The

JACK SHELTONReader
ONE. Metafictional-Memoir
Hypothetical Memoirs and Assorted
Ramblings from A Series of Luxurious
Struggles (Selected Excerpts) -pg. 1

TWO. London W4
A Congregation of London W4 Sentiments
& Additional Words Concerning Things
(Selected Excerpts) –pg.62

THREE. PORTFOLIO
A Congregation of London W4 Sentiments
& Additional Words Concerning Things:
Dramatic Epilogue & Addenda -pg. 81

1. Dramatic Epilogue (Pts 1-3) – Page 82

-Three Part Metafictional Short Story

2. Eleanor Rigby (Pts 1-3) – Page 93

-Collection of Microstories/Poems

3. Addenda – Page 96
-Collection of Poetry & Lyrics

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 Jack D. Shelton’s

Hypothetical Memoirs

& Assorted Ramblings

From A Series of

Luxurious Struggles:
A Manifesto of Agnostic Mysticism
and Psychedelic Illuminism

By Mr J.R. Shelton I

Neo-Anglo-American English

2
 Language Edition

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 Introduction and Childhood

They’re all dead- Virginia Tech shot full of holes. I can’t really
understand. Wait, I can totally understand. Some depressed Korean kid
just shot fifty fucking people. So I change the channel because that’s the
kind of guy I am. All of these deaths so upsetting to so many, yet
seemingly meaningless to a guy like me. I am a bipolar diabetic who has
spent the past 3 years of his life sitting around at a small school for
disabled kids because a stupid slutty whore convinced him that smoking
pot in the high school construction site was a good idea half-way
through freshman year while holding a friend’s shitty old gravity knife
in his jacket along with another friend’s fake opium and a nice dank
specimen of the budding of the Cannabis Sativa plant that had been
dunked in either phenylcycladine or embalming fluid by the scary
Negroes from a town over. I spent the next 3 years of my adolescence
whacked out on anti-convulsant mood stabilisers and anxiolytic drugs
obsessing over chemical substances, mental disability, the waning of my
musical talent, regaining control of my life and breaking any rule I
could break in order to prove my autonomy. I slowly broke down and
collapsed and gained weight and began a descent into diabetic
ketoacidosis. Here I am in beautiful, sunny Marin County California
stuck in a hotel room reluctantly beginning a novel the wrong way
straight sober with my girlfriend 10,000 miles away in Sankt Peterburg
and all of my friends getting ready for college or off getting drunk/laid
and posting pictures of it on myspace. I have never enjoyed feeling so
bad in my entire life.
Perhaps I’ll start with my childhood. I was born in London,
England to Alice Holmes and Richard Shelton. I am Irish/English,
Scottish/Celtic, Spanish, Filipino, Dutch and Native American as well as
German and French, but those two cancel each other out. We’ll say I
look like an Italian or an overweight Spanish-Coloured Englishman
with long hair and high cheek-bones. I was speaking in complete
sentences by 6 months of age and had a funny little Britmerican accent.

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I started talking with an American accent when the other kids at play
group made fun of me for talking funny and being American. I also, in
pre-school, while playing with Thom Ovalton fell off a pole on the
playground backwards and ended up with a coat-snap stuck in my
head. This provided for a cute little Harry Potter scar, which is hardly
ever noticed.
…
Sorry I got a bit distracted there. There is a lady walking around
my hotel room making all sorts of noise because I made the mistake of
letting her in to do her job. Whatever…
I moved to Westingport, Connecticut when I was four years old
right around the time of my birthday so I got to have two parties. I
remember one time shortly after this, a kid from England came to visit
and in the middle of the night tried to molest me, leading my parents to
suspect that I was gay for probably almost 10 years. That really fucked
me up. Because for the longest time I thought that getting molested by
another boy automatically made you gay whether you wanted it to
happen or not. So it really hurt when, in my years of forcing myself into
the fantasy world of Pokemon and other childish things, I kept getting
called faggot and all sorts of other names by big scary jocks that used to
beat me in all the little league games that my geeky father forced me
into with the hopes that I would make up for his childhood of being a
nerd... I thought they were literally making fun of me for getting
touched by a little boy when I was four years old. How did they know
that I was a little faggot the whole time? Getting called gay still makes
me shudder sometimes when I look back and remember.
“Thanks. Bye bye,” Says the cleaning lady with the broken-English
foreign accent. Thank fucking god.
Anyway that’s what I remember of being called a faggot. The rest of
my childhood is kind of like a wild hallucinogenic blur of colours and
shapes and anxiety and acting out, as a fat little loose cannon with
severe post-traumatic stress and depersonalisation trying hard to fit into
a highly structured upper-class town of Jewish democrats and snobby
rich soccer moms. I always wanted to be a good kid, but breaking the
rules or catching blame for things always happened anyway. I was a
pussy and a troublemaker all at once constantly wanting to die or be
killed. “…then they’d love me” or some shit like that. I was totally
detached from reality, constantly living in a fantasy where I liked to
imagine that my other classmates were actually aliens or secret agents. I
would be James Bond and all the cute little girls would be my Russian

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spy agents that I’d have to hold hands with (which never happened) and
then steal their crayons and bring them back to M. I was always the star
of my hallucinogenic dreamscape with my hopes up waiting to get torn
down to the level of faggot or bad apple by a teacher or a jock.
Wow. I really like the way this is shaping up.
Some of my fondest embarrassments have to do with the way I
always got in trouble in school. I remember one time some girls in third
grade wanted to play tag and were taunting me the whole day saying
“We’re gonna get you!” I was so afraid I was sure they were gonna kill
me. I had it in my mind that they were going to throw me off the top of
the playground. They were chasing me and pushing me at recess and
making these faces and I shoved them off of me crying and kicking and
I remember when the last one fell down she started crying and then
when the others saw her crying they went “Teacher, Teacher Johnny’s
kicking us!” or something to that affect and I had to go through the
humiliation of waiting in the principal’s office afraid that they were
going to do all sorts of things to me. I remember last year going over to
one of their houses and when she said to me in retrospect “Hey,
remember the time we got you in trouble when we were playing tag…”
The embarrassment just welled up inside me. “Ha-ha. That really
wasn’t very funny to me. In fact it scarred me for life.” She laughed,
probably thinking that I was joking.
All of this typing on this unfamiliar laptop is making me very
hungry. I’m starting to get the shakes and an urge for one of those
disgusting unfiltered Pall Malls that the Late Kurt Vonnegut conned me
into buying the other night. Almost time for room service.
I remember being so insane and insensitive and caught up in the
fantasy of video game violence that when the Columbine shootings
happened, and we were all rounded up into a cute little circle sitting
Indian style, the teacher announced the great tragedy and as soon as I
heard “brought guns to school” I said “cool!!!” with the most x-tremely
awesome cereal-box advertisement face ever to which the entire room
stared and the teacher said with her grey hair and her great big
innocent eyes, “no not cool.” I might even remember being so scared at
that moment that I kept my head hung over my lap crying staring at the
small urine leakage stains on my stupid Velcro pants. I wanted to die.
Hell, I was so screwed up that given the right means and shitty middle-
American Christian conservative environment that the Columbine kids
had, I could’ve ended up like them. Other people just look puzzled when
they wonder why someone would do something like that. I sit quietly

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and try not to announce that it could’ve been me if my childhood hadn’t
been fucked up in other ways. I wanted to become invisible. God, that
sounds fucking cliché. I guess some people hear a stupid emo band say
some shitty lyric about “I wanna be invisible in the darkness blah blah
blah” and think they’re original because of their terrible hardships and
overcoming how upset they were when their girlfriend “hooked up”
with the other cute anorexic boy. Well now it’s my turn to exploit my
own upsetting memories through production of a commodity. I just plan
to whine about things without having to wear any god dammed black
nail polish.
A couple weeks later I was playing with an old office keycard with
little numbers on it that went with my father’s business laptop and
pretending that the keycard was a bomb detonator. I went around
telling people I had a bomb detonator in my pocket and saying “I bet
you don’t believe me…” and then I’d show it to them. Man that was a
fucking stupid thing to be doing. About a day later I got called into the
office and told that I could be locked up or arrested or any number of
things. It was really quite the scare for a little fourth grade pussy. Then
at cub scouts after school I was told my friend could NOT come over
and that I was in serious trouble. This was one of those times in my life
that I got that feeling in my lower gut; its that feeling that goes away
with a cigarette or some nicotine gum. I was so scared. Luckily I didn’t
end up in jail but I remember what it was like when my father got
home. I had to turn off the tv. I had been watching Doug on
Nickelodeon. I don’t really want to get into it, but I think the worst
thing was that he didn’t hit me. If he had hit me I would be able to
complain about it, but since he didn’t, any attempt at all to make people
feel bad for me with my privileged childhood would make me sound like
a little brat… and I was a little brat.
My god, Room service onion rings and chicken tenders with fries…
Mm, Mm Better!
Anyway, that was the most scarring event of my childhood
probably. No more than a year was I forbidden to see my friends outside
of school or play any of the violent video games that I loved so much.
That was one of the darkest periods of my life. Nine years old and I felt
like I had already been tried for murder. So much of all of this is totally
blocked out to me. It’s hard for me to look back and remember it very
clearly. I remember that during that year I played the Double Bass in
orchestra, cried a lot, cried over losing a mechanical pencil and was
afraid of my teacher Ms. Runci, who I still hope gets hit by a bus. My

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world was as dark and soiled yellow with manic guilt as a sweat-stained
New-York toilet seat.
I guess basically that’s most of what I remember. There are other
terrible things that I remember happened to me that I don’t feel like
talking about. I’ve probably already said too much. My head was so
mixed up when I was younger with my dreams, hallucinations and
actual “real” experiences all blending into one. There are things that I
remember happening that pretty obviously never happened. I
remember strange figures hovering over me whilst trapped in a yellow
box watching myself from outside of it, floating through a warehouse
where children sat cross-legged on the floor, making the accidental
bomb threats, going on a date at age 9 with a girl I didn’t even like and
telling someone that I did when I quite clearly didn’t, getting made fun
of for playing Pokemon, (which looking in retrospect is a pretty fun,
well-structured game) and being completely disrespected and outcast
until I started playing the guitar in 6th grade and discovered Kurt
Cobain. I even remember when I was afraid of drugs and listened to
Limp Bizkit.
Sixth grade was also the time when I diagnosed myself with bipolar
disorder. I told my psychologist (who I was seeing because of my
childhood suicidality) that I figured out what was wrong with me and he
insisted I didn’t have bipolar disorder and that the reason I was
depressed was because of my “Attention Deficit Disorder.” Nevertheless,
Bipolar disorder would, for the next 3 to 4 years, be my excuse for
having all of its signs and symptoms of it, even despite my mother’s
effort to reassure people that I had made up the disorder and that I only
really had ADD.
In seventh grade all of our middle schools were redistricted so I
ended up in Kollitown Middle School, while almost all of my other
friends ended up in Beadferd Middle School. Kollitown was a very
happy infantilising environment with more elitist family-types whilst
Beadferd was a louder environment, which in many ways was
constructed like a prison. The kids at Beadferd were more like
Nickelodeon kids and the kids at Kollitown were more like Disney
Channel kids to paint a better analogy. I was the nickelodeon kid stuck
watching the Disney channel in a sense. I wanted to be in the big grey
and blue prison with all of my friends not in the middle of the woods
getting high-fived for stupid shit. By the time I made it to high school I
lacked all of the social skills that I was on the verge of developing at the
end of sixth grade. It was nice to meet all these people but I still had this

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terrible awkwardness about me.

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 High School: Departure from Adolescence

Ninth grade is when it all happened. I have so much to tell about it

but it might hurt. I had this huge nerve-racking feeling of the wonder of
everything, the huge epic-ness of what it means to be a highschooler. In
the first couple of weeks I met a girl I really liked from the moment I
saw her. I had been walking around with my trouble-making English
friend Phil Kollerd when we passed our cool Cuban friend Fidel’s
house. We were invited to go next door where we hung out and played
music. These girls whose names I won’t divulge or change for now
pretended to be our groupies and I still can clearly remember with a
pain of nervousness and strangeness in my chest what it felt like when
she sat on my lap and I could feel her hair against my face. I don’t
remember what I said to her, but it must have been something bad
because I was a stupid little 13/14 year old kid at the time and I really
honestly think that I believed she must have liked me to actually be
sitting on my lap. Just weeks before I was still the 8th grader that girls
wouldn’t even look at. I even remember one time I apologised to some
girls for having dry skin on my face when we were forced to be partners
in gym because I didn’t think that they should have to look at my dried
out stupid face. Anyway, I left thinking that this girl, who I guess I’ll
just call “E” for now, liked me and possibly would even want to be my
“girlfriend.” Cute, right? I went back to Phil’s place and told him all
about how cool I must have been to have girls talk to me and pay
attention to me. He told me the girl’s name after I described her to him
and he invited me to the beach the next day because she would probably
be there.
Most of the next day was fine for a while. E didn’t talk to me and
avoided me most of the time. I had this big burst of energy and
confidence. For the first time in a while I had a good feeling about
where my life was headed. We stayed at the beach all the way till
nightfall when the cops showed up. At this point in my life, Cops were x-
treme and kick-ass! I tried to strike up a conversation with one of them
about the biggest guns he’d ever shot and I told him about a certain
family member on my mother’s side of the family that hid assault rifles
in his walls. In the car dropping off Phil my mother got very upset when
she heard that I had divulged such secrets to officers of the law and she

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got into a terrible tirade about how people would find out about her
relative and how it would make her look bad because she was in local
politics. I cried and I cried. I was going to kill myself when I got home. I
left a suicidal away message on AOL Instant Messenger and went up to
my room. I started to scream silently and hit soft objects extremely hard
and started rummaging through the stuff next to my bed looking for my
knife. I couldn’t find it and I hated myself even more. I started
scratching my throat but my fingernails were too short. That’s when
this girl that I was a friend with called me and told me not to off myself.
We talked for a little while and then my other friend called me. We’ll
call my other friend Ben, hell maybe that’s his real name. Being one of
my closest friends since I told on him for eating an apple on the school
bus in kindergarten, Ben was always there for me, and to this day is
always great to share deep conversation with. Ben invited me over and
for some strange reason my mother sensed that I was upset when I
asked her and let me go over.
I felt better. I was at my friend’s place mildly embarrassed and a bit
shaky but better. I worked up the courage to talk to my friends on AOL
instant messenger and that’s when my great ordeal began. This girl,
who I’ll be calling Suzanne, started getting all up in my face about
“what I did to E.”
“What did I do to E?” I asked.

“Oh, you know!” she said.

Eventually I was accused of molesting a girl who willingly sat on my lap at a party in  

front of 5 or 6 other people, despite no one else noticing anything like this. If my  

friend had been out of the room I would have run into his kitchen where there are  

always sharp knives lying around and slit my throat right there. I couldn’t deal with  

the anxiety of humanity’s inability to understand that I was crazy and didn’t want to  

hurt anyone but myself; that I wanted to curl up into a ball and die. To this day I don’t  

think I’ve ever really known whether or not I am really guilty or if there was anything  

to be considered guilty of. All I know was that I owed everything to this girl because  

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 she was beautiful and upset and she had decided it was my fault.

I started talking to her online and every time she told me more
about herself I felt worse and thought how perfect she was for me even
more. The building of a real friendship/relationship/coexistence with
this girl became the most important thing in my life. I probably almost
forgot that I had tried to kill myself. I guess I thought that if she knew
me better then she wouldn’t hate me and she wouldn’t feel bad about
whatever happened the night before. Her best friend, who I suppose I
will call KK (as she to this day calls me Jo-Jo), became one of my best
friends. For the next week I had these in depth conversations with her
about life and the mind and all the things that I’d never had a real
opportunity to talk about with any one in such a deep way, but had such
important things to say about. I think I actually had fixed the idea in my
mind that I was winning her over and that she really liked me, and its
what one of her friends thought too. I told her one night “I love you,”
then she stopped talking to me for a few days. I couldn’t get in touch
with her.
Then one of her other friends told me that the only reason she was
talking to me in the first place was because she didn’t want me to kill
myself. Even right now typing this I’m starting to get that same heavy
feeling in my chest kind of like I’m going to pass out. I get this
sometimes where it feels like my autonomic nervous system has given up
on managing my breathing and I’m going to slowly suffocate right here
right now and they’ll find my head down on this goddamned laptop and
read this whole fucking unfinished story and hate me forever because of
how I acted at 14 years old. They’ll spit on my corpse.
Anyway for the rest of the year I loved her. I loved everything about
her. I loved her attitude and the way she looked and talked. We
eventually became closer but there was always a slight awkwardness to
us being anywhere near each other. There was always a slight undertone
of sorts when we talked; sometimes it was anger, sometimes we were
flirtatious. Her friends would tell me she hated me and other times
they’d tell me, like for example one time when they all got drunk, that
she wanted to have my babies and that there would be all these little Es
and Jo-Jos walking around. She and her friends really toyed around
with my head. I’m not sure whether or not they understood how much it
was hurting me and enjoyed it or if it never even crossed their minds.
I remember all the times she would put herself out there with other
men and they would take advantage of her in ways I don’t feel

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comfortable divulging and I would try to convince her that I would
never do that. I wanted to kill all of those guys for the things they did to
her. But there was definitely a pattern, as many people pointed out to
me, to her uncomfortable relationships with men. People would ask me
why I liked her so much and I’d explain. They didn’t understand what it
felt like. Having a strange feeling that no one else feels is to me like
being able to see a colour that no one else sees until something happens
to make them see it; I sometimes like to be the catalyst for this school of
thought, shoving fresh new Crayolas into any box willing to try out a
fresh new way of seeing things.
I was depressed. Some people thought I was a molester. Some people
thought I was crazy. Some people didn’t know why I was so crazy and
thought that everyone thought terrible things about me for no reason.
Some people didn’t even realise I existed. But I was this depressed
bipolar kid who was constantly getting harassed or made fun of by all of
the people for which I believed had greater human-value points. I ended
up getting so depressed and unable to do school work that people
decided to stop giving me my amphetamines that I was meant to be
taking for my ADD and give me Stratterra (atomoxetine) instead.
Atomoxetine is a Norepinephrine-Reuptake-Inhibitor that can cause
psychosis, impotence, irregular ejaculation and all sorts of other nasties,
but at least its “non-narcotic.” I remember being on this drug for 2 days
but apparently according to my Mother and my psychiatrist it was
nearly a month.
The first day on atomoxetine time slowed down. I tried to tell
everyone that I couldn’t see images in my head but no one could hear
me. They all kept talking. “I feel weird,” I kept saying at lunch. I don’t
know what the fuck was happening to me at that moment in time but at
this point in my life I can say it did not feel psychedelic, good, bad,
calming, healing, numbing or let alone help me to fucking concentrate.
On the second day (I don’t know what happened for the rest of the first
day) I went to biology in the morning and sat in the back. Everything
was normal but I felt stupider. Then I felt cold. I didn’t feel it so much,
but I became crazy. I started laughing and then we all went out into the
hall I started crying while I was laughing. The world was a huge joke. I
didn’t understand. Nothing was real. Like we were all a drawing on a
piece of paper or characters in a shitty novel about some stupid bipolar
kid that makes everyone around him feel uncomfortable. I went to the
nurse’s office and tried to explain myself. I’m pretty sure that the lady
there thought I was on LSD because she kept telling me this story about

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when she had to administer LSD to people in a mental hospital in the
50’s during an experimental treatment of schizophrenics. She asked me
if I was having any suicidal thoughts and I told her jokingly “not any
more than usual,” which almost landed me in serious trouble because
the dean came up to me the next day and asked in a very Mafia flick-
esque way whether or not he was going to need to have me sent to a
mental hospital. What a slick asshole... Probably just “concerned” about
the well being of his students, id est, how much fun it is to watch them
carried out in restraints. I’ve only recently started being able to see
images in my head when I think about it really hard, but that might
have just been my medication that I just stopped taking that I was put
on directly after the atomoxetine incident. That’s right, it was finally
recognised that I am indeed bipolar and what I experienced whilst on
the dangerous drug atomoxetine was what some doctors like Demitri
Papalos, author of The Bipolar Child, call “rapid cycling.” I’m not sure
whether or not I would at this time characterise it as rapid cycling but I
guess it was at least nice that everyone finally said, “I’m sorry, you were
right…”
Anyway, everyone around me including E were all becoming
part of a group of people that all hung out downtown, the group that
smoked dangerous pieces of plant matter like the budding of the female
Cannabis Sativa plant. I was specifically instructed to stay away from
drugs because at the time my mother wanted me to be recognised by the
school as someone that fit under the special ed laws, not just 504, which
I had (but lost in 7th grade) for ADD, and sometimes especially
aggressive school districts like Westingport’s will try to say “he’s not
disabled he’s just using drugs!” and force people into drug testing. At
first I was afraid of these substances. They were so cool, and people
enjoyed them so much, and I wanted to be just like her so that she
would love me.

This is when I started drinking. Trying cannabis went on hold

so that I could spend a month drinking all of my dad’s favourite liquor.
I drank it all day. I would find the bottles in the back of the cabinet and
drink the whole things and put them back hoping he’d never notice. I
would drink scotch and whiskey and gin and tequila and fancy Russian
vodkas with labels I couldn’t read yet and then roll around on the floor
crying sometimes in front of my friends. I would come loose and confess
all my sins to everyone around me even though they didn’t really care
about what I had to say. I would call E and apologise and tell her I was

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sorry for loving her and for breathing and all of the other terrible things
that I do. Eventually all of the alcohol was carried into the wine cellar
for fear that construction workers or the cleaning lady had been
drinking it. I would have to get booze for myself.

…and I tried. But it didn’t quite work. I was going over to my

friend’s place and we had no alcohol for getting trashed. What were we
going to do? That’s when we decided. Bill and I were going to start
smoking pot. We found someone that I had known for a very long time
whom I will in this instance refer to as X and got him to sell us a nice
healthy gram of ganja. We went back to Bill’s place and spent an hour
trying to figure out how we were going to do it. Bill lived in a boarding
house all alone because his father who lived a town over in Norewalk We
eventually worked out a special method. We put the weed in the end of a
poorly made tin-foil bowl and then smoked it while keeping ice-cubes in
our mouths. I wasn’t sure that it was going to work properly so I drank
a bottle of cough syrup that Bill’s father had left for when he got sick
and I just kind of hoped that “high” was “high” and that the cough
syrup would make me become “high” so that I could tell everyone else
about it.

Anyway, I got high. I got really high. I got incredibly high and
played with a strange flashing light toy whilst listening to the Pink
Floyd. This was one of the greatest nights of my life. I thought it was
just the weed, but what I had really fallen in love with was the
dextromethorphan hydrobromide in the cough syrup. I’ll talk about
that later because up to this point in the story, I don’t even know what
that is.

15
So Much for the College Plans Essay...
Jack Shelton's Future:

Approaching the end of his senior year, Jack Shelton stares

without intent into the face of his computer monitor. He is wondering
what it is that he is meant to say. He has been assigned to write about
his future, something that he has generally failed to predict in depth,
and to explore some options which are unavailable to him. The notion
crosses his mind that he is experiencing a duller version of what Adolph
Hitler felt when he sat in the basement of the Reichstag bunker
clutching his American girlfriend with the Red Army marching ever
closer above them as he polished up his Walther, or so it is written. Jack
never got around to applying for colleges, disheartened by this growing
feeling of hopelessness following his diagnosis of type one diabetes
mellitus in a hospital in Alaska after being pulled off a cruise ship
vomiting all blown up like a balloon filled with ketones and glucose.

His only option for continuing to live in a way close to personal

content and social acceptance was to rely on having the opportunity to
enter the community college appropriate for his new residency in
Tiburon, California. Unfortunately, after spending a week locked up in
a hotel room a few miles from his new home he found out that not only
would his new home be under construction during the time when he
would need to be living there, but the only way that he would
realistically be able to go to this college would be to sign up for courses
that start at a later date, such as French New Wave Films.

Currently he is not sure what exactly to do with himself. He

decided to write a book whilst sitting in his hotel room. It would cover
his early life and declare him a manifestation of God. He writes, or at
least tries to, out of desperation. He sees no other way of having a
future. His interests include psychiatry/psychopharmacology and music,
two things that he knows a lot about but does not have the skills to

16
pursue professionally. Knowing that being a writer is something that
does not normally end well for many, and lacking the ability to
comfortably write a proper novel he pushes himself through it, taking
the initiative. Within a few weeks he is already discouraged once more,
finding writing more and more difficult with the pressures of
graduation and his waning social skills ever-worsening.

Jack would like to attend a real college, a real prestigious college,

and he knows that if he could have applied to those colleges he would
have at least gotten into some alright second tier colleges or some nice
liberal arts colleges. But Jack lacked the education he needed to apply
to these colleges. He spent a year in ketoacidosis and barely remembers
any of what happened. Chemistry class is still a blur and all he
remembers of it was staring into his book obsessing over what was going
wrong with his body and mind.

He doesn't know what to do next so he sits back and watches his

life go by with out him. He will move when he is told. He will be done
with school when he is told. He has no definite plans for his future.
Perhaps he has "senioritis" or perhaps he just has "lifeitis" as he half-
jokingly explains to several of the staff at his school. Either way there is
not much that he sees can be done to change his own life for the better.
He will have to wait it out.

17
 Desperation & Inspiration:
A Very Mildly Psychedelic July

Or: How I learnt to Lose 20 lb. eating only Magic Mushroom Chocolates and TV Dinners

Graduation: ???, Oh Poor Me, Blog?, AIDS,

Humanity???
2:00am Friday, Jun 22 2007
We're all free. What the fuck am I meant to say. what the hell am I
meant to feel. I'm hiding in my room in the middle of the night writing a
goddamned note on facebook that no one will read... is there anybody
out there? Just nod if you can hear me? Nothing is really making me
feel better about being alive. I just broke up with my girlfriend a few
days ago. I just graduated from a school I didn't actually go to that I
was meant to go to. what the fuck am I doing breathing right now? Its
absolutely dreadful to know that one is truly alone... that if I died to-
night it would just be an excuse to watch 3 or 4 people cry and say
something sad and then throw a measly kegger in my name maybe but
I'm probably not that awe-inspiring or memorable.

Who the fuck are all of you? Why am I writing to you? the truth is I'm
writing to me for everyone else to see just so that I can document what
I'm saying at this very moment and place in space and time so that I
never forget what it felt like on this dark cold night of anticlimax and
disappointment... a night that faded away like a baby suffocating on its
own fucking bib... This night was like the opposite of an orgasm. It was
too epic for its own good and it choked on a slush of hope and
possibilities.
Am I fucking blogging now? Is that what I'm doing. No one will read
this.... will you? Maybe? clearly you did read this now that you're all the
way down here. Are you lonely? Do you have too much time? Are you
alone as I am right now? Or is it just me? Am I the only one here that
feels like this? Why the fuck did all his bullshit happen to me? Why was
I cast out of my natural habitat and forced into a school for disabled

18
children for 3 years of my life? Why did my fucking pancreas die???
Why did I have a beautiful girl and then have her taken away from me
by the obvious inevitable eventual fate I saw coming years ago? How
can I sit here and be so cold? am I that far gone now? I just don't
fucking care what happens? Have I cracked. I feel fine. Who are my
friends? does it matter that I have them when I'll never see them again?
Have they really been living another life altogether for 3 years and I've
been off doing diddly-fuck???

Does anyone understand? Do I want sympathy? Do I want envy? Do I

want pity? Perhaps I just need to get high and get laid or something...
This is totally insane... I am totally insane. I am a free man. I'm single
now. I'm 18. I can't drive a bloody fucking car legally. Why not? Why
the fuck am I doing this shit? I really needed to stay out to-night and
breath in those last breaths of adolescent air... I needed to get myself so
numb and warm. I needed to get my head fuzzy and spinning and
swirling and create the illusion for myself that I am at the holy centre.

Is it so selfish to complain??? yes. Yes, I think so. I'm tired of pretending

I'm totally fine with me and you whoever you just so happen to be and
everyone around us and the whole world and the chemicals in my head
and the grass and the sky and the water and plastic and Wal-Mart and
the whole fucking revolving globe filled with this desperation and
loneliness that I'm perceiving right now. Its gotta be far worse out there.
No one wants to do anything. I don't want to do anything... Where
would I start? Why would I?

The whole world is spiralling out of fucking control and none of us care.
We're all too goddamned busy with our own little lives collecting food to
bring back to the queen ant so that our little anthill can continue to
flourish until the forces of the universe come along like a little
goddamned boy with a magnifying glass on a inconveniently sunny day.
We're all fucked. that's right. Maybe its 2012.... Who knows? A lot of
people seem to know but who's right? Is the apocalypse already here? Is
it a slow moving thing? Is it just something meant to keep humanity in
check in order to save nature? Is it something for which there was a
mathematical predisposition to occur in the grand playing out of time as
it unweaves throughout the universe, with humanity meant to die off a
little bit as part of evolution? ...AIDS perhaps just a cruel tool of nature
to limit our population as it dangerously continues to grow, with more

19
people sucking more and more life out of the earth? Has humanity
reached its carrying capacity? Where the fuck am I going with this. my
book has somehow ended up as a deconstructed lecture transcript on
facebook.com with a series of anecdotal ramblings about trivial bullshit
for no one to care about... I'm terribly dreadfully sorry... Thank you
very much for your time and for taking a bit of my message with you in
your heads before I die. in this way perhaps I will live on when die.

20
The head is still working upstairs although I sometimes
forget
2:38am Wednesday, Jun 27

Doctor Jack Shelton is alive and well. He is sitting quite invitingly in a

chair of his own choice. A sofa rather. What does it mean to be alive at
this point in time and on this planet? Who will answer me? Will no one
answer? What does it mean to have a voice? To be a messenger? A
person marked with a code like a couple of numbers in a computer
application that tells a story in digits just how the universe will play
itself out. How does one pass on a message? How can one be expected to
let others know what has gone on in his mind? How are you meant to
share a message? How can you become this alive and be meant to tell?
How does one fit all thoughts into a sentence? It’s an amazing thought
to think that one can spend their whole live devoted to one thing. …
perhaps devoted to writing things down in words for people to read
some day… For people to find… for people to pick up their work and
read their name and say “What was it like to be a human being at that
point in history and in that place in the world?”

Who do I want to be? Who do I want to be seen as? What the fuck does
everyone want in this life? They want sex. They want money. They want
all kinds of things. I couldn’t sum it all up…They want reassurance.
They want to know they’re safe until to-morrow. But don’t they want to
leave anything for anyone else? Do they want to connect? Do they want
to participate in the great game of life? Do they want to leave a hidden
note that someday someone will find? Do they want a complete stranger
a thousand years from now to turn over a rock in their front yard and
think who wrote this? Who were they?

I seem to be asking a lot of questions… Anyway thank you for reading

another instalment of the truth about what it means to be a human
being on the planet earth in the year 2007.

hopefully you're all thinkers too.

21
Magic Buttons: Fireworks Waste Faces Terrible Species
Chocolate
1:22am Wednesday, Jul 4

Once again I find the delicious chemicals swirling in my head calling me

back to these magical buttons. Letters and words and sentences and all
that. To-night there were glorious fireworks lighting up the beach. I
don't really fucking care... I was looking for my friends the whole time. I
sat on a bench and smoked a big flavoured cigar and walked around. I
thought about what must be going on in the heads of all the people
around me. People gaze up in wonder at these giant exploding things
that shoot out colourful debris that falls into the ocean to scare little fish
and other aquatic creatures that thousands of years ago would never
have been so blatantly harassed.

I stared at all the cheery faces and only saw in them the wonder and
amusement I seem to have lost from maturation. but I see it on older
people... People that have been alive three or four times longer than
me... and it makes me wonder. Is it only going to get worse? Will things
get more and more bland? Am I becoming more and more desensitised
and forgetting more and more what is around me in my every day life?

I watched it happen to someone else before. Someone who went a bit too
far and learned all the secrets too soon. Now he lives on a farm far away.

But I walked around and I saw all those dreadfully content faces. I even
ran into some stupid bitch that asked me if I remembered her and then
explained that a few weeks before I had been talking with an English
accent (whilst having a very good time) and then she laughed and kept
saying it was fake. I know. I should know. I was the one faking it. Filthy
fucking pig. I spent hours of manipulating my own head and watching
internet downloads of BBC shows to get that accent up to snuff... which
it is on occasion... Someday I'll get it good enough that I'll never have to
speak in a dreadful, boring American accent again.

What was the joy? Where was the love and the warmth and the pleasure

22
coming from whilst sitting on a beach with angry brooding yanks yelling
at each other and scrambling all over the place to watch a bunch of
colourful explosives going off in the air... If one thinks about it... that
money could have gone somewhere... It could have been used to save
someone's life even.

Every dollar is so precious. I take it for granted. You take it for granted.
We all do. Otherwise we'd be doing something. Saving the world.

I thought about professions. What it means to have a job. How do you

make it work? How can you? what does it really mean to be an average
person? Can you be a fine upstanding citizen without being incredibly
lonely and without caving in to groupthink? What does it mean to be a
pothead? Why is it that the budding of the cannabis sativa plant seems
to help people so much yet people are so intent on taking it from them?
Why do people want others to feel so much pain when they've done
nothing wrong? How does the world breed such hateful ignorant people.
I loathe these people yet they are the bastion of the whole network of
humanity.

How can someone live in a small place and go to Wal-Mart and have
their boring life be the same every month only they become a bit older
every time. All these people. They live like this. They live like they're
meant to. Not everyone can be Somebody. They have to go out and take
it. But they don't feel like it. But so many people do. So many people
want to be a star. So many people are alone. Humanity is too large. Too
crowded. There are too many members of the species.

Ask yourself what you really want in life. Think about what you are
living for. Are you perhaps just taking the ride? I suppose we're all just
taking one big glorious ride. Its so easy to forget. Its so easy to just
completely ignore how different every one of us is on the inside and
outside and how strange it is that we all interact and do things and give
each other small green rectangles and small pieces of metal shaped in
circles for things like long rectangular prisms of
cocoa/milk/sugar/chemicals/etc. wrapped in colourful plastic.

I'm glad I wrote these things. Otherwise I'd forget.

23
 THE LETTER: Final Words to E

I can only assume that the notion has crossed your mind at some
point that I might end up writing you eventually. I’m guessing you’d also
expect it to involve some sort of drug and me whining about something.
This will be hardly as interesting. It is very, very late at night and I feel
incredibly drowsy. For the past hour I have been contemplating writing this,
or rather thinking about the past, trying to imagine what your reaction
would be to whatever it is I’m about to say. Well, initially I had planned on
trying to communicate with you in some way at the beginning of the
summer. I saw you at someone’s house. I remember you were taking to
your friends about something having happened to your brother that night.
It was awkward. Everyone I talked to said it was awkward, that you still
carry rather negative feelings towards me. A few days later I couldn’t see
my friends because you were with them and they didn’t want our
simultaneous presence to disturb the atmosphere of the night. Since then I
had figured it would be a good time to attempt to reach some type of
common ground.

I remember the last thing we fought over. …Scratch that

I actually just logged into myspace.com just now as a reference for

continuing this letter and reread the remains of the conversation, or at least
your half of it. (This is unusual for me; I’m used to getting a kick out of how
well I’ve come back at someone.) Anyway, I probably didn’t even read it that
thoroughly back then (2005), but it feels like it makes a lot more sense now.
A lot of what you said actually makes sense now. Hell, maybe it’s truer now
than it was then. I was stubborn. I was afraid of who I am. I’ve come a long
way since then. I know I‘m just a very guilty man, ashamed of himself for
things that have built up like bricks in a wall (yes, another cliché… to
conjure an old theme from our last conversation) …It took a long while for
me to start telling people about who I am, but I am still a liar to most
people. I decided to write a book about it. I started. It’s not as good as it
should be, and its not coming along as fast as it should, but I like it, and so
do most of the few people that have seen it in some of its much earlier
stages.

Anyway, in this book, you’re obviously a large part of the early

autobiographical bit regarding my high school experience. I don’t use your
name though. All the names are changed. Actually, for a few months I’ve
wondered how and when I would ask you how you felt about that.

Aside from that, I just figured I should tell you that this isn’t about getting

24
in any jabs or conjuring up old feelings, bad or good, or asking for
anything or in anyway trying to reinsert myself into your life, but I figured a
final hello/goodbye/etc. of some sort was due by now, as this is far past the
closing of the high school experience, in my opinion. I understand if you
still think I’m a tool. I probably am, and no one has so accurately nailed me
in the past as you. You are the only person in my life that I really truly have
ever been afraid of in the context of conversation. I will most likely never
forget you. It has never worked well before.

-jack shelton

There was no response to this letter.

After one year I received a response. I will not go into details, but it
would seem that some people have selective memories.

25
 SLEEP:

I Can’t Sleep. \\

??

Why should you care? You’re only reading my goddamned book.

It’s 3:11 a.m. on a Friday. I am totally sober, and have been for a
number of days, if I remember correctly. I am totally psyched to go to
England to chill wiv one o’ me best mates, Phil Kollerd. Yes, that’s the
same Phil from the first day I met E.

Hey, remember that super fucking swell introduction to this book that I
wrote?

I JUST WROTE IT, JUST NOW. On with the show. In other words,
good night? Yes, with a question-mark..

?????????
Hey does anyone remember that stupid mother fucker that used to come
on at 3 in the morning dressed in the question mark suit? “FREE
MONEY!!!” I think I should give him a call. He’s probably lonely. Free
money?! Douchebag.

26
Also have you noticed, I’m still missing everything that happened
between smoking weed in freshman year and senior year… that I
haven’t explained anything about Era or even the time when E loved
me? How did you read this far? You are a good sport. Maybe I will tell
you the rest of it. But How will I do that sober? I won’t that’s right. If
I’m sober I can only produce bullshit like the past few pages… Although
I’m sure some of you find that bullshit rather enjoyable. MM…
Bullshit. Have I cracked? Have I done it yet? Am I gone? I hope you
were young when you read this nonsense… Wasn’t it easier to think
when you were young? Didn’t it feel nice to know it wasn’t already over.
You weren’t FUCKED because of the shitty decisions you made. Man, I
need some bloody fucking drugs. No I need to shut the fuck up. I need to
pop some melatonin and valerian root.

I just tried to lie down but that goddamned picture of Era is on the
ceiling. For the past, however many pages I’ve been trying to avoid
talking about her. That was messy. I only had the heart to cut and paste
my farewell email. I’ve probably spent well over 1000 bucks on that
relationship. Fuck People. I love you. Good night, beautiful. That’s how
it should be.
BLACK
WHITE
Morning!
Mourning!
Oh so strange.
Hey look its getting
Bigger everytime it goes
To a new line. Cool, eh mates?
No, I didn’t take any benzodiazepines.
Maybe that is why I’m doing this. I’d like to stop.
At least then I might be able to get some fucking sleep…

…Rather silly in retrospect, wasn’t it???

27
 TODAY, A THURSDAY IN LATE AUGUST
Or: How I learnt to Stop Sitting at Home and Love to go to A Gay Party with Unexpected Visitors

Today I got invited to a party for homosexuals by one of my good

friends, who I will be calling Zach, for the remainder of this epic
masterpiece. I was incredibly depressed. Summer is over and for the
past week I’ve been staying up til 6:00 a.m. and waking up at 3:00 p.m.
every day. It is handy though because I’ve been able to talk to my old
friend Liz Ulrick who’s staying in Denmark right now studying at the
International People’s College, an interesting old institution that I may
have to take up further examination regarding. When it’s 2 in the morn
here, its 9 over there. So I get to talk to her when she’s just waking up
and I’m just waiting to get to sleep.

What a lonesome day. I woke up at 3 as usual when Zach called

me and I got ready to go to this homosexual party. I rolled an
exceptional jazz cigarette and stuck in the end of a slightly hollowed
black & mild. I also consumed other candies but the benzodiazepines
killed all my highs and made me feel really, really down to earth as I
watched all of my homosexual friends jumping about kissing and
fondling each other. Unfortunately some intolerant douchebag family-
people decided to call the cops because of how much fun they were
having with their public displays of affection and their bonfire. I was
freaking out when the cops showed up and the dumb bastard kept
calling me “boss” like I was some type of leader or chief or Mafioso.
What a dumb thing to call someone. Douche. He bent down to tie his
shoe after calling me boss with his foot up on the bench and I had just
walked over to that end of the bench and put a baggy with a single pill
of the strongest of all therapeutic nootropic agents in the crevice of the
seat and the thing that holds it up and he pretended to tie his shoe over
there like he was looking for a bag of cannabis budding and his
flashlight went right over it. I was bugging out.

Luckily we got out of there unscathed. We sat around the

Starbucks in Wilton, a place that I frequently visit for those late nights
smoking cigarettes and talking to rich child soon-to-be-nobodies that
think that they are better than everyone else. It’s those golden moments

28
with the people that aren’t like that, the somebodies and the characters
that are at least a somebody to someone that make this life worth living,
and Zach knows a lot of those people. When I talk to people, I see more
than just people, I see people of their own pasts and their own futures,
endless possibilities of who they can become and who they once were.
The beauty in people is that so many are like puzzles, you have to piece
all these bits together about them. There are exceptionally interesting
pieces that people often hide, but It’s nice when you can put it all
together. It’s like a game, but not just any game. Not just a game we
play when we’re young, but a never-ending game that can break you
and send you to your own death if you play it wrong. It is the grandest
game of all and I am a player.

A good night, melancholic and dreary at times, a bit of a deathly scare,

but I made it. Even if I had to watch my straight friend make out with a
gay man, and nearly got hauled to prison and almost threw up from
being too fucked up and what not, Thursday was a fine day.

29
 High School: Departure From Adolescence
(CONTINUED)

I think that it’s about time I get back to the main story again. You
know the one where I’m a molester and a pothead. So anyway, I smoked
a lot of pot for two months during ninth grade after my first time with
Bill. I finally had friends. I remember this one time I was dancing
around a giant column outside Ship’s Corner Chinese restaurant
singing “Singing in the Rain” with my friend Hardcore Mike. Hardcore
Mike was kicked out of his home the day he turned 18 by his mother
because he was disabled and had lost his low paying job at the market
when it shut down. He ended up living in a homeless shelter downtown,
which is why he always hung out with the downtown crowd. Despite
living at a homeless shelter, the last I heard, he managed to graduate
high school and get a job, eventually moving out. He is a real hero and
proof that you can still do things if you put your mind to it.

Anyway, for a few months I had kept seeing this guy who I
eventually started to call the mystery reporter. He would drive around
in a black sedan and take pictures of my friends and me. The flash on
his camera was incredibly bright, and I still don’t know to this day
whether or not anyone else saw him or if he was even real.

I was one of those kids who felt lied to and cheated by the
government he was meant to be able to put faith and trust into. I had
been deathly afraid of any type of drug until I was peer pressured into
doing them, but it was wonderful and life-saving. It was so wonderful of
a truth that I wanted it to be the bastion of my new alternative lifestyle.
There were lots of kids like me, with all the attitude and hatred directed
towards the lying bastards at D.A.R.E. that had lied to us and so heavily
insulted our collective intellect as a generation. I had been offended
whenever people suggested I might use drugs because I had long hair,
because of the fear. So my entire life soon revolved around this secret,
that there is a wholly different, wonderful way of living your life that
makes everything fun and solves all your problems. It was actually
pretty unproductive and dumb the way I lived it, so it eventually had to
come to an end.

30
 I remember one time I was hanging out with my friend Jimmy
Durf, a red-headed badgerly-looking fellow who’s eyelid’s never got past
the 3-9 o’clock line and went over to his place to do a follow up on our
last after-school smoke sesh and we ended up smoking a 3 foot bong in a
playhouse belonging to the neighbour's little sister. We ran inside when
his mother got back with the food. I don’t even remember if I ate any of
it. All I know is that I could tell the future. I understood, quite lucidly, at
one point that Jimmy’s dogs were running through the hallway and
were going to turn into evil ninjas and they were going to jump over the
railing in front of the hallway door and do a bunch of flips and start
stabbing me with their swords. I turned my head to tell Jimmy and he
just laughed and kept on talking to his friends saying “man he’s fuckin’
tripping out.”

So every weekend I would hang out in the downtown area and

then I would go back to Bill’s house and stay there crunched in his small
room smoking pot out the window and playing videogames. One day I
went over with this girl, Jen and I remember making some comment
about “spreetarts” whilst I was clearly eating a Spree or a Sweet tart.
Oh, it was funny, you had to be there. …and so Jen came back to my
place and we lay on my bed, playing with my black light and at one
point I thought that the bees in the song we were listening to were
actually inside my speakers. That night I smoked cannabis laced with
either embalming fluid or PCP and I passed out only to shoot out of bed
believing that I was a train coming out of a tunnel with tremendous
brightness at the end. Then I went back to sleep.

Two days later was the last day of my life, as I had always known
it. All the norms and patterns of my life as a highschooler on an
ordinary American teenager’s path of life were shattered into a million
fucking pieces. Noella, Jimmy and I were late getting back to class after
lunch and rather than be marked tardy decided to walk off and talk.
For about half an hour they tried to convince me to go smoke some weed
with them in the bathroom in the construction site where no one was
around, but I kept saying no. Eventually I went with it and decided to
do it. We went back to the cafeteria and got a can of Snapple that we
poured out and turned into a piece. We went into the bathroom totally
unseen. Jim started pissing right as Noella took the first hit and as she
exhaled I jumped back, not wanting to get any smoke on myself. THIS
WAS A BAD FUCKING IDEA I thought, JUST AS the bathroom door

31
swung open and a very large, angry black man in a yellow shirt with a
flashlight and walkie-talkie stormed in shouting “What the fuck are you
kids doing!?” or something to that effect.

WE WERE FUCKED. Jim and I ran ducking under his arms as I

heard Noella flushing everything in the piece down the toilette. We ran
out of the construction site and through the gym and down the stairs
and through the halls and then we stopped. I wanted to throw
everything out, flush it, ditch it, fucking whatever. My heart was racing.
Jim said “let’s go upstairs, I have a change of clothes.” (SO FUCKING
WHAT!?) If I had been thinking straight I would’ve said “Fuck that
I’m ditching everything!” instead I said, “okay.” And we ran up the
stairs and just before we crossed into the cafeteria, “JACK SHELTON,
JIMMY DURF GET AGAINST THAT WALL!” was shouted by a large
black man in a yellow shirt, Noella in arms.

I was crying in the office. I tried to hide it. I was talking to some
lady who was trying to get some work done telling her “It can’t be a
crime to be happy. I just wanted friends. I just wanted to be happy.”
And then that slick fucker came in- the Dean who threatened to haul my
arse off to a mental hospital before. He told me if I didn’t put everything
on the table they would have to search me. Using only instinct, I one by
one pulled out my water-proof, hermetically sealed medicine holder
containing a few grams of grass including that PCP shit, as well as my
friend’s fake opium that I had been holding during his routine room
search, as well as an old hunting knife that I had modified to be a
gravity knife that was given to me by my best friend because I had lost
my old one (the one I couldn’t find the night I tried to kill myself.)

It was the knife that really shocked him. He was very

uncomfortable. I had been trying to keep my cool. I was emotionally
blank despite the shakiness and the welling tears. When the cops
arrived they were surprised that it was my first time being arrested
because of how calm I was at that point. Every moment I thought I was
gonna piss myself. As they escorted us out I jumped a little and waved a
peace sign through the air with the smugness of knowing that nothing in
the world is actually happening to me, because that would simply be too
absurd. I was told not to do it again, and we had a very quiet anxious
ride to the station.

32
 That was a scary place. I tried to play it cool. I answered my cell
phone when it rang even though I wasn’t meant to. I told my friends
“I’ll see you soon” to which some cop made a very porky remark about
to the effect of “more like see you never! he he he…” What a fucking
piece of scummy, trashy swine. My parents eventually came and picked
me up and my father went home separately and probably ransacked my
room. My mother drove me to an abandoned parking lot. They took
away my cell phone and most of my material possessions that in any
way suggested I had ever broken a law in my life.

There were lots of nervous breakdowns. There was some

emotional scarring- an epic butting of heads between the right and
dumb and the wrong and grown. One time I almost threw a glass into
my father’s face, fantasising about how nice it would be to have all those
shards ripping through his eyes, nose broken and all. Everything in my
life had just fallen apart. How was I meant to come to grips with such a
thing? I couldn’t see or talk to anyone. I lost everything. I was the bad
guy.

Eventually I convinced my parents to let me leave a message up

telling my friends that I was okay. I remember one kid said something
along the lines of “Shut up. Quit complaining. Everyone gets arrested…
You’re no Nelson Mandela.” That stuck with me for a while. Every day
I wanted to hang myself or cut myself or shoot myself or something like
that.

The only thing I was allowed to do anymore was go to my guitar

lessons, which were rather sombre occasions generally. I hope I didn’t
make my teacher too depressed all those times. But anyway, guess who
came to visit me there after a few sneaky sessions calling people when
my parents weren’t around? None other than E and Kay-Kay. They
walked all the way to the place where I took lessons just to see me. It
turns out through our ups and downs, E had been missing me. I missed
her as well. She was the love of my life really.

I talked to her a few times on the phone and I remember how

much closer we were in those later conversations. One night it was really
late. I told her I loved her more than anything else in the world. She told
me she loved me as well. My head was spinning with content and
disbelief. The words shot back and forth. “I love you.” So warm and

33
fuzzy, those words are. They trigger, for me, an endorphin rush, perhaps
serotonin and dopamine as well. They are like a room-temperature
chocolate morphine shake swimming directly into my brain. The words
continued for quite possibly hours as we lay their listening to each
other’s breathing through the phone. She finally knew that no one
would ever love her as much as I did. Even though most of the time I try
to block out any memory of her, that was probably the best night of my
life.

The next day I was incredibly excited. I called Kay-Kay and we

talked, and eventually we ended up on a conference call, the three of us.
At some point I had to put the phone down but when I came back I
didn’t tell them. I just listened. E told her that she couldn’t date me,
because I didn’t even go to her school. She said she was so desperate for
sex at the time that she would even fuck the kid down the street. Next
she said that she would hate to see me with my shirt off.

I told her all that I had to say. Then I hung up.

34
 The New School
When I went to the new school, I did not accept the change as a
reality. I went in with the smugness of knowing that there was a sick
joke being played upon me by the universe. There was no chance it
could have been real. The director was a fine old fellow, a Buddhist
named Bob that had once worked at an older school where he saved
children from a burning building. He set up his new school to give
disabled people a chance. He created a haven for people that didn’t fit
into the mainstream puzzle. Unfortunately it was also the hospice of my
mind as a normal rebellious bipolar teenager.

My life has always followed a pattern-like build up of all these

bricks of events that help in the trapping of my own personal feelings
and individuality behind a wall. I shun myself for the terrible things I
have done from years of people convincing me that I am ill, sick or just
plain evil. I have been led to believe that my own personal search for
survival is some type of thing to be embarrassed about, to dismiss as the
hedonism of an adolescent fool. One of the first of these occasions was
when the girl with the extreme “seeking drug habits” convinced me to
buy some speed from her, which I needed to get my work done better. I
was accused of selling her cannabis because when she had offered to sell
me some of hers, I said “no thanks. I have plenty of connections anyway
if I ever need some,” which evidently was overheard by a few.

----

This section of this chapter has been interrupted by several days

of silence. I have an announcement. I am having aural hallucinations…
but only in my left ear when I wear a CPAP machine for sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea- a bit of a mystery. I think I have it from years of abusing
dextromethorphan, the respiratory suppressant and vitamin B12 in
dosages above 33,333% daily value (2000 mcg). I think the
hallucinations may be that in my left ear at night my brain only matches
up the frequencies of cricket chirping and fills in the blanks with audio.
The fist time this happened it scared me because when I took off the
mask there was no more sound. But now, even knowing there is no
cricket sound, I still hear them.

35
 Then that diatribe was interrupted for an hour or two by
insomniacal online conversing over social networks and instant
messenger. I talked to E actually. It went like this:

2:41:50 AM Me: hi
2:42:38 AM Me: you got that letter I sent you a while back, right?
2:46:14 AM Her: right]
2:47:13 AM Me: do you still have something against me?
2:48:45 AM Her: I've really just moved past all of that into just plain not wanting
anything to do with you.
2:49:59 AM Her: but, it is impolite to leave a letter unanswered--and I do
apologize, I have meant to write you one-- so I will answer your letter.
2:50:36 AM Me: oh alright
2:51:30 AM Her: it's been a hectic past couple of months, and I just haven't
gotten around to it yet
2:52:14 AM Me: no problem, same here. I hardly got anything done that I should
have in the past year or three
2:54:34 AM Her: yeah, time has been flying
2:57:17 AM Me: to tell you the truth, I really miss it, all the drama. the ninth grade
experience. knowing that I was a participant in the lives of others as well as my
own. you're one of the people I really pushed away, I guess you could say. I was
really a bastard. I'm sorry for that, and for if I've interrupted anything. It's a lonely
late night you know.
3:02:54 AM Her: it's fine. I am gonna leave now, though...
3:03:43 AM Me: alright. my friends are all off now anyway. bye.
Changed status to Online (3:03:52 AM)

Yep. That was that. Rather slow, as well, eh? So much for talking to old
friends… Whatever. Fuck her. A truly cold woman.

And it’s the next night already. I KEEP FORGETTING TO

TAKE MY BUPROPRION but I took the past two days worth to-night
and it looks like I am doing rather hedonic and mellow. I feel rather
anti-depressed. I feel like seizing the moment. Carpe Diem, eh?
---

So, back to the story… I got off with a warning this time. My first
year at the school was interesting. I finally became interested in writing.
The English/History teacher turned me on to some Bukowski short
stories and others. I wrote a story about an undercover cop, a classic
pulp fiction novel filled with action. Then there was the summer…

36
 Too Many Anti­Depressants
Tired of breathing in the same goddamned stale Connecticut air
every day. I need a drink. I need a smoke. I need someone. I'm so
damned tired of everyone and everything. I don't want to write essays
about old American short stories. I want to be someone. I want to be a
Somebody. I want a lover. I want my favourite beers on draught. I want
a fucking car. I want my goddamned pancreas to work again. I want it
all to be okay. I want all this shit to end. I want my life to start again. I
want to be reborn. I want to escape the anticlimactic luxury of my
boring life with rich people who don't know anything about me. I want
to be able to stop complaining. I want to be honest. I just want some
attention. Perhaps my complaints can be a catalyst for change...
something that can end all of this for at least a small amount of time.
Tell me to shut up. I need to hear it.
203VVV7235

Worst of all is I'm sounding like a goddamned Emo. I took too

many antidepressants this morning and ended up a bit whacky.
Everyone's so far away or busy. I haven't been writing my book for a
few days. I haven't been working on my college work in a few days. I
haven't been doing anything. I've been waiting around to see my mates
and they're all busy or far away. I don't trust anyone. I trust the
mysterious forces of the internet though. Al of you. Whoever the fuck
you all are. I feel so melodramatic and ridiculous writing this crap. It
reminds me of when I was a child. I'm not normally like this... am I?
No? I don't know. I just haven't done any psilocybe mushrooms in a few
months thats all. For the first time since the first time I did psilocybe
mushrooms, suicide looks a little less ridiculous and childish. Not quite
beautiful... that'd be cheesy. But it seems like in all of my intense mind
adventures I've forgotten how to question why I bother to breathe
another day. Why would any one of us want to live in this day and age
on the verge of the death of an entire species. This is perhaps the most
solemn time I can imagine. It's tragic that I see this next generation as
being the last. To be almost certain that the end is inevitable within my
own lifetime is something that can dwindle all the hope one can muster
from psychedelic experiences and flush it all down the toilet. Thank you
for reading my bullshit. I haven't shared any with you in a while. Most
of it has been going into my book. Send me your Email and tell me

37
about yourself if you want a sample... I'm willing to share it with most
people that are willing to give me some feedback regarding my writing.

-Dr. Jack D. Shelton, The Sole Ego of J.R. Shelton

38
 BLACKOUT

It’s amazing what goes through your head when the power is
out… like it is right now. 1:42 left on my Macbook Pro’s battery and It’s
1:05 in the morning… Well its 6:05 in London and for all I know people
are already downloading the new Radiohead record In Rainbows which
is going to be the most fantastic achievement in sound since… Fuck I
don’t know… the last Radiohead album…

But it really is amazing, electricity that is. I love it. It is pure

wizardry. One of the greatest achievements in alchemy of all time. What
is an alchemist… why, its someone who explores the natural laws of
science in our universe by experimenting with those laws. It ranges from
mixing the ingredients of fungus with ones own mind to flying a kite in a
thunderstorm. The greatest Illuminatus of all time must have been
Benjamin Franklin – a politician, a free thinker, a pothead, a founding
father, a scientist, an alchemist, and illuminated one.

Imagine how an alchemist from hundreds of years ago would

think of a cell phone or a computer or the iPod… Well Jesus tittyfuckin
Christ (as Phil Kollerd would say in a fake Brit-Texan accent) I think
they would just be astounded.

Then I thought of the girl tha had a crush on me when I was in the
th
8 grade because she thought I looked like Jack White the bloke from
the White Stripes. I remember for valentines day she printed out a
picture of a guitar and gave it to me or something like that. I remember
thinking how young she was with those braces and how she was my
friends little cousin. I decided to just ignore her. I still feel like a jerk 5
years later… anyway my cats scratching my door… she wants in. Good
night my friends.

Monday, Oct

V1.23

39
  Since I Never Mentioned It Earlier:
My Favourite experience in life was transcending time and space on
Psilocybin:

Dr. Jack:

I was listening to the Flaming Lips and saw exploding hexagons

coming out of a bobble head puppy …and the trees outside my window
were dancing and the sounds of the record were turning into Chinese
character like symbols and it was like everything around me could be
represented by its own shapes and colours and sounds and I was told
that when I die I'm going to flow through everything because life flows
like energy through all living and dead matter…

That was with one psilocybe mushroom chocolate and another

time I did a half chocolate and that time was still really intense and I
listened to the lips again and other shit oh and when I was downstairs
my hot water heater was like turning into washing machine noises… not
turning into washing machines- it was turning into the sound of washing
machines… and I thought that if I died at any given moment that I
would become a part of the grand life of the universe and that I would
live on forever as an idea like everyone else that there are pictures of
and sounds of and videos of... even if they're gone… they're still here,
man.... its like the difference between someone being a complete
stranger that you don’t even know exists and knowing them in person...
like you feel like you know some of these legendary icons even after
they're dead... how is it possible? It’s so epic and grand... oh man
thinking about it is really tripping me out… Its like, by understanding
them and their ideas and what they meant as a person, they live on
within you.

…and so I thought that if I died at that moment id become part of

the universe... but I decided that the key to achieving eternal life lies not
in your own body but in the minds of others... and whoever can make
themselves great enough to be in the minds of many has achieved life
eternal... like Jesus, as unreal as he may have been…

Mate, thanks for talking to me to-night.... I needed someone to

40
remind me of all that.... all this stuff just flows out of my head.... at
strange times.

Mr. Thom Ovalton:

no problem… keep me updated with this book man, cause I think its
really good

Dr. Jack Shelton:

Thanks man

41
 At the desk typing words about Radiohead with the Black 
Wolf
2:56am Today

Arpeggi I get eaten by the worms and weird fishes

Thank you thom. great fuckin’ idea… Man, typing really is an enjoyable
thing. I love typing. It’s so easy to do too. Yes I am writing on your
computer… Why am I so smart right now>? I don’t seem to know. Well’
that’s honestly a lie. Perhaps I do know. I’m just not telling. It’s a secret,
you see. Well Jesus isn’t really a person. He’s the sun. and you should
know. Of course \you should know… the sun rises at Bethlehem (Virgo)
where the three kings of orion’s belt point to it… Christianity… what a
load of bollocks…. Oh dearest zeitgeist thank you/

Love,
Jack

That was not originally intended for you folks... but I was being
thoughtful... Just kidding... am I? Are you>? Is anyone.!

forget about your house of cards and I'll deal mine

If it is any consolation, the former made no sense of any matter,

whatsoever. Nothing intelligible was expressed... perhaps I have lied
again. Where's the metal version of that rap song? race towards an
early grave on the run... the pink floyd sound... always a favourite of
mine here. One should be clearer. I don't understand. None of us do.
What a great fucking record that DSOTM None of this is profound.
He/she/it who finds the profoundness in what was said is the one that
has truly learned to appreciate every moment of their life. One may
even value this occasion; to touch the mind of anohter. My ideas are in
your mind as you read this. I am the one with complete control of your
mind. Purple sheep. Dogs. Explosions off in the distance. Squiggles on
an old deck of cards atop a yellow desk with the chiming alarm clocks of
Time bellowing out in waves across it bouncing over my hands as I type.
You are sharing a moment with me that happened in the past. I have
brought you along.

42
 Allow me to elaborate. The enormous epic profound sounds of
The Dark Side of the Moon are travelling through the air in my general
direction. The sounds are making their way inside my brain. My brain
is processing these sounds as though they are real. This is where music
comes from. There are instinctual feelings to be triggered by certain
frequencies arranged in certain patterns in time. Those who can explore
what sounds make us feel whatever it is that those sounds make us feel,
wield a most glorious power. The alchemical, magickal, scientific power
of the musical artist is so grand that it is unimaginable to the unstrained
mind. Of course we as human beings on this planet build up immunities
to certain stimuli, so it is only conceivable that some of us would have a
tolerance to certain sounds. You ever notice how when you play a record
over and over it loses its meaning? That is because something in your
mind isn't happening. -It is that your mind is saying "I already know
this" "I have heard this before" and thus it does not work any more.
We're all being worn down like machines. I often feel that I am
not going to be one of the survivors of this massive global
transformation of consumer capitalism. The enormity of this audio-
visual revolution of over stimulation is almost like rape. They are
forcing their ideas on my brain. When I'm in a car on the freeway and
some advert is up that I can't avoid they are ignoring my right not to be
attacked and filled with ideas that I do not wish to Realise. Why are
their giant billboards everywhere? Why is it that I can walk around and
not even notice that there are giant letters and numbers and symbols
and logos around me everywhere I go? This is disgusting. What is
happening to the world. "Buy this. Buy that," seems to be the attitude
being spat into the face of the people by the corpratocracy. "NO FUCK
YOU" fuck off, I don't want to see your signs everywhere I go. I am
tired of people sitting around and doing nothing. The whole goddamned
world is a fraud.
I lost hope and I started dying. Never lose hope. Never put your
self in the position I put myself in. I lost hope for the world I lost hope
for humanity. I started to die just as George Orwell did. I can't rescue
us all? Every fucking one of us needs to get so worn down and so lost
and so hopeless that they have to say "If I am going to choose to
continue living another day I can not allow myself to let such a huge
swindling take place. We need to get out there. We need to stop this
madness we do. George Bush, the most evil lying son of a bitch I've ever
heard of. This is not fun and games - this is the world. What the fuck

43
does he think he's doing. I am MAD. I am MAD AS HELL... Why aren't
you? Because all of this happened slowly? We the undermensch have
been lied to by the elite for thousands of years and while we can still go
about our business and enjoy our playstations and our XBOXs for now,
one day we won't be able to. People get fucked over by this world every
goddamned day and no one is doing shit about it. The top pyramid of
the human race has been abusing its little undermenschen long enough.
If we don't rid ourselves of such evil now, when will we… It's almost too
late. How can all of you go about your day with the world falling apart
around you? Is it that you think you can't do anything to stop it? Is it
that you don't even care?

We create the illusion for ourselves that we have all these

obligations that we have to fill I have to go to school, go to college, do
this, do that... everybody's working so hard at trying to get ahead and
be successful that they're forgetting about the success of our species as a
fucking whole. What the fuck! We're dying. The species is dying because
its killing it's home and abusing its brothers and sisters. From the
perspective of evolutionary biology, humanity has reached its carrying
capacity. Some of us are going to die. That’s why we have cancer and
aids and all the other myriad diseases and terrible ways of dying we
have... This is so horrible. Life is so terrible and wonderful. It is exactly
the fluctuation of negativity and positivity in all things. It is what makes
a wave. It is resonance... sounds traveling through the air. Colours.
Everything. I am willing to bet that there is an equal amount of
goodness as there is badness in this world. By the way, someone
mentioned that Dumbledore was gay. That was funny. Perhaps I will
have to build up something great and then change everyone's image of
that person entirely. God fondles little children. How's that? Shocking?
Who the fuck am I to say anything? I'm just a crazy man. Any Colour
You Like has just come on. I must be off.

44
Within Thirty Seconds of Waking in a Hotel

Strange dreams. We all have strange dreams. Sometimes. I didn’t

do anything to deserve this one. Or maybe I did. This one was a jumbled
up version of my life, far more promising despite its lack of realism.
This dream did for sequence and setting what Dali does for shapes and
matter in space and then presents 2-dimensionally.

We are such stuff as dreams are made of. Oh, Bill. Allow me to
explain. In the oddest of dreams only the strangest of things can happen,
and if one can remember the details, they can almost cabalistically find
the meaning in the details of the dream, id est why some people have
certain roles, why some people appear and don’t appear and why.
Perhaps what old Bill meant by this was that sometimes life is realised
like a dream, each and every miracle and dreaded inconvenience, almost
as though it were only following the rules by which our heads imagined
our own dreams. We all live in one big dream where when we dream in
that dream world we all exist in each others minds. Well that would be
the essence of waking life would it not? –A childhood philosophy of
mine, thought unimportant and thus lost and now returned with its own
delightful link to Shakespeare himself, inspired by Robert Anton
Wilson’s Masks of the Illuminati, where I was reminded of the phrase.

Talking to Miss Zoe outside the pub (that is really a Starbucks,

but only if you believe we’re in America/Irrelevant?) and Meredith
wants me to call her to chill but then I go in for a pint wiv me mates and
then I’m with Caroline the attractive young German girl in London and
I’m thinking about Lou Reed’s record Berlin and the line “Caroline
says, that I’m not a man” and we’re just sitting around drinking
Carlsberg and there are the Woodrow children running around playing
with toys and such and I feel like crying for being such a bad man… and
then Kimberly wants me to come over but I feel bad and then I’m
chilling with Zoe again and I explain what dreams are made of. None of
these people are real, from a Crowleyan perspective.

That was my dream in terms with which I could successfully

utilise to hold your attention without sounding ridiculous. Beautiful, you
all are. Thank you. There is the lightest of muffled trumpeteering going

45
on in this hotel somewhere in another room probably one floor up and
one room east of my exit. Now I hear stomping. Probably some angry
bloke ready to smash a trumpet over some poor kid’s head. They’re
probably practicing for band. Maybe it’s a Chuck Mangione CD that an
elderly couple is using to set the mood in their room. Either way it is still
amusing to me.

I have decided that the language for which this book is being
presented in is called Neo-Anglo-American English. It consists of slang
derived from foreign languages, Cockney, mostly British spellings,
American phrases and grammar, and made up words that sound
good/correct no matter what the goddamned spell-check thinks of them
(such as trumpeteering) …I will have no spell check determining what is
right in the universe of Anglo-America, a delightful hypothetical
kingdom with rainbows made of cotton candy, clouds made of cannabis
smoke, hempy money-trees, magickal chemicals in the water, Newcastle
Brown Ale fountains and magic mushroom meadows where the
mushrooms grow out of steaming lumps of fresh Columbian chocolate
that can be eaten right off the sanitary ground. That’s the way Jesus
would have wanted it, had he been a real person.

46
Fuck all of you. (Dearest, Humanity)

8:34pm Monday, Nov 5 REMEMBER REMEMBER

I seem to be coming to my senses. Its the pills and the drink and the
reaction and more importantly absence of reaction to everything I do.
For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. When the
reaction is so weak that it isn't even noticeable, it means that everything
you do lacks purpose and meaning. This is what I've become. I have
more than outlived myself. I have overstayed my welcome with all of
you. I was always meant to die young and alone. I feel like this is meant
to end with a bang. But I don't even have the balls to do that. So I'm not
sure what any of this means. I guess it means I must be crazy. I've been
up here on mount Jesus for a few too many days. Now I just have the
courage to say it. Fuck all of you. You are all just as worthless as I am. I
am polite everyday by not jumping up on top of a table and screaming it
out loud. None of you realise just how meaningless all of your lives are. I
finally realised one day that the only way to make my life meaningful
was to become so important that I would live on in the minds of people
for a very long time. In this day and age that is simply impossible. In the
facebook application "compare people" no one would like to marry me
and no one thinks that I will succeed at anything but being a father,
something that I swore off with my last girlfriend that I was meant to
marry. Now I am nothing but a dying old man at the age of 18. Fuck...
My surviving ego of my formal self even feels bad for the sorry bastard
that lives in the body of the quickly dying John R. Shelton. What a
fucking twat. I have tried to immortalise myself knowing that I will die
soon. I have answered so many impossible questions in my writing and
none of you can even look away from your lives for a moment to
understand. I suppose the level of illumination that I have presented for
all of you was never meant to be achieved in any way but on one's own.
It is astounding to me. None of you realise you are part of a dying
species. YOU ARE ALL DYING. JUST LIKE ME. Very few of you will
live on. There are too many of us now. Game over planet earth. Because
of YOU. You didn't mean to kill yourselves. You have everybody who
didn't realise to thank for that. I guess that says a lot about our species.
You're all greedy fucking swine. And you can use your manners and
pretend your not an asshole but you're either lying to yourself or you
live a life with no ambitions for yourself. Maybe that's good. Fuck if I

47
know anymore. Who the fuck knows what's right and what's wrong. I'll
fucking tell you who. People that are too ignorant to understand life
from the perspective of those they consider to be wrong. Chew on that
you sorry excuse for a dying species. and I'm sorry if I've offended any
of my friends here. If you understand, then I probably don't hate you.
Plus I'll probably forget I wrote this in the next hour or two. I love you.
Goodbye.

48
DISORIENTATION station(s) Presented in NaaE:

Djai Guru Deva................

Like a million suns...

Thank you John Lennon.

Shes makin me feel like I've never been boooorn

William Faulkner - Barn Burning.... What a bore. I mean its an alright

story. But haven't we all been here before. Its why stories make sense.
-Because we've already experienced the catalogue of feelings that makes
up each story.

Red Light Green Light

I'm back I'm back I'm back

Insert Piano Solo from "in my life"

How grand. Grande. Mucho grande.

Mark Twain. You never really got me with your huckleberry finn.
or your Thom Sawyer. Fuck em both. I paint fences. Injuns. ad
nauseum... ah I shouldnt say that, your a classic mr. clemens.
clementines. tangerine trees and marmalade skies. marmalaud.
Marmallowed. Who allowed for marmots?

I wish I could smoke like you my friend.

Speaking different languages. Golden slumbers.

The color colour barrier on both sides. Criss cross. Christ on cross. A
waste of firewood. Someone clean that holy cup.

These are just thoughts.

Unintelligible.

49
Mysteries.

...of words...
and sounds as well. type type type.

feckoff ye bloody bawbag! said the aggressive scotchman.

Track 01 2'44"
???
!!!
£££
$$$
777

“Rrelly?” said Thom

The Dinosaur woman peace in the Casino

50
B­12 Melatonin haze in CONTROL of yer Mind & SEX
3:19am Friday, Nov 16

Nobody loves me but that beautiful cat of mine.

The box in my living room is stealing my soul.

It should perhaps be called a dying room

You're welcome whoever you are.

Someone will read the things I say. I will be inside their heads
temporarily. I am in your head. Right now...

Now you can't stop letting me be inside your head. Oh you stopped
reading. But you didn't did you? How did I know that?? I must be a
genius.

I love you. haha... but do I? Do I love anyone? or am I Alone. I am alone

aren't I? I am always alone. It doesn't count being with other living
organisms when they'r so detached from their own nature. They
understand so little of themselves. I'm glad to be in your company. For I
am assuming that those of you that I loathe would never be capable of
reading this far without clicking on something else... That is because I
am meaningless to you. People just hold less meaning to other people I
should think. Remember when a person mattered? I don't...There are
way too many people on this planet for people to give a damn about
eachother... There are way to many people on this planet for me to be
single. There are way too many people on this planet to find true love in
one person. There are way too many people on this planet for you and
me. How do I decide that. Well if your an idiot you shouldn;t be here. If
you're a genius, your own ability to help in the advancement of our
species only brings us nearer to teh conclusion of the great voyage of
humanity. I stare down at my hands writing this and it would seem that
I have no control. NO CONTROL. Only control over what you think
while you read what I have written. I hope that my acknowledgement of
that does not induce scepticism or cause fright. I think you can trust me.
Maybe. My cat loves me, I think. I think that my feeding her and petting
her properly and allowing her to live within my territory causes her to
feel calm, safe, happy and properly nourished. Therefore because of her

51
association of those feelings with my person, my mere presence causes
her to feel those feelings. "Goodnight," said the imposter. It is sad that
this only goes for my cat. Alone. I'm up to that point at night where
everything is hazy and one cannot feel there own body. I'm sitting on the
edge of a sofa. Perhaps I am actually dreaming. If I am this will not be
on my computer in the morning. I will also not remember this. I will not
remember you. What a cliche romantic line, eh whoever you are? Aging
cats enjoy playing with Apple laptop chargers. This must be a truth.
Wouldn't some lyrics be nice? If only words poured out like endless rain
into a paper cup blah blah across the universe...
Have I decieved you? Am I a trickster? Have I perhaps told you some
subliminal secrets? Have you read something profound? Was this the
greatest bit of occult cabbala ever written? Probably not? Question
mark?? Don't say it out loud. YOu'll only surprise yourself. and your
mind will light up in red like a firefly.

Goodnight. Perhaps. It really depends on whether or not you read the

wholething. So... Bad Night... you know who you are, I should think.

-Captain Achtung

52
God is dead. So is Satan. ...Maybe. (NO MUSICK IN THE 
SOUNDS)

1:02am Saturday, Dec 1

BUY MY BOOK... When its out... After I get around to getting an

agent... and rewriting most of the book.
I read that somewhere. God is dead but also Satan. I am drawing a
blank.

At least I am in your brain, growing in static presence. Achtung

komaraden! Is that even proper German?

Will you marry me? No. haha. Why?

Lodgenet. Fuck Lodgenet.

everytime I stay in this bloody hotel I go a bit crazy.

I'm not crazy I'm just big brained.
Ha. Quote me on that. Tell your friends. Make me a GOD.

This wallpaper is horrible. The comforter on this bed is halfway

between the colour of faecal matter and urine.

Interesting Chair. Lots of squares.

3/4 empty glasses everywhere.
Tonight I drank flat tonic with lime. DISGUSTING

The musick is gone from the sounds. -Can you feel me? I can I justt
dont feel it.

The adverts on the television are breaking my heart. Every time I watch
one I feel the pain of seeing through an illusion that everyone else sees as
solid and genuine. Think of the children of the future. What will they
have? One day people will look back- all the conservationists will be out
in the streets protesting to save the Signs. Signhuggers. They'll think
that they're been there since the beginning of time; the sixties a folk tale
and the Enlightenment non-existent.

Someone save our fucking species.

53
YOU, ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW ARE DYING.
YOU MAY PASS ON MISFORTUNE TO THE NEXT GENERATION.
BUT YOUR PART OF THE CODE IS DYING.
AND NONE OF YOU REALISE IT.
YOU CAN WATCH YOUR SHITTY MOVIES.
PLAY YOUR SHITTY VIDEOGAMES.
NUMB YOUR MINDS.
HIDE IN YOUR ROOMS.
And I won't care because that's what I do too.

I can't in good conscience pass on this misfortune to another being of

consciousness. Can you? Optimism? Is that why?

OPTIMISM? I'm guessing that this word holds an etymological link to

some old language's word for vision, in which case, an optimist is
exactly the opposite of what we consider optimistic. But thats probably
untrue.

Let's see the world without a lense shall we? Without looking for the
negative or the positive. Let us say FUCK NAÏVETÉ!

Let's let the disaster and joy of the world come to us on its own.

Who the fuck am I to be saying "Let us" so obnoxiously?

Even better question: "Why do I even care?" Why don't I shut up and
go along for the ride? Why don't I end it now? Why don't I life forever.

This box is suffocating me to death.

Fuck LodgeNet. Fuck people that make TV systems that only connect in
Mono by elimination of one of the stereo channels. Seriously fuck that.

LONG LIVE STEREO.

we all have two ears.
most of us.

54
The Lady, The Singer, Old Kid, The Drunk, The
Irishman, Me & Lou
5:31am Monday, Dec 17

Brooklyn with Sir Jamington.

I was on the train and I saw this woman that must've been about 25-30
sitting on the other side of the subway. I was pretty goddamned funny-
feeling at the time, in that concert-going way. :) Jamie and I had met
Adrian from The Most Serene republic and talked about Canada and
America and parties and such. It was quite magical. The show was
fucking brilliant too and we hung out with some drunk guy named Ian.
He was one chill kid. Must've been about 25- dropped out of college. He
was definitely one of us.
We missed the last train home. But thats alright. Cause we wandered
the streets of Manhattan for a few hours.
But anyway this girl... she was sitting there... in these fishnet stalkings...
and dark clothes... not like a goth. -and she would catch my glance in
the corner of her eye. You could tell she enjoyed the idea of people
looking at her... and for about a minute or so she would be looking
slightly up grinning. Then for about a minute or so she'd look a bit
down ashamed... guilty even. and I was thinking all this at the time. I
was saying all these words to her out loud in my head. She's rapid
cycling through these different feelings like some type of cokefiend
that's gotten herself caught up in that other world of cocaine and
partying that never ends satisfactorily. Then I realised she was likely a
prostitute. Either way, she was one of us- on the outside of the norm,
and looking like she knew it.

Sir James and I wandered the streets talking about the bizarre
occurrences of the night. First we met this Irish guy named Emmett that
told some flirtacious young ladies that James and I looked like "fine
catches." We met some very strange large fellow from Brooklyn who
appeared to be extremely drunk. He smashed things. He called Jamie a
"bitch-ass nigga" and tried to give me his phone number so that he
could take me out to clubs. I don't feel like getting knifed though. I
could spend hours talking about that strange man and what a childish
moron he was.

55
Anyway. After seeing such a novel and brilliant performance, I feel
energised and eager to make sounds: Glorious, glorious sounds. Noises.
Sonic sex with your head. I want to trip everyone out- expand your
minds. I restrung my guitar with Sir Thom Ovalton. Twas a fine
occasion. Chow Yun Fat and John Woo make an excellent team.

I'm sorry:
I cannot write.
Pills.
Lack of stimulation
Lack of brainpower
Lack of love
Not missing out

blurry eyes magazines

dont tell me anything a break in the hand cut on flowers and cell phones
stuck inside chairs buzzing for me
listening to Lou Reed
Thinking about how I just don't fucking care
"...and I guess... I just dont know."
...really, Lou?

56
THE MACHINE: Why I Plan to Leave America for
Her Northern Sister
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 7:30pm 

Dearest fellow beings of consciousness,
I am in love with a beautiful woman from Calgary, with whom I am 
engaged, and I have compiled a collection of observations about 
America and humanity in general that support my decision to leave the 
United States and be off to Canada with the intent of living there and 
possibly the UK again some day. Enjoy:

I have found myself confronted with many people urging me not to move 
to Canada to be with my girlfriend, and most of them seem to think I 
need to do what they do. They want me to become part of the big 
hungry monster that is America. Perhaps America could better be 
analogised as a rusty old machine. Everybody else wants to be one of the 
nuts and bolts, and I don't feel like being part of a meaningless system 
that only hurts its self constantly.

I find myself looking at the people around me like a bunch of plants. 
They are living organisms that grow and leave their seeds behind, but 
are incapable of living out their own true wills and thinking for 
themselves. ­Now that's an awfully extreme thing to say, so hear me out­ 
We've all become so goddamned concerned with systems and being as 
"human" as possible that we have lost sight of our instincts.

57
The human species is the species that dares to become non­animalian. 
The difference between man and animal is that man trains itself and its 
fellow man to disobey their own instincts as living organisms. In fact, we 
compete at how well we do this and look down on those that are 
unsuccessful as "animals." We have manners and machines and 
languages. It is our duty to become more and more efficient all the time.

The next stage of evolution for the human species is extinction. As we are 
becoming less animalian, we are becoming more and more mechanistic. 
Think about it; we are all living out other peoples' plans... We execute 
all of our actions based on social norms and these social norms are 
becoming progressively stricter. We have systems for everything. We 
believe in doing everything in accordance with some social norm, rather 
than our own biological instinct, mainly because the human's biology is 
different from animals in that we instinctually know not to do what we 
as individuals will to do but what others think is normal for us to do:
If they buy an iPhone, I buy an iPhone.

We put everything about our lives on the internet and let websites keep 
track of who we are. What's amusing is that now, we are keeping track 
of websites because the systematic formats of these websites are 
programming themselves inside of us. The next generation will grow up 
in a time where they'll walk around thinking of what their current 
"status" is. Are we just walking robots?

58
What amuses me is how much this is true in America and how much 
Social­Darwinism is imbued into the American Identity; "I was here 
first," "My kid deserves better treatment," "I'm going to X College." if 
there is one thing that Americans can be credited with, it's one­up­
manship. Americans spend so much time trying to better themselves as 
individuals, like life is a game that can be won, that there is a serious 
lacking of a sense of community.

When I was in Canada, the biggest difference I noticed was that I didn't 
feel like I needed to compete with everyone else around me. It actually 
seemed as though people in Canada CARE about each other and their 
country. They even pay for each other's entertainment access in the form 
of the CBC. No one was trying to race me to the check­out line in the 
grocery store. In fact, the check­out lady in the grocery store welcomed 
me to her country with pride and wished me a happy stay. 
...Whaaaaaaa? When was the last time that the check out person in the 
grocery store welcomed you to America with pride and a warm fuzzy 
feeling of community? It's as though Canadians aren't embarrassed to 
be Canadian.

The terrible irony concerning the American Identity is that in their 
attempt to one­up each other and triumph as individuals, they become 
so swept up in their thorough plans and systematic life­styles that they 
lose their own free will. Even when they take vacations they go to 
archetypal destinations­ "I'm taking my kid to disney world," etc.

59
I find the urge to say "Pretty soon the machines will tell us what to do 
with our lives, rather than us telling the machines what we do," but this 
is already true and I think it's sad that humanity, spearheaded by 
America, is heading in this direction which seems like an evolutionary 
step. Perhaps it isn't terrible. Perhaps it won't be so bad to just live a 
hypothetical life that was completely dictated by a network of ones and 
zeroes and people thereby influenced. Perhaps it is just the same as the 
lives we have always lived. When was the last time you ever did anything 
without their being a reason for it? Don't forget to ask, "but why?"

In summary, I love my girlfriend and want to be in a place that doesn't 
make me feel like I'm slipping into the cracks of obscurity by crushing 
my own free will for the cause of the evolutionary mechanisation of 
humanity.

So, America, I'm sorry. It's not you.... really... It's me. We're just not 
meant to be together. Maybe it'll work out some day... but you've gotta 
get your shit together first and quit killing brown skinned children for 
money. May God (hypothetically speaking) bless you.

­Jack
Please excuse how messy that was. Caffeine+High Blood/Glucose 
Concentration=Shitty Literary Flow :(

Cheers

60
Obituary for My Future-Self w/ Further Exploration of
the Idea
Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 6:55am

“John R. ‘Jack’ Shelton, an aspiring writer and musician, died

unexpectedly today due to a combination of pharmaceutical drug
toxicity, alcohol toxicity, smoking complications, high cholesterol, high
blood-sugar induced organ failure and other mysterious unknown
factors all combined with a most unpleasant set of chronic anxiety/panic
attacks which disrupted his heart beat causing him to go into cardiac
arrest. Some say this may have been triggered by his dissatisfaction with
the absurdity of life, lack of psychedelic drugs and loss of hope. Friends
say his health problems, while not always visible, were very much
attuned to his personality, which ‘reflected the ungratefulness and
obnoxiousness that seemed to emanate from his presence,’ as one friend
puts it. He never had a job, as his ex-fiancée was keen to remind him
and he was so undependable that there was no reason for anyone to
count on him to do anything. He just needed assistants to care of him at
all times and when that wasn’t enough, his heart just gave out.” …It’s
only a matter of time before you can read this in your paper!

You see, a person is more than just who you know him/her to be. A
person is also their past, present and possible futures. The probable
future of Jack Shelton, an integral part of his damaged and mixmatched
ego, died the other day. Here’s how: His fiancée whom he had
committed to, and was ready to give up everything for, decided to
question whether or not he would continue to rely on her to take care of
him forever, despite that they had never lived together in the past and he
had already addressed the “issue” a week before, and was previously
able to overlook its rather insulting and hurtful implications. Having to
deal with his fiancée’s repeat-concerns, this time presented in the mono-
to-surround-sound equivalent upgrade of disrespect and hurtfulness, he
fell into a mental state of panic under the influence of assorted health
problems, including lack of medication and overreacted with a
cacophony of curse words. After a more calm examination of the
argument at hand, Jack hypothesised that her need to bring up an
assortment of “issues” already addressed (with disheartening worry)
was due to a real issue, and that this real issue was either related to
memory loss or personal issues related to fear of being with someone. If

61
the latter is the case, then the situation is especially unfortunate, as he
has given up countless oppurtunities of every category for this beautiful
and intelligent woman that he hoped to spend his life with.

(THAT IS ALL YOU NEED TO HEAR IN REGARDS TO DETAIL. IT

WAS WRITTEN TO DOUSE THE FLAMES OF QUESTION.
FURTHER DETAILS ARE A PRIVATE MATTER. THE REST IS
MORE OF AN INFORMATIVE NOTICE)

…and so that future Jack Shelton, a part of the Jack Shelton you
know, is dead. The Jack Shelton that would take care of her and love
her and wake up next to her is dead. The Jack Shelton who gave up the
chance to attend university in his hometown of London to move to a
Canadian oil town is dead. The Jack Shelton who would rather live with
the woman he loves than have meaningless, shallow relationships
accompanied by stoned games of beerpong and X-Box is dead. The Jack
Shelton that thought planning any type of alternative future, and thus
questioning his relationship, was wrong and decided to believe in her to
the end is dead. The Jack Shelton that believed in the possibility of
everlasting love is dead.

What is left of Jack Shelton, is a broken man, a shell hollowing

itself out again through the shock and denial and disappointment. The
same battered dead carcus that always was, and was never meant to be
anything but, loveless. Jack Shelton is a character from a sad film, the
kind where the lead actor is all over the place and his character is so
reprihensible and full of himself as a result of his inability to deal with
the smooth adaptation of the robotic 21st century ego-programme, that
you just find his performance awkward and hard to watch. No matter
what role in life this actor ends up with, he is never going to be able to
pull it off, because he should already be dead. He wished for death
before for years as a selfish child and adolescant consumed by guilt and
disability, and then death came to him in his many forms. Science
stopped death last time, but Jack doesn’t think it was meant to. Perhaps
I’ll have to stop relying on science, live up to those libertarian standards
that my human nature would suggest to me, were I not sensetive about
practising what I preach. Maybe someday I’ll have the courage for it.
I’ll pull the tube on this Terry Schaivo. But for now, I march on
temporarily somewhat aimless, thinking crookedly with just barely
enough intellect to rise above self-destructivity.

62
With sorrow and regret,
The most horrible human being to live, in the eyes of at least one
beautiful woman I can think of, to whom I still hold the utmost
affection…

63
 

The Greatest Truth of all is that

everything is true within the
confines of its own belief system.
As long as you believe that your life
is real, everything within it shall be.
To disbelieve is to lack the
knowledge to know what someone
else knows to be true, or to hold
the knowledge that proves him or
her wrong; either way, You’re both
right in the sense that neither one
of you matters. I love, admire, pity
and loathe all of you dearly. O,
fancy font.

64
 A Private Congregation
Of London W4 Sentiments
& Additional Words Concerning Things

By
Jack Shelton

65
Red Lights Through Rainy Rounded Windows
 
The takeoff of an airplane from London Heathrow in the
middle of the night is an unusual experience for a child of
three. His mind swooshes in wonder and panic and some
type of bizarre combination of psychedelic and opiate
sensation coupled with the cannabic feeling of childhood
wherein everything is new and there isn’t a reason to have a
care in the world. He did not forsee the series of terrible ear
infections he was to endure on his journey back and forth
across the ocean, over and over again and again.

66
Me and Lou on A Thursday Night

I'm sorry: I cannot write

No Pills.

Lack of stimulation.
Lack of brainpower.
Lack of love.
Not missing out though… surely.

Blurry eyes on magazines,

Dont tell me anything:
I don’t want to see.
A break in the hand cut on flowers,
And mobile phones stuck inside chairs
Buzzing just for me

So I’m listening to Lou Reed,

Thinking about how I just don't fucking care
"...and I guess... I just dont know."
...really, Lou?
Me too, my friend.

67
Teeth of the Wise

Today they drilled holes in my head.I showed up at the office. I sat in the

chair listening to Ravi Shankar with a vanilla-scented N2O mask on my
face. That's when they put me out and within ten seconds I was awake
and the procedure was over. I had just been transported in time.

Then I thought to myself

We’re just blowin' some clowds.
Smokes travellin’ in waves.
I aint run out yet.
Lets misbehave.

Neil young's “a Vampire baby… suckin' blood from the earth.”

68
Oh, Neil. Oh, Neil… 
Never mind it, I still think you're brilliant mate.

So I'm thinking about moving. 
And living with a beautiful girl whilst attending college/university. 
That would be most optimal. 
Premium ultra­deluxe. Very nice, indeed.

boxes made of lines
patterns

"oh how the mu­opioid receptor agonists fail to live up to my high 
standards." I think to myself as the cat wags her tail in my face.

What happened? 
God damn you all! 
What happened to adolescence? 
Where did it go? 
Did my adolescence go to college with all my friends? 
Or did it get snuffed out slowly? 

I put my ego out of its own misery I think years ago. Occasionally I 
return to its grave in my head to recount all of the things that made up 
its life. But this Jack D. Shelton would never want to go back to being 
that boy. 

“Get out of toooooooowwwwwwwwnnnnnnnn,” as our friend Neil 
Young would say when he was livin’ On The Beach.

I've got to get out of here. 

69
I've got to be with my lover. 
I've got to be away from all the terrible memories in this house. 
I want to make a home. 
I want to live.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra­La­La Band comes 
on 
And they sing rounding in harmony, 

"When the world is sick can no one be well and I dreamt we was all 
beautiful and strong." 

I guess none of this matters atall. 

70
I’m About to Fly Back & You’re About to Fly Away

Dear FUCK.
I am sitting in a hotel room 
In Geneva, Switzerland 
Stoned and drunk 
With the smoke from my cigarette 
Rising up through the air 
To sandpaper the moisture off of my eyes 
As I sit and type this to you. 

A bottle of Chimay sits next to me 
And there’s Prosecco, 
And Jack Daniel’s,
And some type of cava, 
And all I can think about is writing… 

Just writing about you 
Because you inspire me… 
And I want to write a romance novel 
About you
or maybe work you into my story 
The one about the adolescant in Amsterdam

Everywhere I went tonight 
I kept seeing those eyes
The beautiful quivering green eyes 
Staring back into mine 

When you smile 

71
And nervously say in an upward inflection
“What?” 
Like I’m telling you something 
With my eyes 
And you’d like to pretend it’s innocent. 
Now I’ve put out my cigarette 
And I’m serious. 

Those nights in your bed 
When at first you wouldn’t kiss me 
That absolutely kills me
“You’re too young”
The last girl didn’t say that
And she had a decade on you

72
The Second Time You Stayed At My Place 

Standing out in the rain for a cigarette,
I lean over on the brick wall and yours is still there
Lying their put out by the rain of a day past…
The one I saw you roll on my bed,
Before I walked you out the door that morning,
After you picked up your clothes off my floor…
And I don’t see how after the way we do this
You can say you just want to be friends.

So I don’t believe it for a second
When I look in your eyes and I see it­
The way you look back,
And the way they move when I touch you…
Because the way that you always come back to me
Says something completely different. 

I can’t believe you’d call it a fling,
And tell me on the phone that you don’t miss me,
When I know that you’ll ring me up later
And have me come over again
Just so you can pretend you’re not keen on this
And still make love to me.

73
The Contemplation of Resignation From An Unplanned Life of
Consistent Schedule

The Contemplation of Resignation 
From An Unplanned Life of Consistent Schedule
It goes simply as follows
As it goes from one week to the next
Like so:

Fuck
It’s what you should do on a Friday night.
It’s what you should do every night.
(Unless you’re tired)
And then have a cigarette

Cigarette
It’s what you should do after you fuck
It’s what you should do on a Friday night
It’s what you should do every day, all day.
Unless it makes you cough,
then you should have some cough syrup

Cough syrup
It’s what you should drink when you cough.
It’s what you should do with a cigarette after sex
It’s what you should do on a Friday night
It’s what you should do every night
Unless you self destruct
Then you should give up

Give up

74
It’s what you should do after you self destruct
It’s what you should do after drinking cough syrup
It’s what you should do after smoking and fucking
On a Saturday morning when none of the rest matters
It’s what to do if you do these things every night
And you’ve got an elaborate plan
For execution

75
Izabella

Gin and cough syrup 
Relax in my glass
I lie on your bed

76
And we talk about old poetry
Written about the anglo­irish war
And I try to write my own
But I’m not any good at that

You change the ringtones on my mobile
And I sit and laugh at the sounds
And you make cheery faces 
And I love the sounds
For I’m quite chemically content

And James Marshall Hendrix plays us off
Into the rest of the night

77
Working Late Into the Night

I’m working late into the night…
Keep me company tonight?
Sure thing, I said.
That’s why I’m here
On the artist’s bed.

I do things in weird orders
I say so very druggedly
That’s fine she says
Deviantly

78
…and its silent…
Except for the muffled resonance of the tele,
As it makes the sound of a cardboard box
Should one ever come to life.

And her “stupid light” flickers.
“Hey, Maranda? I think you’ll love it too.”
Of course you can have a cigarette paper.

And I normally don’t do this;
Say these things,
Have that energy­
The willpower kept in reserve from birth…
But my relapse finds me quite alive.

Art is too hard, she says
While she struggles…
And that’s how I know 
That this is an artist’s bed.

79
In the Kitchen

In the Kitchen there are empty bottles
With the fingerprints of untrustworthy people
They come in and out and take what they want
Then they leave most uncourteously

In the Kitchen you can find me sitting
Finishing my whiskey, that which was left
When the party’s over and no one can be bothered
To help clean up after themselves

80
“Antennas to Heaven” (Under the Guise of Ashtray Anxiety)

Rocking chair complete with old man

Who plays the blues
Jingle Jangle
Bing-bang the witch is dead
Perhaps spoken in French
Godspeed makes waves on the sea/sky
Floating in cosmic waves
Distorted vibrating

Running after trains

And making Love in Planes

Planes that lead to

The feedback crash
Of a journey over ice
Is the snowglobe silence
To the march of canned superheroes

Driving in the rain of colour-trails

Orgasms

Looking here is the only warmth

For us on this lonely sphere
Where those last colour-humps of hearts
Are like walking away
Into the fog on a dock
Whisked away to the sky by boat
Caught in the infinite bright whistling of the heavens
Like underwater transmissions from the last whales
to the highest birds

The ship sinking into the sand

Is carrying you down
As it brings you higher to heaven
The unity of all on all levels you realise
As you close your eyes comprehending Mr Crowley

81
Format<­Insert [click] v Break­> Page Break

I need a cigarette.

No. Wait,
You should light it 
After you write that.

There are too many things going on,
And I was about to write this,
And I am writing this,
But this isn’t the future this,
That this this was.

Because her flatmate’s in here,
And says she works in Swiss Cottage…
And that’s where I’m from­
Where I was born.

So I sit here and their voices change
Into muffled air­born blobs,
Massaged by the sound of baggies
Being prodded by fingertips
In search of leftover cannabis,
Interrupted only by phonecalls,

While I drift off into a memory
Of a memory I finally recognised,
When I first went back 
To old Swiss Cottage…

82
To Naseby Close,
At Number Five…
Where a sedan sat parked outside
Fifteen years behind me now.
And action figures fell
Out of the bathroom window,
And tears were cried,
And ceilings fell,
And wine was spilt,
And goldfish died,
And Sri Lankan nannies hoovered,
And I forced upon myself American English,
Utilising Thunderbird idolisation
In defiance of nappy­clad peers…

And so her flatmate scratches her leg,
And plays with the duct tape,
Whilst my lover reads off the details
Of upper level university work,
On the phone
With her knicker­clad peers.

And I sit here writing,
With all this going on
And lips too dry for kissing…
Since the cigarette 
That absorbed all the moisture,
Is still hanging here unlit.

83
84
Author’s Note(s): The W4 Collection

This collection of writing is an expansion of previous work, with 
radical revision and new material inspired by experiences following my 
return to London. In most of my pieces I try to bring the reader into the 
experience of the moment in which I currently live. I want to mess with 
their heads and force them to think. I try to keep my writing raw and 
keep it from any type of formulaic constriction, but here I have tried to 
expand my external palette, including a sonnet (“Izabella.”) Because all 
of the writing here has recurring themes, such as drugs, romance, sex, 
hopelessness and various abstract verbal imagery, I try to keep all of it 
held together as one piece rather than avoid the repetition; life is 
repetetive and each one of these pieces is a snap shot featuring such 
pattern. 
The more love themed writing is inspired by real life relationship 
drama, but does not strictly adhere to such situational accuracy. Liberty 
is taken in order to better illustrate feeling and reader­experience. In 
such new work, construction consists of real time aesthetic description 
and quotes, including at times allusion to specific musical stimuli. Titles 
and phrases are often constructed as an occultist would construct 
magickal texts, e.g. Aleister Crowley, who is specifically mentioned in 
“Antennas to Heaven.” The general purpose of this “crowleyan 
construction” is to force upon the reader a desire to reconstruct the 
formation of each individual piece of work for themselves, as to attain an 
experience as close as possible to the one being presented. 
Most of the radical revision comes in “Me and Lou”, “Teeth of the 
Wise” and “I’m About to Fly Back”, all of which are derived from 
scribbles found in notebooks, etc. “Me and Lou” was originally a 
collection of random phrases and words that I had written at the end of 
a document called “Teeth of the Wise”, where that document has also 

85
spawned the piece of the same name; it was random opiate ramblings I 
had written following surgery where my wisdom teeth had been 
removed. After turning these two pieces into what they are now, I found 
that they accomplished what my new poetry stands to accomplish 
stylistically, and ultimately feel that my poetic writing has improved 
stylistically. “I’m about to fly back” is taken directly from an unfinished 
note to a love interest rewritten as a poem that segues into the other new 
pieces. 
“My Favourite Chair” is a moderately edited derivation from an 
in­class freewriting exercise; it was the exercise with the small images we 
were to fictionalise and write about. Mine was an image of several 
different people in uniform, where only one person doesn’t wear a 
jacket. In this poem I take on the female role as the girl without the 
jacket and create an elaborate daydream­walkthrough as the character 
sits through her portrait.
The whole collection essentially attempts to capture a life in 
retrospect whilst including other pieces that feel out of place, like a 
break from the experience. I feel wrong calling it poetry, as I’ve never 
thought of myself as a poet, but always more of a word artist. I make 
inspired creative writing, but up until this course, I’ve never tried to 
classify it or push it into some writing­style archetype. I find it 
interesting seeing how my work comes to shape when such shaping is 
applied, and that is one of the bigger benefits I’ve had from this course 
in regards to poetry.

Final Drafts:

A few lines have been omitted from some pieces and I have tried 
adding punctuation with consideration of the class’ suggestions.

86
87
 A Private Congregation of London W4 Sentiments 
& Additional Words Concerning Things:
 

DRAMATIC EPILOGUE &
ADDENDA

By John R. Shelton

…With the goal of promoting the concepts of 
Understanding & Human­to­Human Intellectual Connectivity.

88
PART ONE: A RECOUNTANCE OF FRATER ALBIORIX’S UNIVERSITY 

HOLIDAY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHEREIN HE DECIDES TO 

RECOUNT THE PAST FEW MONTHS

Frater Albiorix is in pain; in the emotional context, this is quite melodramatic,  

but in the physical sense, it is quite literal. At this point he is on holiday from univerity  

in a hotel room in Boston, Massechusetts with his best friend in the other bed trying to  

sleep. Inside his best friend’s head, there is some sort of spot that was picked up on a  

magnetic resonance imaging machine. This would indicate the presence of a possible  

tumor. This bothers Albiorix. Frater Albiorix is not the author of this story. He is  

simply a fictional character. What’s funny about this is that the masking of identities  

only pretects one from the villification of those who would have no reason to villify,  

whilst making such disguise seem that much more cutting to those for whom such  

secrets one would try to maintain, and to those people, I am sure that whoever is  

writing this is quite sorry. There is no bigger writer’s block than fear of guilt. No one  

wants to feel like they’ve betrayed a person’s confidence, or shared too much …but I’m 

afraid it’s only the most human thing I could possibly share with you.

So where the fuck have I been? Why have my words not graced your screen, great 

typewriter of the past’s future? Oh I have been so busy.

Doing what, Jack?

89
 Jack, eh?… ­ “Jack, eh?” I typed. 

…Why, I have been in university. You see, after my marriage never happened, I 

immediately applied to Twickenham The American International University in London. 

After making a few more acquaintences in the Connecticut area and having a brief 

relationship with an underage pathological liar, out of extreme desparation for meaningful 

human contact (which culminated in the concoction of a rather elaborate lie concerning 

the abortion of my possible child) I finally returned to my home country of England. 

The first few weeks at Twickenham, I did as all the other kids did and got used to 

what I call the North­West European Attitude About Alcohol, or NWEAAC, a lovely 

acronym which I’ve just conjured out of thin air, kind of in the spirit of American 

economic policy. The student body at Twickenham is encompasses extremely rich 

adolescants from around the world (many of whom belong to families that could purchase 

third world countries), normal adolescants of middle class backgrounds who don’t much 

care for the mindset of the general student body, study abroad programme kids and me, 

wherever the hell I fit in. 

As Frater Albiorix typed away at his cocktail­crusted keyboard of vengeance,  

his rather crude explanation of Twickenham The American International University in  

London was interrupted by his friend’s awaking. After a brief period of 6 months,  

Frater Albiorix has now been a horrible person for a number of reasons, much like  

90
earlier on in his adventures. He now continues to recount the events retrospectively by  

means of blatant and deliberate digression.

I can still remember explaining to Eric my concerns about talking about other 

people. (This is pretty much what I’m on about at the beginning of this story, and really a 

constant concern in my writing.) It was a fucking lonely occasion indeed. I turned around 

to face the window when he went back to sleep… and wrote in a word document.

“The sky here is fucking gray with snow that from this high off the ground, has the  

appearance of fog. It must block the soundwaves of the street noise as well, because  

as far as I can remember, from this hotel you can hear every bloody car­screech and  

siren on the road with the sounds echoing off the streets and up to our window.”  As I  

look down at the street it reminds me of standing out on this girl’s balcony in  

Brooklyn a week ago… 

This girl, with the same first name as the character E from Jack D. Shelton’s  

Hyothetical Memoirs & Assorted Ramblings From A Series of Luxurious Struggles: A  

Manifesto of Agnostic Mysticism and Psychedelic Illuminism by Mr J.R. Shelton, but an 

entirely different human being altogether, was another part of my experiences at 

Twickenham. We met through the glories of class, and she was the main inspiration for A  

Private Congregation of London W4 Sentiments & Additional Words Concerning Things, 

and one of the two women for whom it was written, the other being the professor, from 

91
whom I needed to receive an adequate mark.

So, anyway… “E2” or Penny Lane and I would smoke cigarettes before and after 

class and finally ended up at a mutual friend’s place smoking jazz cigarettes and 

discussing course material. When our mutual friend’s boyfriend came home from work, 

we were no longer welcome, and we ended up leaving at the same time and then both got 

off at her stop and had a few drinks, which combined with the inclusion of an acoustic 

guitar and a decent record collection, produced an excellent night of temporary 1970s 

nostalgia. From then on, it was always like that. Within a few weeks, I was there more 

than half of the week, intoxicated, doing assignments, procrastinating, writing for creative 

writing, and burning through amphetamines like sweets… which is okay because I have a 

prescription from the United States of America, right? 

I could get into the whole chronology of it, which is blurred and hazy at best, but I 

think it’s already captured well enough in the W4 piece. (See W4 Piece.)

So anyway, Penny Lane and I weren’t together because her boyfriend was moving 

back from Japan, and I wish I could hate the guy, but he reminds me a lot of me and just 

seems to be a generally decent guy. …and all that essentially voids the publication of this 

piece of writing, since she doesn’t want him to know about me and her. Then again I’ll 

probably never see her again, and now I’ve recorded at least 10 to 15 songs centred around 

the affair and created a concept album out of it… I’d like to think the record is quite 

good. It’s very similar in style to the stuff that John R. “Jack” Shelton is doing these days 

92
with his new project LONDON W4. 

It’s strange how much pressure she put on me; she says she doesn’t want me to 

stop coming around or acting the same way but that we couldn’t sleep together anymore, 

and even enquired as to whether or not I’d be interested in sleeping on the couch, while he 

slept with her in the only proper bed I’ve slept in for about 3 months. (My bed at 

university is essentially the size of a plank, where I’ve employed use of a towel in place of 

a duvet.)

Those were dark times. Well, not really. In fact they were great for a while. When 

I started seeing Ms. Texas. After seeing her in New York during the winter break and 

deciding that there was something wrong in her head, disheartened by the return of her 

much older boyfriend of 3 years, I sent her an angry text message from an airport bar, 

where I was illegally drinking whilst already intoxicated in such a way that could have 

quite possibly been conducive to the kind of general self­conduct that’s bound for 

reception as inappropriate behaviour for airports. Days prior I had written in a word 

document:

The other downside, and believe me it’s all downsides, is that I have no one to  

sleep with. I have no romantic security, sexual security or social security, other than the  

kind that you get for being born a goddamned yankee… and even that kind doesn’t count  

for fuck all anymore. –and now all I can think about is this super nice guy trying to fuck  

93
the girl I’ve been slowly establishing a relationship with while I sit on a couch in London  

chainsmoking before inevitably storming out the door to the taxi place across the street,  

heading back to mine and drinking myself into oblivion. When will this happen? Possibly,  

as soon as next weekend.  

 
Frater Albiorix begins to doze off into a hazy daze of nostalgia…

They once told me that an electric eel had jumped out of its tank, and that when the 

caretaker got back to the marine room, he had found it dried up like a rock. It must’ve 

been sandy with that satin finish look, perhaps posessing the texture of a meringue. I 

thought how if it were to be snapped in half, bits of powdery debris would scatter through 

the air like highly weaponised (self­declumping) anthrax. It made me sad. 

In conclusion, young Children should take dangerous drugs and play with guns…

94
PART TWO: HEREIN LIES THE LADY

A:

INSTRUCTIONS: See collection A Private Congregation of 

London W4 Sentiments & Additional Words Concerning Things. Take 

this collection of words to be applicable situationally to our character 

Frater Albiorix, with consideration of the previous segment.

B:

She’s back. Just for tonight I imagine. At first it went alright. Now 

she’s just sleeping but we were making love for about 15 minutes. I know 

it was good. It’s just heart breaking all over again. …and I’m thinking 

‘If you break my heart all over again will I still write songs for you?’ and 

the answer is probably ‘yes’ I imagine. Tomorrow’s sobriety hangs over 

my shoulder like some type of reaper, but not of death… perhaps shame, 

misery, discontent, and most of all failure. Failure. Two albums later, 

failure. All the romantic gestures. Candlelights in New York City. 

95
Months of Frank Sanatra and cheap champagne in London. Recreation 

of the recreations of the nineteen­seventies. Everything. The scene of 30­

something women and ex­girlfriends I’ve claimed to love all morphing 

into her from the other pillow across from me. The guilt. I say ‘I love 

you’ and there is nothing but immediate drunken dismissal… out of 

shame or guilt? Maybe… Who knows. I don’t care anymore… I shall 

pretend, so that I may wake up tomorrow morning.

96
PART THREE: FRATER ALBIORIX HAS A BIRTHDAY or A HUGE 

COMEDOWN 

So now I’ve got this other girl in my bed. She’s already fallen 

asleep. I suppose you could say she’s satisfied… though, I however am 

anything but. I’m completely out of these pills now. Bupropion HCl 

150mg. A couple weeks ago I ran out and had to get more from the 

NHS. My doctor said it was okay that I’ve quadrupled the dosage in the 

past 3 months, yet why this is, I know not. As an enthusiastic proponent 

of all the therapeutic aspects of psychopharmacology and ‘Psych Major’ 

in University, I’ve got to say I’m not sure that it’s sucha  great idea. 

Then again this guy’s pretty anhedonic. So lets pump up the hedonism 

with some Rx drugs!

Doesn’t matter now, cause I’m out of the bloody things… and now 

I’ve got this girl on my bed, and rather than feeling like a hedonist 

whose life is falling apart around him as he struggles with his unrealistic 

97
goals and harsh realities, I feel like some wanker that is running out of 

time. It’s the Hitler in the bunker feeling again. The Red Army’s closing 

in… not to suggest in any way suicide, because the guy we’re talking 

about is way too much of a bastard to harm himself in any way atall. In 

fact he’s the kind of guy that people hate because he’s smug and 

overconfident and condescending, even though he’s only this way 

because of the pills he eats from his doctors, that are now decomposed in 

the great chemical hoover/vacuum of his mind. So now what am I? 

Dear god the girl is beautiful on my bed, but the beauty I see in 

her is all that I see in the woman I’m in love with. This is the problem 

here… and it’s the same thing with the 32 year old alcoholic DJ that 

works at the adventure playground, although we actually have things in 

common, such as the rather relevant archetypal theme of romantic 

rejection… and she’s been sending me text messages all night… and I’ve 

made the rather daft gesture of answering “have you met some girls 

98
your own age?” a bit too truthfully, though I did tell her I still think shes 

absolutely lovely and I really thought it was her that was disinterested… 

why is it always that taking a step back from seeing someone makes 

them come after you like you’re made out of some type of sweet tasting 

edible money that’s been blessed by some jesus guy and satisfies your 

every vice craving. O, the hedonism!

O, Hedonism! O, Hedonism! What have you done to me? My 

dopamine receptors have driven me to drive four (or is it five? Well who 

gives a damn what counts at this hour…) girls/women to my doorstep 

where just weeks before the next has come along the one prior has 

complete lack of interest. She comes. I like her. She likes me. She gets 

bored. I meet someone else. She comes at me at full force and if she finds 

out about the other girls I’m a bastard. But that’s how I feel… like a 

fucking bastard. Because to be honest, all of them but the girl who’s just 

moved back to Texas and my ever­worsening ex in Canada just remind 

99
me of the girl I’m actually in love with. “…and if you can’t be with the 

one you love, love the one you’re with…” echoes Stephen Stills’ voice. 

Unfortunately, in my imagination, its coming out of her record player on 

her bed in her flat where we’re lying smoking cigarettes inside.

A complete and total rotten bastard; this is what I am. I’m typing 

this, and second girl from Connecticut with whom I have spent time in 

London (CT2) or Ms Anne Taylor, we shall refer to her, is sleeping on 

my bed looking pretty, and I have no idea why I’m telling all of you this. 

All I can talk about are my stupid problems in my stupid, chemically­

enhanced, narcissistic hedonist’s life. I should be complaining about 

something else, like perhaps the state of the environment, or something 

like abortion/civil/gay/human/women’s/zebras’ rights or whatever it is 

that us writers are on about these days. ‘…Perhaps a bit of fiction?’ 

thought Frater Albiorix as he summed up his Phildickian ramblings 

stuck to the leather chair he had somehow acquired, across from the 

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pretty girl on his bed, next to the record player with the copy of John 

Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band on the turntable. It was 06:23 and in seven 

minutes was an alarm set to wake the lovely girl on his bed with whom 

he held little bond other than mere residential proximity and a desire 

for the alleviation of sexual tension. The keyboard would have to go 

without depression for just a little while longer, whilst Frater Albiorix 

would take it off its hands.

101
 ELEANOR RIGBY

ONE: Liam, who collects rubbish.

Liam is a rubbish collector. He gets very lonely quite often. He would go 
to the pub, but the people there are frightening. He gets a look on his 
face that scares women away. It’s the kind of blank stare that one 
develops from forty­six years of sexual tension. Sometimes he insufflates 
methyl­amphetamine, which he collects from the knife­weilding 
Jamaican man at the second council flat where he collects rubbish. 
Liam likes Methylamphetamine. Sometimes Liam stays up for days at a 
time sitting in the driver’s seat of his rubbish­crushing compactor truck, 
just pretending he’s driving while he waits to collect more rubbish. 
Liam likes to collect rubbish. Rubbish is what’s been used. It’s what no 
one wants anymore. Sometimes Liam thinks that people are rubbish… 
and he wishes he could toss them in the back with all the other rubbish 
in a neatly tied black bag. Sometimes he does. Then he insufflates his 
methylamphetamine, sets fire to a Marlboro light cigarette and 
masturbates at the steering wheel after parking outside the ASDA at 
5am, as the compactor crushes the rubbish. When he is finished he gets 
angry and scared, and must collect more rubbish… even if it is not on 
his route. Then, after more compacting with stimulant drug indulgence, 
Liam goes home, where he locks the doors and windows, closes all the 
blinds and hides under the blanket on his mattress, staring at the 
spiders on the ceiling.

102
TWO: After Geneva

It was rainy in London when I got back from Geneva…

I walked outside around 2am for a cigarette with my cap and my blue 
sweater just as the friendly security guard, an old possibly Jamaican 
man walked out in his. 
“Hello there” he said
“How are you?” I asked
“Still struggling… yourself?”
“You always say that, ‘still struggling’”
“Well I’ve been saying that since I’ve been speaking.”
“That’s a long struggle,” I replied
“Well when you’re struggling, you’ve always got something to work 
towards.”
I walked inside to write this down.

103
THREE: Open Letter to John, Himself…

Mother­ she had you… but you never had her? 
You can make a guitar sing? 
God is a concept by which we measure our pain?
You don’t believe in Zimmerman? 
You were the walrus, but now your John? 
A working class hero is something to be?
You are he as I am he as I am you and we are all together?

Well, well, well. 
Never has anyone before 
Made such absurdities 
And fantastical claims 
Sound so profound…
Bigger than jesus.

104
 ADDENDA

Ode to Polyvinyl Chloride No. 1

The animals were fucking,
Once again.
Pehaps twice.
The foxes screech like children in pain.
It sounded primal and wild.
Even over the sound 
Of Marvin Gaye…

‘Let’s get it on…’ –instructions
Motown:
Making the animals groove…
To the waves of static 
Released in every dawning moment 
Spinning at thirty­three and one third 
Revolutions Per Minute. 

I’m sure others are awake in this building,
Hearing the same thing I’m hearing.
Awoken by the sound 
Of animals thrusting into eachother…

But then the animals,
Turned out the light,
And drifted off into sleep,

105
To the sound of passing cars,
And foxes fucking…

106
Ode to Polyvinyl Chloride Discs No. 2

Why Polyvinyl Chloride discs?
Because its alive.
Because its got a life and a death;
Sometimes it’ll get injured along the way
But ‘shit happens’ as they say

Sometimes we neglect them
Sometimes they don’t talk right
We abuse and neglect them
We over protect them and 
Never let them play…

Normal ones
Original?
One­Eighty gram reissue?
EP
LP
10 inch
33 or a 45?

Am I coloured and collectable?
Am I rubbish to your ears?
Am I from the one pound bin
Or the shops wall all these years?

When you take me home
Will I be clear
If I play at all?

107
If I had the money,
I think I might buy them all…

108
The Rain Came Down

You only cried because the rain came down…
You just didn’t know it yet.
Unsober tears for no reason,
Or love that just won’t end

But that’s alright…
Yeah I guess it’s alright.

We all come to
Our end
Someday
We all come to
Our end
Someday

109
Ain’t Gonna Be Me

She’s a full decorated veteran
Of the war against herself
She’s a part time lover
Who needs full time help

But it ain’t gonna be
No it ain’t gonna be
Me

No I can’t be asked
To stick around at your place
When your old guy’s back
And I can’t look him in the face

No it ain’t gonna be
It ain’t gonna be
Me

110
Promise Me

Out in the cold for
A Cigarette
I try to remember
The friends that I’ve met
I hope I stay warm so I
Don’t freeze to death
You really loved me
I’ll make a bet

So why don’t you promise me
I’ll be the one you’ll see
If and when it don’t work out?

You know that I’m leaving
So I can forget
The things that you said
The things that you meant
You know you ain’t sorry
That we ever met
You really loved me
I’ll make a bet

111
In the Very Next Room

How do you do the things you do?
How do you…
How do you do the things you do…
When he’s sleeping in the very next room?
Yeah he’s sleeping in the very next room
Yeah he’s sleeping in the very next room

What am I supposed to do with you?
Yeah you…
What am I meant to do with you?
Yeah you…

I think that you get off on this
Oh Yes I do
Yes I think that you get off on this
Because he’s sleeping in the very next room……

112
You Make My World (Cold & Grey)

Once I thought I met a girl
That wouldn’t break my heart
After you decide on that
Is when the trouble starts
I booked it out of old Calgary
And back across the pond
Now I wonder if it was wrong 
Cause I’m the one that broke her heart

Baby, You suck the colour right out my day
You make my world cold and grey
Don’t you know that you do?

The day they arrested Pete Doherty
I didn’t know who he was
A man whose got the same hats as me
Couldn’t be worth such fuss
Now they liberated the ‘libertine’
They set his plungers free
We may wear the same hat but old Petey
Has got a different needle than me

113
Untitled Love Song No. 12 & 35

These empty bottles
Across my floor
They’re just like the ones that were
Here before

The pretty lady
Sleeping on my bed
She’s a blonde with her
Hair died red

But I know I’ll never 
See her again
Yes I know I’ll never
See her again

I once knew a woman
From far far away
When I went to visit I 
Decided that I’d stay

This ring round my finger
That I still wear
It’s been a year now
But I guess that I still care

But I know I’ll never 
See her again
Yes I know I’ll never

114
See her again

115
Still There

The black mascara that you left
On my pillow
It’s still there. It’s still there
It’s still there. It’s still there
From the last time I said, ‘I love you’
It’s still there. It’s still there
It’s still there. It’s still there

And I know…
And I know…
And I know…

I shouldn’t have said that…
No, no.

Your black football T­Shirt from Germany
On my shelf
It’s still there. It’s still there
It’s still there. It’s still there
From the time that you got mine dirty
It’s still there. It’s still there
It’s still there. It’s still there

And I know…
And I know…
And I know…

I shouldn’t have kept that…

116
No, no.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

This Reader is the most minimal yet thoroughly comprehensive 
compilation of my work so far. To provide context for the Portfolio, 
everything after the Third Segment (Dramatic Epilogue & Addenda), 
both my pseudomemoirs and previous short story/poetry are included in 
abridged states. 
The essential product put forth is insight into confessional 
narcissistic self­loathing, fearfully and half­heartedly masked under 
pseudonyms, presented with a design to provide visual novelty, willed 
into the physical universe as a chunk of strange word art written by a 
character­author detached from his own self identity and self 
responsibility after years of experiencing the feelings of shame and guilt 
in response to things both real and unreal.
Some of the events in the story and poetry inspired by the story 
are based on real events. These events are meant to be presented in a 
way such that the reader is experiencing the character­authors’ 
experience first hand, rather than just hearing about things happening 
to some guy. The idea of this writing is to say, ‘I’m just like you, and you 
can feel this to.’ to everyone that reads it, and then hope its actually true. 
The goal is perhaps deconstruction of the judgemental ego in the 

117
readers, and to promote open­mindedness and thus thoughts such as 
ideas, as to create a better world. 

118