Month: May 2003
Finito — Assignment 1 returned
Well, my first Long Ridge Writers Group was returned to me by Lou Fisher and the response was pretty admirable — for 500 words. Now I get to seriously start looking at my next assignment of 750-1000 words and I sort of shudder right now because I just can’t focus properly on it. Oh, I can write 1000 words on someone or a situation but it doesn’t exactly fit my assignment parameters of writing a situation up. Got to find discipline. Got to make it interesting.
Meanwhile I wrote another story that fit inside these parameters and mimicked just how I was feeling this morning. The problem was that this story is utterly depressing and involves a guy sitting on a bench with a gun in his hand, contemplating his end.. Depressing but it all ends up as a good piece of writing. Unfortunately it’s too autobiographical in a fantasy sense to really make me feel good but it came out cleanly and for a time it made me feel better.
Writings been an escape. An escape that doesn’t last but an escape none the less. Be it good poetry, be it these journal entries, be it short stories, be it instant message conversations with someone who can hold a conversation – it’s escape. Ray Bradbury put it great when he stated that you have to stay drunk on writing or else the rest of the world will destroy you. By investing yourself in your writing you immerse yourself in another world – you get out your own feelings, your own aggravations, your own fantasies and purge yourself of what has been hanging over you.
Of course that doesn’t solve problems of wanting a friend to comprehend what they did and how it isn’t as acceptable as they perceive it. *Sigh* I hate the phrase, “What goes around comes around” but that’s the only thing that gives me peace of mind over things. Sure my heart may mend in the future and I might be able to talk with this friend again but at the same time — the preferable way for things to be fixed is understanding/comprehension and not such selfishness. “I need this, I needed that. I wanted that.. I have to find a way around that.” It’s Erie when someone makes it that way. It’s Erie when someone assumes three weeks is supposed to be enough time for someone to get over a broken heart they helped destroy.
Disappearing Act / There Ain't No Comin' Back
Yes, I am back. Johnny boy went on hiatus but I didn’t leave you guys flat. Could you imagine me doing that? Never!
Had to take apart my computer and desk in general because the new one was set to arrive yesterday (it did — late) and I needed to just store everything in general because I couldn’t very well have both desks set up at once in this room. Impossible.
The new desk is nice — everything is so CENTRALIZED instead of being spread out on two seperate desks, it is awesome in that way! Though the color is sort of dull because it’s only one tone, it’s better than the pieces of crap I had been using as my desk. Now I have my Phone, my printer, my scanner — all on one desk. If I could find a place for my speakers, I’d have it made!
Anyway, just a short update for the sake of keeping it — well, short. I leave you all with my newest pissed off anthem that I penned weeks ago. It’s been availible on the web for a while (what site, I won’t say) but now I am officially releasing it to the world… To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – even if you can’t comprehend it.
There ain’t no comin’ back
There ain’t no comin’ back
Find my worth’s reduced to zero
Feelin’ less than a fuckin’ hero
Her silence tells the total tale
And there ain’t no goin’ back
There ain’t no goin’ back
Tore me down for the wreck I was
Ripped my soul without a pause
Singed my heart for a fucking cause
Chained me to your iron bars
You check to see that I’m “OK”
Wanting you in the baddest way
Now your crimes take away the day
Anything you say
Anything you say
Picked the lock and forged the key
Blessed by silent misery
Dwelt on pain and lost my way
Yet found some sun to stop the rain
The key to song is melody
The key to story is fantasy
The key to the soul is through the mind
The key to your panties is too much wine
You called me up the other day
Crying sorrows and whining pain
Tried to reach with a bit of tact
But hell, my dear, you’ve forgot a fact
You pissed on us and tossed away
Spit on memories every day
Shit on me and screwed the pooch
Wake up, honey! You were bound to lose!
So listen close to this lessons end
Your actions are nothing that you can defend
Don’t try to get me back on your track
‘Cause there ain’t no comin’ back
There ain’t no comin’ back
© 2003 John P. Fontana
Moonlight Drive
I’m trying to write a new short story that is going to be part of something greater in the coming weeks and months. A chronicle of short stories that turns into a short book perchance? I don’t know, we’ll see what happens there. At any rate I’m a good bit done (not finished at all) with the initial story that stood out in my mind for this tale but I’m not sure how I’m going to get to the finish of this “Chapter” just yet. That’s one thing you can like about writing – never knowing how it ends until you find a spot where you’re comfortable with finishing.
At any rate, there’s a key to this short story int he form of music and I was listening to this song over and over again in order to get the full of it and help me out with the scene – and now I can’t get the friggin song out of my head… For the sake of doing so, I’m just dumping the song on the reader.. The rhyme is really easy to follow and it displays how great a poet the lead singer of this band was…
Ladies and Gentlemen – The Doors:
Moonlight Drive
Let’s swim to the moon
Uh-huh
Let’s climb thru the tide
Penetrate the evenin’ that the city sleeps to hideLet’s swim out tonight, love
It’s our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight driveLet’s swim to the moon
Uh-huh
Let’s climb thru the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds that lap against our sideNothin’ left open
And no time to decide
We’ve stepped into a river
On our moonlight driveLet’s swim to the moon
Let’s climb thru the tide
You reach a hand to hold me
But I can’t be your guideEasy to love you as I watch you glide
Falling through wet forests
On our moonlight drive
Moonlight driveC’mon, baby, gonna take a little ride
Goin’ down by the ocean side
Gonna get real close
Get real tight
Baby gonna drown tonight
Goin’ down, down, down© 1967 Doors Music Company
I hope to have the story that the song is an integral part to online in the future but it is not the begining of the story – it’s a part of the story, that’s all. A chapter of a greater tale.
Homeland Security and NaderNation
I’ve been debating this on Skyscraperpage.com for a few days now and basically I’m still put off — or all out LOST – trying to understand the logic that Herr Bush is using:
Since the Office of Homeland Security came into being shortly after the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks against the United States, I’ve been trying to see George W. Bush’s logic in the creation of this new department in the first place. One might tell me that the Office of Homeland Security is specifically there to help “Protect the Homeland” and the only logic I can give you is this:
So is the Defense Department. Read the title of that department over: the Defense Department. Defense, as defined by our friends over at Dictionary.com give us the following definition:
de·fense ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-fns)
n.
1. The act of defending against attack, danger, or injury.
2. A means or method of defending or protecting.
3. Sports. The act or an instance of defending a championship against a challenger: will box in his third defense of his title.
4. An argument in support or justification of something. See Synonyms at apology.
5. Law.
The action of the defendant in opposition to complaints against him or her.
The defendant and his or her legal counsel.
6. The science or art of defending oneself; self-defense.
7. (often defns) Sports.
Means or tactics used in trying to stop the opposition from scoring.
The team or those players on the team attempting to stop the opposition from scoring.
8. The military, governmental, and industrial complex, especially as it authorizes and manages weaponry production.
Wowwie, gee whiz, lookie here.. There are so many definitions to Defense but the key to it all that keeps coming back to is guarding or protecting. Does this mean the Office of Homeland Security gives the Defense Department a chance to be the Offense department? Is this like Los Buccaneeros firing Tony Dungy for the sake of hiring Jon Gruden and being able to take what they want instead of protect what they have?
I made an analogy that Dungy used to preach and I firmly believe in – Defense wins championships. You streamline, you get back to basics, you do the basics really well and you will have success through that. The US Government doesn’t believe this though. Why would they? They have the biggest military in the world (one that has not been tested by full scale war – thank god – since WWII) and only have use for it in an offensive capacity. No one figured that the military might be better if it was tied together and not so many loose branches. That’s part of the reason 9-11 happened: red tape and bureaucratic bullshit and loose ties between government agencies. If the CIA and the FBI were one intelligence and Investigative agency instead of two units, they wouldn’t have ignored each others warnings. If the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines were all one entity instead of 4 groups that resent each other, maybe we would have seen air force jets scrambled a lot faster than they were on the morning of 9-11? Or less cost in waging war for that matter?
Homeland Security is a farce. They aren’t even in charge of those dandy Color Coded warning levels that they keep pushing on us to warn against possible terrorist actions. The Justice department was originally in charge of that, and now the President and upper administration officials are overseeing it.
In other news, I’m annoyed at the Green Party and Ralph Nader just a tad right now. There is a common enemy for those who are moderate or on the left side of the political fence right now and that’s the entire Bush administration. Ralph’s got political ambitions and it would be wise for him to get somewhere in the political world for both the Green Party sake and his own – but he’s aiming real high with the presidency. Right now we need a unified left and having the Greens and the Dems wage war is not the way that it’s going to happen. It would be better if Nader was running for Senate or the House of Representatives.
But Ralph won’t. He’s got ego to go along with his beliefs.
I love the guy – I really do – but at the same time I don’t want to see what another 4 years of George W. Bush will give to the American people and the world. They are an elitist group as is that gives money back to the rich and steals from the poor – they use a false sense of patriotism to push their will, etc. It’s manipulation on the masses and it must end and I don’t see Ralph as a legit way to get things to that end. The Green Party in the United States needs to continue building up from the ground up and having someone run for president (who isn’t even allowed to debate with the other Presidential candidates) is not a strong way to build things.. Especially when the left is already angry with Nader for getting enough votes to put Bush into office.
I’m a registered Green and I am supporting Howard Dean or Bob Graham as of right now. I don’t want the other fence-poll Democrats. If they (the fence-poll Democrats) end up with the nomination, I may very well vote for a Green, but if Dean or Graham end up with the nomination – they have my vote fully.
eXistenZ
What does life amount to? Absent of all the emotions and all of the material stuff? What does existence amount to, or the human soul?
In simple imagery, I think of life as stretch of beach that goes on for no set length, no known distance, endlessly spanning north to south, or east to west. Is there something beyond this shore? Of course there is. But we aren’t able to see it. Heck, we aren’t even able to comprehend it. We’ll get back to that in a minute.
So before you lay an endless stretch of white sandy beach. The granules packed pretty loosely as there aren’t many people walking along this shore to pack things down. There have been those to walk along it before or at least they have been there in our imagination. Right now it’s just a hypothesis that somewhere at sometime, someone walked along the shore and put things as they are.
Now take a closer look at the sand itself. You can see that the sand isn’t so small like sugar, but it’s of the thicker variety. Hardy, yet very movable by the tide and nature itself which always plays a part on any sandy beach that lies anywhere on earth. Pick up a hand full of that sand and let it course through your fingers until you have one granule of sand left. What does this amount to?
Your existence in the grand scheme of things happens to be one grain of sand on an endless stretch of beach, surrounded by endless others who’s existence borders your own.
Toss that grain of sand to the sea and you have just wiped out your existence in one fell swoop. Oh, don’t worry, there’s more sand there to take your place – those lying underneath you, waiting to be exposed to the air and the sun, and many who have been tossed to or swept away by the sea have a chance of washing up again in their existence until they are destroyed in whatever fashion sand gets obliterated.
This is a really good analogy to life itself when I think about it. There is so much that is beyond our comprehension right now that we don’t even have the faintest clue that it exists. I touched on this a moment ago by mentioning that there is life beyond the shore. You know that there is more inland… it’s a fact of geography. We’re not just a sandbar or a desert isle, that’s our current limit of comprehension how small we are.
Some people move on in a greater cosmic sense beyond their lives, I have no clue as to how much time it takes them to achieve this but at the same time I am sure it happens. Some of it is accidental, some of it is by nature, but it does indeed happen. Some of us move away from the shore and get mixed in with the soil that lies inland or whatever lies beyond.
But for so many – billions upon billions – we’re trapped along the shore, being swept away with the tide and washed up again later on during the duration of our soul’s existence.
Our live are nothing, yet we make up a beautiful stretch of shore together. If only we could comprehend the smallness of our lives, or that working together for a common goal helps us achieve something great – picturesque – that lasts for ages beyond our own time…
Now if I could only find someone who wants to be part of that picture with me…
Be Honest With Me
Be honest with me
How many times –
– Does a sparkle energize?
– Does a ruby’s glamour cry?
– Does an angel comb it’s wings?
How many crimes does it
Take to scrutinize
Old men hiding secrets
And their oil companies?
Tell me what defines –
– The tying of fresh binds?
– Silly little love songs?
– My desire to appease?
Where are all the women
And their honey-pots of gold?
With amber-waves of auburn hair
And gentle, pleasant souls?
Fortune running over me
And none the less is saved
Shadows edging harmony while
Fools and morons play
Be honest with me
I am not what I may seem
Lusting change
And Lightning games
With nights of ecstacy.
© 2003 John P. Fontana
Back to Reality
You ever have one of those days where it seems no one wants anything to do with you and you want to just slam your head against the wall over and over again? Or perhaps one of those days where it seems like everyone is in love around you and you’re th eonly guy/girl showing up alone to some function or another?
Yeah, one of those days. I’m having it now.
It’s hard to strike up a conversation when someone doesn’t want to open up. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine someone wants to talk to you when they keep putting off the details to things. It would seem like they were trying to get you disinterested in the first place so maybe you would get the hell away.
That describes my morning.
Now why does someone ignore you after a date? Yeah, that’s basically how it feels right now. I can’t help but feel I fucked it up somewhere along the way – my own insecurity voicing itself again. I opened up too much to start, or I didn’t do anything too interesting or whatever. Me me me. How fucking sick and pathetic is that?
Yeah, get back up and start riding that horse again right? How can you when you’ve been kicked in the head and stomped on by the nags you’re trying to ride?
More Dated Material
So it’s Wednesday and I’m still thinking about last night. I didn’t talk so much about the date itself as the similarity between the girl in question and someone from the distant past.
Though I can’t get over the similarities.
She came over to my place and we then went out to Insomnia — or were planning to go there — when we found out that Insomnia (local coffee house, pretty nice atmosphere) is now closed. FUBAR. We sat around inside her Camaro for 10 minutes talking and then decided to go to Applebee’s because she hadn’t eaten yet. No problem — off we go and then I find out two very important things:
1) she’s a vegitarian
2) Home Depot reminds her of her younger brother almost losing his finger in an accident
Applebees menu is a lot of meat on it with salad on the side. Shit. Should have gone to Carrabas or some other italian restaurant instead. Didn’t matter though. She ordered a chicken salad and most of the time it wasn’t focusing on eating between us anyway, it was talking. Though I admit I did most of the talking (on the account of my hearing).
I like rambling like that. I mean, we were talking for 20 minutes before we even ordered our food (of course, our waitress didn’t help things out too much either by taking her damn sweet time getting back to us). It was a lot of talking and it’s just what I wanted to be hoenst. I’m interested in the girl from the little bit that I learned about her when we talked online and I’m moreso now that I know more about her.
Of course I’m reporting too much of my personal life in here. Some people might say “What do you mean? That’s what makes it interesting.” while the few and the proud know first hand just what has happened to me in the past by reporting too much in here.
So anyway, had a friend over here again today and we shot the shit up – just talking, ended up surfing the web for a bit for jokes. Always a blast.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m starving, time to grab some grub.
Dated Material
Whoa.
Taking a casual aquaintence out for a date was something I haven’t done which seems sad and pathetic but when it’s someone off the internet – you must be careful. Tonight I had my first true experience with it and I am not regretting it in the least bit.
In fact, I’m trying my Freud to see what it means. It was conversation , it was hanging out, it was a link to the past and what could have — no SHOULD have – been if I had some nerve several years ago and did what I should have done and asked out a more than casual aquaintence because of my feelings for her.
It’s not that things clicked especially well — I was my usual self and I was just meeting this girl for the first time in reality. It was the nostalgia I had when I got to watching this girl and seeing her reactions and mannerisms and…
This isn’t the past. This isn’t who I was comparing this girl to. It was a totally seperate being with totally seperate plans for life and totally seperate goals. Someone that I am just getting to know. Not someone I knew. Someone I want to know more about – maybe need to know more about.
Anyway, she wants to hang out again sometimes soon — which is cool by me. Danny-boy wants to hang out when he is down here. Maybe a group outing would be a way to go about things? We’ll see.
Yes, this makes it easier for me to understand some people’s actions – but doesn’t forgive them one iota for their cowardice or Selfish at the same time. I imagine at one point you’re going to think “I guess he doesn’t want to talk to me…” That’s not quite the truth — you haven’t even tried to be a friend to me or make amends as a friend. That might work with the Erie lot (just put it off, it’ll go away) but it doesn’t work in the real world. Why should I talk to you if you’re going to act like you did nothing wrong in how you broke the news to me, or act in general like you don’t want to talk to me? Two negatives don’t make a positive.
Swan Song — SING!
So me and Bill Erickson got to talking about things and I had been really concerned with some local news I had been reading concerning the state budget, local school budget cuts and the basic needs (assistant principles, aids for disabled students) being forced to be let go in an effort to meet the significantly tighter budget demands (all thanks to Tallahassee and their lack of willingness to raise taxes to fund education)….
Bill started telling me about his childhood days and how, after moving down here, he was years ahead of the public school children. The same was true for me, we got to rambling about elementary school and I had an memory from 3rd grade rear it’s head into my mind while talking about Ms. Webber (my 3rd grade teacher).
Singing “America the Beautiful” on the morning PA at Sylvain Avenue Elementary School in Blue Point, New York.
Oh man, I couldn’;t believe how I remembered the story so well. Some things come to you with clarity and some things come to you really weakly. This story started out with Ms. Webber getting done with the roll call very early on one morning and having me (and someone else, I think) take it down to the School Nurses office. I was walking real fast trying to make it before the announcements go tot to the Pledge of Allegience but didn’t make it. I started to recite the pledge while walking down the hall. The principle – Mr. White – pulled me into the office because I was being disrepectful by not looking at the flag or something like that (he wasn’t reprimanding me).
Anyway, so the pledge gets finished. We’re still in the office, and immediately after the Pledge they would play a tape of America the Beautiful – which they did. I sang along to it like I always did in class and everyone in the office started looking at me (not kids – the teachers, principle, secretaries, etc). I got finished and Mr. White remarked “Beautiful.” I don’t remember the exact things that happened right after that but they wanted my name and my teacher.
So a couple of mornings later, I had gotten to school and was sitting in class about a few minutes before the morning announcements and the PA came on requesting me to go down to the front office. The class all went “Ooooooooooooh” as third graders would when they thought someone was in trouble. I got up and left. I can’t too clearly if I knew why I was going down there or if I was nervous because maybe I was in trouble? Now that I think about it – I did know what was going on.
I got down there and I sang “America the Beautiful” on the PA. Just like I usually did it in class (though in class I would sing it to myself, not real loudly).
After I got threw, I went back to class… Now, I didn’t enjoy Ms. Webber so much (and if by any chance and elder Ms. Webber finds this journal entry — it wasn’t you that I didn’t enjoy. It was the fact that my parents didn’t deal with me in the proper way when I brought home a notice from your class that I was in trouble. I think I might have been a year too young to be in 3rd grade as well and not focused enough) but on this day I think she had told the kids in class to react when I got back… And they did. I got applauded by them. I hadn’t expected it and it was a real plus.
I had done it a few more times after that. Then they had other people start doing it and it lost it’s mystique. It was real cool for a time though.
Anyway, my friend Kari from the University of Tampa is going to be heading over here soon and we’re going to go out and get her car title and just hang out for a while. Don’t know what is going to go on but I’m sure we’ll find something – and that’s got me worried.
