Thursday, January 14, 2010

The only line that is true is the line your from

Bearing down on this loosely fitted date of departure.  In the next couple days I'll have a round trip ticket and my first weeks stay arranged.  Kind of a load off the back, in spite of all I've said about just wanting to rush over there with a plan trailing on my coattails its kind of nice to have a little firmness of action.  Its funny because I keep feeling like I'm embarking on a dream.  As in it literally is not real.  So whenever someone asks me something like, "oh what are you going to do with your dog?", or "are you going to pay your studio rent ahead?", or "what about your jobs?" it kind of snaps me back down to our terrestrial plane.  I hope that doesn't mean I'm enjoying the idea of this trip more so than the actual event.  Interesting though how we become enamored by ideas of things instead of the actual things themselves.  Take restaurants for example.  I've been working in restaurants since before I even had the legal rights to work (only by 3 months I'm not that hardcore).  What I've seen over this 12 year span of time is that restaurants are usually nothing like what their customers perceive them to be.  I mean sure, you walk in as a patron and see the decor, get some vibes from the hostess, sit down, have a meal, its good or bad, and you leave.  Presuming its somewhere you've been before, you're walking in with the idea that this place is good based on the food and maybe some personable employees who work there.  If any one customer actually knew the restaurant for what it is through and through, which is so far beyond just the microcosm of good vs bad food/service their minds would be launched off their skull like a clay piece in a skeet shooter.  I don't think their was anything left out or looked over between Bourdain and Pierre in their books about the inner workings of kitchens and restaurants, but just to give a recent example:  Walking into the service station (the waitstaff lounge) the other night and find myself in the throngs of a full blown conversation about the how why and practicality of "docking".  "Docking" if you are unfamiliar (which if you are this will be hilarious) is a sex act between two men in which one uncircumcised penis stretches its foreskin over another circumcised penis.  The etymology of the term is now obvious as it would clearly appear quite similar to some sort of ship-to-ship airlock situation, whether in a submersible or in space.  Maybe this seems like a digression but my point is this.  People eating in that restaurant at the time stuffing their face with their shit eating grins enjoying the lovely atmosphere or art fixtures have no idea of this utterly perverse and disgusting (aka hilarious) conversation going on at the same time.  So I guess my theory, going back to the start, is that if these same customers knew the restaurant they would know about such conversations and their understanding of the place as a whole would change.  This, however, will never happen, and employees of restaurants will forever be able to freely pass their time with the most colorful of vulgarities in all their wonderful and various forms, unbeknownst to their customers.

It gets old though.

I was in CVS a few days ago and saw this massive banner hanging over the register.  The exact wording of it escapes me now so in attempt to paraphrase it went something like, "Get Out and Start Living."  What a terrible banner to have up in a place like CVS.  I mean, its a great uplifting, seize the day-type thing to have, and I'm sure there are more than a few customers that see it since, well, I noticed it.  I don't even work at this place and its making me stir crazy just thinking about all the other places I do work at just while standing in line for cigarettes.  Its like daring your employees to go Jerry McGuire on your ass.  Fuck if I worked at CVS I probably would.  I have a hard enough time not doing it at some of the other places I work, and for no other reason than fuck I've been working in restaurants for 12 years I've had enough.  I guess in the end though its almost a good thing its there, the banner that is.  Every day those employees go in to work and every day they are dared to start a new life.  Kind of compelling if you ask me.  Also perhaps an extreme metaphorical stretch for a goddamn banner in a fucking CVS but hey, it was a 5 minute wait in line for cigarettes, I could play out a whole fucking three part miniseries in my head in that time.  So those who may scoff I challenge them to do the same.

If anyone is wondering about the title of this post its from a song by a band called Blind Pilot.  I think its maybe the most powerful verse I've heard from any of their songs.  So start drawing some lines people.  Not boundaries or borders.  The line is you.  

Thursday, January 7, 2010

A Loose Itinerary

The more I look at flights to different cities where I could potentially start this trek the more I feel like I should blindfold myself and point at a map.  I mean, I am so accustomed to routine and schedules and the like that I feel like mapping out an entire trip on paper is the exact opposite of what I really want.


I want freedom.


I want to wake up and say where am I going today and be ok with it.  The not knowing.  If I wrap myself up in the where and when and how I don't think I'll reach my goals.  I want exploration, not some played out tour bus style review of an entire continent where I can sit in the backseat with headphones on and think to myself how ironic it is that whatever song thats playing seems to roll through its melodies like the landscapes that are passing me by.  Fuck that, I AM the bus.  And I'll drive it off the goddamn road if I want to.  Give me an old german motorcycle and a couple liters of petrol and hopefully a country where they drive on the same side of the road (FYI 72% of the worlds countries are right hand drivers).  
I want to ride in the back of a lorrie filled with chickens between unheard of villages across plains traveled most widely by cattle.  No Fromers.  No Rick Steves.  Matt Rose.


I spoke with someone today about blogs and blogging and how most people just sit at their desk and blog about their stupid lives or what they had to eat the night before thats now aggravating their aging decrepit bowel system.  Not to say I won't talk about any epic shits I give a nice water birth to, but I'm hoping that in the end this can be something fun to read, intellectually stimulating (roll of the dice), and important in the sense that its a literary and pictorial depiction of our world around us.  


Kind of grand goals but hey its a work in progress, I haven't even left the country yet.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

It's fricken freezing

I swear the winter season in Gloucester does everything in it's power to drain motivation and hinder productivity aside from handing you a bottle of depressants to wash down with your apathy. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of living in an area where the four seasons make their rounds but throw me a goddamn bone here mother nature.
Most try to keep the cold at bay with some choice (hopefully local) hops or a nice bottle of scotch or bourbon, maybe the casual spliff, or two....or three. Hell i myself fall into this category of self medication/deprecation but while this may seem like a fine way to pass time it's also rather expensive.
So what really can one do to save yourself from this aenesthetic blanket of cold winter? Go to Florida? Auto-erotic asphyxiation? Well for the cheap and sexually timid perhaps there is nothing we can do but zip the collar tight and bite down on this hard wintery grit and say thank you sir may I have another.

Me, I paint. But I'm thinking about bringing a belt to my next masturbatory session just to see what all the fuss is about.

Monday, January 4, 2010

The start of something...

First post jitters, what to say.  Make it meaningful.  Make it deep and inquisitive and insightful.  Well fuck it I have no idea what to say to come close to any of that right now.  But perhaps thats the point of this whole thing.  I never would have considered myself a blogger or a tweeter or anything of that nature.  Maybe after this whole thing takes flight and I get the hell out of dodge and into a head space thats slightly more conducive to thoughts outside of where do we drink tonight, or fuck i hate january in gloucester, then we'll have something real on our hands.  Something a little bit more than just a drop in the massive, all-encompassing, shit bucket that is the internet.  

until tomorrow.