Click me to find your way

 I’m taking a break from writing in this blog for about a month to focus on the Halloween issue of The Whiskey Dregs. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time so I hope that it’s as entertaining and insightful as it was for me to edit and write these stories. A lot of writers have been hard at work to make this all fancy and pretty for you.

We’ll be advising you on what to do, listen, and wear to celebrate this all time greatest holiday with plenty of stories, poems, and articles to fill your pretty heads with. Keep an eye open throughout the month.

So drink up to Elizabeth Bathory and to all of you. May your Halloween be as macabre as mine. We’ll help you find your way.

Skip ahead to click on any photo to enlarge

Old Dutch Graveyard

It’s no secret to most of my friends and family that I can’t help myself around a cemetery. I have taken trips on the MTA North in the dead ass sink of winter just to snap photos of luxurious tombstones in off-the-beaten path towns such as Mt. Kisco. Going to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery with my camera was a realization of childhood imaginings of the fabled village graveyard

Washington Irving lies eternally in his family plot (the one with the cleanest tombstone).

Many will be surprised to discover that Sleepy Hollow wasn’t made up by Irving in his classic short story. Yes, it does exist and it’s beautiful. It’s not quite the bonnet and tri-cornered hat kind of place that it used to be but the village still retains the mood its name implies.

Sleepy Hollow is only 40 minutes north from New York City on the Hudson line and the cemetery is a quick walk from the station. Make sure to also visit Philipsburg Manor — a property that has been around since the mid 1600s and continues as a living history museum.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

What luck is this moment?

The Old Dutch Church

This is approximately where Ichabod Crane was chased by the Headless Horseman.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean but I’m sure it’s important

Old Dutch Church

Love this angle.

This is the grave of a Revolutionary War soldier.

The back of Old Dutch Church

Washington Irving

“That pencil’s gonna give you lead poisoning,” said a kid from a long ago memory.

I sharpened the number 2 again — nice sharrrp number 2.

I pressed it to my finger until it popped the skin.

Dirty graphite blood percolated from the thumping digit.

I found another finger and did it again

Then fell asleep for a hundred years;

When I wasn’t old enough to mix my semen with art,

I mixed art with my sanguine nectar.

I didn’t know it but from then on I had no choice but to write.

There are worse things to fear than lead poisoning.

Alex was a dirty motherfucker. His rebellious prep-boy antics led him to the circle of hardcore punks that I hung out with. He was a maniac from Lasalle High School who had the audacity to wear a tucked-in polo shirt while we wore last year’s JNCOs. He was a real piece of shit.

Curiously, we’d watch Alex race his beaten red Honda Civic up to the driveway; us leaning against broken down vehicles, tilting back beers; my friends huffing on their cancer sticks, amused with this parasite on wheels. His goddam New Order got lost in the honking of his horn and he’d pop out of the driver’s seat, pull back that retched mop of black hair behind his ears, push up his glasses and find the feeblest sucker in the group to extol his smart insults upon. That sucker was always me.

According to Astrology, I’m supposed to be a leader, someone who is compassionate, gregarious, moody, the center of attention but I got locked in Alex’s psychic grip and became his sidekick. We would roll through the streets of Miami, drive against casual drivers who were clueless that we were racing them; Erasure burning up the speakers in the back, Depeche Mode shaking the windows. He’d yell to the pretty girls, laugh when we pulled up. Sometimes I’d think that we were getting somewhere with them but then we’d screech away. Any of my protests were answered with, “Shut up. Stop being a pussy.” That was my friend Alex.

He started me on beedies, cigarettes made of grass or some other kind of unorthodox stimulant. When I was ready, he gave me a Marlboro. After Marlboros I graduated to reciting poetry. Years later I would read On the Road and remember Alex, immedietly making the connection between him and Dean Moriarty, or rather Dean Moriarty’s doppelganger.

I never had the balls to admit to my friends that I had written poetry. I had volumes of love poems, poems about religion, poems about my family, about teenage angst and confusion, about holding my own cum in my hands, afraid to touch it. I didn’t know that’s how poets and artists were. I didn’t know that someone else was tortured like me.

One night, he rolled up, burst out of the car with a black notebook in his hand, open it to a page and read one of the best poems I had ever heard at that time. He was a misunderstood genius – that I knew. He wasn’t afraid of admitting the saddest, most heart wrenchingly pathetic story of his life. I would stand back in awe of this kid who transformed from wandering libertine to a vulnerable human being with real feelings. He was still absurdly rude and disrespectful but that night I traded my dignity for confidence.

Despite his faults, he wasn’t all bad. One day he introduced me to Dana, who was one of the most beautiful girls I’d ever seen. She was a year older than I and fresh out of a relationship. Her curly blonde hair was pasted together with hair spray and mousse; the smooth contour of her face made me shake to the very veins on which my life depended. The fear that was lodged in my throat wouldn’t let me get a word in with her so I watched Alex and Dana talk and laugh while I stood to the side, quietly watching the details of her feminine gestures.

After the meeting, Alex asked if I thought she was cute. He said that Dana had asked about me. I thought he was pulling a fast one until he took me to Coconut Grove to say hello to her. She walked outside of a beach club wearing tight blue jeans; her smile killing me just a little every time that she did it. Dana leaned into the car, said hello. I nervously requited her greeting. Although I was still naïve to the workings of women, it was obvious that her smiles were mine. She was a little shy too, twirling her hair between her fingers and when the meeting became red hot; she excused herself and returned to the club.

We hung out a few times after that. I was still a virgin. Dana was a Christian and was saving herself for marriage but she still relented to deep kisses in the backseat of her car. One night, I read Dana a poem that I had written for her before driving to South Beach where we kissed and kissed with the seats reclined.

For the next week I called her countless times without a response. Alex said that he would talk to her. A couple days later, he returned to give me the news.

“You’re an idiot,” Alex said.

“I did everything right!” I responded.

“No, you’re an idiot. She said that all you two would do is kiss.”

“What else could I do? She said that she was saving herself.”

“Everybody knows that she’s an all you can eat buffet.”

That was the last time we ever spoke about Dana. I was hurt because I really cared about her. I knew she was leaving to FSU at the end of the year but wanted to spend as much time together as we could. I had no idea that she passed herself around to friends like that.

Dana wasn’t the only girl that I cared about. For two years, I intermittently chased down a girl named Ann when I was between relationships. We had met at my sister’s confirmation when I was thumbing through a collection of CDs at the after party. Ann walked over to the stereo and told me that she was into Tool and Nirvana. At fourteen, music was more than God to me. It was tangible, it was miraculous — it was life.

I was hanging out with Alex one night and I decided to call Ann to see if she wanted to hang out. She picked up the phone and we were immediately drawn into conversation. Alex grabbed the phone from me. He asked her vulgar questions about sex that was unsuitable for a sixteen year old girl to answer to a stranger. He laughed, mocking the elusive answers. Every time I tried to retrieve the phone he would run away into a room and close the door. After a while, he gave the phone back to me.

“That guy is an asshole,” she said angrily.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

Ann and I later dated for seven years and even moved up to New York together but the night she was verbally accosted by Alex was the last time I ever hung out with him.

I read an article over a year ago in Time Out New York by Christian Lorentzen called, “Why the Hipster Must Die” . It’s a passionate and contemptuous piece written by a talented writer who misunderstands, as most people do, the character of subculture. What he’s most upset it about is that cool now belongs to a less deserving group of people.

Describing the hipster, Lorentzen writes:

“Yes, the assassins of cool still walk our streets: Any night of the week finds the East Village, the Lower East Side and Williamsburg teeming with youth—a pageant of the bohemian undead. These hipster zombies—now more likely to be brokers or lawyers than art-school dropouts—are the idols of the style pages, the darlings of viral marketers and the marks of predatory real-estate agents. And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.”

For a writer to survey, analyze, and demonize an entire population and announce a takeback of “cool” is pretty stunning. Writers aren’t purveyors of cool. I’m not and neither is he but for every generation there is always a smartass or two who, during the height of a cultural epoch, turns the pistol of his pen to a scapegoat and pulls the trigger.  The problem is not with them.

In the 1960s an entire generation revolted against its elders values, including segregation, the Vietnam War, and women’s and gay rights. In the 1970s there was an infamous incident in which a disc jockey in Chicago openly destroyed disco records in Comiskey Park, setting off a riot of rock fans in fear of the demise of their favorite music. In the 1980s, it was the war on drugs — the excuse made to criminalize lifestyle under the guise of cocaine and civility. The 1990s surge of raves and burgeoning dance club scene resulted in the deafening decision by Rudolph Giuliani to enforce the antiquated Cabaret Law that was once reserved for illegal cabarets. Today it’s the multi-media sources of the blogosphere, YouTube, print, and television against itself. Just do a search for “hipster” and you’ll see sites dedicated to the expression of hatred toward the hipster.

I’m sure he meant well when he declared a “civil war” on hipsters but it only further promulgates the subject he so loathes. The title of the article doesn’t lack the irony that Lorentzen abhors. His piece was included in an issue devoted to all things hipster in an effort by TONY to voice both sides of this supposed subcultural movement but what needs to be said is that there is no such thing as a hipster. It’s a myth.

I agree that there are identifiable people who are the “darlings of viral marketers”,  reinforced by retailers such as American Apparel and Urban Outfitters. I agree that every girl wants to look like the sartorially gifted Karen O. but there is no pedantic chivalry like the Beats exhibited. There is no philosophical unity like what was shared between the Transcendentalist. There is no movement for complete and utter social change like the ’60s generation committed themselves to (amongst other things). Our modern time is all image and marketing and the media bathes in the conflagration.

What should be noted, what escapes so many is that there is still relevance even if it appears to have no meaning. People identify problems in society in the one that wears it the best. It has all been image and has been since the days of (god I hate this word) grunge. The simple title of “cool” belongs to those who wear, breathe, and identify their position individually, which can be anyone.  If there was any modern cultural heroism it died with Dash Snow.

Our current station that many disdain is really something we have all contributed to. Our desire for debauchery, attire, money, fancy haircuts, and nice apartments have poured into the same pool. We just wear different clothes. If a subculture becomes more apparent it’s because it has something to say even if it’s some kind of convoluted nihilism or anti-corporate/closet-corporate movement. Unfortunately, this kind of rhetoric isn’t limited to hipsters. It continues to goths, hippies, hardcore kids, punks, and my own guilty scapegoat —  suits. To quote an aphorism: “Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.”

It’s in retrospect that we look back at the old days with a different sort of eye, an older eye, a wiser eye — and most gut-wrenching — the eye of a nostalgic heart because it’s the ones we despise that will cause us to remember the best and worst parts. When we look in the mirror we’ll find that the scapegoat was ourselves.

I shut down while on the couch some time during Bill Maher. Jay Leno was one of his guests so I blamed his squeeky drone for falling asleep. Some time later, I awoke to a darkened room where I was alone on the couch.

The ornament of the moon had decorated the window sill in a short blast of white light, casting creeping shadows on the wall; my eyelids flickering red light, yellow light twenty-four frames a second. I tried to move but failed. My body just couldn’t budge from the couch. The lights stopped flickering and the room returned to black.

Somewhere in the background, way back in the background where I couldn’t see due to my paralysis, began a low vibrating sound that grew louder and louder. It vibrated and buzzed like a propeller plane that was gunning for my ear drums. Sweat trickled from the different regions of my body. From between my legs. From my forehead; into my eyes, which couldn’t see what I felt was a presence watching me.

I was nearly certain that a succubus was approaching and she was taunting me with a horrific coo that sounded like a single engine plane. There was no echo; nothing to indicate space between the low din and myself as it got closer. It was as if it was in my head. My chest was hammering from the inside by my heart as my body warmed with what I had perceived as terroristic activity from the Other Side. The succubus’ “voice” was right in my ears when my arms finally gave loose. I woke up again, shaking my stiff body upward and left the room for a safer bed.

Many psychologists believe that stories like mine account for many alien abduction claims as well as ghostly visitations. It’s called sleep paralysis and it’s no more supernatural than entering REM. This feels just as real as when you’re awake and if the experience doesn’t scare the shit out of you then recognizing how susceptible we are to the tricks of our brains will. Our interpretation of reality is based on the perception of our mind and we are so vulnerable to its effects.

I have always tried to reconcile my disbelief in the almighty heavenly afterlife. So far I’ve been unsuccessful and the arguements for religion or Jesus or God that others have made were always met with welcome ears. I don’t think people realize that I do want to believe. The idea of eternal bliss and all of that good stuff is ridiculously enticing, bordering on mania.

I’ve explored religion in all sorts of ways, all different ones too but nothing comes close to convincing me as one of these well publicized stories about demonic possession.

Here’s a video of the exorcism of Anneliese Michel – the real Emily Rose. Say what you want. I’ve read her case and even the scientific explanations sound just as crazy. There are many reported cases similar to Michel’s but if just one of them happens to be true then, well, that’s convincing enough to me.

You won’t be able to understand it because it’s in German but there are translations online. Very few had pictures to accompany the audio so I thought this was most effective.

 

parasite (according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary):

1 : a person who exploits the hospitality of the rich and earns welcome by flattery

2 : an organism living in, with, or on another organism in parasitism

3 : something that resembles a biological parasite in dependence on something else for existence or support without making a useful or adequate return

The hottest topic that has entertained me a while began with my co-worker and I looking up parasitic wasp videos on YouTube . What I’ve learned is that nature is more cruel and terrible than I had previously thought. Examples of human atrocities are cited with comparisons to the brutality of animals but it wasn’t until recently that I realized we still have a ways to go.

What separates us from parasites, for instance, is that we are often violent to defend ourselves, whether ideologically, to prevent attack, to hunt, or even as recourse. We have developed a complex mind that can make a decision to kill. What is more spectacularly interesting to me is when the desperate course of survival goes so far to imbue an organism with the instinct to find a host and implant its offspring. When we think of a parasite the standard hoarder such as a leech or tape worm comes to mind but there are organisms far worse and deviant. Think Alien.  Think chest busters.

One video we found from from National Geographic showed a lumbering caterpillar crawling across a leaf, laboriously carrying its body, unaware of the load of wasp larvae growing inside. They feed from the blood of the caterpillar, growing, and contributing a 1/3rd of the weight of their host. Finally, with jigsaw precision, the little bastards chew their way out but it’s not enough to kill the caterpillar and the worst is not yet over. After the larvae rolls itself into a cocoon, the caterpillar uses its own silk to knit an additional layer of protection, while warding off other predators until it finally dies of starvation. The scientists believe that the same virus that had infected it earlier, zombifies the caterpillar into a slave.

But that’s the parasite and in its own savagery, the nature of its functions are divinely perfect but it does appear to be the desperate reaction of a species with no other way of survival than to further its existence in this manner.

I also got to thinking about our own development. In a way, a sperm and an egg combine to form a parasite that sucks the life out of a woman until it bursts out of her womb in one glorious and violent struggle but at least we stick to our own. If I were to consider our existence as a whole then maybe we’re more parasitic than previously mentioned (oops). Deforesting accounts for much of our global warming problem and reaping our land of its resources to facilitate our species isn’t any worse than what the wasps do. But does nature implement virus and disease (parasites in its own right) to keep us at bay? We destroy nature and nature destroys us. One without the other could catastrophically affect our global environment.

The most effective cycle is the one that ultimately ends the existence of the host. It’s what keeps everyone in check.

Anneliese Michel -- the real Emily Rose

Tomorrow’s topic? Demonic possession — yet another parasite that has the incredible power to psychically overwhelm a victim and transform him into a hissing, frothing beast, unrecognized by friend or foe.

This is both astonishingly sad and impressive. This bird will mimic sounds in its environment to add to its library of mating calls. Chainsaws, car alarms, and people. It’s only a matter of time until the bird mimics the sounds of humans fornicating to attract the opposite sex. Makes you wonder what evolution has in mind for them. Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about birds.

The original is better but it’s a cool video from Don’t Look Down. A little more ragga and than the version that is released on the album of the same title and the director of the video appears to have been influenced by Vincent Moon.

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