Off Come the Hoop Earrings!
Feb 7, 2016 17:29:58 GMT -5
Teo Blaze, Stuart Slane, and 3 more like this
Post by Benjamin Atreyu on Feb 7, 2016 17:29:58 GMT -5
"Its about goddamn time, start that camera up, I'm looking to fucking crush some bitches tonight," yelled Atreyu as he pushed the camera bitch into place, "I don't have time to wait for your ass, the world keeps turning as you sit on your ass? I don't fucking think so."
Where was the man of patience and articulation? Dead, probably. Face down in a ditch with a couple knives wounds going up his back. All we had left was this fuming smoke stack of flesh and bone. I'll tell you, its like looking at a human atom bomb waiting to blow the fuck up, ya hear me? Not sure if angry is a good color for Benjy, but damn we're gonna learn about it tonight.
Not sure how well its been covered in the past, but Benjy doesn't take too losing well, but hell, if there was ever a better industry to lose your cool in, I have yet to find it. He looked about ready to open his mouth and spit acid rain on this poor goofy-faced lens-handling sack-o-stupid (and I'm sure if Benjy had the power, he probably would have without hesitation, because that's how my boy rolls).
The man manages to set up the magical device while trembling, but even with the constant progression through pure fright, Benjy just paces back and forth, looking about as hot as a Blacksmith's anvil head 'n' shit. I mean like, dayum.
The shaking ball of fingers and toes manages to get himself together enough to hit the record button, eyes pointed to the ground like he just hit the 'self-destruct' button on the whole building. Lights. Camera. Fucking Kill'em, boiiiii.
"Hey, WCF," Benjamin starts smirking like a killa looking down his victim, "I got the memo. Received it loud and clear. No need to his the repeat button, because I plan to follow it by the letter.
"Burn the books, destroy the degrees, smash the libraries, and leave nothing behind but the wabi-sabi like remnants of what was once so good about this world, because it doesn't mean shit. All these years trying to improve myself was a waste, because I really should have been following the trends instead of going out of my way to define some new mystical path.
"Fuck, I'm not sure why this shit took so long for me to understand. You people don't want that brain shit. That reasoning shit. Einstein never made it onto no fuckin' TV Promo for a wrestling company, was never given a spot in the opening video package, was never voted most likely to win any kind of match up. Fuck, the man was a genius and its rare people talking about science even listen to him.
"Why waste my time trying to chase that train of thought when the stupid, obvious, retarded truth has been in front of me this whole time. If I just yell loud enough, and spit it harder than anyone else, I'll become important. I'll win all the things. If I reference my penis more, I'll be king of the fucking mountain. So, know what? I'm willing to play ball if it'll get me what I want, because fuck it, I'm selfish and I'm tired of sitting out of the fucking game. I'll come in from the cold and set a few of you idiots straight. Because fuck caring anymore.
"Sure, Fifteen didn't go well for me. Couldn't you tell? Who gives a shit, am I right? Shit is in the past. I got a new gripe now, and boy am I ready to air my grievances.
"Management, in their infinite fucking wisdom, decided that, despite my amazing output as of late, I was to be cast down back into mid-card hell with a bunch of the other 'never-competed-in-a-fucking-main-event-in-their-life' assholes to be in yet another battle royal, just to get an opening spot in the trilogy cup.
"Shit, if you asked me. It hearkens an image similar to throwing a scrap of food to a bunch of starving third worlders to see if they'll kill each other over it. Some of these bitches are probably near shitting themselves in amazement thinking about how awesome it is that they're being given a shot, but fuck'em.
"This shouldn't even be a thing, at least not something concerning me. As far as I'm concerned, I'm owed a spot in that tournament. Not just because I'm going to fucking cannibalize this battle royal, not just because who the fuck else is going to be in it, but also because some years ago, in the VERY FIRST fuckin' Trilogy Cup, I made it all the way into the finals, turned that shit into a three way, and had that victory stolen from me by some jobber who disappeared like a month later
"and while I'm here. Fuck him too. Skylar, that flakey-ass-piece o' shit. Hope he got caught as collateral damage in a drive by shooting, thinking he could take that win from me and run off like a bitch." Oh ish, mang, Benjy roastin' fools who ain't even hear anymore.
"I shouldn't have to wade through this qualifier garbage. I should just be given that shit for how horribly this second-rate landfill treats me. I've been in benchmark match after benchmark match for this company, present in a number of firsts for this place, and have been considered world-title material on a number of occasions and you guys are going to throw me this rotting bone? Eat a dick.
"Its only a matter of time before you realize what you guys have been misusing, because I'm fucking money for this place, and with Fly and Cairo gone for good, there are only so many dicks left for your guys to ride. Don't run yourself to the ground and waste my years just to learn something you should know by now.
"Hell, look who is in this shit show," Benjamin pulls a piece of paper out of his back pocket, "can't even remember all their names, that'll tell you what kind of revolving door this place is, no wonder we have these cluster fucks. All these Jack Coston-looking mother fuckers." He just dobies a character I don't think exists anymore! What the fuck ever happened to Coston?Who gives a shit?!
"Here we go. Jordan Wolfram," ahhh, you gettin' that Benjamin Atreyu rub, people might remember your name now, "Another fucking amateur wrestler. What did he major in? Theology?! Fucker got a degree in God? Probably could have gotten more out of a damn Communications degree.
"See, this is what I'm talking about. You seriously going to tell me that we deserve to share a ring? This guy can eat my leftovers and shit out a better life for himself, because he isn't gonna find it in a place where there is no God, and by the by, people like Kat Phoenix assured me of that when they were let in to poison the watering hole by sitting in it.
"Heh. Know what? Fine. This pious shitbagger can fill a niche in this company that I no longer feel like occupying. I hope you have a better time trying to tell people how to live their lives than I did, because these fuckers don't want to listen to reason. YELL LOUD AND CLEAR SO THAT GOD OF YOURS CAN HEAR! SINNERS BEWARE, BECAUSE EVEN IF THE FIRST MILLION DIDN'T CONVINCE YOU, MAYBE THIS ONE WILL!" POW POW, RATATATATAT FUCKA, DIE NAMELESS BITCH! Benjy is done with your rancid ass, fuckstick!
"Man, WCF, I go from facing Steve Orbit, Logan, Gravedigger...someone, another person, and someone else, to this? God, no wonder people think I suck when I go up and down on your cards like...If I were Logan or some Poon-whatever team member, I'd have an easy target sitting in that chamber, but whatever, fuck ya.
"Dwanky mother fuckers don't have faith in me? Is that it? Wanna make me look like a fucking Jerk? Wanna make me quit again? Nah, shut that shit down now, because it ain't comin'. You ain't getting a two weeks notice from this baller anytime soon, so don't sit in your office waiting to see my mug. I'll be too busy dismantling this waste of a match you've shoved my ass in, so keep glued to your TV screens." Aww, shit. Fuck yo face, kids, ain't nobody walking away from this shit without third degree burns.
-GGG-
In a perfect world there would be no crying.
Watching homeless men laying on street benches try to wrap themselves up in newspaper as they are relentlessly assaulted by the cold, I can't help but think about how some of them will be dead by tomorrow. Cold corpses frozen to wood and steal. Those who aren't by then eventually will be, or will have to continue to face hardships which want nothing more than to shatter their very being against the jagged edge of life's rough exterior.
As I creep along, more of these thoughts creep into my head. Thinking about their lives, I wonder when each one of them found themselves out on the street, struggling for a moment of clarity and peace from hunger pains and crushing hopelessness.
Some of them may have been born into it, suffering from the unfortunate mishaps that their parents wandered into, dooming them to know life as nothing more than a singular feeling of despair. Others might be starting their chain. Falling out from their room of safety into the septic tank of the world. They use to be invited to dinner parties, didn't they? People use to want to talk to them right? Now? Nothing. Met with silence and sideways stares as people avoid them. They are the disease everyone wants to avoid. Went from socialites to pests in a matter of one bank statement.
They expected their path to have rough patches, right? Everyone does. They would ultimately overcome them and move on like they always have, right? Why wouldn't they? Life had given them no reason before hand to think that they wouldn't come through, they had done so up until that point...
..Then they found bills flooding in, coming faster than money can go out, like a storm bringing water levels far above their heads. Panic sets in. The only emotional pull left was the ping of frustration and fear as they tried to decide if they had enough money for groceries that week.
Bank account - Empty.
Electricity - Shut off.
Water - Cut.
House - Repossessed.
World - Shattered.
Chance for recovery - Nil.
In an unimaginable swiftness, the structure they had based every perception on was cracked and found to be hollow: lifeless. There was no net. Without a second notice, everything was gone and there was nothing left to do but to suffer and freeze in Minnesota.
If they had children, maybe they would be lucky enough to find a family better off to give them up to, to send them to after kissing them good-bye, leaving the sufferer to their loneliness, looking at faint echoes of a former through the windows of the local stores, watching it through a barrier, a wall that'll keep the two apart, making sure that the comfort was never more than an illusion beyond touch.
Some think that if these men were lucky, they would get a second chance. No. That is a misnomer. A second chance would be beyond luck; it would be a miracle; nothing short of a miraculous act of happenstance. The lucky are far less lucky. The lucky die quick, the unlucky watch the lucky get dragged off.
As I drive on, warm and comfortable, I can't help but think about it. It develops from there, the lack of a net in any part of life. I think about dead friends whose bodies had to be shipped back home after coming to an end in a scary unfamiliar place. Think about friends struggling with their faith, waking up in the middle of the night and calling me just because they needed to hear someone talk, because being alone made them feel far more vulnerable to disappearing in the ether, becoming nothing while no one was watching. I think about coffins for babies, shelters that shouldn't HAVE to exist but unfortunately need to, and how some have to beg twice as hard because there are Doctors who pretend to be homeless because you can make a good sum of cash on a good day in the summer.
I sip wine on weekdays as they cry and pull their hair out. Every week will offer a new David Foster Wallace-esque end to another artist as I fill myself with temporary good thoughts from a local pub tap, because experiencing the air without distorted perceptions is a nightmare, and its easier to be seeing double most hours of the day. Then while as droughts happen in California, I can distract myself with exercise on the days I feel motivated enough to do so. I laugh. It hurts and I laugh.
When I get out of my car I nearly slip on the ice. As I steady myself I curse the cold and move inside, muttering to myself the same old mantra about how awful it is to live in this godforsaken state. Minnesota I'll say to myself, A grand act in self-fuckery. To continue to live here is to disregard common sense. A senseless place for senseless people. I pass a woman in tattered clothing sitting next to an alleyway as I stride at rabid pace to my destination.
In a perfect world there would be no art.
Man's need for expression comes from his souls chemical reaction to external and internal tragedy, suffering, and disappointments. Without such occurrences, in a world where the human spirit remains at a permanent calm, art is obsolete, unneeded to aide and direct the mind. No break-up songs, no majestic paintings, no grand-scale movies, and no soul penetrating books; everything is just a matter of existing and being content with what is given.
In a perfect world parents don't spend nights wondering what happened to their children. Everyone breathes deeply and takes things at a even pace. Everyone who goes to sleep the night before will wake up the next day.
Would I trade the most deeply compelling of art for it, though? There is a part of me that wishes I could say yes with absolute certainty, but I know I can't. There is a weakness that infects my nerves and bones, and when I think of a world without art, perfect or not, I feel fear, as if somehow it couldn't be perfect, or that its perfect nature wouldn't be worth it. Art is a crutch which I frantically cling to and its absence threatens aimlessness.
Wouldn't a perfect world, in a sense pertaining to your ideas, have art? one might ask. If thought about in crude way, sure, that might be the case, but without that deep sense of connection where one finds they are no longer a single pillar in a sandstorm, but instead one of many bearing the force together, what power can art (in a perfect world) have. Even deeper into the dilemma, a perfect world is not a personal heaven, it is a singular idea of conflict-less existence that one must submit to. You are not as your are now, but you would be you in a flawless existence, stripped of the need of your many anxieties, hang-ups, habits, and urges.
So, I guess in a world where life is bliss, I wouldn't mind a lack of art, but I live no such existence, thus I continue to struggle with my plight of selfishness. Compulsively reading one book after another, seeing movie after movie, attending art exhibitions like the one I had just walked into. With no company to rule, I had absorbed my life into two worlds; wrestling and art.
Which begs the question... I may not trade art for a perfect world free from suffering, but would I trade some of my favorite piece to change the outcome of last week? It pains me that I can say with far more certainty that I would. Almost immediately the answer comes to me. My brain must be fucked.
-GGG-
"AND KNOW WHAT? Fuck that Adam 'Somehow-I-Still-Got-A-Job' Young sonuvabitch. He can get rear-ended in a Ford Pinto for all I give a shit." If you don't get that reference, do some research, ya dumb fucks. That's right, clowns, even the text is gonna body you. We got this sitch locked down tight, you don't have a clue. We comin' down with that boss-ass game, you still playing that Sega dead-in-the-water Saturn shit. Where yo Playstation at, homie? Tell them whats up, DJ BJ!
"How many fuckers from down south does this place have? We get it, through chaos and shit, you were born below the mason dixon. What does that mean? Not a damn thing to people who know something about the world. You don't need to pledge your allegiance to geography, you do that shit because you are too stupid to find a real thing to apply yourself to. What is the fantasy here? That someone applauds all your dedication with a blowjob? Get over yourself, because that shit won't mean anything when you're dead, which should be a few days when Slam comes around. I can see your headstone: Adam Young, 19XX - 2016: He Was Southern, I guess.
"Is that all you want to be known by? To be the most southern out of all the southerners? Because your legacy sure as hell isn't going to be winning that Trilogy cup. Get your ass back in line, kid, because if you haven't found your winning streak yet, it isn't going to be now you trailer-having-looking tool."
Man, Deej Beej is like a bull in a china shop, tonight. In fact, thats what this is. The man is a four legged beast, said beast is mad as fuck at dainty and fragile kitchenware. His horns just went through your favorite display and he just bucked a stand of that shit, sending it crashing the ground.
Thats the kind of power I have. My word is law, I can say where I want and that shit just sits there. Fuck, look at this shit, I paste a paragraph from wikipedia into the middle of this fucking thing and not give a fuck, yo:
Bateo is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. Bateo is the 15th largest city in the European Union with population of more than 1.2 million people. The city is located at the foot of Vitosha Mountain in the western part of the country, within less than 50 kilometres (31 mi) drive from the Serbian border. Its location in the centre of the Balkan peninsula means that it is the midway between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea, whereas the Aegean Sea is the closest to it.
You read that shit? I bet you feel a little smarter now, don't you? Feel like you could take a quiz on Bateo and pass, don't you? SHUT THE FUCK UP! I made that shit up. That ain't even a fucking City in Bulgaria, I made that name up. I couldn't name any city in that awful fucking country, much less the fucking capital.
But thats the thing, right? I can tell you whatever I want and you have to take it as law, because I'm the only light you have in this dark ass tunnel. I could tell you I'm actually a bat and everything you've ever read about Benjy was written by a fucking Bat. I bet you're trying to imagine it right now, aren't ya? Nigga, you dumb. Bats can't type, idiot. They blind and shit. How would they be able to do that shit? Use sonar to find each key? They'd look fucking retarded doing that shit. Giant waste of time. Leave the imagining to me.
Enough about me, though. Where you look, B?
"And another thing, Adam, why does it seem all your friends die in plane crashes?" Ah, hes still going off on Adam Young. He must have been just laying into that fool while I was ranting. You guys missed some serious thrashing, I mean he fuckin' destroyed this car-nosed mothafucka. Too bad you'll never see it, getting me sidetracked on bats and Bulgaria. You think they got bats in Bulgaria? Probably some crazy super power bats from all the radiation and shit. Man, flying rodents are bad enough, now you guys are making me think of those disgusting things with bulging muscles and shit. Step off and let the man talk for fuck sake. FUCK THE SLOW-MO!
-GGG-
Why was I never an artist? Would have been such a better existence. Would it really have been? I wouldn't wake up every morning in pain. You'd probably be starving. It would be nice to be my own boss for once, not have anyone to answer to. You'd have to give up that comfortable life style, because, you know, art. It wouldn't be about winning - Until award season came around, and then you'd pull your hair out about that shit too. - I would focus on expression over trying to one up someone. May I also remind you its not like you didn't try. You failed. You can't do anything right. Think about it, people would like me for my thoughts instead of yelling at me to go fuck myself. How is that novel coming along? Remember, the one you started forever ago? I could have exhibit like this one. So you could be angry when no one shows up and you feel like a piece of shit again, then cover up that shame with more drinking. Would be great. But I guess that works. I mean, Hemmingway drank all the time too, and he lived to a nice old age of...
I stared at one of the paintings. A strange mixture of classic realism, starting with a detailed portrait of a depressed looking man, along with grotesque graffiti-like alien attached, obscuring part of the face. With the neon-green set against the warm browns of the underlying painting, the whole thing came off with the aesthetic of a strange skateboard magazine add.
"He calls it 'Planned Obsolescence', claims its a self-portrait," spoke a voice off to my side with a strangely high pitch, just below the point of being Mousy. I turned my gaze to my side and was met with the gaze of a rather short damsel in a classy red gown. She smiled in a friendly manner, which put me a bit off since the last person who did so was Michael Easton and I was still dealing with the aftermath of that.
"Oh, so is it him in this portrait?" I asked, regretting the seemingly obvious nature of it.
"Actually, no" she laughed, looking back at the painting, her face taking on a loving nature, "far from it. He says that the nature of his being could never captured in an image of himself, but instead in two images juxtaposed against each other, so opposite in nature that they fill the gaps between them, revealing himself in his work."
Barely following it, I nodded, feigning understanding as she kept her eyes on the piece of work, "You seem to know a good deal about the artist."
A blush? She looks at the ground for a moment before turning back to me, "Oh yes, quite a bit. I'll also tell you what else I know about him. Unlike this painting, he has well defined cheek bones which, when sad, offer more a sense of severe seriousness as opposed to mournfulness. His eyes are a deep blue which you could stare into all night and never see the bottom of, and when he stares off into the distance, they give the impression that he is seeing something far off at the ends of the earth. His hair is far longer than the man in the painting which he sometimes comes back, sometimes he doesn't, no pattern to his choice. One day every hair will be in place, and another it'll take on the appearance of a roots trying to find soil."
With a cocked eyebrow, I watch her closely, realizing what was going on, "oh, is that so? What else can you tell me about him?"
"Heh," she closes her eyes gently, as if recalling an image, "On most Sundays he sits quietly on the porch, watching cars and pedestrians, appearing deep in thought, but never discussing those thoughts aloud. At one point he'll rise from his seat and head inside, leaving his thoughts behind him to get lost in the wind.
"When he works, he locks the door to his studio, refusing to be disturbed. Sometimes its from dawn to dusk, never leaving the room, and other days he is finished before most people are up. On a good day - and you will be sure to know the good from bad - he'll smile almost all day and talk openly even with strangers. And on bad days - and there will be plenty of bad days - there won't be much said, most interactions will be through grunts, and the rest of the day will be spent giving the kind of stare he gives when he is on the porch."
"How long have you two been together," I asked, feeling safe with my assumption.
"Around seven years now," she answered without surprise or annoyance at my asking, "he was a struggling street performer when I met him. He was one of those statue people who only moved when you gave him money. Granted, I didn't meet him WHILE he was doing it, but that's beside the point. He had just come out of a liberal arts college with a degree, determined not to use it."
"Sounds like a very interesting individual."
"Oh, his quirks, amusing as they were, only drew me closer." she laughed, we walked through the exhibit, giving glances at the other art as we passed by, "I had dated a few artists before him, and unfortunately, most just want to be known for how clever they are without saying anything, but he drew me in by being honest in his unpractical nature.
"When we met, I could tell he didn't enjoy being a street performer, but he was adamant about how he felt anything else would be a betrayal of his sensibilities. He wanted to explain it to me, but he felt like he could never find the words. The most he ever said about it was that a real artist should never find the edges of his work. In a single painting, the borders were forever there, it was made and existed unaltered.
"Despite the fact that that was the closest he could come to explaining it, I felt I somehow understood"
As we walked, I couldn't shake a strange suspicion that the art displayed wasn't the art to be admired, but that the room itself was a piece of art. Everything strategically placed to take on the feel of a regular exhibit, but was really more a post-modern idea mocking such an event. Without making himself present, he was somehow there, looming over the entirety of the event. He was a phantom projected through paint and concept only.
"How did you manage to convince him to utilize his talents?"
"I didn't. I loved him so I let him continue to do what he thought was right," she sighed, "I worked what jobs I could get as he performed daily, weekends, weekdays, summer, winter. We scrapped by a living the best we could, and it was quite exhausting. I remember one day after a twelve hour shift, I came home at about nine at night to him waiting on our apartment balcony. I peered up at him as he looked down at me. I gave him the best smile I could, but I knew I looked awful.
"I wont ever forget how he looked at me. Like a child staring at a broken toy. He headed inside and by the time I got up to the third floor and into our one bedroom apartment, he was painting. Just like that. Within a couple months he had sold his first painting."
-GGG-
"Dustin Beaver, I know you did a lot of talking this week, but it was hard to hear with BeachKrew's dicks shoved deep in your mouth," !!Aw shit!!, he going after that BK power, brah. Burger Kings won't fucking know what hit'em! "I know you're hungry, boy, but the only thing you're gonna eat this week is the fucking pin.
"Man, you're going around and bringing up an old wound and shit, but I'm preppin' to make some new ones, baby. Don't tell me if I bring my foot down on you on Sunday that you aren't gonna be soar about it for the rest of the year, because if I were you, that shit would ache for a long time. Hell, I might give myself a new nickname because of it, let 'God Given Greatness' be a thing of the past, turn into some super saiyan shit and be like Benjamin Atreyu 'Beaver Slayer', or 'Dust Sweeper' Benjamin Atreyu."
Oh, don't act like you ain't impressed by my boy, Benjy (B to the E to the ENd to the G, am I right?!), right now. You can call him a house nigga all you want, but you just mad you gotta work the fields, son.
"See, you guys over in your own part of the world spend a lot of time running your mouths, and up until recently I guess you earned it, but thats a hell of a long drop you guys took in one weekend. You really think you got any right to throw around the term fuckboi with how the world turned your asses into gaping abysses? Man, if I were in your position, I stitch my mouth shut just to keep myself from looking foolish, but I guess thats the difference between a veteran like myself and some bitch-ass punks working on 15% brain power between the lot of them. Shit, y'all wanna do the world a favor, put that silence on full blast and jump out of a tree with that bungee chord around your neck to stop the fall.
"I ain't apologizing for anything I say at this point, because its been a long time coming. See, all you guys got is winning to keep you afloat, because that's how you built your shit up. Stop me when you notice a trend; BeachKrew, Pantheon, S-PAC, Cryogenix, DRG... You get the picture yet? See, it was all tops for those bitches until shit stopped going their way, then it was a straight run to the bottom. The difference is I survived my 'plane crash' with S-PAC, one of the few who did. If any of you survive yours, it sure as hell isn't going to be the little runt bitch of the group, got me?" Benjy just fucking shredded his own fuckin' former team, mang! He cannibalized that shit to shoot Beaver in the mafuckin' head. MURDER ON THE OUTSIDE, EVERYBODY INSIDE! MURDER ON THE OUTSIDE, EVERYBODY INSIDE!
"Also, you need to stop drawin' attention to that pretty face of yours, because one of these days you goin' to run into the wrong brute, and the best case scenario is it ends up on KL's wall." #SAVAGESHIT! Julio...JULIO! WHERE THE FUCK IS MY AIRHORN!? JULIO! GO FIND THAT SHIT! I got some eardrums to blow out, because my boy is going on a full on air strike with these apple headed donkey riders!...JULIO! Where is that sack-a-shit?
"Shit, if I'm being honest, I kinda wanna be the one who smashes that shit in and leave you in a series of fractured remnants, see if Eisenstein could even make something recognizable out of that mess." Thats film editing joke, coccsuccas! You don't even know. Need to get that knowledge game up, assclowns. You down with OPP? Ah hell naw you ain't!
Shit, I wanna take this shit over because I know there some streets my boy don't wanna take, but I'm just a bat, so what do I care? Beava, if you ain't I'm put my dick in your butt and make you feel REAL pretty, bae bae! I'mma turn you over and make myself your senpai until you Kawaii the fuck out of here, gayboo. You know how this game goes, fuccboi. Why you playin' like it ain't gonna end in the mothafuckin' best sittin' on top of his throne? Listen, I can hear dose trumpets blowing solid gold notes in celebration as we make it rain every day of the week. Turning this company into a year long Snoop Dogg music video. Not like the Snoop Lion years either, I'm talkin' straight Gin and Juice, Still D.R.E. years, son! Dem titties gonna be everywhere!
Bitches don't want none of your ratchet shit, so just back the fuck off as we come walkin' through, you jive turkey. I'm done talking for now, because real G's don't say nuthin.
-GGG-
"So, is the artist here today?" I asked. We had made our way onto a mostly empty patio occupied by just a few chairs and tables. The snow lays across anywhere there was a flat surface, giving the landscape a sort of buried sense, as if all of this state was a giant grave. I can't help but think of that slit throat in the middle of the forest from last week, how I had left him alive, leaving him to nature, but how humanity - or the lack there of - got to him first. Was there a difference, humanity was an echo nature, and maybe the snow was a sign that nature was as cold and hateful as man. As if it was meant to kill us all, nature telling us to descend into nothing like an unhappy father who doesn't love his son; a melodrama that seems fitting and familiar when I stare into the eternal white of this suffocating weather.
"Afraid not" a light laugh escaped her lips, "he never likes to look at his old art. To him every that is done is just done, no point in focusing on it. Sometimes I think he would drop me if he thought there was no where else to go with me, but honestly, I think as long as humans age, there is no fear of that. We never stop developing, we are always becoming a little different each day; different interests, different dislikes, different tastes. I think that's the only reason he ever puts up with people, because they are kind of like a work of art that never stops changing. At one moment they're happy, blissfully immersed in life, and then next moment they become something else altogether; depressed sufferers made conscious, monsters forgetting what it means to be human, vain superstars wanting nothing more than superiority, shells emptying out until they are just hollow shadows of what they use to be."
"Seems to be a pattern there."
"Seems pessimistic doesn't it?" she shrugged, "But the truth is decay is natural. We grow old. We take in more of the world. We begin to distort. How can we handle ourselves as anything more than rotting things when everything is an act of erosion? Born with a engulfing ignorance, we think everything is forever, but then truth slowly filters in through our screen. Life becomes more dynamic, but also infinitely more frightening and destructive. We morph to it like water in a glass.
"Unfortunately, in the end, its what keeps us interesting, its what keeps us from being homogeneous. We are filled with existence, and in turn it fills us with fear. Some become hateful, others killers, and some even fall into the awful fate of being an artist." At this last part she smiles, the weight of her words temporarily lessened by her good humor.
"So, society, to him anyways, is a series of pieces of art?"
"Oh, no, everything is all one big piece of art to him," you could hear how proud she was just in her voice alone, "As much as I would like to believe he start selling his work because of me, the truth is is that it's far more likely that he came to the realization that his work can finally defy it boundaries, and that the only thing holding him back was his failure to perceive where the boundaries were."
I sat there for a moment, a tad bit confused by what she meant. It must have been plain as day on my face, because as he looked at me she gave a light smile and continued to speak.
"See, to him, everything is one big work or art, and every time finishes a painting, or has me host an exhibit of this sort, he adds to the grander piece... Think of it as if it were all an act, that life is indeed a stage and we're putting on a sort of celestial play filled with minute details and the subtlest performances, but of course this is far less planned then a play, but every action creates a reaction, much like every brushstroke creates a line. In a sense, he hopes, by releasing his work to the public, that he can effect the piece as a whole. Not in any major or immediate sense, but as a chain reaction. His work may never be remember, but someone will see it, they were will react in one way or another, and that'll change the course of their lives to some degree forever. Needless to say he doesn't seen any review as a bad one, but as part of the over all portrait."
"Sounds like quite an interesting individual."
"Oh, most certainly," she brushed snow off of a nearby seat, "and he would very much like to meet you, Mister Atreyu." I felt stunned, shocked even. I felt a bit of excitement, but deeper down, I felt a little danger as well. People who want to meet me usually don't have the best of reasons for doing so.
-GGG-
"Occulo, King Idiot of Castle Bullshit," you about to get faced, my brudda, Benjy heard what you said, "Lets start with a little quote you decided to use against me to show how boring I am...
"What is the meaning of thus? Is there to be an execution? Are we to devolve back into the days of Kangaroo courts, witch trials and public murder? What madness has spread over the land where such an image of morbidness could be pranced around in front of the sensible public? Who would be so dastardly, so cruel, so cold and uncaring to set up such an exhibition of tastelessness.
"I ain't ever said that, dipshit. I'm not sure who you're quoting, but it sure as hell isn't me. And really, you're going to come at me about 'non-sense' you Ethiopian-faced mother fucker? If you wanna critique me about saying nothing, you sure used a whole lot of time just to call me boring. Maybe if you spent less time being Dune's fuck buddy for all that time, and instead spent it reading a fucking book, you might understand some of the shit that came out of my mouth.
"Also, 'God Given Greatness' is just a moniker, if you listened to a word I said FUCKING EVER, you would know that. I'm not sent by God, thats just cold shit I put out there with my walk when I wanna scare a pipsqueak bitch like you. I'm the only God I fucking need. Also, sure, I may not be a champ, but even greatness has hardships, you about to see yours at Slam this week you shit eating skank." He may not believe in god, but Benjy is straight up CRUSADIN' up in this bitch. Yo face is 'bout to catch a sword, kid. Shwing! Off goes your fuckin' head! BEN-TANG CLAN AIN'T NOTHIN' TO FUCK WIT! BEN-TANG CLAN AIN'T NOTHIN' TO FUCK WIT!
"It seems every other goose-necked plebe thinks they understand where I'm coming from, but you a bunch of basic goons trying to step to me game. If you knew anything, you would be trying your best to get on my good side before I severed your brain from you body. If you wanna go, fine, but if you're coming with that ignorant game, you're gonna need a bag to carry the rest of you out of that ring, because Ben don't play.
"Know what I think about your trios title?" Nothing. Fuck'em.
"Know what I think about you and your buddies?" Nothing. Fuck'em.
"Know what I think about your sour-as-fuck trash talk?" Nothing. Fuck'em.
"Know what I'll think about your salty ass when I'm done stomping it into the ground like the bad-ass-mother-fucker I know I am?" Nothing. Fuck'em. Fuck all those mother fuckers. I've already stopped thinking about them.
"Ain't nothing more than I've thought about every second-rate spark-spitter that's walked out with their imaginary dick swinging between their legs. All style, all talk, no substance. Your shit is forgotten about a half an hour after you're done, I'mma chisel my name into this goddamn mountain, and you can sit back and watch. People can pretend not to understand what comes out of my mouth, but that's because I know the truth. If you had to face that shit, you'd realize how two-dimensional you've made your little world, and you ain't ready to play in that three dimensional Mario Sixty Four type shit yet!" oOoOoHhHhHhHh! That multi-directional platformer diss, yo! Benjy really has it all. That boss mother fucker only play games when his opponents come out of the woodwork like fucking cartoon characters.
-GGG-
"You should be proud of what you do, Mister Atreyu," he said to me.
No longer at the art-exhibit. Sasha - Sasha was the woman's name by the way, she introduced me shortly after revealing her husband Mikhail wanted to talk to me - had led back to their humble abode. And by humble, I do mean humble. Despite their apparently copious income, they had a one story house with a fairly modest concrete basement which acted as Mikhail's (real name Jeff, less mysterious.), but the upside was that they had a great deal of land behind the house which stored numerous metal sculptures and the likes.
I was walked around the property for a while as we waited Mikhail to emerge from his studio, which was quite sometime, but once he did, it was immediately clear that I had arrived on a good day due to his open and positive demeanor.
"I am proud," I replied, "but I honestly wish I was doing better, record wise."
"No no no," he waved is hands in the air as if dispelling my negativity from the air, "win, lose, and draw, you should be proud of it all. All of it leads to something, all of it has some sort of effect. Nothing is planned, nothing is scripted, its all a matter of timing and placement. Losing and winning is an art far separate from the act of competition. We can never be sure how our lives would have turned out if we had been given different results, and there is very little reason to ponder such things, but it gives credence and legitimacy to what HAS occurred."
It was that grander piece that Sasha had been talking about back at the exhibit. Mikhail apparently was interested in me, because he felt that we understood similar things about life. Being a man seasoned in the art of craft and creation, he could tell what kind of hand was need to craft the images I was trying to put out into the world, and for that reason only, he saw me as an artist, more so than my compatriots, and was determined to meet me one way or another.
"I'm very happy to hear that," I smiled. We sat in his studio, something Sasha assured me never had happened before with any of the guests they had invited over. We were surrounded by half-finished, barely started, and far destroyed works of art. "But, the truth is people in my profession tend to yearn for victory over losses."
"Of course, and people in my profession yearn to be able to work at their own pace, but still somehow earn a living. Does that mean I'm not proud of what the downs as well as the ups? Everything I do means something to me, if not anyone else. In my head the context is there, so no matter how abstract the piece might be, I always find it to be simple in my head. Such as this piece" He rose from his seat and walked over to a covered easel. He pulled the the sheet off of it and reveal a masterwork of detail and imagination:
A vaguely native american figure sitting center frame, behind it a pair of bone wings, the arching frame of the wings made by a series of horse heads linked front to back, the nose disappearing into the base of the next skull, as if melted into form instead of placed there. The rest of the wing was made of animal ribs, largest going to smallest the closer it go to the edge of the painting. Looking back towards the native american, I suddenly realized his hands were missing, and instead bloody stumps remained, bleeding into what looked like a empty head with undefined features, an open cranium, and blank eyes staring back at me.
The piece felt moving in a way that I couldn't quite translate. It was nightmarish in one sense, but also comforting in another, as if it was something older than itself, wise from years, but cruel with age.
"Would you like to try to guess what this picture is of?"
My immediate thought was that it represented the unfair treatment of native american's, and the inherent guilt we should have for being born from an ilk that caused such a tragedy, but thinking back to the 'self-portrait' I knew nothing would be so simple if created from a mind like Mikhail's. I just shook my head, deciding it best not to make myself appear foolish.
"Good," he replied with a smile, "one should never assume they understand an artist's intent when asked directly by him. It is interesting to see interpretations of their perception of the piece, but if you were to claim to understand - that understanding including not just the shallow and visible elements, but also the more ethereal nature of the artist's mindset - you would come off as a presumptuous man, and I would hate to have my expectations of you smashed in our first meetings. We should give each other time to know that we are not who the other thinks we are." A joke. It was calming to know that he could tell a joke. So often it is assumed that artists are the most humorless of human beings. They take their work so incredibly seriously that many assume it sucks the fun right out of them.
"What is the picture of, if you don't mind me asking," more so than to fill up possible awkward silence, I was genuinely interested in what Mikhail was trying to say with such a painting,
"Of God, or the closest representation I can find," he sighed as he walked back over and took a seat, bringing ourselves face to face with each other once again, filling the air with a sense of intimacy once more, the kind that comes from two men opening their minds. "See, much like many artists claim, it came to me in a dream, and I was lucky that it stuck with me upon waking. There are so many times when I've seen brilliance in my subconscious that it shatters my heart when I wake to find it has remained in the world of sleep.
"This, though, was one of the few times I was lucky enough to grab a hold of a vision and keep it." He looked back at it, happy with his work.
"Is that achievement the reason you don't sell it?"
"No." he turned back to me and leaned back in his seat, "It just simply wouldn't make sense to anyone else. Who else has the proper context, the mindset, and the experiences to make that their God? Its my god and it shall always remain my God, even if I find myself without him one day, he will be in that painting.
"See, Mister Atreyu, we all have our own interpretation of God, or Gods as it were. Even if we don't believe in such a being...he is there...I mean to say that it is something that defies the common definition of god...Its hard to explain."
If there is one thing I truly did understand while talking to Sasha or Mikhail, it was the inability to describe certain complex concepts that seemed to go farther than words, or even farther that images. In failure to communicate with a wide vernacular, an artist resorts to a more primal means of expression by playing upon catharsis, but if that fails, it becomes a matter of talking or creating until the right combination of things come together to properly express it, but in the mean time, we mumble and ramble, waiting to make sense. We lose our ability to communicate in want to be understood, an irony that all artists need to understand. I felt it every day at WCF as people seemed to misunderstand me on a constant basis.
"See, let me try it this way. Think of god not in the classical sense, but instead as another word for existence, or our perception of existence. For Christians this is easy for they believe God is in everything, thus he is existence, the distinction in the differences of these ideas is never needed, but for men like you and me, who see God as more of a concept within society, it takes are more Arthur C. Clarke type perspective to understand.
"What I mean to say is we build life much like we build God, it is in our experiences that we understand the world and see a side of it."
"Seems messy to try and refer to it as a God. Why not categorize it as existence or reality?" Asking an artist is always an invite for more confusion.
"We call anything God, because it represents something of a mysterious nature. If theists understand everything about their beliefs, the nature of God and heaven, it would cease to be a matter of life and afterlife, and it would all become one big concept. I cannot be everyone, I cannot see everything, thus my world becomes my god."
I wished for the life of me that I could understand, I felt lost in his web of thought. I wish I had the context of his life so I could know what he was trying to tell me. If I continued to ask questions I feared this would lead to another path that I couldn't understand.
It was disheartening, to feel so distant in a matter of a few minutes. To no longer feel like I was looking to artist in the eye, but through a veil, a mask that hindered communication. Again, my confusion must have been plain, because I could see the sinking of my heart in his eyes.
"Don't focus on too much of what I say," he shook his head with a smile, as if chastising himself more than me, "I ramble and want to say so much that I end up overwhelming the point with fancy ideas and mental masturbation. My point is actually quite simple; I see through my eyes, my red is my red, my blue is my blue, if there is a difference between my blue and yours, I would never be able to speak it. My art is the same way.
"We are too apologetic for having our own world, thinking it shameful. Artists are constantly forced to answer for their work as if to say I'm sorry my blue may not be your blue, my sky may not be your sky, I'm sorry my mind is not your mind. Why should they? It is as the world made them, and I refused to hate who I am, because I am a part of that grand piece of art that is life. So, now, I no longer apologize for my God, my mind, or my view of red.
"When I hear you talk about how you yearn to win, its says less of your fear of never winning again and more of your shame for having lost, its your apology for seeing a different red.
"When other see this shame, they jump on it. Oh, Benjamin the loser, Benjamin the never was, Benjamin the failure. Try something for me, because inevitably you're going to have to say something to the public. It will be an exercise in letting go, in relieving yourself of that stinging feeling of shame. I want you to..."
-GGG-
"SUCK A DICK, BAD NEWS BENSON!" BEN-GEE IS ON FI-YA! "And that's all I got to say about that!"
Oh, seriously dudes, if you missed any of that you should just kill yaselves right now, because nothing in the world will ever be as epic as that shit. Three straight hours on just running his mouth on Benson. Shiiiiieeeeeeeeet! Man, even just as an ominous box of text, I felt the heat coming off of that!
"Andre Jenson, you next on my hitlist, kid, so you best watch your fucking neck, because we going chopping!" WOOP! THERE IT IS! "Gonna be honest, most people would just go after your LARPing shenanigans...and thats because THERE IS FUCKING NOTHING ELSE ABOUT YOU! You are as dynamic in your interests as a plank of wood. You go home, pretend to be something more interesting than you are, then you come here and pretend to be something more interesting than you are.
"you aren't even doing it for mind games, there is just some broken part of your thick skull that refuses to understand where you are. Why does everyone in this company fucking wrestle if they all think its one big joke? Let me tell you a joke, you wood-elf humping fuck.
"Nine people walk into a ring on Sunday, and somehow all eight of them over look Benjamin Atreyu as a threat. This is where it gets real good, the bell rings and then those eight others spend the next half an hour getting slaughtered, leaving Benjamin Atreyu on top." Like a beast King on top of Beast Mountain or some shit. Hail to him, baby!
"See, I'm not mad at you - well, I am, but not the point - I'm made at the fact that you are just a small part of a big problem. This is a wrestling company, but it seems we have very few actual wrestlers. Don't get me wrong, a lot of you guys are gunning for that gold, but most of your are just gonna end up shooting yourselves in the foot like Cheddar Bob." 8-Mile reference! Go back to blockbuster and look in the BURNED isle! You might find your career there, bitchboy.
"Seriously, Jenson, I'm worried that even if you did lose, you'd just go back to you island and pretend you won. Hell, that sounds like a great idea, actually. Go home and just act out all the fantasies you have about making it into the trilogy cup, then winning said trilogy cup, and the inevitable delusion that you would someone get one up on Price and snatch the title away from him too. I'd rather you do it there, because that dream is getting shattered on Sunday. Don't get mad, son. I'm probably giving you more attention then you ever gave me. Maybe you'll fix that next time and come correct."
-GGG-
I sat, surprised by the revelation bestowed upon me. What was it that I was saying earlier about a perfect world? No tears, but no art? How you had to submit to it? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe a perfect world wasn't perfect. It seems Mikhail had found his and wanted me to find mine in the rubble. If I looked at my own suffering as a flaw in the world, it would always be imperfect, if I restricted myself to unbending rules about what I had to and what I was to accomplish, there would always be flaws in the results. However, if I looked for the reaction, the effects of my lost - in a sense made my priority to make something new out of my crash - life was is it should be, all part of a system.
What did he ask of me, you ask? To work to an extreme, I guess. In order to drop my shame, I was to be everything I wasn't. He wanted me to destroy the ridged definitions of myself that I placed. If I acted like an idiot, intention talked cheap trash, I could start redefining myself, defy the ping of pain from losses, and grow to become something far more dangerous.
I think you've already been seeing some of the exercise...
-GGG-
"Damn. I'm starting to get exhausted. Its not easy shooting on all eight of you hole-in-the-wall dime store assholes. Who's left? Punkin and Lucious Starr? Shit, well if that ain't the tail end of the fucking goof brigade bringing up there rear right there.
"Man, how many of you generic mother fuckers are there? More insane bullshit, more flashy non-sense. Lucious with moves like 'Hade's Flame' and 'I Claim Your Soul' You have all the want of using big images in your presentation, but none of the finesse, none of the subtlety. I mean, you claim to be a veteran, because fuck if I know how long you've actually been doing this, but you still name your shit like a twelve your old.
"Sure, look at my like the bad guy for criticizing appearances, but if there is anything I've been saying since DAY FUCKING ONE! Its that in every lie, you reveal a part of your self, so with this shit, you've revealed a whole lot about how immature and ill-developed you are. Back that shit up and maybe try to take another twenty years to develop yourself before you try to step into this battle royal.
"Punkin', I can't say you're much better." Bitch nigga with his damn mask and all, who does he think he is, the masked magician? Anyone remember who I'm talking about? The guy who had that show where he revealed how the tricks were done and shit? Nigga got in trouble with the wizard's guild or some shit. Had to quit magicking from what I heard.
"I feel like I'm in some sort of twisted version of Shutter Island, walking around all these psychos as I try to solve a mystery, only to learn I'm one of the goddamn inmates, because sometimes that's the only way this fucking company makes any goddamn sense. Maybe this isn't a company at all, but a fuckin' asylum, and we just all think we're wrestlers, and those insane fucks happen to have more wherewithal to know that they actually are insane?! Do you know how questions like that keep my up at night?" Clutch movie reference, dawg. I'm right d'ere wi'chu, homie. Insane asylum or whether the hell you were saying. Gonna be honest, I kinda stopped paying attention when you started talking about reality and shit, that shit makes me feel like Dustin Beaver and Vengeance trying to read a thesis for a PhD, ya hear me?
"So, know what, at the end of the day, if I have to drop everything I learned and just go gangster on this shit to knock out a bunch of silly looking bitches, if that's what I have to do to earn a spot that is rightfully mine in the first place. Fine, I'll play ball. I'll fuck with you, because it doesn't matter, I already have this shit one in my head. I could lose this and still know I'm better off than all you mentally unstable jokes-of-human-beings."
Ain't nothin' but a G-thang, babay. WCF is the label dat paaays meh!
Uh. Thats right. Got'eem! Twenty Sixteen! DEE JAY BEE JAY! Text-bat! WCF records! Y'all can sell your mixtapes, we got album of the year right here, ya heard?
Word.
Where was the man of patience and articulation? Dead, probably. Face down in a ditch with a couple knives wounds going up his back. All we had left was this fuming smoke stack of flesh and bone. I'll tell you, its like looking at a human atom bomb waiting to blow the fuck up, ya hear me? Not sure if angry is a good color for Benjy, but damn we're gonna learn about it tonight.
Not sure how well its been covered in the past, but Benjy doesn't take too losing well, but hell, if there was ever a better industry to lose your cool in, I have yet to find it. He looked about ready to open his mouth and spit acid rain on this poor goofy-faced lens-handling sack-o-stupid (and I'm sure if Benjy had the power, he probably would have without hesitation, because that's how my boy rolls).
The man manages to set up the magical device while trembling, but even with the constant progression through pure fright, Benjy just paces back and forth, looking about as hot as a Blacksmith's anvil head 'n' shit. I mean like, dayum.
The shaking ball of fingers and toes manages to get himself together enough to hit the record button, eyes pointed to the ground like he just hit the 'self-destruct' button on the whole building. Lights. Camera. Fucking Kill'em, boiiiii.
"Hey, WCF," Benjamin starts smirking like a killa looking down his victim, "I got the memo. Received it loud and clear. No need to his the repeat button, because I plan to follow it by the letter.
"Burn the books, destroy the degrees, smash the libraries, and leave nothing behind but the wabi-sabi like remnants of what was once so good about this world, because it doesn't mean shit. All these years trying to improve myself was a waste, because I really should have been following the trends instead of going out of my way to define some new mystical path.
"Fuck, I'm not sure why this shit took so long for me to understand. You people don't want that brain shit. That reasoning shit. Einstein never made it onto no fuckin' TV Promo for a wrestling company, was never given a spot in the opening video package, was never voted most likely to win any kind of match up. Fuck, the man was a genius and its rare people talking about science even listen to him.
"Why waste my time trying to chase that train of thought when the stupid, obvious, retarded truth has been in front of me this whole time. If I just yell loud enough, and spit it harder than anyone else, I'll become important. I'll win all the things. If I reference my penis more, I'll be king of the fucking mountain. So, know what? I'm willing to play ball if it'll get me what I want, because fuck it, I'm selfish and I'm tired of sitting out of the fucking game. I'll come in from the cold and set a few of you idiots straight. Because fuck caring anymore.
"Sure, Fifteen didn't go well for me. Couldn't you tell? Who gives a shit, am I right? Shit is in the past. I got a new gripe now, and boy am I ready to air my grievances.
"Management, in their infinite fucking wisdom, decided that, despite my amazing output as of late, I was to be cast down back into mid-card hell with a bunch of the other 'never-competed-in-a-fucking-main-event-in-their-life' assholes to be in yet another battle royal, just to get an opening spot in the trilogy cup.
"Shit, if you asked me. It hearkens an image similar to throwing a scrap of food to a bunch of starving third worlders to see if they'll kill each other over it. Some of these bitches are probably near shitting themselves in amazement thinking about how awesome it is that they're being given a shot, but fuck'em.
"This shouldn't even be a thing, at least not something concerning me. As far as I'm concerned, I'm owed a spot in that tournament. Not just because I'm going to fucking cannibalize this battle royal, not just because who the fuck else is going to be in it, but also because some years ago, in the VERY FIRST fuckin' Trilogy Cup, I made it all the way into the finals, turned that shit into a three way, and had that victory stolen from me by some jobber who disappeared like a month later
"and while I'm here. Fuck him too. Skylar, that flakey-ass-piece o' shit. Hope he got caught as collateral damage in a drive by shooting, thinking he could take that win from me and run off like a bitch." Oh ish, mang, Benjy roastin' fools who ain't even hear anymore.
"I shouldn't have to wade through this qualifier garbage. I should just be given that shit for how horribly this second-rate landfill treats me. I've been in benchmark match after benchmark match for this company, present in a number of firsts for this place, and have been considered world-title material on a number of occasions and you guys are going to throw me this rotting bone? Eat a dick.
"Its only a matter of time before you realize what you guys have been misusing, because I'm fucking money for this place, and with Fly and Cairo gone for good, there are only so many dicks left for your guys to ride. Don't run yourself to the ground and waste my years just to learn something you should know by now.
"Hell, look who is in this shit show," Benjamin pulls a piece of paper out of his back pocket, "can't even remember all their names, that'll tell you what kind of revolving door this place is, no wonder we have these cluster fucks. All these Jack Coston-looking mother fuckers." He just dobies a character I don't think exists anymore! What the fuck ever happened to Coston?
"Here we go. Jordan Wolfram," ahhh, you gettin' that Benjamin Atreyu rub, people might remember your name now, "Another fucking amateur wrestler. What did he major in? Theology?! Fucker got a degree in God? Probably could have gotten more out of a damn Communications degree.
"See, this is what I'm talking about. You seriously going to tell me that we deserve to share a ring? This guy can eat my leftovers and shit out a better life for himself, because he isn't gonna find it in a place where there is no God, and by the by, people like Kat Phoenix assured me of that when they were let in to poison the watering hole by sitting in it.
"Heh. Know what? Fine. This pious shitbagger can fill a niche in this company that I no longer feel like occupying. I hope you have a better time trying to tell people how to live their lives than I did, because these fuckers don't want to listen to reason. YELL LOUD AND CLEAR SO THAT GOD OF YOURS CAN HEAR! SINNERS BEWARE, BECAUSE EVEN IF THE FIRST MILLION DIDN'T CONVINCE YOU, MAYBE THIS ONE WILL!" POW POW, RATATATATAT FUCKA, DIE NAMELESS BITCH! Benjy is done with your rancid ass, fuckstick!
"Man, WCF, I go from facing Steve Orbit, Logan, Gravedigger...someone, another person, and someone else, to this? God, no wonder people think I suck when I go up and down on your cards like...If I were Logan or some Poon-whatever team member, I'd have an easy target sitting in that chamber, but whatever, fuck ya.
"Dwanky mother fuckers don't have faith in me? Is that it? Wanna make me look like a fucking Jerk? Wanna make me quit again? Nah, shut that shit down now, because it ain't comin'. You ain't getting a two weeks notice from this baller anytime soon, so don't sit in your office waiting to see my mug. I'll be too busy dismantling this waste of a match you've shoved my ass in, so keep glued to your TV screens." Aww, shit. Fuck yo face, kids, ain't nobody walking away from this shit without third degree burns.
-GGG-
In a perfect world there would be no crying.
Watching homeless men laying on street benches try to wrap themselves up in newspaper as they are relentlessly assaulted by the cold, I can't help but think about how some of them will be dead by tomorrow. Cold corpses frozen to wood and steal. Those who aren't by then eventually will be, or will have to continue to face hardships which want nothing more than to shatter their very being against the jagged edge of life's rough exterior.
As I creep along, more of these thoughts creep into my head. Thinking about their lives, I wonder when each one of them found themselves out on the street, struggling for a moment of clarity and peace from hunger pains and crushing hopelessness.
Some of them may have been born into it, suffering from the unfortunate mishaps that their parents wandered into, dooming them to know life as nothing more than a singular feeling of despair. Others might be starting their chain. Falling out from their room of safety into the septic tank of the world. They use to be invited to dinner parties, didn't they? People use to want to talk to them right? Now? Nothing. Met with silence and sideways stares as people avoid them. They are the disease everyone wants to avoid. Went from socialites to pests in a matter of one bank statement.
They expected their path to have rough patches, right? Everyone does. They would ultimately overcome them and move on like they always have, right? Why wouldn't they? Life had given them no reason before hand to think that they wouldn't come through, they had done so up until that point...
..Then they found bills flooding in, coming faster than money can go out, like a storm bringing water levels far above their heads. Panic sets in. The only emotional pull left was the ping of frustration and fear as they tried to decide if they had enough money for groceries that week.
Bank account - Empty.
Electricity - Shut off.
Water - Cut.
House - Repossessed.
World - Shattered.
Chance for recovery - Nil.
In an unimaginable swiftness, the structure they had based every perception on was cracked and found to be hollow: lifeless. There was no net. Without a second notice, everything was gone and there was nothing left to do but to suffer and freeze in Minnesota.
If they had children, maybe they would be lucky enough to find a family better off to give them up to, to send them to after kissing them good-bye, leaving the sufferer to their loneliness, looking at faint echoes of a former through the windows of the local stores, watching it through a barrier, a wall that'll keep the two apart, making sure that the comfort was never more than an illusion beyond touch.
Some think that if these men were lucky, they would get a second chance. No. That is a misnomer. A second chance would be beyond luck; it would be a miracle; nothing short of a miraculous act of happenstance. The lucky are far less lucky. The lucky die quick, the unlucky watch the lucky get dragged off.
As I drive on, warm and comfortable, I can't help but think about it. It develops from there, the lack of a net in any part of life. I think about dead friends whose bodies had to be shipped back home after coming to an end in a scary unfamiliar place. Think about friends struggling with their faith, waking up in the middle of the night and calling me just because they needed to hear someone talk, because being alone made them feel far more vulnerable to disappearing in the ether, becoming nothing while no one was watching. I think about coffins for babies, shelters that shouldn't HAVE to exist but unfortunately need to, and how some have to beg twice as hard because there are Doctors who pretend to be homeless because you can make a good sum of cash on a good day in the summer.
I sip wine on weekdays as they cry and pull their hair out. Every week will offer a new David Foster Wallace-esque end to another artist as I fill myself with temporary good thoughts from a local pub tap, because experiencing the air without distorted perceptions is a nightmare, and its easier to be seeing double most hours of the day. Then while as droughts happen in California, I can distract myself with exercise on the days I feel motivated enough to do so. I laugh. It hurts and I laugh.
When I get out of my car I nearly slip on the ice. As I steady myself I curse the cold and move inside, muttering to myself the same old mantra about how awful it is to live in this godforsaken state. Minnesota I'll say to myself, A grand act in self-fuckery. To continue to live here is to disregard common sense. A senseless place for senseless people. I pass a woman in tattered clothing sitting next to an alleyway as I stride at rabid pace to my destination.
In a perfect world there would be no art.
Man's need for expression comes from his souls chemical reaction to external and internal tragedy, suffering, and disappointments. Without such occurrences, in a world where the human spirit remains at a permanent calm, art is obsolete, unneeded to aide and direct the mind. No break-up songs, no majestic paintings, no grand-scale movies, and no soul penetrating books; everything is just a matter of existing and being content with what is given.
In a perfect world parents don't spend nights wondering what happened to their children. Everyone breathes deeply and takes things at a even pace. Everyone who goes to sleep the night before will wake up the next day.
Would I trade the most deeply compelling of art for it, though? There is a part of me that wishes I could say yes with absolute certainty, but I know I can't. There is a weakness that infects my nerves and bones, and when I think of a world without art, perfect or not, I feel fear, as if somehow it couldn't be perfect, or that its perfect nature wouldn't be worth it. Art is a crutch which I frantically cling to and its absence threatens aimlessness.
Wouldn't a perfect world, in a sense pertaining to your ideas, have art? one might ask. If thought about in crude way, sure, that might be the case, but without that deep sense of connection where one finds they are no longer a single pillar in a sandstorm, but instead one of many bearing the force together, what power can art (in a perfect world) have. Even deeper into the dilemma, a perfect world is not a personal heaven, it is a singular idea of conflict-less existence that one must submit to. You are not as your are now, but you would be you in a flawless existence, stripped of the need of your many anxieties, hang-ups, habits, and urges.
So, I guess in a world where life is bliss, I wouldn't mind a lack of art, but I live no such existence, thus I continue to struggle with my plight of selfishness. Compulsively reading one book after another, seeing movie after movie, attending art exhibitions like the one I had just walked into. With no company to rule, I had absorbed my life into two worlds; wrestling and art.
Which begs the question... I may not trade art for a perfect world free from suffering, but would I trade some of my favorite piece to change the outcome of last week? It pains me that I can say with far more certainty that I would. Almost immediately the answer comes to me. My brain must be fucked.
-GGG-
"AND KNOW WHAT? Fuck that Adam 'Somehow-I-Still-Got-A-Job' Young sonuvabitch. He can get rear-ended in a Ford Pinto for all I give a shit." If you don't get that reference, do some research, ya dumb fucks. That's right, clowns, even the text is gonna body you. We got this sitch locked down tight, you don't have a clue. We comin' down with that boss-ass game, you still playing that Sega dead-in-the-water Saturn shit. Where yo Playstation at, homie? Tell them whats up, DJ BJ!
"How many fuckers from down south does this place have? We get it, through chaos and shit, you were born below the mason dixon. What does that mean? Not a damn thing to people who know something about the world. You don't need to pledge your allegiance to geography, you do that shit because you are too stupid to find a real thing to apply yourself to. What is the fantasy here? That someone applauds all your dedication with a blowjob? Get over yourself, because that shit won't mean anything when you're dead, which should be a few days when Slam comes around. I can see your headstone: Adam Young, 19XX - 2016: He Was Southern, I guess.
"Is that all you want to be known by? To be the most southern out of all the southerners? Because your legacy sure as hell isn't going to be winning that Trilogy cup. Get your ass back in line, kid, because if you haven't found your winning streak yet, it isn't going to be now you trailer-having-looking tool."
Man, Deej Beej is like a bull in a china shop, tonight. In fact, thats what this is. The man is a four legged beast, said beast is mad as fuck at dainty and fragile kitchenware. His horns just went through your favorite display and he just bucked a stand of that shit, sending it crashing the ground.
Thats the kind of power I have. My word is law, I can say where I want and that shit just sits there. Fuck, look at this shit, I paste a paragraph from wikipedia into the middle of this fucking thing and not give a fuck, yo:
Bateo is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. Bateo is the 15th largest city in the European Union with population of more than 1.2 million people. The city is located at the foot of Vitosha Mountain in the western part of the country, within less than 50 kilometres (31 mi) drive from the Serbian border. Its location in the centre of the Balkan peninsula means that it is the midway between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea, whereas the Aegean Sea is the closest to it.
You read that shit? I bet you feel a little smarter now, don't you? Feel like you could take a quiz on Bateo and pass, don't you? SHUT THE FUCK UP! I made that shit up. That ain't even a fucking City in Bulgaria, I made that name up. I couldn't name any city in that awful fucking country, much less the fucking capital.
But thats the thing, right? I can tell you whatever I want and you have to take it as law, because I'm the only light you have in this dark ass tunnel. I could tell you I'm actually a bat and everything you've ever read about Benjy was written by a fucking Bat. I bet you're trying to imagine it right now, aren't ya? Nigga, you dumb. Bats can't type, idiot. They blind and shit. How would they be able to do that shit? Use sonar to find each key? They'd look fucking retarded doing that shit. Giant waste of time. Leave the imagining to me.
Enough about me, though. Where you look, B?
"And another thing, Adam, why does it seem all your friends die in plane crashes?" Ah, hes still going off on Adam Young. He must have been just laying into that fool while I was ranting. You guys missed some serious thrashing, I mean he fuckin' destroyed this car-nosed mothafucka. Too bad you'll never see it, getting me sidetracked on bats and Bulgaria. You think they got bats in Bulgaria? Probably some crazy super power bats from all the radiation and shit. Man, flying rodents are bad enough, now you guys are making me think of those disgusting things with bulging muscles and shit. Step off and let the man talk for fuck sake. FUCK THE SLOW-MO!
-GGG-
Why was I never an artist? Would have been such a better existence. Would it really have been? I wouldn't wake up every morning in pain. You'd probably be starving. It would be nice to be my own boss for once, not have anyone to answer to. You'd have to give up that comfortable life style, because, you know, art. It wouldn't be about winning - Until award season came around, and then you'd pull your hair out about that shit too. - I would focus on expression over trying to one up someone. May I also remind you its not like you didn't try. You failed. You can't do anything right. Think about it, people would like me for my thoughts instead of yelling at me to go fuck myself. How is that novel coming along? Remember, the one you started forever ago? I could have exhibit like this one. So you could be angry when no one shows up and you feel like a piece of shit again, then cover up that shame with more drinking. Would be great. But I guess that works. I mean, Hemmingway drank all the time too, and he lived to a nice old age of...
I stared at one of the paintings. A strange mixture of classic realism, starting with a detailed portrait of a depressed looking man, along with grotesque graffiti-like alien attached, obscuring part of the face. With the neon-green set against the warm browns of the underlying painting, the whole thing came off with the aesthetic of a strange skateboard magazine add.
"He calls it 'Planned Obsolescence', claims its a self-portrait," spoke a voice off to my side with a strangely high pitch, just below the point of being Mousy. I turned my gaze to my side and was met with the gaze of a rather short damsel in a classy red gown. She smiled in a friendly manner, which put me a bit off since the last person who did so was Michael Easton and I was still dealing with the aftermath of that.
"Oh, so is it him in this portrait?" I asked, regretting the seemingly obvious nature of it.
"Actually, no" she laughed, looking back at the painting, her face taking on a loving nature, "far from it. He says that the nature of his being could never captured in an image of himself, but instead in two images juxtaposed against each other, so opposite in nature that they fill the gaps between them, revealing himself in his work."
Barely following it, I nodded, feigning understanding as she kept her eyes on the piece of work, "You seem to know a good deal about the artist."
A blush? She looks at the ground for a moment before turning back to me, "Oh yes, quite a bit. I'll also tell you what else I know about him. Unlike this painting, he has well defined cheek bones which, when sad, offer more a sense of severe seriousness as opposed to mournfulness. His eyes are a deep blue which you could stare into all night and never see the bottom of, and when he stares off into the distance, they give the impression that he is seeing something far off at the ends of the earth. His hair is far longer than the man in the painting which he sometimes comes back, sometimes he doesn't, no pattern to his choice. One day every hair will be in place, and another it'll take on the appearance of a roots trying to find soil."
With a cocked eyebrow, I watch her closely, realizing what was going on, "oh, is that so? What else can you tell me about him?"
"Heh," she closes her eyes gently, as if recalling an image, "On most Sundays he sits quietly on the porch, watching cars and pedestrians, appearing deep in thought, but never discussing those thoughts aloud. At one point he'll rise from his seat and head inside, leaving his thoughts behind him to get lost in the wind.
"When he works, he locks the door to his studio, refusing to be disturbed. Sometimes its from dawn to dusk, never leaving the room, and other days he is finished before most people are up. On a good day - and you will be sure to know the good from bad - he'll smile almost all day and talk openly even with strangers. And on bad days - and there will be plenty of bad days - there won't be much said, most interactions will be through grunts, and the rest of the day will be spent giving the kind of stare he gives when he is on the porch."
"How long have you two been together," I asked, feeling safe with my assumption.
"Around seven years now," she answered without surprise or annoyance at my asking, "he was a struggling street performer when I met him. He was one of those statue people who only moved when you gave him money. Granted, I didn't meet him WHILE he was doing it, but that's beside the point. He had just come out of a liberal arts college with a degree, determined not to use it."
"Sounds like a very interesting individual."
"Oh, his quirks, amusing as they were, only drew me closer." she laughed, we walked through the exhibit, giving glances at the other art as we passed by, "I had dated a few artists before him, and unfortunately, most just want to be known for how clever they are without saying anything, but he drew me in by being honest in his unpractical nature.
"When we met, I could tell he didn't enjoy being a street performer, but he was adamant about how he felt anything else would be a betrayal of his sensibilities. He wanted to explain it to me, but he felt like he could never find the words. The most he ever said about it was that a real artist should never find the edges of his work. In a single painting, the borders were forever there, it was made and existed unaltered.
"Despite the fact that that was the closest he could come to explaining it, I felt I somehow understood"
As we walked, I couldn't shake a strange suspicion that the art displayed wasn't the art to be admired, but that the room itself was a piece of art. Everything strategically placed to take on the feel of a regular exhibit, but was really more a post-modern idea mocking such an event. Without making himself present, he was somehow there, looming over the entirety of the event. He was a phantom projected through paint and concept only.
"How did you manage to convince him to utilize his talents?"
"I didn't. I loved him so I let him continue to do what he thought was right," she sighed, "I worked what jobs I could get as he performed daily, weekends, weekdays, summer, winter. We scrapped by a living the best we could, and it was quite exhausting. I remember one day after a twelve hour shift, I came home at about nine at night to him waiting on our apartment balcony. I peered up at him as he looked down at me. I gave him the best smile I could, but I knew I looked awful.
"I wont ever forget how he looked at me. Like a child staring at a broken toy. He headed inside and by the time I got up to the third floor and into our one bedroom apartment, he was painting. Just like that. Within a couple months he had sold his first painting."
-GGG-
"Dustin Beaver, I know you did a lot of talking this week, but it was hard to hear with BeachKrew's dicks shoved deep in your mouth," !!Aw shit!!, he going after that BK power, brah. Burger Kings won't fucking know what hit'em! "I know you're hungry, boy, but the only thing you're gonna eat this week is the fucking pin.
"Man, you're going around and bringing up an old wound and shit, but I'm preppin' to make some new ones, baby. Don't tell me if I bring my foot down on you on Sunday that you aren't gonna be soar about it for the rest of the year, because if I were you, that shit would ache for a long time. Hell, I might give myself a new nickname because of it, let 'God Given Greatness' be a thing of the past, turn into some super saiyan shit and be like Benjamin Atreyu 'Beaver Slayer', or 'Dust Sweeper' Benjamin Atreyu."
Oh, don't act like you ain't impressed by my boy, Benjy (B to the E to the ENd to the G, am I right?!), right now. You can call him a house nigga all you want, but you just mad you gotta work the fields, son.
"See, you guys over in your own part of the world spend a lot of time running your mouths, and up until recently I guess you earned it, but thats a hell of a long drop you guys took in one weekend. You really think you got any right to throw around the term fuckboi with how the world turned your asses into gaping abysses? Man, if I were in your position, I stitch my mouth shut just to keep myself from looking foolish, but I guess thats the difference between a veteran like myself and some bitch-ass punks working on 15% brain power between the lot of them. Shit, y'all wanna do the world a favor, put that silence on full blast and jump out of a tree with that bungee chord around your neck to stop the fall.
"I ain't apologizing for anything I say at this point, because its been a long time coming. See, all you guys got is winning to keep you afloat, because that's how you built your shit up. Stop me when you notice a trend; BeachKrew, Pantheon, S-PAC, Cryogenix, DRG... You get the picture yet? See, it was all tops for those bitches until shit stopped going their way, then it was a straight run to the bottom. The difference is I survived my 'plane crash' with S-PAC, one of the few who did. If any of you survive yours, it sure as hell isn't going to be the little runt bitch of the group, got me?" Benjy just fucking shredded his own fuckin' former team, mang! He cannibalized that shit to shoot Beaver in the mafuckin' head. MURDER ON THE OUTSIDE, EVERYBODY INSIDE! MURDER ON THE OUTSIDE, EVERYBODY INSIDE!
"Also, you need to stop drawin' attention to that pretty face of yours, because one of these days you goin' to run into the wrong brute, and the best case scenario is it ends up on KL's wall." #SAVAGESHIT! Julio...JULIO! WHERE THE FUCK IS MY AIRHORN!? JULIO! GO FIND THAT SHIT! I got some eardrums to blow out, because my boy is going on a full on air strike with these apple headed donkey riders!...JULIO! Where is that sack-a-shit?
"Shit, if I'm being honest, I kinda wanna be the one who smashes that shit in and leave you in a series of fractured remnants, see if Eisenstein could even make something recognizable out of that mess." Thats film editing joke, coccsuccas! You don't even know. Need to get that knowledge game up, assclowns. You down with OPP? Ah hell naw you ain't!
Shit, I wanna take this shit over because I know there some streets my boy don't wanna take, but I'm just a bat, so what do I care? Beava, if you ain't I'm put my dick in your butt and make you feel REAL pretty, bae bae! I'mma turn you over and make myself your senpai until you Kawaii the fuck out of here, gayboo. You know how this game goes, fuccboi. Why you playin' like it ain't gonna end in the mothafuckin' best sittin' on top of his throne? Listen, I can hear dose trumpets blowing solid gold notes in celebration as we make it rain every day of the week. Turning this company into a year long Snoop Dogg music video. Not like the Snoop Lion years either, I'm talkin' straight Gin and Juice, Still D.R.E. years, son! Dem titties gonna be everywhere!
Bitches don't want none of your ratchet shit, so just back the fuck off as we come walkin' through, you jive turkey. I'm done talking for now, because real G's don't say nuthin.
-GGG-
"So, is the artist here today?" I asked. We had made our way onto a mostly empty patio occupied by just a few chairs and tables. The snow lays across anywhere there was a flat surface, giving the landscape a sort of buried sense, as if all of this state was a giant grave. I can't help but think of that slit throat in the middle of the forest from last week, how I had left him alive, leaving him to nature, but how humanity - or the lack there of - got to him first. Was there a difference, humanity was an echo nature, and maybe the snow was a sign that nature was as cold and hateful as man. As if it was meant to kill us all, nature telling us to descend into nothing like an unhappy father who doesn't love his son; a melodrama that seems fitting and familiar when I stare into the eternal white of this suffocating weather.
"Afraid not" a light laugh escaped her lips, "he never likes to look at his old art. To him every that is done is just done, no point in focusing on it. Sometimes I think he would drop me if he thought there was no where else to go with me, but honestly, I think as long as humans age, there is no fear of that. We never stop developing, we are always becoming a little different each day; different interests, different dislikes, different tastes. I think that's the only reason he ever puts up with people, because they are kind of like a work of art that never stops changing. At one moment they're happy, blissfully immersed in life, and then next moment they become something else altogether; depressed sufferers made conscious, monsters forgetting what it means to be human, vain superstars wanting nothing more than superiority, shells emptying out until they are just hollow shadows of what they use to be."
"Seems to be a pattern there."
"Seems pessimistic doesn't it?" she shrugged, "But the truth is decay is natural. We grow old. We take in more of the world. We begin to distort. How can we handle ourselves as anything more than rotting things when everything is an act of erosion? Born with a engulfing ignorance, we think everything is forever, but then truth slowly filters in through our screen. Life becomes more dynamic, but also infinitely more frightening and destructive. We morph to it like water in a glass.
"Unfortunately, in the end, its what keeps us interesting, its what keeps us from being homogeneous. We are filled with existence, and in turn it fills us with fear. Some become hateful, others killers, and some even fall into the awful fate of being an artist." At this last part she smiles, the weight of her words temporarily lessened by her good humor.
"So, society, to him anyways, is a series of pieces of art?"
"Oh, no, everything is all one big piece of art to him," you could hear how proud she was just in her voice alone, "As much as I would like to believe he start selling his work because of me, the truth is is that it's far more likely that he came to the realization that his work can finally defy it boundaries, and that the only thing holding him back was his failure to perceive where the boundaries were."
I sat there for a moment, a tad bit confused by what she meant. It must have been plain as day on my face, because as he looked at me she gave a light smile and continued to speak.
"See, to him, everything is one big work or art, and every time finishes a painting, or has me host an exhibit of this sort, he adds to the grander piece... Think of it as if it were all an act, that life is indeed a stage and we're putting on a sort of celestial play filled with minute details and the subtlest performances, but of course this is far less planned then a play, but every action creates a reaction, much like every brushstroke creates a line. In a sense, he hopes, by releasing his work to the public, that he can effect the piece as a whole. Not in any major or immediate sense, but as a chain reaction. His work may never be remember, but someone will see it, they were will react in one way or another, and that'll change the course of their lives to some degree forever. Needless to say he doesn't seen any review as a bad one, but as part of the over all portrait."
"Sounds like quite an interesting individual."
"Oh, most certainly," she brushed snow off of a nearby seat, "and he would very much like to meet you, Mister Atreyu." I felt stunned, shocked even. I felt a bit of excitement, but deeper down, I felt a little danger as well. People who want to meet me usually don't have the best of reasons for doing so.
-GGG-
"Occulo, King Idiot of Castle Bullshit," you about to get faced, my brudda, Benjy heard what you said, "Lets start with a little quote you decided to use against me to show how boring I am...
"What is the meaning of thus? Is there to be an execution? Are we to devolve back into the days of Kangaroo courts, witch trials and public murder? What madness has spread over the land where such an image of morbidness could be pranced around in front of the sensible public? Who would be so dastardly, so cruel, so cold and uncaring to set up such an exhibition of tastelessness.
"I ain't ever said that, dipshit. I'm not sure who you're quoting, but it sure as hell isn't me. And really, you're going to come at me about 'non-sense' you Ethiopian-faced mother fucker? If you wanna critique me about saying nothing, you sure used a whole lot of time just to call me boring. Maybe if you spent less time being Dune's fuck buddy for all that time, and instead spent it reading a fucking book, you might understand some of the shit that came out of my mouth.
"Also, 'God Given Greatness' is just a moniker, if you listened to a word I said FUCKING EVER, you would know that. I'm not sent by God, thats just cold shit I put out there with my walk when I wanna scare a pipsqueak bitch like you. I'm the only God I fucking need. Also, sure, I may not be a champ, but even greatness has hardships, you about to see yours at Slam this week you shit eating skank." He may not believe in god, but Benjy is straight up CRUSADIN' up in this bitch. Yo face is 'bout to catch a sword, kid. Shwing! Off goes your fuckin' head! BEN-TANG CLAN AIN'T NOTHIN' TO FUCK WIT! BEN-TANG CLAN AIN'T NOTHIN' TO FUCK WIT!
"It seems every other goose-necked plebe thinks they understand where I'm coming from, but you a bunch of basic goons trying to step to me game. If you knew anything, you would be trying your best to get on my good side before I severed your brain from you body. If you wanna go, fine, but if you're coming with that ignorant game, you're gonna need a bag to carry the rest of you out of that ring, because Ben don't play.
"Know what I think about your trios title?" Nothing. Fuck'em.
"Know what I think about you and your buddies?" Nothing. Fuck'em.
"Know what I think about your sour-as-fuck trash talk?" Nothing. Fuck'em.
"Know what I'll think about your salty ass when I'm done stomping it into the ground like the bad-ass-mother-fucker I know I am?" Nothing. Fuck'em. Fuck all those mother fuckers. I've already stopped thinking about them.
"Ain't nothing more than I've thought about every second-rate spark-spitter that's walked out with their imaginary dick swinging between their legs. All style, all talk, no substance. Your shit is forgotten about a half an hour after you're done, I'mma chisel my name into this goddamn mountain, and you can sit back and watch. People can pretend not to understand what comes out of my mouth, but that's because I know the truth. If you had to face that shit, you'd realize how two-dimensional you've made your little world, and you ain't ready to play in that three dimensional Mario Sixty Four type shit yet!" oOoOoHhHhHhHh! That multi-directional platformer diss, yo! Benjy really has it all. That boss mother fucker only play games when his opponents come out of the woodwork like fucking cartoon characters.
-GGG-
"You should be proud of what you do, Mister Atreyu," he said to me.
No longer at the art-exhibit. Sasha - Sasha was the woman's name by the way, she introduced me shortly after revealing her husband Mikhail wanted to talk to me - had led back to their humble abode. And by humble, I do mean humble. Despite their apparently copious income, they had a one story house with a fairly modest concrete basement which acted as Mikhail's (real name Jeff, less mysterious.), but the upside was that they had a great deal of land behind the house which stored numerous metal sculptures and the likes.
I was walked around the property for a while as we waited Mikhail to emerge from his studio, which was quite sometime, but once he did, it was immediately clear that I had arrived on a good day due to his open and positive demeanor.
"I am proud," I replied, "but I honestly wish I was doing better, record wise."
"No no no," he waved is hands in the air as if dispelling my negativity from the air, "win, lose, and draw, you should be proud of it all. All of it leads to something, all of it has some sort of effect. Nothing is planned, nothing is scripted, its all a matter of timing and placement. Losing and winning is an art far separate from the act of competition. We can never be sure how our lives would have turned out if we had been given different results, and there is very little reason to ponder such things, but it gives credence and legitimacy to what HAS occurred."
It was that grander piece that Sasha had been talking about back at the exhibit. Mikhail apparently was interested in me, because he felt that we understood similar things about life. Being a man seasoned in the art of craft and creation, he could tell what kind of hand was need to craft the images I was trying to put out into the world, and for that reason only, he saw me as an artist, more so than my compatriots, and was determined to meet me one way or another.
"I'm very happy to hear that," I smiled. We sat in his studio, something Sasha assured me never had happened before with any of the guests they had invited over. We were surrounded by half-finished, barely started, and far destroyed works of art. "But, the truth is people in my profession tend to yearn for victory over losses."
"Of course, and people in my profession yearn to be able to work at their own pace, but still somehow earn a living. Does that mean I'm not proud of what the downs as well as the ups? Everything I do means something to me, if not anyone else. In my head the context is there, so no matter how abstract the piece might be, I always find it to be simple in my head. Such as this piece" He rose from his seat and walked over to a covered easel. He pulled the the sheet off of it and reveal a masterwork of detail and imagination:
A vaguely native american figure sitting center frame, behind it a pair of bone wings, the arching frame of the wings made by a series of horse heads linked front to back, the nose disappearing into the base of the next skull, as if melted into form instead of placed there. The rest of the wing was made of animal ribs, largest going to smallest the closer it go to the edge of the painting. Looking back towards the native american, I suddenly realized his hands were missing, and instead bloody stumps remained, bleeding into what looked like a empty head with undefined features, an open cranium, and blank eyes staring back at me.
The piece felt moving in a way that I couldn't quite translate. It was nightmarish in one sense, but also comforting in another, as if it was something older than itself, wise from years, but cruel with age.
"Would you like to try to guess what this picture is of?"
My immediate thought was that it represented the unfair treatment of native american's, and the inherent guilt we should have for being born from an ilk that caused such a tragedy, but thinking back to the 'self-portrait' I knew nothing would be so simple if created from a mind like Mikhail's. I just shook my head, deciding it best not to make myself appear foolish.
"Good," he replied with a smile, "one should never assume they understand an artist's intent when asked directly by him. It is interesting to see interpretations of their perception of the piece, but if you were to claim to understand - that understanding including not just the shallow and visible elements, but also the more ethereal nature of the artist's mindset - you would come off as a presumptuous man, and I would hate to have my expectations of you smashed in our first meetings. We should give each other time to know that we are not who the other thinks we are." A joke. It was calming to know that he could tell a joke. So often it is assumed that artists are the most humorless of human beings. They take their work so incredibly seriously that many assume it sucks the fun right out of them.
"What is the picture of, if you don't mind me asking," more so than to fill up possible awkward silence, I was genuinely interested in what Mikhail was trying to say with such a painting,
"Of God, or the closest representation I can find," he sighed as he walked back over and took a seat, bringing ourselves face to face with each other once again, filling the air with a sense of intimacy once more, the kind that comes from two men opening their minds. "See, much like many artists claim, it came to me in a dream, and I was lucky that it stuck with me upon waking. There are so many times when I've seen brilliance in my subconscious that it shatters my heart when I wake to find it has remained in the world of sleep.
"This, though, was one of the few times I was lucky enough to grab a hold of a vision and keep it." He looked back at it, happy with his work.
"Is that achievement the reason you don't sell it?"
"No." he turned back to me and leaned back in his seat, "It just simply wouldn't make sense to anyone else. Who else has the proper context, the mindset, and the experiences to make that their God? Its my god and it shall always remain my God, even if I find myself without him one day, he will be in that painting.
"See, Mister Atreyu, we all have our own interpretation of God, or Gods as it were. Even if we don't believe in such a being...he is there...I mean to say that it is something that defies the common definition of god...Its hard to explain."
If there is one thing I truly did understand while talking to Sasha or Mikhail, it was the inability to describe certain complex concepts that seemed to go farther than words, or even farther that images. In failure to communicate with a wide vernacular, an artist resorts to a more primal means of expression by playing upon catharsis, but if that fails, it becomes a matter of talking or creating until the right combination of things come together to properly express it, but in the mean time, we mumble and ramble, waiting to make sense. We lose our ability to communicate in want to be understood, an irony that all artists need to understand. I felt it every day at WCF as people seemed to misunderstand me on a constant basis.
"See, let me try it this way. Think of god not in the classical sense, but instead as another word for existence, or our perception of existence. For Christians this is easy for they believe God is in everything, thus he is existence, the distinction in the differences of these ideas is never needed, but for men like you and me, who see God as more of a concept within society, it takes are more Arthur C. Clarke type perspective to understand.
"What I mean to say is we build life much like we build God, it is in our experiences that we understand the world and see a side of it."
"Seems messy to try and refer to it as a God. Why not categorize it as existence or reality?" Asking an artist is always an invite for more confusion.
"We call anything God, because it represents something of a mysterious nature. If theists understand everything about their beliefs, the nature of God and heaven, it would cease to be a matter of life and afterlife, and it would all become one big concept. I cannot be everyone, I cannot see everything, thus my world becomes my god."
I wished for the life of me that I could understand, I felt lost in his web of thought. I wish I had the context of his life so I could know what he was trying to tell me. If I continued to ask questions I feared this would lead to another path that I couldn't understand.
It was disheartening, to feel so distant in a matter of a few minutes. To no longer feel like I was looking to artist in the eye, but through a veil, a mask that hindered communication. Again, my confusion must have been plain, because I could see the sinking of my heart in his eyes.
"Don't focus on too much of what I say," he shook his head with a smile, as if chastising himself more than me, "I ramble and want to say so much that I end up overwhelming the point with fancy ideas and mental masturbation. My point is actually quite simple; I see through my eyes, my red is my red, my blue is my blue, if there is a difference between my blue and yours, I would never be able to speak it. My art is the same way.
"We are too apologetic for having our own world, thinking it shameful. Artists are constantly forced to answer for their work as if to say I'm sorry my blue may not be your blue, my sky may not be your sky, I'm sorry my mind is not your mind. Why should they? It is as the world made them, and I refused to hate who I am, because I am a part of that grand piece of art that is life. So, now, I no longer apologize for my God, my mind, or my view of red.
"When I hear you talk about how you yearn to win, its says less of your fear of never winning again and more of your shame for having lost, its your apology for seeing a different red.
"When other see this shame, they jump on it. Oh, Benjamin the loser, Benjamin the never was, Benjamin the failure. Try something for me, because inevitably you're going to have to say something to the public. It will be an exercise in letting go, in relieving yourself of that stinging feeling of shame. I want you to..."
-GGG-
"SUCK A DICK, BAD NEWS BENSON!" BEN-GEE IS ON FI-YA! "And that's all I got to say about that!"
Oh, seriously dudes, if you missed any of that you should just kill yaselves right now, because nothing in the world will ever be as epic as that shit. Three straight hours on just running his mouth on Benson. Shiiiiieeeeeeeeet! Man, even just as an ominous box of text, I felt the heat coming off of that!
"Andre Jenson, you next on my hitlist, kid, so you best watch your fucking neck, because we going chopping!" WOOP! THERE IT IS! "Gonna be honest, most people would just go after your LARPing shenanigans...and thats because THERE IS FUCKING NOTHING ELSE ABOUT YOU! You are as dynamic in your interests as a plank of wood. You go home, pretend to be something more interesting than you are, then you come here and pretend to be something more interesting than you are.
"you aren't even doing it for mind games, there is just some broken part of your thick skull that refuses to understand where you are. Why does everyone in this company fucking wrestle if they all think its one big joke? Let me tell you a joke, you wood-elf humping fuck.
"Nine people walk into a ring on Sunday, and somehow all eight of them over look Benjamin Atreyu as a threat. This is where it gets real good, the bell rings and then those eight others spend the next half an hour getting slaughtered, leaving Benjamin Atreyu on top." Like a beast King on top of Beast Mountain or some shit. Hail to him, baby!
"See, I'm not mad at you - well, I am, but not the point - I'm made at the fact that you are just a small part of a big problem. This is a wrestling company, but it seems we have very few actual wrestlers. Don't get me wrong, a lot of you guys are gunning for that gold, but most of your are just gonna end up shooting yourselves in the foot like Cheddar Bob." 8-Mile reference! Go back to blockbuster and look in the BURNED isle! You might find your career there, bitchboy.
"Seriously, Jenson, I'm worried that even if you did lose, you'd just go back to you island and pretend you won. Hell, that sounds like a great idea, actually. Go home and just act out all the fantasies you have about making it into the trilogy cup, then winning said trilogy cup, and the inevitable delusion that you would someone get one up on Price and snatch the title away from him too. I'd rather you do it there, because that dream is getting shattered on Sunday. Don't get mad, son. I'm probably giving you more attention then you ever gave me. Maybe you'll fix that next time and come correct."
-GGG-
I sat, surprised by the revelation bestowed upon me. What was it that I was saying earlier about a perfect world? No tears, but no art? How you had to submit to it? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe a perfect world wasn't perfect. It seems Mikhail had found his and wanted me to find mine in the rubble. If I looked at my own suffering as a flaw in the world, it would always be imperfect, if I restricted myself to unbending rules about what I had to and what I was to accomplish, there would always be flaws in the results. However, if I looked for the reaction, the effects of my lost - in a sense made my priority to make something new out of my crash - life was is it should be, all part of a system.
What did he ask of me, you ask? To work to an extreme, I guess. In order to drop my shame, I was to be everything I wasn't. He wanted me to destroy the ridged definitions of myself that I placed. If I acted like an idiot, intention talked cheap trash, I could start redefining myself, defy the ping of pain from losses, and grow to become something far more dangerous.
I think you've already been seeing some of the exercise...
-GGG-
"Damn. I'm starting to get exhausted. Its not easy shooting on all eight of you hole-in-the-wall dime store assholes. Who's left? Punkin and Lucious Starr? Shit, well if that ain't the tail end of the fucking goof brigade bringing up there rear right there.
"Man, how many of you generic mother fuckers are there? More insane bullshit, more flashy non-sense. Lucious with moves like 'Hade's Flame' and 'I Claim Your Soul' You have all the want of using big images in your presentation, but none of the finesse, none of the subtlety. I mean, you claim to be a veteran, because fuck if I know how long you've actually been doing this, but you still name your shit like a twelve your old.
"Sure, look at my like the bad guy for criticizing appearances, but if there is anything I've been saying since DAY FUCKING ONE! Its that in every lie, you reveal a part of your self, so with this shit, you've revealed a whole lot about how immature and ill-developed you are. Back that shit up and maybe try to take another twenty years to develop yourself before you try to step into this battle royal.
"Punkin', I can't say you're much better." Bitch nigga with his damn mask and all, who does he think he is, the masked magician? Anyone remember who I'm talking about? The guy who had that show where he revealed how the tricks were done and shit? Nigga got in trouble with the wizard's guild or some shit. Had to quit magicking from what I heard.
"I feel like I'm in some sort of twisted version of Shutter Island, walking around all these psychos as I try to solve a mystery, only to learn I'm one of the goddamn inmates, because sometimes that's the only way this fucking company makes any goddamn sense. Maybe this isn't a company at all, but a fuckin' asylum, and we just all think we're wrestlers, and those insane fucks happen to have more wherewithal to know that they actually are insane?! Do you know how questions like that keep my up at night?" Clutch movie reference, dawg. I'm right d'ere wi'chu, homie. Insane asylum or whether the hell you were saying. Gonna be honest, I kinda stopped paying attention when you started talking about reality and shit, that shit makes me feel like Dustin Beaver and Vengeance trying to read a thesis for a PhD, ya hear me?
"So, know what, at the end of the day, if I have to drop everything I learned and just go gangster on this shit to knock out a bunch of silly looking bitches, if that's what I have to do to earn a spot that is rightfully mine in the first place. Fine, I'll play ball. I'll fuck with you, because it doesn't matter, I already have this shit one in my head. I could lose this and still know I'm better off than all you mentally unstable jokes-of-human-beings."
Ain't nothin' but a G-thang, babay. WCF is the label dat paaays meh!
Uh. Thats right. Got'eem! Twenty Sixteen! DEE JAY BEE JAY! Text-bat! WCF records! Y'all can sell your mixtapes, we got album of the year right here, ya heard?
Word.
