Andy Eppler - by D.S.Haines



I have this friend who calls himself "Andy Eppler". I guess he does this because that's his name, or at least according to his good Christian upbringing it is. Either way, the kid is a freakin' genius. I usually described him as a "younger, taller, better looking, more talented version of myself", but that's really not fair to him.

He writes songs about kidney theft and murderous stalkers, while I write whatever nonsense flows from own twisted head. For a while he actually covered one of my songs, but I think he got bored of it. I don't blame him – I'm bored of it, too. The point is, this kid's got it – whatever "it" may be. I can't describe "it", but I sure know "it' when I see "it".

So, last night, I found myself in an empty bar listening to him pour his heart out on stage as he always does and his words struck me like a cannonball of truth. "I want to fall in love with some who finds me unsatisfactory," he belted and I couldn't help but look at the girl sitting next me and wonder…
I wondered if my friends were right. I wondered if she really gave a shit about me or was I just someone to pass the time with, and then I wondered if I even cared. Life is simple and there is no better feeling than sorrow for a man in my profession. I am a writer by trade or by default or possibly just because I have "it" and it was at the moment that I finally understood what "it" is…

Emptiness – Void – Love – Loss –Sorrow! These are what make us great. Think how boring life would be if we were happy all the time, all I'd ever have to write about would be crap like sunshine and rainbows. God, wouldn't that suck? There's a reason unicorns don't exist and it's because they're fucking boring and trite.
So, maybe I do "want to fall in love with someone who finds me unsatisfactory", but is that so wrong? I'm realist by nature and thus I know that there is no gold at the end of the rainbow and that the sun is just a flaming ball of gas that will someday burn out.

We all burn out eventually – some of us sooner than later.
And as for me, I don't really care which category I'm in, as long as they mention my name when they write about Andy Eppler. That would make me "happy".

Thirty Minutes with a Genius - by D.S. Haines


I reading in the dark – my eyes strain, but I don't care as Muddy Waters plays in the background: "My baby's been gone for 24 hours and that's 23 too long," he moans and I think to myself that Jesus must have been a Black Man. There's no other explanation – in fact, there's no explanations at all for us to choose from about anything- anything at all.

Life has been too easy for me lately and I'm scared. I fear the "calm before the storm", because it's April and as we all know…that means "showers". God, I hate sayings like those, but I fear them even more. I'm under budget, ahead of schedule, and everything just seems way too good right now…SCARY!

"Maybe I'm dying," I think jokingly , because it wouldn't matter if I were anyhow. I live for life – I live for the drink, the fuck, the taste, the beauty, and the pain of it all – I live because it's all I really know or understand and I know I understand nothing. Everything is just way too much – too much bullshit, mostly, and I hate crap!

Meanwhile, there's a cougar living in my yard, but I'm not worried. Truth be told, I don't even have a yard anymore – I live in a storefront and have for years, so I don't know where the cougar really came from or how she found me, but it's nice to have her here nonetheless. I enjoy her company even though I know someday she'll surely turn on me and rip me to shreds.

Then and only then, will I understand this life, this pain, this paranoia of the "Good Life". Things can't be easy and yet sometimes they are. I've forgotten how to be happy – how to trust – how to succeed, but I haven't forgotten the hard times. They drive me even now as my fingers speak the words I can never say aloud, "Life is Good" damn it and I was never properly prepared for that.

Sure, I dreamed about it a few times - sometimes with a laugh – sometimes with a sword, but I never believed it for a second… I just made others believe it via my conviction – my work ethic – my eyes. They are a dark brown in color and they can tell no lies, because they really don't know the truth. "Ignorance is Bliss" I wrote so long ago that it's conception has been long forgotten and the words have change a bit, but it's still the same old song that it's always was. Simple…

In a mere seven days from today – it will be 10 years to the day of my first guitar lesson with David Brandon. Maybe I didn't waste all his time…

Magic vs. the Illusions of Ignorance

Legend has it that all magicians hide rabbits in their hats and cards up their sleeves, just like I've hidden everything that's ever meant anything to me. I bury my emotions like a squirrel with a nut. I save them for later, but the secrets erupt. I am a volcano lying dormant - I am a shell of a man lying in wait. There is no hope for people like me. We are victims of our fate. We are a dying breed as far as I can tell. And why not, we are the weaker of the species.

Lately, I've even begun to wonder if I even exist anymore. Are the people around me just characters in my play - my dream - my movie - or I am just a character in theirs? I know I am the pawn, because I have no real power. So then, who is the player? Is it God? Is it divinity that mocks me in my failure? Is it something greater - something bigger - something all knowing that flaps my arms in jest as I plummet towards the asphalt of my existence with no chance of survival?

"No, because Christians don't believe in gravity," I joke, but still fear the truth. Science and Religion mix like oil and water. The oil steals the water's purity with its blackness and those caught in the middle will surely die. Oil means money. Money means war. War means death. And death brings us back to Religion. Everything goes full circle as we spin around in space on a planet made mostly of water.

It is oil that we want. It is oil that we put our faith in. It is oil that we convince ourselves that we can not live without, but it is water that gives us life and so, I predict that our next wars will be fought over water just like the first wars were fought over Religion. Battlegrounds will be drawn, people will die, and I will swim blankly into oblivion without so much as word.

Did my prayers fall on deaf ears or was my fate already predestined in the mind of someone greater. My heart quakes like Mount Vesuvius as my faith lies helpless in a Pompeii-like state of ignorance. "Have I lost faith in God or just mankind," I wonder to myself and then just as quickly stuff back down into my hat - my sleeve. No one notices and I convince them that it was magic. God bless smoke and mirrors, because they'll never know the truth. They'll never know my all encompassing fear. And their Ignorance becomes my bliss.