Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Poker Nite

Man, I don't even know how to play poker. Last time I tried, it was like six dudes around a table and every time the dealer shifted clockwise, it was like, a totally different game being called! Tension ran high as everything kept having to be explained. I think half the time they were making stuff up on the fly! Finally it just devolved into a big free-for-all fistfight.

I won the fight, but I didn't feel right about keeping the money.

Open Dream Journal #11: Eerie Tales of the Night Garden

I had a dream where I was standing in the middle of my darkened living room in the middle of the night, looking out at the garden through the glass doors. It was pitch black but I could just barely tell there was a man out there standing perfectly still.

At first I thought the person in the garden was my reflection, because he looked about my size and we were both motionless. But then the more I looked, I could tell (with dawning horror) that the angle was wrong somehow. It couldn't be my reflection.

I felt like if I kept looking, he would come crashing crashing through the glass at me. But he didn't. He just stood there right outside the glass. I was looking right at him the whole time but sometimes I couldn't see him anymore, and then suddenly I could just barely make it out that there was definitely someone there. It went on and on like that. I don't remember how the dream ended, I think I turned around and went back to bed (in the dream).

Then in the morning, there were footprints in the garden.

Just kidding. I mean, yes, there were footprints! But there are always footprints out there, we walk through there every day.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Grand Romantic Pt.2

"Grand Romantic"
When you're with someone / and they sit there,
guarding their self, with selfish regard
And you understand / we all have to prepare
We have to protect / we have to be hard
But you give yourself
You've given everything and barely got any back
And it drains you out / it wears you down
Can't love do better than that?

We're tired of taking these baby steps yes
We're all grown up and we're not too impressed
Can't we do any better? or is the best that we get?
We won't settle for it! We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large

You want a love / where you are
not always the one / giving more
You want a love / where you don't have to feel like a fool,
like you're being used
You want a love / where you can let your heart overflow
and fill the world
There's a word for people like you
(and me too)

and we're tired of playing to be second best
We know what it's worth, and it isn't a guess
So can we do better, or is this the best
that we get?
We won't settle for it.
We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large

You've given everything and barely got any back
There's a word for people like you
(and me too)

And we're tired of taking these baby steps yes
We're all grown up and we're not too impressed
So can we do better, or is this the best
that we get?
We won't settle for it! We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large
We want Love Writ Large

A Word to the Pedants

I end sentences with prepositions all the time. It’s very fucking elegant.

President Bush: Too Early to Talk "Legacy"?

I think we can give him at least some of the credit for presiding over the immense success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Admittedly, most of the hard groundwork for that success was laid during the Clinton administration, but it is traditional to give the nod to the sitting president, the one who is actively presiding when the shit hits the fan on any given chain of events. As opposed to DNA testing the shit, or inquiring as to who plugged the fan in.

That's just sort of a presidential tradition, legacy-wise. And I think it's a fair one, as long as it's applied fairly.

Hey - Has Anybody Else Had Sex?

Has anybody else out there had sex? I have to tell you, I had some the other day and I was knocked out. It was awesome! I said to myself, "why is nobody else talking about this?" So I wanted to get the word out a little bit, because I think a lot of people might be missing out.

It's weird how little we talk about sex, how seldom it comes up or is mentioned in our society. Because if you happen to stumble across it, if you happen to have any, you'd say to yourself "Shoot! You'd think this would be something shouted about from the rafters, plastered all over posters and soaked into your skull through television and movies! It's powerful stuff."

So anyway. I'm not sure why more people aren't aware of sex, but I'm going to do my part to try and get the word out.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Me 3: What The Hell, Why Not?

TO BE CONTINUED...

Me 2: The Unauthorized Alternate Autobiography

A Word of Preface: I recently found this earlier, alternate draft of my autobiography (written eerily enough in the 3rd person). Since it can't be incorporated into or reconciled with the other one, which is in the 1st person, I choose to let it stand on its own merit. Who is to decide which is which, and which is apocryphal?

And so without further ado:

Me 2: The Unauthorized Alternate Autobiography:

Humiliated by a crime he didn't commit, he took to the streets to clear his name and was hailed as a hero! Now the police pay him to do their job. Together with his sole friend and ally Jacobeen, mysterious ex-masterspy and guardian of a secret centuries old, they roam the streets bearing silent witness to the brute justice they each inflict upon the unsuspecting face and head of crime!

The End.

Me: A Comprehensive Speculative Autobiography Inspired By The True Story Of An Idea I Once Had

I was born on a Sunday afternoon. My parents told me my first word was a lie. I soon rose to a position of prominence on the jungle gym at my kindergarten playground. I grew anxious in first grade because I didn't know what the word "study" meant, and refused to ask. By second grade I had already developed strong heterosexual urges. In fifth grade these were explained to me. I was like, "gross!" In seventh grade I had the same teacher I had had in the first grade. This did not inspire confidence. Nevertheless, I broke down and finally asked her exactly what the hell did she mean by "study."

After this, my schoolwork improved. In high school I filled my geometry notebooks with outrageously false proofs incorporating geometric concepts that I had invented myself, such as "perpendiculous." I knew full well that when the teacher collected those notebooks to grade them, she would pass over these without notice. I tried the same thing with my biology notebooks, with decidedly less triumphant results. Apparently wings on a frog is a tipoff.

By college I was ready. Unfortunately, they weren't. I had to hand it to them: their unreadiness for me was more than almost a match for my readiness for them. In the end after a tightly fraught struggle I was acclaimed the victor by forfeit. That's right: the school closed down. Myself and seventeen others were awarded Magna Cum Laude degrees in a class-action settlement that I spearheaded. Then the group of us promptly disappeared into the Los Angeles underground, where we solved problems for hire until I tired of building a machine, flipping a car, and engaging in an interminable yet utterly bloodless machine gun shootout every damn single mission. I struck out on my own.

I relocated in the vicinity of the Chicago region, where I was soon to shift abruptly to the present tense.

The Bible: They Don't Write Them Like That Anymore!

Honestly, I can never get through all the way through it. I get to Judges, and then it's like - I get so hyped up! But then, the momentum sort of flags after that one. It can't sustain.

But the way the book itself is put together has always intrigued me. I wonder why nobody writes their books like that these days? Like, a whole bunch of semi-unrelated books with different titles jammed between two covers and - most importantly - broken down by chapter and verse. That's a nice little touch! Got to have the chapter and verse. Little numbers dancing in superscript!

Now, don't misinterpret me. I don't mean such a book would have to be explicitly biblical in theme. In fact, that's my whole point: it shouldn't be. It's been done. But I believe the Bible's peculiar format could be fruitfully adapted to some other narrative purpose. Why not? Where is it written that the Bible is the only book that can be put together in that crazy numbered-up pastiche of styles? Let's experiment with the form! Let's at least give it a try, to let that style spread its wings across farther skies. See where the wind takes us!

Now, obviously this isn't a project for just any author. It would have to be one of those writers with mammoth stamina, and promethean creativity to match. One of those 850+ page churner-outers. Wally Lamb could totally do it!

Mr. Lamb, I am totally looking forward to your next book. Whatever it may be.

However long it may be.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A Few Things You Might Not Notice About My Hidden Secret Poetry Blog

Okay. There's an unusual number of Valentine's Day themed poems on there. That stems from that Valentine's Day poetry contest I unsuccessfully entered a few years back. You can read about that elsewhere if you're interested.

A lot of the poems (especially a couple of the Valentine's Day poems) are pretty awful, but I'm not censoring them or taking stuff down. If a poem is bad, that's your fault for reading it. It was perfectly fine before you read it. It inhabited its own conceptual space: unread, unjudged, sufficient unto itself. The badness of it formed in your own mind, as you read. Therefore: blame yourself, you hypocritical solipsist!

Next. Um. Oh yes, the use of the term "pome" which occurs in some of the pomes is a deliberate stylistic quirk, I forget why. Also the reference to "ancient Chinese world" in the poem "Samurai!!" is not a mistake, but an attempt to underscore the stark displacement and alienation of the Samurai - alone yet uncompromised in a world not his own!

I don't really recommend reading "The Sea-Bird" on its own. I think it works much better as presented on this blog, with preamble and explanatory remarks. However, I couldn't bear to omit it from what is after all, my principle cornucopia of poetic sentiment.

What else. Oh yeah, the hidden secret poetry blog is (as I've said) hidden and secret. But I was mulling over the idea of clicking it over to public, hence this here commentary. So what do people think? Should I make that the topic of my next poll once the current one ends?

EDIT: Oh yeah. There is NO COMMENTING enabled on the hidden secret poetry blog. There's just no point to that. It just...the whole idea detracts. A poem should stand alone, uncommented-upon, at least right there where it is it should stand on its own. It's not like one of those restroom stall poems where it's traditional and expected to scrawl your rebuttal underneath. If you really want to comment on a poem, you can always do it here in the comments thread of this post.

EDIT2: Shoot, I totally forgot! My restroom-stall poem! I left it out. Totally spaced it. I guess should really put that on there, too, for the sake of completeness if not art. Wow, going way way back to the well!

I've been a poet a very, long time.

As I've Always Said

Honesty is the only debt true friendship can incur.

Commenting For This Post Is Disabled

This post has basically been shut down and the original text moved here.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Hate Pt.4: And The Hate Kept A-Rollin'

What we need to do is ridicule and scorn the attitude - everywhere we find it, whether in the Balkans or Appalachians - that deeds done by those now generations dead should govern how we act today. Hate is not genetic. It's memetic - and it is a chain that can be broken.

We need to acknowledge the problem is there, that hate still lingers in the benighted minds of some and continues to motivate their present-day actions. We can't hush that up or smooth it over - it needs to be publicized, and people need to be educated as to why that attitude is moronic and dangerous.

We've actually come a very long way in terms of making progress against ethnic and race-based hate. We need to strike at its roots. Every person needs to be exposed to the message that a living person is responsible only for what they do - not for what their grandparents and ancestors did.

As long as people dispute that truth in their hearts, violence will keep seeping from history...into life.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Friday, February 20, 2009

redeye

time.
stops.
for 5 hours
,
sitting suspense
inside a giant pill.
pressure in your head, ears stuffed
with ambient sound; hiss of air
from a thousand plastic nozzles
letting the air in from nowhere
waiting
looking around the cabin
the backs of peoples' heads
waiting.
looking out the window: earth so bright -
the ground so far below, colors
thinning out into the air,
colors thinning out
into blue

waiting.
the outside window has
(squint)
a tiny crack in it
just a crack
- waiting

Annoyed, you look up
you reach up,
twist the toy nipple shut
cutting off the air (that blasts your eyes for a second)
button click
turning off the little light.
grasp at the handle, pull
down
push
sliding the window panel down,
shutting out the light.
The light comes from inside now
brown, dim, like a paper bag with
a flashlight inside
dim enough to sleep, but
not enough for you to sleep.
There are
books to read,
and magazines, and
this safety card.
If You Are Seated In An Exit Row
but you are not seated in an exit row.
you would like to be seated in an exit row
it would be nice to have some responsibility.
your book seems to have petered out
right in the middle of a sad chapter.
Sad,
but not sad enough
to want to keep dragging through it
with itchy eyes, and a neck
that kinks when you shift your seat

now you are a little worried. you always are

you wish this poem was over, already
safely over! Well Over
coming in smooth and graceful, with that rubber jolt and bump and rumbling roll
letting you know "OK! Even if
the wheel struts snap - we're already on the ground now,
and the fuel is spent (mostly) - and so we'll probably all get out okay"
(mostly)
but
the poem isn't over.
It's going to keep dragging on

dragging through the thin blue sky
in a high white arc
til the clouds go dark
in another couple hours.
til the clouds go dark,
and the wheels come out
and time restarts.
For another couple hours,
waiting.
you reach over, pull
push,
open the window

- just a crack

Grand Romantic?

Being in love is not a feeling, it is a choice. Yes, there are feelings that underlie it. Feelings without which love could never or would never have begun. And yes, if those feelings died forever, then the love itself can't endure.

But those feelings come and go. They are not love.

If you think that is what love is - merely the cheap and giddy throb and thrum and swell of emotion - well, congratulations on what is sure to be a life of grand, romantic tragedy. One sad love piled on top of the other. Filled with epic sweeps, great Loves, and never once one single mature love that is real or true. Always complaining: why can I not find lasting love, as others do?

I will tell you why: because love is not a feeling. If you think love is a feeling, then you have never felt it. You have felt infatuation. Infatuation can last a very long time. It can last years. But eventually, the feeling goes. And then the lovers despair, and they run in separate directions because their "love" has died. They curse love, and fate, they salt their pillows with tears because of their grief over the love that has died.

And yet, they never had love. They have no idea what love is. They think love is a feeling.

Feeling is not what truly makes love, or what keeps love true. When you love someone, if you ever do truly love someone, what you love is that person - body and soul, you love who they are, their qualities and quirks and virtues and foibles. Your love is for what is in them. Real love loves the person. Infatuation loves the feeling.

Love starts with that feeling, but then makes a choice: to honor that person, to stick it out with that person. The person who you love. Love is commitment with butterflies. But the foundation of respect is more important than the butterflies!

Now, I get the butterflies. I love the butterflies! And the butterflies go away, and when they do, I'm not worried in the slightest. Why not? I'm not worried because of what the sad, tragic, grand romantic never sticks around to learn: the butterflies come back. Many times, over the course of a love that does not die.

Love's moon waxes and wanes. The tide of our love withdraws, and comes roaring back, but our love is not the tide. Our love is the beach where we two meet. Our love is the coastline where we come together: ocean and continent. You wash over me and I dissolve into you. We love each other. We are honest with each other. We have faith. As the tide goes in and out, the shape of how we fit together changes, but even at our tide's lowest ebb I know you. You are the person I love. I love who you are. Not the role you play in my life. Not what you can do for me. Not some feeling that flits about my fluttering auricles and ventricles.

I love YOU.

And I am the one you love. Each of us loves the other, each of us loves the person. Since we each love who the other is, our love can not fail as long as we remain ourselves.

Oh, feelings change. Oh! They do. They grow, evolve, recede and resurge. It is no cause for despair, my love! We aren't juveniles who wake up one day wringing our hands, saying "oh! Catastrophe! I don't feel love today! To be true to myself and to you, my partner, I must break this off immediately by jumping ship to some cheap and delicious betrayal!"

I mean, shit. Grow up.

Open Dream Journal #47: The Troubling Possibly Racist Overtones of Superman's Attitude Problem

Alright I was watching tv in this dream, and it was a Superman movie or tv show or something, only they had decided Superman was black now, which is fine. They're always switching stuff around like that. Except - he was really kind of a JERK. Very high and mighty! As if superciliousness was now part of the super powers package. It was terribly off-putting and gave a bad impression, at least in my mind. Why should white guy Superman be all aw-shucks goody-nicepants, but black guy Superman has to come all hardcore and haughty?

Frankly it troubled me that they would make those sorts of choices.

Oh yeah, and THIS was totally weird: He never walked on the ground. If he was going to come down from flying, to address the crowd or whatever, he would do it from the top of this gigantic pair of stilts.

Disturbing.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Confessions by St. Augustine of Hippo

I read that whole book! That Augustine was a firecracker. I don't endorse all of his conclusions, but he certainly was a fiery light and a good read for anyone who needs a swift kick in the spiritual ass. You may howl! You may growl. You may say "ow". But that Augustine will force you to a reckoning of some kind by the time he lets go of your collar!

I want to meet that guy. This is going to be so awesome! Meeting some of these folks who've reached you from afar - fellow communicants as it were, in the body of Christ? How cool is that going to be.

Isn't that going to be SO COOL??

I'm in no rush.

Uncompromising Thought of the Day

If you can't own your faults, you have no claim on your virtues.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

My New Anti-Vampire Plan!

Alright. You want to know what it is? Here it is: holy water. Holy water dissolves vampires. We don't know why it works - the very idea seems to run completely contrary to known scientific principles. But we do know that it does work. And even if Science can't explain it, there's one thing Science never disputes: proven, repeatable results. Every time you take an actual vampire and immerse it in holy water, we know what happens: it dissolves. Usually with a lot of thrashing and shrieking.

Holy water works.

But "so what?" you say. "We've known about holy water for years. What's so quote-unquote 'new' about that?" you say.

Well as Eric Clapton would say, it's in the way that you use it! Or to be more specific: it's the delivery system, stupid.

For once, let's get Science and the Church to work together on this one. Vampires are a bigger problem than whatever piddling little beefs these two have between them. Church: work with Science! Science: bow your humbled head for just this important project! The Church needs your know-how. You need their holy roll! Just both sides get together on this and figure out some kind of hi-tech yet consecrated way to seed rainclouds in such a fashion that the very rain they produce rains down holy. The vampires will be caught completely off guard.

These damn vampires. Walking around all goth, so smug and fashionable. Laced up with ungodly amounts of laces laced across their black cloth and leather ensembles with their ruffled blood-red ruffs peeking out of the sleeve cuffs, or what have you. DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU FOUL, BLOOD-SUCKING KILLERS! You think you are oh so civilized and monstrous, but in fact you are merely beasts! Demons, making a mockery of human form! And your day will come!

Or more precisely...your night will come. You will be strolling the wet, light-streaked darkened city streets, lazily eyeing your prospective prey as it throngs around you laughing, full of light and life and joy and wonder. And you wish only to cut life short, to gorge yourself on life's blood. When the crash of thunder rolls overhead, and the girls and boys dart for the doorways laughing, you will let out a low chuckle. "What is lightning to me? What is the storm to one such as I? I who am invulnerable to such things."

Then down comes the rain. HA!! How about some HOLY WATER for your FACE!? HUH!? How about it, Dracuella? You LIKE THAT?? That's RIGHT! YEAH!!! MELT!! Melt like a brown-sugar cinnamon WITCH you thrice-damned undead devil's thrall! Die and die and die, die again! Die finally, you thing of death.

Man, if there's one thing I can't fucking stand it's vampires.

Seanibus: My Big Fucking Hero

And then there's Seanibus. Look at this guy. Who does he think he is? I don't know who he thinks he is, but I know who I think he is. I know who other people think he is. Big hero. Big journalistic paragon. The man with the keen mind and the penetrating insight. Which really - "insight"? They should call it "outsight." You're looking outward into others, not inward into yourself right? Come on!

I mean, am I right? Come on.

You tell me, buddy.

Do you ever get tired of people asking you "what's the secret"? Has anyone ever asked you that? It seems like in stage plays by people like Arthur Miller, people get very desperate and serious and ask each other "what's the secret"? It never happened to me, but I figured maybe you've caught a little of that action. It didn't hurt to ask.

I'll tell you what I think. I think the cut of someone's jib is an outmoded fucking criteria upon which to judge a person. That's what I think.

Anyway, I'll let you get back to that. How's it going buddy?

Johannes Brahms: A Critical Reassessment Pt.2: A Slightly Less Critical Reassessment

Aaaaah, I guess he was okay. He's alright.

Johannes Brahms: A Critical Reassessment

That dude sucked.

Another Round of More Little Known Facts About Our Furry Friends

Most dogs love God. Most cats, on the other hand, are atheists who believe dogs are simple-minded fools.

They believe that of humans too, of course. As is more widely known.

Choose Your Battles!

FOOL! You DARE to confront me! Then ready your defenses! By which I mean!!! Prepare for them to be BREACHED!! I will confuse, break down and then shatter your guard with three canny contrapuntal feints surmounted by a single well-placed CRUSHING BLOW!

You lie there prostrate, dizzied and tasting blood running in tiny rivulets from the inside of your bitten cheek, wondering "WHAT did I do WRONG?"

FOOL!! You didn't CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES!!

THAT'S what. Next time, don't make such a foul, unmanly, cowardly mistake.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Just Call Me 'Jeddo'

From now on, I think I'd like to be referred to as 'Jeddo.' That's a pretty sweet nick-name, with a lot of character to it! 'Jeddo.' Yeah.

People would be like, "Hey, 'Jeddo'!" And I'd be like, I'd look at them with that winning combination of alertness and eye contact that is my trademark. And they'd be like, "Hey, 'Jeddo'! Do you mind if I call you 'Jeddo'?"

And then I'd be like, "Not at all! In fact, that's what I prefer to be called."

'Jeddo.'

"Hot N Cold" Over This Katy Perry

I happened to be watching a video by chanteuse nouvelle, outrƩe et chaude Katy Perry, when I was suddenly struck aghast by the...there's no other way to put this. The similarity. The similarity between the hook from her song "Hot N Cold," and the hook from one of mine ("Sensitive Soul").

Her part goes:
'Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white

Mine goes:



Well look, it doesn't really matter how mine goes. It's close enough! Point is: she got hers out first. Now, I'm no sore loser. Fair is fair. OBVIOUSLY she came up with mine completely independently of me coming up with hers! I'm not trying to claim anything shady. No shady doings were done.

But I'm just saying...OK, her melody is nothing like mine. So there's that. And mine doesn't use all the exact same opposites, nor does it resolve the same way with fight/breakup, kiss/makeup. Instead, it brings in an unrelated angle.

So I guess what I'm saying is...

The case I'm going to try to make, here, is that packing a refrain chock with near-rhymed opposites is a banal and obvious enough ploy that you can't really say it would constitute plagiarism on either of our parts.

I'm taking the high road.

Miss Perry, would you care to follow suit?

Periodic Review of Labels (Ranked by Frequency)

Pretty telling stuff:

Labels (Ranked by Frequency)
thoughts (89)
criticism (70)
God (69)
music (57)
rock (52)
(50) love, songs
movies (49)
poetry (44)
(41) science, work
(38) the blog, tips
food (35)
(33) artistic integrity, writing (33)
controversy (31)
fiction (30)
(29) politics, social norms
language (28)
holidays (25)
me (24)
(23) sexuality, theology
(21) blogging, dreams
(20) alcohol, sex
(19) Jesus Christ, nostalgia
(18) concerts, death, ideas, philosophy, violence, wrongness
(17) medicine
(16) NFL, cars, feminism, truth
(15) advice, afterlife, humor
(14) Christmas, Satan, safety, the law,
(13) America, history, quotes, sports, the universe
(12) AC/DC, Road Safety Corner, Sunday, apology, fight, humanity, physics, proposals, saints, writers par excellence
(11) atheism, life, media, recipes, science fiction, superheroes, time
(10) albums, business, drawings, faith, inventions, jokes, memory, names, pitches, relationships, restaurants, self-examination, sexism, tv, war
New Direction (9)
loss (9)
prayer (9)
profanity (9)
sayings (9)
traffic (9)
Art (8)
common courtesy (8)
eggs (8)
evolution (8)
hegemony (8)
marriage (8)
money (8)
power (8)
race (8)
screenplays (8)
the mind (8)
warnings (8)
Christianity (7)
Independence Day (7)
New Years (7)
Special Guest Shot (7)
beer (7)
beverages (7)
birds (7)
breakfast (7)
environmentalism (7)
existentialism (7)
friends (7)
hate (7)
hell (7)
illness (7)
literature (7)
lunch (7)
martial arts (7)
nudity (7)
pain (7)
perfection (7)
propaganda (7)
questions (7)
secrets (7)
spam (7)
stupidity (7)
tough topics (7)
Batman (6)
Blade Runner (6)
McDonald's (6)
My Toyota Tercel (6)
Tina Fey (6)
activism (6)
argument (6)
breasts (6)
children (6)
days (6)
fans (6)
gay issues (6)
global warming (6)
government (6)
heroism (6)
huh (6)
intelligence (6)
nature (6)
paradox (6)
pool (6)
religion (6)
sincerity (6)
youth (6)
Ang Lee's Hulk (5)
Crowded House (5)
Def Leppard (5)
Flannery O'Connor (5)
Highway 17 (5)
King Kong (5)
Neil Finn (5)
OOCCOOPB (5)
Ridley Scott (5)
The Beatles (5)
U-Tube (5)
aging (5)
analysis (5)
apples (5)
babies (5)
belief (5)
bicycling (5)
computers (5)
creation (5)
crime (5)
drugs (5)
education (5)
evil (5)
fashion (5)
heaven (5)
humble (5)
hypocrisy (5)
lists (5)
logic (5)
mathematics (5)
months (5)
morons (5)
paranoia (5)
polls (5)
problems (5)
reality (5)
replicants (5)
short stories (5)
technology (5)
trash-talking (5)
Buddhism (4)
Catholicism (4)
Dallas Cowboys (4)
Godzilla (4)
Hitler (4)
New Jersey (4)
Obama (4)
Presidents (4)
Top H List (4)
Valentine (4)
addiction (4)
advertising (4)
angels (4)
anger (4)
animals (4)
beauty (4)
beef (4)
black ops (4)
bullshit (4)
burgers (4)
commenting (4)
commercials (4)
contests (4)
espionage (4)
fetishes (4)
fires (4)
fitness (4)
grammar (4)
headlines (4)
health (4)
insanity (4)
insults (4)
jihad (4)
letters (4)
men (4)
milk (4)
morality (4)
mortality (4)
paranormal (4)
parties (4)
patriotism (4)
police (4)
psychology (4)
rapping (4)
reincarnation (4)
retractions (4)
sacrifice (4)
sanity (4)
sin (4)
sociopaths (4)
suicide (4)
t-shirts (4)
terrorism (4)
the Bessemer Process (4)
tragedy (4)
tricks (4)
worlds (4)
Lables with 3 occurrences:
Back In Black, Bionic Woman, Bret Michaels, Clinton, Coca-Cola, Darwinism, Friedrich Nietzsche, Klaxons, Kool Moe Dee, Nazis, OKGO, Pet Shop Boys, Rock Of Love, Silversun Pickups, Snow Patrol, Thanksgiving, The USMC, Twilight Zone, UFOs, Vietnam, abs, academia, aftershave, agnosticism, alienation, aliens, asses, bathing, blood, brand loyalty, bumper stickers, cake, capital punishment, chickens, comics, communication, corruption, cowardice, dada, deception, depression, dinosaurs, disasters, disclaimers, domes, ecology, erudition, etiquette, excuses, fear, feelings, fireworks, funerals, gender issues, guilt, guitar, haiku, heart, hey baby, hymns, ignorance, infinity, justice, karaoke, labels, luck, magic, magnesium, metaphors, mixed metaphors, moving, mythology, nuclear, objectification, opera, originality, penises, pie, porn, practice, previews, public nuisances, racism, revenge, ribs, rumors, satire, scams, schools, scrambled eggs, semantics, shame, sitcoms, smoking, spirituality, stars, success, sweet potato fries, tardiness, the AIDS, the Bible, the internet, tough guy, victory, weekend, wine, wisdom, women,

Labes with 2 occurrences:
Arthur C. Clarke, Baby Boomers, Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, Big Bopper, Black Keys, Boont, Buffalo Bills, Byaaah, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dan, Dirty Harry, Feng Shui, Frank, Genetically Modified Organisms, Germany, Halloween, Harry Potter, Hercules, Iraq, James Bond, James McMurtry, Jason Bourne, Jennifer Lopez, LL Cool J, Labor Day, Las Vegas, Leonardo DiCaprio, Liam Neeson, Little Known Facts, Logos,
Los Angeles, MMPI, MTV, Matt Damon, Michael Jackson, Neil Tennant, Nobel Prize, Palin, Paris, Phil Collins, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Postmodernism, Pro Bowl, Rachel Weisz, Ritchie Valens, Roger Ebert, Rush, SETI, Scarlett Johansson, Scientology, Sinatra, Sno-White Drive In, Speed Racer, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, Star Wars, State mottos, Super Bowl, Superman, Talkin' Sweet, Terry Ballard, The Eagles, The Olympics, The Pope, The Scientificus, The Supreme Court, Tolkien, Tom Sawyer, Tom Swifties, Uncanny Valley effect, acacias, accents, acres, acting, adulthood, anguish, answers, band names, battle, bears, beat box, bees, bigotry, biopics, biscotti, blowouts, boasts, books, botany, brash, buddies, bunnies, cancer, cannibalism, capes, capitalism, cartoons, catastrophes, cats, celebrity, cheese, chryselephantine, clouds, coffee, cold, college, colors, compliments, contemplation, contrition, cool, cop, corn, cows, crap, creativity, cruelty, cynicism, dairy, darts, decency, defense, destruction, deviled eggs, disease, dogs, dolphins, drunks, ducks, dudes, dumb, dysfunction, earth, effects, eleven eleven, elitism, encouragement, epidemics, epiphanies, exercise, eyes, failure, family, fate, feet, fidelity, frustrated ambitions, games, greed, haircuts, head, heat, horror, horses, hot dogs, hygiene, impulses, injury, insecurity, intellect, interpersonal dynamics, isolation, janked, justifications, juxtaposition, lemons, letdowns, lies, lions, lust, meaning, meanness, meat, mental illness, military, minorities, modern-day warrior mean mean pride, monsters, mothers, multiverses, murder, muse, musicals, my keen eye, news, not even funny, obituary, observations, opinions, pants, personal revelations, perversion, pigs, plagiarism, predictions, prejudice, privacy, privilege, prophecy, psychopaths, pus, quantum theory, rap, reform, regards, roads, rules, sadness, sarcasm, saturday, second-guessing, self-portrait, serious, shakes, sky-diving, slavery, sleep, soup, spaghetti, spelling, spiders, strategy, superstition, sweetness, tan lines, taxicabs, tests, the Blues, the Civil War, the Renaissance, the future, the moon, the sky, theater, theories, tow-trucks, toys, turkey, vambraces, virginity, viruses, wackos, whites, wikipedia, wishes, word of the day, wordhood, youth culture

Labels with 1 occurrence:
10-4, 2pac, 30 Rock, 300, ACLU, Abduction, Aerosmith, Agent, Aimee Mann, Air Marshalls, All Saints Day, Alton Brown, American Idol, Aotearoa, Apple IIe, April Fool, Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph Company, Attempted Murder, Auction, Ayurveda, BOWLING, Bagelry, Basho, Belated Craze Bandwagon, Big Daddy Kane, Big Moody Curve, Bigfoot, Birthday Party, Bjork, Blogs of Worthiness, Blood Splatter, Boat, Bob Dylan, Bob Ross, Bobby Brown, Bodyguard, Bonny Doon, Boy King, Brendan O'Brien, Broken Mirror, Bryan Adams, Buddy Holly, CIA, CNN, Calvin, Camaros, Camera Phone, Camille Claudel, Canada, Car Chase, Carl Sagan, Casablanca, Casey Kasem, Champagne, Channel 101, Charlie Brown, Chase On Boat, Chase Scene, Chesterton, China, Chris Lowe, Christmas Eve, Christmas carols, Chuck Norris, Cigare Volant, Clay Aiken, Climb Through Window, Coimbra, Concert, Corpse, Crayola, Criss Angel, Cronenberg, Cup Noodles, Cut Arm, DJs, Damien Von Schwantz, Dark City, Daylight Savings Time, DeNiro, Dean, Denominitarianism, Desert Storm, Dick Cheney, Dick Jauron, Did You Hear, Diogenes, Discovery Channel, Divorced Couple, Doctor Martens Boots, Doctor Who, Don Henley, Door Slam, Dorian Gray, Double Mustard Dog, Dragging Body, Drug Addiction, Dutch, Ed Norton, Edward Gorey, Electrocution, Elevator, Elliott Smith, Elvis Costello, Emily Mortimer, Endangered Species List, Entertainment Weekly, Equals, Ex Wife, Explosion, Extortion, F6, Faerie, Fall From Height, Fantastic Four, Father Daughter Relationship, Female In Bra And Panties, Flashback Sequence, Food Network, Foot Chase, Frasier, Gandalf, Garden State, George Bush, George Lucas, Girl In Bra And Panties, Good Eats, Good N' Plenty, Google, Googlepedia, Goth, Grammys, Greek, Gulden's mustard, HIV, Handcuffed To Pipe, Hawaii, Head And Shoulders, Heartless Bastards, Heath Ledger, Held At Gunpoint, Hiding Under Bed, Hit By Truck, Hit In The Throat, Hobbes, Hot Fuzz, How Come, Hugh Jackman, Human Trafficking, INXS, Ides of March, Immigrant, Impersonating A Police Officer, Indians, Irish, Irish Spring, Iron Chef, Iron Man, Isaac Asimov, J.K. Rowling, Jack Nicholson, Jacob's Ladder, James Spader, Jani Lane, Jarvis Cocker, Jazzy Jeff, Jerome, Jessica Alba, Joe Perry, John Basedow, John Edwards, John Waite, Johnny Marr, Jolly Green Giant, Jump Through Window, Jumping Off Bridge, June, KPIG, Kahlil Gibran, Kanye West, Kick Door In, Kicked In The Crotch, Kicked In The Face, Kidnapping, Kmart, Knife, Krypton, L.A. Confidential, Lake San Antonio, Larry King Live, Leap Year, Led Zeppelin, Leonardo Di Vinci, Lesbian Gay Bi Transgendered Pride, Lethal Weapon 2, Lindsay Lohan, Lionel Richie, Luciano Pavarotti, Lyme Disease, Lynyrd Skynyrd, MC Chris, MC Funkee Duncan, Maglite brand flashlights, Majestic Dragon, Mark Wahlberg, Marx, Mary, McCain, McNuggets, Medicare, Mexicans, Michael Crichton, Michael Dukakis, Michael Stipe, Milky Way, Moulin Rouge, Mozart, Mustangs, Natalie Portman, Neck Breaking Scene, Needle, New Age, New Age crap, New Kids On The Block, New Yorker, Newcastle Brown Ale, Nick, Nicolas Cage, Nixon, No Country For Old Men, No More Tears, Noonie, OMG, On Through The Night, One Word Title, Overturning Car, Owen Gleiberman, Pac Man, Pacino, Paul Giamatti, Paul Newman, Paul Thorn, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Pete Yorn, Peter Hook, Phil Collen, Philadelphia, Phillies, Photobucket, Pinback, Pistol Whip, Plato, Polynesia, Ponce De Leon, Pop Star, Pop Tarts, Portugal, Prostitute, Public Enemy, Pulp Fiction, Punched In The Face, Q-Tips, Qui-Gon Jinn, Racer X, Raised Middle Finger, Reagan, Restaurant RIP, Revenge Motive, Richard Dreyfuss, Richard Thompson, Righteous Rage, Rights, Rivers Cuomo, Robert Downey Jr., Romantic, Rosey Grier, Roy Batty, Rufus Wainright, Ryan Karels, SAAB, Saddam Hussein, Santa Claus, Scorcese, Screaming, Seanibus, Sex Trade, Sharpie®, Shootout, Shot In The Arm, Shot In The Back, Shot In The Chest, Shot In The Forehead, Shot In The Leg, Shot In The Shoulder, Shot In The Stomach, Shot Through Window, Shot To Death, Simon and Garfunkel, Smashing Pumpkins, Social Security, Socrates, Sons of McBitches, Sophocles, Space Invaders, Spanish, Spit In The Face, Spring, St. Benedict, St. John, St. Patrick, St. Thomas Parish, St. Valentine, St. Valentine's Day, Stabbed In The Arm, Stabbed In The Chest, Stabbed In The Leg, Stalin, Star Trek, Stealing Car, Stepfather, Stephen Colbert, Stephen King, Steve Buscemi, Steve Young, Steven Seagal, Steven Tyler, Strangulation, Surveillance, Sweden, TARDIS, Taco Bell, Taken, Tape Recorder, Tarantino, Tattoo, Teddy Roosevelt, Thai food, The Bangles, The Coen Brothers, The Crane, The Cure, The Departed, The French, The Godfather, The Grand Duke of Luxembourg, The Mach 5, The Outer Limit, The Positive Thought Process, The The, The X-Files, They Might Be Giants, They Say, Thriller, Thrown Off Balcony, Tied To Bedpost, Tied To Chair, Tolkein, Tom Cruise, Tom Petty, Torture, Tortured To Death, Trainspotting, Translation, Trapped In Elevator, Tru-Coat, U2, Uh, Usher, Wallace Shawn, Warren Zevon, Waterworld, Weezer, William Shatner, William of Ockham, Wolverine, Wonder Woman, X-Men, Zero Wing, abbreviations, abortion, actresses, adoption, afternoons, ahem, airplanes, amoebas, analogies, anarchy, animal abuse, anomalies, apes, apocrypha, appetizers, artificiality, assholes, asterisks, atheists, attack, attitude, authority, auto-save, awfulness, bad intelligence investment, bad juju, bagels, ballet, balloons, baloney, bananas, baseball, bean dip, being white, bicentennial quarters, bildungsroman, biology, birthdays, black holes, black music, blessings, boardwalk, body language, boom boxes, bosses, boxing, bras, breakdown, brie, brimstone, buffers, bugs, bullseye, bus, butterflies, calling, candy, cataclysms, caucasianeity, causes, cell phones, cheating, chemistry, cherry blossoms, cherry pie, chocolate, cinnamon, cleanliness, clothes, clowns, cognition, coins, cologne, combat, comediennes, common sense, condoms, confessions, construction, cork, cork taint, corn pone, courage, covetousness, crickets, critiques, crushes, curiosity, dates, dawn, dealys, defecation, delusion, democracy, demons, despair, destiny, devils, diaries, dickwad, dictionaries, dignity, dilemmas, dinner, diplomacy, diplomatic immunity, dirtbags, disabilities, disappointment, disbelief, doorjambs, double-standards, doubtrude, downfall, drama, drum solos, duty, e-mail etiquette, earthquakes, economics, efficiency, eggs benedict, electronics, ellipses, emergencies, emus, enemies, enthusiasm, envy, ethics, expectoration, extinction, faces, facial hair, fairness, farms, feasts, feces, figure skating, fingernails, fire, flags, flattery, flowers, folk, fonts, fools, fortune cookies, french, french toast, friday, fries, fun to say, fury, gay porn, gems, generations, geography, ghosts, gifts, girlfriends, glory, gnosticism, goals, goat-related childhood trauma, goats, good, gorgeous, gossip, graffiti, gratuitous morbidity, gravy, grief, grizzlies, grooming, gym class, habits, hail, hamburgers, hanging around, happiness, hard-earned, head-butts, headaches, headlights, helicopters, heraldry, heralds, heroin, hidden significance, high school, hiking, historians, hurt, hyperbole, hypotheticals, hysteria, ice cream, idealism, ideals, imagination, inarguable, incest, indecorousness, indisposed, inevitability, infamy, inheritance, insight, insouciance, instinct, insurance, irony, isms, itch, jargon, je t'aime, jewelry, jingoism, journalism, ketchup, keys, kiwi, lampshades, laughter, lemonade, libraries, license plates, lightning, limes, lips, loofas, loons, lottery, lullaby, malted, marathon, marine botany, masochism, maturity, maudlin sentimentality, mediocrisy, meekness, meetings, melitism, melodrama, message boards, meteors, method acting, milkshakes, mindja, miracles, misogyny, misspellings, mistakes, mold, monarchy, monkeys, monopoly, mornings, mother-of-pearl, motorcycles, mudaneity, muscles, mysticism, necrophilia, need, negotiation, neighborhoods, neurophysiology, niceness, night, nonconformism, noses, numbers, oblivion, onus, onychophagia, openness, oppression, optical illusions, oranges, organisms, parking, pasta, pathetic, pathos, peaches, peacocks, peahens, pedantry, pedophilia, pennies, perception, peurile, phlegm, photosynthesis, phrases, picketing, pickles, picks, picnics, pineapple, plein-air, pneumonia, pointlessness, points, pone, pop culture, popcorn, positivity, potatoes, poverty, pranks, preaching, precocity, prescriptions, pretentiousness, pretzels, priorities, procrastination, prodigies, productivity, prolificacy, pshaw, puerile, punctuation, punk, pyromania, quarters, quitting, rage, rain, rants, razor blades, razors, reality shows, reasons, redemption, relish, remorse, remote viewing, renaissance fairs, repentance, reverence, rhinotillexis, right of way, rigor, robots, roll, rose petal jam, sabotage, sagacity, sauces, scandals, scatology, schizophrenic, scholarship, scoring, screeners, sculpture, sealing wax, selfishness, sensation, service, sex offenders registry, shampoos, shaving, shit pops, shizzle, shock, shoes, showering, shrubbery, sighs, sinners, skin, sliced bread, slurs, snobs, snot, soap, soft drinks, solos, some guy, spackle, specifics, spin, stains, stardom, statistics, straw, struth, stuff, submissiveness, subversiveness, suffering, sugar, suspects, taunts, tea, teeth, temptation, the Axis Powers, the British Antilles, the Brunching Shuttlecocks, the English, the Fillmore, the Horse King, the Titanic, the World Series, the buddy system, the cross, the nasty, the possible, thievery, this guy, threats, thumbs, tidal waves, tigers, toilets, tolerance, tools, tradition, traffic lights, trains, trees, trials, tribulations, troubles, truisms, tsatsiki, tuna, tzatziki, umlaut, undefeated, unicorns, unions, unrest, uplift, upside-down globes, vans, videos, weaklings, weather, whisky, whispers, whistleblowing, whiteness, widows, winning, winter, wrestling, yo, yogurt, you know, zombies,

Rain! Rain!

Rain! Rain! Go away, come again some other day!

It's a drear day, another in a long series. Yesterday we had hail for 30 seconds but as I scrambled outside to get hit with some of it it had already turned to rain.

Rain. Rumors of thunder, but I haven't heard any actual thunder. Only rumors.

Somebody said: "earthquake weather."

I don't know. It seems to me...this deluge, soaking down into the dry, depleted aquifer...all those extra tons of wet weight, water pulling the ground down onto itself, pressuring the foundations and then suddenly - something down there might SLIP! A fault snaps loose! and the ground gets all ROCK AND ROLLA!!!

"Earthquake weather." Yes, it seems quite possible. I mean, we don't know what causes these things.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Your Humble Poet

This is one reason why
the term "poem" no longer
carries any distinction:
because it doesn't mean
anything
anymore

The Top 5 Most Influential American Bands

To me "influential" is such a non-music-lover concern. It's a critic's concern, not a fan's. Fans don't care which bands change the course of music history. Fans care which bands have touched our hearts.

And I'm a fan. Not a critic. But I have read a lot of music criticism! And so if I am going to take a stab at a Top 5 Most Influential American Band list, I ought to at least be able to muster up a sort of jovially snide critical facade while I'm at it!

Here, then, are my Top 5 Most Influential American Bands. TIED FOR FIFTH PLACE:

5. The Ramones - begat Punk, despite being pretty dang pop about it.

5. The Supremes - tag-teamed with the Beach Boys to defend the U.S. pop charts, going toe-to-toe against the Beatles at the height of their chart-topping dominance. It goes without saying that Brian Wilson had the edge in visionary genius. It also goes without saying that visionary genius can't inspire another person to become a visionary genius. The pop formula perfected by the Supremes, on the other hand, has inspired legions of cookie-cutter wannabes right down to this day.

Influence: Not Always Benign.

5. The Velvet Underground: Not because everybody says. Because for four decades running, everbody says. The definitive/official "influential"/seminal underground rock band.

5. The Grateful Dead: I hate this band. I fu*king hate this band. Not so much for their music, which was at worst inoffensive and at best kind of catchy in a breezy way. I hate them for the scene that they left behind, which steadfastly refuses to leave, or even take a bath.

5. Van Halen: nearly single-handedly responsible for changing L.A.'s Sunset Strip scene from Eagles wannabes to solo-wanking hair rockers, setting the stage for the global ascendancy of a new generation of "metal" fans & bands (and the global resurgence of the older generation). Influence: not always benign.

Honorable Mention. P-Funk: This is just too obvious. Without P-Funk, there could never have been a Snoop Dogg.

So that's my top 5 (+ honorable mention). Actually I don't really, really like any of those bands. But they sure were influential!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

It Is My Belief

It is my belief that those who begin sentences with "It is my belief..." (or an equivalent phrase) lack force of character, and exhibit cowardice of convictions! Do not say:

"It is my belief that women should wear tight clothes to entice the lustful stares of men."

NO! Omit the needless preface, eschew the softening and distancing of one's self from what one holds to be true! Say rather:

"Women should wear tight clothes to entice the lustful stares of men."

YES! Forceful! Definitive! And we take it as understood that it is your belief, because you said it! You need not interpose qualifiers between you and your belief. You need not stand back from your belief, as if ashamed to own what you yourself believe. Do not say:

"In my opinion, women make too much of sex, and should be more carefree about it."

NO! FOOL! WEAKLING! "In my opinion," at the front of a statement of your opinion, is simply and utterly redundant and insipid! You only betray the weakness of your jaw and the yellow tint of your spine by mewling so, as if to say, as if in apology: "well, this is only how I see it." If there is so little sinew in what you believe, please keep it under wraps until your strength recovers and you can speak more vigorously. Say rather:

"Women make too much of sex, and should be more carefree about it."

YES! QUITE! EXACTLY! Firm, and with decision. Now you have the hang of it! Does that not feel better, do you not feel a certain squared swagger about your shoulders, a certain prowling vigor in the loins? Finally you are expressing your self! Finally, you have ceased easing back weakly from yourself, letting fall half-offered excuses for your own dimly-limned utterances.

I will, however, observe that you are one objectionable specimen of sexist pig, and that, I cannot countenance. Good day to you, sir.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

In the Solemn Observance of St. Valentine's Day

Happy St. Valentine's Day, everyone! A day to honor a Roman criminal who, at the risk and cost of his own life, defied civil authority to marry young people (to each other) in an age where tyranny and oppression barked furiously at love's treed cat!

But now, down all these centuries, in this day and age when marriage itself as an institution is all but on the ropes, perhaps the time has come to reevaluate this "St. Valentine," and his true role in the process?

Was St. Valentine in fact merely a tool of the burgeoning patriarchy, tying women to the men who would then marginalize and enslave them in the bonds of a one-sided institution?

Was St. Valentine in fact a homosexual - a pioneer who, in addition to the many covert straight marriages he performed, also used subtle and underground methods to encourage and promote gay marriage - but whose efforts on that score have been scrupulously expunged from the historical record in favor of the whitewashed version?

Or was this pious "St." in fact a myth - constructed out of whole cloth by the church with an eye toward the future establishment of a GREETING CARD EMPIRE? A dream that, alas for them, was ultimately secularized and co-opted by the Hallmark Corporation.

And perhaps it is also time to reevaluate the role of this cute little holiday we have here. What do people think about that?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Let's Talk PAIN.

Real pain comes from the heart! From the soul. It's not something you get from the pain nerves, the pain membranes and what-not, the pain organs of the body. That's not real pain. That's more like, physical pain. The pain of the body. The pain of the weak, of the vulnerable. Anyone with pain like that - listen, what happened to mind over matter? Clear your frame of reference and move up to the next plateau already! Quit languishing in a prison of the merely physical.

Anyway, what was I talking about. Pain, right? I kind of got sidetracked a second. Let me go back and re-read.

Good Lord. What the fuck am I talking about?

Disregard. That's some kind of absolute gibberish. Let's talk something else, other than PAIN.

Hey, do you think the next phase for life will be to grow into some kind of crazy aggregate lifeform? Like before! It would fit with what we've seen so far: everything keeps aggregating, into higher and higher levels of organization.

First there were enzymes. Not even genes, just enzymes! They'd sift through the available soup of chemicals and elements, and as a natural consequence of their composition and structure, they would conjure more enzymes out of the cauldron. Kind of just, keep building more and more of themselves out of the available materials, almost as if by accident, until there were so many enzymes that what with all the bumping and swishing in the soup they began snagging onto each other, linking together into chains of greater and greater complexity, chains that as a consequence of their structure and composition would reproduce themselves. Building more and more of themselves out of the available materials, accurately and efficiently, almost as if on purpose.

Those were genes, at that point. They didn't know it yet, but they were. That was a leap. And then the process repeated until chromosomes, made up of genes, are making the scene. Another leap.

And so on. The chromosomes grouped into metaphylls. Then the metaphylls grouped into plaeocytes, and so on (this is called the Bessemer Process) until finally it was: living cells! Floating around as if fully sufficient and self-contained, but really if you look close, still made up of all these little structures and dudes inside of them that used to go it alone (or some of them used to, at least)! Those dudes had been subsumed. Technically these little guys are way too small to be called "dudes" - a more correct-sounding term would be "dude-ules."

I love that word "subsumed," by the way. Great word. Every time I use it I want to look it up again, just to savor how well the sense goes with the sound!

So those dude-ules got subsumed. Into cells! And then it all began happening again: the cells started clumping onto each other. That soup made everything sticky! All those chemicals. Soon cells were clumped together into colonies of cells. And the colonies got bigger, and soon cells on the interior of the colony and cells on the exterior began performing different tasks. Began specializing. This process of greater and greater specialization resulted in differentiated tissues, each performing different tasks within one big mass. But at that point, it wasn't just a colony anymore. It wasn't just cells clumped together.

This Was What Was Called: The Organism.

The Organism.

I, uh, made up the part about the metaphylls and the plaeocytes. It just sounded better with a couple more steps in there.

OK!

The Organism.

Actually, they call single-celled critters "organisms" too, but this seems like such a misnomer to me. Come on. An organism is made up of organs! What kind of organs can these little smears of gunk possibly have? They got ONE CELL. You can't build one organ with that, let alone an ism of them. One cell to work with. Those little dude-ules diddling around inside the cell, floating in the cytoplasm, those aren't organs. They can't be! Organism: made up of organs. Organ: made up of tissues. Tissues: made up of cells. Cells can NOT then be made up of teeny tiny teensy leetle organs! It'd be like saying a battalion is made of companies, and a company is made up of platoons, and a platoon is made up of battalions. WRONG! Call it something else.

Where were we?

The Organism.

Then organisms betook themselves of the next leap – except, well, not really. They haven't. There has been no further leap, in organization. Currently, The Organism is the highest real self-producing unit. At this point, organisms have developed greater and greater complexity, and a greater and greater degree of proliferation. Organisms proliferated into about every nook that could support them! Then once that environment was nice and ready, God plopped MAN (which eventually was corrected to "HUMANITY") into the scene, fully-formed and ready to fit in - having been sneakily made of indistinguishably identical raw materials to the other organisms, DNA-wise. Seamless! God's a real stealth operator sometimes. It's kind of funny, because some people are like, "WHY?"

Anyway - what's next? Is this the END? Do we STOP HERE? Is there no FURTHER LEAP?

What if from here, there's another level of hierarchy waiting for us? Where we ourselves become parts in a SUPER-ORGANISM? Capable of reproducing itself! Setting its own inscrutably huge agenda. A hundred years from now, might we find ourselves out in space, living inside some gigantic amoeba-thing? And we'd still go to work, each performing our task inside its gigantic membranes and meta-organs, and we'd each still have our hobbies on the side.

We wouldn't be aware really, of what the greater macroamoeba's unfathomable glom-mind was thinking. We'd keep to our small concerns, just like our own mitochondria keep to their small concerns. We'd really only think about our place in the scheme of things when disaster struck. Like a meteor impact, ripping through your district and leading your wife to complain, "I told you we should have moved to Central Amoeba last chronocycle when that opening opened up!" Like you, cutting your thumb, causing your red blood cells to spill "aieeee!" from their home. Does one red blood cell chastise the other on its way out? For not taking the left at the last capillary?

And when something like that would happen to us - each of us playing our tiny individual role inside the greater pulsing thrum of the macroamoeba drifting and glomming its way through space consuming space resources, excreting space waste - when a space rock flies undetected out of nowhere and rips a hole in the larger us...will we feel pain? Or will we just sit there on the other side of the amoeba and read the news: “Good lord, another meteor impact in the forward dorsal zone! Those poor people!”

It turns out we've been talking about PAIN this whole time. How about that. Thought I'd lost the plot for a minute didn't you? Well, never doubt me again.

I always bring it right back home in the end.

The Music Enthusiast #3

I love the Led Zeppelin song "Communication Breakdown," but I'm not quite getting what it is he's trying to say.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Lesson of the Cross

God became human and dwelt among us. Jesus was tried and convicted by earthly authorities, and sentenced to death. Rather than take the easy way by blasting his way out with his powers, Jesus submitted meekly to this sentence. He then died on the cross, so that by his example, we would know to submit meekly to authority. Even when authority is in the wrong. Even when the punishment is death.

HA!

Gotcha!

That isn't the Lesson of the Cross at all! I was fooling you.

But, man - what if it were? - can you imagine what kind of crazy lesson that would be for us?! Especially coming from Jesus! It would be so out of character!

Jesus was always showing up the proper authorities. Giving them what for, teaching them those snide little lessons of his. Wait. "Snide" isn't quite the word. "Snide" means "derogatory in a malicious, superior way." Now, certainly when he was lambasting the pharisees for their sham wisdom and their peculiar habit of obsessively whiting sepulchers, he was plenty derogatory. And what fool would claim that he was being derogatory in any other way besides a superior way? Surely he did everything in a superior way. Supreme, even.

But despite the serene superiority of his supreme derogatoriness, doled out left and right to the richly deserving and those who were practically begging for it, I refuse to believe there was any maliciousness in it. Not from Jesus! No, he was doing it all for their own good as much as for our entertainment. Setting them straight, for all to see. Making them the butt of his endless parables. Airing out the error of their ways!

Which, when you think about it, was probably part of why they wanted to kill him.

But that's not the Lesson of the Cross, either. Not the main lesson, anyhow.

There's probably more than one lesson, to be learned from that whole episode.

O, Opalescent Orb

sitting on a patina of clouded sky like alternating bands of milky glass, or a dark puddle only just frozen over - the round white moon

Sunday, February 08, 2009

The Insidious Powers of Advertising, Nostalgia

There I was, standing in front of the snack machine with my open mind and my dollar bill, when I saw it: Good & Plenty. D3. Immediately the chugga-chugga of that classic cartoon jingle started up:

"GOOD n plenty, GOOD n plenty, ONCE upon a TIME there was an ENGINEER! CHOO-CHOO CHARLIE was his name we hear!"

I was like, aw yeah! Good N' Plenty Candy! Don't know any other candy that I love so well! Insert money, punch D3, - *KLUNK* - reach in past the metal slot door, retrieve jolly purple, pink & white candy box, walk back to the office - STILL HUMMING THE TUNE!

CHAR-lie says: "Love my Good N' Plenty!"
CHAR-lie says: "Truly rings the bell!"


Part the glued-cardboard flaps, dump a handful out, slam 'em in my mouth and CHEW!

Ugh. I hate these things! What the HELL was I thinking?

I think I was thinking of Mike N' Ikes.

Too bad they haven't got the jingle.

The Top H "Awful Song on the AC/DC Album"s

It's kind of become a tradition for AC/DC albums. A winning formula: two great songs, seven solid songs, and one really awful song. That awful song is more important than you'd think. I kind of look forward to hearing it, each time a new album comes out. I admit, I was a little disappointed to find among its unprecedented FIFTEEN TRACKS, no awful song on their recent Black Ice (damn good album though, they made up for the lack).

Anyway, I thought I'd list the Top H "Awful Song on the AC/DC Album"s!

H. & G. Stiff Upper Lip had "Can't Stand Still" and "Hold Me Back". They are both the SAME SONG and it BLOWS.
F. Ballbreaker's was "Boogie Man." This was an interesting idea but it just went nowhere for me.
E. On The Razor's Edge it was "Mistress for Christmas." Need I say "puke."
D. For Blow Up Your Video it was "Two's Up" - which to me at the time sounded like the work of some really far worse band whose name now escapes me. Helloween?
C. For Who Made Who it was "Ride On" - I've never heard Brian Johnson's voice sound worse!
B. Fly On The Wall gave us "Send For The Man." Now I admit, it's since grown on me a lot! But deep down I know, my original opinion of it stands.
A. Flick Of The Switch had "Bedlam In Belgium." This is not a bad song, per se, but it's just so ridiculous somehow. Stormin' the stage! Cops in a rage! Blood on the floor! It was one world war! Dude. We are talking about Belgium. I understand it's based on a true tour incident, and all, but. You know. Belgium?

Note: this time out, the Top H List is more of a simple reverse-chronological by album than a descending alphabetical ascendingly-ranked by Worstness, such as one might normally expect to see when the category is Top H Worst.

For Those About To Rock and Back In Black get a free pass each. Neither had a really awful song on it. It was prior to the whole tradition being established, I guess.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Thought of the Day, Self-Inflicted

I don't mind masochism, long as it's self-inflicted.

The Movie Trainspotting: An In-Depth Analysis

I don't care what anybody says, Trainspotting was a great movie! And I'm not the only one who thought so - wasn't it up for all kinds of honors at the MTV Movie Awards that year? Trainspotting was a great movie, and I don't care who thinks otherwise! Anybody who wants to disagree with me on that - get in line! Because I am taking on all comers!

Screw the accents, I don't care about the accents - clean out your effing ears! You can make out what they're saying just fine! What are you, DEEF! Turn on the subtitles, then! The accents are actually not a problem. And that whole heroin angle - that was just a subplot anyway, what are you complaining about - and a damn rich subplot besides! That one subplot alone was PRACTICALLY the whole point of the film! It added depth to the whole enterprise. These people, they were all like walking billboards for character development! And message-wise, it was practically like somebody hung a warning sign around their necks: "do drugs, and you'll see what happens." Albeit, some of them don't do drugs at all the whole time, like Begbie. And then that one guy, he never did drugs! But then he did, and got AIDS.

Clearly, a serious message film. If you're smart, you'll tell people you like films like these.

Don't complain to me about "it was weird" - YOU'RE weird! You can go complain to YOURSELF about THAT! I can't help you there.

Everything in the movie bespeaks volumes of depth and complexity. It's just, certain people can't handle mature themes. They want to be spoon-fed their cinema. They complain about every stupid little thing their mind can't process, or every little morally-complex episode that tweaks their simplistic set of values. Get over yourself! The world is not made your way.

The whole underage sex angle - look, she tricked him into it, OK? I'm not saying that makes it OK. It makes it complex. Just as in life, these areas can't all be reduced to black white and gray! So what about the dead baby crawling on the ceiling, then? Well, what of it? That was clearly meant as a shocking warning, as to the consequences of irresponsible behaviors, leading inevitably to what actually can happen sometimes. Dead babies do crawl on ceilings. Don't believe me, there was a similar scene in Exorcist 3 with an old lady doing it! It's not that uncommon, especially in the movies.

Anyway, all of that stuff was just window-dressing. The heroin, the AIDS, the Scottish countryside angst, the soccer and the home-made porn, the misunderstandings, bed-sheet defecations and breakups. That's just window dressing, to prop up the whole heart of the movie, which was Begbie's barely-sublimated homosexual longing for Renton.

A lot of people let that one slip by them, but it jumped right out at me! Changes the whole emphasis of the film, really. There's more going on there than just the surface. You have to watch the eyes.

Ultimately I'd say the message of the film is: choose life.

Friday, February 06, 2009

The Illusionicity of Smartitude

The processness of languagification has been dumbnified by the increasing prevalitude of lax adjectivinal, adverbious, and sometimes verbious or even nounivial standards. In days of yore, a certain strictliness of vocabularinal modulicinity was prized. It was taken as a sign of a well-ordered mind, of a certain rigor or perspicacuity of the intellilect. Yet now, it seems that the more intellectuous one wishes to seem, the less one strives to adhere to establishized norms, and the more one seeks to express one's thoughts creativinally.

Is that really such a problem? One might well ask: what's so wrong about a little creativitousness? Point taken. When one restricts one's vocabulary to the real words that are widely available, such creativisionism is no obstacle to communicatude. But all too often today, we see would-be intellectualisticos stooping to ad hoc invention of wild, ephemeristic words willy-nilly, as if on the fly. The result? Inexactition of language, and sloppification of thought!

Make no mistake: what I'm advocating here is not a broad, wholesale strictifying or properification of language. I just want to inject a little moderacy. Language's purpose is to serve a basically communicatudinal role. It undercuts that purpose to throw around a lot of words that no one really knows how to use.

Well, almost no one.

My Struggle with Mental Illness

Every day, I wake up to a hard struggle. Some days it's almost too much for me to bear, to have to get up and come into work. I swear, it's like practically all the people at work are FUCKING CRAZY. What am I supposed to do? How do I cope with this?

I have been examining some options. Medication is one possibility, but the logistics and legalities of obtaining prescription medication for large-scale dosing of co-workers can be daunting. My hope is that President Obama will devote some attention to reforming our current health care system, which often obstructs treatment options rather than making it easier for people to get the help they clearly need.

Another hurdle is diagnosis. While it seems like practically all the people at work are deep in the throes of some sort of mental illness, they are not all crazy in the same way. Current mental health paradigms suggest that it is not possible to treat all ills with one pill.

Well, I consider that a cop-out, plain and simple! And I am laying down a challenge to Big Health. To the Health Care Industry itself, and to its researchers: we need to set our sights a little higher here, if we are ever going to advance to the next phase in mental health treatment! The challenge I lay down is simple: we need to develop a broad-spectrum antipsychotic.

We have broad-spectrum antibiotics, why not a broad-spectrum antipsychotic? Admittedly, there have been some problems with the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Overuse and overreliance has created resistant strains of microorganisms. But that will not pose a problem here, since by and large, microorganisms aren't to blame for mental illness. That we know of, anyway. Okay, like maybe on one episode of House - but it's hardly prevalent!

Anyway. Critics may point out that while my proposal is a bold, detailed plan that blazes a path and lays the firm groundwork for a better future, it fails to address the immediate problem of my own daily struggle with mental illness.

What can I say. I'm selfless.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Listen.

You have no idea how powerful my creative impulse is. None of you do.

I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you all.

I am going to show you.

I'm A Diplomat. Do You Have A Problem With That?

Listen, don't bother telling me not to be a diplomat! Don't even tell me that. Don't even try to. I do it how I do it! And that's how I do it: with diplomacy.

When it comes to dishing out diplomacy, I just haul off and let fly! If you think I'm going to hold back on your account, well I'm sorry but that's not how I do it. I let fly. I haul off. Did I mention - I do it? It's like, with me, diplomacy, I'm a diplomat just falling downstairs in the morning, I'm a diplomat blacking some blackguard's eyes for him, I'm a diplomat kissing kittens on the way to work or jimmying a snack machine that cheated me out of my cheetos. I'm a diplomat smacking the hamburger out of your hand, hacky-sacking it the instant before it hits the ground with the deftest flip of my Doctor-Martens-booted-toe, and snatching it in my mouth on the upward arc! I'm hardly capable of amending my ingrained sense of diplomacy just because somebody doesn't care for me being who I am: a diplomat. That's their problem, BUD.

Ending a sentence with BUD rules.

I'm a diplomat with bells on. I give diplomacy a great name. People come looking to me for tips on that shit. The U.S. Consulate was like, "hey, we'd like to give you honorary diplomatic immunity, just on the basis of what kind of a diplomat you are." I told them to stuff their diplomatic immunity. Ever since Lethal Weapon 2 I've got no use or desire for that shit.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Successful Thought of the Day

Sometimes we spend so much time and effort struggling for success that we forget to appreciate the failure we already have.

25 Things Not Necessarily About Me

During the composition of the previous post, there were a number (25) of items rejected for a wide range of reasons, some of which will be self-evident, others possibly obscure. Therefore we here at Consider Your Ass Kicked! present 25 Things Not Necessarily About Me:

1. Primitive minds welcome me as their liberator.
2. My whole lifestyle is rooted in my fear of others.
3. I set an example for the young and the old alike.
4. I “show my ass” on many an occasion.
5. What happens in my house stays in my house.
6. My soul does not fit comfortably in my body.
7. No one who beats me will savor it for long.
8. All my life, I have been dogged by feelings of personal responsibility.
9. If I was sent back in time to kill Hitler, but was accidentally sent too far back in time, I would try to find everyone related to Hitler and kill them instead.
10. When danger strikes, I leap into action!
11. I crave buffalo wings.
12. I have been a fool for love.
13. I am constantly under attack from the spirit world.
14. People steal my ideas and then blame me when they fail.
15. If I were given a medal for something that I had no control over, I would still wear it proudly.
16. What I do with my tongue is my business.
17. I am a shining example to criminals.
18. I would kill myself if I thought I could “get away with it.”
19. I produce urine and feces in equal amounts.
20. I routinely complete impossible tasks with breathtaking ease.
21. I am a big believer in utensils.
22. Sometimes, my hands just want to slap people.
23. If I were to attend a party where poor-quality food and drinks were being served, I would surely give the host a good “dressing-down.”
24. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
25. I am more sexually competent than others I know.

25 Things About Me

Explanatory Note: Apparently what happens is, somebody "tags" you and you're supposed to "tag" 25 others with 25 Things About You, then they do the same on into infinity.

1. I don't participate in chain letters or any sort of coerced-forwarding activity.
2. I eat meat.
3. I am an animal.
4. I am a human being.
5. I am a theist.
6. I am a pretty big fan of the Cure. Not something a lot of people know, since I don't talk about it, much.
7. I can play the guitar, just like ringing a bell. Meaning, I am able to strike it in such a way that it makes noise.
8. I am the world's foremost undiscovered songwriter in English.
9. I am a feminist.
10. I love my car.
11. My ex-girlfriend says I'm the least judgmental person she has ever known.
12. I love breakfast, and I love breakfasting.
13. The beauty of the world arrests me in sudden rapturous fits and spells.
14. I think I'm pretty funny.
15. I have a recurring pipe dream where I open a greeting-card shop.
16. My screenplay is only 1/5th finished.
17. I can sing anything Neil Finn can sing - WELL.
18. I have never been reincarnated. This is my first life.
19. It's pretty nice. Life. Or, if I must phrase it as a Thing About Me, "I think life is pretty nice!"
20. In conversations, people often think I am pulling their leg when in fact I'm being entirely sincere. I use this as my cue to say audaciously true and beautiful things while being dismissed as a mere buffoon.
21. I have a bit of a hot chick fetish.
22. I consider myself to be of above-average intelligence, but nowhere near my true potential.
23. My favorite Beethoven is Symphony #7.
24. My favorite beer is Anderson Valley "Boont!" Amber Ale.
25. I simply will not pass on a confidence. It's not about whether I think the next person can be trusted. It's about whether I can be trusted.

It's Time to Talk Serious Reforms #1: The Institution of Marriage

As a feminist, and as a man, I naturally spend a lot of time thinking about the myriad areas in which our society's ingrained patriarchic hegemony has contributed over the years to a situation and an environment where just plain wrongness reigns in various ways. Occasionally, I will amuse myself by coming up with proposals aimed at redressing that. This here, I believe, would be a sweet one!

A nice tradition to start (I think) would be for the husband to have to take the bride's last name, as the price for any prospective kids getting his. Paternal grandpa doesn't mind - his name is still being passed on. But first, sonny has to bitch up and switch it! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, SON?? Doesn't FEEL so good having to give your NAME up, DOES it?

This proposal would only merely be simply the just, rightful payment for millennia of marginalization, disempowerment and systemic abuse. PAID IN FULL.

Guys: I suggest you take the deal.

Blade Runner: Finally! The Controversy Really, Really Solved!

Ridley Scott has announced a Blade Runner: Finally Final Final Cut version where at least once or twice every scene, Harrison Ford looks right at the camera and says, "I'm a replicant."

The guy they got to do his voice is perfect, and the CGI tweaks to make his lips say the words are impeccable.

And every time he says it - his eyes glow. And a unicorn charges across the background of the set, like a bull in a malt liquor commercial.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Kickass Screenplay Ideas #5: The Birder

I had a screenplay idea for an independent art-house type film called The Birder. Liam Neeson, Chris Eccleston or somebody similar is a widowered man in a brown tweed jacket who lives in a high, narrow boathouse on a road between a lake and a wetlands, and who in finally deciding to box up his wife's things after several years, comes across her birdwatching book and takes up the hobby to assuage his persistent grief and lingering boredom. As he traverses the surrounding wets and wilds, he finds within the pencil jottings she left in the book's margins a map to her half of the life they shared - and perhaps, a way through grief, to some kind of acceptance of life’s impermanence and, paradoxically, its permanence.

Either that, or else maybe the hints he reads between the lines of her margin-scrawls lead him to the disturbing realization that her spirit may in fact have been reincarnated, in the form of the beautiful and enigmatic loon (Emma Watson, Emma Thompson or somebody similar named Emma) who guards the lake's tiny island.

Or both! There's room in the plot for both those threads. This is one of those pensive, thinky films with a lot of lingering shots of things reflected in water, and big zoom close-ups of the main character's face as he looks out across the emptiness, and seems to see something in it.

People would totally go see that. I can already envision the posters and taste the popcorn! Liam Neeson is...The Birder. Or maybe Chris Eccleston.

Corporate Logo Roundup #2: SAAB

SAAB. Once you've got that double-A vowel action going there, you could add in any additional number of A's and it would still be: SAAB.

SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB.

The regal emblem of SAAB Automobile AB (or SAABAAB) depicts a proud, red eagle's head in profile wearing a golden crown, with his tongue sticking out. It's just possible that he's not sticking his tongue out, that he is in fact breathing fire, but this would not be any less weird.

All in all, good logo. Reflects SAAB's tradition of quirkiness as well as its history of royal investiture, and the avian motif neatly alludes to their roots as a jet aircraft manufacturer feeding the needs of the all-important Air Force division of the Swedish war machine back in 40s.

I'm not really sure which side of the war those dudes were on. Seems to me they kept pretty quiet.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Newcastle Brown

In the North of England, life can be cold and hard. But the hard-working people of Newcastle are justly proud of their famous Brown Ale.

It's not very carbonated. For those who dig the carbonation, it's a little on the flat side. But wow, is it Newcastle Brown Tasty.

To My Muse

My muse took wing
and drifted off
a feather in
the wind

And since I couldn't
follow that, my
inspiration
thinned

But since she flew,
I've never missed
her whispers
in my ear

Because her whispers
from before
are all
that I can hear

Her every whisper
lodged within my heart,
so she's still here.

I Was Being Followed, But I Lost Him!

Wait. Now there's another guy following me.

I'm not sure what to make of it. This following function. I think it's part of the whole shared metacommunity of bloggering that I don't quite subscribe to the ethos of. "Hey let's all cross-promote each other!"

No offense, but why? What's the point or purpose of it? I thought we were supposed to be all les artistes, writing only and always for the edification and furtherance of our muse alone!

She knows who she is.