Tolle parvis tyrannorum

Six hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep. It is rare for me, and I do not take it lightly. Or, perhaps I do. That's maybe how it happens. I don't know the mystery to sleeping well. Being able to quiet the voice in your head has something to do with it, though inner-quiet does not always bring peace, nor sleep.

 Enough about my sleeping struggles. 

Today, I will go into the city and function in a slightly different capacity, an educational one. It is good to step outside of yourself occasionally, to remind that you are not only the thing that you do every day.

CS has been commenting lately on the uselessness of inactivity, particularly for one who relays their life in a daily way. Uneventful repetition gives rise to routine writing. For some time now I have not been happy with my posts here, and yet I'm not sure how to change any of it.

There was one post about cops that people seemed to like. Perhaps all those recent page views were from the Sonoma County Police Department.

Word gets out: Boys, get your boots on. We've got an arrest resistor. 

Who knows.

That people regularly say things like, Not all cops are bad, you know.... shouldn't require a response.

If you must, just say, Yeah, not every single one of them. That's probably accurate.

I could maybe use an old-fashioned southern shit-kicking soon, just to get my mind right. Nothing clarifies the moment like a sudden, unexpected crack to the eye socket, or stomach. In an instant, one immediately knows what they want and what they do not want.

It's similar to that moment in meditation in which things become suddenly and unexpectedly clear. Any previous chaos of emotion dissipates and turns towards something else. If you're lucky - just after that moment - when your mind has been granted a moment of lucidity they will give you a choice: more, followed by a night in jail, or immediate compliance to their will, which usually involves you walking away, quietly.

I've tried it both ways and have learned that the latter option also has its charms.

"Honor, duty, and sacrifice" mean nothing. Less than nothing.

Away with petty tyrants.


I just want the world to be a better place. More taxes should probably cover it.

Sonoma was just given a decommissioned B-52.

It has been retrofitted to drop parking tickets across the entire county.

Nobody knows how to fly it yet, though. They're asking everybody to just come down the the airstrip and pick up their tickets up there. They invite the kids and mothers to sit in the cockpit and marvel at the new, sudden safety of the community.

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Color TV Swimming Pool Air Conditioned Room Phones

(found pic)

The boy woke up around 2am, which means I also woke up around 2am. He, of course, came and got in bed with me and then promptly fell back asleep. Things did not unfold in quite the same way for yours patchouli.

The boy is only 40" but he finds a way of occupying the entire bed. He's a UFC napper.

I sit here listening to the Grateful Dead, for reasons that are too simple to go into.

I am looking at multi-connection flights all over Central and South America, and then back again. It is impossible, of course, but I am looking anyway. There is a bachelor party and then a wedding. Certainly there must come an age in which one is too old for bachelor parties, no? 

I would say 45-ish, give or take a year or two.

A stripper could easily break my hip. A hooker might be my eternal undoing, my end. 

Then, there are the costs to consider. Who knows how much they charge to rid a man of the curling wretchedness these days.

So, I started looking at flights just for the wedding, but my mind was scratching at itself with a mild case of imaginary fleas, just a touch of the mange.

I wondered inside my heart... how inappropriate would it be to just go to the bachelor party?

No, of course that would not work. If I were to choose then it would be the wedding and not the other. Why do I feel so flat and suddenly empty. Finances must make me hungry. 

Money is a growling in the caverns of the mind, haunting faraway places. It is the exotic curse which few wish away. 

The Buddhists tell us not to want. That sounds nice and pleasing, precisely what I need.

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New Moon on Tuesday

If a full moon is "full" then a new moon must be empty, anything between: incomplete. The moon is becoming new as I write this. I am listening to Duran Duran on YouTube. Just one song, nothing after that, I swear. I do not wish to appear gluttonous when it comes to such things. 

Also, I have never cared for the song much. It was not among their best.

Fuck the Fab Five. 

Just kidding, those links are my top four, for today. I really don't care for New Moon on Monday, but felt a responsibility to link it. Okay, this one makes five.

What? Surprised that I'm a Duran Duran fan? I've always been much more a fan of Japan, the band that invented Duran Duran, and the band that was most invented by David Bowie.

That's your pop music recess for the day.

Heterosexuality took a pretty serious beating in the 80's. It has never quite recovered. The idea that there is something very wrong with men is an attitude that appears to have survived and flourished. It is unquestioned now, entered the realm of basic fact. The eighties caused it all. Go back and look, you'll see. Just watch the videos linked above. The 80's was David Bowie's bisexual masterpiece. 

It was a great time to seem connected to obscurity. Too bad it couldn't last. There was simply no way to successfully merge Aerobics and Jazzercise. Everybody just gave up.

Speaking of being gay, I made lasagna last night. I don't mean to suggest that I browned meat and laid it out with strips of pasta and red sauce and then baked it, but I did peel back the cellophane and put it in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.  It gave me terrible indigestion. Late last night, I finally couldn't take it any longer and had to get up and make an Alka-Seltzer. I think I even washed down a Zantac with it.

Kids, these are all the product-terms of early retirement. Avoid anybody that uses the word "seltzer," in private or in public, they are either old or desperately trying to appear anachronistically so. Perhaps I'll explain what these terms are in a later post, though maybe not the one in which I've promised to explain what an erection is. 

That might represent a rising conflict of interest.

That's just one way in which you can know that you have purchased some quality food, when the premonition of indigestion increasingly accompanies every bite. I wanted to have a glass of red wine with my dinner but was afraid to. Me, afraid of red wine. That is a culinary feat.

All night I dreamed of being at a wedding. It was horrible.

A friend has said that he will be sending me a case of wines. He will seek my opinions on them. I requested nine reds and three whites. It is nice to have some chilled whites for the ladies and the gays. You see, I am not the brute that I make myself out to be. 

Again, it was just the 80's. I swear.

I have run out of hard drive space, so I bought a new 4 TB drive. I always "zero" a drive before actually using it, which usually takes a couple hours. This one has been going since yesterday afternoon and it still has 22 hours to go. 

While I was sitting here it dropped to 21 hours. My prediction: that number will continue to decrease. 

I have been sitting here listening to Japan since the beginning of the post. What an underrated band, truly. 

All five of their albums were released in a three year period. They were doing 80's pop in the 70's. Quiet Life was 1979... Mick Karn is a heroic fretless bass player. There is nobody else like him, really. If you pretend to be a fan of the music of this time and have never heard the album Dali's Car then email me privately and I'll berate you publicly.

I know I'll take some heat from some of my old anarchist friends for such unashamed musical confessions. But what is the point of growing old if you can't sit out on your porch with lasagna indigestion, yelling at kids about the superiority of a previous time.

Holy SHIT... I just did a wikipedia search for Patrick Nagel, and... I could not make this shit up: he died in a tragic "Aerobathon" mishap. 

In the future, everyone will exercise for ~15 minutes.

If I had more time I would go back and re-write this entire piece around that little factual gem. What strikes me as being most comical in the imaginary telling of his death is just how little wikipedia has to say about his art. 

Could anything reflect the vacuity of the times more fully? The pretense that "pop" had genuine significance and meaning... the victory of industry over inspiration as its message. Part of its sinister nature is that it claims both the zenith and the nadir of the effect of its own intentions.

At the time there seemed no way to escape the ethos of its surface, its wide pastiche reach. Then, it all just disappeared... leaving us with Sophia Coppola's films to explain to us what we all had experienced, or somehow missed out on.

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How and why to discuss racism with poor people

Racism is on the run, we're told. 

I have nothing much to say this afternoon, have been working myself out of my own mind, and skin. 

I am leaning on labor, for security. I would not advise it, though I know many that do, abuse it. The one thing you never want to do when you need things is to need things.

Desperation is exponential, money always escapes.

Just act cool, always, though not as if there are cops behind the car.

Chill out, don't CHILL OUT.


Act as if the cops are just smilingly trying to clear the path so that your driver can back out onto the boulevard, to pull away.


Drive a hearse, or a limo, or a cruiser, everywhere you go.

Each commands its own respect.

Hog Of The Forsaken

My books made their way out of the boxes and onto the shelves. The records are still boxed up, in the closets. Yesterday, a friend stopped by and asked if I would set up turntables. I hadn't thought about it, but maybe. It would only make me regret having given away so many of my records. I would likely become bored of dj'ing, though. Could be fun for a while. Who knows. 

I could make a mix tape.

I could also set up my studio gear. That seems more satisfying, though I haven't made music in years. Everything requires space that you must be willing to sacrifice. The surrendering that becomes increasingly difficult as you get older. Aging is as much about space as it is about time. 

In the nineties, when I was in my twenties, most of my friends had entire rooms in their Florida homes dedicated to listening to music and consuming ecstasy. Seems so improbable now.

Are there still pockets of kids out there somewhere, holing up in rooms together, getting loved up.

I wonder. I'm sure there must be. I hope so. It seems inconceivable that I would not know about it, and be invited, but it must be true.

Nobody wants me doing drugs any more. I've taken an informal poll and the results were unanimous. I'm not sure what happened. 

Yes I am. 

Each respondent gave specific anecdotal support for their vote of no confidence. 

Jesus, I'm sitting here listening to Dolly Parton. Why did I just invoke Jesus? He knows what I'm listening to. He is the great Spotify in the sky.

I love country music, but it is some sappy stuff. The seventies were weird, man.

I'd like to do a country/bluegrass radio program. 

I may have missed my true calling.

Speaking of, the boy will be up soon, then it's bacon time...

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Radical Price Restructuring

(The Two-Hearted Space Capsules)

I don't like waking up. It doesn't feel as nice as it used to. I know why. We all know why. I can't seem to let it go. Trifling wretchedness has long been my preferred subject.

Waking up with somebody in whom you are in love is the best way to live, if you can sustain it. Morning sex is healthy, we're told, but it is other things, also.

I've been looking at photo-gear sales sites again... I see a new prime lens in my future. My old lens, while great on a crop-framed camera, has too much vignetting for me now. It is absurd, my willingness to spend nearly $500 to get a slight improvement in image quality at wide-open apertures. I rarely like to shoot stopped-down past f2.0, or maybe f2.8, where most optical aberrations improve dramatically.

That's what a hobby is all about. It distracts us from death, decay.

I am planning a trip in the early summer. Bellingham, WA. Also, NYC a month before that, in spring. There is Greek Easter and a baptism to attend. I will go and express my reverence for ritual. Also, I have not had lamb the way that it is intended in far too long. I had hoped to go to Florida this month, but coordinating the elderly towards a cohesive travel plan became far too great a task.

I finally got the newish Blonde Redhead album.... Wow, do I miss weekends lying around listening to music like that. 

That, and Samaris. 

Perhaps instead of a new lens... a bagful of powdered ecstasy should be my sole dream and vision. Is that stuff still illegal. Good gods, I hope not. Have we learned nothing at all? I would not advocate nor advertise illicit behavior here, of course, but...

Burning Man pre-sale tickets go on sale soon for the low-low price of $800. Regular tickets will go on sale some time later, for $390, if there are any left. That should resolve any lingering questions about the nature of that organization. They have acted precisely as any other religion does. If you want a guaranteed spot on the playa then there are indulgences to be paid. Eternal infrastructure is not cheap, you see.

Ah well, it was fun while it blasted. I am content that I went last year. It was all well worth it. One must be careful though, its defenders are radical fanatics, and I'll probably go again this year, anyway... I need to curb my critiques. 

Nobody likes the sweaty, fat, white guy that doesn't want to be there, gibbering about past personal preferences and the ever increasing costs of participation.

One must always possess a sense of humor about such things. Without amusement gleaned from absurdity there remains only the hum of nothingness, and the sound of some nuisance distractedly complaining in the distance. 

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Little Leagues

Those pork sandwiches ended up costing me about $60 each, in the end.

Since I've moved in to the new apartment I have had slight issues with frost in the cooling section of refrigerator section. The freezer portion was getting too cold. I kept turning the temperature down, until I finally decided to turn it down as low as it would go.

They have changed how these knobs work. In the 70's, when the world was far more down with itself, these knobs only went from Cold to Coldest. They did not go from Off to Coldest.

That would be stupid and invite disaster.

That is the subject of today's post: disaster.

Sometime in the middle of the night on late Tuesday... I turned my refrigerator off and then drove in to the city that next morning. When I came home I opened the door to the fridge, armed with a happy fork, took 3 or 4 forkfuls of pork, and then ate them.

Something didn't seem right. There was water where it needn't be, shouldn't be. I opened the freezer and immediately noticed that something terrible had happened. It was well above the freezing point of water.

I checked again. I turned the knob slightly clockwise and the beast, the rectangular cuboid, sprang to its monstrous food preserving self. 

Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT, FUCK...!!!! 

Never trust a hexahedron! 

How many times have I warned others of this exact same thing.

I thought that it would be best to eat the perishables, right away. Ice cream!

I dove into a chocolate soup. I began to wonder if that was bad for me.

Then, it hit me: Pork. Oh, fuck. 

Blessed by the gods. Pork, dear pork... why have you betrayed me. Of all the meats; many were called, but you were chosen.

I started to assess the damage, though I didn't have much time or stomach for it. I had to go pick up Rhys. Then, I became distracted with a few other things, before I knew it.... I realized that I would have to throw a lot of food out. All of it!, or so I thought at first. Then I calmed down and realized that the fancy mustards I purchased might survive, maybe even the bagels and bread, and a few other things. Suddenly, I was on top again. I was as a Fox News correspondent, a smiling denier of warming.

Why did I have potato chips in the refrigerator? That's not needed. They could be spared this market massacre. Science wins.

I didn't have time to create a new shopping list. Like a fool, I thought that I would just naturally know what needed to be replaced. My domesticity precedes itself.

I went and picked up Rhys.

Already things were getting fuzzy for me. It had only been 30 minutes since I discovered the carnage. The timeline had yet to crystallize. 

Eggs? They seemed pretty self-contained, impervious to heat. Just look at what we do to those near-anal treasures. Certainly they would be safe, right? Eggs have survived all of history. They're Egyptian, I think. I'm sure of it.

Certain rumors have it that every egg contains a pyramid that acts as a floating compass to miniature aliens. Eggs vibrate unpleasantly if you bring them near Fukushima, etc.

No: Butter safe then sorry.

I was already remorseful, sick with expense. There was no point in attacking a warm household appliance with loud, damning truisms. They would do no good. Cliches are exclusively for poor people, or the rich when at Burning Man.

I pictured the look on Rachel's face when she met me at the hospital.... if I had fed our child a bad egg, or a nice room-temperature pork sandwich, with slushy-slaw.

Does Rhys even eat pulled pork?  There is so much I still have to learn, and then teach back to him. I wonder at what age he will first try Sriracha sauce. Will it be with me, and should I keep that secret from mommy? Probably. 

We'll ever know, this site prevents me from holding many secrets. 

Next:

I decided that we should survey the full extent of damage before contacting FEMA. I didn't wish to appear as a Bush-baby here.

We went back to the house. I was starting to feel as if I was having an anxiety attack.

So much effort has gone in on my part to make something work, to feel natural - for Rhys to accept that this will be his new second home, also. It takes very little for all of that to feel as if it has somehow become completely unravelled. 

Groceries did it. The current threshold for my parental madness is ~$300

We came back. I poured out all of the milk, the half-and-half, even tossed the eggs without thrusting them angrily into the garbage can - as if against the side of a house of a long-time teenage foe.

There was other stuff. 

Lot, and Lot's wife.

Rhys watched it all. I did it quickly, assuring him the entire time that this is what good parents do, and that we would soon go to the grocery store and "fix everything..."

The fridge had been back on for about half an hour, or so. Everything seemed to represent wet decay, supermarket waste. It all reminded me of every day in the life I lived in Florida.

I had bought all of the things that I knew the boy would love: waffles for breakfast, string cheese snacks, chicken fingers, yogurt, chocolate pudding for desert. 

All of it, ruined.

I turned up the oddly inverted "cold dial," closed the door, went to the bedroom to get ready to run over with Rhys to a friend's house, planning on going to the grocery store late that night.

I did not yell. I barely raised my voice. I only closed the fridge door and told him that we can't open that any more until it was cold in there again. 

I raised my voice. I didn't yell.

I emphasized. It is called, "motivational speaking."

He went to play in the other room. We had brought many toys. He is a healthy kid that runs around.

I then flattened all of the useless boxes and prepared myself to just "dad-up" and buy all new groceries. I felt something akin to an anxiety attack coming on; a tightness around my upper chest and neck, as if the muscles that connect my arms and shoulders had suddenly shortened, become less pliable, and wished me self-harm.

As I readied myself to bring the boxes out, and then also the boy out to the car, I noticed that he was in his new bedroom on his knees, playing with the nightlight. Knowing his fascination with all things electric, I questioned the safety plugs that I had just put in all of the outlets, to prevent little fingers.

I came closer to make sure he wasn't pulling them out of the wall. I set down all that was in my arms. I moved closer and noticed something much more, the little boy was weeping.

Is there just no possible way to not fuck up, nor fuck up the life of another.

Triple Negative: a base hit that puts you on third, where there's lots of cheering or something like it - the noise is deafening - but you must also be on your toes, because there are two outs in the unlucky bottom of the ninth, and you had better know when not to sprint.

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Scared Bosphorus

I think that I finally have my life figured out. I go to sleep anytime between finishing work through around 8pm on most days and sleep until sometime before midnight. Then, I wake up and I am entirely alone for hours. Some nights I will fall back asleep for a secondary session in the unconscious for (hopefully) three more hours, though usually less. There is no isolation like that of the solitary night. My life is a secret to itself, an uninvited mystery.

I do not recommend it as a way to be.

That is why I have pounds and pounds of pulled pork in my refrigerator, enough to feed ten people. I have eaten two sandwiches and have already bored of it. Soon, I will just wake up and prepare myself a truly nice dinner. A midnight brunch, of sorts. When you are alone... It's quite okay for a straight man to prepare brunch for himself.

Nobody will ever know, etc.

Speaking of... I lied. It occurred to me that I have made dinner for other people before. I have grilled many chickens and steaks, baked vegetables; Brussels sprouts and asparagus with olive oil. I vaguely remember making Swedish meatballs and noodles once, also. Or, I might have just bought them at Ikea and eaten them there in the cafeteria. I don't recall all of the details, except that the lingonberry jam was mildly appetizing. I had forgotten that not long ago I was a different man.

I'm not as much of a culinary innocent as I once pretended to be. I have begun duplicitousness as a form of self-entertainment.

Begun... now that is funny. Persona is an ongoing falsehood that becomes something else, similar to truth; composed of sincerity, bereft of fact.

Within the next few months my circadian patterns will be synchronized with that of the proud Eastern Europeans. My spirit and body will live in different time zones, like the two halves of Budapest, though they will hardly speak of it. I will develop some strange melatonin deficiency. My dreams might be pillaged by the Visigoths, or perhaps the Mongols. A barbaric sacking, at any rate. 

The papal seat will move to Constantinople, by way of Ravenna.

It has been too long since I have felt that I am flying opium carpets amidst the spires of Istanbul, hookah-powered and prayering wildly towards the Sultanahmet Cami in crescent moonlight; sickle setting stars, enjoying the honeymoon suite during the entire month of Ramada Inn.

Because it pleases I, the Sultan.

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Pulled Pork

I challenge anybody that reads here to challenge me on this simple fact: I have never prepared a cooked meal, either for myself or for anybody else. Ever.

There are a handful of ex-girlfriends here on Facebook, an ex-other or so, a lifetime of friends, etc. None of them are capable of relaying a story about me cooking them dinner, neither has anybody seen me cook one for myself.

I've made sandwiches, boiled eggs, heated cans of soup, etc. I used to heat pre-made spaghetti sauce with boiled pasta. That's probably the closest I've ever come to cooking a meal.

That all changed last night. I made 8-10 servings of pulled pork barbecue in a Crock Pot, which is a sort of electric/ceramic slow cooker that made its way over from the Old World. Lithuania, I think.

That's the whole story.

The boy and I will have pork sandwiches for a week, unless I decide to eat the entire thing right now, which I have been thinking about doing since it finished its six hour cook-time around midnight. The entire apartment smells of warm animal fats. Four pounds of slow cooked pork, some catsup, molasses, sriracha sauce, brown sugar, a bunch of other stuff, all purchased recently at the local market, then stirred together in a glass bowl.

Each sandwich only cost me about $25.

In fairness, I do have quite a few ingredients left over, awaiting the arrival of the future. The cost of each sandwich will drop dramatically the next few times I do this. I can probably offer them for sale, somewhere around $30 each.

No, I just had a sandwich and while I was eating the thing, with some sort of cabbage slaw that I bought with the other ingredients, it occurred to me that I have still not made myself a meal. I have simply expanded on my rather extensive sandwich knowledge.

Soon.

What I've done is not far from a stew. Maybe that should be my next effort. $25 a bowl, maybe $30.

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Duck Soup!

I spent yesterday morning with the boy. We went over to Napa Walmart to buy some things for the new apartment. Yes, Walmart. I had been give a gift card and figured I might as well use it. I prefer Target, because I'm both a liberal and a snob, but what can one do... throw money away merely because you're an elitist with exaggerated respect for social classes? 

A broom is a broom, I self-surmised.

Also, I thought that it would be an adventure for the boy and I. It was. We found him a Spider-Man ball that he adores, and we each had one small piece of chocolate unwrapped at the checkout counter.

I did not buy all of the things that I need. I have tried to only purchase the things that will be of immediate use to me. 

I have tile floors, so a Swiffer was needed first, but then I quickly realized how inadequate it is with a child around. I needed a broom with a pan to feel complete.

On the way home I got a text from my buddy, Matt, the father of Rhys' buddy, Jordan. Matt and I agreed to meet at the town square where we would let the boys play for a bit.

When Rhys was getting out of the car he seemed unusually excited to go see the ducks. He practically ran towards their pond. I normally would have grabbed my play camera, but he left me too little time. I almost had to run after him. We hit the pond at the same time. 

He gravitates towards this one spot of the pond where there is no rock perimeter and he can stand closer to the water. As we walked around and hit that spot he turned to approach the water more closely. He stood on a rock that I immediately noticed was loose and I said, "I would prefer that you not stand on that..." as I reached out towards him. But it was all too late. A single second later and I could have stopped it, but no. He went face first into icy, nasty, dirty, shit-filled, disease-ridden duck water.

I dove to the ground to retrieve him, grabbing him up by the back of his pants, which were not even visible at the time as he had completely submerged into darkness.

A 225 pound man making sudden movements towards concrete is not advised. I bruised my left knee and sent that rock that he had been standing on into the water. I grabbed him by the back of his pants and had him out of the water almost as quickly as he went in, but it was too late, he was soaked from head to toe; freezing, crying, and stinky wet.

I carried him back to the car and tried to get all of his clothes off as quickly as I could. There was a dry shirt and pants there, luckily. His wails and tears were ceaseless. Just the small amount of water that ended up on me by holding him had soaked through my two shirts and even I was getting cold. He was shivering with anguish, remorse, and fear.

I rushed him home to mommy's house as that was the word he kept repeating through his tears. 

Mommy, mommy, mommy...

There, we put him in a nice, warm bath where he recovered quickly. I stunk of duck shit, washing my arms all the way up to the shoulders did not change that. It was on my pants also.

For me, it took more than just a bath to recover. I went with a friend to a steakhouse here in town that I just found out about yesterday and had martinis and a New York Strip.

Yes, that is the magic cure for duck waste-water: two martinis and a New York Strip.

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Song of Songs

(The fighter, Muhammad by Ali Keeyonardo)

Even my most enthusiastic supporters were reluctant to show advocacy for my exploration in Bat-Boner yesterday. I have accomplished something, though I'm not quite sure what. A puerile victory, or perhaps a personal tie, a record-breaker with something unnamed. A draw in the darkness.

I lost the coin toss, so I had to make it up in goals.

I have bored of writing daily, I think. Though I feel empty if I don't do it, incomplete. It is a form of compulsion. I am certain of it. It can be cathartic, but it often ends up being merely the result of unspoken urge, habit. It no longer gives me the sensation that it once did, unless I take some time away from it and then go back. I must seem paralyzed, to an onlooker, never able to surprise myself with my own movements.

I suppose that I am not meant to complain about those feelings, here. What if it makes somebody else feel bad for reading this. That is not my intention, at all.

Jesus. I need Jesus, or Moses, or maybe a floating Noah. Unnamed Lot's wife, before the mishap, just at the moment of her curiosity, then for a few brief moments before salt. Women should really never look back at the burning valley of Sodom. It is pillared.

Ezekiel was a colorful character. Why aren't we encouraged to worship the prophets, especially the mute ones. Wasn't Mohammad a prophet? I have a drawing I did of him lying around here somewhere. Just a little sketch, to capture all moments, forever.

Let's if you can find it there in my pockets, my Muslimah.


That's my problem with writing, I think. It's that I no longer believe very much of what I write. For a few months now, maybe years, I have fluctuated back and forth between things I care about and things I don't; things I believe and things that I forget.

Perhaps I should start writing children's poetry like old what's his name. I can't think of who I am trying to think of. James Baldwin? No, somebody else. CS, who did you say that I would soon become?


A piece of advice for my music loving friends: Do not awake in the middle of the night and begin to read about Nick Drake's final years. That's what I did, early this morning. I put on Bryter Later because it happened to be queued up in my iTunes library. The pleasure of listening gave way to the sinister itch of curiosity. Is anything more devious than wonder?

Now, I'm ponderous, melancholic. I wish to augment this feeling, or somehow remove myself from it. It has taken few of my years to realize that wish is (mostly) all that drugs and alcohol do. I read it long ago in my first pamphlet. It was how my parents spoke to me, though brochures for a hopeful, better life.

Add To or Remove From. That is my sole wisdom, my sinister logic. Anybody that wishes to be more present, and in the moment, is... well, doomed to the present tense.

No, I kid, drugs, and sometimes even alcohol, do allow you to live in the moment more fully, youngsters.

Carpe Dilaudid, when you can.



I don't remember all that much about Ezekiel. Well, just listen to me, now... I never even really met the guy! I only recall that he struck me as quite crazy, possessing a stern and inflexible disposition, like so many Old Desert Testamenters.

I had the oddest impulse to add the word "parfait" to that last paragraph and I have no idea why. Now that, true believers, is the source of all prophecy: received wisdom.

Don't question it if it's absurd, beneficial, or directly from God; only question it if may be messaging from the dark one, inviting you away from the path. You must ask your heart. That's what I do.

That is His wish and His command: Listen to the leaves, but don't fuck it up. When the spirit speaks, you had better listen, and then learn how to rake, bubba.

Many are culled, eschew the chosen.


And that, souls, is your Sunday School lesson. Take it home and ponder it, or read it at work on Monday, like a good, troubled Nick Drake verse.

Trifles are the new culinary joy.


I would not necessarily say that Nick Drake's music is suicidal, though it can be difficult to separate that desperate knowledge from the unique sadness and power of his singing. His gifts are of an otherworldly nature, and you all must certainly know how I detest such descriptions. Yet, here we are.

Bryter Later is one of his more hopeful albums; contained within it are the hopeful, romantic seeds of doom. An ecstatic Greek tragedy; the saddest chorus that never was. Waves of certainty and strength, nearly apologizing for ever telling you a story, vulnerable from absolute necessity.

Some claim that he died a virgin, old St. Nick. His sister has made the claim, in Rolling Stone, or somewhere.

Is there anything more disgraceful than that? To have your sister claiming you could never pull a bird, after your self-demise. She, with no discernible talents, save what the music media offers as recompense for the near obscurity of a life lived in accidental proximity to genius.

What a bitch, a model for Lot.



Song of Songs is the only book of the bible that I can stomach, anymore, which I don't bother with often. I promise.

It has Canticles.

If you've never read it then I suggest that you do, for the impulses briefly sketched out here, fighters of ink pen.

So much went wrong there, elsewhere.

SoS could be seen as a retelling of the myth of Eve, without all the denouncing of feminine mystique, mystery, and danger. I don't know, maybe things just end poorly. As with most biblical erotica, I only read the first few minutes and then turn it off, ready for sleep, or to focus on my wives.

I do not wish to appear gluttonous in the face of open sensuality.

Or, is that how we are truly meant to be. The prophets are very quiet when it comes to nothing.



Well, Bryter Later is complete. I am on to Pink Moon.

If my son were not sleeping here tonight then I would have my guitar out, pretending the unlit center of my living room was a mystery campfire. I would play along around it, just happy to be camping somewhere under the stars.


I'll be weeping before sunrise, Jeff Buckley by noon. Elliot Smith for dinner.


In the evening, as it arrives, we each canoe across the lake.

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StuporMan

It was a good thing that I was wearing my Batman pajamas.

Then again, at what possible moment would one not say such a thing? They really can be worn as everyday clothing. I know.

You think that I might be joking... but I do not joke about such things. Batman is very serious, some say too much so.

I purchased these as a piece of full body apparel at the suggestion of a chick. I believe that she believed that they contained some special magic. 

Though, now I mostly lurk and linger, too long in my lair.

I'm a Batman that consumes much coffee and needs a fresh back-shave. There must be many like me.

I would take a picture of myself, to post here, but I am too lazy to unpack a real camera and am rarely  happy with the images from an iPhone. I mean, they're fine, but they're just not up to snuff for Bruce Wayne. There are many photo opportunities here in the Wayne Manor. Or the Arkham Asylum... Downton Abbey at midnight.

I don't really give a shit about comic book lore. I just run out of things to catalog and confess to in my own life.

I've been into some pretty heavy role playing lately, though.  

I have been pretending to achieve the largest erection of which I am capable for a mid-1970's Lynda Carter. Then, presenting it to her in an honest, visual way. Hoping that from this offering she will intuit my intentions and respond in an appreciative and accommodating manner. Or, at least not scream, acting as if I have somehow done something wrong. 

I have carefully worked this all out in my mind.

It is a trick of Darwinian development that the sight of male genitalia does not more adequately arouse females in the local vicinity. Mating rituals are a practice designed to confuse, for all involved. What I have learned is that you still must give careful credence to them. A male's indication of willingness to mate is rarely perceived as such, or not just as such. How are we left to contend with the perennial mysteries of existence.

Have I explained what an erection is here yet?

Perhaps that is a post for another time.

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Boy Bullfrog!

Yesterday's post was part ruse, part farce, part hoax. I was trying to lure somebody deeper into argument, but they had lost interest about the same time that I had.

I should grow up. 

I'm trying, but it's not easy; far too little practice.

I would write more today, but I don't have much wind for it. I had to write a very difficult email this morning and it has stripped me of verve.

I am looking forward to a simple weekend with the boy.

We will have some adventures, perhaps address imaginary foes, ones that require an afternoon of imaginary vanquishing. 

He and I; just dashing, daring boys.

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... towards the necessary powers; oh, that speech

Not much time to write today, which may prove to be a disservice to my subject, but alas....

had we had world enough, and time...

The killing of several people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the "silent strike" of the NYPD share a corollary. I would like to take this opportunity, in an exercise of non-silence, to at least pretend to explore that analogue.

It is the least speech that I can do.

I only wish that I had the adequate personal resources to do so more fully, because.

Here we go:

I do not wish to belabor the obvious point that each collective act is an attempt to "correct" the actions of others. 

Each is a direct frontal attack on free speech, while also being tangential racism.

The murderers that walked into the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the police who are attempting to censure not just the mayor, but the entire city of New York, have their roots in the same censorious impulse: It is to demand respect and compliance both for (and to) an externally imposed ideology.

By comparing their impulses I am not equating them. I am only hoping to reflect that the impulses in each are similar, and have their roots in fear, ignorance, superstition, faith, or law; as well as the abiding concepts of justice.

(Not sure if I'll get to all of those).

To equate them would be categorical thinking, etc.

I'm not saying, for example, that the NYPD would knowingly and willfully kill innocent people. 

I'll let others say that.

I am not saying that an attempt to silence the free use of the mind, whether expressed through satirical expression or political assembly, is necessarily the same.

The silent resistance of an entire city's police force as a reaction to the mayor's position on the misuse of the concepts of "law and order" can not conceivably be seen as intolerance, nor the advocacy of violence. 

What I am definitely not saying is that the people who were killed in either of these horrible tellings of struggle were anything less than victims of ideological warfare, whether it be "for" or "against" free speech, in anybody's mind.

I am only saying that any attack on free thought and its open expression in speech or assembly should be acknowledged precisely for what it is: an abject attempt to assert one version of order over another.

Ideology must be understood for what it is, particularly when it manifests itself in murder or compliance from group fear.

Anybody that confuses who is the offended party here has missed not only the point but also the scale and scope of the crime.

Americans have been shelf-shocked with concepts of freedom for so long that they have forgotten how to use them, freedoms, so they likewise misunderstand how to defend them, which is only the task to use them well.

Each aggrieved party - the angry young Muslim men who screamed Allahu Akbar! on the one side, or the police who screamed nothing at all, but instead have sat silently with their backs turned not just to the mayor but also to the oath to uphold the law that they should also subject to - have painted themselves as the victims of somebody else, or something else. But they are the "offended" in this struggle.

Some "other" that has full and complete say in their sacred affairs.



NOBODY has the right to not be offended.



If the NYPD does not wish to be subject to a chain of command, then they should just say so.

If a small group of Muslim killers wishes to not have their prophet portrayed or mocked, then they have said so.


One group has spoken.

Only free minds need respond to that, though others will also.


For the other, only the mayor of that city needs to respond there.

Let's hope that his liberalism does not crumble in the face of need.


I was going to write, "... government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."



But, for a quick laugh:

Do a Google search for: Images of Mohammed

Trust me.

You will see how much serious work there is that is still to be feared.

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Just Boys in Blue

I'm no fan of most cops, an enemy to many. Watch them long enough and you will find that nearly all of them abuse their power, either systematically or impulsively, well past the point of violating the laws they are paid and sworn to uphold. They will intimidate anybody that questions them, even when the questioner is entirely within their rights and being respectful. They regularly stretch the truth on official reports when it suits them to do so, a form of perjury; crimes and misdemeanors, and on and on and on.

They function as a legitimized gang, though with the presumed purpose of sustaining order.

If you ever witness an interaction between a police officer and a citizen - one which results in the citizen being arrested - then do yourself a favor and request a copy of the police report. In California there is the CPRA, which acts much as the FOIA does nationally. Most states make these arrest records public and will only decline from doing so when the cop has made an egregious error, like having killed an unarmed anybody. Then, lawyers and judges must get involved to finally find that the report was made but lost, or that the report was never filed as this is a mere formality in cases like accidental death at the hands of a cop.

If you do take me up on the challenge of reading police reports then you just might be surprised at what you see. You will find a detailed analysis of events that in no way accurately reflects what you saw. You will see the persistent suggestion of resistance to authority as well as resistance to arrest, even when there was none. It is a commonplace practice for police to give themselves reason for misbehaving as well as the option to press for more charges later if you decide to complain.

Think I'm joking?

Try it. In fact, you can read any number of reports. They all sound eerily similar. There are meticulous details included which, when combined, are damning for one side, the perpetrator. A police report always seems to suggest that the cop had no choice but to do what they did, which will sometimes involve the necessary application of force. 

Every now and then this must even be true; some people do deserve to be arrested. But if there is any disagreement with the cops before the arrest occurs then you can guarantee that the report will be filled with hints of disorderly behavior and resistance to authority, which of themselves will only become crimes once the cop decides to arrest you. Before that moment they are known as freedoms.

Little matter the facts, there. Most people know this, and those who don't eventually learn it, unless they're lucky enough to be white, where they can live in blissful harmony with their local police force without much fear or wonder, but instead sustain a barely concealed admiration for order and for those who thankfully provide it.

Now, in NYC, we have an entire city's police force refusing to do their jobs. Arrests and citations have dwindled to near non-existence.

This is an act of mutiny and all involved might be put to death, if at sea.

These public servants are attempting to show elected officials who really runs the city and who holds the power. 

This is never something to ignore.

The as yet unknown component of the story: the mayor might actually buckle. Hopefully not. 

He should start firing, from the top down. Bratton, the police commissioner, should be the first to go. He has advocated for "broken window" policing, which is of dubious merit as a crime deterrent. That policy alone should be enough to get rid of him. 

Then, downward from there until the message becomes very clear: those that are elected to power will not be intimidated by those who are granted their power by law, and are there to serve society. As others rise and are appointed positions they should be given a probationary period to correct the police force. If not, then say goodbye to your already bloated pensions.

Anything less would be emboldening their already runaway abuses of power. 

If it's a test of wills they want then give it to them. 

If anybody thinks that an entire police force acting with such unanimity of purpose, against the needs of the society they are tasked with serving, is nothing much to worry about then look at other examples of same. History has many. Cops have been abusing their powers for so long, with near complete impunity, that they have forgotten from where their power derives.

Does a part of me like the potential for chaos here? Of course. But the cops are not acting chaotically, they are waiting for chaos, inviting it, and even possibly helping to create it by non-involvement, which makes them complicit in whatever outcome results, and no amount of plausible deniability will change that.

If you ever need to see just how corrupt and power-drunk cops are then look no further than New York's Finest. There, we have an entire police force blaming the mayor for two cops having been executed. They say that he encouraged this behavior and now they're going to give everybody a taste of what life might be like without them. 

I say give them a taste of it. What an enormously impotent being can adequately hide behind a badge that barely fills the palm of a hand.

Take that badge away. Let the lamp affix its beam.

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High Speed Interwebs

(the b-day boys)

The Comcast guy arrived yesterday, mid-day, somewhere within the agreed upon half-day time slot that I was granted. He was a nice enough fellow and we chatted about wireless router range, local node traffic, encryption, packets, etc.

When it was all done I checked the speeds that I was getting, wirelessly: 75 mbps down and 15 mbps up. I am happy. Those type speeds allow me to do most all of what I need. There is an ethernet connection, also. I haven't checked the speeds with that though they should not be much different, if at all. That was the only area where he and I disagreed, though I said nothing. It's Wireless N, so there shouldn't be any package disparity between using wifi and ethernet; perhaps only if transferring between devices within my LAN. 

Anyway, I'll check just to make sure. Wireless N taps out at 150 mbps, so it shouldn't show any difference.

I heaved many boxes of records off into the closets as I awaited for Comcast to arrive yesterday. There are still many books that must be unboxed and arranged.

My living room needs a rug. A large rectangular one. I ran the dishwasher yesterday to clean the dust off of some dishes that have been stored for some time now. I made coffee this morning with my Mr. Coffee in preparation to go to work in the city.

I sit here typing and I don't want to leave.

What I can't figure out about coffee makers is why they all lie by a factor of two. If you want two cups of coffee then you must make four. It says that it makes twelve cups, but the reality of it is always six. It is perplexing. I wonder if the same is true in Europe. I'm not drinking "American sized cups" of coffee, I do not believe, though neither am I drinking them in the expresso style. 

It's a domestic mystery.

If I could just keep working this way for the next six months then I should be ready to retire and buy my dream home. 

It will requite some sacrifices, of course. I am looking at all of the things that I'd like to do, just in the next few months; there is a trip to Florida for a birthday, a trip to NYC for Greek Easter and a baptism, a trip to Mexico for a wedding, hiking toward the hills of the Canadian border, a rock concert in the hills.... Who knows. 

I miss dj'ing, sometimes. Though never when I'm sleeping. 

In all of my dreams I am flying.

I happen to be flying through the fiery pits of hell, but still... the sensation of weightlessness is always nice.

.... I am at work now and must work, work, work if I am ever to retire by the end of the year. It is my dream and in it I am aloft.

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The Wolf Moon

Driving home from the city last night, my friends and I watched the full wolf moon rise from across the bay. It rose through murky clouds, only revealing itself as full once it had escaped the false horizon of the mountain line.

This morning, I watched it set from the front door of the gym, against the mountain line on the other side of the valley, again obscured by clouds. I howled and howled and howled.

Yesterday, we had been in the city celebrating the boy's third birthday, after having a birthday party at home. His friends came over and ate pancakes and donuts and other birthday sugars; everybody behaved, almost surprisingly. 

Later, we went to The California Academy of Sciences. We ascended the rain forest together and witnessed the many species of lepidoptera. We went by the albino alligator pool and briefly discussed being eaten by an albino alligator and how that might differ from a more traditional alligator attack. We went outside and saw two rather doleful looking reindeer, discussing Santa's exemplary flying fleet with the two boys. 

We decided that Santa has real reindeer, these were merely caribou. 

I pictured a midnight world of them, migrating across the tundra together under arctic stars, the aurora borealis curtains swaying above, north of the boreal forest and heading northerly still, trailed closely by a pack of hungry moons.

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Navin R Johnson

I have finally become a genuine citizen. I have a lease in my name, the power bill will be in my name, Comcast, all of it. If I get a phone line I could even get my name in the phone book. 

Things are going to start happening to me now...

Yesterday, Rachel and I went to Target to buy some things that I will need: a Mr. Coffee, a Sunbeam toaster, a Crock Pot slow cooker, a friendly "Welcome" doormat. 

Hundreds and hundreds of dollars converted into plastic objects and empty boxes.

My credit will start to improve any moment now. I'm certain of it. It probably spiked yesterday afternoon. My car was completely filled with stuff. George Bush would have been very proud of my patriotism. The terrorists have lost. Disney World still stands.

It was the first time that Rachel and I had been alone together in quite some time. Just us. It was nice, pushing an ever-expanding cart around the store, picking products out that either myself or Rhys will need. Caring for one another in tangential ways, showing consideration and even love for the life of the other. She looked very cute, Rachel. I had an intense desire to touch her, to paw on and pet her. Something about the domesticity of the day prompted me. We know what happens to people who engage in that sort of behavior in a public place, though. They end up on the internet.

Something dormant felt possible once again; memories acting as a powerful agent upon the heart. One must be careful of such feelings, though, they can lead back to love. 

I wouldn't expect you, dear readers, to endure such a thing.

We're celebrating Rhys' 3rd birthday today. He is already up and dressed and walking around the house, excitedly awaiting his friends' arrival. He is thrilled about the day. I am teaching him how to use noisemakers and the proper way to manage multiple balloons at one time, keeping them all afloat through a circus-like effort.

Daddy, I turn three today. 

Showing me on his little hand his number of years in miniature, extended digits. Announcing his new numerical self to the world, having successfully transitioned now from toddler to pre-schooler.

One, two, three.

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Pick a subject!

(The intense focus of boy Rizzo)

Ah, sweet weekend. Tomorrow we will have a birthday party for the boy. Three years old. Wherever the time goes it goes there exceedingly fast. Time is like bacon, always gone too soon.

I feel as if I've said that before. I love bacon. I know I've said that many times before. I have invited bacon into my heart, like a pork christ.

I think I've used the picture above before, as well. 

Today, I will go shopping. I need things for the new apartment. Lots of things. It'll be fun, the feeling of starting a fresh life. The quality of newness seems to cheer me a bit.

There is still much to do there. My life is in boxes, again. I only have enough shelf space for half of my books if I also unbox the few records that I kept. Or, I could buy more shelves. 

Everything costs more than I have, or more than I wish to spend, even at Ikea. 

I really should look elsewhere. My life has been too long decorated by the Swedes and their cursed particle board.

I do things now that I never did before, watching the price of stocks rise and fall. I have been warned not to do so, but I am a curious sort. The fluctuation from day to day fascinates me. I await the next economic bubble to burst. One day I will log on and see that my future has disappeared just as quickly as my past.

Nobody ever goes to jail.

Well, maybe a couple of the Enron guys did, one or two of them. 

Ah, sweet justice.

Rachel just asked me what I am writing about today. 

I have absolutely no idea.

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Prince of the Pussies, borrowed times

(the pain of being :: blind fishing in broad daylight)

I am a kid, just as when.... the recall of recalling.

How impossibly remote the year 2001 seemed at the time. It was, because it was. The future is ever distant, Jupiter or Saturn.

1974. Still is. Just more than four times the mathematical length... time, back then.


Everybody wants planets to notice, or to notice planets.


I feel as far from Pluto as Uranus. Though not as warm, nor as focused.

Aquarius, age of.


I remember, then, calculating the likely year that I would die. A batteried Texas Instrument device, based on known longevity at the time: 69 years.

Averages should, but don't count on them.

2037. 

I was a "dark" kid.

I survived.


... somehow Aquarius

Things have improved sur-moderately, since then. Now, I can be expected to live well up until 2045, perhaps longer. Promisingly, if I cease popcorn and renounce some of my more extreme masturbation practices. My insurance company expresses worry that I have claimed penile-racing stripes as a legitimate healthcare expense.

They question the legitimacy of such a thing.



As for longevity:

Certainly you don't just adopt the life expectancy of the newer years, right?

It must average out a bit.

Meaning: a child born today might have a life expectancy of 79 years, but a 78 year old American should have been dead years ago. 

Longevity is the ultimate selfishness.

Old people heave heavily.

Is it now safe to "come out" as being prothanasia-phylactic?

Why aren't there condoms that can prevent old people?


It is all part of the joyous time-cone, which has to do with gravity being always attractive rather than repulsive.

Old people are repulsive, as such they are the embodiment of the long-term effects of anti-gravity; an indication of what will one day happen to the universe.

It really anti-matters. 

We organize matter somewhat disgracefully, yet we force our children upon the idea of it. 

If the universe were arranged by my design then young people would populate the many young people places.

No, that is just horrible.

If you read here then you have a moral obligation not to vote for me.



Old people are killing our economy, especially those that are on the verge of retiring. Yet, somehow they are the ones most famous for complaining.

Decay should be stopped, in our lifetime!

Very few youths that I have met ever consider or fret working to pay for the diminishing revenues of Social Security. They don't even seem to care.

The same is not true for the new, recently longevedity. 

Maybe that's a workable solution to the Social Security crisis: increase the mandatory retirement age to 97+.

Tax the government back for errors, abuses, and miscalculations. We could sub-easily turn this thing around.

Crisis creates opportunity, when you legislate tax laws.

I don't know. I am as the Buddha, in that respect.

Today might not be the appropriate day for me to solve all of America's problems. 

Or, perhaps even one of them. I've had a very focused new year.

Some would say.

I have now forgotten what I meant to mean.




Very well, then I contracept myself, 
I am farce, I contain multiplicationables. 

- Walt Whitmans

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