Hear Me Roar

Blogees!  I remembered about two hours ago the promise I made to myself and the internet to post at least once a week.  A week has gone by, believe it or not.  What did you do? 


Anyway, I'm having trouble with topics and inspiration, so I've decided to post some fiction I am working on.  Novel concept, right? (Novel, ha, get it??)  Anyway I wrote this a while ago and edited it a little less than a while ago, and have dragged it up from the lengthy desktop folder entitled "Creative Writing."  I hope you enjoy, and in case you are wondering about my awesome ending, there isn't an ending.  It is ongoing, and I am literally leaving you where I have stopped.  Let me know what you think!


(Also, it's untitled, so read this parenthesis as a title...)

My jeans are soaked to my thighs, this damn storm, let me tell you. In the early part of the century, back when men wore thick coats and bowler hats, long black garb that cloaked them in the color of death, real men, you might say, well in that part of the history of the world I survived a storm ten times this size, and my jeans, well...no, not my jeans because real men did not wear jeans back then, my pants, they were soaked, right to my thighs.

This was in the big city on the gold coast; San Francisco. It roared, oh boy did it. All curved cabs and ladies wearing gloves; even in the rain (torrential this time of year) they smoked cigarettes, inhaled it like they drank tobacco for breakfast. Top that off with vodka and orange juice, what you have there is one American way to start a day. This was pre Peace, pre Love, pre Haight and that damned Ashburry, two hooligans of grandeur proportions. Not to confuse the reader, I fell head-first through a cloud of acid rain just like the rest of you, but it was hard with this stiff hip, and all those boys wanted to do was run run run.

The city bumped and jived, a cesspool of sin and luxury, but fun, mind you. On this night, of the storm, that is, I was enjoying a whisky dry in a cozy little speakeasy. Easy jazz with chords of velvet; brass and stand-up, lover’s laments that made you want to curl up on Saturday and write lust letters to people you’ve never known. I could hear the wind beating drops against my sanctuary, my Mecca (pre-world knowledge of Mecca of course). There is nothing but the sound of a lightly brushed cymbal; a woman turning over in her sleep; the sky letting a feather fall silently. And that pianist! Such a virtuosity in his limbs, a lilt to his back. I remember his eyes closing as he played. All that, with those dim rouge lights, the small-talk of lovers, war and money (quality topics in any age I’ve found) on the tips of tongues. Lulled me, they did.

Anyway, that damned storm was so loud it clashed up against the sound of this aural phenomena, my song of songs, and drove me to a great fury.

I quickly became disgruntled, my inner peace shaken, and, anyway, my cup was empty. I nodded to the tender and he waved me off, looking neither distracted nor interested. I had been there some time, come to think of it, and when I stood the blood rushed to my head, making me waggle as I cleared a path towards the exit. Fur coats and lengthy umbrellas were crammed into the corner as people came in, and I grabbed my own parachute as I exited.

The wind hit me in the face, speckled me with drops of “light precipitation” as the news prints had read. Bullshit. These drops slicked my hair back for me, had me pumping the shaft of that umbrella like a flapper in the red-light. I routinely tried to light a cigarette, cursed when the wind blew it out, and decided to walk back to my apartment, just a few blocks towards the Bay. 

Now, in 1922, a man walking down the street with a curve to his path was highly suspicious. The Noble Experiment was in effect, and us lab rats ran around licking the ethanol off every surface we could find. I was just shy of military legality (something everyone should aim for) and had been hammered well into the morning every night that month. All this while Johnny Law walked around this city like the damn gestapo (anachronistic, I know, but I was ready and able, not willing mind you, for that second attempt at world peace, and they were like the damn gestapo). Upending coffee mugs and the like. Then they had the audacity to “retain” what we were drinking and imbibe it themselves. The Station was rowdier than any bar in the city night after night.

Oh the places you'll go...

Bloggers! Hola. Sawadee-kap. Oy. Sup. I am greeting you more than once because I have been away too long, and also because languages are interesting when transliterated.  So, my internet is finally up.  Huzzah! I can, again, waste hours a day looking up random facts and, well, blogging.  I took too long of a break.  I should have gone to a coffee house and ordered a tea with little bits of milk and honey, sipped and typed and let you all in.  But I didn't.  I've actually been a little bit out of the writing habit, which is a shame because I was doing a pretty good job for me.  So this is the first step (again) of getting into a habit.  Hit me with your literary nicotine patches, cover me like that pretty man from that smoking movie, give my blood something to scream about.

Because I have been absent for longer than I'd like this particular post is a little post-dated.  I had the idea about a week ago and couldn't get out of my sweatpants long enough to type (in jeans now!), so here we go.

Jobs.  Employment, position, co-worker, proletariat, hands over cash, the river of green and the lost treasures of paradise.  I STILL need a job.  But this isn't me complaining, this is me posting about all the various lives I could be living right at this very moment.  Here we go (yes, again, keys in ignition, rev rev):

Ventura Theater Company- There's me, black AmerAper hoodie, checking the date on your ticket as you try and hide the little joint that sticks out of your shirt pocket.  It's cool, dude, Snoop here encourages the puff puff.  I set up the mics backstage and maybe wipe the floors clean after a show, sticky from beer and dropped thiz pills.  I work weekends and have started a band, I'm stoked but obviously don't get paid enough (minimum plus pity tips) or get enough hours.  My fun free time is eaten away by nights laid awake wondering if I should have given Pepper my demo or how that new chorus is starting to sound an awful lot like honkey tonk blues.  But I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Nature's Grill- Do you want fries with that?  Not really, I mean, they serve blue tortilla chips with salsa and are super hip low-fi class, but I am taking your order and wiping the tables after you leave. I've met the relatively few number of true hippies in Ventura; don't get me wrong they have punk tendencies like everyone else but they do enjoy the Grateful Dead a bit.  I know where Lassens is and what is in that fake hamburger crap.  No, I still won't eat it.  But I'm pretty happy.  No pity tips, but rather real change due to good friendly service and my awesome hair that did not manage to get into your food.  I've met people my age and can bike to work, and slowly, yes slowly, I'm writing that quintessential novella that defines what it means to be an honest hard-working college graduated hippy bum spirit-life-seeker.  I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Paradise Pantry- No, no I don't work at a sex shop.  I work at a wine and cheese shop.  The people come here right before the sex shop down the street, get drunk and lactaided up, have a good night overall.  I wear a nice black apron and my converse, but other than that I'm still lookin' like me. Maybe my not-yet-happenin' beard is a little long because in the dark small space that I make money, all those long bottles and mildewing cheese, I feel that the extra hair gives me an edge.  I'm getting to know all the different varietals, how that particular brand of cow crap gives that particular year a little zest, a little nudge in the acidity.  I begin to speak as if I've been to Italy three times (oh, wait, I have, culturelaugh) and as if I go to France bi-monthly to check on my small but reasonably well off vineyard estate.  My parents home in Petaluma is actually now in Sonoma County, it kisses up against a long, stalwart Pinot traditional to the area.  Cheese has taken on a whole new meaning. "Cheddar"? What do you mean by "cheddar," sir?  ....Man, even I can't bullshit knowing about chesses, sorry guys.  Look at me in the wine and cheese shop, I'm a little snooty and I know A LOT about cheese. Brie. Goat. String.  I make a decent wage and feel that these skills will get me far in life.  I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Patagonia- AHHHH this mountain is so gnarly bro!  DUDE that wave almost ate your life.  OH MY GOD that piece of paper was so recycled.  Do you like this really cool shirt?  Do you want it?  Its twenty-five bucks.  No we don't take cash, we don't use paper here.  Credit card?  Sorry, plastic hurts the environment pretty seriously.  Have you seen the news about climate control?  You can wear it in the store, I guess.  We are organizing a Reiner hike to clean up the water-bottle trash near the summit.  Want to come??  Um, will you be in sub-zero temperature zones?  Go shop at REI then. -----So I'm using my pretty powerful tools of humor to humiliate a company I really want to work for.  If, somehow someone from G.P reads this, I'm just jokin' around man.  If I were there I'd be getting decent benefits, going hiking often, and wearing snazzy expensive American made clothes. I would also be part of the future young space explorers mission to Patagonia's semi-near planet called RUGGED.  Sounds like fun, right?  I'm healthy and fit and know how to not get killed by ice and poison oak.  I have beefed up a tad. I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

These are the potential lives I could be living people. Don't you want to know all of those dudes? Currently the front runner is a coffee shop that just opened, has no employees, and will hopefully need at least one in the next coming weeks.  Working there I would just be, well, me.

Love peace and happy times, fellow bloggers.  Till we meet again!

p.s. the only part of this that has to do with writing is that this post was pretty creative.  Also, there was a job as a music journalist that I literally just remembered but don't want to doctor the post majorly to include, so....hargenshnargen as music journalist: super freaking happy.