Writing The Inner Beast

    I wrote the following piece a few weeks ago as an exercise during a writing workshop up here at The Omega Institute. The prompt was: “I don’t want to upset you, but…..”. We had fifteen minutes to write something that somehow incorporated that phrase.
    The great thing about the exercise is that you don’t have time to mind-screw your writing. You just roll with what comes out of you; you tap into your flow, and your unique voice comes through loud and clear. You write from a different place than just your head.
    When I read this piece aloud to the class, I really got into it, and became very animated. There was a lot of laughter. But one woman said that I scared her, in a good sort of way, with my fervor and intensity. That’s great news. It’s important that my writing impacts people, that it evokes an emotional response. It’s not up to me what that response is.
    For months, it’s been crystalizing ever more clearly for me that the performer in me aches to read my stuff aloud; to perform it for people. It’s apparent that writing alone will not quell my creative beast of story. The writing must be there as the backbone, but the rest of animal is growing hungry and must be fed. I need to broaden my output media. And I am.     

       One of the linguistic conumdrums of modern communication is when somebody prefaces a conversation with “I don’t want to upset you, but….” . Are you fuckin’ serious? Why on earth would anybody start a sentence like that? They’re asking to be found guilty before they even commit the crime. Our school system should teach you this in third grade English class. Just come out and say it. Let me ask you: Would you rather get stabbed and slowly bleed to death? Or would you rather just get a quick kill shot to head? Exactly.
       I question the motive of somebody who begins a sentence with “I don’t want to upset you, but...”, because it’s such an obviously moronic and inflammatory thing to say. I would wager that upsetting you is in fact precisely what they want to do when they open up with that. But they’re disguising that nefarious intent by proclaiming the exact opposite. It’s linguistic passive-aggressiveness at its best. Then, after they’ve given you the devastating news, and you’re having a nervous breakdown in front of them, they can cling to “I told you I didn’t want to upset you! Don’t do this to me!” That’s beautiful. You’re headed to the psyche ward at Bellvue, and they’re laying a guilt trip on you.
       Or, another trick is to use that phrase to set you up for something that really sucks, but doesn’t suck quite as bad as whatever your mind is going to make up in the four seconds it takes them to spit it out. They fake high and go low. But a shot to the groin, at least for a guy, can be just as nasty, or worse, than a shot to the head. At least with a shot to the head, you might get a cool battle scar out of it that you brandish proudly to the world. A testament to your toughness. To your manhood. A scar on the face may even get you laid, a consolation prize to the devastation your life suffered after hearing “I don’t want to upset you, but…..”. That’s still better, however, than a punch in the nuts, which could actually severely inhibit your ability to get some tail.
       Getting hit in the face is also preferable to getting a shot to the balls because a strike to your face is likely to create blood. And, I don’t know about you gentlemen, but when I see and taste my own blood, it’s like adding nitro to jet fuel. I get jacked up. I get pumped. I get juiced. The primal “Kill Or Be Killed” instinct takes over, and it’s possible I won’t even feel a shot to the face. Not until much later, anyway, when I’m sitting at the bar, downing shots of Jack Daniels, surrounded by adoring females who are admiring my facial gash and cooing me like the warrior I am. I’ll take that scenario over laying in bed alone with a bag of ice on my balls any day, and twice on Sundays.

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Bong Hits By The Pool

       “Bong hits by the pool?!”
       Running down the stairs, a beer in one hand, and a clear plastic milk container ingeniously converted into a smoking device in the other, my housemate paused before asking that question on the very tip of his tongue. He heard voices coming from downstairs. Voices he didn’t recognize. Voices that may not fully appreciate the spirit of his intentions.
       A few minutes before, when my housemate had gone upstairs to grab his home made apparatus, there was nothing unusual going on in our living room. Nothing unusual, that is, for The Skunk House.
       The abode I shared with six other gentlemen during my last two years of college was a vortex of hilarious absurdity. From the outside, the place looked like a common, unremarkable duplex. Something happened, though, once you entered the back door of 825 Ardmore Avenue. Like Alice going down the rabbit hole, reality shifted. The only thing that made sense was no sense. You never knew what you were going to see. You never knew what was going to happen.
       On this particular sunny, hot, May afternoon, there was a fully watered kiddie pool in our living room. In the kiddie pool were four naked men: Me, Mr. B, Mr. C, and Mr. Bubble. The three of us were having our way with Mr. Bubble, who was willingly providing the services we paid him for. Namely, bubbles. Tons of them. Hanging around the new addition to our living room were a few other men and women. Some alcohol. Some.....other stuff. And laughter. Lots of laughter.
       We had run a hose from an outside spigot through a window and into the house. Made sense, right? How else were we going to fill a pool in our living room? The problem was, we were in a drought, and metropolitan Philadelphia was under a water ban. Our landlord, who didn’t like us anyway, saw the hose going through the window and got.....suspicious. So he called the cops.
       You can imagine our surprise when our landlord Frank entered our sanctum flanked by two of Philly’s finest. At first, we were all rather flummoxed. A kiddie pool full of water, naked men, and Mr. Bubble in one’s own living room surely wasn’t illegal, was it? Not in America. Not in the city of brotherly love. When they explained that there was a water ban in effect, we argued that our actions were not in violation. After all, we weren’t using the water for something frivolous, like watering our lawn. We didn’t even have a lawn. We explained that we had just come from our Senior Class Picnic, and had been drinking. Heavily. And, legally, we added, for we were all twenty-one. Fearful of possible dehydration, we thought cooling off in our pool was not only prudent, but was precisely what a doctor would have recommended. If any of us had gone to a doctor. Which we hadn’t.
       They didn’t buy it.
       Unfortunately, that was not the end of our disappointment. Whilst in our home, the powers that be noticed something else contentious. Namely, the plethora of pilfered street signs that littered the surroundings. But that’s yet another story. And one that I will tell, along with many others, in another installment of The Skunk House Chronicles.
       By the way, after the cops and the landlord left, we broke out the bong and did hits by the pool. A pool with no water in it, but a pool nonetheless. Skunks are very adaptive animals.

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Demon T

       Whilst meditating in a cave, a woman was visited by three of her oldest and most powerful demons. As her demons whirled and cavorted around her, taunting, chiding, and attempting to distract her, she kept on meditating. Annoyed because the woman was not reacting to them, her demons intensified their efforts, getting louder and more vicious; yelling and screaming and throwing all sorts of harmful words at her. Still, the woman would not engage them.
       When she was done meditating, she started a fire. The demons became enraged, throwing the worst they could muster at her. They howled horribly hurtful words, called her names, and threw venomously barbed insults. They dug up her most painful wounds. In horrid and vivid detail, they assaulted her with stories of her biggest and most consequential failures. The demons also began causing real physical chaos; tipping over chairs, spitting on the floor, and throwing her possessions all over the cave. Sill, the woman went about her business, not reacting. In fact, she put a tea kettle on the fire and began to boil water.
       Finally, exhausted and frustrated, the demons gave up. They asked her “What the fuck is going on? We are your greatest fears! Your deepest woes! Your worst nightmares! Why aren’t you reacting to us like you usually do?” The woman said, “Well, you’re here now. You’ve been here before. And you’re probably going to be around me the rest of my life. I thought it’s about time we should sit and have some tea together.”
       This week, I’m at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
       Can you tell?


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Update on Monday, July 29, 2013 at 4:31PM by Clint Piatelli

I thought this would have been clear, but apparently it was not: I didn't create this story. I just retold it, in my own words. It's an ancient Hindu, Buddhist, or otherwise enlightened philosophy's tale of making friends with your demons instead of trying to get rid of them or fighting with them.

The Skunk House

       The Skunk House. That’s where I lived my last two years of college. Like all iconic residences, this one had a name, a lot of character, and a lot of characters in it. Seven guys. Five bedrooms. Three floors. One bathroom. It was glorious.
       Our abode got its name because it housed four of the six members of my band, The Albino Skunks, a fifties band, who’s repertoire also included some early sixties hits. The band was my brain child, from conception, to image, to costume design, to naming the band. My twin brother Mike and I played in it together. A shit load of fun. I’ll write a post someday about that band. But today, I’ll tell you about the house where most of us lived (not Mike, he lived across town). The Skunk House was, in the little world of Villanova, as infamous as the band itself.
       Not everybody was thrilled when we found the house in the spring of my Sophomore year. In the words of my father, “Johnny”.....(my dad rarely called me Clint) “that place is a God Damn Shit Hole!”. These words were said in front of some of the guys who eventually inhabited the place. They have become a part of folklore amongst many of my Villanova comrades, and the phrase is often repeated whenever we get together, complete with my dad’s Boston accent.
       Dad was right. It was a shit hole. All my housemates knew it. But we didn’t care. Because the only thing that mattered to the seven of us was that we lived together. It didn’t matter where. As long as we were in it as a tribe, all was right with the world.
       I remember getting into debates, even arguments, with my father about living there. He was of the opinion that we would all end up hating each other, because the place was such a dive and much too small for seven young men. Dad meant well, trying to protect his son and the relationships he knew meant a lot to him. My father had the tendency to be over-protective, and thought that he always knew best. God bless him. He meant well, and I knew it was coming from a place of deep love.
       But he was all wet about this one, and I told him so. I was adamant about living with all of these guys, in this house, for the rest of my college days. And I did. Around graduation, my dad admitted that I made the right call, and that I had assessed the situation soundly. The house actually brought us all closer.
       I knew it would, because I knew how we all felt about each other. There was a tremendous sense of camaraderie between us. We were like a gang. We hung out together. We had each other’s backs. We respected each other. We were all very different and yet very similar.
       Bottom line, we loved each other. I knew that. I felt that. Even at the tender age of twenty, I was keenly aware of how deeply I felt about these guys. And I experienced a wonderful sense of acceptance and affectation from them. They loved my spirit, my uniqueness, my unconventional approach to, well, everything. They loved me for who I was. And I felt the exact same way about them. Intense male bonding, before the term gained mass popularity.
       Okay. I’ve set the stage. In part two, I’ll give you the play. In beautiful, gory detail.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Blak Sabloon

       

       In high school, my twin brother, myself, and our good buddy formed a mock rock band called “Blak Sabloon”. I forget exactly how we came up with the name. But it had something to do with our buddy being into Black Sabbath, and both Mike and I detesting them.
       When we formed, or more accurately, invented, this fictional group, we did it all the way. We each created our own character within the band, who were alter egos of ourselves, and even came up with their back stories. We took old clothing, jewelry, some of it that even belonged to dad....or mom....and ripped it, colored it, used it creatively, and made our stage costumes.
       We knew how to play music, so we taped our performances (totally Old School, using cassette tape) and created a unified recording out of those tapes. Just like you would with a “real” album. We created a body of work. A sonically obscene body of work, but a body of work nonetheless.
       The true mayhem of it all was that, even though we could all play instruments, we took our musical ability and completely fucked around with it. For example, I was the lead singer. And I really can’t sing. On top of that, we would deliberately choose songs that were out of my key (if I even had a key), just so that the vocals would sound even more horrific. There was lots of screaming, made up lyrics, and improvisation. We would switch instruments. We would take songs we knew and turn them on their heads. Sometimes my brother Mike, aka AcidHead Glasscock, would start playing another song in the middle of the one we were playing, without telling the rest of the band. Sometimes we would play songs we didn’t know, just to see what would happen. It was gloriously creative and ridiculously fun.
       The band was supposed to sound bad. Awful, in fact. The worse it sounded, the funnier it was. Being decent musicians, we played the music well enough so that you knew what song it was and could identify with it and the musicianship involved. With that foundation, we knew how to push the song into the plane of the absurd, then pull it back just as it got completely out of control. It was barely controlled insane musical madness.
       The band would sometimes invite friends over for a “concert”. Throw in a few beers and bodies, and it was just a good fuckin‘ time by a bunch of hyper-creative high school kids looking for an outlet with no rules, no boundaries, and the the wide open imaginative space to go wherever the hell we wanted. And we did. Often. During these shows, some of our buddies would get up and do guest vocal appearances, which were always a gas. My brother Mike was the only one of us who could sing well, and he never sang. That says everything about what the band was about right there.
       Not only did we record all of this sonic mayhem, but we took it a step further; we created the physical album itself. We took a Mary Poppins double album and glued construction paper to it so we could write and draw whatever the hell we wanted on it. This was inventive and resourceful action in a time of zero personal computers.
       The three of us were way ahead of our time. This was Spinal Tap, years before there even was a Spinal Tap.
       The resulting labor of love, “Black Sabloon: Wasted Live! (at the Inforium)” looked like a real album. It was complete with graphic design, photos, song descriptions, and band and crew information. We even came up with “critics reviews” of the band. All terrible, of course. My character, BoneHead Glasscock (twin brother of guitarist AcidHead), was described as having a voice that sounded like “a cross between a malfunctioning chainsaw and a rhinoceros in labor”. We used “Kiss: Alive!” as our design template and created a double live album, which were very popular at the time.
       The creation of Blak Sabloon says more about me than it may appear. More than just the silly play of a bunch of high school musicians, it allowed me to bring so much of what I love, so much of what I’m good at, to create something that was different, unique, one of a kind - qualities that many people use to describe me. I got to create a whole world, with a team of people I loved, and bring all the imagination, creativity, and unbridled self expression that I could muster. It was refreshingly raw, marvelously irreverent, passionately youthful, and incredibly fun. As somebody close to me brought up, many people lose a lot of those qualities as they get older, but I have somehow managed to buck that trend and bring all of that, and more, on a new level, to my life today. And that will always be so. Because that’s such an integral part of what makes me....me.  
       The picture above is from the back of the album. It is our Officially Unofficial “Band Publicity Shot”. Of all the pictures of me and my friends during high school, this ranks as one of my all time favorites. It sums up our collective Blak Sabloon experience perfectly. There is attitude, camaraderie, youth, a fuck all sense of humor, and the implied presence of illicit substances. All crucial elements in the makings of a great Rock N’ Roll photo.
       We were sixteen.
       And the more things change, the more they stay the same.......


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.