This has been bothering me for a while. At first I chalked it up that there's something missing in my life (there is something missing in my life: a life) but it just kept bugging me and gnawing at my mind. But then it all became clear to me. Granted, I am so far outside the realm of the living it's hard for me to be certain but I think I've finally fingered the pea under my mattress. And it's the picture of a happy soul drinking his champagne, enjoying the good life - a winner of the world - yet doing this while standing on the deck of the Titanic.
As an outsider, all I see is his enjoyment and that he has no cares. The man's life is my holy grail! It is said in the Good Book that right up until the end we'll be carrying on, fucking and sucking like nothing is wrong. I have just one comment for that: that's fucking insane! Don't get me wrong, we all have to keep right on living - just not at the expense of reality. Are we a nation of Neros?
Our energies as humans right now are geared towards our self-manufactured "economic crisis", towards keeping money alive. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. But I know we'll insist on pretending we have no choice. Even so, trying to fix the economy without ending the war is kind of like a stab victim making vacation plans before pulling the knife out. Put first things first, or in other words: it's the war, stupid. I know no one believes me on that. But if Obama does stop the war (imagine it over) it will become abundantly clear how truly necessary it was to stop the bleeding. The (what now seems normal) fog will be removed from our eyes.
I've said before that now is the time for sackcloths and ashes. People think I say that because, well, my life consists of sackcloths and ashes. And to be honest, if I had a choice, I probably wouldn't choose this. But if we were to mourn our actions of the past and repent our foolishness, we'd be reborn with an actual future. What I see now is not life, but an imitation of life.
Our "soulful" songs have no soul - but we sing them as if they do. We maintain our rituals as if nothing has changed when in reality they are sad parodies of the past. We are not who we once were. But we are desperate to keep the reality of our choices from showing. I've been wondering why movies recently that are complete garbage have been so widely hailed. It's because they seem to be saying something meaningful when in reality they say nothing - a dying society's wet dream. The rotted soul clings to false praise but a pure one knows the joy of creation.
So you sorry ass champagne-sipping, not-a-care-in-the-world flakes don't really have it made after all. All you did was pull the plug on reality and bring your surfboard to ride the waves as we go down the toilet.
P.S. Ok, yeah, I'm partly writing this because I was forced to watch the friggin' American Music Awards last night and I thought it was all boring, stupid, fake and annoying.
"Everywhere you go "Everybody knows "All that you know."
When Nixon resigned, somebody said our "long, national nightmare is over." But really, it was just the beginning. We knew what kind of person Nixon was when we elected him and as that veil was slowly lifted to see his true face - our true face - we afterwards decided never to look into the mirror again. Since we as a society produced the people who shot the Kennedys we then were left with pinning our hopes on monsters like us - like Tricky Dick. And in that, there is no hope.
"We had been given paradise - "But t'was not to be in our eyes."
Do you know how God kills the homeless? It's a simple thing really: He does it with bathrooms. Every time you use a bathroom that's not your own, a piece of you dies. It's a most shameful and painful predicament. I look around me but who can help?? Who can give me a bathroom of my own? No one. Monsters all. Until mankind can freely and universally pass out pissoirs to all, there is no hope (Revelation 7:11).
God has told me all I need for salvation is to never use a throne that's not my own. Something miniscule to most but monumental to me. This leaves my mind careening with all sorts of crazy trains of thought. "If I could only find a way to never need a bathroom again I'd be fine!" So valiantly I fight to hold off the Inevitable Moment of Death but comes it does. I can't stop the forces of nature though it remains in my rotation of Things To Try.
"I pretend, pretend, pretend "Until reality I suspend."
Another tact is to pretend the toilet I'm using is my own. Maybe - just maybe - I can fool the toilet gods and they won't come to take a piece of my soul. It's sort of like going to a movie theater and losing yourself. If somehow I could make that my life I'd be saved. If only there were a way to step into that screen then dreams could be made whole once again. Yes, I know it is folly but try I must.
So in the end, my lifelong Dark Nightmare continues. I clutch my stomach in the middle of the night, wanting to scream but there's no human with ears, as I'm slowly sucked into the jaws of death yet again. I have to watch myself die, knowing it's going to happen and yet helpless to prevent it. Down the road is man in a home, flushing his commode, never realizing the heaven he possesses. And that's what I truly don't get: I know why I'm dying - I can have no friends or girlfriends - but you, who live in procelain paradise, why are you people choosing death too?
"Only don't tell me that you're innocent. "Because it insults my intelligence "and it makes me very angry." - Michael Corleone to Carlo, who afterwards confesses his guilt.
Just for the record, I could say that phrase like fifty times a day. I'd love to take a baseball bat and just knock the fuck out of you bullshitting bastards. Later - when dispossessed of your lies - you'd thank me.
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Love: it makes you think!
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Hey Sarah Palin, as funny as you are when you speak - so funny that SNL skits use your actual lines - the GOP has a far, far better use for your mouth in mind :))) (But then again, since you've pulled the plug on reality, why care?)
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Yes, I thought of her today - and everything that goes along with it. The dream still echoes within.
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It's interesting that conservatives see themselves as inferior (they have a point if you consider liars inferior) and needing of special consideration of their feelings. Their shrieking and howling at any perceived slight causes us to treat them as a petulant child and give them what they want in exchange for silence. Mommy and Daddy just can't stand it when junior calls them bad parents. That's the problem with Democrats: they want to be *called* good parents but not *be* good parents. So what we end up with is a country ruled by the shrill rhetoric of children.
Let us see if we truly have an adult in charge...
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The assassination of Ghandi hurt. The assassination of John Kennedy hurt. The assassination of Martin Luther King hurt. The assassination of Robert Kennedy hurt. The assassination of John Lennon hurt.
Thomas Friedman said when the light goes out in America the light goes out in all the world. But the light was finally killed in December 1980.
The purpose of the 21st century is to pay the bills of the 20th century.
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There's a story of a ship that hits an iceberg. It was a beautiful ship, more beautiful than any ship before or since. The passengers are crushed at the thought of losing their pride and joy. But what hurt them the most was their haste that plowed them into the fateful berg. Many did not want to believe they were capable of such a careless and stupid act. So when the sinking ship hit an air bubble and righted itself they took heart and chastised those who "gave up" on hope for their pride and continued to disembark to the life boats. Those who stayed on board orgied on their disdain of reality until finally the air bubble burst and they sank to the bottom of the sea.
Good riddance.
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In related news, in Keith Moon's final days he was "desperate to get clean" from a lifetime of drug and alcohol addiction. But the legendary drummer of the Who didn't do this to actually pursue life - he was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. So what on the surface appeared to be a turn in the right direction ended merely as a death of a different sort.
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In more related news, our President-elect says he will ban torture (to the heartbreak of sadists everywhere).
The good news: After his ban maybe we as a country will like the way it feels to rise above the mentality of a testosterone-filled teenage boy.
The bad news: If McCain had been elected we as a nation wouldn't have given a damn if the torture ban was lifted.
There's nothing more radical than being convictionless.
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He asked me about politics and I said: "If it ain't love, man, it ain't real."
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Pharaoh always said you were lazy...(Exodus 5:17)
I've been told that unless we as a species are blackmailed by the money concept, we are too lazy too accomplish anything and no work will get done. (It may seem strange we would accept such a torment but those who live well are bribed to keep things as they are and those who have nothing have no say.) What's really hilarious is we think it makes us civilized! Yup, I look at the world around me and I see a real civilized place. But one thing has me confused: Citigroup is laying off 75,000 and another corporation is laying off tens of thousands and overall we are disallowing millions from working. And do you know why? It's because of money, they say! Hey now, didn't you just say it was money that was supposed to make things work??
Fucking morons. It never pays to side with Pharaoh.
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Then this man comes up to me with a knife in his stomach (a feeling I can relate to!) and he starts complaining to me about how all his joints ache and it's hard to eat and he's running a constant fever. And I'm like, "Dude, think maybe it has something to do with that knife in your belly!" But then he gets his dander up and tells me what a righteous and holy knife it is and it'd be presumptive and irresponsible to remove it. He said the real problem was he needed a new doctor to make him feel better. Good plan that.
On the other hand, I wonder what's undermining us as a country? Oh, yeah...
It's the war, stupid.
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In the tradition of a Japanese death poem and Citizen Kane (good ol' Charlie Kane!), I've decided my final words shall be: Cranberry sauce.
"Back in February, the Marines released their military branch's updated suicide statistics. They revealed the number of Afghanistan and Iraq combat troops and veterans who took their own lives in 2007 had doubled over the previous year.
"Earlier this month, the Army reported its own current soldier suicide data, reflecting another year of record increases. And just last week, the VA chimed in with their latest OEF/OIF veterans suicide figures -- also another record-breaker -- for its Afghanistan and Iraq veteran clients."
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I remember Barry Gibb speaking of the brothers' Gibb youngest sibling like this: "If you remember in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when the group of red lights comes flying by and afterwards a single red light comes tailing along behind them, that always reminded me of Andy." Belonging, yet apart. Andy Gibb's death is not listed as a suicide, but his death was self-inflicted nonetheless. He had fame, fortune, looks and the blessing of being born into one of the most musically gifted families of all time. And yet he killed himself. No one could understand his desire for self-destruction. Barry said it was to his eternal regret that the last conversation he had with his brother was an argument.
"With the exception of the unspeakable images of Abu Ghraib, which were e-mailed home by soldiers themselves, for six years Americans have been effectively insulated from the human cost of our wars. This insulation is not an accident; it is policy. Images from the Vietnam years, like the naked child trying to outrun her own burning skin, or the anguished women and children waiting their turn to be executed at My Lai, were catalysts that helped turn public opinion against that war. This time, the government wanted to ensure that would not happen. On the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Pentagon issued a directive to the media forbidding any coverage of returning American coffins. No coffins, no funerals, no wounds, no tears. No empathy."
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So why did Andy Gibb die? Because he was not who you thought he was. And for him, that was the same as death. An adoring public saw another teenage pin up, record producers saw another monetary talent and his famed brothers saw him as someone who should be their equal. But truth is, he was just Andy the performer, not a creator like his brothers - which, in reality - was OK. But no one wanted to hear his reality. So, he wondered, how can anyone accept me without also accepting the reality of who I am? I need another drink.
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We all know who our returning soldiers from Iraq are: conquering heroes! They are fighting for our freedom while planting the flower of democracy in the Middle East. Only by their sacrifices do we remain free. We must support them in every way we can. But, of course, anyone who says our troops are fighting for our freedom in Iraq is not supporting them at all, but using them. God damn all the Users.
The returning soldiers know the sorry truth, but to whom can they plead their case? So-called supporters dismiss their concerns with a wave of the hand: "Don't bring your qualms to me. Everything you do is fine!" What a truly, truly vicious and diabolical thing to say. These evil Users know they are not the ones who have to live with the demons in the night that haunt the soldiers. They mock the soldiers' fate and trap them with no way out - except with a bullet.
The best way to honor your child's death in Iraq is to admit he/she died for nothing. Face the pain so others may be spared it. And for those lucky enough to have family who returned: acknowledge what the soldiers have been through, letting go of whatever ideals you hoped it would be. Let us confess our sins so we can finally put a stop to the bleeding. Open your mind and your eyes or lose them forever.
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Trust me when I tell you I know what it's like to be at the mercy of fuckers who think they know everything and but in reality know nothing. And don't let yourself be fooled by fiends of false praise hiding in the dark, they know exactly what they are doing: laughing at your demise and suffocating your soul.
His official title was the honorable Senator William Benson Stevens - his unofficial title was the "Kool Aid King". A liar's liar, this "honorable man" spent his days and nights in constant pursuit of his own personal nirvana: The Undefeatable Lie. A lie so interwoven with reality - so effectively twisting the truth as it simultaneously seems to honor it - that every argument against it had an equally persuasive counter-argument. The Kool Aid King knew he'd be the first in history to find this holy grail. After all, is not the consciousness of mankind reaching ever higher?
A devoted artist to his craft, the Kool Aid King was legendary even among his fellow tricksters in the Senate. Believe his words at your own peril! His seductive, mind-bending speeches made you want to believe, to hope he was somehow right. But just when you were convinced this time he was telling the truth, a cold sober voice whispered yet into your ear, "Don't do it! Don't drink the Kool Aid!" But the weak, the uncommitted, the cynical souls could not help but follow this pied piper of prevarication.
Before I met him I'd seen him in action, speaking with all the clear magical conviction of a man who sees the rainbow's end and knows it's just a matter time before he reaches it. Like I said, he made you want to root for him and it was easy getting caught up in his sway. I felt like Dorothy in the poppy field, struggling against the overpowering scent, fighting to keep my head. This is a dangerous man, I remember thinking. If your roots were not firmly set in reality, your heart was sure to follow his deluded dreams - right over a cliff.
It was at a local watering hole where I bumped into the Kool Aid King. Hearing I was a reporter, his eyes delightedly engaged me as a lion's upon fresh meat. Reporters love tall tales and the believing of tall tales was food for his delusion. But the tale this time was not one of how his wars were holy and other's tragically misguided, or how his selfish interests were actually in the interest of all or even his most favorite commentary on the Foul Lies Told By Others. No, tonight he was just another drunk in a bar with his marriage on the rocks. With all the powers of his intellect bent on making the real unreal, he regaled me with his tale of wifely woe:
"I'm not saying I'm perfect. Nobody's perfect! But she's got to realize that if she doesn't face herself - if she doesn't admit her true dreams and hopes - then how can she expect anything else to work when building off a foundation like that? Sooner or later you're just going to erupt in frustration and what can I do about that? I can't live her life for her. I can be there for her and offer support, but she's got to make the choice to pursue her true self." At this point I was thinking: Woman, can't you see the truth of what he's saying? Get your act together! Feeling a tad sheepish at what surely had been my previously too-harsh judgment of this deep soul, I listened on:
"It's tragic how we sometimes cheat ourselves, saying we want one thing when we truly want another. We fall in love with our delusions - vehemently defend them even when they cause us pain. Is reality such a bad thing we should spend our entire lives trying to escape it? Is not responsibility our salvation? If each of us could face these things, set a course for ultimate truth, the blessings of life would overflow until the end of time. My wife is a wonderful woman and I wish you could meet her and be dazzled by her soul as I was, but if she stays the course and refuses correction - something she must do for herself, regardless of my own needs - then where is hope? She's killing me and breaking my heart." With a heavy sigh, he pardoned himself and departed. And I was outraged.
This woman - this sick, misguided being - needed to be straightened out immediately! It was such an obvious tragedy, a case of one person's injustice to herself causing wreckage in the lives of others. If only I could talk to her and make her see sense! What an infuriating person! It was all just so...galling. This image painted in my mind perturbed me and I couldn't seem to shake it. Visibly vexed, I ordered a drink hoping to drive out this woeful woman from my psyche. The feeling, though, was she was going to stay there forever!
That's when I heard the laughter.
I turned my head to see two bar regulars grinning from ear to ear and focused directly on me. I suspected they were going to offer me offensive rationalizations against the great words I'd just absorbed and I was mightily ready to refute any foul words that left their self-serving mouths.
"Fell for it hook, line, and sinker, didn't ya?" asked the first, noting the consternation on my face.
"Don't feel bad, pal," consoled the second. "You're not the first. In fact, your reaction was a lot more reserved than most."
I had a sick, gnawing feeling as they continued, my resolve crumbling as they spoke.
"He's good at getting ya all riled up, wanting to practically smack his old lady around, but the truth is just the opposite. She left him because he physically tried to strangle her."
Dear Lord!
The second winked to the first. "She must have said something truthful - more than he could stand!" They chuckled in understanding as I gradually melted under the barstool. "The man is an abuser of words - so why not people. He thinks he's very clever. If you confront him and ask him if he's telling the whole truth, he'll shoot you down with his conscience clear, stating unequivocally: Yes, sir, I speak the hole truth! That's what I've always done and that's what I'll always do till the day I die!" Again, the two shared a knowing laugh. "See? What he doesn't tell you is he's leaving off the "w". He's actually not lying about the hole in his truth!"
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses And all the King's men Couldn't put Humpty together again!
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She was adamant and unrelenting. "Your problem is your attitude. You won't even try!"
"Why should I try? It's ridiculous!"
"It's not ridiculous! It's your giving up that's ridiculous!"
"Well, I darn sure don't see you trying."
"I'm not the one going around complaining all the time. 'Woe is me! Poor me! I think I'm going to die!'"
"I am going to die. I am dying..."
"Then do something about it! You attitude has completely blinded you!"
"How am I supposed to do something when I can see no possible way it can work? You want me to put myself completely on the line and for what? It's suicide!"
"What do you care - you're homeless! You have nothing to lose. You should be willing to try anything."
"Anything that has a possibility of being viable. Grief and frustration and humiliation - thank you, I have all those already."
"That's just sheer negativity and I don't want to hear it anymore. You're fucking pathetic! I don't even know why I'm talking to you. You'll never amount to anything." And with that, she stormed off.
Lord, what a mind fuck. I mean, she was so sure of herself. Does she truly know something I do not? I must be losing my mind. Maybe I don't have a grip on reality. Shit, just thinking about this is making my head explode!
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Several days later, lost and confused, beaten down by the utter conviction of her words I finally gave in. Maybe I really have been cheating myself all these years and I truly can have what I want. I don't see it and it doesn't make sense to me, but, hell, look at me. What do I know? She has a house and family, I have nothing. So I finally decided to "try".
It was a bit of a walk but I knew exactly where the place was. But I couldn't go in. After circling around for two hours, debating furiously on the wisdom of what I was about to do, my frayed being finally entered, visibly shaking and barely able to talk. Eyes were openly curious as I began to speak and I finally got it out that I somehow-really-sort-of-with-a-positive-attitude wanted to buy a Maserati.
The store manager threatened to call the police if I didn't leave immediately.
On the way back I couldn't decide who I was madder at: me or her. How could I let someone else do my thinking for me?? They don't know me! They don't know my situation - any more than I know how the hell they have homes and families. What a fucking farce! I'm so mad right now...
The storm I unleashed on her was not nearly as forceful as I'd hoped it would be nor sounded anything like my multiple rehearsals of it. When finished, she paid no mind to my froth and fury and dismissed it with: "I bet you just didn't try hard enough."
"Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, is a date that will live in fame (the opposite of infamy) forever. If the election of our first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there’s something wrong with you." -Paul Krugman (whom I usually like)
Guess there's something wrong with me...
Over the last few days I've heard ad nauseam tributes of self-congratulations that America has elected a "black man" President. "Look at us, we put a Darkie in office!" It's all supposed to be "historic", a "sea change", etc. What a load of crap. Hearing drivel such as this conjures up the mental image of a man stroking himself with one hand and patting himself on the back with the other as he climaxes. Yeah, you might cum, dude, but you're sort of missing the bigger picture.
Electing a black man in 1968 or even 1972, now THAT would have been historic. That would have been progress and a huge leap forward. But doing it forty years after the civil rights movement, by now it should be expected. Yes, we acted like adults for once. About fucking time! How silly would it be now to laud a baseball team for drafting and playing a black player? We've been led down (and out) the garden path by the snake we let defile our country the past eight years, so I guess we're grasping on to anything to prove ourselves still holy. Good plan that.
Don't get me wrong, Obama's opponent was nuts in his outlook, showing no understanding of politics and no understanding of war and - most damning of all - no understanding of how to create life. He relied on the lost souls of the descendents of the men who shot Kennedy. Men, who like Lenin, appeal to the worst in people in order to gain political sway. Men spoken of in the Bible as ones who call evil good and good evil. Cain and Abel's eternal struggle. But as we lurch towards life here in our death throes, the tactics of torment failed (this time!).
But I don't see us as a country rebuking sin, we're merely rebuking paying for it. Our current President once described himself as a "teenager with a credit card" and declared the war is "sapping our souls" and yet even these open daylight admissions failed to bother anyone until the bills came due. You'll get no sympathy from me, motherfuckers. You ASKED for this distress! And I seriously doubt Obama has the savviness to let capitalism fail so that we may survive.
"There were no generously peaceful impulses in Atlanta, Georgia, that same week, when, on October 19 [1960], police arrested Martin Luther King for refusing to leave the all-white restaurant of a department store. Taken immediately to court, King was sentenced to four months hard labor.
"The morning after King's imprisonment, resting in his motel room, beginning to prepare for his fourth and last debate with [Tricky Dick] Nixon, Kennedy was interrupted by a telephoned suggestion from his brother in Washington, that he "might want to intervene" directly on behalf of King. Kennedy turned to the handful of staff members who had already assembled to begin the day's work. "What do you think?" he asked. The political advisers, led by Kenny O'Donnell, expressed opposition. "You have no legitimate right to interfere with the judicial system of Alabama";"It's a local concern";"Our position on the South is already precarious, and this can only antagonize the white political leaders whose organizations are essential to electoral success.""
So what did Kennedy do? He acted as a leader and made the call to free King. Good luck on finding that now and I don't see such qualities in our President elect. Maybe he can prove me wrong. Maybe I'm just jaded after watching the so-called anti-war members of Congress give our current Resident Evil his way on the war knowing it would turn people off - and cost lives. I'm sure they are smirking now thinking how politically smart they were. But as one who knows, the convictionless are always found out to be useless and destructive in the end. And what happened to Kennedy, a man who followed his convictions in a nip and tuck race?
"As the King story spread through northern ghettos, black support for Kennedy - hitherto ambivalent or disinterested - began to solidify, acquired the added enthusiasm necessary to persuade black Americans that their choice at the polls might make a difference, that Whitey was still Whitey, but some more so than others. In an election decided by a handful of votes in a few key states, that political reward was of enormous consequence. Joseph P Kennedy's most insightful political aphorism had again proved its wisdom: "When in doubt," the old man said, "do right."" - from "Remembering America" by the great Richard Goodwin
Obama was by miles the better man for the job but I fear he could learn a lesson from the stalwart leadership of John Kennedy.
I got two posts I need to finish but don't have the energy. I got a scene from my movie I can't recapture. My slight fever and persistent cough have become permanent companions and no place is safe. Never have I been so down. My only therapy is the thought of a bullet ripping through my head. Literally. The moments of no hope for hope are darker and deeper.
Today a polar bear died of starvation from the effects of global warming, a new daddy was made President far, far away so we can pretend things will change without changing our hearts and an asshole supervisor woke up on the wrong side of bed and decided I was the easiest target on site. He was probably right.
Drippings of discontent leak occasionally from my boiling hatred of tedious day labor and all the despair it entails. Every fiber of my being is bent in horrified discord at the ignominy of my labors. To cope with this I unwisely speak of my love for writing and creating - things that fund no food. I know I should stay in character and say nothing to those who cannot help - and especially say nothing to those who cannot hear. But like I said, I am leaking.
So what happens but out of the blue foreman Joe decides I need to "expand". WTF? It's all I can do just to show up to this hell hole! But he has his own problems and decides I can help by writing his daily construction report. I don't give a fuck about this place or what goes on here. Jesus, dude, do it yourself! I want to go home! Once again the aimlessness of my existence bites me on the ass.
We start bickering over this new task and this son-of-a-bitch hears only what he wants to hear. I say the words but it's like I've never spoken. I can't possibly mean anything that doesn't suit him. Just can't be! Then finally, he lays out this gem: "You want to do writing so much, well here you go! This will help you with your writing!" I was flabbergasted. Had this come from the mind of a sophisticate or anyone without his worker bee's outlook, I'd have taken this statement to be one of the utmost sarcasm and snide condensation. Instead, it was a moment of absurdity on the moon.
I'm still stung by this incident and want to strangle that guy, fighting me on every fucking word I said. Jesus, man, I don't know how else to communicate but English. But the true devastation came later, when I was "relaxing" and replaying these events in my head. Dear God, my life is off course. To have ended up in this position, with no understanding of my life and living at the mercy of minds without comprehension is truly the mark of a lost soul. My coward's run has lead me here: I am Napoleon, living in an insane asylum of fake Napoleons - one more voice to be ignored and disbelieved. The more truth I speak, the worse it gets.
