Greater Satellites

As many of you know, I have a proclivity towards the creative aspects of life. I love making things, whether they’re videos, audio snippets, pictures, illustrations, or web pages, if there’s some degree of creative freedom involved, I want to be a part of it.

For the last couple of months I’ve been the opposite of inspired, but for no real reason other than lack of time. As a result, all of these (in my mind) great ideas I’ve had were placed in the crock pot that is my mind to simmer for a while and become delicious. Recently I was hit with the urge to create in a big way. It’s a writing/video project and maybe something in the vein of music making (though correlated to the original). I discussed this briefly with the lady last night, but I’d like to extrapolate upon it a little further and give it a life of it’s own, something I can reference back to when need be:

The music idea came to me while walking down Chestnut Street between 2nd & 3rd Streets. I crossed a small walkway, which I always assumed to be an alley and for the first time in my entire life walking around in this area (I’d say I’ve passed this stretch of pavement at least 50 times before), I glanced down the alley to find that it was no alley at all, but a remnant of a long forgotten street. Cobblestone lined and just slightly wider than the width of my arms extended, there was one sign hanging from a building a few yards away, it read: Bank Street Hostel.

The how’s and why’s never really dawned on me, but I instantly had melodies playing in head. Beautiful and dissonant as the phrase Bank Street Hostel swirled around my mind. I immediately began relating it back to a story that I conceptualized, but never actually began. The words started coming to me and I haven’t forgotten them yet:

SCENE: A dark basement room, lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling by a bare wire. A man is tied to a chair, bloodied and bruised. The camera pans slowly around him in a circle to reveal he’s surrounded by four men wielding pipes, bats, etc. A voice starts speaking, but it’s unclear who is actually talking.

1: “Ever hear stories about deep meditation? I wouldn’t expect you to have… The Cliff’s Notes version is this: the end-all be-all goal is reaching a higher level consciousness, a deep, spiritual sanctuary within. Buddhists are probably the most notorious meditators on the planet.”

2: “Is that a fact?”

1: “It certainly is. Get this… true story: a Buddhist monk once meditated for 10 straight years with no food and no water. When scientists heard about this, they immediately came seeking permission to study him. Their findings revealed that this monk, simply with his mind, was able to slow his heart rate and breathing down to unbelievably low levels while constantly maintaining his higher brain functions.”

3: “Sounds like a crock.”

1: “You haven’t even heard the best part. After the ten years, this guy just wakes up and tells everyone that he now has ‘a heightened sense of things’.

4: “Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”

1: “While walking through his hometown afterwards, he hesitates before going into a market. Moments later the market building bursts into flames. While traveling along a cliff he felt the imperative need to rest in a small cave moments before a 170 foot Cypress tree came rolling down the edge of the mountain.”

2: “And just what the fuck does this story have to do with you?”

1: “I’m also feeling a heightened sense of things, and it’s telling me you’re all going to die very soon.”

2, 3, 4, 5: [Laughter]

2: “And how do you…”

SCENE: Just at that moment, the ropes drop from the hands of the man bound to the chair. He swings his right arm up and around hard enough to send the gun hidden up his sleeve into his hand where he immediately shoots the man in front of him, quickly grabbing the pipe he once held from mid air with his left, then snapping his arm right and shooting the man frozen there, who was too paralyzed to die immediately. He simultaneously swings the pipe he’s holding in his left hand into the jaw of the man on his left and kicks the chair he was on backwards and it slams into the man, moments ago standing coolly behind him, now charging him with a nail-bat. He does all of this with a grace that would make you uneasy to watch, you can tell he’s done this before. Maybe a million times. Before either of the two remaining men have a chance to hit the ground, they have a flurry of bullets headed in their direction that they should be worrying about first. The once-bound man walks off toward a door in the distance. He exits into what appears to be an alleyway, throwing the bloodied pipe into a sewer. The sign hanging from the building is white and pronounced and defiant in this cold, midnight air. It reads: Bank Street Hostel.

And that, as they say, is a wrap. Any and all comments appreciated.

Note: I’m a little stoned. This is a work in progress.

After much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that the American Dream is dead, or at least on life support. I suppose the dawn of the American Dream started with, well, the dawn of America. What were the hopes of the first immigrants to our great country? One could argue that it was because there were distinct social, religious, political, and economic structures in place that were totally new and innovative (see: radical) as compared to the oft-archaic policies of their former European homelands. So torrents of young, hungry families trekked across the pond here to America to pursue “the dream”. The dream, back then, was very simple: to own the land you lived on. As serfs back in fuedal Europe, the people who worked the land were never given the opportunity to own it and were taxed heavily just to dwell on it. In egalitarian America, they lived on the land, worked on the land, and were not taxed to be residents (although they were required to send goods back in the form of crops, textiles, and various other foodstuffs). It was a perfect setup because their respective governments were literally an ocean away. Do we own the land we live on nowadays? No. Furthermore, we’re (ironically, once again) taxed (in some states more heavily than others) to live on the land (history does repeat itself). So have we progressed since the days of (pre-America) America? Tough question. Let’s delve into the other definitions of the American dream for a moment…

In more recent times (19th century, so not that recent), writers like the great Horatio Alger used to pen books that glorified the American dream. He wrote about people who literally came from nothing but possessed three outstanding qualities that eventually led to their success and fortune:

1. talent
2. intelligence
3. a willingness to work extremely hard

Prime examples of this include Andrew Carnegie and the tycoon John D. Rockefeller. It seems that after the establishment of a unifed, centralized government, the definition of the American dream shifted from owning the land to making enough money to afford the land. The acquisition of money is often criticized in many works of literature, however, as not being a true American Dream. See Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” as a prime example of a story delineating the old addage “money can’t buy happiness”, a direct commentary on the modern American Dream.

The further convolution of the American Dream came after World War II. The soldiers who fought bravely to protect our country simply wanted to live in comfort, have stability, and start families. These families (the ideal archetype being happy wife, happy husband, happy son, happy daughter) were all one could hope for, a truly respectable dream: find a mate, get married, have kids, raise them well, send them to school, lather, rinse, repeat.

In current times the dream seems so superficial. People want to make the most amount of money for doing the least amount of work. At some point you should question the validity of social Darwinism. It’s nice to have dreams, but it’s even nicer and more rewarding to have a firm grasp of reality. I, too, am guilty of putting a lot of stock into gaining some sort of fame or fortune, but in the words of one of my most quotable heroes: “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact.”

Although I’ve been jaded with naysayers, skepticism, and criticisms, I would love to spend my life looking for and documenting the American Dream, like the late Hunter S. Thompson. I enjoy entertaining the belief that it still exists in some form remniscient of it’s early stages. Maybe someday in my lifetime it will be reimagined as something greater than anyone could ever hope for.

xAndrew

I’m sure the aesthetic change is quite apparent, but some of the behind-the-scenes stuff going on at Blogger are really impressing me. It’s incredibly easy to customize your page layout, colors, and content. You don’t even need to know HTML anymore, it’s all WYSIWYG. They’ve also added a pretty keen tagging system, which I can use to label similar posts. I’ve gone back in time a few posts to see just to tag some posts accordingly and I’m pleased with the results. Innovations in others sparks creativity in myself, so you can expect many more blogs from now on. It is my deepest hope to write in here at least every other day, even if it’s the most mundane detail of my life. Practice makes perfect, and writing in here will certainly help me out with some of my other projects.

Well, yesterday I was waiting for my 5-weeks-absent English teacher to not come to class and I just started writing for the half hour we are required to wait. Here’s what happened:

In The Beginning…

I ran to a plane filled with uncanny and indescribable colors—like an oil rainbow through a puddle of rain newly delivered from the heavens above. I thought I had lost my way, despite the sneaking deja creeping across my brain. Turns out that sometime later I discovered this fantastical locale to be a mere product of overactive synapses with itchy trigger fingers, enjoying impulse after impulse. My gray landscape had fabricated this unbelievable visual spectacle and projected it upon two lids via rapidly moving projectors. My feet were cold, but I stepped forward. Although the earth and space were distant metaphors, I hesitated with each step as if the terrain would shatter at even the slightest extranneous cirumstace. Does red symbolize fear? I can only assume so, because the smoke swirling in dizzying circles before my eyes was a constant reminder.

Vertigo set in like a sledgehammer to the face. I fell backwards, but right on to my (not) feet again… the earth had overcompensated somehow. Come to think of it, I was floating. Incredible. Memories began to manifest themselves in strobe-light sequence—blinding and disorient. Between burst transmissions I simply close my (closed) eyes and took a deep breath. My lenses turned to mirrors, reflecting the hazel soul passed down through a lineage I couldn’t (un)consciously recall. I made a segue into a thought that seemed to surface from (cycles) centuries ago. I opened my (closed) eyes, but they still were not open. Blackness speckled with miniscule, backlit pinholes spread above me like the universe’s most intricate game of connect the dots. It’s just like (a dream) a dream. There is no one around, so it’s hard to know if I’m thinking or talking out loud anymore.

The air has no pressure. Welcome to the worlds largest anechoic chamber, I suppose. Dissonant strings belt out a chorus from God knows where. “I’m the captain of this ship” I yell, as I pull anchor and float skyward. Conviction is a hollow shell when it lacks the will to power. What? I feel everything now. Rising faster. Everything goes red, the cutains are lifted.

It’s the synapse’s turn to rest. The pump speeds up, the bronchioles begin delivery. The crimson continues riding the tracks, things make sense. I’m awake.

Well, I have decided to take a short break from designing the new dark driving site to write a bit. I had a few random ideas bounding around inside my head, so I would like to get them down in a (sort of) concrete format…

First, yesterday I went to Terror Behind The Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary with Mom, Cholly, Rachelle, and Denise. It was a delightful time and I’ll admit that a few times I was scared by the creepers that work there. The best part for me was an area dubbed “The Experiment” where you wore 3D glasses and walked through a series of brightly colored, almost surreal tunnels. I highly recommend it to everyone for a good time and a decent scare. The whole thing ended in the courtyard of Cell Block 1, where I saw a sculpture that funtioned as a clock and a calendar. Inscribed on it was the phrase “Midway Of Another Day”. Personally, I was really moved by that for some odd reason. It seemed fitting and somehow cruel to have it there. I would assume it represents how slow time moved for the prisoners who were there. Like the rays of light crawling across the surface of a sundial. Anyhow, I’ve decided that will be the name of my personal (portfolio) site. dark driving, midway of another day. Pretty cool, huh?

Next, I have to talk about some medical conditions, because it’s honestly getting out of hand. I don’t watch too much TV, but if it’s on when I get home from work or class, I’ll take a look and see what’s going on. Today when I came in, I noticed a commercial for a “disease” that I thought was completely absurd. Maybe you’re one of the lucky people who saw the uproarious ad yourself, for “Restless Legs Syndrome”.

Let that sink in for a moment: “Restless Legs Syndrome”

I think I had Restless Legs Syndrome once, but I WENT FOR A FUCKING WALK and then everything was fine. Honestly, some diseases I will take very seriously because of the nature of the organs they pertain to. Some examples are: Heart, Kidney, Liver, Lungs, Brain, Eyes, and a few others. Lately I think people need doctors to invent diseases as an excuse for their lassitude. I read an article that said people with RLS are fighting to be on disability because sometimes it wakes them up in the middle of the night, now allowing them enough sleep. Sometimes I wake up two and three times a night too; Sometimes I have to go to the bathroom, sometimes the cat jumps up on me, sometimes a car alarm goes off, sometimes I think God just needs to chat with me. I should be on disability too, because I have Restless Ears Syndrome. Yeah, it basically means that when I hear loud noises, I wake up. I also am afflicted by Restless Cat Syndrome; My cat often wakes me up in the middle of the night because he wants to sleep by my feet. Seriously, stop giving these assholes a reason to complain and waste countless sums of money on something that is, in essence, retarded.

I had another thought, but it’s escaping me now as I can’t push the fury about RLS aside. Either way, if/when the new dark driving goes up, you’ll all be the first people to take a good look at it. Until then…

“Come into your own. No, you’re not alone…”

I’m fighting every single urge to fall asleep or take a nap until at least 10pm. The only reason I’m so tired is because I’m not yet on what is described as a “Living, Human Being’s Sleep Schedule”. I have a good 3 hours sleep in me, and I’m still up throughout eight hours of classes today as well as a commute and a bit of a drive I had to take upon arriving home.

Now, in regards to the title. The deed that is done is, simply put, the completion of this blog. I finally integrated every digital weblog I’ve ever kept on to this here Blogger. That means I could easily reference just about any point in my life dating all the way back to 2001. Pretty neat, huh? In case you were curious, these are the journals that were integrated…

• lost in the air, version 1.1 (the one I had on Geocities)
• lost in the air, version 1.2
• lost in the air, version 1.3
• early dark driving entries
• all deadjounal posts
• the few livejournal posts I actually made
• four exclusive posts that I call “The Lost Entries Of Andrew” (they were actually behind the couch)
• random personal journals i created using Word or TextEdit

With all of this material, I was thinking of being a pretentious bastard and creating a “Gorm’s Greatest” post in the near future, where I link back to some of my favorite journal entries. Some of the crazy shit I used to write just made me laugh as I skimmed through it. So be on the lookout for that.

While I’m still feeling a sense of nostalgia, let me just pose a question for you all to reflect on: Have you ever gone back to read something you had written in the past just to find that you’ve improved greatly as either a friend, individual, author, or even a storyteller. Looking back on things I compiled two and three years ago really makes me appreciate all the work I’ve done between then and now to improve myself overall person as well as my writing skills (I went through a “i hate capital letters” phase for close to two years!).

“Find your faith and dive deep, through living gateways pass. Lined with death and ivory, and hold fast, hold fast…”