Reflectors

 I have misgivings about starting down the road that I did with Hard Times. Chapter 1. My first reflection was that leaving it hanging with the "what lurks behind the door" thing was tired and lame. I still agree with that thought, it was. My next feeling had to do with the story itself. It is a true story, a memory from days that I wish were far from me but I know are one step away at all times forever. Telling stories about my times on the street and my drug days is dicey at best. All of the people that I ran with at that time are dead or M.I.A. I have had to remove myself from the struggles of those years as much as I can and sometimes I feel that telling you a war story about me and +++++ +++ is bullshit because in the end I wasn't able to be there for him. It's a treacherous place to walk for me..... my mind that is.

Hard Times. Chapter 1.

 We had to go meet +++++ +++'s cousin, Zero, at a hotel in East Oakland, I don't think I can really remember exactly where. I don't want too know anymore. We had been running pretty hard over the last month or so, at war with ghosts. Paranoid, violent, overly alert, theoretical, deprived,and depraved. Over the last few hours it had seemed to me as if the clouds and the night were going to bring us to a new darkness. I was right, but it's hard to tell what you think when you don't sleep and you're living off of red meat, speed, and beer. We got to the hotel as the sun was going down.

 I'm always that I can handle a potentially violent situation, but when I was with  +++++ +++  I always felt that much better. He was a proven guy in a scrap and we were always tooled up. I don't think it would have mattered who or what I was with on this night nothing could have made this scene good. Nothing could have prepared my senses. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

 Zero was a casper. A white Vato. Norteno. Hardcore crankster who would shoot his guns indiscrimenately. He didn't give a fuck at all. Always ready to die. I went to high school with a bunch of Vatos and they had no hesitation ever. A pure culture of death. You have to respect it. And you have to expect it.

 Just before we hit the stairs on the way to the second floor hotel room we smelled it. It was an unbelievably think and acrid smell and it got deeper with each step. I had never smelled anything quite like this, but my immediate association was with death. I had had a next door neighbor die and rot undiscovered for a couple of weeks a few summers previous to this, and this was akin to that. My brain told me to run. My heart trudged onward. There was no part of me that thought that this smell was coming from anywhere but our destination. I knew it and so did +++++ +++. 

 We knocked on the door to the room and Zero answered it quickly and silently. The wave of doom washed over us. The smell was absolutely overpowering... blood, death, ether, gasoline, gun powder so many combined smells I couldn't put it together until I caught a glimpse from the crack in the bathroom door... 

Rise and Fall

 The rise and fall. Spiraling low and wide. Spiraling out of nowhere. Spiraling into everything that comes to me. My ability to reason ceases. The only thought I have is to get even. My ability to lash out is unquestionable. My brain has never stopped building these bridges that cross to my  oblivion. Don't let them know what I hold in my hands.  

Dead Rats

 I have killed more rats in my life then I can possibly remember. I have lived in many rat infested homes, let me pause and reflect. 

 There was a wharehouse in Emeryville, California that we lived in for 3 years where the rats were the pets as well as in the walls, some of the rats had freed themselves from the cages in the rooms and used to come back in and attack the the ones that were to afraid to leave on there own. All of the remaining caged rats in our rooms had had their toes removed through the cages by their newly feral cousins. 

 We lived in a house in West Oakland for a year that had disconnected garbage service well before we moved in, as a result the backyard was a 15' x 40' x 10' wall of garbage with more to throw on everyday. The rats at that house never came inside, they were in heaven , in many cases literally as my roommate and I would drink after work and liberate them from there lives with a pellet gun as they crawled through the endless pile of rotting wastes. Endless fun. 

 I lived in a basement in Southern Oregon for 2 years that was previously uninhabited and was used as storage for the dog food of the previous renters hunting dogs. The basement was dirt and the door to it opened up within 40' of a creek and some woods. I had no less then 6 rat traps set at all times in that place, they were everywhere. I rarely had guests who would stay for long unless they were to drunk to notice the eyes staring at them in the night and the semi regular snap of the traps, a sound that always brings a smile to my face. 

 I have killed them with traps, I have shot them, I have stomped them to death, I have crushed them with 30 lb. dumb bells, I fucking hate them. I hate there smell the most. 

 I have been on a killing spree over the last week getting 4 of them in the traps I have set in our pantry. I always spend time marveling at how they get caught, sometimes it's a solid shot across the skull, other times a smashed beak, or the dreaded trapped arm followed by a slow death and a lot of blood. Nothing beats mopping up rat blood, but hey thats what kids are for. After all these years and all these dead rats, last night I had a penultimate experience in rat annihilation. I have reached the mountain top, I hold the scepter in my hand...

 ...last night as I prepared to serve dinner to my family I heard that oh so cheerful snap. I waited until after dinner to check and see if we had one. We didn't. We had two. Two across the skull, a perfect shot, with one actually biting the food tray on the trap itself. They were laying directly next to each other in a line. Into eternity my fateful hand intertwined with there poor choice of cheese scraps. Life is good, God is Great, but Dead Rats is best.

Between The Eyes

 At this moment in time, 3:59 am PST December 2, 2008, I am obsessed with a song that I am trying to free from my head. I had it perfectly about 36 hours ago but didn't record the idea so I have lost a part of it. I should have known better, I have lost so many little pieces of songs over the years. To my ear the subtlest shifts are the keys to the song, a slight adjustment of cadence here, a slight tempo decrease there, this is what I have misplaced over the last hours.

 ... I am listening to It's Casual "The New Los Angeles"and Avsa "What You Don't Know Is Frontier" in a tight obsessive rotation.

... I have learned to respect Oscar De La Hoya over the recent years but I really hope Manny Pacquio cleans his clock. This will be a great fight.

... This week I will move my family for the 3rd time in 18 months.

... I am currently writing music for a as of yet untitled new Neurosis record as well as a new solo acoustic record entitled "We Burn Through The Night", the Shrinebuilder record is written and will be recorded in January. 

... 3 is always the right number.

 I would love to see a perfect storm that bring us all to the resonant tone. The great leveler. The greying of it all.