Sunday Cinema

    Its all about story right? at the end of the day it is all about story. Her story and His story and the legends of another time. Time. A way to calculate the lost.a way to grow in spite of yourself. A longing for the end of discomfort Begrudging but accepting the new lot of life.

        

pick chas

Down The Ave

An Ethertown Tale.

The Ave., last bastion of wild freedom, is where Albert found himself after his latest fight with Jane. He Climbed down the stone wall onto the old train track rusted and overgrown with summer.

Walking down to his favorite spot, where for innumerable teenage nights he slept under uncertain stars, he found charlie sitting underneath the great graffiti spider.

A cold Tallboy of Beer in one hand and a slow burning cigarette in the other.

“Hey Albie Boy, what brings you to the Ave. tonight?” Charlie asks.

“Ehh, not too much” is Alberts have hearted reply, as he kicks a rock into a puddle left from a already forgotten rain. “I just needed to get out for a while, take a walk, think.”

“ALways good, Always good” Charlie Replies, offering Albert A beer, Who obliges hastily.

“I’m here for much the same reason” Charlie Says, “I have been up for about thirty six hours now and I am not the least bit tired. I went downtown today without so much as train fare. I jumoed the fucking T entrance and robbed some singer songwriter bitch. Dude! These yuppies were tossin’ TWENTIES     in there! HA! She didnt stand a chance. I got enough on me to hold me for a good while. I bought a sixer and a pack of smokes and I barely cracked my earnings.”

“See man” Charlie began to revv himself up “you really can live you won fuckin’ way, no matter what there mother fuckers tell you. You still thinking about taking that college course for writing? You should do it man, I always see you scribbling in that notebook.”

The Ave. is the kind of place every real city has. Once a railroad yard, itis now overgrown with weeds, eusted beer kegs, and a plethora or graffiti and generations of cigarette butts, beer caps, busted beer and liquor bottles, the ghostly remnants of too many conversations, a kind of place the young lost their innocence.

A place where short and long lived garage punk bands were borne out of all night exuberant conversations. Fuelled by grass and teenage angst and energy, the kind of place the junkies went to shoot up, underage drunks went to drink, wild-eyes writers went to write by moonlight or streetlamp, and the kind of place Albert found himself for the zillionth time, as Charlie deepened into his story.

They sit on a giant cement block left of center to the long twisted train track, out of use longer than either of them have been alive.

Beyond the twisted track lies a space known as the Catacombs, which to any but the doomed or the crazy wa s off limits. Both ALbert and Charlie made sure to avoid it, for it was where the bums slept, shank in hand.

Just across from the seemingly endless cement block they sat upon was a giant building wall covered in graffiti.

“This is true Art,” Charlie said, making no attempt to cover his thick boston accent. “I mean, these Artsy Fartsy Fuckers spend a FORTUNE on paintings that are just the same old shit that their parents and grandparents bought, and here thery are missing the greatest art of the past 30 years. I mean look Albert, there are some fantastic pieces here! Some of this work stretches all the way back to the 70s! You can see the progression in the street style. You know what's odd? You couldn’t frame this stuff and stick it on a wall at some stuffed up museum or pretentious, precious gallery. It has to exist as part of the city, as part of the landscape.”

He puffs his cigarette.

“Seeing it in person, here, at The Ave., is such a huge part of the effect you could never do it. As amazing as some of the works are, the would’t impress me half as much  half as much if they were framed and hung indoors yaknow?”

He continues. “I mean look at this one, the splashes of orange, the use of bubble lettering which definitely place it in an early 90’s period. I love these pieces. You’ll never catch me downtown at the Museum Of Fine Arts, and that's because I don't need to. All the art I need is right here. I mean how can you beath thay giant cartoon spider descending over The Ave. with is Bulbous eyes that look like they belong on some freakish half frog half cat monstrosity? That spider is the watcher of The Ave. man, this graiffiti is the living skin and soul of the city, its rotted and its rusted and thats how I love it.  If the ever were to try and pave through here and pave it up, to gentrify it like the rest of the city, I would be the first one down here with a gun. I would shoot any mother fucker that came within range of any of these works of art. I know there has been talk of it, but I will NOT let it happen. Everyones got there purpose in life. I wouldnt mind it if mine became the preservation of this historic landmark. Tear down The Ave. ?? and buld what, a bike trail? Paint some multiethnic city mural generic bullshit over this ACTUAL art? I will let is happen. These city planners will never have any idea Albert, they will never know that right under the cartoon spider I took my first hit of grass, that you wrote some of your greatest poems in that same spot. Remember when we came here and dropped acid and you brought that notebook and just started jotting down all those wild thoughts in your head? I still have all the ones you gave me. College is gonna be great for you, you can walk in and show those fucking professors how it is!  Or you can stay here and write under the great graffiti spider forever more! We could guard the ave from the Yuppie invasion together. One ain’t any better than the other. That’s one thing I have learned ALbert. No matter what decision on life you make, it is never really better than the other.”

Charlie tosses his emptied tall boy into the ink black emptiness beyond.

The air is crisp and cool, it is a beautiful, warm June night.

Albert runs his fingers over the base of his unopened can of beer, allowing the cool of the can to excite his senses.

There is a cold, familiar comfort to The Ave. as well. Standing at the entrance, with its Gnarled and rusted metal gates, he feels the spirit of eternal youth shot through with all the worry-killing laughter of old friends and family now gone into that silent and final sleep we all one day concede to.

The Ave. Carries with it everything Albert loved about his neighborhood. The rawest, earliest refuge of any Ethertown Kid’s existence. A gang that constantly must change with every year due to the unavoidable extinguishing of youth in favor of adulthood. An urban peter pan soul permeates from The Ave.’s walls, all manner of wild invention born from its gaping maw.

*some months later, in an attempt to protect The Ave. from the inevitable bulldozers, Charlie blew up a cop car with a molotov cocktail. Currently he is awaiting trial. They are in process of making the space formerly known as the ave into a public park.

Ethertown: a prose collage excerpt

The Outer Order Archives

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Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Ethertown: A Prose Collage (excerpt)

Antique music coffee poured and swallowed enough bad free verse she says grabbed her coat and put down her $12 to leave the listless fisticuff Ruff Cuts dispersed Insidious to invest in  and retrieve The Ghost hollowed-out and Ghastly grinning hangs out front for her with head-spinning what else but one of three beginnings how weird will it get.

Ariel Baxter walked into Wilson's bruised old bookstore just another 20 years old graphic design student in need of cash. There was a dust-covered old Bell rusted sitting neatly on the corner of a giant table that appears to act as a register. she rang the bell.

 Steve Wilson stammered out of the back room, an arm load of books in his hands and wildly unruly hair on his head with thick black glasses perched on his face.

  "may I help you" he asked Ariel.

"Yes I'm here about the job posting in the daily Raven."

Steve's face sunk in like an old couch.

 "...the job posting?"

"Yes I clipped it out I have it right here"- Ariel took a clipped piece of newspaper out of her bag and handed it to Steve.

"This is the place right?"she asked.

Steve, visibly Flustered, said "why yes it is but this well this has got to be a gag I bet Bobby that's my friend who works here too I bet he put that in there as a joke I'd be happy to help you find something but I'm afraid there is no job openings."

"There sure as hell is a job opening!" a uncouth old man with beer gut and santa white beard walked out of the Shadow hall that connected the bookstore to the bar. It's Steve's father the owner.

"I put up that and you're brain-dead Buddy ain't worth a s*** so I advertised for a college graduate."

Thereby and truly turning.

With indignation he begins his rounds to a Sceptre season that knows no bounds the grass cut fiercely across his face the class cancelled in the day ready to waste all options open speaks his path not needing history or English or math.

Pipes and drums signal has a scent light in hums on a pale cigarette the Subways always crowded this time of day he thinks as he releases the stub into the ashtray out in the world it's morning and cold about the town crawling with the young and the old.

Describes some silver and drops it on down above him he hides from the face of a clown. he speaks to a friend not seen for some time two weeks of booze and never has a dime she hits up the arcade a retro game is played Gauntlet 4 hours the last of youths Powers drained away.

"And what's your name girl?"

 "Arlee" she said.

"Well welcome aboard early I'll let you know right now you can get paid minimum wage but half off drinks and books and if you steal your ass is out of here got it?"

"Yes I believe so." she said

"Oh one more thing you ain't no communist are you Steve here is always reading Nietzsche and all that Nazi bullshit."

"I'm not A Nazi dad."

Steve spoke up, somewhat embarrassed in front of this pretty young girl.

"I read Nietzsche, as well as many other philosophers."

"Yeah but no  Bible I noticed!" his father replied.

"I don't care much for fiction." Steve said.

Shoot the experimental filmmaker.

Thrilling Triads of tectonic Triton's tell me I am getting too old to remain in some kind of spectacle landscape that welcomes Wanderers into it's rotten Maw even in this town, lich-like strange things to Ash and skin rash completes complex bibliographies with only moments to spare and leaves a woman's worries to die in the dry air. Stop.

Sore or something.

The way it was. Freedom, achieved through open Graves and open sores stepping out dead grass killed by the fumes of corpses.

 life taken by War, by men, the great score crashing Crescent crescendos over the hills. signal of your time. Not foreboding , monolithic. Instead serene, a song of Peace and the final understanding

The toys of our childhood. Lying rusted from too much rain. to clear two feet before your breath runs away

So truth is gathered, truth is saved.

 polyrhythms and syncopated drums they go up to desire to releases a fire that has burned inside the turbulent sorry could called drapes of your eyes sing. Is the game plan reversed and some etiquette of systemic selection?

Draw near the sacred boar,slay that awesome Beast.

Another Trident stuck deep in, the mother for torn between, the Feast of Gods Among the Stars, the rot flesh of the Beast. 

Music soothes you. moves you. creates a new born to a thousand trumpets 500 guitars sticks falling in bushes rustling it was like a recording for a small independent label like soul. Fables told by the one-eyed snail the teller of tales good stories but lots of slime besides.

Coughing up wisdom there are beings in the trees lunatic feelers who write perverse fantasies their fantasies are black tar to a white smoke of snail Tails their fantasies are real they suck away all the hope and happiness.

 Torment, the underlying camera of our subconscious photographing our most private and dug deep ideas memories dreams with one flash of light it is all now art to be stolen from you no personal worth and put on display at an art gallery in New York.

I have smashed my internal mental camera. Now I am what they call insane. I will paint my Visions myself! damn the demon art that is photography! Mental pictures. I will burn them down then sell my paintings for a large sum of money. Rich, I will have no more reason to write, act, or paint. No longer will I be a starving artist I will have the green paper which allows me to Feast with the Stars upon the Beast forever

I want to tour the light seems like the drought is over can I stay sober? dying laughing helicopters that speak with Spitz and flutters tomorrow tomorrow we'll eat some beats and goateed Saints explosions crash the shutters.

 trapped! 

Unholy! 

 Not speaking up! 

But writing!

 And thinking! 

Meditating! 

Finding reason to dream

Pause. Retreat. The silence, so neat. 

 my cloak that wisp in lying 

sat with the creature a creature undying 

so many trees that have been calmly deciding 

the loss of your innocence and hell's ugly Garden 

believe these prophecies see the stinging covered in cream.

you lie awake the sad gypsies of your eyes and think do not let these truths go by and in. Let it all begin. Read words but select with caution. See images the ingraining of your memory. 

 why the collapse the dorky relapse the finger that snaps. saplings sappy there creation to Sun doves or harmonic toads we must always travel those roads.

those roads.

The rest of the men had already wandered, scattered over to the stream which is bleeding the dead Soldier's Blood-

Before Joe could finish the line his father had interrupted him again.

"Oh nothing in particular just wondering what you were  writing"

"I will tell you what I told you exactly 5 minutes ago what I told you exactly 10 minutes ago and 11 ,13 what I will tell you 5 minutes from now I'm trying to write my novel."

The father's expression which seemed very jubilant now dropped to a more bitter phase

"Your novel? a novel about what?"

"Well there isn't exactly a plot per se Joe was growing excited.  although he resented his father he was happy to actually discuss his work with someone.  "you see it's really just like a flow of words like free jazz beat poetry but with definite roots and Kafka and Beckett."

"I don't know what any of that means. is there a hero?"

"Well he's what you would call an anti-hero. he's thin pale blank face and dark brooding not the nicest guy. Sick all the time. On drugs."

"Sounds great." The father by this time showing obvious signs of boredom and exasperation

sitting under a tree by the concrete stream my books bought are my seat the trees the birds they are so inspiring

I can see sunlight glimmering on the water. Pretty girls just keep walking by. I smoked hydro with Dave. Got very stoned. A transcendental hi.

May I walk amongst the screams of holy men who have lost their eyes? Can I read them my words and calm they're hanging spirit?

I bought a hamburger. Life never leads such promises. There are good times.

Imagination dead imagine.

My father never told me to see the Poetry in anything I'll stand on legs made of sand to crumble lift me high above the sky levitate me

The slow speed creeps nowhere to sleep dirt in the locks never working

Jammed up mud clocks no use for time

Succulent pornography eats High art low art forgets and forges its name

So long to ritual dance at least, for they never stop moving without a net

Screen over the Stalls all horses shot dead hungry workers no food. No reason to go on.

Direct automatic reaction. "so long", he said. Turning away from that reflection, his reflection. The walk home would give ample time to think. look back on this day, forward to his future.

The noisy static traffic that clogs all sensory was particularly loud at that moment. No matter how he tried to could not think. His mind was not clear. Cluttered with the static ironic distractions. He knew of ways to clear his mind though. When he arrived at home later than usual all inside his mind was chaotic and dissonant the Squad behind his eyes but he knew of ways to clear them.

He sat at his Stereo and pulled out a record. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in the player. Turned up loud. He closed his eyes and meditated while the  magnificence of the world Of this music did its work

The trap door is never open, and needs to be unhinged in order to gain access Within. the Goblins all know this. The spasm flies don't know this. man did not know this. He obtained his knowledge From a brochure. Man was obsessed with French existentialist literature of the thirties. Man is strange. Earth is a closet case. He develops his art by planting it in a small vast Grove they call the mind, sometimes the fruit born is rotten. Sometimes it's squirt sweet juices. Sometimes my hand can touch the floor, my hand can feel it's cold. Bleed from your pores to re-establish Unison with the spirits. To add one lucky sentences on your neck.l an alphabet Medallion, a longer try at human thought. A  Extraterrestrial laughter at our stupid plights

so long to silence we bring out our violence or our worthwhile cannibal scene that we started ourselves in this dream  obscene a paragraph rancid buds burst on my journey to be one written home to Mama neon meate dream of an octofish dark. Cold. A small band of light, but not sunlight

A painter's canvas. The Horizon.

If I could only wallow in these footsteps forever and reject my foolish to spare if only I could be satisfied I got my GED College awaits the materialization of Dreams truly Alchemy

College, disparage, reflective, forward seeking, creaking doors open not shut, the Hornet Whispers swollen stings for silly things.

And we bring him anything that he asked. Right down to the scar the tears our backs. Mount Colonel matrimony I'd like to see them try I'd rip away with stone Wings I'd lift up towards the sky to break free to establish me I see that it's all childlike games now no one is sincere they do not care they polish The Mask they wear.

Sudden, selling, scowled and brought into this world kicking but not screaming, healthy but on my knees, the breeze shoots itself out of style and into reverse worse.

Psychology unwashed philosophy. the Carefree diminutive light show of our heads, drinking warm buzz from under our deathbeds .

It bled. All words flowed red. The grief moved in without location, dismember a situation.

I was also stuck out and rhyme and conscious change, that rattles, rattles, practically Falls, for all incest purposes sinks the ship that calls from Yonder asunder, we plunder.

mono mix down. Cascade, creative, inflated, flabbergasted, gasket gasket blown by Wind chords who restore the cleaved heads of mono mix down, she who is best to speak of in hushed Whispers. They all want to feeding, hungry guppy mouth open and waiting.

We can do no better than to write another letter wearing three days dirty sweaters because of the plague climate weather.

1000 hands clapping. please a moment of your time young sir

What time is so precious in my mind is a stir I cannot be stopped on a subway of dreams and I cannot be subdued by your parody of themes I cannot be  Concord or bequeathed or standstill I must get to Lemon to tell him I was the Fool on the Hill. and that I need some advice on how best to end this brief poem

Keep your eyes locked in combat with the wombat sneak a secret from the fridge to Arkansas Bridge boil the feelings till steam Rises distribute the prizes search for snow in deep is summer in darkest summer.

The days stretch on and ennui hold me in its grip steadily and stealthily. return to Old Friends love, sex, books, films, and drugs. A sample new ones College. I designate a small compartment of my mind to hold a secret Vision I look to find. How do I reach beyond the ordinary and sustain a sense of heightened Wonder without really into the anxiety-ridden how that is perched upon my shoulder for all of my twenties?

The disguises we wear our talismans for a unjustly forgotten age. The system of waking and sleeping, the very awareness of being caught in a cyclone of drudgery makes me real into insanity and insane denunciations.

Jim walks into his dust colored gray apartment in grabs a cold beer from the fridge

Make up your mind.

In a Solar City sorted soaked ransacked by rain, with sober approach I rack my brain, to the Insidious presence of lawyers and peasants, I discovered several layers of dust on the space Rock players.

Fairy designs were manufactured to fail I lit on fire the author for chasing his tale oh, and not checking facts for his book on the whale. Reduce to a burnout Only The Dead headed hell is progress slow the pace of a snail.

Mary moonmen spotted me on the ground with old coffee shouting their heads off an ancient lunar song they taught me the words and I still got it wrong.

At least I still have my will, steeled and strong.

Spirit to a child.

A a spirit yes that's floating mixed way on down. Short twists of tendril Green Smoke drift out into the air, hang for a moment, and pass away. The spirits form is of a cloth ugly green and tattered. Snakes on fire burns who empty holes for eyes. Call the spirits touch, hands I see over the shoulders of a sleeping child. Into his ear it speaks:

“ low child, soft child, whose head is wrapped in dreams and Laurel, who's I shall see what no man sees. Your exception. When you they're lazy as yet on grown flower of potential sleep, dream child, but the strumming drumming sounds pour over your head. Spill out onto your ears. Let your eardrums Buzz with cacophonous whale! But sound set sale, little one, make your music.

From the Slender hands of the spirit a black string acoustic guitar is sat beside the sleeping child.

heavy metal rock and roll psychedelic Celestial Souls, soaring through uncertain Futures with the hot glow of the termination, hell in our eyes, nothing to stand in our way.

Contemplation. We're Hearts breathe heavily will speak with brevity of our interests and illumination logo scores can conceal words that soaked in contemplation. What's this music feel?

I can feel your presence, Jack Kerouac, kindred spirit of the Massachusetts tonight I can feel it here in the small motel room in Waterford Michigan I can feel it as I read your words as they write mine I may be wrong for I am young adventurous and reliable but I feel you telling me to keep writing. I keep writing in to find my own way. Home. I think writing is like a long walk Jack, A Long Walk Home. We keep walking along these fascinating roads trying to find it all out. And it's so sad funny that that death is the only real home?

We sit in the grimy Cambridge Pizza Shop me, a poet, and a friend. Discussing Rites of Passage guitar riffs we follow Concepts to their end.

You see old gray standing just outside Grand Musical Hotel. Fishes electric swim through silver flutes forming in a sky of strings, skins, Holes, metal, wood, and words

Louis Malle at Lewis Mall

Growing up in the Inner City, as I did, 

a love of art was not necessarily encouraged.

 that is not to say there were not some well-meaning 

teachers and librarians who's sorry young kid more 

interested in words then he was and baseballs and did their best to encourage. I think one of the things that was different about me though, was that I was equally as fascinated with the street. I like to look at it from a distance. sometimes it got a little too close because I was right there in it. it's strange to be a bookworm the time that I was coming of age. people still had clearly defined lines then and roles like actors in a play. if you liked books, You are a nerd. If you like sports, you are a jock. And if you do drugs behind the school walk the streets and hustle innocence  then you probably are related to me.

Louis Malle at Lewis Mall. I just watched Black Moon by Louis Malle, my father live at Lewis Mall,  I'm fighting off a cold for nearly two weeks now. When I was younger the visions poured like a faucet it was all I could do to keep them intact, now it's like a deep hard digging.  stabbing at sour sour Earth, trying to break beneath that awful veneer to regain access to the omnivorous superfluous vision. I understand HP lovecraft's silver key now more than ever. conversely, I have found myself becoming  re-obsessed with the black hustlers, Outlaws the writers the filmmakers of the 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s and 80s. I'm talking about Ishmael Reed. Amiri Baraka. Bill Gunn. Shirley Clark's a portrait of Jason Charles Wright. Charles Mingus. Poetry and Jazz.

 I owe a lot as I always do to my buddy Ray Zag, who streams strange films on the Criterion Channel app. I often talk to my girlfriend Gwen about the days of Condor Street, when Redwood walk in and I could feel for a while like the proprietor, of a Bookshop, head shop, video store, crash pad, record store.

Now it's living on opposite coasts. now it's sharing Spotify playlist and movies on streaming apps. but the Vibes remain. sometimes that are only thing I guess that gets you through the drudgery. there are many more films to come. both watching, creating, waiting.

 The true bohemian was never supposed to get distracted.  he was supposed to write all night by the light of his passion, He was supposed to  film everything, all the bright foam of talk.

Somewhere along the way life got less meaningful. which makes it all the more important  to ReDiscover meaning. 

The past year or so oh, I have been treating work like a joke, like a necessary evil, like a spouse I don't love anymore. but I got a new plan. work is my benefactor. work is my backer. Work is the money stream that allows the  artto happen.

There are those  that get enough. and then, as Tom Petty says, Too Much Ain't Enough.