dogsthought

Laundry

2011-09-20T01:24:00.000-04:00

The only time I drink by myself is late at night when I’m waiting on my laundry to be done. I should clarify that I don’t drink myself into any sort of stupor. I’m not bragging about the extent of my restraint, and I don’t really hold sobriety in any high regard. I just can’t bring myself to down beer after beer alone, waiting for my laundry to finish spinning around in a coin-operated contraption.

So, I only have two beers while I wait. I could drink three or four or nine. I have the financial means, and I’m twenty-three years old. There are no economic or legal restrictions that prevent me from becoming blotto-fuck drunk while I launder. I simply choose not to.

My reasoning might have something to do with the fact that I know my girlfriend is in the next room sleeping. It might have something to do with the fact that I might hate myself if I became wholly inebriated while cleaning my clothes. It might have to do with the fact that I’m kind of health conscious, and more than two beers before bed isn’t good for the body (some would argue that even one beer before bed is detrimental to the physical faculties. Those people are most likely absolutely correct).

I don’t know the reason(s) I limit myself to two. That’s the truth. Currently, as my fingers semi-deftly interact with my keyboard, I’m finishing my second beer. It doesn’t have me tipsy, but it has me close. I’m walking that thin tightrope between drunk and sober. I’m precariously bi-pedaling(Not uni-cycling, bi-pedaling. I know the difference) myself on that thin rope in fact. Any sudden movements might serve to pitch me over the side and send me careening towards the circus floor of inebriation.

The beer is a Belgian White Blue Moon. I bought it when a friend came over for a hang out. I also bought it, because my girlfriend likes it. I live with her and I love her, so I show this affection through a slew of small gestures such as buying beer she likes and doing dishes before bed. All that is neither here nor there. The real question is why.

So why do I do it? What’s the point of casual solo drinking as my clothes swirl? Again, I’m left with no answers. Why do I feel the need to do this? I’m not an alcoholic. That’s not me rationalizing. It’s the truth. I drink with extreme infrequency. I don’t even drink every time I do laundry. I don’t even drink most times I do laundry. It’s the only time I drink alone however.

My fear is that it’s posturing. Am I trying to look cool, to feel cool, to be cool? Am I the person in fancy clothes chain smoking with affected sultry sexiness? Am I posing as someone who drinks at night alone? Do I achieve some sort of sick satisfaction from the knowledge that I’m really, really doing something that I perceive as cool? Fuck I hope not. It’s a definite possibility.

My other fear is that I’m cultivating a problem. I’m not an alcoholic now, but it runs in my family. It runs in my family with a vicious vengeance. Violent alcoholism has destroyed the lives of people I know. Will I one day cross the dangerous Rubicon into greater than two beers? Will I stumble to the washer and dryer like the town drunk? Will the next people to do laundry have to wake me with a cold bucket of water like some old west degenerate? Will my laundry drinking habits lead me to a cold death underneath a bridge? Am I signing my own death warrant, tempting the doom of my family tree, fastening the noose around my own neck by cracking open two orange flavored beers while I feed a white machine quarters? I’m slowly killing myself, estranging myself from the ones I love, from my home, from my passions in life, from the youthful innocence that I still cling to. This is the beginning of the end for old Sam Thomas. It’s act three in the tragedy of my life.

Hey, asshole get out of your head. Chase yourself off the table of unhealthy self reflection with a spray bottle like an unwelcome feline. Get out of your head. Leave.

Here’s the truth. I enjoy it. And I have to do something while my laundry dries. This is not the beginning of the end. I like to have two beers at night while your t-shirts, pants, and other articles of clothing soak and mix with detergent. It doesn’t get any deeper than that. I think. Jesus, am I in denial? Nah.

Intolerant of Lactose

2010-12-07T15:07:00.000-05:00

In between nodding off and drawing squiggly-faced cartoons in my notebook in college psychology 101, I learned a few things. One of the things I learned is that our fears and phobias can derive from certain events, which transpire over the course of our lives. I forget what this is called, probably because when the professor told me, I was doodling in my notebook. However, the truth remains that, psychologically speaking, any little thing can set any old person off on some horrified spiral.

It’s really kind of depressing, the idea that, unconscious observations can snowball until they are crippling phobias. It’s like knowing that at any moment, without warning, without even the benefit of a hint, that dormant tumor in our brain can fire off and destroy our every sense and function. So, instead of facing the frightening truth about the effed-up and finicky idiosyncrasies of the human brain, I drew a picture of a dog peeing on a tree.

However, not long after that particular psychology class had come and gone, I found myself in one of those moments of reflective personal clarity. It had to deal with milk, yogurt, urine, leathery nipples, and my own unconscious phobias.

I have always hated milk, hated it like it was already rotten and festering with green pustules like some deathly pale burn victim. It’s my liquid equivalent to Indiana Jones and snakes. If it gets on my skin I have to rub and rub with hot water until I’m sure it won’t rot there. And if I see it, sloshing around like unhealthy semen, in almost any capacity, my gag reflex reminds me just how much it can hurt me.

What’s even worse is when I see milk mixed with anything. Once, as a cruel gag, a friend mixed his apple juice with his two percent milk near me. The translucent orangey juice mixed with the milk like blood injected into a hypodermic needle. It looked like an unholy insemination, and it resembled the beverage I most associate with the cafeterias in Hell. By my reaction, you might have thought I had stumbled upon a Serbian mass grave. I gagged and almost fell out of my seat, which caused quite a stir with the other diners. However, my mind was not on the fact that I was making as ass of myself, but rather on the white hot fear and anger I was currently experiencing at the hands of squeezed apples and bovine excretions.

Up to a certain point, which I will refer to as my moment of clarity, I accepted my milk phobia like all rational humans accept death. It was an inevitability as necessary as breathing, eating, and fapping. I did not question it, which would be like a retarded infant trying to comprehend the stars and streetlights. Any such cognitive probing would result in more questions than answers. Frankly, I don’t think I was yet ready for the truth, which, one day as I lay in bed, struck me like an abusive stepfather. I had to live enough life to be able to come to grips with the roots of my phobia before I could begin to come to grips with it. However, like so many of those little mental secrets, it eventually leaked.

It was my moment of clarity, my time to shout eureka, my Eli Whitney moment as I invented my cotton gin. And, as an incontrovertible truth, it was morbid, disgusting, and scatological. The story begins quite some time into my past. The setting is somewhere around my mothers gnawed on areola.

In order to understand the gist of this tale, one must have some inclination as to the nature of my mother. And, in this brief profile, I don’t mean to pass judgment, merely facts.

She is a traditional woman. Not traditional in the classical sense. Not like staying home and making food for exhausted man-folk to consume upon their return from the fields. Not traditional in any literary motherly sense.

She is, rather, traditional in the way mother bears and Indian Squaws are. Her traditions are very rooted in the basic principles of nature, natural healing, the teachings of The Buddha, and a strong belief that a placenta is something to be consumed for protein and holistic goodness.

It pains me to write this next bit. However, it is so vital to my story that I would do myself a disservice by not writing it. The embarrassing truth and white elephant of my childhood is that my mother breast both my brother and I until we were very much too old to participate in the sucking of a mothers tit without an awful undertone of unrealized sexual tension. I was banished from the teat at the age of about two (which is rather old), and the knowledge of this makes me want to hurl my lunch into a toilet somewhere.

The very fact that my supply of nutrition, for the first two years of life came, at least in part, from the very body of my mother, instills in me savagely psychotic thoughts. There are times when I count the similarities between Norman Bates and myself as more in number than the differences that fictional momma’s boy and I share.

I have no memory of my life as an un-weaned wild child, or I would most certainly recount some tales of when I still thrived on mother’s milk. However, my ignorance is not a trait I regret. Some things we’re better off not remembering. Like battered war veterans who have blanked on certain horrors which they witnessed, I blacked out any recollection I may have had of being a first person suckler.

Though, I do have many, many, many, dark memories of my brother being nursed. He went even longer than I in his partaking of the mother buffet. When he was weaned, he was about three years old. That poor boy-child had it the roughest. I often wonder if he remembers those dark days of human lactose. I would never dare ask him.

I remember, in particular, one car ride we took as a family. I remember this without fault, like I saw it in a movie. My father, brother, mother, and I were on some long car trip. The ride took place in the span of time in which I was done breast-feeding and my brother was not. I don’t remember what brought this about, but, long story short, my mother took her awful purple bosom out and squirted some milk into a small cup, which she passed about like a mixed drink at a frat house. In turn, she sipped it, passed it to my father who also sipped it, and then gave the cup to me. I sipped it. The taste of it, like warm birthday cake icing, still haunts me.

That era of my life was critical in instilling in me a fear of milk. It was, however, not the only ingredient of my phobia. The plot begins to thicken a few years later when, in a life or death situation, my life would be forever changed by the foulest concoction I have yet smelled.

When I was about eight and my brother five, there was a snowstorm in Pittsburgh. It blanketed everything and fogged the sky for miles. The snow came down so thick that it looked like ice shaved off a giant glacier. My mother, brother, and I had the misfortune of driving in that apocalyptic mess. We didn’t get far. Before we knew it, our blue Nissan Maxima had stalled out somewhere on the highway. We were pulled over to the shoulder, dormant like a dead animal, slowly being encased in snow and ice. I remember looking out the back window and seeing the ice crystals forming on the glass and being reflected like celestial objects by the manufactured glow from the street lights.

My brother and I were yet too young to realize the dire nature of our predicament, and, to this day I don’t know how bad we had it. All I know is my mother seemed to think we might freeze to death, and she kept leaving the car to clear our exhaust pipe of snow to avoid carbon dioxide poisoning.

We were there several hours, and visibility was getting horrible. Night had set in, and with it, so too any hope of a car seeing us and picking us up. And still, the snow came fluttering down in great amounts. Before long, we were entirely encased. Everything looked pretty bleak, and the cold had crept into the car. My mother had finished her yogurt.

I have failed, up to this point, to mention my mother’s yogurt habit. This is a glaring omission, since yogurt figures prominently into this story.

She would eat plain Stonyfield farms yogurt literally by the quarter gallon. Plain yogurt does not mean vanilla yogurt or anything else of the sort. Plain yogurt is nothing more than solidified milk fat, gelatinous, creamy, smelly, and fatty, squeezed inside a plastic container. When the container was first opened up, a pool of stagnant looking water would slosh around on top, bits of unattached yogurt floating around in it like bloated week old cadavers in river water.

My mother would take to it like a hog to gravy. She scooped that awful dairy product up with little white plastic spoons, licking every bit of yogurt off before descending again into the pit. It was a habit, which, before we became stranded in the freezing cold, already gave me the willies and the nillies.

At some point during our desperate situation on the shoulder of the highway, my mother finished her yogurt much, I imagine, to her ravenous milky chagrin. The smell of the yogurt permeated the car as if shot from a gas canister intended to flush out lactose intolerant hostage takers. The odor reminded me of the innards of a constipated cow. Our encased car soon became a hot box of that foul smell. At this point, I began to feel the first twinges of claustrophobic panic. As the snow closed around us, and we started to look more and more like Inuits, and the idea of this car becoming our grave seemed more and more plausible.

Eventually, my mother’s bladder caught up with her, and she announced that she could no longer hold her water. She had to urinate, and she had to do it immediately. Now, if only there was some round and hollow container into which to spill herself.

Eventually and inevitably, she picked up the yogurt container and asked us to avert our eyes. I still remember the awful sound of her stream hitting the plastic bottom.

She filled it up. The smell of urine and yogurt could be used in Guantanamo Bay as a form of torture tantamount to water boarding and naked humiliation. It smelled like ammonia mixed with old sour cream. There was no retreat from it. It was either that or brave the cold. Had I been a braver child, I might have walked into traffic.

However, as a timid and freezing little boy, I just sat there and took it all. The hours felt like hours with bamboo up my urethra. The cold continued to invade our car, and we sunk deeper and deeper into the seats to escape it like Hitler and his staff falling further and further back into the bunker.

Finally, the cold was too much, and we could do nothing but shiver. I’m not sure how close to freezing we actually were. However, in my young mind, I was sure we were about to become icicles or snowmen or something of the like. So, in what may have been a misguided attempt to protect her pack, my mother demanded that we utilize the only source of warmth that we still had. This was, of course, the urine filled container. So, much in the same spirit as mountain climbers who gnaw their own arms off to survive, we passed that ungodly hot water bottle back and forth like a marijuana cigarette.

There’s not much else to say about it. We used my mother’s urine to stay alive that night. For better or for worse.

Eventually we were rescued by an off duty police officer, to whom my mother cheerfully described the manner in which we stayed warm. When she said this my cheeks went rosy, and I became, for the first time, keenly aware of how parents could embarrass their children.

We made it home safe and sound that night. However, just like Iraqi war veterans, my scars did not dissipate upon return. Instead, in true PTSD fashion, they expanded.

Truthfully, an aversion to milk is not such a terrible price to pay for not being found dead in a car clutching to a yogurt container filled with my mother’s steamy urine. I’ll take it.

Psychologically speaking, at least when referenced with my rudimentary knowledge of the subject, it all makes sense.

Paired with my latent weaning, the story of yogurt builds a clear blue print for phobia and psychosis.

As for this story, I’d rather know than not know. And, as someone recently pointed out to me, being breast-fed that long might have resulted in me being afraid of boobs. Dodged a bullet there.

"Let's focus on what really matters", suggests Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

2010-09-26T22:18:00.000-04:00

Since last December, the Israeli government has maintained a policy of keeping settlement construction partially "frozen" in the occupied West Bank. Settlement construction (which is really government-supported annexation) in East Jerusalem (which is really part of the West Bank), however, has been allowed to continue unabated throughout this period; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that Jerusalem will forever "remain the undivided capital of Israel."

Now it seems that the parts of the West Bank that aren't East Jerusalem are also fair game for Israel's settlers -- the freeze has officially expired. As Ha'aretz reports, the United States' diplomatic team is frantically trying to preserve the current round of "peace talks" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (who represent the Palestinians of the West Bank, although not thanks to any kind of popular vote) in the face of this new development. The Arab League is set to convene on Oct. 4th at the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss whether or not the PA should continue negotiating. One wonders what the actual people of Gaza and the West Bank have to say about these matters. But not to worry:

Netanyahu said that his intentions to reach a peace agreement are "serious and honest."

"I say to [Palestinian Authority] President Abbas: For the sake of our two peoples, let's focus on what really matters. Let's continue expedited and serious peace talks to reach a historic framework peace agreement within a year."

The implication, in case you missed it, is that Netanyahu's support for the removal of more and more Palestinian land is not what really matters. On the contrary, his seriousness, his honesty, and his good intentions really really matter.

My moral inclination is to be nauseated by rhetoric like this, but ultimately you can't blame the guy. Abbas and the PA have all but stated, by again opting in to the peace talks charade while the West Bank gets smaller and smaller and less and less contiguous, that Israeli settlement doesn't matter to them. Meanwhile, Netanyahu and Obama have proven that the Palestinian people don't matter by systematically ignoring Gaza's need for self-determination as well as freedom of exchange and movement, and by negotiating with the corrupt and weak PA as though they actually represent them. The vast majority of journalists have shown what matters to them (hint: it isn't accuracy) by short-handing the PA to "the Palestinians" in stories about the peace talks, as in this quote:

According to the source at the Paris meeting, the Palestinians would be prepared to give up their demand for a full freeze if Netanyahu declared he is willing to discuss the issue of the 1967 borders and a land swap.

What matters to those in power is the circulation of the narrative that "the Palestinians [or 'the Arabs', depending on the context] don't want peace", that "all they want is war and terror", and that they (and any who support their freedom) "hate Jews." Since Oslo, another "peace process" that coincided with massive settlement construction, this has been the go-to narrative of those who wish to avoid fundamental change -- i.e., full Palestinian equality. The peace process is, simply, a rhetorical [white phosphorus] smoke-screen, and behind it are the facts on the ground, which speak without talking.

Against libertarian exceptionalism

2010-09-14T12:48:00.002-04:00

This reason.tv video, about the charming old guy who owns Anchor Brewing Company and the recent increase in craft breweries in the US, got me thinking about where I really break off from some of the people at reason, WFTC, and other libertarian-of-center ideological communities.

The charming old guy in question, Fritz Maytag, proclaims at one point that he is an exceptionalist: he views the American story as particularly amazing, inspiring, and beautiful. He's a hardcore patriot. I think this attitude is quite widespread in this country (especially in rural areas, but just about everywhere, really), and perhaps even abroad as well, but I'm going to argue that it's not an attitude that a libertarian ought to have.

Above all else, a libertarian ought to care about liberty, and the principles of liberty. It doesn't matter how you cobble together your principles, from which Hayek, Mises, Rand, Rothbard, Friedman, or Locke text, or even from none of them like me; as long as they are principles of liberty, you are a libertarian. In the words of Omar, "a man got to have a code." I described mine this way in a post I wrote in February about foreign policy & libertarianism:

I don’t believe governments have the right [emphasis added] to intervene in any individual’s free actions, ever. I believe every individual ought to be free to act; I believe the law ought to codify as crimes [those] actions freely committed by individuals which deny other individuals’ freedom; I believe the government ought to enforce the law by restricting the freedom of guilty individuals, but only to the extent absolutely necessary to preserve the freedom of other individuals [in the future]. [...] Implicit in this belief system is that one of the freedoms guaranteed to individuals is the freedom to commit crimes. If and when they are committed, the individual faces punishment by the government.

That, in a paragraph, represents the core of my views on the proper role of government in human life, one that emerges logically from my moral philosophy, my code: that all self-conscious beings capable of acting ought to be free to act. (This is the moment when a bunch of practical questions scamper out from behind the couch, but just do your best to ignore those for now.)

And so I ask all libertarians this: why, from our perspective, is the American story so amazing, so beautiful, so inspiring?

Undoubtedly anyone who has attended a public school or a patriotic private school can explain with gusto that the principles of freedom and liberty are in our nation's founding documents, that they are our national creed. But have the actions of the US government since Independence, often with the unanimous support of the polity, really preserved the freedom and liberty of all? (Do I really need to mention Indian removal and slavery? Our numerous imperial impositions of military force and wars of aggression against other nations? The near constant government impositions upon the free market? The utterly selective and unprincipled applications of the law? The fact that we imprison more human beings -- literally removing their freedom to act -- than any other nation in the world? The fact that our executive branch today has the legal ability to kill without trial? And on, and on, and on.)

In short, I'd argue that while the principles of freedom and liberty have always been in our government's lexicon, they have not, in general, guided its behavior. We have a market freer than many other nations, yes. We can speak and assemble more freely than many nations, yes. But the exceptions to the two preceding statements from our past should never be forgotten, and they ought to help us guard against such exceptions in the present and future. Paradoxically, these exceptions reveal that the United States as a nation is not exceptional.

Nationalism is always the enemy of liberty, even when that nationalism is articulated in terms that deify liberty. Moreover, a nation is an exceedingly complex thing. It's a multitude of individuals doing good things, doing bad things, doing mediocre things, living and dying and working and sleeping and fucking and going to the bathroom and watching sports and doing drugs and eating. That's true of every nation. When a value judgment is made about a nation as a whole, it's always a lie designed to serve the interest of someone powerful in that nation or another nation.

The complexity of nations, of human beings, is precisely the reason that I'm a libertarian. I'm skeptical that anyone can control us, and I'm skeptical that anyone can understand what's best for us. Since no one can, the rule ought to be that no one has the right to. But to claim that the American story is exceptional, to claim that America is exceptional, is to claim that you are omniscient. It's to lie, which you shouldn't do on principle, but which you also shouldn't do as a libertarian for the practical reason that you're spreading a lie that helps justify US government actions which deny human freedom domestically and internationally.

Exceptionalism is a form of nationalism, and nationalism is the tool of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism and libertarianism are incompatible. Thus, libertarians should not be exceptionalists. Let that syllogism be your guide in an increasingly authoritarian US political sphere.

9/11/01: the opposite of a sobering moment?

2010-09-11T14:05:00.001-04:00

Today we look back nine years at the day when four commercial jets were used as weapons against the United States.

For me, the most difficult (but ultimately, the most rewarding) conclusion to make has been that the policy choices of the United States, NATO, and Israel (in short, the Free World) toward the Arab/Muslim world, policy choices which have amounted to, broadly, wholesale manipulation (supporting Al-Qaeda against Russia, supporting the Shah against the Iranians, consistently supporting the Saudis, and on and on and on) and occupation (the West Bank, Gaza, the first Gulf War, and on and on and on) for the purposes of geopolitical advantage, contributed enormously, from a causal standpoint, to the events of 9/11.

Of course, to borrow the favorite phrase of our current President, let me be clear: the 9/11 terrorists still "did it." They're still murderers of innocents, and thus they have earned the condemnation of history. I have been accused in the past by angry commenters (of neo-con disposition, I do believe) at When Falls the Coliseum of stripping the people of the Middle East of any causal power, and I do not seek to do that. But to deny that our callous, reckless actions in that region have provided al-Qaeda's recruiters with an irresistible narrative is to simply blindfold oneself to history.

And, as I have argued multiple times, that's what makes the Free World's actions in the Middle East since 9/11 so face-smackingly awful: they've only strengthened, made all the more salient, the evidence for that narrative.

Imagine you're a 14-year-old, haughty and reckless and naive and arrogant, and impressionable, as most kids of that age are (I know I was). As fire rains from the sky from vehicles that you've never seen before in your country, as people in uniforms you've never seen before in your country approach your home, screaming in a language that you don't understand, to take your older brother out of your home and into their truck and away; just then an older man from your town and your country, perhaps a spiritual leader, but most importantly a native and a native speaker of your own language; this man tells you: "they're not trying to save you, even though they'll tell you that. They're trying to exploit you, and exploit our land. And they'll kill you if you get in their way. The only way to show the world what they've done is to attack them, to try to bring some of our pain to their lands, to their people. It's only fair. It's vengeance."

First, consider what you would do in that situation, given that choice. Second, consider how similar that choice is to the choice our political leaders and our media gave us in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The difference is that most of us were adults (although I was 12, around the age of the kid in my hypothetical), we lived in a relatively prosperous, free, and powerful society, and thus the response we gave to that choice was far more devastating than any the kid in my hypothetical, or the groups he may have joined up with, could hope to give. On 9/11 we lost almost 3,000 civilians; but we've killed tens of thousands of civilians in our ensuing War on Terror, scores more foreign fighters, and we've lost scores of our own troops. Similarly, when Israel went to war with Hamas in Gaza in late 2008, Hamas and other militants killed thirteen Israelis, while Israel killed about 1500 Gazans (most of them civilians).

This bloodshed is incomprehensible. These wars are stupid, expensive, and wrong. Undoubtedly the public sentiment after 9/11 was such that our political leaders couldn't have done nothing, but how much of that was their own doing, and the media's doing? And why couldn't we have, for instance, carried out one major military strike targeting those connected to the 9/11 terrorists and been done with it? Instead, we're engaged in long, bloody, no-end-in-sight occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq (and Pakistan, and Yemen, and Somalia), occupations which are portents of the next 9/11.

Indeed, what we ought to "never forget" is what we did to encourage the last 9/11, and what we're doing to encourage the next. Never forget what we've done to our current and future course as a nation and the futures of all those impressionable young kids in the Middle East.

Little Man

2010-07-23T14:13:00.003-04:00

When he walked into the bank a rush of cold came with him. The streets were packed with snow, a blinding, thick snow. Its depth was to the knees of most large people. Short people, people like him, they found themselves enveloped to their waste by freezing powder. So, on the day he walked into the bank, he was soaked and shivering.

Naturally, in a manner that completely coincided with the overall unfairness of the universe, of the two tellers, the fat, rotund woman with the puffy face had a much shorter line than did the lovely, blond with the protruding breasts. Jealousy and confusion and behind the back rumors must have plagued their working relationship.

Luck as well as beauty, as it turns out, was not on the side of the fat teller. Her unfortunate looks (be they derived from unfortunate genetics or gluttonous and exorbitant life choices) would prove her downfall. Because, when the short, half soaked, man saw the relatively miniscule line that had formed before her window, his choice became obvious. The pretty blond, smiling through infuriatingly perfect features, could not see beyond the opaque bubble of beauty within which she lay curled like a fetus. Her gaze was fixed beyond such petty things as the little man. And she might only laugh in the face of what he intended.

So, with a deliberate and somewhat weightless stride, the little man joined the dwindling line of the unfortunate heifer teller.

The people in front of him were oblivious, their minds so involved in the minutiae of their personal funds, to his heavy breathing and scared-white skin. Their bodies were defined by baggy winter clothes and sacks of skin full of fat, the kind of excess body mass that is only acquired through a life of denying our natural tendency to run across great distances. Their sad eyes, behind which was the weight and knowledge of mortality, were blind to his intentions.

In fact, as had been the case for most of his life, the little man passed before the world like a minor breeze. If people did, by chance or necessity, notice his existence, it was merely to avoid bumping into his physical being. And, upon his sallow face was a countenance of pure invisibility. His lips were thin, his eyes unremarkably brown and small, and his chin seemed to have been neglected in-uteri. Nothing of significance, it seems, could ever occur upon or within this man. He looked as if he would pass in and out of life in the same desperate and futile way a may-fly does. The desperate buzzing of his soul would never amount to more than a slightly distracting white noise in the barely audible background world of the people flanking him on all sides, phalanxes of large people marching on and on oblivious to him.

Even as he stood, sopping, in the more miserable line at the bank on a miserable winter day surrounded by miserable people who no longer had the gumption to wait in a slightly longer line to talk to a pretty girl, he was unmistakably the most miserable person in the world. The world being an expansive, blue, spiraling, ball of increasing misery.

Above him, in a cruel joke of architecture, the ceiling was so tall. Beyond that was the sky, which could not be taller.

It was an ordinary bank, the type that gets built to accommodate the desperate rush of people intent on populating an un-spectacular suburban landscape.

Beyond the bank was a parking lot. The concrete sea of it, scattered here and there by cars moored to a parking break, expanded across a great distance until it finally gave way to a shore of shops and restaurants. A movie theater lay just beyond this distant land of Apllebee's and TGI Fridays and it shimmered, a beacon for the sailor searching high and low for escapism.

This was a world of concrete where people grew bored and died. Where sensationalism was the only item on a menu that had been replicated with exact precision in other places exactly and nautically identical to this particular sea.

And this knowledge, this defining characteristic of what people had become, when coupled with his own miniscule heart and soul was enough to make the little man act in a drastic way. This, said the little jaw clenching under his soft skin like a writhing oyster in its shell, was precisely what the little man was going to do.

The line moved quickly and without the benefit of jovial human rapport. The only sound was the slight mumble of the tellers speaking to the people. Occasionally someone coughed. Once a cell-phone sounded off in an ironic ring tone. The teenager owning the phone silenced it, ashamed of her own joke.

The little man now, for the first time, seemed to waiver. The strong winds of the mediocrity around him had ruffled him a bit. He swayed under their tepid force. He clutched his chest as if he were a miniature Giles Corey being pressed by pebbles. Then, in the closest thing to courage the little man would ever display, he stood taller. His jaw clenched yet tighter like a vice securing a gushing and hopeless artery.

When it was his turn to speak to the ugly woman, with the ostensible purpose of managing his funds, he felt his heart take off in his chest and fly out into the cold air. He wished it well and pulled the tiny gun from within some hidden pocket of his coat.

At first, as her mind attempted to calculate and understand the predicament, she stared. Then, experiencing a personal seismic disturbance, she began to shake. Her jowls quivered like a bowl of jello on the table of an RV speeding over rocky terrain. Desperate tears streaked down her face. They flooded over her thinly veiled acne, and they pooled in the shallow scars caused by the selfsame affliction. She could not speak. Her voice was only audible as a squeak, a side effect of her desperate sobs.

The little man did not change expressions. In truth, he could not, for certain, tell you what he was doing. The idea that he was doing something had not yet crept into his brain. His plan, devised the night before, as he sat in front of his computer in a post-masturbatory funk with his pants around his ankles, had never quite been revised.

The rest of the bank had, by this time, become aware of the small mans actions. And they melted away from him as if he were the opened vein of an AIDS patient.

The pretty blond was crying, also. Her tears ran down her face, smearing the ridiculous cocktail of chemicals intended to make her prettier. The more enterprising young men in the bank, their minds already grinding towards the conclusion of this hiccup in their day, moved closer to the trembling blond. They eyed one another up like street-fighters pumped full of endorphins. Already, and without the permission of the little man, the world had begun to spin again.

He could not abide this. He had meant to stop their hearts, and all around him he could feel the tangible eyes on the back of his neck. Impatient feet stomped. Some skinny white man with a stupid beard was saying things at him, smiling as if they were old friends.

The fat one, the awful looking woman with the gelatinous chin, started to scream. With surprising athleticism she leapt over the counter. Waddling like a scared, handicapped, shaved Yeti, she attempted a frantic pilgrimage to the front door.

And then he pulled the trigger. She fell, screaming, blood escaping her middle parts in pools. Now all eyes turned cold on him. They turned to him, and, like sand, they poured over him. The gun was wrestled away from him. He felt its coldness leave his hand. Their hands tore and scratched at him. Parts of him were removed. Other parts of him were damaged beyond repair.

Outside the bank, a fat child dangled himself between his porky parents, sliding his fat feet along the snowy ground, as they walked into the welcoming front door of an Outback Steakhouse.

More Jokes

2010-07-21T08:43:00.000-04:00

Here are some more jokes I have written

I like playing pool but I’m mad shitty. I watch the guys on ESPN and they are better than I could ever be. But I realized that they play in unrealistic conditions. If I played in those conditions I would already be as good as them. I’m talking about the fact that they play in an appropriately sized room with no people around. No real person does that. You always play in some asshole’s basement where you hope your ball doesn’t stop on the long edge so you have to do the fucking trick shot that just makes you hit the table straight on with your cue, completely missing the ball and John, the asshole who’s table on which you are playing, says, “You don’t care about my things, in fact you don’t care about anyone’s things. That’s why you’ve gone through 3 wives and 12 packs of cigarettes in the past week. Why don’t you just lay down and die, Anil.” Anyway… I was thinking that there should be a new pro pool game called basement pool where they are in a 10x10 room with thirty people in there shifting around and heckling them.

I smoked weed with my friends from home for the first time recently. Somehow, they aren’t good at smoking weed. One of my friends held the joint with both hands with his fingers pressed hard against his lips. This reminded me of how 2^nd graders dribble a basketball with two hands. That’s how one of my friends did it. Then I stopped and thought about my childhood and how my 2^nd grade self would see me now. So I said, “Hey.”

“What?”

“Christina, pass the joint, I want to forget some stuff.”

I am a firm believer in evolution because, of course, I am the Devil. What probably happened was that we were created 6,000 years ago and Jesus came down at some point and buried dinosaur bones. As the Bible says: if thou dig unto the ground thou will be fucked with. Something I do not understand about evolution is how certain types of animals do not exist. Why is there no animal that just jizzes everywhere it walks? No matter if a female is around, it just jizzes. It jizzes to mark its territory, it drops a load to ward away predators, it busts a nut just for the fuck of it: like a sprinkler. Anywhere a female sits down in this path, she will get pregnant. Think how hard birth control would be if humans did this. Women would just have to wear a suit of armor at all times.

56% of Americans support pre-emptive war with Iran; 66% support pre-emptive war with Iran....

2010-07-16T12:26:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure what these polls looked like in the past (probably not much different), but the latest is sickening, depressing, mind-boggling:

Overall, 56 percent of Americans approved a military strike [by Israel against Iran], while 30 percent disapproved, according to the poll. [...] [A] separate Pew Research poll showed similar results, with 66 percent of Americans preferring a strike, while 24 percent objected to it.

Unlike most liberals (see: liberals on the economy, liberals on health, etc.), I tend to have faith in the intelligence, strength, even dignity of the average American Joe (not the Plumber). When liberals are, for instance, condemning McDonald's, showing their profound lack of faith in American individuals' ability to resist corporate control, I'm usually doing the opposite, saying let 'em have a Quarter Pounder with Cheese if they want it, let 'em have a pack of Newport Menthols if they want it. I don't believe, as liberals do, that they don't know any better and so we must force a smarter choice for them, I believe they do known better, but are making these choices because it feels good. And if they want to feel good, and they aren't harming anyone else, they should be allowed because that's their right.

But as these polls suggest, on matters of defense, foreign policy, war, US imperialism -- whatever you want to call it -- Americans (today's Americans, at least) do seem to be ignorant, Pavlovian automatons, drooling for combat in response to the various war-mongering bells those in power choose to ring. It makes me sick.

I hope that President Obama will do his part to save Americans from their own irrationality, but his record so far on these matters is not so good, and despite compelling arguments against Iran sanctions, Obama spearheaded that effort. Remind me: where did sanctions against Iraq lead?

There have, of course, been plenty of amazing grassroots efforts to educate people about Iran and thereby avoid war. One of the great bloggers about Middle East issues, Juan Cole, has a useful list of widespread myths about the Islamic Republic, many of which are actively circulated by warmongers to -- naturally -- monger war. (Please circulate Juan's list in response.) And meanwhile, locally, the Conflict Kitchen in East Liberty is currently the Kubideh Kitchen, serving a delicious Iranian sandwich wrapped in a beautifully presented information sheet about Iran, describing, among other important topics, Iran's large Jewish population (the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel), the lack of hard evidence that Iran is developing nukes, and the fact that most Iranians take issue with Israeli policy not because it's a Jewish state but because they believe its creation harmed innocent Palestinians. (I highly recommend Pittsburghers drop by there and have a kubideh; it's delicious, and it's only five dollars.) Undoubtedly there are many, many more brilliant people in America and around the world doing similar work, trying just as hard to avoid what public opinion data warns is gaining momentum and might damn near be inevitable.

But part of me knows that even all this great work, discursive and otherwise, may not be enough. Recent history has shown that most Americans can't resist arguments for war, particularly the Argument from Liberation. Iran's election kerfluffle last year was covered in such a way by the media that Iran seemed to be an entire nation struggling for freedom from Ahmadinejad. But there's no way of really knowing what proportions of Iranians supported whom. Certainly the election was fixed, but what would have happened had it not been? Iran is a vast and complex population of 75 million (UN, 2009). A few thousand protesters are hardly representative, and their protests were not simply a spontaneous response to tyranny aided by communication technology (an argument I attempt to explain and debunk in a research paper I wrote this past semester), they were a consciously organized tactic of a specific interest (Moussavi, who wants power just as much as Ahmadinejad). That distinction is important, because it reveals that Iranians are not a uniform, oppressed people awaiting salvation, they are a diverse group with specific factions who want specific things. It can probably be hypothesized that they want something new, but it can also be hypothesized that this something new is probably not fire from the sky.

Nevertheless, as with Iraq, that story helped the notion take hold among Americans that Iran is desperate for our help. That story serves as an assumption in an enthymeme, an enthymeme that runs thusly:

>Iran's people hate their government, and they want something new.
>A military attack could precipitate something new.
>>It would be just for us to attack Iran.

We've been taken in by this argument before. And as much as I respect the American individual and I am delighted by the work being done to oppose war with Iran, I am depressed, because I can almost taste it, life after Israel's warmongering Likud government takes action, and how bad things will get. And I can't imagine most Americans resisting the urge to support this action materially or discursively. This leaves me at a complete and utter loss for a political philosophy. I believe individuals ought to think and do as they wish, but what now, when they reveal they are incapable of thinking and doing to avoid catastrophe?

Some Jokes

2010-07-11T21:08:00.003-04:00

Here are some jokes I have written recently:

I have a friend who recently came out. I’ve known him my whole life and he’s always been a really good runner. He’s definitely the fastest gay I know. My friends and I were talking about him being gay. One of my friends said, “He’d do really well in the gay Olympics.” I said, “That would be terrible if they made a segregated gay Olympics. That would be like if they had an Olympics only for black people. But then I guess they would just call that the Olympics.”

This is a new generation. People who weren't accepted before are accepted now. Of course, by this I mean crazy people. With the invention of bluetooth and hands free, it's never been easier to be crazy and look normal. All they have to do is make it look like they're talking on a phone. "Yes and Zordon will destroy the earth in 15 days? Well, I better get started on building an arc and put 2 of every animal in it and also stinkweed to ward off his bee parasites. Yes, why thank you for notifying me of this and hope you don't die in the apocalypse. Bye bye."

I wrote this joke a while ago but I’ll use it anyway. So Patrick Swayze is going to die next week. I was feeling bad for the people who are going to lose their livelihood because of this. Take the hit indy-rap, indy-rock duo Shwayze. Any time anyone says, “Hey let’s go to the Shwayze concert,” which I’m sure happens extremely frequently, the other person says, “Ooh, too soon.” That’s like forming a band called Bill Parson’s Oil Slicks last year. My jokes are way ahead of their time.

I Killed a Naked Kid, Tied to A Chair.

2010-07-01T00:58:00.001-04:00

To see him there, tethered to the chair, naked as he had been during his birth was to see a tragic depiction of last breath. We all knew what had to be done, and the boy on the stool had accepted his fate with some measure of courage and a great deal of depressed solitude. Dignity had been taken off the menu. Naked as he was, his genitals were pressed against the chair's wicker seat in a most uncomfortable fashion. To me, they looked like two bean bags upon which a naked and curled baby lounged.

The boys eyes were streaked with the remnants of his tears, which had long since dried and left trails of mis-placed dirt and sediment on his hairless cheeks. The tears had stopped running around the same time his hope had. Tears and begging are optimism, and the boy must have loved life. His begs were poetic, honest, without guilt, and sincere. They had, of course, fallen on deaf ears.

We were all hard and careless men, and death was to us as fire was to a firefighter. It was a meaning for our existence. I felt remorse when I killed, but the pressure I felt from the others was a meaner beast. It pressed up against my soul like a sharp blade, and sliced into it with measured and convincing strokes. So, when the vote came for me to kill the boy, I killed him without thinking. It was always easiest that way.

My knife cut into his neck, and I felt the tendons and veins give like dry wood under flame. The blood ran in random streams down his pale torso, and some of it pooled on his penis and balls. It dripped down his un-circumcised dick, right on the part where a circumcision creates the head-gear of The Third Reich. Then it seeped onto the floor, where it would leave a stain if we did not clean it.

I went to get a rag, and the boy slumped, his arms snaked with burns from where they fought the tenacious grip of the rope.

Let's talk about universal freedom as it relates to "The Gaza Problem"

2010-06-25T14:01:00.003-04:00

The recent worldwide discourse party -- which is like a disco party, only lamer -- over Israel's blockade of Gaza, with the usual camps and the usual stances bouncin' around, has helped me, internally, to formulate my philosophical position on The Gaza Problem. This post is an attempt to externalize it, should anyone care to know it. You might disagree with this position. Many do, and those are the people I would love to debate with. Because for me, for my moral compass, which encompasses my political one -- because I believe a truly enlightened politics ought to be grounded in the moral question "what ought I do?" -- it is an undeniable, unambiguous, and unmitigated conclusion that the people of Gaza need to be granted their fundamental freedoms.

I ask those reading to put aside your prejudice and your pragmatism. I am not making a pragmatic argument or offering policy advice fit for immediate implementation. I believe it is practical concerns as well as socially engendered anti-Arab prejudice that has obscured the following points from view. These points relate not to what we can do (although we certainly can do it) but to what we should do, because I believe that's more important. I also ask that you forgive my brevity as I attempt to distill some Big Ideas down to a few measly Blogger-enabled paragraphs.

The unique joy of most Western societies -- and I believe that the fact that they are Western is a contingency, a happy accident, not something that arose due to the inherently enlightened nature of the West or of Western people; I digress, but this is a really unfortunate and unfortunately widespread delusion, one that has justified many of the most immoral and idiotic decisions to come out of the West in the last 500 years (see this text for a useful, if flawed account of some of these blunders, and this one which is more empirically rigorous but less bold in its critique), so it bears emphasis -- is that human beings within them are allowed the freedom to try, to fail, and most importantly, to sin. I say most importantly because it is the starry-eyed optimism of our democracy to assume the best of human beings, to assume that they are generally good, and thus to punish after a crime has been committed rather than before, that I believe makes it beautiful and right. When our people do sin -- when they cause harm to others -- we (rightfully) empower our institutions to intervene. It is this whirlwind of free decision-making, prior to official intervention, that is an end in itself -- indeed, it is a categorical imperative -- but that also, from the point-of-view of end results, generates more good. It was out of this primordial Freedom soup that emerged Martin Luther King, Jr., Quentin Tarantino, and Google.

In short, the good of freedom begets more good (and goods) for the free.

It follows, then, that however it must be done, it nonetheless must be done that the sphere of human freedom expand to include the people of Gaza. This would be an enormous gift to the existing sphere in economic benefit, justice, and world peace. When and if terrorism and political violence occurs in this transformed society, there would, of course, be official mechanisms (like the separate justice systems that already exist in Israel and Gaza, for instance) empowered by the people to deal with it. This is the proper way of doing things -- the way we do them in our Enlightened Western Societies: we punish after wrongdoing has occurred. And yet currently, over a million people, many of them young children, are being punished prior to doing anything wrong. Why is this so hard to realize, or to take seriously? Why the foot-dragging? Why is this argument hardly ever espoused (or thoroughly explained) in mainstream US discourse, instead relegated to the hushed whispers of Arab- and Muslim-Americans (the ones that haven't been detained domestically or extraordinarily renditioned abroad by our government), radical anti-Imperialists, and crank neo-Nazis?

How can citizens and politicians of societies like the United States and Israel, that so constantly broadcast propaganda about their fundamental freedoms, not see that it is immoral not to extend those freedoms everywhere possible? Those who hold freedom as a first principle simply must see that this is the only philosophically consistent position. The Gazans are not free, and it is Israel (and through diplomatic and economic pressure, the United States and the EU) that has the power to free them. Therefore, the current state of affairs, in which Israel willfully keeps the people of Gaza in bondage, is morally wrong and must end.

This is far from a complete argument, but it is enough for now. I welcome good faith commentary and criticism. Thanks, and have a good weekend.

The Flame Pt. 2

2010-05-15T16:28:00.003-04:00

When The Flame and I walked through the front doors of the high school as freshman, I knew that things were going to change. Most ugly kids hold illusions that their attractive friends will stick around with them when the transition from small puddle to big pond occurs. The social mantras are the same. The terrified little pukes vibrate and buzz with the familiar "our friendship is too strong" call, and they sound like broken records until all doubt has ceased and they find themselves choking on the dust cloud of what once was.

The Flame never gave it much thought I suppose. He never did, and all his actions were a direct result of some inane ability to plunge headfirst into unknown waters without a single hint of negative repercussion. I can never know if he meant to abandon me, or if, like photosynthesis or a heart beating, it just happened. I accepted it, and as The Flame grew larger and more voracious and became a beautiful, lean, young man with devilish smiles, which were flashed with random disregard for the well-being of the palpitating hearts of the young women around him, I was even proud to call him a kid I used to be friends with.

The other kids like me, with whom I had taken social refuge (more for superficial grouping purposes than friendship) would bulge their eyes when I told them that Lance Hodgeman and I used to sleep over at each others houses with all the regularity of a metronome. By my past association with The Flame, Yeti was a small god to these even smaller cogs in the churning wheels of high school society.

This was not, as it turned out, enough to satiate my social cravings. Weird kids who play bloody knuckles and use swear words like "dick fucker", "Cock fucker", and "Pussy Fucker" just to compensate for their grand lack of verbal ability to be humorous and interesting, they were not exactly my ideal peers. But what could I do? I was stuck in the public school system, wading my way through it on a diet of cafeteria hash browns and chocolate milk.

I had long ago given up on my attempts to be anything but a fat kid. Fat kid was me. When people who had no idea who I was (and this accounted for a great deal of the school) would forever be told that I was "that fat kid who sits with those weird kids".

And even when people knew my name, they could not pinpoint the moment they learned it. They had not met me at a party, gone on a date with me, nor did they know anyone who knew me, had been to parties with me, or had gone on dates with me. Most of them, I assume, had at one point or another been told who I was. Or they had been in my lab group.

When people did know me they just went ahead and called me by my first name. There was no more Yeti. I was just me, and voided of my nickname (though I hated it) I was somehow more myself than I had ever been. I began to realize that I was at the heart of my peak. I had plateaued, and I had done it to no great consequence. Now for the plummet, which I assumed would last until the day my body would either quit or would be forcibly removed from its functions. So, at the age of fifteen, I sat down, made my peace, and waited with dejected patience to die. And while I waited, I reveled in the powerful shadows and heat cast all over the halls and classrooms and lips of pretty girls by The Flame.

All of this is not to suggest that The Flame and I did not talk to one another. We did. Occasionally, on days when my life would feel redeemable, he would approach me with a smile that encompassed the whole of his face and was as sincere as a death bed prayer. He always meant well, and no person can ever say a word of truth that is also a word that slanders The Flames morals.

"Hey, Yeti!" He would exuberantly say to me. "Hey, Yeti what are you getting into this weekend?"

When I heard this I would smile way too big at his face, and I could always feel the fat around my face condense into what looked like old, fatty, canned soup.

"Oh, nothing probably."

Again, as I tersely responded with a million angry frogs dry humping the inside of my throat, he would shoot me a smile that could make Klansmen want to adopt African orphans. With that smile he would be gone off to have a weekend the likes of which I would never experience. In the split second I had him by the smile, I would try and read the twinkle in his eyes. What memories of our youth were playing behind them? Was the invisible projector of the brain spinning off dusty old reels of he and I as boys laughing and screaming and running amok in the not so distant past? I for one did picture those days. Every day that went by without his friendship, was one more day that my Flame flickered towards extinguishment. To catch his smile, to hear him remember the only nickname I had ever had, and to be the center of his attention, was oxygenizing the gentle fire inside me. My own flame, like a match hurled deep into the sun, was nothing compared to The Flame's.

The Flame

2010-05-15T14:46:00.003-04:00

Back when we were all kids when Lance and I played basketball together on the same intramural team we used to be really into nicknames. Young boys do that sort of thing. I called Lance The Flame, because he was always eating something. Food was always either in his hand or mouth or mid-transit between the two points. He chewed with a vengeance, and his white teeth incinerated food like the blades on a coffee grinder. And no matter how much or what he ate he stayed as skinny as a European Jew circa 1945. This fact amazed me and shamed me, for I was not so lucky in body as The Flame.

I was fat, and I ate less than Lance. I ate like a fat kid trying to be skinny. My chubby body jiggled with guilt and shame every time I dared pick up, with pale sausage fingers, some morsel akin to Twinky. So I ate with a healthful mind, and I was still fat. Lance, in addition to being my best friend, was also the first person to instill in me shame and a sense that I would always be second tier to beautiful people. Lance was a beautiful person. Even when he was not much much more than skin and bones, he was radiant for a little boy.

His hair was jet black, and it draped low and curly over his ears and the curve of the back of his neck. Beneath that tuft was skin, tan and soft, unbroken save for the proper and well proportioned orifices of mouth, eye socket, and nasal passages. And beyond that center for expression and voice was a lean, youthful body, which promised impressive musculature as soon as age caught up with ambition. The flame was beautiful.

Lance called me Yeti, because I was big, fat, and I lumbered across the court like some decrepit sasquatch. He and I laughed when he would say it, and he had no idea that just under the surface of my sallow skin raged the fires of self loathing. Saggy clothes became my standard dress, and I hoped that they would be sufficient to cover up the droop of my equally saggy tits. Sometimes they were, and sometimes (when I did not hit the mirror at the correct angle) they did not even come close. Yeti was a mess.

The question on all lips (as I saw it) was an obvious one. What is Lance Hodgeman doing with that fat kid? The coupling of us two kids was about as strange as a midget on the arm of a swimsuit model. Very often, if not always, people assume based on looks. No one takes into account such factors such as true love. Perhaps true love is too strong a descriptor for The Flame and I. Perhaps it only accounts for one half of our emotions. I only know what I know. And the whole time like a dead branch precariously hanging over raging rapids, was the knowledge that all things fall apart especially those things which are not streamlined for success.

And so, as The Flame and the Yeti wore shoes out on the hardwood gym floors of their youth, the Yeti thought about losing The Flame, and the Flame just burned and ate and thought about nothing at all, because beautiful people don't really need to.

The Purpose of The Cute Barista

2010-05-10T01:46:00.001-04:00

When I see the two middle eastern guys looking at me I almost lose my nerve. I can't help it, them consorting together in that corner of Starbucks gives me the chills. I know they're probably just two friends on a lunch break, but they might not be. And it's there, in the unknown that I find my worst fears running with scissors. And they give me a look that says with robust capitalization "what the fuck man?". I can only assume I have given them my "please don't blow us all up!" look.

All my festering white American guilt rushes to the outskirts of my stomach and lines it like acid rain. Should I apologize? No, that would almost certainly make matters much worse. So I just go and order my latte. God-damnit.

When I get back out to the street I'm not feeling much better about myself. I'm pretty sure the cute girl behind the counter saw me judge those two middle eastern guys. This gets me thinking about the general existence of the barista in American society.

It seems like every young American has that "cute barista" they lust after with regularity. I certainly do, and the mere fact that I suspect she may have seen me being accidentally bigoted is enough to send me into tremors of nerves and psychosis. She has no idea what my name is, but somehow that corner of my brain which allows for irrational hope-fullness has implanted a very specific scenario in my psyche. It goes like this:

It's just an ordinary evening. I'm not doing much so I decide to take a walk down to Starbucks. I feel slightly guilty for not supporting the local indy coffee shop, but I have my reasons for going to Starbucks. First, I just like Starbucks coffee. Sue me.

Second, there's the girl that works there every evening from about (exactly) noon to nine. I know her name is Cindy. I know this because if you listen to her talk to her co-workers long enough you can hear them call her Cindy. This it of espionage is not something I'm proud of, but it's also not something I regret.

She's skinny hot, slinky, and she's got the smile of a thousand picnics when she hands you the change. She makes small talk when you ask her how she is, But you feel like there's always the opportunity to saw something to elevate the conversation. The dreams is to get her going and laughing and to have her talk to you through other customers as you linger at the counter.

And this evening, as I walk through the precipice of that corporate mainstay, she looks up and gives me the smile she gives other regulars. My heart skips a beat, but I don't just stare at her blankly with an ignorant hint of hate. I smile back, and I can feel the parting of my lips shoot straight to her center of cardiac inner-workings and electrify every corner of her womanly being. God damnit, I think to myself, I fucking nailed it.

So I just strut up there to where she is, and I say "what's up to-day?"

"You know, here. So same old same old. I bet I know what you want."

She does not know what I want. I want a caramel frappucino , because they are cold and delicious and brimming with fatty and wonderful cream. Every time I order at a Starbucks, this is what I want to order. I do not order one though. I order a medium coffee. I do this because it costs just under two dollars, whereas a frappucino costs upwards of five dollars. Also, I don't want to get fat, because if I get fat I lose ground in my quest to be an attractive male. And somehow I have myself convinced that black coffee will perpetuate and perhaps even catalyze slimness. Who knows if I'm right. It's just a belief. But I don't want her to know this stuff.

"Yeah, and what do I want?"

"Grande coffee."

"Wrong. Today I think I'll go with a soy latte."

Here I am taking a bit of a leap of faith. She looks like she might be into all that shit, she has that tattoo on her wrist. And she's skinny, and skinny people like soy. Of course, she might have labeled me a hipster pussy the second I ordered it. Who knows. All I know is when you have a crush you gotta make moves. It's like a game of chess where you have no idea if the opponent even knows you're playing chess.

"Going fancy today I see?"

"Why not? I don't have anywhere to be. And you gotta see how the other side lives every once in a while, right?"

Nailed it! Now even if she dislikes soy beverages, I've implanted in her mind that I'm drinking it ironically. Fucking nailed it. Oh and she's eating it up. This is too good to believe. We're talking, actually talking. The conversation, albeit, is being done over commerce, but it's still happening.

She gives me one of those expert looks hot girls have when they know exactly what makes them look hot and have practiced it countless times on men and in front of a mirror.

"Nothing going on? That's a shame."

"Well it comes with the territory of being single in the city" At this point I am a conductor manipulating my orchestra through dramatic crescendo.

"You know I don't have anything to do tonight either. I feel your pain." She says like a great point-guard lobbing a precise pass over the basket to the rippling small forward who grabs it-

"Wouldn't it be funny if I took you out for coffee?"

-and just fucking stuffs it home!

"Not even slightly. I hate coffee. You think I want a cup of coffee after working here all day?"

And the ball rolls around the rim. The crowd gapes in anticipation.

"No, I guess not. You must hate the stuff."

Both teams are off the bench, staring at the ball as it rolls around and around the rim. They are no fools, they know the game rides on this moment.

"Oh I do", she says with the kind of smile that alludes to great things to come. "What I really want is a beer. You can take me out for one of those."

The ball falls through the net with barely a swish. The crowd goes ape-shit.

And my latte is done, and she does not even make me pay. Life is good, and every single bit of foliage smells ten times as great as it used to.

At least that's how it should happen. Of course it doesn't. Obviously it fucking doesn't. I look back her way, and I see that she's laughing with the Middle Eastern guys. One of them makes eye contact with me, and he's got all the hunger and vengeance of a marathon runner in his brown eyes. His toothy smile reveals pearly white smugness. I can almost hear him when he orders a latte.

Fuck it. They probably just hired her so schmucks like me buy coffee. God damn it.

Fuck if I know.

2010-05-08T16:30:00.002-04:00

It is almost summer now, but today for some reason the weather is bitter. I have no idea why. A meteorologist would have to explain it to you. If you're a smart person you just might understand what the meteorologist has to say. My guess is that it has something to do with the the rotation of Earth. I could be way off. I'm not scientist.

As a matter of fact, I am not specialized in any way. Some people my age are. Kids like me can perform miraculous mathematical equations with real world applications. Some can predict trajectory, write beautifully and convincingly, and academically explain the mysteries of the universe. I can not. I am mediocre in every way. I make up for this mediocrity with an overly boisterous persona. I laugh too loud, and I speak with an heir of confidence that I have not earned. If you listen close enough to my voice and look at my eyes, you can see just how easily I might come apart. My average intelligence and my inflated, gorged, and infected ego force me to walk a tight-rope, which bridges personal failure and philosophical doom.

The real tragedy of this is not the fact that my mediocrity is fact. It is my own realization of it. A tarantula can go about its business with ease and confidence, because it does not know how hideous it is. I can not. Every conversation I have is a thinly veiled attempt to puff out my chest and not cower in the shadow of the colossal genius of the world. What confines me to those shadows is nothing more than my own sense of reality. I suppose I do not put much stock in my ability. And perhaps my average accomplishments are a self fulfilling prophecy to which I need not subscribe. Yet, I do subscribe. I do it wholeheartedly.

Someday, I think, I might experience an epiphany, which elevates me to greater planes of thought. It will be accomplished through hard work and nothing else. Someday, I think, I might just give up entirely. Maybe everyone does. Maybe everyone is a genius, and maybe just some people have the balls to accept it.

Fuck if I know.

When You Know CPR.

2010-04-26T19:20:00.002-04:00

When you've been certified, you are always supposed to administer CPR. It's just the rules. After you have spent your time pushing and blowing into dummies, the real thing awaits. I am certified. I had to be in high school. Health class required it. So that's why I'm pounding away and blowing into this mutilated body on the side of the road. Truth be told, I do not think I'm making a difference. It's still alive, and I can hear most of its sporadic breaths coming out all awful and wispy like so much punctured lung. And, even if I could not hear the breathing, I can see the bleeding. Dead things don't bleed. And this thing is bleeding, but it's not like bleeding in a gushing way at all. It's more like flood water coming over the side of the dam, all spread out and slow-like. And it's all over my hands, my palms look like Jackson Pollocks after making something red.

A lot of the times, when people are in shitty situations, they say they take a step away from their body. And they say that they just hover overhead watching themselves like from an aerial camera in a movie. I'm not saying that's bullshit or anything, but that is not how I feel right now. Right now I feel like my head is about twelve dozen times too small and a lot closer to my heart. I feel all squeezed in, and I can hear my heart pounding away with all the rhythm and cadence of a strong fucker mid-coitus. And my breath is in and out without really getting all the way out or all the way in. It's sounding like that noise a fat kid makes when he eats, like that greedy gutteral sniffling sound of food being ingested by greedy lips of pure pudge. I'm just about dying from it all. All I want to do is take my hands off of the fleshy, disgusting, soon to not be human, human being that lays directly beneath me. But god-damn it, when you know CPR there are certain things that are expected of you.

So I have absolutely no idea whatsoever who this is. I came in after the fact. I have no idea what this person looks like, used to look like, and I have no idea why I should want to save this person. What possible good could restoring proper cardiac function do. Sometimes, I think to myself, life just isn't worth living. And, yet, here I am trying harder than I've ever tried at anything to save this life.

People are all around me. Some are looking away. Some can't. Some (mostly the men) are yelling advice. Half of them have called the police. Some of them haven't thought of it yet. And I make the mistake of really looking at their faces. And I remember exactly what I am touching.

It's so hot, this flesh. It feels like a wet shirt someone just ironed over. My little finger is inside its skin, burined just outside a flap of muscle. I can't even tell its race. I can't even tell its gender. There are no legs, wait yes there are. The legs are over there, about five yards to my left. A bloody high-heel is next to them. Something else, too. What is that?

It's the bottom half of a face, a jaw. Oh and I can still see the skin. It's a white person's skin. A white woman. Now it's nothing more than a rotten slab of poorly rendered meat. I want to be anywhere else but here. God, I would rather be at the DMV, I would rather work at the DMV than be here. The paved road underneath me is caked with blood and other bits of person. The rest of the face, the part still on the rest of the body is looking at me. The eyes are still moving slowly, pupils all the way dilated. They are blue, shockingly blue. I got told once, by a girl I was about to kiss, that when pupils are all the way big like that it means someone likes you.

And all of a sudden there is a strong hand on my back. It's pulling me away from it. I fight for a moment, and then I let go. They put it on a stretcher, carry it away into an ambulance. The police officer still has his hand on my shoulder. He screams at me through tear stained eyes and a snotty nose. His face is red, vomit's on his chest so I can't read his badge number. He says.

"Just stay calm."

He runs off, and I'm left to my own devices. I crawl around for a while. I'm not up to walking yet. I try to get away from the pool of people parts and fluids, but it's all around. And I see it. I see the wallet.

I reach out for it, and my hand is shaking so much that blood is spraying off of it like water from a happy labrador retriever after a swim. Somehow I have it, and I open it. There's a drivers license in there. The picture is of a beautiful girl, she's smiling up at the camera. It's such a good picture that I forget for a moment where I am. It's so hard to get a good license picture. And this girl has pulled it off, pulled off the impossible. She has taken an amazing picture. Her eyes are blue, and she smiles like I'm an old friend. I have no idea who she is. I've never seen her before.

would you rather have another, fully functioning, dick on your neck or a vagina, anywhere you desire?

2010-04-13T20:30:00.002-04:00

The use of the modifier "fully functioning" here makes this a very difficult choice. Allow me to explain: I would totally go with a second dick if it didn't include a second bladder. 'Cause I wouldn't want to take twice the bathroom breaks. But "fully functioning" suggests that this dick will certainly function to expel urine when its bladder becomes too full-y. If so, I guess I'd go with the vagina. Yeah, I'd probably just make one of my armpits a vagina.

Ask me anything

Black House

2010-04-08T00:45:00.003-04:00

Her house was as close to a spider web as a human home can get. At some point, when first erected, I suppose it must have been brick and plaster. Though at this I can only postulate. It was so overgrown with vine and musk by the time I saw it. That house was black, too. Painted that way. It was a three story semi-mansion, dormers at the top promised murder and decay. The rusticated goblin head of a knocker gave the front door an "enter if you dare" type vibe. It must have been restored by a vampire or some similar brand of ghoul.

The summer I saw the house was the same summer that nearly broke me. It was the heat and the lack of air conditioning. It was the sweat and the dirt that the sweat brought down in desperate streams. It was the constant reminder that I was as stuck as I had ever been. It was me being as cynical and lonely as I had ever been in my short life.

Really, the reason was that I had been in love prior to that summer. And during the hot summer I was just in a state of love lost. She was something else. I don't know how to describe it really except to say that she was an embodiment of all things amazing and awful. And when we made love it was as wonderful as our battles were terrible. It was the sort of relationship where sex and war came in quick succession of one another, because of one another, and in spite of one another.

We would collapse back into the sheets, laughing, as our throats itched with the hoarseness of yelling at each other. It was, to say the least confusing.

And when it ended all emotions blended together and I forgot how awful she could be. I only remembered that she was wonderful sometimes too. And we never spoke again.

I was twenty-two. Before long the heat got to me. The sweat got to me. The sheer nature of the city pounding with cigarette butts and muttering, chattering, screaming crazy people, dug into my soul. The city had been my home for twenty two years, and I was growing sick of it. I loved it as a person loves the walk of his own living room, but it was like the old friend whose every move you can predict. I needed out. But I was too scared to leave. So I stayed and vowed to leave.

All the places she and I went suddenly became taboo. All the benches we had kissed on were like ice to the ass of a freezing man. The buses we had taken together were missiles of heartbreak. So I ventured out further and further into the ether of the city. I went to places I didn't know, where the old and dying sat on their front porches and told stories from their mobile days.

Further and further I went, and I realized that the city (except select places) was not so far removed from the country in people and behaviors. It just smelled worse, wreaked of garbage and dangerous possibilities. But I knew I would not run into her in the outskirts.

And then one day, as I ventured into some dark and foreboding corner of the city, I saw the house. How could I not. It was a nightmare house, fresh from the pages of some scary book. I stood for a long while, and the sun made me sweat. But I could not stop staring. It was so satisfyingly ugly. And it fed my masochistic soul the awful ideas it hungered for.

I imagined vivisection, dis-disembowelment, lonely self strangulation, dysfunctional love, cannibalism, sexually deviant torture, and other manner of terrible deeds occurring within the walls of the house. These thoughts filled a need. I did not question it.

Finally, as I felt the sun descending, it was time to leave. I walked home, which took hours, and when I got back it was dark and lonely. My house was silent. My roommates had gone to bed, and I crawled into my bed. I dreamed no dreams that night.

The next day I was back again. I left the house early. It was the earliest I had been awake in months, since the time she and I had gone to breakfast early. And before long, after a walk during which my mind wandered further than my feet could manage, I was before the house again.

This was the first time I saw her. She opened up the front door and stepped out into the hot air. She was so old I imagined a stiff wind might blow the flesh off her. She was so old my heart skipped beats. It may have been electronically influenced by hers, which, I'm sure, was beating at anything but an even staccato. Her skin was comprised of a million creases, smoothness was nowhere to be found on her. She wore a single black cloak, maybe a dress. And her hair was jet -black. There was no gray to her, even though her age may have outdone that of any person alive. Maybe, I thought, when she went inside her house she simply molded into the walls and slept.

How does someone live as long as that? I imagined death following her with an eye on his watch, trying to make his lunch break. But she was unfazed by his presence. She simply paced along her front lawn, which was overgrown by tall grass and dandelions. She sun beat down on her brow, and she produced no moisture. She must have had none to yield.

I was a voyeur for sure on the adjacent sidewalk. And when I watched I was aware of my own frantic thoughts. They centered around the thought of being like that someday, of a long life yielding this unavoidable end, and a short life being punctuated by pain and regret. Son of a bitch, the whole thing was blade of sharp fuck it all.

Silently I left, and I did not look back to see what she might do next. I had to fix myself.

Landon

2010-04-01T12:44:00.001-04:00

Landon Anderson walks around his modest two-story house with a noticeable stagger today. He’s old, and he’s achieved the point in the lifespan where age does not gradually occur but rather rapidly whirs by like a fast motion video of the sunset. He holds no illusions about his own death. It’s coming, and Landon realizes now that it might as well come. Things won’t get better.

The house is empty, and it has been for quite some time. He tried to sell it once. They were a young couple expecting a baby, twins actually, and they were simply chomping at the bit to buy. Landon could not do it. He could not sever the only string, save for his ever-fading memories; he had left of what his life had been. It hadn’t been good for long, but it had been very good when it was.

His wife, he had met her during an extended furlough from the Vietnam War, had been devastatingly attractive. She was the kind of woman men see and subsequently curse on account of never getting to be with her. Somehow Landon had been with her, many times though, this number did not nearly gross out to being enough. She was tall, legs accounted for most of her height, and she almost seemed to bend and sway with the passing of the wind. All her beauty, or most of it anyway, could not be quantified into simple terms like boobs and butt. Her design (be it genetic or crafted by some other over lording being) was more along the lines of something she possessed. Some girls, Landon had noticed, have nice parts. Some girls have nice swagger. And some girls, like his wife, have more than the sum of parts and confidence; they possess that nonsensical x-factor that makes smart men’s hearts and heads spin round like an old cartoon.

Their romance has no place in this tale. It belongs in another, happier one. But it never will be told, because Landon is the only one left who remembers it. And he’s incapable of the task of telling.

Anyway, she died.

Landon could not sell the house, and the couple left without their prize. As they pulled away, in their slick sedan, Landon could not help but feel hate for them. But he knew that hate wasn’t anything more than a desire to have lived a different way.

And today, as Landon limps about his home, the whole and sum of his life isn’t far from his mind. He’s made his money by selling medical supplies. He didn’t sell medicine. He sold the supplies, needles, syringes, bandages, chest paddles, operating tables, scalpels, breathing apparatus, and sometimes medical gowns. He made some money from it. He made not friends from it.

And so his life went, selling medical supplies to hospitals over the phone, wandering the container of his life in the meantime, and growing meaner and meaner by the minute. Then one day, he died.

That day happens to be today, and impeded by a sudden and merciless heart attack, Landon finally falls over. All the unbalanced ambulation of his life, which by the age of sixty had become his usual mode of transportation, seemed to explode in his last minutes. He grappled around hopelessly for a while, reaching for the wall, reaching for the telephone, reaching for anything that might prove a panacea to his predicament. Finally he fell, face first, into a rather large knife. Poor dead Landon had left out the knife that very morning. He had used it to slice cheese for his breakfast (the argument might be made that it was his daily cheese habit that raised his cholesterol to a level sufficient enough to arrest his heart), and in his old age and general state of hopelessness he had neglected to put it away. The knife almost halved his face, and soon after this he was dead. It might be said that his heart plotted his death and used the cheese knife as a murder weapon.

As he lay there, for the final few seconds, gasping for breath with his face eviscerated in a ghoulish way, a strange and incomprehensible thing happened. Landon vanished. Every single aspect of his life, his history, his favorite and least favorite foods, songs, and activities became stuck in history forever. He kept no journal of these facts, he had no one to tell them to. They just got shuffled away into the inaccessible vault where all things unknowable go. Maybe this is the last thing he thought as his eyes (now decidedly farther apart) closed. Maybe the thought never crossed his mind. He was eighty-seven.

No one, save for a few uneasy co-workers and clients of his, came to his funeral, which was held with no ado in a poorly ventilated church. The service consisted mostly of non-specific bible quotations and general thoughts on the nature of death. The preacher, God love him, tried his best. There just isn’t much to be done or said when there isn’t anything to know.

2010-03-30T14:35:00.002-04:00

My penis is a foul thing, and it has been placed and probed in some vile places. I hold no illusions as to whether it might ever be loved and respected by a respectable woman. It is simply a drooping flesh bag of white trach intentions. As a pleasure center, it functions without amiss. Truthfully, I feel a small pang of remorse each and every time it spouts out of my own accord. I rub my thumb in and out of the crevaces between my fingers when I achieve my lonely peak. Quite a life I lead, me penis and I.

Why are you so opposed to the health care bill?

2010-03-22T23:05:00.003-04:00

It will not control the exorbitant costs associated with our system. Costs are so high in the US because a few massive insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies have effectively become monopolies (due in large part to rules and regulations extant in the system that only they can afford to adhere to; notice how you never hear of health insurance "upstarts"--this is why). Rather than forcing these monopolies to lower costs either through increasing competition in the system (like by implementing a public option, ending the employer-based setup, etc.) or totally taking control away from them (effectively removing the right of these companies to do business, based on a model like France--rather than Britain, Canada, or Massachusetts--because it is the most efficient and cost-effective), this legislation offers insurers no incentive to lower prices--it offers them exactly the opposite. Put another way, reform I'd support would be a move in a new direction of either true liberalism (like the kind of reform advocated here) or true collectivism (like France's system). This "reform" package is not a new direction, it maintains our essential lack of control thanks to an increase in public-private in-breeding.

I don't deny that insuring 30 million Americans, if actually achieved by this reform package, will be a good thing. That's a wonderful thing. But at what cost? Can we really afford this right now? I'd honestly defer this kind of communitarian reform to until we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The last thing I'll mention specifically that I take exception to is the individual mandate. This bill makes it law that all Americans must purchase health insurance. That offends my principles quite deeply. How can our government compel us to buy a product? I personally know young, healthy people who choose not to buy health insurance because it just isn't cost-effective for them. Perhaps some of the subsidies in the bill will change that. But regardless, no one should be forced to buy something, ever, just as in a free society no one should be forced to say something, think something, or do something.

Overall this legislation is just a damn mess; it's totally partisan, it's backed by all the biggest players in the healthcare racket, and it's not as affordable as Congress is advertising. Our deficit issues are not going away, and this bill will just compound them. Not to mention it will compound the issue more specific to healthcare, that of costs being out of control; there's simply nothing in this bill that gives insurance companies incentive to lower costs.

Ask me anything

Eternal Love

2010-03-09T02:28:00.003-05:00

Through the silence of the forest any fool could figure out that she and I were dying. Our breaths left our bodies with such insufficient voracity that a person might be inclined to think we were closer to the end than we really were. But somehow all the birds and bugs and animals in the forest just crawled on through all the other dead things. With every ounce of me I wanted to help her, and I would have given all my pain and taken it ten fold just to see her wounds become survivable. But some things just don't work like that.

People are not clay, and they can not be put back together as such. Knives and guns scratch us the same as they destroy ceramics. And we shatter wetter than such breakable things do. And I felt my heart break again as her breath came out with sobs of bloody repent. I would have given anything in the strange world just to get my hands around the neck of that hunter. All his lessons would have come from me.

She was my love, and we had too short of a time together. Our bodies were still young and resilient. Nothing could stop us and we, the both of us, still found that eyes would wander our way in their idle sexual way. And now our blood flowed together into the dirt.

A walk was all we wanted. Hand in hand we would have kept on until the dusk came over the trees like molasses through a light maze of fresh skin. Her eyes met mine, and they cried to me for a safe trip back home.

Before her love had been something that existed to me through stories and memories. Did it exist? I was more than pretty sure that it did. However, this assertion had been more positive. Without love was life an endeavor worth undertaking? My sixth sense told me no. So I believed. And then, like a strange coincidence, we found our way into the others life. I knew she loved me by how she looked at me. And she knew how I loved her by how I felt for her every morning.

It was unassuming, untouchable love. Nothing in the wide world could impede its path. No one could interrupt us. And all the while we knew it could not last. Something in the way we kissed informed us that at some point the glass would shatter and it would be all up to us to pick up the pieces. Maybe love could still last. Humans are all plagued by boredom, which is nothing more than a realization of our own mortal timeline. We sabotage ourselves by deciding we can do better than we have. Our own deathly senses of confidence destroy any chances we have at happiness, and then sometimes we get old and die all by ourselves. No one to keep us in the winter.

So, as my chest belched blood, I found a peace in the sputtering freight train that would be her las breaths. She would die loving me. And I could die without being alone.

Our confused and condemned hunter had, without his knowledge, done us a good deed. And to think he fled through the forest in great haste. Could I have mustered a word, I would have thanked him with my very last breath.

Tired.

2010-03-02T11:51:00.002-05:00

Have you ever stayed up all night trying to sleep? Laying in your bed as the artificial sunlight from the street lamp burns through your window is maddening. Over and over you forget where you are your thoughts flit in and out of reality. Then you remember that you need to sleep because you need to be awake in the morning, awake enough to function and interact with the human beings you will see. Now you catalogue what you did the night before. How many cups of coffee did you drink? What did you eat? Who did you talk to? And it all starts to form a picture of the insane state of your own biological existence.

Then it's morning somehow. You try and remember what your clock said right before you fell asleep. You try and remember when you fell asleep, gutting the day out is not going to be fun. Everything after this is a haze.

White

2010-02-23T17:28:00.002-05:00

The feeling come over me
Like a freight train o' heaven
My skin be lighter
Than a brush fire ablaze
In history these be our days
Good Caesar the geezer
whiter than a haze
Around rome he roamed
and he left in a blaze

Good Hitler the fella
Misunderstood
For really he was good
Oh don't get me wrong
I should be lynched by a throng
For singing his praises is akin
To cursing the blazes
But his skin and mine
were just dandy and fine

JFK had a bad time in Dallas
The shooter was callous and did him up dead
and the streets ran red
with Irish Blood
but hillbillies just chewed like cows to the cud
for Irish don't mean white
Just like day don't mean night.

Tony Blair was a guy
in whose heart I say ay'
In agreeance I say my pot is a'filling
cause he was good to us
in a coalition o' the willing

Oh Bush he was our man
And Clinton was too
But with this Obama in office
We can't help but be blue.
But we will come back
I guarantee you

Being white be so nice
and black must be
black
cause we ain't been slaves
not even for a day
in this country we own
all the other colors

HOORAY!

Black

2010-02-14T12:50:00.003-05:00

Covered in darkness,
Shadowed by light,
I' am your black nightmare,
Look at me,

Look at me!
I' am black nightmare,
Getting an education,
Developing my mind

I want to sing...

Oh say can you see,
By the dawns early light,
What so proudly we heiled!

Senate approves more sanctions against Iran

2010-01-29T14:19:00.015-05:00

Today the US Senate passed a bill which will impose economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The plan is to “target companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand the country’s oil-refining capacity by, in part, denying them loans and other assistance from U.S. financial institutions.”

I argued in a post I wrote last year for my blog that this is collective punishment, and is therefore immoral and shouldn’t be done. Despite our leaders’ hearts constantly weeping for the Iranian populace – ”‘The situation in Iran is terrible and it’s worsening. People are dying in Iran as we speak,’ said Senator John McCain just before the Senate [sanctions] vote” — sanctions lower the standard of living for all Iranian civilians.

The counterargument is that the ends justify the means; not a very Kantian ethical argument, but an argument nonetheless. Well, in that case, shouldn’t we use the same means to pressure Israel to abandon its occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights in Syria, and its aggressive stance towards Lebanon? Proponents of sanctions and even military action against Iran feel that an Iranian nukes program is a threat to world peace. I respond, what world peace? The reason that peace with the Arab world is not achievable right now is that the aforementioned territories plus Iraq and Afghanistan are all currently occupied by Western militaries. The Arab stance is, “no justice, no peace.” My claim is that Israeli aggression in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon is currently blocking peace, while Iranian nuclear weapons are not yet a reality. (Of course, our own War on Terror is also making world peace — tautologically — impossible. If only we could impose sanctions on the United States!)

So which should be a US priority? That’s easy. If our concern is our continued domination of the Middle East, we should prioritize the neutralization of Iran’s nuclear program — all the while framing our actions as “protecting world peace.” In reality, we are protecting our own immoral regional project which is threatened by an Iran willing to put nuclear money where its Holocaust-denying mouth is. But these sorts of punitive actions will likely just entrench Iran’s theocracy more, and probably increase public support there for nukes to boot. And round, round, round we go.

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

Obama’s first year extended the US military consensus, portends more foreign resistance

2010-01-26T14:23:00.003-05:00

Steve Chapman — one of my favorite contributors over at reason — wrote a beautifully concise editorial a few weeks ago making the case that Obama’s first year in foreign policy has brought nothing new, despite any conspicuous honors asserting the contrary. One of the most important points Chapman makes is this:

The administration and its opponents both make much of its plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by this summer and to pull the rest out by 2012. What both prefer to forget is that the previous president agreed to the same timetable. Obama’s policy on the war he once opposed is not similar to Bush’s: It is identical.

You hear a lot of the president’s defenders, in the face of criticism of his Afghanistan policy, offer two major responses: 1. at least he’s ending Bush’s idiotic and quixotic Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 2. at least he’s ending Bush’s secretive and illiberal policy of detainment at Guantanamo Bay. Chapman has just dealt with defense number one. Two? Ummmmmm.

Chapman also notes that defense spending is increasing under Obama (while conservatives still harp on him for being “soft” on defense).

So what we actually have, a year into this new administration, is a total endorsement of the self-destructive imperialism which has been slowly eroding the democratic capitalist consensus since the fall of the Wall. Meanwhile, we liberal democracies — “the good guys” — build more and more Walls which justify the anger and resistance of those left on the outside. Or, perhaps more accurately, those whose lives and livelihoods are trampled in the wall’s construction.

Quickly, consider the mind-boggling nature of the way our leaders frame defense policy. They spend more on defense — and thus maintain more bases and possess more advanced weaponry — than anyone else in the world. They also donate more to Israel’s military than that of any other nation in the world. And yet they have argued, almost continuously, that the US and Israel are under threat of extermination. What they have done is they have flipped things around. They’ve emphasized the 3000 Americans killed on 9/11 and downplayed the hundreds of thousands of Arabs killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in subsequent years. They’ve emphasized the rocket attacks on Sderot and downplayed the blockade of Gaza.

Threat is what has been used to frame the worst and most illiberal of American policy, as Jesse Walker wrote about the bank bailouts early last year. Just as he’s doubled down on troops in Afghanistan, Obama has doubled down on that sense of threat and panic which engineered public acceptance of the worst excesses of George W. Bush’s reign. Let’s all calm down and realize that we are going to be okay. We have the weapons, we have the wealth, and we have the security.

But the Arab? The one who has been murdered, detained, and occupied daily, and in many cases possesses no freedom or autonomy to defend himself? He might want to hit the panic button. Or maybe he already has — and it’s our fault.

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

Syria's foremost Islamic leader calls for protection of Jews, Christians

2010-01-19T13:15:00.001-05:00

In Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz today is a story which quotes Syria’s highest Islamic leader.

“If the Prophet Mohammed had asked me to deem Christians or Jews heretics, I would have deemed Mohammed himself a heretic,” Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, the Mufti of Syria, was quoted as telling a delegation of American academics visiting Damascus.

Hassoun, the leader of Syria’s majority Sunni Muslim community, also told the delegates that Islam was a religion of peace, adding: “If Mohammed had commanded us to kill people, I would have told him he was not a prophet.”

Religious wars were the result of politics infiltrating systems of faith, he said[.]

This past year President Obama renewed sanctions against Syria because of its “supporting terrorism, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining U.S. and international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq.”

So what does the above quote from Hassoun tell us?

Perhaps it tells us that Syria is useful as a case study of a Mideast nation which the US has formally declared as an enemy (and which Israel still partially occupies). Perhaps it tells us that we need to stop thinking about our enemies in the Middle East as Islamic, or even as “Islamic extremists.” Surely the language and ideology of Islam is harnessed by our enemies there, but Islam is not what propels them. Politics — anti-Western politics, grounded in a view of the West as having meddled and plundered the Middle East into poverty throughout the last hundred or so years — is what propels them.

Perhaps we ought to consider what calling Middle Eastern terrorists “Islamic extremists” does rhetorically: it makes salient their religion and conceals their politics. In Western secular society this is a prudent tactic because we tend to view religion as incompatible with reason — in literal terms, this rhetorical strategy constructs the terrorists as having no “reasons” for what they are doing. It frames them as somehow inherently violent and their threat as thus eradicable only by violence — rather than contrary reasons of our own, or changes in policy which might render their reasons no longer valid.

I remember Ehud Barak, Israel’s current Defense Minister, saying something along these lines last year during the Gaza offensive: “the terror attacks from Gaza are contrary to reason, and they don’t stand a chance.” Regardless of whether their reasons are valid or not, or their arguments for war are well-constructed or not, should we really deny our enemies the faculty of reason itself?

And we wonder why our War on Islamic Terror has been a total disaster?

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

Two Men Pt. 2

2010-01-12T17:40:00.002-05:00

Carson was beginning to lag in his typing, and there was no doubt in his mind that his words were less sharp now. He stared at one sentence that sat before him blinking in and out as the cursot partially obscured it.

Pain leads to sound. Sound leads to guilt.

There must have been a better way to say this. What frustrated Carson more than anything was not that he did not know what to wrote. He was sure he would find the words. The source of his irkment was that he had no beaten path upon which to tread. No other document in the same vein as his existed. He was Neil Armstrong on the cratered face of the moon. He was a steam engine forging ahead as the tracks directly in front of him were being lain and hammered in by Chinese laborers.

Perhaps he should take a more scholarly approach to this dilemma, and so he began to slowly and painstakingly construct flowerly words, which he intended to appease the mind of his imaginary, enraptured reader.

The subject, upon being pained in a physical or psychological manner, will almost invariably release a yelp of some sort. This vocal release will forge the document by which all men and women interested in the pursuit of the scholarly activity described, prescribed, and urged to take part in by this text shall be forced, by other elements of nature, to cease their research. Therefore, despite certain attractive elements, physical and emotional pain should never be used as method.

Carson smiled, and his white teeth grew luminescent in the glow of his computer monitor. His own words had tempted him. However, his own warnings had staved this temptation. However, he needed to be satiated in some manner. Besides, when had he last conducted research? One can not be informed in ones field unless one conducts research he chided to himself.

This sort of inner monologue and constant mental discourse had become a staple in his life. He attributed it to not getting enough sunlight and his own hermetic insistence on working during social hours. Others, perhaps not entirely without merit, would blame other factors.

However, at the moment, no other voice could be heard by Carson other than the one that spoke just like him, the echo in the back of his head. It advised him to get some air, conduct some research. Grabbing his overcoat, which was a slick black thing of the utmost style, he ventured for the first time that day into the musty D.C. air. It was fall, and he almost laughed at the site of the leaves, dead and losing their color, drifting through the air towards their graves.

It heartened him that he might make good use of his day. And he set off, a whistle upon his lips, towards a place he might find candidates for his work.

Two Men Pt. 1

2010-01-12T15:14:00.003-05:00

Carson Stephens rolled out of bed Tuesday morning, and he immediately knew he was on the right side of things. As soon as his bare feet touched the cold wood floors of his bedroom he could tell the day would present him with nothing but good things. It was an instinctual feeling, like how a cat basks in a winter ray of sun. Carson thought that maybe he would begin the day by working on his book. But there was so much research to be done.

He left his room, and into the bathroom he went. Carson removed his clothes and studied his body in the mirror. Good genes had left him with ideal male musculature, his chest was broad and hairless pale but not white, and his shoulders stood out as their tendons and bulk promised strength. Beneath his chest and shoulders, his stomach rippled with the idealistic abdominal muscles, and six perfect divets just under his skin filled him with pride. His face was soft, chubby almost due to an excess of skin, baby fat that had never quite made its leave. However, this aside, his cheeks were angular and his jaws clenched to form taut half triangles. Blond hair, ruffled and thick, topped his top. There was no doubt in his mind, he liked who he was. With a wink to the mirror he stepped into the shower and turned the hot water all the way up. Steam crept out and slid into the bathroom, obscuring his mirror.

Jeff Root, at around the same time Carson did, rolled from under his covers. And he rolled from the wrong side. His back hurt him, and this morning he was painfully aware of the flaws his body displyed with inconcealable clarity. He farted loudly, and soon afterwards he wished he had not. the stench of it, smelling like frapped green beans and bacon greast with eggs overeasy, wafted through his small and dark bedroom.

The clock by his bedside, though its intent was not malicious, provided him with malignant taunts. Time to go to work, no time to shower. The thought of this, of walking into work on that Monday morning smelling of his own fecal gasses did not appeal. He left his room to take a leak.

Unlike Carson, Jeff had no desire for his own bathroom mirror. It would only taunt him with the unfortunate details of his own physicality. He knew these details to the most magnified fact, and he did not need to attempt to learn more. On the subject of his ugliness, Jeff Root could write a dissertation.

Over the toilet his penis, which due to the circumcision he had received as a child looked like squat bald man with a hairy chest, dawdled in its urinary functions. And, in the toilet water, Root saw his reflection. He was broad enough, broader yet due to the rolls of fat which had accumulated over his thirty-eight years of spending his personal time on couches, in front of screens. He was balding, bald really, he had not been balding since he was twenty-three, and to call him such now would be like saying a dead man was dying. And, he had found, being bald was to live without trepidation, to exist without the fear of losing ones physical prowess.

Finally, the squat bald man beneath him made true on its promise of relief. And when he was done in the bathroom, Jeff returned to his room and made himself an outfit of slacks and a button up shirt both of which he retrieved from the floor.

After the shower, though he had not thought it possible, Carson was in even better spirits. Donning a clean white towel he returned to his bedroom and began to process of choosing the fabric within which he would lodge his immaculate body. To see him do this is much akin to watching a master chef rifle through spices, vegetables, meats, and other assorted delicacies in search of a perfect combination.

Finally, after much careful thought and evaluation, Carson settled on a blue t-shirt, white sports coat, and blue jeans, which fit his lower body with daring perfection. On his feet he wore spotless tennis shoes of blue and yellow.

He decided that he would work a bit. Time was of the essence, and he wanted to finish his book before too long. Who knew how much longer he could keep his research up without being discovered? And, once that happened, he would be swarmed with detractors and admirers alike.

So he sat before his computer and, his fingers lines up perfectly asdf jkl;, he began to type. And soon he was entrenched by his work. His bright blue eyes darting rapidly over the Times New Roman font, his fingers shaping letters into words into themes and ideas, suggestions, the tapestry for his skills. Research, he thought, could wait. For the time being he wanted nothng but to work.

And, on the other side of town in a gray Sedan that smelled of old food and gasoline, Jeff Root wanted nothing to do with his own work. The traffic in the city had always appalled him, reminded him of nasal congestion, and brought him to the brink of insanity. However, today, as horns blared and sirens screamed out like robotic babies awake in the middle of the night, his bloodshot eyes felt fit to burst.

He was in the heart of it, The Washingtong Memorial beckoned to him in the distance, reminding him of the gravity of his city. Compounding in him the feeling of being very small. If this was the center of the free world, the brain of America, he, Detective Jeff Root, was a spare cog. He was kept in storage, sorting through mundane offenses, seeing terrible images, speaking to shady characters each with a lie to tell as their story. And, all of a sudden, he hated it all more than he ever had.

And as Jeff hated and Carson typed, neither men could have anticipated that they were, the both of them, steaming freight trains in and outbound on the same track. Collision, already, was imminent. All that was left to be decided was a time for it to occur.

Some Albums I Liked

2010-01-08T18:28:00.089-05:00

This is some music that I liked from 2009.

"Kylesa formed in Savannah in 2001, taking their name from "kilesa mara", a Buddhist term denoting delusory mental states." -Wikipedia

Kylesa are a heavy metal band who have two drummers. The Melvins also have two drumers now; seems like having two drumers could become/is a thing.

The following is a music journalist-esque sentance about the album's sound: "The percussion on the album is almost tribal; the guitars occasionally stretch out from the omnipresent sludgy turmoil and coil into neon, peyote-induced lacerations."

'Static Tensions' is maybe my second favorite thing I listened to from this year.

I don't know what the lyrics are about.
Download

Curren$y is "tenuously connected" to Lil Wayne because he used to be on Young Money and is from New Orleans. Wiz Khalifa is from Pittsburgh and went to Allderdice. Most of the time he seemed to wander around the hallways reeking of pot and shooting the shit with various administrative faculty. Seemed like they all loved him and he could legitimately get away with "anything", like if he "straight up cold-cocked some dude" he would be told to "go to class".

The "DayTodays" with Curren$y are by far the best. Seems like they are actually friends.

The whole mixtape has a "feel-good"/"chill" vibe. Car Service makes me feel like I have "the sickest chain". Usually I only listen to "real gangster shit" like Wu-Tang, Notorious B.I.G., or Lil Wayne but for some reason I immediately liked 'How Fly', maybe because its more "puffin' on a fatty" feel-good then "grindin' up on a shorty" feel-good.

'How Fly' is maybe my second favorite thing I listened to this year.

My clearest memory of Wiz Khalifa in school was a gym class where I was sitting against the wall trying to finish some homework or something and Wiz was trying to convince some dude that his/all acne is a form of herpes. The gym teacher watched the students play tips, just sort of chuckling and shifting uncomfortably when asked "right coach?".
Download

I think everyone that reads this blog has/has heard this album.

I usually don't listen to more then four or five songs from this album at a time but I can start at pretty much any point and "have a blast".

Listening to this album makes me feel like I live in a fashionably modern, "spacious", one bedroom "loft" with shiny wood floors and other wood things, even if I've "just rubbed a big load into a dirty sock". I have images of a man in a suit, maybe without the jacket, sipping something out of a solid colored coffee cup, "peering" out of the wall-sized window into the "dawning sun" with very beginnings of a knowing, contented smile, like in "classy" tobacco ads.
Download

There is something about ISIS's music that sort of makes me zone out (in a "pleasurable" way) 'Wavering Radiant' has enough "crushing" moments to "pull me back in".

Seems like a very "metal" (vs. "heavy metal") album/band. Not "fun".

I feel like the "flavor" of me liking this album is similar to the flavor of the appreciation of conspiracy theories or "artifacts".

I have really enjoyed being high and listening to this album and "freaking out".
Download

'The Blue Record' is maybe my favorite album I listened to this year. "A lot of fun". "Goofy-ass" distortions. Bullhead's Psalm makes me feel like I'm about to enter into a world of "mystery & adventure". The Sweetest Curse makes me feel like I am "riding a steed" into "battle" for revenge against "some bitches" with absolutely no threat of being horribly injured. Jake Leg makes me feel like I'm in a barroom brawl with, and simultaneously as, a bunch of "hairy-ass dudes" with fucked up teeth and "mugs" of "ale". Steel That Sleeps the Eye kind of sucks. Swollen and Halo makes me feel like I'm riding some sort of Beast across "the steppes" with an expression of "fucking determination" on my face. At around 4:10 the Beast is going "buck-wild". Ogeechee Hymnal makes me feel like I'm "pulling a titanic" on some "sleek" warship. At 0:20 the "camera" pans up and out over the sea and there's a "big-ass fleet". A Horse Called Golgotha makes me think of some "sick-ass horse" called "Golgotha" and riding it and playing the/an awesome solo. War, Wisdom and Rhyme makes me feel like I'm standing on a cliff that "juts" out over a "legion" of warriors carrying banners and pounding on "war-drums", while my cape "flaps". Blackpowder Orchard makes me feel like I'm drinking "moonshine" in Appalachia with a "jolly", toothless "hobo" who "knows the secrets of life". The Gnashing makes me feel like I've just left the hobo's mountain hut/cave to "strike it for myself" as the sun rises over a "vista". Bullhead's Lament makes me feel like most metal does in different ways, that the world/life is a sad, fucked place/thing, that Ultimate Awesomeness can always be inside each and every one of us, that there are an infinite number excitements to be had in each moment, but ultimately we're all going to fucking die and be nothing, and Crazy Shit, stars exploding and planets colliding, will keep on happening, forever, without us.
Download

I don't know.
Download

I think being cursorily aware of Black Dice and Pissed Jeans made me think that White Denim was going to be some "weird-ass noise" "conglomerate" or "aggregation" composed of two consistent members who have never shown their faces to anyone other then their birth mothers and each other, and a rotating lineup of autistic savants "harvested" from South-Asian countries. When I discovered they're just some bros rockin out on some power trio type shit I was "enthralled".

The music in Paint Yourself seems like the soundtrack to the "perfect campfire experience", from "everyone" gathering 'round, to singing songs, to cooking "wieners", to "mild" soft drug use, to the embers dying down as everyone goes off into the night to "fuck".
Download

Probably my least favorite Mastodon album. I like Oblivion, The Czar and the Last Baron a lot.

One time I took the cover inside the cd case out and read the lyrics as I listened to the whole thing. It was "pretty" cool. Seems like "just" having the option to "explore" the "concept" is "enough".

I fucking bought this album.

I think Brann Dailor is 38% of Mastodon.

I think the album artwork is 12% of Mastodon.

I think Brent Hinds is 7% more of mastodon then Bill Kelliher; Brent Hinds himself thinks he's 15% more; Bill Kelliher thinks Brent's 10% more.

Troy Sander's percentage is something like Xi, unquantifiable and at any time more or less then Bill or Brent's, most of time less but occasionally "nestling" up next to Brann's.
Download

Southern soul great Willie Mitchell passes away at 81

2010-01-06T10:50:00.003-05:00

Jesse Walker shouts out to far and away my all time favorite soul singer, Mr. O.V. Wright, in his Willie Mitchell R.I.P. post. Mitchell is most famous for discovering Al Green, and producing some of his greatest songs, like these ones:

Mitchell's vision for soul music had incredibly far-reaching consequences for American music; it's pretty amazing to think of how singular a legacy he's leaving us.

Walker also wrote a great article about Southern soul's mixing of country, gospel, rock 'n' roll, funk, and jazz, thanks in no small part to its origins in Memphis, New Orleans, and Nashville. In my opinion southern soul -- especially the absolute greats such as O.V., Solomon Burke, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Otis Clay -- is some of the most under-appreciated American music out there, especially by people in my peer group.

I'll end by embedding a couple of my favorite O.V. Wright songs, recorded on Mitchell's Hi Records. O.V. unfortunately only made it to 41, destroyed by drugs like so many other great musicians. Let's be thankful that Willie enjoyed a slightly longer run; Lord knows his influence will be with us for much longer.

Why I like eating wings, and why you should too

2010-01-05T14:00:00.006-05:00

1. I get to think about how many chickens died in the making of my meal. To try this trick yourself, just divide the total number of wings you've eaten by two; for instance, if you've polished off an entire stadium bucket from Quaker Steak and Lube, you have the blood of twenty-five innocent fowl on your hands.

2. They're messy as hell.

These kids would be a lot messier if they were eating wings instead of spaghetti with marinara sauce. I think their parents ought to be locked up, not for forcing them to eat spaghetti with marinara sauce without the aid of cutlery or even their hands, but for not forcing them to eat wings this way. Just imagine those little chickens going cluck-wild on some extra saucy wings with no hands, no napkins, and no fear. That girl's glasses would be caked with BBQ sauce. As would her hair be; Pop would probably have to shave it all off for her after, and with good reason cause she'd be stinky and miserable at that point. The kid on the right might choke to death on account of all the Atomic sauce obstructing his nasal passages, throat, and windpipe. He's a strong boy, though, and fighting the suffocating power of hot chicken would only make him stronger, and more importantly, make his father very proud.

3. When you're eating wings, you can't really do anything else. It's hard to hold a conversation; you're too busy threading the meat through the bones (if it's the lower half of the wing), pulling chicken tendon out from between your teeth, licking sauce off your fingers, and gulping down Sierra Mist (especially if the wings are hot 'n' spicy). So it's the perfect meal to share with an older relative who might be close to death, that way you can avoid discussion of their cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. It's also a good meal to have when you're in a bad relationship (e.g., marriage), because you'll likely be so grossed out by the state of each other's face, teeth, lips, and hands that you'll forget the fact that you both cheated for one blissful meal. Wings are best consumed in total, heartbreaking silence -- heartbreaking when you realize that this is what your life has come to: eating dead animal flesh and trying not to think.

2000-2009: better for ordinary people than politicians might let ordinary people believe

2010-01-02T16:24:00.002-05:00

Writing for the New York Times, George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen points out that much of the world saw significant economic improvement last decade. Excerpt:

Putting aside the United States, which ranks third, the four most populous countries are China, India, Indonesia and Brazil, accounting for more than 40 percent of the world’s people. And all four have made great strides. Indonesia had solid economic growth during the entire decade, mostly in the 5 to 6 percent annual range. That came after its very turbulent 1990s, marked by a disastrous financial crisis and plummeting standards of living.

Brazil also had a consistently good decade, with growth at times exceeding 5 percent a year. There is lots of talk that the country has finally turned the corner, and, within its borders, there is major worry that its currency is too strong — a problem that many other countries would envy.

Elsewhere in South America, Colombia and Peru have made enormous progress and Chile is on the verge of becoming a “developed” country; it will soon be joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

To be sure, in Africa, there is still enormous misery. Nonetheless, overall standards of living rose in a wide variety of countries there, with economic growth for the continent as a whole at more than 5 percent in most years. Many basic essentials, like water, sanitation, electricity and especially telephones, are more commonly available.[...]

In a given year, an extra percentage point of economic growth may not seem to matter much. But, over time, the difference between annual growth of 1 percent and 2 percent determines whether you can double your standard of living every 35 years or every 70 years. At 5 percent annual economic growth, living standards double about every 14 years.

Cowen goes on to point out that this has resulted in enormous technological strides which the US can benefit from:

The subtler point is that a wealthier China, India, Brazil and Indonesia will lead to more customers for new innovations, thereby producing greater rewards for successful entrepreneurs, no matter where they live. There are so many improvements in cellphones these days because there are so many cellphone customers in so many countries.

TO put it bluntly, if the United States takes one step back and the rest of the world takes two steps forward, even in purely selfish terms we should consider accepting the trade-off, if only for the longer run. Most of us gain from the wealth and creativity of other countries, even if we can’t always feel like the top dog.

Read the whole piece. Cowen's straightforward assessment of the economic data feels remarkably wise right about now. It's easy to bare our fists at the meddling meddlers in government who did so much damage last decade and forget the ordinary people who did so much good for themselves.

Ten good albums from 2009 (part two)

2009-12-31T17:47:00.003-05:00

[Part one.]

NOMO - Invisible Cities

Wikipedia tells me that we are calling what NOMO does "Afro-beat." I'd call it jazz, funk, and fusion, with elements of psychedelia, noise, and rock. Regardless, the shit grooves. The way the rhythm section and horn section is each stunningly individualist -- in that they each stand out by exploring the musical space in their own unique way -- and brilliantly collaborative with the other, by mirroring and trading and mimicking musical moments... it makes for a sound that is rich and exciting. On the chorus of "Waiting", the horns seem to hit as many notes as the drums -- part of that process of mirroring that goes on in a lot of these songs -- but they also explore the rhythm section's groove with some absolutely killer improvisation in the song's second half. Observe the drums on the track "Crescent": what an odd, almost otherworldly combination of recorded percussion instruments, many of them I cannot begin to identify; meanwhile, three or four flutes sing and dance high above it all -- and again it grooves. "Patterns" is a plain and simple jam: again, it's like the guitar, keyboards, and rhythm section are this badass, slowly mutating backdrop for the horns to act out the coolest, craziest stagecraft in front of. As it climaxes it all gets more and more feedbacky, kind of like the curtains are slowly falling. "Ma" is just funky; the guitar and rhythm is a little unsettling, a little portentous, like catastrophe is occurring and our only chance of understanding it is to try to describe it with these increasingly chaotic horn stabs and vocal harmonies. This is a fantastic jazz album.

DOOM - Born Like This

One of the most brilliant tracks on the really brilliant Born Like This is "Cellz", which features an extended sample of Charles Bukowski reading poetry, from which DOOM takes the album's title. Bukowski's horrific, apocalyptic, and unfortunately very familiar images -- "[born] into this; into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die; into lawyers who charge so much, it's cheaper to plead guilty[...] into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes[....] Explosions will continually shake the Earth; radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men" -- bounce over a fucking nasty DOOM-produced instrumental made up of old movie-villain strings and some dastardly, slightly off-tempo break beat drums. After Bukowski's words fade, the villain comes in and wrecks shit: "Crime pays no dental, nor medical / Unless you catch your time in county, state, or federal," among other insane bits of free-associative poetry.

DOOM, under his various monikers, has revealed himself to be the king of the tongue-twister this decade. "Gazzillion Ear" is full of them: "Tut-tut, he bout to change the price again / It go up each time he blow up like hydrogen"; "For your info, when he's not practicing Jim Crow / or actressin' some nympho bimbo..."; "Elixir for the dry throat, tried to hit the high-note / Villain sits a itsy-bitsy zygote." He entertains with his words but of course they seem to communicate very few clear ideas, and of course that's probably the point. DOOM is a surrealist -- what self-respecting villain would say exactly what he or she means all the time? His opacity is part of what makes him so diabolical. On the other hand, the song "Absolutely" (which uses a soulful instrumental produced by the always inspired Madlib) takes real, subversive aim at the police, and seems to have some real statements to make: "Send copies to those singin' the blues / Mothers and fathers of those unjustly accused"; "Gotta let them fools know / And send 'em a message to let them P.O.W.'s go." The song is an elaborate, bizarre, borderline terroristic explication of DOOM's plan for thugs to channel their energies into a war against the police: "A new way to let the shots spray / A few drops a day; double expresso D.A. latte." It's dissident as all fuck.

DOOM's style has always been odd, but on Born Like This he pushes it farther; he touches on deeper, more frightening aspects of American life and culture. It's odd with a touch of subversive, of revolutionary, of social criticism. "Cellz", by juxtaposing that Bukowski sample, which has numerous connotations for contemporary listeners, with that bizzaro instrumental, is a funhouse mirror for our post-modern society; and that's actually what the whole album is. From "Gazillion Ear": "Once sold a inbred skinhead a n***a joke / Plus a brand new chrome smoker with the triggers broke / I thought I told him firing pins was separate / He'll find out later when he tries to go and rep it / Took a Jehovah money for a Arabic Torah / Charged in advance to translate it and ignored her sorta / One monkey don't stop no slaughter / A junkie wanna cop a quarter-ton, run for the border." DOOM's discontent makes for some really mind-boggling music here; it's psychedelic, it's poetic, and it's phat as fuck. The Dark Knight last year in cinema and Born Like This this year in music have proven that supervillains are way more compelling than superheroes. Maybe that's because we're watching our ideal of America as the world's benevolent super power crumble, and these cultural artifacts seem to reflect that reality. Highfalutin ideas aside, DOOM's slurred ramble is sicker than ever on this album, and the beats knock.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Beware

Will Oldham is an expert at crafting soulful, stirring, subtly-arranged country ballads as his on-stage persona Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Which isn't to say that these songs feel artificial -- I'm just pointing out that Oldham is becoming one of the most consistent artists in indie music today. Bonnie "Prince" Billy albums are like Madden games, only way better; there's a new one every year, but Oldham does seriously diversify his sound each time -- this album is noticeably louder and more electric, and way more instrumentally diverse (making use of horns, for instance), than last year's -- and he's seriously not doing it just for the money.

Beware picks up right where last year's Lie Down in the Light left off. It's evocative, slow, and deep. Songs like "Beware Your Only Friend", "You Can't Hurt Me Now", "I Won't Ask Again", and "I Don't Belong to Anyone" are brilliant in their simplicity and their heart. This guy is just so honest that it gives you chills. And he has a lot of fun, too. The song "You Don't Love Me", with its refrain of, "But you don't love me, and that's all right / 'Cause you cling to me / All through the night", with four part harmony on the last line, is a devilish and funny campfire jam. I also like the bit, "You say my kissing rates a six on a scale of one to ten / And you wouldn't pass the time with me 'cept you're tired of all your friends." Oldham is a clever lyricist, and often a poetic one as well. My favorite song on the album is "I Am Goodbye", which clocks in at just 2:21. It's rural American poetry, and it's wonderfully abstract: "I'll likely never know the answer why / You are hello, I am goodbye / I am goodbye, like the end of something wonderful sometimes / Like the way that a wound up toy top unwinds / I am goodbye, I am goodbye." It rocks out, and it's fun to sing along to. Oldham's Bonnie "Prince" Billy sings with power and conviction, with country western wisdom that doesn't feel forced or anachronistic. I hope Oldham keeps playing this character for years to come.

The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

From the opening sounds of Embryonic -- effected guitar picking slamming the right speaker, reverby keyboard hitting the left, studio chatter and bursts of guitar feedback in both -- you know you're in for something a little more psychedelic than Yoshimi or The Soft Bulletin. Things steady themselves pretty quickly on opener "Convinced of the Hex", but the mood is still reminiscent of, like, a looser, more Hendrix-y Pink Floyd, with the sense of apocalyptic darkness one gets from Cannibal Ox or Fuck Buttons. Track three "Evil" is beautiful and brooding; Coyne's vocal is soulful, and the arrangement is a gorgeous and sparing combination of synths, samples, and bass. More than anything this is the Lips' most arabesque album yet; it hits you with its fluidity, its use of effects, noise, and feedback, and the diversity of its distorted drum patterns. It is extremely challenging music. Coming from a band that mastered endlessly catchy pop-rock with songs like "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1", "Do You Realize??", and "Race for the Prize", Embryonic is a revelation. See tracks "See the Leaves", "Worm Mountain", and "Watching the Planets" for more examples of challenging, complex, soulful psychedelia. But it's honestly kind of dumb to talk about specific tracks as being better than others on this album; it's really an album, not a collection of songs -- part of why it's on this list. It's a piece of art which demands and commands attention for its entire duration. And it gets better every time you listen to it.

With its emphasis on continuity and fluidity, Embryonic reflects reality as one experiences it in the embryonic state of life, in early childhood; when things are not so sharply delineated, so dualistic. Accordingly, it contains a track called "The Ego's Last Stand", and final track "Watching the Planets" contains the lyric "yes, yes, yes / killin' the ego tonight." Being something of a Buddhist myself, I love when any piece of art attempts to enlighten in this way. Embryonic is 2009's most non-dualistic album, which easily enshrines it as one of 2009's best, and certainly one of its best to get high to.

xx - xx

The self-titled debut from South London kids The xx -- who went to school with Four Tet, Burial, and Hot Chip -- has a remarkable sense of rhythm, just like those bands do. The drum loops, the bass, the use of doubling/background vocals, and the use of vamps -- total silence -- is just fucking crackin' (to borrow UK terminology). This is such a consistently sexy, chilled out album that it's quite hard to pick favorite tracks; certainly "Crystallised", "Heart Skipped a Beat", "Basic Space", and "Infinity" stand out, but that doesn't make them any better than the others. The girl/boy vocal combination of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim is like a British post-punk version of Womack & Womack. Certainly there are elements of soul and disco to these songs, although with far less kitsch than disco and far more electronics than soul. But Croft and Sim work incredibly well together; their sexuality is on full display; they both sing so quietly, so effortlessly, yet with so much feeling.

This is a near-perfect album; the only song that doesn't completely take control of your body and soul is "Fantasy", but even that develops an incredible bass groove about halfway through. The rest is absolute fucking brilliance. Take the final two minutes of the album as exemplary: in this last part of "Stars", Sim and Croft kick vocal footballs back and forth first, then Sim takes over and does a re-take of his opening verse (a song-structure choice also used to brilliant effect on "Basic Space"), with only beautiful, reverby piano, and dramatic bass drum thumps every four beats or so accompanying him; each breathtaking line ends with a beat or two of total silence, each line collecting more and more drums, bass, and finally electric guitar strumming and Croft's doubling soprano, all that accumulated sickness finishing off the song and the album. It's such minimalist, subtle, meticulous pop songwriting, with beats and grooves so infectious that it's really hard to say no to; you'll find yourself playing the album over and over and over again. As a whole, xx champions sex and sexuality, love and lovers; it suggests that maybe the only thing certain anymore, in a year that tested many of our dearest philosophical assumptions, is that we ought to find someone to talk about it -- and sing about it -- with. Sim and Croft found each other, and if their disarming duets don't make you want to find someone for yourself, then you should probably just go fuck yourself.

Ten good albums from 2009 (part one)

2009-12-28T01:10:00.007-05:00

Lil Wayne - No Ceilings

Weezy's absolute domination of stadium rap has been one of the big stories of the 00s. This fact is encapsulated no better than on No Ceilings banger "D.O.A." Here Wayne devours a jazzy No I.D.-produced instrumental that Jay-Z simply whined over originally; the Best Rapper Alive says it better than I can: "I drink verses and eat hooks." Each verse ends with a sly little dig at Jigga. Verse 1: "Young or old, there ain't no comparin' me / I just cleared that up, Moment of Clarity." Verse two: "It's Weezy Baby, aka your highness / I just killed this shit, moment of silence." Verse three: "Loose bowels, this shit so easy / 'I might send this to the mixtape Weezy.'" That last line is a sample of one of Jay-Z's weak verses on the original, ripped and put back into service for Wayne's diabolical purposes. Afterward, he just laughs over No I.D.'s horns. As he should.

I've realized lately that part of what makes Lil Wayne the best rapper alive is the fact that he never whines about other rappers or the "state of hip-hop." He just does it. He just is it. No Ceilings is inspiring: "You coming wit it? We coming for it / Plenty to go around; now watch the money orbit" ("Wasted"). Jay-Z's pitiful The Blueprint 3 spends way too much time talking about what's wrong with hip-hop, and it reveals why that was such a common meme among second-rate rappers this decade: 'cause they had nothing to offer themselves. Wayne just reminds us again and again that he has gone post-human with his punchlines, like on the track "Watch My Shoes", which is so stuffed with lines we should call him Weezy the Taxidermist. My favorite little bit is this: "And pay, they come sooner than later 'round here /And you see my sharks like they got some bait around here / Hey. You better stop the hate around there / before Tommy, Mac, and Nina debate around there."

You know the way Rice Krispies sizzle in the bowl -- how they snap, crackle, and pop? That's what these beats do when Weezy's on them, in them, and then done with them. To listen to this mixtape is to walk in the court of the King of Rap -- a Michael Jackson for our hypermasculine rapper-obsessed times. Also, it's fucking hilarious: "I mean a bitch she never met, her best friend or sister / I leave the pussy Microsoft like Windows Vista" ("Swag Surfin"); "Boy, you ain't did shit, I done said worse / Flip your fitted cap back like Fred Durst" ("D.O.A."); "Crown fit me good, don't even gotta try on / My pistol mean business, that bitch should have a tie on" ("Run This Town"). And on and on, and up and up, and out the open-dome of Lil Wayne's syrup-stupid brain into the stratosphere where he resides, where he convinces us that we all can be too if we only just believe in ourselves. I'm a believer.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion and Fall Be Kind EP

MPP and FBK is white people music that is just irresistible to me. Which isn't to say that earlier Animal Collective works weren't great -- Strawberry Jam, Person Pitch, Feels, and Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished each contained hints of the mind-blowing experimental/dance/pop/folk/Afropop that would emerge from Noah, Dave, and Brian in the last year of the 00s. Still, no one could've predicted the brilliance of these releases. And despite the critical consensus and a bandwagon that is dragging on the ground from all its new douchebag weight, I can't help myself from singing along. "What Would I Want? Sky" is one of the most strangely sublime pop songs ever made. "Summertime Clothes" rules. "My Girls" is a dancefloor banger. "Daily Routine" is profound. I am rabidly, insanely excited about the music these guys are making, and fuck you if you're too hip for it now that the critics and the masses are finally catching up. Just dig it. Listen to "In the Flowers", and let a shudder run through your body when Porter sings, "if I could just leave my body for the night" and the life-affirming drums and synths rain down on your ears. Every new thing these guys put out makes me goddamn ecstatic to be alive.

Mos Def - The Ecstatic

Speaking of "ecstatic", Mos Def's 2009 album was a really pleasant surprise for me. There's no denying that Mos peaked early. Black Star and Black on Both Sides were purist hip-hop classics, as great as anything Tribe, The Roots, or Common had ever put out. Then, sadly, Mighty Mos nosedived; The New Danger was a mostly disappointing mess, and True Magic was just boring. It seemed Mos had given up on rapping and gone full-time with the acting stuff. Thankfully, he's pulled himself together. What The Ecstatic brings rap lovers is Mos at near BoBS levels over production of the more experimental, psychedelic, international variety than what we heard on that album. Songs like "Auditorium (feat. Slick Rick)", with Madlib (in my view, the greatest living composer other than Panda Bear and Dan Deacon) on the cut, exemplify what makes this union of forces so powerful. The way the sample is cut and chopped slightly off-beat with that knocking drum line, with Mos spitting that wonderfully jazzy hook; it's just tight.

A couple other standouts are "Priority" and "Life in Marvelous Times", produced by Preservation and Mr. Flash, respectively. Each one features Mos spilling his damn soul without being didactic or corny; how poetic, for example, is this: "Steer the course, make a wave / And come ashore on a greater day / Homegrown from the greatest grain / Full flavor in the native strain / Now put THAT on your brainy brain" (from "Priority"). Or this, from "Life in Marvelous Times": "And we are alive in amazing times / Delicate hearts, diabolical minds / Revelations, hatred, love, and war / And more and more and more and more / And more of less than ever before / It's just too much more for your mind to absorb." Again, Mos's distinctly soulful flow makes the words seem to congeal with the instrumental; in that way it's hard not to call him the producer of these songs as well as the MC. Even if you don't take it that far, his beat selections prove he's artistically way ahead of the pack these days, and if you don't wish you had his voice then you're not human. He's hip-hop's Otis Redding in that regard -- and others, actually: both artists showed incredible soul at a very young age, then disappeared from the world. If only the Big O could have resurrected himself the way Mighty Mos did this year.

Girls - Album

The one-two punch of "Lust For Life" and "Laura" at the top of Album is wonderful. The sunny pop of the former, with its sha-la-la backing vocals and Chris Owens' incredibly distinctive, punk-Costello lead vocal articulating insane things like "I wish I had a sun-tan, I wish I had a pizza and a bottle of wine / I wish I had a beach house, then we could make a big fire every night" is just shockingly great. The latter slows the pace down a tad, but is no less of a shock; it's a bittersweet Beach Boys ballad with punk edge in the vocals and lyrics of Owens. Others have commented on the baldness of Owens' lyrics; I'd agree, and say they're perfect for this kind of seemingly insincere pop: "Where did it start / We used to be friends / Now when I run into you, I pretend I don't see you / I know that you hate me." Owens comes off as actually completely sincere here, and it gives the song a layer of authenticity that is missing from most modern pop.

Owens is really what has endeared me to this band so much; I absolutely hate his dirty, disgusting hipster look, but his voice and lyrics are just so affecting that I can't help but fall for him. Bassist and producer Chet "JR" White rocks some really awful clothes as well, but his ear for pop music commands respect.

"Ghost Mouth", "Big Bad Mean Motherfucker", "Summertime", "Lauren Marie", and "Morning Light" are each, in their own way, revelations for indie rock. But "Hellhole Ratrace" just might be one of the best songs of the decade. Owens' vocal expression on the word "cry" in chorus-line "I don't wanna cry", the first time it comes in, is crazy powerful. The whole drifting, seven minute song might make you cry or fill you with energy depending on your mood, and depending on your circumstances. Regardless, it is a formidable track. The way the guitars, background vocals, and sleigh bells build layer upon layer behind Owens' vocal confession, and the way it all begins to ritardando around the four minute mark, with Owens just repeating that essential poem over and over: "I don't wanna cry my whole life through / Yeah, I wanna do some laughing too / So come on, come on, come on, come on and laugh with me / And I don't wanna die without shaking up a leg or two / Yeah, I wanna do some dancing too / So come on, come on, come on, come on and dance with me." That's a musical poem that turned out to be pretty important to me this year; the rest of the album followed suit.

Dan Deacon - Bromst

Bromst is a worthy follow-up to Spiderman of the Rings -- and that's kind of saying something. "The Crystal Cat" and "Wham City" are untouchable anthems now for a whole set of goofy, whacky, unattractive twenty-something white people now growing beards and getting a little bit fatter, maybe thinking about the possibility of marriage and kids. Nevertheless "Build Voice" opens Bromst with that mix of goofiness and compositional brilliance that Dan Deacon fans expect from the man with the graduate degree in computer music composition. It's got vocal samples, pretty piano lines, catchy lead vocals, and of course zany lyrics ("hello, my ghost / I'm here, I'm home"). The piano breakdown at 4:20 (what a lot of kids who listen to Dan Deacon like to do while listening to Dan Deacon, coincidentally) is tremendously epic, especially when the horns start building up momentum for the drop. This is an album-opener with a lot of energy and soul.

"Red F" is great too; fuck, just about everything on here is both whacky-adorable and beautifully composed and played. Tons of great vocal sampling, vocoder usage, xylophone playing, and synthesizing on "Padding Ghost", "Of the Mountains", and "Surprise Stefani" (which has a pretty nice groove once the beat kicks in). One impressive aspect of this album is the way Dan lets songs breathe, develop, and mutate nice and slowly. Some call it boring, but I think it's subtle. And each song subtly builds to something climactic and powerful.

The real killer is "Snookered", though. If this album has a "Wham City", this is it. When I saw Dan live at Mr. Smalls during the No Deachunter tour, he had us lean into the person behind us's arms and do a whole meditation exercise during the song's xylophone/synth/sample/drum buildup. Really emotional experience; it's just a great, emotional song. It might actually carry more emotional weight than "Wham City", whose music is evocative but the lyrics are so goofy they're basically empty. "Snookered", on the other hand, goes right for the gut, and matches a bittersweet melody with melancholy lyrics: "Been wrong so many times before / but never quite like this"; the song is just unbelievably beautiful. Bromst gives us a Dan Deacon a little wiser, a little quieter, and a little more musically meticulous and ambitious than the Dan Deacon we met on Spiderman of the Rings. As a result, it's some of the most well-crafted music of this bizarre young century.

[Part two here.]

Israel's Gaza offensive, one year later

2009-12-27T19:24:00.001-05:00

Today marks one year since Israel’s military incursion into the Gaza Strip, known officially as “Operation Cast Lead.” On December 27th of ‘08, Israel began a week of targeted air-strikes which included, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, “37 houses; 67 security and training sites; 20 workshops; 25 public and private institutions; seven mosques; and three educational institutions” in the Hamas-governed territory. This was followed on January 3rd by an air-land phase which lasted until Israel withdrew all combat forces on January 17th. At the end of the offensive, somewhere between 1150 and 1450 Palestinians had been killed — three different pro-Palestinian human rights sources estimated 1444, 1409, and 1387, respectively, while the Israel Defense Forces counted 1166; thirteen total Israelis had died at the end of operations.

The number of non-combatants killed during the attacks has been a particular focus of various investigations, including the controversial Goldstone Report. According to the IDF, 295 of the Palestinians killed were civilians; according to the three pro-Palestinian human rights organizations the total came to 773, 926, and 1172, respectively. Goldstone analyzes the discrepancy between IDF and pro-Palestinian totals and explains it as a result of the IDF considering Gazan policemen to be combatants; the report also notes that the IDF “has not published a list of victims or other data supporting its assertions.”

Of course, relying on pro-Palestinian data and the analysis of the Goldstone Report is not optimal. The fact is that despite Judge Richard Goldstone having an impeccable reputation as an international law expert, the United Nations Human Rights Council, which mandated Goldstone’s report, has shown a certain preoccupation with condemning Israel since its inception in 2006. And pro-Palestinian human rights groups could have the (perfectly natural) inclination to skew data to present a more damning picture of the IDF than is actually true. The same is true on the other side, with regard to the IDF’s internal findings quite possibly being skewed to present a less damning picture (but as I noted above, these findings were less transparent and rigorous than Goldstone’s or those of the various human rights groups). This does not invalidate their data or arguments, of course. It just creates an urge to find more independent information.

The problem there is that Israel strictly banned media access to Gaza during the incursion, and repeatedly denied Goldstone’s requests this year for help and contribution to his report. Goldstone wanted to visit the Israel town of Sderot, which has been particularly brutally battered by Palestinian rockets this decade, but Israel told him no. I can’t help but think Israel’s reason for not complying was so they could later reject the report as biased, as they and the US have done. Such rejections are not really intellectually fair. But that doesn’t matter — both parties have strategic interests in silencing the report’s findings.

Even if the actual substance of the report has issues — a judgment which I have yet to find a convincing argument for — some of its claims are difficult to account for without ascribing punitive intent to Israel. The most difficult one, for me, is that Israel engaged in “attacks on the foundations of civilian life in Gaza… industrial infrastructure, food production, water installations, sewage treatment and housing.” Take the Al Bader flour mill, for example. Says Goldstone:

The flour mill was hit by a series of air strikes on 9 January 2009 after several false warnings had been issued on previous days. The Mission finds that its destruction had no military justification. The nature of the strikes, in particular the precise targeting of crucial machinery, suggests that the intention was to disable the factory in terms of its productive capacity.

The IDF has not offered any response to this and similar accusations of deliberate, precise infrastructure destruction. Say what you want about Palestinian terrorists lobbing bombs from behind civilians; such explanations — which have not even been independently verified — cannot justify attacks on essential life-sustaining infrastructure. These attacks seem to be punishment against the Gazan people, perhaps for electing Hamas in the free and fair Palestinian Authority legislative elections in 2006.

I think many in the United States either favored or were indifferent to Israel’s incursion last year because the pro-Israel side’s rhetoric — which focused on Hamas as being only a terrorist organization and the incursion as being only a response to Palestinian terror — worked. I wrote a research paper last year on this rhetorical technique, which is “ideographic” in nature. An ideograph is a highly simplified political term or slogan which engenders public assent to policy — in this case, war. One source I found extremely helpful for explaining the way the ideograph “terror” simplifies things was the Council on Foreign Relations’ info page on Hamas. CFR clears away the propaganda and points out, among other things, that Hamas is 90% civilian and is extremely popular with Gazans because it keeps them alive with its social services, despite the Israeli-Egyptian blockade which keeps most humanitarian aid from making it to the territory. But almost every quote from an Israeli official at the time of the incursion used some variation of the word “terror” to describe Hamas and explain the necessity of the incursion. Nowadays, this is the way that we — the United States and Israel — justify massive civilian destruction and foreign occupation.

From the perspective of freedom, it is hard for me not to sympathize with the Palestinians. And I think as Americans we ought to stand up and demand their freedom, particularly the Gazans’. Israel has no right to control Gaza from without, just as the US has no right to control Iraq and Afghanistan from without. Let’s realize that, given the US’s overwhelming military aid bias toward Israel, the blitz on Gaza a year ago is part of an ongoing pattern of US military-imperial sprawl since 9/11. And let’s understand that, as Americans, we’re creating the impetus for more hostility and terrorism against us by failing to think about what our tax dollars are funding in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank.

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

Bullshit We Feed to Idiot Children. Merry Christmas.

2009-12-26T14:19:00.005-05:00

Christmas time is wonderful for the kids. They just eat it up. Presents, magic, and the promise of eternal youth runs in amazing streaks of red and green for them. The idea that fat man slides down their chimneys with a sack full of loot and then eats their cookies with jolly gusto, it tickles the kids pink. What better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ than with gifts from a fat mans tote bag? Could happiness stretch any further, how much joy can the human heart hold?

And on the eve of the twenty-fifth when every Christian child, whose parents have the means to provide for them, thinks of old Saint Nick slumping down their chimney they are sent into a convulsive seizure of greed and gluttony. And they all dance about the Christmas tree like the sugar plum fairies from the legend or like pirates who are being showered in gold. It truly is a beautiful site. And it truly is a lie.

I can vividly remember the moment when I stopped believing in Santa Clause. My age was eight, and had I been a brighter child capable of putting all the bits and pieces of bullshit together, I might have ceased to believe much earlier.

We were in the car, my mother and I, and I was deep in my child's mind daydreaming and filtering none of the ridiculous thoughts that flowed in and out of my mind like white water rapids. And I began to think about Santa Clause.

Here was a man in a big red suit, who lived in The North Pole, traveled via magical reindeer, was morbidly obese, was the foreman of a factory run entirely by little elves, and who, once a year, traveled the entire globe with one bag full of gifts and gave them to all the good little children. And then there was the matter of his filing system, no more than a list, and actual book, inscribed by him and perhaps a few secretary elves with a quill and an ink-well. Something, thought my rudimentary young mind, must certainly be amiss.

And, as our car ran along the bumpy Pittsburgh roads, I began to run scenarios, to crunch numbers just like an eight your old might. And, every time I ran the numbers, I came up empty handed and sore headed.

It must be, at the juncture, said that this occurred in the early Spring. My mind was still focused and obsessed with the large cache of loot I had just received in December. And naturally I began to think about the source of all the gifts. And through this I ruined one of the most wonderful pretensions I had held. It was truly a tragic moment. Though, I suppose, learning about the falsity of Santa in the Spring is a lot better than figuring out and unraveling the lie on Christmas Eve. It softened the blow, like knowing someone you love is dying of cancer and preparing yourself for the flat line.

The world, to young Sammy Thomas, seemed very small all of a sudden. Colors faded to black and white. Roses smelled like dog shit smashed in the boots of Nazis. Bread didn't rise. The stars would never again come out. And there I was, an eight year old with a hard lesson to learn, in the middle of it all like some kind of idiotic actor in a play squinting upwards at the spotlight, forgetting my lines.

I was dazed. And, inevitably, I began to think about The Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy. They, too, must be lies. If Santa who is an actual human being is fiction, then a giant egg giving rabbit and a fucking fairy who steals teeth and leaves quarters (which are probably half her weight) are fantasy fiction. And what about The President? Was he real? Clinton probably was real, and they have the DNA evidence to prove it. However I did not know what DNA was, and I was unstable enough that all my beliefs could crumble like Jericho.

And, with a heavy heart, I asked my mom if Santa was real. And she simply, obviously, and dully said, "no.".

And every adult, every towering man and woman who I had trusted with my life, with my fragile heart, with everything since the day I slid out all placenta covered and wailing, they were all liars. They were all in on it. They were making a patsy out of me and my generation, just because we were not smart enough to realize it. Did they really think that we would rather get shit from some guy we didn't know? Did it ever occur to parents to just give us presents from them? We love them because they shelter us and bathe us and give us hot soup. But, instead, they invent a character who rewards children with shining magical toys. They instill in us a sense of false entitlement, one which sticks with many of us until we pass away into the next world or lack thereof. And all this, all the lies and fear and greed and tears and eventual, gut shattering realization, just because they love us and want us to be happy. Those wonderful lying fuckers.

To give us something so great and then take it away is high sin, treason, betrayal of love and kin and flesh and blood. It is insulting to our intelligences. Also, perhaps most importantly, it is completely wonderful and warm hearted.

Our parents love us, and they are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on us. And they are willing to do it in such a way that our thanks will never be bestowed upon them, in such a way that we assume it was no sweat off their backs. And, what it boils down to, is they do it because our fat, gap toothed, greedy little smiles and shrieks are all they need to be happy.

God damn them. I love them. And, when I have little kids, I'm going to do the same god damn thing. And then I am going to sweep the carpet out from underneath them.

Avatar and Ideology

2009-12-24T18:11:00.001-05:00

I went to see James Cameron’s new film Avatar with my family yesterday. To call it a lot of fun seems almost unnecessary. It’d be better to offer a command than make a judgment: go check it out. I defy anyone who sees it on the big screen to deny the absolute beauty of the locales, characters, spacecraft, and weaponry — all computer-generated, mind you — or the roller-coaster thrill of the battle scenes. It’s all directed and edited with precision and flair. As Dana Stevens wrote in her very apt Slate review, this is “a world so richly and specifically imagined that it’s thrilling just to dwell inside it.” And it culminates in a showdown that is immensely exciting and gratifying.

Part of what makes those last scenes gratifying is that the aliens — the natives of Pandora, the Na’vi — are rejecting the colonization and annexation of their land and resources by the unholy alliance of American Big Business (specifically, the “RDA Corporation”) and Big Military. To call this film the ultimate liberal revenge fantasy is, then, quite superfluous as well. It is no great insight to note, as Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern did, that

Mr. Cameron has devoted a significant chunk of his movie to a dark, didactic and altogether horrific evocation of Vietnam, complete with napalm, Agent Orange and helicopter gunships (one of which is named Valkyrie in a tip of the helmet to Apocalypse Now.)

A four-year-old could pick up on the ideological underpinnings of the film’s good guy/bad guy dichotomy: it’s a team of humanitarian scientists allied with the physically and spiritually (in short, naturally) brilliant natives VS. a greedy American corporation allied with the stupid but enormously and soullessly (in short, technologically) brilliant military. It’s all drawn in such broad strokes that I believe it actually damages the anti-imperial point-of-view — especially given how utterly disrespectful and condescending the film is toward the Na’vi. Annalee Newitz explains this much better than I can in this excellent blog entry which analyzes the “white guilt” features of the film.

Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.

Think of it this way. Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. Jake never really knows what it’s like to be a Na’vi because he always has the option to switch back into human mode.

When Jake tames the Toruk in the film’s last act, it is just ridiculously improbable. And that improbability underscores the racism and stupidity of this account of imperialism. In a way, this film argues not that imperial control is wrong, just that we’ve been using it wrong all these years — Jake and his scientist buddies are needed to save the Na’vi people and lead them in a just struggle against “the corporations.” There is no principled stand against colonization here because the film portrays the natives as in need of white help. It does not argue — as those of us who have woken up do — that it is patently wrong to “help” other peoples, nations, and cultures; all have a human right to self-determination.

This concept, that just white imperial leadership is what is needed — rather than the removal of all imperial institutions — is consistent with the generally simplistic anti-corporate ideology of this film. What is highlighted here, as in other frivolous leftist advocacy pieces such as Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, is that capitalism creates wealth for the few at the expense of the many, that capitalism is inherently evil. Unfortunately, this is not true. Capitalism creates wealth for everyone. It stimulates art, technology, and science. It is an impossibly complex system of interweaving interests that does best when it is left alone. I think the same can be said of peoples, nations, and cultures. Thus the evilest player in Avatar is the militarist government which is in bed with this company, RDA. Power corrupts. Very few companies like RDA Corporation would be able to do such terrific evil if government was kept relatively small and demilitarized.

See Avatar for the spectacle, not for the politics. Cheer on the Na’vi, because they have been oppressed; don’t let this oversimplified and condescending portrayal of colonialism inform your general beliefs. Just as lefties and righties need to reject Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh because they degrade the debate, those of us who oppose imperialism need to reject Cameron’s incoherent protest of Iraq and Vietnam. Those wars are wrong, James. But so are you.

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

The Strongest Hermit Evet

2009-12-24T16:08:00.002-05:00

Don sits and smokes and eats cold pizza as the rain beats down on his home with nuclear voracity. It's not a house, the place he lives. It isn't really an apartment either. Though, I suppose, this is the most accurate thing to call it.

Don's home is a square of plaster with wood floors and peeling off-white paint walls that look like half cracked hard boiled eggs. It has a window of old fashioned glass, which contorts like cataracts the view of the outside world.

In the corner of his home there is an old weight bench, rough on the hands and metallic, it yields not to comfort as its only concern lies in results. On either end of the bar there are two forty five pound dumbells, and they sit there motionless daring someone to hoist them.

Don does hoist them every day. His hands are torn from the activity, and he keeps them palm down when around others. His muscles bulge as a result of floating the weights above his body on a daily basis. And he's not quite sure why he does it. Maybe he just wants to be strong.

Anyway, he's the strongest hermit ever.

Man on T.V.

2009-12-24T14:09:00.004-05:00

What a skinny man he is and how tall he stands with that faint and wispy cigarette between his teeth, toothpick style. No one I know can match the man for length and diameter. I want to ask him how tall he is, how much he weighs, the size of his pants, and the cut of his suit. But how, I wonder to myself, would I even breach the subject. I've never spoken to him before. I don't even know his name.

I know who he is, of course I know who he is. He's an image of American living room comfort, the man on the t.v. delivering the news to the pipe smoking father as the children play outside in the sprinkler. But somehow I always miss his name. It blurs in among the rest of his words like just another detail in the story. He is translucent and apparent, he is stained glass, designed to keep you looking but never to lost focus on the message at hand. He receives his fifteen minutes every two hours to tell everyone how it is, and he must not disappoint. It would be so easy for everyone to forget who he is they don't even know his name.

They don't know how tall he is either. He towers. The camera shrinks him into a convenient rectangle. The teleprompter reduces his words to facts, drying out his humor, ambition, hatred, and love. He's a product of his own design. When he reports he does so as a conduit, the studio wipes him away. All that remains is a thin shell of a halfway smiling man. And they don't say how tall he is. No one knows him at all. No one thinks of him outside of when they see him. He is a celebrity aspiring and accomplishing normalcy.

But here he is, outside of my television, standing at the bar. He's drinking a beer, the glass looks tall, but somehow he makes it look taller. He drinks it slowly, pursing his lips and, if not saying it out loud, thinking to himself in a whisper "ahhh". The man is content to be alone. He is content in his celebrity, his profession, his anonymity, and to break the fourth wall, to admit that you know him from t.v., it would shatter his mood.

So I turn back around. And when I look back he is signing an autograph. A bumbling fat man with a thin little puke of a mustache has approached him. And the tall man smiles and grins, but when the fat man retreats to his fortress of smug solitude, the tall newsman grimaces and leaves without the rest of his beer.

Duperdud Episode 2.

2009-12-19T21:11:00.005-05:00

The trucks radiator and the face of Leonard Brindle collided with such force that an uneducated person might guess at sexual desire between the two objects. Really, though, it was nothing more than gravity and motion that brought these two otherwise inanimate (the face qualified at that moment as being without any animation) together. And the squish that followed, like a butterfly being diced up by a bread slicer, was groan inducing. In fact, up to this point in his life, Leonard had only ever induced groans of exasperation from others. The decidedly more wretching "aaohhhugh" he teased from this particular audience might have come as a breath of fresh air to him, had he not been unconscious and skating about the precipice of death when it happened.

Needless to say, his face was ruined. However, as faces go, his wasn't anything special. It came equipped with all the normal biological utilities of facial comprising. He had a nose, bubbley and red like an alcoholic. And he had a mouth, thin with white lips that always seemed to purse and never to pucker. Beneath these, though they were almost never seen, lay two rows of uneven teeth that should have long ago been dressed and braced by metal. Now, however, they lay in disrepait looking like uneven and unfluffed pillows sitting on a yellow couch. And, in the middle of the whole affair, there was a set of eyes close enough to almost touch. They were blue, but they seemed yellow most of the time. Poor vision had given him a permanent squint. Poor parenting had given him no glasses. Pimples, and the scars they leave, were pinned to his face like craters on the moon. And the hue of him was white with the red of embarassment.

What embarassed him was just about every contact he made with the human race of men and women who, every day, interacted smoothly and without consequence with one another. He, in comparison, to others could make no social outreach. He could bring no smiles to the faces of strangers. Leonard could do nothing blud plod along in his way, neglecting to accept his social role among the man apes.

And, though the state of his social life had always been bad, it was worsening like a blister relegated to a sunny spot. As a younger person, perhaps ending around his twelfth or thirteenth birthday, he had been somewhat known to the other youths. School in those days had not been so much to bear for Leonard. He could smile and share and laugh a bit just like the other kids. And he might have even had a few friends. He was not sure anymore, the confidence to say that he was once well liked had vanished with the concept of being well liked.

Now, when faced with the task of talking to others, he lowered his head and averted his eyes like some ferile and abused animal. It was all he could do to keep from shaking from fear when he was around humans. Growing up had meant growing in for him, and he lived in an unceasing hallway of introversion, a corridor of self exclusion. And, it was from within place that he became, if not a man, then a physical replica of one.

As he grew, he grew tall and twisted, red haired and spindly like an old tree standing to see if it might stand to live another autumn. He was strong in his way, the years of riding his bike had done his legs well. However, any athletic potential had been squashed wholesale by his own inherent laziness and fear of others.

This sub-torso strength did not carry itself through to his core, which was stickly and rigid and gave way to a neck that appeared as a downsized version of the former.

This description of Leonard Brindles is for reference. Because no such person exists now. The collision he suffered was life-ending. Though, it should be noted, this does not necessarily mean that Leonard is dead.

Superdud Episode 1.

2009-12-19T18:52:00.003-05:00

The boy on the bicycle was iredeemably reckless in his serpentine, devilish swervings and in the suicidal speeds to which he had propelled by way of hilly Pittsburgh. Horns from cars, which dodged the boy, sounded like angry metal animals inhabiting some man-made safari. He paid them no heed, for his mind was elsewhere, floating in and out of a cloud of inward self loathing. So, by contrast, the car horns and the angry, concerned drivers could not scratch the surface of the mental wrestling taking place in his freezing cold dome.

And his face, wind swept, freezing cold as the winds blew of a January sky, was set in determination. The arrival of this emotion, like troops to resupply an already fallen battle fort, was untimely and mis-guided. And, though the boy on the bicycle knew this, he could not allow himself to slip further into that chasm of breathless failure. He must, at least, appear to make an effort or else all of his confidence would wain to nothing like a puddle of mirage in a desert of heat. And, as the road ahead of him elongated and swirved with such defining length and gelatinous progress, he felt his heart sink. And, when compared to this awful feeling, death by automobile seemed a fate more desired. He was late, again, for work.

And he could not chalk this tardiness up to anything substantial. He had not been carrying his mortally ill father to the hospital. He was not injured, not even remotely sick. No catastrophe had befallen him, not even a minor one. In fact, he had even been able to find his house keys without a fuss.

He was just late. Just was, like the sun just rises. It was a fact, set in stone cemented by laziness, percieved by him and all others around him as what comprises a life of waste and perpetual dis-organization. Late for no other reason than he could not move his carcass to rise from bed.

He was the son of a hard working man, an educated man who had become emulsified and learned through years of labor. His father often recanted solemn and hilarious tales of his ditch digging youth, of the salad years he spent laboring over a constant string of demeaning and horrendous tasks. And, said his father, these tasks had guided him, sculpted him him, paved the way for his meritious career.

Ancestors further back, strong working immigrants and the sons of immigrants with their mothers and daughters and wives had benn callous handed, strong armed individuals. Work had been their every thought, recreation fell to them as a dream of wealth, a softening blow to the spirit of the American worker. Those ancestors of his had burned alive in the mills, been incenerated in vats of steel, died of ingested dust and coal, fell asleep upon hard mattresses of nothing but hat and burlap, woke again to find themselves ten years older with no progress to show for it. The had thought not of themselves but of those to come, those lucky few who would carry their bloodline into fortune and prestige.

And, thought the boy on the bicycle, that person to fall through the cavernous channels of fate and genetics, that was he. He, Leonard Brindle, was the one true descendent who had a chance to move along, to make better, really make better, the lives of his genetic sequels. And here he was, squandering it all on internet pornography and twelve hour marathon sleeping sessions. It was an indignity he only bore because he knew no way to supplant it. He was humble in that moment.

It was not the thought of all those Brindles before him, the bloodied masses who had dragged their rags and bones across the sea to be tormented and ridiculed from Ellis Island onward, that humbled him. Nor was it the memory of all the stern lectures his father and mother had bestowed upon him, the thesi of which had been the same tired moral demand, to meet the standards of society and work to better himself. And it was not fueled by a desire to be an academic superstar, for any chance at that had long ago passed him by. None of these factors was the one primarily at play in this particular moment of shame, though they undoubtedly contributed greatly to it.

What humbed him then, at that moment, was the knowledge that he was only an audience to the decay of his soul. The idea, fact maybe, that the reason he could not arrive in a timely manner to his job was because he was mechanically designed not to. It was the stark and unpleasant realization that he, himself and all the many appendages of human usage he posessed, was entirely incapable of doing anything well. Leonard Brindle was The Superdud, a laconic being of epically proportional ineffectiveness. He was this thing, this boiling cyst of personal failure and bleak future, and he was forced to live in it until it betrayed itself and if faded into neurological, or cardiological demise. And the hissing, perfect nature of his own private prison hit him like an acme anvil.

He was as worthless to the wholistic world as a dandelion, more so since he had not yet found ample opportunity to spread pollen. His worth to life, to the cycle of it all, was less than nill. It was something that did not merit nor rate consideration upon the scale of merit.

Maybe it was this last thought, maybe it was the slow click of traffic light from yellow to red, or perhaps it was the laser beam horn of the truck, but at this point in history Leonard Brindle went face first into the grill of a rather large truck. And to all who witnessed it two things were painfully obvious: the boy on the bicycle was most likely dead, and it was one hundred percent his own fault.

And, for the first time in his pissy little life, Leonard was sent into mid-air. And, truth be told, the only thing destroyed in the wreck was his poor and twisted bicycle. For this was only Leonards beginnings. Here was, clear as day, a flying superdud. A missile of no kinetic spark, the rajectory of which just so happened to take a fortunate path. Because, contrary to what most people who witnessed the accident believed, Leonard was being saved.

A couple thoughts on "The Internet"

2009-12-15T19:16:00.002-05:00

Recently, I've been spending a lot of time looking at "The Internet". I really enjoy "The Internet". I especially enjoy the many conveniences it offers to me, and I'm not only talking about naked girls. However, since I am obviously at least somewhat talking about naked girls, I should say a few things on the matter.

I feel so blessed to have come into this world (which I did in 1988) riding the crest of "The Internet" generation. Really, I could just have easily slipped out of that womb covered in amniotic fluid during any other generation. I could have been in a war. I could have marched on Washington with a sign in my hand declaring my indignation on this matter or that matter of black matters. Shit...I could have been a fruit fly in the 1500's. It's all based on that one (or maybe that sixty five million) roll of the dice. And somehow I ended up here, now, white, middle class, and hooked up to the world wide web.

And, at my fingertips is the most vast, enthralling, gigantic well of information ever to be available to anyone in the history of the world and quite possible the entire Universe, Galaxy, Milky Way, and (if you believe in the Men In Black view on existence) the long fingered aliens bag of marbles. Honestly, if King George or Queen Elizabeth, no matter how powerful they might have been, had asked their servants to tell them exactly what the hell it looked like right now in Zimbabwe, they would have been laughed out of their own court. Now, any schmuck with a cell-phone can do that in a few seconds. I have this power, this incredible super powered system of information and knowledge which comprises everything there is to know and learn and read, and the most fun I ever have on it is looking at naked girls. Shame on me.

Shame on me. Shame on all of us.

But fuck it. I like naked girls, some guys like naked guys, some girls like naked girls, guys, guys on girls like naked guys, naked girls like naked guys looking at pictures of naked girls on guys with girls watching. Who am I to judge. Who am I to not jump into this wonderful pornographic orgy? I'd be a total dick not to want to do that. And I can guarantee you that there are even people out there who like watching total dicks who don't want to do that...so even by neglecting to do that I would be participating in our democratic system of anarchy in information. So fuck it.

Anyway, Yahoo Mail has been really fucking me over these past few weeks. To access ones Yahoo email through "The Internet" a person first must get onto the Yahoo home page .

And from there, they are met with the most wonderful array of frivolous news articles that the heart could ever desire. And I am not being shitty or sarcastic here. I love Yahoo's reporting. I love it because I am a superficial worldly un-wise little shit who does not quite grasp how lucky I am to actually have "The Internet" at my fingertips.

Anyway, I end up reading a Yahoo story, and then I end up googling more info on the story until I have watched six or seven Youtube videos, read about nine seperate Wikipedia pages, and realized that it is time to go to bed. Honestly, this distraction accounts for me not reading my email like 75% of the time.

But I don't really care. All I get is junk mail anymore.

I guess you could say that I love "The Internet" too much. And I love it for all the wrong reasons like a guy loves a stupid whore who blows him for nothing more than the hell of it, and I bet that there are guys and girls and girls on guys with girls in them who also love just that.

Going to the movies in the US: not as bad as going to the movies in the UK

2009-12-14T21:33:00.003-05:00

Having spent just about a full semester now studying in the United Kingdom, I’ve reflected a lot on my home country, the United States of America. I’ve learned new Scottish, Irish and English English expressions, and seen my own American English expressions greeted with stares of confusion. I’ve been nearly run over hundreds of times, misjudging traffic on account of the Brits driving on the wrong side of the road. I’ve noticed CCTV cameras just about everywhere, seen a National Health Service physician for a checkup, and been questioned sternly by immigration officials when exiting and re-entering the country (despite my possessing a perfectly valid student visa) — all of this reminding me that as big as government has gotten under Bush and Obama, it ain’t as big as the UK’s.

Similarly, as bad as it is going to a multiplex in the US and sitting through four or five commercials before the coming attractions — the main reason I avoid big theaters in the Land of the Free — it ain’t as bad as going to just about any cinema in the UK and sitting through ten to fifteen. That’s right. Ten to fifteen “adverts” (what they call them here) before the trailers.

This has happened to me twice here; both times I was seeing the Coens film A Serious Man — multiplex the first time, small theater the second. It didn’t totally ruin the experience, because A Serious Man is as close to a perfect film as you’ll see these days (which is why I saw it twice here and intend to see it again when I return to the US next week), but it did make me wish I had shown up twenty minutes later than I did.

The most frustrating aspect of this experience was that I didn’t know who to blame, who to complain to, where to [English] channel my indignation. That, I suppose, is why I wrote what you’re reading now.

I know what you’re thinking: “isn’t this a bit of a frivolous issue given the many perils our world faces today?” Look, buddy, I come from a blue-blooded American capitalist family, one that believes strongly in the business motto, “the customer is always right.” When we feel abused as customers, we damn well tell somebody about it, and we take pride in our ability to coherently and eloquently express that outrage. It’s why we blog, and write letters to the editor, and, when necessary, ask to “speak to the manager.” This time, though, I didn’t know if “the manager” was really the appropriate direction for my opprobrium. Odds were the distribution company was to blame. Or, more likely, some sort of strange government regulation. Either way, this atrocity went too high for my no doubt devastating complaints to really make an impact; even my sharp-witted censure wouldn’t have phased such monolithic entities. In a very real way this experience has made me wonder whether the United Kingdom is as immune to dissent as it is to dentistry.

So despite the wonderful education, edification, and recreation I’ve enjoyed these last months in the Old World, it shall be a palpable relief to sink into an AMC Cinemas seat this holiday season and enjoy Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. After only five-ish commercials. Do sing along, if you know the words…

And I gladly stand up next to you, and defend her still today
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land… God bless the USA!

(I must extend a wholehearted hat tip to my friend Bill O’Toole for making me aware of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.)

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

U.S. reaches settlement with "American Indians"

2009-12-08T20:38:00.003-05:00

This New York Times story caught my eye today because of the linguistic choices in the headline — “US Agrees to $3 Billion Deal in Indian Trust Suit” — as well as many within the story’s body. Some examples of the latter:

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday between Obama administration negotiators and lawyers for some 300,000 individual American Indians[…]

“This is an historic, positive development for Indian country[…]” said Ken Salazar, the Interior Department secretary.

Under the settlement agreement, the government would pay $1.4 billion to compensate the Indians[…]

It struck me as odd that the author and those quoted throughout used the bolded terms, and I wanted to explore and attempt to explain that odd feeling. Am I alone here? It feels intuitive to me that the more acceptable term is “Native American.” Maybe that’s now out of date? But why would “American Indian” replace “Native American” as the more racially considerate option? Wikipedia tells me the following: “At the United Nations Conference on Indians in the Americas, representatives of many Nations and tribes collectively decided to call themselves American Indians.” I can’t possibly understand why, but fair enough; it doesn’t matter if I understand it, it’s their choice. But did the author of the NYT piece make sure that the tribes involved in the settlements were the ones who came to that decision?

Perhaps it’s a bit simpler: the author’s linguistic choice stems from the ancient system this deal is related to, the “Indian Trust” system, enshrined in 1887. But if that were the case, I’d expect the author to limit his uses of “Indian” to direct references to the Indian Trust system, rather than adopting the terminology for the duration of the piece. But again, I could be wrong.

Believe me, I’m not trying to be uptight here, but this is the intersection of politics and race — always the scene of some tricky discourse. Just ask our bi-racial (or is it mixed race?) President Barack Obama, who, the article claims, “had pledged to American Indians that he would work to resolve the lawsuit if he were elected.” Did our liberal President really use that term? It’s not a direct quote, so it’s hard to say. But this fascinates me. I’m legitimately amazed that it’s no big deal to refer to descendants of tribes who lived on the American continent before we did as “Indians.” It seems ignorant to me. I’ve always thought that it was something like calling blacks “colored people” or Asians “Orientals.” I also feel instinctively that it must be more okay for “American Indians” to self-identify that way, if they choose to, than for an outsider to use the term. I wouldn’t have expected it from a news source as politically correct as the New York Times, at least; but again, I don’t know.

As for our leaders, it’s likely that assessing this racial referent is not high on their priority list, and that’s probably why they don’t think twice about using it: it just doesn’t matter anymore. “American Indians” are not very politically salient — there’s no Congressional American Indian Caucus. Besides, what does changing the nomenclature even do? Yeah, they could go with “Native Americans”, or devise something new like “Original Americans” or “The Previous Americans.” But those names would only be unpleasant reminders of that period of genocide and colonization which we Real Americans have systematically expunged from our collective memory.

Let’s just stick with “American Indians.”

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

Obama elected to end war in 2008, mongers it in 2009

2009-12-07T13:15:00.000-05:00

The “Sunday Talk Shows” were a-buzz yesterday with Obama Administration statements of commitment to the War in Afghanistan, reports the NYT. A couple of samples:

“We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times,” said Gen. James L. Jones, the president’s national security adviser, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”
…
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” General Petraeus said that the Obama administration was not planning a “rush to the exits” in Afghanistan, and that depending on the security conditions there could be tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan for several years.

These coordinated statements are a direct response to those Americans (such as my WFTC colleagues Paul Davis and Ken Watson) who — rightfully, I think — criticized the President for showing his withdrawal hand to “the enemy.” That gaff seemed to render the 30,000 troop upgrade almost completely worthless. Of course, Obama was trying to appease both the foreign policy right and the foreign policy left, to show he has the strength to “do the dirty work” and the compassion to end it before “too much” blood is spilled.

But as others have noted, this was an incoherent and really politically idiotic message. Those of us with anti-war values don’t care about, or even really believe in, the “withdrawal date” of the troops… we are just annoyed that there are 30,000 new impediments to a sane foreign policy, one that brings an end to the historical cycle we’ve been stuck in: foreign meddling begets terrorism/anti-Westernism which begets more foreign meddling. And those with pro-war (or “pro-security”, or “anti-terrorism”) values don’t care about the 30,000 additional troops (partially because they’d prefer more, perhaps 50,000 or 100,000)… they are just annoyed that there’s now a “surrender” date on the calendar.

General Jones’ statement above about how we’re “going to be in the region for a long time” reminds me of an incredibly depressing (but still fascinating) lecture I heard at the University of Pittsburgh last spring given by Raed Jarrar, a Middle East commentator/blogger and Iraq withdrawal activist. He spoke a lot about what he termed, “the part of the United States government that doesn’t change, no matter who gets elected.”

As the first year of Obama’s presidency has reflected, that part is the foreign policy part. I still hear ardent supporters of the President talking about how Obama’s going to “get us out of a useless war in Iraq”, or how he’s “brought back a sane US foreign policy at last.” I (regretfully) cast a vote for Obama almost exclusively because I believed he might do that. I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the votes cast for Obama last year reflected the growing isolationist sentiment in the US (noted last week by Matt Welch), this increasing feeling among Americans that we cannot and should not “solve the world’s problems.”

But with more and more stomach-knotting lurches to the right from this Administration on Afghanistan, it’s easy to see that the major powers in our government are deeply committed to the right-wing “nation-building” project, that it’s unlikely that voting for a Democrat or a Republican, no matter how anti-imperialist they may seem before they are in power, will ever produce anti-imperial policy. Those in power and the interests they serve gain much more from being at war than from not being at war. My audacious hope, though, is that the Obama Administration’s cost-benefit analysis begins to take stock of the substantial number of Americans who now vocally oppose these wars.

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

Pickup.

2009-12-03T13:52:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, when I get desperate for the touch of another human, I head to bars. It's not a trait I am particularly proud of. It makes me feel dirty and dishonest. But I do it anyway, try and pick up women for sex. I don't offer any ulterior motives to them. I'm not promising the grand prize of a wedding ring or the illusion of a family and a three bedroom house somewhere outside of this city. I'm honest. And here is what I tell them. Here is how a sleaze like me reels in all those doe eyed little hussies who don't want to admit what they really are until they have been sweet talked and wined. It's the slut equivalent to dating.

I tell them this, and while I do it, almost like a ballet, I hand them a cigarette and light it.

"One of the tragedies of the modern world is that no one smokes anymore. All the medical research that has piled onto our collective senses of self worth and morality has made it impractical. And no one smokes anymore. People still lift lit cigarettes to their mouths and inhale. But this is not smoking, because when they do it theur guilty little eys dart around like ferile dogs humping guiltily. They know that what they are doing is impossible to defend. When they buy their smokes, at five bucks a carton, they apologize to anyone they can, anyone within judgement range. 'I'm trying to quit.' they say. 'This has gone on too long.' they complain. 'Very last pack.' they promise. And then they rush outside, to their icy designated spot, and they light up and inhale like a fat kid left unsuvervised at the buffet. The guilt they feel pervades and degrades them so much that they end up dying of it, rather than lung cancer or emphysema."

And the girl will smoke and maybe she will laugh if she has the brains to know when to laugh. And, if she is listening (or staring at me) I know I have her. Because there is no better way to decipher sexual interest than throwing out a long and pointlesss speech and waiting to see if the person grabs ahold of the line and pretends to care.

Me is All I have.

2009-12-03T13:25:00.002-05:00

All the bars closed at two in the morning, and the streets were filled with the staggers and laughter of drunk people trying to make it home with or without an acquired target. This time of night, all a sould needs to do to find some people is follow the neon lights. The ones advertising beer are the best. However, any neon light will do.

I don't pay much mind to the lights, and the people don't really bother me anymore. Usually I'm too drunk to even realize the time and place. But I don't pay this fact much never mind. Laying drunk and sweaty under the shield of the city suits me fine, and it's even better in the summertime.

Most always, no one even really notices me, and when they do I'm nothing more than a decoration to them. Other people don't care much for any history or future I might have. To them I'm just a lifeline what went sour at some point. I'm a nosedive into drunken depression and an ultimate and lonely death.

They might be right. I can't neccesarily refute these assumptions as unfounded. Wish I could. There's just too much evience against me, and I don't do nothing but refurbish it. It's not that I don't know what time it is. I do. I had a school career once, but something happened and my life was stuck under the hot white scrutiny of a downward time warp.

But when push comes to shove I, just like all people, happen to love myself with the ferocity that most people say they love their spouses with. I'm me and my own world is contained right up there in my greasy dome. I guess I'm like what the philosopher said, an egoist. Me is all I have.

Examinin' some WFTC reactions to Afghan war, makin' some points

2009-12-03T10:01:00.000-05:00

A couple of my colleagues at When Falls the Coliseum contributed reactions to the news of President Obama's Afghanistan troop buildup and his subsequent speech to West Point describing his plan. They both annoyed me in slightly different ways, despite the fact that I agree with both basic positions.

The first, by Ken Watson, is just the smarmiest, most sarcastic thing you'll ever read. It's really grating. I guess it's what you'd call "satirical"; he re-imagines Obama's speech as though Obama is among "enemy territory" at West Point, and is fighting a (rhetorical) battle. Just take a look at a couple "choice" paragraphs:

The purpose of his incursion was itself an audacious enterprise. Alone, Mr. Obama sought to steal a march on his foes, showing the flag before this hostile force; demonstrating his control of the battlespace. He would, if successful, steal defeat from the jaws of victory before the eyes of the world, committing to a build up of forces peopled by these very adversaries but not TOO large a build-up that might cause anyone to think there was any serious risk of victory or anything so vulgar as that.

And this is not the first such exploit on the unblemished record of our dowdy and dapper President. Modestly he chronicled in one of his two autobiographies that during the year and a half or so when he was engaged in something you or I would recognize as work, he was in fact operating behind enemy lines, facing his adversaries of the finance community, taking their measure up close. We see the benefit of this experience in his stern handling of these malefactors over these last few months.

I get and agree with what Ken is saying. There is a certain politically-calculating, disturbingly arbitrary character to the choice of 30,000 troops as opposed to some other numbers previously recommended from Obama's military advisors, such as 50,000. From my point of view the tragedy there is that Obama is not heeding his military advice OR the advice that anti-war, anti-imperialist thinkers such as myself would offer: just get the fuck out of there, we have no right to be there. So yes, I'm all for criticism of this decision and this speech, especially its spineless political pandering and wavering. I'm all for speaking truth to power. And I wholeheartedly agree about Obama's treatment of the financial industry.

But instinctively this kind of know-it-all, "gotcha!", "I'm-humiliating-THE PRESIDENT!" writing bothers me; it just seems kind of petty, and easy... almost pathetic. It's just bad satire; it fails to elevate itself above resentful sarcasm. This is the kind of thing that I hated reading/hearing from the left during the Bush Administration -- Bill Maher being the most prominent promulgator of it. It calls itself humor but it isn't funny; it's just petty partisan resentment.

The other piece, by Paul Davis, again criticizes Obama's move for being a purely political one. He thinks it was dumb and political of the President to announce our intentions to withdraw--he sees this as militarily foolish. But Paul is happy, because he thinks the surge of troops will "win the day":

On the one hand, I’m thankful that the community-organizer-in-chief partially approved General McChrystal’s request for additional troops. The additional troops will become the “surge” in Afghanistan, which will back up the counterinsurgency strategy that I believe will win the day, just as the surge/counterinsurgency strategy won the day in Iraq.

What annoys me about Paul's post is his foolhardy and stubborn confidence in military strategy. What did US military strategy bring us during the Bush years? Commentators of this kind would surely point to the surge and how there's been relative "calm" in Iraq since, as compared to before we instituted it. But what does that calm even mean in the broader scheme of things? Have we "won", then? In my view, an illegal war whose original impetus and whose continued "necessity" was/is to create an imperial stepping-stone, a base from which to control oil pipelines (not to mention to fill the pockets of military-industrial interests), will never be "won." We've already lost from the outset, because we've lost the moral high ground: our respect for other nations, our respect for human life, etc. "Saddam didn't respect human life either!", the stubborn say, and I again point out that two wrongs will never make a right (even if they do make a foreign policy consensus).

The only other thing I wanted to note in response to Paul's critique was this concluding bit:

Again, I’m thankful that Obama will be sending the additional troops. I trust General Petraeus and General McChrystal and I believe they will win the war in Afghanistan. I do not trust Obama.

Okay, as an opponent of the President (despite having, regrettably, voted for him) and most of his policies, I hate to have to do this, but that last sentence comes off as a bit ignorant to me, and possibly xenophobic or racist. Paul really ought to offer a basis for "not trusting Obama." In general, I don't "trust" him either, insofar as I don't trust him to do the right things, because I believe the work he and Congress have been doing since he's been elected has been almost entirely designed to serve special interests and address PR concerns. But the odd thing is that here Obama is doing what Paul wants him to do. So why doesn't he trust him?

Is it because he is the "wavering, insipid commander-in-chief"? Is it because he's the "community-organizer-in-chief"? Is it because he's a Democrat? This is probably the most likely answer, and what an ignorant and partisan one it is. Could it also be his "uncertain" nationality, though? The fact that his middle name is Hussein? When you end a piece with "I do not trust Obama", you unfortunately set yourself up for these kinds of criticisms, Paul. Especially when, again, the President is doing what you want him to do. It seems there must be something in his nature which seems untrustworthy to you. And given your ardent support for racist imperial adventures in the Middle East, I don't think it's unreasonable of me to wonder just what that might be.

I am the band

2009-12-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

[This is an untitled, unfinished short comedic screenplay which I started writing a year or so ago, found again recently, and decided to clean up/beef up a bit and share with the internet. It has many conventional errors, to be sure, despite my best efforts to edit for them/proofread; the most common example is probably that I include shot recommendations in what is not, properly speaking, a "shooting script." I feel that error can be ignored in a piece which has never really been planned to be filmed or developed into a film. Cheers. -Toto]

INT. SUBURBAN HOUSE - NEAR DUSK

Husband and wife sit across from each other drinking tea. There are plates of cookies in front of each of them. Medium shot of this visual, establishing. Their faces look vaguely flustered/irritated, and a faint thumping sound and a sound of music is audible off-camera.

Close up of one plate of cookies. It is shaking from the thumping/music. Close up of husband looking up at the ceiling, pan to the ceiling, at which point the music is louder. It seems to be getting louder and louder with no sign of stopping.

HUSBAND (angry, to Wife)
We should have NEVER let him start a garage band!

WIFE
Honey, please just--

HUSBAND (shouting at ceiling)
Clint, it's TOO loud! (to Wife): They never even play in our garage! It makes no SENSE!

Wife nervously picks up a cookie and takes a bite of it. The noise from upstairs continues. Scorching guitar solos, loud banging drums, etc.

HUSBAND (rising from his seat)
I've had enough. I'm THROWING those hoodrats out of my HOUSE!

WIFE (pleading)
Douglas wait!

But he is already tearing up the stairs. Camera tracks him through the house. The closer he gets to his son's room, the louder the rocking gets. Eventually he arrives at the door. There is a Stop sign on it, with a handwritten sign taped on which reads "GARAGE BAND REHEARSAL, DO NOT ENTER".

He snorts at this, and bursts in. His son, CLINT, is in front of his computer banging on the keyboard. As he does this, a face-melting guitar solo blasts his father back like a fierce gust of wind. His father rubs at his eyes, his jaw agape.

HUSBAND
B-but...

The solo is ending at this point, and a melody is audible. CLINT is banging on the keys in time with this. He puts his face close to the monitor and shouts punk vocals into it. His father just stands there and watches. When the song ends, and CLINT is about to go into the next song on the set, his father stops him.

HUSBAND
CLINT!

Clint turns around. He has Mick Jagger hair, sunglasses, and a burning cigarette in his mouth. He just looks at him for a few beats. Then he lowers the sunglasses slightly.

CLINT
What's up.

HUSBAND (confused)
What is going on here?

He gestures around at the four empty seats gathered around Clint.

HUSBAND (cont.)
Where are your bandmates?

CLINT
I am the band.

HUSBAND (in disbelief)
What??

CLINT (lighting another cigarette, blowing it in his father's face)
I am the band. This is my life now, Dad. I am the band.

HUSBAND
Son, that's great that you're... being creative. Don't get me wrong--I would never want to interfere with your creativity. But I'm worried that you're getting too into this rock star lifestyle.

CLINT (blowing smoke)
Whatever.

CLINT stands up, closes his laptop and puts it in a Zeppelin laptop sleeve. He straps this to his back.

CLINT
I'll see you, Dad.

CLINT walks off. His father yells out the window at CLINT, who is packing his "stuff" into a big van.

HUSBAND (with concern)
Where are you GOING, son?

CLINT
I'm going on tour.

HUSBAND
But you're 14!

CLINT
I AM the band!

He gets into the driver's seat and rides off into the sunset.

EXT. OUTSIDE OF INDIE MUSIC VENUE - NIGHT

Two chubby hipster dudes in their mid-twenties, Clark and Bill, smoke cigarettes outside a punk/indie venue.

CLARK
I'm getting pretty fucking excited for this, dude.

BILL
I know. I have been listening to these guys non-stop for like months.

CLARK
You know they're playing the Smell next month?

BILL
Holy shit.

CLARK
Yeah, and First Unitarian next week. Plus the Grog Shop in Ohio later this summer. Basically my three favorite venues in the nation.

BILL
Wow. I mean I knew Value Menu was coming up in the scene, but the SMELL?!

CLARK
Yeah man. They're so raw and garage-y, of course that would appeal to the whole scene there. Really great fit, I think.

BILL
What I love is just how evocative Clint's lyrics are.

CLARK
Oh absolutely. Not to mention the--the...

He stutters and stares off camera. Pan to Clint unloading his laptop from the van and carrying it into the club. As he gets out of earshot, they both swoon, alternately fanning themselves and shaking their heads in disbelief.

BILL
Oh... my... gawd!

CLARK
Like, whoa. The guy is so hardcore! He doesn't even have a roadie to help him with all his shit!

BILL
I can't, like.... We HAVE to party with him after.

INT. BASEMENT INDIE/PUNK CONCERT VENUE - NIGHT

Dissolve to Value Menu, Clint's "band", killing "their" last song. Face-melting guitar solo banged out on the MacBook keyboard amid layers and layers of GarageBand FX-generated feedback and noise. He has the mic in the hand not navigating the laptop, screaming incomprehensibly into it.

He holds the laptop over the edge of the stage as his loops reach a climactic peak; everyone in the crowd pushes forward to try to touch it. The massive sound he has just generated echoes throughout the dingy, sweaty venue as he spikes the mic down onto the stage like a football and walks off. The crowd goes insane.

INT. BACKSTAGE OF INDIE/PUNK CONCERT VENUE - NIGHT

Clint walks straight for a mirror set up on one counter backstage. He snorts ten lines of coke off of this, successively, then walks to another counter and downs ten shot glasses of vodka successively, then smacks himself in the face ten times successively.

The crowd can be heard off-camera still screaming and applauding as loud as before, some chanting for Clint to do an encore. Clint sits down on a couch, lights a cigarette and waits, seeming not to notice them.

A thirty-something journalist holding an audio recorder and a pocket notebook enters and approaches Clint tentatively. Clint cuts him off before he can say anything.

CLINT (blowing smoke in his face)
No fucking interviews. I don't have time for this shit. You can ask me one question.

The journalist is visibly taken aback by CLINT's attitude and behavior. His hands are shaking as he presses record and begins to speak.

JOURNALIST
[He clears his throat nervously.] Could, uh, the other members of the band not make it to the performance?

CLINT laughs condescendingly.

CLINT
Don't you get it? I am the band!

Clint exits back onto the stage. Off-camera the crowd is heard erupting with ecstatic applause and screaming at his appearance. The journalist meanwhile writes away furiously in his notebook. His eyes are gleaming. Close-up on his pen, scored by the sounds of Clint's MacBook noise-punk and the rabid, animal responses to it from the assembled crowd.

On the latest Afghanistan troop surge

2009-11-30T18:34:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, President Obama requested that additional troops be sent to Afghanistan, the New York Times reports. The actual number of soldiers is unknown, but according to the Times piece, “senior advisers to the president have said Mr. Obama intends to commit roughly 30,000 more troops.”

News from this conflict gets worse and worse with each passing day. This is a war that our top military commander admitted in August that we are losing. This is a nation which the Russians and the Brits both failed to “defeat” in the past, while employing many of the strategies we have planned for the next phases of the war (as Daily Kos‘ Markos Moulitsas and former CIA agent Jack Rice pointed out on MSNBC last week). This is an imperial adventure that a majority of Americans no longer support.

But my sense of the practical idiocy of Obama’s decision is overwhelmed by my sense that our politicians’ current understanding of foreign policy precludes these idiotic decisions. Our leaders, right and left, fail to realize that President Bush’s “War on Terror” was exactly wrong because it involved, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, an illegal imposition of American force on another nation. (Not that the 9/11 attacks, also an illegal imposition of force, were any better… but as every child learns, two wrongs don’t make a right.) The responsibility of other nations to sort themselves out ought to be respected, and the United States would be much better off setting an example for the world in this way. Unfortunately, Obama has done very little to change our approach, as today’s news underscores.

It was our fundamental misunderstanding of this — through our disproportionate military and economic support of Israel (which is viewed, rightly or wrongly, as a colonizing power in the Arab world) among other imperial actions in the Middle East — that radicalized Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists. Why can’t Obama recognize that these wars get harder to “win” the longer we fight them?

The only way to stop the bleeding, then, is to admit defeat and lay down our arms. The same principle ought to be applied in Iraq. Like someone watching a Dane Cook comedy special Clockwork Orange-style — and honestly, what worse a vision of hell is there than that? — we are stuck in a Vicious Circle. And our policy, to this point, has been no less awful than that man’s comedy.

In a way, the problem with our current strategy for “democratizing” the Middle East is very similar to the problem with our current strategy for “rescuing” the economy. As economist Peter Schiff has pointed out, the only thing worse than a devastating recession created by a credit bubble was our response: to extend and loosen credit. Similarly, I would argue, the only thing worse than the terror attacks of 9/11/2001 — whose conditions were created by a century of Western encroachment in the Middle East — was our response: to extend and increase Western encroachment in the Middle East.

[Cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum.]

Surprise Party.

2009-10-29T13:10:00.004-04:00

Mona found herself only brought to the precipice of surprise by the birthday party. It was almost like she knew she should have been surprised, but she just could not get there. She felt the victim of inadequate sexual intercourse, akin to it at least. And she wanted to tell all her smiling, wine faced friends that it was okay. This sort of thing probably happens to all people when they want to spook their pals into being giddy with trembling contentedness.

She was thirty now and, since she had been twenty, not much good had come from her use of oxygen, water, and calories on The Earth. Her waist had elasticized itself, and none of her old pants fit her anymore. The shadow of them remained though, lodged somewhere in a box in her closet. It was like they represented her as a junior in college, mocking her now as a thirty year old receptionist. All the mistakes she had made had been done for selfish reasons. Not one had been thought through. And very few of them had ever been rectified.

She had a baby out there somewhere, being raised by different parents with bright eyes and hope. And Mona's joke on them, for agreeing to take her daughter from her, was the surliness which lurked just below the smiles in that Babies DNA make up. One day she would blow up like a time bomb, and she would start to fuck up. The thought of this, of Mona's flesh and blood remaining true even beyond the power of nurture, made Mona as happy as she could become anymore. It was a bitter happiness and lasted as long as a drunk can maintain itself through shots of cheap whiskey.

However, despite all of the mines Mona had lumbered over so far in her rapidly deteriorating lifespan, these friends of hers still thought it appropriate to celebrate another annual event that only represented, anymore, the eventual death Mona would be forced to undertake without couth and bravery. The gall of these people to assume that Mona would happily embrace this day seemed to be of an impenetrable nature. It evaded rational analysis, at least in Mona's mind.

What perturbed most about the whole situation was the fact that poor fat crotchety Mona had any friends at all to help her herald in another year of life. To be true, none of them really liked her anymore. Her tragic existence murdered the buzz of their happy little lives. But, still, they fely an obligation to her. And none of them held any illusions that her life might become less awful some sunny day. And Mona knew it.

She knew how they talked behind her back. Mona knew all about the whispers and the ideas being passed around like a commone knowledge about the state of her mind and her existence and about the rotten corpse all these false people assumed her soul to be. Nevermind if they were absolutely right in their assummptions. They had no right to assume.

If she was a brave woman he might have said something very accusing and so painfully true that they would all search the innermost walls of their souls and find lack in all corners. And, after she had accused them of their wrongs and convicted them with everclear logic and fact, they would fall to their knees and beg of her forgiveness. She might give it. Ot she might let them live their lives as incopmplete moral journeys. Then misery would have company.

Instead, she smiled through caffein-yellowed teeth to which braces should have long ago clung and fixed all the major flaws in symmetry. She thanked them with sincere words that meant nothing as they passed the rubicon of vocal chords. With guiltless agony, while speaking kindly of them, she judged them as inferior to her. And then she began to drink and soon all of this was lost until the next day. And three hundred and sixty four days later, assuming her heart still ticked melodically, all of it would have to be endured again.

Her misery knew no end until she died alone in a second rate hospital bed at the age of fifty seven.

GUESS WHAT!!!??

2009-10-27T01:24:00.003-04:00

HA.

Hey TOTO!

2009-10-27T01:24:00.001-04:00

HA!

[Post meant to guarantee that Sam doesn't get two in a row]

2009-10-26T14:18:00.009-04:00

Faithful readers.

What's been up with Toto lately?, you ask. I reply:

1. The hard drive in my Macbook died, so I had to get a new one. That sucked. I've been struggling to get all my music off my iPod and into my iTunes because the various freeware/shareware programs available online that do this suck or are limited in scope if you don't buy their full versions. For instance, Senuti, which used to be one of my favorites, has become shareware. It now aggravatingly only copies half of your iPod until you pay 20 bucks. And it's not like it does it in a convenient way, like copying every artist from A through M and then stopping; no, it copies about half of the songs from every artist A-Z, leaving gaping holes in each artist's discography. It's an attempt to annoy 20 dollars out of you. But I won't pay 20 dollars for something that ought to be free, damn it! I'm cheap! Seriously, iTunes ought to have this feature built-in. People, including me, would certainly use it for illegal aims, but there are many instances, like this, in which they would use it perfectly legally just to get their life back together after one of Apple's other imperfect products caused some kind of catastrophe. I'm sure it's very common. So why not create a good image for themselves by helping their customers out? DoubleYou-Tea-F.

2. I've been reading "Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict", aka the Goldstone Report. It's a 452-page pdf; I'm up to page 141 so far. I've skimmed over some of the repetitive bits; many sections, after the Executive Summary and the Introduction, have the same schema--a repeated format, or system, if you will.

That schema is basically: overview of the issue or episode at stake (for instance: "Hamas fighters using civilians as human shields" or "The Israeli shelling of the UNRWA compound"); the position of one side; the position of the other side; factual findings (in other words, conclusions after a lengthy discussion of the facts supporting each side); and finally, legal findings based on principles of international law (which laws were broken, if any, based on these factual conclusions).

As I expected, the report is much more nuanced than we're hearing from the Israeli government or any of Israel's cheerleaders/apologists. And it's repeated over and over in the report that the Mission begged for Israel's support and help (something that might perhaps have made the report more "balanced"), and received none. The Mission wanted to visit the Israeli town of Sderot--which has received the brunt of Palestinian rocket attacks over the last decade--but Israel said no. Israel would not even allow the Mission entrance into Israel or the West Bank, to do any kind of investigation. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that Israel sought to make this report as difficult as possible to prepare, so that they could later reject it as flawed (as they, and the US, have done). The same rationale probably guided (and guides, as the policy is ongoing) Israel to ban all media access to Gaza.

Anyways, as an example of the nuance of the report, Hamas is charged with not taking enough care to safeguard Palestinian civilians and with deliberately targeting Israeli civilians. These are war crimes. And these aren't the only ones Hamas is charged with; just two that stick out in my memory, and I'm only a quarter of the way through the report.

Of course, there are a far greater number of war crimes ascribed to Israel in the report. To me, that's perfectly logical and fair. Israel killed around 900 civilians in the offensive, and destroyed miles and miles of private and public civilian property. The Mission's normative system--international humanitarian law--tests the legality of actions in war that caused civilian damage on whether they completed clear military objectives that afforded significant enough military advantage to outweigh the extent of civilian destruction. The report basically asks, how can that much civilian destruction and death really afford a military advantage? And if so, what was it? Israel has never given a clear answer on this. The only military goal they ever assign to the entire 22-day operation is reducing Palestinian militants' ability to carry out rocket attacks against Israel. One of the most appalling discoveries of the investigation, to me, is Israel's targeted destruction of food factories, farms, and water wells. The Mission found no evidence that Palestinian military combatants had been stationed in or near these places, meaning these actions served no discernible military objective. These actions certainly did nothing to reduce rocket fire on Israel's southern border. To me, they're just acts of terrorism.

The report is fascinating though--extremely thorough and methodical. I recommend it to those interested in international law, the Mideast conflict, rhetoric, and rules of warfare. It's quite a time investment though, so don't expect to read it all in one night.

3. On a lighter note, I saw post-punk band Les Savy Fav on Saturday night at 02 ABC on Sauciehall Street in Glasgow. The event was part of the UK ATP film tour; each show consists of an 80ish minute documentary followed by a performance by LSF. Only shitty thing was that they played for only about 25-30 minutes, by my estimation (when they were supposed to do about 50). No idea why. Tim Harrington was in full form, though: Dracula costume complete with a black/red cape and black paint all over his face in a strange, baffling design (did not fit with a traditional Dracula costume, but what the fuck can you expect from this guy), inexplicable mumbled jokes between songs, a slow decrease in the amount of clothes on his body as the set progressed, several instances of running into the crowd, and several instances of taking people's drinks and either chugging them or dumping them on his own head. Plus, he stood by the exit after and shook just about everyone's hand as they left. So it's not that the half hour they did wasn't amazing, it's just that I expected more from a 10 GBP show.

4. I am giving a presentation on Friday for my Shakespeare class. It's on the political point-of-view represented in S's history plays (particularly Henry IV Part One and Henry V). This point-of-view is basically that rulers who pander to and manipulate and ultimately win over their subjects--rulers who, in effect, convince their subjects through rhetoric to embrace their own subjection--are bound to be the most successful. My argument is, in short, that this is still the dominant political point-of-view of the Western world: populism. To illustrate this I will discuss the 2008 American Presidential campaigns, and compare the rhetoric used there with the rhetoric used by Henry V in these plays. I hope to employ my spot-on Barack Obama impression multiple times.

That's it for now. I've railed against Israel--it's your turn to write a story about a woman, Thomas.

Toto
Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
26/10/2009

Poolside

2009-10-22T17:56:00.003-04:00

They hid in the sharp grass on the far end of the pool where the water was deep and the sun came down like hot aluminum. The boys lay on their backs, and Tommy sat up with his hands behind him like bent pillars. None of them had moved in a very long time. And the girls stroking back and forth in the blue water was enough distraction to keep them dazed. It was like looking at a screensaver with the stars zooming in as the computer screen passed through open space.

Tommy wondered if the summer would ever end, and if he was an idiot, he might be inclined to assume that it would scroll on and on until his sunburnt skin caked the ground lile dried orange peels. Behind them, the buildings loomed upwards into the haze.

He liked Elizabeth, but she barely looked at him. If she did it was a passing thing, her eyes at a rest stop to relax before they went on to more interesting things. Everyone else liked Jasmine, but Jasmine was too much to take. She was too pretty, and she was too curvy. She might have been a monsoon for all Tommy knew. A summer really called for simpler things.

Elizabeth looked as simple as they come. Not simple in intelligence and not simple in how puzzling she might be to convince to undress. She was simple in that she did not seem to mind the heat. And she was simple in the way she talked and murmured to the other girls like the world was a matter of fact thing that could be transcribed as easily as anything else by way of her lips.

Seeing her was a comfort to him, and it was also a torment. It was the knowledge that any moment she might fix herself to speak to him, to even excuse herself as she passed him would be sufficient for him. And, also, it was the knowledge that at any moment she might be swept up by some reckless un-abashed other boy and be rendered gone to him by every account. The convergence of these two possibilities made a blend of inexplicable teenage emotions.

It was that emotion that, much to the chagrin of adults all over the world, would never again be replicated. It was that naive feeling that another person was perfect. It was, of course, a fallacy.

At the time, however, he did not know this, and if he was told he would call the teller a liar.

The girls in the pool called out with playful intent to the boys basking by the side of it. Come in, they said. And one by one each boy jumped in. Each, perhaps, with the same intent, calamitous or not, to retrieve one of those bikini-clad fish for his own. Each stayed under water for a bit, and his body looked contorted and incomplete from above. Tommy stayed in the grass, and he pretended to have no interest in the cool water. And then he saw Elizabeth.

She was suspended to the side of where the boys and the girls dunked and splashed and pretended to be younger than they were and pretended that they did not have thunderstorms inside them. Her blonde hair streamed the water like pictures of lightning. The red of her swimsuit top mixed with the paleness of her skin, and below the water her legs kicked like turbine engines. And she was looking right at him, half smiling, half horizontal mouthed. Her blue eyes felt like lasers, like he was in the sights of some futuristic rifle.

"Hey." She said.

Tommy jumped in and soared through the water to where she was.

They were eighteen.

Working For Tips As an Uncharming Schmoozer.

2009-10-15T13:01:00.003-04:00

I collected all the dollar bills in my pocket, and they were so creased that I thought the treasury might be apt to fine me for the ruination of currency. But I had them, and they totalled out to thirty dollars, and I was happy to have the money. They were tips from the day, and it had been a good day. Some days people don't give anything at all. Other days, like today, they feel compelled to give out money like they were kings and queens after their subjects favor.

I don't mind it. Some people say it's demeaning, but those people all have enough money to get by and then some. But when the money is not there and the expenses tilt the spectrum to an unfavorable level, wrinkled dollar bills in your pocket feel like warm insulation.

And I can't really lie about it. I like to get the tips. It makes me feel all charming and debonair when some old money gives me something to hold on to just on account of my smile and sense of humor. I don't delude myself though. I know I have no charm worth speaking of that doesn't come in short bursts.

Glasgow gig diary #1: Girls (13/10/09)

2009-10-14T05:48:00.007-04:00

If you haven't heard anything by San Francisco's most-hyped new band yet, try watching the music video for their first single, "Hellhole Ratrace." You will see Girls' dirty hipster constituents Christopher Owens, JR White, Garett Godard and John Anderson basically just running around and having fun, and doing odd things. The filmmaking and the way these kids look and are acting might remind you a bit of something out of Larry Clark or Harmony Korine, but you cannot let that color your judgment of the song, or this band's music. For sure, their look is completely typical of today's stinky, cigarette-smoking, douchebag youth. But their sound is a compelling mishmash of Beach Boys, Yo La Tengo and My Bloody Valentine, with really amazing musicianship and production.

In the days leading up to their little show in the basement of West End Glasgow pub The Captain's Rest last night, I was ambivalent. I had listened to the Album a ton of times, and loved it, but the band's Pitchfork.tv "Don't Look Down" was a little underwhelming. They just didn't seem very "into it", if that makes sense, and that's the last thing you want to see from such a young, new band getting such widespread acclaim, basically with the world on a platter right now....

But I was totally unprepared for the greatness of this show; it was energetic, loud and noisy (in an incredible way). Which isn't to say that they just banged it out as quickly as possible, or just got up there and "made a bunch of racket" (shut up, Grandpa). The slower, more quiet pop songs, of which Girls has quite a few, were played deliberately and elegantly, and with tremendous vocal expression from Christopher Owens. However, this is how the faster, more raucous songs went as well; they were similarly elegant, and Owens' voice still came through amid the layers and layers of distortion on "Morning Light", for instance.

The set opened with "Ghost Mouth", a slow, simple pop ballad with some truly strange lyrics--"Yeah I just wish I could get out and get up to Heaven / But I'm too scared to get out and get up to Heaven." Lyrically it's probably my favorite track of theirs. This proved to be a great starter--a quiet and poetic one; a very subtle, perhaps even classy choice. Then they went into "Laura", their most pop-y song, a bittersweet jingle-jangle head-nodder with Owens pleading desperately in the chorus, "Reach out and touch me, I'm right here / And I don't wanna fight anymore / I really wanna be your friend forever." It was soulful and pretty, and every piece of the band contributed equally well to back Owens' straight-out-of-the-1960s croon. Shortly later, they blasted into incredible album-opener "Lust For Life", which somehow sounded even better than it does on the Album. This just sent shudders of joy down my spine, seeing a song that has occupied my head for the last month manifested before me with breathtaking soul and artistry. It's really what I live for.

I forget how much later "Hellhole Ratrace" came in, but it was, like "Lust For Life", more mesmerizing and more profound in concert even than on record. It's an incredibly repetitive song--the last four minutes or so (of seven) are just Owens repeating the two most important stanzas--but it's through repetition that Owens, and his musicians, really get their "message" across. And the weight of that message has a way of increasing exponentially each rep. This is songwriting that, as a close friend put it, can be quite uplifting or quite depressing depending on the day you hear it. But as Owens crooned about not wanting to die and not wanting to cry (I won't elaborate more than that; I'll let you hear and judge Owens' words for yourself) for four minutes, and the guitars and feedback and effects pedals just kept adding layers and layers of sound, and the whole band went ritardando--an effect slightly less noticeable on the record, but it is there as well--I felt neither down nor up, but simply awestruck. The song faded into noise, marking the perfect chance to transition into "Morning Light", the band's two-and-a-half minute shoe-gaze masterpiece. These two songs, in tandem, comprised one of the best things I've ever seen a band do live.

So yeah, this was a great concert. I urge you to check out Girls' Album as soon as possible, if you haven't already. It might not grab you immediately, but you'll probably find that a few of the songs just won't get out of your head, and that the more you make myself really dig into this band, and really set aside your prejudices about their douchebaggy look and demeanor, the more you really cannot deny their artistic abilities. I cannot wait for their next record; the several new tracks they did last night were as great as anything I was familiar with. This is music worth keeping your ear on.

Windows

2009-09-08T13:07:00.003-04:00

There is nothing in this world so vital to the human spirit as a window. Or, perhaps, more fittingly light and air are the vital bits and the window is simply a conduit. Through windows, waking men and women, achieve their first insight as to how the day might fair.

They see gray and decide upon a jacket and umbrella, they see blue with wisps of white floating harmlessly and they ransack their drawers for light and cool clothing. A blanket of snow will mean a jacket. Leaves upon leaves piling up like forgotten soldiers on a battlefield might mean an early rise followed by raking.

It is no surpise to anyone familiar with the nature of men and women that the first thing most people do in the morning, aside from the superficial run to the bathroom to relieve the bladder or bowels, is glance out at the day ahead. And then all other actions commited by that person are a distant relfection of that first glance.

In my time I have known many windows. And each has left an impression upon me which was at once familiar and also completely original. Windows, like mirrors, do not offer the same view twice. Yet they appear the same. A child might grow up in a room with a window that peered into another domicile and yielded an intimate view on the residents of that house. And this might shape that child, mold him, voueristically raise him to think in a certain way. Meanwhile, his parents, sleeping in a room adjacent with an identical looking window might be given a wholly innocent glance into the same house. Same house, different window.

And now, as I sit in my room and I look up at my window, cold and heartless, carved into concrete, I think of all those windows that came before.

There have been windows through which the whole of a city could be spied upon, and through which the looker felt and appeared to be an overlord. Every move of the masses below was spied by him, and he could pin-point certain lifes convening and retreating into stores and restaurants and places of business with the ocular voracity of a peregrin falcon on a perch.

Some windows have moved, and the tracks below them churtled and quivered as the landscape changed over and over and over again, whizzed by like a conveyor belt. Windows like these offered no permanence, and they were thus the object of great curiosity. The only way to make a landmark in-permanent is to pass by it at great speeds. In this manner, a cow or a building or a tree that would otherwise be ruled out as mundane receives great study. And this is how we learn.

Windows have been glossy and opaque, drawn on like paper tablets. And song has bounced off them and organs have been played by them, candles lit, and prayers sent out to the heavens. Sermons have been belted and whispered by such windows, and these are not hatches to see through. They are vehicles by which one is expected to search inwardly. And, upon gazing at them, a body might be taken aback by the rustic drawings on them. Shephards and women clutching bloody men upon crosses, full breased two-dimensional angels with solemn, buggy eyes fly away. And it would take quite an imagination to give the glass any animation, and in this fashion they become immovable conduits of scenery.

I knew a window in a room of light red, and I only looked out from a bed, and I remember skinny hands clutching my abdomen as we lay the day to rest. I remember the other houses from the window with their shades drawn and their lights off. Our lights had long ago been extinguished as well, but the activity beneath them did not cease. And, as the morning came slowly, I lay awake and wished it wouldn't.

Great steel submarinesdo not have windows, but if they did, you might see the green sea housing the muck of oceans. Whales would float by singing their songs to fellows floating miles away, and the distance would seem but a few steps to them. Breathless fish would swim stupidly by and dart in and out of various ocean wreckage and corral spikes. Sharks would munch and chew and try to make sense of the world they live in, and they would get about as far in this endeavor as a toddler climbing the spokes of a bike wheel. And the great machine would float on and on and on until the person behind the window would lose control and sob and cry at the fact that this was most of his world, and he would never understand its motivation or its purpose.

Windows on Japan show Japanese people, street smart and oblivious hustling back and forth along the foreign avenues, yellow tides of thought and emotion. French windows show the french streets lit metaphor-like by french lights, and the gazer (if not a Frenchman) would be shocked and awed by the wonderfullness of it all. American windows show the great the metrpolis-system of cities billowing smoke upon the colorful hordes of men and women, black, white, brown, and yellow. And they would all let out an explosive cough, and the smoke would waver, and the window might show a farm with corn upon its plateaus like hair upon a yellow dog.

And before I knew it, I had looked through all sorts of windows. And I did not even realize what they meant to me before I ended up where I am now. Where I am bound to stay for the rest of my seeing life. And, were it not for the thought of those windows that have passed, I might be driven insane by this thought. Ironic. If this did happen, I would have a reason to be in this place.

That window up there, the one I will never touch, that is my refuge. It's all I have of the world outside that is not an eight by twelve rectangle of cement and cold hard surfaces upon which to sleep and defecate. And the square above me, cut by strong hands years ago into the heart of the rectangle allowed the light in like corral immuminated in the ocean. And it let the sound in, and I knew that the world outside was still going on. And I knew that there was more to it all then the voices and inclinations of my own mind and body.

It was too high to see through, and I had no means of climbing to it. But, as I soon realized, sight is only one of the many functions a window serves. I could smell and hear and feel the outside, and if I closed my eyes, theses senses would paint me a picture.

There was a river near my window, and I could smell the filthy water, and I could hear the filthy birds pecking at un-seen, writhing fish. And the dockhands hollered and swore at one another, and then they all laughed and went away for beer.

There would be fathers and sons, speaking in hushed voices through the early morning haze, and then the son would cast his lure to the river, and there would be a splash. And the father would say something, and then his beer can would snap and hiss open. And they would stay like that, speaking occasionally, laughing stoicly like men working at play, and then they would leave to have the mother cook up the fish they had claimed from the river.

Cars and tires rolled tirelessly against the pavement. The drivers barely glanced at the cement building, and when they did it was only as part of an act of driving. I heard the busses with their squaling engine bits and automatic doors opening the world up to those who would ride it and to those who have yet to board.

And the night would come, and everyhing would be dark except the moons glow. And I would lie on my cot with my hands behind my head, and I would know that I had nothing to sleep for. Soon enough the teenagers come in their cars, an their music blasts from their stereos. They keep their doors open so the music penetrates the night. I often imagine that it makes the river ripple from the trauma of it. And bottles of libation are soon opened and kisses and unhooked bras and whispers of feigned-trepidation tremble in the air until they are drowned out by loud breaths and promises of eternal affection. And then, a while later, they would splash their bottles into the river and the cars would leave. And I would finally sleep.

I might dream, but I never remembered. Life was enough of a dream already. And I often think that if I am truly a lunatic then I truly belong in this place, because the circumstances constituted pure lunacy. Nothing about the room where I lived could ever be described as healing or medical. They were simply a place to store corpses until it became medically official.

But who knows? Maybe insanity is only linked to a lack of windows. And every day, my window played out the same scene. And I could soon predict its twists and turns, and I wrote it off as folly. I wrote it off as repetitive tripe, and yet I listened and smelled and closed my eyes to see. Because, really, the only windows worth looking through are the ones that are sure to change. And I still hold out the hope that one day, my window will yield something spectacular.

And maybe it will only be remembered as a window. Maybe it will not be my life. And someday I might look to others and describe the view.

If sanctions for Iran, then sanctions for Israel as well

2009-08-27T09:56:00.009-04:00

The current Iranian regime is too powerful, too corrupt, and far too disrespectful of human rights. Case in point: Iran's "completely free" June election, one of the most fascinating news stories I think I've ever lived through, was almost certainly fixed, and legitimate protesters of the results were detained en masse.

As regards Iran's nuclear program, I have not been convinced that Iran's leaders want to use it to obliterate the population of Israel or that of any other nation. The International Atomic Energy Agency, it seems, hasn't either. I understand the danger of allowing nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of a government so authoritarian, corrupt and fundamentalist, though. On paper.

Acknowledging this, and how shitty life is in Iran, and how corrupt politics are there, I still do not know if multilateral economic sanctions against Iran are justified.

This compelling paper, by Hans Köchler, an Austrian philosopher, scholar, and UN critic/reformist, argues that multilateral economic sanctions are collective punishment. Indeed, the latest plan seems to be to "go after Iran's gasoline imports[....] That could seriously hurt Iran, which [...] imports up to 40 percent of its gasoline," says the NY Times. This would almost certainly impact a broad swath of the civilian population, a population that we consider to be victims of the Islamic Republic's authoritarian regime. It is clear that the US and the other acting members of the United Nations Security Council know full well the catastrophic impact this will have on Iranian civilians, but they pledge to do it anyway; that's morally pretty awful.

But today's politics, especially here in the US, seems to be all about pragmatism over principles. "All in the game, yo", many want to argue, and if you don't play it you'll never get anything accomplished.

We've elected Barack Obama, a politician who became known in his pre-Presidential political career for being: "practical and shrewd, a politician capable of playing hardball to win election (he squeezed every opponent out of his first race), a legislator with a sharp eye for an opportunity, a strategist willing to compromise to accomplish things." Since taking the oath of office, Obama has shown this same willingness. Most recently, his healthcare reform plan has basically been tailored to all big interest groups with a stake in the way the system works. So, many would probably argue that even if mine and Köchler's assessment of sanctions is convincing on moral grounds, sanctions still may have pragmatic utility, because they "get shit done"--they get a nation-state to do what we want it to do when it might not otherwise.

Well if this is the reason to impose them, I think Israel ought to get multilateral economic sanctions as well, given 1.), its decimation of the civilian population and infrastructure of the Gaza Strip from December '08 to January '09, and 2.) its failure to stop settlement building (a practice which is illegal under international law) since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office.

I wrote a paper for school last semester about 1.), and I find it odd how little attention this war gets anymore--in the media, in the statements of politicians around the world, even just among ordinary people. No one seems to really know about it, or remember it, or care to remember. I think many don't know what to think, and I think that's justified--the Israeli side frequently counters any claims about the offensive's brutality and/or illegitimacy with the claim that Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip used civilians as shields. This is probably true to some extent--although no independent reports have yet verified it, as I write in my paper--but one of my main arguments is that this doesn't take moral culpability away from Israel. And it's unclear that the offensive "got any shit done", either, considering that Gazan militants still fire their pathetic (compared to Israel's artillery) homemade weapons on the Israeli border pretty frequently. Such a blow to Palestinian life and standard of living, as well as Arab public opinion of Israel and the West, should not go unpunished by a body (the UNSC) that seeks to foster peace and security.

Regarding 2.), it's obvious to anyone who pays attention to Israel-Palestine that the two-state solution is seriously jeopardized by continued settlement activity. When diplomats and negotiators on either side refer to permanent or final status issues, they mean, in effect, "where will the borders be drawn?" And as Israeli settlement in the West Bank continues to slice it into a thousand islets, one wonders if anything short of completely evacuating settlements will do to establish permanent borders; meanwhile, Netanyahu wrings his hands over simply freezing settlement. For this one, I jumped straight to the pragmatic argument, but ultimately the moral argument is more compelling for me: that settlement is illegal land confiscation, and that it violates the human rights of an occupied people. (The Israeli justice department, on the other hand, is looking to officially legalize settlement. I guess we disagree on the moral issues at stake.) My point is that something so detrimental to peace as this that is ongoing, and shows little sign of truly stopping, deserves a firm response of sanctions, as a way of possibly altering Israel's behavior.

Ultimately, I disagree with sanctions entirely. I don't think it's right to punish an entire nation--be it Israel or Iran--for the shitty decisions of its rulers. I disagree with sanctions for the same reason that I condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza, and the violent Iranian crackdown on protesters: all of these actions are immoral because they fail to distinguish individuals, and thus fail to respect individuals' civil and human rights.

Freedom, neoliberalism, and the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit

2009-08-22T14:28:00.012-04:00

The G-20 Pittsburgh Summit, indeed one of the biggest things to happen to Pittsburgh ever, is something that I would gladly protest. I say would because unfortunately, I will not be in Pittsburgh at the time; I will be studying abroad (or two) in Glasgow, Scotland at the University of Strathclyde.

However, I am firmly rooted in my opposition to these sorts of events, so I would definitely protest if I were going to be here. And I think you should too. But perhaps not for the reasons you think you should.

Most of the opposition, which is rapidly gaining force and could culminate in some pretty intense clashes with local law enforcement (including an expected loan of 3000 officers from outside of Pittsburgh) and Secret Service, is in response to:

"[The fact that] the world we live in dictates that the market is above all others. This value system created the G-20 and the IMF to ensure that no other value systems -- solidarity, dignity, respect, love -- could compete. In this monopoly: oppression. The G-20 exists to be the managers of our oppression. Their policies of bio-devastation, economic imperialism, and manufactured desire dictate the world economy, which in turn keep us working for the future that they are creating without our consent. The summit ensures their power and with that, a future without health care, a livable earth, a sense of purpose, or freedom."

In addition to reading like freetranslation.com co-wrote it, this mission statement from the G-20 Resistance Project largely misstates the problem with the G-20--the problem with the UN as well, for that matter. I don't believe the dichotomy of markets VS. "people" fits as a label--not that any dichotomy can accurately characterize reality--for the collection of empirical data we have access to at this point in human history. Rather, I would argue that government power--which tends to be massive, massively concentrated, and massively cruel--VS. "people" fits much better.

I think China is perhaps the best example of the distinction. China illustrates that markets, in fact, are NOT bad for people, as a whole--the freedom China has accorded to its businesses over the last twenty years has substantially improved the financial and political lot of the ordinary man, simply by creating a massive amount of wealth and prosperity there. Yet the horrible human rights abuses which persist there occur at the hands of Chinese government power--which is far too concentrated, and nowhere close to transparent. This Leviathan maintains labor camps and prisons with hundred of thousands of political and religious detainees (http://www.reason.com/news/show/133931.html). This has nothing to do with China's economy being capitalist, and everything to do with its government being a dictatorship.

Thinkers similar to the G-20 Resistance Project include Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine. These sorts typically rail against neoliberalism, capitalism, and global power structures, putting all three under the same umbrella. I can't possibly deny that money is connected to power, but I also don't buy (pun intended) that markets create (or require, or thrive on) disenfranchisement. This latter claim is in large part Naomi's thesis. She describes many [selection biased] examples of Western imperialism, or Western government meddling, and says that this is what free market capitalism gives us. But each example is something that government did, not business, or the private sector. Even if some member of the private sector benefited, or if someone was "getting paid" (as I'm sure someone was), the actor in this case, that did the fucked up thing in question, was the government. Nothing about that is a result of free market capitalism; everything about it is a result of bloated government power, which leads to corruption and imperialism. I don't deny that the things Klein illustrates are horrible. I simply deny that they are problems with capitalism.

As a believer in a political ethic of individual freedom above all else, I would protest the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit for three reasons:

1. The governments of the twenty wealthiest nations in the world tend to have way more power than they should, and they continually restrict the power of ordinary people, who tend to do much more moral things with power than they. These governments also have a horrible record of protecting citizens' rights. We need to show that we reject these governments.

2. Many of these nations use international bodies like the G-20, the IMF, and the UN (most especially its Security Council) to engage in reckless and immoral imperial meddling. The ways in which such international bodies have been impotent in reining back (and have even been supportive of) the expansion of empire since WWII (which should have taught us the problem with empir e [see ch. 16]) comprise an argument for tearing them down, by force if necessary. Sanctions, treaties, and joint-security plans serve to undermine the power of individuals and allow big governments to further colonize and expropriate individuals' private property. We need to show that we reject these coalitions of governments, and the massive power they hold over individuals.

3. With every new day, it becomes more and more important to exercise our right to dissent. Leftists, who once took to the streets for black rights, women's rights and the right not to participate in imperial wars, now condemn town hall protests by ordinary people. (This should come as no surprise, since government power corrupts. Democrats are now in power, so their ethic has been corrupted.) Much of the nation supports Sgt. Crowley, who arrested a black man for "disorderly conduct", basically because the black man was criticizing him. (We must not mistake a police officer for anything other than an agent of government power; criticizing the government is one of our absolutely essential rights, and it should never lead to us being detained.) And the events following the elections in Iran, truly horrific, show us how governments quickly and forcefully crush dissent, using a variety of tactics. We need to show the governments represented at the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit that we disagree with this, and we have the right to disagree with it, and we will exercise our right with gusto.

Skinny Man

2009-08-22T11:10:00.004-04:00

To see him walk, one would not surmise him to be the type of person he was. And they would certainly not guess as to the deaths on his hands. And these failures to judge his character with accuracy would be innocent and understandable mistakes, for this man walked in a loping stride of a gait more like that of a cushy queer than of an erratic murderer. These initial impressions would, however, be snuffed out when first his true nature showed. Sometimes all it took was eye contact. And when his arctic blue eyes met those of a softer human, the result was as chilling as his ocular orbs.

His pale face, caving in due to the geological pressure of is emaciation, gave no hint of humanity. It was a simple and barren landscape, and the protrusions of his nose and thin lips did nothing to lighten its topography.

He was human only in form and biology. Metaphorically he was something else, and he'd been called other things in his time. He had never been called any name that was kind.

Violence had come as a reflex to him. As a boy, he'd snapped the bones of squirrels from behind his fathers house. And he'd tried to discern the explosions of pain and fear from beyond their animal eyes. And, even as a boy, he'd wished they would scream.

And, as he grew, so did his courage and his appetites. The first one had been the teenage boy who worked the counter at the Sunoco shop. He had been skinny with red hair and acne scars, and he had screamed to unimaginable decibel levels.

Good coffee/espresso in Pittsburgh: Hard to find, and Toto's hard to find it.

2009-08-10T10:52:00.014-04:00

For my money, the only decent coffee beans being ground and brewed in this town are La Prima Espresso's... and Starbucks'.

Call me a privileged American pig if you want, but anyone who still demonizes Starbucks is an asshole. They bend over backwards to be friendly to the environment and local grower communities. They offer good wages and benefits to their workers. And they have absolutely no connection to Israel. (These rumors seem to have originated from a kind of lazy stereotyping; Starbucks' CEO Howard Schwartz is a rich American Jew, so he must support Israel. Yet another example of the problem of equating Israel and Judaism, on both sides of the Middle East conflict.)

I did the Starbucks boycott thing for a few months this year to really disappointing results, mostly for lack of good alternatives in my neighborhood. You see, we have two options on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield, at opposite ends of its busy commercial strip: a Starbucks near West Penn Hospital, and a Crazy Mocha (famously connected to indie/cult/foreign DVD renter The Dreaming Ant) at the corner of Liberty and Taylor, across from the place that sells the best hamburgers in Pittsburgh, Tessaro's. Sadly, Crazy Mocha does not sell the best coffee in Pittsburgh. Far from it.

For a few months this year, I drank that shit anyway. The Moch' has a decent vibe (thanks partially to the aforementioned Dreaming Ant... browsing their incredible selection is a must for any stop here) and delicious big cookies (and other overpriced desserts)--no doubting those things. But the more I drank their coffee, and this is a coffee shop mind you, the more I realized that it tastes extraordinarily watered-down and weak. I don't know if it's the beans (I've never bought them myself), or that the stupidly-dressed baristas are unable to brew them correctly, but either way the shit is awful. And their espresso is virtually indistinguishable from their coffee! I've Pepsi Challenged a cup of regular coffee and an Americano (each with an identical amount of sugar and milk) and not been able to tell the difference. Yuck.

So after saying four or five times to myself, "I refuse to pay for this awful swill ever again," I finally committed and stopped going. I still go in to The Dreaming Ant to rent a DVD once in a while, and I'll even drop a couple bucks on a big ol' M&M or peanut butter cookie. But I will not pay for that tepid shitwater, not even for the coolest scene this side of Williamsburg. Which it isn't; frankly, this wannabe-IY anarchist/punk watering hole feels more depressing than revolutionary. That's what's most infuriating: the amount of money it continues to make, simply because young (and increasingly, old) losers think it's the cool place to be. Yep, I had to get away--I was sick of almost hurling at the smell of hipster b.o., or at the sight of stretchers.

I went back to giving my money to Starbucks for Bloomfield coffee, after becoming fed up with Crazy Mocha and after deciding that most of the anger aimed at the Starbucks corporation is misguided and futile. The Pike Place Roast may be inelegant, but at least it's strong. That right there puts it leagues ahead of most other options in the 412. To me, Starbucks is one of the best available data points that capitalism is a wonderful thing. Just about anywhere in the world, one can find a decent, strong cup of coffee, thanks to Starbucks' global saturation. Many call it homogenization, cultural/economic imperialism, whatever. For me, it's an example of markets improving people's lives when a new Starbucks opens in another country--I see it as there now being somewhere to get decent coffee in that place where there previously was not. That's a good thing, in my opinion. Still, I'd prefer to support something more local/independent in my neighborhood, I'd just like it to taste good.

I hope that some young, bold event planner for the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit thinks to take the world's figureheads to get a cup at La Prima Espresso in the Strip, if they wanna go somewhere local. The Strip location is a hustling, bustling, family-vibe espresso bar, always packed with old stereotypical Italians gesturing wildly at the counter and out front at the little round tables. It's great for regular coffee, espresso shots, Americanos, capuccinos, you name it. La Prima's many brews have rich, full-bodied flavor, strong but not bitter (the most common, mostly on-the-mark complaint about Starbucks' brews). Every Pittsburgh resident and visitor deserves to experience a La Prima cup on a Saturday or Sunday morning while strolling down the Strip--it's a near-psychadelic experience as the caffeine headrush settles in and you peer around at the many crazy, desperate, yinzin' vendors selling every permutation of Steelers puns and slogans on every fathomable article of clothing. It's a totally singular experience, not found in any other city. Best to start drinking that coffee whilst dehydrated, to maximize the high.

"But the Strip is so far away!" you whine. I know. It sucks. Thankfully, many coffee shops/restaurants around the 'Burgh know good coffee when they taste it, and brew La Prima roasts themselves. I found this list on La Prima's website, and lo and behold, there are numerous such locations around; there's probably one near you, somewhere. One of the locations listed is Espresso a mano, a nice little place that just opened on Butler Street in Lawrenceville near Coca Cafe (which also brews La Prima) and whose owner, Matt Gebis, is the fellow pictured at the top of this post. I had a cup of coffee here yesterday, and it was wonderful. I hope Matt is successful and I will certainly stop in for a cup when I'm in the area. Unfortunately, it's a bit too long of a walk from Bloomfield to be an everyday place for me. Perusing this list, however, I notice that Grasso Roberto, which is also on Liberty Ave, seems to brew La Prima! I will investigate this tonight. Needless to say, I am excited. I may have found a way out of my current Starbucks (decent but inelegant)/Crazy Mocha (awful but local) stalemate.

How to Cover Your Son in Mud

2009-07-30T18:40:00.005-04:00

We all know him, and we all don't know what to do with him. He haunts our sense of self when we sleep, and he pesters us constantly in our waking hours. Life seems pointless when he is around, and when he is not within our line of site we feel the guillotine of his annoying presence ready to fall upon our neck. I am, of course, talking about the son we don't love.

Most sons are worthy of a fathers love, and most sons are beautiful boys full of petential and the light of life. Unfortunately, every basket, no matter the genetic strength and purity, is prone to the dangers and stink of rotting eggs. And this is just what a bad son is, a fetid greening fowls spawn.

A father will immediately know if he does not love a son. He will know because when he looks upon the face of that son he will feel nothing. The father will not even be proud to have made the boy from his own genetic code. The father will always look at the hated son with cold indifference, and the son will feel this, and he will be remorseful. Though no amount of remorse, tears, apology, or pleading will ever suffice to win the love of the father.

It is the boys place in the household to grow up a hated creature. His other brothers and even sisters will (and should) treat him no better than they would treat a misbehaving neighborhood dog. And the hated son should never be given warm food to eat. This will make him feel loved, and love (even the illusion of it) will hearten the cur.

However, despite his awful miserably person and existence, it is still illegal to kill that son to whom you feel no affection at all. Bills are currently being discussed and thought over by haughty congressmen which would legalize the termination of bad sons, however, as of this writing, no conclusion has been come to.

So, in the meantime, how does a good father punish the son? This is a tricky question. And it is a query which has plagued and stumped fathers from the time of Plato.

There is, of course, always the method of food and water limitations. I have already made stated the golden rule hat no hated son should ever be given food prepared in a stove, microwave, grill, crock-pot, or any other culinary device meant to heat food. The hated son should be fed dry cereal. Grape Nuts are currently the favorite. This is just taken for granted as a common sense pillar of Americana culture. However, this is often not enough punishment. Boys are resillient, even bad ones, and they can learn to love almost any kind of food. Though, if your bad boy does eventually take a liking to dry food and warm tap water, do not despair. There is a time tested remedy for a terrible sons. Cover him in mud.

Nothing breaks a boys spirits quite like being forced to be filthy. Yes, boys will romp and roll in mud and chase after girls while screaming like savage and bloodthirsty comanches. However, they only partake in these messy games temporarily, and sooner or later every boy is going to want to take a shower. Bathing your son is the perfect way to show your pride and affection for him. And a lack of cleaning would do the exact opposite for a son you do not love. In short, to show your son that you do not love him and that you do not care for him as kin, cover that boy in mud.

To do this most effectively, there is a step by step procedure which shoud be followed.

Take your son out to an empt field. It is best to wait until it has been raining for many days. Your son may become very excited, because, if you're anything like most fathers, you have never given the son you hate a car ride. He will think that maybe you have come around and taken a liking to him. And, whle you know this to be terribly untrue, it is not such a bad idea to lead the boy on for a while. Tell him things like, "I realize you have never had iced cream. Perhaps I should take you to the parlor." Or, "Maybe you and I shall go to the park so you might meet boys your age to play with." Or you might try the old classic, "When I was your age I had a dog, and I loved the dog very much. I shall allow you to pick a puppy for your own from the pet store, and then we will get iced cream."

Your boy, upon hearing these false promises, will be beside himself with tears of joy. This will be the happiest you will ever see him. In fact, he will be so happy that he will neglect to notice that you have taken him to a very dirty field. He will neglect to notice this all the way up until you push him out of your moving vehicle.

While your boy still writhes in pain on the ground, bring your automobile to a halt. At this juncture, it is best to laugh at the boy. Call him weak, stupid, and naive. Then make fun of him for not knowing what the word naive means. Tell him that he does not deserve to be loved, and that no one, not even a sonless father could ever love him even one iota. Tell him he will never have porridge.

Then, as he is still struggling to draw breath from his petrified and weak lungs, drag him by his feet to the nearest mud puddle. A pile of manure will also suffice. And it would be a real treasure to find a mud puddle adjacent to a pile of horse or person manure. Slap him once, and then throw him headfirst into the filth. Tell him to lie there, and tell him that if he moves to raise his head he will be punished most severely. If your boy is broken (and he should be otherwise you had better re-evaluate yourself as a father.) he will lie still. While you have the wretched boy in the dirt and grime of his shame, drive to the nearest food store.

At the food store, purchase as many meat and meat based products as possible. These will come in handy later on.

It will probably take you about an hour to go to the food store and return to where you left your son. By now he will be cold and shivering, and he will no longer be able to cry, because he will be out of tears. When you see him laugh at him, and make sure he can hear this laugh.

Next, proceed to cover your boy in meat. He will be very uncomfortable, and he will most likely muster a few last drops of tears. After he is totally and completely smeared in, Turkey, Ham, Beef, Salami, Tuna, and all sorts of other terrible and, by now, rotten animal products tell him to take his feet.

Next tell him that you are going and that he will have to walk home, because he stinks. This will teach your boy.

The Art of Fighting Loneliness.

2009-07-26T11:29:00.003-04:00

I started going to fun places by myself when I turned twenty-one. When I say fun places, I mean places where other people who travel in packs would have fun. I'm talking about bars. And I'm not talking about old man dive bars with jukeboxes and taps that only spout boring, cheap beers. The sort of place I'm referring to is vibrant, undulating with attractive young people laughing and telling jokes. Colorful beverages litter the bar-counters and the tables, all of which are nestled comfortably inside soft booths.

So, because I was the only one of my friends who was twenty-one at the time, I went to these places by myself. I walked in the doors brimming with confidence, which might not have been proven to be false had I maintained it. However, as soon as I sat down and ordered myself a drink, all my bravado vanished into the viscous mist of neurotic worrying.

I would look around, and when someone caught my eye I would look down. They must have thought I was there to leer at girls and try to take one home for myself. Or they must have thought that I was socially retarded and was thus relegated to a life lived with a drink in front of myself and no one adjacent.

Perhaps, had I met their gazes, I would have come to a contrary conclusion. But, I never did. I just looked down and feigned somber introspection and indifference. Brooding alone in a bar is a lot cooler than sitting and waiting to be chastised for being a creepy young man.

The girls especially made me sick with worry. What would they think? Would they venture to talk to me? Or would they just sit with their packs and giggle. And when they giggled I could only draw one conclusion, and I knew they were snickering at me. Or, if not directly at me, at their own hypothetical versions of me.

In their blond minds, they must have been thinking of me as a greasy haired snake oil salesman who would have them come back to his dirty apartment and be prematurely ejaculated into. In truth, I was lonely, and I wanted female companionship.

More than anything, I wanted assurance that I was an attractive person. I thought that maybe I might be, and this thought reeked of misplaced self confidence and a fallibe sense of self worth.

I likened this confidence to the way some soldiers feel upon entering battle. They think they are special, and they know that they'll never be hurt. And then, when they are hurt, they kick themselves for feeling invincible. Well, I was not nearly so self-confident. I cut out the middle man and simply dreaded defeat.

Often times I just hovered when there was not a seat to be had, and I could feel the glare of the bartender on me. I could feel the hot eyes of every man there with his girlfriend who just wanted me to go away.

And then I would saunter out, alone and ready to pass out. I would curse myself for getting drunk all alone. I would promise to never do it again. And then, the next time I fely antsy or lonely, I would wade in again with my sense of unplaceable self confidence, and I would try to befriend the anonymous.

Again with the screaming Aunt Jem?

2009-07-25T05:15:00.003-04:00

Before I really get into the meat of this story, it's important for everyone who reads it to know that insanity runs in my family. Maybe it's Schizophrenia who knows. Not one of my relatives has ever had themselves psychoanalyzed or institutionalized unless you could my uncle, Peter. And then you can't count that, because Peter is in prison. And he says they don't psychoanalyze in prison, they just feed you porridge.

For the record, Peter is in prison for killing a nun. I would have been less likely to believe the verdict if I had not seen the Peter kill the nun. And, as a fairly subjective outsider to this event (Peter and I aren't especially close), my uncle killed the shit out of that nun. Anyway, enough about that. If you want to know more look up the images on Google.

My point is madness is not uncommon in my gene pool. And it takes all shapes. Some of my family are Peter mad, and others are Eliza mad. Eliza's my sister.

Eliza married a slave trader. His name was Paolo, and he came from a place where the men have olive skin and thick accents and the women are slaves. We don't know all the details, but suffice it to say that Eliza is never home anymore. Actually, suffice it to say that Eliza is a slave. Apparently though, the marriage is still going strong.

Oh and who could forget about crazy, frazzly Aunt Jem. Aunt Jem is a clutterbug. She hordes and stocks and refuses to discard. This would not be such a bad thing if it wasn't for one detail. Aunt Jem is not just any clutterbug. Aunt Jem hordes meat.

THE END! DADADADA BADA DADADADA BADA! SEE YA FOLKS!

Bad Breakup

2009-07-25T05:06:00.003-04:00

Over two cups of coffee and a danish in the bistro, I had to tell Vanessa to fuck off. I had to tell her this, because if she did not fuck off I would fall in love with her. And she was a terrible person. I told her this as gently as I could, but I could tell she was hurt. Sometimes you can just tell these things.

She stormed out of the bistro, and then she smashed my car window.

Later that day, while surveying the damage, I realized that I had done the right thing. Vanessa was a terrible person.

Still, I wish I had walked to the bistro.

Can't sleep.

2009-07-25T05:03:00.003-04:00

She said she loved him with simple human voracity.
On the night they lay in a tangle.
A human tapestry.
And though his head pounded
With the sound of beers compounded
He also decided
to tell her the same.

Dangle.

2009-07-23T13:42:00.004-04:00

Square jawed and pale faced he stood tall and did not quiver. Inside him his constitution pushed bravely against the ocean of pure fear which welled up unstoppably. He did his best to ignore the fear. It could not help him now. In fact nothing could, and he tried to remember this as he stood on the crude wooden structure.

It was like a dead tree whose corpse had been frozen upright. A single branch, a vine perhaps, dangled from the otherwise sterile contraption. And the faces that looked upon him were of stone and curiosity.

He did not blame them, because he thought he might be tempted to stand among them were he not standing where he was. The wind picked up, and there was that smell of rain to come. He almost made the mistake of looking forward to it. It had not rained in some time, and he had hoped to see one last thunder storm. As a boy he had stood and marveled and quivered at the way the lightning and wind and rain tore apart the forests and fields which had comprised the topography of his youth.

The green leaves of healthy trees swayed in the wind, and he began to think about his feet. He was grateful for them, and he bore them no ill will for their inability to carry him any longer. The fault of his predicament lay squarely with him, and he alone would answer to it. His feet, still sore from his weeks of running and still wrapped in the decrepit leather boots, would not carry him through this. It seemed funny to him, and he almost laughed but the wiry tension in his throat prevented any such outburst. He wanted to enjoy every breath, and he filled his lungs over and over as a thirsty man might a cantine.

Again the wind carried with it the smell of water, but the sky showed nothing but blue and perhaps the faintest whisper of white clouds riding far above all his concerns. And, on the subject of his concerns, he had only one.

Before this moment and before the verdict had been sung, his worries had made him sick. Over and over he had obsessed and swore over his predicaments. Each violent act he witnessed or perpetrated himself simply compounded his stress. And now as the clock ticked ever closer to the finish line he was singular in his thought. The result was almost like meditation.

He remembered footraces when he was a boy. Finishing had been his only concern, and even as the frantic lack of air filled his lungs he had breathed again and stretched to the finish. This would not be quite so different.

Though, in this case, he could not replenish.

And the fear took him again. His legs began to quiver, and he felt all the muscled in his arms and chest quiver. But there could be no sign of this, and he was determined to not show it. Every gawking person in the crowd from the scaly elderly to the gap faced young boys would be convinced by the end that he was not a coward. And then he would be acquitted of his crime. For he had had his reasons to do what he did. None of these reasons had anything to do with fear. Of course he'd felt fear. All the men had, and it would have been quite a task to feel placid and relaxed as all those gray coated figures fired balls of lead which whizzed and hissed like white hot knives through floating morning mist.

He'd seen his friends, men to whom he had looked up to as heroes, reduced to screaming piles of melting flesh. He'd reduced men to such ends, and he'd felt some remorse. Mostly though, upon seeing the results of terrible deeds, he'd felt perplexed, stuck.

He looked, for the first time, towards the soldiers. They stood upright and rigid at attention. None of them, he hoped, had come upon their own free will. It was his hope that they had been ordered to attend this event as a lesson. He searched the dirty weary faces for one he might know, and he found him. The man would not look up. He just peered down as if there was an enthralling event occurring upon his boots.

He wanted to call to the man, to conjure some joke at which they had both laughed during happier days. He decided against this. Jokes would not seem suitable, and some of the spectators might get the notion that he was insane. Laughing at doom is a hobby reserved for those too crazy and demented to take in the scope of what doom means.

Now came the man in the white suit, and he had kind eyes. The man smiled a bit at him as he checked the knots and the rope. The man had thick black hair, which he wore long. And the wind lifted the strands a bit. He wondered how many times the kind eyed man had done this before. And he could not understand how the mans eyes could be so kind. His own had been hardened by the same deeds.

He had come to grips with what must happen to him, but he had not come to grips with why. He could not accept his punishment for his crime. So, during dripping wet and humid nights in his cell, he drew up a new verdict. He had even said it out loud, and the plain and obvious nature of it struck him as out and out right.

He would serve his sentence out due to the men he had hurt and seen hurt. The murders he had committed had been sanctioned and applauded by those to whom he saluted. However, it had cut him in such peculiar ways that he would never scab again.

In fact, he had come to the conclusion that this method was the best way to deal with the way his crimes had deformed him. So, in his mind, he stood upon the precipice of remedy.

He'd already remedied others, and they had sought to do the same for him. Their screams rang half fear and half gratitude. The truth of it was that all the doctoring he had done took a piece of him away, and he was becoming inflicted and incurable. For no matter how tall he had stood or how bold he had become he had presented no man ample opportunity to diagnose. So, one night, as a banjo had played and men had laughed through gappy whisker mouths, he decided to quit. He'd left all his belongings to a friend. He lit out through the dark, and he had not care much where he ended up so long as it was not with the smoke and fury and frantically barked orders.

Running as he'd done had been a rational path to take. And even as the smoky forest chopped and bloodied his feet, he was sure of himself. The time had come to take his leave. And without hesitation he had done it.

And who had he saved by leaving? What man was even now home safe with a family due to his sacrifice? Had he really saved a soul from the agony of his rifle and bayonet? Like stones rolling upon other stones, rolling upon yet more stones his life had accumulated and annihilated others. By rolling his stone away from them, he hoped to avoid collisions.

And this hope heartened him, and it gave him strength to bear the horrible impending kinetic doom which accompanied to rope which the kind eyed man with the dark hair was even now laying around his neck.

That strange rush of energy, which felt like too much whiskey and cane sugar filled his veins. He considered calling out to the people who stood to watch, but he did not know what he would say. Instead he looked up at the blue sky. He decided that he would not lament the lack of rain. Blue skies were always a good thing.

A man was reading from a book now, but he paid him no heed. There was a pretty girl among the people, and she shot him a pale glance. Her hair was red, and she hid behind the back of a strong looking boy. He wished she would not look.

Now came the dark hood, and all was shrouded. He clenched his fists, which were bound along wit his arms to his sides. He clenched them so their shaking would not set his whole self to trembling. Now was not the time to lose his stoicism.

And in the dark, through his deep but steady breathing, he knew he would not lose himself. The smell of burlap and his own hot breath mixed with that of the water on the wind. His heart thundered like gunshots in a concert hall, and he whispered something to himself which served as a goodbye. His feet dangled a few feet above the dust and dirt.

Some time later, after all had been cleared and nothing more than the wooden tree-like contraption remained, it began to rain.

BOFSF @ Howler's, 07/11/09, a field report by Toto

2009-07-13T09:52:00.018-04:00

The five young boys of Ball of Flame Shoot Fire--the best Western PA-based musical act since Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers, if you ask me--absolutely demolished Howler's Coyote Cafe this past Saturday, the 11th. (I've just exhausted all my hyperlinking energy on that sentence, so you probably shouldn't expect any more after that. You're here to stay now, chips.)

Where to begin? The setlist consisted almost entirely of new songs; which is to say, songs not found on last year's fantastic full-length album Jokeland (their debut full-length) or earlier. The only exceptions were stirring renditions of Jokeland's Animal Collective-y/BOFSF-y (because it's like a homage to Animal Collective, without sucking their cocks, combined with BOFSF's completely refreshingly new and enjoyable brand of goofball-psych-pop) "Mugs" and their favorite closing number (which they've been doing since high school), "Batman." "Mugs" was as badass and chilling live as it is on tape, and "Batman", with vocals help from the fairly numerous, half-drunk and mostly early-to-mid-20s aged bar crowd full of long-time BOFSF groupies like myself, was just a blast.

As for the new stuff... holy fucking elephant (I guess I got my second wind) balls. I think one was called "The Cave" (???)--it involved Tim playing bass, Pat laying down some groovy disco-esque percussion, Winston standing up and belting something about smoke and mirrors like a damn diva (that's a complement, not an insult), and an absurd, math rock style breakdown ending. Another involved heavy sampling and Jess on lead with a bizarre refrain of, "this business... has a lot of overhead." And then there were two songs originally performed by Jawmonster (a side project consisting of everyone in BOFSF minus Peter and Winston)--one called "Fox, Otter, Duck" (a slow, soulful pop ballad) and one I can't remember the title of (a guitar rock love jam, with the refrain "I got nothin' and, you got somethin' and...")--that were reworked for the whole band and sounded bloody brilliant. I saw JM perform them pretty legitly about a month or two ago at Garfield Artworks, and they sounded even better this time, with Tim doing a charming, soulful lead vocal on both.

That's just scratching the surface of the brand new jams that were cranked out. Another great one has the quirky chorus line, "I built my love a moat," sung in Winston's ironic tenor. And the encore, which I can't remember the name of, had a really incredible pair of verses, one sung by Jess and one sung by Tim, with a dramatic, hits you in the pit of the stomach, key-modulatin' chorus.

This is the best I can do as far as recounting how it all sounded. I really should've taken notes, but that's the thing--I was too busy enjoying myself. But here's what I took away more than anything else: 1. My God, what great musicians these guys are. All of them rock multiple instruments, Peter now blows on a baritone sax in addition to his alto, all of them provide either lead or bg vokes. 2. What creative artists they are. They're crossing genres not by accessing a grab bag of stereotypes but with immediately apparent study and rehearsal and fine-tuning of each, and they're sketching out new musical landscapes and enshrining new genres of their own with sampling, noise and nontraditional time and song structures.

They're on a different plane than anyone else around (that's in Pittsburgh and in the independent music scene in general) in terms of creativity, complexity, soulfulness, and most of all just motherfucking fun. They aren't in it to win it--the fame, the glory, the money, or the indie cred--they're just in it to have a good time. And so do we.

BOFSF performs next Tuesday, July 21st, at Mr. Small's with sweet bands Ponytail and Yeasayer. Buy your tickets now. Also, check out their myspace to hear their sweet sounds for yourself.

Disarming a bomb Pt. 1 (rouuugh draft.)

2009-07-10T02:30:00.001-04:00

The C-47 Skytrain shuddered and froze with each bone rattling air pocket that it hit, and the barely latched cargo door seeped cold air. There was no escape, and I sucked down my cigarette ration one by one. Each lung full of air seemed to draw me nearer to my doom in both a literal and figurative sense. The cigarettes did nothing for the cold. Being cold is nothing compared to being in the cold, being absolutely literally suspended in it. I was glad the windows had long since iced over or else I might have been tempted to look out into the icy void.

That was the funny thing about The Cold War for me. Most people laugh when they hear about a cold war. They think to themselves that there was nothing cold about the jungles or deserts or smoke filled rooms upon and in which the war was primarily waged. And the word cold does not seem to fit.

As for me, it was nothing but cold. It had been glacial. And it certainly hadn't been a war, at least not in the traditional sense. I had seen the remnants of war, had even participated in violent acts by which we define war. However, I had never fought a war. The only death I had seen or committed had taken place in small cells, and when that kind of death has taken place the only thing you need to clean up is a limp patriot tied to a chair.

But it had always been cold, they first sent me to Siberian outposts. There I hunched over radios and maps and non-descript papers written cryptically by chubby men with thick glasses.

I made decisions, and I asked men whose names I never learned if they were the correct decisions. And they asked other men the same question, and at some point those decisions were made and altered so that they only vaguely remembled my original.

hen, as my age began to catch up with me they sent me further and further away, relegated me to menial tasks in freezing places. I had developed training programs for second rate spook secretaries from a block house in Alaska with only grizzly bears and frigid winds to keep me company as my purple fingers pounded away on typewriters. There was never any talk of a retirement. It was absolutely out of the question I had been told. I was too vital to Central Intelligence Agency, my training and skills were too valuable. And there was never any talk of the real reasons I would never be allowed to retire. There was no candid speech about how, even though I was nothing more than pencil pusher of a spy, I knew too much. They never mentioned how I needed to be babysat, lest my tongue loosen up and say traitorous sentences to Russian men in black suits with vodka smiles.

So I rode it out, and I slowly began to realize that it was the primary mission of my direct bosses to freeze me to death. I would be found in a block of ice, decoding a Russian radio broadcast, or scouring a yellowed map of Afghanistan for a USSR outhouse.

Of course maybe I was just being paranoid. Paranoia ran deep in me, since paranoia had been the central cause for all of the sneaking around we had been doing since 1945. It was the paranoia of being outdone, the horrifying and apparently very real fact that at any moment we might all burst into radiant flames and fall as ashes. It was also guilt.

I had seen the pictures, silhouettes of people consumed by that great billowing fungus. And, so had everyone else. And now the innocence was lost. And everything else I had done with my life had been to prevent it from happening again, at least not to us. It had to be stopped. We had to have the power to prevent such catastrophic and total destruction.

And that's why we had to have the option of stopping him. Back in the forties when it was all about killing Nazis and Japs, no one paid him much attention. He as just a soldier swooping in to protect the Truth and Justice and The American Way. It had been his mantra, and we all put up with it because he was something to behold. Plus, who could even begin to criticize someone like him, something like him? He was on our side, and there was never a question raised against this pure fact.

Things changed though, and human nature started to fog. Everyone remembers the Rosenbergs. He could not be allowed to turn out like them. Because if it was him, and he turned traitor there would be nothing left to betray. It would not be secrets that he let loose, it would be himself. He could destroy us as soon as sneeze and probably during. We needed leverage, and we needed him to know that we had the leverage. That's why the reporter was with us.

It was blackmail, pure and simple. Or, as it had been put to me during my debriefing, it was simply The United States disarming a bomb.

After months and years of research, a team of men in white coats had discovered the wrench we needed to throw into his gears. They all congratulated themselves and called a general. And that general called me and told me to pack my bags for Antarctica. I was to act as lead intelligence officer for an archaeological dig. Of course with my luck it could not be Burma or Maui.

And that's how I ended up on the relic of a transport plane with the shivers, sixteen pissed off looking marines, five scientists, and one oversized reporter. We were disarming a bomb, but somehow it felt more like a traitorous act.

And the blackmail seemed worse. Not only were we going to make all the preparations to kill a hero, we were going to make sure he knew about it. The reporter from The Globe simply sat in his seat, notepad in hand. He didn't seem to blink, he didn't seem to shiver. How wore a huge trench-coat and thick glasses. On his head was an inn fitted had. He reminded me of a farm boy gone to the city. He was clumsy looking with massive shoulders and huge arms, the likes of which could only be attained through years of physical labor. But his lips puffed out and frustrated by his own girth seemed out of place with this strength. He seemed virginal and non threatening. I wrote him off as a pansy immediately. Bust still, there was something beneath the surface, and I could not place my finger on it.

lso, he showed no fear of flying. He had all the look of an oblivious academic on the hunt for his first Pulitzer. He was all brains, no heart. It didn't feel right that this man should threaten such a brazen American icon with mere words. And what's more, is this reporter wasn't even the governments first choice. The man initially chosen had suffered a terrible accident, broken legs and collarbone, and he had to be replaced on the fly. So, all we had was the oversized sack of academia sitting across from me. Just a nobody named Clark Kent.

He looked at me and smiled.

"H-hi I'm Kent from The Globe."

"Agent Farnaby." I said, affecting my voice to attain my most official and threatening tone."

"It sure is exciting what we're doing! I mean, really, we're making history here."

"I don't want my name anywhere near this story."

"What? You're not afraid he's going to come after you are you?"

"That's precisely what I'm afraid of. You never saw him in action. I saw him once. It was utter destruction. It was in Vietnam...like nothing you ever saw. He came from nowhere out of the sky and he took out an entire company of Viet-Kong."

This was a lie. I'd never seen Superman except in pictures, but I wanted to put a little fear of God in Kent. I wanted to maybe make him think twice before writing some snobby article about how we're better than him because we can kill him. Kent only smiled.

"I'm sure that must have been something. Boy, I wish I had seen that. I'm just so glad to be here. You know...I think this might turn out to be my best work. Imagine...killing The Man of Steel."

"No one's going to kill him. That's not the objective. That man has done more for this country than any of the Presidents combined. He's a natural hero. This is nothing more than a deep safety, a fail-safe for catastrophe."

"But still...I'm going to get to write about killing Superman. Actually killing him."

Kent said this in a strange tone, like he was talking about his high school bully. He sounded almost homicidal, a maniac holding a gun on a clock tower. Something about his voice chilled me. He spoke stronger than any poindexter like him should, and there was something in his eyes. It was like a red glow, something deeply handsome and altogether familiar and comforting. Then it was gone. Clark sneezed and scribbled something in his notebook.

Finishing The Show.

2009-06-27T11:28:00.003-04:00

"And now for my final act I will burn this beautiful woman alive. And, when I have finished applying licking furious flame to her soft skin, it will be nothing but char and ember."

And as The Magician stood with his torch lit and his square jaw set to a devilish smile the crowd drew back in fear. For here was something less believable and far more horrible than the cheap parlor tricks he had previously performed.

The Girl smiled and pretended to be frightened, and her skimpy outfit quivered as falsely as she herself quivered. Of course, thought the crowd, of course he won't burn her. There must be a trick to it, and this is what countless chuckling mothers and fathers told their horrified children.

"And now you think to yourself, you think that I will not do it. How could I? I will do it, though it is against the moral fiber, which binds all decent white Americans together. Indeed, burning is a savage act. Burning something will not destroy it. Burning simply alters, it changes the face of beauty until you would not recognize the very thing that you so fervently coveted."

And now The Magician began to circle The Girl, and he held the torch above her. He ran his hands over her, and they stopped to gather in their wiry digits several fibers of her yellow hair. His eyes coveted her, drank her up, and they spared no inch of her person the indignity of close inspection.

The Magician was right to look at and touch The Girl as he did. She was beautiful, and no frilly outfit could cheapen her beauty. Though she play-acted her fear on stage, there was a calm to her. It was apparent in her eyes. He tied her up, bound her from the chest down to her feet.

And he lit her on fire. And the curtain closed with a swish. And, for as long as I will live, I won't know if her screams were genuine. Because the curtain never opened, and no one in the audience ever saw either the magician or the girl again.

Comic I just made at work

2009-06-18T13:34:00.002-04:00

Political. More from Toto to come.

I just said Tototo. And come. Hehe.

Fat Boys Torment

2009-06-16T23:46:00.003-04:00

He suffered, like most fat boys do, from a direct aversion to beautiful women. It was not that he averted his eyes in their presence, nor was it that he found them repugnant. His dislike of beautiful women was rooted deeply in rage, rage that they would never wrap their various limbs and moist attachments to his body.

And then he saw her, and the rage intensified. He saw her, first saw her, on a street corner basked in sun from the above of the blue sky. She smiled to the sun, into it, though she did not squint.

He hunched in the shade, and loose bag of fabric, which he called a t-shirt did nothing to mask the rolls and rolls of fat pale skin below. He hunched and he watched and he hated everything for how much he wanted her. She was an individual island of beauty in a sea meant to drown all ugly things. Her hair was not blond, it was gold like it sprouted from a heavenly seed sewn into her perfect scalp. She wore a dress of blue, cut low about her bosoms so all could just barely see the medium sized indentations they made in her chest. Round and bouyant they stood as a testament to the wonders of biological creation.

He, furious and sallow faced, was a reminder to all that humanity could be an ugly thing. More than genocide, murder, torture, and rape, he provided an outlet by which all good hearted people, who loved beauty might criticize their fellow man. All this he thought as he watched her vanish into the crowd. And, like an echo of a boom, the thought of her reverberated through his mind long after she was gone from sight.

An Old Man Who Lived A Horrible Life.

2009-05-14T20:49:00.002-04:00

"I think, I think" He said, "I think there's nothing more horrible than a pretty girl."

He nodded along with his words, his head bobbing as topsy turvy as his voice. Frantically he kept saying it. He said it whenever any such girl walked by, and he shrieked more when she was particularly beautiful. From his perch by the window, he had a perfect view. The glass prevented them from hearing him, but it did not prevent them from seeing him. And when they saw him they looked away, and the boldest among them sneered and laughed.

He lived a horrible life until he died the next fall.