The Diary of a Crazy Pianist

Jesus and Peter in the Boat

2010-11-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

This is the story of Peter and Jesus in the boat as I remember it being told to me as a child in Sunday School. Recently, after all these years, I actually opened a Bible, found the passage and realised either the person who told it to me got it completely "wrong" or my memory is playing tricks on me. Either way, I prefer the "wrong" version:

Jesus and Peter are in a boat. Jesus is passing his spare time by walking on the water by the boat. Peter says to him, "That's so wicked, man, I wish I could walk on water like you."

Jesus says, "You can."

Peter says, "Fuck off. You can do it because you're the Son of God."

Jesus says, "Naw, man, anyone can do it. You just have to believe in yourself."

Peter is a little wary, but since it's the Son of God telling him so, he has no choice but to believe. So he stands up and says, "All right man, since it's you saying so, I will at least give it a try."

He steps out on to the water. Shazam! He's walking on water. In disbelief he looks back at Jesus to say, "I did it, I fucking did it man!" but the instant he pronounces the word "I", bang, he splashes down into the water.

Jesus tells him: "Peter, there's no 'I' doing it. Only God, man. Only God."

You Can Kill Me, Babe

2010-06-19T06:06:00.001-07:00

You can kill me, babe

But you'd better do it with some conviction.

Let out the fiercest roar you can roar

As you let the knife plunge deep into my twisted heart

Watch carefully my eyes as they take one last look at your ailing face

Savour the brightness of my blood as it meanders aimlessly down my breast

Take one last suck at my milkless nipples

But don't go turning back on yourself

Don't think that everything isn't perfect just as you've made it

Even as my eyes roll over on themselves like rotten logs

As I drift off into sleepy death

Even as my spirit frolics along to places far away

Soaking up some last rays in Maui

A midnight stroll by the Seine

One last candlelit game of chess

Even as I make the rounds to bid farewell to my friends

(Gayly I will find a unique way to say good-bye to each of them, some in lucid dreams, perhaps a nearly transparent flash in a mirror, a poster on the wall, a whisper in a silent corner of the train station)

As for your farewell, babe, my last words will be just that

I will struggle to take one last tug at my frozen diaphragm

Reach down for my so-called last breath

Say to you without a trickle of dreaminess

"Go, dear, be free of guilt and shame!

May my blood make you stronger!

Be free like we humans are meant to be.

Fly like we were born to!

Go now, share my love with all those who will hear you!"

Then in conclusion I will smile at you, and there will be no confusion

As to my meaning or whereabouts.

Goo

2009-10-10T05:36:00.001-07:00

My inner whateverthefuck is melting into a blob of foam, and the only thing I can do to prevent such middleofthenight mushmash is to abandon it, whilst shifting my perspective at ever increasing frequencies, at least fast enough so that the supernothing has not enough time to realise what is happening to it before the oncoming tsunamic shifting of gears. Hear ye: shupershite plays mind games, can fathom abstractions incomprehensible to the stelthiest of mathematicians and has a processing speed similar to that of God. Meaning: futile all efforts, unless you can somehow think faster than your eyes can move, 'cause God gets not sidetracked by furtive tunnelvision eyes. Know ye thus, that should God melt into gooey foam, then the only non-liver-wrenching yet full-body action one can take is to look Goo in the face, love Goo for what she be and not for what she ain't, and to share, full-heartedly, one's entire identity of self with her, if even just for a few nanoseconds.

Highway 17

2009-05-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

Cruising down Highway 17, the authorities now heavily influenced by my existence, tailing us, onto our smell, they are aware of my every move five seconds before I make it, leaves me no choice but to do the obvious, drive faster, trouble is their pedal is heavier than my metal, means they'll have brought me down to their station before nightfall, no reason to flee, still I, restless, decisionless, pride anyway, keep the foot floored, as if praying with my feet, hoping for some angel of speed to somehow prefer me to them, maybe because I've got some funk they haven't got, some jive, some cool rhythm, or maybe simply because I'm thinking this, or maybe not: yes, probably it will just end the way it does, with a skake of repentance.

2009-04-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

Where exactly is the soul of the thing, if not on its arms and feet? Does he rise energetically to meet his guests, or does he remain dejected, refusing to be ejected from his perky perch? Do I have to please the one lad, or is there some heavenly body that overrides? Somehow I must charge my senses with that Godly nature, so that they might grope beyond mere flattery, so that the deed might be heartfelt after all.

It Could Just Be Tea

2009-01-24T16:05:00.000-08:00

'It could just be tea', I beeped, looking intently into her big brown eyes, which did not blink. She formed a half-moon smile and nodded, said something formal of the sort that one of these days such a tea outing might take place. I held my lips together (though the strain on them must have been apparent) and said no, that I really felt I had a teaload of items to splurge. To discuss, yes that is the word I used. She with her thick eyebrows and omniscient gaze already understands that my 'thing' for her has less to do with sexual fervour than a mixed up Freudian need for motherly love. 'Look, lady, at the progress that's been made here! See how these young souls haven't got the glazed look about them that they used to. Remember? We'd pull out the goodies expecting a riot and half of them wouldn't even be paying attention, the other half would forget what they were doing before they could even grab anything. And now look, their eyes are wide with curiosity, their backs straight, even their shoulder blades reflect the ceiling lights. 'Dinner, no. Tea. I revolve around you.' Not said. One of these days even she will be gone, and then and only then will the works be righteous in and of themselves, no sperm shot out at fading princesses, no glamourous entrances for the balcony lads. No, she will not have any tea, and no she will not have any boastful ranting, not even any of the boastful winks that I no longer can make appear accidental. She'll roam back into the office when I'm still upstairs and snort, 'Sophomoric pride! The lad thinks only he grows up! Hasn't he noticed how much I have changed?' And then, only for the briefest of tingling instances, she will consider inviting me for tea. But then she'll remember she's already refused my offer and besides, there's a bigger picture to see. The world, after all, doesn't revolve around her.

Unimaginative Bill

2009-01-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

Unimaginative Bill was so completely dim that he walked in circles, hands in pockets, fidgeting his fingers, singing nonsense rhymes ever so silently under his breath, his gait like a pale wave that the sand almost fails to notice.

He failed to contact his subconscious on a regular basis because his eyes were so attached to the things they saw. They wandered restlessly and randomly, fixating only on V and U shaped objects, a wet umbrella in a rusty umbrella rack, an uneaten piece of apple pie, the corner of a parallelepiped piece of carpet, hints of flesh on ads for cars.

Yet Bill, the dunce, never knew why--often he did not even know what--his gaze glazed over such curves and angles. Often he remained in a dreamlike state, walking round the shopping centres for hours at a time, searching for things, usually having lost from his mind the initial reason he'd come, Bill, his shadow bobbing tiresomely behind him, his arms never sure where to hang.

Bill has a diary but his words are all dull, as if he were afraid of being read. Half-witted half-thoughts hang almost proclaimed, taking up only half the lonely page, slanted, hovering, nearly making sense.

Daydream

2008-12-30T05:28:00.000-08:00

Jerry woke up from an insignificant daydream one autumn around twilight when the crows were returning noisily eastward, frantic and shifting direction in mid-caw. Jerry awoke from a daydream in which the crows were, from lack of attention, going eastward or anyward and Jerry was doing nothing and only vaguely paying attention until he came to, at which point he found he was about to cross the road at a red light when, just in time, he noticed a cop eyeing him pensively from the opposite side of the street. His epiphany, surprisingly, was that all these years he had treated authority figures--including not only this one but all the others, including those with lower moral standards than him and little or no influence over the general motion of things that matter, including his bosses, managers, superiors, teachers, elders, shopkeepers--with a kind of false reverence, though false in such a way that he never noticed its insincerity because he (good ole Jerry!) had intended to be as sincere as Jerry could. He had delegated these people with a role of authority in some nonexistent biblical realm, one in which those with such appropriated authority had the say in such moral affairs that he never imagined quite vividly enough, had the power, and used it, to decide who and what and when and whatever was acceptable and not, and like a figure in a Kafka novel Jerry never could find out just what the rules were specifically or generally. And only now, waking from this nightmarish daydream, could Jerry see that the very rules that he had so vaguely and yet so persistently followed all these years were entirely his own creation, and the authority figure whose persistently watching eyes he continually averted existed only in his ever dwindling, dull, lazy imagination.

Six O'Clock

2008-12-24T16:05:00.000-08:00

There is a time warp every morning right around six o'clock. For more than an instant or two time just freezes. The second hand on the clock, suddenly silent, refuses to tip downwards on its six o'clock plunge, as does the minute hand. They both stand there in mock alliance, proud of the domineering position they have over the hour hand which--although the sun has already zoomed predictably into the trustworthy eastern sky--is at its gloomiest position of the day. Hanging downward, the blood nearly dripping into its flushed face and pouring out of its eye sockets, the hour hand understands its real position, like a puppet in a political farce. He is the one everyone notices. Just about every woman and man on the planet keeps faith and time by the hour hand. And yet it is utterly and hopelessly dominated by the minute hand, who in turn is ruthlessly controlled by the second hand. Mere seconds! cries the hour hand. Yet he is hopelessly dependent on his misanthropic companion's willingness to carry on. In this prolonged minute the hour hand hangs down there helplessly, his hard heart pounding with humiliation, pining for the moment when, once again, he can begin the slow manipulated rise into his circle of influence.

Dreaming

2008-12-15T06:10:00.000-08:00

He sees in the glossy wood of the kitchen table, in the softness that rises out of the landlady's face, in an empty bag of crisps, the shape of what it is he is supposed to do. He cannot quite grasp what exactly it is, but he knows it is imminent and immense, and to decipher it properly he will have to be sharp, focused, his ears tuned in, his sensors alert to every minute alteration of his surroundings. He doesn't yet fully grasp the extent to which it will all have to come from within him: he still, to a large degree, begs for gifts, if not in the form of e-mail and books, then in landscapes, casseroles, less than endearing pictures of women at unexpected angles.

He glides through the night, alone in his simplified expectation, dreaming of the forthcoming onrush of epiphany, dreaming that heretofore unheard of powers await on either end of his fingertips, inside or outside, but as yet unavailable to his use. The conclusion is straightforward, he can tell, but he wakes from his dream having forgotten what it was.

Hangovers

2008-12-12T07:36:00.001-08:00

I should not even be telling you this. Self-confidence, breathing, volition, intensity, concentration; these are issues for fifteen year-olds. Tackling them at my age makes me think I've wasted half my life on popcorn, video games, masturbation of the visual cortex.

This morning's hangover was probably the worst I've had in a long while, not because of the physical pain or my resulting inability to cope with the most trivial of morning duties, but because I could see how much the hangover was setting me back from what I had been trying to achieve. Just last night I was blabbing on about the importance of claiming every moment for one's own and how to transfer that into real compassionate actions, and now here I couldn't even stand up straight without moaning. My goals had thus shifted from what seemed like such lofty endeavours to the grossest of physical needs: for the fucking hangover to go away, forget compassion, volition, concentration.

Thinking this as I made my way down into the busy station I began to cry, noisily and heartily, causing quite a spectacle of myself. In ordinary circumstances this would have really annoyed me, but I noticed that every decibel of sobbing seemed to take a gram off the otherwise unrelenting headache. Wonder. What awkward discoveries hangovers can help us to make!

2008-11-16T03:51:00.000-08:00

First day. Should try to write something every day.

Eat tofu. Drink water.

Speak your mind.