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Electribe 101 “Talking With Myself”

I’m a shameless visual creature. Always have been. While other kids my age were reading literature from cover to cover, I was saving myself the thumbwork and watching movies instead. Given that I pride myself on keen eye for detail, it simply made more sense to search for it in celluloid. In ninety minutes give or take, I could locate sufficient narrative through facial shit alone to write my own bestseller.

Naturally, I gleaned more from deep and meaningful works than I did the likes of slasher flicks and other quick fix fodder littering my filmic heyday. But, with an imagination as boundless as mine putting two and two together and coming up with a mystical unicorn each time, I was never short of food for thought or candy for my randy spinners. Everyone’s a winner. Well, except for literature.

Hardbacks grew increasingly musky on their dusty little shelves. And a wealth of treasured classics sailed past me akin to ships in the night. I learned to read and write soon enough; that really didn’t hang that tough. For as much as education and I never really did see eye to eye, my vocabulary swelled massively in practically no time at all.

Clearly no fool when it came to written word; absurdly I reserved the right to write what I could place in plainest sight in just a fraction of the time through spoken verse. Emphatic with all deemed cinematic, War & Peace remaining static as I lacked the brass tacks to make it through the cover blurb. Likely hindered in particular by the kind of shit presented to my restless eyes through way of tired curriculum.

Even three-page pamphlets gathered dust within the archives and I trusted this was not subject to change any time soon. Rather watch Platoon than read about the time of day Elias hosts his first bowel movement. Anything had to be an improvement on perusing reams of monologue in monotone, only to fall through the fox hole and find myself in no man’s land. I guess you could say – behind enemy lines. And all the while, time she got away from me.

I chased the bitch at a fair old clip until, at eighteen, she finally gave me the slip. The result – a homemade manuscript whipped up in final frenzy as a means to happy ending in no danger zone of being sodding written. What can I say? One visit to the silver screen and I was smitten like a kitten. Writing, on the other hand, well let’s just say we parted with a handshake that day and went completely separate ways.

And then there was meltdown. Actually, I managed to make it over twenty years before running out of banana skins to fuel the flux capacitor; thus becoming reluctant ambassador for the dreaded midlife crisis. When the shit hit the proverbial fan mid-oscillation, life had become so fucking stagnated that I hated waking up each time the cock crowed. Seemed like time to punch the clock, though something told me not to form a fist, less it be armed with mental Glock. Ergo, the Crimson Quill.

Not to be cocky, but it appeared I had the lot. Could read, write, make people laugh, make them cry, simply by signing off Keeper each time. The reason I bled in such rich season was that this easy flow of prose came from the soul, high tide or low. No matter how hopeless things appeared on the surface; this mystical quill of mine could make everything alright or thereabouts, simply by bleeding shit out. Talk about a special purpose. Better late than never I suppose.

Actually, the timing couldn’t be more on the nose. Every time I felt the pinch, I simply composed myself a letter. Watermarked that shit and let it fly like it was pretty. Better than self-harm by far. Indeed, each time I chanced my arm, this quill of mine turned on the charm and guided me. Alarmed at just what was inside of me, this provided me the faith to dig my heels in, make my name. Game on, as they say. Though I never was too sure who they are anyway.

Suddenly, words held fresh appeal. No longer held against their will, they now roamed wild and free. Vocabulary had never been an issue for me. But with a dash of passion, it’s astonishing how we can be the literary equivalent of Hercules by around this time next week. Completely self-taught, I caught the bug for learning long since starved of food for thought. Too cool for school I may have been, but here within my sanctuary I’d thank you to refer to me as geek. Not the kind to bite the heads off chickens. Nothing quite that finger licking. The kind to use their OCD to be the very best that they can be.

What started out as therapy became my favored pastime. And by the time I met the love of an infinite number of lifetimes; I was primed to reach inside and find the source of this fine art of mine. To do such, we would be required to activate sight crystalline. No place for secrets, less for lies, or else our pretty could not fly. It took a while to realign as both were in recovery. We used this time to lay foundations, find our range and make the necessary lifestyle changes. But not a daily cycle went astray without recital. And you would not believe how we conceive this verse of ours. We’d tell you but would have to kill you in a manner most spiteful.

Vital not to rest on laurels, put to test our moral fiber, waste saliva drooling at the prospect of one fine day ruling. Fifteen minute fame sounds like a game of death in waiting. Some way more rewarding aiming gracefully at future generations. The rest is simple history and blissful in the making. Anticipated obstacles along the way of course. Just had to keep on learning every day. Use verse to fuel imagination boundless now times two. This one time visual creature had gone found himself a teacher to give words new lease of life and meaning; weaning from a hundred seasons bleak and uninspired. In short, Billy Joel was well within his civil rights denying starting any fires. As the twin flames in our eyes inspired its rise from smoldered embers.

Hence, while visuals still provisionally hold weight too great to shift; 1000 spoken words can give the spirits one almighty lift. The gift of prose knows no beginning, ends only when knuckles cramp. Even then, there’s always reading; feeding chimps and breeding champs. Fuck it, break out nipple clamps and champion kinky army. Charm the pants off Adam’s ants and lose their goody two shoes. Fence brave like Musashi, maybe pass up on the sushi. Croon the blues in two-bit suits like Aykroyd and Belushi. Basically, the world’s our oyster shelling out the pearls of wisdom. And here comes the big dipper, it’s through words I skipped the blurb and learned true vision.

Richard Charles Stevens

Keeper of The Crimson Quill

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