.same Love (all the time we'd have)

     there's something about having less than a hundred dollars in all of your bank accounts combined that makes a person think.

me, when I think... sometimes I get sad, and sometimes I think about happy things.
sometimes I rhyme slow and sometimes I rhyme quick. and I can't change.
my sadness keeps me warm, but it also pushes people away from me.


     lately I've been sad.

but here we go.



     The other day as I got out of my car I noticed a small sliver of silver slowly slinking its way into the sedate sky. At that moment, as I stared toward the sky, I thought... this moon rises and sets every day without much fanfare. some people go long stretches of time without noticing it at all-- unless it's full.

     People are the same.
Everyday people come and go from our immediate skies without much fanfare. For me the lack of enthusiasm is because I am inherently afraid of holding on to people for fear of losing them. Or even the notion that people will always return to you in the same form that they left.

     When I was in Utah I was riding in a car with everyone on the way to or from somewhere when I got into a discussion about people and drugs and addictions with Celeste. I told her that I don't have the strength to sit and watch someone I care about waste away while they showed no semblance of caring about anyone else's feelings or thoughts. I told her that I don't have that in me.

     The funny thing about the whole conversation was that I was talking directly about her and Ashley and Ashley's determination to always try and get her to get better. the calls, the texts, the trips to other states when we have no money, they lies, the hang-ups, the drugs, the drugs. the having to see someone you love waste away in front of you while everything you try is met with a resistance that calms the heart into beating no more out of pure devastation. 

     I watched as she tried to make excuses and ended up trying to justify herself to me, even though we were both "hypothetically" speaking about other people, and it made me sad and I don't even have ties to her.

*    **    *

     

     I became a Marine because my cousin wanted me to become one. If anyone really wants to know. I had thought about joining the Army, but that fell through. When my cousin suggested The Marine Corps I really didn't want to join, I just didn't know what to do in life. But he was so sure that he had might the right decision that I didn't want to disappoint him. 

     I had never played team sports, I had never been away from home, I was 110lbs of pure douche, but I went anyway. I didn't belong there. I just did it so we could be closer.

     My cousin is the reason I got into video taping everything, and taking pictures, and writing even. I was always envious of his ability to tell a story--to anyone. So a lot of the things I do now are  a direct product of his influence on my life.

     My cousin had this old Sony video camera that he brought over one day a million years ago. With that camera we video taped our youth. In fact I still have that camera in my closet. It is broken now and has been for years, and it would have cost more than the cost of a new one to fix, but I kept it anyways. It sits in my closet along with all the other threads of this slowly unraveling blanket of memories I have tried to shield from the rest of the world for years now. 

     He got his wish and joined The Marines and ended up dying in a far off country while I was thousands of miles from him. He died saving his friends just like he saved me so many times in our youth. 

     When he came home in that metal box I knew I had lost him, but I refused to believe it. He was my blood.

*    **    *

 

 

     The moon will rise tomorrow and set again. Maybe you'll notice it, maybe you wont.

One thing that's for certain is that you don't have to have died to have been lost. You can still be alive and make people twist from the inside with pain so much that they mull over the decision in their minds to keep trying to save you... like they're deciding when to pull your plug at the hospital.

 

 

     There are some moments in this life I have lived that are more memorable than others, but each of these moments is gilded in the same Love I have carried along with me in my pocket as I traveled to each new place. I couldn't change it if I tried.

 

 

 

I don't want to see you go away.

I didn't want to see you go away.

 

I believe I can save you.

I believed I could save you.

 

I will fight until the day I die to keep you alive.

I will fight until the day I die to keep you alive.

 

 

 

There is a scene in the show 'Dead Like Me' where the dead girl gets a chance to speak with her father as someone else in the diner that they used to go to every Sunday. She asks him a question about why they stopped going there. He explains that it was her that didn't want to go anymore, so he went by himself. then he looks at her and says, "I didn't know that was all the time we'd have".

 

     This has been a recurring regret in my life. If I had known 21 years was all we'd get then I would have done something different, or maybe I'd have screwed it up anyways. It feels like one day we're all having Christmas in some terrible place trying to forget life for one night and smiling in each others company and the next day all of that is gone forever. Sometimes it's because you're alive, sometimes it's because you have died, and sometimes there is no difference.

 

     The only thing that never changes is the Love.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

    



 

   

    

          

remember me.

     when I watched the movie 'Remember Me' I drove home in one of those moods I get into sometimes. I parked at the McDonalds because that is where I was parking at that time in history.

     I sat in my car and pulled out my phone. I sent everyone I cared about texts that told them how much I appreciated them and how much they meant to me.

     I told Jackson how good of a friend he was to me and that I think of him as a best friend of mine, among other things.

     I sent sam a long text about how we grew apart and that I still imagined us as kids at the Irvine Meadows letting all of our angst out to some loud music on a lawn far from home.

     I sent several texts that night, to several people. since it was late no one read them until the next morning.

     however, heide was awake. I told her that I loved her and that I was proud of her and that i'm sorry we aren't more affectionate. i'm sure everyone thought I was going to kill myself, or that I was drunk. I was doing neither. I was sitting in my car and thinking... like I do.

     she asked me where I was, then told me to come home. I told her I would.



I feel things differently than you. I can't help it. I can turn it off completely, but when I get home and I am alone... like I was that night.. it all comes out.


     I saw something tonight, after a comment on one of my youtube videos sent me there and I realized... I have never loved an animal like some people do. I don't hate animals, and I don't dislike the pet we have at home, but I don't have a connection with her either. when the time comes, i'm sure i'll be sad, like when I left for Iraq and I actually missed the dog... but I can't imagine being really broken up about it for too long.


     I've had some pretty important people die in my life, and I tend to almost rub that in peoples faces as Ashley pointed out the other night. she told me that no matter what, my cousin will have always died a hero... and her family will die as what they are (drug users, drunks, lairs, distant, and whatever else she said to me). I didn't know what to say.

     it made me never want to tell anyone things again (which is how I get into these places in the first place). I don't need company. I don't need special treatment. I am self destructive anyway.

     but this isn't about that...


     I read that comment and I felt like making something, but it has been done and over done. so i'm just going to say some things here and maybe i'll feel better.





     my dad always used to say to me, "you show me your friends and i'll tell you who you are." that used to piss me off when I was a kid. now that I think about it, it probably was one of the things I remember most. I have a small handful of friends as of now and I am fine with that. I can't stand getting close to people because, as I have said before, I am afraid of losing them.

I don't know what I am trying to say.




     when I feel the shittiest is when I appreciate you the most.

I am worn down and I feel like telling you (as a collective, because if I list people by names I will forget someone or compliment someone more than another and people get butthurt at that)...

I may not show it, or ever say it, but I love you all... even if I specifically say I don't.

there are times when I wish we could drink wine and play guitar forever.

I think we are still silly, like a whoopee cushion.

all of the pictures I take, and the movies I shoot, and the projects I think about making all year until it's the right time are my way of showing that I care. the hand crafted cards, the songs, the recorded books, the velvet lined boxes, the cakes, the smiles, the concert tickets... I would spend all of my money to do the things I want to do.


when we let our guards down at the same time, nothing can stand in our way.

you're my wonderwall.


driving around aimlessly makes me happy.


I will continue to g out of my way for you, even if you don't deserve it.



in my heart, we are close. not everything needs to be out on display for everyone to see.


    in the end when someone is going through all my stuff and they find all the things I have written behind closed doors there's going to be so much for everyone to see.
I just don't want to be forgotten.



when I feel like I've got no place left to go i'm sure you'll be there with that big stupid smile on your face waiting for me. and i'll tell you to come pick me up... cause I've landed.














look for me when i'm gone.... forever.

a throwback i suppose.

i was just wondering if you'd come along

     I went to go see Dave Mathews Band last night.
I had bought two tickets because I had intended to go with my friend randy, but he had to work. and after the other friends who I invited said they couldn't go, I asked another friend who really wanted to go.


     everything went well, the parking was free and we got there early enough to not have to fight traffic or parking lot disasters.

     we sat on the lawn and waited. my favorite lawn. the same lawn that I have had the tall cans of Corona since the day they started selling them in that form. I had one this night as well.


dave Matthews took the stage and the crowd, the mixed crowd of young and old, hippies and college Bro's, white girls waiting to become drunken white girls, middle aged women waiting to become drunken middle aged women, and me... we all erupted with the excitement and wonder of fans that know he will never play the same songs as the night before.


     The second song in the set starts and I recognize it immediately... and just like last year when he played "you never know", I am immediately over joyed. I don't smile big natural smiles a lot in front of people... but if you ever look over at me during a show I really want to see, and one of my favorite songs comes on, then you'll see a true smile.

     this is one of those times, and after the surprise sets in... everything around me is gone and I can only see the stage. I love "the stone". I love the music and I love the lyrics, and the way he throws "can't help falling in love" into the outro. this song reminds me of no one. it is mine completely.

"I was just wondering if you'd come along

to hold up my head when me head can't hold on

and i'll do the same, if the same's what you want

but if not i'll go.

I will go alone."

     A few more songs pass and then I hear the slight incarnation of the beginning chords to "gravedigger" floating around. I know it's coming up. I love that song. in fact, it's the first time i'll be hearing any of these songs live.

"Little Mikey Carson 67 to 75
He rode his
Bike like the devil until the day he died
When he grows up he wants to be Mr. Vertigo on the flying trapeze
Ohhh, 1940 to 1992

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain"

I am up on the rail singing this part, along with all the people in the stadium. I can feel it in my soul. I can feel what it is like to have those big dreams of a boy and I know what it's like to have them gone. I want to feel  the rain when I am dead too.

     Some more songs pass and then I hear those magic chords. I hear them and I jump up to cheer my little heart out. all I wanted last year (when I was at the same venue to see dave) was to hear "the space between". I had seen on the internet that they had played it the night before in San Diego (2012) but I was disappointed that they didn't play it the next day in Irvine. but this year was different. I had heard it. I knew it was coming. I was fucking out of my mind! i told Vicky that I had waited forever to hear this song.

     I am back in my high school times. I remember a girl who I spent a great deal of my younger life with. I remember a video I made for her that was set to this song. I remember, as the song goes on, the lyrics that make me think of her still. 

 "We're strange allies
With warring hearts
What a wild eyed beast you be

The space between
The wicked lies we tell and hope to keep safe from the pain...

  ...The space between
The bullets in our fire fight
Is where I'll be hiding waiting for you
The rain that falls
Splashed in your heart
Ran like sadness down the window into your room..."

i sing, as if anyone can hear me over the crowd and band. i let no one know that sometimes i go back in time, with the aid of a song, and piece together the good parts of a shattered bauble that made up my high school years with her. 

    the night goes on and throughout the 23 song setlist, which lasted almost 3 full hours, i hear so many of the songs i love. i had an amazing night, besides the having to go to the bathroom once during the set. 

i walked out towards the parking lot, slowly, looking at that lawn that was now littered with the trash of hundreds of people and i think about everything all at once. it comes out of my heart and forms a smile on my face. 

i say goodbye and i go home.   

the struggle against time.

A preview of something...

 

 

 

it's a big ass file so look at it on something that isn't 3 inches wide.



Helium

Same sunset as the picture set. 

"if there is anyone who is in the sun"

     The other evening I went up to signal hill to take pictures. I just bring my camera and stand out there among all the people looking for the sunset like I am.  try and say nothing to anyone, but I watch everyone. I hear the things they say, I laugh quietly at their jokes. I snap my pictures and go home. when you see, or don't see the things I bring home, they are empty compared to the pairings I have made throughout the time I have spent hiding among the crowd.


click to see a bigger size... huh huh..huh.

 almost looks like sunrise

 flares and city

 the kingdom of the sun

 I know you're out there

 somewhere out there

 beneath an orange sky

 it's happening

 so long sweet summer

 



 city lights come out to play

still some light

 as far as you can see



one last backward glance...