It was on July 9, 1994 when I went through with making 1 of the most difficult decision of my life and that was to move out of Florida because I couldn't stand it there any longer and live on my own for the 1st time. I felt really scared about going through with this. For 1 thing, I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that the guy I was renting a room from in his house was going to turn out to be a prick and sure enough, he did turn out to be a prick!

      I arrived at my new home in south Minneapolis shortly after 5PM on July 13, 1994. I rented a truck to move my stuff from Florida. I also had some heavy furniture with me and I was hoping that the guy that I was moving in with would help me carry it in because I don't have the capability of carrying in heavy furniture on my own, but he tells me that he has a bad back and won't help me. The next day, I still didn't get the furniture off the truck, so I asked that guy how am I going to get that heavy furniture off the truck. He tells me that I am now in the "real world" and I am going to have to figure that out on my own. Now, that is something that a fucking prick would say! A couple hours later, that guy agrees to help me bring in the furniture after making me sign a lease and paying him an additional $290 for last month's rent, but the most amazing thing is his back problems suddenly and magically cleared up!

     As I said, that guy was an authoritarian prick, which made living on my own a difficult thing to adjust to. After I drop the truck off, I left some cardboard on a tree at a neighbor's house and I was in a hurry to get the truck back on time. When I come home that day, the neighbor put the stuff back in his yard and my roommate tells me in his prick tone of voice, "people here don't like it when you leave your shit in their yard." Another thing is that guy I lived with would leave the bathroom door open when he took a shit. There were a lot of other times he would be talking on the phone to someone while he was sitting on the toilet taking a shit and he didn't bother to tell them that he was taking a shit. I believe that if you are going to take a shit while talking on the phone to someone, you should tell them that you are taking a shit! Another thing is he would have a blind girl come over and then he would fuck her. I remember I was in my room 1 day when the blind girl was over and I heard my roommate go: Moan Moan
I wanted to run up to his room with a tape recorder and tape that, but I didn't have enough nerve to do that, but I wish that I did! Not only that I couldn't walk across the hall without the floor squeaking, so there is a good chance that he would have known that I was up to something, if I had done that! Another thing that happened is in January 1997 that guy offered to let me move into a bigger bedroom for the same rent if I signed another lease. In August 1997, while I was getting ready to leave for work he tells me that he was going to raise my rent. I told him that I am in the middle of a lease and he can't raise it until the lease is done, but asshole claims that he can raise it once. I went to some tenants group and they tell me that he was no legal right to raise the rent in the middle of lease, so I tell him that I am going to continue paying the same rent until the lease his up and the fucking asshole starts yelling and screaming at me and tells me that that his house is his castle and he is the king and he can do whatever he pleases and he started blackmailing me and threatened to start throwing out my stuff and things like that. I knew that I had to get away from that lowlife douchbag asshole. Thankfully, I was able to find a studio apartment for only $20 a month more rent than what I would have been paying with his illegal rent increase.

     Right after I moved, I really had a difficult time adjusting to living on my own. It was the 1st time that I was asking myself, "why couldn't I be like most of the other people who liked living in Florida with it's horrible weather, not to mention all the other repulsive bullshit about that state." People who like Florida like it because they have shit for brains and I was thinking to myself, my life would be so much easier and I would be a lot happier if I had shit for brains! There is a lot of truth to saying, stupid people are happy people!

     To help me adjust with my move to Minnesota, I decided to go to a place that had a "support" group for men in hopes that I would meet people who are cool. Instead, it turns out to be a mind control indoctrination center. I told these people that I am a writer and this 1 guy who happens to be extremely uptight and mediocre wanted to see a couple of my stories, so I give him 1 story I wrote called Enema Heaven, which is about a guy who becomes a serial killer because he has a dream of opening up a store that specializes in the sale of enemas and he becomes a serial killer after he fails to get his enema store business started. In 1 part of that story, a guy enjoys sticking his dick in a cat's litter box for his sexual thrills. Can you imagine someone who is very uptight with no sense of humor reading something like that? The other story I showed him was called, Romantic Bowel Movements and after reading my stories, this guy tells me that I need therapy and he couldn't finish reading my story because it offended him because I referred to a lot of characters as pricks and fucking assholes. Meanwhile, another guy (John) at this men's group was not only an asshole, I consider him to be dangerous. John tells me that I shouldn't write stories with profanity because it wouldn't get the approval of society. Fuck Society! John then tells me that this is Minnesota is the land of morals and standards and I should not write stuff like that. I didn't come to Minnesota for morals and standards; I came to Minnesota for stuff that's cool. Meanwhile, the guy who read my story told me that there isn't a single person in the entire world who would enjoy reading my stories because they are so vulgar. Wrong! I told these people about my friend Joon who absolutely loves my stories because Joon is cool. Then John tells me that a real friend would tell me that writing stuff like that is wrong if they cared about me. I then tell him that my best friends use a lot of profanity and John tells me that I need to changed the people that I have for friends. This place is not much different than a religious cult! John told me that he told me that I need to have my right to freedom of speech taken away from me because he "cares" about me. That's a powerful way of manipulating someone into being indoctrinated into their mind control. If I had met Jim Jones, he would have said the exact same thing! I feel extremely threatened when some asshole tells me that I shouldn't see my existing friends anymore.

       The very 1st open mike that I read something at was in August 1994 at a place in St. Paul called the "Bad Habit Café" and I decided to read another story I wrote called Killer Queen which is about a drag queen who comes back from the dead after his lover injects him with sperm after being murdered by his fundamentalist Christian parents. A lot of people didn't like my story, but there were some who did. Anyway, the guy who goes on after happens to be a born again Christian and he told everyone that he was offended because I said bad things about born again Christians in my story. He also asked me if I was gay, which was none of his fucking business! This religious nut published his own zine and a couple of months later I pick up his zine and he ends up mentioning me. I had no idea that I had so much power! He was also upset because the born again Christians in my story are members of the Republican Party. Gee, I don't know what had gotten into me to think that born again Christians are Republicans! He also bitched because my story contained sexually explicit homosexual sex acts! As for open mikes, it took until 2000 before I came to balls. I know that I am out of time and that sucks and that is just some of the experiences I have had in the past 10 years since I moved to Minnesota.

There is never enough time to share every experience at open mikes and that fucking sucks, but there is plenty of reading material in Pat's 2004 Vision of the World Page and hopefully he will get somewhere with it someday and unlike so many other writers and poets who give up, it doesn't look like Pat will ever run out of new material!