Black Friday Death

I am going to be honest with all of you, we are not doing too well. The fact that we have managed to trample a person to death not out of religious fervor, not out of desperation, fear of pain or death, but simply because a TV was on sale, well I'm just horrified.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?_r=1

We are all to blame. We have all allowed this to happen. We have got to be better.

On Pasts

"Ooooh you look so good, ooooh you looook so fiiine."


Who makes up the past anyway?

Was it you? I seem to remember you being there, like a detail in a movie that is very small and has to be mauled out in a flash, but that doesn't really fit. It's tight, it's a close-up, and it's in there, pressing it's untrimmed finger into your stomach. But I remember your name. And I remember when your Birthday is.

Because it's alive man, it's everywhere woman, the middle word in life, keeping itself inside your head even when everyone else is loosing their's and blaming you. "Are you going to travel through space on a fraction? What are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths?" Have you lived a third of you life? By 18, 22, 35 - do the math, and then tell me. It's the past man, your past man!

Or maybe, it's raining frogs, and the past, the past, we're through with the past, no, we're through the past, and we'll be back after this short commercial break, but the past ain't through with us.

And so maybe it's a weird night, a night that is happening again and again, always happening, like the restaurant at the end of the universe, a perennial blooming and blooming and maybe because time is a whole and doesn't come in slices. Maybe it's a Rolo, and you can tick off the bits of it and pop then in your mouth. But it's hard to say that it has been a weird night if it's still the same night - yet to become 'has been' - and it is the same night it has always been, when it is all kinds of full of the past and the future, and the past might be the future, and we maybe want the past and the future to meet so that we can feel like we are off the hook for a change.

So if I remember your name, what past can there be for someone who doesn't forget? And if "blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better of their blunders," well what then? Where do all blessings lie? Does this one in his time play many parts too, if his time curls up into a ball, the end always somewhere near the beginning, the feet always near the face. All the world staged in one act.

But then too, onto the last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, in second childishness and mere oblivion. Who is that we speak of in our legacy, whose legacy do we speak? What's left?

Am I having the past over for dinner? Is the past having me for dinner?

On Research, and Letting Things Lay

I've been researching lately. I don't know why I started (actually I do), but it will be a while before I finish. I am writing in the meantime, working on bits for a new novel (which the research is geared towards), which means I have more projects on my plate than I really should have, but I feel, at least on a day like today, that its all worthwhile and I would prefer to have a whole bunch of things to focus on than none at all, so I'll keep listening to the New York Dolls and letting today just keep on raining. Every drop's another story, from a certain perspective. I'd like to blame Neil Gaiman for my concern with perspectives, but he just gave me some solider grounding for that sort of thing. I like the word solider and will continue to use it.

The research has been geared heavily toward Global Climate Change and the issues of Water Shortage/Water Rights. Last night, in a kind of break, I stopped off to meet some friends for a fete of the release of 2666, the final novel by the amazing Roberto Bolano, and not only did I get to chat a bit and hang out with some people I ever so rarely get to hang out with because I am dodgy and far too encumbered by life, but I managed to find some excellent further reading into the issues at hand.

They are intensely important issues and from here until the rest of this post I rail with the utmost vehemence (you are forewarned). People need water to live, let us try to keep that in mind. Just every day, keep that in mind.

One of the absolute necessities I see for the soon to be Obama Administration will be the elevation of Director of the EPA to a cabinet level position, or creation of an equal level position with the same purview, and Obama's choice to fill that position will be the MOST important decision he has to make.

That we have only a few months left of the abysmal direction of the EPA by Stephen L. Johnson, who for a scientist, is an utter travesty of an intellect, a waste of education and brain cells, and from a purely personal standpoint, a fuck of a human being.

If that offends some, I feel justified as he so greatly offends me, on every level, as a human being. His attitudes, his lay-like-a-rug allowance of the worst president in history to dictate in the face of all scientific research, of expert opinion, and of dire, apocalyptic warnings policies totally devoid of solutions and replete with exasperation of the problems totally in line with the interests of nearly archaic fuel source suppliers is the epitome of monsterdom. That he should act in complete opposition to the platform of State's rights so espoused by the republican party and threaten the very sanctity of life so fervently and wrong-headedly fought for by conservatives, is painfully sickening hypocrisy. That he should so pettily, so meekly and spinelessly gamble with the future of our world, with the lives of so many living on this planet and yet unborn is, with no other word to match the enormity of the crime, a sin.

So let us be clear. My name is William Arthur Owen, and Stephen L. Johnson, you are a monster. Good day, and good luck.

It is Through Obama That We Are Free to Hope -The Final 36

*Sen. Ted Stevens (AK) [not AL] 10 minutes ago from web

Last piece of business will be the defeat of Sen. Ted Stevens (AL). 19 minutes ago from web

I am impressed by McCain's speech. It sounds like the old John McCain. 30 minutes ago from web

cnn.com crashes 33 minutes ago from web

America you did er right! about 1 hour ago from web

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! about 1 hour ago from web

Gaaaaaaaaa! about 1 hour ago from web

Franken back up by 9k about 1 hour ago from web

MT, CO, IN, VA, and FL for Obama, plus CA in 5 min, = 325 electoral votes about 1 hour ago from web

Damn MN race down to 2k votes about 1 hour ago from web

I am saying as of 11:06EST = 275 electoral votes for Obama about 1 hour ago from web

VA and CA. 24 Minutes now about 1 hour ago from web

2500 votes seperating NC. 30k in VA. 3500 in IN. hhhheeeee about 1 hour ago from web

@templesmith LA, CO, and MN all upswinging for the Dems. 57 seats with OR and AL still to go about 1 hour ago from web in reply to templesmith

O HI OBAMA! about 2 hours ago from web

Ohio about 2 hours ago from web

Florida, every day that passes I have less and less of a use for you. about 4 hours ago from web

@peachesmalone Seriously. Polls should close at 6:30, so that we can either drown our sorrows or celebrate properly and still get some rest about 7 hours ago from web in reply to peachesmalone

Can I take a nap before the party? And where is the party? about 7 hours ago from web

@Jimmykitty I would have walked by them and kicked them squa' in the nahtz about 10 hours ago from web in reply to Jimmykitty

@chapmanchapman Wait, you mean I didn't get a free coffee because of my mesmerizing beard-powers? about 11 hours ago from web in reply to chapmanchapman

@templesmith The truest test of a leader: funk. about 11 hours ago from web in reply to templesmith

@ZSOstudio Five up top ! Wooo! about 13 hours ago from web in reply to ZSOstudio

I am Jack's inability to stop twittering about 13 hours ago from web

You know what today calls for, a little "Come on Feel the Illinois" by Mr. Sufjan Stevens about 13 hours ago from web

I am Jack's raging urge for coffee about 13 hours ago from web

I am Jack's calm elation for democracy. about 13 hours ago from web

I am Jack's happy exercised center of civic right. about 13 hours ago from web

I say, now that we've voted where's the sexy parties? about 14 hours ago from web

Voting makes you cute about 15 hours ago from txt

@tropicalsteve 11:20/12:30 if I had to guess about 22 hours ago from web in reply to tropicalsteve

Re: Election - really wanting to watch the series finale to SportsNight. I feel a lot of relevance there. about 23 hours ago from web

Keerist! How am I this busy? I blame the demycrats! 9:30 PM Nov 3rd from web

Drinking coffee to try and calm down 7:14 PM Nov 3rd from web

Apparently if you vote and take your sticker or whatever to Starbucks, you get a free coffee. I love America! 4:18 PM Nov 3rd from web

@corbst3r How about "Vote for McCain, because we're ready to pack it in" 4:17 PM Nov 3rd from web in reply to corbst3r

My slogan for the rest of the day: A Vote for John McCain is a vote for Utter Fucking Stupidity 3:34 PM Nov 3rd from web

@peachesmalone Agreed. Our world is too often puerile and dumb. 3:13 PM Nov 3rd from web in reply to peachesmalone

I just tried to review the Planned Parenthood Voter Guide and was blocked because it was Sex Education. I work for an academic publisher? 1:11 PM Nov 3rd from web

@corbst3r Wallaby has to learn to stand up for himself. Thanks though, that is actually a great distraction from the election. 12:32 PM Nov 3rd from web in reply to corbst3r

More than anything, I need me some EnvirObama! 12:19 PM Nov 3rd from web

Politics: LET ME LIVE DAMN YOU, LET MEEE LIIIIIIIVE! 11:58 AM Nov 3rd from web

Holy Frakkin' 3AM, or the Road to Unabashed Theorizing

I've been writing letters all night. Various reasons both professional, personal, and objective. I am not sure what the triplicate of both would be. Throth? Which isn't bad as it is close to Thoth, who has got the cool breeze in spaces. He's a clever bite at that. (turns of phrase wholly intentional, I'm proofreading this one)

He's all word and such. Language. The great evolution. Which is, I figure, sorta like this:

Evolution is a physiological adaptation to environmental stimuli that transmits from one generation to the next. For the mass of terrestrial existence that has been transmitted through genetic coding, through DNA, with subsequent resulting slowness.

The brain, as humans understand their's (though I hardly feel stupid enough to believe that we are either the only conscious life-form on this planet or in the entirety of the universe) is the first organ that induces in itself a physiological change. When we learn, the natural response of the brain is to create new neural connections and folds within the brain. Our brains change with every new piece of information we gather.

But evolution requires transmission to successive generations, and the products of learning do not transmit organically. The brain of a newborn does not reflect the accumulated knowledge of its parentage. But, I mean, I have this thing all worked out positing that the brain is a single generation evolutionary matrix.

And I am totally justified because the brain is also the first organ to create an extra-organic codex for the transmission of its adaptations: LANGUAGE. So not only is Thoth the god of language, but also the god of evolution and thus throth made god.

Spare the rod and fear the Wroth.

tweats- because you can't tweat enough

Retweeting @sarahw Oprah goes crazy for the Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/5p9hlx because I used to work the ebooks dammit! 15 minutes ago from web

@sarahw @brubaker This is truly a disturbing universe. about 1 hour ago from web in reply to sarahw

I'm up to my nethers in it! about 1 hour ago from web

@Jimmykitty The first time I got drunk was on Zima and Black Velvet at a 4th of July party. about 2 hours ago from web in reply to Jimmykitty

@corbst3r Give 'em hell about 2 hours ago from web in reply to corbst3r

I need to discover lunch. It's like the age of discovery all over again, excepting without the chewing. about 2 hours ago from web

@tropicalsteve I often try to remind myself, that if I only do this to "make it", it isn't worth doing. about 12 hours ago from web in reply to tropicalsteve

This has been a night of excitement, encouragement, conversion. But it has been above all a night of peace and appreciation. about 13 hours ago from web

Listening to Patti Smith and strongly thanking God for intelligent women. about 14 hours ago from web

The first sense of relief from the funk of the past week which is driving me far, far from sleep. about 14 hours ago from web

Possible career shift and something to apply for at least which may prove more acceptable overall. about 14 hours ago from web

Three new ideas, one novel, one GN, and something else entirely. about 14 hours ago from web

So by not drinking coffee during the day, only in the evening, really weaning if you drink it when you work through the night? about 14 hours ago from web

@sarahw That is a wonderful piece. We didn't make enough of the warmth while the light was shining. about 14 hours ago from web in reply to sarahw

drawing done (man I suck). now writing, then more drawing. someday sleep, but ache in jaw forestalling slumber anyway. about 16 hours ago from web

@funrama That is a much better way of looking things than just calling Greenspan an idiot. about 19 hours ago from web in reply to funrama

I did not know pat Kavanagh had left Julian Barnes for Jeannette Winterson. about 21 hours ago from web

Alan Greenspan is an idiot. about 22 hours ago from web

@chapmanchapman Yeah, I just heard about that today too. Jesus. about 22 hours ago from web in reply to chapmanchapman

Life is full of glorious uncertainty and mesmerizing doubts. about 22 hours ago from web

The Need to Post something

I'm posting to this blog.

I went to LA.

It was my first time on the west coast.

It is the furthest I've physically been from home as I have always been, wait for it, poor.

Spiritually and mentally I have traveled much, much further. Nearly unfathomable distances further.

It was a good trip. I'd go back.

There was a hot springs, and the Getty Museum.

Swell times at a wedding as well.

That is my post. Thank you

After stopping at the book seller

It is impossible to shop for books now by David Foster Wallace as we once used to. We'd always "keep an eye out". He was one of the handful of authors whose name was always keyed into the search matrix as it scrolled from one side of the shelf to the next, snaking its way down or back up from the last row. He was one of those writers that it was worthwhile to hunker down in search of (I'm 6'4", so its a long way to the floor), but I was always willing to be crouched uncomfortably on the balls of my feet and packed like an accordian. You might see one of his books in every third trip to the used book store, and you always strongly considered getting whatever was there, even if you already had a copy.

It's not possible to that anymore, and for the first time ever, Infinite Jest has made the Time's Bestseller list. His books are selling for over $300 for the hardcover first edition on half.com. I'm guessing new editions of all the books are in the works, replete with fresh introductions, but all of this is just moonlight. It is a reflection without the warmth.

It is strange to me that this one light is so engaging now in its absense, strange and very sad.

Green Deal Un-Dux

The Original Version of my article posted on GreenJersey.org. I very much like the version that was presented on the site. It's just I like being bombastic at times, and this has that in spades. Du jour.

The Green Deal


The worst perpetrators of plan-for-the-best, ignore-the-consequences mindset, the financial industry and our deregulatory-happy government, have thrown on the plate of the American people a poorly cooked "bailout" plan that looks a lot less appetizing than the endangered Atlantic wolffish. It's a meal we are going to remember for some time, since the current financial crisis will have long-term effects on our country's economy. Even the damage which has already been done will take years to undo, and we have ONLY ONE REAL path if we are to see this country recover: a re-envisioning of the economic landscape to spur on Green Industrialization.

While the bailout plan overall is a dubious necessity - a seeming last stand against an economic apocalypse - the one lining, more gray than silver, is the inclusion of $17 billion in renewable energy incentives. It is a small and paultry sum. Ten times as much would only begin to approach an actual solution to the problems we face, problems created when the fabled "free market" has held free reign, and the current administration, unrestrained and unabashed in their war-cries against oversight and regulation, have allowed those corporate interests to run roughshod over controls in nearly every sector - media ownership, environmental controls, and of course, banking - all to the detriment of this country.

They have proven themselves unworthy stewards of our nation's future. They have denounced learning and scholarship, prudence and measured action, and above all environmental sustainability, as un-American, and now we might all suffer the doom of the mistakes they have repeated.

To correct these mistakes we must re-enact the solutions of the past. The U.S. emerged from the depths of the Great Depression by the bootstraps of two important initiatives - the New Deal and the industrial ramp-up to World War II. The economic woes of the past echo at with every bell on trading floor, and we too have found a great enemy to defeat. That enemy is not a man, and he does not live in a cave making the occasional video that spouts hatred for the West.

It is oil. Oil is the enemy. Oil and the belief that hard to reach and limited resources will sustain a technological civilization that seeks to grow.

Thomas Friedman writes in his latest book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, "We can no longer expect to enjoy peace and security, economic growth, and human rights if we continue to ignore the key problems of the Energy-Climate Era: energy supply and demand, petrodictatorship, climate energy, energy poverty, and biodiversity loss."

We cannot afford to remain blind to the reality that EVERY problem we face as Americans is tied into the unstable foundation of our dependence on oil and fossil fuels. But as Adam Stein at Grist.org writes, funding and credit available to clean energy industry initiatives is now threatened because of the fiscal crisis. The resources of the private sector to bring about change and market driven growth for energy alternatives will be hobbled, if not crippled, by the current economic climate.

This is the time when the argument must be hammered home: that eliminating the use of fossil fuels and restructuring our energy network will generate tens of thousands of new jobs, create a massive new industry providing broader tax revenue, bring in revitalizing investment options for the financial sector, and provide increased security from terrorists by reducing their primary source of funding. The only clear path forward to resuscitate our economy and provide a cleaner, safer world for our children will be through the next administration's ownership of this issue. Let us hope they have something good cooking.

Great New Job

Job: # 4377

Company: Financial Services Company

Location: Meltdown

Details: The now friendless non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors at one of the world's largest Real Estate firms is seeking a Personal Driver, Gal/Guy Friday, and new best friend.

This position is very high stress and will entail a wide range of responsibilities. They will include everything from comforting the weeping, huddled mass that was formerly the cocksure Chairman, scampering around New York City to take him out for pancakes and ice cream, providing structure to his shattered life, and doing some personal shopping.

A valid Driver's license, a lack of recently diminished personal investments, and no real concern for the future of the economy are a must! The ideal candidate for the job will be New York savvy and also have a great attitude toward despondent sobbing and a very flexible mentality.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Drive the Chairman around Manhattan while he plays with his old G.I.Joes in the backseat; always choosing the best and quickest route to Shake Shack and McDonalds for the Happy Meals.
- Running personal errands to bring him stuffed animals while he sucks his thumb under his bed.
- Helping the household staff with shopping and errands.
- Coordinate and serve food at private dinner parties for the Chairman and Mr. Panda.
- Assist with household tasks such as shedding documents, finger-painting the walls, cleaning the chairman's bottom, etc.
- Travel with the Chairman to the Hamptons and Palm Beach occasionally and help the building of SandCastles.

REQUIREMENTS:
- Prior experience as a Driver is preferred but not required.
- Ability to navigate New York City flawlessly.
- Perfect driving record and impeccable references from all previous employers.
- Willingness to take a grown man who has soiled him self down from a ledge.
- Must be incredibly well mannered and poised.
- Strong interpersonal communications skills don't matter, as the Chairman is functionally a child again.
- A no task too big or small mentality.

SALARY: $60-65 a week + benefits + bonus.
HOURS: 8am - 6pm with flexibility to work on occasional evenings.

Of Fall

The bones say, "This will be a mean season." The season has come early this year and already thickly codes itself upon the air, filling breaths and muzzling voices. Darkening days gnaw upon the memories of summer, and time draws out along dreadful paths. Winds shift, water becomes less a refuge and rather soon, it changes and becomes a tomb. Look on it with eyes narrowed against the cold. It appears always as an ever-widening hole to be pushed away. An abyss devoid of warmth with a strange perspective. Peering over the edge into the endless gape where light falls forever, tugging with a sharp weight at the back of your eyes. The shudder you feel is the thought, that perhaps it is your heart, into which you've chanced a look.

I am weary in facing it, already worn thin and heavily weighed upon.

But there is also promise. There are memories of a singular sort of warmth. A warmth attainable only in respite from the incomparable northern coldness. It is a fire found far from the sun-soaked days of summer. It comes when trees are locking themselves away, shutting tight their skin to hold their sap We remember it is warm somewhere, we trust to that. Warm faces, and warm beds, and fires dancing where lips touch.

WE NEED LADY LIBERTY, NOT A HOCKEY-MOM

A person's feeling out there, in the rain, the striking to their skin all of those clouds let loose on 'em, and there ain't nothing more for them to do than to lift their face to it and whisper, "Logan's Run."

And that is what we have to do now: run. Not away from it but into the winds and the rain. We've got to take our shot, get while the gettin's even on the table, saddle the eye of the storm and slap down hard on grit 'n leather to make er so. We're apocalyptin' the chosen and sending up supplicants in the new shine way, and its all got a name: Election.

Yes yes, we have ourselves an E=lection, massive times the speed of light thrice. They might have had something similar in the past, but ain't never there been a doin's just so. This one is the marble itself, made up of future sands and heated on the coals of the past, poured out from the crucible of the last dance onto the stone at the crossroads where we're hitchhiking on towards the godhead. It's maybe the most important game we've ever played. We'll sling a sack and tell 'em its the end of the slide and the right's tuck-backed teabagger, motorboating son-of-a-bitch on the pleasure cruise. It's all or nothing.

Can you smell the tack of fiery hooves on the posterior rump of the thunder-head? The pale horse and he that rides up him?

They keep asking, "Is she ready?" No, you morons, she isn't. She said she didn't blink when he asked her, and that's a bad sign. If there is ever a time to blink, and to blink long and hard, it's that moment, and it's that question. Because following that question is a flood that you better blink at, and you NEED to think about, and you don't blink straight off you likely never will. So this is why it's running time, and we're trying to outrun this:



We've been too long laying all our savings on quagmire futures and the commodities of end-times.

What we want, we got an understanding to at 8:46 in the morning some years back but not everyone's learned the lesson. Hatred isn't born, you've got to be learned on it. It is poverty's steel ruler across the knuckles and reading a book guaranteed to notch a paper cut, and the rub is the poison of ignorance coating the edge of each page. That was the enemy and we saw the whites of his eye. But too many pretended we didn't see, and chose not to pit ourselves against ignorance and poverty when the buildings came down. We can fight those villains. You can call down the thunder of logic and fires of charity and wade in among the clamor of melee to swat and fell and sunder the breeding grounds of chaos.

But we called out something else and let it be our enemy, and its terrible infection plagues not our bodies but our minds. It furthers the banners of disconsolation and despair, making us all agents and purveyors of strife. But it is now days and years later, and we know better now. We know more because we have not forgotten while they largely have. They "don't get it". They may be able to stand in Alaska and see the former Soviet Union, but they can't see the net cast into the past that drew in the fearsome catch of September 11, 2001. The phony Mayor of America uses what we have not forgotten as a cheap feather in his shoddy hat. but we will yet loose the faithful lightning of our terrible swift sword to banish the lies, to rend the corrupt, and the free the lady of liberty once more.

We cannot leave it to them, because they cannot do it, nor do they want to, and it MUST be done.

I too watched this seven years ago, and felt much the same:



Victory will yet come, as a road, as a school, as a hospital, and as hope.


*special thanks to Snobber, Dan the Webgoblin, John Stewart, and my friends for remembering.

Muse

...well we must delve, after all, deeply, among the hills we've built. We must bore through our procrastination and perspiration alike, haul out the sediments we've left fallow as we pull apart the landscape and shuffle it back together. When we're at our best, we're magicians, always able to follow the ace of spades, no matter how deep it ays buried.

Sonic Youth's McCarren Pool Send Off

Next year I’ll have to see Sonic Youth someplace that isn't a large concrete pit.


Saturday August 30th, the No-Wave’s elder States-band sent the McCarren Park pool off like a pig on the wing. The band’s third consecutive summer playing a pool show capped the string of performances at a venue homegrown by the thronging gentrifiers who have settled so fully the East River’s self-same shore.


When Sonic Youth (hopefully) plays yet another end of summer show somewhere I can manage to attend, most of the folk who care about the demise of the premiere faux-guerilla music venue in New York think they'll be swimming, but what seems little known is the puddle itself won't be offering crisp summer refreshment. For that they'll have to wait until 2011, and then only IF the plans for the renovation are approved.


The shows have grown year after year, the Sunday events expanding and attended by all of the young culture-seeking, families with parents cool enough to take their kids to rock concerts, and vendors seeking to feed and libate these attendees. And the Pool’s capitulation was a much debated mystery, with a singularly understood cause replete with ironically clichéd tag line – "it’s all about the music."


As the area around McCarren Park takes shape in the lines and designs of condos rising one after the next, the concerts in the pool –pay concerts on Friday and Saturday nights which fund the free extravaganzas on Sunday – are on some basic level understood to be nuisance. They can be loud and disruptive, and the music, which is not often anything resembling Lawrence Welk, doesn’t always soothe the ears of residents.


Then again, neither do the sirens, the jack-hammers, or the steam-drills which can take up their call at all hours. One recent 1 A.M. had myself and the residents of lower Franklin St. staring down at the end of our block as Con-Edison brought the aforementioned drill to rip open a healthy chunk of the street. If you are wondering what a steam-drill sounds like, take a softball bat and rhythmically beat a garage door with it.


But steam-drills don't bring in revenue. They don't pack cafes, restaurants, and other local merchants. Money moves people, places, and even neighborhoods, and most people tend to view the change as riding on the green wave. The prime suspect is your local neighborhood developers, the builders of the nickname "Condoburg" who have turned the seemingly relentless growth in value of the area into new living rooms and rooftop decks.


On the other side of the money issue, some residents are wondering about their taxes once the new pool goes in and the $50 million set aside for its rehabilitation is exhausted. If the pool's rehabilitation is a genuine city spurred plan, how fully has the ongoing existence of that pool been factored and accounted for.


I’ve marked three years running with a show by Sonic Youth, with two of those shows on Labor Day weekend. Last year’s show I watched from the fence outside the pool, perched like a bird to see over the wall while supping on massamaun from one of Greenpoint’s Manhatten Avenue Thai joints and the liter of crème soda a visiting friend and I had spiked with rum. The year before they played a surprising third fiddle to a less engaging Ween and the wholly vivacious Flaming Lips in front of the decidedly un-metropolitan, un-metrosexual, and unhipster crowd at the New York State Fair.

The Obama Llama Speech-O-Rama

I've got the Speech frenzy. Obama's got a fucking speech-voice that'd raise a mountain. The dream is the day we hear the speech he gives that resonates timeless and shakes the pillars of heaven, right Egg?

Damn, speecherific! Got some twittering speech positing about modern polical speaking, because of course, the 'Bama WROTE HIS SPEECH! Yeah! That's a boy, bring the noise and bring the funk! The basic question is does McCain write his speeches? Certainly as a congressman he has given speeches written himself, but more than likely in the last 5 months certainly, and likely for some time even longer, he has not been the author of his words. Certainly, like Bush, he has edited and provided imput, but one of the features of the Repub machine is their speech writing. It's been in full effect since Reagan of course.

It has been some time since I was disowned of a complete disregard for W's speaking ability. He is a willful figure, and his speeches, it was some years ago were pointed out to me, are structured as arguments. This clarification was important. I can relate to and see his ability as practiced in speaking, though his faculties for ad-libed speaking are clearly poor (and personally an embarassment as an American), and it affirms my dislike of his speaking. For one, his content and message are antithetical at nearly all points to my thinking and beliefs (class-warrior activist intellectual, after a fashion; I write poetry and comics for fucks sake), but more to the core is my disavowal of public argument. I find it unseemly. The use of the stage or the platform, the opportunity and the gift of that place, should be used to enrich people, to bring them hope and tidings of promise, and to rouse the fires of their hearts. It is not a place to bully.

I feel a certain disdain for having not taken more time to gain a deeper knowledge of presidential oratory. I am confident Clinton and Bush Sr. composed some of their speeches to the extent of being considered the authors, but I feel the West Wing was quite accurate in portraying the state of presidential speech writing, and the merits of dedicating a staff who through their faculty aspire to invest the voice of the presidency with a rich nobility to stir and illuminate the minds of the people.

A little over the top there, but hell, you never reach the moon if you don't shoot for it. So damn restraint, and damn the fault of us all who find emotion and exclamation to be un-American and unworthy of leadership. Red is the color of passion and the blood of patriots.

O's speech did the trick. The fire is roused, and I'm back scaling the walls of interest in politics.

Good night, and good luck.

Tweats

I hate ice-cream truck music, which means I hate most things, but I feel old so thats ok. To age is to learn to hate.

about 18 hours ago from web
And the clouds parted and there were seven thunders, and there he beheld a great dumptruck of manure falling swiftly towards him 03:47 PM August 22, 2008 from web

It will take a lot to redeem today. A LOT. I'm talking sin here. 02:52 PM August 22, 2008 from web

Feels like I'm scrubbing out a commode in hell 12:42 PM August 22, 2008 from web

Simple tasks, sitting, typing, looking at shit; not going so well. 10:46 AM August 22, 2008 from web

This is the lamest fucking this I will ever say, but I just want to go home and clean my apartment. 10:22 AM August 22, 2008 from web

@BenMcCool But that is what the internet is for, to watch YouTube clips of womens beach volleyball. That is why YouTube was created,right? 09:35 AM August 22, 2008 from web in reply to BenMcCool

Hello abject poverty my friend, I've come to hang with you again, and while my spaghetti is cooking, the holes in my socks i am sewing 09:33 AM August 22, 2008 from web

The problem is feeling like you have a hangover when you haven't had a drink in 5 days. UGH! 09:00 AM August 22, 2008 from web

I think the locusts have returned 07:44 AM August 22, 2008 from web

Who the fuck am I kidding, I am bathing in dread 07:43 AM August 22, 2008 from web

Bless those portly gentlemen rising at the cracked ass of dawn to make my egg-a cheese-a sandwich, without which dread would overtake me 07:43 AM August 22, 2008 from web

packing it in, likely to return in a few. 02:37 AM August 22, 2008 from web

so, so very much to do 11:46 PM August 21, 2008 from web

Chapbook of stuff from the epic going out tomorrow for impromptu submission. Grant application needs work. Script overdue, OGN deadline near 11:46 PM August 21, 2008 from web

@neilkleid I always read what I am not writing. Super-heroes during the literary stuff, something like Rilke during the comics. 11:15 PM August 21, 2008 from web in reply to neilkleid

decompression is not freedom 10:24 PM August 21, 2008 from web

You're gonna get stuck! You're gonna get stuck! 10:23 PM August 21, 2008 from web

@templesmith If it was a platypus I might have been willing to believe that, but orangutan, no way. 09:52 PM August 21, 2008 from web in reply to templesmith

Show me the fever, into the fire, taking it higher and higher 09:40 PM August 21, 2008 from web

I'm on the Warpath Today

We’ll wake 

visions of crowds

dancing, cheerful 

clapping, and in the radiance 

light-bearers 

will bathe our 

eyes, washing us, 

making us better.

We’ll cry out in the night 

over nightmares, 

Jerry Falwell sniffing the ass of a male 

prostitute and proclaiming, 

“This is the day the lord hath made”

That was a rough one, imagery aside, like the day, but it came to me in a fit grumpiness and god damn do I feel like swinging a baseball bat at a hypocrite today.

"We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us" -Tyler Durden (I'd like to something else, but I am not in the cleverest of moods for which I blame you)

The Proust Questionaire

Cribbing a post from Snobber because I read an interview yesterday with Alan Moore which got me thinking I might be done for some self-analysis, a little self-reflection, since I have a lot of self-referential writing to worry as we enter the heavy grant and literary contest season.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A peaceful life surrounded by people I love, and a house on a lake somewhere to get away to.

What is your greatest fear?
Locusts, the biblical kinds. And being a burden on people.

What historical figure do you most identify with?
I am trying for the Buddha, but Gandhi is up there as well. Also a big fan of Einstein.

Which living person do you most admire?
My mom and Norman Borlaug. One raised two kids on her own, the other saved a billion people from starvation, and both of those feats seem herculean. My mom doesn't have a website so no link for you.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My lack of follow-through.

What is the trait you most despise in others?
A lack of purpose.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Living in Brooklyn.

On what occasion do you lie?
When I don't know what the truth is.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
El guttock. Just can't strip that last 20 pounds.

Which living person do you most despise?
Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Verily. I've got a Wisconson in here. I'm comin' outta tha hoos!

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I wouldn't be in debt, or that I wouldn't feel I was so unlucky.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
I'd want to have the money to help them more.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My MFA.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
A Bodhisattva.

Who are your favorite writers?
Kurt Vonnegut, Jeanette Winterson, Thomas Pynchon, Frank O'Hara, Flannery O'Connor, Italo Calvino, Alan Moore

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Constantine Levin (Anna Karenin)

What is your most treasured possession?
My Sandman Hardcovers and things my friends and family have given me over the years.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To be unable to gaze in awe at the world around us -I think Einstein said it, and its pretty close to the mark.

Where would you like to live?
Somewhere on the New England or Pacific Northwest coast.

What is your most marked characteristic?
My devil's brow.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Having enough reason to realize life is very unreasonable and that happiness is made out of little balls of gas conjured out of the air.

What is your greatest regret?
That I did not find a way to be both a scientist and a writer. That I let myself be forced to make a choice of one or the other.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Good question.

If there is a Heaven what would you like to hear God say when you arrive?
Well if this isn't nice, what is?

A Notice of Judgement

We're crowded together,

tunneling through the humanity

we reciprocate

according to the humor of our

statehood; there are some 

wishing more books carried the

embossments of dreams and the

keys to hell.

We spend disappointment

forgetting our invincibility and

the power of flight.

Calling Out the Neighbors

Mixtapes came up twice today, so I am making it a thrice, laying it down on a trifecta while I nostalge over the Nirvana Unplugged (from those so often lamented days when MTV played music and weren't wuss-assed pud- nut wankers).

Don't know why I feel the animosity, probably Cobain's voice (I forgot Cobain wasn't spelled with a K for a second. And this bothers me. I'm nearly 28, and you all know when he died. I don't know why that down-the-middle split should be affective, but I feel something considerable in mulling over this, in mulling over the album, often lamented for its soul and seriousness so soon before his death, and coaxing the CD off the stack it's been relegated to, a spare black spindle once carrying blank cds during the intervening moves following fires and job loss, the arrival and departure of loved ones, the elements of life that are too easily blurred by the ever-growing tumult of it all. We're on the last song now, Polly, and I have to admit, I am not entirely removed. I never have been. Something about the line "I'm going where the cold wind blows" has always tacked itself too me like I was a donkey sans a tail and I have often let my own voice reach into its horse octaves to the shivering of the chorus, letting it carry out over the false sephira and drop, falling, down to where Kurt himself found himself one too many times.

We call him Kurt I think, as inevitably as the sun rose the morning after he died, because he gave himself to us. We were the 13 year olds of In Utero, the 11 year olds of Nevermind. Those numbers alone meant we would always be there, listening to the songs, sitting with them.  Had we read enough, had Moore written Promethea by then and explained enough, and if The Sandman had finished before that, well things might have been different. We might have known it rather than felt it, we could have looked more closely at what swirled around us, known where the edge was, but as I said, it was inevitable.

But knowing now, with the lingering strain of that place, where the sun don't ever shine, we in our turn cannot help but shiver the whole night through.)

Here's the mix, it's from a while back:

My Dream about McCain

I had a dream last night and it had the GOP's Boy Holiday Jumpin' John "The Baptist" McCain. Aside from being the first dream I've had featuring a political figure in the midst of a national campaign, or any political figure for that matter, it was weird dream in its own right. For starters, I owned a very large piece of land and an Egyptian style temple in Western New York. Kooky that. We had a good deal of doin's transpirating in the temple. Lots of people running around when it became apparent that a train had derailed on the nearby rails (because there was a rail-line nearby), and the train happened to be Johnny McCain's.

So McCain gets out and is looking around, and takes a scramble up a big mound of dirt we got nearby to have hisself a look-see. I wander up, he trounces on down, and we get to the talking. Train is going to be a while, so I invite all over to the temple for libations and shade. We had a big gladitorial festival beginning soon, and two of the fighters were getting warmed up. Both of them looked like members of the Fat Boys, just with Mullet's and bull's horns on their heads.

John starts talking about how this is indicative of America. Always battling itself, struggling to live up to its image, always doing as much damage to itself as it inflicts on its opponents. We agreed that Tuesday are terrible, but the whole moment came to the point of idealism vs. unwillingness, with your's truly in the former and the candidate select on the back end of the ersus. Our gladiatorials came around, and one happened to be a buddy of mine. I had to yell at him to keep fighting.

I wish the dream had a better ending, but what dreams do? Let me know. I'm voting O! Slow Show, by the National, is possibly one of the best songs I've heard in a long time. Since Funeral by Band of Horses.

Busy Busy Busy.

On Sight of the Shores of Hanalei

New blurb is a story I wrote for this:
http://www.waterstoneswys.com/

Very nice little exercise that I am very happy with. Scripts coming together, but have to take the weekend off. Chapbook coming off well also, submitting for competition, and starting on the next section of the epic. Novel is floating around my head, touching it here and there in places to see if it jerks or squirms, should get round to that sometime next week.

Downsized. (it was more of a sublimation from on high really, soundless the scatters and fragments were sent to their unmaking by the high corporate wall and whisked heartily never to return). I don't know why, but its got me thinking about Puff the Magic Dragon (not the green leafy variety people, its early still, we need to focus here). Always struck me as the saddest of stories. I always felt bad for Puff and Jackie, they just couldn't make it work out. Pooh has some of that, but there is something at the end I don't quite remember where they speak of the timelessnes of the hundred acre wood, and how somewhere there is always the fun and excitement if you listen closely enough to find it. Maybe I am just imagining that, should read it again. But Puff didn't have that; it just ended and Puff was alone. Very sad.

Ah, but its getting on to the shower time and the office hours, the computer long-view of a horizon, distant, leading unknowingly to salvation or to suffocation.

Back to Hanalei.

Shooting Spitballs at Myself

It’s the thing that makes art great, that made O’Hara write,

“…it is good to be several floors up
in the dead of night
wondering whether or not you are any good
and the only decision you can make is that you did it.”

Honestly, I don’t think I could be a writer if I wasn’t self-deprecating. I would take it all too seriously, all of that bad advice I got from teachers in high school who said writing was too hard a way to make a living, all those job postings directed at Ivy Leaguers, it would all have worn me down before I even got started.

It’s all illusion sure, but they can be very powerful. Just look at job postings on craigslist. Offers like "Ivy Leaguers Wanted for Worldclass Publishing Venture" and "Hedge Fund opportunities for Ivy League Grads", well, they aren't speaking my language are they? That was a world that never occurred to me at 17, poor in a small town, might be possible. I asked the guidance counselor, she said there were too many tests, it would cost too much money. So that illusion gets stronger, it's another chip on the shoulder, another rung that has to be climbed over on the way out of the pit, to say nothing of the mountain. And the only way past that illusion, the only way to disbelieve what everyone else want you to believe, is to stare at yourself in the darkest of mirrors and be utterly self-effacing in order to dispel those illusions, to have nothing for the barbs the illusions are tipped with catch at when you walk through them. The only way to do it is in spite of all of the rest of it.

And that hard look at ourselves helps to bring us around to the one mountain we DO have to climb. We must bear up and be ready to cut ourselves down further than anyone else ever will, since we are always going to be the final barrier, the last obstacle to doing that which we fully believe in. It’s the toll that must be paid the ferryman; its the cost of living the life. You must be able to drag yourself through the abyss.

If you can tear out the heart out of yourself and your work, again and again, and still come back to it, then there is nothing left to stop you. Nothing anyone else can say will hold you back, will get at you, because they will never be able to cut you as deeply.

I guess we have titling again...

...despite the fact that there is a black hole somewhere in my head which means I will spending the day as that most ostentatious of failures, the mouth-breather.

I get face-checked on the column of a writer who I am a fan of, My Tony Lee, and his "He's Only a Writer Column". I get face-checked because I am a fan, which is very true. He wrote a column a few weeks back about pitching ideas and stories in the comics world and I've copied, this, parsed out the bits that point directly at me and yell "Get it together pudnut!", and pasted it up on the wall about the desk (which is in the kitchen). Good comic conery to be had all around though, and I got to meet many amazing creators over the weekend in addition to Messir Lee, including Mike Cavallaro whose new webcomic is on the new Act-i-vate website.

Some idiot who calls himself Michael Blowhard has some kind of thing he is writing about, which was linked through this site I check out for work related stuff (am I an ebooker), is honestly some of the most inane rhetoric I've heard, and it doesn't show any actual knowledge of either young people or books. Why do we always have to be blamed for people who can't sell books, or the degradation of values, or whatever bullshit the elderly and senile try to lay on us?

"Oh, the young people aren't reading, they are the worst people ever."

" Oh, this book about why baby boomers are the most important people ever isn't selling well, it must be the young people! Kill them, make them feel useless! Ahhhhhahahahahah!"

I'm going out on a limb here and guess that Blowhard can't sell books because they are poorly written and uninteresting. No one likes stupid boring shit, stop selling it (I am looking at you too Danielle Steel). This is why I hate old people, they think they know something about whatever, but they don't know anything, so they feel ok to say that it applies to everyone in the young category. Oh yeah, and thanks for the greenhouse gases and that national debt. Good call.

Walker Bobby had it right, "Greatest Generation my ass. Tom Brokaw is a punk."

I am 27, and read more than anyone I know, but everyone I know reads. They also play guitar hero, Grand Theft Auto, watch sports, play in kickball, dodgeball, and softball leagues, go bowling, see exhibits at the met, poetry readings at the poetry project, and go to concerts to see everyone from the the Wu-tang Clan to Band of Horses. to the works of Beethoven. We do all of this an still find time to read books, to ask each other questions about them, to set up brunches just so we can swap books.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to figure out how to fix the world the baby boomers broke.

Hello Very Good Friend,

I write letter speaking in Russian accent. You probably not hear Russian accent
when reading, so try reading outloud with Russian accent.
It will help with cadence of sentence and choice of word. Lack of pluralization too.

I am like Beethoven now. Not composer;
melancholy. Dating frustrating woman, always fighting.
Never know what fights are about - she yell in Russian
I speak only in Russian accent.
This is called language barrier. Beethoven was depressed,
writing 5th symphony among others.
Depressed for much of his life, but angry-depressed
writing 5th, which does not surprise.
It is very angry depressed symphony.
Bum bum bum buuuummmm, bumbumbum buuuummmmm.
See.
I read about this in book, which cited letters B. wrote
during this time (1802-1810 I think). I would look it up but
not sure where to find book at moment, too lazy to search.
Still writing in Russian accent though. Counts for something yes?
Having use of melancholy though.
It is better than german Sehnsucht,
which is “deep longing” That is intense wanting of something far away.
That is Rilke (german poet died 1947[8]) – very good poet.
German good language for sehnsucht.
Beethoven was German too I think, but I guessing he used melancholy not sehnsucht.
Using melancholy – sorry, got sidetracked – is good.
Very powerful emotion: reveals beauty, understanding.
Ignorance bliss; knowledge sorrow, but from sorrow we learn compassion.
This makes good art. Sorry, slipping into
French accent for a bit. Apologies for my offense, I do not mean to give such. Now British.
Art is good. Writing,
drawing,
practicing guitar and drums. Friend says I am
Renaissance Man. Sounds right. Working on books.
Actual books. Trying to figure out how to put them together,
build them. Is complicated. A play also.
Good paring of East/West. Possibly add themes from Les Miserable.
Friend also tells me
I have weird ideas (considering letter written in Russian accent, very true).

Otherwise good. Computer died. Poor. Good not best word,
outlook improving is better. Idea that night
lets us appreciate day, rain
appreciate sun, sadness joy. I think you know
Silver Lining. Idea is – melancholy as
“great illuminator of hope”. Outlook hopeful.
Coffee helps.
Also computer dead = no internet = no movie trailers,
blogs, websites, porn = no Big Distractions. Helps with writing.
Helps with attention span too. Up to 12 minutes now,
better than national average! (joke in Russian accent hard to convey).
Work is same. Now at parties
1 in 100 people know what I am talking about; no one understand job I do.
Still waiting for raise though. Still looking for silver lining (maybe: hunger = weight loss?).
Spring very busy. Lots of friends coming to visit.
Hope to have passport soon to visit friend in Europe. Probably end of summer.
We call ourselves Vecais – old man. Veces – old men. He, I, and another friend are The Veces. Been calling ourselves by this for years. Stupid fun, but we laugh. It is way to remind ourselves to enjoy life. This is good time of year to remember such. More daylight, more world to enjoy. Good time for walks and running.

Good time to spend writing in park. Lots of people to look at
inspirational. Can appreciate spring, summer, fall because of winter.
Low temperature – low energy; warming, hot – lots of energy.
Learn to surf this summer. Promise making to self.

In Buddhism idea of
Impermanence =
everything that is, isn’t;
everything that isn’t, is.

Another way to look at silver lining. Is good to write letter.
Writing letters more now that computer has died.
Have to type them. Trying to not
edit when
typing, keep true to
mistakes. More like letter.

Cheers (is British sign-off, unsure of russian accent sign-off),
The -.

There is this pull, of coarse strands
against the aging skin, the skin that was seeming young
feeling old, the oldness that Matt felt, that made against him,
worked forever toward the days yet to fall from the calendar,
the legendary and the licked.

Smarter yet, bruising,
dolorious, picking at the hairs
twined among the carpet
fibers

A day of confluence no? A coming together day. Gravity, terminal velocity coming together. Head on collision coming together. Lots of time spent in the appreciation of sorrow, the good sorrow. The good way being sorrow's path to compassion, the movement away from hollow, blissful ignorance. Unearned, undeserved happiness with no connection to anything outside of itself. The sorrow that lets us know what happiness is, know what bliss and joy are.

The swelling tide of days, hours, morning and nights that lie behind this confluence and its consideration/recognition are, well, standard I guess. Girls, the one I don't want and the one I do, a good job that pays shitty, shitty job options that pay better. Missing opportunities from a lack of resources, and the sudden awareness of all that is grandly wrong coming from I do not know where. Maybe just a cultural sea change, a reaction to a world and a nation where placebos for mood enhancing prescription medications are shown to be nearly as effective in most cases than the little funny shaped pills (I have no idea what xanax or prozac look like, I assume) yet the happy capsules are still proscribed more and more each day, statistically above the clinical rate of depression. There are depressed people, I know some, but there are a lot of people I know who are just miserable fucks and too lazy to admit it to themselves. I've got my harsh on.

For me, its a lesson that has been a long time coming. Meditation daily on death, Ghost Dog Way of the Samurai shit. Basically I am turning into a sappy fucker of a Vecais. Sweet runny goop in trees, makes syrup. Probably make myself a whole mess of pancakes in a couple of hours. Suns coming up soon. Against Happiness.

Vecais is latvian for old man, or so my latvian friend tells me, but he's a fucker so can I trust him? But that doesn't change the fact these idea-asteroids, these big grand understanding-of-the-world fucking concepts keep slamming together. Fucking comic books have it in spades. Read the 10th trade of Powers. At first I didn't get the whole people standing up and talking about shit, ranting, in unfunny Bill Hicks territory, but I appreciated the hell out of it and it works ultimately. Anytime you can reference the Hicks is a good time to reference. Man was a saint. Disagree and we'll have words. But these people, these little creations in a comic book; how different are we from them after all. We have mom to kiss our bottom and tell us that its special; they have Bendis. They are taking to task on the stage the utter fuck-all that is the world, life. You have the protagonist, brooding and angry and doing his job as a cop well and good everyday, close to breaking though, and he comes through.

Shit, look at Superman. No, not that one, look at the one that is the sole survivor of a long dead race. Look at the one who is only here because every other person like him is dead. Stranger in a Strange Land. Lathe of Heaven. Be Invisble. Find the Bright Lady. Maybe you're the Dream King.

Its about the world stupid! Its how fucked it all is, how you and me and everyone we know is going to die, and it'll probably hurt along the way. Vonnegut knew this. Blake fucking new. Rilke, Hemingway, Eliot fucking new it, knew it was going to lick its tongue into the corners of the evening, curl once about the house and fall asleep. Its the ending to the Lorax. We've chopped down all those truffula trees, but there is an acorn. There is a seed. A girl I knew very well, knew in every way I think 2 people can know each other, she tattooed that word on her wrist. You have to make those ones important. That is the place you look whenever you look at your fist. Ball it up, think about what you want to hit, what you want to destroy. Consider it, and then see what is there. The underside of the wrist, and she had UNLESS permanent across there. Fuck if she didn't know 5 years ago what I am just figuring out now. But that is the skinny bitch of all: someday we will hopefully all be sad, weepy motherfuckers, the all-singing, all dancing crap of the world. Hopefully we will be able to remember this for more than five minutes at a time.

Hopefully we can all see that beauty is but the onset of terror, it's cold in winters and hot in the summers, that between god and the devil passion is. High and low form each other, tall and short fulfill, lo there do I see thy rue and dire needs, lo there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning... and so on. Guess that's that. Sun's comin up, gotta get some cakes on the griddle.