Mélange

It seems as if suicide has been everywhere lately. It doesn't take much, a few mentions and one feels surrounded, though not consumed, with it. The grief of others has a persistent way of reminding, enveloping.

The close friend of a close friend. 

The images posted by her reflect the very tender affection held. Love recognizes love. 

The places visited, lost time falling backwards.

She described the hopeless search for missing pictures; there was a visit to the country with his mother and his dog. The East Midlands, Nottingham. The endless loss upon loss. Once the body is no more there is only the clinging to the articles of an ever disappearing past. Living has a way of keeping and holding memories in time and place. Death fixes its opposite, a terrible scattering of previousness.

Suicide leaves one feeling with both the impulse and the inability to say something enormous. The response of living, talking, conducting yourself afterwards is somehow vastly incommensurate with such an act of finality. The reminder that life is fleeting, silence lasting.

Emptiness as a transitive property. 

Though, nothing is equal to the feeling of the moment. Nothing greater than, nothing less.  The next moment, all things less, all things greater. Nothing ever matching, nothing ever matches. It is an equals sign that points to endlessness. An unresolvable equation, balanced with the weight and width of eternity.

As far as last words are concerned, none; it is quietness without tranquility. 

.

Ginger or Mary Ann?

I survived the three hour tour, did none of the deeply-feared though often ex-post-facto-"loved!" mastodon-psychedelics that I had assumed were required for such a journey.

I did a search for the title of this post and found these pictures. They were far too good not to use. The many click-ads that you see on this site help me support my struggling family, etc.

Apparently, there is some debate that goes on, whether: Ginger, Ale, Lager, or Mary Ann?

That's just pure silly, putty. Dope.

She-Mary is a strong argument against tattoos, without ever having tried. Never even mentioned it, as far as I know. Never had to.

Ginger probably discussed it at great length in the late 80's / early 90's, and likely went on a lucrative speaker's tour, called the "Sailor's Skin" lectures.

Don't do a search for "Ginger Tattoos"  You've been warned. 

Or, definitely not, "Ginger - Hervé Vellachaize."

Fuck, I've never begged my age group to get a joke so much before. 

And yet, some wayward others insist on calling me... porpoiseless, spiteful, and a disappointing antagonizer.

You wanted pics, old sport, you got 'em.

I have a close friend that demands to see pictures of every woman I've ever had sex with.

Alternately, he sends me pictures of hundreds of women that he has not. 

The disparity does not in any way escape, or taunt, me.

But, I am a good old sport about it all.

Ignore this post. It was written only for a fiend.

.

Pink Mammoth

A Mammoth is a distant ancestor of the modern elephant, recognized by its long curved tusks, is generally very hairy, and has a long sloping back. It once roamed the earth freely during the Pleistocene period.

That's me, but a Pink, wooly one.


Going on a boat party tonight, San Fran Bay. It is one of the fundraisers, I believe, which make the Pink Mammoth sound system at Burning Man possible.

In truth, I have never really understood how these things work. I know some people work very hard and tirelessly to make things possible for others. I appreciate that it doesn't just grow out of the desert playa.

I'm looking forward to it. I have very fond memories of the Pink Mammoth party at Burning Man in 2008.


I will perchance have more to report on all of this tomorrow. We'll see. I might get involved in experimental recreational intake of multiple forms of mind bending psychedelic drugs, rendering my reporting capabilities beyond meaningless, to utter nothing of what it may do to my swimming abilities, and the capacity to sleep.

.

My epiPhone

Mornings arrive earlier and earlier, in the shape of evenings and just as poorly lit. I must be returning to my nocturnal nights, my wandering Batman ways.

I just checked... I wasn't yet writing on this site when I used to work the overnight shift at Apple. I was already making a recurring nuisance of myself at the Soho store by then, learning to drink more coffee than was needed. 

Time really does fuck life away.

When I first betrayed all of my closest dj friends by doing the unthinkable: getting a job... way back in 2007, I was quickly convinced to transition to the overnight team by a friend and regular reader of this site. He left shortly thereafter, but I remained on, working through the late nights. 

Few places are as cold and lonely as midtown during the winter bewitching hours. The wind removes you, without a hint of memory where you had been, where you had once stood.

I would ride my bike up the East Side River to 59th St. and 5th Ave., past the UN, across more than 50 intersections each way, up and back, four nights a week.

From the time I woke up around 9:30 at night I could be clocking in at 10, if I skipped brushing my teeth of course. I would lock my bike to the street post directly in front of the store, then fix computers, and people's problems, all night.

It was a very "content rich" environment, but I never wrote about; preferring having a job to not having one, once I developed the addictive taste for a semblance of security. A mixed, bittersweet blessing if there ever was one: a steady job. It's always felt a bit too rigid for me, even though I seem to flourish when certain external demands are placed on me. Irreverence perhaps saves me, at least that has been my hope.

In the mornings, when I would finish at 9am, I would walk outside and ride my bike down 5th Ave. with all of the commuter traffic, sometimes in the pouring rain. 

A madman with a strong taste of death, ever heading south towards the East Village.

I used to joke that nobody that had not ridden this same route at the same time gets to talk to me about terror in New York City. The memory of it makes my heart race, muscles twitching at the thought of it all.

(Was that a double-negative?)

Why am I writing all of this? It must be because I got my new iPhone yesterday. Let me find an appropriate picture. 

There, I hope the one above works.

I started working for Apple just before the phone came out. I was in training at Cupertino and saw Steve Jobs a couple times while there, he was holding a prototype in his hand each time I saw him.

I'm not what most would consider a fanboy, but I do like the products, and it was exciting to see such a luminary tech figure in person. An American legend, truly. Shortly after returning to New York and starting to work as a "genius" we were all told that everybody who works for the company would get a free iPhone. 

Hard to argue with the coolness of such a move. 

I later surmised that the phones were bought for Apple employees by AT&T. It would have been to their advantage to do so, being the only carrier, where thousands upon thousands would have switched just to have the phone. There was also a "special" plan for the new phone, with increased rates to compensate of the overwhelming data usage that it would certainly require.

Some of us even believed it.

(More on this later, maybe. The gym has opened and my bike awaits...)

.

A love not unflawed

(pic by Cato)

I have to be careful. I should be careful.

Many mornings I sit down to start writing and I have no idea what will emerge. It's a way of sorting through unresolved thoughts, feelings. Often I arrive at an unformed place, some unverbalized spot, not having yet realized it myself, that it must also be a part of how I feel and what I think. But there it is. The unknown becomes the unavoidable. It is not always pleasant, but it helps.

Some mornings I just delete all of it, a failed rehearsal. The useful practice of unshared expression. 

In this same way, it is sometimes best to write certain types of emails without populating the To: field. The "Send" button is too easily clicked, the consequences too severe. The chagrin of temporarily having felt this way, or that.

We are discouraged, by some, of having or expressing any feelings of anger or disappointment. We are told to acknowledge and then dismiss the sensations. As if the experiencing of such emotions corrupts the one that endures them, reveals a terrible inner weakness, a shameful fault of self. As if the sensation of anger is equal to the act of hostility.

It isn't, except maybe through sorcery. By an inverse of that same odd magic then desire would equal intercourse. It also does not, I attest.

Anger can be dangerous, though. It lurks towards the middle, trapped in the belly of a beast, without an easy way out.


That time heals all wounds is a joke. Time also creates them; carved like canyons into the cavity of the chest.

Prolonged emotional exasperation is much closer to exhaustion than it is to conflict.

The dry lines where a river once flowed, a bed of rocks awaiting spring, and rain.

That is already far more than I had wished to say.

.

Vacation Valley

Flies.

Autumn is beautiful here, no question about it. It is also harvest season, which means easy access to simple sugars for those that crave them the most.

Flies.

They will also return when the farmers put down manure to fertilize the vines. The whole valley will smell richly and deeply of cow dung. The flies simply love this.


There is a cafe where I will sometimes sit and eat lunch in the daytime. It is pleasant. They have the best Cobb Salad on the square. It is really more of an Irish pub, but there is an outside patio that is pleasant enough. The wifi is slow but sufficient.

The flies there seem to be both dumber and more aggressive than elsewhere, in greater abundance. They will perpetually run these miniature kamikaze missions into my face or hair or arms, or anywhere. It's maddening. Their buzzing is much louder than normal flies, like little rednecks in flying pickup trucks. I have caught them trying to make off with bits of my salad. One of them even bit me.

There is a bar there. Perhaps they are drunk. In fact, I hadn't thought of that before. They must be. They are getting liquored-up and flying about, trying to start fights. I at least hope that they are all males. I wouldn't wish there to be indecent females, ruining themselves on drink and song, buzzing guys off, throwing themselves pantiless at strangers.

The notorious California Appletini-fly.

That realization, the likelihood of drunkenness, irritates me almost as much as the flies themselves. I've tried to swat them out of the air and have had only intermittent success. To lose to a perfectly healthy fly, one that is trying to avoid you to stay alive and thrive for another day, is acceptable. To lose to a drunken batshit fly that is trying to start a fight, or flirt with you drunkenly... very shameful.

I'll not tell anybody else, now that I understand the full scope of what was happening.

You can draw your own conclusions. I'm pretty sure that I could take any of them in a one-on-one. But they weren't fighting fair, and had me greatly outnumbered. I wasn't going to risk accidentally swatting a female fly out of the air. That would be shamefully indelicate.


I awoke this morning to the agreeable sound of rain falling on the many leaves of the trees outside and above. The window is over the bed so there is always the sense that the rain is occurring above me when I awake, where it belongs.

Just darkness and the sound of heaven's buzzing to keep from sleeping.

.

The high cost of commerce

(Autumn in the wine valley)

Ok, I had said that I wouldn't say any more about it, but I checked my UPS delivery status for my new iPhone.... They've pushed my delivery date back a full day now, until Friday by the end of day. This is unacceptable. 

How is it possible that the Waze app would have given me a better delivery prediction than UPS?

Speaking of, I enjoyed my first week of working a single day in the city yesterday. Like a fool, however, I was checking Waze and trying to determine the best time to leave the city, spending the least amount of time in the car, trying to find that golden window of opportunity...

But, I missed it. The times kept growing and growing until I realized that it was best to go meet a friend and wait unto the traffic had died down for the evening, which led to a light dinner to prepare me for my full dinner later when I got home.

I'll have to find a better way of doing this single day in the city thing. I am the shape of different habits.

Ah well, I'll be bending my new iPhone in no time. There were millions of reports of angry users who had put their iPad away in their tight front pocket and then found that it had been bending upon completion of rigorous calisthenics. 

I don't even really know why I ordered online. We have Apple stores in California, where some people still tolerate me. I could have just walked in and bought one, like any fool.

Walking to dinner last night, I explained to my friend that the new phone cost me almost $600. He was in disbelief. I went through all of the costs, starting at the base price of $200 with a contract renewal, then another $200 to upgrade to the largest memory option, then the $99 cost of Applecare Plus, then CA tax which is apparently calculated on the full imaginary cost of the phone, then the upgrade fee.

$580, approx.

What is bullshit is that AT&T charges a $40 "one-time" contract renewal fee. There was nowhere online for me to explain that I had already paid this one-time fee the last time I renewed, and also the time before that. 

They should really work on their understanding of the meanings of words: one-time, unlimited, special offer, etc. These are terms that any phone company just throws out there into the marketplace and hopes that nobody notices.

They don't call it data limiting, they call it data throttling. 

Also, my friend had me verify the veracity of my shooting story the other day. 

It's all true, folks. I swear it. I was there, almost gone.

Florida is where bullets go to retire. 

. 

Childhood, mine

There is nothing new under the sun.

You could not have been more right, ol' Solomon, especially at night. 

I have sat here staring at a blank page for about an hour, trying to draw inspiration from this or this. 

Nothing.

I've even tried going back to sleep. 

There is nothing new under my eyelids, either.

I went through old pictures yesterday (above). Thousands upon thousands of them. I use burst shooting perhaps too much, like a drunk sport's photographer. Though... every now and then I get very lucky with this style of shooting. 

It would take years to clean up my photo libraries, just to delete the many thousands that are out of focus, or have too little of the subject in the frame. I have three full photo libraries now, all bulging at the edges of my hard drives, spread across a few computers.

I had hoped that having a child would make me more organized.

It is a strange and wonderful sensation though, to drift back through time this way. This site and my renewed interest in photography both coincide neatly. I have greater access to the last five years of my life than any other time. I've planted little daily time capsules.

I wonder if one day Rhys will gain an interest in reading through these many pages. The thought scares me a bit. Each post requires some explanation perhaps. Maybe I should start going through and making comments, explaining that, "Daddy didn't really mean that..." Or, "This is just make believe, nobody would really do that to themselves." 

"Please don't ever try this."

Seems a bit self-involved, in a (hopefully) charming way.

Maybe the above paragraph is all that is needed. Instruct him to start here, on post 1,552, if at all. On, or around, word one million. Just dive in and find out what your father is like, sort of. 

Don't tell mother, of course. 

There was a point when I had all of these posts collected in a series of MS Word files. The word count was both enormous and meaningless.

I think about my own death too much, I guess. I'm not sure how much is too much, but the thought recurs often. How does one know if they're being excessive or merely honest about such things?

There should be a known standard that can be used to gauge. Since having a son I want to live longer, yet I don't know how long. I just want more life.

There was a time when I was afraid my own father would find this blog. I wondered if he would read it, if he could bear the many heresies. I wondered also if I would read his journals, if I had found them somewhere. Perhaps when I was younger. It is hard to say. What if they weren't very good. That might be crushing.

Knowing he was reading mine might prevent me from writing honestly. I don't need another voice in my head, particularly another Irish-Catholic one. It's already a murmur of backlit ghosts in here, ever fighting off the papacy.

.

A Mortadella Daydream

Well, I missed the Folsom Street Fair. I went many years ago, with a friend who has since passed away. We leathered it up, but managed to keep our cocks in for most of the day.

No, we did not wear any leather, except possibly on our shoes. 

I've never had a fascination for leather, or male on male sado-masochism for that matter, but that is perhaps a post for another time.

I start my new work schedule this week, which means coming into the city one less day a week, which means not having to spend the night in the city, which means more sleep at home, if I so choose.

Sleeping at home is over-rated until you don't get enough of it, then there is nothing else that quite compares. Your own room with a door that can be closed and the reasonable expectation of quiet and privacy. That is all that is needed to re-gain strength. 

Books help.

I stood behind a woman in line at the grocery store whose face appeared battered by time and life. It was as if strain had melted the outer husk. When it was her turn to buy her items I noticed a cheap loaf of white bread, a package of marked down bologna, and a 40 oz. beer. Miller. 

She questioned the cost of each of the items and seemed genuinely pissed that the beer was more than the bologna, though she showed no signs of reversing her decision.

I wanted her to go away, forever, to disappear from the universe with a barely perceptible popping sound. 

Normally I have more empathy, but I couldn't draw it. The reservoir has run dry.  I tried not to think about her, or her life, but I couldn't stop myself.

I found myself wishing her out of existence. Thankfully, that is not among the super-powers that I was granted at birth. 

The phrase "Monster Truck" kept repeating in my mind.

Then, I realized that I wanted to take a few pictures of her face hanging there, and then for her to disappear after that. I might have used one of those pictures here today.

I am an asshole. I must be. What else explains these feelings, these awful impulses. 

All day long we remind Rhys to be gentle, to use "gentle hands" and his "nice voice" when asking for things.

Maybe it is all taking its toll on me, trying to find a reasonable path to raise a child. Even just half the responsibility of it seems overwhelming, to me. Sometimes.

Perhaps I just want less ugliness and desperation in front of me in line, with the faded saggy eyes of decades of disappointment; as if at its long end the price of beer and bologna comes as an insult, and one worth voicing.

They really should post the price of things up front, so that one need not be angry when they finally face the cash register at the old bowling alley on the far end of the road.

.

Non-Symbolic Interactions

("Tipper")

I keep trying to write a post but I'm listening to Cheap Trick in the background here, which makes it nearly impossible.

Nothing of any value has ever been done while Cheap Trick was playing, their own recording catalogue included.

They seemed like a rock band that had an unnecessarily ostentatious sweater collection. It must have been hell on the roadies, keeping the moths out.

Cedar chips, lots of cedar chips. That would be my advice. Alert the wardrobe manager, right away! 

MTV ruined many things for many people but the dangerous message that it sent - via proxy through the feminist movement to young women - that they shouldn't wear super-tiny dresses and "fuck me" pumps is perhaps the most long lasting and damaging.

Go back and watch those videos through the 80's. Only Latinas dress like that now, as if they stepped out of a ZZ Top video and right on to the cover of Hot Rod magazine.

I had better stop. I'm going to get myself in trouble, again. 

A friend's site was recently marked as "deviant," which is both absurd and truthful. The reviewer somehow overlooked the more important characteristics of the content, visual and otherwise.

This particular critic only seemed interested in varying levels of what he perceived to be "deviance." He has a meter that he measures with, you see.

This is how his site was self-described:

This site is for the fair and reasonable exchange of ideas, opinions, and research about the human body as it is publicly displayed. Emphasis is on what constitutes deviant and normal presentations of self, especially through clothes or lack thereof.

What a tosser. 

I would go so far as to even say a "dangerous" tosser, possibly "very dangerous," a kitten drowner.

I would have said, "... the fair exchange of unreasonable ideas" but that's just me. How the fuck is a site with no comments section the exchange of anything?  (Check out his picture. Priceless.)

It's the very simple exchange of pride for decency. 

I wish I were making this up, but I swear that it's true... The writer of the site pontificates laconically on any number of subjects, taking pieces written by others and then boxing off a little area underneath where he provides his "insight"...

This is what he has to say about Mark Zuckerberg:

An overnight young billionaire now

Devastating perception, that. Journalists globally must be clamoring to get an interview, just to claw at his pithy wisdom.

Most of his "insights" amount to a "You go, girl!" whenever some actress is bold enough to discuss body image issues, or yoga, or if she happens to have developed hips in full womanhood.

In his world, belly-dancing is healthy and good, while negligees are wicked and evil. 

Ah well, I'm just being defensive. I have very little tolerance for closet moralists cloaked as scientists.

I'm usually not wrong when I suspect those people of having some furious sexual addiction. I mean, what sort of perverse fanatic holds themselves up as the arbiter of deviant imaging, and then ends up on the wrong side of the line? 

A total fucking Nancy, that's who.

No one needs to be instructed in what is or is not accepted. Informally, that might be known as begging the question. 

It's like being a crossing guard for an open doorway. I bet he dreams of having an orange belt-sash and little shiny badge that's engraved with the word "filth!" He turns violators over the the principal where he can sit outside and hear them all getting spanked.

Not a bad job though, I guess, if you can get it.

.

Pop Tart!

My new Space Gray 128GB iPhone 6 has shipped. That's the email news that I awoke to. 

That's all I have to say about it.

Not the 6+, nor the 6", for those who inevitably will think I omitted a fact, or overlooked an opportunity to clarify. I was once a technician, so details matter.

Though, I should start a corrections page:

- My Ex has Type I diabetes (edited in post)

- I probably wouldn't buy the D4S (image), the D810 or D750 would do.

- Sinbad wasn't an ogre, nor were his sailors, only the Cyclops was

No, no... that takes some of the fun out of it. 

Years ago, when I used to write a column for an online music website out of Amsterdam, I had a small group of young white men that used to pride themselves in correcting me. That was their claim to fame. It was hilarious, that they wanted that column to be more factual. 

They might have been happiest if I would have extended out the multiplication tables to quadruple digits.

That will be my next project. It will be called a "calculator." 

I'll make an app for the iPhone 6+. You'll also be able to use the digit-pad to make phone calls. 

People will love me for it. My mailbox will be crowded with fan mail.

I am curious what pornography will look like on my new phone. It has retina-eye vision, so it should really be startling, some scenes. 

With the new D-Pro penis-attachment high-def camera we should really get a much better idea of what this penetration thing is all about.

I have always wanted to watch a video that simulated what it would feel like to have my face go inside another person's anus.

As a society, we are very, very close to this collective victory. 

The internet has no higher purpose than the satiation of curiosity for the betterment of mankind, the global eradication of ignorance.

Soon, anybody who wants to know will simply click a play arrow > and their journey will begin.

Life, what a truly fantastic voyage.

.

The technical considerations of lust

Photography is a sickness. If it is not a sickness then it reveals one.

It does not matter how many camera bodies and lenses and flashes I have, I want more. Just last week I got an amazing new lens, now I want another. (Ignore Ken Rockwell, he's a useless twat that has never taken a single photograph that I have ever wanted to look at.)

I told myself that I didn't want any zoom lenses any more, just primes.  But, I must have lied.

Now, I have almost all of the primes I could ever want (24mm f2.8 D, 50mm f1.4 D (2), 85mm f1.8 D, 85mm f1.4 D, 135mm f2.0 D FC...and a few more that aren't even worth mentioning...)

I feel as if I'm still missing a good 35mm prime, but that's just silly. Why? I have a 1.5 crop-frame camera so the 24mm becomes close enough, though only in focal length...

But still... I want, and want, and want.

I look at photography sites as if they are porn, then fantasize that having something new will make me happy. And it does, which only fuels the recurring desire, the fever to possess.

Satiating the impulse makes me more desirous, like kissing.

I pull the covers over my computer or phone and look at photo sites without immediate fear of being caught, wishing that maybe someone would catch me. But who?

I would quickly close the tab and pretend I was reading the news, the tell-tale drop of sweat at my forehead, the shortness of breath, the vague sense of shame, not being able to meet the eyes.

Who can possibly catch me? Abusing my finances in the dark, being the perfect consumer: an obsessive and willing one.

I should stop all of this, really.

Because it's not a new lens that I need, but only a new body, and a handful of bold and willing models who are not too shy to be captured this way:

.

2nd chances, then amendments

It is meant to rain 100 inches today. Eight feet of rain will fall from the skies. It is up there, waiting. Nowhere will be safe, not even the swimming pools. Some forecasters even say that there is a chance of thunderstorms.

And this, an auspicious hint from god, on Scotland's possible day of independence. Some have asked the state of Florida to participate again in the democratic process.

Scotland needs you in their time of need, brother swamp.

Bog, swamp... whatever.

We used to drink this stuff known as "Florida Whiskey" when we were all fresh out of high school. It was just gasoline, turpentine and lighter fluid. 

It was okay.

Did I ever tell the story here about how I was shot at? I think I meant to one day but then I skipped it.

Since today looks to be a tremendously rainy day....

A long time ago, in a suburb far, far way......

I no longer lived with my ex-girlfriend. But we were only ex's because that was what we had determined would be official. It was our public messaging concerning the relationship, what was left of our love.

I loved her deeply, but I had fucked the relationship up, using it as a testing ground for sex. My experiments proved quite conclusive. The failing love of my life and I were growing apart at the genitals.

Though, we were still in tender touch. 

I was in Peru for the new year and we managed to talk on the phone, exhausting whatever money I might have made by being there, dj'ing. She was ill, something was wrong. She could not drink enough water, she was losing weight fast, double-vision, and worse.

When I returned she found that she had Type I diabetes. That was probably my fault also. I encouraged a lifestyle for her that was damaging in almost every imaginable way. She had a genetic predisposition for it also, I guess.

We spent the nights sleeping together after she got the news. She needed me, and I was happy to be there for her. Also, she did look amazing. The lost weight, which had never bothered me, revealed another girl altogether, one that was waiting inside of her. 

I would have her wear wigs of various color, and bought her new underwear.

Also, I would hold her in the night and let her know that she was loved. 

Is, loved.

Her brother moved in as her roommate and we got along pretty well. He had some extreme views that differed from mine, but we were buddies.

He did not call her a cunt often but when he did he chose his times well. Like, when their mom was there, who also was blessed with this moniker of dis-endearment.  

He also had Type I diabetes, had had it since childhood. He always seemed angry about it, and self-destructive as a result, or that was what he used as his excuse. Even his choice in self-destruction differed from mine. 

Before he moved in with my girl-ex, he was homeless for a time, having been through a romantic breakup of his own.

He had a great dane, who died one night sleeping alone in his car. I do not believe it was his intentional fault but he felt differently, and he just might have been more right than me on that point.

So, one day while driving in the car with him I told him that he needed to stop calling his mother and his sister cunts.

He exploded.

He jumped out of the car just before we stopped at an intersection, screaming invectives, explaining my role in his life to me.

I drove back to home-base ex and explained what happened.

Things changed for him and I after that, for the worse. We didn't seem like buddies any more, but rather more like dual experiments in the loss of patience.

Ex and I tried to keep things between us immersed in love-solvent, but it was a painful and struggling endeavor at times. We were lost to the love we once shared. The reservoir that makes love possible seemed to be drying up. What had once been a torrent had slowed to a trickle, or less.

Love between us was painful.

One Friday evening we had planned on spending time together. Long before cell phones, she let me know through an email (or maybe she paged me..) that she would, regrettably, not be able to join me that evening.

A close friend that lived nearby invited me to a basketball game.

Problem solved.

Until I saw her at the game, with a problem. A man. She seemed to be having fun. I could not look away. I could not believe it. I could not even tell that she had been stricken with an incurable infirmity.

But I did believe it. It didn't take very long, either. In seconds, I knew.

I went back to my seat, defeated.

It was finally, once and for all, over, for the moment.

After the game, I went to collect my stuff from her house, a thing that needed to happen that night.

The romantic timing of youth is punctual. Love insists, then begs.

I was packing up my books and taking them to my car. She and I were arguing. Her brother tried to get involved.  I was standing in her room and closed the door with one hand, letting him know that his contributions to the conversation were no longer desired and might even serve as a distraction.

When I came out of the room with a stack full of books he was there, taunting me with a wooden stick that seemed to be the thick end of a pool stick, but without the artful end.

He held it in the overhand striking position, so I dropped the books, jumped on him, took the stick away, wrestled him out to the front yard, pinned him to the grass, pushed the stick against his throat and explained to him that he need not ever threaten me with a stick again.

And here is where I went wrong: If you ever threaten me again you had better kill me, fucker.

So, the next load of books that came out from behind Ex's closed door was met with an extended arm that was holding a can of mace. I turned in time to only get it across one side of my face.

The effects were instantaneous. 

(I will explore mace perhaps in a later post as it requires a dedication that would pull me away from my current theme.)

There was much yelling and instruction being given by the brother at this time. I failed to recognize the nature of these urgent directives, or what they might have implied. I was more interested in having an intimate conversation with the brother about this latest development.

She ran. He backed out of the house. I followed, thinking that some fresh air might do us all some good.

When I hit the front yard that's when the first shot was fired. Immediately, the driver's side glass window on his Mercedes next to me shattered. This night was really starting to turn around for me.

When people claim that it "all seemed as if it happened in slow motion," I can attest to this sensation. I still see it all. It is as if the frames of life are extended in such a way that I can replay any of them at will, even now.

Almost by instinct, I walked back into the house. I stood in the hallway door frame at the corner of the living room, about 10-12 feet from the front door, where he immediately emerged. He commanded me to get down on the floor, dangerous end of the gun still focused on me.

I remember him emphasizing this point, "FACE DOWN!"

I declined, stood there looking right at him with a puffy, red, swollen, indignant side of my face and normal side too, nodding "No."

He fired four more shots directly at me, at what the police later described as "point blank range."

I felt something across the back of my head that made me flinch forward.

We were still in what might be called the "negotiation stage" when the neighbor, a friend of mine, appeared at the door with him and talked the gun out of his hands.

The police arrived shortly thereafter. I could hear the sirens growing closer.

As the police are known to do, they separated all of us to determine independently what might have happened, and to see how well we were all able to relay the facts of an instance while under pressure. The difference in tellings gives them an indication as to who might have reason to hide portions of the evening, etc.

I relayed loudly across the divided space to dear Ex, Don't make a statement! Don't sign anything... , knowing that this would be used as grounds for an attempted murder charge.

I was right. It was the only eyewitness evidence that they got, Ex's signed statement.

I said nothing, I signed nothing.

I exercised my right to remain silent, much to their frustration and even with their threats that they would charge me with "obstruction of justice," a silly, impossible threat also made later by the Florida DA.

I explained to the cops that he was firing blanks. 

They told their version of the story, emphasizing their experience in these matters, which I refused to believe. They showed me the shells on the grass, the broken glass on the car, the holes in the wall, all of it. They even had the paramedics treat me for a mark on the back of my head where one of the bullets had ricocheted and sliced a thin line along the back of my skull.

They described what a bullet does to a human skull, had I been standing only half an inch further back. They also made clear that the only reason he did not kill me was because he was a poor, untrained marksmen whose body was flooded with adrenaline, a thing that saves more lives than many people realize.

But who needs facts when you don't trust the cops, right?

They "arrested" me without charges, wrongfully believing that a jailhouse would make me more willing to give a statement. I offered that I would tell my story to the judge in the morning, if they chose to have me do so. I would describe how I had been shot at by one man, then arrested by others, and that I would like to know why I was now in jail, and does the state have an official obligation or a reason to charge me with a crime, or to hold me any longer.

They let me go.

They even gave me a ride home.

Ex did not choose this path. She signed quite a statement, with great and many details outlining her brother's threatening behavior with the stick, the mace, and of course... the gun and the bullets that were no longer in the gun.

She had an explanation for all that had happened.

They arrested him on five different charges, three of which were felonies, two of them quite serious.

One misdemeanor seemed silly, even at the time, and had something to do with using a firearm while not being on or near a farm. The bullets were of an illegal sort, and the gun not registered properly. It was probably an antique, German, I think.

All the charges were eventually dropped. I refused to cooperate, much to everybody's dismay.

Everybody except their family.

He continued to hate me. I bailed him out the next morning, posting an amount of money that shocks my memory to this day.

The following Monday he was fired from his long time job, escorted off the property of a famous Orlando tourist attraction, by police, in front of his friends and co-workers.

He never forgave me for that.

I saw him in the grocery store a few years later.

I was walking down the aisle when I spotted him and knew not to turn back, that it would send the wrong message, to ever turn my back on him.  Ever.

He looked up just as I was passing. I said his name, fondly and in recognition. I might have even prefaced it with "Hey,..."

In the first brief second he seemed happy to see me, but then he corrected his facial expression and posture with the logic of some personally held ideology, and sternly responded with my name in a forced, formal tone and nod.

It was nice to still hear it, it always has been, to hear my name said aloud.

.

Sinbad and the Cyclops Sailors

(Artichoke Pizza, NYC)

Well, yesterday's post won my readers back. Witches = Good. 

So, today we're going to explore trolls, tomorrow maybe elves.

I get myself in trouble far too easily. I must enjoy digging myself out, or pretending to dig, or something.

In fact, Selavy was explaining that to me in detail this morning while I drove in to the city. He believes my problems are all self-induced, and handily created through eager choice. 

I was trying to choke on a dry donut with nothing but exceedingly hot coffee to prevent asphyxiation while he was detailing my various relationship problems. He blames me for everything that has ever gone wrong, says that it all leads back to me and my inability to correct myself, says that I must enjoy this.

I offered to take him to a 12-step, self-help meeting.

He got off the phone, said he had things to do.

That is the nature of our friendship: confession for one another. 

Not our own confessions, of course. We steadfastly confess the other's faults, rarely missing an opportunity to identify one another's foibles. 

If we weren't able to correct each other from time to time then we would both end up being enormously full of shit. 

We can't have that. It is a thing that is not allowed. 

So, it's ogres and ogresses you want, is it?

Well, to start with, they all tend to have disproportionately large heads...

.

The Nighttime Consternations

(the stars at home)

Back in the city, the early morning. The seasons are changing while I have been napping, again. The sun has not yet risen by the time I am in the office. There is only the multi-tone haze of light that indicates that it's well on its way. The glowing pastels of atmosphere. 

It's okay. I do like driving in the dark. The other drivers act differently before the sun ignites their wicked ways, mostly. They are less like me in the early mornings: driving as if all points in the future are an emergency competition, and I in rivalry to arrive. 

Perhaps the other drivers are asleep still, also. 

How could they realize that I am in a race with the newborn horizon?

It's not their fault.

I do enjoy seeing the sun come up over the bay while I am crossing the bridge. Though the tilt of the earth is taking that pleasure away, little by little, in degrees of motion. 

When I stepped out of the house this morning to depart the sky was full of stars. So, there is that, as a consolation.

Last night was the last quarter moon, which hung in the morning sky among the stars without overpowering them.

I have always been able to spot Orion with the most ease. The hunter.

The Big Dipper is supposed to be easy to identify but I always seem to confuse it with another series of stars that look similar. I used to feel more correct about the stars than I now do, before I had this app on my phone which isn't any fun to argue with.

Lately, I have been having irrational thoughts, runaway notions on the steps of fear. Walking out to my car at night I imagine that there are witches in the dark, waiting in the backseat, crouched in shadows with razor teeth and the blood of cold air, voices made of dark whispers and gusts of evil suggestion. 

Blair Witches, or worse. 

It makes no sense, but there is an element of distinct fun to it. Anything to ignite the senses, I guess. I should pay somebody to throw surprise firecrackers at me, and jump out of the bushes in the night wearing masks. Every day, Halloween. 

I don't own a gun, so there's little harm in it, etc. 

I'm not really in fear of witches eating my fingers or teeth, draining my blood with foot-long needles, or the cackling of cauldrons, and chicken gizzard amulets... but I do like to pretend that maybe they are out there in the darkness, hungry and watching me. 

I guess they could be watching anybody. But fear, once given in to, dictates that they are mainly interested in me. 

It is an admittedly odd pastime for an atheist. I feel guilty about it, perverse even, but not enough to apologize, or ask the stars for forgiveness. 

 .

Dangerously Bottom

(Mollino)

Jesus Fuckstink, I'm glad we're all done with the Ray Rice story. To barely even speak to an idea of equality or inequality is a very dangerous one. It turns out that they are very different things, for everybody, even in theory.

People guard their prejudices far too carefully, even violently.

I'll try to remember that.

The phrase, "How dare you..." echoes in my recent memory. 

I have my own thoughts and feelings about the subject, but there's no point in exploring those, they are even far more dangerous than the more obvious ones that I was positing for the entertainment of an ever diminishing few.

I decimated my readership. I'll see if I can win them back over the next few weeks.


Several people told me that they enjoyed most my post about desert kissings. 

Everybody seemed to simply love to read about my impending divorce. It gives them an open opportunity to be empathetic, and I must admit it... I do so like to be loved.

So, somewhere between kissing and divorce lies online infamy.

What a word, divorce. It sounds so unpleasantly mature, and shameful, and dated.

Divorce was invented in the 70's and 80's, something that parents did.

When people blithely tell you to "hold on to your inner child" they must mean that you should not get divorced, or else never get married.

I feel as if I am about to lapse into Pat Benatar lyrics.

I'm "bruised fruit" now, probably a brown banana. There's little avoiding it. No young female suitors will want me, none to come calling and courting in the sitting room, just off the entrance vestibule, on a summer Sunday.

I might hope to sweet-talk them, to keep their company and interest, offering them licorice from the country store or a fresh cold seltzer, then I might slowly direct their hand toward one or two balls.

The much celebrated and seasonal family balls and dances are designed to preserve a young woman's reputation, you see. It is all an established folly to which twitching trousers must sometime conform.

Together, in the moonlight, we can enjoy The March of the Dual Ovals Dance, and of course, Beware the Sinister Loure of the Malignant Idlers, with its haunting overtones and spritely explosion of last minute melodies.  A fountain of masquerading pleasures.


Fuck, fuck... too much Victorian lore in todays spewings.



Though, in truth:

I do wonder what it's liked to get fingered. 

I mean, I think I can guess what it would be like, but it's mostly just a guess, based on having stuck convenient things like my own fingers into my butt before.

But the corollary curiosity is an assumption to which I have only corollary access.

If these things were the same then somebody certainly would have said so by now. We must assume that these things are rather more different than similar, in the way that flying is not swimming, nor swimming vice versa.


I once had a girlfriend that was obsessed with sticking her digits where they barely fit. She also had a collection of skin-tight gloves, but I only made that obvious connection afterwards, and far too late.

She was all thumbs and forefingers, mostly.


As for genuine fingering: I'd much rather be told what it's like, from a close, trusted, breathy witness.

Curiosity is a funny and odd thing, encouraged by many but then denounced by all.

I'm curious about lots of things, not just one-time investment opportunities, and online articles that denounce previously accepted knowledge. 

What am I doing?

Well, I'm trying to win readers back and perhaps this is not the appropriate tack, approach, or method.

As misguided as it might be, this post was the result of chatting and considering the clever affection of shared butt enthusiasm, and the many butt enthusiastas.

Why should I finger it all up with so much silly talk.

.

Pluperfects, intransitives, and all the rest

Equality under the law. That is all that I was questioning.

I had several people reach out to me privately yesterday and ask me why I'm for domestic violence.

No, they didn't, but it would not have surprised me much if they had. A few friends online reminded me how unnecessarily forceful Rice's response to his wife's assault was, a thing that was and is evident enough by watching the tape, and a thing I believe I addressed already.

None of that should matter by those who look to claim innocence for others elsewhere in similar situations.

For some odd reason the "right to defend yourself" withers when held up against the light of hotel security video.

That's mostly what I was saying. There is an inherent hypocrisy to the claims of many, particularly those who believe that responding with a gun to the claim of having been attacked is legitimate. 

Because if the use of a gun is considered a commensurate and sensible response to a physical altercation then Ray Rice's knockout punch should not be considered at all.

Again, if he would have shot a woman who attacked him in an elevator then a whole group would come to his defense and scream about his right to defend himself.

But he didn't shoot her, and he's black, and it was his wife, and not one person other than myself (that I have seen) has correctly labeled Ray Rice what he is: the victim of domestic violence.

I'll not say any more about it. I've learned not to compete with those who wish to claim victimhood exclusively for themselves.

I went to the annual company picnic on Friday. I feel much differently about the people I work with this year than is indicated in that link, a thing that can only mean that I am changing. But going in to the city left me stranded, of sorts, until Saturday afternoon with Cato. 

We bumbled about Friday evening, went to an opening of a new art / performance location with James of Burning Man notoriety. We were all at the same camp this year, Hiburnia.

There were guitar players and spoken word poets, a piano player singing "Georgia on My Mind" with an infant strapped to him. His wife sitting next to him. She might as well have been humming the national anthem. Who knows. 

She's the type woman that everybody refers to as "sweet."

Some of the poets were good, though few of the poems very inviting. It was mostly a catalogue of personal miseries and moral pedagoguery; a tyranny of sorts, being trapped until the end of each poem, then the unexpected clapping that you find yourself also committed to.

Pluperfects, intransitives, and all the rest.

We escaped back upstairs and listened to some more music. 

My bed time comes earlier and earlier each evening. Staying out until midnight is an increasing stretch. I must be aging in lumpy, unequal ways. 

All of it leaves me feeling so overexposed.

.

Double Punch Standards

My experiment worked. 

None of the usual suspects were willing to engage with me concerning my post yesterday. Nobody seemed willing to address or acknowledge it on any level.

I found out only after making the post - which was designed to incite people but somehow didn't, or at least not publicly - that Whoopi Goldberg had made a similar comment, stating that if you hit somebody then you should expect to be hit back. 

She was universally denounced.

It reveals how profoundly sexist people are about certain subjects. People are clamoring for "jail time"!  

If a cop had witnessed all that happened in that elevator he would have been legally obligated to arrest Janay, not Rice. Ray might very well have been arrested also but there is strong likelihood that the DA would not have brought charges against him, because his hitting of Janay, even though much more extreme, to the obvious point of excessiveness, was done in defense.  Though this outcome likely would have required for both parties to be arrested, where aggressor and victim could be taken into consideration. A thing that now seems lost on everyone.

Now consider this simple fact: Ray Rice is the victim of domestic violence. We have very clear evidence of this based on what has been shown in the video. 

That's right.  

Not one article I've seen or news reporting of the incident has stated this very simple fact. And not a single person who has seen the video or read my post yesterday is willing to refute it. Watch the video for yourself. It is unpleasant, and Rice's reaction is definitely unnecessary and involves much more force than would be required to resist her attacks, or "defend" himself, etc.

But that's not the point, a point that there appears to be a willing and universal blindness to. Ray Rice backs up after Janay starts swinging, then she comes at him again, and he knocks her out.

People are spending a lot of time an energy ignoring the obvious: Ray Rice is a human being with the same rights as everybody else, and should be protected by the same laws. But he's not.

I haven't even read that many articles about the case but several that I have seen speak about Rice as if he is only a violator of the law. Charges were brought against him and he pled not guilty. He went through a diversionary program to avoid the pursuit of the charges any further than that. 

Now, of course, they are talking about bringing more charges against him. A lawyer will easily beat those charges, if they ever even make it to trial, which is doubtful. But sometimes the cops and DA are expected to "do something." So they do. What Rice's lawyers should be doing is preparing a case to sue the state. 

Another common and recurring theme in the articles I've seen seem to be that "a man should never hit a woman." Only Whoopi Goldberg apparently seems to understand the more universal principle that people really shouldn't hit people. 

If a 6 year old girl was beating on your 4 year old boy at a playground would you be okay with it? You know, girls will be girls...

Don't let any of what I am saying mislead anybody. Domestic violence is a horrible blight on society and continued steps should be taken to reduce it, as difficult as it is to address and correct. But a woman hitting her boyfriend or husband is a violation of the law. Some reports indicate that it is the most unreported violent crime in existence.

Also, male on male violence, as in a homosexual domestic relationship goes mainly unreported.

Does violence against women far outweigh violence against men? As far as I know the two statistics are barely comparable, and there is no question that women who are trapped in violent relationships should be assisted in the best way that we can to get them to safety.  It seems to be the only sensible thing for any society to do.

The damage done by violence against women as compared to the damage done by violence of women against men is also hardly comparable. Women are battered by the men that they love, that they hope to protect them. The reality of it is horrific, there is no question about it.

But the extent of the damage done in these situations is already a consideration of the law. It does not render the laws inconsequential, and it does not apply exclusively to one gender.

People only seem to wish to discuss or address domestic violence as a one-way affair. Or, when they do address the "dynamic" of it they only consider the "cycle of violence" as it pertains to a man's behavior and history.

But nobody has the nerve to say what they really seem to want to say, and that's that women should be allowed to taunt and hit men without any recourse whatsoever, and that man has no right to defend himself against being attacked.

Say that to yourself the next time you hear somebody say, "You should never hit a woman" because that is a part of what is meant by that statement, that a victim never needs to be held accountable for their own behavior.

What is a society called that demands and expects laws to apply differently to one group than another?

Would it be considered a liberated society?

.

Running Ground

(Innocent White Guy)

Photography is an expensive hobby. Each day something new is released that I must possess. I have several reasonably expensive things that I've never used before, or only just barely. 

It makes no sense, yet still I want more.

I do nudes, of course, though most of my female friends seem too afraid to ask. I am an artist, god-damn it... a thing that escapes some once they must disrobe and have me stare for hours or seconds at the minutiae of their sexuality.

Sometimes I forget to even shoot any pics. I just get on all fours and growl, prowl, or hump their legs. That is how dedicated I am to my craft, my art, my calling!

No, I'm not in the mood to write like that, in that voice, any more this morning.

I do think it's funny though, all of the noise that gets made about Terry Richardson. People actually make the claim that he is "a fashion photographer who acts unprofessionally," without laughing at themselves, or even cracking a smirk.

They question whether this photographer is an artist or a predator, and what should be done about it.

What immortal doofi...

There is no end to the confused misery of the masses.

A man using his talents and wits to spread his unholy seed is the most natural thing there is, and there is no stopping it, ever. Even the great Christian god smiles on this old-fashioned pre-testament behavior.

It is written.

It would be like questioning whether a woman is "only being a mother or is she smothering the children," and how society should stand up against the inherent evils of abusing the unique situation of maternity.

There should be laws designed to protect children, right? Because one day those children might be models, and what then? What? You tell me.

People are retarded, truly. Don't be alarmed at the use of the term retarded, it is a perfectly valid technical term, while also being a helpful slur.

It means that the subject is less advanced in social, physical or mental development than is expected for one's age.

 That is what our entire society suffers from.

Either retardation or political anger, or both. If you mix them online you get a libertarian.

I have a handful of such friends that claim libertardation. They are often the first to stand up and pronounce or denounce some perceived evil, or to explain justice to the incensed or unlearned, or worse. They are all very angry about things and they are all white men in my approximate age group.

They combine politics and capitalism in a very traditional way, and would love to burst a blood vessel explaining the evils of otherness to you.

They were all quite smug when George Zimmerman was acquitted, knowing the true verdict of innocent gun use well in advance. They also seem to believe that looting in Ferguson is a much greater crime than police brutality, either there or nationwide, etc. The issue with Ray Rice isn't the law, of course, it's domestic violence.

Black-on-black crime is the subject that nobody is discussing, they say.

They are eager to explicate the details of any crime, particularly one in which the main evidence is an online video that has gone viral. They all moonlight as trial lawyers.

It only takes something like Ray Rice to reveal how unquestionably and irreversibly decelerated their thoughts on justice really are. The same is true for most online feminists, as well; indistinguishable from angry white men. They possess advanced ideas on equality and power, and its varied uses.

Suddenly justice becomes something about feelings, agreement, and results.

The only question is "what to do" about it.

Yet none of them are using this opportunity to further their opinions on black-on-black crime, a thing they were screaming from their soon-to-be-looted rooftops a week ago.

If Ray Rice would have been white and his wife would have been a man then there would be nothing to consider, at all. Therein lies the plain, bare hypocrisy of all that they say and do.

In the video it is very clear, a person is attacked and defends themselves, twice. 

They "stood their ground." Simple as that, or should be, anyway.

It does not matter that they are married, or that the man is standing rather close to the woman when she suddenly erupts in recurring violence. Married people are allowed to stand close to one another. There would be no crime there, except that the man is black and healthy and rich.

The perpetrator attacks the victim and he defends himself. The perpetrator attacks the victim again and he defends himself, again.

Case closed, right freedom marchers?

If Ray Rice would have been a cop and he would have shot and killed the woman, then none of these original purveyors of liberty would have even batted an eyelash. They would all just sit back and question why everybody is so upset, and point out how stupid everybody is.

But they all took the opportunity to grandstand about what a real piece of shit Ray Rice is.

All of them.

And maybe he is, seems quite likely with this one thing considered, and that he's black.

I don't even have to truly perform this experiment in hypocritical justice. I only have to assume their position for them, since they lack their usual indignation towards the facts, anger, and sense of criminal justice to do so themselves.

None of what I am saying here is internal to me. It's just the simple facts combined with time-tested law, as seen through the eyes of the just and correct patriots, right?

They're looking at something other than the facts, this time, a thing they take great pride in with themselves elsewhere. But here, for some strange reason  - a reason that is not racially motivated at all - they are able to shelf their capacity for reason, justice and law... and then become sudden experts on exactly what should be done in the NFL to fix this blight on America's favorite secondary sport.

Do you see how easy it is? It's not even necessary to believe what you say. That's why they embrace this flawed would-be ideology, because it allows them to spew the greatest level of self-righteous racist bullshit and still feel right, ever blurring the distinctions between rightness and righteousness.

Their sense of beauty is just as misshapen, uneven, or non-existent as their sense of justice.

They all clamor to look at the facts until, the facts aren't what matter any more.

They do not understand art because they are artless. From this sense they deduce that art is meaningless, senseless and probably a social evil. It is why America will never produce a Picasso. We peaked out at Warhol, or Pollock.

They'll never say this, of course. How could they? They'll just focus exclusively on the sound of themselves demanding results.

They are against action when cops kill, but all for it when a black George Zimmerman stands his ground.

Action! is what is needed here, not careful thought and consideration about law and what violence means to all people.

These are the same people whose opinions on Terry Richardson we are supposed to believe and grant credence to, because something must be done.

You tell me, dear philistine?

If violence is so wrong then why are only women and white cops the victim of it?

Also, if unnecessary overreaction is the real issue, then why isn't it the real issue in all conversations?

I'll tell you why, dear reader... it's because equality is only a subtext, and a clinging one at that.

.