A Project in Memory of my Grandfather

My Grandfather’s name was Oscar, but to the rest of the world he was Champ. Well, everyone was Champ to him. It was a

My grandfather and my cousin Jason

name of admiration, if not hilarity, which lit his face up each day as he sipped his coffee and smoked his Parliaments. He was essentially the patriarch of the neighborhood and each person within his web of relationships would visit the house blessed as to sit around such a kind-hearted man.

On May 6th, my Pop-Pop decided to end his life. No note. No true goodbyes. Just a rifle and away he went, off into something that I can hope can be peaceful. In his will, he stated that he didn’t want a service or ceremony (stupid shit, he would say) he wanted to be cremated. However, he held one wish to never allow his ashes to sprinkled over the ground, because he spent his entire life working in the dirt, and didn’t want to lay there forever.

May 5th, my grandfather sat on the porch, his age haunting his diminishing frame; May 6th we sat with him in the hospital as a gunshot wound left him alive for hours until he passed, and May 7th, I sat in my room confused as the entire world assumed normalcy. There was no transition.

I found myself penning random notes and poems trying to assemble some sort of sense within my own mind. I came to one conclusion: at eighty-four years old, if a man chooses to go to sleep early, let him make his bed. There was no anger, no confusion. I understood.

 

I’ve decided to leave him something, to leave behind a legacy for him and illustrate his life and death to the world, in order to add some sort of closure to a great man, who’s memory still lingers with us everywhere we go.

I’m writing and editing a collection of poems, essays, and photographs which I will be releasing as Letters from the Garden, and I hope to publish this by March 6th, his birthday.

 

I’m writing this post so I make sure I hold true to my plans.

 

Thank you all for reading,

Damian

Soundtracks of our Lives

I think it’s a disappointment that life doesn’t feature a built in soundtrack. Especially, for those epic moments or sorrowful nights. Music which would spawn on que from nothingness and remedy our situations, or perhaps inspire us to specific trails.Luckily, I find fiction to be a suseptable to such a depressing rule. Does music or background noise improve fiction (or story ideas) or does it mame it?

 

Whenever I write, I find it easier to hide from the outside world. I plug in my headphones and blast whichever music would fit in the specific situation I write in. Of course, in a happy scene I would listen to some 3eB or maybe some other 90s Alternative, but during the nitty gritty frightening scenes some Adema, Marilyn Manson, or even some Type o’ Negative. I find that with music stimulating my mind, I may express the feelings of the scene with a tighter grasp and guide it in a more emotional depth, than I would have in absolute silence. Music moves me.

So my question for you is do you write with music, silence, or background noise? Leave a comment below on what your preference is. I’d love to strike up a conversation with other writers on the subject.

Santa Claus, Panties, and Fifty Bucks.

Figured I’d share a short essay I wrote for class. I think it’s worth a chuckle or two. Let me know if you’d like me to post more nonfiction like essays, instead of just fiction and poetry

 

©Laugh Party http://www.laughparty.com/print.php?id=266

 

 

Santa Claus, Panties, and Fifty Bucks

 

It’s funny the trail that life takes you on over an honest mission of finding a job. The recession struck hard, and at fifteen years old, I learned how hard it truly hit when I smelled the putrid odor of vomit on a polyester beard and found myself staring at Chris Cringle in a mildewed backroom mirror. Now, it would have been slightly justifiable if I were a mall-Santa Claus, or even begged for change somewhere out in the city, but here I was holding sales signs in front of Fashion Bug next to Highway 35 for a lousy fifty dollars. Though the humiliation, sweat, and strange odors throughout the day kept me down, this day from hell would teach me a valuable lesson and would reward me my first paycheck. I wish this were a nice story, or even a clean one, but it is not; it’s the truth and it sucked.

I guess this tale really starts a year before, when I first started applying for jobs around every typical hotspot for kids: fast food joints, supermarkets, paper routs and even a sweat shop or two! But unfortunately, no one was willing to risk the chance of hiring a fourteen year old in their fine establishments. I was desperate for a job, yet not too desperate to go door to door for lawn mowing or shoveling snow (I find that vaguely humiliating). My mother was an Assistant Manager at the local Fashion Bug. One day, she brought word from her boss of a Christmas promotion that involved some naïve fool to adorn a wool suit for six hours in the warmest winter since the Jurassic Period. Well apparently I missed some memo and offered to take the job.

I remember being excited as I stepped through the twin glass doors, freshly cleaned and I saw my reflection in their panes as I made my way into the store.  Of course within an instant, I spotted two girls I attended school with and they worked there. So now, I would have to pull the fat-old-guy-who-sneaks-in-your-chimney-to-give-your-sleeping-children-presents look off in order to avoid appearing like a total tool, I was willing to accept such a viable challenge. I made my way into the bathroom where I found a package containing the suit. Little did I know it had been worn before and unwashed-several times or so it appeared.

I began to put the suit on with all the elegance of a drunken elephant in a circus tent, thrashing around the tiny bathroom and knocking over the brooms and mops, which lined the wall. As I pulled the beard over my face, I soon learned that someone must have puked on it sometime or another during its experienced life; smelling human bile would be on my agenda that day for six hours. I also didn’t expect to spot the homecoming queen or even better, the girl I was deeply into. With those two run-ins slowly destroying any self-esteem or standing within freshman year that I possessed, I was then given a sign to hold which advertised panties, thongs, and accessories. All I wanted was the fifty bucks.

At the end of the day, I hung my suit up and found myself sitting in the center of the plaza waiting for my mother to give me a lift home. I appeared no different then when I walked into the little shop of Christmas horrors, but in my pocket I held fifty dollars and pride that no event could tamper with, not even demeaning jobs or working with a thrown-up covered beard for six hours, because now I was paid. No longer would I be a typical boy who relied on his parents for his money, but I would earn it myself. Months later, I would score a job at Stop n Shop, which if you don’t know, is a mere step above slave labor, and I’ve been there for close to three years.

Though I hope to turn writing into my profession and career, small jobs are necessary until I can sustain myself from the craft. People rely too much on one another and independence seems to have almost been lost in my generation because young adults still ask their parents for money. Getting a job seems to get harder and harder. I will continue to pave my own way whatever way possible and no matter how dark the time, I will look back to the time I played Santa Claus for fifty bucks on a Saturday morning to get paid, but somehow I feel there was something deeper in all of that, somehow I began to find my way towards something more. I guess I began my own path early, now let’s see where it takes me.

The World in my Room

Hiding in my room I think we found the world

And the smoke in our lungs, it soothed-then burned

But the blankets covered us from all that cold

We swam between each and every fabric fold

Convinced we found our place, in a queen-size bed

Next to cyberspace.

The headlights of the cars would share their light

And our silhouettes danced in the pane’s every damn night

But I’m surprised we never caught their eyes

Swimming through your arms and your tender thighs.

We used to lay our heads, against my pillows

As our words echoed with each word we had said.

I think we found the world.

35 Days: Nanowrimo is Coming

Nanowrimo- National Novel Writing Month. Starting November 1 and ending November 30th. Writers from around the world dedicate the month to beginning and completing an entire novel.

Hello blog friends and readers, yesterday I registered on Nanowrimo and drafted a 150 word summary for my planned novel. Last year, I hoped to join this awesome contest, but I got lazy and didn’t write a fucking word. This year, I’m ready to trek through a perilous journey of 50,000 words in a mere 30 days. I’ve vouched that I can write 1.5-2k words daily,which would allow me several days of break time during the rough stretches of the month.I make one promise: to draft the sloppiest novel the heavens have ever laid eyes upon. Are you ready????

 

At this stage in prewriting, the novel will be a psychological horror/thriller with subtle yet powerful themes. As per the rules, I have just begun to pre-write and design characters, yet won’t touch the prose until November 1st.

 

Heres my summary:

 

A man sits in death row convicted of many crimes except for one: the abduction of a young boy almost twenty years now gone.  The only man who can solve this crime is a troubled man, Mark Seele, who discovers death is not the end, but sometimes it is only the beginning. Mark must confront the sins of his own past, in order to find the boy who haunts his dreams and chases him in the After. Sometimes however, the sins of our past are far more destructive than we can ever imagine and the secrets between the lines are just as shocking.

 

On aside yet slightly related note, a writer buddy of mine from the twitter-verse Mark Lidstone is planning his own 3 Day Novel contest. Check it out and give his other work a read as well.

 

So who else is participating in Nano this year?