The Drunk Train

A couple of weeks ago I made the long (3 hours) and arduous journey from Long Island to Westchester by train. A total of four trains. It was the first time I went into the city and used something I have long resisted, my white cane. I can see just enough to observe reactions from bystanders. Some gawk, some look scared, some purposefully stand in my way. Still others look me up and down wondering if they can get away with robbing me. Their ignorance of the visually impaired is my weapon. They think I can’t see anything. Fact is, most people considered blind can see a little bit, maybe only strait in front of them, maybe fuzzy or distorted, maybe only peripherally. Anyone tried to mug the blind guy is going to get pummeled in a surprise Blind Samurai Ninja justice. “I did’t expect that punch to the bridge of my nose. Shit!”. The ignorant rarely read so I can write this up here without any fear of revealing my secret. I can see you in my own twisted cubist way. Moreover, I can FEEL you. I can sense the compression of air as something moves closer. I can smell your evil and stupidity. My fear and rage gives me a power that you simply do not have.

On my trip home I ended up on the 2 a.m. drunk train. Hordes of drunk idiots yelling and drooling. Girls freezing their asses off because it is not fashionable to wear a coat apparently. Numbnuts shoving drool covered grease pizza in their faces like David Hasselhoff gobbing his Wendys on the floor as his daughter filmed him. The train arrives, I bang my cane around through the throngs of dopes. I make my way down the stairs and I can see that people are glaring at me because I am in the way. Tough shit. I make my way into the train car. Many, many seats are taken up by only one person. I quickly formulate a social experiment as I attempt to find a seat on the quickly filling up train. The seat hogs stare at me and ignore the guy banging the white cane putting on an aire of confusion and worry about finding a seat. Some look away. They know they are wrong for not offering a seat up, but do not care. I cannot see them, so they think, so I do not exist. Some have their feet across the aisle as they lounge drunkenly. They see me but do not move their legs to let me by. I smack their feet with the cane then step on their ankles. I looked down, determined that feet were dangerously in my path. I can only see what I am directly looking at, and not even that well especially after a long day. So I kick them “accidentally” to see how they might react. The do not react. It feels good to kick some asshole in the leg so I do it four or five more times. I stop bothering to fake apologize.
I move through five separate cars. I probably passed two hundred people. NOT ONE PERSON OFFERS ME A SEAT. NOT ONE.

Honestly I felt uncomfortable asking for a seat, I don’t like asking for shit. My social experiment went a bit awry when I realized the seats filled up because every drunk female got offered a seat. Suddenly I realize theirs almost none to be had. I see a few seats near me. I see guys look at me, look at said drunk girls, then offer them a seat, which they take. I can see them avoid “eye contact” with me. I am actually, in fact, pretty fucked at that moment. I am confused by the commotion and activity and by the fact that the train actually filled up. I had no idea so many drunk morons were sloshing into the train at the rate they were. Next time, I will just demand a seat. But at this time, there were none. I’m smushed up in the area by the door crushed in between a bunch of slack jawed fuckheads. I have black shades and my cane held up near my face, so no one shoves me. They do, but I am unbendable. This guy (who I reasonably surmise is closeted for various reasons I am not going to bother to enumerate) with his beard, I mean girlfriend, is eating some Penn Station grease pizza. He keeps putting his elbow right near my face. Like two inches from my nose. I grip my cane ready to crack it into his elbow. Lucky for him he stopped, but it was not because of me. It seemed like some sick game. “I can put my hand up in his face because he does not see me. I am free to be an asshole. He does not exist. If I elbow him in the face, what’s he going to do to me anyway? Fuck him. Hahah! I am drunk on Alcohol and Power!”

There’s a plastic surgery faced drunk woman behind me diagonally. She grabs my forearm and leans into my face.
“Are you blind?”
“Uh, yeah. Pretty much. Yup”
She grips harder, approaching kissing distance to my face.
“We have a connection, you and I. Can you feel it? The connection.”
I pull my face back away from her gin stanked breath. I mumble a bit of noncommittal nonsense.
“I Love music”
She lets go after her final bizarre disconnected statement.

This is what I wanted to say,
“You do not have permission to touch me. I am not a fucking pity case. I am not some spiritual higher plane being because I got some shitty disease. Get your fucking mitts off me, Alkie!”

What I think she was really thinking;
“I wonder what it’s like to fuck a blind guy? It might be an uplifting spiritual experience and he won’t notice my awful face mangling elective plastic surgery.”

Without the can I am an odd slow moving guy, too young to be walking slower than on old man. An irritation. A magnet for smirking assholes who run their shopping cart literally millimeters from the back of my ankles. With the cane I can walk with my head up, because I can “see” any hazards on the floor while avoiding banging into people unintentionally. Some people are fascinated by a blind guy with a cane. Totally understandable. “How does he do that? Wow!”. Some turn away pointedly. Others actually gawk with fear, or worse, contempt. You may not believe it, but it is true. A truth that is constant, grinding and repetitious. I always thought people were shit, but now I have the proof. I think some people want to see me fall down. It is not a show for a crowd, like a playground bully. It is their little evil secret. Guess what? It’s not a secret. I know you. Your name is other people.

On Killing Bugs

Throughout the years I have wrecked much havoc over the insect world. Just yesterday I saw a small insect meandering across the stairs in front of my house. I saw it, considered it not dangerous, then considered it some more. Then I smushed it underneath the soul of my fancy schmancy slippers. I stopped and thought for a few moments how many bugs I so casually crushed the life out of. There's the bugs in ones home, spiders, skeeters, etc. Fuck them. The multitude of nasty ass roaches I mashed, smacked and poisoned throughout my two decades of city living.

Then I thought of all the bugs, like the one on the steps, murders without a second thought. That lead me to think of a life with no killing whatsoever. Like a Buddhist monk never even uprooting a plant to eat it, only consuming that which will live on after my meal. Is the point of that philosophy to live one life with as clear a conscience as possible? Or is it some form of extreme self control.

Ie; It is very difficult and requires much discipline, so can I do it? Can I maintain this path at all costs? Or is it total and utter bullshit like some (not all, so shut the fuck up) of the hybrid bicycle eco macro vegans who seem to know nothing about their chosen path of gastronomic spartan aestheticism because the real, unstated goal, is to wield an organic hammer of superiority?

I strive to live as unassuming, considered and non destructive life as I can but that is based on my own personal moral compass and version of ethics, not some twisted version of my own ten commandments that states none shall have no Gods before mine, the none actually translated as me. Yes, I am always trying to clear my conscience, but not as a tool or weapon or a way of keeping up with the Joneses. The Joneses can summarily blow me as individuals or collectively. For me it's about maintaining peacefulness within myself.

I strive not to play power games, to satisfy my innate curiosity and expand my intellect, to pursue my creative impulses unimpeded, obtain and maintain a satisfying romantic life and to leave few useless footprints. However I enjoy a nice Burger now and then. More now than then. There is often a bit of pang when I do things I know others suffer because of, but Man has a thirst to be quenched and occasionally others must bleed. I am not perfect, I can never be, and by the way Asswipe, neither can you.

It's not me, it's YOU

I love the Library. It's free, I always seem to live very close to one, and it's free. Yeah, I know I said that twice. Reading regular print books is next to impossible, so I get some Large print ones. Not totally comfortable, but it is a little something. The selections always suck, however, unless one is really hooked on Jacqueline Susan, Bill O' Reilly (YUCK) or John Grisham. Nothing against most of them, but I am interested in more literary works and in Non fiction tough subjects. They don't seem to make large print in those. The good part, unlike years ago, you can go online and reserve any book from anywhere else in the county, greatly improving the selections.

What I really like are the audiobooks. They come on CD and I convert them to MP3s and put them in my player. You can even download electronic audio from the library. Sweet. I listen to them while I make my artwork. Non Fiction for the tougher parts and fiction for the easier parts of the work. You have to concentrate much harder on fiction, at least I do. It has taken me years to get acclimated to audiobooks, to where they feel like I am actually having "The Reading Experience" but I think I am finally there. Much like many of the aspects of my Visual impairment, it has taken many years for the new adjustments to feel normal.

I had a couple of audiobooks on reserve at the Library so I decided to take a walk down there, a big fat 3 blocks away.. Its really cold. I had a hood on and my Immigrant style hat and my blackest shades because light hurts like fuck and makes me blinder after exposure.. On the way back I started to pass the neighbors driveway. They usually have a bunch of kids of various ages playing in the street in front of the house. The kids are friendly, the adults not. Suddenly I realized, a bit late, a big ol' stupid ass SUV was backing out. I don't think they looked back at all. I was about in the midway across the back when I realized it was about a foot and a half away.

"Hey...Hey...HEY!!!!!"

They didn't stop right away. About 8 inches.

Then they beeped at me.

If they leaned out to say something I would've went off. Well, not off, but in a very pointed and direct way. I made sure they saw me take my hood off, so they could recognize me, as I quickly cut over their lawn onto my lawn and looked at them. Assholes.

The onus is on the driver. I have the right of way. Why? Because the driver is in control of the instrument of death, not the pedestrian. I can only see in front of my face so this is a hazard I deal with regularly. I go to and from the Library, cutting across lawns and parking lots, to minimize the odds of some idiot texting fuckhead running me down. And where do I almost buy it? 15 feet from my fucking house. Then they have the Balls to beep at me like many an asshole driver,
"How dare you protest your impending death under the wheels of the vehicle I presume to control. How dare you Yell out at ME! How dare you point out what I should already know! I shall beep back rather than apologize."

What you didn't know, oh road rage beep back at the object of the demise you may cause, is that I AM YOUR FUCKING NEIGHBOR. I am not some stranger who will move past, never to be seen again. I would expect a normal person to feel like a douche, but those who beep back when THEY are the drivers causing danger are assholes of such humongous proportions I cannot measure the depths of your douchbaggery for it is Legion.

I see my Death. It is under the wheels of some Narcissistic fuckhead like YOU.

Oh, The Humanity.

Saturday Nights Allright for Typing

I feel ignored alot. I try to get out an socialize, but I somehow fall short. Apparently not being able to drive, through no fault of my own, makes me a reject. That and my shitty finances make me persona non grata in the musician world of Long Island. That shouldn't surprise me because this island is a cultural pit, all energy siphoned off into NYC leaving only the moldy crumbs.

I try to hook up a new band through Craig's list. Being that I know almost no one around here, it seemed like my best shot. I never get past the "Cant see right so I cant drive" part. Suddenly they gotta get off the phone or emails left unanswered. Yes, my gear is a little old and fucked up, Yes, I cant drive. NO, I am not interested in your bullshit image Dog and Pony Show. I used to drive. Its not the big deal these ego maniacal dickwads think it is. Somehow I'm some liability that's also a de facto Mega Pussy. Any person who has gone through over a decade of syringes in the fucking eyeball knows that ain't true. I persist but am always defeated.

That leaves me to other thoughts; Do I just plain suck, am I always somehow saying the wrong antimagical combination of words? The age cut off seems to be 40. I am 42. It's more often 35. A 33 year old will post an ad looking for someone between 25 and 35. Do they not realize that in 3 years they couldn't qualify for their OWN shitty ass band? What the fuck is that? So here I am, alone on a Saturday night, my Girl having gone out with her friends and I have not a soul to hang out with. In the boondocks listening to sirens blare for some bizarre militaristic Fireman's Christmas parade. It's loud as fuck, 50 sirens going off all at once. The 40 year plus ones want to play covers exclusively like they gave up wanting to express anything before they even started. Playing Born to be Wild and shitty Grand Funk copies, not even trying to put a new spin on it. Barely qualifying as workmanlike and sitting in judgment of me, a person who would rather fail being myself than succeed being someone else's mediocre transparency.

I'm not so great at small talk, preferring more weighty issues, philosophizing, asking meaningful questions and dirty jokes and insults at some apparitions expense. I have been a visual artist my whole life. From day one. That leaves one at a loss of social interaction due to the solitary nature of the work. My work has changed since my Visual impairment, but I keep on chugging along, busting out pieces at a pretty prolific rate. Music, however, was my way to socialize. Connecting with others in a venue where words were less important than deeds. But I feel now as if I have been robbed of that. I have been. Now I'm at the beck and call (or not call) and ignominious disdain of the flat, linear and mediocre. They are more successful because it is easy to find the bland and unadventurous. They are everywhere. They congregate where they have always resided. I have searched far and wide to find myself and I find myself, as I am, looking for connection.

Where I find myself is alone, on a Saturday night, typing words that may never be read like many of my other endeavors. I navigate the inner reaches of my thought processes, but the ocean I cannot navigate is the world of others. The world of temperate mediocrity. I wish I could, God how I do. Life would be more fun if I didn't contemplate so much and was happy doing the same old bullshit as everyone else, but I'm not. I have tried mightily but it feels like I am wearing someone elses underwear. So I sit and wait and contemplate a day so, so far away when I can listen and be listened to in a manner that my interior life is accustomed to.