The Friars

Congratulations Humanista!

2010-05-26T18:47:00.002Z

i found you in the songs
that the breezes whistle...
in the look on mischief's face...
and along the hem of loyalty's skirt.

never forget the joy of our collision
and the result of laughter
because now

our love is creating:
filling all the voided spaces
and our love is contagious:
spreading from heart to heart
among those who touch us
our love is divine:
transcending mere mortality
our love is dangerous:
it wears a leather jacket and
everyone wants to sleep with it
our love is now:
all wrapped up inside the small
moments of the day to day
and our love is forever:
always increasing
filled with surprise
and ready to learn

never forget the joy of our collision

~el vikingo {written and read for Humanista's wedding 5-22-10}

The Sound

2010-05-05T07:07:00.006Z

Once, there was no sound
Then the wind blew, the trees shook
I could hear myself, breathe
The park was empty, just the sound
of the trees, and me breathing
But the breath wasn't enough
and a hum echoed up from my gut
The hum became singing
but that wasn't enough
So I sang so you could hear me
And you sang to all your friends
When I looked around again
The lawn was all of people
and the sound
the sound

Hum

from wi-phi

2010-03-19T20:02:00.003Z

It's been a bit slow in the March of steno-script-etry, so I'd like to share a poem from a procedural series in which either Pi or the Fibonacci sequence dictate the word length or syllable count, know as piems or fibs respectively. This is fib number forty-one. Fibonacci and Pi are also characters, in love, and playing each other in chess, specifically, variations on Reti's end-game study of 1921, white to move and draw.

41 fib
53316291173 86267571272

There’s a mirror
called wisdom
that reflects
all
except who’s looking in
spilling
like water from a broken clay pot
clouds
drift
fingerprints on handled glass
wiped away

I want nothing of this wisdom
that I already know
that knife
that glints off of borrowed light
and cutting so goes
the shadow through throats of birds
sparks
falling
like branches being covered
by sand

l'aro

week one of steno-voice-ography

2010-03-05T22:33:00.000Z

This bolting

That I shall report. Sorry route
contractors. We’ll be done five
years. The nearest he did. Hello.
Yep, foliage Horton over longer
plans. Our and I’m Anne Hope.
So ground level

I went to the river to roll down
the window calling all the time.
Calling all the time and where.
Have you gone. Where have you
gone baseball hero. I feel industry
tonight. See you on the move
and this is that fallen down on your
head, and Zack room and where
are you. Baseball hero. Where are
you. Has been repaired taken you
has the vicinity. Can you

The sun to close the shell blowing
the ball or you're really dark past
of snow there is goes there we go.
Dan with Prince making spaces.

I want to say only the day right by
the window are shadows of what
we can, and the breeze seeing down
the side of the for, and see
great thing this.

poet-tree

2010-02-10T06:52:00.003Z

there's a march soon.
anyone want to braid?
i've got google voice
and it does funny transcriptions
that would be cool to do something with
call, read something, talk,
babble, coo, recite
recipes, anything.
throw some chance into the mix
of words
game?

l'aro

Friars in Action at Park Bar Detroit

2009-12-21T18:38:00.004Z

sonora

2009-12-03T06:31:00.007Z

If the ground wasn't so hard, I'd dig you out that grave, not that I want you in it, just that that is the only place I fantasize you. Red dust blowing strands of hair washing out washes and passes, into the eyes which used to be able to see the horizon. When you travel south, getting out of the city, and see what the desert was, that's when you look back and spit, and the spit comes easy enough.

The moon is much larger tonight as the cold consumes what was so fucking hot a minute ago. A ruddy skinned man stands on my corner like the sun at midnight. Since nothing seeps into soil here, you've got to believe it's making its way into our skin, you've got to believe that the desert doesn't want what we're laying down. The stench of this tree fills the air around it for a dozen feet, winning me with such a putrid reminder of the stagnation of the air here.

The desert should mean silence, should mean a giant moon reflecting on the plants so specifically evolved that they catch the light of each day and hold it til morning, but now they only catch the light of the neon sign on the liquor store that makes them look out of place like scrub. The desert doesn't help you forget hastily made choices, echoing words that should be absorbed by soft grass, the dead leaves, the grass here only amplifies your folly, catches the lie or the truth or whatever the fuck it is and hangs in the air like a bleached carrion feast.

H

Clocks are for Suckers

2009-11-09T23:12:00.002Z

under the shadow
of thoughts already thunk
there used to be water here
there used to be life
calendars trick us about growth
i'm done with demanding names
for every moment
shared or unshared
i'm melting origins
& finales
planting flowers
in fields of nevers
i'm unwinding all the clocks
that tick the dirty little lie of
TIME

* el vik

The Day after the Day of the Dead

2009-11-02T11:12:00.024Z

Dark morning, above, your single star pulses white fire. I squint at the garage roofs for signs of first frost. There's a distant motor, a train engine, a hum, pillows on iron wheels, a lover's long careful whisper, while the street light casts the shadows of a tree against the white siding of the vacant house across the alley like deep feathers as still as a frozen river.

At the front of a long line I found a criminal who was getting away, beat him in the head, and then handed my club over to reinforcements, went outside for some air, and woke from the dream alone.

Now the sky's shoulder, fresh and blue, has turned over between the star and I. And a sparrow winks out loud, bouncing from branch to branch behind the cedar's heavy green coat. And still that distant motor, that train engine, the lover's careful whisper windless hums.

Ahead of the sun I snuck into November 2nd, the day after the Day of the Dead, where all day my thoughts had been pulled back behind my lips into frozen woods remembering myself hunting with the rifle of a man who had since died; and where, by chance, before a Mexican shrine, I found a bullet that would have fit, but the primer had been knocked-out, disarmed, empty brass safe enough to be thrown against the ground without going off.

Now the sun runs golden sideways into all that was dark and has eaten the first frost from the roofs. And the damp shapes disappear while clouds pull in over Detroit to bury the brief rising river of light. Rest falling leaves and leave the amber stain and outline of your reach on the concrete, where we walk, like the white blood of snowflakes that will soon melt against warm windows.

fontella

2009-10-30T21:40:00.005Z

NOVEMBER

IS SUPER-NOVA-REMEMBER

FOUR YEARS OF THE FRIARS

I FEEL POETRY COMING ON

NOVEMBER

PUSHES INTO WINTER

BOLD AS A SNOW BALL FROM HELL

FOUR HUNDRED PLUS BOXES OF WORDS

MARCH INTO NOVEMBER

fontella

In the night's mouth

2009-08-05T02:32:00.001Z

I.
You’re running. When you get tired, I’ll run for you? Give
me the address. Oh, sorry. I can’t run backwards. Walk, yes.

II.
Between the spine there and the clear vision beyond a thin
stick figure of black lines persists, over which is hung the
armor of his vocation: to make a fuss over prisoners and
the rust when will touches fantasy. One of these days we’ll
fight over a beautiful Dulcinea.

III.
When traveling one can feel lonely. To be found each morning
someplace new until the drops of water...

IV.
Why can’t doors be more like clocks and show the mute who
are always inside rather than waiting for the knock of someone
who wants to come in?

V.
Aren’t you scared to walk the tightrope? Below the net
is a reflection of the stars. Do you know how to swim?

VI.
A rooster isn’t an alarm clock. The street don’t sleep, are just
nests with eggs that are born in sun’s wings.

VII.
Please do not tell me your name. The tongue should know that
between sparks and embers there is a rope that your parent’s
hands have never touched.

VIII.
Who brings the weapons to the butterflies to resist the winter
of peace?

IX.
To be nude is to leave the smiling to skin, clothes a fog that
burns up the candle.

X.
What’s going to happen? Depends on who you ask. Soldiers
say bullets. Politicians, votes. The chosen uniform should be
the flag of children who do not know.

XI.
Under the bed I put my feet. In the basement, my bones. They
get together at night to dance. In the morning we dig.

XII.
Why are the fattest creatures of the world the best at
accounting?

XIII.
It’s better that we turn out the light before dawn and
feel like a flamingo about to arrive at the island of freedom,
than the sun find our color among empty bottles of blood.

XIV.
I sketch a map of your hand and see the face of God. That
you may draw me with similar caresses.

XV.
With this wooden table there is everything. The roots carry
the eyes of the dead up the legs to these leaves that are
shaken by the fangs of carnal wind.

XVI.
I could never guess when you were from. When it rains
I remember.

XVII.
The smell that gives us away is perhaps what attracts the
future like the drum invites a bang. We eat the song.

XVII.
In the darkness I write with black ink. Can you see me? It’s
only a mask of light.

Fontella
San Cristóbal de las casa, Chiapas
August 3, 2009

En el pico de noche

I.
Esta corriendo. ¿Cuándo te canses, corra para ti? Da me la
dirección. Ay, lo siento. No puedo correr atrás. Caminar, si.

II.
Entre el lomo allí y la vista clara mas allá se queda una figura
flaca de palos negros, sobre la que está colgada la coraza de
su vocación: a montar una bronca sobre presos y contra la
oxidación cuando toca la voluntad y la fantasía. Uno de estos
días luchamos por una bella Dulcinea.

III.
Cuando está en viaje, se puede sentir solo. Al amanecer cada
día en un lugar distinto hasta las gotas del agua...

IV.
¿Por qué las puertas no sean más como los relojes y muestren
los mudos que siempre están adentro en vez de esperar la toca
del alguien que quiera entrar?

V.
¿No sientes asustado por andar en la cuerda floja? Abajo la
red es una reflexión de las estrellas. ¿Sabes nadar?

VI.
La gallo no es una despertador. Las calles no duerman, pero
nidos con huevos que nacen en el las alas del sol.

VII.
No me diga su nombre. La lengua debe tomar en cuenta que
entre chispas y ascuas hay una soga que nunca se le han
enternecida las manos de tus padres.

VIII.
¿Quién traiga las armas a las mariposas a resistir el invierno
de paz?

IX.
A ser desnudo es dejar la sonrisa al piel, ropa una neblina
que se le agota la vela.

X.
¿Qué va a pasar? Depende a quien le pregunta. Los militares
dicen balas. Los políticos, votos. El uniforme elegido debería
ser la bandera de los niños que no se saben.

XI.
Debajo de la cama meto los pies. En el sótano están mis
huesos. Reúnen por la noche para bailar. Por la mañana
cavamos.

XII.
¿Por qué las criaturas más gordas del mundo hacen tan
buena la contabilidad?

XIII.
Mejor que apagamos la luz antes de la madrugada y sentir
como un flamenco a punto de llegar a la isla de libertad, que el
sol le encuentre nuestra color entre botellas vacías de sangre.

XIV.
Hago un croquis de tu mano y veo la cara de dios. Que te me
dibujes con semejante caricias.

XV.
Por esa mesa de madera hay todo. Las raíces llevan los ojos de
los muertos por las patas hasta estas hojas que les tiemblan los
colmillos del viento carnal.

XVI.
Nunca pude adivinar de dónde eres. Cuando cae la lluvia
recuerdo.

XVII.
El olor que nos delata es tal vez lo que atrae el futuro como el
tambor invita un golpe. Comimos la canción.

XVII.
En la obscura escribo con tinta negra. ¿Me veas? Es sola una
mascara de luz.

Fontella
San Cristóbal de las casa, Chiapas
3 de Agosto 2009

tres poemas/three poems

2009-07-29T17:59:00.004Z

Fontella

400 Boxes of Words

2009-06-17T00:40:00.004Z

In the attic of the Friar's house
Under the creaky oak, amidst the itchy insulation
There is a breathing box, heart-beating trap

Child's palms are sweaty
Nervous as a first time cat burglar
Listening for parental foreboding as he pulls the ladder up

Pealing through the pages of that box
What were these ramblings? Who was this Lima Bean?
What Pirates! What Vikings! What Spaniards roamed these seas!

The parents listen from their bed
To the giggling, the love, the emotional dalliances holding court above their heads
Lying there, smiling to each other, proud of what they once said

Humanista
(In honor of 400 posts on Friars)

The Long Belle Fete

2009-05-18T16:06:00.002Z

Fontella

BaNgKok 09 Day One

2009-05-15T03:39:00.002Z

she ventured out before the light...
early morning meeting to procure
blue and red mobile fones for our stay.
i slept a little while longer
listening to the lightning
and watching the thunder

11th floor of the (q)Ueen bldg
i exercise on the balcony
as the roosters laugh at me
from somewhere far below.
the sweat comes quickly while
bouncing to thai pop picked
up on my nifty sansa fuse.
the songs are pure thai sugarcane
then as if i were suddenly transported home
the dJ breaks in and says 93.9 True Thai Hits
before sending me back to songs in a foreign voice
...exercise complete

we share an umbrella under the drizzle
and walk through the campus of Assumption U
several old friends stop us and hug her
giggling as if she´d never left
then over to P´A´s mom´s restaurant for breakfast
mmmm gra pao gai with scrambled eggs!
(plenty of prik nam pla)
dodged more raindrops to a songTao
that zipped us to the pharmacy
for soaps shampoos and all our necessaries for the stay.

how could i forget! two stops at Jar´s Coffee Stand
chilled aMericanos for me and hot cappucinos for her

getting ready to meet the Ps for lunch
on a drizzly delightful first day

- el vikingo

spring

2009-04-19T18:02:00.001Z

i sent you the name of the place we will not go
it will be where
if we would have stayed long enough
even another day

i saw you at Jackson waiting for a train
thank you for not turning your head

and when we’re together again, on a bench
snuggling arm in arm, nuzzling...

Spring

2009-04-17T23:11:00.003Z

cigarette corpses line the parking lot
the dog howls
they call this place oxford
worn red shoes dangle from the treetop
look through the branches
wiry, tangled, black,
but whitened with bird shit
like the drips on my windshield
a plastic tub of strawberries
somebody left, now molds on the porch.
Ah, but the blue and the green.

lhl

The Spring Air

2009-04-06T21:21:00.003Z

Spring was never a thing to fear
Air whistles in from tropical locales
Wiping the sweat from my neck
Paws daintily on scolding black asphalt

And I am on the moon, or Mars
Whichever is closer to the surface of the sun
Dreaming of shady forests of green
Cacti wink and hold their water in for the summer

One can think of snow drifts
There is solace in the night, earth's encompassing shadow

2 Simples for the 1st day of Spring

2009-03-20T19:42:00.003Z

it was just about then that
i heard the weather break.
the sunshine drizzled with song
as fear shrunk behind bare branches
of trees tired of nakedness.
and as i sat there
hand holding with the breeze,
a smile creased my lonely face.

i stopped listening to phones
refused the smell of gasoline
and washed the skin of a red pear
happy

--el vik

The Cynic

2008-12-15T07:51:00.000Z

He sits perched, snarling

Small yellow eyes glowing

His knuckles tight to cracking

Hating this world

His grey skin loose on his thin

Bottle at his feet

Crows shun him

And he thinks of human kind

Like a chef a rat

Like a doctor a disease

The blood reaches his eyes

Spidering like the veins in his cheeks

He spits as he speaks:

Don’t look upon me with disgust

I am no longer living among you

now you see me, it matters not

soon you will scurry along, sick

I shall remain, safe, unharmed.

poem

2008-12-14T00:11:00.007Z

there are no window curtains in Chicago only wings flashing in the wind
because the buildings are brick automobiles pulled up off the open road
train cars lifted off the bloody tracks, boats hoisted up from the dead water
trees give way! earth give way!
all
all sent through the chipper, the metal mashed and melted, sparks and dust mixed
bedrock struck, the slurry poured, from there rising
with the sun shining right through
right through like light through greasy paper

the buildings lean back
the people lean in
birds bank through the wide valley

The light changes: walk
the sound of heals and horns
the heart and voice
horns and heals
clangs and belches
that echo like an auctioneer
going once, twice
the heart and voice beating out against the clear blue sky
pulsing down roads, tracks, the river
the river split like wishes and redirected
the lake lending the prairie air

innocence slaughtered
murdered for money
dreams used to sharpen knives
hope twisted in knots
bound in obligations

when we love we make things
that's what we do
and we make them
against what we hate
and we hate the flat of the earth
hate the laying down of the dead

in Chicago we build walls to go up
like iron cape or shawl or poncho over the living
to keep out the weather
to keep out the weather and to keep out you!
not curtains, no
tuck pointed, set with mortar, walls with the look of forever
that we knock down all the time
that we knock down every spring
that we build every time we go to sleep
angles, they know the combination
thieves, they don't need it
everyone else: favors

angles, thieves, angles, thieves...
hold my hand
i'm new to the neighborhood
it's the coming back that makes me new
durable
like a promise
there
it's what's in your guts
it's what's in your guts that i've come for

Der Tag: you may already be a Winner

2008-11-04T16:30:00.003Z

Polling polling remember poll tax? As recent as 1990 in Britain. 7th in line - lucky for me? ? For America? Dressed for ruffians and hypesters who never showed up. Words in the air ' you don't want your vote to count ' but with that philosophy your vote 'counts' only if you pick a winner - again, are we participating or gambling? ? The mix of superstition and gambling - I'm close to seeing through a veil into America. Or Arizona Dave is right - fear versus love. That's another kind of vote. Am I just afraid of Palin? Where's yer Buddha NOW, Flanders . . . A goth kid behind me turned away from the polls. Elementary school - motto ' where you come in a beginner and leave a winner' Elmwood cemetery there's a stone we saw this week from the Pontiac uprising.People call the Pottawatomie insurgents and terrorists now for a moment I'm moved at the full booths - this many people paying SOME kind of intention, trying to control their destiny in at least some way, which is more than I'd come to expect, then back to reality as the election workers complain their lunch is too short.
words I forgot last time innate of the tenor of debate:

'Van Buren is as opposite to general Jackson as Dung is to diamond. . .He is what the English Call a Dandy. When he enters the senate chamber in the morning, he struts and swaggers like a crow in the gutter. He is laced up in corsets, such as women in town wear and, if possible, tighter than the best of them. It would be diffucult to say, from his personal appearance whether he was a man or a woman, but for his large . . . whiskers'

- Representative Davy Crockett of Tennesee, 1835
Anyway, good luck, may you all be winners.
Love,
-La Pirata

The Biting of Nails

2008-11-03T03:41:00.003Z

Part one: Did you Hear About the Midnight Rambler . . .

'It would seem we are to suffer an apocalypse of cockatoos. . . morose barbaric children playing with their unfathomable toys. Where comes this dullness in your eyes? How has your century numbed you so? Shall man be given marvels only when he is beyond all wonder? Your days were born in blood and fires, of which I see in you not the merest spark. Your past is pain and iron. Know yourselves! With all your shimmering numbers and your lights, think not to be inured to history. It's black root succors you. it is inside you. Are you asleep to it that you cannot feel its breath upon your neck, nor see what soaks its cuffs? See me! Wake up and look upon me! I am come amongst you and am with you always!'
- Dr william Gull,
'From Hell' - Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Among other anniversaries, this year is the 120th of the Autumn of Terror. London's Whitechapel murders were to give us our first modern superstar, Jack the Ripper. While Paganini may have gotten his face on a lunchbox first, the pure public frenzy and obsession that only mass media could deliver would wait. If there's anything you ever wanted to know about the subject, I unhesitatingly recommend casebook.org - home of close to 10,000 pages of Ripperology, crime scene photos, games and diversions, This Day in Ripper History and more. It's where the elevator stops on this particular subject, and I can't lie it's a strange feeling to see in some cases LIFETIMES of trivia and research around the world on this subject.

A few things I would like to observe: Most of the current theories and solutions that have gotten alot of play were introduced in 1970. Characters like the Duke of Clarence or Walter Sickert are a relatively recent invention. [ See casebook's Patricia Cornwell and Walter Sickert - a Primer for a most erudite demolition of the 'Case Closed' book.] The murders themselves have never been solved. This tends to be a fixed point that ultimately reveals more about researchers and theories that what really went on 120 years ago. As Alan Moore pointed out, Jack is now a superposition.

As Grisly as the murders are, perhaps more disturbing is the phenomena of hoax letters sent to the newspapers - THOUSANDS of people pretended to be the Ripper, men women and children, and I think that says something spooky that I don't want to define. Another eerie phenomena is that the rational for MANY of the most beloved ripper theories is deeply misogynistic 'She must have done SOMETHING to deserve that . . .'

Two - Don't Knock The Rock

I thought the Zeppelin Reunion would be the acme of that particular bandwagon, but lo, at the end of the Olympics, there was Jimmy Page! A local Detroit station declared september 'Zepptember'. [ then on into 'Rocktober'. So far November has escaped.] Now members are rehearsing and a new album is reputed to be in the works.

I'm fascinated by this, because in the creepy Clear Channel era of radio, oldies from the last 30 years are part of the top 40 now - so Led Zeppelin today will have to compete with the ghost of . . . itself. That's quite a position to be in as an artist - who's more popular, me, or myself?

Part 3 Debate Reverie . . .
' It is pleasant, when the winds blow and the waves are high, to watch from the shore the struggles of another'
-Lucretius

It was hard to WATCH the debates this time. the mediocrity of this batch was painful. I couldn't imagine ANY of the participants wouldn't have been sent home in tears by a middleweight like Bob Dole. W has lowered our expectations. Wining a debate by NOT IMPLODING? ?? Actually, I thought it looked like Muhammad Ali's 'Rope-A Dope', but without the knockout at the end that made it all worthwhile.

McCain had one Job to do - give people permission to like him, and I think he failed there. Alas, now he's become, like his Idol Ronald Reagan, the Willy Loman of American Politics - liked, but not WELL liked. There is tremendous pity for the man now, and perhaps next to Palin he could pass for a human being. Which would be a mistake. It is hilarious to see the Republican party attempt a populist bunting, while espousing Reagan's trickle down policy that even George Bush mocked as 'Voodoo Economics'.

And who but McCain would have the incredible bad taste to bring up 268 Marines killed in Beirut while at the same time calling Reagan his hero. [ the Reagan White house was selling arms to terrorists, to fund an illegal war in latin america. The Marines, however, were UNarmed - it was a policy decision that they could pose with rifles but not have Ammunition! No, really, Who could even MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THAT UP?]

Really, everything that I was interested in was SCRUPULOUSLY avoided. I'd have loved to see Govenor Palin explain her attempts to remove books from Alaska libraries, or what she meant exactly by referring to Eskimos as 'Arctic Arabs'. Who Better to discuss 'abstinece only' sex education with? ? ?

Tavis Smiley articulated something that made me uneasy- that SOMETHING is wrong when NO ONE can even SAY the words 'POOR americans'. We heard about the rich, and the middle class. ALot.
[The median income here (census.org) is about $44,ooo, but the per capita less than $22,ooo. HOWEVER only 13% of Americans make over 100,000. 52% make LESS than the median. In case anyone wondered where Joe The Plumber fits in, he's in the top 2% Depending on who you ask, 20 -26% of americans are below the poverty threshold. 11% of americans are not food stable.] I think there is something profoundly disturbing in this. Who were those guys talking to? ? ?

'President carter at least recognized the malaise of American life in the second half of the 70's, but could do little to change it. Who changed it was Reagan, giving the country what it craved, namely denial.'
-Stanley Booth, the true adventures of the rolling stones

I think there is a handle on it there - DENIAL. In recovery talk, that is a powerful word. It's not just in economics terms - the journey of Vietnam vets the last 30 years from Mai-lai to victims themselves to heroes - that's the evolution of 'Support the Troops' There are people today who in all seriousness believe that America WON the vietnam war.

I'd also have liked to see some of Barack's reputed liberalism. I'd have liked him to talk about repealing the patriot act. I'd have liked him to comment on Hepting vs. ATT
[ for more information, see eff.org, or the Digiblade pages right here on blogspot have an excellent primer. In short, we have reason to believe that att colluded with the nsa to monitor our telecommunications in real time. Even carriers that refused to cooperate were monitored, since they ride ATT backbones! The Narus systems technology that makes this possible was given the go ahead under the Clintons, by the way.]

I thought it was silly to ask What the US would do if Iran attacked Israel. A far more interesting question would be what the us would do if China attacked Taiwan.

Oh, and lest we forget - did it seem odd that ANYone would channel Henry Kissinger? ? ?? ? Though today he's thought of as the swinging pal of Kid Notorious, well, only in the Condi Rice era would we think of that Douche as a PLAYER . . . In case anyone is wondering or forgot who Henry Kissinger is -

' I don't see why a country should be allowed to go Communist through the irresponsibility of it's own people.' - Henry Kissinger and the U.S. attempts to prevent Allende's election.

' The Main thrust of U.S. Foreign Policy over the next thirty years has got to be the depopulation of the third world.'
Henry Kissinger in a 1972 National Security Action memo.

What does that MEAN, exactly ? ?? Well, by the time of Bush I,

' There is a single theme behind all our work- we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they'll get the kind of mess we have in El Salvador. to really reduce a population quickly you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile aged females.'
-Thomas Ferguson, Head of the Latin America Desk
Us State Department Office of population affairs
Feb. 20, 1989

Overall, It seemed to be business ass usual. When I call Joe Biden a hack, lets remember he's there to balance the ticket with the politics of yore. He's a guy who lacked the charisma and acumen to beat out Michael Dukakis. ( of whom Hunter S.Thompson said 'It is diffucult to argue the point that anyone who can get into a high-dollar argument with George Bush and come out looking like a mean dunce probably isn't fit to be president.')

When the subject of Gay Marriage came up, a MAVERICK position would be to support it. The OLDTHINK would be to dissemble, try to say 'babysteps' 'Be Patient' - But to agree with Palin should be a warning. Certainly, the Rainbow People here-abouts were badly burned by our govenor on this very issue, and THEY liken it to laws against inter-racial marriage, which were an unpopular change at the time and now looked at as an embarrassment that they were even there at all.

Maybe next time, the WWE should hold the debates.
' the populous wished to see it's dissatisfaction with its living conditions translated into deeds, not resolutions'
- Cesar, Christian Meier
The climax to me was that McCain and Obama RAISED THEIR VOICES about abortion, which allowed partisans to say ' well, He told HIM!' but not much else.

Election EffectsOn the front linesthe edge of my seat lastthoughts going through the chute . . .
a flashback -
'For now, we should make every effort to look at the bright side of the nixon administration. It has been a failure of such monumental proportions that politacal apathy is no longer considered fashionable, or even safe among millions of people who only two years ago thought that anyone who disagreed with the government was either paraniod or subversive.

Political candidates in 1974 are going to have to deal with an angry, disiilusioned electorate that is not likely to settle for flag waving and pompous bullshit. The Watergate spectacle was a shock, but the fact of a millionaire president paying less income tax than most construction workers while gasoline is a dollar in brooklyn and the threat of mass unemployment by spring tends to personalize mr Nixon’s failures in a very personal way.'
-Hunter S, Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt

Well, it's intense here. An unheard of 98% registration. I'm assured that the electoral vote is already in the bag, but the popular vote is alot closer than anyone likes to think. I find the Obama Crowd a little too sure of themselves - because they can't imagine anything else making sense. It's weird to see the forces I've associated with repression and oppression representing irrationality this time through. Also worrisome is a few key individuals I know who seem to be looking for a reason to back McCain.

To whom I've appealed simply 'Don't.'
Palin is a move towards theocracy. The Brain's former co-workers in the mortuary trade say by their actuaries Mccain has a minimum 25% chance of dying in office. Your Pirate pal needs MORE sexdrugsandrockandroll to keep America fun.

One of my Angels put down the bottle [gasp!] and picked up the phone to create an anti-Palin outreach. ' I'm not telling you to vote for anyone in particular, just vote against HER' she'd explain.

McCain may have the pity vote, but let's remember he did it to himself. Hillary Clinton may have been a true Maverick choice for him.

And Where is Neil Bush today? ?? as part of a Savings and Loan scandal Not Completly Unlike the Mortgage crisis, that cost taxpayers $8.7 million an hour, to the tune of 160 billion. As director of Silverado, the bailout cost taxpayers 1.3 billion. The Fortunate Son settled out of court for $50,000 in an fdic lawsuit.
Voodoo Economics people. It doesn't trickle down.

Was anyone actually surprised to see Liberman? ? ?
If you were, check out his PTC website. [ The modern incarnation of Tipper Gore's PMRC] You owe it to yourself to see how bad it is. IN CASE you think America has economic or military problems, they would like you to know that we STILL haven't recovered from seeing a portion of Janet Jackson's breast during the superbowl, and NOW the supreme court wants to let it go . . . Another funny headline story was that a cable network 'Dropped the F bomb on Americas Families' - which is always god for a laugh - There wouldn't BE families to have values WITHOUT 'the F word ' see what I mean about irrationality? AND they want us all to know that whomever wins the election, they expect them to cater to their bizarre whims.

Generally these closet Mccain folks have been talking about 'the government taking people's money' [ as if the republicans aren't flushing real money down the toilet in iraq] - but when I asked if they were backing Ron Paul, who wanted to abolish the IRS, THEY ARE NOT - because everyone wants to back the winner
- as Errol Flynn observed 'One of the congenital diseases of Americans is that they buy success and seldom anything else. '

I am the Polls.
I've had an interesting career as a pollee here - I have a good relationship with the canvassers - I get calls from both parties day and night, and now I'm asked to review pilot TV shows. It makes me feel close to the action, but I'm still worried. All the obama signs were stolen from the south end of my town. An informal sign poll driving around the whole Detroit area -.
South of 8 mile, all Obama. New money suburbs, likewise. Old money, solid McCain. It's the middle money and blue collar votes up for grabs here. the McCain attempt to forge a George Wallace type coalition looks like it has in fact worked.

When Palin says things that sound crazy - like informing Pennsylvania that stem cell research is conducted in PARIS, FRANCE, a rational person has a hard time BELIEVING it, much less understanding that she is, in fact, getting a message to HER DEMOGRAPHIC. I read somewhere I can't attribute that mediocrity can't abide intellectual superiority.

Anyway, I think this election will say everything about America. If we;ve recovered from the civil war at last, perhaps we'll get the president we SHOULD have had after Lincoln.

I'm worried that Michigan always does the wrong thing. A smart gambler would wear their Obama Regalia to the Polls, but look for 4-1 bets on McCain. those aren't terrible odds. For a horse.
Anyway, that's all I have to say, except
isn't it odd that the day after the election is Guy Fawkes day? ??

Till next time, when I want to talk to you about Extremists and the Mongol Global Awakening
- Peace Out,
-La Pirata

Voting Early in Hamilton, Ohio

2008-11-02T00:08:00.001Z

We cross these train tracks three or ten times
before the voting booth. We wait.
The words on slur cars blur past
before us. These words,
if you stand close enough to read
these profane poems, close enough
to notice, could be national anthems,
cries for justice
to be taken out on somebody worth less
than we are worth, which is what? Anonymous
because hate is truer in a child’s soul* and we
cannot be children now.

We never made an honest living. The honest
die with everyone else. Yet here we are,
where Alexander Hamilton's cape, brown and twisted
stars and stripes, flaps behind him.
He points to the sky and looks the other way.
What if our best days are over?
he says. How will you swing that?

We wait in line now, clutching forms
we’ll trade for electronic ballots.
A weathered woman, half the size of us,
does not hide her interest in our
post modern theories and stupid things
we say in class but she won’t contribute,
not even with a smile
aside our too loud laughter. Our dream
cannot exist if everyone is happy*

(*These lines were taken from a poem written by my friend "Joe the Poet." )

we heard news that garcia lorca's grave may be exhumed...

2008-10-13T02:46:00.004Z

The crow is upside down on a branch dropping gold coins into the Guadalquivir...

how many times in your eternity have you been born speaking fingers as soft sticks in a warm garden of wet bones like a howling ghost through the hungry knives of red salt flowers on fire in the twilight of blue honey wrestling moon shattered rivers with glass wings in the thirst of earth's early trembling.

The crow is upside down on a branch dropping gold coins into the Guadalquivir...

-- l'aro

who calls my name?
i've heard that voice before
in the ants, the worms, the doves.
i have forsaken my skin
and i dance between dirt and sky!
i am your lonely little friend:
the smile you didn't know was coming,
the tearfall you tried to conceal,
the shiver you thought was divinity.
i've come back in the name of the father
to forgive the violence of hatred.
i've come back in the name of the son
to kiss the eyes of lovers.
i've come back in the name of the ghost
to soak the soil with peace.

-- el vikingo

When the gov't owns your home

2008-09-20T19:55:00.002Z

When the gov't owns yo home
You look up and say please
Get brought down to yo knees
Asking, why me? Why me?

When the gov't owns yo home
All things become known
Start asking who really owns
this gov't owned home

When the gov't owns yo home
Yo never home alone
Soldiers need places from which to throw stones
Maybe since they own it, they'll use yo home

H

^^^^^hule bellota dottore 镑 шесть

2008-08-26T03:37:00.006Z

UnH!
rambling 'cross 80 in a illinoisy mini
doppleganging rest stops not
undone by merely 20 questions
fasten your belts
blow your smoke over mountains
lounging on the makeout bench
usin a quickshooting wheelman
and a shotgun pirate
rainy standstill bitchy bumpers
over nine hours of hurry up
stop shy short of the finish line
a simple black dress
moonlight bachelorette crash
amidst hugs catcalls & fool juice
if we talk about the existence of god
he does
but what can a man know
when he wakes in a sweaty dress
and can't buy hisself a shower
UnH!
balcony bound for a green wedding
over a baby babble brook
and wondrous whispered words
lovers of the world unite
now grab yourself some corn pone
and a crispy rum with SODA
smuggle in some cran juice
scatter onto the dance floor
howl for the West
take your shot of ginger &
slow dance with the bad girl & boy
then step outside for breath
share the pills and liquor
but stay away from cold pork chops
& women dressed like swimming nuns
we made good time we surely did
but still landed at the straits 9 hours later
UnH!

Another Love Poem

2008-07-16T21:56:00.000Z

My neighbors have tied
synthetic yellow roses around
plaster lions,
white, crouching
over the sidewalk and I
stilled my feet at the sight.
But my neighbors have day lilies,
too, alive ones
orange, leaning
against the steps to their porch. I stopped
at the humanity. We are our choices:
the more dumbfounding, the more
human.

i'm certain
thank you
we are not robots
or pawns. Did you know

a place exists where mosquitoes
fly drowsily through
hand swept breezes?
Their coexistence is a creed.

Yellow roses mean friendship.
Cloth ones out live day lilies
when the season changes
we'll still have a neighbor.

a poem

2008-07-15T21:30:00.002Z

Every word to a lover is like the last

Remembered, perhaps embellished

But never improved

Called clear from the coast of an ocean

Lips open, lungs stale with breath

Cold, spittle and screams

Out over the ocean

Destroy me

Please destroy me

To be with you

There are ants on the beach that walk into the water

Just as soon as others turn towards land

Maybe I've watched them too long

Wondering what it is they eat in the meantime

I thought to speak to the dolphins

To see if they might have seen you

Trying, but being too dumb to make them understand

Come to me

Come to me before...

And you'd think...

I never knew what you think

That is the greatest part of the love

With every world the last...

So different than the tides

Like a clock I float on

That you untied

Still, I feel as if I squandered every night

That we could have seen more mornings

Before I was sure you would go away

As if one was on a ship, the other on shore having said goodbye

And goodbye, and goodbye trailed off because of an unexplained delay in embarkation

And one stared at the other, mute, frozen. In a nowhere else cloud of floating

but a together unable to touch

Pushing off at any moment

Maybe before the horns, maybe after.

You said my name

I said words, like "I Love you"

I see you in clouds

in the shade of the wall at night

light coming up from the streetlights

hornets on the sidewalk looking to get out

We compared our hands, one pressed flat against the other

Naked in bed

And joked about baby names

With you

How could such a thing have happened?

Not over night

It took time, days, day after days, to have happened

No sweet lies were as sweet as the one's you told me

That became our language

You thought I was innocent

But I was born with a sharp knife

You mass armies

I get in close and sue for peace

It was then you went away

And I grew old

I sick of "It can't happen, there's no way they could've"

2008-07-11T16:00:00.005Z

The most Buddhist thing about America is Economics, "all things are interconnected." And of course they are. I am sick of feeling bad for my fellow Americans who are so bogged down by managing their own small lives to see the bigger picture, I wish I could stop caring but I'm not made that way. America's savings are not safe when bank presidents and pention managers take risks on investments. And now, thank you Bush administration and Ben Bernanke, even the safe investments in commodities and the US housing market are unstable.

Money is being stolen from the lower and middle class America everyday and siphoned through Wall Street to the top 1%. Those 1% are ruthless and do not use morality in where their money comes from, they know there is blood on their hands. This goes back to Reganomics, a cute word for the dispicable move from transparent markets to deals being done in private. The "Rebpulican" ideal of business being able to solve everything is what is ruining business, we need regulations and transparency in order to protect our citizens and their businesses. Oil, America's most hard-to-come-by need is secured in deals between people in closed rooms who only want the price low enough so people will pay, pay over food, health care and medicine maybe, but pay and not boycott.

Something I'm realizing in life is that an organizations main goal is to look out for the welfare of the organization, not the outside world. I see this most evidently in the Bush administration's use of Military testimony as proof for the continuation of the war in Iraq. Of course a General is going to opt to keep fighting, that is what they do. Economists and business leaders do the same, they want the economy to keep growing, no matter the consequence. Many towns in America have asked Walmart to leave, have they? Do the citizens of those towns have the right to kick them out? No.

I wish I had the ability to pay enough attention to the details of the economic happenings of this country to be fully knowledgeable but I don't, I only catch bits and pieces. First I heard that subprime lending was dooming our economy. These are loans, as I understand, are funded by banks who only have 10% of the money in real cash in order to trick poorer people into thinking they can get more house than they can afford. So, does the government, who is supposed to regulate this kind of thing, do anything? Yes, they bail out the banks who gambled and lost when the poor middle class folks defaulted. Now Fannie May and Freddie Mac, two "government" started agencies with way to much power and money, are failing because the money which was supposed to fund them has also been stolen by these sub-prime lenders and housing market speculators.

All things are interconnected. Why did you get a check for six hundred dollars in the same year when gas went up 50%? To siphon money out of the middle class, that check we cashed is a debt we have pay later, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I only hope the principle of karma is also real, the lower and middle income people have a lot coming to them. (Rant)

H

endorsement

2008-06-29T11:33:00.006Z

10 years

2008-05-30T15:09:00.003Z

It's a strange day; the 10th anniversary of my Dad's death. Which seems unbelievable. Back in 1970, he worked for an underground newspaper, the 750 Nitro Express (blowing into your mind at 2500 feet per second, dig?) So here is something he wrote 38 years ago -he'd be about 25 then.
"Poetry Lives " says Nitro Express Editor
Todt Says words
Are not poetry!
Speaking before a small group of winos, thugs and police officers he encountered in an alleyafter leaving a downtown topless go-go bar, George H. Todt, editor of the 750 Nitro Express said " Words are not poetry."

"Volumes of printed symbols," Todt continued, "Remind me of coral reefs; myraid discarded
containers, empty carcasses, shells, hard, cold, empty, LEFT BEHIND, to say LIFE has been here.ALIVE has been here."

Todt declined an invitation to read, but said "I could read my words to you; try to tell you of whatonce was, but poetry? No. You'll have to find your own poetry."

Pressed further, he replied: "Poetry is just opening your eyes and seeing something in a special way."
" Poetry is high. Poetry is getting high and being full of wonder."

VIVA TODT

2008-05-29T17:14:00.001Z

"Poetry Lives " says Nitro Express Editor
Todt Says words
Are not poetry!
Speaking before a small group of winos, thugs and police officers he encountered in an alley
after leaving a downtown topless go-go bar, George H. Todt, editor of the 750 Nitro Express
said ' Words are not poetry.'
' Volumes of printed symbols,' Todt continued, 'Remind me of coral reefs; myraid discarded
containers, empty carcasses, shells, hard, cold, empty, LEFT BEHIND, to say LIFE has been here.
ALIVE has been here.'
Todt declined an invitation to read, but said ' I could read my words to you; try to tell you of what
once was, but poetry? No. You'll have to find your own poetry.
Pressed further, he replied: ' Poetry is just opening your eyes and seeing something in a special way.'
' Poetry is high. Poetry is getting high and being full of wonder.'

MA PENG FEI £Í£Ï£Ò£Å¡

2008-05-26T14:44:00.007Z

i post mark's update verbatim, with additions appearing in parentheses and added images:

comms (communications) contradictions abound in the middle kingdom...

so that EQ (earthquake) was strange I was onm the 12th floor of a hospital and felt a sureal jolt- like my brain was sloshing around in my skull for no aparent reason and then the shandaleir weas swaying leaving us all to question our collective sanity fort a moment before realizing what had happened.

(was this sent by Mark or the PPRC Colonel?)

Much more strange than that was the largesat mass morning in the history of man a weak to the minute after when walking through the summer palace I thought there had been a horendous series of collisions somewhere all around us. turned out to be what some have called China's collective wail of grief- everyone stopped in there tracks cars came to a halt and all boud there headsa as horns bells and alarms aroose in an erie kakauphony.

(still wondering...)

Inner mongolia has been an absolute TRIP¡£¡£¡££¨SOMETHING STRANGE JUST HAPPENED WITH THISA COMPUTER EXCUSE THE CAPS£©

FOLKS RARELY SEE OUTSIDERS HERE BUT MONGOLIANS ARE A CURIOUS PEOPLE AND EXTREMELY HOSPITAL SO ALL HAS BEEN WONDEROUS¡£ £É¡¡£Ä£Á£Â£Â£Ì£Å£Ä¡¡£É£Î¡¡£Á¡¡£Â£É£Ô¡¡£Ï£Æ¡¡£Í£Ï£Î£Ç£Ï£Ì£É£Á£Î¡¡£×£Ò£Å£Ó£Ô£Ì£É£Î£Ç¡
¡£Á£Ô¡¡£Á¡¡£Æ£É£Å£Ì£Ä¡¡£Ô£Ò£É£Ð¡¡£Á£Î£Ä¡¡£Ç£Ï£Ô¡¡£Á¡¡£Ç£Ï£Ï£Ä¡¡£Î£Á£Ô£Õ£Ò£Ô£Å£Ä¡
¡£Á£Ó£Ó¡¡£×£È£Ï£Ï£Ð£É£Î£Ç¡¡£Æ£Ï£Ò¡¡£Í£Ù¡¡£Ô£Ò£Ï£Õ£Â£Ì£Å£¡¡£Ó£Å£Ò£É£Ï£Õ£Ó£Ì£Ù¡¡£Í£Ù¡
¡£Ë£Î£Å£Å¡¡£É£Ó¡¡£Á¡¡£Í£Á£Î£Ç£Ì£Å£Ä¡¡£Í£Å£Ó£Ó¡¡£Á£Î£Ä¡¡£éTHOUGHT i£È£Á£Ä¡¡£Â£Õ£Ó£Ô£Å£Ä¡¡£Í£Ù¡¡£Å£Ì£Â£Ï£×¡£¡¡£Í£Ï£Ò£Å¡¡£Í£É£Ó£Á£Ä£Ö£Å£Î£Ô£Õ£Ò£Å£Ó¡
¡£Ó£É£Î£Ã£Å¡¡£Ô£È£Å£Î¡¡£¡¡£Ì£Ï£Ï£Ë¡¡£Õ£Ð¡¡£Á¡¡£È£Ï£Ò£Ó£Å¡¡£È£Å£Á£Ä¡¡£Æ£Ç£É£Ä£Ä£Ì£Å¡
¡£É£Æ¡¡£Ù£Ï£Õ¡¡£Ç£Å£Ô¡¡£Á¡¡£Ã£È£Á£Î£ÃE-

GOT TO DISCOVER THE ONLY SCHOOL IN THE WORLD FOR THE ANCIENT MONGOLIAN EMPIRE IN THER MIDST OF A DOWNTRODDEN LITTLE NEIGHBORHOOD- AN AMAZINGF INSTRUMENT£¡

(Englishy first languagey?)

sO NOW i¡®M WAITING TO CATCH A NIGHT TRAIN UP TO THE MONGOLIAN BORDER AND THERE IS A SERIOUS DUST STORM CHOIKING OUT THE SKY THAT BLEW IN FROM THE GOLBI- MAKES ME LIGHT HEADED A BIT SO i¡¯M GONA KNOCK BACK THE LAST OF A BOTTLE OF MA NAI JUO - £¨FORMENTED YACK MILK LIQOUR£© AND TRY TO DRIFT OFF TO SOME FORM OF UNCONCIOUSNESS¡£

MA PENG FEI £¨MY GIVEN CHINESE NAME£©

(maybe it's just switching back to English in a Gobi dust storm on a Mongolian computer and three quarters through some fermented milk spirits...)

news

2008-05-19T06:01:00.002Z

I've gotten word from Mark. Beijing is a big city.

He's found communicating difficult. Perhaps his shadow Colonel is responsible.

That is all at this time.

Earthquake

2008-05-12T14:16:00.008Z

There has been a 7.8-magnitude earth quake in China, with the epicenter in Aba prefecture, Sichuan province. The quake was felt 930 miles away in the Chinese capitol, but there have been no reported damage or injuries in Beijing, though tall buildings were evacuated. So while there has been terrible destruction in Sichuan province, we can be confident about Mark's safety. Six after shocks have been reported and tremors were felt as far away as Bangkok and Shanghai.

news

2008-05-12T01:37:00.002Z

I have received an update from a reliable source the Mark has arrived in the People's Republic of China.

...am i a plane dreaming of flight or flight dreaming of being a plane?

2008-05-09T15:27:00.010Z

Thank you for coming. We hope you enjoyed your stay in Pittsburgh. Your next stop is... Pittsburgh.

The plane wouldn't fly. They are very heavy. So, it didn't leave the previous airport--Newark. They lost Mark's luggage and put him up in the airport Hyatt (Pittsburgh). I had thought they needed a plane to lose luggage into.... Well, each according to his ability. Meanwhile, the Red Army colonel assigned to shadow his movements has been put up in the Hyatt (Beijing) and fell asleep watching New Tang Dynasty (高级厨师).

But the next day (today): Mark boarded the airy oh plane and woosh!

In his words via text: "There be Chinese talkin goin on in this plane--I feel it may be harder to pick up than Romanian"

Bon Zedong!

Viva Chivo! Safe Travels!

2008-05-09T03:25:00.002Z

Clear the Decks

2008-05-08T15:31:00.005Z

Mark is in China and though he said he isn't going to try to meet everyone, he hopes to be on a first name basis with at least the inhabitants of Beijing. And after that he is going to Mongolia...MONGOLIA!

He's going to be sending updates. I'll post them here.

What's the highest number you've ever counted to?

2008-03-26T06:03:00.019Z

Thinking in steps (a meditation)

What's the highest number you've ever counted up to? I tried again but fell asleep... Maybe a hundred and some...

Once in Barcelona I was counting women walking by a cafe while drinking my cafe con leche and smoking cigarettes. Then I started counting the men and did a hasty ratio. I don't remember the numbers though they were in the hundreds. It left me thinking the odds were in my favor. My kind of town

When I first went to college that ratio was also an important number to me and I actually thought I found the perfect school: two women for every guy. (they also had an observatory--no relation to the above--just a nice accoutrement for a major in solipsism) But then I saw it was a Christian school which throws everything off. But that is all ratio talk and what I'm wondering about are numbers...

What's the highest number you've ever counted to? And not any math operation either...but straight counting, one after the other.

Sheep, crowds, people in line for the bathroom... I've never been involved in an inventory. There must be some nutty numbers in that. And it makes me wonder about Ralph Nader's counting credentials? Are there really are two hundred toothpicks in a box or fifty matches, or a hundred balloons--how would we know? For the Piraha in Brazil there is just "one" and "many" and that's good enough... That would mean one dollar and many--I'm rich!

rz

p.s. Lollapalooza line up is awesome & tickets are on sale.

Pitchfork Music Festival

2008-03-22T05:32:00.005Z

Friday, Jul 18, 2008 6:00 PM CDT
- Sunday, Jul 20, 2008 10:00 PM CDT
Union Park, 1501 West Randolph, Chicago, IL, 60657

Prohibited Items:
Public Enemy
Animal Collective
Vampire Weekend
Dizzee Rascal
No Age
Atlas Sound
Fleet Foxes
Spiritualized
M. Ward
Boris
Extra Golden
El Guincho

Scheduled Bands:
Tents
Flags
Refunds Or Exchanges
Chairs
Instruments
Knives / Weapons Etc.
Video Cameras
Audio Recording Devices
Professional Cameras
Pets
Drugs & Drug Paraphernalia

Superstitious?

2008-03-18T00:12:00.003Z

Does anyone have an unusual belief or ritual? If so, I'd love to hear about it! Some friends and I are looking into the role that superstitions play in our lives and society. So stop by yoursuperstition.org and post your story or send us an email.

Feel free to submit one or many! Thanks for your participation and check back soon to the site to visit the gallery and download the first installment of our audio documentary.

Thanks! Wish us luck.

hair trimmings a landfilling fuel alternative

2008-03-15T13:37:00.006Z

i need a hair cut
that's another hair cut
after one last week
it's getting to be like
breathing, like rent

it must grow
it must grow
as fast as my beard
but all those hairs together
are so different than a shadow

i need a hair cut
another, after just one week
where i get the bus
there's a place, super cuts
not a difficult decision
i look good but can look better
unless its tomato basil...
or a barley and vegetable
a corn chowder...

Z

"news report says stay in doors"

2008-03-13T05:37:00.000Z

the rich get richer

We “bail out” the mortgage lenders

the richer get richer

The price of oil tops $107

the rich get richer

The Columbians need our help

the rich get richer

The Cubans can’t be helped

the rich get richer

Capitalist Communism is okay

the rich get richer

Socialism is a dirty word

the rich get richer

The little farm can’t pay the rent

the rich get richer

The miracle crop is still illegal

the rich get richer

I don’t care to join in

the rich get richer

I’m just trying to get by

the rich get richer

they put a _____ in the White House

the rich get richer

They put a for sale sign on my house

the rich get richer

The line of serfdom draws thinner

the rich get richer

We did good for a little while there

the rich got richer

Yes

2008-03-11T15:01:00.001Z

she is a "monster"

yuk!

looking to airport west (a novel)

2008-03-09T00:56:00.002Z

or... where's Mark?

L.C.D.

2008-03-02T05:51:00.003Z

happiest marchiest ness ness ness !!!!!!!
ness ness ness

ness!!!!

Sunglasses in the Limelight

2008-02-27T05:49:00.000Z

Maybe it is inappropriate to ask for fame
You can see where it comes from
And yet, I do that which will not cull
Sit watching, stirring this pot of beans
And imagining this, inappropriately
This hand from the ether
With one long finger, reaching out to me
Tap.

H

Honolulu, HI; 1:06 PM (unverified time)

2008-02-19T15:31:00.013Z

Astro Future Trends

"On November 4, 2008—election day—there will be an exact opposition of Saturn and Uranus. This opposition will hit Obama’s Virgo Mars, so he is surely a candidate who may be in the final race for the White House. Neptune squares Obama’s Mercury and Sun, giving Neptune some power in his horoscope. In this day and age of the 24-hour news cycle and political marketing, successful candidates need a powerful Neptune."

P.S. 10 WINS IN A ROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"In a clear sign of their standing in the race, most cable television networks abruptly cut away from coverage of Clinton's rally when Obama began to speak in Texas."

No, You Can't (vid)
"like hope, but different"

rob

One Better

2008-02-15T17:20:00.024Z

(A fictional narrative in response to the Northern shooting, in trying to understand who, how... and also: how it could be the forth in American schools this week... AN AUDIO VERSION OF THE SAME ON VOCALO)

A gun makes people feel decisions, something like what a waterfall does to a river. Otherwise life just trickles, a dribble of water getting lost in an ocean of names. I'm gonna to set the ocean on fire and clear away some of the traffic, make it easier for who comes after.

It’s like when there's some asshole in front of you, driving all slow, creeping along. There is something to be done. All my Dad ever did was scream at them. Or when he would run into the hardware store to make keys for some new tenant he would yell back at the horns blowing behind him when he double parked.

“F YOU!” he’d yell. “GO AROUND!” And he’d tell me in the same voice that he’d be right back and not to change the radio or touch the mirrors.

I had a dream I beat his ass last night, but I didn’t kill him, didn’t wipe him off the face of the earth, so when I woke-up I wondered why, why I’d been so weak in my dream. I make mistakes over and over in my dreams so I don’t have to keep making them when I’m awake. If I’d a had my gun, I’d a stood behind it and watched his face.

Yelling doesn’t do shit. You can yell at me, yell at broke ass tenants, fucking old coke bottle glass drivers and bitches and they can just yell back. It’s a trade. To win you got to tip the fucking scales.

I seen him try to apologize before. “Don’t touch me,” I should of said, when he did that putting his hand on my head trick, like how he tried to do after the ambulance came and took Mom from her bed. The impression of her head was still in the pillow, and a bright yellow stain where she pissed herself when she died. When my piss is bright yellow I think of that. She just disappeared, trickled away. The ambulance took her and the guy put the empty bottle of pills in his pocket. That’s not the way to go. People will think it’s was your fault you died.

I used to build rockets like the one’s in the back of Boy’s Life. I’d roll paper up into tubes and use my Dad’s paper clips to hold them together. I’d do the cone on the top and then light the bottom but it wouldn’t go nowhere just burn and smoke like hell and set off the fire alarm. My Dad wouldn’t touch me, the coward. I was ready for him too.

“Maybe there’s a club you can join,” he said after smothering the fire on the windowsill with a book.

I looked at him just wishing he would try and touch me again. I had his “club,” a little bat I hid under my bed that said “tire knocker,” on it.

“It might be good for you to join a club. A group of kids," he said and then slunk out of the room.

I didn’t want to be lost in a sea of empty faces. I just wanted the rocket to take off and explode, breaking up in fiery pieces when it smashed through the speed of sound. And I wanted him to go “wow,” and “sorry,” and die before all the pieces fluttered down over the trees and houses.

The group he got me to join was a trick: college. Made out like it was some prize or award for being smart or some shit. Everyone already knew each other, just like high school. And they were just as stupid. And I didn’t need some teacher to tell me I was smart. They told me to call them “professor.” Fuck that, I called them “professor,” but I thought “teacher.” And they were too stupid to know the difference. It was my secret.

Truth is always a secret, like a loaded gun no one knows about but you. The truth is all the things your best at that people need to be shocked to realize. They need to be shocked like a dead heart that’ amped with juice and makes the body flop all over the table.

There’s nothing for me to study at school. I already know what’s important. These are all just lies that people pass around like the right kind of clothes and the right kind of music and the right kind of music and the right kind of clothes.

Chrissy only acts stupid—she’s not. She’s smarter, but needs someone to show her that it’s o.k. to leave them all behind. It’s the way she raises her hand in class, only after everyone else races to be first, and even then it goes up kind of shaking. Today she was called on and her face went bright red. She stammered as she tried to speak. That’s not her voice, I thought. What are they doing to her, I thought. They were taking out her voice and putting a drone one in its place. My teeth were clenched, but he heard me, “Mitochondrial DNA,” I answered for her. Everyone turned to look.

He said, “Thank you Dean, That’s right. But I’d called on—.”

“Who told you you call me by my first name?” I’d put him on notice.

He went on with the lesson like nothing had happened. That’s everyone’s solution, just pretend nothing’s happened. I left, figuring that Chrissy would be safe for the rest of class. People just pretend nothing happens. That’s everyone’s solution, while they are trying to make you small, little, one tiny chip at a time, that’s how they make you disappear.

That’s what they do. And it’s what they’ll keep doing. Thats's the herd. All day everyday pulling pins out of hand grenades one is gonna go off and teach them a lesson. That’s how they learn. You got to set-up barriers that they’ll remember. Boundaries not to cross. It’s that simple. The only thing they’ll understand comes out of the end of a gun. Bang. Breaking the speed of sound. Bang.

rob

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act

2008-02-14T02:19:00.001Z

This is about net neutrality.
You can send a message to your Representative (here).

rob

instamaticly over

2008-02-12T07:58:00.000Z

"Polaroid Corp., the Massachusetts company that gave the world instant film photography, is shutting down its film manufacturing lines in the state and abandoning the technology that made the company famous."

Fog Fog Fog

2008-02-05T02:46:00.001Z

There is something I am seeing, but don’t know if it is real. What is the difference between fog and darkness? Blinding light and the absence of light? Being totally aware or being utterly ignorant?

I am not wrong to blame, I am safe in that assumption. I know that the economy is a business; it is a thing and is not tied to other things like democracy, productivity and greed. It is deeply needed for someone to say, “what if we didn’t have this economy?” We can have the economic party versus the non-economic party. There was a law struck down in 1933 by the supreme court* of the United State which was trying to limit personal wealth to one million. My friend Paul says, “That would be like a half a billion today,” is that so bad?

Richard Dreyfus told me today at dinner (jealous much?!?), “I am a political animal, and I am outspoken because I believe in my politics.” He went on to topics such as the Middle East (This is God’s test), the Presidency (he didn’t endorse) and the drastic need for civics in elementary school.

I think that Presidential candidates should have to tell us who their team will be also; we have the time to listen and many of us want to know. Anyone that has worked for public organizations knows that the president only listens, decides and delegates, his right hand women make the action happen.

I was almost a caller on Diane Rehms show on Friday. My question to the experts was: What are the true numbers of U.S. citizens in Iraq? Would the Army be a better working organization if the privatized companies weren’t there? Do you think it hurts morale for a soldier to learn that a contractor is making ten times the money that he is? Do we pay them more up front to not provide a pension?

I am sure we are in a fog. I am sure we are made to be lazy by a lack of proper challenge in our youth. I think I have been affected by bad information, a condition I must try to remedy in others, even if just my own children.

“How many of you know how much of the information industry is owned by one person? Yep, his names Murdoch and he owns fifty percent. The other two guys wear the same suits. That is illegal. It is a crime.”

“Why did we let Helen Thomas take a fall? When did we forget ‘I don’t work for you Mr. President, you work for me, now, answer the Goddamned question?’ When did we forgive our journalists for not asking the question for the fourth time?”

* Windows tries to make me capitalize supreme court, the nationalist bastards.

tv two

2008-02-05T00:42:00.000Z

My TV was on for the first time in five years. There’s a weather channel on regular, well digital TV. But there was so much information, extended forecast, scrolling text…something about flood warnings. A panel on the side that had something else, a screen in the middle with an announcer saying, “and now for the national outlook.” Yet the only thing specific I remember is that it was, or will be 29 degrees in Marquette.

Flipped to the McNeil-Lehr News Hour, every face seemed so utterly board…the type of face of a child stuck in the company of stupid adults. On subject was the advertising of the true, or truer, conservative(s).

(a screen shot)

I turned off the tele. Turned on the BBC. McCartney said to send his love to the aliens. NASA is broadcasting the Beatles out to space.

Been thinking about what message I would leave and to who if I could, any message, any time, to anyone. It would be tomorrow, wishing I’d called people today saying, “Hi. My name is Rob and I am calling for Senator Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign to let you know where your polling station is located….”

I remember a dream I had this morning, that my book was on shelves inside my coffee pot. I saw the shelves, the texts inside my four cup coffee pot , and I was in there too, looking around. It was a revelation, certain, like math. Shelves, plus coffee, and I fill with my book. Hmmm, in the meantime, I’ve got a cold and am in bed now… That is, it’s 6:30 and I am wearing pajamas. There is fog fog fog outside. The buildings have disappeared. Maybe when I wake up I’ll be different.

TV

2008-01-31T02:38:00.000Z

They tried to deliver my TV today. I was out. Boo hoo! But soon, gracias a dios. Still, I missed, "God bless you, Detroit. I love you, and I'll see you at work tomorrow." Poor taste with a Strawberry on top seeing as how there is an unemployment rate estimated to be between 15 and 20 percent. My Mom's friend lost her job for taking chicken parts home that were going to be thrown-out, so please: "...the idea of redemption."

My TV though, HD. Duh! I felt the static of change . Funny how technology, once innovation, is now so often something to be overcome.

But then this. They care, look!:

"The federal government is subsidizing the cost of buying a digital-analog converter box by offering $40 discount coupons to anyone who owns an analog television. That program is being overseen by an arm of the Commerce Department called the National Telecommunications and Information Administration." (Roto-Reuters)

40 dollars. multiply by someting like 100 plus million, timed with an economic stimulus package (tax rebate), and you get: peace and security, riots averted, and a deep nelson sigh. The date by the way, is just days after Valentines next year, in case you were already wondering about a gift for that special someone.

r

cheers

2008-01-29T07:00:00.001Z

My thought was to post something interesting from world news, or just some news. There is a woman here living in a church on Division street, because the US told her to go back to Mexico. Quote from that story: "I hope they fear God enough." The Mormon CEO died. The web force Anonymous has started the attack on Christian Science (joining up with Germany), vowing to destroy the "cults" net presence. ESPN's Dana has been suspended for yelling, "Fuck Notre Dame," and quite possibly "Fuck Jesus" from a mic during a roast. OMFG!

Also, a bad man was buried in Indonesia, yet people miss him, like some did Stalin and others did Pinochet. Before he died they said he was too old to stand trial. Russia has denied visas for election observers (again), and the same government has found a way to invalidate the opposition candidate's petition; turning the affair more into a coronation.

The Argentines have been using diplomatic credentials to ship cars back and then selling them to footballers. So sad. So petty. I can see them scanning Craigslist. If they were quicker they could have got my 98 Escort. Instead they've been happy enough with Lamborghini's.

The trader that sunk French banking was released today, apparently he was in it for the rush and prestige--which isn't as illegal as greed. Also in France, aid workers got eight years for smuggling orphans from Africa who turned out not to be orphans.

And Kenya is coming undone after the election dispute, the break down of law. An interesting quote from all that: "the government will have to show it is not involved." Tribal vendettas are being settled or stirred more likely.

The new Bond film got a name. With a release date of early November 08, the countdown clock cheerfully plods on. Meanwhile, Notre Monster spoke tonight to say he still has veto powers. Maybe with his pardoning powers he can forgive Kwame his 14,000 lovey dovey txt msgs. 14,000! tsk, tsk.

r

Poet arrested....

2008-01-23T15:41:00.000Z

Chiang Mai, Thailand – Burmese authorities on Tuesday arrested a veteran poet, Saw Wai, over a Valentines Day poem carried in the Rangoon-based Burmese weekly Love Journal, according to sources in the literary community.

Sources said Saw Wai was arrested and is being interrogated for publishing a poem in this week's issue of Love Journal. When the initial letters of the lines of his poem, entitled February Fourteen, are put together, the sentence "Power Crazy Than Shwe" is spelled in Burmese.

Myat Khaing, editor of the Journal, said he innocently allowed the poem to be published as he believed it was a romantic poem exalting Valentines Day, which falls on February fourteenth.

"I believed the poem was a romantic poem," said Myat Khaing, adding that he, as editor of the weekly, has had to file a petition to authorities.

Myat Khaing, however, declined to go into further details.

Sources said officials at the Burmese Press Scrutiny and Registration Board warned Myat Khaing not to repeat his mistake in the future and threatened that severe action would be taken if he did so.

Earlier, in July 2007, the Myanmar Times, a semi-official English-language weekly journal in Burma, ran an advertisement by a bogus tour agency carrying the hidden word, 'Killer Than Shwe'.

The Press Scrutiny and Registration Board, which strictly censors all publications in Burma, overlooked the embedded message and allowed the paper to carry the ad.

The Danish artist group Surrend later claimed responsibility for the ad, which appeared to be an invitation to Scandinavian tourists to visit Burma, but instead mocked the Burmese head of state.

Meanwhile, an online advertisement for shampoo, carrying hidden words critical of Senior General Than Shwe, is being circulated among Internet users.

Source: http://www.mizzima.com/MizzimaNews/News/2008/Jan/59-Jan-2008.html

Rueters Pictures of the Year

2008-01-21T07:27:00.000Z

Some amazing work

They've celebrated and exposed

Wow!

Opinion

2008-01-09T02:45:00.000Z

I'll start as you finished: what do I know? It's a position of humility. It is a position, some what Socratic, that lends itself to asking questions. Questions that don't necessarily prize an answer so much as a method, an approach.

I was speaking with a cab driver about the news, about false national weather reports about Chicago. We are apparently covered in snow. The television has portrayed one storm after another. Terrible winter weather--not true. Our conversation came down to people wanting one answer. What are these experts but to say, this, definitively this. Life here parts ways with the media. This is, I think, part of the way politics has been presented--yes, no, either or--a polarization.

But I don't think media manipulation is new, not new at all. And I don't think people wanting to be happy with a good wage is wrong. Nor, do I think lazy is wrong; that is, archiving a want through the least strain. What might be different is the wants of people, sometimes more self-concerned, and at others, these concerns share a common goal.

If I see a dilemma it would be between what people want to hear and what others would like them to know. But there is a problem. This is icing, not the cake. To a certain extent news is history, past. Power dwells elsewhere, makes tomorrow's decisions. Maybe by lazy you meant satisfied. The question then would be, how wants more? Who wants to make history, be ahead of the news with their opinions. This is a matter of courage. And I believe courage is the product of a sense of self. And a sense of self developed by critical thinking, to be that person who takes thought as a matter of choosing, of deliberation.

Now, if I see a problem, it would be in this area of thought, i.e., a rejection of the intellectual, in education, on the street, and generally is all aspects of our public life. That life is not defined by certain answers but by best attempts is an attitude--along with its converse--taught and reinforced. This is a cultural attitude, how we encounter what we don't know. And this is not altogether far from a religious sentiment, in particular, mystery and wonder; and I will suggest, in what little I know, that fundamentalism, in faith and Constitutional law is a stupefication that excludes the primacy of human experience and our encounter with this wide and varied world.

And lastly, I will charge that your assessment of the last hundred years in the Arab world is a an amazing statement, incredible and false. Iraq didn't exist a hundred years ago. Qutb, and his ilk, had not been active a hundred years ago. And Palestine? The cab driver mentioned above was from Pakistan, and was angry at those who would stain his faith with hate and violence. His opinion is part of a larger, a dramatic and ongoing dialog.

Another cab driver I met from Somalia said this here, America, defines democracy. He feels this place is the example for the world. And it seems to me that if there is a first responsibility it is to develop the ability to choose. Milton, in "Areopagitica" wrote on this same page, "reason is but choosing." And I affirm that to honor and respect the thoughts and feelings of others is a great step towards encouraging a dialog which is relevant and expansive.

r

Opinion (P.S. Iran has no real defenses)

2008-01-07T21:07:00.000Z

Now that we live in a world of misinformation and media manipulation, I am scarred of my neighbors. I'm not scared because I think they consciously want to harm me, but because they don't pay attention to what's harming us all. The information age has brought vital information to our feet and what do we watch on T.V.: American Gladiators and Fox News.

I'd be a liar if I said I didn't watch American Gladiators last night, I did, it was awesome. But I also read a bit of Howard Zinn and listened to several presidential campaigns on Youtube. This wasn't hard to do, I got just as much enjoyment out of the latter as I did the former, but there was one unique difference. Zinn and the speeches gave no clear endings and gladiators did.

We have grown lazy in America. It's not that we aren't willing to work but that we aren't willing to be complex, to be unsafe. Bush's speeches are more like American Gladiators that Zinn or a presidential debate, they try to create good versus evil and they give an certain ending. The problem with this is: most things in life don't have certain outcomes! When he calls education "No Child Left Behind" and says it will solve the system, he leaves out the fact education doesn't end, it is chaotic and nonlinear, not solvable.

It's not all him and I hate that sometimes I blame Bush for everything, he is just a figure head and a wall to fling poo onto. The truth is that it is most people, myself included, all want what we want and don't care how it comes. We want a job that pays us $50,000, so we take it with a company that makes plastic things or sells plastic things. We don't ask where the plastic comes from, how it is made, what happens to where the oil was and what effect it will have 100 years in the future because the idea of $50,000 a year feels safe. The truth is that if the world cut off our food supply we'd all be eating a fraction of the food we have now. If the oil wells dried up we'd all be stranded from our loved ones and our jobs. There is less safety in the mundane than there is in middle east. At least Arabs haven't changed the way they live their lives so drastically they can't recognise themselves of a hundred years ago.

What is the solution? I'm not too sure. I think it doesn't come from religion or government though. I think it might come from accepting things as they are and not always to trying to perfect them. In accepting that today we go without so tomorrow we might not have to. I think it comes from self sacrifice and yearning for a simpler society more in harmony with the natural world, but what do I know, I'm only a contestant against the big bad gladiators.

Humanista
(P.S. I would love to read editorials from others...)

Table Two

2007-12-26T15:28:00.000Z

Two travellers, one male and one fem, blur about matchbox tinderbox houses which twinkle in the dark evening. Hands, chilly and warm, intermingle in the passing of miles of dirty concerte from one full house to another, one brand of blood to another, all packed in tight with trappings, holding each other like needles on evergreens. Each stop brings them closer to home, farther from the beginning, where, nerves-shot, they were debating getting in that car at all.
And the road hums along, cars in chorus, singing carols of apprehension and relief, debate and decision, dogs and cats. The eyes of the now-warm-hearted adventurers become lidful as they tumble down avenues which often appear unkept and unwanted, these old streets familiar like a dining room full of relative faces, neon candles, boarded up entrees. The last few miles are the easiest for the two travellers: hands, song, and stomaches in line, the dark evening growing bare yet warm, sad yet joyful, wanting for a reunion and never wanting.

H

table

2007-12-14T05:47:00.001Z

On a winter corner, coming dark of the afternoon, headlights on but lighting nothing but themselves, cars, bus sagging by, two men stood in a hollow out of the wind. One, a poet, his shoes looked too big, laces cinched like fingers hiding a coin. "Women," he said. The other, also a poet, lame, said, "It's because we need so much from them." Somewhere, a bird tumbled down over its tired wings and bounced on the ice, blood to run its migration in the spring, to calcify and then shine, a pearl in a coy winking oyster.

r

a través de la pantalla de las sombras

2007-11-24T02:55:00.001Z

Habby Pirthday Briars Flog!

some poem:

today a song came through the radiator
an open throat of dry tin took a drink
and sung like a flag holding on by one clip
i washed two black shirts in the bathroom sink
there was talk of Pindar, a monumentalist of sorts
the water looked like the sky before a storm
ten, twenty minutes to night
he always mentioned their names
and of who in myth he was reminded
i am like none other, except maybe
a sock escaped into a warm dryer

some more poem:

winding up the dice
passion to chance
like a web
earth in perfumed silence
a mirrored light
intuition groping
in a cave
be speckled with stars

some more more poem:

the last car pulls the air in closed behind it
like inhaling
rolling to rest people come out
a warm cloud drifting towards
other each others
trains on separate tracks
sometimes love seems
a telescope away
which way is it going

more more more poem:

some crude oval, adding another along side
two, almost sympathetic, nearly eyes
smaller circles inside, and in those
two more, one each tiny
through them all enormity
hearts, stars, circles, sympathetic ovals

& an announcement : In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg; Borges and then some.

also, sound familiar?:
"Experts who study political cults have observed that such groups thrive on an imagined enemy in opposition to which the group constructs it own collective identity. [He] had always encouraged members to believe they were the victims of mass conspiracies..."
Yeah, but this time its LaRouche. When groups wildly veer. A fuller accounting is here-- (the portal jumping through click...click...cli

hot rod pause III

2007-11-08T04:34:00.000Z

How is it that there is a single point in a choice that is marked by two options? This is the feature that I seem to be noticing lately: the (...what now I can’t seem to find in my handbook of rhetorical terms… found) Dissoi logoi: composing opposing arguments for a question. This is the foundation of jurist prudence, the making of a ‘truth’ by agreement as opposed to a ‘truth’ by proof. This is such a rich topic, it itself becomes a threat or an invitation to inquiry-- may distract, arrest movement or give it confidence. The point of distinction between one method and another, that is from jurist prudence and what I will presently call science. They can serve to announce a series of divisions--or better said, an example of divisions, distinctions, and perhaps even frontiers.

I am less concerned at the moment by the stability or ethics of the categories than with the ease and prevalence of their appearance. Distinctions seem to rise up at the same time as recognition. This awareness I have heard cited as the dawn of the I, as the primary cognitive act. It would seem then to be quite fundamental. The dangers of negotiating a world based on comparative difference are also powerfully present. The “other” only need be critically highlighted to be also be at once understood: us and them. The polarities also provide a simplification for rapid action: the brain operating for speed and economy. The amazing leap worth note and pause, is our awareness of all of the above. What we are without though, after this paragraph is both to ability to comprehend and to not comprehend. Or can we? Just look ahead.

I am talking about art and to some degree, the brain, or the person, the subject, the antenna we are all most familiar with—ourselves. I might add these very phrases, coming one after the other, are answering a question for me, one private and possibly not important for the subject; but suffice it to say that the act of making these statements is the answer to my own question—I apologize for being vague. Perhaps it will serve the topic to clarify my motive later, as important as it is, arising as it has out of a personal crisis. On a digression, which will guide us back to the subject, the mystery of my purpose here might have awakened a curiosity. Perhaps. Isn’t it interesting how we linguistically equate a mystery to dim uncertain edges, an amorphous object not quite in focus and perhaps obscured in the fog. This is the nature of my crisis.

I am drawn to mystery and think that solving a mystery means going from curiosity to knowing; this movement is the assignment of a value, and value makes action possible. Is there a fork in the road and if so which one is better? My crisis is precisely one of action. And like any mystery, this to you, and something else to me, until the form comes into sight, without the ability to see ahead, a choice is difficult to make. We must find out more.

How do we find out about each other? Through empathy and abstraction. I think these are the two seemingly opposed components of art, and for me literature and its comprehension; how in being presented with artistic material we exercise judgments of value. It would be then, to be a critic is to consider more than taste, but meaning as well as cause and purpose. There is in effect no need to distinguish between value and meaning. Through the arts a single questions can be presented with a variety of answers, an expansion instead of a reduction. And in this way the arts are neither science nor jurist prudence but an event. Though an attempt is often made to invest a work with meaning, it is a gun that remains unfired until experienced. Upon entering a work light is cast on new territories, mysteries are invoked—in short, the presence of other minds are realized. At the bottom of art are warm bodies in the dark--the perceived presence of other minds which contain a depth greater than the two sided arguments they compose.

Through empathy we can feel another. Not just. Not true. It is made up by the movements of self-will--taking the measure of things. Art can move without the imposition of an absolute regardless of its corroborating method. And as mentioned before, through abstraction we are taught the creation of figurative language, of simile, of analogy, of patterns, and over all of description; and I will add description yet to be validated. Art seems to situated itself in pre-truth--as true as an event, then subject to reevaluation.

And if this was less enigmatic would it be less interesting? A crisis can be very exciting. Uncertainty is the mystery that belongs to the future only deciphered by living. My own tumult (looking forward) has to do with whether or not I should pursue writing or jurist prudence; hence this could serve as a sort of an answer to that question, but in the end does not definitively, does not put me at an end where a decision has been made history. It is interesting too, how I am defensive, barred even to any third option, as if the complication means me harm, threatens the work of previous distillations and reductions. It threatens and looms, the two locked together like a dogfight up ahead, turning around each other, becoming one blur. Still, one simple question is like a prism splitting the light of knowledge while the asker remains enveloped in light. Recognizing parts we can make out the shape. The breadth of life can not be printed flatly on a coin. "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it, immediately or in the long run" (Thoreau).

oh boy!

2007-11-07T02:13:00.001Z

father

2007-11-05T15:22:00.000Z

I like everything my father can't pronounce
the rest he leaves unsaid
then through mute pleas
he acts out subterfuges
leaving doors open, others shut
lights on, others off, like a ghost
or a crumb thief
he claims he's psychic, proven
by what he's been able to avoid
he doesn't use soap
won't touch a sponge
there are germs, liberals
clean is a conspiracy
to erase him, leave a film,
and clog pipes
he lies out of reflex
the truth is his, his own
pilfered secrets guarded
under dirty finger nails

r

buried...

2007-11-05T04:05:00.001Z

Today I dig a hole

And bury this picture of me

Cover it with dirt

And never let it breathe

Hoping that tomorrow

This man won’t be the same

Than that picture down there

Choking in its grave.

dehiscence

2007-11-02T05:21:00.000Z

My dear I wondered about you
without ever saying your name
followed the epic only
to peer inside of a lonely song
looked and look to going to end
in some unknown end of absence
in warm eyes and an echoing touch

this now is a coin sinking towards
a desperate and uncertain wish
then let this emptiness be the gift
something you’ve sent on ahead
a dark thrown open and counting
out the seconds till your voice

a bridge does not span its own divide
but is appointed between two shores
ocean. an ocean! its open depth
matter made neon blue and red with clay and foam
yellow shocks blaze through orange folds
in every green murmur life's embrace
air wings, breath voice, color light

...so where's the mistake if pairs
are normally bound? why the far off promise
in blindness, lopsided, instead of sight?
this distance envelopes the abyss

I, once ready and eager, shudder
cold and still, hollow, and diffused
as substantial as any perfect dream
awakened to drift towards oblivion
thunder walks quietly into the room
small and as unannounced as solitude
and echoes a hushed destruction
its the real that persists, with depth
the durable that's made for mutual reach
risk is where future's shadow is cast
I've been a black mirror in a frozen night
and where you weren’t you never will be

now as private as death, love enters
as fruit enters the sky
growing from the same root
to perish in the explanation

hot rod pause II

2007-10-27T05:21:00.001Z

Something like Cannonball Run II only slower and hearkening back to L.B. Jeffries of Rear Window. I am having my hot rod pause and have come to realize: how far things are away from each other--to me there is a brutality in distance; and two, there is no place to sit down, another brutality. There needs to be bench building philanthropy. And I am going to go so far as to suggest that there is a cultural bias to liken weak to lazy. These notions have come to me by way of rupturing my Achilles tendon. I was not chasing Hector around Priam's palace but improvising, skipping in fact, had just done some plee-ays, and was for some moments before that a hot air balloon raising myself with a throaty imitation of a gas jet. Then the tendon snapped and rolled up in my calf like a window shade. My surgery is Tuesday. Six weeks more in a 'caste', then physical therapy.

In the ER I was talking to the nurse. I might have been unconsciously like Ivan Ilych metaphorically wanting my legs held up. We talked about lots of things really. I kept her talking. She told me how she deals with the sights of emergencies. "How do you make sense of it?" I asked her. "You don't," she said. "All that is, is good." Yes And I suddenly thought about people like the police, nurses, doctors, people who are with a random public in need and I was in awe.

Jon asked me if I'd thought--as I had been considering what is next, after graduation, grad school, job, etc.--he asked me if after the ER and all that, if I was now attracted to medicine. No. But I am envious of the direct impact that they have on other people's lives, as well as grateful for the care they'd/are giving me. And today, while reading, I have been looking up from time to time and wondering what does writing do.

--quiet aside from being able or not to have large pool built in the shape of hip pocket notebook with a mock pen as the diving board and be well provided with chicken salad--

...but have been wondering if writing comes before or after other events in having an impact on this bounteous human florescence--culture. As thinkers it seems appropriate to entertain at least both possibilities, even to believe them simultaneously; this in a word is tolerance. And I wonder then, to add an even greater focus to the question: how is writing situated in the maintenance of this fragile and first concept--and I think it is vitally situated. Why this is so might speak of (or from) a deeper dilemma--perhaps even the same as that old argument between the absolute and the specific; regardless, communication, an extension of touch.

Today at the orthopedic surgeon's a nurse asked me why I hadn't signed in. "I didn't know I had to sign in," I told her. The words do not at all convey the expression I am sure that I wore, same as a child might have looking up for the familiar but finding tall passing strangers. Bewilderment is amplified in waiting rooms.

Before in the ER, new with crutches I asked were the bathroom was and was told down the hall and then to the left...or right, I now can't remember. As far as that suddenly seemed I tried to make a joke at the nurses station, "by the time I get to the end of the hall I'll probably have forgotten if its left or right." After that I was released and waited for my cab, talked to my Mom on the phone, and realized there was no place to sit down. She said how if she had lots of money somehow I would not have gotten injured because... just because. Then she warned me how plucking nose hairs can be fatal. Why? The news man said so on the radio. But how does that work, I asked. "You don't listen," she told me.

But overall I have to say this experience is exciting. And any change that brings insight is awesome. I am not it pain. And medically, the injury is not serious--reminding me of the important distinction between danger and discomfort. And a world of the formerly injured has opened up to me. Crutches are a great conversation piece. And if I ever felt entitled to blow-jobs now is the time. We'll see how much effort that takes on my part. Meanwhile, the complete works of Balzac, all 36 volumes has arrived--good timing. And also, I have found that it costs a penitence to have groceries delivered--genius! And as a consequence an enormous amount of my beloved bubbly water is on its way--quantities I would never ever have carried up the stairs. The injury in other words, besides casting me into the unknown, the fear, the trust, and realizing the dear compassion of my fellows has also made me wonder if I will ever grocery shop again, which had formerly been one of my favorite places to talk on the phone.

I am also left pondering a metaphor--that as soon as it is realized lends itself to a kind of archeology: the scar, one left by a surgeon. Evidence of healing it hovers on the surface but also signals an earlier trauma. Similar to a tattoo, a surgeon's marks are written across various bodies, and my doctor has left these pragmatic rivulets from Buenos Aires to Chicago, not part of a tributary but shapes specific to the injury--that is, of the covered having been reached--a mending. I wonder in what ways writing is also like this scar, a shape drawn, striking through the surface of water that then remains. These words even, are secondary to a deeper, even a desperate intention: to know, to be known, to reach out, to touch, be touched and share an embrace. To erase the brutal distance of skin and yet preserve feeling. Words. They fall loudly aside like spent shells or broken crutches, legs held up in the air.

r

hot rod pause

2007-10-22T04:47:00.000Z

"Hurry-up Dean-O! They're getting away!"

"Easy now. I got my eye on 'em."

z

It's Soup Season!!!

2007-10-18T18:56:00.000Z

FIVE DRAGONS PORK SOUP

1 medium onion (diced)
1 pablano pepper (chopped)
1 habenero pepper (finely chopped) optional
2 carrots (chopped)
4 stalks of napa (leaf and stalk chopped) could use bok choy
several large mushrooms (chopped)
3 cloves of garlic (diced)
2 boneless smoked pork chops (diced)
32 oz organic chicken broth
1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
several dashes Soy Sauce
several dashes Fish Sauce
several dashes Sriracha Sauce
half tablespoon of Chinese Five Spices*
cashews and cilantro to garnish

Saute vegetables in oil (preferably peanut) over medium heat for five minutes, add pork and continue cooking for several more minutes, add the four sauces and stir vigorously, add chicken broth, add Chinese Five Spices, stir and let simmer for at least 15 minutes. Add chopped cilantro and cashews when served.

*Chinese Five Spices consists of: Szechuan Peppercon, Ground Cloves, Cinnamon, Fennel & Star Anise

--eL vIkIngO

Listen Liu, you don't speak for everyone

2007-10-16T00:19:00.000Z

"The move of the United States is a blatant interference in China's internal affairs, hurts the feelings of the Chinese people and has gravely undermined relations between China and the United States," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that we didn't hurt the Tibetans' feelings.

Growing lonely in the damp dark

Walk slowly on soaked slate concrete

Cool wind rustles the leaves

My whistle carries down empty paths

Haunted with mailboxes and garbage cans

Wondering why we live here at all

Strangers pass in the glare of headlamps

Animals with shelters drug up from the earth

Gliding dazed through moribund lives

Never looking down at the small stones

Scarred of the empty streets

My pocket shakes and rings

Kicking rocks into dull culverts

Wishing it was warmer

Talking about the sky

And I am walking home

I made this into a song and recorded it right after I wrote it, no prep. Thought it might be fun.

CLICK TO HEAR MUSICAL VERSION!

2007-10-12T08:27:00.000Z

I am like you without thoughts
or reasons to tend with drops of sun
and rays of water
you pour onto your balcony garden down
from closed heaven and up
from empty hell.

You are my finger taps
fingernail clicks on peels of furnish.
you will, can, won’t, can’t
stop and think and stop.

You are a master of invisible arts
and I am not your lone following
I will never rest
between the creative and scientific
chunks of your frantic brain
for a day.

I am the fireplace
you have never owned,
and will never need.

I will rest
at the fork of love
and appreciation.

lhl

2007-10-09T03:08:00.000Z

i am like you without talk
under rain like a leaf
heavy full then empty
filling a moonless river
in a snake
murmurs of white lilies
like bare feet on cold soil
sparks
through treetops
clouds teasing
the skin away
hollow
love

r

2007-10-08T01:06:00.001Z

Did I post this one already? (lhl)

2007-10-05T17:07:00.000Z

You should see these girls. Goddamn.
They are like upright praying mantises. They need prayer.
(Falling on their knees might cause them to crack.)
The barbie dolls printed on their polka dotted purses:
obese compared to these girls.

You should see how these girls eat. Goddamn
the slippery fried coconut cream and green onion
heated into half moons, brown and crispy at the rounded bottom
eggy at the flat top. These girls shove them into their mouths
and wash them down with orange sugar tea.

You should see how small their sleeve holes are, white and dainty
uniform shirts with the university button over the right cherry breast.
Their black mini splits got not back but their heels match their lips
and both click across the path to their classes. These girls
are impossible. You should see

them, gorgeous as ivory goddamn
pencils. Men gawk at their bones and fantasize
(making love to these girls=sending them into full body casts)
Send these girls to the moon where they would bounce into flight.
You wouldn't see these girls land.

born on this day

2007-09-29T14:35:00.000Z

2007-09-27T04:44:00.001Z

Soft beauty I see you clear
The bedroom fades to 8:45pm
Eyes at low tide
Looking out over a white pillowcase
I live in the crook of your hip
Built brick by word by syllable
Your hair is how I like it
No stir, not a twitch
Your light hand breezes to my side
A touch of your soft under forearm
I slide my face to you and stay
When we were apart it was false
Intertwined
Some day, some minutes, darker now
Soft beauty I feel you clear

H

relativity

2007-09-26T15:51:00.001Z

2007-09-20T15:33:00.000Z

P’Dtoh drives through the rain

I wander to the place
you broke my heart
twenty five years ago today. I want to know
how long suffering
can stretch. I never pondered
suicide. I can’t
imagine cutting off
experience. When you stood
at the ferry mouth and asked me to leave you
I froze upon the bouncing dock and watched
you step into the boat. Your black ponytail and garbage air
swerved songs into my head
and I ached for the piano
my mother did not have
and did not get until
I turned thirty five. I suffered through
other songs then,
dampened by years of experience.

(lhl)

to the moon

2007-09-16T01:44:00.000Z

The Bucket has made it to the moon! And what is more, that also means it has made it approximately ten times around this splendid earth.

*220,000+ miles to the white ball
*23,627 miles around the blue ball

2007-09-14T13:07:00.001Z

let us pray these adorable brown people can one day reach the salvation of this land and be re-born as Americans, shedding the sins of thier primative ways, forgeting thier naive pride and instead daily be grateful that in this land all are equal before the eyes of the flag.

r.z.

nine 1 one

2007-09-11T17:56:00.000Z

listening to the rain last night
i could tell it was lying
and no matter how hard
my eyes shut i couldn't dream
sleep's mercy was too little...
it's patriot day and we live in fear
(not of anything real) just fear
hate breeds hate
horns are locked
spears sharpened
shields splintered
love broken
fuck you america
and your pride

--vik

a view

2007-09-06T03:10:00.000Z

Pull back a minute

Take the train til the view is good

Those suckers downtown

Don’t know how the poor kids throw down

If this concrete gives out under me

The pool will break my fall

Julie buzz me later

Knock when you see a freighter

If only the rent was cheaper we wouldn’t work at all

Only help the kids a little south

Spend evenings on the roof and

Take the train away from all the dislocation

Carry groceries like a vocation

Drink wine like life is free

Fall in love, never see the sea

You don’t have to comb your hair tonight

Lipstick and blush never suit you right

Leave the pilot light alight

This glass for breaking me off a slight

Train track through the rubble of our old block

The downtown moved up town those cocks

Take the train forty minutes from downtown

We live underground, live underground

Humanista

May 30, 1969, One A.M.

2007-09-03T01:41:00.000Z

I'm drunk again
Under a full moon no less
(I can feel the pull)
And Tequila no less
I don't feel nuthin'
again

I'm looking for a mexacali rose
a dark fille
out on the sand
down in the cactus
( and none o' them gaddamm scorpions
to spoil my dream)
just a soft dark belly
and soft black belly hair
under the fucking moon

Yo! Bandido!
I'm a bad motherfucker man
I spit on your mothers grave
Now that that's over listen
I love you
you smelly sonovabithch. . .
compadres smiling
In the aztec night

Riding our ponies
over endless prairies
singing and talking
and joking
backslap
good time
one night
drunk
on Tequila

I'm not a movie
Because I know
' the knower '
That's me man
the part I am
but can't seem to be
the part that doesn't laugh
or cry
that doesn't feel
or so it seems
the part that just watches
quietly
That's me
I think

Even now while I'm done in
I know you and chase you around
in my head
an eyeball can't see itself
can I feel myself feeling myself

I'll find you

You are the real bandido

and there's a peso in my pocket

when I catch you you rotten motherfucker

- George Todt

the cans are running

2007-09-01T18:57:00.000Z

Summer of love revisited

2007-08-30T01:11:00.000Z

It's the promised land little man
That's what I want to tell you about
Ezra Pound screams into the microphone:
"Telepathy! Telepathy! ''
' Love is real' is NOT telepathy
tell me about your accident
I want to hear about why you
can't fuck
tell me how real you are
tell me how real you really are

-George H.Todt III, 1967

2007-08-06T04:43:00.000Z

Secrets of a HEAVYWEIGHT

A dozen years after it first appeared on the world stage, the top quark is still one of the hottest topics in particle physics. Why is it so much heavier than any other particle? And what can it tell us about the origin of mass and other quantum mysteries? Here’s a look at the top’s quirky nature, its fevered past and its promising future.

What is Fermilab?

When writing poetry becomes a `business`

" New Delhi, Aug 06: The custodians of Urdu poetry took the audience to a new high..."

" Another poetess was appreciated for her couplet..."

"Pakistan's Ahmed Faraz, the king of ghazals, said, 'Like all teas are not good, the same is true for poetry.'"

Link to Zee News Indian Edition

learning Spanish with a Viking

2007-08-01T17:09:00.001Z

el vikingo in the D... foto by l'aro

2007-07-25T15:52:00.001Z

a quickshot for literacy

2007-07-25T04:53:00.000Z

............................................. (christ of the abyss).......................................

i.
one foot in the present, the other in the future
water skis our parents fastened to us when were kids
our parents: we were so convinced their archibodies
steered the sailboat which became a speedboat
with an optional captain that rips us through the waters.

some of us choose air over water and woe to those of us
who’ve been bit by the vampire of travel,
we undead, insensitive, self-centered folks
who ward-off coming down from the heroin of experience
grandmothers on willed deathbeds take our problem personally.
the problem: air doesn’t hold-up skis and the future flies away

half our body with it, sailing over the vibrant panorama
the other half condemned to chase that black sliver and pile of flesh
just out of reach then just out of sight, racing into the bright abyss.

ii.
when jesus shunned his mother, she turned around and slumped home
and baked a cake for her other sons to devour after dinner.
don’t take him personally, ma, said james who was less troublesome;
james never multiplied stocks of wedding booze to the delight of winos
or let prostitutes waste perfume on his feet in the homes of public officials
and james left the dead men and children alone, to everyone’s lack of confusion.

that nice angel neglected to mention that the savior of the world
would ignore family values. everyone knows the family comes first
except jesus, who always forgot to wash his hands before supper.
mothers want quiet sons from normal pregnancies in comfortable surroundings
mothers want sons who remember to call home once in a while
mothers want grandchildren.

iii.
home is not place, a face, or feeling
but an interactive photo album
of images and smells before sounds
sloppily stapled to emotional response.

the white bedroom walls covered
in remnants of scotch tape
which once held quotes
don’t you see i just want my life
to be something more than long?
from less popular musicals
or green-brown judy garland
and a flawless terrier in a basket.

mouth running as defense
from supper table silence, god and man at table
are sat down, says the sepia wall hanging
that hides the fuse box.
god’s the only one listening to those plans.

frost coating the gray city
and damp overpasses where someone
spray painted romance in unreachable places.
how did they get up there. will we ever know.

the first pictures, faded polaroids
taken before the future breathed into
cameras; that runny past, now red
and dulled by sunlight. who forgot to tell us
blurred is not enough, but blurred is all we'd have.

(lhl)

logo for the new podcast

2007-07-25T03:43:00.001Z

...in production

On the Cheap

2007-07-23T23:48:00.000Z

I. I answer to a name, am known, and am not ordinary. I myself am too perplexed by the joy, wonder, and beauty of the everyday-- within and without. This vista has an echo. And shadows play between us.

II. The city is surrounded. Trees and fields. A road swept by wind. Here they make an excellent sandwich. I can show you where. And offer you how I know.

III. Now never was and never will be. As fresh as lemons, it smells all the time. And questions are the fruit of our imagination—as fire is to wood, keeping us warm in the cold. Pride the glow of combustion.

IV. And all would be fine if it wasn’t for this game of uncle. This game of cash. The trust in scarcity. Investment based on the future, remembering rainy days. Only... not enough winners. Tisk, tisk. An elite is built on why. Can everybody win?

r.z.

but now i'm back in the city

2007-07-23T18:22:00.000Z

"Heaven stinks
from the gass it takes to get there"
--dan kahn

it wasn't the first time i cried that day
i had read a book of poems by Hayan Charara
most of them about his dead mother
wiped my eyes and drank some rum
then shot bowling pins with a .44 Magnum
life is funny
most everyone had gone to sleep but i was
out in northern michigan's crisp july air
i stood trembling looking up at the stars
every glint a thought my father never told me
it's not that we can't see stars in the city
we don't have them
silver teardrops exploding the night... why?
how cheapens, disects, makes ordinary,
solves riddles and is proud of itself
i'd much rather be the paper
cut by knowledge, understanding and evidence
heaven isn't a place, a future, a paradise
it is now

--vikingo

Broad Day Emission

2007-07-23T16:46:00.000Z

I. Why is a broken question. It is a magic carpet that can only carry one seeker. And vital only to one the answer has very little body, is mostly abstraction. But how is the body, is in evidence in the flesh, is the answer around which forms the question. How answers why like scissors to paper.

II. I am in the apartment in the city after camping in the woods. The sounds are different here. Lot's of people out all night, so that the quite lull is in the afternoon. I've been sleepwalking.

III. I was explained Mormon theology on the banks of lake Cadillac while a new serpentine belt and tensioner got put on my car in town. Sometimes they talked like they were on thin ice, and other times with enthusiasm. But first we talked of travel, uniforms, days off, and women. "It happens," one said about falling in love while on mission, "but it tends to be frowned on." "I bet a lot of people ask you about polygamy," I said. They chuckled and shrugged their shoulders. When they said they didn't believe in original sin, they laid it out like like it was a flashy prize.

IV. I think children are the answer to all our questions, both why and how, all bundled up and wrapped together. Through them we imagine perpetuity. History a condition of the future. The arc of life could be seen as a sunset, the sun standing still, the earth going over backwards.

V. To be a snail would be like being trapped by a question, any question...a snail with a shell, kind of like wearing special glasses that only let you see one color, or when something moves, or if they give off heat. The paintbrushes are then useless. The notebooks, rubbish.

VI. Do you like saying new words so much that you can talk to machines? Do you have a future leaning perspective, then ye are nearest to God.

r.z.

so i guess i take my time

2007-07-13T23:46:00.000Z

The lines on my face move faster
than on my brain, then on my brain
and in my spine i also search, you're welcome
But find no gold, no silver, only water and dirt
These days have been utterly perfect, my crops grow
Spirit tells me I have a spirit
Preacher tells me lies
I feel I've missed something everyone else has
Sadness lives alone, no one talks about it, like ever
Every time I try to try for what you have
I remember wanting to be different
I wonder not where the answer is but where I left the trail
I believe in less than nothing
People make me feel good when I have something to say
When I am occupied like a buzy street
Now that I have time to think, I forget what I think like

Hum

Where there are accordians

2007-07-13T02:24:00.000Z

2007-07-11T17:23:00.000Z

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." Marx

Man is the glass without bottom
into which he himself pours God
drinks, refreshes, renews,
spills, and squanders, laughs
limitless as our own imagination
bounding with passion, desire, potential
shared, overlapping in the sea of humanity.

Do not ask the water to believe in being wet.
Without inside or outside, no need for postage.

On my planet we have an alphabet of divinities
everyone has their own
and like dogs of the same name:
Jesus, Ganesh, Odin, or Creator, or Perfection, or Infinity
these icons respond to the sound of their owner's voice
when called--ah, sweet echo within
as a seed carries the tree.

My favorite birds are the ones I see
who do not believe, just flap
their science is one of up
and down, food and not food
their science is for danger and safety
of vital explanations, of bridge building
and I am inside their song of proud knowing
of experience and evaluation.

Bendi. Flexi. Bend. Body. Brain.

..

"Ask not what you can do for your beliefs but what your beliefs can do for you." Swami Jon

all hands on the Calypso deck

2007-07-10T20:45:00.000Z

"Man's end,
a mound of gleaming bones:
a flowering and a fading."
--Hamei

i've been diving for sunken treasure
seekers who say they've found no longer seek
walking tightropes through hoops
high above rotted nets wishing i'd slip
i see joy in her left eye sorrow in her right
it's hard to skate above all this lunacy
love feels like fire and love feels like rain
what keeps a bird in flight is not a matter of physics
but tiny invisible cables stretching from the clouds
i've not found many answers... only more questions
most atheists need a God to not believe in

"jesus is so strong i wanna roll him
in a joint and smoke him"
---a teen-aged aaron klassen

--eL vIkIngO