pseudo lou

PLEASER

Pleaser

An ideal first date

A blind first mate

Give a bite of plate

Even hungry will wait

I’m gonna get you

I will know you

It’s ok to be despised by you

I won’t swerve

It won’t be long

Evade principle and observe

Pleaser

In reverse

I want to get a rise of you

Without any viewpoint

The less informed the more fluid

I am

American flag bandana

A kilmister shave

ham fisted manners

Clouds inside

No stance

I just like a rise

In the section

Your comments please

I’m talking politics,

I’m talking pop culture,

I’m talking complexion

You’re gonna cook me for this one

The stars and stripes bandana man

A pleaser

A reversal

Holding it together for the last time

A last stance

What do have I believed?

Pleaser

A reversal

Activated

I’ve never stood

Your comments please

Let your bullet fly

Try to aim at the Lost Man

For echolalia’s sake

No more Babel

I want you to know me

You please upon what I feel

Your comments please

“Your gonna cook me for this

“I’ve clowned your truths

Now you will know mine

“Nothing can stop me

Not even uncertainty”

(he had never written a thing down)

“This has been unfair”

everyone at the party trains their weapons on him

His damsels, his servers, his entertainment

“because I’ve never made it known

I’ll finally tell you what I think

now your comments please

so I may find my peace

“Your comments please”

CHAPLAIN

the chaplain says the consequence has changed. more to be done.

You’re going to convince me of a God?

No; that’s not why I’ve been brought.

You want me to behold within.

You will behold without. You are being let go.

I’ve done atrocities. My tirade has concluded. I am ready for Death!

This is no longer what it’s going to be, no matter what you expect. You’ll take your immediate leave.

You think living is greater agony?

At times.

I will do harm once again.

Then by all means, commit to yourself.

What is this?

Your consequence is overturned.

You are fraudulent. You fool me.

You have elsewhere to attend to. Your skepticism has no impact on the decision. You are free.

Then I will cultivate pain once more, in a great public way.

Then you will return here. Yet, we will send you back. You are prepared to die — I see this. But you are not to die.

Then others, at my expense?

It’s what you’d do, then it’s what you’ll do. Do you not perceive this to be a second chance?

I’m only surprised at the blind obedience of your absurd Justice.

We considered the paradoxical quality of this order. The original consequence is overturned. You will return to civility.

I have never been civilian. I will destroy and mutilate and hoard massacre until you have no choice.

We have no choice. You are free to go.

I will return.

Until then.

There’s a benefit to staying awake. The laundry is going. The trash is removed from the can and directly outside the backdoor. That’s like, a third of the way to the giant bin in the alley way. 7:33 AM. Mostly, I pity myself because — on this sudden, uncommon bout of insomnia — I am also sick! Why me? I prayed to you God!… Why Me? I need sleep!

I reach the conclusion directly after the drama: I obviously I don’t ‘need this’, since I am not currently sleeping. I get it. But am I supposed to be doing something right now? I hope to God I am, ’cause my partner sleeping soundly next to me is provoking me as her ambient drone music laughs in the background.

Times like these, I realize I am even more alcoholic than when I was drinking. Historically, I could knock myself out, or hit one of those early bars. Or stare at a wall contentedly. Now I’m just sober and agitated. I already prayed again. Let me have this.

The core batch of my amends has been prepped — with a very select few of them being completed directly! — as of December 28, this 2023rd. That’s just over two years of sobriety it took to get to that beautiful personal discovery I was dodging for the previous two laps. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to find, but I do know that I did not understand what the concept: Defects of Character was until I was pushed to do Step 8 & 9 the way I did it.

Sort of leads to a ‘Hello, you,’ dynamic with my conscience and my dark ego throughout every day.

In between those detrimental thought spirals, I make a point to entertain the theory that a hair cream containing caffeine would have the ability to sink into your skin and keep you up like I am right now. I used to sleep so easily under the many circumstances trying to undermine my rest. I used to do cocaine to be here, now I just have to accept that tonight was not meant for rest.

So here’s to sharing experience.

This tiny little experience. Often, I demean my time as an addict. Dark Lou lurks about in the backroom of my head, whispering that people find me to be phony. I still think I oughta relapse to carry any credibility in The Rooms. Another drunk told me, “Now there’s an alcoholic thought!”

I kinda know what he means — though, I’m not bargaining. I don’t feel compelled to drink ever again. Dad died and I don’t drink. Lost a good job and I don’t drink. Mom is sad sometimes, I don’t drink. There’s just no point. I’m so much worse on it than off it. I write from one of the two places I get to call my home; each cozy, heated, with all the windows in the panes. To think: we used to not bother with windows in the panes! Throw a comforter over it, where a jacket to bed — you’re good for the winter!

Sleep isn’t coming. One night out of maybe 90% of two years. Feels like the world is burning. My day is ruined. Two nights ago, my partner and I tried to replicate a dip we had at a family gathering and failed miserably. That also was also comparable to an entire world burning. I complain internally about being ill and wide awake at the precipice of 8:30 AM on a Saturday.

Comical, since I know damn well my worlds were always on fire, when I was Out There. They didn’t matter to me though. I’d get bailed out somehow. I’d manage to charm money from somebody. I’d get away with it. Consequences weren’t very loud. And even though I clearly wasn’t to the rest of the lucid world: I was the Golden Boy in my mind. Tell the Golden Boy otherwise. Many tried, but:

**“YOU CANNOT PETITION THE [GOLDEN BOY]”**

– Slightly adjusted quote by Jim Morrison, ‘Soft Parade’ from eponymous LP

I dunno what he means by that, but it’s of the essence I like about this man. And I figure he has some clue cause he managed to actually die from it. I never had the moxy to disappear from the material plane, nor did my genetic makeup ever want to power down. Praise be.

Towards the end of my career, EMT’s were nice enough to return me to my house, since they knew the address after one or two visits. I guess that’s God. They thought I OD’d in my car on one occasion, but all I had to show for it was delirium and a measly 0.08 BAC. How embarrassing for a self-proclaimed lush. Like many of my falls from grace: I simply ran out of up to counteract the down! I was always up all hours. But, a perfect record in this department was so easy to maintain when I couldn’t remember the times I was not awake. I presume God was out there flippin’ my ‘off’ switch before I went and killed somebody, over and over again.

Is that blase? There’s nothing to do here but reflect. I am thankful for life, and for never taking one. I am far too weak to persevere imprisonment. Maybe not. Regardless of toughness, I do not want to be in prison. Cozy with windows is plenty to keep me clean, Your Honor. Thank you.

Do I go get coffee now? Seems fiendish and squirmy, but that’s what people do right now. Sometimes people don’t sleep. Normal people also have bad days. Some bad enough that they just do nothing. N O T H I N G. How do they do that? Who do we go to about this restless, unfair, irritable state I am in — No. Besides God. I already told him what I think. I am tired and want the people I hate to have everything they need in life. God’s Will for all; I really mean it!

Now, is there a more fallible enemy we can bring to fruition? I beg of you!

It seems I always have to be doing something while awake thus far along in my journey. Maybe I’m being forced to shut it down for a day. Or I can drop a fat who cares? On it and do too much anyway… stay sick and tired. I’m trying to accept my wrongness, after all.

I deny this sickness in preparation for starting a new job on New Year’s Day, as God would have it, with that tiny boss lady I talked about months ago on this blog I have trouble keeping up with. I am in denial of being restless in general. No matter how present I insist I should be, I need to be even more present!

BE HERE NOW. NOW. RIGHT NOW. AGAIN. NOW. RIGHT NNNNOW! AGAIN! NOW.

See, I turned on Whiplash as I laid my head down. I shouldn’t have watched Whiplash to wind down. It wound me up. We do love being wound up. Is it really that psychotic to push someone on the brink of complete breakdown for the sake of art? I think I can honestly say: I wish I got pushed so hard I had an immediate breakdown that presented itself in a masterpiece.

I believe I got pushed the appropriate amount, which was something I liked to blame for my lanky, 15-year breakdown. I was pushed a millennial amount. I was easy breezy upper-middle class suburb. I was College, paid for. I was unconcerned with application of skill. I kept getting by. I was artful! I was fun, slow-turning to not fun. I was without grace or gratitude. But it happened so long and slowly I never noticed a turning point, like most of us.

Maybe the folks listed in my work can pinpoint it. Someday, someone might show me exactly where I could’ve avoided this; the exact moment I entered the point of no return. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’m here.

This morning is different than back then. For instance: I only wish I were asleep, rather than dead. And that’s just visible iceberg, brother.

But more about me: I also agree with myself, as I often do: yes, that is a lot of hard work to even be able to push out a masterpiece. Would I do that work? I would do that work. I mean, I’m doing this kind of work. Self-work. Sober work. Work I didn’t plan on doing until quite recently.

You know something? I cried the other day, doing this work. I oughta cry more probably. I cried this week for the first time in two years. I would like to cry more. It might help if I allowed myself to be pushed to tears over things.

This might be my means to a masterpiece.

OR I can avoid tears forever, ya know? I have so many choices today! I would recall Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson citing sleep deprivation as a great source of creativity while I was doing cocaine, being dull and uninspired as the birds began to chirp. Josh Homme also brings up “Sleep deprivation will make you a million,” in ‘Interlude with Ludes’ by Them Crooked Vultures. I would continue to ‘meditate’ upon the idea of creating something worthwhile, and then do nothing.

So, as it turns out, I actually used to be good at ‘nothing….’ Literally all or nothing people, ya know?

It’s not hard work — the work that I do. I’m good at what I do. I people-please for a living. Pleasing-people improves my livelihood. I am great at this performance. It seeps into my personal life. So I have to watch out, since it’s becoming second nature to believe all people are always right. Namely because I am often wrong.

See: I may be wrong about using this insomniac time to do whatever it is that I’m doing. Maybe I am wrong about wasting time. The laundry is going, so I could probably bear to waste more time. I’m out of juice. I wish this was exhausting me at all, but like this alcoholic said: It’s not hard work.

It was just was really fucking hard to get started. Continuing becomes addictive. It makes me happy every time I think about what ails me today. An actual cold. Being awake all night for no reason. Thank you, God, for the new restlessness, for the different kind of irritability, and the rare discontent.

I never keep up on this. But have one for me, those of you who can.

Your Golden Boi,

xoxo

THOUGHTS DURING THE DEVL PT 1

There’s some nasty woman with awful teeth sipping a bright morning cocktail across the bright resin countertop. Feels like she is looking at me.

I honor the rumors I’ve heard of this ugly, dishonorable woman today; that she was disowned by her hyper-wealthy family. Her surname is planted upon the important buildings and venues of a divine nearby campus, bumping shoulder with buildings carrying another wealthy surname so filthy rich that it came up when a famous pedophile was captured and… whatever you believe about that, it doesn’t matter.

What’s important to me, and to you, is that this woman makes me think og pedophiles. I break our engagement to watch the hair stand up on my arm as the hum of morning drink licks my soul, and tunes me in. Everywhere smells like acetone.

“What are you about to do that you’re doing that to yourself right now?” She asks.

She must know how repulsive she is. Perhaps I am making her feel not so repulsive, if she in fact knows how repulsive she is. At least to me. She must know how re –.

“I’m going to work. And this is the way I must do to myself if I am going to work,” I replied, suddenly Victorian. She is drinking too, probably. I don’t care what’s in her cup, judgmental bitch. She is disowned. By a family of wealthy kid-fuckers. I know I heard this from somewhere. Someone I know knows. The repulsive bitch.

Work is a breeze. Also a waste of my time. Also a joke. I work here because I am great at what I do. It’s easy to do what I do. So I don’t have to try. I’ve no designs on moving up. Save my energy. Why would I want to move up in this restaurant industry? Nothing hospitable about any of this practice.

This is just what I do to be able to live like I do. Life is brutal; have a good time. I just happen to have a great time. Nobody can tell me about it, either. I know what I’m into, I know it sounds like how my Uncle Lou used to do, Dad. I got it.

Anyway;

I’m thankful today that I was behind the bar, and guest where indulging in the liqour just out of our security cameras. I was cured within a lunch rush. I took the cash tips straight to the caddy-cornered gay bar, post-shift, posthaste.

I woke from a disco nap. Or was that Sleep? I dunno.

I do know: I feel it coming up quickly. I minimize movements as I well up with the lubricating spit from my depths, spilling ever so slightly on the way to the bowl. I wretch and wretch. I see stars. The pressure ignites. My adrenaline kickstarts my go-go-go-ism. I like how I can go-go-go. Nobody is like me.

Nobody can keep this up like me.

In the mirror, I stand in the angle to disappear the imperfections. I am true grit; and embellishment; and disgusted with the early disappointments of today. A miserable existence. But I am resilience.

And discipline:

I don’t puke, I wretch.

I don’t break, I bounce.

I will not miss out on this money, because I am the hardest working man who ever lived.

…But why must I work at all? This world is only facade, and my understanding is complete. My ability, not God-given. More-than. My gifts, wasted because they will not come to see me. They did not meet me at any point, and therefore it is they who failed. They chose not to see me. I am here to be found. Discover these unique abilities, in charisma, and intellect, charm and leadership! Lift me.

But no! I am this, because they gave me no opportunity. I come to be here, and they missed ME.

It is the same pants from every day this year, no matter the month or the year. It is the same jacket with compressed, splintered, unsmokeable cigarettes. I fear nothing, I am too talented. These heavily sanitized, dehydrated hands are callused from this endless tedium. Each knuckle swollen and scarred from the studs I express my anger upon, in an apartment paid for by handouts…

And yet I’m going to just randomly – nay, mercilessly — be quietly scrutinized by this woman who does no thing but take up space. I’m going to work, what the fuck do you have to do for everyday of your wasteful existence? She has it all. Even more than me. I’m roaming this rock contributing something besides shit, little comments. She’s here to bother young, attractive party people like me.

I am stealing from the till because they are going to make much more tonight than I was able to make amongst these children servers for the lunch shift. I am wondering if the are keeping track of the Red Bulls. I am masturbating in the bathroom to stay awake.

No one catches me, so nothing is noteworthy as far as how the shift was. A manager pulls me aside to ask if everything’s alright. I ask if it’s about something I did. She says I seem a way. I tell her I am just like that. I leave.

There is a gay bar near, and in there are gay men, mostly. They pour the drinks in a better way like some of you might already know. But if you don’t: Are you afraid? Oh wait are you gay? They’re not going to pin you down and –.

I have several and it is better. I am sad, but this, too, feels better. Everything smells like acetone. Now I feel good.

One of them just asked me about my goals or what I do or what I wish I did. It angers me to my core.

I wake up in bed with boots on. I smell my feet through those old beat up boots. I smell me. I smell stale.

Better than acetone.

I am thankful, briefly, to be here, but outside it’s missing again. I stand. I stay unreasonably still to see if it comes up again. It does not. I stand even more still to listen for voices and movement from roommates. There is none. It must be late. I hope it’s not. But late enough for them to be asleep. I don’t wanna answer to nobody.

It can’t be too late, for our sake. Where is my phone? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, ope. Found it: it’s not too late!

This is joy!

Our bliss hums in us on the way to A Little More. A couple one mores if we know who’s working, yes. And I am vivid with stories after a little hmmmmm scrounged from the innards of a hot sticky vial The card is going through so we buy fresh cigarettes and return to solitude among the people. I am challenged over something I’m not sure of; and thus dismissed.

I wake up in bed with boots on. Wretch wretch wretch. Shower. Maintenance with what I may be able to scrape from the fridge or my roommate’s special drawer all the way in his bedroom with the door closed in a specific way so I close it exactly back that way then Uber to where I roughly remember the car: near yesterday’s gay bar.

“…And how are we doing today?” bartender inquires instead of pouring.

“Landing the plane, left my car here I think,” questioning him, really.

“You accosted a guest and screamed at my bartender while you were here yesterday,” he continued, not pouring.

“Oh,” I would be able to help out if –, “was having a day I guess, sorry, really.” Not really as sorry as if I could get right. Asshole.

“I can’t have you doing things like that making my bar unsafe.”

It’s four dollars for practically a pint of whiskey. I wonder fleetingly how safety is a principle here; how am I the unsafe item. Probably because I’m straight. That guy yesterday. Probably tried to pick me up and I said no. Gonna need a lot more gear to win this boy over. I’ll just leave. Like, 12 different versions of this place on the way home, once I find it.

Praying the prayers I pray when I can’t find it. When I’m barely certain. So, uncertain I guess. Red Accord, red Accord. With the scrapes. Like my hand. Strong, broken, bloodied knuckles. Not from people anymore; I don’t do that. It was a mistake breaking my roommates jaw. And I had told him say one more thing, but we were both– don’t matter, we’re cool now. It won’t happen again.

I’m looking for a red Accord. Red Accord. As if I might forget.

I think of all the other cars I’ve been given; that I wrecked or got stolen — or reported stolen. Or filed a police report and insurance claim for hit and run successfully. Ford Escape, Hyundai Santa Fe, Honda Pilot, Kia Something, Honda CRV. All those cars are cars that my father gave to me. Because he thinks of me in a way that no one else does. Probably because he is being lied to. And gullible; and perhaps knows what is going on but is easily swayed. Soft. His words. He says he is too soft on me, and worried because that’s what parents do.

And that makes for more cars.

And more stuff.

I wouldn’t be soft if I was him. I don’t think he understands me. But I don’t make the effort to be understood, it would take too long to explain how different I am compared to everyone else. I know what I want from this life, and it is impossibly unconventional. I cannot be happy, unless I have more. Without more I can’t possibly be expected to achieve anything and I’m not going to do anything I don’t feel like, I’m not going to end up just like –

There it is. What a rush that is. Natural dopamine. Beautiful. And I won’t have to worry about that today. Because I’m off. Which means I’m free to go to one of two places. But one place, I think I may have left a tab. We don’t care to find out. I’m free to go to the other one though. Easy peasy. Plus, my best pal bartends there.

I arrive and we each take one in us. Because they are slow. And – because they are slow — we have time to catch up on the details of our many acquaintances in the scene. They seem to be really fucking up. At least the ones we glance over on the social docket. What a mess everyone is. We get it. We have it in our palms. And when we don’t — well, we catch that quicker than most. We survive and hustle and gratify. Our presence is not included. We work hard; play hard; entertain hard; want hard; deserve hard; earn hard; hurt hard; live hard; because life’s hard and that goes especially for ours. Ours is hard. Don’t matter who you are. And them? They are doing the best they can, we’ll offer them that. But none will figure it out like us, expedited and brilliant practically always.

We’re lucky we see things the way we do. It’s always been us verses you. See: we divide time between the two places. One is a Bar and the other is a Bar with a patio. Well maybe there’s like 5 places. Another is cheap cash only and another is cheap but takes card but is far to drive. And we will drive, baby. I dunno why we never get booze to drink together in one of our houses. Especially with our folks pay rent for. I suppose we have the extre money laying around since the rent is paid for. Business since, plus we work to hard to not decompress like this.

Anyway, vastly different crowds made up of different variations of the same exact people depending on the time of day filter in and out as we observe and make merry; us being a part of the same rotating cast. It makes sense, if you know. If you’re not in then you are in our house. See, I am a regular; which means I’ll have my drink poured as they see me through the window. I’ll also get prioritized in a crowd.

I used to be a regular at one of the trendier spots downtown. A room at max-capacity would be split when I entered. Realer than the sea, in my opinon. Across what is easily a hundred or so people, I would catch eyes with another one of my oldest pals who bartends there and immediately get handed, over the envious civilian heads, my good drink.

A regular. A member. Important. More than. These are some of the only people in this society that see ME. I’m given that little bit of recognition I ask for within reason. I feel it is there, that the outsider’s revelation sets in:

“Who’s that being handed his flowers?”

I’m a celebrity. It stays slow. We take more in us. It gets busy and I get no more for free. I leave.

There’s a spore or a mushroom thing that floats into the brain of insects and controls it from that point into its death. Then it moves on.

PROTEGE: TRAINING WHEELS CITY

She’s a high-energy lady. Tiny and rapid transfer ideas; switches back and forth between personal and business. Quits cigarettes on Sundays. Different-looking (different in a cool way, not in a like, you know–) people create urgency in her to find out if they’re ‘known.’ If already ‘known,’ she breezes over to me (I feel special) and embellishes her nerves.

“How is the cool way to talk to them, I don’t wanna be like BLah!”

My role is protege. I assume that’s what they’re doing to me, I am chosen. I was invited to a beach party transplanted below the gutted industrial buildings awaiting their very own Transplants and refurbishing for the exodus.

They’re always working on getting the highways are getting wider here. I always said it was a Training Wheels City. If you can’t do it here, you really weren’t helped at all by your folks. I pretty much didn’t make it here. I was helped by my folks. But then I got a lot more help. Enough to where I can go out and chokehold a new opportunity like being cool peoples’ protege.

I feel compelled to give the right answer. Hindsight, I dunno if she were actually asking me how to talk to cool people. I think she literally talks to cool people all day. But I don’t know that. Because maybe she is testing me to see how effective I am at talking to cool people. I always talk to them, since I have been cool. Maybe she needs my input since I see her getting notably less sneaky about refilling beers from the tap; since it’s her Transplanted Beach Party and she’s no longer going behind the tap trailers to hide that she’s smoking the final cigs before she quits on Sunday.

I admire her… even if she doesn’t actually admire me. I’ll live in the headspace where she does admire me though. She said something about too bad I don’t drink because I would — .

No kill. It doesn’t hit me in anyway. I’m salivating more over her cigarettes and hiding for no reason. That’s cool. I love the quit every Sunday thing, that’s fun. She is savant. Every time she wonders into the dark where the gutted buildings await their refurbishing, I move steadily in the opposite direction over the tiny playground stones they used to emulate sand.

I feel relief from the thousandth bathroom break I’ve taken to make room for more soda waters. So many soda waters. I think about how I quit smoking like a year ago a couple days earlier. Lotta people say that’s cool. I agree, plus it smells and it’s always getting more expensive and–.

Don’t you think it kinda fucks us over a little if you don’t smoke? We could probably make even more leighway as protege if we smoked. She offered us smokes and its like, you quit so if you smoked one for work then it wouldn’t matter. You’d go back to not smoking, and your car still won’t stink and honestly, cigs don’t even fuckin’–

I remember there’s powdered caffeine in my pocket in the form of one of those Crystal Light packets, just some brand of energy drink. I toss that into the porta potty hole reminiscing super-quick about cocaine. I think about how I’m an alcoholic-addict hanging out at this Transplant Beach Party where I could relapse but I’m not gonna obviously because I make it look cool and also because I have so much work to do here as the protege.

If I use, there’s no way I can protege. I’m very new in recovery, but I am newer in protege. This is what I fixate on:

This is cool. And dangerous. This is dangerous that I do these things, but it is cool that I can.

So long as I ask for that permission like, ‘can I do this?’ I’m pretty sure that is the loophole God gives to artists or socialites. I’m not choosing this, I’m an artist. I’ve been cool too, and cool with no drink no drugs for way long — long like more than a year. PLUS I’m no longer people who almost couldn’t cut it in Training Wheels City. Now I am the protege of the Transplant Beach Party Lady.

I sanitize my hands and exit casually.

‘Dude…’ I’m thinking: with cool people I know how they want to be talked to. I can answer her, even if she wasn’t really an ask maybe it is. I have an answer. So, when I am the cool person in question, somebody coming up to me should say they like that I am where they also are and why I should know them. They never seem to do that, they talk about a lot of stuff but it’s never short and sweet. Could this be because I have never been the cool person in question? I do see how it might be true seeing as I never have been treated exactly how a really high-level, high-priority cool person gets treated: the right way; the way I know how to talk to cool people. But there’s no proof of me not being cool. I’m just telling you it’s undocumented when — not if I became cool.

So, I tell her –to tell the ‘known’ guy, I said “Say: Hey wassup. I’m Transplanted Beach Party Lady & I’m really happy you’re here. This is my Transplanted Beach Party.”

She looks, tilts her head slightly forward to highlight one raised eyebrow and smiles a handshake into my stomach. It’s absolutely perfect. I am the protege. This is gonna be huge for our relationship. She wonders off, maybe toward a famous person.

I gotta pee.

All social interactions are a + b = c. One of my earliest cool art friends in high school said that. I wonder quite a bit if that’s actually a nail on the head moment. It was really cool; I know that.

Being cool will make it so people consider how they might most-effectively strike up a conversation with you. I think. Well, I know, now; having had an awakening and traversing these early tests to be protege to the Transplanted Beach Party Lady. She’s cooler than even she’s letting on, maybe that’s just a bit of what I can plan on learning from her as I absorb the ‘vibe.’

Earlier today — this same Saturday before Transplanted Beach Party Lady said she’ll quit cigs–Transplanted Beach Party Lady was telling me how before the pandy she was an introvert. Once we were let back outside, she promised a local celebrity/regular a free beverage for every time he introduced her to a new person (cool person or otherwise).

She told me, “I used to not value this place. But if you want to do anything here, you need to get uncomfortable… There’s a ton of cool people here.”

The most simple, most obvious shit sometimes, ya know? Most days in my many careers, short-lived due to the same fireable offense, I knew Training Wheels City was a nobody, nowhere type of spot. Was Uncool. They don’t do anything here. And the artists here aren’t like the community of artists in Going Fast No Hands or the scene in Doing Tricks. I tried to develop the scene. I go to art. But I found nobody’s cool enough to vibe with my art. So I just hung out with people who were actually cool and did my art. We stuck together, sometimes two or three or all four of us. We waited for folks to get cool or see what we were doing was cool, but they never figured it out.

I ended up doing quite a bit of art on my own. Nobody ever saw.

I walk out and get another soda, I don’t see her so I just do a cool, standing still kinda sway dance just away from the dance floor.

Dancing alone is often a toss up whether ‘cool’ or not. Depends on the ‘vibe.’

Transplanted Beach Party Lady grabbed me, needing me to pour one of the acts a drink! He insisted he didn’t need that, that his Ryder being fulfilled was enough, but Transplant Beach Party Lady is way cool — thus vetoing the Artists’ initial cool behavior in not needing anything.

I felt special for knowing how to mix this Rum and Coke, though I’ve frowned upon such a simple everyday drink historically; today this is for a really cool reason. I am the protege. She sees something in me, and I am pulling through. I guess can see how the people before me stumbled at this work. It’s high pressure to be on point. Maintaining the behavior, the ‘vibe.’ Plus, if you’re me, and in this you basically get to be me, you are also working all the angles to not smoke cigs — though it may always look cool and serve a greater purpose for the whole, an impact to career and opportunity and honestly you see your Boys’ smoke one or two after we’ve played a show…it’s like, you kicked the actual stuff what is smoking a cigarette even really gonna –

I am so addict. And right now, we need to be addicted to protege-type endeavors. And we are.

I am vibing to the music. Transplanted Beach Party Lady comes up to me – I always can see her coming up to me she’s got this gigantic puffer jacket on but the rest of her is so small, it’s charming and cute and she makes it work in a cool way, I admire that — she comes up to me and says, “Wassup, you just vibin here?” I tell her yeah and that I’m taking notes.

She notes a couple more ‘known’ folks. I actually do think I’ve heard of them before… though I’m actually not sure what she said just now in general. But they’re cool, assuming I’ve heard of them. Or not.

I imagine I’ve seen most of these people. Like, I know their faces from them coming into my work or they’re around my side of town (it’s just a different ‘vibe,’ it’s ‘chill’) but I don’t know their names or what they look like or if I’ve ever seen them. That’s cool though, I look forward to meeting them.

…Again.

I have seen quite a few of these faces around a kitchen table with a plate at 4 AM somewhere just outside of downtown in my early 20’s. I look so healthy now that I’m different-looking. They probably don’t recognize. Or maybe they’ve since stopped ending up in those types of places and they do recognize so they don’t wanna flirt with disaster which is cool, I get it. But they got the wrong idea, I’m cool now also. Just not in the way we expected to be. Nor in the way that they expect us to be!

Transplanted Beach Party Lady’s husband comes stands by her for a time and I feel like I shouldn’t go over there. It’s cool, I’m literally here to protege. And I’m doing it really well, so there’s no weird thing worth thinking about. She maybe does this all the time and that lightly drives him a little nuts but he maybe knows he’s being silly and she’s just zoomin’ around and networking and it has nothing to do with me. Besides protege-type work, which earlier she said she was talking about the nice conversation we had way earlier on this Saturday the day before she’s gonna quit cigarettes again… I wonder if that’ll make her feel less cool. I quit all kinds of crap recently, and by default that has to be cool.

I am still here. You Stayed Longer Than You Planned to Stay, Why Are You Still Here?

I saw the husband floating back toward the bar (as an opening to approach again) and thanked Transplant Beach Party Lady for everything. She hugs me and insists that if I keep coming back to her world like she does to mine, all kinds of things will start happening.

Are they cool things? I hope that they may be cool things.

CALLED OUT

I’m going to re-engage on this endeavor.

I was pawing my pink cloud like a cat toy upon the first couple of entries (now deleted) sometime in early 2022. Let’s see, I was prepping to spend a couple days in Minerva County for a (comparatively) gentle bottoming-out, I was figuring out how to prove I could go do things alone, I was scrambling to utilize a then-and-now-defunct degree.

I was holding onto outdated items that involved focus, like journalistic pursuits — doused in harsh language, loads of edge! — and the impressive feats I yanked out of myself in the past life.

I fell in love with the glamor of drink, and it ate me up. Then I found that cocaine would make me harder to ingest. Until it, too, unhinged its jaw upon me.

When I returned from my introduction to ‘getting right,’ I wanted all my stuff back.

Surface priority one was material. And I don’t know that that will ever stop; I don’t want to imagine yet another bottoming out to achieve that discovery. Stuff, in that sense, makes me happy. I like pants, and shirts, rings and chains and music and tattoos and vanity so help me God. And I wasn’t afflicted by brothers and sisters so I really enjoyed those fruits. I leaned into Only Child Syndrome just to beat anyone slightly observant to the punch.

I put in enough time to start to realize that wasn’t the stuff I was actually concerned about. That my soul was recoiled for a thousand reasons beyond being a mid-bottom addict. Most of it was because I let natural gifts, ones which I was told and reinforced and celebrated all of my life, drown in arrogance and disregard.

I was the self-proclaimed writer — nay, I still am the self-proclaimed ‘talented’ writer who never writes! My elegant, professional paradox. How would all these potential employers ever know what they were missing without having a word to overlook.

I was a musician! I composer, a collaborator and — I now realize– a catalyst in the projects I was a part of… until I was apart from. At a point I became so infatuated with ‘landing the plane’ (as we lovingly referred to it), I caught myself stammering when I told anyone what band I was in.

We ain’t playin’ no shows. We’re doing coke in our party house, missing the trashcans and arguing over how this sloppy 30 minute riff should go. GB of space being eaten up by leaving record on for nothing of note.

The stuff I lost was effort, and curiosity, and inspiration, and motivation. Drive! I took all the built-in gear for granted, and I took it fiercely. The output I was capable of as fun turned into maintenance is uncanny.

My late father said to me, fresh out of rehab, that I was just real late to the race. And that’s just that. In no way or form am I speeding up to catch you rule-followers. I love the rules now too… It doesn’t stress me anymore that I’m gonna also be late to the finish line. Mostly because we’re all galloping to the same one.

Dad did a ton for me, and now I work on passing down that fortune to anyone else who’s anxious for it. It’s the only way to be spoiled.

And in building new relationships that have to do with giving time and energy and developing patience, recovery-based or out in the world, I had the same discovery as everyone else: life is bright, and vivid, and reciprocal. Here in this section I was about to get sarcastic; consider that fear of vulnerability redacted.

My life is easy. And it’s loaded with the advise of so many powerful, brilliant people. They were always all around me; I had made it a point to stay the hell away from the help for the better part of a decade. IYKYK.

This advisory board grows. It began with my uncle and psuedo-namesake ‘Louis,’ someone who I hadn’t realized was looking out for me quite some time, they’ll be ‘Frank,’ MA and Dad. My Band of Boys. My House of Decided Brothers and Sisters.

Frank‘s word in my ear and on my eyes sounds like its a triple-dog-dare right off the bad. This is fortunate and frustrating. The stunted, lonely child in me must compete to impress against this newfound sibling.

They said, “why don’t you write. it’s easy, just do it like songs” I don’t know if that deserves quotes but that’s what I retained.

Some god voice tells me I can’t say no.

So I recalled an initial conversation with Uncle ‘Louis’ about doing something like this under a fake name and letting it rip. However, my ravenous EGO slid in and suddenly there’s my name, my image, my identity all over this thing; hilariously to be then shared on social media. Narcissist!

(I can say it, my best friend’s a narcissist)

If you subscribed to that spew early on, congrats it’s me as you remember! Our little barely kept secret. But to anyone who tags along here on out, I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict named Lou Mercy.

LOU for my uncle’s alter-ego Louis; the demon that runs your house when you’re no longer home. Also the nickname for a someone with which things never quite lined up just right romantically.

Hi Lou, you probably don’t remember doing this: but thanks for being the voice that said “You gotta stop” at just the perfect time.

MERCY for what I been shown; and for any of you deserve at your worst.

Especially dickheads.

(I can say it, my best friend’s a dickhead)

I’ve removed all the photographs and mentions of who I am Out There. The voice is likely going to be a give away and the stories ensuing, pending on what comes out of me… It’s no matter.

I‘m a character as it is. But here, I’m going divulge my insanity and confusion via Lou Mercy. I’m just separate enough through the pseudonym to view two versions of myself. No more pictures and artful direction, besides my decided sister’s art, not-so-ironically chosen due to its alcoholic medium.

This oughta double as an about page. The colbrus are cleared, time to get spiritually fit. Life goes.

xx decadence,

Lou

RETENTION

I fear that I might have convinced myself of my own stupidity.

In the years following a formal education, I developed a self-deprecative streak that locked me into routine revelry and an insatiable need to achieve laughs and dazzlement through anything but my own intelligence. Granted, the path to get to some of those laughs took some clever leaps and bounds — self-deprecation runs deep.

Any type of screw-up, minuscule to moderate to historical, the explanation was likely punctuated by, “because I’m such a dumb-[whatever expletive],” to perhaps incite giggles among a by-standing coworker. Sprees of talking to myself during ‘side-work’ yielded whispered jabs at my own IQ for no presentable reason. Sometimes those cracked me up.

Short story long enough, this continued array of life’s miserable-isms, light-hearted self-loathing, and empty ribbings apparently snuck into my conscious mind. Now I think I’m, like, actually dumb. Or stupid. Whichever is the less permanent one.

When it comes to book smarts versus street smarts, I am the former. Which means I can slurp up a ton of information, in a short time and spit it all back out at you in the proper locations and order. It might also be accurate that I take up large hunks of my head with this material and quickly empty them to make space for the next batch of information (whether relevant or trivial).

This almost seems counter productive, because slowly I found that book smarts only bangs on paper. Otherwise, common-sense people take the reins of life, quit schools and systems, whatever else, and they succeed. I, on the other hand, got confused as to why I wasn’t getting all the accolades and job offers in the world and got jaded and pissed off like a petulant brat.

I packed in my absorb-deploy ability for information and swapped for in-and-out abilities with drugs and alcohol. I wasn’t cramming anything for out-dated standardized tests, job-applications, whatever the rest of you were doing while I was ‘out.’

I was ineffectually flattening out the crumpled files of my mind, trying to impress deaf ears.

I still read somewhat, and I was passionate about the lyrics of good songwriters just enough to mash together their thoughtfulness into my own poetic nonsense. I’d like to say I maintain a convincing cadence, complete with affirming head nods and eye contact that any half-tossed fellow like me could associate with and trust enough to laugh along with.

I placed these insipid conjugational craft-cocktails above all else — from good arguments to gripping stories to cascading embellishments. And my accomplices in life did the same right back. What the hell did we ever talk about most the time? No idea.

Not to say that all of it was for nil, of course.

Repeats occurred that could be manipulated for sport–in favor of a different, meaningless result. I mean, for real: tell me you haven’t stolen the spotlight upon noticing someone else was about to tell a rerun at least once in your lifetime. No?

How about jokes? You never stepped on someone’s punchline knowingly just to nullify your homie’s thunder. God bless your friendship if it’s still a no.

Anyway, the boozy back-and-forths soared deftly into my ego — or clumsily over my head in those unmemorable evenings and mornings. I was floating in my own thoughts, paying attention occasionally only to land a ‘good one’ because I was ‘smart’ and ‘brilliant’ to everyone. That narcissism was always, is always and will always there for you. IYKYK.

So it’s strange now, that this weight has revealed itself to me. Weight pun here for you: that time made me dense in the fog of this hefty, revelrous era. I think [do I though?] I halted any higher creative or logical functioning in my fried little brains just long enough to fulfill the colloquialism: If you don’t use it, you lose it.

And all this in a time where — ironically — my only ambition was using.

Though I’ve chewed chin at a championship level throughout the years. I’ve pantomimed intellect and forgotten many a debate topic simultaneously. I know this because a whiskey, amphetamine-rasped drawl loves capturing an unwitting audience. Even the witting ones are doomed.

But, now: I’m in recovery. Which means rebooting my thoughts and having a punishingly clear awareness of my slumbering potential, similarly soaked in flop sweat on a couch we’re both not paying rent for.

Easily, I might let that self-pity paralyze me but it’s nothing different than my stagnancy in the face of any challenge. I could misread this lack of growth as if it were showing me I had peaked in this realm and ought to stay here forever. Settle down, get a divorce. Or don’t. Have a kid. Or Don’t. Start drinking again. Or don’t.

Pretty simple I suppose, sacrifice potential for simplicity and security.

Of course I’m not choosing that. Those occasional tales where a person lives in a wet, devil-may-care way for eras [plural] of their life and get it together. I’m sobering the-fuck-up, ’cause I want to do more cool shit.

I’m addressing that I feel dumb at this juncture, that I’m not stuck an ignoramus. I’m making a last minute attempt to kickstart my cognition.

I imagine there’s plenty of empty lots with potholes to be filled. Might need to hire some crossing guards to help new ideas along to class. I’ll run my highlight reel during recess like a scared-straight program in in case any rowdy ideas start fucking up in my figurative public school system.

…If only I kept track of how many folks told me I was smart while stumbling in the throes of a bender, another lost job, a neglect for a significant other, etc. — I might not even feel so self-deprecative toward myself. Maybe I’d actually believe how brilliant they said I was. Not that their opinions are harder evidence than my own; compliment’s a compliment.

It soothes this thought somewhat: that half of me was ever there, when it comes down to it. Potentially, and I mean potentially, I can restore myself to near perfect capacities, just in time to pretend I was just messing around back there.

As 2022 rolled in — among other changes — I began to treat every day like I have to understand something for a class, or as if work requires it [they currently don’t, just to be clear]. I now occasionally pretend my brain still requires that daily fix –but of a more wholesome variety.

I decided to pump an inhumane amount of this healthy behavior into myself all at once — you know, to make up for all the lost time. This was where I fucked up a little bit.

You know, I really do love me some excess.

Reading multiple books at once, taking copious notes and essentially trying to accomplish way too much had me short-circuiting. It’s as if the books are going to up and run out on me, every stack of them on my dresser, the coffee table, the floor.

Last week I overwhelmed myself adding an old, out-of-print book of my mother’s called Become A Writer to my stockpile. After I tossed it onto the stack, I ran my hands through my hair, like: I don’t have fucking time to learn how to write.

I enjoy rereading thoughts like in that previous sentence. I find a sort of backwards solace in how easily I rile myself up. It’s end times all the time.

Despite of my insane diligence, Googling every sexy word [proof: salacious, elucidated, mercurial… oooh wee] regardless of necessity or context yanks me back from the big picture most of the time. So, unless my subconscious is digesting the info while I sleep, it’s highly probable that my retention volume is taking a loss.

My father jabbed me, asking, where the fuck was this in college?

Again, the archaic educational system was set up for people like me to conquer without much regard. Load me up and dump me out. Don’t care how suggestive that phrasing is — and I’m not trying to brag, I just have test-taking brain.

What’s that translate to in life, really?

What my Dad was razzing me for is the ensuing lack of intrigue or initiative in nearly everything that happens after achieving that degree. Once again, all I had going for me out that gate was predominately absorption.

In the back of my journals, I have this sloppily etched dictionary of those words I find poetic or intelligent, like the lurid ones I mentioned some hundred words ago. I imagine lyrics and future conversations might either enhance or suffer due to my newly discovered eloquence.

If this is how those writers’ favorite writers write, then of course I must look ’em up, learn ’em and rocket them into the ether at will. That way the next reader won’t know what I’m talking about, just like the tradition established by my heroes before me!

But honestly, what do I really look like when I brandish words such as picayune (worthless) or lolloping (clumsy, ungainly series of paces or bounds) or supercilious (behaving of looking as though one thinks the are superior to others)?

Writers’ favorite writers’ works appear to be loaded with such verbiage. They seem so cool and heady when they use them, those writers do. So how could I not mistype new collections of characters into my Chrome browser every six sentences throughout a passage. Just for the ephemeral bliss of being as brilliant as a ‘confirmed’ brilliant scribbler may be.

I can binge and purge information when that information had a planned destination. I’m addicted to repeated formulas, to obtaining more of the same thing all the time, to loading journals past their brim with Pilot G2 0.7mm ink, and so on.

It’s this fiendish behavior that I’ve hit a new interesting vein in my recovery:

Instead of five thousand push-ups a day or baking intricate pastries or building birdhouses, I might have replaced my insatiable need for my drug of choice with information (relevant, or otherwise).

Perhaps this is utterly useless. It’s just another ritual. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make some internal progress with these adorably trivial tidbits and alliteration that really gets me going. It is extremely likely that this (re)starting point yields more comprehensive ways to consume information and apply it when the time proves opportune.

A helpful essay on how to be a knowledge-sponge may emerge. Probably not, because I’m not confirmed brilliant. I’m just working on that self-deprecation and becoming aware of my adult-onset stupidity.

I’ll continue to pour things into my head [phrasing], in hopes that it flexes my the right muscles. It’s possible I’ll still have no idea what to tell you if you ask what I’m reading about. Whatever. All I know is it’s hilarious and great and you had to be there.

I imagine by some sort of divine chemical reaction, more content is retained than I’m even able to take inventory of. It’s just enough to drop a timely line [phrasing again] and feel the rush of being clever with witnesses.

If you read this far, we have a shared hobby or two,

so here’s to figuring it out as we go.

xx,

Lou

LOVE LETTER

Hi, Sweets:

I caught myself picturing you nestled in the embrace of a friend I’m told not to worry about. I never do. I’m just glad you have someone to keep you company, since I’ll be away for the unforeseeable (that’s a lie) future. I feel no jealousy as he uncaps your fuzzy warmth and takes in your kiss.

This dismays and excites me and I miss you.

I miss fooling around in the dark, and eventually in the light… constantly fumbling all over each other. Shit would smash and scatter over that which was previously smashed and scattered from the night before.

We were half-filled cups of flagrant optimism that looked toward the over-flowing trash receptacles just to confirm we really were living abundantly. Together, you and I’d knock loose the plaster walls with my fists and other parts flailing. The next morning I’d dismiss it and massage my knuckles and remove the drying blood. Victimless crime, sweets.

We’d have another go or two at each other to prepare for that day, then step out into the boorish sun, cracking lighters in the headwind as if to applaud the mortally wounded cigarettes we were trying to light.

They’d function nicely once ablaze, just not as well as they’re supposed to.

Time soared, didn’t it? Every week we’d watch each other reload the cylinder, spin it, catch it and take aim clumsily. My buffering motor skills played God as they decided whether my drives would be feigned, maligned or simply shot for the day.

I’d shake with vulnerability in your absence. It sickened me those times when you’d depart in the grip of someone else. But those resentments for you never really lasted. No point in stressing when I knew you’d be around come morning time.

I’d to shake them jitters out before closing my porcelain crown and starting out the door to meet you for another one of our ceremonious breakfasts. Because meeting you before work, before play, before anything made life that much more doable to me.

Eventually, I told myself, I’d have the means to keep you in my home all the time — at least through an entire night. But I couldn’t keep up. Knowing I was never keen on finances, you’d always run out at some point while I was blissfully rapt in revelry.

Our mutual respect for the thrill of the chase — and danger, and risk, and spontaneity, and etc. — was understood just enough to maintain a ‘healthy’ relationship, as grown people do.

Anyway, that was a while ago… I know I’m rambling.

I also know that I swore —to you, and quite a few others honestly — I wasn’t going to be corresponding with you any more. I made sure to enunciate clearly that we were done-done mostly because we all know any silly little boy can go on a break.

But you and I both know me to be a ‘silly little boy.’. So in the gesture of radical honesty, I imagine we’re bound to run into each other sometime down the road, perhaps in an intimate way. It’s just not going to mean anything like it used to.

Writing this little note here is as treacherous a step toward you as I’m trying to make. That being said, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that you aren’t the first good thing I’ve ruined for myself.

So: not my first rodeo in some respects.

Lately, I can sense when you think about me. And it comes to me more and more as the days go on. As often as I wander through your alertness, I thought it might become exhausting on my end.

But it hasn’t. It charms me, if I may be so inclined to be a dick about it.

See: I like that it’s me running around on you for once. And while most romantic endeavors aren’t as half-full as you and I used to make it, I can still tell you’re aware something’s changed. Aware enough to be bothered . Maybe even perturbed, but I’m not sure you care about anything enough to become perturbed [I’ve been reading a lot lately].

Speaking of perturbed, I’ve befriended a few wounded soldiers left adrift in your wake. They’re quick to reminisce on the good times, choking and crying from belly laughs until one of them remembers you’re still dead to us.

I raise my pink and white paws to dry the corners of my eyes and show prove myself tothe gang: ‘Yeah. I don’t miss it. I don’t love her no more.’

Though I’m one of that pack, it’s hard to forget such a punishing caress, such a reckless joy. Your calming capability was finite, I’d discover. You aggressively presented the back of your hand, but to soothe. You generously presented open palms, but to slap.

You’re the nervously gripped pepper spray to my unassuming eyeballs, sugar-face.

But I digress; and ‘I don’t love her no more’ just isn’t ever going to be rigorously honest. It’s a mantra in infancy. Because you really do make such an impression on people, everywhere you go. Hell, even the friends that I’ve known for years are taking me aside to gauge whether or not it’s cool to ‘holler at’ you.

What kind of dickhead would I be to say any of you is mine and mine alone?

I don’t have a blessing to grant anyway. You almost broke up ‘the band’ on several occasions [redacted Yoko bit here followed by ‘sorry’ in parentheses]. It’s nothing I’m not used to; you throwing yourself all over my pals, night after night. And, don’t you dare be bothered by my newfound voyeurism. Because I’m just gonna say it.

Everybody looks. How can you not look after what we’ve done to each other?

See: without you, I can’t really be as selfish as I once was, not without reason.

Thanks to you, I flex my personality in areas that could use that type of excitement, that type of entertainment. However, without your incessant ego-boosting, I can read a room for what it actually is.

I practice couth, have tact and sometimes say “sorry” quickly after saying things like “fuck” [sorry].

To my surprise, plenty of things still remain the same. See: I’ve always been incredibly clever, quick-witted, resourceful, fun and the like.

But now —especially now — what I’m telling you now has the potential to be true(!) and is occasionally confirmed by outside sources. Plus, I don’t have to apologize anymore [eh, as much] for being so damn fun and clever like everybody says!

You’ve given me veracious, room-shaking laughs, vivacious conversations with strangers who’ve since become friends, unique moments of unexpected compassion, so much…

But then you stopped giving.

Once you realized I liked you as much as I did, you just stopped. You stood still. Then I started giving, and you took. You took until you eventually stole. You borrowed (and never returned) my ambitions, my fellowship, my emotions, my drives… It was impressive, really.

What type of being can be so selfish and ungrateful after being worshiped by so many? And by so many, you’ve brought me to a point where I’m inevitably referring to just Me and Me only! And there wasn’t anybody else any more. Just Me proper and the new things you granted Me; My torrential ego, My insatiable ungratefulness and deflated self-efficacy. You made Me into My very own God and yet it’s YOU that called every shot. I thought I was the show runner, baby, but it was actually YOU. Not Me!

And still it’s you that weighs heavily on my [is it mine?] mind…

Phew.

My mother never liked you for me, by the way.

So, yeah. I guess I was just thinking about you and wanted to drop you a line… that’s the end of this figurative breakup note. Perhaps this will be of the few remaining feats of silly shit [sorry] you inspire me to do. Just something a little fun and harmless — kind of like how our relationship began, eh?

I suppose I’ll wish you well — against my better judgment, and I apologize if the message became convoluted or, like, over the top missing-the-point; I’m simply jotting ideas as they come to me [he claimed, several drafts later].

Go easy on ‘em out there, decadence… I’ll see you around, I’m sure.

xx,

Louis