The Monster

Ugggh. This weekend has been a killer.

I guess I really don't know where to begin about the see-store. She is a tough shell to crack. Perhaps, as many are likely to tell you -- it is because she is already cracked. It's a difficult task - but something that must be done, because the previous object sitting there amongst the rest of the heartstrings is urging me on.

Sitting here in my ship, softly swaying from side to side, the dizzying rhythms of the deep calling me away from shore and safehaven, I must admit that one of the stowaways has kept my attention if but by a perverse inclination to take in its loathsomeness out of the corner of my eye. Like on dry land, when speeding across the great terrain one comes upon one of those instances of circumstance where two opposing objects meet in a horrific accident - you can not tear your eyes away from the disturbing scenes ushered to the side of your path. Here I detect this sensation, morbid fascination, emanating from that same thing that has managed to wrangle itself into my world.

My world. What has it become? I hardly recognize it.

As alluded to previously, the see-store is a creature of mysterious qualities. She began as one thing, and then, whilst away at one of the great learning institutions of this country, became another. Behind those walls some cataclysmic event transformed a loyal patron of hair care products into the prototype for a weopan of mass destruction within that industry.

I can't account for that. I wasn't there.

There are only fractals now. Keywords. A&W. Living at Aunt Susy's. Zeta Tau Alpha. And mosquito netting around the bed in Michigan in the early stages of pre-madonnahood.

I remember watching the grammys when Prince won, I believe his acceptance speech back in 1984 was simply "Thank you," -- but see-store swooned...Pops laughed. I think he was somewhat annoyed because we had to keep switching back and forth from one of his favorite shows...or something. What a strange memory to seep beneath the decks.

I remember slugging my see-store by the garage door in Snellville. I wasn't happy. I was sick of her shit. I knocked her ass to the ground. Then I got the life lesson of never hitting a woman...I still think she learned something that day. As did I.

The developmental years, for me being those teenage disasters, featured little of our subject. She was off - everywhere and nowhere at the sametime. I don't know what lessons she may have learned traversing the country in her jingly outfits - but learned she became - and learned she is still becoming - now working towards becoming a master of education.

I think that perhaps the memory that pops up most when focusing my thoughts on see-store is that of my first Grateful Dead show. It's easy to say now, that having taken in experiences brought about by my presence at such carnival like events has shaped the being that I have become today. It is a being that tries repeatedly to escape its form -- like play-doh that oozes out of the sides of its molder, I have become something of a creature that doesn't want to be bound by any outside fence. I am that worm that you roll over in your hands, continuously expanding snakewise into the world. Eventually I will thin it out, snap, and the remnants will be taken up and smashed into something completely different. Such is life. Such is the end.

Back to the show.

While we were headed out into the midst of this curious parking lot I had the burden of overwhelming excitement that would cling to me, and has clinged to me to this day, of a man on the brink. I was entering into something unknown. There was danger, as was evident in my mother's eyes when she warned me, "Don't eat any brownies or any food from strangers..." Oh. Wow. What the hell was she talking about? Strangers were going to give me food?

I was more concerned with what was lying ahead -- within -- the Omni. I'd prepped myself with several cassettes procured from the local library branch - and walking towards that structure under the summer sun, I was happily wondering aloud what numbers could possibly be unleashed before us that evening. I wondered aloud so eagerly and so often that the admonishment came blunt and straight to the point, "Just don't sing."

I felt I'd done something wrong, and looking around there were so many smiling faces that I couldn't help but wonder whether they weren't all smiling at my expense. Those same smiling faces - cheeks fading away into wild eyes of delight, would continue to surround me in the coming years, though they were of far more comfort after I had released myself from my own microscope.

I remember getting into the arena, sitting around for awhile while the air filled with greetings of friends and a general buzz of excitement. I remember the lights going down and thousands of other small flickering lights answering. I remember a bright light flashing down in our vicinity and a crackling voice coming from something in the dark that wielded a halo of purple hair croaking out "No smoking!" At some point the see-store grabbed me and we waded out into the masses, the music muffled behind us as we stepped into the rotunda, suddenly stepping one foot over the other into higher altitudes, and the music growing louder as we re-entered a portal.

"Welcome to my section," the fellow with the ponytail said at the end of the tunnel.

"This is us," see-store said. And all was well. There was music. There was dancing. There was music. There was dancing. And dancing. And Dancing. And DANCING. AND DANCING AND

"Hey, are you allright?" I turned and looked at whoever it was that had interrupted my groove and my glance was answered by another smiling face of eyes.

"Yeah. uhh. I'm fine." I answered, already feeling teenage sweat quickly flowing into every nervous pore.

"Well, you're just dancing too fast," he said. And everyone around him laughed. And that laughter echoed inside me. And I was sad. And I sat down for the first time all night and see-store turned to me and said,

"Hey, are you allright?" And I looked up at her and told her no, that those guys said I was dancing too fast and I feel like an idiot and

"Those guys are assholes. Don't listen to assholes." She almost literally picked me up and made me dance while turning her evil evil evil evil glare on those guys. Believe me, you don't want to see my see-store's evil glare.

So the show ended, with Baba O'Riley as the encore. I don't remember much else of it -- but I do remember that see-store and I had shared something. Perhaps the first something of substance in quite some time...

(There was, of course that time that we were both rehearsing for Cheaper By the Dozen while she was in high school and I told the director that see-store had quit and then found out that I totally got it all wrong and then got the part and I'm really sorry see-store but I swear that at that age I can't be held responsible for delivering messages of that magnitude...I still don't know what I was supposed to say...but I was damn good in Cheaper By the Dozen!!)

Some time later, or perhaps sometime before, time is but an invention of man, see-store presented me with the object in question. Once again I was hesitant in my acceptance, but there was no willishrinx to usurp my acquisition, and I found myself somewhat reluctantly accepting the object under discrimination. Many years have passed, but I find myself more than ever before that the following conversation took place:

"What the hell is it?"
"It's a monster. It's cool. Want it?"
"Uhhh...I don't know."
"Well, take it. It's yours."

So there you have it. A monster. She went about explaining the spine and the mouth and tail...Something you will have to decide for yourself upon a secondary perusing of the object...But point them out she did, with enthusiasm -- an enthusiasm I see rarely effected in persons I meet in the world. Which is why I think that the see-store should be taking this opportunity to voice that enthusiasm, becoming a beacon of weirdness that yezbick.com so desperately needs more of. We have set up her home - but I fear that perhaps she is a little like me at that first concert -- worried about dancing too fast. Therefore -- dear readers, be you of blood or of some other earthly connection -- I call upon you to hereby add your own say -- no matter how fast you dance -- to let the see-store know that the emptiness in the cyberspace set aside for her is unacceptable. PLEASE. For the love of all that is...errr. ummm...yezbick? just leave a comment and let see-store know we'd all like to know what exactly goes on in the mind of a Yezbick-Bays on the west coast.

Thank You. Good Night. And now you can all get back to your reality television and Ronald Reagan OD.

Oh...and I guess you probably want another object to think about too....

And this time we'll make you think...