Life is but a Dream

Abandoned Cast Aways:

a letter to you both

Okay, so we've been stranded on this little boat for 3 years now. This I've not to tell you, it isn't or shouldn't reach you as a surprise; you've been right here beside me, the both of you and I beside you just as well, or worse. I should think that if at all surprised, it should be by the length of time being so short not so long. I may not speak for the 3 of us but it has felt like much, much longer. If either of you have truly been here, solidly, then I do confide that I must speak for the 3 of us when I say its felt like far much longer than 3 years. The farthest of "much longer" in fact.

We've each spoken of going our separate ways, taking a chance on our own. By the time you read these words, that is where I'll be, for well or worse, I have swam out further and am now possibly alive just as likely as dead. My morning swim has become a full day, depending by what time the two of you discover this letter. It shouldn't have been hard to find, our Titanic would surely sink if even one of James Cameron's camera's parked on our stern. At the driest corner where the sun upon its proudest of noons would bow down its rays and hold warmly an inviting attention; there; you must've found this page and on the page, over the sketches that documented as well as tormented my thoughts, I have written these words. Boldly and violently etched into the 8" x 11" manilla sheet.

I am gone. I have left. I wish you both the best but I am gone and I shall not return. I am selfish and I apologize if the consequence of my action hurts or harms either of you whom I do truly care for but I refuse to die out here. Out at sea, in the middle of the ocean. Stranded on a row boat that sips in water through the three holes under our feet. 3 years and we've become comfortable with transforming the situation into a unique circumstance and adapting ourselves as if we could go on as this for 3 more years, or whatever it takes before we either die or are rescued.

I realize I am leaving you both with more work, we are three but without so much as 1/3, the labour of each remaining person increases but twice. I hope my departure awakens in you both, a sense of alarm, a sense of time and necessity. I hope that my example strengthens your courage, provides a battery for your will, gasoline for your self-preservation and promotes your urgency to act now. This instant, as you're reading...I hope that your minds are made up regardless of your feelings towards me, for abandoning you both, for writing this letter and having the neural gall to claim its an action executed in love; despite your immediate impression of me this instant, I do wish you both, do urge you both to please leave this boat. Lets part ways and we'll be better off alone, I am sure of it. If only one of you leaves, please do your best to convince the last person not to remain alone, not to attempt to keep the boat on their own. You'll surely sink, the 3 holes are much stronger and consistent than any one of us. If you die even an inch further away from where we've been stranded for 3 years, then you have made progress. You have been as consistent as the holes that mean to drown you.

Goodbye, so long.

We'll meet on dry land,

Our End.

Confessions of a Crap Artist: I Just Wanna Say...

I try and try to fit all my thoughts into words. I try to make speech a conduit to brain, a channel from where one is able to express itself through the other. I don't know how to talk out loud...I stop sentences short...I trail off and change topics awkwardly and...its all bullshit anyway. I can't make sense of how anyone can do it...I premeditate the words and it sounds so good, so exact and confident...it makes sense and I'm definitely in control but then its like the words aren't really words; like liquid and solid, the same but not the same. Better yet gas and solid. My thoughts are like some gas that floats and lightly obscures but one could walk through...words on my tongue are solid blocks with weight, height and mass, texture and density. You can't walk through it, you can't make it float and reshape it like clouds at the slight inspiration of wind, once its spoken a word is a word. A thing jumping out of you and you can't have it back...but you can add more words to direct a thought. I'm no good at directing spoken words. Maybe on paper or text/edit when the words are not quite solid, writing is the liquid phase of communicative matter.

Confessions of a Crap Artist: Can't Get Over Overdraft

About Not Having Money and Overdraft

Modern Marvels should one day include the bank concept known as Overdraft. Concept is an underplay, Phenomenon would be more accurate. The Phenomenon Known as Overdraft. Nice ring to it...could be, a one day title to a literary work of genius. A coming of age tale about some hero and his dire straits.

Jokes aside, I find it nothing but interesting that without a single cent in my bank account I will have paid my phone, web hosting, and metrocard. Of course there's the overdraft charge as nothing in life is free. When the bank covers you (or at least, when my bank covers me) there is a $32.00 or so charge that is taken from your account. Now being that there is no money in the account (that is why, after all, the account went into overdraft) this brings your account into the negatives. So when you start to fill your imaginary piggy bank, its to get your account to zero before you can actually have any real number in there.

Does it Bother Me?

Not really. I mean...in principle it sort of does but the bother doesn't really amount to much. Now that I'm working it'll sort itself out, I'm not going to waste my time and energy being angry about a few dollars here and there. Some people get really worked up over such matters. My mother for instance, was furious that I was being charged overdraft. She in a very sweet and scary, overprotective mother fashion took to shaking her fist, cursing, and snickering at the bank who handles my account. As if they could hear her from her kitchen. My mother gets excited about being angry, her temper is short, her gall is tall, and her subtlety is as bad as her english.

I don't get too angry because if you really think about it. I shouldn't have been able to pay with money that isn't really there. But I did and I was charged for it. Is it a scam? Of course, Life is one big scam and we're all scam artist...its all about who finds the best medium to work on.

Confessions of a Crap Artist: If You'd Been a Dog...

KNIVES OUT

Job searching is depressing, I'm quite unmotivated; and what some might be shocked to hear is that I'm okay with being unmotivated. Just to be clear, I mean unmotivated with job searching, not life! Life is very inspiring but job searching is like walking around looking for an available knife to be stabbed with. Only no one wants to stab you unless you are a certain type of bleeder, better yet unless experience has proven you to be a certain type of bleeder. So even if you are what they're looking for, it counts for nothing unless someone else says it for you, like a previous knife that can vouch for you.

I still haven't mastered how to pretend to be excited about being bled. Analogy aside, there is nothing that I want to do as far as jobs are concerned. Not only is there nothing I want to apply for but there's also nothing I want to learn, or study to develop some sort of career in a certain field or another.

I'm sick of the whole affair. I got to figure something out because a man gets to certain age where he deserves the face he wears, and I don't want to deserve that face that might await me on the other side of that mirror. Its a tired face, an accusingly cold face, with regrets hiding in every wrinkle like water collecting into erosion.

Confessions of a Crap Artist: New Directions

New Country for Young Men

"At this hour of night, his life seemed so remote to him, he was so solitary and indifferent to everything and to himself as well...he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which filled him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of this warm world so willing to deny him without anger."

In the wake of a new job with very little hours and lesser pay than my previous; at the news that my parents are moving off to DR next year and my sister and myself left to fend for ourselves; in view that most of my childhood friends are married or parents, if not simply career holding individuals, I should think myself worried about the current state of my life. But I'm not. I mean, I'm somewhat concerned but overall, it doesn't really intimidate me.

The news is all good and I'm flying higher, I'm back on my own. Don't worry about me I got no more baggage...threw all my old things away. I got your letter and thanks for the offer, I really don't need a thing...open the door in front of me.

I'd rather die than get more hours at my current job (I hate that place), and so long as I withhold from spend drifting, I'll be alright. My parents, well they deserve DR as much as I want to move the hell out! I'm glad they're leaving, I'm tired of home cook meals, domestic household interaction, and ultimately, I'm tired of seeing my family everyday. As far as friends that are married, parents, or just successful, thats all good but all I want to do is make music, art, and write...if wifing a dime, sprouting a jr., or becoming a professional will allow me unlimited time and space to work on the bright little activities that keep the darkness from swallowing me into the shape of an average american adult, then by all means count me in!

I spoke with my homegirl recently, we texted back and forth about how strange the sensation was that, even though ones life is out of certainty, even though the mind may be stressed and uncomfortable, the body can remain steady. I feel energetic and fit, my body feels responsive and alive. Movement has always been associated with life for me; animation even contains within it, the word "anima" which means "life" and "soul." The Body is not less than the Mind nor visa versa, the Mind any lesser than the Body. The collaboration of the two is life. These events that have recently introduced themselves to me as Crisis have brought forth the internal realization that the needs of my body are just as important as those of my mind. And since, of the two, my body feels more primitive and therefore all the more urgent, then those needs of the mind such as psychological security and social standardization are deemed subordinate at the moment, outweighed by the almighty id. To my advantage, this keeps me from feeling stressed out and depressed.

The sun is now shining on me; meet me as soon as you can, bring me the money you're holding for me...taking my head out of sand.

Confessions of a Crap Artist: Top 10 Jobs

So throughout my job search, I've become rather disappointed that the real jobs that I'd rather like, are nowhere near available. If anyone knows or hears of any of these positions opening please relay unto me, the info.

TOP 10 JOBS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE

10. Absolute World Controller

Brain with his Orson Wellesesque ambition, Apocalypse and his Darwinian self-entitlement, Secret Societies, and Alexander the Great, Napoleon, his Fordship, Mustafa Mond! These and others have cradled in me, an unescapable desire to rule Earth, entirely, absolutely. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely! But I won't set out to rule for anyone else's sake other than my own. As Absolute World Controller, I shape the world into my corroded image and its inhabitants shall do my bidding or their own resting, in graves. It wouldn't be too bad after 2/3 of the Earth's human population is destroyed, there will be no jobs, no money, no law, more space, less children, eventually I don't want to even be acknowledged.

During my rise to power I will demolish this familiar world I live in for another to be constructed from it, yet this is a job for men who are interested in such investments, I just want an emptier planet to roam, to be lost in. Such a position demands great, perhaps even, superhuman abilities to sustain that kind of power; fore I want no army, no elite, no insurgents, no circle of authority, it will all begin and end with me, absolutely.

09. God

This is quite similar to Absolute World Controller, only with showsmanship mystique. Like the magician who is as great as the secret to his best illusion; God is only just as great the more detached, unresponsive, and absent God remains from his faithful fan clubs. So this position could in fact prove to be the easiest if no supernatural powers were involved, only my quiet compliance to the omnipresence and omniscience assumed upon me. People won't even know if I really did exist or not. Imagine a job where you don't even have to show up, not even work for that matter but you still receive a check, in fact multiple employers send you a check and fight over who's check you cash, not realizing you cash them all.

08. Ghostbuster

When I started this list, I thought about both the Men in Black and the Scooby-Doo Mystery Gang. The Mystery Gang are a bunch of reckless hipsters and eventually they're going to walk into the wrong kind of trouble that won't end with the unmasking of a mischievous no-gooder. Think about it, these silly motherfuckers step into some really shady towns, we're not even sure what country they're in sometimes (they could be in Central or South America or Canada just as likely as the U.S., Hanna Barbara doesn't know the difference). Its only a matter of time before they pull that move and meet something they're not ready for, like a slit throat and raped rectum.

As for The Men in Black, I'm just not a people person. Better stated, I'm not a social person. I'm definitely open minded and understanding but I just don't do well in the area of diplomacy, and that seems like a job where you have to deal with all sorts of backgrounds (some further back than others).

Thinking both of these jobs over, I wondered: Is there a way to deal with the paranormal in a non-social manner without having to travel into potentially shady situations with unqualified specialists.

Yes! Of course there is, who else would you call? Its a good staff, I'd mostly be like Winston, since he's the least knowledgeable in the field of paranormal studies, though I'm also a wise-cracking slacker, like Dr. Venkman. But I'd probably spend most of my time as the annoying lackey of either Dr. Ray Stanz or Dr, Egon Spengler. Learning about ghosts, ectoplasma, and subatomic physics.

Unlicensed nuclear accelerators, ghost traps, good pay so long as there's demand, room and board. These are all good reasons but unnecessary ones. I'd no sooner join The Mystery Gang if Janine Melnitz took the place of Velma.

07. Blade Runner

Okay, anyone who really knows me is aware of my love/hate relationship with technology. I hate cellphones but I love drum machines, I hate Myspace and Facebook but I love MAX/MSP and synth patches, hate television but lasers and spaceships are like visual viagra. So why shouldn't this love/hate qualify itself as an efficient tool when hunting rogue androids.

As of recent, scientists and engineers are going bats over Singularity, which in part is, when the human mind is mastered and capable of being replicated. Ray Kurzweil could even stand in for Tyrell for the time being. When they are successful, as all mad scientists are, eventually, I will be more than glad to blast the artificial life and memories right out of any Andy's face.

Dilemma, I fall in love, "found love on a prison ship" and now she'll die or be killed. I'm not too fond of humans as it stands, I'll be less inclined to warm any frigid regard if they take from me, that love which they were responsible for creating, that love that reattached me to what it was to be human in the first place.

06. Santa Claus

Lets face it, Santa has it made! My man works on one day, sure its for 24 hours, and sure the preparation for that day must be pressure enough to blow diamonds out of coal mines like information from a nervous snitch; still, nine months of free time is worth it. I can deal with the cold weather as well; and human isolation isn't much of a setback as it is a step forward. The elves are probably real gnarly cats to be around and Jessica Claus is all I need as far as both woman and human.

My only problem is the weight. You see, I'm a tall, slim, melancholy cynic not a jolly, rosy-nosed fat man. Now if there were some elf magic involved, where I can become that rosy nosed fat man for that Christmas week, I will become jolly, as is what one must do if one became a rosy nosed fat man. Honesty, I think "jolly" is the result of flying reindeers and the speed necessary for such a tour as, "every good child's residence in one 24 hour night". Santa's heart must sound like an Autechre track after such a ride. "Ho ho ho...!" This is the sound you makes when your heart is about to jump out of your throat.

But I can't say no to milk and cookies plus the priceless hatred directed at me from major toy corporations.

05. Tooth Fairy

Kid: Wait! You're the Tooth Fairy?...Isn't the Tooth Fairy supposed to be a woman?

AutoSpade: You watch too much TV kid. You gotta a tooth for me, or what? Oh, I see. Still attached, huh?

Kid: Yea and you can't have it anyway!

AutoSpade: Oh really? A wise guy, huh? Luckily I got me this companionship of a brass knuckle, I call him The Scholar, he just loves it when people get wise. Why you cryin'?

04. Gluttony

I'm not into tormenting and causing suffering to others. Eternal Damnation was never my bag. But if The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, or whatever moniker it was going by at the moment, was in fact, not only real but faithful to its depiction as played by Elizabeth Hurley in the remake of Stanley Donen's Bedazzled, then I gotta roll wit her!

I have to be one of the Seven Deadly Sins, just so I can work closely with her. I think I'll be good as Gluttony. I can eat unnecessarily, I usually do anyway and what's more, I often inspire hunger. I say this, not only because I'm skinny but because I've oft a time been informed that while I eat, I advertise the action of food consumption quite effectively. Yes, I do enjoy eating and yes, I do rub it in that I am slim but Its my mischievous nature that lures me to Liz Hurley's Lucifer.

During the film I kept comparing her to Peter Cook's portrayal and found they were both good and I would be Gluttony for either, my preference for Hurley simply for gender. Both, however would be great to scheme, plot, contrive, and conspire with.

"I say ol' man all 'at talk about cholesterol and fat is just corporate balance so's to see you don go and eat yisself into 'isteria, so's you do it responsibly like drinkin, mate 'as all. Is not really gonna do ya any more 'arm than its dun me...Why, look on me will ya? All bones like as 'a day me mum saw me fit t'be a man, and cholesterol 'asn't change 'at, no fat, never mind you what I diet, ah usually start at ev'rything and any less 'an 'at is famine!

"So, go on will ya, 'ave anuva 'un will ya, 'er ya go, na look un ya, nawt a scratch, as fit as a suit, ah'd say! Don'nat feel good! Don'nat feel royt! Don let any bugger tell ya sum uva 'an 'at!"

03. Death: The Grim Reaper

Although quite a busy occupation, also a very technical and creative one. Diseases, accidents, abortions, murders, overdoses, shock, and any other agent of Death are to be carefully casted and directed, each like a specific film that requires a specific ensemble. The job also requires traveling, lots of organization, a reliable staff to closely work together and time manage all the appropriate accounts according to the schedule. Its a 24/7 job and not for easily upset stomachs or the mortally insecure. Multi-tasking is a must as is the ability to think fast and independently.

This spells me all over! I don't believe in overworking but I do believe in this product and goddamn it I will sell it! With a fervor and gusto that would've made Billy Mays proud. I don't mind being a skeleton and the unpopularity, likewise, doesn't phase me. I'd probably receive most of the cold shoulders from humans anyway, since every other earthling is smarter and far more mature than that. My only concern is whether The Grim Reaper has a global, galactic or universal jurisdiction. If its global than its ideal for me, if any of the latter, I'll need a really competitive compensation.

02. Interstellar Expeditionist

You don't even have to pay me for this! I won't need anything from Earth ever again! To get on a spacecraft, that can support its own exploration without human navigation for at least 200 years, equipped with books, music, films, art, mannequins, food, recording and music production equipment, waste disposal, and a 3-D projection of Kylie Minogue as representative of the ship's mainframe to keep me company, this is my flight without a return ticket. Of course, along with the things I mentioned, scientists will stock the ship with necessities for my physical and mental health before lift off.

The ship should be the size of California and its mission to explore in one direction, whatever is to be discovered. I, however, have my own set of plans and once I free and seduce the 3-D projection of Kylie Minogue, we will have our course re-set to the nearest dying star on the brink of going supernova. Our course wouldn't be re-set right away as there is so much space and universe to see, it would be a shame to not hostage advantage of it. No, it would be after a good 40 years of space that we'd start drawing the curtain for our grand finale.

01. Nebula Production Manager

This would be like an artists' studio, a decent intergalactic loft with a high ceiling overlooking a milky coma cluster. All types of work will be created, my job would be to supervise but I'd feel so excluded without involving myself, hands on, with every project just a little. From editing to engineering, cropping, matting to framing, recording, sketching to mixing, blending, tracing to constructing, I selfishly want a hand in all the stages of production. Not enough of a hand that its an iron fist but just enough to cop a quick feel. I can't imagine the over-emcompassing sensation of creating a star, having the perspective to actually be able to see a sun being born. I wouldn't want to ever die if it meant I'd have to stop creating stars, dust and other celestial bodies.

Yet another job you wouldn't have to pay me for. A nebula, a creative workshop, specializing in creating stars and other celestial bodies. Quality not quantity would be the main idea here. We want stars that can be something, mean something in the grand scheme of universal orchestration. Whether stars of long or short life spans we want to ensure that what the short life spans lack in time they make up for in shine, or what the dull giants lack in shine they compensate for in density. We also want independent stars, suns that may possess creative skills and set out on their own, founding solar systems. We encourage the romantic lovers in an intimate, Natasha Khan dance for Two Suns as well as the constellation communities who prefer large, hall concertos.

Confessions of a Crap Artist: A Punctual Failure

When I was in high school, I was an awful student. I do not mean that I was the rowdy, back-talking, antagonistic teen who threw erasers or batteries at teachers and stole homework from other students, etc. No, it was far simpler than that, I was just inattentive and genuinely disinterested in school. Unique? No. I was one of the many who felt exactly the same way about high school during the most unsure years of our lives.

To make matters worst, I was also very punctual. I held a nearly immaculate attendance and rarely was ever late to class. In class, however, I'd space. I'd travel in my mind and every 45 minutes of a period would be a vague hallucination, a mirage at my peripheral while I'd spend my daydreams on more relative matters such as, girls I had constant crushes on, what I'd do with superpowers, and becoming the best hip-hop lyricist before reaching eighteen years of age. I didn't cut class regularly until senior year (you'd think that'd be the year I start sharpening my act) and even then not as often as others, who, starting far earlier than myself had by that point dropped out or only made monthly appearances maybe out of boredom.

No, I'd appear every day to class to attend my failure. I was there for every step of the decline. I didn't care for homework or well prepared studying, eventually I didn't even feel embarrassed for not caring, I'd stare teachers in their disappointed faces a bit proudly and say, "no, I didn't do the assignment." What a stupid kid. It would've been nice to have been interested. Most of the teachers that really taught me anything were around for my elementary and middle school years but by the time of high school I was of the idea, 12 years of schooling is a bit much. Needless to say the thought of college horrified me, the idea of even more school after all this high school business is finally over. In fact after 4.5 years of high school (you didn't really think I graduated on time did you?) the only thing I was grateful for were a few friends, fewer free lunches, and my handwriting, which I stole from U.S. History's Mr. Garabidi, and that was in night school.

The ironic thing is, everything they taught in school that didn't interest me, I later read about or learned on my own through books, films, music and people; and so, I was fascinated by history, math, science, and literature at one point or another but all these points follow one another, only after high school.

It still amazes me that I sat in class day after day, writing rhymes or sketching while the teacher mumbled a lesson in the background. I'd be there for the only reason that I had nowhere else to go, nothing better to do. Retrospectively, its not something I'm too proud of. I should've had somewhere else to go, something else to do. If school was a waste I should've left it instead of wasting my time failing classes. Since then and possibly also because of "then" I have developed a hatred for time wasted. Yet I can't help to think that I'm starting to feel these current days are waste. I feel like I'm sitting through my current present life daydreaming while a lesson is being mumbled in the background and I'm punctual as fuck, I'm there for every second of the blasted thing yet I'm failing but I won't leave, I won't cut or skip out, I just sit there disinterested, inattentive and passing the time.

Confessions of a Crap Artist: Monetary Diet

I should get another job. Something that I could use to pay rent with or pay for a plane ticket or some synths and midi controllers. But I can't stand the idea of dressing up a resume or the nerve sucking anxiety of the commute to an interview, the pretense, the forced smile that sticks in place like a stiff neck, I don't know how to convince someone that I want a job when I actually really don't.

"So what would you contribute to

this company to help it grow."

I don't care about any job, I just want the money and I'll gladly pretend or at the very least keep my thoughts to myself and refrain from any difficulty towards allowing my employers to get out of me what they want in exchange for what I want in return. But I can't say that in an interview and its getting really hard to keep my mouth shut, trapped tight within in a smile.

"I won't bring anything to the table, I'll just do whatever job

it is I'm applying for and I'll do it well. I really don't care for

it but it pays decent enough that I could do the things I

want on my off time and forget I work here."