Blogging for old-times sake.

This post is meant to be read in segments. I present a paragraph or two, and then I link to a song. As long as you have a Spotify account you can follow along... Read the paragraph, or two, then listen to the song. Generally speaking each song was the song that I was listening to while writing the paragraph or two below it. 

When I listen to music like this, I get transported to an alternate universe. I could have turned out to be a very different person. There was a turning point where I definitely made an conscious decision to get out of California... That isn't to disparage anyone who will see this and is still in California. But I have to be honest with myself. There are aspects of life in southern California that are better left romanticized over lived.

I might take that life over this one--depending on when you ask me. There are times that I feel like maybe I'm stuck in the wrong dimension. The wrong world. Like maybe this wasn't the way it was supposed to happen cosmically. It's not that I'm not enjoying as much of this existence as I can, but there are definitely moments when I have to step back and look at my life from an objective prospective. What the fuck happened? Why am I so old now?

Every once in a while I still like to blast-off, just get so faded I don't even know what's going on around me. Encapsulated in a bubble of introspective thought and loud music. But in the last decade, I can count on one hand the times that I've been absolutely so blitzed that I reach outer space. It used to be more of a mechanism to escape, but it can definitely be a catharsis. The marijuana smoke cleanses the soul.

I'm happy that we'll eventually hit a point where cannabis is federally legal. There's really no way that we can maintain as an empire without releasing the ganja into the general public. You want to eliminate racism? Easy, get a bunch of people who never met before, get 'em all high, and give them some music to share.

It's a temporary solution, but it can definitely be used to build bridges. 

Honestly, one of the best things that ever happened to me was to be in a school where I was part of a very small percentage of the student body. The beauty was that there were all kinds of groups. Everyone hung out with everyone. We were all in it together, each of us equally poor and helplessly caught in the ripple of the wave that was dying on shore as Regan and Clintonomics splashed on the sand in a foamy death.

When I was younger and I would get drunk with my father, he used to play a bunch of old motown like the Chi-Lites and the Manhattans... I don't think I ever realized that Dru Hill, Blackstreet, and BoysIIMen were basically like my generation's motown. It's not this album, but the Enter The Dru has some seriously morose motown songs on it. Totally enjoyable over a glass of gin & tonic... Which happens to be what I'm drinking tonight. Combating this cross-fade with a strong mix of cannabi. I've some strawberry cough, a mix sativa vape and some other breed that I bought a while back and don't remember rolling, but at one point rolled into a joint.

I'm almost there... I'm so close I can taste it.

Anthem won't be my only public domain text. I plan on doing a few other novellas and some short story and essay compilations.  If I can't get a job working for a publishing company, I figure I can recreate it on my own time, really take the opportunity to ruminate on Ralph Waldo Emerson or find new stories from the pulp era of sci-fi, or a relatively unknown translation of a Jules Verne work. I absolutely fucking love Jules Verne's work. Journey to the Center of the Earth was a massive influence on me when I was younger. It was one of the first books I ever picked up from the Scholastic book fair. My parents had given me $5 or something of that nature... I'm not sure what it was that intrigued me about the book, but I just couldn't pass up this Jules Verne novel. I was just barely into chapter books, but there was something about he word "unabridged" that I thought I could handle at 8 years old.

Already getting laughs, and I expected that. I'm not so concerned with impressing anyone. My preoccupation at this time is just getting something published and out there in the world and in the wild.

I'll be honest, the more I sit and think about my current situation, the more I smoke to try and get that shit out of my head, at least for the moment. It's much more informative and practical to have the cost of sentimentality in dollars rather than just memories. Sadly, there are things in this world that cost unexpected amounts of money and they feel more like family tax than a generous donation. I have to keep in mind that I would have let the money go regardless of whether or not it was for anyone related to me. As much as it annoys me that it's my family, and it annoys me that my family could have made different decisions, there's no choice. I've already resigned myself to the fact that there is a level of family that is undeniable and absolutely unbreakable. And at the end of the day, it was hearing that my parents didn't have a hot water heater.

This shit is going to happen. People are going to love my edits of classic novels and short stories. And I'm going to build a strong enough audience to warrant writing my own novel.