Exercise the Mind

Keeping my thoughts to myself hasn’t been a very rehabilitating experience but I find it better than attempting to reach out and make contact with the vast void of the Shore mentality. Most of the time I find myself talking about things that have no context to these peoples. Ideas that are out of reach fiscally or due to court mandate, prohibited by the state. Travel, philosophy, sustainability, quality, nothing seems to hit the mark. In an attempt to engage any sort of dialogue outside the daily bullshit I’ve started posting messages online to the local news paper to see if I can bait anyone to take the initiative. This too has failed and I am left to my thoughts.

Enough of this nonsense, this is exercise in writing, not soliciting for pity.

I’ve been spending more time online, I spend countless hours online digging through reddit and RSS feeds as a distraction from the present. Which involves sitting behind the counter of a tattoo saloon answering what amounts to mostly asinine questions from petulant millennials.

I’ve always considered myself a pacifist but having confronted myself with these empty-headed kids makes me consider the value of drafting an entire generation to confront the harsh reality that their parents have bent over backwards and spent fortunes to protect them from. Even if we sent them out into the world, what could they do? They could only make things worse and exhaust the patience of the few wise individuals who would take it upon themselves in attempt to fill the space between their ears.

As always, the problem is the snake that eats it’s own head, infinity.

I really should be more constructive with my time, complaining won’t make things better and voicing my opinions will only be met with blank stares and futility. So what then? Thousands of miles away from accessible education, the tools required to be creative or constructive I am left with the bare essentials. My mind is all I have left, and damned if I’m going to let it rot.

So I turn to you my quiet audience, how would you suggest I hone all that I left? Sudoku? 

What are you doing here?

The first questioned asked of me, every time I hand over my ID. I get it a lot and I’m trying to fight the overwhelming shame in the abandonment of the West. I get the sense of pity, too. 

Of course, it’s really not so bad for a temporary resettlement. I feel like a refuge of culture as I attempt to promote my ideals with zeal against the blank stare of misunderstanding. I tell people that they can travel too, all it takes is the will. Still, I am met with a wall of perceived impossibility.

Odd man out I suppose. What can I do? At least there is a beach I can walk too.

Submitted is what we pay to call our home. It’s incredibly expensive for what we get. Everything in the kitchen is sticky from caked up grease. From what I can tell it’s never been cleaned because nobody knows how to cook or cares too for that matter. I’ve figured out that the locals survive on a strict diet of $1.75, hot dog and soda combo or pier pizza. Dessert is strictly frozen yogurt. The only place that makes ice cream has gone out business long ago. I haven’t figured out where funnel cakes and cotton candy fit into the food pyramid yet. Possibly brunch? I’ve been told the deep fried curiosities is a local delicacy. Anyhow, the house. It’s a shared boarding house kind of place where nobody bothers to to talk to one other. The closest contact I’ve made beyond introducing myself, if the noise that pumps in from the ceiling mostly between 10 PM and 3 AM. It’s mostly young bucks, some of which work at the airbrush/hair braiding/piercing/pot paraphernalia & awful clothing shop downstairs from the tattoo shop, so at least we have one thing in common. The landlord also owns the restaurant next door, which judging from the condition of our kitchen, I will never step foot in. All in all, I’m inspired through the power of positive affirmation that I will prevail. More to come later.

Submitted is what we pay to call our home. It’s incredibly expensive for what we get. Everything in the kitchen is sticky from caked up grease. From what I can tell it’s never been cleaned because nobody knows how to cook or cares too for that matter.

I’ve figured out that the locals survive on a strict diet of $1.75, hot dog and soda combo or pier pizza. Dessert is strictly frozen yogurt. The only place that makes ice cream has gone out business long ago. I haven’t figured out where funnel cakes and cotton candy fit into the food pyramid yet. Possibly brunch? I’ve been told the deep fried curiosities is a local delicacy.

Anyhow, the house. It’s a shared boarding house kind of place where nobody bothers to to talk to one other. The closest contact I’ve made beyond introducing myself, if the noise that pumps in from the ceiling mostly between 10 PM and 3 AM. It’s mostly young bucks, some of which work at the airbrush/hair braiding/piercing/pot paraphernalia & awful clothing shop downstairs from the tattoo shop, so at least we have one thing in common. The landlord also owns the restaurant next door, which judging from the condition of our kitchen, I will never step foot in.

All in all, I’m inspired through the power of positive affirmation that I will prevail. More to come later.

Intro: Ruins

This blog is an experiment and should be approached as such.

Designed as a pre-cursor to a much richer online experience I plan to compile for the upcoming Velo Gypsy World Tour, this is a record of my intent to document and understand the remains and what presently qualifies as culture through the view lens of a small seasonal resort town at the southern tip of New Jersey, Wildwood.

Please join me as I dig through what remains of civilization and experience this strange and foreign place, surrounded by the mutants bred by a once proud people in search of the “American Dream.”

More content to follow.

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