Four phone calls and two voicemails from friends and family requesting you call them back immediately; will never lead to a conversation about Hannah Montana being exposed as a thirty two year old man. This is going to be bad.
I call my brother back. “What happened?”
And that was it. That was the moment my friend Eric died.
He actually died around 9pm the night before, but in the universe inside my head, he was still alive until I got that phone call. Confusion, tears, sobs and a lot of pacing back and forth took place. I was already running late for work. With the proper medicine, I was able to turn into a cubicle zombie who moaned his way to the end of the day.
By Saturday I learned that the wake would take place on Monday, followed by the funeral Tuesday. To accommodate this with my work schedule, I ended up spending the day as a zombie again all alone in my cube on Sunday.
On Monday, I went to work early in order to make it back home for the wake and I would then take the day off Tuesday. My associates expressed their sympathies, but equally if not more fervently, their concern that I get back in time to vote.
Vote? “You think I’m actually worried about voting right now?” Brow furrowed, blood boiled, muscles tensed. It finally became apparent, like some omnipresent force that lurked in the shadows this whole time, and I’ve only now found the right pair of eyes to see it; The Church of Politics.
I’ve never heard of it before, and this was the first term that came to mind, but I’m sure it’s been written about before. All of my original ideas have been pondered and discussed at length by old dusty dead men hundreds and even thousands of years before me. This I’ve humbly accepted. But a quick Google search only brings up articles talking about religion and politics as separate entities, but I did find this excerpt from a discussion forum that is close to what I am hinting at: “Religion and political leadership are so intertwined across eras and cultures because they are about the same thing: performing the miracle of converting unrelated individuals into a group.”
Everyone has become a member of The Church of Politics. You belong to a party, which is like your church, and you stay with that church for the rest of your life. Why? Well because your parents belonged to that church, or maybe it’s because it’s because your parents were Catholic and you’ve now joined a Protestant church in order to differentiate yourself from them. Then of course, if one church has been really popular with the townspeople for some time, they may start to get comfortable and kick up their feet. This leads to sermons that begin to lack in the substance and inspiration that should be feeding the core beliefs of their constituents, who are now in dire need of spiritual guidance (like good social policies). Well if the church in power sits on its ass too long, then those independent parishioners will flock to another church.
The funny thing about these different Churches is that they all belong to the same religion, The Church of Politics, so they all celebrate their biggest holiday every four years on the first Tuesday of November; The Presidential vote. If you don’t vote, it’s as if you skipped Christmas Mass. Straight to HELL!
After many hours of agitated thinking and pondering this discovery, I realized that blasphemy was the only course of action. I was not going to vote, because MY vote didn’t matter.
I realize all the bile and venom this must regurgitate in my readers, friends and peers, but hear me out.
We do not vote for the President and Vice President when we go to the polls, we vote for electors in the Electoral College. According to Wikipedia; “Rather than directly voting for the President and Vice President, United States citizens cast votes for electors. Electors are technically free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates and voters cast ballots for favored presidential and vice presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors … the ticket that receives the most votes statewide 'wins' all of the votes cast by electors from that state.” So by the rules of the Electoral College, since most of Wisconsin (definitely Madison) will be going for Obama, he will get all of our electoral votes. The national populace vote doesn’t count here people; don’t you remember how Bush fucked us in 2000?
Now this is not some sort of nihilistic statement to “screw the system”. I would have just voted for McKain, or Nader if I wanted to be an asshole like that. I just did the math. Obama has more than enough support to take all the electoral votes in our state, without MY vote. I stress the “my” because this is not some argument that ALL voting doesn’t count. I’m thankful that Obama had enough support in this state. If it was a really tight race like 2004, I would have felt more obliged to make a difference, but that pressure just wasn’t there. It was just that “Vote or Die” mentality that seems to have brainwashed everyone around me. I somehow snapped out of it.
One of my best friends since middle school wrapped his car around a telephone pole. What makes things even more confusing is that our friendship became distant after he returned from Iraq. He was in Platteville and I was in Madison, this is true, but he was a different guy from the one I grew up with. I watched from a distance, a very slow decline in who this person was to me. I was making horrible life choices on my own while stories would trickle up from friends about him essentially giving up on life. My friend who shared an on stage seat with me for “Rage Against The Machine’s” Chicago show in 99’, was being chewed up by that Machine.
People change, we all do. It’s just hard to see friends getting stuck in the ruts, especially when you just break free from one yourself and now have the momentum and blind fervor of a man on a mission. I never thought he was a failure; he was just stuck in a rut.
We chatted only two or three weeks ago over Facebook. I was unveiling my plans for my custom distressed textiles to him. We made small talk, and then concluded that we needed to hang out soon. That was it. That was the last communication I had with him. A little bud in what might be a rekindling of an old root system. Just like that, the bud turns to ash, with nothing left but an old and extensive roots of personal history.
After the wake and funeral, I now find myself sitting here with the same mixed bag of feelings. I’ve learned to not try and reason with that which cannot be defined, so I wait, letting things out as they must. Grief spasms, anger ruptures, morose stares. Let it all hang out. This is much more comforting than waiting in line at the polling center.
If you still think it was wrong of me to proclaim that MY vote didn’t matter, then you’ve missed the whole point, and you are a very faithful parishioner. I want to thank all of my friends who helped me over the weekend, and to all those who still made sure to get their vote in as well. I have to also thank the Electoral College’s stupid rules for allowing me to justify my argument. I actually don’t support the system, but tonight is not for banter like that.
Tonight I sit alone, and hope.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
All Hail the King of the Hipsters
Knees were weak and I was already getting pugnacious with a cute butch over the coffee pitcher. Just another Sunday morning, paying others to cook food that is no better than what your lazy entitled ass could have done in your own kitchen. But fuck it, this is America, and we’ve learned how to not be so hard on ourselves.
After eating like a starving raccoon, I steered our conversation in the direction of an interesting article I recently read, titled; “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization”
To quickly sum up this article, I’d say: Hipsters are kids who hate everyone for being just like them (this happens in all scenes). But, the Hipster is the first “counter culture” that will not acknowledge themselves. The word Hipster is only used with disdain or in a self-deprecating manor. They will deny belonging to such a group, but at the same time wearing clearly stereotypical fashion elements of a Hipster. This “counter-culture” is a dead end because the Hipster’s “self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution.”
This article raises a lot of great points, and I started conjuring up my own questions: How long can you define yourself by somebody else’s art? Is tattoo removal the new rebellious thing to do? Cause, it’s definitely no-longer rebellious to get them. How long can you go out on the scene dressed like an ironic jack-ass, before you eventually become that jack-ass? Did our parents really raise us to put fashion over food? Whatever happened to color-coordination? Why isn’t it cool to be a Hipster?
Wait a minute. Oh shit I can see it now. If nobody wants to be a Hipster, then why couldn’t I be “King of the Hipsters”? It’s perfect. Here is this group of people that could be doing something more creative than taking terabytes of crappy digital pictures of each other, but no one will stand up and take the reins. I could take the crown unchallenged. Who would dare fight me?
The kicker here is that your true hipsters would never join me. They’d scoff and have another cigarette and scoff/cough some more, inside secretly despising me and this burst of brilliance.
I may not have the best credentials for the job. I actually grew up on a farm. I’ve been a part of the working class. I have true Hill-Billy in my blood. My parents haven’t paid for anything since high school. And I can’t stand those shitty sunglasses, or those fucking bandannas (Go rob a train!).
Jesus, calm down. You’ll never win over the constituent if you belittle them like that. Maybe these stray cats could be herded with high voltage cattle prods and a trail of cheap sunglasses. What would I do with such a following??
Hold on. Back up the tape.
If the true hipsters would never join me, then how could I be the true King of the Hipsters? There is a paradox here. If one of the core elements of being a true hipster requires that you cannot acknowledge that you are a hipster, but then you are in fact a true hipster. So if I claim to be the King of the Hipsters, would I no longer be a TRUE hipster? Would anyone that follows me as king, just be a hipster poser? Would there be some horrible rip in fashion-space-time continuum that gives everyone terrible haircuts from the 80s and pubic hair from the 50’s? Messing around with paradoxes can bring all sorts of trouble. Trouble I don’t need with a hangover like this.
Wait, I see the angle now. This is like a tax loophole. Sure, by proclaiming to be King of the Hipsters, you automatically are exempt from being judged as a true hipster by the powers that be. At the same time, you can continue doing the hipster clichés you enjoy, since you publically and proudly carry yourself as King of the Hipsters. That’s the American spirit!
So that means I can still upload party pictures to Facebook and expand my social network with the patriotic mentality of quantity over quality. Yes, I can keep adding more friends, whose last names I never knew anyway. So much to do and so little time, I better get to work.
Right … just a minute. I haven’t checked MySpace in a week.
After eating like a starving raccoon, I steered our conversation in the direction of an interesting article I recently read, titled; “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization”
To quickly sum up this article, I’d say: Hipsters are kids who hate everyone for being just like them (this happens in all scenes). But, the Hipster is the first “counter culture” that will not acknowledge themselves. The word Hipster is only used with disdain or in a self-deprecating manor. They will deny belonging to such a group, but at the same time wearing clearly stereotypical fashion elements of a Hipster. This “counter-culture” is a dead end because the Hipster’s “self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution.”
This article raises a lot of great points, and I started conjuring up my own questions: How long can you define yourself by somebody else’s art? Is tattoo removal the new rebellious thing to do? Cause, it’s definitely no-longer rebellious to get them. How long can you go out on the scene dressed like an ironic jack-ass, before you eventually become that jack-ass? Did our parents really raise us to put fashion over food? Whatever happened to color-coordination? Why isn’t it cool to be a Hipster?
Wait a minute. Oh shit I can see it now. If nobody wants to be a Hipster, then why couldn’t I be “King of the Hipsters”? It’s perfect. Here is this group of people that could be doing something more creative than taking terabytes of crappy digital pictures of each other, but no one will stand up and take the reins. I could take the crown unchallenged. Who would dare fight me?
The kicker here is that your true hipsters would never join me. They’d scoff and have another cigarette and scoff/cough some more, inside secretly despising me and this burst of brilliance.
I may not have the best credentials for the job. I actually grew up on a farm. I’ve been a part of the working class. I have true Hill-Billy in my blood. My parents haven’t paid for anything since high school. And I can’t stand those shitty sunglasses, or those fucking bandannas (Go rob a train!).
Jesus, calm down. You’ll never win over the constituent if you belittle them like that. Maybe these stray cats could be herded with high voltage cattle prods and a trail of cheap sunglasses. What would I do with such a following??
Hold on. Back up the tape.
If the true hipsters would never join me, then how could I be the true King of the Hipsters? There is a paradox here. If one of the core elements of being a true hipster requires that you cannot acknowledge that you are a hipster, but then you are in fact a true hipster. So if I claim to be the King of the Hipsters, would I no longer be a TRUE hipster? Would anyone that follows me as king, just be a hipster poser? Would there be some horrible rip in fashion-space-time continuum that gives everyone terrible haircuts from the 80s and pubic hair from the 50’s? Messing around with paradoxes can bring all sorts of trouble. Trouble I don’t need with a hangover like this.
Wait, I see the angle now. This is like a tax loophole. Sure, by proclaiming to be King of the Hipsters, you automatically are exempt from being judged as a true hipster by the powers that be. At the same time, you can continue doing the hipster clichés you enjoy, since you publically and proudly carry yourself as King of the Hipsters. That’s the American spirit!
So that means I can still upload party pictures to Facebook and expand my social network with the patriotic mentality of quantity over quality. Yes, I can keep adding more friends, whose last names I never knew anyway. So much to do and so little time, I better get to work.
Right … just a minute. I haven’t checked MySpace in a week.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Old Man Logic needs to shut his mouth, and go watch Wheel of Fortune!
The following is a selected excerpt from my correspondence.
Ah, the ever familiar battle between the Head and the Heart. Old Man Logic and the beast called Emotion. Like Palestine and Israel, it will never end. This sounds like a thick pill to swallow, but there are hopeful options: Peace Treaties.
I'm starting to learn that neither side is good or bad, wrong or right. But, the two of them both reside in this head of mine, and they have to learn to work together before they end up killing each other and possibly my body as a whole.
After my divorce, I think I became a bit afraid of how strong my emotions were for someone who constantly shat on my self esteem. After about a year on group therapy, I finally started to feel like I was figuring it all out. Essentially I didn't trust those rotton emotions, and I would start to rely on Old Man Logic to guide my decisions. Well that's all fine and dandy until that Goddamn bastard LOVE jumps on your back after a couple months of dating and digging a lovely new lady friend.
LOVE starts to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, making you perform all kinds of inefficient subtleties for this other human being. Opening doors, back rubs, listening to stories about work drama, giving advice about work drama (then learning to never give advice about work drama ever again), small gifts when you are out of town, kisses on the top of the head, back scratching, spooning, prolonged gazes, fingers through hair, notes on windshields, surprise Chinese carryout, and buying an extra toothbrush. And hopefully the LOVE whispering in his/her ear will start telling them just as many inefficient subtleties that they Must perform for you.
None of these things are logical, if you think about it. There is no reason to run my fingers through the back on my girlfriend's hair while she is driving, or rubbing her knee for a brief moment while I futz with the radio. But, I feel compelled to do these things from time to time. I'm not doing this because I'm clingy, but I also don't do it because I feel obligated to. I just feel it. It feels good to convey that emotional bond and connection with another human being. I can't explain it with cold logic, because it just seems absurd when you really try.
Take for instance the scientific view that we mate and pair up as a way to best raise our future generations of children with the support of a family system and local community. Sure, these seem like logical reasons to explain why we form intimate relationships with others, and some people may actually take some of these things into consideration when choosing a mate. But this is not LOVE!
LOVE is stupid, chipper, whimsical, electric, smitten, chaotic, engrossing, magnetic, and other adjectives as well. It's an emotion, and we can't waste too much time trying to explain it with a mortal's logic.
So it's just an emotion, but we both know how strong those little bastards can be at times. Instead of fighting with the emotion, just acknowledge it. In a way, this disarms the ticking time bomb. If you start to feel yourself slipping, just say to yourself, "Oh, yeah that's depression creeping in. What up depression? Make yourself at home." Go to your room, or do whatever you like to do when you are sad. Fully embrace the melancholy, the grief, the sorrow, the pain, and just let the tears fall where they may.
This may be a bit intense the first couple times. I cried a lot my first time. I cried, and cried, and cried some more. Probably some old tears that were never fully ringed out from years ago. I just, let go. The key for this to be effective, is that you have to ignore logic, because it is anything but. You can't beat yourself up. You have to learn, to enjoy crying.
Once we stop trying to always apply logic to explain emotion, then we can deal with the two of them as different camps that will never understand one another. But they can help each other, so long as they both stop trying to jokey for position in a race to the Final Answer, which we never end up getting to in the end anyway (but that's a whole other rant).
Ah, the ever familiar battle between the Head and the Heart. Old Man Logic and the beast called Emotion. Like Palestine and Israel, it will never end. This sounds like a thick pill to swallow, but there are hopeful options: Peace Treaties.
I'm starting to learn that neither side is good or bad, wrong or right. But, the two of them both reside in this head of mine, and they have to learn to work together before they end up killing each other and possibly my body as a whole.
After my divorce, I think I became a bit afraid of how strong my emotions were for someone who constantly shat on my self esteem. After about a year on group therapy, I finally started to feel like I was figuring it all out. Essentially I didn't trust those rotton emotions, and I would start to rely on Old Man Logic to guide my decisions. Well that's all fine and dandy until that Goddamn bastard LOVE jumps on your back after a couple months of dating and digging a lovely new lady friend.
LOVE starts to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, making you perform all kinds of inefficient subtleties for this other human being. Opening doors, back rubs, listening to stories about work drama, giving advice about work drama (then learning to never give advice about work drama ever again), small gifts when you are out of town, kisses on the top of the head, back scratching, spooning, prolonged gazes, fingers through hair, notes on windshields, surprise Chinese carryout, and buying an extra toothbrush. And hopefully the LOVE whispering in his/her ear will start telling them just as many inefficient subtleties that they Must perform for you.
None of these things are logical, if you think about it. There is no reason to run my fingers through the back on my girlfriend's hair while she is driving, or rubbing her knee for a brief moment while I futz with the radio. But, I feel compelled to do these things from time to time. I'm not doing this because I'm clingy, but I also don't do it because I feel obligated to. I just feel it. It feels good to convey that emotional bond and connection with another human being. I can't explain it with cold logic, because it just seems absurd when you really try.
Take for instance the scientific view that we mate and pair up as a way to best raise our future generations of children with the support of a family system and local community. Sure, these seem like logical reasons to explain why we form intimate relationships with others, and some people may actually take some of these things into consideration when choosing a mate. But this is not LOVE!
LOVE is stupid, chipper, whimsical, electric, smitten, chaotic, engrossing, magnetic, and other adjectives as well. It's an emotion, and we can't waste too much time trying to explain it with a mortal's logic.
So it's just an emotion, but we both know how strong those little bastards can be at times. Instead of fighting with the emotion, just acknowledge it. In a way, this disarms the ticking time bomb. If you start to feel yourself slipping, just say to yourself, "Oh, yeah that's depression creeping in. What up depression? Make yourself at home." Go to your room, or do whatever you like to do when you are sad. Fully embrace the melancholy, the grief, the sorrow, the pain, and just let the tears fall where they may.
This may be a bit intense the first couple times. I cried a lot my first time. I cried, and cried, and cried some more. Probably some old tears that were never fully ringed out from years ago. I just, let go. The key for this to be effective, is that you have to ignore logic, because it is anything but. You can't beat yourself up. You have to learn, to enjoy crying.
Once we stop trying to always apply logic to explain emotion, then we can deal with the two of them as different camps that will never understand one another. But they can help each other, so long as they both stop trying to jokey for position in a race to the Final Answer, which we never end up getting to in the end anyway (but that's a whole other rant).
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Keep Pushing
The following is selected excerpt from my correspondence.
I was raised a Protestant. But, in the third grade my Father had a scandalous affair with another married woman in our little piss ass town of 700 people. He left my mother and married this woman, and they lived together in that little town.
Every other Sunday they took us to church, made us sing solos about Snow White Doves and the Sweet Baby Jesus, and put a dollar in the collection plate. A splendid little show for the town's people. They all KNEW what had happened.
It was just this open festering wound that my Father and Step-Mother tried to heal with the bandage of GOD. Finally at some point in my teenage years, They came to their senses and just stopped participating. After years of having two Sunday mornings a month robbed from me, my captors had succumbed to the ultimate weight of the Christian religion. GOD wasn't listening. GOD wasn't healing. After taking that bandage off, they finally let the fresh air of REALITY do it's work. While not painless, it usually brings rapid progress.
I consider myself a medium agnostic. agnostic should never be capitalized, because it has the insight to know it's no better than anything else. Personally, I find most religions to be silly and idealistic. Even the interesting ones, like Buddhism, have gone through a Californication (only the appealing sections are copied and pasted into a coffee table book for Barnes and Noble) of sorts.
Even though I cannot find a religion worth believing in, I will still not call myself an Athiest. No. They are the ones who will end up stuck in that black hole of Absurdity that pulls so strong. It pulls me too, but like Sisyphus I keep pushing that weight. I have to madly laugh with glee as I keep pushing till that rock falls down the other side of a new mountain.
I find myself captivated with fact that for all the genius brains and the shared knowledge of our time, we still can't figure out what happened in that split second right after the Big Bang. Math and Science just lock up like dragsters pushed to their limits. That is beautiful.
Now if those weasel scientist ever come to the last thing, that last piece of the puzzle to connect quantum mechanics and general relativity, what will we do then? Will everything unravel, or will we actually see the end of every future action taken? Can man continue reading if he knows the last chapter? That may be the singularity in the black hole of Absurdity. The point where the only escape from Hell is to take the pills, pull the trigger, slit the vein, make the leap. That is scary.
Enough about my beliefs. Yours sound a little deeper rooted. I can't just tell you not to be ashamed of your hormones, but I can tell you that ignoring them will only cause more conflict between biology and reason.
As far as "Fucking the College Education", it's not completely worthless. You just have to accept that it amounts to a piece of paper that helps get your foot in the door. This country is run by idiots with college degrees in "something or another!" You just have to be ready to fight and claw and push and kill your way to the top. IF, that is really where you want to go? We were all raised to believe we could be anything if we just put our minds to it, but they didn't tell us we would need to sacrifice our hearts and souls as well.
Keep writing. Keep asking. Keep pushing. That's all you can do in order to escape the harsh reality that swallows our friends and family day by day.
I was raised a Protestant. But, in the third grade my Father had a scandalous affair with another married woman in our little piss ass town of 700 people. He left my mother and married this woman, and they lived together in that little town.
Every other Sunday they took us to church, made us sing solos about Snow White Doves and the Sweet Baby Jesus, and put a dollar in the collection plate. A splendid little show for the town's people. They all KNEW what had happened.
It was just this open festering wound that my Father and Step-Mother tried to heal with the bandage of GOD. Finally at some point in my teenage years, They came to their senses and just stopped participating. After years of having two Sunday mornings a month robbed from me, my captors had succumbed to the ultimate weight of the Christian religion. GOD wasn't listening. GOD wasn't healing. After taking that bandage off, they finally let the fresh air of REALITY do it's work. While not painless, it usually brings rapid progress.
I consider myself a medium agnostic. agnostic should never be capitalized, because it has the insight to know it's no better than anything else. Personally, I find most religions to be silly and idealistic. Even the interesting ones, like Buddhism, have gone through a Californication (only the appealing sections are copied and pasted into a coffee table book for Barnes and Noble) of sorts.
Even though I cannot find a religion worth believing in, I will still not call myself an Athiest. No. They are the ones who will end up stuck in that black hole of Absurdity that pulls so strong. It pulls me too, but like Sisyphus I keep pushing that weight. I have to madly laugh with glee as I keep pushing till that rock falls down the other side of a new mountain.
I find myself captivated with fact that for all the genius brains and the shared knowledge of our time, we still can't figure out what happened in that split second right after the Big Bang. Math and Science just lock up like dragsters pushed to their limits. That is beautiful.
Now if those weasel scientist ever come to the last thing, that last piece of the puzzle to connect quantum mechanics and general relativity, what will we do then? Will everything unravel, or will we actually see the end of every future action taken? Can man continue reading if he knows the last chapter? That may be the singularity in the black hole of Absurdity. The point where the only escape from Hell is to take the pills, pull the trigger, slit the vein, make the leap. That is scary.
Enough about my beliefs. Yours sound a little deeper rooted. I can't just tell you not to be ashamed of your hormones, but I can tell you that ignoring them will only cause more conflict between biology and reason.
As far as "Fucking the College Education", it's not completely worthless. You just have to accept that it amounts to a piece of paper that helps get your foot in the door. This country is run by idiots with college degrees in "something or another!" You just have to be ready to fight and claw and push and kill your way to the top. IF, that is really where you want to go? We were all raised to believe we could be anything if we just put our minds to it, but they didn't tell us we would need to sacrifice our hearts and souls as well.
Keep writing. Keep asking. Keep pushing. That's all you can do in order to escape the harsh reality that swallows our friends and family day by day.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Tighter than you could possibly imagine.
Imagine:
A very large star in distant space.
As the star grows in size over the eons
it becomes harder and harder
for its rays of light to leave
the increasing pull of it's own
gravity.
The arches of light beams get tighter
and tighter.
Eventually gravity is so strong,
that all light becomes trapped
in around its atmosphere.
Think of it as an aura of light
around the entire sun,
but it couldn't be seen from any outside observer.
For none of it is able to leave the sun's grip.
Then gravity will cross that point
where all light starts to be sucked back
into the star.
The star is now SO heavy
that its own gravity is
pulling all of it's matter in upon
itself.
Matter
Light
Energy
All compacted in and crushed,
imploded.
Stuffed down by forces beyond
the reversal of any creator.
ALL of it,
crammed down to what scientist call
a singularity.
A singularity.
The mathematical representation
of a black hole.
A very large star in distant space.
As the star grows in size over the eons
it becomes harder and harder
for its rays of light to leave
the increasing pull of it's own
gravity.
The arches of light beams get tighter
and tighter.
Eventually gravity is so strong,
that all light becomes trapped
in around its atmosphere.
Think of it as an aura of light
around the entire sun,
but it couldn't be seen from any outside observer.
For none of it is able to leave the sun's grip.
Then gravity will cross that point
where all light starts to be sucked back
into the star.
The star is now SO heavy
that its own gravity is
pulling all of it's matter in upon
itself.
Matter
Light
Energy
All compacted in and crushed,
imploded.
Stuffed down by forces beyond
the reversal of any creator.
ALL of it,
crammed down to what scientist call
a singularity.
A singularity.
The mathematical representation
of a black hole.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Put this on the Corporate tab
With the past week being nothing but a pollen barrage on my respiratory system, I didn’t wake up that Saturday morning with any ambitious plans on the top of my list. No. I only found myself waking up and feeling as if I was some 65 year old vagrant who swallowed his Swisher Sweet after passing out on a park bench. After numerous bouts of flailing, twisting, turning and other bed acrobatics, I finally submitted to the fact that I was not going to fall back asleep. Not with this pounding headache, stuffed sinus, and constricted bronchial.
I stumbled from room to room, and pill to pill, until I was sure there was nothing else that could be done but to turn into the “piece of shit” that I now felt like: Just another Saturday, pissed away until about 1pm to 5pm, until my sum-bitch of a conscious gives me a swift kick in the ass with guilt. Guilt that doesn’t get very far when you have no plans laid out in the first place. So, I sat there for a moment in the kitchen waiting for some spark of inspiration to cut through the fog.
Instead, everything was cut by the jingle of my phone. After bearing the burden of an unbalanced trip back to my room, I managed to catch Cindy’s call (Cindy is just a pseudonym to protect innocent bystanders from any collateral damage my actions may bring about).
“You ready for the SoCo Music Experience?”
I’ve had enough experiences in the 30 minutes I’ve been up! I couldn’t help but thinking. “Oh shit Cindy, I forgot! Listen, I’m feeling like crap right now. My allergies are killing me! No, I tried the local honey, it only made me long for graham crackers. Okay. Yeah. Get outta town. Yadda, Yadda! Well I’ll call you a little later and let you know if I feel any better. Later!”
Fast-forward the tape to 5:30-6pm.
Adjust tracking. Recording quality may not be reliable.
After the aid of many chemical compounds pumping through my blood stream, I found myself following Cindy and her friends on a reckless bike ride to the Allient Energy Center. After hastily securing our metal steeds to the chain link fence, we followed the masses towards the entrance. Cindy’s friend Linda found herself pressured by the weight of corporate information gathering, and was held up while they scanned her drivers license to; “Take your First and Last name.” Mitch and I both harangued her about giving up her information to “the Man”, and we both agreed that “the Man” already had enough on the both of us.
There was a flood of Déjà vu on all senses. This feels just like the Grant County Fair, minus the rides of course. Over priced food. Long beer lines. Weirdos comfortable in they own natural mannerisms. Hell, they even went right down to the wood chips on the ground. But once I saw the huge group playing bean bags, the fear crept in.
They’re stealing my culture!
Being 100% German, so far as I know, I often felt as though I have no cultural roots with my German ancestors; other than a taste for hard liquor and beer. But many cultures have the taste for libations. I always wished we gave out steins for Christmas, or maybe my grandmother would pass down her secret recipe for bratwurst. Nope, none of that when I was growing up. However, recently I’ve started to realize that I do have a culture, and while much of it I reviled after leaving my little rural town for the pearly gates of Madison, I’m starting to accept the fact that there is much of it I really like!
I like spinning doughnuts in my pickup. I like sitting around a fire pit, swilling (insert cheap beer brand here), and looking up to a sky with no light pollution. I liked pretending I was Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, and fishing out of Grandpa’s bottom land by the Grant River, using only worms, hooks, fishing line, and tree branches.
I like shooting. I like shooting a lot. It’s a hard lust to describe to my more liberal peers. There are few words that can describe the feeling of sending a 12 gauge slug ripping through your old “piece of shit” Lexmark printer that was recently replaced by a much better Epson: Shattered plastic and twisted metal fly in all directions, while your brothers hoot and holler behind you. Yes, that cursed printer represents all the petty/stupid little problems in your life that can’t be cured with a pill or a different shitty job. The only easily accessible reference I can give to most is the scene from “Office Space” where they smash the fax machine with a baseball bat in slow motion, while “Die MotherFucker” by the Geto Boys plays in the background. Yeah, that about sums it up.
But Bean Bags! That’s a game I take some pride in knowing the full set of rules for. Shit, someone was doing their homework here. I found it hard to believe the people pulling the strings for SoCo could pull this off in any other city. The Brown-Forman Corporation (headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky and the purveyor of many other overhyped brands such as; Jack Daniel's, Canadian Mist and Early Times Kentucky Whisky) must have sent their weasels into my state long ago. They’ve studied our habits and took many notes.
I ran into many familiar faces, and carried many nonsensical conversations. Most of which were spit into the SquaWkBox. They have yet to be transcribed from the raw audio, so I’m writing this in the warm mist of the “day after recollection”. At this point I can only comment on the experience as a whole.
The Black Keys and The Roots were great, and they were really the only bands I was interested in seeing. I’m not a music critic, and I can’t conjure up any obscure references that would make me feel superior to my four weekly readers. So take my word for it, if you were in my shoes and my skewed frame of mind, the show was Fuckin’ Great!
So I find myself, this quiet Sunday morning pondering how I’m supposed to reflect upon the event.
My piss-ant high school punk rock ethos would instruct me to spit bile all over the fact that some big corporation (whose name had to be looked up on Wikipedia) was orchestrating this well oiled marketing machine. It seemed like some sorry low-rent Woodstock meets the county fair with a bloated marketing budget. Yes, part of me was raised and molded by some great (and some not so great) bands that would have poured gasoline and set the fucker ablaze by now.
No, no, you idealistic moron, don’t you realize how much fun you were having? Yes, I had a blast. I sang and danced and my heart was full of joy! If only Nickelback had headlined, it would be so much easier to cut this event down to something the masses could digest. But these cash-cows sent out there weasel henchmen to infiltrate my culture and musical taste. Then, to top it off, they toss the whole event “free of charge”; which means you can buy three or four of their overpriced drinks and still come out feeling like a winner.
Okay, okay, I admit it … they put on a pretty great little carnival, even if it is on a corporate bankroll. AND, because I had such a great time, which stirred up the conflicting thoughts presented before you, and then prompted me to waste the day on this keyboard; will I always think of Southern Comfort when I recall that show? I mean, hell, I can’t change the name. It’s the “SoCo Music Experience”! That’s true, but I guess I don’t feel any urge to run down to Star Liquor and buy a liter at the moment. I have enough Citadel as it is.
Maybe I’ll just make another drink and sit on the back porch. Softly chuckling to myself over what a good time I had for only one $6 beer the night before. Yeah … I only did buy one of their drinks … suckers!
I stumbled from room to room, and pill to pill, until I was sure there was nothing else that could be done but to turn into the “piece of shit” that I now felt like: Just another Saturday, pissed away until about 1pm to 5pm, until my sum-bitch of a conscious gives me a swift kick in the ass with guilt. Guilt that doesn’t get very far when you have no plans laid out in the first place. So, I sat there for a moment in the kitchen waiting for some spark of inspiration to cut through the fog.
Instead, everything was cut by the jingle of my phone. After bearing the burden of an unbalanced trip back to my room, I managed to catch Cindy’s call (Cindy is just a pseudonym to protect innocent bystanders from any collateral damage my actions may bring about).
“You ready for the SoCo Music Experience?”
I’ve had enough experiences in the 30 minutes I’ve been up! I couldn’t help but thinking. “Oh shit Cindy, I forgot! Listen, I’m feeling like crap right now. My allergies are killing me! No, I tried the local honey, it only made me long for graham crackers. Okay. Yeah. Get outta town. Yadda, Yadda! Well I’ll call you a little later and let you know if I feel any better. Later!”
Fast-forward the tape to 5:30-6pm.
Adjust tracking. Recording quality may not be reliable.
After the aid of many chemical compounds pumping through my blood stream, I found myself following Cindy and her friends on a reckless bike ride to the Allient Energy Center. After hastily securing our metal steeds to the chain link fence, we followed the masses towards the entrance. Cindy’s friend Linda found herself pressured by the weight of corporate information gathering, and was held up while they scanned her drivers license to; “Take your First and Last name.” Mitch and I both harangued her about giving up her information to “the Man”, and we both agreed that “the Man” already had enough on the both of us.
There was a flood of Déjà vu on all senses. This feels just like the Grant County Fair, minus the rides of course. Over priced food. Long beer lines. Weirdos comfortable in they own natural mannerisms. Hell, they even went right down to the wood chips on the ground. But once I saw the huge group playing bean bags, the fear crept in.
They’re stealing my culture!
Being 100% German, so far as I know, I often felt as though I have no cultural roots with my German ancestors; other than a taste for hard liquor and beer. But many cultures have the taste for libations. I always wished we gave out steins for Christmas, or maybe my grandmother would pass down her secret recipe for bratwurst. Nope, none of that when I was growing up. However, recently I’ve started to realize that I do have a culture, and while much of it I reviled after leaving my little rural town for the pearly gates of Madison, I’m starting to accept the fact that there is much of it I really like!
I like spinning doughnuts in my pickup. I like sitting around a fire pit, swilling (insert cheap beer brand here), and looking up to a sky with no light pollution. I liked pretending I was Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, and fishing out of Grandpa’s bottom land by the Grant River, using only worms, hooks, fishing line, and tree branches.
I like shooting. I like shooting a lot. It’s a hard lust to describe to my more liberal peers. There are few words that can describe the feeling of sending a 12 gauge slug ripping through your old “piece of shit” Lexmark printer that was recently replaced by a much better Epson: Shattered plastic and twisted metal fly in all directions, while your brothers hoot and holler behind you. Yes, that cursed printer represents all the petty/stupid little problems in your life that can’t be cured with a pill or a different shitty job. The only easily accessible reference I can give to most is the scene from “Office Space” where they smash the fax machine with a baseball bat in slow motion, while “Die MotherFucker” by the Geto Boys plays in the background. Yeah, that about sums it up.
But Bean Bags! That’s a game I take some pride in knowing the full set of rules for. Shit, someone was doing their homework here. I found it hard to believe the people pulling the strings for SoCo could pull this off in any other city. The Brown-Forman Corporation (headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky and the purveyor of many other overhyped brands such as; Jack Daniel's, Canadian Mist and Early Times Kentucky Whisky) must have sent their weasels into my state long ago. They’ve studied our habits and took many notes.
I ran into many familiar faces, and carried many nonsensical conversations. Most of which were spit into the SquaWkBox. They have yet to be transcribed from the raw audio, so I’m writing this in the warm mist of the “day after recollection”. At this point I can only comment on the experience as a whole.
The Black Keys and The Roots were great, and they were really the only bands I was interested in seeing. I’m not a music critic, and I can’t conjure up any obscure references that would make me feel superior to my four weekly readers. So take my word for it, if you were in my shoes and my skewed frame of mind, the show was Fuckin’ Great!
So I find myself, this quiet Sunday morning pondering how I’m supposed to reflect upon the event.
My piss-ant high school punk rock ethos would instruct me to spit bile all over the fact that some big corporation (whose name had to be looked up on Wikipedia) was orchestrating this well oiled marketing machine. It seemed like some sorry low-rent Woodstock meets the county fair with a bloated marketing budget. Yes, part of me was raised and molded by some great (and some not so great) bands that would have poured gasoline and set the fucker ablaze by now.
No, no, you idealistic moron, don’t you realize how much fun you were having? Yes, I had a blast. I sang and danced and my heart was full of joy! If only Nickelback had headlined, it would be so much easier to cut this event down to something the masses could digest. But these cash-cows sent out there weasel henchmen to infiltrate my culture and musical taste. Then, to top it off, they toss the whole event “free of charge”; which means you can buy three or four of their overpriced drinks and still come out feeling like a winner.
Okay, okay, I admit it … they put on a pretty great little carnival, even if it is on a corporate bankroll. AND, because I had such a great time, which stirred up the conflicting thoughts presented before you, and then prompted me to waste the day on this keyboard; will I always think of Southern Comfort when I recall that show? I mean, hell, I can’t change the name. It’s the “SoCo Music Experience”! That’s true, but I guess I don’t feel any urge to run down to Star Liquor and buy a liter at the moment. I have enough Citadel as it is.
Maybe I’ll just make another drink and sit on the back porch. Softly chuckling to myself over what a good time I had for only one $6 beer the night before. Yeah … I only did buy one of their drinks … suckers!
Monday, September 1, 2008
So, This is the End of Summer?
Ah Labor Day, a fine day indeed. Summer is coming to a close and soon we’ll have to hunker down as Old Bastard Winter comes slinking in behind the colorful foliage of Fall. I sit here on the back porch, Tootsie my fantastically obese cat screaming in my ear from the window screen. Looking back at the summer of 2008, it seems rather atypical to the summers before it. I missed every “Concert on the Square”. Not once did I venture out with that giant Jolly Roger and a gaggle of cohorts to claim our own stake of grass for heavy drinking and a gluttonous feast from a recent pillaging of Trader Joe’s.
Jesus! Two hornets, in what must have been some sort of domestic dispute, just feel from the sky and landed like a stone on the keyboard. This is supposed to be a day of rest and relaxation. I didn’t come out here on the back porch to me menaced my Mother Nature! I waved my hand in one fell swoop and brushed them aside. I was always taught as a child to avoid panic when provoked by any javelin wielding insect. This must have explained how once as a very small child playing in the sand-box, I left my Dum-Dum sucker outside by the box’s edge. Growing up “technically” lower-class, I was also taught, “Waste not. Want not.” So, I ventured out to recover my sugary treat on a stick. None of this is visibly retrievable in the brain, even for how traumatic it sounds. Upon returning to my sucker, I was confronted by a swarm of honey bees that were swooping down like tiny turkey vultures after my sticky sucker. Like I said earlier, I have no recollection of this event, but as my mother would tell it; I came into the house, minus the Dum-Dum, balling my eyes out. She said she counted 14 stingers in my neck. A guaranteed death sentence to any poor bastard with a severe allergy!
I came out here to read, drink and write a little. I look up to find a hole in the awning of the roof. That must be the gates to the hive? Maybe I should grab the can of spray Shellac. Stand real tall on the folding chair and blast the buggers with a long dousing of sealant, forever entombing them in a sticky translucent barrier. That way they can watch me write, and only pray other colonies don’t cross me in the future. This manic notion quickly passed as I considered the fact that the whole gang may come tearing out before the sealant has the two minutes it needs to fully set. Besides, Shellac isn’t cheap, and I need to be out in the sun today. I feel like I’m lacking in vitamin D.
What was I pondering? Yes! This summer has been different. I also have not once made it to Devils Lake. A staple of the last three summers. I now feel that I can’t bother trying to go in the next four weeks. That would just come off as some hastily arranged last ditch effort to feel normal again. Who am I kidding? Normal is purely subjective. For the last two months my body has been heavily medicated with numerous chemicals. Some prescribed and others not; all a part of this bloody odyssey whose end still seems out of sight.
As soon as my financial stability was put into jeopardy, I realized something was a foul, or maybe had been for longer than I would like to admit. I’ve chained myself to the modern American ethos of debt and years of repayment. I can’t just run off to Guatemala, I’ve only had two years of high school Spanish! No. It is time to face the music. This song has been playing on and off in the elevator of your life for too long to ignore. Now I have to start listening.
I could go into mass details and over embellished explanations, but the sun is creeping around the house at and increasing rate. A summer spent hunkered down inside one’s own mind guarantees a serious burn, come the time you finally step out into the sun. So, to make a long story enjoyable to the masses; I admitted myself into psychotherapy in an effort to avoid an Amy Winehouse fiasco that the national tabloids will want no part of. Lots of talking, tissues and pills have pushed me to where I am today.
I know that I’ve come a long way in a rather short amount of time, but there still seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe there isn’t… maybe I’m just getting comfortable with the dark. That sounds kind of ominous. I’ve hated emo kids for as long as I can remember, and maybe that’s only because I was afraid to acknowledge my own negative emotions. However, I still feel that romanticizing depression is not a cure in and of itself. No, a path like that will find you with a shitty haircut that cost too much, and will be laughed at by your children someday.
I’m not sure why I’m compelled to share this with others. Maybe I feel an obligation to all those who wonder what happened to me. An active social life has pretty much been a Band-Aid on an oozing sore. I’m not casting it off as some charade that I’ve pulled over everyone for the last five years. I still dance. I still dance a lot. There is just some heavy work that needs to be done, and no Pirate Potluck, or dance party will make effective progress.
If I plan on keeping “Dance Machine” as a valid pseudonym, I’m going to have to make public appearances now and then. Be patient friends. I have not forgotten about you, and please try not to forget about me. I will come around in my own time.
Jesus! Two hornets, in what must have been some sort of domestic dispute, just feel from the sky and landed like a stone on the keyboard. This is supposed to be a day of rest and relaxation. I didn’t come out here on the back porch to me menaced my Mother Nature! I waved my hand in one fell swoop and brushed them aside. I was always taught as a child to avoid panic when provoked by any javelin wielding insect. This must have explained how once as a very small child playing in the sand-box, I left my Dum-Dum sucker outside by the box’s edge. Growing up “technically” lower-class, I was also taught, “Waste not. Want not.” So, I ventured out to recover my sugary treat on a stick. None of this is visibly retrievable in the brain, even for how traumatic it sounds. Upon returning to my sucker, I was confronted by a swarm of honey bees that were swooping down like tiny turkey vultures after my sticky sucker. Like I said earlier, I have no recollection of this event, but as my mother would tell it; I came into the house, minus the Dum-Dum, balling my eyes out. She said she counted 14 stingers in my neck. A guaranteed death sentence to any poor bastard with a severe allergy!
I came out here to read, drink and write a little. I look up to find a hole in the awning of the roof. That must be the gates to the hive? Maybe I should grab the can of spray Shellac. Stand real tall on the folding chair and blast the buggers with a long dousing of sealant, forever entombing them in a sticky translucent barrier. That way they can watch me write, and only pray other colonies don’t cross me in the future. This manic notion quickly passed as I considered the fact that the whole gang may come tearing out before the sealant has the two minutes it needs to fully set. Besides, Shellac isn’t cheap, and I need to be out in the sun today. I feel like I’m lacking in vitamin D.
What was I pondering? Yes! This summer has been different. I also have not once made it to Devils Lake. A staple of the last three summers. I now feel that I can’t bother trying to go in the next four weeks. That would just come off as some hastily arranged last ditch effort to feel normal again. Who am I kidding? Normal is purely subjective. For the last two months my body has been heavily medicated with numerous chemicals. Some prescribed and others not; all a part of this bloody odyssey whose end still seems out of sight.
As soon as my financial stability was put into jeopardy, I realized something was a foul, or maybe had been for longer than I would like to admit. I’ve chained myself to the modern American ethos of debt and years of repayment. I can’t just run off to Guatemala, I’ve only had two years of high school Spanish! No. It is time to face the music. This song has been playing on and off in the elevator of your life for too long to ignore. Now I have to start listening.
I could go into mass details and over embellished explanations, but the sun is creeping around the house at and increasing rate. A summer spent hunkered down inside one’s own mind guarantees a serious burn, come the time you finally step out into the sun. So, to make a long story enjoyable to the masses; I admitted myself into psychotherapy in an effort to avoid an Amy Winehouse fiasco that the national tabloids will want no part of. Lots of talking, tissues and pills have pushed me to where I am today.
I know that I’ve come a long way in a rather short amount of time, but there still seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe there isn’t… maybe I’m just getting comfortable with the dark. That sounds kind of ominous. I’ve hated emo kids for as long as I can remember, and maybe that’s only because I was afraid to acknowledge my own negative emotions. However, I still feel that romanticizing depression is not a cure in and of itself. No, a path like that will find you with a shitty haircut that cost too much, and will be laughed at by your children someday.
I’m not sure why I’m compelled to share this with others. Maybe I feel an obligation to all those who wonder what happened to me. An active social life has pretty much been a Band-Aid on an oozing sore. I’m not casting it off as some charade that I’ve pulled over everyone for the last five years. I still dance. I still dance a lot. There is just some heavy work that needs to be done, and no Pirate Potluck, or dance party will make effective progress.
If I plan on keeping “Dance Machine” as a valid pseudonym, I’m going to have to make public appearances now and then. Be patient friends. I have not forgotten about you, and please try not to forget about me. I will come around in my own time.
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