sunset (2002)

live without
the closing of the night
day comes

this unsuspecting hour
in our condescending
never ending
just pretending
lines

sunset this
life closing all the eyes
they try

to reawake their dreams
in these mass confusion
pure illusion
substitution
times

angry fires
put out upon the night
less sky

in this crisp suburban night
we saw god itself
stars that fell
shadows that ached in
fire

Memories, or lack thereof

It's interesting to note that I cannot remember a damn thing about my life.

No, it's not the film "Memento", and I am not "Henry M" (google that sucker), but I literally cannot remember anything from the past 27 years. Sure, I know the edited highlights, like my first kiss or those 8 years that I spent crying, but there are severe blocks missing. I suppose time passes and memory fades, but this is pretty ridiculous.

OK, take for example my high school years; not a thing. The only time a vague memory pops into my head is when I listen to music that I listened to back then. Just for my mental health, I will draw up a list here:

Freshman year (95-96):
Fall: Green River, Mudhoney, Monkeywrench...damn, there's gotta be more...those are all Mark Arm related.
Spring: Beatles (Sgt. Pepper), Led Zepplin, STP (Tiny Music), Elastica's first album.

Sophmore Year (96-97):
Fall: George Harrison (more like summer '96), Rolling Stones (Tatoo You, "Heaven" reminds me of riding NJ Transit back to NYC), Cream, Jimi Hendrix (Axis: Bold As Love), A little Sublime.
Spring: David Bowie (Singles: 69-93), More Rolling Stones (Sticky Fingers taped off the radio, Some Girls!),

Junior Year (97-98):
Here's where it gets a little hazy. I recall downloading pornography online that had a song called "Uncle Remus" over it, in the days before all the lyric engines, it took me a few days to figure out it was Frank Zappa. I fell in love with "Apostrophe" that year. Also my love of David Bowie began to take shape. Love, in a non-gay way, of course. Speaking of gay, I also fell in love with Trex's "The Slider" album. I remember listening to it in physics class and my teacher (who was a former Motley Crue roadie) said "don't you listen to anything that's not from the 70's?"

Now that I'm writing this, I begin to remember the summer of '98 at North Carolina School of The Arts (the story of that summer is best left to another entry), but I do remember going there with an audio cassette of "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", which blew my mind (especially the first few minutes of "Interstellar Overdrive"), which means I bought it in the spring. So I guess my watershed albums that year were "Piper" "Apstrophe" and...gotta be something by Bowie. I'm trying to go album by album to remember when I bought each. Let me run it down:

Space Oddity: Cassette, summer of '97 (At UMass), CD summer of '99 (off Ebay). I got it (along with "Low", "Heroes" on tape and I think "Aladdin Sane" on CD) at this great record/tape store in Amhurst. I think the tapes were like 3 bucks each and the CD's were 7). I remember listening to this album on my cassette player as I took a camp trip to Boston in a big Greyhound-style bus.
The Man Who Sold The World: CD: Summer of '98 (In North Carolina), I lost it at a screening of the movie "Insomnia", so I think I rebought it in 2003ish, and lost it again. "Black Country Rock" played the first night I ever spent with a woman...although I guess she was a girl then.
Hunky Dory: I believe I bought this in the summer of '97. I know I had it by the summer of '98, because a guy named Dave had it and we debated which version of The Supermen was better. It was probably one of the first Bowie CDs I got because it had so many singles on it and I have a vague memory of listening to it at UMass.
Ziggy: Spring of '97 (during a weekend I spent at school), I got the special edition in 2002 for Christmas or something. It was my first non-compilation Bowie album, and I remember thinking that "Suffragette City" was the only track that was good. By the end of the school year, I put it away, but I probably revisited it after buying a few more Bowie Albums.
Aladin Sane: No memory of buying it. Probably at North Carolina or beginning of my senior year. I remember BLARING the title track all day long my junior year, where I have a vague recollection of pretending I was fronting a band performing this. What a piano solo!
Diamond Dogs: I remember buying this my senior year in NYC, sitting in the bathroom, expecting to hate it (I expected to hate all Bowie albums; that was the joy, I always fell in love with them after the first 3-4 listens). I had "1984" on my dorm answering machine and I know that my good friend Jake was still humming some of these tracks well into college.
Young Americans: I bought this on LP! in the fall of my senior year, which was a better mix then the CD, so I taped it. I think I finally got the CD at the end of my senior year. Listening to this album makes me think about the end of high school and all the things I left behind (pretentious warning): my innocence, youth, dreams, etc. In high school, everything was possible. College was "now make that possible".
Station To Station: Definitely during NCSA in 98. "Stay" was an anthem for me that summer.
Low: Tape in '97, CD all the way in '99. I remember listening to this on the same trip to Boston as Space Oddity, but I didn't get into either album.
Heroes: Exactly the same as Low. I never connected to the instrumentals on these albums, so I never really wanted the CDs. I must say that I sampled some of the instrumentals on this album to create my first song ever (as well as my freshman year of college final project, which got nominated to some NYU festival).
Lodger: Summer of '99. This was my last "classic" David Bowie album that I bought. My CD player got fucked up once, and I remember listening to Bowie's backup vocals only on "African Night Flight". He's just SCREAMING! Also, I remember my friend Freddie thought Bowie was saying "Gotta get a boyfriend". It was weird. Speaking of that, I remember his friend Greg was scared to listen to Marvin Gaye...because he thought he was gay. Oy gavult!
Scary Monsters: I know I was listening to this by my junior year, because I lent it to a kid who left my high school after that year. I remember him saying "I wish he'd sing normal like on the second track". Oddly enough, that was my first reaction after listening to that album, but it's probably my all time favorite Bowie album.
Let's Dance: I held out for that one...I want to say 2002. I know I played it when I worked at my brother's bar sometimes.
Tonight: I think I ended up downloading this in 2004. Pretty shitty album.
Never Let Me Down: I think I downloaded this around 2002. I remember listening to it a lot that summer at my mother's house, while having a long distance relationship with a hell beast (that's also another story).
Black Tie, White Noise: I remember listening to "Miracle Goodnight" a lot in the summer of '99, so I imagine I got it around then, possibly before. I had a big crush on this Korean girl that summer, so I used to watch Korean TV a lot on cable to have something to talk to her about. Of course it was over email, but we went back and forth every day. I think it's because I called her beautiful in her yearbook. Her mother looked younger then she did.
Outside: This was the first album that I downloaded ever. Right when Napster hit in the first few weeks of College in '99. The downfall of CDs. I was in love with track 3...what was that song called? The Heart's Filthy Lesson! I believe this album played the first time I was with this awful college girlfriend.
Earthling: Someone gave this to me during the summer of '98 (she was multi-colored hair and overweight), but the CD was scratched and I couldn't get into it. I believe that I started to fall in love with it around 2000/2001 as I went for long walks around NYC for exercize. Good walking album. I think I've bought it like 3 times, cuz I kept losing it.
hours...God this album sucked. I got it the day it came out in 1999, but I remember streaming the tracks beforehand on MTV.com or something and saying to myself "I usually hate Bowie's albums, but grow to love them. This one isn't like the rest". It reminds me of Freshman year of college and hanging out in 3rd North. I remember everyone calling me in when Bowie presented an award at the MTV music awards in '99. I also remember Guns N Roses' new song premiered that night...it was also their last new song, and crappy.
Heathen: Right when it came out in the summer of '02. This was a great album and I listened to it alot around the same time I listened to "Never Let Me Down". I remember emailing tracks to my awful long distance girlfriend who was awful.
Reality (the only album title I had to look up), came out right after I shot my short in 2003. I remember never getting into this, playing it alot as I showered while living at my mom's house and still dating the long distance girlfriend (who was living in NYC at the time and cheating on me a lot...again, another story). I remember buying it and making her sit down at a Starbucks while I listened to the album over and over again.

OK, well that covers my junior year. Except, well, I did spend one Saturday pacing back and forth listening to "Thuglife", which was sort of a Tupac album. I fell in love with this crazy looking girl and I wanted despirately to ask her out, but I didn't have the balls. So...for some reason that gangsta album spoke to me.

Senior Year (98-99):
Fall: You Are What You Is (Frank Zappa, bought at the wonderous Princeton Record Exchange, a day when I bought like 3-4 Zappa albums..Friday night. Mr. Liwoz surprised me by telling me he loves Zappa), I remember listening to Paul McCartney's greatest hits a bunch and staring at a screen saver, Diamond Dogs (I still think about the first Grand Theft Auto, with me Jesse, Alan and Jake sitting around...we used to leave Alan playing and sometimes he didn't notice we left him; even for hours), Trout Mask Replica (my friend Jesse gave that to me when he didn't understand it. Actually, I think I just stole it from him). Another memory...I traded a bottle of Vodka that my brother gave me to this guy for the 3 CD Lather set from Zappa, which he bought on Amazon.com.
Spring: Jethro Tull (Cross Eyed Mary brings me right back to directing the senior play), Young Americans (Right blew me away, I repeated the middle 8 soooo much), We're Only in it For The Money (which was the first time I ever saw a CD-r, my friend Jake burned it for me!)

That's about all I can remember about music in high school. I'm sure more will come to me.

What does that say about me? Well, first, I had a hopelessly outdated taste in music...barely anything contemporaneous there. Second, well, I remember more about music then I do high school. I guess it's just easier to remember a feeling then anything that actually happens to you. The warmth I feel listening to Diamond Dogs (which is a downer album) is directly related to hazy memories of sitting around playing computer games. Those may very well be some of the happiest times of my life, even if I can't remember them. At least the music still reminds me of what it's like being so happy.

I think about each of those semesters (and summers) and the music really relates to how I was feeling at the time; I was so angry at age 14, that I was listening to screaming grunge. As I got happier, so did my musical taste. Actually, it's probably as I got weirder, so did my musical taste. Which reminds me, I didn't put Syd Barrett on here, because I listened to him almost exclusively over the summer of '98. Which, as I said, is another story onto itself.

I barely remember my life, but I remember the Soundtrack. It's just like the movie "Singles". I AM THE MOVIE SINGLES!

Ratrick and the Choker

I worked at a certain unfortunate internet company from May of 2006 until two weeks ago. I call them unfortunate, not because I worked there, but because the company is so ill managed that they make something that's poorly managed look entirely well managed. I wish them nothing but ill will and I pray for nothing but failure, and in certain employee's cases, a horrid case of genital herpes.

It might sound like I was fired...that is not true. I quit with all the audacity of hope of a Barack Obama novel. That's for damn sure.

Anyways, if I was to try to pick out a particular incident that defined my unfortunate internet company's unfortunate hiring practices...this would be it: An incompetent manager and a semi-retarded subordinate with all the creative talent of a CW reality show producer.

There are insignificant times in your life, which are sort-of worth remembering; nothing "life shaping" like a first kiss or the first day on your first job...but the kind of story that you recount amongst friends if something apropos came up.


One such story involves new years 1996 when my friend Rachel J and I signed on to AOL chat rooms, pretended to be an underage girl, had cyber sex with old men, then told them as they were climaxing that we were young boys.

I remember with GLEE when one said "I'm going to report you to AOL!"
I wrote back, "Report what? That you're having cybersex with a teenage boy?"
When they didn't respond, I came back with, "huh...loser"?
To which they retorted with wit straight from Thurber, "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!"

I guess me and Rachel were the original "To Catch a Predator". Good times.

Anyway, the point of my story...well, there's no actual point, but I do have a ripping good yarn that I would like to recount at a bar one day.

The Story of Ratrick and The Choker

I had been working with The Choker for a little over a year. She was my producer and generally an aimable young lass. Occasionally, during a video shoot, she would interject "would the shot look better if you...?" or, "shouldn't she say the line like this?". But I simply dismissed her suggestions and she generally wouldn't follow up.

I know it was all good natured, and generally came out of a false sense of equality that I had fostered. Sure, she worked FOR me, not WITH me...but did I need to remind her that? As long as she was getting her job done, she could tell me how to write and direct, because frankly, I couldn't give half a shit.

Then she took a two week vacation. When she got back, things changed. It must have been one of those revelatory "what am I doing in my life?" types of vacations. (not the "sit on my ass and watch British Sitcoms", which I much prefer). Her suggestions were now not so easily dismissed and the orders that I gave were not so kindly received.

I told her to make phone calls, she said "why don't you make the phone calls?". I told her to organize a shoot, she said "why can't you help out?", I told her to "be my producer" and she said "Suck my vagina, bitch". Yet, she always protested that nothing was different.

One time, I brought my feelings about this to her attention.

I calmly ask her:

"Are you ever upset at me? I'm concerned that you're holding something in."

Her eyes began to water and she started to wave her hands near her head, as if the room had magically transported itself from Los Angeles to the Shara desert. There were definitely no camels around.

"No, nothing's ever wrong. Everything's fine."
"Well, I can tell you're upset with me sometimes, so I was hoping you'd tell me why, so we can fix it"
"I've NEVER been upset with you. Tell me when I've EVER been upset with you!?"
"Well, off the top of my head, what about that time I asked you to make phone calls and you told me 'to make them myself'. Or how about that time I told you to get the shoot together and you told me that you wouldn't do it?".
"OK, fine...those were the ONLY two times I've EVER been upset with you. Everything is fine between us".
She then excused herself and ran out with a coworker. I stuck my head outside, saw her flailing her arms like a drowning retard and heard this snippet:
"when I was hired...this isn't what was supposed to happen!"

OK, I thought. BAD IDEA. Never again will I bring anything to her attention, because she's completely insane.

Well, a few months passed, and she still behaved the same way. Co-workers came up to me and said "Why does The Choker hate you so much?". I always just shrugged. Like Atlas, except much less poetic. There was nothing to be done.

This is where Ratrick comes in. I'll preface this by saying that Ratrick is even more insane then The Choker. He's my supervisor...a short, stubby nothing of a man who tries to rule with an iron fist, yet is crippled by the fear of being replaced. His favorite pastime is dragging me along with him for a 45 minute car ride where he questions my loyalty to him. He begs for constant reassurance; "yes, Ratrick...I'm not talking to management about you", "yes, Ratrick, I DO think everyone else is out to get you"

This is what he said to me the first week that I met him.

We were sitting together late one night and I was on my way home;

"Matt," He said with cadence and mannerisms of a Sopranos character, "If you're my friend, I'm the best friend you'll ever have. But...don't cross me...if you cross me, I'm the WORST enemy you'll ever have". He grinned a faux-fiendish grin and stared deeply in my eyes. "Go home to your woman, Matt". "Have a good night, Matt".

All I could do was leave the "Goodfellas" scene study and laugh. What a fucking douchbag of a pathetic loser.

Anyways, he enters our story one day when I'm having another experience with the lovely Miss Choker.

I was given some stupid shoot to manage. I was also busy doing something else, so Choker took full reign and assigned positions. Per her decision, my position was "sitting on the computer doing nothing".

I pulled her aside and said "I wish you wouldn't tell people what I'm supposed to do"
Normally, a big, fake smile is plastered all over her face. That went away quickly.
"Not to go tit for tat, but you ALWAYS tell people what I should be doing"
Now, my response to this should have been 'yes, that's true, because I'm your boss'...but it wasn't. I just said "I feel marginalized enough and I don't need to feel more marginalized".

She walked out in a huff. Or was it a minute and a huff? I can't remember.

Ratrick immediately popped his head in and nodded towards his car and told me to "get in". Great. Another of his fucking loyalty tests. I didn't need that.

After I was kidnapped, Ratrick and I talked about the Choker. I expressed to him that I thought she was upset with me and that she really didn't want me telling her what to do.

"But you're her fucking boss. Did you tell her you're her fucking boss?"
"No, it would just start shit again. I don't want to go through that"
"I'll talk to her"
"Please don't"
"No, I'll talk to her and tell her it was something I observed"
"Please don't talk to her. This isn't a 'please don't talk to her, but actually talk to her because I don't want to tell you to talk to her, but you should', this is a 'please don't fucking talk to her'. It's only going to make things worse".
"OK".

CUT TO: MONDAY MORNING!

The Choker and I sit quietly discussing our weekends. I visited my brother and I didn't pay attention to what she said.

Ratrick came in and closed the door behind him. "Are you fucking serious?" I thought.

Emotions began to run through my head. Do I shake my head? Do I wave my arms? Is it smoke signals? DON'T FUCKING DO THIS!

He sits down.

"Now, a matter has been brought to my attention. Normally I would bring this to HR, but I don't want to get anyone else involved, we can't look weak".
The Choker looked at me "what the fuck is he talking about?"
I looked back at her "yeah, what the fuck is he talking about? DEAR GOD, PLEASE MAKE HIM STOP".

"Matt has come to me and told me that he's having a problem with you. Choker, Matt is your boss, OK?"

Choker begins to cry. Of course, I thought, what a completely true, yet unfortunately bullshit thing to say, I thought. What an ASS, I thought.

"Matt, do you have anything to add?"

"No"

"Choker?"

"I think MATT should say something, it's his thing"

She looked at me as if I was Hitler raping her dog while setting her vagina on fire. I needed to say something...

"Listen, Ratrick, I respect the fact that you wanted to be a manager in this situation, but I didn't want to do this. This wasn't necessary".

He looked at me with disdain. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED TO SAY? Is this a porn film? Should I have slapped my dick on her face and said "suck it whore?" Sure, I may have dreamt about being in that situation, but those are mere idle reveries. A pipe dream, as it were.

I was sitting in a windowless office with half a desk, a hysterical girl and a huge douchebag. I had to chose which person I needed to placate. SHOULD she have been so upset? NO. But I knew this would happen.

Ratrick lost and he knew it. Bad idea, remember? I told you NOT TO DO IT. It wasn't worth it homey, and now you have one angry employee and another one who is crying so much she can't breathe. He needed to retreat, and like a Frenchman, he backed out of the room.

"OK, you two..." If I was writing the situation, he would have thrown down something that exploded and ran out. I closed the door behind him.

She was crying so hard that she couldn't breathe. She was literally choking on her words...I felt like she needed to go to a hospital..."I--I--I--need to go home". This is what you get when you NEVER talk about what's on your mind...NEVER tell people what you want in life. You can't do that. You don't bottle up all your feelings until you are pushed to the point of exploding in an emotional fireball. Talk about things, tell me I'm being an asshole, whatever. Even if I don't change, at least you have the pride of knowing you told me...Jesus Christ.

Yes, I've been in therapy for 15 years. The idea of being crumpled up into an emotional ball is repellent to me. You end up being another loser holding back, choking on your own words, crying in a windowless room with half a desk at a go-nowhere job working for some guy who doesn't care how your weekend went.

Anyway, I calmed the Choker down and she let loose on Ratrick. "how dare he" this and "what an asshole" that. The funny thing is, I felt the same way. Yes, he said what was on my mind, but it wasn't worth it. I tried once before and failed. The job didn't mean enough to me to try again. This wasn't a marriage, there were no long term considerations.

So, oddly, the Choker and I are closer then ever. Sure, it's purely due to mutual hatred of a common foe, but hell, Stalin and Churchill were friends for a while, what about Manson and the Choker? I'm way sexier then either of those two, anyway.

Ratrick pulled me aside the other day and said "let me take you for a ride"...another car-stravaganza. I didn't want to go, but he told me "15 seconds of your time". Those 15 seconds became 30 minutes.

He said "it seems like you and the Choker are banding together against me".
I assured him that wasn't the case, and more importantly (to him, at least)...I wasn't talking about it with management. It was his fuck up, he knew, and he was scared that someone would find out.

He ended our conversation with a lovely little threat; "don't complain about this to management. They told me they wanted to replace you and The Choker because you complain so much". Two hours earlier management told me I was the most important creative person at the company...so Ratrick can suck his lies.

Anyway, I left the car and my phone rang. It was the Choker.

She said "Are You Alone?"
I said "Yes"
"Well, I was calling because I saw Ratrick dragged you into the car again. I thought I could call and you could use it as an excuse to leave"
I smiled and thought "Thanks Ratrick. You might be a huge, loser douche, but you sure know how to make people come together...even if it's because they both hate you with a passion".

I don't think I'll ever have a problem with The Choker again.


POSTSCRIPT: As I mentioned, I quit. Ratrick spent the next month pacing back and forth pondering his reason for working for such a craphole company. In turn, he was fired. Champagne bottles were uncorked and parties were had, but I truly believe that Ratrick was the victim of an unfortunate circumstance: thrown into a job he was entirely unqualified for with crazy people who were more incompetent then he was.

Ain't that America?

I'm sure he's doing better now. I know it must be hard being fired: basically you're told YOU ARE NOT WORTHY...and what more is life then an 80-odd year strech of trying to prove your worth? But I think Ratrick handled it in style. I've never been fired, but I can only imagine what it's like.

As for myself, I tried DISPARATELY to get fired...and nothing worked. Finally I quit, and it was a transplendent feeling. The weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders that day: birds chirped louder, flowers smelled nicer, women presented their vaginas to me, as if to say, "Fine job, Mr. M. You should have vaginas presented to you as a gesture of gratitude".

I cannot imagine anyone being happier then I, at least during the afterglow of quitting. Now, with a financial reality, and the odd fact that I've been offered several high-paying jobs as an internet consultant, which I turned down, the happiness fades into an unpleasant realism, but hey...at least I'm not with Ratrick or the Choker anymore.

As for the Choker, she's still at that internet company. She's stayed there, I believe, because she thinks it will move her career along. And I agree.

She'll be in the latrine in no time...but I do believe that's what she deserves.

Not Working, Day...Uhhh...

Well, here's an interesting one. Well, not actually interesting, more "ha-ha" funny. I'm currently working freelance, and yes, holy steamingly fresh-out-a-dog's-backside CRAP, it's wonderful. No more coming home and complaining about work. No more being at work...complaining about work. No more watching a movie and thinking about complaining about work.

God help me, why does everyone get so caught up with "work". Seriously, 99.9% of people aren't doing what they want to be doing with their lives, yet they get so wrapped up in the day to day stress of their jobs that their hatred of their JOB becomes a hatred of their LIVES. It gets all wrapped up, thrown in a blender, smashed into a pulp and spit out in one big diarrheal splatter. It's a sad, pathetic, numbing life. Much like a career in the entertainment industry.

Not sure what any of that means. It could be that now I am out of the day to day grind, I completely understand what a large bunch of bullshit the day to day grind actually is. All I hear is "I hate this", "I wish I could be doing this", "what are those red blotches on your penis?", yada yada yada. Well, forget about WORK, drop everything and DO WHAT YOU WANT to do in life. You don't need to quit to get there; but figure out the road and begin to walk down it. You'll end up where you want to be...or at least realize you weren't meant to be there in the first place.

Yada Yada Yada. I'll write something more articulate later. This is just a numbing ramble.