Thoughts of a Delusional Word Criminal

Fasting Words

2010-07-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

On Monday, July 12^th, 2010 I will begin fasting alongside work on a new novel. That fast will not stop until the novel is completed which is to say a solid piece of food will not enter my mouth until the first draft of a 40,000+ word work of fiction has been produced. There will also be zero consumption of alcohol or other mind altering substances during this process.

Why am I doing this? For one simple, shameful fact: I am an asshole. I have been an asshole for much of my life, not in the sense of treating people badly (though there has been some of that), but in the propagation of an internal mythology about myself and how I spend my time. I am a time criminal. I have had more free time to explore my craft than most three people combined, and while some work has trickled down through those hours, my body of work as a whole is shockingly sparse.

This project is born of my own acceptance that without a very real and difficult extenuating force being applied to my daily activity I will fail to produce at a level honoring my potential. Whether I am capable of writing works that will have a lasting impact on large groups of people or even a single human being is irrelevant. The one thing I know with certainty is not that my work will endure beyond my death, but that I am capable of producing much more of it than my thirty-four year life suggests. In the end, the body of work will speak for itself. Its ultimate social value and influence will be an organic, uncontrollable thing that I must emotionally disconnect from. The act of considering an eventual reality in which I am a respected writer is a toxic fantasy and ultimately complicates the purity of placing fingers on keys to conjure word after word after word until a thought has blossomed into transferrable art.

Fasting Words is possibly the desperate concept of a frustrated creator, one more flailing attempt to finally become a “writer who writes”. So be it. While my core knowledge of human existence is limited by a lackluster education and a certain degree of subsequent apathy, I am certain that many of history’s greatest achievements in art were born out of desperation. It brings me no shame now to embrace my own desperation in order to leap headlong into this project.

In the end, I ask for nothing except the words on the page, for the pleasure of knowing I pushed through my self-righteous, iconically American though intellectualized laziness to the final punctuation mark.

That being said, I am going on a week long, veggie-pizza eating drunk. See you in a week.

PS – I must add that the documentary “Dreams with Sharp Teeth”, a film about author Harlan Ellison, was the inspirational seed for this endeavor.

calm love

2010-02-27T00:10:00.001-08:00

she pales against the dawn,
shrinks from those ripe tongues of daylight
into the shadow’s long yawn, where waits
her intuition; she sees and nurtures
into my desire.

these days are ours,
full of strength and decision,
a body of pistons
pumping fuel into fired chambers,
pushing steam toward momentum and song.

how long has it been?
how long can it be?
and does that matter now,
in our finest stretch,
the one that puts us, finally,
at a place of grown acceptance.

Real

2010-01-16T07:58:00.000-08:00

She knows all my weaknesses;

that's where love lives.

Can’t See the Trees for the Forest

2010-01-15T00:31:00.001-08:00

I have long been obsessed with the idea of being a great man, not in terms of the day to day, but in the larger sense, in the form of an important contribution to literature. This notion, oddly enough, does not come from an egotistical place. It was there early on, when I began tapping out words on the first electric typewriter my Dad bought me from a thrift store when I was eleven. I’ve clung to the romantic notion of this future contribution my entire life. Leaving behind a lasting, resonant body of work is omnipresent across the timelines of most creators, not because our egos insist we are capable, but because it is the nature of art…it simply demands it of us.

Tonight, after spending a decidedly pleasant day with my friend and partner, while having what I thought was a final cigarette before bed, I was overwhelmed by a stunning yet frightening realization: In my blind pursuit of becoming a great man I have neglected something far more important… being a good man. I have justified immature behavior by flying the banner of an invented higher ordeal (and therefore beyond reproach). I have neglected myself and others in the name of a cause no less juvenile than a child throwing a tantrum in Toys R Us when the object of their desire is placed back on the shelf.

I have a love in my life that demands I be a good man, not defined by the arc of what I have created, but defined by my daily dedication to giving sincerely to those in my life, and receiving with equal sincerity.

The beauty of this realization resides in the bone deep murmur that becoming a good man will naturally lend itself to that future greatness I have long coveted.

So let the coming dawn begin this new challenge. Let the years of days build on one another until they tell the story of a good man, and from that earned victory… perhaps life will see fit to carry me toward a contribution worthy of living beyond my final nod.

The Next

2010-01-07T13:33:00.001-08:00

There are days when the creative swell is so juicy, there is nothing left but to put Seven Nation Army on loud and head bang words until they bleed from fingertips.

This is the thing about depression, about the roller coaster months, that cannot be underestimated. If a little blue pill could take away the highs and lows, replacing them with an even stroll, that pill would get flushed every time, without hesitation.

When the moment hits, when sparks click the time and place to produce something of tangible value, there is no price point that can measure it; there are no sacrifices deep enough to deny its allure. I am a willing soldier against the lukewarm masses. Those tragic days stack higher than bliss, and this is understood, it’s the nature of the beast. If one great sentence comes at the cost of a hundred duds, then one great life comes at the cost of daily psychological warfare. Our march on the status quo can only be as strong as our willingness to endure uncertainty.

Today is a church bell. It rings out against odds, it lifts and makes promises, it sings in the universal voice of a faith we hold in high regard…not religious faith, but the faith of artists in the next stroke, the next word, the next.

Long live despair and the hope it affords us, from comedians to philosophers. How else could we pay for days like these?

Undeniable

2010-01-06T20:03:00.001-08:00

Once, when I was a boy, my Dad decorated the living room with streamers and balloons, invited several of my friends over to stay the night, and baked a cake. Written across the top in chocolate frosting between candles left over from some other event was “Happy Un-Birthday!”

This was the kind of man he had become, inventive and fun, perpetually tapped into an enthusiasm undaunted by working three jobs to keep us in food, warmth, and clothes. He plucked un-birthdays from thin air and made them real, as though this kind of thing was taking place in homes all across America. The memory of my other birthdays, the real ones, pale in comparison.

Last Saturday, I was instructed by my fiancé to stay in the bedroom, to not come out until she said so, and only then with my eyes closed. When I was allowed to open them, a black and white themed collection of gifts greeted me, complete with a tall vegan cake from Upper Crust, “Happy Un-Birthday Ty” neatly scrawled in black frosting, its outer edge ablaze with black candles.

This is the kind of lover Jeno has become, inventive and fun in the face of financial hardship, plucking one of my happiest memories from some past conversation and making it real again, bringing those cherished sensations back with the added layer of us, our passion for each other, our wide open future.

This was my second un-birthday and it makes me wonder just how lucky a human being can be.

All The Wrong Questions: An Exploration of Propaganda in Today’s America

2009-12-29T19:13:00.000-08:00

Ty Gorton (2009)

Hollywood is selling us a reality in which humans lose. This is no accident.

Prologue: I have been waging an internal war (often externalized via activism and artistic endeavors) against my culture since childhood. For me, there has always been a disconnect between the way humanity could or should be and the way it is, which is nothing new. Most people feel something similar for at least short periods in their lives, and this disconnect has been a dominant topic of philosophy since its birth. As for myself, the discrepancy between what is/what could be presents a daily struggle, one that is sometimes little more than an annoying whisper, and at other times, it can become a paralyzing depression. Over recent years, my mind has locked onto certain ideas that may or may not be truth, and this essay is an attempt to communicate those ideas as succinctly as possible, leveraging current events and the tide of pop culture.

When an American looks out their window upon the political/social landscape, there can be no doubt that the dream, even if it was always something of a farce sold via propaganda, has become a nightmare inflicting global damage. Our government “of the people” wages an endless war on terror with new regions being added to the conflict list at an alarming rate. Health care reform promised as a savior for all, regardless of economic status, has netted nothing more than a massive pay day for pharmaceutical companies. Despite being the self proclaimed police of the world, the U.S. proves itself unwilling to pass meaningful environmental laws that would sincerely serve and protect humanity. Despite being the self proclaimed champions of morality, the U.S. continues to break international human rights laws and take archaic stances regarding methods and weapons of war (i.e. Obama’s recent refusal to sign the international antipersonnel landmine ban). Throw in unchecked lobbying by corporations to sway all odds in their favor, rising unemployment, a house of cards economic reality, and what Americans are left with is an undeniable sense that whoever was guarding the light at the end of the tunnel has abandoned post, probably in favor of a yacht and a mansion located anywhere but on U.S. soil.

Every day I wake to a world clamoring for answers. The impassioned arguments for change make sense on both a logical and emotional front. Every day I go to bed seeing those hopes for change not only unfulfilled, but beaten into bloody submission…and the march toward eminent disaster steamrolls ahead.

So it occurs to me that things are going exactly as planned. It occurs to me that, like cows to the slaughter, we’re never asking the right questions. We’ve been educated to cry out against the slaughterhouse itself rather than the people fueling it, operating it, and profiting from its violence. We have been so thoroughly programmed to believe in the power of democracy (in its intentional state of impotence) that we rail against its bloated fusion with Capitalism rather than those holding the reigns that guide us, after all, our leaders are mere servants to a system we’ve all agreed upon.

This has not been a sudden awakening, but more a painful process of denial and acceptance. When presented with a problem, it is predominately the simple solution that proves correct. Why is it, despite an overwhelming disapproval from both Americans and the larger world, that the United States has plotted a course into the heart of war, environmental destruction, and economic collapse? The simple answer: Because that is the agenda of those in the power seats.

In order to illustrate this point, I am going to turn to an unlikely microcosm: Hollywood. The American film industry during the World War II era is one that bares almost no resemblance to the entertainment goliath today. In the 1940’s, several government offices were created to oversee Hollywood, among them were the Office of the Coordinator of Government Film and the Office of War Information charged with the oversight of all government press and information services, including motion pictures. Hollywood worked hand in hand with the U.S. government to keep Americans motivated toward victory during war time. The level of propaganda produced was unprecedented.

A good question is, where is that relationship today? Times change. Agendas change. The sophistication of the masses has shifted dramatically, to the point where direct and simplistic propaganda not only doesn’t work, it offends. I gained first hand awareness of this at a recent screening for

Avatar, James Cameron’s new Sci-Fi epic (which we’ll be delving into at length). During the previews for upcoming films, there was a commercial for The United States National Guard. It was a good five minutes of imagery, driving music, and narration meant to win our enthusiasm for soldiering…and one can only guess at the cost of this bloated bit of hokey iconography. Sitting next to me was an older gentleman, maybe mid fifties. Despite the twenty year age gap, we looked at each other and joked that the only thing this militant fantasy did was convince us it would be best to leave the country. Not the desired effect, I’m guessing, and it lends incredible insight into the altered nature of propaganda in the age of information.

When we look at the American film landscape now, the overall picture being painted is so far removed from sixty years ago there can be almost no common ground. However, this does not mean the masses are not being manipulated by propaganda. The fact is, propaganda has shape shifted from an obvious, clumsy giant into subversive stealth bombs that go off non-stop, night and day. Throughout human history, the tribulation of every empire has been keeping its masses under control to maximize profit and minimize confrontation. Thanks to psychological pioneers like Edward Bernays, the American population was transformed from production obsessed workers into “Happy Consumer Machines” (a term coined by Bernays himself) in less than fifty years. It was his belief, along with his cousin Sigmund Freud, that the masses were a dangerous beast prone to irrational actions motivated by base desires. A means of controlling this threat, of making the beast docile, was to distract it with consumerism… convincing it that all desires (rational or not) could be appeased by simply buying more product. This approach has been frighteningly successful, but has also created a new, arguably more menacing, threat.

Now that we truly are machines devoted to consumption, what are we being sold, exactly?

In very recent years, there have been an unending string of apocalyptic films birthed by Hollywood. To name a few: I Am Legend, The Road, The Book of Eli, WALL-E, Pandorum, 2012, 28 Days Later, Zombieland, The Day After Tomorrow, Children of Men, War of the Worlds, Terminator, Reign of Fire, 12 Monkeys…the list could go on and on, and this does not include films using the “end of the world” as mere backdrops for other plots, humorous or otherwise. When you compare the tone of these films with the victory obsessed tone of films fifty years ago, what can we learn about modern propaganda? What are we being sold? How are we being made to feel about our world and ourselves?

Propaganda is all about creating expectation based behavior. If we do this, we can expect that result. The difference I experience at a core level with today’s Hollywood offerings is the total lack of suggestive behavior shifts. Instead of “do this, expect that” I tend to only experience the latter portion, “expect that”. These films feel preparatory, whether they approach it seriously or tongue in cheek, there is little mention of altering current social behavior, only a depiction of the end result, the coming human calamity and how we might exist in the new reality of a ravaged planet.

What tends to concern me most is the clear contradiction of ideologies being displayed by corporate entities. To flesh this out, I am going to use the blockbuster Avatar now in theatres, which is on track to be the most successful film of its kind…maybe of any kind, ever. As of this essay, it has already accumulated $650 million in worldwide box office, after a mere two weeks in theaters, and I have no doubt it will quickly pass $1 billion and eventually challenge Cameron’s reigning goliath, Titanic.

What does Avatar have to do with propaganda? Isn’t it entertainment for entertainment’s sake? To answer this, we have to analyze the complexity of today’s propaganda mechanisms, which are different than anything in recorded human history. Is it possible that today’s artists are often unwitting participants in a very precise propaganda machine? I believe this is exactly what is happening. The best way to win any war is to convince your enemy to fight for you under the guise of free will. As the famous quote goes, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” originally penned by Charles Baudelaire but more recently popularized by the film The Usual Suspects. The most impactful propaganda is of a variety that poses as something else; this disarms us, lowers our emotional defenses, and allows the ideas to imprint on a deeper level. Whenever an individual believes they are being manipulated, the walls go up, alarms sound, and a defensive stance is adopted. Remove the threat of manipulation, and those defenses all but vanish. Enter modern day Hollywood, the most evocative form of propaganda machine, one that can successfully plead innocence.

Back to Avatar. There is evidence to support it is the most expensive film ever made with a final budget somewhere over $300 million. Who is responsible? Fox Studios. Why should this be of interest? Whether you are on the extreme right or left politically, or somewhere in the middle, nobody can deny the corporate bias of Fox News. They have made it their mission to discredit environmental concerns, support the war effort, and lift Capitalism by its bootstraps whenever possible. It is irrelevant to this essay whether this approach to news is right or wrong. What is relevant is that the entity of Fox goes out of its way to support corporatism on all levels. So how is it that such a company has a desire to foot the bill for what I consider to be one of the most effective anti-corporate films of all time?

(It is not my desire to ruin the film for those who have not experience it though there will be spoilers beyond this point.)

In a nutshell, the film focuses on the greed fueled corporate threat of an ecologically stunning and culturally rich alien planet (sound familiar?).

The unique thing about Avatar is that it refuses to pander to the idea of the greater human nobility. Are there human heroes? Yes and no. Avatar blurs a bit on this issue due to the nature of the film’s construct in which human beings “link” to avatars, which are not human but alien bodies their consciousness inhabits via technology. Ultimately, the reality offered by Avatar is that humanity is a failed enterprise lost to profit margins and unable to connect with the more relevant aspects of awareness. In the film, the humans lose in a very real sense while the alien race triumphs, and as viewers, we’re damn pleased with this result. This is something that must be marveled at. The humans lose, and audiences are happy for it. Cameron waited twelve years for film technology to make his epic possible, but I propose that it was not merely technology that had to catch up to his vision, but the very mental state of humanity. In essence, over the last decade, we’ve been psychologically prepared to cheer Avatar’s end result in which the humans go home with their tails between their legs and the aliens claim victory.

I propose that modern propaganda is directly preparatory rather than directly behaviorally manipulative. The end result is the same, our behavior is impacted, but the approach is crucially different and much more difficult to spot as propaganda. It is the difference between “Do this for that result” and “This is what is going to happen”. Both cause reactions, but one is clearly attempting to direct us while the other is merely showing us a reality and allowing us to determine an emotional response. The question is, then, is there a clear preparatory objective being carried out via Hollywood with an intended emotional response of the masses? Given what we know of human history and the manipulative nature of all governments, how can we believe anything less? Do we truly sit in our homes and believe all of this is coincidental, that the power players have suddenly decided, in a time of unprecedented information production, to simply “let the currents flow where they wish” without any attempts at manipulation? The absurdity of that notion can only be equaled by the evidence against it.

Fox Studios, a clear champion of corporate rights, has funded one of the most anti-corporate films of all time to the tune of $300 million. Why? From my perspective, there can be only two reasons for this, one decidedly less sinister than the other, but both alarming. One, corporations are so convinced that Americans are incapable of action against their government that they are willing to fund anti-government entertainment simply to turn a profit. Second, there is a clear manipulative objective desired by the recent string of extreme Hollywood despotism . In truth, these are not mutually exclusive. More than likely, both are true. On one hand, if those who can afford to produce a $300 million movie actually believed it could inspire an uprising against uncontrolled profiteering, they wouldn’t fund it. On the other hand, since when do people with $300 million to invest in something want anything less than to manipulate the masses to extend their dominance? The two go hand in hand. The existence of a film like Avatar proves that those holding all the cards believe we are both impotent and pliable.

It is my theory that in order to maintain a blind obedience to consumerism in the face of irrefutable evidence that it is in fact destroying us, a sense that our fate is inevitable must be propagated. In other words, if the world is going to “end” anyway, why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves and indulge in the material pleasures offered by consumerism? The whole thing is destined for a plume of fiery smoke, disease, starvation, or some other calamity...therefore, buy as much pleasure as possible while it’s still on the market.

Capitalism was always a limited time offer. Perpetual growth in any structure defined by finite resources is a scientific impossibility. There can be no argument on this point. Limited resources can mean nothing but a necessity to limit their use…something a corporate fueled reality is doing all it can to either obscure or translate into an acceptable demise. In the last decade, it is my perception that it has become increasingly more difficult (due to increased access to information) for Capitalism to hide the contradiction of perpetual growth versus limited resources, so it has shifted aggressively to the task of convincing the masses that our doom is unavoidable. A resigned population is just as easy to control as a population motivated toward a specific cause, perhaps more so. If we accept that the end of the world is bound to happen, this has a profound impact on how we approach our daily activity. We become callus, indifferent, defeated, prone to depression and most definitely hungry for any kind of distraction we can get our hands on. Buying distraction is the corporate motto of our day.

The very fact that Avatar pulls at me emotionally at all the right places, that I love the film not only as an experience but also for its message, is utterly perplexing. That it was made possible by the same corporate structure I have grown to despair is almost more than I can absorb.

We are constantly asking the wrong questions. While we shout from the mountaintops, “Why don’t you fix these terrible things?” we should be asking, “Why do you want things this way?” Those we look to with hope that they fix the deeply disturbing problems of our time are the very same who have carved this reality with intention via manipulation and sheer force. We must, at this stage, recognize that the trajectory humanity is currently on is not accidental but the result of a game as old as human beings, the game of control with the direct goal of preserving wealth and power for a select few. This fight has always been global; the concept of borders, of countries, is another method of control…as those in power trade loyalties whenever beneficial. This is not an American dilemma but a human one.

Why do I deal with daily depression and apathy? Because I’ve bought what is being sold. As Avatar so brilliantly portrays, I believe human beings should lose and lose big. Our demise is inevitable. The irony is, due to my near social paralyzation brought about by my desire to escape feeding the Capitalistic mechanism that has brought us to this point, I am virtually incapable of economic success. Words from me and people like me, those who exist in virtual poverty, will not be heard with any amount of credibility as the masses have been well conditioned to accept insights only when offered with the veneer of success (loosely translated as wealth).

So, please distract me from my defeat, please sell me something, anything, that will ease this hurt of knowing we are doomed. In the end, I am nothing less than what my corporate tooled government wants me to be, a depressed collection of desires temporarily appeased by product that I must buy, and buy, and buy again. I am that “Happy Little Consumer Machine” Bernays set out to help create…the only problem is, there is decidedly less happiness than promised.

We are the byproduct of the most complex propaganda ever conceived. We are the manipulated masses beneath a very deliberate thumb, waffled into the comedy of willing submission. We are the brunt of a joke. So who is laughing? Who laughs? Are you laughing? Are we laughing together? Or has laughter become a collective death sob for our hope in democracy?

Legalized

2009-12-23T09:17:00.000-08:00

The midnight galleries were brutal tonight. The screens were washed in pig slaughter, pet abuse, and human trafficking, their audio tracks replaced by the sad meanderings of Silver Mt. Zion or something similar.

Out back, the punk crowd was down to their final beers and getting restless. They were taking off their socks, dipping them into buckets filled with rain water from the night before, and hurling them at the tan granite walls of the ally. They made flesh on flesh smacking sounds and exploded into beautiful splatters that dripped and dried into ghosts. Martin had a desire to outline these fleeting water marks in thin black paint before they vanished, but the thought of taking a hardcore punk’s drowned foot cloth to the head dissuaded him.

The smokers gathered out front and shot heroin from a converted hot dog stand. The proprietor had traded in his apron for a long white coat which did wonders for instilling confidence in the sterile nature of his little operation. Martin fingered the twenty in his pocket and considered the needle, but the row of glassy eyes veiled by smoke and the glowing ends of cigarettes coincided with a childhood vision of hell he’d had on acid.

He could hear the guttural growl of dubstep rising from Central Plaza and he started that direction. From a block away the crowd was a sea of skin shifting to the music, bodies illuminated by teal colored lights set in cement at even intervals. Sound sensitive lasers shot upward from the elevated DJ booth, into the night sky, a kind of guiding beacon for lost souls. Martin could see the E-markets setup on every corner, people dressed in neon jumpsuits dispensing pure Molly in transparent capsules. The thought of packing himself into that crowd and chasing a crescendo had its appeal, but he feared the morning light, the dispersal and sadness that always followed.

He walked on. Through the glass of swanky wine bars he could see the upper class snorting coke off silver platters, each of them with their own elegantly etched glass nose straw. They looked happy enough, but it was never his scene, too much politics and not enough honesty. Further down, the Basement (which was a basement in name only) vibrated with heavy metal guitar riffs. Each time the door opened, Martin could hear the shrieking fury of a vocalist. He had a soft spot for the easy rage, for spinning off bodies and collecting bruises that would later be shared as a mosh pit historical document. It all got a little too frantic with the speed thrown in, too many wild elbows and wide eyed skeletal teens slipping into high gear.

Finally, Martin stopped outside Arcadia, which had recently taken over the space after a long standing Thai Restaurant got blacklisted for not using organic vegetables from local farmers. He had heard things about it already…not good or bad, just strange. He decided his mood was agreeably strange so he stepped through the red door painted with a black swirl. Inside, it was all candlelight and mirrors. Even the floor and ceiling were reflective, making it difficult to tell where he was spatially. Eventually he decided to stop moving, “Hello?”

“Yes?” The voice was surprisingly close.

Martin turned to the left and saw a figure robed in white, but when he stepped toward it, the shape slipped off the edge of the mirrored surface and bounced to a further point down a hallway.

“Sorry about that.” Now it was directly behind him. He turned and found a tall man with long, silver hair holding an ornate tray with a single glass vile placed at the center. Apparently, Gandalf was pushing drugs in the 22^nd Century.

“Is that for me?” Martin asked, gesturing toward the green tint of the curious vile.

“Maybe. It’s impossible to know.”

“You mean…in the deeper, philosophical sense?” The man only smiled. “In the literal sense…I mean, is this for me? How much is it?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Some people don’t know how to see, for them, it doesn’t cost anything.”

“Let’s assume I know how to see.”

“Yes.”

“How much would it cost, then?”

“Depends.”

“Well, what is it?”

The six foot five inches of skin and bone old man leaned forward, this motion reflected a dozen times across different surfaces in the room, “I know nothing…NOTHING.”

“Clearly.” Martin eyeballed the little vile, a bit of candlelight dancing on its fat belly and narrow neck, “Fuck it.” He snatched it off the tray, popped the miniature cork, and downed the contents. Before his head came back down from swallowing the bitter sweet, thick liquid, the funky wizard was gone, a mere wisp of white across an angled bit of mirror.

The old man’s voice called out, “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, we’ll discuss payment.”

“Tomorrow afternoon?” It was only 9pm. Martin edged along a mirrored wall and found an extraordinarily soft cushion to sink down into. It was going to be one of those long, introspective masculinity tweaks that left him feeling abstract yet connected to everything. Outside, the city pulsed with other fixes…far away now.

“Hi.” A woman’s voice poked up from the other side of the massive cushion, her body almost entirely lost in its warm folds. Her hand reached out for his and they sank down together, giggling, murmuring, surrendering. Martin had a feeling this was going to cost a considerable amount come tomorrow afternoon…and the tomorrow afternoons that would no doubt follow.

Merry Faces

2009-12-18T20:02:00.000-08:00

It's all lights and heat in there,
that symphony of chatter
bouncing against head drums
like native intuition.

Christmas etc. etc.
Everyone seems friendly enough
though its all a bit rehearsed
like everything else,
trained from birth to be mild swells
rather than tidal waves.

The crisp sucker punch of outside
feels better than the booze,
much better than the cigarette,
and I wonder how we pull this off
year after year,
these social commitments
where we goal each other
to offer as little as possible
before escape,
home,
where we can unzip and be the version
nobody knows...
except maybe that one person
if you're god damn lucky.

The Emergence of Beauty

2009-12-17T21:15:00.000-08:00

Having eleven toes was more difficult than other people realized. There was the physical reality stuff, the custom shoes and the extreme discomfort of ski boots. These were mere inconveniences when compared to the psychological warfare involved.

“Six toed Joe
was as slow as a toad,
every time he walked
he dropped a big load.”

He had David Holt to thank for that one, a little ditty that carried from second grade through high school graduation.

Having eleven toes meant wearing socks at the public pool, as though that would be less humiliating. It meant waiting until everyone was gone to take a shower after gym class, which made him late every day to sixth period. It meant awkward sexual moments with him wanting all the lights out, followed by incomprehensible explanations and the eventual truth.

He always assumed this would pass. As an adult mingling with other adults, surely the sixth little digit on his left foot would become quaint, a funny curiosity, maybe even a kinky benefit. Twenty came and went, thirty faded, and forty dropped one chilly November, and he was still that tiny, curled up little boy in the corner trying to hide.

That was, until today.

Today was the art show engineered by Damien Kelly. Damien was a photographer best known for his exotic spread on urban deformities in LIFE magazine. Today, hung on the monstrous white walls of the 4214 Gallery downtown, him and his eleven toes were going to be seen in the new light of acceptance, even reverence.

Already at the door, people were gathered and waiting to gain entry. Through the massive windows of the gallery, he could see Damien Kelly’s large black and white prints meticulously lit, confident…unapologetic.

The cool cement felt good on his bare feet as he took his place in line and felt human for the first time in his life.

Bastardy - a must see film

2009-12-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

Addict. Homosexual. Cat burglar. Actor. Aboriginal. Jack Charles.

That is the tagline found for 'Bastardy' on IMBD. It is a documentary about the present state of Aboriginal actor Jack Charles.

The film is the visual poetry of a life, vibrant and haunting. Directed by Amiel Courtin-Wilson, the music selection, artistry of the cinematography, and the pure fascinating reality of Jack Charles create an experience unlike anything I have watched before. The philosophical layers live and breathe without the film having to engage them directly, they simply exist for the viewer. What we are left with is a stunning insight into how beautiful a human being can be, even when they are broken and prone to bad behavior.

Seek it out and fall in love.

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2009-12-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

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Art In The Age Of Waste

2009-12-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

It is not an unreasonable fear that history will look back on us not for the art we produced, but for the mountains of toxic byproduct we tried to bury like a corpse, evidence of our warped ego. The United States generates approximately 230 million tons of garbage each year, slightly over 4 pounds per person per day. This is a phenomenon that cannot easily be grasped, certainly an abomination of living respectfully.

Essentially, history distills empires into taglines that tell only the dominant story: Greece produced philosophy, Maya produced astrological knowledge, Rome produced military dominance, etc. These associations represent only a small part of each empire’s achievements, but most would offer these responses if asked what the foremost contribution was for each. Of America it seems likely that future generations will define Her as the Queen of waste, a direct reflection on our consumerist obsession.

What does this mean, to be a culture of waste? How does this looming failure distract from our other achievements? The modern American artist is burdened with producing work with the potential to outweigh Her gargantuan garbage output. Unfortunately, living in a waste centric society makes this exceedingly difficult, not merely because of the literal mass of that output, but by impacting the very mental state of those artists considered up to the task.

In order to justify 4 plus pounds of daily waste per person, a certain level of ego must be present. It takes a sense of selfish delusion to engage in a behavior which is so clearly detrimental to the sustainability of life. This lends evidence to an ego driven mentality, a state of mind that believes the individual is truly more vital than the whole, that singular pleasure cancels out the need for respectful methods of survival. When art is derived from such an imbalance of ego, it lacks honesty, it works hard to portray something other than what lives at the creator’s core. Such art cannot be immortal as it does not speak to the universal human condition, it speaks only to gratify the self, to uplift an idealized persona that is ultimately disconnected from truth and consequently fleeting.

Artists enveloped in this wasteland must therefore be leading the battle cry of “Simplify, simplify, simplify!” The concept of an individual producing several pounds of refuse every day, some of which will not decompose for dozens of generations, is a recent one. The madness of such behavior does not serve us well, not environmentally, not socially, and certainly not in the realm of producing influential works of art.

Honest Bombs

2009-12-08T14:26:00.001-08:00

Thirty-four years in and this mine filled mind still gets the better of me. On any given day it comes as no surprise to hear the familiar click of the detonation mechanism, followed by the swift realization that there is no escaping the explosion radius. Made up of an infinite array of insecurities, misperceptions, invented fears, and learned responses ranging from the mundane to intricate, these mines are so difficult to avoid because they are not stagnate, but interacting to form hybrid hazards.

The consciousness born of experience tells me that the thought processes assumed eccentric are more than likely universal to some measurable degree. That is to say, if I’m tripping my way through psychological mine fields, those around me are no doubt engaged in a dance of slight variation. To my surprise, this has done little to alleviate my anxieties. The unity I would expect to feel in knowing that others contend with similar if not identical uncertainty simply does not present itself, not in a way I’ve been able to leverage.

The only relief I have discovered is through the appreciation of art, regardless of medium. Art, or rather “good” art, which typically emerges when the creator is at their most honest, puts on display the individual’s anxieties. It maps out some discernable amount of that person’s internal mine field. As I interact with another’s creation I am given permission to enter their headspace, that most sacred and intangible construct. Oddly, as an appreciator, it is with little effort that one can navigate another’s mines without triggering them. They are palpable, fairly easy to sidestep and ponder at length while never being afraid of their explosive nature. This runs parallel to an individual’s ability to see someone else’s missteps in life while being completely oblivious to their own, even when they are painfully similar.

Honest art, depending on how much soul the artist has been willing to bear, puts human anxiety on display. If the viewer is open, this can lead to an awakening, giving insight to their own mental hang-ups and possible means of overcoming them. What is the difference, then, between being aware of others experiencing similar anxieties in any given moment and appreciating it presented as art? The difference is, the artist has chosen to display their inner nuances, to stand naked before us, shedding a trained social fear that dictates we all pretend to know what we’re doing. This willingness to stand exposed brings with it a clarity that appreciators can apply to their own realities.

Above all, let us be honest, which benefit’s the appreciators and artists alike.

I Am A Sellout

2009-12-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton.

There is no apology deep enough to satisfy the crimes of America committed in the name of Capitalism.

If Mr. Hampton could witness our complacency now, in the face of such horrific crimes against humanity for economic gain, I would imagine his disgust would be daunting.

Documentaries and books (Attorney Jeffrey Hass’ "The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther”, “The Murder of Fred Hampton” directed by Mike Gray and Howard Alk, among others.) outline beyond the shadow of any doubt that Fred Hampton was murdered in a premeditated fashion. To label this act of aggression as solely racist is to simplify the situation, and does little justice to the Chairman’s memory.

"Our ten point program is in the midst of being changed right now, because we used the word 'white' when we should have used the word 'capitalist.” – Fred Hampton

Mr. Hampton understood that a force greater than racism was at play in the 60’s, and that force has only grown over the past forty years, grown so large that it forms a parachute blotting out the sun of all other ideas. We are at war, not in Afghanistan, this is not a war defined by borders; we are at war with an idea whose byproducts are suffering, despair, and the constant glorification of the lowest common denominator. Our war is a Capitalist war, one fought with profit margins and human subjugation. The weapons are dollar bills, their inked edges slicing tiny wounds into majority perception until all that remains is the blood of perpetual growth.

And in this war, all Americans have chosen the wrong side. I do not believe “all” is used in error because there is no measurement that can be leveraged, there is no approach to capitalism minimalist enough, which can place someone outside responsibility. Even the most diligent among us conform to Capitalism’s nature by accepting its base rules. I am no less a Capitalist because I bottle my own water, use cloth bags, and do not own a car, etc. My money still funnels through the same ideology, my tax dollars still fund the concept of growth, my footprint, no matter how small, still falls cleanly within the lines drawn by Capitalism.

In this war we have no visible leaders and a lack of even one viable alternative. We either buy and survive, or flow into the gutters of irrelevance.

On this day forty years ago an enemy of Capitalism was murdered, and he has been murdered every day since then in exchange for fast food burgers, iPods, wireless internet, cologne, toaster ovens, all-in-one printers, Hondas….NOTHING. I am ashamed and have no apology to offer because no apology is enough. I am ashamed because today I will buy into the wrong side again for a cigarette, for a glass of wine, for a bit of entertainment, for nothing.

A Revolutionary.

The Utter Subjugation of Darren Smalls

2009-12-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Darren Smalls has delivered a single package of identical size to the same address each day for the past three years. The package was a paper bag brown with no name, no address. He estimated its one foot by one foot shape weighed thirty pounds. It made no discernable sound when shaken or turned upside down. There was no odor beyond that of the recycled paper used to wrap the package, the only folds visible on one side, which were neatly held with clear tape.

More curious than the package itself was the home where he delivered it. The address was 219 Walnut Street, an enormous four story Victorian immaculately kept on the outskirts of the city, tucked nicely into an orchard of peach trees. Darren had never seen a vehicle of any kind on the property, and while the orchard and minimalist landscaping were clearly well tended to, he had not witnessed any evidence of upkeep. On the day of his first delivery, he was given a white envelope along with the package which contained concise typed instructions, the kind of type only produced by an old, manual typewriter.

NOTE FROM AUTHOR: The rest of this story has been removed due to a pending publication in Paraphilia Magazine.

Love

2009-12-01T14:54:00.001-08:00

I wake after a long night

Of trying to write, and instantly

Think if she left a cigarette for me

I’ll know it’s forever.

And it’s there, the cigarette,

On this Pier One looking chest

By the front door.

Forgiveness

2009-11-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

Firetime anthems will not rebirth the day,

Not this time,

Not after all we’ve done in each other’s names.

This bed holds the bodies we once were,

Placeholders now, for the

Silent, made up lives

We dream into history.

Give

2009-11-26T12:00:00.001-08:00

Outside, less cars line the streets, and

You can almost see them pulling into driveways

Somewhere else, then greetings at the door,

the easy embrace of family and the coming meal.

Turning onto Main Street, closed signs hang unturned

And cement carries few footprints, product rowed

Neatly along window displays anxious for tomorrow

When hands might reach to close the circle.

A stillness buoys tree limbs, dusting fall leaves

With occasional breath. Sunlight reaches slightly harder

To warm those lesser corners, giving wayward

Seeds the chance to sprout.

But none of these define the difference these mornings

Unravel, it is something hidden, unknowable,

The way children find their way home against the tide,

Sometimes against their own understanding.

On these days there is an agreement, something

Like a pact whose signed lines commit us

To better behavior, a National truce carried out

In a series of simple gestures.

And one wonders, on these days, on the days

We’ve decided on finer sentiments, why this truce

Can’t reach it’s timeline fingertips a bit further,

A few days, a month, a year.

One might wonder why this fascination with

Fleeting joy, why value is measured in rarity,

Why an artist’s commodity rises in price

Only when they can no longer produce it.

Today is not like those other days, those days

Of trained postures, of status and bottom lines.

Today is longer, safer, a more simple reflection

Of all the things we want but complicate away

On those other days.

An inch of time is an inch of gold

2009-11-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

(Flash prompt for The Sphere for 11.22.09)

An inch of time is an inch of gold

He had a tiny mind, but it possessed the secrets of singular devotion. The way light fell from rain gutters across a certain patch of dirt and grass could become a thesis. The way a minute on a clock with a second hand could become more than a minute had consumed afternoons. The way his neighbor’s dog Jacks pranced despite being a dog larger than prancing kept a smile triggered for entire days. The way a cigarette burned and surrendered ash, the way each door clicked closed with its own signature, the way squirrels stopped and started on their way to everywhere, the way cold snuck up slow then took hold suddenly, the way childhood memory of flavors never synced with adult tongues, one millimeter of mystery to the next; this is how he broke days.

It wasn’t long before people in a position to take notice took notice. They voiced their concerns about an inability to multi-task in a task violent society. They took offense at his ability to ignore all other things for one thing, mostly because they never considered this a possibility; certainly never an asset.

He took his tiny mind far away and found the same disdain. If he accepted a job as a late night grocery stocker, management soon fired him for spending too much time with the rows of tuna fish when aisles of boxes remained untouched. If he tried his hand at selling books, his post was too often abandoned while he journeyed with a customer down the rabbit hole of a specific genre. There was no room for devotion in a world where people believed time equaled money. Self worth was gained by the hour, rung up at the end of each day like a debt owed. Allowing an hour to become days worth of fascination had no place in economics.

He took his tiny mind elsewhere, off into the uncharted regions most people fear to go. From the outside, he may have looked as a homeless person, a culture reject, spat out with any monetary value cancelled. He may have seemed to some crazy, working against a mental deficit, someone to sidestep and pretend away. But he was not these things.

He spoke in tongues for children who still hadn’t succumb. He brought fringe walkers onto his timeline and let them spindle their frustration into something useful. He was the unseen saint, an icon who lacked the proper symbol, a voice that pitched outside the range of most commuters…but a voice none truer to those able to listen.

For the brave few he gifted back time, made it decent to delve into moments and find oneself lost on the other side.

There is always someone behind you, Henry

2009-11-24T13:24:00.001-08:00

(Flash Prompt on The Sphere for 11.22.09)

The first thing he did each morning was make sure his penis was still there. This was not as swift a thing as you might think, but it got done none the less.

Next, young Adam Whiles decided which side of the bed it would be that day. If right, it betrayed Adam’s desire for a well oiled day, hitch free, productive, easy to catalogue (IE: File under “work day”). If left, it nodded toward Adam’s unnerving desire for goal crushing potholes, unexpected face slappers that tended to divert eyes from the prize. Truth be told, young Adam Whiles got out of bed on the left more often than not, leaving the right for major Holidays and the occasional sick day.

Today, it was left once again.

His body reacted to the cold in appropriate ways. The hardwood floor creaked in that satisfying old movie way on his way to the bathroom. Eight A.M. sun pushed against the small square of frosted glass in there, and this made Adam feel like a hamster, caged, lit, on display, but warm and safe with plenty of food and a wheel to run for those longer nights.

When young Adam looked in the mirror, he always felt as though who he saw was the person behind him. Not him. Another. A stranger who’s edges got away from him whenever he tried to look over his shoulder. In times of sobriety (inconsistent but certainly recurring), stretched out on acid, drunk, stoned, whatever…always this stranger reflected in the mirror, the man behind the man.

Whoever it was, Adam liked him better, this elusive wanderer, a silent observer. He trusted that guy in ways he would never trust himself.

One night, at a bar, he said, “Watch out for the guy behind me,” and it worked. The so-so blonde with the occasional braid, with the lopsided grin, with the too kind eyes, she laughed and took hold and let him buy some drinks. And it was always the guy behind him that did the deed later on, past midnight, past caring about a thin layer of cellophane to protect against a life long tragedy. That guy, not himself, the one with the piercing eyes and the sense of purpose, he always got to fuck.

And young Adam wakes and checks if its still there, and it is, he is, the guy he refuses to claim.

sadness

2009-11-23T20:43:00.000-08:00

longer still

will we falter this equator

until the quaking bones of what we've done

pierce their graves

and make spikes of our growing fields.

Perspective

2009-11-06T16:53:00.001-08:00

Mother’s mail waits in a slender steel box

At the center of this mobile home sea,

Rows of neatly kept shoe boxes, awning lined,

In which hover bodies unwilling to die

With minds that could go either way, depending.

Above, the sky is up to something marvelous;

Banks of clean stratus clouds tight stretched across blue,

Closer, lower, grey smoky explosions sliding stiff winds,

Closer, old pines framing the thing, pinching it, as I stop

And feel six shots of tension trickle top down and out.

Sometimes that’s all it takes, a triangle

Of sky doing what it does,

Sometimes that’s all there is.

Fall

2009-11-06T10:27:00.001-08:00

Across the way, a leaf lets go its branch and spirals down to the earth below. Finally, it comes to rest on the intimate kiss where grass meets pavement. Nobody notices but her. She walks by the leaf, pausing momentarily before stepping into a rhythm with those around her.

Later in the day, a little boy might pick up the same leaf, treasure it briefly before remembering the louder, looming world around him. He too will discard it, as the tree did, surrender it back to it’s grassy cradle. Later, a gust of wind could lift it and press it into a Father’s chest where it clings almost desperately, just long enough for him to notice and reach for it. Those fingers barely miss the fiery orange edge as it turns away and slides further along it’s cement journey. This leaf might spend days brushing against the stories of strangers, mostly unnoticed but occasionally recognized, singled out, measured and stored into that hidden place that only opens when all fear is taken away.

Just a leaf. Just a girl. Just a life. Something to marvel at and take for granted, a dot connecting an infinite pattern that future lives might decode and appreciate. This is the way history folds into tender pockets, the most important bits written out on the edges which are first to fray, first to age and fall away, lost, leaving only the inarguable facts. How cold history is without the little sparks drawing us along, how frigid and devoid of truth; mysterious to us because there is only a record of actions taken, never the complexity of motivation. Without motive there can be no comprehension of action, and so our histories unravel and become myth, taught but not believed, hard earned lessons never learned.

Somewhere, her leaf finds solace in earth. It accepts the process of decay, bleeds out everything it has to fuel something new. As there are leaves, as there are grains of sand, as there are stars; these are the immeasurable possibilities, each one perfect before it lets go and learns of imperfection.

things are

2009-10-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

(Inspired by Where The Wild Things Are)

and then we stepped out

into something like a beautiful world,

into hands of sunlight

that parted trees for sky

where woke impossible monsters.

and then we crashed into nighttime

where bonfires cracked sparks

into flitting fireflies that hovered

long enough for feet to stomp patterns of dirt into submission

and then we slid down

into the secret tunnels shafted by dust and silence,

into the earthy, weighted places

where we whispered things we didn't want others to hear

for fear they may laugh

and despair our wonder

and then we

folded ourselves into huddled warmth

and breathed against backs of necks

until hair stood and tingled

toward a happy slumbered place

and then we woke

and found those places gone across the sea

as a fearful sun pushed haze upward

into another day

whether we wanted it or not

and we turned to each other's faces

and looked for signs that it couldn't be so,

that the moon was still safe to love

and somewhere a wolf mourned aloud

because we forgot how

but we can learn

again

we can do this thing,

this wild, wild thing

that just maybe we were meant to do.

love you so,

(for jeno)

Dreaming from the Cheap Seats

2009-10-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

There is a difference between what we are willing to accept as truth and truth itself. This has always been a human method for enduring the deceptions of “civilized” life, and it has been leveraged by politicians from the very conception of politics.

The problem today is not scandal, greed, dishonesty, betrayal, or any of the typical human behaviors that take place within every social structure. The problem is that the gap between what the general public is willing to accept as truth and actual truth has widened so far that truth no longer has any relevance. All that remains are the stories we tell ourselves, and these yarns can be as fantastical as we need them to be because the shore of truth is no longer visible through the fog, it can no longer distract us from whatever version of reality we seek.

However, just as any structure needs a solid foundation to remain standing, perception also requires a percentage of truth to sustain. What that percentage is, exactly, I won’t claim to know…but without a solid foundation of truth, everything we build is destined to collapse. For evidence of this, look to your own lives, to the relationships and businesses that have fallen apart. Without a substantial commitment to the truth, everything we do, whether finite or ambitious, will crumble.

I would never suggest that living in a world of absolute truths is possible or even desirable for that matter; a certain element of illusion has always been healthy. It keeps the dreamers dreaming, it allows us to hold to hope in the face of despair, it lets us indulge our inner child through even the most devastating of circumstances. The “whole truth” is not something human beings mesh with well, and that is OK. It is our inherent ability to be whimsical that makes life so interesting, our willingness to hold the weight of the world at bay while we run headlong into some joyous occasion.

The danger here, as Gonzo would put it, is “the desperate assumption that somebody ... or at least some force -- is tending the Light at the end of the tunnel." We have all adopted the notion that somebody, somewhere is tending to the truth, keeping it vital, stoking the flames of authentic knowledge…but as anyone who has leant themselves fully to the fantasy of nirvana knows, there is no such person. When the dream turns to vapor there is nothing to catch your fall, and you will find the tunnel is dark beyond reason, cold without sympathy, and any helping hand in finding a way out will have to be self-generated.

As an American, I have never felt further removed from the truth. In the one hand I have the ineffable pursuit of happiness…a journey of economic and personal triumphs that will one day unfold into a state of bliss with a luxurious home and waves of recognition. In the other hand there is the pending fate of humanity, a seven billion strong battle for survival in which many have nothing while a few have everything. In order for me to realistically pursue my individual goals of wealth and social respect, it is imperative that I believe the greater woes of those other billions are being tended to, or perhaps that the suffering involved isn’t quite so bad, or perhaps if “those others” just worked harder they could also rise up, or perhaps capitalism and democracy will make it possible for all to pursue the same kind of dream…or perhaps, or perhaps, or, or, or, or….on and on into infinity.

There is minimal profit in doing the right thing; there is sustaining, and this should be enough. I have been involved in two non-profit endeavors, the CRUX Artist Collective and TiON. Both were art driven venues. No matter what we did, no matter how successful either one became, it was never more than enough than we needed to keep going. I used to think this was the definition of failure. Now, I am convinced that both were a microcosm of what it means to walk a path closer to truth. Sustainability is nobility, it is a word we should all embrace…whether it be environmentally applied or otherwise.

Ladies and gentlemen, there has to be a point where the pursuit of our personal happiness is so out of whack with the truths of our world that we stand up and cry foul. I believe we have reached that point. The time for blindly following illusion has brought as far as we can go. The time for trusting in the weavers of false truths has played itself out. The time is ours, as it has always been, to take up the torches of truth and burn a new path, not one rooted in absolutes, but one that comprehends there will always be a level of deception in how we live. We can only fly so far away from the flame before its heat no longer warms our dream, and I don’t know about you, but the dream has grown painfully cold.

Thankfully, we will never live in a black and white world; the question is how much gray can we allow? How many lies can be absorbed into our daily routine before there is nothing honest in our choices? When a trip to the grocery store represents a colossal deception, it is time to measure who we are. When voting is a choice between malevolence of equal polarity, it is time to question our fathers. When we feel alone in a dark tunnel and there is no more light to guide our way, it is time to dig deep and find the fire buried below, the fire that has always burned for us all, the fire that knows who we were meant to be.

Aren’t we all dreaming from the cheap seats? Aren’t we all true until this world makes us into something else? Equality is the truth we carry at birth, and the inequality we now feel is the acceptance of a truth so warped, so ruined by the dark side of human nature that we can no longer look each other in the eye.

I want to look you in the eye and know that where we are headed is grounded in an undeniable truth so when we walk past each other we are confident we won’t stab each other in the back.

Child Services is Going to Take Away Your Internet Baby

2009-09-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

The glorious art of online Cool-Cruising, I’ve recently realized, is not something all human beings excel at.

People are funny that way, we tend to assume everyone else is coming at things from, if not the same angle, certainly a similar one. This is often not the case. To my horror, it turns out that many people simply attack the vast potential of their online reality with a strictly objective based mentality. Certainly, there are those times when you want to tap in, snatch some specific useful bit, and tap out. The usefulness of instant information and content is undeniable.

However, for those individuals who approach the internet each and every time with a focused objective which, once achieved, results in the abrupt end of your session…well, I’ve got some bad news. You’ve done fucked it up. You’ve cheated yourself out of, perhaps, one of the richest experiences of our age. Is it really that big a deal, you ask? Yes. And the time has come to correct this tragic misuse of the infoNation Highway.

As Shrek might say, the web is like an onion (yes, the smell can make you cry if you dice too long) in that it has layers. The problem with logging on to find something specific and then logging off is…you never get past layer numero uno. That’s bad…that’s bad…that’s really, really bad!

I think our best bet here is to lay down an example, a little wrong/right comparison:

Here’s the scenario: You’ve had a few shots of cheap tequila alongside several “the brand we do not speak of” beers, and a heated debate kicks in. Half the crew believes the bus that drops off Margot in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ is the Red Line, the other half says Green Line.

Enter “the Google”.

LAYER 1: You type in strategic key words “margot bus royal tenenbaums”. The very first link slaps down the exact answer, not only offering text, but a YouTube video in which you can actually watch the scene in question:
SEARCH RESULT HERE AS AN EXAMPLE

Now, the debate has officially been settled. You step away from the computer’s generous glow and continue to find ever less stimulating conversations to traverse the late night hours. This is wrong, so very wrong. This is that part where your internet baby is being woefully neglected and is about to be pulled, kicking and screaming, from your arms for placement with a better, more inquisitive guardian.

So let us rewind, “reraaaaroooruuureeeeraaaaroooo” ß rewind sound. Let us find out how your internet experience could be so much more:

You’ve got your Margot/Green Line bus answer. You watch the YouTube video just to rub salt in the wound of those who had it wrong. As the film clip plays, you notice how incredible the track in the scene is. Spark! What is the song?

LAYER 2: Back to Google. You type in “margot bus royal tenenbaums song”. Once again, the first link popped has the desired information held in an article called “Give Me a Second Grace: Music as Absolution in The Royal Tenenbaums”. It is a song called These Days”, written by Jackson Browne and performed by Nico.

LAYER 3: YouTube search for Nico results in an avalanche of cool musical performances, interviews, and collisions with the pinnacle of 60’s art and pop culture.

LAYER 4: Google Nico. Hit the Wikipedia link for a little background info, where you instantly learn that “Nico (born Christa Päffgen, 16 October 1938 – 18 July 1988) was a German singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress, and Warhol Superstar. She is renowned for both her tenure in The Velvet Underground and for her work as a solo artist.” Nice! You also learn that Warhol more or less forced ‘The Velvet Underground’ (a band he managed) to take on Nico as a singer.

LAYER 5: Hit Amazon.com and search for Velvet Underground. You quickly find the one and only album the band recorded with Nico, listen to the samples, and fall in love. Minutes later, the sparkling MP3 files are nesting in your computer’s music library. Another nice Amazon feature is the "Customers Who Bought This Also Bought These"...which can lead you to some real gems.

LAYER 6: Sensing there is more potential here, you backtrack a bit, realizing that if this Wes guy was savvy enough to put the song “These Days” into his movie, he is probably worth exploring. You Google “wes anderson music”.

This brings you to an article at thisrecording.com entitled, “In Which Wes Anderson Breaks Down His Perfect Mixtape For You Guys”. Fucking JACKPOT. Not only is the mix tape slapstick of the article lovely, the site itself proves itself to be a treasure chest of musical appreciation expansion.

Layers. It’s how the internet is done. Never be satisfied with achieving your initial hunt. Take it further. The more aggressively you peel back the layers of the WWW, the more obscure bliss you will discover hidden at it’s infinite core.

There is in fact no reason a quick fifteen minute session can’t lead you to a daily discovery of something new.

One thing I’ve never understood about people is that tendency to hit the stop button on their desire to experience new things. It’s as though a certain age is reached and people decide that the music they have NOW, the art they like NOW, the style they have NOW, that this is going to be it. No more evolution, no more expansion. In the age of the internet, this is a near criminal attitude.

I say, for those of us lucky enough to have access, we should all be Cool-Cruising on our death beds.

The Generation M Manifesto...

2009-09-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

NOTE: The M Manifesto was written by Umair Haque. While I'm not 100% on board with this being a generational issue (which Umair does also clarify at the end), I certainly agree with the points made.

The piece begins with:
"Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what wewant from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences."
READ THE ENTIRE M Manifesto HERE

Rewriting Audio/Visual History, Respectfully

2009-09-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

It is the land of POGO, and what a fine, fine place it is.

Directly from Pogo's blog: "...is an emerging electronic music artist in Perth, Western Australia. He is known for his work recording small sounds from a single film or scene and sequencing them to form a new piece of music."

The process is clearly one of respect. The artist is essentially tipping his hat to films he finds something of interest in by deconstructing then reformulating them into musical homages. As he points out himself, there is no intention of taking away from and most certainly no attempt to profit on the work of other creators. Pogo's tracks are self-satisfying endeavors that not only inject something new into the world via masterful sampling, but also promote the source material in a unique way.

Head on over to POGO's YouTube page and sample his samples HERE.

A couple of my favorites:

YouTube DIRECT LINK for Expialidocious

YouTube DIRECT LINK for Alice

Wild Things

2009-09-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

Of the new film by Spike Jonze which adapts Maurice Sendak’s cherished children’s book ‘Where The Wild Things Are”, I have been seeing a lot of online criticism and animosity. This is bound to happen when a literary effort fused with a magical vitality is gobbled up by the Hollywood mechanism.

However, upon viewing the latest trailer for Jonze’s film, I find it difficult to understand how anyone can believe it was created with anything but absolute respect, passion, honesty, and raw creativity.

The fact is, in a featurette available on the official site, Mr. Sendak himself expresses his appreciation for Jonze’s approach to the film, stating that, “I’ve never seen a movie that looked or felt like this,” when commenting how Spike was able to inject his own artistry into the story while completely maintaining the voice and intent of Maurice’s original work. How is it that fans of the book can be doubting this film’s authenticity when the author himself is offering up such eloquent praise?

I have come to realize that, even in the face of contrary evidence, it is always considered cool by hipster cross-sections to criticize a “commercial” adaptation of a classic work. Irrelevant to these critic’s insults is whether or not the piece in question respects the source material, only that it is being done at all. Lumping all commercial efforts into an “evil” bin is no less deficient than a corporate approach to films that makes its decisions based solely on profit potential, which is meaningless when discussing an art form. Profit potential can only be determined by measuring past successes and failures, which therefore excludes anything with a new approach…hence the lack of genuine originality in most Hollywood productions.

I believe Spike Jonze’s live action interpretation of ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ ventures onto new ground. I believe it extends into that magical, timeless stratosphere that all artists strive for. I believe it has been created with every conceivable respect for the author’s achievement while being ambitious in it’s own right. The book was an oddity when it was first printed, taking years to find popularity. The film looks to be upholding the book’s peculiar flavor, generating an experience that audiences young and old have never had before.

The endless horde of film adaptations that have in fact insulted the source material can do nothing to change the fact that sometimes, when just the right minds intersect, an adaptation can soar just as high as it’s inspiration. I am confident that ‘Wild Things’ is one of these occasions, and I await it's October 16th with great anticipation.

Hit the official site for the latest trailer and especially the featurette featuring author Maurice Sendak:

wherethewildthingsare.warnerbros.com/

Deathbed Drunk

2009-09-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

From 1920 to 1933, the United States tried Prohibition (making alcohol illegal for you ignorant assholes).

The problem was, alcohol can be made by anyone from just about any goddamn thing.

The realization that alcohol was an unstoppable force that was costing the government more to fight than allow, the law changed.

So here we are, free to indulge in alcohol how we choose. We can literally take baths in the stuff, absorb it through pores, and freak out accordingly, throwing bean burritos at art whenever we have the inkling (don't ask).

The question is, what role does alcohol play in your life?

There truly is no need to make it illegal, though I agree with making it illegal to drive a car while drunk, among other things. I mean, DUH!!!! How many people would drive a car in the throws of an acid trip? Why do drunk people think they can drive? Fucking assholes. OK, OK, I was that asshole too, once, when I was young, and I don't fully understand why I thought it was justifiable. Lame.

The deal is, what role does alcohol play in the adult life? It's fascinating.

We ingest the stuff and often behave poorly, but this does nothing to stop us from seeking it out.

I would like to suggest that we thrive on drama, and therefor adore our booze and it's ability to put us in uncomfortable situations. It makes us feel ALIVE to experience chaos, whether negative or positive. Since the negative is easier and more abundant, this tends to be the alcohol induced norm. Dstruction, verbal abuse, sexual conflict, helplessness...oh, how the fun piles up like fall leaves for a child to leap headfirst into!

Alcohol is an interesting element on the path of human discovery.

It presents a challenge and an often pleasant diversion, while also revealing the ugly underbelly of human weakness.

I am a student of alcohol. I have grown up within it's influence, I have witnessed it's destructive power and also it's ability to unite, to inspire, to offer human connection.

Mostly, as a writer, I use alcohol as a crutch to tap keys and produce. Without the liqour, pounding out words seems boring to me, and this is sad, sad but real....so be it.

Bottoms up! I'll see you on the other side of another binge, where we will both pretend it's harmless while secretly wondering how hard our deaths will be.

Sex & Vegetables

2009-09-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

What do we want? In all this mess of desire, capitalism, success/failure, impending doom, possible salvation, and tragic near misses, what exactly are we after?

It seems to me that this whole thing comes down to good sex, good food, and a sense of purpose.

The beauty part is, there are infinite variations on these three components of contentment.

I. What you consider good sex may in fact be the equivalent of virtual necrophilia for others (dead fish anyone?). You might enjoy a slow, eye to eye, fingers through hair body melt...or maybe it's a butt plug, baby oil, hand cuffs, and death metal shaking the foundation. The sex variant is absurdly rich, and everyone should consider it their mission in life to discover their magic three-number-combination that will unlock the orgasm vault.

II. Unfortunately for Americans, good food has been hijacked by mass-agriculture criminals. Those brightly colored veggies on display at the supermarket are imposters. They look right, feel right....but slice them open, smell them, drop a slice into your mouth...and there is no doubt, something is amiss. Seek out your local farmers. Hit the local market once a week and load up on produce. Do this for two weeks and I promise you will feel the difference. Good food is crucial. Without it, we wallow in our own pathetic apathy, we exist at the bottom of a ladder that we no longer have the energy to climb. Get out there, buy real food, invest for ONCE in your physcial well being instead of your transitory desire, feed your body the food it deserves. We'll spend endless thousands on the skin-deep, OUTSIDE posturing, but we seek out the bottom of the barrel prices for things we put INSIDE; the madness of this needs no clarification.

III. Purpose. Well, here's the rub, huh? Purpose cannot be taught, gifted, or explained. Every single person on the planet must, through a series of comedic tragedies, discover their own purpose. The only way to approach this is with a sense of humor. Trust me, it's ALL funny in hindsight. You look back on your life and begin to see it as one big stand-up comedian's dream act. One thing is certain, no amount of pleasure can replace the need for purpose. It is a tale as old as human existence...the one where a person, having everything a person could want, abandons all for a journey to reveal their true purpose. The acquisition of goods is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it IS pointless without a higher purpose either motivating it or running parrellel.

What do we want?

Happiness?

Please! Fuck happiness, that's for bad movies and teenagers. A good fuck, a farm-fresh tomatoe, and a clear objective; these matter, and happiness will find it's way into moments through these things, as will sorrow and death and pain and laughter and all the wonderful collisions of being alive.

Don’t Die, Just Wish You Could…

2009-08-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

The “Healthcare Debate” is a fine piece of hoopla, more successful in proving Americans aren’t holding a full deck than challenging the current medical infrastructure.

The first thing we need to let go of is any notion that the Healthcare industry as a whole wants Americans to be “healthy”. The moment it became profitable to treat the sickly, believing in a noble medical ideal should have been obliterated. That anyone can hold to a sense of trust that the bloated mechanism of care in this country actually seeks a healthy nation is a testament to how blind we’ve become to the motivating factor alive in every aspect of daily life: Money.

Disaster = profit. This is Capitalism 101. When things go wrong, money roars to life like some king of the jungle savior. Didn’t it ever occur to us that once people realized they could wake the lucrative lion via manufactured disasters…there would be no end to spawned calamity?

Let us not be naïve. Let us not assume somebody somewhere in a perfectly tailored suit is actually on our side, wanting us to live lives unhindered by tragic health issues. Let us not pretend we don’t know this game. How many have to suffer for profit’s sake before we snap out of our trance of the American ethos? How many times will our government rob us blind with bailouts and vague wars against indefinable enemies? How many trillions of dollars of debt are we going to carry on our backs, debt that not only doesn’t solve any problems, but makes them worse for the very people footing the bill?

Can we not wake up? Can we not rise up? Or have we lost the ability to put down our golf clubs and video game controllers and T.V. remotes to engage the evils of profiting from the suffering of our own brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers? Can we not, for once in our lives, set aside trivial self interest and place stock in a greater goal? Can we not look each other in the eye and finally, truly, be proud of who we are as a nation?

It is entirely possible for the majority of Americans to lead healthy, vibrant lives. This would start as education at a young age. We need to relearn how to eat. We need to relearn how to have a relationship with our food. Healthcare today is almost NEVER preventative, but rather a sad system of treating symptoms, often never addressing the source of a person’s suffering.

Aren’t we tired of being leveraged for dollars? As time goes by, the ways in which those dollars are being lifted becomes more and more heartless. Once, it was merely a train of products we didn’t really need. Now, it’s our very health, our very lifespan that is being toyed with. Next it will be our right to survive at all…if you don’t think so, look at what is happening with the fight to privatize ALL sources of water.

The for profit mentality of our age has blinded us. How can we justify an intentional profiteering on the unwell? How can we allow our country to deliver us unto sickness via toxic food and toxic lifestyles only to turn a profit? The longer individuals live in a state of sickness, the more money can be squeezed from bloody pockets. In other words, don’t die, just wish you could while we pump you full of treatments that can never cure, only ensure you are comfortable enough to endure…and pay your bills.

Have we really lost all sense of who we are? Have we forgotten how to care for one another? Are we truly going to allow ourselves to be farmed and harvested by a corrupt healthcare system as though we are nothing more than a length of wheat?

Let us wake up and accept that nobody wants our health but US. Together, we can make modern healthcare obsolete…all it will take is rediscovering how to eat, how to live. Imagine a country so strong and vital that the hospitals are virtually empty, and imagine how the billions of dollars wasted on symptom-only treatment could be used to make our world a better place. Imagine a splendid clarity of the masses as we march forward without the diseased idea of disaster = profit.

Are You Part of the Problem?

2009-08-20T14:47:00.001-07:00

Yes.

Just to cut to the chase, just to get all that hand holding, we’re on the same side, aren’t we top notch human beings for caring shit out of the way….let us agree…

…Yes, you are part of the problem. Yes, I am part of the problem. And just to put us all at ease, everyone you see walking the streets of America is part of the problem.

This is because the problem is an umbrella bigger than all of us. Even those working positive solutions are still laboring under the umbrella.

What can we learn from this? Only one thing: The umbrella must die.

If doing the “right” thing is still part of a “wrong” construct, how can it be defined as right?

My girlfriend and I, we don’t have a phone. We don’t have cable T.V. We walk to a farmer’s market to buy the bulk of our groceries from local farmers. We take cloth bags to the store when we have to go there. We bottle our own water at a purification dispenser, using the same bottles indefinitely. We don’t have air conditioning. We are positioned in such a way (in a small town) so we can walk to almost everything we need, rendering the car a near obsolete tool. We eat vegetarian, rejecting the mass slaughterhouse culture which pumps more misery and C02 pollution than all the combustion engines combined. Are we part of a minority trying to do the right thing? Yes. Are we part of the problem? Yes. Why? Because the larger malfunction still reigns supreme. We are part of the problem because what we do is behind closed doors, a blip on the proverbial radar of everything gone astray.

I am part of the problem because I still exist under the false umbrella that every person can live the way we do (As Americans). A universal upgrade in lifestyle for all humans living today simply is not possible, the planet cannot support it. Therefore, a life lived under that context is folly. Growth is limited, and this means that seven billion people cannot live lives of contentment (in which contentment means only that all basic needs are met without undue suffering).

If all “men” are created equal, an accepted decree within the U.S. Constitution, doesn’t it stand to reason that all men should have access to an equal quality of life?

How then can we justify a current reality in which most suffer daily for the most basic of necessities while others enjoy such things with minimal effort?

The time for ignorance is past. In a world alive with information, we can no longer claim ignorance as a defense. Human beings are suffering. Animals are suffering. Nature is suffering. The proof is easily attainable, it lives and breaths all around us.

Are we part of the problem? Yes. Because we accept our fortune and pretend that other’s fortune is self-created. We pretend that, if others only worked harder, they too could live as we live. When will we accept that our lifestyle comes at the expense of others? When will we demand an equilibrium? We are so quick to shout equality and defend the lofty ideals found in our own founding documents, and yet we are equally as quick to ignore that we are fine with global inequality as long as it favors us.

The problem is cultural, it is soul deep. We ferment in the problem from birth, and are so skewed as to simultaneously believe in equality while we ignore the absence of equality worldwide.

Accepting the problem comes first.

I am part of the problem.

I am guilty.

Not the government, not an indefinable “they” controlling our fate. I! I! This is my doing, as it is your doing, as it is up to all of us to change the tide of common thought.

The umbrella must die so a new umbrella might take hold, and shade us all beneath a sense of true equality.

Death = Life

2009-08-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

Our planet is a majestically efficient recycling mechanism. Birth gives way to consumption which inevitably leads to death, from which springs forth the essentials for new life. Composition and decomposition move arm and arm through every aspect of our earthly existence.

The points of history which carry the most weight in classrooms are those that have excelled in one or the other, life or death. The periods of equilibrium are oddly glossed over, uninteresting perhaps, or considered unimportant by the craft persons of antiquity.

I think this is a tragic mistake. While times of turmoil may entertain, the lessons learned from those periods of quaint balance may have much more to offer. I contend that life and death are meant to occur in harmony. In these times, it is evident that we have done all we can to accelerate life while holding death at bay, though this has been done exclusively with a bias for human beings. The cost of seven billion people on the planet is tragic when measured against the rate of death of all other living eco systems.

However, never has the Death = Life equation been disrupted. Death is indeed occurring at the exact rate of Life. The problem is, Life is morbidly skewed toward the human race. The value of human life above all else has created a disturbing distortion of the balance, which must at all times be maintained.

If we accept that the rate of Death and Life must be constantly equal, than we can only conclude that a hyper-successful humanity must in turn define a hyper-devastation of all other life.

In order to find harmony with our planet, we must accept that we cannot look for ways to sustain an ever growing human population. It should be inherent in our strategy for existence that we curb our rate of reproduction and instead work toward a more unifying balance with all life. Distortion of such mathematical truths can only lead to a forced cleansing, the evidence of which looms giant in the form of global climate change, food shortages, and new diseases.

Death is not to be feared, but revered as the vital ingredient needed for life itself. It is folly for human beings to believe their right to life is more sacred than the animals and plants that share this globe. There is no escape from the exacting nature of Death = Life, and any victory we appear to claim today in humanity’s favor of this equation can only lead to a colossal shift in the other direction.

Is it so hard to imagine a life lived within our means? A life of respectful balance, in which a human body gives as much as it takes? Are we so egotistical as to believe we can escape the fundamental mathematics that govern all ecological microcosms?

Today = Tomorrow. We are part of the equation, no greater than any other part, no smaller; the difference lies in our understanding of consequence vs. action. Balance will be achieved. How it is achieved may still be in our hands, and it is my hope that we accept it gracefully…the alternative is too gruesome to fathom.

Martin Solveig....because...

2009-07-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

...sometimes it's fun to step outside the self-created importance of the world's looming disaster and have some freakin' fun.

I recently discovered Mr. Solveig during a YouTube click-n-cringe session....you know, when you give random things a try for no apparent reason and usually wind up watching something so terrible it burns a hole in regret's back pocket (located slightly below/behind the "dangers of cruising the web" warning sign).

To be honest, I'm not 100% clear on what Solveig does...he's a DJ and producer, though I'm not entirely sure what his role is on each song. Frankly, I don't much care.

The songs he puts out into the world, no matter his involvement in them, are infectous...the kind of songs that inspire all manner of horrifying white man seizures on the dance floor.

Below are a few of the videos that got me hooked. My suggestion...next time you get a group of drunk individuals together...drop some Martin Solveig, fix a nice Mojito, sit back and absorb the good time vibes.

These vids do not allow embedding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jh4aGQBUZM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNPVFprwmVk

Free? - New video in an ongoing series

2009-07-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

Another piece in a series attempting to capture the every day and present it in an interesting and/or meaningful way. Everything was shot within a six block radius of where I live.

The music is by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis from the Assassination of Jesse James soundtrack.

A Smarter Wish: The Dream of Localization

2009-07-20T11:34:00.001-07:00

The fables from Aesop of ancient Greece warn us to “Be careful what you wish for, lest they come true”.

As someone who has long wanted the cultural structure of the modern world to dramatically change, I am aware that myself, and those like me, may be getting what we wish for soon. Unfortunately, our mental wish rarely looks like the real deal as there are so many unexpected chain reactions involved with any intense sociological transition.

Imagine the corporate giants collapsing. Imagine strong local economies emerging. Imagine freedom built on true independence…communities finding their own path to abundance and balance. This is the battle cry from environmentalists, and many political activists as well, that we must rely less on a centralized government and build viable local communities on a global scale. Each area has what it needs to thrive within itself if we are willing to find a balance with our surroundings, but not all areas can compete within a global economy.

As some of us work diligently to bring about a reemergence of local independence, it strikes me that our victory, if it should occur, would no doubt be incredibly short lived.

For now, the giants of industry and influence are content selling us product…iPods and cars and T.V.s and cell phone plans. They are content because we keep buying into and submitting to a hierarchy that allows them to remain wealthy and in control. Let’s consider for one moment what might happen if those in the power seats felt their wealth and control slipping away. Let us attempt to see past our desire for a world made stronger by localization and self reliance and understand that those holding the reigns of our current system will not let go so easily.

What if iPods turned into water.

What if television turned into electricity.

What if cell phones became food.

My point is, if the controlling class can no longer pull strings by leveraging unnecessary products, is it really that difficult to see them shifting their focus to the necessities of life? Our water, food, shelter, energy…if our labor cannot be controlled by clever advertising for products, it seems clear that those with the most to lose would move swiftly to lock down the things we absolutely must have for survival.

This future would find us paying exorbitant amounts for water, food, and energy. Sadly, this battle is already underway. The news is littered with stories about food conglomerates trying to get legislation passed to make local farming near impossible. Drinking water is no longer a right in the U.S., it is something we pay for already…imagine the cost of water being like current gas prices, fluctuating at the whim of some unknowable force. Energy is certainly a monopoly today…how many choices do you have for powering up your home? I have one, PG&E, a single entity whom I have to pay whatever amount they decide.

It is easy to see that these means of control are already in place just beneath the surface. If we become too unruly, if we break away from the heights of consumerism and begin to build our communities using our own resources….I believe we would see a gut wrenchingly swift reaction. This reaction would limit our water, food, and energy supply. It would strangle us, our time and physical capability, until we submitted once again to a structure devised from the top down.

So, I am acutely aware of being careful what I wish for. If the Wal-marts fall, what counter-measures would escalate? If we rise up and take back our time and our lands and our sense of community, how will the current power structure react? What lengths will those with everything go to protect their gilded seats? Look to history, friends, simply look to the spectacle of human existence. It is easy to know how far power will go to protect power: as far as it takes.

For once, let’s be ahead of the curve. Let’s find solutions to our water, food, and energy problems. Let us ensure that these things cannot be used as a weapon of control. We have ingenuity and numbers on our side. We are the strong and capable body without which those perched precarious cannot survive. That we, as the majority, have always held all the cards is no secret to the few in power, but each regime has done a wonderful job keeping that fact from us; nothing more than a magician’s trick of distraction.

It is not enough that we get what we wish for. We must take it three steps further lest we fall prey to a reality far worse. We must take what is ours back, not for profit, not for self gain, but because living freely, being able to carve your own survival out of this planet, that is a human right…and it should not be held under lock and key.

New music video for BASIC's J06

2009-07-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

I am starting a new series of shorts that attempt to leverage the "mundane" things that exist around me every day. These will feature footage from, say, a walk to the market...or, similar to a previous video called "Clean", laundry day.

The goal is to capture these every day scenes in an interesting way and edit them into thought provoking spoken word pieces and/or music videos.

First up is a music video for electronic composer BASIC's song "J09"

Go Forth

2009-07-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

Author's Note: This has nothing to do with pants, that these are ads is irrelevant. This rather flighty write-up is a reaction to the videos below as spoken word pieces, not as a commercial for Levis. Thanks.

There is something majestic in the falling of giants.

America is such a giant as this, though only an infant in comparison to other cultures…so young, so inherently strong, and yet impossibly divided.

How then do we define ourselves, this nation, this great divide? How then will we speak with a voice that can be heard by all?

How do we recognize our combined strength when our languages no longer match, when our gestures present confusion, when our minds perceive moments so differently? How then, my comrades, can we move together until the motion of our dream is impossible to deny?

It becomes apparent, through easy observation, that our momentum runs parallel; yours with mine, mine with hers, hers with his. We step, one foot after the other, into the blind hazard of hope, and those steps represent our faith in something larger than America, larger than any nation or accepted theory. All those parallel movements could be stitched into one, a colossal step forward, a lowered shoulder full force into the flimsy defense of fear….breaking through, running free.

Not often has corporate advertising been so in tune with the sentiment of strength that combines us, that drives us on through difficult times. Once I set aside their commercial intent and see them as spoken word pieces, Levis’ new ad campaign is about far more than selling button fly jeans.... These ads dip into a primal truth, into the awareness of a human connectivity our culture attempts so desperately to convince us doesn’t exist.

One thing is certain, these ads are not targeted at the middle class, or the well-to-do. The new campaign is geared for the backbone poor, the true source of strength, the formidable working class giants of our age.

I am infatuated with these images, with these words (from Walt Whitman).

We, as a billion strong collective, are about to march on the lies and shame of humankind’s recent history. In our hands will be nothing more than truth, in our hearts, nothing more than will, in our mouths, nothing more than passion. No guns, no instruments of pain, no exploding collateral damage, just us, our flesh and blood, our persistent laughter, our dreams no longer dream but attainable real estate.

Believe for one moment that we can define tomorrow.

Believe for one moment that what you feel in an intimate lock can be more than personal, it can be personified across the landscape, it can be real and accepted and stable; not transient, not fragile.

Believe with me that this world is destined for more than profit margins and corruption. Believe your own internal light, the way it shines against the dark, the way it wants to spill out onto the paths now sick with confusion.

We are an army, you and I and she and he, an army in waiting, and the wait is over.

March forth, become, dream huge, grab for everything that matters, demand more and want the simple truth.

We, the people, the tide, the numbers on a page, the statistics, the controllable masses….we own this time.

We will rise and become. We will seize and forget. We will forgive and shine strong. We will shed old ideas. We will.

We will.

Mirror, Mirror

2009-07-15T12:22:00.001-07:00

Today I am in love with life.

At these moments, at the age of thirty-three, I stop and appreciate. No longer are they taken for granted. No longer do these moments feel limitless. As all things, this sense of wonder is finite, so fine and timed, a racing ember breathing against the dark.

We are in this together, you and I, the thoughts along the fringe…those ideas so fragile and kind. I am you in this moment, a conduit through which flows the ancient art of possibility. And can’t you see it? this expansive sense that anything dreamt could be built, and touched, and entered with reverence? And don’t you believe every so often in the truth of who you are? Isn’t it vivid, and isn’t it unstoppable?

What if we could step beyond the boundaries set forth by those hindered by greed?

What if those visions seen in passing, those rare blinks that defy convention, could blossom like nuclear mushroom clouds across the horizon?

We are that potential. We, collected, determined, strong, fierce…..alive…we hold all the cards for the perfect hand. A royal flush against the tide of this current disaster. Because people are more than numbers, more than an “x” in the formula of economic stability. The very economic pulse of now depends on our unease, it needs our sickness, our fear, our paranoia. This moment wants you to flail, to half-drown, to kick and scream for tiny gains against an impossible debt. But that debt is an invention.

We are not in debt. We are rich beyond measure, you and I, reflected so gallantly in mirrors not built for such reflections, so all we see in the morning mirror is failure, our shame. It is time for new mirrors. From our hands will come mirrors that reflect actual potential, mirrors not hung on walls, but the mirror of each other’s gaze, the mirrors that matter, the way we see each other on simple mornings with a casual wave and embrace, the way we want envy to be mutually beneficial.

Today I am in love with life, and I am in love with you, my suffering counterpart, my destiny.

We are tuned for something better. We are ready for something better than this, and all it will take is a 1% shift, a slight gesture, a whim accommodated. Dream for me, live for me, wake to this dream you’ve been dreaming all your life. Wake and place your hands on the rotating clay, carve it out, raise it up, fire it in the kiln of alternative chance. We will drink from these creations, toasting by the millions around bonfires miles wide.

Today I am life, and you are life, and we are the rising evolution of thought.

The Missed PULSE Thread...catch up time

2009-07-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

So, the idea with the Pulses is to post one every day, Monday through Saturday, with Sunday off to drink and mock religion. Over the past weeks, for reasons outlined in the latest HiP video (Optimistic Depression), I've missed a few. SO, this will be the blog post where I catch up, posting all the Pulses that never were, or that almost were, or that could have been.

These will be out of order...not chronological I mean, because I've started all of them, but have no idea how inspiration will dictate their completion.

Here we go:

Pulse 6.20.09

Old School

I’ve walked twice as far to get half as much, you smug little rat. I’ve taken twenty punches to land one goddamn winner on the jaw of some perfect asshole. I’ve watched a hundred friends go down to keep what I believe safe. And you think you’re going to walk in here, in here?!? with your fashion sense and high cheekbones and shoulder monkeys…and threaten me? You really think it’s your time to dance? Well…someone turn on the fucking juke. Someone dim the fucking lights. Let’s set the mood. Let’s really crack this one open, make it an event, shall we? Let’s gather all these sorry apes into a circle and breakdance like a couple fags in Hammer pants. You show me yours, I’ll show you mine. What d’ya say? That fit you like a thousand dollar suit?

BANG! Oooops. I guess my finger slipped. Somebody clean this pretty polly infant off my bar, I’ve got real men to serve and real stories to tell.

Pulse 7.09.09

2009-07-09T10:02:00.001-07:00

Bright

A soft twist, and the blinds rotate closed. A slight twist, and the blinds open. Closed. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. Closed. Closed. Closed. Her hand quivers there, on the white rod. The daylight hums so soft just beyond the curved lengths of plastic, just beyond the glass. I am there too, somewhere out there in the heat waves, evaporating. Open. Her eyes squint against the brightness, her head tilts back, her mind reaches backward in time until she remembers what it was like; us in the sunshine, out there in a world that felt like ours. Closed. Her eyes open on the shadowed terrain of what was once a couch, a chair, an entertainment center, a desk….a home. Now there is nothing left but stacks of newspapers, cut up and splayed across floor and walls like the tragic entrails of those tortured without cause.

She does not let light in again. She retreats into the depths, finding a spot to lay amidst the headlines and mean rows of streamlined copy. She abandons daylight, and me, and all things but him, our son, nothing more than a flickering collection of snapshots that must, for her, still be brighter than all the world.

Pulse 7.07.09

2009-07-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

Vigilante

Tonight will be the last night, I promise. This will be the last time you wonder where I am at 3am, this will be the last time you find smears of blood on the pillow case…splatters of blood on white porcelain. This will be the last time a phone rings in the depths of night carrying bad news. But I need tonight, I need it. The chaos, the juice, the fragile balance between madness and courage. One more night will satisfy the beast in me, I really promise this time. There’s a voice out there, somewhere on those streets, a small, weak voice…and it whispers my name. In an alley, in a broken down bathroom stall, in a penthouse rank with the scent of excess, that voice….baby…that voice haunts me. One more time, once more, and maybe the whispers will stop, then I can stop and hear you for the first time in a very long time. Don’t you think I want to hear you? Don’t you think I want your arms around me…instead of this city’s desperate embrace?

Except…we both know this city has epic arms, the kind that never let go; the kind of arms that kill you with need.

Pulse 7.06.09

2009-07-06T16:33:00.001-07:00

Irony

Every light, and nothing looks lit. Every window , all doors, and there’s no air. Speakers, appliances, phone, T.V.…and no sound can be heard. Naked, and nothing touches skin. Weeping, and no tears fall. Laughing, and no joy. He sits in his sensory vacuum. Neighbors pound the walls, some have even pulled on robes and overcoats and staggered outside against the 3am push, drawn to the ruckus. In the distance, sirens. They are headed this way. But he doesn’t know that. He only knows that every time he gathers flesh in the metal grip of his pliers and crushes the handle together with all his strength…there is no pain.

Checkered with blood blisters, blind, deaf, mute, a negative instinct against the tide….he screams silent; and for the first time, he is heard.

Clumsy Love

2009-07-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

You were more than everything.

You were a smile, a wink, an imperceptible gesture caught so briefly in the path of light.

You were something I held to longer than I should.

You were true, a bright and naked truth from which all lies could be detected.

You were my charm, my necklace made of gold beads and thread, cool against skin.

You were the perfect melody against the cold and brittle tones of this town.

You were perfect because I cut away the imperfections.

You were nothing more than a cartoon character, lit and danced for accepting eyes.

You were the lie I kept telling myself.

You were the only reason surgical sharp never opened veins.

You were something else….

And still are

Without me

Mucking it up.

AmIAmerica?

2009-07-06T14:26:00.001-07:00

Am I an American? Am I this thing indefinable, a walking, talking symbol for grand notions? Do I present those gestures, those kind of sparkled eyes, those lips perpetually curved with optimism? Am I taller and stronger than the shape my body implies?

Am I?

How high those notions soared as great minds broke against the shore, how impeccable the concept of freedom and hope for equality. How bright those lights shone against the smaller, darker tide.

At some point along the timeline, this epic American ideal became nothing more than a marketing tool for iPods, for sleek Audi coups, for exotic scents, for, for, for exhausting pages of glossy catalogues of product.

The wicked nerve it takes to manipulate the purity of hope into a consumer reflex can only be described as evil.

So, am I? Am I American?

The unfortunate truth is…all societal structures are designed to placate the workforce while securing the wealth and power of a select few. Human history repeats this simple format over and over, for thousands of years. And while we enjoy amenities beyond measure compared to our peasant counterparts, we are still that numbed workforce, we are still the hunched shoulders of the many carrying the whim of the entitled few.

And I ask myself….am I? Am I that? Am I America?

I look deep into the mirror’s unflinching truth, and I nod my head, and I say, “Yes, yes I am that.” I am an American, a consumer, a placated particle in the infinite sandbox of particles. Upon my shoulders rest the elite. Upon my dreams are built the tedium of ancient logic.

I am America.

I am its shining example, a lost soldier pitted against false enemies.

I am its arrogance and sideways charm.

I am this thing, this marketed commodity being sold to billions.

I am.

I am…

I am no longer willing to represent the red, white, and blue deception, because my dreams are NOT its dreams, my aspirations are NOT born in its womb, my hope for the future is no longer the intangible question mark of desire touted by NIKE.

I am that new hand on old clay, forming the new dream, and it is no longer an American dream…

It is a human dream.

And I am human.

And I am here, ready, calm, resolute….determined.

I am yours, and we are everything, and this is our time to conquer.

Greener

2009-07-04T01:15:00.000-07:00

I am wandering out too far for memory. I am skirting the edges of someone I used to be. I am drowning, drowning maybe, in this liquid air, air that doesn’t let me breathe, air that doesn’t want me to win.

How long have I been lost out here?

How long has it been since I saw headlights approaching in the distance? How long? How long?

I am further than you think, further away, possibly closer to that something else we always talked about. Or maybe it was just me who talked about it, maybe it was just me. I do that. I imagine words as our words, but they are only mine. I’m sorry for that. Sorry.

It’s gotten colder along these roads. I don’t remember the bite being quite so deep as this. It gets down there in bones, makes toes brittle, makes the miles hurt.

All this sky, god….this sky! It’s bigger than everything I dreamt on those late nights cozy on the couch, curled up in bed; talking, talking, talking. I spoke this sky into perfect hues, ideal depths. It was kinder than this, crisp but never menacing. This sky has teeth accustomed to inflicting wounds.

How many days has it been? Or is it the same day pulled impossibly thin?

I don’t think I’m as strong as I promised you, I don’t think I’m nearly as strong as I wanted to be. From the safety of you, this seemed like adventure. Now, pounding the hard miles, the distance growing, it’s not like adventure at all. It’s just hard. It’s just reality. Cold. Hungry. Tired. Alone….mostly that, mostly alone. Being this lonely, the hardships become like companions. Over here is Mr. Cold, and he speaks in a certain voice, has a certain feeling to offer. Miss Tired, Sir Hungry, Dr. Fear, they all have faces and personalities.

I wonder where you are. Maybe you’re thinking of me? Maybe not.

I must be halfway now, halfway to something.

Where was it I was headed? It was clear before, so simple and crystal clear in my mind.

I’m going to stop here for a bit, beside this rock, beneath this naked tree. I’m not sure why I came this way. Nobody told me this was the right way, none of the maps labeled this path. It’s a little vague, but I think people might have warned me against it.

One side of this rock is smooth and slanted at a nice angle, feels good against my back. Something solid. The sky might be getting dark. I’m out of candles, out of matches. This dark is going to be absolute. I never thought I was afraid of the dark, but how could I know if I was or not? It’s easy not to be afraid when light is within reach, when the dark seems easily defeated. This is real dark, the kind I have no control over. And I am afraid of it, afraid of all the things I can’t see that can see me.

Afraid you might be out there, watching me be afraid.

Afraid of another day like this day…walking and thinking, folded into cold and distance.

Where was I headed? How can I be halfway if I don’t know where I’m going?

I miss you. I’m not sure I’ll wake up if I go to sleep here, and sleep is the only relief. I think I messed up. I don’t think I’m cut out for this.

One more breath of light before nighttime. Goodnight. I’ll turn back in the morning…I can make it back.

Will the door still be open?

Goodnight.

I’m sorry.

Clean - laundry, cobwebs and a video camera

2009-07-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

So, this coughed into existence because I was bored on a Friday night. We had just moved into a new place, which featured a washer/dryer combo in a tiny shed out back. Due to neglect, the thing was stitched with incredible cobwebs and dust....it looked so stunning inside this creepy little structure that I was inspired to get some video footage, and "Clean" was the result. Set to the music of Cevin Key, hope you enjoy:

INK - finally a film worth salivating over...and it's indy

2009-07-01T23:05:00.000-07:00

Truly looking forward to this one:


watch trailer 1 \| watch trailer 2	visit website

Pulse 6.29.09

2009-06-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted one of these since the 15th. I have dozens of starts, some nearly comleted pulses, but have had trouble crossing the finish line with them the past week or so. The Human Improvement Project video I'll be releasing tomorrow will delve into the reason for this lack of productivity, one of the main motivations for the project in the first place.

Anyway, today I start up the daily Pulses again and WILL be posting up finished pulses for all the days I've missed.

Pulse 6.29.09

Advertising

“We will always devolve into grandeur,” grandfather said before turning slowly away from us and walking into the billowy cloud of ash. Then, at age nine, I didn’t understand what he meant. Now, atop this forty-seven story monstrosity looking out across the vast, lit spectacle of the City…it begins to make sense. I always thought grandeur was a good thing; officially defined as the quality or state of being lofty or elevated in conception or treatment, and this definition sings true for my City, except it is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Behind the grand façade exists the truth of these streets, the broken boned ugliness of an entire population. For now, the lights hum nighttime and giant screens dance with the images of cool. I am one of the craftsmen of mirrors, a General in an army of smoke composers. From my steel perch I conduct the symphonies of fantasy down below…a billboard there, a commercial here, a few print ads smartly placed, and then the full orchestral climax of the talk show circuit.

Success turns to wealth and eventually has nowhere to expand except into self-obsessed grandeur; like goliath dominoes, the empires of history have risen and fallen the same way.

Prospector

2009-06-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

5:01am.

I waver between another margarita and more words or the folds of slumber.

Obviously, I choose alcohol and these damn keys.

But what can these words accomplish against the colossal mountain of text history has already offered? Why do I persist? It must be inherently selfish….it must be born of some infinite ego pool that all artists dip into, knowing that their little snippet might connect, even if only for a blip on the radar.

Don’t you ever get the feeling that something grand is hovering, something monumental? If I stay awake long enough, if I reach hard enough, maybe my juvenile brain will snag on something crucial. Eureka! Gold! Cancer in the knees, disease in every joint, toxins for blood…immanent suffering and death, but gold at last! We are all of us starry eyed miners posted along the same indifferent river, while behind us a world awaits our discovery…if only we would put the fantasy down and turn around.

There is joy in this life. There is wonder in the simple, easy things. But what do I want with them?!? I’ve got nuggets of truth to sift from these miles of mundane pebbles. Isn’t it my responsibility to stay here like this, prostrate, stern, ferocious against doubt? Is it not my duty to languish at the water’s edge while birds sing just a half turn away?

And if the population at large has no interest in what I unearth? Well….fuck, duck, and cover…this grenade has no choice but to detonate; I’m holding the pin in palm, the damage is already done, even if I’m the only casualty it’s got to amount for something. Right?

(Sigh)

I guess what I’m trying to say is, there is more to life, so much more. The thing they never tell you is that “more”, well, it’s totally subjective. More for you might be less for another. More for the next guy could be the opposite of more for you. More is like everything else…a miscommunication at best. There is no common ground, no anchor point for this shit. It’s all over the grid, and the biggest mistake we make is assuming our quest is about anything but ourselves.

5:26am and I accept that I’m still at it because I still need an answer. Not for you, not for the masses, but for me. I need an answer to the madness of this world. It is blind faith that hurls me forward, an inexplicable knowledge that if I keep swinging, hurting, striving, laughing, weeping, typing…that answer will be mine. And the answer will probably mean nothing to you. Find your own damn answer, this one’s taken!

My time, my pain, my gold.

“What do you mean, there’s no gold standard? For fuck‘s sake, are you serious?”

It turns out thought itself is no longer backed up by reason. Just like paper money, too much of it has made a verifiable system of value unfeasible, so we’re left holding our sacks of ideas with no way to measure them. If we’re lucky, some silly tourist will pick them up at a yard sale and make an offer…

…And A Side Order of Obscurity, Please

2009-06-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

Adoration. It has such a nice ring to it…who doesn’t slip a little adoration fantasy into their breakfast bagel now and then? The concept of being adored by the masses has become a cultural past time, a pillar holding up our social hierarchy.

As artists, creators, dreamers…a small dose of desire for adoration can be the very fuel for our mad long journeys across lonely deserts. Alone in rooms, we borrow against the possibility of recognition to endure the late nights, the tedium, the creative blocks, the hour after hour of knowing exactly what you want to achieve but never quite getting it right. Sure, we create for ourselves. There is an intrinsic pleasure in the process, though that whispered promise of future fame tickles down our eardrum and vibrates a part of us that wants adoration with naked certainty.

Which brings us to current events.

Michael Jackson is dead. No doubt there are many out there who wonder if it isn’t some twisted scheme to drum up a media frenzy for one last spectacle, as though Michael could never simply leave us without a grand nod to show biz, and who knows? The point is, when we look across the arc of MJ’s life, we see a tragic tale filled with, yes, triumphs, but also a torrent of sorrow and baffling mishaps that seem lifted from a cartoon rather than someone’s actual life.

Of course, the comparisons are inevitable: Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley share the crown for global icon status. Elvis, another shining star wrapped in tragedy, who’s fall was also glorious enough to match his rise.

Don’t we have to ask ourselves…is this adoration thing constructive?

From where I sit, winning the unchecked adoration of millions leads to only one place: A lonely, shadow stitched hole in which mental illness thrives and premature death looms.

What does it say about our culture when the one thing we all strive to obtain is the very thing that destroys us? If our adoration delivers our heroes into the depths of suffering, why are we so anxious to offer it? And maybe most importantly, is this cycle of raising an individual up until there is nothing left but to tear them down truly something we want to engage?

As a creator I admit my longing for praise. I can look in the mirror and, yes, accept that my vanity wants to be stroked by the people of the world. Though there is a part of me, the part that attempts to step away from the glitter and jive of my pop-thought reality, that comprehends the fatality of such desires. Wouldn’t it be better to live in obscurity and create till death with the full force of artistic obsession without the corruption of fame? How many artists have achieved living icon status and gone on to generate great works?

I believe it is time we abandon our system of hysterical adoration, both as givers and receivers. There is time enough to be adored for our works after we have passed.

The poison of universal adulation can only serve to warp and ultimately kill the very thing we are passionate about, and is that ever an acceptable price to pay?

Perhaps these are the words of a creator who has given up on being adored. Perhaps I’d greedily pounce on the chance to have crowds swarm my arrival (or departure) similar to Michael Jackson.

Deep down, I know it is better this way, pounding out words alone in a room, amassing a body of work, racing toward the next creation rather than running away from a lustful mob.

The World is Flat

2009-06-25T01:49:00.000-07:00

Have people forgotten that Capitalism is an idea?

Have people truly accepted the invisible hand as a simple, undeniable fact of being human?

Since when did a single idea hold such sway on the entirety of human existence?

Is it possible that standing in opposition to something as flimsy as an idea can make you a criminal in the progressive year of 2009 (sarcasm thickly applied)?

Considering that the ban on gay marriage holds strong, considering that we can justify an all out offensive on something as intangible as “terror”, considering that celebrity headlines outweigh those of actual human consequence, considering that a harmless substance like marijuana still makes criminals of millions, considering that a President can get caught in a lie associated with something as colossal as pre-emptive war and still garner support, considering that the decision to condemn human torture is met with any amount of hesitation, considering that pretend money still makes monsters of men….

I think it is safe to assume that Capitalism has become more than a mere idea in the psyche of modern awareness; it has become unquestioned fact, it has become religion hotwired to our core.

So it stands to reason that all we can do now is hold on and ride this fucker out. Only when Capitalism and the idea of everlasting economic growth has been proven myth will those still standing be able to climb up through the ashes and establish a new idea.

And a new idea is coming.

An idea that will make followers of Capitalism as foolish as believing in a flat Earth.

The Inherent Beauty of Failure

2009-06-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

(aka Optimistic Depression)

I find it baffling, even thirty-three years into this ride, that the very actions I know have the power to lift me from a near immobilizing depressive state of mind are the very actions I choose not to take.

It is this self perpetuating gridlock, a circular comedy in which inaction leads to guilt, guilt leads to depression, depression insures inaction which in turn produces more guilt….and so on. It’s the oldest loop in the book, and I fall into it with absurd efficiency. You would think that my recognition of the loop itself, and an awareness of how to separate my metaphoric wheels from the well-worn grooves, would make its avoidance easier. Not true. In fact, the understanding of my own sad cycle and inevitable slide into its grip lends itself well to a heightened sense of guilt…fueling the whole process. After all, how can a semi-intelligent mammal walk into a trap he knows is there? Bad mammal! Forty mental lashes.

I write this as part of the Human Improvement Project, a little experiment that, thus far, has offered more insight into my failings than yield any positive, evolutionary results. Stop. Rewind. Play: Knowing my failings is as much a part of this evolutionary process as the evolution itself. The real shocker in all of this is the possible necessity for me to accept my cycles as part of who I am rather than obliterate them, finding ways to limit their impact, even leverage them for positive gains, even if those gains are not in my preferred directions.

Certainly there is value in stillness, in isolation? Perhaps adopting an intense meditation cycle during depressive stretches would yield positive results? It is foolhardy to pull directly against one’s own nature. I have exceptional evidence to prove that, no matter how strong the will, a person is somewhat locked into behavioral trends by a certain age. How much better would it be, then, to move with the current of my natural cycles? Might this also lessen the guilt multiplier and allow for shorter and shorter visits to those shadowy caverns?

The trick being…how to move with a seemingly negative current in a positive direction? How to turn weakness into, if not a strength, at least into something more than a pure disability? Is it possible to fully embrace a weakness and, in so doing, find a nugget of strength hidden at it’s core?

These are my thoughts eight days into a funk that is now breaking apart and allowing productivity back in. I am writing today, I will be filming/editing today.

I will begin placing little pieces of future dreams onto the grid today in the hopes that those pieces will one day become a whole. Ultimately, as a creator, I believe that is all I can hope for…to continue generating pieces that yearn for a whole achievement, to strive for a body of work that can speak for itself when all is said and done. A strong body of work will always outshine a person’s failings when the dust settles, and I hold to this truth in the darkest hours when the walls of this harsh place feel most disheartening.

Pulse 6.15.09

2009-06-15T22:01:00.001-07:00

Peace

Drayakse blinded the sun. A thought become a kernel dropped into a finger’s impression in black soil. Centuries later, a tree, the branches bent awkward, twisting around each other before jutting out at odd angles. Upon the branches grew leaves devoid of color; not black, but a pure absence. When the ancient mystic reached up and pulled down one of the leaves, it made a window in his palm. He reached through himself, probed into a shadow world that promised sorrow, but something else s well, something the sorrow would not let him understand. He reached up and pulled another leaf, placing this across his left eye, and he saw himself reflected in glassy water. But he saw other things there too, swarming all around him, the things he feared, those things he had trouble confronting. He reached up for another leaf, placing this over his heart, and he fell into the rock arms of Earth, which cradled him like a child, breathing winds over the new features of his face. He cried there, in those mountainous arms, and then laughed at his fear, and his laughter gave birth to clouds that still roll and toil.

The rain of those clouds are the stories we are meant to learn. They are the stories of all we are capable of but have let go of for fear of black depths. Take this leaf and leap through, fall, surrender, become a child older than time…and laugh again. Laugh yourself into clouds.

Pulse 6.12.09 and Pulse 6.11.09

2009-06-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Double dose, didn't post yesterday:

Pulse 6.12.09

Obvious

“You’ve been walking a long time.” The man nodded, noticing the vivid green moss growing along the bottom row of a stone wall. He noticed the water mark of a constant mountain spring drip-drip-dripping on the rounded edge of a fallen tree. His breaths were even, measured unconsciously, very unlike the choppy intake of the person trying to keep pace with him. “I’ve read that you intend to walk across every continent.” The man nodded again. He noticed the lusty scent of fallen leaves, the soil beneath them sweating in ecstasy. He noticed the sound of an intermittent breeze pushing branches together overhead. He stepped short to avoid an ant hill, then long to avoid the train of leaves and tasty bits making its way home. “What inspired you to make such a trek?” He stopped. He turned to the young man panting next to him, forehead damp with exertion, eyes clearly annoyed by the exquisite sunlight.

He smiled. He turned again and continued on, leaving the boy alone on the hillside doused in vast wonder, leaving him there to answer his own question or continue on as before, blind and confused.

Pulse 6.11.09

Dad

Wind sniffed along the tilted wooden shack, finding loose boards to fondle, whistling across the tin roof held down with spit and tacks. Nick stood at the center of what was once his stronghold. His finely tailored suit was out of place amidst the cobweb cities, the layered dust, the pile of empty whiskey bottles overflowing a wooden trough; someone else still found sanctuary here. Not that it had the power to protect, but it was a nice game to play, it was fun to pretend. Nick bent slightly, letting his designer briefcase slip from gloved fingers. He pulled the leather off his right hand, one of many custom gloves made for him over the years. Of five fingers, only three remained: Thumb, index, and pinky. Just enough to achieve the simple tasks. Nick slowly ran his bare hand along the thick wood door laid flat, propped up on cement blocks. Dust pooled where his two fingers should have been as he walked slow around the crude table.

This is where it happened. This is where he learned to scream. This is where he learned to hate. And now, standing in the desperate fortress of his childhood, wind rattling his memory, this is where he’ll learn to forgive.

Pulse 6.10.09

2009-06-10T10:15:00.001-07:00

Fun Money

There is the trip to skip con, the slice-n-dice con, the battleship bunker con, the slip de flip con, the heist n’ vanish con, the cheeseburger no onion con, the hyper deuce, the cam n’ spam, the hip crack slag and whack, the slump fun, the stutter wink, the seizure shake…it’s an endless train pulled by the biggest locomotive you ever saw. It’s more fun conning. Even if you gotta wade through six months of regular duty (that’s working a job for you spitties), it’s the knowing what’s coming that makes it worthwhile. Like, I can wash dishes and mop up vomit for days so long as I know that muncher (that’s dumb fuck manager) is going to get caught with his pants down and a bucket full a shame dumped on his head. Figuring the angle, planning the dominoes, getting it all lined up, poised like and ready…that’s the sweaty good stuff. That’s what really gets our rocks off, man, the anticipation of it all.

By the way, don’t lock your back doors. We never go through ‘em, we come right at the front, and you’re gonna want a quick getaway. You putz, you wanker, you silly waddle cunt and your 9 to 5. You’re like butter on toast, mate.

The End of The World: It’s What’s For Breakfast

2009-06-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

It turns out the left hand knows exactly what the right is doing, and approves.

The Right is often accused (No, this is not a Republican bashing piece, if that’s what you’re thinking…skip to paragraph four if you need convincing) of leveraging scare tactics to garner support for drastic military and political maneuvers, an accusation that is undeniably true. During the Bush years, we were even gifted a color coded system for knowing how scared we were supposed to be; it’s too bad they didn’t give us digital bracelets dialed into a satellite network that could update itself automatically if the overall terror threat changed…the slick diodes would light up efficiently, keeping us in tune with just how close we were to getting blown to bits. Such laughable fear mongering, the kind I would have thought only worked in 1950’s Hollywood propaganda flicks, brought us preemptive war and Liberty stripping goodies like the USA Patriot Act or “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act”, still going strong eight years after birth.

I am not obsessed with absorbing the news, a byproduct of Bush winning the 2004 elections that left a foul taste in my mouth…but I have gotten back into a daily routine of checking both sides of the coin and reading through some of the more interesting bits. Today, an astonishing realization backhanded me without warning as I cruised through the headlines at CommonDreams.org, a non-profit news site devoted to the progressive viewpoint.

I realized that the Left utilizes fear to the same degree as the Right, perhaps even more dramatically.

Headline after headline offered the many ways of our inevitable demise, whether it be climate change, toxic saturation of pollution, a loss of civil liberties leading to lives of virtual slavery, economic collapse, and an and on. The fact that I happen to agree that the human impact on this planet is rushing us toward hard times does little to change the fact that the use of fear is rampant on both sides of the fence…it’s a cornucopia of hyper-charged, bug-eyed, throw your arms up and shriek, good old fashion F.E.A.R.!!!! Run for the hills you sad, sorry primates…this shit is going to get ugly! Threat level aqua-marine-lavender-yellow-with-a-dash-of-crimson…that means the hurt is here, mother fucker!

Yes indeed, we are certainly doomed. Both sides agree on that much, but before we go the way of extinction, they’d like a small donation, a little something to help stave off the imminent threat, just a tasty morsel of your hard earned paycheck is all it will take to keep the beasts at bay…for now.

How sad to realize that, like religion, the news has become another extravaganza asking us to tithe in order to achieve salvation.

How sad this place is, where even the scientists bottle the end of the world to create yet another evangelical pulpit for con artists.

How sad that even now, in the face of such epic human suffering worldwide, we can only point to the sky and scream in terror instead of using our minds, hearts, and bodies to create solutions. And solutions are out there, so easily within reach if we could simply stop trying to turn a profit.

How sad that I’m in here clacking away on this keyboard instead of out there cutting a new path through the jungle of capitalism’s champion earner: Fear.

Pulse 6.9.09

2009-06-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

Loss

“John?” she enters the hallway, looking both ways. All the lights are on again. It is her home, her husband, and yet instinct tells her to walk softly, her bare feet make barely a whisper on the cushy burgundy carpet. “John…you here?” The gentleness in her voice sounds out of place filling up the kitchen, the den, the living room. She hears laughter trickling from the spare bedroom, but it does not comfort her. She has heard that laughter before. It has a sick weight, it has sharp edges that cut the tender parts just inside the ear. “John,” she pushes the door open. His head lifts with genuine enthusiasm, “Oh, baby, come in here. You’ve got to see this.” She steps into the flood of light. Lamps of all different sizes and style clutter the edges, some on the floor, some resting on a shelf or the desk or packed onto chairs. Some are hung crooked from the ceiling, dangling their like death sentences, their high watt bulbs burning hot.

“Come here honey, take a look,” John points to a TV screen as he slips one of the video cassettes from a chaotic stack into the player. She closes her eyes, chokes back her fear-tinged sorrow. John laughs, placing his hand over hers. She opens her eyes to the blank blue stare of the screen. Hundreds of hours of tape, empty tape, playing images only John can see, sounds only he can hear. “Isn’t he beautiful, honey? Isn’t he something?” She bites down on her tongue hard, rejecting the desire to pull away. “We did good….we did so good,” and he laughs once more, bathed in all that light, bathed in all that bright denial.

Pulse 6.8.09

2009-06-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

Inspiration:

Perpetual Growth

I break the wings from angel thought. I drown the cuddly innocent things of daytime. I do not fall to nightmare each night but rise to it each morning, eyes a crimson paint brush suffocating all colors but one. I am nails for ripe coffins, I am dust for dry tongues, I am shadow beneath the door, I am the creak in floorboards, I am cold breath across neck hairs, I am a word trapped in throats; I am. What I was before cannot be spoken, though I cannot remember why. The closet is lined with hand tailored suits in a gradient from black to dark blue. Black shoes glisten below elegant, thin ties. Properly adorned, I walk envied amidst the hopeful. My costly style is a promise of the attainable. A carrot on a string, I dangle and dance for them, I slip just out of reach and stamp their dirty fingers off my heels. I’ve got an up elevator waiting, I’ve got thirty foot windows in the moon, I’ve got the wood of Roman chariots molded into furniture…polished to a high sheen. They’ve been building the next story for a long time now. The elevator already has a new faceless button, waiting for construction to be completed.

To be honest, I’m not sure how much longer I can wait. This office is dark now, these windows don’t let in enough light, this desk doesn’t hold enough secrets, the door isn’t quite thick enough to keep certain ideas out. I can hear them up there; frantic, hammering, welding, weeping. I am….tired.

Pulse 6.6.09

2009-06-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

Inspiration: I'm alive, that's enough.

Leader

The ship sailed on vacant waters, licked scarce wind to command waves of mild intent. The Captain paced below each day, back and forth, quoting the dialect of poets still living, hoping his crew would rally behind the heroic words. The sea was lonely tonight, sky bald and diabolical, which made it hard to disguise the hungry mouths just beneath the surface. It’s not as though he wasn’t raised to speak the right words, those were easy enough. It’s not like he couldn’t cater to the brawny disciples of the time; that was easy enough. It was a feeling that there must be more to leading numbers across this landless dreamscape. He didn’t want gold or noble nods or rolled parchment justification….he sought a song sung by lips not inspired by political jostling. There was a song out there that fell right against any backdrop, the kind of verse that spoke to generations dead, alive, and yet born. Wind filled sails, the crew swayed against the pain of wanting land.

He waited. He pushed on. Surely, that perfect shore awaited them? Surely, his sacrifice would echo beyond the mandate of empire….so hungry the fangs, so empty the promise. He sailed on, storm torn and fierce, a necessary advisor to the winds of change.

Goodbye

2009-06-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

Goodbye

You culminate

Into swaddling pools,

Tickle the toes of infant whim

While parents bask in the glow

Tomorrow promises.

It’s bell time,

Quitting time

At the station,

And Mr. Cool

Has sung his last song.

It’s bell time,

Son,

And we are all colliding

For food and laughter

Once more

Before nightfall.

I am lonely

And calm

As the wind carries

Its final objective.

I am lonely,

Son,

Tired and fierce

Without the fangs

I once had.

Yawn for me

Against the moon,

Yawn for me

And cry

When no one is looking.

It’s bell time

And I’ve done my best

To make you vanish

From me,

From everyone.

Pulse 6.5.09

2009-06-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Inspiration:

The Cost of Inaction

The little boy follows. It is a wisp of yellow that invites him, the way the fabric breathes, curls, breathes against movement and wind, the way it is lost for brief moments between legs and arms and brick corners. The boy follows. He wants to touch that spindle of gold. He wants to press it between his tiny index finger and thumb, pull it loose, and run until this city relents and becomes earth and rock and freedom. The boy follows, and the human skinned creature growls low, working hard to maintain its indifferent expression. One more block, left through an alley, right along a narrow corridor sliced entirely of shadow. The boy follows. His hand brushes across the tongue of yellow enticement just as the massive oak door opens inward, revealing the fangs and claws of the city’s secret.

The boy pulls the length of yellow close, brings it up to his face, stretches it taught across soft features and wide eyes. The violence boiling in the darkness in front of him becomes stained with something better. The boy laughs. The boy dies. The city shudders.

The Film That Haunted Me

2009-06-04T15:27:00.001-07:00

I believe it has been fifteen years now, since I first saw it.

Images from this film have insisted on persisting. Sometimes I’ll wake up with one stuck in my head, or something I encounter will cause one to leap across my recollection. These are images of a bearded man dressed in black, riding a horse, traversing an impossible desert landscape. There are flashes of blood, snippets of a cylindrical prison where a powerful spiritual entity has been trapped for a very long time, only pieces of odd imagery; and every time I have tried to weave them together, the threads slip from my mental fingers and fall away.

Until now. Today, for no apparent reason, I felt compelled to seek out this film. I have tried before, but because I knew nothing about it…none of the names attached, no hint of the title, my searches never went anywhere. Today I got lucky. Leveraging a combination of words like “western”, “bizarre”, “spiritual”, “desert”, “psychedelic”, “journey” etc., the mighty Google finally tripped across the answer!

El Topo by filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. Yes!

I cannot describe my excitement at discovering the title of this little gem, and now I must find a way to get my hands on it. The movie has haunted me for so long and the idea of actually watching it again has me giddy and anxious.

Have any of you seen it? What are your thoughts on it? Did the images of the film have a similar impact on you?

Pulse 6.4.09

2009-06-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

Inspiration: Carradine is no longer with us

Carradine Falls

David Heartley sat outside the principal’s office knowing he was in the worst kind of trouble, which couldn’t quite whisk away the flicker of a smile that had played his lips all morning long. Inside the office, his parents sat dumbfounded as they listened to the details of their son’s behavior on what should have been just another Thursday. Mr. Krink, the longstanding principal, couldn’t help but tell the story with a narrative flare despite the obvious rage it inspired, “The teacher knew right away when your son pushed open the classroom door that something was wrong. David stood there in the doorway with a thick tree branch resting on his shoulder. After a few moments of awkward silence, after every student had turned his way, he said ‘All of you are sheep, and I’m here to herd you,’ which definitely didn’t go over well. A few of the bolder, more aggressive students took this as an invitation. Suddenly David was brandishing the branch like some kind of weapon, leaping onto desktops, dashing down aisles, all the while smacking people with considerable force. Nobody could stop him, even the bullies of the class eventually backed into corners in submission. Satisfied, David simply rested the branch on his shoulder once again, walked to the door, and said, ‘I think we all know why this had to happen,’ and left, making his own way right here to my office door.

David’s parents shifted uneasily in their seats as principal Krink had his secretary usher their son in. After a full minute of disapproving stares, sighs, and grunts, David’s father asked harshly, “What, exactly, do you think you were doing?”

David Heartley, despite his growing fear of how monumental his punishment might be, eased back in his chair, grinned, and replied slowly, “I was honoring a hero.”

Pulses 6.1.09, 6.2.09, and 6.3.09

2009-06-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

I dropped the ball on posting these the past few days, but here they are:

Pulse 6.1.09

Inspiration: Current Events

Youth

Elegant smiles paint the walls of this place, the same kind of smile you expect when someone pushes the blade in, and twists…and twists….and twists. We kindled tomorrow, hoping it would bring an end to invisible wars fought half way around the world, invisible wars fought right outside in Suburban back yards. We were once printed in gold ink on global newsprint, touted as saviors, lifted up on crystal pedestals until the only thing left above was failure. Now we are on trial. The jury has no face, walled by one-way glass. The judge’s mask is that of an ancient kabuki performer, except this performance offers up no exaggerated emotion, only the blank black and white stare of a decision that has already been made. This is all political comedy, of course. We were always destined for this stage. The only shocking thing is that we never saw it coming; we actually believed in our cause. Even more devastating, we believed in our right to win.

“How do you plead?”

“Guilty,” we chanted in unison, and the sound of it stirred the very molten core of an already tormented planet.

An entire generation made criminal, an entire country become a prison housing prisons within prisons.

Pulse 6.2.09

Inspiration: My total disdain for and lack of desire to go into bars these days.

Desperate

Pushing with her shoulder through the bar door mid-afternoon felt like existing in two worlds at the same time; one warm, sunlit, colors sizzling, people certain…the other dank, bled of color, human forms doused in shadow. She hesitated only a moment before letting the door swing closed behind her. No mistaking it, this was the place Darren told her about. She glanced at the only clearly lit object in the place, a silver framed, glass cracked photograph of her husband with his name, “Darren Quick“ printed along the bottom using a cheap label gun. He stood against a black van in a white t-shirt, eyes fierce the way they were in those days, dark hair slicked back. She could feel the shadowed indifference of those in the bar sharpen into an uncomfortable focus at the back of her neck. “Can I get you somethin‘?” the lanky, pale man behind the bar clearly hoped the answer was “No”.

She took in a quick breath, held it, and then slipped the M638 revolver from her front pocket, “Yeah, you can apologize to Darren when you see him.” The gun’s hammer lifted from hiding and dropped, slamming first the bullet and then the skeletal bartender into the mirrored shelves of liquor. Glass became an avalanche of thunder as the widow Quick turned and walked toward the next closest shadow in the bar, her finger already teasing the trigger back….

Pulse 6.3.09

Inspiration: Model Polly Frey

The Doom of Epperhand

A single ember glowed in the ashen pit, and ElCantur stared into it’s breathing orange soul and knew that what this night brought would not be happiness; but it would be necessary. The birthing screams could already be heard from the canvas tent erected late in the night for the sole purpose of this event. The people, those brave enough to volunteer for this trek to the very edge of the wastelands of Epperhand, gathered together outside the tent, hands locked together, eyes closed, lips mouthing the ancient words of divinity and truth. They would be sent home soon, their part in this destiny was almost at an end. His had only just begun. A harsh shriek from the tent was abruptly cut short, followed by a silence more cruel than the dry, twisted roots of the Everloom trees, the only life these lands offered sanctuary to. A midwife erupted from the tent, fingers clasped together, eyes wide, lips pulled tight and thin across a frozen grimace. ElCantur rushed in and saw what he already knew…and yet no knowledge could have prepared him.

The child lay alone on a padded black pedestal, tiny arms and legs pushing against invisible restraints. ElCantur approached slowly, in awe. From head to toe the infant was a flawless metallic silver, even the eyes, larger than any he had ever seen, were as reflective as freshly cleaned mirrors. This was her, this was the child spoken across a thousand years of prophecy. Only she would be able to traverse the endless miles of the Epperhand, only the steel of her will and body alike could enter the blasting gates of Tropplin Dur, and upon opening her eyes, reflect the million points of light of a new age.

Lazy

2009-05-31T04:37:00.000-07:00

The first halfway usable typewriter, offered up somewhat apologetically by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873, had a major flaw. The key arms that lifted and slammed ink on the page kept getting stuck together. This prompted the inventor to map out the most commonly paired letters and then layout the keys in a way that separated them, giving the arms a breath of severance needed to slip past each other. Thus the seemingly arbitrary arrangement of keys on the modern keyboard was born.

This makes one wonder…how many other things exist in their current form simply because the more logical structure, for whatever befuddled reason, didn’t happen to work at the time?

Even as technology shifted, making obsolete the need for a keyboard layout that did not follow an alphabetical sequence, the arrangement of keys was never altered.

Are we so afraid of change that even in the face of unsound, outdated logic, we hold to something simply because it is familiar?

This demonstrates a human weakness that will surely lead to a reckoning the final pages of the Bible cannot begin to fathom.

Drinking Margaritas and Rockstar at 2:37am

2009-05-31T03:04:00.001-07:00

In order to comprehend what its like to inhabit the space known as my skull, you first have to understand that I am nothing like me.

Which is to say you cannot decipher who I am by measuring my actions.

Is this true for everyone?

I don’t know, and I’m not sure the answer to that question is all that relevant. What is of the utmost relevance is that I’m pounding these lettered keys…drunk, buzzed, spinning, fiercely in love with the minutia of now. Outside it has finally cooled off. The trees are content and still, no breeze while roots suck ferociously at deep soil.

This city exists on the ebb and flow of students. Tonight it is quiet. The eighteen, nineteen, twenty somethings have all abandoned ship, taken lifeboats to a shoreline they assume will always be there for them. Even the cats are more relaxed, lazing on sidewalks and stoops free of the drunken “Wooot, woooooots!” of passing youth clusters.

Those of us left behind to contend with this town’s mediocrity can only assume that the young adventurers are off to bigger, better things. We artists, we poets, we singers, we dreamers; we all hunker down and get to the business of saving this place from its own disdain.

It never actually occurs to us that it doesn’t want saving.

(shrug)

Fuck that, we’ve got work to do.

Guilt

2009-05-31T01:18:00.001-07:00

I am not of perfect stitch,

My seams come apart at night

As I twist and turn away

From the dark spindly things

Of my own invention.

How will you descend upon this imperfection? How will you dream me in your own intricate yarns? Will I be small and childlike, a foolish, clumsy whim that trips at your feet and reaches for your shoestrings as if gold spun?

How will you write me down? Which words will you reserve for me in that book you hold tight to bones, the one that defines everything except the reasons we never stopped to ask directions?

And how, my lovely song sung beneath the chords of god’s jurisdiction, will you store my remains in your tidy home? Will I be the water stain above the bathtub, the loose baseboard along the hallway connecting rooms, the light fixture that never gets dusted on the back porch? Will I be a lonely, shadow drenched thing in an attic nobody has a key to? Will I be?

I am not of perfect stitch.

I am the thin black thread

Pushed blind into patterns

The easy mind wants no part of,

I am just like that secret you almost told me

Before the sun came up

And took you.

It’s not that I want a place in your life;

I’ve already earned that much,

It’s just a simple,

Frightened assumption

That the exact x,y coordinates of my place

Will be a blemish

When all I want is a smile, nod, and the impossible length of your forgiveness.

Pulse 5.30.09

2009-05-30T20:20:00.001-07:00

Inspiration: IAMX Spit it Out remix (music)

Art

The shadow-move; her hand extended, fingers elegant and long, moving pinky to index and back again in the seductive slow motion of someone who knows of lust in motion. The light pulses from the corners of the long chamber, spindling out like fierce super nova dreams connected to the convenience of a simple switch. He watches her like a predator slinks tall grass, unblinking, breathing as fluid as wind through leaves. His eyes are steel, unblinking, calm….so sharp from the darkness behind the lit stage of her existence. The shadow move; her thighs projected slender and seamless against the tightly pulled fabric backdrop. Click. Click, click, click, click. The shutter has a mind of it’s own, snapping closed of it’s own greedy will. The shadow move; her arms stretch full, bend as she turns a quick circle. Her body quakes against the pound, pause, pound of the relentless music…the quick high hat tap vibrating her torso.

Alexander Gould has been shooting shadows for more than a decade. His dark forms captured against white have traversed the world, have hung ceiling to floor along one-hundred foot museum walls, have adorned the homes of eccentric billionaires. But never has he encountered a shadow move like her shadow moves…and he knows without hesitation that he will not part with these images, no matter the price. For the first time in his career he leaves the dark shroud of his camera behind and steps into the light, reaches for her arched silhouette, and falls.

Pulse 5.29.09

2009-05-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

Inspiration:

Reminder

Over the years, old man Grant had bounced his way across every square inch of Briggs Park. A considerable number of the narrow, compacted foot paths were started by him, weaving out like veins through trees and brush to connect with the creek at points he decided worth revisiting. Sometimes it was the way a tree’s roots formed the perfect seat at the water’s edge, sometimes it was how the creek’s currents were made especially complex by a configuration of large rocks, sometimes it was the way sunlight splashed dancing waves of light on the opposite bank. An older path that curved gently up a hillside and dropped you at a vantage point overlooking half the park had even been named Grant’s Pass after him. Yes, he knew every square inch of this place, which is why the barely perceptible beginnings of a new path caught his eye.

An odd sense of ownership seized his gut, as if he was the only rightful path cutter in Briggs Park. Only a few steps in, sun sparked off something metal, heavy canvas rubbed against tree bark, something plastic hit the ground and bounced. Grant froze, listened. He could hear breathing. As his head slowly turned, his gaze connected with something he hadn’t experienced since a distant youth: Wild, unchecked intensity. To this day he doesn’t know if it was a man or a woman. There was only the depths of those eyes, a sexless ferocity, the slight tap of madness vibrating around the pupils. He had backed away, pushing through the brush clumsily, and then hurried home. There was at least one path in Briggs Park that wasn’t his, and something about that discovery lit up his soul for whatever years he had left.

Pulse DAILY

2009-05-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

As part of a new undertaking, the Human Improvement Project (more on that later), I've begun writing Daily Pulses. These are being posted at The Sphere, a social network for writers on ning.com, but I will also be posting them here.

The three Pulses that have already been written are posted below and from now on I will be posting a new Pulse here every day.

Pulse 5.26.09

Inspiration: The Value of a Pale Blue Dot (Article headline by Peter Singer taken from commondreams.org)

Memory

Karl could feel the tendons pull tight along the back of his legs. The muscles in his shoulders, biceps, and forearms constricted while fingers dug claw-like into the thin pad unrolled in the center of an otherwise empty room. The only item disrupting the room’s stark white indifference was a Polaroid pinned crooked with a pale blue thumbtack. Karl lifted his head, teeth clenched, chords in his neck pulling skin taught; but he could not see the image captured within the poorly lit photograph taken years before.

There was only the blue circle of the thumbtack holding it in place, vibrating with the trembling strain of his body. It was enough to remind him of that day, of a smile, of a place and time that wasn’t alone in a room in a city in a compression of fear. It was enough to find sleep, finally, and maybe even a soft hued dream of the man he used to be.

Pulse 5.27.09

Inspiration:

Atonement

The two of them shadowed daytime, keeping just far enough away to never get caught by a single tendril of light. They dove headlong beneath tree canopies, slipped like whisper from awning to awning, and pushed through the rusty hinged, paint peeled kind of doors that most people avoid. Today was different. Today, she pulled against him just as he spotted a door broken down enough to appeal to their whim; it was just enough to bring him to a complete halt. He turned and asked her everything without opening his mouth, just a flick of concern across his eyes and a slight tilt of the head.

“I think it’s OK now,” she said as her hand slid free of his and her body moved from the building’s shadow toward a bright swash of light. He tensed and almost screamed as the sun caught her pale hair and lit it like fire, but terror turned to laughter as her face turned upward and a smile unlike any he had seen spread across the only lips he’d ever loved.

Pulse 5.28.09

Inspiration: The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street. -Charles Lamb

Evidence of Joy

Anthony strolled with a perfect, slow rhythm, his legs in motion the way an elephant’s trunk sways like an unstoppable pendulum. As every other time the people of 14th Street and Jackson had seen him, he was styled head to toe in a neatly pressed dark gray suit. Even the inch wide ribbon around his fedora was the same shade of gray. Also as every other time Anthony had been spotted moving along the sidewalk, the sky above was overcast to perfection; not a single glimmer of sunlight poked through the breathing canopy of clouds. In his wake, curling and moving out in a V like water behind a warship, was a melancholy so thick people were quick to angle sharply away or backpedal up steps or slip quickly across the street to avoid it.

Not little Billy Stronghold. He would wait on the small cement perch at his front door until Anthony passed by in his fluid, methodical gate, then he would hurry forward and ease in behind him. He let those waves of clean melancholy wash right through him. This man’s purity of essence filled him with hope. After all, if someone could be that sad, Billy Stronghold understood it could go the other way too, and sometimes it does.