ANTICHRIS_

Chris Garvey’s latest piece on why he writes is raw, honest, and much in line with many other writers’ reasons for creating art.  While the life experiences vary greatly, the driving force remains the same. His piece brings to mind a passage from the out-of-print satirical novel by the great Aldous Huxley, entitled Those Barren Leaves.   – Christopher Stoddard, Editor

Excerpt from Those Barren Leaves
By Aldous Huxley

To be torn between divided allegiances is the painful fate of almost every human being.  Pull devil, pull baker; pull flesh, pull spirit; pull love, pull duty; pull reason and pull hallowed prejudice.  The conflict, in its various forms, is the theme of every drama.  For though we have learnt to feel disgust at the spectacle of a bullfight, an execution or a gladiatorial show, we still look on with pleasure at the contortions of those who suffer spiritual anguish.  At some distant future date, when society is organized in a rational manner so that every individual occupies the position and does the work for which his capacities really fit him, when education has ceased to instill into the minds of the young fantastic prejudices instead of truths, when the endocrine glands have been taught to function in perfect harmony and diseases have been suppressed, all our literature of conflict and unhappiness will seem strangely incomprehensible; and our taste for the spectacle of mental torture will be regarded as an obscene perversion of which decent men should feel ashamed.  Joy will take the place of suffering as the principal theme of art; in the process, it may be, art will cease to exist.  A happy people, we now say, has no history; we might add that happy individuals have no literature.  The novelist dismisses in a paragraph his hero’s twenty years of happiness; over a week of misery and spiritual debate he will linger through twenty chapters.  When there is no more misery, he will have nothing to write about.  Perhaps it will be all for the best.

Melancholy: My Muse, My Mentor
By Chris Garvey

As most know or could imagine, depression is depressing. But it can also be pretty inspiring, too. What it inspires varies of course, but if you’re lucky, from the tears, hangovers and lowered libido, you may acquire a little bit of creative stimulation.

Nature is a muse. Lovers, drugs and alcohol can be as well, but love and drugs wear off. One good thing about Seasonal Affective Disorder, or being dejected or a chemical comedown is that you’re left with something: a shitty feeling. And that shitty feeling can proliferate and wreak havoc on your life, or it can motivate you to channel it somehow—whether with a pen, brush, accordion or microscope.

When I’m content or relatively happy, I’m uninspired and bored. At first, doing things that normal-functioning people do is like a breath of fresh air. Hitting the gym three times a week is invigorating; food shopping and cooking is rewarding and cheaper and healthier than eating out. But the allure soon fades. And while friends tell me to embrace these periods of relative peace-of-mind, I just can’t. I crave the ups and downs, the penchant for sad songs, the abrupt crying spells and the drinking alone in bed. It’s fucked up but it’s just the way it is.

I’m happy to see some phony sense of happiness slip from my grasp. I wouldn’t be writing this, and you wouldn’t be reading it if I was out enjoying a fairly well-balanced existence. I’d be too satiated with going to the gym and cooking and sex and nightlife, and too worn out from the exercise, sex and partying to muster up the energy, desire and concentration to jot down even a paragraph or two.

Whether scribbled, splattered or screamed, the best art (or at least in my opinion, as ill-informed as it may be) comes from either a period of misery or a life’s worth. With no sadness and inner turmoil, your emotions are stale and conventional. This is a fact, I think, so it makes sense that without the melancholy, one’s songs, sculpture or poetry would be boring, banal and clichéd.

‘Muse’ reminds me of ‘mentor’—both of which I’ve never had, not in human form, anyway. Both muses and mentors have been extremely influential on world history and on modern-day pop culture. Without Eric Clapton falling in love with George Harrison’s wife, he would have had no muse and we’d have no ‘Layla.’ And without Oprah nurturing the career of Dr. Phil, he wouldn’t have an $80-million a year salary, even though we’d be a lot better off without his bloviation.

So while I may never have an overwhelmingly passionate and illicit affair with the wife of my best friend who also happens to be a Beatle, I’ll always have a pool of depression from which to draw. And sure, I could use Oprah or some form of guidance in my life, but at this point it’s probably too late. I’m like an old dog that’s been stuck in the pound too long. I may have some potential, but who’s gonna choose me over an un-jaded puppy? I wouldn’t. My proclivity for realism and cynicism can get depressing. And mentors are usually in a good place in their life, so why would they jeopardize their career contentment and life’s achievements with someone like me?  Again, I wouldn’t.

Hereditary conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorders can transfer onto generations through DNA. Life-tainting experiences like death, divorce or eviction can open the door to emotional hopelessness. These life moments can bring you to a dark place. But for some of us, depending on hereditary traits, childhood upbringing and one’s own adult life trajectory, it’s a comfortable place to be.

Without the blues, there’d be no B.B., Buddy or John Lee. Without heartbreak, there’d be no ‘Tracks of My Tears’ or the poetry of Sylvia Plath or Picasso’s blue period, and without anguish, we couldn’t draw from the existentialism of Sartre and the raw expression of Kurt Cobain. Sure, Cobain killed himself. Plath did, too. Van Gogh chopped off an ear after some chick dumped him. But what’s better, to live long and even-keeled and leave the world with nothing but a will and a headstone, or to shave off a few decades of life and inner-peace to create something that may move people? There’s no right answer, of course, but I know what mine is.

Huxley, Aldous. Those Barren Leaves. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1925.

By Chris Garvey

Most mornings I wake up with a hard-on. Sometimes it’s at 100%, other times 79% or so. Usually its energy and rigidity will rouse me and I’ll yearn for a warm and inviting place to put it. But as a bachelor, I usually sleep alone; therefore I wake alone. This makes morning sex—one of the best kinds there is—an unfortunate rarity. It could be worse though: no hard-on at all.  

As Ghostface proclaimed, “I may hump the bed sometimes, ‘naw mean?” Well, my first semi-lucid moments today were spent doing just that. Not the way I used to as a kid, those were more intense affairs. You see, like Ghost, I’m getting older, and I really must conserve my potentially hip-dislocating thrusts.

Burgess Meredith advised Rocky against sex before a fight. I’ve heeded his advice by very rarely beating off on a weekday morning. The oats stored give me the strength to get on the subway and repeat my soul-stifling daily routine. Life, especially here in New York, is like a heavyweight prizefight and you gots to be ready “ya bum ya.”

Weekends are different. If after a night of heavy drinking without acquiring a bedfellow, not fellow but lady, I can spend better part of a Saturday afternoon ‘catching up.’  But it’s not like it used to be. Both my loins and spirit are left feeling empty so I try to refrain. But it’s hard.

Sex and/or masturbation are like fast food or cocaine. If you stay away, it’s easier to not indulge. But if you wolf down a Big Mac on a Monday, you’re gonna crave one on Thursday. If you did 2 bumps at a party Friday, you’re gonna wish you had a twenty bag at next week’s client meet-and-greet happy hour. And so it goes that if you masturbate on a Wednesday night, you’re gonna be more inclined to sneak into a bathroom stall at work and rub one out the next day. Not that I have EVER done this mind you, it’s simply an analogy. Yes, maybe a weak one but that’s all I could come up with.   

My penis is the only penis I’ve known intimately, the only one I’ve touched, manipulated and utilized in the pursuit of happiness. That’s a lie actually. I used to squeeze my bulldog Bruno’s penis, not the pink part, just the tip. It relaxed him. Figure, it was the least I could do; the poor bastard never got to drop a load in all his eleven years. But now he’s gone and the only penis I have to fondle is my own.

I’ve heard of pedophiles appealing for castration, boys born with the wrong anatomy, cutting their penises off. I’ve never entertained such thoughts, I don’t think most men have, but we’re all different. I’ve never had a wet dream, which I’ve been told is rare. I have however had whiskey-dick, both with whiskey and without and trust me, there’s nothing worse than a woman scorned by a flaccid penis, so you better be shit-faced or pretend to be right quick.

The penis is one half the reason why all of us are here. Or I guess the balls are, but without the penis, even the richest lesbian couple couldn’t become pregnant. Sorry Aunt Anna, but it’s true. So even as grey hairs grow through my scalp, push through my scrotum and sprout around my nipples, I’ll continue to involuntarily thrust into whatever I have at my disposal. Whether it is a Tempur-Pedic pillow or one of those purple Crown Royal pouches filled with lard.

When it is a lady, however, I will relish the morning breath, the hungover haze, the highly sensitive skin that comes with a new day, and of course each glorious thrust. That is before I come up with a good reason why I can’t do brunch.

By Chris Garvey

“Let sleeping dogs lie” and “Be careful what you wish for.”  The older I get, the more relevant these clichés become.  But I guess, “If it ain’t broke…” 

Well, lots of things are broke.  Pesticides are killing bats and bees, people are losing their homes and jobs, children are exploited for their parents’ 15 minutes of fame, and many of us are wasting time reconnecting with people from the past.  And it’s easy—with a few clicks of the mouse, social networking sites and ‘free people searches’ reunite high school crushes and drunken college hookups.  But if you haven’t kept in touch up until this point, should you now?

A few years ago I decided to find my aunt.  I hadn’t seen her since I was 2 years old, my brother and sister, never.  So I went on Intelius.com, a site that helps people find people. Their tagline is ‘Live in the know.’ But if ignorance is bliss, then knowledge runs the risk of misery.  Well, within a few minutes I found seven people with her name, typed out some letters and dropped them in the mail.  Three days later I received an email from her.

We met and spoke about many things: hallucinogenic drugs, her suicide attempts, my father, her abusive relationships and how a member of my family had sexually assaulted her when she was a teenage runaway.

Now, almost every Sunday night she calls me and thanks me for finding her.  She cries and apologizes that she didn’t do it sooner.  She gets excited about her new family but says she just can’t see us again.  She’s having a difficult time dealing with the situation and all that it’s stirred up in her.

My desire to find someone, who in some ways didn’t want to be found, has upset the balance of things.  I’ve roused memories that she’d rather forget, and I feel guilty for that and for avoiding her calls and dreading her rambling voice messages.  They’re self-involved and cryptic and allude to “more terrible things” that were done to her, but she won’t tell me what they are.  I really don’t know what to think, and I’m not sure I want to.  The virtual world has enabled a real world experience that probably should’ve been left to chance or something just a little less forced.

I’ve realized that searching for the past is sort of like indulging in a deep, dark sex fantasy.  After the German Shepard licks off the peanut butter, once you’re done banging the two sweaty construction workers, after you roll off the gothy dwarf chick, you realize that maybe you’ve made a mistake.  Maybe you should’ve left the fantasy in your head where you could enjoy it rather than in your hand where you just regret it.