Why rape is funny

I don't know anything about Justin Bieber, except that people hate him. They use him as a sort of anti-definition of themselves, a punchline of externalized derision. Whatever he represents, some people desperately need you to understand that they most certainly do not. I doubt that I would be a fan of his music, much, if I ever bothered to listen to it. 

But he does seem to have captured the essence of the American dream, or at least part of it. He is self-made, somewhat; recognized and raised to the attention of others through his own online creations, which appear to be a highly collaborative endeavor; a sensation that arose naturally from his own ambitions; achieved all of this through the democracy of the open market; and has attained astonishing material wealth as his reward. 

Etc., etc.

Yet he must be immensely threatening to grown men. This is often the case when pubescent girls swoon over a young "star" like him. It must be a very, very serious threat to their sense of masculinity to have boys rewarded for being cute. It seems to greatly anger men who also wish to be deemed cute by 12 yr old girls. For what purpose we are left to wonder, though few ever seem to. It's the dishonesty of intent which repulses me most. If these men could admit that they are threatened by Bieber - and attracted to and frustrated by young girls - then I would like them much more. But they can't.

Rarely before have I seen such an outpouring of sexual hatred as I did yesterday, wishing delicious rape upon him during his short visit to jail. 

If only….

One self-identified "Christian" joked about how much he "loves karma," suggesting that this 19 year old boy deserves to be prison raped, where his bodyguards can't protect him. I'm not sure if karma would come into play there, but maybe, somehow.... At least, I don't know what Bieber has done that would invite such a thing. Annoying, perhaps yes. Prison rape as a punishment for this, difficult to fathom. 

This good fellow saw no harm at all in feminizing Bieber, which makes his Christian rape fantasies "safe," I guess, the way god intended. Homosexual rape must be an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. That's why Mel Gibson was partially immune to it when he went off the rails one warm Californian night. 

Only faggots would make rape jokes about Mad Max. Faggots, or liberals.

This same Christian went on to defend Taylor Swift, claiming that she has "values."  I asked what kind of values, and did he mean ones like "karma rape"? It did not seem to occur to him that wishing rape upon a young boy might also incite the forces of karma to act accordingly, and in a reactionary fashion, towards him, if such a thing were even possible.

He must have prayed with his pastor about it. 

Now, I'll admit that one of the funniest things I've ever seen online was Bieber getting hit in the head with a water bottle. But I found this funny for precisely the same reason that prison rape is not, because it was harmless. I watched it hundreds of times, much to the dismay of my overnight co-workers at the time. Each time that the bottle hits, whether in slow motion or not, I am as jolly as Santa, but cackling like the Devil on charcoal.

Perhaps if more men got to witness actual violent male-on-male rape then they might be less inclined to joke about it, or wish it freely upon others. I don't know. I joke about it too, sometimes. But something always catches me, like a hook, when I do. I start to envision the reality of it, where it becomes markedly less funny. It's as if I can hear the echoed begging in the distance, calling from the darkness. 

I mean, if we're going to joke about rape then let's go all the way with it. Implication and innuendo are for fucking pansies. We're no Justin Bieber fans on this blog, mother-fucker!

Rape, rape, we say! 

Let's take the time to envision the teeth getting knocked out, the pleas, the useless attempts to get away, the unexpected whiteness of the buttocks, the enforced group fellatio, the sinister laughing at weakness and submission, the repeated tearing of the anus, of course, the blood which serves as a saving lubricant. 

All of it. Let's be men about this, not sissies that might enjoy a little gang rape here and there.

Perhaps it is the healing power of blood which calms the true Christian mind.

If these things are funny - and they are fucking hilarious, brothers and sisters - then let's laugh a little about young women being raped also, right?

Little girls. Little boys. The helpless everywhere. 

Rape the retarded, while we still can. 

What could be more funny and delightful? The idea of stripping privilege from one who does not deserve it must ignite the impulses of the righteous. The Peter Pans of Rape. 

The Villains of Violation.

I mean, fuck… I'm no fan of Bieber either, but I haven't found a way of subjecting him to the guillotine just for being a kid, yet.

Wouldn't it be fun to rape his detached head? Fuck, I mean… this is what's wrong with the media… When are we going to have beheaded skull rapings in America.  The real news.

Kabul-style.

I mean, the little half-female fucker has never even had to have a job! If he could just prove to us that he actually spent his own hard-earned money to buy the lottery ticket that put him where he is then I'd be happy to call off the rapings. 

But he can't, can he?  

So, he gets what he deserves. What he did is unfair, an insult to good Christian sensibilities and values. He became rich and famous and young through no effort of his own. His mother is only 37 years old, for fuck's sake. If Bieber gets a girl pregnant next then an average working man like me could be old enough to be somebody's great-grandfather. 

It must be stopped!

Rape is the only answer. 

That, or poverty. 

Or both.

But, real prison-rape first.

Am I Right?

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Buoyancy

There is a seemingly unfindable hole in the air mattress at Chateau Cato. Each night I fill the mattress with wondrous machine-driven air, each mid-night I awake several inches lower in elevation from where I started, being consumed by the remainder. It feels as if I am sleeping in a massive android scrotum, trapped in a giant rolled-up band-aid. I am not touching floor yet, but I awake in fear, in enforced immobility.

It takes me about 30 seconds to work my way out, usually knocking something over in the process. I will often let an accidental fart or two out. I have reached that age, there is no stopping it any longer. My knees were barely the first thing to go. Pissing the bed is even less of a temptation than it had been before. I envision the unpleasant and warm accumulation of it. I suppose it might have its benefits, in terms of cleaning afterwards, but my mind still rejects it.

Everything seems to be working against me.

I want to dip the entire thing into a tub of soapy water, to find the mystery, but I lack a tub large enough. My solutions are too often impracticable, just look at my life. I imagine a spray bottle of a highly concentrated soapy concoction. All of this takes time, too much time.

Yet I find that same time to write about it. Writing is easier, less messy, doesn't always involve trips to the hardware store, seems less like work most days.

Cato insists that I purchase a new air mattress. Suddenly this object was meaningful to him, it held significance far beyond what the eye can see. It was a family heirloom, of sorts. There is the emotional loss to consider. He became teary-eyed when discussing it. I tried to hug him but he fought his way away. 

No, I kid. He is beaten from work like the rest of us and I feel bad for him. He comes home and I am there, with some newly broken thing of his, prepared to talk about relationships. 

My excess fat is the easiest explanation for the failings of this industrial wonder but neither of us can find a way of adequately pinning the blame there. Such a small hole created from such excess in body blubber... it defies logic, yet it is what we wish to believe. Apparently, I have the sharpest love-handles known. They commit crimes in my sleep. Though among their laundry list of misdemeanors and indiscretions mugging isn't one of them. I never wake up any richer for theses crimes, some strange wallet or purse cradled in my belly's clutch, overflowing with cash, and jewels.

It does always seem to say, "Don't look at me. Don't look at me!"

… must be guilty of something beyond just an occasional cheese danish. 

Well… I must take a shower and then get on the bus to go to work. Not the tech-buses that are all the rage and indignation, but the regular local MUNI. 

I am a city boy again, sleeping like a one-eyed gypsy, nestled in sagging android scrotum, smelling of farts and old band-aids. 

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A hazing

(More from the Sonoma expedition)

Yesterday I stretched the truth, for the purpose of fiction. 

Rachel did not question the word "heartened" and she was once happy also. I remember it well.

The post may have hurt her feelings. That wasn't my intention. 

Many things, when examined closely, when held under scrutiny, become a seeming untruth. It is the nature of doubt. Some do not know its joys, nor its potential purpose. 

Writing, when done well, uses the invention of fiction to approach truth. 

Doubt has the sole appearance of negativity to the mediocre mind. Conviction in the unproven is preferable to many, a devoted certainty to the nebulous. When presented with the unexplainable, well, then it just must be the hand of the haze…

God picks up where science leaves off, we're told. 

Doubt creates possibility against dogma. It acts in the eternal defense of suggestion.

I'm going to start referring to "god" as "the haze."  When I hear people use the term then I will substitute the phrase "the haze" for their god. That should bring me some little joy for a time.

The haze will be my higher power, whatever I conceive him to be….

It is easy to mock, too. 

Doubt does not necessarily need to contain the kernel of humor, though. But I certainly prefer it that way.

"I was spending some devotional time in the haze the other day, just waiting for the befuddled's blessings, to feel the hand of the blur moving in my life. After a long time searching, the room suddenly filled with vision vapors and I heard a howling in the distance. It was the mist moving. The baying haze sent me a message: to live my life in service to the cloud. When I heard the haze speaking... you had better believe I listened. I got on my knees and invited the haze deep into my heartbeat."

In the picture above, I forgot to use the virtual horizon. It shows.

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Do people still hold hands?

Well, I got bored. 

I miss drinking terribly, some days. 

Other days I just miss it, sensibly.

My all-day Sonoma photo-shoot fizzled out after I realized that it was time to stop and get a sandwich. It lasted just under an hour. The above pic is the resulting masterpiece of effort and inspiration. It took about three seconds to produce, perhaps five with post-production. 

Enjoy.

I've never cared all that much for landscape or nature photography. I mean, I'm glad it's out there, not really harming anybody, I've just never wanted to be caught up in it. But, not knowing what else to do, I found myself driving around aimlessly on a delightful day, pointing at things like a lost tourist, talking to myself.

Useless, aimless, etc.

Well, it is better to have looked at things than to have not looked at them, most of the time.

That's at least one difference between being in love and being alone. The same day might have glowed for me, at some other distant time, in the presence of my warm beloved. If you don't have a hand to hold then you might as well have a camera in it, otherwise it invites the devil's whispers.

Do people still hold hands? Am I dating myself? It sounds a little bit 20th century, maybe even 19th. 

It's a bit "darling," isn't it?

Last night my wife questioned the use of the word "disheartened." 

She asked if there was ever a time when people were heartened. 

One of them was.

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"When I'm driving in my car"

The valley has turned cold, to remind us that it can.

I will go out today and search for scenes to photograph. In the past I might have brought Barkley, the pup, with me. 

Today, I will park the car by the side of the road and walk to a place where I believe I will get the best shot - or rather, the easiest one that still looks nice. I will hardly depart the road. 

I will curse the cold, even as the day is warming.

Knowing all this makes me not want to go.

I must work on my definitions of satisfaction, to remind that I still can.

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To speak of

The sun is beautiful, even though it is deadly hot.

That line made me giggle as I sat down to write today. I keep repeating it to myself. I'm hysterical, or getting nearer to it each moment.

To speak of hysteria:

We took Rhys to Chuck E. Cheese yesterday, which was really more of a Carlos E. Queso. I fit right in as the obligatory Padre Gringo. 

Daddy Gringo. Yet another new name for my memoirs. 

Rhys loved it, of course. We "played" games, which consisted of me putting tokens in and Rhys watching myself or Rachel try to entertain him with the device. 

I, of course, dominated the game room. Nobody else even came close. I rekindled my sense of competition. The boy would get bored and move on to another game that he didn't quite understand. We would follow, forcing tokens into the machines, to appease them. 

All of them were covered in pizza grease and snot. 

He loved the basketball game most of all. He has a plastic hoop of his own in the backyard. "Basketball" is one of his favorite words. 

Three syllables, for those of you who weren't counting.

To speak of pride.

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A sunrise that never lasts

Yesterday morning. I snapped this pic as I was leaving my new writer's residence in The Castro. 

By definition it is just on the rim of The Castro, lingering on the lip; its milky dew, as it were. Who am I to emit aspersions? 

Gift horse, mouth, etc.

I'm not sure why I can't seem to convert the RAW image into an acceptable jpeg. The image as it exists within the camera, and even within iPhoto, looks much nicer, more inviting than this. Darker. The colors here appear lurid and from the eighties, not as they were yesterday morning at all. 

This is a San Francisco morning as it departs for its South Beach vacation, dressed in fresh electric pastels, powdered pigments, giddy with promise. This is what Don Johnson faces after a three day west coast bender, a Sonny Crockett, as they're soon to be known.

I will need a desk, of course, at my new residence. There will be expense involved, though not much. I will submit a list of my expected needs. I should have that prepared by the close of office on Tuesday.

I had meant to write about yesterday's sunrise and then its subsequent setting but now I have been sidetracked and have lost the feeling for it. 

I was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge for the latter showing. 

I went home feeling good.

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"I wish I had a friend named Cato..."

(I have run out of pics, I miss Rhys)

I stayed at a friend's house here in San Fran. She has a guest bedroom downstairs, with its own bathroom. It will be my new center of operations, the campaign headquarters. The room has everything that I need except a successful relationship.

The owner told me how excited she was at the thought that I will be writing one of my posts here. She is a regular reader of this site, and the speaker of the quote that is the title of today's post. Now, if I could only arrange to convert that excitement into free monthly rent then I will finally be close to living my dream of being a nearly luckless artist. I will have a kind patroness and will promptly quit my current and all future jobs. 

A subsidized writer. It doesn't have quite the ring that I was hoping for, but ah well… it is better than "employee."

I slept like a Warhol film. Luckily for you, dear readers, I did not awake with any memory of my dreaming. You will be saved my nocturnal sexual fantasies today. I was.

When I went to go up the stairs to retrieve some coffee I opened the wrong door and there was a massive standing safe at the back end of the closet. I believe the phrase is "steel vault." I felt as if I had wandered into a crime. The word "heist" started glowing in my mind, though precisely what I would steal was not quite clear. 

I checked to see if it was open, I put my ear to its cold door, I spun the rotary lock, tried a few guesses at the combination, pushed against it, pulled, everything. It was a little early in the morning for dynamite but clearly that was what was needed. 

Vault, heist, masks, van... Dynamite!

Those are the bywords of the morning.

I would take a picture of it and use it here this morning, but I did not ask. I must start using the cameras that I own. 

Last night we stayed up very late, for me, and watched the recent Soderbergh film based on a portion of Liberace's life. Finally, I have discovered a film that I can honestly tell you that I liked. It had few pretensions, which allowed me to watch it without assessing it as much as I might have otherwise.

I'll never be able to think of Michael Douglas the same way again. 

That is an inside joke for a friend who does not read this site. Ah well. It's a misremembered reference to Eddie Murphy in the remake of The Nutty Professor… "Michael Douglas… the only white man to ever make me moist."

But it's half true. What made the film work, on one level, was to have the two lead actors, who are notoriously heterosexual, playing their respective roles. They must have had some fun. Every animated heterosexual man that I know with a sense of humor, or drama, has a practiced gay persona that they'll pull out of the closet and dust off every so often. 

Well, I have run out of time here, folks.

I must shower in my new bathroom and then catch the MUNI back towards Market. 

It just occurred to me that I did not buy a round-trip ticket on my way out here. A tactical error that I may have to face in the crisp coldness of morning.

I will explain to the operator that I am a writer in residence. Certainly there are provisions for such circumstances as mine.

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The Full Wolfstress

Slept in until almost 5am. Victory. It must have been the full wolf moon, or a touch of the aconitum. I dreamed of being lost in the wilderness, wandering restlessly in my sleep, rainwater in footprints. There were people there also, moving through the woods; reflections rising from the past, momentarily escaping it. Worn apparitions shaken loose, moonlight stealing through the trees.

The phrase "old friends" has become redundant. 

I awoke with wolf-cock. It had transformed into a hideous thing, consumed with bloodlust. It was still in its shapeshifter phase, pulsing with satanic greed; the physical embodiment of a howl trapped in flesh. My energy was given over to it. A demoness danced inside, a knob goblin.

The waking dream I had was of a girl, naked in the forest. She was arresting, and something else, also. She reminded me, charmed me. My dream kept drawing her closer. Yes.

I woke before she was able to fall in love with me, saving her blonde dream pride for another time.

A dash of guilt crossed near me in the darkness.

That's funny, I thought. Why would I feel guilt from a dream? That's just silly.

It's not as if I had dreamed of a young prince who whisked me away to Castle Von Schtinkenweiner. 

This night-ish delight very well might have been my young forest wife, Raquel Maidenmist. That is, if I had been playing Dungeons and Dragons in my sleep.

Only the pixies know now. 

Them, and me.

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I hear the train a' comin'

I have been writing on this site for four years. Check the facts. I struggle with them also. Some would call it excessive, all this needless writing. I look back and smile to myself. It seems to be mainly a struggle against naivety. In that, there is a hint to be detected. We are what we resist, as what we pursue. We become our choices.

I still just can't believe that my life is almost over. When one considers the richness of youth with the frailty of age then years alone no longer strike the balance. Which, at 45, they likely wouldn't anyway. I've heard some call living to 90 as being somehow "lucky."

I am told to just value different things, as if.

I have bored of abstaining but recognize its usefulness. Restraint is easier than collapse and ruin, though not always by much. One must learn to systematically choose it in advance, which has a deadening effect. With a little practice anybody can desist. It takes quite a set of balanced qualities to ever achieve moderation in a thing truly loved. With success - prudence achieved, impulses tamed or bested - it becomes so easy to then convince oneself of the value and glory in excess. It's an easily sold idea. Neither state holds much charm for others, or self, for very long. 

Most are momentarily pleased by what they consider a change for the better in another. Only the devil moon delights in disintegration. It becomes fullest in human curiosity. 

Those who have lived for excess must strive to achieve what others seem born with: the ability to maintain a wealth of personal boredom, a reservoir of dullness and lack of invention. 

If you have ever been fascinated with someone relaying the tale of how they achieved moderation then you are a dolt, or worse, an ex-addict. The elegant survival of excess is the story worth telling, worth hearing.

But, we are all of us getting old. It is easy to understand how we too easily forget these things. We become a mockery of change, a disaster of habit.

Everybody must stalk their center when it roams. Temptation and indulgence are always within reach. They are a comfort against too much foolish consistency, the hobgoblin of little minds, Emerson reminds us. 

As I write these words I can hear it marching in the distance… Soon, it will arrive: me singing the soft praises of sudden salvation, the many values and virtues of shapes lost. 

Hallelujah, here I am, again. 

"The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years." - Proust

"Moderation is only a virtue in those who are thought to have an alternative." - Henry Kissinger

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Market Street

Driving it.

It reflects the deep psychological chaos of this city, a schism along one side like an active stroke, trembling towards the bay, as if trying to escape by land, to the water, or underground. 

It has the mind of amphetamine addiction. The street is its urban planning equivalent. 

It's what is must be like to be involved in an earthquake, followed by a lengthy fire in a hall of mirrors. A few minutes on it and you, also like Mistah Kurtz, will demand that the brutes be exterminated, leveled without recourse.

I could help:

The street would function more efficiently, I think, if all of the road signs and rules were just removed. It is the universal confusion heading off in all directions which seem to cause most of the problems. The combination of perplexity and fear combine dangerously. If they just made it a free-for-all then a natural order would emerge that would trump the barely regulated disarray that occurs now. 

If anybody in San Francisco is ever an asshole to you - and you can rely on that happening very regularly - then remember that they are just disclosing the chaos of their environment. They probably just drove down Market, or interacted with somebody that did. Perhaps they ended up on it accidentally and couldn't find a way off, at least not a way that was remotely close to the initial direction they came, or where they had hoped to arrive. 

It spins people away in reflex angles. Even an occasional perpendicular would be welcome. A sensible one-way square orbit back to where you came.

The many streets approaching and departing are all hopelessly one-way. They each point in slightly different directions, none at 90 degree angles. None make any sense. They all lead somewhere useless. It's like driving along written Cantonese. 

If they made each street one-way, pointing in the same direction, then at least it would be over for everybody as quickly as possible.

But no, it just hemorrhages cars into the directionless unknown, like a bad drug. Everybody is a tourist; expertise is confounded, useless against it.

Now, I must only learn to love it.

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Her, pt. 2

Nothing much to say this morning.

I had wanted to write briefly, explaining that I actually did like the film, Her, and I really liked Being John Malkovich.

I know that I made a bit of a joke of it yesterday, but all of the mock criticisms that I had for it were based in real criticisms. But I enjoyed the film. I just don't think it was as penetrating and layered as some of my friends might.  

Watch it 10 times and tell me if you still feel the same about it, etc. I dare you.

Being John Malkovich dealt somewhat creatively with the concepts of identity and youth.

Her was a reasonably straightforward love story that relied on one single gimmick. Spike Jonze did little, nothing actually, to make Scarlett Johansson's "character" believable as a developing operating system. She was birthed as a "fully fleshed" human right out-of-the-box. The few questions that she had - which were meant to indicate that "she's really not like you or I" - weren't believable and seemed like the first ideas the writer had. That she was willing to try sex without even a hint at any recognition that sex, with or without a body, is a patently absurd endeavor…

But oh no, she just jumps right in and initiates it. 

Bullshit, I say.

The idea that our online interactions are based mostly in narcissism and self-delusion isn't exactly a new one, at least not to the writer of this site. I mean, you don't write open emails to the world for four years without occasionally coming up against the concept of electronic vanity.

That it took Jonze his entire career to write an original screenplay and this is what he's come up with…. Well, it seems like it might be time to call ol' Charlie Kaufman, who's had his own failings as a director/writer with Synecdoche. Abysmal.

But, I enjoyed Her. Truly. This is just my way of saying it…. Tough love.

It was an entertaining romantic comedy, and a little touch of tear-jerker. He's probably gone off next to work on a remake of Steel Magnolias, for his next emotional triumph. He's already in touch with Meg Ryan and Reese Witherspoon.

I had forgotten about this: During the film I joked with Rachel how much more I'd like the film had they gotten Sandra Bullock to do the voice overs.  I guess that's where the Cato/Gravity joke came from yesterday.

If you'd like to see a film about a non-entity that yearns for, and achieves, the state of flesh then see Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. Or, if you'd prefer… see the Nicolas Cage/Meg Ryan remake, City of Angels, if Spike Jonze floats your boat.

Fuck! I hadn't even realized how dead-on my jokes actually were. I had completely forgotten that the actors that I've been using to make my jokes aren't imaginary, and they've already taken the time to prove all of my points for me.

What luck!

If you liked Her then you'll simply love Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan….

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Her (Spoiled Alert)

(Him)

Went to see a movie yesterday. Her. It was adequate.

Disclaimer: Let me get this out of the way. I like going to see films in the theater. I mean, I really like it, a lot. Watching the light bounce off the screen while sitting in the dark with my attention drawn to the story that is unfolding. I love it. I have a degree in film, a B.S. in Motion Picture Technology. I love it that much. I have certain expectations from the thing that I have dedicated my love to, perhaps I expect far too much. But I still enjoy sitting in the dark with it, having it happen. Even when it is done poorly, I enjoy the thing I love.

The details of the film, at first, appeared fresh and relevant but once those settle in you begin to realize that the message is trite, and Spike hasn't done with the details what he seems capable of doing. At least, you sense that he is not going to do what he did those first few times, all those years ago, when he worked so well with Charlie Kaufman. Instead, he is trying to be a Sofia Coppola, and failing. To set your sites so low and still fail, well…. It was embarrassing. It made me uncomfortable to watch.

The story is appropriately placed in LA - which looks oddly like Shanghai in the opening shots - and is meant to explore the depths and meaning of the human capacity and need for love. To give you an idea of the presumptuousness, scope, and conceit of the premise. 

Film Trailer Voice-Over:

Los Angeles….. a Hollywood film bursting with misplaced confidence about the frailty and self-reflexive nature of romantic love. A post-post classic by the maker of "Boring John Malkovich"… From the skater-video director who has worked with such LA notables as John Cusack and Nicolas Cage comes this new classic about concealing Joaquin Phoenix's hairlip...

Spike must just be itching to work with Keanu Reeves next. Or, be a guest director on "Parks and Recreation."

On such thin pedestals do legacies rest. 

When principal photography was complete Phoenix was reported to have exclaimed, "I was really acting in this one... I mean, there were scenes where I could really feel that I was acting. I think the audience will be able to tell tell that too, and I think they'll like it. I really think people will like me this time."

He's a male version of Julia Roberts, just awful. Though, in fairness, he didn't ruin this film. There wasn't much there to be ruined. Because so few chances were taken there was little to be lost, and Spike and crew managed to accomplish that modest goal, but just barely.

Jonze, quoted on his theme, "Well, ya' know, we're all frail, us humans. Right? I figured that by showing what an utterly wimpy guy Joaquin really is then that would communicate my message. I did that visually, and also with the writing, ya' know?"

I went to see it with Rachel, so there were several scenes that were tender, for us. Our love is failing. So, there was that, which added to the film. We had some laughs.

The subject is the usual mixed message of love, the impossibility but necessity of it. We are, of course, not-so-subtly reminded that we all are always alone, and likely fooling ourselves. It's a film about really loving your iPhone, and whether or not we even really know the people on Twitter.... It misses a central point of communication, yet seems to be trying desperately not to. If I understand it correctly it is a warning not to make the mistakes that the filmmaker is making, yet the message is cleverly concealed in an accusation. Wow. Heavy.

It's the 21st century version of the 19th century complaint, "Well, letter writing is fine and well for certain correspondence. It is perhaps an inescapable enterprise as circumstances demand it, but it is no comparison to chatting amicably in the parlor. So much is lost. So much is lost in this day and age…."

Who knew Spike Jonze was such a traditionalist?

We are reminded of the deep sadness of contemporary humanity in the opening scene. We realize that the central character writes letters for others, for a living. But then we come to find out that he is really good at it….

Whew...

Denouement: He gets dumped by a nobody. Which is really unfair!

Conclusion: Instead of high-rise suicide, but only just barely, it is suggested that he might choose the actual human interaction that's been right there in front of him the entire time. And, Curtains….

How deep, yet at such great heights. I was transported by it. It's as if I was in a foreign world where everybody dressed quirkily. But here's what's really weird… It was almost just like ours!

It should have been called: Hertz, doesn't it? 

Starring OJ Simpson.

I wouldn't recommend seeing it in the cinema, unless shallow depth of field shots of Joaquin Phoenix's mustache are of particular importance and interest to you.

If you wish to sit in the dark like me and hear Scarlett Johansson utter the phrase "anal sex" then this is your moment.

Cato absolutely loved the film. "Best thing since Gravity!"

And perhaps he is right. 

I can't think of anything that even comes close.

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Alongside the Wagon

I have become bored of sobriety. It was interesting for a little while. Now I question the remaining value there is to be gleaned from it. I believe that it is meant only to be a temporary state. That's why 12 step programs focus on the moment, the 'day at a time' thing. They know how truly fleeting a thing like sobriety is, or can be. 

My 'dry' insights are becoming too recurring. Too much like when I drink, though paced out a little bit more slowly, and much less fun. I just have the same insights over and over, it's a nightmare.

I know what will happen. There are a small handful of people in my life who will make subtle or bold indications as to how disappointed they are that I am drinking again. Then, I will be forced to hate those people. I will have no other choice. It is a requirement of falling from grace, one must be hateful, also. To be graceless and loving is difficult, some will not allow it.

I will drink and tell myself how fucked up they all are, the cops too, make them the object of my daily woes and criticism, the source of my cosmic discomfort; sitting at the bar cataloguing all of their inadequacies and faults. Mumbling as a reminder. 

That will help.

See, already alcohol is working its wonderful healing powers in my life. I am saved!

No. I had a dream that I drank a few beers last night and woke up feeling something resembling guilt. There was at least the question of it in the air. My buddy CS was on the wagon, and then decided he would step gently off. Soon he will be getting dragged along by it. It is the way of the sinner. He chose to follow The Devil instead of The Lord. He has willingly handed his life over to the wicked one, once again.

It's his choice. All we can do now is pray.

Jesus' tears can not reach him. Many, many times JC tried to explain that there was no real significance in his first miracle, the turning of water into wine. It just happened to unfold like that. But the many miscreant violators would not listen. 

Jesus hates a drunkard most of all, unless you're a queer. If you happen to be a queer drunkard then the angelic air traffic control system will not even direct any angels to fly near or above you. You are truly doomed, doubly so.

As well you should be, if that's the lifestyle that you choose.

Those Christians always have a way of determining if you are queer. They can sniff it right out. They will get you alone in a room for some focused prayer, some spirit-contact time. 

Then the questions start: 

"Does the thought of unbridled male on male lovemaking agitate you?"

"Does it bother you? I mean, deeply, inside of you?"

"Well, it should. It should bother you. It bothers me, brother. Because the Lord died to heal us, not to encourage us to wallow in each other's filth in momentary sinful ecstasy…."

Then there will be the praying, the touching, the laying on of hands for The Lord, the invitation for the Holy Spirit to enter the sinner, if only the sinner would accept this love….

That.

I should have known that I would return to drinking, even in my sleep. An atheist doesn't have a chance. They are hated and persecuted by all. Nobody is more welcome to drown in the sea of iniquity than an atheist (though abstainers are more annoying). Even devout Christians take some pleasure in the suffering of those trapped in divine denial. They are an affront to spiritual sensibilities everywhere. They are the lost forsaken. 

I never before realized how close the word forsaken is to foreskin. Tossed aside, all of them. The forsaken foreskins. That would be the name of my football team: The Foreskins.

Kicked by the Cosmos! There's the new title of my autobiography. I've had to abandon Hookers Don't Count... for now. 

The One Man Potato Chip Orgy.

Well, I shouldn't have ever called old CS and put him in the position to answer the drinking question. I'm not being a very good atheist.  

No Man is an Island! 

But a drinker is damned close... sort of an isthmus, a sandbar, always in danger of tides, undertow, currents. 

When I was a child I thought that people on peninsula would not get polio. When I got older I came to realize that it wasn't even used for that, but was quite effective against gonorrhea and prostitution, always after the fact. 

I got a late night film suggestion last night. Her. I was told that it is a "must see."

The recommendation was to "See it immediately!" I guess the sender of the text, Cato, doesn't realize that movies have specific times in which they are shown. Life doesn't really work the other way, the way that it should. I would love to have the power to just barge into any cinema and demand that they show the movie of my choice, just for me. But alas… the world has decided to privilege Joaquin Phoenix instead.

But that is the power that drinking gives you: to make more pressing requests of the world. It gives you a special courage. It elevates one to the level of super-requester. In the drinker's mind there is only one question and one answer: Why not? 

It allows you to pre-answer the important questions altogether. Like, "Should I piss on that?"

See? The answer is always the same. 

Just talking about drinking has the creative juices flowing freely once again. 

There's another possible title: 

"Should I piss on that?"

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"Daddy's in the radio!"

Yuck. I spent three+ hours in the car yesterday, commuting. I will repeat that today. Ten+ hours at work. An hour at the gym. Five hours of sleep. I must have eaten in there, somewhere.

Where does the time go, really? I've done the math. There are still five good hours left over in that day, as described, though I have no idea where they might have went. They must be hiding in there somewhere, trying to save themselves. There would have been some time between when I awoke and when I got in the car, and when I came home and went to sleep, but I can't remember any of it. It has all been blurred and lost among the other hours, the ones already accounted for.

Wah, wah, wah... I can't stand to hear people complain. That's why I write all of mine out here, so that the people around me don't have to hear it in my voice. They can preserve that.

Read the first two paragraphs of this post aloud, in your voice. I dare you. You'll see what I mean, Replace the things I do with the things you do.


Oh, I see, they're the same. You mean, you work also?

Ah. Well then, of what do I have to complain?

Everybody works, even writers. I've known artists that have had to get jobs.

Times are tough.

But today is Friday. Payday. I am free, in just 13-14 hours. Another five hours of sleep and I'll awake not knowing what to do with myself. Just 24 short hours from now. I'll probably be back here, describing the upcoming luxury of the weekend to you. It will be a compare/contrast essay companion.

I have plans to hang out with the little kid pictured above. Him, and his entourage. He doesn't do very much but Jesus is he full of new discoveries, and endless enthusiasm to share them. It is precious. He has some new things and he wants to show them to you, so that you will understand about them too. He's learning words at an astonishing rate. Soon he'll be making new ones.

He just drops them into conversation now. No biggie.

His mother told me that in the car yesterday he said, "Daddy's in the radio!"

He hears me playing the piano and guitar for him and he's started to equate the music that he hears in the car with memories of that. Priceless. It sounds so easy, so simple, but then it happens… It is a form of magic. Truly. It changes the world. It is magic.


I know it's just silly, and I was whining earlier…. but as many hours as they could fit in a day, well, there would never be enough. It is good and fitting that there are new days, also. 

The greatest bullfighter is the sun, and he has only one eye.

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… marked by dissatisfaction and/or indifference

(The slow motion crisis of age)

Fuck. Up with the stars, the spinning milky galaxy. Each night my veins fill with some sort of watery embalming fluid and I am stricken with a mild dysphoria, only coffee can offset the effect, the secret sleep mortician's damage is done. It is a mild addiction, but at least nobody will bother me about it. Few, anyway.

Perhaps my doctor. 

I will make a call and fire him when his office opens at 9am, just after having him refill my xanax prescription. I wonder if he would ever be willing to subscribe morphine to me, for my pain.

"But sir, you simply stop coming here and then choose another doctor that you feel will be more supportive of your 'coffee addiction', you don't need to 'fire' your doctor, it doesn't really work that way. Yes, of course, we have your address on file. And no, I have never heard of the doctor delivering a gallon of liquid morphine to a patient's home. It is a controlled substance, it has nothing to do with whether or not we trust you."

"You know... I didn't want to do this, and I suspected that you'd make this whole process unpleasant. I just somehow knew you'd make your silly little scene about it all. But now you've pushed me too far, and I am in no mood for this. You're fired too! Get a cardboard box, pack your shit, and get out, NOW! I'll be coming by to pick up that morphine prescription myself, since you claim that it can not just be called in as usual."

That's what my day looks like. A real Donald Trump.

I feel bad for them, but what am I to do, suffer these indignities forever? I had to fire everybody in the office. They put me on speaker phone. I could hear them all laughing. My suffering will soon be over.

I will have to call my insurance company, of course, let them know not to pay any outstanding charges I might have with them, explain the situation, see if they'll give me a cash advance against any future claims I might make before the end of the year, then run by the pharmacy and verify when they will be able to fill a prescription for a 5 gallon jug of liquid morphine and a customized silly straw.

I would write more this morning, dear reader, you know that I would. But alas, this relationship was never meant to last. It was doomed from the start, the very first words we ever spoke….

Mine was, "Fuck."

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Inadvertent confessionals

("I want trouble!")

I have nothing to write about, nothing to say. I have been sitting here for about 10 minutes staring at the computer screen, wishing for delicious coffee. There is Starbucks, but I do not feel like leaving the warmth of my room. My cravings have not yet designed their own capstone. 

Getting coffee would require me to do things that I will have to do again in an hour when I go to the gym. So I defer.

I have been eating like a capitalist lately. The owner of the gym, Juan, rescinded his offer to do an expose on me, the one to help promote the benefits of the healthy lifestyle. When I asked he shook his head sadly, stared at the floor, and just said, "No….. no, man…… I can't do it. I'm sorry, you've got to, um, you know….."

I don't understand. I had thought that if I stopped drinking that all of my problems would evaporate and that I would snap back into youthfulness, an antediluvian form. It turns out that the liver is not the seat of happiness, but rather only a battered reservoir of potential woe. It is just one organ among many. Like Pluto, it's recently been kicked off the list of vitals, banished from the garden. Now, the neighbor kids poke it with sticks, mistaking it for the spleen.

But I do feel better. My head is clearer. I think.

I've heard some people say that you can't drink to avoid your problems, but then they'll turn right around and admit that they don't deal with their problems at all when they're drinking. So, it does work. Drinkers are notorious liars. They often confuse their metaphors and do unconscious battle with the analogies that they are so fond of. 

As for problems, there are some that are simply solved by me choosing to not interfere. I'm doing everybody a favor by not getting involved, just going to the pub instead. It's a healthy time saving device.

In this regard, drinking is a form of benevolence. Just imagine how much more trouble I would cause if I was actually paying attention.

Recently, I was chatting with a friend and they were relaying to me how alcohol had blinded them to certain things. They were unable to see past the drinking, but once that was removed they were startled to discover how much more there was to see. It sounds like the drinker's epiphany, the famous "lucid moment." But it wasn't even them that was doing the drinking. It was somebody they knew. Somewhere within themselves, even though they could not fully realize that they were doing it, they were refusing to see beyond it. 

Drinking is an easy impediment. Some not only allow it to be such, they rely on it.

When people say that things become even more difficult for them when their "loved one" has stopped drinking then there is perhaps something else going on there. The drinking can too easily be a catch-all excuse that conceals other behavior, or habits, and not always those of the drinker. There is an unexpected loss of the all-purpose blame shield. How tough that must be, also.

I have heard some describe the experience of sudden cessation as that of being suddenly naked. 

For me, it has been almost the opposite. I feel like Tarzan in an Izod.

But enough about all of that. It serves little purpose to discuss it here. I have made some important realizations, many of which were little more than reminders of things already known.

But those must count too.

("Why don't we have a van, daddy?")

"Because they're just too expensive, son."

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You can be too careful

Let's make this quick. I have to drive into SF.

I went to a children's art showing last night. I would include the young artists' names with the two pieces that I have chosen to display here but that is something that you simply do not do. Apparently all children are only one small parental mistake away from being kidnapped. Danger lurks everywhere and you can not be too careful…. It is the message that gets relayed. To disagree is heresy. Moderation and sensibility in child safety is practically a form of abuse.

It's true. The only thing keeping children safe is extreme parental paranoia and after-school television specials which relay the very important reminders of abduction and certain mutilation.

Monsters, everywhere. 

Have you checked your zip code lately?

I'm waiting for the day when the abductors start to make the legal claim that they were just trying to keep the children safe. In a climate of open absurdity anything becomes possible, and will even begin to make sense. The defense lawyers will usher in this new era of principles.

There is no stopping it. Any parent that makes the mistake of trying to act normally in this climate will be both openly and privately criticized as not loving their children enough, a danger to the community. They will be told by the city, county, and eventually the state that they are unfit. 

The only way to prove your love is to get in step with the fear. Anything less is poor parenting and soon to be illegal. New requirements will begin to appear in the form of mandatory suggestions. Well-meaning guidelines that carry rather stiff penalties for anything perceived as non-compliance. You will sign papers at school to guarantee that you have been warned. It will all make a sort of grim sense and nobody will make a case for non-compliance. Who would argue against the war on danger.

The constrictions are descending from all sides. The state of being constantly alert is the most salient attribute and hallmark of our new society. Everybody must be on board for it to be total, and we are a total type of place.

If you see something...

Well, I saw something a few weeks ago in the newspaper in which a neighbor had another neighbor arrested because her kids were playing outside. She called the police and reported that the mother was not watching her kids.

The kids were in the front yard of their own home, playing. The mother was washing dishes at the front window. The neighbor claimed that, "It's always like that. She just sits inside while they're playing without supervision."

Haul her away. It's the only sensible thing to do. Better go ahead and get a fresh blemish on her record, just in case. Safety first, you know. 

Primitivo: But are there not many fascists in your own country?

Robert Jordan: There are many that do not know they are fascists but will find out when the time comes.

Parents would, of course, be quick to point out local examples of abductions and wrongdoing. Never argue child safety with somebody armed with stats and facts. If you make the mistake of asking how heightened paranoia actually helps to stop any of it then you will quickly learn the error of your ways. Paranoia is Safety, the line between these two states is blurred, multiplied and then amplified, sold back to us as the new version of love. Anything less is pedophilia and infantile strangulation. 

Yet even instilling every child with the fear of death is still somehow not enough. If only there was a way of getting them to understand the danger... It's only a matter of time before parents watching snuff films with their children will be considered normal.

Tough love. How else are they to understand? It's a strict but necessary step. Severity will be perceived as a form of tenderness, and alarm for love. There are already sirens installed in all the churches and schools. When every parent becomes a watchdog then all that is needed is more to watch, increased reports to meet the new needs.

You can not be too careful.

People have to feel that what they are doing is the best thing for their child, no matter how absurdly misguided. They will battle sensibility with endless anecdote. The more gruesome details will transmute into the more love they have for protecting their own, and those around them. One parent will outdo the other in imagined safety projections. Not to be long outdone, the other will raise the bar for the other and the other for the other.

If you wish to witness hysteria, then just attend.

But what about this, or that? Perceived inadequacy in protection indicates the clearest lack of love. Who will suffer such a charge, particularly when it is never actually made, but rather only implied. There is a poison running through our veins. It came from the food, or the toys from China, it seeps in from the television, or by playing with the neighbor kids. 

This home will be poison free, that is our mantra.

Of course you can't have dinner over at Timmy's house! Their parents shop at the poor people's grocery store… Do you think that we want you POISONED?

And this will be called love.

There is no logical end to it. To suggest anything less than extreme safety is a danger to the zeitgeist, the new threatgeist. 

But the kids seem almost happy, somehow, through it all. 

Just note the knowing smirk on little Mona.

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Advance

I start my new job today. I was, and still somewhat am, in a transitional state. A particular responsibility of the old position is no longer mine, one that I do not believe that I will miss much. Though I did not hate it, it only tired my psyche and made me sometimes wish that I was doing something else. 

The training phase will be ending soon and I will be expected to act with greater autonomy and precision. My experiences will be more complex, more educational. In complexity there is a kind of solace, for some, a space from which to retreat from the manic immediacy of many needs. Problem solving takes time, most people respect and understand this.

Most.

I am looking forward to learning, to challenging myself through troubleshooting steps, research. Though I know how quickly that enthusiasm can wane, when perpetually confronted with seemingly insoluble problems. 

One must always be on guard against the thing they wish for. We must be careful of the things we want, the things we get.

Perhaps not everybody, but certain types of people.

Me, etc.

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