We lay on the turf in the cold and the dark. We lay bundled up with hats and scarves and gloves, we lay close but not touching. It was a meteor shower and we lay there together, in the dark, in the cold.
Elisabeth, I said.
Yes, she said.
The sky was falling.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, I said, about the idea of being dead. Like I'm not worried that I'll die tomorrow, but I just think about that one day I won't be alive, you know. And like what that will be like, because it will be forever. Infinity years of my being dead, and that'll be it. Life will go on but I just. I won't. I won't go on. I'll be gone. I have been up late and very anxious.
She took a deep breath and then let it out and her breath was tiny icicles in the air.
We saw that dead raccoon on the way over here, she said.
I turned my head to look at her.
I'm just saying it could be worse, she said, still staring at the sky, and then she took my glove in her glove and I looked back up as well. I don't think what she offered was much in the way of comfort, but it was something to think about, at least.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
NOTES
Notes found on the yellow tiled wall of the rest stop bathroom read as messages from beyond, as warnings to humanity. THIS IS THE END, written in green sharpie, WE WERE WITNESSES TO OUR OWN LIVES. WE LISTENED TO OUR SPORTS EQUIPMENT, WE HELD OUR OWN AGAINST THE GLOWING ASH. IF YOU FIND MY BODY, BURY IT WITH A TUBE OF CHAPSTICK AND A CRAYON THE COLOR OF THE MOON. I COULD HAVE LEARNED TO PLAY THE BANJO AND INSTEAD I FOUGHT WITH DOGS AND TOSSED EMPTY FORTIES OFF OF THE OVERPASS. I ATE GRAY STEAK. I SAT WITH MY HEAD DOWN IN THE DARK LIBRARY AND LISTENED TO THE HOT RAIN SIZZLE ON THE CEMENT, THINKING OF MY FATHER AND HIS ACCIDENT WITH THE FAX MACHINE.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
TOO MUCH TOO OFTEN
Once in a great while, a track that samples Adele's "Rumour Has It" and The Dub Pistol's "Cyclone" comes to the internet. Such a track is "TOO MUCH TOO OFTEN".
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
New Weather Stories
Dark clouds were rolling in, we could feel it on campus. The wind was picking up, and while professors made up excuses to cancel classes and went to be with their families, the student body was less than hunkered down. Frantic administrative emergency emails were sent out and then sort of just stopped coming, but we did not concern ourselves with what this might mean. The air smelled sweetly of inevitability, and the buzz about the student center was faint but pulsing.
"I think this might be the real end," Jesse said to me as we shared a cigarette in his car with the windows up. We regarded the horizon, which was gloomy and approaching fast.
"Yep," I said, and then, because we were young, "should we hit up the liquor store?"
Jesse smiled, resigned. A storm was coming, and when it hit we would all dance close to the windows.
"I think this might be the real end," Jesse said to me as we shared a cigarette in his car with the windows up. We regarded the horizon, which was gloomy and approaching fast.
"Yep," I said, and then, because we were young, "should we hit up the liquor store?"
Jesse smiled, resigned. A storm was coming, and when it hit we would all dance close to the windows.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
New Love Stories
We had just moved into a small apartment at the bottom of the ocean.
"I'd just like to go over some household expectations," you announced. "For instance, I expect you to clean the jellyfish out of the pipes. Also if we spring a leak I expect you to let me die first as I don't think I could handle drowning down here alone."
I nodded, this all sounded pretty reasonable.
"In return," you said, "I'll cook fish you catch. Healthy-looking ones at least. And I won't complain about how long the commute is by submarine."
That night we made love by the light of the anglerfish. It was a hassle that I'd need to pick up oxygen tanks every day until the algae farm started working, but the moon sure looked pretty nice reflected in the water's surface.
"I'd just like to go over some household expectations," you announced. "For instance, I expect you to clean the jellyfish out of the pipes. Also if we spring a leak I expect you to let me die first as I don't think I could handle drowning down here alone."
I nodded, this all sounded pretty reasonable.
"In return," you said, "I'll cook fish you catch. Healthy-looking ones at least. And I won't complain about how long the commute is by submarine."
That night we made love by the light of the anglerfish. It was a hassle that I'd need to pick up oxygen tanks every day until the algae farm started working, but the moon sure looked pretty nice reflected in the water's surface.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wade's Dad's Basement
Alex Bauer comes up with the idea in Wade’s dad’s basement, which is dim and dank and thick with the smell of spilled beer and packed bodies. He’s heavily buzzed but the thought is clear: he must lose his virginity tonight, and, maybe and troublingly more than that, the whole thing must be a story worth telling.
And though he’s enjoying this metaphor that the idea was created in this basement like so many single-cell organisms from the primordial ooze, the fact is that it is not from thin air. It was prompted by a photograph hung on one of the brown paneled walls - a portrait of Wade and his father sitting together, on Wade’s knee a football and on his shoulder one of his father’s meaty hands, both of them looking off into the distance past the camera, as if the photographer had just happened to catch them in the park holding a football and wearing matching sweaters and watching the sunset together. Alex might have called it pretty gay if he were a little less taken by it.
Because somehow from the portrait it is only a small step in Alex’s memories to the day in second grade when, for show and tell, Wade came in with a shark tooth and announced proudly to the class that it belonged to his father, who, while surfing once, had been attacked by a Great White. “It bit him in the shin!” Wade explained, trying to mimic the action by randomly grabbing at and thrashing around his own leg, “but my dad fought it off and when he got to the hospital the doctor found this stuck in his bone. He walks with a limp now but he gave me this when I was little to keep.”
Alex realizes he has been staring at this photograph for longer than he can remember and goes to grab another beer.
****
In middle school his class did a report about an interesting story told by their family. His peers told stories about rings made of melted down gold coins from old villages in Eastern Europe and about escape from concentration camps and about international chess championships. Alex’s story went like this - my dad grew up in Troy, New York, on a farm. His family used to breed golden retrievers until there was a fire one day when my dad was at school. The door to the kennel was held open by a rope, and, see, the rope burned first and so the door shut and the dogs couldn’t get out. My dad says he heard the sirens at school and wondered what they could be for, and then when he got home his family was out in the backyard, his mom crying and his dad sort of just staring at the burnt ground, and when he ran back to see them he looked around and said, “where are the dogs?” and his brother said, “they’re dead, stupid.”
The story wraps up to a horrified silence broken only by the quiet sobbing of a girl in the back row. After class one of Alex’s friends come up to him, grinning. “Jesus, Alex, that was brutal. I expected it to be like, ‘oh, but my grampa saved them all,’ or like, ‘my dad ran straight home and into the fire,’ or something, but, yeah, seriously.”
Alex doesn’t know what to say except for, “yeah, that would have been a good story.”
****
He feels at least some confidence that he could make a move on Sarah. He knows her through marching band - he plays trombone, she is in the colorguard - and he likes to think they have always been kind of flirty in a classic marching band way. He also maybe thinks those stereotypes about the colorguard must exist for a reason.
She is standing by the punch.
“Hey Sarah,” he says.
“Hey Alex,” she replies.
This was roughly as far as he planned in the conversation.
“How are you liking the party so far?” he asks.
She looks around a little. “It’s pretty fun. I came here with Mariah but I don’t know where she’s got to, I think I saw her dancing with someone upstairs earlier, I’m not sure.”
“Hmm, yeah,” Alex replies thoughtfully.
They stand there for a little bit and sip from their drinks and nod. Someone yells something about shotgunning. Alex is glad for this. “You want to come shotgun, Sarah?”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’ve never done it before,” she says, “plus I kind of hate beer.”
“You should at least come spectate.”
“Yeah, I guess I could do that.” She finishes her drink and holds her empty cup down in her right hand as he grabs a beer and leads her out the back door.
****
Alex has this recurring dream.
In it he is a proper adult – in his thirties or forties maybe – and he gets home from his job to see his own teenage son working on homework or something and the looking up to ask Alex to tell a story about his youthful excapades – except Alex can’t think of anything, until, suddenly desperate, he launches into Wade’s dad’s surfing story. His son is totally impressed.
****
He is the dark horse candidate to win the shotgun and so he comes in fourth or so, but it was cold out and he got Sarah to put on his coat so that in itself is a small victory, at least. They are the only ones left standing outside as he picks up the empty cans and tries fruitlessly to throw at least one into the recycling bin a few yards away.
“That shotgunning was a good effort,” she offers vaguely as he picks up all the missed cans. “A lot of those guys still had beer left in their cans when they dropped them.”
“Hey, hey, it’s not a competition. We all won because we all drank a beer.” This is a joke Alex made at a party about a year ago – people thought it was pretty funny and so he has made it shamelessly at every opportunity since then. Sarah laughs.
****
In Wade’s dad’s living room they dance facing each other and close together in a way that Alex takes as a good sign. She hangs onto his neck and closes her eyes to the music; he holds her around the waist and smells her hair. He is pretty drunk.
“I turn eighteen tomorrow,” he shouts.
She leans a back a little and he can see her say, “what?”
“Yep, it’s true.”
“No,” she says, “I mean, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Oh, sorry, I said I turn eighteen tomorrow.”
She smiles, “Wow! Happy early birthday!”
He is worried they might just start standing there.
“So, yeah,” he offers.
They just stand there.
He clears his throat. “You want to, um, you want to go check out upstairs? It might be a little quieter.”
She glances around and nods.
****
They sit on Wade’s sister’s bed for a little and talk about marching band. Alex says some funny stuff and Sarah laughs, and then they start kissing and he takes off her shirt and she takes off his shirt and they lie down and kiss except when he reaches for her belt she pulls away and puts her hand on his chest.
“Hey, I don’t think- like, maybe not,” she says in an embarrassed way.
“Oh, I’m really sorry,” he says quickly, moving off her. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s no problem. I mean I’m sorry, I just don’t really feel like, you know.”
“Yeah, sure. It’s totally fine.” He goes to sit up but in moving he put his head under part of the headboard and so he accidentally smashes his face into it. Sarah lets out a little shriek.
“Whoa, fuck,” Alex says, succeeding in sitting up. He puts his hand up to his eyebrow and feels blood. Sarah sits up. “Holy shit, Alex, are you okay?” “I think so, yeah,” he says. He goes to stand up but moves too quickly; his face throbs and he reels, knocking into a bookshelf. A lamp falls and breaks. He swears again, steadies the furniture, surveys the damage of the lamp, and then looks to Sarah.
She has her hands over her nose and she’s laughing helplessly. He says, “what.”
She just keeps laughing. He swears and gets back in bed.
****
At eight thirteen Alex’s phone beeps loud because it is out of batteries. He sits up and squints his eyes for the bright. His lips are cracked and his head is pounding. Sarah is lying face down next to him, snoring a little.
She rolls over and sniffs as he stands up to pick up the broken glass on the floor.
“‘Morning,” she says, smiling.
“Hey,” he says.
****
Outside her house in his car, Sarah puts back on her scarf. “Thanks for the ride, Alex,” she says, and then, reaching out to brush the cut on his forehead, adds, “you should put something on this, too.”
“Is it noticeable?” He asks, pulling down the mirror.
“Uh, sort of,” she confesses, “but at least it makes kind of a good story.”
****
Over his morning coffee, John Bauer notes his son pulling up to their house in his car and throwing up in the snow next to the mailbox. He stands up when Alex comes in the house and tries to greet him without grinning. “Hey, happy birthday bud! How was your Friday?”
“It was fun I guess, you know, pretty chill.” Alex manages weakly. After his dad just looks at him Alex adds, “I guess I drank a little too much.”
John smiles. “You know, I think the first time I ever threw up because of drinking too much was on my eighteenth birthday too.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Any other excitement?”
“You know this girl from school and I were talking and we sort of hit it off, I don't know. I think we might go on a real date maybe.”
“Hey, that’s great!” his dad says. “Tell you what, why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll make you a nice greasy omelet as an appropriate congratulations. They’re perfect for soaking up that excess ethanol.
“Mom says when you were in school that’s all you would eat,” Alex says.
John grabs a pan from the cupboard. “Oh, please, what does she know? I won a thousand bucks in a baking contest one time in grad school.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you didn’t know this? My sophomore year a frat on campus had a baking contest for a holiday party and I brought Apple-Eggnog pie. The recipe was my own invention. It won out over, among other things, straight weed brownies,” he says, chuckling, “I imagine it helped that the judges ate the weed brownies first and my pie a little later, probably.”
Alex has not heard this story before. “Wow, dad, that’s sick.”
“Yeah, it was sort of silly.”
“What’d you spend the money on?” Alex asks.
“I think I just put it in the bank,” his dad says, “I know, not that exciting.”
Alex gets up. “No, that’s kind of cool actually.”
****
When Alex gets upstairs he goes to take off his pants and feels something in the pocket. He pulls it out and turns it over in his hands and one of the small memories he lost last night comes flooding back.
He had woken up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom in that sort of still drunk way. He wandered down the hall and accidentally opened the door to Wade’s room, where Wade was passed out naked and alone and snoring loudly. Alex was about to close the door when he saw the shark tooth.
And there it was, just as he remembered from the night before: the tiny seam of plastic that went around the whole tooth – the type of seam formed when something is mass-produced by means of a mold.
The tooth was fake.
****
Alex has the dream again that night except this time he doesn’t panic. He tells the story about his son’s grandfather’s baking contest, and how he found out about it on the day he got that weird scar above his eyebrow.
Because somehow from the portrait it is only a small step in Alex’s memories to the day in second grade when, for show and tell, Wade came in with a shark tooth and announced proudly to the class that it belonged to his father, who, while surfing once, had been attacked by a Great White. “It bit him in the shin!” Wade explained, trying to mimic the action by randomly grabbing at and thrashing around his own leg, “but my dad fought it off and when he got to the hospital the doctor found this stuck in his bone. He walks with a limp now but he gave me this when I was little to keep.”
Alex realizes he has been staring at this photograph for longer than he can remember and goes to grab another beer.
****
In middle school his class did a report about an interesting story told by their family. His peers told stories about rings made of melted down gold coins from old villages in Eastern Europe and about escape from concentration camps and about international chess championships. Alex’s story went like this - my dad grew up in Troy, New York, on a farm. His family used to breed golden retrievers until there was a fire one day when my dad was at school. The door to the kennel was held open by a rope, and, see, the rope burned first and so the door shut and the dogs couldn’t get out. My dad says he heard the sirens at school and wondered what they could be for, and then when he got home his family was out in the backyard, his mom crying and his dad sort of just staring at the burnt ground, and when he ran back to see them he looked around and said, “where are the dogs?” and his brother said, “they’re dead, stupid.”
The story wraps up to a horrified silence broken only by the quiet sobbing of a girl in the back row. After class one of Alex’s friends come up to him, grinning. “Jesus, Alex, that was brutal. I expected it to be like, ‘oh, but my grampa saved them all,’ or like, ‘my dad ran straight home and into the fire,’ or something, but, yeah, seriously.”
Alex doesn’t know what to say except for, “yeah, that would have been a good story.”
****
He feels at least some confidence that he could make a move on Sarah. He knows her through marching band - he plays trombone, she is in the colorguard - and he likes to think they have always been kind of flirty in a classic marching band way. He also maybe thinks those stereotypes about the colorguard must exist for a reason.
She is standing by the punch.
“Hey Sarah,” he says.
“Hey Alex,” she replies.
This was roughly as far as he planned in the conversation.
“How are you liking the party so far?” he asks.
She looks around a little. “It’s pretty fun. I came here with Mariah but I don’t know where she’s got to, I think I saw her dancing with someone upstairs earlier, I’m not sure.”
“Hmm, yeah,” Alex replies thoughtfully.
They stand there for a little bit and sip from their drinks and nod. Someone yells something about shotgunning. Alex is glad for this. “You want to come shotgun, Sarah?”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’ve never done it before,” she says, “plus I kind of hate beer.”
“You should at least come spectate.”
“Yeah, I guess I could do that.” She finishes her drink and holds her empty cup down in her right hand as he grabs a beer and leads her out the back door.
****
Alex has this recurring dream.
In it he is a proper adult – in his thirties or forties maybe – and he gets home from his job to see his own teenage son working on homework or something and the looking up to ask Alex to tell a story about his youthful excapades – except Alex can’t think of anything, until, suddenly desperate, he launches into Wade’s dad’s surfing story. His son is totally impressed.
****
He is the dark horse candidate to win the shotgun and so he comes in fourth or so, but it was cold out and he got Sarah to put on his coat so that in itself is a small victory, at least. They are the only ones left standing outside as he picks up the empty cans and tries fruitlessly to throw at least one into the recycling bin a few yards away.
“That shotgunning was a good effort,” she offers vaguely as he picks up all the missed cans. “A lot of those guys still had beer left in their cans when they dropped them.”
“Hey, hey, it’s not a competition. We all won because we all drank a beer.” This is a joke Alex made at a party about a year ago – people thought it was pretty funny and so he has made it shamelessly at every opportunity since then. Sarah laughs.
****
In Wade’s dad’s living room they dance facing each other and close together in a way that Alex takes as a good sign. She hangs onto his neck and closes her eyes to the music; he holds her around the waist and smells her hair. He is pretty drunk.
“I turn eighteen tomorrow,” he shouts.
She leans a back a little and he can see her say, “what?”
“Yep, it’s true.”
“No,” she says, “I mean, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Oh, sorry, I said I turn eighteen tomorrow.”
She smiles, “Wow! Happy early birthday!”
He is worried they might just start standing there.
“So, yeah,” he offers.
They just stand there.
He clears his throat. “You want to, um, you want to go check out upstairs? It might be a little quieter.”
She glances around and nods.
****
They sit on Wade’s sister’s bed for a little and talk about marching band. Alex says some funny stuff and Sarah laughs, and then they start kissing and he takes off her shirt and she takes off his shirt and they lie down and kiss except when he reaches for her belt she pulls away and puts her hand on his chest.
“Hey, I don’t think- like, maybe not,” she says in an embarrassed way.
“Oh, I’m really sorry,” he says quickly, moving off her. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s no problem. I mean I’m sorry, I just don’t really feel like, you know.”
“Yeah, sure. It’s totally fine.” He goes to sit up but in moving he put his head under part of the headboard and so he accidentally smashes his face into it. Sarah lets out a little shriek.
“Whoa, fuck,” Alex says, succeeding in sitting up. He puts his hand up to his eyebrow and feels blood. Sarah sits up. “Holy shit, Alex, are you okay?” “I think so, yeah,” he says. He goes to stand up but moves too quickly; his face throbs and he reels, knocking into a bookshelf. A lamp falls and breaks. He swears again, steadies the furniture, surveys the damage of the lamp, and then looks to Sarah.
She has her hands over her nose and she’s laughing helplessly. He says, “what.”
She just keeps laughing. He swears and gets back in bed.
****
At eight thirteen Alex’s phone beeps loud because it is out of batteries. He sits up and squints his eyes for the bright. His lips are cracked and his head is pounding. Sarah is lying face down next to him, snoring a little.
She rolls over and sniffs as he stands up to pick up the broken glass on the floor.
“‘Morning,” she says, smiling.
“Hey,” he says.
****
Outside her house in his car, Sarah puts back on her scarf. “Thanks for the ride, Alex,” she says, and then, reaching out to brush the cut on his forehead, adds, “you should put something on this, too.”
“Is it noticeable?” He asks, pulling down the mirror.
“Uh, sort of,” she confesses, “but at least it makes kind of a good story.”
****
Over his morning coffee, John Bauer notes his son pulling up to their house in his car and throwing up in the snow next to the mailbox. He stands up when Alex comes in the house and tries to greet him without grinning. “Hey, happy birthday bud! How was your Friday?”
“It was fun I guess, you know, pretty chill.” Alex manages weakly. After his dad just looks at him Alex adds, “I guess I drank a little too much.”
John smiles. “You know, I think the first time I ever threw up because of drinking too much was on my eighteenth birthday too.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Any other excitement?”
“You know this girl from school and I were talking and we sort of hit it off, I don't know. I think we might go on a real date maybe.”
“Hey, that’s great!” his dad says. “Tell you what, why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll make you a nice greasy omelet as an appropriate congratulations. They’re perfect for soaking up that excess ethanol.
“Mom says when you were in school that’s all you would eat,” Alex says.
John grabs a pan from the cupboard. “Oh, please, what does she know? I won a thousand bucks in a baking contest one time in grad school.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you didn’t know this? My sophomore year a frat on campus had a baking contest for a holiday party and I brought Apple-Eggnog pie. The recipe was my own invention. It won out over, among other things, straight weed brownies,” he says, chuckling, “I imagine it helped that the judges ate the weed brownies first and my pie a little later, probably.”
Alex has not heard this story before. “Wow, dad, that’s sick.”
“Yeah, it was sort of silly.”
“What’d you spend the money on?” Alex asks.
“I think I just put it in the bank,” his dad says, “I know, not that exciting.”
Alex gets up. “No, that’s kind of cool actually.”
****
When Alex gets upstairs he goes to take off his pants and feels something in the pocket. He pulls it out and turns it over in his hands and one of the small memories he lost last night comes flooding back.
He had woken up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom in that sort of still drunk way. He wandered down the hall and accidentally opened the door to Wade’s room, where Wade was passed out naked and alone and snoring loudly. Alex was about to close the door when he saw the shark tooth.
And there it was, just as he remembered from the night before: the tiny seam of plastic that went around the whole tooth – the type of seam formed when something is mass-produced by means of a mold.
The tooth was fake.
****
Alex has the dream again that night except this time he doesn’t panic. He tells the story about his son’s grandfather’s baking contest, and how he found out about it on the day he got that weird scar above his eyebrow.
Monday, September 03, 2012
Break-Up Bootleg
Sampling vocals from Cher Lloyd's "Want U Back" and The Beastie Boys' "Hey Ladies", "Break-Up Bootleg" is PAPERCUT MIXMASTER's fifth single released so far and a pretty clear indication he's running out of good ideas.
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Final Thoughts
As camp ends, things tend toward their natural extremes and the counselors begin adopting the surreal rather heavily. Temperatures during the day reach three digits and at night drop to below freezing. The best campers pass final levels at their activities. The worse ones break drinking glasses during meals and teach the director's children to swear.
On the last night a storm hits around one-thirty and the two of us jump in the lake and learn to breathe underwater. Above us sailboats break from their moorings and the water's surface becomes choppy and loud, but, here on the lake's floor, things are still. We squelch our toes into the muck and hold hands. A fish swims by.
I thought the songleaders this year were pretty okay, I say.
Yes, you say.
A bolt of lightning strikes the tall pine behind bunk four, and we can make out the screams of terrified children.
I say, would it make you uncomfortable if I said I am going to miss you considerably?
You say, no, I guess not.
I say, well.
On the last night a storm hits around one-thirty and the two of us jump in the lake and learn to breathe underwater. Above us sailboats break from their moorings and the water's surface becomes choppy and loud, but, here on the lake's floor, things are still. We squelch our toes into the muck and hold hands. A fish swims by.
I thought the songleaders this year were pretty okay, I say.
Yes, you say.
A bolt of lightning strikes the tall pine behind bunk four, and we can make out the screams of terrified children.
I say, would it make you uncomfortable if I said I am going to miss you considerably?
You say, no, I guess not.
I say, well.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
More Camp Stories
Elisabeth can feel it - in the heat that won't break, in the way the other campers are looking a bit desperate at flag-raising, in the lake, unreasonably still and murky. And she knows the administration can feel it too, for the camp director’s grin has turned toothy and dark, and the early bedtimes come frantically, like a terrible precaution. The infirmary is over-capacity. Sleep-walking is at an all time high. All of the eight-year-olds besides Elisabeth have been up late, sobbing and tossing in their bunk beds, their haggard counselors unable to offer them any comfort. Elisabeth lies by quietly, listening to the restless horses and the shrieking bats. Something tragic and wonderful is coming to camp Matoaka, she writes in her journal, and we will all be its witnesses.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
She
She was the bride at the wedding, and you busted in and convinced her fiance to run away with you, because maybe you and him were high school sweethearts or co-workers who hadn't gotten a chance to say I love you until now, when you traveled across the country to get the man of your dreams and perhaps push her and her expensive dress into a pond. It's worth mentioning, though, that, while the story followed you and your finally found love out to your quirky beat-up sedan, the tears she cried in her canopy bed were as real as the ones you would have cried in your hip Manhattan loft, and, despite her short stature and mean face, the love poems she wrote for him were real and better than yours.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
Further Dispatches from the Zombie Apocolypse
By the light of your headlamp you pick off another zombie that was hammering at the barricade, and I hand you the second rifle, already loaded. With only a handful of .22s at our disposal, this was the system we came up with. The world is ending at summer camp, and you are good at shooting guns and making fires and I am good at arts and crafts.
“We are going to die,” I say.
“Yes,” you say, “we are.”
There is a momentarily lull in the conversation during which you kill more of the walking dead. Thunder rumbles.
“I never had the heart to tell you this, but I feel it is worth mentioning now,” I say, “I am in love with you. I think you are beautiful and funny and you have wonderful aim.”
You say, “pass me another rifle.”
I say, “there is no one else with whom I would rather be spending my last moments.”
You say, “I wish I was with my family.”
I say, “yes, I’m sorry, I know,” and I hand you another gun and you shoot another zombie, and I think about all the colors I could have used for your friendship bracelet.
“We are going to die,” I say.
“Yes,” you say, “we are.”
There is a momentarily lull in the conversation during which you kill more of the walking dead. Thunder rumbles.
“I never had the heart to tell you this, but I feel it is worth mentioning now,” I say, “I am in love with you. I think you are beautiful and funny and you have wonderful aim.”
You say, “pass me another rifle.”
I say, “there is no one else with whom I would rather be spending my last moments.”
You say, “I wish I was with my family.”
I say, “yes, I’m sorry, I know,” and I hand you another gun and you shoot another zombie, and I think about all the colors I could have used for your friendship bracelet.
Sunday, July 01, 2012
the best
They said, you're the best, and Jesse said, don't worry about it, it's alright, it was nice to get off-campus for a bit and I didn't have much else to do anyway.
They said, you're the best, and Jesse said, I'm really not because I've actually been preparing for this day for two years, spending hours daily building up an immunity to the gas with which I filled my car during the drive, and you will all be dead shortly and the life insurance policies will pay handsomely and this time next month I'll be getting a massage on the beach in the Caribbean and you'll all be dead.
They said, you're the best, and Jesse said, I know I am.
They said, you're the best, and Jesse said, I'm really not because I've actually been preparing for this day for two years, spending hours daily building up an immunity to the gas with which I filled my car during the drive, and you will all be dead shortly and the life insurance policies will pay handsomely and this time next month I'll be getting a massage on the beach in the Caribbean and you'll all be dead.
They said, you're the best, and Jesse said, I know I am.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Feels So Empty
Called PAPERCUT MIXMASTER's "most blatantly formulaic track so far," "Feels So Empty" features vocals from "Without Me" by rap artist Eminem and samples from Bitter:Sweet's "Dirty Laundry". Sources close to the artist indicate he might not have discovered these songs by watching Team Fortress 2 frag videos. NSFW lyrics.
Look for another track to drop before I leave for camp! Otherwise I have a new post below this.
Look for another track to drop before I leave for camp! Otherwise I have a new post below this.
Yup
Having some writer's block; I'm going to start updating weekly to try to get myself working. I'm also thinking of changing the blog's address to papercutmixmaster.blogspot.com, let me know what you think. My new post is below this.
On the Night Before
On the night before we had to leave, an angel visited us in the darkness. We were crying in Elizabeth's bed, see, her and myself, just holding each other and crying, and then the angel came down on a moonbeam or something and spoke to us. Your love was pure and your happiness was genuine, and you should not weep for that, it whispered, and Elizabeth said, don't you think we know that.
Monday, April 30, 2012
New Love Stories
The wedding reception was outfitted with the usual diversions –
my new wife was a very wealthy woman
thanks to a late father who had made his money
selling explosives and machine-guns to warlords in central Africa
so that they could paralyze more children with landmines –
And so for us that meant an open bar and a fancy Hollywood DJ.
I was not bothered by her shrill friends,
Or the vows she wrote herself which took an hour to read.
That night we took the jet to her villa outside of Paris
And slow danced to soft jazz music
on the balcony off the master bedroom.
Darling, she purred,
Her breath hot and smelling of expensive wine,
I’m so happy.
And I said, I am too, and
we danced closer to the railing.
my new wife was a very wealthy woman
thanks to a late father who had made his money
selling explosives and machine-guns to warlords in central Africa
so that they could paralyze more children with landmines –
And so for us that meant an open bar and a fancy Hollywood DJ.
I was not bothered by her shrill friends,
Or the vows she wrote herself which took an hour to read.
That night we took the jet to her villa outside of Paris
And slow danced to soft jazz music
on the balcony off the master bedroom.
Darling, she purred,
Her breath hot and smelling of expensive wine,
I’m so happy.
And I said, I am too, and
we danced closer to the railing.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Z
Inspired by the work of Alexey Pajitnov.
****
This is the end.
You sowed the seeds of your own destruction
even as you left the last column free.
I watched you squirrel those boxes away in the corner
on top of the T-blocks,
assuring yourself, perhaps, that you’d deal
with those tiny gaps later,
when you had more time,
more space,
and a few more points under your belt.
The line piece you were waiting for, though, has come and gone
and now here I am, staring down at a jagged
and desperate landscape where I don’t belong.
Were you satisfied, clearing four lines
to leave nothing but a fourteen-story tower
built of rotted concrete?
Were the points worth this immovable tribute
to short-sightedness?
I have no regrets, friend.
I only hope you can say the same.
****
This is the end.
You sowed the seeds of your own destruction
even as you left the last column free.
I watched you squirrel those boxes away in the corner
on top of the T-blocks,
assuring yourself, perhaps, that you’d deal
with those tiny gaps later,
when you had more time,
more space,
and a few more points under your belt.
The line piece you were waiting for, though, has come and gone
and now here I am, staring down at a jagged
and desperate landscape where I don’t belong.
Were you satisfied, clearing four lines
to leave nothing but a fourteen-story tower
built of rotted concrete?
Were the points worth this immovable tribute
to short-sightedness?
I have no regrets, friend.
I only hope you can say the same.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Do-Overs
"Do-Overs" is mash-up artist and Brad Pitt look-a-like PAPERCUT MIXMASTER's second single off of his mixtape The Wuggie Norple Story. Samples include Steely Dan, Caro Emerald, and the U.S. Naval Drum Corp. Upon the track's release, one of the artist's many fans was reported to have raved "well if you're done then will you please take the garbage out like I asked you this afternoon."
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Inheritance
On Sunday I left the milk out. By accident, I mean.
I just forgot to put it away
after I finished watching TV.
But when I picked it up on Monday it was still cold,
Like I had just taken it out of the fridge.
Something has been breaking down around here, man,
And I can’t put my finger on it except to say
I have powers.
The holes in my shirts have been fixing themselves overnight.
My cereal turned into gasoline. I think I can control mosquitoes.
Today is Thursday, and the milk is on the counter,
Still sweating it out, still just, you know, just chilling.
So I pick it up and drink it, straight from the carton.
It just feels right. And the taste is fresh and rich
And so, so cold,
with a flavor like I’ll never get another sunburn,
like maybe I could turn one of my hands invisible,
and like I could learn to fly
for a few minutes at a times, at least.
I just forgot to put it away
after I finished watching TV.
But when I picked it up on Monday it was still cold,
Like I had just taken it out of the fridge.
Something has been breaking down around here, man,
And I can’t put my finger on it except to say
I have powers.
The holes in my shirts have been fixing themselves overnight.
My cereal turned into gasoline. I think I can control mosquitoes.
Today is Thursday, and the milk is on the counter,
Still sweating it out, still just, you know, just chilling.
So I pick it up and drink it, straight from the carton.
It just feels right. And the taste is fresh and rich
And so, so cold,
with a flavor like I’ll never get another sunburn,
like maybe I could turn one of my hands invisible,
and like I could learn to fly
for a few minutes at a times, at least.
Monday, March 05, 2012
Barton Fortsworth, 20, on the lecture he attended with his roommate while under the influence of salvia
Not based on a true story.
****
We were going to class,
See. My roommate and I. This long lecture class.
Two hours. Ethnomusicology.
And so I say to Jesse. That’s my roommate. Jesse. I say
let’s smoke a bowl in the facilities closet
right beforehand. And he says, yeah, okay.
And so we do, except apparently my dealer mixed up his stuff
Because we smoked salvia. That’s not illegal I learned,
But I wouldn’t recommend it for pregaming a class with.
Shortly after we got to the room I was a book.
People just stared at me. No one said a word.
I was certain they were reading me because
My torso had split open and there was a story there.
Jesse told me that it was raining long diagonal lines and
He was falling down them, but I don’t remember that at all.
My vision stopped vibrating in the bathroom.
I had stumbled out just after class had started,
Pausing only for a second to put on my jacket
That I sewed deftly of the quilted walls.
As I wandered back I realized I no longer feared death
Which worked out because Jesse was certainly going to kill me.
****
We were going to class,
See. My roommate and I. This long lecture class.
Two hours. Ethnomusicology.
And so I say to Jesse. That’s my roommate. Jesse. I say
let’s smoke a bowl in the facilities closet
right beforehand. And he says, yeah, okay.
And so we do, except apparently my dealer mixed up his stuff
Because we smoked salvia. That’s not illegal I learned,
But I wouldn’t recommend it for pregaming a class with.
Shortly after we got to the room I was a book.
People just stared at me. No one said a word.
I was certain they were reading me because
My torso had split open and there was a story there.
Jesse told me that it was raining long diagonal lines and
He was falling down them, but I don’t remember that at all.
My vision stopped vibrating in the bathroom.
I had stumbled out just after class had started,
Pausing only for a second to put on my jacket
That I sewed deftly of the quilted walls.
As I wandered back I realized I no longer feared death
Which worked out because Jesse was certainly going to kill me.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
1902
Off of PAPERCUT MIXMASTER's groundbreaking new mixtape "The Wuggie Norple Story", 1902 blends Pheonix's vocals with acoustic samples and crunchy drums for a unique track critics have been hailing as "song-like mostly" and "pretty alright".
Friday, February 10, 2012
Brian Duncard, Flyin' Drunkard
This needs revision but I'm trying to post more, you may see a better version of it soon.
****
I'd like to tell a story that I hope you'll think is cool
About a friend named Brian that I met while back in school.
See Brian had a little quirk I bet will get you thinking,
For it would only manifest itself while he was drinking.
When normal people drink, they mostly wake up in a bed,
But Brian always woke up in quite strange locales instead.
He'd wake up in hotel rooms, he'd wake up in a fountain,
He once awoke to find himself on a gigantic mountain.
And Brian never could recall how he would get these places.
Instead of normal memories, he'd only have blank spaces.
Until one Friday night he walked right up to me and said,
"Tonight we should find out why I don't wake up in my bed!"
We watched a movie and he had a beer or seventeen.
And just about at midnight - well, I thought it was a dream -
I couldn't comprehend just what it was I was discovering.
I looked at Brian Duncard and I saw that he was hovering.
When the next morning came I didn't know quite what to do.
He came down from the roof and still he didn't have a clue.
I sat him down and said to him, "now listen closely, Brian,
The fact is when you'd drank enough, you up and started flyin'"
He thought at first what I had said was pure misinformation,
But soon he came to see there was no other explanation.
He stood up from his chair and left my dorm room in a daze,
But not before he grabbed a can of beer while on his way.
And he did not return that night; he'd left the school right then.
It wasn't 'til years later that I saw that man again.
I was on the night shift at the clinic just last week,
When Brian Duncard came in looking haggard, sick, and meek.
I walked to him and cried out, "What has happened, my old friend?"
He winked and said, "I'm fairly certain this could be the end,
And though I don't remember much, I'm certain this is true:
You wouldn't mourn me if you saw the places that I flew."
****
I'd like to tell a story that I hope you'll think is cool
About a friend named Brian that I met while back in school.
See Brian had a little quirk I bet will get you thinking,
For it would only manifest itself while he was drinking.
When normal people drink, they mostly wake up in a bed,
But Brian always woke up in quite strange locales instead.
He'd wake up in hotel rooms, he'd wake up in a fountain,
He once awoke to find himself on a gigantic mountain.
And Brian never could recall how he would get these places.
Instead of normal memories, he'd only have blank spaces.
Until one Friday night he walked right up to me and said,
"Tonight we should find out why I don't wake up in my bed!"
We watched a movie and he had a beer or seventeen.
And just about at midnight - well, I thought it was a dream -
I couldn't comprehend just what it was I was discovering.
I looked at Brian Duncard and I saw that he was hovering.
When the next morning came I didn't know quite what to do.
He came down from the roof and still he didn't have a clue.
I sat him down and said to him, "now listen closely, Brian,
The fact is when you'd drank enough, you up and started flyin'"
He thought at first what I had said was pure misinformation,
But soon he came to see there was no other explanation.
He stood up from his chair and left my dorm room in a daze,
But not before he grabbed a can of beer while on his way.
And he did not return that night; he'd left the school right then.
It wasn't 'til years later that I saw that man again.
I was on the night shift at the clinic just last week,
When Brian Duncard came in looking haggard, sick, and meek.
I walked to him and cried out, "What has happened, my old friend?"
He winked and said, "I'm fairly certain this could be the end,
And though I don't remember much, I'm certain this is true:
You wouldn't mourn me if you saw the places that I flew."
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Singles' Night
BILL, just shy of 50, dances with LINDA at singles' night. They rock awkwardly back and forth for a while. LINDA has her eyes closed. BILL stares vacantly into the space behind her.
BILL
This is my first time at one of these things.
LINDA
What?
BILL
Yep, it’s true.
LINDA
No, I mean. I didn’t hear you.
BILL
Oh. I said. This is my first time at one of these things. You know. Singles night. I saw it driving home from work, and I thought. What the heck. Singles night.
LINDA
Yeah. It’s. I have a good time.
BILL
Have you been to one before?
LINDA
A couple times I guess. I try to go like. Once a month or whatever.
BILL
Oh, sure.
A pause. They keep dancing.
LINDA
I’m new to the area, see. I moved hear about a year ago.
BILL
Oh?
LINDA
Yeah, and I just. I don’t know many people so I started coming, and it’s. You know. It’s fun.
BILL
Yeah. It’s fun.
LINDA
Yeah.
A pause.
BILL
What do you do? For, like, employment.
LINDA
I’m a lawyer. A criminal defense lawyer.
A pause. They continue dancing.
BILL
And you. You didn’t grow up around here? You just moved here?
LINDA
I’m from Philly.
BILL
Really? Yeah, I think I have some cousins in, like, uh, Ardmore? Is that nearby?
LINDA
Yeah. Well I mean I say I’m from Philly but I’m not, like, from the city. I’m from the suburbs, the. The Main Line, it’s called. I live in Radnor. Ardmore is right down the street.
BILL
Why’d you move up here?
LINDA
I was working for a big firm in the city and they wanted me in one of their satellite offices in Albany.
BILL
Oh, sure. That makes sense.
LINDA
Yeah. What about you? Are you from around here?
BILL
Yeah, I’m from Poughkeepsie. I was working in Seattle after school, you know. Writing user manuals for a tech company out there, but then. Well. My dad wasn’t doing too great or whatever after my mom passed away so I moved back here.
LINDA
Are you employed in the area now?
BILL
Yeah, I work for General Electric. GE Appliances. That’s part of the reason I came, because. Because I work with mostly men, and I thought. You know, I have my poker buddies or whatever but it’s nice- (trails off)
LINDA
To know women?
BILL
Yeah. I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
And you write manuals at GE too?
BILL
Yeah, manuals. It’s. It’s okay work. I like that it’s, you know, pretty cut and dry for me. Because I know how to use the stuff and I just, I. I explain it.
A pause.
BILL
Because you go through life solving problems, right? It’s nice that I can. You know. It’s nice that I can think that I’m helping people solve a few of them. Even if it is, just. With their refrigerator. Like I mean how you help people stay out of jail. That’s.
A pause.
BILL (half trying to laugh)
That’s a lot bigger, I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
But what you do is pretty important too.
BILL
I mean, sure. Yeah.
LINDA
Because. Because people pay me to keep them out of jail, you know. But you get paid to. You help people help themselves.
BILL (sort of weakly)
Ha, yeah, I guess.
LINDA
No, I think. I think really. We need more user manuals, you know? For life. For. For making friends or whatever. For more than, you know. Refrigerators.
BILL
Yeah.
A short beat.
BILL
Yeah. That’d be funny, if we had a. A user manual for life.
LINDA
I’d buy it, though.
BILL
Me too. Who wouldn’t?
Another beat.
LINDA
You can put your arms around my waist if you want.
BILL (flustered)
What. Oh. Yeah oh. I mean. Sure.
LINDA
It’s just because. I only said that because it would have been in the manual.
BILL
What?
LINDA
The life. The user manual for life. For dancing with a girl, it would say- I mean you said you would have bought it so I just figured I’d let you know. It would say, you can put your hands around her waist.
BILL
Oh. Well, thanks.
BILL slips his arms down around LINDA’s waist. They dance a little closer as the lights fade.
BILL
This is my first time at one of these things.
LINDA
What?
BILL
Yep, it’s true.
LINDA
No, I mean. I didn’t hear you.
BILL
Oh. I said. This is my first time at one of these things. You know. Singles night. I saw it driving home from work, and I thought. What the heck. Singles night.
LINDA
Yeah. It’s. I have a good time.
BILL
Have you been to one before?
LINDA
A couple times I guess. I try to go like. Once a month or whatever.
BILL
Oh, sure.
A pause. They keep dancing.
LINDA
I’m new to the area, see. I moved hear about a year ago.
BILL
Oh?
LINDA
Yeah, and I just. I don’t know many people so I started coming, and it’s. You know. It’s fun.
BILL
Yeah. It’s fun.
LINDA
Yeah.
A pause.
BILL
What do you do? For, like, employment.
LINDA
I’m a lawyer. A criminal defense lawyer.
A pause. They continue dancing.
BILL
And you. You didn’t grow up around here? You just moved here?
LINDA
I’m from Philly.
BILL
Really? Yeah, I think I have some cousins in, like, uh, Ardmore? Is that nearby?
LINDA
Yeah. Well I mean I say I’m from Philly but I’m not, like, from the city. I’m from the suburbs, the. The Main Line, it’s called. I live in Radnor. Ardmore is right down the street.
BILL
Why’d you move up here?
LINDA
I was working for a big firm in the city and they wanted me in one of their satellite offices in Albany.
BILL
Oh, sure. That makes sense.
LINDA
Yeah. What about you? Are you from around here?
BILL
Yeah, I’m from Poughkeepsie. I was working in Seattle after school, you know. Writing user manuals for a tech company out there, but then. Well. My dad wasn’t doing too great or whatever after my mom passed away so I moved back here.
LINDA
Are you employed in the area now?
BILL
Yeah, I work for General Electric. GE Appliances. That’s part of the reason I came, because. Because I work with mostly men, and I thought. You know, I have my poker buddies or whatever but it’s nice- (trails off)
LINDA
To know women?
BILL
Yeah. I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
And you write manuals at GE too?
BILL
Yeah, manuals. It’s. It’s okay work. I like that it’s, you know, pretty cut and dry for me. Because I know how to use the stuff and I just, I. I explain it.
A pause.
BILL
Because you go through life solving problems, right? It’s nice that I can. You know. It’s nice that I can think that I’m helping people solve a few of them. Even if it is, just. With their refrigerator. Like I mean how you help people stay out of jail. That’s.
A pause.
BILL (half trying to laugh)
That’s a lot bigger, I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
But what you do is pretty important too.
BILL
I mean, sure. Yeah.
LINDA
Because. Because people pay me to keep them out of jail, you know. But you get paid to. You help people help themselves.
BILL (sort of weakly)
Ha, yeah, I guess.
LINDA
No, I think. I think really. We need more user manuals, you know? For life. For. For making friends or whatever. For more than, you know. Refrigerators.
BILL
Yeah.
A short beat.
BILL
Yeah. That’d be funny, if we had a. A user manual for life.
LINDA
I’d buy it, though.
BILL
Me too. Who wouldn’t?
Another beat.
LINDA
You can put your arms around my waist if you want.
BILL (flustered)
What. Oh. Yeah oh. I mean. Sure.
LINDA
It’s just because. I only said that because it would have been in the manual.
BILL
What?
LINDA
The life. The user manual for life. For dancing with a girl, it would say- I mean you said you would have bought it so I just figured I’d let you know. It would say, you can put your hands around her waist.
BILL
Oh. Well, thanks.
BILL slips his arms down around LINDA’s waist. They dance a little closer as the lights fade.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
AN ESSAY
My great-great-grandfather’s name was Isaac or Jacob or something. And he was from one of the Eastern European countries, the ones with a lot of Jews, probably with like a hard name to pronounce. His mom had a sweet blue apron that was all faded and his dad was a butcher or something cool. This was their homeland, and in the summer there were all these warm breezes smelling faintly of lavender that would shake this tree that my great-great-grandfather would sit under with his girl, whose name was Rose, and who died of some awful disease when she was young.
Anyway Jacob or Isaac or whatever came over to the United States on a big boat, or maybe his son did, regardless it doesn’t much matter. He came over and when he got here he got off the boat and said, “yes, America! This is such a nice place that I am now, better than that place I was in before that has that name that’s hard to pronounce.” Except he said it in broken English and his hat was like they had in The Newsies. And also he was so wrong about America! It is not like those things he said it was, it was really hard. For instance he was robbed as soon as he got off the boat, like right after he said how good it is here, and the robbers hurt him real bad and he went to the hospital, but then when he got to the hospital he was robbed again by the doctors. They took the gold Star of David he wore around his neck, and he said, “no, that was given to me by my girlfriend Rose, who died of some awful disease when she was young.” And the doctors were like, “yeah, whatever,” And they put him back onto the streets, which were now dark and it was raining too.
So my great-great-grandfather did a lot of stuff including inventing some stuff and meeting my great-great-grandmother, and they had babies and the babies had babies and eventually we got my mom, Ellen. She grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish area though she often skipped Hebrew School to play at the arcade across the street. One time she was pushing a doll in a stroller and her sister pushed her and the stroller and she fell flat on her face and her nose got a little flatter, which is actually a symbol for her malleable feelings towards tradition and culture. They were so malleable that she married my dad, Dan, who came from Troy, New York and who was a Christian and who used Miracle Whip, which is also another symbol for how gross and weird his family was to my mom, who used mayonnaise like a normal person. But anyway they got married.
I was sort of an immigrant too, like my great-great-grandfather, except my immigration was from one suburb to another suburb and it was not an immigration at all really. I mean it was from Poughkeepsie, New York to Wayne, Pennsylvania, so come on. Those cities are very different in several substantial ways, for instance in my new house we did not have an above-ground pool which I am told was awesome. I say “I am told” because I only lived in Poughkeepsie for one year, specifically until I was one. Memories then were foggy like London fog gently rolling over London, which I say in the interest of providing beautiful imagery, etc.
When I was five we moved from Wayne to Belgium for a little bit for my dad’s job. My main memories from this period was showing my class the wooden sword I had for show and tell and also the time I smashed my teeth on the hard wood of the dining room floor when my stupid babysitter let my sister and I grab hands and spin in circles. My teeth were not a symbol for anything, though, and plus they were fine. I mean I never even got braces, which was probably not a result of that accident but you never know I guess. We moved home eight months after, which was good because I got to see all my kindergarten friends again except now we were in first grade.
School went on for a while and I found it pretty boring because I was intelligent but not very hard-working, and because of this my grades were bad and my parents and I fought. Doors were slammed, cars were crashed, urine was tested. Eventually I realized how much I love my family and we stopped fighting, though in the interest of not providing too much of a cliché ending on that front my mom and I fight still very rarely in a healthy way but I love her still, or possibly we never fight but our relationship is still not perfect, or maybe she got me the wrong color car for my most recent birthday. Also in middle school once someone called me ginger-balls and it was my first encounter with the racism I would face throughout my life but eventually I learned how to be proud of my heritage from someone significant like my dad.
My family would be best explored by examining one of our yearly traditions which is Christmas. Even though we are Jewish we still celebrate Christmas because my dad grew up Christian and we like presents. We used to go to my grandmother’s house for Christmas – I mean the one on my father’s side, we used to go to her house – but eventually we stopped liking her maybe so we started celebrating Christmas with my mom’s side. They are all Jewish though so they don’t really know what to do, like for instance we usually get a tree on Christmas Eve and then get rid of it on December 26. We don’t like it sitting around my house because my cousin is allergic to pine. We should really get a fake one but we are all pretty lazy. Two years ago I got a Wii, it was so sick, but also it is about family togetherness and stuff like that.
Anyway yeah and stuff, this is all about how I'm the same as my great-great-grandfather probably. You probably need to read more into the symbols or whatever.
Anyway Jacob or Isaac or whatever came over to the United States on a big boat, or maybe his son did, regardless it doesn’t much matter. He came over and when he got here he got off the boat and said, “yes, America! This is such a nice place that I am now, better than that place I was in before that has that name that’s hard to pronounce.” Except he said it in broken English and his hat was like they had in The Newsies. And also he was so wrong about America! It is not like those things he said it was, it was really hard. For instance he was robbed as soon as he got off the boat, like right after he said how good it is here, and the robbers hurt him real bad and he went to the hospital, but then when he got to the hospital he was robbed again by the doctors. They took the gold Star of David he wore around his neck, and he said, “no, that was given to me by my girlfriend Rose, who died of some awful disease when she was young.” And the doctors were like, “yeah, whatever,” And they put him back onto the streets, which were now dark and it was raining too.
So my great-great-grandfather did a lot of stuff including inventing some stuff and meeting my great-great-grandmother, and they had babies and the babies had babies and eventually we got my mom, Ellen. She grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish area though she often skipped Hebrew School to play at the arcade across the street. One time she was pushing a doll in a stroller and her sister pushed her and the stroller and she fell flat on her face and her nose got a little flatter, which is actually a symbol for her malleable feelings towards tradition and culture. They were so malleable that she married my dad, Dan, who came from Troy, New York and who was a Christian and who used Miracle Whip, which is also another symbol for how gross and weird his family was to my mom, who used mayonnaise like a normal person. But anyway they got married.
I was sort of an immigrant too, like my great-great-grandfather, except my immigration was from one suburb to another suburb and it was not an immigration at all really. I mean it was from Poughkeepsie, New York to Wayne, Pennsylvania, so come on. Those cities are very different in several substantial ways, for instance in my new house we did not have an above-ground pool which I am told was awesome. I say “I am told” because I only lived in Poughkeepsie for one year, specifically until I was one. Memories then were foggy like London fog gently rolling over London, which I say in the interest of providing beautiful imagery, etc.
When I was five we moved from Wayne to Belgium for a little bit for my dad’s job. My main memories from this period was showing my class the wooden sword I had for show and tell and also the time I smashed my teeth on the hard wood of the dining room floor when my stupid babysitter let my sister and I grab hands and spin in circles. My teeth were not a symbol for anything, though, and plus they were fine. I mean I never even got braces, which was probably not a result of that accident but you never know I guess. We moved home eight months after, which was good because I got to see all my kindergarten friends again except now we were in first grade.
School went on for a while and I found it pretty boring because I was intelligent but not very hard-working, and because of this my grades were bad and my parents and I fought. Doors were slammed, cars were crashed, urine was tested. Eventually I realized how much I love my family and we stopped fighting, though in the interest of not providing too much of a cliché ending on that front my mom and I fight still very rarely in a healthy way but I love her still, or possibly we never fight but our relationship is still not perfect, or maybe she got me the wrong color car for my most recent birthday. Also in middle school once someone called me ginger-balls and it was my first encounter with the racism I would face throughout my life but eventually I learned how to be proud of my heritage from someone significant like my dad.
My family would be best explored by examining one of our yearly traditions which is Christmas. Even though we are Jewish we still celebrate Christmas because my dad grew up Christian and we like presents. We used to go to my grandmother’s house for Christmas – I mean the one on my father’s side, we used to go to her house – but eventually we stopped liking her maybe so we started celebrating Christmas with my mom’s side. They are all Jewish though so they don’t really know what to do, like for instance we usually get a tree on Christmas Eve and then get rid of it on December 26. We don’t like it sitting around my house because my cousin is allergic to pine. We should really get a fake one but we are all pretty lazy. Two years ago I got a Wii, it was so sick, but also it is about family togetherness and stuff like that.
Anyway yeah and stuff, this is all about how I'm the same as my great-great-grandfather probably. You probably need to read more into the symbols or whatever.
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