Tag Archives: inner angst

I Appreciate You. Now Fuck Off.

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If you were to ask me how I’m doing, I would say I’m pretty good. A bit tired but getting some reading done, recharging my battery, all that. And then I’d ask how you are, and we would go on like that, like usual. But I’m not. Doing well that is. On a scale of 1-10, I’d give myself a one or two. I’m low. I’m losing the point of this. Fight on. I can’t go on. I must go on. All that. But we’re in the shitter. I am anyway. I’ve lost the faith, if I ever had it. It’s not just Trump & Putin, although they’re sure part of it. It’s the hubris, the lies and hate, mine too.

I’ve always enjoyed reading biographies, Mark Twain, Robert Kennedy, Orville & Wilbur Wright, Georgia O’Keefe, Mahatma Ghandi, Leo Tolstoy, Judy Garland, Agnes Varda, Zenobia. The story is clear: You’re born, you do stuff and you die. They all struggled, found success in something, struggled again, maybe found success again, and then died. I just finished When Breathe Becomes Air, the autobiography of Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. It is a rumination on mortality, littered with literary references, including Beckett’s “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” He dies before he finishes the book.

I also read Matthew McConaughey’s Green Lights. As facile as it sounds to consider an actor best known for “Alright, alright, alright”, it still has all the same moments, struggling and succeeding, trying to make sense. Alright, it is a trite read, and a little tiresome in the end, but he’s earnest and banged a whole beautiful women. And he’s not dead. Yet. Yeah, and he’s hot.

It’s better to live a life doing things, finding some sort of meaning and ‘indulging’ as McConaughey confesses. Then what? The key seems to be remembering, reflecting and sharing. But what if you don’t? What if you lose all that? You forget it all? My mother succumbed to dreaded Alzheimer’s and remembered nothing in her last years. Once a very insightful and intellectually demanding woman, she forgot everything including her beloved Mozart and The New Yorker. It was the one way she wanted to go. I’ve forgotten moments too, entire nights, years gone by and indulging too much, and all of the enjoyment I assume I had, is gone too. Like everything.

Whether we lay this planet to waste or not, this will all be forgotten. Not just my little old blog but everything else, Barbie, Mozart, Krakatoa, This space we fill will be empty and dark. There will be nothing at all. And so maybe I’m being generous with myself. I’m definitely not a two. I’m more like a one or zero.

No one Will Ever Know

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No one will ever know that I cleared the path of fallen branches from the storm.

No one will ever know that I ever came this way or be aware of the things I felt when the sun was there or the clouds came in.

No one will ever know the misery I felt, the depression and angst and then the hope and glimpse of happiness.

No one will know the terrible things I imagined, my obsessive perversions, my sheer delight in that.

No one will ever know how much I cared and dreamed and wanted and regretted. No one will ever know any of that, no matter what I say, what I write, the pictures I take, the people I tell and beg to listen.

All of that will be gone, like everything else. And none of it will ever have mattered.

Writing Process: Out of the Muck

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I had a dream about a broken-down electric dog, its wiring hanging out, paneling split open, trying to climb out of a muddy hole, pawing and digging and getting nowhere. I didn’t like it.

As much as I might tend to deflect and joke about my current malaise, it’s what depression might be, realizing how pointless everything is. It’s a dark fucking cloud, not knowing what to do, which direction to turn, to carry on or not, giving up and admitting the failure. Drinking to that. It isn’t a good feeling. It’s shit.

And then it’s not. It’s something else. The light. A sound. A thought. Something to do. Not phone games or social media, but the work, things that need to be done. First things first: stuff the wiring back in and get up out of the muck.

Malaise or Deep Vein Thrombosis?

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I have been anxiety-ridden as of late, much of which is due to writing the final book of my speculative work, The Cx Trilogy. I’ve recently written notes for the outline and even glanced through the first few pages but have mostly been plagued by inertia. Distracted by my literary angst, I packed my toiletries into my luggage for the flight to Greenland, forgetting that I needed my dose of blood-thinner.

I didn’t realize the oversight until boarding and had to accept that I would be fine as long as I walked about on the four-hour flight. I looked down at the continent and then went through the list of the films, stumbling upon Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk starring Meryl Streep as a well-known author named Alice Hughes.

I was pleasantly surprised by the film which featured literary angst, engaging dialogue and a cleverly entwined plot until I was surprised (spoiler alert!!) to see Ms. Hughes suddenly die of Deep Vein Thrombosis. I got up immediately to walk.

Of course there was no real reason for alarm. Ms. Hughes’ case was severe and her writing far more of a success. It was funny, and that was it. Another moment of me thinking the world was about me.

The Swiss Family Robinson Massacre

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I vividly recall watching the The Swiss Family Robinson, the Walt Disney film of a shipwrecked family living in harmony with the land. Why not then read Jonathan Wyss’ original 1814 story to reconnect to that innocence?

Surveying “New Switzerland”

The systematic slaughter of every living thing doesn’t come as a huge surprise in the beginning. We heard the boys popping away at the birds as we drew near. (107) Ernest ran into the water with his hatchet and killed the fish. (112) After all, this is a story of survival.

But the narrative goes well beyond that: Franz shot a beautiful blue jay and a couple of parakeets. (162) I could not consent to keep more than two puppies, and the rest disappeared in that mysterious way in which puppies and kittens are wont to leave this earth. (198) I sprang upon the onager’s back, and seizing her long ear in my teeth, bit it through. The result was marvelous, the animal quivered violently and stood stock still. (205)

Something dead

The family evolves into a sort of serial killer gang: We were obliged to do our part with clubs and sticks. At least forty apes lay mangled and dead. (260) Franz was overjoyed to find that he had shot the capybara, a creature that was new to everyone. (308) They kill ostriches, bears (referred to as “bad rubbish”), whales and walrus. The head of the walrus, the head! We must have the whole head’ cried Jack. (375)

Basket Head (Nick Cave)

The Disney Corporation has always been the master of gutting original stories. (Remember that Pinocchio kills the cricket at the beginning of Carlos Collodi’s tale and is then haunted by its ghost.) It’s just that here, Disney might have done me a favor, banishing Wyss’ repetitious violence for pirates and ostrich races. And so…this one time: Thanks, Walt.

The Anti-Wilhelm Grunt

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The Wilhelm Scream, a stock sound used over many years in Hollywood action films, became an insider joke for sound engineers because it was an exaggerated comical sound. It fit the genre because it was silly and fun.

I suggest a much more harrowing thing be done for the grunt. An involuntary sound, it is primal, a release of terror, pain or pleasure. I will suggest one for each category:

Stevie (John Savage) unleashes a ghastly, breathy grunt waiting in fear for his turn in Russian Roulette in Cimino’s The Deerhunter.

Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) panicked yet controlled release while piercing his hand in Scott’s Blade Runner haunts me to this day as does the death grunt of The Ugly (Lee Van Cleef) from Leone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The pleasure grunt is a little more broad, but a simple porn grunt search might suffice. Perhaps try Tanner Mayes?