Defensibility of the wicked

(validation, 1:16)

These are just daily observations, at best. I don't encourage anybody to consider these scribblings as a detailed analysis of the world or its events. Often, I will offer supposition just to bring some light to my own feelings concerning it. It is not meant to be a lucid ordering of the world, at all. If it occasionally lacks the depth or insight that you require then I would encourage you to also write daily, and publicly, to get a feel for how much content can be created while also conducting a reasonably normal life.

This site is not required reading. Though, as I have often said, when I become dictator you will be tested on it, etc.

I've had a friend recently begin to take this site far too seriously, for reasons I still don't understand.

So, it works like this: I wake up most mornings and sit down and jot down any thoughts that come to mind. Often, this is done before I've had coffee, before I have even chosen a topic. I picked this particular explanation as a subject today because this friend has been on my mind. I awoke to find yet another dismissal of me for reasons I don't understand. It was veiled in the form of a question, one that was presumably meant to invite conversation, but the meaning was clear. It was an insult. It is not the first, of late. I suppose I could make a guess as to why this is happening, but that might appear to be less than kind also, so I won't. 

Do not think me thin-skinned here. This subject has landed near me, so I have chosen to write about it. Nothing more.

This site is at its best, for me, when it is absurd and without clear meaning. Ambiguities are more interesting than opinions. I try to choose a subject without too much pre-thought and then see where it takes me. I have (hopefully) arranged the utterances into paragraph form and (hopefully) given them some vague sense of continuity. I will find out a part of how I feel about a particular thing because I have just written about it. It is a process of discovery. I am often shocked at what has come out of me, the thing that I have just written, the preposterous idea that has just been given form. Frequently, I will delete these things before posting. They are hideous, and wrong, and do not deserve any light or oxygen from which they might survive.

There are also recurring times that I go back and read a post, or part of a post that someone has taken interest or offense in, and I will find that I don't agree with what I've written at all either. This is because sometimes I am merely entertaining a runaway thought. 

This is not to say that I do not take some subjects seriously, or alternately dismiss subjects that others cloak in sanctimony, or even attack ideas and people that I find either worthy or unworthy of doing so. I often do, and relish it.

For me, it is an exercise in the unimpeded use of the mind, even when towards senseless or nefarious means. If your desire is to place restrictions (in the form of expectations) on what gets written here then I wish you much luck. 

I have always responded so warmly to the expectations of others.

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Though nothing will drive them away...

The man pictured above - it was the craziest thing - his face shone like a headlight. He must have a helluva damned time meeting new people: hung like a hobby-horse, face like a locomotive. He claimed to be the Illuminati.

I think I'm going to start my own "secret society." That seems like good, healthy fun. It will include the subset of people who read this site that don't want to either sue me or see me go to jail. We'll call it Le' Qre6istance (pronounced: Lake Resistance). I figure there's already as many as 7-8 people on board, or canoes... that is, not including spiders, web-bots and crawlers.

Actually, I want my secret society to be so exclusive that I've just expelled those last potential members. I am the secret society of one. My daily activities will include sharing my experiences here and having the government log them in a database somewhere. Then, I would prefer it if they taxed me to hire somebody to one day read these posts. This will justify my suspicious indignation. But if they don't, I would prefer not to know. Hence the "secret" of my society, etc.

(My Secret, and Password: Who Cares?)

The future is going to be more interesting. There are some who are quite dedicated to that fact.

Ah well, these are not quite our troubles this morning. We have a country that is turning on itself. People divulging classified, or top-secret, information in what we presume to be the best interests of the country, then seeking refuge in Hong Kong....

Many claim him to be a hero, and certainly that is one way of viewing his actions, as heroic. The "victim" of this crime would be the government, or "the people" as we're so often told. A crime against the people, it's starting to sound familiar. My guess would be that he thinks of himself as heroic most of all. Being on the run from a corrupt and dangerous world likely fits his model idea of self.


His actions are not entirely dissimilar from a spree killer's, when seen as removed from the content of the actual act itself. Meaning, a person who feels isolated, and maybe insignificant, decides to take a completely independent action - perhaps partially planned, perhaps not at all, though clearly not entirely thought out - but designed for maximum effect and damage, in the hopes of joining history and validating the feelings of hostility or disappointment they harbor internally. The action may have brewed for quite some time, fantasies emerge that suit the needs of the escapist. My guess would be that both actions arise from similar personal motivation: something must be done and I don't care about myself any more... I will be a hero of some sort, if just for one day...

One is portrayed as a radical optimist (or a cowardly traitor, depending on your particular sensibilities), the other, a deranged sociopath. In both there must also exist a taste for megalomania, fueled by a need for media validation. In both there is a substantial conceit of purpose. Yet each action, though vastly different in result, excites different people's minds in different ways. The ends they each seek are of celebrity or infamy, both announcing their acts in exceedingly different ways. One ex post facto, the other a bit more de facto. Both with the presumption of de jure.

This will bother some of my readers - among the Latins, I am certain of it. But that is why I'm here, and we can't worry about that this morning.


There seems to be a link there, or perhaps a meta-story. As long as the audience is filled with fascination or disgust, admiration or contempt, then the advertisers get their money's worth. The audience gets to choose between drive-thru feeling A, or online-order B, delight or scorn. One set of feelings becomes submerged and entirely private, the other freely shared on Facebook. Those are the main differences I see, in this one regard.

But, what do I know... I used to just watch the news.

Many are demanding a full presidential pardon and certainly it is easy to see why: he has not yet been accused of a crime, nor has he stood trial. It always makes sense in these situations to put legal action before thought and consideration. I mean, this guy was an uneducated, low-level employee of a government contractor who obtained top-secret and embarrassing material and then turned it over to the media. What could be more deserving of a full pardon? Little matter that he may have sold the information and we don't know that yet. He deserves even more money, would say some.

That will anger my readers more than the other. I guess I am trying to thin out my secret society a bit.


There seems to me to be , at least among my peers, an overarching sense of hopelessness in the face of so much corruption. But perhaps that is not so among the younger generation that follows us. They are acting wildly about it. Maybe everything they said about "Generation X" was true, that we were all just lazy and stupid and mean.

Just follow @BretEastonEllis on Twitter.... One of the finest minds of our time, we're told.

In fact, just do anything on Twitter. Like, read the news. You'll see.

But, it all might be true... What if compelling evidence exists to suggest some cogent generational sag between the baby-boomers and the next significant generation, Gen Y... and most of my friends just happened to be born in lazy times, like a bad Chinese proverb, discovered in a sugar cookie. The Freakonomics guys will one day soon determine that stand-alone Pac-Man games contributed to sterility and decay rates among brain cells. That, and Wikileaks.

There really should be a Generation Derless, so it could be shortened to Gen Derless by clever journalists and pundits alike.

Have they even bothered to determine Edward Snowden's inborn sex characteristics yet?

Why don't we ever get to hear the "real story"....?


You heard it here first: Edward Snowden is an albino.

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Pectopah

The weekend moves by more swiftly in another town. It is gone and was only just barely here. 

Yesterday, we went up into the hills, Griffith Park, the observatory. It was after a fantastic lunch at Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills. I had the veal, a thing I have not had in some time. It was delicious, and I ate the tender marrow; a horror to all of my vegetarian friends, a crime to my vegan counterparts, I'm certain. What can I say? I felt bad at first, like a very terrible man, but the bad feeling passed with each delicious bite. Experience extracts its toll.

Then, after the observatory, we searched the handheld internet for a brewery nearby. We found one. A little hipster-ish place called "Golden Road."  We sat on the patio and sipped beers as the day became cooler. By the time that we got home it was already well past my bed time. We watched a recording of the NBA game with San Antonio losing terribly in the second half.

That is an accounting of the day.

The observatory was what you'd expect it to be. It is not every day that you get to observe the sun "live" with the naked eye. One could see the solar flares emerging from the sides, sun spots, all of it, only 8 minutes past. I had been to the observatory once before, years ago, during my "lost weekend" of dj'ing, my dalliance with "the music industry"... I don't remember much of it. I just remember being there, and being high, thinking myself to be quite cool, etc.

LA looks exactly like it's supposed to from up in the hills. There is so much smog that a white glow just hangs over the city, even on the clearest of days. Without a polarizing filter there was no point in trying to photograph any of it, but I tried anyway. The results were what you would expect. Just a blur of hazy light seen from a distance.

Normal people go to bed at a normal hour, I assume. Visiting with others makes me realize how truly off center my sleeping patterns are. We ate dinner after 10pm last night. It felt as if I had been asked to dine in Moscow. I am convinced that I got jet lag from it. 

I awoke this morning at my usual hour and groggily checked my time zone, just to be sure. 

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Urchin

A fresh haircut at Floyd's on the PCH. A bicycle ride to the beach. Oysters, Salmon and good beer at the Fish Bar in Manhattan Beach, watching college baseball. A long ride along the legendary beachfront properties through Hermosa and down to Redondo. Watching the California girls rollerblade and play volleyball and wear flip-flops. More beer. A fresh sea urchin (uni), eaten at the disgust of many old rockers that frequent Naja'a rock and roll bar. A seat at the bar, less sports, more music, more beer. Met up with an old friend, then my buddy's wife arrived. Buffalo style chicken wings, much chat, punctuated by the bombast of cover tunes. They even played Hotel California...

That was our cue to ride home. The sun had begun its retreat.

It started out well. It finished with his wife picking us up in the car. My friend had landed in a bush rounding one corner. It wasn't even really a corner. It was more of a curve. 

Did you see that fucking bush? It came outta' nowhere....

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Fifty shades...

(unpaid porn stars)

What is it about traveling, visiting old friends? Why the required drinking? Or, more specifically: why the required overindulgence? I feel like I got beaten around the ears and eyeballs with a double IPA bottle. There's too much alcohol in those beers. It takes away some of its self-governing properties. You shouldn't be able to get drunk from beer alone. It goes against all that I have learned, all that I know in my heart.

Is that really a word? Overindulgence. It seems like two separate words that have become united through misuse. The computer's not correcting me, as it usually does. It must be A-ok... It took the advent of spell-check on computers for me to realize that most of the words in my head were pure jabberwock. Nonsense. Articles of imagination, shared by few or none.

So, I sit here at my friends' dining room table and let my body metabolize the many, many beers that I consumed yesterday and last night. I am waiting for them to wake up so they can take me to the gym and feed me breakfast.

Repent, repent, repeat.

Traveling is often interesting and vaguely unpleasant. As I get older, people, particularly youths, amaze me with their uncluttered naiveté. It's an occasional charm, for sure. The girls above were sitting at a bar near the boarding gate. I was playing with my camera and we were chatting. They asked me to take a picture of them with the Asian girl's iPhone. I obliged, of course. Then - and only because I had my camera out - I took a picture of them with it, knowing that it would result in a much nicer image, because I would meter and focus on the girl's face who was closest to me. Photographing people with a strong backlight is difficult with a camera phone. It flattens everything, rendering an dull image, one that does not do justice to the actual light in the space. It takes an average reading. I thought that if they asked I would email them a nice picture of them sitting together. They were both very agreeable to my picture taking. Friends.

When done, the girl closest to me said, "Make sure those don't end up on the internet!"

I said, "Oh, I doubt the internet is interested much in that sort of image."

No laughter. No knowing, agreeable smile. Nothing. She just got really silent and seemed to act as if I had said something wrong. Had I? I don't think so. I didn't care if I had, I would be honest with myself about it, and of course, you guys.... but, what did she think I was going to do, jack-off gazing into her eyes? What a creepy young girl she must be, twisted and spiraled into her own self-image and sense of self-worth. 

But then again, aren't we all.

I should have asked her when she planned on plucking her eyebrows next. 

"Your ass is too flat and too wide."

"You and I both wish you were much prettier, don't we?"

There were lots of things I could have said, but I didn't.

Had I unwittingly raped her? I suppose she did suggest a "no" in her sentence. I have, of course. betrayed the sanctity of the moment by posting the image here. If I'm going to be made to feel guilty then I deserve to find a way of deriving some pleasure from the moment, no matter how wrong and perverse that might be, etc.

The world was perhaps a better place when men just jacked-off everywhere like horny, hairless monkeys. I'm sure that women liked us more then, when we were also needed somehow, as something more than just subjects of autotomy. Now that we've collectively agreed that public masturbation isn't a thing we should be doing then there's no going back, is there? Paradise lost, cast from the garden, all that. The whole world is run by an HR firm and everyone is standing around clapping about it as if they were born at a company picnic, commenting on how tasty the deviled eggs are; never staring, never committing even the vaguest infraction. 

Always noticing, never observing; overlooking, with the intent of one day overseeing.

What am I getting at here? 

I'm trying to find a way to tell my boss she has a sexy voice and I really like listening to it, a lot. I want to propose a new calendar concept: The kinky girls of HR....

Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with people, or me, or both? Civility has its limitations, or it should anyway. 

Where am I going with all of this? 

All behavior can be potentially construed as worthy of punishment, or "correction", if you examine with the right kind of eye, looking towards the future. The only way back will be an increasingly unpleasant one. Societies do revert. History is not at all times an unhindered march forward. Not all Progress is progress.

Women used to like men more, I think. Sure, they also hated them and the power dynamic was all wrong. "Mad Men" has taught us that. But our society has lost some of its natural verve, also. The innate boisterousness of men and boys isn't a thing to extinguish, or even punish. It is what makes us who we are, both women and men. In that same way women have a naturally civilizing influence over men. There is meant to be a balance, I think. We each help define one another, at our best it happens naturally. We're currently in a race to see who can complete a neutered society the fastest. It is what women indicated they wanted, right? A sexless society? 

It's as if the giant teacher in the sky told us to get back in our seats and we all just listened, happy to be scolded. 

It's really better this way.

I don't mean that sexual aggression should be encouraged, at all. But neither should sexuality itself be suspect on every possible level, scrutinized in every conceivable way, down to the most minute and potentially misperceived details... If it is a learned behavior then we must crack the code. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right? We don't want women to become too bored with their emerging social power. That could be dangerous. 

No "rulebook" has yet produced a society of interest. It might result in the eventual and complete defeat of manners, but that's all. Yes, yes, unwanted sexual advances are wrong, everybody knows that, right? But what about unwelcome non-sexual advances? Like runaway rules. 

I tried discussing this with a friend recently, relaying briefly an article I had read about a cultural critic, a female, that suggests that we should loosen the rules on sexual behavior in the workplace, that they are stifling the creativity of our culture, one of the very things that makes us strong and vibrant. She looked at me as if I had just offered to sell her into border-town sex slavery, like I was considering trading her off for a camel and a carton of cigarettes, to be tied up in the lobby of a sex dungeon to be had for free, as a rape appetizer. 

I don't even remember the result of the conversation, but the climate of it was clear: I have completely lost my mind. The only assumptions that need to be questioned are mine, or ones that I have read.

Perhaps. To even converse in a manner that suggests alternatives to our current concepts of "progress" puts me in the pro-rape camp again. 

When did we give over our complete trust to "The Rules"?

So, I didn't bother suggesting that I could email the pics to the two girls in the airport. I just ignored them the rest of the time they were there, which I'm certain made them feel increasingly uncomfortable. But what the fuck, right? It's not an image of her sticking a banana in her ass and making her friend eat it, or anything like that. I hadn't even thought of that until just now. 

Man, people have gotten really weird.

Her friend is out of focus, or not in very sharp focus. It is a very bad habit of mine. I try to shoot everything as "wide open" as possible in terms of aperture. f2.0.

At the same bar, next to them, was this young man of 23. I know this because he announced it to the girl he was sitting with, who had just divulged her age as being 21. I couldn't help but listen to their conversation. This is due mainly to the volume of it, not the content. 

He hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that he is gay and he still gets some pleasure from making girls that are "beneath him" in attractiveness become attracted to him. He is practicing for the guy that he will one day soon meet. He didn't say any of this. I intuited it all. The way he was dressed, the veiled flamboyance in his voice, the fabulousness of his stories, the careful way in which he interrupted her and re-directed the conversation back towards himself. All of it. 

He'll be sucking cock by the end of the year, if he isn't already. 

I don't mind, of course, but there was an inherent dishonesty in the way in which he was treating the girl. I could feel it. She thought that she had found an exciting and good looking guy with whom she could talk, and listen. Mostly listen, but that's fine, she found him fascinating, and she felt good about herself, that such a spirited young man found her of sexual interest. 

He was recruiting a future hag. This poor, dear dolt never even knew. 

It was after the flight, at baggage pickup, that I noticed what he was reading: "Fifty shades of grey"... An interesting young man like himself must keep abreast of current literary trends, I suppose. It was not only that he was reading it, but he was carrying in such a way as to announce the fact to anyone that might be interested, swanning it a bit. 

She was heaving her bag along, an over-packed, lumpy duffle of some sort. It swung partway around her as she tried to navigate her way to the parking garage. It would change her course from time to time as gravity suddenly worked against her, and her feet shuffled and stuttered to compensate. He had a cute little black suitcase that rolled behind him daintily, giving him the freedom to flaunt his taste in contemporary authors. He made no offer to help her, which seemed fine with her. 

These are modern times, and they modern people. 

Once, while working at Apple, I walked by the HR office and overheard a gay guy making a joke with another gay guy, and for all the women who worked in the office. It was rude and definitely constituted a violation of workplace conduct. I wish that I would have written the quip down as it is worth repeating, to reflect the severity of it. But trust me, and I am no prude, the joke was well past what would be considered appropriate workplace banter, by their own standards. It had something to do with largeness and the pleasure of penetration. 

I, of course, don't care. But they should, it is part of their purpose for being there, etc.

It was all laughs and giggles in the office. No cause for alarm, at all. You see, it was not a man that made the joke, but rather a roomful of women that allowed it. Women who are paid to monitor and prevent that very behavior. I was tempted to walk into the office and in a completely deadpan voice repeat the joke, word for word, and stare at the female head of HR, then announce that I too am beyond the reach of her silly command, and no longer in need of her "resources." 

I would have gotten fired, eventually. You don't get to get away with challenging the holder of the rulebook. That's almost as dangerous as challenging the rules. 

This new world longs for the epicene.

(Rizzo)

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LA Bound

(I wish they all could be California girls)

I leave for LA today. My friend will pick me up at the airport, and we will go to the salon to each get our hair cut. Then, we will go to a fancy LA gym and work out because I have requested it. I will miss my workout this morning, having to leave far too early. Then, we will go to a tanning spa...

No, we won't.

I've never had a manicure or a pedicure. Perhaps it is time. Perhaps I am ready.

Once, I was encouraged to get an exfoliation. It involved steam and extraction and a mask of some sort of help clean the pores. It was only days after my mother had died. I was told that it would be relaxing, that it would help me relax. 

What did Dorothy Parker say? "LA is 72 suburbs in search of a city." Something like that. Quite clever, that Miss Parker and her vicious circle. Also, quite the survivor of suicide attempts, she. 

I have a friend who used to sometimes stay at the Algonquin hotel when he would come to visit NYC. It is an interesting place, with much history. We used to sit in the lobby and drink, he would tell me about them, the circle, about their time. They were an influential group of New York writers, critics, and artists who used to regularly meet there at the hotel for lunch, to see who could out-snark one another, long before the term took on its present meaning. 

New York is a good place for it. Robert Benchley was one member of the circle that made the leap from New York to Hollywood. He was in one of the Hitchcock films. I forget which one.

Foreign Correspondent. I had to look it up. He also wrote part of it. I hadn't known.

We are told to always question assumptions, to doubt collective wisdom and values. But when you try to do so, Oh my... You will see.... The "other" values were the ones you were really meant to question. 

I have been in a feisty mood lately, testing boundaries for no real reason. Or, for reasons that are not worth the potential price: angering or alienating people. I don't know why I do it. 

Because I can, I guess.

"The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed animals." -Hemingway

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A hero for our time

(Carny Enigma)

No time to write today. But who needs to write when you have pieces like this written about you.

One quick reaction to that though: baseball is a metaphor for American life. It is neither perfect nor complete as such, but it does function as a metaphor, a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else. All sports do this, they represent some other aspect of a culture, or of being a human within that culture, if only in a general sense. Their meaning is not confined to the sport alone. Ask any anthropologist if sports represent cultures. In that, they are metaphorical.

Increasingly, we live in a society that worships The Rules and fears Law. When one considers the climate of panic among athletes concerning the use of performance enhancers... Well, you can make your own connections there.

Fuck, I have no time for this today. I must run, as if I'm rounding first and heading towards second, watching the right fielder grapple and come to fumbling terms with my base hit, all the while the girls in the grandstands giggling and cheering, wearing their sunglasses and tight white shirts....

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The dreaded Acari, unleashed

(moments before suspected contact with the parasite)

Yesterday, we all went into the backyard and let the boy play freely (see above). 

A few minutes later we discovered a tick attached to the back of his head. We bolted into action. Upstairs to the medicine cabinet. I couldn't find any rubbing alcohol. Hydrogen peroxide would have to do. Rachel held the crying boy over the sink face-down while I tried to clear the hair away, all the while generously pouring peroxide on his little head. I couldn't get a good enough grip on the little parasite. My rounded adult fingers, useless against it. The hideous thing was soaking wet.

This incident would likely qualify as the only time in my life that I didn't first think of vodka as a solution for a problem. But I must be honest here in these pages, I didn't. But when it did occur to me it was just like all of the other times; a lightning bolt of inspiration.

I thought: My God, of course, vodka...

I ran down the stairs considering different mixers. I grabbed the gallon and a half jug of Stolichnaya that we keep on hand for just these occasions, then ran back up to where the most recent recipient of either Lyme disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever awaited me. Again, Rachel held him crying upside down over the sink and I administered delicious, nearly flammable health, straight shots of it right to the back of the boy's cranium. I looked carefully again. I wasn't entirely sure if it was my imagination but the aggressive little passenger seemed to have moved closer to the lad's spine.

They both liked the vodka even less than the hydrogen peroxide. But eventually, even with my nails clipped, I pried the malformed arachnid free from the backside of his skull where he was already feasting happily on my son's fresh new blood supply.

Then, like a parent that lives exclusively on television, after I pulled the tick off of the back of the boy's tender head, saving his spinal column by imaginary moments, I sent the struggling and kicking little fucker as far from science, modern medicine and access to information as possible. I gave him his chances in the world of modern plumbing. Into the sink he went, along with a half-gallon or so of fresh water. 

He went the way of the vodka.

Nothing about what I had done seemed anything less than mildly heroic until I went online and started trying to diagnose the disease that would soon destroy our lives. It was then that I began to question the shape, color, and size of my heroics. 

Ooops...

In my memory the thing seemed to be about the size of Mothra, maybe larger, swollen with having feasted directly on my son's plasma for who knows how long, preparing to decimate Tokyo.

I scoured the internet, starting with the CDC, then moving on to sites dedicated to the horrors of infection, disease-porn filled with images of victims and their lurid, unlucky tales. Open wounds that evoked dark, unpleasant memories. They all basically said the same thing: there is nothing you can do now, doom awaits you, accept your fate quietly. It was all just a host of symptoms listed that the boy would need to be able to speak to convey, except perhaps fever and nausea. 

Rachel and I, of course, got into a brief argument. Because, in truth, what would parenting be without a little disjointed teamwork? 

This morning it was impossible to tell that anything had touched him. Victory!

One less tick in the now suspiciously overgrown backyard....

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Out of Office Reply

Sleep is boring, when done well. I won't bore you further with the other way, either.

I don't look forward to dying, but at least in that I'll never have another sleepless night.

One of the things I noticed about the team that beat us like a herd of lazy mules was that many of them had on leg and knee braces, various supports and wraps. They all limped like wooden farmers. They would hit the ball, hobble to first base, then have somebody else take over for them as a runner. These guys have played together for years. It begs the wondering, did they all start out that way? I still feel as if I've been damaged by unseen forces that I do not understand, in areas that are no longer meant to be used.

I had thought that I was getting in better shape, just by going to the gym. There are aspects of fitness that working out will not necessarily bring you, flexibility and recuperative powers. Vitality. 

The clock just turned 6am, the gym is open. Somehow, I'm 44 years old.

I go to LA on Friday. It is a thing for work but I'll arrive a few days early to visit with friends. I will miss this Sunday's softball game. It is perhaps for the best. 

"I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob."

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No surprises

Sprint. It has been many years since I have done so. Then, there was yesterday. Fueled by beer and a gluttonous need to not appear old, my decades bolted. Each time at bat I got doubles. By the time I arrived on second it felt as if my heart would explode. It's meant to be exactly 120 feet from home plate, but to get 225 pounds there, as quickly as humanly possible, well.... it put an unusual and unexpected strain on my vitals. I suspect that I broke a few land speed records, but the numbers do not support that, apparently. In fact, nobody seemed even remotely impressed with my performance. There might have been some half-hearted clapping.

I'm not even sure when my knee went out but today it seems like it somehow got twisted. All of the ligaments and tendons feel as if they have been stretched counter-clockwise about 3 hours worth. I'm afraid to touch it. It has become the weakest link between my head and the ground. If I go down it will be towards the right.

But, it was fun.

We got our asses handed to us by a team that has played together for about 4-5 years. Eventually the umpire called the game, for excess of time. They were well into the double digits by that point, I had stopped counting, or caring. It had become batting practice for the other team, but it was fun. Have I already said that?  Yes, I guess that I have. 

There were many errors made, luckily by almost everybody on our team, at least a few times. Shameful mistakes that led to perpetual scoring by the bad guys. Had I been witnessing the spectacle only as an observer I might have guessed that our team was on some very strong psychedelics  All of our actions were slightly after the fact, much more so than required to be effective. It was as if we were chasing the "trails" of the ball rather than the thing itself. 

Our teams colors were tie-dye. We looked as if we were milling around the parking lot of a Phish concert in formation much more than being a softball team engaged in heated competition.

It took very little this morning for my own mind to convince me that going to the gym was a very bad idea. A horrible idea, in fact. The worst thing imaginable, even 

Worse than work.

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Softballs

I joined a softball team, one formed at the local pub. It is what men my age do, I guess. Today, Rachel will bring Rhys and watch the game. I went to a sports store in the next town over and bought a glove. They had some that were very nice, leather and expensive. The smell of the gloves reminded me of childhood. I remember softening one glove with oil, preparing for the season. I would stand in the outfield with the glove in front of my face, smelling it, counting the passing train cars that would move slowly by the fields as I peeked over the top. 

I was never very good at baseball, but I enjoyed playing. Like with most sports, I never developed the right type of competitive spirit. I just wanted to be the funniest guy on the team.

One season we made it to the final game in our league, the championship game. Altamonte Springs, Florida. We lost on the last pitch, an out-of-the-park home run. We were one more strike away from winning, an easy throw to first base would have done it, anything. They had a player on 2nd. They won by one. It was crushing. I can still hear that hit, see the ball flying high and away, landing on the far side of the outfield fence. It took so much with it. It bounced a few times and then settled into the grass. The other dugout was jumping and cheering. I stood at the fence of ours and watched as the player jogged past us to first base and then around, jumping as he went. Our players walked slowly in from the field while theirs gathered at home plate, cheering. I was not prepared for the feelings that followed.

The coach hated me, I think. He probably would have wanted them to "hustle" in from the outfield. I was a smart-ass, if you can believe that. He fashioned himself to be some sort of.... winner, I guess. I would mock him and do "the hustle" whenever he commanded. He would make me run laps for much of practice, but I became a pretty good runner. By the age of about 14 I was quite the long-distance candidate. Then, at 17, I had a serious accident in which I sawed half of my right foot off with a motorized blade.

Have I told that story here? I'm never sure. 

The emergency room doctor told me that they might have to amputate the foot just below the ankle. They gave me morphine and a few other extreme drugs they dispense in those situations. I enjoyed them all. The nurse patted my arm and told me everything was going to be alright. I assured them that would be fine, not to worry about it, that I probably hadn't even washed that foot in weeks.

I was in shock, of course.

Then, a specialized doctor, a French laser microsurgeon, stepped in just before they brought out the saw. He told me that he might be able to save the foot but that I would likely never walk normally again, never run, never be an athlete. He too, was wrong, I think. Very few have commented on my inability to walk normally when sober, though likewise nobody has ever asked about my waning athletic career. Perhaps they are afraid to, or more likely, the possibility has simply never occurred to them.

We'll find out today.

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A trumpet at dawn

Whatever happened to me last night I will likely need to go to the hospital today to have it sorted out. I remember drinking red wine, and now this, a strong desire and need for morphine.

The idea that god punishes the wicked clearly emerged from ancient hangovers. Jews wandering around in the desert, squinting at the sun. What else could explain the Old Testament? Right now I have an angry, vengeful god between my ears, lots of locusts, etc.

I'm not even sure if a doctor will see me. Maybe I can find a vet that will just put me down for $35, some poor schmuck that also does abortions and occasional dentistry on the side. It's too bad I'm not in Orlando, I know a few moonlighters that specialize in just that sort of thing. One of them pulled a tooth of mine once. It happened in a trailer around ten at night, I swear. I asked him if he would put me under for it. He said it would cost another $5 and I would have to lock up.

Last night they forced bottles and bottles of red wine on me, then made me read my poems to them. They are savages. I feel terrible this morning, only bacon and eggs and greasy potatoes will fix this. There's nothing to eat here but health food, which is useless against an angry god. My god is a terrible god, he demands greasy fried pork products.

We bbq'd last night. It was delicious. I remember eating some raw salmon, thinking myself quite cultured, treating it like a sushi appetizer. Perhaps I won't even need the vet, we'll know in a few more hours here when my intestines explode in a volcano of pain, blood, feces and sudden death, and more locusts.

We had friends from both LA and New York stop by, artists. We played music too loudly and danced together in the living room. I would not let a single track play all the way through. I was obnoxious and I smelled like rotten, biblical farts.

This morning I woke up with a mustache. I looked like a dangerous Alice B. Toklas. 

Only one eye works at a time.

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"... spending someone's hard earned pay"

The second best thing about a 3-day weekend is the 4-day workweek. It is Friday already again. Every week should be like this. Workers of the free world should demand it! People would love each other more, I'm certain of it. The Beatles had it wrong. They should have written songs about not working too much; being rich isn't the problem, being poor is. Impoverished of time and the freedom to enjoy it.

I've heard some say that it's all in your mind, though interestingly those people always choose to vacation elsewhere.

I watched Rhys last night. It is absorbing to witness first-hand the little characteristics that are forming. He gets to do things when I'm watching him that he might not when mom is around, like walking around the backyard in just a diaper. Ssshhhh, don't tell...

It's impossible not to wonder what Rhys will be like as he gets older. Being a parent it's also impossible not to worry a little bit about the common things: will he be happy, will he find something that he loves to do, will he and I be very close when he grows up, etc., etc.

People still give us much unwarranted and unwanted advice so I'll avoid dispensing any of mine here, at least the stuff about having children. It hasn't been tested long enough for me to have enough faith in it, but I think I have part of this fatherhood thing figured out: Hydrate, Get regular sleep (no matter how strong the temptation not to), learn to share, breathe, all of the basics, etc. Just little reminders.

Children must be molded, to some degree. I see that now. The idea might not be to just let them grow up however they choose. Some part of me believes in an idealized world where that would work. But all children start out as kleptomaniac animal abusers, some encouragement and discouragement is required here and there.

"Two of us riding nowhere, spending someone's hard earned pay, Two of us Sunday driving, not arriving, on our way back home..." -McCartney

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Many days I'll sit down to write here, then go to the gym when it opens at 6am, when I return I don't feel the same, or I have to go straight into working, where I lose whatever train of thought I might have had. I'll think of other things to write about while doing cardio, by the time I'm done they are nowhere.

Life is ephemeral, so much of it is already gone. 

How does one explain that? 

It can be felt but can it be taught?

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Biting Dust

Out of focus. Like the rest of my life, the pics are out of focus. I don't get it, I really don't. Nothing that I'm doing is making much sense any more.

I mean, I know why the pics are out of focus. The Fuji does not continuously track once the shutter button has been pressed. You can shoot multiple shots, but if your subject is moving then only the first shot or two will be focused on the subject. There is a setting which claims to be continuous, but it us useless. It only tracks the subject, or object in the focus point, before you press the shutter button. Afterwards it's as pointless as this sentence, worse even.


People are hideous and repulsive, too many of them. If you are not careful, to the point of vigilance, they will infect you with the ugliness of their lives, the misshapenness of their minds. I like eccentrics, I am drawn to them, but lately I am struggling with the perilous horror of the normal person. Their willingness to inflict their unhappiness on all of those around them, to wield it like a weapon of currency that they transfer into the marketplace, is beginning to undo me. Their dissatisfaction is an imagined wealth, so they spread it generously, expecting others to bow to it. They are philanthropists of discontent.

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

Let me try again:

I remember when Muhammad Ali lost to Leon Spinks. I was devastated, as much as a ten year old boy can be, which is completely though consolably. It seemed impossible to me. I understood nothing about boxing at the time, but I understood what a hero was, and Ali was it, the greatest. He was meant to be invincible, untouched by mortal failings. His greatness was for all-time.

Leon Spinks turned out to be a rather disappointing heavyweight champ. His personal life became the subject of much joking, his four missing teeth at the center of his smile giving rise to much hilarity and derision. His financial failings also caused quite a stir.

Well, some time passed, an eternity for a child, then Ali fought Spinks again and became the first boxer to ever win the title three times. He was a hero once more and everybody knew it, I made sure of it. I expressed no immoderation in our shared victory, Ali and I. I remember running around the neighbor's yard screaming in joy that "The Champ" had won, withholding no delight in triumph. I would shadow box and jab in pretend, in jest with the mocked shadow of self. I would run laps around the neighbor's fenceless house, training for some date off in the future in which I would also, like Ali, hold the title.

Then he lost to Holmes, and then Berbick. Then, it was all over. The mighty Ali had fallen for good. I had only caught the very tail end of his career, a thing I knew very little about at the time. I found out later, watching films of his older fights, of his even more glorious years, victories gained long before I was born.

Legends must necessarily be from the past.


Somewhere right about this time that guy killed Lennon. "Another One Bites the Dust" filled the unseen rock and disco airwaves that crossed and re-crossed our little dirt road. "Celebration" was played mostly on the disco channel. It must have been 1981. The weekends were filled with American Bandstand, followed by Soul Train.

I remember there was a big hurricane coming that summer, everybody prepared, the supermarket shelves were empty, the skies dark and ominous, but in the end it missed us. We watched it moving on tv.

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"It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;"

(just after the play at the plate)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it here, we went to a baseball game last Saturday, The Giants vs. The Rockies. There's nothing else quite like it. I have friends that eschew, and even detest, the experience. Not me, I love it truly. Even Cato felt it necessary to denounce all sports in a general way long before we entered the stadium where he began seducing children. He still has much to learn... There is very little in sports that is as fine and elegant as a baseball game when seen at the park. This happened to have been an ideal game to choose to go see, also. 

Lucky us. 

There is no such thing as a great game without bad calls, it is part of what makes all sports exciting, the feeling of your team being cheated; the collective indignation against the inability, unfairness, or even the wickedness, of the judge. Soccer could not exist without it. It is such an important aspect of world futbol that they refuse to even consider video playback for official oversight and review. Corruption and error mean that much to them. One must watch the Italians play, truly. They make it impossible for you to ever forget that their culture also invented the opera; it is drama for children, based loosely on a reduced narrative. It is a story that even a child could understand, if they weren't so bored out of their minds with it to do so. Yet somehow, in the rarefied atmosphere of the adult mind, it supposedly transforms into high art. 

For some, I guess.

There were a couple of very important bad calls, both against SF, one at 3rd base and one at home. From the distance at which we viewed them they seemed to be impossibly bad calls, but then there is just that: the distance from which we viewed them. The Giants had the bases loaded twice during the game only to concede the field with three outs and no additional runs. The coach was tossed out of the game in the eighth inning while excitedly contesting one of those bad calls. There were no replays on the massive screen in center field. The fans would have rioted, they were ready. It took SF scoring an in-the-park home run at the bottom of the tenth to finally win the game, a very rare event to witness live. 

It's worth watching the clip, Angel Pagan rounding third and being waived and ushered in to home by the third base coach, the long relayed throw and the play at the plate....

Ah, sudden victory.

It's been nine years since anybody in the MLB has done it, 82 since a Giant has done it, when the team was still based in NYC (Don't let this upset you, the Yankees were founded in Baltimore, and were originally known as The Orioles, etc.). 

I credit Rhys' presence there, of course. He is charming and full of luck. Pagan, the hero-player who hit the walk-off homer, has yet to publicly acknowledge this talismanic influence. I was prepared to announce little Rhys' candidacy for mascot-hood. As we were walking back to the car there were excited fathers explaining to their kids and their kids' friends how rare what they had seen was, how lucky they all were. 

I agree. It was really something.

I tried to link an essay here, but I couldn't find it given away freely on the internet, where so much else that is of far less worth always is. For anybody interested it is called "On Baseball" by Jacques Barzun and can be found in his "Reader" anthology, or in its original publication, "God's Country and Mine" (don't let the title dissuade you, it's all worth reading).

Well, I won't bore you with facts, but the Giants are a great team to watch. More exciting than the Yankees and their fans are more agreeable, for the most part. I used to love to go to Yankee Stadium, but there is the problem that the place is always filled with Yankees fans, etc. There is a smugness in, and assumption of, victory there that is off-putting; an expectation of crushing greatness that causes in the witness a perverse joy in their defeat. 

Though, in truth, they are New York's team, mostly I would just cheer along with the others, happy to be at the game.

Like this guy:

(totem, the victor)

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Trike

No time to write today. Oddly, after a three day weekend I had even less time in the morning to prepare for work. No gym, no writing, no breakfast, just sleeping in until 6:30. I've barely had time for a coffee. I struggle to write these words. 

Luxuries exact their tolls as well. 

We got the boy his first "trike." He is really on his way now. 

He is an adorable kid and I love him much. His happiness acts upon me as magic, as likewise does his occasional woe. 

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Radio Flyer

A reader here had the insight to point out to me yesterday that my site has become too masturbatory. My suspicion is that lines like this, "... as you stroke upwards along the shaft and towards the head" may have clued them in to my naughty secret. 

Ah well, what is a personal site if not masturbatory. To sit every morning and write one's private thoughts for unknown others to read, it is all a silliness without end. There are even some posts that I look back on with surprise. It's like being caught in the bathroom by somebody else's mom. I didn't bother responding to them that it is when I am genuinely trying to write well that the site becomes its most masturbatory, because I suspect that this reader wants more of that and less of the other. 

... and Oh, how I hate to disappoint.

Yesterday, we did what Americans should do on Memorial Day Sunday, we drank beer and watched the Indy 500, or parts of it anyway. They were not showing the broadcast online but we found a radio stream, and then I was able to find a selection of car-cams, Marco Andretti being our favorite. So it was a unique way of watching a race, something I don't often do. There was a delay on the radio broadcast for some reason, so there was an odd experience of disconnected time involved in the viewing. 

If you want to become more aware of Time's precious passing then try the Nordic Track elliptical machine on level 15 for 30 minutes. It is a modern self-abuse device that is designed to cause time to cease from passing. It is excruciatingly painful to watch each second stretch out and away from you, taking your breath with it. Eventually the clock on the thing just stops working altogether and you are alone in your own desperate head with only the decaying sound of your once pounding heart to remind you. 

I don't know why I do it to myself, except for the good feeling I get when it's all over, to still be alive, etc. I bring myself to the verge of a coronary event about five times a week. They should change the name of that cursed machine to "The Event Horizon."

I am relieved that the gym is closed today.

Today we go to buy Rhys his first tricycle. 

The last time that America declared war was June 5th, 1942.

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Sunday Morning Rising Up

A friend pointed out that Bettie Page has been dead for a few years. I don't see where that matters much, the post yesterday was not really about her. In writing it is known as subterfuge, a trickery designed to serve one's greater goal. Also, another correction, she became a Christian before she lost her mind, not after. I fail to see much of a distinction there, and even my friend admitted this as he was making the point.

There is little difference between believing there are angels and demons floating around you, engaged in an ongoing battle for your soul, and schizophrenia. In both there is a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion and behavior; both are characterized by fantasy and delusion. 

To enjoy this site you must believe everything that is written here, accept it into your heart as fact, just as if it was Jesus' forgiving blood. If you begin to question any part of what is written here then that's just the devil trying to find his way back into your life. It will eventually unravel you and you will one day have to blubber your way back into His arms, preferably in front of likeminded others.

Or, all by yourself in desperation, where you can later give a heart-stirring testimonial about it.

Speaking of, some of you might remember that I lost a friend a little while back, a Texan in Christ and the Mighty 2nd. He didn't pass away, he just threatened me with a lawsuit for quoting him. He wanted to reserve the right to protect his folly. I forgot to mention, among the many things that he was dead wrong about, one of them that emerged in full after the dissolution of our friendship was Lance Armstrong.

He once told me that I had no idea what I was talking about when I said that it seemed pretty obvious that Armstrong used steroids and other drug enhancements. My erstwhile friend shares the same given name, and as I mentioned, is also a Texan. He would rail and rail about what a great athlete Armstrong is and how I simply have no idea what I'm talking about: I wouldn't understand the winning spirit that he possesses, being of good stock and athletic breed. Training in Texas isn't like training other places. A Texan is incapable of such untruth. I would never understand such a thing. 

I hope that conversation comes back to haunt him, particularly when he's praying. It's good to have some doubts, except when it comes to the factual nature of this site, of course.


The devil is sneaky, always trying to worm his way into your underpants for some reason. There are lots of things you can do to try to stop yourself from masturbating, but none of them will work. If you think you can outsmart the devil, well... that's just pride talking and it means that he's already found the way in that he needs.

You see, any thought you might have that does not glorify god is from the devil. There is an eternal battle going on, with god and his army of angels on one side trying to keep you pure for your future (or next) husband or wife, and the devil, who is obsessed with making you masturbate. Nobody is quite certain why the devil enjoys forcing your hand so much, it is part of his evil nature. Questioning this is just another path he has back towards your genitals, up through your abdomen and into your head, though he's just as likely to try the opposite route. His vileness is like lightning, or water, it always seeks the path of least resistance. That's why Christians must always be so vigilant against pleasure.

I am, quite apparently, a lost cause. I'm like the devil's water park, a virtual Wet N' Wild of demonic transgressions; Beelzebub on Spring Break. The brute of darkness has gripped me since early adolescence. I remember the moment quite well, it was August 16th 1982, his evil struck me in the bathroom of my parent's house. He has had his cruel and wicked hand around me ever since, clutching at my genitals. Well, since he taught me the upstroke anyway. You can tell that it is the devil when your grip begins to tighten as you stroke upwards along the shaft and towards the head. Only the devil would function in this insidious manner, working in pernicious partnership with Farah Fawcett, two evil shape shifters, alike in both wickedness and manner.

It's only foolish pride that makes a teenage boy believe that he can outsmart the Farah Fawcett.

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Bettie Page, I learned it from watching you

I saw that Bettie Page is finally asleep in Jesus. She had become a born-again Christian before suffering several breakdowns and being hospitalized for almost a decade with acute schizophrenia. But that's not why people love her. She is best known and loved for having popularized pop-sadomasochism.

I'm not sure how I feel about sadomasochism. I mean, I like being tied up and having my cock and nuts spanked with a whip by a girl dressed in black heels and garters as much as anybody, I'm just not quite sure why. I've never read enough on the subject to understand much of it. I've read pieces of the Marquis de Sade, but somehow I still feel less than informed, as he primarily engaged in the first part of the term exclusively, sadism. He enjoyed raping people, forced sexual violence, etc. That behavior doesn't embody the acts that most interest me. It lacks the needed playfulness for pleasure to emerge from pain, for me.

Some have said that it is a form of sickness, a compunction derived from self-hatred. Perhaps. Though there seems to be more to it than just that. It is also a mechanism for release from the same. It is a common fact that pain and pleasure are two of the most basic aspects of life and are often surprisingly interchangeable, depending on attitude and desire. Converting pain to pleasure is a choice, when done during a sexual act it is considered masochistic. Delivering sexual pain is considered sadistic. Bad words, both. Beware!

The simplifying of those two experiences to the point of engaging in sadomasochism seems to me to be the enactment and conversion of a banal life drama, one in which the experience of pain and pleasure is imbued with and charged by sexuality, for the purpose of relief. People hate their jobs but they go, they take it out on their families, who they claim to love. In sadomasochism there is an acting out of something that provides release from the mundane. It is the reduction of a thing to a focal point, like car accidents, or the loving of orchids.

"The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility." - Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief

It just makes good sense.

I have never found myself attracted to women who did not at least, to some degree, enjoy the physicality of sex. Of what use is a girl that does not occasionally enjoy being spanked? Truly. There is a sense of the naughty, a shameful pleasure derived from it. That must be a component for me to develop any interest at all. That impulse taken to its logical extreme results in occasional sexual drama, a projection and shedding off of orthodox and unorthodox codes. 

The impulse towards sadomasochism is evidenced in daily life. I see it in very ordinary behavior all around me. I doubt that many of the people who exhibit the behavior are even aware of it, but it is there and not a product of imagination. There are also those that have the need to advertise their deviant wishes, for whatever personal reasons. That does nothing for me at all, or very little. It is the darkness that lurks unknown in the unsuspecting that has always drawn me, the hidden desires that constitute the substratum that act upon me as a siren in need of a serious spanking. 

Remember, if you get scared, just say "Palomino..."

... the sleep of neither

(Goya)

I left out the Bush's from yesterday's post. What more need be said about them, really? Great example of a family political dynasty though: lots of corruption and dark secrets. I thought of the title for the post last and didn't have time to go back and add them. I couldn't think of the single word that means family political dynasty... I still can't. 

Despotism, no. Oligarchy, not really. Aristocracy, decidedly not. Cronyism, not family oriented enough.... Regime, maybe?

What is the word that means political power that is handed down or shared from generation to generation, or laterally to other family members? I can't think of it.

A mental block. The word "dynasty" was the closest I could recall, to define.

Ah, well, age, I guess. I've been telling everybody at the local pub that I'm 53, if they ask. I like to watch them marvel at how well-maintained I am. When I ask them how old they thought I was they always say "44."

So, there's always that. A game whose clock is loudly ticking.

My father turns 84 today, I think. I mean, I know that it's his birthday. I'm just not sure which one. I think it's 84. So, I have longevity on one side of my family.

Ok, I'm rambling. People seem to enjoy my posts more when I choose a subject before I start writing. Yesterday's post was well-received, in terms of response and total pageviews. Certain people really seem to enjoy it when I'm politically inclined, and slightly angry. I had a few visitors last week from Indonesia that must have read every single post on my site, and then they left without a word. My daily pageviews jumped by about 1000 a day for three days, all from the same region of the world, all reading individual pages... then they were gone without a word. It makes me wonder who would anonymously peer into my life like that and then just leave without comment. Seems strange.

Strange maybe, though I have a friend who semi-anonymously peers out from his site. So, there is also that.

Many years ago I used to write a column for a popular music website out of Amsterdam. It got quite a bit of attention within the confined community of electronic dance music. People, my readers, seemed to love my occasionally acerbic wit. Humor is often sympathetic, wit alone is likely to be cruel. Wit loves a victim, it thrives on intellect and distance, the very reason that people confuse snarkiness with it, being unfamiliar with the former and trapped by the latter. 

So, these fans would often encourage me to anonymously engage in heated, comic conversation on some popular chat boards at the time, wishing me to do their bidding. I could never understand it. What would be the purpose of posting anonymously, I thought.

Now, I see the charm. I have been writing anonymously elsewhere for almost a year now. Nobody has noticed, or discovered me yet, as far as I know. 

I am a dirty little Dutch schoolgirl named Lotte Poepjes.

Ha, no. A little poop joke for any Dutch readers that might still cling on here..... It is in me and I am trying to get it out.

There was a time when I would have moved to Amsterdam, or perhaps Prague. Hard to imagine now. I wonder if I'll ever go back again. I used to love both cities, though I could see myself getting into trouble in either, or both. Not the harmless type of trouble either, the terrible sort. Left to my own devices too often I wrestle with the demonic and angelic impulses. I have a poet's sense of justification, just shy a few pages of poetry, that's all.

Man, I am rambling... The breakfast of champions becomes the lunch of losers, the dinner of dregs, the sleep of neither produces monsters. 

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