The Evident Lie

D2theL sends me another email. OBSIDIAN is featuring at the Yippee Cafe this evening. Hmmm. I want to get out and why not go to see my brother read? I get up and take a shower, and a shave and return to the computer, which is still on, surprisingly, and OBSIDIAN pops up on IM. He is indeed featuring at the Yippee and was wondering if I was going. Yeah. I'll be there. He also wants to know if I'll bring my roscoe. Sure, and I'll probably pick up a portable too while I'm at it.

I do that. I spllit the crib, grab a portable and head downtown to the Bowery, where The Box is, and down the block from it is the Yippee Cafe. When I get there there are very few people. The nutty Orion is there, a poet forever banned from the SHOUT OUT, the ONLY poet banned. He was there and said hello to me when I said hello to him, so maybe all is not sour grapes between us.

I go to the bar and try to order a beer. They don't serve any alcoholic beverages and do not allow you to bring any in from the outside. So there goes the good idea of going out and getting a six pack. I split, I'm early. I go around the block and drink from my portable pint of Jack Daniels and smoke dope. When I am pretty tipsy and cold, I wander back in and sit at the bar, ordering a very expensive hot coco. Gibbs, another cool poet comes in and we talk. He wonders where OBSIDIAN is, being that it is already past the time for the show to start.

Presently he walks in and wants to take a walk around the block to partake of some libation before his reading. We do, and I let him drink and smoke up. When we return the show starts and I get a chance to read twice. Good for me, I only brought two poems. OBSIDIAN and Gibbs are the features and they do an excellent job. The place is not full, about half empty, but it is a fun crowd. When done, Gilbert, the host, is driving up to the Nightingale for another reading. I don't want to go. Neither does OBSIDIAN it seems. One reading a night is enough for me.

Instead OBSIDIAN and I go to a bar next door and drink a beer and talk. It is an expensive bar, so we don't drink much, but we do hang around talking for a time, being that it is so cold outside and warm inside. Afterwards we walk around the block, still drinking from the portable and smoking dope. He rides with me up to 96th street and we get a bad feeling about smoking and drinking in the station, so we leave and walk up the block and do so on the corner. This goes on until OBSIDIAN has to use the bathroom, so we retire to my room, and he uses the bathrooms on my floor.

We sit in my room, listening to music and talking, drinking and smoking until we finish the portable and are just smoking. After awhile smoking no longer works for me, so I suggest we head back out and get another portable, split it and then go our separate ways. It's almost 11:00 and there are no guests who aren't overnights, allowed. So we split and get another portable. We return to the room only to split it up and then head out to the Way so that I can swipe him in and send him home.

We plan in the station. We need to get out to more readings and represent ourselves and our show. We need to have people know about us and our reading. We need to read our poetry to the masses. It is what we do. We are poets. Drunk, fucked up poets, but poets just the same. How did this truism elude me for so long? I want to read my work. I want to write more. I want the feeling of listening to good poetry, and talking to artsy people. This is a good feeling. It makes me feel whole, but because of my social anxiety I don't get out of my room. I don't leave. I go nowhere. This has got to change. If I am to grow, to get out of my shell, to get out of my room, I have to begin attacking life. To begin leaving my cocoon. This is of vital importance.

We also spoke of what was in our futures, and how bleak it seemed. Our futures seemed to have a pale signi- ficance, as if we were just living for today and not for any semblance of a tomorrow. We have no real goals, and I think this is primarily because we are doing nothing. We are not pushing anything. Well, OBSIDIAN is hawking the Handbook out to publishers now, but I'm not doing much of anything. Much of nothing actually. I also believe that our going out to readings plug us into other events and people which will cause us to expand our horizons and view. Yes, going out to readings is a good first step.

We are way down in the bottom of a hole, way down, and there is a slim chance of recovery. I think being this far down in my life, this far down and out, makes me depressed and alienated. Instead of fighting against it, I give into it. I let it hold sway. This has got to stop. Now that I am off the drugs I am free to do what I want mentally. I have a greater range of decisions available to me that I did not have before. This is good. This is for me.

I leave OBSIDIAN at the station and head back home, where I have my half a bottle of libation and my computer, is still on. I had removed the battery, which lowered the temps inside the device, and only played music, not watched television, which places a greater demand on the system, and it seems to have worked. It's still on. I write emails until late and then IM with Betty until later, and finally hit the hay, but not to sleep. I don't sleep. I toss and turn and twist and move. There is no sleep for me, not until around 4:00 in the morning.

I drift off, and again, my dreams are much better than my real life.

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