Pissed at Gas Prices?

Lets get a crew together and shoot the Oil execs in the face. I'm sure that will get the point across pretty quick.

Black hole sun

When there is a void so obvious in your life, what do you do? seriously. what if you don't know what is supposed to fill the void, should you just play the game of trial and error? Just see how long you can throw garbage into a bottomless pit? or do you figure out what is supposed to go there? Lately I've been going out with friends killin some beers having a good time. It feels like I'm just using a temporary fix to feel whole again. I'm not getting stimulus. the world just feels bland to me. I told my friend holly a few days ago that I drink to make everyone else more interesting; which for the most part is true. Not for my friends perse, but situations in general. I just need some spice in life and I can't find it. someone just show me something new please god. I think everyone thinks I tag walls because I think it expresses my creativity or some shit; actually it gives me a thrill; I get high off of it. thats what I want, something to just make me feel amazing, chemicals just work for a few hours. fuck it I need to find happiness.

Live Life, Bleed Slow

some of us Fall off the wagon
Most land face first and broken
When I hit the bottom of the bottle
I hit the ground running
Kept my head together
In a dive I've dove into before
Everything was the same
nothing had changed
I just soaked in my atmosphere
and let my troubles melt away
good times,
good friends
and cheap shitty beers
For just a few hours you forget about your fears
then its back to the grind day in and day out
except this time I'm not fiendin for stout
I'm gettin through it all
I'm keepin control
I finally collared my demons
and I cut their throats to muffle the screaming
of what they want and how to get it
If its to please my demons they can surely forget it

The World Is My Bombing Range

I feel completely insane. Maybe it’s working three jobs; maybe it’s being sober; maybe I'm actually happy for once and I'm smacked out of my skull on psychological euphoria. I don’t know, maybe its fear, maybe its desperation, maybe its numbness to the ignorance of society, maybe it’s all of these things.

Day in and day out I feel like I want to become an intelligent G.G. Allin who does something with himself instead of drinking fifths of Jim Beam, smoking crack rocks, shooting heroin, defecating on stage and throwing it into the crowd. I want to use my insane mind to start a revolution of sorts. I think it is horrible that I am using G.G. Allin as a template; G.G. Allin was born with the name Jesus Christ Allin. His father was very religious, anti social, and abusive. He was a punk rock musician from the late 1970’s to 1993. His career ended due to a heroin overdose. He was known for a stage act that included defecation, indecent exposure, self-mutilation, assaulting his audience and destroying the property of the venue in which he was performing. He wanted to bring rock and roll back to the roots he believed it had. He was staging a revolution within the genre with a rather amazing following.

That being said, the biggest changes in our society have come by force. The Revolutionary War, The civil war, the Civil Rights movement, standing against prohibition, the labor unions in the 1890’s, For Christ’s sake this took blood sweat and tears. It also took one thing our society has grown to lack: the balls to stand up and do something. Everyone I know has the needed credentials to make a stand and do what they believe is right. Most of society is too caught up in being politically correct and friendly to an ignorant automaton of a neighbor whom aggravates them on a daily basis. This happens so often that it seems everyone has become numbed to an injustice of ignorance, ignorant of there right to tell someone what they think of them in a somewhat intelligent manner. People are too scared to hurt someone, or their feelings, and too scared of rejection and pain.

This country was founded on standing up to something that was found to be unjust. It was founded on violence. Without violence and altercation we would not be the “Great Empire” we are today. We have been fed a somewhat hidden propaganda most of our lives; this would be along the lines of “violence is not the answer”. With this embedded into our Brains we have become more pacified as a society. Before this people were more likely to take up a stand and fight for what they believed in. look at the differences in attitude between generations. My grandfather and great-grandfathers generation were more likely to support the troops against the evil Axis powers. When today every college student without the guts to join the military cries and whines from the safety of their dorm room about how horrible this war is, how horrible our troops are and that we should just talk it over with fundamentalists, we’ll even supply the Krispy Kreme Donuts and Folgers coffee.

What I am about to say will probably offend many, but you must remember it’s going to be one of the truest American things you will ever read. I am protected by the constitution; In fact, the constitution almost encourages me to say this. If you have a problem with something, quit bitching and take action! Do not sign petitions and say that it is your right to free speech. No one actually listens to most of the petitions unless half of a state signs it and not a do nothing state such as Rhode Island. What you should do is use your right to vote first, then if that doesn't work, use your rights of free speech to stand on your soapbox on the corner and preach your word, use your right to organize, right to bear arms, and look into the laws of your rights to form a militia if need be. Overtake what you will.

The first thing that happened in our lives was so tragic and traumatizing that we do not remember it. That is birth if you have no idea what I am speaking about, so if you go through something graphic and horrible enough your brain should block it out. so go hard or go home, stand up, or get the fuck out of my country, this isn't a “right wing” or “left wing”, “Bush is an idiot”, “Bush is a god”, “This war is for oil”, or “Kill all the sandniggers” debate I'm throwing onto your dinner plate. What this is, is a "BE AN AMERICAN" Bitch out session for those of you too obsessed with Laguna Beach, American Idol, fashion, and how your possessions rank you in society, destroy the class system, boycott whatever you want. Remember to get others involved in your cause so it makes an impact. If you are pissed off at the government, Let your voice be heard in congress; or better yet give your speech on the steps of the capitol building for so long that they drag you inside to speak so you will finally shut up. You can always go the way of John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald; they made an impact, but just remember if you take the situation into your own hands in the same way these two individuals, all of your hard work could all be considered treasonous. Treason is punishable by death and I am sure without a trial.

So do what you will just do not be ignorant. If you forego your rights, I do not want to hear of your misfortunes due to the forfeiture. I do not want to hear complaining about the present situation of the global community. However, if you decide to take full advantage of your rights, no matter your reasoning or cause, I stand behind you. I stand behind you in the aspect that you are doing what our forefathers designed as the ultimate freedom in a democratic society. The freedom I speak of guarantees my sanity.

Against a Corpse's Will.

You are a product of your surroundings. I am not exempt from this rule. I refuse to follow my surroundings into a tailspin of self-destruction and insanity. The surroundings I am referring to are my family. I am striving to cut all ties with my extended family. These people may have shaped me into who I am today, sadly though they attempt to drag me into what they are today. This could be a multitude of roles in life ranging from the blind know nothing grandmother purposely ignorant to what she does not want to see, all the way down to the methamphetamine addled cousin with two affected children and her dope dealer boyfriend. These characters in my life have seen me develop into “the fine young man” I am today. I have developed into my role right along with the others as they simultaneously evolved into what they have become.

I hold much resentment at this decision in my life. I do love these people; I love them more than they know. I have tried to help all of them when they have needed it. What I have found out in this situation is that you can lead a man to reason, but you cannot make him think. I mean I have taken care of my cousins when they were sick, they’ve given me a ride home when I was too messed up to walk three miles home. I have stuck up for them and they have done the same for me. Yet, now I feel as if I am just throwing them under the bus. What are you to do when someone will not even look towards the light? The Bible says to take care of yourself before you go nitpicking into someone else’s affairs, and I know I have my problems. So currently, I have given up on helping these people. I hate to let them drift further and further into the depths of depravity. How am I supposed to help these people after being gone for so long?

I was raised in a culture where your family is worth dying for. If any of my family needs anything, I would feel obligated to give it to them. If it were an organ or bone marrow, I would almost feel as if they would owe me enough to straighten up the existence they had created. I am twenty-four years of age, working my ass off, attending a university with a fulltime class schedule, and I still manage to balance a social life in it somehow. I am working to end this current existence and begin the metamorphosis into something much more. Even though I am striving to succeed in my definition of the word, the others are content with their welfare checks and low quality dope.

I grew as a young child far from my extended family as my father was in the United States Navy. The government uprooted my shallow network of roots every two or three years and replanted me into new soil. Soil that I had to adjust to. Finding the different needed nutrients to survive, evolving to my surroundings. This was a blessing in disguise, because I now know that I can sever ties with anything and not feel regret. The only real contact I had with my grandparents throughout the majority of my childhood was a visit once or twice a year, along with the birthday cards and Christmas presents in the mail. This is not much more than the contact I had with my aunts, uncles, and my cousins. This was the way things were for quite awhile.

One summer I left my parents and moved in with my aunt Kim. She has always loved me and never spoke against me that I know of. If I ever needed anything, she would try to help. She was also the mother of the majority of my cousins. This was the beginning of a tragic drama. We got into fights with the neighbor kids. We went exploring in the woods. We did anything a kid could have wanted to do. After the first two weeks, things changed. My novelty had worn off. I was not special anymore. They turned on me. We still got along, but they had picked on me. This was the first time I had ever been bullied by anyone. By my own family. My uncle Dan played a game entitled “Uncle Dan Wins”. The rules to this game are the same as the title of the game. It would apply to anything and everything. A thirty-five year old man had to make children feel inferior to make himself feel superior. This messes with a child’s psyche. I wanted to go home. I wanted my mother. I had to deal with this personal hell for at least another month.

Eventually, my family moved back to Ohio and right next door to my grandmother. Of course, I was close with my family after that. Who wouldn’t love to go to Grandma’s house every day, scoring free cookies, a few bucks here and there, and being spoiled? My cousins moved in down the street, so we were always together. We all had matured from the past and I was inseparable from my family. We picked at each other and prodded each other to fight. That was just kids being kids though. I was one of the older ones so I had some power over my cousins. I was put in charge. I would baby-sit them. We were family, and at this point, I would have fought to death for any of my cousins. They were my other brothers and sisters.

I understand many families are not that close at all. However, my family gets together at least once a month for dinner these days. I was raised in a family where you stick up for your family. I have learned to fight for my family. I still will; depending on the family member, I will let a lot more criticism and hateful remarks about them go without conflict. The reason for this is that these remarks are true. My cousin is a methed out dope head with two kids from a redneck dope dealing wigger. Its sad that this type of comment and those much more derogatory don’t offend me anymore.

I have realized over time that my family is institutionally insane. Now you may be thinking that, “Everyone feels this way at one point in time or another”. This is the truth. My family suffers from so much substance abuse its sickening. My parents are the only ones that have not had the need to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I may need to go, but I do not let alcohol affect my life; I’m doing fine in school and I hold a decent job. In my family though, alcohol is not the only vice. I can go to a family reunion and be able to score a decent amount of dope, depending on what's in stock. My Aunt Kim likes to self medicate. She has a back problem, which apparently reserves the right to be hopped up on Soma’s and Vicodin constantly. If I complain of a slight headache to this woman, she will hand me a small handful of Vicodin. It is sickening. It is nice to she cares; yet her care is poison. I have seen her hand out prescription painkillers to her children for every bump and bruise.

This may just be substance abuse. To strengthen this point more I would like to point out that the majority of my family is on some kind of prescription anti-depressant or anxiety medication. They cannot function in society without these crutches. This may be due to the incest in the family three or four generations back from mine. This may be due to the abuse that was sustained from my parents severely alcoholic fathers. It could be due to substance abuse. All of these explanations of this argument of insanity are possible contributing factors as well.

The best example of how family deals with a harsh family situation is to use the example of my one cousin. The Methamphetamine addled, honor roll earning, responsibility shirking, mother of two. We both started dabbling with marijuana together. She was my supplier for quite some time. My family believed I was her supplier since she was such a good girl. Her boyfriend at the time had brought her into his destructive circle of addiction. At first, she just smoked weed with us. Then she had moved onto coke. I pleaded with her to get off coke, but when you are a pretty girl, you get copious amounts of free drugs. She was coked out of her mind for quite some time. During this period of her life, she was dating one of my best friends. I saw this all first hand. The worst was that we would all party together in a little house on Sherman Street in the attic of our squat. Cramming nine people into a one-bedroom house and you learn quite a bit about people. No privacy equals no secrets. After her little fling with coke, she had gotten herself into smoking meth alone in her garage. Eventually she became a full-blown tweaker. My tribe had disowned her since none of us dabbled in speed. Tweakers are also well known for being thieving bastards. She eventually “settled down” with a meth dealer from the area. All they did was get high, Even after she had two miscarriages from it. They had been kicked out of their old place, so my parents and my grandparents put them up in cottages that we rented out. They robbed my grandmother while she was out. Stealing almost five thousand dollars in jewelry. Her doper boyfriend had been arrested on drug charges. During his questioning, he had rolled over on some bigger fish in the business. He was released and a week later, the house they were living in was firebombed. Luckily, and I use that word loosely, they both were out at the time. They fled to Florida.

Now the relevance of this story is how my family deals with my cousins choices. What they do is make excuses. My family is very religious and I know the story of the Prodigal Son very well; hell, I’ve lived that story. The excuses they make for her are far-fetched and unbelievable. They range from “Her first boyfriend must have really hurt her” to “This must all stem from her head injury in that four wheeler accident”. Personally, I think these are absolute bullshit. Like I have stated, you are a product of your surroundings. The only way to change this is change your surroundings. They make excuses for everyone!

They made excuses for me saying, “He just has to find himself, it won’t last long”. I can guarantee you; my life would still be huge parties, good sex, high times and random road trips if I had not left. I would still be in the fast lane to self-destruction. This prodigal son would never have come home; he would have bummed change for a forty ounce of malt liquor, swept the storefront for a place to stay and then disappeared again. It would have been Harry Crews road trip without a motorcycle. I would have hopped boxcar to boxcar to find somewhere new. The worst part is that I still just want to escape life, ride the rails everyday, and not be locked down to any responsibilities. This choice would have shirked my responsibility to humanity. I would have denied the responsibility to myself. The responsibility of bettering myself, the responsibility of attempting to better humanity.

I took my own advice a few years ago and now I am struggling to pull myself from the flaming wreckage that my life was. It would be nice to have that flaming wreckage still be my monkey cage, where I would still do stupid tricks for simple treats. I yearn for it, but like I said, I have a responsibility. This is what my family, except for a few, has not realized. A few are attempting degrees, and one is attempting to get her teaching license. Other than that, everyone is worthless. At least they are worthless to myself. I have no need to be dragged down into those pits of hell again. When I attend a family gathering its usually just for the meal unless its Christmas. After the meal, I abruptly leave.

With my disgust for my family, I have decided to cut my ties with those that refuse to better themselves. Those that refuse to attempt to climb out of the shallow graves they have dug themselves. If they tried, I would be the first hand helping them out; but I am tired of sitting in this graveyard with them. I am tired of chiseling their names and dates into a small piece of granite that will stand as a mock memorial, glorifying the lives they had supposedly lived. For these reasons, I am leaving the cemetery gates that are my family’s grasp. I may be out of reach; yet I plan to stay within earshot hoping I hear the gasp of reanimation. I hope I hear it soon. I am sick of attempting to drag the living dead from open graves; I had much rather help the atrophied and reanimated being yearning to live again.

diggin out some old stuff I found

I woke up in the early afternoon once the house had finally warmed up. The house was always uncomfortably cold. With only one of us working, another living on an inheritance, and myself squatting, we had very little money for the amenities of heat. I had grown accustomed to the thermostat being set at fifty degrees. It was set at this frigid temperature just to keep the pipes from freezing. We became acclimated rather quickly. We had to. We lived there. Our many houseguests would always complain until one of our usual parties was in full swing with bodies packed wall to wall. Everyone was drinking massive amounts alcohol. We just thought of it as putting on our liquid jackets. Mind you, we did not have the creature comforts most people had such as a phone or cable. We sacrificed these things for booze and drugs.

We opened our house to anyone who wanted to have a good time, mainly to keep the house heated. When no partygoers were there; I would smoke a bowl in the garage, cook up some ramen noodles, and play video games with Owen or work on music with Mark. We watched the same movies everyday. We would watch American History X, Boyz n the Hood, or any war movie we could get our hands on. We had watched these movies so many times that we had memorized the full script. We would even turn the volume off and narrate the movies ourselves. We were the antithesis of every contributing human being on the planet.

Parties would usually start up unannounced. Random people would just show up to drink, smoke weed, or anything else they had felt like doing. Usually two or three good close friends would stop by and bring a few cases of beer and a bottle of whiskey or two. I would start cleaning the glasses for people to mix drinks because I had not done the dishes since the last party. Someone would start drying and putting them back into the cupboard. Then people just started billowing in like the immigrants on Ellis Island, looking for a good time instead of shelter and a job. I would usually reside in the garage most of the night smoking weed or opium until I did not know what was real. Then I would wander back into the house and play some hackeysack, wrestle with Mark or play drinking games until five in the morning. From there I would pass out and wake up when the house was warm enough.

Out of that comfortable monotony I went nowhere. I had quit school, been fired from my job, and had been unemployed for four months or so. All I did was get drunk, get high and sit in the Dairymart parking lot passing time when I wasn’t at the house. I would go out and drive for hours for something to do. I was making a sad attempt to escape from the black hole I was living in. It was the most fun I’d ever had, but it was my personal hell. I would conjure up images of doing something awesome by definition. I wanted to do something people would be scared of, embrace, reject, or stand against. I wanted to lead a revolution. Whether it was my own internal revolution against my current beliefs or a full militaristic revolution, I would be leading. I always backed down because, like all human beings, I was afraid of change.

However, one day I got the gall to change what I was doing. I went job hunting. I applied almost everywhere in the county, including every temporary employment agency. I shaved, cut my hair, went on a stint of total sobriety except for my daily caffeine and nicotine binges. I did everything imaginable to get a job. I would have tap danced naked on a table for senior citizens if they would have paid me. I wanted something to do. After two months, I came to the grim realization that no one wanted to hire an unskilled nineteen-year-old man. I realized this after I was checking up with one of the temporary employment agencies. They told me this and I caved. I left the building, got into my car and lit up a cigarette. While I was driving away I noticed the one place that would hire me. The Armed Forces Recruitment Center.

Still in a half daze from the news the temporary agency had given me, I went to see the Navy recruiter. They’d gone home for the night; it was relatively late in the evening. Therefore, I took my Father’s advice, “Fight from far away”. I went down the hall and talked to the Air Force recruiter. They gave me the ASVAB pretest. They were amazed by my high scores, which I thought were just above average. The test seemed simple to me, so I figured many people had scores as high as mine. What I’d found out was that with my scores I was qualified for any job in the United States military. So, I signed on the dotted line, ready to start a new life.

I went straight to my parents’ house to tell them the news; they were scared and excited for me. My dad reminded me I was enlisting during a time of war. My mother just hugged me. I sat down and had dinner with them. Then I returned home. I was reluctant to tell my friends and roommates, but I had to. They were the people closest to me. I’d saved Mark’s life during his two overdoses. I at least owed it to him to let him know I wouldn’t be there to save him much longer. They were more shocked than my parents. They were almost appalled; but they all agreed I had to do something with my life and that this place was just bringing me down.

For the next week, I was anxious, in the true sense of the word. I was suffering from anxiety. I was excited and incredibly nervous all at the same time. I was leaving this place, which is why I was excited. I was afraid of that at the same time because I was leaving what I knew best. However, the lure of traveling to exotic places, meeting exotic people, and killing them was too much to keep me down. Everyone promised to send me letters of encouragement while I was in Basic Training, but I disregarded their gestures. I knew that they did not possess the motivation to get my address from my parents. I said my goodbyes and severed my ties with what I knew. I hated severing the ties, but I knew that if I did not it would make the transition to a new life much harder.

The day I left, my father drove me to the recruiter’s office, shook my hand, and saw me off. It was very painful because at that moment I knew my father loved me and finally viewed me as an adult. We both kept from crying, said goodbye, and I watched him drive away. My recruiter drove me to Cleveland where I was put up in a very nice hotel with many other recruits leaving the same time I was. All we did was sit around, attempt to finish our packs of cigarettes and converse about what our futures may hold. We spoke of things like where we would like to be stationed, our biggest fears, what lies ahead of us, and our backgrounds to try and relate to one another. I made some good friends, some of whom I was able to see at Basic training graduation and while on leave since they live just an hour from my home.

The next morning we went to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and waited at the USO. My new friend Bekah and I decided to share our meal vouchers so that we could eat both in Cleveland and once we got to San Antonio. We ended up sitting next to each other on all of the flights down to San Antonio and would either play cards or sleep as if we would never be able to sleep again. Once we arrived in San Antonio, we were herded onto buses. Next, we were shipped off to the Lackland Air Force Base. Everyone was nervous, terrified, and trying to make small talk. I used my nervousness to crack jokes and rile up some laughs among my newfound comrades from across the country. Then we pulled through the gate.

Everyone fell silent. We pulled up next to a building at one in the morning. There, we were quickly ripped into, as if we were a new kill on the Savannah. The instructors terrorized our herd as if they were a pack of wolves. Picking at us one by one, and then addressing the whole group. We were shuffled into the processing center where we sat silently and were heckled by passing instructors waiting to get us into their clutches. I was nowhere near ready for this on a personal level, even though I had watched Full Metal Jacket everyday for the past two weeks. Finally, a moment of peace was brought upon us. We marched in a sloppy, oafish formation to our new home. My new home was the 320^th Training Squadron, section 3, barracks 11A, Bay B, Bunk 5. We were calmly told what was expected of us. We were told the basic rules of the base and what to do during emergencies. Then we were left to sleep. Some people were too nervous to sleep, and others viewed the 3 hours of sleep we were going to get as pointless and stayed awake either quietly talking to one another or staring at the ceiling contemplating what they had gotten themselves into. I realized my new best friend was my bunk so I got very acquainted with it and went right to sleep.

Sleeping, I had forgotten I had left home. I was awakened by what I thought were my roommates pulling my mattress out from underneath of me. I uttered “What the fuck Mark?!” and opened my eyes to find a wool blanket draping me and my bunk flipped over with a man’s face hovering three inches over me screaming:

“My name is not Mark! My name is Technical Sergeant Johnson! Get the fuck up! Welcome to Hell!” and all I could do was think about what I had gotten myself into.