One more

In my dream last night
I grew wings but
didn't know how to
fly and once I
left the ground
electric wires hindered
my ascent
so I searched and
searched but found
scarce an
open space through
which to reach
the sky.

And more still, call me prolific

What melancholic
secrets secrete
our pumping hearts?
Truthseekers!
Seek and sift
the melancholic
secretions of our
secret pumping
hearts!
Ourselves deposits
on shifting sands
where secret hearts
buried hidden
pump secretions,
secret substances:
an individual's hidden stuff,
diffuse on deltas
before the endless sea
to be submerged
endlessly, until
humanity's persistent
river's flow
stops and secret hearts
pump no longer
our secret melancholic stuff!

More poetry (3 short ones), a year (or two) later

1
Melemen with
Sucuk and
Turkish tea
for breakfast
every Tuesday.

2
The sun's horizontal
submergence
recalls the blazing
passion and loneliness
of winter's
long heart.

3
We start small
so don't see the
difference in height
between mom and dad
And only later learn
it's odd that
she's so much taller.

I should probably read poetry first

He comes to her bed
entangling their limbs
arms and hips

Presently present closed
impartial
electric light

Pleasantly
long suffering
abeyance

Put to death
beneath
complicated coverlets

I must be going through a break up

Oh we passivists

the world comes
and we're rocked by her waves

make slaves of her shelter
and are thereby enslaved

find us
our oyster
hammocks
and sleep

absent transgression
our endorsement
we keep

A poem

Autumn's leaves

blush red

at the indifference

of their departing lord

But the cold

of his prolonged absence

turns them brittle, brown

and wilted

Until breaking

under burdens

of love's seeming abandonment

they fall

borne lightly to the ground

as living tears

on death's feeble breeze

Wrapped up tight against the cold

my breath but

an Autumn fog

I walk

their path of broken hearts.

On the rainy death of some fat man comes and goes a stream of tiny ants, back and forth, forever. What has happened here?! People would yell, if there had been any people around. But the place is empty for miles, just some corpse and some ants in a great big forest.

Sensitivity training

Writing by hand, the physical act of setting ink to page. The pleasant and familiar curves of one's own letters! Bringing forth memories of past encounters with the task.

A keyboard only confuses; forcing one down twisted, unnatural paths. For example, one hunches more uncomfortably forward when one must also stare ahead into the screen.

The impression my pen makes on the paper, however slight, is also lasting; it is testament. And I am God, delivering the word. These are my lines, and can be made by no one else.
...

One freezes in mid-step on a cold rainy day. Holding an umbrella, you’ve nearly stepped in a puddle! The puddle looks up at you. “Get the fuck out of my face,” it says.

You’re not surprised. This sort of stuff happens all the time. You know you’ve gone mad. Who knows how long you’ve known? Years maybe.

You step wide of the puddle and turn, bending down to face it.

“I said, get the fuck out of my face!”

“You can’t really be talking, I know that,” you say.

“Then you must be crazy, right?” The puddle chuckles. “Come on bub! Can’t you do any better? I’m a talking puddle for godsake!” You're distracted by the clearly agitated ripples upsetting his face.

“Are you talking to me?” You ask, as if he were not there, feeling strange, queasy, like you've done this before, and you know it's really gross. “What am I doing,” you ask, “am I talking to myself?”

“Talking!?” The puddle laughs, causing more ripples, “do you hear anything? Maybe you really are mad! Standing here, on this—what?—street?”—More laughter—“Deep in conversation with a puddle!? And not just that, but one inside your head!? Haha, that’s a good one! A knee slapper!” You could swear that if the puddle had knees, he'd just slapped them for emphasis.

“Then what?” you ask, not really paying attention. You look around. "How many people are watching me have this conversation right now?"

“I think you need to focus more on yourself. You know, what role you’re going to play.” You notice the puddle adjust itself, sending small waves to collide about haphazardly. They settle down and a very arrogant, straight-backed man appears, reflecting off his surface. “Or you could focus on me, I am after all a very important element here. A so-to-say Estragon to your Vladimir, if you can pardon my pretension.”

“But you’re just a puddle.”

“Just a puddle!?” Rain drops begin to sound against your jacket. “So I’m just your average talking puddle then?” The puddle replies. Umbrellas pop open as the street quickly empties of unprepared pedestrians. As the raindrops cascade and impact the puddle's face like tiny meteors, he turns violent; his surface ever shifting and crashing into itself. “if I’m nothing special, why don’t you lean over and take a look at this?”

Intimidated and curious, you bend over even further until your face is hovering just above his surface. You strain to see through the thrashing waves, droplets getting getting in your eyes and making you blink. Is some object hidden there? Your strain to peer within. “I don’t see anything,” you say.

“What do you see?” The puddle asks impatiently.

“All I see are rain drops splashing into to you.”

“Exactly!”

“Exactly what?”

“Where is your umbrella?”

You stiffen. Standing erect, you look about. Where is it? Nauseated now, you turn around to search behind you and in every direction.“My god! Where is my umbrella!?” Shading your eyes against the rain, you shout, “I don't even remember bringing it with me!”

The rain stops, the puddle settles down. He'd look smug, if a puddle could look smug. “Do you doubt my power now?” He demands. His voice rising from below.

“That’s not fair,” You turn to face him. Feeling childish, you have to stop yourself from stamping your feet. “You’re just fucking with me.”

“I am not!” The puddle grows still. “In this, your—our—story, I make your umbrella disappear!”

“But how is that possible?” You ask.

The wind blows a flutter of tiny waves across the puddle’s face, making it indistinct, like the skin of an old woman. “Are you an idiot, boy? How do you think it’s possible?”

The question deserves some thought. Clasping your hands behind your back, you squint up into the sky, ostensibly contemplating the question. After sometime, you muse, “I’ve gone mad, my original explanation, seems very likely.”  You hold your fingers in front of the puddle, ticking them off, as though adding up a simple sum. Clearing your throat in imitation of one who has reached a serious conclusion, you say, “It’s clear to me now.”

Silence stretches, long but not uncomfortable. You've been distracted by birdsong and have almost lost interest in the puddle. Finally, he scowls and says, “Mad!? You? Don’t anthropomorphize so much!”

“What?” You ask, confused.

“Nevermind. There’s not really anything more to talk about.” The puddle sighs and appears to stretch itself out, like an old man preparing to sit and relax in his chair.

A bell! It rings high-pitched and clear.  Instinctively, you jump back. A biker in tight, colorful shorts speeds swiftly through the middle of the puddle, scattering its watery guts. The puddle screams out in shock and pain!

Surprised by the recklessness of the biker and the suddenness of the puddle’s scream, you reflexively cover your mouth and shout out, “Holy Jesus fucking Christ!” The biker glances back at you, a scowl on his mouth, his sunglasses yellow and green reflective insect eyes.

The moment passes. “Puddle?” You ask, heart pounding, waves of paranoia—the urge to run—growing more and finally less intense. “Are you ok?”

“God, you really are an idiot, kid,” he says, his face still tossing wildly. “Of course I’m alright. What the fuck could happen to me? I'm a puddle.”

“Then why did you scream?” You ask.

“To fuck with you, kid.” The puddle grins despite the waves, “here, let me tell you something: as it stands now, I—both you and I actually—have a very real, a very near-at-hand (if ever tenuous, mind you) possibly of actually existing. The possibility of really being in the world, being a part of it! And not just that, but actually existing—actually being—for a very long time to come, in perpetuity perhaps! (Though I imagine many small changes must happen first)” The puddle winks at you conspiratorially.

Is this some kind of lesson? You can hardly believe you're being lectured by a puddle. “Well that’s good news, I guess,” you say, reluctant to take the bait.

“Exactly!” The puddle continues enthusiastically. You're pulled ever closer to its grinning surface, although it's against your will. You're so close now and you wonder how you got there. “Now," it continues, "you were right to comment before that I am just a not-so-special puddle.”

“Oh!” Straightening up again, feeling embarrassed, you interrupt, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings by it.”

“Whatever. You were right. I am, ultimately, wholly uninteresting,” says the puddle cheerfully.

(“That’s not true!” You feel obliged to add. But you're not sure if you say them aloud.)

“Yes it’s true. And so are you!—not very interesting I mean,” a watery finger emerges starkly from the middle of the puddle. “But!” It exclaims, “We—you and I—might be lucky enough to remain just so uninteresting for the next thousand, even ten-thousand years!”

“Interesting...” you try to begin—

“Wait!” The puddle, ecstatic, is hopping around. “The point is that nothing bad can happen to me here! To us both! Here we are safe, and someday maybe immutable! Do you understand? Here we might grow to become who-knows-what!" He stretches himself upwards, as if drawn by some force, until he's nearly at eye-level with you. "Here, you and I, son, are God!”

Finally, spent of energy, it collapses limply into itself.

Another pause. You gather your wits.

“Ok, listen puddle, I think I get it. But I don’t have time for your philosophizing. I’ve lost my umbrella—I need to retrace my steps, and it is beginning to rain again. I might still be crazy, I haven’t made up my mind yet. (God knows we’ve had our share of strange looks throughout this conversation!) But all that aside, I’m going now. Goodbye!” You turn to leave.

“If that’s what you wish. See you again!” The puddle waves.

Already on your way, you call back, “Probably!" And you smile. "That was pretty cheesy by the way.”

Then, swallowed up by traffic, forgotten.

Artsyfart! Click on them to make them bigger

Another oldie, pretty much the exact same story as the one below, minus the infidelity...

Dustin Franchise was an elderly gentleman when he was viciously murdered one morning by all of his things.

The owner of a successful snowplow company, Franchise lived an active life; even as a child his motto had always been “stay busy.” On each of his nearly eleven-hundred fifty snowplows was his label: the face of a gold grandfather clock in a red and blue circle pointing to 5 o’clock. Underneath were written the words: “We come early!” And truer words were never spoken; the man himself had been up before sunrise everyday of the week for eleven years (and then he had stayed in bed late only once, because his wife, in an attempt to help him recover more quickly from the flu, had dosed him heavily with sedatives). During the day he was constantly on the phone, or hunched over his desk, pen in hand, scribbling endless notes on legal pads. He was a hard working man and a regular exemplar of the American Dream--a pulled-himself-up-by-the-bootlaces kinda man, except that in this case it had been by the worn out tongue of laceless, second hand sneakers (a pair of shoes he had kept and, after making his first million, preserved in gold plating).

His accommodations reflected his success. He lived in a large house in the so-called ‘bush’ with his family; he had three daughters, a wife, and a hunting dog. He loved to hunt, his wife loved to skin and cook his kills (a regular American herself), and his children loved to eat her cooking. He and his wife shared the top floor of the three storied house. Their children each had separate rooms on the second floor, and the ground floor housed the kitchen, a large living room equipped with all the modern extravagancies, three separate toilets (the bedrooms also had their own toilets and showers), a dining room with enough space for thirty, Franchise’s study, and a large walk-in closet that served as a coatroom for guests. Franchise and his wife loved to entertain; in addition to their master bedroom, they reserved two fully stocked, en suite guestrooms on the third floor, both with the highest quality queen-sized mattresses and chic beddings.

This love of the finer things extended beyond the home; Franchise was an experienced world-traveler. And he had the collection to prove it. On every wall, in every room, on pedestals in corners, hanging from the ceilings, across the floors, stood Persian rugs, French chandeliers, busts and statues of European kings and emperors, Greek warriors in marble, Egyptian figurines, Gothic and Romanian tapestries, 14th century paintings, and a fine selection of Picassos, Caspar Friedrichs, Renoirs and the like. He displayed some of the finest Chinese and English China in large cabinets placed conspicuously around the dining room. His wife had an extensive collection of German glass.

Everything in his house, excepting his wife’s glass--which had been purchased mostly from E-bay--had been bought (or won) by him on-site. (In addition to artifacts, he had a prodigious hoard of hunting trophies--even the head of an elephant. He mounted these--to the perpetually renewed horror of his slightly demented wife--anywhere he happened to please, sometimes changing their locations twice or even three times in a day. He never moved the elephant’s head, however--it was far too cumbersome, and he was in any case very proud of its location: resolutely standing guard over his marriage bed.)

Franchise’s favorite room was undoubtedly his study, located where the middle of the east-side wall of the ground floor careened out from the house at an unusually eccentric angle. It was a bright place, if too orderly to be considered cheery, and it contained the most exceptional pieces from his collection. His most prized was the head of an albino Guyanan Tiger Cat, mounted just across from his sitting chair to be in easy view, which he had killed himself in the deadly jungles of Guyana. There he also displayed his personal collection of lamps (his favorite category of furniture), one in each corner of the room, and one on a stand by his sitting chair. His least favorite of these was a gaudy Victorian piece depicting Minerva and a cherub in silver, whose high price tag had nevertheless earned it a position in his exclusive collection. In the opposite, and far more accessible corner of his study he exhibited a wonderful Art Deco pedestal lamp, about seven feet tall, showing a scantily dressed Mayan or Egyptian princess in a sexy Statue of Liberty pose holding aloft the light and reclining against some kind of Aztec skyscraper, whose texture and strange geometric designs gave it the look and feel of some kind of cyber-adobe ziggurat. But it was always to the base of this pedestal lamp that Franchise drew the attention of whichever new guest-become-impromptu-audience he had managed to pull away for a few moments. He would invite this company to appraise the protruding carved half of an old woman, who was sitting and playing with a puppy on the steps at the base of the sharply sloping tower; with well practiced, exaggerated gestures, he would entreat them to contemplate the down-turned face of this woman, her sad expression, the pain she must feel in her weary lower back, how she had positioned herself, bent slightly forward, arms straight, hands resting on her knees, in order to sit a little more comfortably in her old age, and above all how little she concerned herself with the allegory of progress under which she sat. Indeed, Franchise would muse, she is probably employed as a cleaning lady within, her invalid condition the consequence of years of sweeping, what must be, countless staircases.

Franchise was in the habit of smoking a Cuban cigar (bought, of course, in Cuba) in his office every morning as the sun rose. He especially enjoyed the reflection and the scattering of the sunlight off his crystal chess board, on top of which he had neatly arranged a confusion of regional chess pieces, no two of which belonging to the same set, and all of masterful craftsmanship. He had medieval gargoyles, Chinese terracotta warriors, both Indian and African elephants, American civil war statuettes, Arabian queens, a miniature Taj Mahal, various knights, samurais and crossbowmen, some made of glass, others of gold, and quite a few encrusted with precious or semi-precious gems, which would invariably catch the very first sunlight, throwing the study into a magnificent, prismatic, if only momentary, disarray.

He sat there, on the morning of his death, happily puffing on a cigar, head slightly titled back, staring down his nose--on whose very tip he customarily set his glasses--towards the horizon. He had set himself to contemplating the success of his snowplow business--a daily ritual--when suddenly all of his things came to life, grew legs if they had none, tore off sharp pieces of themselves if they were unarmed, and advanced on the understandably surprised Franchise. It began with the chess pieces, just before the sun was up. He was eyeing them in anticipation, tracing their designs, picking out the most delightful, vibrant gems on them, deciding where to fix his gaze for the sunrise, when all the pieces, as if literally commanded, began jumping off the board and making their way to Franchise. “This must be magic!” came the thought, unbidden. When they had reached his feet they stopped, circled up, and began arguing, or at least the gesticulations made it appear so, as they made no sound. The sunlight began creeping across his room and, glancing up, he noticed that strange things were happening to all of his objects. His vinyl collection, for example, was tossing itself one by one off the shelves; they’d land, flop about like fish until the record had freed itself completely from the sleeve, and then spin and dance wildly, ostensibly enjoying their nakedness.

Was it paranoia or premonition? He had the immediate sense that his things meant to do him harm; there was something despicable about them. Initially, he thought he was going insane. He was old, he knew that, and figured his mind had just finally given up--he was even momentarily excited to spend the rest of his life in madness with his living collection of things to keep him company. “What better friends could you ask for?” Yet, there was something undeniably threatening about them, some sort of murderous joy informing even their simplest movements.

He wasn’t exactly frightened until they began to stab him. Having found some rope the chess pieces were ascending his torso. A few had leapt into his shirt pocket, and others were clinging onto his buttons. They began to stab him with their little weapons, and he tore at them, trying to save himself from their sting, but they held fast, their tiny arms already secured deep underneath his skin. He stood up, throwing himself around frantically, he could feel their little blades cutting into him. Now panic took control of him. They were crawling inside him through the wounds they had made. Something heavy hit him and he fell whirling to the ground. Turning on his back he was assaulted by a metal Mayan or Egyptian princess, now straddling him, who proceeded to choke the life out of him, and then fall over sideways, dead again herself.

How people find me: macroevolution and masterbation!

My site has generated nearly a thousand hits since November. You, like me, are proabably asking yourself how that's possible. Well, it's due my clever title choices of course! You'd be amazed how many people are curious about "marijuana and masterbation" (I'm google result #3)! But the big suprise is "macroevolution". Who knew that more people were interested in macroevolution than in marijuana AND masterbation? In latter's defense, of the 20 most googled phrases that led users to my blog, 11 of them had something to do with marijuana and masterbation (if you let me include "masterbation stain" and "макроеволюция" which is probably Russian for marijuana and masterbation...). The majority of the remaining most searched phrases have to do with being or feeling pissed. Still, "macroevolution" tops the list, with 10 hits this month alone! The real odd man out is " "robert p. george" and neitzsche".

Anyway, I guess there must be some relationship between marijuana and masterbation. All the more reason why marijuana is dangerous and should never be smoked by anyone! We wouldn't want our youth materbating all the time, for fuck's sake!

Or at least that's probably what the people who come here for my macroevolution post think....

PS: I know you're reading my blog, whoever you are....

An oldie I reworked.... And reworked again...

"I imagine that in another few million years, when the earth is inhabited by some other sentient earthling, and they are digging out the ancient wreckage of our civilization, they’ll name us ‘doom’." - Splatter Writings, 2010

Around Carl loomed a deep hall, so dark and impenetrable that he could not make out a single detail past a foot or so of floor illuminated by his pitifully insufficient candle. On no previous occasion could Carl recall anything looming around him. It was not his character to stand gaping face-to-face with foreboding abysses. Carl preferred to make himself slight and scamper around in well lit office space; being faithful only to those actions which, born of great industry and fine-tuned articulation, encourage constant productivity. He was near blind and wore powerful, dark rimmed glasses which so greatly magnified his eyes that they inevitably caused feelings of discomfort in whomever he happened to be conversing with (feelings made all the more acute due to the nearness which he would bring his face to theirs, as though he would not just see them, but smell them too). Those who knew him caught themselves occasionally confusing his soft and plump frame with that of some thick-shelled beetle. It was whispered that he never slept, and would shuffle through the commodious office supply closets long after all the lights had been shut off and everyone else gone home to their wives and beds. He had earned the reputation of being a man who never fails to finish the job. Once it happened that his co-workers found him asleep, jerking around unconsciously, on the newly cleaned sofa in the rec-room. They lifted him up, with very little deliberation, and carried him on their backs to the janitor‘s secret napping couch. Once or twice he had slept there all day. The room with this couch was buried far underground, near the boiler and hence dingy, hot, and humid. Condensation as thick as blood was constantly oozing down moldy walls toward the ever growing wetlands of sweet-smelling chemical secretions on the carpet. On their way down, these slime-trails would pick up and carry with them whatever bits of dried gecko or insect fecal matter happened to be blocking their path. In the top left corner of the room, facing the door, an air-duct led to loftier places.

It was during one of his late nights that Carl chanced to find himself in the massive dark hall. He must have passed it by thousands of times, without ever considering it. Maybe it was because he had finally finished his job for the night that he unthinkingly lingered there so long. He lifted his candle as high as his round, hunched body would allow, leaning unsteadily to one side as he did, but he was unable to chase away the shadow. Because it was useless, he blew it out, and swallowing deeply headed straight into the darkness. Not ten steps later he bumped into somebody. He was afraid; he knew that nobody but himself stayed around so late. Pensively he called out a hello. "Hello" echoed some discorporate voice. "Who are you?" asked Carl, "everybody I know went to bed long ago." "Oh, I don't ever sleep" said the voice. A match caught fire, accompanied by the characteristic sounds and smells of flaring sulphur and phosphorus, the light fell to a candle, which, lit, illuminated the face of an old man. He wore a long white beard, stained with crumbs and goop. He was leaning heavily on a matte gunmetal-gray metal desk, and he wore an old vest of decaying blue silk.

He spoke like a cheery old lunatic, toothless, foul smelling and everything: "I've worked here since long before you were born my boy! I’m sure, I'm sure...” He began to nod off, or so it seemed, only to continue as suddenly and as cheerily as his mere existence would suggest, “I have maaaaany responsibilities you see? They send my meals down to me, every one! I never leave my station. I'm that busy you see? That's probably why you've never seen me before now." "What is your title?" asked Carl, skeptical and businesslike, having wholly misinterpreted the implications of his situation. "I'm head of information acquisition and filing," the old man replied, mimicking Carl‘s tone sarcastically, "but I'm sorry to cut this short, I'm afraid I must ask for your authorization you see? I'm not even allowed to speak with you unless you bear a signature from the chief." "Excuse me," said Carl, "I came here entirely accidentally." "Well then,” replied the man, “you are definitely not going to get in to see the collections in that case,” and then, out of nowhere, “I am supremely important you see? It would probably help if you bowed to me." The way the old man said this made Carl feel very uncomfortable. "I guess I'll leave then." "No. Wait, it's been so long, I really want to show somebody my work. I'm not such a square that I cannot disobey a rule or two every once in a while you see? Besides, I'm very proud of my work," grinned the old man, "come on then." "Thank you," replied Carl, "I was really hoping to see it, I guess."

The old man led Carl around the desk, they had to squeeze because it was pushed up so close to a cold, rough, unpainted concrete wall. Behind the desk, the old man took out a key and unlocked an iron door. “This hall must be smaller than I thought,“ mused Carl. As the door swung open a blinding light from no definite source fell upon them revealing a terrible storeroom beyond. The ceiling was easily fifty or sixty feet high--"it must be pushed up right against the surface" thought Carl to himself--and the whole space was distractingly hygienic--like a hospital laboratory or gigantic server storehouse--and filled with row after row of many tiered shelves. The shelves were so cramped that one could only navigate through them sideways, sucking in the gut, and they were loaded with millions--possibly billions--of little white or pastel colored boxes, each equidistant from the next, and none bearing any distinguishing sign. "What's all this for?" asked Carl. "This is my work," replied the old man, "it's great, worthy of some bowing and scraping I'd say." He raised a comical eyebrow nearly to the top of his mostly bald head. "What's in all the boxes?" asked Carl, gulping the dry air. "Everything you see?" said the old man, "all the world's knowledge is stored here. Everything known to mankind and individuals alike." "Really?" asked Carl. "Yes really," said the man mockingly, "go ahead, test it." "OK, I haven't seen my wife in over a month--my work keeps me so occupied--and I was wondering if she hadn't cheated on me yet." "Ah, good question, let's find out!" shouted the old man in glee. Full of energy now he took out a small crumpled notebook and, flipping seven or eight pages, exclaimed, "here it is!" and rushed off like a dog chasing some unseen prey. Eventually he came to a small white box with no obvious label, Carl followed, trying to catch his breath. "It is really remarkably well organized," said the man as he lifted off the lid, and, tipping the box slightly, displayed its contents to Carl. "That's a miniature of my bedroom!" cried Carl. "Ha! I guess it is," returned the old man with a laugh. Carl watched in wonder as a figure entered. "That's my wife!" She was followed by another figure. "That's our neighbor, Bob!" And another figure. "That's Bob's wife!" And another figure. "That's Bob's gardener..." Carl watched as all four figures began undressing. First Bob helped Carl's wife out of her clothes, while the gardener helped Bob's wife out of hers. "Oh my God!" exclaimed Carl. Then all four climbed into bed with each other. "I've seen enough" said Carl, and the old man quickly returned the lid to the box. "Are you going to kill her?" he asked. "No, I'm actually not that surprised, and I'm even happy that she's found some way to keep herself busy. This gives me the opportunity to return to my work all the more diligently." "Good. Then you should get on your knees before me and humble yourself for this knowledge which I have given you, you SEE?" Carl did not know what to do, the old man seemed to grow taller and more ferocious; teeth, fangs, snouts, bunches of desperate tits tearing through his vest, trying to get on top of each other, his eyes like a demon‘s. Slowly Carl got on to his knees and clasped his hands in front of himself.

"Are you afraid?" asked the old man. "A little," replied Carl. The old man bent over and removed a big fucking sword from his new, malignant, gaping vagina. Carl tried to run, but the old man cut him down quickly and ,like a just fed mosquito and a windshield, blood exploded everywhere, instantly coating the boxes and shelves in their tiny corner of the massive storage facility with brightly illuminated, crimson fluid. After Carl was dead, the old man expertly carved his body up into thin slices, then sautéed with onions and white wine, and devoured bit by bit.

Bank-headed Corporation Caterpillar!

I guess it would be the corporation then? The present dialectic. Or perhaps that's too simple? I would imagine that, if so, it could just as easily have happened to the other. Communism. Or something else.

But what is the corporation? The body. The movement of becoming the body.

A way there would be to incorporate the government: Demand that you have become too powerful, and submit to being placed within the checked and balanced. What havoc could the corporation have there! They could literally buy the budget. The thought makes me laugh. What would they spend it on? God. My money's on weapons. Because that's the goddamned responsible thing. Without 'em we can't blow each other up! Surveillance. They could call it "marketing". Would work too. Green energy. We're fucked....

They'd spend it on medicine of course, as well. And fund the biological research that goes along with it.

The temptation to control the people would be too great! Practically the whole system would be (is) designed not to uplift the individual, but rather to enforce control over her or him. It would be (is) as though we've gone all 1984shit.

Can I make a proposal? I doubt it's my place, but what if we invested all our health care money into Eastern medicine (because it's a bit hoe-key, anyway)? And then just let people get sick?

That way we'll have more money to spend on weapons and surveillance.

(The word surveillance looks like a pregnant caterpillar.)

What would it mean, instead, to improve the individual?

Probably not having the corporation. But is that even possibly now?

Why did the Founding Fathers decide to implement the system of checks and balances anyway? So that each branch would check and balance the POWER of the other branch. Could those infinitely wise men have ever imagined anything like the social entity we call the corporation? It's quite possible, but they didn't put anything in the Constitution about it. And so the corporation grows and grows in power. It is neither checked, nor balanced.

To do so I guess, would mean to regulate, and that's evil.

But if one institution becomes far more powerful than the other one, what is the consequence? We can guess. The corporation will dictate economically. Thrusting into us anally, oligarchy. And any government, if it will succeed, is to some extent dependent on the market!

As far as I can tell, every country in the world has debt. But to whom do we owe all this debt? To each other? If that were the case and we all paid each other back the money we owed, then we'd all have balanced budgets, not true? So the debt is owed to someone, and that someone is more than just the sum of all other countries. Probably, it's the banks. But I guess they fucked up and lost it all. So the governments of the world go further into debt to help out the banks? But now to whom is the money owed? Here's the tricky part: it's still owed to the banks. It must be! Because we buy our money from them.

And the head of the corporation is the banks.

So where is all the money? The bank-heads eat it, and the market digests it.

(But instead of becoming a beautiful butterfly, they just get fatter and fatter.)

Build me a wall Jesus!

It's been a long while since I've posted anything. And this promises to be short. Here's one for you: A conservative Christian organization dedicated to "presenting America's forgotten history and heroes with an emphasis on moral, religious, and constitutional heritage". In other words, and this the view they whole-heartedly promote: the USA is divinely inspired. Our founders, our law, our destiny: all straight from Jesus. The guiding philosophy of this organization: the devil's in the details... so we'll just leave them out. Nevermind examples of religious infighting, or instances of the religious establishment opposing what later became fundamental to our concept of progress and what constitutes American values. Everything US-historical up until now was one big miracle planned and executed perfectly by God.

The message: we have to keep up God's work! If we don't remain vigilant, the evil liberals and their satanic idol Obama will derail God's plan for America! In brief: God needs our help!

All that's well and good, just about what you would expect really. But now the best part: the organization calls itself "Wallbuilders". What refreshing honesty! Finally, a conservative Christian organization who frankly admits their goal: to segregate our society along those holy boundries of institutionalized religious dogma. Because what would Jesus do? Build walls to keep those fuckin muslims out! And cut taxes for the wealthiest 1%! Amen!

So, in conclusion, vote Palin 2012.

And... an Asshole!

I’m grappling with an interesting intellectual. Robert P. George. He is a leading thinker for the conservative religious right in our country. He is also a professor of law at Princeton. I’ve been reading some of what he has produced. Certain arguments are excellent, well presented and convincing. Others read like the rants of a medieval fanatic. Actually, that’s not quite right, he does rant, just not like a medieval fanatic. What disturbs me about this guy is how conveniently his philosophy lines up with the platform of the right. And I’m afraid he’s compromised himself. Indeed, about every other article of his I read, I catch myself thinking “did this guy, the same guy who wrote that last article, really write this?”

In “The New Paganism and the Culture of Death” he writes: “I submit to you that there is a foolproof test: False gods always demand the blood of innocents. A pagan culture is always, in the end, a culture of death. Where the innocent and just are slain, there the god being worshipped is not the God of Israel, the Lord of Life, but rather Moloch in one or another of his protean disguises.” This particular rant (and I don’t mean that in a wholly negative sense) deals with abortion and euthanasia. The argument: we participate in a pagan culture as long as we admit abortion and euthanasia into our sphere of morally acceptable actions. Now despite one’s position on paganism, abortion and euthanasia, it is a rhetorically powerful rant. He even accuses Christians of worshipping false gods who have used violence against their enemies and burned heretics at the stake.

He concludes with this: “Let us not forget that the God of Israel, the Lord of Life, is the enemy of the culture of death. Let us not shrink from the task of defending the lives of the innocent. Let us work tirelessly to build the culture of life. Let us not be intimidated by the prestige or influence of those who pervert the honorable concepts of liberty and equality to enlist them in the cause of killing.”

Taken out of context I think everyone, or at least anyone with a modicum of moral concern, can agree with this conclusion. Building a culture of life is a worthy goal. We will all have our diverse and incompatible definitions of what that is supposed to mean, but it sounds pretty good.

So what’s the problem? P. George is a religious intellectual who argues with conviction, and desires that we create a culture of life within our country. Although we might disagree with the specifics, his efforts ought to be applauded, right? Yes, except that three years after the above rant was delivered, he defends the war in Iraq as “just.” Just! The war in Iraq! It’s really a mess that he decides to take this position. Let’s check it out.

In his article “Just War in Iraq,” P. George argues that just war theory does not necessarily exclude the possibility of a just, unilateral, pre-emptive war intended to remove (instead of just disarm) an aggressive tyrant from power. And you know what? He’s probably right. Does that make the war in Iraq just? Absolutely not. Why? Because everyone knows that the war in Iraq is not only a unilateral, pre-emptive war intended to remove an aggressive tyrant from power, but also a war for perpetuation of US global hegemony. I doubt that any serious student of history or politics or really anything not purely mathematical could fail to see that. But P. George does. He fails to see it so absolutely, and yet is so perceptive on other issues, that I find myself wondering, “how in fuck’s sake did P. George miss that?!”

In my unconsidered opinion, the goal of creating a culture of life is inimical to the mere idea of war, whether “just” or not. I understand that humans are flawed, and sometimes--so conventional wisdom declares--war is necessary (or, in P. George’s words “morally required”). But if the God of Israel is the God of life, and if the USA was founded on the principles this same God holds dear, then doesn’t it seem just a little bit inconsistent to defend a policy whereby the USA maintains its global dominance through the use of military force and the murder of innocent people around the world? Keep in mind that innocents are murdered in “just” and unjust wars alike. Given the actual history of this country (of which I hope P. George is aware), is it not more likely that we have been in the cult of Moloch all along?

But what is especially telling is that "let us not be intimidated by the prestige or influence of those who pervert the honorable concepts of liberty and equality to enlist them in the cause of killing" part. Because isn't that exactly what he does, who argues that the war in Iraq is just? Further, having been intimidated into so arguing, does P. George not then also become one of the perverts? The concepts of liberty and equality have been used ad nauseum to justify "Operation Iraqi Freedom," even though the war is foremost about geopolitical strat-te-gery and not really about liberty or equality or freedom at all....

So what to think about our P. George?

His is another attempt to further polarize our already obscenely divided and discorded society. Our P. George is an awful proponent of the rational, the logical, and the phallus; let's face it, he is enthusiastically sucking the enormous dick of western philosophy. And why? Because without the culture wars, nobody would give a shit. His mantra could read something like this: We must defend that in which we have the political will to believe publicly, and disregard all else; we must build great logical edifices, and suffocate the human soul; spread hate, and corrupt anything that could possibly hold us together; because unity is division if it's not MY narrowly defined unity so fruitful for MY political advancement; and because YOUR salvation is possible only insofar as mass-damnation makes righteous THIS wolf in sheep's clothing! It is, after all, what Jesus would do.

Conclusion: Robert P. George is an asshole.

PS: He’s also gay and way in the closet, as evidenced by his absolute disgust for homosexuality; only someone who hates themselves a great deal could possibly project that much anger onto a group of people.

Inflated Balloon Face

... trying to hang on I dug my long plastic nails into the pores on his rapidly expanding forehead. A long way up already I could see the around-the-city for miles, but who knows if his Swiss Ball eyeballs were still sending signals to the brain. I was worried for him, but more for myself ...

CYBERTERRORISM GOOD!

Thank God! The War on Terrorism protects dozens of people around the world every year, and only costs billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. It's about time we extended this extremely effecient, well organized and effective conflict to cyberspace! I'm sick of being enslaved by all this freedom on the internet! Go America. Go Obama.

Really, read it in the fucking NYTimes:

CYBERTERRORISM BAD! (link)

Kinda not feeling this grad-school application process:

I need to submit a 10-page writing sample if I intend to apply to the Germanics PhD program at Washington University. It’s annoying that I also have to take the GRE. I doubt seriously that I will finish both by the deadline. Which makes me appear lazy, and anything but a competitive candidate. And honestly, I feel less competitive even though my resume is now stronger. Stronger, I would venture, than many, even most, other applicants. Why not feeling competitive then? Something broke the wrong way in me. Long have I hoped, daydreamed, that one day something would snap, and presto, a Chell untethered, taking his place among the geniuses of the age. But no. There was no snap, as it turns out, just a slow developing. And what have I become? That is the question. Less obvious than what I was before, that’s for sure. More unusual. Less intelligent perhaps--I’ve definitely lost some learning at least. Unimpressed, less patient; the rise of vice spurred by a doubt of virtue’s asset. Lazy, addicted, barren, enlightened. I am convinced of something more important. I can almost hear the uncanny ahoy! sounding from all the little places most of us long ago forgot. I find myself starring at things I’ve seen ten-thousand times before: little balls of dust or a rotting leaf, the accumulation of hair in the bathtub drain, a light socket or a bit of faded graffiti. These things are not new, and neither do I see them in any sort of new light. They retain, in my unthinking, pondering-less gaze, all of their mundanity. What do I see? Why are these objects so captivating? It’s not nausea, although thinking about it might make me nauseous. It is most surely not something philosophical! The best I can say is that it is absence. That these things are in fact absent. And that I am merely curious that they persist nevertheless. If I were more inclined to tidy up a bit, then perhaps they’d cease to not exist and I’d know just what to do: throw them out! But being indifferent to their usefulness, and content to just let them be, I find myself confused, from time to time, that they are there at all. And I stare at these objects for long moments. Hoping and dreading secretly that the insanity they promise would hurry up and be manifest. What do I do then? I run. I run as fast as I can into my head. And there I slay dragons, become a cybernetic god, have carnal relations with women I’ll never know, write a novel, open an underground club where we plot the overthrow of a fascist USA and generally avoid what must be, I am told, death.

Is this an appropriate beginning for a grad-school writing sample? Or, more importantly, could I keep this up for ten long pages? I’d hate to seem some whimpering bitch, lazy, and so-fuck-it my attitude. Worse still: pretentious; a kind of “academics is so blasé, and this is my middle finger to your decadence…” I do not want to seem to be saying that, because then I'd never be accepted. And besides, who wants to be that guy? Because that guy’s an asshole in all the wrong ways. And this raises another very good question: do I have any choice? It is my experience, as well as yours, that people don’t ever choose who they are. Annoying people (an easy example) know, despite all signs otherwise, that they are annoying people. Of course they feel bad about it! They hate themselves sometimes, and would rather be somebody else. So if I'm a pretentious asshole who projects his own doubts about his academic potential onto the institution he’s afraid will fail to recognize him, can I be held accountable? The answer is: Yes. Especially if said projection takes the form of my grad-school application.

(It is important, before I go any further, to clarify that I am not an annoying person. The other we are still not sure about, although I think my show of self -perspicacity ought to establish some confidence against the assumption that pretension-hiding-insecurity is in any way my defining characteristic. And quite the opposite actually; I’m the sort of person who looks down, averts his eyes, when others laugh at my jokes. The implicit compliment of laughter--that I’ve brought pleasure to others--is wonderful but above all embarrassing. However, annoying I am not! The annoying person from the paragraph above was meant only as an example, not some accidental elucidation of another suspected character flaw. I digress.)

Where to go now? I’m just about three pages down. If I actually submit this, I’d have to be crazy or use a fake name. Who knows, maybe its uncommon enough to be refreshing, but most likely it’ll be interpreted “not-taking-this-seriously.” That is not the case; by the time I finish writing this I will have already re-read it upwards of 100 times. This writing-sample is really an exercise in writing, and as such I hope it will not be so quickly disregarded as something insincere! Writing is serious. If for no other reason than the difficulty required to put all the little morphemes together in significant order. And also the constant disagreements over possible revisions, the frustrating minor changes that already appear somehow in the next sentence prompting undo and again more conflict! The labor reminds one of swimming through molasses, or that dream-state where our most desperate punches are also our least effective!

You: “The act of writing may very well be difficult, and therefore serious. About this we have no disagreements. What is, however, disagreeable to us, is your failure to take seriously your task: to write an acceptable writing-sample!”

Me: “At the risk of sounding like a smart-ass, this is a sample of something I’ve written and so, ipso facto, a writing-sample. It was never up to me to decide on its acceptability. But I am no fool, and I understand your concern. However, I have nothing scholarly of appropriate length to submit. And the reason is, in all my years of study I’ve never written anything honest. Every essay I produced was always already contaminated; compromised for the politics of undergraduate grade-grubbing! This present writing-sample may be little more than barely comprehensible, unthematic splatter writing, but at least its honest! Penned from that place where my words come as authentically as I’m able, and hence more apropos to your assessment of my candidacy than any paper already written for another purpose could be!”

And then there were four. To do six more seems an almost insurmountable task. And so I'll leave this for the present a fragment, and return to it hopefully never...

Burn Palin's Book, Just Don't Buy It First

I'm joking. I'm wholly against book burning. And, in fact, I wish Palin a measure of success. Nothing would grant Obama a second term more swiftly and cleanly than a messy struggle within the ranks of the GOP. In one corner we could have the conservative establishment, and in the other, the conservative "rogues". The establishment, with all their facts and psudo-higher education certificates, not to mention their more or less concrete policy positions, would appear WAY too elite to all the joe (and especially jane) dumbasses in our country. When you're really stupid, even an honorary degree from community college is threatening. Palin galvanizes these people. They've had a little taste of a country fueled not by ideas or even plausible solutions but rather by angry religious fervor and celebrity worship, and boy does it feel good! Now, with any luck, they'll only vote for Palin or someone who wears Palin's brand. Every other conservative in this country, who doesn't give a shit if the president is on a first name basis with a chunk of Hollywood's a-list, might just refuse to vote altogether for any of these Palin-people. Who would the GOP pick then? Some right-center-right candidate? Someone who wears enough Palin brand to get enough crazies to the polls without discouraging too many of the establishment voters? And what would happen? Well, independents wouldn't vote red because the party will have moved further to the right. The dems will appear to be the only center-oriented party out there. And bam! four more years. Best case scenario: the "rogues" actually go rogue and break off from the GOP. An nice clean split right down the middle. Three mainstream presidential candidates in 2012. Obama vs. Palin vs. old-fart-republican-nobody-knows-guy. Or something like that. Then it would be 30 years of unchallenged democratic rule. Not that I'd ever advocate for that. I mean fuck, the dems ain't that much better, not really. But it would be fun to watch.