Dreamscapes and Art or something like it

Some thoughs

2012-01-31T08:06:00.000-06:00

Ann Arbor seems like a beautiful place, buoyed by being not New York. And I've been looking for a college sports team to follow, and the Brady connection makes it feel right. Yet it also seems the same Midwestern misery as Chicago or Madison, yet even smaller than my current digs.

Oh to go back in time and have the grades for Stanford!
Or at least, Berkeley please?

2012-01-12T07:28:00.000-06:00

She was wearing a white dress, standing on a platform
Looking her best, fearing the room's scorn
Even if the moment only lasted for a while
Never did she feel so much like a smile
And she thought of the friends who must kind of hate her
She'd mourn their loss sometimes later
Didn't really care that they turned their back
Didn't really care if they painted her name black
Today's her day
No one's ever gonna take that away
Smiling as she fell into his arms
feeling like she'd couldn't know harm
Dancing in a room full of fools
Suddenly, they didn't seem so cool
Freedom aint a stroke of independence
Nor will silver wine art and gold be a defense
For you, standing all alone
Counting sins to atone
So she cried with joy as the car drove away
Thinking back to all the lies she'd say
Just to avoid this day
Why'd she live that way?
Loosing something she never meant to have
Finding what she always wanted. A laugh.
Forget it.

On Hitch, a mildly interesting pseudo-intellect who represented a truly dangerous deleusion's new iteration

2011-12-16T20:49:00.000-06:00

It's been a damn long time that I've tried to tried anything in prose, and I feel that starting with a blithing critique of a recently deceased man, but for Hitch, an exception. It was not because Christopher Hitchens was exceptionally awful- he was mostly mediocre- but because himself famously refused to stand down his critiques of men because they had died on him, and would certainly prefer a riposte to the fawning praise he's sure to draw in greater hordes.

To preface this, I am not deeply familiar with the work of Christopher Hitchens, I should admit that. This is for a few reasons; 1) I have no interest in him as a crusader for Atheism. I have no interest in what any man believes about why he is here, or what past men with similar beliefs might think, I have my own thoughts, and am willing to study texts of religious an scientific merit, but not numbing polemics from evangelicals of any sort. 2) I find Hitch to be a rather dreadful writer. What I've read of his seems high on ad hominem and low on substantive merit, which would fit well with his persona of hard partying, fast working, aggression and speaks not of his intellect but on his effort. 3) I generally find his work to be dangerous and psychotic.

Now, Hitch and I have plenty of room for overlap- our fondness for whiskey, our distaste for the coward Bill Clinton and the tragedy-profiteer qua shitty filmmaker Michael Moore, our distaste for the Islamic theocracies in the Middle-East. Similarly his objection to the left as merely reacting with canned slogans rather than thought out and nuanced approaches is dead on. If only he and his acolytes applied the same critical thinking to themselves!

The primary concern with Hitchens was his fondness for war. He glittered himself in the language of anti-totalitarianism, but really he reserved the truly totalitarian power as a good, if not wonderful thing. That is, namely, the authority to kill, in large numbers, those he found irredeemably evil. His work on this subject is not hard to find, see here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/09/in_defense_of_endless_war.html
And especially, this his conclusion:
"We do have certain permanent enemies—the totalitarian state; the nihilist/terrorist cell—with which "peace" is neither possible nor desirable. Acknowledging this, and preparing for it, might give us some advantages in a war that seems destined to last as long as civilization is willing to defend itself."
Note the certainty- there is no hope of redemption for his enemies, no hope that one day we might be able to live in peace, but rather the firm belief that they are villains by nature who must only be slaughtered, and if we ever stop, it will be to all of our bane.
Hitchens and his acolytes present this as some sort of novel concept. Which brings me to a fascinating point.

See this video:
Notice, that as the man blames the rise of fascism in Europe solely on the backs of the Catholic Church (at best, in any honest evaluation, a ridiculous stretch), he conspicually leaves out Italy initially, briefly tossing in Mussolini's name. The problem here is that Mussolini's Italy was the prototypical rise of fascism. Mussolini's background was not from the right wing of the Catholic church, but rather, a breakway socialist who believed his fellow leftists dedication to pacifism was passe in the new internationalism. In a word, the same break point that Hitchens gives himself.

Men like Hitchens would have us forget that the most complete and wondrous victories of the 20th century came not from warriors like Ike, Truman or Malcolm X, though what they did was frequently noble and righteous, but rather from men like Gandhi, King, Walesa who advanced the cause of humanity further than any man with a gun ever has by laying down and accepting the risk of death (and in King and Gandhi's cases, the actuality of it) from their more violent and oppressive fellows.
I leave with a quote from the greatest mind of our era:
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that"-MLK; as long as men like Hitchens respond to hatred with hatred, and their kind rule the day, humanity will remain unfulfilled.
-HEC

2011-12-13T08:08:00.000-06:00

Open wounds from my bleeding heart
Making it hard to breath, filling up the lungs I need
Secret shadows in the dark
Living lies you'd never know
Open books could never show
The truth, I've known it all my life
These lies, they're building up inside
I hear stories of Kim and Nicole
Brave tales I should have told
Instead wrapped up in my weave
Afraid to burst through to be me
Little piller needs to fly
Prayed to gods I did not believe
Looked up to the skies above
Begged em for a little love
Empty words brought no relief
I dream of a sunny day
Beach is clear and I want to say
Feel the sand between my toes
And the sun beat down on the nose
And I look to the west
Hopeful dreams to push me on
And glance at the east
Sweet-and-sour memories
They looked right but they felt so wrong

23

2011-12-03T21:12:00.000-06:00

Will be a good year. It'll be a year to remember, of making something out of nothing, of inspiration of standing on top of a tower and saying like it or not I'm on fire.

HEC 2012. A year of truth.

Every

2011-11-22T23:38:00.000-06:00

Every Lie I've ever told, and every secret I withhold
they weigh me down like three ton weights upon my soul
And you would never understand
Hidden deep in mystery I seek the courage to be free
To laugh and cry with honesty at last
But she would never understand
The path seems clear but drenched in fear
I shiver at the light of day, my heart beats
Cuz he would never understand
This is not a mournful tone, I'm not alone
I know that now, once I started listening
To me, who always understood
Because I know a veiled truth, something kept quite aloof
That one day, as a songwriters say
I'll be living in a big old city
And he'll be lying with history books, and trivial pursuits
One day, I will dance like I have always wanted too
One day, not far away, I'll drive my car with smiles on my face
One day, I will sing with my true voice
The rivers flow unendingly to life
Out from the shadows
Open the cages
Release the animal within.
Staring in the mirror I close my eyes and who I see is me
Me! I look so good, like Hollywood, and maybe that's my destiny
Or just a piece of fantasy, but it feels so true it doesn't matter anymore
I knock the boulders from the mountain top
And gaze at valleys long forgot
Empty pastures from a wound that healed.
Mimosas they feel so good like I always knew they should
I don't give a damn about my reputation any more
Like living in the past, ignoring new creation
A silent trap for weaker ones than me.
I hope you'll understand.
Someday.
Someday.

I've decided to attempt a life of pure honesty.
I will not volunteer everything, but I will not lie.
Never again.

American Requiem

2011-11-19T10:18:00.000-06:00

America, on your shoulders cling the huddling masses,
America, the city on the hill.
America, you're flaws were never hidden from the world
But once your promise rose above, shining on
America, your people cried in anguish for themselves and all else
You turned your back on them.
Who then can carry on, beating the drum, of freedom, dignity, hope
If you lose yourself in pepper spray,
In Arab-fear and shoeless flights
In walls to keep out instead of welcoming arches!
America, you were the window to the world,
you stood apart, refusing to play the game of thrones
Well your mothers and fathers ripped themselves apart,
In a Titanic fury that shook the world
America! You needn't fill the void.
But you did.
You lie so brazenly at three AM,
but in the face of light you cannot lie so more
No, not again.
As casually as one would swat a fly,
Or mow a lawn,
Or water a plant.
These are people. They are you.
Good night, America, sleep well.
When Caesar comes for you- he always does.
Good night, America, I shed a tear.
You failed ol' Hamlet's test.
Good night, America, you'll saunter on,
a zombie retching through the eve.
Good night, America, I say no more.
You always broke my heart.

Soul

2011-10-24T01:53:00.000-05:00

You know I've always felt like the soul of a poet but the hand of the beast
The rhythms in my mind seem like songbirds in the night, yet I only serve them least
There is magic in the air, snowy peaks of purple grains- what angel couldn't sing?
Every ancient moment fills with life anew, and where might voices ring
Out in odes to the lamentations of the idyllic goatmen of yore
With their simple flutes of twiddled reeds we lost before
But damaged temples burned by Roman fire leaves empty in the night,
And darkness clouds the rising world with which I'm damned to fight
Oh! god how to say the soaring beauty of the countless youths as they dance,
lusting after pretty boys and daring girls, in starry haze of Lucy's trance
they smiling sign of dawns new break, we may not save it every day
But though Diana's blushing orb remains behind, to guide our way,
eternal returns to rue the beast who swallows all,
Foul beast, come again and again, to best my empty verse
The way light falls of a lounging puddle, as raindrops fall on a motionless cloud
Alas, alas! I cannot say, shimmering blue, endless space
A vast expanse stretching beyond the stars
My simple cry doesn't nothing for a world of wonders
Ah, hell.
Damned dogs, it all dies anyway.

Hellacious Tides, a continuation of An Orestaia

2011-10-20T21:11:00.001-05:00

The clock always strikes six. Doom- perilous visions of powerful ghouls wrapped in the icy shards of slaughtered remnants of dreaming Americans who lost sight of the endless void and remained trapped in a excess of half-silhouetted shadows pulled by blind puppetmasters with sadistic erections. Great tides of erupting war shattered over the idyllic plains between the mountains and the stars, stretching far over an array of sleeping servants of the Greater God. Another shot of whiskey, Tennessee Sour Mash, straight from the barrel, the way its meant to be. A grinning knave awaiting the dour eye of a young vixen wandered too far from home, with a red handbag clutched over shoulder screaming I am the target of the thieving eye. The lost vision of an angry father with the red rage of Satan's final laugh leaped away from him, he who had wondered here from so far.

Another sickness creeps. There were no fingers on his gloves.

If only the fire water breathed life into him as it had the Murphy's of yore. He stared, lost in his damned isolation at the world around him, crying angels he would let pass by, and he shrugged, his concern for evil's damnation had slipped away so long ago. Dead eyes locked in place, no longer betraying the lies of human intellect, but the sour and stale ruminations only brought on by the dueling mix of time and Socratic knowledge.

He could still hear all the voices, all the countless, horrible voices, the screeches of agony and hell. Please, please, oh god, please! I didn't mean it, I swear! I never knew, I never could have known! He was asking for it, she betrayed me! Please, you don't have to do this! Never have to do this! But cold silence erupted where a larynx ought to be, the icy call he knew so well, but couldn't bare to make again. He slowly rose, oh if he had wanted to tower as a redwood over countless ferns! But there was nothing there for him. Creaking bones which knew their only empty task to serve the faceless of the world, lost without constellations to mark their empty eternity. Spirits and demons be damned! Only the love of liquor could ever truly remain.

To stalk the prey was easy. If they suspected, it was the loud oranges flashes of foolish hunters in their brazen suits of warning signs, who strutted the might forest laughing as they brought a so-called order to a world where no laws but Gaia's ever ruled. But the silent panthers who blended into the night, they never saw them, not with their horrid claws, and teeth designed to wrench flesh from bone, and bone from muscle, and rip a soul asunder. No, hiding from buffonish stooges made them vainglorious, as if they stood proud on the field of a battle, wind creasing their hair against the sky, as hordes of mutant enemies lay wasted at their feet, and plump women marched forth to offer sanctuary and reward. The ceremonial armor worn to crown a king, who with his people clapping his every step, had no need to fear the curved blade of yesterday's spy.

All that was left was to watch and wait, and another shot of whiskey

An Orestaia, Part 1

2011-10-17T20:40:00.000-05:00

One windy day in late September, Jane Evengi sighed as she sat rocking on her creaky chair. She shivered, as a powerful gust from the shoved leaves across her lawn. It was ten-o'clock in the morning, and a pitcher of Sangria rested by her side. Jane Evengi was forty-three years old and only recently had she realized she hadn't lived even a single day in her life. It wasn't that she hadn't done anything- indeed it seemed to many that she had done plenty. She had been the captain of her varsity soccer team a lifetime ago in high school, and had been Phi Beta Kappa in college. She had worked for an excellent law firm before leaving on her own terms to focus on raising her daughter Allison and her son Gregory. No, as her dog waddled outside, his wet paws leaving clear marks against the red porch, Jane Evengi admitted that very few people would understand the melancholy that followed her heart along. She scratched Arlo between his shaggy ears as she thought back to the summer in Paris back in 1987. She remembered the taste of fresh baguette and the glistening mirrors of Versailles, the cool mountain air of the Summer Alps. The shy laugh she let out when Claude told her he was descended from Charlemange, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and the Marquis de Sade- that came to her. "Je suis americaine, Claude, pas stupide." She remembered lying awake in his arms as the sun rose over the warm Mediterranean Sea. What a glorious sun it had been, the way it must have framed her curls. Claude still called, through his American secretary of course, whenever she was coming to NEw York, but more and more Jane realized that these were just futile distractions aimed at reclaiming a lost pleasure from an ageless youth that could never be returned to her, at least not in such a way that could come close to regaining that moment on the ancient sea.

She looked down at Arlo's shaggy coat and the twigs entangled in his hair, molded in place by eternal glue. As he flopped by her side she thought of the phone call to her mother, who had probably been walking on the murky shore of Lake Mendota, as she had when Jane was a little girl. My own taste of paradise, Mama had called it, but staring impending mortality in the face had wept away Arachne's well crafted fable. No Mama, had cursed the foul weather of Wisconsin and the endless nights of living in a concocted fairy tale of Daddy's ego. She had endlessly ridiculed the doomed moments of Jane's pathetic life, and told her she'd be laughing in hell soon enough.

It was hard for Jane to hear. She stared down at Arlo, his face drooping in the autumn breeze.

"Let's get you cleaned up"

And she led him inside, carefully stepping over a half-chewed bone.

Lies

2011-10-01T19:58:00.000-05:00

What's in a name? Tis hard to say.
For though rose might smell as sweet,
it would hardly know itself if it was daisy called
Yet, were I to look, as a newborn babe
On the flower I could not find rose, nor daisy
Nor even flower whatever that may be
Did God inspire name in me,
attaching it to some unseen soul?
Did hearing voices from so young
craft me in unshakable ways?
If it's only words, and what are they?
Like an ill-fitting suit, others fail to meet
the sleeves to short, the legs too tight
the stomach hangs all over the place
And it squeezes on my throat
Yet the one I have i hate, with all its tears
And dusty, stains left over from days of old
when I was living in shadows and sin
And patchwork knees from beneath the sea
With ugly splotches that seem so right
Yet wrong.
It's not a suit that fits the man
Or maybe the man doesn't fit the suit
It's hard to remember anymore
With ancient lies we all forgot
Oh, to start anew!

Scoring an 829

2011-09-14T20:54:00.001-05:00

The card game Spades is for all intents and purposes a rather simple one. Two teams of two, spades are trump, aces high, twos low. Everyone makes a bet on the number of tricks they think can take. If your team meets its bet (i.e., if Partner A bids 3 and Partner B bids 4 and the team takes 7+ tricks), the team receives it's bet time 10 (in the example, 70). If the team fails to make its bet, the team loses its bet times 10. In addition, for each trick taken over the bet, the team receives one point and a "bag". So if the team bets 7, and takes 9 tricks it would receive 72 points and two bags. Secondly, each time a team accumulates ten bags, it loses 100 points. Thirdly, if any player ( not team) bets 0 and successfully avoids taking a trick, the team receives 100 points as a bonus, but if he takes a single trick, the team loses 100. Finally, if a team bets 10, 11, 12 or 13 and makes it bet, it receives a bonus 100 points (so if a team bets 10 and takes ten tricks, it receives 200 points). The game ends when one team passes 500 points or falls below -200, and the higher point total wins.

We can then identify that highest possible single round score is 330 (one player bets 13, the other nil and the nil player doesn't take anything and the other takes 13 tricks), and the lowest possible score is -230 (one partner bets 12, the other bets nil, the team takes 12 or fewer tricks, including at least one by the nil partner). However, not all scores in between this range are possible- you can't score between 195 and 299 points in a round, or between 304 and 309, or 313 and 319 or 322 and 329. You can also lose only lose points in intervals of 10 (but losing between -10 and -230 on each multiple of 10 is possible).

In terms of victory conditions, the game can end on the negative in a single round, but one needs at least two rounds to surpass the positive victory condition. The maximum possible points is of course 829- you must be sitting on 499 and then have a maximum possible round. Getting to 499 of course can be done in many ways, the fastest being three rounds, one another 330, and two where the team accumulates a total of 269 points (which can't be accomplished with betting 3/nil in both and taking 5 and 4 bags respectively, amongst many other ways).

Why am I writing about this? I'm not fully sure but I understand the basic reason why this appeals to me: anyone can win a game of spades, it's easy. To do something truly special requires luck, careful planning and a willingness to take risks.

Two Poems

2011-09-14T20:54:00.000-05:00

Opportunity

Opportunities passed won't be found again
Memories lost will never be regained
As time goes by, dreams fade away
Blushing brides miss their wedding days
As drunken grooms wonder what became
There is no hope from Gods above
When you dance with death you always lose
So fight- and don't give up
Now- before day turns to fade
Let the duckling blossom into swan
If you can't learn to fall,
how will you ever learn to stand?

Lost Illusions
Love- a song the sad bird cries
When crowning angels seek to die
And in ancient time a young girl sighs
As demons hide her from thy eyes
In a simple frock with ribbon in her hair
She stands lost but not insecure
For no matter how the devil paints the world
And which illusions fill the void
Her mystery, dancing in the wind
A butterfly landing on her nose
Locked away, she'll safe for sure
With pretty things she cannot share
Yet is no joy in such serenity
The shut up safe protects the lie
But wastes a heart which longs to love.

On why I believe What I believe

2011-08-24T20:08:00.000-05:00

Over the course of the past month or so, I've been dabbling in the truly awful process of debating frequently with a libertarian friend on facebook. It's been largely a fruitless endeavor, in part because of what is, frankly, both of our utter lack of qualification to comment on the economical and sociological, in part because my friend frequently engages in the logical fallacy of assuming the conclusion, matching all the evidence to that conclusion because it is assumed, and then using this to prove the conclusion, and in part because of the insulting idea that my beliefs are rooted out of an ideological commitment to paternalism.

This could not be further from the truth. I count among my major philosophical guides mostly the following people: Diogenes the Cynic, Albert Camus, Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a dash of Rorschach, and Socrates, but not Plato. This last part is an essential component, and an utterly cheap attempt at dividing ideas in an unproveable manner, but the simple fact is Plato's philosophy is circumspect and contradictory at enough points that I need to make a division in some manner to categorize what I am influenced by and what I'm not.

Because Socratism is inherently important to my project. My fundamental grasp of the universe is formed by the synthesis of two of these thinkers, Camus and Socrates. From Camus (to simplify, paraphrase and grossly diminish in a way that embarrasses me but is sufficient for this exercise), I garner the conclusion that man is bound to quest for meaning which he will never find (the absurd quality of life) and that one must embrace this by living life in headlong pursuit of the doomed goal in awareness (facing the absurd). From Socrates (see Camus' parenthetical), I garner that man truly knows nothing; or rather is so inherently abstracted from the truth that he effectively knows nothing (my "Plato" is the time in the dialogues when Socrates or other applies that Socrates' knowledge surpasses this). Now, I should say that I believe Socrates was an absurdist qua Camus, but this is a trickier point that is both tangential and unnecessary for this project. Suffice it to say that it is the embrace of the absurd and the supposed Ignorance of Socrates that I begin from.

How does this translate into the real world? I believe then, that neither the individual nor the group is able to say what is best for either the individual or the group; to imply that either did would be to violate the Socratic principle of ignorance. I further believed that we are all compelled by condition to seek what is best for both the individual and the group, what I believe is the quest to find the unfindable meaning. These are the two practical principles from which I derive my beliefs, theories and precepts for how the world should be governed.

There are three influences which I mentioned, and our less important. From Diogenes, or rather classical cynicism, I derive a belief that man could be so much more than he is, and because of this it my and all of our responsibilities to poke and become invested in the holes of the social construct so that we can better destroy it and make place for man being more than he is. I am proud of the term cynic, and I where it as a badge of honor. If I criticize more than I praise, it is because I am seeking to force people to admit the deficiencies of their false knowledges. From Captain Malcolm Reynolds, or rather Joss Whedon's Serenity/Firefly Verse, I derive the principal that even should someone (the Alliance) actually know whats better, you can't force people into it (because the absurd quest is far more important, even if its worse). And from Alan Moore's Rorscach of Watchmen I derive that we must never compromise on any of this, even in the face of Armageddon.

Now this all sounds pretty libertarian, at least to me, up to here, but I'm about to pivot to what some one would call a more socialist point. To me, none of this is either Socialist or Libertarian, but a distinctly personal philosophy that happens to be allied with what would be the Far corner of the Socially/Economically Liberal quadrant of the two dimensional political graph.

In essence, I believe that to truly embark on the absurd quest me must be willing to actually try to achieve (knowing we won't of course)- and this means making bold choices, trying new maneuvers, going against the grain. And what makes all this fun is that by the nature of these things all choices are bold and go against the grain, because there isn't actually a grain- we defy our nothingness by searching for anything. The only damage can come when everybody is walking the same path, the path that feels safe because they fear getting sick or starving or any of our other things that might prematurely end our quest.

It is to enable opportunity that I believe is the function of society and its collective agent, the state. It is our inherent responsibility to build a safety net and give everyone a level start so that they might be willing to take a risk and fail. We must provide everyone with the opportunity for education, healthcare, entrepeneurship, bumming around, art, and what not so that they can make their own choice. No one should be doomed to the life of their parents, or worry about safety versus chance on of what if they don't have the talent. Everyone must be given the chance at these things in quality.

We must be innovative if we want to get the rock up the hill and to make the hill a little bit longer for all at the expense of making it a little less steep for some is no great price to pay as we'll never make it up anyway.

Some Broems

2011-07-25T19:53:00.000-05:00

As I was listening to NPR yesterday on the road, a piece came on about the self-styled Broet-Laureate of the USA, a dude whose collection of Broems embarrassed the rest of his USC Master's program by being the only one to get a book deal after graduation. His thesis is that there are poems out there for anybody, and for some people those are broems. I wanted to give him credit for inspiring my own broetry, but am too lazy to do any research. Without further adieu, ten new broems by me. They aren't real, though occasionally inspired by real things, and certainly meant to be funny.

Broem Wisdom Haikus:

1.
When you drink on roof
And you want to shout at night
Don't set things on fire

2.
I flirted with a girl.
Nothing happened, sex I mean
Is it Facebook time?

3
A sad paradox
If we want late night burgers
We're too drunk to drive.

4.
By winning beer pong,
You can't win a ladies heart.
Unfortunate truth.

Brodes:
1. Ode to Natty Ice
Oh Natty Ice!
Is it so wrong to sing the truth
-That PBR makes me flinch
-That Miller High Life is only for rewards
-That Icehouse and Keystone just suck
That none of them can match your
wondrous, excellent combo of taste
and percent alcohol by volume.
Is it so wrong that I see you
there, sitting in the fridge
And my heart grows
Thinking of Mayhem to ensue
Oh, Natty Ice, I love you.

2. Ode to the Sundress Day

Oh Secret Day! O Glorious Day!
The special day, in early May
when April showers stop
And sunlight blows across the wind
Every teenage boy and college man
Sits in baited anticipation
You know the one,
the one Spring day you've waxed poetic
about with friends
You know the day,
The Sundress day!
In one great flash
as if by hormone, destiny, or maybe,
even, the command of God
All the heaving bosoms come-
quite suddenly- under the wraps
Of the most glorious garments
We've ever seen
The Sundress!
Men do no work that day.
Oh Sundress Day!

Short Broems.

1. Late Night Pizza
Hey have you heard the news?
What news?
Late night pizza, right to here.
Oh yeah?
And no delivery fee.

2. The Empty Beer Can
With an empty beer can
lying at my feet
Bros be passed out ev'rywhere
I guess it kind of reeks
All the ladies ran away
if they ever came
But do we really care?
Cuz Bros be passed out ev'rywhere
And that's just kind of sweet.

Long Broems.

1. A Basement in Chicago

There's a basement in Chicago
with Ethel on the wall
She lies there, mostly nude
staring out at me.
With Fridays' wine blinking too
And she gives me strength
As I line up against my foe
how can he stand against me?
I always shoot to kill.

There's a basement in Chicago
which is full of alcohol
With ratty couches- Watch out!
I know they're full of holes
And piles of empty clothes
left by faceless ghosts.
With floors we must call sticky
And holy walls be there too.
I can hardly move my feet.

There's a basement in Chicago
which sometimes smells like smoke.
Once, a lost pouch of rollies
were found in six months.
Bubbling bongs, Arab hookahs
and butts across the floor
Yet I could hardly care-
for friends, beer pong
And even memory lives here.

There's a basement in Chicago
where phones can't pierce the wall
But Rodman lives behind broken glass
with a grinning college fool
And a dusty goblet- somehow-
seems safe to drink
And drunken claims of manliness
I know that mine rings true
For I am the ten cup king.

2. I'm Sorry, I don't Know you

I'm sorry. I don't know you
Even though you got my name
I'm sorry. I don't know you
But your number's in my phone.
I'm sorry I don't know you.
But you say we talked for an hour.

Five times?
Each.
Or even more?

At the party at the three room apartment
I remember that! It was on Evans Avenue
when the live aboriginal played the digeridoo
And I did a keg stand for 35 and a half seconds
but could I've done more except that red haired prick
dropped my leg. No, not you. None of you.
I was drunk.

At the bar downtown with the beer list three feet long.
I ordered three Irish Reds, an India Pale, five different American Lagers
And a Chicago 312. The bartender with the sharktooth earring
And the guy in the corner reading Marx? No, not you. None of you.
I was drunk.

At the park playing frisbee
On a sunny day in late July
Wind blowing through my face
And at exactly 3:00 PM my friend Steve,
wearing a tee shirt with cut off sleeves, RED
with black letters knocked you down
And I helped you up? No, not you. None of you.
I was drunk.

When my boss brought you to my table at the deli
On State, when my submarine sandwich had only ten pickles
Instead of eleven. And just a little bit too much mayonnaise
He said you were really important. No, not you. None of you.
I was drunk.

At your sister's wedding? Really?
I danced with you? And we laughed and smiled?
And oh. Well then. So we.. No, not of you. none of you.
I was drunk

But you're really pretty.
Can I buy you a drink?

And then he became a working man

2011-07-06T21:47:00.002-05:00

And then he became a working man,
a trap that lasts forever
For what is it to say just one more month
just one check more
Just one more year
and then vacation
Just one more decade
after all, the family
Just one more life,
after all, what for?

Style and Substance in Grammar

2011-05-26T12:23:00.000-05:00

When perusing Andrew Sullivan's blog just now, as I do every morning, I stumbled across to a link without comment to written by one Noreen Davis to a screed against the use of the "em dash." The "em dash" refers to the use of the "-" grammatically to interrupt one thought with another, for example "I was going - I wonder if this will make the point- to the store." Using only what might be considered an intentionally over-liberal use of the "em dash", Ms. Davis made the case that the "em dash" represents a terribly annoying and inefficient style of writing. This entire screed, and I'll give her the caveat that her title if not her piece allows that the "em dash" should be used sparingly, not eliminated, is worrisome to me on a number of grounds.

First of all, as she accidently yet purposefully shows in her writing, even the overuse of the "em dash" has at least one valid use: it can make writing, even cleverly crafted writing, seem annoying scatter-brained, and flighty. So if a writer is attempting to achieve this voice, is not the "em dash" an excellent starting ground to work from? Why, yes, yes it is.

Secondly, with all screeds like Ms. Davis, the screed against is more dangerous than the flaw. There will always be terrible, awful, no-good, very bad writers who will fall in love with grammatical constructs and misuse them. I have a very simple solution to this: I don't fucking read their work. However, nothing can be done to correct the grade school teaching since time immemorial that the passive voice is bad in any and all cases. It clearly isn't; for example "The bread has been stolen" is almost certainly better phrasing than "Somebody has stolen the bread" if we care more about the bread than who stole it. Yet thousands of writers far from overusing the passive like the Ms. Davises of yesteryear feared underuse it instead, conditioned to believe that resorting to the passive voice is surrendering as a writer.

Finally, Ms. Davis' point is cheapened by the overuse of the "em dash" in her argument against it. It is no great thing to show that a grammatical construct is annoying when you overuse it. I can do it with anything I want to. For example, if I were to write something where I, multiple times per sentence, wanted to remind you that I was the one who was writing down what I was saying, I am sure that I could find a way to make you think that I should never ever write with the first pronoun, 'I', and perhaps even that no one should use it, since I have made the point that it is quite obnoxious, haven't I? I think you understand what I want to say here. But I will keep going, so that there is no doubt, won't I? This way I will show you definitively how annoying I really am.

Better a thousand "em dashes" and a thousand awful writers than one good writer scared to use the "em dash" when he should because he's been taught it is annoying and inefficient.

I am neither cooler nor better than you and I don't want to be.

2011-05-02T12:32:00.000-05:00

But I believe in some things- things I have to believe in, things I think protect our world from falling into true decay.

I believe that justice doesn't come from the barrel of a gun, it comes from conviction by a jury.
I believe that all men can be redeemed, except for dead ones.
I believe that justice always seek redemption.
I believe that vengeance doesn't lead to peace, but only more war.
I believe that a peace which comes from killing all your enemies is not worth anything at all.

I can't be happy for the death of any man.

Less

2011-04-17T10:37:00.000-05:00

Powerless
   I stand alone
   in the dark
Motionless
   I stand caged
   at the zoo
Breathless
   I stand empty
   near the bar
Hopeless
   I stand in terror
   from afar
Speechless
   I stand exposed
   by the door

II
It seems so useless yesterday
I heard a story that we play
and sang a song we could not hear

But all my angels flee the sky
And god frowns down until I cry
Like power shifts I can't abide

Crack! A flash of thunder
Whip! An angels roar
Boom. Envelops the sky
Boom. It doesn't mean much more
Boom. A swinging open door.

III
Boom
   Ba Ba
Boom. Ba Ba.
Boom. Ba.
Boom Ah.
No blood, no fight no cry no sight
Humbled. Broken.
A face I fear A face I fear A face
I fear A face I fear
A face

Ringing out the night
Ringing out of sight
Ring-a-ling.
Poker Queen.
ding
ding
Donkey Kong
are you here?

IV
Please refrain.
Good gods. good gods
Good for anything
Wolves encircle gnash their teeth,
moonlight lives have every knight
they slay.

Aah-ooh! Aah-ooh.
Tick tock. Light the clock.
Tick tock. Empty thought.
Aboo. Wait stop.
Don't right.
Come up, fall down.
Joseph lives without a crown

Blood- if only there was blood-
then- but no, no more
dream on, what people say.

Achilles Comes home again

2011-04-12T14:09:00.000-05:00

In dreams an angel came came to me
   singing with voice anew
For hopeless times and crazy eyes
   that always once were blue
For sleepless nights and endless fights
   roaring with ancient winds
For beaten down, lost and found
   standing up anew
For angry sex and fucking love
   while friends cough on wine
For bottomless hopes and dreams
   and bottles flowing strong
Empty shit.

II
She sat on pearls
   they make them plastic now
And tossed her hair
   bleached blonde
And looked at me with
   lock and key
And said
   Why dare?
   Why scare?
   Why live?
   Why die?
   Why go?
   Why com?
   Why work?
   Why play?
   Why sleep?
   Why wake?
If dreams they stay so far away and
crazy kings, smoking dope with bags of coke,
with empty rings tell you what to do?

She cried!

Small desperado a little mouse
in cowboy shoes
Boot straps, baseball caps
belt buckles- strand of strings

Freedom fucks what love forgets

Evening gowns, business suits
white gloves black coats
cat hair
Soft hands empty lands
we lost a man
what wretched lies we tell

III
Man on the moon, monsoon
Malibu. Must we tell?
Go to hell?

Licking light where love forgot
shining through; we sit
at night- staring
high in they sky
apple pie, catch a fly
Find the door, don't be poor
On your own don't you know

Cain and Abel went up a hill
Don't look down
he say
God love you anyway
Glory! It's you I choose
sitting at Trojan shore

Roll the dice. Keep away
Phthian choice lost cake
off with head
Go to bed.
Angel don't go away
Chirping birds
   Say no words
Agony outside of the gates
lobotomy inside
Pain is reel, you can feel
Muses sing of anything
But.
Achilles com home again.
Away.

Essence and Existence, A Multipart Series on Being

2011-04-09T12:21:00.000-05:00

It seems to me that, incontrovertibly, there are two types of being. I say this not because I think it's an original or particularly interesting idea, but because it seems to me an incontrovertible statement from whence philosophy can flow. I, you see, have a rather firm belief that I hold myself to a rather intense philosophical ideal, and wish to better articulate it to myself. There are a few reasons for this: I believe that in certain ways, I am failing to live the life I think one must, and I want to fix this; further, I hope to become a teacher in this life- nothing so pedantic as an educator, but an actual teacher, a sage, a truthsayer, a Socrates, a Diogenes, a nevi, a speaker for the dead, and what not, and it ought to be good to understand the thoughts that lead me to my thoughts. So to discover them, I am moving first to the first principle that I know I inherently believe- that there are two types of being.

For my own personal ease, I'm going to borrow terminology that I first got from Sartre; I don't particularly care whether I am using them as he would have. I don't really care that most philosophers don't take him that seriously. Hell, I don't take him that seriously, though my feelings are more based on his abusive relationship with Simone de Beauvoir (emotionally and mentally; I have never been lead to believe that he physically abused her). But his terms, though better suited to French of course, work relatively well when discussing being in English, and one should always pick terms that make a modicum of sense.

The first type of being is easy enough to notice- one can't help from noticing it. It covers all the things that we can see and feel and touch and taste and hear. And the things which we don't realize that we are sensing. From the smallest molecule to the biggest blue whale, from a pebble to the universe itself, it are things that have a physical nature; it is whatever is wholly bound to the laws of physics and the natural universe. It is what will move when a force is applied, unless the force isn't strong enough to overcome friction. I call this existence.

The second type of being is harder to understand, and is best expressed when discussing fictional characters. I can touch Gandalf, I can not see him, I can not hear his voice, nor can I taste or smell him, but that would be creepy, and I wouldn't want to. In a word, Gandalf the Grey does not exist. Yet he is real- we can discuss, legitimately, how Gandalf would act in any given situation, regardless from whether they appear in The Lord of the Rings or not. His character may have been created by Tolkein, but it is divorced from Tolkein, and independent, to a degree. He holds a certain type of being one which I called essence. An essential being can not directly affect the physical world, nor be directly affected by it.

It is from here I want to begin. I will soon move forward to discuss existence as being, and essence as being, and finally existence and essence in the same being. I hope, however, that new ideas will constantly spring to me, and this series will spiral off in many directions before I ever finish it.

The Ends Justify the Means. What else are the means for?

2011-03-16T19:13:00.000-05:00

Sipping Whiskey on a Tuesday night,
Full of life long live the light
Thinking thoughts- they'll never be
End of fucking history

Why do we exist in society?
Anthropologically, I'm sure there is a very good reason, which I imagine is related to sex, but I like to pretend we are beyond that shit now.

Society, society.
What is the function of government? What is the relationship between the governed and government? What is freedom?

Freedom- it seems to me- comes in four varieties

Personal Freedom- the right to do and say whatever you would vis-a-vis yourself; examples include freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of thought, and so forth.

Social Freedom- the right to enter into a mutual pact with your fellows; examples, the freedom of association, sexual freedom, freedom of assembly.

Economic Freedom- the right to self-select the means of your own survival and the guarantee of ability to participate and neutral value agreed financial system- this get's a little complicated, but includes the freedom from involuntary slavery, and a currency system, which gives the man who can sell his painting the power to acquire food from a farmer with no interest in art. The right to own property as yours, and not someone else's.

Political Freedom- the right to not have to answer to anybody else, the right to enforce your other freedoms through any means. In otherwords, the freedom from the group.

It seems to be that government by its nature exists for people to forgo their political freedom in order to guarantee their economic, social and personal freedom vis-a-vis the rule of law. This appears to be the social contract. In otherwords, we voluntarily (but passively) submit to the authority of the government on the conditional fact that they protect our other freedoms. A government is naturally in three parts- to create laws that guarantee freedom, to execute laws that guarantee freedom, and to judge that the creation and execution of laws are harmonious and in accordance with the social contract.

It seems imperative then, that every government be triumvirate in nature, in order to ensure that the three parts remain both separate and equal.

This brings us to the first question: Is democracy a human right?

The short answer is no. Absolutely, and fundamentally not- the selection of leadership is uniformly a political right, and one we sacrifice in order to join the social contract. Fundamentally, a government is a means to the end of the Social Contract, and a proper government is simply and accordingly one which achieves that end for all contractees equally. There is no a priori reason that the government must be democratic, only that it is Tripartite.

The long answer is perhaps- if we can conclude that only a democratic government will be able to guarantee the social contract.

This however, seems wrong. We have had enlightened monarchs who rule justly and fulfill the contract (to the greatest degree reasonable at the time; the age of the enlightened monarch came before the age of emancipation and suffrage). In theory, one can create a monarch or triarch (Legislator, Executive, Judge) that could rule in accordance with the Social Contract. However, it is difficult to sustain- given the failures of both hereditary and elective systems, a life ruler must be expected to be emotionless to the point of abandoning humanity to both correctly assess the moment where his or her mental facilities have peaked and who his or her successor should be.

A democratic government is a more sustainable if less perfect way to achieve the fulfillment of the Social Contract. Elections can select poor leaders, but the natural expiration of their term prevents the ruin of the state. However, it is important to note that Nazi Germany, in all likelihood the most horrific government ever, arose from Democratic roots. The Nazi dilemma represents the danger of democracy- while 999 times out of a thousand times it is imperfect but good enough, that last time it is hell beyond belief, beyond reason, and wholly unstoppable from within.

What responsibility does one government have to people outside of it?

The short answer is none at all. Our human concern for them may be noble, but we are inherently and decisively forced to recognize that any government which is willing to allow even one of it's contractee-citizens to die to save even a billion men is inherently acting in bad faith. It has broken the freedom of its own citizen. It is default.

Still, this is not promising for citizens such as modern Libyans, 1930s Jews, or 19th Century African American Slaves who are fundamentally oppressed by a government which has decided to break the social contract and oppress them.

There are two escapes- first, is the realization that other than a community based government, and bureaucratic, technocratic subdivisions, only a wholly inclusive government is truly legitimate. We exist in society on one hand with the people we know and who are at hand, and on the other with all sentient beings. Imaginary lines on maps are not reasonable barriers of the social contract. On this ground there is an inherent right of all governments to defend all peoples.

The second is that given the imperfections of a non-unitary world, a case can be made that any state S are interested in all other states being harmonious and aligned with the social contract for S's own ability to fulfill the contract. In other words, by intervening, one is not actually intervening on behalf of the other but for one's own citizens. Thus all interventions are self-defense, and the chance of citizen death is legitimate.

However, both these escapes lend themselves to abuse- both active abuse (essentially bullying) and passive abuse (essentially hypocrisy- arguing for say, a Libyan intervention but not a Bahrainian one). The conclusion drawn then is, even in a unipolar world, that no single nation can act without the blessing of the nations at large.

The second question is are we able to opt out. But that is for another time.

Somehow

2011-03-09T14:44:00.000-06:00

I've ended up playing with memes the past week or so, a confusing and ridiculous movement on my part.

The instancy of modernity is my least favorite part. We suppress thoughtful communication and art with instant communication and art. Letters became emails became ims became occasionally checking your facebook wall to see how you are doing.

We take our friendships and we sell them to a corporation.

Travel used to be an experience- windswept hair, fields and forests, and mountains. Oh yes the mountains.

Now it's getting drunk to get by the misery of airplanes.

Humanity spends so much time going quickly, we miss the world.

If life seems meaningless it's because we don't work at it anymore- the work we used to put into life has been replaced with iPhones.

And blogs, of course.

I don't like memes very much.

Chasing Charlie

2011-03-04T11:47:00.000-06:00

I think I'm starting to have a Charlie Sheen problem. A disturbing one. I find that I am constantly looking around to see if he's said anything new. I've never cared so much about the happenings of any life that's not my own, and I've never met Charlie Sheen, or even seen any movie or television show he's part of.

I'm solely invested in his collapse.

I want to be abundantly clear- I think Charlie Sheen has a number of very serious problems. He appears to be demented, potentially violent, have delusions of grandeur, and I firmly believe that he represents a danger to himself, the women in his life, and his children. I think he is losing grip on reality, and I think that what I'm doing and what the world is doing is hardly better than staring at homeless man and laughing.

I also think Charlie Sheen is right.

I think that he has no idea why he's right. I think he has delusions of grandeur.

But he's right.

If his actions are remiss, his attitude isn't it. For one thing, it's subtle, but he's giving a performance, at least in his public media blitz; I refuse to judge or analyze what is alleged to have happened behind closed doors, in part because I don't actually care that much, and secondly, no one has much credibility. I'll judge actions, and publicity, and his performance.

If one can excuse Heiddegger for his Nazism and keep his philosophy in the discourse, one can excuse any artist or thinker for their mistakes and keep their art. We do not forgive, but we can separate. Ignoring the art of fools and damaged men does not undo their mistakes. We simply lose a part of the human experience.

Sheen very clearly knows what he's doing- even in the Good Morning America clips (it should be noted, that Good Morning America did not interview Sheen. 20/20 did, and GMA aired the most outrageous one-liners to drag in viewer attention), despite the best efforts of the camera crew to shoot him in bad light, despite the outrageous leading questions of the interviewer, designed to provoke laughable remarks, Sheen remains remarkably self-aware. Self-indulgent, yes, but Self-Aware.

I'm on a drug called Charlie Sheen. You can't buy it, because your face would melt and your children would weep over your exploding corpse.

That was a meme. No one paid attention to what came next.

Nervous laughter. "That was too much, wasn't it?"

The man doesn't think he actually has Tiger blood, though Adonis DNA, he probably does think he has, and is probably right.

Before the drugs, at least, he had his father's striking good looks.

He is performing.

But it's not that he understands himself. He understands us. We want everything. We want to be entertained.
America loved the idea of Charlie Sheen.
We became, as unrequited love tends, jealous of Charlie Sheen. Why him? Why does this drug-addled, violent, infantile man get the life of leisure, of partying, of absolute id that we all want?
It's not fair.
We want to destroy Charlie Sheen. He understands this. He gets it. It's an idea that he keeps repeating- that people are jealous of him, that men wish they had sex with as many hot fucking women as he has. That they want $40 million a year to be themselves on TV.

That we all hate are fucking middle class lives, and we think we could do better with Charlie's rockstar life and Adonis DNA.

We are all chasing the Charlie Sheen dream.

Winning.

The mantra itself is invigorating. But people think winning is the opposite of losing. It's not. Losing is the risk that winning carries beside it. Winning is uncertain, unclear, a gamble against the house. Losing is the price you pay for trying to win.

The opposite of winning is settling. It's to never walk into the casino, it's to never invest with the good idea that will probably fail. It's to look back and be 60 and say "My children have a chance at a better life".

There's no shame in settling. Society is built on the back of settlers.

But we need winning, and losing too.

And this is why Charlie Sheen matters. Because he has Won in such a spectacular, self-destructive manner, that he has done it so publicly, that he has done it while coming closer to losing than one thought humanly possible, it's just possible that he might shake us out of it.

The inevitable soul-crushing certainty of your life. You work hard from first grade to twelfth to get to college. You work hard in college so you can get a steady job. You work hard at a steady job so you can get married, raise a family. You work hard at raising a family, so that your children will have strong examples. You move to the suburbs to save money so you can send your children to college without debt. You send your children to college. And

You never took the time out to look at you. It was goal- achieved? Next goal- achieved? And that's fine if it's the goals you thought your way to, in careful examination.

But if's just the map you mindlessly followed because it's the one they gave you, don't kid yourself.

There's no nobility to the hope that one day, when you are dead and gone, and your children are dead and gone, and your parents a forgotten memory, that one of your hundreds of vague descendants who couldn't give a rats' ass about your name does something cool.

Do something cool now. If you lose, you lose.

It happens. You can settle when you are 25, 30, 35.

Immortality? Take it! It's yours.

There is nothing

2011-03-03T17:58:00.000-06:00

So important to me as writing, and publishing my thoughts again. I'm not sure if I have anything to say at all, but I must re-engage the egotistical, maniacal embrace of long form writing for the (admittedly limited, and perhaps non-existent) public audience.

My mind races through thoughts of futures, pasts, and it seems a perfect storm of coincidence and thought map me towards a dream;

I'm reminded of Aaron Sorkin, though: "If Jesus is your co-pilot, you should switch planes" and I'm not yet mystic enough to embrace the infinite absurdity as the universe is trying to tell me what to do.

I'm thinking now how Oedipus and Charlie Sheen aren't that different after all.

A Prayer.

May we stand our ground strong,
May we live a life of plenty
May we strive in search of harmony
May we create
May we imagine
May we dream

I'm reminded of Bon Jovi. It's my life. It's now or never.

Let's make it a good one, eh?
Let's make it one that I can look back on and say: I lived.
I was free.

Let's not get lost in the illusion

A word of wisdom said to me.
"The Person who say it cannot be done should interrupt the person doing it"