Black Pack Nights

Out walking whiskey drunk through the hood on a stale Indiana night.  On the hunt for a tobacco strong enough to see me through until the dawn.  Because I know that the sleep just isn’t going to come.    And that makes me nervous.    The air is heavy like an uncomfortable blanket.     Everything feels like it moves in slower motion.    The claustrophobia of humidity covers the darker realms of an ineffectual American Dream.  The part where everything is bought on credit and financial viability remains stubbornly dependent on the next payday that’s always too many fucking days away.    Various smells hang suspended–the unhealthy perfume of poverty.  Greasy foods cooked for greasy patrons at the corner bar.  Unmistakable whiffs of marijuana.  The baked …

Read More

Post Box Blues

I sent her letters.   Maybe I sent too many; maybe I didn’t send enough. I have never been a reliable judge of the post.  In fact, I live in fear of that terrifying black box nailed to the front of a little blue house.   Because it generally contains bad news.  Or other angry reminders that I lack proper adulting skills when left unsupervised.  So it is impossible for me to confirm with any certainty.   She sent only skeletons in return.  And that’s probably fair.  We were never anything but ghosts anyway.   Two inconsistent creatures stalking the night  across two different time zones.  Coming at life from very different stations.  Her view of these flyover fields from the mountains was obscured by the allure of affluence.  The …

Read More

Living the American Nightmare

It was in the between years when I functioned best.     Those chunks of sticky time that aren’t really story worthy.  Yet still somehow remain stubborn enough to fester in these later years.  They were an unstable foundation of mortgaged mediocrity that I knew was poisoning me.  Killing me slowly in measured servings of bland suburban nothingness.  Because the American dream only really works if you are sleeping.  And everyone surrounding me was dutifully tucked in, on the clock, and snuggled deep in their 401(k)s.    But I almost never sleep.  So I saw it all.  Like a map inside my head.  The pitfalls and overlapping social implications.  The selling out when certain lines intersected.  The consequences of betting bad on desperate odds– it was worth …

Read More

Blueberry Whine

Outside, the face of a sunny Monday has collapsed into darkness.  Inside, blueberry wine is poured into a stained coffee mug.  Because it was her favorite.  But I can’t even do that without somehow soiling it.   It was a long battle.  One she had fought previously on two occasions. And somehow managed to win.  But the third time was not her charm.  Those misguided percentages were just another fucking lie.   Through it all, I cheered for her.  Celebrated her songs.  Learned all the words.  Debated that cross-country trip when I first heard the news.  She helped me to live; I wanted to help her die.  But, I didn’t go.  Because when that idea was proposed, we were still lying to ourselves—everything would be okay. …

Read More

Scars

Born into an abundance of melancholy, I somehow survived with a stubborn gratitude for the unpredictability of biology.   I was born a broken child in a broken world; mine was a throwaway first breath.  I grew, terrified.  And then I was loved.  Which confused me.  And taught me to never trust.   I was the wrong kind of sick to sustain empathy.  So I became a destroyer of fragile connection.  An unrepentant killer of ego.  My words the brutally efficient weapon of choice.  Strike first; hit hard.  Be clever; be unclean.  Be willing to cross boundaries designating safe zones to leave no potential left standing.  Just blowing it all the fuck up– before it could ever let me down.   Because the catastrophic hurt of abandonment …

Read More

Fuck You, Karen

A significant co-conspirator sits rigidly on the desk in front of me. To most, it is probably viewed as just a cast-off anachronism left lingering from a by-gone era.  Or maybe a solid footprint of trendy, hipster typewriter nonsense.  But to me, it is the only tool that ever helped me truly unlock the stories of me. It forces me to focus while simultaneously allowing me the freedom to explore, free from electric distractions.  I can break rules without angry suggestions interfering with my flow– because my mind is wired to fix immediate problems.  And the evil red squiggles found glowing on other machines always win the battle for my attentions. It’s a much-abused Sterling– an absolute brute of a writing machine.  Not as pretty as …

Read More

War

There is no right.  There is usually only the wrong.  There is only the pungent, durable odors of hot metallic blood, burnt cordite, smeared shit, and sweaty bodies unbathed for weeks- because somebody had to hold the line.  Fragile temperament struggling against inhospitable, improvised environments.  Soft flesh against rigid alloys.  Malleable bone against tracked vehicles and hovering drones.   Just meat against metal.  And metal always wins.  Glory holds little meaning when a friend claws at the twitching stump where a healthy limb used to be.  There is nothing glorious in hearing a 22 year old whimper and cry out for the loving embrace of his mama.  Because he knows for certain that he’s about to die, while a chorus of words from friends ringing round him …

Read More

Birth Of A Studio

Welcome to the very beginnings of Typewriter Fox Studios, a multi-media, multifaceted, multi-ratcheted, multi-orgasmic, organical, non-vegan (because fuck all that), bacon beer whiskey boob depression-fueled trove of juvenile-jerk-off-jibberish and infantile doodles.  Give it a peek, try to break it, just don’t be too harsh in your assessment….it’s still just a baby.  And you have to be nice to babies.  Because, for some fuckered-up reason, it is frowned upon in modern American society to non-gay-sashay up to an infant and tell them, in tenderly adulty tones, that they need to just shut the fuck up.  Or comment upon how ugly they are and that you truly hope that they will eventually grow into their faces.    

Read More