Tuesday 31 August 2004

Where do we go from here?

I left the great north woods of American with sadness pouring out of my heart “Don’t leave governor” they cried, the Polish and Americans alike, but I had to it was imperative in order to increase my worldly knowledge and wisdom.

My final days on the resort were just as excessive as usual, break dancing and smashing glasses at the Bowling alley followed by mass consumption of vodka. For my final night we had bought around three liters between five of us and strived to the early hours to consume it all, tales of fervor and passion came spilling out from all nationalities in typical 21st century style, all high-powered nights on a mixture of amphetamine and drink followed into the dark by all manner of debauchery with swinging harlots. And now I’m traveling, troubled and crushed, herded like cattle with ‘air con’ in this horrific bus, the bloated woman next to me with no remorse continually spreading like melting butter, spilling over her designated seating area invading my personal space.

Drastic measures may have to be put into fruition I thought, feign an epileptic fit, uncover my terrible tourettes syndrome or some other horrific event, but the risk of getting thrown off the bus into the dead of night was too great, so I held my own, adjusted into the best fetal position I could muster and tried to sleep. Waking up with a start in the morning sitting up and seeing all of these people sat around, young and old, each with their own mission and final destination I want to know their tired and drawn out life tales, Hispanic, black, white, red Indian.

I have no time for such inquisitiveness at this particular point, as W.C Fields said, my travels are “fraught with eminent peril”, that being my concluding objective of arrival in New York.

The 5th largest armed force in the world is currently occupying the vast metropolis. Guarding the Grand Old Party against violent protest from over 800 different groups, and of course the invisible threat of terrorism, their hands are full. The world is coming apart at the seams before our very eyes. The death of the 90’s and the birth of this foul century is beginning to play out horrors not seen by our generation of spoilt little fuckers, and who is to blame? Governments, terrorists, ourselves? Unknown at the moment, take for instance Woodstock revisited in ‘99, this was a complete manifestation of the puerile existence we see today…Deaths, rapes, riots, the event burnt down and died in a cloud of foul disgust. An event that symbolized a new found freedom through experimentation with prophetic drugs and sex in the 60’s depicted in the 90’s how the youth culture felt, bored and violent. Enough of this babble, we’re not bored any more are we? Just violent now, a unifying hatred against an invisible enemy, at least it’s some common ground for us on the downward spiral our generation is locked into. A generation of Americans that analysts predict will be the first to be poorer than the last, weird and frightening times for a cursed cohort of youth.

Monday 23 August 2004

Nightmare at Dows Corner

Sitting and waiting, perched on my ebony swivel barstool staring out at the birch trees gently swaying in the wind I ask myself "Why are these trees oscillating in such a fashion?" I had been studying them for around 30 minutes and they had a distinctly un-natural flow to their movements, did it have something to do with the twisted mess a decrepit old barman left my head in last night? His inane ramblings trying to convince me his father designed and built the bouncing bomb?

What a swine, creeping up on me out of view crouched below the bar then jumping up and with an unstable landing grinning and spurting out "Why sir, is the earth not lob sided? Why does all the mining that take place not make the earth off kilter?"... Did that tired night really happen or did I collapse in a chemical induced coma where this nightmare night played out and upon waking up think it was all reality? No is the answer, how else would I explain the stacks of Dows Corner beer mats scattered all over my room and the huge amount of Bloody Mary stains all over my jeans and lumberjack shirt? It did happen and now I’m left sitting here with rotten guts watching trees slowly trickle over them like burning candles only never getting smaller. A sort of self activated hallucination, for which I’ve thought about seeking medical advice but Ive always enjoyed being able to manipulate an objects size and shape at will by simply staring at it. However, I’m still finding it hard to deal with the jagged memories of this mutant bar tender. Leaning over the bar staring with his sagging old face that housed the eyes of a young man, on fire and steaming with eagerness, and in a pace that did not match the old rumbling voice he began quickly saying.

"I borrowed a friends car once...I parked it near a cliff and as I got out and shut the door the damn thing rolled straight over, 80 feet free fall landing square on its wheels in two foot of water, the bugger still worked though I tells ya! Oh yes we drove it to the dance that very night!" And then he burst into a roaring laughter that would tare the skin off a small child’s face.

Jesus wept, I remember him pulling out a set of handcuffs "Put these on and then try to get out of them, it can be done don’t worry about that! Ill give you a free beer if you can!" But by this time my brain had had enough, it was clear to see this barman was a very rare breed, an ageing process that was 20 years too early the brain was still active and curious but the body was old and decrepit, torn and withered. The man had to be dealt with though and with a definite authority, his eagerness could soon turn on me and so I blurted back "Listen you ork!" he choked for a second and took a slight nervous wobble.

"Id like that free beer anyway, it’s your choice" I shrugged "I could have you locked up for being a paranoid schizophrenic. I have complete diplomatic immunity arranged with the American Attorney General in exchange for allowing the U.S to build military bases on my fathers lands around the remote pacific islands of Micronesia, all it takes is a call to my lawyer"

"Whoa! Hold about there buddy, lets not get so uptight around here jeeez you’ll have people talking" He replied as he passed me the free beer, there was a clear-cut change in his attitude as if he had been threatened with being locked up for being a mentalist previously and yet managed to wriggle free of the noose that was coming down on him. The poor bastard I thought, his curiosity was his ultimate doom, if he had the brains to match the inquisitiveness he could own a chain of these bars not being threatened by foreigners under false pretences with incarceration for life.

We were left alone for the remainder of the night but it only took another 30 minutes before the barman was too much for human eyes to handle. We stood up and as my friend and I left the barman was attempting to get out of the handcuffs himself, struggling and twisting, maybe he was telling the truth before and it wasn’t some sort of crude attempt to chain me up, knock me out and feed me to his pigs. But I wasn’t in the mood for finding out so my friend and I left like teenage vampires stepping out into the crisp cold night with total confidence and the distilled brazen eagerness of an old man.

Friday 13 August 2004

Lust, Drunk, Purge

My delicate and pure foreign lover has been gone for over a week now and my lust for her touch and flawless spine has not dwindled. Her departure was agonising, leaving my heart feeling as if it had been trampled by elephants wearing stilettos, sharp and merciless puncturing leaving me weak and dishevelled.

Very new feelings passing through and over me. Love, in its purest form, was always a foreign and rather abstract concept to myself. Obviously the love I share for my family and friends is as pure as freshly fallen snow but I always found it hard to believe such powerful emotions and attachments could be brought upon myself in regards to a girl.... Perhaps my fears of being some sort of highbred nymphomaniac sociopath with little or no capacity to love or sustain a relationship and at the same time having almost no remorse for past partners is unfounded.

Of which I’m glad, although my unrepentant lust for wanting her back is terrifying on many levels, if not only for the fact that this startling new emotion has got such a fierce grip on me that I dread to think how I may escape it, but it is a much warmer feeling than thinking of oneself as an ice cold sex demon. Ho ho ho...but then again, its early days yet.

However, now I’m left here in this oblique holiday resort deep in the north of Americas great forest and lake lands with all manner of mutants and fiends having to take my solace in heavy binge drinking, the occasional smoking of narcotics and relentless golfing.. not necessarily in that order but often at the same time.

Though this whole filthy set of circumstances can be brought down to the singularity of idiots and intellectuals alike coming together at the pinnacle of their being when stuck in such a god forsaken surroundings to achieve one goal and that is to escape from reality.

A lifestyle caked in boredom can be a terrible existence. We are a social breed of animal with a constant and unforgiving need for sensation, new or old, and monotony and boredom try to quash these urges, for some reason only known to the great magnet, to make us into Mongoloid effigies of the pure thrill and fun seeking creatures we are. Unfortunately this appetite for sensation can sometimes bring out the beast in all of us.

For instance the high levels of brutality and dread experienced in low level income communities such as mining towns not only stem from economic standings intertwined with high levels of testosterone and natural competitive instincts of man in general but also the implicit want and need to feel something, even if that sensation is pain. The humdrum and harsh realities of working in the pits not only breeds a want for escape, which is often brought about by alcohol, but the need for feeling alive, to be brilliant, spectacular, just for a second...the thrill of the fight.

Luckily our close knit social gathering her at the Ross Teal Lake Lodge has not degraded into all out savagery yet, but for such a small quarry of humans that we have gathered here I am amused by the amounts of alcohol and narcotics consumed, especially whilst remaining completely ambiguous to our senior staff. However, smoking opium and playing golf can only be tolerated for so long, in-depth conversations, with the Polish contingent in particular, tend to keep my brain from waxing over completely. In-depth however, does not mean intelligent, the language barrier often dictates to which extent a group of people can converse and regularly our discussions are simply anecdotal, about drinking, drugs and other general shenanigary.

My good Polish friend Woitech, who happens to be a fine example of a red blooded Pole, once put it to me straight whilst enduring a late night spiced rum session he leans back in his chair saying "Oh come on my friend, Poland can be a dangerous place to live" as I eyed him curiously he began to speak in a more serious tone.

"I was out camping with my friends one time when in the early hours we were woken up by what sounded like a group of people...When I came out of then tent there were three guys stood around all looking high as hell on amphetamine, I grabbed a smouldering piece of wood and began hitting one of them with it but he just kept coming"

By this point there was a definite fear in his eyes from unearthing such terrible memories, and he carried on.

"It was like Frankenstein’s monster, I must have hit him ten or eleven times with this big piece of on fire wood before he ran off into the woods with his friends like a pack of injured wolves, something Ill never forget"

And that is usually the extent to which our conversations go, but generally I’m not bothered by such tales of violence, stupidity and excess as they are as much part of the learning curve as any other type of education whether it be formal or sitting down in front of your parents to learn their wisdom. The ability to converse on all levels with all manner of people is not something learned over night, but is definitely necessary for a full and rounded life experience.