Archive for the 'Life' Category

Dead Diary

Published on October 29, 2008 in ..The Dude, Life and Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Ahh more stupid human titles.

Might be my autobiography title. Or more likely a gravestone epitaph. Stupid Human Titles. Or Dead Diary for that matter. But that too falls under the heading of stupid human titles. Truly tragic. Truly Tragic: A Life Not LIved! With the exclamation point. SO many possibilities. All of them stupid. On to business.

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I’m just going to come right out and say this and damn what society may say about me. I like Vanilla Sky. Sure it’s a flawed film and it goes a bit crazy at the end but the thing is damn watchable to me. THis is possibly due to some of the very superficiality and gloss of the film that the movie itself is partly about.  I want the LE alternative. Fill my head with the imagery most evocative of happiness from my past, a missed opportunity girl recast in a form fitted psuedo reality playing to my needs, and frakking immortality to make up for a lot of lost time. Instead of starting from that rainy street pop me back in the 80′s somewhere and let’s do this thing again with all those tools at my disposal but in an imaginary virtual Dudescape meant to make with the happy and content.

I’d probably opt for a cloudy and rainy horizon overlaying my “lucid dream,” instead of Cruise’s Vanilla Sky. I always found those types of days more vivid and some of my best memories are from the types of days where the sky feels closer, the concrete cleaner, and the atmosphere charged with not only ions but the presence of fellow travelers who you know really want or need to be out wherever you are. It’s like all our actions are more shared for having braved the weather to execute them. There’s someting cozy about those types of days. Something safe and singular and slightly off skew like the view from a window pleasantly blurred and softened by rainwater running in streaks and odalisques. A malleable geometry cushioning the hard edges of a bleak the rain can’t make any bleaker.

I would probably keep much of the iconic pop cultural imagery and NY grandeur even recognizing how it all was conveying a sense of mass consumerism. One of images as well as goods. Since WWII we have been more consumer oriented, government and industry rebuilding our economy and laying the foundations for who we are and what we’ve become through driven propoganda campaigns to equate purchasing power with equality and happiness. It is not only our stuff but out favorites whether they be our music choices, TV, books, cell phones, entertainment systems or the paintings and posters we hang in our homes that define us and that we choose to alter our reality with. The LE experience takes that altering to the nth degree. But it is no less honest and just as much a product of our ego’s and psychological makeups.

I would enter readily. Hell I’d plug into the Matrix at this point. Just as long as I can change history a bit and be more than I was or am. I stand upon a giant skyscraper a disfigured outcast but instead of jumping I stand between the elements: either a noxious gas drifting out and upwards or if fiction can help me a virtual solid with metaphorical wings flying away from the bitter wellspring of all that toxicity.

Speaking of those things that define us I was reading that studies indicate our favorite things can really tell people about our personality. To an extent. Not a surprise but now there’s clinical evidence that we choose stuff we think makes a statement about us and or gravitate to stuff that does so. With that in mind as well as with a mind towards eliminating some time wasters in life i’ve discarded some tv shows. I’m watching stuff that rivets my attention and no less. So Heroes and Chuck are gone. So is Fringe. Pushing Daisies is getting close. Still on board are the shows I can’t tear my eyes away from and that are infinitely absorbing.

They are: Mad Men, Lost, 24, BSG, South Park, The Office, and on DVD The Wire and Six Feet Under which I’m a season through on DVD in both cases. Some other shows that are more of a newsy oriented type remain in rotation such as The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and some occasional CNBC watching and assorted sports, movies and specials. These are all the shows you need for a happy life. They will have a place within the LE experience along with that missed opportunity, let’s go with Jennifer for the moment, the two of us walking through the cover of Master Of Puppets instead of Freewheelin Dylan. Ok maybe MOP is too far and surreal even for lucid dreaming. How about Jen and I driving through the highway cover of P.J.’s Yield? Yeah I like it. Feels right.

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One week to election day. Polls are good. I don’t trust them yet. I don’t want think it before it’s real. The latest desperation campaign from McCain-Palin is throwing out all this Socialist nonsense. And clearly that’s to be read as Communist. Can you frakking imagine that they are resorting to Cold War paranoia now? A little touch of McCarthyism in 2008. Wow. Absolutely wow. And to borrow from the era and the hearings instigated by that legendary piece of shit, have you no shame Senator, have you no shame?

Never mind that this country has always been a little socialist and just enacted major socialist policies to bail out the economy. McCain’s not talking to anyone who really pays attention anyway. Republicans know full well who their audience is. Oh the irony of that support and loyalty they show them when every strategy is predicated on those people’s stupidity, hatred, and ignorance. Historians are going to get such a kick out of us I tell you.

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George RR MArtin’s Songs Of FIre And Ice series is kind of cool 500 pages into it. Pure escapsist stuff of a Tolkien mixed with T.H. White type stuff. I’m not ready to start Neal Stephenson’s new book Anathem yet. I’m not worthy at this timeand need to get my house in order. Or quite possibly I’m trying to keep something to look forward to since there’s precious little of that going around.

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I’m a New York Giants fan.

I just wanted to say that because it’s rare I feel proud of a team of mine.

But something needs to be done about Plax.

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It’s time to start writing something bigger. Too many ideas are scrambled up in my head with too little time to sort them out and apply them. I’m on vacation another 5 days but it’s not enough time. I’m only just starting to decompress and think on a higher level after the first 5 days. I know when I go back the distractions, pressures, obligations, responsibilities, and agitations will commence. And stuff like that dumbs me down. Noggin’s only so big and I can’t seem to focus enough attention in multiple areas. I got to try and get a system. Yeah a system! Otherwise, poof! I completely disappear in my Faded Glory underwear.

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I hope this half hour multiple network Obama commercial tomorrow night doesn’t rub people the wrong way. Seems kind, you know, uppity.

To some people it might. Although they’ll say elitist. If he’s really ahead now why take the chance people will get turned off by wall to wall station to station Obamaness? It’s like Big Brother or that English dude in V For Vendetta. You know someone’s going to spin it like that. Like it shows how big his ego is and he’s all about the grandeur of Barack.

Hoepfully it’ll be no worse than a benign moment though it’s hard to imagine how it’s really going to make things any better for him at the moment.

________________

But when you look at the list of Presidential first names and all the George’s, William’s, and John’s, how cool would it be to suddenly chuck a Barack onto that list?

Because if we’re seriously ever going to get right with the actual world and not the repressed and ignorant one large pockets of this country live in, we’re going to need more names and faces better representative of it. I like that Obama can do that both for this country and abroad.

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I have a new cell phone. IT can do lots of things. Navigate the internet tubes, mobile tv and e mail, core an apple and all the normal futuristic cell phone stuff none of us really needs. It’s the LG Voyager though I have 30 days to take it back and exchange if for the Dare which I’m considering doing since the latter is a bit thinner and lighter but virtual keyboard instead of the flip open Qwerty.

Qwerty is fun to type by the way. I just found that out. I guess that’s why they’re called Qwerty what with all those letters right next to each other at the beginning. In honor of Jimmy Qwerty who invented typing. He’s actually a cousin of Steve Internet who invented tubing.

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i’m going to bet on it this time. Chinese Democracy is supposed to be out on November 23rd. I think it’s real. Of course November 23rd is also a Sunday and new stuff never comes out on a Sunday. But supposedly it’s some Best Buy thing where they will have some kind of exclusive rights to sell the album. I don’t get how it helps an artist to limit himself to one retailer. i know it’s been happening with others at places like Wal-Mart. I guess it’s not surprising in this corporate sponsored society. Soon whole lives will be brought to us by Kool-Aid the official sponsor of Joe Sixpack’s life 2012-2101.

Oh Yeah!

The Dude Finds Himself Disrespected At Work And Has Had Enough.

Published on August 24, 2008 in ..The Dude and Life. 0 Comments Tags: .

  So I’m not much for carrying on about work to people in print or by spoken word.

 I prefer to make my feelings known through the medium of claymation when it comes to work and home problems. Of course you all remember my memorable exhibition titled A Puppet’s Reverie On TIme And Attendence.

  But I return from work a short time ago after a few hours of paperwork and supply shopping in advance of my having off most of the rest of the week other than an overnight Monday and a few hours Thursday afternoon.  THis is to compensate me for the bucket of hours I’ve been doing without the solace of overtime the past 2 work weeks. These hours happened due to out anual hell week at work when everyone who lives in the facility I manage takes off from work and does vacation. I won’t go too into details but trust me it’s an unfair week and I’ve done tings very few people much less managers would do.

But do I get the promised relief that kept me going? No. Does anyone show any frakking appreciation for working multiple double shifts including being on my own on a trip to Brooklyn Friday? Uh uh. Do I get any love for handling an impossible scheduling nightmare for the week down 3 staff? Course not. How about a nod to the fact that my ideas for the way such a week should work were ignored yet another year and still I was the one having to deal with the untenability of the situation others created?

  Fuck no.

  Instead I go in today and find a memo to all staff that the other manager wrote. Probably in cahoots with our IRA Coordinator. It said that he will be doing all scheduling now and that all requests for time off, adjustments etc will go through him.

  Now understand that I’ve been doing most of this for the better part of 2 years without issue. All these type schedule related issues are handled by both of us but I’ve been doing more and more of it. Without a problem. People have noted how good of a job we do in staving off OT and not leaving staff in rough scheduling binds as many managers do.

  So one week where I had to wait and send in schedule to the agency’s scheduling coordinator late happens and I walk into this after spending 19 hours starting Friday morning at 7 driving to and in and driving back from Coney Island.

  19 fucking hours!

  And yet the night before, on a day I was supposed to be resting after two previous double shifts while everyone went to the Bronx Zoo, I was expected to be there to babysit and clean up when some guys were brought back early.

  But I wasn’t there.

  Now bear in mind that trip was my idea. THis was the glamour trip on which some administrative people tagged along and the one I had been looking forward to the most. But I had to remove myself because we needed my coverage in other places and the way everything had been put together by Jarmar, the other manager, it was my only opportunity for a breather. So I bowed out and let everyone including your fancy ass Social Worker, NUrsing head, and team Psychologists enjoy the day.

  So these latter people bring a few guys back early because they didn’t want to deal with working past 6 or 7 and expected me to be there waiting. Now why would I sit there doing an evening shift with no one there? Yet I did go in at 1 anyway to tidy up receipts and finalize some Brooklyn tickets stuff. Then of course things piled up and I end up there for 5 plus hours attending to other things there and at one of their programs  because no one else would. Then I go home to try and get some rest knowing I have to back at 7 for big solo staffed day Friday.

  And yet these fuckers expected me to hang out and babysit. I get the call just as I’m falling asleep for a pre dinner nap and am pushed into going over until 11 when everyone else returned and nightshift came in almost simultaneously. So the nursing head, psyche, and social worker can get home in time to catch Office repeats or whatever. And get rested for their Fridays. So I get no nap. No dinner. One of many days I had to eat crap at work because I don’t have the time or money to eat normally. So that’s taking a toll on my health as I feel like crap and I’ve had no more than 4 or so hours sleep in any night for about a week and I do mother fucking yeoman’s duty with this thing Friday.

  Yet because they were inconvienenced and because Jarmar, the other manager neglected to tell me they were bringing anyone back early, I get embarrassed by a fucking memo? I get scapegoated because of others bad ideas and intransigence when it comes to looking at other ways to handle the situation. People are going to think I was neglectful and untrustworthy on the admin level and people in our program are all signing this memo that seems a clear shot at me.

  I actually almost passed out at the wheel Friday, spent over an hour lost in Brooklyn and on the way back had some kind of eye attack in rushing Manhattan-GW bound traffic up the West Side and Henry HUdson. Couldn’t keep my eyes open. Felt like hot needles were being stuck in them and there was nowhere to pull over and I’m in the middle lane with no letup to my sides. So my eyes are blinking like mad and tears start streaming down my face and I’m thinking “it’s fucking friday and that’s one of my days off so I’m not even supposed to be here today,” yet I’m in the midst of 19 straight hours and about to get us killed in the City or at best stranded with a wrecked vehicle and it’s after 11 and I still have 2 hours of driving ahead even if I get out of this.

  WHich i did. And I go in there today to find this fucking memo which I’m sure was a response to those aforementioned fancy asses whining about no staff there Thursday when they got back from the zoo and possibly me sending schedule in late for the first time ever. All of which I gave heads up on but no one listened or bothered to take a closer look at.

  And yet it still would have worked down 3 staff and with all the doubles and no OT allowed. It mostly did work. THanks to me mostly and among other things my flexibility and willingness to take on Friday alone and for that long under some seriously crappy stress and lack of sleep.

  And I get fucking slighted like this?

  So what to do now?

  I want to quit. Can’t do that. Could resign my position and demote myself. Definite possiblity right now. Between this and my screwed up home life I am way too stressed and unhappy and I know things on the latter front can only get worse. I’ve got no respite anywhere, no place to escape or get some sense of rejuvenation or counter balancing softness amidst all the hardness. So why kill myself at work? I think I may have to finally put an end to this current run because it’s too much alone and I can’t get rid of the non work stuff.

  I’m still reluctant to go back to working the old shifts though. THey’re limiting and I like the flexibility of my schedule. Ironically it’s a schedule that would have made my life a lot better a couple of years ago and further back. Now though the sweeter things in life seem mainly moved on and having reasonable hours that allow for more time for those things seems  a cruel twist only slightly less predictable and badly conceived than the endings M Knight Shamalan’s last few movies.   

  But you know, I don’t want to swallow what’s left of my pride. I deserve better than shit. I work my frakking ass off and do so without a shred of asssistance in any area of my life.

  But a demotion, even a self imposed one, would also be a swallowing of pride as well. And most of the time we get along well at work and things are ok. But if feels like time for change is coming. Want to go forward and there only seems to be movement available backwards.

  So that’s my public whine. I drink it down and swill it around in my mouth. Now I spit it out into yours and don’t even care that it’s dead air out there and nothing else. Everyone knows a fine whine can still be enjoyed alone without being a lush.

George Carlin Is Dead

Published on June 23, 2008 in ..The Dude, Comics, Humor and Life. 4 Comments

We’ve lost a few notables lately but this one hit me harder than the rest. Harder then even I would have guessed. Tim Russert’s death bothered me, Sydney Pollack’s was regrettable, but in Carlin I’ve lost a kindred spirit with all apologies to George for even bringing spirit into any discussion about him.

But as he would have pointed out himself, who cares, he’s dead. He’ll never know.

I remember getting HBO as a kid and stumbling onto Carlin’s concerts. It was like finding verbal porn without the scrambling. Not just because he cursed either but because there was a guy who spoke in ways I could understand. I got him. Even when I was young I had the sense of hearing someone speaking honestly for one of the few times in my life to that point. I was always sensitive to the bullshit around me right there in my own family and I looked forward to every new Carlin HBO concert like an old friend passing through town who was one of the few people I could really talk to and understand.

I remember having this idea as a teen that golf courses and cemeteries were a stupid waste of space and that they should be torn up for the homeless. Then shortly thereafter a new Carlin HBO special came along and he did a routine about both and of doing just that. It solidified whatever specious link to the guy I thought I had. He probably wouldn’t have suffered my stupidity more than anybody else but in my mind there were a lot of parallels in our thought and a mutual understanding. And as he would have probably agreed, all we probably really have is what’s in our head.

When I was an altar boy I stood on the alter of a mostly empty church but for a few other altar boys and less than holy malingerers and actually used the mic to do a couple of Carlin lines. As well as some show tunes. I think George would have appreciated that.

Now we live in a comedic world that embraces Cable Guys named Larry and Jeff Foxworthy. Just one more reason I wish I were young again. And George Carlin was still here.

Carlin got a little mean the past few years, still had the edge but lost a bit of the smoothness and humor. Can’t say as I blame him. Besides the state of the world he had suffered longer than I, he had lost his wife about a decade ago.

Got to wonder why he didn’t look harder for her though.

See that’s the kind of thing he’d say if someone mentioned losing a loved one. He was a died in the wool atheist. He went on about the platitudes people throw out there when someone dies. I agreed though I sometimes give in due to societal pressure and use some of those banal death tropes myself. He said that after someone said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” after a death he’d say, “Sure, you want to come on over and paint the garage?”

And his views on god have been irrefutably proven the past week. When Russert and Carlin go and Bill O’Reilly and Amy Winehouse live on any intelligent god either doesn’t exist or sucks so much it isn’t worth my notice.

He loved language and used it in his comedy artfully. He loved truth and hated bullshit and he cut right through the latter to try and mine the former for whatever humor and relevance it contained. He’s gone now and he himself wouldn’t want anyone saying silly shit like he’s looking down on us or he’ll always be in our hearts. Probably the best testimony I can give is that I feel like running out and buying a bunch of his comedy albums. That’s the only immortality he thought possible and unlike most of us, he achieved it.

From classics like the 7 Words, the Baseball-Football comparison, and our accumulation of stuff, to his more esoteric and harder to handle material, I will continue to listen.

The Fireball Of Epiphany

Published on May 13, 2008 in ..The Dude, Life and Science/Nature. 0 Comments

So I’m talking to Pedro on my cell phone last Thursday shortly before leaving work and with my free hand I’m using one of those stick lighters to ignite the monster barbeque grill we have in the backyard there. It didn’t light normally so you know how you’re supposed to turn off all burner sections for 5 minutes before relighting? Well I knew that too. But what with the talking and all I didn’t really pay much attention and I didn’t do that. I also didn’t pay attention to the quadrant of the grill i was sticking the lighter in.

It wasn’t the right part.

POOF!

Big red fireball rushes up my arm, my chest, and into my face.

Within a matter of seconds I’m thinking that life as I have known it has come to an end. I will be rolling on the grass or running towards the hose in an attempt to save my life momentarily. But surely either way I have suffered major burns and permanent scarring. Including on my face.

Now some who know me may feel this couldn’t make things any worse.

Fuck these people.

Fuck them in the ass with Neptune’s Trident.

But though they might be right, I don’t want to be any more self conscious than i already am. But this big old fireball whose poof was audible to people inside the house who came running, surely had to do some damage.

So I’m thinking this as I calmly tell Pedro that I should go now. He was inviting me as a special guest at Hillside Manor for a free meal Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. It’s for an event having to do with people like him who have made their homes into a place for mentally disabled people to live and prosper. I occasionally help him out so I was eligible for the meal. But as I’m lighting myself on fire I’m thinking I don’t want to eat at 10:30 a.m. I don’t want to do anything at 10:30 in the morning.

By the time I was thinking life had been irrevocably altered I’m thinking I’m certainly not going to any more parties with major burn scars all over my face.

Just a bit earlier, before a memorial service we were hosting where I work our head honcho, or rather honchess for our region, asked me why I hadn’t RSVP’d back regarding the Everyday Heroes ceremony being catered by the Culinary Institute somewhere in Poughkeepsie. Which was today by the way.

All the big wigs were going to be there. Indeed they were as I just heard from the other manager where I work, Jarmar, who was there. Our program got lots of accolades. I was even mentioned. I wasn’t there. Not a fan of these things or hobnobbing. Gladhanding sure. I loves me the gladhanding. But not the hobnobbing. Hobnobbing killed my uncle. For that I will never forgive the hobbers and their endless nobbing.

But at the moment I was peering into the void of the fireball I was glad I told Head Honchess that I didn’t want to play all the reindeer games (I think I actually just made a face and said “I don’t know”) and didn’t even see the e mail about the RSVP because I’m not showing there with major scars and at least a good portion of the hair burned from my upper body.

I had already entered into the thought mode that the days of functions, dinners, get togethers, etc, were over for me. For I was already burned by 3rd degree burn damage of another kind. I was a freak before the fireball. Never mind this now. It was on my mind as the fireball was making it an even more palpable reality.

Only it didn’t.

I smelled burning flesh but found nothing wrong. My clothes were not on fire. I patted myself down after ending my phone call, not mentioning that the reason I had to go was because I thought I was on fire and about to begin life as Mel Gibson in The Man Without A Face. MIraculously even the eyebrows were there. I though for sure they were gone. I asked a couple of my guys who were standing nearby if they saw any burns. I certainly felt hot. Nothing. Eventually I found the source of the stench. THe hair on my right hand on up my arm to the elbow where my rolled up sleeve began had been singed off.

I now have two matchless hands and arms, the one smelling of burning embers for a day or so. And a bit of a burn scar on the wrist which is already fading after 5 days. Due to these arms, one with a fairly normal hand-arm hair pattern, the other with nothing on one side of it, I am of course still a freak.

A monster even.

But not quite the monster I thought I would surely be.

And therein lies the issue.

I am Superman.

That’s right. I’m indestructable. I’m never going to die.

Fuck you all and you’re happiness. To hell with you’re accomplishments, your families, your girlfriends or wives, your children, your basic human normalcy.

I am compensated with eternal life.

I am 40 and have never been close to being destroyed. I should have been before. I should never have survived childhood. Yet I did.

Now I know why.

I’m a Superhero.

Of course I have that poetic downside to counterbalance my gifts. I must walk the Earth forever alone, unsatisfied, freakishly deformed, aghast at your stupidity, rooting for the Mets, and using my cell phone mainly for work purposes.

But I shall outlive you all.

I shall bury you.

And the memories of you and all you have done.

All that is left will be me. You will exist only as far as I acknowledge you. And for some, perhaps I will. This too is part of my power.

Perhaps I will pursue a life of crime fighting. After I settled down from the Fireball Of Epiphany I got quite the adrenaline rush. “Danger good,” said I. I felt alive. After I settled down I wanted to jump into traffic. Not only to test my invulnerability but also and mainly to get another rush of the adrenaline. I can see why some people lie to put themselves in harms way. When you have nothing that inspires you or to live for you can get a real artificial but real sense of living and purpose by living on the edge and thwarting death.

But adventure and excitement? A Jedi craves not these things right?

What does Lucas know? He’s a lousy writer.

The artificial meaning the life endangering creates is as real an anything. It’s manufactured sure. I’ve never been one to manufacture drama. But that was before I knew I was immortal. Fake drama for mere mortals is folly. This is true. And even a Jedi is mortal. I am not. I am a fucking Highlander motherfuckers. I do what I want. Also I have that whole meaningless and insignificant thing going on that probably is one of the root causes for those that create drama in their lives. Being a superhero though I would not be silly white trash for catering to it. I would be saving the world or something.

Now excuse me, I have a cheerleader to save.

My Elliot Spitzer Story

Published on March 11, 2008 in ..The Dude, Life and Politics. 2 Comments

So about 8 months ago I’m snorting Coke off this hooker’s ass in a room in the Waldorf when her cell phone rings. She makes no move to pick up even though it’s right there within reach on the end table at the bed’s corner. I finish the blow and am feeling mildly annoyed and not just because snorting blow makes me irritable and short tempered. It’s also because the phone rang for like a minute, stopped for a couple of seconds, and then started again. As if this isn’t harshing my buzz enough, (not to mention eradicating my erection), her ringtone is set for the annoying 80′s Michael Jackson knockoff, “Somebody’s Watching Me,” by Rockwell.

Cocaine being a natural mental stimulant to me I then begin to have to deal with wondering why Jackson himself would lend his voice to the chorus of a song ripping him off, wonder what the societal import of a high class hooker in 2007 listening to him by way of Rockwell could mean, realize I’m having a Michael Jackson pop cultural dialogue with myself, and scream, “Pick up the phone you dirty hoe!”

She kind of just blurrily looks back at me, still on her stomach, and says, “what’s the problem?”

“Rockwell fuckin’ sucked is what’s the problem!”

“I like this song.”

“You’re too young to like this song. What are you, barely 20? How does someone born sometime after goddamned Live Aid even ever hear this song? It don’t make sense ya silly hoe!”

This is really pissing me off because I’m confounded that such an obscure track, from an even more obscure guy, makes its way to this girl and garners a ringtone. This song doesn’t even make 80′s compilations, one hit wonders collections, or worst of the decade VH 1 festivals. Unless you were there you shouldn’t know it and shouldn’t care.

Like seeing Dennis Kucinich speak in person.

You had to be there. Otherwise, you know, who cares?

“I like Michael Jackson, he’s on it,” she mumbles to me, too high to really speak up and annunciate like a good high class call girl should. I mean I was paying $2200 for the night. For that kind of money I’d like my hooker to be able to handle a little high grade sugar without falling apart and letting her phone keep blasting, “I always feel like, somebody’s watchin’ me…And I get no privacy,” over and over. At those rates an ass that makes Newton look like an imbecile just isn’t enough.

“Michael Jackson is on it,?” I say. “Michael Jackson is fucking on it?! Is that what you’re telling me?!! You’re honestly fucking telling me that you downloaded that shit song because Michael Jackson is goddamn on it?!!”

“Um huh.”

I felt like I’d been deceived.

And the phone is still ringing.

I jump over the sleekness of her buttocks and grab the phone. She tries to stop me but doesn’t have the energy. I look at the phone’s readout and it says, “Client 9.”

I’m thinking it could be her owner, or pimp, if the pimp title could be properly used for what can amount to a $5000 a girl high end operation like the Emperor’s Club.

Maybe it was a codename for her police contact.

Knowing I was on to something really wrong, mainly because of this Rockwell nightmare, and just generally believing that a good consumer must do his research, I wanted answers and set out to get them.

The phone stops ringing before I can flip it open.

“So you like Michael Jackson? Are you trying to tell me that?” I’m thinking that maybe she could be redeemed if it turned out using that ringtone was a sort of ironic commentary.

 At least Jackson is notable. Unlike Rockwell. So taking a shot at him by using a song about celebrity in which Jackson himself sings background  before Jackson himself became one of the most notable and watched celebrities ever for engaging in possibly the strangest celebrity behavior ever, could be construed on the hooker’s part as a sly and subtle bit of genius.

So i’m hoping she says no, she didn’t download it strictly because she liked Jackson. Per se.

 I swear if she added “per se,” I would have forgiven her for every horrid moment of those past 3 minutes and even helped her clean up after the, well…let’s call it, more organic and carnal reenactment of Flashdance, I was paying her for later that evening.

But she didn’t answer me.

She had fallen asleep and was too far out of it to wake up and give me a decent answer. So I open her phone up and check out her missed calls. Client 9 had what looked like a cell number and I called it.

“Kristen?,” a voice with a distinctive New York Jewish accent says.

“Client 9?,” I says.

“Who’s this?” He asks.

“Apparently Client 8. Who the fuck are you?”

“Where’s Kristen? Is she ok?”

“She’s sleeping.”

“She ok?”

“She’s unbelievable. Sweetest ass in the business.”

“I know,” he says with a chuckle.

“So what do you make of the Rockwell thing?” I ask.

He doesn’t know what I’m talking about so i tell him. He tells me he’s heard other tones when it’s rung around him so we figure she has different tones for different people and I start wondering what my tone is and thinking that if its Morrisey I’m gonna kill this bitch before she wakes up.

But then this guy starts getting nervous about his song and asks me more about it. I sing him some lines and tell him about the video with this Rockwell fella in the shower and walking around his house being all paranoid about being watched. And this is all really freaking this guy out so I ask him what his deal is and why it’s such a big deal that she’s chosen this tune for his ringtone. “Besides the colossal bad taste it shows,” I add. “Unless she’s super ironic and arch. In which case I want to marry her and dedicate our lives to destroying Morrisey.”

He asks me my name before he goes any further.

And I tell him.

“Alex Rodriguez.”

“Hey Alex, see, you can appreciate where I’m coming from then. You know how hard it is on public figures.”

“Sure do,” I say, really meaning it since even though I’m not the Yankees pretty boy $25 million a year All Star 3rd Baseman I’m middle management for NY State Government and understand where he’s coming from. “So what do you do?”

He doesn’t want to tell me and I go easy on him, telling him i understand and then spend time reassuring him that the song is no reason to think she’s spying on or making fun of him.

 Because he’s really worried that’s what it means.

Me I’m still worried it means she spent time looking for Michael Jackson ringtones to download, got a hit on the Rockwell song because he’s sort of on it, and chose that one over Beat It and Billy Jean because she actually liked it more even though she’d never heard it and didn’t even know it wasn’t him singing most of the song. In fact just thinking these thoughts again had me pacing around the kitchen area looking for large plastic bags and carving knives in case things got sketchy when she came around or, “The Boy With The Thorn In his Side,” came out of that phone when I rang her from my own cell.

Then to divert this poor bastard and maybe trick him into giving something away I start telling him about my Rockwell concerns. I start talking about how I would call her when he and I hung up to see what my tone is too. He jumps back to my issues with Rockwell.

So he says, “Well if she had chosen “Beat It,” would you feel better?”

“Yeah. Not much because a 21 year old Manhattan hooker has no call being into Michael Jackson as if the past 20 years of embarrasment and obsolescence hasn’t happened. But yeah, I mean at least she’d resemble a human being at that point.”

“So it’s bad because there’s no nostalgia factor for her?”

“It’s horrible.”

“Would you rather she have you set for a modern song you hate?”

I’m pondering the hell out of this question as I stalk around the hotel room. “Again, at least it would constitute a semblance of normality. The Smiths would be fucked up on so many levels. Aligning me with My Chemical Romance would just be fucked up.”

“That’s a lot to think about Alex.”

“Yeah it is….” I wait for a name. He’s hesitant. i don’t want to push the Jew bastard.”I’m glad you see that Nine. I like you.”

“But it’s an all together different concept you’re grappling with than this Rockwell thing. I have a political career to consider.” This should have gotten an excited rise out of me. I had gotten a clue. But at this point I’m walking around the living room with a bottle of Schnapps in my other hand, occasionally stepping onto the balcony and looking down at the City from my 18th floor vantage point, and wondering if I could make things look like an accident if the bitch had me set for Carrie Underwood.

Because as bad as The Smith’s would be, I’m thinking she’d more likely screw me with a more modern song like “Jesus Take The Wheel,” to really fuck with me with some kind of calculating action at a distance diabolicism.

But if her cell phone ring tone thing had an 80′s era theme all together it would make all this more tolerable and arch. It would still call into question her choices within that decision. But at least there would a connective theme.

“You like Van Halen?” He asks me.

“Sure.”

“Would you download “Beat It” because Eddie plays the guitar?”

This takes me the fuck back for a moment.

“Holy shit dude, that’s a god damned good question.”

“I know.”

“I did like that song more that most of Thriller because of Eddie’s riffing on that tune. Kind of made it acceptable for people of my persuasion. Can’t say I’d listen to it now because of it, but you know it is kind of eddie’s song even though it’s not. You think it’s the same with the Watching Me song?”

“Could be.”

“But Eddie Van Halen is not synonomous with ignominity,” I say, impressed with myself for pronouncing ignominity correctly while doped up on cocaine and fruit brandy. “Listening to Eddie, or more to the point…” here I struggle for a name as if I’d forgotten, playing like I need it to make this conversation flow more smoothly and because we have a connection now.

“You’re not a cop?” He asks me.

“No man, it’s really me. Alex. You want me to tell you what I hit last year?”

“You’re fucking funny. I like you Alex. My name’s Elliot.”

“Ok elliot, Listening to Eddie, or more to the point, setting Van halen as your ringtone, is not socially dubious E Dog. Even “Beat It.” If you’re at all self-aware and culturally discerning you’d have to know how it’s going to be taken no matter how you mean it. I mean it’s like sleeping with a hooker while you’re say…the Governor of NY. THere’s nothing wrong with it but you have to be aware of how it’s going to be viewed and that it doesn’t work as irony unless in a really unique context.”

He was silent for a bit then said, “Like what context?”

“Well a politician like Hillary Clinton could sleep with a hooker ironically. That gay politician from Jersey could do it ironically. He and cool people across America could have a real nice laugh and I’d totally get out the vote for him if he did that.”

“THey aren’t the Governor.”

“Well if Monica Lewinsky was the Governor, it would be ironic. Damn if Bill Clinton was Governor it would be ironic no matter who it was with. Like self-homage. IF Ken Starr became Governor and did it it would be god damned performance art.”

“And the current Governor of NY?”

“If it was the governor, well in our case that’s Elli…” and it suddenly dawned on me. “Spitz? Is that you?”

“Oh god, you didn’t know?”

“Spitz, it’s me. Mark!”

“D Dog?”

“Yo.”

Man was I surprised. Talk about a small world. I started to remember stuff. The voice, 1977, Studio 54, the smell of semen all over my light saber, huddling together down in the bowels of the 86 St Station. My vomit all over a series of the laps of various leisure suits. Man those were times. Me and Spitzer tied together in white slavery. Working the streets for our “Daddy.” Don’t ask me Daddy’s real name because I can’t tell you that hear and now. It would shock you far too much.

I was 10.

“You were what Spitz? 17?”

“18.”

“You still like to jerk off in 10 year old boys mouths?”

“No. That was practice for The Show. I stick to women.”

“You ever hear from Daddy?”

“I put him away a long time ago.”

“Oh you’re a lawyer?”

“Uhhh, I was.”

“So what do you do now?”

“Uhh, I’m the Governor of NY State asshole.”

“Oh yeah, yeah.” Man that Schnapps was good. “So you want to get lunch tomorrow?”

“You’re not Rodriguez. You lied.”

“Hey man you didn’t run the streets and stay alive simply on the merits of your ass with Alex Rodriguez. That was me Spitz.”

“Where do you work?”

I tell him. As a NY employee ironically I sort of work for him.

“You say anything about this I’ll have your job you cocksucking motherfucking cumfilled whoremonster.”

“Shit Spitz. you’ve changed.”

“I’m serious. I can have you killed.”

“Dude I can cost you your job. relax. We’re good here.”

“No one would believe I solicit hookers.”

“Is this about Kristen?”

THen the bastard starts crying like a baby.

“Suck it up asshole! You’re the goddamned governor of NY State. you’re an ethics maven. I’m behind you as long as you keep the hookers on the streets and the coke flowing freely. Now get back to your wife, get your shit together, and don’t put yourself on the line like this.”

“Check her purse?”

“Huh?”

He wanted me to check and see if she had anything on her that would i.d. her as a cop. Or some recording device she could use against him.

“Rockwell song really has you messed up?”

“You too?”

“Damn fucking right Spitz! It makes no sense! I gotta wake this hoe up and find out what the fuck is us with that song. GET UP BIAAAATCH!”

I finally get her up, tell her I got Spitzer on the line, and ask her to come clean.

“It’s a fun song is all. I swear. It’s just a fun song I came across.” She was genuine. She detailed how it happened and we brought it. Spitz was relieved. “I’m sorry Kristen,” he says on speaker. “I should never have doubted you baby.”

“FUCK THAT! Damn stupid hoe how you gonna like that song?! What’s my ringtone? Huh? What is it!!!”

She says she doesn’t remember. I tell her I’m gonna hang up on Spitz and call her to find out. I can tell she doesn’t want me to and I start getting really scared.

“Fitz, it was good talking to you but I gotta go.”

“Don’t do anything stupid D”

“Fuck it I gotta find out. None of this makes any sense. ‘Somebody’s Watching Me?’ It makes no goddamn sense. How can she like that song? Neither of you should know it even exists and yet now you both do. THis wasn’t supposed to happen can’t you see that? Something is wrong here. We’ve slipped through some kind of alternate dimension where up is down and left is right. Smart is stupid, Spitzer sleeps with hoes, and Wookies live on Endor. Her cell should have rang with Linkin Park or Justin Timberlake. Somewhere it is ringing with one of them or John Mayer. Maybe Alicia Keys. But i know it makes no sense to be ringing this way here and now Spitz. You gonna endorse Hillary, Spitz?”

“Yeah. She’s New York’s Senator. I think she’s…”

I hung up and started dialing my own cell with my other hand as I held hers up waiting to hear what happened. Kristen is imploring me to stop. She is off the bed, still naked and voluptuous, trying to coax me back to bed with her body. But I’m determined to get to the bottom of things.
Sure enough it rings with a different tone.

I scream, run towards the balcony, and hurl the phone into the brightly lit NY night. As it spins away on its course to it’s inevitable destruction I hear those faint dying echoes of the sweetly high male voice of Pete Cetera crooning, “If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me…ewwwww-uh-ewwwww Noooo-oooh, baby please don’t go.”

And I knew I was in the right place and all would be ok.

Dead Air Hiccups From The Grave

Published on March 5, 2008 in ..The Dude and Life. 0 Comments

I break the pregnant pause of all this dead air for some hiccups of agitation from the repressed prison of my ribcage. All that trapped oxygen I’ve sucked on the past few days of swollen throat glands now rises up into these guttoral expectorations of air from inside my gnarled chest.
Hiccup:
For you see I have been dancing the dance of the little death the past few days. Been a bit sick. Couldn’t swallow for much of yesterday. Not without some drama. But altogether I still felt better and feel better today. But being sick reminds me of how the end will be. Even a relatively minor go round like this was. It’s always like a sneak preview of death and I hate it. And considering I am probably closer to death than birth at this point it’s especially troubling.
It’s like a movie trailer previewing the bodies inevitable failures, the weariness, the helplessness, and the ultimate aloneness that awaits at the end of the road whenever and wherever it may come. Unless of course I go quickly in some type of accident. But most go quietly, not with a bang but a whimper. Not everyone is as alone as I most probably will be at that final sickness. Not physically anyway. But mentally with the decayed memories many have, even loved ones nearby doesn’t always alleviate the darkness and desolation inside as your clock ticks down its final seconds.
Being sick has long reminded me of of what it will be like even though I’ve never experienced it first hand. It used to make me make vows to do things better. Oaths of greater effort, vigilance, and ambition would be weakly uttered through the layers of sick dust in my throat. Now I don’t even bother. Death is no longer a great enough threat or scare to make me change and I am less capable of change than ever. It sort of goes together it would seem. The slippery slope of dropping standards has been reached. And I can’t begin to describe how wonderful that is while working harder than ever to pay rent and utilities while still having no home and nothing that feels like mine.
One of my guys at work may be dying. He has alzheimer’s and has been a shell of his old self anyway. We don’t want to say it but I know everyone kind of thinks it would be best if he just went on his way rather than being in the nursing home he’s in at the moment, coming back, or even being switched to another home which is being talked about now. I guess everyone at work is technically sick. Except the cats and some of the staff. Which makes being sick myself even more palpably apocalyptic. As well as coming home to my father’s brand of sickness everyday after working hard. Wherever I turn there is sickness and hardness with no relief. Only the promise of more. And the need to explode continues to get sucked down deep into my chest, exhorted only in short hiccup bursts like these. Or when I run into the odd woman who I can fall into the illusion of softness and intimacy with with some moments of engagement even if only of a verbal nature.
And I miss the cats at work when i’m not there. To be honest they are the only kind, gentle, or soft things in my world on a regular basis. To reference Lost, they are The Constant. I want to abduct them and take them home but they are not mine though they feel like they are. I see why animals are considered important for old people as companions. Humans need some. Studies indicate they keep people alive longer. They lower blood pressure. On some quantum level I think they make a person more real by being the only living things left that is observing them anymore.
Animals are probably my destiny. I will perhaps leave all this and go somewhere where I can live among them exclusively. Now I’m not one of these people saying I like animals better because they’re pure, more honest, less judgmental, or more loyal. This is stupid. All those traits are abstract qualities of civilized and advanced brains. Animals are probably more selfish. They act more on base instinct. Their loyalty generally goes as far as whoever has the greater willingness to feed them regularly.
But I’ve loved them and gotten on well with them because I think we understand each other and what we need. We enter into that agreement and unlike humans they don’t have as much freedom to back out of it or as much knowledge that there are better options out there for them than me.
They are more easily content and amused I think is what it comes down to. And when i drop my standards enough, which i’m more willing to do for pets, so am I. The unconditionality of their love that many point to seems a bit suspect to me. Nothing is unconditional except in the way a desperate, abused woman may unconditionally keep giving more chances because she sees no other options or alternatives, and comes to rely on the familiarity of her abuser and the few good times which seem larger in their infrequency.
I’ve never wanted unconditional love. You have to earn it. And keep earning it. Anything really, not just love. Love, like freedom and justice is a concept. An abstract idea. These things have been earned where they exist and can be lost if not diligently guarded. I’ve never believed in guarding them with the possessiveness of many relationships but rather with the kindness, consistency, honesty, loyalty, and more born of considered decisions. Getting that back from people just doesn’t happen much. Animals may not make that choice as intellectually but it is inherent in their simple understanding of the world. And I think this is why we get along and understand each other.
I will continue to scratch their heads and necks in just the right places and they will continue to stretch out on my lap. I will feed them regularly and they can be counted on to purr or lick my face. I will proved them shelter from the cold and they will provide living contact and rub at me heels to show their continued appreciation. I will not hurt them and they will not crap on my bed.
Some of these arrangements take some time and training. Not much different than with people. But people change their minds and want different things as time goes by. They don’t want to be with the same person all the time for the rest of their lives no matter what they may say. Animals are easier to please. Simpler in their needs. The give and take need not be so nuanced and therefore lasts longer and remains in that bubble that will not be burst by outsiders or any of the other forces of both external and internal types which act to take the air out of most of our human relationships eventually.
And I probably can’t even have an animal at home due to my situation here. So that’ll have to wait. Ever get the feeling you’re waiting on living your life until you notice you’re running out of life?
All my congratulations to you if you don’t.
As Eddie Vedder once growled, “This is not for you!”

I feel another hiccup coming. Wait for it….

Dead Air

Published on March 1, 2008 in ..The Dude and Life. 3 Comments

Hello from the ghetto of my soul, a ghetto of my own making and one so aptly reflected on these empty pages that are mere signposts pointing people to greater destinations on the internet highway. Or more appropriately lost travelers who have wandered into a bad neighborhood and are looking for a sign pointing to somewhere more interesting. A better neighborhood. Someplace where kids come to play and grown ups feel a sense of shared kinship in occupying.
That’s right, this isn’t that place weary traveler but don’t get too judgmental. Don’t throw your hands up in soul heavy weariness looking for the way out of being lost. For I’m more tired and lost than you and at least you get to leave. I’ll stay here in this ghetto hoping at least one person actually stays a while and wants to change the scenery, sees something worthy of their time, or maybe even settles down. I’ll stay through the day anyway. Maybe the week, possibly the month and year. But a guy has to move on sometime and I don’t like it here anymore than you do. But I was born with the human need to be heard, to vent, even that desire to make a difference. Now I know that last thing isn’t going to happen around here. Outside of work it’s not happening anywhere and work’s consolations are always shortlived and underappreciated. Anyway I hate people who need applause or appreciation so I shouldn’t care right?
Fuck you.
Right.
But ends draw nigh and knots may form so I’m taking it shortwave. Doing the lone voice in the night lashing out at what maybe some of you want to lash out at and pretending for the moment that it can cure many ills and upset the right people while uniting the wrong.
Pirate style.
Talking hard like Hard Harry trying to shake this mother up while cursing fate that that moment of time in which a movie like Pump Up The volume could happen is long past. It was a different time and place where one voice over local radio could stand out. We’re not in that place anymore. We are all still one. Ultimately. I mean in the end. The end above our shoulders anyway. But we want connection to the mass collective. Other “ones.” And the fact that Hard HArry wouldn’t happen here and now brings some of us unhappiness even if we don’t know who Hard Harry was.
Happiness studies show a clear connection between the stress and disatisfaction in our lives partly due to having so many choices. This is part of the problem but not the only part. But choices can put us in prisons just as much as not having choices can. Well let me change that to a different kind of prison. But a prison nevertheless. One with curtains and rugs and a lot of other accessories from Ikea and Bed, Bath, And Beyond. But a place of suffocation and repression with little room for movement or thoguht no less than prison.
What some in the psychiatric field term the hedonistic treadmill has us all to some extent. All this choice makes it harder to keep up with the Jonesess and this pervasive media culture makes it clear how much we aren’t keeping up. Choice is not always good and conversely too much freedom may lead to too much stress. When I was a kid 13 channels were a frackin’ cornocopia of wonder and delight. Getting a game on the radio was almost as sweet as watching it. If you had an Atari you were set for life. Being able to watch a sitcom rerun late at night during the Summer semed an extravagance and special gift. But now all that seems petty. There’s so much more and the idea of those limited options of the past seem quaint.
But we can’t have it all. Most of us anyway. And there are reminders everywhere of what we don’t have and those that have it. And most of us always think the grass is greener, that the other choice would have been better and that the other guy has the better life. This creates stress and unhappiness.
But the other side of all the choice is not feeling a connection to anything. There are less shared experiences because the culture is so fragmented. When there’s less there’s more. In some ways. It’s like Aristotle saying he who has many friends has no friends. It’s more than that though. It’s about not connecting sure. But it’s because of that loss of even the illusion of shared experience. The culture is so fragmented that unless you find your cult group to share things with you’re experiencing life alone. You could never have a Beatles happen now. THere are just too many choices gearing themselves to narrow audiences. I grew up during the fading of that last era when people shared an experience. Everyone listened to the Beatles. Everyone watched Johny Carson. Everyone watched the 3 networks. Everyone who read, read Stephen King. A movie was big because the culture experienced it together not because the population is out of control and people need a fairly cheap date site where they don’t have to talk to each other.
I still can get a rush from hearing a song on the radio but not like it used to be. Even if the CD is sitting there I’ll listen on the radio because I’m sharing it with other listeners out there somewhere. Forming some vague but real bond for those few minutes meant something and still does. But of course now radio is also fragmented and specialized so I, like many people today, tend to just pop my CD’s in. And everyone has a CD player. Even in their car. When I was a kid an 8 track tape deck was big. Cassettes were huge and having a tape player in the car not something that was guaranteed. Up until the past decade or so you had to actually ask if a car had a radio/cassette player in it when you were buying one. AND IT WAS A SOURCE OF REAL JOY WHEN I HOOKED ONE UP! NOw a CD player is taken for granted in anything new, and probable in most used cars.
SO WHY THE FUCK AM I NOT HAPPY!
Well there’s a lot of reasons. I work my ass off, some of it for free and yet have no privacy, no courtesy, no respite or place to let loose. Most of my adult life has been and figures to be withered away these last few years of it before old age kicks in watching my father die. Loudly and without subtety. Then I guess it’s my turn to die presumably. Whether that takes a month or 30 years. I chose to do this out of duty and respect. Unfortunately he doesn’t feel that respect back and yet I continue doing this with nothing that feels my own to show as a byproduct of all that working. Including the palce I work to pay rent to not really live in. It’s super not fun! THere are other reasons of a more personal nature but back to choices. Well not choices per se but also the information glut that makes it clear what I don’t have. That and the lack of connection to anything but myself and my particular slice of woe and desolation. Actually it seems like the only thing that brings us together in that old sense of shared experiences are horrific events like 9-11, Iraq, and the past year of Heroes.
Let’s not forget the Mets September.
I suppose there are some glimpses of the collective bond that sports makes me remember. The Giants recent Super Bowl miracle was up there. But usually it takes something bad, though I guess it was prety bad for Patriot supporters.
Suck it.
And so many including myself take to the internet to find that artificial community that shares are specialized and focused interest. I go to Mets sites, Lost sites, liberal news sites, and commiserate. I suppose this is one good thing about the information glut and the choices at our disposal. But it’s satisfactions are few and hollow. Maybe after thousands of years of evolution in which blogging has been naturally selected for and those traits passed far down the road there will be true satisfaction. Now it’s a consolation to a real life and real connections.
I’d rather rail against my high school and it’s cliques, phoniness, and adminstrative misdeeds like Hard Harry. Even if he was, in retrospect, a somewhat misguided teen blowing normal teen issues out of proportion, his voice found an audience that needed him and could have been real. Maybe somewhere in that era it was a refelction of some real events. Certainly I remember a time when pirate radio has some sway and interest. When a voice reaching out from the darkness seemed a lifeline to save me from drowning in an ocean of conformity and corruption. Maybe there’s a contradiction there in wanting shared minds to rage against the majority with and wishing for a time when we all shared common experiences and references. Very well. I contradict myself. I am fucking vast. I contain multitudes. And I’m also just as pitifully empty and full of nothing but a multitude of bile formed of my own long dead choices humming in the night air like the dead air of those long lost small radio stations.
Even within the cult there is nothing shared really. not anymore. At one time there was. Take Lost. DVR is the greatest invention since Jennifer Connely but it also separates us. I’m not experiencing the show as others do. I’m watching later. Many people are watching at different times. Even different days. Lost is actually the most time shifted show. No sharing even of that already limited kind that united peopple settling down to sleep watching Johny Carson back in a time when for better or worse he was it and it gave people some comfort.
But I can beat my head against my flat screen laptop monitor all I want. It’s not going to change anything. ultimately all I accomplished here was killing a bit more of the time I have left. You don’t care just as I wouldn’t care about you whining on your blog if you had one. Actually I don’t even have one. I’m stealing bandwidth. This is Mondo’s. At one time it was mine too. But I was too cheap to pay in and too dead inside to care to write about political corruption, Mets misery, tv puzzles, film analysis, or anything else. I’m no less dead now but stealing is fun. Makes the pirate in me feel good. Mondo should shut me down before I steal anymore of his cyber space. He’s the Man. And you’re the Man. I might even be the Man in some places. Deep down we all want to be the Man because we all want to be respected and liked and it makes us larger than these petty little things so many of us are. Eating and shitting, and sleeping, and catering to every biological need and genetic imperative and pretending it’s personal expression and that we are unique even though almost everything we do can be predicted sociologically because we are machines. We may even want everyone else to be the Man because at least we’d have something in common besides our headlong race into oblivion. Some guy in 1682 was full of his life and sure it and it’s setting in Baroque europe or colonial America was the summit of existence. His sudden death to Plague or beheading by a King, or just being run over by a horse drawn carriage would have seemed epic to him and those closest to him. Now it’s meaningless. He’d be dead anyway. Just as you and I will be someday. Ourselves and our era just as destined to death and distant memory. Being the Man is our short term way of escaping that reality and trying to elevate ourselves beyond that short term reality of our obsolescence. The way kings once did. Even the middling among us live as some royalty did at one time but in comparison it offers no consolation because we can;t lord it over everyone. Maybe it still helps up feel immortal. But we’ll be just as dead as the Sun King someday. And it’s actually pretty well proved that we wallow in many of our material goods, buying more and more because it really does give us a feeling of staving of death. Fear of death manifests in buying things. Getting new stuff. Even new people. I forget the psychological term for it. Something like mortality salience.
And you know I want to escape that truth as much as anyone. Maybe that’s what makes me saddest. And angriest. That in relative terms, that is compared to choices I see others having and making, I can’t escape into any of those consolations. Work is my only escape and, well, it’s work. But I want a bigger place, another car, new clothes, more books and electronic stuff, and a nice new girl. But other than the last the others would bring no real long term pleasure and ironically they are the more doable. The bigger place might be somewhat satisfying for providing me some rest and comfort at home after working all day. Also ironically its the hardest to obtain. So I want to get what I can and delay salience as long as possible in what means I have. Another machine looking for programming to make it run smoother until the next inevitable glitch.
And you know what?
I hate whiners. I prefer keeping my shit to myself. Suck it up and do what you have to do. That’s the deal. I’ve done that forever for the most part. But this is pirate radio now and I want to talk hard until any of you dropping by looking for whatever it is you’re really looking for bleed from the penetration. Bend over and feel my words and feel them like the disease they are. Because diseases are real too. Virus and bacteria are alive and playing many of the same games we play. So chalk it up to the bacteria in me taking over. It’s sucking my face like e coli and it wants to suck yours too. It’s not my mind. It’s my pathogens baby. It can’t be helped. Life is a disease and I want to be inflicted but monkey man don’t want to dance in the circle of primal fire worship because monkey’s ain’t really that cute and I want to infect a nice girl who won’t throw her dung at me because I got enough shit to deal with and it’s laden with the bacteria that consumes me but also makes me want to smell better.
talking shit is all.
Hard Harry saying eat your cereal with a fork and do your homework in the dark.
Goodnight and listen for me on this frequency holding a finger to the midnight breeze anywhere the wind blows doesn’t really matter
to me.

WWGD?

Published on December 7, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life, Polls and Sports. 0 Comments

I’d like to do something different. Remember that episode of Seinfeld when George decides to do the opposite because all his choices are always bad? And things start working out for him?

I kind of want to do this. Of course it may be dangerous because my decision making apparatus isn’t all that bad. As much as I have in common with George I’ve painted over the Costanzian part of my brain with a lot of layers of pragmatic and sensible colors.

It’s more the long range stuff and the decisions of the past where I go wrong. Horribly and disastrously wrong. From there are born the scary and fanged ghouls screaming in my head. But still. Things not good? Why do the same things?

And how far to take it?

Do I start going to church and supporting George Bush?

Do I root for the Yankees? Start wearing loafers? Ride a bike to work? Masturbate in public?

I mean I don’t do any of these things now and quite frankly I could be happier. So where is the line drawn? Do I just wait for decisions to come up and make a different choice than i normally would?

How about hitting on women in a blatant and indiscriminate way? Cussing out co-workers when they’re stupid? Writing the opposite of what I want to write? How would that work? Let me try that now. Here’s a go at an opposite sentence:

You can’t stay the same. Life is pointed and your living it cuts me deep. Please lend me your strawberries and never forget the whorl that binds up by centuries.

What the hell was that?

See? There has to be some structure to this thing.

I don’t exercise or write enough. So I could try and do that more. But I can’t work less hours. I suppose I could eliminate more tv and books though I need some for inspiration.

I’ve never made the decision to get a Russian bride. Maybe it’s time.

I’ve been playing with ideas like moving back to city area, stepping down at work, reconstructive surgery, getting a pet, shaving my head, finding an avenue for a psycho sexual downward spiral, killing my Buddha, blowing my cash on frivolities, getting a 2nd job, conquering the disease of sleep, advertising for surrogate mama dramas, a life of crime, living as a hermit, and disappearing in the X Box experience.

Some of these things can work together and some are mutually exclusive. So I’ve got some work to do on this. I think i should start with ignoring the Mets.

Admitting that I’m kinda ok with John Edwards being President.

Smoking.

Winking at women randomly in what may border on extreme creepiness.

Lying regularly. This one especially. Truth has no friends. It makes no warm bedfellow-ettes. Maybe when you don’t have what people want you need to lie about it and at least enjoy it until you get found out.

It seems to keep a lot of people distracted. Diversion is part of the secret to survival I think. It’s why people create drama. And damn it now that there are no writers working I need somebody to bring the fake drama. How about a mama?

And in no time at all I could be espousing safe opinions and mindsets that can go a long way.

I think we should invade Iran.

See that wasn’t so hard.

Opposite+lie=Fun.

This is something Fox News viewers understand. Perhaps they are the future? Prophets even.

People in middle America really get it. They’re ahead of the learning curve. Like Lou Dobbs. Our borders are broken and we need to fix them. With blood.

This is our land damnit!

And if you want to kill babies in it you can get out too! A fetus is just the 1st chapter in a great book. Rip it out and you’ve destroyed that book.

And speaking of destroying books I’m all for that!

Burn em!

The bad ones anyways. Tain’t no one so smart they should be puttin’ on airs like that.

It tain’t humble!

Will I start believing these things?

Got to start somewhere so as of now no more eating stem cells for breakfast.

No more watching so many movies without neat explosions.

I’m going to stop trying to avoid learning the lines to Lee Greenwood’s “Proud To Be An American,” and reciting them routinely.

I’m getting rid of all my wire coat hangers.

I’m going to need a less sensible car.

Less bookstore more seedy neighborhood dives.

Goodbye Salmon hello Mac & Cheese!

It occurs to me though that if I’m making the decision to do the opposite and my decisions are usually bad, that the decision to do the opposite must therefore be a bad one.

Think about that.

This whole idea is an enigma wrapped in riddle and stuffed with creamy white goodness made of synthetic ingredients. It’s a Catch 22 except backwards. A catch 22. It’s a Socratic dialectic with a young boy’s Greek sausage impaled in the center of it’s reason. An algebraic conundrum in which the value of x is a short story by Phillip K Dick. It’s a Wookie living on Endor. It’s Schrodinger’s Box and when I open it Heisenberg pops out and beats Schrodinger to death with a dead cat.

Or is it just passed out?

These questions are too deep for me. When i was young it seemed like life was so wonderful but then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible. Logical. Responsible, practical.

There are times when all the worlds asleep, the questions run too deep for such a simple man.
Wont you please, please tell me what weve learned? I know it sounds absurd. Please tell me who I am.

Obviously there has to some happy medium in this whole opposite thing. One can’t suddenly go all unequivocally reverse in all things. Maybe an old dog and all that. Let’s give it some thought shall we. What to keep and what to throw over the side. We can’t ballast the sinking ship. Something must go. But replaced with how much weight? Something lighter must this way come. Change makes me hungry.

Can I have kippers for Breakfast? Mummy dear, mummy dear?

My Thanksgiving.

Published on November 19, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life and The Future. 2 Comments

I plan on celebrating this holiday in as true a manner befitting those Puritans who gave it it’s name and began the idea that is America. But I don’t want to stop at just that day. I want to celebrate what it represents, what it meant, and where it led us as a nation in a time we think of as our glorious past.

To this end the festivities will start on Thanksgiving when I will be hunting down Native Americans and killing them and their families with all manner of weapons ranging from muskets to pox riddled blankets I’ll drop off in their conveniently always needy communities.

On Friday I’ll leer at some pretty young white women and when they show no interest I’ll accuse them of being witches and sorcerers and get my fellow participants to put them on trial, tie them to stakes, and burn them.

But the celebrating of our rich history that started with that merry band of repressed psychotics doesn’t end there. On Saturday I will plant a tobacco field in my backyard where I’ll force local Kingston black men and boys to work it at gunpoint. They will also be kept shackled to each other and guarded by others for long periods so I can have a go at their women folk who won’t be as resistive as the witches who we burned all that entitlement and haughtiness manifest in not having sex with me, right out of.

So after we fornicate with the slaves wives and daughters they will be impregnated (these are all ritual acts of course-like a parade) and on Sunday I will club the newborn ritual infants with bibles until they cower in fear at the book which I will then have read to them everyday by their parents as both learn to accept this lifestyle and oppression and sublimate their hope and need for freedom and self worth into a made up invisible world they can go to if they continue to act real meek and generally accept their material and Earthly lot.

What a weekend that will be I tell you.

On Monday, upon hearing that some of those blacks are starting to get uppity and are even forming alliances with some of the poorer and less fortunate local whites, I will get the whites of my stature together to drum up reasons to overthrow the government in a bloody revolution that will redirect the slaves and poor whites energies and hatred away from me and my kind. It will also conveniently kill many of them.

It will also make me more money as I won’t have to pay taxes and tithes on goods or to answer to anyone when it comes to making laws that do right by me. Of course I will say I hadn’t thought of that.

Really I hadn’t.

It’s just these damn British-Neoconservatives-Terorists, get me so mad I can notteth think straighteth!!

On Tuesday north and south Kingston will war over that whole slave issue. I will take the Northern abolitionist side despite my having owned slaves and profited from them. The Front St/Wall St area will be burned to the ground during this ceremony. I’m hoping serendipity will be on our side and the president will happen to get assassinated this week as well.

I will complete the week by moving west across my backyard setting up claims on holes there and quickly moving on after each spots resources have been exhausted. I will scam many people on fake claims in the process and just generally take advantage of the lawlessness and naivete this expansion and hope will breed in people desperate enough to want to spend their holidays in my backyard because they’re so fucked up. Due to this, rules and law will be made up a we go, always coming after I have gained as much power and wealth from the prior lawlessness as possible.

So there it is. Anyone who wants to celebrate a real American Thanksgiving with me is welcome to join in on the fun (African Americans will have no choice of course).

Wait till you see what I have planned for Christmas!

The End Draws Nigh.

Published on August 8, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life and Science/Nature. 2 Comments

The end has come for me and my run on Ill-literates.

The reasons are many.

Numero uno I guess is just the cost. Been shelling out too much money lately what with moving and I may be looking at doing it again down the road. I can’t justify another $65-75 to occasionally spout off about Bush, religion, the mets or my life. Or whatever.

But there are other reasons.

I’m also thinking about going offline. The internet has gotten boring and takes time from reading books and magazines which I enjoy more and don’t do enough of. Without it I can get rid of phone service altogether except for my cell phone. Maybe I’ll pop over to Pantera or Barnes & Noble for the free WiFi occasionally. But I haven’t decided for sure if I’ll go that far. It depends on some of the other things I’ll list after this.

I’m also feeling on the dark side about the point of all this. My venting or opining for the most part to myself on here I mean. If I’m going to write something I should concentrate on bigger things. But I’m also starting to wonder about priorities. The management gig gets very consuming at times and I’m starting to wonder if I should just surrender and let it consume me. I mean at least it’s a purpose and sometimes a good cause that makes some lives a bit better and I can’t say that about the internet, my writing, or my personal life. So maybe it’s time to become one of those workaholic drones I always pittied. Maybe they had no choice in the end and at least gave themselves to something to escape the void rather than just drift towards it with nothing but the blackness their whole lives.

I could of course surrender myself to Jesus and have that going for me but there is no surrendering to lies once you’ve seen truth.

Ironically Jesus freaks say similar things.

But its like the saying once you’ve been to the city you can’t go back to the sticks. OR however the saying goes. You get my point. Plus the religioso don’t have proof and contradict themselves all the time. But that’s the historical difference between the city and the rural areas. The cities have always been the breeding ground of ideas and change because its where knowledge congregates. Natural selection takes place at a faster rate there and good ideas will out because of necessity.

Ok I got in one last shot at the evil of religion so i’m done with that.

But speaking of the city I’m wondering about whether I should go back. Or if I should have ever left. Just more to get lost in there. More diversions. Not an option right now with my father. That’s a whole other tale I’m not prepared to face but will have to at some point in the future. Even Florida is in the picture now. But location is not the central factor as much as myself and a need to take further stock and do something more or better.

I’m still reluctant about this other surrender to work and a civil service career. It’s not what I want exactly. There are so many dissatisfied people I see who much like myself are this way because they’re not doing what they want to do or don’t have the means to fit their youthful expectations. And when it comes to my generation and younger we grew up fed alot of expectations through all the media outlets we’ve had and living in times relatively free from any real turmoil that had to shift our focus realistically and practically such as depressions and world wars tend to do.

I’m even considering a second job. At least it’ll keep me out of the house and on the streets and hold the terrifying future at bay just a while longer while giving me more money to play with. I’m not ruling out writing more instead. Not all the decisions are made. But turning 40, becoming middle management, and moving with my worst fears of life in Kingston realized so quickly has made me take stock. And my stocks aren’t worth a whole lot. So i need change and if I can’t change it all the way I want maybe I just need to change what I can and try to be a bit less bored and commit to something instead of nothing even if its something I don’t want to be entirely committed to.

I should have had these realizations many years ago but I didn’t. Can’t say the warnings weren’t there. From teachers, after school specials, to Mrs Garret and the Facts Of Life Girls, the information was there but I drifted to 40 uncommitted to anything except some vague notions of knowledge for its own sake and acting like an evolved being rather than showing my Monkey side. Well take it from me that’s not a life. Stay in school. Find a focus. Take care of your body. Find a nice girl your reasonably but perhaps not overwhelmingly attracted to, root for the Yankees, earn and save for a house, be creative, make it happen with hard work and don’t wait for stuff to happen, and stay in touch with your family because they have to put up with you when there is no one else as long as you’re not a complete fuck-up.

As warped as they are some conservatives understand some fundamental truths about human nature.

I’d still keep the site in the mix. It’s not like it’s all consuming or anything. But we are up against our renewal in a matter of days and its simply a matter of timing and money. I hope Bob can find a way to keep it going. If so I’ll be by from time to time to comment. But it’s not a priority and I’ve thrown away enough money recently. And I’m looking at a house in the next day or two. Probably wont be buying now. Maybe not be doable ever. But I have to be careful in case. And as I said I may make that complete switch from an attempt as a balanced life including being “cool not too invested but good supervisor guy,” to jumping in completely. I fear that choice. But I also fear the potential consequences of continuing like this because there is no balance or solace at home or play. At least work is there though stepping down from management is also a possibility. I do like some of the perks including the scheduling many weeks but ironically that’s another element that may have come too late in life to fully enjoy. I mean at this point alot more weekend time and evening time off is just not doing anything but reminding me that there are no supports for all the stresses at work.

So I’m still a bit confused but I do know I need to make changes and alas they want our money now not later. And I can not contribute for what feels like literary masturbation much of the time.

So goodbye kiddies and keep not commenting or not reading or whatever it is you’re not doing. I no longer have anything to give for my country.