Two Men Meet In The Road After Twenty Years

There's no going back and surviving a second time

Out of the shelter and into the frying pan. You see, the delusion is shattered and with it any hope. There really is no place for me to go. As long as I was homeless I could always pretend of "the life" beyond and make it whatever I pleased. Oh, I know a lot people did the same thing but never to my degree - not by a long shot. Doing crap jobs - and all jobs are crap - put me out of my mind, destroying my soul. It wasn't until today I realized I was keeping my soul alive by staying in the shelter.

I understand now my secret lingering fear pestering me. The one that told me no life awaited me beyond the shelter. All anyone wants to do is socialize you and get you off the books. Since I didn't have any alternative answer to give I went with theirs - story of my life. Get a job, get a place, live crappily ever after. End of story. What? What was that? You gonna say something? I thought not. Now run along and be a good boy.

Fuck, I was right. More right than I ever thought. Its obvious I've made the wrong choice because the darkness is closer now, surrounding me like Napoleon at Waterloo, a battle lost before it was ever fought. Why am I even fighting? The world's not going to change. Regardless of anything I do it will keep marching on its merry way to death. So where is home? Nowhere, somewhere out in the vast universe where the dust of dreams is reborn.

Before, I was half character, half me. I'm no longer me. It's amazing what the weight of expectations does to you, where you end up doing things in which you have no belief whatsoever. Still, I find myself playing the part of a "normal" person even as I feel my fingers being unpried from the grip of my useless soul. I figure I best be acting my part so "they" won't be disappointed and I can prove the system works for me even though it cannot.

Pete Zotos went to the same church camp as I, by Amarillo. Don't fret, this was Episcopalian, not some god awful Baptist boot camp. What it turned out to be was a place of bonding and everyone crying on the last day as we returned to our hell-homes. I remember personalities and feelings more than names and faces. In some ways, it was magical and surreal, like the time I was walking on the outskirts of Amarillo looking back at a dark and moody sky feeling as if I was stepping back in time. You remember moments like that.

But Pete I remembered as sort of a poor man's John Belushi. He was good with people, voted President and even though I've come to realize it's myself I'm always seeing, he seemed to walk in another world. I took note when he said his dream was to open a restaurant and I viewed it as a place that would be an extension of that mythical teenage time when anything seems possible. He did open that restaurant, right by downtown Dallas in Deep Ellum.

I did go there once for lunch but Pete was not there. That was several years ago when I was working my temp jobs. I never returned. Perhaps I had some mental block but it seemed like such a chore. But as my new improved character, time seemed ripe for a visit as a mark of my new social standing! Everyone wants a fucking lie? Fine, I'll serve it out in spades. Always good when you go in with that sort of attitude!

It's always awkward eating by yourself and in most eating establishments I refuse to do it. I was trusting Pete to give me a place I could feel at home. His advertising is whimsical and anyone who doesn't take themselves too seriously gets a good mark in my book. I eased in and was welcomed right away after sitting. I started to relax and absorb the atmosphere, thinking, "Yeah, I could come here." Well, maybe if I weren't living a lie.

I was stuffing down a mighty tasty tuna steak (never had one before) when I asked the waitress if Pete was around. "That's him, sitting at the bar." He was busy talking with an obvious friend so I decided to finish my meal before trying to interrupt. You never know what part of your childhood was real and part of me wondered if the legends would hold true while another part of me had complete faith. Self-conscious as hell, I strolled over when Pete's friend stepped away.

"Hi. You Pete Zotos?" "Yes." "You Episcopalian?" "Yes" "You ever go to church camp by Amarillo?" "Yes!" He was starting to smile wondering who the hell I was. I told him my name but I knew he wouldn't remember me as there were dozens of attendees each year. We safely reminisced about various people and aspects of church camp but I had a hard time recalling exact people. Isolated moments do stand out for me. One late night in the dorm we saw a couple of counselors outside shining a flashlight along the ground. I let out a sarcastic, "Must be looking for footprints" and I was a rare hero for the moment. Stuff like that is clear as a bell.

After that, I was left hanging. How do I explain my life as a deliberate nobody when I can't even explain it to myself? I've toyed with the idea of saying I spent eight years in Chino doing hard time as part of a drug deal gone bad (Someone got killed but I didn't pull the trigger. Same as Dog the Bounty Hunter's crime in my home town.) So heck no, I haven't been living la vida loca and vacationing in Maui. A glamorous felony seems a better explanation than just scraping by living hand to mouth. At least that way I could claim I tried to do something.

Sure enough, things fell apart pretty quickly. Do I have kids, am I married, anything at all going on? "I used to be funny in the shelter but now even that's gone," the only answer that came to mind. I decided to keep mum on that. Pete then explains he's heading out for a night with his family of three kids. My, what divergent paths we've followed. It's not that this was unexpected but in the moment you fully feel your footsteps of emptiness. I felt like the disfigured Peachy returning at the end of "The Man Who Would Be King".

But now for the mind fuck part, where parallel universes overlap. I'd decided beforehand on a WTF approach and ditch the "responsible" character on meeting Pete. Let the chips fall where they may and I'll be exposed for better or worse. I was telling of my plans to attend the closing night of the Asian Film Festival later on when Pete's friend returned, overhearing me. Then it was like everyone was talking at once as I got peppered with questions.

"You're attending a film?" "This your own film? "You're a director!"

I was so fucking disoriented I almost let out an honest answer. And that answer was "Yes". I had to fight myself hard to blurt out "no" but in his natural assumptions of me my natural thoughts started flowing out too. Jesus! Why did I feel like I was lying saying I wasn't a filmmaker? I did not come to lie, even if that was my pretense. I felt like a fighter who gets his bell rung early on and never recovers. By the end I was stumbling and fled.

It was good to meet Pete and see my childhood assessments vindicated. So many high school heroes end up drunk, dying or trapped in miserable marriages. Several people stopped to shake Pete's hand on their way out the door. I'm glad he was able to hold on to his charisma and fulfill his dreams. Me? I'm just looking to exit stage left while yearning for the spotlight.

Living Crappily Ever After

In the Land Of Sir Real, the Sky is a living thing, a swirling dancing dream of colors of Life's promise. Children play at the Rainbow's end, mirror butterflies dazzle in fluttering reflections. Neon waters beckon to be walked upon under the all seeing, all knowing Sky. But treasures are not always accepted beneath the psychedelic Son.

Blessed be the Factory, for from within it flows the lifestyle of the Dead Head. Hallowed be its name. The size of the Factory Grind is immeasurable, no one there gets out alive. Each day it covers more Land with Industrial Haste, it turns Water into Whine, and drains colors from the Sky leaving Frack Holes. Resistance is fruitful yet no Word is heard. From the rafters, to the floor, on the ceiling and bathroom door, the sign remains the same: "There is no other Way!" Praise be to Fraud.

With the loss of Land, the route to the Factory Grind narrowed in Doom's delight, many grinders slipping off the cliff on the way in to dying. Rats in the factory saw this and laughed, renaming the path "Stairway To Leaven". But the Resident in the Blight House ate his honey upon plates of popularity and he feared for his coming Erection. "No one will love me! Who can I screw?" Last time a Resident had no one to screw he started a war in wooden desire. Wooden soldiers followed in suits of Amour with flowery courting.

His conviction to have no convictions made the Resident defender of the Sign of the Times: "There Is No Other Way". This left the Resident between a cock and hard place. "No one will love me if they are dying but There Is No Other Way! Someone please save my Erection!" This called for a Clever Endeavor by all the Resident's sin. For those fated to life in the Factory Grind, the law of Gravity was revoked by unanimous Sinataurs. "Today, you are free as a Terd!" they crowed.

Now Grinders who fell were baptized when despised. "They had no faith in the Rule Of Maul!" The Science of Civilization deemed survival a revival. "Losers are winners! The Resident's Erection gives us Direction! Life is looking up!" With eyes kept to the Sky, unseen now were the falling dead, a Politickle unreality for the Stars. The land was saved yet again, Strife goes on. Dirty Deeds come cheap, Living Dead get high when living bodies die.

In the daily Chain Pain, arrested screams jailed arrested dreams. Cuffs of the realm gave proof to the rocket's Red Scare. Dogs of Bore feasted on Drudgery's diuretic diet. Iron wills gave birth to iron clamps from leg to leg and arm to arm, stretching beyond the horizon and the horizon after that as if a continuous circle spanning the Land. Factory Shirkers wailed to the speechless Sky for Freedom and Redemption as the deaf clamps pierced sinew and skin. Ever pulled in the direction of the Factory, feeding the body by starving the soul.

But a Man in Glowing White, leaving green pastures, fought his way through the Industrial Haste, ignoring the Signs of the Times, and spoke to his chained brethren. "I bring you Good News! Life without chains is before you. No Man need be made to do right. The Truth is within and without you! Leave your miseries in the Haste!"

Speaking words of wisdom: "Could it be?" The rattling of chains ceased for the first time in Generations - maybe ever. Soothing hearts and searing wounds the song of the Glowing Man did do. Bent backs straightened, tired eyes livened, furrowed brows relaxed. The dream is not over - it has Begun. But from branded birth screeched the Cruel Rule:

One Rule to cruel them
One Rule to shine them
One Rule to sing them
And in the darkness fine them!

Motionless men in Cheer Fear knew both Rule and Song. Choose they must and not be Wrong! The story of the Wrong Song haunted every house and heart in the Land. It haunted every smile and every child. It haunted the Wind and all things Unseen. It was the Thought never to be thought, of permanent life in the Wastelands, nursing Mothers running dry, the Dope of hope gone awry - and Creeping man knowing why - forever and ever, and ever again.

Few but loud were the clangs of Chains dropping to the ground, breaking the Cruel Rule that misguided them. But too many of the Many - even the complainers and whiners, the drying and deteriorating - stood fast in burning pride, scorching steam boiling out their ears, making their stance unbearable. Like rejected lovers they called back the Unchained, hating them as starlets of the Son shining white. When finding they held the Key to their own chains, to whom could the Unmen blame their woes and wives?

Emboldened by the Shirker's Hesitation Reservation, a shot rang out across the limpless sky into the Man of Glowing White. His followers too spilled Dead Red on broken concrete decay. The Rats in the Factory made that sound only Rats can make, White E blaring on his bullhorn: "See! There is no other way!" Marching through poisoned ponds of time, the Accepted Belief rebore the Man of Glowing White a Troublemaker and Destroyer and the Rats had saved the land from the doom of Truth.

A Boy Who Did Not Know asked his Father Bother why. "We had to kill him. He was subverting our Lies."

"But what if He was right and we can live without the chain?"

"The Tyrant of Trust does not allow that! You saw how all who left the Chain died. As long as we kill those Freedom Freaks we'll always be right!"

"I'd rather Live than be right."

"You're still Young Dung and Stupid. You haven't passed your Contamination Examination."

Crushed, the boy ran out of the house, far far away into the Bungle Jungle where he found a path with a sign: "Footsteps of Hell In Heaven's Place". It was hand written, not Factory made. The Path was easy and clear which made the Boy wonder why no one else was on it. A Grey Batter brain was the jungle, impenetrable to the outside, where no law existed, not even the Cruel Rule. Every tree, every leaf, every running stream - all grey. Only the Boy's true sight gave it any color.

In the Grey Batter, right could be wrong and wrong could be right. No one wanted to learn who was holding Black Death and who White Life so in this false forest evil found praise and good derision unchallenged. The boy knew without knowing what a Scary Place this be with no absolutes. Then he heard sounds of men in white hats charging a man in a black hat.

"You there, stop! We arrest you in the name of In No Sense!"

"An arrest of no sense? What have you bad boys been up to now?"

"We're burning the crops while the Unpleasants starve. HAHAHAHA! They'll come crawling to us, increasing our Creasing - and demanding your death for it!"

"Sooner or later they will catch on to you!"

"Only if they catch on to themselves! We're wearing their White Hats! HAHAHA! No trust like Misplaced Trust!"

Since the Unpleasants wore white hats they would not deny the Word of another white hat. In the Religion of the hats there is only one rule: Always trust the color of the hat. "Why make life hard when you can be simple?" their Grotto Motto.

Dare the Boy walk further in the Footsteps of Hell? Was he not safe in Heaven's Place? He had to know.

In the distance, deep in the heart of the Bungle Jungle, voices and parties and lights. But why hide here in this Secret Secret? A sign told him he had come to the Heart Brake. The loudest noise came from the Cannibal Cabal's Casino, Worshipped Bull its calling canard. The Boy wandered inside unnoticed, insignificant to their lost eyes. One thing the Boy could not help noticing: Everyone was naked.

With Ice Dice made of human teeth, orgasmic gambling rigged on a tilted table where the die always rolled Crapped. "I'll bet you ten thousand workers!" "I'll bet a million homes!" "I'll bet all the Land!" Against a wall were ten chained Shirkers. "Everyone, tell me how great my dick is! Whoever does the worst gets thrown into the Alley to Cry Die!" With the screaming terror of the loss of Eternal Hope, one Shirker was unchained and tossed down a Brain Drain. Then the process of elimination of hope started all over again.

"See how we live! See what we give! We are the Sinner Winners holding the shiv!"

Looking for life in all the wrong places, the Boy ran back home and asked his Father Bother how their Family Misfortunes could so easily be gambled away by men they did not know. "There is no other way but to unknow what we know." His father comforted him, telling the Boy in time he too would Misunderstand and all would be well.

That night, shivering in his Rue Room, the Boy feared aloud: "How can I survive in a world like this?"

You Can Take The Boy Out Of The Shelter...

Living the American Dream

When you're in the homeless shelter, the Holy Grail is getting out. As I've said before, homelessness is just another form of prison. And just like in a formal prison, they blame you for being there. It's not like we're a society of integrity, you know. But life is more complex than simple solutions whether we like it - or admit it - or not.

For some that Holy Grail is real. Just being out is all they need. For others it's a mixed bag: yes, you're out now but thrown into the tangled web that is the world. The freedom you imagined in the shelter is not the freedom you live. That's still locked away behind doors of which you may never find the key, the long fuse to hell lit anew.

Believe it or not, for me, there is a sense of loss leaving the shelter. In the shelter people know I'm hurting, that I have no home, that I'm on the outside, no explanation needed. It's good to be understood, it gives one more of a sense of, well, home. Ironic, huh? I know all the phonies and cheap shot artists will be licking their lips at their own demise by my next statement but life is never so dark for me as when being a "responsible citizen" the unmasked monsters running around prize so highly.

I now responsibly have 525 square feet of a one bedroom palace (no door to the bedroom, though). Actually, I only have it as long as I can make rent on it. So few really "have" anything of permanence. But the important thing is I am a "good" statistic of a person out of the shelter and back on his feet! Gather 'round those reporters to spread the news how the system works and it's really OK if we're all a bunch of greedy cocksuckers after all. That always sells.

Who am I to tell you you sell yourself short?

Because it's expected and honesty is never vogue, I refer to this place as my "home". Actually, I mostly use the more impersonal term "house" but even that implies a home site setting. I too want to fool myself into believing I have a home, a place to rest without fear. But it would be a lie for me to profess such a canard. I sleep on a bed of leased needles. Turn over too quickly in the night and you're pierced awake. I've learned to lie still as a board and hope I find rest that never comes.

Eight bucks an hour and mopping floors. Heck, I got eight and a quarter fifteen years ago as a computer tape librarian. But if you're working and living indoors you're living the "American Dream". When time comes - when death becomes you and your children too - I can have no sympathy for you. Our fate is determined by how we treat the most vulnerable members of a society. There's a story about that in the Bible - repeated about five hundred times. I used to wonder about all that repetition but now I see people have a serious hearing problem.

Not even a new Maserati can help with self-image problems

It never surprises me about people who "have it all" then suddenly go berserk. Their beds of needles stuck them one too many times in the middle of the night. When one person sins it's shared by all. We are their accomplices. We don't have to believe we're all in this together but that's sort of like holding your breath underwater. Time comes when the truth will out. Or you can die in your pride. Either way is fine by me. But this whole Nazi thing of "Work sets you free" business has got to go.

I've read about the homeless camps that are self-organized and who recognize the mental and spiritual freedom required for true survival. I truly respect those people who stand up to a world that makes a religion of giving a free ride to the rich. We who toe the line are the only glue that's left. But I cannot join these self-governed homeless camps either. I'm not wired that way. I need to shit indoors and I need my privacy regardless of anyone's failure to understand that.

I sell my labor for things: privacy and indoor plumbing. But not for a true "home". An abandoned building all to myself is more of a home. I don't have to explain to anyone that it is mere shelter and that's all it can ever be. Here in this shelter I’m expected to put down roots and buy potted plants. What the fuck for? I can't imagine the day I'd ever put down roots. Except maybe in a movie theater.

OK, maybe I was a bit hasty about the Maserati

In the shelter I hated not being able to be alone when I wanted to be. Most of us felt a sense of togetherness and there was bonding and warmth in the face of Man's cold hearted orb. I think about those times at night here on my pointed needle bed. I had more respect there - more self respect too. Rent is a "responsibility" we've made up, a fantasy of the mind. Being true to one's self is the stone the builders' reject. But that is gonna change!

Giving unto Caesar is no way home. I wish it could be. People get red-faced angry finding out it is not. You'd be surprised who flashes murder in their eyes at even the mere mention of that truth, people who lead false lives. Yes, I too want to be able to monetize my way home. But I know that unless I can express myself honestly I'll always be sleeping on a bed of nails. Honesty is everyone's job if we are to survive but not every job is honest.

Seems I'll always be in a shelter...

I Went To "Ground Zero" For DFW Gas Drilling

"When man stops raping his soul
he'll stop raping the land
- and not before."

- American Indian proverb

See that rig on the left? That's right by the highway I drive down all the time. Gas drilling like this is going on all across Dallas/Fort Worth deeply embedded into cities right next to houses, apartments, schools - you name it. Once the drilling is done the tower rig goes down and it's capped or pumped depending on demand. But all I can think when I see one of those suckers is "God help us if one of those blows."

After finding this in my own backyard I decided it was time I did some more investigating. Just how suicidal are we? This kind of drilling has been going on for years. Poorly regulated pump stations are putting God knows what poison into the environment. Forewarned is forearmed, I say.

That well blows we're going to have some instant BBQ!

There are certain stories where I have to skip over the gory details. I know the human heart already. I know the implications. I don't need to know the exact details. It's just too insufferable. So I only vaguely know of the horrors of the side effects of gas drilling, of putting poison into people and animals - and perhaps even threatening our entire water supply if it seeps into the underground aquifers. Who are we to act like this??

DISH, Texas is Ground Zero for Barnett Shale activists who take offense at being poisoned by natural gas drilling.

I'd heard of Dish, Texas but didn't know where it was until I looked it up and it's right here on our doorstep in DFW, just down the road from a famous Bonnie and Clyde bank robbery in Ponder. Local paper FW Weekly and NPR have done numerous articles on them. So I gathered up my trusty camera and decided to see what I could see. The NPR story sounded ominous:

Quite a few of the 225 people who live in Dish, Texas, think the nation's natural gas boom is making them sick. They blame the chemicals used in gas production for health problems ranging from nosebleeds to cancer. And the mayor of Dish, Bill Sciscoe, has a message for people who live in places where gas drilling is about to start: "Run. Run as fast as you can. Grab up your family and your belongings, and get out."

From what I understand this processing facility is the worst offender

But of course you just can't be sick, you have to prove you're sick.

But scientists say it's just not clear whether pollutants from gas wells are hurting people in Dish or anywhere else. What is clear, they say, is that the evidence the town has presented so far doesn't have much scientific heft.

The mere presence of a chemical isn't enough to show it caused a symptom, scientists say. You have to show that a person was exposed to a high enough concentration for a long enough period to cause itchy eyes or a scratchy throat.

And the Dish survey didn't do that, says Tom La Point, a toxicologist at the University of North Texas in Denton, about 15 miles east of Dish, and a member of a task force looking at the impact of gas drilling.

How would you like this sign in your neighborhood?

The question of whether poisoning our environment or not is a good idea would seem to be a simple one. That's because it is! Who the fuck voluntarily puts poison in their land, water and air? Fucking brainwashed maniacs, that's who! We have convinced ourselves we have to poison ourselves in order to live. Well, aren't we special??

The town's previous mayor, Calvin Tillman, became alarmed when his two boys started getting nosebleeds. They seemed to occur when the odors of gas were strongest and air quality monitoring showed higher levels of chemicals, Tillman says.

Then one night his younger son had a really bad nosebleed.

"Our house literally looked like a murder scene," Tillman says. "There was blood down the wall and in the hallway. And I got up the next morning to go to work, and my wife said, 'That is it.' And at that moment we decided we've got to move out of here."



Despite that story and similar accounts to that I did see new construction in Dish along side existing subdivisions. What gives? Is the power of denial that strong when a comfy house can be had? Children were playing around the new construction. Who would risk their kid on even the chance of getting sick? What sort of city is it where even the mayor hates the town he lives in?

I drove around Dish and the surrounding area. I found a hodgepodge of housing from trailers to wonderful ranch houses. Oil and gas companies have domain rights even over private property in Texas and what regulatory staffs there are are filled by industry insiders. Thank you, Governor Perry! The landowners look to have capitulated and learned to live side by side with the wells.

Trailer park is spaced out under the Texas sky

Yup, that's a plane up there. What can I say? It's Texas!

One thing not lacking in the area was storage tanks. They dotted the land worse than teenage acne before a prom. Here's just a few:

These are so massive as to be walled in

I was nearing the end of my picture taking on this hot summer day when I noticed an older car following me. Finally I stopped to see if my suspicions were true and he pulled up beside me.

"Hey, why you taking pictures of my house?"

"I didn't take pictures of your house. I don't know which one that is. I'm just taking pictures at random. I read about Dish and wanted to see what's going on."

Once he found out I was not the "enemy" he opened up about his complaints. He said the processing facility where five different energy companies combined their efforts was his greatest irritant. At one point the noise was so loud two people standing ten feet apart could not hear each other. I asked if the water had been fouled but he said no as they test religiously - while acknowledging that's no guarantee of safety.

The air pollution is what's killing Dish according to my informant. You can call in a complaint about the foul air but if it clears before inspectors arrive then it's like it never happened. Even the gas industry doesn't dispute emission are occurring. What isn't known is just how much and exactly what is being emitted. With all its urban drilling the city of Fort Worth is grappling mightily with this issue also. The long term effects of emissions in a compressed area may not be known until it's too late.







What's not in doubt is the road damage - about two billion dollars. Eighteen wheelers like the tanker above pound roads to pieces that were never designed for such heavy traffic. My informant told me the graveled curve above was smooth pavement before the trucks arrived. Who's going to pay to fix them?

But when there's money to be made it's drill first and ask questions later. Man has mandated money to keep us alive. Nature mandates the environment to keep us alive. Gee, wonder who's going to win that fight?? Naturally, those who destroy the environment claim innocence. But that is Nature's judgement to make, and all the court rulings, slick arguments and spin jobs in the world won't make a damn bit of difference.

We're just pretending we have to poison our souls to live.

Scientists are quick to caution that the problems with evidence from Dish do not show that gas drilling is safe for people who live near it. What the caveats show is that there is a pressing need for rigorous scientific studies, Schwartz says.

"When these areas are developed, thousands to tens of thousands of wells are drilled and fracked. So the magnitude is huge," he says. "And frankly, the development is way out ahead of public health evaluations of any kind to date."

That's not fair to the people in Dish or any other place in the country where drilling and fracking have got people worried, he says.

Click here to see the entire set

Here's me sneaking up on a rig last year:

Knife Fights With God

Ernesto Estamos, worldwide famous Mexican sculptor, has not made a sculpture in twenty years. Yet, sales are brisk due to the efforts of Rico and Paco who have been making art in Ernesto's name for those same twenty years. They have been handsomely rewarded for their services but having signed an agreement of non-disclosure, were they ever to admit the truth they would be liable for more damages than they could earn in twenty lifetimes. Even so, the clock had run out on their bargain with the devil.

"I can't take this no more," pouted a pissed off Paco. "They come, they interview him like he's this 'great man' an' shit, and we get treated like gardeners.

"It's what we signed up for, man. No way out," reasoned Rico.

"We can quit. Sell our shit under our own name."

"You know what that means: leaving Mexico where Ernesto can't find us, starting all over, having no money. We've talked about this before."

"Fuck that old man. We got the truth on our side. What can beat that?"

"Don't mess with the truth, man. That's like getting in a knife fight with God. You get sliced up good."

"Fuck God and fuck this. All I know is I'm dying. My hair's falling out from the stress. I can't sleep with this worm inside eating me alive. People gotta know, Rico."

"If they do, we're dead." A long pause passed before Rico continued. "I don't get it, man. You got this whole planet of people wantin' to live more than anything but nobody is. Why is that?

Leaving Mexico for the wasteland of Arlington, Texas (between Dallas & Fort Worth), Paco and Rico found cheap accommodations. But in their mid forties with no skills to claim they found themselves with the jobs of unproven artists: dish washers. The kitchen was steamy, cramped and smelly with the greasy plates pouring in nonstop. Breaks were cut short but not keeping up was not an option. The pair quickly found the disdain of hard work by societies across the globe to be a universal one. Survival is never assured.

Back in the apartment, simmering silence lingering from the old country encased the room like iron bars. Truly, they had stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Paco was the first to rattle the cage.

"I told you, it's like a knife fight with God. They see us how they want to see us. No one's going to hire us to sculpt nothin' here."

"But we have the skills! Doesn't that count for anything?! Goddam God if it doesn't!"

"Ernesto was an artist, man. He could see what we could do - even if he did steal all our fuckin' work. This America, I don't know. Everyone just a number here, like a cult of science. All they understand is el dinero."

"We have no money to understand!"

"We got to sell shit again. Let's make something and sell it. People will see!"

"And spend our car money? We have to get around. How is it we end up in biggest city in Texas without a damn bus?"

"We gotta take the chance, man. No other way."

"That's what you said when we left Mexico..."

Trader's Village on Mayfield road has a weekend extravaganza of booths and makeshift shops that draws in visitors by the thousands. Stretching their resources, Rico and Paco gambled their fortunes once again. It has been said, "The truth will out" - but as each day passed the truth slipped away like a melting glacier. Still, the pair had a good feeling about their sculpted glass, knowing in their hearts its actual value. Having poured all their anxieties into the piece, it was one of the best they'd done in years. They asked only a fraction of previous pieces since it did not have Ernesto's name and because they just wanted to get the selling started.

A few admirers came by, smiling with compliments, but even at the reduced price it was too rich for this crowd. One woman, however, was a collector and duly impressed.

"Can't be! Is this an Ernesto Estamos original?"

Paco and Rico looked at each other in pain. In their souls they wished to come clean. That damned paper, signing away their souls, reached out and strangled their throats. The truth was: they had to lie - yet what bothered them most in their captivity was the cold comfort of not facing freedom's responsibility.

"This is our own, ma'am. Made it ourselves. You like it?"

A crisp coolness descended. "Well, to be honest with you guys, you need to get your own style. You can't imitate others and expect to get any sort of recognition."

She must have been sent by the devil! Paco's eyes flamed murder; Rico asked for a price. She offered what basically amounted to the cost of manufacturing and the pair were forced to accept. For three more years they came back with sculpture after sculpture, failing to make a name for themselves in the flea market, drowning in despair and dirty dish water.

"Look at my worn hands. Look at my oily face. No woman could want me! All the jobs are shit. People are shit. Our art is shit - "

"Our art is not shit!"

"Oh, yeah! So how is it we're so screwed? I can't go on like this! It's like a fucking nightmare I can't fight, I can't grab hold to nothin'. How do we win?"

"You don't win knife fights with God. You just get stuck. Ain't no truth out there to save us."

"Then what's the point of anything! I can't take this no more. I can't go back to that stinking kitchen staring at food rich people throw away. I don't want to keep living when I'm dead. No one believes you're hurtin' unless you die."

$7,000 a piece

Unbeknownst to Rico and Paco, the "collector lady" was selling their sculptures in a gallery in downtown Dallas, attributing them to a mysterious "Carlos", about whom she would (quite naturally) divulge nothing. With each succeeding "failure" the boys tried harder and harder, not realizing they were growing the cult of Carlos to prices that would easily buy them a car and a princely name. But left in the dark, all choices seemed moot.

"I don't want to make anything anymore. It's useless. We need to get practical and buy a fucking car so we can get jobs we don't have to walk to. Three fucking years, man! I've had enough. Basta! Our art is nothin'."

"Our art is NOT nothing! You know that!"

"Do I? Maybe all that time we was just fooling ourselves and the only reason we sold shit was 'cause people thought it was Ernesto's. Ever think of that, Paco?"

Paco had not, not for one moment, not until this very second. He'd held it as an unquestionable Truth they made valuable art. How could anyone not see? How could anyone think differently and still expect to survive? Had his whole life been an illusion? Was life itself an illusion?

"Can't be! Can't be..."

"I told you man, you try an' escape and God just stick that knife in ya! You get stuck good, gutted like a pig. Can't be wantin' to live. You gotta do like the world says. Ain't no dreams no more. Hell rules this planet."

Like soldiers who'd fought too long in a war, Paco and Rico's sanity slowly disintegrated in helpless despair. They could find reason in neither life nor death, their minds fading to black, stripped of meaning. Finally, they separated onto divergent paths, each seeking salvation. Paco ate a bullet, succumbing to illusion at last. Rico saved up to buy a car until he killed himself drunk driving, living his life in a bottle. In downtown Dallas a woman panicked as her source of fine sculpture suddenly dried up. Had she told them the truth, they could have shared a fortune.

Darkness, lies, illusion rule the world like a blinding fog. Is this to test us, to purify us? Why not make the truth obvious and plain as the sun? Some say it is. I guess all we can know - since we must know - is when we lie. After his death, Paco stood before his Maker and asked "Why?" How was it failure dogged their every step, no matter which way they turned. He did not like the answer.

"Because you lied."

"Lied! When did we lie? Oh, I mean except about Ernesto. But we HAD to there."

"Yes, because you lied about your work you could never claim it."

"That's not fair! We had to! If we didn't we'd lose everything!"

"As opposed to where your lying got you? I wish you'd had more faith, like the faith you had in your art. Your art pleased Me very much, now we are both the loser."

Rico, fresh from his car crash, had heard everything. "Well, if you wanted us to win, why couldn't you have given us the lottery so we could keep making our art!"

"I did. I gave you your art. It carried much earthly wealth."

"But it's so hard to tell the truth! It's so damn hard...it just feels like...death."

Oliver Stone's "Savages", A Review

That's actually Justin Bieber on the right

WARNING: There be spoilers

After being promised "powerful nihilistic visions of a world turned upside down", I knew I wanted to see Oliver Stone's "Savages", a movie playing on the drug trade story with (hopefully) insights into the recent U.S./Mexico border violence we've heard so much about in the news. I do love a stark, unvarnished look at the world with all the propaganda and American Dream garbage swept away so we can get down to brass tacks and finally start to solve our problems. That's the power a film can bring.

The journey into criminality can prove fascinating. Australia's "Animal Kingdom" (2010) told the story of a teenage boy thrust into his family's perverted underworld life with suffocating fear. The even better Winter's Bone (2010) tells of a similar journey into darkness. What's so brutal about these films is not any actual act of violence, but rather the cold-blooded tearing of family bonds combined with the ruthlessness of keeping the criminal enterprise going at all costs. When Christopher Walken decides to kill his two sons in "At Close Range" for example, the camera focuses in on his face at that exact moment for a look that will haunt you into nightmares.

But we get nothing of that sort of psychological tragedy in Stone's film. Rather, we get plug and play characters with scenes of extreme violence interjected which prove more of an assault on the audience than the characters in its fetishism of execution. The characters are straight out of central casting, some even over the top in what's supposed to be an honest film. Worst offender is the leftist California drug dealer who sojourns to Africa to save something or somebody and drives an electric car because he's just so green and you know, pseudo-liberal. His partner is an Iraq war vet who maintains you can never let your enemy smell fear! Between them is the blonde beach chick they both bang without a hint a jealousy between the three. Mere plot enablers, all.

Cartels are no match for blondie and the
war vet with his camouflaged laptop!

So the chick gets kidnapped by a ruthless Mexican cartel, the boys get to show how macho and smart they are in trying to get her back. John Revolta is the trite corrupt DEA agent playing both sides and it's sort of like watching a tug-of-war match where you already know the outcome so the back and forth motions don't really mean a lot. I started closing my eyes in places where I'd fast forward on a DVD and that only got more frequent as it went along. Of course the cartel goes down and the three run away with their loot and lament how rough it is living on a foreign beach instead of an American one. Boo-hoo. Try buffing floors for a goddam living.

Here's nihilism. The little California punks get taught a lesson for resisting the cartel, are sold out by the DEA because the biggest bully on the block always wins. The girl is sold as a sex slave. Mr. Lefty lands in a Mexican jail for life. Mr. War Vet gets his legs cut off and spends his remaining days howling in a wheelchair. In the end, the one honest cop who investigates says, "Don't worry about it, Jake. It's Tijuana."

I saw a lot of "Stone is back" reviews but don't you believe it. At no time did I feel I did not know where the plot was going. It pretended to have the intricacies of a Chinatown but without a thread to connect them. The characters were predictably naive or rigid (except maybe for cartel lieutenant Lado. I had hope for him). And it's yet another retread of the-world-depends-on-your-ability-to-be-a-badass cliché. How did Jesus ever plan to be our savior without training for hand-to-hand combat and exploding IEDs?? The film is like eating bad food at a fair: clean it out of your system as soon as possible!

Watch me become a savage lefty as I learn
what the world is really about - or not!

Review: John Lennon, The Life

"I've done more living than
most people do in ten lifetimes."

If someone were to ask me what is the most misunderstood aspect of John Lennon I would say it's his honesty. Strike me down from the heavens but I will go on record as calling John Lennon the most honest person (and easily greatest artist) since Jesus Christ. Most of us lead deceptive lives and it's human nature to paint the world with our brush. But as Johnny boy put it, "Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey".

Bottom line is when delving into John's life you see a mirror of your own. That's really tough to take. You see, there's no man a liar fears more than an honest man. The liar needs to justify his lies but the honest man's existence proves him false to the world - and unworthy of love in his mind. People have started wars over this - and committed more than one assassination.

So I put off for months reading Philip Norman's biography of John Lennon. Norman had written the fabulous Shout: The Beatles In Their Generation. The Sixties and the entire Beatle phenomena were put into perspective to show how one influenced one as much as the other. Norman showed a keen understanding of the genius of the Beatles and that in itself is a form of genius. But when one scratches the surface of the Beatles it begs a deeper understanding of Lennon, its founder and driving force.

A guilty looking Philip Norman

I did not find what I expected in Norman's Lennon biography. By Lennon's own admission there's all sorts of mythology surrounding his life - one of "walking on water" - and I had hoped to see that magic laid bare even if I had to admit my own shortcomings. But Norman backtracks in this book. It was as if facing Lennon overwhelmed him and he lost faith in himself. Sure, there's plenty of well researched information but it's insight that makes one biography stand out from another.

There's an underlying tone to prove a level of fraudulence on Lennon's part. Where once Norman understood the plight of the artistic soul he switched to a more judgemental attitude of "Lennon never really had it so rough", that he suffered from fictions in his mind. Also, since John could hide nothing, he's an easy target for mischaracterization, portraying him in a single dimensioned manner that obfuscates his true nature. At times in his editorializing, Norman's comments border on bitterness if not mean-spirited. Whatever Norman understood before, he lost in this book.

One thing I did fear did happen in that subjects he'd covered in the Shout book Norman would feel compelled to find a new angle and not repeat what he had previously written. The chaos of Apple, for instance, which details an employee running off in a Jaguar in Shout, is hardly mentioned. In fact, the book has such a compressed feel to it you start to wonder whatever it was that made John special, that brought him from the lower rungs of society to its pinnacle.

I will say it's still a must read for Lennon fans if only for the wealth of detail of John's childhood and pre-Beatle years. Leave out any conclusions Norman may interject and just imagine yourself in 1950's England (Norman does a fairly good job of painting that backdrop) and the unrestrainable nature of John Lennon during those repressed (but burgeoning) times. John also attracted like characters of an eccentric nature whose stories could be quite amusing.

John was already a legend in his own mind as a teenager - while at the same time feeling a freak of nature like no one else alive. These two forces drove him onwards while holding fast to his then unprovable faith in himself. If John needed an harmonica to live, he took it. He refused to be suffocated, "Death before work" a motto of his, horrifying his respectable Aunt Mimi. John did whatever it took to live, a person completely committed.

Before we get the shit knocked out of us, before our lacking parents foist their insecurities on us in fascist hell, before we slowly lose faith in ourselves, lies a wide-eyed child whose belief in life is absolute. John never lost that and his was a life many of us know only from the corner of the eye of dreams unlived. "All you need is love" was never John's philosophy, but his reality.

But as the book strays further from childhood so does the author's path. A pattern of incompletion emerges, such as with the Maharishi and therapist Arthur Janov. At one point John was under each of these men's spells in his search for an answer but as John said, "There comes a point where I see." The Answer Man always blows his cool - because he has no answer. But Norman makes no mention of John's eventual clarity. In the case of the Maharishi it's implied John was unfair in his rejection and of Janov's primal therapy sessions no mention is made of John falling out with him.

This left me with a feeling of a claw scratching my back, digging into to me while reading the book. On one hand I'm trying to enjoy it and on the other I'm like, "What is that annoying the hell out of me?" Just a vague, disturbing feeling leaving me unsatisfied. It crystallized for me when I read in the epilogue where Norman had submitted the book to Yoko. Yoko invited him to the Dakota after his release of Shout and he expected a similar response this time.

Instead, Yoko's reaction was that Norman had been "mean" to John (Hear! Hear!). Norman brushed this off as an overprotective Yoko and that "no one else would feel that way." Well, I for one do. John was a liberal's liberal. He had his faults, of course, but he always worked through them, always returning home. For those without a home (ahem) his is a story of inspiration. But for those who have given up on love, it's a story to be attacked.

As for me, I cannot wait until the day when all souls are revealed and we see Johnny boy as the true shooting star of love he truly was.

It's Fourth Of July And No One's A Patriot

Patriots or traitors? You decide!

Commoner
But, indeed, sir, we make holiday,
to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.

MARULLUS
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome

FLAVIUS
Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,
Assemble all the poor men of your sort;
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

It's easy find cheerleaders. They were of Caesar's time, of before his time and of this time too. They sway whatever which way the wind blows, first Pompey, then Caesar, first Hitler then Bush. We rise up those who sow the seeds of our destruction, applauding loudly in patriotic fervor - fearing that if we do not we might lose all. But sometimes it's that applause that guarantees our total loss. We wish to believe our leaders are godly because we wish to believe the same of ourselves who have raised them up.

If anyone had spoken of the utter destruction to come to Germany during a Nazi Rally he'd have been lustily shouted down as a traitor. You can hear it now. "Germany is a great nation! Love it or leave it! Criticism is treason!" Criticism was, in fact, salvation had any been heeded. But those who shouted loudest were who least wished to be questioned - as always. When things go wrong, blame it on the liberals. They lie is only kept alive if we all agree!

But who are we today here in America? A fat and lazy herd of sheep too fearful to face reality? Are we still trusting upon hero worship to save the day? ("But [fill in the blank] really is a hero!") Will military worship keep us safe from our enemies within? Is the myth of holy perfection our last hope? Are we like Germany and will only admit we're wrong after we've been destroyed? These are the questions a patriot asks every day. Critical thinking is not optional for survival, just ask the children of Dresden and Hiroshima.

The recent New York Times article describing Barack Obama’s “Kill List” made for a bumpy read. It’s not your standard Norman Rockwell fare: the president and his picture-perfect family seated at dinner, heads bowed, reciting grace. No, the good-hearted Norman, who painted Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms,” is long dead. So too, apparently, is the country he believed in.

Now, we have the image of our president sitting before a video screen poring over the faces of alleged terrorists and selecting — all on his own — those whose lives will be snuffed out. No courts, no lawyers, just the Official Accuser.

Just a hand cramp away from marking the wrong name. Oops!

Let's read this again and realize this power is for any President, for Richard Nixon's Kill List, for George W Bush's Kill List. Do we simply wish to believe whoever pulls the trigger must always be right, his motives pure, and we suffer no consequences for it? Are we so insanely arrogant and into wishful thinking we really believe we're killing a bunch of future Hitlers out there? Do we turn over our duties as citizens to a blind eye, in ignorance we trust, hoping that somehow if we don't know of a bill coming due we won't have to pay it? That's a hella plan, that!

What’s extraordinary about the Times article is that it is strangely laudatory, while describing what would normally seem sinister, if not depraved. One almost hears the president’s voice: “I’m Barack Obama, and I approved this message.” In a campaign that promises to get ugly, the article is prima facie evidence that Killer Obama is far more manly than Mitt Romney, who merely bullies gays.

So three days after he took office, having sworn to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution,” Obama ordered his first drone missile attack, in Pakistan, killing some 19 people, including four children. Since then the civilian death toll has steadily risen. In December 2009, the president’s first ordered strike in Yemen took out 44 people — dozens of women and children blown to bits.

"When in doubt, kill!" That line is literally straight out of a Rambo movie and that's where our collective heads are as well. I can certainly understand the need to kill in order to preserve the good but I also understand merely killing in the name of preserving the good that undermines us a country. Our true enemy - greed - we continue to hail even as its agents of destruction wreak havoc on us in unspeakable ways, throwing families into the street and reducing life to feudal slavery. I feel a thousand times more threatened by a Wall Street trader than I do some guy on monkey bars 7,000 miles away.

Lined up like Jews for a labor camp.
Only banker's lives count!

Of the first American citizen killed in Yemen, a cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki, Obama said, “That was an easy one.” A reporter, Samir Khan, also an American citizen, died in the attack, though he wasn’t on the kill list. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill argues that the administration has produced no evidence that al-Awlaki was guilty of any crime under U.S. law. Two weeks later, a drone missile killed the cleric’s 16-year-old son along with eight others, including a 7-year-old cousin, as they gathered at a barbecue.

Were these people terrorists? Did they deserve to die? Regardless of the answers, the real question is: Where is the rule of law?

This is what happened in Hitler’s Germany. The formation of totalitarian states depends on the cooperation or silence of the people. It also begins with the illusion that we have legitimate choices when we vote. It seems to me that Obama apologists are now in the precarious position of defending the indefensible.

So what is the definition of a terrorist? One who sows fear by engendering harm to further a personal agenda? We say we cannot live with such people in a civilized society and they must be destroyed for the greater good. So what does that mean for us who have sown many folds more terror than any group or country on this face of this earth in the 21st century? How wildly cavalier we are when concerning invading another country! We mindlessly cheer just as the Germans did the invasion of Poland and Russia.

This game ain't over yet, dear ones, and hell is coming to visit in the most horrific and helpless ways we never thought imaginable - all courtesy of clapping American patriots!

"Taxing the Poor for not Buying Health Insurance is Unfair"

I have heard people talk of being poor, of having been poor or of knowing what it's like to be poor. But boy howdy, they sure don't act like it! Anyone who celebrates this health insurance ruling is either a predator or a predator enabler (Hi, Mr. President!). This ain't no joke and this ain't no game.

Anyone who threatens my life deserves to die. I don't care why you think you may do it, you just need to be eliminated from the face of the earth for the common good. By God, a whole lot of you fit that bill! But it won't be by my hand you'll die, but by you're own. I cannot wait!!!!

This health insurance ruling is nothing more than one more way of squeezing the working poor and the middle class out of their remaining money. Go ahead, call me a freeloading Lazarus, Mr. Money Worshipper. I'll call you for what you are: an assassin no one can live with. Mandate money all you want, doesn't make you any less of a killer. DIE NOW!

It's not just the right wing destroying this country but also the comfortably left, eschewing liberal values in the name of staying comfortable. It's not a choice of people and profits, it's a choice of people or profits. Only one of those choices exists in reality, the other merely fictional numbers we use to blackmail each other with. Laugh at our ignorant ancestors all you want, we'll be laughed at just the same: witch burning capitalists, corporate superstition, and asking wooden idol dollars to save us.

I have no place in the unreality of this goddam society. I'm not here to babysit your goddam illusions. I'm here to destroy them. You're here for that too. You can buy into the bullshit all you want, receive high praise for "explaining" how we can have our profit and eat it too ("If only they would listen!"), and bless the savagery of these times but you do so at your peril. One day you'll have to stand naked and explain why, given only as much recourse as you gave: none.

First Person: Taxing the Poor for not Buying Health Insurance is Unfair, Frightening

I am frightened and disappointed by today's Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.

This legislation will do nothing to make health care more affordable for my family. Our costs have risen more than 20 percent since its passage, and I expect costs to increase even more following today's ruling. The decision came at a particularly bad time for my family, as we may lose our health insurance in a matter of weeks.

In May, my husband lost the job he'd held for the last several years. He is interviewing for a new position today, but if he doesn't find work before his coverage from his old job ends, we will be uninsured.

Under the ACA, families like mine will be fined with a tax penalty if we don't acquire health insurance. But getting insured may not be possible until my husband finds a good job.

As a 40-year-old mother of three, I'd be crazy not to want health insurance for my family. But I already know what it's like to fall through the cracks. I work hard every day as a freelance writer to pay the mortgage while my husband looks for work. My income alone certainly puts our family of five under the poverty line. But because we were responsible and put away some money in savings, we don't qualify for food stamps, free phone service or any other type of social service. Our low income is irrelevant until we've spent nearly every dime we have in savings.

Our situation is complicated by the fact that our youngest daughter has a congenital heart defect. It breaks my heart to think we might not be able to provide health insurance for her even if only for a little while. But it infuriates me to think that our government would punish us for something we simply can't avoid. We have to eat and we need a roof over our heads. If it comes down to a choice, food and shelter trump insurance.

We live in Tahlequah, Okla., a small college town where many working-class people are self-employed or work for small businesses. I dare say everyone I know wants health insurance, but good jobs with great benefits are hard to come by here.

It's just not fair to tax people for not purchasing what they simply can't afford.

Don't speak to me of acceptable flaws, that it's OK to fuck people today because we say we'll stop fucking them later, that a holocaust must be tolerated because there is no other way. That's absurd on the face of it. Go ahead, show me the life that's unimportant and not valuable, show me the person it's OK to hurt - you'll be looking in the mirror the entire time.