Aphid Attack

PLOS

I'm infested. I've eaten contaminated kale from Whole Foods, again. I noticed too late that plant lice had colonized the green leaves. I've eaten untold mouthfuls of them, aphids.

I was sitting outside the store eating, excited to be feasting on a healthy lunch of kale, beets, broccoli and grilled chicken, when I saw them. At first I thought someone had sprinkled fresh pepper onto the kale, and I took a few more bites. As I continued eating, thinking that some of the peppercorns looked a bit like small insects, I realized that in fact they were small insects. My stomach recoiled in my abdomen, my esophagus shriveled and shrank like an emptied water-ballon.

I had to notify someone, but who? The police? C.D.C? Yelp? Innocent people could be scooping heaping portions of the corrupt kale into their salad-bowls as I deliberated. I needed to act fast. I went inside and asked to speak to a manager, to alert them of my discovery. The manager arrived and I told her of the stowaway creatures hidden in the kale, and how they'd hijacked a ride into my stomach. She tersely explained, with a bit too much nonchalance, that because the kale is organic that it is sometimes subject to insect infestation. Puzzled, I looked at her and said "Yea, I understand that; clearly that's the case given I've eaten a small brood of them." She stood staring at me as though I was being dramatic. I presented the salad and showed her the pests perched atop the kale like pepper. I asked what they were, and whether my health was at risk having consumed them. She looked at me and said "I'm not sure, I'll have to ask an employee on produce; they wash the kale and are familiar with the types of insects kale can carry." She told me to go with her to customer service where she would give me a refund for the salad. I explained that I cared less about the refund than I did my health and would prefer to find the produce manager. You know, given I'd just eaten some vermin. She assured me I was fine and made it seem like it wasn't a big deal. Again I felt as though I was somehow out of line for complaining about this.

We found the other manager and he confirmed they were aphids; plant lice. He said they posed no health risk to me and that the kale simply hadn't been properly washed. They apologized for the inconvenience and escorted me to customer service for a refund and a $25 gift card. Still a bit taken back by their aplomb and the subtle air of condescension, I stood at the customer service desk as a saleswoman performed the transaction. Not knowing what to say, I asked her if this happened often. She replied "It happens sometimes," but that to her it's not really a big deal (again, it must just be me), "they're organic; more protein; like little seeds." Astonished, swimming in a sea of stupefaction, I couldn't tell if she was joking or being serious.

I took the refund and the gift card and exited the store.

This is my aphidavit.

Ain't no Difference

I had no time to write last night. I worked a full day and then had some extracurriculars to tend to after work involving securing transport for the upcoming trip Sunday.

I did manage, in between leaving work and going to bed, to get roped into a debate regarding class and race - on Instagram of all places. A bright chap uttered the phrase "ummm, class is intrinsically correlated with race," and I had to chime in. Intrinsically huh? Even his word placement is backwards. There is a correlation between race and class, certainly, but an intrinsic relation? Surely he is confused I thought, and I expected he would see his folly when I tried to clarify this for him. I was wrong. Realizing he will likely not grasp my message, I may just give up the argument: only the foolish argue with fools.

But here I can expound upon my idea, which I don't even really consider to be an idea, but more of a generally understood and agreed upon concept. Race is related to class. Unsurprisingly. Given when one group assumes power and amasses wealth, it is dispersed and shared amongst that group. Often, due to a human predisposition to pursue homogeny and eschew difference, they try to keep the power in the hands of their tribe at the expense of those outside it. There isn't anything unique to race that causes this, race just happens to be an easily observable and essentially unchangeable site of difference to be exploited when humans need a manufactured and arbitrary division. Then, race is a factor of class, not the determiner. Human fear, sick with greed, is the mother of racism.

Maybe my online adversary grew up in a rigid race-based caste system, and has felt the weight of oppression firsthand. Who am I then to speak of the struggle of such a person? The sadness and helplessness at the realization that his race wasn't something he chose or could change, and the subsequent anger and frustration at the failure of others to see he was just like them, regardless of the color of his skin.

(He's white and hipstery)

Super Sputum Bros

Sometimes when writing a post I'll quickly scroll through photos I've taken hoping to find inspiration. Especially after work, with my mind enfeebled and overburdened from the weight of the day.

Tonight I came across this picture:

It made me recall something I had offhandedly said to a friend the other day as we got off the bus. We were talking about the trouble we'd inevitably get into at Burning Man, and he said (incorrectly) that he didn't think we'd be partying too hard. To which I replied, "we're going to be eating mushrooms like Mario." What does this photo have to do with any of that? Look closely. I remember at the time I had taken it, hiking through the Presidio one weekend, that the pipe in the background resembled one from Super Mario. I half expected to see a red and white man-eating plant rising up from it as I approached, chomping madly at the air. 

If there ever was a carnivorous plant inside that pipe, it had long since been incinerated by an expectorate fireball from the mouth of an Italian plumber. Wow. Google tells me that Mario didn't actually spit fire, he threw it. The sound it made was the source of abundant confusion. I've been wrong about this for two decades; who knew. Well, everyone who knew...knew.

It's strange to have known something to be true, and then to come to know that what you had known was in fact false. The new known replaces the old one and makes you feel that the old known wasn't something known but rather something believed. Then you think about how the certitude you felt then is the same as you feel now, and you wonder if this too is just a belief posing as a known, waiting to be replaced.

It would seem nothing is ever known, truly. But how could I know that?

Leprechaun in the Cochlea

Magically Pernicious

Somehow I've developed a peculiar ailment afflicting my left ear. I noticed it this morning after I'd arrived at work, when I sat down in the office, beset with silence. There emerged a rapid tapping, a kind of trembling against the drum of my ear. It sounded as though an excited hamster with an arrhythmia had nestled itself deep inside my inner ear. It flutters and then stops, appearing and reappearing randomly, lasting for varying durations. My eardrum feels like the cap of a Snapple bottle being quickly and compulsively clicked. Clearly I must have a tumor in my ear. And right before Burning Man of all times. I'm hopeful it's just a muscle spasm, something innocuous like a twitching eyebrow, and not an ear infection.

I've been drinking plenty of fluids, getting daily exercise and eating right. Except for this past Saturday. The scones! It had to have been a bad batch of Irish scones. I was dealt a deadly dose of the bad luck of the Irish. Or even worse; my ear might be the set of a new Leprechaun movie; Leprechaun in the Cochlea. Holy shit. I didn't know there was a sequel to Leprechaun in the Hood: Leprechaun Back 2 tha Hood. Brilliant. I remember watching the first one in the downstairs apartment (before he inherited the basement beside it) of a friend's house in New York. We were all in high school and got completely drunk and stoned and laughed uproariously at the absurdity of the film. A truly terrible piece of cinema...but entertaining nonetheless.

I wonder what would happen if Lucky the Leprechaun lost it one day, sick and tired of all those pugnacious children always after his lucky charms, and suddenly transformed into the leprechaun from the films, what he might do to the children. Make marshmallows out of their ball sputum maybe? Feed them pots of gold, causing rainbows to burst from their bellies, burning and boiling their greedy guts? Maybe rub poison four-leaf-clovers on their skin, causing manifold welts and carbuncles made more monstrous by magic. They're magically pernicious!

Perhaps that's where he's hidden his lucky charms; inside my cochlea. Sounds like, cocklier.

168 Hours

In one week I will be arriving back at Black Rock City. I will step upon a dried-out lake bed, and walk with adventure and reverie. Every step I take will unearth dust, a year dormant, that has been witness to two decades of fantastical sights and sounds. 

Dust will storm. Blistering heat and freezing cold will play tug-of-war with the day. There will be great lightness and also great darkness; sonorous sunrises and somber sunsets. It will be a time of boisterous revelry and quiet contemplation. 

Ecstasy and agony. Unable to know which is which.

I start the journey back by recalling where it ended, so many days ago:

"We survived the Temple Burn, where charred cinders and falling flames rained down upon us like slow falling snow set ablaze. We survived the voluminous and vile showers of vomit and bile that threatened our heads at the Man. We braved sandstorms on psychotropic substances, passing pirate ships sinking in desert sands. We watched the Man burn, all with hands in hand. We sang songs to give life to the sun in the dead of night, til our eyes grew heavy and we bid the night goodnight; all of these distant memories, dance in foreign lands where they prance and play in the singing sand."

Weirdo With a Beard

Yesterday I started my day with a failure to go to yoga. I decided that instead of sweating out my demons I would lie with them, and I spent the morning wrapped in blankets warmed with repose. Once 1pm came round, I emerged from my cotton cocoon and ventured out to Whole Foods. I wanted to grab a quick bite before I met my friend Terry, whom I was to join at a BBQ. I thought that if I ate prior to the party I'd be less likely to succumb to the succulent meats. I was wrong.

We arrived at the party - where there wasn't a single familiar face - teeming with children, most of them dressed as superheroes; Spiderman, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, Batman; it was Spiderman's birthday. There was a giant bouncy-house set up in the backyard which occupied approximately 50% of the area. The remaining space was set aside for: adult seating, seating for the elderly and infirm, a table with an assortment of snacks and condiments, coolers full of beer and a glorious, giant smoking grill. I was immediately assailed by the scent of roasting meat, and as I opened my mouth to say hello to a woman I didn't know, the excess saliva drooled from my lips and was absorbed into my beard. "Just watering the plants," I said.

I moved away from the grill deliberately, warring with my eyes, disallowing their gaze to drift in its direction. My nose kept pointing toward it lecherously as the smells strut past flirtatiously in high-heels. My thoughts ran around it in circles excitedly, my tail always wagging. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would break free of my leash. I tried to distract myself and opened a beer to assuage some of the desire which sought to undo me. I shuffled awkwardly from place to place trying to strike up conversation with Irishmen native to the North. As I mentioned earlier, I knew no one, and as I stood bearded and suspicious, slowly sipping a Modelo, I realized I had inadvertently crashed a child's birthday-party.

I heard someone behind me speaking in a hushed voice say, "who's the weirdo with the beard aye?" I was sticking out like a poorly poured pint of Guinness and I couldn't do anything about it. It was only a matter of time before I began to startle the children. I casually drifted over to the table with the condiments on it and had an Irish scone to show my appreciation for their nation's pastry. It bit into my tongue like a mousetrap, and after my first taste I was stuck to it like a fly on paper. The scone, topped with fresh whipped cream and homemade strawberry jam, was delicious. I began to feast on scones with a voracity wholly inappropriate for the occasion. I'm not sure if it was out of discomfort, the sweet scones providing temporary relief from my alienation, or the sheer skill of the baker, but before I knew it I had consumed half a plate of scones. A blue-eyed ornery looking fellow wearing a JAWS t-shirt approached me, smirking, flashing a mouth full of razorsharps, and said "I see you like those scones, boy." Wiping the crumbs from my beard, speaking through a mouthful of jam, I said "Yea, they're amazing. I'd never had a scone with whipped cream and jam before."Wryly he said "You keep eating them like that and no one else will have either." Embarrassed, I laughed lightly, and saw that he wasn't smiling. My time was up at the snackbar, and I excused myself to go to the bathroom.

When I returned to the backyard, I decided I would try to chat with the guy manning the grill. He was an easy target because he couldn't go anywhere. As I neared, I saw the sausages and hot-dogs and ribs and steaks and burgers glistening on the grill and felt my stomach kick, pregnant with hunger. What had I done? I'd walked into the belly of the beast. Now I had to remain there and speak to him, staring at the burgers that beckoned me. They sat perched on the grill sizzling, hissing like serpents, lunging at my stomach and sinking their fangs into my resolve. I'd been set up; sabotaged by my belly. It was the beast all along! Then the unthinkable happened - he asked if I wanted a burger. Needless to say, I couldn't refuse. Before I knew it I had devoured three burgers and showed no signs of stopping. I was transformed into an emaciated version of J. Wellington Wimpy, trying to bulk up.

Thankfully James arrived as I was reaching for my fourth, and I was able to escape orbit around the grill. He remarked that I seemed to be doing okay given I was amongst a group of strangers. I told him that I was okay, that I had gorged myself on scones and burgers to help pass the time.

"That was the card I was dealt today. Sometimes you're just the weirdo with a beard," I said.

Why Do

Whatever pleasure or pain we experience is effaced by our eventual exile from existence. 

So why do we care? Why do we struggle and suffer, marching onward through the days to a tempo set by worry? Why do we allow indecision to plague us, believing falsely that one choice is better than the next? Our lives are but a brusque and hurried hello. 

We do it to distract ourselves from our mortality. To briefly escape the grim veracity of that one and only truth. This distraction becomes life. We go on living an elaborate fabrication that denies its ineluctable end: our death. We plan for the years ahead; retirement; assuming the years will come. Always remembering to forget that in an instant, a moment too minuscule to mention, we can be undone. It is madness. To count upon survival through millions upon millions of these moments is madness.

But to ruminate on this too is madness. 

Consider the simple act of driving. If one really reflected upon the inherent risk involved, driving would become impossible. Barreling down highways at vulnerable velocities, around blind turns, mere inches from other cars also traveling at breakneck speeds, knowing some of them are texting; some are old, their vision fading; some drunk or tired, or both. Don't even think about it when it rains. To constantly meditate on one's mortality produces a paralyzing paroxysm of fear.

So we distract. 

As a result, civilizations have been raised; Gods. Wars waged; cities razed. Modern medicine; something at which to marvel. Technologies, and sciences. Arts. Happiness.

Merrily. Merrily we row our boats.

Life is but a dream.

Rejoyce

I haven't the heart to write tonight.

I've read a chapter of literature so great, so expertly crafted, that anything I write will be a failure.

"A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.

She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither; and a faint flame trembled on her cheek.

—Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy.

He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.

Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory."

Swollen Squalor

I've escaped work early. 

Well, early is an interesting way to put it considering it's 5:30. When your workday usually ends past 7:00, this is early. I feel like I've gotten away with something I wasn't supposed to, like I might get caught and punished for leaving when I did.  I'm praying they don't randomly inspect my office and find the man-sized hole I've cut into the wall with a spork, hidden behind the Alan Turing poster. Just read the remainder of this post in the voice of Morgan Freeman. 

What will I do with my few free hours? Why, that's simple: more work of course. I have to do the chores that I haven't had time for since Friday. You know, like laundry. I've been wearing the same pair of 5-year-old red boxers with worn out elastic, holes in the front and back - they're so ripped and tattered that it's difficult to tell which side is which when putting them on - stained and stinking of stale urine and faintly reeking of feces. The skid-marks are so plentiful that it looks like miniaturized motorcyclists had a 'who could do the most doughnuts' contest on them.

Then there's my feet. Forget athlete's foot, I have tri-athlete's foot. My socks hang off my feet like used condoms, elastic gone, full of stinking sweat that my feet swim in like fish. They creep off of my toes as though trying to escape the funk. But inside my shoe, there is nowhere to run.

All of the clothes I've been wearing are from the 'wear in case of emergency' pile: the clothes of last resort. The kind of abandoned articles you'd paint a house in, or use as rags when cleaning a spill. They have all the allure of a dirty pillow in the street.

But no more. Soon I'll vanquish the fat bag of dirty clothes, currently hiding in the dark recesses of my closet, like a lazy and limbless dragon. I will slay it, armed with a clothespin clamped upon my nose, shielded from its foul and mildewed breath. 

A bag of soiled garments, like a disembodied stomach, swollen by the sordid remnants of days passing.

Negs

An oldie:

Those familiar, yet so foreign vibrations. They resonate and evoke something nostalgic, and altogether arresting. The moment saturates me with a sensation unlike any other...I become both the creator, and co-creator.  

This being is ours to manipulate and reshape to the incessant rhythm. My fingers pulse and tremble in anticipation for what is to follow. The possibilities at this moment are infinite and completely expansive, yet we control every aspect of it. The energy radiates from within - electric - and the result is something tangible and unique to the listener.  In realization of all of this, a smile crawls up into my face from beneath my flesh. I cannot control it, nor do I want to...at the moment I simply am. 

This moment feels right. It feels true and untainted; pure. My purpose has been confirmed; I must keep this entity alive and let it perish only when I know the time has come. 

So we ride this melody and change it, and break it, and reconstruct it to breathe life into it for a brief time. Although ephemeral, the amount of fulfillment is remarkable. An understanding between two separate individuals that allows for the creation of this other is beyond my comprehension. The synchronicity required; coupled with the ability to conceive the other’s vision with respect to the life of the creation...is the production of something exceptional. We are no longer individuals, but instead all three of us, one. I cling to this moment and bathe in the sounds as they caress every inch of me, and I see the time for its end is near.  

A certain excitement mixed with sadness consumes me, and I strive to bring this thing to its death. I flashback to its birth, and from there its life plays out until I stare it in the face as it takes its last glorious breath. A chill dances down my neck and melts into the base of my spine. I will not see this creature again the way it was, but instead as a mere ghost...a reincarnation of itself used to symbolize what it once was. 

The sound stops and all I can hear are the remnants of this mystical creature screaming; begging, pleading to be replayed as it lies entombed in my soul, causing that constant dull ringing that I can hear in my ears. I breathe and know that it will never truly leave me. To it, we are God.

Too Little Too Late

I have too little energy and I've gotten home too late.

The hobgoblins in my mind have been quieted by exhaustion. Not a creature is stirring, not even a louse. Actually, it's possible there may be a louse in my beard. I was on the bus coming home, and a man who looked like a black version or Ernest P. Worrell - he was even dressed like him - boarded and sat down beside me; much like the spider. Except his curds and whey, I suspect, were of the psychoactive variety. His face looked like it was playing a fierce game of twister. One eye shut Popeye tight, his lower lip curled back into his opened mouth, tongue flailing, his nose flared outwards as it struggled to touch the tip of his forehead.

Passengers stared at me conveying sympathy; I was the chosen one. He twitched and jerked his head around erratically as though disturbed by sounds emitted on a frequency only he could hear. His eyes met mine a few times as I looked toward the window to see what stop we were at, but they would always quickly avert. Out of my periphery I saw him wildly scratching at the hair under his khaki-colored hat, as though he were trying to use friction to start a wildfire on his scalp. I could've sworn I saw a black dot leap out, like someone from a burning building, right into my beard. The only thing I could do was cough loudly and shift my weight to alert him to cease scratching. I didn't want to make a scene on the bus because I had little proof that a louse had infested me, and he looked like he may have bit my nose off if I had opened my mouth to protest.

Then, an idea. I had horrendous gas all day. I mean really bad. The kind of gas that you wish you had a mask to protect you from. I think it was from some bad tahini that had been the dressing for the kale I had picked up from Whole Foods. Whatever the culprit was, I had begun emitting a fetid odor from my ass so noxious and putrid that I'm certain it was capable of causing lung cancer. Like a vile reeking radon gas leaking from my ass, peeling paint and rusting metal. I decided it was time to fight fire with fire, and looking at him with shock, I let one loudly belch from my anus, while wearing a mask of utter contempt and disgust. The polite smiles of women across from us soured and curdled like milk as the air became clumpy and perfumed with the smell of rot and decay. Wide eyed, galloping in his seat as though riding a horse, he stuttered "It wadn't me, it wadn't, it wad, it wad him!" as he pointed at me.

"How dare you," I said.

Where No Man Has Yawned Before

Okay, I promise this will be my last dream post for a while. I just can't resist. The dream was every pubescent boy's sci-fi wet dream:

"I was aboard a star-ship in some remote region of space, next to a lesser known but peaceful planet where we had stopped off to refuel and briefly meet their representatives. We were successfully refueled, in idle orbit waiting for the captain and the welcome crew. They had left the ship and gone to the planet to verify the goods and visit the representatives, to thank them for the gift. Two of the crew in the docking bay were inspecting the small cargo we had received as a peace offering. 

A game or a video or some kind of media was found on the gifted goods. Once it was uploaded to our ship's systems for analysis, it was discovered that it contained a virus; some kind of worm. It turns out, the simple act of playing it had activated the program; it already infected part of the ship's computer. Through some quick command-line drudgery we thought we had it quarantined. One of the science officers, fascinated by the complexity of its mutations and the organic quality of the code, began poking at it, accidentally freeing it from quarantine. The code-based organism rapidly spread throughout the operating system. The operating system maintains all vessel function from life-support and oxygen regulation to course navigation. The captain isn't on the ship and the creature has jammed telecommunications. There's no reaching him or anyone else.

But it's too late. The ship itself mutinies, and sets course for some uncharted territory in deep space. 

On the way there the crew is panicking; sections of the sleeping quarters lose power and life support as the ship diverts power for speed, hurtling madly in the darkness as if fleeing something fearsome. Or moving toward it. Dozens of crew members suffocated, lying lifeless as if suddenly overtaken by sleep. I work frantically at the computer station trying to regain control of the system, but to no avail.

Things culminate in the vacuum of space.  

Suddenly I'm on another ship, as though I've just woken up. We're responding to a distress call from a nearby ship, which reached us as we were crossing some unknown sector experiencing severe fluctuations in mass. I realize too late that the distress call is one spoofed by the infected onboard computer of the ship I had just been on; our ship. Somehow two separate universes have collided and we hover before each other like two mirrors. I know we've been led straight into a trap. What starts as a strong vibration quickly metastasizes into violent unfettered shaking. Objects fall from flat surfaces, people topple over and the space around us starts to quake. Then the creature reveals itself. Emerging out of the rift between the two ships, undetected and cloaked space; it is space. A colossal inter-dimensional monster materializes, like a giant spider hanging onto a web. Everything around us rippling ominously, oppressed by its mass. It's so vast that only its razor sharp teeth, and mouth like galaxies of black holes are visible - devouring the light from around it - pulling us closer.

We were helpless. Trapped like two flies in a jar. The horror of the jar is the emptiness as much as it is the glass; the illusion that you aren't trapped. 

I remember screams and crunching and the sound of swirling wind. The hull had been breached. The ship's lights flickered like strobes. Metal wrenching and tearing apart in the blackness. The creature sat heavy in space, on it. Everything falling toward its mass. Stars streaming into the nothing like tears. 

Two universes lined up like closed lips, un-seamed by a yawn. Peeling back slowly, showing teeth, stretching and contorting the flesh around it, inhaling all the existence before it. With a sigh, we were obliterated.

The Rank Mackerel

It's insightful to listen to gay men speak about cunnilingus. Always, words are chosen that connote disgust, and underneath it, fear. I've heard the female genitalia described as a "diseased open wound," often followed by words like "fishy" and 'stinking." Today, the phrase "a cesspool of yeast" was used to paint a picture of that glorious pink cock-pit. After uttering that doozy of a phrase he added, "it is like a slimy disgusting fish: a rank mackerel." Clearly my associate was a poet of sorts. I asked him what rank he believed it to be; corporal or private? Typically, once I've heard a person disparage the venerable vulva, I'll ask whether he's ever had sex with a woman; often the answer is yes. He'll describe it as a mediocre experience and then say something dismissive like "a hole is a hole."

This is where I take issue.

Maybe I'm biased, but having had the opportunity to engage in both vaginal and anal sex with a woman, I can say without a doubt that there is a distinct difference between the two. The anus is simply inferior. It's lacking in lubrication, strangely textured and suspiciously spacious. But more problematic, I would assume, is the fact that shit comes out of it. How, I wonder, can a man condemn and denigrate the pussy, calling it stinking and filthy, yet have no issue at all with plunging his cock into a literal shit-hole? Talk about hypocritical. I can't help but feel they are consciously lying to themselves every time their slanderous tongues denounce the pickle jar. They know it feels better so they vilify it and call it yucky, like little boys self-admministering cootie shots.

Circle circle dot dot; now I've got my cooter shot. No that doesn't sound right.

Anyway, I just want to point out that they know the wizard's sleeve is magic, despite what they say.

Okay, I'm going to chase down sleep.

A Wretch Like Me

Yesterday after work I was wrought with a desire for destruction. There was but one commandment that was mine:

Make mayhem. 

To the pure and good, my nom de guerre:

Non servium. 

It is fascinating how willingly we redirect our anger and frustrations. The seething darkness radiating outward from within us, like a black sun. At its head, a crown of leaping shadows like flames. 

I wanted to corrupt souls. To bring ruin to symmetry; to calmly choke it out and birth chaos. I was the snake in the garden of Eden. I wanted to share my misery with the world and debase it. Hissing and slithering sinuously in slow spirals, wrapping myself down the trunk of the tree like a barber's pole, I wished to entrance the innocent, tempting them to eat of its fruit. To lift my anus into the air and bestow the berries of dingle, the true forbidden fruit.

I wanted to be the devil on someone's shoulder. 

But today I am healed; sinner turned saint. Purified and restored by the Lord's healing waters. Did you know you can pay extra for them to pump it through the shower-head? I even brushed my teeth with some. Then, I drank heavily of the blood of Christ, and I rehydrated with the remaining tap-holy-water I had left over. It's a Christmas miracle how much more pious I feel. Though that might be from all the Apple pie I've been made to eat. Like a fat cherub smiling, I sit perched on my own shoulder, a master contortionist.

When you think about it, angels and devils really share the same voice. The difference, that angels are the voice of conscience before, and the devils, after. Demons haunt; angels guide. 

Now I feel it is my duty - as the good angel - to prevent tragedy and misfortune, to thwart it at every turn. So I save you when I catch the drooping head of the homeless man sleeping beside you on the bus, about to fall, drooling, with hair full of pestilence, onto your shoulder - my shoulder. I save you whoever gambles on a fart while wearing white pants. A lost bet from which there is no turning back. 

I save you, premature ejaculation; I'm coming.

I, Mule

There is nothing quite like a 13 hour workday to strip the paint off of your soul.

My mind suffered slow attrition - a practice target for inexhaustible stores of ammunition - hanging cracked and pitted, dented beyond recognition; past rescue. My will, lay charred and smoldering, like a felled city, ashen and alone. 

The night air touched the tip of my mangled fingers and they disintegrated like burnt cigarettes. 

Like tail-lights in the distance, the embers glowed red as they sped off, whisked away on dark and surreptitious winds. 

Wearied, my vision blurs; eyes flushed with exhaustion's oil. Shadows, shapes and muted colors smear past on the darkened road. Letters on signs, furtive, cringe and resist recognition. 

Time to get off the bus. I have a tired mile to walk. 

Sero

The sun had just come up behind him, massaging the chill from his cold shoulders. The trees all around him were budding, fecund and boasting beautiful colors. He sat alone on the park bench, like a statue greeting the dawning morning. Early birds came to life amid the branches overhead, singing from mottled limbs. He breathed in deeply, relishing in the redolent spring air. He placed his palms on his thighs and exhaled slowly, a mirthful smile blooming upon his face. He sat like this for a long while, just waiting. 

Up before work, on her morning jog, a woman ran along the path that would intersect the man seated upon the bench. She slowed as she neared and said "Mr. Sero," looking at him with sadness and candor, "you're still here." He smiled at her and said "Why wouldn't I be, Mrs. Festinavit? It's such a glorious day and it would be a pity not to enjoy it." She tried to cover her mouth with a false smile, but instead her hand rose to hide her quivering lower-lip as her eyes started to overfill. She shook her head softly and ran on.

Later, a man walking through the park sat on the bench beside him reading a newspaper. He wore a name tag that read Fatigo. After several minutes of rustling through the pages, the man exclaimed "do you believe this story they're peddling, about why they're raising our taxes? It's rubbish, utter rubbish if you ask me. Soon they'll tax the legs we stand on." Mr. Sero just smiled and said "Why worry about taxes when the sun shines so," and he looked up at the blue sky and sighed contentedly. "I worry because I'm the one paying them," and glancing at Mr. Sero condescendingly, he said with contempt "not sitting on a park bench staring at the sun all day." Unperturbed, Mr. Sero replied "It is not just the sun I look at. I look at the animals, the people that pass, the colors of the trees - how they glow at sunset - the stars, the majestic face of the moon.." and interrupting him the man cried out "rubbish! I've heard enough; have your trees," and he got up and walked away. 

Sero noticed that at some point his wallet had fallen out of his pocket and lay on the ground beside him. "Ah, I'll get it in a moment; I am content right now. I am happy and not fretful." He shut his eyes briefly and sleep took him. When he woke, his wallet was no longer beside him. A young boy with a Fur hat sat playing on the grass. He called out to him and said "hey mister, someone ran up and stole your wallet while you were asleep; I seen him." "It's okay," Mr Sero said, "I hadn't much money in it anyway. I can make more later." The boy, donning a mischievous smile, proud at having deceived the old man, asked "have you got any snacks? My mom has been sick and hasn't been well enough to cook supper." Mr. Sero took the last piece of bread from his pocket and handed it to the boy as he said "here, it's my last bit of food, but I know that when I need more it will find its way to me; all hunger passes." Like a bird stealing bread, the boy covetously snatched it from his hand and flew away.

When night fell he had the shadows to keep him company. The stars sparkled above him as the breeze rushed through the trees. Out of the darkness a dog appeared and slowly moved toward him. Bearing its teeth as it inched closer, it began to snarl and growl. Rabid foam settled on the sides of its jaws like cotton. It's ears pulled back behind its head as though held by an invisible hand. Mr Sero felt it was too late to do anything now, and he sat still, thinking maybe the animal would realize he wasn't a threat. He smiled at the creature and showed his bare palms as a gesture of peace. Responding to the movement, the dog lunged at him, mauling and tearing the flesh from his leg. With a rush of white, and fading black, Sero lost consciousness from the pain.

When he woke the sun was rising, he heard the sound of hurried footfalls. Without looking up, he knew it was Mrs Festinavit on her jog. He stared down at his leg and saw a considerable portion of blood had escaped the place where the dog had attacked him, and as he touched the wound he felt only numbness. Mrs Festinavit, saddened by the sight of him said, "I have seen you here for several days now, and I fear you have never once moved. You appear to be growing thin, and pale. And, is that blood?! You are hurt! Mr. Sero we must get you a doctor." "No no, that isn't yet necessary. I'm not in any pain, it's just a nasty bite. It will heal, there is time for that. When I need to be concerned I will do what I have to," Mr Sero replied smiling and shooing her off, encouraging her to continue her run. "I am going to get a doctor this minute Mr Sero, this is no time to sit and wait! I pray that I will not be too late."

When she returned with the doctor, Mr. Sero was no longer there. His blood dripped down from the green seat into the earth below. Pollen, falling from the trees - light pink and orange - collected in the small red puddle slowly seeping. His old coat hung from the bench, fluttering gently like a sheet on a line.

Narcromancing with Anubis

Strange dreams troubled me last night. Dreams of talking homeless dogs and shopping for shoes to wear at Burning Man. Then dreams of eating overly buttered desserts at a coworker's surprise birthday party and lying about the taste. In the dream I inadvertently ruined the surprise by signing the birthday card as she walked by, allowing her to see it. 

I kept waking and sleeping, starting and stopping in cycles like a narcoleptic. When I slept, dreams of necromancy overtook me - my unconscious mind repeatedly resuscitated - it was narcromancy.

I dreamt about mashing maggots off of the corpses of cats and long dead mummified humans, reanimating them. It was very Egyptian, in hindsight. One woman, saved from the clutches of death, was upset at having been resurrected and fought me. Another, a child, cried during reawakening. Her head wholly reassembled, but her body still a motionless leathery corpse adorned with insects and flies. The bones of her ribs hanging bare and exposed like some macabre birdcage. The smell was not something that I can relay with words. She may have shit her diaper, badly.

That last dream, which took place between 5:20 and 6:00am, was one of the more bizarre dreams I've had in some time. I felt strangely detached from it, almost like I was playing a video-game. I was competing with old J.C., trying to beat his high-score, in a race to save as many souls as I could before time ran out. I did so indiscriminately; dogs, cats, snakes, women, children. Who would save their souls from me? 

What does it all mean? Was the talking dog Anubis?  That's dangerously similar to the word anus; and it has the word bi in it. Or maybe it's prophecy: soon I will have a new bus.

After I woke, I imagined the horror of waking inside a dead body. Your open eyes, made pale by the blackness of death, suddenly blinded by shafts of light sharp like glass. Inhaling into collapsed lungs, gasping for air but unable to breathe. Your twitching heart like a peeled grapefruit black with rot, cramped and painfully spasming. Numbness transformed, transfixed; terror and anguish. 

In a way, rebirth becomes merely a second death - death's death - perhaps more painful than the first.

Life, then, to those dead, becomes a fate more feared. 

I've Got a Bike

I've got a bike.

For Burning Man.

Typing the words I've got a bike, remind me of the Pink Floyd song Bike. I recently spoke with someone close to me about the musicianship of Pink Floyd, and how regretful it is that I don't listen to them anymore. I have old and underage memories of the gang of us listening to One of These Days in the dark of my friend RJ's attic while we drank St. Ides Special Brew in secret. Yuck. We knew it was a horrid drink even then; we drank it anyway. Once I chugged an entire 32 ounce bottle, precipitating an immediate discharge of thick foam from my throat, frothing from my mouth like a slurpee machine in a 7-Eleven. Good times. Anyway, I would turn off all the lights and man the switches, creating a poor-boy's light-show that required more imagination than skill. The lights were the dimming kind and I would use them to dazzle my drunken and stoned comrades, hurling photons at their retinas, causing their pupils to relax and contract with the music. Inducing a seizure would've been the ultimate compliment. Sadly, it never happened.

As I got older, the lyrics became more meaningful to me. We would drink, by that time having graduated to Budweiser, and armed with a 40 and an acoustic guitar, I'd whip everyone up into a drunken dirge of a sing-along to Wish You Were Here. I remember the day I got my license, after passing my road-test and returning home, excited by the new freedom this little piece of paper afforded me, my dad handed me the car keys - granting me permission, without saying a word, to go wherever I wanted. I raced down the stairs to the white Chevy Malibu that awaited me, flung open the door and hopped inside. The key slid into the ignition and the car began to hum. Cooly, I adjusted my seat and the mirrors, pulled the seat-belt across my chest and heard that satisfying click when it locked into place. With a thunk, I pushed in the button to turn on the radio, and I heard the sound of a cash-register opening, paper tearing, change falling; that familiar bass-line; Money. A slow smile spread across my face like butter. I turned the volume up as loud as it would go, and drove off toward whatever was ahead.

I remember really enjoying Shine on You Crazy Diamond, and Echoes. Songs you could get lost in. Sometimes, songs you could get found in. Music is a wondrous thing. Powerful in its ability to affect. The crashing sounds like waves wrap themselves around you, soaking you in sentiment, trying to pull you out to sea. Come to think of it, music isn't that much different than the sea. Both are vast, can be sailed on or drowned in, can be serene or tumultuous, dark and bottomless, beautiful. When we listen, we're all like versions of Ulysses. Wow, I can't even believe the shit that I'm spewing right now. Did I chug another Special Brew? It's deplorable. Let me fix this:

"Overhead the albatross 
Hangs motionless upon the air 
And deep beneath the rolling waves 
In labyrinths of coral caves 
An echo of a distant time 
Comes willowing across the sand 
And everything is green and submarine. 

And no one called us to the land 
And no one knows the where's or why's. 
Something stirs and something tries 
Starts to climb toward the light. 

Strangers passing in the street 
By chance two separate glances meet 
And I am you and what I see is me. 
And do I take you by the hand 
And lead you through the land 
And help me understand 
The best I can. 

And no one called us to the land 
And no one crosses there alive. 
No one speaks and no one tries 
No one flies around the sun

Almost everyday you fall 
Upon my waking eyes, 
Inviting and inciting me 
To rise. 
And through the window in the wall 
Come streaming in on sunlight wings 
A million bright ambassadors of morning. 

And no one sings me lullabys 
And no one makes me close my eyes 
So I throw the windows wide 
And call to you across the sky"

HAPPY 50TH

My 50th post. Time moves fast. I remember it like it was just yesterday - my first post. I've come such a long way since then; my sentences make a little bit more sense now. I had hoped by now to be Dostoyevsky. Wow, I spelled that correctly on my first try; proof that I'm well on my way.

My legs always ache after a night of drinking, even when drinking moderately. I've always thought this was a strange side-effect and assumed I was suffering from some secret and life-threatening illness. Perhaps a parasitic insect burrowing into the marrow of my shins and knees like a drunken termite, turning my bones into sawdust. While I slept someone must've played whack-a-mole on my legs, bludgeoning the heads of my knees with big black dildos like mallets. Turns out it's fairly common; the leg pain, not the dildos. Dehydration; who would've known? Thanks Google! I'm in desperate need of some electrolytes. I think maybe I'll rub a banana all over my calves and ankles. I need fucking potassium goddamnit! Have you ever noticed how the inside of a banana peel looks like an anus? Try it; it's science.

I went with the Profuser earlier to get something healthy to eat for lunch. It took much persistence and steadfast refusal on my part, to deter him from the Vietnamese sandwich place he wanted to dine at, but I finally convinced him to go with me to Roam. They have a solid veggie-burger, and I felt it would alleviate some of my guilt from last night's calorie cavalcade. But when I got to the counter, the cute blonde-haired blue-eyed cashier forced a bison-burger on me, saying only faggots eat veggie-burgers, and that if I got one, she would have the cook cum on the bun before serving it to me. Manonnaise she called it. She asked me, rhetorically, if I was a bitch and she slapped me across the face for "even thinking about getting a veggie-burger." She told me I "was going to get a bison-burger and I was going to like it." Shocked, I looked at the Profuser, and looking at the cashier he said, "make that two." It turned out she was right, it was a pretty good burger.

We left and ventured back to his place. On our way, we passed lifelike sculptures - which approached Madame Tussauds quality - of people placed in different positions along the sidewalk. One, a child, dancing around a stop-sign, another of an old woman waiting for the bus holding bags of groceries. Others stood mid-embrace, a woman reading a book on a bench with her feet reclined, businessmen talking. It was eerie, and I wished I had my camera. I was suddenly worried he had slipped some mushrooms into my burger while we were eating, but when I saw other people observing the statues I relaxed. Once at his apartment we watched a couple episodes of Drunk History, and I departed to capture what remained of the day.

I roamed the streets, meandering without direction. I saw a woman confined to a chair, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers outside of a popular micro-brewery. Firefighters and medics held her in place asking her questions as her eyes rolled around in their sockets like cue-balls. It was unclear what was happening, but the presence of the firetruck made the spectacle more...spectacular. I continued walking, peering into the occasional shop casually browsing wares. I want to write a story about a ware-wolf, a lone bargain hunter split from the pack, seeking sales and miscellaneous merchandise in the moonlight.

After losing interest in my perambulations, my dogs like wolves howling, I decided I should make my way somewhere with seating. Earlier, when I left the Profuser, I told him and his lady that I'd text them about dinner. I took my phone out to text him, and after I unlocked it, it died in my hand. I figured I'd grab some groceries and head home to charge it. Whenever I charge any electronic device, I always have a gavel and a black cloak handy. And one of those fancy powdered wigs.

They say absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. That's why I never charge my phone to 100%.

Bananus

Bears Repeating

From last night, before sleep took me:

I just got home.  It's after midnight. I'd promised myself I'd disallow writing a blog. Apparently, someone has lost a battle. Who? I spoke with many different people about Burning Man, too many. Cab drivers, close friends, acquaintances, nobodies. I thought of old friends, old lovers, recent lovers and recent friends. The night was fluid, I instated no order.

But now, I've arrived home and I need to focus my intention. I need to ensure I'm remaining constantly intelligible, relatable and relevant. So many news stories lately, all armed with the power to divide. Whether from the right or left, all the news just serves to divide. What unifies? What promotes solidarity and cohesion? A common enemy? A common good? A noble cause. A Barnes and Noble clause.

Have I ever relayed the story of how my first real job was at a Barnes & Noble? Oh what a terrible experience it was. The only job I've had to quit due to sheer mental anguish. Never again, or so they say. I feel like that's something we say to ourselves, but even as we say it we know we don't mean it. It's something we say as we drive through the McDonald's 'drive-thru' of our hearts. I said it to myself tonight. It's appalling I'd repeat it here. Like posting a dirty photograph of myself.

I don't even know what I'm writing. I've been letting the music carry me away. I haven't even given a thought to the types of things I'd say. But I guess the realization of this is an indication of its untruth.

I've started reading Joyce; I know, I've said that in a previous post, but it bears repeating. He is a master. A lord. I wish I was reading him right now instead of writing this. I wonder if anything was lost as a result of the shift from writing to typing. Is there something inherently more beautiful about a practiced pen diligently scratching against the page? Or has the type-writer revolutionized literature in a way that is wholly positive? Who knows.

I was born after the pen-to-the-page method, so I think I'm the most able to say that the means do not matter. Content matters. Whether written, typed, or passed through lips. The thoughts never spoken though, perhaps possess the most duende of all.

"In his brilliant lecture entitled "The Theory and Function of Duende" Federico García Lorca attempts to shed some light on the eerie and inexplicable sadness that lives in the heart of certain works of art. "All that has dark sound has duende", he says, "that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain." In contemporary rock music, the area in which I operate, music seems less inclined to have its soul, restless and quivering, the sadness that Lorca talks about. Excitement, often; anger, sometimes: but true sadness, rarely, Bob Dylan has always had it. Leonard Cohen deals specifically in it. It pursues Van Morrison like a black dog and though he tries to he cannot escape it. Tom Waits and Neil Young can summon it. It haunts Polly Harvey. My friends the Dirty Three have it by the bucket load. The band Spiritualized are excited by it. Tindersticks desperately want it, but all in all it would appear that duende is too fragile to survive the brutality of technology and the ever increasing acceleration of the music industry. Perhaps there is just no money in sadness, no dollars in duende. Sadness or duende needs space to breathe. Melancholy hates haste and floats in silence. It must be handled with care." All love songs must contain duende. For the love song is never truly happy. It must first embrace the potential for pain. Those songs that speak of love without having within in their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at all but rather Hate Songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness and our God-given right to be sad and the air-waves are littered with them. The love song must resonate with the susurration of sorrow, the tintinnabulation of grief. The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil - the enduring metaphor of Christ crucified between two criminals comes to mind here - so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering"


- Nick Cave

Fee-fi-fo-fum my Mind is a Crumb

Sometimes I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Like everything I've done up to this point has been part of some great invisible misstep. I'm nothing more than a duplicitous doppelgänger, a cunning imposter who successfully fooled all the necessary parties; most importantly, himself. Is this what I want? Is this where I want to be? Enslaved to a giant beast. The hours of my life, mangled in the cold greased steel - insatiable - incessantly churning. 

My mind is fried. No, if it were, that would actually be a welcome sensation. A nice rich, high-calorie, oily fatty mass of delicious goodness; like funnel-cake. Instead, my mind has been devoured of anything of substance, the marrow sucked clean, and the scraps fed to a dog. What remains are crumbs. My mind is crumbs.

I suppose it's best not to dwell too much on these things. Soon I will have release. A city of blackened rocks calls to me through the darkness, promising me nothing, granting me even less, but allowing for everything. Until then, there is a wrench wedged in the gears of my mind, grinding and straining the normal function of the system, causing it to overheat and shut down. I have nothing witty beautiful humorous positive or interesting to say. I'm like a waste basket full of discarded and useless thoughts, old newspapers fed to a flame.

A chill I can't shake off. A promise, like a thin thread-bare blanket, light as a shadow, is all that covers me. Thoughts of an enormous flaming figure and images of effigies burning brightly against the dark do what they can to warm my frozen frame. 

Bunyuns

I'm drained like the batteries in a fat girl's vibrator.

It's been a long day, a long, long day.

I began reading James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and so far it is lovely. It's less like reading and more like listening to music. There's a beautiful fluidity to it, the way thoughts compose themselves in a dream.

There were things that I could've written about, things that I had wanted to write about, but I don't have the time or the energy. Remind me tomorrow to talk about analiths, too much no-talent and the stoicism of bunions. Bunions, kind of like Funyuns, but bad. Or is it that Funyuns are bad too, and perhaps improperly named.