Archive for November, 2007
Save the World, Lose the Girl
Last night I had a dream and although I woke up many times throughout the night, the dream continued uninterrupted each time I laid my head back down to rest…
I’m sitting in an office cubicle. In front of me…the drab gray of cubicle living, yet behind me lays a magnificent city skyline tucked safely behind a ten by ten pane of glass. I’m smoking. What century is this? Smoking at work..? I look down and my attire lends credence to my nearly foregone conclusion…it must be the late 1930s.
I put my cigarette out in an ashtray overflowing with the yellow stains of addiction. I walk up to the large glass window and instinctively light another cigarette…it tastes horrible. I blow smoke against the window, creating my own heavy fog for a city that seems to be perfectly asleep. It must be early, or is it late? I look down at my watch, a nice Union watch, finding the time to be nearly 4 in the morning.
A soft voice startles me. I turn around to find an attractive woman, almost mousy…almost sexy, looking at me disapprovingly. She asks me why I didn’t go home last night. Lumbering towards my cubicle I create millions of excuses, praying one will satisfy the woman and shut her up. Rolling her eyes, she hands me an envelope…I light another cigarette and slide into my chair. The equally drab envelope has a large stamp on it reading “Top Secret.” To say the least, I’m intrigued.
I rip it open and spill its contents out. Another woman walks by my desk and runs her hand across my shoulder as she passes, shooting a seductive eye back at me. Pencil skirts and office flirts. Is this my life? Reading over the documents soon reveals them to be the blueprints for a massive bomb. I do not understand the science, but the intent is clear…a bomb to end all existence. The cover sheet, which I had flipped passed, suddenly becomes paramount and I rustle through the sheets to find the heading…
“Manhattan Project.” I am building the bomb.
I rush to the window, lighting another cigarette and stretching my eyes to find any semblance of resemblance. As my smoke collides with the glass and whips back up at my face, I find the evidence I feared most. Lady Liberty…adrift in the Atlantic. Alone.
I am in the heart of New York City, and I am building the bomb.
I throw my cigarette on the floor and rush out. Women attempt to stop me. Women. Lovely women with pencil skirts. I fly through stairwells and open doors…a maze of corporate cover-ups and secret dealings, a labyrinth of bullshit. I finally find an exit and hit it running. Guards are on my tail. Lungs scarred by nicotine do not slow me down.
They trap me, surrounding with not weapons drawn but looks of concern. Am I really this big of a rock star? They call out to me, begging me to calm down. I’m pressed hard against a brick wall, palms flat and sweaty. A man dressed very similarly to me runs up and attempts to soothe me. He tells me that I am critical to everything and without me, they cannot achieve the greatest scientific feat in the history of mankind. He calls me doctor, he calls me names I’ve never heard.
I reach and find my fingers around one of the guards’ pistols. I put the cold steel to my head and begin circling around. I beg them to just let me leave. I don’t want any part of this. I know everything they do not. I want to leave. I want to walk away. They will not let me.
And the soothing voice of the man grows stern, telling me that that simply cannot be. I cannot leave, until the project is done. That was the agreement. The terms of my escape from Eastern Germany. The bomb is my great repentance.
I look the man in the eyes and scream, so loud and so furiously that the crowd takes a collective step back. Cocking the pistol I say coldly and defiantly, “I-I refuse!”
And all is quiet, all is black.
And I find myself awake in Austin, Texas…no cigarettes or blueprints near me. Just a deep, stabbing pain in my head…where the imaginary bullet made my choice final.
Living Well is the Best Revenge
“I’m too close for missiles… I’m switching to guns.”
What…you thought there was more? I just said volumes.
Viva la Cobra!
Download Link Cobra Starship - Smile For the Paparazzi
An album this ridiculous does not come about often…sheer shallowness and lack of lyrical substance brilliantly mixed with the harsh sounds of electronic guitar and synths to form something so awesome words cannot describe.
No, this isn’t a review. I leave that for the yuppies and Born Agains….this is a straight admission of guilt. This particular album is my dirty, little pleasure.
Cobra Starship’s new album Viva la Cobra is solely about sex and being cool. Nothing else matters to these guys. There would be a time when I would’ve hated an album like this. The deep, repressed artist within me begging to come out and ridicule such a waste of talent. Yet you will find no ill will here…
Just a wide smile for the Pa-pa-pa-parazzi! Yes…viva la cobra!
Children’s Literature and Home
I am currently unwinding from the most unwinding of experiences. I went “home” for the last few days. It was a bit impromptu and doubly rash…but I up and left, returning to the paradise of deep greens–Nacogdoches.
I picked up right where I left off: Old friends, old enemies, and the same choice dining spots (oh Zest-E…I love thee). The greatest part of the trip was the sheer amount of nothingness that I accomplished. And that’s what is so special about Nacogdoches to me…it’s not about anything but love. I was amongst people I deeply and truly love, and I know they love me. The very landscape itself inundated me with the warmth that Austin, for all its charm, could never produce.
I find myself longing for that warmth. The heat of hot nothing. The charm of quainter times and even more quaint “folks.” The hustle of downtown, where driving on bricks is somehow still en vogue. The paradox of traffic on North street (really…why the hell is there EVER traffic). The feeling of leaving your car and house completely unlocked and not fearing anything.
Nacogdoches is innocence. Nacogdoches is home. While returning to Austin, I wrote a girl a text message which she may or may not have cared to receive…it said, “I’m home.” I stared at it for a good long moment and erased it, writing only “Back” in its stead. Whitewright was never my home, and Austin wants so badly to be…but home is where you feel alive, where you feel belonging, where you feel love…
And I feel love when I’m traveling east on Highway 21 and turning left onto University, heading into times already known, times happening, and times still to come.
I will come home. No matter where I end up…I will come home.