3/concept

I think maybe the trip to Italy & my Louie L'Amour book from the trip or one or the other. or ill change in time.

Bolg 13 Brainstorming for project 2 draft 2

It was Grandma Millie’s ninety five birthday party yesterday Oct 2011 and everybody had come up from Pennsylvania or down from North Jersey and New York and mom visited from California. It was a success and we all had slight worries that grandma would do what grandpa did and pass away on the birthday and turn the whole thing into a funeral. Grandma and I live in her home in Springfield New Jersey even though my life takes place in Manhattan.

The final year of Grandpa Dave’s life was the most stressful year of my own. I didn’t just rush to the rescue as grandpas’ health declined and move into the house like some kind of super grandson. I was already there. I had arrived back after three years in Australia only to find the obvious. No jobs no good rents and no joyous overwhelming prosperity. The ten thousand dollars I had saved in Oz became five thousand after the currency exchange back in the USA.

The difference was nine eleven years earlier. While in Australia on November 12th I walked my then girlfriend Kirsten to the train and while in line for espresso I was pulled aside by an Aussie who heard my accent, then asked if was a yank, meaning “American” or a Canadian. “New York” I said. “Jesus what do you think of what happened” he asked. “What Happened” I asked, Jesus he said and dragged me out of line to a new paper. The burning trade centers photo was on the cover of the Sydney Morning Herald, the same paper I had an appeared in months earlier.

I rushed back to Kirsten’s apartment and called all friends and found that John Perry was able to answer and he confirmed that everyone was all right, even Leo who worked at the stack exchange missed work that day because he had stayed out the entire night all the way through till morning and was still at a party during the attack. Even I and Lisa the ex spoke and confirmed all NYC friends were fine. I was in shock. I went to work at the café in Rushcutters bay and stood around shocked and weirded out. The guy that I was working with that day was from Kosovo and had very little sympathy for me because this was a daily occurrence in his life.

Emma the adorable English lesbian manager sent me home after thirty minutes. I sat there all day on the phone. It was beautiful in Sydney and the pool outside Kirsten’s bedroom was gleaming with sunlight but I couldn’t feel any of it that day. I wanted to go home and hug friends. Jennifer Justice was on the phone crying are you coming home, “no” I said.

Draft 1 project 2

I’m sick of the past, the god damn past. Every story I have takes place in the past. It’s happened. Even right now the previous sentence is in the past. So many books and movies and you-tube videos and bloopers and shows about shows, and reality and the dreams are over run by the newly massive population.

Everyone is predictable or I am only meeting the ninety-five percent of the population that is simple and repetitive and thinks they are wheeling or dealing or even honestly believing that they know what they are speaking about. I've looked back on so many situations realizing now what I didn’t fully understand then. I was stupid and I did not get it. I was trying so hard and it’s too many words to explain right this second on this particular paragraph. We will bring this up somewhere randomly in this book. I might have been crazy.

The people who once represented my heroes and models have fallen. Some to fall far, far below myself.

Dominic had once found me in a second hand store named Stella owned by Kathy named after her grandmother that I frequented. I was back to NYC from New Jersey at 10 in the morning trying to get more coke and having a beer to calm down from the long hot drive. He was with Ester at the time and I really loved her and she loved me, as friends. She was Dom’s girl so as sidekick you and the girlfriend of the boss end up spending a lot of brother and sister type of time toghther. I would become Dominic’s sidekick as I sobered up in the weeks that would follow this encounter. He was an awesome speaker, thinker and charismatic man. A good role model.

Closer to now, but still in far in the past I would drop him off at Washington square park or if it was Tuesday nights he would vacation in Central park, five blocks from the show I did every Tuesday. He was looking like shit and nobody was his friend any longer. I didn’t know at first until I had arrived back from Australian where 

I spent the last three previous years. I found a burnt spoon within thirty minutes of seeing him.

I came home for my cousin Jonathon’s wedding to his wife Kitty. Aunt Bette needed some weed and since I was back from a foreign country after three years for more the twenty four hours, naturally ask Josh. I was sitting in Dominic’s apartment and waiting for the delivery guy whose number was still working. I did have to explain I was in Australia and help them remember me but they actually don’t care that much. I was searching for a pot pipe in Dom's room. I found a burnt spoon and a needle and a pot pipe, I smoked. Id talk to him later.

The wedding was in a fire hall and it was fun, it also happened to be, what would have been my third wedding anniversary. They wanted me to pull the garter belt off the bride’s sister; I wasn’t feeling that at all. As much as I am a tough guy I do not want to pull a garter on this day. It was also my grandparents wedding anniversary.

I live with them. Well right now I live with her, Grandpa Dave died a few months ago on his ninety-fifth birthday. The light in his room was on and I was totally annoyed at the nurse’s and grandma and even mom who was visiting. “How come I have to do every f%&king thing around here”? I found him in his bed; he looked the same but drawn and extra still. He was dead, I wasn’t surprised, but I was weirdly calm. It was befitting that I found him and that mom had arrived two days sooner. The craziest part was the fact that the family was scheduled to arrive on Sunday for his ninety fifth birthday party. Which we quickly converted into a funeral. It was the Friday night before or should I say Saturday morning within twenty for hours of ninety five years.

I literally almost passed out standing there in the heat putting the last shovels of dirt on Grandpa Dave’s coffin. Jewish people cannot leave until the coffin is covered. I was wearing an all black suit, Grandpa Dave was wearing my grey wool pencil cut style suit that I had purchased second hand many years ago, but as Dave aged he had shrunk out of every other suit in the house. I tried to get him buried in my MARC suit.

If the MARC suit went into the grave I could be free from its ghost of my past. Sally was Lisa’s best friend. Lisa was my Australian wife that I had known for about ten month’s total at that time, married for maybe three months. Sally worked at a clothing Public Relations showroom and loaned clothing and shoes out to television shows for their presenters, actors, and guests to wear on the air or in print ads.

I was on television at this time. It was a very low budget music video show called Ground Zero and I did little badly acted ads for the local liquor company and then for Sony. I borrowed the suit for the Sony sketches before Lisa left and finished with it after she was gone. I was too fucked up and bent up and angry and hurt and mad and vengeful and fearful to even consider going near Lisa’s friends so I just held the suit to a later date which slowly just became a straight out theft. I still have it. Grandpa Dave was too small. It’s is a beautiful suit. I should have returned it; I should have done something about the suit and maybe something about the Lisa marriage situation as well.

Lisa seemed to like me, I liked her back. She cocktail waitressed at Shine and she never ever stopped dancing. Once I got to know her she said she loved the job because she could always dance while there. Her skin was soft white with pretty and light colored freckles. Her hair was brown and shiny and long. Her eyes were blue. She had an arch in her back that caused her bum to be shapelier and made her appear to push her chest forward with beautiful full breasts. She was quick to smile and quick to laugh. He voice sounded like Drew Barrymore’s and her Australian accent never shone through. She always wore a slip and cowboy boots.

She had a more naive vibe then the rest of us. Because she was new in town. “If you live in NYC long enough you can actually watch the evolution of a person who has just arrived all the way till they fully acclimate to the lifestyle. Men like to get to the girls before they become street wise because they will be just hard and unemotional and street wise soon enough. Plus they are more difficult to sleep with once they toughen up.

Then there are the simple things such as trust. Old people in New York simply do not trust. New people do, why wouldn’t they, aren’t good people trustworthy? Anyone who isn’t from an urban environment or a road weary world traveler must learn the ropes of the city. Once you have city experience and develop truly street wise thoughts you will be able to survive any modern social circle until you die.

I’d just come off a nightmare relationship with Tamara. She was either stupid or deceitful, ill still never know. But I loved her roommates and the apartment they all lived in made me feel at home, so naturally I moved in with her. Earlier in that year but after a year and a half of me being completely sober, Ethan showed up sweaty and twisted for my birthday with the gift of cocaine. Needless to say I lost all my waiter jobs due to this and was once again given a lifestyle change via Ethan. He got me a job with him in the marijuana distribution industry. It was a great job; boss was lenient and always strung out on heroin. The customers loved us. I smoked weed with the customers at every other delivery, their treat or tip. I purchased tons of cloths and best of all; at this job cocaine abuse doesn’t constitute job loss.

Don’t get me wrong it was the nineties in New York City, when Ethan and I met we were working as waiters in the Bowery Bar and once during a waiter and staff meeting the owner asked us to “please do fewer drugs during your shift!” “Don’t order drugs from the pay phone because it’s bugged,” and “don’t sell drugs to the other owner because he is doing too many”.

Ethan and I went separate ways for awhile because we weren’t really Seeing Eye to eye. It wasn’t that we had differing moral issues and beliefs or because we had separate political views. It was the fact that I was snorting blow and he had started shooting heroin.

I had switched over to hanging out with Stuart because Dominic was now getting married and Stuart and I were both left without a proper wild party friend. I tried bringing Ethan around here and there but he wasn’t really fitting in because the dope was starting to make him paranoid and withdrawn.I worked at Shine in many odd capacities; Shine was this week’s hottest nightclub in NYC. I would do comedy sets or host, some nights I held the rope for those allowed in and almost rejected the editor of Rolling Stone one evening, thankfully, one member of the rock band the “Fun loving Criminals” let me know what was up. Other nights they would pay me to sit in a booth and drink free whisky. I only made one hundred a night for drinking free whisky, Dominic and Stuart each made two hundred a night to sit in the booth and drink free whisky.

I also made illegal substances find their way from the people holding them to the people wanting them. My friends and I spent quite a bit of time in the club basement, which unbeknown to the common customer was actuality the VIPs room of VIPs rooms. That was until I was blamed for smashing the staff’s stereo and we were all banned from the basement. Stuart did it, but I’m not a rat. I actually found out from someone beside Stuart. He eventually confessed.

Blog 9 (what happened to 8)

In the first essay the smoothness in which it flowed for me personally and the fact that I was able to convey the moments clearly enough to leave out further descriptions.

The opportunity to write in more than one voice at the same time also allowed me to quench something within myself while writing.

For revision I would work on separating it into a variety of different topics. I would try to figure out in depth how to convey clarity with fewer yet more poignant words.

I would also be interested in writing entire stories from the perspective of the analytical voice that appeared in the Italic lettering.

In terms of content I’d like to find away to share more personal and depth filled experiences in a clear and except-able manner that would hold and or attract the audience.

In terms of craft I will continue to not over reach my visions and learn how to become better, one simple word at a time. I’d like my voice to become clear enough that people will realize it is in line with my speaking and not a grammatical error.

For this next  essay I will simply try to do what I did but more evolved and deeper.

Blog 7....Writing Project 1 Draft 2 ………Josh Spear

Writing Project 1 Draft 2 ………Josh Spear

I never was attracted to the obvious, I never played it safe. I never wanted the same shirt as someone else. I certainly never thought that’s the way it was. I never felt settled. I certainly didn’t want to stay the same. I would never do what was expected of me. I always went way to fast. I rolled the dice twice when I should have held them in my hand.

He sat there behind the desk like a corporate leader in a movie. But this was no movie and he was a corporate giant and his desk was huge and his suit was better than David Letterman’s. I just sat there and told the truth knowing parts of it were a lie and parts of it were the things I knew I was supposed to say but secretly deep down I was buying time. I was different I thought. “I’m going to be an actor for three years and if I don’t see progress I will stop and go to college”. Grandpa Arthur said that sounds very sensible and gave me a loan.  We then agreed this was a private business arraignment between men.  Neither of us needed to deal with dad on this one. Sometimes a loan sort of skips a generation.

The little apartment was in an ally and it was mine. Smelling and hearing and feeling the ocean waves crash on the pacific coast from a block away. Buying dinner out whenever I wanted without having to check in with anyone. I was fighting with Alison on the phone and I got pissed and hung up on her as hard as possible. Then I redialed immediately, she picked up again so we could continue with our psycho, jealous teenage fury. This time the phone sounded like the voice they use in movies to represent slow motion.  Within a minute, I was across the street standing in the deli parking lot at the payphone with a fist full of quarters and I was one- hundred percent committed to blaming Alison for breaking my phone. When you’re a grown-up with an apartment and a girlfriend that you need to argue with and torture each other, it’s hard to find time to fit in stupid things like school.

I got halfway through two different semesters of two different junior colleges on two different occasions. My heart was not in it. I liked working and being free and acting like an adult with my fake ID.I loved have older friends and a tiny studio in an ally way, one block from the southern California beach. I loved the freedom. I flourished as I basked in the lack of obligation. Plus I had my entire future ahead of me and I really didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up when it came to things that required an education.

Bakersfield community college they called it.  I missed my ally apartment and the beach. This was the city where the Okie’s from “Grapes of Wrath” ended up and it was fucking hot all the time, dessert hot. School was three freeways away and everyone looked unfamiliar. The one friend was this girl named Tamboura that I was making out with, but of course she had just broken up with someone and now I was the new guy in town with the group leader guy in towns’ ex-girlfriend. It was like every misplaced teen character movie ever written. Instead of going to class I would drive through the long empty roads in the fields for hours at one hundred miles per hour in my brand new used Volks Wagon Golf. I’d kill time waiting for my brother and his friends to get out of high school. Most of the time I would run over the future conversation in my head about how to explain this to my mom and dad.

Back to the beach with a less cool apartment, plus now I had a torn leg muscle in a leg brace. I still cringe when I think about the sharpest sickest pain I have ever felt. My vision went red and blue from the inside and I felt like the sun was inside my skull. Then I dragged myself up the steps using the railing. I hurt so bad I was unable to cry. After that every morning would start with me and Jon Flahive trading my Volks Wagon Golf for his van because I couldn’t drive stick with the leg brace and he couldn’t drive the stupid van if my brand new shiny used Golf was available instead. Alison and I both went to El Camino Junior college which was great because now we could fight in person and try to go to college at the same time. I had become institutionalized at high school and assumed I had to go to college real early as well. The van changes, the mornings, the arguing, the job, the life of a guy with a fake I.D. all began to clash. 

Even to this day people ask what college I’m going to or went too. I have been explaining that I didn’t go to college for about twenty years. They are always surprised I didn’t go. My family and friends are of such a lifestyle that even without a proper education I have known more than many but without that piece of paper to validate myself to the common inside the box thinking type of persons. When I was aggressive id laugh at their stupidity, when I was sensitive I felt like I let everybody down, when things were going my way it didn’t matter. When my job felt like it completely sucked with no end in sight, Id fill with regrets again. At least my crappy side job could be of a higher quality.

With the exception of war and tragedy, you see the worst side of people when you are a waiter in a restaurant. There was the pregnant lady, who used her pregnancy as an excuse to boss me around and her mother proclaimed “she’s pregnant” “Well I didn’t do it” I said. The people who said “Get me” or “Listen I want”. The fucking uniforms, god! talk about soul stealing and formulating a lack of individuality. I hated having to bring bread and food and drinks and ketchup and mayonnaise to pretty woman on dates with other guys that you had to wait on. I had resentment towards the specials; on the other hand the mangers cared a lot about the specials. I never got that. “You need to say the specials”! “Tell them the specials!” “Did you memorize the specials?” “Excuse me, but what are the specials”? My status quo answer for twenty years was. “To be honest, the menu is much better than the specials, I would stay away from the specials if I were you.”The customers would always thank me for this inside tip that kept them from ruining their dining experience. I have denied so many people so many specials for so many years that there is probably a little restaurant table waiting for me in hell where I can’t order specials for the rest of eternity. Or perhaps the waiter will start reading a list of every single special from my first day as waiter up to my last day as a waiter, while I listen and wait to order, for eternity.

Don’t get me wrong. I did things some people can’t imagine happening and some things people don’t even realize can happen. I have easily had nights, years, weekends, months and moments just as insane as Hemmingway and as crazy and debaucheries as Henry Miller. The things I did while others went to school gave me an education you cannot apply for, and very few can afford. I've been treated by the rich and famous and I’ve been welcomed by the people of the streets and the underbelly. Sociologically I am the definition of well rounded.

Right from the start I was where I belonged. From my first step into the crazy, wild times, of the New York City scene. Ethan made that white powder available and things began to speed up a little. I remember the Bowery Bar Christmas Party when Susan yelled over the heads of everyone. “Josh I am coming home with you tonight (pause) and Laura’s coming with us.”  Near the end of the decade there were many landmark weekends. One was in the Hamptons and I had been awake for about sixty hours. I could over hear Ted whom called himself the “Blue Blood” because he was a blueblood telling his blueblood friends that we were like a “British soccer team” because of our behavior.  We spent the next two years referring to ourselves as the British soccer team. In contrast, I did understand where he was coming from. I mean, we had already, started a bon fire in the backyard which had NO bon fire area, just smack dab in the yard about fifteen feet from the nine  room wooden house. We also had brought back four limousines and two Hummers full of people to Ted’s house for an impromptu party at four in the morning the day before. Plus we wouldn’t stop laughing at him for trying to put out our fire with a bottle of tequila. He was so mad he threw tequila on the fire thinking it was water and that just made it even more exciting. Ted left after that and we stayed at his house in the backyard around the warm fire until it died. But even at my most inebriated, the clear voice in the back of my mind behind all the yelling, screaming, drunken, stoned, drug fueled, voices kept repeating “is this what you want.”

That was ten years ago if not slightly longer. In these last ten years, I started to see the world differently. The different decisions and precedents I had set would need to be counteracted by an opposing internal force. I felt as if I must begin the process of clarifying my voice in order to get what I truly desire. I have seen too many wrongs and I want to make them apparent to all. Speaking isn’t enough .Speaking, thinking, writing, doing and succeeding is not a, nine to five job. It’s an all consuming lifestyle.

My car was parked. My meter was full. I was crossing Madison or Lexington, I forget. I had one or two hits of weed to stay calm. I was going to Fulton, the fish restaurant that was named after the fish market. It was an exquisite place, the type Uncle Harvey went to. Harvey was one of Grandpa Arthur’s three brothers. Arthur had passed many years earlier without receiving my return of the loan. I could see Harvey sitting there in the booth looking exactly like Arthur used to look and the way I would someday look after a few more decades pass away. I was preparing the answer to the same question he had been asking for years. This particular time, instead of asking myself why I should go to college, I asked myself, why shouldn’t I go to college? I felt relief wash over me. I had been spending the last year or two telling myself that something big and different and special would eventually show up if I just stayed strong.  When I told Harvey I was going to take him up on his offer he truly smiled and expressed genuine gratitude to me! Harvey thanked me for letting him help make my life a better place to be. We finished our fish and smiled and ordered coffee and some fresh upscale donut holes accompanied by three sauces, chocolate, raspberry, and caramel. I loved it. I was going to do something different. College at forty.

After I have succeeded in the acquisition of a degree I have not yet chosen I will be continuing on in a similar lifestyle to the present, only now I will carry with me, discipline, knowledge, confidence. I’ll get respect from those who haven’t given it and I will be officially qualified to change my world. I will have a degree and piece of paper to show others that I have completed an important cycle of life in a first world country. There will always be more than one me, inside myself, but like a great general I must someday put my wars aside, because my party wants me to run for public office. Sociologically I am the definition of well rounded.