Ramble On

You talk and talk and talk and talk

Yet...

What do you have to show for your rambling?

A friendly smile
A suggestive nod
An opinion louder than another

Blee Blah Blue
Whoop DE do!
Your point has been lost in an instant
Maybe next time you form a meaningful idea you will remember to write it down for the future
and instead of impressing dead ends
By being SO different
Or
By holding a stronger attitude than the last
Try to grow on your own
Sometimes weak
Sometimes numb
and you will never have to get nervous about falling asleep at night

You could learn a lot from biting your tongue
Even when the information is strong

You talk and talk and talk and talk

Yet...

Where has it ever lead you?

Down a one way road to another night of talking
Until your throat finally dries out
Soar

We know you do
Yes, I know its true
That we never get around to any of it
My mind may be strong and it can sure take a lot but I hold it in instead of letting it all go
No need to please the masses
By finding topics that appease them
Observe for a reason
Just sit back and leave them
Rambling on
Babbling on
just relax, take it easy
and I never have to get nervous about the walk back home

Ive learned a lot from biting my tongue
Even when the information is strong

You talk and talk and talk and talk

Yet...

What do you have to show for your rambling?

You Don't Blame The Lettuce...

You never blame the lettuce
for embracing what it's learned
whether it grew beside a crucifix
or inside a prison yard
It may grow up to be an astronaut
or wear your sisters clothes
As long as everything is done under the sun
and its dumb to smoke a cigarette
beside a tank of gasoline
to shoot an apple off the head of a baby
crying in the street
maybe a little misdirection is all one really needs
Explosions may sound beautiful to me...

Adorned in army green and chewing bubble gum
Yelling never helped to cure the vertigo
Vaporized
Bi-polarized
Glad to be monopolized
At least you had the cash to buy new shoes

You never blame the open door
for carrying in the wind
You never blame the shiny blade
for digging in your skin
Your temples have been throbbing
Your head is bound to hurt another day
as long as the doctors can identify your pain

You never blame the lettuce
for rotting in the ground
They've got scientists and activists
to point the blame on other things
like the fact that its not getting enough
action in the bedroom
Its not romanticized
No, its just criticized
It has passion for its mother and it has passion for its dog
One it needs to follow and the other tags along
and speaking of connection
The only charity that you have ever been offered
Was from the man next door who wanted
to burn
your house
down

Sweet anarchy!
New plastic slavery
THEY are out to get us
Don't blame the lettuce

Friends

We walk around like a parade of gypsy's
Not knowing which one of us is going to fuck, cheat, steal, or love
But we feel different
"Not much like the others." They say...
No.
Not us...
We have sifted through the muck
Like stubbed toes of our generation
Trying to find ourselves
Expressing pain as if it were a drug rubbed under everyone's noses
Reaching out to be numb

Even time is hard to come by these days
15.00 dollars at sun rise
0.00 by midnight
Slaves to the three part circus act
Fuel for tripe devastation
Explosive
As if there were blockbusters primed on every street corner
Detonated only by the madness of our fruitless desperation
We live together
We die together
Always seconds away from picking out our insides
and putting them on display for any on-lookers to wrap up and take home

Reflection

Dear reader:

The first of the three ignited quick like gasoline. Strong will for fun. Laying the night on thick. A couple bumps in the road. So be it. Sat around content and got pushed into failure. If you dream for perfection you'll get a handful of mud. It all couldn't have been any clearer but the underlying message of the thing waded under the surface. Waiting for the worst time to strike. Anger does get pointed in all of the wrong directions 90% of the time and this was no exception. He had a right. He had a cause. Something pure and I felt it. Like a solid slab of marble I felt it pushing me down. My eyes burned red. Things disappeared as others stood glaring from corners and as he walked away the dark cloud hung there suspended. All the bright smiles in the place suddenly faded to yellow. The goodbye's were expelled with misery. The earth stopped spinning to let me know that tomorrow could not come faster. Burn baby, burn.

This one is all about me but make sure you double check to be sure. The scales have never rocked so unevenly back and forth and back and forth. Poor thing. Fading halo. All decked out for novelty. Hubris? I am. Whats he mean to you? Nothing. But I'll stick around just to make sure that the family can never fall asleep. When I wake up I will love you and when I have nobody else to see, I will give you the crown. Not for too long. We wouldn't want you to keep it. "Scavenger. Rat fink." Says ant number four hundred thousand and thirty three. "Now get me to where I want to be!" He stood there fuming as red as a fresh pimple. Industrious and alone. A mosquito bite. The more you itch the bigger an issue it becomes and when the antigens begin to attack the antibodies of the human structure there is nothing left to do but tip your hat, agree, and walk away because this is what it comes down to. This is how we connect. This is how we tend to disappear.

Its almost a miracle Ive made it out alive. The last three days should have had cockroaches screaming for sunlight and princess' begging for toads. Even the air in the room would not force it's hand just to let us breathe easy for a moment. Fuck it. This is the world I know. Yeah. Just another day. Steam pouring from manhole covers. People running amok in the streets. It's all coming to me. The bastards can kick and scream and cry until they've forgotten who they were in the first place. An attempt to feed their blood to the soil. Its looking rather hungry these past few days and if a man could flail limbs and chew off others heads so consistently, who are we to blame it? Another junkie with a taste for gold. I mean, shit. What is the point of communication without repercussion? Am I right? Fucking eh. Someone has to show these maniacs who's boss.

Push

Have you ever wanted to cry
SO hard
That you push
and push
and push
and nothing comes out?
Not even a single tear
No salt
No liquid
Just dry
and empty
and worthless
Like you have exerted
ALL
of the emotion left in your body
and it hurts worse than crying
because at least with the tears
you were letting something go
Washing away your problems
for a brief moment in time
but you don't
and you cant
and you force it
and push it
but still
nothing
You end up sitting around wondering
WHY?!
there is nothing...
You want to cry like a baby
Cradled, snug in your mothers arms.
Like when you were a child
and you scraped your knee for the first time.
You want to cry like this was your first heartbreak
When you were 15 and your girlfriend stole your skateboard
You want to cry like you will never see the burning hues of the sunrise and sunset
again
You want to cry like your mother
and father
and sister and brother
You want to cry like your friends
There used to be feeling in doing that
There used to be something
but you cant cry anymore
and you want to
SO hard
that you push

For the woman crying on her cell phone

Today is the day I realized I had lost a book of my poems
A book I have lived a decade beside
I sat outside on my front patio with a cigarette and a beer
and I thought about how much that black book had meant to me
How much love and hatred was scribed in its pages
How it grew with me and seeded itself into my world
I took in the sights of the people walking by
Chit chatting outside of the restaurant across the street
Turning their noses in the air at the sight of me
"That many beer in the afternoon."
They would never understand
the loss I was feeling for my black book.
Not longing for the metaphors or expressions it contained
Not longing for anything at all
The couple next door seemed happy
The birds chirped and sang pleasantly from the tree's
The squirrels hopped and danced through their branches
Chasing each other for food
and even the sun was calm and mellow
as I sat down
Cast in shade.
You never really quite understand how much something like that means to you
Until the day comes when you find out that it is gone forever
Into the ether
Into an unknown realm

There was a woman two doors down.
She was crying hysterically into her cell phone
Tears streaming down her face
I took a drag of my cigarette and watched intently
She knew how I was feeling
and eye contact was all we needed.

Van Morrison Caught Me Watching Movies at His House

Nothing really frightens me anymore. No matter how far or fast I walk toward the Sun its feels as though a storm is constantly stalking my back. I have become a grim reaper of the party. The only guy they will listen to but not until they have gone over the edge. What that edge is only they could know. The happiness illusion for rattled souls. Put here as an ease of mind to know that one day they will have a home. One day they will become doctors or politicians. They will have husbands or wives and children. One day they will not be like me. Hope driven, over read, paranoid, sarcastic, and a chalk full of attitude mother fucker. Over analytical, quick to judge, hard to impress, and better off alone somewhere. Burning with green flame like an aluminum can tossed into a campfire. Toxic.

Nothing really frightens me anymore. Guns, knives, drugs, cancer, genocide, suicide, murder, Armageddon, or death. These have all become welcome signs that we will always rise up through the filth. That we are in fact still alive. Breathing through the shit and still colonizing like insects. As glib as that may sound this means that we still have hold of our heads. We can still silently cling on to that far away dream. The hope that whatever we believe freedom to be could still very well be in the distance for us. When that one day comes I will be there. Smug with a childish grin on my face. Prepared. Either for death or enlightenment but none the less, prepared.

Hunt me down Van. Swing that axe hard. I have been watching movies in your house and all I wanted was to simply meet you. You chased me down like a wolf and all the while I was staring directly into your eyes. Hunt me down. Show me I still have something to fear.

Backwards

I am living in a backwards colony. A colony of people who do not care to see, speak, touch, or feel. A place where art has been bludgeoned to death with a hammer. No more music with heart, no more writing with care. Observation has been tossed swiftly out of the window. Sure we get around and we may be lucky enough to have some friends and beers, smiles and families but what does that mean? When did the quest for knowledge and experience get over ruled by laziness and lack of inhibition? There has got to be something wrong with a generation of our young growing up idolizing apathetic floozies on a stage. Walking around in skirts hiked up to their ass cheeks. Complete, inelegantly with multicolored make up smeared grotesquely across their faces. Waiting around shopping malls or bus stations, bars and clubs for a quick one night stand. Plugging their brains into computer monitors and exploiting their personal lives all over the Internet in belief that a society like this should be 'normal'. This society is significantly far from normal. I cannot help but be beside myself when a civilization of people so obviously defective will rape, destroy, beat, injure, corrupt, kill, set ablaze or commit suicide for a form of currency exchange that the people propagated amongst themselves in the first place. Products of our own demise. Enslaved to a dream that will infinitely be out of reach. We are all predisposed to shrug the notion off now. The primary fact that we as people deemed all of these sociological traits as advantageous. Money, Time, Loans, Debts, Prisons, Poverty, Religion, Crime, Corruption, Racism, Violence... Its ALL our fault. Although we are more content to neglect the certainty. We are all to blame.

Success is an Elusive Horse

There has to be some way to make it in this world. Having not yet found my place has forced my outlook to become a little drab to say the least now-a-day's but I know that I am still young and I have always carried this in the back of my mind. There must be some last shred of opportunity out there. A way to put my talents to good use and benefit with a compliment toward the way that I would want to live respectfully and comfortably. I have never been one to succumb to other peoples pressures or advocacy and I feel as if this has jump shot me into the role of an estranged renegade of the modern times. My art is mine. I observe and report and it has always been this way, but thinking in these manor-isms has always rendered my glass rather half empty as opposed to it being half full. In fact, I feel hardly the least bit quenched. I am poor, destitute and broken down. I cant afford to purchase any food. I drink water and eat whatever I can find that is left in my closet. Things like Raman noodles and old cans of soup, plain white rice and a package of croutons and yet always come across a means for the drink. I hunt for jobs. I stagger around looking for jobs. I cannot be a writer if I have not gone to school for it. I can not be a musician if I don't drop everything and travel, tour or sellout without having the necessary funding to do so. I am in a position of no return or hope of salvation. I have no money, no time to give to my art and nothing or no one to fallback on for further or future help. If this truly is the age of information then why are we all sitting here like farm animals? I look back at all of the friends that I have and have had. Most of them pampered. Less of them like me and the ones that are in the same position travel on the same boat. I watched their parents give them money for schooling, food and accommodations. Others took out loans. I watched certain parents pay rent for a friend who spent a year sitting in a room smoking pot and downloading music all day as I went out and worked 8 - 10 hour day's to feed and house myself. I know its sinfully envious to regard things in that light but having done everything on my own from the age of 17 has become a rather burdensome path to follow in the era we now call ours. I feel like I cant even wipe my ass before checking my bank account anymore. So how is it done? How does one pull through the muck and grime without demeaning ones intellect, self respect, and dreams? Ignorance is bliss. Success these days has become a rather elusive horse.

The Antipathies at The Arrow and Loon (February 26th 2011)

Hello to all of you Young and The Restless blog fans out there! I'm sorry I haven't been posting as much as usual lately but I have been rather busy with working on my music. If you are not already aware of this I have been in a band called The Antipathies for a little over a year now and things have been going great. We released an EP about 5 months after starting the band titled BP (The Basement Press) all self recorded and produced by myself and guitar player/beat-boxer Scott Hardy. Although we are a two piece band at the moment we have been turning many heads and playing tons of local Ottawa shows and doing a lot of Open Mic nights. We are currently writing a bunch of new material for what will soon be our first full length album and we are looking for studio's/studio information to get it recorded at(If anyone has any studio suggestions or information leave a comment and I will get back to you personally). We have also been on the hunt for a drummer. We are looking for someone with versatility and style so yet again if you are interested comment and let me know. We do have a show coming up this Saturday February 26th at 99 Fifth Ave off of Bank St. at the Arrow and Loon. There will be no cover so all are welcome just remember it is a pub so you must be 19 or over and don't hesitate to drink and have a good time! I also wanted to mention how grateful I am to everyone who actually takes the time to read The Young and The Restless. I have been reviewing the blog stats every couple of weeks and I am never let down with the amount of views and dedicated people taking the time out of their day to read this blog. I appreciate it more than you know! I have included links to The Antipathies facebook, myspace and grooveshark pages as well as our gmail account. So contact us anytime and don't forget to comment, listen to the tunes, come out to the show if you can, and let us know what you think.


The Antipathies
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Antipathies/12027642804462
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/search?q=The%20Antipathies
http://www.myspace.com/theantipathies
info.antipathies@gmail.com

The Opposing Side of Mind

You stepped off the sidewalk
with that look on your face
and laid out on the roadside
With no forgiveness of grace
That car rolled upon you
And Sure it laid you dead
I wondered what it would take
to get inside of your head

but I know you wont be left behind
Forgiveness comes from the opposing side of mind

You took a fall from the balcony
and you leapt without a thought
You gave your last 20 for the hotel room
Told the desk clerk that you've got
Things to attend to
and so many people to see
But you smiled down to the very bottom
and went so pleasantly

Well, I know you wont be left behind
Salvation comes from the opposing side of mind

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds asleep
While you sat awake in the corner
Gazing at the choking rope
you strung tighter and tighter
Drunk on whiskey and old age
Without a lover or a friend
The debt will never find you again
As you hung like a flag in the wind

And I know you wont be left behind
Redemption comes from the opposing side of mind

Sometimes its hard to wake up
Without him inside of your bed
He left you like a lamppost
Standing luminously alone
A hearts a tough thing to mend
Especially when its drowning in your tears
So you went to 13 Vicodin
and faded dreaming of the good years

And I know you wont be left behind
Motivation comes from the opposing side of mind

Stop drooling like a slug
With a needle in your arm
You would think sleeping on a cardboard box
Would send you screaming for the norm
But everyone moves so fast
You got lost inside of the mix
You tried to cry, alone as you overdosed
"But it was just another fix.
It was just another fix."

And I know you wont be left behind
Look on the bright-side
At least you still have the power of mind
To make a choice
and have a chance
To wake up, to dream, and to love
and yeah sometimes these things are out of our hands
Just know that tomorrow forever stands
Strong with opportunity
Strong with new wisdom
That freedom does not come through the end of a pistol
So live the life and realize
This is the only chance you get to be alive

The Ocean

I was swimming deep under the blue water of the ocean. I was fully clothed and wearing a pair of black jeans, a t-shirt, vest and a scarf that floated freely in the water. I was able to breathe but I was aware I was submerged. As I was swimming further across the sea I had come upon a sunlit, sandy plain and sitting on the ocean flat was a school bus. It had not been there too long and I for some reason had a compelling sense that all of my friends and people that I loved were on the bus waiting for me. As I swam closer and closer I had come to see that the entire school bus was infested by a form of marine sea snakes, squirming and living in its interior. A massive colony. This was not a place I was welcome. I gathered my thoughts and tried to swim away as casually and undistinguished as possible in fear that the snakes might notice me in my escape. I looked back and it appeared as if I was free until one snake started slithering my way. It was completely white with decals of red adorning its sides and face. I assumed it was attracted to the way my scarf was floating in the water and the first thing that came to mind was to remove it and slowly distract the snake as I tried to swim free. Suddenly my back was met by a rock wall. The rock wall was accompanied by a massive staircase made of coral and stone. I could see sunlight at the top of the staircase shining with a hint of sanctuary if I could only get up. The snake was close, in fact it was getting too close for comfort. I tried to push off the steps in order to swim directly upwards rather than taking the staircase to shallow waters but I was bound by a strange form of gravity. The staircase had to be climbed. The snake lunged at my scarf. It knew I was a creature that did not belong. I started crawling backwards up the staircase trying my hardest to avoid the snake until finally it made its move. It shot at my arm sinking its teeth deep into my upper muscle tissue. I grabbed its throat trying to pry its slimy head off of my arm. I knew it had injected some kind of a toxin or poison into my body because I could feel it start coursing through my veins. Its fangs started coming loose the tighter I squeezed and I had pried it off. Still squeezing the snakes throat in fear that it might slip out and make another attack, it fought hard as I tried to climb the stairs with my other arm. I knew the poison was kicking in. I was becoming weaker and weaker and my eyes felt heavier with every motion. The snakes head had turned to stone with every stair I climbed and the rest of its body shortly followed. My breathing slowed down drastically and I felt as if sleep was coming on. I lifted my arm for one last attempt at the climb and then...I woke up.