the jeffreedum exhibit

00jeffree wrote:

i see. well i shall find another outlet for my ramblings. take care, sweet souls.

i was having a good time coming up with a topic in my head and just improving these things. some editing would help, but if no one reads them . . . .

I'll read them. You want help editing them? Okay.

Why don't pave this fucking main street? My car hits one pothole, then another. My head goes one way, then the other.
Swerving to miss a weakness in this glorified gravel road, I hit yet another pothole.
I slow down, and it's worse; I speed up, and it's worse.
I turn up the radio to drown out the violence from between my car and the terrain.
I pretend my suspension is engineered meticulously for this exact scenario.
My car will be fine. the car is fine...
But i am an engineer. I know that this main street isn't a variable in any car maker's formula.
Not Ford, not Chevy, not Japan.
This main street, this section of the lincoln highway, this brick washboard, is an exception to the rule.
The first rule of Civilization.

We drive cars because we can. Now pave the fucking planet so we can zoom, zoom, zoom.
The street,
the town,
my car,
it's all falling apart.
The state highway running northeast and southwest goes around this town.
Every thing in the man made natural world goes around.
A few people stop, but most don't.
Should a person decide to come into town, for whatever reason, leaving here is difficult.

More difficult than choosing between Bush and Kerry: Choose and lose.
But I never had a choice. I was a child. In truth, a teenager with an arrested development.
Like trying to find a way around main street, you can't.
To get from the inside world to the outside world, you have to drive it. To get groceries. To get gas. To get anywhere, you have to travel the nowhere that is this street.
and every time I come back to this biggest little town in America, I get trapped.
The lack of choices, the control, the wear and tear on my car reminds me of then.
Those years spent trying to get out of here.
and now I drive back through town, attempting to wave, to everyone.
Because they wave to you, almost like they have a question, or as if they are surrendering.
But the ride forces my arm and hand to jerk up and down.
It looks like I am flipping everyone off. you know, giving them the bird.
That would be more easier. and more honest. and more sincere.
The catchy digitally masters and auto tuned pop song ends and a man who starts talking.
A man who knows nothing starts talking about everything.
It's either pop or conutry up here in no man's land, just off U.S. I-30.
Ironic that everything i loathe about my culture has the highest and best frequency.
And the elements i love fade in and out.
I have had my mental antenna up for some time, since i was young and obsessed with "WHY?"
redefining entertainment, friendship, family, and love . . . . this is my mount everest.
and this small town, for lack of funding and/or ambition, is my Nepal.
But geography isn't the lesson of mother culture today.
The radio man says the end is near. the sky is falling. the apocolypse.
He says it is 2005. This I know, I tell him, as my car sinks into what looks like a crater.
The scrapping sounds are not reassuring.
With the recent events in the middle east, he continues, the world tension is at peak level.
So now we know what the peak level is.
Don't listen to this message. Turn the station. Save yourself now.
The radio dude, he is using reverse pshychology.
And i would turn it off . . . . if this road was paved. Honestly, I would.
Or if i had gotten that cd player installed like the salesperson offered when I bought this car.
But i can't. See also: Lack of choices. see also: Lack of control. see also: Dead end.
so once the radio guy knows he has my attention, he unviels the details of the end of the world.
I attended sunday school, so i know the story. It's called Revelations.
And I am at the end of this road and turning up a perpendicular street to my old home.
The ride is smoother now.
The streets of this town are paved, just not main street.
I turn the radio off and roll down the window to get some fresh air and listen for damage to my car.
With no new noises immediately detectable and the doomsday prohpet of 98.5 FM put to rest, i reminisce.
The nostalgia is life threatening.

_______

I had a go at tightening up a few of the opening sentences and restored capitalisation, just to see if it looks better stylistically. I won't single out lines I would omit but I might offer the old "show rather than tell" advice. Also, one doesn't want to overwork the metaphor of the car on the broken road to decribe psychological and socio-political malaise, but it can work very effectively.

00jeffree wrote:

I have alot of thoughts. Writing is a wonderful medium for documenting them. I am far from a storyteller, a writer, a poet, or what have you. But one must venture outside his or her own confort zone. What's the point of anything if no one else reads it, sees it, feels it. Anyway, that is why I am taking up space here. Thanks for the kind words.

Well, I felt it.

You said "She killed herself so that I could live"
and it made me wonder if thats what my husband did when he overdosed on drugs.

He had been saying he was going to kill me, but when they found his body there were pictures of him and I scattered all around him.
And the last words he spoke were on my voicemail to tell me he loved me.
God, Ive spent a year trying to figure out what the hell happened, why he did it, HOW he could do it....maybe he killed himself (unconciously) so I could live, because he knew if he stayed alive he would not be able to stop himself from hurting me.

(I cant believe Im typing this for all the world to see but ..I dunno)

waysideledder wrote:

Wow there are some amazing works of poetry here!

I agree with this.

Uh. Holy Shit. Who knew? Maybe I should pay attention to the other sections more often?

very impressive. all of it.