The Scritching Post

Disclaimer: This body of work I typed while inebriated on scotch and coke, this is exactly how I typed it, typos and mistakes included. I aim to keep the viscerality of it intact. Happiness upon sobriety and hapiness upon inebriation? Nay. Meer contentment in my head and spirits as the pains and sufferings and worries of the world wash away under a blanket of hard satisying hooch. An alcoholic some might call this, others a Drunk, but I simply call it my mind. A mind that races is soothed by the calling of Johnnie, Jim, and Jack. A refreshment of ancient times calms the mind of a writer, a poet, a soul seeking entity the likes of Kerouacian at heart and Cassadian at mind. Mayhaps it lead to an early grave but while the time betwixt said grave and birth of the being well lived, well worth it it be. I now pause to take another shot. Westward in nature the same as Westward in mind. As the skies of the desertive west of America opens like an endless can so too does the mind. Earth nature a...

      Often times I find myself dreaming a recurring dream, a dream of a fire in the desert night. I'm by it, the fire crackling and lighting the surrounding area. Around it are others like me, like minded individuals tuned into the poetry and prose of the world. Fellow Kerouacians, Cassadians, and Ginsbergians, a commune of writers and learners, thinkers and doers. In this dream we're having a merry time of drink and drug, where completely in our own existence. We're there, beneath that desert sky of deep blue, the white stars shining like the brightest bulbs. I'm drunk but I'm the most lively I've ever. I'm drunk. I'm high, and I'm with a girl. She's beautiful. When I'm in the dream she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. We're dancing around the fire, smiling and laughing at one another, with one another. There's music playing, some early 2000's song. We're dancing and singing along, loving every second of the...

       As I remain here, stuck in a rut of my own creation, my own lack of motivation, my yearning for the open skies and the vast freedom of the American Southwest that I read so much about grows, my only respite from this feeling of stuckness being the books I read and the photos I see online. But alas, the words of McCandless, and Ruess, and Kerouac, and Muir, and Grant, and the like can only subside my feeling for taking off to that open skied wonderland so much. I need to see it for my own, lay my own two God given eyes upon that sacred orange land, those Heavenly hues of purples and reds, pinks and blues, turquoise and viridian cast upon it's dusking and dawning skies. I need, with every fiber of my being, with every ounce of my essence, with everything that I am, body, mind, and soul, see the West, the Southwest in particular.                 Growing up in Georgia, I was 21 before I had the opportunity to trave...

         The fireworks began around 9;30, I was posted up by the boat docks, beer in hand, several others already down the hatch, chair reclined and body pointed at the night sky. Fireworks have always astonished me, always left me in a sense of awe. As a child the booms and bangs scared me, my mother having to cover my ears, yet I always remained to watch them. I'm 24 now and nothing has changed, I still adore fireworks, and being a little inebriated, they awed me more. Fireworks bring a sense of freedom, as I suppose they are meant to do, but not necessarily from an American standpoint. I love my country, don't get me wrong, and I love what the 4th means and what the fireworks mean from that, but they mean much more to me than that. In a somewhat mystical sense, the fireworks represent me and how I feel, a cluster of powder just waiting to be set alight and jump into the night to burst into colors and flashes of light, to awe and spectacle, to show the world i...

     I awoke at around 7, my father already up and at 'em in the cabin preparing to head for work. I, choosing not to, hung back to explore the campgrounds. Set on kayaking the river a bit, I did. Not far up river from the grounds I found an area that peaked my interest tenfold. Wooden stumps, possibly poles from a bridge once was, on both sides of the river, on the left side a small creek, brook, tributary, what name you flow down from the forest into the river. Rowing hard, my kayak hit the small beach of this area, and I stepped onto it, eager to explore.      Upon first arrival, my first notice was the tiny bluff, per se, to the left, a perfect spot for a tent after some light clearing. Another area between it and the water would make for excellent campfirings. To the right, the itty bitty toothpick width flow of water. Trees of all sizes lay above it, fallen over some time before, perhaps from erosion, or wind, or the violent hurricanes of years prior....