The immediate plans of rain

More darkness and fog. It is unbearable. I spend too much time alone in it, it has crept in.

I keep returning to check the weather app. Sunshine is always one day away, taunting me from the future. 

Today things are meant to finally open up for the brighter, though. It has been almost three weeks now. I could never live in a place that remained like this for any longer than that. It feels as if there is wet moss clinging to my mind, everything smells of dampness.

I awake in the late evenings and try to tire myself back to sleep with mindless reruns. 

Last night was the winter solstice, the longest night in earth's history. I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss a single second of it, not a blink.

My circadian rhythms are screwed for life, I am certain of it.

I used to lock myself away in my New York apartment for days and nights on end. Not leaving for any reason; ordering food delivered to the front door and only showering when it became a requirement that could no longer be shirked. After four or five days like that I would finally emerge, usually in the very late evening, to go to one of the local bars of character. Sitting silently is, for me, a struggle under most circumstances. I would sit and listen to the night characters that inhabited the best of the late night bars.

Ordering a pint of beer was often the first attempt at words that I had made in days. Sometimes my voice would just be a dry squeaking, a poor connection between spirit and world.

It is odd for me, now, to think back to those nights and yet miss them. I don't miss the behavior that would cause my hermitic reclusiveness, though I miss the solitary sense that can only be won from the world through rigid demands of self.

Today, I go look at a possible new place to live.  Sonoma is a renters' market to an absurd degree. If I choose to take the place, it will be the first time that I have lived entirely alone in about six years. I wonder to which form I might revert, what secret self lurks and lingers amidst the the bouts  of insomnia.

The place will be prohibitively expensive, such that I will be forced to spend more time there. It will leave far fewer resources that would allow me to ever depart. I will become a regular caller to my internet provider, launching wild midnight accusations that begin with the repeated premise that I am very angry, and not getting the speed that I paid for.

.

Nine Minutes to Noon

Up early again, watching images stream across a laptop, listening to Christmas music, a playlist sent from an old friend, compiled a few years back from his father's collection. The Twelve Days are upon us.

His father passed away when he was only an adolescent. The effect of it upon him has been evident, in the formation of his personality. A picture of him standing by his father's bedside towards the end is the only tangible connection I have with that previous life he lived, the unreachable life of another's childhood. The collection of seasonal tunes is perhaps one more, though music somehow feels less than tangible to me. No matter how much I have tried to make it physical, it has a recurring ephemeral quality to it that seems to me to be untouchable.

Music will become more and more fleeting as collections will consist entirely of subscriptions. The idea of music as a possession is an increasingly fading one.

Yesterday, watching an old John Wayne film, The Searchers, I was reminded of my mother. She used to tell everybody that would listen that I simply loved John Wayne and Lucille Ball. I have no idea where she got these ideas. Once, or twice, I probably refused to rake the yard, insisting maybe instead that I was watching a film or tv program that starred either of them. From there arose the childhood myth, repeated as often as possible, into my early adult years, and even now by me.

I believe Wayne was once on an episode of I love Lucy, so maybe that's where she got the idea. Who knows.

I should have more rightly called it a John Ford film, rather than a John Wayne film. I suppose it is both. I have had an aversion for John Wayne since I was old enough to understand what an tremendous right-wing bigot he was. CS mentions Playboy interviews. I used to have a collection of them and Wayne's was among the most famous of all of them, and controversial, spewing a mixture of white supremacy, an early form of American exceptionalism, and denouncing any and all welfare programs that didn't involve enforced manual labor. His solution for poverty was quite simple, road gangs, etc.

He laughed at the idea that an actor could ever be president.

My favorite interviews from the Playboy collection were Gore Vidal and Muhammad Ali. There were others but I can barely recall now, though I see the orange bound book as if it were in my hands.

I remember the day that The Duke died. My father was in the hospital. He had eaten some bad fish at work and was in a terrible state. I remember seeing the headlines and the image. The Orlando Sentinel. I was about ten years old and the additional shock reminder of mortality left a crease. A few years later my father was back in that same hospital with the first of his heart-attacks. I remember him reaching for my hand to hold from the ER gurney. I had never seen or felt anything like it.

My father refused to make the matter of the food poisoning a legal issue. My mother felt differently. She was prepared to pounce upon them with a lawyer. My dad seemed more of the company man, best not to make waves.

Perhaps they were both right.


That is enough reminiscing for the morning. Many denounce it, even this form of skewed nostalgia, perhaps without ever knowing how well and often and truly it keeps some from the blade.

.

What happens when you step on molten lava

At long last, I awoke to silence. The rains have temporarily ceased.

The internet predicts that they will soon return. I will be waiting for them. 

Watching ads stream before the video I barely wish to watch.

.

Deep December Drizzle

(What's not to believe?)

More rain through the days and nights. More again tomorrow, if the apps are to be believed.

The hysteria of Christmas approaches, even in the rain. I can, at least, partially see it through my son's eyes and find some genuine joy in it. 

"Family time" has never quite appealed to me the way that it might to others. I prefer my friend's families, of course. It is more interesting and fun to be an observer than a participant. It's not that I don't love my family, it's only that I struggle finding strong connections with them. The connections all seem to stop and start with the relationship alone. We share few interests, though that shouldn't matter. Maybe it doesn't. They say it's bad for the soul, to not closely adhere to family. Look at what it's done to me.

Just Look.

I spend nights alone in darkness listening to the rain. What good can possibly come of that. I could be out caroling with neighborhood siblings, sipping eggnog, or participating in some other seasonal christian activity.

My atheism has been less active this year. It does get tiring, the burden of disbelief. Many have encouraged me towards agnosticism, but I can't do it. The church is dangerous and no new Pope will change that much. It is fun to see Catholicism get such a surge out of the guy though, Francis. He helped broker the return of Cuban /  American relations, we're told. Claims that dogs can go to heaven. He's like the Ghostbuster's Pope.

People simply love the guy.

And why not? He's Argentinean, so likability is genetic. Though many have whispered that it's also a special gift from God, the seed of diplomacy. 

I watched the last episode of Colbert Report late last night. This night, I guess, it's not quite over yet. 

It is too bad to see him go, to take the character with him. Many years ago he had become a parody of the parody, had watered down his wit to better mix with the whiskey. But he could still pull off the occasional turn of thought and phrase that made watching all worthwhile. 

It will be interesting to see what becomes of him next. He seems to be a likable enough fellow also. I'm sure we will all adjust. I look forward to any political observations not made through the reverse lens of character. It's odd, but I almost anticipate a sense of disbelief, though I'm sure that too will pass.

Okay, Starbucks awaits, then the gym, then the rest of the day. 

Then, of course, the rain.

.

The Lost Boys

Too much "other" to do today to write. I have taken a half day off from work, and might just need the full.

It is astonishing what a good night's sleep will do for a person, vitality returns. Last night was the perfect night for it, too. I have a potentially stressful day ahead of me, filled with questions or certainties. It is all a dread, this mismanaging of lost love.

The boy slept here last night. Now that he has his own twin bed he's much easier to deal with. I am, at least, able to sleep mostly uninterrupted. It is all a great adventure for him and one is expected to know this from the pirate sheets that cover his mattress and pillow.

He sleeps now next to me as I write this, skirmishing once again with Captain Hook and Mr. Smee.

.

... take heed, take heed of the western wind

It seems that the rains will never stop. Not for very long, anyway. It has rained with hardly any cessation since we all returned from the mountains. It was raining when we arrived, it is raining now.

I hang my towels to dry after a shower and a full day later they are still damp to the touch.

It is not the spring rains that render the world new and afresh. It is oppressive and heavy, too persistent to enjoy as a diversion. It sits atop the heart like an open ocean.


On my return from the city yesterday there had settled entirely new lakes mixed among the fields where before there had only stood cows and grass, down in the valley where the Petaluma river runs dark into the open bay.


That is all there is to report, if this can be called reporting. I will welcome the sun again when I see it, like never before. I will raise my hands and eyes to it in true ecstasy.

I promise, I will.

Oh, how can, how can you ask me again
It only brings me sorrow
The same thing I want from you today
I would want again tomorrow

Hundreds Feared Bed

A long and wet drive into a dark city. I take the time to catch up with all of my east coast buddies on the phone. This morning was Selavy. He was the only one weak enough to answer my calls. We chatted like two teenage girls. At one point in the conversation we agreed what awful women we would both make.

I think that we agreed, anyway. Now that I think back... he didn't sound very agreeably enthusiastic about my suggestion. He probably believes that he would be a stellar woman. He does feign demureness quite well.

Ah, who knows. He's probably already out shopping for panties.


Selavy gave me sage advice about women. He said that you can't be happy with anything more than a "6."

Women who are attractive, or believe themselves to be, will cause you great misery. He encouraged me to look around at all the guys I knew that were happily married, ones that have Super Bowl parties and go shopping together on the weekends, holding hands. He said that none of the men that were with a "7" or up were very happy. They all just knew that their 7, 8 or 9's were always prepared to move on and make some other man temporarily happy.

He relayed a story about one of his other friends telling him that he wanted this particular woman to "think of him all of the time" when he was lucky if she was thinking about him while she was talking to him.

It's all true, of course. The observations that men make about women and confide in one another... No truer source of wisdom has yet been found. The honorable laws of nature that spring forth from the minds of men.

He told me that my relationship issues stem from this, "Your problem is simple. One of you is too good looking."


Well, the sun is rising behind me here on the seventh floor of our SF office. I will go stand and look out pensively at the fresh new world, imagining that I am pissing on everything that my eyes can see.

.

Tremours

Dearth. There was a typo in yesterday's post. Ooops. Blame it on the rain.

Flurries, here in perpetuity. I awake to the sound of them, always in darkness. It is both comforting and unsettling, a familiar dream becoming cold menace.

I invite rattled chaos into my life, perhaps too much say some, because shaken chaos is precisely what I get. I'm told it's good for the soul, keeps one from becoming prematurely old, but I don't think that it's had that effect on me. 

That which doesn't thrill you only makes you stringent.

I would write more today, to affirm that my sense of humor has returned, but I am too busy. A friend at work once pointed out to me that work can be used as a defense against external chaos. Just dive into it and do it well, then the other worries of the world tend to disappear, a little bit. If nothing can be done about them then do nothing, including worry. Match nothingness with nothing.

Seems like simple, easy to follow advice, because it is. 

It's only when the night comes, the rains whisper of ill omens.

I hope that Fleetwood Mac is out there, playing somewhere in the Northern Californian rain. I wonder if Stevie Nicks still invites witchiness as part of her self-image, her preferred persona. One must only wonder. Few things survive aging, the choice of self-image among them. It is good to adopt a persistent sense of humor with a dash of self-applied (mildly deprecative) honesty to avoid the terror of terrors, the idiocy of self-sameness. 

Tell stories in which you are the heroic buffoon. It is widening. 

At this point Fleetwood Mac could have Arnold Schwarze in the band, singing the Big Witch's parts. Nobody would likely notice, nor share.

They would all clamor about how good she still looks; solid, able to do pushups, and wears them most nights too.

.

Seasonal Concessions

Everything I write is too morose. I keep starting posts and the themes are unnecessarily sullen. There are a number of reasons for it, none worth reporting.

Blame it on the season, I suppose:

December has the qualities of death; not the dying of November, nor the first wind of sickness in October, but death.

.

Cataracts

We seem inundated.

The old, the stupid, the infirm, fat, or worse. Life is a scrambled huffing that we wish to continue.

Those who aren't wealthy or smart, unlike me... they somehow live without the imaginary virtue of self-righteous poverty.  

Oh, suckers.

They still drink, and make mistakes, so the dynamic of life continues to confuse. 

The rich perplex me in a way that the poor never will. Nobody long questions how anybody ever achieved astonishing poverty.

Yet, the poor seem happy, and tests show that they are. Why not me? What do they know?

How can the wealthy be virtuous and somehow less happy. Shouldn't I also get a chance at disproving that axiom from the other side? I want to be rich, reckless, and happy. It's just math.

It is the middle-class that nobody really gives a fuck about. Some study them, for the purpose of aversion, not attraction. I've checked the stats, I am definitely middle-class. I would need a wife that made as much as me or more to even start to top out that category. 

Seems unlikely. 

Wifes, might push me above the dark side of the income inequality gap.

Think about that for a moment, I have. 

A healthy harem would make me a truly bad guy, in capitalist terms.

Young people might still have a chance. They believe and act as if recognition confers distinction. They might be right, though that rightness has lost some its sparkle in my imaginings. 

Perhaps it is why they dress up as Batman, and kill.

Who gives a epileptic bat-winged fuck about a printed biography from Scribners when you can score thousands of hits and attract an online expose from puffington post people's problem page. 

It is what we asked for, for what we secretly wished. Titillated by lives that surpass our own, on terms that that we have only partial vision of. 

Our own lives, to which we lack adequate access, appear dull in the reflection of such smartness, and fade. To be flooded, drowning. Beyond breathing but before death, the simulacrum of 

interest. 

My thumb has become the reach of my research. Each night, sooner or later, I get crazy and start to index. It ends up with the middle, or ring. Dear, Pinky.

Media reminds: how needy we are, how little we have to offer, and how fucked up what we have to offer really is. It is the witness of a sickness: the attempt to correct or entertain just might go viral. 

I speak a bit for myself, but for others, also. I do not offer this as an advertisement, or an endorsement. It is a criticism, only.  If you go viral, then congrats, it seems to be monetized.

To wit, when I was younger, serial killers were portrayed as methodical and calculating, over time. 

What happened? The public spotlight somehow lost interest. 

Now, we have spree-killers. They prepared, but didn't include self-longevity in those preparations, at least not beyond the idea of explosive profile. Hits.

Young people just don't commit anymore. 

I would tell them to get off of my lawn but I don't have one. They never stay on the lawn long enough to listen anyway. 

Get out of my basement! seems creepy, because it is.

A man, aging; screaming toward the shade of trees; dull knives flashed in daylight, worse. 

Desperation at lack of danger. 

I look around and see only fat, hairy-lipped, herpes-infested monsters that wish to be acknowledged and then kissed. 

We all get the love that we deserve.

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

Okay, I can't write that way any more.

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

I dreamed of nuclear explosions the nighttime before last. It was terrible.

In my sleep, I was running with Rachel and looking back. We turned together, as a dream Lot and his unnamed salt-wife. Behind us, there were pillars shaped of monstrous mushrooms in the dark, rising across the San Francisco Bay by murky moonlight. We looked over the mountains as we fled. I could see a number of lightning strikes happening inside the dusty heart of the radioactive demon. Synapses come to dark wonder in dream. 

Far away, so close. 

It was nuclear annihilation, we both knew it.  We rushed to get home. Knowledge of our child, the young boy, was in the dream and between us, driving the unlit course of fear. Alarm mounts quickly, then quicker. As if seconds had seconds.  

We somehow could not gather enough fresh water, and I couldn't explain why we were trying. I'm sure it was my suggestion. I awoke just as we were attempting to both carry a beer cooler full of mud towards the hopeful safety of home. 

Death for all was certain. It looked like I might be last.

This is what I try to sleep through, in the early morning hours. If you wish to know.

My own indisposition is assumed, barely in the vision. 

The trajectory of my life, even in dreams, is still pointed at the purpose of loving others.

My battle is with the weight of mud.

My struggle is against the unbearable shift of dream.

Speaking of floods, we are here enduring biblical evenings and mornings. 

Rain is a reminder of the present, gentle or no. 

It is also other.

Rain is the mother of nature, or at least the one we love and fear.

No, that metaphor would make rain the "warm sperm of Father Time."

If Mother Earth is to be believed, then "Mommy" is a spraying, asexual hermaphrodite that breeds violent death as her most benevolent gift. 

Why can't that be our shared myth?

Some oceans are cold as ice, death just as certain. 

That might be true. 

When I notice women who align themselves with the concepts of Mother Earth they all seem a bit too testrus in their assertions and behavior. 

"Father Sperm" is not a phrase for a god that they would ever worship, most of them. 

Sexists, all other sexes.

Any person that claims "earthiness" might better also worship death by natural means, because that is the deepness of nature's nature. 

The promise of promises.

Mother Nature has long had herpes, and gives it freely to kissers.

Her unsuspecting qualities are unexpected growth. V. End.

Mother Earth has a scent that is just as bacterial, as it is wind.

Okay, a squirt of male newness:

L.A. idea (new series): 

A futuristical world in which rain triggers earthquakes...  

Image: boiling water, waves, grenades, robot semen made of pop-rocks

Hollywood, do you hear me calling....?

I am what is known as an Ideal guy... I deal LA. 

It's Mexican. It ends with an a.

No Moses's can dissuade me, with powdered stone capsules, offers of perpetual wandering.

I've always been more of a Noah; gathering two copies of favored books, one of each to each of each, herding them across any arc. 

My life is like the neck of a giraffe, inexplicable, easily broken. 

By whom, weathering floods, dynasores. 

I want to run; my life is large and has grown broad branches. 

A man can not trot if he can not sprint.

An oak trying to cross wide waters, the sense that downstream will not be a hemisphere of my choosing, nor anybody's soft tug.

A shove in winter, resisting a glove.

Moses, I hardly split the red wine. 

Like you, also never birthed.

My covenant, to drink that which did rise upon one side.

Or just the other, other earth.

.

Trixie

What can be said. My buddy's family dog died today. She had become sick, organ failure. It happened suddenly, too suddenly. Not without warning, but also without options.

Much has been said about the love of dogs, and by those who are far better than I at saying it. It is an exceptional love that is achieved in the most ordinary of ways, anybody that has ever felt it knows. Some of those who deny it also know, for reasons their own. Then, there are those that have never felt it. Or worse, resist it.

Trixie was neither particularly noble nor always easy to interact with at the onset of each and every encounter, though she had tremendous and peculiar charm once you accepted that, and then convinced her to move past it with some affectionate head petting and soft talking to, if you were lucky. All was not well at home until she conceded that it was. Explosive in the severity of her greeting, unending in her verifications that all was as it should be. 

Trixie was always the first to know.

Her way of announcing need for love was also unmistakeable, endearing. Her uncontrollable exclamations at any entrance to the house will be missed, an echo of the life that we share.

The barking, her barking.

.

(No Tittle)

I am tired, I am weary, I could sleep for a thousand years....

I question also, much. One must attempt to balance the expectations with the answers given, the promises; compelled to try, obliged by contact, proximity.

It's never easy. Promises scarcely equal expectations. They should, might. They are always pointed at different stars.

My last lines:

No one saves others, or else, or was. 

To the spritely tune of: 

Or was, or was... all the wonderful because we does.  

We're off to slay the blizzards. 

.

Deep in the Bohemian Basin

(Praha)

The weekend feels as if it's already over. Mondays hang over Sundays like wet moss.

My life is about to undergo some fresh changes. I invite them. There is a last-minute offer to play Prague for New Year's Eve and I want to take it, though the circumstances of life seem as if they might act in preventative ways, again. Aging seems to be only part of the problem, the conditions surrounding age add unexpected restrictions to its dynamic. 

The spirit is willing, the body is strong. So, tell me, what went wrong? 

Anybody can get by with two of these qualities: poverty, dreams, children. Trying to possess all three simultaneously is excessive and ill-advised. I suppose that poverty might have to go. I've held on for as long as I can. It was my one last remaining virtue.

Having a kid is great, if that's mostly all you ever wish to do. The boy is not old enough yet to come with me to Prague. He and I are entertained by different things. I suspect that my Czech friends would not find the same amusement in him as I do.

Who knows, they are a complex, wanton people who might respond positively to his preternatural wailings.

I invite chaos up to a point. The problem being, that point is often well past other's limitations for confusion and disorder, particularly when I am positioned as either the conduit or source. 

Having a child regulates some of this, in one way, though not always by your own design or timeframe. Things keep changing, demands keep transitioning unexpectedly, and it feels like chaos to me, though I recognize that in some ways it is happening by a certain pre-determined order. I am experiencing the quanta of parenthood.

Who knows, maybe the boy would love Prague in the winter, just like me; the dancing house, the castles and many spires, and even a dose of Kafka, too!

.

The tell-tell heart

I awake to the sound of knocking; a dram within a dream, screaming.

It is a heartbeat, I am certain, never ceasing. Of this, I am sure, beyond; its regular thud and muffled insistence, the uniform patter of existence.

There is one here in the room with me, almost silent, never still, tempering the breathing to my dreaming, an eventual end of beatings.

Unbelieving, comes the alarmed echo of being, thieving from the thing. 

Faith is just a thing's seeming. 

Panic, sudden suffocation. In fright lost first to nerves, and then dread, terror and hysteria. 

Panic leaps from operation to undertaking, without a doctor's whisper. Never more than a lanced pustule, broken blister, an incision. 

Haunting, taunting, the uniform pumping of its tough fibrous purpose. 

In this sudden stop, panic is certain.

The lamp has drawn its curtain. 

Why I still love having choked the clock....

I often complain about not having time to write, today it's true.

I am tasked with completing a "self assessment" at one of my many jobs.

I love this sort of exercise. 

It produces a minimum of two sets of results, often having nothing at all to do with one another.

The first-draft version has qualifications like this:

• Have eternally vanquished Godzilla from the Bay Area 
• Have never ratted on anybody; don't even know the HR "red line" number
• Always exercise very strict "code of silence," when tired, sleeping, or praying

The second-edited-draft version resembles this:

1. Increased overall sales by an inestimable amount
2. Expressed corollary, negligible effect on stock prices
3. Deeply committed to company's 401K policies
4. Avoid office politics by calling in sick

Then, I'll submit a third-and-final version that I won't bother outlining here. It bores the mind to consider oneself in a purely functional capacity, and then to state that capacity using so few words.

Laconically, as it were.  

If they asked me to write an essay about myself they just might get a dirty simulacrum of truth.

In the end, I will sneak in subtleties. Always.

When asked to summate myself as part of the obligatory self-appraisal, I'll write things like, "Consider yourself lucky to see me working for you."

Too subtle?

I've never had a boss regard me with anything less than affection*, even the ones that almost fired me, of which there were several. 

Full disclosure: It must have been the tears and roses...

* - "anything less than affection" - This statement is not strictly true. One of my managers did cut off my oxygen supply for me, briefly, at a nightclub.

In fairness, this did happen off the clock, and I survived.  

.

Temporaria Iustitiam (It's Latin, brothers and sisters!)

(Two good citizens)

(This is a work of incomplete satirical fiction and is not intended in any way to be legal advice; whether substantive, useful, or purely imaginary. I am not a barrister, etc. If you feel that you are being unfairly targeted... then please contact your local police office and let them know who you believe might be your persecutor or persecutors.)

I don't like cops very much, either, and don't ever want them hugging me.

They are necessary in the same way that death is: they provide order, too often at the point of severe pain. In this, they are the presumed resolution of "sickness," and will remind you when given the chance, the literate ones. If it were not for death then there would only be perpetual disease.

Do you even have any idea of what sickos I deal with every night? 

Why yes I do, Officer, is it T. Bickle?

A few rules, for power:

- Never, ever grant power to the humorless.

- Never assume the basic goodness of humanity, particularly in those who have sought out and gained petty or substantial powers over others.

- Do not ever let the punitive force of society exceed the creative force.

In the handful of experiences that I have had with cops... I have found often, only after that fact, that they used their knowledge of how to abuse the law to direct the outcome of our interaction in such a way that they were able to flex the maximum amount of power against me, with no accountability whatsoever. Even when I was "trying to help."

Cops don't like me, generally, and I usually echo and reflect those same sentiments back to them. They don't respect me, and I make sure that they know that I feel similarly. I very rarely begin an interaction with a cop with anything less than respect. The undoing seems to be in the questions that I am willing to ask them.

Anybody that is very well liked by cops is quite plausibly a complete perversion of independent thought. If your heroes are cops then you just might have the imagination of a killer. Cops do not kill more people than the general population, but the comparative numbers should surprise anybody.

I should qualify... when discussing sports and weather, in line at Starbucks, cops adore me, wish me to be one of them, etc. It's only when they have arrived to create order that things go terribly wrong with them.

Another aside:

If "line of duty" is a valid defense, without need of further question, then why is black on black crime even questioned or referenced. If Giuliani can claim we need so many cops because there is so much black-on-black crime then why can't we extend that thought process out to its logical conclusion and reward blacks for killing other blacks? It would be much cheaper than cop pensions, and achieve seemingly similar goals. If the magnitude of the lie is to be believed at all then we have some horrible inner city comptrollers.


Back to the post:

The only thing that I have truly learned in these experiences with cops is one very simple fact: ALWAYS exercise your right to remain silent. If a cop is asking you questions then he is looking for ways to implicate you ,or to use your own statements against you, or somebody you might care about. Try to record your interactions with cops, always. The laws on this vary from state to state.


A few basic tips:

- All cops are liars.

- If there were more "good cops" then there would be far fewer bad cops.

- Do not ever open your door for a cop (This includes your car door, and even the majority of the window of your car door. Just crack it so that you can talk. Don't be a prick on this one, but do not give them the chance to unlock your door for you. They will. Tell them that you are scared and do not wish to open your window any further. This is a solid, legally defensible position that will get your ass kicked almost every time. It's worth it.).

- Keep your door locked and speak with them through a respectable space, one in which they can not enter unimpeded. You can tell them to walk over to a front window of your home and speak to them through the glass. If they break this glass without a warrant then it is a very different thing from them claiming (as this highly awarded team of two) that you opened the door for them, no matter what the facts.

- All cops are liars. They are all also writers, of a sort. Their writings are taken with disproportionate seriousness.

- Do not ever offer a cop information concerning yourself. If you are being questioned about a crime then seek legal counsel, even if you believe yourself to be entirely innocent, but most certainly if you know yourself to be endangered. Your right to remain silent will prevent them from arresting you 90% of the time, or this statistic is what I will test the very next time I have a chance.

- Don't be black, brown, or anything other than white, ever. I can not emphasize this enough. If you do not have "white rights" then you should hide inside, always. You are always a threat to a cop's safety, never forget that.

- The number of judges that question a cop's claim of uncertainty for their own safety against a dark-skinned person is virtually non-existent. Do not be black.

- Do not ever publicly question a cop's authority, just silently show them yours: NEVER OPEN YOUR DOOR. EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT. You can legally stand at your front window and taunt cops with silence. You have no legal obligation to even acknowledge them. They will shoot you to prove that you were not a ghost.

- This act will be acceptable by any court of law. Ghost are very scary and real, they just proved that. 

- Every now and then you will meet a nice cop, one who even seems "good." On a bad day, or even on a very good day, this same cop will cover-up for a cop that has hurt or bludgeoned you, or immorally used the law against you, or even egregiously broken the law themselves while you were trying to help.

- Frank Serpico may have been a good cop.


A political aside:

- Notice the position of most Libertarians on the increasingly fragile concepts of Liberty and Freedom from Tyranny.

- Too often, they will side with the cops. These are dangerous people.

- Never forget that. Never forget the way they make you feel about the concepts of Equality and Justice.

- Never.

A few tips for driving:

- Turn your cell phone off before getting in your car. This has a two-fold benefit.

- Buy a dash-cam that streams to the cloud.

- Exercise your right to remain silent, always.

- Never admit to wrongdoing, wrongfully thinking that you and the cop just became friends.

- All cops are liars.

- Don't drive drunk.

A few tips for home:

- Install a webcam that streams to the cloud.

- If a cop pushes his way through your front door without presenting a warrant or announcing that he has one then shoot him dead once he has entered your home. Make sure that they fall inside your home.

- As quickly as possible shoot the next one, and then the next one, and then all of the ones on your front lawn.

- Once a felony has been committed then they all become accomplices to that felony. An illegal entrance to your home is safeguarded against retribution and you will be rewarded for heroism once the justice system and media comes to understand your unique plight and story.

- Judges simply love this, because they love the law.

- Shoot them dead until they are no more, the illegals on your lawn.

- This may take several minutes. There will be more arriving promptly.

- Verify that they had no warrant by calling your lawyer.

- Do not fret over the cost of this call.

- Use a land line, if possible.

- Relax, and enjoy the earned satisfaction of temporaria iustitiam.

- Enjoy it, your time may be coming to a sudden close, unless you happen to be white.

- Never be black.

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The boys, and girl

(Rizzo, the wonder beast)

Home again, home again...  

Vacations pass far too quickly. I recognize now that I have a knot of complicated feelings concerning the holidays. It is likely because I have conflicted feelings concerning family in general, I guess. It is all a waste of time of course, those type feelings, and I should resolve or move past them. I recognize that I am spending too much time in my 40's resolving emotions that should have been dealt with in my 20's. Coincidentally, it was my father that first pointed this out to me.

Thanksgiving came and went and it was not nearly as difficult as I had believed it would be. Emotional apprehension is useless, worse than useless. But... there it is.

I wait to hear the stirrings of the little boy with his mother in the next room. Then, we will pack up all of our stuff and say our goodbyes. It is often my favorite time of the day with the boy, the early mornings. He awakes and is very sweet and present. I have still not quite grown entirely used to the idea of being a father. I see that it is happening all of the time but it is a sensation that is hard to quantify or qualify, but it is there. 

An old teacher of mine once said that, "Feeling is a way of knowing" and I believe that to be true, quite. It is not always testable, of course, nor is it often accompanied by any certainty, but it still floats at the center of what we know. It is the reacting to feelings as if they represent a totality on their own that should best be avoided. It is all a mess.

This morning I will say goodbye to Zora, a very sweet girl that has aggressive cancer. She possibly does not have much longer to live. In fact, it is nearly certain. It is difficult to accept, when the unthinkable meets the unstoppable.

Because I live so far away this will very likely be the last time that I ever see her. Well, it is best not to think about such things too much. I am sensitive and given over too easily to emotions, for good or ill.

I worry also about my aging father.

(Zora)

I didn't get a good enough picture of Nelson, the third of three dogs here. Usually, he is my favorite subject. There is a nobility and calmness about him that I esteem.

He is an independent thinker, mainly immune to training efforts. It is part of his charm. There is a determined and assured wildness about him, a quality that too often gets punished in humans. Not vicious, at all, just ever yearning to be unleashed and nearly uncatchable once free. Yet I do not get the feeling that he is running "away," he is merely running to be running, exploring in full trot for no other reason than it is there before him, happy to give chase to this new and sudden world.

(Timbo and Nelson)

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... that distant afternoon

Nothing much to report today. Yesterday was a wash. We all did as close to nothing as possible. Took the dogs and the boy to the park. I have become the greatest action photographer in the house and am prepared to spend enormous amounts of money to insure that my closest competition is kept at a very distant second.

My friend discouraged me from purchasing the Nikon D4S. It is not a sensible purchase, in any way, but yet I still wish to own it. I have never been paid to take a single picture in my life. So, owning this camera would be among the least practical things that I could consider doing right now.

I can't tell if that sentence talks me out of it or makes me want it more.

Well, we did almost nothing yesterday, we did go play pool. I worked very hard to maintain my unbroken defeated streak in that sport. Perhaps I missed my calling. They play a cheater's game here in Colorado called "ball in hand" which is a way of changing the rules as you go, as needed, as long as it works to your advantage.

There was beer and shots of tequila, red wine with steak and cod dinner. Then the inevitable descent into the near incoherence of late evening. I vaguely remember a discussion concerning the potential resolution of America's war woes with mandatory conscription. I offered solid imaginary fact as the basis from which I was maintaining my position against it, using Israel as my proving point and example of failure. 

I was, of course, quite wrong about nearly everything I said. I discovered that fact this morning with some wiki-research, but I'm not going to let my buddy know about this. I'll lure him into the conversation again, better prepared the next time.

It is the last day of our mini vacation. We will go to Boulder today and commit to the ice skating that we had intended to yesterday.

A friend posted a quotation in response to yesterday's post. I will leave that with you today:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, General Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Captain's Log, Stardate December 1st

(Developing his persona, the gaze of disaffection) 

We arrived at Longmont, CO. Barbecued chicken last night in the big green egg, drank beer and wine and watched football games. I want one of those grilles but it will have to wait. I am willing to bet that they can be bought used rather inexpensively. I surmise that many people buy them and become frustrated with using them. I gravitate towards things that have been relatively unchanged by time. This grille is from the middle ages. Likewise, my acoustic guitar is among my favorite possessions. Few things in life are as simple and pleasing.

I tried to play recently and my abilities have atrophied. I struggled holding chords and making changes, my fingers had weakened, lost the callouses that make playing something other than painful. I have been playing the piano much more lately. It is so easy to just sit down and strike some chords. No case to open, nothing to put away.

It is but one measure of my deep-rooted faith in the value of idleness.

Today, we might do some outdoor ice skating, a thing that I love and haven't done since leaving NYC. 

I am not the most graceful of skaters but I don't need to be. There is something contained in the sense of floating along the ice that transports me like a good drug, a waking dream. It seems magical, to glide along the slipperiest of worlds, the long arc of turns, the near effortlessness of being.

It gets boring after about an hour.

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Persuasion

This is the slightest case of jet lag I've ever experienced. I have to close my eyes and concentrate to even feel it. 

No, that can't be possible. It is the restless boy sleeping next to me all night. Children are so active in their sleep that it's no wonder they need so much of it. He flops and twists and sits up and falls back to the pillow, or just to the bed, he'll turn sideways unexpectedly, sleep with his face down and back elevated, he talks and mumbles and squeals in his sleep. He likes to sleep close to me, so I get to detect each of these movements and sounds. I am a very light sleeper, so no energy is lost. I can pick him up and re-arrange him in a more sensible position and it doesn't even wake him up, nor does it last. He'll be waking me up again in a few twists and turns later.

Rachel went skiing yesterday while I attended to the napping boy. His cough seems to have subsided and neither Rachel nor myself feel any sickness coming on. It's a minor miracle considering how much the boy has been perpetually coughing and breathing on me. Children need more love when they are sick, not less.

Breckenridge is true "white girl heaven" and Rachel is brimming with happiness here. She would stay the entire week, I am certain of it. I like it, but not quite the way that she does. It speaks and whispers to her, it tickles her silly.

She will try to persuade us all to go skiing today. She has been describing the pastime to the boy in such a way that I have very little hope of doing anything else. She announced that there was snowfall at Copper Mountain, not far from here. She stated it as if the simple fact was all that there was needed to be known. It will require me getting out of bed. 

Now that I have grown used to the hotel room I would lie here for days.

I'll enjoy it once the familiar movements come back to me, cutting the sweeping S shapes, gliding downhill. The day will be over sooner than I would hope, and then the next and then the one after that, on and on just like that.

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Breckenridge Blues, Vol. 2

(Nikon D700, 135mm f2.0 DC)

Stuck in a hotel room with a sick boy, nothing to do but write another post. Emails into the void.

I don't do well with boredom. I'll take almost anything over flatness and lethargy. If I didn't have the boy to care for I would wander. It's not as easy to be a free-spirit when you're not, though. All of the men that I know that have had children struggle with it. Several have privately told me that they envy my predicament, to be separated with only one child, a son. They tell me that in a year I'll recognize the freedom for what it is, rather than the horror of uncertainty that it is now.

It seems odd to me, for other people to look into my life right now and see something enviable there. It's not that I don't occasionally enjoy things as they are, it's just not what I dreamed of. It's like arising from a dream that causes you confusion upon waking, rather than terror, or the sense of sleep pleasure's passing. My life is a daze of doubt.

Focusing on work helps, oddly, though one can not work all of the time. The restless, messy life awaits when the clock strikes close of day.

It seems nearly impossible that it was sexual attraction that landed me here.

Now that I am old and wise and full of wisdom... young kids will come from miles around to listen to me, and to heed the many warnings of my words.

Let's all hope not.

There were other things also, of course, beyond sexual attraction. Though some of those things now seem just as inaccessible as the other. Hard to believe, hard to forget.

It is a good and lucky thing that nature fills a parent with love for their child. I shudder to think what life would be like now without that. Love is a choice only up to a point, after that the trees and the stars and the sound of a young boy coughing take over. I find myself feeling useful to a creature who knows nothing else.

Some question the supposed additional meaning of parenthood. So much is hidden and yet revealed in the mysteries of usefulness; deceptive in its mundane practicality, peculiar in its power.  

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Letting the Days Go By

Breckenridge, deep in the wallet of the Rockies. 

We arrived late last night, after some time spent in the hot springs at Glenwood. I didn't go in the pool, didn't feel like it. The hot springs pool was impressive, no doubt about it. There were two of them, one hot and one very hot, arranged next to each another so that they stretched quite a distance, as if they were one long pool. 

Everywhere, there were people lounging about, presumably improving their health in the mineral rich waters. If I could have switched my eyes to black and white sepia-vision then I would have believed myself transported somewhere to the century before last, only the occasional bikini would have given away my proximity to the current age. 

Going on vacation with your wife, from whom you are separated, and your young child is an odd experience. It has brought me no shortage of unsettled feelings. Questions without answers, or worse. The what ifs and whys re-occur. You've already answered the revisions for yourself, and considered the many alternatives, but then there is this fluctuating sense, the tingle of lost love.

Invariably, something will happen, something will be said, and you'll snap out of it. All the reasons that things don't and won't work will galvanize around one facial expression, the tone of one clipped sentence, the sense that there isn't even a need to look at one another for confirmation any longer.

And you may ask yourself, Well, how did I get here?

The sun is rising over the snowy mountains in pinks and the blues of the sky. I would take a picture of it and post it here but I am too lazy.

Okay, I tried. Through the hotel blinds, it did not convey the essence of the morning. It rarely does, maybe never.

The boy has a cough, which might prevent us from continuing on to Longmont, CO as we had planned, not wanting to bring sickness to our friends. It's just a cough, we will have to wait it out and see. 

We may be stuck here, surrounded by natural beauty, attending to our boy together. Who knows, maybe we will fall in love again, though I tend to doubt it. Love requires a willingness towards one another that we no longer possess. A quality that we once shared as the earth's natural aquifers, where two hot springs meet. 

We also might be stuck here in the hotel merely enduring one another, for the sake of the little boy.  

We have plenty of practice at that, too.

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Daddy, Uncle Diogenes Wants to Slice the Turkey

We spent the holiday with a large, warm, well-adjusted family. I focused on being pleasant, and when the opportunity presented itself, even charming. Not too charming. That's the key, try to avoid being "too" anything. That strategy has caused me problems in the past. Insisting on one part of myself, using it as a social mechanism, a wedge to prove differences. I would call it a "defense" but too often it comes across as an offense, a heresy. The Martin Luther of Thanksgiving.

All families possess both microcosmic and macrocosmic components. It is best to understand that before announcing "interesting" large-scale social ideas at dinner. If somebody says "We need to get rid of the politicians!" I'll respond with, "Sure, as a start. Then we should behead all of the older cops."

Nice people are nice, though. 

Niceness provides a comparative perspective from which to better assess certain human attributes. I almost wrote "comparative basis" but that would be disingenuous. I don't wish to mount an attack on the underlying meaning and value of "family" and the potentially strict, poisonous qualities of others' "expectations of pleasantness" this morning. 

Families can be very warm and supportive, up to a point. You must wish to be somewhat like them and act in accord with their values to fully enjoy the benefits of their love. Decorum is doctrine. Few families encourage lifelong directionlessness, particularly the artful or intoxicated kind. I don't necessarily mean alcohol, or not just that. I mean the intentional compromise of one's faculties through the regular excess of the mind, though also in the occasional augmented capacity. 

I partially kid, in an effort to distill then dilute, my meaning. 

In the few paragraphs above I tried to find a way to say that we all had a nice Thanksgiving. Do you now see the dilemma? Some who read here might not, others will. It is a common affliction, to know that you will only ever fit in to the degree that you can contain, and even betray, yourself. It is the value-exchange that many are willing to make. It happens everywhere and for all time. The benefits of part-time family membership are mitigated. Many covet the gold card amenities. 

The idea of having one's own family was sold to me as the ideal antidote to this feeling. I should have recognized earlier that maybe all I ever wanted was a part-time membership. It was the purchasing of the full condo in the hills instead of the time-share on the beach that seems to have finally forced this realization. The homeowner dues nearly broke me. The association bylaws contained so little negotiable fine print. It all became a crash course in contract redesign, renegotiation, and the subtle art of reneging. 

Though everyone at the front desk seems quite happy to keep me on as a silver-card holder. 

I just have to remember to always bring my own towels.

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All cops are created equal

(CNN's "Hubby and the Squeezer")

Like broken clockwork, I awoke at 2:20 am. Even in a  different time zone I'm fucked, spend my hours passing through darkness alone. Except this time I am not quite alone. Rachel and Rhys are here in the room with me at my father's house. Rachel moved to the floor at some point, said the bed was too soft, that it would hurt her back.

The boy is sleeping in a "pack-and-play" next to the bed. We spent 12 hours traveling yesterday and he did pretty good, didn't start fidgeting until the 11th hour homestretch.

That is my travel update for you.

Ferguson. We all got a chance to see "equality under gunfire" in action. 

The police would like to remind us that the kid that got shot could have just as easily been a white kid. It was just sheer dumb luck that he happened to be black.

The cop probably never even noticed. When he pulled the trigger twelve times he might as well have been shooting Frank Sinatra for all he noticed or cared. He was finally doing his duty. His life was in danger, a hundred and fifty feet from where he had been attacked.

I wouldn't be surprised if they promote him to the position of police sniper. The kid's really got a natural feel for it.

Online you hear the common retort, They go out there and put their lives on the line every day.

My new response will be, Those odds aren't quite good enough for me. Just so that we can even the bet up a bit is there any way they could put their lives on the line every night, and weekends also?

I've given up on having opinions on it. I support all of the troops, especially the local ones. It's true that cops have to deal with a lot, but one thing is becoming increasingly clear, that they'll never have to sully themselves with accountability.

I should stop, today is the great yearly reminder of gratitude. I try to be grateful, but it's not always easy. It's because I have an imagination.

Things could be worse, is usually how I access feelings that approximate gratitude. Sort of.

Things could be better, is often how I excite my sense of youthful passions.

I try to keep things interesting by not wallowing too much in either thankfulness or righteous indignation. To keep a healthy psychic balance I remind myself how lottery winners all suffer the same fate.

Last night at dinner my father was relaying how he has been smoking for 75 years now. So, for those who take their medical cues from anecdotal sources, Smoke Up! The old cancer won't get you, unless of course it's just your time to go. Then it won't matter if you were smoking or not anyway.

I love listening to people reason, particularly when they employ the time-tested "Everything Happens for a Reason" methodology. Whenever I hear people say it I always want to respond with: What, like masturbation?

Well yes, it sure does happen for a reason. I can list a few of them. I always know why I masturbate. When it's all over I say, Well, that happened because of her.

All things sure do happen for a reason, stupidity most of all. It self-contains what is known as a "cause and effect" relationship. It's a form of intellectual karma. If you do nothing, the universe will reward you with non-knowledge. You will have achieved the much desired state of eastern nonsense.

If Karma is a universal and meta-physical record of actions then shouldn't Buddhists deny it altogether?


If asked what I have to be thankful for today I'll look around the table while holding hands with loving strangers and say, From Christ's Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the uneducated hearts because they will receive invitations to Charles Manson's wedding.

Now there's an idea... I should start an online competition of original submissions for Charles Manson's wedding vows. Let's Crowd-Source this event.

America had better hope that I never come in to immense wealth and unexpected power. My life would be an acid blood-bath orgy of obscene misuse of potential and resources. Imagine Rupert Murdoch, The Koch Brothers, George Zimmerman, Charles Manson, and Bill O'Reilly all on my board of directors. I'd create a special "Naughty-For-Prophet" charitable tax haven, a sort of Political Action-figure Committee, a Super-Duper-Power-PAC.

I'd call it "The City of Turds, Ferguson, LLC"

Or, "Everything Happens for A Rifle, DBA"

Maybe that's too... I don't know, overt...?

Simple is best:

A-men, Inc.

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