“How have you been?” The Guilty Undertaker asks me as I skip out on an emergency dentist appointment to help jump their car. It’s straight though. I had no intention of keeping the appointment. I’ll ignore the blood stains on the toothbrush for now. This is much more important. We haven’t had time to catch up. Give each other the Christmas gifts from last month we said we’d exchange whenever we found the time to hang out. No time like the present they say. To put work and medical disasters on hold. Try to figure out how to get an engine to turn over. Sippin’ coffee and smokin’ cigs. And at least for now. I don’t gotta smoke ‘em through my nose to avoid a dry socket.
So how have I been? Well. I haven’t had much time to think about it lately. The other week I got home at three in the morning from work. Lookin’ through the food I bought with the Winged Pansy’s Bridge card that I won’t have time to eat before it rots. Tried to make some hot dogs for a quick bite before opening shift in a few hours. Sat down. Started crying. And now I’m eatin’ cold hot dogs. Thinkin’ about havin’ this body ground up through the machine. Turned into mystery meat that maybe somebody else can enjoy. Post-mortem. We all know I’m not enjoyin’ this body. But what nutritional value is there in me? I’m livin’ off three square Slim Jims a day. And somebody else’s Adderall at the moment. Don’t even drink water unless I’m sellin’ plasma. Which in hindsight worked out in my favor. Cause they’ve been poisonin’ the water supply across the state. As if we aren’t tryin’ to kill ourselves already.
We spend so much time throwin’ ourselves through the meat grinder. Hopin’ we can help make this life we don’t wanna live somewhat bearable for someone else. Tradin’ prescriptions with each other. Usin’ friends like pharmacists. Cause it’s easier to get pet insurance than healthcare. If you can find the time to call AAA and set it up. Eatin’ blood stained Taco Bell. Hopin’ we don’t need Grandma to take us to another root canal. Let the debt collectors call till the phone mistakes the number as a scam call. Isn’t that what capitalism is all about? Exploitin’ as much work outta people for as little money as possible. My bad. I forgot. The poor aren’t supposed to know we live eternally in scam season.
Every now and then though. The engine won’t turn over. And you get a break to sit and stare into the void with the people you love. The people that almost make life feel worth livin’. Realize this rock suspended in zero gravity is surreal enough without the need for metaphors. We’re all doomers. But that doesn’t need to sound so dark and empty. We can thrash and spit. Scream and spark. Fight back as the universe does the only thing it will consistently do from here till eternity. Expand into infinite chaos. The meat grinder churns as we eat pharmaceutical speedballs in hopes to feel something. Anything! Our bones feel three times as old as our bodies from the jobs we try to find ways out of. Too young to get stuck when you crouch in the cooler to grab a beer. But the dust sprinkles into the marrow of our lives. Nerves and joints solder together. Turnin’ us into the fragmented beauty of stained glass panels.
They tell me about the bands they’ve been recordin’. Back at the shared Motherboard. Our studio I haven’t been able to make it to in months. Sendin’ out dispatches from our lost generation. Screamin’ against the brick wall. Hopin’ we can make it move. Hopin’ somebody else out there may eventually hear us. Even if it’s lightyears away. At a whole other place in space and time and the whole damn continuum. Someplace that hasn’t been disgraced by our glitter and doom. Maybe it’s another life form all together. We’re all just lookin’ to feel understood. Not necessarily appreciated. But understood. Gettin’ so caught up in this vicious Rube Goldberg device that we lose sight of all the people around us. The ones too anxious to relate or compliment. Maybe that’s how it was designed. The more alienated we feel the further we push our art into incoherence to be heard.
But when you watch the geniuses around you paint space and time. It all makes sense. Sometimes art isn’t even really art. It’s just watchin’ someone else suffer through the human condition while eatin’ a cheeseborger. Our lives becomin’ collages of all the people we find most fascinating. Try to emulate their moral codes. Cause we think they’re onto all the things we’re tryin’ to figure out. I’m not much of an artist myself. I mean. I make noise. I vomit and can see a rainbow. Don’t we all though? I really consider myself more of a plagiarist. Stealin’ the phrases and stories from the fascinating cats, clowns, and NPCs I’ve come across in the great American first person shooter.
How have I been? Well. The other night I thought to myself I forgot my coke as I got into bed. Stoned enough to laugh at the livin’ night terrors and fall asleep. So I head downstairs. Walk over to the shelf to do a line. And realize I meant I forgot to buy more coke. So I turn to check the digital numbers on my bank account. The digits represent some vague concept I don’t quite grasp. Like god or magnets. But only magnets if you’re a juggalo. Then I see it. The can of Coca-Cola I stole from work to drink tonight. Cue Jeff Foxworth. “You know you’re an addict when…” Heathcliff the Big Cheese laughs at the constant commitment to your self-deprecating joke. Tellin’ you at least you snort your drugs from a coaster. So you’re close.
They say close only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades. Now I don’t know much about luck or how to play horseshoes. I don’t even know the last time I saw a horse in real life. But with gas prices about to go above four dollars, it might be time to get a horse. Become a cowboy. And see how close the explosion of a hand grenade gets to fillin’ the void.
It’s my birthday. I’ve never really been one to care about trivial things like the passage of time. And for a narcissist. I don’t get much joy from a day dedicated to a piece of shit like myself. But I’ll go to Outer Limits. And I’ll watch Andy Warhol interpret Frankenstein. Now that guy was onto something. The world’s best known plagiarist. I mean for fuck’s sake. The movie was made by Paul Morrissey. Warhol just did what he does best and took all the credit. They really never should’ve let that guy have a dime to his name. It’s slightly more coherent than the Room. Or at least seems more self-aware. The inside meta joke with himself. Tryin’ to prove if you give a hipster trash they’ll claim it’s an NFT. Maybe it’s all the acid disintegratin’ my brain cells. But as I watch someone fuck death in the gallbladder, I can see the future. The aristocrats usin’ the poor as zombie sex dolls. Havin’ us live through the conjoined Matrix and Alien universe. Just to milk a few more dollars off two long dead franchises. The Drunk History episode on the writing of Frankenstein comes back to ya. Knowin’ it was written in a drug fueled orgy. Imagine livin’ through Eyes Wide Shut and writing the most well known horror story of all time.
Amanita Mascara doesn’t believe me when I tell her this. Nobody believes writers these days. Nothin’ more than professional liars. When was the last time you picked up a book? Hard to believe everything that altered history came from doin’ insane amounts of drugs. Tryin’ to kill time when the power is out durin’ a storm. That’s what your parents want you to think. No good comes from sittin’ on your ass and gettin’ high. But name one bad thing that came from that. Wu-Tang completely altered the evolution of hip hop by smokin’ weed and samplin’ samurai videos. These Soundcloud rappers makin’ beats with anime samples nowadays probably don’t even realize I got an OG pressing of Enter the Wu-Tang. On vinyl. Bought for me as a birthday gift by the most immaculate thing to grace this Earth. Amanita Mascara. Even has a scratch to make the perfect infinite loop of a beat. Someone might hear that and think they got a screwed. Not knowin’ how much precision and time some degenerate in alley on a guerilla sound system spent perfectin’ that infinite loop. In all this mess. There is always a method to the madness.
“This place looks so different now.” Heathcliff the Big Cheese says. Strugglin’ to find a trash can in my house. Cause it’s hard to see how far you’ve come when you’re livin’ the prefect, endless loop. You’ve been sittin’ here thinkin’ you haven’t done much of anything besides learn how to drop “Can I Kick It?” just right so that “Walk on the Wild Side” cues up perfectly in sync immediately after. That’s the beauty of it. All the bass drops. All the fuzz and reverb. All the vinyl spinnin’ endlessly should go unnoticed. Seamlessly playin’ through the soundtrack to the Mission Hill episode you’re livin’ in when you go see a band play in a taco joint. We get so lost tryin’ to find our way through the grooves we don’t realize how far we’ve come.
The engine may never turn over. You may never get the tooth pulled. The Earth spins endlessly in a loop around the sun. We’re too busy tryin’ to survive as the rich turn us into monsters to fuck to realize all the people that have helped turn our fragments into the beautiful stained glass we have become. Imperfections and all bubbled through the panes. Like Warhol’s Frankenstein. We don’t always need to be good. Or coherent. Or smart to be loved. We can shitpost till doomsday. Not takin’ anything too serious while simultaneously bein’ scared shitless by the haiku riddles etched into this stone we call the world. Even Amanita Mascara is probably too good for all this. But she’s still by your side when you watch the trash of Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. All the people you feel you’ve been neglecting are still there to laugh and smoke as you let reality split in two. Unable to decide if it’s better to be breathing or not breathing.
How have I been? Well. We may not have gotten anywhere. But these small victories we never notice are helpin’ fill the void. Maybe I’ll even write somethin’ soon like the Guilty Undertaker asked. I mean shit. Even if these people weren’t here to witness you scream at brick walls. What else would you rather do before bein’ turned into mystery meat?