I definitely had a Columbine in me. Here’s a secret I don’t think I ever told anyone: I sat in the back of the crowd at my high school graduation, watching the proceedings and seeing all the different ways I could be killing these people. Later in life I would joke that I was just too apathetic, but the fact is that being raised in a post-hippie liberal household saved my life, prevented me from making these idle daydreams into a reality.

Had I been raised in a conservative gun-nut household, I would have had easy access to weapons. And without the liberal touchy-feely huggy-huggy feelings-are-real and everyone’s-are-valid mindset, I would not have had the only value structure that would prevent me from using said weapons willy-nilly. And while it could be argued that in the long-view that was a mistake, that I passed up a real and direct chance to clean up the gene pool and do a favor for future generations, it is also true that it would not have ended well for me personally. So, in a very real sense, liberals saved my life.

Noel Rogers prefers his bacon extra crispy.

Summary:

My Weekend.

“There is not a star in the sky but one searchlight, the moon gleams with a smile.”  my daughter announces to me. 

A flower does not grow inward just like the source of our learning, our true absorption.  We are our own sponges.  We absorb so well at a certain range of age probably because we are open to what our inner voice tells us.  It easily points out the effortlessness in relating to our ability to connect.

You cannot trust the world but can you trust your encounters?

Truth is so beautiful even I cannot believe it.  It has this burst of fleeting yet beyond massive impact.

We owe it to ourselves to peel ourselves like onions. That way we can shed some tears to the core and have the core become visible.  It is then when we can finally understand.

Regular commotion often become a great blur in my physical vision.  I forget how such commotion ever meant anything to me.  For once, people can just pump up Silence and soak in it.

For this spin, I play this tune:

Go ahead.

Seriously.

Unlatch your mind.

Can you hear it begging you?

After all, being born is quite a startling surprise.

The true mind lies before our present minds.

The true mind tells us where to look and go.

Our present minds shuffle and shift between thoughts.

Shuffle, turn, tumble, tip-toe.

If anything, it’s like a wedge.

Now soak down in your heart.

Let silence be its dialect.

There your true mind will begin to form.

I repeat, begin to form.

A seed does not provide fruit.

Like a vast farmland with a gate at the front,

you are miles from the gate.

Still, you see the gate.

Be gravitated.

Mind not the speed.

As long as the heart sings only silence,

you are well on your way.

Silence.

You must wonder.

How is silence a pathway?

Silence, I will say,

as opposed to various brews of emotions.

We are before our thoughts and emotions.

We form our thoughts and emotions.

See the connection?

We form them.

We are not given them.

See the farmland now?

I bet it is closer.

Travel well.

Stephanie Gasco paints her palette onto the canvas of your consciousness.

OK folks, here’s how this is going to play out. First I write a few self-referential paragraphs to get it out of my system, while simultaneously holding everything else in. Next, a nice little story about Vineland, NJ to help us forget that any of this is (not) real.  Finally, a bunch of unrelated, recently taken pictures. If we have a deal, you may read on…

So yeah. I was raised at 42 Victory Ave. in Vineland. Quick Fun Fact!:  “Vineland is the largest city in area (69 square miles) in the state of New Jersey.“  When I first read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the whole 42 inside-joke had its obviously relevant appeal to my psyche. If 42 is the meaning of life, then the meaning of life is victory. Victory over what? Self? Ego? Samsara? Death? Fear of every level after 42? Or how about victory over the experience of having been raised at 42 Victory?

But I’m not going there with this HACK. I’m also not going to phone it in with ’42 Things I Am Grateful For,’ a piece from Heroes and Hierophants that I wrote three years ago. Instead, I’m going to phone it in with something from Heroes and Hierophants that I wrote three years ago, but fiction.

That’s right. I’m escaping into fiction again. Why? Well, first and foremost, I know you don’t read this. And if you are reading this, I still don’t believe you’re reading this. Secondly, the piece I’m presenting has been re-edited and expanded and sitting on another internet address that no one visits. Thirdly, I’m all non-fictioned out. I can’t write about what’s really happening in my life…alas, that’s where all the good stuff is. I can’t write about topical issues of the day because I find it hard to even care what you people are fretting about anymore.

(cue angry rant)

For cryin’ out loud, you people are still talking about gender issues. You’re still debating arguments for and against same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, I’m contemplating the possibilities of inter-dimensional copulation…and still not getting laid. And you know what? I WILL marry my cat. I’ll do it just to demonstrate my belief that, no matter how absurd or ridiculous, love between any entities KNOWS NO DISTINCTIONS, if only because All is One and All IS LOVE. If that sounds a bit vague and idealistic to you, that’s because we are all still caught in the cycle of ego-separation, the one that continually makes me doubt that All is One and All IS LOVE. Hell, I don’t even know if what I believe is true. Yet if I had to pick a basic operating premise for the universe that seems to make sense, it would be universal love and connectedness. Any gender, any race, any physiology, any chemistry, any consciousness. I would also marry my cat to prove how completely ridiculous the social institution of marriage is. There ya go, two birds with one stone. One each for me and Clemens to eat.

Oh, right. Noel already did it and he did it better. Move on.

Hey, you want something topical? The Avengers is an excellent movie. In fact, it’s kind of mind-boggling to me how much they actually got it right this time. A perfect combination of serious god knowledge, character depth and stupid American entertainment.

Oh yeah, the piece. Well, all I can say is, thank God it’s fiction, otherwise I’d be forced to spend not just the first 30 years, but the rest of this accursed life…

I have to admit that I secretly wished for something like this to happen. I just wish I wasn’t in fucking Vineland at the time. I expected this to happen and my greatest fear was that like all my other expectations, this one would also fail to come true and I would be forced to live out the rest of my days in utter mediocrity. While everyone else huddled around their battery-powered radios sobbing, I secretly smiled to myself. This is the reboot.

It felt like I had skipped the grief cycle, gone all the way to acceptance while most of my family and friends were still in the bargaining phase. They wanted desperately to believe that our great institutions would save us, even as they crumbled to digital dust. So while they slowly came to the realization that their lives would never be the same, I was already preparing for what happens next.

Three months later I had many ideas on how to survive in this new reality, but no one would take them seriously. One night I completely lost my shit and ended up sobbing next to a statue of entombed-Jesus at the St. Mary’s Church cemetery/shrine. Eventually I decided that I would strike out on my own, head North into the Central Jersey wasteland and try to find my friends…Doug, Russ, or even Attila and Noel. There was nothing for me here, anyway. Parents were in Florida, probably hysterical over me and Mike. I certainly couldn’t live with Mike. Even in the end-times we may end up strangling each other to death.

I wouldn’t fit in anywhere else. Everyone who was married thought only of the survival of their children. They perched in windows from their powerless homes, aiming guns and shouting threats at any who came near their property. The poor deluded bastards didn’t realize the truth—nobody owns a thing, they only possess it for a time. Everyone who was single I couldn’t see shacking up with. The hermit streak ran strong. Once I had accepted that I would always be a loner, that I was free to make my own choices…

… In a way those were the best days. No job to slave at, no government to answer to…no more pretending. It was like Camus’ The Plague. Under the shadow of two mushroom clouds, ordinary life in South Jersey took on a sense of hyper-realness. Children played in the streets. The poorer neighborhoods actually began to share supplies and skills. The bars and clubs filled with those living each day like it would be their last. For many it was.

The Invasions changed all that. I think what happened is that Death did not come soon enough for those still partying. And the ones who kept living out the Old Life secretly expected some kind of rescue. When I say The Invasions, I am referring in a large sense to whatever is happening outside of our bubble. We still don’t know which foreign entity is on American soil, but it definitely has a trickle down effect. Bandits and rogue mutants from North Jersey have set fire to the Pine Barrens. Pirate boats from Baltimore Harbor have pillaged Sea Isle City. I remember clearly when the 60,000 or so residents of Vineland went crazy. There were riots on Landis Avenue, and rival gangs took over all our Walmarts and Wawas. Instead of pulling together, most people just fell apart.

Not us. Mike was the first to go along with my plan. Phil and Jon just happened to be next door with their parents and babies and the babies’ mamas. Becky was down the street with her parents and brother. Even the three Snaars brothers held up their end of Victory Ave. Phil and I actually made it happen. We snuck through old backyards like it was just another game of Jail Break when we were kids. We made it to the Memorial School parking lot and hotwired one of the buses. To this day I can’t believe I was the first one to think of that.

Long story short, we convinced as many people as possible on Victory Ave and the surrounding neighborhood to get on that first bus. Then we drove them back to Memorial School and encouraged them all to take a bus, fill it with more people and supplies, then meet at Menantico Colony. If the City of Vineland proper was no longer forgotten by the outside world, surely the abandoned acreage of that once thriving colony for morons still would be. By dusk the next day, a mini-battalion of school buses paraded down Palermo Avenue, past Rossi School and into the Menantico grounds.

They’ll find us eventually. I realize now that I will never leave this place. I am too needed. Everyone here has found a role—mine is teacher/therapist/shaman. Mike has really stepped up. He actually keeps the alpha males in check and under his command they have defended us from three separate attacks by rival Culver City gangs. Last week he killed a feral pig with his bare hands. Phil designed a rudimentary sanitation system and he thinks that after a few raids on some plumbing supply stores he could make a functioning well happen. Becky’s dad is an architect…he’s in his glory organizing the reconstruction of all these semi-ancient buildings. Rachel and Diane take care of all the animals, and my own cousin Anita, our resident nurse, heals the humans. Becky and Ben brew us beer and other surreal spirits to imbibe. Jon and Rhonda have teamed up to grow gardens teeming with life…They remind me of Longwood Gardens in PA. Last reports from there told of a “giant hogweed” that was “consciously attacking the surrounding ecosystem.” At any rate, our seeds are still pure. I don’t know about no hogweed, but I know what I like and I’d like the future to know that we grow some of the most potent South Jersey schwag you’ll (probably) never smoke. Amanda cooks for everybody and Dan, of course, is the fucking MAN. My Uncle Dennis—an electrician—is the one who made it possible for me to access what’s left of the Egonet and send out this message in a bottle, as it were.  Hold on, gotta run real quick, Dyce the P is doing his weekly sermon at The Church.  I haven’t missed one yet! …

As for Center City Vineland… Landis Theater and the adjacent East Side Motel are festering dens of macabre iniquity. The only building still intact and undamaged is Sacred Heart Church. I often go there to sit in the bell tower and pick off zombies with the lightening gun. Only a fool would think that we’re completely isolated. We must be ever vigilant in case of attack.

The fire is dimming.  I’m tired. Survival pushes thoughts of the past away. And I never cared much for the future. Right now I listen to rain beating on the metal frame of the number 42 school bus that I’ve called home for the last 3 years. ‘Rain’ by Noir is playing over my original 4th generation iPodNano.

The children are asleep. They tell me they dream of their mother. I dream of her too, sometimes. Maybe someday I’ll reunite with my Crew from North Jersey. Or maybe they’re all mutants. One thing is certain: every day I open my eyes, grateful and with a sense of purpose.

The rest (they once said) is history.
 
 
 
‘Suriving In Vineland’ was originally published in Heroes and Hierophants, copyright 2010, iUniverse Press.

This is a work of fiction. Any likenesses to persons living, dead, real or unreal is purely synchronistic and therefore solely the intention of the Author.

Marcus D’Ambrose is already in the next life, writing a scathing review of his posthumously published works.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
- Marcus Aurelius

I recently watched Donnie Darko for the second time. It made me think about fear. It’s such a powerful force. Can you imagine being afraid of absolutely nothing. New things, foreign things, safety hazards, anything at all. It’s all good. Nothing scares you.

Evil Kenevil? Your neighbor does crazier things with his lawn mower!

You would probably die very early and you probably didn’t make it to 2012 with the rest of us. Fear is around for a reason. Fear is not necessarily a negative force. It keeps us in survivor mode. It makes us think twice before walking out across a six lane highway at 5pm. If you weren’t afraid of being hit by a vehicle or getting run over or thrown through the air, then you’d do it if you wanted to. Whatever you wanted to do, you would. No consequences would sweep you into the cloak of fear.

Adolf Hitler? No big deal.

The current scare tactics the world uses would collapse. The incentive of fear would be rendered useless. Imagine the entire world not afraid. Simply not afraid. It would be a strange place to live. The news would be changed from a soap opera to actual news. Money and jail would lose their hold on people. There would be no fear of leaders anymore. Their power would be based upon how much people like them. There wouldn’t be any wars unless people genuinely found them to be pleasurable. The fear of another nation or group of people would be a foreign concept.

There would be no fear of death. Most people are afraid of death. I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of pain and torture, but that might not be how I die, and I’ve accepted the fact that one day I will die. I’ve accepted the likelihood that I will get cancer, diabetes, an addiction, and suffer from allergies and asthma for the rest of my life. I don’t mind my personal struggles with life.

I fear life threatening situations. I fear quitting my job, not being able to get a new one, and starving to death. I fear telling someone off and they beat me into oblivion, putting me into a coma for the remainder of my existence. I fear natural disasters. I fear situations that will spiral my tip-toe depression into suicide. I fear having children someday and not adequately nurturing them.

I think fear is used for positive and negative things equally. Hitler wanted to kill the Jews, homosexuals, and all the other Holocaust victims. He used fear to win over his followers and to rob the victims of their lives. He used fear to try to reach his goal of creating his ideal world. Not the most popular world, but his intentions were positive. Your parents do a similar thing, hopefully not as extreme. They use fear to teach you how to protect yourself from strangers and threatening situations. Even something as simple as striking fear in you of slipping and falling in the shower, that is a negative fear used to positively impact your well-being.

Religion would be fucked. That’s pretty much all I can say about that.

Fear seems to be something people associate with negative things. Fear is bad. Fear is a product of the devil! Well, if it is, thank you devil. Thank you for putting fear of poison food, carnivorous animals, and falling ill into my ancestors. Without it, I wouldn’t be here sitting on my bed typing this up on my laptop. The human race would be nonexistent.

“It’s not traditional marriage.”

I am so sick and tired of hearing about tradition that my ears are in serious danger of climbing down off my face and escaping into the night. “Tradition” is shorthand for, “we have no imagination or individual will, so the way everyone’s always done it is good enough for us.” Every tradition had a start, and when that tradition started it was some bold new step that ran counter to established traditions. Trivia books are LITTERED with forgotten traditions and cultural practices from around the world and across history. Traditions change. Traditions die. New traditions are born. That’s just how it is. You could almost call it a tradition.

“…and God and the Bible…”

Okay, yeah, there’s a passage in the Old Testament about how homosexuality is an abomination or whatever. There’s a lot of passages in the Old Testament. Like the one that says that you can’t eat pork. (Leviticus 11:7, Deuteronomy 14:8) Or the one that says you can’t any shrimp or lobster. (Leviticus 11:12, Deuteronomy 14:10) Or the one that says you can’t get a tattoo. (Leviticus 19:28) Raising the stakes a little, there’s one that says that if the a guy marries a girl and she isn’t a virgin, she’s to be EXECUTED. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21) Right after that it says if a man sleeps with another man’s wife, they’re both to be executed. (Deuteronomy 22:22) And honestly, the Old Testament is FILLED with really strict laws and really harsh punishments that are completely ignored by all these Bible thumpers who are so concerned about gay marriage. How come they don’t protest grocery stores that sell ham? Why aren’t they calling for the public execution of this week’s cheating celebrities? Shouldn’t they be more concerned with how their God will judge them in light of their own failings? (Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 16:15, John 8:7)

“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!”

This is so ridiculous that I am addressing it separately from any other religious-based angle. Anyone that believes that God literally made Adam and Eve, let alone uses that as an argument, has much bigger issues of their own to deal with. I’m not even sure it’s fair to make fun of them. But anyone that DOESN’T believe that God literally made Adam and Eve, and uses this argument, is a fucking moron. Do posterity a favor and get sterilized.

“It’s not natural!”

Neither is marriage in general. It’s a human invention the same as clothing and light bulbs and phones that play Tetris. So either, nothing humans make or do is natural, or EVERYTHING humans do is natural by virtue of us just being another extension of nature. I never buy any argument that uses “it’s not natural.”

“Well, if you let gay people get married, people will marry farm animals next!”

I find this fascinating, mostly because it is extremely telling of the mentality of the person who says it. Like, if you give people freedom, the first thing they’ll do is use it to fuck goats. I see. Mmm hmm. No, I don’t judge, it’s not my place. Interspecies sexuality is a part of nature. Just, I would say that outside of some people’s fantasies, it is a stupid argument. There is a clear difference between a marriage between two adult citizens of the same gender and a marriage between a human being and an animal that can in no way shape or form communicate its consent or its understanding. This also goes with the similar idea that if you let same-sex marriage happen, it opens the door for polygamy to be legalized next. I am reminded of four questions Bill Hicks once asked: Yeah? And? So? What? Like seriously. You want more than one spouse? You guys are all cool with it? Have fun. Not my business. Not my problem.

“Marriage is a weak-ass lame old tradition that dates back to when our ancestors were smelly from rutting with goats, and it has virtually no relevance to human relationships in modern society except in the form of massive social inertia that erroneously elevates it and artificially preserves it, thus helping to hold back mankind from developing whatever new ways of being we must invent to continue to grow and evolve so that eventually we can become god-like beings that can roam and play in an infinite universe.“

This is a completely legitimate argument. And also, you’re very handsome. But note this is not specifically against SAME-SEX marriage. I rest my case.

Noel Rogers is desperately waiting for the rest of the world to grow up so he can resume his discussion about comic book characters.

Make It Or Break It

As I wake, I look out the window and never fail to spot a trace of hope no matter what weather.  For as long as oxygen still has its dance going, I know I can go on.  Oxygen is a very literate thing as it is an extensive metaphor.

Little oxygen = Dying hope

More oxygen = Bursts of creativity.

As literate as oxygen gets, we stop breathing once oxygen says Adios or Hasta La Vista, Baby.  It is just as bad when the metaphoric facet of oxygen quits; we lose sight of the doorway in our visions to the point of it all.  “It all” boils down to why we are jiving or not around here.  We are here and it is more than just growing out of ape-hood. If it was really about growing out of ape-hood, why are “advanced” scientists poking, scraping, puncturing holes in apes and their friends’ bodies and organs.  Issues will be issues but ignorance stands because of unclarity.  So, oxygen, literal and metaphoric, make nice and bond with it as if you were a vegetable growing out of a garden.

More often than not, thoughts are a lot simpler than we conceive them to be.  That is practically a ready explanation for the rampantly common frustration of lacking solutions.  It could also easily explain why so many of us overlook our unseen guidance.  We often expect something in concrete or, at least, direct writing.  That is too much of a legality for those who work at keeping our hearts open if you get what I am saying.  After all, if the heart is not open, then something is sure to crack in and let light through. It is just as real as the Newton’s Law or even paying the bills.  More or less, sheer acceptance is often more of a struggle than a process.  However, it is still a process.

Love is not an emotion.  Infatuation or lust are two extremely common emotions that are often misunderstood for love.  Desperation in disguise can make for a false jackpot as well.  If anything, those experiences of hitting “false jackpots” are not supposed to be lesser than nothing because they are not of “true love”.  They are, I repeat, are stepping stones for that if we are willing to receive such lessons, both small and big.  Stepping stones are tools for our growth,… without them, how can we top a mountain? Small or big, every mountain has its top.  Allow yourself become the top piece.

Stephanie Gasco is the shell of an everlasting piece of work.

This week, ____________________:

Marcus D’Ambrose is _______________.

Hello world.

I know I haven’t been on top of things. I’m still not. But! It is the end of the semester (only two days left) and I am hoping not to slack ANYMORE! For this piece, I am going to post my personal space project statement/end of year statement accompanied by my short Dia: Beacon trip review. For my personal space project I made a bunch of shells out of epoxy clay. I apologize that I don’t have any images yet, I will upload them soon.

Everyone has a shell. Some are thin, almost transparent. Others are thick and threatening. Humans have a shell, just like sea creatures and insects. Although, their shells are physical, ours are psychological. We put up a barrier between us and everything around us. There are times we feel as though our safety is at risk. Safety isn’t only skin deep. It can affect our emotions and our thoughts. When this threat is upon us, the shell surrounds us like a force field. You can feel the adrenaline all around. During times of comfort and trust, that shell fades away. Our soft, vulnerable skin is all that guards us from unseen danger.

Throughout the year, I have been able to establish myself more clearly than I have before. I have become more independent. There have been too many chances for the same mistakes. Hoping this one, last, billionth time they won’t mess up. That habit is long gone. Discovering what I want and what I didn’t know I wanted has been a pleasant surprise. I want happiness in my life. I’ve always known that. What it takes to get it is the part I have to uncover. Defending myself is important. If I’m not willing to defend myself and my art, who will? My three projects Dependency, Discovery, and Defense are all about the past couple years of my life and how I’ve grown into myself.

My trip to the Dia: Beacon on May 4, 2012 was short-lived, but still an interesting adventure.

Dia: Beacon is certainly an interesting place. Some of the exhibits leave me no impression and no positive response. There are a few, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Imi Knoebel

Dan Flavin

The exhibits that I have strong negative responses to are the blank white canvases (they are in their own little hallway but I forgot the artist), De Maria’s Silver Meters 1976 and Gold Meters 1976-77, Imi Knoebel’s exhibits, and Dan Flavin’s “monuments” for V. Tatlin series. I have no relation to these pieces besides disappointment and frustration. I am disappointed in them because I don’t feel like I can be inspired by them in the slightest bit. There is nothing about the pieces that make me want to meet these artists and get inside their heads. I could care less about these works. It is probably harsh to say, but it is how I feel about them.

Jean-Luc Moulene

Richard Serra

Joh Chamberlain

Robert Irwin

My favorite exhibits at the Dia: Beacon are the landscapes by Robert Irwin, Richard Serra’s collection, Jean-Luc Moulene’s exhibitions, and one of the sculptures by John Chamberlain. I adore nature and even wanted to be a landscape architect at one point. I really appreciate the work by Irwin. The garden is lovely to walk though and comforting to chat in. I could do without Lawler’s sound piece, but I tuned it out to better appreciate the garden. The landscape towards the front of the building is interesting in its symmetry and structure. I love the interactive aspect of these works. The first time I went to Dia: Beacon, last year, I decided I wanted to live in Richard Serra’s curved metal structures. I am obsessed with diagonals and being surrounded by the diagonal curving walls is so thrilling to me. I could go on for hours talking about how much I adore his sculptures. Jean-Luc Moulene’s exhibitions are new to me on my second trip to the Dia. It was a refreshing addition to the museum. I actually enjoy being around his work. They have a life of their own. The one sculpture that I liked by John Chamberlain was the white one. It reminded me of the bushes in Alice In Wonderland that had the white roses instead of red. I’ve always been fond of that story and so it made me like the piece.