Jon Ureña's Blog, page 19
July 15, 2024
Post-mortem for Motocross Legend, Love of My Life
[check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
You probably shouldn’t read this post unless you’ve gone through my novella Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, that you can start reading here.
Back in January of this year (2024), I was happily writing away at the last stretch of my hella-long novel We’re Fucked, when, for no discernible reason, I chose to rummage through my rarely-touched drawers and came across an external hard drive. Hoping that it contained albums I hadn’t heard in years, I checked its contents. I discovered the album Sweet Heart Sweet Light by Spiritualized. I had recently used one of their songs for We’re Fucked, and I didn’t recall ever listening to this other album, so I put it on. As the second song, titled “Hey Jane,” played, my subconscious stirred. Vivid images kept bubbling up, far stronger than usual daydreams. One image in particular lodged itself in my brain: a brown-eyed teenage girl leaning on her motorbike’s handlebars at night, smiling warmly at the person who was approaching her. I immediately recognized the strength of this feeling. My subconscious had gifted me such epiphany-level impressions only a few times throughout my life. If I’m lucky, it will do so a few more times in the future. I had been granted a story seed.
The rest of that day, and the following few, were taken over by the obscure workings of my subconscious as it wove together, almost entirely by itself, the tale of this stranger: who she was, why she seemed so comfortable on a bike, who was she smiling at so warmly, etc. I don’t recall how the narrative evolved into one about an aspiring motocross rider with a recklessness streak bordering on tragic flaw. However, it soon became clear that this tale wouldn’t be about love, but grief.
I suppose I have to mention, as I often do, that I’m quite fucked in the head. Was born with so-called high-functioning autism, and either developed after, or got as a side-effect of the abnormal neurological development, some level of OCD that fucks me up with intrusive thoughts, obsessions on top of autism’s own obsessions, and such. Like many on the fringes of typical human behavior, I’m fascinated by outsiders and edge experiences: UFOs, hidden history, weird artifacts, long-extinct animals… Regarding humans, which I rarely care about, I was drawn to the serial-killing kind. While some people, mainly certain types of women, obsess over such monsters and view them as heroes, even attempt to date them, I obsessed over their victims. I wanted to learn everything about who they were before they crossed paths with the man who ended up murdering them. I dreamed about the killings, and imagined myself intervening in those troublesome encounters to save the victims. Even when I didn’t dream about such events, I daydreamed about them. I wrote a couple of stories, of the ones I remember clearly now, of a jaded time-traveler that returned solely to prevent such killings.
With the widespread use of the internet, I came across blogs belonging to relatives of murdered people. One of them that impacted me significantly belonged to the mother of a poor teenager who was killed returning from a concert back in 2008 or so. She got in the car of the wrong person, who raped and murdered her. The mother never got over it (I certainly wouldn’t be able to), and her posts were a window into unending grief, the kind that shoves the person away from the mass of humanity into the fringes.
I know quite a bit about standing in the fringes of humanity. I’m 52% disabled according to the Spanish goverment. During my twenties, that were mainly wasted in long stints as a hikikomori (the pee-in-bottles, befriend-spiders kind), I visited centers for extremely disabled people, and got to interact with the types of human beings you simply do not come across in your daily life: otherwise normal-looking women who were unable to string a sentence together, very intellectually challenged people who casually walked over to groups and ripped loud farts nonchalantly, people so hideous it hurt to look at them, the twitching-and-shouting-insults kinds, the dangerously deluded, some who most weeks presented fresh tales about shitting themselves while “straight-jacketed,” etc. Parents of low-functioning children would often look on with horror at institutionalized low-functioning autistic adults as they were herded around while they twitched and groaned. “It this all I can hope for?” Many human wrecks out there are kept out of view from the public at large lest they disturb the delusion of a just and ordered world.
Whatever neurological configuration drives people to seek out face-to-face interactions has never quite worked for me: human beings in general feel like wild animals, and not the cuddly kind. I’m always wary of people and keep them at arm’s length, partly due to the anxiety I feel in social situations, partly because I lack the innate ability to read their intentions. Over the years, I’ve been tricked and manipulated. I’ve had people tell me, “Why do you keep talking so casually with those individuals? They clearly hate you,” and I didn’t have a clue. In general, people bring more trouble than they’re worth, and my experience with intimate relationships convinced me that such connections lead to mutual pain. Therefore, I’m bound to a life of solitude.
Anyway, what I meant to convey is that my subconscious compelled me to create a tale about someone dealing with unending grief, the kind that isolates him from the rest of humanity. Had I loved someone like Izar Lizarraga, I would have ended up like the narrator, if I hadn’t killed myself to begin with. This is the extent of my justification for why I write what I do. In truth, I simply write to fulfill the demands of my subconscious, hoping to satisfy it. Rational thought plays no part. In fact, I’m extremely suspicious of what’s generally considered intelligence.
I didn’t choose consciously the details of Izar as a character, as well as her relationship with the narrator, but my subconscious was clearly inspired in many cases by my past relationships. The closest in spirit to Izar was a sixteen-year-old basketball player named Leire whom I met online (she was a friend of a dude I used to hang out with), and who later on pursued me romantically. She was reckless, perhaps a bit touched in the head, given that she was interested in a lanky, pimply, clearly deranged teenage me. Anyway, we lay under the stars and had a romantic conversation full of idealism, the details of which I have completely forgotten. Some other day, she invited me to her home, where we made out. We ended up cutting that date short because her parents returned from a trip early.
After that day, I ghosted her. Why would I abandon such a sweet girl without a word? Because right then I understood something: that relationship would end in ruins, like they all would, and liking her as much as I did, like I never had before and never have since, meant that the end of that relationship would obliterate me. Even now, as a thirty-nine-year-old man, I consider that ending it before it truly began was the right choice, given my inability to sustain intimate relationships. However, I regret ghosting her. I regret having lost the opportunity to know her better. Due to my prosopagnosia (an autism-related inability to retain and process people’s faces), I don’t know if I ever saw her again. I can’t even stalk her online, because I forgot her last name. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Wherever life took you, Leire, I hope you’re happy.
Fellow autist and writer Patricia Highsmith famously told of a woman she briefly met while working as a toy saleswoman: a sophisticated, mommy-type blond to whom Patricia sold a doll, and with whom Patricia fell in love at first sight. They never saw each other again, but Pat, in her usual manner (she’s the author of Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley series, etc.), proceeded to stalk the woman’s home to get some modicum of understanding of who she was. In later years, Patricia referred to that woman as the love of her life. In a similar sense, Leire is very much the love of my life: the most fascinating girl I have ever met, with whom I would have enjoyed lovely adventures if I weren’t such a piece of rotten shit.
Deeper than that, and I suspect this revelation may disappoint some, Izar Lizarraga of this story’s fame is partly my subconscious itself. Maybe other people can identify with their subconscious as if it were an integrated part of themselves, but for me it’s this mysterious, intelligent being who presents me strange visions, who urges me to work on stuff that pleases her, and to whom I can show some part of a work of art I’m working on, from writing to music, and get a wordless response of the kind “this sucks” or “I love it.”
This subconscious of mine, a creature that feels female, is someone I’d rather interact with instead of any flesh-and-bone person, and who has guided me along in many adventures that I wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. I have never felt truly alone because my subconscious has always been there to bring me interesting dreams (I wouldn’t say beautiful, because plenty of them were horrifying). Back when I thought I could sustain normal human relationships, I regularly ached to return to my subconscious’ side, a more interesting and reliable person than pretty much anybody. I adore you, subconscious. I wish I could make love to you. If you had a butt, I’m sure it would be real nice.
I think that’s all the context I wanted to add to this story. Barely anybody read it, but those of you who followed the tale of Izar Lizarraga and the man she ruined, I hope you got something valuable out of it. And if you didn’t, hey, the one I intended to satisfy is pleased.
You probably shouldn’t read this post unless you’ve gone through my novella Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, that you can start reading here.
Back in January of this year (2024), I was happily writing away at the last stretch of my hella-long novel We’re Fucked, when, for no discernible reason, I chose to rummage through my rarely-touched drawers and came across an external hard drive. Hoping that it contained albums I hadn’t heard in years, I checked its contents. I discovered the album Sweet Heart Sweet Light by Spiritualized. I had recently used one of their songs for We’re Fucked, and I didn’t recall ever listening to this other album, so I put it on. As the second song, titled “Hey Jane,” played, my subconscious stirred. Vivid images kept bubbling up, far stronger than usual daydreams. One image in particular lodged itself in my brain: a brown-eyed teenage girl leaning on her motorbike’s handlebars at night, smiling warmly at the person who was approaching her. I immediately recognized the strength of this feeling. My subconscious had gifted me such epiphany-level impressions only a few times throughout my life. If I’m lucky, it will do so a few more times in the future. I had been granted a story seed.
The rest of that day, and the following few, were taken over by the obscure workings of my subconscious as it wove together, almost entirely by itself, the tale of this stranger: who she was, why she seemed so comfortable on a bike, who was she smiling at so warmly, etc. I don’t recall how the narrative evolved into one about an aspiring motocross rider with a recklessness streak bordering on tragic flaw. However, it soon became clear that this tale wouldn’t be about love, but grief.
I suppose I have to mention, as I often do, that I’m quite fucked in the head. Was born with so-called high-functioning autism, and either developed after, or got as a side-effect of the abnormal neurological development, some level of OCD that fucks me up with intrusive thoughts, obsessions on top of autism’s own obsessions, and such. Like many on the fringes of typical human behavior, I’m fascinated by outsiders and edge experiences: UFOs, hidden history, weird artifacts, long-extinct animals… Regarding humans, which I rarely care about, I was drawn to the serial-killing kind. While some people, mainly certain types of women, obsess over such monsters and view them as heroes, even attempt to date them, I obsessed over their victims. I wanted to learn everything about who they were before they crossed paths with the man who ended up murdering them. I dreamed about the killings, and imagined myself intervening in those troublesome encounters to save the victims. Even when I didn’t dream about such events, I daydreamed about them. I wrote a couple of stories, of the ones I remember clearly now, of a jaded time-traveler that returned solely to prevent such killings.
With the widespread use of the internet, I came across blogs belonging to relatives of murdered people. One of them that impacted me significantly belonged to the mother of a poor teenager who was killed returning from a concert back in 2008 or so. She got in the car of the wrong person, who raped and murdered her. The mother never got over it (I certainly wouldn’t be able to), and her posts were a window into unending grief, the kind that shoves the person away from the mass of humanity into the fringes.
I know quite a bit about standing in the fringes of humanity. I’m 52% disabled according to the Spanish goverment. During my twenties, that were mainly wasted in long stints as a hikikomori (the pee-in-bottles, befriend-spiders kind), I visited centers for extremely disabled people, and got to interact with the types of human beings you simply do not come across in your daily life: otherwise normal-looking women who were unable to string a sentence together, very intellectually challenged people who casually walked over to groups and ripped loud farts nonchalantly, people so hideous it hurt to look at them, the twitching-and-shouting-insults kinds, the dangerously deluded, some who most weeks presented fresh tales about shitting themselves while “straight-jacketed,” etc. Parents of low-functioning children would often look on with horror at institutionalized low-functioning autistic adults as they were herded around while they twitched and groaned. “It this all I can hope for?” Many human wrecks out there are kept out of view from the public at large lest they disturb the delusion of a just and ordered world.
Whatever neurological configuration drives people to seek out face-to-face interactions has never quite worked for me: human beings in general feel like wild animals, and not the cuddly kind. I’m always wary of people and keep them at arm’s length, partly due to the anxiety I feel in social situations, partly because I lack the innate ability to read their intentions. Over the years, I’ve been tricked and manipulated. I’ve had people tell me, “Why do you keep talking so casually with those individuals? They clearly hate you,” and I didn’t have a clue. In general, people bring more trouble than they’re worth, and my experience with intimate relationships convinced me that such connections lead to mutual pain. Therefore, I’m bound to a life of solitude.
Anyway, what I meant to convey is that my subconscious compelled me to create a tale about someone dealing with unending grief, the kind that isolates him from the rest of humanity. Had I loved someone like Izar Lizarraga, I would have ended up like the narrator, if I hadn’t killed myself to begin with. This is the extent of my justification for why I write what I do. In truth, I simply write to fulfill the demands of my subconscious, hoping to satisfy it. Rational thought plays no part. In fact, I’m extremely suspicious of what’s generally considered intelligence.
I didn’t choose consciously the details of Izar as a character, as well as her relationship with the narrator, but my subconscious was clearly inspired in many cases by my past relationships. The closest in spirit to Izar was a sixteen-year-old basketball player named Leire whom I met online (she was a friend of a dude I used to hang out with), and who later on pursued me romantically. She was reckless, perhaps a bit touched in the head, given that she was interested in a lanky, pimply, clearly deranged teenage me. Anyway, we lay under the stars and had a romantic conversation full of idealism, the details of which I have completely forgotten. Some other day, she invited me to her home, where we made out. We ended up cutting that date short because her parents returned from a trip early.
After that day, I ghosted her. Why would I abandon such a sweet girl without a word? Because right then I understood something: that relationship would end in ruins, like they all would, and liking her as much as I did, like I never had before and never have since, meant that the end of that relationship would obliterate me. Even now, as a thirty-nine-year-old man, I consider that ending it before it truly began was the right choice, given my inability to sustain intimate relationships. However, I regret ghosting her. I regret having lost the opportunity to know her better. Due to my prosopagnosia (an autism-related inability to retain and process people’s faces), I don’t know if I ever saw her again. I can’t even stalk her online, because I forgot her last name. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Wherever life took you, Leire, I hope you’re happy.
Fellow autist and writer Patricia Highsmith famously told of a woman she briefly met while working as a toy saleswoman: a sophisticated, mommy-type blond to whom Patricia sold a doll, and with whom Patricia fell in love at first sight. They never saw each other again, but Pat, in her usual manner (she’s the author of Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley series, etc.), proceeded to stalk the woman’s home to get some modicum of understanding of who she was. In later years, Patricia referred to that woman as the love of her life. In a similar sense, Leire is very much the love of my life: the most fascinating girl I have ever met, with whom I would have enjoyed lovely adventures if I weren’t such a piece of rotten shit.
Deeper than that, and I suspect this revelation may disappoint some, Izar Lizarraga of this story’s fame is partly my subconscious itself. Maybe other people can identify with their subconscious as if it were an integrated part of themselves, but for me it’s this mysterious, intelligent being who presents me strange visions, who urges me to work on stuff that pleases her, and to whom I can show some part of a work of art I’m working on, from writing to music, and get a wordless response of the kind “this sucks” or “I love it.”
This subconscious of mine, a creature that feels female, is someone I’d rather interact with instead of any flesh-and-bone person, and who has guided me along in many adventures that I wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. I have never felt truly alone because my subconscious has always been there to bring me interesting dreams (I wouldn’t say beautiful, because plenty of them were horrifying). Back when I thought I could sustain normal human relationships, I regularly ached to return to my subconscious’ side, a more interesting and reliable person than pretty much anybody. I adore you, subconscious. I wish I could make love to you. If you had a butt, I’m sure it would be real nice.
I think that’s all the context I wanted to add to this story. Barely anybody read it, but those of you who followed the tale of Izar Lizarraga and the man she ruined, I hope you got something valuable out of it. And if you didn’t, hey, the one I intended to satisfy is pleased.
July 14, 2024
Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 20 (Poetry)
Check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
On the afternoon of your death anniversary,
Hand in hand with my daughter,
My other hand holding a bouquet of red roses,
We arrived at the spot on the wooded lane
Where a grooved-bark, mature oak
Watched over your memorial stone,
Nestled in moss, twigs, and clover.
Mottled, watery sunlight bathed the stone
As if illuminating a sacred site.
The limestone or sandstone looked rough,
And had weathered over all these years.
Beneath the relief of a motocross rider,
A marble plaque bore the inscription,
"Izar Lizarraga Oyarbide (1981-1999).
She lived fast and died young,
But her light will shine forever."
My childhood sweetheart,
My restless wildfire.
I crouched in front of the stone
To deposit the bouquet at its base.
I pulled out a pack of wet wipes
And wiped away the dust and grime.
I scrubbed off a white splatter of bird droppings.
The murmur of families filtered through the trees.
A flock of sheep baahed from the nearby hill.
In the stone's relief, your helmeted figure
Clutched the bike's handlebars,
Head tilted forward in intense focus.
Every time I laid my eyes on this figure,
My breath caught, my throat clenched,
And I struggled to loosen the knot
Twisted inside my chest.
"How long ago was nineteen ninety-nine?"
My daughter's innocent voice asked.
After a pause, I said, "A long time ago."
"Was she a friend of yours?"
"Yes, the best one."
My daughter shifted her weight from foot to foot
As her attention drifted further down the lane.
I held her little hand tightly in mine,
And we stepped onto the sun-dappled sidewalk.
A familiar warmth built up behind my eyes:
Tears burning their way out.
The vision of a bumblebee weaving its waltz
Across clumps of yellow and white wildflowers
Became a watercolor blur.
Grief had ambushed me once again:
A monstrous hand reaching out of the deep
To grab me by the chest and drag me down.
I know it will remain my constant companion
For the rest of my days.
That week, I pondered why
I had brought my daughter to visit you.
I was terrified that, after my death,
Nobody who came across your name
Or gazed upon the memorial stone
Would understand what had been lost,
What you still mean to me.
I needed my child to be haunted by you,
To carry your spirit in her heart,
But I feared no amount of talk
Could transmit the depths of pain and love.
So, the memories of you would disappear,
Forgotten even by the spiders
That had built their webs within me.
One day, maybe not long from now,
After the kids we dragged into this world
Have freed themselves from their miserable parents
And claimed a home of their own,
I will lie in my deathbed alone,
Connected to beeping machines.
By then, you will feel like a sunken ship
Deep at the bottom of the sea.
Suddenly, I will breathe in a pungent odor of rust,
And from the center of my consciousness,
A sinkhole will open, a growing black hole.
As the edges of my self crumble and collapse,
Into that darkness, I will reach for your hand.
I doubt the value of words:
Pictures and music capture emotions better.
Yet, this old boy can only play with words,
And I've engaged in the game of pretending
That they can bridge the chasms between us.
For decades, a barbed pain has grown its tendrils
From the core of my heart throughout my body,
Creeping into every tissue and organ,
Embedding hooks deep in my bones,
As the pain reached the farthest ends of me.
My wish: that the right combination of words
Could sever a scion of this piercing truth
And graft it onto someone else's heart.
So thank you, stranger,
For reading thousands of words
Of the only tale I care to tell,
My elegy for Izar Lizarraga,
Motocross legend,
Love of my life,
Who blazed through this world,
And burned away.
***
The night of April 27, 1999,
You parked in front of the candy shop.
Drenched under the torrential barrage,
We clambered off and removed our helmets.
The taste of rain mingled with your saliva
While the Aprilia's idling engine rattled
Like a hiker hopping from foot to foot,
Eager to move on.
We wished each other good night.
Thunder growled as you straddled
Your gleaming yellow-and-white bike.
You pulled on your helmet,
Gripped the handlebars,
And lifted the side stand with a kick,
When I shouted, burning my throat,
"Wait!"
Startled, you straightened up,
One foot planted on the sidewalk,
And turned the reflective visor toward me.
I ran to you and hugged you,
Pressing my cheek against the cold helmet.
"You don't intend to return home, do you?
Who would be so stupid to believe
That you'd go back to your father so soon?
I can't let you leave, Izar;
If I do, I'll regret it for the rest of my life.
Stay with me tonight."
I held your gloved hand
As you stumbled off the Aprilia.
You lifted the visor of your helmet,
Revealing large chocolate eyes
That reflected a shimmer of amber light.
Your brows were furrowed in concern.
From one nostril hung a bead of watery mucus.
"I'd much rather do that," you said,
"But your mother forbade me from coming back."
"I've taken enough shit from her.
She can suck it up."
You shook with silent laughter.
I opened the front door to the sight of my parents.
My mother scowled, deepening the lines of her face.
Beside the woman, two steps back, stood my father,
A bald, stooped, hesitant non-entity.
Upon noticing Izar, my mother's eyes widened.
She opened her mouth to scold me,
But I cut her off.
"Look at what her father has done."
I brushed away the damp strands of caramel hair
Clinging to the cheek that sported a bruise,
The mottled imprint of your father's hand.
"Izar can't go home tonight. It's not safe.
She'll stay with me, no matter what you say."
A glance at the bruise loosened my mother's brow.
You bowed your head.
"Sorry for bothering you.
I didn't intend to cause trouble."
My mother narrowed her eyes.
"You rode here through this downpour?
Girl, you don't have any common sense!"
"Sorry."
She tsked, then threw her hands up.
"You pair of idiots. Go take a warm shower.
No, take off your jackets and shoes first.
You're going to leave puddles all over the house.
My goodness, look at how soaked you are!
Do you want to catch pneumonia?"
As you and I padded hand in hand to the bathroom,
My mother turned to my father, seeking support,
But he shrugged and said,
"Let them be. They're in love."
Locked inside the bathroom,
We peeled each other's soaked clothes,
Then chucked them on the ceramic tiles,
Where they lay like beached jellyfish.
When you untied your ponytail,
The cascading hair stuck to your shoulders.
You rubbed your pruney fingertips.
"We might get sick for real," you said,
Then sniffled some leaking mucus back in.
I embraced you firmly,
Pressing your stiff nipples against my chest.
You shuddered once, then continued to tremble.
I whispered in your ear,
"My love, in case you have any doubts,
I'll run away with you."
You sighed, your breath warm on my neck,
And slid your hands down my back.
"Thank you."
As we melted into each other,
I caressed the contours of your skin,
The myriad details unique to you
That before you were born,
Hadn't existed in the universe,
And after you died, never would again.
Yes, Izar, I would accompany you,
Riding pillion, clinging to your waist,
Through the rush of wind and rain,
To witness the sights you longed to see,
To experience what it meant to live.
We would create a shared language,
Speak words that others would find insane,
And build our own space far away.
Nobody could compete with you,
The sole real person in the world.
As long as you were with me,
I was home.
THE END
---
Author's note: the last song is "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure.
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
On the afternoon of your death anniversary,
Hand in hand with my daughter,
My other hand holding a bouquet of red roses,
We arrived at the spot on the wooded lane
Where a grooved-bark, mature oak
Watched over your memorial stone,
Nestled in moss, twigs, and clover.
Mottled, watery sunlight bathed the stone
As if illuminating a sacred site.
The limestone or sandstone looked rough,
And had weathered over all these years.
Beneath the relief of a motocross rider,
A marble plaque bore the inscription,
"Izar Lizarraga Oyarbide (1981-1999).
She lived fast and died young,
But her light will shine forever."
My childhood sweetheart,
My restless wildfire.
I crouched in front of the stone
To deposit the bouquet at its base.
I pulled out a pack of wet wipes
And wiped away the dust and grime.
I scrubbed off a white splatter of bird droppings.
The murmur of families filtered through the trees.
A flock of sheep baahed from the nearby hill.
In the stone's relief, your helmeted figure
Clutched the bike's handlebars,
Head tilted forward in intense focus.
Every time I laid my eyes on this figure,
My breath caught, my throat clenched,
And I struggled to loosen the knot
Twisted inside my chest.
"How long ago was nineteen ninety-nine?"
My daughter's innocent voice asked.
After a pause, I said, "A long time ago."
"Was she a friend of yours?"
"Yes, the best one."
My daughter shifted her weight from foot to foot
As her attention drifted further down the lane.
I held her little hand tightly in mine,
And we stepped onto the sun-dappled sidewalk.
A familiar warmth built up behind my eyes:
Tears burning their way out.
The vision of a bumblebee weaving its waltz
Across clumps of yellow and white wildflowers
Became a watercolor blur.
Grief had ambushed me once again:
A monstrous hand reaching out of the deep
To grab me by the chest and drag me down.
I know it will remain my constant companion
For the rest of my days.
That week, I pondered why
I had brought my daughter to visit you.
I was terrified that, after my death,
Nobody who came across your name
Or gazed upon the memorial stone
Would understand what had been lost,
What you still mean to me.
I needed my child to be haunted by you,
To carry your spirit in her heart,
But I feared no amount of talk
Could transmit the depths of pain and love.
So, the memories of you would disappear,
Forgotten even by the spiders
That had built their webs within me.
One day, maybe not long from now,
After the kids we dragged into this world
Have freed themselves from their miserable parents
And claimed a home of their own,
I will lie in my deathbed alone,
Connected to beeping machines.
By then, you will feel like a sunken ship
Deep at the bottom of the sea.
Suddenly, I will breathe in a pungent odor of rust,
And from the center of my consciousness,
A sinkhole will open, a growing black hole.
As the edges of my self crumble and collapse,
Into that darkness, I will reach for your hand.
I doubt the value of words:
Pictures and music capture emotions better.
Yet, this old boy can only play with words,
And I've engaged in the game of pretending
That they can bridge the chasms between us.
For decades, a barbed pain has grown its tendrils
From the core of my heart throughout my body,
Creeping into every tissue and organ,
Embedding hooks deep in my bones,
As the pain reached the farthest ends of me.
My wish: that the right combination of words
Could sever a scion of this piercing truth
And graft it onto someone else's heart.
So thank you, stranger,
For reading thousands of words
Of the only tale I care to tell,
My elegy for Izar Lizarraga,
Motocross legend,
Love of my life,
Who blazed through this world,
And burned away.
***
The night of April 27, 1999,
You parked in front of the candy shop.
Drenched under the torrential barrage,
We clambered off and removed our helmets.
The taste of rain mingled with your saliva
While the Aprilia's idling engine rattled
Like a hiker hopping from foot to foot,
Eager to move on.
We wished each other good night.
Thunder growled as you straddled
Your gleaming yellow-and-white bike.
You pulled on your helmet,
Gripped the handlebars,
And lifted the side stand with a kick,
When I shouted, burning my throat,
"Wait!"
Startled, you straightened up,
One foot planted on the sidewalk,
And turned the reflective visor toward me.
I ran to you and hugged you,
Pressing my cheek against the cold helmet.
"You don't intend to return home, do you?
Who would be so stupid to believe
That you'd go back to your father so soon?
I can't let you leave, Izar;
If I do, I'll regret it for the rest of my life.
Stay with me tonight."
I held your gloved hand
As you stumbled off the Aprilia.
You lifted the visor of your helmet,
Revealing large chocolate eyes
That reflected a shimmer of amber light.
Your brows were furrowed in concern.
From one nostril hung a bead of watery mucus.
"I'd much rather do that," you said,
"But your mother forbade me from coming back."
"I've taken enough shit from her.
She can suck it up."
You shook with silent laughter.
I opened the front door to the sight of my parents.
My mother scowled, deepening the lines of her face.
Beside the woman, two steps back, stood my father,
A bald, stooped, hesitant non-entity.
Upon noticing Izar, my mother's eyes widened.
She opened her mouth to scold me,
But I cut her off.
"Look at what her father has done."
I brushed away the damp strands of caramel hair
Clinging to the cheek that sported a bruise,
The mottled imprint of your father's hand.
"Izar can't go home tonight. It's not safe.
She'll stay with me, no matter what you say."
A glance at the bruise loosened my mother's brow.
You bowed your head.
"Sorry for bothering you.
I didn't intend to cause trouble."
My mother narrowed her eyes.
"You rode here through this downpour?
Girl, you don't have any common sense!"
"Sorry."
She tsked, then threw her hands up.
"You pair of idiots. Go take a warm shower.
No, take off your jackets and shoes first.
You're going to leave puddles all over the house.
My goodness, look at how soaked you are!
Do you want to catch pneumonia?"
As you and I padded hand in hand to the bathroom,
My mother turned to my father, seeking support,
But he shrugged and said,
"Let them be. They're in love."
Locked inside the bathroom,
We peeled each other's soaked clothes,
Then chucked them on the ceramic tiles,
Where they lay like beached jellyfish.
When you untied your ponytail,
The cascading hair stuck to your shoulders.
You rubbed your pruney fingertips.
"We might get sick for real," you said,
Then sniffled some leaking mucus back in.
I embraced you firmly,
Pressing your stiff nipples against my chest.
You shuddered once, then continued to tremble.
I whispered in your ear,
"My love, in case you have any doubts,
I'll run away with you."
You sighed, your breath warm on my neck,
And slid your hands down my back.
"Thank you."
As we melted into each other,
I caressed the contours of your skin,
The myriad details unique to you
That before you were born,
Hadn't existed in the universe,
And after you died, never would again.
Yes, Izar, I would accompany you,
Riding pillion, clinging to your waist,
Through the rush of wind and rain,
To witness the sights you longed to see,
To experience what it meant to live.
We would create a shared language,
Speak words that others would find insane,
And build our own space far away.
Nobody could compete with you,
The sole real person in the world.
As long as you were with me,
I was home.
THE END
---
Author's note: the last song is "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure.
July 6, 2024
Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 19 (Poetry)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
The eve of your death anniversary
Resurrected the old nightmare once more:
I was riding pillion, clinging to your waist,
While your Aprilia Red Rose growled
As it devoured the highway under its tires.
The rainfall hammering upon car roofs,
Drumming on our helmets,
Splashing against our drenched clothes,
Overwhelmed the steady roar of the engines.
The wind drove icy raindrops into my face.
The beam of your bike's headlamp
Sliced through the rain sheets,
Lighting the rear wheels of the truck in front,
That spat up trails of rainwater.
In the oncoming lane, twin beams appeared
And quickly expanded toward us,
Cutting luminous swaths across the blackness.
On my right, traffic signs, trees, buildings,
They all blurred into smudges,
And the sparse streetlamps revealed themselves
Like floating, shimmering haloes.
Lights glinted off the gleaming, mirrorlike tarmac
In ripples of red and blue-tinged white.
Above, lightning leaped from cloud to cloud,
Followed by grumbling thunderclaps.
In my embrace, your body trembled;
You were crying, or at least on the verge,
And you channeled that anguish
Igniting your steel beast's roar
With a wrench of the throttle.
My heart thrummed with dread.
The acceleration pressed against my bones,
Tightening my chest and freezing my breath.
Along with the golden tracers of streetlamps,
Oncoming vehicles whooshed past us.
Lighting the way ahead, we were falling headlong,
Whipping through the darkness like an arrow.
Teary-eyed from the sting of rain,
I raised my voice over the rushing wind,
Over the rumbling engines.
I shouted, I yelled, I gripped your sides tighter,
Imploring you to slow down.
As if you couldn't hear me, as if I wasn't there,
You revved the throttle further,
Making the speedometer needle climb sharply.
Your bike's chassis shuddered under the strain.
The raindrops felt like dozens of fingers
Poking my numb face to wake me up,
But you kept racing through the storm,
Maybe wishing to outrun yourself,
Outrun all the voices telling you to stop.
As we approached a curve, your Aprilia wobbled,
Its front wheel skidded on the rain-slick tarmac,
And the bike lurched sideways,
Flinging us off.
The color spectrum gleaming through the downpour
From headlights, tail lights, streetlamps, and lightning
Spun into a blur of light and dark
While my body flailed, limbs striking out,
Scraping against the road as I slid
With rainwater gushing over me.
The friction ripped through my clothing,
Seared my skin, and tore the flesh off my bones.
Screams lodged in my throat.
Your Aprilia Red Rose was flipping end-over-end,
Scattering pieces of its decimated bodywork.
My frantic gaze glimpsed flashes,
Illuminated by the headlights of passing cars,
Of your body cartwheeling uncontrollably.
A murky shape, the guardrail,
Rushed out of the rain-haze toward us
Like a reef thrusting from a savage ocean.
You smashed against the metal barrier,
Which launched you into the darkness.
I clenched my eyes shut, bracing for impact,
And awaited the final, wet crunch.
When I slammed into that guardrail,
A loud snap reverberated through my spine
In a starburst of pain.
The impact had squeezed my lungs,
Knocking the air out.
As I gasped, mouth agape,
A thunderous crash against the guardrail
Sent a shockwave through the cold steel,
Making me, slumped against it, shudder violently.
Fragments of the bike ricocheted off the barrier
And stung my arms and face like shrapnel.
The metallic clang lingered as a discordant ringing.
Your Aprilia lay on its side close by,
Gleaming darkly in muddy rainwater,
Its windscreen shattered,
Frame bent, chassis mangled,
Front wheel still spinning.
A rearview mirror dangled from its stem,
And reflected the electric clouds.
Fuel leaked out of the dented tank.
The headlamp's white beam,
Shining through the cracks in the lens,
Faltered, flickered, then faded away.
The ozone scent of the storm mingled
With the chemical smell of gasoline,
The burnt stench of grinding metal,
And the bitterness on my tongue.
A tingling white noise had spread
To the farthest reaches of my body,
And in the places that hadn't gone numb,
My shredded flesh screamed
In a fiery, knifelike pain.
Instead of writhing in the gutter
Like a crushed insect,
I would return to your side,
But when I tried to stand,
My limp legs refused to move.
I grabbed the cold, wet guardrail,
Then heaved myself over it.
I hit the grassy, upward slope chest-first,
And mud splattered on my face.
I crawled onward, clawing at the grass and soil,
Coating my hands with squelchy mud.
The relentless pounding of heavy rain
Along with the deep rumble of distant thunder
Isolated me in a cocoon of noise.
Every creep up the slope ripped me open with hurt.
In jagged gasps, I breathed razors.
Where are you, Izar? Where are you?
The blades of grass glistened
With a fresh spray of blood.
Silvery light from turning headlights
Swam in waves over a body splayed face up
Like a doll tossed in a tantrum.
Your drenched, ripped red jacket gleamed.
Gashes oozed through the torn jeans.
The crushed helmet still clung to your head.
Beside you, I pushed myself up onto my knees,
And lifted the cracked visor of your helmet.
Raindrops splattered in concentric circles
On the blood pooling within the face aperture.
I attempted to take your helmet off,
But your neck strained, its muscles taut,
As if your head might snap off.
You couldn't breathe.
"Stay with me, Izar. Don't leave me, please."
When I scooped blood out of the hole,
My fingers didn't graze your face.
I sank my hand up to my wrist, to the elbow,
But I couldn't reach you.
I woke up with a start, drenched in sweat,
Gasping for breath, clutching at my throat.
My fingers are calloused
From decades of clawing
At the dark soil of this world
To drag myself back to you.
---
Author's note: the song for today is "I Lost You" by The Walkmen.
The next part will conclude this story.
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
The eve of your death anniversary
Resurrected the old nightmare once more:
I was riding pillion, clinging to your waist,
While your Aprilia Red Rose growled
As it devoured the highway under its tires.
The rainfall hammering upon car roofs,
Drumming on our helmets,
Splashing against our drenched clothes,
Overwhelmed the steady roar of the engines.
The wind drove icy raindrops into my face.
The beam of your bike's headlamp
Sliced through the rain sheets,
Lighting the rear wheels of the truck in front,
That spat up trails of rainwater.
In the oncoming lane, twin beams appeared
And quickly expanded toward us,
Cutting luminous swaths across the blackness.
On my right, traffic signs, trees, buildings,
They all blurred into smudges,
And the sparse streetlamps revealed themselves
Like floating, shimmering haloes.
Lights glinted off the gleaming, mirrorlike tarmac
In ripples of red and blue-tinged white.
Above, lightning leaped from cloud to cloud,
Followed by grumbling thunderclaps.
In my embrace, your body trembled;
You were crying, or at least on the verge,
And you channeled that anguish
Igniting your steel beast's roar
With a wrench of the throttle.
My heart thrummed with dread.
The acceleration pressed against my bones,
Tightening my chest and freezing my breath.
Along with the golden tracers of streetlamps,
Oncoming vehicles whooshed past us.
Lighting the way ahead, we were falling headlong,
Whipping through the darkness like an arrow.
Teary-eyed from the sting of rain,
I raised my voice over the rushing wind,
Over the rumbling engines.
I shouted, I yelled, I gripped your sides tighter,
Imploring you to slow down.
As if you couldn't hear me, as if I wasn't there,
You revved the throttle further,
Making the speedometer needle climb sharply.
Your bike's chassis shuddered under the strain.
The raindrops felt like dozens of fingers
Poking my numb face to wake me up,
But you kept racing through the storm,
Maybe wishing to outrun yourself,
Outrun all the voices telling you to stop.
As we approached a curve, your Aprilia wobbled,
Its front wheel skidded on the rain-slick tarmac,
And the bike lurched sideways,
Flinging us off.
The color spectrum gleaming through the downpour
From headlights, tail lights, streetlamps, and lightning
Spun into a blur of light and dark
While my body flailed, limbs striking out,
Scraping against the road as I slid
With rainwater gushing over me.
The friction ripped through my clothing,
Seared my skin, and tore the flesh off my bones.
Screams lodged in my throat.
Your Aprilia Red Rose was flipping end-over-end,
Scattering pieces of its decimated bodywork.
My frantic gaze glimpsed flashes,
Illuminated by the headlights of passing cars,
Of your body cartwheeling uncontrollably.
A murky shape, the guardrail,
Rushed out of the rain-haze toward us
Like a reef thrusting from a savage ocean.
You smashed against the metal barrier,
Which launched you into the darkness.
I clenched my eyes shut, bracing for impact,
And awaited the final, wet crunch.
When I slammed into that guardrail,
A loud snap reverberated through my spine
In a starburst of pain.
The impact had squeezed my lungs,
Knocking the air out.
As I gasped, mouth agape,
A thunderous crash against the guardrail
Sent a shockwave through the cold steel,
Making me, slumped against it, shudder violently.
Fragments of the bike ricocheted off the barrier
And stung my arms and face like shrapnel.
The metallic clang lingered as a discordant ringing.
Your Aprilia lay on its side close by,
Gleaming darkly in muddy rainwater,
Its windscreen shattered,
Frame bent, chassis mangled,
Front wheel still spinning.
A rearview mirror dangled from its stem,
And reflected the electric clouds.
Fuel leaked out of the dented tank.
The headlamp's white beam,
Shining through the cracks in the lens,
Faltered, flickered, then faded away.
The ozone scent of the storm mingled
With the chemical smell of gasoline,
The burnt stench of grinding metal,
And the bitterness on my tongue.
A tingling white noise had spread
To the farthest reaches of my body,
And in the places that hadn't gone numb,
My shredded flesh screamed
In a fiery, knifelike pain.
Instead of writhing in the gutter
Like a crushed insect,
I would return to your side,
But when I tried to stand,
My limp legs refused to move.
I grabbed the cold, wet guardrail,
Then heaved myself over it.
I hit the grassy, upward slope chest-first,
And mud splattered on my face.
I crawled onward, clawing at the grass and soil,
Coating my hands with squelchy mud.
The relentless pounding of heavy rain
Along with the deep rumble of distant thunder
Isolated me in a cocoon of noise.
Every creep up the slope ripped me open with hurt.
In jagged gasps, I breathed razors.
Where are you, Izar? Where are you?
The blades of grass glistened
With a fresh spray of blood.
Silvery light from turning headlights
Swam in waves over a body splayed face up
Like a doll tossed in a tantrum.
Your drenched, ripped red jacket gleamed.
Gashes oozed through the torn jeans.
The crushed helmet still clung to your head.
Beside you, I pushed myself up onto my knees,
And lifted the cracked visor of your helmet.
Raindrops splattered in concentric circles
On the blood pooling within the face aperture.
I attempted to take your helmet off,
But your neck strained, its muscles taut,
As if your head might snap off.
You couldn't breathe.
"Stay with me, Izar. Don't leave me, please."
When I scooped blood out of the hole,
My fingers didn't graze your face.
I sank my hand up to my wrist, to the elbow,
But I couldn't reach you.
I woke up with a start, drenched in sweat,
Gasping for breath, clutching at my throat.
My fingers are calloused
From decades of clawing
At the dark soil of this world
To drag myself back to you.
---
Author's note: the song for today is "I Lost You" by The Walkmen.
The next part will conclude this story.
July 5, 2024
On audio mastering #2
Last month I wrote a post about the art of mastering a song by adjusting its frequency bands through carefully analyzing the spectrogram, something I had never bothered to figure out before. Here’s that post.
Although I haven’t produced any new songs with Udio, because I’m trying to finish a novella I’ve been working on for seven goddamn months, I’m halfway through remastering the third volume of Odes to My Triceratops, which are a bunch of concept albums about a triceratops. I’ve changed how I master audio in subtle but powerful ways, so read on if you give a shit about this stuff.
[check out the rest of this lengthy post on my personal page, where it looks better. This also helps bring traffic to my site so I will feel slightly better for a moment when I check out my stats]
Although I haven’t produced any new songs with Udio, because I’m trying to finish a novella I’ve been working on for seven goddamn months, I’m halfway through remastering the third volume of Odes to My Triceratops, which are a bunch of concept albums about a triceratops. I’ve changed how I master audio in subtle but powerful ways, so read on if you give a shit about this stuff.
[check out the rest of this lengthy post on my personal page, where it looks better. This also helps bring traffic to my site so I will feel slightly better for a moment when I check out my stats]
June 29, 2024
Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 18 (Poetry)
Check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
I used to know every contour of your face,
The exact timbre of your voice,
The way your body pressed against mine,
Your taste, the salty scent of your sweat.
But your traces are flaking off my brain;
In the seams and margins of my memories,
Bugs and patches have appeared,
Corroding the integrity of a past
That I'm editing, shaping with bias,
As I revisit it time and time again.
Your gaze, your smile, your laughter,
They all fade away into oblivion
With each ticking second.
Izar, I beg you, stay with me.
Let's leave this suffocating city
On a motocross odyssey spanning Europe:
Hundreds of kilometers of highways,
Speeding through the countryside
Past petrol stations, fields, and farmhouses.
We'll make love on the shores of the sea,
Then sleep under a blanket of stars.
Let's rent bikes and ride along the Seine.
Let's explore the winding streets of Venice,
Swim in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean,
Surf the waves of Hawaii or Costa Rica,
Climb the ancient terraces of Machu Picchu.
For the rest of my days, I will care for you,
Your unstable mind, your fits of rage.
Growing up, I feared venturing far
From my neighborhood, from my parents.
I dreaded exposing myself to risky experiences.
In my mind, I saw my mother's stern face,
Ready to scold and ground me
For daring to struggle against the vines
She had wrapped tight around me.
Roam the breadth of Spain? Travel the world?
Such adventures felt as distant as the stars.
I was convinced that even as an adult,
I wouldn't organize something so troublesome.
But that year, I stood in the blazing Roman heat
With my teenage son beside me
And my daughter's small hand grasped in mine,
Gazing up at the façade of the Pantheon,
Its towering Corinthian columns glowing faintly,
Burned by the merciless July sun;
Its triangular pediment pockmarked, scarred,
With projectile strikes from World War II.
I longed to appreciate its grandeur in solitude,
But a throng of tourists choked the square.
A listless guy stood dressed like a centurion,
His helmet adorned with a plume of dyed horsehair.
The muscle cuirass concealed the flab
Of a modern man suited to a desk job.
The Pantheon didn't belong in this post-apocalypse,
Among the disoriented survivors of the 21st century,
Who lacked the knowledge to recreate
The sunlit glory of their once eternal past,
And who had lost the will to rediscover it.
Well, what did you think about the sights, Izar?
We never had the chance to escape together,
But I carried your memory to Rome.
I hope you enjoyed the trip.
In my little corner of the world, whenever I could,
I escaped to the freedom of an isolated bench
Along the wooded lane containing your memorial stone.
There, beneath the sunlight filtering through branches,
Hunched over a notebook, I poured my memories of us,
Capturing in words every detail I could remember.
I discovered that writing tricked the brain
Into gilding moments and affixing them to its cells,
Regardless of their authenticity.
Drawing, writing, they couldn't save me;
They just helped me endure this lonesome life
For yet another day.
But maybe the right words could save
What remained of you.
In my heart, a secret garden bloomed.
Pollen sparkled on iridescent flowers,
Their petals fanning out like peacock feathers.
In this floral realm where time stood still
And death could never enter,
You, enshrined within a poem or story
That wouldn't fade, rot, nor be reduced to ashes,
Could live eternally.
---
Author's note: the songs for today are "This Is the One" by The Stone Roses, and "Sit Down" by James.
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
I used to know every contour of your face,
The exact timbre of your voice,
The way your body pressed against mine,
Your taste, the salty scent of your sweat.
But your traces are flaking off my brain;
In the seams and margins of my memories,
Bugs and patches have appeared,
Corroding the integrity of a past
That I'm editing, shaping with bias,
As I revisit it time and time again.
Your gaze, your smile, your laughter,
They all fade away into oblivion
With each ticking second.
Izar, I beg you, stay with me.
Let's leave this suffocating city
On a motocross odyssey spanning Europe:
Hundreds of kilometers of highways,
Speeding through the countryside
Past petrol stations, fields, and farmhouses.
We'll make love on the shores of the sea,
Then sleep under a blanket of stars.
Let's rent bikes and ride along the Seine.
Let's explore the winding streets of Venice,
Swim in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean,
Surf the waves of Hawaii or Costa Rica,
Climb the ancient terraces of Machu Picchu.
For the rest of my days, I will care for you,
Your unstable mind, your fits of rage.
Growing up, I feared venturing far
From my neighborhood, from my parents.
I dreaded exposing myself to risky experiences.
In my mind, I saw my mother's stern face,
Ready to scold and ground me
For daring to struggle against the vines
She had wrapped tight around me.
Roam the breadth of Spain? Travel the world?
Such adventures felt as distant as the stars.
I was convinced that even as an adult,
I wouldn't organize something so troublesome.
But that year, I stood in the blazing Roman heat
With my teenage son beside me
And my daughter's small hand grasped in mine,
Gazing up at the façade of the Pantheon,
Its towering Corinthian columns glowing faintly,
Burned by the merciless July sun;
Its triangular pediment pockmarked, scarred,
With projectile strikes from World War II.
I longed to appreciate its grandeur in solitude,
But a throng of tourists choked the square.
A listless guy stood dressed like a centurion,
His helmet adorned with a plume of dyed horsehair.
The muscle cuirass concealed the flab
Of a modern man suited to a desk job.
The Pantheon didn't belong in this post-apocalypse,
Among the disoriented survivors of the 21st century,
Who lacked the knowledge to recreate
The sunlit glory of their once eternal past,
And who had lost the will to rediscover it.
Well, what did you think about the sights, Izar?
We never had the chance to escape together,
But I carried your memory to Rome.
I hope you enjoyed the trip.
In my little corner of the world, whenever I could,
I escaped to the freedom of an isolated bench
Along the wooded lane containing your memorial stone.
There, beneath the sunlight filtering through branches,
Hunched over a notebook, I poured my memories of us,
Capturing in words every detail I could remember.
I discovered that writing tricked the brain
Into gilding moments and affixing them to its cells,
Regardless of their authenticity.
Drawing, writing, they couldn't save me;
They just helped me endure this lonesome life
For yet another day.
But maybe the right words could save
What remained of you.
In my heart, a secret garden bloomed.
Pollen sparkled on iridescent flowers,
Their petals fanning out like peacock feathers.
In this floral realm where time stood still
And death could never enter,
You, enshrined within a poem or story
That wouldn't fade, rot, nor be reduced to ashes,
Could live eternally.
---
Author's note: the songs for today are "This Is the One" by The Stone Roses, and "Sit Down" by James.
June 23, 2024
Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 17 (Poetry)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
Do you remember, Izar,
That one time in the basketball court
Of our old primary school?
Your hair looked like honey.
Pale wisps floated about your face.
You glanced up at the sky and said,
"The sun's right above. Look!"
While shielding your eyes with one hand,
With the other, you gestured toward the hoop,
And the round, golden sun,
Glowing with midday heat,
Swished through the net.
You grinned triumphantly at the perfect shot,
The work of a godly markswoman.
In my memories, in my dreams,
Our teenage selves, wild and free,
Dressed in the sun of summer,
Roamed iridescent streets together
Under a sky layered like an oil painting.
One day, after a shower,
I wiped the fog off the mirror
To reveal a man's naked body
Glimmering through the vapor.
The once lean-muscled figure,
Sculpted laboriously in the gym,
Had softened under the looser skin
To a layer of resigned flesh
That gravity insisted on dragging downward.
With both hands, I grasped my gut,
Stretching it as if to rip it open
And let the aging machinery spill out.
I locked a tortured gaze with the mirror,
With that cold-eyed stranger
Whose wrinkles carved on his face
Deepened each passing year.
His hair and stubble were flecked with gray.
The flaws I scarcely noticed during the day
Beamed back as if lit by headlights.
Every trace of my youth had eroded away;
I had transformed into a middle-aged man
That you, forever eighteen,
Would hardly recognize.
A rapping on the front door shattered the static haze.
When I opened the door, I faced an apparition.
Your chocolate eyes glowed with affection,
Your smile showed off your crooked teeth.
Rainwater slid down your sleek red jacket,
That framed the Evangelion T-shirt underneath.
You had finally returned from the beyond
To replace my dust with your stardust.
I hugged you tight, lifting you off the floor,
And you wrapped your legs around me
While giggling like a girl in love.
"How long has it been?" you asked.
"Far too long."
"Will you come with me?"
In the corner of the street gleamed
Your beloved Aprilia Red Rose,
Its fuel tank painted yellow-and-white.
High-rise chrome handlebars,
A padded leather seat with visible studs.
Exposed engine components turned the Aprilia
Into a rugged and warworn mechanical beast,
Ready to race through the landscape
With its raw wounds laid to the wind.
As I rode pillion on your bike,
Its throaty rumbling vibrated through the seat.
I rested a hand on the thigh of your jeans,
And felt the firmness of the flesh beneath.
You swerved onto Navarra Avenue toward the highway.
The road ahead lay empty, an invitation to speed.
We passed by an endless procession of ghosts,
Whose whispers blended with the engine's rumbling.
The low, crimson sun raced toward the horizon,
Stretching wavering, unnatural shadows.
My heart pounded, my breath came in gasps.
Dread clawed at my mind: we might never arrive.
Even as you speeded,
The destination receded farther and farther.
"We're never going to get there, are we?"
"Where is there?"
"Wherever it is we're going."
Your whipping hair framed the profile of your face,
And your lips curled into a sad smile.
Back when you told me you were quitting school
To pursue the goal of becoming a motocross racer,
Should I have convinced you to continue your studies
And to use your spare time to train,
Even at the cost of seeing you less?
That one time in your parents' apartment,
When your father stomped out of your bedroom
While threatening to go beyond words,
If I, instead of just comforting you,
Had confronted your old man,
Even at the risk of ending up bruised and bloody,
Maybe I would have intimidated him enough
That he wouldn't have marked you
With a red handprint on your cheek.
If I had instilled in you the fear
That you might ruin both our lives
By crashing during one of your reckless stunts,
Maybe you wouldn't have died so young.
I see you back on April 27, 1999,
When you scratched flakes of paint
Off that basketball pole.
The wind tugged at your ponytail,
And shiny raindrops dripped
From the soaked tips of your hair.
You turned your youthful face to me
And revealed your plan to leave.
For a moment, I panicked;
Would you untether yourself from me?
But you asked me to run away with you,
To drift through Spain on your bike
Like pirates on the open sea.
I said I would follow you anywhere, didn't I?
When I replay that night in my mind,
Sometimes I see myself answering you,
And other times, I assumed you knew the answer.
Had I answered enthusiastically,
Promising that nothing and no one could stop me
From accompanying you to the ends of the world,
Would you have chosen to speed through the rain?
Did I let you die thinking I had abandoned you?
---
Author's note: the song for today is "The Wait" by Built to Spill.
You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.
---
Do you remember, Izar,
That one time in the basketball court
Of our old primary school?
Your hair looked like honey.
Pale wisps floated about your face.
You glanced up at the sky and said,
"The sun's right above. Look!"
While shielding your eyes with one hand,
With the other, you gestured toward the hoop,
And the round, golden sun,
Glowing with midday heat,
Swished through the net.
You grinned triumphantly at the perfect shot,
The work of a godly markswoman.
In my memories, in my dreams,
Our teenage selves, wild and free,
Dressed in the sun of summer,
Roamed iridescent streets together
Under a sky layered like an oil painting.
One day, after a shower,
I wiped the fog off the mirror
To reveal a man's naked body
Glimmering through the vapor.
The once lean-muscled figure,
Sculpted laboriously in the gym,
Had softened under the looser skin
To a layer of resigned flesh
That gravity insisted on dragging downward.
With both hands, I grasped my gut,
Stretching it as if to rip it open
And let the aging machinery spill out.
I locked a tortured gaze with the mirror,
With that cold-eyed stranger
Whose wrinkles carved on his face
Deepened each passing year.
His hair and stubble were flecked with gray.
The flaws I scarcely noticed during the day
Beamed back as if lit by headlights.
Every trace of my youth had eroded away;
I had transformed into a middle-aged man
That you, forever eighteen,
Would hardly recognize.
A rapping on the front door shattered the static haze.
When I opened the door, I faced an apparition.
Your chocolate eyes glowed with affection,
Your smile showed off your crooked teeth.
Rainwater slid down your sleek red jacket,
That framed the Evangelion T-shirt underneath.
You had finally returned from the beyond
To replace my dust with your stardust.
I hugged you tight, lifting you off the floor,
And you wrapped your legs around me
While giggling like a girl in love.
"How long has it been?" you asked.
"Far too long."
"Will you come with me?"
In the corner of the street gleamed
Your beloved Aprilia Red Rose,
Its fuel tank painted yellow-and-white.
High-rise chrome handlebars,
A padded leather seat with visible studs.
Exposed engine components turned the Aprilia
Into a rugged and warworn mechanical beast,
Ready to race through the landscape
With its raw wounds laid to the wind.
As I rode pillion on your bike,
Its throaty rumbling vibrated through the seat.
I rested a hand on the thigh of your jeans,
And felt the firmness of the flesh beneath.
You swerved onto Navarra Avenue toward the highway.
The road ahead lay empty, an invitation to speed.
We passed by an endless procession of ghosts,
Whose whispers blended with the engine's rumbling.
The low, crimson sun raced toward the horizon,
Stretching wavering, unnatural shadows.
My heart pounded, my breath came in gasps.
Dread clawed at my mind: we might never arrive.
Even as you speeded,
The destination receded farther and farther.
"We're never going to get there, are we?"
"Where is there?"
"Wherever it is we're going."
Your whipping hair framed the profile of your face,
And your lips curled into a sad smile.
Back when you told me you were quitting school
To pursue the goal of becoming a motocross racer,
Should I have convinced you to continue your studies
And to use your spare time to train,
Even at the cost of seeing you less?
That one time in your parents' apartment,
When your father stomped out of your bedroom
While threatening to go beyond words,
If I, instead of just comforting you,
Had confronted your old man,
Even at the risk of ending up bruised and bloody,
Maybe I would have intimidated him enough
That he wouldn't have marked you
With a red handprint on your cheek.
If I had instilled in you the fear
That you might ruin both our lives
By crashing during one of your reckless stunts,
Maybe you wouldn't have died so young.
I see you back on April 27, 1999,
When you scratched flakes of paint
Off that basketball pole.
The wind tugged at your ponytail,
And shiny raindrops dripped
From the soaked tips of your hair.
You turned your youthful face to me
And revealed your plan to leave.
For a moment, I panicked;
Would you untether yourself from me?
But you asked me to run away with you,
To drift through Spain on your bike
Like pirates on the open sea.
I said I would follow you anywhere, didn't I?
When I replay that night in my mind,
Sometimes I see myself answering you,
And other times, I assumed you knew the answer.
Had I answered enthusiastically,
Promising that nothing and no one could stop me
From accompanying you to the ends of the world,
Would you have chosen to speed through the rain?
Did I let you die thinking I had abandoned you?
---
Author's note: the song for today is "The Wait" by Built to Spill.
June 21, 2024
Remastered “Go Away, Stay Away” from Odes to My Triceratops, Vol. 3
In the last post, I went on about my recent discovery of audio mastering techniques. It included my first remastered song whose band frequencies I had molested. Listening back, it was quite a mess. I decided that Audacity, instead of my abilities, was mainly responsible, so I acquired better audio editing software (namely iZotope RX, recommended by good ol’ castrated AI ChatGPT). Thanks to it, I have remastered the song “Go Away, Stay Away” into a version that I wouldn’t know how to improve anymore. Check it out.
[and indeed you can click here to check the song out. I have to direct people to my site somehow.]
[and indeed you can click here to check the song out. I have to direct people to my site somehow.]
June 20, 2024
On audio mastering (and a remastered song)
As I was “remastering” the songs that make up the third volume of Odes to My Triceratops, I started thinking, “surely there’s fancier stuff to do to improve a finished song’s quality other than just messing around with its sound levels.” That ominous thought led me on a few days-long journey into the art of audio mastering. At one point, I opened one of my previous songs I thought finished, only to find out that the exporting process had clipped the hell out of it. I had no choice but to face that I had no fucking clue what I was doing.
Some reading later, along with help from ChatGPT, led me to the following steps to master a song:
1. Normalize original WAV at -1db.
2. Save original WAV as a 24-bit/192KHz WAV stereo file.
3. Load exported WAV.
4. High-pass filter at 30hz (roll off 24 db).
5. Filter Curve EQ with preset (looked up good general values).
6. Normalize at -1db.
7. Apply multiband compression with the OTT plugin at 20% depth.
8. Normalize at -1db.
9. Split the stereo track and pan the channels to -70% and 70% respectively.
10. Perform a thorough EQ check using the spectrum analyzer, adjusting frequencies along the way.
11. Use the Limiter, Hard limit to -1 db to ensure the track doesn’t peak.
12. Normalize at -1db.
[check out the rest of this post, and a remastered song]
Some reading later, along with help from ChatGPT, led me to the following steps to master a song:
1. Normalize original WAV at -1db.
2. Save original WAV as a 24-bit/192KHz WAV stereo file.
3. Load exported WAV.
4. High-pass filter at 30hz (roll off 24 db).
5. Filter Curve EQ with preset (looked up good general values).
6. Normalize at -1db.
7. Apply multiband compression with the OTT plugin at 20% depth.
8. Normalize at -1db.
9. Split the stereo track and pan the channels to -70% and 70% respectively.
10. Perform a thorough EQ check using the spectrum analyzer, adjusting frequencies along the way.
11. Use the Limiter, Hard limit to -1 db to ensure the track doesn’t peak.
12. Normalize at -1db.
[check out the rest of this post, and a remastered song]
June 18, 2024
Tips on producing songs with Udio
[Check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
Some months ago a revolutionary AI tool came out: Udio. It allows you to produce professional-sounding songs. Although I know how to play the guitar, I’ve always been, as a systems builder, more interested in putting songs together than learning how to play an instrument, and I also rarely enjoy interacting with people, so dealing with human musicians was out of the question. Udio has allowed me to come up with about seventy-five songs, so at this point I think I’m qualified to give tips on this subject.
I only start thinking about the musical side of things when I have the lyrics ready. They tend to change very little during production: mostly to make them sound better or rhyme, if the opportunity arises. I also add little touches like laughs, comments, and vocalizations like “aah,” “yeah,” and such, which tend to make the song sound more natural.
As far as I’m concerned, the lyrics don’t need to be elaborate. I mostly focus on sentences that transmit a particular emotion. I admire complex, very carefully-written lyrics like Joanna Newsom’s, but they wouldn’t work for the kind of songs I’ve wanted to make so far.
Once the lyrics seem ready, I pinpoint the stanza that will determine the general style of the entire song. It’s usually the chorus (I don’t write multi-chorus songs, so that’s easier to determine for me), or at least the part of the song that needs to be nailed to fit your mental image. Udio uses structural tags to help the AI determine your intention: [hook], [chorus], [verse], [bridge], and such. I don’t think I have ever started a song with a segment that wasn’t a [hook] or a [chorus].
Apart from structural tags, Udio’s AI was trained with loads of “mood” tags. I have collected as many as I could, which is an ongoing process, and I have relied on ChatGPT to classify them. For example, under “musical qualities” and “abstract” I have the following to choose from: “cryptic, complex, existential, dense, glitch, abstract, generative music, improvisation, mashup, eclectic, lobit, microtonal, minimalistic, sampling, silence, sparse, tone poem, uncommon time signatures”. All these tags are functional, and manipulate the generation in appropriate ways.
I go through all these mood tags and, using the same seed for the generations, I produce some to get a feel for what I’d like the final song to sound like. More often than not, I don’t know what general genre the song will fall in. I base my choices on what my subconscious likes; an “I’ll know it when I see it” situation.
Once I’ve determined the mood of that particular segment, I go through my collection of instrument clips that I have painstakingly amassed from YouTube videos. Some time ago, I read through online lists of all the instruments in the world, then I determined which had matching tags in Udio. While pre-producing a song, I listen to each of those instruments one by one and let my subconscious decide if it would fit any of the stanzas. It’s a very painstaking process that usually takes about two hours, but it pays off in the end: the songs I have come up with would have been far less interesting otherwise.
Once I’m happy with the distribution of instruments, I go through a massive collection of genres, plenty of them bizarre (like psychobilly and cowpunk, two of my newly-discovered favorites), and ask Udio to generate loads of clips. If the style of an initial generation impresses me, I tag its name with its genre. If any of the generations is good enough that I would have gladly produced a whole song out of it, I mark it as “[name of song], Pt. 1 candidate.” If I end up with more than one candidate, but I’d rather discard them all but one, I pick the best, then I remix it by adding on top of it other genres whose associated generations had impressed me. That’s how I ended up with a mix of dance punk, surf rock, and cajun in “Paleontology of Pain.”
The best source I’ve found to learn more about genres is the fantastic site musicmap.info. You can zoom in on every supergenre, figure out how most genres relate to others, and listen to songs in those genres.
Once I’ve determined the best seed generation, always 33 seconds-long, the real fun starts: I extend that segment in both directions to render the rest of the lyrics. I keep prompt strength at 70% (forcing Udio to mostly obey my prompt, but giving it some room for improvisation), lyrics strength at 35% (it sounds more natural, allowing the singer to repeat some words or hallucinate as Udio sees fit), and generation quality obviously at ultra.
The context length is extremely important: the AI will only rely on what you allow it to see when deciding how to style the new generation, so don’t include in the context a part of the song that you wouldn’t want to “tint” the extension you’re working on.
Along the way, you may love some generation except for a few seconds where the singer blurted out gibberish, some instrument could have sounded better, etc. That’s where inpainting comes in: it patches over those parts without altering the rest of the song. Note, though: inpainting in general sounds worse than full generations, particularly the drums. No idea if that’s something that the team behind Udio will be able to improve, so if you can trim the part of the song you would have inpainted and request a full generation instead, do that.
When I’m happy with the full song, I download its wav file and open it in Audacity. Udio often screws up the sound levels, so I mess with them in Audacity until I’m happy with how the entire song sounds. Sometimes I screw it up myself and have to “remasterize” them because I have inadvertently produced clicks, which was particularly noticeable in the version I uploaded of “Synaptic Flies.” Editing a song easily takes up to an hour, or an hour and a half.
That’s about it. You can check out my albums here. I have two of them ready, and in a few days I’ll upload the third volume of Odes to My Triceratops. I hope you have learned something from my obsessive attention to detail, in case you’re into this bizarre business of putting together AI-generated music. And if you read this far even though you weren’t interested, don’t you have better things to do with your time?
Some months ago a revolutionary AI tool came out: Udio. It allows you to produce professional-sounding songs. Although I know how to play the guitar, I’ve always been, as a systems builder, more interested in putting songs together than learning how to play an instrument, and I also rarely enjoy interacting with people, so dealing with human musicians was out of the question. Udio has allowed me to come up with about seventy-five songs, so at this point I think I’m qualified to give tips on this subject.
I only start thinking about the musical side of things when I have the lyrics ready. They tend to change very little during production: mostly to make them sound better or rhyme, if the opportunity arises. I also add little touches like laughs, comments, and vocalizations like “aah,” “yeah,” and such, which tend to make the song sound more natural.
As far as I’m concerned, the lyrics don’t need to be elaborate. I mostly focus on sentences that transmit a particular emotion. I admire complex, very carefully-written lyrics like Joanna Newsom’s, but they wouldn’t work for the kind of songs I’ve wanted to make so far.
Once the lyrics seem ready, I pinpoint the stanza that will determine the general style of the entire song. It’s usually the chorus (I don’t write multi-chorus songs, so that’s easier to determine for me), or at least the part of the song that needs to be nailed to fit your mental image. Udio uses structural tags to help the AI determine your intention: [hook], [chorus], [verse], [bridge], and such. I don’t think I have ever started a song with a segment that wasn’t a [hook] or a [chorus].
Apart from structural tags, Udio’s AI was trained with loads of “mood” tags. I have collected as many as I could, which is an ongoing process, and I have relied on ChatGPT to classify them. For example, under “musical qualities” and “abstract” I have the following to choose from: “cryptic, complex, existential, dense, glitch, abstract, generative music, improvisation, mashup, eclectic, lobit, microtonal, minimalistic, sampling, silence, sparse, tone poem, uncommon time signatures”. All these tags are functional, and manipulate the generation in appropriate ways.
I go through all these mood tags and, using the same seed for the generations, I produce some to get a feel for what I’d like the final song to sound like. More often than not, I don’t know what general genre the song will fall in. I base my choices on what my subconscious likes; an “I’ll know it when I see it” situation.
Once I’ve determined the mood of that particular segment, I go through my collection of instrument clips that I have painstakingly amassed from YouTube videos. Some time ago, I read through online lists of all the instruments in the world, then I determined which had matching tags in Udio. While pre-producing a song, I listen to each of those instruments one by one and let my subconscious decide if it would fit any of the stanzas. It’s a very painstaking process that usually takes about two hours, but it pays off in the end: the songs I have come up with would have been far less interesting otherwise.
Once I’m happy with the distribution of instruments, I go through a massive collection of genres, plenty of them bizarre (like psychobilly and cowpunk, two of my newly-discovered favorites), and ask Udio to generate loads of clips. If the style of an initial generation impresses me, I tag its name with its genre. If any of the generations is good enough that I would have gladly produced a whole song out of it, I mark it as “[name of song], Pt. 1 candidate.” If I end up with more than one candidate, but I’d rather discard them all but one, I pick the best, then I remix it by adding on top of it other genres whose associated generations had impressed me. That’s how I ended up with a mix of dance punk, surf rock, and cajun in “Paleontology of Pain.”
The best source I’ve found to learn more about genres is the fantastic site musicmap.info. You can zoom in on every supergenre, figure out how most genres relate to others, and listen to songs in those genres.
Once I’ve determined the best seed generation, always 33 seconds-long, the real fun starts: I extend that segment in both directions to render the rest of the lyrics. I keep prompt strength at 70% (forcing Udio to mostly obey my prompt, but giving it some room for improvisation), lyrics strength at 35% (it sounds more natural, allowing the singer to repeat some words or hallucinate as Udio sees fit), and generation quality obviously at ultra.
The context length is extremely important: the AI will only rely on what you allow it to see when deciding how to style the new generation, so don’t include in the context a part of the song that you wouldn’t want to “tint” the extension you’re working on.
Along the way, you may love some generation except for a few seconds where the singer blurted out gibberish, some instrument could have sounded better, etc. That’s where inpainting comes in: it patches over those parts without altering the rest of the song. Note, though: inpainting in general sounds worse than full generations, particularly the drums. No idea if that’s something that the team behind Udio will be able to improve, so if you can trim the part of the song you would have inpainted and request a full generation instead, do that.
When I’m happy with the full song, I download its wav file and open it in Audacity. Udio often screws up the sound levels, so I mess with them in Audacity until I’m happy with how the entire song sounds. Sometimes I screw it up myself and have to “remasterize” them because I have inadvertently produced clicks, which was particularly noticeable in the version I uploaded of “Synaptic Flies.” Editing a song easily takes up to an hour, or an hour and a half.
That’s about it. You can check out my albums here. I have two of them ready, and in a few days I’ll upload the third volume of Odes to My Triceratops. I hope you have learned something from my obsessive attention to detail, in case you’re into this bizarre business of putting together AI-generated music. And if you read this far even though you weren’t interested, don’t you have better things to do with your time?
June 4, 2024
Lyrics of the album Odes to My Triceratops, Vol. 2
[Check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better
You can download the album Odes to My Triceratops, Vol. 2 through this link. Below are the lyrics for all the songs it contains.
Plan for a Renegade
First things first, I wanna talk to you about
Things like war, motherhood, and fatherhood.
Anyway, there’s only a verse about my friend.
See, Lorenzo has a mission that his parents planned:
Gotta shoot a renegade deinonychus (he’s a chupacabra).
Hell’s Gate-a-ray, his parents are sending him down to hell.
“Okay, this is going to sound too crazy.
Hell’s Gate-a-ray, ole-yeter. (gibberish)”
Lorenzo asks, “What was that, Gramps?”
“Shut up, you son-of-a-gun. Next, I’m tellin’ you the truth,
We’re gonna build a missile out of your heart, ’cause, um,
You, uh, you ain’t, uh, been an angel, but, you know,
You’ll repent and, uh, uh, don’t let the devil tempt you, boy.
An old fart like me, I know.”
The Griffin Hum
Ladies and gents, whoever’s listening,
Please allow me to introduce William Griffin,
Writer, singer, guitarist, human jerk.
Why don’tcha say something, Griffin?
What? Say what?
Hum, hum, hum, hum,
Hum, hum, hum.
Whatcha hum,
Whatcha hum,
Huuh?
If I had to summarize William Griffin
In one meaningful deed, it would be…
Hold on, I think the chorus is coming.
Let me tell you about it later.
Oh, song’s over. Nevermind!
Strings and Gunpowder
Grab your guitar!
Grab your gun!
Grab your life
And have fun!
Wake up at night and sing a song
Under your friend’s bedroom window.
Hey, Lorenzo! Lorenzo!
Plan to sleep all night long?
(“Shut up, asshole!”)
Yeah! It’s good to be back!
It’s good to be back!
La-la-la-lee
La-la-la-way,
Yay-eh!
Put your fingers on the strings,
Put a bullet in the chamber.
Boom boom boom!
Bang bang bang!
Hit ’em right in the heart!
Prehistoric Punk
Lorenzo is one ugly son-of-a-bitch.
His eyeballs are poison green.
With those claws, scales, and horns,
He’s like the truest form of punk.
Lorenzo the triceratops
Carries a tiny soul inside his skull.
That goddamn freak walks around
Like he could topple city blocks.
He’s got the guts of a machine gun,
And a portal to hell inside his throat.
Sing something, Lorenzo!
Rawr, rawr, ra-rawr!
Grr, grr, gr-grawr!
Rooo, rooo, ra-ra-roo!
Rawr, RAWR, RAAAAWR!
Crap
This crap is mine, and I am proud.
I’m gonna keep on singing, singing, singing.
I’m gonna keep on singing my crappy song,
And nobody can stop me.
It’s my own little song
That I’ve made myself,
And I’ll sing it any day
If I’m not getting beat up.
I’m gonna keep on singing, singing, singing.
I’m gonna keep on singing my crappy song.
I will sing forever and ever and ever,
Or until the day I die.
Cruisin’ While Horny
My friend Lorenzo is a triceratops
With a portal to hell inside his throat.
He would drive around for hours on end,
Trying to find some chicks.
Where did you get that car?
I don’t even have one.
What the hell are you doing, Lorenzo?
What the hell are you doing, Lorenzo?
Every day he’s doing this.
Dude, I’m worried about him.
This whole thing is getting out of hand.
When I told Lorenzo I was scared for him,
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “My bad.”
Lorenzo 2.0
Lorenzo the triceratops from space,
Born and raised in a cave.
His parents named him “the Obliterator,”
For that’s what he does best,
But they called him “Lorenzo” for short.
He’s not your average triceratops:
He doesn’t eat plants.
He eats the souls of the dead.
Lorenzo: update version 2.0.
New features include:
More soul-eating capacity.
Greater evil force.
Dark matter bazooka.
Enhanced chupacabras.
Fixes include:
Fixed flaming diarrhea bug.
Dating’s not his strong suit, though.
When Lorenzo dated that allosaurus,
He lost his mind and had to leave.
A relationship doomed from the start.
Lorenzo’s not afraid of anything.
When he heard the allosaurus was after him,
He said, “Bring that bitch over here!
I’ll smash her skull with a crowbar!”
Father God
My mom’s the sweetest flower,
But she married a prick.
Mom and stepdad drink together.
The whiskey flows through their veins
While they sing old songs
About suffering and death.
Father God
Looks down upon us.
His teeth are knives.
His heart is cold.
He kicks the poor,
And breaks the sick.
His feet stink,
So does his dick.
Fuck that big asshole up in the sky
Who wants us to love our father,
My dead dad’s replacement,
Who’s so generous with his fists.
Are you proud of what you’ve done?
William Gets Heart-Attacked
I’ve been vomiting blood for three hours.
I got heart-attacked! (Oh shit!)
Lorenzo bit his tongue to draw blood
So I would drink it, replacing mine.
It’s not every day that a triceratops saves a person.
I’d bleed to death without a tongue-blood transfusion.
I’m in a hospital bed.
Lorenzo is in the next bed over,
With a tube going down his throat.
He’s recovering from the shame
Of saving my life.
But it was all a dream (yeah, that makes more sense).
It was all a dream (that’s why it made no sense).
Damn it, I should have known!
Everything was bruise-blue,
And upside down.
Anyway, thank you, thanks for saving me in a dream, Lorenzo!
“No problem.”
What a fucked-up way to start the day…
Cancer and Virgins
Our souls are connected
To our bones and our flesh,
But to me Claire could only exist
On the surface.
Lorenzo is half metal
And half stone.
He’s like a newly launched gunship.
On the inside we’re alike:
Cancer and virgins.
But because he is a killer,
Lorenzo is a strange boy.
My sister has an iron fist,
And keeps screaming in envy.
We’re more the same than we are different.
I hate to touch a hand that’s metallic,
She hates to kiss a mouth that’s metal.
But deep down we’re the same:
We are born to murder.
The Hair on Her Arms
Claire, I love the way you cry,
And the tears that fill your eyes.
Every time you get close to me, I feel warm.
I dream about the hair on your arms.
You two are my best friends:
Lorenzo and Claire,
A triceratops and a blind girl.
My inspiration for most songs I write.
In these mountains, everything is cold.
What was left behind has turned to dust.
I find myself walking around town in the dark,
Just to know that I’m alive.
To Old America
Was there a time when you weren’t here, right by my side?
If there was, does it matter anymore?
Listen up close, boy
I’ve got something to say.
This boy can keep me up to date
And help me fix what’s wrong.
I’ll take him to old America.
He’ll show me the way.
This boy can keep me up to date.
His face speaks of new understanding,
And it’s my spirit that he surrounds.
I think I could live in his love.
C’mon, boy.
Right this way?
Supernova Snack
If I got hungry in the forest, Claire,
Would ya give me some of your blood?
If I fell in the river and got drenched,
Would ya lick me dry?
You’ve got an ass that could put out the flames
Of a raging forest fire.
(By which I mean your ass is very nice.)
Claire, you’re a fucking snack!
Everything you say makes me hard.
What should I do, girl?
Should I stick my nose in your arm, or what?
The only thing better than dying in battle
Is to get blown up by a meteor,
Or eaten by a carnosaur,
Then get fucked by you.
Claire, if you’re hungry,
Eat my eyes.
If you’re cold,
Light my bones on fire.
The stars will go out,
The planets break apart,
But for now, I’ll be feasting
On my supernova snack.
Marmalade Sun
A bird is building a nest in my mind.
Butterflies flutter around in my mouth.
There’s something living in my nose.
(You know those bioluminescent creatures that live in the black depths?
That’s what I have swimming in my guts.)
You and I, my ginger beam,
We were born from dinosaur blood
And that marmalade sun.
My head is round and rounder.
I don’t eat, I live on laughter.
No matter what, we’re going to die,
So we might as well enjoy the ride.
Friends We Never Knew
Are yours also cold on the inside?
Hmm-hmm.
Slimy, too.
It’s a miracle we’ve survived this far.
Millions of years ago,
We were myriad little cells,
Not even half-conscious of our lives.
Now here we are, talking about life and death,
Eating hot dogs we got out of a truck.
“Anton’s Hot Dogs” painted on the side.
We’ve survived it all:
Super volcanoes, ice ages.
But many others have not,
Friends we never knew.
What do I know?
At the end of the day,
I’m just a dumb teenager
With two friends to sing for,
And one to fuck.
Eyes Closed
I’ll never forget the first time we met,
‘Cause something in your eyes<
Made me want to try to touch your soul.
It’s such a shame how your eyes are always closed.
There’s a place that’s hidden deep inside your soul,
And if you knew the way to find it,
We could be lost in love forever.
When we find that, then we’ll find what’s within,
And everything that we’re searching for
Will come true like the stars in the sky
And the places on the ground.
And everything that we’re searching for
Will come true.
Lorenzo, No
Lorenzo, no.
I could tell you so many things,
But you’re never gonna hear them.
So go back to your cave
And think on life,
And you’ll find it’s so much better
Than what you think.
Go away, please.
Philosophy of the Beast
Don’t turn Lorenzo into a nihilist jerk
With all this depression shit.
Stop giving him philosophy books.
That’s not his calling.
He just wants to go on dates with chicks,
Eat their clits, and maybe dance a bit.
Lorenzo’s the kind of dinosaur
You can’t tie down.
Feed him, and he’ll bite your hand.
Give him a reason, and he’ll crush it.
Ohhhh-waaaahh-oh-waaahh-oh-waaaaaaa
Aaa-wa-waaah-aa-a-ahh-aaa
Ahh-ahh-a-wa-a-wah-waaaaa-wah
Aaa-oh-waaa-aa-aaa-waaa-aaa
That meat-grinder was born out of boredom,
And forced itself to evolve.
You won’t understand him,
‘Cause the ways of humans are insane!
No, that’s a bit unfair.
We’re all little monsters
Stuck on this rock hurtling through space,
Just trying to survive.
Monster With a Hellmouth
My friend doesn’t just have a hellmouth:
He also has a monster head
Made of chromium steel.
Whenever Lorenzo sings a song,
He sounds terrifying and murderous.
His hellmouth gushes dark smoke
While all sorts of horrors pour out.
(This does happen a lot.)
He’s a monster with a hellmouth;
I don’t know what to tell you.
Lorenzo ain’t afraid of ghosts or leprechauns.
If you run into him in a dark forest,
He’ll impale you on his horns,
And make a wish with your bones.
He’s also very well endowed:
It looks like a bazooka.
His seed comes out of his mouth
While his bazooka throbs.
(I’m not sure what nature intended
With that reproductive system.)
When I close my eyes, I still see it.
Hold in There, Lorenzo
Tumble through the cracks of this shithole town.
A boy and his fucking dinosaur.
You wear your horns like crowns
While I just wear my skin.
I see myself in you tonight, Lorenzo.
You’re out in the sun’s fucking bright light.
Drinking time (fuck yeah!).
You’re headed for the bottom.
You’re out there eating your dick.
You’re full of shit,
All fucked-up inside.
Your gonads hold the world in place.
You know we’re all going to die.
Triceratops dick.
Triceratops cock.
Triceratops dick.
Triceratops cock.
Fucking horned beast.
Helldick.
Don’t Wanna Be the One
Just look at how you’ve changed.
You don’t even look like yourself any more.
Clothes are hanging on you,
Your hair is a mess.
It looks like something’s wrong with you.
I don’t wanna be the one
To tell you the truth,
But I think that I should be the one
To tell you the truth.
I don’t like the way you’re acting.
Oh Lord, please help me.
So it’s true what they say.
I love you (I do), and I know you care for me.
Just tell me (tell me, bro) why you always treat me bad.
I can’t stand you any more,
And I really don’t think that it’s fair.
I don’t wanna be the one
To tell you the truth,
But I think that I should be the one
To tell you the truth.
Lorenzo.
Lorenzo.
My triceratops.
An ode,
A million of ’em,
To my triceratops.
The Same as It Is Now
Don’t shut the portal to hell.
Hey.
Don’t close the portal to hell.
Hey
Hey, you.
Did you listen?
Don’t be afraid of what I tell you,
Or you’ll end up down that well.
It will be dark and it will be cold,
And it will be you.
No! It’ll be the same as it is now,
Except with a lot of kids singing songs
About things that go boom.
Into Hell and Out Again
You, my friend, will disappear into hell,
So throw away your cigarettes,
Your scarlet lady and your tin box,
‘Cause you have a better life ahead.
It’s just the world we live in:
There’s no one to lead us.
The highway’s packed with assholes,
All of them worse than the last.
Forget the girls who betrayed you,
Every lie that brought you pain.
We should sit back and laugh,
For this life will go away.
You, my friend, will have to cross this stream,
Wading in the water with your arms wide open,
Feeling for each stone with your toes.
Throw away your scarlet lady,
And your cigarettes too.
This fucking world’s a garbage dump,
But not your heart, for that is home.
Afraid of His Dick
Dude, dude,
Try not fuck with him, ’cause he’s a goddamned
Mammoth triceratops
With a portal to hell inside his throat,
And a dick like a spear.
He won’t let you go, and he will follow you
All the way to the end of your life,
But in the meantime he won’t let you die,
‘Cause he knows a lot of stuff about science.
He wears a shell with a god inside.
I swear, he won’t let me die.
He wants to kiss my vagina,
But he hates the taste of petroleum.
When he bites me,
He comes off as murderous,
But I can never alert the authorities,
‘Cause I can’t read nor write,
And that’s just embarrassing.
Dude, can I tell you something?
If I were to kill him,
You could write about the slaughter,
And then we could kiss,
And drink some wine
And eat some tacos
And watch a movie.
We Can Fly
Claire is an angel. You’re the devil.
I’m the dude in-between.
We can fly like eagles,
We can sing like canaries,
But the blowing wind
Will never take us anywhere.
At least we’ve got our little hideaway
Where nobody’s gonna find us,
And we can let loose, do whatever we want.
You get high and go into these freaky rants,
Claire gives us those scary stories,
And I write songs about being dumb.
(Don’t tell me that ain’t the life.)
I had always liked coming here for reasons:
The smell of gasoline.
To be near things that are rusty and dying.
You can see the mountains in the distance.
They remind me of how small I really am.
I don’t wanna leave this town,
I’m too scared to even try.
Let’s stay here together
Until the end of time.
Cretaceous Razor
Somewhere at the end of the black and blue,
A yellow rose falls from the sky.
Lorenzo's throat is stuffed with joy and hope.
His heart is a lighthouse in the dark.
A hell of a way to live and love,
The difference between life and death,
To know the feeling of a dino's claws.
He'll shred you to the size of a cactus.
Some may find the signs of wisdom.
Lorenzo can't understand anything from them,
But his warm and kind stories
May make you love life more than death.
A Cretaceous razor cuts the sun.
He'll make your hat more than seven feet tall.
The curve of his horns turns me on.
He's an angel in the blackest of hells.
Girl With a Limp
Lorenzo’s a dinosaur with a triceratops brain.
If you know his liver, then you know his scrotum.
If you don’t know his liver, then you know his scrotum.
Those balls are hard to miss.
If you asked him where he got his good looks,
He’d say, “A vat of acid.”
If you asked him how to get his abs,
He’d say, “Stick a saw blade in your guts.”
If you asked him where he lives,
He’d say, “Under your bed.”
If you asked him how to find true love,
He’d say, “Open the gates of hell!”
If you asked Lorenzo where he was going,
He’d look at you like you had three heads.
If you told him where he was going,
He’d call you a liar.
Lorenzo would get drunk and fuck my girl.
He kicked her while having sex.
She’s a charming sixteen
Going on twenty-four.
Her eyes are milk,
And she walks with a limp.
No Entiendo
His name’s Lorenzo. I think it sounds like a brand.
I was just a kid when I first heard the wailing
That howls out from the depths of his throat.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.
No entiendo!
Hey, no entiendo.
Yo no entiendo.
Lorenzo takes me by the arm.
“Se llama amor, pero no lo entenderías.”
He runs toward our school with a bomb
That blows up the town and my home.
Necesito una sombrilla.
Hoy es luna de sangre!
God Fucked Us and Made a Mixtape
My asshole is soaking wet.
There are bubbles coming out.
It feels as if God’s dick went through,
Hiroshima’d my rectum.
Let me shit the living truth!
Blubblubblub!
Blubblubbluburbursurslubluplbluplu, bruru!
Burursurbur!
Slllluurrrslllruuberba!
Arasaba rururu urusar suba ar su!
Dear God, the creator and destroyer,
Please allow me to introduce myself.
I’m a demon sent from the pits
That are located south of hell.
God, you’ve been fucking with us forever,
Making mixtapes and sharing them online.
Why are you still recording?
Do you want attention, or are you insane?
God’s up there rolling joints and listening to metal.
Once, an angel tried to take God’s headphones off.
I found that angel in pieces behind a seven-eleven.
Those poor wings will never fly again.
Oh, God! The things you’ve done to us!
You said, “My children, this is what I want you to do:
Blow your load on top of the highest mountain.”
We did, and the mountain was covered in cum.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, God fucked us,
And made a mixtape!
He said, “This is for you, children,
In case your forget how great I am.”
You can say that God fucked us and made a mixtape,
‘Cause he fucked us and made a mixtape,
Which is actually a huge collection of mixtapes,
All with the same cover and title,
Sitting on the floor of a van.
God will kill us all one day,
But first he’ll put us through hell.
Now that he’s set me on fire,
I will burn the world away.
Love Thy Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus Rex,
Tyrant lizard king.
He runs with his brothers and sisters
Through the thick jungle brush.
He was born under the shadow
Of a thousand lightning bolts.
Love thy tyrannosaurus,
But keep thy distance:
He will kill thee,
And eat thy guts.
He’s just a vicious dude
In a giant reptile suit,
And we’re one and the same.
Here it comes.
When the Fence is Gone
The actual lady, Claire,
Is in love with the beast.
She’s trapped in his throat,
Bound by a curse.
We’re the sheep that go out to pasture,
The livestock in a fenced field.
You’re the shepherd of a foolish flock,
Feeding on our blood and souls.
I wish I could pretend
That you never existed,
But now I will pretend
That I care for you.
The day will come
When the fence is gone,
And you will be the one
Left all alone.
Beast of the old ways.
Hell Is This Way
Oh Lorenzo, what can I say?
I never liked you when we were kids.
You have a face that’s a million years old.
The portal to hell has swung open.
I am Triceratops, and my wife is Spartacus.
Handsome or ugly, what does it matter?
My wife gives her life away for Triceratops.
Hell is this way.
Hell is this way.
Hell is this way, triceratops.
A world far below this one,
Where darkness never ends.
Your blood’s the best of wines.
Bitter Bites
And after all the lies he told,
The rocks he threw at me,
That dino got what he deserved.
I saw tears in his eyes.
He will never betray me again,
That bloody demon.
To satisfy a weird urge,
I cut up some of his flesh,
And ate it.
How sick is that.
The Devil Inside My Throat
I met this girl who wouldn’t give a fuck.
One day she led me to her bedroom.
Today I couldn’t look her in the eyes,
Even though she’s only ever seen black.
Her scent is a morning in early fall,
And her voice soft and pleasant,
Like a mother who wouldn’t abandon you,
Or a father who would never hurt you.
It’s all gone.
The devil lives inside my throat.
I hear his chortling every night.
Sometimes he burns my clothes.
He also pees on my bed.
Name’s Lorenzo. I’m a triceratops.
I have a portal inside my throat.
When I open it, smoke comes out
From the bowels of hell.
I see the darkness within me.
I’ve always known it was there.
You can download the album Odes to My Triceratops, Vol. 2 through this link. Below are the lyrics for all the songs it contains.
Plan for a Renegade
First things first, I wanna talk to you about
Things like war, motherhood, and fatherhood.
Anyway, there’s only a verse about my friend.
See, Lorenzo has a mission that his parents planned:
Gotta shoot a renegade deinonychus (he’s a chupacabra).
Hell’s Gate-a-ray, his parents are sending him down to hell.
“Okay, this is going to sound too crazy.
Hell’s Gate-a-ray, ole-yeter. (gibberish)”
Lorenzo asks, “What was that, Gramps?”
“Shut up, you son-of-a-gun. Next, I’m tellin’ you the truth,
We’re gonna build a missile out of your heart, ’cause, um,
You, uh, you ain’t, uh, been an angel, but, you know,
You’ll repent and, uh, uh, don’t let the devil tempt you, boy.
An old fart like me, I know.”
The Griffin Hum
Ladies and gents, whoever’s listening,
Please allow me to introduce William Griffin,
Writer, singer, guitarist, human jerk.
Why don’tcha say something, Griffin?
What? Say what?
Hum, hum, hum, hum,
Hum, hum, hum.
Whatcha hum,
Whatcha hum,
Huuh?
If I had to summarize William Griffin
In one meaningful deed, it would be…
Hold on, I think the chorus is coming.
Let me tell you about it later.
Oh, song’s over. Nevermind!
Strings and Gunpowder
Grab your guitar!
Grab your gun!
Grab your life
And have fun!
Wake up at night and sing a song
Under your friend’s bedroom window.
Hey, Lorenzo! Lorenzo!
Plan to sleep all night long?
(“Shut up, asshole!”)
Yeah! It’s good to be back!
It’s good to be back!
La-la-la-lee
La-la-la-way,
Yay-eh!
Put your fingers on the strings,
Put a bullet in the chamber.
Boom boom boom!
Bang bang bang!
Hit ’em right in the heart!
Prehistoric Punk
Lorenzo is one ugly son-of-a-bitch.
His eyeballs are poison green.
With those claws, scales, and horns,
He’s like the truest form of punk.
Lorenzo the triceratops
Carries a tiny soul inside his skull.
That goddamn freak walks around
Like he could topple city blocks.
He’s got the guts of a machine gun,
And a portal to hell inside his throat.
Sing something, Lorenzo!
Rawr, rawr, ra-rawr!
Grr, grr, gr-grawr!
Rooo, rooo, ra-ra-roo!
Rawr, RAWR, RAAAAWR!
Crap
This crap is mine, and I am proud.
I’m gonna keep on singing, singing, singing.
I’m gonna keep on singing my crappy song,
And nobody can stop me.
It’s my own little song
That I’ve made myself,
And I’ll sing it any day
If I’m not getting beat up.
I’m gonna keep on singing, singing, singing.
I’m gonna keep on singing my crappy song.
I will sing forever and ever and ever,
Or until the day I die.
Cruisin’ While Horny
My friend Lorenzo is a triceratops
With a portal to hell inside his throat.
He would drive around for hours on end,
Trying to find some chicks.
Where did you get that car?
I don’t even have one.
What the hell are you doing, Lorenzo?
What the hell are you doing, Lorenzo?
Every day he’s doing this.
Dude, I’m worried about him.
This whole thing is getting out of hand.
When I told Lorenzo I was scared for him,
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “My bad.”
Lorenzo 2.0
Lorenzo the triceratops from space,
Born and raised in a cave.
His parents named him “the Obliterator,”
For that’s what he does best,
But they called him “Lorenzo” for short.
He’s not your average triceratops:
He doesn’t eat plants.
He eats the souls of the dead.
Lorenzo: update version 2.0.
New features include:
More soul-eating capacity.
Greater evil force.
Dark matter bazooka.
Enhanced chupacabras.
Fixes include:
Fixed flaming diarrhea bug.
Dating’s not his strong suit, though.
When Lorenzo dated that allosaurus,
He lost his mind and had to leave.
A relationship doomed from the start.
Lorenzo’s not afraid of anything.
When he heard the allosaurus was after him,
He said, “Bring that bitch over here!
I’ll smash her skull with a crowbar!”
Father God
My mom’s the sweetest flower,
But she married a prick.
Mom and stepdad drink together.
The whiskey flows through their veins
While they sing old songs
About suffering and death.
Father God
Looks down upon us.
His teeth are knives.
His heart is cold.
He kicks the poor,
And breaks the sick.
His feet stink,
So does his dick.
Fuck that big asshole up in the sky
Who wants us to love our father,
My dead dad’s replacement,
Who’s so generous with his fists.
Are you proud of what you’ve done?
William Gets Heart-Attacked
I’ve been vomiting blood for three hours.
I got heart-attacked! (Oh shit!)
Lorenzo bit his tongue to draw blood
So I would drink it, replacing mine.
It’s not every day that a triceratops saves a person.
I’d bleed to death without a tongue-blood transfusion.
I’m in a hospital bed.
Lorenzo is in the next bed over,
With a tube going down his throat.
He’s recovering from the shame
Of saving my life.
But it was all a dream (yeah, that makes more sense).
It was all a dream (that’s why it made no sense).
Damn it, I should have known!
Everything was bruise-blue,
And upside down.
Anyway, thank you, thanks for saving me in a dream, Lorenzo!
“No problem.”
What a fucked-up way to start the day…
Cancer and Virgins
Our souls are connected
To our bones and our flesh,
But to me Claire could only exist
On the surface.
Lorenzo is half metal
And half stone.
He’s like a newly launched gunship.
On the inside we’re alike:
Cancer and virgins.
But because he is a killer,
Lorenzo is a strange boy.
My sister has an iron fist,
And keeps screaming in envy.
We’re more the same than we are different.
I hate to touch a hand that’s metallic,
She hates to kiss a mouth that’s metal.
But deep down we’re the same:
We are born to murder.
The Hair on Her Arms
Claire, I love the way you cry,
And the tears that fill your eyes.
Every time you get close to me, I feel warm.
I dream about the hair on your arms.
You two are my best friends:
Lorenzo and Claire,
A triceratops and a blind girl.
My inspiration for most songs I write.
In these mountains, everything is cold.
What was left behind has turned to dust.
I find myself walking around town in the dark,
Just to know that I’m alive.
To Old America
Was there a time when you weren’t here, right by my side?
If there was, does it matter anymore?
Listen up close, boy
I’ve got something to say.
This boy can keep me up to date
And help me fix what’s wrong.
I’ll take him to old America.
He’ll show me the way.
This boy can keep me up to date.
His face speaks of new understanding,
And it’s my spirit that he surrounds.
I think I could live in his love.
C’mon, boy.
Right this way?
Supernova Snack
If I got hungry in the forest, Claire,
Would ya give me some of your blood?
If I fell in the river and got drenched,
Would ya lick me dry?
You’ve got an ass that could put out the flames
Of a raging forest fire.
(By which I mean your ass is very nice.)
Claire, you’re a fucking snack!
Everything you say makes me hard.
What should I do, girl?
Should I stick my nose in your arm, or what?
The only thing better than dying in battle
Is to get blown up by a meteor,
Or eaten by a carnosaur,
Then get fucked by you.
Claire, if you’re hungry,
Eat my eyes.
If you’re cold,
Light my bones on fire.
The stars will go out,
The planets break apart,
But for now, I’ll be feasting
On my supernova snack.
Marmalade Sun
A bird is building a nest in my mind.
Butterflies flutter around in my mouth.
There’s something living in my nose.
(You know those bioluminescent creatures that live in the black depths?
That’s what I have swimming in my guts.)
You and I, my ginger beam,
We were born from dinosaur blood
And that marmalade sun.
My head is round and rounder.
I don’t eat, I live on laughter.
No matter what, we’re going to die,
So we might as well enjoy the ride.
Friends We Never Knew
Are yours also cold on the inside?
Hmm-hmm.
Slimy, too.
It’s a miracle we’ve survived this far.
Millions of years ago,
We were myriad little cells,
Not even half-conscious of our lives.
Now here we are, talking about life and death,
Eating hot dogs we got out of a truck.
“Anton’s Hot Dogs” painted on the side.
We’ve survived it all:
Super volcanoes, ice ages.
But many others have not,
Friends we never knew.
What do I know?
At the end of the day,
I’m just a dumb teenager
With two friends to sing for,
And one to fuck.
Eyes Closed
I’ll never forget the first time we met,
‘Cause something in your eyes<
Made me want to try to touch your soul.
It’s such a shame how your eyes are always closed.
There’s a place that’s hidden deep inside your soul,
And if you knew the way to find it,
We could be lost in love forever.
When we find that, then we’ll find what’s within,
And everything that we’re searching for
Will come true like the stars in the sky
And the places on the ground.
And everything that we’re searching for
Will come true.
Lorenzo, No
Lorenzo, no.
I could tell you so many things,
But you’re never gonna hear them.
So go back to your cave
And think on life,
And you’ll find it’s so much better
Than what you think.
Go away, please.
Philosophy of the Beast
Don’t turn Lorenzo into a nihilist jerk
With all this depression shit.
Stop giving him philosophy books.
That’s not his calling.
He just wants to go on dates with chicks,
Eat their clits, and maybe dance a bit.
Lorenzo’s the kind of dinosaur
You can’t tie down.
Feed him, and he’ll bite your hand.
Give him a reason, and he’ll crush it.
Ohhhh-waaaahh-oh-waaahh-oh-waaaaaaa
Aaa-wa-waaah-aa-a-ahh-aaa
Ahh-ahh-a-wa-a-wah-waaaaa-wah
Aaa-oh-waaa-aa-aaa-waaa-aaa
That meat-grinder was born out of boredom,
And forced itself to evolve.
You won’t understand him,
‘Cause the ways of humans are insane!
No, that’s a bit unfair.
We’re all little monsters
Stuck on this rock hurtling through space,
Just trying to survive.
Monster With a Hellmouth
My friend doesn’t just have a hellmouth:
He also has a monster head
Made of chromium steel.
Whenever Lorenzo sings a song,
He sounds terrifying and murderous.
His hellmouth gushes dark smoke
While all sorts of horrors pour out.
(This does happen a lot.)
He’s a monster with a hellmouth;
I don’t know what to tell you.
Lorenzo ain’t afraid of ghosts or leprechauns.
If you run into him in a dark forest,
He’ll impale you on his horns,
And make a wish with your bones.
He’s also very well endowed:
It looks like a bazooka.
His seed comes out of his mouth
While his bazooka throbs.
(I’m not sure what nature intended
With that reproductive system.)
When I close my eyes, I still see it.
Hold in There, Lorenzo
Tumble through the cracks of this shithole town.
A boy and his fucking dinosaur.
You wear your horns like crowns
While I just wear my skin.
I see myself in you tonight, Lorenzo.
You’re out in the sun’s fucking bright light.
Drinking time (fuck yeah!).
You’re headed for the bottom.
You’re out there eating your dick.
You’re full of shit,
All fucked-up inside.
Your gonads hold the world in place.
You know we’re all going to die.
Triceratops dick.
Triceratops cock.
Triceratops dick.
Triceratops cock.
Fucking horned beast.
Helldick.
Don’t Wanna Be the One
Just look at how you’ve changed.
You don’t even look like yourself any more.
Clothes are hanging on you,
Your hair is a mess.
It looks like something’s wrong with you.
I don’t wanna be the one
To tell you the truth,
But I think that I should be the one
To tell you the truth.
I don’t like the way you’re acting.
Oh Lord, please help me.
So it’s true what they say.
I love you (I do), and I know you care for me.
Just tell me (tell me, bro) why you always treat me bad.
I can’t stand you any more,
And I really don’t think that it’s fair.
I don’t wanna be the one
To tell you the truth,
But I think that I should be the one
To tell you the truth.
Lorenzo.
Lorenzo.
My triceratops.
An ode,
A million of ’em,
To my triceratops.
The Same as It Is Now
Don’t shut the portal to hell.
Hey.
Don’t close the portal to hell.
Hey
Hey, you.
Did you listen?
Don’t be afraid of what I tell you,
Or you’ll end up down that well.
It will be dark and it will be cold,
And it will be you.
No! It’ll be the same as it is now,
Except with a lot of kids singing songs
About things that go boom.
Into Hell and Out Again
You, my friend, will disappear into hell,
So throw away your cigarettes,
Your scarlet lady and your tin box,
‘Cause you have a better life ahead.
It’s just the world we live in:
There’s no one to lead us.
The highway’s packed with assholes,
All of them worse than the last.
Forget the girls who betrayed you,
Every lie that brought you pain.
We should sit back and laugh,
For this life will go away.
You, my friend, will have to cross this stream,
Wading in the water with your arms wide open,
Feeling for each stone with your toes.
Throw away your scarlet lady,
And your cigarettes too.
This fucking world’s a garbage dump,
But not your heart, for that is home.
Afraid of His Dick
Dude, dude,
Try not fuck with him, ’cause he’s a goddamned
Mammoth triceratops
With a portal to hell inside his throat,
And a dick like a spear.
He won’t let you go, and he will follow you
All the way to the end of your life,
But in the meantime he won’t let you die,
‘Cause he knows a lot of stuff about science.
He wears a shell with a god inside.
I swear, he won’t let me die.
He wants to kiss my vagina,
But he hates the taste of petroleum.
When he bites me,
He comes off as murderous,
But I can never alert the authorities,
‘Cause I can’t read nor write,
And that’s just embarrassing.
Dude, can I tell you something?
If I were to kill him,
You could write about the slaughter,
And then we could kiss,
And drink some wine
And eat some tacos
And watch a movie.
We Can Fly
Claire is an angel. You’re the devil.
I’m the dude in-between.
We can fly like eagles,
We can sing like canaries,
But the blowing wind
Will never take us anywhere.
At least we’ve got our little hideaway
Where nobody’s gonna find us,
And we can let loose, do whatever we want.
You get high and go into these freaky rants,
Claire gives us those scary stories,
And I write songs about being dumb.
(Don’t tell me that ain’t the life.)
I had always liked coming here for reasons:
The smell of gasoline.
To be near things that are rusty and dying.
You can see the mountains in the distance.
They remind me of how small I really am.
I don’t wanna leave this town,
I’m too scared to even try.
Let’s stay here together
Until the end of time.
Cretaceous Razor
Somewhere at the end of the black and blue,
A yellow rose falls from the sky.
Lorenzo's throat is stuffed with joy and hope.
His heart is a lighthouse in the dark.
A hell of a way to live and love,
The difference between life and death,
To know the feeling of a dino's claws.
He'll shred you to the size of a cactus.
Some may find the signs of wisdom.
Lorenzo can't understand anything from them,
But his warm and kind stories
May make you love life more than death.
A Cretaceous razor cuts the sun.
He'll make your hat more than seven feet tall.
The curve of his horns turns me on.
He's an angel in the blackest of hells.
Girl With a Limp
Lorenzo’s a dinosaur with a triceratops brain.
If you know his liver, then you know his scrotum.
If you don’t know his liver, then you know his scrotum.
Those balls are hard to miss.
If you asked him where he got his good looks,
He’d say, “A vat of acid.”
If you asked him how to get his abs,
He’d say, “Stick a saw blade in your guts.”
If you asked him where he lives,
He’d say, “Under your bed.”
If you asked him how to find true love,
He’d say, “Open the gates of hell!”
If you asked Lorenzo where he was going,
He’d look at you like you had three heads.
If you told him where he was going,
He’d call you a liar.
Lorenzo would get drunk and fuck my girl.
He kicked her while having sex.
She’s a charming sixteen
Going on twenty-four.
Her eyes are milk,
And she walks with a limp.
No Entiendo
His name’s Lorenzo. I think it sounds like a brand.
I was just a kid when I first heard the wailing
That howls out from the depths of his throat.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.
No entiendo!
Hey, no entiendo.
Yo no entiendo.
Lorenzo takes me by the arm.
“Se llama amor, pero no lo entenderías.”
He runs toward our school with a bomb
That blows up the town and my home.
Necesito una sombrilla.
Hoy es luna de sangre!
God Fucked Us and Made a Mixtape
My asshole is soaking wet.
There are bubbles coming out.
It feels as if God’s dick went through,
Hiroshima’d my rectum.
Let me shit the living truth!
Blubblubblub!
Blubblubbluburbursurslubluplbluplu, bruru!
Burursurbur!
Slllluurrrslllruuberba!
Arasaba rururu urusar suba ar su!
Dear God, the creator and destroyer,
Please allow me to introduce myself.
I’m a demon sent from the pits
That are located south of hell.
God, you’ve been fucking with us forever,
Making mixtapes and sharing them online.
Why are you still recording?
Do you want attention, or are you insane?
God’s up there rolling joints and listening to metal.
Once, an angel tried to take God’s headphones off.
I found that angel in pieces behind a seven-eleven.
Those poor wings will never fly again.
Oh, God! The things you’ve done to us!
You said, “My children, this is what I want you to do:
Blow your load on top of the highest mountain.”
We did, and the mountain was covered in cum.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, God fucked us,
And made a mixtape!
He said, “This is for you, children,
In case your forget how great I am.”
You can say that God fucked us and made a mixtape,
‘Cause he fucked us and made a mixtape,
Which is actually a huge collection of mixtapes,
All with the same cover and title,
Sitting on the floor of a van.
God will kill us all one day,
But first he’ll put us through hell.
Now that he’s set me on fire,
I will burn the world away.
Love Thy Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus Rex,
Tyrant lizard king.
He runs with his brothers and sisters
Through the thick jungle brush.
He was born under the shadow
Of a thousand lightning bolts.
Love thy tyrannosaurus,
But keep thy distance:
He will kill thee,
And eat thy guts.
He’s just a vicious dude
In a giant reptile suit,
And we’re one and the same.
Here it comes.
When the Fence is Gone
The actual lady, Claire,
Is in love with the beast.
She’s trapped in his throat,
Bound by a curse.
We’re the sheep that go out to pasture,
The livestock in a fenced field.
You’re the shepherd of a foolish flock,
Feeding on our blood and souls.
I wish I could pretend
That you never existed,
But now I will pretend
That I care for you.
The day will come
When the fence is gone,
And you will be the one
Left all alone.
Beast of the old ways.
Hell Is This Way
Oh Lorenzo, what can I say?
I never liked you when we were kids.
You have a face that’s a million years old.
The portal to hell has swung open.
I am Triceratops, and my wife is Spartacus.
Handsome or ugly, what does it matter?
My wife gives her life away for Triceratops.
Hell is this way.
Hell is this way.
Hell is this way, triceratops.
A world far below this one,
Where darkness never ends.
Your blood’s the best of wines.
Bitter Bites
And after all the lies he told,
The rocks he threw at me,
That dino got what he deserved.
I saw tears in his eyes.
He will never betray me again,
That bloody demon.
To satisfy a weird urge,
I cut up some of his flesh,
And ate it.
How sick is that.
The Devil Inside My Throat
I met this girl who wouldn’t give a fuck.
One day she led me to her bedroom.
Today I couldn’t look her in the eyes,
Even though she’s only ever seen black.
Her scent is a morning in early fall,
And her voice soft and pleasant,
Like a mother who wouldn’t abandon you,
Or a father who would never hurt you.
It’s all gone.
The devil lives inside my throat.
I hear his chortling every night.
Sometimes he burns my clothes.
He also pees on my bed.
Name’s Lorenzo. I’m a triceratops.
I have a portal inside my throat.
When I open it, smoke comes out
From the bowels of hell.
I see the darkness within me.
I’ve always known it was there.
