June 27, 2009

Excerpt #3 - Cape Town...

I've been doing edits all morning and will be doing edits all day, and I was listening to Pandora and had one of those rare moments - hearing a song for the first time that's so good chills or weeps me. Devotchka's The Last Beat of My Heart, and either it or Durban's work or both was inspiring to me, and I thought it time to share again.


There’s a grotto at the Dunleen that I’m partial to and not many people know about. I told my new friend Susanna about it to get her in the pool, hyped it more to get her to swim beneath the pool’s waterfall, under a set of faux boulders and into what turned out to be more of a maintenance room than anything resembling my descriptions of a grotto. Clearly, I hadn’t been sober the last time I visited this place. Nevertheless, I now had her alone in a cave, away from the party, and her eyes were begging for me to do my sweet damage. Unlike X and most high form hallucinogens, the drug that had passed through my body didn’t just give me desire, but absolute need. I could feel our bodies pulling into one another, a fierce energy shooting about the enclosed space. When I take Ecstasy, fucking is hardly a byproduct and more of a contractual obligation I have with myself or with what Burn would call my stage two disingenuous nymphomania. Whatever I had taken, this was different. Fucking her was necessity. When all you have to do is pull two strings and have them standing naked, things go quick. We certainly did. This girl…she was cut from stone, every feature. This girl was going to be a star.

Once I was inside of her, it didn’t take long for her to come. And it wasn’t necessarily me. I can tell you that I have a great piece between my legs and that I’m enough of an athlete and sexual scholar to please the women I’m with. Also, I’m conveniently selfless…meaning that unless she comes, I can’t, as if my doing so alone would give her and the collective them a power I simply can’t release. She was gripping me hard and I was propping her back, holding her up with my hands, my biceps melting and shoulders cramping as she did this thing where her head fell back and her breath stopped before she let out this echoing and wailing cry…and with it, she shook from the inside out. It was beautiful, so incredible to be so close to her, to see her go. Then she fell into stillness, looked to me and kissed me before she leaned back, fell onto the cement and said something like fuck me sweetly, and so I did. In 60 minutes, she came seven times. I counted every one, every orgasm a precious and true performance. At some point, she looked to me and asked me if I was ready, if she could do anything to help me. I looked back, told her she was doing enough, that giving up even a moment of what I was in for an act so selfish was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. She smiled and kissed me. It was nice. She was unforgettable. I felt like a lover poet. I wanted to hold onto that.

June 21, 2009

Out Of Sight, But That's About It...

Someone recently asked me one of the most generic questions one can be asked...what is your greatest regret in life? And I thought about it and had to give the answer that I absolutely believe in. College, I never would have gone to college. I was sitting at home my junior year of high school on a bad night because I had done something bad in my life and because I'm a dramatic fool, I was 30-40% out the door, ready to drive off and leave town and start some sort of life, likely in California, because this state pulls to anyone growing up in the midwest. I should also make clear that what I'm saying has nothing to do with the home I was living in - it was as right a home as anyone could hope to live in - and everything to do with the world I was living in. And I told that person that I was judging based on what I would deem to be my own growth in the world, and that college sort of stalled that for me - of course that assumption only works if you take all the heart out of the scenario, and forget about the friends and girlfriends and battles and only look back on the academic world that so failed to inspire me. But I was cleaning out one of my online portfolios tonight and came across all the old stuff I made junior and senior year and I suppose some of the stuff when I first got to California. And I tried to think of what would have replaced those 4 years of my life - besides dropping out and taking off. And not just that, but everything these soon to be seen and ridiculous fuckers represent to me, still and I guess always. And maybe I'm doing the one thing I don't believe has much use in the world...the look back, but this was found in a stumble tonight, not in something I set out to do...and even though I do sometimes wish I would have went off looking for my life at 17 instead of 22, I see something like this and everything that goes with it and I feel bad for all I would have missed. But still...

This is the extended trailer for the first short I made in college. Link to the full version is on the YouTube page. Still can't believe that dance sequence was a one and done take. Clint Fucking Eastwood.

"This may be the best live performance I've ever seen, Yes Yes?"

Quoted from my brother, the only remaining Mozart I know, taken from this...

To which I returned, and now share:

Well picked and well played. And being a musician, I'm sure it's hitting on levels I can't even hear. That song has so many dimensions, literally it's like a fucking journey. What got me, though, was when the breakdown comes - and Ed O'Brien is just sitting on the stage - mouthing the words, looking a little toolsy. Then I kept watching to see him get upstaged by one of the Greenwoods bouncing around and singing to himself - going fucking nuts to a song he'd heard or performed 1000 times already, likely...like he's dying to be it or get in it before it gets sent out into the world. That's fire, or gravity...like it's so heavy it's pulling 'em down. That's what it takes to be one of the all time greats, that's what I'm thinking. We're talking 3-4 bands ever, are we not? And they could certainly make a case to land at the top, yes yes?

June 18, 2009

Excerpt #2 - Prague...

And if we're playing catch up, I continue to present to you John Durban. Getting closer to being able to drop the line, "buy the book," and with authenticity.


I woke up the morning of Christmas Eve on the hardwood floor of my Boscolo Carlo presidential, covered in cold, rank piss. There was a pounding noise shaking the room. I ditched my pants and opened the door to find the general manager standing with 2 brutes. He was holding a copy of my bill in his hand, telling me in shaky English that my card had been over-extended, that I was no longer welcome at their establishment. In Paris, or London, or anywhere in the states…anywhere but Eastern Europe, I could have made one call and been graciously accommodated. Problem with Prague, it was my first visit – no one knew of or gave a shit about who John Durban was. They didn’t know of my worldly status or of my worldly friends. To them, I was just a broke deadbeat who had recently pissed his pants.

I managed to negotiate 30 minutes for a shower and change of clothes, all the while trying to piece the pieces of the previous night into coherence. I’ve always found the shower to be an excellent avenue for thought and recollection, and right on cue, as those warm and resurrecting streams of water hit my face and ran over my scalp, everything came back. We were at Girl’s house the night before, somewhere just outside the city, having dinner with her family. They were serving Goulash of some sort – I think that’s what she called it in translation. I remember trying to eat it and my face being so numb from the cocaine – we had picked up an uncut key on the way over – that I couldn’t chew. I put a bite in my mouth and let it sit for what could have been either two minutes or two hours. Everyone was speaking Czech and fiercely arguing, I think insulted by my being there, some American boy who was fucking the life out of their overnight famous Czech princess, and I could see it in their eyes and feel it in their tones, not needing to speak their language to know what the conversation was all about. The family was well off, and they had found success through hard work and study and dedication. Her and I were the opposite epitome of that belief. This was a conservative family of doctors and lawyers and the thought of her jet setting, posing nude and shaking up with the John Durban’s of the world didn’t exactly ease their collective heart. In spite of my charm and devilishly good looks, there is a breed that sees through me, all of me…this was the breed. Looking back, I have no idea what we were doing there. The whole experience was grotesque. Maybe she wanted to smear her success in their faces, I don’t know. On several occasions, Girl’s father had to step between her and her two brothers because they were threatening physical harm to me or to her or to both of us, I don’t know. What I did know was that if they did touch her, or me, I was going to stab their eyes with my Goulash knife…not because I cared for her or because I felt the need to defend her, but more because I liked the idea of it, of chivalry, of masquerading as a guy who defends the honor of a girl whose name I should have known but didn’t.

June 11, 2009

How It Comes...


I didn't make it much of a secret that I had been training for the Los Angeles marathon, or that I fell short of the time I was going for, or that I signed up the night after to run another one in San Francisco on July 26th. I decided to take something of a new approach to my training. It goes something like this - run fucking faster.

So I got off work today and went into the gym to get a lift in before a fast 4.2 miles out on the road. These days, I roam the gym with absolute ADD, going from machine to machine in random but calculated and crushing sets. I'm never sure how long I'm going to be there, or exactly what I'm going to do. When I finish, I finish...and today, finishing meant it was time to run Sunset through Beverly Hills and back. The first stretch is a little bit of up and down, running through the mess of Sunset Plaza and the last bits of West Sunset. Then, things calm when you cross into Beverly Hills and there's this straight shot from Doheny to Whittier - the pass where Sunset winds and takes you to UCLA. I was coming over the hill, ready to kill my 3.2 mile loop to Whittier and back when I saw a runner on the opposite side of the street. He was about 20 yards ahead of me, just as I was starting my kick and I was thinking in my head - because these are the things I think - alright fucker, let's roll. I overtook him, just beating my feet against the pavement until I had to run around a car and lost my pace. He took the lead again before I overtook him and thought that to be the end of it. His body was torn up, but he had a little too much muscle to be that fast or committed to being anything but that - a good body. I thought. Cars started honking behind me and I thought nothing of it. It didn't take long before I heard this huffing coming up from behind me. This dude had Froggered Sunset to chase me down and all he said as he ran up to my side - crazy pace man, people don't run like this in Los Angeles. I laughed, immediately measured him - he meant business. I was moving and he chased me down from the opposite side of the street with composed breath. It didn't take long for him to give his name - Nathan - and for me to admit that I was training for San Francisco - and for me to get him to spill that he ran Miami in 3:01 and had a personal best of 1:17 in the half. Over the course of the first half mile, we agreed to extend my run to 6 miles, to the loop he was planning on running - and we agreed without words, because I could feel he was a competitive fucker just like me - that we were just going to slaughter it. I had felt awful all over before we started the run, sore in my hips and back and calves but I tucked it in my back pocket the second we started our kick together. I like to think we were flying down Sunset...because we were, and I don't know the exact pace, but could feel some of the miles passing in the low 6's, and we were introducing our lives and talking the whole way.

The loop came and went, and we made it back to Sunset and crossed Doheny and from there, on the home stretch, the pace quickened. He was ahead of me and started to fly. All I had to do was follow, chase a rabbit and he was trying to pull away. I could feel my legs thumping as they flexed and extended...and I was just floating along and we were racing through Sunset Plaza, on the home stretch, two motherfucking colts galloping past the digs of men who despised and envied our strength, past the whistles of women who wanted to take us to bed. He was 5 paces ahead and the world slowed for me, and I tried to think back to a time I was ever chasing someone else, trying to catch someone else. I couldn't recall and it was an amazing feeling, getting beat.

I got home tonight after we traded info, got a text that said - "I could see us breaking barriers. Crush your 16 in Palm Springs. Let's set up for some quality miles next week."

My return - "Funny. One more set and all we do is pass each other. You'll be hearing from me."

June 06, 2009

Excerpt #1 - Paris

Writing a book can be an occupying task. Me and Durban ran through the first swing and are now in the process of drafting - which falls mostly on my shoulders...but that was the deal. Stick to strengths. Anyway, I have little clue what to even try to do with this thing once we're done, and I've found that to be something of a comfort..to just focus on the work and not on a theory of hope that's doomed me in the past. So anyway, this is going to be long and arduous in all the best of ways, and I don't believe in self promotion totally (see entire blog to refute this statement)...but what I do believe in is promoting Durban and his work because I think he's a lunatic genius and because our work is going to be housed together and under the same roof - thus indirectly promoting my own work at the same time. As we get through these second drafts, I'm going to start posting pieces...some sort of prelude to the entirety, if you will, starting now, with Monsieur Durban...

His eyes lit so bright when she called. I’ll never forget it. I ordered a drink, followed him out into the hallway, keeping my distance, out of sight. Poor kid, I thought, no one deserves what he was about to go through. Personally, I’m a man who finds beauty in life’s less finer things, believe there’s nothing so beautiful as a broken heart. As much as it pained me to watch the suffering of my newfound friend, there would have been nothing in the world worthy of prying my eyes from him. I watched, and I sipped my drink and I waited and felt the imminent rush of destruction approaching.

There was a point in the conversation where he turned to face me perfectly, just as his world began to change, and he held steady, and I was able to see everything in his face, the moment of it all, the moment she so bravely told him. I was so proud of her, watching him unfold, knowing how few would be either willing or able to give him freedom like that. That fucking whore. She would never find someone one tenth of him. That lunatic cunt. I wanted to kiss her and rip out her throat. I wanted to fuck her and saw her in half. I watched as a seam opened along the front and center of Burn’s body and I waited and watched as if the whole of his insides were going to spill out onto the floor. They didn’t. He covered his brow with a hand and began to walk in circles, rushed and moving and I knew in that moment my actions had cauterized a bond between us. He was now my responsibility. Whatever fate he sought for the rest of his life, I would have no choice but to adopt it as my own…and I was willing and ready for that.

June 01, 2009

The Day I Finished...

My horoscope in the Chicago Tribune said exactly...

"If you're going to write a story about your adventures, give it a good ending. Have the hero emerge enormously successful."