Beatextperiments.

"Is it illegal to beat off in a parked car?" - d

By the atomic power of Cyborg Hephaestus, I shall unleash my twin hammers of Laser and Cable! Micro-changes in air density. You are not ready for immortality. We're gonna reenact scenes from Aliens with our genitalia. Smegmatite.

"Time to kill the politicians." = truck stop graffiti somewhere between Van Buren and Springfield, MO.

"How's the drive?"

"Scary. Bruce is getting me through it."

"Shitty weather? It's driving snow/sleet here."

"Yeah. Bad weather, car's actin' funky, and I got acid eyes."

"The clouds have parted. I am one with the night, and with my machine. We are the American Dreams."

"Ride on, steel warrior. Cut the night in twain."

"Jesus Christ, this trip is like a mind journey. I feel like we're driving around the moon. It's fucking snowing like crazy in Texas." - n

"Our lot as men is to learn and one goes to knowledge as one goes to war. [...] One goes to knowledge or to war with fear, with respect, aware that one is going to war, and with absolute confidence in oneself." - from a Castaneda book, I forget which

"You're either lying in a ditch, in jail, or you've ditched me. I would appreciate knowing which one it is." - m

"I'm drunk. DRI is about to play. I've already gotten punched. I miss you."

"I just finished a shift making shitty pizzas. My buttcrack is sweaty. I'm hungover. I threw up in the shower today. I love you."

"Soldier's joy is a combination of morphine and alcohol given to Civil War soldiers before a limb was amputated. It's also a euphemism for masturbation."

'Tis a good day to stand in the sun and howl like the beast that you are.

I think I've begun photosynthesis.

I am turning into an algae elemental.

I can never be a meat human again.

Life will forever be naught but controlled folly.

Orbs and orbs.

Auras and areolas.

My antennae are sprouting and they feel like boners.

Tennessee in Spring is a little like Heaven. It nearly rivals the Ozarks in pleasantness. The blood's flowin', and we're all crazy.

"Spring is here and it brought new playlists and hipster girls with shitty haircuts. Guy in a Descendents hoodie just puked on himself then fell down a flight of stairs. It's a treacherous slope. All that was good is not." - i

Oh, it'll storm, kid. It always does. [famous last words to the last lover we will ever take -ed.]

Today I am a young man, tomorrow I'll be dead.

I got a brown paper bag and black buckle shoes. - hs

"I had a dream I was at House Pride. Woke up to a hangover and angry texts. Sleeping rules"

"We're innocent when we dream, dude."

"And guilty when we drink."

I need a ladder for forever.

"If you were from Memphis, 'Memorial Day' would be a much different song. It's all blues, booze, and bad news. Gangland feuds and throwaway .22s. I hate this weekend." - w

I am in a car. I do push-ups and dope. I go to Kroger. Life is simple and quiet, but there's a little Kevin-shaped hole in my days.

and

I'm eating a salad all by myself in the Expanse. I'm not wearing shoes or a shirt, and the mosquitos are eating me. The moon looks crazy, shimmering stone behind a sea of clouds and amidst a sea of contrails. Good night to be a beast.

Train Rex.

"Things are the mind's mute looking glass." - Walter de la Mare

"It looks like the top of your head is peeking out of the bathroom trash can."

[Bonnaroo]

1. Boneroo, morning of. Already finished off a bottle of red wine. It's bullshit o'clock. Will keep you posted, turning off phone for now. 2. This is the most insane shit. Already got smoked out by a stranger. Baroness playing now, too loud and hot up close so now I'm loungin' in the grass in front of the stage and checking out the bazillion babes while eating dried fruit. There are drugs and weirdos EVERYWHERE. 3. I've been up with the sun, beer and whiskey and 'dro and corn on the cob. Walking to see Conan O'Brien and maybe Gaslight Anthem. So many people. Megan is 21 and already drunk. 4. Gaslight sucked. Conan says the f-word. Seeing Nas soon, then She & Him, Steve Martin, Flaming Lips, Crystal Method. Neon Indian had naked hipster chicks on stage last night. We're napping in the shady grass now. 5. Higher than heaven, watching Nas. I think it's going to make me cry. 6. Grilling salmon at our camp. Kings of Leon blaring through the trees. Getting ready to get real fucked up, ride the Ferris Wheel, and see the Flaming Lips. This is an Experience, a cosmic bazaar of humanity. 7. Lounging in my underwear, smoking probably my thirtieth bowl. Flaming Lips last night blew my fucking mind. Twas akin to the gates of Heaven opening before me. Then we passed out under a tree. We woke at 5 this morning, Crystal Method were still playing. Got so fucked up immediately this morning, rocked the fuck out front row at Jimmy Cliff, then Isis and the Melvins made me feel so bad and good and crazy and I took a metalnap. Jay-Z and GWAR tonight. 8. Just finished rolling during Jay-Z's atomic set. Smoking weed in the grass in front of Thievery Corporation in a gentle rain. Fucked up, feelin' like an angel. GWAR starts at 2:30. 9. Undulations reaching critical. I lost my cigarettes and have a nasty sunburn. I am extremely healthy confused and in several states. Excelsior. 10. Everyone is wandering around with the same dazed expressions. Day Four is not a pretty sight. 11. There are so many little glassy-eyed half-naked girls, high for days, walking around with dirty faery wings, dragging hula-hoops. They haven't slept in days.

[/Bonnaroo]

"How's the ajax treating you?"

Opium and Van Morrison. I bought a bunch of Hulk comics. Read "Excelsior" by Longfellow.

Was ever there a person born readily equipped to cope with life and all its grace and pain? I envy them infinitely, but doubt their sincerity. I crave realist transcendence. Fuck. All we are is Feel.

"I think the pain is temporary. The truths we know are independent of our emotions and ourselves. We just have to learn to adapt to them. The controlled folly cannot hurt us when we see it for what it is. We only have to embrace the joyous and ignore the rest, for it is truly inconsequential." (s)

Never mind, life is beautiful.

I am beyond emotional attachment to [it]. I am learning true liberation. Hungry hyena advancing on the menagerie. We are So Free. Always shall be. No other way.

I forgot how good drunk is.

My true self is drunk.

I'm just a bitter shithead, though all piss-losophies tell me not to be. And not even for good reason. WU WEI

means I don't give a shit. The harsh realities of non-ordinary reality. I sink exhausted into their feathery embrace.

I really don't know how we're supposed to do anything but hate, or at the very least remain incredibly indifferent to, everything and anyone around us, knowing what we know and feeling what we feel. It's a bitter skin. I'm having trouble with these lessons learned.

Kevin just ran three red lights. I just saw a billboard that said "MONKEYS: Magic Beyond Belief".

Yes. Waste the girls. Pain is a beautiful wing. I have a new tattoo. I'm sitting in the Expanse alone with a bottle of wine and some Fortuna-brand cigarettes. I was born in Fortuna, CA. These cigarettes suck.

Connectivity. Our children will have no idea what came before. We are angels in a circuitry gossamer. Bleed beer, shit drugs.

blanket on [tour]:

Drunk, KCMO. Raining like hell. I'm on the patio at The Riot Room and they're playing all of 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Rain rain Jawbreaker and cigarettes.

"I'm literally having a nervous breakdown in a record store in Lawrence."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Are you ok?"

"Whatever is wrong, it's all going to be fine. Just spend a few minutes by yourself and take deep breaths."

"Haha, no, I was just freaking out about records. Left without buying a thing, I feel good about that".

"Shit. I thought you were freaking out."

"Oh, I was. It was just for a stupid reason. They had NASA, I See a Darkness, and Dear You, and the record store dudes were sweeties and calmed me down and talked me out of all of 'em."

"Five nights ago I slept in Idaho. Four nights ago, Utah. Three nights ago I slept in Missouri. Two nights ago, Mississippi. Last night, I slept in Florida." (b)

"That's beautiful. I been doin' some hard travelin', I thought you know'd. No one else is awake, so I'm walking around KCMO."

"I've done that many a time. It's nice to see a new city with no one to distract you."

"Very much so. I'm trying to find a place to eat and get me a Coke, but no luck thus far. Lots of apartment buildings and churches."

"Eating hot dogs and smoking cigarettes on the curb like a hoodrat now. It just started raining on me, and it's a thirty minute walk back. Oh well."

"Sounds like the city is initiating you."

"Rain always seems to follow me like an unrequited love. A welcome bittersweet companion."

"Whatchoo know 'bout Bronson cigarettes?"

"QuikTrip house brand, cheap & crappy. Not as bad as people say, but you can tell they're cheap by the taste." - h

Milwauker, WI: I am so coated with punx. It is muggy catpiss beershower. Tour decision: All the guys left to go crash, I'm staying at the punx basement show getting sweaty and drunk, meaning I gotta walk to the "crash pad" by myself, through a bad neighborhood in a strange town. Tour decision. Drunk. Wisconsin. Tour. Why not, right?

"Beast Light tastes like grey water. How do you drink this shit?"

"I don't talk shit on the ones that help you through your hard times." - h

Jung and restless?

Played on top of a grassy hill in front of the Pittsburgh skyline tonight at a fuckin' block party. Free keg, lots of handmade dumplings and artist babes. Drunk. Tour's been stories. Story me your stories. I'll story you. Danny will is coming to MURDERFCORO next Sunday for the Bootheel shit. It will story, you come. I can't remember how you knew or what I told you about it. This night checked my head, I'm moving to China. I'm going to suck Buddhist titty. Tastes like honey. I drank mead in fucking Mothman country last night, just an hour outside of Point Pleasant. Saw a woman turn to cat power animal. Met donkey. Don Quifriendly, didn't like the cameras rewinding film. Mothman left us unscathed, because I ate too many Belgian waffles and hot dogs. But he scared me anyway.

"Good luck! Stay safe. Fear not the higher beings." - s

Sleeping in a basement in Philly tonight, reading Heinlein by headlamp. It's been crazy and wonderful, but it'll be good to get home.

Sitting on a loading dock in Greenbelt, Maryland. Watching skateboarders and cute girls. Just ate some stuffed grape leaves. Kinda wanna go home. Tired and broke. Ran out of weed yesterday, and we only get one free beer at this joint. 'Bout to pelvic-thrust towards some Yuppie goofballs.

Just saw the Washington Monument for the first time. Quite an obelisk. We woke up early to drive to the beach. We might even go visit the Great Dismal Swamp.

I see the Atlantic Ocean. And now we're in a tunnel beneath it.

Coast to Coast was about stargates tonight. Apparently there's some sort of stargate believer convention in Nashville soon. I really want to go. Also, the "expert" on stargates said that there were stargate-esque obelisks erected in Nashville and St. Louis. The time is upon us. The awakening.

You ask me if I miss anything/Well, yes, but the loss is worth the gain/Ask me if I miss anyone/I won't answer, I'm too busy with tomorrow's sun

[/tour]

"Dude, I saw Kevin's doppleganger on Venice Beach. He's a sword swallower." - p

We'll never be sober again.

It gives you a really calming fix without making you feel poisonous.

Hadta purge. That man fell out the window. Jung slept with a gun at his bedside, in case his visions got too intense.

SHIT TOO MUCH PUKE. I'M RUNNING UP MY CREDIT SCORE WITH HEAVY METAL.

"Shitfire, gotta void the demons sometimes." - s

This is surely a way of allowing oneself to think without keeping a tight guard on one's thought's, whether logical or moral.

I have found that I'm somehow slipped into a Summer of Dietz-esque funhaze. It's a little more well-balanced, more akin to Drunken Master or dancing.

House Pride is alive.

"I have total faith in you." - mb

Pockets Empty, Heart Bursting.

1-6-11, 8 am, somewhere in Mississippi

My pockets are empty and my heart is bursting.

I volunteered myself for the early morning driving shift, and found myself perfectly alone, sliding down Delta highways, pointing northward just outside of Slidell, wide-eyed and dreaming about porcelain skin. I drive until I hallucinate, the pixels blending and swirling as I cross imaginary dotted lines that carve the South into a variety of altered states. Looming ghosts of pine tree are made corporeal as the sun oozes through the Mississippi fog.

[...]Houses come and go, are built and abandoned, are relished new with novelty and forgotten as soon as we lug our stupid empty cardboard boxes back over the doorjams and out into the yawning trunks of our cars. But I know, redundant and cliche though it may be, that I will always relish the feeling of familiarity within unfamiliarity of being a shark always swimming and living and eating these trampled paths that have turned our country into a patchwork of possibility.

I will smoke one more cigarette, though my throat is sick of me, and then try to catch up on some rest as Seth takes the wheel and we are guided by patient satellites to Birmingham, where we plan on checking out the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame museum.

Why bother with travelogues and Beatnik bibles, though within we may find the wisdom of perspective, when we can drum the "book of ourself" out on the sun-bleached dashboard, when the stories we tell will be overshadowed only by those we keep as intense secrets, more sentiment than story, prone to cheapening as soon as sentiment becomes thought becomes words balanced on the tips of our tongues. May these blessed and haunted days and nights season my dreams with visions of fingertips in flesh, of distinction being lost between the graceful press of slender bodies, between dawn and dusk, between boundless oceans and endless highways.

New Year's Eve.

12-31, Springfield, MO

Left alone with a tilting room, trying my damnedest to remain true. The night, she's waning, a few soft hours left before we both fade into the shades of day. The wet streets outside the door seem so alien to me; these same stained streets that ate the rubber off of my soles not so many months before have lost their familiarity.

I live my life with a taut heart, tensing to spring to my feet and leave nothing behind save the echo of my souls slapping pavement. I could disappear as easily as I was born, and none would be the wiser. I could make my arms into a cradle for my aching skull, but it would be a waste of flesh and bone. You offer a pillow to a head that is already dry and rattling, like a gourd stuffed with loose change, guitar picks, and muscle relaxers.

Have I a home to which I long to return, or have I lost my footing on the black beaches and cold cliffs of my dreams in utero? If I find my bridges offered to the stomach of the night as a crumbling mess of burnt offerings, will I gather splinter and sap to build them anew, or will I relegate myself to the churning river below, a plummet as perpetual and graceful as the ballet of starlight lightyears through the gentle abyss of space? Answers I expect yet never find in noontime certainty.

I will carve my own answers in stone, bury them deep in the tomb of the earth, and hope that my tender fingers will someday find the strength to claw through to the sorrowful honest depths, and I hope that my calloused eyes will find blind new ways to refract the sunlight through their lenses of ice so that the ancient words will reveal what my stuttering heart has been trying to tell me all along.

I belong to the night.

for Seth Moore, who taught me to see lakes as mirrors, and those mirrors as windows

12-29, Conway, AR

I belong to the night, to the sauna of smoke, to the women I barely know. I belong to the beautiful brunette who wrapped her soft arms about my hesitant stomach, if only to save herself from the slobbering mob of frustrated men, pawing at her though a sad haze of age and expensive liquor. I give myself freely to all these blessed moments, to all these smiles that shine a beacon of curiosity and sex through the clear air of a wet winter evening in the haunted American South. But, truthfully, none but the night may call me her own, for she asks nothing of me yet receives me fully, body and soul, with a patient understanding not offered to the cowards, and shares no quake of jealousy when I awake and consummate my affair with the sun and its illuminating superficiality.

And so outside I sit cross-legged on some sort of generator unit, between 4 and 5 am (Central Time), sipping a glass of filched vodka and pretending this cigarette pressed between my lips is the very tongue of my favorite bitch, though she may take many lovers, and despite my all-too-human jealousy I feel her hollow eyes trained on I and I alone, her ghostly fingers tracing down my aching spine, and I pledge to her my final and undying love. I am married to her, Our Lady of the Sun that Never Rises, and though we both have our thirsts, our loneliness leading to mornings cursed with the semblance of comfort granted by the selfless press of warm skin slumbering by our side, I know that as her stars and moons gracefully eclipse the overbearing babble of mindless blue skies, and as I settle once more into her forgiving embrace, I am hers and hers alone.

What have I to offer when I give so much of myself to the quiet solitude of the mute princess arcing above me, her cold body soothing and tempering my heart disenchanted and burnt by the selfish sun and its ignorant flirtations. I belong to the night, and she is mine. If she were yours, you'd be awake and by my side, though we may be thousands of miles apart. There is a mute bond shared by her worshipers, a stoic glance between two sets of eyes, each with their own set of dark circles tattooed beneath.

Conway, Arkansas is a cripple, abandoned by the studious to give rise to my triumph in this vacuum, interrupted solely by the intermittent roar of a train. My glass is drained, and I will walk solemnly to my pallet, heartsick and longing to that moment, twelve hours hence, when my true love reappears and whispers in my ear the secret sins of lifetimes lived without a second thought to the pleasures and pain reaped from an affair with the abstract.

My heart is bursting, and in each pair of moistened eyes I see only the reflection of dusk, that sacred second when pools of Arkansan swamp water become as mirrors, a pane through which I will force my slender neck, praying for a blade of glass to sever veins and arteries to finally release me from day's imbecilic adoration. I love you all, and love is unquantifiable, and I love you none, the human spirit being so fickle and emotions ultimately ephemeral. May death bring an endless night. I have no faith that you may offer me more.