The Innocent Beginnings:

The hardest part was over now. I'd decided just where and how I'd be setting the stage for this grand escape. Now it was just a matter of getting there. Florida was a place where I'd spent a good portion of my metamorphosis into adulthood. It was where I'd met Frank, and most everyone else I'd ever considered important to me. Most of them were still there, clinging to whatever vestiges of hope they could, and making a damn good run at life too. I'd always been proud of them and that would never change.

This trip was to be different though. I'd be abandoning the bastions of safety I'd normally associated with the place. I wanted something wild, something dangerous, something that could threaten and challenge everything about me all at once. I wanted the hammer that could smash me to pieces, looming just over my head. We all knew the feeling. We'd all been there at some point in our adult lives. Now was the time to confront it, to conquer it once and for all, and show that it could be done.

I'd settle for nothing less, not this time. It was time to feast on the bones of the world and suck whatever I could from within. I'd come starving and leave so disgustingly full that I could have dropped dead in a moment of satisfaction. It was a trip designed to shadow every perception of fulfillment and happiness I thought I'd ever known. When it was over, I knew I'd emerge triumphant and waving my hands high. Dreamers dream, this has always been true, and now I intended to live it.

While I was sitting there, staring at the screen of the laptop, my first class ticket reservation staring me in the face, I had to wonder: How did all this actually happen? Sure, I'd been advocating just this kind of quest before, but how had it come to reality in such a sudden and violent fashion? I fished for another cigarette and leaned back to think about it.

I would have liked to say it was some long, hard, road of excess and binge drinking that had led me to this point - it would have seemed far more fitting and appropriate - but that just wasn't the case. The truth was, in all it's ugly and horrid glory, that this didn't come about from some stimulating conversation or some mind numbing decision to run around and deny myself nothing.

It was born of watching, of sitting around on patio porches in the heat of summer sipping Shipyard Export Ale, watching everyone around me blindly bumble their way into the future and decide "This is good enough for me, I think I'll stop here."

I'd spent the whole summer content to grill burgers and sip on beer. I'd just separated myself from a relationship that had been a cluster-fuck of half-truths and a bunch of slanderous horseshit, with myself. I'd waded out of the muck and expected to find the world as I remembered it: Alive. Vibrant. Brimming. You cannot fathom my confusion with what I saw sitting in front of me.

Everyone I knew, those who'd lived life with that same, unfettered, passion for indulgence, debauchery, and excess as me, were suddenly sitting down and talking about things that made no sense to me.  These were people who'd walked beside me in the hailstorm of chaos, swearing an oath of blood and fealty to the ride of life, promising to settle down for nothing less than everything...and they were talking in strange alien tongues.

"Yeah. She's not perfect, but enough for me."

"I know it's wrong, but whatever, it's good career advancement."

"I can't stand living here, but I'll deal with it I guess. At least it's quiet and nobody bothers me."

I, and I wasn't joking, started referring to it as 'The Summer of Blasphemy'. These were those I'd once considered the most die-hard of dreamers, those who would cling tightly to all they wanted, even if they understood they'd be going down with a ship. We'd always been a band of warriors, roving the universe with a 'take no prisoners' mentality.

After that summer of just sitting around and listening to them? I felt stoned - the kind with rocks - drunk, beaten, and exhausted. They'd sipped from the chalice and decided one drink was enough for them. They'd tasted blood, but never gotten the proper frenzy for it all. They were blatantly admitting that what they had wasn't what they wanted, but it was enough for them.

The whole thing was traumatic for me. I sat around for hours, chain smoking and sucking down bottles of Whiskey, trying to find some way to break the tailspin. I was more worried the attitude might be infectious, that I too would become another frightened, dull, old, man wheeling himself through life at the end of days bitching about the days of real tattoos and when skateboards had wheels.

That, was not a dream. It was a fucking terrible nightmare. I had promised myself, in the days of my youth, that I would never be 'old'. Sure, at the time I took that as a 'live fast, die young, party hard, and don't look back' sort of mentality. It was the early promise of a pine box and a six foot hole and, in those days, it had great appeal to me.

It took a long time, and a lot of drugs, for me to understand that I was going about it all wrong. Life was a crazy wave that I wanted to ride well into the shore. I wasn't content to stand on the beach or rush my way into the dirty. What I understood, after all that time, was that I wanted to remain youthful in my drive to devour everything there was in the world. Everything and anything that could, even remotely, tickle my senses - even in disgust - I wanted to experience it.

Those who'd stuck by me through those times, I had always assumed would be taking the crazy ride with me. We'd drank more than anyone we knew. we'd spent more summers stoned and twisted than most adults I've met since, but the thing that really separated those times from something that was just some wild, drunken, drug orgy? We were living, real-honest-to-greatness living.

We weren't the kind of people who got high and sat around watching movies like Dazed and Confused or Cheech and Chong's: Up in Smoke. Sure, we enjoyed these movies as much as the next person, but they were far too casual for us. We were die hard users, and when we took on the Dragon, we chased it across the land.

Now, staring at them across the patio table? It was all I could not to wretch in disgust. Sure, they had a right to their desires of contentment, just like I had a right to my nauseous feelings about it. Still, I said nothing to them. With each passing word though, each promise of 'settling down', I found myself more and more resolved to step away from the idea as a whole.

The whole thing had come to a head sometime in August. I'd been getting ready to take a trip out of town for a friends wedding. The three of us were sitting around, sipping drinks and feeling disgustingly full on steak. The day had been remarkably cool, a welcome change from the heat wave we'd been going through, and we were all just sitting around smoking cigarettes and talking.

"What about you?" My friend Paul had asked me. Paul and I had been friends since grade school. He was a skinny, little, twig of a man who wore thick glasses and often sported a spray on tan. Today he was wearing a black button down shirt and a worn pair of jeans. It was the most I'd seen him look anything like the man I'd known in awhile. I remember thinking he must have picked out his own clothes, or his girlfriend was out of town.

"What about me?" I pretended to have no idea what they were talking about and tried to buy myself some time by draining my beer in a series of long gulps.

"Ever see yourself, you know, getting married, settling down, giving up the old life?"

"Fuck no." I replied. "Why the hell would I ever give up on life? You're starting to sound like a used car salesman." I grabbed a fresh beer out of the ice bucket and twisted the cap off. "I've put a lot of good miles on this one and been down a lot of hard roads, it hasn't let me down - an I doubt it ever will."

"That's pretty sad man.." Chris commented. Chris an I hadn't been friends as long. I'd met him when I'd made a trip back up north years ago when Paul had introduced us. "You don't think you're going to get lonely like that?"

I scowled at him for a moment and I watched him shrink back into his beige, corduroy, jeans and white tennis shoes. Chris was quite a bit bigger than me, but I'd always been able to cow him with a few harsh words. He was going to college to be a High school Teacher and I remember thinking, on more than one occasion like this, that the poor bastard was going to get chewed apart by sharks.

"Like what?" I asked him, even though there was no need. "By sticking to my principles and riding the life, hard and fast, off into the sunset? I don't think any man could be lonely like that." I took another haul off my beer.  I could tell Chris was thinking about correcting me and I sat forward, shooting my finger across the table at him. "No, Chris, I don't. I'll live life by whatever rules I want, and I'll be happy and have my life full of all the god damned freak show clowns I can handle."

I was in no mood for this kind of talk and neither one of them seemed to notice it. I'd never, ever, been one to dig his toes into the Earth with the idea that anything was ever 'good enough' for me. I didn't think I should have either. Sure, there were times when I had to put the chase on hold and buckle down to handle the mortar fire of life, but there was no need to do that every day.

"Seriously.." Paul chimed in, sitting forward on his elbows like he always did before diving into some tyrannical babble about meaningless bullshit. It was funny how you could come to know exactly what someone was going to say before they even got the first word out of their mouth. "You can't keep on living like this man. We're only saying this because we care. Don't you think it's time you let go of that old idea and grew up some? Maybe got a real job, and thought about starting a family?"

I was beside myself with mourning and grief for these two. They'd once been some of the toughest bastards I'd ever met. Now they were just worn and faded Effigies to their former selves, a disrespectful homage that stood as a testament to times ability to pound ambition out of you. It was like hearing the victims of a serial rapist stand up and defend their attacker.

"Jesus you two.." I stared, my eyes wandering back and forth between the two of them. "Your Stockholm Syndrome is just plain depressing. Can we trade that in maybe? If you could trade up to a case of Stendhal maybe, or, at the very least, some kind of, non-terminal, stupidity that might render you both mute so I don't have to listen to this garbage anymore, that would be great." I leaned back in my chair and kicked my feet up on the glass table, crossing them at the ankles.

I understood that life would be different for everyone, that was the whole point behind it after all, but I simply couldn't wrap my head around the idea of giving up on everything you had ever dreamed of in the interest of procreation and stuffing some round shape in a space, hoping it would be enough to keep any leaks from springing up in the dam you'd constructed. It just didn't make any sense, and I wasn't about to be convinced of it.

"Have you two ever thought about how fucked what you're saying is?" I asked them sharply, screwing a fresh cigarette butt into my lips and using the last bits of the old one to light the end. Sitting forward enough to raise my eyebrows at them, I continued. "We go through life, taking the bull by the horns and steering it wherever we want to go, and because you two suddenly are worried about being alone and destitute - both of which are really impossible if you're actually living life - you're willing to just piss yourselves away and adopt some new face to wear? What the fuck is that about?"

The irritated tone in my voice wasn't something I could have easily hidden, but it was in that moment I realized just what was going on. We were all getting on in years, pushing our thirties, and in our time that was well beyond the points we all should have had kids and been married by now. They were feeling the squeeze of what they felt they should do, rather than what they wanted. It was vulgar. It was repulsive. It made me sick to my stomach. I pushed out of my seat, arms flailing wildly at the air.

"Where are you going?" Chris asked, making a motion to stand up and follow me. I stuck my hand out as a silent gesture for him to wait.

"Whiskey." I replied calmly. "If I'm going to sit here and listen to you two entice the vultures, then I'm going to need a strong spirit to keep the vicious things away. I'm too young to have my bones picked clean in the desert."

This whole thing was getting too surreal. People didn't actually think like this, nobody willing took up the gallows just because it was somewhere they could hang for awhile...did they? The question was cause for alarm and panic like I'd never felt before. To know such things existed in the world, that such haunting thoughts could creep up on the those around me I'd considered Titans, I wasn't ready for that an I could see it giving me nightmares for weeks.

Throwing some ice in the tumbler I poured a healthy amount of Jameson's over the top of it and even took a quick tug from the neck of the bottle. Feeling the fire hit my belly, I felt comfortable enough to join them again but first, I offered a quick prayer offered up that maybe these two were just high on sun  tan lotion and didn't really know what they were talking about anymore.

"You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up." Paul commented as I came back out on the porch.

I took one look at him and saw his eyes weren't really full of concern. He didn't believe what he was saying any more than I believed he'd ever be happy half-assing his way through a marriage. I took a sip of the drink and stared him down for a second. "Better to die from living, than to waste away from doing nothing,"

I passed the clipped retort back at them as I dropped back into my seat and made the decision right then, right there: This wasn't for me. Maybe it was for them, maybe it was there place to find some semblance of complacency in something they'd both said they'd never want. They were only human, after all, and it made sense that sometimes things just got too real. Sometimes the ideas of solitude got heavy for everyone, so I could understand how it had happened...but that didn't make it right.

They were content to be men, to live among men, to shackle themselves down to these things. I could accept that for myself. It threw everything in contrast and, in that moment, I knew what I had to do. I had to stop living among men and get back to living among the Gods and Beasts. I needed to turn the volume up, make the colors brighter, devour anything that got in my way and fashion some way to turn myself back into a proper cosmonaut.

At that, precise, moment though? I needed to get drunk as fast as possible and cop out of this discussion under the guise of needing a nap.

Tackling the bull and using it's bits to build a rocket ship.

It's been a long, strange, trip. There have been many times I've looked around me and really thought about just climbing off the roller coaster. I've been tired of all the ups and downs, and I've swallowed more than should be survivable, just to get through it. I'm not going to pretend it's been healthy, or that I'd advocate any of the choices I've made for anyone. Life's not easy, owning it is even harder. It's a rough and tumble beast that doesn't take kindly to being saddled. It'll kick, buck, and toss you off at every opportunity. What's worse is, when you're laying there on your back, that sonofabitch doesn't even have the kindness to live and let lie. It's going to come straight at you, horns full bore, and you'll have to decide just how it is you're going to handle that.

I stepped up to bat, again, and swung. It's funny the kind of confidence you can feel with a bat in your hand, even if you've never been a sports fan. It's that kind of 'do anything' mentality that reminds everyone that you can always make it home, if you just knock the ball far enough away from you. Still, you're never going to get anywhere if you wait for every perfect pitch to come your way. I've dusted off my running shoes. I've flexed my muscles. I've done everything I could possibly do. I'm ready to run for it - once and for all. So, standing face to face with a stadium full of raw, unforgiving, facts, it's come to my attention that I'm doing everything right. I've put the pen to paper. I've unlocked the things I buried long ago. My arms are tight with anticipation, and my toes are digging into the dirt. Now's the time.

It's an empowering mentality even if the precipice can be daunting at best, but that's life, isn't it? Every moment carries with it to irrevocably change anything you've ever known in the blink of an eye - and frankly I don't see what's so bad about that at all. It's the fear that gets to people, really, and what's the point of that? Fear is the evolutionary response to self preservation - and what's there to preserve if fear gets in the way of good, honest, dream grabbing? I've spent too many hours in this chair, too many hours curled up in the sheets, staring out my window at the stars. I've started building rocket ship now. This cosmonaut? He's coming home to the stars where he belongs.

Is it nerve wrecking? Sure it is, but everything done with white knuckles and a half-cocked bottle of Kentucky Whiskey always will be - it pays to remember that. Everything we do, not everything we say, is the amalgam of just who we are and just how far we're willing to go for ourselves. Too long have I drawn a line that I just couldn't bring myself to cross. I've said it before an I'll say it again..

‎"Fear is the evolutionary response for self preservation - an I'm more afraid of wasting away doing nothing than I ever have been to see myself fall down and break some bones. It's time to turn up the volume, step on the gas, and watch the world blur out the windows.

Cineri gloria sera venit - To the dead, fame comes too late."

Here's to pushing up daisies some day, but making the most of everything between now and then.

So, Who are we really: A nonsensical rant about the world outside my window:

In the past twenty four hours, I've done little more than compose notes, sit on my couch, sip Whiskey and really just try and figure some things out about this crazy world, where we happen to live. It left me with a headache when I was done - even if I did have to wonder if it was from the Whiskey - and a strong desire to take a nap. I did, of course, and when I woke up? I still couldn't shake all the thoughts out of my head. I find, generally, when this happens, it's best to put them on paper and be done with it, so, here we are, in my own words:


Who are we anymore? It's a question I ask myself often. I ask it of myself often. Rarely ever am I able to deeply ponder without giving myself some kind of migraine headache that I can only cure by simply shutting off the world and turning up the volume of some music.

What does it even mean to be 'An American'? Considering I happen to be one, a creature with patriotic and global ideals that don't ever seem to shut themselves up, it's a question I needed to answer, and nobody could point out the raw facts, but me.

This past month, and we're only halfway through it, has been flooded with events, both cultural and global. These global events, the biggest of which being The Natural disasters in Japan, and the string of revolutions and counter revolutions sweeping the Middle East.

Here, "at home", we had The Charlie Sheen Interviews, which seemed to drastically overshadow the political situation taking place in Wisconsin - which makes perfect sense when you think about it these days. Still, these issues are, at least in my opinion, much smaller scale and of much less importance by comparison but, they illustrate some truly haunting points when it comes to this country as of late.

I sat down to look at it all, just considering the things that were taking place, relative to all these events, in my own country. I perused news sites, social networking places like Facebook, read over some blogs, and just tried to get a general sense of what was going on inside the heads of people here. What I found was both fascinating and horrifying all at once.

I've always been someone who's believed in the values of free thinking and opinions, even those I don't follow, but I saw a lot of things I just couldn't stand presented in forums and blogs all over the internet. Everything from 'This is Japan's Karma for Pearl Harbor' to 'Charlie Sheen is a Degenerate who deserves to lose his children.' These thoughts ran the gambit of judgmental horror, and only seemed to intensify as time went on..

Firstly, the matters of judgment on Japan. To claim this is some retribution for an act of war perpetrated seventy years ago? It filled my chest with a burning sensation that hasn't really been rivaled since the days immediately after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. I was beside myself with the audacity of the statement and found myself strongly considering a change of citizenship for the first time in my life.

I didn't want to be lumped in with a nation of frightened rabbits, so full of a need to justify the horrors of life, that they had to systematically make excuses for why these things were happening. The more times I saw this mentality appear, the more my stomach tied itself up in knot. I felt like I was going to vomit up a ball of snakes. This almost would have been preferable, if they'd been some poisonous variety, as I could have trained them to use their complex scent receptors to weed out these people and find a way to bite them that would cause sterility.

I can understand that historic sense of patriotism. What I can't understand is having it blindly serving as justification for an event, so terrible that the mind needed some passable form of explanation as to why it happened. Mother Nature has always been at the top of the food chain and sometimes, I think, we tend to forget that. It's the one, all powerful, force that has no problem reminding us that - no matter how adaptive we get, we're still at her Mercy.

So, it's tough to be reminded we're not always at the top of the scrap heap. That's no excuse for making the rest of feeling almost ashamed to call ourselves Americans. It makes me wonder how many kids just happened to sleep through the part of American History where we learned how an estimated one hundred and fifty to two hundred and forty six thousand were killed in the atomic bombs that we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Compare that to the grand total of Two thousand, four hundred, and fifty nine deaths in  the attack on Pearl Harbor, an I think we've given the Japanese a karmic 'Carte Blanche' as far as that's concerned.

To see these overslept fools running amok on social networking sites was bad enough, but to see them actually gain steam and momentum among their peers? I couldn't believe it. I had expected the response to be an overwhelming stoning of these bastards. I would have been happy to see it. Hell, even if it had come hand in hand with capitalist values, with some rich, god fearing, fat cat setting up a stand to sell stones, I'd have been okay with it and probably would have shelled out my three bucks for some cheap, lumpy, limestone.

Then, of course, when the villains started lining up to crack senseless jokes at the expense of human suffering, it all made sense. There was talk of 'Revelation' of the 'End Times', of how Homosexuals and Heathen nations were to blame. It was blatant fear mongering. Everywhere I was looking people were super gluing 'Beware the Dogs of God' signs over picket fences and Garage doors everywhere. If these really are the 'End Times', I've got no choice but to make a strong drink and wonder....why point the finger at all?

It was 2011, ten years since Americans everywhere felt their reproductive organs jammed into a vice grip of forced patriotism and, world related, hate harboring. We've gone from clubbing anyone of vaguely Arabic appearance and banning them from flights, to, once again, condemning homosexuals and godless bastards for all the wrongs of the world. The more I saw of it the more I felt like these people drunk Roman dignitaries, sitting in my tower on high and laughing while everything, finally, burned around them.

Wasn't it time we moved past it? What had happened to those dedicated holdouts, clinging to the ideas of peace and general world acceptance? Sure a lot of them probably voted 'Green' and had probably contributed to the second coming of Bush Jr, but you couldn't fault someone too much for having the best of intentions - even if the execution was absolutely awful. Still, there should have been something left of them hanging around somewhere, but where?

It occurred to me that maybe they'd all grown up, that maybe there was still hope for them out there somewhere, balding, chemical free, still preaching the values of creativity and universal love. Maybe they were on small stages now, living rooms and couches, quietly discussing the wrongs of the world while sipping on wine, with one or two children running around underfoot. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

The rabbits were breeding at rapid rates, content to be blind to the world and all its real plights - they didn't affect them, so why bother? - and this was encouraging the rapid growth of immoral Jackals and emotionally bankrupt Wolves everywhere. This was enough to scare anyone with half a brain, and the common sense to be socially aware, into the idea that maybe now wasn't the best time to procreate.

Who could blame them really? Even those few, brave, souls who'd gone on to try and make something better of future generations had to admit it. This world wasn't one for high standing moral values and good intentions all abound - not unless there was some social popularity gain to be made out of it anyway. It was the modernization of philanthropy: Give a lot, give to causes, but make sure everyone knows how great you are by posting it everywhere.

Then you've got those last few, those hell bent to push through all the filth and swine, and make something better. They're hungry for truth and bacon, unquenchable appetites for change and standing up tall and proud for who they are and what they believe in. It's these people who walk the tightrope of our modern era with all the bravery of our armed servicemen.

It's a very dangerous time for these people, especially if they're in any kind of public or media spotlight. There are so many intricacies to what it means to be 'good' and 'wholesome' now. There's no room for indiscretion either. We expect the absolute pinnacle of human standards, at least in the public eye. In days of old, Truth was once the hallmark of 'American' values and news media. Now? Now we all operate on blind eyes and deaf ears. If we can pretend it doesn't happen? We're happy.

It's unfortunate that most new relationships will end, most people are dissatisfied with their lot in life and will slip from its grip at the slightest opening, that death and shameless robberies - for no good reason - happen every day. It makes for heavy feet to see the social structures dissolving, to see the hearts of children fill with judgments and rage, It's even more unfortunate that none of this seems to bother anyone - until we have a target large enough, that we can unleash it all in one, single, swoop.

Actors and Politicians are especially susceptible to those vultures, just waiting in the wings for the heat to get too hot, who'll drop in and pick the bones clean of any fool who dares slip even a toe out of the spotlight and tempt the darkness nobody really wants to look at anymore. It's all a matter of perception and if we can ignore the pink elephant in the room, well by God, it's our right as Americans to do just that.

When someone finally unleashes it though, say in terms of a President who may, or may not, have smoked Marijuana and diddled his secretary with a Cigar? Perhaps even a Governor of a thriving metropolis, who's battled corruption and crooks at every level, who went out looking for the company of the wrong woman after making some pretty powerful enemies in the money markets? Or maybe just a man so worn out on everything he sees that he finally breaks the tide of silence and strives for victory on a rocketship of self made ideas and self empowerment.

These are all people we've, at one point or another, extolled for their virtues and willingness to confront those dark and vile faces. They've given us names to hate and actions to be enraged by, situations to laugh at, and dinner conversations over overdone steak and TV dinners for middle American families everywhere. To a lot of people I know, these people represented Heroes in some these reasons. They rode a high wave that, at an abrupt an unforeseen moment, crested and rolled back. From there? We cut their legs out from underneath them and cast them into some dark corner where we never wanted to look again.

But why? That was the burning question that always stuck out in my mind. The answer always seemed to be, and continues to make the most sense, that we have to do this because they point out the things in us that we hate to look at - never mind admit. Infidelity, drug use, sex and other carnal indulgences, excess of anything. These are all things we all know exist, but prefer to pretend never happen in our lives.

We're Americans. We're good, honest, hard working, toilers who come home to our husbands and wives. We teach great moral values of cultural acceptance and how important it is to help the 'less fortunate' and oppressed. We're always there for our children, no matter what, teaching them right from wrong, to stay away from drugs, and to always be kind. 

These are the core, fundamental, principles of media and values that we all like to see as real. Men and Women cannot pay for sex, take excess in any drug - even the drug of life - or carry any social opinion which some might find offensive. These are the things that keep most people comfortable in their beds and sleeping soundly, living in the belief we all love one another and get along so well.

It's these kind of things, much like saying "Masturbation is Evil", that keeps me tossing and turning at night. I say that anyone who can triumph life on a self made drug he can call 'Me', is worthy of recognition. The world's a crazy place. It changes in an instant. It keeps us on our toes as often as possible. Even in the face of atrocity - be it natural or man made - it is best to keep your game face on. 

It's the crunch-time drives and the legendary moments of good luck that make up the highlight reels of life - and really, it's the highlights that tend to define the career.

The Morning After Pill for the everday dreamer

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Part 2

I was relatively content with myself at this point. I'd dragged the haphazard bystander straight into the storm and they seemed to be standing tall. Hesitation was something we were all raised to have when it came to thing that might have challenged us - no matter how fun they might have looked. The grass may have been greener on the other side of the fence, but it might have been a jungle too. This had been the lesson an I had decided, early on, that it was absolute trash. So what if it was a jungle? Was that any reason not to strip naked and run through it? Sure there were beasts and monsters that lurked around ever corner and under every rock...but how was that different from anywhere else in the world?

Even I was considered a ruthless monster, some Frankenstein creation - to many. I had a mouth that never quit and words that carried the force of a cruise missile. I'd heard many social claims that I was dangerous, an I never argued against a one of them. Anything that challenged you should be dangerous. Beliefs, be they moral or on matters of safety, were not things to take lightly. If you were presented with something concrete enough to stop them, it should have been something taken seriously. It's always been my experience people don't take something seriously unless it's got an alluring sense of danger.

The girl seemed to be genuinely enjoying the moment - even if it was probably because she was too drunk to really understand that she was standing in the eye of the storm. She was preoccupied with laughing and cheering at the dancers on display, just like everyone else. She'd risen to the challenge of provocation and was standing quite tall in spite of herself. It was a proud moment to observe, but I was in no gloating mood.

Something in the room, maybe the whole world, had shifted. Despite the atmosphere of revelry and merriment something was pulling at the hairs on the back of my neck. I had the impending sense that lightening was about to strike the field we were all standing in and there wasn't a damn person in the room with the training to handle a real, raging, brush fire.

I remember looking back over my shoulder in a hiccup of panic. My throat almost felt tight and, for a moment, I was choking on the air in the room. The whole demeanor had changed. Everyone seemed tense and the energy of the room felt thick enough to choke out the most hardened of wildlife. I shifted in my seat and pushed to my feet, promising the fledgling life liver that I would be right back. I knew, full well, it was a lie at the time I said it, but I had to get to the bottom of this new mess and quickly. Now was not the time to be idle.

Winds of war swept across the room like it was a forgotten battlefield and nobody had told the soldiers that the war was over. I moved through the crowd carefully. I was clutching onto my drink as if it were some kind of shield, something to protect from the unknown enemy I felt lurking just out of sight. It was a good thing too because, just as I let my focus shift, I felt someones shoulder bump me, rather hard, and lurched to the side. It was a miracle the whole damn thing didn't crash to the floor. Broken glass is not the kind of thing that anyone wants underfoot at a party.

Finding a spot at the bar, some place I had hoped would be more of a safe haven than an Alamo, I settled myself back down and let my eyes wander again. I wasn't the only one who seemed to have got the feeling. Those clinging vestiges of fun, had by those who were sober enough to understand that something truly wicked was brewing, had already begun to crowd in around me. It felt claustrophobic. I felt like the one Cow who knew the car was going to the slaughterhouse, while the rest of the retarded Bovines were content to yap away like an excited dog who didn't know this ride in the car was going to cost him his testicles.

It was then that I heard it. That gruff, slurred, tone that only could have come from a man who was drunk on far more than cheap beer at discount prices. "What the fuck is all this shit?" At least I was pretty sure he said shit, the Northern accent can be complicated when you combine it with beer. It's like someone from the south had all their teeth smashed out and tried talking around a mouthful of cheese. My eyes spun around quickly to take sight of just who owned the phrase and what I saw didn't surprise me at all.

He was a big, surly, cur, with eyes that couldn't have seemed to focus on much at all. His beard, which looked about as a well kept as a mangy junkyard dog, seemed to have bits of food - or possibly vomit - clinging to it. His flannel jacket, even from my distance, stunk of diesel fuel and pine and his boots were scuffed in a way that said they saw constant abuse. He was a real hard worker, someone I normally would have had no problem seeing at a bar, and probably would have bought a drink.

"It's a floor show." I called back over my shoulder, pushing to my feet. There was a moment where my mind seemed to default back to its safety training then. He was nearly a full foot taller than me, and I stand at almost six feet. There are very few people in the world who have the ability to loom over me, but this guy certainly did. "Sit down, have a drink, it's Mardi Gras." It was my only thought, something to bottle up what I knew was about to happen and give the innocents a few precious seconds to get out of the way.

"Bucha goddamned faggots in here." He slurred, shifting his eyes in my direction for a moment. The problem with the atmosphere in Maine was that it rarely lent itself to forward thinking. Homosexuals were still godless bastard to be blamed for all the worlds problems, rock music was still the devil, and the measure of every man was how hard he worked. Even beating your dog wasn't entirely frowned on by most up here and if you hit your wife? It was generally assumed she had it coming. I'd tried to tell myself, for years, it was getting better and every time I stood at the door of change, someone like this would always walk in and blow the whole theory to smithereens.

"Don't worry about them.." I encouraged for a moment. "They're harmless and you're hardly their type." I was already frantically waving a hand behind my back for the bartender. Whatever they were going to feed this drunk baboon needed to be more water than wine, but he was going to need something in his hands quickly. The situation was getting tense and the waves were already rolling in, if this guy didn't get something in his hands soon they were very likely to start swinging. "C'mon." I rolled my head back over my shoulder. "Let me buy you a drink."

He eyed me for a moment and I, all at once, became aware of the folly of my offer. He was already aware he was in a room full of men who made his loins as uncomfortable as they might be if someone had jammed thistle into his urethra. I wasn't helping this situation by seeming accepting and offering to buy him a drink. The homophobic mind has an impressive ability, when presented with it's object of terror, to see any gesture given by a man as an insult to the purity of its owner. I held my hands up in protest. "Wait." I commanded in a tone that was more a firm snap - the kind you might give a disobedient dog - than a request.

Quickly I turned back to the bartender and snatched him by the arm. "Whiskey." I said, with a sense of urgency to my voice. "I need three shots of whiskey, and I need them five minutes ago."

"We can't give that guy whiskey!" He replied. It was a sensible position, but I was in no mood to hear the argument.

"They're not for him." This was very true. After another skeptical moment, the shots were laid out in front of me. There had been few moments in my life when I'd been more grateful to see those crystal glasses filled with honey colored gold. I knew I was going to need a serious kick if I was going to get out of this whole mess unscathed. Knocking back the first shot, I turned around to the man and held up the other two.


He was scowling at me, his arms folded over his chest, his lower lip caught in the bear trap of snarling teeth. I debated, sticking to the original plan for a minute. I gave the guy a look, and raised the glasses. "If you're going to kick my ass all the way back home, you're going to have to do it while I'm drunk." I kicked back the shots without hesitation. It was a last ditch attempt to show this bear that I meant business.

After all, I was attempting to be the Wolverine. Wolverines were the ferocious beasts who backed down from nothing. They feasted on bones to get them through the winter and they'd charge a rabid bear if it meant getting what they needed to survive. I, and everyone other than the bear, needed this to get through the New England winter. I stared at him for a moment, fully expecting the fists to start flying. I was ready to gnaw his knuckles to stubs and not give him an inch to work with too.

Fear wasn't something you could give these beasts, it simply drove them further into a rage, if only because they thought you'd be an easy meal. You had to stand tall to them and really make them believe, if they tangled with you, there was a very good chance they would lose an eye. Sure, I'd never considered myself a violent man - but there was absolutely no reason I could think of that he even need to have that thought cross his mind. He needed to think of me just as I was: a vile tempered, vicious, snarling, beast that stood between him and the object of his discomfort.

"...You a Faggot?" He spat. The hesitation was a good sign, made me think I'd made some headway towards getting this bomb out of the room before someone got hurt.

"Nope." I replied flatly. "I love fucking women just as much as the next, perfectly straight guy. Not that it would really matter - they still wouldn't give me a stake to burn on." I doubted the reference would fall on proper ears, but I'd committed to the fight. "I'm just your average, whiskey drinking man." I continued, in hopes we might have been able to find some kind of passive solution. "I smoke cigarettes, hate trucks, and think women have a right to drag me into the bedroom anytime they want." I shrugged. "I'm a lover, not a fighter.."

I let my voice trail off to see just how he'd respond to that one. Maybe if he could see me as another guy who could appreciate some boring, vanilla, sex in the dark, he might be willing to just sit down instead of start swinging. "So yer one of them jobless punk hippies." His sneer only doubled as he spoke. I blinked at him.

"Punks and hippies are the same thing." I replied smugly. "Only difference is what they wear and how much meat they eat." I tugged on my jacket with a sense of pride and straightened myself out. So far, I'd been lucky. He hadn't thrown a punch and nobody else had stepped into the scene. I was only hoping everyone had as much confidence as I was faking, and that they thought I could talk this situation away too. At the same time I realized it was more likely that everyone knew what was coming and nobody else really felt like stepping in front of the bus. "But yeah, I'm one of those."

It was like I always said: There were all kinds of things that lived in the Ocean. There was a reason the old world had been littered with tales of Kraken and Sirens. There was always something out there, lingering just out of sight, waiting to crash your boat and swallow all your dreams. I wasn't about to let it happen, not this time. It would have undermined everything I was setting out to do. If that meant I had to go down in a fray of blood and whiskey? Well, that was what it meant. I was ready to stand up to it. I was ready to get split clean down the middle. I was ready to give just as hard as I got and make sure everyone involved left with stitches and one hell of a story.

"I hate punk, faggot, hippies." As if him telling me that as a fact wasn't something he'd already communicated.

"Is there anything you don't hate - aside from your wife, your truck, your guns, and raw meat?" I asked him plainly. "Those are fantastic things for a man to love, don't get me wrong, I'm just curious."

"Kickin' smartasses in the teeth..." The response had been predictable, but before I even had another turn at bat, someone else was already stepping up and swinging. I should have seen it coming, but I'd been content with the idea it would have been a classic duel, rather than a full blown fray. However, when a drunk man overhears something that he perceives, and rightly so, a very real threat to someone who he doesn't passionately dislike? Nobody can fault him for the defensive response.

The punch came from a skinny, post-armed forces, guy deceptively sporting a lei and beads. He wasn't the kind of guy I'd taken for a scrapper, even given his experience at volunteering for conflict and shooting at people. Unfortunately, scrapper or no, the big monkey hardly even seemed to notice that he'd been hit. It was an absolute horror show, what happened next.

Nobody could have blamed the brute for trying to defend his sinking ship. He was drunk and stupid, not exactly the kind of guy you'd expect to think that maybe picking a fight in here wasn't the best idea. I tried to tell myself that maybe he just didn't care? That would have been easier to respect. At least, in that case, he had his principles and was prepared to go down fighting for them. I stood back for a moment, deciding to give the fight some pretense of honor and let the two warriors battle it out alone. The bar was already scrambling to get out of the way while the Bartenders shouted to try and keep things from escalating any further.

When the second punch came back though? That was it. It collided with the skinny guy like a wrecking ball and sent him crashing back into the bar, spilling a container of beads and several peoples drinks. Now, if you've ever been in a bar full of drunks - even drag queens and people just looking to have a good time - you know there is one absolute rule about fighting: Everyone is content to ignore it until drinks get spilled. When they do? All bets are off and it's everyman for himself.

Now was not the time to stand idle. I reached for the nearest person to me and gripped them tightly by the shoulder. "Listen to me!" I shouted, giving him a firm shake. "This is going to get ugly fast. Get the women and children out of here and -." I looked back over my shoulder to see just how bad it was going to get. "- God help you son. Oh..and look for a small thing near the front...she'll need you.."

With hardly another word I was tossing my jacket on the floor and moving forward, fists first. Battle lines had been drawn in my delay and, now, people who'd been content to be pacifists were lining up to get their guns. Even some of those who'd been here for hours were stepping to defend the mountain man, but that made sense. Six on one wasn't a fair fight, and if you didn't know the details it only made sense to take the underdog's corner.

I think what surprised me most, aside from how stable the bearded guy was on his feet, was that the Queens were getting involved in it too. It really should have made sense, but I couldn't quite grasp the whole equation of trying to bottle up testosterone and shoving it in heels - not when I was trying to not get my jaw broken.

People were pushing and shoving, punching and shouting like mad. It was a crazy scene, and there seemed to be no rules for honorable engagement. There was hair pulling, biting, clawing, punching, shoving, and shouting. It was like someone had loosed all the animals from the zoo after slipping them a heavy dose of acid. I grabbed the larger man nearest to me and pulled him away from the door. I couldn't let him block the exits, people were trying to get out of her. Giving him a tough shove back against the nearby wall, I smiled cheerfully. "Fun?"

The punch that followed was not fun - nor did it indicate any desire to have fun at all. It caught me square in the stomach and sent me into wretch of bile. Fortunately, for everyone, I have a good constitution and was able to restrain the ability to vomit with a few, well placed, backwards steps. The guy wasn't content to lose his advantage and kept coming right along with me though. Covering my head with one arm, I began reaching blindly behind me. It took me a few minutes, but I found what I was looking for before too many more punches cracked against me.

Reaching my hand forward, the water tap in hand, I gave it a firm blast in his direction. "Back! BACK!" I bellowed, pushing at him with my feet as he attempted to recoil in surprise. "We've no place for you here! Back in your cage!" I stomped my foot and pressed my advance as far as the hose would allow. When I felt it go taunt? I dropped it from my grasp and rushed at him, using momentum to carry him right out the door and land him on his ass. "And stay out!" I shouted, turning around to see what was left.

Bar fights, generally, are blessedly short things. Either those who start them are beaten senseless and run away quickly, or the cops show up and mace the hell out of everyone. Luckily, tonight, it looked like we were going to avoid pepper spray and handcuffs. Still, the scene was messy at best. Half the bar had cleared out - which was good, and everyone who wasn't somehow invested in the fight seemed to been amongst the refugees. I gave a quick look around for the short little mouse. When I didn't see her? I smiled. At least she'd left with a story to tell.

I shifted slightly when I felt a weight on my shoulder. "You okay?" The gentle voice asked with a genuine sense of concern haunting its tones. I turned to see a very diminutive man - at least I think it was man - looking over me with a soft, nurturing, smile that even the most devout of Nuns would have been hard pressed to pull off.

"I'm fine, nothing serious. Just some bruises for the morning." It's hard to keep track of who, and what, is going on in these situations until it's all over. Half the time you don't even know you've been beaten so badly you're bleeding until someone stops to point it out to you. I knew that look as soon as it'd been given, those blue eyes narrowing in on a space just around the edges of my mouth. I reached for it and felt the sticky heat of blood on my lips. I sighed and wiped my fingers on my pants and pushed up to the bar.

Everyone around me was icing their wounds and dabbing at the stains with water and napkins. There were wigs and fake nails all over the place. Everyone had someone standing by their side making sure the welts and cuts weren't anything serious. It was like the Drag Queens were all performing Triage on the soldiers - some of which were their own - who'd gone to war to see them defended. Those not cleaning the wounds of the humans? They were busy sweeping up ice and broken glass, making sure nobody got further hurt.

"You okay?" The voice asked again. I still wasn't sure which of the genders it belonged to, but it didn't really matter. It sounded grateful. "Is there anything I can get you?"

I turned to face him. I only had one thing on my mind, one thing I could say. Everyone else wanted ice, water, something to make their outsides feel better. Me? My outsides felt fine, hell, they felt great. I'd stood tall and proud during a dark moment, and I'd come out on top. I'd done exactly what it was I'd set out to do. I defended the idea of dreaming as hard as you live and I'd gone to war for it. I was in no mood for somber tending. I was in the mood for one thing and one thing only.

"A shot of Whiskey. I'm in the mood to celebrate."

Take a day & take a kick - the first pages of excess

It started off as a day that wasn't out of the ordinary, not by any stretch of the imagination. It, like most days, found dawn sometime after noon, sitting around, sipping on some concoction of fruit juice and alcohol. Today's was another round of Rum and Pomegranate juice, but the mix was light. I had things to do and couldn't rightly risk tempting the lions so early in the day, there would be plenty of time to step into the arena and prove my merit to the gods later. Now was the time to get down to writing.

I'd just tucked my pen between my teeth to start the thinking process when the phone rang. This kind of thing isn't at all uncommon really, the damnation of technology haunt the creative types at the worst of times, an I really try and chalk it up to penance more than anything. I stared at it for a long moment as it sounded off it's six second intermission of Mad World by Tears for Fears. There was only one person it could have been.

My eyes quickly darted up to the tattered remains of the calendar on my wall - I have a nasty habit of falling out of love with time and setting it on fire - before looking back down at the phone. Jesus. I knew this could only mean one thing.... and it was with great hesitation that I picked up the plastic monstrosity and put it to my ear, ready to hear the bomb drop.

"WHY ARE YOU ANSWERING YOUR PHONE?" The shouting voice was almost deafening and I had to yank the phone away from my ear. It also told me all I needed to know about the filthy pirate on the other end of the line.

Frank had been one of my closest friends and confidants for years. He was a writer like me, and one with enough brass balls to sink a Ship of the Line. He was one of the few, the brave, and the proud. He was the one who'd climb up into the saddle and ride the wildest of horses with no hesitation.

Frank had won his freedom in the Colosseum years ago and now he just liked to step into it for fun. There were many things I knew about Frank, but the main thing I knew at that moment? He was drunk. It was damn early for him too - we kept nearly identical hours these days - and that could only mean one thing: Everything was right with the world.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do when it -" I couldn't even finish the thought before the voice on the other end cut me off.

"Do you what day it is?!" I could almost smell the whiskey and lemon juice through the phone.

"Saturday?" I asked.

"You're god damned right it's Saturday! Now why are you answering your phone? Spare me and don't give me any of your lip!"

"I have work to do. You know, that whole piece on the Dreaming?" Frank had always been my sounding board for work too, ever since we'd met in 2001. Those were the days I remembered with the fondness of cast iron bars, cold steak, and the loss of sanity and breakneck speeds. "Don't tell me you forgot already you self-righteous Boar." This was our typical round about way of getting things done. It always had been, it always would be, and it was the only real way we could see it.

"And you're sitting on your ass why?" He snapped in reply. "It's the Saturday before the start of the Carnival Season.." The long trail in his voice was punctuated by the sharp hiss of air on the other end of the phone. "Prime season for the freaks and dreamers.." He added in exhale. "If you're really about to try and grab a dream like that one, you've got to get off your ass and do it. Your generations already been fucked into stasis by half-assed attempts at everything else - and that's not a pile you want to throw your name into. Even a backwater berg like yours has to have something going on tonight. I don't care what it is, or where, you go find it..." His voice trailed again.

I waited for a moment, unsure if speaking could be considered safe. Frank had a real knack for unloading both barrels of rocket fuel into my ass and, despite the fact it was appreciated most of the time, I'd found myself growing a bit weary of the same sights and places around me. "You know I'm coming down-"

"Don't make me come up there." He interrupted again in a voice that could have struck fear into an entire cruise liner full of red headed step children. It was that Fatherly tone he often took when he'd spare no quarter for argument and fillet any stupid fool dumb enough to offer one up. Before I could even think to formulate any kind of reply, I heard the heartless thud of plastic on wood and Frank cursing in the background. I smiled to myself just in time to hear him fiddle with the receiver and hang up the telephone.

He had a point. If I really was going to write about seizing a brand new dream I had no business sitting at home writing about it at One O'clock in the afternoon a Saturday before the start Mardi Gras. This was prime season for new beginnings and there wasn't a prayer for any of us if I didn't start now. I pushed myself up off the couch - bringing the drink with me.

By the time I was out of the shower my drink was gone and the phone was ringing again. I could hear it through the thin walls in the bathroom - a truly loathsome thing when you had friends like I did - and was already running after it. It was Shelby, a friend of mine, asking if I was coming out tonight. I informed her I had no plans at the moment, and she made mention of a Drag Show going on at one of the local haunts I'd sometimes visit. I told her to pick me up around Seven. I needed to get myself in order if I was to attend this kind of thing properly.

This was perfect. There were few better places to embrace such an idea of excess and high living that at a bar filled with miscreants dressed up as wholesome members of society - never mind the booze, beads, and revelry that was sure to be around. I accepted without hesitation, and threw on a pair of pinstripe pants and some silk shirt. It was a ceremony to be sure but tonight was not the night I intended to participate. Tonight was a night to watch. I wanted to see just how far the world would be willing to go if you fueled them with a mask, a strong drink, and bribed them with something shiny.

That left time to kill. It was barely a quarter to three. I cursed myself for telling her seven and glanced down at the empty drink in glass in my hand. It was still dripping with water from the shower and I suddenly became aware that I was too. This is one of many reasons I don't advocate drinking in the shower to many people - you ruin perfectly good carpets. Still, there was no point in crying over spilled milk. I grabbed a T-shirt from the pile by my bedroom door and tossed it underfoot before opening the miniature fridge nearby to make another drink. Frank was right, this was no time to half-ass it.

I filled the next few hours with as many drinks as I could but ran out before Shelby even showed up. There was a moment where I thought this might be some bitter omen but decided not to let it get the better of me. There would be more waiting for me at the bar an I understood I was probably going to need it before the night was over. That left only the matter of dressing my feet and making my way outside for a cigarette.

The night was crisp and wet. Maine was rather notorious for March snowstorms but lately we'd been slapped with some bizarre warm front that had coated everything in a deadly sheet of ice. I sighed at the ground as my faded boots set down on the concrete outside my door. I looked up at the sky, peering daringly into the storm, looking to see if there was some kind of break on the horizon, and finding nothing. "Lord.." I called out, the cigarette jammed between shivering teeth. "..Don't play games. Not tonight. You're not stopping me, not now."

A harsh wind kicked up and knocked my footing loose from under me and I crashed back into the door in a violent stream of curses and vulgarities in every tongue I knew - only offering up the small blessing my drink hand had been empty at the time. By the time I blinked the fresh sleet from my eyes I could already see the blinking hazard lights at the head of the driveway.

I tucked my hands into my pockets and jogged up the treacherous slope feeling much like a hiker on his first Everest ascent. My lungs, scorched by the cigarette between my lips, were burning for oxygen. It was a loud enough protest but these kind of things had been all over the news lately. I knew that the only way to properly guarantee a revolution was to ignore the threat of a coup and revolution was something I absolutely wanted on the menu tonight.

"Quiet you!" I spat furiously at the thumping organs in my chest. I dropped into the passenger seat of the car with a heavy exhale before shutting. Turning my gaze toward Shelby - who looked dreadfully confused - I gave a firm thump of my fist on the dashboard. "Onward! Mush! Macht schnell!" I commanded the car with a firm smattering of various tongues and as we lurched forward I rolled the window down. The cold air was a welcome touch to an inflamed respiratory system and it gobbled at it like a starved miner set loose on a ham sandwich.

"You all right?" She asked after a moment, a bright shade of purple hair batting her upside the face. I stared at her for a long moment, offering a nod of approval. Already the signs were there. Those who were bold enough to find their own drum, a rarity in these frozen woods, were going to be out in force. I was now positive going out had been the right choice and made a note to thank Frank for it later. The unruly cur would just slander me for it but I believed in giving credit where credit was due.

"Of course I am." I replied flatly, jamming the cigarette in my mouth. "It's the beginning of the end of something new, a fresh coat of paint on an otherwise bullshit Saturday night.." I tapped my ashes out the window. "Thanks for the ride, I got you some gas money." The rest of the car ride was filled with menial conversations and I found my mind preoccupied with rum and the thoughts of just how to best capture the evening.

I felt a bit like Lon Chaney Jr in 'The Wolf Man'. The world was coming at me in shades of gray only finding color when the spotlights from the car found them. I laid my hand against my head for a moment as we pulled into the parking lot across the street and jammed a fresh cigarette into my lips. I lit it, finding heavily on the sense of stability I hoped to find wrapped up inside it's cotton. It was my first full moon in too long and my skin was already crawling. I made a note to never forget that hibernation and hermitage were the cobblestones to damnation.

Pushing in through the front door of the bar, after pitching my half smoked cigarette in lieu of rushing for the sanctuary of something much more potent, I swore I heard the howl of the four legged beast. My head jerked up dropping crooked sunglasses off my brow. I was completely unprepared for what I was about to see.

My eyes staggered to adjust to the bright colors and over abundance of skin that was all around me. The normal drab decor, to which I had become accustomed, had been washed away in a sea of sparkles, glitter, and shades of reflective rainbow tinsel. I blinked, rubbing at my eyes, and pushed forward through the crowd of fake breasts and deceptively attractive women.

I knew better than to bite on the hook after I'd been drinking - I valued my arms far too much. I was only lucky that the more carnal parts of my brain were already preoccupied with feasting on dreams or I could have been in serious trouble. Still, this was no time for serious panic. Now was the time for strong and relentless drinks. If I was to capture the proper spirit of the thing I'd need to start hammering drinks so fast that any religious context could be summed up in the drunken slur of an Iron Butterfly classic.

I thumped my hand flatly on the bar, the heavy jangle of my studded, Wilsons, leather jacket sounding off as a warning bell to anyone within earshot. Someone had let the beast loose and I wasn't about to be trifled with now. Now was a time to get the medicine down and get it down fast. I'd grease the wheels of momentum and shoot straight for the moon - which should have been remarkably easy considering how close it was to the floor in some parts of the bar.

"You don't look like you belong here.." A quiet voice chirped in a tone that sounded as if it might have been shy once upon a, prohibition era, time.

I squinted at her for a moment, before kicking my foot back to drag my sunglasses toward me from their position on the floor. I bent down to pick them up and put them on my face. "Is that better?" I asked plainly.

She stared at me for a moment, her features mostly hidden by a do-it-yourself mask. I could respect that kind of display. It made far more sense, to me, to dawn a mask of your own creation rather than to pick up some dollar store knock off and curse yourself when all your feathers were gone well before midnight.

"You're not wearing a mask.." She finally replied.

"Sure I am." I replied with enthusiasm, raising my voice over the music, and circling one finger around my face. "Can't you see it? I'm the new modern Emperor of small town Mardi Gras - don't you like my new mask?" It was a bold story, but I'd already committed to the drive and it was too late to back out now. It was clutch time in the big game an I'd play big. I'd always found the white flag of surrender a far heavier flag and I was packing light for this particular trip. There would be no backing down.

She reached out after a moment and tugged at the belt of my jacket. I summarized she might have been drunk, but that didn't matter, half the damn town was drunk - and rightly so. Giving her a moment of consideration I noticed I wasn't the only one who might have been mistaken for out of sorts. Despite her DIY mask and drunken demeanor she had little else that seemed to lend her to this atmosphere. Drab blue jeans and natural hair color were the first giveaways, not to mention the lack of styling product or flare below the neckline. I suddenly felt skeptical.

"What's with the leather and spikes?" She spoke, half slurring the words in my direction. "That's not very festive at all!" Her hands waved around dramatically like drunken doves trying to accent world peace in the middle of the apocalypse and I was forced to duck out of the way. Fortunately my Mai Tai had arrived - one of the many advantages of being a regular patron at a bar meant they could usually guess what your first drink would be and open up a tab for you in waiting.

"That all depends on what you're celebrating.." I replied, taking a heavy pull of the drink into my mouth and swallowing. They'd gone heavy on the rum and light on the ice. This was not normally the way I'd have taken the drink at all but, lucky for me, bartenders have a knack for empathy. I pulled up a stool at the bar and sat down. "I'm a man, with a very colorful drink, at a bar. I'd say I'm about as festive as a bar ever gets."

She laughed at me for a moment in a way that implied she saw no humor in what I'd said, but was trying to be polite. I was more content to ignore it and began hungrily slugging away at my drink like it was the first bits of water I'd seen in months. It was just the fuel I'd needed to get my ship off the ground and tonight was going to be a night where I'd need all the loud music and raw fuel I could get my hands on for sure.

"So what do you do?" The girl asked, tugging at the cuff of my jacket in a way that made me believe she had asked more than once, when I wasn't paying attention. I gave her a questionable look as I turned on my bar stool and peered down at my drink. It was already half empty. I shook my glass at a wandering bartender who nodded, and the cleared my throat.

"I do film-making, movies and stuff." It was one of a dozen lines I'd feed people for a reaction - half of how I'd made most of the 'friends' I had up here - and see just how far they'd run with it. I, luckily, have practice in hiding my amusement at people's responses or this one would have gotten me in serious trouble and blown the whole dame story to a confetti parade, an I doubt there would have been anyone cheering for me this time.

"That's so cool!" She fired back with a star struck sense of jubilation and R.S.S.S. - 'Rock-Star Sighting Syndrome'. People from small towns and closed scenes don't really understand the word 'cool' anymore. Once upon it might have been in the same ballpark of 'hip', 'rad' or even 'groovy', but these days? These days cool is the second rate, half retarded, cousin of 'awesome' and 'neat'. I'd have rather been told something was 'keen'. "What kind of movies do you do? Anything I might have seen? Are you working on anything right now?" She continued with hardly a breath in between.

"Oh I'm always working on something." I replied, finishing my drink and collecting the second. "I normally do wildlife documentaries, the kind of thing you see on PBS and Discovery channel. Lately I've been thinking about branching out.." I tucked the straw between my lips and sipped at the second drink. It was stronger than the first - I'd be tipping well tonight. Waving my hand around to the people and patrons to emphasize the point, I added "I figure I have plenty enough experience shooting wildlife to handle something like this.."

I considered, for a moment, that perhaps I was going about this all wrong. Here I was, destined to chase some dream nobody I knew had ever grabbed, and I was already starting off the journey swindling a good time out of someone like a second rate con man fresh out of prison. The first thing that occurred to me on the matter was that I was in a room full of masquerade liars.

The whole damn room was full of men who'd make a straight man cry himself to sleep questioning his sexuality after a slow dance. It was the embodiment that June 1970, rock classic, 'Lola' by The Kinks. This whole room was a powder keg of drunkards and ignorance just waiting for someone to light a match. This being considered, what was the real wrong of wearing my own mask in less-than-literal way? I couldn't see one. I was fitting right in with everyone else, I was just the only one who knew it.

Then again, wasn't that the idea? So few people had the ability to really grab a moment and make it something real. The youthful masses were herded willingly into the slaughterhouses of retirement homes always looking back all the things they could have had - if only the crossed the room to get them. Even if I was to lie and cheat my way through it, I was bringing someone else an experience they might never have had otherwise.  I could rationalize I was doing this girl a favor - even if it was in the sense of my personal quest. Still, it was a moment an I intend to pluck it from the ether and turn it something like a surrealist painting.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her at once. "You hardly look like the kind of person who'd willing attend a gathering of freaks and degenerates.." I gave a thump to my chest, as if to indicate just who the degenerate in the room most likely was.."Never mind the transvestites."

"It's Mardi Gras!" She hooted at me, an I really had no argument. Even if the town was starting it a few days early - a nice gesture to the working stiffs who were too far away from any real epicenter of culture to properly experience it - it was the only real reason I could think anyone would need to wander into a room full of men dressed like women. It didn't hurt most of them were far more attractive than the average woman in these parts. Lumberjack blood didn't make for the most beautiful of women and it took a special kind of man to appreciate a good bit of chin fuzz on his bride.

I'd never been one of these men and hadn't ever really fit, but that didn't change the fact I was more at home among those who could swindle the eyes of a man who'd had just enough drinks to test the waters than she this girl had a prayer to ever become. "You're going about this all wrong!" I exclaimed loudly, shaking my drink in her general direction before reaching for her wrist and clutching it in a bear-trap grip.

I led her through the crowd like a drunken piper begging for the first in a long series of rats to follow me blindly into the fray of chaos. This was my livelihood after all and these were my kind of people. The stage might have been small, but all the right values were here: Excess, indulgence, pretending, and free range dreaming. Pushing through the gathering crowd and found us a table somewhere near the front. I gave the chair closest to her a kick with my foot and dropped in beside it - just in time to see the burlesque bits of the final performer.

She was stunned, though I couldn't have tightly said if this was a result of the surprise from having some leather clad hellion lead her through a crowd of drunken baboons, or rather from the jello mold of an ass that was being decadently waved in her direction like the wife of a sailor seeing her man off from port. It didn't much matter, once the initial shock wore off she was laughing and cheering along with the rest of the crowd. I was content to sit back and sip my drink.

"This is so much fun!" She exclaimed as the next performer hit the floor. This one was a real, genuine, woman. It wasn't another of the pretenders in pearls and fancy wigs. She was dressed like something straight out of Japan - the kind you saw portrayed in second rate, American, pornographic knock-offs. She was dancing to some manner of electronic J-pop, a far cry from the traditional Diana Ross and Cher classics I had expected at this thing, and doing it rather well. It was a very real moment - almost too much so - to see the pretender pretend amongst the pretending. It was a real moment, the kind of thing you see mocked in Dramas all the time.

"Now, you've got the feeling." I explained, leaning over to speak directly into her ear to make sure I was being heard. "This is no time to be sitting on the sidelines. It's crunch time and you're in the Superbowl. Make yourself a legend, you're long overdue."

Step Two: Setting the Stage

I wasn't going to write today. Honestly, I had intended to set the pens down after that stint earlier and just give the mind a day to recover. Too many loud thoughts can bore a hole in your head and vomit all over everything you have to say, but alas, my mind had other ideas. So, I did what any rational person would do. I put the boots on and wandered shirtless out into the cold. I screwed a cigarette between my lips, and uttered a single word - 'Fuck'.

It's not an expletive of stress, or even frustration, but rather surprise. It's like when a good friend comes to town and you already had plans. It's that social conundrum of obligation. In this case the choices were health over aspiration. Health didn't stand a chance.

So I finished the cigarette, stepped into the walk in, shivered like a wet dog, and reached for the bottle of Rum by the door. I decided against an over abundance of posioning at this hour and decided to mix it with blueberry and pomegranate juice, add some ice even. It was a doomed endeavor from the start. The juice exploded all over the place and I, again, was cursing aloud while trying to clean it up with some paper towel and the aforementioned boots. It took a lot longer than it should have, but being armed with a strong enough drink, it didn't really matter.

Flipping the lights off I trudged up the stairs to my cave, mildly wounded, grumbling like a caveman who'd just let dinner get away and would now be feasting on leaves and berries again. Resigning to it and flopping down into my chair with a groan - I already wanted another cigarette - I pulled up the word-pad, grabbed the notebook from the filthy coffee table next to me, dug a pen out of the drawer and set to work.


I understand, better than I ever have honestly, that I've adopted a monumental task to take on my shoulders. It's dauntingly difficult to keep up all the appearances, more so than I normally admit, and it's become a mad scene of indulgence and excess that seems to be taking the best and brightest by storm. It's a tall glass to climb over, and the rim of the glass is sharp. Still, my inner Jung is strong like an Ox and my outer Sartre shows no signs of slowing down. The love child these two personality blindly fucked into existence? I can't complain about it too much really. It's a fuel that keeps the fire hot enough to split water into hydrogen and keep right on burning well past the Midnight oil.

I've come to understand in recent days that the stage is all wrong for what I intend to do. There's an edge, an I can see it in all its glory. It's a white sandy beach with dried palm umbrellas and crystal ocean waters. It's silent save the sound of a calling bird and the jingle-jangle of melting ice in my glass. It's a bit of shade from the hot sun, it's a pen tucked between my teeth and a dirty pair of sunglasses sliding down my nose as I peer into the horizon of everything. This cold climate is ill suited to ambition. It's freezing it out like molasses running uphill.

So, here I am, staring at the edge from afar. I can't rightly accept this at all. It goes against the entire principle of what I'm trying to preach. No longer am I content to see the things I want through glass panes, no matter the colors, but instead I've decided to set myself down and get to the brass tax adventure that's going to bring the sun down over the horizon. There's an adventure coming and it's going to take me over that edge. It's going to get twisted enough to blur those lines. It's going to break the boundaries that separate the waking dreams from the ones we have with eyes closed. It's taking a raw idea and molding it into a reality.

Pulling the suitcase out of the closet, I began madly stuffing it with the essentials before I realized I had no idea what they were. In my youth - times when I was much more obsequious to the hallows of danger, while at the same time foolish enough to not really understand what 'risk' really meant - I had assumed that dark sunglasses, boots, and some manner of personal mantra was enough. Maybe in those days it had been, but this was different. This was not something that could be handled with simple words and a strong Whiskey - never mind trying to cart that kind of thing on a plane these days.

Every since that fateful day the proper travel arsenal had gotten harder and harder to travel with - for awhile you couldn't even pack a lighter in your carry on. Cramping that many people in a tight space at thirty thousand feet - the prime altitude for panic - and denying them the ability to release themselves promptly upon hitting the ground is dangerous. Fortunately the advent of sky-way robbery - drink prices that make upper crust New York Bars look cheap - seem to be an acceptable persuasion. That didn't change the fact that I had to find a way to get this done. It was important.

The proper stage for setting this kind of thing is beyond important. We've all been taught that dreams are something to aim for and accept some half-masted facsimile of it, like it's good enough. Sure, that's not the lesson, but that's the realistic principle of experience. All young children start out with grand ambition, and through temperament and reality it's slowly beaten down.

Would be Doctors become High school Nurses. Would be headshrinkers become Janitors. Would be Athletes become Gym Teachers. These are all honorable professions, ones that arguably meet more of the ideals of the dream - I arguably had more heart to hearts about the world and what to expect from it from those who failed - than the actuality of it, but that's not the point. The point is these good, honest, toilers never took their shot. Maybe they never had the means, maybe they never had the will.

Maybe it's because we come from a generation that hit adulthood on the tail end of a complacent generation. The Sixties had sexual and political revolutions. The Seventies and Eighties dealt with the drown out disco culture, AIDS, and smattering dashes of a lot of things that came before. Still, it was a hollow echo from my perspective. The 90s? They were a generation of dying comics and cultural values pounded into the dirt. A war few cared about motivated by who knows what. Everyone seemed relatively happy with their lot, and what few angry dissidents there were, were too attached to the things they owned to really gamble it all away on the roulette wheel of protest. Even myself, for as self aware of the world as I tried to be, didn't care much about using the voice I was struggling to find. They were the days of the chrysalis, where everything I'd later become was to be fueled by all the things I had to later learn to live without.

Then it was our turn at bat, and right before we stepped out to the plate, it all came crashing down. All the ideas of Reaganomics, the fraudulent lies we'd been told about taxes, whether someone did or did not inhale - and where he may, or may not have stuck a cigar - didn't hold a candle to the hailstorm that was about to follow. It arrived out of nowhere in the shape of a Jet Airliner crashing into the World Trade Center. I remember flipping on the television right as the phone rang. I didn't pick it up. I stared blankly, in abject horror, at the sights in front of me. My transition into adulthood was right in front of me and, already, I knew the party was over.

Still, in general, those around me were content to swallow the bitter medicine they started feeding us left and right. I saw kids, years younger than I, pounded senseless for looking like they might hail from Middle Eastern backgrounds, I saw gas stations looted and decades of racial tolerance crumble into a nightmare. We were content not to stand up for anything and I saw the best years of life get wasted. Drunk on rage and inertia, absent of the truth. Those first few years out in the world were awful. I stayed silent for most of them, still struggling to find a way to capture that screaming voice inside my head and put it into motion. It's one of the things that's haunted me well into my adult life.

It took nearly ten years, for people to finally start calling out for change, howling with enough voices - at a loud enough volume - for something to happen. Still, it was lie after lie. I could handle that. I'd tasted that medicine already, and - despite being refusing to swallow it anymore - it was the standard of my generation. It wasn't until I took a long look back at the up and coming that I really understood the damage it had done.

When you go camping, there's always a sign: "Leave it like you found it - if not better". Maybe not everyone's really given their fair shot at looking at the future in such a fashion. Our time here isn't infinite. We all die - unfortunate as that is - and what we leave behind has been getting uglier and uglier all the time. That is the point. That's why the setting and stage for this is as important as it is - if you're going to attempt to sound a call, you can't half ass it like most everyone who's come before.

You've got to do it and "Everything worth doing, is worth doing right".