electric lights

NOTE: sorry I can only write about riding buses and people getting punched in the face maybe it is all I know but maybe I am also just really lazy. "Themes" and all that.

I am electric. I am alive with the static kick of feedback buzzing on my brain as I walk home through the sodium lit city streets back home. My mind awash with a night of cheap guitar tracks and cheaper wine on the wrong side of town. A night of conversation as thick as tar, and just as transparent – meaningless. The vaulted sky seems higher than normal, and the dry nor-west wind adds to this. A snapshot of invincible summer¹, when “songs will sing themselves”². We walk down the City Mall and back towards Colombo, spirits high. The streets of daytime commerce are alive with the sound of big-exhaust cars, people and humming neon signs. I walk with Dave and Chris, thoughts elsewhere.

“Hey you fucking faggots” yells a guy in a polo shirt that is (by statistical probability, rather than memory) striped salmon pink, interrupting. I wish Dave wasn't here. Then we might be able to avoid a fight. Stupid violent bastards.

There are five of them. We're going to get Fucked Up. I've never even seen Chris fight before. Dave, many times. Oh fuck. The urge to run is overwhelming but I don't. Could never live that shit down.

“Yeah, you fucking faggot. Why don't you get a haircut?” another of Salmon Shirt's companions.

“Fucking metros, you're all pussies anyway. Why don't you fucking come here and say that” spits Dave. This was avoidable, but now, necessary.

“Look at those gay fucking faggots” yells another guy (maybe the same as before). This is an insult that has me puzzled. Does “gay faggot” create a double negative? Fuck it.

“Honestly, you guys are fucking pussies. Come say that over here or fuck off back to your ugly two-bit whores”. Dave again. He can't let it go.

The group approaches, menacing. Original Salmon Shirt Guy pushes Dave, who pushes him back. They're all big guys, but are just standing back while the two of them go at it. And Salmon looks pretty drunk. A messy fight, like twelve year olds at intermediate – more time spent wrestling on the ground then actually connecting with any solid blows. His friends and us standing round, not really knowing what to do. Should we be fighting too? Is that how these things are meant to go? You can tell Dave's getting fucked off with this, and he's pretty sober. And so he gets up off the ground, quick, and kicks the fucker in the head. We all see it, and see he's still wearing his work boots. That'll fuck a guy up.

'”Holy shit” says one of the Salmon Crew.

“Fucking run man” yells Dave, and we take off down the alleyway from High Street onto Lichfield.

And keep on going past the new bars on His Lordships, almost overwhelmed by people wearing clothes worth more than my rent for two months. I look back and no one's chasing, but still I can't slow my heart and still I feel fucking sick for the whole situation.

“Man, that was FUCKED”.

“Nah man, he deserved that. Fucking metro's. I hate this town.”

“I don't mean what you did was fucked. Just the whole situation. I mean what the fuck, aren't those sorts of guys meant to be the ones we don't worry about? Don't we worry about the ones in the baggy jeans and polyester shirts? The ones with bandanas under their caps and shit?”

“Dude, what? That's like the second time we've been hassled in a few weeks by polo-shirt assholes.”

“I guess I'm struggling to adjust. I mean, do I need to be scared of everyone when I'm walking home now?”

“Nah. You need to be ready for everyone though.”

“What? Where did you get that man? Sounds like some cliché shit”

“I guess dude”.

“But seriously. That's never happened to me before. Not once. In my whole life, that's the closest thing to a fight I've ever been in. What about you?”

“I've been hassled in town before, but never like that. Mostly I just ignore them and nothing happens.”

“I just can't ignore that shit. Fucking metros. Fucking gangsters.”

“Dave, you need to chill the fuck out.”

“I can't man. Something just happens when people talk shit and I can't let it go”.

There is a violence inside all of us, and this is the sort that ruins any night out. I decide to head home alone in a taxi. Paranoia.

Walking up the driveway, the traffic noise subsides. This is my house. This is where I come back to every day after my 9 hour shift at the video store, plus whatever else I've been doing. I don't usually do a whole bunch – I'd say I'm kinda socially retarded, especially sober. So I don't leave the house much. But if these walls could talk... if these walls could talk they'd probably tell me to shut the fuck up and stop talking to myself. They'd tell me to get a real job, and stop jerking off so god-damn much. I forgot to mention – my dad built these walls. I'm 23 years old, and in none of those years have I owned a television to do that weird thing where the wall behind gets discoloured. I can watch all the movies I want at work, and everyone knows that network television is for chumps. But tonight, instead of going for the easy distraction of reading, I think about the day ahead.

Tomorrow, I will serve fake smiles and b-grade movies to the drooling and infantile sycophants who seem to infest the Mall my work is attached to. A whole room full of Godard and the most popular hire is 2 Fast 2 Furious or Wrestlemania XVI. From the ivory tower of my checkout counter, my unjustified sense of superiority will rage. After the days work I will walk to the supermarket, buy some easy food and catch the bus home, the whole time avoiding eye contact with anyone lest, they take offence and stab me. It's that kind of neighbourhood – paranoia abounds. On the bus home I will listen to music which is totally original and cool, and I would start namedropping right now if you were a pretty girl and there was a chance you would sleep with me. 4/4 timing and distortion pedals have come to define my personality – it's an easy fit. At some stage I'll probably call my mother, just to talk. It's nice to catch up some times. I know this is how my day will likely turn out because it's how most other weekdays of my life turn out.

________________________

1 Albert Camus - “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. “

2William Carlos Williams - “In summer, the song sings itself. “

Getting punched in the face: REVIEW

I saw you while I was walking down Manchester Street that one night. I guess we made eye contact on the almost deserted pavement, the scene illuminated by the display lights that shops like leave on so people can I guess go window shopping in 3am insomniawesome dream states or something? Anyway yeah I guess we made eye contact because you asked me what I was looking at and I didn't know so I just said “nothing man, just walking” and I think you didn't like being called man or something because you sure didn't waste time after that. Just straight in with a punch in the face. Your fist a rough circle between my lip, nose and cheek. It was over soon enough but still kinda awkward because you were still there and I didn't really know what to do because well I just wasn't like ever instructed on how to deal with the situation. Would it have been a faux pas to run? Kind of like the first time I had sex with a girl I didn't really know in this respect, confused about the required conduct et cetera, worried. This is not to say I associate the idea of sex and you, dude who punched me. To be honest you strike me as the type who'd make for an overly selfish lover. My lip starting bleeding, like actually pissing blood is probably a good word for it, and you kept staring. Then you ran off and the way you ran stuck me as unnatural – not enough arm movement I think. Kinda just started walking again after that, but seriously, way to do something real weird, punching guy. While I was walking all I could think about was how it would have been totally awesome to know hardout as martial arts and just flipped out and done some like kick to throat sort of thing and just ruined you. Ruined your shit. Or how I could silently follow you and find out where you live and get my friend's Mongrel Mob uncle to go round and scare you with his arms that are bigger than like two normal people's fucking bodies and make you say sorry like a total little bitch. Before you punched me I had just been walking home but also thinking about getting dumped and how I should just take a dive off some crappy bridge or put pencils up my nose and headbutt a wall, and so in this respect you kinda punched me out of myself, onto another track of thought.

So all in all pretty grateful/10, hope the rest of your random punching career goes well but I also kinda hope your dog dies because it really did fucking hurt and I still have a scab / scar type lame thing which looks like a cold sore and is kind of gross.

OH MY GOD

This is not a story of “the imaginative” as in the “imagine-if” type of thing you usually associate that whole thing with. It's more of a story about a swift one pulled on a detestable guy. Not like a Tom Swifty-esque thing or anything related to Jonathon Swift, in fact fuck it I don't even know why it's called pulling a swift one which actually sounds like smashing off real fast behind a curtain at some social function rather than getting one over someone but whatever who am I to quarrel with the English language I mean it has served me pretty well for a while allowed me to communicate got me blowjobs etc but yes back on point this dude's name was like Calhoun or Posslethwaite or something equally detestable (again with that word it is a pretty bangin' word so lets run with it) and I can't remember exactly what he did but it was to the effect of talking shit about me and getting my girlfriend to not like me for a while or some such which was totally bogus. Yes bogus. Well anyway the plan was to helms this guy when he didn't expect it. I mean no one really ever expects a helmsing but y'know, do it at some inconvenient point in life where it's A) public and B) MAXIMUM HUMILIATION. So even though yr devoid of the subcultural capital to even understand at this point a helmsing I am going to sell out and explain that, for expositions sake – basically a helmsing is an “atomic wedgie” if you're one of those retarded fat Americans that says things like atomic wedgie and if you say words like that you probably also call your friends “brah” and scream “spring breaaaak” when it's spring break at Cancun Mexico and I'm not even American haven't even been there and I know you are below average humans, on an objective scale. So yeah it was set up this Calhoun/Posslethwaite ma'fucker was gonna get helmsed because he spat some bullshit and upset my girl and basically he wasn't a total dude and people didn't really dig him or the fact that he was just making things awkward and shit so an ambush was planned right. Not like some gnarly over the top “oh lets grab him and skull fuck him and kill him” sort of thing, it was more like “let's wait til he's talking to those babes that he talks to sometimes (and they were babes) and just run up and helms the fuck out of him (we have a lot of spare time but that is not a bad thing because it means A) we can helms this dude at any stage because the reconnaisance + tracking part of things will not eat away at valuable Company Time which would otherwise be the case and B) I have time to philosophize post-event (e.g. right now) as to the significance of that happened.

Okay changing perspective now, excuse me, from now on you're reading from the perspective of that crappy dude with the annoying name that makes you want to punch something and you don't even know why.

“Oh man I was just walking down the road thinking about my sweet hair or something because I like to think about my hair and I was like oh my god I bet girls see me and are like “oh man I would suck his penis if the opportunity presented itself” or something blah blah blah man I have a sweet name I bet no one gets annoyed by it ahahaha yay <33>

“Hey, s'aaapening babes?”

“Uh not a whole bunch man”

“Blah blah blah” fuck my own voice actually sounds pretty cool, wouldn't mind hearing more of it.

“Dude who are those guys behind you?”

“alksjdalsdoiwuroiujpfqj;s”

Back to the like “narrative perspective” if you would like to call it such I don't really know don't have an English degree eh anyway pretty much just helmsed the shit out of that guy. The sun was setting while this happened, casting an almost surreal shadow, what would in other times by Cecil Woodham-Smith be called a “dim gloom across the battlefield”. It is almost sad that the world is overrun by universities, each offering a department of history, because when there was only one or two dudes who even cared enough to record history (hi Tacitus we should hang or something) individual perspective was worth a lot more. And in this I would suggest that from my individual perspective the Battle of Helmsing Some Crap Dude was of far more significance that I guess at least the Korean War. This is all subsets of the relativity of time I'm sure but don't expect anyone to understand that because I don't myself and really fuck it all this is only about a guy that got his underpants ripped off because he crossed a line. Hardly needs analysis or whatever.

Subsets

We caught the wrong bus home just the other day, but our blind pride made us stay.

“We already paid our fare” you said to me through bloodshot eyes, realising.

“We can see where it ends up” I said to you, in a sweatstained t-shirt.

We took our seats, middle of the bus, before the few steps up the the higher back section. I guessed it got higher there because there was a motor underneath. You told me you didn't care why it got higher. The bus was nearly empty. Aside from us, there was a Somali kid holding tight to a basketball, and a group of six along the back row. 3 guys, 3 girls. The guys in Jim Beam merchandise and tribal tattoos, the girls in von Bitch.

I think it was at this stage that you started explaining your theory of Buses as a Subset of Reality. “No other places are like buses, I'm sure of it. The same rules don't apply here. This is the last outpost of the sublime. The surreal”.

At the time, I didn't know what to make of this. But, as if to confirm the point you were making, one of the von Bitch'd girls up the back started singing along to a T-Pain ringtone, and so we fell silent. Soon the other two joined in, perfect pitch and tone. A ringtone choir.

“I, um, I sort of see what you mean?”

“There was no chance I was wrong about this”.

We continued in silence through the empty streets, your hand in mine or my hand in yours. I can't remember, but you know I don't like to get mixed up with details. “Hand in hand” is probably the best thing to call it. The streetlights illuminated the etchings that marked every window of the bus, and cast shadows on your face.

“There's something grand about traffic lights”, you said to me. “Like, the idea of them”.

“The fact that we so easily submit ourselves to the will of machines?”

“No. Stop being so depressing. I mean the way they keep going, doing their job, even when there's no cars around. Even with no one to appreciate their effort, they keep going. People could learn”

But you were cut short. The bus stopped suddenly, and the driver got up, marching past us to the back (the Higher Section, where the motor (possibly) is), past the now-terrified Somali kid to the back row.

“What have you been saying to this boy?” he demanded. We hadn't noticed anything. Caught up in traffic lights.

“We didn't say shit”. MTV emphasis.

“You called him a nigger. I heard you.”

“Whatever man. We didn't say shit”.

“Don't you say another fucking word to him”. Heartfelt emphasis.

“What the fuck are you gonna do about it anyway?” They were drunk. The air was static. You said later that it was like watching the final show of a long followed reality series, but I still don't know how I feel about this analogy.

“Besides, he is a fucking nigger. And so are you.”

We watched as our bus driver exploded, a ball of fuckin' rage. Back Seat Occupants looked genuinely scared – they knew a line had been crossed. Almost instantly our driver had “the leader” by the shirt, dragging him to the back door. He hit the emergency exit button, and as it opened inwards, smashed this fucker's face right into it. Nosebleed. Then threw him off the bus. The timing of it seemed practiced, maybe some sort of secret bus driver martial art. His eyes were like railguns or something – had the rest of those white trash fuckers running without saying another word. Ha ha!

“Thank. You.” said the kid, slowly and precisely.

“That. Was fucking rad.” I said.

“Where are we?” You said.

The driver only smiled, and restarted the bus.

“If people in DC Comics rode more buses, they wouldn't need Htrae”

“What?”

“Bizarro-World”

“Oh”

You saw Eastgate Mall, and pushed the buzzer.

“We can catch another bus from here. Orbiter, maybe. Or Metrostar”.

“Why do all our bus routes sound like clapped out carnival rides?”

“Reality in advertising? Lets go”.

We got off at a wide avenue littered with broken glass, sparkling under street lights. I remembered seeing the liquor shop fifty metres away get robbed about a year ago, and started to feel sick. You checked the timetables, announcing that we were too late. Everything was finished. I smelled of nervous sweat and piss.

'We'll walk. It'll be half an hour, tops” I told you.

“I'm scared” you told me.

“I Will Protect You”.

Necessity was all that caused this walk, which neither of us wanted to make. I took your hand in mine as the cars with red-hot motors and screaming exhausts circled like sharks and seagulls around a shoal of sardines on Discovery. Only without Attenborough, it seemed far less interesting. We walked in silence, until we got scared of our own shadows.

“There's something following us” you whispered.

“No there isn't. It's just our shadows”

“Well, that's still something, isn't it?”

“You're being facetious”.

“I'm scared”.

Multiple streetlights surround cast multiple shadows. In front, behind, and out to the sides. They grew and shrank, depending on how far we were between each set of lights. An unknown stalker, advancing and retreating. We were both surprised when walking faster did nothing to help our escape.

“We need to be rational about this. It is only our bodies, blocking the light from hitting the ground. We can't be afraid of that. It is physics, or something”. I was protecting you with physics.

“Yesbutwhatifsomeone'shidinginourshadows?!”

“Oh, fuck.” We ran.

The closer we got to home, the better we felt. Familiar streets, parks. A 24 hour gas station, where we bought chocolate milk for $4 and felt okay about it.

“Don't even give no fucks about it!” you shouted at me. I think you were being ironic, or at least post-ironic.

In the familiar surroundings, we felt fine. We were the Warriors, returned to Staten Island. We were invincible.

“I wasn't really scared” you told me.

“Neither. I could fight ten guys right now. At least run from ten guys, if it came to that. My legs would be fucking tornadoes man. I would fly.”

“But I couldn't keep up. You'd leave me like that?” you asked, wounded.

“Of course you could keep up. We'd be like track cyclists. I would break the wind resistance for you. We would fly.”

LOL WUT.

Black Flag - Damaged (review)

Dear Thomas,

The other day we talked about Damaged by Black Flag, and you told me you “didn't get it”. In this, I respect your honesty. Almost every other “hardcore” jerkoff would just smile and pretend, afraid to say what they really thought. Because, well, you don't fuck with the Flag, man. Or something.

I was 15 years old when I first heard Damaged, and to this day I still associate the record with myself back then – pissed at the world, without a clue as to why. In Damaged I was tipped to the universality of teen angst stemming from nothing. I realised there were more confused and pissed off fuck-ups out there than just me. And I mean, these people were fuck-ups – poorly recorded chords thrown over basic drumbeats and bad vocals. “The Stooges, man”. At the time I was spending my weekends hanging out with boy racers and getting handjobs of skanks drunk on Bernadino Spumante. To me, Damaged means revelation. It means that any pissed off shithead can start a band, and this fact alone changed my life. In this it is a signifier to something more. But, maybe to everyone else it's just a collection of songs played by Rollins, Ginn, Cadena, Dukowski and Valverde, and in this case, there's not really any such thing as “not getting it”. You just don't like the music! My only suggestion is that listening to Police Story drink at 4am might bring the sort of shitty-vibes- overload cathartic experience which means you truly do “get it”.

Best regards,
Dan.

Of poppies

There are poppies in the back yard at Dave's house. They appeared from nowhere, unplanned, yet totally befitting the glass-strewn courtyard. Some days as the sun went down we would sit in the back yard drinking Carter Larger and finding fault in everything, from radio singles, to girls we knew, to Hobbes' Leviathon. These poppies in the back yard weren't the sort that bleed opium when the stems get pierced, which we knew from experience. But, this fact didn't seem to stop emaciated space-heads scaling the fence on a regular basis and hauling away armfuls of whatever they could pull from between the cracks of concrete. This started a few weeks after the poppies first appeared, and show no signs of stopping.

This is Flanders! screamed Dave. This is Kandahar, and we're going to war for these fucking poppies. War against ugly rusted bastard needles sticking from ruined arms. We're going to war against modern life in the name of these poppies.

And so we sat in the top window at night, air rifle loaded. Every lank-haired face we saw rising over the back fence meant a readied trigger finger, and every arm and leg meant a rush of compressed air, and a .177 pellet striking human flesh. To address these people like this was to take back a little of what they took from us. It wasn't the act of stealing itself which was a problem, but the loss we felt. Sometimes we shoot junkies to deal with loss.