I miss blog comments

Comment away! I sometimes wonder if anybody's even listening. Not that i say too much anymore, but you know.

everything's sterling silver now

I read a magazine article tonight about guys that have "Changed Their Lives" in their forties by quitting their high-end, professional jobs to pursue the things they really want to do (ie. starting an adventure-guiding company, a non-profit charity organization, a traveling vagabond and a New York comedian). These stories perplex me. When I read about them, I can't help but wonder what these men were thinking while they sailed through their mid-twenties, making as few bucks as me while searching to find a career that fit for them. Why didn't these men, who seem to represent such large chunks of "successful" men in our western world, pursue the things they really wanted to do THEN? Why is it so typical for people to wait until their early or mid forties to finally pursue the things they really wanted to do? Honestly, I don't get it. It took me two years of college to have the same realization that took these guys 25 years, which is the same realization that some people may never even achieve in their entire lifetime! WTF mate

The problem is that ours seems to be the first generation who's realizing that those full-time money-making careers are not satisfying enough. It's a cool realization to have, and can't really be unlearned. But I screwed myself by having it at 24, so that even now I don't have some sort of financial backing to set me up while I begin pursuing my real wants. I have few things and a heart so full of passion and ambition that I basically explode every night before I go to sleep. I can't cash in my 401k or budget my severance checks to help me fuel my creative future in "Finally Doing the Things I want to be Doing". No, by discovering that I refuse to waste my life at 24, I have no economic safety net to rely on to help me along in my pursuits. The economy does not behave nicely towards folks who want to do the things they really want to do. It's not set up that way. It makes you wonder what your real choices are here, where your skills really belong.

Am I alone? Did anybody else at 24-27 realize they were a Big-Business-Exec-Destined-For-Emotional-Relapse-at-45-to-Quit-Their-Job-to-Pursue-Better-Things besides me? Seriously. No job meets the ridiculous criteria I've set for myself.
I should have talked to Steve about this.

Matt, I think you know too. You seem to be someone who's landed a high-paying job while still doing the things you really want to be doing. Right? Have you done it correctly?
Seriously, I'm taking suggestions. I want to figure the "next thing" out soon. I'm sick of supernatural forces trampling my daily joys. There's an answer here, I just haven't found it yet.
Like the economy: there's an answer, we just don't know it yet.
Advice is Welcome.

new phone, new coffee pot, same old blub

As I was driving through the chilly sunset tonight, I realized this:
Occasionally I want nothing more than to just be entertained.
Nothing sounds more refreshing or relaxing to me than an opportunity to sit back, release the reigns and enjoy the show. This is one reason why I loved the bar I used to work at in Burbank. I could walk into work having the worst day imaginable, and still there'd be a friendly drunk old man or woman eager to smile and entertain me.
Steve, for example, said one day,

"Mikie? Mikie! What's wrong with you? Snap out of it! You're not yourself today Mikie. Well then let's talk about it, I want to hear what you're thinking about!"

Steves want to help us feel better again. They are Casual-Dependable people: they don't care enough about us to really be upset with our feelings, but at the same time they ain't goin nowhere. You could sit there and shoot the shittiest shit with Steve, and he'd listen to every word you said. He'd laugh, argue, or just plain listen, and in exchange would recount his own stories that might seem totally pointless to others, but incredible to you. Because he doesn't care, but he just wants to entertain. For some reason, it feels amazing to take the attention away from you and just be entertained. Like Steve's carefree laughter... cake for an infant! You can depend on Steves to simply make you smile. Steve lets you try new things. Steve reminds you that you can believe in anything you want, and feel any way you want to. And Steve doesn't let you leave without remember something valuable.
Life will throw you screws. You just have to catch some of them
and set them down.
Thanks Steve.

peace outie

I just shattered the coffee pot

There's something suspicious about this. I sometimes feel like the world of material things is out to get me. I have a severe knack for breaking beautiful things, spilling drinks, dropping glasses, smooching bumpers, bonking people - and at the same time I'm remarkably good at Yoga and other balance-related activities. So what is the deal?! Am I just so good that the world feels a need to belittle my supernatural powers of perfect balance through humbling chastisement?
Why do I break only beautiful things, and leave the crappy stuff unscathed?

One Hundred and Fifty Percent

Remember back in the day when everything we did was the biggest, hardest and most important thing we've ever done? Yeah well not much changed. Every day when you wake up in the morning you consciously or not make a series of events occur that will affect everybody around you forever, simply by getting and up and living. You create your reality, and others witness it. Pretty incredible. What if you inherently knew that you were destined for great things? What if you knew what you've always known since you were little, that You will someday be the mover and shaker for some of the greatest events known to mankind? The actions you will take will affect hundreds, millions of people around the world! Just like when you wake up in the morning and begin creating your life each day, so can you wake up in your life and begin creating changes in society for the good, every day, with all the good things you do! Have you began it?
we are all on a journey through the thickest mud and most treacherous waters. We have our friendships to help us with their flashlights and our enemies to chase us from behind. Society is a flooding river from a flash storm, and with only our bodies, words, hopes and dreams can we save the place we came from, from where we shall someday return.
I believe in the 150% - I believe in not allowing our lives to be complacent because even if we choose complacency we can choose it at 150%!
whoever said that, thank you for the sound advice.
I hear you quiet and clear
Look out world, this boy's got a mission again,
let's shake sh*t up!

Marty

here we go

I've been having a pretty difficult time getting a job lately.
And I saw Milk tonight. The film was excellent! seriously, it was great. Strolling downtown in the brisk night with Candice was refreshing, the Del Mar is a charming place to see movies in Santa Cruz, and afterwards nothing beats Orion's belt shining bright in the moonlight. You know?
Yeah. But getting a job in Santa Cruz is literally the most difficult thing I've ever attempted to do, in the history of my life. Graduating college was actually easier than this. By the time I'd done this much work I would be making thousands in the TV business, even millions. Seriously, the self-selling I've done here for the most repetitive, diminuitive work has been fruitless and I am humiliated one day after another. Only mother nature and a few close amigos are here to remind me that I am worth even barely more than nothing at all.
4+ months of Santa Cruz and I am no better off financially than a 17-year-old coming out of high school.
I'm ready to move to a place where there are opportunities for real jobs, and more friends than I have now. I don't know what the future's all about, but I could use a bit more motivation than I'm giving myself. Any help?


_Mikie

for god's sake give me a cool job. please, somebody hire my poor unemployed a$$

peanut butter and chocolate

my heart's exploding.
Mostly because I just ate about 5 peanut butter cookies in under two minutes, and partly because of how thrilling the chill of winter and heat of summer can shake your bones with a certain sweat of life.
We went to the San Francisco today. There was a long truck with the word PHANTOM written across it in black and white. For some reason, I felt like a child haunted and mesmerized, and a little desirous. That's kind of how I've always felt about the San Francisco. The stretching hills of lines of houses in faded pink and off-white, that huge fork-antenna towering over everything, the frenetic slurry of to and fro in crowded crosswalks of Market St, the slick library art, the indoor shelters and laughing bums, AWESOME! San Fran.
San Francisco remains a mystery to me - a code.
And the best part about mysteries?

Solving them

colloquialistic vermouth

in the great scheme of my everlasting Gobstopper (life) there have been of few voluptuous quotes having filled my bosom with brims of healthy bewonderment. Of these quotations, I have here selected the mitest tip-tops, words that suit my current fancy and most curiously puzzle. Be them words contained within the lives and belly of a snake, or the countless daunderings of that smelly thing we call hope, these waterlike quotable phrases have spilled their way onto my blogabyte, hitherto they lay, laid and translated for the feeble eyes and ways of seldom few. Bare with me if you will, and take with you what can you find, wherever else but here, some quotes:
(as you read each quote in the moment would you but not allow its mellow philanthrophy to dwaddle and dat beneath your hat and swim within your hearty heart of hearts?)

The grass is always greener on the other side

If you break it you buy it

If it ain't broke don't fix it

Two wrongs don't make a right

If you love something give it away

I don't care what you believe, just believe it

In youth and beauty wisdom is rare

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you

Indian-giving.

A dream is a wish your heart makes

Where have all the merrymakers gone?

Would you rather...

There is no I in Team

Yes We Can

I have a dream

How do you pick up the pieces of an old life?

Never have regrets

Peace, Love and Happiness.

Live locally, Love globally

Blub big time

And there we have a mouthy verse,
and one bag of chips after.

some sweet song lyrics

they say a watched pot won't ever boil
well I closed my eyes and nothing changed
just some water getting hotter in the flames.

if you still want me, please forgive me
because the star is not within me

something filled my heart with nothing
someone told me not to cry
now that I'm older my heart's colder
and I can see that it's a lie

children wake up, hold your mistake up
before they turn the summer into dust
children don't grow up
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up
we're just a million little gods causing rainstorms
turning every good thing to rust
I guess we'll just have to adjust

with our ligtning bolts aglowing
I can see where I am goin to be when the reaper comes and touches my hand

the worst poem I have ever written, By Mikie Beatty

..

big econ test just done

I must say was kind of fun

did I learn? new ways of thinking

like how money's value's shrinking

I know little bout inflation

or the reserves of a nation

but I certain understand

concepts of supply, demand

so however I just did

I'm edumacateded

knowing just a little more about

the money in my checking account.

(or the bucks I found last night

at the laundramat, twas TIGHT!

so I used some as I pleased

to buy TJs groceries

Now here is a fine story

of the exchange of currency

for some food for us to go through

like the cheese, salad and tofu,

that I bought for forty bucks

I found in the laundry muck)

now I'm writing patiently

waiting for a girl with me

to return from in her class

hoping unhappy will pass

so we can go buy costumes

Halloween is coming so soon

Like, in 4 days.

the farther away the storm seems to spread
the more the clouds should dissipate
unfortunately I am stuck in dread
of brewing heathen-demon-strike of late
like lightning's bang! and thunder's rolling waves
i cannot exit from this endless cave.

Sometimes old music really strikes chords with me. There's something about the simplicity of the lyrics, melodies, instruments - simple talents that are refined to greatness. I like simple things that are done very well rather than complicated things that are done in mediocrity.

I've made a couple videos lately.
I'll post them on here as soon as I can

eggs and TP

The door to the liquor store stood wide open. Breathing some fresh Santa Cruz morning air I strolled on in, in my pajamas. Holy shorts and a sweatshirt is all anyone should be wearing at nine o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. The asian guy at the counter smiled big and said hello. Sunlight was streaming through the windows of the liquor store like God's rays, illuminating rows of items and packaging. Glass and dusty plastic glinted like jewels in the coastal morning sun. Sauntering, I wound my way around the aisles, touching cereal boxes and toothbrush containers, looking curiously at a large plastic jug next to the coffee station and deciding it was a container for milk. Finally at the back, my bounty: Toilet Paper.
And there was a selection! All in 4-packs, I had Melody, Happy Time, Soft Tissue and singles of Bathroom Paper. I went with Melody since the label had the most colors.
After another round around the aisles and cluttered shelves, I made my way back to the smiling guy at the front.
"One eighty-three" he said to me with lips curved upwards. From my sweatshirt pocket I grabbed the wad of bills I had snagged from the coffee table earlier. Four dollars. I slid two from the clump and handed them to the man. Smiling he took the dollars and made change with two quarters.
"Need a bag?"
"No I'm ok. Uh, do you guys have eggs?"
"Yeah yeah, right there in the third door, below the Red Bull sign"
Definitely not locating any third door or Red Bull sign, I assured him,
"Oh, ok. I see, ok"
I headed off in the direction of his extended finger. Preparing myself to look aimlessly for eggs for the next five minutes instead of going back and asking a second time, I saw the Red Bull sign.
Behind the glass door dozens of eggs were stacked inside, at a reasonable marked price. I pulled open the door and picked the perfect dozen, I mean this one was IT, the dozen. When I pick eggs, I mean business. I opened it to check for cracks, closed the cooler door behind me and wound my way back around the aisles towards my smiling friend.
"Two thirty-nine"
Into my pocket again I located two more bills and my fifty cents coins, which I started to give the man,
but I looked at the money for a second

Last week 700,000,000,000 dollars were exchanged between our government and banks. That's 700 billion, or 700 bazillion

I handed my two bills and coins to the smiling guy. He smiled, and gave me the cents back for the purchase. I glanced at his counter again to see if there was anything else I might need. Nah, no gummy worms or jerky this morning, so I scooped up the eggs and made to go.
"Thank You," I said to him. We both knew I'd be back soon.
Eggs and TP in arm, I sauntered out the door and back into the brisky fresh sunlight of Saturday morning.

opportinuty cots

one cold breath of freezing stars sweeps me away to a heaven that I wake up next to the sunshine with nothing to say but smiles and gaping at things without breathing I can focus on nothing when sitting all clenched in a corner full of eyeballs and a terror inside that gardens' fruit falling does not allow.

gloriously bright

dans zum, vermitraki
polorni ferzia verdi
Mem co von Kerney, jon bobi
budarewootyp about? says I
vedere shamoo full barenylie
for fathoms saker mertridie.

saisons

un jour
deux quatre trois sept, cinq
quand elle ecrit, des jours Novembre
pleurir il pleut, pleurir soleil!
comme fortitude elle est etrange
comme gross explosion dans mes veines
avec les noir, rouge et sarcelle
les saisons sont faites rien de mal

really bad things happened tonight
because i don't have a job
how simple and mundane a reason
you think, 'what a lazy slob'
and so the purpose of this poem
is to describe in some detail
the places to which I have applied
with my resume, to no avail:

#1 Rosie McCann's, Santa Cruz
#2 Cabillo College
#3 UC Santa Cruz
#4 Limelite Cafe
#5 La Posta Italian Bistro
#6 Hoffmans downtown
#7 Kianti's Italian
#8 A shop at the harbor
#9 A movie man in SF
#10 Bookshop Santa Cruz
#11 Bugaboo sporting goods
#12 Logos books too
#13 Borders of course, who wouldn't
#14 Trader Joe's, downtown
#15 Seabright Brewery
#16 Takari Sushi
#17 Shogun Sushi too
#18 Beckmann's Bakery
#19 Lulu's
#20 Pacific Edge
#21 PCFMA (Pacific Coast Farmers Markets)
#22 A bar downtown
#23 your mom's garage
#24 a random disney TV spot
#26 Soif


+more, random TV submissions including: San Jose TV broadcasting stations and SF acting jobs.

Some might not believe me,
but I don't freakin care.
The opportunities are nearly none,
I'll stop pulling out my hair.
I've done everything I could,
except go back to Pizza My Heart
the one place I was told I shouldn't
now i'm here back at the start
alone again.

delusions of grandeur

After a small session with one of the community college advisors at Cabrillo, I might be more confused afterwards than I was before. The lovely lady made it perfectly clear that she could not help me, and neither could anybody else. In her tone of sweet sorrow, I was once again reminded that the great unknown will remain impenetrably abstract until Mikie decides blindly that it is time to take whatever step into the whatever waters of whatevertheheck.

This is me. A fixed uncertain creation, product of the higher-educational boom, a man without immediate purpose, choosing a future, purposely predisposed with patience until a Purpose, properly, is produced.

We can force change, but force is violence, which leads to sorrow. We can await change, but waiting is complacency which leads to disappointment. Stuck in the middle: confused for a while, certain for a while, confused for a little while longer, sometimes in all directions are sea waves of white caps, sometimes the shiniest sun shines brighter than the high sky's brightest shine.

then the crowd that used to be inevitable. They are now a dissipated shrapnel of friends blasted across the continent, where is each piece.

as creatures we seek to mend pain, find warmth in cold, cheer in sorrow. Humans are animals searching for a balance, seeking a homeostatic finale. Put your foot into the mud and the dipping will always make a print. But you must step to act; you must make a print. If you do not step, you wait.

When you look at pictures, everyone was smiling all the time.

What is the sadness always wrestling with midnight?
I must rediscover a totally constant state of peace. I must learn to accept myself unconditionally again. That I should have asked the college advisor about.

atrophy

there's booms just going off and off outside every window of this Seabright room.
what the heck happened? Muscle atrophy, that's what. Muscles of the mind and body weakened by sedentism. Whatever city I've lived in I'm seized up, not using myself.. except maybe a rafting trip every now and again to refresh the blood.
Atrophy, the leading cause of depression among young adults.

what part are we at?

we're at this part, it's the part before the next part.
What about the part when things go real slow and we get to sit back and relax?
No, that was the first part, remember? We already had that part.
Nuh-uh, there's a part at the end when we get to float for a long time in the sun.
OH, I know..actually that part doesn't exist anymore. The river keeps on going, that lake is actually gone now.
So what part are we at?
We're at the middle part, just before the next part, which has a few parts after that.

When is it over, how many minutes do we have left?
one.
No seriously
When the sun goes from there to about there, that's when it'll be over
Come on, how much time is that?
I don't know, one minutes plus twenty? Twenty-one minutes.
Ok. sorry I'm just getting a little anxious.

books

for every present you've given to me I feel loved
and with each gift from you I move
that much farther out into the world;
each piece of advice you say I heed,
you always know best.
Tonight I'm looking through all these books
and a book-lover-hoarder am I, thanks to you
I am proud of my books, from you
I store them like gems
precious novels of hope and importance
science and fantasy, pictures or not
you've taught me to appreciate
every kind of art, but in the books
I have stored over the years,
definitely this was learned most from you.
I guess this is me saying Thank You
for molding me into a lover of books
almost an obsession,
so if I've read them or not
I still love them like chocolate candybars
books are my dreams. thank you for giving me dreams
I love you mom.

candyapple

Like a salmon-leaping river
swimming down into the sea
i would sing to you every night
just to see you sleep
Like an empty movie-cabinet shelf
akin a fuzzy tv screen
I'm alone without the sound of you
next to me, breathing
Like fruit filling in a danish
making my lips taste so sweet
I can see forever dancing
in the sweetness of your feet
because you're strawberries on shortcake
sugar in a pie
chocolate chips in my cookies
you're the candyapple of my eye
In a castle by the ocean
where our Poley sleeps alone
my heart waits also quietly
for you to come back home
In a city full of strangers
with their chocolate-covered cars
my eyes keep looking skyward
to wish upon the stars
So as summer turns to winter
and salty into sweet
my love keeps truckin happily
with such sweet things to eat
Like strawberries on shortcake
sugar in a pie
chocolate chips in my peanut butter cookies
you're the candyapple of my eye

i love my new life

being in a relationship might be the best thing that's ever happened to me. northern California is full of charm and excitement. rafting/camping several times a week is a perfect summer job. driving a beat-up old 4-beater stick shift is adventure. ice cream tastes best at the end of a long day. big tips mean more when you've earned them. sky smells good when you can see the stars. fruit picked from a tree in your yard tastes better. friends are everywhere. distance sucks. sleeping is not overrated. drinking is. i love my new life. 4 chords make a song. mayonnaise is good for you.

surplus

heading in, eyes squinted, with fervorous abandon,
I throw caution yon in knowing hopes
that the bright sun will soon light my way
to something unexpectedly divine.
Even in the darkest times, the summer fails to disappoint
and does it ever. delaying routines, living a dream
I bask in river-washing sun, running rampant
across countrysides by waterbanks;
it's drunk to live in summer months
sunning pretty bellies as if you've not already
then sun some more
bronze my shoulders till they're sore
losing myself to mountain lore
swim in rivers, baking on-shore
puting up tents inside our door
I love this summer surplus store!

alarms are gone off so its about time

...

shhh

WAY TOO MUCH FROZEN YOGURT

hey guys. just wanted to check in, see how y'all are doing. you know.

Remember back in the days of Fosters' Freeze, when we'd get whopping Twisters swirled with peanut-butter cup and chocolate chips, then go watch some crappy B-movie at work for free? Afterwards we'd spend hours chillin in the break room, waiting for the movies to start so we could play the arcade games by kicking the change intake and reseting a New Game every time..until they'd break. Once in LA down some crowded street in Burbank, inside a bar I found myself with a stash of quarters standing for an hour with a blue plastic gun gripped between my palms, aiming it at an arcade screen. 5 dollars later I had been made fun of enough by the dart-throwing bros next door so I left, and sighing with the memories of that same futuristic Police Academy game satisfaction I'd had after so many late nights of the Placerville Signature Theater. Like my frozen yogurt ventures tonight, I was reminded of the days of Foster's Freeze Twisters and bad B freebie movies.
Then there was that peanut-butter-chocolate ice cream cake pie that we got at Denny's, and how I obviously took it back to work with us. Or the time I brought home a Costco carrot cake from rafting training in the spring and froze it, on Roosevelt St.. I was the only one who ate any of that. And I loved it! Nothing tastes better than frozen colored buttercream frosting. Han Solo loves sweets.
OK, so, one night I was up in the wee hours of freezing winter, beneath my car with charcoal black hands bleeding, scraping a starter between the poorly-designed exhaust pipes of a 1980 Toyota Corolla. Even then my dad thought I was too hasty. Or how about the time we climbed the baseball stands at night and stole the PA speakers, then hooked them up to our car stereo and blared music through them as we cruised downtown. Or when we snuck down the dirt tracks of the football field to stake out and watch the stars blot out the night sky? Or that time I drove up Hwy 9 on a mission to find the perfect flowers, only to end up spread open in a wild field, throwing my precious Beer Token into the wind and singing "Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind" to the oncoming dusk, picking more flowers and carefully placing them back on the doorknob of a girl's house whom I fell in love with. Then there was the time I crested Carson Pass alone in the dead of winter, at 9000ft with front wheel drive in a beatup car and no chains, no cars nearby to keep me company, and swirled in by a blizzard on all four sides, so that I had to back down slowly and blindly until I rediscovered the lost road - and the 7 1/2 hour drive it took me to return back home, patiently and frantically waiting for cell phone service in an avalanche-filled night. Or the time a bee landed on my leg while riding down a hill on my bike, and me plummeting in silence toward fast-approaching asphalt, smearing my shoulders and face on the rolling black rocks of the road, and how Matt found me wandering into the house delirious and quickly coming to my aid. One time I walked out of our room across the deck as Matt swung a giant oar in revolutions around his head, and for a second I watched the blade come cracking against my skull, sending me staggering and laughing at the bloody hilarity of it! Remember? And then how Dad refused stitches because...well, the hospital bill. OK ok, how about the morning Dad backed his truck out of the driveway, broadsided my Corolla with his rear-end and then drove off to work without telling me- that day left me at school in the morning wondering what the heck had happened. Or when my Tempo was broken into and all my hard stereo work was yanked from that precious vehicle, along with Matt's Radiohead CD that had been in the stereo the night before as I had driven home from a party in Greenstone.
Speaking of flying in the air, there was that time I flew backwards for a few seconds with a snowboard strapped to my feet then landed with my tailbone on a sheet of ice, from the impact I have a lifelong deposit of extra bone mass which i quickly deemed my "bulbous". Like running down a mountain pass with no trail and only a backpack on in wailing winds and balls of ice sleeting down on our heads. Or hopping the fence under the eerie spinning lights of the airport, climbing that rickety tower to the top and curling up in balls to look out over the twinkling lights of the Sacramento Valley. leaping from Salmon Falls bridge into a flow warm lakewater. biking to the top of every hill in town to give a thumbs up to nature. standing in the now Dream Inn with two large pizzas in one arm and an entire Mexican family in another, getting my picture taken, the original Santa Cruz Pizza Guy. climbing street lamps to sit on top, singing to a lightning storm with arms wide from a roof.
this is my bounty. some times are bigger than others, but none are better. looking at Mars in its closest from a telescope in Pollock Pines. driving a tank home from a high school party. there are too many things we do that are good, and we must keep doing them. its real bounty, and you could call it fun or adventure or whatever. Yesterday we swam and jumped in the river, then danced and drank the night away. These things are my bounty. the real sweets of living.
love ya, and so does my frozen yogurt

wanderful truth

Today is the 4th of July. At one point in history this day was representative of a day in time when us Americans would celebrate our independence from Great Mother England. Good for us. Now barely 200 years later our country is plummeting into a financial recess with no where to turn to but nature and the economy. Even Great Mother England laughs at her bastard child. Point is, I can eat all the cottage cheese I want but I'll still be lactose intolerant. When we go against nature it's one thing to celebrate it, it's another to remain blind. I say either embrace your dishonesty or don't go against nature. I mean, why hide bad gas if you knew what you ate was going to give it to you? Share that stench smiling, and live free with it! Love yourself fearlessly! This is liberation, to live without fear of ourselves and what we choose to believe in, or eat. It's what our country was once founded on - a knowledge of freedom for the true self, without fear.
When my mind wanders, it wonders about this freedom, about a way that is always based in happiness (the opposite of fear) and truth. It wonders about new and greater ways to tell the same old ageless colorless invaluable truth. Happy 4th everyone

one more thing (mom):

not living in LA doesn't mean I'm not still working on a professional acting career as hard as ever. did i need to live in LA in order to get the freakin D job?
heck No techno! watch me prove y'all foo's wrowng!

Wanderlust

I made love tonight, with a car. Inside and behind its dashboard, alone on an endless stretch of foresty highway, against a pitchblack star-studded middle of the night, I made sweet sweet love. It's been a long time since I have felt this sort of pleasure, a very long time in fact. Too long. Months, even. I don't think I have driven on a freeway at night in months. Especially not in those hours of the night when you are solely alone smelling warm mountain air blasting through the window slits at you, staring half-gazedly at a sky swarming with shining stars, a chalky milk of galaxy looming above, the lights and your few gauges illuminated below. My dear heavenly God it's the definition of pure pleasure for me, it stokes such a passion inside that in my new stick-driven, perfectly-shaped Kia Sportage I can't help but feel as though I am heavily making love with the her, and with the night sky.

Wanderlust: to lust in wandering. That's the generation I come from. I wouldn't care what to do with anything else in my life so long as I eventually get to taste the warm night air, sans hinges or weights, LA or Placerville or Santa Cruz or Utahr.
So there it is. That is me, that is my generation. Always been.
Delivering pizzas or standing on a stage and looking out at an audience I can still sense the adventure of it all..
come Wanderlust with me

executive decision

i don't think i've ever not been happy.
instead, there are way too many things that do make me happy
so having to choose just one of them has always been difficult
when really you just love it all.

I made an executive decision tonight.
After very much deduction, discernment, discussion, decision, deliberation, picture-looking-at, myspace-researching, life-thinking and total long-nighted consideration, it is this:

I will not be moving back to LA.

Sorry guys. the desire is gone.
There are too many wonderful things to do otherwise!
too much summer to spring happily about to, too many country markets to attend, too much grad school to consider, too many jobs to get, worlds to explore, colors to drink, nights to dance at local bars, too many other ways to experience happiness than that way.
It was like a foreign exchange program, I was a visitor (it shows in my photography!) But my home was never really there and my life has always been everywhere.
SO if too many things make you happy - why choose just one?
we'll always return to what we love anyway, old friends and snowboarding and doing plays. Happiness is first and foremost about people, what you can share with them and everything that follows.
So I am definitely not planning to move back, and it feels good to say it.
I can't wait to see what's gonna happen next!
the fungus on my toes never really fit in down there anyway, at least not with my Tevas on.

Love Mikie

my plums are a little bit not ripe. do you throw away unripe plums, or keep them?

Throw away, she says. Throw away.

rafting metaphor: in a pond

I am certainly unfastened to any good rafts, instead I chose to make my own. Ah, my raft. My real Zora. That pretty golden jewel-machine, which has rusted (even the prettiest of rafts seem to go out of style). So where the hell am I now?
In a green rusted raft, riding the same river. But there's more.
Steamboats were passing me by not too long ago and now they're gone too. Steamboats! loaded with my friends! For goodness' sake, those steamboats threw me off, rocked my boat away with their wakes of speed. me, in my copper old raft without a rutter..

oh yeah, that's another thing. the rutter's broken, most completely broke off for no reason, so I was forced to toss the rest of it overboard. Geez at least you can steer a rusted raft when it has a rutter.
And then what happened? the flow stopped. That's right. Downstream became upstream because the freakin flow haulted! Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate serenity, just not when you've got a lunch stop to rendezvous with.
So here I sit, in a pond too pretty to appreciate with no river's flow to move me on by, in a rusted raft without a rutter and no more steamboats even to rock me away. Nothing but a couple of empty shores and a frictionless flow on one bright sunny afternoon. Gosh, how strange. I never expected this.
No current in a floating ugly raft. whoda thunk

I do however have a paddle and a book. I'm not frantic yet, at least there's these two things. Well the book I have read a good few times now, and marked all up. During my prior ride, pages were torn out, words scribbled over..still its the same old story no matter what page I turn to. And my paddle? Its a single, so the going is rough. You scoop water on the left side, then switch to scoop water on right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Right. Left.
"All Forward! Hard Hard, dig it in! annnnd...STOP!"
Ok ok , pretending to be a river guide in a rusted raft on an empty dead river gets you nowhere.
You know what I dream about? that someone pushes me. Gosh I'm sick of doing this on my own. Anyone, hop on please. I promise I'll make it a kickbutt of a ride, we'll hit all the rapids the wrong way and then thirst ourselves to death with droning conversations about nature and people. Anyone? Poop.

Paddle, book, raft, sun, shores, river water, solidarity... what a weird equation. Am I missing something? Is there something my eyes just don't see, something from another dimension haunting over like a supernatural Being, waiting for the right moment to appear? I mean, at this point it's just me and my paddle. That's all I've got.

Someone told me tonight that I have no family trade or business to fall back into. They were right, there nothing. I guess except for the few trades I've made for myself. Theatre, blah. Rafting jobs, yeah. Pizza Delivery, oh woo hoo. Education, sure. Food service, whatever. Snowboarding, I wish. Flight school? Justin that was seriously a bright idea.

God what else? Nada? seriously? Is all I've got a college degree with straight A's, a flexible body and my mini brain that works on overtime all the time? You know, I'll take anything you throw at me at this point, I'll commit to anything, so long as it allows me to love like I always love, but freely again.
A paddle and a book are not enough equipment for handling this heavy raft. Somebody with freaking fingers, please, POINT!
this raft metaphor is driving me crazy
I'll keep you updated.



here we are, on the river again.

single

the life of trying to not be single has mutilated our internal organs.
for some love is maybe, some others is not
a conditional thing, fairweather loving

My solution? avoid it. save us barrels and buckets
of pain and disillusionment, going to sleep and waking up
with nothing but balls of twine wrapped up in your stomach
sharp splinters and thorns of a jumble within,
that has nothing to do with love.

so long as relationships continue to harbor
these dingy's of pain and disappointment,
then maybe we won't be sailing any seas
maybe we are made for land and the trees
when there's mountain abrasively clinging to air
what's a cool ocean breeze but some wind in your hair
not a sign of enlightened potential somewhere
just a gust from dark water o'er wreckage & despair

i despise my telephone

twice today I tried to throw my phone away
twice i spun it sideways from my palm,
once it landed in the street not far away,
the second time the thing flew farther on
making its way into some fields of bush
That time around, I let it lie, the lying thing.
It sat there 15 minutes, maybe more
until my dad came round in his Nissan
hello dad "hop in!" what a cool old guy
and so I did. "I threw my phone" i said
and quiet like he does, he drove us back
back towards the field where my blue phonething lied
"where is it" "somewhere near those green bushes.."
then out, I hopped the fence, and there it lay
an ugly wrecked rectangle, smudged green sticker on its back
you stupid piece of blue and silver plastic
you flat, tiny, silent scumbag staring up at me.
"I hate you" then raised my foot up high
directly over it's opaque ugliness
ankles braced, Teva sandals firm,
my foot raised high, ready to smash the thing
with all that energy balled into a fist
swooping my arm i plucked it from grass
frowning, dejected, God, my mission failed.

I want to throw my phone away still
its slimey blueness laying silently
quiet on the desk in front of me
what was once a shiny friend
I hate it more than anythng.
I hate you phone, you only bring me terror
you tacky Razr kiss my human rear
I'm not going to charge you tonight
just so you die.
..
I wish disney had a different number for me
otherwise I would have left it there

everybody's got it right

it all headed up against a brick wall
it poured back in waves washing me
now drenched I drink the sunrays

I think I've figured something out.
While listening to Wilco just now
I think I realized something.
It wasn't anything too special, to anyone else
but it really meant a lot to me
It's not about what I was thinking about before
and that's when I said "f*ck it" to the door
of an empty house, to a beautiful silence that the neighbors heard,
It made me wonder where I'd be in twenty years
when I found this proposition in my mind.
there was a little jealous reaction
from some where else inside
my mind was in control (my mind was)
and it knew what I was hiding when I was hiding
the clouds about it knew about it too
so did the cat, he'd seen it all along of course
seen the worst, curled up in my lap
never feeling sorry, not wanting that
just love that happens alone
my mind inside alone it needs
alone to need to see

there is a huge spot in my heart for the Badass Coffee Shop in downtown Santa Cruz
I'm supposed to go to Hawaii today
you can buy bacon by the slice at the New Leaf
studying something's haunting me right now
master-brewing beer can make $42,000 annually
I want a typewriter, Bukowski, a truck, and to play outdoors,
it's summertime folks

Purple Room Move
June 14-15, 2008

"you might be scrubs, but you're definitely not chubs"

"mikie, you just fixed my life"

"discombobulated, gumption"

"mikie...move"

"beer is not clear"

"it's that thing"

"you know what I fear"

"tacos, burritos, what's coming out of your speedos, you've got troubles *whoo* you're blowing bubbles...*whoo*"

from a train in motion by the sea,
a boating schooner scoots through
planes of burnt-up pier and wood
the reeds shush a saucy tale:
of drinking dingy shanties
sung among the silver fog,
of black and yellow windows
burning bright on bobbing logs
of half a country's roarings,
warring over booze and gas
now of bodies hiding akin
whining railroad tracks.
blowing smoke in heavy stacks
the train in motion crashes
violently into the schooner
shattering its belly

motion, motion
floating over bones.
wet boating schooners
scooting through empty
tracks and planes of burnt-up
wood in shambles.
reeds and brambles
shush of saucy tales-
of drinking dingy shanties
sung among the silver fog,
of black on yellow windows
bobbing logs alone
above abandoned bones,
of half a country's
wailings, roarings
pared asunder,
of bodies hiding under
whining railroad tracks.
blowing smoke in heavy stacks
we roll away in motion over
drowned downed lights from
sunk drunk nights

in response to last night's post:

Moving to a city is like choosing a college, you kinda want to try them all. after a discussion with joebob yesterday, it seems there are countries, valleys, worlds full of these cities beckoning discovery, collectively calling your name. Well if we choose a college, we best choose one that makes us the happiest, right? it may not be down the main stream, but not everyone needs to barrel over waterfalls. sometimes it's smarter to just climb down the side; you'll be swimming in the same pools anyhow.
well I didn't go to school to finish into a niche,
I went to begin into all niches - besides, it's summertime.
the days are longer and the nights smell green.
I think it's time to explore those spots inbetween spots
and fill our evenings with wild new things

there really are some things i miss about LA.
Particularly, the excitement of it all. I won't lie, it was all very exciting. Each moment was, filled to bursting. I'd go to work a happy boy, excited just to be alive and part of something breathable. I'd be excited to get off work and jaunt by Ralph's for some late-night chow and a glance at the magazines. I'd be excited to hang out with Nikki and watch movies. I was even excited to drive the doomful drive across town to Santa Monica for my great failed class. then on the ways back nothing could contain the beauty that was downtown Los Angeles in the midnight air, glimmering and bright like a nova shining in blackness, merging into proximity and then hovering above me like a space ship. The beauty of a city is something incomparable in nature..
somewhere along the lines of things I definitely had a reality check too. And I followed that check, followed the urgency because no matter how pretty or haunting or excitable all the glitz is on beautiful days, none of it matches the urgent truth of loved ones far away. That vacancy cannot be filled with alcohol and tourists or even good work. No, it is a thing of its own, and must be preserved.
and so my long summer of wonder begins. with time now to consider and discern, i rest for a few nights at dad's house. then to Santa Cruz, and then Hawaii it seems. coming back I could be broke and burnt, but maybe coming back i'll finally have a new course for steering some of these new things.
I know it's hard for me to say this after all those crazy sad nights of loneliness and bad dreams, but I miss LA.
I wish I could have it all. I wish I could close the gap between worlds, live in all places at once, pull together everyone and have us all do exactly what we set out to do originally, together.
So now, where's my command? What fingers point where?
I think I know, but the answers we want and the answers we get never match. Rarely. Not until we listen to our mothers, right?
well Mikie the current you says to the future you: break a leg

I just wanted to point out that I love San Francisco. I spent a day there yesterday with Hillary, Carol, Robert and Candice. It is a place that fills you with some sort of spirit I find hard to capture anywhere else. Maybe it's the sheer winds chilling you to life, or the good eateries on every corner. Maybe its just the good company, or traveling under the banks of an ocean. Maybe the eclecticity of colors
pounding down boulevards of steam in the sun rays of ocean spray.
whatever it is, i like it.
That's it. As the words of advice go from one great man,
"stop looking, Mikie".

I remember at the beginning of last summer, Darin instilled in me a sort of charm about the possibility of being "Freewheelin Mikie Beatty". He used the nickname once in response to the freedom I was being handed by finishing college. I took it gladly and ran with it. For almost a year I freewheeled my way several times around the state, barely setting-up shop in any particular order or place. Even in LA, I never fully unpacked my stuff. So now the summer's rolled around again, and I'm uprooted and wheeling once more - sans 2 wheels of course.

Driving from Santa Cruz to the Sacramento Int'l Airport today, it occurred to me that I might finally be done with my Bob Dylan dreamings: spending frivolous earnings on gasoline simply for the joys of the open road. This is not to say that my bug to travel will ever truly escape me - heading east is intriguing, always has been and always will be. I want to study other cultures, immerse myself in new streets surrounded by strange people. But that's probably a natural urge for any world-curious boy or girl of my age (and since summer is the time of opportunity for these things why not pick up our feet and freewheel a little bit). But driving, leaving, packing, running - the travel is stale, singing alone in the car feels like a chore, it even takes a conscious effort to look at the mountains. The adventure, the grandeur, has been tapped out. I mean I think that's it, it's not adventurous anymore, not in the same way. What once was glamourous glorious and grand now feels just irrelevant, like leftover sweet rolls after dinner is over; living a Vagabond on the road, what was once such a dream that once enticed my little heart (from characters like Richard from The Beach or Sal Paradise from On The Road) has been lived, the experience is in my belly with the rest of the foods. I've eaten plenty of rolls, and now I've lost my taste for sweet bread.

So I'm sweaty and smelly in the sun this afternoon, pulling every piece of my life from the trunk of a rented Pontiac in an airport parking lot, and I couldn't help but be wary of the fact that instead of playing the role of Vagabond any longer (in some sort of story-driven great adventure I've been living in happily for a few years now) I've actually become one. Not a great actor eating the fruits and rolls of a meaty role, but an actual jobless carless homeless beat.

is this true? am I really convinced? Not quite yet..
Because beneath it all there's still all that formality of University education, years of working on stage and off in unshakable dedicatedness, long airplane rides for a hosting job, a financial aid office lecturer and college advisor, a hard-working Native American anthropologist, a pizza delivery kid who gets his sh*t done, an LA barhopper, a young uncle who can play and walk with the kids for hours, a totally inexperienced boyfriend, a tan rockjumper, an avid library browser, a pro snowboarder, a rafting guide, a health nut, a friend, a family boy, and an all-around over-lover of pretty much every thing.
we don many colorful faces as we eat all kinds of colorful foods. I just feel this Vagabond mask has molded onto my face too tight, and its hurting me. I'm ready to peel it off now and hang it on the wall.
Thank you mister Dylan, I love freewheelin.
But it's time to make some new things happen again.
And so i need a new title, a new mask to reach for.
Darin, any suave ideas?

here's some pictures

name this man:

in my white sheets on a stack of mattresses
i turned over to see an empty house
quiet with the thought of you
my dreams from the night begin to fade
making shape within a charted map
between islands of reality
all tied together by my ship
my ship, a restless vessel slave
to an ocean's call on the clouds
but in this light life floating along
you have taught me how to build an anchor

I take a moment to bid you all a fine first day of June, 2008.

A single white rose blooming in the desert is more beautiful
than rows of red roses dangling in city streets.