In the offing

(tosser)

"I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me - yet I sometimes long for it." -Byron

People who live in NYC dream of living in the country, all of them, even the bums. And some of them do, also.

It is odd, what the mind speaks to itself, the happiness culled from private reverie; informing the sub rosa with the where and what and who and how that would make one happy, if only... Some people are happiest wherever they are not. There is always some other place that they long to be, a place that will finally, once and for all, make them happy. Those people rarely arrive, I've learned. Most of them, anyway. 

I dreamed of living in the country. To be more specific, I dreamed of, "living somewhere beautiful," when I was in NYC. I thought that I had lived in the best of all possible cities for more than a decade, had enjoyed much while there. Now, I thought, I would want to live in a place that was naturally beautiful and offered experience that was very different from what I had up until that point. 

Well, I got it. Though I have not become quite the "nature boy" that I had hoped. I have spent precisely zero nights camping since I've been here. Rachel, Rhys and I have yet to go to Yosemite, which is only four hours away. The furthest north we've drive from here is perhaps the Russian River Valley, etc.

Sonoma has stopped appearing bizarre to me. That scares me. Where did all the weirdness go? I have to really search for it now. It is under fingernails. It used to materialize everywhere, out of nowhere. How could this place seem so curious (even deeply suspicious) when we first arrived, and why not now? It is not the place that has changed. I know that. But how long am I expected to wait here and not stumble upon something truly bizarre, something I can stare at, something that I must stare at. How long?

Everybody has their limits. What is life - what should it be - if not surreal, extra? Reality does not await, but rather only tedium. 

We are told to enjoy the simple things in life. But look carefully at who is saying it, if you can. You should only heed their advice if you would seek to emulate them in some way. I like simple things also, but all simple things are the same.

"In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint..." 

- Joseph Conrad, 'Heart of Darkness'

None of what I've written here today, except for the quotes, was what I intended.

.

Leading the witness

(found image)

I just want the world to last in a semblance of its present form. Well, perhaps that is the curse that we seem to be stuck with, the semblance of form.

That's one way that I know I'm getting old: the future seems forbidding. 

I was in the past for a little while, it wasn't all that great, particularly the 80's. 

But the future is terrifying, right? It must be... we are told daily, from all directions. Everybody instructs us in the details of precisely how runaway civilization has become, though few agree on "the facts." Why should they? The clock is ticking in all directions. The world is an enormous terrorist act just waiting to happen. We are held hostage by this group this week, that group next; some foreign, some domestic. Radon creeps up through the floors. We all seem trapped in an unending b-movie version of what the future was supposed to be.

Don't have children, it will scare you witless. You find yourself fretting over things to which you were once blissfully indifferent. You will read the news with a more critical eye, one trained on the impending future. You will nod your head from left to right while staring at the ground. You find yourself saying comical things in your mind, a parody of a parody repeating itself.

Don't let parents fool you... they are all scared shitless and wearing diapers also. They only seem happy because they do not often read the news that you read. Why would they? 

You will want your children to be happy and healthy, naturally, even more than you may want it for yourself. You will want to magically create those very things out of life: health and happiness. But you will wake up one day and realize that it is all beyond you, you have no control over anything and you never did.

All that you can do is make it possible to possibly happen.

It is terrifying to realize that the only underlying truth there is in this world is that it will one day end. 

I try not to be an alarmist, but it is difficult. All of the experts are alarmed, so why not me? 

I have a friend that insists that global warming is merely a liberal hoax. He has access to other information, which he prefers. He scoffs at sources that disagree, no matter their number, nor origin. The immensity of agreement only confirms the conspiracy for him. His information states these types of climate changes are quite normal and there might not be much to worry about anyway, except maybe a democrat winning again in 2016, and Obamacare not getting repealed.

Ice ages come and go.

It is possible that the experts get paid to alarm us, to draw attention to their exclusive set of growing facts. It is how they get funded. Perhaps there is just a lot of competition within the scientific communities and they have become like commercials: somehow louder than the show.

I like thinking that. Just ignore them all, they are trying to sell me something that I do not want.

That way lies spirituality, to deny science and reason and fall back exclusively on belief, hope. Happiness is the ability to choose to be in fear.

Those fears of the future create a nearly perfect introduction to the spiritual realm. In court it is called leading the witness. Though in this case it is more of an example of leading the defendant.
 

Begging the question:

I am reminded by many that the supernatural begins where reason leaves off. I doubt that they grasp just how right they are. That mankind possesses an imaginative component is unarguable.

We are told two divergent stories: one, that all religions say basically the same thing, which they do not - and two, that there are spiritual reasons that nobody agrees past a certain point, you must tune your heart to your own truth. Seeking truth is the presumed basis of much of this thinking.

But when I seek truth... people often get angry with me, because I do not readily find their animal-spirit frolicking in the nearby meadows of my mind. Their truth seems silly to me, and not just in the improbable sense of the word. The shape of my imagination does not resemble theirs, at all, and does not rely on theirs for existence. That simple fact alone tells me much that I need to know about religion. Personal convictions and beliefs seem both necessary and dangerous. 

Some people's religion seems to be just accepting the acceptance of other people's religion. But even they have their limits, sensibly. Nobody takes my gods seriously, when we discuss such things.

It always requires so much solemnity, yet they will insist that their gods also have a sense of humor.  As for those gods, the ability to choose among many is a relatively recent addition to the process. Some are still finding their way among the countless options. It is easy to get distracted with so much wisdom floating about.

Perhaps I just got dealt a set of very cynical gods, they neither seek my approval nor praise. The only torment they offer is - quite thankfully - to non-believers, infidels.

I take books off the shelf and read single pages every now and then. It is better than watching the news and it keeps me on my feet. The existentialists make some sense. It is all absurd, we share in it though always by ourselves, there is little that can be done to change any of it, we must somehow give our lives meaning, even though the effort and results may be meaningless themselves, we will all die. It is absurd.

That sounds about right.

Albert Camus said it, "Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable."

Somehow, you are expected to prevent this knowledge from depriving you of happiness... rather, this knowledge is meant to be a reason for it; the catalyst to freedom, its own predicament.

Once understood, something is both gained and lost.

.

Another Weiner Joke

(John Cuneo)

Just when you thought no more "C. Danger, it's A. Weiner!" jokes could possibly be made.... 

This is just one reason that I love The New Yorker, and New York. 

That is a fucking funny cover. Look at it carefully. It is a work of genius.

As I said, I could care less about Anthony Weiner's online or personal behavior. I don't even find it all that shocking. But the immense, arrogant defensiveness of his own actions is something worth considering, and John Cuneo has.

Here's the simple version: I'd like to be in politics, I'll present myself as a sound candidate for Congress, a stable decision maker... Ooops, I get involved in a sex scandal, step down from politics, create elaborate articles discussing my family's role in my recovery, attempt to get back into politics... it then comes to light that I was lying all along, even while doing my exposé articles, it's none of your business, this is a personal matter between my wife and myself, I'd still like to be the mayor of New York, I'm not leaving the race. Vote Weiner!

This is somebody that appears to be a glutton for both power and punishment, possibly at the same time, and has a tremendous incapacity for decision making as a recorded process. That's why he has my unequivocal support for the mayoral candidacy, and the office. I only wish that I were still able to vote in the city. New York needs this. I am almost amazed that France hasn't offered him a position in their government yet. 

Those are people that can recognize that this guy has what it takes. The right stuff.

You want, perhaps even need, people like this in politics. Fuck, I'd like to see him beat Clinton in 2016. Why not? His problem would be getting people to volunteer to assist in his campaign. He's made it difficult to stand up for him, publicly. If it were a purely anonymous process, this guy would be a shoe-in. 

The cover, evoking the victim-ness of King Kong trapped in a brutal city, an uncontrollable and misunderstood savage, ill-adapted to the confining restrictions of urban life, forced by hostile combatants to climb, to flee to a place of hoped for safety... wielding the antenna of the structure (brilliantly resembling a hypodermic needle), all while sexting the broken head of the hubristic symbol, grim-faced and determined ... oh my....

If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.....

I mean, fuck... this brings the bullshit claim of sex-addict into clear focus. The era of self-proclaimed victimhood has gotten so out of control that we actually seem to have taken a collective step back and considered it... Well, you know, it's not really his fault, what he did. He has a disease. He's a sex-addict. I once dated one.

What...? We really have reached a point where nobody ever need take responsibility for their behavior again. Sex addiction is what made me do it, too. 

Here:

Interestingly, I am a sex addict. All of my decisions in life have been centered around, and informed by, this initial problem. I mean, there might have been a touch of various abuses here and there in my past, perhaps problems acclimating to certain social settings, but all of these issues just speak to the larger problem: sex addiction. Do not let this affliction fool you, it may have only seemed as if I was enjoying it. That is part of its insidious nature. The only choice I had in the matter was finally reaching out for help. I was powerless against it. God alone took my hand and removed it from the offending organ from which I was playing my cursed melody.

Do not be angry with me, I was suffering from a damned disorder. Some have even seen it up close, sadly, and they will attest... when it rears its ugly, demonic head.... you can recognize it for the scourge that it is, oh dear dreaded malady. 

But: in no way should this prevent me from winning the lottery, or being awarded the presidency, or running a major company (maybe just being the treasurer). In fact, it should be part of my qualifications, my pedigree, if you will. To show that I can overcome even the most terrible hand that life has dealt me (over and over) I should be rewarded with public office, power, and wealth. I can be trusted to keep everybody's best interest in mind, because I know what it's like to truly suffer. I am a survivor.

Fucking brilliant. What a story. It is the triumph of talk-show democracy. 

Twitter is just a filthy enabler. 

Headline: Weiner wins, sues! Works to rid internet of debilitating dirt. 

Why doesn't Lance Armstrong claim sex addiction? He only feels powerful and sexy when winning the Tour De France. What choice did he have, really? 

From now on, I'm going to be suspicious of anybody that even admits to wanting to have sex. Those are the first signs, the symptoms. This should shift the Creationism / Intelligent Design non-debate. Did God make us all sex addicts, or was it Darwin that did it?

Nature vs. Nurture vs. Twitter

But... if those jinxed with the frailty admit they have a problem, publicly, then they get a free McDonald's Happy Meal, and maybe a chance at the cover, or the center-fold...

.

Thickgevity

I've decided that I'm going to boycott the gym in its last few weeks, to show my disapproval of its closing in September. That should teach them a lesson.

If I can not exercise then I will be forced to diet. I have reached the breaking age, in which all things are a perpetual, losing negotiation. Just since yesterday my breasts have softened nicely. I prefer them that way.

Who knows, perhaps I will revert to my prison-dumbbell workout. It is a bit of circuit training that I used to inflict upon myself in my apartment in NYC. I was never in better shape, though I was dieting like an obsessive. My friends worried but I was healthier than any of them, even with all of the lost weight and lollipop head. I was making sure to ingest the necessary daily nutrients. I dropped to 169 pounds, the lightest I had been since high school. 

Then, my father had a heart attack, right in the middle of a two week cleansing fast that I was doing. It was designed to purge my gallbladder of stones. 

It was working.

I haven't been able to drink apple-cider vinegar since. I was ingesting several glasses full of it each day at one point, along with medicinal abdomen heat-wraps and generous glasses of lemon juice. It was the master work of a health guru who had a storefront on our street in the East Village, a longevity shop. It seemed to work for me, though the inventor of the cleanse/diet was a kook. He was a self-proclaimed breatharian. It is a form of raw-food diet that removes the pesky food portion involved. People would come from miles away - sometimes the famous, or the sick - to sit in a circle around him and hear him gently dispense his wisdom, which was an extreme form of diet, one that included nothing at all. Even a close friend's father directed me to visit him, claiming that he had healed him of cancer. 

He insists upon being called "Dr." though there are conflicting reports as to what precisely he earned his degree in, some claim physiology, some claim nutrition. There was no degree, nor copy, hanging from the wall of his shop. None that I ever saw. I never asked. I didn't want him to believe that I was that interested in his life or thought, or in that way. I merely wanted to extract some weirdness from him. It seemed easy enough, free for the taking. Just briefly overhearing him chat with people on the street as I passed was enough on a day-to-day basis. A font of uncommon sagacity.

I only half kid here, the guy was well informed and clearly knew much about nutrition. It was where his knowledge ended that the spirit-silliness seemed to really take flight and flourish. I believe that he truly wanted to believe the things that he said. There was an intensity to his faith that was off-putting. His need to share seemed consumed with his need to believe. 

Also, I found him to be just less than spiritual but that is perhaps because we shared a drug dealer and I got to know him additionally on a less-than-spiritual plane. The dealer, a local loser by the name of "Benny," a sort of walking gallbladder himself, the small sac that collects and dispenses liver bile, was to our street what food was to the good doctor: poisonous, etc.

Wait, I'm getting sidetracked here...

Our fearless spirit-guide, the esteemed "Dr. of 12th St.," was a sort of poor man's Baba Ram Dass, I guess.

I mentioned the book "Be Here Now" the other day, and in doing some light internet research afterwards discovered that Ram Dass is/was Jewish and currently is bi-sexual, not that a person's religious heritage or sexual orientation matter at all, I only found it worth consideration. People who choose "the spiritual path" in life often have interesting backstories, especially when fictionalized. I mean that, truly. There is no snark or irony there. The transformation involved in becoming a "person of holy, holy" always includes an unshackling of some sort, a shedding off and even denying of the past, oftentimes at great personal cost and effort. 

Whether spiritual in nature or not, I think many admire the strength to do such a thing; the power to transform, to re-invent the self, to be birthed in a newly found truth, to experience a personal revelation. This is particularly true when something went wrong in the first incarnation of self. 

Just start over is the message. This simple truth need not be spiritual in either content or tone. 

I also found the Doc of 12th interesting, even though I didn't care much for his pseudo-philosophy and nutritional soft science. There is no question that he was a local oddball. To distinguish yourself as such in the East Village is a minor accomplishment. He claimed to survive exclusively from drinking his own urine and extracting minerals from oxygen and sunlight, free prana for all. If it's good enough for lichens, then why not me?

His child was taken away by the state when the boy broke his ankle and "The Dr." attempted to fix it with a chop-stick tourniquet and moonflowers. 

There were local rumors that he had cheated on his girlfriend, the one who brought her family's money to the relationship. So, his store closed shortly after and became one of the uglier abandoned storefronts in the neighborhood. It may have been funded by her strong sense of belief in him. Finances often follow faith. That must have all collapsed after she had the religious vision of him entering other women while she tried to sleep. 

So went the local story, anyway.

But who can deprive a extramundane leader of a few intimate physical relations with his flock. Truly? A great man's capacity to love is only increased in this way - doubled at first, then tripled, and so on and so on, etc. A spiritual man has an abiding obligation to spread love, and the safest home for a spiritual man's love is buried deep in mother earth, where it might grow. 

There are amino acids, enzymes, and even a dash of fructose found in the sustaining seminal fluids of life. How else were these women expected to survive, particularly in the evenings when the sun was hiding. They had been deprived of precious sustenance. This goes well beyond just responsible farming techniques, you see. This is a direct return of life-energy to where it will do the most good, the completion of the circle of life, arriving warmly in the belly of the earth goddess, or two.

Blossoms for being. 

.

Fuck!

(despondency)

I just found out that the gym's closing in September. They've run out of money. Very wisely, I had paid a full year in advance. 

There is little chance that I'll be getting a refund. None.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. What made this gym perfect was proximity, and price. 

I'll be getting fat again soon. The pub is still swimming in patrons. 

Money talks, they say. But all it ever said to me was "Goodbye." 

- Cary Grant, None But the Lonely Heart

.

The side effects

Now there is new pain, in my stomach. I awoke in the middle of the night and there was a deeply uncomfortable hollowness there. I tried to remember what I had done before I went to sleep. I ate some food and a few Tums, maybe 4 of them. They taste good, the green and orange ones. I hate the yellow ones, they are terrible. Is that too many to eat? I've never checked the label to see what the recommended dosages are. I have been told several times, by doctors, that you can pretty much always double the recommended dosages on any medicine, at least for a brief period of time. Sometimes I'll try the same with prescription drugs but the effects are scattered. I haven't kept records, so that wisdom is lost.

In at least one way getting old is like being a pro-athlete: you need a team of doctors just to stay competitive. 

I want to get some anabolic steroids, some really good ones. There are the advantages in muscle mass, of course, but there is also the relief from pain. One of my balls is useless anyway. I could shrink the other, so they match. Why should I care?

I don't want to abuse steroids, where entirely new tectonic plates form and shift in my cranium. I just a little recaptured youth. Just a taste. All of these athletes are giving steroids a bad name. Soon they'll be just like morphine, doctors won't want to prescribe them any more.

The side effects seem alluring: new breasts, painful erections, shrunken testicles, pimples, baldness, infertility...

The punishment for trafficking in illegal steroids is quite stiff. They're always far too excessive with these things. They've created a world where pro athletes are the only ones that can even afford to do them. Like everything else, they keep the really good stuff just out of reach.

The other day a buddy/bartender and myself played chess, at the local pub. It was a fun game. I hadn't played in quite some time. I lost my queen rather early on, but ended up getting his a little later, when things didn't look very good for me. I won, but it went down to the very end, only his king was left. What fun. 

Usually I get destroyed in chess. I try to play people that are good at it and have studied the game, have played since childhood, etc. There were a few people there at the pub watching the match with interest. Why is it always that the best chess players, the ones that see furthest into the future, the ones that are the most familiar with various strategies, are also the ones who aren't actually playing. There was this idiotic dolt at the bar that just kept talking about how I, "could have really had him back there..." 

Or,"Oh, he almost got you a few moves back...better watch out now."

I wanted to offer to play him, just to see if he was entirely full of shit or not. 

If I lost then I could always fly into a miniature 'roid rage, send the board and pieces flying.... leave the pub in a confused fury, go sit in my car and cry.

.

The Dark Ages

(one of the "overly-enlightened")

We are perhaps on the cusp of a new one, perhaps already past; into another dark age. The dawning of the era of private information. Not in the way that one might guess, the term "non-private" would work there just as well, or personal and impersonal. Those terms are quickly becoming interchangeable and meaningless, as has the concept of Privacy.

I listened to a radio news show yesterday while in the car. They were discussing the sale of the Washington Post by the Graham family who has held it for 80 years to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. They were all quite happy about it.

This would be similar to the Pope having invented the Gutenberg press, with exclusive rights to its use.  

For the entire talk-show, nobody even vaguely suggested that the purpose of this purchase is for aggressive individual data mining, and represents the furthering of a significantly malicious trend in online media. They had several "experts" speak.

Let me go back.... perhaps some of you have forgotten the significance of the "dark ages," and why we now call them that. It was a period when the church was the sole distributor of information, a period in which there was very little or no organized dissent, and the open inquiry into knowledge virtually ceased for centuries. The dissemination of religious dogma alone flourished and went virtually unchallenged from either without, or from within, the church. It is a period recognized as one of intellectual and economic regression, or stagnation. The time is often accepted to have begun after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ended at the birth of The Enlightenment, though its effects continue to linger in the hearts of many. There are those that celebrate this period with festivals meant to simulate the historical life experience. It is too bad there are not more beheadings, etc.

Everything that I just stated is refuted or ignored by some, of course. Religious scholars prefer to call them the Middle Ages and see them as a heyday of spirituality and humanity. There is not much agreement on the period, nor will there be about the one we are entering.

So, back to data mining... what Amazon hopes to accomplish by purchasing this paper for $250 million cash is access to YOU. If not you, then people like you. All of the major distributors of information are doing everything they can to find out as much as they can about you, personally. By doing so they can better tailor information that suits you. They have found that this method causes the greatest sales, in both physical product and information. 

It's a no-brainer. Give the people what they want. But know what they want in advance of them wanting it. Create desire from nothing, need from nada.

The end effect of this is that you will hear only two types of news: that which you like and agree with, and that which you like to disagree with. Agitation is an alarmingly effective means of gaining attention and generating sales. Confirmation bias exists either way; it either satisfies the belief or supports the subjective negation, even to the lesser level of merely assuaging, depending on known individual preferences. We all have agitation dials built in, commotion capacitors, rage resistors.

That is but one thing that so many of the conspiracy theorists miss out on, that the news they find on independent sites ("the real truth, man...") is there to provide them with information that they already agree with, and serves the exact same purpose as the mainstream news they would reject and deny. It confirms that which they prefer to believe. If it did not do so then they would quickly lose interest. There is currently an inflationary bubble in the conspiracy market for this very reason. 

Try telling them. They will glibly mention your adherence to the "mainstream narrative" as if that alone settles the matter.

(Wow... I just went to grab the link within the wikipedia article on conspiracy theories, one section that used to deal with criticisms of said theories, and how to evaluate belief and disbelief against reason. The section is no longer there. There are still criticisms mixed throughout but apparently they do not warrant their own section any longer. They are diluted here and there throughout the article and given equal footing with much claimed proof and evidence of conspiracy. It's the equivalent of the Intelligent Design argument wanting equal footing in schools with Creationism. "Teach the Conflict!" say some...)

The overall effect is a flattening of information distribution, and not a "democratic" one as many might oddly wish for, but one in which there is little opportunity for information to be regarded against other information, mainly because these distribution conduits will be further apart, more "personal," and will rarely touch. Just watch people argue with articles on Facebook. It will be like that, but even worse.

Intelligence is imperialistic, not democratic. It mainly seeks proof of its own assertions and not just popular, or even individual, acceptance.

There is little difference between having your information tailored to suit your wishes and having your information provided to you from a single distribution point. The effect is similar, if not the same, though it is perhaps even more insidious, resulting in a very seductive ignorance. Without a hierarchy to resist, or to compare, then information becomes increasingly self-produced and self-convincing. It will become a personalized service provided for consumption, nothing more. The practice of open discourse, for the purpose of public debate and persuasion, will be lost, perhaps is lost.

And so goes the lessons of Western culture. Some say "good riddance," perhaps without realizing that same culture privileged them with that idea, also. The open ability to question is a relatively new liberty. Some do not care much for it. That is becoming clear.

Others would say that this is already happening and has been for some time. Post-modernism tells us, or attempts to, that things mean neither what we intended nor believe them to, they mean other things, and always have. Why trust the origin of the thought, or its result. Nothing means anything, or rather, everything means much more than we could ever possibly know. Somehow the reader of great literature becomes more important than the work itself. This partially explains the success of talk-shows. Why read Tolstoy when people admit to getting pregnant in unexpected ways? Isn't that the same, or better?

Many employ this new belief in their daily social lives: I don't know lots of things that matter, but I know other things....

Soon enough, we will all be our own Cardinals and Popes; or worse, roaming Nostradami.

.

Amber Alert!

(The scene of the crime)

I was able to lie in bed this morning and watch tv off of my phone. Rachel attends some pre-dawn exercise camp, she leaves in the darkness to go sweat with strangers and friends. I only wish the coffee machine was completely automatic. Meaning: no assistance from me whatsoever. It's the only thing that got me out of bed. Necessity is the mother of mornings.

Last night, after having been asleep for a couple of hours... with my phone on "silent"... suddenly, an alarm was going off in the room, a loud and obnoxious warning, a digital screeching. I grabbed at my phone and looked, it was some sort of alert I had never seen before, an Amber Alert. I stared at it, still in a daze. I thought I recognized the name of the abducted child, Hannah, a 16 year old girl. 

I started to worry. The message had come from Sonoma. The woman who watches Rhys, her teenage daughter's name is Hannah. 

The abductor was a 40 year old white male (the worst imaginable, we know that). 

This seemed bad, terrible in fact. After waking up for a couple minutes I realized that the news didn't quite gel. I did a search, trying to find the street that she was abducted from. All of my searches turned up results south of San Diego. It turned out it was a city, not a street, a city named Boulevard. This didn't make any sense. I searched the girl's full name. 

Yep. That was it. 

A girl and her little brother had been abducted 600 miles away, near the border of Mexico. So, the state, and then my county, Sonoma, sent out an emergency Amber Alert message that ignited phones everywhere across the state at 11pm. 

It's a new feature in my phone, for my presumed convenience. There is a section in the new iPhone operating system called "Government Alerts." 

That they can cause my phone to explode in warning at their whim is distressing enough - a small reminder of their presence, power (and occasional impotence) in the face of crime, and misuse of same. But it was that these nitwits decided to alert people in the middle of the night, against their will, in a state-wide way, 600 miles away from an abduction, even further.... (I've since turned the feature off)

Be on the lookout for a blue car, with people in it.

There are 10 counties in a row separating us and them. Those are just the ones directly between, there are many more to the east. I would be amazed if Los Angeles County sent out the same alert. They're 500 miles closer, of course. 

The state stretches northwards 840 miles from the abduction. 

Yep. I've just checked, it was a state-wide alert. I'd be amazed if they didn't warn Arizona and Nevada also.

I sat on the roof most of night, just in case they drove down our little street. I wanted to be prepared. What's the point of owning several guns if you can't sit on your roof occasionally, hoping to be heroic.

(Addendum: I've just found out that the alert was sent out at 6:45 pm. It took just over 4 hours to reach Sonoma, somehow)

.

All, and none

('Kolorit Red' detail, by Katrin Korfmann) 

Last night I dreamed. There was a person there in the elastic vision trying to convince me that the world's troubles come from that which is printed. He kept tracing "evil" back to "paper."

No matter the subject, "See... paper?"

Over and over.

It was strange. I asked the imaginary character what evil had been created exclusively by the printed word, and had there been any evils that had been vanquished through the use of it.

"All, and none," he said.


That would have been my response also. Smart ass, etc.
 

.

... an individual lust for strangeness

(A message from the non-virtual realm)

That's all I needed, a day off. 

I meant to write about my day, the one on Friday. I drove into SF, there was a company picnic in Golden Gate Park. I got a speeding ticket on the way in. It will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is the most that can be said about it. I did nothing to make the event memorable, nor did the cop. 

It ruined my day.

When I got to the picnic I stepped in dog shit. I walked around for about two hours and then finally decided to go home early, to beat the Friday traffic that would be trying to get out of the city early. About halfway home I opted to stop at the Apple store that I used to work at and take a piss, not actually "in the store" but near it. 

For whatever reason traffic was backed up trying to get into the mall. I had planned on going straight past the usual turn lane. The straight lanes were empty while the turning lanes were backed up by hundreds of cars. Just as I was pulling up to the light it changed. I had enough easy momentum going so that I just casually and safely pulled ahead of all of the stopped cars and made the left turn into the parking lot. I found a spot, got out of my car, went into the mall, took a piss, then stopped by Apple to "say hi."

When I left there was the note on my car. Well, I didn't notice it at first but I saw it as I was up on the interstate. I turned the wipers on and grabbed it as it came towards me. I laughed and smiled to myself for about 10 minutes. What luck.

"Hope your shitwagon gets creamed next time you fat Douchebag."

At the company picnic I realized something: working from home alienates me from the others. Well, that and other things, like my personality. I'm not part of any clique there. They all stood in circles chatting with one another, circles that were loosely defined by the various departments, sometimes not so loosely. It would have been awkward to try to work into any of them so I just drifted from place to place, smelling faintly of dog shit, drinking beer with a speeding ticket in my pocket.

I know not to drink too much at company events. That is how I would end up breaking into a circle, to announce something nonsensical. Sometimes I like to pick an odd phrase and challenge myself to use it casually in conversation, to work it in somehow. I'm best at this game when I've had more than four beers. I'm a ninja at twelve. Phrases like "pseudoeuphemism," then follow it up three sentences later with "pseudoephedrine." It's a challenge.

It seems to me that all of the people that excel in this world are those that I used to smirk towards at afterparties and think to myself, "They're trying way too hard." All of those people seem to rule the world now. It is the triumph of geek chic. They talk endlessly about video games, using exclusive social references, mapping out non-existent nerd landscapes, out "sourcing" one another. 

But they seem relatively happy. That's what always gets me. They've found some thing that brings them happiness, some thing that I am embarrassingly ignorant of (to them). They might as well be discussing the calligraphy of Mandarin characters. I just stand there smiling at them like I was born with a Texas death sentence IQ. The conversation switches to the formation of Cantonese characters, imperceptible to me. 

These are the cool kids in the new world. There is nothing weird about them, except the obvious. They never admit to any individual lust for strangeness. It is all shared, an agreed-upon and codified set of accepted and supposed eccentricities. 

They did not spend decades battering their consciousness with mind melting drugs and they don't get it when I say things like, "There are a small handful of reasons that I don't smoke crack..."

If that doesn't wow them then I might follow up with, "... public masturbation being one of them."

Etc.

Don't let my observations fool you: these people are bright. Some of them are very smart and they have no problem proving it for you just as you begin to think that you can speak their language. It can be aggressive, though never hostile. They carefully guard their newfound status. To live your life as a geek and then to suddenly be rewarded for it, in a field that is rapidly expanding... that is really something. 

All others are outsiders now, and they (sort of) wish to keep it that way. Few are capable of cruelty, except among those that have been tormented. 

I am at an age where I could pretend to have been into video games all along, but what would the point of that be. I know better than to act that way, I hope. Just as I would easily sniff out anybody that tried to feign authenticity within the world of electronic music. They would most certainly detect a phony bumbling into cyber-space. 

I mean.... I thought "FTW!" meant Fuck The World! a few weeks ago.

For The Loss....

They would laser-blast me into oblivion if I ever tried to fake it, doubling up on their vitality points in the process, racking up nonexistent gold pieces. Or, whatever it is that they win when annihilating others in the imagination.

Set your optical amplifiers on stun... there are some trolls to torture. 

I do wonder how much money some of them make. I'm trying to upgrade my lasers, for enhanced real-time strategy performance.

.

I say goodbye

(I say goodbye, you say whatever you want...)

I am exhausted, from all things. I have nothing to write about. Everybody needs a day off, now and then. 

Once you take one you tend to want another. Days off are like sex, in that way. They somehow excite and relax, both the imagination and the body.

Here is a post worth reading... if the sale of dirty underwear and what makes a lover great interests you at all.

.

Blurred Mornings

(Jim and friend)

Reading books makes me so, so sad.

Ok, come on, Sean. You can do this.... Just think of a subject.

What are my thoughts on pornography. I am intermittently "Pro."

What are some commonly misused words: redundant, peruse, bemused.

How do you spell Encyclopedia. Irregardless doesn't trigger my spell-check. How can that be?

Okay, the baby boy is waking up. I hear his morning sounds, soon-to-be wails.

Today, I go into the city. I'm tempted to go in drag, just to freak people's minds. Though I worry that I've gotten too fat. None of my dresses fit any more and the shoes are simply murder. It's the ice cream that does it. I know that now. I just get so sad sometimes, when reading books. The ice cream is so sweet, creamy, consoling.

Why can't I think of something to write about. How about the enduring story of Penelope Penispump?

Or, have I already told that one? 

.

The Fall of Man, Bananas

(Adam and LGBT Eve)

Jesus has taken the pain from my heart. He touched me. 

The word touched looks suspiciously like douched. 

I should have never mentioned it here, the pain. Well, I should have never mentioned it so cryptically. People do not want someone who has recently become a father to be ill, in any way. It is important that Dad is healthy, and if possible, happy. It's almost as important as Mom's health. For the most part I am happy, and healthy, and sometimes I'm almost Mom.

Perhaps I don't say this often enough to all of you: I love you.

Now, back to Jesus... He defeated death. Have you heard? He went into Hades and conquered sin, the devil, and death, all for us, even though we didn't ask him to. We needed him to but we didn't know that yet. We were born sinners and he had to do something about that. Anybody that's ever held a newborn in their hands can feel the evil emanating there from Adam's original sin. They are hot to the touch, babies. Their heads are soft. It's science.

When I finally die there will be a group of my friends who might very well think, "Well, he's going to have to face God now. He won't think he's so funny any more when he stands naked before The Lord..."

Why naked? Does he not understand the effects of tasting from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

Speaking of soft heads, one of Christ's soldiers tried to explain away evolution the other day, stating (quite incorrectly) that Darwin had a deathbed conversion and disavowed his own theories, as if that somehow means anything at all, even if it were true.

The claim, like all of Christianity, is nonsense.

This astute fellow also insisted that bananas are incontrovertible "proof" of intelligent design. I mean, holy crap... are they running out of ideas, or what? 

Fucking bananas for Jesus. 

Oh shit. This isn't what I want to write about. I hope that no pain ever becomes so great that I start talking like that, or worse, thinking like that. I've been practicing my deathbed conversion. I want to get it right when the Lord comes to take me, to lift me into the clouds when I finally toss off this mortal coil.

That's a fair bit of tossing off.

I return to the gym today, after several days absent. Rachel and I have been trying to divide the mornings up so that she can workout also, but I have been lazy. I can not write while trying to watch the boy and do not feel like rushing once she gets home, and can hardly write with she and the boy in the house (It feels awkward to write "she and the boy" it seems as if it should be "her and the boy" but that would be wrong, right?). 

I'm really going to lick this grammar thing, Pa.

Wah, wah, wah.... 

.

"We aren't particularly talented, we try harder!"

(photo by Bob Gruen)

The doctor says that I'm going to survive, but it's going to require some time to do so. He says, "It's gonna be close," meaning recovery and death are just about tied at this point. It's neck and neck, you could say. He gave me some mild explosives which are designed to assist in the process. He believes my condition to be somehow related to angina pectoris, a sort of southern angina, an anti-ischemia of sorts. He gave me pamphlets to better understand my cursed affliction. I found them to be confusing and misleading and do not see how they apply to me. There is a drawing of a vagina in one of them, which looked pretty.

I thought it better to use my own explanation here, for the purpose of clarity.

When my old rocker friends are talking about the worst singers in rock history they all cite Bob Dylan, Neil Young (though quite wrongfully), Mick Jagger (also wrongfully... try doing what he does), Tom Petty, Lou Reed, et al. Nobody ever mentions Joe Strummer. I love him, but he was just terrible. He was capable of almost hitting 4 notes, that's it. On such a thin pedestal does a tremendous legend rest.

I played some of my favorite obscure Clash songs for Rachel last night, the hidden gems on Sandanista! and elsewhere... She was dazzled and awed, I think. It was too much for her, she went to bed. Overpowered By Funk, I guess...  Rebel Waltz, Kingston Advice, One More Time, Bankrobber, and others.

My daddy was a bankrobber

But he never hurt nobody, 

He just loved to live that way

And he loved to steal your money

- Joe Strummer and Mick Jones

(Title quote presumably by Joe Strummer, so says the internet)

.

Ernie's Tin Bar

(Ernie's Tin Bar)

Yesterday, Rachel and I both called out from work. The time for it had come. We went other places and did nothing, spending enormous sums of money, for us. We did things that she and I do not regularly do. Never, in fact. We stopped at Ernie's Tin Bar on the drive home. It was a much needed day, having fun together, spending money as if we didn't care, as if it was ours already.

We bought a case of assorted wines, drinking one of the bottles last night with dinner. Well, I did. We barbecued chicken and steak on the grille. It was a pleasantry. 

Today, I go to the doctor. I have been in enormous, prohibitive pain. There will likely need to be an operation, if not an unpleasant procedure of some sort. Pain reduces all other aspects of life to it alone. All relief from it thus far has been very temporary, and incomplete. I'm hoping the doctor finds a more permanent escape from it.

I'm not sure what happened but beginning somewhere in my early 40's my body just started breaking down. The 20 years of life that preceded it, I guess. I was careless. Not any more.

Nature has a way of catching up with escapees. 

.

"... off of"

I use prepositions often, poorly, and when not needed. A close, dear friend had the great love for me to point this out. So, now I have that to contend with as well. It is a very bad habit, I'm told.

Through writing this site I had almost exhausted my self-consciousness. My mind had become like an empty white room. The place where actors will often chat with god. Now, I have tapped a whole new reservoir of shame. My anxieties have birthed a new center. It's like drowning in a hidden virgin spring, but only in a dream. How apropos that it involves a set of relational words, ones often denoting time and space.

We went to a baseball game last weekend and almost all of the pictures that I took are over-exposed. I was focused more on beer, I guess. I had forgotten and somehow left the ISO on "Auto." Because I was spot metering it tended to blow everything in the background out. I struggled with it all day but never figured out what the problem was.

So, there's that also. I am able to disappoint even when not writing or speaking.

Normally I wouldn't care, or, wouldn't care quite as much. But ever since I wrote about choosing to be a woman I think I've been suffering some pre-menstrual curse. Now, I have the pain of childbirth to consider and anticipate. If the Old Testament teaches us anything it is that the origins of the cosmos and mankind were a series of similar mistakes and subsequent hardships.

... once we had been cast out (of) the Olive Garden.

.

You Must Remember This

Strange things arise from being accused of untrustworthiness. The impulse to suddenly disprove is doomed to failure. Trust can not be proved in an instant, it is maintained over time. It is an essence, not a moment; or at least not dependent upon a single moment. 

Few things will provoke resentment more than the accusation. It is similar to the negative side of sexual jealousy, but without the erotic fascination affixed to it. It is just a painful confusion from which there is no simple escape. You are forced to examine minutiae, looking for evidence to refute. The mind scrambles. You find yourself arguing with and for insignificant details, offering explanations to acts and incidents that require none. 

It is a quite devious interpersonal tactic. The accusation, or even the suggestion, forces the accused into a defensive space from which they are then expected to prove their worthiness, without ever having prepared. The people who prepare to prove their trustworthiness are those that generally do not deserve it. What sort of person contemplates such a thing? Perhaps only the schemers. So, once the indictment has been made the mind begins to suddenly construct. It is easily detected by all and tends to support the accusation.

Innocent people don't act that way, nor should they.

You find yourself searching the behavioral files and sounding like a politician accused of a heresy, or worse. 

The worst form of this accusation is when it is not openly made, it is only suggested, through behavior and alternate choices. It leaves no adequate way to respond. Any reaction appears self-consciously prepared. No loved person should be expected to act with emotional insistence, but that is the result. It is insidious, corrosive. 

That's my wisdom for the day: be wary of those that would make you feel less than deserving. 

The minute that you settle for less than you deserve then you'll get even less than you settled for. 

.

But, what if I'm not glamorous?

(Edouard Boubat)

There is nothing left. Evaporation took it all. Everything vanished.

I have been sitting here, staring at the screen for an hour. Well, not just staring. I was throwing away old, useless files. House cleaning. My drive is nearly full. It's like much else in my life: a collection of mostly useless things crowding a small handful that matter to me. Everybody's life becomes a confused collection to all others. There is no way to explain most of it. I feel like a bag-lady, pushing along an enormous shopping cart, useless articles tied and swinging from the sides; no forward visibility, a wonky wheel, the drive struggles. I risk losing it all but refuse to sort through it, to purge.

That's the old me, though. Not the woman in the picture, but the habits I describe.


A friend asked me if I had "caught much flack" from yesterday's post.

Nobody bothers the bag-lady.

When I said that I would speak as a woman, well, I never said which one.

.

... the scent as a woman

(Me)

Sin can not be both optional and unavoidable.

That is the extent of my thoughts on Christianity this morning. It is utter nonsense.

Speaking of options... (I have nothing to write about this morning, so I'll respond to the writing of others) Selavy writes about Weiner's sexting this morning, and he makes a salient point. Why the fuck should we judge Weiner, or Abedin? I mean, sure... Weiner invited us to examine his personal life at several points in the past, citing his marriage to Abedin and their having a child as good reasons to vote for him, that his day "starts here every morning" (with a shot of them in their home together, making nice). 

But now, his personal life is none of our business, we're reminded. We decide if we are going to "forgive" politicians, as if they have wronged us.

I do find it hilarious that people act as if they were obligated to be in the public eye, whether as celebrities or politicians, or both, whether notorious or infamous, or either. This life decision they made was unavoidable, not optional, you see. They are servants in and of the public eye. But the Christian mind, attuned to such constant nonsense, never even notices. Americans accept redemption and the plea for forgiveness, and why not? I do too, truly, though for very different reasons. I simply don't want the entertainment to cease, and don't believe they've done anything wrong. Not to me, anyway.

There are, of course, the vast assumptions of social-media, questioning her impulses to stay with her husband, and child. Because other people's divorces are particularly easy when witnessed from a distance. Some claim naked ambition, as if that's a sin on its own. It is rewarded and applauded by nearly all, until it is revealed. The true sin and shame of ambition is having any and getting caught with it. It is esteemed in most as a private value, like intellect. It is deeply suspect when detected in others. Though everybody modestly surmises they possess private reservoirs of the stuff. Deep unspoiled springs that are yet unknown and unfound, invisible to the eye and ear and mind of others. Undetectable to all.

... and this might very well be true. How would we ever know? There is as much evidence for it as against. None.

Any comment upon Abedin, made by a man, is at once presumptuous and dismissible. A man could never understand staying with a partner who had cheated, who had violated the sanctity of their marriage, perhaps even befouled their home, had brought that filth into their own bedroom on a phone, maybe even sexting from home, with that person. 

A man could never fathom such a thing and has no right to comment. 

It is amazing what we are told, and what we choose to believe. 

Once, long ago, I took a class on "Women in Film." The teacher made a point of first showing that there are not strict lines defining what is a woman and what is a man, and gave many examples to prove this, scientific studies were cited. Gender is as much a social approximation as anything else and we have the right to choose. It is no sin, not any more, not in these enlightened times. That was the accepted and agreed upon claim.

So, anytime after that in which I angered a clutch of feminists in the class I would simply claim that I was speaking "as a woman," and have every right to do so. Who are they to tell me that I'm not a woman. So, I would make outrageous claims about my celestial powers and intuition regarding the films we were watching. One of my favorite things to say was, "Of course I would never quite understand the way that you do, I'm just a woman trapped in a man's mind."

I was a hit, a smash success. You could see my thoughts exploding in their eyes. That moment of clarity, etc.

At the end of the class I decided to speak as a man, as is my choice. I asked why the worst films we saw were made by women while the best ones were made by men, about women. I was partially kidding (and it was only partially true), but felt justified enough in saying it. I had abandoned intuition for the time being.

It was an honest question, and I did not shy from it. We are taught to ask honest questions, even when they are painful. 

Their love for my wisdom was manifest. 

So, that's my lesson today... Always change genders when saying something you believe. Speak as a man, not for them. I've always wondered why the people who desired same sex marriages allowed the state to tell them what gender they are. There's a legal fight to be had there, as there is no clear consensus on where that dividing line is. What court has the power to tell you what you are, and how easily fought would such a thing be. Just claim you are something other than what they have told you that you are.

Why not?

Well, Thank God it's not Thursday.... TGINT!!!!

.

Our Lady of the Flowers

(Jean Genet)

I finished reading Genet's first book last night, had planned on saying much about it this morning, but my mind is blank. I slept too much. This is often the case when I take a Xanax. It is why I take Xanax. They do not recommend it as a sleep aid, at all. One has a more difficult time reaching the important stages, "deep" and R.E.M. But if sleep-anxiety is the reason that you can't... well, it does help to reduce that, famously so.

Like many great books it does not adhere strictly to conventions. Or rather, it defies enough of them to remain intelligible, while showing that the author knows how to obey a custom and when to break from it. 

He employs a strange and powerful use of metaphor. They seem to obey a strict inner need. It is as if the gravitational pull of any comparison must immediately submit to the force of the one who created it. There are these strange and wonderful transformations that float past. Angels haunt the work. Traditional values are upended, and that is to say nothing of the explicit prostitution and homosexuality; shocking subject matter for the time. 1942.

I almost couldn't read the book. Sartre's introduction had scared me away. It was dense and nearly incomprehensible, like so much of his writing. I went back and read the introduction again when I was 2/3rds of the way through and then it made perfect sense, every word of it. That is what I mean, I guess. The book is so singular that it is difficult to describe or address. This flimsy assessment here is presumptuous and terrifically incomplete, at best. The book can be felt and understood, even while it remains foreign, yet never impersonal. 

One nearly forgets that they are reading a "narrative" until the last 50 pages or so. Something very peculiar and magical happens - all the time spent in vague and meandering expository, flights of imagination... suddenly, the story stands up and goes to trial. As if several marionettes have unexpectedly had their strings lifted, and the drama begins to unfold even as it is unravelling, disappearing, even decomposing. He puts the characters in place somehow behind your back. 

It was one of the least expected and effective changes that I've ever encountered in any telling of events, imaginary or otherwise. I couldn't believe my eyes, or mind, the thing that was happening on the pages in front of me. I couldn't wait to read the book again, even before I was finished with it.

I read pages aloud to Rachel, following her around the house.

I see that his influence was massive, particularly among the writers that I read when I was younger: Artaud, Brecht, Bukowski, the beatniks. More recently, Salter.

I wish now that I would have read Genet instead of wasting so much of my time with Henry Miller. If "Tropic of Cancer" was truly "the cause" for what we now take for granted, free speech in literature, then Genet's book could perhaps be credited for something far more important: free thought. There is an existential liberty within the work that seems nearly perfect, complete, heroic even. Beautiful, that it is offered so freely.

A small coincidence: that it was written the same year as Camus' "The Stranger" though written entirely from within a prison cell, one that Camus only describes and places his character in.

A guard found the manuscript in Genet's cell and set it on fire in front of him, reducing it to cinders. He had written it on stolen scraps of brown paper bag. It is difficult to even imagine what this caused within Genet.

Little matter, he just wrote it again.

I had hoped to say more but have run out of time. I spent the morning playing a newly borrowed accordion, for the boy. He was enthralled by it. Every time I tried to put it down he would speak the word and make the hand motion for "more."  

If I ignored him then he would command in clear and insistent terms, "I said, play it again, Monkey-Boy..." 

So, a little dance I would do, pirouetting from gypsy key to gypsy key, collecting coins as we went.

.