whoisjobe

Friday, September 30, 2005

a testament to not writing while under the influence

the following blog is for the eyes and ears of
mature freaks and geeks, who won’t judge yet
understand that I’m tiny and meek, unsure of my style,
an engineer, not a writer since, well, it’s been quite
awhile.....

what this country is lacking is a fcuking revolution,
the underclass, the silent, unnoticed majority of
America’s mankind
speaking out to bring about change
to rearrange the way which rich white right wing men
look at reality.

a small majority, minority, the playboy’s club of
million and billionaire’s who hold enough wealth to
alleviate problems of peoples and nations across the globe
continuing to pledge their allegiance to the
son of god, a man who’d reveal their cruel light, a
perilous shadow on poverty and plight, cast on the
meek

and yet i know not of what I speak,
it’s easy to paint with a wide brush,
read later
ponder and tweak
attempting to expose corruption,
unholy ways to be and see

society’s progress poisoned by our most revered,
our politicians, our
progressive thinkers who challenge doctrines and
radicals in humanity’s daily drama.

My generation, Generation Me, needs a revolution, a
movement or a voice to show legions of brainwashed
teens that life is their choice, their chance to
explore and expose, to challenge and grow from the
depths of despair and recession in a cycle of
perpetual progression. We’re stuck in square one,
consumed by consumption and driven to self
destruction, delivering our hard earned dolla bills to
cheap thrills and weekend fills of decadence and
debauchery, livin lives like present generations ought
to be, trusting our instincts and questioning the
answers,discovering new methods of destroying
presumptions and cancers
answering simply “where, when and why”
dreaming, indulging
getting high on our own supply

a new generation, not focused on itself, yet in love
and alive, something for the history books hidden
amongst myriad accomplishments, bound on a dusty
shelf.

i’m coming out of my cage and I’m feeling just fine
realeasing a deluge of thoughts loged deep in a tender
mind....

so I’ll tell you how I really feel, reveal, say the
word
to echo inside the ears of my peers,
my humble herd.
welcome to another year, another beer goes down the
hatch, one more chance to devour that devilish
heavenly sweet succulent.....
shuuut yo
mouth and listen.
as I contine to diverge
splurging on retail therapy
pleasantly lost in the firmament of my mind’s eye
a moment of sexual reverie,

sealing fate
a big fat fucking smile
as two naked bodies
gyrate,
lost in heat.

Monday, September 26, 2005

the essential bob dylan

Holy shit do I have a serious case of the Mondays. The dreaded, back to work, hopefully you’re not still hungover from the weekend, time to wake up, respond to calls, focus, pretend to be interested, make the man money, fight traffic and sleepy eyes, rinse wash and repeat Mondays. Bob Dylan is jamming on my speakers now, my head is pounding, begging me to depart work early and hide back underneath the warm confines of my cozy bed. I think I have about three phone calls I really don’t feel like returning. My timesheet from last week awaits completion, hopefully before noon or else that pain in the ass assistant will be coming around with her shrill sarcastic voice asking like a concerned mother that isn’t really your mother just an annoying growth on your ass of a person, bugging the crap out of everyone to get their timesheets in before 2 o’clock or else. “Sure,” I’ll reply, trying not to look completely annoyed, full well knowing she won’t be getting anything out of me until at least late tonight when I finally snap out of it. For now, though, it’s much more fun to pretend like I’m hard at work, type away nonsensical lyrical verbosities for my friends in cyberspace to relate to, sip on my tea, and wonder, “How does it feel, to be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.”

Raising my third cup of tea, TO THE DREADED FCUKING MONDAYS.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

well this is depressing. jeez.

Write for the sake of self expression, to escape this fucking prison that is depression….

This is fucking stupid
I have nothing to say, I’m over medicated, my room is clean, I’m lost….on planet earth. I’m awake and lost. I’m lazy.
I’m this
I’m that.
I’m not good at writing.
I work for a living, but I don’t focus on working towards escaping from having to be bogged down by monotonous calculations, bonuses which come once a year, angry phone calls about projects which will be long forgotten. Sure I’m happy. Wait I’m talking to myself, about myself. I need to see a shrink. I need to improve. It needs to happen soon cause time doesn’t seem to be slowing down for my broke fucking ass. Not necessarily broke, just misdirecting many feelings and emotions….not necessarily depressed, just comfortable with being unhappy…..happy about being comfortable, caught in a vicious self imposed circle…..on purpose for no purpose other than it’s all I know. I need a teacher and a mentor.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

read below

comforting words you hear.

She died tragically, less than four weeks after acheiving her goal of procuring a degree in teaching. She was so young. She was a drinker and far from innocent, yet 75 percent of my generation believes that sex by the fourth date is long enough to wait and still consider themselves of high moral values. She loved children to the point that she hoped to devote the rest of her life to sheparding them into the turbulent years to come after grade school, years when recess was no longer a part of the curriculum. Kelly was different, she and I couldn't relate on many levels, but one of my best friends was in love with her.

They met in a gas station some years back, if I were to guess I'd say four. The weeks and months since that moment, I was so self absorbed and distant, it's hard to pinpoint the exact year, all I can say is that he took much heat from his friends for dating a girl he met while they were mutually wasted, buying smokes in a Hanover Park gas station at 12:30 in the morning. They had a common bond evident to the two of them and their immediate family. From the removed perspective of his friends, they were a disaster when together. They encouraged eachother to live the (Miller) high life 6 nights a week. Their friends were unmotivated characters who enjoyed the company of cheap cold beer, cafeteria tables, flourescent lights and knock off wal-mart televisions broadcasting the triumphs and failures of the david's and goliaths of every and any sport one could think of. Spending a night with the happy couple at Season Tickets (the afformentioned suburban dive bar (as described by me, an opinionated city dweller)) was not top of the pops on any occassion save maybe the announcement of their impending engagement.

It was common knowledge amongst Paul's friends and aquaintences that he and Kelly were to be married. The question was when? Some put the proposal at about six months from this past July, others thought it would happen as soon as she graduated, mere weeks after she so tragically passed away, upward and onward to the great unknown, the place some called heaven, a garden I hope to God, exists. Paul's mom considered Kelly a daughter in law long before the thought of marriage entered his mind. His entire extended family cherished her, held her in high regard regardless of any flaws she might have brought to the table. If Paul loved her, then she was a welcome addition to their family.

I smoked pot with both Kelly's mother and her cousin. Kelly's mother was a riot. To me she seemed lost, forty some years old, yet ready, holding, and able to smoke a group of us out last July. Four or five joints must have been passed around a table of six that night, and we all spent at least three hours laughing our asses off about everything, anything and nothing. Her mom picked 13 drunk kids up from my best friends wedding to ensure that no-one would drive home drunk. And at the wake, she greeted each and every well wisher, recalling the moments or memories she shared with them. Such an awe inspiring display of courage and love through the hours of heartwrenching despair and longing.

Kelly was hit while crossing Barrington road late one friday night two months ago. She and Paul always took cabs home from the bar to ensure their safety, for they enjoyed their booze as much as their buzz. On that fateful night, Kelly left her purse inside as the couple left the bar to wait for a cab. Between the time he last set his eyes upon her tender gaze and the moment she lay dying in the street, little is known. Somehow, someway, for some inexplicable reason, she ran across one of the busier suburban roads in Hanover Park and was hit by a car travelling northbound on the opposite side of the street.

In an inexplicable twise of fate, the very car that hit her was that of a nurse who was on her way to work at the very hospital in which Kelly would exhale her final breath. Her life was ended. Her boyfriend was hysterical, left with so many unanswered questions. Why? Why? Fucking tell me why? And yet there were no answers, no explanations why he could no longer hold her close at night, whisper I love you, or share a cocktail or three.

A close friend of mine iterated a story from the service I was unable to attend. When the preacher asked God to give a sign that Kelly was safe in his hands, amongst the streams and rolling hills of heaven, dancing and singing in harmony with the angels, Paul noticed a butterfly land on the wreath of flowers he had purchased and placed near the casket. To Paul, the butterfly symbolized the solemn assurance that indeed her spirit was ok. With this sign he could live knowing and believing that the supernatural and mystical serendipitous acts in life might actually have purpose and meaning.

I received a card from Kelly's family in the mail this evening. A sticker in the shape of a cross helped to seal the contents, a picture of a dove and a note........

just when friends are needed
you find them always near;
just when shadows darken,
their comforting words you hear.

Tonight I tip my glass to the memory of a girl one of my good friends loved with every ounce of his soul. may she live on in a glorious dominion of eternal love.

sincerely,
whoisjobe?

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

a revision to a previous post.....


"because of the wonderful things she does,"



"Of course I don’t want life to be this way, steph!"

He tried in one final futile attempt to reconcile a love lost years before. Some would advise him to move on, but they didn't understand. She was his demise and his salvation. She was the reason he stayed on this side of the bridge, most likely the only reason. Looking back, it was so easy for him to see past all the pain and the hurt he caused her along the way, but he filed such acts under his illness, an illness he couldn't control, nor could he understand. "Fuck the world cause the world's fucking me," was his mantra, a mantra that applied to everyone who attempted to help, especially her. It was all her fault, he thought, foolishly on many occassions. Sure it could have just as easily been the drug abuse, or an undiagnosed illness, or even a trick of the devil. But it was so much easier to project the weight of his fucked up world onto her. She could bear the brute of his incessant worries, his woe is me, morose, nothing will ever get better everyone is out to get me attitude. And why? Because she never fought back. She never stood up for herself, for her womanhood, for the respect she so desperately deserved from the sack of shit that was her boyfriend. It was no wonder she no longer eagerly awaited his calls, heart and mind racing with the hope of sharing some random aspect of her day with the man she loved, the man she had hoped to grow old and start a family with.

The moments in which they'd been lost in reverie, an epic romance novel in sensual motion, had long faded into the past. Letters and 3 hour phone calls, dreams and destinites onced forged in their certain futures fell victim to the fires of lies and deceit and hatred.

And in haste he ignored the impending deadlines and incessant phone calls at work and attempted reconciliation with an email that was never to be sent.

I don’t want to sit at my desk day in and day out and ponder the would haves and should haves, the whys and the why nots. It’s maddening to think of how fcuked up our relationship was. What could have been the picture perfect union (and in many ways, was) exploded into a torrent of conflicting emotions and devotions towards pushing eachother away, the tiniest "issues" igniting rage and jealousy. You were an angel and a devil, you were my salvation and my down fall, your words brought me to my knees and your lies tore through my heart like a lion’s claws, shredding any hope at reconciliation or finding a path towards serenity and love. You were, I was, we won’t ever, because, because, because.

Monday, September 12, 2005

this is only a test. in the event of a meaningful piece of literature.....

i feel as if a dame is about to walk through my door, asking for a lighter, it's about 10 at night on a mild September Chicago evening. She's wants to talk, business......miles davis' trumpet sets the mood for this film noiresque scene....the audience sensing the sexual tension between she and I, private eye, sipping a bourbon, contemplating the murder of her husband, a former CEO of a major financial firm in the city. Could she possibly have carried such an atrosity out on her own? Surely they were happy together. She's the type of blonde any man could love, sultry, a slight baratone to her voice, an air of laissez faire underlying a scent of french parfume saturated with sexuality. The millions in life insurance wouldn't motivate this innocent belle to........and I'm completely mesmorized lost in a reverie, such an elegant distraction.....

it's amazing what a little miles davis can do to the imagination.

i bid you all adieu, whether or not you've read this far (although I'm not sure how you couldn't have and still be reading?) practice is supposed to make perfect, discipline is a supposed key to some type of personal level of success.....my writing is never disciplined, and I hardly practice. Confucious say, every long journey begins with the first step. Well I'm at about step 10,000 and have realized this is going to be a long fcuking walk.

"Finding the heart of your soul and chasing your dreams is a welcome pain in the a$$ when you're hyped up on enough happy pills to make it through the fog and see the inherent value in accomplishment," my cousin once informed me over stale coffee and soggy omlettes. In yoga, I'm learning empowerment, a state of being foreign to me. At an early stage in my life, I had mad xenophobia of empowerment. Empowerment was responsibility. To obtain any sort of empowerment meant perpetual fatigue from attempting to chase a thousand runaway dogs at once, forever having an a$$ that ached from being violated by the corporate shaft.

And yet in simply focusing on my breath, contorting my body into pretzel like shapes, blindly believing in my Yoga teachers advice that the process itself will lead towards a type of enlightement, I'm coming to realize that I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about in this life. None of us have any definite answers as to why we're here, what our purpose is, where we came from and what it all means. Many either completely ignore all those questions or are so full of themselves to stop and wonder and discuss. Others are so sure of their way towards salvation that they close their minds and push their agendas on vulnerable victims, seekers, and people looking for a positive social outlet.

I choose to read and write, to ask questions of my friends and family, search for clues in the serendipitous events that have befallen in my wild existence on this f'd up yet majestic world I call home.

So what, where, when, why, and how?

Do tell.

seeking for answers, enjoying a soft buzz of dry champagne, overlooking the skyline of my sweet home, Chicago.

whoisjobe?

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

self indulgent, woe is me prose.

dreams are such amazingly complicated facets of our being, whether waking or those caught by indian dream catchers. such depth of who we are as beings (or souls being hosted by flesh and blood) can be revealed: our longings and desires, our subconcious fears, past and future lives (am I being literal). it's trite to describe hapiness and sucess as the byproduct of a tenacious grasp on that which we've visualized (subconciously?) in our minds for as long as we can remember. And yet I'm coming to realize the inherently obvious truth to believing and pursuing that very sentiment.

My path and my dreams coincide somewhere deep within the sea of my subconcious, only to surface briefly during the minutes and hours in which my outlook on life positive. Humans and animals alike have an inherent need and desire to seek comfort, immersing themselves in a reality that's either the result of complacent acceptance or the incessant pursuit of exhiliiration and joy. Depression, fear, and anxiety have been so prevalant in my short life that such states of being seem correct and normal. Overreacting to simple situations, hiding from others for fear of not living up to their expectations, longing for material objects or contrived situations to bolster what little excitement for life was present at any given time: there were myriad fcuked up ways that I viewed life. I was a victim of advertising and transferrence, (or maybe a mother who dropped me on my head one too many times). I viewed the happy faces with which I was bombarded on an hourly basis as being the result of a lifestyle that I needed to chase. I wasn't stupid, I was merely lonely and lost and confused, impressionable and young and ignorant. Magazines and sitcoms and movies and billboards all sold me the idea that there was a path towards delight in everyday life: white teeth, sculpted bodies, fast cars, beer, money, an air of affluence and a laissez faire attitude. Surely if I had all of the above the equation would balance and I would no longer long for days in which I was "living the life" and chasing my dreams: an architectural digest worthy home by the water saturated with perfect lighting, a model girlfriend in many senses of the word, an enlightened mind, a taught physique and a Lamborghini in the garage. These testaments to America's endless opportunities were attainable. Success beyond my wildest imagination was possible through devoting myself to school, studying all hours of the night, getting good grades and working hard for the money. The answers to most of life's questions lay in a diploma, I so foolishly thought. And yet many days have passed since that goal became a reality and I feel empty. I'm travelling down a path that doesn't seem as if it will ever diverge, leading from a sparse forest of despair and tedium to a lush tropical sanctuary of inspiration and hope and meaning. As I prepare for sleep, I pop another dose of medicine to stabilize my anxiety and my moods so that tomorrow I can live as a normal human being, so that I won't overeact to the ceaseless phone calls from money hungry clients all wanting and needing their answers now. I probably won't, but I long hang up the phone and walk away gracefully, not quite sure of where I'm going, but aware of where I've been. Aware of the brevity of life and the power of dreams and happenstance and an intense longing to change, to grow and become the man I might not have ever had the chance to know. Sadly, subdued sleeping dreams are a side effect of SSRI's. Hopefully science can reach a point where this is no longer true. A time where I can close my eyes and envision a future bathed in hues of golds and reds and calm serene blues. I'll inhale deeply and awake bathed in a rush of natural bliss, believing and sealing my actions and words with sincerity and a kiss, aware and ready to pursue life.