Ode to My Hometown

 

Fairview Village. Inside of Camden, New Jersey, one of the most crime ridden cities in the country. My hometown. I lived here as a child. I live here once again as an adult child. I cursed the Gods for my own decisions that as if they had something to do with everything that has led me here in a couple of years of indecisive despair. Camden, New Jersey.

 

Fairview. Oh how you lured me back into your grips.  Oh Fairview, I am back and you have changed more than I have. You were once a beautiful Village in a fancy town. As Camden fell, you Fairview, kept your cool and were certainly a town with pride. A Village Square with candy stores, restaurants and a grocery store. Now the stores meet covered in graffiti, trash and a violent dirty smell in the air. A Hispanic grocery next to an old barbershop with a cracked striped pole.

 

Your boarded up houses try to keep smiling as the drug dealers hide in your shadows. Unknown and well-known murders, rapes and muggings try and hide but some of us can smell it through our tired ripped screen windows. I used to hide. Over two years of hiding I finally feel free.

 

Suddenly the County of Camden has sent hundreds of black uniformed storm troopers to “sweep” the town clean as they told me. Dozens standing on every block, friendly yet stern. Confident yet uneasy. To an outsider it may look like a Police State or even a Fascist takeover. To me it looks like freedom to step foot in my own neighborhood with out the fear of being hassled or even mugged. Oh Fairview, I feel something new from you. I feel hope. I see courage. I am not afraid, not because of “protection” but because someone cares about you once again. People are making the difference. The proud hardworking families can be proud once again to live in a community.

 

I hear echoes in your dark alleys and streets whispering complaints and curses directed at the County and the Guardians. The dark lords are in hiding and some are running or locked up. I know in my heart that you, Farview, you are beginning to see the future and it doesn’t hurt. We don’t have to hurt anymore.

 

Where I lived until 5th grade

Where I live now

I Still Got It. Hahahahaha.

On Saturday afternoon I was doing some extra work (cleaning carpets) for my uncle in a law office building I sometimes help clean in Haddonfield, New Jersey. It was an arts fair day so the front of the building and the whole street was closed down and filled with vendor’s tents. My co-worker and I would take breaks outside and catch a smoke.

 

One of those breaks a beautiful Japanese woman came up to me real friendly asking how I was. Since her and her friend were dressed in similar floral print dresses and she was holding what looked like a post card in her hand I assumed she was going to try and sell me something. My co-worker complimented her pretty dress and I nodded in agreement. She kept smiling and making semi-flirtatious small talk and I was still waiting for a sales pitch that never came.

 

She asked me what work I was doing after asking me why I was there. I told her cleaning carpets. She smiled and said that was much better then working at the mall. The whole encounter only lasted about 5 minutes and she said goodbye and it was great to see me again. Again? As she was walking away in the distance it hit me that I knew her. She used to be a customer of mine when I was a server at a restaurant at the mall. A regular customer of mine. I used to know her by name. Damn, she is beautiful.

 

There I was with a beautiful sexy young woman flirting with me and I not only did nothing about it but I didn’t even know what was going on. This has happened many times before especially the not knowing a woman was into me until after the fact usually when someone tells me. I guess my self esteem is low, my memory is bad and I forgot what it’s like to be around women. Things are going to change. I mean to say things are going to change even more or I’m going to miss out on some prime opportunities in life.

To quote the great Ralph Malph from Happy Days “I still got it.”.

Blink

 

Angela was over again and we were happy for the minute. My parents were there from the dead and from the life. I haven’t seen my dead father since the last time I dreamed he was alive. He had never died in the last one. This time I knew he died and came back over and over. Sometimes I acknowledged he was back from the dead. Like this one. They were mad at me and they kept riding my ass. Angela was there and I didn’t want to say or do anything stupid so of course I did. I started screaming at my parents about all and nothing. When my father started back on me I yelled back.

 

“Yeah, well you’re the one that keeps coming back from the dead!” I screamed.

 

Angela was crying. Everything stopped. I felt so bad.

 

“You know I hate when you yell at your parents. You know I have problems with that.” She said.

 

Angela walked to my porch as if she was leaving. I kept apologizing to her and turned my head to apologize to my parents.  I felt so bad my knees cracked with tears. My bones trembled with fear of loss of what I might have had if only I was a tolerant kinder person. She. She was breaking up with me and I was helpless like in those dreams when I find my self naked in the middle of a department store.

 

Blink.

 

Angela and I are at an old movie theater and all is swell. Swollen you can say. I said. No kinks in the love. All smiles whilst holding hands like professional lovers that have been at this game longer than each of us has lived. I catch her catching me catching her looking at me and we laugh until we smell smoke. Someone burnt popcorn I thought. Flames came up through the floors I carried her down the charred rippled weak stairway to uncertainty. She held me tight with a magical look of “if we go down at least it’s together.” We made it just in time as the Fire People squirted. Squirted the last flame out.

 

Out of nowhere a white man dressed as Jimi Hendrix appears in the lobby as Angela and I are trying to leave the burnt building. It turns out to be my friend Tony and he is with Rolland and Jesse. I didn’t question why he was dressed in his garb or colored face. I accept too many things at face value (no pun intended) too much. Too many times. Like why was I with this beautiful girl as my eternal lover out of the blue pink and red?

 

“I wonder if I can buy the posters and movie star cut outs in the movie theater?” Rolland asked with no greetings or concern of our health or the fire.

 

Jesse was silent and patted us on the back with a “it’s going to be ok” vibe.

 

It was ok. I still had a friend and I had Angela.

 

I’m so grateful in my dreams.

Drag Drag Drag and on

Drag drag drag myself out of the warm covers in the freezing bedroom on a hot muggy day that I don’t don’t don’t want to face just yet. Groggy from all of the action my mind had while I was sleeping. Sleeping can be so tiring sometimes. The memories of my activities fade with each move I make out of the bed and towards the bathroom to release a night full of liquid. Groggy I stumble back in my room to try and pray to my God not yours although they may have met at some Deity convention we don’t know about. I smoke and wonder what would Jesus do if he had these habits of smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. My muzzled pounding thoughts expire to endless words spewing and I have no control. It makes no sense to be this tired and unmotivated and think so fast and too much. Even my God cannot quiet my insides.

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?

Excerpt from My First Novel Yellow Socks Confessions of a Non Don Juan

An Excerpt from my 2010 novel Yellow Socks- Confessions of a Non Don Juan

 

Skeleton Woman or Things Like Me Don’t Happen To You

 

Christ it happened again. Another notch in my “girls that want to be my friend” belt. It made sense. We were perfect friends and she was real cute too. I kept thinking that I was ok with it. I’d be happy just being a friend again. I keep turning to God for strength to accept my fate as “Friend to all women” that I’m attracted to. My acceptance level seems to be ok. I go to my happy place. I go to my cave. I say the serenity prayer over and over I am sure that I will be ok with this. Yes I will. (no I won’t)

 

Cut to a scene from Fight Club

 

TYLER

Stop it! This is your pain — this is your burning hand. It’s right here! Look at it.

 

JACK

I’m going to my cave. I’m going to my cave to find my power animal!

 

TYLER

No, don’t deal with this the way those dead people do. Come on

!

JACK

I get the point, ok, please!

 

TYLER

No, what you’re feeling is premature enlightenment.

 

Ok. I get the idea. Feel the pain. Feel the hurt. Feel the rejection saturating my heart until I bleed more than just these words all over the place and finger my open sore of a brain as it wants to dwell on her over and over again. Screaming and roaring her name with anger and grief and sometimes a slight relief that it’s done and I know that she will not reject me again unless I go back for more and more or less or a little bite of her cheeseburger and a sip of her Pepsi to tide me over until the next one comes along with better food and spirits for my, for me for. Four scores of seven years itch as I scratch the weathered tired out mongrel of an ego that was left stray years ago in a pound for wayward hearts and letches that can only love and never be loved.

 

The pain of being a friend. A friend. I’ve heard that “Let’s just be friends” millions of times in my life as I gargle a new mouthwash and toothpaste hoping my breath will be the answer to my problem. My problem is as follows: me, myself and I. We altogether are the problem. We want to be loved so bad that we give off the vibe that scares the shit out of women so they just want to be friends. Friends. Friends. I think to myself that will be fine. Friends is ok. It’ll do. I can accept that. Bullshit! Feel the pain I tell myself. Embrace it. the pain is your friend. To hurt is to be alive. I’ve never been so alive. I’m alive. So alive.

 

“Did you ever hear about the skeleton woman?” Morton asked.

 

“Was that a Glam rock band from the seventies?” I ask.

 

“Ha. Ha. Nah. It’s an ancient Indian story. This guy was fishing in the middle of a lake. He was totally into it. He was relaxed. Not a care in the world except catching the next fish. All of a sudden he feels a tug on his line and he yanks it up. A skeleton appears on his line. He doesn’t realize that it’s attached to his line and he gets scared. He starts paddling his boat away from it but it follows him. He still doesn’t realize that it’s attached to his line. He gets out of his boat and runs into the village and he is carrying his fishing rod and the skeleton is still right behind him. He jumps into his Tee Pee and it follows him in. He lies down and tries to hide not looking at it for a while. When he finally turns to look at the skeleton it has changed into the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. She is his. The moral of the story is that he was minding his own business doing something he enjoyed and that’s when the right woman came along. In other words when you are not looking for love is when it will find you. ”

 

“I know that but it’s so fucking hard to stay focused on other things without thinking about how much I want to be loved. Fall in love. Ya know?” I responded.

 

“I know. I know.” Morton said.

 

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” Tyler Durden

 

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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.

All I know

It wasn’t the cockroaches and bugs coming out of everything I owned that bothered me as much as it was being caught in her bedroom with no explanation. I wasn’t even looking for her panties. No idea why I was there either.

 

Just an hour or so before (in central standard dream time), I was un-packed in my newest abode. I was happy with my house and my room. The decorations were up and the party had just begun. My ex-roommate came by to return a few things that turned into many things as my other friends returned from a holiday in Layover County and my house filled with new things and it was cluttering and cluttered and my mother arrived to visit the same time I was served my eviction notice.

 

I knew I would survive. I always survive. I survive. It get’s harder as I get older and want to stay in the same nest but this was my dream so I wasn’t older or younger I just was. I was reactionary.

That’s the girl I like came by from Texas and we somehow missed each other.

 

I gathered everything I owned and hid out wherever I could and I was alone. That’s when I appeared at her house with my bags full of stuff. It didn’t occur to me to knock like a human being so I came in through the bathroom window protected by a hope and a prayer. I was trying to straighten out my stuff. Stuff. My crap and the bugs started appearing everywhere. I thought it was controllable so I started killing them and then I looked up and saw the ceiling covered in them. At this point I was concerned with getting them off of me and ought of my hair. The door opened and it was her. Chelsea. She used to be the love of my loins that got away. I used to obsess so much over her but not at that moment.

 

Chelsea was in shock seeing me there she didn’t notice the bugs. I said “We need to talk but outside” as I shut the door and noticed her younger and now hotter sister and closed the door and the bugs were everywhere.

 

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” her sister asked.

 

I wish I knew.

 

I woke up and took a thorough imaginary shower and tried to remember more of this hallucinatory horror show of my mind.

 

This is all I know.

Hillen Prison Blues – I Feel the Fluids Rushing

I feel the fluids rushing

Up and down

And back

Up and down

My back

Spine

Light headed

Heavy hearted

Ears fuzzy disoriented

Vertigo

Bones crack every time

I move

Elbows

Knees

Hands

Feet

Fingers

Toes

FACE

My facial affliction

Nerves explode

Fireworks of the nerves

Side of my face

I seek relief

Scream in agonizing

Torture and terror

I chose

Sleep to

Escape

Forget

Awake

Remember

Impairment

Then depression

Sleep

Forget

I want to forget

I don’t want to sleep

I want to sleep

I love my sleep

But not much

My dreams are pleasant

And my reality is a

Nightmare

But

I’d rather have the bad dreams and the good life

“Sleep. Those little slices of Death. How I loathe them.” Edgar Allen Poe said.

 

“Sleep. Those little slices of pleasure. How I adore them.” Rich Hillen Jr said

Chronic Chronicler Disorder

Dr Arkmahlk said I was “a chronic chronicler”

Deciphering my voice tones and transcribing my scribblings with determined fury seeking the cure or at least a treatment to

Coherently present me in a way I could pass for human.

 

I’ve tried the walk –right foot first at a 45-degree angle followed by the left foot at a 27-degree angle outward.

 

I’ve tried the talk- “I was reading in GQ today that  . . .” “I going to get my drink on tonight.”, “How about them Eagles?”

 

I’ve tried the career- top advertising executive in the firm making over 100 grand a year

 

I’ve tried the house- a beautiful townhouse in the best neighborhood

 

I’ve tried the car- classic 1969 black Mustang fully restored and my blue BMW

 

I’ve tried the wife- beautiful, charming trophy

 

 

THE LOOK-

 

I’ve tried the clothes- tan or black John Varvatos khakis and Brooks Brothers Chinos, Gucci horsefit loafers, argyle socks, colorfully striped Fred Perry Polo shirts or eModa plain, plaid and “revival” button up shirts, and Barney’s vintage leather jackets.

 

I’ve tired the haircut- closely cropped on the sides and the slightly longer messed spiked hair on top with Enpir brand moisturizing hair gel.

 

I’ve tried the shave – I shaved every other day to keep the slight 5 o’clock shadow look with short trimmed sideburns.

 

I’ve tried the teeth- professionally whitened by the best dentists

 

I’VE TRIED

 

“Look Doc. I can’t pull this off. I’m an alien to this world and I’ll always be this way. I am not human.” I said.

 

I sat there with my long unrushed knotted hair, long gray beard, rotting yellow teeth, wearing 2^nd hand clothes- t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, unemployed, divorced, no car, no friends and no connection to the human race.

 

“If this is true you realize that despite Doctor patient confidentiality, I have to report you to the authorities and they will revoke your citizenship to the human race. You will be sent away to an Alienation National Hospital for the Socially Challenged. There, depending on how bad your condition has become, you will be subjected to the constant hammering of your creative instincts and eventually create your own new world or unfortunately, become a casualty like 86.45 % of the patients there to the final escape- non-conformist rejection and Alien alienation to the point where there is nothing or no one left to chronicle. Not even you. You’ll be a shell of instinctual fortitude existing only in your own actions.” Dr Arkmahlk said.

 

“Any advice then Doc?” I asked my last question to anyone ever.

 

“Yes. Take 2 of these and you won’t call me in the morning.” He said handing me the cyanide pills.

 

The last thing I thought was what my grand father used to say to me at bedtime “Good night Irene you jelly bean.”