Familia

(Dad and Rhys, February 2012)

I don't know what I've done. I can't use Google Chrome with Google Blogger any more. That must have been me, right? I think it might be only from this computer. I don't know. Certainly they would not have broken such a fine product, for two days now? That is not how the world works. I'm using Safari again. 

Well, yesterday proves it. Even when given the time to write something I am too tired. I just hitch up an old subject to the mule and drag it along for a few. Shameful, and shameless.

A few lines came back to me later in the day yesterday and I giggled at the false equivalencies and other fallacious logic. But, tough times call for tough measures, and we're on the verge of very tough times. 

I try not to write much about what I do for a living but it is nearly all that is on my mind lately. I have begun taking online courses in javascript. I have become hungry to learn again.

No, nobody wants to hear about work. 

Hold on, I'll get some coffee and see if there are any reptiles left lurking in the darkness.

Politics, no. Music, no. Art, no. Literature, no.

Ah, I did chat with my brother for some time yesterday. It was quite an experience, listening. We don't speak often, when we do, not for very long. We talked for almost an hour as I drove home from work. It was oddly refreshing. I have tried to become more aware of others, more sensitive. I have been too wrapped up in myself, which makes me less capable of caring. It is an easy trap to fall into, the self, in tough times. 

We are not the closest of brothers, we never have been. He told me things that fascinated me about his life. Things I had only partly guessed at. We did not speak much of childhood but the years after, the distant years. I suppose I am not at liberty to relay his experiences but it was somehow comforting to hear that he has, after many years, come to terms with himself. Self is the struggle for many.... others always want to help.  They need to.

He described to me a near complete retreat from others.

There was an unfair amount of one-way violence between my brother and myself, occurring in that order, when we were kids. I am still angry, sometimes, when I think too much about it. It was not abuse, I do not believe, though others have made me question that idea when I take the time to describe it in detail. But that is how others' experiences often seem; people are quick to judge, particularly when it comes to childhood experience. Nothing is too good, nothing is good enough. My childhood was not all bad. It seemed normal to me and I thought that all younger brothers suffered likewise, or much worse. I knew of some. I even encouraged it, at times, the fighting. But, it fucked me up. I can see it in the eyes of others now. 

Nobody wants to be from a dysfunctional family. Different people handle it in different ways. Families fuck you up, if you're not careful, and sometimes even more so when you are. I was a runaway, sort of. I just stopped caring, sort of. Now I wonder what was so terrible that I had to get away, sort of. It seems to have evaporated, even the need to escape. I adopted other families, and also others wandering like me in the intellibeam darkness. I embraced a place that believed itself to be a family, and felt healed there. In ways I was, in ways they were. Now, I look back at those years spent night-clubbing, through the fresh eyes of fatherhood, and I question what so many were doing there for so long also. It was not only the music that we were there for, though certainly that must have been a part of it.

Though no part can complete the whole. 

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Two Tickets to Paradise

Damn it. I fucked up something in Google Chrome. It won't let me use this site any more. Too much porn, possibly. This site has always been a thinly veiled diversion from my real interests. It is a way of me hiding from the NSA. It is called a subterfuge. 

Well, I'm up early enough today to write a little bit, I hope. 

George Zimmerman just can't seem to get a lucky break. 

I have an online friend who is a outspoken advocate of gun rights and he insisted the entire time upon George Zimmerman's innocence. It seemed far too implausible to him that GZ would call the police and then shoot the kid, if that had been his intention. 

I had a slightly different take on it. I thought that he seemed like the kind of guy who had thought all of this sort of thing out a few times in advance of the shooting and he very well might have done just that; called the police and then stalked the kid into a confrontation in which he would then seem justified in killing him.

You see, people who buy and own and carry guns regularly engage in shooting fantasies. Not all of them, I'm sure. It's just that I've never met one who didn't, and quite willingly. They will trot out endless scenarios that they have crafted - or been helped with through collective fantasy - in which they can discharge a firearm into the belly of a bad guy. They also have reasonably rigid ideas about populations of good and bad guys, specific neighborhoods, etc.

It's not that they're wrong, of course, but rather that they seem hyper-focused on their rightness, their justifiability.

Guns have a highly imaginative component to them. They are not "just tools" like a rake or a wrench, as has been suggested. They are, and have been, blasted into the American psyche in many ways, across many ranges. There is no getting rid of them and anybody who suggests such a thing is a fool, or worse. Guns seem to ignite something within certain people. At once they give the dreamer, the holder, a sense of power and justice, all in a personally owned, government sanctioned, handheld device that they (hopefully) control in the face of sudden danger. 

Conceal, control, cap, cap. 

Simple and elegant, really.

Try telling this to any of them. They will often launch into a scenario in which your wife and children are being raped by bad guys and wouldn't you want to own a gun then? It really is that easy to get them to fantasize about the most horrific scenarios. Just talk to them. They will lapse into fantastic imaginary anecdote and speculation, though when you point out to them that that is an important component in gun deaths also - the pre-imagining of usage - they will dismiss you as "liberal."

All the while ignoring the elephant gun.

It's a similar idea to amassing an army that never goes to war. It is a waste of money and misses the point, for many. A military is meant to be militancy in action. An unused gun gives an imaginative power to its owner but robs them of an actual power. Time prepares them to change all of that. They wish to convert the potential to the kinetic. So, they drive their cars and police the streets and target others. The bad guys. They will be sitting at a traffic light and a sudden noise from the car full of youths next to them will trigger an enactment reverie, their minds will spring into bolt-action. They practice reaching for their safely concealed gun over and over in their minds. They discuss during coffee the how and when and where and what of these incidences. I have heard them and engaged them often on this level.

I'm not saying that there is anything necessarily wrong with people who go have little paint-ball battles. I'm only saying that certain presumptions can be made concerning the nature of one's fancies, and the willingness to enact and engage in those fancies. When you are buying special clothes and accessories to pretend to shoot strangers in the woods then something inevitably must be thought about such a thing. The overdevelopment of this in a child would cause concern for some, pride in others.

For many of these people there really is nothing wrong in any of this. We live in a violent world and they do have the right to protect themselves, as well they should. They likewise have the right to practice protecting themselves. Even safety becomes part of the fantasy. For others, that would be like watching a porn where the guy is wearing a rubber, no fun. The saner among these people are able to stop themselves from enjoying these little whimsical shootouts too much. They recognize the danger of such mental masturbation and they will shift from a violent source of pleasure to a sexual one, a small leap when held so closely, and together.

But there are others, those that do not imagine caution in usage. They replay, over and over again, their favorite justice theatrics. They allow themselves many imaginary kills. All they lack is the orgasmic moment when that desire becomes a squeeze, a flash, and a deafening burst.

It is my opinion that GZ is one of these. Mildly obsessed with self, always prepared to prove, etc.

Some will read these words today and insist that what I am saying is that I only want criminals to have guns. Or, that I want the Constitution to be set ablaze. Or, that I want children to be raped while attending public schools, and as often as possible.

It saddens me that I feel that I have to say this, but: nobody wants any of those things. Well, there are some that might wish to do away with the C. Those that confuse capitalism with democracy, thinking them the same concept, unable to exist without one another.

Wanting greater regulations on guns, and checks on gun owners, does not equate to destroying democracy. If guns are what is keeping America safe from governmental tyranny then why are we not safe from governmental tyranny? 

I was chatting with Selavy the other day, we were discussing the NSA. There is so much more information coming out now about how they have compromised the safety and security of all electronic communications, and our governments have made it illegal to speak of their illegal activities.

He responded, "... it is hopeless to even think about anything like anonymity and security. But as always, the thing to do is live in the open, do only what you believe in, and prepare to be raped and beaten by anybody who disagrees with your life code. And they will do it, too, because there are not so many smart people as one would hope. But there are plenty of sick, twisted, and mean."

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Satellite Serenade

Okay. I'll have as much to say today about life as I have in the last few days: little.

Somehow, the time has disappeared. It ran off in a wild affair with the money, they even took the credit. They have been seen here and there, doing a lot of nightclubbing, we're told. The bills of the past keep rolling in.

I have begun reading Bangkok Days by Lawrence Osborne, The Insult by Rupert Thomson next. I spent most of the day reading yesterday, finishing Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, almost finishing The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. It is all I want to do some days: read, lots. 

Everything goes wrong in books. The good ones, anyway. It is somehow restful, the damaged beauty of it.

Well, except for Fromm. He is very serious about Love. I read this book years ago in a series with a few others like it. I was more inclined to give a writer the benefit of the doubt then. I see that now. Perhaps my innocence is also off having a ménage a trois with the chrono-cash duo. They're all doing a lot of ecstasy, lounging about all day.

It won't last of course, the perpetual leisure. What's left of the innocence will find its way back, battered and bruised, telling proud but crazed tales; humbled though not disgraced. We will likely never see nor hear from the others again.

It is the way of memory, it saves only what it can.

10:25

(Selavy)

Some old pics that got sent through again. NYC, many years ago. I must have been in my mid-thirties, Rachel in her late twenties.

Next month I'll be 540 months old. Anybody can live another year, which is often just excessive and boastful.

I only need to make it to October. The 25th of every month I have a small party for myself. Twice every day at 10:25, also. Oh Lord, just carry me into one more season and I promise I'll stop counting.

Picasso and I, and the clock's tock-ticking.

(Selavy)

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SF via Oakland

I went into SF to work yesterday, then stayed for the night. Nothing good ever comes from that. We somehow ended up in Oakland, at one point. That also is a mystery. It had something to do with a bar, I remember that. My head is filled with fuzzy pain and a sausage sandwich from McDonald's actually tasted pretty good this morning on the drive home. That is always a bad sign.

Today is an unwritten country song.

Oakland really is a much nicer city than its reputation would have you believe. The part that we were in, anyway. The pictures that I took suggest that we were there shortly before sundown and then for some time after. I went back to my friend's house early and fell asleep, only to be awoken in the middle of the night with some crazed screaming coming from one of my friends. A bit of self induced derangement. That is what our investigation of the matter uncovered. 

These are pictures that made their way into my phone.

I call this one Oakland oblique:

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Little R.M.C.

Everybody says it: They grow up so fast.

They really don't, though. I've been staring at him the entire time and can't detect any growth at all. Only through pictures is it detectable. That, and when people haven't seen him in a while and they exclaim, Oh my goodness... don't they just grow up so fast....

Eighteen years before I can even legally ask him to move out; sixteen remaining, more or less. I would not call that growing up fast, at all. 

A friend reminded me this morning that he doesn't even start liking me until around the age of 2 and begins hating me around the age of 14, so there is a 12 year window where I can really try to enjoy it.

Rhys will be 20 months old tomorrow. Soon we will have to refer to his age in halves and quarters rather than months, then eventually just in full years.

Oh, where did all the little months go...

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Oh moon, what are you sinking about...?

(moonset)

Writing isn't as much fun in the morning since my buddy Selavy quit. I know it shouldn't matter. But there was something to read before I got started, sometimes a launching point. Now I just stare dumbly at NASA's apod website and hope for the best, wait for the coffee, take the garbage cans down to the street slowly.

Yesterday I couldn't remember the correct address of my old apartment in NYC. I had to look it up. I was off by two digits. It's a strange feeling, that. To recognize the slipping into forgetfulness, the sense that a fog is settling in at noon, or just after, before a nap. I have begun to argue less about facts, to embrace essences instead. I'll be praying to Jesus in no time. He'll be happier to have me back than if I had just pestered him with loving prayer this whole time. That is what he taught us: god loves a wanderer returned - as long as I make it home before apocalypse.

Ok, none of that.

I've had a rough emotional time in the last few days. Lack of sleep helps nothing, but neither does arguing with your mother-in-law. There is no victory, only a lingering sense of mutual loss.

I don't know why I don't just do what I tell myself I'm going to do: stay in my room and read. My participation is not required. Absence would be preferable to conflict. It provides less and that is precisely what should be emphasized.

Ok, none of that. 

I just deleted a screed, that last sentence was its launching point. It was going nowhere, or rather it was drifting somewhere too suddenly.

"Unconditional Love" does not mean that no condition can possibly satisfy it, but instead means the opposite. 

That sounds nice.

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The Levant

(Click for directions)

The pain has returned. I had slowed on doing precisely as the doctor told me. The malady struck back, quite specifically.

I have a conservative-minded friend that claims that conservatives are not racists, and that he resents the constant accusations. Can that be true? I found this interesting study, for those who care to read more about the subject. Now, that study was done in 1996, things surely must have changed some since then, for the better. Those were practically the dark ages with ol' Clinton in the White House. 

We are reminded often that blacks have only themselves to blame for the position that they're currently in: I mean, shit... the tables have turned so much now that it actually favors them, when a talented white guy can't even get a job any more. It's just not right. We've put all of that organizational hatred behind us, as a people. 

Well, we had, until Barack decided to speak out on a few matters racial. Those old hostile feelings sure did bubble back up quickly, for some. It was almost as if we had forgotten that angry whites are the ones who have suffered the most. 

I am always amused when I hear a middle-class white man pull the race-victim card. It's really something. I have seen many claim online that Barack is the most divisive president we've ever had because he had the temerity to speak about his experiences as a black man growing up in America. There were even some that began to question his blackness, again. Because who more to trust on matters of racial pedigree than dissatisfied whites, those who like to remind everyone that the president "works for them"... 

They sure like to get their money's worth.

Some have asked for my opinions on Syria. Well, here goes... Wouldn't Ron Paul have made a better president? I mean, except for how Obama has healed the nation's racial issues. 

It has reached a point in which we will use any flimsy excuse whatsoever to invade another nation, particularly if they are in any way hostile to our foreign policy. 

I mean, sure, who could possibly question the deeply humanitarian nature of our mission. Those facts are well established. We need another Colin Powell, someone willing to go in front of the U.N. and argue this case visually. Seems like John McCain is ponying up to the task. Who hasn't already thrown him under the bus? 

Putin has said that Russia could support a strike on Syria, with proof that Assad used chemical warfare against his own people. He cautiously has reminded that an attack on a sovereign nation without U.N. backing would violate international law. These are Reagan times, not Carter.

Remember, Dick Cheney did warn us that if we vote a democrat into the White House that the terrorists would strike again. How self-satisfied he must feel now, though he must be slightly disappointed about the city that was attacked. He's waited so long... on somebody else's used ticker. It must confuse and anger the right a little bit to have a democrat preparing to bash up other countries and rattling the national sabers. Black is one thing, democrat another. Though who can even really buy the left-right dichotomy on foreign policy issues any more. 

Let the lamp affix its beam...

Back to Syria: Does anybody believe that our interest there is anything other than self-motivated? We're told that to not invade Syria would send the wrong message to Iran, in terms of their nuclear program. So, we're back to the good old days of deterrence invasion. If we don't stop Syria then Iranian theocracy could spread through all of the middle east, on the tip of a warhead. Sound familiar?

Interesting that we're attacking Syria to stop Iran. With Israel on one side and Iraq on the other we had those fuckers surrounded. Perhaps it's just cheaper to strike while the iron's still faintly hot.

I read that most Americans can not find Syria on a map. I'd be curious if most Americans can find a map. 

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Better Days

I don't have anything useful to say today. I am exhausted past the point of language, have not slept in two nights. My spirit is cracking.

I have told Selavy that I'll post whatever he sends me, so here is his wisdom for the day:  "Life is holy like a bottle of whiskey, like an handful of 'ludes."

Take it or leave it.

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In Labor Day, Billy Beer

(El hermano de Presidente, Jimmy, pronounced "Heemy")

The whole world of America has the day off, except me. I even offered to work today, such is my new found love for my job. 

Okay, that's all I have to say - written from my phone, as I sip a glass of Rosé wine on the patio, awaiting the marching clock's cessation, or another call for help.

The lifeless Atlantis

(image: Bureau of Land Management)

My Esperanto/Haitian Creole experiment didn't work as well as I had hoped. Google translate has drastically improved, too much so. It's not as funny as it used to be.

Oh well.

I sit here dreading the idea of going to the gym. Maybe if I drink a few extra cups of coffee then I won't feel like it. I'll have a reason not to, the queasiness. Or, maybe if I don't drink enough. 

We had some friends that had to cancel their plans to go to Tahoe this weekend because of the fire. It has become the fourth largest in California's recorded history.

Online, the rigorous scientific surveys of the Facebook community would have you believe that Fukushima is already killing millions of people. Things are getting worse there, but TEPCO assures us that it's still only somewhere between 10-50% as bad as Chernobyl was. Currently there is 2.5 more times the amount of highly radioactive material still there that is waiting to meltdown if everything doesn't go as planned upon removal, perfectly as planned. 

Apparently, the rods all have to be removed manually as the reactors are damaged past the point where the automated process is still a viable solution. If anything at all goes wrong in that process it can trigger an irreversible chain reaction which could result in a complete and total nuclear meltdown. 

When California finally does its quake-slide into the atomic ocean, trying to desperately escape the wildfires, at least we'll have the comfort of knowing that the water there can no longer sustain life. Well, except for Godzilla and Jesus, everybody knows that.

(Al Golub)

Esperanto Underwear

(For Action-Cock)

A friend recommended San Francisco Days, the album by Chris Isaak. He was right. The critics either dismissed it or ignored it outright, but they were wrong. I am sitting here listening to it now, wearing two pair of performance underwear.

Another friend spoke yesterday of completely ignoring the wine critics, that he derives more valuable information concerning wines from regular fans or enthusiasts. He has begun writing wine reviews, here. I have been having fun reading his reviews and translating the French with Google, which always offers some humorous discrepancies. I can never be quite sure of the source, nor of the translation error, but one need not have to know the details of the error. It could not possibly be what my friend had written. 

Google translate teaches us something, use it often. I prefer Esperanto for all of my serious writing. Write something brief, translate it into one language, then from there into another, then from the third back into English (or its original language). Then, do the same with two entirely different languages. Then compare. It is brilliant.

Macedonian, Haitian Creole, they have it all.

Here is my morning Esperanto wisdom for you:

Amiko rekomendis Sankta Francisko Tagoj, la albumo de Chris Isaak. Li pravis. La kritikistoj ĉu eksigis lin aŭ ignoris ĝin kategorie, sed ili malpravas. Mi sidas ĉi tie aŭskultante ĝin nun, uzante du paro de agado subvestoj.

Alia amiko parolis hieraŭ de tute ignorante la vino kritikistoj, ke li derivas pli valoran informon pri vinoj de regula ŝatantoj aŭ entuziasmuloj. Li komencis skribi vino recenzoj, ĉi tie. Mi estis amuze legis liajn kritikojn kaj tradukante la franca per Google, kiu ĉiam proponas iujn humura discrepancias. Mi neniam povas esti sufiĉe certa pri la fonto, nek pri la traduko eraro, sed ne bezonas havi por koni la detalojn de la eraro. Ĝi ne povus esti tio, kion mia amiko estis skribinta.

Google traduki instruas al ni ion, uzu ĝin ofte. Mi preferas Esperanton pro ĉiuj miaj seriozaj skribo. Skribu ion mallonga, traduki ĝin unu lingvo, tiam el tie en alian, tiam el la tria denove en la angla (aŭ la origina lingvo). Tiam, faru la sama kun du tute malsamaj lingvoj. Tiam kompari. Ĝi estas brila.

Ĝi estas brila.

Haitian Creole (from Esperanto):

Yon zanmi rekòmande San Jou Francisco, album lan pa Chris Isaak. Li te dwat. Kritik yo ap rejte li oswa yo inyore l francheman, men yo sa ki mal. Mwen chita isit la koute li kounye a, lè l sèvi avèk de pè nan kilòt pèfòmans.

Yon lòt zanmi te pale yè nan konplètman inyore kritik yo diven, ke li te sòti plis enfòmasyon enpòtan sou ven soti nan fanatik regilye oswa amater. Li te kòmanse ekri kòmantè diven isit la. Mwen te gen plezi lekti revize yo epi yo tradui franse a pa Google, ki te toujou ofri kèk dezakò komik. Mwen pa janm kapab byen asire w nan sous la, pa sèlman sou erè a tradiksyon, men li pa bezwen gen konnen detay yo nan erè a. Li pa t 'kapab yo te sa ki te zanmi m' ekri a.

Google tradui anseye nou yon bagay, sèvi ak li souvan. Mwen ta pito Esperanto pou tout ekri grav mwen. Ekri yon bagay ti bout tan, li tradui l 'nan yon sèl lang, Lè sa a soti nan gen nan yon lòt, lè sa a soti nan twazyèm lan ankò nan lang angle a (oswa lang orijinal la). Lè sa a, fè menm bagay la ak de lang konplètman diferan. Lè sa a, konpare. Li se briyan.

Li se briyan.

Li se briyan.....

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"It never got weird enough for me."*

(Maxfield Parrish)

*H.S.T.

I go in to Sausalito today. There is an educational opportunity, a team-building experience; Apps framework, then kayaking in the bay. People think I'm kidding when I tell them how "into" my job I am right now, but it's all true. I am learning in a way that I have not in many years previous. 

Normally, I read whatever I want to read, stop where I want to stop, take as long as I want to finish. It is nice, the way life should be, without rigid structure. But at work I am surrounded by those who have studied specific things formally. They know what they're talking about, and they know when someone doesn't. I want to be more like them, but there is much to catch up on, much to know, much that changes. It requires constant effort, something that I have taken some pride in not having much of. I made a character for myself, the shell fit and then hardened. Sometimes I still get a whiff of rubber cement near the creases, cracks.

It was wrong, but one's options are diminished when dedicated to consuming.

Almost everything I told myself through my 20's and 30's was all just a string of fucked up nonsense. I don't even have much of a frame of reference any longer to determine how fucked up it all was, but I'm sure it was. I was able to convince myself, and sometimes others, of the most egregious absurdities and improprieties.

It was fun, and wrong; many things are.

When people discuss how they might have done things differently "if they could just go back" I always think so also, but usually in the opposing direction, further into experimental error. I would have pushed those same limits, though in the less corrective direction, made more mountainous mistakes from which to survey the damage.

I only might have made more brief the time period for it all. I would have treated life more like the grand experiment, but with shorter chapters. I normalized only so that I could keep living that way. I settled down into moderate use, convincing myself that was preferable. I was wrong. 

An old friend sent this quote many years ago. I do not know the source, do not need to:

"But the addict is ultimately a bore; too immersed in himself, too tiring to be with, too reliant on the delusion and compliance of others around them. Most great art comes from a singular and obsessive attention to things, it is borne of an urgent desire. Yet great art also opens out from that point."

Proust points out that sexual jealousy and the artistic impulse are also the same at the moment of occurrence. It is where they lead that marks the difference. One transmutes into art the other spirals downward into obsession.

Try telling somebody that they enjoy the feelings of jealousy, watch what happens to them. Then watch them when they are experiencing it. Few things will help you understand the nature of addiction more, few as dangerous to witness.

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The Great Prince of the Forest

(Laurie Hatch)

The fire at Yosemite is very bad. 

People think I'm kidding when asked what my favorite film is: Bambi. Well, perhaps not my favorite, but when asked which film had the greatest impact on me I usually cite this one. No other film has ever again scared me the way that one did. The fire. 

I can watch it now, but back then it was pure horror. Who makes a children's film in which the young animal's mother is shot and killed by hunters. Brutal.

Well, it was released during World War II. Tough times. Buck up, kids.

In my memory it was Bambi and his mother that were caught in the fire, but that is not the case. The father needs to survive to complete the myth of the Fisher King and pass on dominion of the forest in an unbroken line.

That was one wise owl, to warn of twitterpation. 

Some portent, that.

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808Kate

Holy Shit. I forgot to write a post today.

Well, I forgot, and then I forgot that I had forgotten. I'm quite forgottful.

Here's your post for the day.

Take it to heart, memorize it, ameliorate it, etc.

A simple, little birthday poem for a friend (who was suppose' to call...):

oh, what can I say?

in this, or that way...

you are many wonders, 30.

the very purposeful pandemonium,

persimmons,

be both blunder, and truth,

many views adore you,

and me too.

through and through.

under, where?

edible, perhaps,

and orange-red ,

persimmon,

right there.

ebony, oui...

welcome to thirty,

    little girl,

and let the thirty-girl be...

you are loved, beloved.

be loved. and

betrothed.

be very loved,

be comely,

and never lost,

ever thee.

and ever thee

offer anew,

it is quietly yours,

and so quietly you.

ours, yours,

and cupkatie:

all, birthday true.

that's all i have...

my words,

are small ripples.

to hope, save,

perhaps preserve,

and catch one unfocused

moment,

words behave like

trojans.

but all i have,

is sometimes numb,

these moments:

gentle, inarticulate,

and so often dumb,

mute, i am to this age,

and to that aging omen,

i am there,

also engaged,

though probably slowing,

and sometimes bored.

you are quite adored.

30... damn.

   whenever you can,

have fun...

and much,

but lend me your little ear:

as such, persimmon beats lavender.

tomorrow wears nothings.

yet, hear:

we all now stand,

lunging, leaning,

all thirty and more, somethings.

ceaselessly, and blessed,.

towards the past,

i confess,

  little meaning,

poems?

perhaps just jest....

but unto those unending,

and ageless shores,

always know this:

more is never less,

more is more, and more.

and ever yours...

you are loved, happy birthday,

sean , 1/10/07

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Why am I talking?

(family feet)

I am too focused on work. It has left me with nothing to say in the mornings, or very little. Focusing on work does one thing for you, while depriving others. 

Why am I talking about work?

The gym opens in 20 minutes.

Summer is fading. Miniature signs of Autumn are appearing. Certain trees and bushes are giving hints.

Why am I talking about the seasons?

The gym opens in 15 minutes.

Life becomes so much more difficult after having a child. The complexities of your relationship increase. Certain looks and signs are giving hints.

Why am I talking about love?

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"While I nodded, nearly napping..."

(one shoe shy)

Headlong back into another week. I'll try not to think too much about Burning Man. It should be easy enough. It takes a fair amount of energy and expense just to get there, which can be prohibitive. But once that's done it becomes an immersion experience. It is the regular life that begins to seem unreal. The idea of returning to it implausible, remote.

But there is always one's bed at home. It calls. I will try to remind myself of that each night when I go to sleep and all day when I work. Perhaps I'll take a nap today.

My computer screen just dimmed on me, also preparing to sleep. I had been sitting still here for too long, wondering.

Here is a cool video from NASA that a friend posted. If you pay careful attention you'll see some cool stuff in it (the exhaust contrail from the launch, etc.). 

I am still vexed with the idea that matter might disappear. That time-space could turn out to only be a convenient human concept formed by gravity is an idea that I'm okay with. Burning Man teaches us that. You'll have no idea how you arrived where you are, nor how long it took to get there, and there is little chance of ever getting back, Einstein.

Well, it's taken me 45 minutes just to write this. I concede defeat.

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Blackberries

Blackberry season will soon be over, to Rhys's displeasure. He has become quite the fruit hunter, easily able to recognize his berry of choice, even from a distance. It is a nearly perpetual effort to keep him from launching straight into the bushes, which are covered with thorns. There is a bramble which runs half the length of the back yard. He runs along the full length of it in unrestrained delight.

He has consumed each of the ripe ones, sometimes one at a time. He has even begun to recently tolerate the bitter unripened red ones, usually one at a time. Such is his passion for the little edibles, and barely edibles. He makes a sour face with each one, eyes squinted and mouth puckered, but always coming back for more. We have to lure him away from the scrambling vines with promise of something greater. 

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Desert Forest

Nothing to write. I'm sitting here listening to "Sunday Morning" by The Velvet Underground, that's how idea-less I am.

Many have begun their journey to the Burning Man Festival. They will sacrifice by fire a wooden statue of a man at the climax of the jamboree. It is a thing to see. Many of my friends, those who have been attending for years, have begun to complain that the event has lost some of its initial purpose, and that many others who attend do not embody the spirit of the thing any longer. Such is life. Things do change.

Last night when I came home there was a recreational vehicle in our parking lot. People were preparing to depart, I stopped and said hello, briefly chatted with the soon to be revelers. 

It is a very expensive party to attend. The cost alone can be prohibitive. Yet when you get there you will marvel at the people who have arrived. It seems inexplicable that they have somehow made it, as if they just arose from the desert dust. 

I suppose there are vastly varying degrees of luxury to consider before arriving there. Some require very little.

A close friend went out to the playa last week. A carpenter, he has dedicated himself to assisting in the construction of an art project. "Desert Forest" is the theme (rendering above, images of last year's project below). As the wind blows through, people relax and enjoy the sensation of its passing, with fluctuating strips to look at and consider or enjoy, or enjoy considering. He will return with a glow about him and tales to tell. As will the others, the local SF fixtures.

It is really something, to participate that way in the purely temporary, to celebrate a thing's transience. To conduct easily what often requires great effort elsewhere. To be reminded grandly of a thing so simple.

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Love is a delightful burden

(The Lantern Bearers)

Rhys likes to say no, mostly to me. It is a breakthrough, a heartbreak. It's a phase, I am told. Whenever I try to pick him up, or get him out of his crib, or push the grocery cart while he's in it, or play with him, or talk to him, etc.

No!

It's almost exclusively when mom is nearby, though it's nothing that she's doing. It's not her fault, I mean. She's just being mom and Rhys is learning new things, like how to accept and how to reject. I suppose that all of these lessons are important lessons to learn. It's never easy being the latter of those two choices, no matter what the circumstance. But with the little boy, it is crushing. For me, I mean. It is crushing for me.

I try to take it in stride. Those of you who know me might chuckle at that. If there is one thing that my personality is rarely noted for it would be taking emotions in stride. I enjoy the full range of them, much more than most people care for, or could stand. It gives one a unique and ever-changing perspective. 

But many things don't require a wide range in emotional viewpoint. I get them anyway. 

Pandora with Sisyphus' burden. Well, perhaps that is a bit melodramatic. I'm not sure if I contain and release all of the evils of the world, nor is my punishment the result of incurable deceit. I use the myths very loosely. Life is full of recurring surprises.

Everybody exhibits some minor emotional eccentricities. It is part of what makes humans dynamic, or tedious. Some people possess amplified versions of those perfectly normal characteristics, or become possessed by them, which is not only a matter of subtle differences. In the same way that most can not change even minor attributes of themselves, others can not choose to simply feel a certain way about a thing, or at a time. Choice in disposition is a luxury that many do not recognize, they treat its inability likewise, as just a poor choice by another. 

As if it is just passionate non-conformity, by selection. You must have read the wrong books, liked all of the bad bands, emulated the trouble-makers, sat in the back of the class....

Sure. That must be it.

(Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's Teeth)

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Don't ask, she'll tell

Crazy times for Chelsea. 

I do not know if they provide hormone therapy in a military prison. Somehow I find it hard to believe that military benefits include such a thing, particularly when you have been dishonorably discharged this way, well before retirement. I suppose that we'll have to wait and see on that one. 35 years is a long time, but we're assured that she could be out in 7. 

The extreme sentence is meant to deter other whistleblowers. It was his defense, the gender identity issue. But his motivation is claimed to have been heroic, to make known certain egregious wrongdoings. It's somehow easier for me to believe that Manning's motivations were well intentioned where Snowden's still seem off to me, somehow. I find it strange, the claim that he was acting heroically and as a true patriot but it was somehow the gender dysphoria that caused it. Are those things related?

Feminists should be outraged, the claim that he acted this way because he's actually a woman. 

But what do I know. Everything that I see has been filtered through the press, presented as being other than it actually is. What doesn't seem off when viewed through that strange prism?

Males are three time more likely to suffer gender identity disorder than women, I read this morning. About 1 in 500 experience this gender discontentment. That is easy to believe. I've known a few. One of the children that I grew up with, our student body class President, Nate, is now Natalie. I believe I've told that story here before. Ah well, I looked, I couldn't find it. Perhaps I've never told the story. 

In any event, we had long known that Nate was probably gay. Even in the barely formed understanding of such things in childhood we sensed that something seemed different about him. Children can be quite cruel about differences. We were. When I saw her many years later it was at a gay nightclub called The Parliament House, a legendary (for some, infamous for others) nightclub/hotel/restaurant complex on South Orange Blossom Trail - not the nicest part of Orlando, notorious for bad drug dealings, illicit behavior, crime and desperation. 

I did not recognize her. She had to remind me who she was. 

Ah well, I don't have time to tell that story in full today. The boy has woken up and the world is slowly spinning into the light. 

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I believe I have a gift certificate.... let me look

Speeding tickets are fun, getting them. I got one the day of the company picnic. They mailed me information about it. It was a "Courtesy Notice" which arrived yesterday. The fine of $366 is due tomorrow, or a bench warrant for my arrest will be promptly issued. If I decide to fight it in court I must pay the fine by tomorrow anyway. Then, they will one day decide if they want to give me the money back, or fine me more for having tried in court to assert my blamelessness. So much for the presumption of innocence.

Pay now, pay later. We prefer a little of both.

It took 5 days for the letter to travel 27 miles from the Marin County Superior Court to our home. Google Maps shows that it takes 38 minutes by car. I got the ticket on August 2nd, the notice was printed August 14th, it was stamped August 15th, it was mailed August 16th, it arrived 5 days later on the 21st.

That which is not being destroyed by corruption will be handled in time by incompetence. All that it takes to lose faith in the system is to brush up against it.

I'm sure nobody would be able to explain why it took 3 days to actually end up in the outgoing mail from the time that it was printed. This type of government functionality is a process. The arm of justice swings wide and slowly.

I'm tempted to not pay it just to see how long it takes for them to respond. But that way brings much unpleasantness in the form of bureaucratic withcraftery.

Also, I wouldn't want to deprive the state of California from some much needed revenue. I've been told that you can overpay by $2 and it's fun to watch the process by which they must legally return the excess money to you, but those options are closed to me now. I must call in tomorrow with a credit card rather than send in a potentially bad check. I'm going to ask if I can split it up between three or four different cards. 

"Do you take Sears, or JC Penney... Diner's Club?"

"I have this gift certificate that I haven't used..."

"Any chance I could work some of this off, maybe test driving cop cars for you?"

Ah well, best to quickly put it behind me. I will have to try to make up some lost time in the car getting there and back.

That's the thing: I like to drive fast. I always have. When I am a passenger I hear people ask rhetorically, "What's the hurry?" Or, "Oh, you'll get there soon enough..."

But I always think to myself, "I'd so much rather be in that other car, driving."

I see cars go fast and I want to drive fast, also. I want to drive faster than them. No car goes so fast that I do not want to go faster. It is a rush and a thrill to burst past others locked in a machine dream.

If I came into sudden wealth I would purchase a new car first. Many must dream of having a new car. It is where you can spend the most money with the least amount of thought. It is a guaranteed loss, we're told, just to drive a new car off the lot. That's what I want, to pull out of the dealership and mash the pedal to the floor, a detonation of sudden commerce. A volcano of fiscal waste.

Then, once a new car was in place underneath me, I would better be able to find ways to waste the rest of the money, perhaps by buying another car. If one enjoys driving fast, as I do, there should be additional options as to how to break the law. What form will it take...

The day that I got pulled over the cop asked me why I still had a New York Driver's License. I explained that we also had an apartment in NYC. He asked how much time I've spent in California this year. I said, "Just less than half."

"You'll need to get a California driver's license if you live here."

"Am I allowed to have two?"

"If you live in California you need a California Driver's license."

He did not like me very much. That exchange was the closest the event came to being anything of interest. He clocked me at 83 in a 65 zone, 3 mph past the point where the ticket becomes more serious, and expensive. His name was Fitzgerald, which I repeated to myself as Sgt. Shitzfitsimmons on the way to the picnic. It felt like torture to keep my speed under 80 the rest of the way there, and then on the way home. These speeding laws are stifling the natural rambunctiousness of the American working man, they are hobbling the horsepower that carries the precious cargo of the American dream. How is industry expected to ever bounce back at these overly-regulated speeds. 

Why couldn't there have been at least one founding father that was obsessed with racing his carriage through the streets of Philadelphia, crazed with that magic sense of forward, the feeling that only ever-increasing tempo and momentum can bring.

Perhaps some distant kinsfolk of the Andretti family.

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A Tuesday afternoon in Sonoma

Our friends adopted their boy yesterday. We went to the courthouse with them. They had been fostering with the intention to adopt, now it is legal. The documents were all signed and put in place. I've never seen a judge be so pleasant, or pleased to have people in his courtroom. Nor I. We were all quite giddy with it.

I almost felt like offering him an explanation for some wrongdoing out of inertia, pure habit.

The officer on duty allowed me to step behind the barrier to take pictures. We were like guests. All was wonderful. The ladies and gentlemen dressed up for the occasion and we went to eat sushi afterwards, then champagne at home. A bottle of 2000 Dom Pérignon, then another more recent one from Napa. 

It's official. 

There is a different entrance to most county complexes at which I am normally received. They boast more elaborate security systems and rather regimented teams of chaperons. 

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Totally

I might not ever see my dream of Mayor Weiner come to full fruition. He is sagging in the polls, we're told. Too bad, that. He is painting the portrait of himself being an "underdog" and nobody yet seems to quite get the joke. They will. It is important to have things in which to look forward.

Attempting to not end sentences in prepositions makes you sound preposterous. Not me, you. It is an unnecessary silliness, we're told.

The internet is boring this morning. 

Well, there is this one thing... David Miranda had his property seized at Heathrow airport without having broken any laws. This wouldn't matter much, except that he's the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist that broke the Edward Snowden story. They held him for nine hours and seized all of his electronic devices. When governments start breaking their own laws in this way.... always for national defense, well, it puts the lie to the test.

We are currently doing things in the defense of our country that will render our country not worth defending. We have been for some time now. It started long before this. The Patriot Act is an adequate bookmark to refer back to.

I couldn't understand why most people weren't more angry about our second invasion of Iraq. I remember thinking at the time that something about it seemed off to me. It seemed that even the liberals were a little bit excited about it. There was some national flexing going on. We had been wronged on 9/11, and it just seemed that there was a little too much willingness on everybody's part to really show somebody that, to prove that you don't fuck with us.

Invading Afghanistan never seemed quite commensurate to the shock of 9/11. It lacked that victorious, nation-toppling feeling. We needed something more. It was important that we take out a personality as much as a country. A feared dictator must fall, in statue and in gallows.

(I've read compelling arguments both for and against our invading of Iraq. That's not really the point that I am making here.)

Now, the enemy is far more insidious. We are expected to trust that the government has our best interests in mind as they dismantle our rights. It is a necessary process that we all must endure, to ensure against the secret evildoing of others. They are now daily thwarting terrorist plots that they can't tell us about. There is no public record of any of this, of course. That also, sensibly, falls behind the fresh new iron curtain of national security.

More little Guantanamo gulags will start to appear here and there. Mark my words on this. In the next couple years we will hear about yet another secret prison where normal laws need not apply.

When water-boarding can be presented to the nation as something other than torture then we are already sliding over a lost edge of previous sensibilities. How is it even possible that we allowed our elected leaders to introduce that question into the national conversation. Those fuckers should have been run out of politics and flogged.

One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian society is that laws are put into place which can not be obeyed. It becomes impossible to somehow not break them. When journalists are regularly being hunted and imprisoned for revealing violations of some of our most basic principles then we are not far off from a place where it will be equally punishable to protect and defend said journalists. Once lawyers are afraid to represent certain clients then the circle of new justice will nearly be complete.

Another attribute of a regime-run society is a single ideology that justifies all changes. Something like "freedom," for example. The concept must be flexible and nebulous with the ability for its meaning to be stretched in several different directions at once, as needed. It must simultaneously mean two opposing things, having the power to inspire both fear and action. Likewise, dissent can be defined as almost anything and suppressed through overt and secret means, often with the use of public and private (secret) police forces.

As far as an exploited conceptual archetype goes it doesn't get much better than "freedom," particularly when being defended through secret means.

This eventually reduces life down to two alternating social/political demands in which everything that is not forbidden becomes required.

I feel that way even when I have to renew my driver's license. There is a sense that this can't possibly be right.... We were told about the horrendous bureaucracy involved in communist living, that they had to wait in line for hours just to get a license.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even before that, the term totalitarianism has fallen from popular favor. But the term still best describes the tendencies present as a government seeks to assert and maintain increased control over its people.

This is why I was suspicious of the Snowden thing from the beginning. It appeared to me to be a little bit too staged. It seemed that it was just an effective way of letting everybody know that they are being watched. It seemed canned to me, too convenient as far as messaging goes. I have since changed my opinions on it, though I am still unsure. It almost seems as if Snowden could be an elaborate governmental hoax that has now filtered its way deep into the Wikileaks camp.

Who knows, really.

To be monitoring people is one thing. For it to be an effective means of intimidation then people must know that they're being monitored. It must put and keep them in perpetual unease, pitting suspicion against suspicion. It must become a known fear of the unknown.

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