'It was a dark and stormy nightmare...' (
Neil Gaiman in
Sandman No. 1). i'll get back to Neil a little later and if this post succeeds, i won't have to explain why i quoted his paraphrasing
Edward Bulwer-Lytton but it seems i've got lots of splainin' to do (and i so totally hate to do that). this relates to mails received last night and early this AM, mails sent to my secondary Y! addy.
as everyone who knows me knows, i totally ignore mah mailz when writing – actually, i ignore everything when writing – but these are from those with whom i've not spoken before, so here's a quickie clarification: at times, i refer to my stream of (un)conscious drivel as a bi-product of my particularly personal and unique combination of ADD, Tourette's Syndrome (comes in two flavors – Alabama 3 and filmic), Asperger's Syndrome and that which i call Bulwer-Lytton disease, a malady i named after the epitome of lousy writing: Edward B-L. he's the dude who came up with the totally trite
'It was a dark and stormy night' as well as other clichés still used these days (and i blame my penchant for run-on sentences on B-L as well). wait, there's a rhyme or two there but apart from this mention, i won't submit to temptation. and it's obvious the foregoing is a typical example of my AD – oh look, another kitty!
*cough* hearkening back to topmost LOL Cat, all i shall say is 'thanks, but no thanks, liddle one'. and i won't get into my main, major reason but secondly, i see no hand, just a tiny paw, along with your adorably yearning expression. and so regarding your request, i'm all 'nope – i don't wanna'. and i refuse to get into the basics for my own selfish rationale apart from wishing to avoid yet another shitstorm, cause each and every prior one i've caused resulted in masses of mail, all basically saying the same damn thing. and then i have to go calming people down... i could cry, actually (and believe me, i do).
now please don't think i'm not appreciative, cause i truly am, really. i'm touched and deeply so, not the least bit being akin to 'i am not worthy'. but the guilt – and i'm totally aware nobody intends for me to feel that, but guilt's my first reaction and it lingers for far too long, kinda like a miasma from which there's no escape. i do understand it's completely unintentional but i feel heavy-duty remorse whilst reading friends' mails and believe you me, the amount of regret's tremendous, so i end up feeling even more bummed, worse than before.
conclusion's simple: i shouldn't bother writing what's on my mind, something which's always been bubbling away, about to boil over on one of the back burners. as a sidenote i'll offer that AFAIC, me not writing is virtually akin to ending my life – wait, fuck it with the euphemisms; me not writing is virtually akin to suicide cause one of my things (which i've never admitted cause it never occurred) is: 'i write, therefore i am'.
actually, i think it was Michael, Christine's husband, who first put it to me in a similar manner, but in mail and i thanked him then as i thank him now. naturally, that's in addition to 'i fuck up, therefore i am', but that's a road on which i've been down too many times and not about to venture further on tonight. the thing of it is, in order not to write about that which's always on my mind (and has been for most of my life, back burner or not), i find myself committing a lie of omission and apart from being crap at lying, i don't dig it.
so apart from the 'S' word, i'm yet again forcing myself into avoision mode, not only for my own benefit, but for yours – hey, waitaminnit: don't ever say i never did anything for youse. *snigger* but i'm being totally serious now, especially to the lovely people who've recently voiced their concerns on the state of teh Slum, all to whom i wanna say 'please don't bother'. i dunno how else to phrase this, apart from my typical wittering, and for once, i don't feel the need, mostly cause there're things to be done, things like rea£ work as well as bragging about a somewhat minor achievement: i've begun to outline the second chapter of what could be called an autobiography, tawdry as it might be. *preens*
and all my notes are in that desk drawer i
mentioned ages ago and will post photos again in a bit. anyway, i hope at least some of this will allay the fears of those who've mailed lately (no, not to the Y! addy, apart from Jem but he's excused cause he's going through his own kinda hell and i'll leave it at that). but the veritable dancing y'all've been doing, dancing round the subject at hand... (helpful hint: LOL, it's the 'S' word, dammit!) welp, taking that literally, as i do...
...i call the above
FreeA3 meet-up at
Dirty South. BTW, that's me, 2nd to the left, dancing my ass, hair, skin, muscles and everything else off (and yeah, it was worth it). so y'see? it's all hilarious to me. but really truly, my thanks to each and every one of y'all who've wasted, rather, taken the time to write *whispers* apart from the fact that yer squandering precious time. but i truly do mean 'thank you' and very sincerely so, from the very bottom of my – yup, here it comes again –
'cold, cold heart'. *in a D Wayne voice*
but c'mon, it's funny! jeez, y'all shouldn't take things so seriously, for all yer own goods. y'know, i was actually beginning to type 'take things in such a grave manner' but i don't find puns as amusing as Brits do and i feared i'd be misunderstood yet again. *wack* and then, during a second or two of actual paranoia, it occurred that someone'd think i might be in mocking mode. *sigh*
my stuff's only the usual blether, for the most part based on hastily scribbled notes taken throughout a lifetime of totally having the misfortune – whoops... my bad, soz again – rather, the extremely good luck to be in the right place at the right time (but being the wrong person, mostly cause i did absolutely nothing; one might say i didn't achieve, actually). getting back to right place / right time, when mailing with Abeizer, i believe it was he who called me 'the real-life
Zelig' (or maybe it was my own idea; i honestly don't remember).
*whispers* but it's true; y'all know me and how lazy i am;
i didn't do shit –
all i did was show up. anyway, this do-nothingness on my part'll all come to light after i've checked out and the now infamous desk drawer's finally opened: only then shall Dave and Chris (to whom the contents are bestowed) realise i was correct, as i usually am on all things pertaining to me-me –
'it's all about' – me. right, here's a bit of The Drawer Of Disappointment. *snigger*
oh wow, i see a mailer from Mark (and whoa, what a story lies behind that) and recognising the fucked handwriting on the legal pad partially covering it, i can just about make out some thinking i got down like two weeks before Daddy died. and you can barely see the spine of The Red Journal, standing vertically off to the left but there are like four or five more notebooks leaning against it and even more underneath the mess of papers visible.
about Mark's mailer; why i stuck it in there is totally beyond me, but i've been doing a lot of inexplicably wack stuff lately. maybe i thought i'd sell it on eBay? along with his discarded guitar strings? i can see it all now *vivid imagination mode*
'Rock Freebase actually changed these strings!' duhhhh... *shrugs* i've totally no memory of saving said mailer and in truth, assumed i'd thrown it out, once the precious contents were in my possession.
last Winter the drawer looked like the above, a photo i copied from
this post here. but ever since then, i've rummaged around a lot inside, looking to organise and hopefully find something with which to plagiarise myself. back then i wrote:
'...it's like over a foot deep and two feet long and really heavy...' well, there's almost six months' more of my stuff in there now; poor Chris! poor Dave!
and i really mean that; i truly pity them now, mostly cause i totally forgot about the other writty, the journals from my film school days (all written during a relatively brief stint actually being a true workaholic), those which i found in the bedroom back in january and briefly glanced through all the stories i wrote including the little anecdotes or whatever, stuff about the bands who were clients for those blood-sucking bastards – whoa, sorry – i mean, the entertainment attorneys for whom i worked in the 80s.
hmmm... lessee: workaholic mode to keep my heroin habit moving along in high style and so much so, nobody was ever the wiser, EVar. *proudtard* in brief, when i wasn't busy scoring or writing screenplays and poetry or actually filming and such, i owned a successful lower Fifth Avenue jewelry shop (Silversmythe), was secretary to one of the partners at the biggest entertainment law firm on the East Coast, sold pounds of reefer at night, flew back and forth between NYC and Miami Beach rather frequently to fulfill these wild trading schemes (ganja for coke)... hmmm, i really haven't thought of that for ages and luckily for me, they all came off without any hassle.
right, and i was a prostitute or callgirl or escort or whatever they're called these days. y'know, not the kind who stands on corners, the kind who visits professionals in their homes. my clients ranged from doctors and lawyers to aeroplane pilots and stockbrokers and other boring big biz executive types. i was verily wined and dined and boy, did i dig it, especially when, for whatever reason, they'd rent a suite at whichever hotel (mostly cause i totally dig room service as well as love that indescribable smell in the hallways – dunno why, but i always have).
my fave was The Plaza cause of the vasty views looking down on and across lower Central Park. actually, any of the many hotels standing along Central Park South were fine with me as, once inside, they were practically the same: luxurious, private and the best bit was scanning the menu and picking up the phone to call downstairs and request whatever it was i wanted: AFAIC, the ability to do that was totally magical. bloody hell, i'm thinking about this steak i once ordered like at 03,00 and it was served within twenty minutes and medium rare'd to perfection. mmmm... steak. *glurghlgulll... drool...*
i ate that particular early morning dinner with this one dude, an architect (who made the mistake of falling in love, rather, thinking he had, but i don't wanna go there, now or ever, cause it ended in tears – on his part, not mine – when unbeknownst to me, he left his wife and kids. when i found that stuff out, i threw a fit and refused to see him. let's just say that he turned out to be so obsessed that a prison term ensued; not mine, but his). anyway, on weekends, he'd fly me outta JFK to whichever city in which his buildings were under construction, but enough about him. fun fact: no surprise but the doctors had the bestest drugs. and to quote from Barton Fink, one of my favorite Coen Brothers films,
'I could tell you stories...' and i shall, just not now.
hang on... why the hell am i on about hotels? i blame the ADD, actually – i'm totally off and wittering again – lessee if i can trace this route or whatever. OK, the writty, the notebooks i found in the bedroom, the attorneys and the other simultaneous gigs, all thanks to the dope, led me to the workaholic bit and that led to prostitution. *giggle* OK, i'm back, back to the Drawer of Doom, the Drawer of Disappointment; they think they're getting the Drawer of Desire but all they'll end up with is one of Despair, Destruction, maybe Dea- shit, i better quit now or i'll get into the family of The Endless way before i'm planning.
OK, back to my writty, then there's all the poetry, screenplays and stories in those notebooks pictured which weren't originally stashed in the drawer and still not inside, no matter how hard i tried to cram them in. even when stacked in neat piles and such, there's no damn way i can force them to fit. so i stuck 'em over there (after i first typed that last, i added: *slowly pointing with left thumb towards the walnut table behind me*).
i did that, went through that physical manouevre in a casually vague manner cause Hunter's picked tonight to be on the prowl or something and seems to wanna have breakfast noms waaaay before the usual time; i mean, even the birds haven't yet begun to sing outside. and as i learnt the hard way, a few hours back, he reverted into Cunter mode, leaping at sudden movements and trying to bite. at one point, he actually got at my finger, so any sharp, quick move i make is strictly verboten for the nonce (i hope i remember). OK, where was i? right, the newly-discovered notebooks and stuff, over there on the table.
for now, i'm gonna totally leave off the very emotional reaction i had after suddenly finding them; to say i was shocked, especially since i was searching for something totally other, is the understatement of our age and i don't do 'understatement' very well. and so, here's my heartfelt message to both Dave and Chris: so long, suckers! oops, i mean: have fun boyz, and the very best of luck to y'all for getting things together. *oozing sincerity*
IMO, yer both so totally out of your ele- depth, you're both gonna like virtually head for the hills, shrieking in horror as soon as you see exactly how much raw material there is, especially if you put everything together; for instance, pile things up on the floor. oh, wow: just realised if your aim is to end up with something like Teh Compleat Rimone (or to begin by getting things together enough to separate the shit from the not-so-shit) you're gonna have to include the (right now) 76 memos in my Palm, those under the category called (one guess) 'Writty'.
but hey, at least they're already in the Palm software on my Mac, all sync'd and stuff, just waiting to be printed out and the icon's in the Dock, so that's a huge help. and yer lucky; y'all don't have to transcribe anything. and even better, i'm so damn (anal!) meticulous with record-keeping and details and such, everything's dated, whether in my Palm, on slips of paper, or wherever else; writing pads, journals, notebooks... you name it and it's all dated so that's gonna be a great help if you actually
carry out this modest task and achieve anyway. (heh. soz for TBL ref. not really).
i don't doubt yer capacities but to be honest, i'm sad to say yer so gonna need a good anally-retentive editorial secretary (if y'all can find one who's practised in hiding his or her distaste for things like criminality, violence and activities of an extralegal nature, whether they be sex or drugs or both simultaneously. and maybe someone should look up the statute of limitations on things like – aw, why spoil the surprise?
in all seriousity, y'all should hire someone as detail-oriented and familiar with the material as i profess to be *snort* but we won't go there for now, or ever again. anyway, i'm quite pleased you two've shown some interest but i'm totally certain that, apart from ending up hating me (more even), you're both gonna end up being verily disappointed, mostly cause my writty can be summed up by the classic and slightly paraphrased Mose Allison:
'Her mind was on vacation but her mouth was working overtime'. sorry, dudes, but i callz 'em as i seez 'em.
anyway, that's my unadulterated, very unbiased and totally un-SG (read: non-embiggenated) opinion, my semi-professional self-critique on that which, on the surface, appears to be a shitload of self-absorbed musings of varying interest, cause that's what they are. then again, there are flashes of, if not gold, then silver. cause even i'll admit, there's a bit of some good stuff hidden away, your tremendous chore is to dig it out. so out of the blether comes the good stuff: the decent poetry, essays, editorials and a rather high number of true stories involving people who later became famous (or were on their ways up or down, depending upon with which year y'all choose to begin).
i guess those photos are warnings, like to show only the tip of the iceberg and what's in store for y'all and all that through which yer gonna have to wade, sometimes neck-deep in dross, searching for gold that might not be there but hey, i warned you – and not once but many, many times – so i relinquish all responsibility and i'll end by saying 'no backsies!' *scarey grin*
moving right along, the next is my personal apology to
Neil Gaiman, this time for stealing my title from him.
sorry Neil, but as you know, i dug it so much, i took it from your graphic novel '
Death – The Time Of Your Life', a book which, along with the most excellent
Sandman series, i totally recommend to everyone. this is Neil's character
Death, one of his family of
The Endless, as rendered here by
Chris Bachalo, whom along with
Jill Thompson, are my fave Sandman artists.
the first Sandman i ever picked up was Chapter 4 of
Brief Lives and without even reading, one look at Jill Thompson's illustrations forced me to fly to the cashier and lay my money down (cause if i hadn't been in such a rush, i would've been late for this huge exam).
and then at first, i sneaked peeks and read a bit here and there whilst starting an essay for which grade was intended to be weighed as two thirds of my final grade in a class called 'Psychology of Juvenile Delinquency: Understanding Abnormal Behavior', a series of courses about which i found myself wishing (and not once, but many times) they'd offered in HS cause the information could've successfully been applied to my own mother but, yet again, i digress.
BTW, it's an unfortunate obviousity i'm no genius and all that chilly late Autumn afternoon, i read Sandman at will, hidden within the pages of a textbook from a History class, a book that must've weighed a coupla kilos, cause this was an essay i'd already written, for the most part, in my head the evening before. anyway, here's a photo of the page at which i first opened the book in the comics shop, the panels that hooked me immediately (and then an even blurrier close-up).
just like the first time i saw Alabama 3 up close and personal at the Bowery Ballroom, lo these many years ago, it felt like i somehow knew these people (regardless of the fact that, unlike the band, these were figments of Neil's imagination). fun fact:
Dream or Morpheus (the Sandman) is yet another fictional character with whom, like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, i'm totally in always-to-be unrequited love. *sigh*
which once again brings to mind, that old saw that goes something like 'the only love that lasts is that of the unrequited sort', so in a way, i'm doomed. let's move on: here he is all depressed, so naturally, it's raining in people's dreams all over the world, especially in his own off-worldly domain.
for the almost ten years when i was totally into graphic novels and comics, i met many another lover of the Sandman books and so, was asked (way too many times), to which of The Endless i most related. keep in mind these people barely knew me, only seeing me at the two or three comics shops i frequented and i'm sure they were basing their suppositions on my outward appearance (apart from my former blondnessity). anyway, to a man (or woman, as the case might've been) they ALL expected me to answer 'Death'. but nuh-uh; even if one's never read the series but knows me in the slightest way, i'm sure y'all can totally dig why my answer always was (and still is)
Delirium.
don't let her cute little smile fool you – she's totally out of her mind and for very good reason. here she is along with her former manifestation, Delight (don't ask; it's a long intriguing story so read Gaiman's novels and find out what happened to her for yourselves).
this next is directed to everyone who knows me in meatspace: do any of the following bits of dialogue remind y'all of anyone? a coupla hints: easily distracted, rather height-impaired, non-stop wittering, fucked up and photocopied:
Delirium:
'Um... What's the name of the word for things not being the same, always, y'know? There must be a word for it. The thing that lets you know time is happening. Is there a word?'Dream:
'Change'.
Delerium, later on:
'Change ... Yeah, that was always the problem'.
BTW, a few 'graphs up when i apologised to Neil G for stealing his title and using it here, i'm really and truly addressing him. here's the backstory as quickly as i can cause i'm so wildly off my main point for a change and in the midst of rewriting a film critique for
Beat The Devil (directed by John Huston, 1953) with Humphrey Bogart and one of my favorite junkies, Peter Lorre. just sayin'. right, the backstory:
the last time i mentioned Neil on my real site (early February '05) i woke up a few days later to find mail from him which totally shocked me. without getting into personal details, i'd stupidly imparted some heavy duty, very serious misinformation; it was some gossip i took as gospel cause the teller'd been a trusted acquaintance during my last years in NYC.
hmmmm, that reminds me i've been trying to think up a short and sweet way to term that particular chapter of my life: the post-Daddy, late comics, pre-Chris era from Summer 1996 up to Spring 2K. i've already mulled over The Hermitage (cause that's what it was) and The Great Depression (cause it was that too, but worse). however, on the latter, i've had so many of those and it'd have to be actually detailed, something about which i don't care to spend even more of my time.
now, where in hell was i? right, Neil: he set me straight and i totally apologised to him, both in mail and the very next day,
on the page. right, if prior link doesn't work, it's near the bottom of
this page here (use your browser's search function for
'I'm sorry, Neil' or '8 February'). anyway, i was truly impressed at how kind he was after reading utter shite about himself. this is yet another British thing – being cool, calm and collected – whilst on the other hand, had i read the same about me, i would've thrown a French Fried fit, both on the page and off. a bit of his mail to me read:
'...Not to worry. Someone just forwarded it to me, and it creeped me out -- like reading something from a parallel universe...'the thing of it is, his imagery and gentle tone really moved me. in a coupla subsequent mails, we both learnt each of our kitties were ill. little did i know that about six weeks later, Petey would no longer be with me but i'm about to go down a road on which i refuse to continue. and so, moving right along, instead of falling down into the old morbid rabbithole, i'll go along with my usually cheerful sweetness and light. and so, from the department of
'Oh, boy, sleep! That's where I'm a Viking!' here's an example of something i find hilarious.
it's teh incongruity, stoopit; here, i'll spell it out: a sweet liddle kitty states the very essence of any feline existence. and it's up to the reader to read whatever meaning s/he wants into it. but whilst posting things like that, i'm appalled to find people actually take me literally and we wind up back at the top of this post and i've already been there. so back to sleep, it could be worse; at least my sleeping habits are back to normal (pre-2K) cause due to the freelancing when i'm not at PDSA, i can sleep all day and stay up all night and no one's here to bug me and i'm actually getting at least eight to ten hours' decent sleep most nights.
but all that sleepy goodness failed me yesterday evening, when i woke up like 20,00; woke up from visions akin to
Goya's '
The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters'.
it really flipped me out cause i love to sleep (and not only cause that's where I'm a Viking) and i love most all my dreams; like to me they're akin to visiting another world and sometimes they pick up where they left off and better yet, i still have my previously vise-like memory.
in the old days, i could read a quote or a bit of poetry a few times and years later, could still recite it. i first did it when i was 9, for Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner, (right before i took off for California but that's a whole 'nother bit of my tawdry autobio). the thing of it is, when i woke up yesterday, it was with Mark Twain's words ringing in my ears, something i hadn't thought of in ages and something which, had i'd been asked if i'd remember would've instantly answered 'no'.
but along with the remains of the Goya-like dream, i woke up hearing:
'Pity is for the living; envy for the dead'. and make of that what thou wilt.
shit, can't end on such a depressing note (though it's the total truth) so here's yet another LOL Cat who hopefully will allay any fears and quit it with all the dancing around That Topic. i mean, if i, of all people, can joke about it, then so can youse... what happened to everybody's senses of yooma? it seems they all took hikes off in different directions. but shit, AFAIC, coming from me, this is totally teh funny.
what's totally blasting: Sid Vicious'
My Way. *preens* LOL, lighten up, people...
damn! – *snigger*
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