IT'S A DAMN GOOD THING THERE'S LOVE!

Hey, man, I've pretty much seen everything in this crazy life but war. I've been pulled over on the side of the road in Caracas, Venezuela, with a half dozen heavily armed teenage policemen laughing at me while tossing my passport around like a hot potato. I thought for sure I was going to be kidnapped and killed. I was in the back of a cab once, headed home in the worst part of Brooklyn and while we were stopped at a light, I looked over just in time to see a hooded creature whip out his gun and point it right at my face. All I could do was close my eyes and wait for the sound. The cabbie hit the locks just in time and stepped on the gas and we were off. I've lived through the gut wrenching aftermath of a double homicide I probably shouldn't be talking about. I once watched a man get gunned down right outside my window in Miami. I watched him hit the ground and saw the man who was chasing him close in and fire three more shots into his back. I once found myself, foolishly, 100 feet up on a 5.10d climb in the Gunks in the rain. I was 60 feet out from my last piece and I was trembling and my feet could do nothing but slip and blood began to pool around my fingernails as I clung with all my might to the sharp wet rock. I most certainly should have died that day. And the stories only go on and on from there. But you get the gist of those wild days of my life. But that said, I will tell you in all honestly, that none of those things even remotely compare to the stresses and traumas of the normal, every day doings of the modern day man/husband/father that I have become. It's a damn good thing there's love!

THE DEVOURING

It's seldom the major wounds that destroy us anymore. It's the buildup of all the daily atrocities, the accumulation of all those little nips and jabs that alone would hardly do a thing. It's having to wait in line for the bathroom. It's your credit card being declined. It's forgetting to buy coffee or toilet paper or your goddamn dishwasher breaking. It's the stack of bills on the counter, your car not starting, your internet not working. It's the asshole cutting in line or passing you on the right. It's another Christmas and all the goddamn presents we must buy. It's a friend borrowing money or worse, you having to borrow it from them. It's never being able to say what you truly want to say. It's not being able to figure out what you want for dinner. It's having to stand there and listen to some asshole tell you his fucking joke. It's seeing the dead dog on the side of the road. It's having to watch someone be shitty to their child. It's hearing Jon Mayer or having to see Jon Mayer's stupid face. It's Good Morning America and Dancing With The Stars and The Housewives Of Where The Fuck Ever. It's your endless hard-ons, the stomach aches, the toothaches, the mean pimple on the tip of your nose. It's having to go get a haircut or your oil changed or your car inspected. It's the middle aged man who just blew buy you in a convertible. It's the unwanted house guests, the favors, the falsity... Ah yes, there it is! Falsity. More than anything, it's all those little fragments of falsity. That is what truly does us in.

THE EASY SURRENDER

People, ya know, when they run into each other after it's been a while, you often hear them say things like, "Wow, you look great!" or "You haven't changed a bit!". Me, I like to see people look like they've just gotten totally fucking hammered by life. I want leathery skin and sunken eyes. Hell, I want one eye going one way and the other, another, like they've just gotten beaten over the head with a baseball bat. I want to see deep lines running across their forehead and up and down their face. I want those lines to have those thin lips so surrounded that it looks like I'm talking to an enormous, ancient butthole. But mostly, you'll find people have gone for the easy surrender. They tend to go one way or the other, and both are disheartening and boring as hell. Both are in a sense a way to pretend that it isn't happening. Either you'll find them 4 or 5 times a week at the gym while sticking to a low carb, possibly gluten free diet, or ya know, they'll just get fat.

SLIVER OF LIGHT

I'm tellin' ya, it's a new time, a new world. you've gotta do it differently, you've gotta do it your way, on your own terms. all those things that once worked, that allowed all those others to proceed, to endure, well, they're just not gonna work here any longer. and it's gonna get tough, tougher than you could ever imagine. you're gonna feel so lost and alone that you might just go totally insane or maybe you'll become a drunk or a drug addict? or maybe you'll go ahead and finally do yourself in once and for all? and be warned, your friends, your family, your wife or your husband, your coworkers, your kids, you can't expect any of them to understand, you can't expect them to see this thing that you see. and so it's gonna get vicious, as deadly as war. they're going to mistake your movements your decisions as selfishness as cowardliness as a betrayal to all that they are and love. but there's no way to help that, you've just got to let it run its course. all you can do is fight on and hope for the best. you just gotta keep going, that's all you can do. just keep going at all cost. let nothing interfere, let nothing dissuade you. you've been given a rare voice, and you must trust in it, you must honor it. believe me, it's your only chance, it's your only sliver of light.

ARTS AND CRAFTS

if it's not life or death, it's just not gonna ever be much

"I think they have a lot of money." "Why?" "They're both fat but then they're always dressed real nice."

SET IT AND FORGET IT

I don't have time to do shit anymore. I have to make impossible decisions. Do I finally go cut my toenails or do I go get rid of this pesky hard-on real quick? It's utter chaos, this modern family life. I feel like I'm trying to fish while getting attacked by bees. But then, you know, the absolute worst thing you can do is start worrying about your fleeting time, about your pitiful chances for even being allowed to merely attempt what's needed to be done. Worrying about time is like a teenage boy worrying about performing sexually for the first time. And me, you know, with what I want to do, with what I NEED to do, it's like having your first time be with some voluptuous goddess who's standing in the doorway in her lingerie, smoking a cigarette, smirking. But then, of course, you still need to be aware of it, it's gotta be there in the back of your mind. Haha! Holy shit! I don't know why, but just now that Ronco informercial just popped into my mind. That rotisserie thing, you know, "set it and forget it". Hey, do you think people who bought that thing really use it?

TRUST AND TAXES

It was just like in school. I could never accept that I was actually there or that it mattered to anyone if I was there or not. The teacher would be talking and I would look out the window and see like an old man walking his dog or something, and I would think, why am I not him? Or hell, why am I not his dog? And the other kids just frightened the hell out of me. They just seemed like fucking animals. I got along with them only because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't. I still feel that way about people. I feel like at any moment they can turn on you like wild beasts. I feel that way even about my family. But anyway, yeah, the whole tax thing. I still don't know why I allowed it to happen. There was a handful of years where I made a lot of money and, you know, when April came around, I just couldn't quite accept that it was really something that I had to do. That anyone gave a shit about any money I made or anything like that, or that I existed at all, just seemed ridiculous. I mean, why didn't squirrels or giraffes have to pay taxes? I had started to go pretty crazy by then. Every time I got my mail, I would just stand there and stare at my name printed on all the envelopes. It just didn't seem possible that anyone would take the time to type out my name. And I could never really figure out what the hell I was doing living in New York anyway. The years would go by and I would travel a bit but I would always wind up back in some shitty apartment somewhere in that fucking city. It really got to me. I mean, I really did go totally nuts a couple of times. I remember once, jogging up and down 3rd Avenue completely naked. One time, I was walking with some friends and for some reason, I decided to dive into a pile of blue trash bags beside some sort of strange rehab clinic or something. I landed on my back and I looked around and saw all these needles poking out. I would climb scaffolding or sometimes the side of buildings themselves and I would be totally fucking wasted while people would gather and cheer me on, many, I'm sure, hoping I would fall to my death. But, actually, that wasn't the real crazy shit. The real crazy shit always took place inside those apartments with whomever I happened to be living with at the time. That was always where true madness went down. I was already seriously committed to becoming a writer, desperately trying to learn how to let go of my stupid brain and just receive the information. It's pretty scary stuff at first. It's still scary. It's like being blind folded and led to the edge of a cliff and there's this voice telling you, "It's okay, man, trust me, there's water down there. Alright, you ready? Here we go... one... two... three..." and you just have to trust it, you just have to fucking jump.

Gallery

 The full gallery of 38 Pieces can be viewed here: www.photosnack.com

"Dude, that's what you gotta do. It's just like prison, you go in there that first day and try to take the biggest guy down. It's the same thing, only the biggest guy is you." -friend on marriage

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

What the hell's the difference? I mean, why isn't your rent or mortgage $20,000 a month? Why isn't a gallon of milk $18? It wouldn't surprise me in the least if I were to open my cell phone bill or my electric bill and discover that it was something like $10,000. I'm not ashamed to admit anymore that I don't vote. I'm damn proud of it actually. Outside of local elections, yourvote means absolutely nothing. Many Republicans think Obama is a socialist and is hell bent on destroying capitalism. Some will go so far as to think he is some sort of undercover Muslim extremist. But seriously, think about it, how could any of that be when the cocksucker basically handed over the FDA to Monsanto?! What I now think is that they're all in it together, from Obama to John Boehner, from Pelosi to McCain. That's right, they're all carefully chosen cast members of this horrifying play. They probably all hang out together and drink and laugh and try to fuck each other's spouses. And we're just the schmucks sitting on our itchy assholes in this decrepit theater called "America". There's just no end to the madness of our existence. About the only thing we can all agree on is that for now at least, there really is no escape. It's like they say, the show must go on.