The Theatre (allegedly)

I had asked Alex to meet me out front of the old building.

Such a badass, old place.

Some weird old office/theatre space, about three stories high.

On several occasions (allegedly), my friends and I would sneak in and have a look around. Usually blasted out of our minds, which in turn gave us the courage and strength to climb drainage pipes, up a story and a half, onto old rusted fire escapes which would take us onto a decrepit roof, where pigeons would make sudden moves and scare the shit out of us in the pitch dark night.

This most commonly occurred on evenings where the streetlights were blurry and seemed to be more drunk than we were.

As I walked towards where it was, I noticed that I could not spot the old awning that hung outside; the building’s beacon for those passing by on foot.

I remember (allegedly) one of our first trips into the musty old bitch. We walked right in the front door. Someone had broken in, or gone for the night but had left the front door wide open. Upon entering I remember coming upon an old hiking backpack, through which I immediately began to dig. Fishing a gloved hand, very slowly through the pack as not to cut or prick my finger on anything gross.

Which might as well serve me right for going through some random transient’s knapsack, honestly.

In it I found writings, done on the back of years old faxes, addressed to city politicians. Someone was proposing a plan to tear down the old awning outside, as it was a hazard due to its age and elements of weather such as falling water, ice and snow. They wanted to clean up the whole building, rework and repurpose it for good. The writer detested the amounts of syringes he found on his passings through the building. Decent arguments, all to be held accountable by the owner of these documents, as long as the city handed over the building to them.

I took the letter.

I took an empty notebook.

I took a piece of art done with broken glass and an old parking sign from the club that burned down next door.

I stole someone’s shit. (allegedly)

I think back on that sometimes and feel kind of bad about it.

I guess I wasn’t really thinking about it then, I just liked the things I found.

I was thinking they must have finally removed the old awning, probably a good idea really, before it fell and crushed some nice people coming back from the Rolex store at City Creek.

But then I noticed an orange porta-john.

Then some chain link fence, orange cones and what looked like the arm of a large excavator.

 The very last time I went it there, I was with three other friends. (allegedly)

And as we descended into the building on a service ladder we found on the roof and made our way down. We explored and took our time. Making our way down into the basement, I led the way with the light on my phone and my battery at 20%.

We followed red smears on the walls and floors for a while.

Honest to God we found someone sleeping in there. He was still warm, but too hammered, stoned, tweaking, whatever to even bother with 4 drunk assholes stomping around the place at 2am.

We consider moving in too. Why pay rent when it’s so damn easy to get in here anyway?

I remember after we left I checked my hip for my knife and found that it wasn’t in its sheath.

The Buck 103 my old man found 20 years ago working road maintenance in Vermont, tucked away in some grader. Covered in rust and grime, my dad had polished it up and worked the snags out of the blade and put it away in some box. Until about 26 years later when I mentioned I happened to be looking for that exact knife but couldn’t find a good price.

So of course, the musty bitch ate it up.

Suppose that might be karma for the things I took so many months before.

Truthfully, my heart sank.

The old building is no longer there.

I began walking the perimeter of the fence, looking at the piles of rubble.

I want to be mad at someone, but who can I blame for deciding that an old building needed to come down?

It was an old, nasty place. Flooded and boarded up long ago.

Forgotten and left alone while the city around it sprung up like cheat grass.

It was it’s time I suppose.

I burn one down in loving memory and flick my crutch into the twisted beams and brick.

And dammit, I really hope that my knife is in all that shit and not some bums backpack.

Belfast, Maine.

I haven’t written in a while, and I’m not going to apologize for my absence like I usually do because honestly, what does it matter?

Walking alone the dreary coast is humbling.

Dark and grey, much different from a bright, sandy western beach.

I ‘m looking at all the things that have washed up.

Drift wood. Nylon rope. Glass. Garbage.

Small things in a big pond.

I’m only a week into this family vacation and it has been very humbling.

I wonder where all this shit came from.

How long it was at sea.

How it ended up here.

I compare it to myself.

Driving across the country, through all these towns full of people.

People who are carrying on their lives with no knowledge of who I am or how I feel.

It’s humbling.

I realize that my problems aren’t as big as I think they are.

If I were to disappear off the face of the earth. If this sea were to swallow me up.

If the earth opened and I fell into it. They would keep on going on as if nothing had happened. Not to discount the people who actually know me, I know they would miss me and I would miss them because I love them and care for them as I know they love and care for me. But this world would continue without skipping a beat.

I get so caught up in my thoughts that I get lost.

Speaking with my father as we hurtled our way across America, I realize that he and I are not so different. He’s almost 70 years old now and he tells me that he still lies in bed at night thinking so much that he imagines driving himself mad with his own thoughts. That he has to somehow shut himself off from the inner workings of his mind.

It’s humbling, to know that I’m not the only one.

To know that I’m not the only one who thinks this country is going to shit and that change is a horrifying thing.

His comments on the change out East open my eyes up to what’s going on around me.

The small towns growing. The old restaurants and places we’ve visited so many times before that are gone and changing as the years roll on.

And all people can do is sit back and discuss stupid, superficial bullshit like “Deflategate” or thumb through Kim Kardashians selfie book.

What the fuck are we coming to?

I understand that this is the still the home of the free, as we are indeed free to involve ourselves in what we choose, but goddamn, this is definitely not the place of the brave anymore.

Hiding behind our online falsities and made up personalities.

I’m rambling now, but fuck you.

Remember when the Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island were on TV?

When the only drama portrayed was Marsha getting her nose smashed by a football or whether or not Professor was going to be able to build a robot out of coconuts?

Now every channel is littered, like this beach, with garbage.

False identities on reality television, who preach gossip and conflict.

And we worship it, we bow to it, we thrive on it.

The rocks poking through the soles of my boots and my hand rubbed raw from my walking stick are things I cherish. They’re real.

There’s a very big disconnect happening with the human race right now.

 And we’re too caught up in retweets to give a flying fuck.

But wait, you got 50 likes?

Good for you.

rant.

Where are my wife-fondling, swinger, hipster parties?

Where are my black curtained rooms, full of neverdowells such as myself, drinking and smoking and discussing introspective ideas far beyond our current comprehension? 

I suppose I could blame myself for not seeking these people out.

As Kerouac and Ginsburg and all those fuckers did.

Looking for adventure in the gutter with criminals and vagabonds.

Working terrible jobs, only to be endowed with great pride, crystallizations of self worth and work ethic.

Feeling fulfilled in their quests, leaving at the drop of a hat to ride in the backs of their friend’s broken down cars to see the country.

(I don’t know if this is going to be a rant about my generation, technology, my own problems, or all of those things… so just hang with me.)

I read the works of Kerouac and think about how it will never be that way.

We are so connected now, so contrived in our everyday social media posts, that we don’t need to actually do things. We can create the image with pictures and words. And this is a thing that tears at my mind.

Why are we letting ourselves get carried away with our handheld technology?

Do we not see the void being created between ourselves and others due to our telephones?

People argue that technology has made us more connected. Horseshit.

It’s made us lazier, more passive aggressive and highly sensitive.

We misinterpret textual word and then subtweet.

We see a post on instagram and like it because we don’t really like it and we are trying to take a jab at someone.

We’re passing judgment with the swipe of our finger.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that we need to take a page from the book of the Beat Generation and seek one another out. 
We need these experiences because they are the glue that holds our souls together.

We need to quit being this “plugged in” generation, this… 
Beaten Generation.

We’ve let our own self pity, angst and anxiety plague us into some sort of passive aggressive, hate-mongering douchebag generation.

We need each other, people.

We need to connect to each other, in real life.

Physical touch and spoken word are necessity.