Notes from the Frozen Asshole of West Virginia

the surreal life
6 p.m. Stunned with fear and revulsion I'm stuck staring at a shirtless fat hairy man with confederate flag tattoos, his sunburnt flesh glaring in the fluorescent cascade of the gas station lobby. His stench, if properly synthesized, could power city blocks.

7 p.m. Saw Hancock. Will Smith don't cuss on his rap wreck chords but he's fine with cussin' in his movies. I guess grandma's words ain't worth the millions. Fuck it. I liked it. I like Will Smith. He's adorable, even surly.

10 p.m. Buying liquor, Evan Williams, tastes like book binding glue and has much the same effect on my brainspan. Tequila sunrise in addition to the whiskey was when things started getting really weird.

12:30 a.m. waiting for mike outside Dairy Mart, enjoying some quiet time. I look over to throw something away and notice that an old man has approached me in complete silence. I'm too drunk to jump. I grin stupidly. "Whachoo waitin' fer? Santy Claus? He don't come 'round here boy!" The man then salutes me and promptly skitters away. I was too slow to offer him a nip from my flask.

3 a.m. Old school hedonism. It's like the set of fucking Caligula, bitches. Tonight we're all air hostesses and combat nurses. The burn burns, the light lights, the green greens. Swallowed, by endless green.

4:55 a.m. Apparently I was asleep. I seem to recall

8:45 a.m. Get up and attend French. Take quiz. Grade?

A+

My brain may be a blackened and shrivelled turd, but c'est la vie. I'll do like my forefathers: stuff myself with something speedy, down a vat ful of gin, and claim an invisible man who lives in the sky is teeling me what to do.

following a dusty trail of money sin and desperation
so yeah. GTA IV is fun. i'm feeling good about trading in Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed for it. it made me want to watch cowboy bebop really bad, which was where the subject line came from (actually from my all time favorite commercial still gives me chills even now)it's a semi interesting crime drama wrapped in a big, bloody, funny tortilla. i've always been a big believer in the artistic potential of video games, and you'd have to be an idiot, a liar, or just plain stubborn to deny it. i think sometimes it is like looking at a Salvador Dali work: it's odd and seems to be made up of simple images, but there's something even dirtier and funnier than what they're presenting out in the open. maybe it'll be for you to get, maybe it won't. that was my take on the whole deal.

mouth from the south
i'm a southerner. despite the effort i put into getting rid of my accent, the time i spent wishing i was somewhere- anywhere else than the place that i was, and the pathetic angsty misunderstood act i tried to perpetuate in my youth. i regret it all now. i am less and less impressed with the world of Yonder Yankees, despite the fact that as a West Virginian i'm a yankee too. i'm tired of our noble neighbors using our state as a means of making their shitty states look less crappy.
Maryland, be not proud!
sorry. i had to say it. anywho, lately i've been thinking of the story that i really want to write. not a story about space pirates or god-like beings (well, maybe a few god-like beings)but a story about the place where I was born. someone i respect once told me that when you know you're writing the thing you're supposed to it'll feel like taking a great big shit. painful and laborious, but ultimately its catharsis is one of the main reasons for remaining alive. so get your spoons, and get ready for a big steaming bowl.

with love and tobacco spit,
Joe

a strange compulsion
so, here it is. four years later and i've not graduated. and yet, somehow, i can't bring myself to feel...what? what should i feel? sad? disappointed? watch me kill myself because i didn't fulfill one of the arbitrary ideosyncrasies that drive some people out of their fucking minds. when i see the kids that litter campus on finals week, trying desperately not to cry as they sift through heavy volumes of text and go the extra mile for the 100%, hands shaking from the mix of brutal brain chemistry that keeps a killer instinct sharp, i see it for what it is: a bullet that i dodged. every day i'm glad i didn't get involved in any of the honors programs at my primary schools. fuck that. i've seen where that road goes. hooker and heroine scandals. i'm surprised the amphetamine addictions aren't more plentiful early on, and by that i mean i'm surprised that they don't show more. i was told that entering the pressure-intensive world of the honors program could help me get ahead in the world. i just never believed that. i look back sometimes and wonder what might have been, but i never regret not getting involved in that. that's all i gotta say about that.

(the compulsion was: procrastination)

and your friends are cunts
apparently there's been some controversy at wvu.

i mean, club scum are allowed to just spill out into the street while they wait for their bars to empty enough to suit fire code.

i just don't want them looking at me anymore.

is that so much to ask?

apes for a day
big plans this weekend. hedonism gets hairy on the big day. i am looking forward to it, and i hope you are too.

a message for you-know-whos: just because you don't understand how plants feel pain doesn't excuse you from presuming that they don't. pricks.

man, it's satisfying to be a rude jerk. for a little while at least. conceit is comfortable. but give me half a chance, and i'd be takin' off my clothes and living in the jungle. oh what a life of luxury, to be like an ape man.

i want to get out of this city alive
and live like an ape man.

Kisses,
Joe, closet nudist

Current Music: the kinks-apeman

thanks, gary
some of the best times in my life were spent rolling dice. role playing games gave me what everyone wants: friends that create moments, moments that the simplest things can remind us of. a word, a gesture, an expression on someone's face that carries a connotation to you, and to no one else. each night we hid ourselves behind brave warriors, powerful sorcerers, sly rogues. the idealized visions of ourselves that most are worried to reveal. we show them plainly. the little lies we tell ourselves, tell others, come out in the tortured hero. we explored each other. we explored ourselves. is it simply escape? can something so simple inspire so much love and passion in the young and creative mind? i think not. i think what gary gave us was not a way to escape ourselves, but a way to truly be ourselves, in every way that we cannot.

thanks, gary. i'll miss you a whole lot.

total momma's boy
so, i called my mother and vented the other day. we do it, sometimes. i talked about how i felt used sometimes. maybe like i'm only asked to be in a relationship for the things that i offer, and not the things that i am. i mentioned going celibate and this was her response:
"Well, son, that's the action of a callow stupid person who would rather run from problems than face them, and that's the sort of person I hoped you'd never be."

...

nothing like a mother's love to make you feel like a complete douche bag.
peace, bitches.

note this equation fans of connor oburst: tremulous (is not equal to) charming
ahoy killers, and killees. i was able to tear myself away from being madly in love with the Decemberists to type something. classes this semester are fun. zen buddhism and folk lit in particular. haroo. i should apparently be graduating now, but couldn't be buggered. i never came into these facilities with the intent to use them as i'm supposed to. i'd take only what i needed to write my own stories, to craft my own tales. in the tradition of promising more than i can deliver, i decided to not try and put my work out on any sort of public forum outside of a fantasy role playing site. i think my ability has suffered no small amount from disuse, but i still like to do it. hell, i love crafting stories. its just that i know they're no good, or only terrible reproductions of greater works. practice makes perfect, bitches. must go kill tow truck driver. take it sleazy.

ding
i just had a serious brainwave. someone just popped into my head fully formed. i'm going to try and write up a fantasy story in the next few days. it'll be the first chapter. i feel really excited about this. later

long live the new flesh
imagine waking to see a sweating, misshapen creature crouched upon your chest, legs bent back so that the smell of rotten fungal feet forces you to drive your head back, body trying to escape harmful stimuli.

he grins, looking back and holding up his hands. he holds a pair of tools: a long thin needle and what appears to be an artist's palette. the palette, rather than holding oils instead is host to what appears to be collections of miniscule life forms.

then you see your arms, punctured many thousands of times and crawling with abhorrent life desperately trying to escape. the thing grins, great square teeth mossy and yellow.

"you are part of a great work, you know. you will show them how close they are...the infidelity of the flesh. you will come back to chaos in the end...you always do..."

i love exalted.

comic idea
DILDON: Flexible, springy hero who doesn't cop out when there's heat all about! Flame retardent dildo given sentience in freak laboratory accident dazzles city with acts of veiny heroism and stiff resolve!

Hee. Penis.

All that aside, I like this idea. I think it would be hilarious to have a dildo stretched out to eight feet, given intelligence, and then turned into an angsty indy kid at the shocking irony that he, a black dildo, was originally made for a popular demagogue who remains in the closet.

(panning frames view the skyline of a non-descript city, eventually coming to rest upon the silhouette of an enormous penis. cut to its face, concerned eyes scanning the street below. Dildon spots a group of skinheads bullying someone)

Dildon: Time for a dick slap!

There you go. Hero, villain, angsty backstory, and catchphrase. I am a genius.

the return of mal carne
word.

i'm not a libertarian. i believe that people should be responsible with the rights they've been given. which is why i don't feel bad at all in questioning the series of managerial and journalistic oversights which allowed this person to command a pencil or a spot on television. my favorite part was where people were "shocked". these people obviously have no clue who ann coulter is or what she represents. like, say, raping the earth. but sooth, have i returned just to reprise my hatred of conservative views? nyet, comrades, there is more.

the seasonal illness that is released by wicked trees as they molt their evil leaves has left me nearly coughed into unconsciousness several times and is a shocking element to my austere japanese teachers. i have what they call a "coughing sneeze", by which all individuals within a square block are informed that an ill person is among them. still smokin', still pokin', still hopin'. love and light.

drop some knowledge on 'em, g.

THE END
just finished the last potter book. no spoilers, so don't worry. i had some strange thoughts as i finished the book. pushing aside deadline worries and tamping down outright hysteria that i have a presentation due tommorow and haven't even started it. that will be easy compared to what else i've faced down just this morning. i thought about the books, that i've been reading them since the eighth grade is something i can only say about one other series of books, and i've come to a sort of realization. it's one that i've made before and will probably make again but...i'm not a child anymore. i suppose this is where, as an adult, i'm supposed to sulk and quip about how horrible it is having to grow old and die, but that's not what horrifies me today. today i looked at my life and realized that i had never truly lived my life. what i mean is that i have lived my life following the lives and loves of other, fictional people. i have ignored my own schooling and even my own health in order to fuel this cowardice. i have never tried to go out and make my own life the way i want to. i only looked at how authors wrote it down, and sought to integrate their wisdom into my own life. but i realize now that i can't do that anymore. i have to take responsibility for the life i've been given. i must do all i can to ensure that the ones i love are happy. i have had so much happiness in my life, so much wonder and things that seem impossible now that i think about them. i saw my family go from destitute to well-off. my feet have touched the tops of mountains. my hands have comforted dying friends, brought warmth to chilled strangers, and wiped away the tears of the one i loved most. why should i fear rejection, pain, even death? i must go out and make my own life. let's all take an example from harry: go out and do the thing that you know in your heart is right, and all other things will occur as they should. trust in love. that's all for now.

with love,

Joe

i get angry when you're around when you're around i get nasty when you're around when you're around
you'd be surprised at how much of this goes on in my own hometown. yes, because when someone is scared what they really need is a pompous ignoramous shouting at them. this makes perfect sense if you have no sense of reason or empathy. what scares the crap out of me, you ask? what dark terror will send me into a tense and untalkative state as long as i'm around it? dogs. big dogs, i mean. people owned dogs in point pleasant for one of two reasons: to have a tiny thing on which to lavish affection, or to have a beast that you can torture into an unstoppable killing machine. can you guess what sort was more populous in the trailer park where i was born? i was one of like three kids to get out of that place without a serious injury/unsightly scar and that's because we moved out before the age of five. it doesn't help that dogs hate me, as a general rule. they are like tiny bears just waiting to decide i'm a threat and eat me. shudder. new classes this week, getting closer and closer to graduating. been a while since a post. umm...yeah. that's it. off to buy a warron zevon cd. i need it like nothing i've ever needed before. later.

so i guess jerry falwell died. this is the part where i, as a liberal, am supposed to say that it's bad when a person dies. but i'm not gonna say that here. there are very few people in this world that inspire me to hate. it's a feeling that makes me feel like less of a human being when i experience it, and it demeans me as a person every time i feel it. but jerry lamon falwell brought it out in me, and it's not difficult to see why. the fact that anyone in this country takes his insane babble seriously makes me ashamed to call myself an american. i was raised on the idea that no person has the right by good consciense to judge another person. to assert that one lifestyle is evil and corrupt and that another is truly the only correct way to live speaks of a willful and destructive ignorance, to keep that ignorance to yourself is one thing, but to seek to spread it around the world is a dangerous and foolish thing. then taking it one step further, and claiming that this government and all governments should undertake his philosophy. he said this within hours of an attack on this country by religious extremists. jerry falwell has been an example of everything that i have ever considered evil. i found some words on wikiquote from hunter thompson after the death of richard nixon, i find them pertinent:"For years I've regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn't imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn't quite reach the lever on the voting machine." in short, jerry falwell was a horrible old man, and i'm glad he's dead. i'm throwing a party, you're all invited.

http://mitchclem.com/rockcity/index.php?comic=91

further attestations to glory
just took my last non-final English Language class. that class really hasn't been as much of a struggle as everyone seemed to think it would. i really can't wait for this semester to be over. i'm working on an escape for this summer. just one day in between summer and fall semesters and without work, i'll just go. just fucking gone. maybe i'll fuck off cross country like i used to do every summer. i am not meant for city life. i have too many disturbing habits-studying faces and eyes, looking people in the eye when i speak to them (e.g. looking at people in any way at all seems to make them uncomfortable). i pushed these traits down pretty easily when i was in high school, but i really don't care anymore. i need to get back to the woods where a peeled eye is ideal. speaking of peeling: this at first kind of pissed me off as a sweet action sequence suddenly turned into a fanboy-satisfying lesbian love sequence. not that i have anything at all against fanboys, lesbians, or love sequences. i just expected M.N. Shyamalan to pop out and yell "What a twist!" i'm also considering giving in to the evils of facebook or myspace. i haven't decided which one just yet. i need to figure out what the hell happened to the old huntington gang. such talented and interesting individuals as themselves are surely up to something serious and depressing. or maybe they're hanging out and living life on the edge just like me! oh, hey, bob marley just came on the radio. i think you know what that means.

Current Music: buffalo soldier-bob marley

a hint for aspiring romantics
one of my favorite Cake song and one of the best love songs of all time- Stickshifts and Safety Belts

there's a little political message on there, but the song is what's really great...

let the good times roll/explode
so i sat up on monday, hair apparently going in most directions that it isn't meant to. effortlessly inventing new spatial dimensions before breakfast, that's the kind of time off i took. fuck the beach, i needed some epic type shit. i spent most of my time stopping in the middle of the street to get out of my car and proclaim myself king of ghost morgantown. seriously, there were like maybe a dozen other people here besides me and my friends. this led to us getting wasted and climbing on top of things a lot. hey, we're young and full of vigor. suddenly everyone expects me to be serious again. look kid, i spent a good deal of my younger years mounring dead friends. i'm not going to spend the time i have now, finally free without the need to work for pocket money or to get my friends to calm down and be lucid long enough to have a conversation. i will enjoy myself to the best of my abilities. you can be rushed and put stress on yourself if you want, but i say fuck all that action. i will not allow your blues to fall on me. sure i'll work. sure i'll make it through college. but i won't let it take ten years off my life like some rube who believes that this is the end of fun and childhood. you can eat me. i'm off to smoke a bowl.

Frank West wins, Brutality
been playing some dead rising. i first started playin it months ago but quit because...well...oblivion. yep. but now i'm back, to let you know, i can really dismember zombies. it truly is a great game, and not just because you can impale zombies on a massive drill and spin them around until their arms, legs, and heads just fly right off in guysers of blood and falling zombies. it's a very challenging and interesting game, just like capcom's other flagship titles. there's always a lot to learn in a capcom game, just like there's always a weird saving system that usually works against you rather than with you. more later

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