Luxury Retail Space Available

Since I returned from the ski trip I have had no free time. None. I have run from one place to another without purpose or effect, forever rounding the Monopoly board, only ever landing on Baltic Ave.  It's as if the cursed dice that I am bound to use have extra digits that only ever equal the sums of 43, 40 or 37, without further variation.  Eternally hovering around the Baltic region of the game.

Last night I had a discussion with one of my managers whose conversation I often enjoy. I was leaving work at the time, sensibly.  My side of the conversation quickly devolved into the futility of my position and the comical and unlikely chance of promotion, that I am in a place that has no career path, that ascendance is discretionary and awarded without explanation....  That there is no relationship between effort and reward.  He disagreed, so I made my point more forcefully, with exaggerated emphasis. I was about to leave and was running out of time, you see.  This quite confirmed my position.  I had won the argument by forever proving my point. Such is the potency of my rhetoric, combined with the power of my unique brand of neurotic persuasion.

My personality is not one that will likely ever be rewarded in certain situations... like, at work.

Will I ever learn?  Or is it just that I have a self-destruct mechanism, a personality doomsday device, that ensures that any time I'm given a reasonably fair opportunity to excel then I am far more likely to become the court jester, forever poking fun at anybody that would ever advance, or worse: try to advance.


Years ago I liked to play the game Monopoly.  It is an incredibly easy game to win and relies on one basic principle at first, then on another principle to employ if you fall on hard times. The only chance anybody ever has of beating me is playing the exact same strategy, and then it just boils down to the luck of the dice, or lack thereof.  It is mostly a bitter, unpleasant experience predicated on the fantasy of wealth, affluence and the misuse of power.

It is a game of waiting, principally.  Like a gluttonous landlord, you wait for others to unluckily land on your holdings so that you can unfairly charge them.  It is a form of price-fixing that appeals to the type person who once during college might have dreamed of moving to New York and becoming Donald Trump.  People who like to utter the phrase, "You're fired".... Those who enjoy being playfully possessive, and are animated in their ways of expressing the "I got you, you fucker" sentiment.

I am immediately suspicious of anybody that ever suggests playing this game and I quietly offer thanks to the stars if those people are childless, and poor.

No, I'm just kidding... it's lots of fun to screw your friends over with a semblance of law and property. It is a game enjoyed best while drinking cognac and smoking large penis-shaped cigars.  Wear a silk top-hat to complete your image of yourself.  Put your cigars out in fresh baby flesh. I find that helps with the odor.

No.

I've always wanted to bring a Monopoly game board to my bank and sit down and honestly ask the manager questions about strategy and how to incorporate that into my estate planning...

Jesus, I'm sick. Though not yet Lazarus.


I have had a recent request to return to my "semi-nude" series.

After today I will take that under very serious consideration.

Addendum: My wife wanted my fair readers to know that she is vehemently opposed to the use of the "baby flesh" joke.  

Duly noted.

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Nude Pt. 2

The second, and perhaps final, installment of my semi-nude series.  I find myself tiring of the theme.  No, that is not it. I've taken on another assignment.  Not true either.  I'm bored of looking at women in their underwear.

Never, nevermore. Quoth the baron....

It's just that the life of a fashion photographer is a hard-one.  Or should I say difficult... All of the free drugs, the late starts to each day, sleeping in, international first-class travel, champagne lunches, gracing others with the bulk of my work, knowing who to trust, and when to pretend... feeling totally justified at belittling and demeaning those that are lucky enough to work for me, especially the one's I barely pay, if at all.

What actually is an intern? Why don't you tern into a line of coke for me... ingrate is more like it....


My arm is sore from throwing my cell phone at people.  Why haven't my very public tantrums produced better images, greater art... Is nobody paying attention to the genius behind the lens any longer.  I might as well get a desk job, in the service industry.


And the models are just impossible, all cardbored and one-dimensional.  Incredible to look at but starved for attention, either black or white.


Am I the only one that gives a fuck about beauty any more....

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Pictures of birds in flight

Life is confusing. The more I try to clarify, the more confusion I seem to create.

Never defend yourself, especially if you haven't done anything wrong.  It will only make you appear guilty. When you defend yourself you automatically appear defensive.

As I get older I have less and less time and patience to maintain personal relationships.  It saddens me because the relationships that I do have I tend to value more, as time passes. Some of them.

I once read that most people form their significant relationships before the age of 30, very few form significant relationships after that age.  That hasn't been true for me and I can count several close friendships that were formed after the age of 30, but perhaps I am a late bloomer.

But lately I do notice that I have less patience for what it takes to maintain relationships.  It's not that I don't care about them, it's just that I've become less tolerant of certain things.  I have always been a somewhat emotionally needy person, so I tend to be more tolerant of those who are similar.  But as I become less and less needy in that way I have also lost some of my patience for those people.


Time becomes a strange thing, so much more transitory and less fixed, though perpetually moving towards complete and total stasis.


What do I know?

"Look how big my shadow is..."

I used to be famous, sort of.  The internet makes it seem that way. It's like having your DNA trapped in amber for others to re-animate after decades, centuries, eons, weeks, minutes....

I recently did an internet radio show with a friend of mine, Taimur.  Here is a link for those of you who may be interested.  It is a collection of dance tracks from around the time that I used to be a resident dj at a club called Twilo.  It was a special time for many people.  People still ask me about the experience quite often, giving vague credence to the history of the occurence.

I never know what to say when asked.  It was a privatized experience and one not easily shared in words, with strangers.
 

I checked Wikipedia to see if there was anything about Twilo that I had forgotten.  It turns out that I was one of the many things that had long since been forgotten.

I used to be famous, sort of....


"Look how big my shadow is when I stretch." -Laura  (From "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams)

.

sex cells, protected by glass....

(unexpecting is not a word)

I've decided to do a new photo/essay series.  It will be all semi-nudes, shot semi-live in the streets of New York, with pedestrians happening upon the photo-shoot both unexpecting and semi-unaware, participating without knowledge or consent, mostly.  I will (of course) be in most of the photos as well, overdressed, but eager to participate in partial nudity, as always, in any way that I can... the cool and distant recorder of the smoldering sensuality of the models, protected by glass.

Oh wait, that's been done before, and I don't have many models willing to get naked for free, nor do I have resources, or time.  But my god... there sure is some beautiful booty-pie to look at here and there, spread out generously across the city.

(nor is aqtor)

I feel a little bit guilty looking at this picture above.  Whenever the model turns and looks at me I feel guilty, especially as someone is passing, just trying to walk their dog.  There is a fantastic passage in the book "A Sport and a Pastime" by James Salter that describes a man standing behind a young naked woman who is facing forward, lying down, preparing to be entered from behind, or should I rather say in behind.  Anyway, he is holding a jar of vaseline in his hand and he describes the guilt and shame he would feel if she were to turn around and see him holding the thing, the article of sin, the embodiment of the act to follow.  But it is not the act itself which he is ashamed of, it is only that he should be seen holding the jar which enables it.  I have perhaps remembered the passage wrong, but that is the effect it had on me.

This picture does a similar thing.  I like the framing of it.  A frowzy woman just trying to walk her dog, with a bus passing by, temporarily separating the reflection of the abdomen of the model from the reflection of the tree, while revealing it more for what it is, a body.  

It looks like the woman walking the dog is trying to insert my ding-dong into the model's booty-crack.  

That must be a mirage, an urbana fata morgana.

"w're al' but aqtors, fueling rselves along a sinsless oddisy..." - senetesticles

DMV, NYC

I have wanted to tell this story for several days. But I was afraid that I would tell it only in anger. I wanted there to be some humor in telling it.  I feel there was some humor in the thing.  When I relay the story to anybody verbally it is coming across only as angry. 

So be it.

I recently went on a vacation to Colorado. Before leaving it occurred to me that my Florida driver's license had expired. I would need a valid license to drive the rental car in Colorado.  In New York you have up to one year after your license expires to swap it for an NYC license.  I checked into the requirements for swapping and there were a few that I was unprepared for.  The two main issues being that I needed a new visual test performed by my eye doctor and that I MUST have a Social Security Card.  Just having the S.S. # would not do.  I had to be in possession of the actual card.  Luckily there is a Social Security office on my street, just a block east of where I live.  So, I went down to the office about a month before we were leaving and brought with me all of the needed documentation.  When I was done I was told that it would arrive in the mail in 2-4 weeks.  I inquired about the possibility of rushing the card with extra payment but no such options were available.

So I waited.  

I went to the eye doctor and found that my eyes hadn't changed much, but he gave me a new prescription anyway so that I could get a new pair of glasses.  I took a fresh picture of my retina off of the computer screen there in the testing room and told him that I used it as my Facebook profile pic and he warned me about the future and about how my retina is more unique than my fingerprint, identity theft, etc.  I assured him that nobody would want my identity, that along with it comes a soul-crushing inventory of shames and a catalog of ignominious but blurred memories.  He laughed but warned me that yes, even those might be desirable to the ne'er-do-wells of the future universe one day.

I left his office feeling better and with my eyes dilated so that all of the snow in New York glowed with an incandescent inner and outer glow, painful to look at, impossible to ignore.

When I got home I found my S.S. card in the mail.  Not the German paramilitary organization, Schutzstaffel, but the card from the Social Security office that I had mentioned earlier.  I opened the letter, verified all of the information as correct and put it with my other papers so that all was in order, and I was ready to apply for my transit papers....

So, I was prepared for the DMV.

I went to the DMV office two days before we were expected to leave for Colorado, where we could drink beer made by a man named Adolph without irony or nazi-sympathies. Sidenote: Coors, not Coors Light, is actually a pretty good American beer, though Adolph Coors was a supporter of many conservative causes, he still made pretty good beer.  Check out The Heritage Foundation and The American Enterprise Institute.  Adolph committed suicide but began a conservative legacy that was more fully realized in his offspring who went on to run the Coors company.  This alone should be enough to keep me from drinking Coors, but it is not.... 

So, I went to the DMV, armed with all of the necessary documents, prepared to wait all day to get my license.  When I arrived and found the appropriate line to be in I was informed that the computer system that enables them to trade out my out-of-state license with an NYC license was down and all transactions were being done manually by hand, which would add considerable time to what was already a lengthy process. We were all encouraged to reconsider this day as a day to perform our official state business.  I contemplated coming back the next day but thought better of it, as that would give me no time whatsoever to correct for any mistakes, so I stood in line for 2 hours.  

Finally I made it up to the window where the process would begin in earnest.  I had a few questions and I began to ask them to the gloved man pictured below:

He told me that all of the information I need was provided on the website for the NYC DMV.  I asked if it wasn't possible for him to answer my questions since the reception in this government building wasn't very good and it was important for me to make sure I got this done today.  He said, No, that he wasn't there to provide information.

Ok, I said.

He then asked to see all of the necessary paperwork and I provided it all for him.  When he saw me pull my Social Security Card out of the envelope he asked me to sign it, so I did.  He then asked me to stand against the board to have my picture taken, which I did.  He then turned his back to me and prepared the documents for me to continue the process, then he handed me all of my paperwork and told me to have a seat.

I waited and waited, another 2 hours.  Finally my number was called and I approached the appropriate window to get my license.  I handed over all of my paperwork and the woman began to process the request.  Within a few short minutes she came back and told me that I wouldn't be able to get a license today, that the name on my Social Security Card was incorrect.  She showed it to me.  Sure enough, my last name was spelled incorrectly.  I stood there in complete befuddlement. I asked if there was any alternative identification I could use, my passport, credit cards, anything.  She said, No, that was a requirement, and pointed to the signs that were everywhere around the office stating so.  I walked numb out of the office and down to the street, all of my efforts thwarted by a bureaucracy run afoul.

I stood on Broadway below, outside the offices, looking from left to right, unsure what to do.  After a month of concerted effort it turns out that I would not get my driver's license before our trip, that my wife would have to drive everybody through ice and snow, and mountainous terrain, for days on end.  This was not good. This was not good at all.   I chastised myself for not recognizing the mistake earlier.  I stood dumbfounded at how the name could be right on the address portion of the paper but could be mis-printed on the un-detached card portion of the paper.

I pulled it out of my pocket, and out of the envelope, and looked at it more carefully.

The numbers have been removed for obvious reasons: to keep my eye doctor happy.  But look at the name on the card, specifically the last name, which should read CUSICK...

The modification seems obvious in this picture, but to the naked eye it was more deceptive. The subtext was clear.  I had to hand it to this bald albino rat, it was sort of funny.  By changing the I in my name to a D, he had partially spelled out the word DICK, and when one considers that the I is obscured in the DCK portion of my name, then the joke is complete, and the meaning unambiguous.  

That I was not going to get my driver's license because of this penned change only added to the prank.

I turned around, went back up the elevator, went past all of the lines of people waiting, demanded to see a supervisor.  She appeared.  I explained that I had checked these documents and they were all correct, that the only person other than myself who had touched this card was her employee, and that if she examined it carefully she could see that the modification was made with the same pen that he handed me to sign the card just a few hours prior.

She examined the card with a magnifying glass, she laughed, she apologized.  She marched me back over to the desk where mole-man was working, gloves still covering his diseased, criminal hands.  I prepared for a confrontation.  She walked me to the woman working right next to him and whispered something in her ear and walked away.  The woman began the process all over for me.  I said, No, no, no, no... I had already been through all of this. I was at the end of the process, not at the beginning.  She handed me all of my paperwork and directed me vaguely to the other side of the room.  Mole-man sat there with his bald head down as if it were a forward-facing-blank-mask of sorts, obscuring his joy and deceit, garnished with a fading hairline and partially framed by his dangling glasses.

I walked back across the room to where the supervisor was already busied with other bureaucratic concerns.  I waited patiently as she helped somebody else and then I explained to her that I was already at the end of the line, waiting to get my license, not at the beginning. She asked to see my paperwork. She examined all of it and then walked away instructing me to follow her, leaving my passport on the far side of the counter, separated from my paperwork, her and me.  I leaned over the counter, alarming those around me, especially those behind the counter, recovered my passport and followed her to the window that I was previously at, where she instructed the woman to issue me the license, that there had been some sort of mistake.

In a few minutes the woman handed me all of my paperwork back along with an interim driver's license. I walked over to the supervisor where I could see that she was waiting for some thanks for all that she had done.

None arrived.

I asked her for her name and for the employee's name that had drawn on my S.S. card.  She gladly gave me her name but refused to give me the employee's name, stating that this was, "a DMV issue now" and that, "You got your license, let it go..."

I told her that I appreciated her assumed authority in this matter. But that this issue was well outside of the DMV's jurisdiction, and that the FBI generally handles matters of government employees committing crimes involving the altering of federally issued identification documents.

I left the office, taking this last picture on the way:

Of mole-man, beware....



The response among my friends in New York has been both universal and strange:  "Why did you go to the midtown DMV?"  I patiently explain each time that it is the closest DMV to me and the office that one must go to in Manhattan when swapping out an out-of-state license.  I am then given all sorts of advice about upstate DMV offices and ones in the outer boroughs, and online options that simply would not function for me in the capacity that I had hoped, mail-in rebate DMV's, coupons, etc., etc.

New Yorker's are not helpful, they only need to feel better informed than others and will offer erroneous information as if it is actual help, when in reality it is a way for them to assert their NewYork'ness over yours...

So, that is what I am doing now...  Avoid the midtown DMV at all costs, and if you happen upon this miserable little dungheap of a human, then do not allow him to turn his back on you in possession of your identification.


I had been warned well by my eye doctor:

His head is that shape because he is from the future.... It is a bureaucracy plow.

Beware...

The many mountains of Colorado

I'm back.  I've changed my mind about skiing. It is a lot of fun once you move past the fear and shame of high-speed downhill disaster.  Moving past the fear does not stop the wipeouts, however.  It only makes it possible to enjoy them, sort of. Which also diminishes the shame, a bit.  Learning how to quickly get back up and ride also helps, though it is an awkward business, one that is difficult on the legs, the knees in particular.

I had hoped to take many more pictures while skiing but the two activities are not very conducive to one another.  It requires more dedication than I was willing to commit, and reminded me of the many years that I didn't own a camera, and didn't want to.  I believed that a camera prevented you from participating in something and relegated you more to the recording of things.  So the camera stayed at home, mostly.

Time used to keep on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future... now it just breaks its hip.

I tried a few times to capture the beauty of the mountains, but their impressiveness escaped me, mostly.  I didn't dedicate the necessary time to photographing them that I would have needed to come closer to getting the pictures I wanted.  It was shockingly cold and my instinct towards other things kept me from taking up anybody else's time with my new hobby, mostly.

It was refreshing to get out of New York and try something new.  The skies are wide open there, almost from horizon to horizon at times. The azure ambit is disrupted with the most astonishing upward breaks from the earth.  A confusion of consistency marked by immense earthly forces.  

It is a strange and lonely place.  It speaks a frightening truth to the heart, its allure is its immensity in scope, the near total boundlessness of earth and sky, the void between, the void within.

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Silverthorne via Pagosa Springs

I remain unconvinced about skiing. The people we are traveling with have cajoled me into trying again, though perhaps not today. It is -30°F where we are up in the mountains somewhere near Silverthorne this morning, but it's supposed to get up to a blistering -15°F or so later today.... perhaps warmer.

We drove to Pagosa Springs yesterday.  The road was cold and bleak though beautiful at times.  On the drive home I took a wrong turn and we drove over an 11,312 ft. pass called Monarch, across the continental divide. The winds were blowing up the ridge of the mountain and across the road in such a way that it was impossible not to imagine how long it would take to die in that weather if the car were to fail, or we were forced to head out on foot in search of help, or happened upon by an angry and hungry lycanthrope....

Tonight is the new moon.  We are perhaps safe for another 14 days.


The picture below was a long exposure taken in Pagosa Springs.  I wish that I remembered more about basic astronomy. I would tell you approximately how many degrees of arc are seen in the motion of the stars.  It is very little but there is evidence there of the earth spinning through the cosmos and me along with it.

Dept. of M.V.

Well, I just found out last night that we won't be bringing a computer with us on vacation.  

So the story of the DMV might have to wait until we get back.

Nobody worry.  

I was told the cryptic post about never calling the cops had a few people worried.

Never Call The Cops

My policy: never call the cops.

Something has to have gone irrevocably wrong for me to even consider it.

Even then, I don't let them in my apartment.

Ever.


But.... I went to the DMV today and something incredible happened.

I will tell you the whole story when I have the time, hopefully tomorrow, after I call the F.B.I....

I HAVE MAIDS

New York is a funny place to live.  I was talking with some friends tonight about the plausibility of moving out of the city.  They were against it, against the negative effect it would have on my urbanity.  We spoke of commute times and transit protocol.  Hidden expenses. The difference between a subway ride and a train ride. Time. We volleyed the words... Suburb.

As I was riding home from their place the taxi driver and I drove up from Tribeca towards the East Village. We passed outdoor parking garages where cars were mechanically hoisted on top of other cars in a vertical grid fashion, a parking lot co-op, of sorts.

I wondered how much of the earth was actually left.  My sensation of the earth for the last 12 years has been greatly skewed by living in and visiting cities, almost exclusively.  I know that the earth must have lost much ground in the last 12 years.  I remember that Sting used to talk or sing about the Amazon rain forest, he probably still does.  I think it was Sting.  It might have been Michael Bolton.

I hope they're on tour together, with Kenny G.  A summer long tour of Central Park, to raise awareness of the effects of aging.


I stopped at a local bar near my apartment and had a beer. When I went into the very familiar bathroom to piss, just before I was leaving, I found a new pen-written declaration on the wall.

I wondered which one of them wrote it.

.

Forest of unseen fir trees

I fear that I have screwed up some other new thing in my life.  By joking about drugs openly I believe I might have scared somebody out of their vacation.  I have a single, one-word response: Ooops.

Time will tell.

I'm not sure what yesterday's post was about.  I really do believe there is something to eastern medicine and herbal remedies.  It was the toxins leaving my body, my witch doctor suggested.

It is snowing this morning.  I go to the eye doctor this morning to see what the last 2 years of my life have done to my vision, and to assess the effectiveness of dream therapy on my inner vision.  I'm going to have bifocals installed in my dharma.

Ok, stop it.  What is wrong with me?

I used to be such a nice, well-manered young boy.  Somewhere along the way I became a monster of intake, losing some sense of self that my parents had worked so hard to develop.

No, that doesn't explain it either.

My buddy at selavy once gave me a reasonably simple life-prescription.  He said, try to produce more than you consume.  This is good advice, I think.  At least I thought that it was for many years.  But there really is no way of quantifying or qualifying the differences between the two.  Once I've produced something, a post for example, a well-written one, am I then entitled to consume some intoxicant?  If so, how much?

I understand that what he meant was to spend more of your time producing then consuming, but that's easy also. Most drugs take a second or less to consume while the act of producing can take several minutes, even hours.

I'm not helping myself here at all.  I hope the guy whose vacation I likely ruined doesn't find this post...

I really don't even do drugs any more, most of the time.  But I was an energetic advocate of them for many years.  An independent spokesman doing part-time freelance public relations.


When I was in high school, before I dropped out, there was a girl who sat in my math class, in front of me, on the row to the left.  This girl never spoke a single word, she seemed to have no friends, or was very adept at keeping them hidden.  She certainly didn't talk to me or anybody else that I knew in that class.  For some reason my math teacher began talking about life experience rather than math, which was an odd aside.  But she seized the opportunity to denounce drugs, and talk about how damaging and destructive they are to people's lives.

The young girl spoke the one and only time I ever heard her speak. She said something to the effect of:  This is all such hypocrisy.   We are always told to 'seize the day' and to 'live in the moment', but then we are told to stay away from drugs and prepare for our future, that nothing could be more important.  Some of us are frightened of the future, because the emphasis is always on preparing for it.  Drugs not only allow you to live in the moment, but they demand it.  So, stop filling our heads with conflicting ideas that you clearly don't understand or haven't really thought about.  You're not helping us...

I was astonished.  I spent the rest of the year craving the slightest acknowledgment from her.  She was a budding goddess, filled with supernatural powers.  This was a woman of genuine capacity, I dreamt.

She was right, of course.  Not about the validity of doing drugs, that they allow you to live truly in the moment, but that we were constantly being fed competing and opposing messages by people who were seemingly incapable of understanding the effects of this.

It was a world of rigid dogma, doctrine that left us in want of otherness, of anything else. It created a world that was fertile for disaster. At the cost of structure some of us found that otherness, those differences, that disaster.

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Square One, Chakra-ing

I had two beers last night.  That makes it official. The detox is over.  No more talk of carrots and juicing, lemon enemas, and late night illicit blood infusions.

I found this little tidbit, among many others, on an alt.medicine page:

"Some private labs, such as Great Smokies Diagnostics Labs, offer tests that assess urine, stools, blood and liver function.  These tests are not standard medical tests and many medical doctors do not recognize them or consider them valid." ("stools" is not my typo... nor are any of the s's in the name of the laboratory)

I was astonished to find that many alternative medicine sites measure the validity of what they do by how much it is NOT recognized by medical professionals, those who have dedicated their lives to the study of health, wellness and treatment... doctors, scientists, etc...  The seeming assertion that all of western medicine is evil, and that the truest measure of the value of what they are doing as an alternative to science is the level at which they are dismissed, struck me as funny, odd.

I have always looked for guidance and information from my yoga class when it comes to life threatening illnesses.  If I can't make it to a yoga class when I'm having a seizure I try to swing by and have my palm read by an ordained psychic.

I have heard some say that western doctors are eager to chop parts of your body off, like when they find cancer there, and how brutal and misguided this approach is.  These holy-istic souls would prefer to apply a generous offering of life crystals to the afflicted area to help let the negative energies flow out from the body and for the cancer to change its aromatherapy lifepath.

Well, yes, of course.  As long as the cancer doesn't try to hide from all of that positivity somewhere in the blood stream.

I am just kidding again, of course.  People show concern in different ways, and with different beliefs about wellness, and vastly different levels of experience and research.  So, the idea has always been to believe that you will be healthy. That is an important thing, faith.

I have faith that some toxins left my body in the last 7 days.  Lazarus, come forth....

From what I understand, China reports that all incidents of cancer have been resolved by ancient herbs.  Again, I kid.  I am just biofeedbacking.



I was talking with my wife last night and she was relaying to me that I believe that Christ is the son of God, and I myself am actually a Christian.  I said, no..., that I often play the devil's advocate and will assume the position of a Christian to battle liberal ideology, or infidels in the promised land, but that I am not actually a Christian, I am merely showing how offensive certain aspects of equality and liberalism can be to one who has a cherished belief system.  She said that I had better let our friends know then, because she believes that they believe that I believe....  

I was raised as a Christian, mostly.  My mother threw an always generous portion of whatever else had seized her interest for that month into my religious education as well.  Always denouncing evil. Vaguely accepting any number of other theories or belief systems... from metaphysics to what I called the out-of-your-mind-experiences. Which could range anywhere from witches to levitation to telekinesis and beyond.

They were interesting times.  We were never in need of any extra mysteries or science...

.

Day 7

I am toxin free.  I can feel it. The purity of my precious bodily fluids has finally been restored, I am free of all foreign substances.  My clarity of mind has returned. I am able to remember long strings of alpha-numeric digits, hexadecimal codes, etc...  Last night I was doing long division in my sleep, during a lull in an otherwise exciting dream...  A particularly difficult quadratic equation woke me up...

No, not actually, but I did have a beer last night.  It was delicious. I don't know how much this will pollute my efforts, but whatever the cost, it was worth it.  I have to work all weekend and I just got sick of abstaining.  I don't think one beer qualifies as "toxic" anyway, right?

... --- ...

During the dream that I had last night. Not the one that was interrupted by long division, but yet another one.  I was talking to a vision version of my wife, I think. We were languidly reclining on a couch together, I think there were other people around, the sun was coming up.  She was talking about sexual dreams:

I inquired, "Well, who do you think about when you're masturbating?"

"I think about you, Sean..."

"That's absurd.  I don't even think about me when I'm masturbating, engaging in the hand-made evil, the oldest confession."

I awoke with a startle: the bespoke evil, immaculate preconceptions.  I had it there in my hand, my head, a phrase that could not get away.  I mashed it around there in my mind, and slept.  It was sure to be gone by morning.

I've warned you about the dreams of others.

(here stand the whitest indians ever...)

.

Day 6

(raw snowman material)

I'm beginning to think that most of my troubles come from having time off from work.  I wasn't working Monday or Tuesday and virtually all of the confusion and unrest from this week seems to emanate from those two supposedly harmless days.  I am, perhaps, a danger to myself.  If not an outright danger then possibly just an unavoidable nuisance.  To be fair though... I was snowed in both days, somewhat.  It was either snowing or too cold to go out and do much of anything.  So idle time is perhaps the real culprit.  I spend too much time in front of my computer, the devil's amphitheater.

I am tiring of my diet/detox.  Other than one day where I experienced a headache I haven't had many results, positive or otherwise.  Not that I expected the skies to split open and for there to be daily high-speed jet-pack monkey fights, but a few minor miracles would have been nice.  I would have liked food to taste better, but no, the opposite has been true.  Fruits and vegetables are wonderful and I have always enjoyed them, but beyond that my diet is about as sexy as commuting on the subway is.  Remove dairy from your diet and suddenly things taste flat and uninspired.  I know that if I give myself more time then the taste of things will improve, as my palate adjusts, but I'm not willing to do that.  Next Wednesday is Day 10, and I will act accordingly....  I am planning an all day bacchanalian feast.  I've had a vomit chamber installed in my apartment in preparation.  When in New York, do as The Romans do...

I fear that gorging myself on food and wine, and then purging it at regular intervals in the special chamber I've had constructed from porcelain and stainless steel, will not bring me the happiness I urgently desire.  There are so few things to bring one happiness after years of doing well-made, expensive designer drugs.  I crave the simple things in life.... money, and then more money.

I had a woman comment on yesterday's posting. She suggested that she would perhaps live vicariously through my detox.  I didn't know how to tell her than I would not encourage anybody to replicate, whether through imitation, magic or contagion, my attempts at normalcy and balance.  Most people have a difficult time even trying to talk to me, much less be a friend.  I have immense sympathy for anybody that has ever tried to love me. But the one thing that I have always insisted on is that nobody try to echo my behavior.  It is the short and rocky road to the vomit chamber.


I think of this simple one-eyed immobile snowman, with his uneven twig arms, and horizontalist smile, and I wonder...

... what happened to his nose?

(sideclops, frozen cocaine addict)

.

Day 5

Nothing new. The headaches have passed. I have partially made it through the dual wormholes of impulse and habit.  The thought of a cold glass of beer when I get home at night is still a distant siren's call, but nothing terrible has happened to me yet because I haven't had a beer.  I feel okay.  I don't miss coffee as much as I had thought that I might, though I believe that's where the headaches were coming from, the body's craving of the murky stuff.

Nothing has improved in my life yet though.  I haven't slept much better, nor do I have any excess energy during the day, nor has my sex life improved, nor my vision, nor my writing skills, northern woes nor narwhals.... though not Narnia.... never Narnia.... ever.

Ok, that's where my head's at without coffee and the lingering effects of a few late night beers.

I wish that I had picked up smoking along the way, I could talk about that as well.  There is nothing more dull than listening to somebody talk about their attempts to give up smoking, except perhaps listening to other people relay their dreams, or their experiences giving up coffee and beer...

So, the new rule of writing: leave out the boring stuff, like Narnia.

Day 4

I had a headache all day yesterday.  Coffee withdrawal.  I was tempted to drink a half a cup of coffee to get rid of the headache but instead I persevered.  Normally half a week after I stop drinking alcohol I get a few days of elation and energy.  Not this time.  Stopping the coffee has counter-acted any benefit I might have hoped to have gained.  If there are any toxins getting released then they are getting released from the nerdy fat cells in my body rather than the cool psychedelic ones.


I was just listening to a vaguely liberal news radio program about the "dark side of the internet" and the ways in which law enforcement agencies are using sites like Facebook and Twitter to perform their legal evils and secret invasions.  But the people speaking on the radio discussed how people who had once been for freedom of speech are beginning to turn against that position based on some of the "extreme deviance" found on the internet, both legal and otherwise.  It's a funny thing, that they are against censorship mostly because they believe their ideas have value, but when confronted with the genuine weirdness of others they shrink from the task, and their position quickly recedes.


Their stance was oddly based on the extreme  anonymity of the internet.  Meaning: it might be okay to be a little bit weird, as long as we all know who you are. If you cross the line of "a little bit weird" then we definitely want to know who you are.  It will be interesting to see how America deals with this in the coming years.  They've done such a good job with all of the other liberties guaranteed protection under the Constitution, like the 4th amendment.


"What, me worry?"


My buddy over at selavy is mad at me.  In an email he has said: "You're an asshole, by the way.  I don't think I said anything bad about you.  I don't know how anyone can stand you.  You'd better be glad that I'm a fuck up and can't afford to hold a grudge."  


I'm not at all sure what he's talking about.  He's an artist so I have more tolerance for him than I would for others.  He has done some amazing photography and you should check out today's post.  It is beautiful and I will one day try to get a print of this one from him, along with a few others.  


I'm sure that this latest outburst is just a lingering menstrual seizure. Still, through the apoplectic confusion he produces things of genuine beauty, so my tolerance for him goes on.  He is currently working on a new abbreviated form of Gonzophobia.   


No, I kid. He is one of the few friends I have left, so I had better be careful.  I had hoped he would teach me how to use my camera before he slips further into the fog of age.  I figure we've got another 6 months or so, or at least until MLK Day 2012...


I learned a few things from entering into arguments with people about MLK Day...  
-One: there is no way to win an argument with MLK, race, racism, or America as any one of the subjects in that argument.  
-Two: the tendency to lapse into self-righteousness in the face of perceived injustice, or worse, is an ineffectual  position from which to conduct a discussion about anything. 
-Three: my friends are a bunch of fucking racists.  


Ok, nothing else much to report here today. I will be glad when my detox period is over.  It has not produced anything of value yet.  I was in a bad mood all day yesterday. I'm hoping that will all turn around for me today.... once I am through the caffeine wall.

Day 3

Getting healthy is no fun. The first few days go very slow.  I expect a surge of energy sometime later today or tomorrow, though perhaps not enough for me to register myself in the NYC Marathon again. I've been sore since I jogged a single mile the day before yesterday, on a treadmill.  I wonder if it is all worth it.  I wonder if I will ever go back and read this post.

I sat around the apartment all day yesterday doing nothing, the same as I did the day before.  There are 20 emails I've been meaning to write or respond to, none of which will happen anytime soon.  I have learned a very valuable lesson from MLK, one that I've learned before, one that I will hopefully remember next time:  stop talking before you run out of ideas, not after.

I am tempted by argument and rhetoric, though it makes me very self-conscious, a feeling I hardly care for.

I haven't taken a picture with my camera in days.  I had meant to spend some time experimenting with lights while I was at home but the days came and went, two of them floated by, untouchable and rapidly gaining distance.

Day 2

I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked to last night.

Much has been said about MLK Day and the resistance to MLK Day.  After listening to a few of the arguments and positions on the matter a couple things have occurred to me.  Whether I'm able to detect a hint of bigotry in people's responses, or if they have rationalized away their responses, there seem to be a few identifying characteristics to that outright resistance or dismissal.

The main argument I seem to hear is that many people don't understand why we celebrate him as an individual when we don't do the same for Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson or Franklin, all men who are also worthy of individual recognition.  They focus on some of the individual weaknesses of MLK, citing some truths as well as a healthy dose of rumor and falsehood. The people who put forth this resistance have a point, but it is one that is somewhat easily responded to.

I remember when Washington's birthday was celebrated individually, before the formation of Presidents' Day. The reasoning for the change was simple and the differences negligible.  It was not as if we sat around as schoolchildren on Washington's birthday and spoke only of Washington.  More importantly, we never discussed his failings. He was discussed only as the Father of our country.  A misuse of the word if there ever was one, unless you'd like to explain to the descendants of slaves why their "father" permitted such a thing.  If the same sort of reasoning were applied to Washington that we mis-apply to MLK then those who cry "political correctness" in the face of MLK would have to reconsider their grumblings under the banner of "patriotic correctness."

Political Correctness on the left is the evil that they use to abort discourse and advance the liberal agenda. You will hear Republicans crying foul any chance they are given when they sense that there is any "political correctness" afoot.  MLK Day is a perfect opportunity for this sort of thing because they fail to recognize that there are no other adequate symbols of the civil right's movement, or the human right's movement, from which we can merge to make a single day of celebration and acknowledgment.  Would they be happier if we included Malcolm X in this nationally recognized day?

From the right we must suffer all manner of Patriotic Correctness, it is the form that side uses to stifle debate and advance their rhetorical dogma.  They trot out their jingoism and flag-waving to silence any opposition in a similar fashion to the left with its cries of "foul" when any liberal sacred cow is under fire.  Imagine the noise they would make if liberals started using Veteran's Day and Memorial Day to instruct children on America's war crimes, and began calling for the removal of these holidays from the national calendar as celebrating war-mongering and those who have contributed to illegal global atrocities, capitalism at the pain of death... You get the idea.

Keep in mind I am neither suggesting nor advocating this, only bringing to light an imaginary reaction from the left that would resemble the one coming from the right about MLK, etc.

Liberals, many of them, in their fierce desire to present themselves as rugged individual thinkers are the most crafty when it comes to denouncing MLK Day and what it represents, because they are the ones most threatened by perceived misunderstanding on this day, you see.  Liberals are expected to trot out their tired dogma about the need for equality and tolerance, so the more advanced liberal mind might avoid the actual issue of equality, sensibly, and focus on singular definitions of tolerance as a system of defining "otherness."

Tolerance, as a liberal social concept, is meant to be understood as the counter-point to intolerance, not  as a way of defining and marginalizing suspicion of others, but as an antidote to forced adherence to any proscribed way of being, living, worshiping, etc.  To promote tolerance is not a systematic way of alienating others, but just as a reminder that intolerance must be resisted, and one way of doing that is to promote its opposite.  If one looks at the many evils of the world then this sentiment of tolerance as a resisting force to intolerance is more easily understood and accepted for what it is.  The euphemism of "breaking through the barriers that separate us" as a preferable alternative to tolerance can easily be misunderstood as an act of violence or force. So let's not go breaking through anything else just yet... our neighbors might prefer their privacy.

I think many people wish to forget that race is one of the most important issues in this country. They wrongfully believe the problems to have already been solved, yet they begrudge one of the main symbols of that change, MLK.  If they don't forget this then they are simply tired of hearing about it, one way or the other. They naively believe that they didn't have anything to do with slavery, all of the advantages they enjoy arrived in their lives naturally and they don't understand why that hasn't happened for others, it must be the inherent iniquity in those others....

I will hopefully stop writing about my experiences with people concerning MLK day after today.  But the issue of race is far from being resolved in this country and if those who were once willing to resist outright discrimination, or worse, in this country aren't willing to tackle the source and effects of veiled and barely submerged bigotry then the issue will remain where it is.  It could be said that we fought a civil war over race. There are some who begrudge the true victims of that war, slaves, and only see the fallen dead white soldiers as victims of that catastrophe.  Those who died nobly for those who were not.  They speak of slavery as an annoyance and an unworthy cause of such a war.  I am not making this up, remember that I lived in the South. Attend a civil war re-enactement and ask who won and lost the war, and the battles, and at what cost.  You will thank me for this advice, I promise.

I realize that at times I have lapsed into self-righteousness and indignation in the last few days.  But I can't help but feel that so much of the response I've gotten from my friends has something other than genuine inquisitiveness at its core.  Not one of my friends has offered any alternative to celebrating MLK's birthday as a way of recognizing the accomplishments of the civil right's movement and the continued struggle ahead.  There has been no discourse about alternative ways of observing those achievements, just a general dissatisfaction with the fact that as a country we have chosen to observe on this date, in this way.  No other symbol has been offered as an alternative to recognize. There has just been a collection of observations about MLK, mostly negative. Though, in fairness, some observations have recognized that he was a dynamic and charismatic leader who galvanized a moment and transmuted the feelings of many into a more coherent way of reacting to the injustice of racism.  Once they have stated this in the obligatory fashion they then want the conversation to move on.  They don't want too much observance of him.

So, the real struggle in this country is against complacency. There is a misapplication of spirit when it comes to dealing with the issue of race. The most difficult base to motivate towards voting seems to be those who hold their own opinions in the highest regard.  We live in a time when all ideals are suspect and easily targeted.  At least as it pertains to MLK very few have a sense of humor about it, that's both a good and a bad sign. The only art-forms left are those of the satirist, and parody reigns supreme.  We applaud the ease at which we can laugh at virtue, and we most highly esteem the arts of reduction and response.

One must consider what it means for laughter to not only be the best response we can offer, but soon, perhaps the only one.

Day 1

I have been sitting here for 5 minutes staring at the computer screen, trying to decide what to write about.  I have given up coffee in an attempt to lose weight and de-tox and my mind refuses to budge.  Today is the first day of what I'm hoping will be a 10 day de-tox/weight loss experiment.  Nothing too crazy, but cutting out some of the unnecessary calories (dairy, fried-foods, soda, alcohol) and attempting to ingest some aids in detoxing (fruits, greens, citrus, garlic).  If I start to release too many toxins into my blood stream then you, my faithful readers, will be the first to know.

It is 21 degrees outside right now, soon I will be back in bed either reading or watching a movie.  It is my day off and I refuse to freeze tonight.  I went outside to walk the dog and we both agreed it was far too cold.  The dog has a specific look of consternation that he employs when he wants me to understand the absurdity of my actions, of what I am asking him to do, the impossibility of the cold, etc.

It is a full moon tomorrow, the wolf moon.  Perhaps I will have already lost my mind and soul by then, howling in torment from the snow covered rooftops, jumping from building to building, searching out fresh corpses, shapeshifting as I go....