Stop, Drop, and Roll
It smells nice at first, nostalgic even. Burning wood and charcoal embers seem almost appropriate in October. It is a month of grey, orange, and black. A month of dry grass blowing in the wind. A month of pumpkin faces with fire in their eyes. After a quick workout I called up my buddy Igor. He had been laying fallow since the cancellation of his college courses for two straight days. “Closed because of fire” is not an uncommon sight in storefronts and businesses. He came over immediately and after several rounds of Soul Caliber 3 we were ready to trek into the burning wastes.
I remember thinking that I should eat something, you always leave at least one critical detail unfulfilled, today it was food. Fortunately we both wore long pants and shoes. It would have been a rookie mistake, although not an uncommon one, to have ventured out with nothing more than shorts and flip-flops. We took the 15 North after a short crawl through the ghettoes of North Park where fat disheveled Mexicans lurched up and down the sidewalks with white masks and bandanas over their faces. It was like a fat zombie army of banditos hulking in small groups towards liquor stores and carnecerias. On the freeway the traffic was strange and disproportionate. The weight of vehicles hung much heavier in the steady flow of southbound motorists, as they, with bleary eyes, feared for their homes and lives while staring at the few solitary cars heading north.
There was a roadblock ahead. The police had closed off an entire section of the 15 freeway where the fire was raging. We pulled off the road at the last exit before the turnaround and headed east, straight into the mouth of the dragon. Without gathering any info off the internet and my maps being a prisoner to an ex-girlfriend we had only the signs of devastation to guide us, and there was no shortage. Heading directly for the largest, thickest, and darkest section of smoke that rose like a giant b-movie monster over the town we soon were passing burnt fences and blackened earth. There were numerous police roadblocks but because of the enormity of the disaster they were only able to secure the major intersections thereby leaving the side roads and residential areas open for circumventing their meager efforts. There were fire trucks everywhere and utility workers in full respirators turning wrenches on grey power boxes and control panels. There was an eerie sense of the place. Nobody on the streets, nobody in the businesses. It was a ghost town. The wind whirling recklessly around us, and nobody to be seen for mile after mile. It would have been no effort at all to simply walk into somebody’s house and steal everything they owned. Igor and I vowed to beat the shit out of anyone we caught doing that. There are scumbag moves on this earth but that is one that we would not tolerate, especially in our own fucking town.
We were taken aback for a short time pointing at different images as they flashed before our eyes. Like two children on a funhouse ride we observed in amazement as the horrors pressed against the windshield one by one, each more horrifying last. And then we were in it. Swallowed up by the gaping mouth of destruction. The burning jaws that led into hell itself. It looked like the apocalypse. It was beautiful.
The earth was black. Trees stripped of their leaves and standing painfully like black skeletons. Smoke hung heavy in the sky. It was hard to breathe, hard to see, your face and lips stung, your tongue tasted the curious and sour ash as it fell like massive snowflakes. It was like being trapped in a noxious snow globe. The winds increased in their violence and everywhere stood testament to their fury. Downed trees and branches, signs and fences pulled down, a howling cry as everything turned sideways and bowed away from the gale.
We took a side road and ended up at Poway Lake. The fires were consuming everything in sight. There, a hillside stood in flames. There a building lay in fire. The wind was stronger than ever. Reports were coming in that they had topped 100 miles an hour. White caps crowned the million waves, driven by the moaning wind, as a desperate helicopter attempted to fill its water tanks with a long flaccid hose.
We drove on, deeper into the menagerie of masks and destruction. After swerving around several lines of cones and a small army of unmotivated cops we found the very brink of the devastation. The front lines. It was a standoff between the fire and the firefighters. On a hill overly-punctuated by expensive houses we parked and walked up to a small group of firefighters in full regalia wielding hoses against the red-orange beast. The fire, like a ravenous monster, was threatening to swallow a million dollar house whole when in between stood the firemen. We took a chance and walked up a narrow path to another house, mere inches from 30 foot flames, only to look back just seconds later and find that the fire had consumed the path from which we came. Fear rose up inside of us. When we started this journey we didn’t really know what we expected to find or even how close we would even get, but when a 50 foot tall conflagration with an endless appetite hungered for the grassy food at our feet we knew we had found it. We hurried to a concrete drainage ditch and escaped down the backside of the hill.
Me – “hey dude.. look there, a swimming pool. If we get trapped we should could jump in that thing.”
Igor – “yeah! Haha.. and be boiled alive instead!”
We both laughed. We could feel the heat of the flames, smell the stinking burning in our noses. Constantly wiping dust and ash from our tearing eyes, we cried black. Natures forced empathy.
Hell surrounds us. Bits of burning ash and embers rain down in all directions. The sky is pure black. The sun is a pale red circle hanging evilly overhead like an angry blood-filled eye… watching.
Eventually we found our way back to my truck and headed back home. The stink of the experience hung heavy in my upholstery for a week but the memories would last much longer. I found myself questioning my attraction to the fire. Wondering why I head towards that which others flee.
I had a jumble of hours between seeking destruction and causing it so I spent my time thinking, watching, processing. Although the motives are cloudy, the hunger is clear. I seek fire. That night I got increasingly more drunk until it all went black. The next morning I wake up feeling estranged from planet earth so I take to the streets. I try and spark my soul with the things that bring me pleasure.
I see people every day. I am a watcher of things. I am outside their world looking in. Like a scientist writing observations in a log book I scratch down these thoughts into my notepad. Take my pitiable photographs and tell myself that I’m different… better. I sit down at the bus stop after a cup of coffee, not to get on the bus, but merely to gain vantage in my observations. By chance to hear a strange phrase or see an alien act. I feel like I am constantly waiting for these dirty little events, seeking them out like a despondent and poverty stricken bum grappling after loose change.
There a woman sits unconsciously rubbing a spot on her dress, there is a stain there, she has worn the fabric thin. Here a man walks slowly, hunched over, bowed and crooked, gnashing his teeth against invisible food while frothy white foam is slowly squeezed from the corners of his leathery mouth. Over there a man wearing a cheap suit brushes ash from his coat, his stubby fingers moving strangely across the grey.
A group of tired eyes staring down the road, expectantly, waiting for the bus. A glimmer washes over the crowd, a quick breath, a flash of recognition. In this one tiny instant there is life, but it is fleeting, almost non-existent in its brevity. A simple joy mixed with tired relief. An ecstasy of fumbling. Fingers too fat for tight pockets. Quickly counting and re-counting a muddle of greasy coins. “Correct change”. A modern contrivance. A monetary shackle, forcing attention to detail, forcing prioritizing of values, forcing subservience. The coins drop from the dirty claw into a clear plastic machine almost completely covered in small white dents and cracks. The machine has collected countless handfuls of “correct change” from the countless masses. A million handfuls of bacteria from not washing after fondling excrement. A million handfuls of grime from under fingernails. A million handfuls of lint from sweaty pockets. The machine clicks and churns as it withholds judgement. A bell chimes, the person is deemed worthy, “correct change” has been achieved, they may now get on the bus.
Its no wonder that so many are sold on the idea of St. Peter and the pearly gates. We have created a world where our very value is determined by such devices. “Correct change”, be it coins or acts, seems to be the price paid not only to get on the bus every day but to get into heaven as well.
And the people sit there, waiting, like zombies. Like tired disgusting cadavers. A million dirty scars and cracks, wrinkles and lines and marks cover their discount clad bodies.
Everything is horrible.
The people, their bodies, their clothes, the bus, the road, their jobs, their homes, their lives… the whole fucking city.
Everything is horrible.
And here I sit. Wondering whether all this smoke I’m breathing in is going to give me lung cancer. Counting carbs, trying to justify my bar tabs, trying to justify my choices and actions in my mind. Hangovers make me suicidal, hangovers make me schizophrenic, hangovers make me misanthropic. There is no cure for hangovers. There is no cure for living. I start to hate everything. Everything pisses me off, makes me get violent, triggers my fight or flight response.
Fight or flight.
I like to pick fight. I trained to pick fight. From being a soldier, being a man, a million years of evolution in a savage world. If you pick fight then they will own you. Make you the “bad guy”. It justifies all their actions, excuses all their sins. At the moment you choose to fight back, to take something back, to stand up, to not give up, to not bow down, at that very moment you are defeated. It is an impossible situation. If you choose flight then you are a quitter, a loser, a victim, and they own you even more.
No win.
It’s a downward spiral, a violent downward spiral, smashing into shit all the way down. A violent destructive toilet flush.
Like the wildfires, I destroy everything I touch.
Even though everything was broken already I adulterate it. Everything ages in my presence, everything rots. my existence makes things rust. My thoughts make things decay. My life… all life… is illusory.
What else is there? Where does one go from here? The answer – Las Vegas.
The end of the week was to be culminated with a trip out to Las Vegas. My buddy Bobby was getting married soon and we all were to congregate in the city of sin for his bachelor party. It was a good excuse to escape the smell of smoke if only to replace it with the stink of greed and desperation. A long drive east. I emerge from the smoke, confusion, and turgid rumblings of a city in despair intoa vast lifeless desert at the center of which lies a necropolis of vice and gluttony.
We launched ourselves full power into all the Vegas highlights. Gambling, alcohol, women. Money was thrown around like confetti and a town where no action is considered criminal imposes its own special values over you.
I was drunk, I was sober. I was down on craps, I came back – eyes so inebriated they couldn’t even read the numbers on the dice. The only determination of what I was doing was the inward and outward flow of chips as I threw them willy-nilly over the unreadable numbers and colors. I finally pull away, hit a dance club, slur at sluts camouflaged as women in slutty costumes, still somehow able to shoot my mojo all over them – at least long enough to get some free drinks and a girl’s room key. None of it really mattered though. The whirling typhoon of drunken activities was all to give my buddy a good send-off. Every offer to peel away from the group was declined, no matter how beautiful the woman, no matter how strong the drink, no matter how great the winnings.
Two straight nights of debauchery and by Sunday morning I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I had made some critical mistakes along the way. Like a just-released convict I made out with a girl who crawled right out of a dumpster before joining the group. Our wills were entangled like two fighting snakes, intertwined in a death grapple. Why is there never mouthwash around when you need it… or bleach… or hemlock. We now refer to her as “Poor-man’s Amy Winehouse”. I had eaten food, thereby tricking my body into thinking that I actually wanted to live. At one point we took a shot of whiskey so large that it took 3 full swallows to get it down. It was the most whiskey I had ever consumed in one moment of time. It sat there at the top of my neck right on top of 3 full plates of super-buffet that I forced down my hole like it was the last food I would ever eat. I almost had the biggest barf session known to any human ever until I made out some more with “Amy Winehouse” and my body just gave up on trying to save me. We lovingly refer to that drink as “triple-shot” and we drunkenly made a song about it. We finally capped the trip off with a visit to the Spearmint Rhino. I fucking HATE strip clubs. HATE THEM! They are disgusting and pointless. I don’t want or need whores. The place is all that is evil about women. They play on your deepest and most primal instincts in order to steal money from you. Fuck ‘steal’, give willingly, for the momentary fantasy that some perfect -10 beautiful chick actually wants to fuck you. FUCK OFF! The Rhino pissed me off so bad that I took a cab back to the hotel and crashed out.
The next morning we all met up for breakfast and regaled over the exploits of our weekend. I jump back on the road home and my brain goes back into hangover-suicide mode. I think back over the past week and weekend with a sense of confusion and wonderment. Leaving Vegas is a strange experience. Into the harsh, forbidding desert. Nothingness for miles. It’s a lonely planet.
I think back to the dumpster slut “Amy Winehouse”. How amazingly horrible she was, but in the vacuum of existence, in this one spark of electricity place, this lightning rod town in the middle of a vast lifeless existential desert… Maybe she is doing exactly what we all should be doing. She is the metaphor for all that I hold sacred – and yet I draw away from her poisonous embrace just as much as I hunger for it.
The devil’s plaything.
Roads and powerlines all spiderweb out from Vegas like the cracks in a broken window. I think back over the few highlights… My bro ‘Villain’ hooking up with a Columbian chick who wouldn’t let him wear a condom. We all jokingly said he got “da nang” from her, a fictional std created from the Vietnam Magnum P.I. hat that bobby wore as part of his costume. Dan getting the moniker “Dirty Dan” for making statements of willingness to have sex with a girl who (pardon my French) had the smelliest pussy on planet earth. I was in the front of the limo-bus occupied by other equally dubious activities while in the back, apparently, it was so bad that it almost made Bobby barf up his triple-shot. After that Leif and I had to sleep in shifts to keep constant vigil over “crab-watch ‘07″ from Dan and Villain’s bed for fear that crotch creatures would try and migrate over to us. Bobby telling me that his “shit was like french fries. Not the little crappy ones, but the big thick Ore-Ida fries”. My other bro Adam twisted the shit out of his ankle in a drunken dance-off at club Tryst where the girls were literally throwing themselves at us for no other reason than we were there. Our presence alone was the only pre-requisite for a meaningless sexual encounter.
For me the weekend was a bitter reaffirmation. It feels good to be wanted, to be lusted after, but for me I am always questioning it. Wondering why. And if not finding ample valued explanation then I have no interest. It’s a pointless kind of confidence, believing in the sloguns written on the banners that these girls waved at us. Their mouths just a pointless parrot-holes, spouting the same five phrases like a Chatty Cathy doll. Pull their string and hear the pre-recorded message. Utterly devoid of life. Merely the appearance of life.
The dumpster whore was not like that. Everything that came out of her mouth, while trumping each conversation with increasingly disturbing garbage, was unique and original. Frogs and snakes and spiders pouring from her horror-glazed lips with every word and yet unpredictable, vibrant, alive. Her words landed like the first drop of blood in my suicide bathtub. And then I question myself again, and come to the same conclusions as days before. I seek fire.
Is this the way of free living and actual experiences? Freedom at an unacceptable price. Sitting in a bathtub filled with ice minus one kidney but laughing like mad? Each experience more taxing than the previous, each more self-destructive, each more masochistic, more dismal and depraved? And at the same time liberating? The greater the depravity, the more liberating?
But even this false life, this death spasm, like an animal twitching with its head cut off, even this ‘life’ is illusory and fleeting.
All these temples of steel and glass will crumble. These vibrant memories will bleach and fade, these hands that cling desperately onto fistfuls of hundred dollar chips are only holding dust. Dust that inexorably slips through your fingers, an unstoppable hourglass of decline, decay, and death.
“memento mori”.
They used to tell the Roman generals when they returned to Rome triumphant. Their glorious parade, wreathed in gold and glory, all the while a slave quietly whispered these words into the generals ear. All glory is fleeting, remember that you are going to die.
Like Charles Manson, strangely, prison is the only thing I’ve known. Locked behind the bars of my consciousness, unable to see the world past them but for in these few moments. Passing quickly and leaving me feeling sickened.
The Panther – Rilke
His vision from the passing of the bars
is grown so weary that it holds no more.
To him it seems there are a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars no world.
The padding gait of flexibly strong strides,
that in the very smallest circle turns,
is like a dance of strength around a center
in which stupefied a great will stands.
Only sometimes the curtain of the pupil
soundlessly parts –. Then an image enters,
goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs –
and in the heart ceases to be.
So this becomes my conjugal visit with the human race. Where Joshua trees grow randomly like the burning pieces of the space shuttle Challenger as it blew apart. These are the confessions of a desert lizard. These are the lost words of a cactus eater. Breath heavy and full of fermented cactus fruit. Squeezed through the body of a snake. Spilled out their pungent bile onto the dry cracked earth. The only testament to life is these cracks from ancient waters. And in these cracks is the last refuge of spiders and crickets and centipedes. I am the outlaw, sleeping alone, a heap of dry bones, in the trunk of a rusted car with no tires. Spiders spin webs in my ribcage, crickets chirp from inside a grand auditorium, the hollow cavity of my dried skull, and centipedes now dance in the place where my heart used to be.
Wildfires ‘07 Super-self-destructo Song List:
Danzig – Soul on Fire
Dead Boys – Down in Flames
Iggy and the Stooges – Gimme Danger
Social Distortion – Lost & Found
Ladytron – Destroy Everything You Touch
Danzig – Devil’s Plaything
The Sounds – Fire
Subhumans – Dying World
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