The Boy Who Never Forgot: October 2004

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Don't Let the Fire Die

423 Board[ Post a Response 423 Board ]
Re: This Forum Is Officially Dead.......................................................................
Posted by Bill Heaning on 10/31/2004, 2:41 am, in reply to "This Forum Is Officially Dead......................................................................."
64.136.26.228

You know, that's really sad, because I check this board almost every week hoping to see a post from Beau, you, Chad, or Robby.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I can remember when Dayton and Chattanooga had some pretty thriving scenes. From '96 to '98 it seemed like there were a dozen awesome bands and at least one good show a week.

Blue Angel, Something Different, Lamar's, the Wolf Creek Fire Hall, the Dayton Armory, Market Street Bridge, and various parks and churches throughout the 423 area. Smack Driven Driver, Title One, The Sullivans/Limosine, Yellow No. 5, The Hobbits, Unforgiven, Annie, and all of Chad and Robby's respective hardcore-straight edge bands (Shimron Meron, Rifles at Recess, and now the late Never Stop the Fight).

And if it wasn't a music show, it was coffee, cigarettes, and weed at Killroy's, Mudpie, Frontier House, and the Red Bank Waffle House. Or a sketch comedy performance at Barking Legs Theater by the Banana Pirates.

Everyone seemed to know everyone else. Everybody was a musician, a writer, a painter, a dancer, a photographer. We were all ARTISTS. We were young and we were CREATING. I couldn't play a single note on any instrument of any kind... so I wrote. Poems, stories, screenplays. It's what I did. It wasn't all that different from what you guys were doing at the time, too. It was all art.

Fast-forward six years later. I'm in Ohio, I haven't spoken to Chad in a year (I've desperately tried contacting him but I can never reach him), and the scene has entirely dried up.

What went wrong, people? Why did everything implode? Each and every one of you 423-friends, Chad, Chris, Beau, Robby, Daniel, you all have major talent. You all may hate Dayton, Tennessee, and Chattanooga, even. But guys, let me tell you: there's something there, an energy, a creative spark, just waiting to light up. All it takes to fan it into a conflagration is a little bit of unity and vision.

I wish I were still in Tennessee. I wish I were still living in Dayton. I would rally behind each and every one of you and pour as much time and effort as I could into seeing Dayton and Chattanooga catch on fire... all because of a coupla kids in Dayton. There's a Movement waiting to happen... waiting on you guys.

Don't let this forum die. Make it a Base of Operations.

423 will rise again.

Bill

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Fuzed

"This bitch ain't the perfect piece of ass you've tricked yourself into thinking she is. And the next one won't be, either. Distance ain't the key. It's kicking her over-rated ass off the pedestal you've put her on. Yeah, there are cool chicks, there are hot bitches. She very well may have been both. But those two combined are hardly worth your 2 minutes mulling over it when you can be spending those minutes hitting the next broad that's the hottest poptart this side of instant breakfast." - Fuzed, the Rob Kamphausen Message Boards.

Now this is the kinda advice I want/need.

I've been reading nothing but pulp space opera lately, so yesterday I put down Edmond Hamilton's Return to the Stars and picked up my old but unread copy of Charles Bukowski's Women.

Bukowski. If ever there was hope for ugly male writers, he's it. I'm tellin' you, the man was ugly... but damn, he could write. And with his talents and abilities came lots and lots of women. Some were just as ugly as him; others were more beautiful than he deserved. Some were his age, but more than a few were young. All of them had just a pinch of weirdness thrown in.

Hence his novel, Women. I'm only on page 136 and already he's slept with eight or nine different chicks. The main girlfriend, Lydia, seems to be the flame to his moth. Wild, destructive, totally insane, Lydia whirls in and out of his life like a cyclone, leaving behind a trail of broken glass, beer bottles, and beat-up girls. Meanwhile, Chinaski (Bukowski) hops from one poetry reading to the next, sleeping with vulnerable, star-struck, malleable female fans. For a man with a face that looks like the pock-marked surface of an airless moon, he gets an awful lot of action. See where talent gets ya?

I'm not saying I condone his conduct. The man said it himself, he was drawn to whores. And most of them were. But occasionally he would meet a good, decent woman, and the lecherous drunkeness would fade away to reveal a softer, tender side. It's amazing how some men define themselves through the women in their lives. For some, women are conquests, and the man is the king, the emperor, the mighty conquerer. For others, it's a reflection of their own self-esteem: the hotter the chick, the hotter the man. For still others, the act of sex is a form of revenge against women. A broken, embittered man seeks out the youngest, purest virgins and deflowers them like he's tenderizing thick slabs of raw meat. "Hah! Take that, ex-girlfriend! Take that, the guy who's screwing her now. Take that, every girl, from high school to now, who has ever turned me down!" Bukowski's character, Chinaski, seems to embody all these types. He's attracted to different women for different reasons. For some, he's doing it because there's nothing, or no one, else to do. For others, he's doing it because he "likes to stick it to girls twenty years younger than him." Young ladies, the more sweet and innocent, the better. At one point he says, "...It was like raping the Virgin Mary". Shocking, yeah, but it cuts right to the heart of it.

If you mostly read Stephen King, John Grisham, or Tom Clancy novels, then Bukowski's stuff might come across as... well, pornographic... but in the end, it holds up to literary merit. The guy always manages to "humanify" the luridness of his tales, and to let us know that, although he may not be likeable, or even good, he's still trying...

I like this book. For one, it makes me more aware of my youth. I'm only 25 years old. At the time of this novel, Bukowski was 55. And UGLY. And even if one one-hundredth of his writing is true, then ladies flock to writers and throw their bodies at them with all the ardor, passion, and eagerness of... of a woman who wants to sleep with a writer (it may be her only shot at immortality.) I also like the book's narrative style. First person, tough, quick, efficient, very Beat, very Hemingwayesque. Although his language is "colorful" during the sex scenes, he doesn't linger on the descriptions. He knew what the reader needed to know, and we know enough to pick up where he leaves off.

I'm only half-way through the book. I think I'll finish it either tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Bukowski books are easy reads. Lots and lots of dialogue, and short chapters. It lends itself well to scriptwriting, which you can see for yourself in his semi-autobiographical film Barfly. As soon as I'm done reading I'll add some more thoughts about it to the blog. Not that anybody reads this thing. I guess I'm doing it more for posterity... or maybe just to keep myself busy. I think I just like talking about myself.

Going from grandiose fleet battles in the glittering vastness of space to the dive bars and ramshackle bungalows of an over-the-hill, acne-scarred, drunken lech is quite a leap. But that's what I like about books.

It's one of the reasons I want to be a writer. ;-)

I'm going to go back and finish Return to the Stars when I'm through with Women. But then I think I'm going to read a Kerouac novel after that... let my obsession with laser guns and rocketships cool for just a while. I haven't read a Kerouac novel in at least 2 years. I think. I read On the Road once a year for three years, from '98 to 2000. I practically have it memorized. Maybe one more go around with Sal, Dean, Carlo, Old Bull Lee, and the rest of the gang would do me some good.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

IV:XX, baby!

Pontificating (taken by Claudine Auguste, 1997)

Hellbilly at Work (dig the handle-bar moustache)

The "Ex" Factor

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but it seems to me that whenever a couple breaks up, it's usually the guy who comes out looking like a piece of dried-up dog turd.

There's an inherent difference between men and women in that women tend to keep their "feelers" out during the entirety of a relationship; that is, even though she's "happily" dating someone, she's constantly sizing up each and every guy she meets as a potential "future" boyfriend. In case this one doesn't work out, you know, there's always a "fill-in", a "temp".

Men, on the other hand, aren't that complex. We're pretty simple. When we're dating a girl, we're not busy setting up the foundations for the next possible relationship. We're dating you because we like you. Not because you're keeping us busy until the next girl comes along.

I've found that women are a lot like monkeys: they don't let go of one branch until they have a firm grip on another.

Ok, ok... That may be a blanket statement, but it's more than a half-truth.

But how come, whenever I see a couple break up, the girl already has one, two, maybe even three guys lined up and ready to take the place of her ex? It's like she's been driving around all this time with a spare tire in her trunk. This leads me to believe that women plant seeds in various men, and when one withers and dies, she moves on to the next new sprout.

But the guy? The poor ex-boyfriend? He's sentenced to an indefinite future of doom and gloom. Every day's a rainy day after a break-up, and even when it's sunny, it's spiteful. He's relegated to hanging out with his other loser guy pals (all single, too, ironically), pounding back beer after beer in dive bars, until, blinded hopelessly by 12" thick beer goggles, he hooks up with the one and only desperate ugly chick in the entire joint. And all that time, he's hounded by the thought: my ex-girlfriend, my beautiful, gorgeous, HOT ex-girlfriend, is busy at night shagging and making out with some other equally-hot dude (tattooed f***ker!! what right does he have to HER?!?!); meanwhile, I'm stuck with the leather-skinned grease-faced whore with a C-section scar and an innertube of flesh. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?!

You've probably figured it out by now, but I'm bitter and angry and jealous. I'm the forgotten and not missed ex-boyfriend. While the one girl I loved more than life itself is busy making out with God knows who, I'm left with nothing but time, lots and lots of time, to sit around and ponder what's wrong with me. This girl, she shall remain nameless, she really messed things up for me. She raised the bar so high as far as standards go that any girl I meet hereafter could never possibly live up to them. And no, I haven't hooked up with a nasty ugly chick. In fact, I haven't hooked up with anyone at all, because... well, simply put, I'm not "hot". I'm not 6'2", 210 lbs, with a rock-hard body and tanned skin. I'm a 5'5" 120 lb pale bald dude with glasses. And as horrible as it sounds, beautiful women only go for beautiful men. Like finds like. It's a genetics thing. A beautiful man and a beautiful woman makes a beautiful child.

I loved this girl with every fibre of my being. But now, I can feel my thoughts and memories turning bitter and resentful. I'm beginning to... hate her. Every time I think of her, I feel a sick knot twist in my stomach, and I want to simultaneously punch something and vomit. To think I spent so much time dallying over her... so much time loving her... wanting her... when I could have been investing it in something else, something, or even someone, more worthwhile. Maybe a person who would've not only appreciated but returned the feelings of love, fulfillment, contentment, and happiness I felt.

But it's too late. Now I'm stuck with almost three years of memories that are more confining and soul-crushing than the steel bars and wet cement of any earthly prison cell. What did I learn from all of this? The same thing Jack Kerouac learned so many years ago: pretty girls make graves.

Beware.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Girl from Sunnyside Ave

To quote Joy Electric, "Why, oh why, do I cry for you?" Indeed, why? What's the point? All my effort is useless, a push against a pull. So much wasted energy and emotion.

I spent two years of my life in love with you... with my concept of you (which, of course, you believe is clouded by simple infatuation.) You can admit to a number of faults, but you were never guilty of any of them. While I, on the other hand, wilted under innumerable shortcomings, failures, and vices (all of which I brought onto myself.)

Whether or not you ever felt some kind of love for me, you stayed with me for two years. I can't understand why. Perhaps out of inertia? Of familiarity? You knew in the back of your head each time we kissed that we weren't going to last. Probably from our very first kiss you knew I wasn't ever going to be the One. I wasn't It. Meanwhile, I was kissing you with every ounce of passion and intensity I could muster... because, in my heart of hearts, I believed I was kissing the girl I loved... the girl I loved, dammit... I wanted desperately to be kissing the girl who would one day be my wife...

But how wrong (and stupid, and misguided, and blind, and fooled) I was. When my eyes finally opened, all I could see was one great big question blinking over and over like a broken neon light: how could I have fallen in love so completely with someone who never had even the slightest intention of returning that love? Who never would, and never could, love me back. How did I let a girl get so deep down into... me?

I've met one other fantastic woman in my life, Claudine Auguste... but this isn't about her, and that's neither here nor there... The point is, I'm twenty-five years old and I've only met two women who I felt were worth my love. Two women. And the instances of meeting them are so far apart in years that I could've raised a nine-year-old child in between them. So what... I have another potential decade before meeting someone even remotely like you? I know I can make, I know I can do it, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's the waiting that I can't stand. I'm impatient. I HATE WAITING.

And you... Sitting in your office, all busy. Going to work at the Corn Maze at night. You... with your mental and emotional stability. Your steadfastness. Your support. Your TATTOO. Your unutterable coolness. You... you can have any man you want. While the only woman I want is YOU. You couldn't care less about this whole affair. The fact that I'm raging inside and it's all because of you doesn't seem to bother you that much. Yeah, yeah, it's all in my head, I just have to get over it, it takes time, blah blah blah. I'm mostly raging inside because IT DOESN'T BOTHER YOU THAT I'M RAGING INSIDE. If maybe you acted like I meant something to you, and that not talking to me bothered you in some fashion... then maybe I'd be OK. I wouldn't feel so freaking retarded for having paint on my face. If maybe I felt like you ever DESIRED me AT ALL during ANY TIME of our relationship, whether it was intimate or "just friends", and that our lack of communication isn't right... then I'd be a little better off.

But as it is, you don't care, you can't care. You might have cared a little bit a long time ago, but that's all gone now, so it doesn't matter. All that's left is me, screaming impotently at nothing, angry, bitter, resentful, hurt, jealous.

I feel like I've been the victim of some cruel trick. Why do I care? Why do I even bother? YOU'RE NOT WORTH IT. YOU ARE NOT WORTH IT. That's what I keep telling myself... but the simple fact that I have to pound that thought into my head implies you are, in fact, worth it, and I'm an idiot for not just losing you, but NEVER REALLY EVER HAVING YOU TO BEGIN WITH. What an unbelievable FOOL I was! What a FOOL!

This is totally unhealthy. You're the object of obsession. I dumped WAAAAY to much into you. And now I realize you're dangerous to me. This once healthy love has turned to the most vile kind of bitterness and gut-wrenching agony. You can tell this because of the language I use to write this post. See how dramatic this all is to me? While it's a simple matter of moving on, finding another boyfriend, enjoying your life?

You torturous bitch. I don't ever want to see, hear, or speak to you and your friends and family ever again, and that includes Aric now, since I tainted him by introducing him to you and Janell. Yuck. Ick. Goodbye. Especially to your "hot new tattoo".

Bring on the hate.

Billy

Tuesday, October 05, 2004