Whatever

I woke up several people in the way that I thought I could there was uncles in the morning and I left it alone and time kept passing and in the lake there was no way I could ever wait for it and instead All I thought was that there could be picnics there could not be porks oh I thought you would have a chance to wait but it seems that I could never wait I could never wait and the time it continues to take away bits of my life and so interesting how close the word life is to the word lie and I have some skills that I have been leaving behind and after all the studying I do there is nothing I seem to be able to remember not the way that I wanted to not that way not the way that I wanted to the fuckers got themselves destroyed but there was a way for me to be better that that there was something in my plan I was sure of and I waited for as long as I could but beets told me that as a man I could not be happier than there would be some how sea creatures personality would bring into the steeplechase that you all thought there was jungles in you life and as the time came there was a secret in your face and it made me so angry and I have you have no idea who it is that you are attacking what the hell difference is it to you what it is that I wanted to use my anger for and instead there you found that the steel was having simpletons worth hanging on people get to fight you whine like a mule you whine like a mule you are still alive there was a fight and you couldn’t let any one single person go without being killed without being killed those guys had nothing to do here and so instead of waiting we wait while kevin has his dangerous happenings you see you little fucking deathmobile kids who will wait for as long as they can but instead there is something that you will insist that they reach but they never will find all the anger that I think was inside the injustice I hated nothing less than the way you consistently don’t become anything but a barbarian and so they learn to kill leaving no room for a decent person for learning for reading the places I always wanted to have taken away from me. But I can find more places to hide away from the decision that I made that made me happy for a time but what I did with it is a questionable thing- how much have I even tried to translate what was inside of me into something that I wanted all to read but here we were we could not give everyone enough of the feedback that came from sending the man from his grave beyond the specificity drawing away from the shot. And all I want to do is try as hard as I can to experience the fight that I feel I deserve and on the train I tried so hard to make the art octopuses known profundities I can try to take seriously but there is no output- nothing worth working on and why because I am a loser who will wish for death forever but will only gradually move closer and closer to is as I struggle for a foot in the door and the woman I choose might not know what to do but there is place for me with out death without thinking hurting all those many wonderful experiences are not worth the few seconds of neck breaking that comes from the problems in modern urban society and I don’t even have a loud enough voice to maintain a blog,

so angry right now that I can't even think straight and I am dreading an interruption. Have to chill chill chill even if the babies don't let me go through, have to find something at least maybe anything to make me happy, haven't I am so angry I can't even believe it I want to crash something break something scream, scream at the idiocy, every five seconds I have to be interrupted god I really hate that especially when I am arg.

BBBB beeee that as it may should something be described as that relationship between filling up your brain with things that are actually supposed to be left behind and just like she said if it gets put away then there is no reason to suspect that you are being unoriginal. And the stimulus is unfair, and I have no idea what this is going to do to my longterm peace of mind but honestly I don't like feeling this way and there is nothing but an unhealthy course of action presenting itself before me and so it ends where it ends and left you do the baggage behind like those fantasies I had of running through the door and leaving some part of us behind I think there is some health issues here, wondering what the problem is and instead of waiting around I find that there is no way for me to recover the points I have left behind and as it turns out at this point this has become a bit of a challenge and instead of hating the maximum left right of the sentence there would not have to be anything deeper than that, but when I try and reach for it it doesn't get behind me, just don't feel like socializing much these days, would rather be instead the thing that once upon a time I imagined that the conversation would begin rather awkwardly, and so someone was there to listen and her technique is to be there and to listen attentively and actually really to care and to have many other people to talk to and which of these places should I feel compelled to offer the advice? There is nothing that I can find in there, nothing that there would have been had I not brushed against the glass and gotten some of the grime on my skin, and the texture of the glass surprised me, finding materializing in my mind a vast desert of streaks that criss cross the frame work that I called in to, what a novel freaking idea. angry I am with myself for putting as much of that peace of mind on the line as I have on something as fragile as a pipe dream, and exploring this other aspect of myself is definitely a path to greater self discovery, but I can't help but to assume that the lies are way too thick, something about me is going to change if I keep going, something I think I probably won't like- this kind of change is a good thing for the person but a bad thing for the world that they cling to. Can I leave something behind? I have what it is that I want, and beyond that I know there can be something before the fire and all you had to do was create a place where all the people you knew were no longer interested in thinking about you, and once you begin to see the transitory nature you want everyone to be impressed by you, to love you you do everything you can do get people to love you because you are greedy it isn't enough to have passing respect you as a person have to be continuously considered somehow, this vanity you have is like an unstoppable monster that gobbles up your time and no matter what you do it will not be enough. It isn't enough it is never enough there is never enough love you always need more you are never content if you don't get it you withdraw and lash out and people who look up to you begin to resonate with this mood when they are around you and it feels natural at first but eventually they realise that they are never in a good mood when they are with you and so there is a negative association here at work that can not be denied. In on the kill take is what you decide to have to be, like fur that gets threaded up, in the distance there would be the curvature of the moon and with the walks that you take I would be bound to have something left underrated, the music it is not doing any good, there should be a person here who has not made peace with the master of the ceremonies.

There would you think be a dark place to hide if you had to find one, even without the dark monsters waiting with their disposable beaks and incorrigable fantasies to smooch you without remorse. Intellect being what it is, there could have been some forces to be reckoned with, in all honest, but through out the desert there are people who have planted their feet hard enough to consider home home. Guessing it would be appropriate to beg the pardon of the future wife is never a mistake, but burning up the stomach with a series of nonsensical barings of the teeth can't describe the colors the way they were meant to be activated, ugly though the thought of something like this might be. You seem to never really know whether you are lost, a place that you wouldn't mind getting lost in, because there are so many doors to other places that only need to be peeked at to send your mind soaring in many different directions, places where if you thought to hard the breeze would begin to chaffe and instead of being brought someplace new you find that there are wriggles where there should be no dois. A labyrinth is what I am thinking of here, a place where there are how many books would I have to look through in order to find my own life on the page, what kind of shuffling could I be doing? And someone once said about me that I was an enormous book with a thousand pages, really well written and when you open the book to a random page there is just that one bit of me but there is so much more that you don't know. And the best part about it is that none of it is a secret. How many times have you wondered whether something you have just done has ever been done before, or how many times? The sum total of all infinity is described by the millionth monkey, and what sort of a life do you think he had?

mor eof the same

Into the brink of bananas my tooth runs out of names because there was once a time in which there would have been something to do but instead the decay sets in and tomorrow never comes. Surprised? Fun fun fun this could be, and once again the rules are set, the groundwork laid by the idealism of the inner voice I rarely let free or to stretch like an imagination I had once. To there go I often when it's time to flounder and wonder why it is that I CAN'T handle the noise but I seem to be able to postpone the unhappiness, not to create a time that it will disappear altogether, and little things kick up signals that want me to pay attention, waiting for me to realise that it isn't what I expected or thought it was going to be, and instead of eventually reaching something difficult to find I find everyday just as difficult as the one before, only more or less idle when there would be fewer examples of elasticity. Underside is the same as upside down when I think hard enough to turn off the thoughts, and free myself from vanity, the one that chases me until I am unhappy again, unpleased, unimpressed with myself. The experience isn't really worth wondering about, no. I haven't tried to define the beginning or the safeness of the end, encapsulated like parenthesis, or bookends that want to meet but bend the space between themselves into ever more interesting, infinitely interwoven non-shapes, moving in on myself like the tips of my fingers crushing backwards into the hands, and the shoulders biting back and puncturing my head. An insect describes the arc I am attempting to imagine: sometimes the barbs point in to separate directions that leave me without a clear conception of where my focus is meant to be drawn, and inside I wonder how many times that shape had been drawn by nature by the time it emerged in that form. Who can't take the outside and shut it out the way it was supposed to shut, internalising the worst of the conundrums as whittled down from a massive calcified residue accumulated over the course of six or seven or eight thousand years, until without noticing I lean over and let my finger draw across it and before I realise what I am doing bring it to my tongue and what I expected to be merely salty is actually more caustic than I am prepared to handle physiologically, and the back of my throat begins to swell and cut off the flow of air to my lungs but i don't panic, never would, never would. I die in my dreams and decide that this is not natural but there is nothing I can do about it, or rather there is nothing that I can do to prevent it from happening again in the future so I use my ingenuity which is quite extensive and proven to adapt and find myself though a different and more wary and moody person nonetheless much much healthier for it. And instead of waiting for the hours to unravel I in this thickness of pined for sweeps of long grass eat my own body metaphorically, incestuous is a word that comes to mind but I don't like it anymore because its meaning has been lost due to over use. But still I describe an arc with the tips of my fingers as in my imagination I twirl as if there were no reason to pay attention, again shutting all things away from my awareness but still unable to live completely in the moment. I am tired of making decisions, decisions I make everyday it is what ages us, when we are children the decisions we make are rooted in instinct and an assumption that only good can happen as A result, but not now, no, we have the minds that attempt to out fox the other minds, there are only so many resources for the sharing. And instead of the weight that falls away from the face, instead of the heart that seems lighter than air so that the toes feel useless, there is a sloth that manifests itself gradually like the accumulation of debris around the eyes during sleep. Let them be sealed shut, my eyes, and I will sleep, because even if in dreams I am as unproductive, the waking world is nothing more than a series of moments seen through the lens of chemicals released according to association with stimulae. I don't want death because it would be cold but since sleep is where I spend most of my time it is where I feel most comfortable, if not most alive.

Redefining my lonely unread blog to be a platform for nonsense to amuse myself

? I wasn’t so sure that he could make out the best or the worst of the procedure, all I had to do was wait a while and instead there was a strong possibility that there could be no quarter left, and that no matter how hard I tried to evoke a real emotion the lines just had a hard time making themselves from one end of me brain to the other, and then on down the line and out to the tips of my fingers which if they could glow with brilliant blue bioluminescence nations could do what they would to trust one another, n=not unless there was an equation set in there already set in motion, but you are the laziest writer of them all because you know how to manipulate your mind into becoming a situation maker, a place where the books are hanging off of the walls and the people are afraid to make due with what they have because they are not so trusting of the future, no, not like they once was, and the success of the endeavor brings forth and unbecoming defensiveness that we should no allow, don’t you agree? Callers should be allowed to have a voice now and then, when the time is appropriate, but what I see is green and a streaming gloworm of lights that blinds a short percentage of my vision but it’s definitely dark above the horizon here, and without the leisurely stroll through real facts the story has no root in reality, so you can create something that actually requires real work and research, and a pen, and multitasking and most of all some time that should be put into it, while smoking pall malls and letting the brain get all limbered up, don’t want the lazy brain to fall into the wrong sort of decadence, we must villianize that aspect of ourselves in order to manipulate our productivity. What if not by rending departure but a crack in the sky comes the hail so far away through the breaking of the waves that fall over one another like screaching leaves in the atmosphere, and still I wait to redefine my bloggishness, while pestering the beuford I expect noone to get this far, so there alack a do alack a dee. And into the darkest mood I go without a care for whom I trample, And the leaves follow tiny grey and black upon my foot a bridge of poems they make for good song and dance without the mouth of maximum overdrive.

Poem

And somehow
amid all the thankless cracks and shadows
perpetuating negative space
you remember to think of me
and memory is enough

With such contrived machinations
I manage to dream
We are ankle deep and laughing
in mud that squishes through our toes
I ask once only
Do you remember when I kissed you
and you sigh
and tell me I am a silly thing
and that's enough

In a riddle whose answer is _______
what is the only prohibited word?

So forget nothing
and only remember to think of me
and laugh when you do
if only once in awhile
and that will be enough

Originality

I'm going to talk about originality. It’s going to be tough- There is much hammering and power drilling and circular sawing right outside my window, which is forcing me to put music on, which plays hell with my concentration.

I think it’s fair to say that a person knows whether they are being original- let’s say in the process of creating something. When you set out to make something, I think it’s important to try to offer something that you perceive as new and interesting- I mean, one way to look at it is that people aren’t really going to pay too much attention to what you have to say (in the language of whatever medium with which you choose to express yourself) unless it’s interesting. There are lots of reasons that something might be interesting to someone, like for example it reminds them of something important they haven’t thought of for a long time or it’s just aesthetically pleasing to them, but I think a big one is that it needs to offer something new, some element of new. Either way it has to offer something worth thinking about.

SO what you are trying to do when you create something original is to catch and keep someone’s attention and ultimately have an impact on their life, which isn’t going to happen if the whole of what you’ve created doesn’t coalesce above the mean of filtered stimuli. What I mean by that is I think our brains get so much information all day long from everything we perceive that it naturally tries to process it all into either things it needs to figure out (meaning discover what its significance, relevance, and repercussions to it might be), or stuff that’s banal and can be glossed over because it’s significance etc. is already understood, and thus can be seen not as information in an of itself but more as a direct path or line leading to a predictable outcome. I see it as the same thing as learning a new instrument, for example. At first, all the notes you want on a piano are difficult to find because the sensations of touching the keys are new, of the way it feels to sit on the bench, of the way your muscles have to move and even the way the neurons in your brain have to fire to move those muscles in order to move from one note to the next, it’s all new. As you continue to practice those initial sensations get filtered out by your brain and you are free to coast right through them to the next new bit that takes your immediate attention, and you are getting better. You are LEARNDING. The more you practice the farther forward you can see- it’s like wearing a path through the weeds. You walk back and forth and back and forth, farther and farther, enhancing your awareness of what you want, which is on the other end of the path, until you can simply zone out and experience the bliss of communicating directly through music because everything in between is automatic. I think writing works this way, and so do all other forms of creativity.

I think that the focus on the immediate moment that comes from needing to pay attention to those first initial sensations always comes with learning new things. I think that living in the immediate moment stretches out time because it creates useful memories. I think most people feel like time passes by like a breeze because they don’t fill their lives up with enough interesting new things, and when they look back on their lives as older people they idealize their youth because things felt new then, and then they fell into a routine that their brain has just filtered out since then. It makes them feel desperate and dead. They crave these new things without knowing why. This is why people like stories and why people join the army. Our lives work the same way as learning the piano.

On the other hand another way to look at the question of originality is whether what is being done is a pastiche of something that has already had an impact or it has simply copied something interesting yet obscure in the hopes that the source will not be found out and associated, in which case it’s just a matter of the size of the audience. This point isn’t as fun to explore because so much of our impact in life depends on the quantity of the audience, which is sad because, like I read once in a Vonnegut essay, there are so many people in the world that are always going to be better than you at what you do, and because of the increased communication that results in modern technology, you are competing with all of them rather than finding a comfortable niche in your own beloved community.

One last thing I wanted to say about originality, is that everything may have already been done that way before in a given medium, but that doesn’t mean the medium can’t be reinvented or combined in new ways with other mediums.

Ta.

Wide Awake

I had a headache but I kept on shoveling. The wood was good, I could feel the tiny rocks in the soil scraping.

My plan was to quit after one day. There was no way I was going to dig graves every day. But just this one, and then I wouldn’t show up tomorrow. Jobs were easy to find.

The sun was hidden and it was chilly, I’d planned it that way. I like the fall the best. It’s when people come home. I’d pictured myself standing under a huge willow tree, all alone for a few hours, working up a sweat in a windbreaker with dead leaves blowing all around. I don’t know why my imagination was that specific, but that’s what I ended up with so I guess it was like a premonition.

My trainer was a black man named Earl. He was 57, and tall, and he talked so quietly I could barely hear him over the sound of the trucks on the highway. Actually it was more like he was muttering to himself the whole time he was there, and only raised his voice slightly when it was important for me to hear him. I found myself opening my eyes really wide when he talked, for some reason.

He seemed to figure I grasped the general concept, and just sort of stood slightly behind me after he handed me a shovel and watched. He pointed out a couple of things, like where to stick my foot on the shovel, and how to keep the sides nice and straight. He sort of pointed with his whole arm, leaving his hand closed. I got the impression that his hands probably hurt him from all that digging. It was a big cemetery.

He left after about two feet, which was good. The plastic zip-lock bag was uncomfortable under the back of my shirt. It made me sweat against the bulk of the gun, and my skin kept catching a chill every time the wind billowed up. He told me to come and get him once it was up to my shoulders or so. “An don’ go too deep,” he said. “You cain’t get out then.”

“Alright,” I said.

Three feet down and I was filthy, but I expected that. My gloves were filled with brown clay and dirt. It smelled strongly like rotten eggs. Every few chucks I’d lean against the side of the grave and sort of sink in a bit. It occurred to me that this would be a good place to lie down and watch the sky, because the earth was so soft and no one could see I wasn’t working. I suddenly remembered that I used to like to do that a lot, lie down and just stare up for hours. But of course that was a stupid idea. Instead of lying down I would shove myself back onto my legs with both elbows and pull the shovel out of the side where I’d stabbed it, and start chucking some more.

After about five feet I had to stop because my headache was really getting harsh. I flicked off the gloves and pinched my eyes into my skull, then pinched the soft spot in between my thumb and forefinger to ease the pain. First the left with the right, then the right with the left after a minute or so. It was okay while I was doing it, but as soon as I would let up the pain would come rushing back into my brain, like my blood was full of tiny stones. It was hard to take. I opened my eyes and closed them again, but there isn’t much difference between the two different worlds, as far as pain goes. You’re stuck with what you’ve got when your eyes are open, and when they’re closed you can only see what you can’t have.

I decided to hurry up and dig the rest of the grave. As it was I could just barely see over the side, and if I stood directly in its center I could touch both sides with my elbows. I started to dig faster, really boring the shovel into the ground. I pulled up enormous clumps of mud and clay and swept them over my head. They swished into the grass. Swing, chuck, sling. Swing, chuck, sling.

Pretty soon the grave was so deep that the bottom was too dark to see my boots. Or they were covered with dirt, I couldn’t tell. In any case there was no way anyone who might happen to walk by could see what I was doing unless they stood right at its edge. I laid the shovel aside, pulled the zip-lock bag out and slipped the gun out, along with my draft card and a flat wad of sterile gauze. The pain in my head was making it difficult for me to focus my eyes, and I dropped the draft card into the darkness at my feet. But that was fine. I’d planned on burning it but I thought that since I was down there I might as well just bury it, and anyway this way I wouldn’t have to fumble with any lighter. I clawed some dirt way from the walls and stamped it down over the card until I couldn’t hear it crinkling anymore.

The gun was an old blue steel .38 snub-nosed my brother gave me before he went overseas. He’d bought one for himself just like it. I told him it was a stupid idea but he thought it would be cool to bring his own gun for some reason. He even went to church one day and had the deacon bless a chamber of bullets. Can you imagine? A deacon blessing bullets.

I gripped the .38 in my left hand and pressed the muzzle against the lowest knuckle of my index finger on the inside of my right hand. My trigger finger. I pressed it into the side of the grave as deep as it would go, and the weight on the pressure-point eased my headache again. “I am wide awake,” I said. It was important for me to say this.

I fired, and shoved my face into the mud of my brother’s grave to stifle the scream I couldn’t hold back, tasting oily earth.

In Arizona

I should have written in this thing like thirty five times since I got here, because there has been many unusual things. Many unsual things, not the least of which being hanging out with my three brothers at my brother Brett's place, who owns many automatic weapons. Eric has just informed me that he only has one, and it is not automatic. "I have a revolver. .357 Magnum. Snubnose." Andrew is sulking in the bedroom, even though I haven't seen him for 5 years, because Eric called him an alcoholic, after refusing to give him a Jager Bomb.

Mistake

I'm currently about an hour and a half into watching The Man In the Iron Mask, starring two Leonardo DiCaprios, which is a movie I've always been curious about for some reason I can't remember. I think I have another hour and a half to go. The verdict so far: AWFUL PIECE OF SHIT.

Sample dialogue: "To love you is treason, but not to love you is treason against my heart."

Once again: AWFUL PIECE OF ROTTEN GARBAGE.

The Better Part of the Dream

NOW IT'S NIGHTTIME, and the city is totally flooded out, and I have my cat, Mr. Chillynose, with me as I wade through streets of downtown Chicago in neck-deep water, following a long procession of people trying to escape the city. It's tough trying to navigate through all that water amongst so many people while trying to keep my cat above its surface, but I manage to collect together this mass of floating animals. First there is a huge turtle, which cranes its snakelike neck back to eyeball me and opens its mouth in protest when I put Mr. Chillynose on his back, but he can't really do much about it. The turtle sinks into the water because Mr. Chillynose is such a fatass, and his white fur gets a bit wet before I have a chance to prop up the turtle with my hands on the edges of its shell underwater, and his fur clumps together and spikes out like a hedgehog. He keeps meowing and looking with his bugged out yellow eyes for some way to get out of this, but every time he turns his paw slips a bit or something splashes near him and catches his attention, and all I can do is try to figure out a way to keep this stupid turtle propped up and still move forward with the procession of people while he keeps going "meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow..." So like I said, there was a mass of floating animals, and the humungous turtle was first, and second was this whale. A very small whale, about the size of the turtle, which I manage to wedge under the turtle to help keep it afloat, and now we've got propulsion, and things are starting to look pretty good, and the next thing I know there is this big floating mass of black fur right next to me, on my right side, which I can't tell what it is- it might be a huge dog but it's the size of a bear. I'm starting to feel like I'm going to have to start saving everything I can, like all the other little escaping helpless people and animals. Then I see this really tiny green snake, about the size of a gummy worm, floating in the dark water and I rescue it and stick it into the fur of the bear, only its been bitten in half, which is wierd because it's still alive but whatever.

And then this redneck comes up to my animal boat and snarls at me, trying to intimidate me and lay claim to my sweet situation, but there is no way I'm giving it up, especially because of Mr. Chillynose. But he won't go away, he's one of those dumbasses with no imagination and no sense of humor except for they laugh when other people get hurt or humiliated, and then this other redneck comes over and actually tries to redirect the course of my animal boat and that sets me off- I go at the first redneck- we're about ten feet away from each other and we sort of charge as best as we can in the deep water. I've never attacked anyone like this so I'm thinking on my feet, I decide quickly to do the most damage in the easiest way possible to this fucker, and he goes to punch me in the face but my face is in his face, and I bite this big chunk out of the bridge of his nose. I back away and his blood is squirting out pretty severely, like shooting maybe five feet out in front of him, and boy is he PISSED now. He purposely points his nose at me and squirts his blood in my eyes, and I almost panic for a second but then I remember how smart I am and I dunk myself under the water and swim at him and somehow manage to force him under the front end of this car that this young couple is driving, underwater, like I really wedge him up between the tires and the street, and then I swim around to the drivers side window and I put the car in 'drive' and it rolls over this guy, bumping up and down twice, and the guy driving underwater and his girlfriend notice don't seem to mind much.

AND THE LAST BIT BEFORE I WOKE UP had me swim out from behind the moving car and hoist myself up onto this sort of a landing at the top of a stairway in front of a highrise office building to get a good view of the procession so I can find out where my animal raft has gone with Mr. Chillynose, but I see this young girl, in her early twenties at the most, lying on a gurney with her arms at her sides as water spashes and sloshes up onto her face, which causes her to squint and snort and spit continuously. She is very pretty, with a round face and big eyes and dark brown hair and flush cheeks, and she's wearing an outfit made with various shades of green. I ask her what the heck she thinks she's doing lying there on this gurney thing- I get the impression that she's not hurt in any way, but she's just trying to wait it out. Her rigid body seems to reflect stoic character. But all she says is "Help me," in a really small and helpless voice, but she's sort of smiling at the time so I'm confused, but tell her sure, and decide to drag her out to my little raft once I find it. Then I notice her eyes are really wierd, like she's an alien from outer space- no pupil or iris or white eyball, bit just a single shiny orb, olive-drab in color. I start to wonder if maybe it isn't a good idea to bring her along.

Rock Practice

I just got back home from my rock practice in Humboldt Park where I play rock guitar to rock beats. My drummer, this guy Jason, is a bike messenger, so by the time we play during the week at around 8pm he's totally exhausted and is often reluctant to try things that require that extra amount of energy; and my bassist Kevin, whose place it is, has to get up every morning at the butt-crack of dawn and go do heating and air conditioning. So we end up taking lots of breaks, and not getting much done, which is a bummer for me because I have the easiest job on the planet which I can pretty much stroll into whenever I feel like it. I work at the Library putting books away or something.

Even so, the music we're doing is really good, which is kind of a problem because it's like just good enough for me to keep devoting time and energy to it, time which in my mind is directly donated from pushing the writing thing. Or maybe it's not the time I'm thinking of that's the issue, but the fact that I am justifying my existence with the casual creative process of writing the songs and am thus less driven to create works of literary genius. I just knew this was going to happen.
I was in a band for a long time, in my early twenties, and it was like no matter what I did with my life that was irresponsible or tragic I had The Band, and all of my self respect was wrapped up in it, and I devoted all of my hopes and dreams to it. And when it crashed out I was driven to go back to school and take up writing, which is something I've always always always wanted, and I thought This is all me, nobody else to rely on, I sink or swim on my own fuckin terms, yeah.

The thing is, I know I have to PICK something and get really, REEEALY good at it, not just keep floating on various creative endeavors for which I have a natural knack. I remember reading something in a Vonnegut essay where he said that communication with the rest of the world is so extreme that you have to compete with everybody on the whole planet- like you could be King Gymkata of the Pole Vault in your small community but it doesn't mean squat when compared to the best of the best of the you get the picture.

I like to sometimes contrast this line of thinking with a pet paradigm of mine, which is that it's a mistake to crave respect on too large a scale, and that it's admirable to adopt a smallish, incestuous community in which everybody's creativity feeds on each other and carve out a place for yourself there... I'm thinking of course of Chicago. My friend Megan is like this: she is always out there giving herself to people who care what she is doing.

When you love to do too many things, though, it's kind of hard to pick. I see myself as turning into this aging bohemian type who takes potshots at writing and filmaking and music, and who's name fades from one of those particular community's consciousnesses by the time he gets around to following up on whatever. It certainly doesn't lend itself to bringing in the dough...

Video games don't help, either. Stay away from those things, if you don't already. 70 and a half hours logged for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the Xbox. Ouch.

Yesterday

Hi Anna Banana

I'm having a nice day- I woke up nice and early four times until it was about 11am, then I got up and noticed it was thundering and raining out and decided right away that I was going to read for awhile on your porch, and I watched the mama sparrow feed the kids, and when she took off to get more grub(s) after she was satisfied the big ugly monkeyman wasn't going to munch her squealing brats daddy flew up from somewhere to make sure, too. I couldn't help but to notice that the sky was nice and dark just south but clearing up to the west, so I kept looking up from my book to check the progress of the dissipating storm, wishing I'd gotten up a little earlier because I could tell I had maybe twenty minutes tops before the rain stopped, and before I knew it, it did Just as I finshed reading the one and only graphic sex scene in the book between the only two characters in the book who might actually love each other. I could see Wave 2 was on its way but there was no way I was going to wait around for it, so I scooped up the keys you left for me on the counter, grabbed the bike and zoomed on up the the bike path, feeling lazy and fat and tired but happy that the sun was still hidden. Halfway to work the drizzle set in again and, and by the time I got downtown it was really coming down but I didn't mind at all, except that I wished I'd thought to bring my contacts over to your place last night but thinking's been a slow process for me lately for some reason. Waiting at the light on Jackson a couple in their mid-thirties crept up behind me and the man said "Excuse me, but do you live here?" and I looked around me and said You mean in Chicago? "Yes." Yeah, I do. He said "Do you know where the Hancock Observatory is?" and I said "Probably at the top of the Hancock Building" and the woman laughed and I noticed she was sort of pretty, with dark hair cut in a bob slicked against her face under the rain, and the man smirked under his banana republic baseball hat and said "Yeah, I know, but can you tell me where the Hancock building is?" and I pointed at it, it was the biggest building in the skyline from where I was standing except for the building that looks exactly like the late World Trade Center buildings in New York, but then felt unsure, and looked around south to make sure there wasn't a building that obviously prooved me wrong, but I left my arm pointed at it and when I looked back I told him There it is and told him to walk up Michigan till he got to Water Tower Place at Chicago St. They both said thanks and as I rode away to Columbia in the rain I tried to sum up the character of Chicago people as seen by outsiders looking for directions, and I thought If everyone's like me then they're generally friendly and want to help, if only to reiterate to themselves how well they know their city, but they can't resist poking a little fun at foreigners with jokes at their expense, and if the foreigners have a good sense of humor about the whole thing then everybody comes out feeling good about the encounter.

Love,

Pato

The Following Are Lies

I WROTE LOTS OF BLOG ENTRIES, ONE EVERY DAY THIS SUMMER, I SWEAR, BUT THEY ALL GOT LOST SOMEHOW, I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!
I DO NOT PLAY TOO MANY VIDEO GAMES.
I HAVE PLENTY OF ENERGY TO SINK INTO BOTH THE BAND AND THE PASSION FOR WRITING!
I DO NOT HAVE CONFUSED AMBITIONS.
MY LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH ALCOHOL IS NOT CAUSING ME TO LOSE SELF RESPECT.

Telemarketing pt 2

At first I went after the quirkiest jobs I could find. I figured at the time why the hell not, and in those early stages of the job search you feel like you have the luxury to be picky. There was this opening in the Blue Man Group's band. The Blue Man Group is a popular performance art show that originated in New York, featuring a rotating cast of three stony faced, silent bald guys dressed in black, whose heads and hands are painted gleaming, cobalt blue. Their show was interspersed with live music performances by the Blue Man Band.

The Blue Man Band needed and electronic zither player. I'd seen them once for free because a friend had been working as an usher at the theater. I closed my eyes and pictured the band playing in the loft above the stage, in the dark, illuminated only by black lights hidden from view. Two pairs of neon orange drumsticks arced over lime green voodoo skullfaces; shadowy demons whose glowing metallic bones strummed on oddly shaped yield-sign-yellow guitars writhed to rhythms somehow both moody and up-beat. Esoteric electrical devices bleeping and blooping along the perimeter. Nowhere in my memory could I locate something that might be called a 'zither.' I figured they made it up, and so my chances of playing it were just as good as anyone else's.

This is the letter I sent to them, along with my resume, which detailed the long list of call center jobs trailing behind me:

My name is Patrick van Slee and I'm a very good musician. I have no idea what an "electronic zither" is, but I want to play it for your band. I like to play in the dark under a black light, so that won't be a problem. Give me a call, and you won't be disappointed.

The Unified Theory of Everything

There used to be a time
When everwhere around me
I saw mystery
And at night,
When I dreamed,
I was like a spellbound detective
Sorting through clues
That manifested themselves to me as impossible landscapes
Of vivid color
And sensation.

But that was before I figured out
The Unified Theory of Everything
And now
I see
The motivation
Behind everything that happens to me
And the dry logic
Soaks up the mystery
Without solving it

Even now,
As I write this,
I'm performing a sort of experiment;
But like a baby
That touches its own reflection
In a still pool of water,
I distort
That which I seek to understand
By the sham attempt

Telemarketing pt 1

SO it was a couple of summers ago and I was just out of my first semester back into college. I'd worked for SBC for a couple of years up until then and I had some money saved up, so I hadn't had to work during the spring semester. But now I needed a JOB.
I poured through the classifieds in the Chicago Reader. Most of the listings offered what the job market always seems to have available- serving jobs for new food service places, legal assistants, and gobs of call centers for in- and out-bound telemarketing.
I hate call centers, in fact swore I would avoid them like moldy sausage for the rest of my life. I can't stand talking on the phone, for one thing. And those places have a way of turning everything you do while you're on the clock into a percentage value that can mathematically be translated into their profit equations, because you are jacked into their telephone computer system at all times. Thus can they monitor every single minute of your day with a guy surrounded by computer screens who sends you pop-up messages to go an have a chat with the manager. Things like going off-script, forgetting to say the company name multiple times, and even leaving your workstation to go take a piss become a number representing profit loss. I once had a supervisor sneak after me and follow me into the bathroom.

CELEBRITIES' LIVES ARE NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS

Dream Ageein

It was cool, I was hanging from this window, trying to figure out how I was going to escape from these army guys who were chasing after me. I look down and the face of the building is brown marble, doesn't look like I can get a foothold- there are lots of angles and crevices but they look just a bit too sheer for me to sneak my foot in. Just then a man in a white shirt and a black tie finds me and closes the window without saying anything, confident that I've chosen my own form of execution. I dangle there for awhile, look down again, start to get scared, but then decide to slide down as gently as I can when I notice that the building tilts in an unusual way- I spit to make sure, to get a sense of the angel of the building with respect to the vertical pull of gravity, but the wind makes my spit arc as it falls, which tells me squat. I slide down anyway and whatta y'know! There is a very comfortable balcony conveniently located just below my feet somehow, and I drop myself into and smile. It's a wide balcony made of old, grey, weathered stone, cold to the touch because it's in the shade, pocked and pitted from acid rain and spotted with black dots of mold. There are thick columns that I can walk around, situated like crowded statues. I walk around them, marveling at the contrast of comfort between hanging around on this neat balcony and hanging on for dear life, dangling from a window. I'm feeling pretty safe here, guessing that the man and his army people are through with me, but then just as I think this to myself I remember just how thorough professional soldier-type people are, and I start to worry that they know about this sweet spot of mine... And then a whole bunch of these army guys come pouring through this big sliding glass door out onto the balcony and I try to hide behind one of the columns, even sort of walking around it to obscure myself from them as they walk closer but there are way too many of them, and I give myself up, walk out of cover with my hands up. One of the army guys points this huge machine gun at me right away but i'm like "No, Look!" with my hands, emphasizing that I've given myself up, and he looks really angry but I see he's not going to shoot me after all, which I don't really understand because didn't they just want me dead? I mean, the whole shutting the window thing, leaving me to plummet thirty stories to my death? But the Tie Guy isn't there, and the army guy with the machine gun walks around me and the other army guys sort of file back in through the sliding glass door again, really slowly. And the the machine gun guy puts his arm around my neck from behind and fumbles around with something, probably those plastic zip cuffs, and I sort of take this very deliberate step backwards and hook him around his neck and right arm and grab his right hand and point the machine gun at the other army men with my free arm, and I make him pull the trigger, shooting all of the army guys as they try to run back out onto the balcony. They come charging in like maniacs but my aim is straight and I shoot them all to death while my army guy struggles for control of the gun.

I just ate a free cheeseburger

Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum yum Yum

In the NY Times today

"In all, 118 foreigners from 32 countries are on death rows in the United States."

My Dream Pt. 4

There is a loud blast, and a fwoosh!, accompanied by the sweet, chemical smell of turpentine. Before I turn to see where the sound had come from, I notice that the from the ground plumes of oily, black smoke curl up towards the sky, and there are thousands of tiny fires peppering the landscape.
"It was those people," says a low, gravelly voice, and I know that it is the balloon itself that has spoken to me. "They fell like bombs to the earth, and now everyone burns." I turn around.
Sean is standing in the center of the wooden compartment, which as near as I can tell is roughly the size of my bathroom. His head is shaven and his face is dotted red with acne. His eyebrows are thick and black, and his eyes seem to have a sound of their own as I remember his voice clearly. He smiles at me and then looks upwards through the hole in the balloon and pulls on a long brass chain with links two inches thick, releasing a gust of whitish-blue flame with another fwoosh!
I knew it was a misunderstanding, I think. People like Sean didn't die. And people like me didn't- I knew it was all a mistake. I'm so happy. I'm so relieved.
"Why did you not go into the mountain?" the voice of the baloon says to me again. "You were supposed to."
"I tried," I say. My answer is half-hearted, obligitory. I am much more interested in talking to my friend.
"Hey, fucker," I say to him, giving him a punch in the ribs. "Where have you been?"
Sean says nothing, but he smiles that dry old smile of his that always preceded his obnoxious laugh, the laugh that sometimes would also precede an even more obnoxious scream. I used to wonder what was in that scream that made it so forgivable, how it was that Sean was able to wear his punk-rock-styled obstreperousness well. After he died, and all that amazing energy exploded into all of us, changing us, I came to understand that it was that his body, tough as it was, was unable to contain the abundant lifeforce he generated, and when from time to time he let it blow out through his superhuman vocal cords we all got to see just for a minute what it was to be Sean, and it felt good.

My Dream Pt. 3

I sink through the blackness immediately, the water rushing so quickly past my ears that I feel as though it digs a channel through them, eroding my brain and pouring out the back of my skull like a jet stream. Instinctively squeezing my legs against my chest with clenched fists and tight arms I seem to offer no buoyancy to the water, and sink deep and deeper, leaving the raft and the sunlight and the unexplored mountain far behind me. I expect to feel at any second the sharp tearing of my body against the rusted, twisted junk that I know litters all levels of the water. I expect to hear a fleeting crack and see an explosion of light behind my shut eyes just before I die.
But it is when I shut my eyes that I understand that this was never water at all, and through my eyelids I see that I am falling through the grey sky high above an intricate network of roads and cultivated farmland. I can barely suppress a scream as the sense of vertigo overtakes me, but the thrill of mortal severity my situation injects into my bones is wonderful, and I feel alive and clear-headed for what seems like the first time since my childhood.
All around me many others are falling as well, and I know that they each have something they are trying to tell me, if only they could manage to direct the course of their descent to coincide with mine. As they zoom by, limbs flailing, I catch bits and pieces of their message that they scream to me over the wind that howls in my ears. "...wwwASN'T ANYTHING YOU COULDA DOonne..." shouts a blond, middle aged woman wearing denim overalls. Her face is twisted into a mask of violent glee as she calls to me, her hair flickering above her, and her voice cuts off abruptly as she whips away from my field of vision. A fat man, also grinning maniacally, swoops toward me, his neck bent awkwardly as he tries to catch my eyes from slightly below. Streaks of blood course over his shiny, bald head, trailing from his nose and ears, and beneath the wiry stubble on his face his skin looks grey and dead. He opens his flapping jowls and I hear "...nnnoOBODY SEES IT THAT WAY But yoou..."
All the while we race toward the earth, and more of the landscape before me looks green and alive. The people spin by more quickly, each one seemingly more ecstatic than the last, though I feel their frustration at their inability to move close enough to me so that we may fall together and talk. Soon their fleeting voices blend into a wall of noise that ripples my attention, and then finally it becomes a single, wailing siren as if from a distant ambulance sweeping over the city where I live. No earthly sound has every caused me so much unrest as the type of siren that now penetrates into my dreamworld; it sticks in my brain like bacon grease. The sound disappears after only what seems to be a few seconds, fortunately, and I open my eyes to find that they are gone, and I realize that I am no longer falling, but standing in a small, wooden compartment, floating in a hot air balloon, still far, far above the earth. And someone is in there with me.

My Dream Pt. 2

The rock peninsula does not appear to be drawing any closer, though I am certain that a good deal of time has passed, and the swampwater churns gently as I am driven steadily ahead. As I realize this I find myself standing at the foremost edge of the raft. The displaced water slaps the wood, chills my bare feet. I look down at my toes curling over the edge and find that from this vantage point the water appears again to be dark and cold. I am suddenly aware of the thick, ominous space that spans between the bottom of my feet and the swamp's murky, unimaginable depths. It imposes itself on me, and I feel heavy, drawn into it. The blackness of it permeates throughout the limits of my awareness, eclipsing the warmth and lightness the ubiquitous sunlight of the open day had inspired. What I feel as I peer into it is not fear but a sense of desperation in the face of its strength and inevitability, though as I stare beyond my own warped, inscrutable reflection I am conscious of the paranoia and irrationality that bubbles over it.
Anxious to disembark, I lean forward, toward the stoic mountain, convinced that by doing so the speediness of the raft will be somehow increased. There are often moments in my day-to-day life in which my own brain betrays me by imagining in vivid, horrific detail the most tragic sequence of immediate events possible. Sinisterly, this internal tourette's usually deals with someone whose well-being I care for much more than my own. Sometimes it is as simple as playing out the immediate alternate future of a near miss, such as seeing my cat, Obie, suffering terribly, gasping for life with a crushed and ruined body after I have unsuccessfully avoided stepping on him. Other times, however... A CTA train rushing toward me as I stand waiting at the platform with my Anna... A moment in which if I were to push her only slightly she would...
Because I can not control these sickening images I see this as the darkest evil within myself, and it seems to me to be a curse that can hurt me at any time. A curse that intends to terrify me that one day I will succumb to the impulse in an instant of insanity that will destroy my life and the life of someone I care for forever.
It is this same curse to which I attribute the tendency of my dreamworld to take its cues from my immediate fears. In the instant in which I see the possibility of plunging into the dark water I find myself smacking its surface.

My Dream Pt. 1

I am standing on the waterline of a swamp. Behind me is a sheer, rocky, volcanic cliff wall that stretches off to my left, to the east, as far into the distance as I am aware. Around me the boulders are fused together and enormous, and their shadows are dark. The water immediately before me is black and still, but sweeping away from me it blends first into a deep, pine green, then grows more vibrant until it coagulates into an algaeic lime so rich it glows through the underbrush. As I scan the area of the swamp I see it ripple at the base of many thick clumps of tall, dry grass that waves in the breeze.
I find myself navigating a wooden raft between the weeds and around small islands that support gnarled, stunted trees. Though I am unaware of the specific position of the sun, it seems now to me that it is simultaneously early morning, midafternoon, and late evening. It is hot, and the heat strikes me suddenly. I remember the cool rocks at the shoreline, I almost miss the shade the cliff face provided.
The weeds have become sparse, and the raft now seems to move under its own power toward the pinnacle of a jagged peninsula just west of where I had been standing. It is there, I know, that I will find a cave, and a tunnel, and something like an ancient temple or pyramid buried beneath the volcanic mountain, which I will explore. I have the sense that this is a route that I have taken many times before; a secret route that I have often used to make my way from place to place. I am filled with a childlike thrill. I am happy.
As I float through the swamp images come to me of other places I have visited via this path. I see faces of cheerful people who wait for me there, of whose existence no one is aware but me. I miss them.

Monkeys

They sure are funny!

Be Frank

In response the growing anti-obesity sentiment in this country, we have this anti-anti-obesity backlash from a company whose food product is about as healthy as cigarettes. It features a big fat guy called Frank that eats franks and is frank. And they came up with a new word for "fatass." READY? Here it is: "Girthy." The words "Girthy is good," meaning "it's okay to be a great, big fatass," are emblazoned all over the CTA redline cars, thank GOD. I've always wanted to endorse a hotdog.

BE BIG. BE MEATY. BE FRANK.

AAAAHHHH!!!

This is the conversation I had to have tonight with my roomate:


Jason, would you mind if we moved your tape deck so I can fit the video
game system in there?

“Where are you gonna move it?”

I don’t know, somewhere else.

“Well, then, yeah.”

You mean, you do mind?

"Well, where are you gonna put it?"

How about your room?

“There’s no room in there.”

Okay, how about the closet?

“I’m not putting that thing in the closet.”

Okay, how about your other room?

“Maybe.”

Kitty Pillow

I figured out a good use for my burgeoning winter belly.

A kitty pillow!

Haha!

Guess what I'm doing right now...?

My Laundary!!!! HAhaha! Yeah!

Spiders

I'm supposed to be writing a seven page paper on NAFTA right now, but I don't want to so...
It actually wouldn't be that bad if I could talk about the EFFECTS of NAFTA, but I have to write about how it fits into a specific foreign policy model, and I'm boring myself to suicide even writing about it right now on this blog.
I wonder if other people live amongst as many spiders as I do. They mostly keep out of sight, but occasionally they figure hey he's never squished any of us yet and they forget to hide when I'm around. There's a big bastard of a spider just hanging out on the heating duct right above my head. Once or twice, while I was writing on my computer in the dark, a spider just lowered itself right onto my screen. There are webs EVERYWHERE.
I can't decide if I don't care about it because I'm kind of a Thoreau-inspired naturalist, and like I'm just not bothered by it and am in fact a kind of dirty elitist in the sense that I view my peaceful co-existence with spiders and filth as representitive of a healthy relationship with good old mother nature; or I'm just lazy. Everytime Anna comes over she talks about sweeping all the spider's webs down. She doesn't really mind spiders either, which is I guess lucky for me and the spiders.
Man, NAFTA is so boring. I wrote a song about it as part of a presentation I have to give tomorrow in class, and hopefully it will figure heavily into whatever I get for an overall grade, because the paper isn't going to be much more than some long quotes I ripped out of some books from the library stitched together with a whole bunch of bullshit.
I wonder if anyone else has ever written a song about NAFTA. It's pretty good, actually.

Obake

My cat loves me so much I almost can't even believe it. He sleeps in my bed every night, even though I live in a shitty, smelly, freezing cold basement. He comes to visit me in my little office area because he knows I will always stop to play with him a little bit and then let him purr on my lap while I'm working. He digs his claws into me because he can hardly sit still, he loves me so much. But he never digs too hard because he doesn't want to hurt me. He's doing it right now.
Here are the top ten reasons why he is the greatest kitty that the world has ever seen:

10: He can jump halfway up the wall to try and catch the laser dot, even though he's fatter than a big, white basketball.
09: He lets me cradle him on his back and play with his little kitty nipples.
08: He likes it when I tug on his ears.
07: When you scratch his chin, he closes his eyes and his nose bunches up on his face like a raisin.
06: He's a tough motherfucker, he can kill anything he wants to.
05: He loves it when I play piano or guitar and especially when I sing to him, and he just sits and listens.
04: His name is MONSTER, and he LIKES IT.
03: He thinks any space in between me and Anna while we're laying in bed is prime real estate.
02: He's way smarter than most of the people I went to highschool with.
01: His nose is fucking PINK.

Robots in Disguise

!st Place

I'm supposed to be writing a folktale right now, but I'm procrastinating. Instead I'll write a little entry in my blog for once.
I actually wanted to do my laundary today. About two weeks ago our landlady finally installed a washer and a dryer in the apartment. I've been meaning to do my laundary since then, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I tried to do it today but the stupid door is locked! So many obstacles. All my clothes smell horrible. I can't stand it anymore, it's getting to the point where I don't even want to go out until I have a chance to wash them.
About a month ago I won a thousand dollars from this writing contest this hoity-toity club in Chicago called the Union League holds every year. I got first place, and my story was published in their anthology. Here are the initial, direct repercussions of this:
1. I got really drunk the night I found out and crashed my bike into a parked car because I was staring at the street under my feet while I was riding, thinking to myself, "I'm going to crash." I hit the ground and had to wait until these four other drunk people came by and untangled me from my bike. One of them wanted to take off my shoes, for some reason. I walked the rest of the way home, half crying, half laughing hysterically because I seriously injured my arm. It still hurts, and now every time I straighten it out it pops.
2. I paid both mine and my roomate Jason's rent with the big bucks, with enough left over for me to pay what I owed the gas, electric, and phone companies, plus a little extra.
3. I bought a BB gun with the little extra. This is something that I've always wanted. Nothing has made me feel more like an immature little kid than the experience of aquiring this thing, which I've pretty much been consistently firing since I got it monday. I spent three hours on two different websites looking at all these different air-soft guns until I finally bought one off of ebay for 40 dollars. It took a week to get here. The night before it was supposed to arrive I could barely sleep, and I had all these terrified dreams about being cheated or the thing not showing up or showing up as just a little keychain gun, for instance. I woke up extra early, but kept slipping back into half-sleep with my ears fixed on the front door, anticipating the UPS lady's arrival. Finally at noon she pounded on the door and yelled "UPS!" I was naked so I couldn't answer the door right away, and for a second I was scared I might not find any pants in time and the UPS lady would leave, but Anna knew where my robe was, so I signed for it and got back under the covers and opened the box while it rested on mine and Anna's lap. She was like "Oh, God" and made jokes about me putting together a gun before breakfast. Two words: Laser. Sight. There are little orange BBs all over the apartment now.

Goldeneye

I wrote this song about Goldeneye, the revolutionary video game for the N64, for my old band Plague of Yeti. It's called "Box of Goggles."

SHow me the scenery!
Find out if I stand a chance
Wrong guy but oh well!
One more victime of circumstance
I've got my PP7!

Point it at the bad guy's hat,
But before I shoot it off,
Some asshole shoots me in the back and I die!

Bond is a bad ass...
So is Natalia...
I will protect her...
Kill if I have to...
Destroy all the bad guys...
THen straighten my bow tie...

I am 007!
I am 007!

Crouch and aim respectively
Hope that nobody can hear me
One more life that i have taken!
Make sure my martini's shaken!

Down on the floor
This mission isn't over yet
Hit bad but oh well
There's armor on the parapet
My silenced PP7
Can't silence cries of agony
I don't care I enjoy it!
Noone is a threat to me!

The Yeti Rap

"Are you ready?"
Said the Yeti to the Sasquatch
"Watch what I do
And listen to what I tell you.
Centuries ago in the woods of Oklahoma
All the planets were aligned
And all the seas began to foam.
About a quarter past midnight there came from the ground
With a sound
Like Bees flying 'round
A beam of light illuminating identical stones,
Three was their number
And under the sky that day
Was conception of a plan, by these three
Our Messiahs
And with faith we would come to partake in their trials...
The rocks split apart
Three Yeti then arose
They were gaunt,
and stout,
From the toes to the nose
'We arise!' came the cry
When the rocks split apart
At last they have come, to the soaring of my heart!
I don't think I had control over the next thing that I did
But I walked out from the safety of the shadows where I hid
And what I saw
Just dropped my jaw to the ground,
Millions and Millions of Yeti all around!
Then I began the glow
and to grow
and to go to the light
With all the Yeti in sight
I began to merge
and to purge all my individuality,
Now one with the ones who became my new reality
Our knees
Touching the tips of the trees
We leapt to the seas
Now the earth is tremulous
Our efforts nearing strenuous
And their grip on life was tenuous
In the face of a great tsunami
From Japan
To Miami."

Like Tron? So does John Maynard

Some random thoughts...

Walking down the street, overhearing other people's conversations, especially if they are on cellphones, I often hear people earnestly using the adverb "really" to emphasize just how strongly they feel about something, and in fact more often than not the word is accompanied by several repetitions, like "I really really really liked that part when..." I can't help but think that I would be much more likely to trust someone's convictions if they left the adverb out entirely, and that it is the fear that most people nowadays are accustomed to lies flowing freely that drives us to over emphasize rather than trust our words will be understood and taken seriously. Also, the pretentious side of me sees it as a sign of a weak grasp of vocabulary.

Some people say that when you get old you get the face that you deserve. This makes sense to me. Our faces are so expressive so that emotions can be understood without speech- thus do they reflect our state of mind unless controlled- and over time the emotive facial muscles are probably toned just like any other muscle in our bodies. Also, the act of attempting to control facial muscles seems linked intrinsically to that of controlling one's emotions- relaxing the face is meditative.

There is this sentence my friend Karina once showed me. It is free of punctuation of any kind, and what you do is show it to someone and have them place punctuation within it. It's supposed to reveal a lot about the person's character, depending where they choose to place a comma or colon, or whether they do, etc. This is it:

Woman without man is nothing

Feminism aside, if I were asked to come up with my own character revelatory question, I think I would ask people what they think would happen if the human race produces a unified theory of physics.

More another time...

I Am Dirty

Here is my wisdom. May it aid you.

“How To Get Away With Almost Never Going To the Laundramat”

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that not everyone can really get away with this. Some people just really fuckin stink. Not much they can do about it- they just do, and it sticks to their clothes even if they’re out swimming in a chlorinated pool and they only just throw on a t-shirt real quick to go out an get more beer. Could be their diet’s got way too much beef in it, who knows.
Anyway, you know who you are if you smell like garbage all the time, so you might as well just stop reading this because it’s not going to help you. All you other people, though, you should listen up, because if you’re anything like me just about every surface of your room, and maybe even some of the common areas like the kitchen table or the couch has dirty clothes flopped over it. And you probably have more clothes than most people, at the very least more t-shirts and socks, because the more you have the less often you have to wash them. Good for you. You may even have a small collection of other people’s socks, if your friends are one of two things:
1. Not too concerned about their personal belongings remaining in the proximity of their person, or
2. Really fuckin sick of your feet smelling like vomit and fritos every time you come over to watch The Simpsons or CSI or something. (Note: I don’t care if you almost never have to take a shower because you sweat ice cream or your skin is made out of lilac petals, your feet are going to stink like death if you don’t change your socks for a week, even if you are just sitting around your apartment downloading internet porn all day.)
Right. So. To begin with, lets hammer out the details. First of all, certain types of clothing last a little bit longer than others, as far as how long it takes for them to become unwearable. We’ve already touched on the socks a bit, but we’ll get back to those. Just remember the main thing with socks is that you can usually wear them for three or four days in a row before the soles start to get stiff from the dried sweat, unless you have shoes that don’t breathe very well, in which case that could happen after only one day. You can prolong the life of a single sock by simply turning it upside down, so the softer cotton is on the bottom of your foot and the black, soiled part is on the crest of your foot.
The next logical article to address would of course be shorts- but I’m going to save that for a little bit later. They get their own special attention.
In fact, let’s go from the top down. We’ll start with sweaters. Sweaters, they are great, because you almost always wear at least one or two shirts underneath. Let that be lesson number one: Multiple Layers Act As A “Buffer” For Your Stench. Since the weave for a sweater is much more sparce than most other clothing, if you have to you can just wave it around outside for a second if its carrying that musty, rusty-iron dirty laundry smell. Take it by the shoulders, give it a good flick to shake the lint and dust free, being careful to “avert your head” so the dust doesn’t get into your eyes and lungs, and then wave it in the breeze for maybe a minute. Trust me, you will be smelling like Jesus only wished he could. And another thing about sweaters is they don’t wrinkle. Honesly, I can’t tell you how many times I was running late for something, digging through all my piles of dirty laundry and a sweater saved my ass. Not everybody is a sweater person, but I highly recommend you have a couple of them laying around.
Next come the button-downs. You know, dress shirts. Again, these are advantageous because there is another shirt underneath (see Rule Number One.) And they mostly look real sharp- all you have to do is button yourself up and the whole package is 300 percent neater. It’s like making your bed. No matter how much crap you got lying all over the place in your room, as soon as you make the bed the place neat as a showroom floor at IKEA. But the problem with dress shirts is that they get wrinkled easily. It’s the only item of clothing that can give you away at-a-glance. There are a couple of different ways to get around this.
First, if you have to take a shower anyway, you can hang the shirt up in the bathroom, preferably right on the other side of the shower curtain from you, to steam it out. This will also attack the stink, if there is a stink, which there more than likely is. Steaming your shirt in this way will slightly relax the fibers, so the sharp creases of the wrinkles won’t be as obvious. Plus, because you yourself are freshly clean from your shower, there is the illusion that you have actually just washed the shirt, too, and you might be able to go through the whole day happily deluded in this way.
Next, there are ways to actually physically cover a large portion of the surface of the shirt. Remember: this is a dress shirt. You can accessorize. That’s what they’re for. So let’s say a few weeks ago you went straight to MacDonald’s after work. Don’t know why you would do that, but let’s just say. Actually, forget MacDonald’s. Let’s forget that such a place even exists. Let’s say instead that you went up to Demon Dogs, that tasty hotdog joint right underneath the redline. So you order yourself a nice, big, double dog, and you have them drown it in that yellow shit someone somewhere decided was cheeze, and then you pile on all kinds of onions and peppers and tomatoes and shit. You grab a stool over by the window so you can watch the people waiting out in the cold for the bus, even though there is this huge white sign with big black letters that says “CTA Commuters, feel free to wait inside.” And you’re munching on your cheezy double-dog and fries, absently dipping your hand repeatedly into the paper tray, not really paying all that much attention to what you’re doing because one of the guys waiting for the bus is talking on his cellphone so loud that you can hear him through the glass, and you are fantasizing all kinds of evil things to suddenly happen to him. Like the bus hops the curb and flattens him against Demon Dogs, or sparks from the redline fall down on him and he catches fire because his cologne is flammable, and he has to run away screaming while the person on the other end just keeps on saying “Hello? Hello?” The bus comes and he goes off to bother someone else, and by then you have finished your double dog, and you don’t feel like finishing the fries, but when you look down to see how many are left, you notice cheeze has drooled all the way down you shirt.
Napkins, even if they are soaked with water, will not remove all of the evidence of this when you find it weeks later. There will still be dark splotches from the oil they pour into that crap. This is why God created TIES. The wider the better, never mind if you think you’d look like a square. That’s right, wrap that thing around your neck and let it hang down over your cheeze stains, and noone will ever know the difference. In fact, they, whoever they may be, will think you are the kind of guy that goes that extra step to make an impression. How about that.
And let’s not forget suit jackets. Talk about sharp. When you’re wearing a suit jacket, your dress shirt can be wrinklier than your gramma’s gramma, and you’d still cut a fine figure under light scrutiny.
Moving right along, we get to the t-shirts. There are two different kinds of t-shirts: The t-shirt you like, that expresses your personality in some way, and the strictly functional t-shirt. The function of a t-shirt, again, is covered in Rule Number One.
Both kinds of t-shirts are functional, when you get right down to it, but the key is to have plenty of them. Because for the best results, it is a good idea to get into the habit of wearing TWO t-shirts at once. This may sound silly and redundant if you aren’t used to the idea, but think about it for a second. Double the buffer, first of all (Rule Number One.) And second, you already have your wardrobe picked out for the next couple of days. If you are going to be seeing the same people tomorrow, just turn the whole ensemble inside out! Now you still have two t-shirts, and there you are with a whole new outfit. (If you don’t like wearing t-shirts inside out, then you can take the extra step to readjust the outer layer, but you should be aware that wearing t-shirts inside out is not forbidden ground. Who cares? It doesn’t look all that different, really. And it will hide other cheeze or coffee stains, for the most part. Don’t cheat yourself by limiting your options.)
This brings me to Rule Number Two: Who Says You Have To Change Your Clothes Every Day? Especially if you are NOT going to be seeing the same people two days in a row. What’s a day but hours stacked onto other hours?
But if all of your t-shirts are disgusting because you have been following the first two rules for weeks (good for you), then there is no alternative but to take them to the bathroom sink. This process is easy, but it will be covered here later on, so hang in there.
Pants. Let me take a second to say what a wonderful word is “Pants.” I really like to say It, over and over. Pants pants pants pants pants.
Depending on your personal preference and monetary situation, you may have any number of different kinds of pants. Some pants don’t last long after many days of consecutive duty, some pants can go practically forever without ever being washed at all. The longer they can go without being washed, the more difficult they are to get clean when they start to rot, if they can get clean at all. But the key here is that pants can be worn every day, just like your shoes, if you do it the right way.
Whatever kind of pants you like, whatever you do, don’t think that white pants are sharp. They’re not. If you buy white, or even light colored pants, all you’re doing is wasting your time and cash, and you end up looking like Don Johnson from Miami Vice, which is NOT sharp. It’s LAME. Go with dark tones. Dark tones will hide almost everything, and even if there are visible stains they usually blend in well and it looks like you live an active lifestyle, which is respectable and interesting.
Right. So, like I said, some hold up better than others. Denim jeans are the most rugged, were in fact originally designed, at least according to my eighth-grade history teacher, Mrs. Steidle, by Enrico Levi, who also invented the cotton gin, to stand up to the rigors faced by the wealth-seekers of the Great American Gold Rush in 1492. He made more money than most of the bozos out there ripping up the earth and draining the rivers in search of gold, because they had to give it all to him, because he had such great pants, when they found their flimsy cotton pants were hanging off of their asses in shredded bits and pieces.
So jeans are great for long term use, but they are difficult to wash. You can’t really get around having to throw them in the washing machine, and usually if you wear them like they were designed to be worn, which is to say, all the time, they need to go in more than once, and the next thing you know you’ve been sitting in a laundrymat for hours, wondering who the hell thought it was a good idea to seal the television behind a plate of plexiglass so no one could turn the damn thing off, or at least turn down the volume.
If you’re like me, though, jeans aren’t really your cup of tea, as they say, so for the most part you have cotton, wool, and polyester to choose from. You are not reading this if you wear silk or leather pants. Corduroy is another option, I suppose, but I don’t know anything about corduroy pants, and I’m not even sure how to spell corduroy, so forget them. Of the three, polyester is the most sturdy, wool the warmest, obviously, and cotton the most comfortable.
Like I said, wool pants are nice and warm when you are outside, but you end up sweating them all up when you are sitting inside for any length of time because they are too warm. After only two days they start smelling like a dirty sock, and that’s no good. And they’re not very comfortable, anyway. In fact, I don’t think very many people even really wear wool pants. Stay away from them, too.
Cotton pants are okay, but they wear out easily (and they are usually more expensive.) Eventually that faded spot on your knees or you ass will fray into a little tear, and then the tear will open into a small hole, and then the hole will widen everytime you wear them, and then they are no good. Holes in denim jeans are alright, because it looks like you earned them, but holes in cotton pants look dumb.
Which leaves polyester pants. Polyester pants are made from scientific chemicals, and they don’t biodegrade. Like plastic. Seven million years from now, if the sun hasn’t swallowed up the earth, any galaxy-trotting alien archaeologists digging through the endless mountains of fast food containers and plastic water bottles will find pockets of polyester pants planted in the ground like rose-bulbs all over the planet. If you don’t believe me, try dropping your cigarette in your lap once. The burning cherry just pushes the material out of the way, leaving a little cauterized hole that never gets any bigger.
So polyester pants can last at least a lifetime. But we are talking about more than just hardiness here. Let’s not forget about the smell. See, polyester doesn’t breathe very well, you end up stinkng them up after a few days. They stink in their own, special way, especially from the crotch, because that’s the warmest place on your body. It smells like when you leave the dishes in the sink for way too long and there is that slimy, brown film coating all of your plates and siilverware. A eye-stinging, rotten, invasive smell, like dead cats covered in their own dirty litter. Bad, bad, bad. The heat drives the smell out prematurely, too, so you have to stay on top of it.
Which brings us back to the bathroom sink. When you find yourself sleeping naked because every single article of clothing you own, with the possible exception of that stupid ankle sock you have no idea why you keep in your dresser drawer, is utterly unpleasant to behold, let alone wear, there is no alternative but to do some washing. Sorry, you have no choice. Pick out the clothes that you are going to wear tomorrow and haul them up to your bathroom. An extra pair of socks wouldn’t hurt, while you’re at it. Turn on the water, adjusting it to a comfortable temperature. Do NOT plug up the sink. The water is just going to get filthy, and you will be working against yourself if you let the clothes sit in a pool of dirty water.
Now stuff the pants into the sink. Soap is not necessary. After they have absorbed as much water as they will hold, keep them under the running water and begin to knead the pants by grasping them with both hands, with your fingers fanned out as wide as possible, and then squeezing them closed as if to make a fist, thus wringing much of the water out. Watch with satisfaction as the water turns black. Then release the pants, allow the fabric to briefly soak up more water, grasp them in another spot and squeeze again, but this time slightly raise the pants from the surface of the bowl as you find a new grip. This will allow the filthy water which has begun to collect to drain away. As you continue to knead the pants pockets of air will form and you will see tons of little bubbles boiling out of the fabric as you compress the pants. This is good- the bubbles will help to loosen the dirt, and it makes a cool gurgling noise, like if a bear was trying to breathe through a stuffy nose.
Soon the water will begin to turn from black to brown or gray. When this happens, just toss them into the bathtub and repeat this process with the rest of your clothes until you get to the socks. There is no way that you are going to get all of the filth out from your pants, so just be happy with them not smelling horrible anymore.
Your socks require a bit more attention. They are going to stink much, much worse than anything you would ever want to go near. Turn on the hotwater and just throw them in the bowl. Don’t even touch them- leave them alone for a few minutes. The air in the bathroom will start to get a hint of the stink because the rising steam is carrying it up. Deal with it. The socks will be plugging up the sink. Let them. After the bowl is just about filled, turn off the water. You might have to add some cold water into the steaming soup of socks before you can plunge your hands inside. Then pull the socks away from the drain and let the water seep away. Turn the water back on, adjusting the temperature so it is comfortable again. This is the only part where you might benefit from a little bit of soap, although it is definitely not necessary. Black soles of your socks are not ever going to look nice and new. It’s way too late for that. But if for some reason you are struck with an unexplainable desire to attack the stain, you may grab the bar of soap that is sitting half sogged in the striated shelf situated just below and to the right of the medicine cabinet. Planting the sock lengthways along the surface of your palm, rub the soap on the black stain until you feel little or no friction. When you are through messing around with the soap, hold the socks one at a time under the water and begin to squeeze them repeatedly. There is no need to wait for them to reabsorb water between successive squeezes- the socks are small enough to become resaturated almost immediately following each squeeze. If you soaped them up, then continue to do this until the bubbles that fall into the sink pop right away- they do that because there is no more soap to preserve their curvature.
I know it’s probably getting late by this point, because you have undoubtedly waited until twenty minutes past the time you told yourself you needed to go to sleep before admitting that this washing procedure had to be done. One last thing, and then you are ready to go to sleep. You need to know how to wring them out.
You have to wring out your clothes as best as possible because you are going to let them hang dry in the bathroom, and there is only six or seven hours for them to do that. The last thing you want is to put on wet clothes. (Although most articles of clothing will dry against your body heat in only a few hours.)
Each article of clothing can be wrung in a similar way, so I’m going to use the socks to illustrate. This is a very meditative motion. It can help you in all kinds of ways you can’t even guess at right now. Think “Paint the Fence” or “Wax the Car.” In fact, let’s call this section “Wring the Sock.”

“WRING THE SOCK”
Fold the wet sock in half and grasp one end with your right fist, leaving no part of the sock peaking beyond your pinky finger. Close your arm and raise it so that the elbow is pointing out directly in front of your chest, keeping our palm side up, as if you were about to lift a heavy set of barbells. Then, scoop your left hand toward your chest, under the part of the sock that is dangling beyond your thumb, and grasp it. Make sure your left thumb is touching your right thumb, and, gripping the sock firmly now with both hands, push the sock away from you, gradually unfurling both of your arms and bending your wrists, so that when the motion is complete your elbows are locked and each respective wrist bent in the opposite direction from its position at the beginning of the motion. As you do this water will stream out- be sure to leave the right wrist above the left. This is so that the wrung part of the sock is above the as yet un-wrung part, and gravity will not be re-sogging your work.

“SHORTS” (Disclaimer- this is not the nice part, as it mentions unmentionables.)
Here are some important things to remember about your shorts, if you want them to last a long time without having to wash them:

-Have lots of them.
-Remember what your mama taught you: Be sure to wipe your ass good and clean after heavy business, or any business at all.
-Why wear them to bed? Get soft sheets if it bothers you.
-Don’t eat things that make shit dribble out of your ass when you fart, like taquitos or just about any kind of meat typically used in mexican food.
-If you have to masturbate outside of the shower, use a sweat sock or a load rag.

That about covers it. Too bad we aren’t covered in fur like apes or cheetahs. Then none of this shit would be necessary, get me?

Poor Data

This is the best sci-fi kiss ever:

Hugo Chavez

Hey, have you guys ever heard of Hugo Chavez? He's the president of Venezuela?
Chavez won his presidency in a free election in 1998 with 60% of the vote. The working people like him because he is trying to put control over more of the country's wealth back into the hands of the people. The American government supported a failed coup against him in 2002, right after he was elected, and now there is a propaganda campaign against him in the american media.
I myself was wondering about what kind of a leader he has turned out to be. I'm still not sure he was totally genuine, but he seems to inspire strong, real emotions resembling love in the venezuelan people, something I can't possibly imagine any other leader in the world, with the exception of Nelson Mandela, of course, doing. I talked to my friend Ingrid, who is from Colombia, about him. Her parents are in Venezuela now. I'd just seen a short news bit on him on the BBC News, (channel 26 at 10pm every day of the week, for you Chicago people) that said he is trying to keep foreign investors out of the country as much as possible. He believes that this is the new way powerful countries conquer other, smaller ones: By getting their greedy fingers in control of their industries and fucking up the country's economy, polarizing the classes and making them dependent on the big guys. He is 100% right on the money, so to speak. By foreign investors and businessmen, he is of course referring to rich American people- they who acquire new territory in the same way they run a Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchise. I can't wait until countries start getting renamed after all our dopey corporations. Then I will at last be able to root for apocalypse conscience-free. Anyway, I asked Ingrid about this kind of idealism, and she expressed a dislike for Chavez. She thinks that the people in Venezuela don't have the capabilitity for taking control of and running their own industries. I guess we'll see.
Here is this other guy's opinion on Chavez, in case anyone else is wondering if he's really a good leader. I want so hard to believe that he is.
Here is another person in whom I would love to have faith: Barak Obama. Read his speech transcript from the democratic national convention on my friend Jesse's Blog!

Hoofing It

I've been riding my bike to work everyday lately because I just got the thing fixed, but before that I was walking home in order to try to save a little bit of cash from the CTA. They just raised the fare again, so now five bucks can only get you 2 rides.
I was walking on the bike path along the lake. It takes about two hours, give or take. I have the odd ability to read and walk at the same time, something that is pretty much essential when you are trying to ignore all the energetic yuppies playing their after work volleyball game or talking on their cell phones whilst rollerblading. Scoot scoot scoot. From a distance there are hundreds of volleyballs popping over the artificial horizon line the web of nets create, and as you walk by the games the popcorn metaphor that comes to mind is reinforced by the popping sound made by the perpetual clapping coming from one game or another when the ball falls out of play. I gave myself a bit of a giggle when I imagined all the volleyballs suddenly turning to solid stone in mid air, cutting the projected arc short as gravity yanked them all straight to the ground. I could hear the cries of surprise and pain as this or that well toned, kenneth-cole-sunglassed day trader made a desperate dive to save the ball for the team.
On one of these walks home, at one of the sailboat piers, I saw fish in the lake for the first time like ever. The sky was purple and filled with thick, solid clouds because it was about to rain, so I was trying to walk kind of fast, but I couldn't keep myself from standing there and staring into the water at them. They were HUGE. I have no idea what kind of fish. Maybe goldfish, because one of them was the color of rust. They were hanging out about three feet below a scummy island of trash that had collected in the corner of one of the docks. There were wine bottles, empty bags of chips, beer cans, and thousands of cigarrette butts bobbing in the lazy waves, left in the water by the seasons upper echelon enjoying the summer evenings in their boats safely at dock. As I watched a mallard even waded through the muck, testing out little pieces of unidentifiable human castoff for edibility. I've lived in Chicago for 7 years and the first time I see fish in the lake is under a floating island of garbage. Isn't that awesome?
I'm on my bike now so I can't really read while I commute anymore, whichi is kind of a bummer. So far this summer I read Hell's Angels, by Hunter Thompson, Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami, and The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. Suicide was a major theme in the last two books. Hm. And Sylvia Plath actually comitted suicide, like, a month before that book was published. It's sad.
But I do get to listen to music while I ride. I secure the headphones over my face with the strap of my helmet, so it looks like I'm wearing a football helmet. Lots of people smile at me when I ride by them, except for when I also where my secret agent rear-view-mirror sunglasses and a dust mask, too.
But I'm getting sick of my music. I need some more. Any suggestions? I like all kinds of stuff.
But I still miss walking a little... Owell. There are good things and bad things for everything.

I just found out that I can create hyperlinks!

I took the metra train in from the suburbs today because I went out to visit the P's and I was too lazy to go home last night. It filled up pretty quick but nobody wanted to sit next to me, and the conductor didn't ask me for a ticket. It was kind of like being invisible, which is what I usually want to be when I have to take a train full of crazy commuters and wailing babies. Actually, usually I wish I were in another dimension where everything is covered in soft grass and nobody says stupid, moronic things like "That girl's ass was sweet!" or "Who's a baby? Who's the baby boy? Who's the baby boy?" So, anyway, that saved me five bucks, and I figure that's the universe's way of telling me that I'm going to need five bucks at some point in the near future, which means I have to carry it around with me and not spend it, which is going to be pretty difficult considering I'm practically flat broke.

Oi, i'm exhausted. Nothing much to report today...

So have a BIG AMERICAN SANDWICH!

MMMMMMMMeat!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMeat!

My mom came into town a couple of weeks ago and my gramma and grampa took us all out to a steakhouse for dinner. What an american dream, the steakhouse is. I'm not a vegetarian- I was for a few years, but I fell off the wagon on a road trip to Florida when I ran out of money and was more or less obliged to eat the leftovers of my friends' cheeseburgers. But I don't really eat meat unless the opportunity presents itself, maybe because it's kind of expensive and I've gotten into the habit of not buying it when I go to the grocery store, I guess... But I still can't imagine making sure to include it in every meal, even though my parents always did while I was growing up. So I sometimes forget how a great deal of the rest of the country just doesn't consider a meal complete without a major helping of meat to round out the plate. But man, a steakhouse! I ordered a "rack of lamb" figuring, hey, I like gyros. Everyone else got a steak except for my annoying aunt Nicole who is three years older than me and is constantly whining. She got chicken, which she sent back to the kitchen after asking everybody at the table if it "looked pink to you?" When the food came I felt like a viking feasting after a successful pillage: There was so much meat on the table that its surface seemed to be made of glistening, half charred flesh, and we were all sawing away deeper and deeper into it with absolute confidence that more was on the way.

I Can't Believe It

I can't remember why, but I once had this girlfriend and she and her two roommates liked to buy these humungous, industrial sized garbage bags. They were these big, black monsters that could fit like six bodies inside easy. They'd stuff the thing in their little blue garbage can. When the garbage was spilling out all over their kitchen floor they would pull it out- only, the thing was so huge it would only be like a quarter full. So guess what they would do? THEY LEFT IT THERE, sitting in the KITCHEN, filling it up with garbage ALL WEEK until it was full. And when it was, when it was so full of garbage that they could barely wrap a twistie around it, IT WAS TOO HEAVY FOR THEM TO TAKE OUT! Ha Ha Ha! So long, Baby!

On Strike

All the garbage men in Chicago went on strike, so guess what Chicago did?
They dumped all the garbage into a baseball field! SORRY, baseball fans!
I'm not much of a baseball fan myself, but my uncle is, and he was like "Yeah, and they dumped in the White Sox field, right where it belongs." He said that because he likes the Cubs, which is this other baseball team in Chicago. Don't ask me why people would hate a whole team of baseball players just because they play on the opposite side of town. The only difference I can really see between the two is that the Cubs fans are all annoying and wear blue and think it's such a big DEAL that they are on their way to go and watch baseball, and White Sox fans just seem like regular city people who like baseball and just want to have a nice time. But all the fancy people like the Cubs, I guess because they think they look fancier in blue, so they dumped a whole buch of garbage in the White Sox's baseball field, which used to be named after these people called the Comiskeys, but now it's named after some dopey corporation.
See?
Play ball!

Fraggle Rock

What is wrong with people who make T.V. shows, man?
There was this show I used to like alot when I was a kid called "Fraggle Rock." It was about a whole bunch of little puppets with punk hairdos that lived underground. Whenever they needed advice about something they went up to the surface world to visit the "Trash Heap," which was this humungous mound of garbage wearing horn-rimmed glasses.
See?


If that isn't evidence that our children are being corrupted, NOTHING IS! I wish I was a little kid again and that show was still on so I could scream at the T.V. "GARBAGE CAN'T GIVE YOU ADVICE BECAUSE GARBAGE IS DISGUSTING AND IF YOU FOLLOW IT, YOU RETARDED FRAGGLES, THEN YOU ARE THE STUPIDEST PUPPETS EVER!"