As time goes by

2010
Long nights under cloudless skies and I was a ticking time bomb ready to blow at a moments notice until you clipped the red wire and set me off. My heart bursted like a water balloon on pavement and I was sweating bullets. The sky never looked so beautiful as it did that night, there in my flatscreen picture window playing the same show over and over again as cars passed by at a snails pace. We sat there long and hard, with nothing to separate us but a patchwork pillow of earth tones and all of my insecurities, choking me up and leaving me breathless. I've had a green thumb ever since that night, playing gardener and planting our seeds in the soil, watering them, nurturing them so that we can grow together, intertwined at the roots.
-Kevin James Whetstone
1996
I cried harder than I had ever cried before. I told my father I would never get in that truck as he was throwing the last of my bags into the rusted out red flatbed of his old Chevy Silverado. My brother and I used to call that truck "The Beast" because it sat on huge tires and when we rode in it we were sitting as high as Truckers in their comfort cabs that they call home for most of the year. Riding in it alongside my father was always one of the biggest thrills for me, and it almost always assured me a free soda and Nachos from York's local 7-11. I used to sit like an excited puppy when it's owner grabs the leash every time I would hear the jingle of those keys as my father pulled them from the hook that hung low below cabinets of fine china in our kitchen. Not this day though. I wouldn't go this time, I was sure of it. Bryan was there. Brendan too. My best friends since I could remember. They shared my first birthday cake that I actually recall. They were cowboys to my indian. Batman and Robin to my Joker. They were how I spent every sunny day in my childhood paradise. I had it all in York. I had A basketball court and lived two minutes from the local pool. I had the best friends I could ask for and spent every day searching out new adventures in the depths of my intricate mind.
-Kevin James Whetstone

2001
I sat in a passenger seat, biting my nails. angry and frustrated to be torn away from everything i had known for as long as i had existed. apprehensive, relocating to a state i couldn't place on a blank map. with thoughts of overalls and chewing tobacco flooding my young head. "these people must be bored out of their minds," i thought as we passed open field upon open fields. with wire looking fixtures i later learned were called "pivots." little did i know that this state held the most beautiful souls my soul has ever encountered. people i'd take a bullet for in a second. hearts that i'd sew to my own. it didn't take long before i immersed myself in the welcoming spirits. spirituality in others, my religion became hills and corn rows taller than my head. my mantra was "the good life." my creed are my people, and my people are my life, and my life is beautiful.

-trace adam lewis

12
Slippery dead dogs are floating down a river.

-Holden Oliver Armstrong

2002
I was getting fitted for my first tux. I was chubby and I sucked in my gut like when I was a kid and I held my breath under water, trying desperately to outlast my friends. I was scared. Sex was a complicated algebra problem on a chalkboard and I was standing in front of the judgmental eyes of my teacher and the heckling of classmates with chalkdust lining my fingertips and sweat on my brow. I was lost. The pants were uncomfortable and i don't even want to start on how cramped and stiff the shoes were. I was supposed to dance in this? My mom smiled wider than the potholes that littered this town, the ones that would make the pavement scrape the fender and cause my father to cringe. She was happy, this was a moment she was waiting for. She bought a 3 pack of disposable cameras and vacuumed the carpet twice. everything had to be perfect for her darling boy, so handsome in his suit and tie. The corvette was a stick-shift, another math problem I couldn't comprehend. My father spent hours on gravel roads with an old Ford Ranger my neighbor owned showing me how to tame the six cylinder machine I held the reigns to, but much like every test I had studied hours for in the fluorescent glow of my desk lamp, the minute the time came to apply my knowledge I froze up, and my mind became a a code even the most skilled hacker could never crack. I killed it twice on the way to the dance. I stepped on my dates foot more times than I can remember whilst shuffling around the dance floor like a stiff corpse. Her gaze was warm. She smiled at me, even as she groaned beneath the weight of my lead foot, she smiled. When all was said and done, my jacket was a rumpled mess in the backseat and my tie was lost in the breeze out that corvette window. We drove home in the silence of heartfelt smiles and the palest glow of a waning crescent moon, and me, I couldn't have felt higher in my life. Everest couldn't touch me. I dropped her off at home and she kissed me hard. Driving home I thought about steering that corvette into the next vehicle I saw.
- Kevin James Whetstone

2003
I was alone. It was dark. I had no idea what to do next. Take a left? Take a right? It's not like it really mattered anyway. I was in this town, and I knew one person -- only one -- who wouldn't turn me in. It was a fucking trip, and I was rolling in it. If it hadn't been for that library and that column to sleep against, with the shadows blocking me behind a hill, the street lamps keeping my secrets, the papers in my bag keeping my thoughts straight, I might have died there that night ... actually, I probably would have made it out alive. I always do, I always will. As long as I could breathe, I could make it, and that's why dying is so dramatic. Life is even more so. I think I wrote something along those lines that night, and it changed everything.
- Kara A. Flaherty

2004
Stare at the stars, they are clear tonight. Clearer than anything you've ever said, anything that's ever escaped your mind and went straight to your mouth. No filters. Do you remember where we were? Yeah, me neither. The only thing that sticks out in my mind is the fact that you still had coke under your fingernails. Six years and counting.
- Kara A. Flaherty

2010
Look at you. You are beautiful.
- Kara A. Flaherty

2010
Chan wrote something here once. He made gratuitous use of the delete key. "Damn you, Deltron! Damn youuu!" they screamed.
-Ryan Deltron Simonson

2010

I can still hear his stern voice. "Walk for me," he said, the slightest smirk on his face giving way to the pleasure he was getting out of this. I stumble. "AGAIN!" he almost shouts, his smugness radiating like the sun when the clouds are scarce and the wind is nonexistent. It was freezing. The coldest day of the year, the worst night of my life summed up into 3 letters...D.U.I.

-Kevin James Whetstone

1998
It's hot and arid. The ocean is too far away to moisten my bones and I'm quite simply dehydrated. Step out of the grey suburban and drink in the pounding sunlight, thrumming and methodical in its pounding regularity. So much closer to the equator than any human should ever be and observe as a child no older than 6 digs through a pile of refuse in search of their next meal. No person deserves this, I no longer believe in a god. What sick masochistic kind of god could we possibly believe in should this sort of thing go on right underneath his nose. He sees everything, right? RIGHT? Maybe not. Maybe he's a half-blind rubbish god. Something that should be included in a fucking pantheon with other gods that look at him like the downs kid and just smile and nod whenever he tries something omnipotent; if not, then we have most certainly failed. You believe in that asshole? Oh right, he simply reinforces your feelings of entitlement to your birth status, and if your birth status sucks, then he simply makes you feel as if you deserved it all along. No. Spirituality is the lazy person's excuse for vehement religion and I willn't stand for it ever again. Tell me you're spiritual rather than religious and I will punch you in the face as you're simply replacing words and thinking that it makes some sort of difference in the cataclysmic reality that we call life. Continue slithering around without eyes like some sort of cave creature all you like but don't be surprised when someone who has rid themselves of the bounds of a phenomena invented by humans shows you reality, life unfettered and the possibility of self. Alone. Become the instrument of your own destruction and that of your enemies. Forward not in.
-Joel T. Roos
1994
i'm young, with blond hair and scraped knees from crashing my light blue huffy. chain-link runs the length of our house on san bernardino ave. i can still remember the address, 18544 san bernardino ave, bloomington, california, 92316. i could run faster than anybody in the world. i can still remember my phone number 909-873-8425. dad bought an above ground pool. my brother and i tipped the swingset over once, and after we regained the wind that'd been knocked out of us, we let out our laughs. eric and i fought like siblings fight, and i'd kick him hard in the shins, then run for my life.

-trace adam lewis

2001
Look at him, sitting there in his matchbox car with a quivering lip, counting out the stars cut from paper sky like birdshit on fresh asphalt.

-Kevin James Whetstone

Boom, Roasted!

Your laugh was helium, filling my heart and lifting it up, up, up like a balloon towards the sky as we sucked down cold ones under the shelter of my white wooden porch. You kissed me hard and it burst within me, and I began to plummet back to earth, falling fast and locked on to you like a heat-seeking missile. It was one of those hot summer nights we spent between warm bedsheets that end up bunched at the foot of the bed amidst a sea of stripped clothing, used condom wrappers and a case of crushed blue aluminum.

I want to say thank you. It meant the world to me. you with your flower dress and tied back hair walking so effortlessly in and out of my life from airplane corridors and Eppley Express van-lines...all at your convenience. On your watch. I used to miss you terribly, staring at my cieling fan pulling air and pushing time.

I don't miss you now. Sure I get the occasional eyesore when when I see you sitting with a cold smile in the back of my mind like lost childhood memories and drunken adventures, but I've got a prescription to kill the pain. She's a bright smile and the most beautiful eyes you have ever seen. She is blonde hair to the shoulders and a pierced lower lip. She is excitement on a rainy day. She is warmth from a blizzard in the dead of winter. She is happiness...serenity. She is super glue to my broken spirit, a quick fix that will hold strong and never let go,

Video Commentary: False Advertising

Cheers, Darlin'!

Remember your last trip to the UK? It was 2006 wasn't it. Winter. The same year we had water fights in our hippie friend's front yard. It was the same year you bought me a case of Miller Lite and wrapped a bow on it. you knew me so well. I heard about it just the other day...your trip. I heard what really happened those nights you never rang me.

You called me almost every single morning, I remember that. You would say how you loved me and couldn't stand the distance, how your heart was going to explode.

My mind moves to Oregon in 2008, sitting on the beach watching the ocean roll in. I remember how static clouded our conversation because the reception was terrible. I remember that call ending, saying goodbye, and how I just sat there writing "I Love You" in the sand and letting the incoming water wash away my words like the shake of an etch-a-sketch, only so I could write them again. I repeated this for some time...those words, because I felt them.

I remember the first time we said those words to each other. I was sweating and my lip was trembling. I was so choked up the words came out like a gasp and you almost missed them, but you were tuned in. A huge smile spread across your face and your eyes sparkled, you almost cried...I almost cried. We held each other long that night, not letting sleep get in the way of the moment. We were holding on like I held your picture in my wallet, never wanting to let our love slip. I remember coming home from Oregon. I pulled that picture out and let it slowly slip from my grasp, the breeze carrying it, carrying you away from me and settling in Eugene. I left you there because I was coming home...home to you. I heard about your evening lover in Europe. I spit when I think of how I drove to Omaha so early in the morning to welcome you back...how we held each other in the terminal. How I shouted "I Love You" at the top of my lungs like they do in the movies or on those commercials for expensive diamonds. I hope your happy now in your big city life. I hope your life turns out perfectly. I hope you take over some company and have more money than God.

I'm just happy I know the real you. after all this time I see you clearly.

As for me, I will continue to smile wholeheartedly and drink all the booze. Cheers!

Thanks Mom!

At 10 I was Batman, running the streets of hidden beneath a plastic mask and a towel my mother tied around my neck.
By the time I reached 12, I was Reggie Miller, spending all my free time in our driveway putting up last second buzzer-beaters to win the game.
At 14, I was Tom DeLonge, rocking out a sold out crowd with my air guitar, singing into a hairbrush and winking to all my adoring female fans.

At what point in our lives do we stop pretending? When does imagination give way to maturity?

Perhaps the best thing my mother ever did for me happened on my ninth birthday.
All I wanted was a Nintendo and Super Mario 3, and after unwrapping all of my gifts, there was no Nintendo.
I was crushed, but then my mother pulled out a very large box from under the counter about the size of the game system, and my heart started racing faster than RUSH drum solo.
I tore into the wrapping paper excitably only to find that there was not a nintendo, but simply a red hat.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked to my mother and said "But I wanted to play Mario," to which she replied as she took the hat from the box and placed it on my head, "but Kevin, you are Mario!"

It was on that day while I was running around my yard jumping on imaginary Goombas that I stopped concerning myself with video games.

Perhaps Ray Bradbury said it best..."Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do."

Thanks mom!

Confessions of a non-practicing hedonist.

HEDONIST Hedonism Heed Honest He-don-ist... I am a hedonist, self-proclaimed, and before you go off and start forming judgments in your head, let me just tell you...I'm non-practicing. For those of you that find yourself scratching your head already, a hedonist is a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification, believing it to be the sole positive characteristic of existing. Happiness is essentially all that matters in life. Perhaps the simplest means of self-gratification is masturbation. With this in mind, take a step back and think...think hard, now don't we all see a little bit of a hedonist residing inside of all of us? Now, like I said, in this respect (playing the organ in the Right Hand Band), I am non-practicing. What's that you say?? NON-PRACTICING?? PREPOSTEROUS...be easy on me people. It has only been 10 days, and 31 days my last attempt at Abstinence, but there are some things a man won't give up and that is alcohol. So I guess I do practice hedonism nightly, because I do enjoy Scotch. It makes me happy, but it also leaves me feeling dejected and lonely with a headache the size of heartbreak and a little less money I could have spent pursuing other ventures.

Column 2 Final Draft

Faith: Losing its grasp on society

And the Lord said unto thee, “Keep holy the Sabbath Day.”

Ok, so really it was just something that a guy carve into stone after he consumed too much wine and talked to a plant on fire, but regardless of what I believe to be true, here we sit thousands of years later, and millions of people are still pouring out their hearts and breaking their piggy banks in hopes of being saved on a Sunday.

Since further back than I care to remember, Sunday mornings to me always meant staring at an old man's ever-expanding bald spot or being repeatedly elbowed in the ribs by my mother in a desperate attempt to keep me awake, because God-forbid I fall asleep in our Lord's house whilst being regaled by stories of his greatness.

I grew up a child of conservative, god-fearing parents who never missed mass. I was put through the private and somewhat elitist catholic school system from kindergarten until graduation, and all throughout my childhood and into my teenage years, my mother would warn me about the dangers of lying, cheating, swearing and sex.

“Jesus is always watching,” she’d say…scare tactics.

I went through the motions that every child goes through when they are put through catholic school for the entirety of their lives to the point of high school graduation, which was basically church, prayers, recess, confession, food, prayers, sleep and repeat.

About the time I walked onto the hardwood basketball court of the Kearney Catholic gym amidst a sea of camera flashes and up on stage to receive my high school diploma, I was seriously questioning the possibility of God, I mean, really, did one man just snap his fingers and here we are?

According to a new report by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, I am not alone in my agnostisized lifestyle. The report, entitled “Study: Young adults less affiliated with religion”, stated that more than 25 percent of Americans age 18 to 29 have no religious preference or affiliation, and fewer than one in five regularly attend services.

This makes my generation the least religious generation among Americans alive today. The report went on to state that only 53 percent of young adults were certain God exists, compared to 71 percent of the oldest group questioned.

With startling numbers like these, it should have come as no surprise to my parents the day I denounced my faith, citing that God was simply an idea put into our heads by a mass collective of pimps who whore out his name, speaking it louder than ever just about the time the collection plates come around for donations.

To me it has always been a cost game. I look at finding a religion the same way I would look at joining a gym. They are all pushing the same product, but it all comes down to who makes the best pitch, and which membership is the cheapest to acquire.

Nowadays, when it comes to the question of my religion, I like to quote Albert Einstein, for I think he said it better than anyone else ever could when he stated, “True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.”

Now those are some words I can have some definite faith in and follow with the whole of my heart.