philadelphia airport. the plane hasnt arrived yet. but it will soon. then ill be gone. off to frankfurt and berlin and prague. it is like the silence before the storm.
last night i was visiting people. they kept asking me if i was excited to be going to europe. telling me they were envious. but the thing is im not excited. not scared, not joyous. it only barely registers emotionally. as some vague nervousness going into the unknown. but it is all very zen like. i am doing, not thinking. so i am not thinking those thoughts to sway me toward bright expectations and dark horrors. even though i know i will learn much and i am not as prepared as i should be. it is just something i am doing without thinking about it. like eating breakfast in the morning.
and the real reason for all this. i know the real reasons. its true ive been wanting to go back to europe for a long time. but im not really in the mood now. id rather go to new orleans and write. i need to write again. i need to be alive again. and i could have done it easily in the states. except for one thing. being so entrenched into the computer industry. with all these people constantly offering me work, forcing work upon me almost. begging me to help them with their corporate schemes. i was in the industry for a year. and the only way to get out now is to go somewhere where no one can contact me -- at all.
so visiting my sister in prague is just an excuse. the closer it gets the less time i think im actually going to spend visiting her. the more time i want to spend thinking and writing. i dont want to tourist all over europe. im going there because its a place away. away from here. this continent i know too well, where friends are always close by. where i am always reachable. i am going somewhere away from here. to spend time with myself. to live the who of what ive discovered myself to be. and to discover more.
# # #
while down visiting ben at college. noticing once again people. and the similarity some people have to others. like tanya, his girlfriend. so much like mahogoni. whom was so for both of us. this tanya. her features. her mannerisms. so very alike. her and mahogoni. and then jodi. a lot like fire. strong, independent. mature beyond her years. she knows who she is, where she is. who she is becoming. and once again. some features so similar. reminding.
and now people are becoming. not so much as individual people. but part of a greater whole. which in turn is part of greater wholes. until one, like before. but groups of people. tied as to who they are. thinking in energies. i call them harmonies. jodi is a harmony of fire. or vice versus. they are harmonies of each other. no matter. and we all have many harmonies, who are reflections of something greater than ourselves, elsewhere in the world.
but i dont explain this to people yet. because the concepts are just forming. and others do not share this view. it is an idea very against that engrained into us. going against that idea of the individual, in some way unique and unconnected. but in ways it is so much more beautiful. being a part of others. a reflection of something greater. knowing.
# # #
a need of human contact. here in this place. so distant. so alone. a language one barely speaks. the casual conversation is lost when all you know is how to order some food. jumping at the chance to talk with almost anyone who will understand. no common interests needed. only a common language.
last night at this rave. i could almost pretend. yet. even though most of the people there spoke both german and english. i didnt know. and that took my shyness and amplified it. something beyond fear of rejection. fear of noncommunication. that i could go up and start talking to them, and they wouldnt understand a word. wouldnt understand enough to reject me. what do you say when faced with complete and utter incomprehension. perhaps some people know what to do in that kind of situation. for me, i am lost.
# # #
staceys an artist. well she draws. she could be an artist if given time to grow. she has the artist mentality. her drawings impress the hell out of me. i gave her the cerebus jakas story phone book. something for her to see. she naturally combines pictures with words. yet never really read comic books much. something for her to see how others tackle. combining words with pictures.
# # #
i sleep often lately. sweet dreams seducing me to bed, to sleep. morpheus courts my waking consciousness into his beautiful dreamworld. where so many things happen. ive been remembering my dreams and writing them down. my dreams have been so sexual lately. the sweet taste of sex imagined, dreamt. not dreams of wetness, but dreams where i can touch taste hear feel experience be. my dreams have become another reality i go to often.
# # #
some of the most beautiful things in the world right now. taking a piss after walking around for hours thinking your bladder would explode. snuggling in a warm bed after walking around in the cold and the rain. then dreaming of loves far away.
# # #
she comes to me on the couch. and lays her naked body against mine. she kisses me on the lips. and lets me touch her nakedness. it is dark. and the one who says he loves her sleeps in the next room. between them there are words. between us there is passion.
another night. as our bodies move against each other. and she tells me to watch. as she. as she. her mouth containing my penis. my balls. i enter her from behind. and she tells me to watch. and i do. her ass vibrates as i thrust in and out. as the curves of her body move up toward the hint of breasts, then to her hair. i grab her hips and thrust hard. her pleasure.
we are on the couch. in my room. away from him. away in another world. holding each other. in each others arms as we read a book together. talking to my roommates. in the hall. she reaches behind her. into my pants. where it is hard for her. and we stand there talking. as she touches. all others unaware.
on the couch. her boyfriend sits beside her. i sit. on the other side. holding hands hidden from view. watching television. secretly together. massaging her feet. tenderly. keeping her feet warm. in my room again. lying on my bed naked together. talking. so free. anything and everything. and then. sleeping naked beside her.
# # #
berlin clubs. reminding one of home. some entirely new. e-werks. huge. commercial. dance. house. rave. multiple floors. hundreds of hundreds of people. dancing. talking. and he says ecstasy left the scene about two years ago. now--speed. which is why they dont smile at you. and talk amongst their little groups. energy is different than san francisco.
another. goth/industrial. and it is just like home. crosses hanging from the ceiling. so dark you can barely see. clive barker hellraiser ambiance. with a silver mask on the wall. they dance the same, look the same. only they speak german.
and then the eimer. an old squat in mitte. used to be east berlin. small. intense. decorations everywhere. painted on the walls. hanging art here and there. small items line the bar. eerie green light. upstairs plays jungle. dark brooding jungle. later other music. the downstairs is all cement. a basement with a huge iron mask with green eyes set upon the wall. balcony so you can look into the stone pit as people dance. hard. music breaking barriers. blows me away.
and now i must rest. too many clubs. not enough time.
# # #
it becomes a struggle to exist. when you dont know the language. trying to buy food. and you dont understand what anything is. so you settle for the few items youve learned. or simply dont eat. because its such an ordeal. ordering the food. trying to figure out if theyre saying "would you like fries with that" or "the bathroom is down the hall, to the left."
getting lost in a city. and you cant ask anyone directions. because they stare at you blankly. making friends becomes hard. you become lonely. isolated. trying to talk to people who dont understand. and when you find people who speak your language, you want to speak to them just to hear the words. just to hear the words.
# # #
i thought music was dead. i could not imagine. hard music beyond hardcore and industrial. dance music beyond gabber and jungle. rock music beyond the alternative grunge. music of an entirely new form. so completely distinctly different. requiring new dances, new clothes, new culture.
i was wrong. i was blown away wrong. listening to the music at the eimer. as turntables. now going through effects boxes. guitar distortion pedals activated before the music even enters the mixer. echo and reverb. as one person operates the turntables and another operates the effects. as distorted jungle pours though the speakers mixed with random noise. feedback. more.
thinking of a multi-member dj krewe in the future. where one operates tables. another effects. another tape loops. and samples. and someone who mixes it all together to create the ultimate in live mixing performance. mixing with live drums. electronics. as we invent more instruments. more ways to combine them. more ways to listen. new forms of music. music will never die.
# # #
i see that i am like anais in that i must have many loves. i cannot stop loving those in my past and the more i grow, experience others, the more so i love. the intensity of my love of fire is hot in me again. yet i do not feel guilty for missing stacey and our sexuality. nor have i forgotten jen. or april. or mahogoni. i masturbate to the women i meet. miss those i have known intellectually, sexually, emotionally, spiritually (tabitha. jenna. so many more where souls, not kisses, were exchanged). i write love letters to both fire and stacey. and there are both true to my heart. and though i feel i love fire the deepest, it is not a contest. not a test of depth. for each one is different and i need shallow loves just as much as deep loves and different loves at different times in my life. as they need me at different times. in different ways.
the romance with stacey is over. and with fire i dream of it beginning anew. but this does not diminish what i have with stacey. it strengthens it because it allows our relationship to change and grow. just as with fire i will love her always no matter what happens. because we are growing. and the understanding we have now is different than the understanding we had then. and this understanding is constantly changing.
so i will be like anais and flow out multilaterally. loving many. giving to many. inspiring. and not imposing the limitations of definitions on my loves. being free to love. and so loving all that much the more.
# # #
and again. seeing art alive again. displacement as art. moving things from one place to another place. as a form of art. objects existing outside their normal mode. an exhibition of telephone booths from around the world. a tastykake in a museum in san francisco. the parking meters from berlin in a gallery in new york city. taking an object and simply moving it. roots in the fountain of marcel duchamp. but the art is not having one object appear as another. but a foreign object entering. existing in a space. place. among people who are not familiar with it. the object displaced. culturally. spatially.
# # #
went to the erotik museum today and thought of you. it charged me again. but only because you have awakened it. all sorts of things there. chinese pillow books. statues enacting sex. huge phalli with scenes carved at the bottom, from a tribe in bali. erotic pictures from ancient chinese dynasties through the french 17th century and the twenties.
strange how we call one erotic art and the other pornography. since these are old, painted, created by established illustrators/artists, we call it 'erotic art'. the photographs of today are 'pornographic'. still i can rather understand. it lacks a certain harshness. contains a bit of playfulness. it is not harsh, direct, forced. difference between playboy and those hardcore magazines. one is softer, more sensual. fifty years from now playboy will be in museums like this whereas the others.
anyway. more things. saw the different things people use for aphrodisiacs. altar to a japanese god containing a phallus. statues from cultures around the world. i liked the most though the hidden scenes in everyday objects. fond of by the japanese/chinese. a normal cat sitting on a table. yet underneath the cat depressed into its base are two lovers entwined. a porcelain girl on a swing. but lift it up. underneath her skirt is in full detail as well. little boxes looking so innocent on the outside, filled with statues of sex positions inside. paintings with false paintings that slip in front, so the prudish victorians didnt have to let on their hidden desires. i like that element of hidden sexuality.
# # #
there is that fear when one travels of being an american. being recognised as an american. and treated a certain way because of it. because, yes, i am an american. but i am not like all those other americans they are used to. the americans that travel abroad creating impressions. so that one feels as if one should pretend not to be an american. just so you wont be associated with them.
# # #
i am in a heat. a passion. a fever burns all over my body. i am full of sexuality. i want to fuck. i want to make love. in a hundred different positions. in a thousand different ways. i want to touch flesh and have mine touched. drink of the sweetness between a womans legs. suckle on her breasts and kiss her open mouth. i want my hand between a womans legs as she has her hand upon my phallus. i want to sixty-nine. i want to lick her wet lips. i want to touch her round ass and leave marks upon her neck. her back. my body feels whole. a sexual being recognising my sexuality and rising up to it. inner springs i never knew existed are welling up with flame. overpouring and setting my insides on fire. i am dizzy. giddy. flying through the air as i walk. i am turned on. feeling drugged. not hard, but i could become hard in a second. i feel full of sexual energy.
# # #
"hello. do you know caroline?" "yes." "do you fuck her also?" and i dont really know how to answer this question. it is usually not the second question i get asked upon meeting someone. they are french. caroline and this boy. ive seen her with him around the hostel. they are part of a school trip from france. and im thinking to myself, shit man, only the french can ask you that as the second question after meeting someone. no names--nothing. straight to the chase. do you know her? and do you fuck her? no, do you fuck her also? a different sort of question entirely. everyone nearby understanding english cracks up at this question. i ask him several times to repeat himself, thinking he doesnt speak very good english and i am misunderstanding him. but he makes pelvic thrusting movements and there is no doubt. thinking back, his question was in clear enough english. my social mind though had not been trained to accept such a question so soon. blocking it out until it was repeated enough times. finally answering him. "no. do you fuck caroline?" "yes." and he walks away again.
# # #
this woman. this artist. and the man who holds her back. she says she loves him. who am i to say. but he asks her, why do you do this? what good is this if it makes no money? he does not understand what drives her. he says that he has music in his soul. but it is false music. he does it not in and of himself. but to become something. become famous. make money. how can he understand her?
i tried to help her. help her move beyond him. help her develop herself, for herself. become her own person. her own artist. i gave her books. i gave her love. i showed her others with that need to create. where she had few. now i am gone. and my only hope is that she will have the strength to carry on. to leave him. to develop her art. to become that which she has the ability to become.
[note: looking over this. i dont understand her either. but i feel i understand her more than him. i talk about internal drives and things like that. but how powerful of a drive she has to create i do not know. i know she has the desire. but that uncompromising need to create may not be as strong. but then again it may. i place my own expectations and ideas in my head. which may not be reality. probably arent reality. but may be close].
# # #
arriving in prague. i step off the train and immediately a woman is talking to me. in choppy english she is asking me if i have a place to stay yet. she pulls out a piece of paper and talks about this room north of the old city. i look around and see other travellers. we have all been approached. are being offered rooms. i am cautious. i have been warned of pickpockets. warned of rooms like these. infested with bugs. no hot water.
i make no commitments, but walk with her because i am newborn here. a city unknown. a language unspoken. she talks to me in english and explains about the room. the city. we talk to the tram stop. she is handing me more papers. maps of the city for me. flyers for local events. she explains the public transportation. where to get tickets. how much. we go to a bank to exchange my money. a real bank she explains, because they dont charge so high commissions.
walking to the apartment. she is pointing out all the places to eat, to buy groceries, tram tickets. she shows me the trams going into town. the stop i must get off at when returning. she gives me a set of keys to the apartment and explains how they work. she tells me a family of three live here. only the husband speaks english. but they are good people.
and then i am in the apartment. looking at the room. trying to withhold my astonishment. it is huge. there are two couches around a coffee table. the coffee table is a piece of glass set in a wooden frame with a lace dowlie and a vase containing painted gold leaves of some christmas bush [i later find out it is mistletoe]. there are two beds made with huge fluffy quilts. a towel lies on each. one is set in a frame. the other on the floor of this platform with stairs. a large window with lace curtains letting the light in. next to it a strong, healthy tree full of green leaves. paintings hang on the walls. against half of one wall is a dining room bureau. a dark, beautifully stained wooden piece set with exquisitely painted china teacups, tall ornate wine glasses made of different colours, painted with gold leaf. a chair to match the couches, and a footrest. a chandelier hangs from the ceiling.
it is all so huge, so rich. and im trying to act like it is normal. so the lady does not know she has me hooked. 350 kronas a night. fourteen american dollars. it is expensive for prague. but it is a steal. the lap of luxury. so radical a change from the cold dormitory rooms in berlin. where four slept on bunk beds in the same room. and each day we got kicked out for four hours so they could empty our trashcans. someone called it a mental institution. here now then, i am more prince than mental patient. so much cheaper than berlin, and so much more beautiful.
# # #
the sexual animal is alive within me like never before. i need to masturbate several times a day just to satisfy its hunger. i walk by beautiful women and feel a tinge inside. i need to fuck but there is no one. i want woman. i want to be with woman. to become with woman. i fantasize. they are so more vivid, more creative now. when i masturbate, just to touch the organ and slowly run my hands across the flesh as blood engorges it. my entire body has become supersensitive to touch. so much more erotic. erogenous. arousing.
at the same time remembering all my loves. wanting them here. to express myself like this to them. as anais might say. as a man. being the man and not the artist. for so long i have been the artist, the muse. ignoring the man inside. the animal inside. that animal is now free and it rages across my body. wanting to rage across other bodies. it no longer wants to artistically express, intellectually express, emotionally express, it needs to sexually express. express feelings ive never felt this strong before. i feel like an adolescent child experiencing his first rush of hormones.
and i feel young again. younger than i have felt in a very long time. i feel eighteen. seventeen. sixteen. my emotions have returned. i have become optimistic about the world again. seeing new horizons. new worlds to discover. new music to be played. new art to be created. i dont feel as if i must settle down again and find a job to work my life away. i feel free to travel and write and muse. the love inside me now bursts through every crevice. i feel like i have a new-found crush on fire, yet i have not see her now for three years. i feel as if i am discovering myself all again. life is wonderful now, simply wonderful.
# # #
walking by the river in prague. finding hidden passages into the mountain. staring across the water. watching lovers in the park feeding the swans. walking through the snow covered landscape. down narrow streets of cobblestone. sliding on the ice. crossing a bridge where artists hawk their creations to tourists who wander by with cameras in hand. czech people wandering across, into town for christmas shopping. to the markets in the streets. where spinning tops, evil witch marionettes, hand-made wooden boxes, christmas decorations. all sold in small booths. hot dogs on the street. people smiling, laughing. shows being performed in the square. then back through those twisted narrow streets. past the tourist shops filled with. across the bridge again as the sun sets beneath the horizon. back across the darkening landscape. as the wind blows colder. and people shuffle home.
# # #
if berlin surprised me with new and innovative music, interesting clubs, prague bores painfully into my skull with lackluster clubs, poorly spun music and an overall lack of energy. clubs last night. though the venues were big. just off st. wenchelas square. saturday night. emptiness. no one dancing. the energy drags me down.
at subway. record. record over. next record. no segues. no beat matching. djs who should be shamed to play in front of their friends in their own apartments. out playing the town. the dance floor is empty. a few people play pool in the next room. the music is painfully bad. reminding one of discos in the seventies. 'fame' mixed with techno.
club astra. the music here is good. modern techno. attempts at beat matching, mixing. some successful, some not. the only one dancing is a midget. a club that could hold a couple hundred. now, maybe thirty. forcing myself to dance. the energy of the music is high, but the atmosphere is full of stasis, non-movement. finally more people dancing. but isnt it strange that they dance with their coats on.
# # #
walking through snow-covered woods. atop frozen streams. white paints these fields with a cold purity. staring at the fabled mountain in the distance. now sliding, slipping, losing balance. tramping through a field of snow. walking down sheets of ice, a road. and then back through the woods.
feet frozen. fingertips numb. and as im walking past these tall stately pines and spruces, im wondering if they feel cold as well. if the icy cold freezes them along their boughs deep into the trunk of the tree.
i decide they dont. not like i am feeling the cold. it may freeze their insides, but they dont shiver from the cold like i do. they have no desire to be warm. no real sense of what warm is until it comes with the spring allowing life to flow through their trunks and branches again. trees may be cold, but they feel no cold.
i take it further and ask if the rock feels cold. i begin to realise in my mind that concepts like cold and hot are very human concepts. that they are just that, concepts. the non-living (or non-dead) have no sense of what it means to feel hot or cold or wet or tired. in fact, most of the living world has not this sense either. it is only really animals, who have the measurement of temperature built in as some fundamental sense, who can feel cold. and not even all animals if i thought about it.
it may be strange when youre walking across a snow covered field to be asking if the fence feels cold and wouldnt it like a little blanket to warm it up a bit. but it seems just as strange now to ask about those humans walking out in that field, whether they feel cold. it seems so much more natural to be asking why would the humans feel cold and not the fence. obviously there must be some advantages to being the fence.
# # #
the czech and their alcohol. i imagine it being the same with the germans. but i didnt visit any german households while i was there. didnt hang out with germans like ive hung out with the czechs.
sitting in a pub eating goulash. and they laugh at me because i wont have a beer. they tell me i will be sick if i dont drink beer with goulash. visiting my sisters colleagues. as they offer me wines made locally in the region. refusing, trying to explain how i dont drink alcohol. they laugh and tell me wine isnt alcohol, that its medicine. i still refuse and yet they pour me some to sample.
again and again. laughter. remarks like 'beer isnt alcohol'. 'wine isnt alcohol'. not understanding how one could not drink alcohol. a life without alcohol. continually trying to force it on you.
and i suppose its the same in the states. only it seems more lax. if i tell someone i dont drink alcohol. they look at me funny, but generally leave it at that. difference also because i cant explain that there are other drugs i take my pleasure in. in the states my sister isnt there. and i can look at those trying to force alcohol on me as just dumb jocks (which they usually are). here they are respectable members of the society. and drinking is an activity thoroughly engrained into their culture. they have no frame of reference for a life without alcohol. no straight-edge subculture. no health freaks. no reformed alcoholics. a life without alcohol to them is like a life without food.
# # #
speaking of food. so much the opposite of san francisco. all the czechs or the germans appear to eat is meat. foods rich in fat. especially in the czech republic. walking through their supermarkets. a small section reserved for sad-looking fruits and vegetables. on the other side, huge expanses of refrigerated meats in a multitude of forms. i am told the czech people only occasionally eat vegetables. certainly most of the meals ive had would have sent a vegetarian away hungry. even on menus under headings like meals without meat you find entries like fried cheese and ham. with a diet like this, maybe all that alcohol does help.
# # #
talking of religion and getting into heated discussions. christianity. as i explain how much i hate christianity. what it has done. and what is continues to do. almost wiping out other religions. other people. in the name of its god. selectively choosing inspired works for its most holy of books. books chosen to subjugate and oppress peoples. the way it has forced an entire way of thinking onto its people. so the worship of things natural and the holding of the earth as sacred disappears. fixed definitions. of right and wrong. love. of being and individuality. separating people. from each other. the world we are a part of. to conquer rather than coexist.
i start yelling. getting overexcited. seeing capitalism and all its evils as a direct result of the ideologies created and engrained centuries before with christianity. angry at the christian church for the persecution of witches. the spanish inquisition. the holy roman empire. and the fact that the ideas and writings created then to conquer and control are now accepted by so many as holy scripture. the word of god. The Truth.
injury and insult. and this bugs me the most. that christians have their one truth to rule supreme over all. and even if this truth was once just an excuse for political domination, there are people who now truly believe it. and in this belief they continue the tradition. and for one part you feel sorry for them. but another part makes you angry. when they force it upon you.
understanding there are good christians. i have met many good christians. christians who truly want to help. many who dont believe in the church. but believe in their own personal form of god. and more importantly, believe in goodness. in doing good upon others.
nonetheless, get me emotionally heated. and i will destroy christianity with my words. because of the evil it has perpetrated in the name of its god. because of the teachings it has placed upon those i know, that limit them. defining and imposing. cultures. values. definitions. of beauty. of status. of what we want out of life. and how to achieve it. and what to believe in.
# # #
masturbation does not take away the need to be held. and that is why we can never become truly independent beings. because of that need, an essential need. to become lost in the arms of another. to hold them and have them hold you. warmth. gentle caresses. as one falls asleep. the whore is only as good as masturbation, because the whore does not hold you. we have no replacement for this. no protocol in society when you just need to be held. no way to indicate this need to friends, to strangers. without implying so much more. tonight i want to be held. but there is no one. so i will masturbate. and fall asleep empty. unheld.
# # #
i am intoxicated with the words of anais nin. reading incest. her passion and life fill me. i am alive again. i have feeling. pulsing through my veins. coursing through my writing. fire awakened it, dragged me from comatose. stacey nourished it. as i nourished her awakening. i feel love now. and sadness. i miss staceys physicality, her sexuality, her need of me. and i miss fire. for reasons so deep my conscious mind cannot grasp them.
i feel the mood of the city today. the silence. the cold creeping in from outside. where the wind and dampness throw chills. to dare the walk outside. i sit alone here in the lobby. the hostel is empty. it is sunday and everyone is out. stuffing themselves on the vapourous substance of tourism. the echo of what once was that diverts the traveller from the real life of the city. allowing you to believe you understand the city, can feel the pulse of the city. by climbing some six hundred year old monument, in memory.
i need to live a city. wandering about, marveling at the simplest things (the signs, solar powered parking meters, small green police cars, stores in the underground). watching the people. sometimes, when i overcome my shyness. meeting these people. going to their clubs. their restaurants. their cafes. grasping some feeling for who they are and the city they belong to. learning the differences in culture and growing because of them. i cannot be a tourist.
# # #
i am mad with the words of anais. writing pours out of my brain uncontrolled. in response. of myself. i am in love with anais. a literary love. with her words. her being. who she was. a love through time. i am henry. and hugh. and allendy. anais herself. i am them all. they are part of me and flow out from me. harmonies. i am a harmony of what they once were. we are. me and my loves. those i love, create, inspire. with words. with passion.
they are not dead, but recreated in the people of today. harmonies. echoes. down through the ages. different, yet the same. interacting in the same grand passions. the same grandiose plays of life. dreams of dreams of dreams. and the players resemble so much those i have seen before. so many times before. my dear, dear friends.
anais. her words resonate within me. inflame me with inspiration. because i have been in those struggles. will experience the struggles. between a life of living. and one slowly drifting to death. struggles of loves, needing to flow out multilaterally. needing many loves, for different reasons. and having so much love to give. the need now in me to write. to create.
and yet i do realise. somewhere in my mind. we are different, anais and i. our lives have been fundamentally different. if we feel the same, experience the same, it is only chance. the projection of ideas of the past onto a living, moving creature of now. this is not always right. never really right. like two clouds that appear the same, but fundamentally, inside, are shaped differently.
my friends. my loves. of today and here and now. bear only a superficial resemblance to those in the past. deeper still everything is different. and yet we can take our inspiration from that superficial resemblance. as long as we do not allow reflections to define us. create no images of who we are. because these images will confine us, limit us, destroy us! we must be free to take wisdom from the past, yet create the future ourselves.
reading of anais. with hugh. creating deceptions to run to henry. as he begs her on the phone. thinking of stacey and i. how she would create lies. to come to san francisco to see me. and we would fuck. and talk of art and life. inspiring her to create. she inspiring me. those brief nights she would stay with me. only to return to him. not wanting to. wanting to stay with me. but feeling that responsibility. the tinges of guilt. anais, she writes all about it. and then the night she mistakes hugh for henry. echoing the night stacey mistook him for me. so many relations.
yet i am not poor. i am not the artist like henry is the artist. i have skills that can make me thousands of dollars. to live in luxury. i take care of myself. i have not the dependency of henry on others. i live life not at his baseness, the drunkenness of life. i, like anais, need refinement. but like hugh and henry and allendy, i am fundamentally weak. my life exists as a struggle, the contrast to this fundamental weakness. shown by this past year. where i was drugged, asleep. weak in my character. weak in sexuality. weak in my will to life. -- and yet i learned from this year. and escaped from the dry deadness of the corporate world. i found life again.
so though we are made of the same stuff. art. life. creativity. bacchian pleasures. we are also each our own. unique and different. i am not henry. nor hugh. nor allendy. nor anais. yet they are all a part of me. wrapped up in who i am and who i am becoming. i cannot escape that just as they could not escape who they were. so i take pleasure in reading words so in tune with myself. as others may someday take pleasure in reading these words. and i am truly in love with. not the person anais. but her literary presence which lives on forever in her words. her passions. her desires.
# # #
i talk so much of passion these days. a word so overused. but i can think of no other in its place. desires, needs, wants. these are so consciously defined. controllable. able to be diverted. but a passion. in that single word is an unconscious glacier, devouring a continent with its being. nothing can hold it back. it bursts through every seam, creeps through hidden cracks.
it is like the sexual drive. pushing, driving one forward. the whip whose crack cannot be forestalled. because the essence of this force lies deep in the unconscious. is never fully revealed. passion is why the artist must create. beyond all hope of success. when all else in life has failed. passion is what drives us. to forget all else in life. to become obsessed with one activity. one learning. one creation.
so if it is a word i use often. it is a word which none other can replace. it is a deep felt word stemming from unconscious places. it is my description for that which cannot be fully understood, only felt. that which pushes us to shun death and embrace life. the cause of our living.
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something stacey said. something ive feared before. and yet no longer. because the book is part of who i am. part of myself. not a creation, but a mere expression of my inner soul. a fragment of my existence. a living fragment. inseparable from myself. we are one, this book and i. my life influences the book and the book influences my life. twisting and turning. as those reading it are creating it. become wrapped up into it themselves.
so when she says that so much of that first night together. so much of it was because of the book. the way i write arousing her and moving her. desiring that night. when she says. no longer. feeling within myself a fear. being loved for what i am, not who i am. like the singer in the band. being any singer. but not. because it is the music, the writing which moves. the expression through which we create ourselves. not merely the fact of existence. the words within inspiring. not the book itself.
no longer afraid of being loved because of my expressions. because these are starting points from which to explore the entire self. they are part of oneself. just as a smile. the way we dress. or crop our hair. all expressions of ourselves that exist as starting points. and in my shyness and fear of being misunderstood. i use my book as an expression. the starting point which sparks those nights of heated passion. caused first from the synchronicity of writing and reading (and the feelings these share). then from a greater whole of she and i harmonizing together. sharing ideas. emotions. then touch. i no longer wonder if they love me because of the book. because the book taken away does nothing. once read, the living continues on. so the love is discovered because of this expression, but it is not created by it.
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the germans have this obsession with american culture that the czech people do not seem to have (yet). walking around berlin. and so many of the ads are in english, or have english slogans. reading rave flyers. booklets telling what is going on around town. the way the german subcultures look. names of dance nights. so much reflects new york city. or san francisco. or la. im told all germans now must learn english in school. so at the raves i listen as they constantly switch between english and german. reading english sentences in the middle of german articles. articles that have english titles. its all a strange sort of experience for me. expecting germany to be so, well, german. and finding so much that is not german (yet there is so much new stuff to inspire me which is german). the czech republic in comparison seems so pure. so white. so czech.
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thinking more calmly about christianity. watching quo vadis. understanding the christians were persecuted long ago as well. the romans who controlled all. executed christ. many others. not because they preached of a one true god. but because they taught peace and harmony and goodness. they told of a life of happiness and contentment rather than one of conquest and domination.
it has its faults as well. but many of these came after. as teachings were perverted. 'inspired works' written, gathered, discarded. as factions formed, fought and won. the roman empire becomes the holy roman empire. as christianity becomes a reason to conquer and control. as religion becomes part of the machine.
and reading erica jong. as she talks about being jewish. having a certain paranoia among the germans. a lingering resentment. anger. understanding her feelings because it is what i have for the christians (white middle class americans, whatever). but then she talks about home. amongst her jewish family. as they try forcing their values of home and family upon her. preaching. evangelising their own way of living. as if some emptiness in their life is fulfilled by pushing it onto others.
and again. searching for what i want to say i hate. and yet it always alludes me. i can hate christianity at the abstract level. but dissect the elements. follow them back into the depths from which they evolved. some i agree with. others i would destroy. but the elements are no longer christianity. faint wraiths of ideas and actions. and is christianity what i really hate at all?
and again i would say i hate domination. force. control. violence. but then again the balance of good and bad. and the hypocrisy. i can say i hate when people force their ideas onto me. yet i try to give my ideas to others as well. if nothing else. i would like to convince them not to force their ideas onto me. try to control me, my life, the way i choose to live my life. and yet everyone has different ideas of what this means. some may convince with words. others guns. we make our own rationalisations for the control we attempt to exert on others. and yet somewhere that line is drawn between just and excessive. but i could not tell your that line. i can only point to where the line has been crossed.
the only thing we can trust in is ourselves. because control is just as much given as it is taken. and if you believe in your god inside you, beside you, to give you strength. it is no different than believing in yourself. it is when you give this belief to your priest. your mother. your government. you have handed control of what you believe to another. and therefore, control of who you are and who you can become.
i hate the culture which creates this desire to give up control as well.
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all this talk of hate. yet these are the forces we must constantly work to change. and it is this diversity of opinion that gives me so much to write about. such an interest in life. the constant dance between the two. between which there is such hate. yet love as well. though sometimes unknown. because they cant live without each other. and this is why, once the enemy is vanquished. sides form within ourselves. factions. and we become our worst enemies. talk of hate is talk of love of something to hate. and talk of life.
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i dont know the definition of a synchronicity. it has some relation to a coincidence. but a more meaningful type of coincidence. ive been having them a lot lately. such as just as i write about christianity. a movie. showing me the persecution of the christians themselves. as i begin to write about the character of cities. a few days later i pick up italo calvino's invisible cities and start reading. erica jong's fear of flying. entering new ideas about sexuality. just as i. and then other ideas about the jews and forcing ideas onto others. as the pwei song repeats: do you have a fear of flying? i write on.
maybe my subconscious is picking up on things and focusing my attention toward similar topics. bringing together and causing these coincidences. synchronicities. or maybe my subconscious mind filters afterwards and is only feeding my conscious mind. fate? completely random occurrences, true coincidences? whatever the cause, i dont think it matters. these synchronicities alter my thought, guide it. giving me new ideas, new perspectives on old ideas. they make me smile. and i continue to live.
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the music pulls at places inside of me. now making me feel sadness. now ecstasy. so deeply felt. the pull of the violin bow echoed in chambers deep. new music. as the sounds create and recreate themselves. rhythms so powerful. beats so intricate. speaking another language. i become lost in the music. staring off into the distance and watching a whole new world evolving in my head. constantly changing as the music itself constantly changes. the perfect metaphor for life. tearing out my insides. like some aural orgasm. the nerves all the way to my fingertips feeling the power of this music. causing one to want to dance. to create. to mourn. to live. my heart flutters against the beats. so full. so rich. i cannot imagine describing music to a deaf person. i think it is impossible.
(for the sufi music and dancing are the ultimate spiritual experience. and i can fully understand why. trying to describe music, the ways in which it can make you feel. it is just as hard as trying to describe. acid. an orgasm. become one with your god. music is one of the most powerful forces in the universe).
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visiting my sister in vlashim. drawn into the world of 'society'. it is christmas time and we go visiting. houses of well-established vlashim citizens. married people. with children. i might even call it the adult world. because we are visiting people who are almost all in their forties. my sister calls them collegues. they tech along with her at the local high school.
going to dinners. bringing gifts. not too big, yet not too insignificant. taking off our shoes as we enter houses. some, like the mill. in the house for generations. and so enormous. filled with statues. displays filled with old watches, coins, fine china. each christmas a different colour is chosen as theme. so all the napkins, christmas tree balls, plates, decorations, candles, ribbows, everything is blue. as we eat off of blue plates and sit talking. then a walk on the lake and have some coffee and cake. everyone talks in czech. for hours and hours as more tea, more coffee, more food is brought out. so proper. they are such fine hosts. and i am not used to this.
even with the young people. sitting around talking to those recently out of high school. and so much food is prepared and brought out. wine offered around. popcorn made. other beverages. and as we sit talking they automatically prepare more and bring more out. a glass emptied is almost subconsciously filled by the host.
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its that situation thats just so typical of the foreigner. standing before two doors. the ultimate decision. no lady. no tiger. just mens and womens. and you dont know which door is which. because theyre labeled in a foreign language. so youre waiting for someone to come out. or walk up and go in. so youll know. you take brief peaks inside. not wanting to offend anyone by walking in the wrong door. but all you see are sinks. so youre still waiting. taking peeks deeper and deeper into the bathroom. shouting out things like 'hello. anyone in here?' just so someone will make some grunt of a response. so you wont be caught in the wrong one when someone walks in. finally the peak that determines it all. you sigh in relief as you enter the bathroom. as you try to memorize the signs, for next time.
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walking through the streets of prague on new years eve. it feels like a fucking war zone. firecrackers going off with an explosive intensity all around. you see them roll out into the middle of the square. smoke for a few seconds. then explode in a bright blue flash. echoes like a gun shot reverberate. as you feel like you should be diving for cover. visions of beirut. bosnia. northern ireland. the only consolation: theyre not shooting at you.
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in a pub on new years eve. its a tourist bar. people from italy, brazil, denmark, south africa. hardly any from prague, the czech republic. but some.
three girls. eighteen. seventeen. seventeen. watching as the italian talks in his broken english to one girl with her broken english. as she translates for them all. the south african and i sit back laughing. at the episodic moments of comprehension. one of the girls reminds me of one of my first girlfriends jen. they are all so young. so naive.
later they are dancing. maybe they are a little drunk. they dance and flirt. one of them is hit on by this suave latin lover. he has her up against the wall and is kissing her. later he is coming on stronger. she is making faces, pushing him away. i pretend to be her brother. speaking in broken english. trying to create a czech accent but failing (it is so hard to pretend not to speak the only language you really know). pretending to understand what she is saying. she speaks no english. i speak no czech.
i become protective. keeping the men she wants away away and turning a blind eye to the boy she wants kissing her. she thanks me in the few words of english she knows. i think maybe they think i am gay. i dance and play with them. but i do not hit on them. they are beautiful and i am attracted to them. but they are young. they dont need one more older man trying to steal a kiss and more from their lips. i feel closer to them laughing and dancing with them than the strangers who try to press themselves up against their bodies in a fleeting moment of half-ignited passion. at least i they might remember.
besides i am not drunk. and my mind, not my glands control me.....somewhat. so i am dancing with this italian woman. very beautiful. a good dancer. we dance closer and closer. but i never draw my body to hers. i never make that first move. shyness. not wanting to give up the freedom of movement dancing with another takes away. rationalisations.
she tires and goes into the other room to rest. i do not immediately follow her. when i do, a song comes on that i must dance to. i see her leaning up against the wall alone. there is almost no decision. fear of action paralyzed me. but the song draws me in and i must dance. and this is almost not a rationalisation for not having approached her. because the music invades me and gives me so much more pleasure. than the anxiety create by attempting to kiss a beautiful woman who i really only want to kiss because the truly beautiful woman who i really do want to kiss is half way across the world and im not even sure she wants to kiss me.
after the song i do come out. but some latin lover has her pinned up against the wall slow dancing with her as he rubs his hands all over her body. she is smiling. i go back and dance some more. later on i dance with her some more and steal smiles from her from across the room. we exchange words here and there and i dance for her as she sits with her lover. i am not jealous of her lover. though it would have been beautiful to have tasted the fires of a true italian woman. i am simply happy for her smiles.
# # #
i find the idea of being caught masturbating by a woman very arousing. having her enter the room while i lie on the bed. sitting in a chair. hard. my hand rising and falling. as she watches. fascinated.
the breaking of taboos. because if we both look embarassed. closing the door. hiding things. the fantasy is broken. it is only when the taboo is confronted in my mind that it becomes arousing. the woman who stands and watches. or comes to the bed and takes me. only when i do not shrink away in shame, embarassment.
and yet it is exactly because this would never happen. could never happen. that makes it taboo. makes it so arousing. because she would never stand there. and i would never continue. because of a socially imposed shame. embarassment.
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i am getting lost in this book. i dont know where the book ends and my life begins. im not even sure if there is a place. perhaps this book and my life are the same. no division. or perhaps they still are separate entities. somewhere.
walking along. and thoughts come into my head as passages in the book. words simply flowing. in rhythm. in style. and again when i write people. getting lost in my thoughts and writing as if in the book. then sometimes taking those passages. and putting them in the book. making them a part of this public writing. and even less distinction still. when i write the words to someone. and before. while writing. knowing i will put it in the book. not even getting lost in my thoughts. but intentionally writing to the book and a person at the same time. no differentiation.
thinking in terms of a normal journal and it is easy. but this is no normal journal. a book. an experiment even. in the public writing of private thoughts. and private conversations. private experiences. truly a letter to my friends. as i e-mail pieces back to them from europe. so they know where i am. what i am doing. but again also so thought out. not writing every experience that i have, like a journal. selected experiences. but some of those experiences are private experiences. but i want them included in the book. because it is like a journal. and they are part of me.
until now. making them public only affected my life. only minor effects on others. but now it has the power to deeply affect other peoples lives. so i write them down. wanting them in the book. but also not. in case the wrong person reads it. the book is so personal, yet so public. so intertwined with my life. yet sometimes i feel guilty. writing to the book and to my friend at the same time. stealing those private words for my own personal (yet public) scrapbook.
so this is my dilemma. how much of my life is private and how much of my life is public. and how intertwined is the book in my private life (or my whole life), versus just the less personal public parts. and when is it appropriate to take parts from my private life and put them in the book. and when is it not appropriate. what is the value of the book when it is completely open and frank. and how is that diminished when i leave things out. what is more important. my life. or the book. and how do i even tell the difference anymore?
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the buildings here are so drab. so boring. so washed over with sameness, sterility. tall, greyish brown. cookie cutter windows with cookie cutter balconies. in the states theyd be the projects. public housing. here they are remnants of the old regime. monuments to the oppression of what passed for communism. then socialism.
south side of prague. graffiti on the walls. walls that need graffiti. to give them character. to give them a sense of individuality. it seems to me this is overwhelmingly the architecture of oppression. when every building looks like every other building. stark, straight lines. muddied tones of grey and brown and black. tones of depression. of servility.
nothing is beautiful about these buildings. nothing screams out at you come, live in me. they scream out for you to be the same. to be ordinary. to be a worker and thats all. watching other people in their apartments. the apartments that are the only view from your windows. as other people watch you. everyone watching everyone. looking for those who are different. it screams out police state. it screams out oppression.
it is no wonder the ghettos in america are filled with graffiti. that people live their whole lives and never escape. that the czech people lived so long under a government not their own. i saw the buildings in vlashim too. as ive seen them in san francisco. in philadelphia. as if it isnt bad enough being poor. poor education. poor jobs. poor opportunities. and to top it off poor architecture. architecture shapes our thoughts. our emotions. just as our music. our language. our books. our culture. architecture can kill freedom as well as inspire it.
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walking through the museum today. i am interested in everything. see life in everything. wandering about. marveling at the architecture. staring at the lamps. the pictures on the walls. the arches. the choices in material. the fireplaces with lion heads supporting the mantle on which stands the bust of some famous czech.
looking at rocks and stones. such things of the earth. i thought when i walked in, oh how boring. almost walked past. but began to look anyway. then such fascination. such beauty. complexities i did not imagine. entire worlds being created. i want to write a book like invisible cities. all about stones and rocks. the hidden beauties beneath the rocks. within the rocks.
then more. looking at animals. bones of animals. reconstructions. skeletons. pictures. all so fascinating. i look at the butterflies. with the exquisite mandalas formed within their wings. i understand now so well the fascination with these creatures. and again with the bats. looking at them so interested. they are not the dark black creatures i imagined them. i was surprised they were furry. little flying mice.
then sculptures and paintings. of knights and times of myth. objects from other eras. as they show how they have restored these items. how they have reconstructed them. and this is just as fascinating as the objects. looking at the pictures. i wish i knew czech. there is so much more to be learned from the words as well.
# # #
again and again and again. i see new life in everything. yesterday at the black light theatre. rock therapy. the beatles yellow submarine. and ive never seen anything like it. so surreal. creative. magical. like reading alice in wonderland. large brightly coloured props. reflecting in the black light. moving broadly. quickly. appearing. then disappearing. as the hidden actors manipulate. hidden by their complete and utter blackness. as the normal actors interact. with their glowing orange shows and neon colours outfits. utterly amazing.
then walking home. thinking about all the possibilities. wanting to bring this theatre to the us. to the raves. where they would enjoy it so much. wanting to learn the techniques. play more with it. thinking of skotty and his puppets. thinking of neon drums played by hidden drummers with neon drumsticks. thinking of dancers creating glowing, alive sculptures in this light that hides, yet illuminates. so many possibilities.
and no time. no time. watching the television and envisioning new forms of film being created. split screen. more fragmentary. cubist. more surreal. new ways of telling stories nonlinearly. multiple views of the same scene. new camera angles. lighting. ways of shooting films. thinking of movies like husbands and wives. some of the things oliver stone has done. and the possibilities expand in my mind. again and again. life has begun anew for me, yet i havent the time to experience it all.
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trapped on an airplane. needing to write to stem the oppressiveness. the heat. the waiting. the other couple hundred or so people also trapped. also feeling the heat. the aggravation. pigs in a pen. sardines in a can. lots of metaphors. but the fact is that after an hour and a half sitting at your destination in an airplane thats not moving, simply sitting on the airfield waiting for a gate to open. after youve finished your book and read bland articles in the airline magazine. after your throat has become parched from the dry dry air. after youve stretched out your legs in ways you didnt imagine possible. after all this you develop a certain claustrophobia. a certain aggravation bordering on anger. ive been travelling now for thirty hours. all i want to do is go home. and i am almost there. but they wont let us out!