Genetically Modified Heroes

I am not alone in my suspicions of Edward Snowden, nor of his superheroics.

The problem, for me, is that too many people define themselves by, and insist upon, their purely anti-government stance, as if it is a pre-agreed upon virtue. To speak in any way otherwise, even if you only suspect the government in slightly different ways than them, or for different reasons, is to question the very sanctity of community and friendship itself. It's like insisting that we all must be adequately pro-oxygen, or else what reason to love, what possible purpose?.... 

But how can you not see how they have you fooled....?

Just try this: Suggest that there is not enough research to yet support that genetically modified foods are as dangerous as claimed. There is mostly just pseudo-anecdote and organized suspicion from the one side. The long-term research that has been conducted on genetic modification is claimed to be inconclusive, because it tends to support the opposite claims. 

Genetic modification has been occurring by humans for about 14,000 years. Try explaining to anybody that their dog or cat is the direct result of human directed genetic modification. Just try that....

To be fair, genetic engineering is a more recent development, about 40 years old.

The problem is not just with the science conducted by big-industry, but the other stuff also. The supposedly damaging reports from the purely organic-fans can not be reproduced. These are as dangerous to truth as anything else. The anti-GMO crew are not entirely dissimilar from those who deny climate change, they largely ignore the science in favor of their feelings about a thing, their studies. Hysteria must be pleasant, for some, even in small daily doses. Their demands are not unreasonable, but the results could potentially be devastating. Their behavior is fueled by a culture of ignorance. I swear it, read the actual independent studies, the peer-reviewed ones, the ones that can be reproduced.

This is not to say that I don't favor labeling, or even that I trust genetically modified foods. I only fear the effect that labeling might have, allowing fear-mongering and economic denunciation to take the place of public discourse in any substantive way. The biggest sin of the future will be poverty, if it isn't already. We are not far off from blaming the needs of the poor for ruining everything for the rest of us. It's simply that they need to eat also that's causing all of the problems and driving the need to produce stronger crops on less land. The dietary greed of the impoverished and starving is ruining the earth. Right?

That bothers me. There is something inherently wrong, and even evil, about it. The liberals will, of course, never outright make the claim, they lack the courage. But it will be introduced into the conversation once they realize the problems that their demands create. Once foods are labeled then only the iniquitous would ever dare eat them. It is the underside and the ugliness of the liberal lie come to life. The only good liberals are rich ones, or middle-class ones that think themselves rich in enlightened ideas. Poor liberals are the ones that are causing all the problems for everybody, right?

In a society based mainly on economics the biggest, and perhaps only, sin will be poverty.

Try having that conversation, even if you don't entirely believe it. If you want to understand part of the essence of why people believe a certain thing then question the assumptions, expect them to qualify the claims made, whether they be wild or reasoned. It will often result in anger or dismissal, mostly, rather than clarity on the subject. The agreed upon evil is what matters most. 

People don't mind you claiming that there might not be a god, but don't ever try claiming that the devil is not the devil. That would be heresy. 

But how can you not see how they have you fooled....?

(I should note that I have not read every possible study, nor would I consider myself even well-versed on the subject. I did some reading when the labeling proposition came up on California's ballot. I was amazed at how many of the reputable science journals expressed caution and even outright suspicion or derision of the wild claims of the anti-GMO camp. Most of them agreed that the science simply isn't there to support the claims of the one side, that the science supports the opposite. This fact will excite the "anti-crowd" more than almost any other. It is the surest sign that you are being duped, that you would trust science and research for anything at all. Little matter that you point out to them that the studies cited are independent studies conducted globally, often by liberal institutions. There is a wide general consensus that genetically modified foods are safe. But the only science to trust, apparently, is that which supports superstitions. Only they possess the real truth, anything else is just ignorant, and you must be in league with those who are killing the earth... Ask them how sustainable organic farming might feed 7 billion. Oh, then you'll hear some certain facts...)

But enough about all of that. It is time to move on. There are things other than deceased horse-beating that must happen around here. Who knows, that horse may have died from all that Monsanto witch corn. It's probably the least safe to beat one of those. It'll just creep back into the soil. We had better burn it. 

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Change we can believe in

Okay, one last thing on this NSA privacy issue.... I have been screeching about governmental overreach and totalitarian democracy for some time now. If you look back through the posted pages of this site then you will find ample evidence to form an understanding about how I feel about such things.

Remember, I worked for Apple. The iPhone was so riddled with security breaches that could be easily exploited by app developers that I knew there was no way they could ever keep personal information out of the hands of the government, even if they tried. If an unemployed nerd can get it then the US gov. certainly can. Look at what happened to Microsoft. If you want to do big business in this country then you learn how to play ball. You can only hide under the couch for so long.

.... and when they start claiming that it's an issue of national security then the party's already over. 

Also, I have been publicly writing here in a very non-anonymous way for a few years now, openly divulging many personal secrets, minor crimes and major plots in support of humanity. The government has a much larger file on me than most, with well over half a million words and counting, some of it occasionally well written (thinking my turds are interesting is the way my mom recently described it).

Of what do I possibly have to be afraid of now, really? 

Does the government want to know if I've done drugs? Check

Does the government want to know if I had a turbulent youth? Check

Does the government want to know if I have a ferocious masturbation habit? Check 

Does the government want to know if I trust them? Check

Does the government want to know if I want to own a gun? Check
Does the government want to know if I pay my taxes? Checkmate


People believe they will somehow protect themselves from the government by hiding, disengaging, or seeking an "off-the-grid" secrecy. The opposite is closer to being true. If you want to possess liberty then practice the expression of it. To me it seems that the majority of the nation is moving in the wrong direction to adequately resist. But that is how I've always felt, so, Amen to that. 

Do you see? I'm all for privacy, but those days are gone, and have been for some time. Trying to hide now is among the worst things that can possibly be done, and expecting a return to privacy is absurd. It will not happen. There must be some politicians now saying, "See? Why is everybody so suspicious about the NSA. We were right all along." Fear feeds fear and justifies the suspicions of others.

Some would say that I'm missing the point there. I do not believe that I am. If you believe that the democratic process is a valid strategy of resistance then I wish you luck with your occasional partisan voting. It truly is change we will believe in. It is proven now.

But adding my voice to the current self-righteous noise, paranoia, and patriotic indignation isn't going to help much. Anybody that reads here knows how I feel about any number of things. Are my feelings consistent: rarely, sometimes, and then far too often for most. For me, the damage is done. It's well past the point that I might ever expect personal privacy again. Between this and some of the seditious nonsense I post on Facebook the government knows pretty much all that they might need to tie me up in a bag of rocks and snakes and dump me in the bay near San Quentin when the time finally comes, or to drag me screaming back to Rikers Island for some past infraction on the distant east coast. Some lucky future or present brown-shirt will take much joy in punishing an addled libertine like me.

A little taste of the old bastinado should fix this one....

Oh, and the time is coming.

But, I have been in contact with the people who took the greatest offense at my "Edward Snowden is a Vampire" piece and we are revolutionary brothers again. The cause needs me, I'm told. So, all is still good like pie. You needn't worry that I have lost any of my comrades in the international socialist underground movement. My anarchist buddies and I have also been plotting again. When the time comes, and the heavy curtains of the near future fall, you will still want to know me. I have associates that can keep you safe and get you near the border.

Taco Bell, that is, or Spam when in a pinch.

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Trivial returns

Jesus. My post from the other day was not meant to represent a totality of thought on either Edward Snowden or the high price of freedom, I do not possess such a thing. I only have reflections and reactions. I think that should be made clear enough by reading the post, which was qualified where necessary. I have had people emerging from the chat-boards to publicly berate me for not adequately praising his actions as purely heroic. Admittedly, it was just an initial reaction, but heroism at the level claimed remains to be seen. There exists within his actions something else also.

Reading more, it has become clear that some of what I had mentioned in the article was driven by trivial reporting. Let me try this again: I am not a media agency, a journalist, or in any way associated with a news reporting establishment. I write a daily open email to my friends. It is meant to be entertaining, fun, and hopefully possessing occasional insight. If I have failed my reader base, then so be it. If only I were able to act the same towards them for, Oh, I don't know... not reading my posts daily. Something silly like that.

Can you imagine?

There is much more to any action than simple heroics and national betrayal. I did not mention at all that his girlfriend was a pole dancer. That would seem trivial, to me. Also, I did not even know it at the time. I had only read three articles, all of which were rather surface. Since then I have found out more and I am understandably taken by some of the details. I misspoke that he was a low-level employee, as that was what had been reported by one of the articles I read. Correction: He was a mid-level employee. Beyond that, I stand behind every word I wrote. It was not even an opinion, just an idea, a rambling one at that.

For once, I let others be sanctimonious and filled with praise and condemnation. Hopefully, my real friends will forgive this minor transgression.

Moving on. Can you believe this Edward Snowden guy...?


I had meant to write some trivial reflections on LA this morning, but there is no time left. 

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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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