In front of electronic screens, I'm wasting the hours away. H.B.O. and Cinnemax, Youtube, Facebook, take a look, and hooked for hours on pixels painted. The terrible glow on my skin, in my skin. And in my eyes--my eyes dilated in the dark--in my eyes, an endless procession of movie stars and uploaded friend-pics, slick-quick videos and constant updates. For hours unmoving, sinking deeper and deeper into the quilt covered couch. I am "doing" nothing. It is a waste, and I am wasting away.
Elevated foot. Iced foot. Ibuprofen every four hours, and the swelling fades back into shape. At least it's on its way. I can walk without a limp, but the flesh around my ankle is blue-black and yellow. Mottled. A colored kankle propped on pillows and covered in ice. But things are on the up and up...
If I can tear myself away from the gaping void of electronic nothingness...
Oh I could read, yes. Or I could write, sure. But this would involve moving my ass off of the couch. I would have to find a book, see. Or seek out a pen and paper. And who knows how long either one of these endeavors would take? I might find myself stranded on the kitchen island, or lost in a sea of filthy linens. I might loose my way down the dark corridors of this strange house. I might lock myself in the garage. Who knows? It's a strange world out there, and once you've got a good butt groove working, you find yourself questioning the necessity of moving. Also the necessity of washing oneself, or brushing one's teeth, or putting on clothes at all. Sanity is fleeting in a series of sit-coms.
Wish me luck, as I bask in the unhealthy glow of the pixelated waters surrounding me. Wish me luck as I attempt to navigate this digital sea. Wish me luck as I search for some sight of land--for some island grounded in reality--that is not plugged into a wall outlet.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
A Neon Sky and A Pale Inner Thigh
House sitting. Literally. Making butt-grooves in the quilt covered couch on Pearl Crescent Court. Strange dogs sleeping on either side of me and I'm oddly at home. And, oddly, home this will be for the next week. I'll be able to do some auto-exploring through the back-wood-roads of North Raleigh via my father's Toyota Camry. Carpenter Pond and Creedmoor, Mt. Vernon, Noorwod, and Leesville, take me past the horse pastures, the painted fences and brick houses to the sunset between cities, the Piedmont turning toward night.
Yesterday the sky was lavender at 6:30 pm. Loose cotton-ball-clouds in the east: fluff-puffs in the sky and colored cotton candy. And to the west the sky was cut with knives. Sliced stratus in front of the setting sun, back lit with neon gold. Reefs of cumulus above, emblazoned against the pale purple background, and each wrinkle winked in that rare silver time. A painted sky hanging over 540, and I was speeding west along the curve of the earth. Four lanes on either side of the median, commuters heading down the concrete pathway toward brick houses in the country side of North Raleigh or South Durham. And above their heads: pure electricity. Artwork in the sky above the freeway.
Yes, I will be able to do a little auto-exploring, but most of my time will be spent in a stranger's house with strange dogs. So it goes...
But none of this can possibly be as strange as last night. For last night brought the burlesque. An experience I am not likely to soon forget. After downing several silver bullets with Tate and Hannah Baron in their Peace College dorm room, we piled into Tate's Subi and headed down town. Legends, Legends, the hot-spot, the enormous dance club frequented by Raleigh's chic homosexual population.
Five dollars at the door, but it is empty inside. Room after room. Through the dance-chambers, empty, our footsteps echoing off of the walls, off of the high ceilings, off of the columns that rise at intervals: a phallic forest: the ghosts of gays grinding in the shadows. Empty until we buy beers at the bar and head to the back room where the show has already started...
I was expecting gay guys and girls, drag queens galore, and the transgendered masses. I was expecting outlandish costumes, platform thigh-highs,themed make-up, and bee-hived hair-dos. I was expecting chaos. But apparently this is not burlesque.
Instead, the stage was graced by beautiful young women, each in turn. Their skin soft under the stage lighting. Dancing out onto the stage in their racy costumes. Pin-up girls, dancing out onto the stage from behind the velvet curtains, from behind the long procession of decades that has hidden them away. They dance: out from the '20s, from the '30s and '40s to an audience firmly rooted in 2010. They are soft under the stage lighting, and we are there to welcome them. The lost girls. Back after all these years.
Each one takes her turn. And each turn looks like this: She dances onto the stage, the music playing just for her, and she proceeds to undress in front of the crowd. It is a scarf whipped off of the head and tossed, unfurling in the air as she dances, a sequined top unbuttoned--button by button--and flung to the side, a skirt unzipped and now a hula-hoop around her waist as she does the slow sway down to the stage, get low, get low, until the skirt is a puddle of fabric at her feet. The crowd encourages the shedding of each article with cat-calls and whistles. A sly smile from the girl on the stage. And then it is the heels, un-clipped, she steps down, the stockings, peeled away one by one from vanilla legs. She is a pale flame under the stage lights, and the crowd cheers. And then she turns her back to the crowd, her butt-cheeks like ripe fruits poised atop her legs, and she slowly...slowly...unclasps her bra...and she takes it off and holds it out to the side and drops it...cat-calls and whistles from the audience...and then she peeks over her shoulder, and she smiles at the crowd, the crowd working itself into a veritable frenzy...and then she turns around, her arms crossed over her breasts to cover herself...and she walks out to the front of the stage...and then...as a finale to her little piece of the show...and then...cue the Cuban percussion music, please...and then...she flings her arms wide open as if to embrace us all, as if to embrace the world beyond, and behold:
NIPPLE TASSELS
NIPPLE TASSELS...spinning fire...NIPPLE TASSELS...man's desire...NIPPLE TASSELS...spinning free and Holy Shit! a sight to see.
Shake it. Shake, Shake it. Shake it. Shake, Shake it. Shake it. Shake, Shake it. Shake.
The crowd erupts. All that flesh on stage, pale and perfect in the soft light, and she exits stage right, still shaking, still shaking, leaving the clothes strewn across the stage for some lucky man to come and sweep up before the next girl dances down from the decades to strip off her costume and set us on fire.
Burn baby Burn.
Yesterday the sky was lavender at 6:30 pm. Loose cotton-ball-clouds in the east: fluff-puffs in the sky and colored cotton candy. And to the west the sky was cut with knives. Sliced stratus in front of the setting sun, back lit with neon gold. Reefs of cumulus above, emblazoned against the pale purple background, and each wrinkle winked in that rare silver time. A painted sky hanging over 540, and I was speeding west along the curve of the earth. Four lanes on either side of the median, commuters heading down the concrete pathway toward brick houses in the country side of North Raleigh or South Durham. And above their heads: pure electricity. Artwork in the sky above the freeway.
Yes, I will be able to do a little auto-exploring, but most of my time will be spent in a stranger's house with strange dogs. So it goes...
But none of this can possibly be as strange as last night. For last night brought the burlesque. An experience I am not likely to soon forget. After downing several silver bullets with Tate and Hannah Baron in their Peace College dorm room, we piled into Tate's Subi and headed down town. Legends, Legends, the hot-spot, the enormous dance club frequented by Raleigh's chic homosexual population.
Five dollars at the door, but it is empty inside. Room after room. Through the dance-chambers, empty, our footsteps echoing off of the walls, off of the high ceilings, off of the columns that rise at intervals: a phallic forest: the ghosts of gays grinding in the shadows. Empty until we buy beers at the bar and head to the back room where the show has already started...
I was expecting gay guys and girls, drag queens galore, and the transgendered masses. I was expecting outlandish costumes, platform thigh-highs,themed make-up, and bee-hived hair-dos. I was expecting chaos. But apparently this is not burlesque.
Instead, the stage was graced by beautiful young women, each in turn. Their skin soft under the stage lighting. Dancing out onto the stage in their racy costumes. Pin-up girls, dancing out onto the stage from behind the velvet curtains, from behind the long procession of decades that has hidden them away. They dance: out from the '20s, from the '30s and '40s to an audience firmly rooted in 2010. They are soft under the stage lighting, and we are there to welcome them. The lost girls. Back after all these years.
Each one takes her turn. And each turn looks like this: She dances onto the stage, the music playing just for her, and she proceeds to undress in front of the crowd. It is a scarf whipped off of the head and tossed, unfurling in the air as she dances, a sequined top unbuttoned--button by button--and flung to the side, a skirt unzipped and now a hula-hoop around her waist as she does the slow sway down to the stage, get low, get low, until the skirt is a puddle of fabric at her feet. The crowd encourages the shedding of each article with cat-calls and whistles. A sly smile from the girl on the stage. And then it is the heels, un-clipped, she steps down, the stockings, peeled away one by one from vanilla legs. She is a pale flame under the stage lights, and the crowd cheers. And then she turns her back to the crowd, her butt-cheeks like ripe fruits poised atop her legs, and she slowly...slowly...unclasps her bra...and she takes it off and holds it out to the side and drops it...cat-calls and whistles from the audience...and then she peeks over her shoulder, and she smiles at the crowd, the crowd working itself into a veritable frenzy...and then she turns around, her arms crossed over her breasts to cover herself...and she walks out to the front of the stage...and then...as a finale to her little piece of the show...and then...cue the Cuban percussion music, please...and then...she flings her arms wide open as if to embrace us all, as if to embrace the world beyond, and behold:
NIPPLE TASSELS
NIPPLE TASSELS...spinning fire...NIPPLE TASSELS...man's desire...NIPPLE TASSELS...spinning free and Holy Shit! a sight to see.
Shake it. Shake, Shake it. Shake it. Shake, Shake it. Shake it. Shake, Shake it. Shake.
The crowd erupts. All that flesh on stage, pale and perfect in the soft light, and she exits stage right, still shaking, still shaking, leaving the clothes strewn across the stage for some lucky man to come and sweep up before the next girl dances down from the decades to strip off her costume and set us on fire.
Burn baby Burn.
Monday, October 25, 2010
And so it begins
Hello and good day to anyone and everyone who has stumbled across this blog: a forum for what will surely become the ramblings of a mad man. My name is Nathan Bradford Dixon, and though my life may seem less than exciting at its current juncture (I'm right now reclining in a la-zy-boy at my parent's house in front of a television set with my left ankle propped on pillows and covered with ice-filled zip-lock bags because I sprained it at the climbing gym yesterday), I'm sure the pace will pick up in the weeks to come. Excitement is surely on its way.
Not that I'm counting on this blog making me the next Perez Hilton. Lord no. If I was that sassy, I would have claimed my stake to a television show on VH1 or Fox News years ago. This is not that type of blog.
To set the record straight: I am not familiar with blogging. I have heard of "blogs" and "bloggers," but I have never set sail across the waters of the internet in search of either one. In fact, I have never visited a single blog, and to my knowledge I've never met a blogger. This would be what my college professors would call "not doing one's research." But I'm not in college any more, so I don't have to listen to them.
Instead I have taken the path of least resistance and done what any mediocre college student would do when confronted with a question: I have visited the not-so-encyclopedic Wikipedia in search of answers. According to this "fact" filled website "many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries." I am happy to clarify that the "particular subject" of this blog will be me, making this--to use Wikipedia's wording--an "online diary." Christ! The great digital giant has already effemanized me. But as I am supremely comfortable in my masculinity--even while donning almost any garb designated "female clothing" (daisy dukes, tights, leotards, etc.)--I will let it slide. Diary or Journal, Chronicle, Log, or Record: it is all a jotting down, a scribbling out of the highs and lows. It is a word filled window into someone's life. So here we go...
From mid-May of 2010 through mid-October of 2010 I worked at a camp just outside of Brevard North Carolina. I will abstain from naming the camp because the contents of this blog do not reflect in any way the position of the camp. And now that legalities are out of the way, I will say this: It was a fast-paced job that provided both housing and food free of charge. Thus: a way to turn pay-checks into pure profit.
This has been my scheme since graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
1. Find a job that will yield this "pure profit."
2. Work as if possessed for several months.
3. Direct Deposit: put paychecks straight into the bank.
4. Quit work once either a) the season ends, or b) it becomes unbearable.
5. Live as a vagabond off of savings for as long as possible (at least as long as the work lasted).
6. Every penny counts here:
Cheap Beer, Cheap Whiskey, black beans and rice, tuna and cabbage, banana and peanut butter.
That is all, my friends, now move it along...
7. And... Repeat
This last stint at the Camp has provided me with enough dough to purchase a plane ticket to New Zealand. This is the reason for the blog. To keep in touch with friends and family while I am gone. If anyone else wants to read, then go on. I love it. I fly out of North Cackalack on November 8th. Good-bye to the Old North State, and Hello to the Land of the Long White Cloud. I am southern and headed south. And so it begins...
Not that I'm counting on this blog making me the next Perez Hilton. Lord no. If I was that sassy, I would have claimed my stake to a television show on VH1 or Fox News years ago. This is not that type of blog.
To set the record straight: I am not familiar with blogging. I have heard of "blogs" and "bloggers," but I have never set sail across the waters of the internet in search of either one. In fact, I have never visited a single blog, and to my knowledge I've never met a blogger. This would be what my college professors would call "not doing one's research." But I'm not in college any more, so I don't have to listen to them.
Instead I have taken the path of least resistance and done what any mediocre college student would do when confronted with a question: I have visited the not-so-encyclopedic Wikipedia in search of answers. According to this "fact" filled website "many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries." I am happy to clarify that the "particular subject" of this blog will be me, making this--to use Wikipedia's wording--an "online diary." Christ! The great digital giant has already effemanized me. But as I am supremely comfortable in my masculinity--even while donning almost any garb designated "female clothing" (daisy dukes, tights, leotards, etc.)--I will let it slide. Diary or Journal, Chronicle, Log, or Record: it is all a jotting down, a scribbling out of the highs and lows. It is a word filled window into someone's life. So here we go...
From mid-May of 2010 through mid-October of 2010 I worked at a camp just outside of Brevard North Carolina. I will abstain from naming the camp because the contents of this blog do not reflect in any way the position of the camp. And now that legalities are out of the way, I will say this: It was a fast-paced job that provided both housing and food free of charge. Thus: a way to turn pay-checks into pure profit.
This has been my scheme since graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
1. Find a job that will yield this "pure profit."
2. Work as if possessed for several months.
3. Direct Deposit: put paychecks straight into the bank.
4. Quit work once either a) the season ends, or b) it becomes unbearable.
5. Live as a vagabond off of savings for as long as possible (at least as long as the work lasted).
6. Every penny counts here:
Cheap Beer, Cheap Whiskey, black beans and rice, tuna and cabbage, banana and peanut butter.
That is all, my friends, now move it along...
7. And... Repeat
This last stint at the Camp has provided me with enough dough to purchase a plane ticket to New Zealand. This is the reason for the blog. To keep in touch with friends and family while I am gone. If anyone else wants to read, then go on. I love it. I fly out of North Cackalack on November 8th. Good-bye to the Old North State, and Hello to the Land of the Long White Cloud. I am southern and headed south. And so it begins...
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