i asked if it was goth. i think of goth as for secretaries poking at maggots on road kill in the middle of the street like darling children. you want black death? LICK the maggots off like that Bear guy on Man Vs. Wild. he's mister happy go lucky goth. he eats death like potato chips.
so goth is for secretaries who dabble in BDSM. at least in san francisco.
maybe secretaries are different elsewhere.
but james said Type O Negative's sorta goth. metal and classical blah blah blah. i feel like a teenager and i want to find my identity in labels as long as i don't end up smoking virginia slims in the bathroom with the BDSM secre-fucking-taries.
i don't lick maggots. i AM a maggot. except i have to shave my legs.
then that makes me a caterpillar, huh?
whatever. i'm not clear on the label thing yet, either. cut me slack. i'm a halfie and other mixed up stuff.
And I've been listening to Type O Neg's death songs all day in between watching an Eckhart Tolle DVD I got from Netflix so that I can be different and learn the secret word to make the black dogs of depression "heal!" at my side.
Which they are, I must tell you. they're sleeping at my feet right now. i spent all day trying to keep them from my gay, nouveau chicano neighbor's old lady dog.
(nouveau chicano is someone who grew up in the suburbs around white people and flaunts his blood line connection to ranchera music to make himself fascinating and ironic through association. it's annoying, because you add the gay element, and you end up with outrageously loud backyard parties where they play things like trini lopez and squeal. i wanted to go gay bash him myself and i told him so. he doesn't talk to me anymore. thank god.)
I'm changing as a person, and I thought that being all open like a disemboweled Puerto Rican would make everyone want to sidle up next to me and rub me behind my ears the way we all rub kitty bellies, but no dice. I can't get work and I have no idea how I intend to pull this movie off. But I'm stuck. I've got to do this or i'll have to come back in another life as a cow and do it all over again. If you think it's hard to pull off a movie as i am, i imagine being a cow will make it nigh impossible.
but with hilary and barak up for bat... quien sabe? the world's a changing. eckhart tolle is right.
But i'm not betting on too much, because in the form i am, i'm already irritating people in a whole new different way. a quiet way. i'm not even making my usual east coast joke-as-love, which has always gotten me in trouble in california. but now i'm nice and have nothing really to apologize for.
James said that being open and aware sometimes makes it harder to communicate. As if I needed any additional difficulties getting along.
Anyhow, on this death jag that I'm on after finding out about Debra jumping off the bridge, James wanted to watch "Into the Wild," and I couldn't put it off any longer. I already fucked up making it to the movie theatre, where anything with landscape should be seen because otherwise it's like watching a monster movie on an ipod under your blanket.
I tried to do other things while it was on, and roll my eyes at some of the heavy-handed romanticized moments, but it sucked me in and by the end I was sobbing and learned to shut the hell up. Whenever anyone does or makes or lives with passion, rolling your eyes is like making fun of how someone dances. And for all you girly girls, I mean the gooood ones, out there...you know that's up there with telling a man his penis is small. No matter what a man does, you don't do that. It's a professional code of ethics like a priest not telling anyone you diddled the dog.
Just the way it is. And you'll notice a rip in time and in society wherever these laws are breached.
i've spent the past weeks mourning debra's jump off the golden gate. trying to learn about what kind of death you die. everything gets crushed when you hit the water, and if they don't find your body, crabs eat your eyes and cheeks first. that's if the sharks don't get you. here's beautiful debra and her baby girl before all that had a chance to happen:
preferring darkies, i never really got the knee-cracking of beauty of blue eyes and yellow hair until i met her.
and then i remember every other relatively recent suicide around me of women on the cusp or at 40. well, kris kovick was 50 and riddled with cancer, but she had to use three versions to make sure it took. i'm glad i'm not a caring woman who was around to put the bag over her head and the shot in her arm, otherwise i'd still be the one having nightmares.
there was melinda moore, "big red," the amazon motorcycle girl who left her helmet on the side of the road, folded her gloves on top, and used it as a marker so she could gun her apprilla tuono off an 800 ft cliff off hwy 1. i met her through my books. she was on my original mailing list, and she was one of those wild people with red hair clogging up her veins.
and of course, dear laura trent, who shot her dog and then herself on the farm she dreamt of growing organic vegetables on...
but i think this area attracts superfreaks with big dreams and maybe we're shaky when things don't turn out as we expected. and everyone's so fucking cheerful here with these faux buddhist yuppies and their non-toxic good energy, you feel like you're asking someone to share AIDS with you for saying you're going through a rough patch.
oh, i've seen it happen. all of you back in the city (ny), for this is like the back country to anyone from back east, wouldn't believe the day-to-day hell of having all of these GREAT DAYS. see, the rest of you, the more morose you are in the city, the easier you are to be around. not snarky or cynical. but a little "life sucks" in your armpit sweat makes others relax the way a parking space halo of red comforts a san franciscan.
regarding big dreams yellowing in the sun of time: america's the same in a more generalized gotta have a house way, vs. having a freaky life way. i fear that with all the foreclosures and high prices, that some folks are in for dust-bowl perty hard times.
so i'm looking into stoicism and that eastern stuff. i see a lot of similarities with stocism and the eastern stuff. i'd go to friends meeting, but friends meeting isn't like the ones i went to in west virginia or north carolina or new england. where the buildings are small and the window panes are wavy from being so old.
anyhow, i couldn't avoid the "into the wild" movie any longer, and james and i watched it. and now i'm fascinated by his real story and how we artists take and need stories for ourselves.
i suppose i know this about myself more than anyone.
and while i understand the desire to fall asleep and die and not try anymore, for being such a superfreak gets to be very exhausting. we have so many high expectations and ideals. when we're not achieving them, it gets shaky for sure.
but i'm learning how to talk to the black dogs.
that into the wild guy practically committed suicide, too.
so i'm learning that what james' football coach used to say to them is so true and good: "shake it off."
i had a nice good ol' fashioned girly cry and shook it off. no bad stories. for it's the stories that kill you.
so if i die from making my stories come true, in the comfort of my home like the into the wild kid, then so be it. i have to do this even though i know better.
as i think of the mundaneness of my friends killing themselves and how romantic it is NOT, i shrug and realize that there is no "destiny" to get caught up in thinking there is. there is only indifferent nature, whether you're in the wilds of alaska, or in the midst of society. no one owes us our fabulousness or peace. it is up to us ourselves to make peace with our desires and failures and not feel un-fabulous based on an award or lack thereof.
when i watched the juno writer girl get her award, instead of being gleeful, as i usually am for people who even try to be cynical, i felt annoyed like "oh, she's gonna be insufferable now." but i also felt sad for her. i felt sad because high points get addicting and there's always a low after all the work. i feel for tarantino so much because his joy is so contagious for me.
when i watched "into the wild," i rolled my eyes at some of the sappier parts, the romanticized road trip thing. but i smacked myself because in all, it's the entire interpretation and INSPIRATION that counts. the context. and then it was beautiful. and i thought, "wow. sean penn really has to not give a fuck at all about awards when the director of juno gets nominated for an oscar and he doesn't for pulling off such a coups."
i mean, it's amazing. all that outdoor on the road filming. that's what i want to do and worry about heat and glass and fog on lenses and crew and beds and locations and extras and those reality shots? and starvation and danger... real dangers, in front of camera and behind... whoa...
sometimes what people pull off in the name of art is astounding. and that was a total passion project. it gives me chills, passion manifest.
and the alaskan's "he was a damned greenhorn fool!" approach to the starvation of chris guy in the bus is a little TOO prosaic, but maybe there's something to being just like an animal and making kids in a trailer park and not thinking too much. knowing that it's more about making it through a winter.
and cows get slaughtered with nary a thank you, so who am i to expect some kind of "destiny."
that's just there to explain something going right.
i think millions of suffering cows would beg to differ with the whole "destiny" and the universe's wishes thing. they tried to sell that to the slaves to keep them quiet.
if you speak english, you might buy it to pass the time easier. but no one cares about the cows.
believe it or not, i'm actually happier even though i've had my head wedged in the maw of suicide and death lately. i'm coming out stronger and i don't get it. like i've made a choice. to feel sorry for oneself is like crying in a rainstorm and not moving.
who cares? who notices?
it's best for me to not even take too much notice. go about my business.
and with my more pedestrian way of looking at life and death, i've found some kind of grace. i don't get the contradiction. i thought if you made stories out of suicides, you'd find sense. it all comes down to bad voices and crazy expectations. like something a southern belle might do for attention. oh, the pain is real. but when you look back at history, it's a wonder slaves didn't just kill each other off as a favor.
scott billups says: "Suicide is just petulance to the extreme. Petulance is an unfortunate side kick of creativity."
so i get this letting go concept. you shake it off and move on. stoically. don't give in to the emotions. move on.
but still... i get sad because bear stearn and foreclosures and self-entitlement...
petulance!
yes.
all that doesn't give legs for life and art to run. fear cripples it.
now that i've let go of the nausea i've learned to tolerate from years of artistic/livelihood fear, and let go....
maybe THAT's why i've got that catbird smile. because i'm learning all this stuff that will enable me to tap into my german side and stoically accept what IS and move on to whatever's next. i always have said to complainers, "yeah, well, that's just what IS. what're you gonna do about it?" but then sometimes you forget yourself.
sometimes you get PETULANT. it is so the american way, huh? it's got nothing to do with deserving. nothing. that's my favorite line from "unforgiven," one of my favorite movies.
anyhow, i feel a weird peace. i want to still get excited as if anything's a sure thing. i will. but i'm glad that i'm getting better at the transitions into something different. the transitions are what can kill you. if you can make it through them, anything...
and i'm not guaranteed anything. i feel better at the reality that nature and society is indifferent. i don't know why. i can be obscure and go about my business without trying to please anyone. it's all Wild Kingdom out there, isn't it?
i feel like i listen and take what i see in. my art is going, "here!" just like a kid cartoonist, "lap dancing for mommy." (i used to do cartoons to get my busy mom's attention)
i hope this wasn't too long. i've felt like writing for days but not while sad. just a hello. and to tell you that if anyone on here or my mailing list ever feels lonely for being so idealistic and crazy, and you're feeling alone and scared you're on your way out, please call me. i can't possibly make it any worse if you're already thinking of offing yourself.
i couldn't have done as many years of my work in these past 7 years without a lot of you. actually, i should be writing this to my mailing list, but then this is to them. thank you all for helping me past some bleak moments.
i don't want to succumb to the award statues and i don't want to succumb to the lack of them, either. i'm doing okay. i'm getting it. don't hold onto the emotions and make a whole fucking STORY about everything. just have the feelings. risk being wrong about sucking.
and call me. if you can't find this number, i'm in the book: (country code 011) 415.647.8134
i'm for real. it's hard being a superfreak. it's hard being idealistic and we need each other. we can't lose each other. just because we're not being written up in newspapers for offing ourselves, it's a problem. no one wants to fucking talk about it.
but it's the voices. i understand the exhaustion. i assumed i was going to die in my twenties because i was fucking practical strangers to be polite and getting hit by cars on bicycles and running away. and when i made it to forty, i was like, "fuck. how can i do 30 or 40 more years of this art life? it's killing me already. i'll just be a nub by fifty."
a lot of you want to get published for the first time. i've done four intense fucking books and still i'm supposed to dance like step n' fetchit and if i was like "fuck you" in retail, it's worse NOW. i'm tired of convincing. no way i'm gonna spend my spec time convincing some salaried fuck something i bled and wrote with my teeth as pen nibs is a good fucking idea.
the new me smiles and THINKS (instead of saying now), "yeah? convince ME, you salary pansy. what in the hell are you gonna do for ME, huh? huh?"
the problem with growing up like i was a black girl, i was taught you'd better be able to say something to someone's face.
well, i'm here as living proof to tell you that shit does not go over well in the corporate world. i think, "but they'll trust me if i speak my mind, right?"
no way. it's back to the Big Dick stories: "yes, honey. you ARE the best fucking lover i have EVER had."
oh geez. i thought my salad days and big dick nights were long behind me.
never.
but if i jump, i'll rupture my spleen and the crabs will eat my eyes.
Man vs. Wild.
Erika vs. Eye-eating Crabs... tune in next time when they have a debate on the Bear Stearns debacle.
so i'm probably not gonna get published, either. not that i wanted to at first. it was an idea the publishers said themselves and then pulled like, "psych! only kidding. i was bored."
so yeah. you think i don't know the black dogs? i got out of the hell of adolescence to make it to THIS shit? you think i don't want to take a baseball bat and go postal? (quakers don't like guns. i think violence is a no-no, but i'll have to get back to you on that one)
and when i see others offing themselves and how prosaic it ultimately looks, and how everyone goes on after gossiping about you like it's all a cocktail party and saying the ubiquitous "she was so fun and full of life." fuck you. have a nice fucking day happy happy mortgage crisis animals skinned alive yeah i'm having a great day...
yeah, i know.
but now i know how to let it go through me. at least today i do.
i think i've found the words to make the black dogs heal. call if it gets too hard. i'll call you back. we can't afford to let each other be cocktail gossip. how gauche. i'll end up in a fight. i know it. so, no. call. even if you're in europe. but you all have health insurance and are so much happier than us here, and you might need to give out some of YOUR telephone numbers.
in the meantime, i'm going to borrow the SUICIDE and ATTEMPTED SUICIDE book from the library. i think it's the same one kris kovick read aloud to me the morning after her dad died and i tried to do the girly thing and comfort her. she told me what happens to the body when you hang it and i realized the girly comfort thing wasn't for me after all.
but now i'm ready. so i'll get the book and if you want me to remind you what non-romantic thing will happen to you if you off yourself, and how you'll be distilled down to cocktail party patter, call me. i'm here. in my own special girly way, we're gonna be all "Man vs. Wild" and eat the maggots of life. i'm gonna take care of you and keep you here. there's plenty of time for dying later.
with much affection,
erika lopez
415.647.8134
and yes, it's my home number. and i generally hate the phone, so don't just call to ask me if my refrigerator's running.
x
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