Fragments from my notes

The Stenographer

The clacking of the machine’s keys was infernal, and became nearly unbearable within the first few moments of the day’s docket. Onyx keys lacquered with fluids of unimaginable origin; their characters intricate and involved, constantly morphing from one alien dialect to another. Oft times the keys became phosphorescent beetles that shifted and crawled to the desk below, or strange teeth that would snip at her fingers, or begin to chatter with intention to try and communicate, only failing in the attempt. Sometimes, if the stenographer took notice, she would see the voided mouths of where those teeth came from, those sitting in wait, along the side of the bench, shuffling thumbs and preparing to take the stand. The dictation machine was more than keys; it was an organic typewriter of sorts. She had memories of William S. Burroughs' insect typewriters; it would make her giggle thinking how those visions of old Bill were actually her reality here. Then again, knowing what she knows now, old Bill’s Tangier could very well have been the same place she now existed within; although he slipped in and out, where she was firmly stuck in place. There was nowhere to go. There was no way out. There was only the clacking.

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I would like to continue The Stenographer in installments.

Thanks for reading.

Well then, let's begin

This is not even my day. I hope it's ok, but I figure I should write this shit now, when I'm in it, so as to not avoid it any longer. I think I can write whatever I want, and plan on posting more fiction than fact, but for today, I need to type up some reality that hit me. I slipped up, and didn't post when Kurt started up this great idea. I had a good reason though.

I was 24 hours away from slipping into a coma by the time I was admitted to the intensive care ward of a local Long Island hosptial. I wouldn't find out the severity of the past statement until a week after I was discharged; told to my wife and I, by my new doctor (and odd endocronologist, a Pynchon-esque character of a man, brilliant , a new friend).

I am a diabetic with laser eyes and a bad disposition.

I have been tired for years. I have been cranky for years. I have woken up, 6 to 7 times a night and taken a piss at least 3 or 4 times out of that for years. In mid June of this year, I began to lose a considerable amount of weight. I figured it was due to me now taking lemon slices in my water, and nothing more. My constant companion of fatigue took over new heights and floored me. I woke up more, hardly sleeping more than a 1/2 hour at a time. I was depressed. Cussing with the frustration of a seemingly phantom depression that turned out to be my body, my physiology became completely fed up with my lack of attention to it, my ignorance and hypochondria allowing the neglect and avoidance that it took reach the point I did, and it did the only other thing it could do; put me in a deep depression free of panic attacks as to not make it seem like the normal depression I'd known over the years. It was my body saying it'd had enough, the alarm batteries all but fizzled out, and things began to close up and shut down. It was time to begin the process of dying. And with this, I would still avoid it all.

Fourth of July weekend I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was drawn, my eyes sunken deep in my skull (I had remarked to myself that my visage reminded me of my grandmother, when she was in the process of passing away. The look that a human gets when things are beginning to fade internally; externally things begin to dissolve as well), my somewhat chubby face and impossibly vile beer gut shrunken down to a point that a strict diet would have given me (had I actually done the right thing, and not the wrong). At this point, my spit had stopped working. For a few days, I had no saliva. Even this (which I had remarked to my wife about, I also shrugged it off as a symptom of the odd dehydration that had also been a problem. Odd because I'd drink a liter of water, then piss it out within 20 minutes. Again, ignorance is bliss) did not cause me to raise an alarm, even though my body had set off every alert it knew possible short of my skin shedding itself to create a doppleganger, one that would sit me down, and explain things, Pete to Pete.

What it took me a few weeks to realize, in fact, only this past weekend, that while I had this introspective mirror moment, I was, in fact, watching myself die. I was dying. My body began to shut down, and for the sake of ease, it began to remove me from the tethers that accompany man and his worries; the threads that cause both ease and strife. I had reached a disconnect that was preparing my body and mind for termination.

My wife and sister in law finally got me to the doctor. My blood sugar was in the 500 range, while fasting. It was the blood sugar of myself and four other individuals. All within me, my blood turned to syrup in my veins. I was pine sap, I was molasses. With this number, I was taken into the ICU and kept there, hooked up to sinister machines, plugged and pulled, blood drawn hourly, shots given to me in my stomach, blood pressure cuffs slipping down and pressing on my iv drips, causing pain where I couldn't care for any. My body had become acidic, and my kidneys were shutting down. It was zero hour, and what my endocronologist spoke of, about me being gone in another 24 hours, was the bottom line. It was a nightmare factory that kept me awake for 4 days; only watching Caddyshack at 2:00 a.m. one night allowed me to keep my mind. I had to keep my shit together in there, if I didn't, I would become a patient instead of a compromised human. And that, I feel, is why I got out. Because with all the drips and medicine and whatnot, my internal desire to get the fuck out is what got me out. I was at a disconnect, but as medicine (as a healer, not a corporation) began to heal me, my body began to quit dying, and instead, began to live again.

I spent about another week recovering and getting my strength back. Becoming familiar with my new routine of insulin shots (four times daily, my gut is sore) and blood sugar checks several times daily. A complete diet change; a new, exercise regiment. All the things that I need in order to manage this shit, which, luckily, is completely manageable. I am an obsessive/compulsive beast by nature, and for once in my life, this may work for my benefit as this new lifestyle is labor intensive, and a pain in the ass. I'll manage it though, as I have too much to lose if I don't.

As I have now returned to my daily routine (complete with all new routine within routine) I am only beginning to quantify the event I experienced. I am beginning to stop thinking of how I was dying, and am now thinking of how I am living. I am here again, and feeling leagues better than I have in years. I've listened to my body, and although I am filled with sadness and anger, I am also brimming with joy. So, to All My Friends (see below, please) I am here again. Thanks for never leaving.

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The day of my discharge from the hospital, at 5:30 a.m., I finally allowed myself the pleasure of listening to music. I put on my headphones and bumped the joint "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem (this particular version, performed by John Cale). Seek this song out, but for now, I'll provide the lyrics. I think you'll see what I mean. It was my great release.

Be well, next time you'll get a story that has telepaths, lasers, and possibly space cowboys.

LCD Soundsystem "All My Friends"

That's how it starts.
We go back to your house.
We check the charts,
And start to figure it out.

And if it's crowded, all the better,
because we know we're gonna be up late.
But if you're worried about the weather
then you picked the wrong place to stay.
That's how it starts.

And so it starts.
You switch the engine on.
We set controls for the heart of the sun,
one of the ways we show our age.

And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up
and I still don't wanna stagger home.
Then it's the memory of our betters
that are keeping us on our feet.

You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan,
and the next five years trying to be with your friends again.

You're talking 45 turns just as fast as you can,
yeah, I know it gets tired, but it's better when we pretend.

It comes apart,
the way it does in bad films.
Except in parts,
when the moral kicks in.

Though when we're running out of the drugs
and the conversation's winding away.
I wouldn't trade one stupid decision
for another five years of lies.

You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can,
and the next ten people who are trying to be polite.
When you're blowing eighty-five days in the middle of France,
Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight?

And to tell the truth.
Oh, this could be the last time.
So here we go,
like a sail's force into the night

And if I made a fool, if I made a fool, if I made a fool
on the road, there's always this.
And if I'm sewn into submission,
I can still come home to this.

And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand,
you can sleep on the plane or review what you said.
When you're drunk and the kids leave impossible tasks
you think over and over, "hey, I'm finally dead."

Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand,
you look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop.
You forgot what you meant when you read what you said,
and you always knew you were tired, but then,
where are your friends tonight?

Where are your friends tonight?
Where are your friends tonight?

If I could see all my friends tonight,
If I could see all my friends tonight,
If I could see all my friends tonight,
If I could see all my friends tonight

Clarity's Keep

Nausea and constriction struck like a wave from belly to head and back again.
The minister of travel had said the standard phase of acclamation was to be a month before the thought of sky became synonymous with black and that having lived on a planet with night he was already well practiced, besides with the new virtual modules provided he would have his choice of beach or mountain range to spend his off time. Though for Sirus virtual spaces still gave him the stifling impression of being unreal and despite the repeated reminder from peers and clinicians that this was in fact his and their actual ontological mode of being Sirus was comforted in the negative. Now here He felt his choices dwindle and the thought sent a barely controlled panic to the base of his neck which he fought with learned breathing technique arcane prayer and a hypo he had fished from beneath his tunic.
Clarity's Keep stood out forthright and shinning upon a bed of cooled pitch magma and ore. The small gnat like passenger craft circled and within it Sirus sat thinking he had not ever seen any single structure quite so large and how it might feel to live in a completely transparent environ with nothing but the pitch of space and it’s blinking subjects to stare back at him. Feeling without refuge Sirus sought within his memory for some point, any center for which to tether him and found but one, the hope of reclassification. Sirus as in times past conducted his career with one hope always the same, eventual release. That settled chief provisional Bishop Sirus Dowager rested his reading tablet upon his chest and prepared for docking.

Asian Cinema Reviews: Hard Revenge Milly

After watching her husband and child brutally murdered in front of her, while being stabbed repeatedly, Milly sets out for cyborg vengeance against the Jack Brothers!

Written and directed by newcomer Takanori Tsujimoto, this low budget gore fest is little more than a first act setup for the final battle. If anything the quick kills before the last fight could be considered a sped up second act.

We get a taste of the bloody killing that will take place at the very start, then cut to her getting a new forearm brace sword and shells for her thigh shotgun, then back to her first kill which is shown more indepth.

After we see a bit more blood and gore, we're given a taste of the brutal origin of Hard Revenge Milly in small, escalating moments of horrific violence as she readies the location to spring her trap on the remaining Jack Brothers.

The action builds nicely towards the final fight against the man who basically raped her body with a knife, and with a shocking CGI-assisted finishing blow delivered to the big bad guy (the likes of which I have never seen and is quite inventive in its delivery) she heads off on the road once again.

We're given a hint of a sequel at the end of this movie that runs just a bit over 40 mins. The story continues in Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle, with the idea that revenge just continues a cycle of violence.

Overall, this is a nice little flick that displays the possibilities with some fake body parts, a dash of CGI, and buckets of squirting blood.

karma

Charles claimed his same seat as yesterday and the day before. For 11 years twice a day, once at 12 and again at 4 He had sat there in the last booth along the front wall eating his sausage and eggs staring at the traffic along Liberty Ave. The staff thought it odd until one day he became as the wallpaper, as the glinting polished granite which lined the floor. It was not until he stood up this day clutched his chest and rolled flat upon the floor they noticed him again and finally lying roundly and without breath.

Jerry a florist of 18 years having lovingly made arrangements with flowers totaling the number of days she would be alive had in effect been creating her own offering, a suitable Mandala. When she was done flowers of each kind flooded her every sense and upon this carriage she was alighted forward.

Sam scrubbed dishes at Giovanni’s Family style Italian eatery and catering service for two summers. In that time he had cleaned more plates than days he had been alive, suffering the sense of being the lowest species alive for the duration. He would gladly improve his situation if only there was something to do about it. Often to avoid being at his rented space in his Grandmothers house Sam would drink at Carrington’s over on Jamaica Ave and speculate about the lives of others. This one time he lifted ten dollars right off the bar paying close attention that everyone’s head was turned at that precise moment. At the risk of a terrible beating Sam had won the privilege of 5 more glasses of beer which he gulped triumphantly between drags of his Rothman’s quality Tobacco. It was during his walks that spring to the small Queens Branch library he would come alive. For there behind the iron gating were roses colored in parchment orange white pale-yellow and red so vivid it made the heart ache. There he would sit wondering if he loved these better than anyone else. He decided he must and that this somehow gave him worth and that his would always be the kind unnoticed, a vast epic borne upon an array of passing clouds set within a sky never to be discovered. This he decided was ok, in fact, perfect.

A Rocky Beginning

So the first week of Sub*Text is down and we got posts from myself, Christian, Rod, Tim, and Ben. Only John & Pete were unable to post this week, and we'll forgive them...for now.

I was being leinient in this first week, letting this blog find its feet in its first week. I'll have the days sorted out over this next week, and hopefully things will be running smoothly the week after.

But honestly, if two weeks go by and there's nary a post from any of you writers involved in this, you will be replaced. This is not a threat (maybe just a little), but I want this to build and become something bigger than any of us could do individually, and that only works if we have content.

Things are coming together, contacts, work...now's the time to get material together and try and do something creative for a living. If anyone wants out, let me know. If anyone knows anyone else who is a creative type that's bored and needing an outlet, let me know. We must push the lazy and talented out there to create, for their own sake and so we can be entertained by their mad skills.

K

Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays

Well things got a little jumble at the start like they do, and so it might be a little confusing. We may be switching up the days but should have that organized by next week.

We've got a short story from Ben Hosley, a good friend of mine from New School. He and I originally concieved this as a zine, but school and a trip to Amsterdam/Paris, and an unhealthy amount of life got in the way. But he is a young gifted writer that kills me with every piece so enjoy.

Also we've got an apology from Timothy Mucci that reads more as a call to arms. Tim and I are friends from Junior High and share brainspace like no other. He's worked in publishing, has adapted classic literature into comic form, and is my co-host on the writing/comicbook podcast Write Club!

Thursday would have seen a piece by Tim's friend, and a man of mystery I have always wanted to get to know better: Peter Lenz. He's enigmatic and an authority on Phillip K. Dick (as far as I'm concerned) and I can't wait to read his work. I've heard about the larger work he's been developing and it sounds right up my alley. Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way and so hopefully we'll see some of his work up next week.

That's all for now, things are coming together, pieces falling into place. Once we fully form the giant literary mech I call Sub*Text you will get (intellectually & spiritually) served my brothers and sisters.

Hugs n kisses, n lots of well wishes.

K

Disconnect – 7/9

Gerald Cohen watched his shit from across the room lying in a clear plastic fecal sample container. The cold stainless steel seat on his bare backside, Gerald thought about how he had fished out his own turd earlier that day.

The Doctor was washing his hands. Recently divorced, he still wore the ring and put it back on after meticulously drying his hands.

Nurse Susan gum chewing, reading Cosmo. Eating a fat-free yogurt, daydreaming of the good doc's tongue licking her pussy.

Wrinkly old white man leaning on a cane in the waiting room. Born in St. Louis in 26, a veteran—WW2 , saw the battle of the bulge, brains and guts, young men screaming, "Johnnny!"…A machinist working nights making automobile parts putting two kids through college. Seen some of the best jazz performers—Miles, Monk. He's wearing diapers now.


In a warehouse, stacked on pallets, shrink-wrapped, a large box of stool specimen kits.

Tommy works the forklift and sells needles to junkies on the side.

Enriqué sits in the front cab of his tractor-trailer waiting to be unloaded. Above his head are pictures of a young girl, his daughter, back home in Mexico. Hasn't seen her in four years.


On the highway a Greyhound bus carries a Christian Community group. Some members are sleeping; others are reading the good book.

A station wagon weaves between lanes. The vehicle's cabin smoky, two longhaired men stoned.

Roadkill. A deer.

A satellite above connects a cell phone call from a Ms. Janet Kluwkinski to her health insurance provider.

In India, Manoj or Mike, answers in a fake American accent.


Somewhere in Michigan, Bill is pressing the mold that forms part of the stool sample kit. He hates his job and wishes he could do it all over again.

Apologies.

Apoligies.

Wednesday was my day on the rota to post something, and I've failed. One simple task, post some fiction on Wednesday, and I didn't do it.

I find that it's easy to let this stuff go. To not post, or not take part in something on-line. It's faceless, usually nameless, and if it has any impact it's not always immediately noticeable.

Oops, forgot to post, I'll do it another day. Next day comes around, still no post. A week, a month; no post. Why get involved if you can't see things through? This is something I'm struggling with currently. I'm trying to see things through. As writers we're only as good as our work is visible.

So, why be a part of Sub*Text? Why write for it? Why read it? Why be involved? It's not really going to be a revolution, right?

Wrong. It will be whatever we want it to be. It will spit out whatever we put into it. If we fill it with ideas, and original thought, perhaps it will make the world turn. Revolution.

Come and be a revolutionary with me.

-T

Rod Mondays

So Rod asked me to have Mondays to post as he's usually drinking straight through the weekends, and mostly he wanted to starting doing memior writing, so no doubt we'll be privy to many a drunken adventure here.

I met Rod at 7B in the East Village one night a few years back. He was wasted and yet had a very engaging conversation with me before falling off the stool, and trying to make out with a girl and start a fight as he was being kicked out.

I saw him a few months later at Lit Lounge, early enough to be somewhat sober, and we started talking about writing. When I started putting this together he was one of my first choices. I think his work will round out this group nicely.

If nothing else we'll have lots of cussing and bitterness.

K

Get the Fuck Out of my City

My name is Rod Young, yes it's my real name, no I'm not a porn star. At least not anymore. I live in the East Village where I met this guy Kurt who asked me to be a part of this writing thing. So here's my words.

I always said I should write down my memiors and opinions, you know the kind regular folk say to creative types after a few drinks at a grimy bar at 2am. Seems like a great idea half sloshed but in the morning, hangovers and reality come and ruin the party.

But this guy Kurt encouraged me to keep trying and so I'm giving it a shot. I've never really written before, other than the occasional dirty limerick in a Lower East Side bathroom when I had a sharpie on me. Do I have anything to say that you normal folks would give a shit about?

I live in the East Village, not the fucking internet. I don't have Facebook or Myspace, and barely know how to email. I've been down on 7th Street and Ave B for the last few years, bouncing around the neighborhood before that. A lot of couch surfing and crashing on benches occasionally.

I saw this neighborhood change for the worse over and over again. Recently it's become unbearable and I've had to start hitting people in the face. This one fuck in a polo shirt thought that just because his Rugby pals were around that he could talk shit at 7B. I smashed his face into the bricks outside, I think the bloodstain is still there.

I knew we were in trouble when Pinkberry dropped in on St. Marks. Then that shit CBGB store opened up and they filmed some awful rich bitch drama there. That's when I realized what had happened. You post 9/11 fuckfaces had brought LA here.

It trickled in with that Ed Hardy trucker hat bullshit. Then every other girl I had buy me drinks was from Orange County. Pinkberrys start popping up, then Sex in the City the movie starts filming over at the Starbucks near K-Mart in Astor Place. That's when I put it together.

All you little Californian cunts grew up watching that ragged corpse you call Sarah Jessica Parker shamble through the streets of NYC and you knew that life in the OC was so fake and like not cool at all. There was something missing in your life as The Hills took the airwaves and you just knew you'd never be rich or pretty enough to be them.

So you came here, thinking that if you dropped enough on vintage rock band t-shirts that retired before you were even born, but somehow are now making a comeback to sell out one last time, you could reinvent yourself and live like they did in Rent, only with a trust fund safety net.

You're no starving artist, and maybe I'm not either. I'm just a bitter, elitist drunk wandering aimlessly through the streets. But you don't see me going to the West Coast, surfboard and frappachino in hand, complete with bleached blone whore girlfriend in Uggs and a denim skirt.

Go look at Broadway and Houston, marvel at the giant Hollister sign, complete with pier, sunset, and seagull, and then realize that it replaced a giant DKNY (fuck fashion) with NYC skyline, and take another bite of your Green Tea frozen yogurt with fresh raspberries and tell me this city isn't being overrun.

Fuck you California.

Love,
Rod.

Christian Sundays

Hey everybody, and welcome to Sub*Text. Every day you'll see the writing of my favorite writers, who also happen to be some of my closest friends. I want to read their work, and I think you should too as they are all brilliant and have created some of the writing that is nearest and dearest to my heart, and they all seem to share my sentiments towards life and general direction that I'd like to see in today's literature.

First up is Christian Laura who posted a nice selection of poetry that feels so familiar to me it's like those lost memories daydreaming out the window in the back of my parents' car as we came back from visiting my aunt on the holidays.

I've known Christian since I admired his antics from afar in Junior High School. He's been a constant source of inspiration in my life although I haven't seen him in far too many years. He's the one who showed me that we don't need to live life like all the others and we can carve our own path.

Hope you enjoy his work as much as I will.

K

post sunday 5th

peddling endlessly, the Sun-god pressed upon our young shoulders, locusts hissing and space like endless potential hung around our heads. Girls and Women behind every closed door, the promise of elation somewhere at sometime. Dick jokes, Marlborough's, a devil for every shoulder. forever teasing to say how fond we were for one another, ourselves, and everything. love of the blazing sun sunk deep in our chests, God? We prayed without mind word or breath, make it not stop! Waiting anywhere while forever on our way somewhere else. Claiming each place of disinterest for there our hearts were, and that was the where. Seeing these same spaces through the windows of our parents cars, titillated by our secret life, and god, when will we get back? 

C.

Independence

Happy Birthday America! I sit in the new Washington Square Park amid tourists from across the world all anxiously awaiting the fireworks that are going off from the Hudson rather than the East River this year. Seems they're moving with me to the West Side.

I'm wearing my American Flag, I mean Mickey Mouse, t-shirt, vintage 70's style ringer, legit piece of fabric, recalling my days of youth living the dream with my teenage parents as they brought my sister and I to the Magic Kingdom, a pilgrimage my mother still makes yearly.

I drink my large (I refuse to say Venti) iced coffee and eat my chocolate old fashioned doughnut from Starbucks. I got a freelance check yesterday so I am permitted to engage in consumerism today. A pack of Marlboros and I'm off to the park to relax, people watch, and write about my independence.

I never felt okay alone. I always needed someone around, maybe to tell me who I am, a reflective personality mirroring theirs, digging out the chunks that were actually me. Paranoia kicks in as I walk the streets of NYC alone, feeling like a kid wandering off on his lonesome, waiting for his Mommy to have security track him down, bring him home.

As a kid I was always alone. Trapped in my head, happily constructing complex secret agent/private dick/superhero scenerios, friends often found me and dragged me along when I would have been happier sitting at home filming my GI Joes with my PXL2000. When they found girls I wanted to go play Super Nintendo.

Eventually I found a gang of guys, a wolfpack of dorks, nerds, and dweebs. Metal, role-playing, and sci-fi. Anime, comics, and fantasy. There was no girls about, and a varied bunch of guys to bounce off of and find out who I was. After a few years I knew, but I put myself there right away.

I was the clown. The sin-eater of the tribe, enact your anger upon me and let it be purged, for I felt nothing, although I showed you I felt everything. I laughed and made you laugh, quiet but rambunctuous when it would make for a good gag. I had no deeper thoughts, and felt completely at peace in this masochistic persona.

I felt so you didn't need to, poking the wounded animal, watching it twitch. Little did everyone know I was playing possum, building up the resentment and bitterness, pushing down the guilt, overloading it with mistreatment. One day I would feel justified in my righteous anger.

Only that day never came. I let out pulses of strength, pushing me away from situations without letting them overwhelm me completely. I flowed from person to person, relationship to relationship, flipping my personality about, trying new psyches on like the new Fall Fashion. Being an amorphorus personality is the new secure identity.

Now, I'm happy for the first time. Everything is actually proceeding along where I am the one in control. I'm making things happen. I am engaged and now living with my fiancee. She is the female version of me. Yet, with her job I am forced to be alone a lot of weekends and nights.

I freaked out at first. For weeks I would have panic attacks, alone in her apartment, no money to go out, no friends to go out with. A new neighborhood I always thought I hated, my old identity as an East Village King, my only realy NYC persona, now gone, I had to find my way.

So I hit a few bars and found myself suddenly friendly and able to talk casual conversation. I was out at a bar alone one night reflecting on how just 6 years ago I wouldn't have been able to do it comfortably. Not that I was totally confident now but it was miles from where I had been back on Long Island.

I'd try and go out with the few friends I had left but mostly in big social situations, I'd still be struggling. Lost and alone in awkward moments with casual aquaintances, feeling sweaty and underdressed, stumbling through, thinking everyone was scrutinizing me. It's hard not to hate everyone else for that, even though it's only in my mind.

I turn down a few offers to go out and do things for July 4th, knowing that in a sense, I now want to be alone. I stayed in last night and opened a cafepress store to sell t-shirts, edited my novel a bit, and organized my new literary adventure, Sub*Text. I felt good getting things done rather than blowing food money on booze.

I might go and watch the fireworks from the West Side Highway. I'll be alone and looking around at the couples, groups of friends, families that will no doubt be swarming the entire place, and I don't think I'll feel that same sadness that I would normally feel. I think I'll look at myself, there doing whatever I want to, on my own terms, and I think I'll be happy.

I don't really need anyone else.

But if you wanna stop by Botonica in Soho and grab a drink, I'll probably be there, whiskey in hand, typing away.

Happy Independence Day.

K