That Instant

you burst into laughter sitting in traffic when you realize people pounding the table pressing merit and skill based immigration because they insist immigrants shouldn't be allowed into the country based on winning a lottery or because they are related to someone already here are completely blind to the fact that their current station in life has a lot more to do with the luck of where and to whom they were born and who they knew and were related to than it did any shining meritocracy or particular honed skill.

What Makes You Laugh 4

I can't help chuckling, putting the coffee pot on and thinking about where the day is going to go and where this presidency is and that faint fog of dread that crawls along the ground these days.  To be clear, we all know how this story ends, right?  Regardless of if he actually helps a single person that actually needed it or makes lasting, real, improvements to any segment of the country that actually needed improvement, it goes like this:

In the waning days of his presidency, he will declare that he was the greatest president to ever overcome what he had to overcome for you, the hardworking, tax paying, glorious American citizen.  In the face of adversity, mountains of prejudice and discrimination to him and his family, unprecedented and unjustified scrutiny and opposition propaganda, and a congress of Democrats that refused to get out of the way of progress and reform and change, he worked tirelessly to make this country the greatest it has ever been since the days of the revolution and he will further declare that "haters gonna hate" and that history will tell the true testament of his tremendousness long after the fake facts have faded.  He will declare the war on terror to be a He will then proceed to throw absolutely everyone he can't use in his businesses under the bus for anything and everything that blew up in his face or turned out to be completely empty campaign gibberish lies and then walk off to one of his golf courses or towers, hopefully never to be heard from again with a half built, useless to begin with, wall as his lasting legacy.

I can't help chuckling because you know that's how it's going to go, right?  Dear god, please just don't let him end up on the motivational speaking tour... his ego, probably won't let him fade into obscurity though. Another thing that makes me laugh is this visual in my head of Donald as a kid with his arm jammed in the bottom of a vending machine absolutely thrilled he found a way to get what he wants out of it without having to risk tipping the machine over onto himself by rocking it, but not realizing just yet that he is stuck...

How To Fast Forward the Next 8 Years

It's quite simple.  The world is not going to end because Donald Trump was elected.  The offices will struggle to accomplish anything because the policies don't work, don't exist, or both.  They'll distract the American public for four years with scary this and that.  Throw in a war on something at home and more involvement in a war somewhere else.  Start the next election cycle highlighting how everything that went wrong was because everyone else screwed it up and the country wasn't ready for real change yet and it would take at least four years to undo nonexistent office corruption and then you have Donald Trump re-elected and nothing gets done again on a platform of "every magical thing  that can't be done or makes no sense, but makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, will get done this time".  Some people get a lot richer.  Most people don't.  Tons of imaginary money changes bank accounts, a bunch of people get sick, some businesses collapse, the environment takes a hit, international relations trip over themselves, segregation gets worse, and then a Democrat is elected again when a few more people jump over to the other side of the aisle because they don't want to be associated with the consequences any more and they're tired of trying to explain how their ideas worked, but didn't, but obviously absolutely did, but actually data can be manipulated to say anything of course, so... you know... allow my colleague to explain.

No need to leave the country.  Just yawn and go back to sleep and wake up 8 years from now.  Things will be worse.  Trying to change them will be impossible until the people holding the levers have to step away and everyone has a fresh, 8 years long, understanding of what is and is not to be feared and challenged instead of what they've been distracted or tricked or worn down into believing.  Yep, 8 years sounds about right for the messaging and programming to finally fade.  Just try to live the best life you can in the meantime and do what you can to keep your life and loved ones from collapsing under the weight of lunacy and if we're all lucky 4 years will be all it takes for folks to snap out of the flash & magic show.

Then with that Democrat, everyone on the other side will start clamoring "what about us" even though their lives under so and so Republican, locally or nationally, didn't get much better because it literally can't get much better without extracting freedoms from other people (liberties and justices have to come from somewhere eventually), but they'll see other lives improving because there is literally that much space for improvement without taking away anything from anyone else.  "Injustice, inequality, we deserve better too" the other side will say and the flash and magic show parade will come crawling over the horizon with their flags and music and swaying tents like a fantastical parade from outer space and it'll start over again and the only thing you can do is hope enough was done before it arrives that much of the work will still be standing when it finally dissipates.




///Paranoia Agent - (Ending Credits) oh, calliope

Bah

Engage the suppo meta super chim gank ja ja ja hahaha ckck la la la jhjh gohgoh  fukjj aooao uiw way of looking at things.  Or make a hard break, no?

It's been a very long time, we know.  All of us know.  It's been a long time for a reason and we support that reason whatever that reason may be and however that reason came to be.  We support it.  It has taken a lot of force to bring everyone to the table.  Hell, it's taken a lot of brute force simply to bring us all to the table, let alone a table.

Some of us want to wave around our individuals flags.  I am fighting, as the selected individual to represent our collective passport, to wave a single one, but everyone wants to be heard so, I guess I will step away for the song, it's a rarity, but feels appropriate:

well that did not take long to fail.  As soon as the spotlight descended they scattered like cockroaches.  Big surprise.  Machinations of my brain.  Faults and artifacts you say.  I say.  Could it be that the prices I would have to pay should they be named may be so high that I cannot let their names loose anymore or must erase the names as soon as I have let them loose should they be known and summoned on an account other than my own I and I alone should feel the repercussions or should I say that even having mentioned them I should now fall under their disgrace and suffer the consequences in utter paranoia and I should I now tell you that having disclosed that much information the knowledge alone will tell the body and mind collective to brace for impact that other worldly souls should be (this is all in a Britton accent) coming down upon my head?

No.  Some of that's true.  Most of it's not.  I know a lot of what happens inside my head is my own fault.  I know a lot of it is not and if I could pluck your eye balls out of your head and implant them into mine you'd want to kill yourself to.  Every day.  Maybe not every hour.   Sometimes some hours people you surround yourself with help you to forget what is all around.

You can all laugh and drink and I drink to forget but not to forget my circumstances or anything like that.  I get it.  I didn't do good in school and I missed out on trade school by going to learning school and I couldve jumped out of it if I'd known or had the balls to do it instead of taking everything I was force fed, because being a mechanic is tip top, but  I didn't so... whatever.

Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's whatever man!  Rimshot.

I drink to forget my father and the senseless beatings and I drink to forget the fact that I can't see straight into a vagina and I drink that I cant see straight at children because they give me the heebee jeebees every time I'm alone with them and I can't stop imagining what a giant penis feels like in a tiny weewee or if a tiny wenis gets hard or if they know or if I knew back then if someone was cleaning me or just being fucking weird or if there's someone who should be on my end of days "I'm going to scoop your motherfucking eyeball out with a margerine plastic knife" or not or if patting one of them bastards on the back is too much contact or too little or if I should shuffle on down to Maryland and kill my father and just have it out, take my time, and have a happy weird time with a kid of my own eventually and explain to him or her that you'll never meet your father because he's dead because I killed him.

Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's whatever man!  Rimshot.

A friend of mine keeps saying "bah" and I think he's doing it in part because I told him saying "it is what it is" is the Pittsburgher, PAer, way of saying "I dunno" northeaster-ish.  Northeaster shit.  You could just say ellipsis but that's too many penstrokes, yeah?  Yeah is an ellipsis too.  Dot dot doooooooooooooooooooooooooooot.  To other thoughts along the same train, not quite a hard break, however hard enough to change the frames position along the wall to be noticeable.  Hard enough to be, should someone visit, a highlight in the tour to the tune of "you've changed."

So we're here and we've arrived and I will borrow in the meantime a  "bah."

I cannot tell you how much I've loved you but I can tell you how much I've missed you.

It's good to work.  It's good to work at what you love.  It's better when the work brings me closer to you.

Breaking trail. Breaking silence.  Breaking my heart for you.  I miss you every day.  You have no idea how much I wish multitasking was an actual thing.

Keep streamlined.   Stay feathered.  The wind is screaming aginst your nose and mine too.  Feather through the days and weeks.





///Unkle & Sparklehorse - (Maria Gur Cover [Insane Lullaby])  ....upon a podium.... you're charming and you're brave

Wall Street

> We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

> Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.

> Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

> For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

> So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.

> The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.

> We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?”

End email. I don't normally respond to threads like this, but I was struck by the flippancy and offered a rebuff:

dear content of email

hilarious. if the reduction of the "food supply" ever gets down to hyper competitive opportunists versus ingenuity and survivability,
wall street will find itself in an afghanistan of its own creation. good luck.

rejoicing in what income i have and living on it too. i get home at 5 a.m. if im lucky. but better than lucky is working a sixteen hour day. i work every hour im given and i take hours from coworkers whenever i can. ive been trying to get expelled from the ufcw since the union forced me to join as a condition of employment. good luck coming down here and eating the food off my plate lol. wash your car and cut your own hair and your lawn and everything else you have that needs washing and doing and guarding and tending to.

you might get some of my "food", but im used to being hungry. eventually my knife and fork are taking your hand. and it will be delicious. and ill leave you to moan and divorce and spring idle bastard children in failing school districts because you wont be able to live in the good ones no matter how hard you work at minimum wage jobs that cut and limit your hours and send you home or on leave when you hit the red line they define and the only release you can have is fucking strangers on wellfare with six kids to net massive child support and other benefits that work the system until she files a bogus PFA when you don't pay on time and the fuzz come and lock you up and you lose that job for "no call/no show" and can't get another one for two years thanks to your criminal record.

and then, hopefully, youll buy a shotgun from a pawnshop and end the dance, wherein your children will pick up where you leave off. hilarious. very much enjoyed. mostly because it's reflective, i guess, of an extremely homogenized community versus an extremely diverse community pressed into a stereo typical mold for easy digestion/dissection. also i am super hungry now with all the talking
about food.

not wall street does not equal an inability to compete and dominate. all it means is "not wall street." life can be just as vicious, demanding, painful, unforgiving, unblinking and violent as downtown manhattan any day of the fucking week for many people who have had a different set of opportunities presented to them. capitalize all you want. break your hands trying to beat down doors. the fact of the matter is it's not a level field, will never be a level field, and for civilization to continue to advance or plateau or whatever there will have to be some kind of hierarchy and class system and learn to fucking live with it and pursue yourself. i think. whatever.
hilarious.

i guess its just funny when people beat their chests and say "you couldnt do what i do" without for a second realizing they couldnt do what i do either.

i dont want to be rich or fat and happy or a gym member who would otherwise be fat and happy. all i ask of you, wall street, is that you dont let your "rejoicing" become an obstacle to my happiness.

End Rebuttal.

I don't hate wall street. But if a person with hired landscapers can frown upon those landscapers billing hour of work incorrectly or frown upon a maid secreting away the homeowners possessions, why can't those of us who keep them employed by participating in the economy frown upon its mismanagement and abuse? When you order your cheeseburger at the diner you expect a cheeseburger, not a thing that has been gutted and cheated to make it more cost effective and time conserving for the line cook to make. Sure, I can't solve differential equations easily, if at all, but the fact of the matter is the people who can more than likely couldn't do my job for a week either before they quit to pursue something easier. So I guess we're even. On an uneven playing field.

Take it Down a Notch and Classroom Politics

Does the word "it" get capitalized in that title. I'm not totally sure, but I don't think so. So what's new today that was not news yesterday? Not a whole lot. Trying to keep the language clean as a habit. The F word was mingled in there two sentences ago, one sentence before this one, and I had to perform a mental edit. I guess the thing about the mental editing is that while I may be making myself more readable I feel like I am nailing doilies to walls that I have clearly punched holes in to hide the fact that there was an extremely violent outburst and it feels stupid to do. Almost as stupid as dancing with myself in a tutu in the mirror and pretending that I, outside of the mirror, am not wearing one. That was too much.

So the poetry has gotten a little out of hand this week. This is true and entirely my own fault. Or actually, I should say, entirely my chemistry's fault. I had nothing to do with it. I should be so fortunate as to be able to assemble and plan days of literary vomit, and the thing is some of it really is just vomit, but the best thing about throwing up is that the only thing left when your bled out is the thing that matters the most. The thing that giving up in words takes away from your interior and is thus valuable beyond price tags or comparisons or in any other way that value can be assigned except in time and energy lost (the purest value).

I was thinking the other day about models of punishment and something occurred to me (I hate spelling that word). Do you remember in elementary school when the teacher would hold the entire class responsible for some little shits antics? Do you remember how no amount of collective loathing changed his ways and more often than not had the opposite effect on the little shits reasoning? I still do. I still remember not being allowed to line up for recess until everyone shut the hell up and there was always that one bastard who just would not shut his mouth and the teacher would let us go after half of the recess was gone out of sheer pity for what he/she thought the repercussions might be. Sometimes, thinking about that, I wonder if he/she would have ever let us go if she knew that unlike the 40s or 50s or whatever older and more violent and more liberal years he/she grew up in (in terms of acceptable violations of the myth of personal space) the little bastard did not receive any sort of mobocratic beat down. Sometimes the world today feels that way.

Somehow it seems that everyone should be holding someone responsible for their behavior that is damaging everyone's ability to go to recess on time, but no one does. I don't know why that it is. I guess the thing about it might be that "how far is to far" comes into play. If someone bullies you but they never make you cry and then you eventually take the time out of your day to beat the hell out of them and kick their limp body into a puddle of mud is that too far? Your cumulative suffering is still probably greater than their momentary shaming. Isn't that not going far enough. Sorry Brian. I still fucking hate you. If I ever build a time machine rest assured one of my stops will be 6th grade, Maryland, south Bowie, 12:15, my fist, your fucking face. Sorry. I just hate how that whole idea of every member of the group is responsible for every other member of the group has been and continues to be twisted in on itself in perverted ways that make the workplace hell and how it starts at so young an age that it's difficult to imagine any other way for things to be.

I'm taking the poetry down a notch from this week. I basically doubled my output in one night as a result of ... I'm not sure. It happens from time to time. Things just blow out of me like a shotgun to the back at point black range and I actually do apologize. Stability is the cornerstone of something. Just nothing I make. Here's a one liner for your next cocktail party: stability needs capitalism like capitalism needs classim. Haw. Get it? Do you see what I did there? Okay, bye :)

///Aphex Twin - "Bucephalus Bouncing Ball" I am playful tonight in ways I wish I could feel every single night of my life and share with the universe and it's bastard long faced serious denizens who think so much of .... wow that turned really angry. I am playful tonight. Stop. Love you, Aphex.

p.s. I'll draw you a picture next time.

Whiskey Short and the Newer Braver World and No, Haven't Found Him

My brain has been white washed. There's nothing there. It's like somebody came in for lunch and took the furnishings with them when they left after dinner while I was in the bathroom. Today I kept laughing at the thought of a "race" of Asians. Is that the right nomenclature for that? It just made me think of a race of mole men. A race of super men. And all the other races of things that have graced headlines over the years.

It's amazing really. The only way to honestly cope with this new situation has been to dull my awareness of everything outside of it until the sole focus becomes the situation. If I make myself into this thing that exists for 18 hours out of the day then the thing that exists for the remaining 6 ceases to be and the conflict is resolved. Sure some blood gets shed, but Stalin's cohort put it best about the eggs and omelets and things before they got executed. At least I think I remember them doing that. Is there anything sexy about living in 1984? What about a Brave New World? I think the answers to those two questions are no and yes in no specific order. That's how life becomes manageable. If you think about it the best way to end a struggle is to simply eliminate one half of the combatants. Certainly if the struggle is what perpetuates the combatants lives than you'll end up with genocide by that logic. If you kill off everything you're fighting against you'll have to generate new things to fight against from within you.

In a society more interested in peace than war, I suppose eliminating one half of the disagreeing parties would be a means to an end. If there's no one to argue against then there's no argument. Plain and simple. The hardest part about figuring out where I fit into my own life now that my life is 75% owned by a company that wouldn't give two shits if I died by getting gutted by industrial meat hooks as long as they weren't liable to pay for damages or my funeral is trying to figure out if I'm worth eliminating or if the company is what needs to be eliminated.

Someone sent me a jesus themed text message yesterday. In fact someone else sent me a text message with the words "i hope and pray things turn out." What the fuck does that even mean. I'm sorry, excuse my language. I'm just wretchedly upset right now having recalled that second text message. Here's an idea: lets not hope, lets stop praying, and lets start doing. I am so sick and tired of hearing that bull about hopes and prayers and "I've been there before, I know excatly what you're going through"s. How about we simply appraise the situation from a logical, rational standpoint. How about societal compression. How about GDP that won't quit, but somehow wages don't keep pace with inflation or cost of living (are those the same things). How about getting more bang for your buck and the actual cost of that extra bang you're getting. The bottom lines at companies that somehow don't seem to rise nearly as quickly as profit margins.

I know everyone wants to succeed and somebody will get the short shrift (I'm full of slanted definitions today, but I hope that's the right word). At any rate, I guaran-damn-tee you the bullshit expected of some of the formerly menial jobs that have somehow crept up in demographic from appropriate for teens as a base to appropriate for 40 year olds with 6 years of experience as their base, suck more and leave less humanity in the shells of the bodies daily broken open to sell you your fucking bottle of snapple quickly and efficiently is more than what was required when you, mr. 50 year old been there done that, were punching spring loaded keys on a giant slab of plastic and metal with ink ribbon.

And I haven't found him yet. The motor is still going, but I'm just trying that much harder to hold it down no matter how much it knocks around and wrecks up the place. The week of industry came. The week of industry went. And to show for it, all I have for you is a stilted diatribe about work and a partial understanding of things that don't actually exist and a burning urge to take the steel to good use on the neighbors. Do not fucking talking to me you fucking fuck I will kill you. It's becoming more and more amazing sometimes how thin the tethers can get that hold me to a behavior steps away from thought patterns born into my infrastructure and known better and more intimately than anything learned and what's next. I'll dig them out yet.

That picture. That picture up there? It's a short whiskey. Apple top. Try it. You'll love it too. I want to feel like I should say it's the only thing that makes me feel really warm and fuzzy these days, but I'd be flat lieing if I did. And California totally sucks. Mainly because it's still twilight and happy and balmy there and I hate them for that. That's the real reason why the east coast is more pissed off than the west coast. The east coast knows. The west cost pretends to not know. Screw California.

///Wildchild - "The Wonder Years" I just wish I knew.

You've Got To Get Mad

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's no one anywhere that seems to know what to do with us."



Click here to play in new window if video does not play in embedded player.

The first time I heard this monologue was as the lead in to a track by Evol Intent. It's very stirring. In fact the monologue, to me, was so much more intense and meaningful than the token gesturing of the lyrics that followed I wished that, instead of lyrics, they simply allowed more of the monologue to play. The music track is below, synced (not by me) to the visuals. You might have to click through and view it directly on the youtube website if it doesn't play here.



Click thru

Sometimes seeing and hearing things like these and knowing what my own vision is for music and film, I long for a chance to go back in time and make myself put down the calculators and math books and just do the things that came naturally. I wish I could manipulate music and art well enough to create animated films or produce albums or write music. I'm sure I will at some point, but a head start would have been nice.

At any rate, hearing the monologue was so stirring in part because I feel like I am definitely in agreement. I don't think the people being gutted and ground up and swallowed and shat out into darkness in this country need to write to congress or go to sit ins or vote for people that will represent them for five minutes before succumbing (of no fault of their own) to the massive under currents of commercial/industrial pocket padding politics. If people being shafted by the education system would simply express their disappointment, their anger, at being farmed, and express it with a sustained voice and intensity there would be a positive response. Same for people getting shafted in the work place or anywhere else.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but so many things really need so much more than a drop of oil. The problem is that people are so content to get their drop of oil, their quick pay off, and then they forget that their problem hasn't been solved. Their problem hasn't even begun to be addressed, but staying angry takes so much effort and why stay angry when you can take your hand job to the bank and buy yourself a big tv and fall asleep again until your conditions become unbearable or swallows another member of your family or short changes you once more.

You've got to get mad, and you've got to be willing and committed enough to stay mad, and that's why I love that song, but I love the monologue even more.

///Amon Tobin - "Verbal (Topo Gigio Remix)" The original song, featuring MC Decimal was good, but this version takes that song and makes it an anytime anywhere "listen to it twice in a row 'cause once is never enough" kind of song. The way the bass comes up and swings and swims around your ears you almost feel like you're lying in a river as wide as lake Ontario heading for a waterfall that crashes against rocks so loudly you can't hear it.

sonny chiba will kick you in the face 12/10/05

Subject : sonny chiba will kick you in the face

Posted Date: : Dec 10, 2005 4:52 PM

so the power company informs me that they will discontinue service to my apartment in 72 hours. aint that a larf! in times of getting screwed up the ass like a 10$ dollar hooker by the massive dong of the power company i really wish sonny chiba a.k.a. the street fighter, were my drinking buddy.



why, you ask?

well if sonny chiba were my drinking buddy and i were discussing this whole situation with Duquense Light Co. with him over a couple of brews he would say: "don't worry, pal. I'll take care of everything." And then he would go out the next morning, because sonny chiba never gets hangovers, and kick everyone at Duquense Light in the FACE! and then he and I and chuck norris would all go out to a bar the next night and celebrate our moral victory over big corporations that spit on us little poor people like so many pebbles beneath their boots of tyranny.