been a while, old friend.  clean slate?  tell that to the ghosts.  they've been knocking around in this old head of mine…conspiring through the walls where they've been captured..err…were captured.  i should probably leave that analogy dead in its tracks.  but the fact is they're here, really here, and i'm not bottling them, and hiding them in places any longer.

mystic thought would have me forgetting my ego, transcending myself so to speak; and believe me, i've tried on a daily basis for years.  when i really concentrate i can get it, and other times when i'm not paying attention–mind so numb it doesn't want to function anymore–i get it then, too.  those are the islands.  was it Huxley that said we are our own island universe?  i forget.  i don't think my transcending self has been natural.  if there was a line, say from chicago to new orleans that represented a natural progression toward enlightenment, or simply a calm, quiet, well being, then i would have to say that when my mind goes black i'm somewhere in the upper stratosphere falling toward some point along that line.  the harder i fight self, the stronger it comes back.  this has led me to believe that i've needed these few steps back in order to make it a couple steps forward, comfortably.  one foot in front of the other, firmly planted on the ground.  everything out in the open.

i've been considering lately the possibility that all of the drugs i've taken have come back to bite me in the ass, and maybe i'm permanently fucked up because of them.  i don't know how seriously to consider this for the sheer fact that i've known plenty of people who have done more drugs than your average touring funk band, and all in all, they are quite fine individuals.  i was never a junky.  i never did drugs on a regular basis, ever.  i've never done heroin or crack or meth, but given the mental state of certain family members, i would say the drugs could do nothing but compound the problem.  i have my doubts, but i won't rule it out.

the truth is things aren't bad.  things certainly aren't fantastic, but i shouldn't have anything to complain about, or be as grumpy as i am.  family is alive and well.  on a decent course in life that i feel confident about.  i'm beyond  broke and quite a bit lonely at times, but the money thing doesn't bother me so much because i'm disgusted with 'things' anyway.  i could use some love.  i hear there are worse things than being alone, and i believe that to be the truth.

i am a fear-filled person.  i may look and sound like a hard ass on the outside sometimes, but rest assured those are just well developed defense mechanisms.  i'm scared of people.  i don't like public places because i hate people.  yet i force myself into those places and situations constantly in hopes that maybe i'll develop as a person.  im an adolescent again, entering freshman year, completely the object of scrutiny; but instead of all of the hate coming from the farm kids picking on the city kid, coming from the outside in, i'm turning my insides out with self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, and sometimes all out self hatred.  the best example i can give of what goes on in my head is in the movie Adaptation.  Kaufman's monologues are very similar to what goes on in my head on a second to second basis, 85 percent of the time.  i have done some reading up on the brain and from what i've gathered, thinking at the rate that i do uses a hell of a lot of energy.  this would explain the constant fatigue, and also might have something to do with my not gaining weight. ever.

even with my closest friends, despite their subtle and even not-so-subtle reassurances that should tell me i'm an a-okay person, i still question my worth as a person in their company.

i don't feel better than people.  not even necessarily do i  always think that i'm worse than people.  i just feel different than people.  i don't understand them.  i don't understand the constant striving for money and possessions.  i don't understand the constant diluting of a culture by the next pop sensation.  do people read anymore, or is that a lost art?  i don't understand the closed-mindedness.  i don't understand the fighting against stereotypes when they are reinforced, in my eyes, day to day.  i don't understand why everyone is so standoffish, and when somebody such as myself isn't, there's always something that comes back to kick that person in the ass three-fold.

i am an old person who doesn't want to grow up?  until recently i would have been ashamed to admit that i'm a very intelligent person who lacks a lot of so-called common sense knowledge, and/or life skills.  before this year i couldn't have cooked anything unless it came out of a box with instructions.  i set my bills to pay automatically because i'm so forgetful of things, they'd never be on time.  i've relied on people too much, such as family.  i don't have a savings account.  small talk is a big deal.  i've no wit whatsoever.  just cynicism that rubbed off on me in a friendship that no longer is, that i try to pass off as wit in those situations that call for quick comebacks.  i'm super bad with names.  i'm a super good listener if there's a chance that i can have some sort of relationship with the person, but if i don't like them, tough luck.  i can't see that side of the coin, and i don't expect them to see mine.  i'm stubborn as hell.  i change my mind all the time.  new york, LA, new zealand…fuck it, i'll end up here working at a gas station, or a bum/prophet.  meet me behind the new chain restaurant.  the food is still warm.

i don't know if i'm lucky or damned to have people who support me all the way, but i can't help but feel like someone should have thrown me into the deep end a long time ago.  here i am, all dry, with the attention span of a 5 year old dyslexic, delusions of grandeur, sexual frustration and inadequacies of a pubescent boy, "knowledge" beyond my years, and the senility of a 75 year old dementia patient.

crisp grace notes like a flowing falsehood
flavored to taste after brazen attempts to pare
film on the firmament, light broken apart and bent
aberrancy for the sake of itself, or if for some other thing, I did not see it
cross sections of old films and well-functioning defense mechanisms
healed better, not so pretty “I feel”
kissing you made me sick-frozen from fright of bite
troubled is as troubled does
scapegoats fancied like play lists played as bedtime stories
for empty people with excuses between the bed sheets
shrills to a march, whose heart is not there
to solidify a fog into all-out rain, to further menace a drear
grope my rain-soaked trousers, I’m meat
worry not: your name is safe with me
and there will be no lies handed out
because we’re fiction enough to ourselves
to tire us even in sleep

b.robb

  Finals week is always a blessing. I'm apparently the reigning champion of procrastinators.  My work load isn't all that bad, considering I quit Japanese sometime in the middle of the semester, but I did manage to save three papers for my other classes till the last minute.  I ended up writing through the night, first for American Studies and then a reflective piece in the morning on Rumi.  I ended up e-mailing it and I got a little bit of much welcomed praise.  Things like this make my day:
—– –
Thanks Bryan. I enjoyed the class a great deal–I really found your willingness to think about these ideas and be honest and open in discussion to be important to the success of the class. You are a smart and thoughtful student–best wishes in your future studies and in life in general.

I still have a couple of your papers–especially your Walt Whitman-esque poem from the first project. The Whitman poem is excellent, and the connections you made in your Gilded Age paper showed a comprehensive grasp of the themes we have been talking about. 

Good luck in the future, and keep thinking.

Jeff

—– –
 
Earlier in the semester we had the choice between a)writing a paper on the Transcendentalist movement in the midst of the westward expansion, or b) create my own original artwork in the style of my choosing that reflects the ideas of Transcendentalists.  So I wrote a quick poem before class where I tried to emulate best I could a Walt Whitman prose piece, reflecting the time frame:

O, this mighty fortress built upon eloquent words and powerful ideals spewed from soft lips,

This nation, carved from a continent and gilded with ambition and deceit-filled purpose, with your settlers never settled in their ever-changing notions of will!

Your people, scattered and numerous across the plains and the mountains, the cities and the countryside, who have grown up with a distance that has failed to set them apart from a nation, tiring and romantic all the same,

This young mindset, charismatic and naive, brilliant and baffled alike, and though through many faltered steps you have not ceased to believe strongly in yourselves,

And hardships, they have not been few,

Struggles far and large, stretching the extent of this country’s vastness, but it is through this toil that your cheeks grow rosy and body restless, feeding the spirit of this land,

From the defeated scalawag groaning under the pressures of the other-worldly north, knowing not another way to make his livelihood, who interred his progeny for the ideals that he knows true,

Blessed be the Yank that has not permitted this vessel to break in two, and has gone lengths to see that freedom and liberty are extended to all of God’s creatures; a challenge that extends beyond the battlefield,

May you rise against the difficulties that await!

To the freed men, weeping with joy at the sight of a generation born into freedom!

      and to those children, beaming with veneration for their fathers, and hope for their futures!

Yes, America, frothing at the mouth with hysteria and genius, the garden of a great people; loathsome and proud, amiable and generous; you are all of these things,

With startling ambiguity you exist, for you are the wicked and the heavy at heart; the chain that binds and the torch that lights the way,

And as I sit here in my reverie, change do you still, moving forward and backward concurrently in your narcissistic godliness, with all your juvenile follies that are sure to make you grow wise and mature in your years,

This is my hope for you, America.

—- — –

As far as I know, I'm done with Lansing Comm. College.  Funny, every single one of my professors were MSU profs too.  I saved like $20,000.  Thanks LCC!

Everybody, do me a favor and:

a)go to google
b)copy this—-> Camp Striker Iraq "Bradley Robb" <—–directly into the search bar
c)watch the chaos ensue

cleaning out/throwing away all of the boxes i left here from before i moved to florida.  funny, i saved so much.  the best part about it are the photos and all of my writing assignments that i saved over the years, from grade school on up.  the evolution of bryan was/is hideous.  i should scan some memorabilia.  everyone would have a good laugh, including myself.

i also found a record player with needle intact!  listening to the kinks with neverending zealous!

today i woke to the sound of my focus-challenged, seventeen-year-old brother, and my 43 year-old mother fighting because she didn't wake him up in time for school. my brother, who has been through four high schools, for various reasons, many of which i believe to be fiction, has once again accumulated more than nine (9) absences in the better half of his classes this semester. meanwhile, in a not-so-distant corner of the house, where i was coming out of a dream where i was supposedly some kind of motorcycle pro who has just come out of a coma and is getting back into his training regiment, hear the sound of an adolescent boy's whine reverberating off the freshly de-carpeted wooden floor of the house, down the hall, and into my dreaming head. five years ago i would have screamed back. today i just opened my eyes to the sun coming through my bare windows and listened. i felt for my smokes, which are never farther than an arm's length from me at all times. i pulled one out, lit it, and took a drag that would have knocked me down if i hadn't already been in my bed, and when i exhaled it did that thing where all the spinning smoke is automatically highlighted when it reaches the rays of the sun, contrasted to the shadow where the sun doesn't reach. i listened to a little bit more of the conversation as i finished the cigarette, yells and stomping feet…"it's all your fault, and now i'm gonna hafta take those classes overr!"…"NO, whose the one who had all of those absences to begin with?!"…"well i was gonna go the rest of the year…why didn't you wake me up??"…"you're seventeen years old, can't you set your alarm?"…yada yada. it's funny, but not so funny. i mean, i've known for a while that my brother has been fucking his life up. and as i lie there smoking, i thought to myself, "oh, eric. if you only knew how hard you're making this on yourself". and it's too late. we've done everything for him, from helping him, offering to help him, offered counseling, fought with teachers to keep him, changed schools to get a fresh start, tried medication. he spends a lot of time on his car. more than a healthy amount of time sanding, inhaling fumes, painting, ripping this out, welding that. he's pretty good at it. the trouble i had lying in bed there, listening to the fighting, was my belief systems. i'm not quite a fan of our economy, our political system, capitalism, the american dream. sure, we all dream about stuff. we all have dreamt about being a great (fill in the blank). and it has us chasing these things without heart, recklessly. not just things, but status and power, too. and on countless occasions, i don't know how many (but probably far too many), i have sat my brother down and tried to get his goals out of him, push him towards something, to use his brain. to focus. to set the bar high. but as i look back, i wonder why i should put any more effort into it. why should i have him chasing these things? if he finds happiness in simple things, like working on cars, so be it. if he achieves that, then that's more than i can say i've accomplished. why should i give advice to someone who doesn't want it? in addition, why should i, the giver of that advice, say anything at all when i could use some counseling myself? so i continued about my day in the normal fashion. smoked a lot of cigarettes, did as minimal as possible. i sat in my car an hour for the warmth and the silence, clearing my head of all the trials my head fabricates, trying to dissolve fears, narcissism, clutter. i dressed up to go no where. i looked at myself in the mirror, "i'm ugly, i'm pretty, i'm ugly, i'm pretty…","…my mother was a real woman and my father a real man, what am i?" i cannot go back to working mindless jobs. i can't stand to work with one more person who's about as bright as a fork in a microwave. then i think, "goddamn, that's such a mean thing to say. what's wrong with manual labor and finding enjoyment, maybe even enlightenment in it?" thus i teeter, back and forth in my thoughts, only becoming clear when i force meditation upon myself. can it balance? i think that i'm great, then i think i'm worthless. i wonder how much is indoctrination. how many of my dreams are prescribed by this place in which i live, how many aren't complete fabrications. what won't i accomplish by my lack of commitment to anything or anyone? what will i accomplish by wanting to do everything, be everywhere at once, and be everything to everyone? absolutely nothing. but will i die happy? i'm still working on that.

It's times like these that I'm glad that I don't keep a lot of personal possessions. I'm moved out of my apartment and it really didn't take more than two days to get everything organized, packed up, and moved. There is one thing that I'm neglecting, though, and it's painting over the walls. I shouldn't have ever done it, being that it's an apartment but I was tired of living in mind-numbing white. Hopefully I'll finish that up tonight.

I've been thinking about heading over to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship as a spectator on one Sunday to see what they're all about. I'm not really into organized religion, and I'm sure those who know me the best would say that I've said more than my fair share against them. But I think that these people are kind of the anti-religious-establishment establishment. I was researching their stuff and at very least they sound uncommonly interesting to me. They're so open minded that I've been wanting to check them out for the sheer sense of community…and possibly so I can do some volunteer work. I don't know what I'd do, but I feel that I've got a lot to be thankful for, and there are plenty out there that have nothing, so why not do what I can instead of griping about things all the time.

Also, I'm probably a little late on this train by a couple of months, but I've been listening to Bloc Party and it may just be true that they saved music for me. I was starting to think that there were no truly sincere bands out there…that also whaled like nobody's business. These folks most certainly do, and I'm rockin' it like it's hot. Don't listen to the hype, just grab the album Silent Alarm before you're the last person on earth who hasn't heard this heroic band. Also, I'm pretty damned excited about the 6 re-releases of all the Super Furry Animals discs. Too bad I'm pretty much flat. British Sea Power also. I do have the ole iPod. Someday I'm going to need and repent for not paying these wonderful people. My logic – they're a lot richer than I am, and they're not eating kraft dinner…so when I'm old and loaded from retirement and booze, I'll go through the old collection, and any band that I feel changed me positively in some way…I'll buy two of every copy. No I won't.

Lately I've been so incredibly lazy. I think that the last year has caught up with me, working and school and partying and trying to balance it all out. I don't have much motivation to do anything this week. It's like a mini vacation. My body is catching up, and maybe I'll be recouped by this weekend. Until then, I'm just concentrating on myself. I've neglected that person.

i spent the afternoon
and much of the evening
right here

much of the morning too

the sun hid
for the better part of a season
this midwestern gray
with its skies drained
like my lungs
suffocating with a Camel’s
all deliberate speed

but today
no, yesterday
the sun decided
he was tired of suicide notes
and came out with guns blazing
forcing me to class

to those trite teachers
flagrantly approaching godliness
to themselves
and to the mindless dummies
who grasp convictions based on cynicism–
like fashion coughing up
whatever hasn’t been stated
except in the vague references
of music
and the undercurrents
of a popular-by-unpopularity-
existential-
bullying weak
who at first surprise
with vocabulary
but who still
haven’t any idea
what the fuck they’re talking about

they’ve found a taste for coffee by day
and despondence by night
bellowing obscure words
like swooning disaster
at the end of the bar
to the girl with the pink pink skin
pink pink skin

legs long as knives in loins
dress hiked to the barstool
peeking white cotton panties
when she laughs, she laughs

what was her name

Last night the fill station attendant wore a thigh-length, faux fur coat, a garment whose strands were at least three inches in length, and black like that of his own locks. A subtle, pink neck bore the only separation of the two, leaving his head dangling in space above the jacket like a dot atop an upside down exclamation point. My excitement was not for the coat, but instead for the passion in which he wore it as he collected bags of trash from outside!