Hey guys. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. Been a long time. Too long. Anyway, I’m back posting blogs and things. Meanwhile follow me on Twitter.    http://www.twitter.com/richhillenjr

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Satanic Voodoo Atheist TV Party Tonight

Now I don’t have it. I had it for a minute there but I lost it. It’ll come back it usually does.

I traveled to a city. New York City. We were visiting a famous Satanist’s home that took up at least four floors of a corner building. There were to be ceremonies and orgies. I was up for anything. I wasn’t there to worship Satan. I was doubtful many of the characters I met were there to worship Satan. We were there for the experiences. A girl came up to me and asked if I was ready for sex with her. I agreed neither excited by her or turned off. She was cute and chubby. Under normal circumstances I would have jumped at the chance to be with her. Some of the people there wore masks and costumes. Goat masks and black robes were the most popular but some wore superhero masks and high class feathered masquerade masks with no clothes or dressed in high society garb. The girl kept disappearing and coming back to me telling me to wait and sit and stand and lay on her bed and her sexual ceremony will start soon. It did. She was pleasant. We snuck about again while she got dressed for a ceremy. We missed the full blown orgy but the stage finale was about to begin and I pulled down my light weight mask to watch.

I lost it again. I know if I look I won’t find it. I’ll just have to relax and see if I get it back. It usually comes back.

Another City. San Francisco. Another building with floor after floor after floor. Another party and more friends I never met came with me for the ride and their kicks. They got ‘em we all did somehow. I kept getting fascinated with the ornaments hanging everywhere. They looked like Voodoo related ornaments. There were pretty young women approaching me left and right telling me about the ornaments and inviting me to the next show and I was worried that I didn’t have enough money and they kept telling me that their shows were of no cost that I have to worry about. One friend wants to leave this party and I show him that I can’t go yet because my shoes are wrong. I was wearing Docksiders with the bottoms ripped apart for some reason. I haven’t worn them in over 20 years. I didn’t want to leave anyway even though there were no orgies here. I wanted to stay and learn. Watch more shows. Meet more pretty girls showing me new ornaments. I felt alive in that building. I felt, dare I say, happy.

It slipped me again. I try fighting this time to get it back. It’s not coming. I remind myself it will. It always does. Then I feel panic that it might not come back this time. Maybe?

Dreams of Stains, Refrains and Delorians on Film

Yeah. I haven’t had writer’s block per say. I’ve been busy having my 19th nervous breakdown and drawing to pay rent. I love drawing but I miss writing as much as I normally do.

So, here’s a well something I wrote based on a few dreamses.

It was group therapy. It was forced therapy. It was a family reunion of the family that never was but perhaps should be. Grammar school orgy. Grammer school orgy. It was a film making table reading in a locked room. Forced filmmaking. Script reading. It was confusion. Both of my, well 3 of my (2 are brothers) friends who made make write score create direct films -William Hellfire and the Martin Brothers-Andy and Jim Martin were there as counselors or doctors or caretakers or leaders or patients taking charge. They had their latest cast or character actors who belonged here with me along with Kat Dennings with the personality of her character Max in the non-hit TV show 2 Broke Girls, another friend Cherie, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Andy’s friends Rick and Pat and Hellfire’s latest young hot sultry actresses ready to do anything. Anything. Non of the other girls mattered. I liked Kat. I was really into her this time and not the average young skinny wild ready for anything models (although she was young and not fat-she was older than and heavier than most girls I dream about and the ones in the room).

 

The reading was tedious. Repetition and such. Words. Just words. I kept thinking. The padded walls became more apparent. Was it part of the set or part of the prison? The cell. The reading? The words. There was a window in the corner left right over the top wall. I was padded and bars decorated the outside. I think it a was plastic window. No glass for the loons. This loon.

 

We could hear the heavy storm a coming. Rolling round the bend. A hurricane. An avalanche? The doors were bolted shut and we hung out in the lobby of the built in movie theater we found though a secret compartment and sneaked in and ate popcorn and drank coffee and soda. Mr Hellfire always had a stash of liquor with him to share and some took some and some turned it down. This was our scared straight therapy I proposed in my mind. The party was just beginning and I felt like I just begun as well. I never began. I never stopped or started. No one understood why we were there and most of us didn’t care or cared too much. We fluctuated back and forth. An orgy. An evening of days spread across the calendar of my subconscious or maybe I was part of someone else’s dreams.

The storm subsided eventually and I dreamed my way onward onto a floatation vehicle. A car. A Delorian. A delirium. Ruins of the storm maintain the balance somehow and the roads –Who needs roads?- I see foreign flying vehicles. Ed Woodian saucers like whipped by me on the way to Gary’s house. Flight attendants offer my navigational gal Friday pills for the ride and I steer along seamlessly despite the nausea.

 

“Go ahead and vomit” I tell Gary but Gary never gets sick.

 

We arrive in his underground tavern. Cavern to find his equipment ready to go. We park. Hang out forgetting the therapy of filmmaking and ballet dancing. When he’s ready for me to leave the BitchCave Gary confidently hands me a package. I knew what to do as I climb into a new flight device. Airplane maybe?

Flight of the dead. Dead musicians, friends, loves and my own life obliterated into one pile of ashes from the exhaust flames of a flying saucer. I’m still high from the flames and the guilt.

Fetishes Part 6 – Nyotaimori Sushi and Naked Women

Nyotaimori

Fetish. The psychological definition of a fetish is any object or non-genital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.

Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her. A paraphilia involves sexual arousal and gratification towards sexual behavior that is atypical and extreme. –Wikipedia

This is part 6 in my weird fetish series. Click here for part 5-Mechanophilia, here for part 4- Formicophilia, here for part 3- Trichophilia, here for part 2 Dacryphilia– and here for part 1- Nasophilia. Today it’s about Technophile.

Nyotaimori (Japanese: 女体盛り, “female body presentation”), often referred to as “body sushi”, is the practice of serving sashimi or sushi from the body of a woman, typically naked. Nantaimori (Japanese: 男体盛り) refers to the same practice using a male model. This subdivision of food play is originally an obscure Japanese practice not common in Japanese culture but that has attracted considerable international media attention. –Wikipedia

Some say it’s an art and others a novelty. Underneath it all there was and is a fetish quality to it and has been since the ancient ritual has begun. For people who love sushi and love mixing food with sex it is an erotic pleasurable experience.

Nyotaimori is the “art” or “fetish” of being aroused eating sushi off of the body of a naked woman or man depending on the party, customer and restaurant and it is one of many fetishes that involve sex and food. Many people enjoy combining these two parts of life because they are both very pleasurable, so you get double the enjoyment by putting them together. There are many restaurants in the U.S. and throughout Europe who use naked models with strategically placed dishes or leaves to serve sushi off of; you just have to enjoy your sushi at body temperature.

There are also body preparation requirements. The body must be thoroughly cleaned with anti-biotic, hypo-allergenic and fragrance free soap. This is followed by splashes of cold water to withstand the cold sushi and keep it cold as long as possible. Some governments require a layer of plastic between the body and the sushi due to sanitation laws and I’m sure this is not as enjoyable for the fetishist.

I’ sure I would try it for the sheer novelty of it like trying any novelty restaurant. I think I’ve said this before, as many kinks and fetishes I do have, mixing food with sex is one thing I can’t stomach.

Although a lot of Nyotaimori is experienced through dinner parties and the hiring of models that can stand still, there are reastaurants as well.

Here’s a website I found called Sushi Nomads http://www.sushinomads.com/sushi-blog/nyotaimori-and-nantaimori-naked-sushi

For all of your Nyotaimori needs.

Pornography, Grandpop and Me

 

I was 8 or 9 years old when I was first exposed to pornography. Sort of. I didn’t know I was exposed. I lived with Grandmom and Grandpop at the time the real deal Grandparents that copulated a few times- at least 3 times to produce my uncle, my aunt and my paranoid schizophrenic mother. I won the genetic lottery with the mental illness, heart problems, trigeminal neuralgia and my addictive persona. Who knew back then? They were barely treating my mother correctly. How could anyone know I was to become the crazy man boy I am today, maybe tomorrow and certainly yesterday? Too many yesterdays if you ask me or if you don’t ask me. Luckily, I have a disassociate disorder or the good fortune to file them away until needed or they leak out into my other problems depending what’s going on. This has nothing and probably everything to do with my natural consumption and once obsessive passion of pornography.

 

Grandpop took me on errands a lot from what I remember. We’d stop at a bar and I’d wait in the car while he had a few drinks. I didn’t notice what kind of bars at the time but they were what they used to call Go Go Bars. I just remember seeing the words dancers and go go. Sometimes Gramps would take me into regular bars and we’d sit on the stools and I drank soda pop and he drank beer. I didn’t like the smell and the taste was even worse the few times he let me try it at home. Grandpop didn’t exhibit the signs of an alcoholic the way I’ve learned what one was by becoming one and then stopping and hanging out with ex-problem drinkers as some but not all call themselves and sometimes others. Mostly, they/we speak in the first person when sharing experiences, strengths and hopes at gatherings of ex-drinkers. I remember Grandpop seemed to drink beer everyday but he loved it as much as he loved mixed nuts, sharp cheddar cheese and Grandmom’s chicken dumplings. Who doesn’t love Grandmom’s chicken dumplings? I didn’t like sharp cheddar cheese, mixed nuts or beer as a kid. I loved her chicken dumplings. What’s this got to do with porn? I’m not sure but I’ll get back to it.

 

Sometimes I waited in the car no matter where we went except the grocery store where he showed me how to switch price tags and sample anything in the store. He’d open a bag of candy in the candy isle and try some. He’d open a box of cereal and eat some. Anything he wanted to try he did but he was always generous and shared it with me. So grocery stores and regular bars I was allowed to go with him but not these other buildings I later figured out were Go Go bars and porn shops. Flashbacks of the signs on the mostly white painted buildings. Words like “live girls’, “sex”, “peep shows” and the most unforgettable simple letters “xxx”. I just stayed in the car and read comic books and waited what seemed like forever sometimes and went by fast other times. The trips seemed to lessen as grew older. I had never seen him look at pornography at the house or found any magazines at the time or anything. I forget.

 

As he got older he had heart problems like I inherited. He had all kinds of heart surgery so the other memories lessoned. He didn’t stop at the buildings that I had to wait for him in the car. He no longer ate high salt products and drank less beer. He’s sneak sharp cheese, nuts and an extra beer when he could but Grandmom had a close watch on it. Now Grandmom I was told years later had the real drinking problem. She was always drinking mixed drinks and cocktails so I never paid attention since it was in a glass. She was getting drunk right under my nose.

 

I left them when I was 11 years old to become a ward under the legal guardianship of my fourth and fifth grade teacher and her husband. My second or is it third parents (?) were taking on an 11-year-old addict; mental case and none of us had any idea yet. It was agreed that it was best for me to go under their care because they could provide the stability and financial support I needed or at least provide a little more than my Grandparents were capable of at the time.. Even my “crazy” mother gave her consent. I had no idea what was to come and neither did they.

 

I kept in touch with my genetic family. of course, except dad who took off after mom started to go nuts. As an unstable adult I understand. Wouldn’t you? As I approached my teen years Grandpop opened up more and exposed himself to me. Not his penis but his dirty sexual side. He told me dirty jokes and taught me new words referring to women’s body parts. My uncle told me some of the comments he made with him browsing through porno magazines on occasion like “Her clit so big I could drive a truck through it.” Looking back it actually made no sense. I guess Gramps didn’t know what the clitoris was except it was on a woman and rhymed with Dolores.

 

At least I know where my perverted side came from. I got a lot of great things from the G-parents too. I don’t mean to sound like they were horrible people or anything. They loved me and I got my corny sense of humor, charm and social skills from Grandpop and my sense of good manners and when and how to be polite from Grandmom. They also exercised unconditional love in between the guilt trips. That’s not the point. Grandpop and uncles and other people I attracted were perverts like I was becoming. Well, not perverts but I was exposed to the elements that create an objectification of women and exploitive nature concerning sex in general at an early age and carried, developed and refined it into adulthood.

 

I found books of sex stories and a couple magazines of my new dad’s when I hit the age of “discovering yourself as a man” I call it. The stories were graphic but the magazines weren’t too graphic. I was sick and took off from school one day with my new mom and we went to the doctor then stopped at a 7-11 afterwards to get a Slurpee or something. As I threw away some trash I peeked in the trash can and saw a magazine. It was a thick magazine with photographs of real people having real sex. I wanted that magazine so I took it. My new mom decided to let me have it and gave me my first sex talk. Her 2 rule theory that applied to having porn and having sex. – 1. Be discreet and 2. Protect yourself. It’s tough to be discreet as a teenager and it was tough as an adult for me to be discreet but I always protected myself. So I was on my road to sexual exploration. I slowly built my own collection and developed my tastes in what I like and that became a lot.

 

When I was 15 or so I decided to buy my Grandpop birthday gifts he would really love and use- A 6 pack of Budweiser bottles and the latest issue of Hustler magazine. I actually got my new parents to buy the beer and I think I bought the Hustler. I looked older for a teen because I was tall and had facial hair. I was getting served alcohol when I was 16 and 17 years old and cigarettes since I started smoking at 14. I also bought my Grandpop a funny card about getting old. Grandmom was in shock when she saw him pull the Hustler out of the wrapping. Grandpop was embarrassed to see it. I think they thought that their 15-year-old Grandson buying beer for him was bad enough but a porn mag as a birthday gift from your 15-year-old Grandson was much worse. My mind didn’t learn the difference in that rule of discretion my 2^nd Mother instilled in me yet. I didn’t master it until I was well into my 30s. Luckily, I “protected myself” as 2^nd Mom advised.

 

I never bought or brought up pornography to my Grandpop again. I did increase my collection of magazines and my porn addiction was on it’s way until the videos replaced the magazines then the internet and dvds until finally my world was overwhelmed with so many sexual interests and fantasies (I could write book after book about) that one day they all went away. Maybe other reasons too like getting older, having more important things to do and maybe medications.

Vanity or Sanity?

“I’ll trade your vanity for my sanity.” I said to Marcus in 1995.

We never made the trade.

I’ve had another blah day today. I had to do a “Stress test” at my Cardiologist early this morning. My mom likes to take me there to make sure I am ok etc. I slept at my mom’s last night.

I was instructed not to drink caffeine for 12 hours before and no smoking after midnight last night. Yes, I have a heart condition and I started smoking again. Not even close to half as much as I used to. I don’t drink that much coffee. But that’s not the point. It was rough waking up and staying up then going for a stress test. I was stressed from not having coffee and smoking.

I was there for over 3hours and or was mostly waiting around and 2 photo sessions after putting fluid in me for the machine. The only “test” I took was a 10-15 minute treadmill until my hear rate was up to 150 beats a minute. The Doctor was fun to look at except for her wedding ring. Well, it was a nice wedding ring. You get the idea.

I left there so groggy for some reason. Mom took me food shopping. She took me. I paid. Ha. Then we did lunch and I finally bought a coffee. A “French Toast Latte” actually, with 4 shots of espresso. I drank up and had a smoke finally. Ahh. I drank the whole thing and my ass was still dragging.

I came home with mom. I sleep here some Friday nights so I can help my uncle Saturday mornings. I helped my mom with a few things and cleaned out my broken down car in her driveway. I donated it to Purple Heart and they are picking it up on Monday.

It’s a sad loss. I loved that car but it needs too much work and I can’t afford it right now. I did score a bunch of coins from it. SO I took a walk to the bank to cash them in. TD bank charges 6% on the coin machine if you don’t have an account with them. I’ve and accounts with them for years even when they were Commerce Bank and they never charged. Now I don’t have an account and they charged me over a dollar and I ended up with just under 17 dollars. Oh well, it was still found money.

I took a walk into town to get some smokes and splurge on a Starbucks coffee (half decaf at this point) since I had some extra money. Chatted with the friendly kid at CVS I see every week about cigarettes mostly. My old friend from when I worked at Starbucks was working and we chatted it up a bit. One of the girls I used to see there almost every night a couple years back looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back. I used to think she was cute. She still is. I just don’t always think about these things all of the time. Just at my Doctor today.

“Are you the same guy..?” She asked then paused.

“That used to be her every night? Yes.” I answered.

“You lost a lot of weight. You look great.” She said.

I thanked her and almost told he she looked good too but wasn’t sure if that’s what I’m supposed to say or not anymore. I talked to her while she made my drink.

“You used to drive that big red car right?” She asked.

“Yeah. I’m not driving it now.” I said.

“What are you driving?”

“Nothing.”

“Where do you live now?”

“Fairview.”

“Where’s that?”

“ It’s on the edge of Camden near Collingswood. Where do you live?”

“Bellmawr.”

“Cool. Nice seeing you again.”

“Great to see you. Stop in more.”

I took my drink in a great mood. I gained a little of my weight back in the past month and have been a little self-conscious. I hadn’t shaved in a week and my hair was un-kept today so “looking good” was the last thing on my mind. It felt good to hear it. When I first lost the weight after a month or so recovering from my heart surgery months ago I was so confident. I was able to wear clothes I couldn’t fit into for over 4 years. That faded away fast with other priorities making me forget.

It occurred to me that I didn’t even feel bad about not having a car or even a job because “I looked good” to quote my friend John, even when I was at my worst.

I guess it was a good day. Because other people’s opinion’s of my looks makes me feel better than my accomplishments.

In reality I’d rather have created something like a piece of art, poetry or a novel than look good but I was nice to hear it.

I’ll keep my sanity (the little I have) and you can keep your vanity.

Ezra POUNDed My Head

Ezra POUNDed my head today

I woke up in the (William) BURROUGHS of my mind

Unable to NEAL like Cassady and pray

I write like I am an ARTHUR (Rimbaud) of many poems but

I am really a HUNTER (S. Thompson) of words

A Patti wordSMITH

 

I am hungry for an Allan GINSBERGer with cheese

Flap JACK Kerouac rhymes touch my soul

I search as (Henry David) THOREOUly as I can for the

Right (Edgar Allan) POEm to come along and

It all seems so (William) BLeAkE like

Tasting rotten (Walt) WHITMAN chocolates

My creativity takes it (Gregory) CORSO

As I ponder on about Emily needing DICKenson

I have to make my MARK like TWAIN

And do as I WILLiam and say FAULKner you

 

I WILLiam SHAKEspeare this feeling

I want to have my (Robert) FROSTed cake

And (William Butler) yEATs it too

Mark my (William) WORDSworth

Cabbage: the Poem

I wake up to the smell of cabbage

I am sleeping on a giant cabbage leaf

The blue . . . no green . . now orange

Rib caged baby lion in a now current

Monster of coolness of sorts sorts the

Mail on his autumn leaves in Louisville

A cup of Earl Grey tea you fancy?

Fancy me? What did I do?

Where did I go?

Carpet cleaners are coming around noon.

Can they, would they spray me down with pink poison?

So, I can breathe again

Slim Gilliard would love the gibberish singing you screech

To me about fried ice cream and potato chips.

Alternatives? Drink snot and call me in the morning.

Call someone before you snuff it, off it, give up.

Please.

I’d like to catch up first.

Not save you. Live, learn and breathe with you.

You can go anytime just talk to me first.

Please

Something in the way she crowds around me

Grinds spines in the old chop shop

Aunt Dollien operated by herself

I should have, you should have

Helped her. Bloody mess it was.

Not she. 117-years-old and still

In charge. We listen and obey

She rides off into the distance towards the rising sun

Like the girl with no name in a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.

Bang Bang. You shot me down.

Bang Bang! I’m vested and not crying yet

Ready

To meet my Angels. Are you?

Powder blue suntan, flowering yellow hair,

Insects in your eyes, resting, not doing any harm

They need rest too, ya know.

Sink deep into an opiate coma with me

With him, with her, everybody sing

“All we need is Love”

The bed drops softly to accommodate

Our bodies.

“Everybody is just a little homosexual. Whether they like or not” Allan Ginsberg once sang through my departed allies.

The piss in your pants somehow comes off

As a romantic gesture. just not sure who or whom or me.

Romance, courting and foreplay have changed.

Piss, spit and a clean T-shirt is all we desire

Under the brown, dark chocolate brown, chair

That wiggles when I turn on Wagner.

Maybe it’s German. Jewish.

“You should burn it and find out.” Jack said to me

Wiping the cocaine off his Skrewdriver T-shirt.

Salute the master. Carry his bones to the crematory

Make sure he’s powdered. Maybe a nice face powder someday.

Bring your tired looking face back to life.

They call you “face job” ya know?

I call you love.

Is life worth the sadness, the happiness, the ups and downs?

Worth love? Worth death?

Worth money?

(pause and take a deep breath.)

Tuna. Grazed grazed 2 day old fish  marked down 58 percent.

Thank God for the rain or the smell would have turned on the perverts and scared the little girls.

Take me back to the thousand foot

Red tranquil trees hanging over my head

Terrifying peace as the sun goes down.

Dreams don’t have to die

Ya know?

I’m Not the Guy

 

I am not the guy your mother warned you about if she warmed you about anyone. I am not the guy your father would play golf with. Your mother and father couldn’t even conceive a person like me. My attitude. My lifestyle. My perversions. My ugliness. My beauty. The delightful deceptive motives and intentions I have about you.

 

Your mother would never dream in a million billion trillion years that a man like me exists. Soft to the touch and rough to the heart. I am a God. I am Satan. I am everything you desire and everything you despise. I am crippled. I am invincible.

 

I love. I hate. I cry. I laugh.

 

I am rage. I am kind.

 

I am you.

 

I am human.

 

I am no one.

Poetry is for Wimps

I hate poetry. It’s for cowards that don’t have the balls to say what things directly and tell you what they really want to say. That’s what I used to think. I thought that for the years I’ve been writing my ramblings and prose because a lot of the standard poets I’d been exposed to were boring. All fluff and evasive.

 

Let me back up. As a teenager I loved poetry. I loved rock music and I especially loved the lyrics. I loved the Beatles. I had no idea what their words meant all of the time but I got something out of it. In the 8^th grade I discovered Jim Morrison. Well, the Doors then Jim. I followed the trend of what everyone else was listening to and since there wasn’t much great popular music my Middle School and High School were into classic rock. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC DC, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors etc. All great lyrics. I loved the simplicity of some and the complex descriptives of others.

 

Then I found the book called No One Here Gets Out Alive, the biography of Jim Morrison. I fell in love with his persona. I bought every Doors album and learned every lyric. I bought Morrison’s poetry book. Morrison led me to reading William Blake and Dylan Thomas. This was poetry I thought was cool. Many people I know call him a hack. Maybe he was  but so am I and almost every artist, musician, writer, director etc. that I love.

 

Jump ahead to my mid 20s. I lived with a couple of friends and one was into a lot of the art, music and books that I was. He had spent his entire life building up knowledge of beat writers and their influences and punk rock and it’s influences. I grilled him for knowledge and books and records. I learned constantly about writers and bands I heard of but didn’t get into. He was my muse.

 

It was my second childhood of many more to come. I was making art constantly, listening to the Sex Pistols, The New York Dolls, the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith and reading William S Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and eventually Arthur Rimbaud and Jean Genet. It was a learning experience I will never forget. I started writing poetry, lyrics and short stories. They weren’t the best but I was trying to find my voice if I had one.

 

I started showing my art in galleries, coffee shops and book stores. I was actively participating in poetry readings. It was one of my many new beginnings. These artists and my friend have become part of me on a deeper level that is still with me today.

 

Years past and I evolved into other creative activities. Life started taking over like working and paying bills and girlfriends. I kept going. From that point of my life I knew I was an artist and had to create on some level or another.

 

Back to poetry. I went through a period and all I wrote were prose. Mostly simple stories and journals sometimes incorporating heavy descriptives then back to simple writing. I was developing as an artist, a writer, whether I liked it or not. Even when I’m not drwing or writing

 

About 9 or 10 years ago I got heavy into writing and I wrote and wrote non stop sometimes. That’s when I stopped liking poetry. That’s when I came up with my opinions stated in the first paragraph. That’s when I thought all poetry sucks. Then I remembered Charels Bukowski and a lesser known and in my opinion the greatest poet ever, Steven Jesse Bernstein. I prefer their prose but I love the way they write poetry. No rules. Just say what you want however you want.

 

My life’s mission statement is stolen from a poem by Patti Smith’s poem calle Babalogue that she recite before performing her song Rick n Roll Nigger. “I am an American Artist. I have no guilt.” I try and remind myself of that everyday.

 

The reason I was thinking about all of this is because I was at my favorite coffee shop last night for internet access since I don’t have it at home and I discovered that there was an open mic planned for the night. I hate open mics these days. I wasn’t in the mood to hear a bunch of people singing and guitars etc. then I found out it was a poetry and spoken word open mic. I thought this might be more interesting. I over heard some of the people that were there and went back and forth whether they are full of shit or interesting. I went with interesting.

 

I listened and there were some pretty good poets that also knew how to read it aloud. I listened to each poet and considered reading. Once I mentioned it to the older woman sitting next to me she gave me a push. I was actually a little afraid of reading. I picked out a few of more short more powerful and humorous pieces and eventually I read them. I could feel the energy of the room rise with each word that came out of my mouth as I read from laptop. I was nervous but still pulled through. I tried to be humble afterwards knowing how great I was, I am, as people complimented my poems.

 

It was a good night. I felt good having read after years of being out of the scene. It got me to thinking about poetry and my personal history and my mission statement. I am an American Artist. I have no guilt.

 

I might even go back next time.