Three Cigarettes and Some Coffee

    Its January 25, 2007, my day off, and I am sitting here on my dining room table, finishing my Irish cream coffee after a breakfast of eggs, enjoying my first cigarette of the day (always the best), and contemplating over what I will do today. Louie Armstrong and Duck Ellington are playing in the back ground, conjuring a suitable atmosphere for a blogg and a relaxing morning. My brother is still sleeping away the morning after a night of watching movies late at night and drinking pulque (an Aztec beer like drink made from agave juice, taste horrible, but I love my brother and I try to give him some sataisfaction by drinking it.).
     Sitting here I cant imagine what lies in the future for me, considering that life moves on and that one day I might leave, or my brother might leave, or maybe my sister sell the place. The truth is that the future no longer bothers me so much anymore. If making it means being rich and powerful, well then my future looks dim, but I think there so much more. Looking around I see that these four walls are (for now) my home. When I was living with my sister this place was really just hers, and I was living in her home. I felt a little homeless, only with a place to sleep and have fun on the weekends when she wasn’t home. Now it seems more my pad, ignoring the rules set by my old roommate and now having my own rules to follow.
     Thinking back, I would have never imagined myself renting a place with my brother, actually I never thought him being around after he got married, but it’s nice. It’s always nice to have someone around to just chill with and have a mutual goal (ours being to make our pad up to date with technology and spending large amounts of money on it). Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my brother and I get married and have kids but decide to live together or close to one another, considering that I have the closest relationship with him than any other in my family. Honestly, I cant imagine not having contact with any of my siblings and although sometimes I want to go to the ends of the world and see everything and meet everyone, loosing any contact with my brother or sister would ail me.
     My coffee is done and I have smoked three cigarettes in the time it took me to write this blogg and its time for me to get up and do something. I’m considering just jumping back into bed and reading some more of Lady Chatterley’s Lover or some of Jonathan Swift’s satiric proposals (both have me intrigued). The only problem is that Louie, with his trumpet, has me hypnotized into my chair, and my lust in writing glues me to my keyboard but Boo also needs a walk and dinner needs to be cooked (both are also very enjoyable), so I think I will start with his walk and work myself up, but first I need a cigarette to get me in the mood.

Jesus is a Momma's Boy

     Yesterday I had a short but great conversation with, probably the friend that understands me the most, considering we, most of the time, agree on certain subjects, Jeremy. For some reason the subject of Jesus and religion came to mind and we had a short laugh about the whole deal. Don’t get me wrong I’m one to defend religion and the positive things it can hold in life, but sometimes it just sends you spiraling into misery. We talked and came to certain conclusions, and like most teens we brought down Jesus and God to our reality and to our own convince of “real” life. Jesus is a tadytell.
     Its funny growing up in a very catholic family where God was everything and the answer to all of the questions in life, all knowing, all powerful, all seeing, and all merciful. Stephen Colbert by my view. As I child God was a view of my friend, there to help and get me by the bad times, listening to my prayers and helping guide myself through the difficulties of life. It was a great time to know God, but suddenly my penis started working and I grew hair in certain places and girls were now interesting and exciting, then God changed. She (yes God is a woman) no longer showed me how to be happy but instead set rules that I could not break and if I did hell would break loose (literally). The worst part was that these rules seemed like California laws, set up to make you fail, all your body, and mind, and emotions went totally against the laws she brought down, tiring to keep you in her grasp.
     Jesus, don’t let me get started and that guy, or more like that butt hole perfect older brother! As a child he was cool, looking after you and always having your back with God, giving you slack and being chill, inviting you to a party every once in a while (that didn’t last long). Then suddenly you’re at that defining age and he turns into the butt hole brother, going up to mom telling about your “sins” and showing off how he never did what you did. Thanks Jesus for putting such a high bar for us, now we all look like looser and total sinners, maybe if you fucked up once a while we would'nt seem so bad. I know that if I was ever permitted in heaven he would be there asking, “So how you do?” knowing that I fucked up plenty of times and waiting to rub it in. Jesus is such a momma’s boy, being perfect, obeying all her rules, and thinking only of others (yeah right) and never in himself. You know he must have yanked his monkey at least five times a day, considering three times is regular to me.
     Now as an adult and considering my thoughts and my will in God, life, and happiness I can say that I have gotten over trying to beat Jesus and given up tiring to be that good kid for God. She might have given me life and pretty much everything but I don’t think she really cares anymore. We now are able to coexist together, I do my thing she does her thing and we acknowledge each other, hold a conversation here and there, and then secretly laugh at Jesus and how much of a kiss ass he is (but make sure he doesn’t know about it so we don’t hurt his feelings). I think Jeremy summed up God in my teens in his interpretation of God, “I gave you free will and this is how you waist it?!”

Appletiny Please

     Being the butcher isn’t what I thought it would be. I must confess that at first I thought the glory and the power would rise above the rest of my co-workers and I would be even more respected and appreciated, but I have come to see life isn’t so. Being in charge of cutting and sending meals to three Jails is a challenging task, which consumes my whole workday without a moments rest. Today was one of those foul days, disregarded by my co-workers as just a simple worker, forgetting the pressure and responsibility that hangs over my shoulders, they bitch. With no one to back me up and no one to blame but my partner (who apparently doesn’t give much of a fuck) and myself I take their snarls and ill words.
    Sometimes I wish work were more like my favorite show, Scrubs. Where in the end everyone gets a drink of beer (maybe even an appletiny, if I’m feeling crazy) and laughs it all off, even when death is involved. In my line of work there is no happy ending but instead cooks get pissed and stop talking to you. Everyone expects perfection of everyone ells but fall short in judging themselves. I do not pretend to be the best at everything but I must admit that I try with all my head, heart, and soul. I come to miss my old co-workers in the main, intent in helping one another and me in completing the day’s work without hesitation.
    There is no use in wishing I was back in my old position of just a cook; now I am the butcher. I took the path the no one dared take and now I realize why, pressure and stress sends you spiraling into solitude, stuck in that cold damp refrigerator with inmates that don’t wish to be there and work with minimal effort. That is my kingdom now, where my actions and work effects the consumption of about six thousand nine hundred inmates. Here I rule and I realize that Scrubs is nothing like the real world, but the real world can be so much better!

Conversations

     Sitting with my sister, exploring the infinite guest books she has to choose from for her wedding, we chat. The big wedding is coming closer and closer as time passes and is a big thrill for the whole Gonzalez family (including my brother). The fitting of tuxedos and the excitment of the party are being mumbled form the near reaches of Tustin to our families in Mexico. My sister and I, smiling and joking with one another, hold a brief moment of bliss, a conversation. Although it was mainly centered on her-women enjoy that-it was still a topic I had much to convey about.
     While her girlishness and my childishness assimilated in her excitment, I could not help but enjoy our talk, centered on life, love, weddings and especially babies (I want her to have some already!). Thinking about it, conversations are, to most people I believe, the basis for enjoyment. Searching through my mind and my past I can confirm that some of the best moments in life was spent in a moment of surreal exchange of thoughts.
     In the beginning of most relationships, basing it mostly on mine, conversation is everything, almost becoming a climax when both of us (me and my ex’s) are entrusted in it, combining each other’s minds in a form of play. I remember hours of talk on the phone, bargaining a witty remark for a laugh, which ultimatly, would lead to my smiling and pleasure.
     Conversation is the welding to any relationships. Those I have (and had) with my friends are just as pleasing, bringing time lapsing moments of congenial fun. Each one adding his or her own spice to the stew, turning to so much more than talk but instead history. It can be so strong that, in some cases, it can make friendships almost unbreakable.
     There are other forms of conversation that one can have, dis-formulating the concept of only two or more people talking. Recently I have had a sudden lust for good books, those that pose exciting questions into our minds. While reading and captivating myself in other's monologs, enthralling my mind as the reader, I have come to have certain conversations with myself (yes I know it sounds mad), concerning different topics. One that a book has recently sent me spiraling is this topic, conversations. Others have sent to explore my freedom and few my very existence. I know that everyone has those secret conversations to themselves and it would be fascinating if I could just listen. Then again, that’s what books are, and my writings.
     What ells is there to say about conversations other than it is one of the fundamental structures of human nature and dare I say nature itself. It brings people close and the lack of it can break them apart. For myself, I can only hope that for the rest of my life I will have someone to hold interesting and fun conversations with, without them I might as well be nothing.

Letters to my Master

        To my noble master,
             Sir Edward el guapo

    My master, upon who’s destiny and will was to take me from my loving mother and affectionate soul, has for the better re-established me within his compounds of love and familiarity. I write to you this letter, knowing little of the omnipotent language spoken from your honored throut, brought upon by the land of kings and queens (notable in your manner of being sir), to apologize for such incidents that, like yesterday, my creator, such as yours, has entwined in me my instinctive nature to be appalling.
     What foul deed have I unfolded yesterday that form that noble speech, and noble not form its origin alone my master but form the form in which you do express it, were you to express such malice and authority against me, considering such words that would send an angel plunge into the inferno, entering it’s nine gates, bewildered weather Lucifer has conquered the mortal world. I, myself only a beast and not a figure of greatness like yourself, although both our hearts do beat the same, created by the God who does rule the universe, can with some reason (being that I am just an animal) understand your words, echoing through my soulless body, “bad boy” where those wrenching tools of oppression that you did speak late in the evening.
     O master! What woe did I bring to you that has now brought me such grievance. It has brought dishonor on my part, being part of your noble crest, to be cast down upon your eyes. You who in all virtues holds the highest and most notable, taking after those high kings of ancient pasts, Arthur was one, that fame has brought stories and fables of his greatness, only to in truth fall short upon your name, consider the plead of your broken slave.
     Woe beast! Condemn yourself from your master’s house! Such acts, that late that evening did send your masters wrath, breaking my noble spirit and dishonoring my ancestors, of cleansing my rear are not of noble blood. O those itch! That sent me spiraling into the pit of lonesomeness. Master, lord, and protector, forgive this beast of such faults, as most beast do have, and bring back my noble self to equal just a small size of your greatness.

        Your Benevolent Servant,
                Boo

Still a Slave

     I am free to read, write, say and do what I please. To myself slavery was a thing of the past, referenced in books and taught as a long forgotten obstruction in American history, becoming almost like the stories heard of medieval times and the fantastic romanticized wars retold. But not long ago was there terror and pain spread through out our great country and until we gained concise of our evil deeds, and those deprived and once ignorant of their lives stood up and fought back, did our world change.
     Have we forgotten the bewilderment of our past and subdued ourselves again to a form of slavery? Growing up as a lower middle classed Latino I can see my people (including myself) have not yet opened their eyes to the clues left by others in books and in knowledge. That which we lack-the drive to learn and be educated-has been enslaving people since the beginning of time. A mental chain. We have been surrounded and manipulated to forget our education and instead driven to work in the fields, getting jobs at early ages and earning a struggling income to conform to a materialistic America.
     Like blacks in the 1800’s that were fooled into believing that slavery was their best bet, there only upcoming, given slack once in a wile to stop rebellions, the same is happening with people today. They have been fooled by our capitalist nation to believe that if you “bling” then you have made it, considering that a nice car-that will consume half your months income-is an indication of making the American Dream. What fool I have been to let myself be overtaken and swept in such a manner, letting my ignorance and materialistic mind enslave me to my state of incomprehension. Frederick Douglas, a slave, set himself free from his bewildered mind and learned the secret to his enslavement. In his book, The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas an American Slave he reiterates, “…and a little experience soon demonstrated,…that education and slavery were incompatible with each other.” (44)
     To this day it holds true, education and knowledge will set a man free from his brute state of being, rendering himself free from the shackles of others and himself. Although the answer might seem easy enough; the fight will be considerably challenging. Years of manipulation by media have molded young Americans today, confusing my own mind to a great extent. Those seen as making it with large sums of cash have been show to be thugs, gangsters, and dealers, living in the ghetto but living in splendor: Tools to fool.
     How frightened are the leaders that they fear our knowledge. Public school have become under funded and districts with good schools draw boundaries separating children that can and can’t go to the schools, separating economic classes and leaving the poor with a declining education and excelling the wealthy. Although it irrupts a ravenous beast within myself when I think if such enslavements I laugh and think of the fear that those people have instilled in them, knowing that If we were to get a glimpse of the light-education-we would be a threat in taking what they now hold so dear. They fear us.
     Where do I point the finger? Whose greed has sercome to enslaving people for the shear purpose of the “mighty dollar” or fear? I can honestly say that partly at fault is ourselfs, letting our own personal greed impatiently overtake us, enslaving ourselves to our corporate masters and fearing those who fear us more. Unlike the old masters and overseers of the south our masters and overseers that are putting the blinds over us are unseen and unknown, considering running away would be useless, knowing that they are everywhere and can easily track us down and hunt us. But just like so many slaves were able to be liberated we too can break the shackles that hold us down. Education must be a priority, giving us the strength in knowledge to fight back our masters and make those decisions without that blind of ignorance over our eyes. Here I am still a slave to my materialistic masters, confused and manipulated, I have found my strength and pray to God to guild me in my path of knowledge.