BLUE VELVET REVIEW HOUSE

I don’t need alcohol, I need alcohol to be around people— I thought this for perhaps the first time while blackout drunk with Ethel, drinking Mojitos and eating sushi, things, to that point, I’d never really experienced so fluidly with a female, but perhaps, I’m thinking now, I actually thought this sentence for the first time this morning, jotted it down while half asleep, and I’m now shamelessly superimposing the thought onto a night where I was allegedly blackout drunk with Ethel, drinking Mojitos and eating sushi. Alcohol had undoubtedly contributed as much if not more to my deterioration as an artist, to my deterioration as a human being, as any of my friends, as any of my debt. Abusing alcohol to make myself semi-functional in social settings, in many ways, killed me—it killed the “real” me (which was admittedly a me probably equally steeped in lies and denial) in favor of constructing a “socially palatable” me, or at least it made others seem “socially palatable” to me, even if I was incoherent, or perhaps because I was incoherent.

But, looking back, what choice does a person really have—assuming you always find yourself extremely socially anxious, possibly to a paralyzing degree? Is being a drunken fool worse than any of the immediate, plausible alternatives? At the time I didn’t think so—being a drunken fool was perfectly fine.

Ethel didn’t think so either—or at least she didn’t state she thought so explicitly.

Why not be drunken fools, eating sushi and drinking Mojitos?

We were having a great time; the sushi was delicious, definitely overpriced but still delicious, and the fact of the matter was any time we weren’t in the presence of Briana and Mike was refreshing to us, it seemed as though we both agreed that their presence had become increasingly cumbersome—we both agreed that since we were getting along so well, and since Briana and Mike hardly ever got along well (never mind as well as we were getting along), that they may have been a little jealous—that maybe they were trying to “sabotage” our good times.

Who needs them?! we said, sitting at the bar, blackout drunk, eating sushi.

Honestly, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but Briana is definitely at least a little jealous of you; she’s just, I don’t know, a little sick in the head, I said, sitting at the bar, chewing a piece of sushi.

I totally agree, Ethel said, also chewing a piece of sushi, I mean I’ve been, like, best friends with Briana for years! But we also have periods like this. When I was dating Chad she refused to talk to me, and that was for almost three years.

And Mike? Listen, I like Mike, I said, washing down my sushi with a healthy gulp of Mojito, but me and him? There’s always been a little bit of a tension there, I thought at least. It’s like, I don’t know, I kind of feel like Briana always used to come onto me, and—personally—I felt really uncomfortable about it. But what am I supposed to say?! But, at the same time, I could see where, from his perspective, that could be annoying—and maybe that’s kind of informed that tension?

Oh, totally! Ethel replied, washing down her sushi with a healthy gulp of Mojito, Briana totally wants you! And Mike knows. He’s not stupid. He knows. But it’s not like it’s your fault; it’s his girlfriend. So it’s so unfair of him to take that out on you.

Well, I don’t wanna say he’s necessarily taking it out on—

But you know what I mean!

Oh, absolutely, I said. And I totally agree, by the way …  I mean, Briana—to an extent—brings it on herself; I think we have to admit that. But don’t get me wrong, she’s great, totally great, when it comes to hospitality, when it comes to home cleanliness—she’s like the ideal girl when it comes to things like that. But let’s face it: her utter lack of self-esteem ultimately informs the majority of her interpersonal decision making.

I began my attempt to make eye contact with the bartender, hoping to refill my Mojito.

Yes, Ethel said, she’s only fucking these other dudes because she’s insecure about her position with Mike, which—by the way—is partially on Mike, too! How much of a dick can you be to someone? Geez! I mean, going skiing for four days and not even replying to any of her texts—like, what do you expect?!

I began to draw the beginnings of what would later become a more fleshed out correlation between Briana “banging dudes because she’s insecure about her position with Mike” and Ethel’s own “banging” of “dude(s)” (myself, others?) in relation to her position with her boyfriend.

Yeah, I said, it’s not totally on her. It’s definitely partially on Mike. Plus, her home life? The inflection of my voice was incredulous as I finally grabbed the attention of the bartender. I said yeah, can I, uh, have a refill of this? Ethel do you want—

No, I’m ok right now, she said, I actually still have a, uh, good amount left. She motioned to the bartender and glanced at her about half-full Mojito. It was considerate of her to wait on ordering another, somewhat pricey, Mojito; why be gluttonous on another person’s tab?

But yeah, I said as the bartender walked away, that probably plays a part in all of this too. Does she even know who her dad is? Environment plays a part in how each of us turn out. I hate to say it, but it’s a fact.

Oh, absolutely! Ethel began, I mean, I feel like you and I—we both come from really strong family backgrounds.

Oh I’m so family oriented! I replied, now more visibly intoxicated than ever, I love my family; we’re really close.

Exactly, Ethel replied, same here. I’m so close with my family, then I said I’m also extremely close with my family.

—Initially a thin hipster with a full red beard was in the bathroom at Nick-A-Nee’s, peeing at the tall urinal, but when I went in, after he walked out, I made a point to pee at the kiddie urinal, a trademark of mine, for whatever reason I find myself more at ease at the kiddie urinals, as I'm long-torsoed in addition to being of only average height; yes, the kiddie urinals are essentially made for me, and peeing at the kiddie urinal I took note of what looked like a piece of asscrack lint connected inextricably to a long piece of ass hair. This is what it struck me as at least. 

I thought back to parking on the street fifty feet from Nick-A-Nee’s, to my consternation with the driver wearing a snowcap in his maroon pickup truck cursing me through his windshield as I slowly scoped the one open spot on the street. At that time, with his perturbed expression and prehistoric facial features, he struck me as the worst person in the world and frankly still does. 

I wished nothing but the worst things on this person as I pulled over to let him pass, haranguing him through my windshield as he simultaneously screamed at me through his windshield, then calmly hit reverse to move back into the middle of the street, to parallel park in the only open spot, just momentarily lodging the right rear wheel ever so slightly onto the attenuated curb. 

In my mind this man in the pickup truck was a grotesque stain on the face of our  planet. His face, in both its structure and expression, sticking with me at the bar in Nick-A-Nee’s, more or less revolted  me in the most extreme of ways. 

The man to my left ordered an impressively grotesque smelling soup from the bar—it was all I could smell at the time, and the stench was such that it struck me as frankly a little unbelievable it wafted from a bowl a man was actually eating from, yet if anything this made me enjoy Nick-A-Nee’s even more. 

The band playing the bar employed a white saxophone player, and each respective instrumentalist was drinking a separate, distinct variety of alcohol—one whiskey, one craft beer, one some type of mixed drink, one nothing at all, all four frankly looking little like typical musicians, and I found it notable how easily the saxophone, I presumed tenor, sat in the mix with just a microphone next to it, given the accompaniment of electric guitar, electric bass, and acoustic drums that were played in a thoroughly rock, as opposed to jazz, style. I guess I never knew that about tenor saxophone. Rock drums have increasingly distressed me of late. 

When I think of a style of drumming that offends my taste, rock drumming immediately vaults to the top of the list—in my opinion Stratos most rock music would be immeasurably improved with the simple removal of percussion, or at least with a more muted substitute of percussion. Maybe a tongue drum? Amplified tongue drum? Distorted tambourine? 

But honestly that's just me, because I fully realize most people love percussion, that percussion is viewed as the so-called backbone of modern composition, that tons of listeners still venerate rock music. In any case I guess I should start to explain how I got here, shouldn't I?

—From your parallel universe you mean?

—Exactly Stratos. It now seems to me that I crossed over into this universe, or I should say I became aware that it had happened, precisely at the point where the bozo in the snowcap in his dark red pickup truck began yelling at me through his windshield, as I attempted to parallel park up the street from Nick-A-Nee's, where a man would then order one of the most disgusting smelling soups I’ve ever encountered from its bar. 

It was obvious as the man, who I despised, looked exactly like someone from Alabama—he was wearing a snowcap despite it being a moderately temperate day in early April, and given these facts it was obvious something had shifted significantly, but I couldn’t draw any conclusions quite at that point. 

But these are the types of cues you have to take into account with regard to things such as these Stratos, parallel universe conundrums so to speak. How exactly it happens I’m not at liberty to detail at this time, as it's possible I’m ignorant of the mechanics of the process, or I'm aware of the process in a way I can only communicate in indirect ways.

—This makes sense, Markos. There’s obviously only so much we can put into words when it comes to parallel universes.

—For example it was precisely at Nick-A-Nee's that I happened to log onto the basketball-reference dot com webpage Stratos, which only confirmed my suspicions, which had been steadily rising, which only acted as another clue as I delved deeper into the statlines I’ll detail right now. 

Specifically, as I recalled it, beyond a shadow of a doubt it sat in my memories, the Boston Celtic Jayson Tatum owned a statistical profile that exceeded that of Dallas Maverick Luka Doncic, whereas Luka Doncic had a statistical summation that lagged that of Jayson Tatum. And yet on basketball-reference dot com at Nick-A-Nee’s, only moments after said bozo in snowcap in the Alabama-esque maroon pickup truck berated me through his windshield, it occurred to me that Luka Doncic had by far the more complete statistical profile compared to Jayson Tatum, despite both Luka and Tatum averaging above thirty points per game this NBA season. 

Specifically, on this side Stratos, it seemed that Luka differentiated himself from Tatum by getting to the free throw stripe at a much greater clip, by making plays for others at a clip that more than doubled Tatum’s rate. 

Where Jayson Tatum assisted on just twenty percent of his possessions, while turning the ball over on ten percent, Luka Doncic assisted on forty three percent of his possessions while turning the ball over on only twelve percent, while both rebounded just about thirteen percent of their possible possessions and shot an aggregate percentage of sixty (true shooting percentage) on their thirty points per game. 

Yet I explicitly recalled Jayson Tatum being the far superior playmaker, by more than double, when compared to Luka Doncic, in those exact terms of assist percentage and free throw rate, yet when I logged onto basketball-reference at Nick-A-Nee's, to my great surprise, Luka Doncic separated himself from Jayson Tatum by his higher propensity of getting to the free throw stripe and by his stark contrast in setting his teammates up for made shots (especially when compared to his propensity to turn the ball over). It's only in the most minute of ways that we can detect these transitions Stratos, if that makes sense, that we can conclude we’ve traversed across potential dimensions, if that makes sense?

—Oh, absolutely!

—And to add to the confusion it was only a night later, in a vivid dream, that I found myself in a desolate house covered with orange wallpaper, curiously preoccupied with bathing myself, apparently getting ready for something I couldn’t quite put my finger on—it was in this home with the orange interior that I felt again this psychic energy with near strangers, near strangers who seem to pop into my mental space unannounced, that has increasingly struck me as an actual physical phenomenon. 

That I can actually think back toward these near strangers in a physical fashion. Yet this was before a particular shadow from my past appeared to me yet again in dream, in the most vivid of manners, and I began to run from something, something I couldn’t identify, while simultaneously reconnecting with this shadow without either of us saying a word to each other, until I stumbled upon what looked like a locker room in an open field. I entered the building, a so-called locker room in an open field, and realized all of its memorabilia was from nineteen ninety eight—and I realized I’d traveled back to nineteen ninety eight, that everything I touched was totally nineteen ninety eight, that my own so-called identity was just a clumsy block across something that could be traversed if approached properly, and then suddenly the thought occurred to me: Time starts in the middle and winds around, always in the middle, I thought, that this notion of time beginning at the beginning is entirely false, perhaps even nonsensical. 

When awake I frantically wrote a note that simply said: Time starts in the middle and winds around. And as I encountered this idea streams of green for lack of a better word time shot out, like Nickelodeon Gack or something, various streams of time overlapping each other in joyous bursts of green, like the word Go, and it was a sort of joyous event even in its ambiguity. I was a little disappointed to wake up.

—Did you do shrooms at all?

—No sadly Stratos I was completely free from hallucinogens when I went to sleep, when I went to Nick-A-Nee’s, when the red-bearded hipster peed at the adult urinal, when the man next to me ordered the disgusting soup, when the bozo with the snowcap screamed at me, when the saxophone was surprisingly high in the mix. No we don’t necessarily need to travel in the traditional sense in order to travel great distances, that much we can be sure of.

—That makes complete sense to me, Markos!

—It was in the drizzling rain that I was waiting for a valet to take the keys to my parked car right in front of the restaurant entrance, thinking about how it was common enough in the past for people to think I resembled a valet, that people passing this restaurant could easily mistake me for a valet in the midst of valeting my own car, that yes it's certainly true that consciousness, as its reported by its constituents in the modern era, is absurd, probably to some extent driven by malevolent forces, that suicide may be the most efficacious solution to ending the meddling of these malevolent forces, but that it’s also true that there's another side.

There's another side that certainly mirrors this side via mathematical features, that by the implementation of mathematical functions we can perhaps slip between sides.

When seated I immediately ordered Mezcal on the rocks, I wasn't positive the rest of the dining party had ordered their drinks, because I was attempting to flag a valet when they initially sat down, but I also didn't care—I made a command decision to order a drink with this waitress as soon as I sat down. She came back two minutes later to tell me they didn't stock Mezcal.

No one seems to have Mezcal. Respectable restaurants somehow get away without keeping a healthy stock of Mezcal in supply, they have the audacity to call themselves respectable restaurants while completely disrespecting the more subtle distillation of the agave plant. I ordered a Casamigos Blanco, foolishly confirming with the waitress that Blanco was the quote-unquote ‘White’ type of tequila, and I enjoyed the Casamigos Blanco—I even noted to the table that I would make a point to try Casamigos Blanco again, that my previously ambivalent attitude toward Casamigos was possibly entirely predicated on my ignorance of the Blanco variety; the pour was generous.

With that said tequila is a bastardization of the agave plant when compared to Mezcal. Mezcal by contrast takes an entirely subtle approach to the distillation of the agave, with each variety of Mezcal containing its own subtle notes of flavor, whereas Tequila employs a one-size-fits-all, heavily blunted approach to the agave distillation process. Sure people tend to scoff at the so-called intensity of the Mezcal smokiness, its propensity to overpower anything it’s mixed with, but that’s exactly what draws me to the liquid itself.

I enjoy the fact that Mezcal essentially can't be mixed, that it tastes so bold it's almost impossible to water down—these are the best natural phenomena in my mind, phenomena that are so one-of-a-kind that they need to be experienced in isolation, because in mixed company they exist in isolation anyway.

I enjoy isolation—I find it underrated, and I'll even admit that at times I find myself  existing in isolation even in mixed company, in my mind, traversing complex scenarios that are no less social than your average mixed company get-together. In fact ever since I was small I've had this tendency—to find the society of my own mind more engaging than the society of my immediate surroundings.

Yet frankly that's Massachusetts for you. I won't necessarily go as far to say that Massachusetts is a stain on the great country of America, yet if I'm being completely honest I can't say I've had the best of times in Massachusetts either.  

—For one thing, there's the Bridgewater Triangle. 

—Which it seems like almost no one even knows about, because even I—having spent a significant chunk of my life in Massachusetts, having spent the latter half of my adolescence in the state—was actually believe it or not flabbergasted to discover, especially when taking into account the fact the phenomena is more than just a web of old wives’ tales, that it actually consists of substantive indirect evidence, which as I said is where I spent a good chunk of my adolescence, and in retrospect, during this lowest period of my life, I now feel with a fair degree of certainty, I was actually myself plagued by a demonic force of some sort, possibly even a demonic entity.

As I said to start Stratos it seems as though consciousness is plagued by forces outside of our so-called selves that manipulate, or attempt to manipulate, or are intimately connected with the genuine stream of consciousness in ways that are no doubt at times nefarious. Just the other morning I woke up in a state where I was almost unable to control my own mind, feeling these forces more acutely than usual, thoughts and images scurrying across my consciousness in manners that struck me as illegal in principle—I had to pray to Nazianzus for this state to cease, or at least I felt Nazianzus helped put me at ease. 

—His autobiography is terrific—I feel he's actually criminally understudied as a thinker as well, in the West at least?

—The West doesn't understand anything of Nazianzus—no, to this day the West understands next to nothing of Nazianzus the man, nevermind Nazianzus the structure of thought, because it was an actual structure of thought that Nazianzus assembled. The West understands nothing of Cappadocia at all—to the West Cappadocia remains a piece of arcana, an inconsequential strip in West Asia, because in the West Cappadocia is viewed as a simply Turkish locale, which isn't necessarily incorrect, but it’s certainly incomplete—no nothing of note has occurred during the Turkish era; no nothing at all on par with the Nazianzus assembling of thought, the quintessential elevation of the integer three, the penultimate part-whole philosophy that occurred during the for lack of a better term Byzantine era of Cappadocia. In this dream Nazianzus spoke to me telepathically— 

—Like what Ingo Swann alleges.

—You know Stratos I almost never listen to audiobooks, yet I made an exception for Swann’s autobiography; I actually listened to the entire autobiography in a one or two day span, psychotically listening to this audiobook, completely enthralled—because instinctively we’re all probably aware that audiobooks are at bottom abhorrent, that the wretched audiobook, the objectionable podcast (although I’m a fan of both formats) are displacing prose, which is a true form of telepathy.

Whereas podcasts and audiobooks are blunted sorts of multi-tasked so-called modern communication, prose is a singular beam of telepathy that’s actually dangerous; people encourage young children to read, when in my mind reading is one of the most dangerous activities I’ve ever engaged in, simply because prose at its highest level is essentially telepathy. For this reason I generally don’t read, instead listening to idiotic podcasts to fill my afternoon. The text of Swann’s autobiography was unavailable for some reason, and beyond finding the voice actor unusually enjoyable I found his whole story to be simultaneously completely incredulous and entirely sensible. There are without a doubt forces that are meddling in our conscious streams, and I think this is most likely the root of all suicide, and perhaps rightly so, it may in fact be a solution, perhaps the most sensible solution, and it was certainly something I experienced first hand during a period when I lived within the Bridgewater Triangle.

I even recall an instance, probably at my lowest point, when I was responsible for closing a shoe store in the Wrentham Outlets, a task that in and of itself nearly drove me to drowning myself—I was all alone closing this shoe store when an odd older lady entered, she was older yet lively, mystical and not obviously in need of footwear in general, nevermind at nearly nine o'clock at night. She basically read my life to me by looking into my eyes, alone behind the register, telling me repeatedly and intently all sorts of fanciful tidbits, a litany of tidbits were recited to me, over and over again. I actually sadly totally forget every single thing she said to me beyond an insistence that I was descended from emperors, which she repeated over and over, and oddly enough years later my uncle would casually mention to me my grandmother was from Sparta-Mystras—

—Where the Palaiologii last resided.

—Exactly Stratos! In retrospect I do wonder where exactly this person emerged from, for whatever reason I find it hard to believe she was in need of any footwear, and I find it absurd she would be roaming around the Wrentham Outlets after dark. As a matter of fact it wasn't the last time a person would have the audacity to approach me and attempt to tell me my own life story, and both times they struck me as totally correct!—no but in retrospect as incredulous as it may seem I do find myself wondering if this odd lady was a corporeal entity at all, or if instead she was some kind of apparition, because I’ve actually encountered reports of allegedly noncorporeal entities meandering around the Wrentham Outlets around closing. In any case I was sitting at Andino's on Federal Hill—I was drinking a Casamigos Blanco on the rocks, trying to enjoy myself after a long week.

—But did you know Casamigos also makes a Mezcal as well?

—Funny you should say that Stratos because I actually drank about six or so Casamigos Mezcals at The Parlour just a month or so ago—after the bartender, after I asked her for a Mezcal, asked me what kind of Mezcal I wanted, saying, after I asked her what kind of Mezcal she had, there was a Casamigos Mezcal if I wanted to try it?

I said I thought Casamigos was strictly tequila, but she said they made a Mezcal as well.

I took her up on the offer, yet I was ultimately unimpressed with the Mezcal. She told me some people drink it with an orange and gave me one, but I was ultimately unimpressed with the Mezcal, even with the orange. In any case I was sitting at Andino's drinking a Blanco Casamigos, thinking to myself that it was kind of a quaint interior, an inviting ambiance, a better atmosphere than I remembered, as the last time I ate at Andino’s was two or so years ago, when I ordered the spaghetti aglio and the kitchen burnt the garlic, which is really all I recall of the night. In any case I was only glancing in a perfunctory fashion at the menu, as I'd already decided I’d order the Destefano garden salad entree, as I ate a cup of brown rice with walnuts prior to arriving, because, with my current GI issues, ordering anything else would entail too much tail risk.

In any case sitting at Andino’s drinking a Blanco Casamigos I thought to myself that, yes, the only way to approach the other side is via a muted mathematics, a coding behind what faces us—on this side.

We create something that seems to be one thing, but behind this one thing is a complex coding of another thing, another thing that communicates with the other side, a sort of mathematical telepathy to add on to our prosaic telepathy.

This is the only way forward for me, I thought, taking another sip of Casamigos Blanco, actually in an increasingly jubilant mood, despite a debilitating week. A stream of consciousness must be encoded with a muted mathematics behind it Stratos, and perhaps this coding itself will not just communicate with this other side, but also protect our streams of consciousness against the meddling of forces we can only summarily understand and should probably refrain from even mentioning further!