Who needs resolutions, I have matches.

And trash bags.

I've gotten rid of everything that's accumulated over the years. All the dust and memory. All the faded marble copy books full of high school angst poetry, all the failed first drafts and half-starts on seventeen different novels. I threw out the pictures with all those x-girlsfriends. I finally cleaned up all the stale cigarette butts and empty drug baggies that cling around here. And my hard drive crashed, too, so much for all those files.

And I couldn't be happier. I just buried my past life.

For Christmas I gave myself a blank slate.

In five days it'll be a new year.

In thirty seven days I'll be year older.

And I'm starting fresh. Fuck all those dusty old ghosts. I'm streamlined. Chris Sick, v. .02 for the new year.

Now I just have to figure out what comes next.

(xxx)

This year Verushka is my favorite holiday elf. Making good on a drunken demand I made on her three years ago she sent me pills for the mainline and Tijiuna mezcal for the liver. I just have to pop this goddamn built in pour top off the bottle and then- the worm is mine! And it appears she may come to visit in a few weeks. I'm going to have to stock up on GHB. Fuck, I typed that aloud, didn't I?

(xxx)

Tell me about your holiday in seventy-five words or less.

(xxx)

I'm getting paid to go to Power Point school soon. My job is better than your job and when I wear a shirt and tie not only am I not uncomfortable, I look damn good.

(xxx)

Here's five songs from five different bands on Myspace that I've been listening the fuck out of lately.

The 88, 'All 'Cause of You'
they're very poppy and apparently on the television a lot and I don't really care. I only like one of their songs, which makes it okay to listen to them despite hating their haircuts.

The Chilling Details, 'Little Disaster'
Another band that only has one song I like, and a dumb name to boot. But damn I like that one song a whole lot.

The Does, 'Five Over Seven'
Slightly cooler than the other two bands, since the mighty Warren Ellis likes them. 'Five Over Seven' is one of those songs that grabs my nuts with it's intro and I'm hooked no matter what the rest of the song is. It's really that easy to get my attention.

The Devil Makes Three, 'Man Tap'
The Devil Makes Three is scary. The cover to their first album(which I gave to a local punk rock legend I used to work with) always reminds me of Rosemary's Baby for some reason. Not the movie, the baby. Not the band, the cover. Nevermind. I used to work in a CD pressing plant and one night I stole their CD as it was coming through based just on the cover and found out that I had stolen the best disc that plant ever pressed. Jesus, these guys are great old time country/bluegrass with really dark foreboading undertones and lyrics.

The Cassandra Project, 'Distant City'
I like crazy female vocals and the keyboard part is amazing. And Al's in this band. And everyone likes Al.

The Brimstones, 'No Friend of Mine'
The Brimstones are everything great about rockabilly/pyschobilly and seeing them live always reminds me that the only reason I hate rockabilly bands is because most of them suck. Rockabilly, by and large, has very little to do with the music and a lot to do with the theatrics. The Brimstones used to have a keyboard with red and black keys. They all wear black suits with red shirts. Or black shirts and red ties. I forget which. But their lead singer is something like seven feet tall and he jumps around like a madman and dances on his organ and always has the time of his life. This song is probably as close as you'll come to seeing them live at Asbury Lanes(a bowling alley turned venue/bar). They're the best thing about New Jersey, besides me.

And that's six.

And I don't care.

(xxx)

I'm off now to do some work while in my bathrobe, listening to 'I Sing the Booty Electric'.

Every day is a good day to be Chris Sick.

(...)

The Saga

Coming back to the tri-state Philly area on Black Friday after three days of drink, drugs and insanity at Dunx's with those of the Crazy Blood is like diving under the waterline in the ocean only to come back up for air in the middle of someone's backyard pool. Above-ground. Which is a metaphor that makes sense to no one except me. Which is, oddly, how I like my metaphors. The POINT being that things are not as they should be here in the home base and things need to be changed. So Saturday night I caught the bus to the club with a smile on my face and a new lightness of the brain. And I walked into the boss's office and quit. Which was convienent timing to say the least since he was preparing to fire me for putting a very annoying coworker in a chokehold the Saturday night prior.

Now let's be clear here. Neither Christian Black of Chris Sick or any of my other alias/personalities are violent people. Heavily armed, perhaps, but never violent. Recall that famous HST quote- 'multiply felons perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.' Or words to that effect. The fact is the person in question(the one I choked for a while a week past) deserved far worse. Mythic, biblical beatings should find this kid, and then when his body's been pulverized, scarred and half destroyed, then we should get down to cases and start giving the ugly bastard some real justice.

But it isn't my job. I have things to do. Stories to write, magazine content to edit and create, perhaps higher education to pursue, beautiful women to sleep with and many wonderful chemicals/spirits to ingest and imbibe. I DO NOT have time for these gutter level arguments with gutter level people. I'm sick of it. Bored, quite frankly. Fuck that kid. His life is the punchline to someone's joke, and it's probably one of mine. But I shouldn't have choked him(or slapped him like a bitch seven or eight times), because he's beneath me. And I'm sick fo death of being down in the gutter and reaching for the stars or whatever the fuck it was Oscar Wilde was babbling about while syphillis ate his brain and in-between complaining about the drapes and the wallpaper. Or was the Nietze? It doesn't matter, beyond the fact that it's proveable that all our greatest writers died of either syphillis, consumption or some horrid combination of the two.

What really matters here is that I quit that job. And I did it gladly. You know you've done the right thing when you leave the building and your heart feels lighter, your steps happier. Or is it the othre way around? The point is I walked down the street feeling good, looking cool and listening to Link Wray to make me feel even tougher and cooler. As though it were possible. Sigh. Another bad tangent. I have to apologize. I've been re-reading my HST collection again and you all know what that evil bastard can do to a man's spirit, much less his style.

I walked out of the club and down to Old City and into a friend/former manager's new bar, told him the story, and we both laughed. That place(our mutual former employer) is hell. And we'd done our time and gotten out. Past purgatory, such as it were. So, I had a few beers, we talked and laughed for a while. He expressed dismay when I cannily paid my tab before he could pay half of it for me and then told me he'd see how soon he can get me into his new place. They're a bit over-staffed at the moment, but he'll keep his ear open for other offers as well. He's a good guy.

Then I had to return to the club to get my paycheck, which at the time of my quitting/firing was locked in the safe that only the general manager has access to. The general manager greeted me, handed me my pay, shook my hand and apologized(!), telling me on my way out that I shouldn't hesitate to use him as a reference and he'll be glad to give me a good one. Which I assume means a totally honest one with the possible omition of my occasional desire to choke annoying co-workers.

So I left the club for the last time(or at least the last for the foreseeable future, I'm banned for three months, in accordance with company policy), walked across the street to get a drink before catching the bus home and got offered the same job I had just left there. Done. Beautiful. I start Friday at the local rock n' roll dive that lets employees drink all they want on shift. That easy.

Meanwhile I still have something resembling a day job, in which I have to wear a suit for when I'm not wearing my pajamas. Which is kinda cool since I clean up nicer than anyone you know.

Nothing like saying 'fuck the job' to remind you that the world really is your oyster.

Seriously.

(...)

As for the trip proper. Well. There's photographic evidence(none which proves the existance of the ever elusive Chris Sick) on Dunx's journal. The lovely Al was there, but sadly not her copy of The West Wing: Season Four. We made do somehow, despite these and various other failures(mostly on my part, involving the procurement of certain substances). My first night in town we went drinking with Dunx, the ever-beautiful and charming KtKate, and two lunatic mathmaticians one of whom seems to have perfected the Drunken Asshole Style of picking up women. It was a sight, boy. One minute this gorgeous Brazillian woman is aiming darts at the back of his head, the next they're making out. So apparently the mathmaticians can still teach us a thing or two not related to math at all. The bar tab was something equivilant to our left thumbs and first born children, but it was worth it. It was FUN. And you should never overestimate the value of a good time. You can always have more children and pretend they're your first born(or you can sign away your first born to various people in exchange for many valuable services and then never have children, which is my preferred method). And this was just my first night in town.

Wedensday night was a bit more sedate, a quiet evening in watching The West Wing after hours of food shopping insanity. I'm pretty sure Dunx took out a morgate on someone else's house to pay for Thanksgiving Dinner. But it was worth it. And neither of us murdered anyone at the supermarket(s). We did, however, start drinking before noon. That was mostly to keep our Spirits from Breaking and ward off Evil Thougths and Vile Hangovers, though. Thus, it doesn't count. Or it does. But for us, not against us.

Thanksgiving Dinner was wonderful. Some lunatic named Chris from Jersey(who wasn't me) brought Baily's for the morning coffee and a bottle of Johnny Walker Green that didn't make it past two PM. Luckily we went out for much beer and there was frightening amounts of wine and champagne available. I'm pretty sure there was at least one bottle of wine/champagne per guest. Which is a healthy ratio, to be sure.

There's a few scenes missing on the reel before and after dinner, but Dunx can cook, I can drink and the company was excellent. And for some reason after dinner it seemed like a great idea to go into D.C. proper for extended drinking with the lunatic Chris/Jersey. No one but us was up for the trip, my selling point of 'let's do it for the Horror of it!' and 'it'll be a gruesome spectale' failed to raily anyone. And in fact it was neither. It was kind of boring and I almost started a fight with some punk rock teenagers in an I-Hop. How we got to the I-Hop is hazy, but those kids had a mouth full of wise-ass and I was not in the Mood.

But all was forgiven when the sun rose. Eveyone had a good time and an evil hangover. Dunx had math to do and I had a job in Philly to go and quit. So I hopped a bus and came home and spent time with member of my extended family that are growing up entirely too fast for me to believe. It was nice.

So, how was your holiday?

(...)

On an unrelated subject, The Dirty Pretty Things' Waterloo to Anywhere LP is fuckin' genius. The Dirty Pretty Things are the balance of The Libertines minus Pete Doherty, and amazingly they prove that Doherty was not the main Genius and Musical God of The Libertines. Carl Barat proves that he and the rest of the ex-Libertines can hit all the high notes and the best elements of Up the Bracket without getting bogged down in the sort of structureless spiraling arcs that Doherty charcterizes Down In Albion(Babyshamble's debut) with. It doesn't sprawl out or get chaotic the way Doherty does, but it has just as much growl and charm and everything else that made the first Libertines full length so fuckin' amazing. This album(along with Up the Bracket and possibly the lesser known Smash Radio Hits by American Death Ray) should be the map for the future of rock n roll. Brilliant and erratic music that blends so many different influences and generes all at once that all you can rightfully call it is rock n' roll. Sure, if you want you can sit there with a pen and paper, and note down the track listing and times and generes and sub-genres that they're drawing on, or you can just put the album on(loudly) and light a cigarette, pour a tall glass of gin and ice and shut the fuck up and enjoy the goddamn rock n' roll. Which is what I will be doing presently in-between doing stuff for Black Heart, data entry for my day-job, writing my submisison to the Stenger Fellowship(due this Friday), and, perhaps, laundry.

But first,

a chesse omlette.

(xxx)

The truth is I just couldn't handle election day without the valium. And the Guinness. It was nessecary you understand, that after six years of straight heartbreak, I couldn't risk it. So I took about forty(40) milligrams of valium, popped two cans of Guinness(you drink the first one while the second one's settling) and spent twelve hours on my parent's couch flipping between Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. At seven thirty in the morning my father walked into the living room to find me laughing anf finishing the last of the Guinness, warning him to be ready for (at least) two years of Speaker Pelosi.

After that, everything's a bit hazy.

The head bartender at my club is leaving, actually has left. So we got all good and fucked together on percosets and Grand Mariner together on his last Wedendsay night. Thursday I'm pretty unclear on but I know I lost my evil shiv in a taxi cab and dropped a hundred bucks in two and a half hours on Jameson and Mackinsons after getting cut early from work. Which, any way you slice it is an accomplishment. Friday I met a beautiful girl and then proceeded to threaten(with great bodily harm) the head bouncer at the club for groping her and telling me that he was trying to get her to blow him before we(her and I) made out. Bastard. Men like him make men like me look bad and that's my job. Then there was attendent fucking up on Grand Mariner.

Saturday was... interesting. After two hours of phone calls with the lovely Val Capone & the equally lovely and vivacous Robotsatemyhear discussing the future of our fine publication (and the likelyhood of a threeway with our existing editorial staff) I ate the last of the pills and got dressed for a night on the town. As an aside, don't you wish that you had a job where in the middle of a perfectly rational important discussion about the future of the business you could ask your coworker 'yeah, so what are you wearing, baby?' While dressing I was advised on fashion and make up tips by the not only awesome but also very beautiful Al. Who also is very helpful when you're trying to figure out how to mainline... various things.

Don't get me wrong, conversation is always lovely and nice but it's a honest to god tragedy that all these beautiful sex kittens I know and love(and am, in turn loved by) are all spread out over the continent. But I'm not concerned. Having substance abuse issues, will travel, all that.

The real fun of Saturday night was when trying to make plans while bar hopping only to discover my phone had been turned off. Apparently my brilliant plan of calling Canada long distance and just letting it get billed under my phone plan resulted in an overage on my accout balance of six(6) entire cents. Which is apparently six cents too much. So my phone got shut off. So there I am, wandering around the city, having not yet made plans with Friday night's girl, The Doctor or The Jew. Not good. T-Mobile was kind enough to call the Doctor and ask him to pay my phone bill(which was nessecary since I had 1.27 in the bank account and four hundred dollars in cash and checks on me). Sadly there was some miscommunication, resulting in anger and ill will towards me on the Doctor's part since I wasn't on the line to explain to him that I had the cash to pay him back that night the minute I saw him and that all I needed was sixty bucks to get the fucking thing turned back on. Doc declined when the operator informed him that the entirety of my bill is something like a hundred and fifty bucks. The Doctor is a declining kinda guy. He declined to vote on Tuesday because he woke up late. It's good to know my close personal friends give neither a shit about my finicial woes or our vibrant, living democracy. Bastards.

Finally I worm my way into the Jew's apartment, where upon Steve-o gladly agrees to pay my bill once I showed him the cash. While he was on the phone with the rep I proceeded to drink everything in the house, including a few cans of Budweiser, two quart bottles of Yuengling Lager and a few Woodchuck ciders. It was pain management, really. But the- amazingly!- T-Moblie informed Steve-o that a payment had been recieved that night and my service was scheduled to be restored within a few minutes. Strangely this mystery payment was recieved by T-Mobile before my service was interruppted. It didn't come from the bank account/credit card of me or anyone I know. So we're all sort of confused as to what exactly happened. Bottom line is cell bill is paid this month and I will fire-bomb anyone who fucks with my phone again.

But, of course by then I was in a state. Which one even I'm unsure of. Steve-o and I retired to the bar where I ran tnto my friend Boo. Not too long ago Boo and I went out to an after hours and I threw up on his face. It wasn't my fault really, it was the Wild Turkey not sitting well with the chicken salad. But Boo is such an animal he just wiped that shit off, had a good laugh, gave me his number and told me to buy him a shot the next time we went out. He's a kind and generous person and clearly insane. At the bar Steve-o and Boo proceeded to buy me several whiskys once they had been treated to the madness of the T-Mobile story. That was about when I realized that there was no hope whatsoever of getting my shit together and asked The Doctor(who had by now arrived) to assist me in getting back up to the Jew's apartment so I could happily become unconcious and gently urinate myself while drooling(I made the urinate part up, actually I didin't make it up, I stole the line for Warren Ellis, the point is I didn't piss myself, not really). A few hours, possibly one, possibly seventeen passed and when I woke I found the room crowded with people I hardly know asking me how I was feeling. I told them I'd be fine as soon as one of the agreed to go score some herion with me, and that we'd have to find some works too. The Jew was not pleased with my suggestion of dirtying the back of several of his spoons. Less happy when I started hitting on the friend of an old ex of mine and promptly threatened to kill her boyfriend and eat his heart if he had any issues with my behavior. Her and her friend, perhaps wisely, decided to go meet their boyfriends somewhere where I wasn't. It was a good choice.

Saturday bleed very quickly into a Sunday which found me buying breakfast for The Jew, Steve-o and The Doctor by way of apology. For various actions, none of which I recall. I do know that the Jew will be saddened for several years to come that he didn't take advantage of my offer to punch me in the face for free. I've been re-reading Fight Club again and apparently feel the need when intoxicated to demand that several people 'hit me as hard as you can'.

The plan at this point became to hustle home, get showered and shaved and changed in preperation for the open bar at the club that night celebrating our head bartender's final night ever. That was the plan. But there was a football game on and someone had some bourbon and finally it seemed more important to watch the Redskins get stomped on like school yard punks by McNabb and the home team. Or maybe it was the bourbon. I couldn't tell you. In fact, after that I couldn't tell you much of anything except getting to the club, drinking way too much, doing some blow in some crap, awful after hours and going home with a woman who's name escapes me but kindly paid me twenty-five dollars for fucking her seven or eight times last night and four this morning. Which was a fair deal since she just lay there like a dead fish screaming 'you feel so good, you feel so good'. Possibly the only thing worse than no sex is bad sex and the entire experience has turned me off- finally- to any long standing fantasies I may have enjoyed about becoming a male escort of some kind.

There's an old novel, which became an old movie called The Lost Weekend. It's well known for frankly and harshly dealing with the horrors of addictive binge drinking. I've never seen it, but I can say with total honesty that I can give it a run for it's money any day of the week. Oh, poor alcoholic, you lost your weekend? I lost my goddamn mind, most of my week, something like two hundred dollars and possibly my liver.

I hate frat boys. I hate hearing slutty club chicks talk about how 'God! we were so wasted last night'.

Fuck you.

You got drunk at the club and threw up in the car?

Amatuer.

I play this game at a level you couldn't comprehend much less compete at. I make Jameson stockholders weep for joy and upstanding citizens piss themselves in terror. And I do so gladly. Someone has to.

But, man, I need to take a breather.

To recap: we had a lot of fun, a lot of laughes, a lot of pills and even more booze. Chris is going to take a week off, to heal, and to prepare for the Thanksgiving insanity that will occur at Dunx's place. Really, I'm pretty harmless to everyone but myself. Just try to keep your hands a safe distance from the cage while I'm eating.

Now I have to write a massive memo, print out some application stuff for the Iowa Writer's Workshop and what various other things, like wash the filth from my soul.

The phone's on if you need me, otherwise send the usual donations of literature, pills, junk & good old vinyl to me.

...

oh yeah, and how are you guy's doing?

....

Currently listening- Mott the Hopple's 'All the Young Dudes' on vinyl, they do a brilliant cover of 'Sweet Jane' by VU, it's aces.
Currently reading- The Transmetropolition series. Again.
Tonight- Detroit Cobras live at the Khyber, I'm going and you're not, life's rough all over, innit?

Thta's more or less what having drinks with Dunx is like.

We call it fun.

P.S.

The discarded title for this was 'It is isn't a party until you have teeth marks on your hands'.
(which is slightly funnier than the time Dunx threw a hammer at me)

A Conversation While Driving

Dustin: I should really go see my grandfather.
Chris Sick: He's sick?
Dustin: Yeah, he's just lived such a full life and has so many stories to tel. He fought in three wars, his father piloted ships through the Panama Canal.
Chris Sick: Wasn't he an adventurer?
Dustin: Yeah. He flew a biplane into the mountains and found gold.
Chris Sick: That's amazing.
Dustin: Yeah, he was like Indian Jones.
Chris Sick: We should go adventuring sometime.
Dustin: Yeah, he you want to go camping sometime?
Chris Sick: No, I want to go adventuring. Not camping.
Dustin: Come on, let's go camping.
Chris Sick: I fucking hate camping.
Dustin: We'll hunt people. That's like adventuring.
Chris SIck: Fine, but I get the revolver, you get the bullwhip.

(...)

I think I'm back now.

Yes.

...
..
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