The Faux Pas Press #21
08 January 2010
The Split
By Jason Fresh
Around each corner is a choice; around each choice is a split between a vibrant life filled with potential and a life filled with a lot that simply presents itself - there is always lingering of fate to deal with. This is what I mean to address. You can always ride home on flat tires instead of changing them, wear a dirty shirt instead of cleaning it, or eat a chicken bucket from the KFC down the street instead of going home to cook something vegan.
The Well-Mannered Man holds to good form. He renews what classical artifacts he can dig out of the annals of history and will perhaps become a witness to their resurrection in the policies he supports. He hails the chief that society needs; he needs him also because no one decision he makes is his own. This man accepts each and every invitation to dinner. Perhaps, he knows that the manners he clings to allow him to have someone in his control – always someone in the control of good form, even the abusive form.
There is a space in the Post-American havoc for the Wild Man also. He can follow the flowing current trends and ignore them if he chooses. He shows the bureaucrats that he is most interesting in the survival of his own mission – not theirs. He can do what he wants when he wants to.
The Wild Man looks at the society that rejects him, asking nothing and taking nothing as they send him away, alone in a Starbucks, alone in a room full of people, making eye contact with only those who have something to give. Words are a comfort, especially to the silent and misunderstood. They can speak powerful visions of a solid destiny even when the mouth doesn’t move for others.
The Wild Man can say, “I am impatient guy. I don’t care about ordering my caffeinated beverage the right way - Double espresso Frapuccino with no whip – large!! Do I look like I need whip, motherfucker? Tall? Yah, that’s right. Yah, I like I said I want a large. Venti? Yah, do it up. I don’t need your etiquette. I want a large. Yes, as long as it is caffeinated. I am a wild man. I am extreme. I sing karaoke, bitch. I’m not a part of your bourgeois affectations, you rights of passage, your holiday gatherings with Gingerbread lattes. I am an angler for the reality you are too afraid to notice. I’m not the Well-Mannered Man. I am a blood-pumping organ muscle who does not respect you. I am pain and I have seen your death. I’m mad as a hornet - a wild hornet - that is.”
A Starbucks becomes the amphitheater, the battle between form and raw expression. A group of Hawaiian teenagers watches the show where chaos and nothingness fight for table at which to sip coffee. A disc playing classical music, Vivaldi spins in a disc player or whatever other track has been wrangled by the hipsters at Apple. (The Wild Man wouldn’t know that detail. He found the flux capacitor that can show timeless principles, principles that know no God or government, principles that breathe energy and radiate through space, radiate through all eternity.)
“What do you think about that underpaid worker over there, Well-Mannered Man? I am a worker too but I don’t give a damn like you.”
“So, you’re a meth head like all the locals here.”
“What? Didn’t you hear what I said? No, I guess you wouldn’t have. I’ve been talking through this mood ring that I wear since I walked into this place.”
“You’ve been talking through your mood ring? God in Heaven, that is wild. I really had no idea.”
“Yah, that’s right, bitch – talking through my mood ring and singing karaoke.”
Around every corner there is a choice, a split amongst the chaos, the expanding universe throwing chemicals around. The material world is a playground. The Starbucks is a playground. Once this has been established no man can claim superiority over another.
The Well-Mannered Man moves closer, approaching the blood-pumping organ muscle as if about to act out an episode of Spy vs. Spy, never a victor declared, an ever-playing record of good and evil echoing out into the stars.
“Tell me, Mr. Wild Man. What do you call those shoes you are wearing?”
“Are you asking me a question, friend? Because I really don’t take too kindly to your 21st century rhetoric. Your conventions are so appropriate, a cute and chubby man tit. You are like a purple-hearted amphetamine with purple-hearted wit.”
“This is funny. This is a crack head calling me out? Listen, I’ve got a job, friend. I don’t know how to make sweet little rhymes like you, buddy, but at least I’ve got a job. Are those sandals you are wearing?”
“No, no sir, these are not sandals. These are form-fitting, webbed shoes made by a Nepalese Sherpa, friend. But not that I would have to explain myself to you. You see, I took back all the time stolen from me by the monsters of form.”
“Monsters of form? What are you talking about? The only monster I see in here is you.”
“I’m talking about families, my family. I’m talking about protestant work ethic, the vengeance of American demi-gods, Mormon fables with pioneer life-blood, the State, the fad makers, the municipal authorities and government officials that conspired to kill the American president. I’m talking about all of it. I have had my fill. I have drunken from the well.”
Now, amidst the marketer’s dream, the faux wood finish masking building materials observe, the tile imported by a contractor locked tight in the grind of the capital gear laugh, and 27 bulbs installed in the ceiling 5 and ½ feet apart provide lighting. Yes, now, the showdown begins.
“I’ve spent my life observing wild people. They live, they breathe - they die just like you have already. Are you so far above customs that you will avoid the funeral as well? I am the Well-Mannered Man who keeps all of his ties, the man who says his good-byes, and I am the man who cries when he sees a love one die. You depend on the same grain as I.”
“Well, you despot, the short response to the ideas you pose is: go fuck yourself. The long response, sir is: I pay not attention to your form.”
“Wait. Which one of those was the long response?”
“They’re both longer than you’ll ever know. God, why can’t you see?”
“So, you’re above it all, then? You’ve transcended the world as you cry yourself to sleep.”
“Or laugh myself awake.”
“Well, then what good is your life, anyway. You toil and spin to create a life, a vibrant one. I, on the other hand, choose to accept all that my life has presented. I cry myself to sleep too. Just like you and all the other poets.”
“I told you. I sing karaoke, sir.”
“Well, are you an American?”
“I was once an American.”
“I am also what was once almost American too.”
Both the Wild Man and the Well-Mannered Man hang their heads to the South and prostrate towards the ruins of Washington, D.C. They dream on their own and then look at one another.
“Sir, what is your name?”
“Parley Angerbliss.”
“Mine too.”
Around every corner is a choice; around each corner is a split between a vibrant life filled with potential and a bland showdown with a life that God or the State offer. The choice doesn’t matter – not in the slightest. Of course, there is always fate to deal with. I’ve become a destiny. How about you?
Green Lights,
Jason Fresh
www.fauxpaspress.com
Friday, January 22, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
The Faux Pas Press #20: The New Year to Be
The Faux Pas Press #20
A Weekly Thought
By Jason Fresh
1 January 2010
The New Year to Be
I breathe deep and look at the ocean.
Today, for example, as I watched the breaks on Hawaii’s North Shore it was hard to see anything complicated in the world. So, I breathe deep because it feels good. Not because I have to breathe deep after years of abuse to these lungs but because it feels good to breathe. The expression in my face is something I will never know but what I do know is that it feels good to breathe deep, to go home to this first action that sustains human life, to feel this human being.
I want to express my gratitude to the ocean so I challenge it to a tug-of-war – a war that I lose. I’m okay with being a loser. I realize that the measurement of my life is mine alone. So, screw all the dramatics, all the discussions about good and bad. Just life, just life.
I raise my arms to the heavens. Again, here I am, a lunatic loser raising his arms to the heavens in public places, frightening small children and the elderly. I speak to the flush and foam of water; wait for no apologies because I am owed none now. That is the good thing about being a bitch-slave at the bottom of the barrel: you get to believe in something greater than what you are; others get to feel sorry for you.
You are not asking them to, but they might. You know that your place at the bottom of the barrel is an illusion as is a place at the top of the barrel. So, you get to look sorry and sad if you want. It is a shame but you are likely to get somewhere with this demeanor. Another lonely person will see and say, “Hey, there is someone who feels like me.” The only problem with this is that they will want to save you – do not let them because salvation is joke.
You don’t need saving. You need to make rational choices. You need not place your trust in the God or the Government – not Saint or Senator. Trust life and the reason of any predicament. If there is anger surging in your body – remember the emotional choice that brought you here and think about how you will never repeat it. The gods smile upon a reasoning mind, the artist sculpting order from the high line of chaos, a grandson of unintelligible banter, a grandson who has written pages upon pages trying to rid his soul of his grandfather’s pointless waste, the traditions of wars untold. The grandson must let all things fall away that do not support reason, order the chaos presented to him.
The money lender knows that I am not a good prey when I use reason. I am his worst enemy. I need no praise or scorn from anyone.
How can the mountain and the tall tree, the swift wind sweeping the country be anything more than what it is? Does apology surge from the mouth of the ocean after it has swallowed the human and taken him down to Poseidon?
The mass wearing Prada sunglasses, these folks might acknowledge your lack of flare, or prestige, your lack of notoriety, and think about all the big books they’ve read. And you will let them think what they will because you are a loser. And who gives a silly God damn anyway because they will always say something. Something is better than nothing. This is not always but most of the time. The Professor, the Preacher, the Prophet, the Prosecutor will all have a few words to say about you and your life.
I look out over the ocean on this New Year’s Eve. The breaks are big and potentially destructive, the chords of guitars playing at a furious speed, flaring instrumentation into my sinews. The ocean, the lovely ocean falling apart one fold at a time shows me that no man will escape its grasp, shows me that to scurry about is a tear full of fallacies. There are no comments that will last the test of time. Only the energy endures. So I examine my shadow’s discontent and ask him to come along with me this year – not to be funny, or good, the parade, the easiest show; no, I don’t have to be funny this year. I can be scared if I want, but scared of what? I have no need of fear anymore.
The beautiful piece of the puzzle has arrived. Even if I am called the scum, horrible father, drinker of many beers and lover of many women, even if I screw up everything I ever do, what will it matter? Just life, just life.
There is nothing wrong with owning sorrow. Sorrow is different than suffering. Sorrow is the reckoning, the face that you’ve been hiding from, the picture that you are too afraid to look at. Sorrow is real. It means that you don’t have to walk around with a smile on your face all the god-damn time, a fake smile, acting like you are not a slave to every emotional decision you’ve ever made. You get to stop the imaginary victory. You get to live in the reality of your current predicament. The suffering stops when you can reconcile with your choices. But you’re probably too smart for all of this, right? Go on. Keep dressing up in your fucking party dress, keep putting on your party face or church face (same thing), and believe the lie that your life has crystalline décor.
As for me, I am okay with my choices. There is nothing wrong with owning sorrow.
Happy New Year!
Green Lights,
Jason Fresh
www.fauxpaspress.com
A Weekly Thought
By Jason Fresh
1 January 2010
The New Year to Be
I breathe deep and look at the ocean.
Today, for example, as I watched the breaks on Hawaii’s North Shore it was hard to see anything complicated in the world. So, I breathe deep because it feels good. Not because I have to breathe deep after years of abuse to these lungs but because it feels good to breathe. The expression in my face is something I will never know but what I do know is that it feels good to breathe deep, to go home to this first action that sustains human life, to feel this human being.
I want to express my gratitude to the ocean so I challenge it to a tug-of-war – a war that I lose. I’m okay with being a loser. I realize that the measurement of my life is mine alone. So, screw all the dramatics, all the discussions about good and bad. Just life, just life.
I raise my arms to the heavens. Again, here I am, a lunatic loser raising his arms to the heavens in public places, frightening small children and the elderly. I speak to the flush and foam of water; wait for no apologies because I am owed none now. That is the good thing about being a bitch-slave at the bottom of the barrel: you get to believe in something greater than what you are; others get to feel sorry for you.
You are not asking them to, but they might. You know that your place at the bottom of the barrel is an illusion as is a place at the top of the barrel. So, you get to look sorry and sad if you want. It is a shame but you are likely to get somewhere with this demeanor. Another lonely person will see and say, “Hey, there is someone who feels like me.” The only problem with this is that they will want to save you – do not let them because salvation is joke.
You don’t need saving. You need to make rational choices. You need not place your trust in the God or the Government – not Saint or Senator. Trust life and the reason of any predicament. If there is anger surging in your body – remember the emotional choice that brought you here and think about how you will never repeat it. The gods smile upon a reasoning mind, the artist sculpting order from the high line of chaos, a grandson of unintelligible banter, a grandson who has written pages upon pages trying to rid his soul of his grandfather’s pointless waste, the traditions of wars untold. The grandson must let all things fall away that do not support reason, order the chaos presented to him.
The money lender knows that I am not a good prey when I use reason. I am his worst enemy. I need no praise or scorn from anyone.
How can the mountain and the tall tree, the swift wind sweeping the country be anything more than what it is? Does apology surge from the mouth of the ocean after it has swallowed the human and taken him down to Poseidon?
The mass wearing Prada sunglasses, these folks might acknowledge your lack of flare, or prestige, your lack of notoriety, and think about all the big books they’ve read. And you will let them think what they will because you are a loser. And who gives a silly God damn anyway because they will always say something. Something is better than nothing. This is not always but most of the time. The Professor, the Preacher, the Prophet, the Prosecutor will all have a few words to say about you and your life.
I look out over the ocean on this New Year’s Eve. The breaks are big and potentially destructive, the chords of guitars playing at a furious speed, flaring instrumentation into my sinews. The ocean, the lovely ocean falling apart one fold at a time shows me that no man will escape its grasp, shows me that to scurry about is a tear full of fallacies. There are no comments that will last the test of time. Only the energy endures. So I examine my shadow’s discontent and ask him to come along with me this year – not to be funny, or good, the parade, the easiest show; no, I don’t have to be funny this year. I can be scared if I want, but scared of what? I have no need of fear anymore.
The beautiful piece of the puzzle has arrived. Even if I am called the scum, horrible father, drinker of many beers and lover of many women, even if I screw up everything I ever do, what will it matter? Just life, just life.
There is nothing wrong with owning sorrow. Sorrow is different than suffering. Sorrow is the reckoning, the face that you’ve been hiding from, the picture that you are too afraid to look at. Sorrow is real. It means that you don’t have to walk around with a smile on your face all the god-damn time, a fake smile, acting like you are not a slave to every emotional decision you’ve ever made. You get to stop the imaginary victory. You get to live in the reality of your current predicament. The suffering stops when you can reconcile with your choices. But you’re probably too smart for all of this, right? Go on. Keep dressing up in your fucking party dress, keep putting on your party face or church face (same thing), and believe the lie that your life has crystalline décor.
As for me, I am okay with my choices. There is nothing wrong with owning sorrow.
Happy New Year!
Green Lights,
Jason Fresh
www.fauxpaspress.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
