"get some" posters

from the multi-talented director, Christine Berg: 

"get some," mini-poster thingy's.

barnes

ellroy

the beast

jonesy

a slice of life 2009

in l.a., near the sea. 1.3 miles to be exact. 90 degrees. w/blocked parotid gland. 2009.

(Rosa multiflora)

(Geochelone sulcata w/Converse)

(Coastal Prickly Pear Cactus)

 

[Spineless cactus (Opuntia ficus indica f. inermis)]

(homo sapien, w/vicodin & friend)

(Cucurbita Pepo)

(aloe barbadensis)

well-deck, revisited

The lights down here are better though. Down in the well-deck. With the Humvee’s and the cold air. And I’m on Guard. Armed with an empty M-16 A2 service rifle and a journal. It’s pretty boring, but that’s life in the Marine Corps. Boredom and pain and some fun. A microcosm of life. But I’m thinking about 20 minutes earlier.

Up in the barracks, or cell, or rack, or whatever the Navy calls sleeping quarters. It’s break—I’ve  also been assigned mess duty. Not exactly your shit-hot Marine. Nevertheless I’m on break and I find a rack and I’m fucking tired so I climb way up—the racks are stacked four high. Coffin racks. And I sneak up high on the forth rack and I lay there for a moment.  I'm not claustrophobic, but I tense up. I dunno why. Just do. Then I settle down and think—that’s all you do on float. Think:

Life.

Sex.

Strippers. 

Blowjobs. 

Tits. 

Ass. 

Guns. 

Killing. 

Hookers.

Rear-naked chokes. 

Cold Coors Light. 

...Sex...

So you think like a young man. 

And I think I want to cry. Really. My fists clench up and suddenly the outside hatch opens up. 

CREAK. 

Enter a young Ensign and his fiancé. She knows her young officer’s is about to go to war, or at least near a war, off shore. She loves him. She loves him and so does he, and they embrace. 

Kiss. 

Real deep and sensuous and there I am. LCpl Mandia up on the fourth coffin rack. Enlisted voyeur. 

And the walls close in. All around. Tight and made my muscles twitch even more. Constricted. A boot on my throat. The young officer and his woman are in the midst of a legendary romance. A tale to tell the kids. An inspirational novel written by one of their future grandkids. Oprah book club shit. But every second I see/hear them, I come closer to imploding. To just screaming out loud and banging my head against the bulkhead. 

Then my heart goes. 

The Ensign reaches inside his fiancé’s blouse.

My heart wants out. Wants to tear itself from the meat and gristle and yellow fat and jump off the bow of the USS Boxer and sink to floor of San Diego bay. Hopefully a pregnant halibut swims by and gobbles it up, thus supplementing her lack of food, and my heart; the fist sized muscle above my gut, spawns new life. Very poetic.

His hand reaches behind her head. Pulls her hair. Jaw hangs. Kisses her neck. Smells behind the ear—right where you can feel the bone, that divot. Where her perfume hides.  Her eyes close tight. She wants this. 

I’m about to burst. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Goddamn it, get the fuck outa here you motherfucking zero! With your good happy life and beautiful woman and that bachelors degree from San Diego State.

Something calls out over the loud speaker. The Captain speaks.  The young Ensign stops. The ships about to cast off. Last call. Their lips open, millimeters apart. One breathe. Hearts beating the same cadence. A moment frozen in time. And a peck on the lips. Then she hugs him, hard. They leave. And the walls recede. 

I take a breath. I can breathe again and slip out the coffin rack to the deck below. Another breath and I hear my heart. Familiar staccato off in the distance. My heart jumps out the halibut’s ass and climbs the anchor chain. Over the slime and rust. Slums it down my esophagus and fills the hole. Doesn’t fit right though. Some slack. Gaps. But it’ll do. 

An electric sound. A hum. Fluorescents-

SNAP on.

White light grows and fills the vacuum tube. They expose everything. Every blemish. Every wound. Ingrown hair. I don’t like it. I look at my watch and I remember I only had 20 minutes of break time before I had to go on watch in the well-deck. So I leave. Secure the hatch. Turn the cork screw or pull the latch, I don’t remember. But I leave.  

And that was that. And now I’m sitting atop an empty Humvee with an empty M16 A2 service rifle. The air down here is especially cold. And I think I’m coming down with a stomach flu. I need to take a shit. But I can’t. Can’t walk off guard. It’s a rule. One of those pesky general orders you swear to. So I get out my journal and write under the yellow lights inside the hull of the USS Boxer.

"get some," premiere

it's official: my 1st premiere. very cool. and yes, i wrote the thing, although you might need a magnifying glass to read my name...i kid...anywho, check out the "postcard."
be there or be square



(click for a larger version)

moving on

that's what im gonna do. take the next semester off. 

get surgery and just recover. 

my jaw, my back. continue to write. to read.

maybe drive around for a bit. the desert. berkeley. mexico. who knows. but i think it's time. forget the past...no, acknowledge it, and just move on.

FirstStage

recently had the pleasure of attending a play reading at First Stage; a theatre/writing workshop in Hollywood, CA. specifically, a play entitled "Confirmed Kill," by my friend Harry Cronin. it was pretty damn good. in fact, the whole experience was damn good. can't wait to get involved. and you can too--check out their call for scripts, below.

a little about Harry:

http://www.theateronline.com/actshow.xzc?PK=17522

and little about FirstStage:

http://www.firststagela.org

98.6 degrees

police station in 2003. it was baghdad. 

we rounded the corner and as soon i exited the humvee, the .50 cal let loose. 

then 16s, and SAWs, a 240.

THUMP!

THUMP!

THUMP!

rounds hit the wall. i could see tracers overhead and this was IT.

combat.

screams, yells. "die mother fucker die!"

it was loud. damn loud. so damn loud that all the movies and books and scenarios you played out in your head in the comfort of sunny southern california were shoved back into your balls where they belonged.

i was with a friend. and we hid. or took cover. which ever you like. asked each other if we should round the corner. 

to round the wall of reality.

and we were hesitant. scared. confused. 

i carried a shotgun. bennilli, semi-automatic. meant for room clearing. 

but how efficient would that be against an enemy at distance? 

not very, i thought. 

and who was firing?

i thought the War was pretty much over?

rounds continued to pop all around. 

ZING! 

ZING!

so fast and mean. different when you're at the other end. it'll keep your head down that's for sure. 

and it doesn't care that you went to catholic school. or had girlfriend back home who's getting blitzed in some seedy bar. didn't even give a damn that you're an American. that your GI Bill is waiting and you miss Monet and had a dog that just died from cancer. 

despite the thousands of dollars the US government has invested in you, you're  simply a lump of mushy fat and gristle.

warm. 98.6 degrees of human warmth. 

blood; alot more bloody than you thought.

and it's red. but you know that. 

so we waited. maybe a minute. maybe thirty seconds. i don't remember. but it was the scariest moment of my (our?) life. 

it died down and we snuck out. took cover behind some concrete pillars and they screamed "Cease Fire!"

"Cease Fire!"

it dribbled down. 

POP!

POP!

and no more pops.

just silence as the smoke rose, leaving sulfur hanging heavy in the air.

a few days later i found out a civilian had accidentally drove his car into our convoy.

and we trigger happy Marines laid him out.

wasted half a family, in fact.

combat.

a Corpsman went to help, but it was dark. he couldn't see. so he reached in and groped. 

his hand slid into a man's head.

right into the brains.

warm.

98.6.

supposedly the Corpsman was never the same.

he wanted out. 

of everything.

we stayed at that police station for some months. couple days after the firefight my buddy and i wandered the sprawling compound with sledge hammers.

nobody questioned us. they just let us walk--sledge's over our shoulders.  when we came across certain things, we destroyed them.

i don't think we really talked about it.

we just destroyed.

no reason.

no anger. 

no laughs.

nothing.

but that was 2003. 

and it was a police station in the heart of baghdad.