The trial of Squirrel

One memorable Saturday evening, Ashley Dawn and I attended slam poetry at Mercury Lounge in hopes of feeling inspired. When it was over we felt great. We headed to the Dom and ran into the infamous Jason Squirrel. He's always been a hoot and a riot when he's drunk. These are snaps of his never-ending battle with his wool sweater. I'm not sure if he ever tied it up.

One. Solo mission.


Two. here comes the distraction.


Three. conversation errupts


Four. conversation continues


Five. frustration sets in.


Six. give up the dream.

colours colours colours

BUY NOTHING DAY

is this FRIDAY NOVEMBER 26TH in NORTH AMERICA! And the 27th internationally.

I'm trying to think of ways to celebrate this day. Ways to influence even the smallest portion of the consumerist's wheel and put things in motion. Some have suggested dumpstering. Others have proposed placing pylons in front of targeted stores such as Wal-Mart. I even read one idea (for Americans) to walk into large US banks and strip naked.

Adbusters is pushing this day to help with the environment, moral fibre, standard of living, integrity, revolution, evolution, rebellion, for the children, for the elders, for today and for tomorrow.
Pick a motive...whichever you choose, do something about the effervescent entity that is capitalism. Help to put a cap on it, shake it up again, and turn it into something else.

We continue to be a part of the problem. We continute to aid in the swelling of the demand for things that are irrelevent, expendable, and lavish. When we do this, we create more supply, waste, pollution, poverty, inflation, recession, depression, plagues, and regression. If we don't show up, they won't build it again. If we don't buy it, they won't make it. If they don't make it, they won't advertise for it.

If you take part in BUY NOTHING DAY and thrive on the variance then perhaps you will find satisfaction in altering your consumer ways every day of the year. It's simple. Whenever you can, thrift shop. Go to thrift stores for your clothes, housewares, books, whatever! It's a greener way to shop and often supports a noble cause. In the summer, hit up garage sales when you're looking for furniture, or estate sales even! These are ways to purchase essentials under the radar and outside of the system.

For details check http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd and sign up for a meeting near you.

retreat

She stands there. Lamp posts lay ahead of her, shrinking in a line.
Go to this girl. Go!
to her and see what you yourself are afraid of being.
Look to her when you ask "Who is going to be my revolution? "
And she holds no stiff and long shaft to defend herself on a day when
She finds herself in a vice of two genders.
Two people she is supposed to be just to be
The one person she wants to be.
And is
The person you would be if you fled the scene of your systematically
Choreographed
masquerade
that you claim to be the purpose
Of your life
Of your meaning
Of your plan.
She will not avoid the hobo, even in the night when
Shadows and imagery are no longer useful.
She has confidence in the nature of her race.
She dissects all stereotypes and judgements to a grain
And it is soluble
And edible
And tastes of sovereignty.
And she is then clean of it after this ritual
When she can love something in everyone.
And is free to discover that which many people don't see in others
As they have reservations about the poet,
the prostitute
and the skid.
I will go to her
And to her I will become the anomaly that conforms
to a sensible
a better
a worthy
representation of herself.

moonstruck

I don't sleep. I have not been able to sleep a good sleep in years. Instead, my face burns, my cheeks are a stained pink, and I constantly turn the pillow over in a hunt for the cooler side. I stick my foot out from under the blanket. I put my feet at the head of the bed for a change of scenery. I do all of the routine things most people do when they are faced with a night of restlessness. Do any if these strategies ever work for anyone? Why do i repeat this ritual if it has failed me so loyally? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Dammit Einstein, must you be such a judicious mad scientist? Of course you must, especially with a name like Einstein.

On nights when the tears are too plentiful for my eyes to read pages in a book or to write pages of my own, I gravitate toward the mirror. I stare at myself...I stare at me... at my absolute worst. I watch my eyes turn a bloodshot red and puff up. I put my hands to my cheeks as if to assume the "poor me" position. And on occasion I provoke dialogue. Yes,this is a fancy dancy beat-around-the-mulberry-bush way of saying "I talk to myself."

To say I talk to myself, however, is a misrepresentation. I definitely talk while I'm alone during an episode, but I am not talking to the frail figure in the mirror. I'd go so far as to say that the girl in the mirror is stronger, and talking to the girl standing in front of her, begging for empathy. Every time I'm there, conversing with the reflective surface, I'm telling the dumb-ass emotionally overwhelmed narcissistic borderline psycho that she is undoubtedly a dumb-ass narcissistic psycho. In short: I take part in malevolent self-talk.

Disregarding how absolutely awful, cruel, and contradictory this self-talk may seem....it usually calms me down. Perhaps it's humbling to see myself while I'm not quite myself. I tend to judge the girl I'm looking at and out of spite I try to prove her wrong...to rise to the occasion if you will. To "snap out of it", get to bed and go fuck James Dean in my dreams.

There's a very large and almost overwhelming part of me that says my psychiatrist would have a problem with this self-soothing method. I can't understand why...I mean, who doesn't need to give themselves a good kick in the cunt once in a while?