Tag Archives: modernity

A type of social

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It’s not a nice a place. I don’t believe a single word you say. I see your life. I see you living it. I see you write about it on facebook or on twitter or on your blog. It seems to be your life. It looks like a life. Your family is on it, your friends are on it. You reference things that happen. You reference them with nothing more than a reference. Everything, even the cancer that riddles your loved one’s body, pointed out, you are four squared at the hospital. You are sad. I don’t believe you are sad. I know you know you are supposed to be sad. I know you took a second to post that you are sad. I saw your friends comment on this post saying things that sound like condolences. It made your life seem more real. It made you feel better that your expected emotion and tags were responded to in yet another expected social networking way. Someone liked your post. You didn’t know how to feel about that oh wait yes you did, you thought because they liked that you were visiting your cancer ridden uncle that they were feeling compassion towards you, not that they liked that your uncle had cancer in his lung, kidney and liver and was most probably dying and that instead of calling or talking to you or even bothering to write a facebook message they did the thing where they click once to ‘like’ your “at the hospital visiting my dying uncle” status that meant they had sympathy for you. When he dies you can create a group event for the funeral. You can set the date and time and the text field what are you planning, because of course facebook thinks that all of life is a god damned party right, but this time, no, this time you want to invite people to a fucking funeral but hey, they don’t want this kind of morose shit on there, or else they think this kind of morose shit is best left off facebook, best left off this 600 million whatever people place…we don’t want this kind of “real life” people shit on here. We want parties and sluts and friends and university sluts and stuff right? For Christ sake why are you trying to use this site to organise a god damned funeral? Huh?
Well because you know we are all on here now. My mother is on here…my uncles are on here. We are all fucking on here and I need to tell them that uncle Tom has died and I saw him die and now I need to have everyone who loved him come and pay their respects and I want to tell them about it and I have been on here, sharing photos, sharing my life and now I want to share this and you make me fill out a form that says “what are you planning?”. OK, ok well I’ll fill it out. I’ll tell you what I am planning and it’s a fucking funeral, ok? A wake, ok?
I clicked ok after seeing that. The next thing: Select guests. Guests. Ok. Sure “Guests” it is. Christ.

There is a child that’s born. They call it Sebastian. They love their child, a boy. They take pictures and they make a profile for the boy. It is www.facebook.com/sebastian.fenwick and also www.twitter.com/sebfenwick. They want the rest of the family to see this loved child take his first steps, eat and spit and smile and sleep. They post everything on there. First words, the first time the little thing sits up. Inoculations. They write messages to their son, like “I love you so much my son” and “this is when I played with you in the backyard” and “daddy has to go to work and you didn’t want him to go” and tag all sorts of stuff on photos and videos they took on their phones. There is so much on there. So much love, so much for the grandparents and extended family (some overseas) and friends to see. So many comments and even the godparents are saying things like “hope to see you soon” and “bless you little one” and “wow so good to see you growing up” and the like. The boy grows, they post pictures and love and messages flow through. This boy unaware, growing under the microscope, other friends of friends commenting, the parents feeling that their child is loved and watched over. The boy grows more, in school, a child, learning, alphabet, colours, maths. More pictures, more videos. He is now facebook slash Sebastian. He has been tweeted for for six years. His parents let him tweet a little bit. He just tells the world things he likes. Things he ate. He even comments on photos of people he knows. His parents type for him. There is nothing that the world does not know, will not know about this young boy, growing up in this new world.

Do you have a membership card?
No.
Do you now about the benefits?
No.
Well you get 5% off every purchase after you spend $500 or more.
Ok.
Do you want a membership card?
No.

Oh wow darling wow, I mean wow. You are, like wow. I have seen pretty girls before but wow. You could be, like I mean, come on. OK, wow. Stop where are you going. Haha I know I sound stupid crazy, like lalalalalal crazy hahaha but no…no. Hey, are these your friends, stop wait! Hey! Guess what, I am serious here…but guess what. I want to give you five hundred dollars. Yes! I do. Uh huh yes you. God. This is not some weird ass gross thing. Look where we are! Ok? Calm down. Hey, your parents let you girls come out shopping huh? Good for them because guess what! You, maybe not just you, hey come here sweetheart, you both maybe, yeah, you two ok? And what’s your name? Sophie. Ok Hi Sophie I’m Mark, Anyway ok what we want is a few girls to be the kind of, face, no, just, ok, do you girls want to be on video? Huh? Mac’s makeup that’s who. Come on. Ok for starters, you. are. gorgeous. You know that though right, and I’m not even supposed to say that! What are you fourteen. God! Really? Thirteen ok. Wow. OK. So, we’re cool. You want to do this? Great ok. So, what we need to do is get you three, sorry love not you, you three sitting over there, we’re going to give you a proper New York make over, ha, yeah I know right! Ok sweetie here’s ten bucks go get some juices or food or whatever, you know, here’s twenty, go crazy, go get whatever you want ok, your friends are gonna be a bit busy for an hour, so…yes great um what’s your name? Kate! Ok Kate great what the hell you look almost twenty shit damn ok. So wait, you girls got phones right? What’s that iPhones? Perfect, ok, what we want you to do is start filming, ok? Just now just shoot whatever you want. Me, you, them, the people looking, anything. Whatever, I got to take this call so go crazy.
“Phil yeah no great great…I got like three chicks ready to roll…huh?…oh yeah yeah no worries…hahaha yeah they’re shooting now. Fuck they’re even recoding me talking to you (waving at the girls)……what?…….I’m sorry what?……….yeah of course, of course, what you think this is my first time?……..yeah yeah of course……….well there’s one………yeah I know…….Phil they are doing it right now……..I don’t know, iPhones it looks like……..huh?………yeah yeah, well one is……..ok cool call back in…(looks at watch)…half hour ok?…..ciao”
So girls! We ready to start shooting?

Trent:
I hate you. I hate your face, I hate your friends. I hate seeing you in those fucking disgusting poses. Do you even care about me anymore? You fucking slut. You fucking bitch. I fucking loved you and now look at you. Why the fuck do you tag yourself with all these guys. Just to fuck with me? Just to make me look like fucking idiot. Well guess what! I’m not going to post this stuff anymore, you cunt. I did it. I told everyone that I wanted you back and now I see you running around looking like a fucking slut loser. Who the fuck is Tommy? What the fuck is he doing posting on his wall about you and him getting it on last week? I thought we could work it out but now I know you are just another fucking whore out there looking to get the next idiot to give you all his money and time and stuff. Fuck off.
Sandy:
Stop posting on my wall you loser small dick asshole. You are BANNED from my friends list I thought we could be cool and stuff and still be fb friends but you are such a jealous douche that no way can we do this, I hope you told all your friends you are a drunk tool who can’t even get it up after a few beers which was every time btw so yeah. Fuck off and stop tailing me every where. I can hang out with who ever I want. Get a life. Get a girl but you never will get one as good as me. Oh and fuck your body, your steroid ugly chest is so gross and we all think that. Ha ha peace out x

Footnote:
None of this actually exists. This disgusting hinterworld of fake realities, online selves, masked falsities, creations, imaginary existences created for others to see, judge, assess…comment on and worse, feel a part of. Our real true connections are never there. They are in the holding of a hand, they are in the quivering voice of a friend who just can’t do it anymore, and you say to them I know, I know, I can’t do it anymore either. And you sit on the phone with them, finishing another bottle of wine together and asking each other why can’t we go on, we will not kill ourselves yet will we? No we won’t and we smile at saying that, at finally saying that out loud. The triumph is in saying it. In saying “I drink too much” and hearing their steady, person voice. In talking to your mother or father on the phone and thinking “I don’t see my parents enough”. That deep feeling in the gut where you want to see them more because you remember you felt a strange despair when your grandparents died but you didn’t know why and now you can see how your parents felt. Their mother or father died. They lost their parent. And now you won’t let that happen. But you do. And you update facebook.

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Exit

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This is the endThere is no emperor
There is no lord
You get to die
All alone
and you can’t even choose
Who surrounds you
At the last
When you most want
To say the truth.
Look at them!
I wish I could have…
Leave me alone!
I love you
My darling
I didn’t know
I didn’t know
The dark birds
Can you see them
Oh god my life
I didn’t know
You could do that
I knew that it was
Something is wrong
I don’t want to go
It’s so stupid
I

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MENTAL HYPERTENSION FURTHER EXTENDED; IN WHICH NOTHING SAID IS POSSSIBLE OR IN ANY WAY SURFACE TRUE

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Take any given sentence at all, given I mean as in gave to you; delivered, directed, offered to ‘convey a message’ (stay with me)[1]. There is always a purpose in someone telling you something, there is always something behind the words. Think of words as ancillary mechanisms that deliver what is already known, expected, understood and is deemed to be acceptable. We encapsulate speech so well now that we have unconsciously made this the raison d’être of language: to package[2] and deliver phrases in terse unequivocal terms that allude to truthfulness, and, in deliberately delivering such undebatable antonyms, we seek to hide a meaning within a message that is supposed to be the real honest one, the reason, the purpose.
Ok, listen to this:
I am aware that you are listening to me so with the next thing I say to you I expect a certain response (because I know you in some ways) BUT NOW, say, I want you to have the response I want (from you, based on knowing who you are and what motivates you etc) so I edit my sentence in order to facilitate the desired response from you and so after delivering that sentence I watch for your reaction and if it is the expected one then, okay, I can go on progressing my story but if it is unexpected then I know that either (a) my telling hasn’t worked or (b) I have misinterpreted or misunderstood you and so I need to factor that into the next sentence if I am to get you BACK on my planned trajectory and feel comfortable enough to appreciate and interpret your responses, whether fictional or otherwise.
And so then now:
Imagine all one-on-one interactions have this undercurrent. You can quickly see how malevolent and insane most simple back and forth’s are, not withstanding the huge political and social economic demographic/psychographic stuff that exists in society, and then how not straightforward life is or worse how those who are presenting to you that it all really is straightforward are pretending to operate on a very basic level, and essentially are insulting you, are whole-heartedly knowing that they are insulting you, and have assumed you are a stage 1 type of person who believes barefacedly that all of this back and forth stuff is true and real and honest and direct and real and in-the-now and that the things that come out of mouths are real and honest and are actually the things that humans who allow these words to escape their lips really believe and think exactly the same way as their clearly practised, written responses suggest.
Not enough, not enough, let’s go:
Keep in mind that every sentence you hear is charged with purpose, is in some (maybe poorly) way designed, invented, brought to life in order to make you think, respond, feel, react or otherwise process in some desired way, and in the format, delivery[3], circumstance, situation, moment is always[4] trying to make you do the next thing, urging, persuading, directing you to do the next thing, and, if you are feeble or uncaring or unaware then you will then, yes, go along and do that next thing that you were directed, told, in most ways, forced or expected, assumed to do, and you will smile and feel good because they will accept that response instantly, welcomingly, and you will have thought that you are individually, honestly and of your own volition done the very thing you are meant to now, what you set out to do. The fact is that you would not have responded as was directed or else you don’t care that you were directed or else you truly were correct and expected and all of this in now meaningless because you have been triggered and your response mechanism is on and true and actually happening because…because…because you trust the person who told you what they presented as actually happening alive and real.
But that’s…that’s not normal, stuff:
I want to tell you something, but I know that if I do it will change everything about our relationship. So I want to (a) make it clear that by telling you I am letting you in on a thing that would make you incredibly more close to me and (b) say that if I tell you this thing it will change how you feel about me because it is so crazy and strange and unimaginably horrible.
In then getting though these words, these words that make sentences that describe events you are being told things, a life, that is coming into existence with all the careful trips and triggers allayed for your benefit. And even though you seek a full and human disclosure, the very purpose of this purported openness is based on a precept of becoming closer, becoming more open and together but this care and love is impossible under this grand scheme of transparency because if it was to be all said and done then there would be a new slant, a slant that would kill your love because you would always and forever be horrified every time you saw their eyes or every time you touched them or every time you saw them crying because you would always think “is it related to that thing they told me that was so horrible” or else you would be smug and think “well, at least what I did was no where near as horrible as what other things happened to them” and the result is that you would be incredibly caring but also incredibly curious as to the pain threshold of this person and the niggling desire to ‘try that stuff’ because your understanding of them now would urge you to at least want to ‘go there’ in order to experience at least what they had already experienced and worse the urge to go further, the urge to be the one who did the ‘most’, who made the mark, who was the one or is the one “on top” of it all.

[1] I get it, okay. I am not for one second being overly analytical because that is gross and intelligent for the sake of intelligence and not really that, it’s dull, unimportant and inconsequential, like analysing animals to see what they do and then simply recording it in a notebook. That is not awareness, that is note taking.

[2] i.e. to make what I am saying acceptable to you, digestible, lovable…able to be swallowed. Can you imagine? That’s how media is presented to us. Swallowable. We feel sick, mostly, when we see it.

[3] Are they touching you, are they looking into your eyes, are they wearing their ‘best clothes’

[4] always

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WHAT DOES THE TRUTH TASTE LIKE? WHAT DOES THE TRUTH FEEL LIKE?

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It is the hope inside that wants a child, maybe not the birth or the responsibility, but the end that is something grand. The flavour of mud, or sickness or human saliva breath in the morning is truth. What it wants to tell you really are things you will hate instantly. There is no sense but the sun still shines and you all live together.

There is a deep unfulfilled sadness that, through being ignored, manifests (festers) as malice, complacency, indiscretion, blandness, moroseness, suicide, false-happiness, acceptance, malignancy and that thing where you can just go on living and living until you die no matter what happens or what sickness comes or how alone you are or how much you are missing and how removed you are from what you yourself consider life based on your dreams and how you see others your age living those (or even other fantasy now) dreams and your wishing that everything could be different and it’s not actually regret because you never did anything in the first place to deserve or even expect that outcome but it’s more that you never could have had those things you wanted in the first place because now that you are ‘getting on’ it has become clear that you are not one of ‘them’ or are even going to be that thing you imagined ever so now it’s set in that your life is this, just this, no more dreams, no more hope, and now it’s also no more lying to yourself that you can still achieve this.[1]

The ability (propensity?) to behave given any number of social situations that, including any hardcore punk or other such anti-normality types, force us to act in a desired expected manner. Mainly the ‘big ones’ Funerals, Weddings (they can get avant-garde but even then there is a certain ‘respect’ for the bride/groom/widow/children’s wishes…their aesthetic permeates), but also even just waiting on line at the supermarket. We all look forward or around, we shuffle, we look at our groceries, we know how to act/behave/appear. We know what to do at any given social moment. Is the goal of truth then a separation from the norm into a kind of laissez-faire democracy type thing whereby our instantaneous feelings come to bear or is there supposed to be  such a thing as deserved communal reverence, respect, appropriateness and all the trappings of the (essentially) class system? Do I want some young idiot wrecking my mother’s funeral with his boom box and his lack of shutting-the-fuck-up-about-how-we-all-gotta-die?[2]

Seeing something that’s wrong (not actually wrong wrong, like evil or unjust or against love or anything) and deliberately not doing anything about it because, in the grand-scheme of things, it is very unimportant (usual) and pointless and basically just seeing the way in which you could fix something that doesn’t actually benefit you but it would, in some respects, make the world a better place or at least resolve this issue at hand and perhaps advance this or that person or company policy or deal or whatever. Now, the next level is telling the truth in this scenario to your personal detriment. What does that feel like, or, what are the reasons anyone does this? Social altruism, for an inner sense of peace (resolution, victim is no longer a victim (and remember, not a real victim, just a made-up work-based life-scenario type of victim), a general want for the right thing (in your assessment) to prevail, a real urge to contribute where you see you can contribute), or perhaps a dream that you will be rewarded (eventually). In place of this, for the majority they play by the rules we created in this western (and eastern too, so) culture where shutting up and doing nothing are lauded in place of controversy, individualism, contesting, questioning. In fact, the better you perfect those abhorrent servile traits to more likely you will succeed. So in this sense any act of dissention or suggestion of personal motif for the ‘right’ is punished in one way or another.

The ability to deliberately hold information, important information no less, in your head, conceptually ‘away’ from someone you actually care about because (a) it would hurt them (simple and honest enough) (b) it would destroy what they think of you for no real-world purpose or reason that needs to be considered for the moment as it were; out of context; theoretically (c) you do not want them to hold this in their head as well, you like seeing them not knowing it whilst you do (perverse but like a serial killer who cherishes the sweet moments of freedom following his murderous act up until they are discovered) (d) there is no conceivable reason to tell them because I has nothing to do with anything yet it bears down on you for not telling it for no other reason than the desire for complete transparent honest i.e. unburdening or the fact that you have tried to build your relationship on the precept of pure honesty (in that as you get older and have many many failed long term serious relationships the prospect of transparent honesty becomes for you the thing that really is the only thing that is important anymore, to the point that saying “I want to fuck someone else” is allowed because it was spoken truthfully out in the open and so then when you do it although it hurts the honesty aspect is revered above this carnal act thing that happened as a result.[3]

Now we’ve cultivated the insane idea of ‘personal truth’…”what’s right for me” etc. This concept allows you to consciously exist inside someone else’s truth and, understanding them as such, where they are in a  fantasy that has no real walls, which through using careful analysis and understanding are able to be moved, in and out, their fears heightened, their perceptions sharpened closer to the devils they have invented as inhabitants; the backstabber; the cheat; the false-prophet; the supposed friend etc until of course their own truth (which they think is real don’t forget, really real) is nothing but a fragmented strange and externally incoherent mess of half-truths, phantoms and unstructured feelings based observations made under misinformation that are tentatively held together under the one notion: that because they have created it it must be true. Such a feeble instance of reality, and such a scary prospect for the person trapped inside this prism where any one sentence from an imagined trusted source can dispel and enhance so many other aspects of their ‘truth’.[4]

[1] There was a show on TV today and it was horrific in it’s honesty (people now want to see other people on screen, and, most people aren’t equipped to understand that although, yes, it’s a ‘real’ person, they are acting and behaving in a way fit to be displayed and have learned that ways in which to behave on camera and if that’s not enough have even been told/prompted/directed by trained TV producers who know what they want out of the very expensive and critical shoot they are ‘starring’ in so are guided towards an end but, yes, the viewers are to feel that they are watching someone ‘real’, like them, the closest they get to feeling warmth towards the cold TV they have become used to getting all their emotions from.

[2] The problem here really is one of acceptance. We are so careful to accept others yet so self aware of external judgment. The problem is that in order to ‘improve’ ourselves we need to become more accepting, but, in becoming more accepting, we are better able to ignore, I guess, all the transgressions of others who aren’t so ‘improved’. Yet, by becoming more accepting, that is, working hard at achieving this, we are to then accept others who don’t bother to do the work of becoming accepting, thereby negating, basically, the whole endeavour to become understanding and accepting and what people would call ‘enlightened’. So what s the point of seeking such enlightenment anyway, if the goal of this is to accept all anyway (that is, the base unenlightened). Do we condescend to help them or be so perfectly attuned that we understand and accept?

[3] And of course the confusion in thinking “if we didn’t instigate this honest policy, perhaps we would have curtailed or otherwise managed our base instinctual urges and not simply blurted it all out to each other in order to get away with fucking right in front of our eyes and then sort of feel as though we love them each other more because we have this true true honest one to one bond thing.”

[4] What if you didn’t actually care about people’s unique truths? What would the truth look like to you? Well, it would appear as an ether cloud, a fake thing, a huge mess of versions and beliefs and ‘grasps’ and perceptions and up-to-the-minute understandings. Worse is, because you don’t care, these gasps of life, although spoken in all earnestness by others, were incomplete, funny, strange, pitiful, unaware and basically full of thousands of holes and gaps because through these gaps, you see, form a regular ‘complete’ honest person. Someone who believes, who strives for an ideal, someone who actually thinks they are what they are, really. And though the ways in which you treat them by, say, pointing out a massive inconsistency in their Themness has absolutely no impact on them whatsoever, because it is not within their power or desire to either update or fundamentally change their Themness, their own unique truths that gives them the real stamina to persest, to believe in something, to go after something, to go on, although subconsciously pretending to themselves and the word that what they are is 100% real and solid. This insane destructiveness is what permeates all facets of the human condition, this bold, seeking triumph essence to be something, to choose as it were against all the available knowledge, to stop and stay and be that thing. To just say “I know what you are trying to do but stop it”.

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We had a child

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We had a child
That died
But that was so long ago
It now feels like
We had a life
That will never exist.
“Why don’t we have another baby?”
“Because you are so upset.”
“I think I am ready.”
“But you will always have lost a child
Forever
And the personality,
Our hope for this child,
Will be always
An imagination.”

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There is only a viscousness left

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I had her by the cunt you could say because we didn’t fuck anymore but she wouldn’t leave me because I got the money, I went out at 8 ah em and I came back there 7 pee em and that suited her just fine. I come home to her half pissed, half naked in clothes as impossible as that sounds:

“Did you leave the house today” I yell, first thing, spitting.

“No I didn’t fucking leave the house why the fuck would I leave the house, nothing out there nothing in her it’s all shit”

“You wouldn’t leave the house because where the fuck would you go. There is no place for you to go. Where you gonna go?”

“I’m not going anywhere. You get some smokes?”

And I did and I throw them at her and I take a cigarette from my own pack and we are in the place we live moving around smoking and not talking. I get a beer from the fridge, the last one and I open it a drink half of it and I open the fridge looking for another one that isn’t there.

“You can’t keep some fucking beer in here at least!” I yell across our home.

“What?” she yells back.

I walk back into the room, she is exhaling a plume into the open space.

“You are fucking useless”

“And who the fuck are you, huh? You walk in, throw my some cigarettes at me, now you’re gonna call me a piece of shit. Go get your own fucking beer you piece of shit”

“And what the fuck have you been drinking huh? You’re pissed already”

“Yeah well I’ve been drinking with Tommy today”

“Tommy is another fucking loser. You fuckers know how to get your hands on alcohol, right. You know what? Fuck this. Get the fuck out of there. Get your skanky ass clothes, shove them in a bunch of plastic bags and fuck off!”

“Yeah? Yeah? You want me to go? I will go if you want me to go”

“Get the fuck out!”

 

x                              x                              x

 

He was trying to get some work done after work, you know, real work. The stuff that keeps him going; to know He is still a person who has something beautiful to give that’s not bought and paid for by a bunch of moronic assholes (etc etc). Staring at the computer screen and the keyboard, screaming at him to create, make something, do something. The fucking world wide web has all of this shit on there come on and add to it. And then he added to it and it’s just some more shit into the pool.

 

x                              x                              x

 

There is no advertisement that can persuade you to purchase anything anymore. They all have the evil stink of self-interest. Worse; the advertising industry know this and have employed teams to get you to recommend products to your real-true-friends so that they buy what you have been convinced (by some means) to buy already. The fact that you genuinely tell someone about a product or service these days has been carefully calculated by ad agencies so that you are equipped to deliver the one line benefits straight to your nearest and dearest so that they too become purchasers (read: lifelong customers) of a particular brand or product (synonymous).

 

x                              x                              x

 

“Ah fuck you know I’m sixty now, sixty! and you know what I did love this girl, this one girl and she married my best friend, you know, what forty, fuck, forty years ago and, christ I was their first born’s godfather. And I still loved her. And I went there and did the thing in the church and I helped them paint their first house and still, still I loved her and I just wanted to be near her so I said ‘yes’ to being their kids godfather and I bought him presents and I was there on his birthdays and, and when he was a child they put him to bed so we stayed up drinking and it was always so close, the more I got drunk, so close to me telling her I loved her but that husband, my best friend, was there and it was so strange because I loved them both and I didn’t know how to say it and after more drinks it went away and it came to that thing again where I just talked about my life and how shit it was and they laughed because it was funny, really, and I made it all a joke but what I was really saying was how bad my life is because I was in love with a woman who was married and had kids and how fucking strange it is that I am one of those kids’ godfather, I mean go damn what the fuck happened to my life that this kind of shit would happen?”

 

x                              x                              x

 

I shouldn’t have given her my number, fuck, so I hang the phone up thinking thank fuck I have a phone you can hang up hard a proper with a handle not just a button. It rings again, so lovely to know someone wants you, or wants to tell you something that they have burning in their belly. I do it, I do, I pick it up.

“Fuck you don’t you fucking hang up on me”

“Sorry, ok? Sorry. But man you were talking all kings of made up imaginary bullshit there”

“What?! Yeah because you’ve worked it all out right, you already now what I’m gong to say”

“No, no I don’t but guess what I can probably work out why you’re bothering to say it”

“Oh fuck you”

“And, so, what’s up then? Hm?”

“I can’t event talk to you anymore”

“Really…really? And here we are on the phone. You know what I’m doing? Hm? I’m staring at a plain white wall, a cigarette in hand waiting to go outside and smoke it. That’s all. That’s what I can see and feel and I have a voice, you, on this thing. Okay? Too literal?”

“Christ you’re annoying”

“And you still aren’t saying anything interesting”

“I…I don’t want to see you this weekend. And…” long pause, me sitting there staring, holding back the urge to say anything, impatient, sure, “and I don’t want….this, anymore, this, thing we do, over the phone, this bullshit, text and call and…” and she exhales in an ‘urgh’ like that

“I get it ok, I get it. Guess what? That’s why we don’t talk. What are you bothering for?”

“Goodnight then”

“Okay”

And I hang up and get to feel horrible and cruel for the rest of the evening.

 

x                              x                              x

 

We, I, well we, I mean. Okay. It was one in the night and there was only that orange light that the council set up two weeks ago to stop all those junkies breaking into cars but what it did was give them all night to work and bathe our apartment in a sick glow that made us mad and crazy and awake too long. The baby was crying. We had a baby, we did that. We had a baby and it was weird. We didn’t really want a baby but we wanted a kid and we talked about how good it would be to have a good one, like, have a good kid that would grow up and be better than what we were and could be the best person ever and we talked about it and talked about what type and all of that and started having sex where I’d have to come inside of her to make a kid. It was funny because I’d say “what if I didn’t like it” or she’d say “what if it didn’t like us” and in these ways we’d laugh but now she was full of the thing and it was six months going and you could see it kicking and see its footprints pushing against her stomach skin and it’s like ‘whoa’ and I go back to my job and miss all those things and come home and want to watch TV but she wants a back rub and holy fuck of course there’s a thing inside you. I need to stop talking about it sooner or later. Can I skip ahead? We had the baby out of her and into our life and we did so well for so long, I mean we had a room next to ours, fuck the ‘lounge room” we never had a lounge anyway.

 

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Reunion Voices Sing

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I can tell you that I didn’t ever think I’d see her again and if I did I would have to talk to her instantly, away, by ourselves and tell her who I am and how sorry I am for what I did even though it wasn’t so bad and evil and all of that but still so wrong and stupid and that I know it now and that I am so very sorry and I would want her to talk, say whatever, say everything she thinks. I mean, Christ I have no idea who she is now or what she’d say or anything or even if she thinks the same or even needs me to say all of it out loud like I want to but as soon as I saw her, dressed in a nice proper dress and with her combed back and held back hair, walking into that room with a man on her arm I can tell you all of that and more came straight though me and I was transfixed and heard someone talking to me right next to me and that was the only thing that snapped my out of it and I answered and slurped down some beer and looked back at her but she was talking to someone and I thought “later”.

 

Look if I tell you now it’s going to sound…no, really, I wasn’t there for the high school reunion, and, as bullshity and improbable as it sounds YES I was there seeing a friend, yes also from high school, but it was coincidentally the time when he was moving interstate ok? So we had lunch and oh god what a bunch of unknown weirdos were congregated there that I had to sit near and because I was late I was at the crap ass end of the table where all the loser people who got pity invites were sat so I knew I was in for a bad hour or so but luckily being late meant lunch stuff was over and these morons where leaving. I only had to endure a few conversations like “what do you do” and I lied and they told me what they did and I said “that must be so boring” and like that until me and my friend and his now ex-girlfriend (thank god) were alone-ish to do the goodbye stuff you do but the real story lies ahead in that I was the same damn town that my high school reunion was in and for fucks sake the same old people I went to school with filed into the pub I was meeting my friend at so there we all were, me from the city back where I grew up and all of them touching me and drinking and being friendly so yeah sure I got caught up in it and yeah sure so I agreed to follow them down the road to the reunion.

 

High school reunions have all those people who come from your misty history and have maybe appeared as weird representations in your dreams where you forgot a whole bunch of information and you thought “I should have prepared, god damn it!” but of course you wake up and think fuck that I am glad I am not there anymore. That’s a reunion, being awake inside a dream and seeing pretty much the worst apparitions or reflections of your past because they are real and more horrific than you could have imagined. I walk around in the fog and every person I bump into has a big smile and so do I I feel and we say three lines and each one I can feel makes me seem so callous and theirs are so honest as if they are real people who actually live lives and believe the things they say. It happens so often that I end up sitting with those I have known for long time/were friends with in high school and they say “what’s wrong” and I answer “what the fuck is going on” and we laugh together.

It’s bad, straight away it’s bad, I mean the venue is bad to begin with, as if the pensioners have left because bingo is finished and there’s one middle aged woman behind the bar not knowing what the fuck is going on because there are people there after seven pee em and we want drinks. Oh god do we want drinks and after I’ve had maybe five glasses of wine she shows up. Oh man fuck I say in my head and I knew her and I can see what she looks like now and I think oh fuck that better not be my fault. She walks over and we see each other but she is hugged by some massively overweight ‘friend’ who I sort of remember but I guess they know each other since those days and I finish my drink and finish talking to this muscle bound moron who I used to know was ridiculed by everyone for being basically feeble and ugly so he pretty much found hid place bulking up and joining the army and I can only say over and over “you’re fucking HUGE” to my detriment.

 

She comes and sits with us because we are from the same clique, that’s how we met and in the most natural of implanted-in-our-psyche way we end up sitting next to each other, not listening to anyone else and talking. It is so lovely and we are smiling and it is as if the decade meant nothing. She had three kids and I have none. This doesn’t matter, I touch her knee and tell her she is so thin (we used to like being incredibly thin) and she says my face is chubby and I say ‘hey, I am healthy…fat and happy!’ but she reassures me in her way that I am not chubby and we laugh at ourselves now and how we used to be so incredibly insensitive to fat people. And we look over together at a fat woman we went to school with grotesquely kissing a much older beared male she brought with her and we screw up our faces and like “ewww gross” or similar and laugh and I light a cigarette and when she says ‘oh you still smoke’ I feel stupid. I try to make her see me as independent (i.e. different to her) so I say “Yeah” casually, blow out smoke and take another sip of wine.

 

Making my way though the idiots, trying to reminisce over things I could hardly care about anymore and some are really trying to sell me the idea of moving back and I can only say “Back? Doesn’t that sound bad to you? ‘Back’?” but they laugh because I have always been strange to them. I am next to her and she eventually finishes up the jargon to some other stranger and I say “Hey” and she says “Wow, you’re here. I didn’t think you’d come” “Why? Because I’ve always said reunions are stupid and weird and that I’d never come to my own?” “Well pretty much and also because why would you bother?” “Well that’s pretty complimentary, I mean, thinking I’d have way better things to do or even that I would b so occupied with my life that I wouldn’t even know about it or something” and she laughs dismissively remembering she knows what I’m like and all that so it goes on. I tell her I think about her every day and I can tell my her reaction that I need to finish off the sentiment by telling her “no not like that I mean you come up, you pass through, you are a thing that happens and, here’s the funny thing, as soon as you pop in I am forced to think of all the others, so funny, like a conga line, ha ha…her and then her and her, you know…it’s funny”.

 

It’s a weird moment, the end. We’re all getting up, finished reminiscing, finished watching and looking one another over. I am just looking at her. To girl I first loved. She is looking at me and we are smiling. I tell her I want to talk to her again and she promises me we will. I get an email address and I giver her my mobile phone number. It’s so terrible because we both know I will never write and she will never call. She has her family and her life and I have so much to write. I compose hundreds of emails every day, but to write her is something different. In the age of paperless transmissions, where we can communicate every five minutes or less, still there is something powerful in writing to someone who you used to love, and have seen them again, and have had that ting again where you remember what you had, and the beauty in knowing that you had to exchange something in order to let yourself go again, this time to a fate much different when you stupidly broke up over childish reasons twelve years before.

 

I get four more glasses of wine from the bar because I don’t want to go back there and I am sitting with them in front of me and she takes one and says “thanks” and I say “they’re all yours…”. She drinks half the glass down and says “Don’t worry. It’s ok.” “What?” “What you did to me” “Christ fuck, yes I know. That’s just so, oh man so fucking gross you know, I don’t mean you I mean me like, what the fuck kind of asshole juvenile dick was I?…thank you, thank you though for understanding…Christ I mean what has it been like, twelve years? Oh god its so,…I think about it every day. Really…every…day. I can’t even kiss a woman without thinking about it. And I wasn’t even drunk or anything!” “Okay okay calm down, geez. You’re acting all crazy” “Yeah? Ffff God okay I’m sorry. I guess, I’ve just been thinking about it, you know, in isolation, like, just my ideas and stuff. Can I say…I am so sorry for that, I mean, it was stupid and weird and wrong and…” “I get it, okay?…I was there you know, I was…pffft well, we were kids right, stupid little kids. I know, no.. I mean, I’ve been with a bunch of guys and you know, it’s always fucking weird, you know? It’s a fucking rape game this sex shit I tell you” and we laugh and chink glasses (plastic cups at this shit place) and we are smiling so it’s all good and I just needed to day it all out loud to her and it fades away; this sick feelings I’ve had.

 

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Teens have a thing inside that isn’t broken yet

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Sara(Sarah no h)’s mother made her break up with Alec because he wasn’t Jewish. She said “you’re not going to marry him so why bother?” and it wasn’t because she said it or the Jewish thing or anything but it was the sentiment of ‘why bother if you’re not going to marry him’. After that it seemed like she was just getting fucked and that felt wrong, even though she did like fucking before that sentence. Damn him & damn mum.

They were all kissing and drinking and vomiting and they said ‘have a drink!’ loud but he didn’t want to and he was skating out on the street and could hear the party going on and three guys came over, drunk and told him how cool he was and how they thought he was so cool all the stuff he said in class and he was weird and cool and like that (drunk style) and he thought you are fucking idiots and skated home.

What they do is everyday after school go to the small town of Lambert because they live in an interconnected line of small towns and hang out under the footbridge to the train station and eat hot chips with gravy and smoke cigarettes.

“Fuck you mother fucking cunt!” Mike yells out to a maybe sixty year old woman who kept looking over to us for being so loud and it’s hilarious; she just gets up and leaves and we’re laughing and Mike says “man, should I go and say sorry to that dried up whore?” and Ken says “fuck that old ass wrinkly whore man” and we keep going on and man Ken throws his coke on me and I leap up and punch him in the face and he tries to wrestle me and Kate says, “hey guy this is Newtown” and we get off the train because we are going to smoke joints in the cemetery.

I take the stem out of the bong and use a pencil to push all the resin out form the stem into a bowl and chop some tobacco into it to get it dry and smokable. We couldn’t get on again and it’s ten thirty so shit we have to smoke this shit and its funny, its funny kind of thing and it tastes like crap. I pack myself a nice soggy cone and smoke it down and I actually like it, sick fuck that I am. I give Brendan the bowl and he makes himself one and I feel good and relaxed and it’s all for free. Then my turn again.

They’re all standing around outside the hall waiting to see some bands and they don’t realise that they all look the same, all these individuals looking the same trying to be different and it’s beautiful like that.

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All www.oddfuture.com SWAG

Years later:
I got a job because I could talk the talk, I know what it’s like, I’ve been there and done that and now I am the best equipped to sell product to these teenagers. They’re actually really easy because (a) they are driven by pack mentality (b) their non-conformity is easily adapted (Christ its 2011 and still they wear Nirvana and worse Ramones t-shirts) (c) they have no purpose other than what is presented and available (what I mean by presented is discovered, they have to think they discover it, and it’s east to ‘hide’ stuff online) (d) it is amazingly clear what they love and hate (as opposed to the general public who are more or less fickle and unencumbered by a role they need to design and live my, i.e. quasi-moral code).

DISCLAIMER: I have always been a fascinated observer. I just do not believe that I am alone in realising that actions are at their core fake and are a (loving) re-enactment. Also, to solidify my case, when pressed people have little depth so in that sense the cause and effect is one and the same; their reasons for living that way are irrelevant and the outcome is to achieve a version of a desired repetition (read: morose) that they know they want and so press to achieve. This is the way of death. The other way: honesty, indifference, soulfulness, depth, individuality…authenticity…keeps alluding us.

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There is something wrong with the world but I don’t know what it is yet.

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Wake

 

I had her hand in mine, I could see she was crying and I knew that she was upset but in my head I was thinking “how long until I can go for a cigarette, really, and if I go for a cigarette, and even if I make it last, maybe six minutes maximum, then I’ll have to come back in and I will have lost my place here with her because some family member will ‘fill in’ and so then I’ll be lost in a way and have to, fuck, talk to some of her family and that will be, just, hell” so I sit there still thinking of the cigarette because its probably some nicotine biology thing and not that I am an asshole and really I am not because what I want to do is say (yell) “HEY!” out really loud and then go on to yell (say) “this woman was absolutely beautiful and loving and caring and she only met me twice and each time she was so loving and beautiful and happy that I for one wish to go on celebrating how lovely and soft she was, not just think ‘oh no I’ll never see her again, oh poor me, I’LL never see her again’”. I drop her hand and take out my cigarettes and gesture that I am going ‘around the back’ for a cigarette. I disappear down the side of the house and sigh (what, for the cameras or was this a real sigh, like sighs actually exist?) and two little, maybe ten and eight year olds roll up on a scooter and skateboards respectively (what ages and what vehicles who cares) and I light my cigarette, blow out the smoke and realise they think I am cool (because I used to think that was cool and their faces tell me they think I am cool, so I don’t say anything and take another long pull on the cigarette then say) “how you kids doing today?” realising instantly that they just attended their grandmother’s funeral and that my fonzie-esque stance crumbled in about ten seconds but I am saved because the older one says “okay” and I say “your grandma was pretty cool, huh?” breathing out a huge plume of smoke. “Grandma? She was alright” he says, bashful, cute. And now I do my part with “Nah man, she was really cool. I talked to her once out on the back deck and I was like whoa man you know what you’re talking about. She was like was out there. Never met anyone like her”. They smile I think and turn their vehicles around and go. Can’t hang out with this bad ass smoking weirdo they’ve never met any longer. It’s not right because they are children and they have been taught their place and it’s not right because they are not worthy (they think).

 

Wedding

We kept making eye contact and it was strange and I didn’t know what to do about it because she was wearing a wedding dress and I was a guest (of the bride). She was making the rounds and I thought “oh my god she’s just making the rounds” and I said something horrible so she could hear and she got to me at some point and it was just me and she said “what’s wrong with you” and I said “nothing. What’s wrong with you?” and she smiled at someone else who came towards her and then she was gone.

 

Party

They look at you like you need to do something when you walk in to any party and this one was different because fuck you I have known them for ten years you weird-ass-looking-getting-there-early-probably-married-losers who have no depth or reason to look at me like that “hey Amelia how are you, wow fuck looking hot” I say and we kiss twice and I introduce Sandra and she is all shy because she doesn’t know anyone and I mistakenly do that thing where I don’t care about that and have to remember after about one painful (for her) minute to introduce her and make her feel comfortable but then of course that shit thing happens where she needs me way more than I want to be needed so we are (after pleasantries) in some corner sipping drinks and discussing how fucking retarded everyone is and I am telling her stories about each person I know there and it feels really bad and terrible to be there then and we have become the douchebags sitting and staring and judging people as they pour in.

 

Funeral

 

“Tell me you won’t let mine be like this”

“No way! I mean, look at all this, really. That song, yeah right like we need to hear that! No. I can honestly say your funeral won’t be like this”

“Thank you”

“I’ll tell you what the problem is though. The problem is people want this, expect this, like there’s no other way for this thing to happen. No other possible way. They need the usual step by step process, and then this happens where we do this and this happens and we cry now etcetera”

“Exactly. Oh please don’t do this for me”

“Mum, please, who are you talking to? My only problem is, by the time you, ha, need one of these, Ilm going to be…I’m going to, I don’t know, go too crazy, go too different”

“But that’s what I want”

“Yeah I know but like, no format, you know? And it will be real. Heartfelt and honest and none of this bullshit sentiment that means nothing. None of this selfish, blah blah she would’ve wanted this crap. Fake mind reading bullshit stuff, that’s, that’s designed to make you cry, as in, ‘I wrote this trite garbage to cause you to cry’ because that’s what you’re supposed to do i.e. you’ll feel better if you cry i.e. you will achieve the role in playing a funeral guest…complete the act! You must cry at that moment otherwise you didn’t love that person, right? You get what I mean. Fuck I have no way of knowing how to circumvent this”

“Okay, okay honey. How funny, they’re looking at us know”

“Ha yeah, like we can’t plan a funeral at a funeral. I’ve been to too many, like weddings, all the same. We all end up in the car park talking about our jobs, some of us smoking cigarettes. They’re ok at funerals though. You noticed that? No one complains.”

 

Relationship

 

“Really? Really? Really? Really?” the boyfriend exclaims, at last at the end finally not knowing her anymore than he thought he did, thinking her an insane woman, thinking that she has no idea about life or him or the words she says out of her mouth and he is hot and has tears forming on the edges of his eyes and if anything isn’t clenched he doesn’t know about it and for once his dick is flaccid and he can only see a strange person in front of him and trying to see if she can possibly say something that makes any sense by repeating the word ‘really’ over and over trying inside himself too to understand that this may actually be reality and something he is missing, struggling to come to terms with what is happening, with what she is saying and what she wants from him and what he has said to her before and none of it coming together.

 

Writing

 

All the letters on the keyboard, sitting there, making little three letter words, on the right there is p o l i in a weird pattern to inspire you to write p-o-l-i-c-e and then some story with police in it; I could write a story with police in it and drama and a crime and some (this will be clichéd) dumb police in it and then things will happen and one of the police officers will have an epiphany. There is too much cop drama available on TV, every episode they have an epiphany or realise their place in the greater scheme via betrayal, questions of right and wrong, corruption, role vs reality. It’s even already been written how a cop is stupid and simple and black and white and then has heart which is why they got into this thing in the first place: to protect (Magnolia). I would write about a police officer who is pregnant but hasn’t told anyone yet because it is only six weeks and can’t bear the thought of getting hurt because of the baby so actively ignores calls and knows she is letting violence/crime happen but has chosen her baby over her (what she things it is now just a) job.

 

Nightlife

 

The bar is about three people deep, we’re all drunk and it’s fun because some are posing badly, I am posing (in a posture I assume is ‘I don’t want to be here but I’ll entertain this place for a while longer because I am buying drinks for others who do want to be here, for now’) too but its far less complimentary than these guys with their shirts down and sunglasses on their head. I girl next to me says ‘hey’ and smiles and I say ‘hey’. In my mind I can tell she is stupid so I turn away and look around over their heads because I am tall and can only think ‘what is the neatest way for me to leave tonight? Seeing as I have to pretend I like this and like going out and like everyone and am a fun person and am entertaining etc’. I get to the bar buy the drinks (blah) and head back to the table, putting the drinks down and maybe some girl kisses me on the cheek “thanks!”. So I sit down and some other person says “what’s wrong” and I sigh and say loudly “nothing. Hey! Oh my god this dude at the bar was so lame! He glasses on his head like that Alex Perry dick! And there were these three losers just like standing there trying to get chicks, obviously never been here before and like, no idea about style. Shaved chests? Open shirts? What year is it 1990?” and they laugh and I keep going on and on with banter and get drunk like this with them.

 

Divorce

 

It’s a bright, they say perfect, day, the ex-lover sits in a lounge chair looking through eight centimetre gap in the curtain out to see grass and a clear blue sky. The ex-lover is wearing pyjamas, old pyjamas, flannel pyjamas. The ex-lover sits on the lounge looking though the gap in the curtain and imagines or sees birds flash by. The ex-lover sits and feels his fat stomach on his chest and thinks that’s something she didn’t like. The ex-lover feels his face and its unshaven and he feels sick and gross and needs to brush his teeth. The ex-lover is alone and can hear children playing next door and thinks of his children (of course), his son in the city, his daughter in the country married to a man he’s met twice with three kids and she’s fucked it up he thinks, not happy or sad just…she fucked it up. His son. Call his son. The ex-lover sits on the lounge in his pyjamas looking at the pyjamas thinking I don’t like these pyjamas, she probably didn’t like these pyjamas either. The ex-lover thinks of his ex-wife having a good day. It’s a good day, he knows it is a good day but instead he takes up the bottle of whisky that is left there on the lounge with about a third of it left and drinks it for no reason and it tastes good and he thinks this is not good by the ex-lover knows what he is now or wants to be this now. He wanted to be this for a long time and now she is gone so he can be this. He will finish the bottle, shower, dress, walk about ten minutes to buy two more bottles, drink some of one on the way back, sit back on the lounge, finish the bottle and call his son but his son doesn’t want to talk to him because he is drunk and makes no sense and keeps talking about the son’s mother which is not right.

 

Love

 

How do you know it’s not love? Because I know this is not what I want. But you have made that up, you have made it all up! But I will know when it happens. When what happens? Love. But you don’t know what it is! But I will know when it happens. But I love you, I love you now. With all your heart? With all my….no, not with all my heart. Then that is not it then. No, that is not it, it is what I have now. And I want more. So do I.

 

–

 

They all seem so real to me, but I know they are not. They can’t be, or else the world is nothing and we are nothing.

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