The Heretics of Cloud Gazing

Chapter 2, Castaic to Modesto

2011-12-01T17:14:00.002-05:00

Hitchhiking seemed the next option. I don't know why. Adventure, the desire to see America, a love of Steinbeck and Guthrie, the fear of dying without stories; I've given every one of these excuses. But the honest truth is that I am a man who does not understand anything. I know a lot. But I honestly don't understand anything. I make connections and call them clarity. I study anything I can and it's meaning remains elusive. I always live in the unspoken hope of finding that bit that sings, that unifying thought that blankets the mistrust and confusion and half-reality of consciousness and makes me feel solid... like I'm not just barely holding myself upright, like dizziness and failure aren't a slip of concentration from each moment.

. . .

We drove through the early morning, the light diesel traffic and occasional road trip and talked. Jorge told me about growing up in Northern Mexico and then the fields of rural California. He'd gone to school, seemed a very intelligent and kind man. His co-pilot was a different animal, though. He had been a driver for this company for years, had a very good reputation, was very well liked. And then one day, he showed up for work a little late, smelled a bit of alcohol. From there it got worse. The other drivers worked extra, helping him with his runs, covering up for him as much as possible. Most of the drivers didn't have paperwork, so this was an exponential increase in the amount of danger they placed themselves in. An accident in California with no paperwork could easily lead to deportation. Eventually it got too much, and management got involved and he was fired, Jorge promoted to take his routes. He was a married man with children, in his 30's at least. No one knew how it had happened. He had gotten that far, and the drink crept in. When he lost his job, he became absolutely disabled by alcohol. His wife found some small work, and he quietly drank himself out of his own life. And when his wife died, he was a severe alcoholic with two small children and no functionality.

. . .

I have always had a fascination with the failure of what we have created. A man’s shadow is caste most distinctly from the dereliction of his passion, the resonance of his mistakes, maybe the broken lean of a former pride. I am a romantic man. This old highway itself, while a predictable and pragmatic tool in this agricultural heaven, is a soft hand that holds together the half-formed dreams of men so very long lost. Men whose love is land have guided their way over it’s crumbling shape for years. The blacktop has grayed, the division between road and field has itself slipped into a new soil. The yellow lines are mostly theoretical now.
We rumbled over the road watching the rusting balers and long stopped trucks as they continued their forgotten amble into entropy. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by them. Their romance seems to lie in their clearly circular functionality. The pride a man once had in creating or purchasing such a thing to curb the ability of nature to behave naturally, has been left to nature to naturally pull it into the earth. From a man’s pride to it’s opposite number, which would be a dispassionate release of interest. From a pragmatic functionary to aesthetic statuary.

Chapter 2, Bits Removed

2011-12-01T12:30:00.003-05:00

This second chapter has taken me forever to write. I started it in Montana over a year ago. I usually edit while I'm writing, constantly going back and forth between the two, but was never happy with the results. I finished it today after reading some of my older Heretics posts, in particular "Hope" and "May Day", and Mikey's comments on them.

Zo and The Tzipper and I went out to California a few weeks back to introduce the nugget to the family. On the trip, I got the opportunity to go running in Towsley Canyon with Mikey. Do you remember Rocky IV? The fight between Apollo Creed and Drago? Well, I was Apollo Creed (I do look a bit like Carl Weathers, actually), Towsley was Drago, and Mikey was Rocky. But instead of Rocky trying to throw in the towel, he was asking if I wanted to run another one and a half mile spur. And Apollo Creed was killed by Drago.

But overall, it was an incredible chance to push myself beyond comfort and look at rocks while hallucinating and discussing the influence of cosmologists on a healthy childhood. Reading Mikey's comments reminded me of the run, and the relative importance of sometimes accepting what you are momentarily capable of and just pushing through to the end. You can always go back and re-write.

Having said that, I was easily able to traverse the hills. And since Mikey was attacked by a mountain lion along the way which I heroically fought off and stuffed with a bit of honeycomb, it was also neccessary for me to carry him upon my majestic shoulders nearly 37 miles which did include a volcano, killer bees, and multiple math problems involving trains hurtling from one place to another.

These are not excerpts from the second chapter. They are actually bits that I cut out, because they didn't fit. But I really liked them.

. . .

I remember reading that William Burroughs became a fence and a junky to gain the life experience that his affluent youth and Harvard education had failed to provide for a young writer. I was pretty impressed by that at the time.

But really, how silly is that? I remember getting the shit kicked out of me in the bathroom at a Denny’s one night. I didn’t make me a writer. It made me a crap fighter who couldn’t stop a guy from kicking the shit out of me. Willing yourself toward hardship makes you stupid, not heroic or brilliant. I can’t imagine that there was some perfect moment where young Billy sat on the sofa in his dirty one-room with a needle, a dropper, and a vial of morphine and thought, “Well for fuck’s sake, I sure don’t want to be a junky, but it beats the hell out of getting a teaching job.” Maybe he did. Affluence and privilege do very odd things to a man.

. . .

I used to live outside of Oxnard, the strawberry capital of the state. Here, “strawberry season” was a marketing concept, an excuse to momentarily drop prices to reignite the excitement about the small berry every spring. The berries, no less red, no less sweet, grew from the ground in long ribbons for miles from the back roads of Oxnard in the hardest of California winters. Sometimes the rows would be covered with a sort of semi-circular tent on very cold nights, the fields planted with great long caterpillars stretching to the foothills in the distance, luminescent in the reflection of the lights of passing automobiles.

California is a half reality. We don’t have winter. Our climate is a zip code, an area code, a neighborhood. From Los Angeles, the nexus of California, the second largest desert in the world is an hour drive. The Pacific Ocean is the western boundary. The Sierra Nevada Mountains, the great rocky spine of the state, are a two hour drive. The lush green of Southern California is landscaping, a paradise stolen from desert oblivion. Despite our vast resources (oil, mineral deposits, agriculture), our greatest export is a kind of carefully distilled reality. We speak in a television accent, we manufacture hope or escape, turmoil and peace. Los Angeles is a city of up to 15 million people with no real downtown. You can spend the day driving through Los Angeles, making eye contact with tens of thousands of people and not talk with a single one. It is a desolation curiously populated by millions of strangers, eager to exist compartmentalized from humanity.

San Francisco in the north exsists curiously detached from the rest of the state. It is the theoretical soul of California. It is an intelligent city, beautiful in its architecture, thoughtful in its cultural resonance. Its liberal brilliance is hardly echoed in the scared and desperate conservatism of the rest of the state, the nervous xenophobia or narrow middle ground cautiously and methodically dry humped to mediocrity out of fear and greed.

Ventura

2011-07-06T08:44:00.002-04:00

I curled up into its waiting hand,
a crook,
a nestle;
Rage and wrack itself in the standing night and coming waves.

Rock footing,
the edge of the dark,
the edge of the sea:
our limit
each time cut in folding waters
and forgotten in the electric feedback
and helpless quiet, and the
trembling,
shaking awe
of whatever it is that's missing.

May Day

2011-05-01T21:56:00.001-04:00

I have a job.

It’s a little peculiar. I’m 35 years old now, and I’ve been doing a lot of stuff for a while. But now, at 35, I have to be honest. I have a job.

I expected by this point in my life to have a career, some sort of trajectory, a vector; momentum, with a specified direction. And to be true, I have a sort of career industry. I have an education in a specified field coupled with years of hard-fought, positive experience with a number of very good references. And most people would call this a career. I work within this field, seem to have a positive reputation, and show up to work everyday with a smile and a good word for the people around me.

But it’s this nagging “trajectory” thing. A year from today? Five years?

Today is International Worker’s Day. This is one of the few holidays that I have actively celebrated during my adult life. But today, I worked for 14 hours and didn’t have time to eat. And my staff worked right beside me just the same, all day, no food. And this has become common.

And I feel fucking awful.

I have spent my life working toward achieving a position such as the one that I now have. And I have spent my life believing from the absolute marrow of my bones in the freedom of men and women to exist unburdened by wage slavery, believed that life is measured by its quality.

But here I am. I am that complete bastard.

I want to spend the rest of this night apologizing to these people, apologizing to every one of them who have trusted me to make their lives better. But there is nothing to apologize for. They are like me, and are thankful for the paycheck. They are quietly struggling in the same blind way, blunted by necessity and willing to give up the things we all know for the hope to struggle long enough to see a light, to see an end.

But when you don’t know where that end is coming from, then you don’t really have any direction.

And again, a failed trajectory.

I am sitting in my apartment in the dark listening to Billy Bragg and drinking stolen tea eight hours from my next shift, one hour from my last shift and wondering, only wondering what Arshinov would do with a corporate job and a small baby on the way.

Hope

2011-04-14T18:27:00.002-04:00

Hope is the one idea implied in every beginning.

Not success or failure, accomplishment, or discovery. Without hope, we wouldn't even bother to start. Not even responsibility is greater. If I set out to do anything just because I have to, I am only doing it in hopes of avoiding the consequences of not doing it.

Those murky waters of the corporate world are waters that drown, that cover disquiet. These are not waters that quench or cleanse. I've found myself a bit deeper into these waters lately.

When I am home I wonder what the purpose of some of these mass tactics are. Negative reinforcement, an atmosphere of fear, a lack of literal conversation free of implied failure, misunderstanding honesty as casual disregard.

Are these reflections of lives or statements of purpose, these curses breathed as breaths, these dismissals of respect as weakness? How did I get here?

I awoke yesterday in the the quiet sunrise of a California summer, maybe 5 years ago. I awoke in the light mummy bag I used when I slept in the alley behind Modernica Furniture back in Hollywood those years ago. I awoke relaxed and happy to be alive, all purpose and positivity, my head resting on my shoes, my notebook and the novel I was reading tight against my ribs within the bag.

I was happier then.

Now I have a beautiful wife who would give anything for me, a child on the way, a wonderful home surrounded by the people I love. I live a couple of blocks from everything I desire, I no longer own a car, my books and guitars filling my quiet time like never before, Steve Earle gently playing on the record player.

And I am not the man that I should be.

I figured out all of this very early. My first dreams were solitary and strong. By the time I had reached adolescence, my friends had chosen colleges and cars, careers and religions and wives.

I had this dream. I wanted one day: I wanted to buy a small amount of land somewhere remote. I wanted to build a small home; just a room, really. I could work a part time job to pay for food, beans, rice, vegetables, coffee. And that's it. A guitar, some books, a bicycle maybe. There was no telephone, no people. Just solitude and the magical feeling of waking at dawn and knowing that you are the only person who exists.

Somewhere this dream changed, came apart. Some for the better. A life without my wife would hardly be called life. Our child soon to come is impossible, a hope too great to comprehend. I didn't even know New York City existed then, eight million Turks and Greeks and Mexicans and Morroccans and Jews all miraculously frying things and putting them in flatbreads.

But the things that I inately understood were communicated through my experience in this dream. I understood that I could not live bound. I understood that I could not live with dishonesty or excess. I understood that the greatest strength lies in a straight line, and that my freedom is the song of my soul. But most of all, I understood that I am only my own strength.

Before I awoke in this sun, I was sleepless. I paced within my mind, unable to tie together the very simple notions that I had lived for for so long. I was afraid, not an easy or familiar feeling. I was lonely for the man I am.

Somehow, I'd slipped from hopeful to something less, something inadequate, something unfortunate. But I'm not doing this again.

Jakob started writing a story about a small girl with a hammer, slowing tearing down the walls of a city. Kevin once said that a wall that lay upon his path would have to be torn down. Mikey always runs; but it is not what he pursues, nor what pursues him, but the run itself. Zohar recreates our lives every three days, forever willing us toward uncertainty; this is the only direction for hope.

I gave up this dream a few years back. But now...Mikey, Zo, Jakob, Kevin...all of my friends really, have created the walls of a small home that are so much stronger than the walls that I could build myself.

And those murky waters? They are shallow, and they are burned up by this sun. I am stronger than this.

Chapter 1, An Explanation of the Dilemma

2010-06-23T03:13:00.002-04:00

Nothing ever starts at the beginning. The beginning is a non-descript accumulation of events, controlled or not, a texture of happenings whose echoes somehow fall into recognizable lines in retrospect, a shadow that might announce a presence after the tea has been served. The start is the event that you understand and set your watch by.

A war starts with a bullet and an archduke, but begins with the unnoticed heightening of tensions between vendors in a border town, in a lovers’ quarrel that is not quieted by simple walls or common decency, an inopportune cough in a village church during the wrong hymn.

This all started at 7 am on the day after my 29th birthday with $300 and a ride up to the 5 North. It began when I was misplaced from the womb, a rambling and unacceptable 12 days late 29 years earlier, in the middle of the mild California winter. I imagine I was cold and I was pissed. I think that’s reasonable. It began the first time I ran away from home on my bicycle, unnoticed, mostly enticed by the thought of fresh donuts and living in the trees near Lytle Creek. I am sure that there are thousands of people who didn’t give up early and still live in the trees and shrubbery near Lytle Creek to this day, subsisting on fresh donuts and good vibes, living dreams that most people could not imagine; their unused BMX bikes rusting by the stone strewn creek bed and ignoring the memories of classic rock and Little League baseball. Not me, though.

. . .

It began with the revelation that grandpa Hicks was a casual car thief and pool hustler, nobody knows how many times Uncle Bill has been married, Uncle Ed was a champion motorcycle rider when he was already in his 50’s, Aunt Sissy knew the original Hell’s Angels, pop never told anybody about his secret Army commendations and medals, grandpa Hope raised sea otters and hunted bald eagles, and all of Carl Sandburg’s photos were taken in profile because he had a bum eye.

It began with a love of soccer, girls with big noses, songs that could make me cry, John Steinbeck, intentionally getting lost, Isabel Bishop, the atmospheric music of Brian Stearns, cheap falafel, mistreated guitars, Rebekah’s enigmatic smile, decaying industrial architecture and its implements. Especially decaying industrial architecture and its implements

Homesick

2010-02-01T03:25:00.006-05:00

California finds me all at once most nights; a shy whisper in the back of my head whose breath I follow down the black skeleton of highway, up the spine of the 5 and across the scattered bones in memories. Flooding across the 152 that drowns the sweet smell of fresh garlic, the cool green vineyards of the 20 through the longest summer, the bleak stone and sand of the 15 that feel so out of place outside of dusk, the sad echoes of the hopes I’ve left across the highways as I wandered through my life; scattered seeds lying awake by the side of the road, still as expectation, awaiting some berth, awaiting some song I just don't know. I’ll never stop dreaming these dreams. Steinbeck’s people, Kerouac’s search, Snyder’s mountains, and some things closer: my dad’s stories of surfing and cheap wine, grandpa’s perfect Spanish and the Ford he drove from Missouri.

Who knows? Is it all somehow real? There is some religion to it, sure. I grew with the burnt kiss of sun on me, freckles the marks of kisses like a proof of passion, a passing love. I grew from the fruit of stolen pomegranates and barely ripe avocados, fault lines and granite a mystery soil that birthed a boy fed by the tributaries of Sierra creeks that slip homesick into the blessing of the Pacific. Every night warmer than a tender heart, each morning a beauty that could break a god.

It's a lonesome word that falls from my mouth, forever changing before it strikes whatever earth I wait upon to return.

An August Night

2009-08-04T05:43:00.001-04:00

And so he said, so completely without reflection: “I can’t remember what’s wrong with me.”

Of course this is not the whole story. There was something wrong, and it was something lost. It was a course, or a dream, or a reflection. It was not a tangible thing. But it was lost.

It was a haunted thing. You must understand that. He said just that in his head:

“It was a haunted thing that I cannot understand.”

He did his best to find it. He tried on first the red sweater and then the blue cardigan but neither fit completely. Odd, for such familiar things. He looked for the old wingtips, the ones from the thrift store that he’d never quite gotten around to polishing until the wax caught in the broken leather bindings and the laces were frayed. They weren’t here, but he remembered those in the echoes of an old song about boats and a little violin.

He walked first one way and then the next, but neither was right, nor either was neither left.

So he did.

And he did not echo or shadow or reflect in some surface.

He just did, as sometimes, people might.

Movement, the first 1/4.

2009-05-19T05:25:00.003-04:00

In January of 2005, I left. I packed up some books and a sleeping bag, some warm clothes, a map, $300, and I left. I hitchhiked from Los Angeles to Reno, from Reno to New York, from New York to Savannah, from Savannah to Austin, from Austin to Phoenix, and from Phoenix to Los Angeles.

In May of 2007, settled warmly into my Manhattan home, I began drawing together my letters, notes, a few rocks, that map, and a couple of mediocre poems that I'd written along my way in the winter of 2005 to write a book. Since then, I've moved 5 times, gotten married, and I now live in Montana.

I've slowly been trying to write this book, and it's really hard. Early on, I began confiding in Timmy. I began sending him very short excerpts from each chapter as I finished it. A quarter into this mess, here they are, bits from the first seven chapters.

I'll see you in New York.

1. Faith is the pajamas you wear into the night. And sure, there are always people who want to say they sleep naked, but naked is just the new pajamas anyway.

2. I could drive this drive forever. Up the 5, through the alfalfa fields and almond groves. Most of the dreams I’d once carried fell down by the highway and are probably here some place, I imagine; green and alive and still waiting to bear.

3. We drove down piles of forgotten highways in the hidden footsteps of old California, down alleyways of structurally failing warehouses and overgrown fields, no longer identifiable by their former crop, their neglected patterns and grids, the unwashed flash of their half-remembered human care.

4. But there was this section of the 10 that still feels like mine. It’s in between Cedar and Cherry, from my mom’s house to my aunt’s old place in Fontana. It’s a shambles representative of everything around it: mostly overgrown with bits of fox tails, the hanging unkept eucalyptus, the debris from a million open car windows and dead hearts. And it feels like home every time I ever cross into it, a burden that I hold until I leave and then a burden that I miss.

5. I walk across the empty wedge of lawn huddled between the road and the truck stop driveway; a lonely stretch of living, that grass. I cross into the sliding robot doors and look through the aisles until the black heaven of coffee sings (albeit discordant) the woe of sullen burn and cost-effective bean. Comfort for me usually comes in a porcelain mug beneath the drift of steam, black as the bones of some lesser devil, forever burning, forever jovial.

6. “It’s okay, I’ve got my bag. It’s inlaid with a thin mesh of circuitry that sends signals to the white vans telling them that I’m still awake and watching cartoons and eating peanut butter cereal and not to probe me.”
“Okay, wait. Are they supposed to be aliens or the government?”
“You know Jonie, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were with them. I mean, who but they would even try to distinguish? I mean, didn’t you ever see ‘They Live!’?”
“Doesn’t that have that wrestler in it?”
“Yeah, the Scottish one. And the Scottish may be the greatest fighters in the world because they not only win, but humiliate. If you are macho enough to want to fight some dude, then you are definitely macho enough to be painfully embarrassed about getting your ass kicked by a man in a dress. I mean, I usually have to pay quite a bit of money for something like that, but romance is romance as they say, and not something for light pockets, conservative sensibilities, or to be wasted on the Italians.”

7. I can’t remember the first time that I saw the Pacific Ocean. I was a very small fellow, perhaps still incapable of flight. But I remember standing on the shore when I was sixteen at Huntington or Balboa in the midday sun, just before the sea turns to fire as the sun edges close to kiss. I spent most of those years in books trying to outrun something I had not yet named, but would eventually be god, or would be love, would settle finally on myself. But I had just read of the Pacific Ocean, of its immensity and beauty, and here I stood on a day I was expected in school, a skinny hoodlum wondering. I remember seeing it for something greater than a body of water, the crushing enormity of the frothing smile over its little teeth of maybe rock or maybe coral or maybe the prowling bones of some Mesozoic predator with a smile all its own. It is something like reacquainting yourself with an old friend who has lately been made the President of the World. Do you bow? Do you pick up the check?

Madder Rose

2009-04-17T03:42:00.003-04:00

How amazing is this life?

I've had a pretty bad week. I am not a man who easily maintains a median attitude toward life and I indeed fall toward the extreme in most things. This week I have been very sad.

I'm not real sure why, it's just the way things are.

So I'm here, my bones just strong enough to keep this insomnia from pulling me down to sleep. Just strong enough to keep me sitting up directionless and hopeful so that I can get past this tonight and spend Shabbat with my wife, eating and laughing and enjoying one another's company, as is usually the case.

The hope of joy is always a weight to troubles.

I am drifting awake from place to place and cup to cup of herbal tea. Chamomile reminds me of playing guitar with Erik. Licorice reminds me of the really sad nights with Ella when she cried and cried until it was time to go to bed and cry alone. My wife drinks a rose tea that reminds me of being a kid, sitting in the sun and feeding roses to our tortoises. It makes me sad to think of places that aren't covered in six inches of snow halfway through April.

I imagine that I will go to sleep this way, and awake the same.

There was this point in high school when I didn't know anyone (except Kevin, 100 miles away) who loved the music that I was so in love with. My Bloody Valentine, Unrest, the KItchens of Distinction, Ride, the Cranes, Madder Rose, the Blake Babies...I could sit here all night telling you about the the chorus to "Saturn 5" by the Inspiral Carpets, that first guitar coming in on "Happy" from Ned's Atomic Dustbin, that tragic line from the Bats ("Just you wait, there will be morning skies, bringing you some peace tonight...") carving its way across my bones like a clumsy butcher, the hopelessness of "Spiral" closing out the first side of "Ring" by the Connells, a song so final that it would take an insistant knock at the door, an environmental tragedy, sensational auditory and visual hallucinations maybe, just to get you to get up and flip over the tape.

For a while there, I had a celebrity crush on Juliana Hatfield. I know, she was hardly a celebrity. But she could write an amazing pop song. The hours would disappear in moments as I listened to "Hey, Babe" or the singles for "Forever Baby" or "I See You" while drinking pots of coffee and writing bad poetry about whatever it was I was sure the government was trying to get out of me from the cameras hidden in the trees outside of my window. In retrospect, that almost sounds crazy.

Except it's absolutely true.

After a couple of years of sending good (desperate, pitiful) vibes her way, Juliana Hatfield finally answered my call and came out to see me under the pretense of touring to support her new record. She was a clever minx. Kevin and I went out to see her at the Roxy and it was incredible. Sure, she was everything that I expected, she was great. But what grabbed me was the guitarist for the opening band, Madder Rose. Billy Cote swayed and strummed with an energy that was impossible over waves of effects and modulations of previous effects in a world that was his, an incredible bullet of soul that tore the air around him into the shapes that he desired. And yet, he did not stand apart from the band. Mary Lorson delivered her beautifully heart-stopping lyrics with a poetic simplicity over her own guitar with Matt Verta-Ray and Billy Kick building the house that they would kick over song after song. And yeah, I remember their names. They hit me pretty hard.

After the show, I waited with Kevin for a while to try and meet Juliana Hatfield but that never materialized. He got tired and left, and I kind of wandered around to the load-in part of the back.

Madder Rose sat in their spent glory in the back of their van, drinking beer and hanging out together. I wandered over and gushed a bit. They were very nice, we talked about the bands we liked, playing music that nobody cared about, and I sat on the edge of the van. Eventually some other guy wandered over to gush in a similar fashion and we all started talking to him. His name was Mike Watt, and he was just as cool as they were. It was a really good night.

The only real problem with the whole thing, was that nobody cared. I didn't really have anybody I could talk to about it when I got home. I saw a man crack open the earth with a guitar, and nobody heard. I was in a school with 1,500 kids in it and there wasn't a single fucker listening to Madder Rose. This is probably the tragedy of Madder Rose, that they were so good and there just weren't enough people to love them the way they deserved.

For a long time, it made me a little sad to listen to them just for this reason. They were a daunting little section of my cd collection, something that made me uncomfortable no matter how long I owned the cd's, and no matter how incredible I felt every time I listened to them and felt the echoing brilliance of "While Away" or that broken kind of swoon of "Razor Pilot".

But eventually, technology opened them back up to me again via the glorious (blessed by a thousand angels wearing bowler hats and striped nylons) itunes random function, revealing that radiance all over and gave me a chance to finally talk about it.

About a year and a half ago, I lived in one small room in a really crappy little apartment in Brooklyn with no heat in a neighborhood where everyone wore very skinny jeans. My walls were lined with books, my guitars sat at one end, and a desk crowded the window. Zo and I sat on the blankets that we'd bought so we didn't have to share my sleeping bag on my floor. We were listening to random music and drinking coffee, waiting for the little space heater I'd bought to kick in and remind us that there were warmer places than New York. A Madder Rose song came on and I started to think about the wonder of listening to them when I realized that Zo was singing along.

"How do you know this song?" This is what I said.
"I love Madder Rose." This was her reply.
"I loved this band in high school. Nobody else even knew who they were. It drove me crazy."
"I loved them in high school, too. Yeah, I don't know anybody else who was into them."

Clearly, she wasn't quite as scarred as I was. She is a very strong woman.

Why the fuck am I talking about this? Has anyone actually read this whole thing? Probably not. But I started off the night sad, waiting for the pictures Sara was sending me on her cell phone of the My Bloody Valentine show she saw tonight, wishing I could be there. They made me feel worse, the cold made me feel worse, the thought of watching a soccer game made me feel worse, the book I'm reading made me feel worse. Of course, it's Russian so it's kind of supposed to. But I came down into our office and turned on some music and started thinking about my life. And when I stumbled across Madder Rose, I thought about Zo. Upstairs, sleeping in a little flannel cocoon and waiting for me and I remembered how incredible this universe is. That I probably passed her in a hallway in a school 3,000 miles from where we met, gently humming the same songs with us waiting to ripen to something greater is amazing.

But not as amazing as fucking Madder Rose.

A Coffeehouse in Montana

2009-03-10T22:41:00.002-04:00

Somewhere along the line, you sit down and think about all of the coffeehouses you’ve sat in and wondered about life. You think about the women who’ve said goodbye over tea, the times that a strong cup of coffee has been the only thing that stood in the way of a broken friendship.

I’ve been living in coffeehouses somehow since I was about 17, letting my life sit like a satellite around its periphery and trying to see the sense. I remember the first coffeehouse I’d gone into, way back when I was 15. I think it was called “Rose’s”, and it sat in a shopping center selling cappuccinos to all of the kids with black painted fingernails, blue dyed hair, and the odd nihilist who realizes that nothingness really is better with a medium roast. I went with this couple who were the sort of bohemian types that sort of fit into all three categories in their unassuming little white Honda and polite affectations. The last time I saw them, they were living in San Francisco living off of peyote and cheap wine. It was really surprising to see them finally assimilating.

I still remember how much I enjoyed that night, so very many years later. But it wasn’t for a few years before I started really living in coffeehouses.

The first was a hangout for the kids that went to the Christian college in the town I moved to in high school. It was right by my friend Dave’s house, and he had an older brother that would beat the shit out of him every day when he got home from school. So we’d hang out in this place and spend our lunch money on refills and shit talk in our Ministry t-shirts and long hair, ignorant that the second coming of the prophesied messiah was going to happen any moment and that we were going to miss it unless we stopped arguing about who was the best Black Flag singer (it’s still Keith Morris, motherfucker) and accepted that good ‘ol Holy Spirit that sullied the knees and polished the soul. It was a good thing we had going until one day when Dave went apeshit, beat the hell out his brother, hit his mom with a Snapple bottle, and ran off to squat Melrose Boulevard until he ran out of bad speed and freedom. Now that’s a fella I miss a lot. I thought I saw him playing guitar in Union Square last year, rocking back and forth on dirty heels and sensationally crafted grooves.

I did the poetry thing for a while, driving all over L.A. to read my inarticulately mopey teenage poetry to people who were quite eager to read their own inarticulately mopey teenage poetry. Sadly, some of them were much older. But by this time, I’d read my way through the Beats, and I’d felt very connected to all of this sort of thing, the espresso and the tired bit of clapping, a misplaced affirmation that rang like the cold iron bells of death on the misanthropic gloom of my being. I wonder how I got all of that out of the Beats? Man, those guys were full of humping and jazz and nature, but for the longest time I just couldn’t get those sad little images of Maynard G. Krebs moments out of my head, disapproving frowns ringed in black turtlenecks.

I’ve played my favorite punk shows in coffeehouses, and I’m not going to discount the cups of coffee that bookended performances as the factor. I’ve had some truly tragic and wonderful dates that started out in coffeehouses. I went to three different coffeehouses on one date once. Shit, I had to marry that one. No choice at all.

I read “White Nights” the first time in a coffeehouse. I wandered disconsolate for an hour afterward until I ran into Mikey. That’s when we started hanging out. I became friends with Jonie when I saw her play in a coffeehouse after work one day. I imagine I still smelled like bad chicken, but we got along anyhow. I sat next to Morrissey once in a coffeehouse.

I played on stage for the first time in a coffeehouse with Steve. He’s dead now. I played Paul’s guitar that night, and he’s dead, too. I played my first show with Erik in a coffeehouse. He’s also gone. So is Brad, and he shared that same stage with us a few times.

I was homeless for a while, and I spent every afternoon in a coffeehouse in Hollywood. Imani would join me sometimes and tried to hide her concern. She was pretty amazing, and only insisted on me staying on her floor once. I was happy the other times in the alley behind the coffeehouse. I used to go into the coffeehouse next to the restaurant where I worked back then whenever it was slow. I met my friend Dawn there. She pushed me down once for trying to clean up my own mess. I haven’t talked to her in years, but that’s not why. I saw Karen for the first time in years in a coffeehouse in New York. Years later, I’d still giggle every time I passed it down on the lower east side. I’d gone in and sat at the table next to her and struck up a conversation with a striking blond woman, as though I’d mistaken the two. The chemistry was good, the conversation engaging. Karen tried to cover up her laughing until I revealed the faint and apologized to the stranger-who-was-almost-my-new-friend and switched tables to talk to Karen. I thought that women in New York were delightful. Then I moved there. I had a date with a woman in a coffeehouse who refused to shake my hand. Strangely, I went home alone.

What am I getting out of all of this? Shit, nothing. I’m just a little sad, sitting here in a coffeehouse a few blocks from where I just moved, watching my own reflection in the window watching the snow float down through the cold Montana night. I don’t know why I’m a bit sad; I guess it’s just the feeling of seeing so much of my life as past, wondering what the next step is and how it will all come out. The fear of the unknown, the lonesome hope that sits one breath ahead. But all inevitably in this chair which seems everyplace, and a cup of coffee to drown in.

Some Party with the Psychedelic Jesus

2008-10-27T02:23:00.003-04:00

For a while, I was camping in an alley in Hollywood. Nobody I worked with knew, so I'd usually go out to bars and parties with everyone because I didn't really have anything else to do.

One night, the Psychedelic Jesus asked me to go out to some party in Pedro with him.

I don't really remember it very well. I remember that all of the girls had boyfriends and PJ and I were a little bored, so we kept eating and he got really drunk. Everybody else was pretty wealthy I think, so the cheese was really good. They got a little upset with me because I kept drinking all of the mixers, but they had too much class to call me on it.

All I really remember was the view over the port through the fog and thinking for some reason that the fire hydrant that was painted in an American Flag motif was really neat. I don't even know where I slept that night.

I started thinking about this tonight on the subway while I was listening to the Minutemen, and it made me wonder how PJ was doing. He's not really your average religious figure, by the way; although I guess surfing is kind of like walking on the water.

Haiku

2008-07-29T13:41:00.004-04:00

And I thought: there are
no stories in me; only
shallow wanderings...

I watch songs blossom
and poems laden with fruit
and I hold my breath.

We look for wisdom
in words because thoughts speak in
smiles and hope and space

I was made from trees
and cut from wholes to sleep
upon the mountains.

Your every smile
is a song which I will live
to understand.

Rain soaks every breath.
It is an untethered beast
in New York City.

2008-07-29T13:15:00.003-04:00

I've been writing poetry lately, and these are a few.

~~. . .~~

I’ve hid in the wastelands
2 more years than expected
in the disintegrating hope
of concrete rains and polished steel.
Home still calls,
(rust-bit in the grass),
the backwards echo coming closer
from the wood-cut isoceles stone fists
of a remembered earth,
the enormous shaking rasp of song
that loves with its impossibilities
and forgets with its winds,
sand and snow and rain
covering all.

~~. . .~~

If I still sang, I would ask you
my love, my ocean,
my continuously falling world of regeneration and life:
my ill-tune and and broken key
locked
in the key of dischord, I would ask:
Was I this shy on your baked summer
rug of sand so many years before?
Am I this lost, where there is no
setting sun to squint after, slipping with an imagined
-pop!-
into your beds of kelp to spend the quiet dark,
a mere west of infinity?
Do I question needlessly, Pacific,
raging hope of my youth?

So quiet for such greatness, my love,
unanswerer of shallow man-borne yearnings...

~~. . .~~

9.

The magnolia breaks
at an early frost,
her modesty at her feet
in the gentle weathered irons
and half / caramels.
She half-sleeping dreams
of a warmer world
that never was,
but merely meant.

Tretina

2008-02-03T23:59:00.000-05:00

It was always a secret wedding,
and it was always January,
and her roses could only be red.

And although the first rings were spun in red,
maybe somewhere else from the wedding
or just hide until next January,

we never doubted January,
could never hold any rose but red,
would share anything but our wedding.

A January wedding, alight in red.

January 22

2008-01-24T15:42:00.000-05:00

I got married.

Baruch Hashem.

The Average Day

2008-01-18T00:49:00.000-05:00

Honestly, it had been a pretty nice day so far. Sun in the sky, probably some birds, coffee so thick you could spread it on toast.
"baby, are you crazy?"
"what do you mean?"
"are you crazy, baby?"
"you mean like 'crazy' crazy?"
"yeah."
"does crazy mean crazy?"
"yeah, baby."
"no."
"yeah?"
"wait. what's crazy again? no."
"okay."
"okay."
"i love you."
"i love you, too."
"are you sure you're not experiencing visual or auditory hallucinations?"
"no."
"baby."
"yes?"
"are you kidding me?"
"i don't know yet. what do you mean by 'experiencing'?"
"baby, are you crazy?"
"if I am, are you going to get dressed?"
"no."
"then it doesn't matter. you choose."
It kept on being a pretty nice day, and all the crazy people stayed crazy and all the naked people stayed naked, and all the regular people didn’t exist because I wrote this story and I don’t believe in them.

Epistle

2007-12-17T08:35:00.000-05:00

Emily,

Listen;
I started the revolution without you. Mostly, it was by accident I think. You know,
the marching and sloganeering,
...small arms fire...
look, I'll tell you all about it when I'm up there
riding bicycles in Rochester
while the leaves fall between cell meetings.

-Danny.

An American Guide to the English

2007-08-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

Marmalade: Lazy lady orange jelly. “Fuck it. Leave the peels on.”

Marmite: Some venomous little critter than when pureed, tastes like total shit on toast.

Cricket: Like baseball with funny spatulas, except sometimes you can score like two hundred points and nobody gives a crap, and then they take them all away because you ate like fresh water fish on a Thursday or some other complete shit like that. I don’t know.

Football: Kind of like American football, except you don’t get to wear spandex, don't get to bend over for your friends, have to use your feet, actually have to have some kind of coordination and athletic ability, and get to be a sex symbol to women with libido’s and not to your cell mates.

The Queen: Old broad that looks slightly less like a woman than the average American queen.

Queen Mum: Low budget horror film about some queen coming back to life all wrapped up in swaddling clothes and fulfilling some ancient curse or other. I mean, where do they get this stuff?

Beer: Bubbly, warm version of American beer, although made from wheat instead of rice (who the fuck would drink Budweiser, anyway?).

Rugby: What would happen to American football if you took away the pads, the rich fat sissies, the fear, and a majority of teeth.

Hooligans: Kind of proponents of a sort of even-less-rules/homemade rugby in a pub without a ball and only a minimal aversion to the concept of projectile pint glasses.

Chips: French fries.

CHiPS: Still Ponch and John.

The Colonies: America, Canada, arbitrary parts of Ireland.

Tea Bag: English lady.

Dole Queue: Second highest employer of Irish immigrants, next to Gambling and Drinking.

Union Jack: What they call the symbol of “The Who”.

Bobby: That kid from the “Brady Bunch” wearing a boob helmet and a rape whistle.

Lorry: A big truck.

Royalty: A big joke.

Parliament: A big misnomer; they’ve nothing to do with the geniuses of Philly.

Pound: An English dollar, which actually weighs less than a gram.

The Falklands: Whoops.

Sandwich: What kind of asshole are you that you don’t know what a sandwich is? You should be ashamed of yourself. Jesus Christ, they’re limeys, not some totally backwards country like Liechtenstein.

Liechtenstein: Any place that couldn’t serve a decent sandwich even if they had all the mustard and rye in Greenland.

Tele: Short for “teleportation” from what I understand. Although it could have something to do with “telescoping footwear”, but I’m not sure what that means.

Gorgo: English answer to the Japanese “Godzilla”, American “King Kong”, and Irish “Potato Famine”.

Stonehenge: Complete fucking misunderstanding of the meaning of “hinge”.

The Letter “R”: A letter that mysteriously falls silent when present at the end of a word. I mean, didn’t these fucking people create the fucking language? Jesus. Assholes.

Arseholes: The magic “R” reappears for no fucking understandable reason.

Bollocks: Seriously now, who the fuck cares? You can’t just say “balls”? You have to make up some fantasy word? What’re ya, “Welsh”?

Dandies: Yep. Nail on the head. Fuck it.

A Couple of Little Poems from New Hampshire

2007-08-02T21:40:00.000-04:00

7.

I watched the fireflies
jump new born
from burning logs
and run to god;
And it is like all things:
we seize the lives
we cannot,
and burn to the ground.

8.

Tranquility we catch
like it is some thing
of unknowing edge
or uncommon blight.

The Failure of the Protestant Work Ethic

2007-07-04T15:35:00.000-04:00

Science Archival: Useful Phrases for Research Abroad

2007-06-27T02:47:00.000-04:00

Good evening.

Here in the hallowed halls of Science, we (scientists, mostly) are asked often to open our numerous vaults of well researched and useful data to the general public, that they might peruse at their leisure some of the very important tools used by scientists the world over when conducting research in foreign locales. Tonight, I have come across some of the phrase books used by scientists to have reasonable, necessary conversations with persons who do not speak the language of Science, Esperanto. Nude Body Painting is also acceptable, but unfortunately not as practiced as Esperanto, except in Brazil.

You really wouldn't believe how many of the women in Brazil are actually transvestites. Nor would you believe how readily they submit to thorough scientific inquiry and Mojitos.

To begin with, given the alarming number of scientists who have recently been sciencing in and around Bangladesh, Science has developed a series of useful phrases while navigating the local culture, so rich in beautiful conservative thought and hugs.

-Are they more expensive if they are underage?
-Manyar boisn zodi kom axta mani taka beshie?

-You know darlin', being naked means never having to say your sari.
-Eh shana lengta tako tomi sari kokene dorkarna.

-Hello. My name is Bill Gates and I seem to have lost my pants. Your delightful wife has simply offered me the use of hers, which we are currently looking for. Good day, sir.
-Salam umar nam holo Bill Gates amar kamiz hare pelaenie apnar shindoor bo onta ameke disie. Amra oyta patesenie. Salam sir.

-Where can I find a dealer in fine furniture?
-Ami kun sagat dokan kala pamu vinion potro vun?

-Can you give me directions to the giant "Bollywood" sign?
-Amake bollen koon sagat ami boro "Bollywood" sign pamu?

I truly hope that this is helpful in your travels.

Second, we have the Scientific publication, "French in Fractal Omission Seems Somehow Complete". Its author, a Mr. Stefan, lays claim upon the jacket of the work to having produced the finest and most useful English to French phrasebook still protected under copyright in most western nations. Millions of scientists agree, up is still usually down and a Sierpinski carpet would never match the curtains or that funny lamp on the table.

-Are these butterflies poisonous? They taste like butterscotch.
-Ces papillons sont-ils empoisones? Ils ont le gout du butterscotch.

-Is it possible that you are from outer space, ma'am? Because I can smell Uranus.
-Est ce possible que tu socs venu de l'espace? Parce que je peux sentir Uranus.

-Define this "Sexual Harrassment".
-"Harrassement Sexuel"?

-Do you think the Eiffel Tower might be a giant robot penis?
-Pensez-vous que la Tour Eiffel soit le penis geaut d'un robot?

-Did you know that Ho Chi Minh was trained by Escoffier? When are you bastards going to finally answer for 55,000 American lives?
-Sauiez-vous que Ho Chi Minh a ele forme par Escoffier? Baude de batards quaud allez vous repondre de la mort de 55,000 d'Americans?

Science hopes that this helps in your further explorations into the unknown, and the furthering of the thing that it is that we call for the most part, you know, the succinctness or succinctitudeilyness of Science!

Machoer and Machoer.

2007-05-27T23:00:00.000-04:00

I am a fucking sissy. I cry all the time. I love modern dance and poetry. I do not have an aversion to salads or the film "Steel Magnolias". I dislike the spandex spank-a-thon that Americans call football, in which one uses neither their feet nor their balls. Actually, a fucking sissy.

Yes, it is true. At the age of twenty five, I did not need to shave my face. But now, my heavens. I have been able to grow a luxurious beard of amazing depth whose sight causes tranquility and delight in small children and monks. Of course, a beard is not to be taken lightly, and should be reserved only for the special times in one's life. Now is unspecial perhaps, and I can be manly, manly, manly. But for so long, I was a sissy. I would wear the clothes of a woman and speak in complete sentences. Imagine!

But machoer now! My manly is bigger. Before, this chest of mine was as naked as a dolphin's eyeball. But there are miraculous things that have happened in my life. I have become machoer. My chest looks now like a shag rug, like the lower back of Eric Estrada. Ladies, I am available for the loving by appointment only.

The Muthafuckin Bronx

2007-05-20T00:09:00.000-04:00

The shop closes, its keeper carefully locking the door to the street and removing the drawer from the register, walking with some suspicion into the back room. The two employees remain in front, one arranging merchandise while the other shifts furniture about, guiding the broom past most of the obvious debris.

“Petey! Hey, change the, uh, House, man! Put on some House music!”

Somewhere above them, Rosalind Russell sings words that really mean absolutely nothing to anyone at all.

Petey ignores him, pretending to not hear him. It is not uncommon for Wesley to yell at Petey across a three to eleven foot distance, while Petey disengages his familiarity with Wesley out of very simple embarrassment.

“Come on, man! Put on some House!”

“I don’t care.”

Wesley drops the broom and walks toward the back room. The common broom will make a sound when dropped, often a “crack” or a “shtuthuk”. This does not occur in a vacuum. When not in a vacuum, it will similarly sound a loudish “plink” if metal. Realistically, most people don’t really read and sound out alliterative words an author may use for sound. This is because most often, a writer will use an uncommon sound word to appear more precise and intellectual. It is predicated upon an egotistical belief that his or her readership hangs on every word. He or she believes a “bralklish” or a “hefump” will one day lead to an illicit encounter with a very randy, very literate strumpet in the filthy stall of a Barnes & Noble restroom. And what the fuck. It just might.

Incidentally, the broom actually fell with a “kathroopl”.

A brief silence as Ms. Russell’s beautiful voice is silenced introduces the bass. House music played for I imagine ten minutes or so before Petey spoke.

“Wesley.”

“What’s up, man?”

“Why don’t you just be clear, man? You know we’d all treat you the same.”

“What do you mean, man?”

“Look. You like this music.”

“Ah man, this my shit!”

“So why the fuckin secret, homes? What do you have to prove? Why don’t you just admit you’re gay?”

“Ah shit, dude. Yo, I been listening to this shit since 1987. I remember the time, I remember the date, I remember the place even.”

“I was just kidding.”

“It was June 16, 1987. One of my cousin’s just got stabbed at a party. We was all crazy into hip hop, like Kid N Play and KRS 1 and shit. And my sister was like, yo, why don’t come to one of my parties cause our cousin just got stabbed at that one party.”

“So I was like, what kinda party you goin to? And she was like, you’ll see, you’ll see. And I was like, aright. She had this boyfriend who was a really good dancer and he was in tight with all these dudes. And I remember it, we was, we just got into the lobby, only the lobby even and it was in this dudes apartment on the fourth floor, and I could hear the bass like comin through the walls, and I was already hooked.”

“We got up there and there was all these people and they were moving their bodies in ways that I never seen before and I was a pretty good hip hop and old school R&B dancer and everything, but I just sat down like this.” Wesley sits down and says, “and just watched all night.”

“At the end of the night, I was like this is my life and I told my sister that I’d be ready next week, and I went home and I tore down all of my hip hop posters and everything and just changed my whole life. Man, I had all of these hip hop tapes and I just gave em away. I was like man, my whole life just changed.”

“You know, man?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Wesley. I just kind of zoned out. Did you already get to the part where you give some dude a hand job?”

“What? Oh no, man. No, I like those Asian girls. I’m like Godzilla to those little Asian pussies.”

“I didn’t know Godzilla was Puerto Rican.”

“Yeah man, he came out of the ocean for those little Asian girls.”

“Radioactive.”

“Yeah, radioactive pussies!”

Resignation

2007-05-11T00:16:00.000-04:00

May 10, 2007

To Whom it May Concern,

It is with more than a little reservation that I must tend my resignation. My final day of work at the Cupping Room will be somewhere in the first week of June. I can give a specific date on May 11 (tomorrow), but I wanted to be able to inform you with plenty of time to find a replacement capable of: a) being late 75% of the time, b) inciting mutiny amongst the rest of the staff, c) more than willing to make customers and fellow employees uncomfortable with awkward flirtations and poorly timed jokes, and of course, d) sporting a beard than has never looked good, and mostly makes him / her look like a homeless person.
You have been more than kind to me over the past year and a half, accommodating my schedule when possible and giving me the opportunity to wear a lot of black and eat more than my weight in french fries and feta cheese.
I have been given an opportunity to get back into full time management at a different restaurant for a crapload of money. I am not leaving the Cupping Room due to any enmity or unhappiness with my working conditions. Again, I am leaving for a crapload of money. I will then buy a boat and live out my life as I have always wanted, a fugitive from the law, a pirate fighting monkeys and robots. They are the true scourge of humanity.
Also, I would like to mention that eventually my new restaurant will get to know me and I will be fired. At this time I will probably return to the Cupping Room Cafe and ask for a job. I will however be disguised to better my chances, and I hope that you can forgive me at that time for my behavior as an employee.

Sincerely,

Daniel Hicks, gentleman anarchist.

Pie

2007-05-06T02:30:00.000-04:00

Hello.

I am today telling you about my horrible, horrible pie problem.

To me the pie is a problem because I wear pie for slippers and for eating, and sometimes all I eat is pies and they are little and big and yummy and taste sometimes all over like big old, big old yuck! Oh, tender pies! How you call to me in the night, lovely pies! There are pies of peaches and monkeys and pies of little yummies like kittens! Oh, the babies! Pies, you know it is always you who I love, pies! Sing to me pies, those lovely songs of volcanoes and trucks and how pies have saved the Earth and all of the baby turtles who live in the sand and spare change and bake them into lovely goodness that smells like all over the pies, the pies, the pies! The pies! Say the pies! Call to me the pies!

Pies!

Pies!

An Honest Moment of Buddhist Enlightenment and its Subsequent Interpretation by my Concept of the Modern American Man. Total Nonsense.

2007-02-15T02:51:00.000-05:00

“It was six of em, what? with their splendid conical hats and dirty unused microphones.” Horatio was the storyteller.

“Six, six, six. They was walking like’n the way that the folks do, what splendid conical hats and filthy microphones. They was set from home with nothin, no nothin that was anything and they walked across the streets that made this place look like it was made outta candy corn and marbles. And they was goin to Hollywood. Where they was gonna sing and be in movies and t.v. stars like them Mormon kids was.”

There was a milk crate that was dark yellow and Horatio always sat on. He was smarter than the older kids but stronger. But they listened cause everything he said was true.

“Gimme a apple.”

Apollo was the little brother of all em. He pulled a broken and dirty apple out his pocket and put in on the crate in front of Horatio. Them all waited for him to start up again. Cause there were six of them with pointy hats and microphones.

“Sometimes it was rainin and sometimes no, but they was always walkin. After all the streets were over, there was alligators and they had a fight em. First a alligator told em to stop and they didn’t stop cause they didn’t know what a alligator was and they didn’t stop. They said why and he said don’t you know I’m a alligator? and they said no. He said good and lets eat some sweety stuff and it’s okay, you should come over to my house and it’s okay. One them guys though said nuh-uh, we gotta go to Hollywood. And that alligator got mad. Alligator’s what mad, no? Bad, bad, bad. He said alligator’s eat with the tremendous conical hats and the dirty unused microphones like squishy candy. Oooohh, squishy so squishy candy. And eated him the one that was close and him chewed and yucky he thought and the teeth broke and the hat didn’t get any wrinkled. And the alligator watched t.v. instead of eating em, six, six, six. Go to hollywood.”

Horatio he watched until they were out of sight.

There are like two fucking kids on this fucking street and they can’t leave the shit in my yard alone. Every damn time I turn my head, this shit is all over the place. I’m gonna figure out which one of those little fuckers keeps doing this shit and I’m gonna turn Randy onto em. He’ll chew through one of those little legs like it was a little pork chop in apple sauce.

Ty kicked over one of the concrete bunnies in the tall grass on his way to his car. Yeah, and he didn’t give a fuck.

He drove all the way to the big home and garden store where he worked in the lumber department listening to talk radio. Ty didn’t give a fuck about talk radio. Ty didn’t give a fuck about the big home and garden store where he worked in the lumber yard. Ty didn’t give a fuck about politics, his car, his wife really, shit. Ty didn’t give a fuck about shit.

Ty didn’t give a fuck for eight hours and then it was time to go home and watch some fucking CSI. Ty almost gave a fuck about CSI.

He walked through the garden department on his way to his car and some girl called him over and showed four little concrete ducks and the mother duck. She asked if his wife would like it and he shrugged and took them with him, throwing them into the backseat of the car, a further illustration of the fuck he was unwilling to give.

It was talk radio again to the house and Ty set the duckies up following the mother across the yard toward the driveway. They stood next to the six bunnies and the pointy hatted gnome, all concrete and oil paint.

In the night, there was a commotion, like there wasn’t any commotion's mostly that big. Horatio hummed to hisself a song that was made by some kids a long, long ago. Those kids was always eating all a the candy and made new all kinds of songs all of the time. I dunno why.

Horatio did but it was a secret.

Horatio who was bigger than thems other kids watched the new kids. They said, “Whatsat? Bully bully, where’s ya? We here and here we wis needin for food and some rocking rolling musical.”

The other kids looked up at Horatio, all yellow pedestal and shiny, shiny hat, straight and pointy, pointy, pointy. What to do, what to do? Horatio said, “Whatsit you want, so fresh and alike but then smaller and smaller?”

The big and talking kid said, “Whatsat? We here, we wanna eatsome. What you got, manner kid?”

“This where we livin’. Not nothin more, so away. There was a alligator and some birds before. Now us. Away.”

For the longest time, immemorially even, they stared back and back without a blink and waiting for a blink. And there was none. A car comes around the corner and there’s a flash of light and there’s a ruckus. Neither blinks and there is now a fighting taking place. I don’t know why. (Sometimes we ascribe human behavior to inanimate objects and expect them to act accordingly.) Sometimes the universe makes a little different sense than we think.

In the morning, Ty came out of the fucking house. He fucking hated how fucking tight Levi’s were first thing in the morning and he stepped out on the porch and looked at his car. Yeah, it was an ugly fucking car. Shit, the paint was so old it looked like he spray painted it. But he didn’t give a fuck. His coffee was that fucking dehydrated crap. He looked at the yard.

Four broken fucking bunnies and the big duck and two of the smaller fucking duckies were broken.

“Those fucking kids,” Ty thought, “I’m gonna pin both of those little fuckers under my tires tonight and beat em to fucking death with these broken fucking duckies. Fucking assholes.”

Ty got in his fucking car and started driving to his fucking job.

And he started to wonder.

While he listened to fucking talk radio.

He fucking hated talk radio.

And he thought, “What if those fucking duckies did it to themselves?”

Another fucking red light.

“Fuck. I would.”

The Revolutionary

2007-02-12T00:27:00.000-05:00

She pulled the curtain closed; it was a sweeping gesture. Sometime past, her faith in the revolution had failed. She pulled closed the curtain to hide the cold from outside: closed, closed, closed.

The branches of the trees at the window scratched when a truck passed by. Lazy by any standards and looking like the bones of giants with that clinging frost of the midwest and the open knuckles of the next spring’s buds.

Julie sat on the thin carpet and started to read again. Crime and Punishment. Her secret fantasy was reading of Sonya’s brutal rape and indelicate burial under a pile of stones in the yard next to the jewels. Ah...sometime past, her faith in the revolution had failed.

She didn’t tell anyone about Sonya.

She ate cereal and fruit someone had brought from the Super Wal-Mart in Cedar City.

She waited to move to the next house with other cereal and other books and she was sure, the same trucks and the same time and the same dreams about angry gods and unfaithful lovers and freedom. She liked the houses with Merle Haggard records.

. . .

Julie thought about assassinations. She thought about life in prison and scratched the side of her breast and was glad that she was not there.

Someone knocked on the door and it was time to leave.

She had left no trail of bones, no quick footprints through blood or greater lives. She just kept going.

Julie wondered whether a bomb that fails is any more dangerous than one that spills.

She left Sonya to die on the fucking bed and walked away.

. . .

The revolutionary had liked to swim when she was younger; insurrection was still many years away.

There was a public pool that only cost 75 cents and anyone could swim all day. All the kids said that if you peed in the water, the pee would turn red and follow you around. She didn’t like the other kids, and she found the idea implausible. So one day she peed onto her hand and brushed it through the water and the color did not change. After that, she would pee on all of the other kids all summer long.

She lay in a stranger’s bathtub and allowed her instant coffee to cool from tepid and longed to swim again. She thought for a second and decided she didn’t give a fuck and watched the clouded yellow spread between her legs.

It brought her no special joy now.

. . .

There is a single moment when a “revolutionary” becomes a “fugitive”. It is usually the same moment that a “dreamer” becomes a “revolutionary”.

. . .

She had always wanted to fall in love. She believed that meant she could sleep in the arms of someone and they could both feel safe and not care about whatever else happened.

When she was little, she thought of houses and weddings and children and always sleeping.

Now, every day she held on as tight as she could to looking at people. Once, every man had his charm, his possibility; but she was really tired now. She sat in a chair and wrestled with loving and beauty. It had been so long since she had even desired. She began to look from men to women and back and still find the same sadness, still the same loneliness.

She had thought about a dancer once, and she wondered what could have happened if she could just have told him what she thought, but he had politely refused.

Perhaps she should write a letter; he could still be as lonesome as her.

. . .

Julie was used to sleeping in the long afternoons and under blankets in the back of old cars. They wound their way across the old interstates that were never smooth, away from the eyes of people.

She had a ghost life now.

. . .

She didn’t belong to herself anymore. She was a gun that sang and a bomb that danced and a stick that warned. She was a lonely parade in strangers homes, one to the next. She killed with handshakes now, insurrection smiles, uprising infecting in ripples from her.

But the night would wear, and her dullness and need would show.

They would try to forget as they wrote their checks.

They would watch for her as she passed the short length of sky to the waiting car and pulled the blankets over her eyes.

She just didn’t give a fuck anymore.

Not a fuck.

. . .

A name is signed in fire, the embers fading before the note is consumed.

. . .

Bombs give life to old ideas sometimes, they sing anime into tired feet and worn shoes. They make whole new worlds.

She was the only survivor, those other bones had joined the old ideas in being something buried and largely forgotten. Most of their names she only remembered when they were mentioned. Specifically.

She had become celebrity in some homes, unbelieved boogie conspiracy in others, and had ceased to be mostly; she thought: “I am a ghost story in second hand jeans.”

She stopped fighting, then.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

2006-11-08T03:11:00.000-05:00

by Danny Hicks

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born sometime before 1780. He was widely known as a punk and ladies liked his punk. Sometimes money wasn’t plastic and this made the bank very angry with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Amadeus lived in a big city and it was named Vienna. He liked to drink a lot. All of the time, all of the ladies would shout, “Rock me, Amadeus!” because he had a lot of flair and was a rock idol. He was also very big, and this is probably because he drank so much.

He was a rock idol and a superstar and a punk and that is why he is so important. Because of these things, we forget about the debt to the bank for the money that’s not plastic, and sometimes even everybody shouts “Rock me, Amadeus!” and all the ladies love him.

Bibliography
1. "Rock Me, Amadeus", Falco, 1986

Upstate

2006-11-07T03:25:00.000-05:00

We had just needed that day away, Emi and I. New York can just be a real pain in the ass. We just needed a few hours of breathing air and hugging trees.

It was the crack of dawn that was the hard part. The crack of dawn is not my favorite crack, I surely must proclaim. But we braved it, and we braved the nearly subzero temperatures and took our chilly little asses to the station.

We went up map-wise, to a town named for a former foundry that is apparently cited in a Jules Verne novel. This is exciting to me, of course. I looked for giant crabs, maybe somewhere a carved signature of Arne Saknussemm, even a brooding heathen sea captain whose piercing stare followed every ripple and current of the Hudson southward in search of quarry emanating from the West Point Academy Garrison, not ten miles from us.

I found none of these things.

But something altogether more wholesome and less literary struck me in the inner brains. I remembered reading about huge populations of river otters in the Hudson.

I mentioned this to Emi.

“Oh, great. Now I’m going to lose my boyfriend. We’re going to go out and look at the river, and there’s going to be this hairy little girl otter and (enter the sound effects of flippers running) 'ft - ft - ft - splash!’ there goes my little otter.”

“What are you doing?”
“I’m writing.”
“Oh! Who’s my little writer! You’re so cute!”
“Leave me alone. I’m still writing.”
“What are you writing about?”
“When we went to Cold Spring.”
“Did you write about ft - ft - ft?”
“I was trying to.”
“Okay, sorry, Jeez. Go write again.”

I had to admit, it seemed like a good idea. River otters seem to live such completely carefree lives. Now, I am not normally a man to act upon impulse, but as we walked up the highway from the train station to the river and trail head, I began to imagine my life as a river otter. I mean they’re anarchists, you know. Yeah, they eat sticks and float and have, like, beards that cover their whole bodies. They make Makhno look like John Lennon. So we get to the river, and it is big. And there is not a single otter in sight, but by this time of course, I’ve already decided to convert. So I kiss the girl goodbye and she weeps, destroyed by her sorrow, and I dive into the Hudson River

“Are you going to write about how you fell in the water when you were showing off and how you had to walk around all day with dirty pants?”
“Aren’t you doing a crosswalk?”
“Yeah.”
“When I was a little kid, I used to call my dad’s crossword puzzles his ‘crosswalks’ and”
“God, you’ve told me this story a million times.”
“Fine. I’ll never tell you another story. You know, some people think my stories are quite clever and often, women try to hump me because of them.”
“Ohhh! Come here! Did I hurt somebody’s feelings?”
“No. Leave me alone. I’m telling a story you’re never going to hear about.”
“What synthetic element has the atomic number 99?”
“Einsteinium.”
“Did you just write that down?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you write that down?”
“I’m just happy that I knew the answer. It’s a pat on the back.”
“Because you knew the name of a Jackie Chan movie?”
“Umm...yeah.”
“That’s not what you wrote! What did you write down?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Fine. I’m going to sleep. Good night.”

“Can you turn the light back on?”
“ft - ft - ft”
“Please?”

I must have swam for days in the Hudson, following it eventually into Canada and even Montreal and I think Alaska. I had learned many beautiful things. But these things I could not simply keep from the world, as I had been so long in it. So I returned.

And there, upon the shore, devastated and heartbroken, sat my Emi. She hadn’t eaten nor drank for the entire time I was gone, which may have been months. She simply sat and mourned. I thought in my little otter noggin, “Yes, what the sea grasses have told me is true. I rule the hearts and minds of the ladies, and they are mine to manipulate.”

I chose to forgive her for not having dry socks for me upon my return, and we began walking into the hills.

We walked for hours, foraging along the way for acorns and the bark of the finest oak to make soup. And we tricked some leprechauns into giving us some Tofutti Cuties which we ate in a great natural amphitheater. It was a ring of granite cliffs perhaps eighty yards in diameter. There was a beautiful echo, and I asked Emi to sing for me.

Emi is an opera singer, and I had up to this point, never heard her sing.

She opened her mouth and heaven broke into mismatched parts. It was incredible, it was beautiful. Slowly, animals began edging into the amphitheater from the woods beyond. Dancing bears, prancing deer, moose wearing lampshades on their heads. You know how moose can get. A large saucer-shaped flying ship landed upon the rim of the amphitheater and aliens came out, listening in amazement with their enormous, earless heads and weeping openly. Jesus floated down on a cloud and barbecued for everyone, and there was totally enough. Woodland Sprites peeked out from the trees and Jesus grilled them.

And when she finished, Zeus came down and poured us some kind of elixir made from Cheese-its and something chewy and he made us ride horses and build a city. It totally rocked and we never came home and now we live in a tent and everybody who comes to drink tea out of fine china cups with their paws or hooves or flippers calls us “Professor Otter” and “Queen Koala” with reverence and give us gifts of honey and comic books and we like it just fine.

Yeah.

Young Lovers

2006-10-23T00:52:00.000-04:00

It was the Pixies that played, low enough that it was just a collection of sounds meant to obscure. "Bossanova" I think, not my favorite anyway. She helped him start to slide his pants, felt his skin slap up against the inside of her thigh.

It was a relaxed sigh as she felt him, expectant of just a moment more, she wasn't ready quite yet.

"God, it's been so long since I've been with a real man."

There were heavy breaths and explorations of the gentle subtleties of a strangers little spots, the smiling revelations of accurate kisses. The normal attunement, Friday night or Saturday, not enough alcohol to be truly stupid, just enough to not care. Chance encounters that might provoke no reflections, awaking tomorrow alone. Wild oats and the like.

And they slowed a moment.

"A real man? What do you mean?"

A pause.

Fuck. Why speak at all?

She sat up, and he slid further down her thighs to knees. Knees are miles away from orgasms most times. He held himself up with his elbows straight. Her breasts were perfect by the way, open for the first time for a moment as she pulled the sheet to her.

"Just, a real man. I'm not sure."

"Then why did you say it?"

Too much talking. She began to turn to step from bed.

"Do you mean like I should promise to love you and care what you think and who you are until you fuck me and then leave before you wake up and treat you like shit if we ever happen to show up in the same bar again and tell all my friends what a bad fuck you are and how easy you are? Like a fucking real man?"

She stopped.

"Yeah."

"What's wrong, sweetheart? Come here and tell me what's wrong."

He slipped back up past her knees, and was gone by morning like he'd said.

In the Name of Science! Individual Study Two: An Evening Spent in Botanical Discussion

2006-07-25T00:47:00.000-04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Scientific Community, I bid you a good evening.

I come to you from the very belly of scientific endeavor, the precarious cusp of reason that stands before the sheer void of superstitious speculation, from the intellectual border that separates the limits of the expanse of possible theory and impossible desire...yes, I come to you tonight from Brooklyn.

On this evening, I have ventured into the unknown to track the mysteriously haired Israeli palm Tomer, known familiarly as "Coco".

My initial sighting occurred a small period of time after my emergence from the subterranean passageways separating the island of my home from the habitual copulation, feeding, and defecation zones of Coco. As I stood upon the interception point of two markedly used thoroughfares, I was approached by the man/tree quite apparently in search of the staple of his/its diet, the legendary little pies. I approached with some apprehension. He/It quickly located the consumptive of desire and proceeded to eat little pies. The little pies seemed to occupy the attention of the Coco quite nicely. Yes, this Coco is the scourge of little pies. Those poor, poor little pies.

I followed close behind the man/tree as he/it navigated around the fallen arches of a failed park, circumnavigating a gentle arc around the perimeter of what could have been nothing but the bathing place of forgotten gods, so great was its size, so vast its remarkable depths. I followed him/it past quiet throngs of people who seemed not to notice the botanical-man anomaly and into a small grass courtyard where he/it communed with what could have only been female worshippers of some odd ilk. Eventually however, he tired of their affections and allowed them to return to whatever cold existence they suffered through outside of the gaze of his/its accepting eyes. At this point, I found the courage to hazard an approach.

In the grand tradition of Charles Darwin, David Livingstone, and Lex Luthor, I decided to ask questions of the object of my own scientific inquiry. The transcript that follows is coded into the questions asked by myself (S) and the responses of Coco(C) with only slight deviation.

S: Hello, Coco. I am from Science. I would like to ask you some questions.
C: Okay. I am not a homosexual, but you are a very sexy man.
S: Thank you. Science does that to a man. Shall we proceed?
C: Yes.

S: Tell me of your scientific background.
C: I was a Biology major in college. You know, a lot of dead cats and dogs on the side of the road. Maybe manipulate my little sisters.

S: What are the three aspects of Science that intrigue you the most?
C: 1. Answers. Definite answers. 2. It's messy. You never know what will happen. 3. The white robes.

S: You have an affection for the white robes?
C: Yes.
S: If you could choose between a white robe, a cape, and a Napoleon hat, which would you choose and why?
C: The cape. It is the closest thing to a gown.

S: If the study of Physics were made into a woman, do you think you'd have a shot at getting into her trousers?
C: No. She'd have bad breath and a hairy stomach and she farts a lot. I will make a really horrible woman.

S: It seems that you perceive Physics as being similar to yourself.
C: Yes. Unclear, messy, yet formulated thingyness.

S: On the subject of the ladies, if you were stranded on a desert island alone, would you make a woman out of the palm trees you found yourself surrounded by?
C: Yes. I would use the coconut as the pussy. I would use a different coconut everyday. I would have thousands of women.

S: Who would win in a fight to the death between a sock puppet and a washing machine?
C: The washing machine. No. The sock puppet. I don't know. It would be really messy. The washing machine. The sock puppet has some clear advantages, but the washing machine will come through. It's clumsy, but it has its ways.

C: What if all trees were fishes, and all fishes were trees?
C: It would be really, really smelly. All the fishes would be on land and that would be really smelly. All the trees would be in the sea and they would rot and that would be really smelly. If all the trees were fishes and all the fishes were trees, it would be really, really smelly. Nobody would like it.

S: If you had a bathtub full of hotdogs and you threw a toaster in, would they evolve into divine warriors?
C: It's possible; superbly low, but you never know.
S: Why not?
C: Randomness. In the beginning there was nothing and then (makes exploding noise with mouth while quickly bring his/its hands together and pulling them apart). It's worth nothing. So maybe it's possible. Yes, it's very high. Actually, it's bigger than one hundred percent. Yes, they are all warriors. I define warriors, and they are all hotdog warriors.

S: If you were forced to choose between living the rest of your life out as a zombie or a mummy, which would you choose?
C: Zombie. Scare a lot of people, still hang around. Maybe I can be a movie star. I can be the first zombie movie star. I can get into the history books. I'll be the first zombie with a star.
S: Have you seen the stars on the Hollywood "Walk of Fame"?
C: No.
S: They're made out of recycled cans, you know.
C: Really?
S: No.
C: What do you mean?
S: No.

S: Did you watch Mr. Wizard when you were a kid/sapling?
C: We didn't have it in Israel.
S: If Mr. Wizard told you to take off your pants, would you?
C: It depends where he asked.
S: On a crosstown bus?
C: No. I don't know who he is.
S: What if he had credentials?
C: Maybe. It depends on the credentials.
S: What kind of credentials would you need top remove your pants on a crosstown bus at the request of a stranger wearing a purple robe with yellow stars and moons on it, just like Mr. Wizard wears?
C: A Nobel Peace Prize.
S: Do you know what a Nobel Peace Prize looks like?
C: No.
S: Have you ever met anyone who has won one?
C: No. Have you?
S: Of course. Most scientists have won them.
C: Have you?
S: Of course.
C: For what?
S: Penmanship. So if you don't know what a Nobel Peace Prize really looks like, how would you validate his credentials?
C: I guess if I've heard of him.
S: Well, I just told you about him. He wears a purple robe with yellow stars and moons on it.
C: Okay, yeah.
S: And a pointed hat.
C: Okay, yeah.

S: Can you swim?
C: Yes, of course. I am from Israel.
S: You're from a desert so you can swim?
C: Yes.
S: Faster than a shark?
C: No way.
S: What about a robot shark?
C: Ummm....No. Ummm...unless he's really ghetto.
S: What do you mean?
C: (Makes funny noises with his mouth), moves slow, eye pops out.
S: Why would he chase you?
C: He hates my white ass and my accent.
S: Has this happened before?
C: I had a dream that a gang of ghetto robot barracudas chased me down the street, but they didn't smell blood and I didn't sweat at all, I was just laughing. After they chased me for about two hours, and I watched them drop out one by one, and there was only one left and I turned around and started laughing and he saw that he was all alone and started crying and dried out and I said, "Fuck you, ghetto barracuda! I don't give a shit about you!" and I smash his head and piss on him and then I take off my pants, and shit all over him and I see his friends crying and hugging each other and I say, "Fuck you, ghetto barracudas! Let me be!" and I walk home to eat dinner with my family. They say, "You smell weird." and I thought, "I didn't wipe my ass. I just shit on a ghetto barracuda and I didn't wipe my ass." And I said, "Jeez. Just give me some chicken."

Twenty Proofs That I Am A Robot

2006-07-14T21:18:00.000-04:00

1. Name seven American Presidents who weren't robots, besides Grover Cleveland and James Madison.

2. Robots are programmed for very specific tasks, such as eating and the occasional wearing of pants.

3. All kittens like robots, unless they are not real little kittens.

4. Robots are magnetic.

5. "Transistor" and "Transexual" are eerily similar words.

6. Robots change the weather with interpretive dances if they want to.

7. Robots don't care about termites mostly.

8. In a street fight between an alligator and Jesus, who would win?

9. Nobody can beat a robot in volleyball or ring toss or boomerang tag.

10. I'm shiny.

11. I have made love to a sock puppet that did not belong to me.

12. Rocket skates.

13. Four consecutive Nevada State ice dancing championships.

14. I can swim under the water for a prescribed number of moments, determined by myself.

15. 110011010100100101001010110100111

16. I have manipulated the feelings of a volcano for my own financial gain and have not felt remorseful.

17. I don't eat chickens.

17. The moon does not affect the tides of the planet Earth.

18. When I get especially dizzy, I do not throw up but sometimes I have some shorts that are Tang™ colored and I wear them.

Homemade

2006-07-07T21:07:00.000-04:00

We traveled through the night with what we had, and that was five years and a scattered heap of weeks, maybe some months, and days. We drove my car because it was what we had. You flew in to say goodbye.

I don't relate to most people I love.

We had some time (some five years) and wore scars like November wears cold (dismissive) or the caricature of a pirate wears gloves (with difficulty); because fuck it, what else could we do? If I were a drinker (and I am not), then I would not be here. If I were self destructive, this is the story I would tell.

I remember one night which was no happier than this that we pulled over in my car to the side of a quiet highway. We lay on the trunk and stared at the stars in the dark and emptied our hearts because this made us whole. I remember one night when I followed you into the ocean as naked as our love to kiss and to hold you in the darkness, above the shifting sands. I had made a cuckold of my lover that night, but so often this has been the language of our love. Desperate and shaking with fear over this intensity, as if the love of most was a soft song that echoes in the moon's glow, and this is white noise; we dance deaf and drunk with a lack of rest.

A Few Mornings Past

2006-06-23T23:58:00.000-04:00

The sign outside the establishment states, "Gourmet Coffees & Fine Teas". I enter and before me are barrels halved, each with an open bag (burlap) of Gourmet Coffees. Fine Teas sit upon the wall to my left, sippers of Gourmet Coffees and Fine Teas grace wrought iron tables and chairs and speak beneath bushy eyebrows and brown hats in library volumes. There is a woman I walk past, attractive, young-ish.

As I enter, an attractive young woman catches the door behind me, allowing entrance to herself and a small dog. The dog is very puffy of fur, small of stature, and wears what I may only be able to describe as a "shirt" of jungle camouflage.

I walk past the woman before me to the woman at the counter, desirous (I announce) for one cup of Gourmet Coffee, small, pronouncing the Gourmet "t" with some relish. Diction is fashionable in this district, at this early hour. The woman whom I have just walked past kneels into a crouch beside the dog, very puffy of fur, small of stature, wearing what I have described as a "shirt" of jungle camouflage.

She speaks in a lovely sing-song voice to the delight of the animal, "Hello there, Cory!"

The woman attached to the dog by leash about its puffy of fur neck and her slender and delicate wrist replies, "How do you know Cory?"

The woman whom I have walked past replies, "Oh, I know Dave. And I guess you're the reason I haven't seen him lately."

"Well, I'm Dave's sister. How come everybody knows Dave and Cory, and nobody knows me?", apparently ignoring the catty remarks of some girl her brother fucked.

Really I don't know how people discern most often between "Gourmet" and "Costly".

In The Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 9

2006-06-20T02:51:00.000-04:00

Ah, devoted colleagues of the illuminating pursuit of Science, good evening.

In the final installment of our lengthy series on Dunkin'’ Donuts flavored coffee, tonight we will be discussing Dunkin' Donuts Blueberry flavored coffee.

This is a sad day for Science.

Science is notoriously optimistic. Science does not chide nor mock, does not deride nor cast aspersions in the direction of, does not waylay nor fuck with. Science likes to give the benefit of the doubt. We kept Maxwell's mechanical theories around long after quantum mechanics make them look a bit silly until they made sense again, you know, just in case. And now quantum mechanics is locked up in a locker in the Phoenix Greyhound Depot right where we'll know where to find it in case we need it again. Hell, in the last twenty years we'’ve existed in five dimensions, six dimensions, ten dimensions, twenty-six dimensions, and now back to ten with a hidden, balled-up, nearly invisible additional sixteen that we don'’t know what to do with. Sure, the mathematicians may talk their smack about the seemingly arbitrary dedication of Science to new and unproved theory, but look at the egg on their filthy little faces when Gauss was shot down for his insinuations that Euclid may have been off his ham and that you can't measure real cubic space with theoretical square math. No, Science has proven itself to be as open-minded and hopeful as a cuckold in the maternity ward. And it is this very reason that Science has left blueberry to the very end. The train of thought of Science follows that as blueberries are a native little fruit to New England and Dunkin'’ Donuts is a native corporate machine that misuses the beauty of the world'’s perfect bean, that of earthy majesty and caffeinated heaven from New England I figured, what the hell. They'’d probably be able to figure out this little guy better than they did marshmallow (France), chocolate (South America), cinnamon (India), or chayote (Mexico). It stands to reason. They are familiar. So it is with hope and acceptance that Science enters into this final step in the process of relating the merits and detriments of Dunkin'’ Donuts flavored coffees to the populace at large, a populace theoretically much better aquainted with the product sold under the name of coffee by Dunkin' Donuts, inc. than I (representative of Science!) am.

So why the long face, you ask?

Well, you see, Science has been somewhat disappointed thus far in its varied attempts to elucidate the nature of an international phenom: the popularity of Dunkin'’ Donuts coffee. Science has been tireless in its effort to divine meaning from burnt and nasty robusta funk. Okay, well maybe a little bit tired. Hell, it has taken six months to drink nine cups of coffee, a fact that Science apologizes for. But a few days ago, I have awoke in Boston, Massachusetts, home of Dunkin'’ Donuts coffee. I had hoped to pick some small amount of wisdom truly out of the very air. My luck was entirely nonexistent. I actually cannot even find anyone actually drinking Dunkin'’ Donuts coffee. Science is thus left with no option but wild conjecture, an option that of course Science has only theorized about in the past, as we of the Science-ish variety tend towards stark realism beyond the point of mere reality and into the neighborhood of sheer boring factualizationisms.

The nuts and bolts of the thing read like this: I obtained a medium sized cup of Blueberry flavored Dunkin'’ Donuts coffee from a business in Queens, New York. I drank this cup of coffee carefully, delicately, without much joy. I realized the chemical-ish taste was still with me. Through eight cups of coffee, a number of states, two lovers, a girlfriend, two new tattoos, a theremin, a winter, two new guitars, four pairs of shoes, the death of a plant to whom I was really quite attached, a beard, not a beard, maybe a beard again, and a new kettle, which is black. Through all of these things, the memory of the chemical-ish nature of the flavor of Dunkin' Donuts flavored coffee'’s haunts me like Scabies at Woodstock. This tasted nothing like blueberry. That had failed even their native flora.

So I decided it was high time that Science ceased to be merely pissed and instead start fucking shit up. So I did a small amount of research. And I was entirely shocked by this revelations laid bare by my inquiries. First of all, I noticed that these flavors contain no sugar. None. No recognizable sugars of any sort. This conflicts quite heavily with the sensations delivered to my palate by this coffee. Have my senses become somehow desensitized through constant misuse and is the government to blame? Yes! But how? I am unsure, but I am certain that my arch-nemesis in Science, Jimmy Carter, is to blame.

The second surprise is far more nefarious than the normal calamities of Jimmy Carter. Below, I shall state the ingredients as they appear upon the Dunkin'’ Donuts website for "“Blueberry Flavored Coffee"”:
INGREDIENTS: Brewed Coffee, Blueberry Flavorshot [Glycerine, Water, Propylene Glycol, Natural & Artificial Flavors, Caramel Color].

Does any of this seem strange to you? Of course it does! As fellow acolytes of Science, you recognize immediately two ingredients of questionable ethical merit! The first of course is Glycerine. Given that the Earth's atmosphere is roughly 78% Nitrogen, one can quite easily infer through the simple use of logic, cartoon history, and one particular episode of Gilligan'’s Island how very simple it will be to create the dread NITROGLYCERINE!!! This is a perfect explanation for the reason that when Chuckie Sullivan brings Will (members of the Boston laboring class, notorious for their passionate defense of the theoretical attributes of Dunkin'’ Donuts coffee) a cup of coffee in the morning, it is generic and not Dunkin'’ Donuts. No doubt some time in the past, Will had explained to Chuckie that Dunkin'’ Donuts causes people to explode.

The second ingredient that raises the eyebrow of Science is Propylene Glycol. Can you imagine? Now sure, exploding is one thing (and one I might add not entirely outside of the imagination of one Jimmy Carter), but Propylene Glycol?! On the offhand chance that you are unaware of the normal uses of Propylene Glycol, I offer two instances in which it is normal to use Propylene Glycol:
1. Sexual Lubricant
2. Cryonics

Odd? Well, perhaps to the untrained eye. But the eye of Science is big and it does not have a lid and it doesn'’t need to blink even if it did have one and it can see through things like walls and not underclothes and it can hear a bug nestle its nose against the shoulder of love and it knows everything and can fly and shoot fire and talk backwards and everything! The eye of Science sees what tree this Dunkin'’ Donuts is shaking and it weeps but little!

Dunkin'’ Donuts is attempting with its flavored coffee'’s a most nefarious ploy to undermine the very foundation of human life! We all know that zombies are impervious to Cryonic sleep. This is the only reason that they were able to pass relatively unharmed through the last great ice age. This is a very reasonable biological premise. It is from these uncold zombies that we have come to be, through their humping and humping and humping. Thus, the sexual lubrication (as zombie'’s bodies do not necessarily function with the same precision as the bodies of the non-un-dead) is explained. But what can this all mean?!

Zombies don't breathe. They would not intake the requisite atmospheric composition to trigger the nitroglycerine compound. Only the non-undead would. So we are blowing up by the thousands as any old Tom, Dick, or Harry within reach of a television set knows. But should we fail to explode, we will fall into cryonic sleep. We have thusly become the easy pickings of zombie lunch ladies. After all, what zombie can resist the allure of a frozen man at the bus stop? None, I believe is the correct answer if we take into consideration the hundreds of years of tireless research done on the behalf of Science.

It should now be obvious what is happening. Freud suggested that the reason that men feel the necessity to rebel against their fathers is based upon the biological fear of zombies, our evolutionary kin. We can only speculate that the motivation for Dunkin'’ Donuts drive to destroy humanity in favor of the rise of zombies is a crass attempt to reconnect with their fathers after many years of detachment. This is a phenomenon propagated by such novel hucksters as Dr. Phil. Sure, it is widely recognized that Dr. Phil is nothing but a zombie shill, but we'’ve largely allowed his corporate masters to go unchecked. While Dr. Phil rots his days away in Sing Sing, slinging mashed potatoes onto aluminum trays, Dunkin'’ Donuts pursues the rise of zombie culture and we just explode away.

Where does this all this leave us? Nowhere. The people of the world will just go on ignoring Science, as it does every time Science does something entirely sensible like understand the universe. And they'’ll only get fired up if we make a better t.v. or offhandedly call them an old bunch of hairy-assed monkeys.

And by the time anyone notices, the zombies will be drinking shitty coffee out of the skull of Yul Brynner. And the non-un-dead will just have their own unlearned selves to blame.

So fuck the people.

And fuck the zombies.

SCIENCE RULES!

Ribcage

2006-05-26T16:40:00.007-04:00

As a butcher I once plied, knives sharper than my skill would require and I felt too many times the uneasy jerk as my indelicate hand guided steel through thin layers of bone quite without intent, taking bits unknowingly until that delicate balance was reached between three events: the limitations of blade sharpness, the unnoticed change in muscle exertion, and the steady give of bone grain until indeed factors challenge factors and my tender mind blinks with recognition and a momentary apprehension becomes revelatory and I cease. I think of this smell of iron blood and the wet scent of bone, imagine some brutish god, holy and imperfect, bearded and bespectacled, with tiny tools fashioned from fission fired forge, steadily and peaceably planing the hollow lattice of man's structure; the dry drag and thin whistle of the shaping of rib. I myself carve lean and unused, remnant of animal and precaution. A hopeless bit of meat and clean stricken bone, unthinking and ever, ever cutting.

In The Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 8

2006-05-22T22:36:00.000-04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen of the scientific community, good evening.

For some months we have been gathering in this matter, to discuss the fouling of the great tropical nugget of hope, good fortune, and stain rings upon my desk. The beautiful blackness that is coffee, besmirched by those strange, strange kapitalists at Dunkin' Donuts with corn syrup and misguided culinary endeavor. Tonight we are to discuss the merits and detriments of Dunkin' Donuts Chocolate flavored coffee.

Under normal circumstances, Science frowns upon the item called "chocolate" for one very obvious reason. And that reason is colonialism. Science is a great advocate for the sustainment of native cultures and natural ecosystems and really gets pissed off when hippie kids wear hemp shoes sewn together by little Cambodian kids working hard with a gun in their back for a bowl of rice a day.

Let's step back a moment, shall we?

Chocolate (much like avocados and Charo) was initially discovered at the end of a bloody sword in Central America by Spanish "Conquistadors", which is a fun name for Spanish explorers, missionaries, and genocidal maniacs. It began being produced in its most rudimentary solid form to be consumed by Europeans by the Italians (first colonists, second fascists, third Vespa manufacturers). It then spread throughout all of Europe, finding itself most notably in the hands of the Dutch (colonists, wooden shoed dike pokers), the Swiss (Nazi fiscal backers, Hole-y cheese mongers), and the English (colonists, killers of the Irish, and most loathsome of all Chunnel Trash). Unfortunately, chocolate has not yet outgrown its ignoble birth. It is given in abundance to American soldiers in actions taking place in foreign countries to give to native inhabitants to placate them before they are destroyed in fire, and in urban and suburban communities to wives in the place of the divestment of emotional time from their husbands as these husbands spend their evenings elsewhere, attempting to colonize other women's beds. Most damning of all, a scientist not unknown to this forum, a Mr. Brewster, has recently acquired a small amount of chocolate figures in the shapes of the clearest symbol to modern man of evil and the negative aspects of empire, that of the Galactic Empire as led by the Galactic Emperor Palpatine. If chocolate wasn't inherently evil, these chocolate figures would be in the shape of something practical, hopeful, and undeniably lovely like Bunsen burners, James Clerk Maxwell, or John Brown.

So to whom do we look to for this propagation of horror and oppression? Who is it that could possibly be so maddeningly evil and choco-centric? Science is very clear on this. It is the Keebler elves. And they would stab you in your pee hole if they had the chance, even if you were sleeping or on stilts.

A question arises here. The question as I am very sure you are aware, is why? Why in the world would the Keebler Elves wish to kill and maim and control all of humanity?

I know! We'll ask Science!

Science is not overly fond of destructive and hurtful behavior propagated by woodland folk. So what's the deal with elves? As we all know, elves are white supremacists. It is common knowledge that the word elf has the same root as the Latin word for "white". It is also widely recognized that elves dwell in "woods". A "wood" is prison slang for a white supremacist. I don't think that it takes much imagination to guess why elves initially got into the cracker business. The Keebler Elves are involved in a very simplistic attempt to take over the world for the "betterment" of their racist agenda. Chocolate is historically a part of this. The destruction of varied culture and the overall homogenization of the significant intricacies of peoples in this modern era is based largely upon the assimilation of individual ideas, products, and beliefs, thereby bringing ruination to the indigenous stratifications of this world. From the go, chocolate has lent itself to such a watering down. We see this bitter beverage of the Americas brought to Europe and watered down, the spice removed, sugar added. Okay, granted, it tastes better now, but maybe the Aztecs didn't want it to taste good. Hell, they played basketball with the eviscerated heart of their fallen enemies, a practice not repeated until the finale of the '75 World Series© by Carlton Fisk. And he's no culinarian, let me tell you brothers and sisters of Science!

The only thing that I really don't understand in all of this is the one creature who is probably controlling it all. The one unaccounted bit of nefarious-ness in all of thishullabalooo. Count Chocula. The chocolate connection is there. The breakfast connection is there. The parent-company regional (American East Coast) connection is there. Where does all of this leave us? Simple. With only one possible answer.

I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.

The Kamikaze Pilot

2006-04-08T01:59:00.000-04:00

Everything fell apart in New Orleans.

I had been maintaining. Holding out. Flying the flag, lifting the banners of normalcy. I had become approachable. And that’s where it all fell apart.

Outside of a club, trying to clear my head. I was under an overpass of the 10 freeway. When I was 16, I tried to jump out of a pick up truck on this same freeway back in San Bernardino. I stumbled, lost my balance and split open the top of my head on the bed, and no one ever even knew about it. They had been in the cab. And again, they had been in the club.

I don’t know why it came back, but there were voices, and I hadn’t heard voices in over a month. No dizzy spells yet, though. Some kids came up, three I think. God, I can’t believe this, I hadn’t told anyone about this. They were talking shit, I still had my mohawk. But New Orleans or not, this is still the deep fucking south. So I watched them pass three feet from me, talking shit and that’s okay to them. And I wait. And then twenty feet behind, I follow.

It doesn’t take them long to find their way down a side street and I doubled my steps to reach them before they got out of sight. Of course, they were waiting for me right behind the corner. I’m not sure what happened from there. I can remember the first one kicking me and that distant half-vague thought that hits in a fight, thinking that thank god he kicked my ribs, socking his kneecap, and feeling my fist just slip off. I remember yelling on my hands and knees and some kid kicking me hard in the chest. That left welts that kept on for almost a week. I remember my fist catching some kid’s face between itself and a brick wall; all of the buildings down there were made up of brick. When I left, I felt like hell. I could taste all of the blood in my mouth. One kid was screaming and it looked like his arm was broken, and I left.

I walked back to the club more numb than I have ever felt in my life. When I was a kid I’d fight and feel like I had accomplished something every time. I had felt alive for...three minutes...and I felt sorry and alone until the depression really hit. But always walking back, or running away from, or whatever the circumstances meant I did, I had felt relief. Until the sorrow really hit.

I was a Kamikaze pilot feeling relief at beating a cold as he steps into his plane.

But all of this shit, I had beat this. These were the old ghosts. I hadn’t lost my shit for what...eight years now? But I walked and looked up at the overpass. Back to the 10, back to the 10.

I hadn’t been able to process anything yet. I was in shock, I was afraid that my friends would notice how fucked up I was and I’d have to tell them what I’d done. It always made me feel so small, telling someone. I was the guilty child who had done wrong. I didn’t want that again, but I felt the swelling in my cheek (god knows where that came from), I tasted all of this blood, and I knew they’d see it, I just fucking knew. I wanted to be dead. I hated myself, and do you know what? I hate myself again for admitting to this. I feel dirty, I feel just as worthless as I treat other people.

I came back and leaned up against the same sign I had been leaning up against before, and cried to myself. I’ve always heard people say that crying is therapeutic, that it’s cathartic. I cried today. I was watching a movie. A man was losing his mind. I cried because he stopped himself. I know that psychosis is the evolution of the rational mind, and I cried because he had been so close to self actualization, and he had failed himself. I cried that night in New Orleans, that warm winter night in New Orleans because I had failed myself with guilt, pretending conscience as a concession to structure, to society. I don’t have any natural opposition to violence, I have nothing against taking a man’s face into my hand and crushing it into the sidewalk. And yes, I have done it before. He was only half-conscious, and I paused and wondered if it were the right thing to do. That was the day I realized that I didn’t know what right or even wrong meant, and that all that could ever stop me was greater force. And half-conscious is not greater force. I was sixteen. It was a good year for me, sixteen. A good year.

And so I cried. I didn’t know why I was crying and I hated myself for it just as I always do, but I cried. And then I heard footsteps from close behind me and I thought of the song “Broken Bones” by the Freeze, and I smiled. Through the fucking tears, I smiled and prepared myself for self-destruction. Again, I was a metaphysical entity bled from the soul of rage. I balled my fists which were sore. I clenched my teeth. I felt the adrenaline.

And then I heard Tim’s voice.

I can’t remember what he said, but I remember laughing. Knowing Tim, he entered on a joke, so I was safe anyway. The irony of the situation is odd to me now that I can see it on paper. I blindly followed three guys onto a side street in the middle of the night in a strange town just because I wanted to destroy, to be destroyed. I wasn’t afraid of any of it. All I was afraid of was a 150 pound funk bassist who loves with more sincerity than I will ever be able to understand, and who would never even think of hurting another human being except in self-defense. This isn’t the first time I’ve looked at my writings and seen a call for help. Jakob, Adam, me, we’re all the same. This approval that we all need. From our friends, our lovers. And everyone else is shadows, fuck ‘em. They are immaterial. I guess that’s what makes the violence so easy. I wonder why we’re here at all sometimes.

I remember very clearly what Tim said after he’d settled himself in at the sign with me. It was really a beautiful night all of the sudden. Maybe three o’clock in the morning, Tim was pretty buzzed just like all of the rest of our friends. Well, except for me and Abby. She’s another wonderful person. The friends that I have in New Orleans are some of the best people I’ve ever met, by any standards. They’re the kind of people that will just stick by you against the damn fires of hell. Good people.

Tim tells me that he looked around for me and couldn’t see me, but didn’t think much of it. Then he thought that oh yeah, this is Danny Hicks, he’s probably out fighting somewhere. He laughed at this point, because it was a pretty ridiculous thought. Then he realized that it could be true, so he came outside to find me. And when he didn’t see me, he actually got really worried. He said that he didn’t doubt that I’d win, he just worried anyway. The only thing the bastard god in the skies above ever gave me was the best friends in the world. I would lay down my life for any one of them, because the way I see it, there isn’t one of them that isn’t so much better than me it’s just laughable to anybody on the outside. But at that thought (his worry), he saw me up against the sign. We laughed and I was ashamed. But still we laughed. He didn't realize he was right.

And the night was beautiful. It was warm and humid, and everything you touched was cool from the showers that had been hitting all day long. And so, well into the night with my brother Tim, we got into a truck and began driving around the beautiful streets of New Orleans. At some point we were in the bed of a pick up and I’m not sure how, it was just the way the night went. It was the first time I had been in a fight and didn’t spend the rest of the night hating myself for hurting another person. People don’t understand that this is how it works for us. If I win a fight or lose, I hate myself for even bruising another person. One time I got two ribs severely cracked and a sprained finger, not to mention the bruises, the bleeding. But before I went down I broke some kid’s nose. I felt it give, and when you break a nose you feel it. It’s not the sound, because sometimes that’s just the cartilage shifting and everything’s just out of place for a week or so. But when it breaks...yeah, you know it’s broken. So I spent the rest of the night all tore up over his nose, this one kid out of the four that ran out of the Shamrocks to fuck me up, his broken nose. Poor kid. I’ve never felt the guilt of having done something “morally” wrong, I just know what it feels like to hurt. And when I am strong, I want no one to feel pain.

And the night was great. I had a secret and it felt just fine. This of course means the beginning of the end. I have a great photograph of myself from that morning when we got home, emotionally so drained that it shows on my face. I couldn’t write in New Orleans, but when everyone else took off to go to the Zulu Parade, I went to my room, wrote out some lyrics, and went to bed. It was the first night I spent in New Orleans that I didn’t have the nightmares that I always have when I lose my mind. Waking up drenched in sweat and feeling the walls close on me like a skin. And then I’d just roll out of bed and sleep naked on the floor. It’s all I could do, and I’d been doing it since I was eleven. For years, my parents wondered why I slept on the linoleum floor of my bedroom. Here you go guys, a revelation. But not this night. This night, I slept the sleep of the just. And when I woke up at maybe two o’clock in the afternoon, I put on clean clothes. It was the first time I had done that since I had arrived. And then I flew back to Los Angeles.

I of course figured that everything was okay. I was reading a National Geographic. And then it hit. I wrote the song “Clockwork” on the back cover. And I knew I needed to fight again.

I was in a strange place at this point. I was secure. I’ve been through the little place so many times where I feel the need to be destroyed, but I’ve never felt secure in it. This time I was ready to be swept away by the tide, to be sucked up into the tornado, to fight volcano gods with a jar of kerosene.

I talk to Luba daily, to Jakob, Adam, Michael, Sara. To everyone but Yvonne. She can see through me, she always has been able to. Just the same way Bekah would if she were here. I’m back to maintaining, though not maintaining the same things that I once did. I started running again. The first night I went running I had to run for almost thirty minutes before I found what I needed. Now I’ve got it down to about ten.

I fight every three days or so now. But I’m back to feeling the same depression that I felt when I was younger. I am the prostitute searching for the magic of the first kiss.

But I guess this is why I’m writing. I fucked up. I went running two days ago. I ran for forty minutes. I usually resign myself just to running if it takes longer than twenty, but i lost it. I woke up with the dizzy spells, and the nightmares are back. I was out looking for a job, was walking through a crowded restaurant and was bumped. I grabbed this guy’s wrist and slammed it up against the wall and head butted him in the mouth. I have teeth marks an inch above my hairline that have scabbed over, so I can’t shave my head just yet. You might wonder if all of this is lies. Extrapolation. I’m hoping that Luba won’t notice the scabs tomorrow night. I want to kill the people I meet on the street all the time. This man’s wife screamed and I threw him down onto the ground and realized what was happening. I have never been so scared in my life. I ran like fuck. I didn’t get into my car, I left it and came back for it later that night. And that night, two nights ago, I went running. For almost forty minutes. And then I met a man that I fought like fuck.

It’s pretty easy to find people in my neighborhood who want to fight. I won’t fight anybody that doesn’t want to, I never have. I don’t want to destroy. In truth, I want to be destroyed. But I need to be overcome, I can’t just resign myself to losing. I guess that’s why I enjoyed getting jumped so much when I was younger. So I run and brush close to people who look like they like to fuck people up. And when they react, I stop running and it’s on. Just like that. You know, I’ve seen “Fight Club” a few times, here and there. They talk about how difficult it is to get into a fight. Of course, they were amateurs.

Two days ago, I got into a fight. Last night I stayed up all night talking to Luba on the telephone. If she knew me better, she would recognize how distant I was. Yesterday, I didn’t think I’d ever need to fight again. We haven’t talked yet tonight.

Two days ago, I was running down Sherman and turned down a side street around Canoga. I didn’t bump anyone. I didn’t have to, I’d been here before, the very first night. I fought this guy that I didn’t think I had a chance against. I was wrong. But now, I could fight again, so it was good that he wasn’t alone.

There were two of them, two cholos. I ran up to them, and one pulled a knife. I’ve said many times before that I like when guys pull knives, because all they can think is that they’ve got a knife and you don’t, and if you can fix those odds, their shit gets fucked up. I fixed it pretty quick, but the other one that I had fought before must have been sober this time because he was a fucking animal. It was the best fight I have ever been in in my entire life. Cholo one was on the ground crying and holding his ear because blood was just pouring out of it. But me and cholo two were trading punches like I’ve never done before. I am not considered a strong man. But I swear to god, I hate like no other man hates. I was fury, a fucking supernova. And I fucked him up. And I kept fucking him up until he slipped to the ground. I say slipped because he did not fall like I had knocked him down. He did not fall like he tripped. I say slipped because it was like his whole body quit working. And just like that, I killed my first man.

I wasn’t afraid, either. I was a superman. I told Adam that the reason that we exist is because we are supermen, and god is afraid of a world without us. And I believe it. So I continued my run until I hit the reservoir and hopped the fence. Then I heard the sirens. I knew that I was not an evil man. I ran down to the bottom of the reservoir and washed the blood off of my hands, and most of it was mine. I washed the blood off of my neck, and off the back of my leg where it obscured the peacock feather tattooed on my calf. I’m not sure where that blood came from, who it belonged to. I can’t say that I really cared. I was eighty feet tall and made of iron. An absolute monument to the strength of will.

I continued running until I came to the fence that separates the reservoir from my apartment complex. I hopped the fence, came inside, showered, and made a cup of coffee. Good stuff. The last of the Kona Adam gave me. Shit, one hell of a night. I wrote some music, and I went to bed. I slept like you wouldn’t believe.

I woke up late the next day, yesterday, too late to go and look for a job. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I thought about it, and I realized that I had stepped beyond the point where most men are willing to go and this was okay. As I said, morality is to evolution like love is to a brush fire. I went about my day, felt good, and stayed up all night talking to Luba.

That was yesterday.

I woke up this morning dizzy. About ten minutes before I started writing this I took off my slippers and put on my running shoes. I hadn’t realized it but the socks that I put on this morning are my running socks. They are my only white socks, so it probably wasn’t a mistake. I’m pretty fucking scared right now. I just walked out to get another cup of coffee and bumped into something. I turned on the lights, and there was nothing there. I am back to fighting ghosts. I know that if I step out of my door right now, I will not be out just to fight. That is a place I can never go again. I know that if I step out of my door right now, I will not be out just to fight.

Oh, god. I have been writing this for so long, that at least I won’t be leaving here tonight.

But I will wake up from the nightmares.

And I will return to the dizzy spells.

The headaches, the nasty crying jags where nothing can be fixed.

I will start punching walls again.

I will stare into the mirror like I used to and see a devil; the superman will be gone.

And that will just be tomorrow. One day I will give. I know that this does not end. Each minute that passes begins another, they become hours and then become days. All of which are irrelevant to the clockwork of madness.

Please. This is a call for help.

In The Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 7

2006-03-17T18:58:00.000-05:00

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen.

In an effort to further the scientific study of coffee, I have come before you tonight to discuss the subject of the many varieties of Dunkin’ Donuts flavored coffee.

By way of a polite aside, it has come to my attention that this work of mine, pioneering though it may be, has been mislabeled as an endeavor of theoretical merit and a curiosity coyly bathing itself in the warm fragrant waters of the unknown. I believe that statements to this effect are intended as complimentary. While I appreciate the spirit which impels those to announce such sentiment (although of course, I will not deign to condone either sentimentality nor emotion at any time whatsoever), I must insist on a cessation of such proclamations and suggestions. Such as these create a foothold for the skeptics with whom we are forever locked in a minor fight to the death, the likes of which have not been witnessed since that documentary on the Discovery Channel when “Adorable” Adrian Adonis was locked in that crocodile’s death roll and then shoved under a large, decaying sunken log until his fetid and painted flesh was joyfully consumed by the reptile. Of course, most people never had the opportunity to witness such a thing as PETA immediately had the piece pulled in opposition to animal testing, because the crocodile ate the eye shadow (along with the eyes) of the fallen icon. As a scientist however, I receive all materials commercially produced of any relevance to Science, free of charge, and received an advance copy which I reviewed prior to the PETA ban. And you know, yucky and informative. Yucky and informative. But ultimately, who won?

To answer this question, we must first identify the proper combatants. Was the intent of the program really to illustrate merely a tired and embattled conflict between two life forms, crocodile and rotund white person? Or was the intent something greater?

Let us perhaps consider that this was a contest between man and nature. Clearly it seems that in its original form, the victor was nature. But then again, PETA did with a picket sign and a celebrity lobby what “Adorable” Adrian Adonis couldn’t do with a suplex and a whole bag full of half nelson’s and boston crab’s. PETA was able to defeat the crocodile by taking away its airtime by labeling its 7 minutes and 45 seconds of Discovery Channel heroics as “objectionable”. Thus, the crocodile not only lost positive press, but the footage shot is not even suitable for reel. Copernicus, that croc will never work in this town again. And this is the least of its problems if either The Junkyard Dog or Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat find out about this mess.

But what does PETA stand to gain from any of this? Their issue and reason for existence seems to be of a protective nature for those bits of nature that cannot defend themselves, which creates an oppositional existence for this group with most of humanity. So it seems that they have just aided their enemy. Or have they? Perhaps by creating yet another unemployed, disaffected reptile, they have merely sought to exacerbate a situation already occurring in our world wetlands: A growing tendency towards open revolution. Perhaps they believe that by riling a few more predators, they can finally develop an open declaration of furious revolt that can only end in fewer small house pets and a greater number of berets.

Yes, I believe this is the answer after which we have sought.

But what of coffee, gentle Science-y sorts? Have we forgotten that cup of Dunkin’ Donuts Coconut flavored coffee? Well of course we haven’t. It still churns in our tummy like a bag of rusty ball bearings and old ghee.

As is customary to the vast and articulate experiments of Science, I have taken my sampling from the very same Dunkin Donuts, that mecca of Kapitalist caffeination, on 104th and 3rd in Harlem. It was a short and uneventful walk back to the laboratory, during which time I was able to allow my mind to wander in an effort to ignore the blinding pain of cold that is a New York winter.

As I have conducted these experiments over the past few months, I have begun to think a bit more about the idea of the human influence on experimental data. Recently, I was sitting in a bar in Greenwich Village with a good friend of mine, a Bulgarian Super Villain expatriate living here in the States under the relatively anonymous pseudonym of “The Pirate”. We had just realized that our evening was at an end, when in walked two sweet honey’s who probably knew nothing of either Villainy or Science, giving us a clear advantage over what would normally be considered “common sense”. But they were comely, and we ordered another round. They immediately engaged us in conversation upon hearing my order for a “Shirley Temple”, as I had just proven my superior masculinity in the face of the silliness of alcohol. We talked for a period of time not exceeding 70 minutes when I was questioned about subjects that interest me, as the conversation had previously been about the common practices in which I do not engage (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, respecting the “laws” of gravity). This portion of the conversation played out as such:
Sultry, Beautiful Woman (probably a supermodel): So what do you like?
Myself: Science. But it is problematic.
Sultry, Beautiful Woman (might be a Chinese or Turkish figure skater): Why?
Myself: Well, I’ve realized lately that as I have been attempting to detail a comprehensive evaluation of the human psyche, my own curious eccentricities have caused me to record data in a slightly skewed fashion, one which reflects my own preconceptions about the subject rather than an honest accounting bereft of critical judgment. I have realized that as a human being myself, my own opinions are necessarily going to effect the outcome of my experimental data set. I can not separate the human from the human understanding of Science. To believe that it is possible would be fallacious, necessarily negating the intent of the experiment itself by initiating it under the false pretense of unemotional ambiguity. Therefore it is only possible to undergo such an experiment when you have the full comprehension of your own involvement in the subject so that you might be able to subtract your emotional input later. This I do not have. Thus, problematic.
Sultry, Beautiful Woman (maybe a Mexican Revolutionary Calendar girl): ...I...didn’t understand anything you just said.
Myself: Yeah...yeah, I know.

To be sure, I was dismayed. But in no way was this a setback to Science. Believe it or not, Science has grown accustomed to such failures. Such failures are the backbone of Science. You see, as we as scientists continuously experiment, we find that not all hypothesis are correct, thus enabling us to narrow the number of possible hypothesis to a given problem and experiment in a more specific and detailed manner. This is the function of “normal” Science as defined by Kuhn. So you see, a “failure” in Science is never seen as such, as it is merely a doorway into experimentation with a greater possibility of success from a narrowed field. And besides, without stupid girls around, Science can do more Science stuff.

It seems that there is a certain natural predisposition within a person towards one type of Science or the other, towards “normal” or “theoretical”. Clearly, it is the names of the theoretical scientists whom we remember. They are the rock stars. Heisenberg, Hathaway, Einstein, Theremin, that girl from the Thomas Dolby video. But the majority of scientists are actually “normal” scientists, conducting the great majority of research and experimentation. I myself am quite simply a normal scientist. Yep. Just your average scientist. But I accept this. I will never be the rock star. I am the bass player. But you see, not every bass player recognizes that he’s just a bass player. Just ask Noel Redding. I mean, he thought he was the star of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

As previously stated, the flavoring of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is more an endeavor of plain chemistry than it is bold culinary virtuosity. It is simply the mixture of terrible, LCD coffee with a chemical compound that is supposed to taste like a particular recognized flavor sensation. Thus, somewhere in a room which probably contains no natural light, there is a chemist preparing these syrups to add to coffee. I am prepared to theorize that this chemist has decided which recognized flavor sensations to prepare for mass market consumption. (There is an alternate theory that the flavors themselves were selected by marketing personnel, but Science recognizes neither marketing personnel nor these theories, both of which are probably the bastard offspring of failed English colonists).

Now what on Earth would lead a scientist to attempt to combine the flavors of coffee and coconut? Coffee is recognized as being (as mentioned in previous experiments) “full-bodied, black, and sassy”. Coconut is recognized primarily texturally, as its flavor is quite subtle, vaguely sweet, and starchy. Given these descriptions, it seems curious that this unnamed chemist would stop with coconut and not move on to the next logical flavor combination, that of “Red Rose Potato flavored coffee”. I am not exaggerating, how dare you! Science will not be silent on the subject of theoretically starchy coffee! But quite sadly, this coconut coffee of course tastes of nothing but corn syrup, which Science finds horrifying in its unethical-ness.

We now recognize collectively the work of a rogue scientist, unnatural in his belief that he is Jimi Hendrix or Johannes Kepler. This is both sad as well as unbecoming to the natural beauty of Science. Science can only exist in a natural state, allowing for the perfect form of universal chance to imprint itself on evaluation and theory. Science itself is the recognition by mankind of universal precepts and truths, it is not a collection of ideas that can be manipulated or manufactured. This is the only reason that Science has continued as long as it has without the hampering of the rise and fall of cultural phenomenon. It exists outside of the languages in which its discoveries are written.

Science itself is a pure collection of truths and tentative possibilities; the unnatural is revealed and made irrelevant. This is why Science itself is so important and so revolutionary in its nature. It is entirely unimpressed by the unholy, the very processed nature of the diseased cultural intent of celebrity and kapital. Coconut flavored coffee is the result of such as these, unnatural and pathetic, unrecognized by a semi-aquatic reptile in a beret.

The Final Stand of Apartment 7 and the Great Betrayal of Abigail

2006-02-09T03:08:00.000-05:00

“Shit, that’s gotta be the landlord again.”

“Just be quiet.”

Jim and Abigail sat on the couch and watched the t.v. set. The volume was turned off. The picture had been modified to show only the darkest hues in an effort to drastically diminish the flash of different light patterns from the screen on the wall. The knocking continued upon the door.

Neither moved.

“We’re almost out of beer.”

“Yeah, well we have fucking zero food.”

“And that asshole wants us to pay rent? In this shithole? He should be glad we scare some of the bigger rats away just by staying here.”

“He wouldn’t give a fuck if we starved to fucking death in here as long as he gets his precious rent.”

The knocking stopped. The landlord said something as he left. Jim and Abigail didn’t notice what it was.

“You know what the deal is with Gilligan’s Island, right?”

“There’s no ‘deal’, it’s just some campy ass sitcom.”

“Hm. Kapitalist.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Gilligan’s Island was the first reality show. They found tapes of it in the basement of the Kremlin when the curtain fell.”

“Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Put on the game show channel.”

“No, listen I’m serious. The commies and the Americans were racing to build some super bomb. The professor was the main U.S. guy and looked like he was all over it. So the commies came up with this plan and got the Professor out onto this boat and marooned it on some Soviet island.”

“That pretty much sucks if you’re Ginger and you get stuck out there.”

“No, no, you don’t get it. Everybody else was in on it. Ginger was the stereotype of the kapitalist woman, willing to sell her ass for anything that comes along. The Skipper was the maligned working man, stranded by the kapitalist system. Mary Anne was the agrarian idealist, hard working and hopeful. She was the socialist ideal. She came with nothing, desired nothing, gave everything, and was more beautiful than the kapitalist whore. Mr. and Mrs. Howell are just too obvious to mention.”

“Gilligan?”

“The agent.”

“Wore red.”

“Yep.”

They watched the gorilla throw a world war two era Japanese hand grenade into the lagoon. They watched Gilligan throw a world war two era Japanese hand grenade into the lagoon.

“What does the gorilla represent?”

A pause.

“Nothing. It’s a reality show. It’s a real gorilla.”

“Okay, too far. That’s the worst fucking gorilla suit I’ve ever seen.”

“Of course. That’s how you know it’s real. Nobody would put a gorilla suit that looks that fucking bad on t.v. and expect anyone to take it seriously. That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Well, you’re the only one who’s taking anything seriously. This is supposed to be a comedy.”

“Of course. The propaganda wouldn’t work if they didn’t mock the kapitalist system.”

“So you can put a bad gorilla suit in a comedy.”

“But if this is real-life propaganda, then intentional interjections into the reality of the situation will always put the whole game at risk. Don’t forget how smart the professor is. He might figure it all out in a second, and no commercial break could save that. So they couldn’t risk a fake gorilla. Your theory fails before the accepted model.”

“What about the movies?”

“The Americans took the island, co-opted the idea, watered it down, and turned the whole thing into a parody of its former glory. Shit, they had to expect it. It was practically written into the plot. Foreshadowed. I mean, they started off in Hawaii.”

“So the movies are kapitalist propaganda.”

“Of course. In the escape movie, the failure of Russian technology allows American ingenuity to save the day. Some satellite crashes and the castaways get some weird piece of metal out of it that turns out to be some kind of data recorded on an unrecognizable format that looks suspiciously like a CD in design and size. A piece of technology developed by the Americans twenty years later supposedly, although we clearly see it here. The Americans then use this escape as a means of illustrating the idea that everybody can be buddies in the kapitalist system, regardless of class or upbringing. A basic shifting of the same ideas posited by the commies. Then in the next movie, the Howells have converted the island into a resort upon which work Gilligan and the Skipper. So nice of the fucking Howells to take their good friends under their wing and give them minimum wage jobs. So the Globe Trotters come in and have to play basketball against fascist commie robots to defend the sanctity of the island resort and its kapitalist motivations. A thinly veiled remake of the American folk tale “John Henry” with the Harlem Globetrotters (wearing their red, white, and blue uniforms) in the title role.”

“Hm. Wonder why I didn’t think this all through before.”

“Leninism. Not everybody can be part of the Leninist Intellectual Vanguard.”

“Oh hey, I ate that can of the dinosaurs and meatballs.”

“Is that what it was?”

“The last of it, yeah.”

“Last of everything?”

“Yep.”

Jim and Abigail sat on the couch. Neither touched the other. A bowl sat on the cushion between them with a faint ring of red tracing an inside circumference.

“What do you want to do about food?”

“I don’t know. I’m not hungry right now.”

Tuesday Night

2006-02-08T13:09:00.000-05:00

In a restaurant, in SoHo. There is only one occupied table in the place, an acoustic guitarist plays instrumental music across the restaurant. He is so good, he is unnoticed. There are two men and two women at the table. A third man, a stylish man, joins the table.

The bald man asks, "Are you a betting man?" He begins to get up from the table.

The stylish man immediately responds. "Yes."

The bald man sits at a smaller table next to the stylish man. The stylish man pivots his chair to join the bald man. There are only two of them at the table. The final man and two women watch the bald man and the stylish man.

"One hundred dollars," begins the bald man. "I will bet you one hundred dollars that I can hit me harder than you can hit me. And the winner gets to stab the loser with this knife." The bald man pulls a knife from his pocket, unfolding the sharpened four inch blade. He places it on the table between himself and the stylish man. The handle is facing the stylish man.

The stylish man takes the knife. He feels the weight, the balance, runs his thumb across the blade perpendicular to the edge. He is not paying attention to the bald man.

The bald man stands and takes a few steps back, out of sight of the bartender and the guitarist. The remaining four people watch him. He removes his hat. The women look down. The bearded man laughs.

With a violent crack, he drives his fist into his own forehead. The stylish man shakes his head. The bearded man laughs again.

"Wait, wait, wait," says the stylish man, one hand raised. He motions to the now empty chair before him. The bald man is already preparing for a second strike. "Wait. Sit down. We haven't even bet yet."

The bald man sits down, a satisfied smile spreads. The bearded man still laughs. The women look just kind of sad.

The stylish man begins. "So let me get this straight." He still holds the knife in his hands. "If we bet and I win, you get a headache, you get stabbed, and I get a hundred dollars." The bald man nods. "If we bet and you win, you still get a headache, I get stabbed, and I lose a hundred dollars."

The bald man gets serious. "Yes."

"So what's the hundred dollars for? Isn't getting stabbed bad enough?"

"It's an extra bet."

"Okay, so it's really two bets."

"Yes." The bald man starts to get up to strike himself again. He is rubbing his head.

"So if you think about it, I've already kind of won. I mean, you've already got a headache, and...I feel pretty good about that."

In the Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 6

2006-02-01T01:53:00.000-05:00

Good evening fellow ladies and gentlemen of the gentle flower of reason and systematic evaluation.

Again we have gathered to discuss the malignant giant of aborted culinary endeavor that is Dunkin' Donuts flavored coffees. Tonight we will be discussing a most repugnant strain of viral yuck which has been named Dunkin' Donuts Hazelnut flavored coffee. Such a poor thing it is that even a middle sized cup creates havoc, mayhem, and disconcert within the aptly-named "stomach" region of my bowels.

At some point in my previously non-scientific life, I was an oyster fisherman. And such a life it was! Every morning, I woke myself before the sun rose above this blue, blue ocean over which I ply my trade. Oatmeal I ate, the variety in the can that you have to open with a hammer it is so damnably manly. I drank coffee of a sort that every night I would seal my beans (ground to a fine, fine powder much like the fabled "corn starch" of yore) with water at a 2:1 ratio by weight in a 55 gallon drum and heat it over an open flame until the sides of the 1/8" steel cylinder began to bulge with the ferocity that lived in its belly. I would then carry it with my bare hands over to the ocean and wrap it in multi-colored wool sweaters and drop it mightily into the water with naught but a hundred yards of stainless 2 gauge chain upon it. During the night, it would be attacked and mauled and ravaged by sharks and octopii and narwhal's, for there is nothing that rankles the ire of the denizens of the deep more than the hearty common sheep.

Every morning with my own great hands I would take the chain and pull. After some time, the drum would be brought to the cusp of land and onto the shore. Often, the sharks would follow and I would have to fight them, and oh what terrific battles we would have! Sometimes as we fought, they would bite off both of my hands and maybe some ribs and I would still fight because it is not for a fishin' man to get his self all eaten up by sharks and trigger fish and the like without a fight. So after the fight, I would have to take my hands out of the belly of the shark laying distraught and all jacked up on my front lawn and I would take them to an old gypsy woman who would fix them. I couldn't go to a doctor because medical insurance is apparently unamerican. So she'd fix them up and sometimes I would throw in an extra silver dollar and she'd tell my fortune. She'd say, "Vould you like to see you futa?" And I'd say, "Yeah, but take out your retainer; I can't understand a goldarned thing." And she would tell me about flying cars and prosthetic fingers and the future of sport fishing. And boy oh boy, would I listen. That's why I changed from bait to fly-fishing for oysters. And it worked pretty well, too.

Oysters you see, are highly evolved creatures of a most splendid design. Like a woman, they can detect the sinister nature of a Velveeta, hamburger, and Shredded Wheat concoction. But drop a shiny bit of trifle within 50 yards and they come a-runnin'.

But we haven't come here tonight to discuss fishing methodology. We've come here to discuss coffee and fortune telling.

I discussed much with the gypsy fortune teller. For purposes all my own, I will henceforth refer to her as "Timothy Joseph McCarthy". A normal conversation would perhaps follow a pattern much like this:
CD: "What's shakin' momma. Wanna 'nother dolla?"
Timothy Joseph McCarthy: "Yeah. But let me get out of these nylons first."
CD: "You know, I've been pretty lonely lately."
Timothy Joseph McCarthy: "Yeah?"
CD: "Yeah, you know. So, uh, can you tell the future of where my pants are gonna go?"
Timothy Joseph McCarthy: "The crystal ball is a little hazy, but it does say that for a dollar your bitch ass is gonna walk your dirty pants into the kitchenette and make me some toast."
CD: "Oh, Timothy Joseph McCarthy! You are just the most!"
And then we would stay up all night drinking coffee and telling ghost stories and doing each other's make-up.

Eventually, Timothy Joseph McCarthy would begin to talk about coffee, but none of her information is relevant here. Most of it was erroneous. Some of it was absurd. Often she would continue until she realized that she had used up all of the other words that rhymed with "yellow" and would have to repeat. But she would not.

I have attempted to scientifically evaluate the merits of Dunkin' Donuts Hazelnut flavored coffee four separate times now. This fourth and final time is the only time that I have been able to work my way through the entire cup of coffee before my insides became terribly angry. This is the truth. I had three previously aborted attempts at drinking a medium sized cup of Dunkin' Donuts Hazelnut flavored coffee. I have consulted Science. Science thinks that I should have kept samples of the previous cups so that I might perform tests to determine the percentage of "Hazelnut" syrup involved in the cup of coffee. And yes, I did say "syrup", although it was not in quotation marks. The method used by Dunkin' Donuts to flavor their coffee is not the industry standard method of roasting a batch of coffee beans along with a flavoring in order to infuse the bean itself, but rather the money saving procedure of pouring a mass-produced syrup into the finished coffee. This should in no way surprise the scientific community. I feel as if it is expected of me to attack this method of flavoring at this point, but I see no point in such an endeavor. Truthfully, regardless of the manner in which coffee beans are flavored, the fact still remains that the flavor of coffee beans has been intentionally modified. This is why the Krakken used to eat chicks. Because they fucked with coffee.

As scientists, we engage constantly in the evaluation and reevaluation of data. This includes every bit of information that lands upon our doorstep in a green box, gathered from the watching of hot air balloons, or learned from squawking birds of unknown origin. So I am certain that through this series of lectures it has come to the attention of many of you that the flavoring of coffee is somewhat odd. After all, coffee is certainly one of the most popular flavorings itself for many household foods. You may eat coffee ice cream. Your children may eat coffee flavored candies. Your kittens may sup upon tuna. There are coffee flavored soda pops, beer, pastries, and cream cheese. I myself would simply settle for coffee flavored coffee.

A hazelnut is also known as a filbert.

The Kenarchists Started Talking and Nobody Noticed

2006-01-23T02:21:00.000-05:00

So I've been thinking about this for a while.

About ten years ago, I got into a conversation with a man named Jakob Conkling. We talked about our respective places in the universe and our individual relationships to spirituality, commerce, literature, music, thought. We've both moved out of the country and back in since, gone to school, moved around this country, taken new twists in our careers, Jakob's gotten married, I've...uh, well I've thought about it a few times, and here we are. Somewhere around ten years later. And we're still having this same conversation, except that he's in the Valley and I'm in Harlem.

We've both been involved in art since we were kids. It never really felt like something that we should do for a living, it was just something we did because it seemed a necessary component to our well-being. I work with people who have dedicated their lives to their art. It's amazing. These are people for whom nothing exists outside of this form, this driving need to live this life that they have created for themselves. And while I am more excited than you can imagine to be around this, it is not me. I can see that I have other emotional priorities than I need to fulfill in order to feel like I have lived the life that I need to live. Jakob is much the same in this. As I said, we're still having that same conversation after ten years.

Our conversation really began while driving home from a Smuggling Ken show. Jakob's band had just lost a member. We started talking about the inability of most of the people that we've known in our lives to deal with change while still remaining essentially the same person. You know when you're a little kid and every time you get new shoes, your friends change to match them? Well, that's what we were talking about. Neither of us had ever been any good at becoming what other people had wanted. I would claim that this is our charm. Other people would claim that this is our folly. As I've mentioned, we don't really care. We talked mostly about our lives and the effect that outside forces and (primarily) ideas had upon us. We realized immediately that a part of our endeavors has always been a public presentation of it. A public acceptance has never been a priority.

Ten years later, still rambling on. Jakob and I have finally decided to make Kenarchist Press a priority in our lives. We've been working on it since the idea hit us, but we've decided that now feels right to really try to show some of our work. We are not counting on quitting our jobs or doing anything more important that holding up what we've done and seeing who'll look. We've begun it with an initial publication of what will be our only regular printing. "(Anatomy of...)" has been printed in a ridiculous number of colors at an overwhelming cost. To someone else of course, long live the Kenarchists. It features artwork by Jakob. In upcoming issues (quarterly), some of my graphic work will make its way in as well as the work of like minds who have something to contribute. Please let us know if you've got anything. And please let me know if you'd like a copy. It's absolutely free. Again, long live the Kenarchists. Let me know, and I'll send one (or a stack, whatever you'd like) out to you immediately.

Our website is being built, bit by bit. This is a terribly clever pun. Jakob is putting it up after work everyday, in between writing, drawing, and helping Chuck record. I'm doing a bit of writing for the information contained on the website. Soon, you'll be able to view photographs of our paintings and graphic work. We'll get songs from some of our projects up and samples from some of the bigger literary things that we're working on. We put up some sample pages from our comics. By the end of the year, we will have released our first record, the Bitter Monk. It is noisy and it is heavy. I feel funny saying that it's one of my favorite records ever. It's six songs and a whole life long. Our online boutique to sell prints of our work will be up sometime around the summer.

For ten years, we've worked towards this.

This is the beginning of it.

Kenarchist Press

Dietary Restriction

2006-01-23T02:11:00.000-05:00

1. I became a vegetarian because I cannot condone the killing of animals purely for my enjoyment.

It is not necessary to eat animals for us to live healthy, physically active lives. In fact, the numbers seem to support (a bit on the overwhelmingly side) the idea that the consumption of animals will do quite a bit to impede an individual's physical health and well-being. This includes all the standard atherosclerosis induced stuff which ends in heart attack and stroke.

And since there is no valid health reason for the consumption of animals, it only stands to reason that the practice of eating them is for enjoyment. Thus, the killing of animals for enjoyment.

2. I became a vegan because I cannot condone the methods used to raise dairy cattle and chickens for egg production.

I'm not going to rail on about the way that these animals are kept. Simply put, the damage done to egg-laying chickens is far worse than the life of those merely killed. And as far as dairy cattle are concerned, they only give milk when they are pregnant. It only takes a week for a cows womb to repair in order to be re-inseminated. Fuck. Imagine that life.

Incidentally, there are tremendous health benefits as well. Although the absence of meat is a terrific boon to your arterial pathways, the dairy products still exact the same toll, to a lesser extent. More people die of heart attack and stroke than any other illness in America (just above 60%). The odds of a vegan dying of the same thing is less than 5%. More and more information has been accumulated over the years as well indicating that the consumption of animal products drastically increases your chances of getting cancer. Arthritis and osteoporosis attack calcium deficiencies, but the intake of dairy may serve only to increase your chances of contracting these diseases. Your body cannot process calcium without a proper amount of Potassium (2:1 ratio), something the Dairy industry often forgets to mention in their advertisement since their products contain none. We all probably would have learned this if we hadn't all been taught in school using materials donated by the Cattlemen's Association, The Egg Board, and The Dairy Council. I don't even have to make this stuff up.

3. I am making no difference in the procedures of the Dairy and Egg industry by purchasing no products; I will thus return to a vegetarian lifestyle, purchasing a small amount of Dairy and Egg products from companies whose ethics are more inline with my own.

By simply removing my money from the industry, there is no effect. However, if my purpose is genuinely to impact the industry in a positive manner, I need to invest in the alternative. I have no ethical problem with somebody making cheese or frying up a couple of eggs. So I will give my money to cage free eggs and the milk of free range cattle. In very small amounts of course, but I will spend my life doing what I think is right.

In the Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 5

2006-01-20T05:15:00.000-05:00

My colleagues of the Science community, good evening.

From the comfort of a sugar-coated miasma, I greet you with the revelatory joy of the undertaking of experimentations with the caffeinated joyfulness of coffee. Tonight, we will be discussing the middle-sized cup of Dunkin' Donuts Caramel flavored coffee I purchased a mere 30 minutes ago.

One of the chief characteristics thus far encountered in the smattering of coffees that have been sampled from Dunkin' Donuts for the purpose of scientific experimentation has been a nearly overwhelming encounter with sweetness. Science has been alternately shocked, dismayed, and non-plussed by this find. Tonight however, the neighborhood of Science has applied for and received a permit from the township of Expectant Outcome for the holding of a sparsely attended block party in which we will be serving both the wieners and the beans that are so fond a fare of the wagontrains of the bygone era from which I have derived my name. There will also be actual cattle in attendance along with a troupe of tanned Greek actors in redface wearing suede chaps, and a shockingly disproportionate number of people of actual color and homosexuals, just like the real old west (movies). Due to good neighborliness, we will not be serving mass-produced LCD coffee flavored with burnt sugar.

Often I am asked in my capacity of Scientist (chief of all the Greek Gods, unless you count Zeus, Xena, or Monocles) about the origins of caramel. This is a fair question. Often I am asked unfair questions. Examples of these and their answers are as follows:

1. If both Boba Fett and the woman you love were drowning and you could only save one, which one would you save?

This is a very tricky question. To begin with, one must analyze Boba Fett. Boba Fett is an odd entity indeed. He works both within the system as the raw genetic material for an army of oppression and without the system as a bounty hunter following his own needs and desires. One cannot truly quantify the effect upon the universe that his role as bountyhunter has, for good or ill. However, the effects of his use as genetic material is well documented. An entire army for the use of the oppressor has emerged from his DNAic loins. Now, as we can accept his well-documented use as raw genetic material, we must assess what this means to Science.

Science by its very nature is the result of constant revolution. This subject has been well researched within the phenomenal work, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. Mr. Kuhn illustrates through numerous examples the theory (with adjoining supportive data) that Science has been throughout its existence, a constant game of intellectual one-upmanship with the losers falling into the muck of public mockery and professional derision. Not to mention a loss of funding. Thus we see that Science in its wild state favors the uncontrolled, the unspeculativable.

However, Science is also often quite pathetically unable to do its own laundry and buy cheap beer for its own toga parties, thus making it quite reliant upon outside kapital. For this, a large fascist dictatorial state is preferred. It is this that has allowed Science the ability to create the V-2 rocket, the Death Star, and Windows XP. Now granted, although the V-2 rocket killed more fish in the English Channel than English on the British mainland, it was necessary to fuel the imagination of Gene Roddenberry so that whole generations of defective humans would willingly beach their genetic material on the barren sandbars of the collective gene pool. The Death Star was truly a one-trick pony, but it did provide the universe with the word "tractor" which would pass through the ages in the dirty drunken suburbs of human consciousness and eventually resurface in a manner that would allow for the greater production of crops to feed the world. Um, I'm not really sure why I mentioned Windows. Unlike Nazi Germany and the Empire, nothing good has ever come out of Microsoft.

So you can see the quandary created by the Boba Fett question. Boba Fett has both his positive and negative aspects, and it is impossible to truly determine the impact of his existence. So we must rely upon my position of the woman I love to adequately answer the question.

The odds are, if I attempted to rescue the woman I love from drowning, she would just pull me into the water resulting in the same miserable watery grave for me as Boba Fett. Hm. Well I guess Boba Fett wins. That wasn't so hard a question after all.

2. Why is the sky blue?

According to most of the published but unrecorded songs in Nashville, it is because "you" left "me" and "I" was subsequently unable to maintain "my" position at "my" place of employment resulting in "my" subsequent dismissal. But do not be waylaid by the perversion of common misconception! Just because a man wears tight jeans, high-heeled shoes, and a funny-looking hat, he is not a scientist. He may be a huckster.

The truth of the matter is that the sky is not actually blue. The way that our optic nerve records the data that it receives leads us to relate erroneous information as if it were actual fact. The reality of this issue is that only people with blue eyes see the sky as blue, as they see everything as blue. People with brown eyes see everything as brown. People with green eyes see everything as green. People with hazel eyes are ashamed to admit they have brown eyes.

The popularity of this question leads one to believe that the white supremacists not only control our country, but a sizable hunk of our common subconscious.

3. Are there any uses for the Human Kidney's that we have not yet discovered?

Yes.

We now return to the origin of caramel. Caramel is simply burnt sugar. Sugar begins to caramelize at around 320 degrees Fahrenheit. There of course gradations of caramelization for the most commonly used sugar for culinary purpose, sucrose. A chef will describe the "soft ball" stage with anticipation, the "hard ball" stage with urgency, or the "Jesus, now we're going to have to throw that pan away. Fucking idiot." stage with disappointment. An actual working chef will not however, ever really use these terms. They exist so that instruction manuals can be published. In the professional kitchen, it is a waste of time to determine the proper terminology (or temperature for that matter) for the sugar you are preparing for your French Buttercream. One simply knows. Although Science does not usually advocate perception over statistical analysis, the realities of the minutiae of organic material, temperature, and humidity factors are such that the experiential analysis of a seasoned artisan is necessary.

While I am certain that the credential of the weathered artisan performing the duties of caramel chef of Dunkin' Donuts may be suspect even to the marauding, fighting, swearing Science thugs involved in this analysis, I am somewhat convinced that it has been done sufficiently.

This is not to say that the coffee itself, the very end product if you will, is of any great value to the refined palate of mean spirited Science. It was determined to be "Moderately Crappy" on the Hallas Scale of measure. But it did not make the belly of Science hurt.

From the previous statement, one can draw two conclusions, although only one is correct. Either a) This cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee is far better than the previous efforts, or 2) This scientist is becoming acclimated to the suck.

Science is unsure.

In the Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 4

2006-01-13T02:11:00.000-05:00

"...And as I awake from night's repose
the fingers probe and pull back those
enamored songs of evening's wake,
the flesh and tastes that cannot take
to open eyes and sunlight's glory
that drown out pagan tales hoary
and mindless, sent as ruination
for those subject to consternation,
inadequate before His grace,
the Holy visage, our Saviour's face.
I arise to draw myself from bed,
the coffee vapours about my head..."

Lord Hamish MacIvor continues to extrapolate upon the many virtues of the foul black earth of drink that is coffee to a reverential point bordering upon the oft-repeated heresy of comparison of the triumph of Holy Mysteries to that of caffeine-induced mania in his classic epic about the virtues of chastity, "The Heathen Slumber".

To my colleagues of the divine school of Science, I bid you a warm and welcome evening.

Tonight I am in a poetic state. What could it be that draws me thus from the warm bosom of modernity and reason and into this superfluous flowering of poesy and articulation of the senses you must wonder? This answer comes in two words. The first is "French" and the second is "Vanilla".

In this ongoing series based upon the scientific evaluation of the coffee of Dunkin' Donuts, tonight I will be discussing with you, the wits and wiles of the vestibular notion of the beauteous accessibility of the ennobled light of Science, a middle-sized cup of Dunkin' Donuts French Vanilla flavored coffee.

Suffered we have, through several cups of coffee which have bordered upon the undrinkable, Styrofoam wrapped pools of horror and filth, the caffeinated dregs of the cupping experience mutated into deplorable, misshapen errors of culinary endeavor and the savory stutterings of a virtueless speech. Tonight shall be no exception, indeed, tonight shall be nothing short of the commonplace mishandling of beauty and righteousness, and this we call "coffee" with more than a little misgiving.

Science tonight is in no mood for reason, for without passion, what my dear loves, is Science? Mere formulation? Static Statistics? Pedantic equations of only middling interest to the common man? Unimaginative commonalities will have no place in this man's Science! Science has been hung by churches, imprisoned by nations, vilified by man, and very rarely laid! Science will stand not idly by for the mere rendering of factual text! Science has animism, although we no longer recognize its existence! Science!

I am stirred like a Bond martini tonight: dry, pickled, olivey, and with a longing for impossible beauty! Quite clearly I recall a woman of magnificent countenance, whose beauty was only overshadowed by the absolute perfection of her gentleness and grace.

I sit tonight and think of her with a longing unparalleled.

Often we laughed together, discussing books and my rough and charismatic nature (something she cleverly referred to as "offensiveness". Oh, what a card!). She was delightful and holy. She was brilliant. She had very strong hands and a quick smile that could fracture an object with Knoop hardness measured at over 10,000 kg per square millimeter. I think of her now, her wry smile and scent of vanilla and reminisce. Sadly, so sadly I reminisce.

My poetic nature has descended into a self-destructive miasma of emotional need. Science has attempted many times to determine the biological necessity of emotions and "feelings" but has discovered nothing substantial in the neighborhood of depression.

Science is derailed. I am sorry.

Science remembers that the vanilla bean (seed pod, non-legume) is the product of a tropical orchid which is the climate of no part of France so far discovered by explorers, nor is there a process that renders the average Tahitian Vanilla Bean into French Vanilla. I would hypothesize that this is named as such entirely for baseless kapitalistic reasons, which have as little relevance to true Science as they do to honest emotion.

...I think of orchids, and become lonelier still most unexpectedly...

Poemetical

2006-01-07T01:28:00.000-05:00

A familiar bird once sings an unknown song.
(hope grass books cold dusk)
We reach for a feather to hold undoing.
(ungotten and rewrote . . . pleasures
of a precipice sawed
distant and uncontacted) . / ...

Unspend thrift of bodies,
breaking skin of fire
and pair.

Bits

2005-12-31T18:04:00.000-05:00

These are the errant bastard children of my last few days spent writing.

. . .

Sometimes to our credit, we all forget to see the commonplace in the miraculous.

. . .

I was throwing fucking rocks off the cliff.

The precipice doesn't mean anything, the rocks, who fucking cares?

I was throwing is all.

. . .

I ran across the street, all awkward smiles and curiosity, behind the bus, before the Lincoln.

I could feel your need shut me down.

What you offered and hoped for love...

It's like dropping a stick in a stream and imagining it washing up on some foreign beach all palm fronds and spiny fish.

But 100 times out of 99, somewhere just out of sight, it ends up damned.

I really wish I could love you like you need.

. . .

I remember when your love could warm up a winters day...
But you know, it's a hell of a lot colder in New York.

Good luck, anyway.

In the Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 3

2005-12-31T17:50:00.000-05:00

Good Evening, esteemed colleagues.

Tonight, I come to you from the frozen north. An environment most blessed in its ability to destroy the human spirit and will a common man to despair and hopes of flesh ravaging disease.

Clearly, I come to you tonight to discuss evolution. This subject has found its way into the tabloid press (NY Times, Newsweek, Time) in recent months in the form of the debate over "Intelligent Design" (which has been abbreviated to ID in this text for the sake of my copyist and her delicate hands). It seems that certain aggregate components within the generalized society of the citizenry of the United States have somehow maintained a dogmatic system of beliefs based upon the archaic writings of groups of Hellinistic Romans masquerading as groups of Hebraic dwellers of the portions of the Roman state of Judea (later, Phillistia). Although this evening we will not be discussing the validity of these writings or the popularized public debate from either a historical nor a philosophical perspective, we must recognize the impact of both the foundational import of said writings on western society and the prominence of the debate in our national psyche. As well, it is appropriate to recognize the influence that this very public debate has had upon the general mental and emotional landscape of our society and as an impetus in this, our scientific exploration into the rich and savory bowels of coffee.

Pardon me. I just said "rich and savory bowels".

As is detailed in the framework for the methodology of this experiment and culinary evaluation, the first step in the process of a coffee sampling is obtaining the coffee sample itself. As is quite usual (solely for the duration of this soul-destroying process, I swear by the very name of Science!), I proceeded to travel the frozen wastes of 104th Street to a local Dunkin' Donuts retailer. At this location, I purchased a middle-sized cup of Dunkin' Donuts Toasted Almond coffee. Tonight, we will discuss this cup of coffee.

As I walked back to my laboratory, I began to think of evolution.

As the frozen detritus of the moisture cycle swirled about me and I watched haired creatures about me shaking violently like a humorous skinhead with a hand puppet, I began to question the maligned wisdom of modern man. I am (as can be seen) a man of slight build with (as cannot be seen) an almost complete lack of body hair. I am not a product of sane, intelligent genetic design for a frozen wasteland such as the one in which I currently reside. I have quite clearly been bred for an existence entirely devoid of freezing, and most certainly involving polite, dainty, young Science-ettes on rollerskates. Science would justify these claims with a sober nod of the head and the secret Science handshake with an extra wink. So what is it that has brought modern man (in general, not this one specifically) to a freezing northern landscape? Fjords? Greater hunting opportunities? A preference of complex musical structure over rhythm in traditional musical forms? Scarf fetish? All of these answers are correct. Of course, not in application to the previous question, but Science will not be the callous oppressor of novel answers.

The reason that mankind came north from the shores of our ancestral womb is really quite simple. We are a curious breed. We move about and are immensely adaptable. We encourage both actively and subconsciously the unexpected. We find attraction in the indistinct and unknown. Genetically, we are rewarded for this. The constant interbreeding of like abilities and physical qualities is punished by malformation. This is clear in the well-known observations of the blue-blooding of the European royal families, the Appalachian homesteads, and in the lesser-known alarming percentages of mental retardation that have been surfacing over the last twenty years amongst the children of wildly intelligent professional parents in the so-called "Silicon Valley". For further evidence, I would like to point all of you in the direction of the ground-breaking research done by the amateur geneticist Shawn E. Hunter of the Brown Nipple Institute.

And now we wonder at the relevance of genetics to a discussion of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, yes? Well honestly, I do not wonder at the relevance of genetics to Dunkin' Donuts coffee, I mourn the lack of insight that even an elementary knowledge of genetics would bring to the flavoring of Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

Coffee is grown upon a bush (or tree, depending upon the regional terminology). A "cherry" forms upon this bush (tree), which is a fruit designed to attract herbivorous consumers that they might consume and spread the pit of this fruit about the landscape of the particular habitat in which they reside in an effort of special solvency. The pit of the "cherry" of the coffee bush (tree) is the coffee bean. The coffee bean is not a legume. It is a mislabled seed, naturally. The coffee bean is a seed. The fruit upon the outside masks a husk which then keeps the soft inner parts of the seed moist and safe from bacteria and parasites until the time of germination.

The coffee "cherry" is harvested, and is then dried. During the drying process, both the cherry and the husk break down leaving only the seed itself. The seed is then dry roasted into the heavenly bit of culinary bliss and artistic majesty that is known commercially as the coffee bean.

An almond, as has been proven by Science more than eleven times by such varied schools as botany and some others, is actually a seed. Although this too has been debated by advocates of ID, we will accept on "faith" if you will that Science wins.

So Dunkin' Donuts has decided to flavor a toasted seed with...um, a toasted seed. Well, that's pretty fucking clever, I would say. This seems like the thinking of segregationists to me. But beyond the political ramifications of the open advocacy of segregation by the largest commercial coffee seller in the world, what effect does this have on the palate? Well, I will approach this question with a redundancy masking itself as the Socratic Method:

Wouldn't it be delightful if we flavored sugar with sugar?

The answer is no, and this cup of coffee made me feel like there were very angry things in my tummy.

Poki and the Bubbles

2005-12-30T07:13:00.000-05:00

“I am Poki,” said he, every morning to the sands. Gingerly, they hear.

There is a circle of trees and grasses in the yellow sands, many feet across in the many miles of hidden without-end-ness of the desert. Poki and his children sit beneath a tree eating fruit that he cuts into neat wedges with his old pocket knife. It has a misshapen fish of alabaster on its tired wooden handle that still shines through its many yellow years. His children sometimes roll about for moments to scratch their backs before looking up to Poki. His old arms of wrinkled molasses stretch and scritch and scritch a little back and he gives a great broken smile for a yawn, placing a sweet wedge in the mouth, a rough little tongue reaching for the sweet juice run down the thumb.

The sun is too hot in the midday for the chasing of grasshoppers or the climbing of trees. The sun told the children to lay down and love Poki. Poki could whistle through the missed teeth in his old head, and he had been to many places. He liked to sing songs whose words were the silly chuckling of strange animals. His children loved Poki very much.

“My babies,” began Poki to the pussycats about him, “the sun is beautiful today. What would you like to hear of?”

The little lips of the children of Poki stretched in expectant smiles as each looked to another for ideas. The leaves of the trees above were very green in the still air. There was a joyful tension that they felt each time Poki spoke, his voice a little carpet of song each could lie upon, a cuddle that giggles.

Often it happened that Hazel looked first up to Poki.

“Something that bubbles,” spoke Hazel. He had taken his name from the nut of a tree that grows many miles from the grass and trees in the sand. Poki had said that it tasted too much, and that it is better when it is little. Hazel had smiled widely because he is the smallest of Poki’s children.

“Hmm. Something that bubbles is a sea. May I tell you about the sea I found as a boy?” The eyes of Poki smiled and twinkled.

“What’s a boy? Yes, yes! Tell us Poki, tell us!”

There are four children of Poki. One is called Hazel by himself, for the nut of the far away tree. Another is Rocks, a name suggested by Poki when bidden because he is warm even when it is cold like the rocks of the desert all yellow and dry. A third child calls herself Pascale for someone Poki speaks of with a smile, a little distant form in silhouette as the sun falls into the subconscious of Poki’s warm purple dusk. The fourth child of Poki has no name. He has a mind that travels as fast as wind but with less breath and the same un-catchness. He doesn’t like stopping. Names are like stopping. This fourth child’s exuberance spills like water in water for the last speaking.

“A boy? Why, once before I was this tall I was a boy,” said Poki’s grin-y mouth. “I was a boy and I walked first where there are trees and grasses and then where there are sands and rocks and then where the other things are.”
The attention of the children was delivered to Poki like a most prized gem.

“One day I came to the people. I said to them, ‘I am Poki’. They welcomed me with words and shakes of hands and stretchy lips. We drank together and shared the stories of people, some of them very old and some of them made only after the words were out. Everything laughed and was true.”

“I asked to them, ‘I am new from the sand and I need to see what else is created and knowed. What is it that I should pass along my way?’ And they replied that I must see the sea and pointed to the sun. I said, ‘That is the sea? Well, then I already know the sea. We speak of trees and grasses and then of sand and stones. Yes, she is quiet, but she is steady.’ ‘No, no, friend Poki,’ they said to me, ‘that is the sun. The sea is the bed of the sun and it sounds like whoooshshsh whoooshshsh.’ And they made this sound with their mouths.”

“And so I thought for a breath and asked, ‘how do I get to the sea?’

‘It is very easy. The sun will take you there. But first you must earn her trust. The first day, she will leave you when it is dark to sleep herself in the sea and yourself in the hills. But on the second day, she will know that you are Poki and she will show you where she sleeps.’

‘I like this very much. What are hills?’

And they said, ‘Even the earth has shoulders.’ They were very kind to me and gave me a sandwich to eat.”

“I walked the first day, talking to the sun about the strangeness of everything that was new. The sun did not tell me much, the sun thinks very highly of the silence of just being. My new friends were right, and when it got dark, the sun went to her sleep and I went to mine in the grass near a fence where there were lambs cooing to each other.”

“What’s a lamb?”, asked the little Hazel.

“Oooh, a lamb is like a big kitten with curled hair,” responded the wrinkly Poki.

The kittens were no longer looking at Poki. They lay about, stretching and yawning and scritching and snuggling up to the words of Poki.

“When I awoke in the morning, I wished the lambs well and started walking. As I walked, I passed many pretty flowers and trees that were much bigger than the trees that we know here. When the sun was closest to me, I walked into a very large family of trees and they all held hands, and in the middle was a great brown bear. Now, I will tell you what a bear is. He is tall like me with hair instead of skin. He has a terrible voice that makes even love words scare. He said to me, ‘Poki, come and eat honey with me’ and I was very frightened. But I knew that only friends share honey.

‘I must go to the sea.’

‘You will see her in the evening yet, but you are hungry. Your belly sounds like bees turning on and turning off,’ and my new friend sat down on the side of the road in the tall grasses beneath the trees.”

“We ate honey together and sang songs.

‘hhrm braga hhrm hhrm hhhhhrrrrmm.’

‘That is very nice, Leonard.’

‘It is about berries.’

‘Laaaa la la lo, lo lo leee, li ooooh.’

‘We do not have those sounds in the forest.’

‘It is about the rocks and sand where the plants are not. My friend, I would like to ask a question before I go to the sea.’

‘Of course, friend Poki.’

‘I have heard that sometimes bears like to eat people.’

‘Yes, sometimes this is true.’

‘Do you wish to eat me, fattened with honey?’

‘I like honey very much, but I do not wish to eat you. Bears like to eat people who like to eat bears. It is like arm wrestling or hopscotch. But you don’t like to eat bears, do you?’

‘I like cookies.’

‘You see? I like singing songs and eating honey. Mostly, it is just a misunderstanding. When people eat too much toast, sometimes they smell like honey.’

‘Yes, that makes sense.’

‘When you are back in my forest, please stop by for honey. I have never been to the sea but would like to hear her songs,’ and he lay back to sleep on the grass.”

Poki stared up at the leaves of the trees and could see that soon, his story must end.

“I walked for more hours and found myself at the sand,” there were gasps and the wild lookings around of shocked children, “and I thought ‘hmm. I must have walked backwards.’ But then I heard the whoooshshsh whoooshshsh and it was not made by people.”

“In front of me was the sea. The sea is like a whole blanket of wet.”

“And bubbles, and bubbles, and bubbles!”, spoke the kitten whose name was not.

“Yes, the bubbles!”, said our Poki, clearly more excited by the interruption. “They came up in little trickles from the bottom of the sea. I believe the sand yawns when it is in the water.”

“But why?”, asked Hazel, eyes focused on the fillipping-fillipping tail of Rocks, paws...dart!ing, dart!ing, dart!ing. Rocks, unnoticing.

“I don’t know.”

“Poki? Why don’t you know?” Pascale’s question came with a frightened little tremble. But Poki knows everything! This second thought belonged only behind her eyes.

“If I knew everything, we would not need to explore.”

The unnamed child’s head exploded in lights and colors and misshapen shapes.

“Are we going exploring, Poki?! Are we?! Yes?! Yes!!”

“Not yet, my love. We still must wait until we are all ready. There is still much for us all to learn.”

“How do we learn if we don’t have the answers?”, asked Hazel, his total attention focused on Poki.

“We must ask someone wiser than we.”

The children all looked around, and found no immediate answers. They began distractedly to wander. Who might know the answers? The grass and the trees in the middle of the sands were small enough. It seems they might have noticed someone else about besides them by now. They searched trees and through the long grasses. Hazel found himself the bough of a tree upon which to perch and peered throughout their green circle for the answer. Pascale just walked around, thinking about the things that Poki had said. Poki himself slept. The nameless child of Poki ran very quickly from hiding place to hiding place. He knew them all. Rocks simply curled up on the thin little legs of Poki and slept herself.

The children all watched as the sun slipped off to bed, with the exception of Rocks, still asleep on the Poki. They then all slowly walked back to Poki from all of the directions in which they had been. Poki awoke and stretched, Rocks rolling playfully off to one side, half of one eye open.

Poki looked around at his children, scattered before him and expectant.

“Sometimes answers are hard to find,” he said through a yawn.

And then, “we have to ask the star.” He pointed up through the leaves that were still green, even though it was dark now.
One star shone above them.

Poki smiled a great half-toothy smile at his children, amused and curious. “The sun makes everything show, but hidden things are only clear in the dark. We must ask the star.”

“How do we talk to the star, Poki? It is very far away,” said Hazel. Rocks yawned.

“Maybe we should look around.”

Poki and the children all began to look around the circle of trees and grass in the yellow desert. They checked behind the trunks of trees and then between the blades of grass and then below the beads of dew already perching in their floral roosts.

“Poki! I found it!”, cried Pascale from behind the trunk of the tree Poki and Rocks had just slept below.

“I believe you have found a chair, my dear. But I do not know if stars like chairs.”

“Poki! Poki! Poki!”

The kitten without name came running up from the side of Poki and the rest of Poki’s children, still curious about the chair.

“Poki! I found a line!”, holding out an crooked line.

“Ah, yes a rope! Perhaps we can do something with this. I was a sailor, once.”

“What’s a sailor?” Most days, it seemed that Hazel was like a little bowl made out of questions.

“A sailor is a person who lives in the water, but only swims with his eyes and can make a line into a circle,” and with this he tied a knot.

“We could use that to catch the star,” said Rocks.

Poki sat down upon the chair provided him by the trees and the grass and thought, “Hm...” as he watched his children attempting to throw a rope around a star. They made many attempts, all taking turns. One time the end of the rope did not come down, and there was a small knot around a middle-sized toe on a foot of the star.

“What now?”, Pascale wondered.

“Pull!”, shouted the exuberant one as he leapt on the end of the rope.

Hazel jumped on second, followed quickly by Pascale. Rocks had to wait a moment for them to shimmy up a bit so there was room enough for him.

There were four small kittens hanging from a rope tied around a middle sized toe on a very bright star. Poki sat across the grass in a chair, concerned, but really quite amused.

Slowly, the kittens began lifting higher into the air. The star moved slowly across the sky. It was a small part of time when the kittens realized they were too far up to drop safely to the ground. Poki smiled as he realized the purpose of the chair. He stood up on it and shouted as loudly as he could, “GOOD EVENING, MR. STAR!”

The star stopped rising into the sky.

“Hello, Poki.”

“My friend, there are children on your toes.” Poki stepped off of the chair.

The star chuckled. “What’ll they think of next.” He began lowering himself towards the grass until the little paws of the children of Poki could touch the ground again.

“Now what were you doing on my feet?”

The children all became quite sheepish, although their hair all seemed to be quite straight.

“I believe they were all learning a lesson. They all just learned that no matter why you do it, nothing but silliness ever comes out of force.”

“The children of Poki share his heart. I have not spoken to you in many nights, Poki. There is still an Alligator in Savannah who speaks very highly of you.”

“Oh, Bernard! When you speak to him again, please tell him of the children.”

“Of course, my old friend. I have learned a new song for you, but it is too warm for this song here.”

The children were all very surprised. They did not know that Poki was friends with a star. Poki twinkled even brighter than the star, his wrinkles deep and wide and arms crossed in the chair. His whole -ness chuckled.

“I love most songs. But still, I do not understand the songs of the whales. I think they are very sad.”

“Yes, very often. They are very old and they cannot hug.”

“I see. Yes, I would be sad too.”

“Yes.”

“We were very curious, my old friend. We would like to know why the sea bubbles. Do you know? Is it the yawn of the sand?”

“No it is not. It is the lobsters. They do not sing, but they hum much.”

“What is a lobster?”, asked Hazel.

“You should ask one yourself. There is a lobster with yellow mittens swimming in the pond beneath the tree with the berries by the sand, dear Hazel.”

“You know my name?”

“Of course. The children of Poki will find many friends in all of the corners of the world. And even some a little further away. I must return, Poki. Children, please simply call my name if I can help again. I am Sakir. I will speak with you again soon!” And with this, Sakir began to rise up into the sky, with the children all yelling their goodbyes and waving emphatically. Poki simply twinkled yet.

They all stopped for a moment to ponder the strange exchange. Poki briefly relived talking to Sakir on the deck of a small raft at dawn in the middle of a vast ocean. Hazel wondered how many friends Poki has. Rocks imagined sleeping in many different places, some which were cold, and some which were wet, and some which smelled of different fruit. The kitten without a name thought of the mountains he had heard Poki speak of, standing as tall as the sun, and the great birds that he would meet there and they would all talk of Poki over dinner. Pascale wondered if Alligators liked tea.

“Shall we speak to the lobster, my dumplings?”

Poki and his children walked slowly across the circle of trees and grasses to the little pond beneath the tree with the berries next to the sand. They were all very excited to meet a lobster. As they approached however, all of the children of Poki slowly moved just behind him. They were all very quietly shy still. Poki reached the pond first.

In the pond, a lobster with yellow mittens swam around slowly. There was a contentedness to its movements. Poki spoke first.

“Hello, sir. My name is Poki and these are my children. Do you live here?”

The lobster looked slightly surprised to see anyone at all.

“Why, hello everyone! No, no. I’m just on vacation. My name is Alexander.”

“We are all very pleased to meet you, sir. You are very far from the sea.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

“Yes.”

“How might a lobster travel out so far from the sea?”

“We are very mysterious creatures.”

And Poki and his children could see that this was true.

In the Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 2

2005-12-27T22:39:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen of query and quandary, cultivators of intellectual quagmire and obsessors of quiddity, good evening.

I have come before you to discuss coffee. Singularly most wholesome of the four food groups, coffee has been a source throughout history of not just vast wealth and physical healing, but as a cause of some of the greatest and most violent reactions to food that I, as a scientist, have ever experienced. Our cup of coffee this evening has inspired such a reaction. Ladies and gentlemen of Science, I would like to introduce you to our cup of coffee for the evening, Dunkin' Donuts Cinnamon Flavored Coffee.

I would like to begin this analysis with the following words that have accompanied every single drink of this middle sized cup of coffee. These words are (through an accompanied cough): "Oh, shit...". Where, you very well may ask, did such a lucid and unequivocally brilliant scienceman like myself learn to speak with such awful expletive infused speech, disregarding the more gentle and less expressive conventions of public discourse? This can be traced back quite simply to the very impetus of my scientific experience.

And of course, it relates to cinnamon.

Back in the days of yore, I was a littler scientist than today I am. I was accompanied by many of the normal accoutrements of youth, such as small shoes and fury. While attending a public elementary school of someone's design, I was asked to undertake an endeavor which has been the object of lampoon and ridicule in many a pop culture forum: the school Science project. I was filled at first with vexation; and then the crimson rage of injustice.

It has been noted in the past by such non-Science luminaries as telephone pyschics, two ex-girlfriends, a mysterious floating syringe, and a bicycle cop in Florida that I seem to have an over-active sense of justice. About this, I am unapologetic. This itch for all things justice-y was tickled by the very idea of the Science project.

I was raised with a very real appreciation for Science by non-Science parents. I was taught from a very early age (subjective) that Science is not something that should be trifled with. Examples include nuclear warfare, the ebola virus, and Godzilla. As a curious aside, Godzilla is not an ancient Japanese folk hero. We have been mislead through poor translations of Japanese nature films and one very bad American pseudo documentary in which the enormous lizard attacked New York City (This never happened, of course. It was just another attempt to assimilate something spectacular from another culture into the mainstream of homogenized America). You see, although the Japanese films include a very clear anti-American slant, beyond the commentary, they were a very true accounting of the effects of an atomic weapons ravaged Japanese state. It seems that most Americans have not recognized that in order for this enormous mutated reptile to exist, we need to first recognize the initial nuclear attacks. One cannot exist without the other. It is certain that the scope of these individual documentaries has often been contrived in such a manner that it will uphold the national ego of Japan. The needless attacks by atomic powered lizard is quelled by the ingenuity of superior Japanese Science coupled with the might of the bold, virile military. It is a sort of mass therapeutic ego ointment. But we of the primarily English speaking variety have mislead ourselves in believing that the cinematic propagation of this "Godzilla" is not a twentieth century contrivance to attack the inhuman horror of nuclear annihilation, but an homage to an ancient Japanese monster of indiscernible power and origin. The simple truth of the matter is that this "Gojira" is not the nonsensical name of some ill-tempered demon from time immemorial, but a simple amalgam of the Japanese words for "whale" and "gorilla" (animals chosen for size, power, and temperament) raised from the very ashes of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and a small oceanic trench off of the Japanese mainland.

As the barnacled mine fields of the North Sea continue to wreak their ill will, so does the propaganda of the South Pacific. The shadow of the second world war falls well past the lives of its own veterans.

So this respect for Science has been very much a pillar in the well-lit cavern of my consciousness. When I was told that I needed to complete an experiment and document it reasonably, I panicked. There was no room in my definition of Science for useless experimentation to elucidate known results. Science should not be used out of boredom or to teach lessons in mediocrity. Science is the drunken cowboy of intelligence. It wanders about hassling dumb animals, having sex with sharp things, killing indiscriminately, and wearing chaps. It is irresponsible to smartness to ask an eight year old to dabble in Science. I already understood at this early age that there is absolutely no need to continue to perform experiments which had been proven over and over and over again. I knew that I did not yet have enough of a grasp on the world that I lived in to conduct an experiment that had not ever been tried before. This seemed the only reason for scientific experimentation. So as a response to this injustice, I said for the very first time, "Fuck em".

If my understanding of the universe and scholarship were not to be respected, then I saw no reason to treat this weak educational system with any manner of respect. So I created a dumb experiment, faked the results, and set fires for enjoyment, explaining to my mother that I did it only for Science.

After the results of my "experiment" had been properly detailed on poster board, I set some fires. My project had been an attempt to discover the retardant properties of various spices and non-liquid cooking ingredients. You know, just in case a fire broke out in the kitchen and there wasn't a fire extinguisher around. Or water. Or baking soda. You know, just in case. I chose this experiment because it allowed me the heedless usage of the word "retard" during my oral presentation without repercussion. I had decided that baking soda would be the best fire retardant, and as it turned out, I was correct according to my fallacious results. My fakeness felt proud of its non-achievement. But as I began playing around with fire I found out that my broken Science was actually incorrect. Cinnamon in fact is a better fire retardant than baking soda (a close second) and even delivers a pleasant aroma (similar to melange). But since the faux, incorrect results of my experiment had already been glued to a primary colored poster board, it seemed that I was locked into wild inaccuracy. I learned a very powerful lesson from all of this:

If people do not respect your intelligence, fuck em.

As a result of this early lesson, I return to my coffee. I return to my coughing "Oh, shit...". You see, this coffee is the sweetest thing that I have ever put in my mouth which didn't giggle. As a scientist, a former culinary professional, and an amateur roustabout with an over-active sense of justice, I will give a very clear, very emphatically precise explanation of my visceral reaction to these horrible sips of coffee. Cinnamon is not actually sweet. This coffee should simply be beautiful and black and have a faint flavor that is akin to "cinnamon". Of course, we all assume a correlative association between cinnamon and sweetness, but this is due entirely to the prominence of cinnamon in pastry and many wonderful dessert items. But cinnamon quite simply has no properties of "sweet". In actuality, its taste association is "bitter". It is a mild bitter with delightful aromatic properties (particularly when either roasted or fresh, although each is vastly different from the other), which is why it balances so well with sugar (sugar being a very, very bland sweet with no aromatic properties what so ever unless caramelized).

Should we as a population be so ignorant to such an automatic and intrinsic aspect of our persons as our sense of taste to not understand the fallacy in this flavoring? Should we as a population be so forgiving as to allow ourselves to be intellectually and emotionally ridiculed by a powerful corporation for our simple common sense?

Have we no chaps?

I say, fuck em.

...overheard...

2005-12-05T20:02:00.000-05:00

At work:
"...saw some tribes, some crap, elephants, came home..."

On the street:
"...heh, heh, heh...sugar on the nipples...heh..."

On the subway:
"All Bloods are homos."

A Home Before in Venturaland

2005-12-02T14:12:00.001-05:00

So I've lived in two different homes of questionable political acceptability under the Homeland Security Act. The first still exists in Winnetka, CA, although I am not certain that the current inhabitants know that they live in an apartment that has seceded from the United States. Of course as I am sure most people are aware, this is The People's Republic of the Republic of the People. It has a haunted room and a spray painted kitchen and there was always a considerable amount of confusion about the ownership of shoes. I am not currently writing about this home, however.

I am currently writing about a home which called itself "Gruppe 36". It consisted of people from the muthafuckin i.e. living in Venturaland. In Venturaland, everyone surfs and compares tribal tattoos. This is all I currently feel like saying about this home, with the possible exception of mentioning that Looty was attacked by Voodoo spirits once, Andrew saw something floating outside of our third story bedroom window, and we also had several flavours of fresh whipped cream for entertaining.

The purpose of this post is to show the various haiku's that appeared in our bathroom over the time that we lived there. I have excluded all haiku's that are not properly written.

gruppe 36 haiku

ryan eats oatmeal shit
adam is a blossom of fuck
i am floating, me.

ryan’s haiku

i wake up at six
i do not wear underwear
i like to rub wood.

adam haiku

i wake up sometimes
i make muscles like the hulk
i will pee and scratch.

danny haiku

i sleep forever.
only the mariachi
and brownies wake me.

haiku of life

you would not believe
how crappy god’s posture is.
but King David would.

banana haiku

everyone loves fruit.
bananas are like lepers.
no skin is better.

haiku for captain america

you were not kidding.
your tights are certainly that:
like a girlscout’s ass

haiku

every real haiku
has five syllables, seven
syllables, five syl

muppet haiku

it’s easy to score
in the drive-in theater
when you’re made of felt

andy haiku

i go to film school
i made my own pajamas
i like pokemon

haiku for uncle shawn

i am a skin, oi.
i like to find my nipple.
it is smooth and pink.

life of chaos haiku

we are very loud
it is noise, but we pretend
we have a vision

haiku for malibu barbie

i’m insidious
girls pay to have their esteem
fail before the mold.

america gets a haiku

i don’t know how to
spit out the distaste i have
for this tragedy

michael jackson’s haiku

there is no freedom
you are a monster to them
because you know joy

haiku for the honkeys

claims of dominance
are awkward with no concept
of rhythm and soul

andy’s haiku

a mafia loan
has more strings attached
than my swiss trousers.

a haiku today

i am quieter
than my emotions believe.
lost from sugared lips.

In the Name of Science! Nine Cups of Coffee, Part 1

2005-11-23T05:40:00.000-05:00

Subjectivity has long been the millstone around the neck of normal Science, leading lesser scientists astray with such absurdities as Phrenology, Head Shrinking, and Grill Cheese Sandwiches with Tomatoes. Oh, the tragedy of being steered awry in the simple pursuit of mere universal enlightenment! But by the most bizarre twist of not-reason, the observational aspects of experimentation are the meritorious justifications of its conduct. A subjective perception based upon observed data is truly the bread and butter of the Science blue plate special. Thus, it is without the slightest fraction of disillusionment and with a complete belief in my own intellectual impunity that I embark upon what shall surely be my greatest scientific accomplishment not involving feral marmots.

Every second of every day of the year, Dunkin' Donuts sells 231.48148 cups of coffee. That's 3.65 cups of coffee purchased per year from Dunkin' Donuts by every person living in the United States of America. I have gotten these numbers from Dunkin' Donuts themselves. According to math (the unattractive brother with poor hygienic technique of Science), this must include infants. I believe that this is why they both scream often and vibrate mildly; I cannot justify this with Science, however.

In the pursuit of greater market share, Dunkin' Donuts has embarked upon a foray into the vaunted world of gourmet coffee. Now, here is where Science gets pissed. Science likes its coffee like Grace Jones. Hot, black, intelligent, and can fuck you up. Science has proven conclusively that good coffee can also be compared favorably to Malcolm X (black, hot, well-spoken), or Nell Carter (full-bodied, black, sassy). Coffee cannot be favorably compared to anything flavored like marshmallow. Would marshmallow taste like Malcolm X? I live in Harlem and my Science is good. I say nuh-uh.

I have embarked in the name of Science on an epic journey of many dimensions, some of them quizzical about the existence of unripe fruit. Science! I have taken it upon myself to sample and scientifically evaluate the flavored coffee's of Dunkin' Donuts. As a control group, I will be sampling transmission fluid with fine splinters of steel and shards of broken glass.

I hate my life in the name of Science. The first cup is the previously spoken of flavor "Marshmallow".

I purchased one medium size cup of Marshmallow flavored coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts located at the corner of 104th and 3rd in Harlem. I walked in the lightly (subjective) falling rain along with Mr. KC Jackson back to my home on 104th and 2nd. This walk was uneventful, although it did allow for an opportunity to cool my coffee to a temperature which enabled me to imbibe. It helped in no way to make it more palatable.

In the prior statement as you can see, I have revealed what is known in literary circles as "foreshadowing". Just how many of you (in the name of Science) were waiting on the edge of your collective seats to learn of the results of my experimental-ness? Well, I have now hidden a subtle hint in the previous text regarding the supposed outcome of this research. It would also foreshadow my conclusion if I were to tell you that my belly hurts. Foreshadowing is a literary device that finds itself placed in most cases in only the worst attempts at literature. And although Science will not validate literature in any way, it has shown conclusively with exhaustive research that foreshadowing in literature is only necessary when the story itself cannot sustain the interest of the reader, creating a need for information that would make the reader feel as if he/she is somehow riding an inside track or perhaps more clever than the average reader or even the author him/her -self regarding the outcome of the plot. This can be used to the advantage of a truly creative brain by planting false foreshadowing clues as in the case of the film "Pete's Dragon", in which Elliot (the dragon of Pete) roasts the red apple before consuming it and then later on in the film not roasting Pete (the boy with the bulbous head covered in red hair) and not eating him.

I am certain that there are those amongst us who would argue that Foreshadowing is a valid literary device. I am also certain that there are those of us who would argue for the necessity of entire heaps of useless things, such as spectacles designed to mislead an observer into believing that the wearer is the fabled Groucho Marx of myth and early film (a paltry thinning of the genetic purity of the brother Karl), socks with individual toe divisions, and government. Science on the other hand, has no sentimental attraction to the failed ideas of the past. There are no shops brimming with the illusions of misfit Science antics. There are no children dressing up and wearing optical devices designed with the intent of misleading observers into believing them to be Newton and proposing Newtonian Mechanical theories, sad leftovers from the Hungry Man Dinner of misinformation. There are no scientists turning cartwheels in the streets of vast metropolii in homage to celestial bodies in Kepler's misdirected gravitational retrogrades. Science abides no such sentimentality.

Science is like the lone iceberg, crippling and killing indiscriminately the ideas held by man, without sympathy for the bad overacting of retards.

Were Science an individual and not the vast network of reason and intelligence that it is, it would ask itself: "Why would anyone want coffee flavored like marshmallow?"

Were Science an individual and not the vast network of reason and intelligence that it is but also had difficulties distinguishing between questions that he/she asks his/her -self and questions asked by other individuals, it would respond: "Only a nation that believes in the marketing premise and subsequent culinary validity of a product called 'I Can't Believe it's Not Butter!'. Assholes."

As some of you may be aware, I am a man enamored with the comely aesthetic of Science. I am a veritable champion of its cause. And it is with this in mind that I have accepted the challenge presented by my palate.

Will the world remain enshrouded in the dogmatic miasma of corporate marketing as an accepted and trusted substitute for cold culinary reason?

In the time it took to write out that question, the world answered it 925.92592 times with steaming cups of murky yuck from Dunkin' Donuts.

We are all aware as informed consumers and intelligent members of the marketplace that Nutrasweet in excessive amounts has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory rats. This is bad, unless you own stock in a pharmaceutical company. In which case you are probably a member of Congress and quite possibly a hated enemy of true Science. Interestingly enough, the reason that most members of the American (Religious) Right dislike Science is truly humanitarian. What follows is an example of empirical data gathered by myself at a zoo in San Francisco.

"I sure love Jesus."
"Yeah, me too."
"Wait! Oh my heavens! Those are darling little hirsute children in that cage! Those representatives of that cloven hoofed liberal the devil have called them 'monkeys' in an attempt to lead astray the children of God!"
"We should do something about this!"
"Yes! You can't just go around creating biological nonentities and not expect the vindictive wrath of a vengeful Jesus!"

This all really happened, none of it relating to Nutrasweet in any known manner.

True Christians don't believe in monkeys. It is the only true way to undercut the evolution debate. Or to disavow the existence of Charles Darwin, a heretic despite his very Nazarene appearance.

The coffee itself is a weak shadow (despite its pallid countenance) of coffee. Rather than a Grace Jones, it is a Condoleeza Rice. It's initial taste can only be described as "hot". This is the only contribution that it makes to oral sensation. As an aftertaste to this "hot" comes the marshmallow. I am terribly curious about this marshmallow. It is definitely present, but its flavor is not the flavor purely of marshmallow, although it is readily identified as such. There is a definite taste of the caramelization of sugars present in the aftertaste of the coffee, which leads to a curious question. Why is this a caramelized flavor? The obvious answer would be found in the heat of the beverage itself perhaps leading to the caramelization. I do not believe that this is correct, however. As any Scientist worth his weight in Californium is aware, hot chocolate which is a likewise rather warm morning beverage consisting primarily of water in the 200 degree Fahrenheit neighborhood, does not produce a caramelized taste from the requisite marshmallows. This can only then allow us to deduce that the caramelization is an intentional aspect of the artificial flavor bonanza that is Dunkin' Donuts flavored coffees. Now why would that be? The immediate parallel drawn by my memory is that of marshmallows roasted over a campfire, and as I continue to drink, I am able to perceive a latent smoky flavor. Of course, this could be an inaccurate observation based upon the suggestion of my early memories. For the moment however, we will assume that this is not the case.

Although a smoky flavor is not an unknown character in some of the richer, more cultivated African and Indonesian coffee beans when provided with a proper and unburnt dark roast, this coffee is no finely roasted coffee. Indeed, this is not even a proper Arabica bean, but displays the characteristics (weak, chemical-ish bitterness felt on the back outside edges of the tongue) of Robusta tempered with a slight percentage of Arabica. So our smokiness is not within the inherent nature of a well produced bean, but in the artificial flavoring of the "marshmallow". Why is this? I am able to understand a connection between marshmallow flavor coupled with caramelization and smokiness due to the number of nights spent sitting around campfires as a young Scientist. However, campfires are not exactly the suckling teat of the average East Coaster (which is the greatest concentration of Dunkin' Donuts coffee consumers and the home of Dunkin' Donuts itself). Thus, these flavor combinations must be an actual directed attempt to infuse the mind of the average Dunkin' Donuts consumer with a recognition of the relationship of these flavor elements.

So, why I ask you?

Why attempt to introduce a false flavor conception to the East Coast? Who would stand to gain something from everyone on the East Coast finding themselves craving not the true taste of marshmallow when such a natural craving inevitably strikes, but the faux enjoyment of campfire marshmallow roasts? Welcoming the introduction of smoky marshmallow goodness walking down the streets of their town?

That's right, you've got it.

Fucking Zuul.

The Ghost of Hank Williams

2005-11-22T02:08:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in my apartment watching the rain with a cup of coffee right now.

I don't know, I walked home in the rain tonight after my umbrella was stolen from the restaurant I ate dinner in. I am disjointed.

I often have these disconnected bouts of existential anxiety, wading in the misanthropic miasma of my brain, mired in my own inability to calm the fuck on down and find a comfortable place to lay my head. Have I always been this way? Is it simply growing more acute, more refined as I age? I haven't owned a bed in over five years. I've been in the same sleeping bag for four. I think it's because it gives me a sense of how temporary my life needs to be. I feel somehow antsy that my pack is on the other side of the country. I wear a beard to remind myself of the meandering raccoon scratching at the skylight of my soul, wondering why everyone else is warm and dry. How many religions did I need to stumble around in before I realized that pissing on walls and not talking to people is more holy to my quiet little heart than some Divine Boss?

Have I always been like this?

Will I ever change, find rest, become calm, discover the key, anything?

Is there contentment in a process-based existence? If contentment is really just a pleasant acceptence of a current position or situation, am I (in the words of the prophet Jonah), just entirely fucked?

I will tell you what I want.

I want to find the soft belly of some divine little creature that I can rest my head upon and rewrite my own ideas of infinity in her kiss, lose my rambling and disquiet in her arms. I want to hear a pleasant laugh beside me in the rain and feel the cold feet of some gentle, mad, brilliant thing upon my back when I need to sleep on the floor next to the bed and try not to cry. Her feet on me not because she needs to touch, but because she needs to tell me that she won't let me leave. That she knows that I need to stay with her as much as she needs me to stay. That a knotted rope can be untied, but two people do not slip so easily.

This isn't simply loneliness, I want something bigger than me.

I want to find some fucking girl that I can worship like a petty and vindictive god.

Fuck.

I just want some god damned sense.

The Politics of Horseshoes

2005-11-15T05:02:00.000-05:00

Alan and Kyle paced the fifty steps from pole to pole. Kyle had a slightly larger backyard than Alan, so a disproportionate number of summer afternoons were spent in the Patterson’s backyard. Alan was not embarrassed by this, as he had opted for a larger “family” room to house his entertainment center and wet bar. His football parties were legendary at the office. One guy last year painted his face for the Super Bowl and wore a whistle.

Alan and Kyle paced the fifty steps from pole to pole joking about their feigned mutual distrust and competitiveness, although one’s strides were always longer than the others. The fire was just about ready for the steaks, but they thought that they ought to take a few throws first. A man can always be measured by his steaks.

Alan always threw first, Kyle’s option for the home field. Kyle was considered by the people who knew him to be a good guy.

With a clang, Alan’s first shoe struck the pole and landed on end, rolling outside of the one-point range. He thought to himself that the pole did not sound properly set. But this was just a friendly game. His second shoe dug into the even green lawn and flipped up against the pole. This was a probable two points for Alan. Even with a loose pole.

Kyle stretched his shoulder a bit, an old baseball injury which he never used as an excuse. He smiled and gave a whistling affirmation to Alan’s leaner. It looked like Alan might be on his game today. When Alan was on his game, he was unstoppable. Kyle’s first throw slipped a bit from his hand and fell limply short of Alan’s. It fell with a soft thump. He knew that if he could hit the pole, Alan’s shoe would fall off. He aimed low with a line drive that sailed just over the top to the pole, missing entirely. It had been a good strategy, though.

They walked slowly across the yard, eyeing the barbecue and stretching their middle class legs.

Alan and Kyle each picked up their shoes.

Alan threw again, as he had taken the two points. The first throw was perfect, like a television advertisement for prescription medication. A gentle arc on a beautiful day, over Kyle’s meticulously manicured lawn, falling past his beautiful home, and clanking with a spin around the pole like a wedding band. Yes, he was on his game today. He laughed with a bit of excitement, shared by Kyle quite genuinely. It was a good pitch. His second throw landed near the pole. It would be disputed. This pole had sounded well set, though.

Some days Alan got Kyle and others Kyle got Alan. Kyle’s first throw was close enough for a point, but the next was nowhere near. It’s just horseshoes, after all.

Alan’s shoe had been close enough, and he took the four total points, giving him six overall. Kyle had scored his first. Setting the shoes down in the grass near the pole (the well-set pole), they walked together to grill the steaks.

Jessica and Amanda still liked to pore through wedding magazines under the shade of the porch awning, though their nuptials were long past. They both wanted children, each with the prudence to know that another occupational advancement of their husbands was necessary before their lives could reasonably proceed. They each turned a page and smiled at their own private memories of white dresses, of artificially perfumed flowers, of pale cakes with sugar roses.

They took no notice of their husbands, grilling steaks as husbands do, pitching horseshoes as husbands do.

Jessica had been fucking Amanda’s husband Kyle for about two years now, although Amanda was unaware. She enjoyed fucking him. He was larger than Alan, rougher. She wouldn’t trade of course, but she didn’t really need to.

Jessica was not as attractive as Amanda and had always been a bit shy. But her large breasts had made her a fairly popular first date back in high school. She would go down by the second date, was fingered by the third. Kyle hadn’t needed much more than a couple of cold imported beers to brush her breasts accidentally, and she hadn’t needed anything at all to smile and let him do it again. She felt like she was in high school again. Everyone wants to stay young.

Kyle lay the steaks on the grill, just off of the hot spot as the heat was beginning to wane. Every man has his technique. By placing the steaks just off of the hot spot, he cooked a fairly good steak with limited risk to burn and only a moderate loss of moisture. Alan too cooked just off of the hot spot, although he did prefer to eat a steak seared over a fire that was just a bit too hot and then taken off of the heat altogether. The steak was then reapplied to the hot spot just after the coals had peaked. It took more work, but that was a proper steak.

Alan admitted aloud that Kyle sure knew how to cook a steak. He did not state a preference for his method.

The steaks sizzled with a gentle cauterizing effect as Kyle and Alan walked across the grass. The shoes were again hefted, and again thrown. Alan threw two rough one-pointers which he declared aloud to be lucky points. Kyle’s first pitch smacked into the first of Alan’s shoes and bounced past the pole. His second looked to have landed flat and straight enough for three. Alan’s legacy had passed.

When the two men had crossed the open yard to the pole (the ill-set pole), they found that although Kyle’s second pitch had indeed scored him three points, his first had knocked Alan’s around the pole as well.

Alan knew that Kyle was fucking his wife. He did not know the frequency of the coupling. He had returned from work early one Saturday, the project in the bag and on its way to Chicago. He had received a bonus. He had returned home and quietly entered the house as was his custom. He heard his wife watching a film in the “family” room. He took a cold imported beer from the kitchen (as was his custom) and walked to the "family" room.

He did not understand at first. Kyle had mounted his wife from behind, both facing away from the door. Alan stirred. He took a step into the “family” room before he caught himself and walked back into the dining room and sat at the table watching Kyle fucking his wife. He felt his own erection and began to gently rub himself through his pants, the casual pants that he wore to work on Saturdays, his day off. He finished masturbating quickly and left the house unnoticed. Quietly, as was his custom. Kyle was still fucking his wife. He later rationalized his actions, thinking that he had been caught off guard; that this had been some primal reaction, enabled by shock.

In his office at work or in the shower at home, he allowed his thoughts to shock him often.

He sometimes pretended that he was Kyle when he was with his wife. Sometimes, she did too.

Alan’s arm swung back and then forward, releasing the shoe mid-swing. It kept low, but straight. Landing a few feet from the pole, it bounced to a point just to the left of the pole but probably still within the one-point range. His second toss landed past the pole, too far to be counted.

Kyle stepped up with a joke about knocking Alan’s second shoe back into contention. He concentrated as he took his first pitch and missed the point area. His second throw also landed in a manner unthreatening to Alan’s lead.

The two men began walking across the yard to the pole. They each picked up their shoes, Alan stating only that he had scored one point. Each man consciously thought of the score. Eleven points to four. They trusted one another, there was no reason to speak.

Alan again had advantage and threw accordingly. Again, his one errant throw was accompanied by the thoughtful placement of one solid point. Kyle stopped for a moment to take a breath. This throw ought to be good for a few points, he thought. But some days Kyle got Alan, and others Alan got Kyle. Kyle’s first pitch slapped against the pole (the ill-set pole) and ricocheted away. His second throw was a beautiful pitch that seemed to catch just a moment too long on the men’s expectations and fell a few inches short.

As Alan and Kyle walked across the lawn, they could smell the steaks cooking on the grill. Over the decayed smell of the drooping cherry blossoms from the trees that lined the back wall of the Patterson’s backyard, the beef’s scent carried a heavy promise.

Alan felt pretty good. He was really on his game today. They say that every dog has his day. He held his shoes and only thought for a moment about the account waiting on his desk for Monday’s coffee. He asked Kyle if he had seen it yet. Kyle called the account a “meatball”. He meant it as a reference to a baseball slang term for a pitch thrown to a batter that he couldn’t help but hit out of the park. They laughed together, a metaphor shared between men.

Alan still grinned as he pitched his next shoe. It wrapped tightly around the pole. Alan could not recall a single game of horseshoes that he had ever played this well. His second pitch clanked the first shoe and skidded a few inches past the pole. He was certain that it was another point.

Kyle laughed at Alan’s fortune. There was no way he was going to catch him now. He too still smiled as he pitched his first shoe. They both knew that it was a point and speculated on the ringer. His second throw was unconscious and hit the solid pole loudly. Even wives looked up and then back down quickly, unnoticed by husbands.

As they approached the pole, Alan clapped Kyle on the back for a double ringer. They looked at the pole for a moment, pleased with the accomplishment of three ringers in a single round. Neither had ever done this before. They picked up their horseshoes and set them off to the side in the grass and began instinctually walking towards the barbecue, a man’s nose always knowing when to turn the meat. Kyle picked up the tongs and slowly flipped the steaks, Alan remarking at the perfect color.

The color was perfect.

They both took a drink from their bottles of imported beer warming in the afternoon sun, and then walked back over to the pole (the solid pole). They picked up their shoes and looked out over the beautiful day.

Kyle looked down at the horseshoe in his hand and slowly up to the back of Alan’s head. His old baseball injury hurt a little as he swung the shoe and opened up the back of Alan’s head. Alan slumped to the ground. His fingers shook a little bit, but he did not reply.

New York City Subway

2005-11-12T05:08:00.000-05:00

I sat in the crowded subway on my way to work today, the first really cold day of the year.
I watched a mosquito land on my hand and draw blood.
I watched the mosquito fly out of the door into November.

This city is hard on everyone.

In the Name of Science! Study One: An Evening With Michael and Ella, Part Two

2005-11-01T01:48:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen of the scientific community, I welcome you. I come before you again today to enlighten the shadowed recesses of rational dialogue and boldly, fearlessly, address the innermost workings of the fertile human brain. What we scientists prefer to call "science-ing".

I am additionally proud to have the pleasure of addressing so many of the international scientific community, including those members in exile in locales as exotic as Georgia, Arizona, and Pasadena.

With so many esteemed minds in one room at one time, it seems that there is no better moment to ask this simple question: "What is the human brain?" The unanimous response is of course, that no one knows. Some say that it is an anomalous fungal growth, others reporting that its electrical components have the odd property of keeping socks from coupling in a clothes drying machine. Still others say that it is pink. Will man ever know where the truth may lie? Perhaps, but only in an effort to find himself in the arms of a partially drunk school teacher out for a night on the town. And he is correct!

But now, we shall conclude our extended study of the human brain with the study of Ella Salonius. She exhibits a typical right brain control, the manner found in the artists, the poets, the mimes of the age. But from this, what shall we conclude? Only science may say for sure.

Ten Questions with Ella Salonius.

1. D: Had you the sudden option of becoming a superhero, what sort of powers would you have?
E: I really wanted to be a lady bug.
D: I'm not sure I understand...
E: I would force honesty and transform junk food into health food.
E: And junk food makes people honest.

2. D: I see you have a shag carpet. If you had a shag automobile, would you drive it?
E: It depends. Is it on the inside or the outside?
D: Outside.
E: Definitely.
D: Inside.
E: It depends on the mood.
D: Would you wax this car of shag?
E: I would use shag softener and febreze.
D: Honestly, I have been to many stores of varying product lines throughout the country. I have yet to encounter "shag softener". Where might one find an establishment offering "shag softener"?
E: In Yelebland!
D: Yelebland?
E: (nods head vigorously)
D: Could you draw me a map?
E: Unfortunately not.
D: In the name of science, why not?
E: It's not a physical place.
D: Do you get paper or plastic to transport shag softener from a different plane of existence?
E: Plastic.
D: A container of shag softener in a plastic bag can be transported across different planes of existence?
E: No container.
D: They just pour it in the bag?
E: (grins widely)

3. D: If you could have conversations with any household appliance, what would it be?
E: The mirror in the bathroom.
D: Is this a ska reference?
E: No. I want to see how people truly look at themselves.
E: I want to make sure I'm not the only one who makes faces.

4. D: Do you believe in cows?
E: Absolutely.

5. D: Do you think science justifies this belief in cows?
E: Absolutely not.

6. D: If you were made entirely of blueberry pie, would you still sleep next to your husband at night?
E: Yes.
D: Do you hate the world and want to die?
E: He loves me.
E: He wouldn't eat me.
D: Oh, honey! You don't really believe that?!

7. D: If you were to lead a street gang made up of cute cartoon raccoons, what sorts of crime would you specialize in?
E: We would climb up to the tops of buildings and set fires on them.
D: Is there any special color that you would use to identify yourselves?
E: Red with black polka dots.

8. D: You have an evening out on the town with your best friend Celine Dion. What would you do?
E: We would go to a fire swallowing class, eat very spicy food, get rolfing, and do an interior design project for television.
D: This sounds an awful lot like an episode of "Blind Date". Do you like Celine Dion in a boy/girl kind of way?
E: No. I want her to lose her voice.

9. D: You are in a kung-fu fight to the death against an army of radio-controlled frisbee's. What weapons would you use?
E: Pop rocks and a horny group of porcupines.
D: ...

10. D: How would you rate your "weirdness" on a scale of 1 to 10, one being white toast and ten being a Star Trek themed dog wedding?
E: I have to answer that in two parts, for both of my sides. The inner is 8.5. The outer is 3.
D: Which part is answering these questions?
E: That's the third part.
D: Third part?
E: The objective part.
D: The objective or scientific part?
E: Why all the science?
D: BECAUSE SCIENCE IS RIGHT! SCIENCE MADE TANG! WHERE IS YOUR TANG?!
D: How would you score Michael, 1 to 10 with the same gradations?
E: My inside says 5. My outside says 11.
D: Science?
E: 7.

In the Name of Science! Study One: An Evening With Michael and Ella, Part One

2005-10-31T02:22:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen of the general assembly, I thank you for your time and commitment to the hallowed name of science. As many of you are aware, my reputation has been built upon the strength of rigorous research and the well-founded precepts of the scientific method and insomnia. In this latest accounting of my particular professional scientific trials, I have been studying the tender, pink brains of those rare specimens who walk among us possessing the twin genetic anomalies of something and of course, something else entirely. But do not be frightened! They are people much like yourself and another!

The following is a direct transcription of two separate conversations I was able to have with these two meek, yet unavoidably wild specimens. Each was asked ten separate questions which I believe will further science in some indescribable sense. They have created conundrums for the ages, indeed.

We begin as you shall see, with Michael Salonius. A creature known throughout the academic world for sure, but what do we really know of the inner functionings of the brain of such a specimen? That he exhibits motivational behaviour commonly associated with a typical left-brain individual is a given fact (and clearly apparent from the following text). But what do we know of him, indeed, how do we even begin to understand him? The answer? With Science!

Ten Questions with Michael Salonius.

1. D: In a fight between a giraffe and eleven sea otters in eight inches of water, who would win?
S: (Pauses)
S: Dude, the otters. The giraffe's got some serious stomping power, but dude. Eleven sea otters. They eat logs!

2. D: What sort of cloud would you be if you could be just any cloud ever?
S: A lone cumulus over the Utah desert.
D: Why?
S: It's bizarre, man! When you're in the Utah desert it's always either a thunderstorm or not a cloud in the sky. It's the essence of my life, brother.

3. D: So you become irradiated through unnatural contaminants. Suddenly, bunnies are drawn to you through some bizarre form of magnetism and are stuck all over your body. So you become a superhero. Do you fight for good, or do you fight for evil?
S: I'd cry.
D: THAT'S NOT SCIENCE!
S: But dude, I'd cry.
D: BUT THAT'S NOT SCIENCE! Research indicates that anytime a person is exposed to radiation, they become a superhero. So the question remains. Good or bad?
S: Okay, good but with serious chaotic intentions. If I was a Dungeons and Dragons character, I would be chaotic good.

4. D: Okay, you are a lone asteroid. You have lost your way. You feel a need to orbit a planet. Uranus or Venus?
S: Without question, Uranus.
D: ...
S: It's closer to Neptune.

5. D: You're involved in the whole "Westward Expansion" thing. You are following the Oregon Trail. Unfortunately, as you set out there are no Cows, Oxen, Horses, or Moosen to pull your wagon. What sort of animal would you get to pull your wagon?
S: I fill up my pack and go on foot.
D: Anywhere you'd like to visit along the way?
S: Not the Great Divide Wilderness. But I'd head to the Bridger Wilderness. I could do that motherfucker without a map.

6. D: What's your favorite kind of soup?
S: Clam chowder, ohhh!!!
D: New England or Manhattan?
S: Oh, New England. I haven't eaten my favorite soup for eleven years.
D: Why?
S: I wanted to be Jewish.
D: Did you succeed through a failure of soup eating?
S: I failed. Jewish degree, married an Israeli, Orthodox Yeshiva...but I'm just a half Heeb, half Pagan. And G-d mocks me for trying. His best mockery came one year when Jeff Glick and I got up early on Yom Kippur to go eat Carls Jr. Double Western Bacon Cheeseburgers and milkshakes.

7. D: If G-d asked you to come up with a new kind of soup, what would it be?
S: I'd have to ask my mom. She said G-d talked to her twice. The first time he said, "make soup". The second time he said, "look your best". I'd have to ask my mom.

8. D: If the world was cursed with a terrible blight, what do you think the most humorous plague would be to strike humanity?
S: Pregnancy.

9. D: If you had to field a roller derby team, what would you name them?
S: Archimedes Point. Archimedes said that he could move the earth if he could just find the proper point of fulcrum.
S: What a fuckin' bitchin' roller derby team, dude.
S: They could never fall down.

10. D: What's your favorite flightless bird?
S: Penguin.
S: But it's for a really lame reason.
S: I used to have a t-shirt with a penguin on it and I was really attached to it.
D: Anything sexual?
S: Not remotely. I love them.
S: When I was cool and hip and had crazy long hair, I took a secret trip to the zoo to see the penguins and the tiger.
S: But I spent most of my time in the koala room.
S: It was dark.
S: I had a hangover.

Into the Ground

2005-10-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

I could have been there with you to hold you tight;
into the dirt, forgiving light;
forgiving dreams and hopes we'd made
in better days,
in better days.
I could have been there with you into the ground;
in birth and age and regrets sound
with kiss apocryphal and strange.
the broken sage, forgetful prophet
whose word will live past those who mock it,
into wood and out through stone,
in mystery and rough abandon,
hopes and prayers might seal the damned in,
but we with wings will grace the splendor,
bellies rubbed on bluest tender
heaven's back with stars above
and hearts that break will still the love
into the ground,
into the ground.
But rise again, will question hope,
to drowners weight and hangman's rope
unmoving in what light we see
tranquility,
tranquility.
Wrack and bile in course recant
will tear the seams of lovers aprons
spilling plague and splaying skirts we'll hold what stones we can
into the earth,
into the earth.
We fear ourselves beneath the skies
(and broken hearts declare us wise),
but lonely souls still choose appeasement
that comes to us declaring somehow
reason is without a fault,
holding down the greatest walls,
for love can stop for nothing more
than closing doors,
than closing doors.
I am the one who longs and gives
the greatest draughts for slightest sips
and wishes to share unrequited
a perfect strength with none to bear
the curses and the gathered sorrow
that threatens every fresh tomorrow
that you are you and I am I
with none between that choose to tie
our hearts to blind and callous hands
that fill our wounds with salt and sand,
when two could be to each a vessel
to carry through the roughest seas
beyond hope and into needs,
and walk a walk forever long,
side by side, though never bound
by aught but trust and dignity,
into the ground,
into the ground.
I could have been there with you still,
with warmth or with a shadows chill.
But your wings were held aloft on drafts I dare could not imagine
and I was just a point at sea,
an island you remembered.
But given time and distance gathered,
I could be the one who once had mattered
and carried on despite your silence
into an old and weary sway.
And all the knowledge and love engendered
could be a dream you might remember.
Me, a man of oaken pillar,
that wished to hold up wings that withered
and be a strength, and be a stone
upon the earth,
upon the ground,
with no words of reminiscence,
upon the earth, upon the ground,
believing patience is a strength,
upon the earth,
upon the ground,
decided.

Numbered Poems

2005-10-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

1.

I came to the forest and there was no path to its heart.
With tools and fury I clove my way.
When I reached it, it was a clearing whose ring of trees
I had fallen.
I came to the river and marveled at the torrents.
I swam its depths and by boat found its source.
It trickled from rocks and from the forest
seeped unnoticed.
Disconsolate, I questioned the weeping of my heart.
I searched with wonder and abandon.
I found only desolation and the clamour of worry
in the place of strength.

2.

A prayer floats on the water
and does not know the storm.
It slips gently beneath waves
both enticing and loving.
Acceptance sees and kisses
myself, the coming rain.

3.

Frost on bare branches
of sleeping trees.
Weep for winter skeleton’s shadow
torn into fallen snow.
Thoughts fall past,
tumble in drifts.
Sun peels back empty clouds;
their all is given, settled now, wounded.
Reflections of frozen glass,
winter calls lonesome and sun responds:
“You will not know joy until winter streams
and living parts thighs over fertile ground.”
Holy are the hopes we have,
holy as another dawn.

4.

Wild and cooing on the broken leaves,
spring’s back offers
summer’s hands and mouth
a place to lie and wait
for more important reasons
to fall asleep and remember
that time is the song of our hearts
and sex is the spell of our longing.

5.

Naked over the mossed rocks and river bottoms,
naked beneath wild mulberry and plum.
The universe waits for all men to break,
to hope, to desire, to pray, to fuck, to be alive.
Naked through the sage and warm sands,
naked under the pine and oak and sunlight.
Orange peels by my feet,
a restless spirit.

6.

silence
taking
breath
from
skirts
of
winter
snow.
drawn
fragments:
east
west
earth
shadow.
tender
skin
and
make-
believe.
hopeless.
buried
image.

Cries Like Sickness

2005-10-20T02:58:00.000-04:00

You thought that it was too fucking loud. So much I could see on your face, see in your eyes like the green, lashes out with slender shadows over cornea. Sometimes I feel silly, so unable to conceal my emotions with a turn of the head, a sigh, a disheartened laugh, fuck. I don't know, sometimes I can't possibly think I know you.

We take coffee in the afternoon when we awake, when the nights are long and we are not awoken by the terrors that fit my sleep, that occupy the moments in our lives. Bedclothes like ancient myth upon waking: covering us, covering us. You slip from them like reason and I question which of us could be so close to shaking the make-believe and walking. I fall over the side of the bed onto my knees walking naked into the kitchen, the sensitive part of me moving in the rhythm of the walk like an ill-shapen metronome. You smile from your chair, wooden and old. So we are, so we are.

Some days there are more words than others. Some days we look into one another's eyes and wait for fate to blink: and then we are gone. The beautiful days seem the longest. Were we always this far along, like the dream that kept past the dawn? The one where you fall forever, except that there is a moments peace for coffee, for a short walk...before the numbness again.

Who was the youngest, the oldest, it all seems irrelevant now, when this all began? A small house, yellow if I remember correctly (although I can find every worn spot in the carpet in the dark, have found its doorstep drunken, bloodied, and out of luck in looser times, I can not see it through the memories anymore). We might sometimes wonder whose wounds had bled the most, whose words had been unnecessarily barbed. We might wonder the same of whose actions, whose infidelities, whose lack of interest, whose mess when the moment was wrong. When years become days, this is a lifetime.

You thought that it was too fucking loud, and I knew that you would. Statesmen call this brinkmanship in an ugly and veiled manner feigning civility. We would speak and sometimes hear, but always feel far too much. And in these moments you could give a turn of the head, a sigh, a disheartened laugh. Fuck. But always with a look in my direction, in a single moment I revealed my bones, my spit, my blood.

For you, whose pain has always been such a ridiculously silent thing, I could see it in your eyes just how fucking loud my emotions have always been.

And I am ashamed for hurting you like this.

Poetry From the Former Winter

2005-10-20T02:52:00.000-04:00

Spring

I leave you as you wish;
for now, unfinished.
The paint underneath my nails,
the large circles drying.
The lips still wet to touch
and heart unfixed.

Remember me like this;
patient,
longing,
myself incomplete in you.

But the spring will settle somehow;
redemption and thaw.
Tying the knots of unconscious threads,
relearning old words.
Retracing old lines,
hues, and brushstrokes.

Some lines extend crooked, untraceable;
dry into something new, a canvas unrecognizable.
So what spring is this, what lover?
What fragments are holy and which are merely broken?

Precious Creature

Precious creature, I will dream of you;
Make love to you between sleeping breaths
and distant miles and winds of shapeless snow.
I will follow my heart, which way it may fall,
across the black ribs of the country’s highways,
lost in its sad ache and hopeful sigh.
I will wander into dark until light
and the mystery of trees spread themselves snow-shod,
some green or otherwise, fearfully alive makers of wild.
I will clench my teeth on air, precious creature,
and hope that I might pass through unharmed
into the next impossibility, cold and miraculous and unformed.

Edward's Garden

2005-10-19T02:16:00.000-04:00

Edward had become an amputee as he approached the period of time in the average American’s life known as middle age. He was emotionally unaffected by this to his knowledge. There was a quiet part of Edward’s psyche that believed in a very unattached manner that his amputation affected some greater hidden psychic aspect of himself. It’s acute effects were not clear to Edward.

A forced retirement had brought Edward into the backyard of his quiet home, in which he had built a garden of some small local renown. The details of this garden are aesthetically pleasing but unimportant to us now. The only exception to this is a koi pond in which lived one fish of medium size by typical koi standards. It is into this pond that Edward fell as his balance (already tenuous) was stricken by a flash some distance off. His wrist was rent in a failed attempt at brace. His head struck the water and his face caromed off of a dull rock on the bottom of the shallow pool. He did not remove himself from the water for some seconds due to a combination of unknown proportions of the following four factors. The first is that the coupling of an amputation and a broken wrist creates a difficulty in the lifting of the weight of a fully grown man of average size. The second is that of the pure shock of falling and the sudden pain from both the wrist and face of this man. The third is that the cause of the bright flash could be seen by Edward during his descent, and that this flash was caused by the immediate splitting of atoms whose momentary effects become nuclear holocaust and a hopeless reaction from the individual. The final reason is that said explosion eventually washed over him, splintering molecules into less and the concept of “water” into none.

As his head settled into an imagined ringing, a medium sized koi passed into Edward’s line of sight. They began to communicate in silence at a rapid pace. Synaptic responses move much faster than voices are able to follow. No words were spoken between man and fish.

The fish began.

“Fear. Not. Beginning.”

And then Edward.

“Not. Ending.”

This unconventional conversion proceeded as such, unless otherwise noted.

“Lilypad. Light.”

“Lilypad” in this sentence is not spoken as a word, but arrived much more as a concept than the preceding “words” used by the koi, Edward noted like this:

“Lilypad.”

There was a numerically insignificant measure of time that passed between Edward’s thought and the next statement by the koi. It (fish) allowed for the fractions of thought to complete within Edward’s neural sphere. Edward realized that all words thus far erroneously notated as spoken were merely conceptions of thought that represented the ideas of objects within his (Edward) mind. He innately believed that this was untrue of his native language due to feelings of individual supremacy.

As Edward began to understand linguistic conversion properties, he understood “Lilypad.” He realized that the cloud of light in the distance did indeed resemble the vague shape of a lilypad.

“Growing. Food. Hide.”

“Not. Un-grow. Stop.”

Edward spoke a second time, an upsetting of this rhythm. However, it resumes with this statement:

“Am I?”

“Man.”

This is not an esoteric conversation. Death does not call for dwelling upon the metaphysic. That is for a wasting death. Metaphysical questions stand awkwardly in a middle class undergarment beside the shit jokes of trench warfare.

Any particular fish is unable to view the world above the water line of its particular habitat unless either the water is disturbed by outside forces or is breached by said fish for feeding or oxidation purposes. This allows for an analogous parallel between water in a fish bowl and certain Eastern thoughts on God. If a given fish has not seen a second world until the very moment of its passing (floatation occurring), this avails an opportunity to illicit a parallel between the relationship of water and the atmosphere of the earth and certain Western thoughts on the Afterlife. Both trite.

“Dead.”

“Lilypad.”

Again Edward paused, entirely without thought. There is no significance in this. The bones of man (Edward) and the bones of fish (fish) feed in blankets of burn and break.

There was a brief moment (a moment being an arbitrarily defined segment of time) in which both spoke again simultaneously through uncollected bits of organic mass (-less -ness).

The man: “Leg.”

The fish: “ . ”

There is nothing to know.

Newness and whatnot.

2005-10-19T02:11:00.000-04:00

Howdy.

I meant to write sooner.

Summer brought a small adventure into my little world. Through interpersonal dysfunctions and a bad bit of luck on a vespa, I went homeless. Hell, I'm not surprised. I've been acclimating myself from the larval to sleeping on the ground and eating rice and beans. Really, it's like camping with more broken glass and fewer bears. I feel kind of sad writing this all down right now, but I'm not sure why. I really liked being homeless. There were less people I felt obligated to talk to. I got reaquainted with the little monk that still stirs under my skin. I remembered just how comfortable I am when I am alone.

I stayed two nights a week at my mom's house in Rialto, which is about 75 miles from work. I rode a commuter train there and back and really just had enough time to get out there, wash my laundry for the next few days, sleep a few hours, and get back to work. I slept the other nights in an alley in Hollywood. It was pretty clean, by most Hollywood alley standards. I was able to clean up at the gym everyday before heading into work, allowing for the superhero alter ego part of my brain to function. It is probably a good time to say that I was working at the time at a Japanese fine dining restaurant as a server. Of course, my little secret remained as such to my co-workers until the end, with few exceptions. There is a beauty to being a crazy homeless person at night and serving people who think nothing of spending $50 on a lunch by themselves during the day. I was able to talk to some of these people. I was a bit surprised by the percentage of wealthy customers who found reason to comment on the homeless "problem" in Los Angeles. Apparently this problem is not that our system sees fit to cast aside a significant number of the population to exist as a worthless and unwanted minority for varied reasons, but that this minority is so visible. Please understand that I do not erroneously view myself as being a man who was left without option and thus remained on the street. I was there because I just needed to be for a while. I was offered many a couch and floor, and had the means myself to procure a dwelling. It's just not what I wanted. To be honest, a lot of it was over hurt feelings. Upon leaving my prior residence, there was a lot of bad blood. Still is, I suppose. It really made me reevaluate my relationships with a lot of the people I know. It made me realize that we all have people in our lives with whom we share some intangible bond, and those that we spend time with for more superfluous reasons. Those reasons can be a shared belief, a common aesthetic idea, or blood. Kevin Calvillo said to me at one point, "I've known you long enough to know how much you need to do this." I've probably had 5 conversations with Kevin over the last 7 or 8 years, but that frequency has nothing to do with how good a friend I would consider Kevin. My mom was worried about my homelessness. I'm sure this is the role of my mom. "He's smarter than this," I'm sure she thought for at least a moment. I was supposed to go to college and marry well and have a few kids. But I'm almost thirty and living in an alley in Hollywood. Our first conversation about it ended with my mom's worried eyes and her words, "Well, I'm sure it will make a great story." I think we may both have needed that. It wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but I had to do it. I have had conversations with a man known as the Psychedelic Jesus for reasons that seem improbable but that I have witnessed. Conversations about safe places to sleep that don't have walls, for the times that walls cannot hold the dreams that keep you awake. My sister anonymously mailed me a copy of the film "Down and Out in Beverly Hills." Okay, I didn't take that too well at first, but it's pretty damn funny now.

I've found that it's easier for me to talk to other homeless people now. I've been living in New York City for about a month now, in an actual apartment in Spanish Harlem. When I first got here, I felt really out of place despite my immediate love of this city. I found myself talking to a lot of homeless people, wandering the streets in the middle of the night. Travellers and city people. I found the same in L.A. There, they recognized me. Nobody else did, but I'd be at a bus stop reading a book and someone would sit down next to me. Clean clothes, combed hair, small pack.
"Travelling?"
"Nope. Just got back."
"Where?"
"New York and back. You?"
"D.C. You know a quiet place around here?"
"Golf course up on Wilshire. There's about 10 feet between the trees at the edge of the street and the fence where the sprinklers don't hit and the cops can't see."
This is the conversation I had with a man who called himself the Black Abraham Lincoln. And I have to admit, he did bear an amazingly striking resemblance. We talked a while about how long a man can really move before he just quits. The folks I've talked to seem to think that once you stop, you lose your mind. I'd say the numbers are supportive.

I have to say that I don't know how in the world I'll ever be able to stop. I feel really weird saying that. I've had friends that continuously travel the world, and I know that that's not me. I seem to settle and then just abruptly need to go. And I'm glad I have. My life has been incredible so far. The friends I've got now are absolutely amazing. Hitching introduced me to Paul and Jenn and the Brookes. Crazy homelessness introduced me to Danielle and Dawn and Isidore and too many people to name, really. It also got me back in touch and close to my cousin Cody. Wait. I have to back up a second. I was heading into Beverly Hills for I think the last time on the commuter train when I met this guy Isidore. This email will be the second time that I have communicated with this amazing man. We started talking about computer viruses, he and I and another fellow who soon got off of the train. I moved next to Isidore and we really started talking about the importance of just honest, soul-deep interpersonal relations. I don't know, the moon must have just been in the right place. There was an instant connection. We started talking and actually cried together on this crowded commuter train. Perfect strangers talking about how beautiful people really can be when everything is just stripped away and all that is left is organic human connection. How amazing is that?

So movement. I'm not sure what it all really means. I've moved to New York because of modern dance. I came here in June to see the first TEA performance. This is the company owned by Michael, Ella, and Sahar. These are the people I stayed with back in January when I was first here. This performance moved me. Okay, I am an emotional man. Presumably, this is part of the reason that I have connected with all of you in such an honest manner. A lot of you don't know this, but when I was a kid, I saw ballet very briefly on television. My initial thought was that I wanted to feel such grace. Of course, boys don't do the ballet thing. Or so I feared. So I never spoke up to my folks, and I'll always regret it. Over the years, this little hidden joy stayed hidden. It sort of popped out one night when I watched Elayssa dance the first time. I wept openly. Neither my girlfriend nor her boyfriend appreciated this much. Over the years, my open love of this art has grown. So in June, I flew out to see "add : infinitum", a modern dance thingy. I cried through the whole first night. When asked about it afterward, I choked up and could not talk. The second night, I only cried for half of it. But I decided at that point to move to New York to be near it, to help out any way that I possibly could. So here I am. 3000 miles from my spawning ground in an apartment in Spanish Harlem drinking bad coffee and really wishing I could go out and get a new tattoo. Talking to you. I am working full time with TEA now, doing a bunch of paperwork which I really like. Honestly. It's probably important to note that I have no idea how movement looks to me right now. I really have wanted to grow my beard and fill my pack lately. There is something beautiful about that feeling that you get as you swing your pack onto your back, adjusting the straps as you walk, shifting your hat to the side and focusing on the next few steps and wonder how they'll feel miles from now. My loosely felt dreams quietly shake my sleep, a grey beard and an unending hunger. I know that this is mostly the aimless nature of loneliness. I am very lonely now. But I feel in my bones that I have to be here working with TEA. There's also a lot more to it than just the dancing, it is largely political in its scope, focusing on that whole interpersonal thing. TEA is actually an acronym for Transpersonal Education & Art, much in the same was as DAN is an acronym for Hopeful of the Smallest Possibility.

Okay, that last part isn't real, but it oughtta be.

But I did buy an eye patch today. I am looking forward to the second dimension.

I love you all and would love to hear from you.

Drunkenasscowboydan.

p.s.: I have decided to start a blog. I am personally offended at this fact. But I decided that I am tired of the competitive nature of the publishing world, although I have been terribly charmed by the number of rejection letters I have received. I am not a competitive man. I am overjoyed with the idea of people reading my writing who might like it. These emails were great, but I have the fear that I am somehow infringing on everyone by sending these out. So the sight is here . You should also see Jakob's at . It made me finally decide to do this. He just puts up what he writes and is entirely unconcerned with whether or not anyone reads it. Its mere availability is enough. He's a good guy.

From Phoenix to the Sea: Hitching 9 of 9

2005-02-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

My name is Daniel Hicks.

And this is it.

I made it home yesterday. It has been a day of rest before I could write it out proper, but this is the last leg of this odd mess that has borne me from the west to the north to the east to the south and back home. And it happened a little like this.

I had a great time in Phoenix with KC. He has finally accepted his small amount of flamboyance and come to realize that there may be a reason people aren't too shocked when he comes out to them, and it's not just the feather boa. I also got to meet his roommates (who make the film "Gummo" look like a documentary) and his boyfriend Eddie. Eddie is a former chef and a champion, with more charm and masculinity than a bus full of Morrissey impersonators. And yes, I do think Morrissey is masculine. So we just caught up a bit and went to view some of the local wildlife, which brings me to a very important point: now if ever I should begin to follow the path of evil and cannot be killed, please take my body and hide it beneath the Tucson earth where I shall surely perish, causing my uneasy soul to wander the state of Arizona casting disapproving glances in the direction of any unfortunate native who believes that wearing a shirt that says (I am quoting): "Got this at a thrift store" is somehow clever. Restless shall be my soul, restless and sad. But that's where evil will get you.

So I bade a farewell to KC and Eddie in their temporary home of Phoenix and headed out to the truck stop. I was picked up fairly quickly by Julio. Julio was a fucking crazy person. Not charming Yahoo Serious crazy or wild Evil Knievel crazy, but delusional Dick Cheney crazy. Julio told me all about the giant camps run by the federal government within the U.S. to hide all of the m.i.a. Vietnam vets who were listed as killed but actually just contracted incurable diseases in Vietnam. He seemed surprised that I hadn't heard about them. He also told me that all of the drugs that the D.E.A. confiscates do not get destroyed.
"What happens to them?"
"They get made into medicine to help soldiers."
"So when somebody gets busted with 8 ounces of crack in Watts, it goes to helping some soldier with measles?"
"I'll tell you what, yeah."
Now in an attempt to reveal my political allegiances, I will indulge in a little philosophical debate with myself which will no doubt astonish most with its diabolically indisputible truths:
1. Insanity is defined in psychology as an abnormality.
2. An abnormality is defined as any variance to the majority.
3. Given the stories we have already heard, we may be able to safely assume the thoughts and beliefs of Julio to be abnormal, thus giving him the diagnosis of "fucking nuts".
4. If Julio is insane (abnormal), then he possesses the characteristics of an insane (abnormal) person, thus making anyone with the opposite characteristics normal (sane).
5. Julio is really bad at math. He is 58 years old and claimed to have been a professional truck driver for 46 years, making him 12 when he began. He also claimed to have been a career marine general in a unit just above that of the green berets (which if my research is to be believed, makes him one of the elite "Jean-Claude Van Damme" cyborg clones). He said that his military service did not coincide with his truckin'.
6. Being bad at math is therefore abnormal (insane).
7. Ted Kascinzki was a pretty great guy.

I know, you're impressed. There aren't many men this smart and this pretty.

Well, Julio told me all about life and brought me about 20 miles from the California border, to a little town called Quartzite. Quartzite is really just a truck stop with a flea market, but its name makes it sound shiny, so it's on big maps and stuff. Everybody likes a shiny city.

I stood in Quartzite for a while until Luis came along and I hopped in his truck. Luis was fond of disliking things. These are some of the things that Luis disliked, as I am fond of lists today:
1. Nonsense. (how screwed was I?)
2. Vacuous conversation.
3. Silence.
4. Science Fiction.
5. Books that aren't funny.
6. Smoking.
7. Running out of cigarettes.
8. People.
9. Trucks.
10. Trucking.
11. Truck drivers.
12. His family.
13. America.
14. Everybody in Nayarit, Jalisco.
15. People in cars.
16. Not reading.
17. Money.
18. Television.
19. Cops.
And what did he like? Yep, it was me. He initially was going to drop me in Banning which is about 60 miles from San Bernardino which is itself about 70 miles from my house on his way to Victorville. I told him that I was hoping to be able to get into San Bernardino by nightfall so that I could take the train into L.A. So he decided to take the 15 out to Victorville which would put me just past San Bernardino and about 50 miles from home. Then he decided to take the 14 out to Victorville which left me about 6 miles from home. So he dropped me on the freeway about 6 miles from home. I was tired of talking, but pretty fucking greatful for the lift. I think the best part of the trip was peeing on the side of the freeway in San Dimas during rush hour traffic and imagining that I was Bill and Luis was Ted.

As a bit of an aside, it is difficult trying to remain interesting for hours on end. I think this is why people sometimes opt for marriage. If you're married to someone, you don't need to remain interesting because if they get bored, you get half their stuff. And I wouldn't share my comics with anyone.

So I walked off of the 210 freeway down Roxford Avenue to the next freeway at the Roxford on-ramp and on down the side of the 5 freeway. And you'd think cops would care about this, but they really don't. I then headed down the side of the 405 and got picked up by a young lady. Quite literally, as it all turned out.

I have at this point hitchhiked all the way around the country, but this is the first woman to pick me up. She pulled up on the freeway and I got in. She drove me the remaining way to my house telling me about her life. There are movies that begin like this, with the hot slightly older woman picking up the fellow and telling him how discontent with her life she is and then going back to his place. I can't say that I was cool and macho enough to have taken advantage of this situation, however. We talked for a while about the nature of American society and its obsession with appearance over substance and the like. I then got out, just in front of my home. She wrote out her phone number and said she'd like to go out sometime, and I felt slightly shy and we said goodbye.

And I came home.

So I want to thank everyone for being there for me to ramble to in my ramblings. The feedback I have received has been tremendous. This has allowed me to connect still deeper with some of my closest friends, connect with new ones, and I even got a letter from my mom that opened up a whole new side of her to me and makes me cry every time I read it, all of these making me realize just how universal this need to move, to connect, to experience, really is.

I need to thank all of the new friends I've made over the last month and a half. I was lucky enough to meet Heather and Paul in Reno (special thanks to Paul for the emails, they meant a lot). I was lucky enough to spend a little time with Sahar in New York, although she is a native of an imaginary country. I met the Brookes in Savannah and through them began my introduction to southern "culture". The barren Lone Star State brought me close again to my wonderful old friend Rebekah of whom I will say nothing more because she has always really hated when I got emotional. I really love you anyway, Rebekah. And in Phoenix I got to meet KC's fella Eddie, who is luckily not nearly as ugly as the other boys KC has dated.

And a special thanks goes out to all of my good friends who put up with me on the road, gave me a warm floor to sleep on (or at least a dry one), and fed me so well. I'm glad to have finally seen Jonie again after 3 years and am so happy to see her in such an amazing relationship with such an amazing woman. Michael, Ella, and Sahar did a great job of tolerating me even through my first night of terrible illness, and showing me half of the sights and tastes of Manhattan. Karen showed me the other half, and makes me wish more and more with each visit that I was a woman, although I would like very much to keep my beard. I can't say enough good stuff about Brooke and Brooke, but once again, thank you for making the swamp so very cozy. Especially that special spot in front of the grocery store. Fucking poles. Bekah and Paul kept me nice and dry, and more importantly allowed me to find a friend that I thought was lost, but in fact is only kind of Amish-ish. And finally KC and Eddie for helping to make the end of my trip as pleasant and warm as the beginning.

Thanks everybody for listening, and in parting I have one last important bit of advice: please don't be stupid enough to fucking hitchhike in the middle of the fucking winter. Snow is fucking cold.

I am off to my book.

Hugs and kisses,

drunkenasscowboydan.

p.s.: Social gathering at our place next saturday, if you are about the L.A. area. @.

Rain Falls on Threadbare All: Hitching 8 of 9

2005-02-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

Howdy.

This is my newest accounting.

I left Savannah whenever the hell it was. I am unsure of the day. Brooke took me to the truck stop, and I left the protective wings of the Brookes, as unfortunate as it was neccessary. As most things in life, uneventfulness begins my ride. I began with Tom and then a second fella whose name I can't really remember. Both served primarily to extend the number of folks in my mental trucker database in an attempt to try to find patterns in the lifestyles, thoughts, and drives of anyone who would pick me up. Both fit well into the file marked "theoretical badass". Stories of past aggressions, the warning of gun possession when I first enter the truck, and another more curious trait of the theoretical badass. There is always a story towards the beginning that shows how much the theoretical badass respects official "authority", usually in the form of military or police officers. They will tell a story of belonging to such a fraternity at one point, of close friends' belonging, or of attempting to enlist in such an organization but being refused entry through no fault of their own. But eventually they will tell a story towards the end of the ride (having received no interruption or contrary remark thus far), of just kicking the crap out of this same type of person. Tom's was a marine drill sargeant on the highway, nameless guy's was a highway patrol officer. I haven't really processed it but it's kind of interesting. I would be curious to know what Nate and Chris would say of this, as it's just the sort of thing that they too would wonder at.

But between these two I was able to make Tallahasee in two days. In Tallahasee I was picked up by Dan Barrett. Dan was a champ. Most of the drivers I have ridden with have mentioned that they would like to keep in touch in some way, and I have politely weaseled out of it in some manner or other without the lying or the hurting of feelings. Dan's the only one I gave my information to. He was just a good guy. One of those guys who's seen himself at his best and worst and can recognize who he is. We talked a lot about the road and marriage and occupation and the balance of responsibility and desire. Of course, not in such formal terms. Dan began by telling me that he doesn't ever pick up hitchhikers, but noticed that I was reading a book (as I often do while holding up my sign and attempting to look like an affable fellow). So he let me in. I am just about broke at this point. I have a solid $21 and change. I imagine my mom is suddenly much more concerned, although everyone knows that a man could live for several days eating only his own fingernails and hair. But anyway, entirely unasked, Dan bought me food, and for dinner even took me out for some damn good cajun food in Louisiana. Fried catfish and crawdad bisque? Well hot damn. But we discussed art, as Dan is a closet sculptor and painter. I say closet because you might be surprised to find out how few truckdrivers sculpt. He knows they'd talk shit, so he just doesn't talk about it. Dan is also a drunken womanizer (just like the Brooke who shares the same last name, yet is strangely unrelated). This made him feel like more of a relative than a stranger, and the time flew. And then we got to San Antonio where another adventure altogether awaited me.

Incidentally, both Brookes are indeed real. My mom wasn't entirely sure when I talked to her last week and thought it a little unclear in my writing. So both Brookes are real, although either might disagree.

So the next adventure comes in the form of a girl I once knew, Rebekah Frank. Rebekah was the first girl I ever really loved, you know, etc. Most of you know about Rebekah, as I am not too private a person, especially in matters of the heart. So this is where things really get odd. I will give background like this.

Rebekah and I never actually dated, and were always far more friends than romantic. We have a similar taste in books and politics, and have always had a dissimilar approach to relationships. I liked em, but Bekah was always just a bit more free. She also intimidated me a little because of her ability to just go. Just pick up and travel, something that I always wanted to do, but lacked the walnuts. So of course, hitching through Texas, I had to find her. Which wasn't so easy. We hadn't talked in almost five years. The last time she saw me was just before I started the massive change that has brought me to where I am now. So it was odd.

I found her number and got in touch with her from a pay phone in a San Antonio truck stop. Dan was still there and willing to drive me out to Tucson the next morning if I was still around, which I planned to be. I wanted Bekah to come out and have a cup of coffee with me so that I could keep going. I was antsy. I want to start writing a book. So I called Bekah and got in touch with Paul, with whom she cohabitates. He said that she would be out to see me. I waited. It was at this point that I realized something that made me fucking miserable. I realized that I didn't really feel like writing a book. I just wanted to get back to safety. I would like to think that if I were a real pirate, I would have a cutlass that would keep me warm and no use for the land lubbery home. But real pirate I am not, despite the bad teeth and scurvy. So I just put a ton of thought into it. I came up with this, and wrote it in my notebook in large letters: "The book is north." I realized that whatever it was I was following wanted me next to spend time with Rebekah Frank. About this time, a tall bearded man approached me. Bekah hadn't come at all. Paul came to bring me back to their house. The book is north.

They live in the "hill country" of Texas. It is green and there are few cadillacs with horns on the front. The nearest town is described as having the largest lesbian population in Texas, per capita. Perhaps I am the only one who finds this coincidence funnier and funnier.

Their land is beautiful and their home is a temporary cabin as they build their main house. Their water is all reclaimed rain water, and they have a camping toilet. Which means a ring of trees around the clearing. I have to tell you that it made me happy seeing Bekah living like this. No borders but the sky. She had talked a bit the last time we spoke of finding a place like this, a quiet place to build a shop. She's a blacksmith, by the way. So she's found her place. And she's found her man as well. She and Paul are engaged.

I was a little shocked by such convention from Bekah, but I am so fucking happy for her! I was always slightly worried about Bekah, about her never finding that one person. But then again, that was really only because I was always attempting to place my ideas of what love and romance meant upon the people I met. She has probably never really cared whether or not she found anyone like that, as she was a solid enough individual.

But eventually we talked. We got into books as she doesn't have anyone but Paul to talk to about books in the Texas wild. We talked in some detail about politics, and she related some of her experiences at political rallies, at Seattle, at D.C., at Genoa. We talked about movement. We talked a lot about movement. Rebekah still wants to travel, still wants to go. It was really illuminating to be able to talk to Bekah about this, as she is the only person I know intimately who has hitchhiked much across the states. She still feels that need and call to go.

All in all, it was amazing. I should also point out that as their cabin was fairly small, I slept outside on a deck above Bekah's workshop. I lay awake watching as a the clouds swept in and it began to rain. From under the roof I watched through the places where walls would be (you can read into this what you like and I will probably agree) in a normal room as the rain fell. I remembered the time and similarity of staying the night in the library of a monastery in northern California while on a road trip with a Russian Orthodox monk. How cold I was then, how lonely. Comparing that to the contentment and strength I felt now. Oh, and how nice it is to have a good sleeping bag instead of just an old army blanket.

Bekah took me back to the truck stop the next day and I left with a great deal of happiness, and the promise of the mailing of books. I waited about six hours for my next ride, which turned out to be crazy.

I was picked up by Israel and Rodolfo, two Cuban immigrants team driving four times a month from Miami to Los Angeles. They were a little stand offish, but once Israel (who could speak English) went to bed and Rodolfo (who could not speak English) and I began to talk, everything went smoothly. Maybe a little too smoothly. Rodolfo offered me $5000 and an all-expense paid trip to Santiago, Cuba to marry his wife. Yeah, I actually said that. To marry his wife. And boy was she a looker, no joke. I had to decline of course, as I believe in marrying only once and I am sure that he would have wanted her back at some point. He should have tried negotiating his daughter, although she was a little old for me at 17. As they traded off driving responsibilities and sleeping, I stayed awake and watched the country flow past. 583 miles of Texas. Something like 200 of New Mexico. And 180 of Arizona into Phoenix. Somewhere along the line we did stop and eat some stew that Rodolfo made out of several kinds of canned fish (including sardines in tomato sauce), tomatoes, and salt. This was served over garlic rice with boiled green plantains. It might sound a little nasty, but it was a whole lotta good. Into Phoenix I bounded, fat and sleepy. I had slept three hours in thirty six at this point, but of course was at my destination and so able to sleep.

Well, as plans so often do, this one failed. I called KC and he told me that he was at work and couldn't pick me up until 7 am (it was 7 pm at this point). So I headed back out to the freeway shoulder and slept in the bushes. You know, until it started to rain. Okay, maybe it was raining for a bit before I woke up. A really long bit. Some of you know that I don't wake up easily. The only alarm clock that has ever been able to wake me up consistently was when Elayssa and I lived together and she would jump on the bed to wake me up to take her to work. So I woke up drenched in the mud and actually remember thinking before I was totally awake, "fuck it. I can sleep in the rain." Maybe not so much. So I got up and went to the Circle K after packing back up and started talking to the homeless guys out front, swapping road stories under the awning. Eventually they got tired, but as I had an extra five hours sleep, I just found a well-lit shopping center and did some reading. Luckily, I think I will be returning to L.A. soon, as I gave away my extra layers to this poor old man, unable to sleep in the cold. I sat in the Starbucks when they opened, nursing a coffee and shivering, looking every bit the homeless person I was, although I did what I could to seem presentable. I put on a sweater that I had not yet worn to cover up the smell of me and used water coming down a rain flue to slick back my hair. It felt a little different than exfoliating in the shower and heading down to Jonathan for Sara to cut my hair. But I sat there, homeless and wild for 2 and a half hours until KC came.

So here I am. In KC's house, beard unkept and waiting for the time I can use the washer. Afraid of the consequences of that. My levi's are so threadbare at this point that just sitting down from San Antonio to Phoenix caused two holes to tear in the legs. The parts I had mended in Savannah reopened, and the entire inside of both legs are covered in iron-on patches, truly the only thing holding them together.

Twenty one dollars, pants prepared to fall off, very little food, one last leg of only 300 miles. No problem.

Much love,

drunkenasscowboydan.

Cultural Awareness is Highly Overrated: Hitching 7 of 9

2005-02-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hello to everyone.

It is a fine mood that uncovers my head, listening to John Zorn with a cup of coffee and watching the rain hang from the Spanish moss outside of the window.

Savannah has been extraordinary. I have been hanging out with the Brookes and exploring the culture of the deep south. They have quite kindly been introducing me to all things toothless and mixed with mayonaise. It has been a truly illuminating experience. I have heard references to "Yankees" in a non-baseball conversation, and have only just discovered that the North did not win the Civil War everywhere.

I don't really know what to say, however. I've had so much fun hanging out with the Brookes that my writin' brains seems a little dulled with all of the laughter. We went to a flea market and saw row upon row of t-shirts propagandizing the superior culture, military abilities, and love-making of the southern parts of the United States compared to the north. We went to a Super Walmart and listened to a man sing about pork chops while walking through the parking lot. It was a lovely song about procuring, eating, and enjoying said pork chops. We had red velvet cake at a greasy spoon. It was made mostly of crisco with very little red and velvet in the mix. 8 of 9 seafood items on the menu (their specialty) were fried. We spent a good four hours, the Brooks and myself, driving about Savannah in a search for "boiled peanuts", better red velvet cake, and attractive bi/curious girls for the other of the Brooks. We finally found the peanuts, and they are fantastic. They are a southern delicacy, and are the testicles of large freshwater squid. Okay, I made that last part up. They're just boiled peanuts, but they are good. We never did find better red velvet cake, and the attractive bi/curious population must have been out at a monster truck rally or something, despite the large art school in the area. Brook and myself got to meet Brook at a bar where I got to see a guitar player who was so sloppy, I am not entirely sure exactly which instrument it was he thought he was playing. His cover of "Blister in the Sun" was amazing. He needed either less alcohol or more fingers. But Brooke became the funniest drunk person I have ever seen, with the possibility of all of the people on the bus in New Orleans arguing political theory and mistakenly saying "circumcision" in the place of "communism". I cannot begin to relate half of the things that she said or did, but I will mention that the Georgia city "Macon" does not rhyme with "raccoon" no matter what she says. We also gave a ride to a crazy person who informed as I shall now inform all of you, that Jesus is coming back and he's decided to forgive everyone but King David who was always a bit of an asshole. He also said that I remind him of "...the apostle Paul". I can't wait to tell Osiris about this. I also got to ride around a wildlife preserve with Brooke who is an environmental scientist. It was fascinating listening to her talk about the ecology of the swamp. I also rassled a great big ol aligator and suplexed him, while we listened to a frog play the banjo. The swamp is good. I can't remember exactly where I heard it, but I heard someone say, "I know where he lives, and I will burn his trailer park down".

I should also mention that I will be protected for the rest of my trip by a blinking icon of Paul hung around my neck, so there isn't any more reason to worry about anything. I will be safe as all heck.

I don't really have much to say about Savannah. My stomach has been sore since I got here because I have been laughing so much. It's been great. It's also pretty important to mention that I had never met either of the Brookes before I got here, but they have opened up their home and lives so much that I felt amazing from the word go.

I am off in a few hours to San Antonio. I have found Rebekah, the first girl I ever loved. I called her house after finally finding a number for her, and the fella who answered the phone said that she wouldn't be home until tomorrow night. I don't have any idea what comes next. I guess I will call her if I can from somewhere on the road, or I will just show up in San Antonio and call her from there; maybe just see if she'll come out and have a coffee with me. The thought of finding Bekah is amazing to me. She's one of the best friends I've ever had, and I miss her like fucking crazy.

I am looking to put some time zones in between myself and the east coast in the next couple of days, so you may not hear from me until I get to Phoenix to see KC.

Until next we speak,

cowboy dan, a pirate amongst swamp folk.

Of Horrors and Joy, This Time...:Hitching 6 of 9

2005-02-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

And yet again, I pause.

New York was good to me. Very good. I figured out just what sort of book I would like to write one afternoon over a poor cup of coffee and a chill wind. I was able to write quite a bit of poetry, and a little bit of music as well. I got to spend some amazing time with good friends, and thanks to them was able to see a good bit of the city. I have already written a lot about that as you all know, so I won't go into it in tremendous detail. But it was fabulous, and I want to thank Michael, Ella, Sahar, and Karen a whole lot. I also need to point out that despite having said that he really liked the cannoli at the grocery store, Michael does have quite a refined palate and he is less than pleased with me for making him sound like a culinary yokel. He asked me to point that out. I would like to point out that he makes the best eggplant parmesian I have ever eaten, despite the fact that he really likes the cannoli from the grocery store.

Of course, eventually it all had to come to an end and the cold called on me to come a-frollicking. So I left Manhattan on Monday and took some trains to the western side of New Jersey to a town called Bordentown just outside of Trenton. New Jersey is a horrible place. Honestly. I don't know why there is so much usage of Nevada to store toxic waste in, when New Jersey exists. I mean, Nevada's got all of this wonderful, empty, sandy expanse of limitless nothingness. But New Jersey's all full of New Jersey. I think the choice between the two should be obvious. Okay, there is an enormously beautiful history connected to New Jersey, especially when you read about the Revolutionary War. But that would all still be there if it just glowed in the dark. I'm going to talk to Brooke about this, as she does work for the federal government in an environmental capacity. But I'm sure she will agree that all of this is perfectly plausible from a scientific perspective. The only ill effect would be all of the superheroes that would come out of it all. I mean honestly, we all know of all of the scientific studies done over the years connecting radiation exposure to the ability to fly and be altogether indestructible. What other explanation can we possibly have for Hawking's mind reading abilities, or the time a few years back when Sagan flew into the sun to destroy those giant creatures that came from the 11th dimension and looked like sugar maple trees. And we all remember the Philadelphia Experiment. Oh yeah, I was writing.

So I took a train into Bordentown which houses two of the six truck stops in the entire state of New Jersey. The only problem was that the trainstop called "Bordentown" was nowhere near the actual town of Bordentown. So I walked a while until I found a little town made out of antique shops and early american kitsch. Some guy in a deli drew me a map to the truck stops which were fortunately also nowhere near the town called Bordentown. His map is lovely. On butcherpaper with an oil pencil. He gave me instructions like "Yeah, when you see a bar and then there's a pizza place, turn left after that. Wait, or before it. You'll know when you see it." Good times. I walked and I found.

This would be a good time to talk briefly about being homeless and destitute. Now I am not homeless, nor am I destitute. I live in Van Nuys in Kristian's beautiful home. But I am not me when walking into a truck stop, a restaurant, a public restroom. I am a bearded man whose pants were not washed today, a bundled man carrying a pack. I am a vagrant, hobo, tramp. Daniel Scott Hicks, Le Cordon Bleu degree, large library, good resume, clean room in a quiet house, a man preferring poetry to most things in life, who would rather starve than steal, the maker of a fucking bad ass honey buttercream or macadamia encrusted seared tuna, this man is not there. I'm just some undesirable. I don't feel bitter or angry about this, I don't feel like I am being mistreated through any of this, I just feel slightly confused and hurt. I know just how much I want to be a normal person when I walk into the Iron Skillet for a plate of eggs and coffee. I just want to not be noticed, but this is impossible. I know how much I have going for me in my life, the love and support of friends and family (of all of you), a warm home, an ability to get a good-paying job. But I still feel like less a man when I am asked ten or twelve times during a single meal if everything is okay by the manager. It was I alone who was asked. He would walk from where he watched me across the floor to my table and then back. After I paid, he did not relent but redoubled efforts. I had money, was clean, was entirely somehow undesirable. In some places, there is an employee who will follow me around the second I walk in. Into the bathroom, to the coffee machine, to the door. I sat in a Wendy's and ate Monday. There was a truck stop employee who stood against the wall next to me and watched me the whole time. I quietly ate and read. Now, I know myself pretty well and I am not a person who neccessarily needs the acceptance and support of strangers. You all know this. That is why my avant-garde work in Icecapades lasted so short a time. But even being the way that I am, this sort of attention makes me feel so much a burden that I grow very uncomfortable. And how much greater this disquiet must reside in someone who may not be blessed with the fortune and good luck that I enjoy? These troubling thoughts have had a tremendous effect on my thoughts these last few weeks. But it seems to be getting worse (the attention, I mean) as I progress in my travels. It is beginning to make me feel ashamed and creating this need in me to explain myself. And what bullshit my life must sound like! "Yeah, I am hitchhiking across the country in an old pair of threadbare levi's in the middle of one of the worst winter's in the last hundred years just for an adventure. But yeah, I'm a French-trained chef and my friends are modern dancers and recording engineers, and belly dancers, and teachers, and hairdressers, and scientists, and pastry chefs, and oh yeah, I used to work around celebrities all of the time and my sister used to be on a t.v. show, and my roommate has two platinum records, and I have a friend who used to be a white supremecist and now he's studying to be a Rabbi, and a friend who is a brewmaster, and I've got a story for any little thing you might ever mention, and oh yeah, I am totally full of shit!" Who could believe the sorts of things that I can say about my life and how amazing it has been? I only have had the same friends for ten years because no one in their right mind is going to believe half of the things that I might say in a fifteen minute span. So how much more a nameless drifter?

I bring this up because it is the reason I couldn't get a better explanation as to where exactly the truck stops were. There was no amount of time that it was acceptable for me to be in this little deli. This issue became more prominent as I entered Savannah, but to that I will return.

Johnny Cash is singing, "Oh, Danny Boy" on the radio now, and I can't help but think of my mom. Although her voice is not quite as deep. Man, this is getting crazy and nostalgic. When I was in high school, the hottest artsy girl in school was a close friend of mine and she would always sing the song "Desperado" to me when she would laugh at my lonesome tendencies. Now Johnny's singing it. Her hair isn't quite as black as his. Now he's singing my favorite Hank song. But I'm onto another thread of consciousness.

So I am standing outside in the cold of New Jersey, not yet aglow. It is fairly cold outside and it takes me eight and a half hours to hitch a lift. The gutter where I was standing froze at about 8 pm, and it's now 12:30 am. It is damn cold. This dude shows up and says that he can give me a ride if I want to go a little out of my way first. I'm cold and this seems okay. So off I set with John (who looks a bunch like the old pro wrestler Big John Studd) to head upstate New Jersey, then over to Brooklyn where I finally saw the Statue of Liberty (which according to my dad contains hundreds of dead Frenchmen in a failed Trojan Horse attempt. He says that's why no one is allowed inside) from the bridge from Staten Island. And from Brooklyn, we went down to Virginia. This is the part of the story that gets difficult. I had a great talk with John to begin with. He slowly got around to talking about his discovery of being attracted to men while in his late thirties (he is in his forties now). It was a really great conversation that we had about a topic that I've been thinking about a whole lot lately, that of the absolution of sexual identity in healthy modern society. Some people will argue with this, and that's okay. It's just something that I am growing to believe in. I can hear my mom growing worried at this statement, dreams of wrinkly little grandchildren escaping into her poor frazzled subconscious. But John and I had a great discussion. He told me all about his discovery and how it made him feel. I thought it was awesome, although I did not think that this was a direction I was inclined to look. We spoke about this as well. Pretty healthy, right? So at this point, everything fell apart. I fell asleep in John's truck. I woke up to John grabbing me all over. When I started, he pretended that nothing had happened. It took me a bit to process how long this had been going on and the fact that I had been trying to wake up for some time. But by the time I could piece all of this together, it was really too late to say anything. And I was in complete shock. I can't say that it was something that I was prepared for. I don't feel real comfortable yet talking about it all. I still feel gross, I feel fucking used. There was more to it as he grew comfortable at having gotten away with it and tried to be charming and proposition me, complementing me continuously. And the way that he talked to me at that point would have felt entirely harmless if it wasn't for me waking the way that I had. But that just made it feel dirtier. I don't feel like this is coming across right. I don't feel okay right now. I don't feel clean, like there is a film across my skin right now. I would think that under normal circumstances I would react in a much more violent manner, but somehow this just suspended my feelings. It's like we've always got this little thing in us that tells us what to do, but it just got quieter after this. The ride ended on a fucking low note, and I ran off to eat and to wash and to wash and to wash. Maybe I'll talk about this later, but I can't talk about it all right now. Maybe it's important to say that there is more to this story than I am willing to tell now, but I don't know. I hope you understand.

My next ride didn't take too long and was one of the bright spots on this trip. I feel weird going from the depth of John and into the joy of McCloud, but imagine how it felt then. McCloud had a computer and a huge sound system and a great love of classic country music and illegal music and video downloads. The Carolina's were caught up in a rain storm, and we were caught up in Johnny Cash and the Texas Two, some Willie Nelson, and a whole lot of Hank Williams, Jr. and Alabama. And for all of the bad of the last two days, I appreciated all the more the special cry of a fiddle in the rain, given to me by a man from Springfield, Missouri which is not too far from where Grandpa grew up. It all helped keep me from having to process John for a few hours.

Of course when McCloud dropped me off at the intersection of the 95 and the 16, I had plenty of time to think. You see, the map showed the 95 right down the middle of the city of Savannah, Georgia. But the signs said that I had 10 miles to walk. It turned out to be 12. I walked towards Savannah with the swamp on both sides of the highway, wondering when the lights of the city would show. They never did. But I did get to watch the sun rise up in front of me on the highway, walking into its glare and heat and grandeur. The last time I walked down a road without snow was in Sacramento on the fourteenth of January. I walked forever it seemed like into a city with a bit of uncertainty on the other end. These cities have become my quiet little salvation points. It's like when you're running and running and getting fucked up by turtles and mushrooms and you see that flagpole in the distance with the big brick stair. You know what I'm saying. But Reno held Jonie, my friend for a hundred years. New York was Michael, Ella, and Karen. Three times the safety. But Savannah is the home of Jonie's girlfriend, whom I had never met. I was uncertain, sure. When I get a ride, I immediately begin thinking about the end of this leg of the journey. That's why I haven't been sleeping or eating much on my runs. I don't want to waste that time when I could be standing at the truck stop flashing my sign. I know that I'm going to a place where I will be safe long enough to get a shower and some food, and a floor to sleep on. I was a little worried about Savannah, but on I walked.

I walked on down the freeway, running across rush hour traffic in an attempt to not change freeways or lose the course I had figured for myself. The cops didn't seem to notice that I existed or that I wandered down the side of the freeway. I know as well as anyone that you can get away with any bit of lawlessness in the deep south, so long as you aren't driving an orange car. Eventually, I got through the suburbs and into the city. I crawled off of the freeway in the Savannah tenements. I got off there because I saw people for the first time off of the freeway. But when I started walking towards them, they would look at me and then walk away quickly. Eventually I did find out that there was a little coffee shop in the bookstore of some little art college in downtown Savannah. I went in there to drink too much coffee and phone Brooke, ignoring the looks of everyone staring at the homeless guy reading classic Norwegian literature and sneering at what passes for croissant in Savannah, Georgia. I had fallen asleep on the counter when Brooke walked up and brought me home with her. It turned out that I was in the same neighborhood that she worked in and that it is the most homeless-populated part of Savannah. You know, the Duke boys would have sorted out this whole homeless thing in slightly less than 50 minutes.

So I met Brooke, who is totally awesome. I also met Brooke, who is also totally awesome, although a different person than Brooke. They are roommates, although one never sees them both in the same room at the same time. Obviously, one is made of papier mache. I am not sure which. I have had wonderful conversations with both independently, and nothing of corn starch or newspaper strips was ever mentioned. But I will let you know.

Our Chinese New Year got off without a hitch as well. We went out for dinner at some little diner on the beach (only Brooke and I, for Brooke was working). They were having a Chinese New Year celebration. You know, of course they would be. It was a room full of honkies. It looked like a Nascar party in there. If it wasn't for the decor. A couple of paper lanterns and center pieces on all of the tables consisting of Top Raman packages with candles stuck into them. There was live "entertainment". There were two blond little honkies singing, one with a big synthesizer. Their cover of "Car Wash" was surprisingly inventive. They deftly maneuvered around all hints of groove, having less pocket than a j. crew pullover. Oh yeah, and the keyboard player was wearing a karate outfit. Who is kidding? Well, it sure isn't me. There was also a man that nearly made Brooke switch teams. He had a long whispy mustache that hung four inches past his jowls, flaring like grey flame. It was remarked that it looked as if he had been somehow caught in the act of eating two squirrels. Those poor, poor little mammals. He also had a three inch dangling earring. And it was a big gold anchor. It was amazing. I got to stand up when they read about the character traits of the Dragons (my astrological sign), but Brooke did not as they never did read off anything about the Sheep, who said nothing collectively. There were also quite a few rather inappropriate comments stereotyping persons of asian descent, and we wished that Bruce Lee was there to fuck up everyone amidst the synth crap, the racism, and the Bud Light. And they forgot to put the fucking pecans on my pizza.

After we returned home, I got to hang out with Brooke when Brooke went to bed and we watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You know, the plots are pretty good. It really is about time somebody had the walnuts to stand up to those goth bullies.

Tonight I made a Mornay sauce for pasta and sauteed veggies, and for all of you who know of my aversion as of late to the cooking thing, this will mean something to you. Much love to everyone, and I will see some of you soon and others not so soon, but some other time altogether.

Hugs and Kisses,

Cowboy dan.

The Peach: Hitching 5 of 9

2005-02-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

Howdy.

From Georgia.

This hasn't been the best trip. There was a lot of waiting around in truck stops, far more walking than anything so far, maybe not the best trucker, and after a single meal in Georgia, an introduction to southern hospitality the stars and bars way.

I don't really have the energy to relate it all yet, but I will soon. I am here with Brooke and her roommate Brooke, and 17-28 fur-bearing critters, none of which is named Brooke. I'm having a great time here so far, and that's pretty fucking nice given the past couple of days. I am now going. You all have my love, and I hope that your Chinese New Year celebration was as great as mine. Fucking Georgia, I can't wait to tell ya.

So much love in the monkey year,

cowboy dan.

Ice Flows on the Hudson: Hitching 4 of 9

2005-02-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

Howdy.

I walked down to the Hudson tonight. It's not far, only a block into Riverside Park and then down past the basketball courts, coldly vacant in winter's hands, and past the dog park. It is absolutely beautiful. It is cold and windy and the ice flows are audible in their breaking and slipping and shifting. This is what I had come to see. I had walked down here with Michael before it melted, by myself as it had begun, and with Sahar just last night as it had begun to move. I have found myself entranced as of late with the idea of movement. I have sat in trucks with men whose lives are guided by the constant movement that creates the commerce of this nation, I do and have known dancers for years, and I have just begun to realize that movement of one variety or another has guided so much of my life. Although I have felt as if my life has been characterized by a certain stagnancy, all that has ever truly driven me has been that desire to move, to change, to proceed. I have not always been successful in any truly obvious way as most of us know. A lot of my truly brilliant ideas (it is only I of course that has decreed them as such) have been theoretical notions that have produced nothing even approaching realized happenings. I wanted to use a beatnik vernacular term there, and I was successful. For instance, when I wanted to create a lounge act with Kevin featuring a giant go-bot piano and tuxedos made of construction paper that would slowly tear from our little frames, it fell through amongst accusations of madness. And who remembers my idea to take the poetry world by storm by seeding audiences with beret-ed cohorts pretending to love my faux poetry in an idea I called, "Polar Bear"? Jakob and I never did make our superhero costumes, although I had a very interesting encounter with a dominatrix in Louisiana while wearing a prototype of the Proletariat Avenger costume which imbued me with super powers capable of overcoming her...oh, never mind. If you really want to know, I'll tell you some other time. So as I was saying, I only super-glued one cowboy vs. indian scene onto the hood of a car in a Valencia supermarket parking lot using plastic cowboys and indians. The indians were going to win, by the way. I mean, I don't want to rewrite history or anything, and if it wasn't for the indians winning, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to eat that wonderful curry Sahar made yesterday. So anyway, a lot of starts with very little to show. This is not a good resume. But as I have also realized lately, I have a fascination with process. Result matters to me very little. I don't know how I will ever be able to write a novel. Plotless and rambling, I suppose. Ah, how like life.

I see this love of process in the art that I love the most. Modern art is tremendous to my little head. It seems always in flux. Every angle is a new one, unseen in the viewing before. Every color is the light in a window you have passed in a tender moment or the color of a favourite lovers' eyes. I am capable of connecting with this art for the indeterminate length of time that it exists. Sometimes it is moments, sometimes moments that stretch beyond thought, and sometimes a glance is just a bit more than can be spent before a cup of coffee and a hug from Karen. Process, it is all movement.

I can now also understand why it is that I have always had such a connection to dancers. When I was very young, I saw two male ballet dancers running across a stage and leaping into spins. I still hold this image in my head. I wanted at that moment to become a dancer more than anything in the world. Well, almost. I realized just as soon as I saw this that this was a life decision that would have been thought unacceptable. Hey, dad thought soccer was for sissies. Shit, at least those guys wore shorts. So I settled for my little shorts and Euro idols and called it a draw. Years later, I did talk to dad and he cried a bit because he thought that it was horrible that I felt I couldn't talk to him about this desire. So I guess dad was a bit of a sissy, too.

But eventually, I met dancers. Ballet dancers. Belly dancers. Modern dancers. Hell, even exotic dancers. It always fascinated me (although the exotic dancers perhaps less so) that they were capable of movement without a change in the clothes they wore or the ideology they professed or the language they used. The same is often said of actors, that their art lay in their ability to create without any necessarily external change. But fuck actors. Dancers are artists who become emotion. There need be no setting that takes place, no tools but themselves. A painter is impotent without a brush, a writer without a pen merely a braggart. Dancers are themselves their art, a singular ability to become (and not merely represent) an emotion however complex with only the sway of muscle and human form.

They become us through our eyes.

A dancer is perfect movement. Now, perfection is a fairly high standard. I realize this, but let me explain. I have moved constantly from one thing to another because I have felt ungrounded. The ability to move is something that is envied by those grounded, and the grounding is something envied by those who need to move. Each wishes for the other to some varied degree. What do these searchers look for in their travels? As it is grounding, by my reasoning, it is love. Love for anything, as I believe. The right job or husband or car or house or anything at all. Anything you can sink your well-maintained little incisors into. The dancers, I mean the really great ones are no less moving than a truck on the highway or a deer in the meadow. But their movement is based entirely upon that emotion, love. Think about it. Why do they dance? Because it is what draws them. It is a pure love. And in this movement, they are grounded.

I feel like I sound rambling and unsound. I really wanted to talk about ice flows on the Hudson.

I watched films of Ella tonight, whose work so often resounds with a sort of hopeful sadness. After thinking about it, she decided that this is a very Israeli feeling. I watched films of Sahar tonight, whose neurosis are so very present in her work. Michael said that she was a mad genius. And he's smarter than everyone. Ella leaves me speachless, in awe. Sahar left me ready to follow, to believe in anything she had to say, because whatever it might be, she's right.

I don't know how I feel right now. Kind of spent, I suppose.

I am disjointed tonight, I hope that you understand.

An ice flow on the Hudson.

Very much love and a decent cup of coffee,

drunkenasscowboydan.

Blinking Lights and Fading Stars...: Hitching 3 of 9

2005-01-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hey.

It is late and I am restless. This is unacceptable in a city whose eyes do not know the quiet of rest, and yet I am here, myself restless. I have been here for a few days, taking in this city curiously. I have stood face to face with a Matisse portrait and fallen through the timeline of Peter Paul Reubens' sketches. I have stood within an Ancient Egyptian tomb, amazed at the grafitti within, etchings laying claim to 1820 with an English surname or 1816 with a French. Karen and I had dinner at an exquisite Indian restaurant and pastry afterward at Bruno, world famous and deserved. I had $13 quiche tonight which tasted just like $5 quiche. And no, we had no idea it cost $13 when we ordered it. If you have to ask, it's overpriced, or so the saying goes I believe. I had authentic New York pizza in a kosher place today, and I was the only one with a beard. Confusion wrapped around me like a small blanket. I saw Times Square late last night. I could have passed on that. I had a beautiful shabbas with Michael, Ella, and a woman named Allison with Sahar joining us later on. We sat up all night talking about art and politics. When I wasn't speaking, the song "Allison's Starting to Happen" paced its incessant pace through my little mind. I sat tonight with Sahar and Ella as they designed the ad for their big dance performance in June and wished that I could be here to see it. I had cocoa with Karen my second day in town. It was actually made out of chocolate. I am flooded with so much information, I cannot sleep. I have been riding the subways constantly. Everyone here is great. I've been pretending to be from Minnesota. I seem to be good at it. I am glad that I've spent so many years listening to "Prairie Home Companion."

I really don't know what to do. Being here makes me realize that Los Angeles has very little to offer other than the sunset. I mean the sunset is beautiful here, but then it lands in Jersey. And really, nobody wants that. I met a fella named Paul in Reno. He is a bass player, so you know he's alright and trustworthy. We talked about the impossibility of putting together a decent following in Los Angeles and really making a go of music there. I've been in New York for a couple of days, and I'm really beginning to wonder why I'm going to continue. Michael of course is no help. He calls me "Manky" a lot although he does not have any definition for such a thing, and buys me fantastic coffee. I am rambling, although I feel better somehow.

Do you know how it feels to be displaced? I have gotten along with a fair number of people in my life, and have always tried to deal with them in a fair way. I have worked a number of jobs, a number of careers, learned a bit. But where do I belong? I mean, honestly: How many of you can honestly say that where you are is the best place for you? How many of you can honestly say that what you have is the dream that covers your sleeping heart with comfort? I look with a longing eye for those people that I have known who have found even a touch of that perfect contentment. Chris Soch looking up from the book he is reading, Martin Pope talking about a problem with a script, Nate Oliver with whatever project has kept him up for four days with no sleep, Kristian Storli every time he plays the greatest guitar lead you've ever heard every time he picks up his guitar. Sara with Gary, Michael with Ella. I listened to Heather's wife talk about how hot she found her. I dream of this simple little bit of happiness. The comfort that comes when you know that whatever comes down, you've got at least this. Fires can erase the thought lines that built the earth, but there is this love that will hold itself through it all, beyond the point that people become immaterial and all that remains is passion, and hope, and faith. In a lover, in a book, in a job, in a smile.

I wept yesterday before Joan Mitchell's "Sunflowers" in the modern art mezzanine of the Met. If there were sunflowers displayed on that canvas, one could not distinguish. Yet I wept. I know that feeling. I understand that at times, you must pour, you must flood, you must gush, and leave yourself with only faith that the world too might see the connection of disparate lines and blend of color that you taste with the quiet tip of your heart and feel a part of you, organic and holy. I know.

d.

Still Moving, However Odd and Varied...: Hitching 2 of 9

2005-01-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

Howdy, everyone.

This has definitely been an odd week. I am writing from NYC in Michael's living room, with a belly full of vegan food. Civilization is a charming little mess when spinach crepes are involved.

I spent a couple days after my last letter in Reno with Jonie. We played a couple of shows and I even got a recording of one of them, proving once and for all that my guitar playing really isn't that bad. Compared to my singing. I also looked particularly fascinating. On the road, I look like a construction worker. Or actually, I look a bunch like Rowdy Roddy Piper in the movie "They Live!" Of course, I don't have the ultimate coolness of Ray Ban's capable of identifying aliens. I am capable of identifying aliens due to being exposed to radiation at a young age when my mother and father (famous acrobats and tundra agriculture sculptors, both) accidentally dropped me from a hot air balloon into a reactor core while bound by a whole bunch of those plastic things that hold together six-packs of Budweiser. But in addition to this awesome physical presence, I got to play a guitar with a rainbow strap and an equal marriage rights sticker. Man, this is getting to be an odd pattern. I want everyone to realize that should things change drastically in my life, this may be counted as my root. Well, it's either this or the Liza Minelli Underroo's mom always made me wear. I was also able to see a band called "The Heather Combs Band" while in Reno. They were fucking amazing. (Incidentally, Heather is playing an acoustic show at the Hotel Cafe in LA on Feb 12). But this brings me to something that I have been thinking about an awful lot this past week (although it was frightfully absent over the last 24 hours of my trip as you will see).

I went with Jonie to some Reno casino to see some band that I wasn't really all that excited about. I would have much preferred to sit home with Jonie being mauled by her cats and watching mediocre sci-fi movies based upon great novels. You know, my feet hurt. There was snow all over the place, and that shit is cold. I felt like coffee. I have an unread pirate history book. I feel that these are good reasons for staying in. But, you know. Jonie was all spun on these guys and I went. So I've already mentioned that they were great. So great in fact, we came back the next day to see them again. But you know all of that. But it really got me thinking. I was in a room with hundreds of people, and perhaps not exactly looking like the average person in the room. But no one noticed. Actually, no one seemed to really notice anything so superficial. But everybody in that room felt almost a uniform set of emotions. Extreme uniform sets of emotions not at all created by a uniform set of causes. Everyone in this room exuded a sense of total acceptance, of uncompromising compassion, of complete interest in the joy of those around them, and a particularly keen grasp of the inherent connection that is shared between all people willing to step outside of what may be regarded as a position of comfort or an outdated sense of normalcy belonging to a failed social standard and really just be themselves. Yes, yes, a long and clumsy sentence, but just read it slowly. I promise it makes sense. So I am thinking of this as I set out.

I began Monday on little sleep. Jonie gave me a ride into Fernley, which is just outside of Reno, and just to the left of absolutely nothing. I stood in the snow until Robert from San Diego picked me up in his truck. He talked to me about Jesus, who apparently is everywhere. I think that he got Jesus mixed up with Santa Claus, and that is a truly charming little mistake. But Robert was a great guy. He told me the story of his speed addiction and little stories about his youth spent beatin' people up for money. Pretty fascinating, really. He told me about the conversation he had with his 9 year old that got him to quit doing speed. He had been up for three days when she walked in and sat down. He didn't think she knew about his addiction. She said, "Daddy, will you do me a favor?" "Sure, honey." "Daddy, will you quit doing drugs?" So he stopped. I mean, it was a long process, but that started it. He also told me a lot of other stories about varied incidences in his life. Now, much later on I overheard him talking on a pay phone in a truck stop and found out that much of what he had told me was untrue. But that doesn't make any of it invalid in my opinion. I am entirely unclear as to what is more important in the telling of the story of one's life: the facts, or the story itself. Perhaps we are both religious men after all. He also took me down the eastern part of the Grand Tetons at 110 mph with 50,000 lbs of truck. Oh, and he taughtme trucker language. I'm bilingual now.

Robert left me in Cheyenne where I met a guy from Rialto living quite unhappily in Wyoming. He took me 9 miles down the road and left me in the middle of nowhere. Never trust Rialto people. I then had to walk back to the truck stop so that I could find a proper ride. This is where I met my first Full Grown (Highway Patrol in Truckese). We talked about how neat hitchhiking is and how illegal hitchhiking is. He was a good guy, but didn't think that he should give me a lift back to the truck stop. He did let me shoot at some nearby cans with his riot shotgun. I hit a cow and a camaro with a gaudy spoiler, but he got away.

I eventually got a lift from a guy with teeth only on the top left of his mouth. He also only had one thumb. He told me that he had hitched for six years in the early eighties before getting a job in the oil fields.

Back in Cheyenne, I was picked up by a Hispanic trucker named Jon from Fresno who talked about his girlfriend. He was pretty great, but I got the impression that his girlfriend might not have agreed. Human relationships are the strangest things in the world. With the possible exception of zombie relationships. He told me stories about Vietnam, finally dispelling the rumours about all the great times to be had in the jungle with machine guns and questionable foreign policy.

Jon left me in Omaha where I was picked up a Canadian guy named Randy. Randy took me all the way into Des Moines where it was 26 degrees. Yeah, Fahrenheit. Randy was also incidentally the only guy I've met on the road who thought that America was doing the right thing in Iraq. And he was from Canada. I tell you, those people are damn violent. A lot of people don't realize that Canada used to be much smaller than it is now, but they just keep on taking and taking and taking. Did you know we used to have a state called Saskatchewan? Crazy stuff.

So from Des Moines, I got a ride from Jim. You know, this is where the traveling story gets crazy. Remember how everybody thought I was crazy for doing this? Jim is why. Yet still I live!

Jim drove me for a while and wouldn't talk to me. He started loosening up a little and making jokes about doing speed. Yeah, not jokes. We hit Illinois and Jim stands up. He tells me to take the wheel. So I jump over and I'm driving an eighteen wheeler. I'm not kidding. I look over at 65 mph with 70,000 lbs behind me, and Jim's in the passenger seat smoking speed out of a homemade pipe. Yeah, really not too cool. Jim also doesn't like to stop. I drive all the way across Illinois with the exception of the Chicago traffic (we went through Joliet at the same time of day and weather as the beginning of the Blues Brothers) and partially through Ohio. Jim is pretty clear on the fact that if I sleep he will either drop me off on the side of the road (it is like 20 degrees and snowing outside) or will put SPEED IN MY COFFEE. And he's not kidding. This is ridiculous. But it's a trip directly into New York City and it's 20 degrees outside. I should probably point out that I already hadn't slept in two days. So what's one more? Well, one more is 11 caffeine pills in 24 hours. And everyone is wondering why I didn't get off at the first stop, right? Stay up for three days and make sense. Doesn't work too well. I was there for the story.

Into Pennsylvania we stop for what would be the last time at a rest stop. The thermometer reads 22 degrees and dropping. It is expected to drop to 12 degrees in this part of the Aleghenies before morning. It is 10 pm and the highway is largely deserted. Jim pulls off and steps into the rear of the cab. I just sit there trying to stay awake. I half believe he's gonna kick me out anyway right now. So I turn around and he's fixing his works. Jim is going to take a shot in the back of the cab before we get back on the road.

And he does.

I don't know what to do but laugh.

Until he puts a porn on his little t.v. in the back and reaches into his trousers. I leave to pee.

When I get back, the curtains are drawn between the front and back of the cab and I can hear the film running. I quietly read some Han Shan poetry because philosophical Chinese poetry makes more sense than whatever the fuck is happening in the back of the cab.

Jim finishes and says, "There's this girl on there and if she's more than 14, I'll kiss your ass." I pray she's of age.

We drive on into Newark and I leave. We part amicably and I forget to give him my L.A. contact info like he'd asked. Damn.

But life is much better in the sub-zero wind chill. I go into a diner to ask for directions to NYC. It's ten minutes away and there's a guy in there that's going into Manhattan in an hour. I cruise into Manhattan in fucking style. I arrive in New York City for the first time in my life in a garbage truck. What a beautiful ending.

I found Michael, Ella, and Sahar at home in Manhattan. And then bad things happened. My caffeine caught up to me just after everyone went to bed and I was pretty much just sick all night. But at one point I felt better. And then I thought about Jim. And I had to run into the bathroom to be sick again. Honestly. But The Bats sing to me from the back of my mind, "Just you wait, there will be morning skies bringing you some peace tonight." And Michael woke me with promises of vegan food and organic produce. Clean clothes, herbal tea, and maybe even a little Johnny Cash. And the whole world seems worth it.

So now I get into this whole connection with the Heather Combs show. I've been getting a little scared lately about grounding. I seem to be somewhat unsettled in my soul. Unlike some who bounce between extremes, as most of you know I have had most of the same friends for six or seven hundred years and politics and emotive responses don't seem to fluctuate too much either. But I seem to always be looking for some extreme answer to my lack of connection to most of the world. I was a Christian and a skinhead and a machinist and a chef and headed towards jewiosity and a restaurant manager and moved to Mexico and I paint and play music and write and now I'm hitching and what the hell am I doing? I just want to figure out how people find the way to connect themselves to the universe and be happy with this connection. But now I realize (or I think I do. What in the world am I thinking?) that the connection that each person finds to the universe is love.

Does this just seem entirely simple and altogether far too basic for everyone? Why does this just barely make sense to me? And I'm telling everybody something that they already know and think of as inherent knowledge. Everywhere I go I seem to find people who, no matter how damn crazy they are, they feel and understand this innate connection. I write these words with very little understanding of their meaning. A thousand people in a room in Reno, a lone trucker on the highway, my mom giggling on Christmas, a quiet girl stealing bits of food from my plate. Everyone can feel and know this, but I feel like I can merely see it. But I can at least put it into words for the first time. Like everyone that I meet, I am spending my whole life searching for small perfect moments of love.

More soon my pussycats.

Hugs and kisses,

drunken ass cowboy dan.

Reno, the Biggest Little Trailer Park: Hitching 1 of 9

2005-01-20T04:30:00.000-05:00

Howdy.

So far still alive.

This is how it has happened: Uncle Shawn dropped me off in Castaic and I waited a full 5 minutes before I was picked up by these two Mexican guys in a vegetation truck. We listened to the loudest damn mariachi I have ever heard. The pilot was a damn good guy who insisted on buying me food and drinks throughout the voyage. I didn't even have to put out. The other guy didn't talk much, as he spent most of the trip drinking beer out of a pizza hut cup. He would have the presence of mind every once in a while to grab my arm and laugh, or become entirely unconscious.

I was driven all the way to Modesto and deposited downtown therein. I waited a while before I was picked up by this lawyer (Randy?) who had been a big corporate badass before quitting to go to work for the little guy doing bankruptcy law. He dropped me off in the middle of nowhere. Really. I waited around for 2 hours before I started walking down the freeway. I ended up walking for what looks like about 15 miles on my map (Manteca to Stockton). I believe that somehow my boots became made of wood during this time. A sort of Pinnocchio-regression thing, you know. You've probably heard about it, it has been in all of the large scientific journals and Reader's Digest. I got to a Denny's to refresh my Cowboy Dan-ness with bad coffee and moved on. I had upon my sitting at the Stockton Denny's, occasion to read from one of the pirate history books that I have brought with me. This served me well as I stood at a freeway entrance for 2 1/2 hours waiting for a lift. I began to think of just how much easier life would truly be I was to carry upon my person a cutlass and wear tights. Ah, tights. I think that it is important for everyone to remember this tight thing well, for I have big plans upon my return to Los Angeles. Some of them invoving tights, perhaps others not so. They all definately have quite a bit to do with scurvy, and I don't mean in any sexual way I am not afraid to say.

So just as I was about to give up and go and sleep at a construction site not too far off, a truck stopped for me. In this truck was a very extraordinary man. I will attempt to explain Jeff briefly. One of the first things he said to me was, "I've got a woman who knows the witchy ways. Now she's trying to destroy me because I know too much." Well, shit. How do you respond to that, hitchiking through rural California in this man's truck? I was pretty certain for a split second that this is the man I was warned against. And so of course I asked him to let me off, right? I'm glad you all know me so well. So I started poking him. Because crazy is neat, but full-blown psychotic episode is absolutely fascinating. Jeff, much to my surprise, had no crazy in him at all. He was beautiful. He told me the story of his marriage (of 13 years) to a woman who is a sexual addict. He explained that all he wanted in the world was for her to get better, whether that meant that they could ever be together or not. He just loved her so desperately, it was inspiring. He considered himself weak, because he loved too much. He considered himself dumb, because he lacked formal education. But most of all, he didn't consider himself until he had first considered those around him. He drove me from Stockton to Sacramento, we sat for a while on the side of the freeway talking, and he left me in a respectful awe. But he did leave me.

In Sacramento, I had not the luck I'd had in other places. It took 9 hours to find a ride for the final three hours into Reno. I stood at the curb of the big truckstop looking hopefully and eating some weird fruit-filled cracker things that I had shoved into my pocket as I left the house one hundred years before (Kris, please thank Amber for bringing those things over. It is always a pleasure to eat the faces of anime animals filled with strawberry goo). My sign changed from "RENO" to "My mom needs an operation in RENO!!! I have to go!!!". The trucker who picked me up hadn't even read it, so I will probably not get too out of control for future signs. Come on, I believe that.

So I hit Reno. Snowy and honky. I've been here a couple of days and am getting ready to set off again. Jonie has been great, we've been talking about aliens creating the earth and playing folk music. We also had some quiche. Next, NYC will be calling in the voice that it calls its own. I also have another stop to make on my way back, as I will be stopping in Savannah to meet Jonie's delightful girlfriend, Brooke. Homosexuality in the deep south. I suppose we knew it would someday come to this. Thank the great lord Ganesh I picked up those tights and a cutlass.

Forever my hugs and kisses,

d.