August 2005 Archives

Friday, David Y, Beau and I went to get raw oysters before the My My Hey Hey art opening. David bought 30 oysters for all of us. They were gone in minutes and we were on the verge of an intense euphoric state that oysters bring shortly after their demise. I just wished I had someone near me to kiss, but the company of friends was good enough.

The opening went well for not being on first Friday. I met a girl at the opening whom I then realized used to skateboard with me in Boulder. I never dared talked to her while skating at Boulder, but I promised to say hello when I saw her the next time at the Denver Skate Park.

Sandy and I then went dancing at Lipgloss. I hadn't a car to use, but Dan was going back to Boulder and offered us a ride in his truck. We got out at the club, urged Dan to come with us, but he was steadfast in just going home.

Sandy and I waited in line So many people were trying to get in, that there were two lines - one for normal entry and even one for people on the guestlist. Very strange. I still feel as if I'm not allowed to have the privilige of cutting everyone in line waiting and just go in, not pay and start dancing. I don't really know how to appreciate such benifits, but it's probably just some weird childhood condition of never having any fringe benifits growing up. It's similar to the way I sometimes feel awkward when someone tells me they care about me. I feel suspicion before acceptance. It's been strengthened recently. You trust someone and that trust just turns to vaporous shit that sticks to you as a cloud above one's head like in comic books.

Sandy and I danced and had wonderful fun just dancing and being silly and working on new dance moves. We decided to just sit down, since Sandy was tired of dancing.

We sat down and talked and were very much into ourselves.

A young woman tapped me on the shoulder and interrupted Sandy and I.

"Excuse me, I don't mean to be disrespectiful, but we need to sit here."

"What?", was my response. I didn't understand why they just didn't just sit someone else. I mean, there's a dozen of large chairs.

A large man came over.

"Look, I have models here, that have just done a fashion show and I need them to get sat down, so you guys need to leave. We have this entire area reserved. So. Go."

This large man was in my face. Inches away. Barking orders. Being disrespectful. I wasn't very drunk and I decided to call his bluff. You can't reserve sections of the chill out area on this night - as far as I know, there was no fashion show, except the one at the Assembly Gallery and if there was, I would have known the people putting it on, at the very least by sight. I took this guy as who he was: someone who thought very highly of himself and very lowly of myself. I had never seen him at the club and I go here weekly. If he wanted me out, the least he could have said was, "Please." But, he didn't. He ordered. And: you do not order me. Not here. Not anywhere.

"Look, I'll get out of this seat, if you get out of my face."

Was all I said. And I meant what I said. I physically could not move from my seat without him moving himself. He did not take this in kindness.

"WHAT?! What the fuck did you say?!"

I repeated myself.

And he repeated himself as well.

I received the first blow to my left upper cheekbone. I can't see anything - it's a nightclub - there's pulsating lights and the air is smoky. I'm sitting down and this guy is hitting me with his fists. He is over me, hitting me with his fists. He gets a few my punches into me. I am yelling, "Stop." I am attempting to wrestle him off of me. I can smell his breadth. He is an angry drunk, not a benevolent drunk.

Many people get him off of me. He is not pleased, but I lose track of him in the crowd.

I don't know what to do and Sandy just holds me for a while. Then I realise: this is my regular club, not his. I know the people the run this night, not him. I look for one of the DJ's. He find's me and asks if I'm coming to the new night on Tuesday. Before I can answer, I give him the five second version of the above.

He asks me to pick him out and we walk over.

We're near to the chairs. I can't see him, but I see two police officers with flashlights. I tell my DJ friend, "I've already gotten arrested once this week, I cannot get into any more trouble". He tells me to GET OUT OF HERE. And I try. I try because I do not want to be arrested twice in one week. I try because even if I'm completely innocent, having been arrested days before will make me guilty.

But the flashlights are on me, blinding me and there's yelling for me to come over.

The cops don't care what happened, they just want me out. They want him out. Which is fine, but I told them they need to make sure that I do not get jumped on my way home, as I have no car. And if I was him: stupid and angry - I'd jump me, because that's how you think when you're not.

They promised me he wouldn't.

No disrespect to the law enforecement of America, but to the idea of promises from cops, given my first hand experience in the last few weeks:

Fuck Promises From Pigs.

I tell the police that, in a much more euphemistic manner and they call a cab for us. The cab comes and we get in. I see the big guy walking the opposite direction with three women - they're not models, I'll tell you that. They were just some girls that like hanging out with someone that hurts, because they feel they are weak and need something near them that does bruise things.

When we got home, Sandy kissed my wounds and put frozen blueberries on the parts that were swollen. I had two cuts on the back of my head - this guy was not that good of an aim, apparently.

I don't want sympathy for the above. Whoever goes into the weekly Britpop/Indie dance night looking for trouble is a completely metally ill individual. I like hanging about this type of place because it is extremely nonviolent - I'm sorry, but you cannot get riled up after listening to, "Hungry Like the Wolf", by Duran Duran. You can't even take yourself seriously dancing to it. It's silly and fun. I'm silly and fun. You... may have an inclination to make out with someone, but that's about it. End of story.

I write the above again not to romanticize the scenario, but to tell whatever is larger than I am in my frail human form that the above and its ilk are not going to stop me or even phase me. They aren't even a problem. That if you want to break my spirit, you better do something worse, like break my back. Because I am not going to stop for something as petty as an overgrown bully. That, as shitty as it was to get the shit kicked out of me, in the big picture, it ain't even going to make a difference. So take another shot. I will not flinch. I dare you.

All this raises a point, that I have just thought of and it's another paradox:

Reading Rollins', Get in the Van, he continually repeats a mantra of Greg Ginns: Respect is a two way street. You don't give respect to me, I will not give respect back. The problem with this is, there's no way out - we will continue to disrespect each other, until someone breaks out of the cycle. If you're drunk and arrogant and violent to begin with, the chances you'll get out of this cycle first are minimal and disrespect is something you probably know quite well and understand how to handle it: you remove the other person's disrespect by force. You kill it. You make it bleed so it wishes itself that it was never there.

The entire idea of removal of a targeted, "problem" is clearly not the best answer. It must be cultural. Don't like it? Get it away from you. Smash it. Make it not a problem because it doesn't exist.

Like overreacting about seeing a spider.

The only way around this is to be respectful to begin with - but then again, I can only control my own thoughts, not someone elses - and I have no want to control how someone else thinks.

The insurance on my car just ran out for the last time. I've called the towing company, they're coming soon to pick up the car and I'm giving the proceeds to KGNU.

For the forseeable future, I will not have to pay car insurance on a admittedly disposable car (read: things break, because they're put together with DOUBLE SIDED TAPE), or pay ~$2.25 for a gallon of gas every three weeks, or get stressed out in traffic, or deal with cops pulling me over for no reason. It sounds great and I think it will work for me. I give myself out as an example for anyone else they may be unhappy sinking their paycheck into a car. Own up that driving a car isn't the best thing for the environment, for the current political climate and it isn't good for your body.

I'm getting a bike - one of those bikes with no brakes and no gears. I'm going to Home Depot to buy the largest steel chain they got and the burliest padlock to wear around my waist when riding and to lock up the bike when not. I'm going to back everywhere in town and my legs will get amassed with lean muscle tissue. I will get in better shape simply by doing errands. If I go somewhere that's not in town, I'm going by plane with my bike in tow, using a ticket purchased from all the money I've saved from not being lazy fat American that can't see past their own short sighted "comfort" and convenience.

The only thing I fear is my right knee's condition - it usually doesn't like bike riding. I hope and pray that if I just keep working out and building up strength, that it will deal with me using it every single day for miles and miles.

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Currently, I'm rethinking a way I've been living: I came to a conclusion a few months ago: that no matter what the reason is - how stupid it sounds - whatever, if there's an issue/problem of importance to your significant other (or friend, whatever), it's worth talking about and getting through and understanding.

The reason to this admittedly liberal view is this: everyone is different and if it's that certain issue is important to someone that you care for, it's important to you too. It could be that you find that my shoes make you afraid that pink bunnies will come out of the sky and devour every other finger of yours and you Grandma's. You know, whatever.

The problem with this simple ideology, is that you need respect to make it work. If you think this lovely way, it does not guarantee that the other person will, and for the most part, I find that they don't. They will still act in greed and selfishness. If I have an problem/issue, no matter what it is, they still need it to have some sort of valid reason to be for themselves or they call bullshit. "It does not make sense to me." translates to, "I don't want to understand: you are wrong".

I feel that I've put myself out for many people and gave understanding, guidance and patience and had it spat in my face. I feel that I've giving myself up to be taken advantage of. I feel people do not want understanding, they want opposition to fight - because that's all they know how to do: fight it. Kill it. Win over it and be victorious. Be the Alpha dog for the next confrontation.

I don't want to be that way. I want understanding. I don't want a hierarchy in my life - especially not in a relationship with someone I may Love. I don't have the answer to what the best way to handle a problem is anymore. I don't mean to cause a problem and I want to communicate with the other person why the issue isn't right.

I don't know why it's so hard. It can't be simply the people I find I'm attractive to. There has to be something else. I mean, Love exists, right? It's just not an excuse!

On my way to see DEVO with Whitney, I got pulled over by a police man, who thought my temp plate wasn't valid. It was and he confirmed it, but thought he'd do a background check anyways.

It turned up a warrant for missing a court date for breaking curfew at a park with a glass bottle.

This is not made up.

I got booked for a few hours and read Kings in the Bible in the overfilled holding cell. God used to be quite vengeful. That's all I want to say about that. It's not worth romanticizing, as if I were Genet or one of Irvine Welsh's characters or Thoreau and his Civil Disobedience experiment. I was not scared. I was not pissed. I was not even tired. I started to meditate and that was it. Reading about Mumia Abu Jamal gives me enough insight to know that this isn't shit.

Staying at Denver City is slightly more comfortable than staying overnight at the Houston Greyhound Bus station. Although they do share many similarities; Coke heads, bad food, tight quarters and no working bathrooms, Houston's Greyhound does not have locking doors to keep you safe from roaming people on their way down from a major drug kick.

I never was told I was arrested, I was never told my Miranda Rights*. I was never told how to post bail. Twelve people in a 7 x 8 x 9 cell.

Whitney posted my bail. She is heaven on earth. A lovely angel whose kindness I will never forget and who will find flowers of the most unearthly kind at her door as soon as heavenly possible.

I can't leave the city until a court date in September.

So, in conclusion, be afraid of police officers, especially when at a public, well lit park at 11:30pm. Do not drive with temporary license plates - it's enough suspicion to get pulled over. Do not tell the truth. Do not believe what the police officer whom acted as if they arrested (did they? How to tell?) you says, especially about time frames. Be afraid, and stay indoors. Follow orders. Do not draw outside the lines. Go to your job. Work. Die.

On research, Miranda Rights are only given to you right before questioning. My 6th grade class, which is the last formal education class to talk about it, never really specified when Miranda rights were given and I'm sure the media has instilled in my brain that arrests have some sort of... procedure. They did no questioning. Nor did they do any answering.

I was at the Club Evolution, using the free passes to Softcore. The dancefloor when we got there was empty, so we went to the back stairs to get up to the lounge area to use the bathroom facilities.

Near the stairs, there's an elevator. As we started to go into it, the two/three guys already occupying it told us they were going to the basement, not upstairs. I have no idea what three guys are going to do in the basement of Evolution, but my mind may go and wander and wonder and make up wild stories of Man Love in dark, dusty corners next to crates full of unopened bottles of liquor and cleaning supplies...

Regardless, we went upstairs, took advantage of the bathroom amenities and got a drink. A shot of Jameson. Apparently, it's top shelf stuff here. Who would have known? There goes 16 bones in one gulp for each of us. I'm happy to report that my gag reflex is such that one shot of Jameson doesn't NEED me swallowing at all - it's straight down down down, swishing and swirling and joining the party of dry martinis from Sputnik and the sweet potato fries of Strelka.

Although, my throat still does not know how to function once being entirely dried from such a cocktail and it still sputters like a little 13 year old taking hits of strawberry shnapps in back of Hamner Grade School. Always room for improvement.

The lounge area is filled with chairs. These chairs all have wheels on them. The floors were hard wood. The obvious thing to do would be to act as if one was three and horseplay on them, around them - have chair races, chair bumper... chairs, launch them off the stairs, do tricks, stack them, set them on fire, etc.

The bouncers in the lounge would stop this behaviour as quickly as they could; as they did with me - I was wild eyed at the physics of my new found pleasure device and couldn't help but use the brick wall as a source of potential energy to ricochet myself to the other side of the bar. The bouncers must have to stop everyone who sat down on one of these chairs for the first time - which is everyone - once; it's that natural of a thing to do. I finally saw someone get kicked out of the club because of using the chair for its correct purposes of ramming it into another chair occupied by a friend.

Those were the coolest chairs, ever. And they were red.

We finally did dance. And then we walked home. I kept my shoes on, she took her high heels off.

Quote for S.G.:

Those who come seeking peace without a treaty are plotting.
- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

I have absolutely no question that the Powers That Be are looking out for me. It may be my parents or the Universe in some non-new-agey way; but when the going gets core, when I get burned, we people aren't truthful for whatever reason, when clients rip me off for what could have amounted to almost 3 months of rent, I get a incentive to keep going with barely a roll from the rough-and-tumble wake put out by these forces also bobbing this vast sea.

I'm pinching pennys at the moment and it's great. Being very behind on bills forces me to work - it forces me get shit done, progress. I'm fat and lazy when I have a cushion to rest on. Without one, I'm lean and determined. At the moment, I am now lean and determined. I am cut. I will continue to release a new version of the software I ship, even though my real interest in the project has far been shed - it's a job, it's a blessing to have and it's worked this far - keep an eye out for new oppourtunities, but it's a relationship and it deserves the respect of your undivided attention.

Not having money stops me from drinky drinky into oblivion. That's easy to do when one's also completely ruined emotionaly. Have you ever felt that way? That you're so confused and hurt that you'd like to turn it off for just a night? I have and it's pathetic. It's weak and it doesn't work well. Not because of the next morningslidingtoafternoon - oh no.

Because it's a lost chance to make yourself stronger. I drink much much less and I work out much much more. The skatepark has never been so much fun and it's free. I've taken out those running shoes I bought in December when I was rolling in loot and spending it on a woman that didn't know how to appreciate it - or couldn't tell me that she would rather not appreciate it - or whatever the excuse was. The fact is $250+ of fees just from text messengeing: GOOD NIGHT! DREAM OF ME XOXO! <3 a few million times in a few months time. I'm not enamored by those things - they're cute, but the creative dimensions one imagines from its many oft-overlooked uses isn't worth two hundred and fifty bones. It was pathetic and stupid for me to spend so much on one person anyways. But it was still pathetic to have that person not tell me... well, let's not go into that.

I've taken out those running shoes and I've been running. The first time I started, I got maybe ten minutes before being overcome with cramps. And then I was sick for a week. But I picked myself up, dusted myself off and started all over again and now it's no big deal. I found a pull up bar on the trail near the Platte River and now I can do pullups - they were my meat and potatoes during my rockclimbing days - I'm sure I was about to do somewheres in the high teens way back when. I can now do 5, 6 or 7 per set. But it's more, each time. I've just started. Do I still like to drink? Yes, but like tonight, I kept it to two shots and sweated that out to whatever they were playing tonight... "Come on Ilene" or something.

I came home from the skatepark without running or working out this night and went to Illegal Pete's for some dinner. I was going to just stick to some PB and J's to save some money, but Burritos are actually sustanance and they stick and it was a treat to myself. Thanks alex for working all day. Thanks for talking to people that needed to talk. I went to pay and the people on the other side of the counter said it was takin' care of. I don't know why - it may be my frequency of my visitations there - frequent, maybe just how I sometimes come in looking: natty hair, stinking of skatepark, cutoff pants, hole-y shoes (hopefully not) or something else I don't know about. Maybe the people working there are just kind people that take it easy and that's sort of a rare thing and I appreciate it although I feel slightly clumbsy on telling the people there this. But thanks, it is appreciated.

I went dancing afterwards. I didn't particularily wanted to and had no one to go with, but I went anyways. I'm on the permanent guest list after showing up in the Next Big Thing flyer costume - the DJ's hooked that up - again, some gracious people that I appreciate because they make my life a little nicer. I went in and got a drink and stuck with that one drink and watched for a little while and danced for a little while and left. I came alone, but of course, met up with many many people I knew and they all made me feel a little better. One woman and her fiancŽ were there. They are incredibly cute and cute together and I hadn't seen her since early this summer as she was in Italy. I don't even know their names but they complimented me on my jacket that was itself a gift from Katie, who gave it for me just because. So I have no idea what you two's names are, but thanks for saying hello and dancing with me - I'll see you at DEVO.

So I also scored free tickets to see DEVO this Tuesday. DJ Michael T handed two tickets to me as I somehow teleported myself from the middle of the large dancehall to just below the DJ booth in a matter of seconds to have them grace my hand before a stampede of regulars mushed themselves towards the same area I was occupying. So, thanks Michael. Five minutes later, he gave me free passes to the Softcore night tomorrow, so maybe I'll see a movie with a loving person, and then go dancing not 3 blocks away from my studio and then go to sleep and wake up! and have breakfast!

I feel as if I'm overexasperating my gratitude for the kindness of the people around me - but I'm not. It's been long due and if you don't appreciate these things, they go away. As they say, a blessing becomes a curse if not utilized.

And now, as Hillary just said to me, I have to pass out. (4:30 am)

But confused isn't a good enough response - it's an excuse. Excuses are used when you try to hide the truth. For all I know, you're hiding the truth from yourself. I bet all you are is a scared young woman. I wonder if all you do is try to surround yourself with things that seem stronger than you - in an attempt to shield what's really inside you - what's both intensely beautiful and at the same time incredibly fragile and most likely, broken. It's called a shell and I've seen it before. It works, but it never really solves the real problem and it's not a problem I can directly help you with. All I can do is show you my perspective which will be different than yours - as per definition.

All this is just a guess - a hypothesis. What I know is that the way I'm going to solve my current problem that involves you is to not surround myself with what I think will protect me. My Love will never be under such conditions. I would rather have it torn a part by someone elses confusion than have it pushed down a very deep hole. Love is like anything else, it gets stronger the more you use it. The more you test it. It doesn't grow by itself or because of someone else. It's because of what you do with it.

And honestly - you had two things you could have done. You could have told me the truth and it would have hurt me greatly, but you would have at least known you were honest. "I want to be with someone else". Or, you could have stepped back, because that's what works when you're confused. But then again, you were never "confused", were you? Or would you also be, "confused" about your present, "Situation".

If you're reading this - why? And why didn't you answer your phone when I tried to call? You had no problem answering your phone during coffee, which I find intensely rude.