling to myself because I HAVE to do this inane thing and kids these days do this crap out of thier own free will. I don't have to post anything on this blogg compost, as I explained earlier, I find it an utter waste of time. I just sit here in Modern Day college pondering what hippies and frat brats alike did 30 some-odd years ago, back before we had the Cybergod of television and before computers ran everything. I just live in hope that someone will read this, get thier ass out of thier computer seat, and go outside and LIVE. Life is far too short to sit in front of a screen.

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