Blood

       The sight, and taste, of my own blood......
       Can really do it for me.
       Drawing some of the red stuff during intense physical activity wears like a badge of honor. Proof that I gave it my all. Testament that I turned myself over to whatever I was doing. That I, literally and figuratively, left it all on the field.
       Put another way, blood is a big turn on.
       When a musician is up on stage, giving it everything they’ve got, laying out their heart and soul for all to experience, we say that they’re bleeding for their audience. Bleeding for their music. As a drummer, I get to bleed for you, not only emotionally, but physically. I’ve drawn blood plenty of times drumming, the sticks rubbing and splintering against the skin on my hands. I dig it. I really do.
       At about eleven or twelve, when I first considered playing an instrument, I was drawn to the drums, unconsciously at the time I’m sure, in part because of the physicality of the instrument. We drummers may not be able to move around the stage, but we move our bodies in powerful, beautiful, and unique ways. We’re always the sweatiest ones up there, if we’re doing rock music right, and it’s a true physical workout. A drummer can get their whole body involved in their music in ways that other musicians, because of the nature of their instrument, simply can not. And, sometimes.......we even get to bleed. For real. Very cool.
       Whenever I played sports, I wanted to bleed. In fact, I would play with a barely controlled reckless abandonment that assured it. For example, I would play softball, in shorts, and slide into a base whenever I had the chance, even if it wasn’t completely necessary. The fields we played on were not of professional grade, so the dirt was rough and corse. I didn’t just get raspberries on my legs and butt; I got whole patches of them. And those wounds would get reopened, week after bloody week. I would usually be bleeding by the middle of the game, which would fuel my passion, and I would go at it even harder, and get into the game even more. More blood meant more energy, more focus, and in fact more fun.
       When I boxed in college, it was the same thing. My best moment, in my two year collegiate boxing foray, was, in fact, when I knocked a dude on his ass, with a perfectly thrown jab, after he had broken my nose and made me taste my own blood. My opponent’s ability to make me bleed profusely actually did more for me than it did for him.
       This is not a masochistic pursuit. Well, maybe it is. Because it does hurt. Sometimes a lot. And I do derive great pleasure from it. But it’s a different kind of pain/pleasure relationship. It’s pain with a purpose. Maybe that’s the key. The purpose is to drive up the intensity, the commitment, the passion, the focus, the drive, the performance.
       Whether it’s drumming or softball or boxing, I’m not bleeding just for the sake of it. If, for example, I took something during a game and cut myself on purpose, in an act unrelated to my participation, just to make myself bleed, it wouldn’t have the same effect. Believe me, I know, because I’ve tried it a few times, in an attempt to psyche myself up for a game. It doesn’t work.
       The drawing of blood has to be part of the action, a piece of the actual life play. It’s not method acting. It’s not acting at all. It’s real. As real as it fuckin’ gets, in fact. Bleeding forms a connection to external physical reality, to what’s actually happening in the world. Being a man of great introspection, a man constantly aware of his inner world, a man of very deep feeling and very deep thinking, a man sometimes far too involved with what’s happening on my inside and not paying enough attention to what’s happening on my outside, blood instantly bonds me to that external reality. And I need that. My being intuitively knows that. So sometimes it goes out and gets what I need; the spilling of my own blood.
       The energy behind that is the same energy that makes me love to sweat, love to engage in physical activity, love to feel the exquisite interaction of my body with the physical world. It’s the energy that makes me a very sensuous man, a very sensual man, a man who loves to touch and be touched. A man who has a healthy dose of physical hedonism in him and doesn’t ever want to lose that.
       A man who loves to bleed.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Boys Can't Wear Purple

       Riding the subway the other day, a little black girl, around eight years old, was staring at me. Little kids stare at me all the time. It’s probably a combination of physical and metaphysical attributes. The way I dress, my use of jewelry, a vibrancy of spirit, my playfulness. Kids intuitively pick up on all that. When I catch a kid staring at me, I always smile back, sometimes say hello, and send out loving and accepting vibes, as if to say “It’s okay to stare”. When kids stare, there’s the presence of fascination, curiosity, and wonder; elements that are in short supply with adults.
       This little girl smiled back and started talking to me, as her parent looked on. She had bright plastic purple Mardi Gras beads on, and said, with a huge smile on her face, “I like purple!”. I responded, “I can see that. I dig your beads.” Then I said, “I like purple too. I’m wearing purple shoes.”. I pointed down at these killer leather Cole Haan’s that I had bought in Phoenix over a year ago. This was the first time I had worn them. She hadn’t noticed my purple shoes until I pointed them out to her. When she looked at them, her mouth went agape. And her response was very telling.
       “Boys can’t wear purple!”, she said. Boys can’t wear purple. Wow. Eight years old. And the indoctrination of acceptable male color schemes is already firmly entrenched.
       This is what we’re all up against whenever we do anything outside the box. Years of socialization, constantly reenforced through the media, through other people’s responses, and through our our thoughts. We get it from all sides, all the time. And we are usually unconscious of it, and just accept it as dogma, without even realizing it. And if we do realize it, we fight an uphill battle with ourselves and with our peers.
       How do we deconstruct all this shit? How do we get to a place where we’re okay with more vibrant self expression, more emotive behavior, more emotional content in our living?
       Well, the first step is realizing it exists, on a very deep level, within ourselves and within our culture. Our awareness of how prevalent and ensconced this strict, judgmental, and limiting way of being is can allow us the opportunity to work with it. The first step is always awareness. Of making what is unconscious, conscious.
       The next step is choosing to take some action. Deciding that this belief system is hindering your vibrancy, creativity, self expression, emotional availability, and aliveness, and that you want to do something about it.
       The actions, the exercises, the new ways of dealing with this, are what I’m working on. Techniques that can help free us from this prison of obsessive unconscious conformity and repressive socialization. It’s taking longer than I thought, but soon I’m going to be doing podcasts, webinar’s, and live presentations that will assist people in breaking down these oppressive walls. I’ll be inspiring people to express themselves more freely, more vibrantly, with more authenticity, more vulnerability, and more aliveness. The book I’m writing works with this too.
       We are feeling beings, capable of so much more expression, vibrancy, and emotional aliveness than we realize. I will guide people on that journey.
       I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating here, because it’s so poignant. An ex-girl friend of mine once paid me a compliment of the highest order. She said, “It’s not that Clint thinks outside the box. Clint doesn’t know there is a box”.
       Conformity can be four letter word. So can “box”.  
       Fuck the box.



©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

The Human Bling

        Bling. I like the word. I like what the word means. I like looking at it. I like wearing it. I like bling.
        When I use the word bling in this context, I’m referring to anything really colorful, bright, sparkly, and eye-catching. Everything from inexpensive trinkets to costly, exquisite, one of a kind pieces. To put it another way, I'm not talking about the size or the cost of the wand; I'm talking about the magic in it.
        On a superficial level, it’s as simple as being attracted to shiny, bright, sparkly, colorful objects. I’m drawn to them like a moth to a flame. Everywhere, and in all contexts. Clothing stores. Coffee shops. Nick-nack and jewelry boutiques. Car dealerships. Living rooms. Sometimes I can feel something colorful and shiny before I even see it. My bling radar scans the environment at all times.
        I have never questioned my own masculinity, nor that of another man’s, based on a bling affinity. Heterosexual men drawn to bling, however, are in the minority; it is indeed an uncommon, different aesthetic. But I am uncommon and different, across the board, across the spectrum of life. So this bling thing makes sense.  
        Bling makes a statement. It stands out. Because of how it looks, because of what it represents, because of what it is. It doesn’t have to do anything in particular to be noticed; it gets attention through the power of its colorful and explosive expressiveness. Through its mere existence. Through its mere presence.
        I certainly see some similarities between myself and a piece of bling. And my external bling thing is merely a reflection of an internal phenomenon. My affinity for the physical manifestations of the bright and shiny and sparkly is because I am connected to that which is bright and shiny and sparkly and full of light inside of me. Bling on the outside reflects my bling on the inside.
        But this was not always the case.
        When I was a kid, I was fat. Not obese, but certainly very chubby, with more than a healthy share of insulation. I had to wear the “Husky” line of pants because the regular kind wouldn’t fit me. I had a very poor self image, and never felt attractive. None of the girls liked me, even though I started finding lots of them very cute and desirable as early as eight or nine years old. In essence, I was an invisible kid. I felt invisible, and I acted invisible. I had no bling.
        At some point, late in high school, I began shining. From the inside out. I’ve continued to develop that shine as an adult. It comes from within. If I don’t feel it in here, I can’t express it out there. Not with any authenticity or conviction, anyway.  
        I don’t deny that my early traumatic existence as a fat, invisible kid with a lousy self image has something to do with who I’ve become. Maybe every time I go shirtless, exposing a fit, muscular torso, I’m silently flipping off everyone who ever made fun of me, called me fatso, beat me up because I didn’t fit in, or shunned me because I wasn’t one of the cool kids. If that’s still part of what makes me who I am today, so what? We are all driven to succeed or excel by a multitude of reasons. Show me a person who’s made a lot of money but grew up dirt poor, and tell me that their upbringing doesn’t have something to do with what still drives them today. You drive your Ferrari. I’ll go shirtless. To me, it’s the same thing.
        Through self-reflection, introspection, therapy, meditation, self-help books and seminars, twelve step programs, and countless other modalities, we can awaken to, and become more conscious of, ourselves. If we are conscious of our motivators, aware of the factors that have gone into who and what we are, then we have the capacity for self acceptance and compassion. For ourselves and for others. If we are awake to our own story, we have more capacity for love and truth; we have the awareness to own what’s ours; to shift what no longer serves us; to capitalize on that which makes us unique. In our greatest pain also lies our greatest gifts.  
        And a new superhero identity just came to me.
        Clint Piatelli: The Human Bling.
        I could do worse........

    

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Jacking Off

I would rather be ashes than dust! 
I would rather that my spark should burn out 
    in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. 
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom 
    of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. 
The function of man is to live, not to exist. 
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. 
I shall use my time. 

- Jack London

Bong Hits By The Pool

       “Bong hits by the pool?!”
       Running down the stairs, a beer in one hand, and a clear plastic milk container ingeniously converted into a smoking device in the other, my housemate paused before asking that question on the very tip of his tongue. He heard voices coming from downstairs. Voices he didn’t recognize. Voices that may not fully appreciate the spirit of his intentions.
       A few minutes before, when my housemate had gone upstairs to grab his home made apparatus, there was nothing unusual going on in our living room. Nothing unusual, that is, for The Skunk House.
       The abode I shared with six other gentlemen during my last two years of college was a vortex of hilarious absurdity. From the outside, the place looked like a common, unremarkable duplex. Something happened, though, once you entered the back door of 825 Ardmore Avenue. Like Alice going down the rabbit hole, reality shifted. The only thing that made sense was no sense. You never knew what you were going to see. You never knew what was going to happen.
       On this particular sunny, hot, May afternoon, there was a fully watered kiddie pool in our living room. In the kiddie pool were four naked men: Me, Mr. B, Mr. C, and Mr. Bubble. The three of us were having our way with Mr. Bubble, who was willingly providing the services we paid him for. Namely, bubbles. Tons of them. Hanging around the new addition to our living room were a few other men and women. Some alcohol. Some.....other stuff. And laughter. Lots of laughter.
       We had run a hose from an outside spigot through a window and into the house. Made sense, right? How else were we going to fill a pool in our living room? The problem was, we were in a drought, and metropolitan Philadelphia was under a water ban. Our landlord, who didn’t like us anyway, saw the hose going through the window and got.....suspicious. So he called the cops.
       You can imagine our surprise when our landlord Frank entered our sanctum flanked by two of Philly’s finest. At first, we were all rather flummoxed. A kiddie pool full of water, naked men, and Mr. Bubble in one’s own living room surely wasn’t illegal, was it? Not in America. Not in the city of brotherly love. When they explained that there was a water ban in effect, we argued that our actions were not in violation. After all, we weren’t using the water for something frivolous, like watering our lawn. We didn’t even have a lawn. We explained that we had just come from our Senior Class Picnic, and had been drinking. Heavily. And, legally, we added, for we were all twenty-one. Fearful of possible dehydration, we thought cooling off in our pool was not only prudent, but was precisely what a doctor would have recommended. If any of us had gone to a doctor. Which we hadn’t.
       They didn’t buy it.
       Unfortunately, that was not the end of our disappointment. Whilst in our home, the powers that be noticed something else contentious. Namely, the plethora of pilfered street signs that littered the surroundings. But that’s yet another story. And one that I will tell, along with many others, in another installment of The Skunk House Chronicles.
       By the way, after the cops and the landlord left, we broke out the bong and did hits by the pool. A pool with no water in it, but a pool nonetheless. Skunks are very adaptive animals.

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.