sixosix looking good

actants

now I speak and he writes
settled
oh
you’re writing everything
there can be no secrets then
except in the unsaid

Marjorie Josephine untied her robe
the television made the shadows shift
shudder like fence posts do headlights
across a pasture of fresh snow
a kiss snagged on a sundial
atop a whale with hiccups
the ocean, a ghost with the knife inside us

did you get all that
oh
so you don’t write everything
just me
my part
then next time I will be repeating
that way it’ll be both

r

Another waltz around the concrete steps
crumbling and asking for it
it seems, it drinks the dripping gray from
miserable roofs scorched and damp
with pork grease. Good morning to
the extra millions not caught in the census.
Sawat-dee to the seven-year old rose
vendor. Avoid eye-contact. Bow
down beneath broken mirrors adjacent
to the jasmine doll-house and faded
photographs. One nation,
under king, in street bras and used tennis shoes,
crawls at the bottom of towers high enough
to frighten God, alongside diesel haze and drifts
below enormous cleavage. Old rain
streams from overpasses. We need more lanes
and more merit.

(L.H.L)

metal lunch

the sign

the claw

the claw and bin

the rig

the truck

the cart

&

the scream

the three men

the mother and child

the two women outside funeral home

Blue

I like to watch the pacing leopard
in sun, rain, or fall~
Don’t care who shakes their head.

I think once or twice usually suffices
and that straight to the point is best
Don’t care who shakes their head.

I think that I can be who I am,
molded by background, past experiences, Life~
Don’t care who shakes their head.

I think that I can make myself into the best me that could be.
Ain’t NOTHING else.

So my mind might wander
from praises and history
to the significance of the window cats.

And while I ponder the perfect blue of the sky
and the cold of my teeth
I may grow tired as the achy, unemployed cheese becomes malignant~
As the christened beer sings praises
while thai food enters in as alto~
Forget the strangeness of the baseball player asking you to pitch his ball~
If I become weary,
so be it.
My “attack” on alertness has obviously proven itself true
as I drift away,
Pondering.
Thinking taboo thoughts
A close lover scorns~
It’s not black simply because it isn’t white~
Those colors… So many forget of the trillions of shades…
Especially the Blue in that sky
that takes me so far away~
Blue, you sure do get me in trouble.

~Bean

The Mirror at 34

yesterday
looking for love... i kissed a poet
and all his words turned to ash
filtering through my fingertips
we all came to feel the heart
bleed
but left only licking plexiglas
hiding in daylight's glare

i stood on man-made stone
looking for thought
but it had been kidnapped...
taken to the mitten's left side
where Jesus means "no"
and love is manufactured into
hatred

how
did all these people get in my room
when i'm pinned full of stripes
linked to my cuffs
necked to my tie
and brain-sheltered by a stingy brim
remember
when bourbon held answers

i wrote the world a love letter
but forgot they raised the postage
always a quart short
spited and unrequited
thirty four years since i escaped
ignorance

he lost on a really easy word
innocence
the nightly news just couldn't
believe middle schoolers no longer
knew how to spell "it"
did someone say burban?

i'm done
with playing blind man's bluff
with searching
and tricking myself with disdain
for answers...
question question question
and every once in a while
listen

she put all her love in a thimble
and washed my trouble
using only that gift
...it was a giant-sized thimble

in my twenties
i ducked and ran from truth
i just now compassed back
no 0ne but myself to blame
did someone say inosense?

today
i've found joy instead of happy
letting go the reigns
i kissed the heart
tasting
iron in the blood
thought in the brain
love on the skin
and
extraordinary from existence

--el vikingo

just eating flowers........in Chicago

I am good at looking at things through my own eyes. I can do this even better than through someone else’s. So, when last night there was deer in my neighborhood and as we were gathered on a corner talking and watching, the most interesting comments were made. Information about deer and this deer in particular came from over there, someone said, I heard. And then me, “well I remember when I used to hunt them in Michigan and when the tail goes up and you see the white they are scared.”

Deer apparently like flowers. We watched it eat out of a raised bed around a tree. “Flowers,” a woman said, “Deers eat flowers. Well, that explains it. I found a flower on my porch this morning. (pause). You see, my husband died about a year ago and he knew lilacs were my favorite flower. But I guess that rules out divine intervention.” People are trying to explain things…some people.

Another man up in and around the gaggle began everything with “I am from South Carolina.” As he approached for the first time he said, “I been telling these kids to be careful. That deer are the most dangerous animal, that they kill more human beings than any other. You know how? (pause) Through the windshields of cars. Ha, ha, ha, ha.” He was the only one laughing. Next he mentioned something about, “what I say we do is make a lasso, cut the jugular, and have us a roast.” He went on without encouragement, into an excuse for hunting, about the population, how you watch they will be hunting in the suburbs soon, and “them black (pause) bears are taking over down in South Carolina,” and how these bear clubs go out and once they get one they don’t go anymore because its such a "magnificent animal", that they come back the next time with lights and cameras, said how the state is in desperate need of hunters. He kept coming back how we are getting overrun by the animals, a point I took up.

“Who’s overrunning who,” I said.

“If we had my way,” he said, “there wouldn’t be none of us at all on this planet.”

A woman who I had met as she was looking down the street, some streets back, and who had first told me there was a deer; well, her and I had started to walk together and talk. She said he was talking, extreme!” Indeed. Her and I began speak to each other, and he went looking for an audience. Earlier, just after we met she told me about an animal, the kind of which she had never seen. It was on the corner of Granville and Glenwood. Was like a pig. Had bits of scraggly hair on it, and with an ugly smashed in face. I asked if it was wearing a badge "right here," with my hand over the pocket of my shirt.

The deer, a few houses away, continued to munch on flowers. Another person on the corner, a woman with a broad of kids, said, “I bet someone got tired of it. Had it as a pet, then just let it go. You know people?” she said. Me, and the woman with whom I walked again looked at each other with a bit of incredulous drop in our brows.

“You know people?” the woman with the kids had said, she went on to talk about how she knew someone who had a wolf; “and that’s illegal, you know.” And talked about how when on its back legs it stood eight feet tall. She stretched out her arms reaching-up in the air as high as they would go.

And someone else mentioned how there was a coyote downtown, took a nap on the Metra rail tracks in the afternoon, and they had to stop the trains. “Yeah, I heard about that,” the woman with whom I walked said.

“Really?” I responded. I mean, the rest was interesting, but this might have even been true. She said it was on the news. And we talked about whether or not what we are seeing now could be on the news. We didn't know.

Besides this story being very interesting, a deer in the city, and the people who gathered there, I think it says something about the way we are, deeply and vitally. There with an animal eating the neighborhoods flowers since possibly as early as eight that morning (it was night now, 12 hours later—and then some more), and people looked on, stalled, in awe really; and being the point of focus people talked whether they knew much or not. They, and me, said what they did know. Me I started bunches of phrases about the deer with, “When I used to hunt them in Michigan as a boy….” And go on: “They would sleep at night, curl up in the grass. I think it is about its bed time.” And yes the gender of the animal was also interesting. The woman with whom I walked said it was a girl. I asked her how she knew.

“Someone had said,” she said. And we talked about how they would have been able to tell. “No not the antlers,” she said. We both saw there were none.

“By their sexual organs?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said. "I guess. That's just what someone said. It looks like a girl to me." It was getting dark, and until later the deer was still to far, about four houses away, to see.

A jogger was making her way up the street. We all just watched. She was holding her Ipod, running, and ran right up on the deer as it chewed. Spooked it. It bolted, this way then that. The woman with whom I walked grabbed my arm, clung to it. The deer found a patch of grass and stared at us all. Just kept on looking until the animal control truck came. And the animal control agent, as it turns out, "You look familiar," I said.

"You too."

"Did you used to work at Whole Foods?" I asked

"Yeah, Rob right?" he said.

"Yeah. What's your name. I forgot."

"Kyle. Hey do you still keep in touch with..."

He recommended that everyone try to ignore the deer and hopefully it would find its way home, probably Rose Hill Cemetery, which is about a mile west, and a touch south. It was dark now except for the street lights. The woman with whom I’d walked went down the street home, saying "Goodbye," and waved, smiling.

"Nice talking to you," I said and hoped to see her again.

Kyle the animal control guy and I chatted a bit, till the deer walked up around the corner towards another street and he left to follow it at a distance. I went home.

I had told the woman with whom I walked about how one night when I was in bed reading when I lived down in Wicker Park. It was on the second floor. There was a wooden deck off my window. And when I looked over, there was a dog up on its paws looking in, with eyes blue like ice cubes. And I put on my shoes and went outside. There were two dogs. Him the husky and a large thick black lab. They went down the stairs and I followed. They took me for a walk.

"They took you for a walk," she laughed, "that's funny."

They took me through some alleys, streets, turning here and there. And stopped in front of a closed gate. I opened it and they went up the front stairs and barked at the door. And I went away. Well, when this happened I was living in an apartment with the people that Kyle the Animal control agent asked me about. Ha.

I think all this is people at work, groping, evaluations of information, relationships in spontaneous development, people trying to understand, to explain what is happening—as it is happening. At once it is an objective fact, but also is invested with subjective meaning; and I will add, that is the interesting part.

Reason is simply a causal approach to an explanation: where did it come from, how does it work, etcetera; and all, all, about action. But the process of evaluation is based on the information at hand; let’s call it available. My point here is that reason is simply a natural response to our environment, and at the same time is dependent on information validated or assumed.

Then, it begins to appear that reason itself is not the bedrock of truth—not a noun at all, but a verb--an approach; and if you will permit me, like an engine that needs fuel to run—good fuel. So, I don’t think reason vs. faith is the question (perhaps ultimately in the nose bleed seats of junk drawer type questions); but in regards to Iraq, I don’t think it is a point of relevance. There are reasons, there is logic at work in foreign policy, domestic policy, hiring, firing, murder and theft; however, the intentions are veiled--or to put it another and better way, with an intention to deceive.

& In passing I think there is another level as well another field on the subject of reason (and what from the outside might look like a deviation): so, we have reason as a process, information being on that with which it works, and then the casserole that comes out; however this dish appears to be contingent on one further valuation—the aesthetic. How well it suits an identity (the who we are of what we want). Yes, on this level I am saying that moral judgements are an exercise of taste; hence the value of cultural criticism, an investigation into both method and results is of mutual benefit.

The field here as I see it is, going back to the deer and touching on language, the deer is the word; I use it with an intention; you take it in an interpretation--intention and interpretation--for one it's a product, to the other a causal event: does it make sense?; the: "Hey, wait. that doesn't sound right"; or "I get it. Yeah." People talking. Us looking. Making judgements. Reason.

In that way, I don't see the current politic as an attack on reason (and I havn't brought this up to be cantancerous either; it's just a good launching point towards the development of some distinctions in this dialouge)--so, I don't see the current politc as an attack on reason, but instead a manipulation of information and a question of privileged access to the agenda; under such conditions the available information is dubious. We don't matter. Our money does.

Meanwhile, the illusion is that we are somehow responsible. That when we walk into a room, or say a backyard BBQ party, America also happens to be there and we are embarrassed, like we could have done something, talked sense into a steam roller. I don't know what democracy was, but the selling of that illusion, of mattering, of engagement, responsibility, of little being important to big, and big messing-up because little wasn't involved is a sick turn of marketing that goes clink in Canary Island accounts. Democracy is your fault people! Look what you havn't done.

Now, there is a question, a thought experiment of sorts. I would like to offer it here: say you could choose, for President, a democratically elected lair, or someone not subject to elections but who tells the truth. I think this question is a zinger and suggests something about the state of politics. What would you choose?

r

festivals, i didn't know i loved you so

You're going to say that I should have invited you , but I didn't know that I should've.

In this small college town, on the rainiest of weekends thus far this year, a hundred some kids assembled in the modest back yard of a home, sweet but dingy, and held a festival in the name of the small college town. Brought together by the writers of another blog, justhaircutsandjackets.blogspot.com, twenty or so local bands played there hearts out to a sopping throng of fellow Michiganders. All acts played acoustic and all profits went to benefit a children's music school. The weekend was beautiful.

The first day, starting at noon in a sunny spot on patchy lawn brought local kids in to see their friends in a new band. The Kid Breaks, a three piece consisting of a guitar, cheap key board, and meager drum kit played a set of sixties influenced pop with hooks to spare and plenty of kitch. Several solo acts followed, including Jess Kramer, a sweet and quiet personality who solely drolled out songs of heartbreak and hope, including the line to the idea of, "we'll wake up and find it we made it all up, all the wars and everything." The Mighty Narwhal brought the first feeling of neighborhood to the day, not because they were from the town, but because they made the kind of music where you felt that maybe they had grown up on the same block as you (more of this later) . The rain came and went throughout the afternoon and a makeshift tarp's failing led the audience to a small dank basement where they all crammed in, blurring lines between noise maker and listener during the Natural Monuments painful yet hilarious set.

The day ended outside as the rain broke for the Great Lakes Myth Society, a five piece with multiple song writers exchanging guitars, ukuleles, and accordions between members. The band brought a romantic atmosphere to cap a day that left all shirts soaked of sweat and rain. The movement of acts to and from four makeshift stages, the variety of acoustic instrumentation, and the vast verbosity of lyrics from the many talented writers left one thirsting for the next days acts.

I'll admit I woke up a bit late for the second day, too late even for the noon start time. When I arrived on the second day I discovered that the staging situation had been resolved now with the bands playing in the carriage style garage, ambient lighting being provided with rope lights and yellowed bulbs; the audience now sitting under the propped up yet soggy tarp.

What a day of music. Early on the bands Onett and Cameratta both brought a folksy, youthful sound to the proceedings. These two bands were separated by Jim Roll, a legendary blues man from Ann Arbor, whose sad songs mellowed out the fiery passions of the youthful bands which surrounded him.

The final two acts of the evening truly personified the sound that I previously called "neighborhood". The sedate yet passionate sounds of Chris Bathgate and then of Canada, both of Ann Arbor, seemed perfectly in tune with the surroundings. Many of listeners softly sang along to songs about imperfect friendships and imaginary lives, tales quietly ringing true with each passing note. These were songs, and people, you'd want living next you, in your neighborhood.

The weekend proved well for the future of Michigan music. Cellos mixed with Banjos as Casio's played in tune with harmonicas. Two days of harmonized voices sweetening the humid air, while friends talked under colorful umbrellas about the beauty of this place.

Sorry I forgot to invite you, you wouldn't have made the drive anyway.

La Humanista

Truth Decay

I went to the dentist for the first time since my military days on Friday. I had a bit of a tooth ache, which was not so surprising since it had been over four years since my last official cleaning- It was quite an adventure really because I went to the university’s school of dentistry and my case was peculiar and worth talking about. The professor came over to probe my mouth after the young eager hygienist to be had conducted her preliminary assessment. Yes it seems that my mouth served as a near perfect example of what can be expected after four years of outdated brushing techniques. Everyone was friendly, helpful and certain that if I was open to a slight oral hygiene update my mouth would make a full recovery- I mentioned that this was actually the second time in my life that I was told of a generally accepted complete change in how to brush as advised by the dental profession. The students (most younger than I) nodded sympathetically and one said sadly “with those old techniques you just weren’t getting your back teeth clean.”

So I learned that throughout four and a half hours of someone poking, prodding, and scraping away at things quite a bit of communication can actually be accomplished between hygenist and patient. As it turns out the young hygienist to be found tremendous satisfaction in working on my mouth because the Calculus (the new term for tartar) was all easy to scrape away and localized so we fell into seemingly natural but broken conversation- for my part I spoke of a great many things that have been tumbling around inside of my mental engine…

Roy’s new book is filled with spectacularly intricate descriptions of his largely unnamed, yet already patented inventions. It is a book filled with uncomfortable contrasts, leaping from vague overviews of what "must be done to change our world" to the rather precise seeming claims such as “it is preferable to select a relatively low modulus of elasticity material, such as unfilled ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, rather than a stiffer material, such as glass-filed polyphenylene sulfide” to construct Transducer Disk 63. He explains how Transducer Disk 63 interacts with Valve Seat 54 and Dielectic Polymer 64 but cruelly fails to ever give any reason why his invention is important or worth reading about let alone what it might be called aside from “my invention.” There are many problems with transitions and a complete lack of any proper introduction to most of the material but it is easy to see that he wrote in earnest hope that every reader would somehow gather the significance of his ramblings.

I’ve been working with some contact with the alternative energy splinter info realm and it’s not hard to imagine why it’s largely gone nowhere in America. Every new energy group, association and fringe wackadoo seems to want someone to take their great idea and run with it. In short it is a field big on managers and idea men and extraordinarily deficient when it comes to innovators, technically savvy entrepreneurs, and cunning risk-takers. There is yet to be a solar Rockefeller.

This brings me to Al Gore, mostly because It is inevitable. To talk of Al Gore I must first air the sad fact that I was among the delusional ill-headed masses that thought the Vice Presidents sighs and rolling eyes in his debate with Gee Wiz Bush indicated some unforgivable pompous nature. I never stopped to consider that it might be a very reasonable reaction when an intelligent thoughtful gentleman is forced to listen to a burbling stream of pure idiocy vomited forth from a good ole half wit in a presidential debate. That Gore could not use this to his advantage may go a long way in explaining his reluctance to throw his hat back into the coliseum spectacle which mad-men now muck about with to arrive in that prized office.

I have not yet read Gore’s new book The Assault on Reason. However, I have thoroughly enjoyed the interviews that he has been engaged in while promoting this seemingly exceptional work. Asside from some well deserved, vicious appraisals of the Bush administrations failings, the general premise of the book seems to be that our system has some serious problems when it comes to connecting logic and reasoning with actual decision making and accountability. Basically, the media is to distracted by the newest sensational story to take a look at the repercussions of the lies and manipulation of the perception of the electorate that result in unnecessary, disastrous wars… And yet wherever Al goes he can hardly talk about these deep rooted problems that exist within the US system because whoever might be interviewing him can not resist asking him over and over again if he will be running for president. A perfect example is his appearance on Diane Sawyer’s show it’s worth wathing and it's not hard to find on Youtube or you can view it at:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/21/gore-sawyer-interview/

but here’s a tidbit:

SAWYER: Joining us now is the author of The Assault on Reason, former Vice President Al Gore. And it’s good to have you with us this morning.

GORE: Good morning.

SAWYER: OK, you’re not going to tell me again that you have no plans to run, are you? Tell me this morning…

GORE: Well, I’m not a candidate and this book is not a political book, it’s not a candidate book at all. It’s about the fact that there are cracks in the foundation of American democracy that have to be fixed.

[…]

SAWYER: Well, I want to come back to that thesis because part of it involves our jobs in television news, and I want to deal with that.
But nonetheless, Mr. Vice President, it’s going to be very hard for people to read this book and say this is not a political book, because this is a book that really does go to the current administration. And my question…

GORE: Just as one of many examples of how our conversation of democracy has turned toward these buzzwords and phrases, like the frame for the discussion, the logo Campaign ‘08, that’s not what this is about. You know, for anybody who has asked the question, Has something gone wrong in our country? this book is about that. It’s about what’s gone wrong and how we can fix it.

[…]

SAWYER: Again, not to come back to this and fall into your thesis that the press only wants the horserace of the political campaign, but one way…

GORE: But back to the horserace.

SAWYER: … back to the horserace.

[…]

SAWYER: And I just wonder, when will you make a decision? And what will it be that causes you to make that decision, if you’re waiting and watching?

GORE: Well, you know, I’m not pondering it, I’m not focused on that.

[…]

SAWYER: We are going dig deeper — in fact, we’re going to come back with another piece, because I really want to talk more about this thesis.

GORE: Oh, great.

SAWYER: But to dig not very deep, once again, at my peril here…I just want to say, Donna Brazile, your former campaign manager, has said, If he drops 25 to 30 pounds he’s running. Lost any weight?

GORE: I think, you know, millions of Americans are in the same struggle I am on that one. But look — but listen to your questions. You know, the horserace, the cosmetic parts of this — and, look, that’s all understandable and natural. But while we’re focused on, you know, Britney and K-Fed and Anna Nicole Smith and all this stuff, meanwhile, very quietly, our country has been making some very serious mistakes that could be avoided if we, the people, including the news media, are involved in a full and vigorous discussion of what our choices are.

I’ve watched several interviews and I’m convinced that Gore is sincerely fed up with the idiocracy. I believe it was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann that Gore just came out with it and pretty much said he wanted to be able to say what he really thought was important and couldn’t expect to get elected doing that. So here’s a guy that in some recent poles is shown to have a better chance than either Hillary or Obama to beat any of the Republican candidates including Giuliani, and he came out and said that he pretty much doesn’t think he makes a very good candidate in today’s election process. I know enough to say that regardless of what any person thinks of Gore politically that particular sentiment should make us all sad and angry at the sort of leadership our decrepit system seems to inevitably produce. It seems reasonable that we might all begin to contemplate whether the exact personal attributes which make it possible for an individual to strive in a presidential election may also be some of the same attributes that ensure miserable, ill-conceived and wrongly motivated decisions from dually elected presidents.

Ah well, perhaps not all of this made it into the strange broken conversation between hygienist to be and overdue patient but that’s what might have been achieved if my obsolete brushing techniques had been as ill-suited for my front teeth as they apparently were for those in the back…

Beyond the Dentist...

A short time ago I listened to an audio presentation of the Diary of Anne Frank. Aside from highly suggesting that anyone even slightly interested in some of the simple mysteries of humanity immediately either read or listen to this amazing little piece of history, I must say that it kindled a renewed fascination with World War II. I have been listening to a lecture series on the whole disastrous exploit and although I would like to collect my thoughts and perhaps post some more in depth thoughts this experience has evoked two far more immediate responses which seem relevant.

One is the idea which I believe is overwhelmingly held by Americans that in the past great men have risen up to lead above their own ability on behalf of the US in desperate times. Whether that is true or not the perception does seem to exist. After that strange disaster in 2001 many of our fellow citizens were afraid but took solace in the hope that GW would be the best man he could be in order to lead us through troubled times. However, an advantage was seized, an unrelated war was waged, the truth was discarded as an annoying obstacle and an almost unrecognizaple new America seems to have been born of it all. Only now are many folks shaking off that terrible image of buildings falling only to awaken to an America that idly speaks of the pros and cons of torture while ignoring Bush’s baby as it devours the lives of US service men and countless Iraqis while shitting out meaningless rhetoric and wiping its ass with any good will felt towards the US that may remain around the world.

The other is a thought of some words uttered by Hitler himself as his dreams of easily steamrolling the Soviet Union began to unravel. Evan as the front pushed on to Moscow, platoons and entire companies of the red army which had been left behind by the hasty advance of the Nazis and had no way to communicate with their commanders formulated what would today be called an insurgency. They would fearlessly ride on horse into villages where unsuspecting German support troops were trying to acquire provisions. They would gun them down or cut them up with sabers if they had to. Often the soviets sustained tremendous casualties in these raids leaving the Nazi commanders to wonder what the point was, but the psychological impact on German soldiers was a mounting burden and the Russian villagers took heart in the stuburn resistance of their proud army. The effect was eventually clear, Germans could never expect to find safe quarters in Russia. Holding the Soviet territory would be like pinning a great bear to the ground, even if the Nazis found they had the strength to do it the moment that they let up they could expect the bear to tear them to shreds. Hitler is reported to have said of his decision to terminate the nonaggression pact which he had signed with the Soviet Union, as these hard realities came to light, something to the effect that going to war is like kicking in a door and rushing into a dark room; you may believe that you know where the furniture lies and what obstacles to anticipate but in reality you can never be sure of what you will encounter.

It seems extremely likely now that GW thought that the US could expect to take Baghdad and be received as liberators with only easy details to take care of thereafter. It’s clear that the Bush administration is no authority on history, yet it seems that at every turn they ignored the lessons from how power has been successfully and unsuccessfully projected in the past. It is always a sad end to any who believe that they are above these lessons. However, what is even more sad is the depressing facts that we as a people must now live with the consequences of terribly arrogant blunders and unfortunately our system may be ill-equiped to bring to power an individual capable of dealing with these consequences in any sort of constructive way.

only yesturday

r