"Everyday is Halloween"

Its an extremely dark and rainy Halloween night in Texas, and I am painting my fingernails black. I cant help but smile when I see the blue lighting crash out side my office window and feel my entire apartment shake as the thunder booms. I am getting ready for a party tonight but amidst the the black eye liner, black lipstick, and black nail polish I recently purchased for this evening the memories creep into my brain with velvet fingers. I had almost forgotten, I guess most of us do after enough time passes. Time goes by and who you are becomes who you have always been. No, as a young man I didn't do sports, the chess club, honor role, or school politics. If you were to put a label on it I guess you would call me Gothic, but the lifestyle seemed so much deeper back then. We were all so tragically beautiful, teenage angst physically manifested in black on black and sex. Most people don't think about how beautiful pain can be. Do you remember the poem you wrote when that girl or guy broke your heart? You will never write like that again. Even if you never showed it to anyone it was pure and beautiful and yours. Its was in every song you listened to and wondered how that band could capture your exact pain in those lyrics. You played it over and over as you cried alone in you room. For most of the kids I grew up with the pain was not fleeting but constant, and usually inflicted at home. With a touch or a smile between black painted lips you never had to say "I'm gay and my parents hate me", "my mother drinks and beats me", "my father molests me", or "I was rapped". It was one androgynous people and we inherited a lifestyle where all the darkness and pain was made into something beautiful. For some it was the rebirth in death that allowed them to get through those confusing and turbulent high school years, after all how could anyone hurt you if you were already dead. I look at the Gothic kids now as they file into Hot Topic and I can only hope that for them it is merely a fashion statement, but I know for some it isn't. I guess all of us romanticize our youth in one form or another. My thoughts go back to the nights when we would go to the club and dance until the sweat soaked the patent leather and velvet we wore. The grave yards at midnight when we would talk into the morning hours as we drank and smoked our clove cigarettes, our make up smudged the smell of drying sweat and tea rose in the air. I couldn't fathom how anyone would or could leave a lifestyle so accepting and understanding for the cold and lonely world of the "norm". I don't think any of us ever thought we would sell out or grow up...but we did. The ones who escaped without suicide, an addiction, a disease, or complete insanity became uncommonly well rounded people. Some of us learned that it was okay, that our pain didn't dictate who we were or who we could be, and we learned to see the beauty in the light as well as the dark. To be sure it was a razor blade we danced on, as I neared 18 so many had been lost to suicide and drugs that it scared the shit out of me.Now my ass length long black hair has been replaced with an irreverent spiked "corporate punk" cut. My skin has gone from a nearly translucent white to a light copper tan. And my once leather, rubber, silk, and velvet clad body now sports the labels of Banana, Armani, Versace, and Kenneth Cole. Yeah, I guess you could say I sold out. Do I regret it? No. I like my life and who I am, I am happier now than I have ever been. However I think that I will always think back fondly of a time when everyday was Halloween.

Suicide Solution?

For a very long time I fought the compulsion to end it all, to erase myself. I was convinced that the world would be a better place without me (and so were some other people). It seemed for some time there that I brought nothing but pain and suffering to my family and friends, I was a horrible young man with no conscience to speak of. My family (try as they might) realized that they could not help me and backed away. My friends one by one either turned and ran screaming or kept me at arms length out of fear. I had lashed out at the world and it had turned its back on me. It was of course inevitable that the pain I inflicted would run out of victims until only one remained. I hated myself, more than that…I loathed my life. So in my self righteous prideful mind I saw no reason not to put a loaded gun in my mouth, slide a razor across my wrists, or ingest an abundance of lethal pharmaceuticals.As I am sure you are aware by now, I failed in my attempts at suicide. After everything had failed I came to a startling conclusion…I needed to change who I was at the core. The very thing that I used to define myself was literally killing me. Like some mad scientist I picked the characteristics I admired in others and mixed them up to redefine who I was. I would give rather than take, I would give my love and friendship unconditionally, and I had to get some sort of fucking fashion sense! This was however a tough sale to those who knew my ugly past, but I was determined to never go down that dark path again. This would eventually lead to my leaving home; I had to give myself an opportunity to grow into who I knew I could be without peoples predetermined opinions breaking me down. I am proud to say that the people who know me now would never guess that such troubled times had been laid to rest in my past. I have forged and continue to forge some one that I can love…and ultimately it doesn’t matter who loves you if you don’t love yourself.Recently someone whom I love very much has confessed that they are contemplating ending their lives. This news breaks my heart because I see such beauty in this person. No one in this world is better off gone, everyone touches others in ways they can’t understand. Yes, the pain can be overwhelming but to deny ourselves the beauty is tragic. We never know what wonderful things can and will come into our lives; we owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to be steadfast and strong in these tough times. I have been so very fortunate in that a few people have taken my hand when I couldn’t see light. These people changed my life with a talk, a smile, and a kind embrace. As long as there is one person who loves you…your life is more precious than anything on this world.And suicide is not a solution.

A Mad Peace of Mind

“ But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice said.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” Said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” Said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here”
The dialog between Alice and the Cat still rings in my head to this day. As a child it was the first time I had read something that truly made me sympathies with someone else. I was eight years old and everyone told me that I was crazy.
Like many of today’s “Troubled youth” I had no way of communicating to those around me. We are all born with a sort of moral barometer as children, this allows us to know when something is unethical or wrong for us. What we are not born with is the ability to communicate these feelings to others in a sociably acceptable way. Unfortunately we live in a selfish and busy world were people are unaware, unable, or unwilling to help these children find a voice. As a result many children lash out at the very world that does not and will understand them. They are quickly labeled uncontrollable or troubled and an effort to subdue the child begins. One of the newest sociably acceptable ways we as Americans have found to force our children into submission is thru the use of pharmaceuticals. Aside from the emotional growth paralyzing effect these drugs have on a young mind they can also destroy a Childs self-esteem. Further more they can cause irreparable emotional damage that can follow them into their adult years. As an individual diagnosed with manic depression these lost souls hold a special place in my heart. I hear the questions from so many parents with troubled children “What do I do?” “Where should I send him/her?”, “Should I put them on Anti depressants?”. I wish I could somehow impart the personal knowledge I hold and help these people to understand what is happening. This is a fast food world and people want fast food answers, but this is not a fast food problem. This is the mental and emotional growth of a human child and you cannot rush that without some repercussions. Nearly 30 million or 1 in 5 Americans have been diagnosed with some form of depression and the number grows every year. It is painfully obvious to this blogger that these pharmaceuticals are not making things better. In fact I believe they are making the problem worse. We tell our children they have to take pills to be “normal”, but then we have the nerve to stand confused when they shoot their own classmates. We tell our children they are chemically unbalanced, but we just can’t understand how they could commit suicide. I hope that one day we as a people are able to stop placating the problem and focus on a real solution.
Until then...I am living proof that medicating ones self is not a necessity…no matter what they say. I believe that we “Troubled youth” can teach our selves the lessons we missed in childhood, if we give ourselves the patience and love that others could not. And I believe it is our duty to keep an open heart and out stretched hand for those fledgling souls still lost in the dark.

The American Man

My America is different from my fathers, and its even more alien than my grandfathers. The men of my America have no craft, no social utility, and no loyalty. Our fathers taught us that we would inherit the world, and that our place in society would be secured. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The idea of a true and good strong man running the show has become a laughable anachronism. My fore fathers carried the façade of masculinity thru the decades, but this pose of control has left my generation with nothing to stand on. In a popular culture that embraces androgyny, were style is valued over substance, many men feel increasingly emasculated and lost. You can hear them scream “blasphemy”, you can see them point fingers and shake their heads. The truth is things change, and true change is rarely pleasant. We have been given an opportunity to move beyond our adversarial relationship with women and change together. People are realizing more and more that it doesn’t matter what your sex, color, or sexual orientation is. The day is coming soon when all people shall be judged by their individual caliber alone.

You make me laugh.

Ahhhhh. So here I am again. I get the feeling that the subject matter on this blog may get a bit to deep at times. Its funny because I am usually such a happy go lucky kind of guy. I mean I watch the porn, I party, and yes I have even smacked the occasional bum bum a time or two. I think the positive aspect of my mind is what draws what friends I do have to me. People normally don’t enjoy watching me pound my head against a wall (unless they have been the butt of my jokes), so I do that in private. My venting takes many forms, from incredibly large and dark oil paintings to very bad poetry. Still I feel sometimes that my loosely wound sanity lets one of the slimy things slip by form time to time…hence this blog. So the purpose of this entry (although I may just be talking to myself here) is mainly to assure you and myself that I am a happy guy, with happy times, and a happy colon.

So should any of you sissy bitchs feel the urge to tell me to lighten up…THEN YOU CAN KISS MY ASS IN HELL!!

…and I love you all.