The Chronicles Of None

Garden #9 and Dude #4

2008-10-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Everything is generic, here. It's as if the 'worldly nomenclature' has

been stripped and torn away from everyone who inhabits this space.

And ya know what? At first, I thought these bastards were crazy.

I really did. But it seems like they genuinely understand what they

are doing here and why they are doing it.

Every morning at tent meeting, Dude #4 (I just call him that because

although he is in a tight-knit group of dudes who all follow Guy

around, there are usually four other dudes between him and Guy)

steps out from the line of dudes, gets down on his knees and

recites a Psalm in the original Greek (with Hebrew mixed in)

and sort of wails it out in a semi-rhythmic and melodic fashion.

The first time I saw him do it, it made me think of a passage from

the bible I remember from sunday school where a man was

possessed with an evil spirit and screamed a lot while he cut

himself with stones.

But Dude #4 belts it out. Every morning. Rain or shine (although

it barely ever rains here). There's something about it that is real

and refreshing. No American accent. No pulpit. Just the words.

After Dude #4 is done, he usually weeps for a bit and Guy sits

beside him and consoles him. From there, Guy usually speaks a bit

about how we are 'preparing for the harvest' and that 'we are

the field workers of Jesus'. Afterwards, we eat a massive breakfast

of fresh grown fruit of the valley, custards, jellies, pastries and

always (obviously) a healthy portion of our own homegrown coffee.

Sometimes I step away from the herd of us, as we eat silently, and

take in the view. It seems to good to be true.

Way too good, in fact. I'm beginning to wonder. More to come.

What's odd about Dude #4 is that he usually works with me in

garden #9. We take a water break together and sometimes he brings

me coffee from the tent if he sees I'm getting tired. He doesn't talk

much. In fact, he barely ever says a word outside of when he belts

out a morning Psalm for the posse.

I've been here for three weeks now. I've been sleeping like a baby

and almost thoughtless at times which is a nice change from the way

I was at the call centre. Overflowing with thought and shit with no

spout. The coffee is extra-terrestrial. It's not of this world - that's

for damn sure.

Anyways - back to Dude #4.

Remember how I mentioned that I should

plant some plastic in Garden #9? Well, Dude #4 was gone for a long

time, getting coffee because Guy informed us all that a massive

shipment was going out for the good of Jesus and that we needed

to get it off the mountain before midnight. We all liked Guy and

didn't mind putting in the extra time. But Dude #4 was gone for

a long time. He left to get coffee...but then he disappeared. I

squinted towards the tent but the sun was starting to go down

and I couldn't see so well. There were some people gathering

near the tent but I just had to do my job. So I kept flaying, digging

and hoeing. I was dedicated to getting the shipment out...but I

needed to take a break. I grabbed some turf for a minute and lay

down flat in the field. I remembered joking about my notion to

bury some plastic in the fertile soil. I reached into pocket and

found an old bread tag from when I bought some food and white

powdered donuts on the bus back in Clairton,

Pennsylvania.

I grabbed the bread tag, rolled on to my side and shoved it down

as far as I could, with my thumb and forefinger, into the earthy

floor...and that is when I found it.

I hit something. About a foot below the surface, my hand made a

'clank' sound. Something metal, flat and hard. I stood up and looked

around to see if Dude #4 was back so I could show him. But no one

was around. Even the dudes near the tent seemed to be gone.

Intrigued, I pulled away as much soil as I could with hoe and shovel.

I cleared away about a 10 by 10 area which stopped a foot down

on to a solid metal floor. The sun sank deeper into the ocean. I

turned my headlamp on to get a better look at the foreign body.

I was standing on the steel, looking around it. A little ways over

from where I was digging, though, I could see a line that was

notched into the steel. I pulled away more soil from that area.

It was a line that formed a small square...with something that

looked like a tiny steering wheel in the middle.

A door? A trapped door? In the middle of the Napa Valley...

below a foot of earth?

Like any inquisitive person would do, I reached down to try and

turn the wheel. It was not moving. I got down on my knees and

used both arms (which were much more muscular after all of the

field work I'd been doing) and after about 30 seconds...it budged

and released a bit of a hiss sound. I wondered if I should go find

Guy or another Dude. Before I could finish that thought, though,

I remember feeling like I got hit in the face with a shovel and

the lights went out.

But the lights hadn't gone completely out because I rolled over

and could see the doorway, leading up into the evening sky. I

was about 15 feet down from the trap door and had obviously

fallen right through it. I could feel with my hands that the ground

I was now on was cement (which is weird because Guy often

talked about the evils of both plastic and cement at the morning

meetings). I was able to stand up but my shoulder and head

were throbbing. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could

now see a dim, red light in the distance.

As I walked toward the light, I wondered what Guy would think

when I told him what I had found. As I had walked about 30 steps,

I could make out now that the red light was a distant exit sign.

Finally, after about a few minutes of walking, I was right under

the exit sign in what seemed to be a doorway. I could feel the

doorjamb. As I felt around further on the walls, I found

something else.

A light switch. 'Click'.

Beaming flourescence was all around me and I had to cover my

eyes for a good thirty seconds due to the glaring brightness. As I

stumbled for a moment and rubbed my eyes, I saw a massive

glass display case to the left of me that must have gone on for

miles. In fact, and for a moment, I actually thought I had entered

another dimension altogether. A twilight zone of sorts. Until that

point in my life (and you would know this better

than anyone), I had never really prayed. But right then and

there, I prayed.

I prayed that I was dreaming and that what I was seeing behind

the glass wasn't real.

Behind the glass were (judging from my movie knowledge)

nuclear warheads.

Yeah. About 20 of them. All lined up like girls in a chorus line.

Each of them seemed to have green digital numbers on their bases

that indicated that they were, in fact, real and counting down

to a certain timeframe. I was stunned. So stunned, in fact, that

it took me a few minutes to even catch my own reflection in

the glass and see that I was bleeding pretty steadily from my

shoulder and forehead.

I decided to head for the surface. Staying down here was not going

to help any cause, whatsoever.

Near the red exit sign was a raggedy, old staircase that looked like

it was made of iron. It spiraled up a few feet and disappeared. I

started up the stairs and noticed that I was feeling unusually light

headed (due to the blood loss). Going up the stairs was strange

because I don't really remember actually ascending a staircase -

What I do remember is thinking 'Is this really it? Is the world

over? God - can you hear me?' That was about all that entered

my headspace and the actual stair-walking didn't seem so real.

The next thing I remember was seeing a steel trap door above

me...reaching for it...and my head really hurting.

Then...darkness.

The Strip, Chaos and Mountain Hippies

2007-08-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

And so I headed down 'the strip'. Apparently, this
is one the most famous 'strips' in the world. The one
thing that got to me, right off the bat, was
the amount of people EVERYwhere. You just can't
get away into aquiet place. It's as if people don't
really come here for the scenery
or the beautiful beach or the ocean but to be submerged
into a sea of people. People who are all...searching...for
something.

People with mohawks, faux-hawks, piercings, tats,
jewelry, cell phones, (cell phones like you've never
SEEN or want to experience of multiple
colours, sounds, LED lights, etc.). Throngs of people
rubbed shoulders with and sometimes walked directly
INTO me as I made my way through the masses. The
sun was beating down in what I'm told is 'classic
Californian' style - dry, hot and direct. It felt like my
head and neck were starting to get baked so I pulled
my non-brand name black umpire hat out of my bag
and slapped it on. The feel of my black
hat has weathered to a point of no return and it
probably wouldn't fit on anyone else's head in the
world. Giving me a little comfort along with random
thoughts of Angus, I realized I had almost walked
the entire strip and was coming up to a long pier
surrounded by some channel markers. I decided to
brave the hot sand of Long Beach and walk out
towards the water. The beach was more crowded than
the boardwalk and sidewalk - it was indescribable. It's
almost as if the beach itself is a different city or
continent - complete with merchants, customers,
hippies and more hippies. I decided to save my
non-existent money and make my way toward what
seemed to be a hippie grouping. They were somewhat off
the beaten path, closer to the pier and the water
where the rusty, barnacled underguts of the pier shone
out. I wasn't sure what I was going to ask them or what
I would do when I got there so I just walked. There
were a group of about eight of them. 2 of them were
playing guitars and the other 6 were
just listening intently.

Strumming.
Observing the waves.
and possibly...praying?
Whatever they were doing, they were kneeling and facing the
ocean. There was a thickly black and grey bearded man wearing
a sort of dashiki thing who seemed to be in front of all of them,
perhaps...I guess...'leading' them in prayer. Wow. It's been
a while since I ever wrote anything about prayer or any of
that spiritual type jargonese. The leader was playing guitar
and dancing a little as he strummed. He caught my eye.
He put the guitar down and instructed another guitar
playing bearded dude to keep playing and leading the rest
of the bearded dudes in their...prayer-type thing.

The leader approached me and although every sensibility
and fragment within me told me to 'RUN!!', I stood still.
He strode towards me, locking me into his deep green eyed
stare and smile. He stopped 2 feet in front of me.
A tear rolled down his cheek. His arms spanned out like
wings, as if he were about to take off. 'Friend' he said
smiling. 'Welcome here. We've been waiting for you.'

What? Okay...let's back up for a moment. Me. Waiting for
me? This hippie ocean guitar freak was waiting for me?
Me who spent a few weeks in the Pennsylvania wilds trying
to find some lame-ass town from the movie The Deer
Hunter? Me - a telemarketer jockey from Niagara?

What, in the name of all things living and yet to be born,
is he talking about?

I came back to earth. 'Wh...What?' I clenched my bag
to my back.

'Yes, You! We've been expecting your arrival for years
now.' His arms were still outstretched and moving with
his speech. 'And I'm sure, if you search your heart of
hearts, you will find it to be true.'

I didn't know what to do - I was totally taken aback. Why
didn't I run when I had the chance? Why is he talking
about expecting me? He coudn't have known...could he?
There's no way he's talking about me.

His arms were outstretched for a long time. I figured it
was time for him to put them down. I took a deep breath
and smelt his petuli dreaded hair...and then I hugged
him. He embraced me and laughed for what must have
been three minutes.

By this time, the others had left their oceanfront spot
and were standing around us in a circle. Some of them
were clapping and some were laughing. Some of them
were yelling out to the skies in a language I didn't
understand. Finally, the hug ended and the leader
eyed me up again, smiling and shaking his head.
We all started to walk as a group away from the
boardwalk and towards a deserted parking lot that
contained only one rusted-out, yellow VW van.
I didn't say a word. I walked with them. I felt many
hands on my back, patting me in re-assurance.
I got in the van.

I know what you're thinking - 'Why the fuck did you
hug some weird beach hippie who thinks you are
fulfilling some kind of prophecy?' And my answer to
you, friend, is that this is exactly what I came here for -
To experience life and immerse myself into something
real. I worked at a call centre for years and I can smell
bullshit. And the leader was not bullshitting. I could
see it in his eyes and smell it in his actions. He was
waiting...for me. For me. Not someone else. Not some
other hippie-lookin dude. Me.

Maybe he is dead wrong...and I'm sure I'll find out
if he is...but he fully, honestly and genuinely believed
that I am who he's been waiting on for so many years.

But it gets better. Oh man, it gets better. And I'm sorry
I cursed earlier. I know I said I wouldn't swear anymore
but I've come to realize that I made a stupid flash
decision not to swear and that although swearing is
juvenile, it can be used effectively when it is done well.
So that's what I tried to do there.

So yeah, the 'getting better' part. Here it is. Right
now, I'm nowhere near the strip. Nowhere near it.
I'm probably about 95 miles away...in a range of
Mountains atop of the Napa Valley. I wish I could see
your face right now - I realy do. Your reactions have
always been awesome. I miss them.

Sorry - my brain is sky high right now. I'm in a
new cerebral stratosphere. As you can tell, this
journey has affected my writing style. Anyways, I'm
in the mountains. And that leader dude and his cast of
hippie dude buddies? They're not hippies. They
actually just refer to themselves as 'mountain
dwellers' (much like Gimley from Lord of the Rings)
but they are a massively spiritual people. And I
mean spiritual - I don't mean religious. You see, for
a long time I though, spirituality and religion were
one and the same and all based on a set of rules
that tried to get people to do stuff. That ain't the case with
these dudes - the dwellers. They say 'Jesus' probably about
800 times a day. But they do it in a way that's not
swearing or ridiculous. It's almost as if they breathe the
word 'Jesus' sometimes as they just walk around. And look -
for some reason I capitalize the word 'Jesus' even though
I've never been to a church in my life. Weird.

Man - so much has changed. There's so much I want to tell
you but the words come faster than the pen hits the paper.

Okay - sorry. So the leader dude - his name is 'Guy'. He's
the only one with a name. They all have apparently stripped
themselves of what they call 'worldly nomenclature' as they
are preparing themselves for their 'home world'. It's
weird and freaky...but I love it. They grow everything - and
I mean EVERYTHING! The soil is so rich in this range that
you could probably put plastic in the ground and it would
grow into something (note to self: bury some plastic in
garden 9 tomorrow for kicks). All of their gardens are
numbered - there are so many friggin gardens that it seems
almost unreal. Almost 350 acres and 90% of it is gardens.
You name it, they grow it. Carrots, celery, bananas (yes
bananas!), oranges, grapes, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers,
mushrooms...I'm not even coming close to doing justice to
all they grow. I've been working in their gardens. Harvesting.
Corn, mostly.

And you know what? I love it up here. I absolutely love it.
I wake up in the mornings and Guy speaks a few words as
we all sip from a freshly brewed monster carafe of mountain
grown coffee. Sometimes I hear what he says - he talks a lot
about 'Jesus' and the 'harvest'. Guy is pretty incredible. His
wisdom is something I'm not sure how to take somedays.
It's always so poignant and relevant to me. Me. Wow. Those are
two letters I don't like putting together - M and E.
Sometimes he's kinda eerie, though. A few mornings ago, I
swore I saw him in the big camp tent (where we all meet and
eat in the morning and at night when our day of work is done)
talking to a few dudes. The tent is about 500 yards away from
the garden I tend to. And then, as the mountain sun beat down
on me, I realized I had left my spring water thermos at the tent.
Two seconds later, I turn my head and he is beside me - holding
out my thermos with some extra ice cubes with a big smile.
Sometimes I'm just amazed by the view of the sun cresting
above the Napa Valley. It's actually beyond description. Then we
all take on a garden or two for the day. There are 15 of us (well...
16 including me but I don't fully feel a part of things yet) and
it is what Guy calls a 'Spirit-filled community'.

They garden.
They eat.
They play guitar and smoke pipes by fire at night.
They work.
They pray.

But most importantly, they live. As surely as I write this to
you, these people are living and well.

I can't write much more - it's almost sundown and we are
having a big tent meeting tonight (some sort of meditation
deal) so I should get going. But there is more...so much more
I want to tell you. I hope you can read this.

I'll be in touch.

2007-03-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

SO ARE YOU INTO THIS YET?
ARE YOU HEARING ME?
ARE YOU OUT THERE?
AM I CONNECTING WITH YOU?
I just can't stop writing - it's a fever, a bug. I'm looking back to
some of my earlier rantings, in my trusty online notebook here,
and I really can't believe alot of the shit I wrote. I mean...wow.
Sometimes, in this postmodern vortex we call North America,
especially within writers I like, writers often use profanity and
useless sex-craved computer jargon to attract attentionor
draw out a shock response from the reader. Well, shocks
are all good and fun, but they only usually last for a splitsecond,
and while that electricity sure surges through
the veins and blood and inner body systems and hops you
all up on goofballs, it's all said and done pretty quick.
Now don't get me wrong - I'm game for cusswords and
I can swear a blue streak with the best of them but I
find expletivism to only be effective WHEN it is used
to drive home a point. This requires using and relying
on those words much less, because in all honesty,
no matter what morality you cling to, they really just make one
sound dirty and uneducated when they're used in excess.
Shock is a useless writing tactic only used to elicit aresponse -
but to say something of substance and depth
and really draw out a genuine reader response is a much
more sophisticated craft. Leave the shocking to the
suppressed writers who've spent all their lives as altar boys
and church elders and have years of repression to get
out. They need real therapy - not publishing deals.
So that aside, where were we? Ah yes. Stranded in Long
Beach. I have decided to cut some chunks out in the
next few segments to catch you up to speed, and also
because the whole story would really be kinda boring
and lengthy - and what I've written is lengthy enough as it
stands.

So Angus was well down the freeway, and in retrospect, I
really wish I had asked for a phone number or email.The
dumb things we wish we had done. Oh well. I slung
my gunny sack over my shoulder, wearing my non-descript
earthtone shirt and cargo pants, I headed south down the strip,
doing my very best to blend in. I realized that as I had either
bussed or trucked my way to get to where I was, the weight
of the tent in the gunny sack was becoming a burden quickly.

So stay tuned. Don't touch that dial. Thanks for reading
all these letters, by the way. I really appreciate it.

Coastlines and Long Beach Swank

2006-07-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

Now I know what you're thinking, even before I start to preface
another entry. How can I trust the voice of this narrator? He was a
suicidal wretch working at a call centre in the Niagara region...and
now he's halfway across the Sleepy Midwest of the U.S.? How can
this BE?! I would like to then continue with the hope that you
suspend your disbelief and just keep reading, because as part of what
I've learned and where I am now, presently, (which I will get to in
future writings) things are not always what they seem and you can't
make your mind up about a painting until the artist has completed
the work. I don't consider myself an artist (I make mondo spelling
mistakes all the time, not to mention grammatical heresy, but that's
nothing new from the average crap that gets published...)
but I just find writing to be sort of therapeutic - it helps me get out
what I need to without hurting anyone or going on a rampage. But that
rampageous individual seems to be far away from here...but again, I'll
get to that.For now, let us catch up with the runaway train
that is this story.

As our hero (sorry, couldn't resist) barreled across the Midwest
with his trusty Scottish sidekick, sundowns and sunups became frames
to a day. I should mention too that, for some reason, you would think
riding in a truck would really smell bad as truckers are generically seen
as being unclean individuals (what with the tales of piss-bombs, tight
cabin quarters and crazy driving deadlines) but this was not the case.
Angus defied all of my past prejudices towards the trucking type - he
stopped at trucker stations and showered every day - and usually smelled
a lot like Irish Spring (the green original one, not the blue or aloe kind).
The ride was silent since that first 2 or so hours of talk that resulted in my
weeping when Angus asked me about my family. This seemed to be just
fine by him and by myself. One would think that near fifty hours with no
talking would drive one mad - but the truth is that just knowing that
someone is with you can carry you a hell of a long way. I'm sure
he had been with "chatty cathy's" before, and I've sure as hell had my
share (at least from the telecentre with yappers like Vance and Pat) so it
was a nice change to just share silence with someone. It was kinda
freaky when you thought about it, I mean when I really pondered the dead
air between myself and a large Scotsman in a transport truck, but it wasn't
that overwhelming once you got used to it -
like a newly itchy blanket that becomes worn and comfortable with time.

So blah, blah, we drove on, and initially, my thought of getting off
somewhere before California seemed safe and normal, but this journey was
one that seemed to be propelling me to lose all footing of such things and let
the chips fall where they may. I think something changed when that
walk-in clinic doctor gave me that golden note- that note stating I needed 'paid
stress leave' to go and do something different - a door opened. Forever, though,
my life had been one of closed doors, or at least for as far back as I can
remember. But we'll get to that...As stated, the trip to California
was upon us and a detour down the Oregon coastline was one which Angus had
carefully planned for in his route management and it was an experience not to
be forgotten. All to the east were giant Tolkein-esque trees - cedars, firs, oaks,
balsams - all towering in their majesty toward a cherry-orange skyline,
guarding the land from the tempest sun, while of course, to the right (and west)
was all oceanic glitter, totally distorting any perception of skyline or horizon.
You'd try to see where sky and ocean met and map it with your vision but it
was damn near impossible. I could hear Angus turn to make sure the road was
still in front of him every once in a while, but for the most part, he was
captivated by the sea. I could hear him letting out little nasal sighs, on and off,
through his furry red moustache and beard, enamoured by what he was seeing
and probably thinking something too captivating for words. I, on the other
hand, stared out at the big, sparkling sea and thought...
nothing. For the first time in a dog's age, I can actually remember the feeling
of a 'clear' mind. Up to that point in my life, my mind was a jammed epicentre of
anxiety
depression
boredom
lashing criticism
unforgiveness
cynicism
callousness
apathy
general dislike of others
seething rage and hatred
tension
and the list could go on, TRUST me. For some odd reason, though, none of that
Niagara telecentre bullshit seemed to faze me. It was where it was and I was
where I was - barreling down the Oregon coastline and not really thinking
about anything but the immediacy of ocean and pavement. You see, one
thing I've discovered along the way of this bi-coastal journey is that people's
heads are altogether too full. You may have heard reference to someone with
an 'empty' head as being dim-witted or 'slow' but there is much truth in the
phrase 'ignorance is bliss'. Now i'm not suggesting that we all make ourselves
stupid by filling our heads with uselessness (namely tv sitcoms) because
that will not accomplish anything - what I suggest, at least for my own good,
is a decent, lengthy emptying of the mind. This can take many forms, and
some may refer to this as 'meditation' or 'new-age' but I'm hardly a buddhist.
Whatever floats your boat. It's what the head gets filled with that is the
decision of the empty-er. Does that make sense? Ah, fuck it. Let's get closer to
being caught up.Angus crested the California stateline in no time at all, and
I thought about the distance I had come since being in Clairton, Pennsylvania,
that lost mining town from The Deer Hunter, and it made me feel kinda
queasy. Regardless, we burned down 101 like mad, leaving everything from
raccoon to bear cub roadkill carcasses airborn in our dust trail. Long Beach
emerged into our view, as 101 turned into 17, then into 1, then the party strip
that is 166 (I don't think truckers usually drive that route but I know Angus
made his own rules). I rubbed my eyes and saw every type of person one could
imagine: hippies (lots of those), yuppies, gangsters, mafia gangsters, new york
mafia gangsters, girls, guys, girl-guy blends, blacks, whites, asians,
hispanics, and mixes. It was like a cornicopia of colour, sound and humanity.
Everyone who was here, on the party strip, was either walking, walking a dog,
talking on a cellphone, talking on a payphone (probably to no one),
rollerskating, rollerblading, driving a convertible or doing something to be
noticed. It was not a place to blend in - it was place to stand out and get
noticed. This sort of spooked me for a minute but I couldn't hide this huge grin
that was spreading from ear to ear because I was so enthrawled with what was
going on that I wanted to know the source of what made these people who they
were. I felt like an alien coming to earth in a 50's sci-fi movie, in search of a
'leader' or 'intelligent life form'. Angus pulled up by an Amoco in the heart of
the strip, almost taking out a few Paris Hilton wanna-be's in his ruthless
curb-hop. I sat there in his cab, knowing this was the end of the road and that
there was no going back - at least not right now with Angus - and I felt kinda
scared for the first time on this whole trip. It was more of a stomach-feeling
though, like unending butterflies, but without the rollercoaster ride.That was
when it happened. I gave a nod toward Angus and a half smile, preceding to
slide myself out of the seat - that's when I felt the hammer hand of a giant
Scottish man grip my left shoulder. As I turned back to look at him, his icy
blue eyes pierced into the soul of me in a way I've never known anyone to
stare, and he uttered the first words either of us spoke in almost sixty hours -
'You hate him, don't ya, lad.' At first, I didn't know what I meant, but then
stupidly and sheepishly, I did. I answered back, almost in a mutter. "Yes."
He saw that I tried to look away but he corrected my jaw and lined
my eyes with his. 'I'm sorry - you're not him and you never will be.' He
removed his hand and sort of gave my back a slap, probably a tap to his
standards, that near gave me whiplash. I sat there for a moment, stunned,
and then shuffled my way out of the surfwax-carrying rigtruck, standing
on the pavement with the door open, admiring the rig for all its splendor
and how this vehicle carried me such a long distance in many different
ways. Angus was still staring at me so I gave him a salute from the Amoco
parking lot as he was probably now off to the wax warehouse, somewhere
inland, and watched him fire up the engine and roll away. And as quickly
as Angus came into my life, he was gone. So who the 'he' Angus referred to is
what you may be wondering, I'm sure. I'll get to that, but first, let me tell you
what happened next as I was now stranded, at a gas station in Long Beach.

Untravelled Highway

2006-07-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

So a little over a year from my last entry...you're probably wondering'
what the hell happened to that guy?' I have been through some of
the weirdest, epiphanal, offbeat, zany experiences ever endured by
a human being. I feel that even by writing, a huge internal grin is spreading
from ear to ear within me and I can't even begin to re-trace the steps down
the rabbit hole. I can say that I learned much. I can say that. Going over
all the messy details might be a tad magical, but right now I'm in an
internet cafe in...well, we'll get to that.
'So last I heard, you were on a mountain in Pennsylvania in a mining
town?' Yes. Yes I was. It's all a blur, really, and I know you've read hippie
novels where the main characters say that a lot, and I am by no means
a hippie, but I now understand some of those generalized expressions a
little more. The unclear becomes clear. I began to get a little weirded out
on the mountain, thinking thoughts like 'Hey - I'm on a mountain' and
'What if I fall off?' or "What if those rednecks try to get me like they did to Ned Beatty in the movie Deliverance?' or 'Who would know
if I died up here?' and so, after a few cool nights in April, an 18 wheeler
rolled by the below service road and had to stop because the driver
needed to take a 'wiz'. So quickly, I packed up my little backpack,
and scuttled my way down to the service road, falling once and cutting
my ankle on a sharp, protruding mossy rock in the dark mountain dampness.
When I first came out of the mountainside forestry, I think
I scared the shit out of the trucker, mainly because I was a dark, nerdy
looking guy just staring at him and because he was just finished zipping
up from his wiz. Regardless, though, we hit it off well. His name was
Angus, and like the name would suggest, he was a giant Scottishman with a red
beard and redhair winging out from his oily ballcap.
I asked him for a ride into town but he said he wasn't 'goin to nue tune'
which means 'going to no town' just in...Scottish, I guess. He reminded
me a lot of groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons and the father
character from So I Married and Axe Murderer. But he was real. And
he was about 6 foot 5 and looked like he didn't like to 'take crap'
from people. You know the type. Anyways, once the initial awkward
greeting was over, and I told Angus my story, his heart showed through
his rough exterior. He helped me into the cab and off we went.
As it turned out, Angus was not heading to the next town because he was
heading to California. He trucked for a blockwax shipping company (wax used
mainly on highline surfboards) and told me he did these kind of
runs every month or two. The funny thing is, It's a good 40-50 hr trek
from Pennsylvania so considering the time it takes to get there, unload,
lade and bill the order, and get back...you can see the time problematics
here. This equals a laidback schedule for old Angus who said he
had been driving for blockwax for almost eight years. I decided quickly
that I probably wouldn't go all the way to Cali with him but that I would find
a neat place to stop and get out on the way down when it was convenient
to jump ship.
So there I was, someone who had never really known adventure before
in any kind of meaningful and realistic form, beyond the realm of online
gaming, in a 18 wheeler bombing down interstates with a large man
named Angus and a whole lot of blockwax. There came this sort of
gleaming, though, where my life, prologue to this point, seemed to be at an
utter disconnect with the current situation. Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood. But somehow...they were both me and I was reeling in this realization.
An angry, love hungry, misunderstood, philanthropic, existential slackster
whose deepest motive was to get through the day with less than a thousand
suicidal thoughts was turning into this...mound of weird, psychotic thrill-seeking
pleasure. I could not do enough or see enough. Funny too was the fact that
I had been one of the biggest adversaries, in every moral sense, to the
U.S. of A. and now, here I was, traversing through it and living off its land.
Little did I know what would befall between Penn State and...what was
to come. Angus and I got along swimmingly. He would have been one
of the people from the Niagara region that I would have referred to as
'street dirt' back in the day of being of my assenine self but now, that
didn't matter. He was a means to an end and he knew a hell of a lot about cabre tossing.
I guess he comes from a family of famous logthrowers and
this ritualistic wood-heaving was grown competitionally
and recreationally. He had 7 brothers, of which he was number 4. All of
them bigger than himself. Good GOD! What a thanksgiving that would
be. He asked me about my 'family'. I sighed for a while and stared out the window.
'No one has ever asked me that before' I thought
and sort of half said aloud. He seemed a little uncomfortable upon
my spurting after a long silence, but regardless, if he was interested
or not. I figured I would let him have it, even to get some shit out of
my own system. The funny thing is, I didn't even get a word out
and just started sobbing, uncontrollably (and I mean uncontrollably)like a
wee school girl who had skinned her knee. This went on for sometime, I
believe about 15-20 minutes (we were just west of Cleveland at
the time) and Angus just stared ahead, looking over at me from time
to time, probably making sure I didn't have a gun. I lay there with my
head leaned against the window, watching my tears roll down the
glass on to my shirt. Angus said nothing...and just drove. What I
appreciated about that silence though was that he didn't try and
figure me out or pretend to be interested or even kick me out for
crying like a pussy. He just drove. And he drove like mad.
We were making serious distance as time seemed to blend together
in mud brown farmland and chunks of states. The ominous 50 hour drive
was now near half done, and we were in the cornfields of Nebraska,
when a strange thing happened. For some unknown reason, Angus
pulled the truck off the road even though I knew had just stopped for
a wiz a few miles ago. He got out of the truck, with me in it, and walked
out to the centre of the highway. The dark of the morning was starting
to break and all of the emptiness of Nebraska fields were humming
in full throttle of crickets, meadowlarks, and the rustling of corn husks
thrushing back and forth against each other in the spring morning
breeze. I didn't know why he was standing on the road with arms
folded - maybe he knew something I didn't - maybe he was lost -
maybe this place was special to him - whatever the reason, I was
kinda freaked out. Then, in a flickering of minutes, I began to understand.
The sun. The sun was just beginning to peek over the midwest, cresting
the land in an orangey yellow that is impossible to capture, and all
the while, seemed to move and dance as it rose, millimetre by millimetre.
Angus, staring with arms crossed, took off his hat, and let the sunrise up
and spray warm colour on to his thick receding orange hair, beard and
clothes staring straightaway into the concetrated glow.
In that briefest of beautiful moments, I could have sworn I saw him
turn aside, close his eyes, and utter maybe three words from his
lips. With the sun climbing fast, Angus strode back to the cab and
climbed in with one quick motion and saw that I was awake. I wanted
to say something - but I think that would have cheapened the moment.
He half smiled, pulled a 'u' and we were off westward. I don't know
to this day what Angus was thinking of in that moment, but I'd like to
think that even if it wasn't necessarily warm or fuzzy or beautiful,
then at least it was something meaningful. Meaning. Yes.

More to come...gotta go to bed now. Ok bye.

Suddenly Surprised

2005-04-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

...by your smile

the way the moonlight fills you.

It's been some time since I journaled but don't be fooled
by the dates above. I'm alive and doing well. That snowy
drift of mountain near death experience has faded into
a new season. To summarize:

-finished up my stay at the motel 8 after we were snowed in
for 72 hours and bused into Wilke's-Barre.
-ate alot of white powder donuts in Wilkes-Barre but didn't
like much of the scenery.
-started walking from the city out to the countryside and
got a ride from a farmer (actually named B.J. but there was
no bear) in his Ford pickup out to Clairton where not even
a dollar bill was taken from me, in true country manners,
and like Morgan Freeman on his way to Buxton in Shawshank,
I was 'much obliged'.
-been tenting out in the wilderness of this crazy landscape
as I couldn't actually find the centre of town (it seems to be
just a few shops and closed-down mills surrounded by
amazing mountains).

...and here I am. Reflecting. 1 week ago, I was working in a
call centre, staring at the clock, ready to explode like a
timebomb of fury, doubt and degredation and now I am
on the side of a mountain in a small thatch of soft grass and
the stars are fireworks above me, lighting this paper as I
write. I guess I'm realizing that the North American way is
all about the rush and, of course, capitalism but it doesn't
have to be that way in the mind and soul of every human that
inhabits its soil. 1 week ago, I think I had only ever peed
outside once as a kid but in the last 5 days, I've emptied
myself about 16 times outdoors...and it's not that bad. I
really like it here. I think I'll stay awhile.

River Deep, Mountain High

2005-03-10T05:23:00.000-08:00

Well it seems this old cat has been silent for far, far too long.
What has really happened is that this bus trip was postponed
for a while as there was a massive monstrous snowstorm in
late February that actually brought some hurricane winds along
with it. The bus felt like a house of horrors carnival ride on
the road, rocking and sliding about. That's when the pudgy
driver with the coke-bottle specs, covered in sweat yelled
out an enfuriated 'FUCK IT! FUCK IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!' and stopped
the bus right in the middle of a mountain pass on hwy 77.
People were cursing, swearing, praying for their lives and
calling loved ones on cell phones. But me? I sat in the midst
of this beautiful chaos and watched the snow laze down from
the sky in windy lustre and crescendo off the the side of the
mountain across the way. I could also see some small
houses, down in the valley, adjacent to the mountain chunk
of highway we were on, and they looked so peaceful down
there in the darkest blue of nightfall. That's when someone
grabbed my arm and shook me and I heard them say 'I think
he's in shock' in a kind of whisper tone. When I turned to see
who was grabbing my arm, it was a weatherbeaten 40
something year old lady in a toque, balancing her obsese
figure on a very small cane (which she clearly did not need
but probably had as an attention and sympathy-getter) and
she spoke again to me, as if I were a four year old who had
just eaten paste -'We are gett-ting off the bus, Nooow. It is not
safe on the roads. There is a super 8 a quarter mile down the
rooooooad. We are all walk-ing.' I understood her garbled
linguistics and got my shit together and grabbed my backpack.
It kinda struck me funny that a group of 40 something people
were venturing to walk down the shoulder of a 4% grade
highway stretch but in another vein, I really didn't care and
I thought it was kinda interesting. What I found out later,
when we hit the hotel was that all of the major Pennsylvania
highways were closed about 2 hours ago. So there was really
no danger in walking. Well, except for the cane lady who
seemed to be walking on a much shakier and slippery-er
earth than the rest of us. It must have been a neat thing to
see for some farm girl, down in the valley. A bus, turned
sideways in the middle of a mountain pass on 77, and a row
of darkened figures with luggage, trudging thru the snow-filled
winter night. I could hear faint curses from the cane lady and
other characters up ahead, but it still didn't seem to matter too
much to me as I could see the Super 8 sign getting larger and
larger as we walked. The storm ended up lasting for 4 days and
we were all shut-ins. And let me tell ya, I watched more movies
than I ever have. And really, it didn't seem to matter what was
on. I was having a grand old time by myself in my room. At one
point, I even laughed heartily at a joke in the teen travesty of
Legally Blonde. And I thought to myself 'Legally Blonde? What
the fuck has happened to me?' But then I disregarded that
thought as PCU (an old animal house type classic) came on and
I strapped myself in for some solid gold comedy. Who knows
what the neighbours were thinking. They probably heard so
much laughter that they thought I was smokin up, 24/7 in my
room and watching Cheech and Chong. I later heard that people
thought I had hookers in there. Ha. Oh well. More to come.

And...The Flowers...Are Still...Standing

2005-02-08T05:46:00.000-08:00

You gotta love Ghostbusters. Bill Murray at his apex of
comic genius, Aykroyd doing his best fast-talking nerd role
of all time and Harold Ramis as the weirdest geek you've
ever known. I chose that line for the opening title of my
journal because it is not only a line from Ghostbusters but
it represents something. When Bill Murray (or, to the
enlightened, Dr. Peter Venkman) yanks the table cloth off
of a table in a high-class ballroom in Upper Manhattan,
crashing every plate, utensil and glass to the floor in a
deafening smash, and leaves the flowers to stand on their
own in a sea of brokenness, it is a seed of something.
Though it is a comedy, I guess I can find the seriousness
in just about anything meant to be funny, and I suppose
that for so long I've been doing just that; taking every
instance in life all too seriously and driving myself near
irreparable in the process. It's like...sitting here on this
bus (that cost me $124 for a round trip ticket) I feel a sort
of awkward distance, and in some ways, I feel way more
frightened of 'what might happen' than I ever have, but in
another stranger way...as the glasses and plates are falling
down everywhere in my life...the flowers are somehow
still standing. I guess I feel...hope. But we'll see if this
actually pans out as truth. Time to run over to the
Publix for some of those white powdery donuts. We only
have so long on pitstops. I'll write again soon.

-N

for hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and I hope that this finds you well.

All About The Deer Hunter

2005-02-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

So...youre probably wondering where I've been.
Right. Like anyone gives a hot shit. Well it all began
a few weeks back when I woke up at 4:15 am barely
able to breathe and decided to haul my ass over to
the all night walk-in gawk-in clinic. The doctor was
this little Indian man who seemed...well...pretty
asleep. What ended up happening was not me receiving
a note for some medication but rather, after I spilled
my guts to this half asleep dark-bearded man,
about how I've been feeling. He sat there 'hmmm'ing
for a good minute and a half. Then he proceeded to
tell me that in spite of what I think, I'm not really
dying and that what I really REALLY need was time
off from my job. A novel idea, I thought. Too bad
it's not reality. The lights in his office were burning
my eyes. He reached back and wrote me a note. SO
as of 3 days ago, I am OFFICIALLY on medical leave
with FULL pay from my job. How sweet doth
the sound?

All this in regards to the DEER HUNTER...

I Have decided to head to Clairton, Pennsylvania
for a while. Watching the Deer Hunter the other
night was actually really captivating (usually it's
a movie I put on to feel worse and numb and all
that shat) and it made me want to see some of
the scenery in that movie. So...that's where I'm
headed. I feel like a character in a Douglas Coupland
book. I might die on the road somewhere, or
even go hungry somewhere in the wilderness, but
I've decided that right now the way I am,

THE WAY I'VE BEEN

is no real way to be and if there is any hint, any
morsel of something that I myself can do about it,
I'm going to...do just that. So here's to adventures.
I'll be sure to drop a note when I get somewhere,
or at least on my way to somewhere.

Imagine me going to the one country I can't stand.
Should be...fun.

N.

THE CHRONICLES OF NONE PRESENTS:

2005-01-11T05:33:00.001-08:00

AN IMAGINARY CONVERSATION WITH MYSELF
ON THE WAY HOME FROM WORK FOR ALL TO ENJOY.

Stardate: Unimportant
Space Vector: Unknown
Mission: Uncertain

And there it is. Somedays I feel like I’m on a crash course for death and taxes.
Well…taxes are the only certainty in life at this point – I’m not even sure about
death. For all I know, when people supposedly become ‘deceased’, they go to a
great party in Uptown Manhattan where the Martinis are free and the drugs are
all hydroponic-based. Any societal construct of this age, this fucking age we live
in, is hot air from a horse’s ass and disenfranchised at best.

I mean really, what is happening in that there Red, White and Blue?

When you think of life on a global scale, it all really points to the pinnacle landmass
of The United States of (H)America – where everyone truly wants to be. I know,
I know. Capitalist Regime, obviously. Pig-headed Nation, of course. But any key to
success and potential realization lies in the farcical, plastic paradise of (yes…I’m
going to say it) THE AMERICAN DREAM. On a circular logic level, that horrible,
horrible country is the main driving force of the world. Asia has the marketplace
and the population, yes, and the United Kingdom has music (for the most part) but
the U.S.’ers have the nukes, the money, the jobs, the resources (puppeted by Canada),
the tropics, the mountains, the power and ultimately control over all those other
unimportant aforementioned places. I think this is mostly due to the fact that other
countries have REAL and LEGITIMATE problems while the ‘U.S.ers’ have never
had any REAL or LEGITIMATE problems. I mean really, they’ve always had
someone else to blame!

WHO IS TO BLAME you ask?
Let’s see, well back when the U.S.ers’ moved into this globular blob, for the very first
time, there were those SAVAGE INDIANS to blame. And then, a spawn of the Indians
with a darker flesh (known today as African Americans) became the problem…but that
didn’t last long. They were sent to the fields to work their asses off so the U.S.ers’ didn’t
have to. And then, just when it seemed like that was all well and good and the Savage
Indians had moved to remote areas with little resources and the African Americans
submitted to the U.S.ers’, those dang Mexicans had to try and take back their ‘supposed’
land. Liars. Punchinello. He must have been on drugs. Hardcore MEXICAN drugs! And
so on we went, all the way through the cold war and the EVIL RED RUSSIANS who
tried to steal the U.S.ers’ nukes (making Communism obviously being dismantled here
as a mood point) until today when the blame is on…hey wait a sec…panic setting in…
sweat beading on brow…WHO DO THE U.S.ERS BLAME NOW? THEY INVADED ANOTHER
COUNTRY AND KILLED THOUSANDS FOR OIL! DOES NOT COMPUTE! THE BLAME
FORMULA HAS BEEN BROKEN!

…Oh well. I guess the Users, oops, I mean U.S.ers’ will have to find a new fit for the
formula other than themselves. Sheesh. It’s tough being Number One.

Usa.
USA.
US.
Us. United?
America.
Hamerica.
Glamerica.
U.S.ers’.
USERS.
Obesity.
The U.S. of A.
The U.S. of FUCKIN’ A.
…fuckin’ A.

Lost Needs and Pathological Liars

2004-12-14T05:47:00.000-08:00

Snow. White shrapnel from warring in the heavens, I suppose. It's amazing
how many sufferers there are today of a serious seasonal depression. With
the arrival of the winter months, many find it hard to keep going, to find
meaning amidst struggle and hardship. Especially, I guess, because of the
fact that Christmas is reportedly one of the highest suicide times of the
whole year. All of these bullshit glitzy glamour 'I'm a rich bastard with
medicated white teeth who shops at Macys' commericals really inundate
any sort of integrity associated with this holiday. It kind of makes me
feel sick and hurt when I think about some unlucky bastard blowing his
brains out beside a scraggly Christmas tree holding a 38 special in one
hand and a bottle of Johnnie Walker blue in the other (because hey, if
you're gonna go out, midaswell go out with an expensive brand of X.)

I'm finding it harder to make it to work each day, what with the whistling
winds from frosty heights that shake and rattle my being to its core.
The canal is already starting to freeze over and it's only December for
shit sakes. December. What did I do to deserve this? Please tell me.

Digressing. Processing.

Interesting thing happened on the way to work the other day. As I
walked to the foot of the building near the black glass entrance doors
(this is usually the part of the day where I curse myself and the day
I was born) I saw someone with a full head of steam coming out from
the elevators. The face on this older person was beet red and you
could almost see smoke rising from his head. But as he got closer
to the doors, I knew the jacket he was wearing, kind of an orangey
black. Yep. It was Vance. I figured he was pissed off about some
systematic 'fo-paw' within our marketing campaign as he...well..
always is pissed off at someone or something. But for some reason,
as he came closer to me, I didn't feel so mad at him and all his big
never-shutting, nation-spanning mouth as I could tell that...he had
been crying.

Maybe it was in the elevator or maybe it was on the phone to his ex,
who he is still in large legal battle with, but he had been crying. You
could see it in the corners of the eyes and a little extra glassy-ness
in his eye fluid. He spotted me, unfortunately, and cut across a few
people's lanes of walking traffic and for some unknown reason stuck
out his hand, as if he wanted to shake my hand formally. I don't
really like this kind of thing for a few reasons;
1. I try to 'interact' with other people as little as possible
2. With many other people around, the last thing I want is a 'scene'.
3. I've never liked him and I don't really care about what he is
going to tell me.

But anyways, I shook the bastard's hand and that's when he said it.
'Well dude, it's been nice knowing you. I've been terminated'. And
with all of the mustered confidence in the world, I could tell that
today, of all days, Vance wasn't going to say much because he could
barely get that last word out without crying like a collicky newborn.
I felt horrible. There we were, his hand still holding mine in a half-
shake and half-'I don't want to let go' hold. Poor fucker. I mean I
know he lied all the time, claimed to have millions in trust funds
(and to have trained shareholders in Sweden) and partially owned
a golf course, but I could as everyone could see it now that most and
all of what Vance said was bullshit...but I couldn't let him just stand
there humiliated like that. He was, after all, still a human being.

So what happened next kind of defies the word 'weird' in all of its
mysticism. He blubbered on, slouching in front of me, having lost all
composure...and I felt an unshakeable urge...to hug him. I don't
really even understand what hugging is and I think I've really only
seen it in movies and shitty sitcom shows, but there I was, a near
thirty year old man hugging another man of sixty plus. And as I
pulled him in, he kind of fell into me, understanding that it was
something he wanted...and just needed at that moment in his life.
Hell, who knows. I bet he doesn't even have an ex-wife. This poor
sucker probably has no one. No one at all. I could smell a faint trace
of Old Spice (figures, it's probably Wilford Brimley's favorite brand)
and a little bit of strong alcohol, like tequila or whiskey of some kind.
I guess that's what he kept in his aluminum carry mug.

I'm not really sure how long the hug lasted, or really what else
happened that day, but I know that I haven't seen Vance since then
and I probably never will again. Ember is happy that he's 'finally'
gone. What a bitch. She worked with him for not even a month
and she says 'finally'. Pat the Cuckoo clock doesn't even know
what happened and keeps sidling up to people in the lunchroom asking
'what's going on? where's Vance?' as she will always be someone who is
forever out-of-the-loop, both socially and universally. But one thing
is for sure- No one knows what happened with Vance and I and
I hope to hell that no one EVER finds out.

But it makes me wonder how long I can keep on like this.
Shit.

How long can I do it?
How long can I surely be rid?
How long till its over?
How much longer can I stay off the grid?

Somewhere Drugs Don't Go

2004-11-24T07:23:00.000-08:00

This morning fizzled and crackled in its beginning with the pulse
and throttle of my busted ass alarm clock, speaking the only truth into
my life and that is the reality of slagging my tired ass out of a warm
fetus of a bed to do something I really don't want to do but nonetheless,
HAVE TO do. Yesterday in an online gaming session, I was playing pretty
early (around 5:45 am) because I couldn't sleep and had one of those
drastic death-defying, heart-skips-beats sleeps with alot of evil dreams and
falling asleep only to find myself back in the same horrid dream. I usually sign
in (especially in Enigma 5) as an anonymous user because those fucking
computer half-men that live out there in a world of 1's, zeroes and hypertext
would probably just lunge from their piles of filth to snatch my email address
and fill it with child porn, spam and worm virus attachments. Fuckers.

Anyways, though I'm running late for work at this current juncture, an
interesting thing happened with one of the Enigma 5 gamers. He sent an
instant message for all to see that was really kinda profound and gritty.
Usually, these instant messages are nothing more than cyber-nerd trash
talk which amounts to little less than profanity, XXX sites and cheat codes.
But at one point, this particular unidentified gamer, posted a message which
really commanded my attention. He (or she, I should say) wrote: 'Does anyone
out there really give a shit about me?' Now obviously, at first, I grabbed the
sludge-boat mentality of laughing and thinking 'what a fuckin loser' as his
overall score was slowly slipping below mine by the second. But then, and for
a split bleeding instant, I looked up from the computer at one of the grayest
skies I have ever seen and thought about how morbid and how real of a
truth was lying there in that instant message. Now, mind you, it was quickly
responded to by other gamers with many colourful phrases, encouraging the
deep-thinking gamer to engage in intercourse with his mother and horses and
the like, etc, etc, but for some weird reason...I couldn't keep playing after
that happened. My focus was shot and something inside the abyss that is me,
None, was rattled. So, in noticing the lateness of things, I signed off without
notice, screwing over my probably 14-year old teammates, and went to work.

'I GO TO WORK' -Kool Moe Dee.

On the way to work, my usually unnoticed passage over the Welland Canal was
bitterly cold for some reason and for a second, I caught a glimpse of those rushing
currents in the cold, cold late November waters and thought 'What if I was that
guy online this morning and decided for whatever reason, to pack it in, and hit
the bricks, and send my body over the bridge into the waters because its just too
fuckin hard most of the time' and it made me start to cry. Now this was not a bitter
weeping like that of a mother losing a son to a war, but rather an internal crying
which led to the trickling of a lonely tear to the edge of my glasses. And I guess it
just hit me really hard for some dumbass reason, thinking about people like Vance
and Ember who really drive me fucking nuts and who I think about smashing
with a TV tray most of the time, that if either of them were to get hit by a bus or
stabbed in a post-bar drunken stupor in downtown Niagara, where the street dirt
lurk and seek victims, who would be there at their funerals?

Right now, I'm on the phone at work, and I can't help noticing how hard I try to
categorize people and place them into neat little boxes so I can go about my safe,
little ways in peace. And yet, here I am, constantly complaining about shit like
how sucky my job is and how much I hate everything and the world around me
without realizing that though I push and push and PUSH really hard to keep
everyone the hell away from me...it tears me up inside because I really do want...
something. I don't know. My mind isn't really working and my hidey-tidey
supervisor is bounding over here, looking cheery and ready to give me a
dickslapping evaluation that will ultimately mean nothing in the grand scheme
of it all. Hopefully I'll write more soon, but then, who will care.

I am None. I am No one. I float through and make do.
I see the terrain but mostly in rain.
I am the nothing beside you, the no one far away.
I am the forgotten child. I am a waste of space.
I am the garbage piled. I am a voice with no face.

Just Say You're Wrong

2004-11-09T05:35:00.000-08:00

The clouds are low today, protruding ominous shapes in
the darkest of gray. I went to make some coffee before trudging
off to that maze i call 'work' and i realized, i have no cream.
Coffee without cream is like popcorn without butter. It
totally depends on your tastes, I suppose. I am sort of at
a loss of what to say today, because I feel that really, to this
point I have said too much without saying anything at all. Words
are useless, really, though we put so much emphasis on them.
Because I can sit here and burn away at my keyboard, churning
out thought which seems really witty and captivating but on
a second read, comes off as drivel.

but i'm starting to realize something...

Those people who I wrote about in my first segment, people
like Vance and Ember and Pat the talking cuckoo clock, appear
to be a lot different than my surface view of them. I could
really use some coffee - it would put this train of thought more
securely on a track but oh well, here goes. What I mean is after
our first few days of training (and by the way, I DID have to do
a group poop presentation not just with Vance or Queen Ember,
but with BOTH of them - if that's not irony, what the hell is?) I
really rushed to place all three of those people in a safe little
box of categorization almost to appease my own mind or have
them 'nailed down' so to speak. But really I was pretty headstrong
in my dumping on them - I think I just really don't like this job
and the corporate salve-labour bullshit manifestos that go with
it and projected my feelings on to them.

Because what I found out is that Pat, though I swear she is
completely CUCKOO for COCOA PUFFS, actually has a bit of
strange lisp because she only has 30% hearing in one ear and
85% in the other. Therefore that slurring of speech and nasality
I was hearing is due to her inability to hear well. Still, who the
hell uses 'Oh LA LA!' as a phrase in regular speech? Unreal.

And VANCE, oh dear Vancey. Vance, as I commented earlier,
has a real problem with telling everyone how it is and how his
opinion is not just his opinion, but the ecumenical according-
to-hoyle standard of the industry. But again, as I learned from
a lunch conversation where his eyes scanned the cafeteria quickly
to find a spare seat to sit in and my heart crapped as he saw
the seat next to me, he's got more than meets the eye in his
own battles. It appears that Vance has been, for 4 years now,
and is currently in the midst of a nasty divorce dispute (now
I can see where his wife would have found some flaws, but...)
that involves everything from children, to land, self-started
businesses and even the new golf-course of which he is a 10%
owner. SO even though he is a Wilford Brimley wanna-be or
look-alike (take your pick) and he should be selling oatmeal
instead of telemarketing, I can sort of...kinda...see what makes
him the way he is - defensive, cornered, easily angered, bitter,
argumentative, selfish, stubborn. I...don't want to like him but
I think I'm starting to understand.

(case in point)
Ember, the drama queen of this great north land. She ices my
blood and makes me want to chew off my own skin. But again,
weird stuff goin' on with her. Apparently, Ember (from a convo
I overheard) just recently lost her father to a long battle with
the c disease. I guess she was closest to him and hates her sisters
and mother with a fiery passion.

See where I'm headed?

Does anyone?

Of Low Importance

2004-11-04T05:37:00.000-08:00

Ever read 'Ode to a Grecian Urn'? I think it's by Keats but
don't quote me on that. It's interesting in that from beginning to
end you're reading about a (granted, corny Romantic era horse
puck stuff it is) scene which is painted on an urn of a young boy
sitting beneath the summer shade of a (i think it's a) weeping
willow, playing his lyre (of course, everyone and their damned
uncle had a lyre back then) and a young lass with pigtails is peeking,
from around the corner, at the young musical lad. And initially
you're thinking 'Yeah, yeah. Pastoral Poetry with the element
of eros. Who really gives a...' but the thinking of the reader shifts
when you give it a second read. Because really what's happening
is that the narrative voice of the poem is the author himself,
Mr. Keats who at that point in his life was dying a dastardly death
due to disease. That's alot of d's in a sentence. But what's interesting
is that the point of the whole poem is not the young laddy or the
young lassie or the lyre or the cotton-pickin willow tree. It's about
Mr. Keats who was basically coughing up blood while writing
this stupid poem wishing only to be in the place of that urn but
as he starts to understand, and stand in the realm of the tangible,
the urn is nothing more than paint and stone. And the truth is 'beauty'
as he puts it and the sad truth of his life is that he's sitting there,
wishing he could be a picture on a fucking vase, rather than being
himself. Because being in a timeless place of beauty and love is
easier than being in the here and now.
And that's the sad reality of all of us when we wish to be someplace
other than where we are. But it's drilled into us, isn't it? Dorothy,
good old Dorothy from Kansas clickin' her frickin' heels together
repeating the sullen phrase over and over and over - 'there's
no place like home...' What kind of a message are we sending to
people with this Midwestern literature that pervades our schools
and trains of thought? Click your heels or maybe just find a
rabbit hole to a parallel universe and you'll be okay?
NO.
That's bullshit. The truth of it is that there ain't no time
machines, there ain't no rabbit holes, there ain't no fucking
matrix. We are stuck. And we trudge our way through this life
in knee deep mud fantasizing about useless escapist bullshit
that does us NO good. There is a good and I'm certainly
convinced there is an evil, too. We all must walk that middle
line at some point and stick to the path, no matter where
it takes us, because the road that lays ahead in each of our
lives is all we truthfully have to journey on.

I don't want to go to work today.

But then again, who gives a fuck what I want. I'm a slave
to the grind, a cog in the wheel of a giant machine that is
advancing more and more in territory each day. I think
we have to do some kind of 'group seminar' today in our
training class and I just KNOW i'm gonna get stuck with
either Ember or Vance, and I'll be biting my tongue purple
the whole time and peeling off underlayers of the desk each
time one of them opens their piping-wide cakeholes that
spout mammoth amounts of shit and bad breath by the
millisecond. Here I go. It's off to work I go. Not because
I want to but because I have to - I'm a number in a system
to these people and nothing else.

Billy Corgan said it well.

I fear that I am ordinary
just like everyone.
To lie here and die among
the sorrows,
Drift among the days.

Who Am I

2004-11-01T16:24:00.000-08:00

My name is not significant, though it is noted in a cerificate somewhere.
I don't really know where to start. I guess what I can do is tell you all
I know from the beginning...

I work a moderate, low-level seniority job in a cubicle farm on the
east side of the Welland Canal. When I say cubicle farm I mean just
that; a building with no real identity so far as the outer appearance,
which really just looks like any other building in a metropolitan.
The town I live in has an extremely high unemployment rate which
is mostly due to slovenly sloppy ass clowns who infect the streets
and beat the shit out of anything moving for kicks. I live in alot of
fear.

I fear death, I fear life, I fear losing my job but that's kind of
ironic since any monkey could do what I do and I hate the
administration because they're all 'prissy hi!-hi!' and I can't
stand that phony shit. They prowl around the office in business
monkey suits which are pretty damned ridiculous looking
but for some reason, it gives them a sense of power. That's right.
A piece of clothing gives these prowlers a sense of power. It's
all horseshit because they keep the low-levels (like me) drowned
in farcical make-believe rabbit-hole world where they drill
into us that advancement is possible, given the right set of
'values, attitudes and job-related output'. I kid you not.
That's their code of ethics, word for word. And I put up with it.
Why? I guess because I know that with the wrong combination of
tact to a supervisor or results to a reviewer that I am only one
step away from being one of those street jockeys wearing
dirty nascar gear and smoking 3 packs a day. Sometimes when
I walk home, I see visions, images. I see the street dirt hiding
in the alleys, ever ready to strike, especially some poor weak
bastard like me, not because I'm different really, and not
because I'm better than they are, but because I have something
they want and are cursed not to have; a job.

SO let me tell YOU about this job I have. Ever heard of the
expression FAB? Fucked At Birth. That's me. I never received
the appropriate amount of education needed for a high-level
job. Nope. I'm a low-leveller. My expectations of myself in the
world of higher education were thwarted by a lung-busting
amount of epinephrine, caffeine and various dried leaf products.
My lungs are fucked. I hack all day because I talk all day.
I talk all day which causes me to hack all day. It's a vicious
circle. SO this job. The vicious circle job. The fucking 'Oh
I'm so amicably amorous about this job with so many a-words
that it anesthetizes my anus'. I'm a telemarketer. I talk on
the phone all day because the United States of America has
so many dumbass people with nothing better to do with their
time and inherited money that they order products. You see,
products=happiness. You need to remember this. Write it down.
Yeah so the U.S. of A has so much phonework outsourced and
farmed over here that it disgusts me when I really think about it.
See, they can afford to pay a low leveller like me $10 Canadian
per hour, because they don't give a fuck about Canadian currency.
All they really care about is the fact that Canadian currency is
cheaper than American currency. (i.e. $10 Canadian converts
to $8 American. Per hour. Mulitply that on a mass scale and
you've got downsizing in the worst way, which is kinda ironic
because since the American economy sucks so bad, it's
actually creating jobs for Canadians?? Weird shit.)

TRAINING:

Enough banter. I'm in a room. A room with windows that
have long since been covered with drab blinds because the
only view those windows show are of hellish concrete that
goes in every direction. We have this 'I'm a giddy sorority
girl' trainer who thinks she's teaching us 'cool' lessons. She
is 23, overly eccentric and energetic, completely unattractive
in every way, wearing an Old Navy shirt with a blue palm
tree on it because it's dress-down day for her but not for us
low levellers. Nope. It's our first day - Orientation day!
And it's all bullshit. No matter how hard this flip-flop
wearing, slightly overweight loud party girl drives the
ethics into us, it's goin in one ear and out the asshole.

Picture this.
There are 20 of us in training, and believe me, I use the
term 'us' loosely. Some of these cretans are unreal.
On the far left of the training tables, we have Ember.
Ember is a victimized obviously anorexic blonde who is
semi-attractive except for the fact that she can never
shut the fuck for 5 seconds. Loud trainer girl can't even
get 10 words in without Ember either interrupting, protruding
a point or displaying her vast knowledge of call centre
terminology. She's a victim. She talks out loud so that
everyone can hear her problems and somehow be
compelled to feel sorry for her long list of people who have
apparently 'fucked her over'. Sorry Ember. Your giant
horse teeth scare me and the tattoo of your own name
on your upper right shoulder make me wonder what
planet you're from. Ember has exceptional interpersonal
skills and knows the ins and outs of manipulation. She
will probably be the best salesperson in my class.

Then, to the left of Ember, moving down the line, we have
Vance. Vance is a 60+ golf-shirt wearing, mister know-it-all
in every field from the employment standards act to the
monetary business in the Corporate sector. He really, really
likes to show everyone just how much he knows at any given
time and has vast amounts of call centre experience and
often likes to take over the role of the trainer, without
any semblance of tact or awareness. Vance drives me nuts
and looks IDENTICAL to Wilford Brimley. The apexes of
his cheeks turn almost purple whenever he gets 'heated'
about an issue. This happens at least every 20 minutes
in any given day. Vance has poor interpersonal skills and
is apparently a 'part owner' of a golf course. Fuckin
bullshit. He needs to find a new career selling oatmeal
because whenever he talks, that's all I hear; "Warm your
bones with some good old Quaker Oats, folks."
Wilford Brimley, or Vance or whatever you want to be
called, you better stay the fuck out of my way because it's
only the first day and already I want to feed you to the
fishes.

I digress. There are too many people to list, but might I end
with one last lady who fits about 20% of the class perfectly.
Her name is Pat. Just like the name would indicate, Pat,
ladies and gentlemen, can only be described in one word;
kook. Pat is 40+ and whenever SHE talks, all I hear is the
sound of a cuckoo clock. It almost makes you smile. Now,
let me get something straight here. Pat is not a kook in the
sense of Kevin Corrigan's description of a girl he liked in
Living In Oblivion as 'kinda kooky'. No, no. I'm not even sure
if she has reproductive glands inside of her. I think that her
insides are probably gumdrops, lollipops and balloon
animals. Pat has a lisp, enjoys gardening in her spare time
and when asked what kind of phrase she would use over
the phone to sell a certain kind of product, she chose the
phrase 'Oooh-La-La'. She was serious. I'm not kidding.

These are the people I'm expected to work with, folks.
And I sit here, and write this shit on this paper and I think
'whats the point?' but then I think, I guess I can at least
stick around to see what kind of comedy surfaces from
all of these cartoons.

Hit the grind.
Run the race.
Find the cheese.
End the maze.
Make the green.
Buy the stuff.
Eat the shit.

And so for none, I am. Faceless and nameless.