We, as a society, wage wars on things we don't like. Druggies with moral deficiencies, Terrorists with violent oppressive voices, and so on. At least we're past the unwed mothers. "Fahreners" coming to take our jobs. Outsourcing is a good candidate for a war. There's always the sanctity of life and abortion, and all of our governments insertions of religious doctrine into law. So many poor young girls suffering and so many young men either abandoning the whole ugly mess or sticking around to "try and do the right thing" which by any mind that can handle the notion is purely subjective. All the while we destroy our planet. It's like a very slow paced "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute. Thousands of years before fat drunken geniuses of pen like Ben Franklin lived, fields of poppies were sewn and grown for the tonic they provide. Funny how flowers, and particularly poppies are associated with wars with guns, blood, shit, brains, and mud. Like when they grow again on top hell, put hades back down where it belongs all is back in order. Yet, through all our generations we haven't learned. Our leaders and all of us that follow their rhetoric, their speeches, their heartgripping ideas and visionary pointing to some fairytale future fall again and again into hell, and the kerberos have plenty to eat.
Dwight Towers: Well... how'd you recognize me?
Moira Davidson: I love Americans. They're so naive.
"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
-- Ayn Rand
(1905-1982) Author
Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Thursday, December 4, 2008
An Embarrassing Battle Between a Man and Meaninglessness
As Ben rode the bus downtown to work his head was bouncing on the window. He stared out the window, fully aware of the great noise and pain the constant brutality the window inflicted on his head. Across the street were trash bags, men walking swiftly and women swishing carefully past each other. It was a little after ten in the morning, and he should have been at work already. Since he wasn't drinking, he wasn't hungover. He wasn't right though.
The rattling of the bus window in his scull became too much for him so he lifted his head. He drifted off in reverie. It was comfortable, more comfortable than imagining what it would be like to walk through the enormous lobby he had to get through to get into his office and what he might say to his director if he encountered her. Instead, he was sipping his coffee with Robert Downey Jr. His friend Jason International had become RDJ and they sat on the sofas in Jason International Downey Jr's. modest house in a small university town. It was small, and familiar. They were manning their battle stations, their respective sofas where they would entertain the hours with wit and semantics that for the most part only served to justify their wasteful ways.
Robert Downey International Charles said to Ben, "We have chosen to take the path of least existence." Ben liked the supposition of the wordplay. All of this was going on in his head, a reverie of solipsism on a bus with late morning sun fighting through the human oils on the windows. "You're an old deuce, my boy." Ben liked to acquiesce to Jason Downey International Jr., even though in most ways he was Jason's junior. The bus seemed to make every stop. It was the city, and if he really wanted to get to work he would have taken the train. The problem was that he was already late and he was trying to delay having to confront the spy of a receptionist or whomever else he might encounter on his way into his office late. The stops were welcome and the theater of his daydreams was a comfortable escape.
He didn't have a real reason for why he was late. The alarm had gone off after he woke up, but when he woke up he laid in his bed and stared at the ceiling. His heart was empty. Life had shown him some pretty amazing turns but he was more and more dissatisfied with himself, life, expectations, obligations, reputations, his occupations and preoccupations. The more he talked, the less be believed anything anyone said. The Village Voice seemed like it was written for an audience of another time, 100 years ago or 100 years from now. Television made him throw up. The only thing that seemed like the nectar and ambrosia that could satisfy him were cigarettes and red wine, or water and C13H16ClNO. What a fucker he was.
Ben loved when the bus sped up, the smoothness of the engine as it was summoned without the shrieking brakes. He thought of how much Robert International Jr. Charles wanted to punch people in the face. It made him smile. So this lost young man was smiling on a bus full of late morning riders in the city, late for work and in unironed clothes, and with an imminent embarrassment when he arrived at work to look forward to. He felt like punching someone in the face, just for the effect. Like he wanted someone to notice, he wanted to make a scene that the whole city stopped to stare at. The feeling of so much meaninglessness and loss of fear, hope, or ambition and all of the magical nights gone without potions and scrying glass plates, it was overwhelming and he needed someone to tell him that he was right or to tag him in the jaw and tell him what's what. The seeing-eye dog next to him across the aisle on the bus farted unusually prominently. It was very unlikely that Ben misread the source of the sound and the encroaching vapors, but it brought him back to the brutal reality of the bus so very quickly. The blind master of the guide dog flared his nostrils and turned his head. He probably had heightened senses of sound and smell.
The wind of a dog like striking Ben like a punch in the face had brought Ben out of his imaginary friend reveries and back to a grimy metal and glass flask of a bus, where he bobbed around in a funky float of brake screeches, vapors and hair greases, unnecessary barking voices, bulky and rustling plastic bags and discordantly choreographed passengers interfering with their own boarding and disbarking by their own selfish disregard for the rest of themselves. Ben sat there in the stench waiting now for his stop to come. For the wasteful way he spent his morning he now wished only to get to work and deal with that, because sitting there on a bus seat at nearly 11 in the morning for no reason other than it prevented him from getting where he needed to go made him more nauseated than television. He forced himself to fart when he got up in a tit-for-tat against the dog, and though it was stifled he saw the blind owner turn his head in his direction. Maybe he could get the bastards after all.
The rattling of the bus window in his scull became too much for him so he lifted his head. He drifted off in reverie. It was comfortable, more comfortable than imagining what it would be like to walk through the enormous lobby he had to get through to get into his office and what he might say to his director if he encountered her. Instead, he was sipping his coffee with Robert Downey Jr. His friend Jason International had become RDJ and they sat on the sofas in Jason International Downey Jr's. modest house in a small university town. It was small, and familiar. They were manning their battle stations, their respective sofas where they would entertain the hours with wit and semantics that for the most part only served to justify their wasteful ways.
Robert Downey International Charles said to Ben, "We have chosen to take the path of least existence." Ben liked the supposition of the wordplay. All of this was going on in his head, a reverie of solipsism on a bus with late morning sun fighting through the human oils on the windows. "You're an old deuce, my boy." Ben liked to acquiesce to Jason Downey International Jr., even though in most ways he was Jason's junior. The bus seemed to make every stop. It was the city, and if he really wanted to get to work he would have taken the train. The problem was that he was already late and he was trying to delay having to confront the spy of a receptionist or whomever else he might encounter on his way into his office late. The stops were welcome and the theater of his daydreams was a comfortable escape.
He didn't have a real reason for why he was late. The alarm had gone off after he woke up, but when he woke up he laid in his bed and stared at the ceiling. His heart was empty. Life had shown him some pretty amazing turns but he was more and more dissatisfied with himself, life, expectations, obligations, reputations, his occupations and preoccupations. The more he talked, the less be believed anything anyone said. The Village Voice seemed like it was written for an audience of another time, 100 years ago or 100 years from now. Television made him throw up. The only thing that seemed like the nectar and ambrosia that could satisfy him were cigarettes and red wine, or water and C13H16ClNO. What a fucker he was.
Ben loved when the bus sped up, the smoothness of the engine as it was summoned without the shrieking brakes. He thought of how much Robert International Jr. Charles wanted to punch people in the face. It made him smile. So this lost young man was smiling on a bus full of late morning riders in the city, late for work and in unironed clothes, and with an imminent embarrassment when he arrived at work to look forward to. He felt like punching someone in the face, just for the effect. Like he wanted someone to notice, he wanted to make a scene that the whole city stopped to stare at. The feeling of so much meaninglessness and loss of fear, hope, or ambition and all of the magical nights gone without potions and scrying glass plates, it was overwhelming and he needed someone to tell him that he was right or to tag him in the jaw and tell him what's what. The seeing-eye dog next to him across the aisle on the bus farted unusually prominently. It was very unlikely that Ben misread the source of the sound and the encroaching vapors, but it brought him back to the brutal reality of the bus so very quickly. The blind master of the guide dog flared his nostrils and turned his head. He probably had heightened senses of sound and smell.
The wind of a dog like striking Ben like a punch in the face had brought Ben out of his imaginary friend reveries and back to a grimy metal and glass flask of a bus, where he bobbed around in a funky float of brake screeches, vapors and hair greases, unnecessary barking voices, bulky and rustling plastic bags and discordantly choreographed passengers interfering with their own boarding and disbarking by their own selfish disregard for the rest of themselves. Ben sat there in the stench waiting now for his stop to come. For the wasteful way he spent his morning he now wished only to get to work and deal with that, because sitting there on a bus seat at nearly 11 in the morning for no reason other than it prevented him from getting where he needed to go made him more nauseated than television. He forced himself to fart when he got up in a tit-for-tat against the dog, and though it was stifled he saw the blind owner turn his head in his direction. Maybe he could get the bastards after all.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
About the Author
Watson woke up in a panick, as usual. "Shit! What time is it?!" He wasn't asking his girlfriend who was sleeping next to him, he was thinking out loud as he woke. She answered him anyway, "Ten Forty." After he flung himself out of bed, he could feel his broken fibula shifting around and making movements that seemed like they should have accompanying sounds. Still, he hobbled around looking for clothes. It was too close to 11:15, and his daily appointment required that he make it by 11:15 at the absolute -latest-. The doctor had prescribed him 30 nicotine patches, 21 mg each, so that he would stop smoking. She explained that patients with tourette's, she read, had been observed in research studies to try to manage their tics with nicotine. So she tried to help him quit smoking and standardize the nicotine with patches.
A clinical application for nicotine gave him a great respect and interest for this doctor. Synchronicity had been making it's comical appearances, like mythical creatures hiding behind light poles, behind doors, outside windows, on roofs sticking their heads around, up and over and their tongues out to mock him. Synchronicity reminded him that living was as much comedy as tragedy. It was a perfect relief to the stress that life creates and how unequipped Watson was in dealing with it.
The student doctor had asked him if he were interested in quitting and Watson was commencing to equivocate when the doctor came in and told him about Tourette's and nicotine and wrote the patch script. It often felt like the gods positioned cosmic punchlines in media, television and sometimes even books or emails, which could be shared for verification between he and his girl. Watson was superstitious, but synchronicity was a "faith-based" sense like deja vu, presque vu, or jamais vu.
So he made his appointment, made his way back home, smoked a cigarette that had broken and he repaired for his last one, and put a patch on his ass. Watson chose to put transdermal patches on his ass, because he believed that when you sat down, it gave you an extra boost of the pharmaceutical nicotine delivered. This was probably not scientific, and he really started this because when the generic and store brands of patch came onto the market, their adhesive properties were somehow inferior to the original ones, and when you sat on them, the adhesion was reinforced if you can follow the thinking. Try it out if you can't.
Two hours passed as he and his lover watched the third season of the wire. The show always moved him with it's characters and their addressing ethical, personal, strategic and related challenges of what were to Watson the most important conflicts he could imagine. The challenge of feeling whole and succeeding in making your heart sit well in your chest, and being able to see eye to eye with yourself in the mirror.
A clinical application for nicotine gave him a great respect and interest for this doctor. Synchronicity had been making it's comical appearances, like mythical creatures hiding behind light poles, behind doors, outside windows, on roofs sticking their heads around, up and over and their tongues out to mock him. Synchronicity reminded him that living was as much comedy as tragedy. It was a perfect relief to the stress that life creates and how unequipped Watson was in dealing with it.
The student doctor had asked him if he were interested in quitting and Watson was commencing to equivocate when the doctor came in and told him about Tourette's and nicotine and wrote the patch script. It often felt like the gods positioned cosmic punchlines in media, television and sometimes even books or emails, which could be shared for verification between he and his girl. Watson was superstitious, but synchronicity was a "faith-based" sense like deja vu, presque vu, or jamais vu.
So he made his appointment, made his way back home, smoked a cigarette that had broken and he repaired for his last one, and put a patch on his ass. Watson chose to put transdermal patches on his ass, because he believed that when you sat down, it gave you an extra boost of the pharmaceutical nicotine delivered. This was probably not scientific, and he really started this because when the generic and store brands of patch came onto the market, their adhesive properties were somehow inferior to the original ones, and when you sat on them, the adhesion was reinforced if you can follow the thinking. Try it out if you can't.
Two hours passed as he and his lover watched the third season of the wire. The show always moved him with it's characters and their addressing ethical, personal, strategic and related challenges of what were to Watson the most important conflicts he could imagine. The challenge of feeling whole and succeeding in making your heart sit well in your chest, and being able to see eye to eye with yourself in the mirror.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Les Criptes Sota Sagrada Familia
When Francis looked up at the gargoyle caught leaning out into the sky in stone, he thought to himself "fucking ass weasels. fucking butt ferrets." Gaudi pissed him off, even in death. I suppose that is the privelege of architects. They make men and women fall in love and perhaps even nauseate in the street long after their deaths. Their work stands and we stand in their work for centuries, even millenia after they die. So Francis hated the Apse gargoyles. They weren't even chimera. They were far from scary.
An African woman addressed him as Guapo, then Italian, French. She grabbed his arm and batted her fake black eyelashes. Her dress barely covered her ass, and she had a friend. The two of them invaded his personal space as they confronted him. Pulling back his arm, he re-created a safe zone between them. She was asking if he had a hotel room in spanish, or something about a room. He wasn't very good at Castillano and she surely had some sort of accent. All he understood was something about a room, that she was a prostitute, and as flattering it may be to be called handsome by a prostitute, his amusement was quickly exhausted by the wiley predation. They obviously profited from the weakness of tourists, young men, and their naivety, conceit, and appetites.
He told the woman that he'd surely love to fuck her but his mother would be very unhappy with him. To him, this was funny. It seemed that she wouldn't understand English, and that what he was saying to her was a bizarre statement. Her response was, "Comment? Qu'est-ce que c'est?" He repeated, "Jesus would be pissed off at me." She looked at her friend, who had a similarly scant dress, blue eyeshadow and black cleopatra whore eyes. They sort of laughed with big, african laughs that betrayed their coquettish characters they were playing. For prostitutes or anyone for that matter, they had shiny white teeth that were very healthy. Francis was struck that it seemed that these whores probably brushed their teeth more regularly than his own loathesome self.
Breakfast seemed like an unlikely meal here. Iberia was a magical terre, and he was foreign to it. Looking out down the street, he saw the warm mediterranean sun casting warm and seemingly eternal vernus over the edges of the roofs. The whole city was life and love. He smoked a lucky strike and thought to himself that trying to legitimize living here would be exceptionally difficult. Still, he had achieved more improbable and unlikely things, overcome more impossible challenges and he knew that he -could- if he committed to it. By the time he finished the cigarette, he mind had run along to contrive magical experiences that he could write about. He recalled the day before when he had gone swimming and seen butterfly wings floating on the surface of the sea. They were somehow one of the most beautiful things he would ever see. Childhood wishes, even demands that he should be allowed to breathe underwater like Jacques Cousteau, romanced the butterfly wings. He set about writing it, and was quickly perverted and the documentation was destroyed by his anxious restlessness.
There was an anxiety that pounced upon him from the pit of his stomach. It was almost persistent. He knew as soon as he was inspired or began to daydream something good that the chimera of his gut would spring into action. They would go for his eyes, his throat and his lungs. Often a voice told him, "Watch your lungs." Surely he was crazy, and yes he heard voices. They were his own. When the anxiety electrified him, he flung his hands around like trying to free them of egg. He was compelled to make a noise, a gutteral cry of agony. Unfortunately he had to stifle this cry, for socially it would alarm those who heard it. That would just compound the problem. He concluded his tale with abruptness and dischord and bought a bottle of water, two cokes, and a cafe con leche. Paradoxically, the coffee and water calmed his writhing. Now though, he had abandoned his documentation. The sun was up and the street seemed barometrically heavy.
Francis had nowhere to go. It was the day after his birthday and he was alone in a country far away from where he lived. He went to the shoestore and bought a pair of white leather shoes. Then he stopped at a strange little clothing store that seemed to be in a space designed for a cafe. The clothing cafe was on a corner in the old junkie ghetto side of the main drag, with glassed windows all around the space. Inside, two men tried in a language Francis didn't speak to sell him clothing he surely didn't want. In the end he bought a pair of off-white trousers to spruce himself up along with the new shoes, which were already scuffed and spoiled from the short walk from the zapateria. There was a man outside when he left the store. This man was unwashed, his hair matted, and his fingers black and dirty. It was apparent that the man was a tramp, but how he survived in such a state was a mystery. He asked Francis for change. This man almost seemed like a character, like he had come out of a theatre, like he couldn't possibly be that wrecked and free to roam the streets.
Reaching into his pocket, Francis pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered the man one. The man accepted. They both lit their cigarettes. Interestingly, the tramp didn't say anything. He wasn't trying to talk to him, wasn't trying to plea for or swindle money out of Francis. It was almost as if he had given up. The street seemed to be emptying, and the city seemed to be retreating. As the man looked up, for the first time Francis could see his eyes. Up to that point, his long and matted hair veiled his face as he hung his head. They were clear, and the cleanness of them stood out against the rest of him. He asked Francis in some strange language a question. He could very well have been wrong, but for some reason he felt like the man was asking where he was from. "Nueva York." The tramp nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Previous nights had been full of sangria and beer, and the morning and the coffee and the coke had rehydrated and settled him, but now everything began to take on a surreal tone. It could have been the cigarette. Something was making his stomach turn. The light began to take on a dreamlike way, his teeth became a great distractor, and his sweaty skin was again a suit he wished he could take off. Gravity became stronger and a pain in his back and neck saddened him. He contorted to try to relieve it. The tramp looked at him with curiousity. Something desperate struck Francis in a hide-and-seek way that defeated him. There would be no escaping it.
An African woman addressed him as Guapo, then Italian, French. She grabbed his arm and batted her fake black eyelashes. Her dress barely covered her ass, and she had a friend. The two of them invaded his personal space as they confronted him. Pulling back his arm, he re-created a safe zone between them. She was asking if he had a hotel room in spanish, or something about a room. He wasn't very good at Castillano and she surely had some sort of accent. All he understood was something about a room, that she was a prostitute, and as flattering it may be to be called handsome by a prostitute, his amusement was quickly exhausted by the wiley predation. They obviously profited from the weakness of tourists, young men, and their naivety, conceit, and appetites.
He told the woman that he'd surely love to fuck her but his mother would be very unhappy with him. To him, this was funny. It seemed that she wouldn't understand English, and that what he was saying to her was a bizarre statement. Her response was, "Comment? Qu'est-ce que c'est?" He repeated, "Jesus would be pissed off at me." She looked at her friend, who had a similarly scant dress, blue eyeshadow and black cleopatra whore eyes. They sort of laughed with big, african laughs that betrayed their coquettish characters they were playing. For prostitutes or anyone for that matter, they had shiny white teeth that were very healthy. Francis was struck that it seemed that these whores probably brushed their teeth more regularly than his own loathesome self.
Breakfast seemed like an unlikely meal here. Iberia was a magical terre, and he was foreign to it. Looking out down the street, he saw the warm mediterranean sun casting warm and seemingly eternal vernus over the edges of the roofs. The whole city was life and love. He smoked a lucky strike and thought to himself that trying to legitimize living here would be exceptionally difficult. Still, he had achieved more improbable and unlikely things, overcome more impossible challenges and he knew that he -could- if he committed to it. By the time he finished the cigarette, he mind had run along to contrive magical experiences that he could write about. He recalled the day before when he had gone swimming and seen butterfly wings floating on the surface of the sea. They were somehow one of the most beautiful things he would ever see. Childhood wishes, even demands that he should be allowed to breathe underwater like Jacques Cousteau, romanced the butterfly wings. He set about writing it, and was quickly perverted and the documentation was destroyed by his anxious restlessness.
There was an anxiety that pounced upon him from the pit of his stomach. It was almost persistent. He knew as soon as he was inspired or began to daydream something good that the chimera of his gut would spring into action. They would go for his eyes, his throat and his lungs. Often a voice told him, "Watch your lungs." Surely he was crazy, and yes he heard voices. They were his own. When the anxiety electrified him, he flung his hands around like trying to free them of egg. He was compelled to make a noise, a gutteral cry of agony. Unfortunately he had to stifle this cry, for socially it would alarm those who heard it. That would just compound the problem. He concluded his tale with abruptness and dischord and bought a bottle of water, two cokes, and a cafe con leche. Paradoxically, the coffee and water calmed his writhing. Now though, he had abandoned his documentation. The sun was up and the street seemed barometrically heavy.
Francis had nowhere to go. It was the day after his birthday and he was alone in a country far away from where he lived. He went to the shoestore and bought a pair of white leather shoes. Then he stopped at a strange little clothing store that seemed to be in a space designed for a cafe. The clothing cafe was on a corner in the old junkie ghetto side of the main drag, with glassed windows all around the space. Inside, two men tried in a language Francis didn't speak to sell him clothing he surely didn't want. In the end he bought a pair of off-white trousers to spruce himself up along with the new shoes, which were already scuffed and spoiled from the short walk from the zapateria. There was a man outside when he left the store. This man was unwashed, his hair matted, and his fingers black and dirty. It was apparent that the man was a tramp, but how he survived in such a state was a mystery. He asked Francis for change. This man almost seemed like a character, like he had come out of a theatre, like he couldn't possibly be that wrecked and free to roam the streets.
Reaching into his pocket, Francis pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered the man one. The man accepted. They both lit their cigarettes. Interestingly, the tramp didn't say anything. He wasn't trying to talk to him, wasn't trying to plea for or swindle money out of Francis. It was almost as if he had given up. The street seemed to be emptying, and the city seemed to be retreating. As the man looked up, for the first time Francis could see his eyes. Up to that point, his long and matted hair veiled his face as he hung his head. They were clear, and the cleanness of them stood out against the rest of him. He asked Francis in some strange language a question. He could very well have been wrong, but for some reason he felt like the man was asking where he was from. "Nueva York." The tramp nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Previous nights had been full of sangria and beer, and the morning and the coffee and the coke had rehydrated and settled him, but now everything began to take on a surreal tone. It could have been the cigarette. Something was making his stomach turn. The light began to take on a dreamlike way, his teeth became a great distractor, and his sweaty skin was again a suit he wished he could take off. Gravity became stronger and a pain in his back and neck saddened him. He contorted to try to relieve it. The tramp looked at him with curiousity. Something desperate struck Francis in a hide-and-seek way that defeated him. There would be no escaping it.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
qui dolorem ipsum
There is a lie I tell myself and have told and told against
All that I live, and see, and feel, in life -
That it does not hurt, I am not sad, or weak, or in lament
In no way am I pained or weighed with strife.
So I have taken to the ways of tramp and dope-fiend joker
Have lost my youth, wasted love and my hope
To gain none more than what I stole from the world that gives much more
To those who feel honesty, not in trope.
All that I live, and see, and feel, in life -
That it does not hurt, I am not sad, or weak, or in lament
In no way am I pained or weighed with strife.
So I have taken to the ways of tramp and dope-fiend joker
Have lost my youth, wasted love and my hope
To gain none more than what I stole from the world that gives much more
To those who feel honesty, not in trope.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
I Feel Like Withnail
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
-Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act II, scene II
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