Toughskins

My head is pulled under the cover of childhood, reading forgotten comic books in the dark, a flashlight, a fortress of fabric in my pajamas, cotton heroes, sheets strung from wall to wall, wanting to make the smallest world more private, for reasons still not understood, giggling just in and out of innocence. 

Wanting somebody to notice my fort. The imaginary fortress of this bunkered bedroom. 

"No!"

I must have been 11, 12, 13.

I remember the first $5 bill I ever had, creeping out of my Toughskins denim pocket. I tried to get people to notice it there. I did. If they would not, then showing them was my schtick. It was mine, though possessing little idea of what it meant, what it would.

It was a tender, of sorts. Currency, a wanted thing.

I show Rhys the falling leaves every chance we get, point to the trees bending in the wind; gazing upwards for seconds. Firsts.

The first outside sensation that he noticeably noticed was the marvel of the wind moving through the trees above. We held him, stomach upwards, cradled in our arms, on the back patio, dizzy with newness, dazed with wind. It is the reason that we moved here. Trees, without having to make a special trip to visit.

Now vainly, desperately, perhaps too early, I try to make the connections with him. I pick up a yellow leaf and draw his interest to it if I can, then up to the trees. A hopeful fool, pointing at the sky, murmuring of nature, seasons, temporary gods. Happy, for a time, with this absurdity of failure. 

Wind moves above me now as I write this in bed. I can hear some of it, shifting - sounding like a beach town, a shore in the darkness, like a place that can not stop itself from giving up. 

It reminds of a time, not so long ago.

---------------------

In the 1960s, Sears' children's jeans were made of the same material as that of its competitors.  When market research showed that durability was the most important feature for parents buying children's jeans, then Sears' engineers headed into the laboratory to develop a stronger material than either the 50-50 blend of cotton and polyester or 100-percent composition of jeans most commonly found in stores at the time.

To demonstrate just how tough the new jeans were, Sears launched a famous "Tough Jeans Territory" ad campaign in 1974, in which Sears constructed a trampoline out of the Toughskin material.  Sears was so sure of the new line of pants that they were sold with a guarantee that children would grow out of their Toughskin jeans before the jeans wore out.

.

Oh... just some mutilation

(unknown)

Somebody's been on this site again, reading all day yesterday without asking, or thanking. My pageviews jumped by about 150. They appeared to be all in single pages. Well, it was a rainy day here in Sonoma, so that explains it. When it rains here, it rains everywhere. That's easier for me to understand. With weather, I am like a dog looking out a window with an erection, scratching a flea.  

Fuck, I jogged to the gym yesterday, and then the only way I had home was the same. Never again.... My whole body is bruised from it. No wonder they don't want 45 yr. olds going off to war. I used to think that I would sign up for the military just to go through basic training, but then craft an incident that would get me roundly kicked out when it was done; just to get in shape, to see if I could do it, and for the raw experience of it all. 

Of course, I never did. I would have already mentioned here that I had been in the military, etc.

I saw Top Gun and it scared me witless. The volleyball scene where they all make sweet, gay, beach love together.

I went in and took the ASVAB when I was about 19. The recruiter told me that I could be an officer, that the Navy would pay for my college, a free ride. I don't know why I didn't do it. Everyone else in my family had been in the military, or was at the time. He said I could choose any field. I had Aced the test, he reported, champ... I admitted to having done all sorts of drugs to him, a perverse confession that pleased only me. He lowered his voice and told me hush-hush, nobody has to know about that. They don't even drug test unless they suspect, and that's not until much later, during basic training. It'll be our little secret. What a creep. They bugged me for years about joining but then finally gave up. 

I kept telling them that the Air Force was making better offers, and had they ever even seen Top Gun?

I liked knowing that it was there, if I needed it. The Service. I wonder if it's too late to reach back out... I have the requisite discipline now. I swear.

My life is quite regimented but nobody seems to notice, or perhaps believe, or care. My life, in its humble beginnings, had been chaotic on so many levels, for so long, that nobody noticed the slow transition that occurred. I gainfully entered the work-force, I got married, I had a child, I bought a house, I write daily, I exercise almost daily, I drink very daily...  All things that seem nearly unbelievable when considered together.

Nope, some still think of me as a too-loose canon. It is the most convenient assessment for them, the easiest to make. It perplexes me, particularly when I look at other people's lives, and how fragmented those lives can seem - held closely together by ever-tightening and knotted neuroses, an inner-emotional core of chaos, a denial of the full range of life rather than a surrendering to it. A lifelong resistance to a deeply known thing: the dark entity of self. 

The nucleus that can not be named.

I suppose it is the wide emotional arc I represent, the fluctuations. The unpredictable energy and then the gloom. They're not for everybody. People seem to prefer deeply ingrained problems that they can resist over time and maintain in perpetuity, rather than the radial frequency of my emotional energy. Some people gladly choose denial over disaster. It's why counseling feels as if it's working for them, the abiding sense of gentle unraveling, the slow assuaging of self. The coddling warmth of another's concern. 

Not me. I am a dozing Fukushima. Even therapists implore me to "please, get some help...." 

When I start to feel out of control I burn myself. It reduces everything down to that single moment of pain. Where things disappear and all that I can see or feel is that white hot flashing spot of simplicity. It immediately transports what's left of me elsewhere. The mind constricts and then opens to a brand new familiar place, the boundaries between pain and pleasure drift as tattered fabric in the winds. Everything goes away. And I'm the only one who gets to decide whether I'm going to do it again or not.

"All the knives seem to lacerate your brain, I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain..."

Moving on.

Well, I just spent an hour writing a portion that I've removed. Too much faux-confession for a Monday morning.

Then, I shifted over to Facebook where I wasted another 20 minutes. 

Now, the morning is escaping me. 

It is slipping away as the pain from the scar.

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My Laureates

(The original Joe Strummer)

This still gets me every time. There are so many good cover versions of that song, but that one really makes me feel okay. The sadness of it somehow becomes something else. Whimsy in a middle-aged man is often just foolishness. Here, it is what it is meant to be, a skylarking.

I was looking through old posts and emails, trying to place something in time. 

Time, I have a terrible sense if its passing, always have. I found my version of 50 shades. I had linked together a few vignettes the handful of posts before that, hoping to teach myself how to tell a story. It is more difficult than it seems, the telling of stories. We can tell ourselves all manner of things within our minds, but they are mostly fragments, sentences if lucky. In the darkness, the mind has only itself as a companion. 

You had better hope that you're saying nice things to yourself in there. 

A story is more than just a detached thought floating in the mist, though once ingested stories can sometimes become just that. A phrase or a fragment can evoke whole places, complete memories of emotions.

I should know: I am reading Alice Munro right now. She is an enviable raconteuse. There is a richness and complexity to her writing that is maddening. It is magic on the page. 

Saul Bellow is the closest that Canada has come to claiming the Nobel Prize for Literature. Though he was only Canadian by birth, he was educated and lived in America, and became an American. 

The Nobel Committee no longer seriously considers American writers for the award. They are considered too insular and self-involved. They do not speak to the world, we're told. Toni Morrison was the last to win, in 1993. The last before her, born in America, was John Steinbeck in 1962.

They loved us for a little while.

Proust, Joyce and Nabokov never won, either. Down go France, Ireland and Russia.... Never quite famous for literature anyway.

Alice Munro seems at least as deserving as Mario Vargas Llosa, José Saramago, Doris Lessing or Harold Pinter (The only ones that I have read from the last decade or so).  But, alas, there are many writers with talent, and I read only in English, or translation. English is insular and self-involved. Hungarian is the new global voice.

I have been meaning to read J.M. Coetzee and V.S. Naipaul but there is only so much time to waste in a life. 

I have a Philip Roth book on the shelf, The Counterlife. Don DeLillo and Salman Rushdie are considered notable by many. With Rushdie, I've skipped his "important" works, for now. DeLillo: I've only read White Noise.

Joyce Carol Oates!, claim some. I've only ever read one novel by her that I cared for, You Must Remember This, and then a collection of stores, I forget the name. 

The key to winning is living long. Camus tricked them, snuck in under the wire (pictured above). Rudyard Kipling had many, many years left. He needn't have won it so soon.

Some claim that the writer must do more than just live long, they must also write much, and well. There seem to be a handful of tricksters in the bunch, but that should be no surprise, just look at the Peace Prize.

They've announced a new category: Nobel Prize for emails.

"It is necessary to fall in love... If only to provide an alibi for the random despair you're going to feel anyway." - Camus

I've named 19 writers now in my Sunday report, more than any other student in the class!

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Type E

(Susan Burnstine)

A good friend, and dedicated reader of emails, told me that I had never once told her about the strange encounter on I-10 that I relayed here yesterday. It seems impossible. She lives for stories of that kind. Certainly I have relayed all of my paranormal stories to her already, many times. I even remember she and I once discussing my cynicism, doubt, and lack of faith in the supernatural, and the unlikelihood of visiting extraterrestrials. She then asked, as always, if I did not think there were some things that were unexplainable. How could I disagree. I tell that story often when people suggest that I don't know everything.

It is always possible to assert man's ignorance. Or, even more specifically, mine. It is easily proven.

But, I had a very strange and emotionally charged encounter with a human-shaped creature in the middle of nowhere, without an entirely adequate explanation. At least no explanation that leaves no lingering questions at all in my mind. It doesn't really change anything, though. Occam's Razor tells us that it was most likely a human. That simple explanation satisfies all of the perceived criteria. Inductive indifference is a powerful tool of reasoning, specifically in approaching seemingly unexplainable experiences. All logical observations conclude that the creature was human. It is only when emotion enters the assessment do we begin to suppose and speculate, and even wish for something else. All activities that I spent the next several months engaged in.

It is important to remember a few things: there have been many, many UFO sightings, encounters, and presumed "abductions"... There is not one agreed-upon piece of empirical evidence of visitors from another planet. Does that not strike some as strange? For some, it only proves their higher intelligence, their ability to make contact but leave no trace. For others, it only reflects a lack of evidence. I am one of those. 

How many encounters have been disproven or otherwise explained? Many of them. This does not mean that it is not possible, only that there is no evidence. Eyewitness accounts are often quite lacking in unexplainable physical evidence. Science does not treat these as worthy of inquiry for a reason.

Have humans been shown to be highly imaginative, and to allow that capacity to form entire structures of agree-upon fantasy? Yes, there is much global evidence of that.

Again, inductive indifference teaches us that among like things certain predictions can be made based upon logical observations of a given series of symbols.

- It was shaped like a human

- It walked (though somewhat oddly to appearance) as a human

- It was covered in a fabric, a human invention

- It had a glow to it when not in the direct light, possibly phosphor

- It occurred near a university town where there is a greater likelihood of hijinks

- I was alone, emotions can tend to be runaway

- The experience was very, very brief

- I did nothing to verify, but rather let the experience inform my imagination and emotions

- Most telling of all, it expressed no interest in probing my anus

See? It did absolutely nothing that was unaccountable, to the senses or otherwise. That's not always the case for some in these type celestial engagements. That is, until you get dispassionate observers involved; chicanery is most often discovered at the root of these adventures. 

My incident does not even qualify as a "Close Encounter" as there was no UFO visible. Under Bloecher's subtypes it does qualify as a category E in which an entity is observed but there is no evidence or sighting of a UFO. That is as far as the hypothetical nature of the experience can stretch. I had a "Type E" encounter. 

Not my first, I assure you. 

I have, and do, find it strange and interesting that seemingly normal people during the course of their daily lives are occasionally transformed by the experience of witnessing something unexplainable. I have read about the lives of reasonable people being completely upended by a single unexplainable experience. I usually assume boredom, some urge for their lives to be something other than mundane. I can understand and sympathize with that impulse. 

But I am not one of those people. I have invited weirdness into my life from the beginning. Believing in love is as improbable as anything else, and filled with much wonder, magic, and all the speculation that any human can be expected to endure. 

When you enter a movie theater and have your sense of reality transformed for a period: Is that real? Of course it is. Almost all of your senses tell you so. Is there an explanation for the experience: Sure. Does it change the experience of the experience: Some, but not entirely.

The same friend that denies all previous knowledge of my many alien-friends and confrontations used to be quite disturbed and excited by the idea of suspenseful films, and probably still is. She has an abiding fear of sharks, often when on land, miles from the nearest lake. Her fear is of the predatory and movable kind.

Now once, long ago... I wasn't sure if she had seen a certain film yet or not, or if she was merely frightened by the effectiveness of the advertising campaign, its presentation of itself as a documented fact that was only hereto coming to public light. 

We were driving south through a darkly wooded part of Florida when she announced that she had to piss. She may have said "pee." We pulled off of the interstate but the only gas station there was abandoned, in unlit disrepair. La Commandanta' that she is, she just instructed me to stop the car. She exited on her passenger side, stepped backwards into darkness, dropped her pants and then herself. I could hear the tinkling sound of her squatted water-making. Looking off into the wooded darkness around us I decided to ask her, by chance, if she had seen the Blair Witch project yet. No sooner had I completed the sentence was she was back in the car demanding that I flee, immediately. It was not possible to escape the evil wood witch's clutches fast enough. Urine was apparently no match for the pitch-black pythoness.

We laughed about it, eventually. But there were many miles that we had to put between us and the sorceress that almost claimed her.

Boo!

.

... our little life, is rounded with a sleep

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;

Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled:

Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:

If you be pleased, retire into my cell

And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk,

To still my beating mind.

-Shakespeare, The Tempest

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An emotional encounter

I was going to tell the story of getting shot at in Florida, but I thought of another Florida story instead. We'll save the shooting for another time. Instead, I'll relay one of the life experiences I've had that confirms, to me, how powerful the imagination can be. A thing for which I have no adequate explanation.

When I was about 18-19 years old many of my friends were going away to college, mostly University of Florida and Florida State. I had dropped out of high school on my own accord so those options were not yet open to me.  Finances kept them from ever becoming a reality. 

I was working my way through an 8.5 year A.A. program at a community college in Seminole County. The same one, incidentally, that George Zimmerman attends, or attended.  I have not had much time to keep up with his life. This is one of the reasons I felt as if I had so much to say about the incident. I know the area pretty well, and am aware of both the overt and submerged racism that extends both ways. There is plenty of hatred amongst blacks for whites and Hispanics there. 

Spell check had me capitalize Hispanics. I do not believe I have ever seen "whites" or "blacks" similarly capitalized. 

In any event, that is not the point of my story.

I was dating a girl. Beth was her name. She was among several different girls I dated with the same name that used Beth, or Elizabeth, or Liz. The last mentioned, Liz, ending in suicide. Beth went away to school, Florida State. Being ~19 I would do just about anything for pussy, including driving the four hours from Orlando for it. 

I didn't drive there very often before things inevitably ended between she and I. The weekends in a college town were much fun but she became very serious about studying, to what end I do not know. I saw her at a Bauhaus show many years later. Though she was lonely that first semester and I was young and energetic, willing to love, still trembling with glandular discharges. Young enough to have a long distance relationship, that is. Twitchingly motivated. So, on Friday nights I would make the four hour journey by myself, usually coming home on Sunday towards the afternoon/evening. 

From Orlando, once you get off of I-75 heading north (75 could take you all the way through Detroit and into the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan, and then to the Canadian border, surrounded by Lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie) and turn West onto I-10 near Lake City where Ted Bundy took his last known victim, a 12 year old girl (10 will take you west all the way through New Orleans, San Antonio, and then on to Los Angeles, if you cared to), then you head the last hour and a half to Tallahassee. Through nothing but woods, along the panhandle. 

Look at a map, there are no cities there, barely even gas stations. Just a highway built of necessity. An artery of commerce.

I believe this to be the greatest of southern crossroads, perhaps the most significant in all of America in terms of the length of roads crossed. Perhaps there is some crossing in the midwest that might beat it. I don't know. I've never cared. The roads lead north and west for as long as they possibly can.

Once you are on I-10 there are no lights, just highway and darkness, lots of it.

This particular night I was tired but not that tired. I wasn't suffering from highway hypnosis or anything along those lines. I didn't need to pull over. I was singing along with the tape player in a full-throated way, rocking along to R.E.M. or something similar. I was eager to make the last hour and a half towards my girlfriend.  

There was the occasional headlight of a car going the opposite direction. The highway was separated by a significantly concave grass median, the outside shoulders tapering down into woods that were worse than nothingness. Darkness, and shadows that barely required light.

I had my high-beams on and there really was no reason to dim them for cars coming the other direction. The night and distance absorbed any oncoming insult.

About halfway between the turn west and my destination, maybe 45 minutes that direction, I saw somebody by the side of the road. I could see them from quite a ways off because they were wearing something very light, almost reflective. A sort of silverish figure standing on the side of the road, but on the road, at the edge.

I started to slow down as I approached, looking around for a wreck off to the side, assuming there must have been an accident. I probably slowed to around 30 or 40 while I was still a hundred yards off or more. With there being nothing else to see I started to focus on the person on the side of the road, who then started to walk into the road. I slowed down even more, not knowing what was going on and not wanting to hit them. I pulled to the inside of the far side, to the opposite edge. 

It was then that I noticed the way they were moving, as if their elbows and knees moved in both directions. The fabric, or what seemed to be fabric, was of one piece and was worn from head to toe without a visible seam. There was a sort of S-shape to the extremities and this seemed to be how it would move, a sinuous sort of dance, though the feet were noticeably shifting also. It seemed almost unable to hold up its own weight in this way, but showed no sign of effort, or strain. 

By this time it was in the middle of the right lane. I had slowed to about 15 or 20 miles per hour. As I passed I noticed that there wasn't much of a face on it. It was taller than the side of my truck but still a couple feet away, so that I could see to the top of its head. There were indentations where there would be eyes and they were of a slightly different color, almost a grey and without as much reflection, maybe none. There seemed to be a place where a mouth would be, but it didn't seem possible for it to ingest anything that way. Sound may have been a possibility. I heard nothing. It spoke nothing that I could hear. But it was interested in my passing. 

Its attention followed me as I went by. Its head turning slowly with me, slow enough for me to get a really good look. Its arms were moving and even seemed to lengthen a little as I passed. I could see the fingerless hands and a dark line that hinted at a thumb. Through my right window I looked directly at it. As the lights from my headlights were no longer hitting it there seemed to be a glow from whatever light had been previously on it, as if it had absorbed all that it needed. Phosphor, or a bioluminescence. I could see it even more clearly once it was out of the direct light.

This mild glow seemed to come from just under the surface of the material. There may have been more than one layer. The glow was concentrated in the abdomen, though only slightly more so. As you can probably guess, its head was large and its neck was thin and seemingly elongated.

It all happened in a matter of seconds, no more than three or four at the very most. 

Then, it was in my rearview mirror, it had turned to watch me drive away. I could see it still face-on watching me depart. This is when I could really see how it moved, its sort of liquid locomotion, with each leg almost acting independently, like a four-tentacled octopus on its hind legs. It didn't seem to be pursuing me or indicate anything to me other than mild curiosity. It just turned and watched, standing near the center of the highway. 

That didn't matter to me.

I was only about 20 or 30 feet past it when I also turned backwards to look off into the woods from where it seemed to have come, wanting to see a few cars, probably pickup trucks, and kids laughing, getting their kicks, drinking beer and cheering.

There was nothing, but it was dark.

I got my truck back up to 70 mph as fast as I could, as fast as it would, watching this lone apparition recede in my rearview mirror, deep in the middle of nowhere. By this time I was shaking, and scared. I kept looking in my mirror and through the back window of my truck, half expecting to see a launch and a light darting through the sky. I kept telling myself to stop or turn around, but wasn't able to.

Fuck, fuck, fuck was all I could think clearly.

I told myself over and over that it had to have been kids, college kids, an elaborate prank. A student of avant-garde dance. Michael Jackson had also pulled off miracles of movement. 

But then I couldn't understand why they would risk their life stepping out onto a highway for a joke or a student project - so far away from anything, willing to get shot, almost asking for it.

Kids, I thought, kids it must be. Not kids like me.

And that's what I've told myself ever since. 

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Meatball

(The redneck 'Princess Leia' and El Bandito)

Well, baby Tylenol - as evil as we are to understand that it is - works. The child sleeps. Acetaminophen kills more people than any other over the counter drug, we're told. 150 people a year. I suppose they do not include nicotine in their assessment of such things. It is not a "drug." It is a product. 

150... barely a weekend in Daytona. 

I don't know... it seems worth it, to me. I do not believe that I have ever come close to overdosing on Tylenol, nor have I been at a party where anybody lapsed into sudden-headache-catastrophe. Nobody flinches at a number so low any more. The internet has made 100 the new 1. 

Accidental overdoses, we're told. This is the age of Social Media. If it were 150,000 since 9/11, well, that would be different. That is a post-worthy number. In a number like that there lurks a youtube conspiracy.

Won't it be nice when the NSA can step in and prevent a few of those?

"You tube!" sounds like a 70's insult.

What am I doing? Rachel might still read this site. 

'This American Life'  - everybody tells me to check it out. It's where clever people derive their chat. A guy I work with - I almost called him "my boss" - recommends it. 

El Jefe.

Bruce Springsteen is The Boss.  Everybody else is just tired, and fired.

"The devil appeared like Jesus through the steam in the street."

I don't know what to write about any more. I've told all of my stories. I've devolved into shock radio tactics. Pussy, etc.

Wait. I was shot at once, with a handgun, in Florida. I'm surprised I never mentioned that when I was espousing my wisdom on gun violence and George Zimmerman. Maybe I did. 

I don't have time to tell that story today but maybe tomorrow morning, though Friday mornings are often hectic for me. I am eager to get the day moving to build up speed into a weekend in which I insist on relaxing. We are subtlety reminded that we are both replaceable and yet also a valued member of the team. It is odd, and yet demonstrably true.

I don't know why I keep mentioning Erich Fromm here, but... he discusses a mother's love in comparison to a father's; conditional and unconditional. It's what prepares us for the workplace. We are coddled yet reminded to perform, accepted into something much larger than just us, but shown that others can be preferred over us if we do not produce the kind of results that make dad happy.

It is strange. I'm not sure what an acceptable alternative might be. It seems a human reaction to human conditions.

People who rebel, often, are not rewarded. Your rebellion must always be for the purpose of improvement. It must never be too specific, and most importantly, not very often. Never rebel against the stated rebels. 

That's what happened in Beirut. A civil war does not need another civil war.

What the fuck am I talking about...?

Well, I could explain, but I'll be out of time soon. The gym calls, again. 

All I ate for dinner last night was meatballs, about 25 of them. Not even on a plate. Just right off of the oven tray, standing in the kitchen in my underwear. I would be rather embarrassed if a video emerged from the experience. A hidden camera on the stove and me just asserting my dominance over the hot, helpless spheres. Particularly in the timing, the way that I would retreat and return, just a hand sneaking back into frame and abducting them one at a time, as if I was somehow doing myself a favor by spacing out my gluttony into discrete ingestion periods.

---------

Just got back from the gym. Meatballs or not I've lost 15 pounds. A few of them might have made their way out to my extremities where there is less gravity. But I'll find them, and then consume them in a different way.

The second highest grossing movie of 1977 was Smokey and the Bandit.

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The tearing of tender flesh

I've discovered something far worse than my own insomnia: Rhys's.

I have somehow learned to make my way through the night in whatever isolated and disfigured state that I can find. I lie very still, like a pile of laundry.

The new guy is having little teeth come in, way in the back. "Come in" makes it sounds as if they are guests that are stopping by. They are ripping through his gums.

So, it is not just sleeplessness but also confusing pain and misery. There is much midnight wailing.

Rachel is angelic in this time. These nights pass with her walking about the house holding his sobbing body; a merciful vision, an apparition announced by howls, and shrieks, and many tears.

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As vulgar, slang

This morning, I return to the gym. It has been a few weeks. Three of them, and then some change. I am psychologically preparing myself now; coffee on an empty stomach. It is the only way: two cups every morning. It causes me to dream of rats each night but what is one to do? The goal is to remain strong. Anybody that doesn't dream of rats is a pussy.

Are we allowed to use the pejorative pussy? A friend used the abbreviation "p.c." this morning instead of an actual derogatory term denoting male tenderness or sensitivity. He was referring to himself, so maybe that's what makes it okay. It is Personal Correctness.

Does this mean that I'm a pussy? Oh dear, I do hope not. 

It's a silly word - over my lifetime, since puberty, it has become psychically connected to the actual thing, the vulva. The mere mention of it will make me stop, turn, and look and look. There is always a sensation of where, where...? It is the reaction of a dog when a squirrel enters his periphery vision. The limbic brain awakens, the core tightens, the stance changes - the tail wags, lifts, and stiffens.

Pussy. It is not uncommon to hear men accuse one another of it, as an adjective on its way towards becoming a noun. It requires no conceptual power at all to understand the deeply homo-erotic nature of such a presumed abuse. To claim that one of your male friends is transforming into this thing that you affirm a deep sexual attraction to, and fascination with... This inverted magic is meant to be an insult rather than an invitation. 

It is more rare to hear a man express to a friend, "You look good today, man, like a really strong pussy. You been working out, bro?"

It can also be used as a condemning threat of sorts, "Come on, you fucking pussy!" Impossible to determine the intended meaning of the word 'fucking' in that sentence, or 'come' for that matter.... an invitation to very suggestive violence.

I'm trying to remember if I've ever heard a gay friend refer to anybody else also gay and male as a "pussy." I don't think that I have but I have heard a lot of things and remember so few. Being a nightclub dj gives you insight into rare incident, hilarity that will not come again. The idea does make me giggle. 

I feel as if I could reconstruct its happening and then have it become real. 

I used to have this friend, a girl, who I would regularly and jokingly call a "dick," whenever she was being one. She did not seem to mind and even thought it was funny, that I was being so candid with her, and intentionally awkward. The opposite of being forced.

There is another story to tell of her one day, though perhaps not today, perhaps never. I don't mind relaying harmless, anonymous stories, but this one is borderline cruel. Cruelty is one of the unforgivable sins. I know. I was cruel to this kid once. I've never let myself forget it, nor he. 

So, with no options left I just continue to treat him cruelly whenever the opportunity arises.  I should be outgrowing all of that, soon, but... ah well. He has grown very sanctimonious over the whole thing, which only raises my ire and dulls my wit.

Sadism is fascinating. It's just so difficult to find the right crowd for it. They are either all far too intense or they're all just a bunch of fucking masochists. 

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Power Outage

Strangeness everywhere, silence. The power went out around midnight. It is still off. I write this with what's left of my phone battery. 

It was a perfect night for it. The first night of Autumn, the coming darkness. The trees in the back yard have begun to disintegrate. 

Yesterday several birds circled above as I stepped out of the house, many more than this picture shows. I smelled nothing. I saw nothing. But I was certain. Something was dead, or dying. 

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Sunflowers

Internet traffic is strange. I shouldn't note it as I do but it is difficult to avert the eyes, particularly when I've clicked that page for the very purpose of looking. There are some days when this site will get hundreds of pageviews, then other days when it will barely crack a hundred. It rarely has to do with the writing of a single post, though it's hard for me not to feel as if it does. The numbers tell a different story. 

By the next day I have already forgotten the post from the day before, forgotten much of what I've said. When I see people out and about in *real life* they will reference something that I've written and I look at them as if I've come straight from a Flowers for Algernon experiment.

Life can be seen as a fluctuation between intellect and emotion, but that doesn't make the observation accurate, or meaningful, or even useful. Assuming opposites in nature does not mean that they are actually there. It says as much about the mind of the viewer as it does about the nature of reality. If intellect is opposition-based inquiry then it's no surprise that opposites are then discovered and codified by that intellect.

Then, it follows that if no true opposites exist in nature then they share no unity in opposition. People are not bi-polar, they are merely dynamic in varying directions and to varying degrees; unexpectedly eccentric, difficult to pin down, best to strap...

Opposites are easy to assert and establish mathematically but not even in fundamental interactions do we truly find them. Gravity is always attractive and the other three known forces are of the discreet quanta kind. 

That's my observation for the day. I was told by a friend that perhaps I see life as a continuum where others might see it as stages.

But, since we have lately begun to question the continuum, and we've known since Shakespeare that all the world's some stages...

... I just might be in trouble.

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A dangerous nonsense

The struggle is to be magnanimous when you don't want to be, when no one is expressing much, or any, forgiveness towards you. That is the challenge. 

I was reading Erich Fromm. Don't ask me why. The book (The Art of Loving) is not nearly as good as I remember it being, though I would still recommend reading it. Funny, that. 

But he says that - I'm paraphrasing here - respect is the absence of exploitation. That phrase stuck with me. It is very easily understood. 

Exploitation is treating somebody unfairly, for gain. But what of when there is no gain, there is just the unfair treatment for loss, often mutual, often only an imagined gain. You lose respect and other things; vital components of love. You gain nothing by the behavior but are compelled by some inner force, some clenched knot of self that refuses to let go, the inner-poison that is somehow meant to affect others.

It is all a dangerous nonsense.

In love, nobody would consciously wish to treat someone unfairly. In love. But there it is. It is easy to recognize when you are the victim, more demanding to acknowledge self-wrongdoing. I know. How sudden the voice can interrupt the voice: No, no, no, not possible. 

But there it is.

It has lately been much on my mind: the need to forgive, to be fair. We know where it comes from. But then where does it go.

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Your Cthonic Objective

I don't understand how paychecks work. I mean, I do, but still they confound me. Paychecks in which I have worked more hours somehow magically provide less money. I'm told that the government will tax me more if I make more money, they wouldn't want an employer exploiting me, but still....

Yes, I am paid hourly. There are times when I greatly prefer it. It is simple: I work more, I make more. But that hasn't happened this time and it is far too early in the morning for me to do any comparative analysis of the previous paycheck and this one. I'm assuming this means that I will get more money back at the end of the year. The government is always looking out for me, or for me, or at me.

I have been working a lot lately, you see. That is supposed to convert into more money for me, not less. It is a rather simple arrangement and Marx described it pretty well. It is supposed to be a reasonably simple arrangement, one with agreed-upon terms. 

Okay, I took a look at it. I thought there might be something worth relaying there, something funny. It was actually quite simple: I made less money. There was a holiday day involved. So, even though the total "hours worked" were more I had worked more overtime the paycheck before. So, that settles that, I am lazy and and Labor Day has cheated me out of capital. Why don't they call it Capital Day?

It is a holiday to celebrate the social and economic advancement of American workers. It's now known as irony. 

I have many friends that work for a fixed salary. They seem to prefer this and sometimes I can understand why. They make more money than me. But they are forced into working more hours at times, against their wishes, with no extra compensation. I'm not mature enough for a relationship like that. I am still at the stage in life where work should directly equal compensation. I have yet to advance to the point where I can see things in a more yearly way. The "big" picture.

Enough about money, and work. The way to be happy about the situation is to do as little as possible for as much return as imaginable. It is my key to success. Lounge until someone offers you compensation to cease lounging, but always be prepared for success through lottery winnings.

Anthony Robbins taught me that. He is known as a self-help author and it is a title that certainly seems to apply. He is a motivated speaker. A living coach, of sorts. 

I wonder if he will make a career transition when he gets older and instruct people how to die with power and wealth. 

"When it comes to dying, setting goals is the only way to get there."

"If you don't like the way you're dying then you must change. Death is a choice. Make yours last."

"If you want to have the death that you want then you must first imagine it, then become it. Most people simply lack a clear death-goal."

"If you're serious about this, then enroll in my 10 month program 'Pull Yourself Together.'"

"If you enjoyed that one then try my extended death-seminar dvd set, 'True Mastery of Your Passing.'"

Fuck, I should do this for a living: teach people how to die with a few simple rules of self-empowerment. Just use good old fashioned christian values to guilt people into having better, happier deaths.

Tell them that if they want their deaths to last then they must be pro-active about them. 

You're not incapable. You just haven't decided on a clear goal. Only you can do this. 

My program is designed to help you form habits that will get you back on track.

I could give them focus, something to strive for, a way to give something back. I see people that are just lazy in death, too many really, just lying about, letting it happen. If you want a death that will bring you true inner-happiness then you must change your death habits, and then be prepared to follow through with them.

This is almost too easy. If anybody out there needs this then please reach out to me. I have a cassette package that I'd love to sell you. You sound as if you could really use it.

It's time!

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The Orb vs. David Letterman

(Orb fan)

Not much time to write today. I rush into the city to work all day, then tonight: The Orb.

There is much to say about the band but not enough time to do so today. They're the best at what they do, almost a Grateful Dead of electronic music, at least insomuch as they have carved out a niche for themselves, one which they occupy alone. I am a devoted fan. I don't mean that I write them lengthy letters telling them which camp I went to for the summer, or how my mother and I don't really get along, and that I awaken some nights with a confusing moistness between my legs that also excites me and I want them to know about it, but I do have all of their albums, all the re-releases, all the bootlegs, all the vinyl. All of it. 

I have their pictures on my bedroom wall. My father simply hates it. Paul's not my favorite. 

It is very rare that I'm not in the mood to listen to their music, and once started it's difficult to get me to stop. The video I posted the other day is one of their remixes. I once interviewed the "founder" of the band, Alex Patterson, for about an hour, thinking that I would convert it into a written piece. This is when I was writing for the .xpander.nl website out of Amsterdam, one now defunct, or sold off to industry. I'm not really sure what happened to it, though at the time it was one of the largest websites dedicated to electronic music in the world. I was their in-house court jester.

The interview was boring. Alex is somebody who has been interviewed many, many times and very likely adopts a certain mind-set when engaged in one. I couldn't seem to get much more than perfunctory answers out of him, though that very well might have been the result of my inexperience. Writing is not talking, and talking is not interviewing. It is a special talent and like all talents must be practiced and developed. I have not taken the time to do so.

I admire a good interviewer though. David Letterman used to have his moments. When I try to talk to people now of what he was like in the 80's they just stare at me, nod and say, "Is that right?"

But it's true! Go look on youtube and see him 30 years ago. He invented a style of speaking that many people use today, but few give him credit for it. The post-modern approach to television, the only sensible approach there is. It was strange and exciting and peppered with awkward spaces. His choice of guests often matched his unique talent. All he had to do was sit there and fluctuate between vague encouragement and bemused silences.  He could do as much with a muted vowel sound response as Bill Murray can do by lifting his eyebrow. Or better, nothing at all.

Here is but one among many:

Who cares that Paul Reubens got caught engaged in self-spanking in a dirty theater. He's the victim there.

Or, this one:

Well, neither of those can come close to telling the whole story, one must have lived through it. I used to stay up late just to watch. It was part of my coming-of-age process. Letterman was a late-night god and for years felt like a secret. I separated the world into those who also understood his quirky interview tactics and humor and those who weren't worth talking to. It's hard to believe now. He's as safe as an old toaster.

Search out his interviews with Madonna. They are priceless.

Ok, I must run. There is a marathon leading over the bridge and into the city, and I the predicted champion.

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Par Avion

Coffee with milk. It just tastes like coffee. We ran out of half-and-half. I feel like a dirty, stinkin' peasant.

I am really starting to get excited about coming to New York. I guess it should be going to New York now that we live here, but a few of my friends asked me to put them on an email list for this site each day when I click the "Publish" button, so sometimes it feels as if I'm just writing to them. They rob me of page-views which deeply affects my daily vanity but what can one do? They're my friends.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of them: Darla, Jane, Froggy, Porky, Mary Ann, Stymie, Spanky, Alfalfa .... and who could forget the inscrutable Buckwheat. Our Gang. 

Petey, the pup.

We're going to have a massive party on the Saturday, and then on the Sunday too. Nope, wait, I just checked the dates. I think Darla might have gotten it wrong. We're there the week before her son's birthday. It was gonna be a big fiesta-fete; cake, punch, et al.

I wonder if I'll still recognize everybody. 

I hope they haven't all grown up, or signed contracts with different studios.

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Kids...

... change everything.

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Regatta from above

(This frog tried to lick my back)

I think I'm going to grille a steak for breakfast this morning. Why not? That is decadence at this age. At any age. I only wish I had a bottle of cabernet to go with it. Steak and wine Sundays, with maybe some jazz or blues. Nothing too heavy, or loud. Something inoffensive, pleasant even.

Two steaks would just be excessive. Both eaten at the same time, as if it was a steak after-party, a beef orgy.


I stopped by the new gym Friday. It recently moved locations. This means that I will have to start working-out again. I had given myself a break, time for my body to heal. But now too much time has passed and my body is relaxing, moving towards a different version of health. I look like a melted Play-Doh model of my former self. I pushed my thumb into my chest and it left an impression.


Yesterday, we went in to the city, to the park, the California Academy of Sciences. It is a pleasant diversion for the little guy. We like it also. It gives me the opportunity to use words like Lepidoptera and Salientia.

On the drive home we saw America's Cup occurring in the vast San Francisco Bay as we crossed the Golden Gate. The Oracle was gliding alone across the water towards us, making its eastern turn, surrounded by about 300-400 yachts and boats in a semi-circle, watching. I bet they're all eating steaks also this morning. Perhaps something even more decadent. Is such a thing even possible? It seems inconceivable. Maybe in Bangkok.

I tried to tell myself that watching a boat race at the race is boring. It is a sport better watched on television. But then was reminded that being on a yacht in the bay is much better than watching any television, particularly as many of those yachts would have that luxury also.

Ah, well. It's because I don't have a cool name like Jimmy Spithill or Floyd Mayweather Jr.

(The Brooklyn B-boy)

Yesterday I got a "new" collection of Bob Dylan b-sides and unreleased versions from 69-71. There is a traditional on it, Pretty Saro, below. It is for all of those who ever claimed that ol' Bob couldn't sing. An online friend tried to claim that, though this may be good for Dylan, it was still awful singing. I told him to record his version and I'd post them side by side. That shut him up, for now.

He is not the sort that stays shut up for long, though. He was singing the praises of Iron Maiden a few weeks ago - that sort, etc. - making wild claims about their "musicianship" and nobility. Nonsense.

"Boppy!"

(In hot pursuit of blackberries)

Ah, sweet weekend. I almost miss working already, and it's only Saturday morning. I'm that into it. I'm sitting here going through the www.codeacademy.com course in javascript. Man, it has been a long time since my mind has stretched. The most I normally ever ask of it is to calculate a tip, or tabulate caloric intake until my inner voice runs mutiny on me. The internal insurrection.

Rhys is freakin' adorable. I mean it. Every parent must feel that way, I'm sure, particularly about Rhys, because it's true. I want to know that other parents are jealous of him.

One of his favorite words is Barkley's name. He calls him "Boppy." It drives me crazy. I want to call the pup "Boppy" also, but don't want to confuse the little boy. He's trying to imitate us. I'm not sure if it's a good idea that I meet him in the middle on the pronunciation of proper nouns. I'm looking for just about anything to share with him though. We'll just bring a tennis ball into the backyard for entertainment. 

Boppy, Momma, Baby Boy and I.

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The Tree of Leisure

~ 8.5 hours. That is how someone should sleep coming into a weekend. That is champion rest. All else is for the others, the awful others. I went to bed last night at 8pm. That's my trick. Go to bed early enough that I won't worry about the night being too short, the light creeping upon me before it is welcome. That is the fear: there will never be enough darkness, silence, peace. The mind needs to perceive nothing but leisurely night stretched out before it. I have to trick myself to sleep the way a teen coaxes a girl's young bra off. It must seem easy and the right thing to do at the time, destined. It must feel like velvet. Sleep must want me there, it must want my dream hands on it.

Yes means yes, sweet shadow falling.

Oh yes, I took a Xanax las night before I went to sleep. I had forgotten. Well, that explains that, in part. Xanax is a fucking miracle straight from the Garden, plucked from the tree of the life of slumber, the weeping willow along the river.

 Coffee is its murky morning antidote.

Why in the fuck did I ever become a coffee drinker? It was a vice I lived 40 years without, then I started working at Apple, the overnight shift.... Then later, the coffee shops in Soho were too tempting, the aroma called as it never had before. I would go there to sit and read, eat my lunch; solace from the madding crowds. I'll be smoking cigarettes by the time I get to NYC in late October. Why not? Once you have tasted of the tree of leisure - nothing will harm you, nothing will stand in your way - the occupied taste for more.

People tell me that addiction is ugly, but I miss mine, miss its roughnesses. The feeling of need and desire is so much fuller than the vague feeling of worry, the fear of future. Desiring drugs is a form of certainty, doing them gives an immediate sense of the present. When done well, and in excess, they reduce the world down to something centrally desirable, to the exclusion of all else, if only briefly. It is a nucleus of pleasant perversion. I could maybe use a little isolation right now. Just myself and my crystallized beloved.

People will say, "what a shame..." it all is - but shame is the pain felt by the consciousness of wrongdoing, the humiliation of knowledge of one's ignominious actions. That assessment need not always apply. It is not automatic. Getting caught masturbating is, or can be, temporarily shameful. Sure. But the feeling passes, becomes something different. The two acts can easily be related. I mean, who hasn't snorted drugs and then had the overwhelming urge to suddenly masturbate. Privacy becomes almost secondary at that point, a mere convenience, sometimes even a hindrance.

Am I right?

You, dear readers, really don't know what you're missing.


I suppose I could start telling stories here again, stop all this opining:

One time I found myself alone on a rooftop in Brooklyn, pants around my ankles, member vs. digits akimbo. An emergency with the clock ticking: bursting victory or shameful defeat. If there were a way to hold the phone in the one hand, trained on preferable pornography, while the other hand delivered generous key bumps into the nostrils, while yet even a third perhaps middle-hand was hitchhiking to the sky then all would be perfect in that strange, magical scenario.

What an odd journey home that was. It's no wonder so many people get arrested doing the devil's bidding on the subway. There should be cars dedicated to the special purpose. Why must everything always be so impersonal and dishonest.

(Editorial Note: today's post does not represent the opinions of this station. A colleague gave us some independent praise for the post from the other day , questioning decades of drug use through the eyes of being a father. We thought it only appropriate to act at least as responsibly as Fox News here and report in a "Fair and Balanced" manner. So, we booked an Interview with the Vampire for this morning's show.)

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"The enemy of my enemy..."

Well, I was able to fix my computer. I'm back on Google's Chrome, the web browser of all power-internet aficionados. Also, my computer is about three times as fast as it was before. It just needed an Autumn cleaning. Thousands of cached files got thrown out - preferences, and old keychains as well. All of it. I'll be cursing myself sometime very soon, when I reach a little-used site or app and can't remember my password or username. But oh well, what can one do in these abracadabra times...?

I received a private email about my gun post from a friend, letting me know that she is a gun owner and she harbors no fantasies as I described. She claims to have no desire to kill or harm anyone, and I believe her. I could have spent more space in that post clarifying that I do not think that everybody who owns a gun has perverted kill fantasies. But why? Where's the fun in that?

When I start writing for Slate I'll try to be more balanced. These are topsy-turvy times and they call for hocus-pocus claims.

I am pro-gun ownership. I've said it many times, but perhaps it is worth repeating here. There is no easy path back for America in this regard and I'm not sure I would embrace one. A post-apocalypse America just wouldn't be the same without assault weapons.

Moving on...

I'll try not to be as weepy as yesterday's post. It's not something that I talk about often, my family and my childhood. So, that makes it worthwhile, I hope. Guns, well, I can hopefully leave them alone for a while, etc.

So, what's good for today:

I raped a priest when I was a teenager; myself and several other kids. You should have heard him crying and begging, blubbering through the tears, offering wine and promises.

Don't worry, we were just using him to get to god.

No, no, no...

It is an interesting phenomenon. To even mildly suggest that you experienced any difficulties in childhood automatically brings out the proverbial victim-couch, the old one from Oprah. It's as if a person in America today is not real, not actually authentic, unless they have been abused somehow, and then publicly acknowledged or admitted to this. They seek validation through public admission of said abuse, and will often compound the issue of validity by manufacturing imaginary abuses. Nobody wants to feel left out. Then, if it is fabricated, at the very least they have constructed a framework of internal guilt to contend with, from which they can also claim pain and victimhood. One need only to feel victimized. Little matter that the sadist is lurking somewhere within the masochist, performing their evil bidding, doing their daring dance.

The world is populated by the phony among us, says Holden.

In high school I clearly remember the first girl who openly discussed her eating disorder, at least to me. We were sitting at the McDonald's near the Interstate on Hwy. 436 in Altamonte Springs. How bold and courageous, the other girls there must have thought. Because one by one they all developed mild disorders, some of them perhaps genuine, or genuine enough. 

Do not get me wrong. I am not taking eating disorders lightly. They can be very serious, that much is quite proven. These girls were not that sort, though. They were mostly simpering for dark attention; observation that need not be coquettishly begged. The boys among us were in the 14-16 year old range and we took everything they said and did quite seriously, with all the power-focus we had. There is no requirement, no signal to be given, nor expression needing to be noticed, faint enough sent by a girl at age that it will not be heard by every boy for miles. It is a county-wide cry.

Almost every boy. Young girls do not strike the heart and fancy of all. 

Perhaps one of the tiredest claims I've heard is that eating disorders are a product of the fashion industry and the unrealistic expectations that that industry places on women, for men. It may be a contributor, and there are some "male" factors to consider there, though not exclusively heterosexual ones. The claim assumes that fashion magazines are actually made for heterosexual men. What could be more absurd. 

A long neglected attribute of the feminist discourse is the submerged hatred that some homosexuals have for women, though this has been addressed more recently and more adequately. I forget the writer's name. I tried to search but could not find her. 

The feminist claim that they have suffered at historical maleness, - setting aside homosexuals in this allegation - has long and wrongly assumed that all gay males are and always have been on "their side" because they may have suffered likewise. One need only think of other civil liberties causes and groups that have also assumed solidarity to see the error and disaster in such thinking. Though the issue goes much deeper than just a cause, or a group. Those least capable of addressing their own impulse to subject others are those that believe themselves to be the greatest victims, and capable of the most insidious damage. Trust plays a huge part in this ongoing dynamic.  

Something to think about. 

I have been told by both women and gay men that I have no right to assume, or even talk, in this regard, that such a thing is not even possible. Those are warning words and should always be noted. Such a thing is quite possible. When somebody tells you that you are not qualified to think or speak upon a subject because of your gender or sexual orientation then it is important to notice what domain they are claiming dominion over, because it is you. 

Anywhere from 10-25% of all eating disorders are experienced by men, though many go unnoticed and unreported, similar to male rape. I mean men being raped by men, etc. The obsessiveness of gym culture is not just about mass, and bulking up. There is much more to that story. Body dysmorphia can take several forms. Any attempt to improve what is perceived as a less than perfect body can be seen as an unhealthy acknowledgement of imperfection. We can collectively laugh at these "meatheads" because it is a way of denying what can be sensed there, a sadness and possibly even a sickness. To deny their humanity is the first warning sign that should alert the self to what is happening. A yellow flag should arise in the mind at such a thing.

After my gun post I suppose I should qualify: I do not believe that every weightlifter suffers from an eating disorder, nor are all of them sad. Though they are often guilt-ridden, particularly after a "rage."

So, that is my wisdom for today, be gentle with it.

Be careful who you let do your thinking for you. 

When in doubt, you could always trust in me. 

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