For the second time in just over a year I'm headed across the country, this time to more familiar waters, but another uncertain future. I'm pretty much beginning to like the concept- the uncertain future. Has a nice ring to it as well as more appeal than, say, certain death from massive drug overdose or sudden and irreversible liver damage. No, we'll take The Uncertain Future and not dwell on these miserable thoughts any longer. Any day of the week, we'll take The Uncertain Future.

So, off to Philadelphia, for bona fide, gainful like employment, steady paychecks, and back into the arms of the city that somehow still loves me after all that awful stuff I've said about it over the years. And despite the peeing down dark alleys on far too many drunken evenings. Back into the waiting arms of family and friends closer than blood, bars that turn a blind-eye to the smoking ban and have good men with heavy hands on the opposite side of them, back to everything I left behind and I even get to bring the beautiful woman I came out here for in the first place back with me.

Which is by far more good luck than I deserve, and much more than I could just as easily chalk up to my shocking and awesome personal presence and incredible charisma and charm.

Just lucky, I suppose.

It would be easy enough to turn my back on California, set the bridge alight on my way out of town, and let the thick smoke from the gasoline fire blot it all out as the horizon vanishes into the distance. Too easy, but hardly fair. In many respects the last year of my life has been the most godawful, isolated, miserable, depressed, hard-up, fucked-up, drunken, drugged out, uncreative year of my life. Probably would've done myself in intentionally or accidentally if I didn't have the previously mentioned beautiful woman to wake up to every morning, the support, kindness and caring of a few good people out here and a great number of ones spread out around the country and world, some who don't even know how much the short bits of conversation and little human connections add up to actually Mean Something.

So, yeah, it would be easy to say fuck this place and everyone that looks like it. But it would ignore the good people who've taught me cool shit, hung in with me when I was going off the path, and generally been good friends at best and excellent company at worst. And it would be terribly unfair to The Place, because I just never gave it an honest-to-god chance. The logistics started coming off the rails before I even boarded the flight out of town and didn't stop for about nine months. Which would've been bad enough in and of itself, of course, but I let myself- and worse- the woman down, because I didn't dig in and fight hard enough. I just laid on the canvas and heard the count.

So I can't say fuck California, not just for the cool cats I have met out here, but because I let it down a fuck of a lot more than it let me down. Maybe in another year we'll be coming back out her to try it all over again, or San Fransisco, The NYC, Lisbon, London, fuck it. The Uncertain Future sounds so good sometimes you can just about taste it.

Because I've learned at least one thing in the last year, its that its never over. You just keep trying and the fall doesn't matter half as much as the getting back up. The scrapes heal over into scars and toughen you up, thicken up that skin and get you ready for the next round. Its never over, you just learn whatever you can when you fail and make sure you do your best not to do it Wrong all over again.

So, so long Long Beach, so long California. It's been nice to know you, and we'll soon meet again.

So long, SG, it's been grand.

email
ChrisSick@gmail.com
aim
myrebelgrudge

This was going to be a screed. A full on rant. A frothing at the mouth bit of pure, dripping hatred about all the people I hate, the small-minds, the petty, the petulant, the pedantic, everyone and anyone that's gotten under my skin this week- and it's been a bad week for that.

But instead of typing it up, I cracked open another tall beer, took a shower, had a cigarette and dropped 'Who's Next' on the turntable. And I can honestly say, I just don't care.

There's only one thing worse than having to deal with people who fuck you about, waste your time and psychically scar you and anyone else they might cross paths with. It's lowering yourself to their level. I could type up pages, talking a lot a shit about a lot of different people, some of whom might even read it. All of them would probably be stupid and self-centered enough to assume it was only and solely them. And they would just do what they always do and I- meanwhile- would feel better the same way a stiff drink makes me feel better. So I'll just have the stiff drink and spare everyone(and myself) the LiveJournal/MySpace style drama.

In a few hours I will officially be one year older, but probably neither that much smarter or wiser. I can live with that. Time spent above ground- contrary to both popular belief and many of my own statements- is time well spent. It's easy to forget. To get lost in the day-to-day. In the shit and the ass-ticks. It's easy to lose sight of things. But every day breathing is a good day. If at the very least it's a chance to fight for more. It's a chance to make things better, to see something new, something strange, to do something interesting with your time, to enjoy something rare. I'm on the short side of the mid-twenties, going towards thirty and, I think, for the first time, maybe that's not so horrible. Maybe it just keep getting better. I've joked for years that I plan on becoming immortal, but the truth it's rooted in is that there's just too many books to read and albums to listen to, bands to see and women to fall for and places to go to and things to enjoy that I'd ever want it to end. You could live a century and not explore and enjoy everything this country has to offer, and there's a whole world outside of the borders.

And if I want to get the most out of it, I don't have time to worry about the stupid, insignificant fights. They're not worth it to me, and if they're worth it to you, ah, god bless and good luck. I just don't have that kind of time.

So, in that spirit, this will be my last journal entry(I still have enough hate in me to despise the word 'blog'). I'm going to cancel this account, my last day will be February 15th. Hopefully between now and then I'll get a few messages from the people I've met on here these last few years that I've liked, telling me where I can find them and how to keep in touch. If I don't hear from you(or vice versa) it's been fun. Take care of yourselves, kids.

Goodnight filthy children.

...
..
.

I have another birthday around the corner. It makes me feel like gloating. Sitting in the dark and smiling in smug self satisfaction. Despite the reckless and hedonistic lifestyle I indulge in, the stunning amounts of substance and other (self) abuse I've heaped on myself and living in a country and area surrounded by heavily armed morons and lunatics, I've still managed to survive.

Haha. Suckers.

If anyone knew how I would've turned out I would've been smothered in my crib by a crying nun. With no teeth.

But I wasn't, and here I am, celebrating another year above ground.

This year I'm gong to indulge in what I hope will be a birthday tradition for many years to come, the writing of my own obituary on my birthday. I think I stole the idea from Lester Bangs. Unless I get drunk first and it's incredibly morbid I might even post it online, to make up for any morbidity that isn't be inherit in the idea itself.

I could write about so many things. Last year on my birthday I got eighty-sixed at the bar I worked at and then broke into a car for laughs. This year I hope it'll be more sedate, more low-key. The same level of drinking, but no violent outbursts. In any event if there are any violent outbursts at the party(by me or anyone else) there will be enough otherwise violent outbursts in reaction to keep things even and balanced. Just the way I like it.

(...)

In other, unrelated news, I think- and this time I really mean it- that I might be done with SG. The site just ain't what it used to be. I'm not gonna go all teenage punk rock on anyone and lament the good old days, but frankly, I liked SG a lot better two years ago. Most of the people on my friends list have bailed long before me and I know a decent amount who are talking about bailing very soon anyway. There was a time when I wouldn't give this site up because- despite any and all failings- it was still the easiest way for me to keep track of the people I know on the internet that were worth keeping an eye on. Now it seems like I hardly check the site and neither does anyone else. The last seven friend requests I've got have been from fat girls just looking for a cheap meal and I am no one's dinner. There just isn't much in the way of action on the site these days and it seems like the powers-that-be have gone out of their way to de-emphasize the community aspects. And I'm pretty sure I can read the newswire without a paid account. Suckers.

I still have to figure out when my next re-bill is(I swear, the old subscription cost was so cheap I don't even remember paying for SG) and then remember to set it up not to re-bill me. And then remember to collect emails from people and shit like that so I don't lose track with the handful of people on this sprawling disaster that I actually like. So it might be a little bit. I'll give some fair warning(this was it) before I do anything.

(...)

Meanwhile, between the fact that I'm leaving this godawful place soon, and that I have a birthday coming up soon, if you love me, you should buy me things. I in fact demand you buy me things. Or I'll get drunk and break into your car. And steal your cell phone. And then you'll cry. Like that seventeen year old girl did at my last birthday party. Don't risk it. Buy me things now.

(...)

Seriously, though, what the fuck is up with Memphis, TN. If anyone takes my above threat seriously(haha, suckers) and wants to buy me things: get me every piece of rock and roll that's come out of Memphis, TN in the last ten years. Holy fuck. The American Death Ray, Reigning Sound, Jay Reatard? My god, where have all these weird demented little fuckers been hiding out for years? I spent all night tonight listening to Jay Reatard's solo stuff on MySpace, the little bit of stuff on there from The Final Solutions(another Reatard side-project) and the American Death Ray. Holy christ. Snarling, mean-spirited, dark, stomping, bluesy rock. It's brilliant. Why can't everyone in a rock n' roll band sound like this? And why can't everyone who doesn't get fucked to death by crooked police officers from Northern Alaska, the blistering warts on their penises doing terrible things to their innards? Jesus. That would be a birthday present.

Birthday proclamation the first: if your rock n' roll doesn't swagger you're not allowed to call it rock n' roll anymore.

Fuckers.

Update

Apparently my last day on SG will be February 15th. Mark it down in your calenders. And sacrifice many virgins in my passing.

The worst part about [wanting to be]/(being) a writer [apparently] is that so many [of the good ones]seem to go bald.

Terrible, simply terrible.

Random Thoughts from A Weekend in Winter
That was the last bit. The spoon still black and dirty on the bottom, my arms flushed red before sinking down to bluish yellow, flowering out around the punctures, smeared blood streaking bicep and forearm. Deep red darkening to black.

I'm pretty sure I'll still be here in the morning.

I'm pretty sure I still won't want to be.

(xxx)

This weekend two beautiful women told me they loved me.

And I told them the same.

And meant it. One before she jumped a cab off to faraway lands. The other before we said goodnight on the phone, after promising to see her on Saturday.

(xxx)

My life would be drastically easier if I knew how to lie.

(xxx)

I haven't meant anyone worth a second date in eighteen months. Now two beautiful women both tell me they love me and I love them both and the best solution I can think of is soaking up through a cotton ball lying in a bent spoon with scorch marks on it's underside.

(xxx)

The hardest decscions you'll ever have to make in life are the ones where someone- if not everyone gets hurt- and there's no right thing to do.

Only wrong.

(xxx)

No one said being a Good Man was easy.

But it beats being other people by a damn sight.

...
..
.

Listening: Bob Dylan, Blood On The Tracks &
Reading: Haruki Murakami, Hard Boiled Wonderland & and the End of the World & Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog From Hell
and doing a fine bit of staring at the ceiling smoking too many cigarettes.

images may follow shortly.

(XXX)

The year is dead, and another one's already here and everything feels different and everything feels the same. Still broke, drinking the six dollar red wine in bed after the lights go out, smoking in the dark. Still banging my head against all these blank pages, trying to find the words.

Thinking of giving it up, honestly. I have a day job now, no more getting paid in Tanqueray & tonics and wet, crumbled fives. No more propping up the bar at the professional level. If anything, things have been very quiet. Drinking eight-dollar twelve year old malt at my old boss' new bar, bugging him about when their grand opening is so I might could get back in the game. Because I just haven't been feeling it, of late. Waking at around eight or nine, going to work on the computer, doing data entry and report sorting, boring shit to fill in the hours and space out the days between meetings with property owners and retailers, mayors and business redevelopment coordinators. This is the new gig. Smile, look nice in your shirt and your tie and make sure everyone has a business card in case they need you for something.

The upside is I look amazing in a good suit. Which always feels nice. Got some nice dress shoes for Christmas(and a pair of motorcycle boots that are taller than you), a couple of real sweet Kenneth Cole ties and some new shirts. Went to my cousin's wedding the Friday before New Year's Eve, better dressed than the wedding party. Fuck your tuxedo, no wears double breasted like me, sipping Johnny Blacks and Grey Goose Martinis.

Tonight it's red wine. Straight from the bottle in the quiet dark with Mick Collins signing softly on the speakers, singing the booty electric(see Collin's funk side project, The Voltaire Brothers). I like to listen to dance music in private and depressing music in public. I keep playing the Buzzcocks' singles collection late at night when no one's around and then jumping on my filthy mattress in the dark. AT the club on Wednesday nights(Goth night) I used to slip the DJ my Birthday Party cds and make him play 'Fears of Gun' and 'Release the Bats'. Fuck those goth kids, you aint' goth if you don't love yourself no early Nick Cave.

So everything is different now. Shirt and tie for meetings. Early morning hours. No more racing the sun to sleep, no more staying up all night, loaded to the gills with whiskey or tequila or gin, balancing our all those blue pills with a quick rail of the white stuff. Truth be told, I had three beers last night and three scotches and felt stone drunk. Drying out, me, and I think my creativity done went with it.

I haven't felt the least bit moved to put pen to page for anything other than a report on the economic growth opportunities present in Elizabeth, NJ lately. And it's driving me fucking insane. Even my tender narcotics haven't brought the muse by lately. Horror.

And, worse, I promised my close personal friends a gift for Christmas, a short zine with six short stories written by me. That doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon, either. Christ. What happened to all those insane days when the fingers couldn't work fast enough to keep pace with the words? What happened to wanting to carve out my eyelids for fear of missing something fascinating every time they closed? The world just seems like an infinitely smaller place these days, a slower one, a less interesting one. And I turn feel like all of those things as well.

And being broke because I don't have a part time back up job and get too easily bored doing data entry to put in more than a half day isn't helping me much either.

(xxx)

This year feels like the event horizon of my life. I guess they all felt like that in one way or another, but this one much more so. Late last year I left the bar industry and quit out on Black Heart Magazine. So far this year my new job isn't anywhere near as interesting or fascinating as I originally thought it would be and I haven't felt moved to be creative in the least. I guess this is the terminal point, where the road forks and I decide whether to settle down and make my money and be happy with the nine to five or say fuck it and try making a go of it as a drunken faux-Irish novelist one last time. In that spirit feel free to send drugs, liquor and music to me, since I obviously need help relocating my talent. And besides, I have a birthday coming up anyway, you cheap fucks.

(xxx)

In other news, I met the most fascinating woman the other night, and as fascinating as I find her I find my attraction to her equally bewildering. She is a close friend of The Dustin's girlfriend, and it's been mentioned to me at least once before that Dustin's girl thought her and I would really get along. And we did(do, are in the process of? We actually haven't had a first date yet) To date we hung out once and I kept her so enraptured(charming, me) that she totally ignored her good friend who was going to court and from their the Federal Pen the next day. If you can ever keep a woman's attention so intently that they ignore friends of theirs who are on their way to prison, you know you have some game. Since then it's been sort of like high school, really, she lives a bit outside the neighborhood so instead of going out and having a drink we've spent hours on the phone talking shit. I love that strange little game that men/women play when you're naming all the x's as preamble to beginning a new relationship. Some form of romantic exorcism, that. Oh and the other reason we haven't gone out and had a drink yet is that she doesn't. She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke and she doesn't use drugs. She doesn't curse, in fact, or eat meat, or any animal product.

Let's recap that one and then let it roll around in your heads for a bit, dizzy children, I'm currently all stupid pie-eyed for a girl who doesn't drink, smoke, use drugs or curse. And she teaches Sunday School.

No lie.

But she's incredibly intelligent and well read and has very pretty eyes that- I have it on good authority- change color depending on lighting, outfit and mood. Which is one of those random things about woman that always just kills me. One of the soft spots so to speak. Or it would be a soft spot if Christain Black wasn't made of steel and hate and animated by raw whiskey and narcotics.

So we'll see how that one plays out. I'm guessing that I'm either going to marry this girl or destroy my liver trying to wash the memories off of me within a few months.

It's always either perfect or trainwreck, no in-between.

(xxx)

Which brings us back to my earlier point. And I chewed on it a bit more while pausing to enjoy a cigarette. I seem to be at my best creatively when everything else in my life is a perfect fuckin' disaster. No job, no money, no drugs, hungry and drinking Old Crow from the plastic 1.75 l bottle, that's when I put the best word on the page. When every thing is warm and comfortable and quiet that big blankness just yawns up at me and- honestly- scares the living shit out of me.

Something both Sorkin and Ellis(two of the big guns in my Pantheon of gods) have written about is the fear of the blank page. As Ellis once said- the blank page knows all your secrets. I don't care how talented or arrogant or skilled or experienced or anything else you are, when you sit down in front of the keys and that blank whiteness is looking back at you, you're nothing. You're a greasy little hustler, a shaky junkie con artist who somehow, through a combination of occasional moderate insight and pure bravado has managed to con some small number of goodly people into believing in you and your talent. I imagine it's the same for any other artist in any other media, but truth be told I don't give a fuck about them. I know this fear, this fright better than anything. Sitting in front of this dusty ugly keyboard with the Velvets spiraling through the second ten minutes of 'Sister Ray' coming through the speaker and staring down that fresh white on the screen, it's harder than anything in the entire world.

Fuck substance addiction, heartbreak, poverty, and any other problem I've ever had in my entire life. That white page, man, I'm telling you. That's where the fear is.

(xxx)

Currently-

Listening: Velvet Underground, Rock n' Roll and Notorious B.I.G., Ready to Die(Remastered)
Reading: Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs and The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Watching: The Wire: Season 2