Saw it coming.
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Mixed Signals
"So you guys all work on the farm?"
The diverse crowd of young farmers, a term I never knew existed until I hooked up with one of them, stare at me flatly. I wasn't aware this was something you could study in college, let alone make a career of. The closest I'd been to farm life was a field trip in 2nd grade, but even then I was loathe to feed the unsanitary "cute" baby goats. One of the farmers speaks up.
"We work at different farms."
I pause for a moment, replay the inquiry in my mind, and realize how ridiculous it sounded.
"Ah, right, because there isn't one monolithic farm...that farmers...everywhere...collectively work at..."
They chuckle politely.
They're passionate about what they do, but their shortcoming lie in the fact that they can't relate it to the bigger picture. I indulge their conversations about fruits and berries, but I don't care. My sole interest is in fucking the girl with the athletes body. I excuse myself to go find her.
* * *
I stand on the balcony of the apartment with farmer girl.
“I don't want to send mix signals...” she says.
I'm under the impression we're out here to make out, but her averted eyes and trembling voice give the implication that the faggot she spent isolated moments with earlier was of some emotional consequence.
“I think you're great...”
Why is this whore that sucked my dick twice sitting here telling me we're just going to be friends. Why is my time being wasted? She rattles on with a few more euphemisms for, “I was drunk when we hooked up, it was a bad idea, I still want my boyfriend.” I tune out her apologetic soliliquoy and stare down at my car across the street making sure it hasn't been compromised in this gentrified low income neighborhood. However, being ever the gentleman I snap back to her words.
I simply nod and say, “Hey, we can still be friends.”
On my way out to my car, I notice a young Lou Diamond Phillips doppleganger playing the mandolin on the sidewalk. The cinematic nature of the scene I'm walking through aggrivates me further.
Drunk, angry, and baffled I drive home at 60 miles an hour hugging the corners of the winding roads of Pleasant Valley, New York. Genuinely indifferent to living or dying, I feel the impulse to swirve off the road into someone's house howl through my nervous system. Not despair, but not euphoria either. Simply a zero sum equation. Regardless, I think about the frakas that'd occur in the aftermath of my death and decide against it.
-- The Commodore
cocked
a cocked neck
to
the left allowing for a
more than careless
whisper to deliver a quip
designed to locate sexual
interest.
it was familar.
it was me.
she....
wiggles
And she got messy.
let her hair down
and washed away usual
with a few cute hip
wiggles
she knew max couldn't
resist.
this city
this City
When bars all had shitty 19" TVs with rabbit ears
And that trashy brunette
couldn't escape into a text message.
this city once had that
now the philosopher king sits
waiting for reason to take her
place.
Valentines Day
I bitch and moan about a thousand missed opportunities for love. Scornful and filled with an awkward mixture of Sake and cheap beer, I involuntarily sway to the orchestrated stomping of several black girls towards the end of the platform. They create a storm of rhythm that even the old white man in his 60s cannot resist, grabbing his sweetheart for a late night dance. I move towards the impromptu step group.
“Excuse me, I'm with the noise complaint division of the MTA...” I trail off, letting them marinate in fear for a moment. I can't keep a straight face as they stare at me in horror.
“Just kidding,” I finally offer them.
Relief washes over the group and they laugh louder than they were stomping. I wander away thinking to myself, "Did I really look like a figure of authority?
On Analog Beauty
What about the girl who has a high-definition camera studying her skin like a microscope? Can we expect to have rational females in our lives that live with this curse hanging over them?
In the Analog era, in a time of restraint and physicality, their was a limit to how much we could see. One might say it was enough. But as we blindly march forth under the false notion of technological advancement (Blu-Ray, HD, Digital TV, etc), our expectations of real have become unreal.
On Mass Culture
To hell with mass culture, the term itself has no relevance in an age of niche markets and consumer controlled entertainment. Moreover, psychologically it (along with consumer electronics) encourage us to consume more, when we need to be consuming right.
Why don't we need mass culture? Why is it bad for our cultural health? It, like a massive battleship, is too burdened with itself to move quickly enough to address dire local issues. It crushes the beating heart of New York that needs to find expression.
It overlooks the dangers--and the beauty that stands outside our souls. Mass Culture does not serves us. It serves a nebulous bottom line of internationally held media conglomerates.
Analog Stoicism #1
Analog Culture puts people back in touch with the good things in life the digital age has clouded. It's inherent physicality keeps us grounded in reality in a world polluted by artificiality. The crackling scratch of vinyl against needle, the creak of light impressing upon film, and the snap of a typekey against paper--these seemingly mundane actions are anchors telling our brain that what we are doing is undeniably real.
Given the barrage of messages and visual stimuli we are confronted with daily, the distinction between falsification and truth (which is at the heart of any philosophical discourse) becomes dire.
- The Commodore
9/29/08
I stay up 'til Seven
Go to Sleep at One
Struggle to keep my eyes open,
and feel like a bum.
I drink bristol creme
and It tastes too sugary sweet,
but its all I can afford
to give solace a treat.
Apathetic Lesbians
A few more swigs of Jim Beam and a PBR later I notice two women enter who resemble Tegan and Sara. A short Italian man and his Indian companion attempt to make small talk but the duo dismiss them. The two men are commonly dressed and stand out amongst the deep v-neck tee shirts and pointy leather boots the other patrons wear. I wait a few moments to give the illusion that I'm uninterested in the dismissive women before trying my hand at penetrating their sapphic wall.
I approach the bar to order another drink and stand beside the two women that I believe to be a couple. They sip their cocktails without emotion and this perturbs me. Why so serious, my darlings?
“You guys look excited.” I observe, with a sheepish smile.
One simply turns her head to stare out the window and the other wordlessly stares at the apex of my flat top. They tacitly acknowledge one another's exasperation. Disgusted, the lesbians move to gather their belongings and leave having been hit on by three different men within 10 minutes of entering the bar.
I'm not bothered, but the distinct memory of having sex with a girl in Boston who now exclusively dates women flashes in my mind.
What a breed.
From the Diary of an Analog Bachelor by The Commodore
Bad Influence
We sat on my cold marble floor, stoned, staring at a computer simulation of two atoms colliding on my laptop. As a rule, I hated smoking weed but when I came across a girl who made me want to voluntarily undermine my philosophical precepts, I indulged the bad habit.
“So cool.” she whispered, the reflection of the computer screen against her glasses hiding her brown eyes.
“Watch.” I replied in a hushed voice.
An explosion of turquoise and magenta lines created a theoretical representation of the big bang. We felt apart of the cosmic birth, humbled to experience the process of creation.
“So this is what you do for a living?” she asked.
“I don't do the calculations, I just program the simulations.” I paused, “That rhymed.”
We collapsed against one another in silence as hilarity seized the air from our lungs. The wave of the orgasmic laughing fit subsided and we returned to our stupefied state, now sitting slightly closer to one another.
“And then you get stoned and watch them?” she said, eyes drilling into mine.
“No. You're just a bad influence.”
- The Commodore
Imperfect
"Our parents are in Libya, or Dubai, or some other foreign paradise."
The corn fields of society sprawled out in front of me in a neon blue pulsating grid. The simplicity of faint LED read outs from imperfect FM radio waves gave me a sense of comfort only whiskey and a heap of a trashy brunette 90s girl hair in my face could augment. Society intelligent and clean. Equalized against over indulgence and patronizing glares.
- The Commodore
Civilizations Inferno
A man burns in civilizations inferno, flailing about for an exit.
It starts in the pit of his cerebral cortex and spreads as unfulfilled neurons turn upon one another.
The doe faced stare of satiated masses give a programmed smirk and Stay Tuned for These Messages.
He glowers underneath cape and cowl and skitters away, too incredulous to give reason to his words.
He coughs up chunks of logic that pool from his mouth in a kaleidoscope of premonitions that people should know--
But are too repulsed to notice.
- The Commodore
Anatomical Study of the Creatively Inclined Female Commoner
She flinched when the axe poked at her abdomen. Her muscles tightened reflexively and my theories about the construction of the human frame found dark affirmation.
The screams and sobbing stopped hours ago. By this point they had become occasional murmurs of desperation. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a pool of water collecting near a drain pipe. I learned to love the amorality that filled the void where my soul should of been. No cathartic misgivings about what I was doing were to enter my mind.
Photo Courtesy of The Woodsman
The Commodore Show Episode 1
Feed me to your ipod!
MP3 File
Music Podcast Featuring:
Five Star - Can't Wait Another Minute
Sheila E. - The Glamorous Life
Jane Child - Don't Wanna Fall in Love
Night Ranger - The Secret of My Succe$s
Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
Peter Gabriel - Big Time
Pinch, Kiss, Curse.
Listen to me on your iPod!
MP3 File
It had every indicator of reality. Her coy retreat from my advances, both of us pausing for long awkward silences to ruminate upon one another's intent, and her allusions to an early departure so there'd be no opportunity for a stolen kiss.
This was reality to me at least.
Jump cut to us sitting closely beside one another on the perilously steep stairs to the second level of my bedroom. We're masked in the deathly pale blue tint of early morning sunlight filtered through snow covered windows. The fact that I had to actually pinch myself in my own dream, which doesn't work by the way, should have shown me that happiness was once again coming to me as a poorly constructed nocturnal diorama of hope. She placed her hands on my cheeks and apologetically brought her lips to mine. The pinch hurt, the kiss felt real, and I believed that months of agonizing longing for an unrequited love had arbitrarily rectified itself in the frozen tundra of Pleasant Valley, New York.
I wake up.
I'm making out with a pool of drool on my itchy pillow and curse aloud. The dreams had stopped for a while. Still, every so often the Idealist Within that I tried to have excommunicated would make a bitter sweet return to the Kingdom of Me. I roll over and cling to my 60 year old bedsheets, recalling all the embarrassing things I said and did trying to woo her. I scold myself for being so blind. Then I think about how happy I felt consciously charging Don Quixote's Windmill of love. Even in failure. Utter and complete failure, I was starting to realize what a relationship could and should be. Though it was not going to be with this particular idealized trashy brunette 90s girl, the lesson learned gave me solace in considering my next romantic escapade.
- The Commodore
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