The Search for Health in Decadence

In Conclusion:

2010-02-16T01:55:00.000-08:00

The only way to fight against an ever more alienated world is to live fully. Breathe in fresh air and live with commitment and devotion to what you believe in. The trouble so many of us have is in discovering what it is we really believe in. Is it security? An exciting job? Experiential experiences of travel and consumption? Is it love?

You must discover that for yourself along the way. But I will tell a little secret - it is the people that matter most of all.

All of everything in life affords us learning experiences, and in that regard nothing is a wasted experience. But I will maintain that I've made some mistakes.

This blog is not one of them, but it chronicles some of the moments I've experienced including some of those mistakes.

At this moment in my life I have the clearest mind I think I've ever had. There is a new and yet familiar world out there for me. Everything is about to change and yet revert back to a state of familiarity as though the world has rediscovered its genesis. As though I rediscovered my humanity.

In the years that I've written in this blog, I have noticed many changes in myself. I have a growing comfort in writing about uncomfortable things. I have found that I have made true connections in my life that challenged my beliefs about the kind of loneliness I would be destined to suffer through my life. I have found comfort in solitude. I have found comfort in friends. I have found ways to challenge myself, and so have my friends.

I want to take apart the over-used phrases that "life is a journey" and "it isn't the destination that matters, but the path you take to get there."

Living in the "now" and enjoying life as it is happening is good advice, but I think that it is often misunderstood. Life cannot be enjoyed unless you are moving toward something. Life is a creative act. To give life meaning, choices must be made. Not just choices, but commitments. Commitments have values based on how big the commitments are.

For instance, for someone trying to lose weight, each 20-minute workout session that is completed is an important commitment, however short-term is. But the question arises, why are you losing weight? If you're committed toward life-long health, then this small commitment is quite important and meaningful in a larger picture.

And this is the key. Commitments in life work with each other. Commitments, along with their actions, determines what has value more than words alone ever could.

So value is a matter of choice. Obsessing about cars makes cars valuable to you. Making sure to donate money to worth causes, makes those causes valuable. But only when done with conscious volition. If you accidentally or incidentally save someone's life, you aren't showing that you care for that person's life. Intention matters, but so does ineptitude.

Make sure you choose your values carefully, or they will choose you.

I've given a lot of thought to my values, and I feel no need to share them here in great detail. But I will say this: they are surprisingly simple and straight-forward. Life isn't actually all that complicated, even when it seems most to be.

I've given a lot of thought, and I've determined that this will be my last blog entry here. I have several reasons for this, and I will share them now:

1) My life has changed dramatically since starting this blog, and the general theme doesn't fit my views anymore.
2) I am at a crossroads for great change in my life now, and I'd like to start this new beginning properly with a new blog.
3) I'd like my next blog to be organized better and to have a better domain name.
4) I'd like to catalogue my future posts better and make them more searchable by type.

In my next blog, I want to write about love and beauty. I want to write more about connection. I want to write about the meaning of sexuality. I want to write more about family and what family means. I've grown tired of wandering the mazes of postmodernity and the holographic simulacra and simulations scintillating the terrain without finding that balance of humanity in my life. I'm ready to explore the idea of deserving to be with someone who can understand me, love me, and care for me. I'm ready for a new chapter.

If you want to know the address of my new blog, contact me. I will create it sometime in the next several weeks.

2010-01-29T03:26:00.000-08:00

1. Prologue

I'll explain to you when dreams are dreams
when the wind weaves and weather dithers forever

I'll explain feelings seeping through ceilings
like echoes of ghosts whispering a toast:

to all ye men and women
who seize the day

I remember myself as a boy
as if it were a molotov movie
combusting on a Sunday screen

I watch myself in anticipation
knowing what will happen
enthralled to the unchanging plot

and I come to some brutal acceptance
that this impression is my self
narrating some representation of me

2. Subtext

I want to be loved
for the right reasons

3. Point

the semen of the season
a man creates with his body
twitching fibers not hardly
begun to be out done

he loves with all of his being
or not at all

4. Crescendo

the sadder the city that swallows
treads ground backwards tracing
undressed redresses raw and hallowed

into the maw
I dive between your legs
into the depths of your identity
that you toss against mine
in mighty waves

glistening wet incandescence
reflects light on the city below
making us glow brighter
in stark contrast

5. Counterpoint

I will exist in two parts
both of which you may grasp
with your nurturing fingers

I want to love
for the right reasons

so take it all in
with a breath of infinity
rolling past the hills
toward the ranging skies
and on to a blooming oblivion

6. Epilogue

I know it will be true
when you look at me in that way
where I feel myself
in how you see me with your eyes
while meeting yourself in mine

At the Crossing

2010-01-23T03:31:00.000-08:00

the revolving moon has sucked the tide out
and in its wake for this breath
we are just that much closer

the water's edge is a nice reprieve
from the mowing clamors of the city
blanketing the streets at night

can you feel the kisses blown your way
from my direction? they are
endless in fervor and imagination

my path is lit neither by sun nor moon
rather by a mass of glowing bodies
of jellyfish hovering near the surface

this congregation is particularly ancient
in their slow undulating movements
transfixing a starlit path

we are now both so young and old
engaged anew in this timeless narrative
fresh as each new radiant sunrise

fully felt against the ocean's horizon
a resplendent blinding white curtain
silent and shimmering with awe

Regaining the Stars

2010-01-17T01:47:00.000-08:00

the old man in the fog
suffered hearing loss
from the weight of the air

his eyesight turned poor
from the slimy pressure
and his hedgehog left him

staring out from the window
he'd imagine the stars
entwined in love-making rituals

each pulsating pulsar
ignited another nebulae
dazzling the stars to expand

the autumn wind tattered
his window with broken leaves
peppering his life with imagination

archangels were dancing
and their deft movements
cast off a brilliant meteor storm

the leaves were meteor twirls
alighting the thick night
into a celestial dervish

to which he was the patron
rocking back and forth
to the hypnotic beats

after a particularly stormy night
he worked up to a fever
aligning his body to the planets

he slept with heavy breaths
burning the misty air
that suppressed his senses

awakening with a start
he felt his senses tingling
with a rejuvenated spirit

he set out to the mountain
with his walking stick
and an insatiable desire to ascend

by nightfall the peak was his
and his neglected body ached
as he collapsed on a bed of moss

below him lay a new field of fog
and above the clearest sky
he'd ever seen in his life

the dance had become him
and he was the pirouette
at which the Universe orbited

Emerging from the Void

2010-01-16T21:21:00.000-08:00

I have changed my mind. In fact, everything has changed really.

For the first time in my life, I feel an abundance of life by sharing myself with another person. For the first time in my life, I've felt safe enough to tell the truth. I'm not afraid and I'm convinced that I'm ready to give it my all and risk the worst depression of my life if it doesn't work out. In fact, it is the only possibility - I simply cannot let myself not try.

I feel young again. The pressing crisis of the passing moment never lasting long enough. Each second invaluable. How have I made it this far in my life without experiencing this? This rugged, intrepid belief for the first time that I can truly be known and loved for it.

I have been crying multiple times each day since the Haitian earthquake. I feel so raw. I know that this feeling would be deadened if not the abundance of life swelling in me now. Life should be lived and tragedies are all the more tragic when you feel this way. I feel more connected with humanity than ever before. And should that I cry even more, let my heart swell with all of its emotions.

I've fallen back in love with D.H. Lawrence. These words ringing in my ears:

“I am in love - and, my God, it's the greatest thing that can happen to a man. I tell you, find a woman you can fall in love with. Do it. Let yourself fall in love, if you haven't done so already. You are wasting your life.”

I am trying not to overstate the truth, that there is a lot more ground to cover. No, what is happening is different. I've discovered an unending well within me, a thick magnanimous ocean telling me that I can love with all of my being. I've learned that I can truly fall in love and live in love. I have discovered this ability inside me, I've found that I've not been lost to the void but that this glowing tender ember has been sitting inside me for so long waiting to ignite. I just didn't see it, or was afraid to look.

Now I am just waiting for the opportunity to let these growing feelings develop in the proper way and to be fully expressed when the time comes. This is not just a dedication to myself, but to you.

I've noticed I've been using the word "faith" much more in my sentences. And the reason is that I've really found it... for the first time I've found a vibrant, sacred belief in myself - in my own humanity.

Whatever happens next, I've been given a gift that exceeds anything I've ever held in my hands before. I've never felt so ready for the rest of my life coming before me.

2010-01-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

the sounds of poetry
are these engines
pressing the train
along the track

in a night of fog
and desolate cold
the bellowing whistle
lights the way

I've never felt so much as now
that I own absolutely nothing
and my poverty allows me to love
each moment with a aching sigh

it feels terribly good to live

climbing the hill
to escape the fog
with sudden clarity
stars pierce the air

I see at once
a million ways to love
in this reverence
I set forth

to try them all in succession
like counting the stars
in the quiet recesses
of a hill draped over fog

what a lovely curtain
this earthen shell is
that I am floating upon
to the train whistle's tune

Wild Wild West

2010-01-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

Some believe that the wild west is a thing of history or folklore. This is not entirely the case. The wild west is an idea as strong as the oaks nestled into forgotten canyons along the deer tracks by the mountain run-offs. It lives on eternally in the hearts of men who have no master. It is in the eyes of every drink aimed at overtaking a drunk.

The old Indian killers kept scalps for rewards, and ears as trophies. They raped and they pillaged. They killed tens of thousands of buffalo. They turned everything into a steamy wasteland of possibilities that should have never been explored.

The frontier is still here. It is in the earth underneath my house. It is the dust settled on my television and bookshelves. It is in the air I breathe.

A great withering sigh escapes from the frontier's remains. It is a nameless sigh, with the listless meaning of sighing for the sake of sighing.

I have not yet seen riverboat gambling nor dredging for gold, only the old swampy quagmire left behind. Only the old gold teeth held in museums as a reminder that all bets must be paid in full.

The wild west lives on, lurching under the pavement. The frontier extends yet further beyond the eye of any man or satellite imaging system. You cannot find it in the back channels of the extended cable package, nor in the independent film aisle in the movie store. It lives on as the itch behind your eye that would leave you blind were you to scratch it.

I felt out of a tree once as a child, cutting a hole in my bare belly from a branch. The scar is faint now under a growth of hair indicating the changing of time. It is there though, plain as day, like a fraction of a memory.

Life is like that.

The wild west is a fiction, and it always has been. It is an over-active imagination for people who have had terrible childhoods. It still exists because we need it to. It holds branches at bay and turns the most pathetic of dives into exotic saloons and whorehouses. It turns desert into cinema.

When Kool Moe Dee released his hit song "Wild Wild West" in 1988 about growing up on the wild side of downtown 129th Street, he knew this truth. Growing up in a movie is better than growing up in darkness. And years down the road when Will Smith came back to him for a remix with Dru Hill and Stevie Wonder for his new movie of the same name, there was no denying that truth.

"Wild Wild West" turned out to be an awful movie, because it was too obviously what it was advertised. That is, empty spectacle.

When performing the song at the 1999 MTV Movies Award show live on television to promote his movie and album, Will Smith gallantly took the stage in a purple suit on horseback to thunderous applause to the theme of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." He burst through a simulated saloon door to the main stage. He started his rap with a cadre of dancers behind him in flashy clothing. He called Kool Moe Dee and Dru Hill with Sisqo out to the stage. Sisqo emerged from a platform with pyrotechnics belting the hook of the chorus. He jumped off the platform and they all danced in unison together demonstrating skill, dedication, and practice. Halfway through the song DJ Jazzy Jeff cut up the break to the repeated cry of "breakdown!" And in the last moments of the song, Stevie Wonder appeared suddenly on the stage playing a saloon-style solo to end the song.

What you won't know by looking back at this history through the annals of the internet video collection, is that Stevie Wonder was left stranded on stage after the performance. Looking lost and confused and hopelessly blind, he eventually was helped off the stage so the awards show could continue.

The was an unforgettable moment for me, that by far eclipsed the fanfare of the spectacle that took place on the stage moments before. There was a pierce through the veil.

This was the one true moment.

Connected to the Past

2009-12-31T00:16:00.000-08:00

I tend to view the past with a sort of disdain for the ills that human history has inflicted upon the world. Exploitation being first and foremost on this list, followed by horrible amounts of death and destruction... but I've realized, in fact, that I have need to connect with history. To feel a sense of collective meaning that extends beyond knowing things, but feeling. There are impactful moments that continue to resonate with me.

1) Each time I listen to Gregorian chant albums I feel drawn back into a time-line that pulls me into my European ancestry. I feel the pull of the music against the stone walls and against the cathedral halls. I feel the weight of the religious words swirling around me, and I feel their holiness and their questioning somberness in an unexplainable world. Kyrie, eleison! Lord, have mercy on us.

2) Walking around in the city center of Braşov in the heart of Transylvania I felt the age of the buildings take over me as the scene took me in. The Biserica Neagră (Black Church) dominates the cityscape and you get drawn in by its simultaneous timelessness and deep, aged majesty. I did not wish to leave Braşov and I could have spent all day, and many days in the awed presence of that building with over 600 years of history surrounding it.

I have more connections to make, and I am being pulled so strongly back across the Atlantic with all of my being. Nothing is coincidental about this. No, this pull comes from the most logical and emotional aspects of my being. A return to my ancestors' homeland is in my future...

Meeting You in the Elephant's Song

2009-12-30T21:09:00.000-08:00

I met an elephant on the moon
he was tall and elegant
like a British attendant
in an expensive perfume parlor

moving with simple grace
while swinging his trunk
across the white moon dust
creating a fantastical haze

he told me he was ancient
and measured days in revolutions
cast around the earth
in elastic sighs and wails

tilting his head back
he raised his old trunk
trumpeting a sad song
thick with sinews and steam

a heavy wind blasted forth
with an odd Saharan breath
and a Mediterranean mist
impounding a crater oasis

the deluge was your skin
rippling under the water
pressing gentle waves
across the moonscape

with a sudden deep breath
water rushed toward me
covering my pressing legs
as I swam up toward you

your breasts piercing the plane
rose and fell with riptides
swelling up from below
I was pulled toward you

as I reached your shore
drenched in glowing moon water
warm with timeless creation
I slid in to embracing arms

and then I knew the meaning
of the elephant's sad song
echoing forth from my being
with our unified breaths --

it was not really sad at all
but tender with the touch
that carries gentle weariness
of our intimate vulnerability

we all must live with the urgency
of being the last of our kind
roaming the surface of the moon
with the grace of our delicate fragility

Poetic Fragments Mingled in the Night's Hushed Breath

2009-12-26T01:02:00.000-08:00

Are difficult times of life
shaded of a certain color
to make the present glow
in stupefying contrast?

Eyes of the ocean;
I, of the sea,
Halcyon hymnals
Beckon to me -

Please, touch the back of my neck
and run your fingers through my hair.

I want to feel protected and fragile
like the innermost Russian doll.

I want to feel dazzled and virile
as a sudden tempestuous squall.

Draw me into you
like a moon's orbit
toward the horizon
of a stilled expanse,

a clear reflection
in unending luminosity
breathes the night
awake at its apex.

Eyes of the ocean,
I, of the sea,
Deep incantations
Reckoning me -

Anew on planes of creation
built upon the joists of night
a canticle by candlelight
upon a full flickering flame.

Your breath upon mine
heavy as the sky
twined in harmony
embodied in time,

pressed together
in celestial gravity
an archetypal body,
an old Mariner's Rhyme.

We are our own poetry.

Eyes of the ocean,
I, of the sea,
Maritime chorales
Echo infinity.

Four Moments of Reflection on Practical Creation through Imagination

2009-12-22T23:42:00.000-08:00

1. brief meditation upon your skirt

an exquisite Austrian skirt
purchased from a second hand store
cascades like wind currents

it dances on its own
a whirling dervish
slowed by the earth's gravity
pulsating gently from the floor

everything in existence is meditating
and I am the meditation

I am learning a new kind of balance:
patient urgency

2. remembering Johannes the Seducer

Kierkegaard broke his engagement
to Regine Olsen by pretending

he entered brothels creating
an image of infidelity
to break her heart

that was the easy way

then he wrote Either/Or
featuring a seducer's diary

how similar they are
machinating their lives

Johannes pretended he cared
enough to keep himself interested
and flocked to the next woman
before his first seduction completed

pretending is unimaginative
because it is cheap

I understand you, Soren,
and don't think I don't see
you wrote from a place guilt

3. whereupon we create together

I have played the part
given to me to its end

true imagination is constructive
building beyond its bounds
in seismic ripples from your skirt
dropping fresh succulent apples

the script of my life has ended
and I need a new authorship

I have learned that William Blake
often took his wife to his backyard
where they were the founders of humankind
living the myth of the Garden of Eden

naked for all to see:
remember - shame came after
the Tree of Knowledge

he understood the need
connecting all of his being
to the divine moment of creation

I will pick your apples
from the ground
and eat them

4. a hommage

Piter Piter, snowy night,
In the city's wondrous sight;
What song beckons from thy chest,
Carry words we may ingest?

Flitted flurries come and go,
Winter's melody bestow;
Your hands, mine, across the sea
Connect electronically.

Where the Dreamers Dream

2009-12-19T00:15:00.000-08:00

how many times have I watched
you speak to me in silence?

when half the world sleeps
and dreams are marbled busts
assembled on territorial borderlands
directed notably inward

the masters of culture perched
with prominent beards and chins

we are the dreams of dreamers
undecipherable words dance along
transatlantic currents deftly
caressing one day's night

one night's day
I fell into your eyes
and the ocean dived in
to rescue me

owls watched with a subdued eye
while you dried me off
with a Mediterranean breeze
thick with Aeneas's mythological memory

it was trumpeted from Ganesha's trunk
hinting of spice-filled melodies
he was worn upon your back carefully
interstitial space filling his fingers

I heard him well

the melody warmed my skin
and I harmonized with my breath

the owls took flight
and grew into condors
blotting the sun away
with bellowing hoots

in the growing shadow
I entered a vixen's den
searching for a bright moon
to reawaken the day

she gave me bright pink paint
and pointed me to the origin of dreams

from the afterglow of your eyes
a path offered me forth
along the border inroads
and a mischievous smirk met me

finding a confused bust of Karl Marx
unsure of which direction to face
the pink paint quickly covered
his skeptical bearded visage

suddenly I saw everything clearly
in its lucid illuminating shock
you grabbed me with hands wildly pink
and we ran playfully in stride

and in that moment I heard with supple clarity:
the danger of imagination
is in its truth

but the night was ours

Time Travel is the Mine Field of Existential Freedom

2009-12-14T22:29:00.000-08:00

NO FATE BUT WHAT YOU MAKE

These famous words from Terminator 2 ring in my ears tonight. Sarah Connor carved the words "No Fate" into a picnic table before deciding to destroy Skynet before its paradoxical growth to power can lead toward the nuclear annihilation of humanity and the subsequent enslavement of mankind. You see, the robots came from the future and the technology left in the past was the technology used to destroy them.

How do you fight against the future when you know what the future will be?

This is the metaphor for our existence. We aren't fighting against the future coming back to destroy us; we're fighting to exist in a world filled with infinite choices and no ultimate authority to make decisions for us. This is the sort of situation that Sartre describes as being your own God. This is not a point of arrogance or some sort of usurpation, this is a description of having to choose for yourself.

Freedom, then, is an awareness of this responsibility of being able to choose. "Freedom" is revered as a sort of holy thing here in the United States, but I fear that many people don't understand it. I see many bumper stickers tell me that "freedom isn't free," which is correct... but for the wrong reasons. Most people that have these stickers talk about the sacrifice of the military and the use of force abroad to support freedom. This is not why "freedom isn't free" - it isn't free because of the responsibility one has toward freedom.

I watched Manderlay last night. It is a film about a small community in the South that ignored the end of slavery and continued to have slaves grow cotton into the 1930s. Grace, the protagonist, arrived with her father into this community and decided to forcibly end slavery with her father's mobsters. She refused to allow the unjust share-cropping system to replace slavery which was effectively in place in other places in the South at this time in history. Instead, she gave the slaves the legal power over the plantation.

As the story progressed, the effort of changing the social dynamic of the plantation proved impossible. The oppressed kept their oppressed mentality, and the more power given them, the more confused and uncomfortable the situation became. Finally, in a terrible moment, everything collapsed. Grace was asked unanimously by the freed slaves to run the plantation again as their owner. She learned shortly after this request that the slaves had previously chosen to renunciate their freedom for the security of a simple, structured life. Please become our beneficent dictator.

By God. Horrifying. Choosing slavery. Grace wanted out of there immediately. She, who had "freed" the slaves was now imprisoned by the situation she created. Wilhelm, the old slave who advised her through this process kept saying "we're not ready."

We're not ready. Understand that this is the key to everything. We're not ready. Who is ready for freedom? Truly. Freedom isn't free. A large portion of the population votes for authoritarian leaders because authoritarian leaders provide security. And many use religion to provide security from the unknown. Thinking and change make people feel insecure.

Here's the problem: many people aren't up to their freedom. And too many others are more than willing to dictate what others should do with their freedom for them. This is a problem as old as time. The social contract theorists took this problem on. Hobbes noted the need for the consent of the public by suggesting a mandatory pledge of allegiance toward a unitary king. Locke took on these ideas, agreed that consent was needed, but liked the representative democratic approach. Machiavelli wrote two books about government. His book about democracy stated that democracy was the best form of government, but it required an engaged, informed citizenry to use their civic virtue to make it work. His other, and notably more famous book, talked about the inevitable need for a beneficent dictator in the absence of a working democracy. These philosophers following Hobbes realized that people needed to rise up to responsibly govern themselves, and all had their doubts that people could effectively do that.

Power is a strange thing. Those who are oppressed have power over those who oppress them. George Orwell realized this when he had to deal with a rampaging elephant while stationed in Burma under British rule. He knew that the elephant did not need to be shot, but did it anyway because he felt the pressure of expectation from the crowd of the Burmese. Power dynamics make the oppressed and the oppressors act their roles, it is a psychological reality. Milgram's shock experiment demonstrated that people were willing to shock someone to death if someone with authority told them to even if they didn't want to. The United States has power of China because they've lent too much money to us. Christian non-profit groups that help in Africa need poor orphans to help to stay in business. Power and powerlessness become an identity - a role to live up to. But so much of it is generated artificially.

There is no solution to those who want an authoritarian safety net. There is no solution to those who want to be an authoritarian safety net. These people exist and the rest of us have to learn how to exist with them.

Clearly, it would be better if we embraced the paradoxical truth of time travel stories: choice is the central and only value in life. The abdication of choice, and the willingness to accept that abdication from a position of power are two paths that lead down the same road of self-nullification. The truly most remarkable people in history are those who pushed the boundaries are forced people out of their comfort zones from whichever side of power they resided in. Thoreau's letter from prison, Gandhi's march to the ocean to make salt, Martin Luther King Jr.'s march on... poverty (yes, poverty... not what you were expecting), Cindy Sheehan's vigil to ask Bush what cause her son died for, Tank Man in Tienanmen Square... and on and on and on. People's boundaries must be pushed, and it will never be enough... but we must never replace injustice with injustice. Manderlay makes this very clear, but historically we need look no further than the fallout of the Belgians leaving Rwanda and the genocide of the Tutsis that followed.

We need to ask more of everyone, and it may never be enough.

2009-12-10T22:58:00.000-08:00

A sense of awe and wonderment.

And the question of how to get everything I want...

My life has that sprinkling of magic again that I've sorely needed for so long. And the material is mostly immaterial except in the case of proximity.

Strange how little things like getting flipped off by a Native American in a random unexpected moment can be transformed into something life affirming and spectacular.

Life Doesn't Happen to You

2009-12-08T01:38:00.000-08:00

For all of the negative things that I am dealing with now, I've had what many people have said is a surprisingly good attitude. In the last several years of my life, I have come to realize that everything truly is an opportunity. The end of a relationship is an opportunity for you to face yourself, your patterns, and resentments. The death of a loved one is an opportunity to honor that relationship and continue the legacy of that person's life with your own. The loss of a job in an opportunity to forge a new future and push toward new opportunties, and seeking new opportunities where you didn't know there were opportunities before. The loss of income and even possessions like a house is an opportuntity to change your lifestyle, to humble yourself, and seek help from others.

Jean Paul-Sartre talked about how every situation offers choice which allows for the full expression of free will. He said this was limitless and gave the example of being in a concentrate camp to prove his point... even if you had no way of avoiding getting into the camp, once there you can react in a wide variety of ways, internally and externally. He lived through that, and it certainly made him stronger... for myself, I wish never to endure that kind of human suffering.

Regardless of what I wish will or won't happen to me, my lack of control does not mean that life just happens to me. I am understanding now more than ever with my attitude that life is what you make of it. And there are so many opportunities, in fact, maybe more found in adversity than outside of it.

2009-12-06T00:56:00.000-08:00

the world is contracting
and we're all getting a little closer

waterwheels wear hats made out of hay
spun by robot warrior samurai machines

it all sounds faintly familiar
like an old fairy tale

perverted by sexual tension
and industrial revolutions

Tiger Woods's penis is in the news again
riding a chariot to Oedipal destruction

even if I had my own marketing department
I'm pretty sure that just one woman

would be enough

if her arms and legs
weren't battery operated

Reflections on Losing a Dear Friend One Year Ago

2009-12-05T00:09:00.000-08:00

Exactly one year ago someone special to me lost her life. I put words last year to the process of death, and the details of the service which affected me in ways I was unprepared for. I did not put words to why this woman was special to me, because that was harder than narrating what was happening in the moment.

In my small boarding school, I typically had 5-10 students in my classes. This student finished her time with me differently than most. First, she's the only student to get into her e-mail in my class to make secret plans to have someone pick her up in the middle of the night. She was rebellious, and I can respect rebelliousness if it comes from a place of individualism (even if it isn't thought out well). She was caught, and I made fun of her dearly for that.

She ended up needing just a couple specifics credits in her last term, so she found ways to expend all of her extra time in my class, I believe maybe three of four out of the five blocks in the day she was in my room. I was her favorite teacher. She'd get fired up about politics, and use her time researching where she'd live, photography, creating a budget, and generally was quite responsible. She was easy to talk to, and listened to me with a careful ear and asked insightful questions about my feelings and life. By the time she left I realized that I liked her a lot more than I thought I would when I first talked to her. We were to keep in touch and I'd share my music and movie suggestions with her, because she liked my taste and we had some things in common.

She graduated, and exchanged a couple messages online, and then I hadn't heard from her in about a year. Then, in the most random night, I showed up to a Flogging Molly concert with my (now ex) girlfriend and her friend who drove to the show from quite a distance to see this band she loved, and was basically was the reason my girlfriend and I were at this show. Personally, I never had listened to much Flogging Molly. It was fun music, but not something to listen to on CDs... something to listen to live and jump around to.

I showed up to this concert after a concert of my own. I performed in a concert band several hours prior to this, so I was stuck in my white performance shirt (untucked, no bow-tie), black slacks and socks, and felt rather uncomfortable and unlike myself. I put a sweatshirt on over this ensemble, but it quickly became too hot for that and my performance shirt, so by the end I was a sweaty mess holding a few shirts in a dashing v-neck white undershirt. As I'm in that haze of the moment, after a song I look over and hear "Hi Will" and see her. I am speechless. She says her name. I say "I know" and then she explains that she moved to this town. We talked after the show and I met her boyfriend. Older than her, quiet but confident looking guy, but in typical clothing for this kind of affair. We got each others' contact numbers and left.

It was what happened after that moment that really set this woman apart from all other students I've had. She made a point to actually use that number and talk to me and invite me to any event she thought I'd be interested in. We met and had coffee several times and talked about life in a very serious and deep way, but also joked around. She came back to the school for a couple days, and spent almost the entire time with me and sat in on nearly all of my class. She had grown up, and she demonstrated with her actions a new dedication to her life and a seriousness about making the most of it. She was working, she had a nice apartment, she was organized, she had plans for herself.

On those several days at the campus, my student turned from being my student to one of my closest friends. It was easy and ancient like when you see an old friend after a long time and feel like you haven't skipped a beat. And she challenged me, she wouldn't take my bullshit answers to questions about things that were difficult, she pressed me which is something that so many people find difficult to do. She challenged me, but she was graceful and non-judgemental and the care in her demeanor proved it was from a place of caring.

Not so long after this, the difficulties I had with my girlfriend finally led to us breaking up after living together for three years and spending the significant portion of the two years prior seeing a lot of each other on weekends and extended breaks in school or work. It was traumatizing, but again this former student was the first to offer her support. She invited me over to dinner. We hung out for a whole evening with another wonderful former student and watched a movie and hung out with her boyfriend and his group of friends. At the end of the night, we had a deep serious talk at her little dining room table while everyone else watched the end of a favorite horror movie. It was one of those talks that stay with you, that are unforgettable like an anchor in your life. I was lifted out of the depression of ending a relationship and getting stuck with a house that I didn't want and could barely afford to keep on my own, while my ex-girlfriend skipped away with no responsibility and over half of my savings as a parting gift. I realized that night that I was loved and had a community stronger than my pain. I realized I had a friend that was eternal, that I could see hanging out with like any old friend - at any point in my life when the time allowed for it. Who cares about the house - this is the stuff that matters.

We talked a few more times on the phone, and made plans to hang out again on a phone call that took place in the first week of December to meet the next week or two. She didn't make it to the next week or two. She died in a horrible wreck with her boyfriend on the way back home late at night.

There hasn't been a week since then that I haven't thought of her. I've kept her card from her service close at hand and see it every morning when I start my day. Without really having dealt with a death like this before, it was really difficult for me. As the last year moved on, I realized that I hadn't really lost her... that what she'd given me would last forever. I miss her quite a bit, and writing this now brings tears to my eyes, but she showed me a true deep friendship and the value that my teaching could have. I am changed forever.

Thank you for everything. I continue to love you and promise that the lessons from our friendship will make my life better as a tribute to you and what you've done for me. I hope to model the compassion and love that you've modelled for me. I give my endless gratitude for having been blessed to know you.

2009-12-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

snow fell tonight - it would

I watched movies with my parents
until late in the evening
as my dog slept on my chest

I escaped into the easy world of romance
where love emerges from disdain
in small packaged moments of tension

I settled into a warm blanket
grasping my laptop absently
checking scores from around the county

maybe someone will log on
and tell me in a panicked moment
that they always have loved me
and they're sorry for everything

it will surprise me and make me cry
and it will be exceptionally sad
when I respond despondently, "oh"

because I simply can't believe it

I know who I am
and love fits into a box
tailored by knights and magicians

it feels old like a classic novel
wrapped into celephane Disney World

and the grit of my memories
chafe against celluloid dreams

I sit on the other side of the screen
watching and taking notes

I am the Dues Ex Machina
and I wield a pen

or as tonight - a laptop
propped above a small dog
oblivious to the work it takes
to resist the pulls of tethers
endearing me to feel sadness
when the main characters finally kiss
in a predictable candid moment

I am the machinations
around which things happen

2009-12-03T01:44:00.000-08:00

Living with grace may be an impossible task if you associate yourself with people who lack it. I'm trying...

A Year Later

2009-11-30T22:45:00.000-08:00

the light of your eyes
in the sky reprise

when I looked at the moon
in the frozen still air
feeling the lungs compressed
against the gentle shock
I fell into the moment
grasping points of stars
captured in the halo

when I remember love
it never hits me
in the past tense

it swells back in quiet moments
when the sky is rich
with an indefatigable reverie
of the meta-narrative
we have built ourselves within

a year ago I fell alive into a deep well
filled with the primordial swirls
of where things come from

I was alluvial
dredged on the rich sediment
feeling warmed by life yet lived
in utero thick fluid flowing
black back-lit light

the moon's radiation on the surface
penetrated down to the bubbling sinter

two glowing eyes like Saturn's rings
eclipsed the moment and receded

in the last light of your eyes
an endless celestial reprise

2009-11-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

I imagine myself old. No longer attractive by modern terms, with my thinning greyish-white hair, and an increasingly weathered face. Once athletic and fast and powerful, I am slower, less coordinated, and have less energy. And I don't know whether to imagine myself alone or not.

Is it better that way?

I'm reaching... away from our house I've been living in. Away from this town I grew up in. Away from the security of routine.

Why is it after failed relationships so many people want to know if they were really loved?

Anyone can be manipulated into trying not to hurt someone's feelings. Anyone can lie to themself to feel better about their own choices.

The path toward living in good faith is a path of darkness. The putrid night and the sweltering heaves of morning.

It isn't so much that people want to be good. No. People just don't want to be bad. To be known as bad.

It takes a rare leap to go beyond this fear of being known to actively shaping your life in pursuit of the good.

Let's be honest for just a second: I want to impress everyone. Everyone. I want them to see something in me that makes them notice.

I think this desire is natural, but there are also natural limits. Let it be on its merits. Let it be real.

Maybe I'm different than others because I really wish to be impressed by everyone I meet. Impress me. Seriously, impress me with something real. Don't try to impress me... just do it.

A human being reaching his or her potential is a beautiful inspiring thing. Not the Hollywood story, I don't need the part about falling down and getting back up. I don't need the dog fighting, the drugs, the negligent homocide, the adultery, the wide-stances, or any of that. Redemption is misunderstood in our society. People like redemption too much. Too often we root for the abusers, the narcissists, and the ambivolent. We like the drama, we like the debate.

I struggle emoting my feelings, but I can write them in stark contrast. Despite this, without a doubt I know that I can love with all my being. And I'm certain I can be loved as readily. It doesn't even frighten me.

Love is easy. Impressing me is easy. Forgiving faults is easy. But living...

So when I'm old, and my talents and abilities are fading... what will be left of me and left for me? Do other people my age ask this question?

I'm quite hung-up on the idea of fatherhood, because I would love to have my own kid yet none of the conditions of my life are suited for it (let alone being single). You can't draw up a plan for fatherhood, like getting a new job, or moving to a new city. It doesn't work like that unless you're a heartless machine that would settle for anyone to mother your child. Who would settle for anyone to stick it through with you for the next several decades of your life (at least)...

How can I think of children now? More than anything I just want a woman's arms, and her soft voice to talk to in the dark hours of the night.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T22:50:00.001-08:00

I am thankful for:

having my health
having a supportive family
having an awesome, loving dog
having supportive friends
my sports teams having good seasons
music
literature
and many other things

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

2009-11-26T22:49:00.001-08:00

I love the sound of rain at night.

Taking Myself Too Seriously

2009-11-26T22:28:00.000-08:00

I'd like to spend some time talking about the other end of the spectrum. While I believe that we live in a responsibility-adversant, hedonistic, consumer culture, there are also limits one should put on one's self in the realm of taking one's self too seriously. While I feel a renewed need to take myself seriously in regards to my passions and moving forward in life, there are things I need to be wary of:

1) Being judgemental: While I have a path for myself that requires a sort of focus and attention to detail that will be very difficult, time-consuming, and make it very difficult to have a "normal" social life (as if I ever had one, let's be honest), I need to be careful not to be judgemental of other people that have lifestyles radically different from my own. First, it is important to understand the attitudes and behaviors are largely shaped by larger cultural cues, and for everyone that is engaged in activities that I dislike or aren't interested in myself, there are many factors that push people toward those things. In the past few years I have come a long way in looking toward macro cause-and-effect patterns, and I need to remind myself that nothing happens in a vacuum.

2) Being overly self-absorbed: This is tough to balance. I understand that my interests that drive my passions are viewed as esoteric to most people. I need to remind myself that my interests are mine, and while they may consume me and give me fire to get through my days, they are not everyone's and nor should they be. I need to remember to pay heed to my passions, and to also step outside of my realm frequently for perspective, creating and maintaining relationships, and to keep some spontaneity in my life.

3) Speaking over people's heads: Every profession has its lingo. I just spent a day with my aunt's husband who constantly feels a need to share how smart he is by talking about things he feels he knows more about than other people. I need to be able to function around other people without showing off, speaking to them in a way that makes them feel ignorant or spoken down to, and I need to be able to speak about things outside of my expertise comfortably without trying to redirect it toward my expertise. Take what others say for what it is worth, and always try to find some value in it.

4) Being sanctimonious: When people try arguing with me and I vehemently disagree with them, I need to be able to accept it and move on.

5) Accepting set-backs: There are going to be times when my motivation will decrease, my creativity will wane, or I'll find difficult obstacles in my path. I need to be able to accept set-backs, be ok with not reaching my goals as quickly as I'd like if I do what's in my power to get to them, and move forward from whatever situation is at hand. I need to see the opportunity in everything, even the set-backs.

If I can do these things, I think I will be able to reach a good balance in my life.

Taking Myself Seriously

2009-11-25T23:19:00.000-08:00

Listlessness is a product of many things. My listless phases of my life have been marked by feelings of alienation toward other people, feeling rejected or afraid to approach women, uncertainty about what I want to do with my life, depression, insomnia, and feeling stuck in a situation that I want out of.

My talents and abilities have always been very important to me, for a variety of reasons. When I utilitize my talents and abilities, my sense of self-esteem feels good. I feel that I am accomplishing something, and moving toward something. When I don't utilize them, I feel that I am wasting what little time I have to do something meaningful with what has been given to me. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to take action on my talents and abilities, not just for myself, but also in a Sartrean for-all-mankind sort of way.

Just recently, in the past several years, my conceptual framework for large systems in the world has become much clearer. Specific knowledge that I learned piecemeal in high school, college classes, and news in articles and on television has interacted and interconnected. My writing ability has improved, my thinking has improved, and my hunger for knowledge and moving forward with my thoughts has become insatiable. Frankly, I've grown bored of teaching others what I know, and feel a need to be taught once again - formerly or informerly.

As my life is getting rearranged due to circumstances I have no control over, all causes of my recent listlessness are evaporating. I'm recovering a razor's edge of focus that I've missed. I was already moving in this direction recently before these drastic changes took place, but I can see many opportunities to move forward. Luckily, money is not paramount for making this opportunities reality, because I don't have any.

Long ago, when I was a child, I decided that I'd avoid all kinds of recreational drugs and to this day I've never as much as drank a sip of wine, or smoked a cigarette. I've realized this ethic recently matches so well the ethic of Islam. I could likely feel quite comfortable in a Muslim country were it not for the poor track record on women's rights, free speech and freedom of expression, privacy, and anti-American sentiment present in most of those countries now.

I take myself seriously, and this ethic does not negate that which is so important in our society of having fun, but rather all fun procedes from my sense of responsibility. I know to many this will make no sense at all, and I know to others who are so fully driven by their passions that they understand it all too well. To my friend, the musician, that continues writing and recording songs because he has to. To my writing mentor who writes, because she may well be dead if she didn't. To my favorite professional athletes that stopped using the word "sacrifice" to describe their lifestyle, because their lifestyle is dictated by the dedication to their talent... To everyone that I know that success isn't a measurement of what other people think of them, but a process of following their passion, they must understand. We are a minority, no matter what monitary gains we make or don't make for our passions.

To some, witnessing how we push ourselves ceaselessly makes them question "why not slow down and enjoy life?" But a life slowed down becomes a listless life. My advice to myself from here on out is to find a pace that won't burn me out, and keep pressing, for as long as I can.

Exactly Ten Years Ago

2009-11-25T23:14:00.000-08:00

I was in a high school assembly for a Thanksgiving celebration before our 4-day weekend. Members of the football team put on a very racist skit depicting Indians and pilgrims, with the endorsement of our school. I was sickened. I yelled out that it was racist, but other people were laughing or cheering as they finished their skit with a McDonald's eating contest and I was ignored. It is interesting how we remember moments like this, and how they stay so vivid in our minds all these years later.

Thoughts for those who read my blog

2009-11-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

As far as I know, I don't have any regular readers. I have several posts that get more hits than others, and I want to say a few things about this.

I have had a lot of hits for people searching for the phrase "Living with someone who has mental illness" linking to this post. For those of you who are suffering or struggling with this yourself, I wish the best for you. In that post I outlined for myself how I felt about my particular situation and the lessons I learned for myself. In general, there are things I want to say to all of you out there that are dealing with your own situations:

1) If you are feeling trapped and unable to think clearly, then find time for yourself and get some space. Give yourself an opportunity to see the situation from new eyes. If you are being treated as though you are not allowed to have any space, privacy, or your own internal world then you would do best to get out, and get out quickly.

2) Make a judgement about how you are affecting the situation that you are in. Are you enabling the behaviors that are bothering you? Are you sincerely helping the person that you are with? Are you taking care of yourself and getting your needs met while trying to help the person you are with? What is your role, and what is the role of the person you're dealing with?

3) If you're in a situation where you can't leave (for instance, taking care of your mother), then reach out to people. The last thing you need is to be isolated. There is lots of compassion out there in the world for people that try to do the right thing.

For the many of you that google that phrase "living with someone's mental illness" and find me, I'm sorry that I'm probably not going to be much help. My heart goes out to all of you that are at your ropes end and searching the internet for some clue about what to do next is a last recourse for yourself. If anything, if you feel like talking, I'll listen, and I'm sure others will too. Therapists are usually a good way to go, but also feel free to post (anonymously, if you want) anything here if you just want to get things off your chest.

Now, the for the other big search terms related to Simplexity, Cell Tech, algae, and everything related to that (linked to this post and this post): I suggest you just don't buy that crap. You'd be wasting your money on something that isn't going to help, potentially is dangerous, and you'd be rewarding dishonest people that are manipulating desperate people for a living. I'm sorry for you guys as well that you feel that need to do whatever you can to help your kids, or whoever else and don't want to use drugs or tried and found it didn't work. I hope those posts are doing a service for you to realize why you shouldn't waste your money supporting those scam artists.

It seems that people come to my site looking for answers and help more than anything else, and I do hope I provide something for you that are searching. Mostly, my poetry and philosophical and cultural/political musing are ignored and never read, which disappoints me because those writings are much more important to me (and often, better written, in my opinion). But that is the nature of the internet, and I've grown comfortable with the realization that my writings are seldom read and not well marketed. Perhaps in the future, I'll revisit my poems and writings and do more with them... in the meantime, let them sit out in the open gathering dust until someone else stumbles upon them and finds something they like. I imagine it like The Neverending Story with some exciting connection bursting off the (electronic) page.

Moment of the Trip

2009-10-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

While watching an exceptional performance of Shakespeare's "All's Well That Ends Well," Helena (the leading protagonist who spends most of the play vying for the love of Bertram who isn't interested in her until realizing his folly at the end of the play) looked straight at me in the audience and delivered the following lines directly to me:

O, were that all! I think not on my father;
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him: my imagination
Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?

And she looked away saying the last words.

It gave me chills and perplexed me.

2009-10-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

I can tell you all this right now -

Everything I write is a confessional. Every action, every word... everything. Were that it weren't... were that it was easy, that my life flowed from me like an easy meadering brook. But instead, I feel a constant need to instead tear each thing out of me in pieces. This is how things come from me. The alternative is absence, silence, or neglect.

The advantages (or disadvantages, as you see it) of this, is the intimacy of it. I can't help but feel the weight of what I do in almost the same light as Sartre writes of the "anguish" of how each decision in life matters as we would life as if we were living for every man. There is a weight, a heaviness, a seriousness even in my humor and comedy.

I am alienated, and I can say I've been thus all my life since I can remember. But don't mistake that for emotional distance. That is something else. I carry my emotions close to my chest and feel quite heavy the weight of what transpires around me and with me. As much as I may write about distance, alienation, and meaninglessness or the collapse of meaning... do not forget that the weight of all comes from a real emotional place and I feel this all come forth as a confession, an inescapable will to testify. I can't feel shame for it, despite knowing this discomfort this may put others in. It is my being.

The Curious Case of Howard Mumma's book about Albert Camus and Christianity

2009-10-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

Several days ago I finished reading a book written by an American pastor who claims to have come close to converting Albert Camus to Christianity near the end of his life. While most of what Mumma says is plausible, I think he greatly misunderstood Camus's "pilgrimage" toward delving into religious studies and extrapolates an "end point" for what Camus was doing that doesn't necessarily follow.

Most people might read the book trying to extrapolate whether or not Camus was well on the path of becoming a good new born Christian. Even if what is said in the book is completely true, I don't believe that Camus would be a "Christian" in the sense that most Christians are.

Camus was suffering greatly at the sense of emptiness that pervades a life built upon absurdity. If we have nothing but the world we make in a world filled with horrible evils of suffering (like the Holocaust), even a life where meaning is built upon revolt can be exhausting. Camus was looking for something more to life, more of a connection. His self-described pilgrimage doesn't strike me as an attempt to escape the wearying emptiness of living in constant awareness of the absurdities of life, but rather as a spiritual journey to connect with the existence he had in a different way.

I noticed several things in the conversations Mumma had with Camus. Camus was most engaged with the mythological aspects of the Bible. He liked the stories. Keeping in mind that Camus did his master's thesis on Greek philosophy, engaging in Christian mythology for Camus is similar to the tasks of engaging Greek mythology and stepping into the myths as he had done with Sisyphus, Prometheus, and others.

Camus touches on the problem of theodicy, or how can an omnipotent, benevolent God allow evil in the world? Mumma makes a fairly reasonable argument about God leaving it up to people, but hoping people work toward good and having a stake in it.

Throughout the book, Mumma shows that there are similarities between those who search for the problems of living in an absurd world without God as there are problems for those who live in an absurd world with God. Mumma doesn't make arguments to Camus about the afterlife, which is important when reading this, Camus is not looking for escape or relief in anything outside of his current existence - he is, however, looking for more from his existence outside of himself.

Keeping in mind the despair that Camus was suffering through at this time - his personal and professional meltdown after Sartre's attack on The Rebel, his wife's multiple suicide attempts, his recurring crippled bed-laden spells caused from tuberculosis - it is clear that the starkness of life could be reawakened with a new sort of mythological thinking in his life.

I hope that Mumma was being honest in his work, and I also hope that he didn't portray Camus in a biased way in order to advance an agenda for converting atheists to Christianity. I could sense in his book that he did have a sort of desperation toward converting Camus and he demonstrated a lack of understanding basic facts of Camus's life by calling the car wreck that ended his life an "obvious suicide" when he was travelling with others in the vehicle.

In fact, Mumma basically says that which would be expected: he grew up with a tacit understanding that God existed and the Bible was correct because he was born into it. He grew up "with God" around him, and clearly struggled with the idea that one could live without this basic understanding of life. Camus approached existence experiencing a constant struggle with feeling confident in his understanding of what life was about, despite writing one of the clearest essays about the problems of existence in "An Absurd Reasoning" (about the problem of physical and philosophical suicide if life is absurd) and the accompanying parable "The Myth of Sisyphus." Mumma seemed very confident in his beliefs, but also came across (in my point of view) as almost fake and manipulative in his concessions to Camus about his struggles in life when he seemed to so clearly be against confronting his own faith. His eagerness to convert Camus comes across as a sense of validation for his own faith, which ought to have absolutely no connection between the two.

These meetings supposedly took place in the 1950s (Mumma refused to give dates as per Camus's wishes, but still published this book against Camus's wishes). It strikes me that The Fall was published in 1956 because Mumma the converter comes across with a similar cockiness that Jean-Baptiste Clamence did as he leads a stranger through "lessons" from his life as he shares his truths by revealing the underbelly of his misgivings. It makes me wonder if Camus's meetings with Mumma served more as fodder for his writing than the amazing conversation of an existentialist atheist as Mumma portrays it.

Regardless, this book shows that Camus is ever more complicated and multi-faceted than he is often portrayed as, and I can appreciate that about him. The book creates new problems for me to sort through, but I don't think this book in any way diminishes the works that he has done and his unflinching attempts to always live an authentic existence in good faith. Camus's willingness to engage Christianity at that point in his life is a fine testament to his humility, which is one of his greatest attributes.

Theater

2009-10-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

It was a good time to see a play tonight, with thoughts about drama swirling in my head because of Albert Camus. I've never acted in a play in my life. The thought never occurred for me to do it in high school, and my lack of experience and involvement in other interests has kept me away from this field.

One of my good friends was one of the leads in this play and portrayed the villain. At a few specific moments he did things and said things that gave me chills up my spine. The ugliness of his character came from a place inside of him that I'm sure he was tapping into. It came across as authentic and truly scary. The woman in the scene with him, had been acting through the entire play as though she were blind exceptionally well. It was believable that she was blind, and it was so strange after the play to walk up to her and shake her hand and notice how different she was when she wasn't acting blind and also how much shorter she looked up close than across on stage.

Going along with other forms of my favorite art- music, painting, literature... these things take you to another place, and that emotional content is so important. Regardless of whether I'm writing poetry or playing music, I like it the most when I'm able to really feel it. Even when feeling it comes from a dark place inside of me (it usually does, in all honesty) that release and connection creates such a good feeling that can last for a long time.

We need these releases, we need them to be connected to our inner-being, and it requires a large degree of vulnerability. I admire my friend for what he did tonight, because he had to take a leap of faith in himself to take on the role and a leap of trust to allow himself to go so far with his character.

It strikes me that Camus must have loved theater for this reason. You are given permission through acting to be yourself in ways that aren't acceptable socially in any other circumstance. Getting involved with drama allowed Camus to delve into himself in the solidarity of others, and no other facet of his life allowed him to do that.

In two weeks I'm going to be seeing five other plays, and I'll have more thoughts on this, for now I'm just going to appreciate my friend's performance and the medium of drama and how powerful it can be.

Solidaire and Solitaire - First reflections

2009-10-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

Broaching this topic is rather strange as I sit alone in a coffee shop with an uncertain future as to where I'll be sleeping tonight watching a woman across the room vigorously text on her cell phone while sitting alone with her legs crossed.

I've finally finished another comprehensive biography of Camus's life, but this one focused much more on Camus the man than Camus the philosopher, or Camus the writer. Camus the man interests me as much, if not more, as the other Camuses. There is enough material in this book to sustain me and my thoughts and reflections for many months, but I realize I have a need to re-read many things I've already read with a new sense of context. Wikipedia and a few of the biographies that I have read through do nothing for generating a real portrait of Camus.

Why is it so important for me to get this portrait of Camus?

There are too many coincidences between the content of his philosophy and politics with my own for me to be able to simply accept his words without wanting to know what inspired them. I have a fairly decent understanding of myself (in some respects) and I have a need to understand how he came to these conclusions. I need to know how his life shaped him and the language he used that extends so wonderfully from the page.

I'll be writing much more on Camus, but I want to start with a theme that I've noticed throughout reading this recent book. The continual movement between periods of Solidaire (solidarity) and Solitaire (solitude) in his life. How wonderful that these words are so strikingly similar, because in many ways they have the same function.

I am impressed by the anecdotes about Camus's life and how people in his village all knew him and loved him. His funeral involved everyone in town. He consistently helped people in somewhat surprising ways, yet also so consistent with his personality. He used money from his Nobel Prize to help wives and children of men who were killed in the Hungarian Revolution. The talk of the "human cost of war" was often overlooked when talking about WWI and WWII in contrast to the great cause of these wars. After WWI, the mass destruction created a vacuum of meaning that lead to absurdist movements like DADAism, but also left a more tangible mark on Camus personally due to his father dying in the war. WWII is often talked about as the great cause to defeat the evil NAZI expansionism, Holocaust, and brutal occupation. Camus continued to talk about the simple costs of life on a much more individual level. The respect for individuals, and the feeling of solidarity he has with those in the human experience, particularly those who suffer is exceptional. Likely, so much of this has to do with growing up without a father, poor, with a mostly mute mother, and suffering most of his life from very painful, crippling episodes of tuberculosis. Camus understands suffering, and his "Mediterranean sensibilities" along with his university work on the Greeks and interest in theatre are such obvious places for Camus to obsess that we should almost expect it.

The gravity of the seriousness of Camus's passions weighed on him, no more than the Algerian independence movement near the end of his life. He attempted unsuccessfully to create a peace between the French Algerians and the Algerians, and suffered greatly as his true home, Algeria, tumbled into a violent mess and ceased to be the true home of his youth.

Camus's retreat toward the solitaire was very necessary for him to face these great problems, but it wasn't easy. He often complained of not accomplishing anything, and had terrible bouts of writer's block that lasted for years at a time. This can help give me some perspective, but I'm beginning to really feel the weight of having truly not done anything as each year passes.

The push and pull of needing to feel a sense of solidaire in his life and retreating to a solitaire state are reflective of his idealism and moralism and the lack of finding these ideals/morals in the world and in himself. This tension is central in all of his books, and the importance of this cannot be understated.

Women played an important role in this, yet a complicated role... I will discuss this further at another time.

Music to Nightfall

2009-10-14T20:33:00.000-07:00

Mozart's music eases pain
(scientists tell me)
so I don't listen to it.

I could describe melancholy
as an awareness of memories
distended and languidly
enmeshed with the sensual
experiences of reality.

Loneliness can be a comfort
like an old immobile uncle
seen once a year
at family reunions:

safe and familiar
with few surprises.

The moment is its own refuge.

Music is its revenge.

Music can intensify pain
so tonight I'll avoid Mozart
because I want nothing
to soothe my senses.

I will remember nothing
and bite the notes
through my teeth.

I will render sounds
into leaves

dry and heftless
crumbled particles
exploding into the air.

That burning sensation
caught in the nostrils
tastes of melodies torn
asunder as the molecules
diffuse through me.

The acrid harmonies
force my eyes open
and my back to straighten.

And the broken beat
distills the ground
surrounding my planted feet
and extends new light
from the sun peaking
out of shadowed clouds
hovering with impunity
just over the horizon.

A quick breath
and I look around me:

I see people I know
with familiar hands
held at their sides.

I hear other sounds
and feel disposed to listen
as new melodies
surround me.

I forget everything I asked for
and let all of the music
forge the growing night
sprinkled with hazy stars
with warm old casacading hues.

A Breath: This Night

2009-10-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

the serpent's head is big as a wake
held for ancient hymnal heroes

sonnets are bonnets for guns
sons and lovers and brothers
oft left for other orders

I met you at a concert
and the music lost me
before you

where words disappear
I am

and soldiering snakes
sneak breaths between songs

this night: only

hawks defer to owls

sparrows disperse
as bats cut a knife's edge
from the sky

heat slithers away
leaving only bodies
pressed together

violence of sound retreats
into a stable breath: only

stars shimmer heavily

when humidity rises

only: this night
breathes together
a surrendering shudder
communion communal
beat-eating tongues
swallow milky stars
swirling moist air
between us

only: a breath
shared in rhythm

a heavy slogging beat
primal and ancient
mythological embodiment
movement enchantment

so we breathe together
only now: this night

2009-10-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

expressions of faith in river currents
sweeping away the summer

conveyance of thought in gest
unsettled in the moving scape

scraps of tissue paper fragment
dissolving circulatory memory

age is a question

before I bought my dog
I thought of my habits
and assessed myself

the sea counts backwards from infinity
by lunar cycles

she answers in silence

I lit a fire
and watched the moon
ascend

blinding my fire
I collapsed into the night

my dog found me
and cocked his head

I said nothing
and came inside

he settled quickly to my feet
falling asleep with ease

outside the moon
dominates the sea
and everything glows
in projection

Quick key thoughts before bed

2009-10-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

1) Camus was haunted his entire adult life by his failed first marriage that ended when his wife got heavily involved with drugs. Throughout the rest of his life this affected him deeply, and he continued to send her things anonymously to try to help her with her drug addiction.

2) Francine, his second wife, suffered from major depression and tried killing herself twice by jumping. The second time she broke her pelvis badly. Camus blamed himself for this due to his adultery and particularly of importance, falling in love with his lover, Marie, who was an actress in his plays. She was no longer able to be in his plays after this incident, but strangely enough, after his fatal car accident Francine and Marie were able to talk and become quite close friends with each other.

3) Camus's mother was mostly silent, and according to him had a 400 word vocabularly. When he told her that he turned down a meeting with the French president she agreed with his decision because "those people aren't for us." She was the most important woman in his life, and he could barely communicate with her.

The Fall

2009-10-04T23:36:00.000-07:00

After reading through some biographies about Albert Camus, my suspicions about The Fall have been confirmed. The book is a confessional. But so are all of his books in one way or another.

My favorite author has injected aspects of what is truest to his heart and also the most painful and tragic aspects of his life and failings into his work, yet he has managed to also stay guarded in some way.

I can relate to all of this, but I wonder if the dimness of my life and my flailings and failings compared to his wild swings has also stifled my creativity. It is possible for me to jump into the world of Don Juanism, though I've always been faithful to all of my girlfriends that I've had. I too feel more rejuvenated in the company of women, but the brotherhood of men is also important to me.

Loyalty is a word often ignored, but my loyal friendships mean more to me than everything else. I am now a year single, and have not had a single moment of doubt, regret, or apprehension about moving on. Guilt was a driving theme of The Fall, and I understand now this is primarily because Camus felt himself a guilty man. As in The Stranger, Camus identified in many ways with Mersault and other characters in the book. But it is more complicated than that, as it always is.

We don't need a god to deal with guilt, humans suffice on their own. This idea is taken from Camus as well, and I'm stricken by how many people I see wallow in their guilt. So many people waiting for judgement, for the verdict, for the reckoning. The feeling of guilt is an over-riding agony compared to the relief of reaching a verdict. And in crimes of the heart, crimes of not being good enough, crimes of aloofness, crimes of feeling unapologetic when one thinks he should, crimes of caring for the wrong things, crimes of not feeling guilty when you know you should... that last one is particularly odd, guilt about not feeling guilt.

But the truth is, despite everything you may think of me - I am a very moral individual. Where I exceed Camus is that I don't falter on my core beliefs, but that may not be good for the artist in me. I don't have that tension swirling in me about my moral turpitude. Instead, I fall in the other direction... I feel often as if I've not done enough, failing on the side of inaction. I could do more, but finding my voice and my path hasn't come as easily to me as it did to Camus. However, it is clear now that he will be my marker of comparison from here on out, regardless of the fairness to myself or to him. Contemporaries be damned... this world is somewhat lost to me, I don't see how to fit into it. Camus ended his life marginalized on all things that he cared about by the mainstream of society, and now in his death he is being rejuvenated. I'm not really interested in what happens after my death, and I doubt that I'll have a legacy like his, but I feel the weight of time moving constantly.

My work now does not suffer from a lack of commitment, but a lack of focus. I need to zero in on the essentials, on my themes and develop them. I need to develop myself and I need to feel more discomfort and exhilaration. Both are available in droves. Both are waiting.

A record-breaking heatwave in late September

2009-09-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

There is no basis for basilisks
extending glances slyly wayward
from a dark cove. A rare September
heat baking rocks along streams
welcome lizards to lay.

I've never met a gila monster
but I wished I wore his skin.
A September like napalm swells
like summer and neon suns.

I have no birthright with skin
like this. Scaly, poisonous pieces
slough off in tiny fragments.

For once this heat feels nice
capturing time in the waving
horizon of asphalt emissions -

because I am not ready for winter
when estranged loneliness creeps
along a molting spine.

Africa settles as an abstraction
in my heart. The desert monster
doppelganger of my likeness
sits near an Arizona soundstage
on a well-crafted movie set
(like the Three Amigos
after leaving Hollywood).

The doppelganger watches me
as I watch television dispassionately
and google philosophical fragments:

"alienation" "postmodern"

"borges map" "loss of the real"

"Steve Martin" "wild and crazy guys"

"solitude" "suffering"

"Wisdom of Silenus"

"Obama's health care plan"

"right wing political violence"

"1968" "political memory"

"Algerian sunset"

I think about basilisks dispassionately
turning me into stone and feel
slightly grateful that they are mythological.
They then dispassionately turn
toward my doppelganger that
dispassionately turns away.

As Albert Camus got older
he lamented the loss of landscapes
appearing in his notebooks.

He married several times
and died in a car wreck.

I, too, love the desert landscape
and can lose myself in the
scintillating refractions
of sun and stars off the sea.

And simulated desert landscapes
feel almost as desolate
sparkling ironically in pixilated
Las Vegas hues.

There is a place for me in the desert
beyond the basilisks by the lizards
and the blinking text marker
of my word processing program.

And now we're concerned with Simulations and Simulacra in this instance...

2009-09-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

There is a campaign to boycott Guitar Hero 5 because of its depiction of Kurt Cobain that has been growing quickly across the internet:

In this brief clip we see Kurt Cobain talking (out of context, or, more correctly - with no context) about how he's been turned into a cartoon character. Then the clip shows footage from the game in which a virtual Kurt is doing virtual performance of a song that I'm sure he never would actually have performed.

There are many clips that demonstrate this strange simulacra of Cobain performing unlike he ever could have or would have before in the game:

These "performances" are, indeed, tacky and probably disrespectful to his death and the legacy of his life as an alienated superstar that struggled with his superstardom and his self-esteem. But this just underlines a greater issue that games such as Guitar Hero bring up.

Simulations are generally the mode in which the gaming world is heading toward. First-person shooters involved crystal graphics and real physics represented in the movement of the characters and projectiles and explosions/gunfire. Racing games are becoming more and more "real". The Nintendo Wii is very popular due to the simulated physical acts that control gameplay. Before the Wii we had Dance Dance Revolution and simulated dancing. Before that we had Duck Hunt.

The history of video games goes back to Pong, which in a sense is simulated ping-pong, but the distance between an authentic experience of ping-pong and pong was so great that there was no question of the difference. With technological improvements, games seem more and more real and also have become more of a total experience.

While I understand the outrage against Guitar Hero 5 for this depiction of Cobain, I think it misses the larger cultural problems we are experiencing in the world of simulations and the following simulacra. Simulated experiences are replacing reality. Guitar Hero in no way makes you an actual guitar hero, as evidenced by the world recorder holder in Guitar Hero, this 12-year-old boy:

Given that the boundaries between real and simulacra are already completely blurred, if not that reality has already been mostly been replaced by simulacra, then I find it interesting when people suddenly find something that offends their sensibilities when all else doesn't.

Is it because Kurt died? It is because of his seeming authenticity that we felt we a relation to (despite not really knowing him at all)? What is it that which repulses us so much about this experience?

I would suggest that it was simply poorly done. The magic of the simulacra is that the creeping world of simulation slowly encroaches on reality and we don't realize the incremental loss of reality. Kurt clearly is not Kurt when he is singing and moving unlike how he'd really sing or move in the game. It is a cardinal sin, because it outlines so clearly for us the emptiness of the representation. We glom onto the metaphorical meaning of Kurt as the rare authentic musician and feel repulsed by the perversion of the metaphor - the metaphor has been flipped upside-down.

This is so much more easily fought against using the strange digital world of YouTube. Archival footage abounds, and is easy to isolate and use in a digital campaign. How ironic that the best way to fight against this digital perversion requires jumping onto the same playing field so readily.

Guitar Hero 5 made the cardinal sin, we aren't supposed to feel this incremental change, else we feel the unreality of situation. Instead of feeling comforted by this generative reality, we feel constricted by it. But it is already too late... because we are only complaining of the choice of Kurt Cobain, not the system that could create this problem.

We are left in a system of incrementally losing the "real" and incrementally fighting this loss with the larger causes that are already taking place in the simulated playing field. The simulacra has extended over the plane of the real, and this battle highlights to the extent to which this has already happened. The colonization is total, and ever-growing.

2009-09-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

"[T]he silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages not to forget that silence, and to transmit it in order to make it resound by means of his art." - Albert Camus, from his Nobel Prize banquet speech

Too many accept the horrors of the world as unavoidable, unfortunate, and thus - best not to be thought of. This is the playing field of the artist - delving into pain that is found anywhere across the world and connecting it to ourselves.

I am struck by reading Camus how closely we share an understanding of existence based on confronting absurdity with a sense of rebellion and resistence, but I am struck more about how his conclusions about what to focus on is so strikingly similar to mine. I knew nothing of Camus as the WWII underground journalist fighting against the NAZIs with his Combat publication. I knew nothing of his obsession for human rights and his hardline stances that alienated him from his philosopher friends.

Independently, I came to many of the conclusions Camus did about existence. Independently, I hold the same strong beliefs about justice and caring for those in the worst situations. The connections between the philosophical backbone and the humanistic inclinations we each have must be strong. Perhaps a rebellion to the absurd with holding a head high is tantamount to holding your head high and staring into the depressing beast of the brutality happening around the world. Knowing in your heart that you cannot end absurdity is not a far step from staring injustice in the eye knowing you cannot end injustice on your own either, but by God, don't flinch from it. Stare the injustice in the eye, and respect those who are unable to step away from their injustices by being in solidarity with them in your thoughts and deeds.

I am not afraid of failing in these consuming matters of justice, because I accept from the starting point that the standard for failure is so high. Feeling connected to the rest of humanity in suffering is not a failure, even if you cannot change that which you feel so painfully close to your heart. Feeling that pain alone is the beginning of success. Solidarity in the human condition is such a fundamental philosophical stance, and everything can flow through it even in the face of otherwise experiencing the most painful and confusing states of alienation.

Realignment

2009-09-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

I saw parallax trees
illuminate things in between

at first it looked far away
the tiny flowing dances
tapping exposed roots
scintillated spins

then I realized my error
the movement revealed

just how small

everything is

I was so much closer
than I thought

but far behind
the giant flailing tentacles
kept my attention
beyond the swaying trees

I realized my terror

wispy tendrils
polluting the sky

off-colored contrails
oft smaller swirls
shrink the horizon
by contrast

((sickening contraction))

forget everything
don't think of me as a dreamer
don't even fucking touch me
unless your hands are real

2009-09-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

there is no cause of our time
so we repose

a female figure skater
slammed into the ice
in slow motion
rankles my memory

her partner misjudged everything
and I laughed incredulously
as I viewed the video

because it is kind of like that

how much trust they had
to get to that level of competition

I returned home to an ecstatic dog
twirling at my feet

he has no idea what it is like
but he feels fear and sadness
and in that way I can love him
because he is not so different

he just doesn't know the thoughts
echoing in my head at night
as he easily falls asleep at my feet

and for that too
I find it easy to love him

And we've reached that point...

2009-09-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

where all of us need to collectively tear our own eyes out.

2009-09-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

we stole a shopping cart
and drove it to the canyon's edge

the premeditated act
was reflective of something
about growing up here

we acted more excited than we really were

below us stood craggy rocks
littered with other debris

cars, bottles, cans splayed out
dotted with torn black plastic bags

a disembodied moldy dollhead watched us

with a running start
we pushed the cart over
exploding apart in all directions

it was loud
and sparks cascaded out
speckling dots refracted
off the spiralling metal

then we left
never to do anything like that again

2009-09-13T00:32:00.000-07:00

give me nothing
everything must be earned
even disappointment

The Incident on the Farm with the Horse

2009-09-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

1.

every beast has a belly
a filly a foal a folly

when she bends over
licking the afterbirth
off the lifeless mass

when the farmer finds her
standing over the body
unwilling to move

and when she protectively
charges the old man
driving him to ground

a gentle breeze swells
across the canyon
heavy with the scent of pine

burnt by a hot sun
now receeding to night

burnt by the sun
the night's brackish kiss

2.

last he woke in a hospital
at his daughter's side
as she slept

the breathing apparatus sung
metallic notes

rays of light slowly crept
across the musky yellow walls
gradually filling the small room

the heat was heavy
like a deep sigh
from an ancient dream

3.

it was lucid and vacant then
nothing like the silence
of this empty bedside

2009-09-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

I'll write about Babylon instead of dreamless empires still dividing the land. I'll write of hanging gardens that captivated each new invading army. I'll write of things that never happened to me. History (in its grand allure) will cover the typographical landscape of my mind and I will learn to suffer as an historian: with a faint scholarly smirk of disdain for the present.

It is with this understanding that I can see myself equally as likely in a life past to vigorously attempt to protect the great library of Alexandria as to be one of those who rushed in to destroy it. The acts are equivalent, but I would hate myself now if I were to discover that it was I who brazenly destroyed these records of the past in the heat of the moment.

What I would have failed to have realized then is that the system of meaning would be radically changed thanks to new media. I would have failed to understand that the abstraction of metaphorical thinking related to the referent and the value of its meaning would be overtaken with a vast skein that covers the entire terrain. Each of us is a survivor in a life raft occasionally eyeing others baring the sea. At certain points the currents intersect and at those strange moments the abstractions become real. Apollo and Dionysus begin to sing and paint a whirlwind of a song. The sun cascading over the water destroys every referent with blindness. In this ecstasy of the moment we share Oedipus's fate and in full agreement bellow out that "all is right with the world."

We know what Oedipus saw once he plucked his eyes from his face, but we rarely name it. At times I think about that girl that fell down a pipe and it took days to pull her out. Baby Jessica is a full-grown woman with kids now. No one can understand this because she will always be Baby Jessica. She will always be that girl in the deep, dark hole that people so desperately tried to save. Now she has a scar on her forehead and she ought to be grateful for that; most of us aren't so lucky. Most of us look completely intact, but when we don't our scars are usually aren't telling the truth either.

I have different stories to tell, and as such I realize that truth. They are stories regardless of everything. This is how I became my own historian and why right now I choose to write of Babylon and hanging gardens. I can close my eyes and see myself there: perched between the Tigress and Euphrates rivers in the heart of civilization feeling at that moment as if I were in the center of the universe. The flicker of awareness that this location will be a site of reoccurring violence and intrigue will contaminate the back of my mind just enough to want to enjoy the moment even this much more. This breath will be lost in its own time.

The Deep Breath

2009-09-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

1.

The breadth of a breath
that tight squeezing sound
as if a heavy roller car
inched forward on the track
by a strong steam engine

heaving the husk outward
a shooting star filled with rocks
limply cascading along
smattering its heft fatly
sloppily shouldering all weight:

You can't speak of love
whilst your identity creeps along
like a lost night in a trolly

the wounds of a fingertip trace
felt against exposed skin echo
faintly in rattled breaths.

You can't speak of love
as a paltry evening light slips
to a dark shadow ellipse

eclipsing motion and memory
neurosis emphemoral effigy
to replace shame with blame.

If you think I know anything
look at the wind pressing the trees
to bend and sway so sharply --

watch the windows shake
and listen to the screen door
whistle cathartic coughs.

If you think I know anything
gather up those breaths
and swallow full the night.

2.

Your life is forfeit when you are born,
but believe me - it makes no difference.

I swallow gods and Pokemon monsters
while riding a 6-pronged buck.

My hands are empty now
but, by god, they are strong.

3.

I dreamt about a train last night:
it moved so slowly across the land
billowing smoke and sound proudly.

The train was black and heavy
and carried me with it.

Living with (Someone Else's) Mental Illness

2009-07-25T22:27:00.000-07:00

I have thought about writing about this for a while, but I haven't because reliving the past can be painful. For three years I lived with someone who suffers from mental illness problems. These three years were not only filled with pain (if they were, it would not have lasted so long), but there are many things I've learned from this situation.

When someone has serious trouble grasping reality, there is nothing you can do to rationally help this person see things as they are. The nature of many disorders is the inability of the person who suffers from the disorder to objectively look at their situation. By the end of the relationship, it was obvious to me that nothing I could say would give this person what she wanted. But further than that - no one can. When the dysfunctional thought patterns become inextricably linked to one's own identity and personality, there is no way to remove these patterns... it involves the complete destruction of one's own identity.

Being patient is a virture, as we've all heard, but there are clear limits we should all have with patience. First, we should never sacrifice clear boundaries for the sake of "being understanding"... this just leads one to believe that boundaries can be trampled on and quite often these boundaries will continue to get trampled on until you completely remove yourself from the situation. Second, patience is no cure for irrational beliefs about one's own identity, or beliefs about someone's motives and actions that aren't true. No one can spend considerable amounts of time trying to prove that something that didn't happen actually didn't happen. When the inner-workings of your mind and emotions are constantly on trial, you will be convicted anew each day just as in The Stranger when Mersault realized he was guilty not for his actual deed, but for the bad impression he had left on the jury. And it certainly feels as though you are on jury all of the time when nothing you say is taken at face value. If you know without a doubt that you aren't good enough for someone, you won't be good enough for that person... you will make it so.

Mental illness wrapped in identity problems can be cataclysmic for those involved in that person's life. It is too easy to latch onto others and blame your problems on them when you aren't clear about who you are. It is far too easy to spend all of your time arguing about what reality actually is before dealing with the core problems surrounding why one may have identity problems in the first place.

A year ago, I left the country and spent two weeks away from this relationship and was able to see it for what it truly was. I was being abused on a daily basis and it was being pitched to me as being something wrong with me. My self-esteem was suffering because I felt trapped - that nothing I was doing was good enough. I left the country, and had a beautiful experience falling in love with the simplicity of a life built on basic human needs and the warm emotional connections that can be made with people you can't even say more than a few words to. I came back knowing not only that my self-esteem problems were based on problems that weren't mine, but that I had good reasons to question the value of my relationship.

I was immediately attacked verbally when I came home at the end of that long 34 hour jet-lagged day. The boundaries I had set were ignored, and I knew after this amazing beautiful experience out of the country that I could not continue doing what I had been doing.

Compassion is often pitched in terms of self-sacrifice. I felt that I was being compassionate throughout my relationship. In retrospect, I was far too self-sacrificing. Compassion is built on the connection between understanding the problems one is facing and the receptiveness of who are you feeling compassionate toward. Compassion without any returns is stupidity, it allows for codependency.

In the past month I have visited and spoken with many people I have been close with over the years, and I can say with certainty that these people have saved me. Whether with serious talks, or having fun, or demonstrating clearly with words and actions that they value what I have to offer... I have some serious thanks to go around to so many people. You all know who you are and I love you all. Particularly, I'd like to say, that this week specifically I feel more rejuvenated than I have in years and it has everything to do with the people in my life. If only I could continue having weeks that are as fulfilling to the soul as this each week, I would an extremely blessed man.

The Trap of Selective Compassion

2009-07-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

Television shows and other specials that focus on having compassion for people solely because they're involved in a major cataclysmic event such as Hurricane Katrina reinforces the idea that homeless people, and other's below the poverty line are in those positions because it is their fault. Cataclysmic events are the exceptions, and we're willing to see these people's humanity because we can relate to the idea that if a hurricane hit us that we're helpless to deal with that. It is harder to relate to the uneducated, the disenfranchised, the mentally ill, the unskilled, the hopeless, and so many others that don't have such clear stories that are easy to relate to. There are two categories for plighted people... those who have fucked up on their own, and those who have had their life fucked up and it wasn't their fault. This reinforces the capitalistic meritocracy believe-system of our society, and shows that show affluent people helping hurricane victims create that feelgood warm touching moment. These people deserve our help. We're good people for helping them.

It is true, those people need our help. So do the others that we don't notice that are on the margins. The only way to fix these problems is with a systemic change. The charge that can lead toward this change is humanizing all marginalized people regardless of how they became marginalized, not just the extreme sensationalized cases. These shows about New Orleans, and potentially even the Extreme Make-Over Home Edition series may actually make the cultural problem worse. We need a more systemic approach to these problems instead of the selective case approach that isolates "worthy" candidates.

with words

2009-07-14T15:49:00.000-07:00

a way with words
away with words

sway, sway
spun sentence spindles
tickle sounds trickle
swirl bundling breaths
in rhythm

I have a way with words
away with words

they float way

Just Not Tonight

2009-07-13T00:44:00.000-07:00

I will withhold everything
in a sachel. My words taste
bittergreen winter's skein
wrapped around my tongue.

Dammed rivers flow hotter
floating fish fodder for fires
streaking over water
pollution, oil, paraffin

rocky river basin swells
against growing pressure.
It creates its own weather
warrior leather love lies

in cracked tatters. I felt
your breath on the back
of my neck. Like salsa,
sangria, sambas and Rita;

losts nights in lost lands
in other people's lives. My story
is static. There's nothing
drastic about it. Each smell

has its own origin located
in time. I remember this
smell from a long time ago:
it was time before time

before rhyme and rhythm
built castles from chests
beating hearts fantastic starts
parked cars by sea stars.

Percolating Perseids pierce
the sky. I pick up the pieces
and store them in my pouch.
Another night, another night;

just not tonight.

2009-07-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

My parents met in college in the dorms. My father knocked on my mother's door and asked her if she wanted to "rule the world." She said "yes" and they played Risk. She lost in Madagascar. They fell in love. Not too long after my dad finished his bachelor's degree, joined the workforce, and mom waited until I went to college to finish her bachelor's degree. They have been married for 35 years and from everything I've seen they could easily end up together for at least another 35 years.

I'm an only child with a middle class background. I knew I was going to college in grade school. I went to summer camp every summer starting after 5th grade. I looked forward to getting homework in grade school and middle school. I played math games on my computer at home. I was identified as "GAT" (gifted and talented) student in first grade and special attention was given to me to make sure I was challenged through the rest of my public school life. I took math and music classes in the high school when I was a middle schooler. I cried once when I got behind while taking a test in third grade. I was three-time MVP of my soccer team in high school. I won the district competition in saxophone to make it to State.

I was busy, but everything still came to me easily. I spent my free time writing poetry and obsessing about absurd questions about existence. Oh, and girls... but not enough to actually do anything about it. For four years I had feelings for a girl, and it took three years for me to tell her. She rejected me. My first kiss came on a weird college night of self-pity when a horny fundamentalist Christian girl opportunized on me upon hearing that I'd never kissed a girl and I'd just turned 20. It felt shallow and empty despite how amazingly proportioned she was. She would fall in love with me so I stopped our brief encounter shortly after it started.

I decided in middle school that I was going to avoid taking any drugs (including alcohol) for recreational reasons. After hanging out with kids at a teen rehab center, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the meaning of drug use and decided that I wanted to live as "authentic" an existence as possible. Authentic meant for me that I was in control of my decisions, and completely aware and present of what I was doing. Each and every decision matters because they are my decisions. I am choosing my life.

I remember in second grade a sudden awareness that without remembering the moment it would be lost forever. I actively began to focus on each moment and storing it in my memory. This strange obsession, oddly enough, gave me perspective about the value of the long-term over the short-term. Carefully watching time pass shows just how transient time is. Boredom ceased to exist. It became ennui.

The attention to the connection between now and the continuum of my life has given me a sense of control that has been a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that I have very rarely acted against my long-term interests. I am a steadfast person and very, very reliable. I'm levelheaded in even the worst situations. The curse, however, is that I rarely dive into the chaos that could give life that jolt, that sense of extreme exhilaration at the unknown.

I am overly aware of the limitations of my circumstances and the hardships it can cause others to enmesh my life with theirs. I respect boundaries and avoid making others make monumental decisions about their own lives. I remind others that their choices are their own, even if they are close to me I am more than accepting of their decisions if they feel it is time to move away from me. Friends, colleagues, or romantic relationships... No matter what I personally want, this equalling force of personal fulfillment leaves me now feeling stuck in my current conditions.

I don't want anyone to sacrifice anything to be with me... and every choice I make with wide open eyes. Getting that rare taste of the unknown can be so exhilarating and melancholy.

The Real Moment

2009-07-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

The devil is in the details. Derails
dovetails, the name of that feeling
sinking beyond the night.

I am no father; I am a man.

The details; the details. That little glance
to the side into your eyes
catching an affect in the camera's lens.

You'll remember that moment
with five-hundred thousand
people on YouTube.

But that moment isn't real.

There is something more, hidden.
Outside the lens and endless plane
extends into the depths of fleshy
human existence.

Let me tell you about my mother:
She has no visual memories, life
is abstract.

She obsessively takes pictures
because if she doesn't
it is gone forever.

She doesn't realize
how lucky she is sometimes.

The details; the moment frozen
in my memory completely intact
amplified to ridiculous proportions
coalescing into a growing star.

I am a man; I am as open
and fragile as I will ever be
as this moment continues
swelling in a Dionysian fever.

I am no father; and if I were
it still would be true
that I am incapable of giving birth.

These moments are destined
to stay within me
as a molten fuel reactor
that consumes itself eternally.

I am no father; I am self-contained.

a note about the last poem

2009-07-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

I am mildly concerned that if there is a hell I am headed there for writing the last poem.

Tupac's response to the recent brash of celebrities dying: an authoritative interpretative account

2009-07-01T21:27:00.001-07:00

Celebrities Dyin

celebrities they be dyin
ain't no use in cryin
billy mays mops ain't dryin
michael jackson's songs flyin
off radios spun back we might
find ABCs and 1-2-3s and billy jean's jeans
beat queens and beat dreams
got nothing but the best respect
the old dayz got me feeling spent
I wish I could spend more time with ya
to be real more than a record deal

CHORUS
its hard to be a celebrity
take it from me
putting our lives on the line
hoping to get a little run
damn - you think you know me
you don't know shit
we burn up then we gone
just the same ol' song

we burn up we burn out X4

I was just a boy hustlin streets
bustin fat beats on summer days
without a care
angels stacked posters with bombastic racks
girl your bangin body got me wishin my name is Charlie
but you ain't see any niggaz ridin Harleys
shit - what you think of that
I got strapped just to watch my back
if you don't watch yo'self you get jacked
but really it is the drugs that do us in
we burnin
Dre knows how it is its just a biz
ain't no use sellin chronic getting mad cash
pushing Dr. Pepper on us
its just another day and niggaz gotta get paid

CHORUS X2

we burn up we burn out X4

I ain't never be gone
Machiavelli just too strong
leavin a footprint on the world
Jackson five times five triggers for the good
sellin albums and movies as it should be
the beat goes on and the beat goes on and
the beat goes on and the beasts catch on
there ain't no end to today
we just get played

CHORUS X2

we burn up we burn out X12

I am a Celebrity Star (and I Will Go Far)

2009-06-30T23:39:00.001-07:00

1) Michael Jackson's hips forge my new destiny.

I am a celebrity star
(and I will go far)

I met Michael Jackson
in a dream, and his dance hips
spun a hypnotic wave
through space and time
driving a wedge into fate
which collapsed destiny

I was a normal man
with normal alienation
and a normal fear of cameras
and then Michael Jackson's hips
sent me moonwalking to stardom

I first realized I was a star
while receiving a text message
responding to a picture
I'd taken of myself

"niiiiiiice"

I am becoming a celebrity star
and I am going far

I hide from paparazzi
with clever disguises

I fall in love with celebrities
and break their hearts
(and they break mine)

I am becoming a celebrity star
and I am going far

my self-awareness is a function
of understanding what others see

my self-awareness is keen attention
how I look and sound on a screen

my self-awareness is understanding
how I do just the right thing
make you want to be like me

I am a celebrity star
and I will go far

you feel that you know me
you feel that you know me
you feel that you know me
and it makes you sad

2) Disambiguation

I'll never know if you really know me
I'll never know if you love me for me
I'll never know if I am my role or myself
I'll never know if I'll ever know

3) The Neo-Social Compact

The only way to make a real difference
is for people to identify with your brand.

I am a product

I am a product

(you can't get enough)

My concern for humanity is endearing,
and this endearment is not nearly good enough.

4) The validity of arguments.

A man is his actions
A woman is herself viewing her actions
A celebrity's actions are cultural currency

I feel sorry for Daisy and mad at VH1 for putting her on TV instead of in therapy. I am mad at myself for watching. I make jokes at everyone's expense (these are funny jokes). I marvel that Brooke Hogan has her own show and has music videos and albums for sale despite her public-private life. I think anyone's mother who would have a relationship with her daughter's classmate needs therapy. I think everyone needs therapy. I think the field of therapy needs therapy. I am sometimes able to read dense sentences from Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil" in my dreams, but when I wake up the sentences are quotes from Paris Hilton and Donald Trump. I watch the evening news and yell at the news anchors for spending more time on celebrities than the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the Iran elections, Darfur, the War in the Congo, and for never fact-checking bald-faced lies politicians say.

Not every argument is valid. Every argument is not valid. One of these things is true.

5) I dreamt that I met a celebrity and I was a normal person.

I've never had a dream that I was a celebrity trying to be a normal person. Dreams never work that way. We falter in the direction of seduction every time.

6) I am a celebrity star (and I will go far)

~~I need to be loved by everyone~~
~~I need to be hated by everyone~~
I need to be noticed by everyone

I catch your eye
and sex beyond sex
weaves a trail
up your spine

I am a celebrity star
(and I will go far)

I catch your eye

Five Followers!

2009-06-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to reaching the hallmark of five followers according to my blogger dashboard! I'd like to thank all five of you for making this post possible!

Long week

2009-06-29T01:20:00.000-07:00

It is good to get out of your comfort zone and do things that you aren't used to doing. And there are times when I feel that I'm better at observing human behavior than participating in it. Navigating these landscapes wears on me, but this struggle helps me feel alive and human. I see how people falter and how they succeed and their struggles are all beautiful in their own way, regardless of whether they succeed or fail.

As for me - I am alienated. I struggle with connection. I don't even suspect that I'm particularly eager for anyone to fall in love with me. I think that love should be earned, and I think it will take a truly alienated person to make that connection with me. Not depressed, not an alcoholic, not disengaged... but alienated and observant. Engaged and intelligent. Creative and independent. Justifiably alienated...substantively.

There is a great, great void that cannot be filled. Do not try to fill the void. Live in the wake of this void. The wind swirling from it is electric. There is more than enough energy in this storm for a lifetime.

My Hands, My Hands

2009-06-26T22:57:00.000-07:00

I wear trails on my tails
contrails distilled details
weather wails -- listen
the weather wails

distinct possibilities
cloud my flawless inkling
from the absurd morass
clear lines of thinking

I am the kind of man
who sleeps when waking
dreams while sailing
and screams gracefully

I mimic emotional absences
with tender truths
that stroke the earth's
swelling objective indifference

this tender grand stoicism
I grant myself in echo
and the world around me
repeats the world around me

I can find love and its copy
behind a mirror's scintillation

I can find emptiness hollowed
filled with gentle wishes

I can hear the sound of my voice
from a tape recorder
played from a computer
rhythmically on repeat

but my hands are untouchable
and, thus, incorruptible

what I mean is - they feel
and for this they are real

the weight of responsibility
with each thing I touch

Finally!

2009-06-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

Appropriate response, ladies.

The media is the message

2009-06-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

A brief thought about this interview posted on YouTube:

The reason the product department is the marketing department is that there is no difference between the two anymore. The product is the marketing, perhaps this will help you to see how this is a self-generating system.

Reviewing "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction"

2009-06-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

Upon suggestion, I have decided to read E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction by David Foster Wallace. Here is my review of the essay along with my personal reflections as it relates to me.

The essay starts by calling us voyeurs. This is an acceptable premise, given his citation of the statistic that American watch on average six hours of television a day. He goes on to say that fiction writers are particularly good at voyeurism and that the root of this is our self-consciousness and the affliction so many of us face about being being around others. TV is a gateway to observation that helps us find our voice.

Of course, fighting our loneliness and finding our voice through voyeurism is a effort in delving into illusion. He provides the example that people are asked to "act natural" while on camera, but acting natural while on camera for most people doesn't look natural at all. It is an illusion of looking natural.

He goes on to examine how television is viewed in a strange light of criticism. People love to hate television. He says we have a weird "hate-need-fear-6 hrs.-daily gestalt" about it. He goes from this point to talk about syndication and the self-referential tendency of television. The subject of television has become itself. This is no new idea, Umberto Eco famously wrote that "The media is the message."

He goes on to discuss "metafiction" - or a sort of inverse of realism. Whereas realism is a practice of showing what it sees, metafiction is the practice of telling it as it sees itself telling it as it sees it. Jean Baudrilland's "Simulation and Simulacra" discusses this a little - reality has slipped away to simulacra, copies without an original. This discussion of metafiction discusses how fiction fictionalizes itself, which sounds impossible until you understand the self-referential void these narratives emerge from.

Irony is the domain of postmodernism because meaning is lost in the procession of simulacra. Television is the best media for irony because what you see conflicts with what you hear so often. Images of dead bodies juxtaposed with the words of someone saying "there is no oppression" or people caught saying things that don't match reality - "Newt Gingrich said Obama said this, but you can see Obama actually said this." Irony is dangerous for television because it undermines its authority, but it gains validity by highlighting these ironies.

Wallace goes on to describe how we become more addicted to television, and how television creates a system that enforces this. This is more than self-evident to me, as we all know that advertising agencies and network executives pay big money to find ways to manipulate us - and we know it works.

This addiction to television has lead to a change in literature, because television is a major shared experience that we apparently spend more waking time doing than anything else. He writes about how pop references in literature work because we know these references, and because we are uncomfortable that we know these references.

It goes on to discuss how pop references have become a necessary part of contemporary literature. Whereas bloviated old college professors would make weird claims that literature is "timeless", Mr. Wallace notes that television and the postmodern condition requires a new sensitivity toward contemporary references due to the universal experiences we have in the system of understanding that has been created from television.

Finishing the first half of the essay, he examines an excerpt from White Noise by Don DeLillo(which I totally need to read now). The scene involves two guys following signs to the "World's Most Photographed Barn" and upon arriving one character realizes that this mutually enforced reality is a complete farce. "No one sees the barn" as everyone takes pictures of it. The scene around the barn loses the barn. As the character complains, the other character responds with silence.

The second half of the essay finally posits the thesis: irony, stone-faced silence, and fear of ridicule are key features of contemporary U.S. culture. In this vein, he sees a push to transfigure the power television has over the vast American landscape and the dominating presence is so extreme the it may be beyond transfiguration.

He provides examples of commercials and television shows and contemporary literature that address these themes, but already these examples are outdated compared to the intensity of newer material that is saturating our world. For example, he provides the example of the Pepsi commercial showing a Pepsi sound van manipulating people to come off the beach and eagerly get refreshed - "Pepsi: The Choice of a New Generation". The ironies throughout this ad about choice, and being an individual that stands out from the crowd but fits into the crowd, and so forth are still present in current ads, and newer ads are better about this. Consider the Axe ads with the sea of women forcefully telling younger men what they want and jumping all over them when they spray themselves. Consider the old Sprite ads with Grant Hill ironically selling a product whilst dollar signs are flashing on the screen with each comment he makes. The PBS Frontline documentary "The Merchants of Cool" addresses these themes to some degree, but also the new research methods that take these problems to a new level.

A common theme throughout this essay and "The Merchants of Cool" is the building of authority by television by being on your level with understanding that the authority of television is a fraud. This is maintained by continually attacking itself ironically and putting newer versions of itself up as authorities. There is an endless destructive force at work here, yet even once an authority is discredited it can return to favor by discrediting that which usurps it. Regardless, television is always looking inward at itself and continues to feed on its own world to a greater degree all of the time.

Irony, being the central feature of our times, he goes on to argue is oppressive. Irony is good at showing hypocrisy, it is a great destructive force, however it is not good at replacing what it destroys. He makes the analogy of irony being like a military coup in a third world country - once the coup takes place, the rebels rarely are good at running things, and, in fact, usually are just as tyrannical as the previous regime, if not more. The connection to this passage of the essay to "The Merchants of Cool" is clear - rebellion itself becomes marketed, there is no real escape route (including avoiding television).

He soon after makes the claim that television "discerns, decocts, and represents what it thinks U.S. culture wants to see and hear about itself." Being obvious that we don't want to see ourselves and mindless tools to authority, rebellious irony is of course where we are led.

Near the end of the essay, the author takes a futuristic journey of a man named Gilder. Unfortunately, Gilder's predictions are a little off. He assumed that television would be combined with the computer world in a way that hasn't exactly happened. Television is still unidirectional, and the interactivity that he predicted television to transform toward is almost entirely in the computer's domain. Text messaging, message boards, blogs, IMs, and even YouTube live in a separate domain. In fact, many people now spend more time on the internet than watching television, or they'll watch television on something like Hulu while IMing in another window, for example. We may feel more involved in the lives of celebrities by reading blogs or watching "bonus" footage or random YouTube clips, but the total interactivity that was imagined did not transpire, and I don't see that distance disappearing.

Regardless of the reality of it all, the author's overall prediction remained true - the passivity of the audience remains intact. He discusses how the fantastical nature of television keeps us hooked, and that hook helps prevent a real sort of shift.

Finally, he discusses Leyner's My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist which embraces irony with reverence. This is a cyberpunk book that wildly moves from image to image and leaves you feeling disoriented, but in a somewhat serious and humorous way. You can connect with and enjoy the book by recognizing that the references that the author uses collide together in a way that let you know he sees how defunct the system is and he brings you into that world. Instead of standard plot development, the book reads like a person flicking through the channels watching parts fade in and out of the story.

The conclusion of the essay quickly surmises that there is no way to rebel against a system based on rebellion. He claims not to know where literature can go from here because he is "in the aura" of the system. He plaintively suggests that maybe the next wave of writing that will take on this system is the "anti-rebels" - those who aren't afraid of being overly earnest, of causing eyes to roll, of making us yawn.

Overall, I found this essay interesting in an almost historical way. How far have we come since 1993? Television doesn't have 40 channels anymore, it has hundreds of channels. The discussion about television and its effect on us is almost completely drowned out by the discussion of what the internet is doing to us. Parents are afraid of cyber-bullying and online predators. Interestingly enough, television is the backdrop to how the internet has developed the way it has. Our conditioning to understand monitor screens as televisions helped to move in a direction allowing us to view computer information in the same light.

This ecstasy of communication that does exist via the internet actually allows us to have interactivity in relation to the aura of television. Conversations are built around showing pictures and video to each other and discussing them. The ironic twitch of thought leads people to attempting to transcend their boredom or ennui with communication based on communication to find more extreme ways of interacting and getting attention. And believe me, getting attention is the primary use of the internet. Television provides us with the fantasy of what it is like to be a star. The internet allows everyone to be a star. Whether this involves getting naked, or being a writer, or a commenter on a blog, or whatever. The internet provides you with an extended identity, a televisual identity.

Reality television is a phenomenon that hadn't exploded yet in 1993, and its effect draws right into the online phenomenon. Suddenly, "real people" in "real situations" are showing us how they really act in real life. This unscripted world is a world that we can relate to, because our world in unscripted - we could be those people. There is nothing spectacular about them, other than they're generally more attractive than the average joe... but they're just attractive average joes. The template of reality shifts as people adjust to this supposed mirror. It is one thing to watch a sit-com and realize these are staged, fictional stories; it is another thing to watch reality television and have no concept of how these real people are or are not real in the least.

We begin to see ourselves as the stars of our own reality television show - our own lives. Only there is no camera, but our cell phones take pictures and video. And thus, for so many people, this electronic world of communication becomes a lifeline - the reflexivity of getting constant texts and calls on the cell phone helps us realize that we are stars of our life.

Whereas Wallace talks about the isolating loneliness of television, the internet helps to bring that loneliness to the forefront so that we can confront it and feel like stars. Do a search on MySpace for "Princess" - how many names come up? How many friends does Paris Hilton have on MySpace? Tila Tequila gets her own show on MTV after already being a star on MySpace. Stardom is not something that is achieved by the few anymore, stardom is a state of being - a way of living.

No longer do you see yourself as an audience, you are looking for your audience. But this is isolating as well - how do you make real connections with others? Our insecurities and extreme self-awareness (imagination of how others perceive us) is crippling and we either voice those insecurities and look for an audience by exploiting our feelings, or attempt to look past these feelings. Self-awareness then is a confusing fragmentation, and identity is only preserved by finding real talents and embracing and fostering them - but even then the temptation to want an audience for our talents is immense.

The Phenomenological Experience: You are Yourself

2009-06-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

Our individual phenomenological experiences make us who we are. Deconstructionism refers to the philosophical practice of breaking apart ideological biases to understand the "truth" behind these ideologies. People do this all of the time - we see what's wrong in the world, in our nation, in our community, in our relationships, in ourselves. We look at these issues and try to explain why things are that way.

Let me just provide a warning: be careful in how you deconstruct yourself. This may sound tautological, but - you are yourself. Your emotions, thoughts, brain, body, perceptions are all tied inextricably together. There are plenty of external influences on you, but that does not mean it is possible to separate you from yourself.

You are yourself, when you talk about your thoughts, feelings, and the confluence of forces that interact in your life with you - use words like "I" and "me." Phenomenological experiences are the basis for perception and analysis always begins with yourself.

All prescriptive suggestions need to come from a place of authority starting with yourself. This is why good writing comes from those who invest themselves in the subject and share their investment. Placing yourself as an objective third party is a farce.

I will tell you now, if I don't show you why I care about something or how the subject connects with me, then my writing is weak or inauthentic. It is likely that I am hiding something from you. This is not to say I need to put everything on a platter for you, sometimes it is there but you have to find it.

What is this entry about? Fear or laziness. When my writing is weak, I can almost guarantee you that it is because I am being lazy or I'm afraid to share myself with you. I endeavor to continue to bring the context of myself into my writing, visible or not, so that you can feel connected to my words. If I don't, I am sure that you will know.

2009-06-04T14:15:00.001-07:00

When people complain about "falling in love with potential" they only really mean people that don't live up to potential. Some people actually realize their potential, or consistently advance toward their goals. This is why complaining about "falling in love with potential" happens.

Pro-Life Killers

2009-06-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

In memory of Dr. Tiller

wombs of our nation
hog-tied to pick-up trucks
trail fishtail to the clinic

busting down doors
vigilantes smash embryos
freedom demolition motion

floor covered in embryonic fluid
slipping violently on stem cells
crashing into sanitized walls

out in front wombs are weeping
sleeping sons summers seep
deep dripping dreams releasing

birth is a blast
tasted richly
gun barrels twitching

the wombs are women
are you listening?
the wombs are women
are you listening?
the wombs are women
are you listening?
the wombs are women
your skin is itching

western willow wisdom
gallows hallowed horror
a man's last words his first
his birth his condemnation

another man kills an abortionist
tells the women why with glazed eyes
fingers press the concertina tight

it is his song
playing quietly
filling the world

it is his song
his song

Something new pt. 3

2009-06-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

When I was a little boy, I remember watching the footage of the Oklahoma City bombing over and over and over again. The charred children. The massive smoldering hole in the building. Worries about my father.

John was dropped off by Judy back at the house. Judy went off to her job. John didn't know what she did at her job, but he knew she was at an advertising firm and she worked in the back away from all of the people dressed up in clothes that say "I'm a go-getter!"

Judy often complained about people at work. John thought that she dressed the way she did to annoy them, though she'd never admit it. "I'm just expressing myself" is what she would say. Her nuclear bright red hair, facial piercings, and ratty band tee-shirts and "weird art" shirts put a barrier between her and, well, everyone really.

John sighed. I have no barriers. He heard a robotic voice in his head. I HAVE NO BARRIERS AND I WILL DESTROY YOU EARTHLINGS. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? John sighed again. It was time to go to work.

Evening shift at generic retail warehouse store. Generic polo shirt embroidered with generic company logo purchased with generic money removed from generic paycheck. Generic customers. Generic music. Generic lighting. Generic asshole managers.

They found 168 bodies. They found an unidentified leg. A human leg severed from a body that was never found. A leg was found and identified as belonging to a woman buried in New Orleans. They pulled her out of the ground and placed the leg in her coffin, and removed the incorrect leg that was in her coffin. The removed leg had been embalmed and no one knows who it really belongs to. A leg devoid of context.

John felt like throwing up. He imagined people passing in and out of existence like whispering echoes of tree branches scratching old windows. He imagined his life a fraud with his best friend an aborted memory removed from time. His loneliness a condition of fractal matrices coalescing around the dark matter of his existence.

In two weeks, John will finish his summer job at Generic Company and go back to college to finish his senior year. He will have a degree in anthropology. He will have no idea what he will do with his degree, but he knows for sure that he does not want to work at Generic Company anymore. That is two weeks from now.

John arrived at Generic Company and went to the employee's lounge. He looked at the clock. 1:53. It was against the rules to swipe in more than five minutes before your shift started. John went over to the vending machine and pushed buttons. John went over to the employee training computer and pushed buttons. John went over to the television and changed the channel to Oxygen for ironic reasons. John swiped in and walked across the store to his department. He looked at the master sheet. Lunch in five hours. John hated that, why couldn't it always just be right in the middle of his shift four hours in?

John had to find a manager to tell him what to do. There were three managers on duty right now. He hated all of them. They had no idea what they were doing. They often yelled at John for doing what they asked him to do. John's favorite manager was Young Manager. He understood that everything they did was bullshit, so he found ways to keep people busy that was not quite as degrading as what the other managers came up with. John went and found Young Manager.

"Hey John, you got your phone?" He smirked. They both hated phones.

"Yeah."

"We got a big shipment in of garden bricks. Go make a garden display with the garden bricks. Make sure to put up the sign that says how much those bricks cost."

"Great, so I get to take them off the palette and then put them back on when someone buys them."

"You got it. Have fun."

John went to the garden section. Sure enough there were new palettes of bricks. John knew where to build the display, because they had one there a few weeks ago until someone came and bought all of the bricks. John had previously built the display, and put all of the bricks on a palette to put in the guy's pick-up truck that bought all of the bricks. John put on gloves, got a palette lifter, and dragged the palette to where he was going to make the display.

"JOHN RUSCO CALL 2808 PLEASE. JOHN RUSCO CALL 2808." That was the closing manager. He was The Worst Manager of all. He always told everyone to call him using the intercom. He knew every one's phone numbers, but he liked to make people call him. John always was doubly annoyed at these announcements because his last name is Russo, and no matter how many times he told The Worst Manager "it is Rus-so" it didn't take.

John called 2808. "Hello."

"John, what are you doing?"

"Building a display in Garden."

"Could you come to Electronics please?"

"Ok." It wasn't a question.

John walked across the store. Each day John figured he walked about eight miles, if not more. The Worst Manager was standing there waiting for him.

"Hey John," his voice had an annoying drawl to it, "We are having an inspection tomorrow and we need to make sure every item over twenty dollars has a security tag on it. Could you go through these aisles and make sure everything is tagged?"

"Ok." It wasn't a question.

John spent an hour pulling item after item off the shelf into a shopping cart, looking for tags, and then putting the items back on the shelf. When John finished he had only put three security tags on items that weren't properly tagged. He went back to build his display in Garden.

The Young Manager called him. "John you done yet with the display?"

CNN played a live feed of the memorial. "Taps" and speeches and crying wives, mothers, children, and other family and friends. There was footage of the makeshift monuments of love. Flowers, children's drawings, photographs, and keepsakes pressed together.

"No. I'm just getting started." John knew he wouldn't like that.

"What the hell! What have you been doing?" John imagined his face exploding.

"I was told to stop what I was doing to check security tags in Electronics."

"Are you fucking shitting me? I had someone do that yesterday!"

"Sal told me to. Talk to him about it."

"Build that fucking display and don't go anywhere. If anyone tells you to go somewhere else call me first."

"Ok."

John worked on building the display. It was exhausting moving bricks for so long, and moving plants around. Time ended. Eventually it was "lunch time." John slid his time card in at 7:02 and went to the deli and got a burrito. At 7:35 he got a call on the intercom again, even though he told The Worst Manager he was on his lunch break and The Worst Manager made the schedule and could look at it himself. He didn't call back. John went back and slid his time card in at 8:02. He would finish working the rest of the night without thinking. He would systematically organize each shelf without thought. He would talk to The Worst Manager minimally without thought. And he would go home without thought.

Something new pt. 2

2009-05-31T19:19:00.000-07:00

John woke up at 7:00 AM when Judy dropped a pot in the kitchen loudly. Twenty seconds later he got a text message. "FUCK!!! SRY DUDE, BROKE YR POT. I'LL GET NEW 1 WHEN I GET PAID. U UP?"

John didn't process any of this. He looked at his Windows Media Player. Swirls, lines, spinning dots, music. He texted back "no i'm dedddddddddd".

John heard a laugh from Judy. It was just one laugh, like "ha." She texted him back, "GET UP. LET'S GO EAT"

John was already up. He thought about checking his e-mail. No, don't. It'll be there when I get back. It will be there forever. E-mail doesn't have an expiration date like milk. John opened his internet explorer and as it loaded he went downstairs. He didn't get dressed because he was still wearing shorts from last night.

"Judy, I'm tired. You drive."

Judy looked at John's bare chest. "Put a shirt on."

John found a shirt by the washer and dryer down the hall. It was Judy's Bad Religion t-shirt. He put it on.

"Fuck that, man. Don't you have your own clothes?"

John didn't say anything. Judy already walked out the door. John slipped on some flip-flops before drifting toward Judy's car.

"How tall are you?" John said in a flat-tone.

Judy looked at John. "Six-eight."

"Me too. Let's play beach volleyball together. We'll win everything. Plus I'll get to stare at your ass for like half the game. Sweet."

"I get the losing end of that deal. I have to look at your ass half the time."

John looked at Judy. She seemed amused he thought. Half her mouth was smiling half-way.

"Hey, if we have kids they'll be like eight feet tall. We'll have to have a special house and special beds and special sinks and special bathrooms."

"Yeah, we'll have to replace our chairs with thrones. We'll have to get booster seats for our booster seats."

Judy played with her hair as she drove. John watched her fingers swirl through her hair. It made him feel vaguely sad.

Judy parked the car at the diner. They walked in and sat at their corner table like always. John got biscuits and gravy like always. Judy always got one of two things - cereal or oatmeal. John always made fun of whatever she got.

"I'd like oatmeal" Judy tells the waitress.

"You know what would be sweet? On Halloween I could dress-up like a penis and throw water balloons filled with oatmeal at people."

"So what is your costume going to be?" Judy was a master at saying everything with a flat affect.

"I thought I'd go as a J. Crew model and wear a turtleneck. You know, I'll need some protection from the cold."

"...and the rest of humanity." Judy sipped her coffee and stared off at the neon "open" sign.

The waitress brought the food. John dumped hot sauce all over his biscuits.

"Judy, can we be serious for a second? Who were you talking to last night?" John took a big sloppy bite and spilled gravy on his shorts. Judy grimaced and eyeballed her shirt.

"Some guy I met at a show. He was auctioning off his artwork to help pay for school. It is great stuff." Judy allowed herself to smile as she said this.

"So... how did my height get brought into this conversation?" John said while precariously waving a fork-full of biscuits near his face.

"Oh, it wasn't. I was just curious."

John thought about this and tried not to frown. "How many balloons do you think we could fill with your oatmeal?"

"Let me see your hand."

John held out his hand. Judy stabbed it with a fork.

"Is this a metaphor? Maybe four balloons for the four holes you poked in my hand?" John tried to act calm and cool and forget the pain welling in his hand. She didn't break the skin, but it will probably leave a bruise or some mark. It would probably be the most memorable part of his day, and he'll want to tell everyone at work about it.

"Give me your other hand."

"My other hand is feeling shy right now."

They ate in silence for a while.

"Judy, what do you think? Is it going to get serious with this art guy?" John didn't know what he wanted her to say or how he'd feel based on what she'd say. In fact, John hadn't thought of asking the question until it was coming out of his mouth.

Judy looked at John and then her oatmeal. "I don't know. He recently broke up with a long-term girlfriend. Maybe I'll be the rebound before he finds that girl that reminds him of everything his misses from his ex, other than the stuff he hated." She swirled her coffee around.

"See, that's the problem these days. People want to live in stories, they want to live on reality television, they think there is some sort of happy ending waiting for them - you know, like when they get the new car when they finish the last mission on Road Rules. But there isn't a new car. At least, I'm pretty sure that I'm not a new car." John had an uncontrollable urge to check his e-mail, but he somehow managed to take a bite of his biscuits and gravy instead.

Judy looked down again. "No, John. No you aren't."

Short Meditation on "Unrequited Love" pt. 4

2009-05-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

It is impossible to broach the subject of unrequited love without discussing guilt. Unrequited love situations are, by definition, dysfunctional. But what makes them dysfunctional? Is it the person who does not return the love? Is it the person who expects or desires love to be returned? Is it the person or situation that is in the way of this love?

Guilt is a weapon of manipulation. It is a bit much to assume that most people want to be "good people." It is a completely different issue to assume that people don't want to be seen as "bad people" by others. Guilt is a function of perception.

The truth is that we are all guilty. We are guilty for our thoughts. We are guilty for our actions. We are guilty for our lack of actions. We are guilty for what others may or may not think of us regardless of we are trying or not trying to do.

Guilt is not an objective fact, beyond the understanding that we are guilty for everything we do. Once this is understood, guilt no longer matters. All that matters is understanding yourself: your limits, your self-judgments, and your willingness to face yourself with open, clear eyes.

The truth is that we choose everything for ourselves, including our problems. Any unrequited love situation is also a choice of everyone involved.

Short Meditation on "Unrequited Love" pt. 3

2009-05-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

Courtly love was considered one of the highest forms of love several hundred years ago. Men (almost uniformly) were to fall in love with women from afar, and then nobly internalize these feelings, agonize, and write poetry. This works because having a desire that you know cannot be obtained held out before you creates an emotional frenzy which is ideal for creativity. Stress, pain, and anxiety are great motivators for artists.

I learned about courtly love in high school somewhere between reading Sir Gawan and the Green Night and the Knight's Tale in The Canterbury Tales. I realized I was prone to courtly love. What I mean is, I wrote nearly 100 pages of poetry about a girl that I somewhat knew, that went to a school in another county. I felt alive then. I felt hopeless and out-of-control and stayed up until 4:00 AM frequently. If at any point I had "got the girl" this orgiastic mess of creativity would probably collapse and my productivity and development would have gone out the window.

I realized what I was doing. I knew it was probably unhealthy. Teenagers are supposed to go out and have girlfriends. They're supposed to "do things." I did things, but rarely with girls I was actually attracted to, and even then it was always tame. The raging feelings in my chest were intoxicating. When things didn't go my way, the better. My nightmares about looking for the women I desired and not finding them, or finding them casting away my attention ignited me. Once I dreamt I finally found her, and she turned toward me with a sign that simply said "NO." I woke up in a cold sweat. Exhilarating.

At some point it had to end. I told her how I felt. She rejected me awkwardly. Nothing made any sense. She seemed to give me a lot more attention. Lots of hugs. Something was broken in her. She gave hints. This was also intoxicating. It was a mystery. She was sharing. It was one-way. Nothing came from me and went to her. At least not reflected back. This is the nature of unrequited love.

We're looking for connection, always. "Unrequited love" can provide a conduit toward a connection for yourself, but it becomes tedious and eventually you see what kind of fraud you are. It was at this point, after cutting off communication with this girl that I realized that I needed to change a lot of things. Since then I have not experienced "unrequited love." Nor have I quite felt that intoxication.

I am looking for a balance. I want to feel a little out of control with my emotions. I want to be inspired to stay up way too late. I want to send stupid e-mails that are endearing. But I also want to have conversations where I feel that I am understood. I want the world to melt away and lava to shoot up through the cracks in the asphalt causing great heat and blurred vision. I want to blink my eyes and feel fear and yet certainty about the intensity of the connection I am creating and I want that to help fuel me creatively. I want my other emotions of alienation, loneliness, and angst toward absurdity and the corruption of meaning to be embraced, harnessed, and expanded upon. I want strange novel moments of ennui followed by delicious burritos.

Is that too much to ask for?

Short Meditation on "Unrequited Love" pt. 2

2009-05-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, so there's the scenario (you've seen this in movies, and read it in books, and saw it on Dr. Phil or Jerry Springer or something) where there are two people totally in love, but somehow one or both of them married or are in committed relationships with someone else. OMG.

Right, so they can't "requite" the love because it is against the rules. But you know how humans are, sometimes they break the rules. And then ruin their lives. In other cases, like in Lost in Translation, they go back to their lives but it is an emotional letdown.

In these sorts of stories where the "heroes" end up doing the noble thing and it sucks, I notice that the main characters are almost always stuck in relationships with people that are unpleasurable to be around. This happens because people really want to feel loved or just secure. Of course, people make sacrifices to get this and then afterwards find out that they could have done a lot better. Or sometimes, you end up with someone who changes for the worst as time goes on. That's bad, because as time goes on you're supposed to learn how to handle life better, not worse. Some people don't work that way though.

Another example of this problem is when for some reason you aren't supposed to be with the other person. Maybe it is the early 1900s and you're white and the other person is black. Maybe you're both gay, but are trying to live "normal" lives. Maybe you met someone on vacation and then had to go back to 3000 miles away. There are lots of reasons.

Nowadays we have instant messagers, e-mail, cell phones, and other ways to keep in touch with these people. That can make unrequited love stories more painful though. Also, they can be comical, because once you end up with the person you've been talking with on the computer for so long you might not realize how different they actually are when they're right next to you with real mouths and real bad breath and real selfish issues about spending a lot of your money on clothes, sushi, and gym fees to a gym that you never go to. Or what if the sex is just a major letdown!

I think it would make sense if the rest of my life were a comedy based on these sorts of problems. It wouldn't be until I'm old that I'd realize this was all a joke. Then a genie would surprise me, maybe when I was screwing around with my Tibetan singing bowl and say "Surprise, I'm a genie that hides in a Tibetan singing bowl instead of a lamp. I'm not giving you any wishes that you get to choose. You're just going back in time to your 20s and you'll met the woman you were supposed to fall in love with and get married to and you'll live your life the way you were supposed to instead of this mildly depressing comedy." I would say "thank you" but I'd feel a little cheated. I'd want my normal three wishes so that I could be rich, so I could fly, and to live forever. Of course, these wishes would ultimately make me feel miserable because those kinds of wishes backfire. This is how it works though.

Short Meditation on "Unrequited Love" pt. 1

2009-05-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Unrequited love is a dumb idea. Either you are loved reciprocally, or you are not. When you are not, how can you continue to feel love toward that which does not love back? Unrequited love implies spending a lot of time on this. I can understand in brief episodes having feelings (we'll call them "love") that are not returned reciprocally.

I think people that experience "unrequited love" don't want to actually be loved. Loving in an unrequited manner takes away your responsibility to be a decent, lovable human being. It is easier that way, but then your life isn't really based on anything. If that's OK with you.

I am bad at keeping my plants alive. But I'm doing better. I'm also mowing the lawn more regularly and it looks better than last year. I am shaving more often, also.

I think it might be kind of neat to fall in love, but I'm not sure if I can do that because of the increasing populations of raging hordes of robots on reality television. I mean, how can you know? Really.

Of course

2009-05-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

The national spelling bee was won with the word "laodicean" which means "lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics." Why didn't I know this word?

trans-movement

2009-05-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

1. move your feet to the rhythm

move your feet to the
rhythm
move your
rhythm
feet to the
to the
your feet
rhythm

move

2. another kind of movement

Peter Pan with a beard
foldable walker
arthritis

cashing in on Social Security

Fairy Godmother with botox
Lasik eye surgery
all kinds of creams

just accidentally wished herself
into a fetus

singing mice just do
Motown covers now

Snow White woke up
terrified thinking
"was I date raped?"

3. human to robot movement

we shouldn't be afraid of robots anymore
I just happened to see Real World/Road Rules Challenge last night

after being on reality television for well over a decade
you become a different sort of robot

Orwell didn't know about this
when he wrote 1984

or he was afraid that Mark
would go back in time
and rape him
so he left that part out

we'll never know

4. robot to human movement

I observed Soulja Boy's dance craze
without ever investing myself
to judge it

I watched sports teams doing the dance
on ESPN

I watched people do the dance
on date time talk shows

I watched people do the dance
on youtube clips
shown on CNN

I saw Akon simulate sex
with an under-aged girl
as part of a "dance contest"

she was scared
she won

2009-05-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

These people from "Real World" or "Road Rules" that have been on MTV periodically for nearly two full decades are no longer anything remotely human.

Wild Humans and Socrates

2009-05-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

I told a student the famous quote from Socrates, "The unexamined life is not worth living." He interpreted this to mean, at first, "The life unexamined by others is not worth living." I thought this disembodied understanding of a quote that I assumed to be simple was strange and delightfully exhilirating. And if it were true!

I've had fantasies while walking through dense forests in remote areas of running into a wild human. A human that had no family, no language, and no reason to believe that anyone else existed outside of himself. He would spot me first, because wild humans are more in tune with their senses. And, I think, despite having no language he would immediately understand that I was like him in a way.

This reminds me also of how picked up my dog after doing yard work, and put a tarp down in the backyard and put fire wood on it. When running outside as he always does at night before bed, he was flabbergasted at how his world had changed unexpectedly. He barked a warning and growled while pacing around the tarp with his tail down and his hackles raised. Are we to say that he is not a smart animal? Certainly not.

At times, I have come to the conclusion that the lives of certain other people aren't worth living. My job is not to convince them to stop living it, or to put them out of their misery. But it raises many questions when you look in the face of another without any concept of why this person lives. Of course, I can not even remember a time in my life when I wasn't asking myself questions about why I lived and what I lived for. Of course, this is all absurd anyway. But the absurd needs a reason why too, even if it is an absurd reason.

I digress.

I have never met a wild human. I am not sure that I would like to meet one. It would ruin his world, I think.

"Oh."

2009-05-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

Is community the same thing as the elephant chorus singing in perfect four-part harmony (all four parts in falsetto) in my head?

"Oh."

She used to say that when I said anything that mattered to me. "Oh."

It reminds you that nothing matters and that we're all going to die alone in elephant graves that aren't really elephant graves but are just mounds and valleys in indeterminable spaces on "Earth." That's an exaggeration, because you have to exaggerate things like that to feel calm and submissive because you actually don't have that much control and you know it. Or you're MacBeth, but I think he knew it and just didn't want to believe it.

Buying a new shirt is a really intense spiritual experience. Also hats.

I try to explain to people that spirituality isn't religion and that faith is also different.

Actually, it is a six act play and the sixth act is super-secret and only gods and ghosts know about it. In the sixth act Apollo killed Dionysus with the Sun and the planet has been dying since then, but also the sun is blinding everything and existence is the metaphor and the veil is reality. Maybe a double metaphor, and maybe a double or triple veil.

"Oh."

People think that God created the world with his voice. The word of God. Words are the most powerful things, more than weight-lifter weights and anvils and pianos.

I started this whole thing out by asking about community, because the veils make it hard to know. It seems like music probably would be involved, like a faint echo of Dionysus's last breath drifting out forever.

Something new

2009-05-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

"I'm not politically apathetic! My lack of interest, participation, and education is a form of political activism."

Justin growled and punched John in the shoulder - hard. He stared at John.

"Well I buy things, that counts, right?"

Justin drove his car off a cliff and his last words were "Fuck you, motherfucker!"

"No, that doesn't count."

As they pulled up to the house John started singing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" in falsetto. Justin frowned and danced along, kicking the bushes with his boots on the way to the door.

"Mom!" John's voice cracked, "Let us in!"

The door opened slowly. Judy laughed sarcastically. "You guys are too old to get away with that."

John turned and stared at Justin. With eyes locked they both started singing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and started dancing. Judy closed the door. Justin shrugged. They ran around to the back door and walked in.

Justin went in first. "Hey, have you noticed that like every movie and TV show has time travel in it? What's up with that?"

Judy yelled from the living room. “Mom called. She changed her mind about the whole birth thing. I guess you’re aborted.”

“That sucks, I was going to make spaghetti.”

Justin disappeared and John was left standing alone in the kitchen with a grocery bag filled with noodles, tomato sauce, ground beef, garlic, and Twizzlers.

“Hey Judy, who all is supposed to be here tonight? I’m going to start making the spaghetti.”

“Just me and you. I guess Mary and her boyfriend went to a concert up in Seattle.”

John made the spaghetti with a zen-like focus while repeating the chorus to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” over and over in his head. He allowed the song to repeat without judgment despite never really liking the song. It was natural, like breathing.

“Smells good” Judy yelled at some point.

“That’s what she said.” John yelled back without thinking. Then he thought about it. It didn’t quite work, but it was close enough. Maybe it was funnier that way.

Earlier in the day, John had been sitting in a call center telling cell phone customers why their bills were so high. His job was to get yelled at indiscriminately. At first, it bothered him, but now he does it without issue. He imagines each person as a disembodied head rolling down a steep hill after getting struck by the guillotine. They are able to talk to him via Bluetooth.

John and Judy ate in separate rooms. Judy ate in the living room and continued to watch something on TV. John went upstairs to his bedroom. He has lived there for three years. He placed his food on the bed and turned on his computer. He spent the rest of the evening on his computer and ate only half his dinner because he was too busy instant messaging people he didn’t really know and reading message boards.

He thought about putting his plate on the floor instead of bringing it downstairs, but the smell was just too much. Judy was still on the couch and she was texting someone on her phone.

“Hey, John, how tall are you?”

John automatically replied “Six-foot-eight.”

“No, I mean really, not in alternate universe basketball land.” She continued typing into her phone without ever making eye contact.

“Oh. I’m five-ten.” John walked into the kitchen and dropped his plate into the sink. He turned the water on for a second and pretended to clean it.

Judy didn’t say anything when John went back upstairs.

John put his head against his pillow and stared at his monitor’s swirling psychedelic colors from Windows Media Player. The music was from an internet radio website that he picked randomly. John thought about grade school for no reason and couldn’t sleep. Eventually an image of the Pope flashed in his head and he laughed.

2009-05-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

I can honestly tell you that I don't get bored. I like to think of myself as some sort of zen master, but I don't think that's it. If I were a zen master I would go out of my way more to be completely in silence, in some sort of bamboo room maybe, or I'd go out into the wilderness by myself with a canteen of water. I would do that at least once a month, but I'd try to do it every weekend. Sometimes I would even go after work.

Actually, I think I don't get bored because I am overstimulated all of the time. My job feels like getting hit with a strobe light that alternates in colors. Red. Blue. Green. Red. Blue. Green. Red-blue. Green-red. Purple. Whatever. Whenever I'm able to slow everything down I can start making sense of the colors and chart them out on a ven diagram.

Actually, I just work with teenagers that mostly have ADD and ADHD. They gave me ADD as an accidental present. Not really, but it feels like it sometimes.

I get off work and try to make sense of my life. I do this by turning on the radio and forgetting everything that happened for the past 10 hours. Then sometimes I stop at the store on the way home and buy Twizzlers or a Coke. When I do this, I have a fight in my head as to whether it is worth the time to actually pull off the road, find a parking spot, walk into the store, go to the aisle that has what I want, grab the item, go to the checkout stand, get out my wallet, and then pay. I don't like the paying part because I'm not friends with cashiers and its their job to ask me if "I found everything all right." They have to do that, because when they look at my blank face I'm sure they don't really think "this guy is missing something and needs my help." I think they just see nothing. Maybe they judge the food I buy. I think about that sometimes, but then I think that these people work in grocery stores and they're usually over-weight and this is their life and they see everybody buy everything and it is all really nihilistic so who gives a shit about any of it all? Really.

So in some way the decision is made while I'm driving, but I don't really know which decision I make most of the time until I find myself turning on my blinker or not turning on my blinker. Once I do that, I'm committed.

I watch the news when I get home, several hours of it usually. Unless a game is on. Then I might watch that, or will certainly watch it if it is my team. I check my email, facebook, and myspace. All I want to know is if anyone had anything to say to me. It takes 2 minutes. Then I'll check news sites and blogs that are critical about the things I am critical about. Sometimes we disagree, but not often. I try to read blogs I always disagree with once in a while, but it isn't usually worth the effort. Their logic and evidence is too easy to puncture holes in so it isn't worth it. That doesn't usually take long either.

Then I do whatever. Play games, play music, write music, listen to music, read, play with my dog, talk to people on AIM or Facebook or even call people once in a while. I can't really say why I choose one or the other, I just do it.

Sometimes when I try to hang out with people I find out that they're going to be really late, and it isn't a big deal for me to just hang out doing nothing except walking around looking at things, or sitting someone looking at things, or just thinking. I read philosophy and a lot of political stuff, and I try to put the ideas together. Or I'll think about my life and analyze it.

I like my job, but I don't think I'm being challenged enough. Sometimes I think about going to Africa, but not to the countries that have a lot of violence. I think I'd like to go somewhere on the African coast along the Mediterranean Sea. I am a desert guy, but I like being by water. I don't like swimming though. I just like the air, and how it looks. How at certain times in the day looking at the water with the sun reflecting on it reminds you of the cold certainty of the world. Not that I think about dying, I think more about how the world is big and time is endless and I just am and it doesn't make any sense but the feel of sun and the wind with the scent of the salt water is good.

I like mountains too, but not as much.

2009-05-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

The most beautiful woman in the world works at Olé Olé on 13th and Jefferson. I decided that as I was planning to make my order of a carne asada burrito. She is about 5'8, and had on large earrings and her long hair in a pony tail in back. I don't know if she is Mexican or not, but she has an accent.

I decided she was the most beautiful woman in the world when I looked in her face and saw her intent little eyes and very symmetrical features. Her long, narrow neck emphasized her good posture. She moved efficiently and the entire time I watched her moving around as I ate my burrito I never saw her waste a motion.

I looked at her and it was like "woah". I wasn't expecting it. Why should I need to be expecting it? I don't know. I was just thinking about food.

I decided quickly that she was the most beautiful woman in the world, but as I was watching her I noticed that her hair was cut in a sort of way that indicated that she'd probably have some sort of sideburns if they weren't cut that way. I thought about it as I was watching her, and decided that she could still be the most beautiful woman in the world granted that she took care to not grow out her sideburns. Otherwise, she'd probably still be very attractive but would have weird sideburns.

I probably ought to keep the part to myself about how she is very thin. I mean, it is obvious, but she is. I thought that maybe she was a dancer, because she is fit and well-balanced. I imagined her salsa dancing. I'm not a dancer, but sometimes I think about the idea of myself dancing. It is weird.

I have good rhythm. I could say, "well, most musician's do" but I actually don't think that that's true. Rhythm is a body thing, not a thinking thing. What I am saying is - it isn't math. I have rhythm when I play soccer. Believe it or not, it is almost exactly the same thing.

I decided that I wouldn't bother talking to her. I wasn't going to say "I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world" or "you're the most beautiful woman in the world" or "hey, I know a beautiful woman like you probably has a boyfriend, but I was just wondering..." No, none of that. I don't live there, and plus I haven't shaved in 3 days and I didn't really know what to say after that. "So... do you like existentialism and post-modern angst stemming from an overwhelming sense of alienation from all constructs of meaning? Let's go get ice cream." It didn't seem very culturally sensitive, and I believe in what my friend has always said "don't shit where you eat." That's not literal. It means, don't fuck up in a weird way that makes it too embarrassing to go to where you like to eat.

I watched her waitressing, and I realized that there's something about waitressing. Waitressing well is an art form. It is an art form of nurturing. Taking care of people with ease and grace. It is sexy in a way. I wondered if women felt the same way about waiters.

Even though I decided that I wouldn't talk to her, I kept imagining it. But I never imagined the conversations happening in the restaurant. Sometimes we were outside walking around and then randomly we'd start talking like familiar strangers. Sometimes we'd be at her house and she'd apologize "for the mess" even though her house was ridiculously clean which is also embarrassing. "Oh" I'd say, "What are you talking about? This place is immaculate." And she'd kind of blush, but maybe in a polite way as she quietly tried to determine how dirty I am. Of course, I'd say things to try to make her feel comfortable with me... to understand that my messes are self-contained and not all-encompassing. But it is hard to say any of this convincingly, because you don't want to defend yourself too strongly, it makes you wonder.

At some point in the conversation I get bored with myself and even though I have no expectations I decide I should get home to my dog. So I get up and put plate away and carefully clean my table to make it look as if I never sat there. I leave quietly and start writing this little story in my head as I walk down the street. I kind of wish that I had a pen and paper so I could write it immediately, but as I walk I find myself revising everything several times over. I try to decide what this thing is about, what I want my audience to know or understand. I realize that it doesn't really matter and that the weather is really nice and I'm starting to get thirsty. Eventually, I would need to go get something to drink. But for now, it can wait.

Conformism and Individualism: American Traits 1945-Present

2009-04-01T22:55:00.000-07:00

Anything to fit in so as to feel free to be an individual...

In 1945, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about how Americans feel a need to conform in order to feel allowed to have personality. During the war, Sartre got to see America in full war propaganda productivity. The ever enveloping advertisements, images, and other inputs he described as making it so that Americans never are truly alone. Now, we don't have WWII-style propaganda - we don't need it. It is all still true, and even moreso perhaps.

Creative people often feel alienated because they haven't earned a status that allows them to feel free from judgement. Sartre wrote about how Americans feel too free to adapt an artist's work, as one woman told him "so it can be understood." These ideas are connected. It is strange that way--

As rebellion is commodified and re-commodified with each new fad, the horizon for artists is nihilistic. The act of judgement has become the divine, not the verdict. We need to be aware of our place to exploit it - and really, we either exploit it, or we reap nothing from it.

2009-03-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

Another birthday in the books...

I've been busy, hopefully will be posting more stuff here soon.

post-script to nothing

2009-03-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

Maybe trying to become a "whole person" isn't worth the effort. I've felt better in my isolation than I have in a long time. Anti-capitalists complain about the system being rigged to force everyone into the bondage of work. Anti-socialists complain that the state has too much control over how we work. Labor is the word of the day, but it doesn't matter really where you side - people are made to work. Voltaire got it right in Candide.

I could lament my aloneness, my lack of having a girlfriend or people to hang out with. I could lament a lot of things, but when it comes down to it - I want so little from others... I'm assuming this is why I'm bad at that whole "love thing" and why so few feel that they actually know me. I think that if I felt sad I'd be more inspired to write.

As it is, I'm very busy doing things that I like. I wonder how long that can sustain me.

2009-03-13T01:56:00.000-07:00

eye of the night
blinking terrible
flitters

'til morning catches
on fire with heavy
suns streaking
swaths of dew

eye of the night
drinking tremble
shudders

'til morning scratches
o'er coals smoldering
embers flaking
glowing brew

I of the night
sinking parable
flutters

away

'til morning comes
bright and domineering
resplendently commanding
the scene

The Procession of Simulacra: case study

2009-03-04T12:57:00.001-08:00

Björk's Bachelorette video

Simulacra: copies without an original. How strange that this video is advanced by:

1) A book that somehow writes itself
2) A simulations of the events in the book
3) Simulations of the simulation of the events of the book

Each time strikingly similar, yet distant and uncanny. A perfect picture of the procession of simulacra.

2009-02-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

There are two ways to go about it really.

The first - the transcendentalist view - involves going out to the country. Roughing it with nature. Feeling the gravity of life and the cold harshness of the earth. Watching the stars at night away from the light pollution and air pollution that diminishes the glow. Breathing slowly, my friend, breathing in the awe.

The second - the metropolitan view - involves going to the most over-developed areas of a city that you can find. Delving into the intricately woven fabric of social relations and the most unusual fetishes imaginable. Walking the streets with the neon lights, blasting music, and strangely attractive people living out their celebrity-induced dreams. Eyes wide open, intoxicated by the enveloping scene that defies everything including sleep.

I fight between the two, and sometimes I get lost in the neon stars strobing my vision across the antechambers of businesses or churches (indistinguishable differences) that are far too clean, too white, and create too perfect an echo when slowly walking across the polished ground. I get lost in the feminine eyes gouging me from behind delectable haircuts, neo-Toyko Paris make-up styles, and the random deer that managed their way into the city's interior - walking the edge of the city streets looking for a quiet and dark place to settle for the night.

They fight for my attentions, and I suffer from different forms of exoticization of the soul. I feel oddly plain in my mildly cluttered house. And plainness, despite all attempts, is utterly unmotivating. Plainness is the painter's equivalent of coating a white canvas with a beige coat and staring at a small picture of the glass door that sits next to you as inspiration. Looking out the door is more engaging, as passing through it is as well.

I like to imagine Daniel Boone with an iPod. Andrew Jackson furiously sending a text message on his Blackberry to Washington after fighting in New Orleans. Deciding this really could be a nice city someday, without thinking a moment about hurricanes and levies - instead taking in the warmth of the Mexican Gulf's breeze. I can see Andrew Johnson interviewing Rob Blagojevich on YouTube, while off camera W.E.B. Dubois and Oprah roll their eyes while discussing the latest cover of Esquire Magazine with a bare-chested Mathew McConaughey. Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr., and Cindy Sheehan meet at Starbucks to talk about active non-violent resistance using their laptops to scan Google Maps for the right places to take a stand. Ridiculous pop-ups of intelligence quizzes asking if you're smarter than Millard Fillmore and Michael Vick keep interrupting the search until they find their locations and take a deep long breath before moving along.

I like to imagine land rushes on over-developed country cities filled with vacated McMansions. Not everyone gets a home, but Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise get a nice one next to a water canal that helps divert water several hundreds of miles inland toward Las Vegas, which by all reasoning should be an empty desert wasteland. But is is not.

I read a while back that Michael Jackson was going to build a 50+ foot tall robot with lasers in his likeness that was going to march around somewhere out by Las Vegas. True story, I saw it on AOL.

Citibank just lost my business

2009-02-23T22:11:00.000-08:00

In high school, my father found it important for me to get a credit card to start amassing a positive credit record from which to springboard me into adulthood. The limit on my credit card was $500 and I was sort of afraid to use it. I got over this fear, however, and used my card early on primarily for two causes - buying compact discs, and buying gas. Now, over 10 years later, my credit limit has increased to a shocking $9000 despite never once asking for a credit increase. However, after having an account with Citi for my entire adult life, I have decided to end this relationship due to the events of the past several months culminating in today's event.

#1: Citibank is one of the largest perpetrators of the economic meltdown, and the government has been at such ends trying to figure out what to do with this inept company that they are look at nationalizing 40% of the company in exchange for bailing them out further. The management of this company has been atrocious, and it is clear that simply giving these guys money won't lead to them "righting the ship" on their own. They are simply too incompetent.

#2: Citibank responded to the credit crunch by raising the interest rates on almost all of their customers for almost no reason. My rates more than doubled, up to 29.9%. Previously, under usery laws, this would be considered heinous - in the category of loan sharks. Given that my rates skyrocketed for no reason other than "We have the right to raise rates for any reason" as stated in the letter I received in the mail last month, I don't esp. feel valued as a customer than consistently pays my card off nearly every month or at least keeps the balance low at a reasonable level.

#3: Today I received my Federal and State tax returns in the mail. I went online to check the balance to see how much money I would have left after paying off my credit card completely. I was greeted by a warning screen that informed me that my card was shut off due to the potential of "unauthorized activity" and that a new card was in the mail for me. Interesting news, considering that I had not received an e-mail, letter, or phone call informing me of this serious problem. What happened?

Well, I did a little research, and my best guess is that my identity was stolen. I'm not the only one, as it appears that hackers likely got my information and the information of up to 100 MILLION other cards.

While this is frightening and disheartening, what is worse is that Citi didn't take the time to contact me and in worse situations (such as going on vacation), I could have completely been left to dry. The lack of customer service and looking out for my interests has exceeded the benefit of using this card.

Today, I went to my local credit union and applied for a credit card. Within an hour I received a phone call that I was approved and that I would be getting a new card in the mail within 7-10 business days.

Since I am unable to pay off my other card online, as that feature inexplicably has been shut off for me. I will have to call Citi again to pay off the card. At that point, I will only use this card in cases of emergency. Hopefully, in the near future, I will be able to get another card from someone else and I can just cancel that card with its ridiculous rates.

When I called Citi today to ask what happened, I was told "it is under investigation and we cannot tell you anything" by Ashram - a difficult to understand Indian guy - that I'm sure was annoyed by dealing with me at such an early hour in the morning in his time. It is quite clear, to Citibank, it is perfectly acceptable to shut down someone's credit without any explanation or notification because their proprietary information (in this case, my personal information) is easily stolen because it isn't protected at the level that it should be. As I was reading through these articles, trying to understand what happened, I read that last year $48 million dollars was lost to identity theft - most of which could have easily been protected with some planning.

Perhaps switching to another card won't protect me any further, as my identity was likely stolen from the processing of one of the companies that I made a purchase from (250,000 companies have their payments processed through the company that was hacked). But I feel much better sending my money through a local business, with local people that I can understand, that I know value customer service and charge a comparably reasonable 9.9% interest rate.

The takeaway value from all of this, is that we all should know that none of our information is safe at all. That any time we purchase anything with a credit card, that information could end up anywhere in anyone's hands. The primary reason we can't trust that our transactions are safe is because the government hasn't regulated the security precautions that need to be taken to protect us. My hope is that this changes soon, and that our government will quickly regulation and/or nationalize these banks that have failed us.

Dreams of Transylvania

2009-02-21T22:16:00.000-08:00

I can fall in love with a country
with big eyes and lush trees
windy roads and scary driving

I miss everything
each night this past week
I've dreamt of Transylvania

the road to Sinai we danced
tongues swelling truths
catching our words

walking the pathway we sang
as strange foreign visitors
charged the castle walls

my armor was invisible
so I didn't know
I couldn't be touched

heaven broke open
when I lost myself
by the king's bedroom

the rain soaked through
my clothes unfettered
by seeking hands

and so clearly a dream
I see myself a representation
yet also far too real

my whole life
is this kiss
that never happens

when I am here I am
thousands of miles away

but this irony I know
distance is the only way
for me to touch you

may these trembling hands
be my fear of returning
that make feelings stronger

this desert with snow
and strikingly clear nights
with glowing moon halos

suits me just fine
illuminated hands

the distance

entreats me--

where to go

2009-02-17T22:32:00.000-08:00

I wish someone would explain to me how love is something more than an escape, something other than an escape. The immanence of my life takes on much more gravity in my aloneness. I get lost in others' suffering - I confuse it with mine. I have yet to experience a feeling of love that leads toward a feeling of a deeper sense of self, rather than a deeper sense of responsibility and exhaustion.

I'm not really saying that I'm bitter - this is more of a dumbfoundedness. Am I really so engaged in the Great Internal and the sweltering exigent structural conditionality of our time that finding continual deep connections with other individuals is at best a mirage? How is it that I am so likeable? I shouldn't be likeable at all considering the weight of the thoughts grinding through me.

That's what people don't understand when they chat with me. The difficulty in acting normal, well-adjusted. It is difficult to say "hello" to people. It is difficult to idly pass the time with chit-chat. It takes so much exertion, and thinking of this exertion makes me feel more alien.

I'm starting to think more of what could happen to me if I end up spending the rest of my life alone. I'm starting to think more about the things that I've let limit me, what I am responsible for, and what I was to accomplish. I'm not really thinking about happiness, because happiness is secondary to living with meaning and purpose.

Ever notice how the word compromise has different meanings? For instance, when you compromise with someone else you each find something that you can be happy with or at least live with. But when the structural integrity of something is compromised, that means it is liable to collapse.

I feel quite certain, despite all of this, that my writing really doesn't enamour anyone to me - and quite likely, this is intentional on my part. It is safer to give off the vibe of "stay away!" - not to mention that I feel disdain for the idea of making myself more accessible, loveable, etc... that kind of attention seems to only lead toward disappointing others. It is less disappointing to realize from the start what I have to offer - which is likely a big reason why after all of these years I have so few readers here.

My blog is the electronic equivalent of a ghost town, or maybe more aptly, a border town on the frontier. Lost in the weeds and the train doesn't come near here at all. In fact, the tracks haven't even been laid down yet. Why would you come here? Why the hell would you?

2009-02-17T01:23:00.000-08:00

The noble thing to do is to help her set her hair on fire when she douses herself in diesel fuel. This does not mean one ought to do it, however, and it is perhaps an argument against nobility.

Low Fidelity Romance

2009-02-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

I.

the mysteries of time
echoing through spaces
built for people to walk through:

hallways with linoleum floors
causeways over flat waters
and the ruins of temples
still intact with stony surfaces

you can hear the music
when the needle hits the record
with no amplification
scraping the grooves

the bent-over ear
absorbing the sounds
walks into crowded spaces

pieces of conversations
chipped off the walls

they all say two things:

I could have done more
and you could have too

there is no love without movement
I learned while watching sleep
overtake her into late morning

so much she wanted to do but couldn't
because it was right at her fingertips
and she was reaching for the stars

she learned to do this from a gypsy tribe
travelling on the margins of city squares
singing songs far beyond their poverty

she learned this from her mother
pacing behind her echoing the echoes
that filled the house to capacity

it is impossible to sing in this environment
when the air sucked out of your lungs

the needle plodding along
plays tunes that can be heard
if you kneel

it is quiet and distorted
just as we all are

like stars shimmering
against the misty horizon

II.

I have learned
to place my ear
to the stars

2009-02-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

I lack sentimentality. I see things forming before me with dissiliency. Understanding what I do about myself, I can't hope for a "normal" life. I am unmoved by concerns about those needing affirmation. There are important things to be done in this life, the pressing interest of these things leaves little patience for gamesmanship. I need to create, and I need to remain emerged in the cultural morass the defines the system we are in. I need to seek justice, and at the least show others where it does not exist.

It boils down to the bare essentials. We all suffer. I am not afraid to suffer, I embrace many aspects of my life that involve suffering. Please, show me the real carnage of war. Show me the body of my lost friend. Show me the infirm unable to take himself to the bathroom. Show me the burning fire that rages in you when you feel the memories of your past. Show me your pain.

But I am no substitute, and my world is as complex as the next. I need so little from others, that you may think me antisocial or asocial. But it is out of deferrence, I ask for little out of respect. Everything about me revolves around reacting to what is given to me. I am not a taker. I am not a giver. I walk the line as a reciprocator, and feel no need to draw out the rest. i will give signals of my willingness, but I won't jump up and down for attention. I am comfortable by myself and my thoughts. I am comfortable in my suffering. And I can challenge myself when no one else is able to or willing to.

Lately, I've somewhat obsessively been thinking about tragedy. Particularly those dramatic moments in plays, movies, or even music or real life that seem to rip through to the core of your existence. Othello's pain when he kills his wife. MacBeth when he realizes the futility of his hubris. Oedipus and his inability to fight back against Fate. And particularly now Woyzeck, and his insanity brought on by the conditions of the society he lives in.

For those unfamiliar with Woyzeck, he was a real person that shocked people across the country when he unrepetently killed his girlfriend (and mother of his son) in Germany by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife in 1821. She had been a sort of loose woman, and Woyzeck saw her dancing with another soldier which was too much for him. Before getting his sentence it had to be determined whether or not he was mentally able to accept responsibility for his crime. A very in depth psychological study was done on him, and it was determined that he was able to take responsibility for his crime, despite evidence that he suffered from scizophrenic-like breaks from reality including hearing voices in his head telling him to stab his girlfriend, an unhealthy obsession/fear of Freemasons, and the sense that walls and other inanimate objects spoke to him. He was sentenced to death and killed publicly.

Georg Buchner wrote a play about Woyzeck, that displayed Woyzeck as a sort of sympathic character unable to overcome his nature in the system that society had created for him. He was overly busy with his job as a soldier, and brutalized by his captain. He was treated as a sort of animal by the doctor who used Woyzeck as a sort of experiment to help him with his own notoriety. And he had no real deep connections to anyone, his closest friend being a completely aloof soldier that he shared a bunk with. In the play, he talks about how poor people are incapable of virtue because they don't have the tools needed to be virtuous. He mentions how he could be virtuous if he had the clothing, watch, and ability to speak like a refined man such as the Captain. Woyzeck frantically moves throughout the play, and is incapable of slowing down. He is a whirlwind of sputtering anxiety.

Later, this play (which was revolutionary at the time) was transformed into an avant-garde opera by Alban Berg. Following in the tradition of the 12-tone musicians, the opera is structurally formed by melodically very uncomfortable. At the end, the loudness and sputtering rhythms of the percussion clashing with the instruments is overwhelming. The discomfort of Woyzeck becomes a musical device through which was are brought into his world melodically, harmonically, and by the timbre of the clashing notes swirling with the difficult song-speak style of the vocalists. The music transforms you from being a witness to the demise of Woyzeck to a participant.

Warner Herzog turned Woyzeck into a movie in the late 1970s with the famous Klaus Kinski of Nosferatu fame. This movie is very true to the original play, and Kinski's performance is mesmorizing and painful. Contrasting the movie with the opera, I find that each experience renders a different sort of pain in me. I can feel them both, but it as though they touch different endings of my nerves. I am intrigued by this, and also enamored.

Why bring this up? The world I live in is painted in the tragic. The tragic brings life to life. What I mean is - if you don't experience this pain of existence, or as others have put it - the puncture through the Veil of Maya (or Apollonian Veil) into that chaotic beyond (the Dionysian wisdom espoused by Silenus's wisdom) - if you don't experience the pain of realizing the intense suffering of life as "a beautiful horror, a terrible beauty" then you're not quite living.

So much I hear people say their goals in life are to be happy. I don't know what happiness is, but I feel more and more I don't want it. I want to find those moments that rip through to the primordial essense of being and then redeem me through the reconstruction of order and the principium individuationis. Not as a sort of exercise, but as a means of truly living.

Life without suffering is like food without taste. We don't need to ask for more suffering, there is plenty there if you pause to chew your food without swallowing it whole. You can find it everywhere, if you're willing to look within yourself and toward your brethren living in worse circumstances than yourself.

This movement that I can fill within myself at these things is tangible, and it puts a dent into the misgivings I have at the postmodern disillusionment of the procession of simulacra. This tragic essense of existence is the desert where only a few shreds of reality remains. Even the most postmodern of tragic plays can recreate this truth, where all other truths are simulated. This is the irony of simulacra and simulations - essential truths can exist beyond the perversion of their perview.

2009-02-15T20:56:00.000-08:00

I dare you to sweep me off my feet.

Valentino

2009-02-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

Valentine sounds kind of Italian to me. "Hey, Valentino! Get ova here. The game is almost on." And then he comes out of the kitchen, and he's a short, hairy Italian guy with a bit of a beer gut. He's got some cheap beers in his hands that he gives to everybody. Come on, yeah - he's a little sloppy looking, but he's generous.

When watching the game he doesn't quite get as excited as everyone else when the good team scores or has a good defensive play, but he likes the friendships, the camaraderie. When the game is over, half of the guys go home to their wives and kids. The rest either go to the bar to hang out longer, or play some poker. Fifty years ago, they would have played music together, but these days nobody knows how to do that.

Valentino goes to the bar, because he doesn't want to go home to his empty apartment yet. Plus, he hasn't cleaned in a while and there's some nasty garbage under the sink that he needs to take out. He enjoys his company at the bar, and sees some other friends that watched the game. "It was a good one wasn't it. We almost had it." Tough loses are sometimes better for bonding than good wins. Real fans stick with the team when they lose, that's how you know the difference.

Some bars have jukeboxes, some have loud music playing all of the time, and others still have live music when there is music and otherwise are pretty quiet. This place was quiet until the band started playing. A bunch of old jazz and blues songs - Sinatra, Martin, Armstrong, B.B. King, and others that Valentino didn't know because he only knew the famous stuff. Valentino is more of a classic rock/80s rock guy. But this is ok.

After some drinks and being social, people start leaving. Valentino has his eye on a woman he'd seen in here before. He thought she had a boyfriend or something, but she was smoking hot and by herself and some girlfriends. Tight jeans, tight DKNY shirt, straightened blonde hair, and just the right amount of make-up (which was actually a lot). She smelled good too. He was going to talk to her before the night was over, when the right time came. Then she looked like she was heading to the bathroom, but really she just left out the back. It took him a good half hour to realize what happened, but he leaves to go home in good spirits anyway.

It was late, so he quickly takes out the garbage before getting in bed. He falls asleep quickly, and has many dreams. In one, he is a fireman and fights a fire that is taking over an apartment. He runs in there and saves women and children and a dog. But just as the fire is getting under control, he realizs that the whole thing is fake and everyone is just trying to make him feel good about himself. He leaves and goes down a long alley in the darkness and sees some women talking and laughing together in a little circle. He can't hear what they say, but he is afraid to stare so he walks by. He is looking for a bathroom, and when he finds it he wakes up in real life and goes to the bathroom. Gets a drink of water and goes back to bed.

The rest of the night continues in similar eventfulness. For a while he is a hunter chasing after a herd of elk. Then for a while he is going to be a juror for a murder trial, but after the preliminary hearings doesn't have to because they didn't like what he said about giving everyone a fair chance. And then finally he finds himself back in the bar with his friends and the woman he didn't talk to. Only this time she really notices him. She comes over to him and takes off her shirt showing her large breasts. This seems very sexy to Valentino who gets very turned on. She says some things in a sort of dreamspeak - he understands her, but there are no actual words just incomprehensible sounds. He never touches her but found this experience exhilirating.

He wakes up extremely well rested, but finds that he had the first wet dream of his adult life since he was 14 or so. This seems odd to him, but maybe a good sign of things to come. Valentino, as one might imagine, is superstitious. If you watched the game with him, you would have known this. He always closes his eyes on kick-offs, and when his team scores he has to always make the same hand gestures of excitement. For a while, his friends made fun of him for it, but he is so consistent in his superstitions that now other guys join in with him. But this is not what Valentino is thinking about. He thinks about the woman in his dream, who was different than the woman in the bar even though it was supposed to be her. These thoughts make him feel odd, and he decides not to go to the bar again for at least a week or two.

He spends the rest of his morning watching TV after taking a shower and eating breakfast. Maybe he reads the paper later, and maybe later he goes and gets some pizza.

Unlike Valentine, Valentino isn't a patron saint of anything. He is just a man living his life. There's no holiday named for him, and on Monday he has to go back to work at the auto repair shop. He is a man who gets dirty in his job, and feels the ache of using his muscles all day. He is a man who doesn't ask for anything in his life other than what he thinks needs. And he is a man who probably needs more than he thinks he does, but he somehow makes due.

Valentine sounds Italian to me. Like someone that you might know and see once in a while in a local bar somewhere back east in Jersey or a working man's city like Chicago or Detroit. Maybe you've met the guy and know who I am talking about.

Contrarian

2009-02-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

"[B]oredom is the last thing which one must experience in the theater!" - Alban Berg

My next task ought to be to write a theatrical piece, in which the key dramatical mechanisms revolve around the boredom of the characters and the audience.

Do you ever...

2009-02-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

see one of those banner ads advertising that your teeth aren't white enough because they are yellow, nasty, brutish, solitary, poor, oh wait... that's Hobbes... because they're just grosser than gross?

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL LINK TO SOMETHING

Don't you think that close ups of chompers like that isn't so effective? Maybe instead they should contrast meth mouth with the shiny white teeth? Or something like that. I don't know.

Realistically (I use this word lightly, of course), the best option would be to show the shiny chompers attached to the face of a sexy woman. Then you could simultaneously trigger the fears we have of being unattractive because of our teeth, and for not having a pretty enough face/being attractive enough to get a girl with a pretty face. Don't these asshats know how marketing works? I'm not sufficiently feeling shitty enough about my face to feel the need to get whatever this product is to even bother with clicking on the ad.

And come on... discovered by a mom? How about discovered by Paris Hilton? Or LeBron James? Or... Barack Obama? Mom isn't a celebrity, why would I buy anything from her? Unless she's a famous mom, like Angelina Jolie.

Duh.

NEED INPUT

2009-02-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

At this point the world couldn't move any slower for me. I need suggestions of blogs to read - of people that are writers, philosophizers, cultural critics, or who knows what. If you've got any favorites, post them here. If you think yours is good post it here. If you've heard of any that you think are supposed to be good, but don't have the time to read them - post them here. Feel free to direct me to your blog rolls, or whatever else. No need to explain anything - just point me in a direction, and we can chat later about why you pointed me there. I know that I don't really have more than a couple readers, but if you randomly come upon this - don't be shy, please post to your heart's content.

freely associating (if that's allowed...?)

2009-02-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

It does not take a rare individual to have difficulty in differentiating from things that are in the domain of the self, and things that are in the domain of the other. I am often struck wondering if the motivation for survival is truly the strongest aspiration of humankind, or if the need for meaning can supersede that motivation. Coping skills and coping techniques are different things. I think we need to investigate what "survival" actually is. A man was stabbed in the leg a few days ago and made it to his job interview on time (with blood-stained pants) before going to the hospital. The ecological realities of life are molecular now, filled with mechanisms that are not mechanical. I know too much about the tragedies of strangers shared in the news. Following white cars that are not well lit through snow flurries is like following a ghost through a house of mirrors.

I am uncertain if a desire to leave a mark on mankind interests me at all, compared to the larger problem of leaving a mark upon my self. The accusations that I am overrun by a large ego are underwritten in sloppy handwriting. I cannot, with any certainty, view myself in a unified light.

I try to view complaints as opportunities, which is a poor substitute for those who use complaints as an opportunity to make others feel guilty. I've accepted my guilt for everything long ago, which is the only allowance I've given myself that makes it possible to be a moral being.

The ease at which one may get stabbed in the leg is greatly under appreciated. Just as well as the ease at which one may inflict the injury directly upon their self.

After all, stabbing one's self in the leg does not even necessarily mean stabbing one's self in the leg. We live, strikingly enough, in a free society.

2009-02-10T23:11:00.000-08:00

The snow started falling heavily
in the mid-afternoon. I was certain
winter was on its way out,
but seasons often deceive me.

Wind currents pushed the flakes
into my eyes, and peppered my skin
at angles normally protected
by the clothes I was wearing.

While staring into the snow swirls
bustling in front of my window,
I realized that I feel more at peace
in my aloneness at times like this.

Warm sun and the engrossing snowfall
can capture me in a meditative trance,
but between seasons the glimmering
eyes twinkle in assiduous adjustments.

My identity is more certain
in the fixed weather.

Each night I feel more subtle similarities
between myself and the animals
dancing on the moonlit carapace
extending protectively over the ground.

I find it easier to sleep
in the heavy musk of my scent
mixed with thick wood smoke
and atmospheric residue.

As particles flitted from a diurnal slumber.

Cultural confusion

2009-02-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

What passes for entertainment these days is nonsensical. My analysis of what I saw on the mainpage of huffingtonpost.com could go on forever. I'll let the image - with its text - speak for itself.