He's Even More Punk Than Me...

So I'm in Ithaca, New York at a keg party in the summer of '88, and this kid says that I gotta hear this Operation Ivy 7". I say whatever, and he puts it on. It sounded weird and not very good, then this kid turns the record player from 33 to 45 and starts it over. "Yellin In My Ear" came on and it was about the best song I ever heard. A couple months later, I was at Ruthies Inn in Berkeley seeing Op Ivy play. I had never seen them before. They sounded wierd and not very good, but it was an awesome show. I introduced myself to Lint after the show. He was wasted and slurred at me that I had just witnessed the worst Op Ivy show ever. I told him I would come to the next and decide for myself.

So I'm in Maui at a fish taco stand talking to Shawn and Mark Stern about how the surf was too big, and they ask me if I wanna do a split record on their label, BYO. I said yeah, but I kinda meant not really. They suggested we do the split with Lag Wagon or Pennywise. I told them that we were too similar to those bands and that it would make a boring record. So they said, "why don't you think of a FUCKING band then tough guy. I told them politely that I would think about it and get back to them.

So I saw Op Ivy a bunch more, and Lint was right, that first show was the worst, but then they broke up. Bummer. Then Lint calls me one day and tells me I should check out his new band that he started with Matt called Generator. So I go to their rehearsal and they were like hardcore or something. But this doesn't matter, cuz they brok up real quick and started Rancid.

So back on the mainland, I tell the Stern brothers, how about Rancid? If you guys can get Rancid to do the split, then I'll do it. But I was really thinking, they'll never get Rancid to do it, and I wont have to do this stupid thing. Then they call me and tell me that Rancid said they would do it. Shit.... I tell myself. Cool I tell the Sterns. Then they say that Tim (who used to be known as Lint) thinks that it would be cool if we covered each others songs. Hey, this sounded pretty cool. I hadn't thought of that. This whole thing was starting to sound bitchin. I ask them if this meant that I had to play all of Matt's bass riffs and they told me I could do whatever the fuck I wanted to. So I tell myself.. cool, and I tell the Sterns.. cool.

-Fatty

The Adversary

By Omer Kazmi

He heard a whispering outside of his open window. It was more than the wind, less than a human voice. It sounded like a ghost trapped between this world and the next, and when he cocked his lupine ears in the void-like darkness, he could have sworn it was saying his name.

He himself was trapped between this world and the world of illogic, the dream-world. Furthermore, he was trapped between the sheets of his bed, and he dared not venture out in the cold January night to verify, empirically, what he had heard. To be sure, he was uncertain whether he was awake or dreaming, and this Cartesian doubt was preventing him from any form of rest. There it was again, a cold shudder in a silent night, a vibration running at 220 cycles per second (if his ears did not deceive him), a honey-sweet tremor, a near comforting sound. He could have sworn it was saying Nathaniel. He could have...

This was not the first night that the whisper had plagued his sojourn between worlds. It began on his twenty-third birthday, but since he was trapped between the worlds of sobriety and drunkenness, he imagined that he had imagined it. He eventually had fallen asleep, a sort of blissful sleep that could only lead to a nightmare. Lying in his bed now, suffocating under his comforter and sheets, he remembered vividly the dream he had that night.

He was looking at himself from above himself, omniscient and confused at the same time. He wore a starched brown jacket, starched brown pants that were knee high in length and ended where pure white stockings began, and the stockings ran down to plain black shoes with a silver buckle. He had atop his head a black hat with a small brim, and a silver buckle encompassing the barrel of the hat. Though his jacket was buttoned, he knew that he was wearing a pure white shirt underneath, for the cuffs of the shirt billowed out from the sleeves of his jacket. He knew, in his omniscience, that both the shirt and stockings were cotton, that the hat and shoes were leather, the buckles silver, and the pants and jacket were suede. Everything he was adorned with was simple and pure, and he knew, in his omniscience, that he was a puritan.

He was also within a cabin which was safe and warm, a fire in the hearth warding him from a cold winter night. But Nathaniel was summoned out immediately by a whispering of his name, and why he chose to follow the whisper—even his omniscience did not know. The murmur had led him to the edge of the town where the road led into a forest, and from which he received an ill-feeling. His omniscience (now his conscience?) instructed him not to go in, but ever-transgressing, he did not listen. He stepped into the forest, a world trapped between the mystical and the material, and though regretting his decision immediately, he could not ignore the summons of the whisper.

After following the sound, he came upon a clearing with a fire in the center, but a noticeably different fire than the one that blazed at his hearth—though, in his omniscience, he knew that the fire in his hearth had burned out. This fire, this new fire, was of a bluish tinge, and, as in deference to its color, was colder than the fire he missed now. Nymphs were dancing around it, and it threw a blue tinge on them, and wolves yipped and barked and pranced around it as well. Some satyrs were also about, playing strange wind instruments that gave the dance a modicum of festivity, but a strange, alien festivity that seemed to send chills down Nathaniel’s spine (whether in joy or in fear, he was not sure which). The festival seemed to reach a feverish pitch as Nathaniel approached the fire and stared into it. He began to sweat as he got near, but in his wonder he did not notice the radical change in temperature. When he was an arms length away from the fire, he thought he saw himself laughing and singing within the fire, but it was so blurry that he felt he needed to come closer. Then he felt the push, and he felt himself dissolving in a passionate burn, and the pain was unbearable and real. He saw the satyr that had pushed him in, and the satyr was laughing for a seeming infinite amount of time.

That’s where the dream ended. Nathaniel thought back on the dream, now, hearing the whispering susurrate through the open window. After that bizarre night, he did not hear the whispering again for a long while. Maybe a month or two. He could not remember. It returned on a sober night, and it brought back the vivid memory of the dream. Nathaniel had thought it to be only the wind, and even though he kept hearing through the night, he eventually fell asleep believing thus. Then it would come and go, like women talking of Michelangelo. He began to hear the whisper of what he believed to be his name on more and more nights, and just this past week he heard it every night. He was convinced that it was really something, and not merely the wind. Last night he did not fall asleep because of the sound, incessant, dissonant and yet harmonious, a hypocrisy of trembling. He knew it was someone, and yet...

He got up and shut the window.

It was strange how the simplest solutions never seemed to occur to him. It was as if he was cut by Occam’s Razor and wanted to forget the pain. The whispering was silenced, and he soon found himself asleep.

He also found himself trapped between the sixth and the seventh level of hell. There was screaming and burning, and what he imagined would be the sound of the sun had space the ability to carry sound. Through the blue, white, orange, and red—which could not seriously be called fire, but some kind of smoldering mist—he saw Virgil’s face and a seemingly detached arm, palm outstretched, fingers grasping at nothing, at him, a plea to follow. Virgil, whom he only knew in his omniscience, was speaking, his mouth formulating words in mimicry of a bass reeled in, a slow coughing at a ubiquitous and destructive oxygen. It looked as if he was saying, "Rome wasn’t built in a day," but Nathaniel was not sure. Nathaniel could hear not but the boiling and broiling, and understood not but the feeling of torture. Virgil’s face faded away, and that’s when Nathaniel escaped.

The next morning Nathaniel got up, got to the telephone, and dialed work. A female voice answered, somewhat hushed. He could hear the office buzzing in the background, he must have awoken late. Nathaniel was very attracted to the female voice and the woman behind the voice, one of the secretaries in charge of some project that he knew very little about. He did not know what really happened in the office that he worked; what he even did there. He just knew he got up, went, killed time, and came back to his home to either fall asleep or listen to his name being whispered outside his window. He did not even remember the secretary’s name (Leanne? Stephanie?). He did know he was attracted to her.

"I’m not going to make it in today." He did not at all feign any sort of physical illness.

"Who is this?" She was so pert. He imagined having sex with her in some bedroom in the middle of nowhere, nothing. He shook the momentary illusion.

"Nathaniel." He never went by Nathan.

"Oh, okay Nathan, I’ll let the boss know. Get better. We’ll miss you here."

"No, you won’t." And then he hung up.

He then picked up the receiver again and dialed his psychiatrist, immediately regretting the decision. He scheduled an appointment to meet with his doctor with the fat, decrepit secretary, whom he found himself staring at in the uncomfortably small lobby later on that afternoon. She did nothing, she rarely spoke, she only stared at the guests who were foolish enough to come too early. There were no magazines. Just a sofa, two chairs, and the secretary’s desk. Her name was Margaret.

Nathaniel tried to envision his dream clearly to relay to the quack that somehow got a doctorate degree in psychology. It never helped speaking with him, a Dr. Oshner or something, but he scheduled appointments regularly now because he was addicted. Dr. Oshner or whoever would prescribe various medications which he never took. The first thing that the doctor would ask was:

"So did you take your Thorazine?"

"No."

"Your problems will never be ameliorated unless you take your medication."

"I had another dream of hell." Nathaniel ignored that psychobabble.

"Look, if you just take—"

"Why didn’t you just tell me to shut the window, you prick?" He wanted to kill his psychiatrist right now. Unfortunately, nothing sharp was available, probably a lesson learned from a previous unstable patient that had to stare at Margaret for two hours.

"Because the voice is in your head." There was a pained expression on Dr. Oshner’s face, as if he himself was an inhabitant of Nathaniel’s dream.

"When I shut the window, it stopped. I fell asleep and I dreamed of hell."

Before an objection could be voiced, Nathaniel went into his dream in great detail, explaining Virgil known through omniscience, Rome not being built in a day, the outstretched arm, and then—for kicks—Nathaniel having sex with Stephanie. Dr. Oshner feigned interest poorly, and, instead of analyzing this dream, began writing on a pad of paper.

"It’s like I’m trapped between worlds, doctor—"

"Since you haven’t taken the Thorazine, maybe some Lithium will calm you down." Dr. Oshner handed Nathaniel a sheet of paper ripped from the pad with black chicken scratch on it. Nathaniel took this as his invitation to leave. He got up, saw Stephanie unzip her jumpsuit in his mind’s eye, and left. He threw the prescription in the waste basket next to Margaret.

That night, as he tried to fall asleep, this time with the window closed, he thought he still heard his name coming from outside. He double-checked the window, to make sure it was sealed. Surely, the voice was fainter—a whisper of a whisper, but he could still detect it, and it truly bothered him. As he lay trapped in his room underneath covers that provided no comfort, he stared at the ceiling blankly watching Margaret and Stephanie’s face meld together in the stucco. Then he saw movement in his peripheral vision, fast enough to be a thief, and Nathaniel jumped up. He thought he heard his door slam. He ran, brown pajamas billowing, to the front door. For a moment, silence. And then, the whisper, louder than in his room. Nathaniel opened the door, and stepped out into a cold January night. It was not until he reached the gate of his apartment complex that he heard the whisper again. He opened the gate, stepped out, and instinctively turned left. And there he was.

The man was standing about ten yards out. Even from that distance, Nathaniel noticed his eyes. They were a yellowish green, and they glowed like a cat’s. Nathaniel thought that it was just the reflection of the street light the man was underneath. Nathaniel approached him, believing that this man was in his apartment.

"What were you doing in my home?"

"I was not in your apartment. I have been waiting here patiently, ever so patiently, for you to come out and visit me."

Nathaniel was finally close enough to make out the features of this strange man. He was of average height, but somewhat skinny. He was clean shaven, with the exception of a goatee that made him satyr-like. His face was soft. The man was neatly dressed, in a fine Armani suit of various colors, which seemed to shimmer in the pale light of the street lamp. There were fine Italian loafers that cushioned his feet, and if Nathaniel did not know better, it appeared the man was not quite touching the ground. What struck Nathaniel the most about his dress was the red tie that seemed to bleed onto a black shirt. Upon closer inspection, the man’s eyes appeared to be those of a snake, a slit that acted as the diameter of yellow irises, and his eyes seemed to have a glow that was intrinsically their own—not merely a reflection of the dull light of city property. The man’s voice was comforting, though affected.

"Would you like to join me? I was just on my way for a stroll." Nathaniel began walking.

"Who are you?"

"You know me. You know me well. I am one of your friends."

Nathaniel could not remember the last friend with whom he had spoken. Nathaniel wondered if he even had any friends.

"Were you the one whispering to me all of those nights?"

"Yes." The s was lengthened to a soft hiss, an alien whisper. Nathaniel shuddered.

They walked in silence for a while. It was oppressive, and Nathaniel occasionally glanced at his friend’s eyes to see if they were still glowing. He wondered if he should have actually taken the Lithium. Then, like a lump in his throat, he felt the beginning of the urge to tell this person the things he could not seem to convey to this psychiatrist. The lump grew in the silence. It continued to grow until Nathaniel was choking on it, and he began: "I’m trapped between worlds!"

"Everyone is. Go on."

Nathaniel explained how he was stuck between waking and sleeping, logic and illogic, comfort and torture, Stephanie and Margaret, work and doctor’s visits, isolation and friendship, drink and sobriety—he kept going, feeling the need to unload augment as he was unloading, his face becoming red as he spoke, seeing the glint of the snake eyes flash in seeming acknowledgment and understanding. Nathaniel stopped talking to inhale. He saw Stephanie’s smile in his mind’s eye. Nathaniel just realized where they were.

"Where are we?"

"At the edge of the forest, but you knew that."

"What are we doing here?"

"I want to show you something. But do go on, you have so much on your mind."

Nathaniel continued speaking as if he had lost control of his tongue. He talked about killing the psychiatrist and fucking Stephanie. He spoke of those sleepless nights, and how he had nothing to show for himself after all these years on earth, and how he had gotten drunk by himself when he turned twenty-three because there was no one to drink with. He talked about his life being a living hell, comparable to his dreams, and how nothing really seemed to matter anymore. He continuously talked, not being able to stop because the lump in his throat was killing him. With every word he spoke the lump seemed to get larger and larger, insatiable. They were deep into the forest when Nathaniel realized, with shock, that he was no longer speaking words, but simply voicing meaninglessness. It awed him more as he realized that he was speaking in tongues. Just when he stopped to inhale, the two friends came upon a clearing.

There was a fire in the center with a bluish tinge. There were people around, laughing, singing and dancing. It seemed rather pastoral.

"Come," and Nathaniel followed his friend into the clearing. Nathaniel was given drink, and he began to feel comfortable. As he drank more, he felt the need to laugh, and to sing. Time seemed to stand still, as he was perpetually given cups of more drink, a sweet, nectar-like fluid that only seemed to make him thirsty for more. Nathaniel was dancing with some of the women, tripping and stumbling and falling. Men were playing instruments that sounded strange in this new state of his, but he liked it. He felt at home with this strange men and women, and he kept looking at his friend who sat on the outer edge of the circle, smiling. It got to the point where Nathaniel was ecstatic. He wanted nothing more than the drink and this infinite moment; he had never felt better in his entire life. He felt so good that he called out to his friend.

"You indeed are my friend! I have never felt this good ever!" He exuded emotion.

"Oh really?" His friend was suddenly behind him, and Nathaniel temporarily—though brushing the thought off immediately—wondered how he got there.

"Yes! I think I now know what it feels like to be a god!"

Nathaniel did not feel the push until after the fire was upon him. He saw his friend laughing with his tongue out, and within the fire it looked like his tongue was forked. In his omniscience, he realized that that was not a person at all, and that that non-person was not his friend. He then realized that he was not omniscient, but it was too late. As he burned, hardly feeling anything but pain, he turned and saw Virgil, mouthing the words he knew he did not know.

New Year's Reflection

How soon hath time the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endueth.

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even,
To that same lot, however mean or high,

Toward which time leads me, and the will of heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great task-master's eye.
~John Milton (1631).

"As true today, as when it was written."
~Homer Simpson

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Feeling The Gun In My Hand

"I was young too, I felt just like you. Hated authority, hated all my bosses, thought they were full of shit. Look, it's like they say, if you're not a rebel by the age of twenty, you've got no heart, but if you haven't turned to the establishment by thirty, you've got no brains! Because there are no story book romances, no fairy tale endings... Before you run out and change the world, ask yourself, what do you really want?"

Sick of being [sic]:

"Hello my name is Amy, I am a fun loving, attractive, intelegent woman. I will be in the USA for 12 months on business. I really enjoy meeting new people it's so exciting. I recieve free air fares so I travel quite often. I am looking forward to your reply. Reply to my personal email only please. By the way, I saw your profile and luved it. My personal email is [censored: I don't know if this is a real person or not] I will reply back with a picture, Promise. ttyl..,Amy"

I've been looking for an "intelegent" woman my entire life...

Your Space.

So lately I have been neglecting this blog because of my Myspace. The thing is addicting, pointless (much like this blog, but to a stronger degree). I basically am posting to let the world know that a book review of Tremor of Intent should be coming soon: I am nearly done with the book. I might also post my Personal Statement as graduate school application deadlines are coming up, fast. I might also post a story that I am supposed to be working on, the deadline for that is December 31, 2005 at 11:59 p.m. This year (and my life) is almost over. And, while on the topic of what I might post, I might post pictures that my sister took while she was India (if there are any good ones). Bug me in the comments section if you particularly want to see something.

So many goals. Higher, higher, low.

An Anniversary for the Annals

So it has been one year since I have started this blog. One whole year. I could look back and see what terrible posts I have written--maybe highlight them here in traditional self-loathing fashion-- but instead I sunk to a new low: I got a myspace. I think that exemplifies the steady (exponential?) decline in brain cell count, and encapsulates my general descent into madness.

I'm a Thief, I'm a Weirdo...

I hate my job
I hate my job
I hate my...

Six in the evening here I am
(Turning blue)
I'm staying late working late again
Bourbon can't clear my mind from this
Voice in my head
I hate my job
'Cause it makes me
Think about the smile that I'm faking

I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my job
I hate my job

Yeah, that's the scene that I am in
Lying
At odds with every bland image
How many assignments can this
Fool ask me to do?
I never cared
There is no end
Only misery and uninterest

I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my job

I don't care
I don't care

This Unbalanced...

I got Resolve today. It came on a Monday that was a train wreck after a grueling weekend, betwixt a credit card bill and a bank statement (I owe them...). Before I get further into this, I would like to outline my Monday.

Before I outline my Monday, I'm going to highlight my weekend: I took the the "Literature in English" GRE. It was the hardest test I have taken in recent memory. My mother and older sister left for India on Sunday night. Their flight was out of LAX, and was not scheduled to leave until 11:30 p.m. I went to see them off, and I did not get home until around 11:30 p.m. So I did not get to sleep a whole lot. Now, to Monday.

First, I had to drop my brother off at a financial aid meeting at school this morning. I was late getting him there. I did get to work on time, but today I had to take care of several important documents that were due today. One of them required me to copy 500 pages in exhibits. The other involved me meeting with the client today (the day it was due...service is complete once the documents are in the mail, thankfully), and arguing with him over minutia. While I was focusing on finishing preparing these documents, I was dumped with more work that is awaiting my response tomorrow. My boss did not show up for one of his appointments, and when the finally called me, he wanted me to tell the client stuff regarding his case, and somehow that ended up in a half an hour appointment where the client was complaining to me about things that I cannot possibly change nor control. I needed the associate attorney's signature on some other documents that had to go out today, and, because of a late appointment she had that went extra long, I did not get that signature until 6:30. The credit card terminal ran out of journal tape, and it didn't take just normal tape, but "thermal" tape, which I had to get the office manager to get. The office manager returned with her daughter, and that was just a distraction (helping a high school freshman with English homework, and answering personal questions while I'm trying to get things in the mail was distracting). This was all on top of the normal phone calls of people yelling at me, getting the mail, and scheduling appointments. I did not leave the office until after 6:30 p.m. (6:45? 6:50?) It sucked, to put it mildly.

But I got home, and there was the package from Fat Wreck Chords. I opened it up, and there were the usual freebies (a poster for some band called "Consumed", a Strung Out sticker, a Dillinger Four sticker [which rules], a little ad advertising Lagwagon's Resolve (on one side) and Western Addiction's Cognicide (on the other), and a free compilation called Rock Against Floyd), and Resolve. It was not wrapped in plastic. There was no impossible-to-open-sticker sealing the CD in air-tight paradise, completely inaccessible to those of us who have fallen. I opened the case, and found the signatures of the band on the back of the CD booklet. These are not fake signatures. Leon's signature is in silver, Joey's signature is smeared a bit on the J, Dave's signature is kind of faded. I smiled as wide as the girl on the cover of Let's Talk About Feelings (I probably looked that beautiful too). My whole day changed. I thought "even if this album sucks, it rules that I have their signatures on this CD booklet." The album does not suck. I have listened to the album twice so far, and, like I usually do with new CDs, I'm going to post the lyrics from a song on it, but all this needed to be said.

Resolve

Don't leave me in this room
The walls are closing in
This is the space I used to say
The line is drawn for you each day
But every day you show
With sound of caving walls
Some day this song will have no pulse
And I'll cave alone
But there we are
Waiting for your answer
Your arms speeded elation
Beating out your salvation
But when the tape stopped you were gone
A half measure from home
This week I recreate
Edit you back into
The blare that could define you
Coveted by few who knew
The phone rings without pause
This grief wills everyone
All I have is our shitty song
How could it ever be enough?
Here we are in our final accord
A mortician and his tools
Sonically bury you
You could have chose another chord to resolve on
~Lagwagon

It's Not Going Anywhere

He was thoroughly convinced he was not a good person. There were moments--recurring, and often so--that seemed to prove this conviction. There was that moment (how long was one?) when he had popped that girl's balloon with a pen, vindictively, instinctively, and with such satisfaction that if the girl had several more, he would have gone (hypothetically, against and contrary to the fact, the history, but of such sure conviction that he called it true--made it so) on a(n) homicidal spree of flying rubber and ink. Her mother, standing by, innocent as the child, was so shocked, her mouth was a agape. The accomplishment fell to bitter ruin with the tears of the child. She must have been six or seven, the age where one can comprehend evil and fear, but had no idea that these things were real. His heart sank. He wanted to cry with her and apologize, but it seemed pointless. He should not have done what he did, and the regret could not be washed off with something as common as an apology. A carnival (for that is where they were, and the clown from whom the girl received the balloon, a few yards away, clucked bitterly, condescendingly at the scene before him) was simply not a carnival with a girl crying. But, ironically, and he noted this with the pen still protruding from his clenched fist, sword-like, he was simply saying farewell to the sins of the flesh. Destruction of oneself and others (and, by extension, their property) was a sin of the flesh, ingrained and part of the human condition, and though there was no lent--and hence, no purging, he... he could not justify it. He walked over to the clown, made a gesture to the jester, which the clown understood immediately. The jester gave him another balloon, the same color, and he gave it to the crying child while the mother stood, anger aging her skin with a thousand wrinkles. Why did he do such a thing? Why did it feel like victory? Why did he feel so bad afterward? He did not know, but only knew that there were more moments, and, incidentally, more incidents which proved his utter worthlessness to humanity.

A Tremor of My Intent

"We were both drawn, during the interim time, to the only community we knew; we went back to school."

~pg. 17

This sounds like me and a couple of people I know.

There Was Only One Catch...

I'm posting because I'm trying to avoid studying for the GRE Subject Test. This whole process of applying to graduate school is long, drawn-out, oppressive. But every day that I go to work I realize more and more that I should not be doing this yet; that I do not want to be a "Legal Assistant" (what the hell is that anyway? Why do crummy jobs always have the vaguest names?); that the only thing I have known in life is school and that is where I feel most comfortable. But how do I turn that into a "Statement of Purpose"? How do I write a "Personal Statement" about how I am running back to a womb (maybe not a fetal womb, per se, but certainly a more youthful day--a child-like state, at least)? I am not an academic man, though I try to be. I do not read as much as I should. I do not remember half the things I learned in college, and I barely remember one-eighth of the things I learned in high school. And other than trying to escape from the nine-to-five, I do not know why I want to go to graduate school. I have nothing to prove. I have no real academic goals other than getting a Doctorate in Philosophy and possibly teaching (though praying for a good publishing contract). All I know is that my friends say I have changed, I feel I have changed, and I am not happy where I am. Is that something some stiff in an admissions office in some accredited institution wants to see? I doubt it.

So what do I do? Find a new job? That certainly is an option, but there is the gamble that I will run into a worse job than the one I am currently doing (it is hard to believe, but I am sure there are worse). I also promised my mother I would further my education. And honestly, I do want to go graduate school, it is just applying for it that is so burdensome. It is also hard to leave a small office when you have worked there for a while. Things could fall apart; you are not so easily replaceable. I am Mr. Guilt. I somehow think I would feel less guilty if I had to leave work because of graduate school than to leave work for another job. Maybe they would understand better, I do not know.

Really, I know in my heart of hearts (as the sole-practitioner lawyer who shares office space with us says) that I should just buckle down, suck it up, and, as a co-worker says, "get 'er dun'!" (Another reason to leave...) But it is far easier to come home from work and do nothing than to study, or contact professors for letters of recommendation, or rifle (me) through old boxes looking for the last ten page paper I wrote to be submitted as a writing sample, or trying to get my official transcript, or sending GRE scores to schools that have not received them yet. I'm not lying, I'm lazy.

It's as Bart Simpson says, "You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't."

The Answer Is Still No.

Both this picture, and the caption above ("Sell your house and buy gold"), were taken from the Radiohead website. Who knows where they got them from.

Intuiting Verticality

On Colombus Day--a day that has long since been destroyed as a holiday because of "multicultural" issues--I finished The Intuitionist, a racial allegory (if the cover is any indication). And, like any book that deals with race, it left me confused. It does not define race, and it does not attempt to solve any issues, though it does seem to play with certain philosophical issues.

There's of course the Intuitionism versus Empiricism debate, which is the major issue of the book. These elevator inspectors (yes, the book is about elevator inspectors) are awaiting the new elevator of the future, entitled "the black box." Whether the elevator is indestructible or not, the book never tells us, but the creator of the black box, a James Fulton, is the originator of the Intutionist movement. The main character of the book, Lila Mae Watson is, in a sense, a disciple of Fulton, and she encounters a problem: Elevator Number Eleven in the Fanny Briggs Building, an elevator she inspected, goes into a total free fall. What ensues is a complicated mess that, at times, I wondered if I cared what was going on.

Now farbeit from me to criticize a writer who is actually published (while I have not yet submitted anything, nor do I have anything ready to be submitted, to a publisher), but when race is the driving factor, it makes it hard to care about it. All the characters are governed by their race--all the white people act in a certain way, and the black people act in a certain way, and nothing changes that at all. Even the Fulton is dominated by his race; I guess that makes it a racial allegory.

There are other issues as well. There's a religious issue which hinted to in the appearance of the black box, which will bring about the "second elevation" and new cities and a new life, thanks to this new version of verticality. There are political issues brought about with the impending election--who gets to be the new head of the Department of Elevator Inspectors? Will it be the Empiricist Chancre, or the Intutionist [I forget his name and I can't find it]? I did not really care, and I do not think it was a major factor in the book, but it was there. There was also corporate issues, what with United Elevator Co. and Arbo vying for dominance in this unnamed city during this unnamed time period. All these things blended together, which makes for a nice complex story. So it is not all bad.

It is just the racial aspect that pervades the story, and the complimentary racial language (i.e. "modernity," "verticality," etc.) which I cannot, for the life of me, find any meaning to that just makes this a frustrating read. Lines like: "In the last few days she has learned how to read, like a slave does, one forbidden word at a time" (p. 230) calls into question a lot of things, and provides no answers for. Lila Mae Watson already knows how to read throughout the story, what kind of "reading" did she learn the second time. A racial reading, perhaps? The reference to the slave seems to say so, but I cannot be sure, and that vagueness is frustrating.

Ultimately, the book tries to veer away from race (and I would explain, but I would be ruining the book for those who perchance want to read it), but it is so stuck in that quagmire that it cannot possibly extricate out of it. The final message seems to be: Look past the color of skin, white people! That kind of message is confusing and dissatisfying, and that's what I generally got from the book.

This isn't the review I intended for the book, but I have run out of time. I'm going to be really busy this month, so I may not post all that often. I'll post when I have a chance. Other than that, I'm glad I finished the book, and I'm sad that my holiday is nearly over. Despite what others may say, I'm glad we have Columbus Day.

New York Threatened...

Islamabad levelled.

These are crazy times.

You Listen to Coldplay

Thanks, Tony.

[He quoted the Network.]

Lies, Lies, Lies

"Omer -

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, September 26th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music"

Even though I don't believe all that he wrote, it was still nice getting an e-mail from the president of something.

New Monkey

New Monkey

Here come the sidewalk boss again
Telling me how I can't cave in;
That I'm a study in black,
Need a pat on the back
I looked up and smile
A picture of dissatisfaction
That he can only see as a junkie.
Though I might be straight as an arrow,
He's busy shaking hands with my monkey,
Busy shaking hands with my monkey.

Well i go in the car,
Straight to the bar
Where my sweetie pours the beer
For the millions of fans ignoring the bands
He's in my ear,
Wants me to live in denial,
Says you've gotta settle for something
Though it might not be really living,
Anything is better than nothing,
Anything is better than nothing.

No actor action man gonna move in to take my place,
I'll be pumping out the product
Just a total waste.

Look at your hands unoccupied
Look at the lengths you'll go to hide
You're under the veil,
Pretending to fail.
Gotta whole lot of empty time left to go
Now you've gotta fill it with something;
I know what you can do, don't you know,
Anything is better than nothing.

No actor action man gonna move in to take my place,
I'll be pumping out the product
Just a total waste.

I'm here with my cup,
Afraid to look up,
This is how i spend my time,
Lazin' around, head hangin' down;
Stuck inside my imagination,
Busy making something from nothing.
Pictures of hope and depression,
Anything is better than nothing
Anything is better than nothing
Anything is better than nothing
Anything is better than nothing.

~Elliott Smith

Isolate, Imitate

Wake up at 6:00 ante meridian, groggy, tired. Go downstairs to relieve yourself, as you know the upstairs bathroom would soon be occupied by your brother. Find The San Diego Union Tribune, in all its Old English Font-Face glory, and decide to read the paper from Tuesday (September 20, 2005) because that's how behind in life you are. Find an article entitled "History rewarding for UCSD teacher." Become intrigued. Look at the picture of the UCSD teacher, a homely woman surrounded by blurred books. Read the caption, "Emily Thompson, an associate professor at UCSD, is working on a book about the transition from silent films to talkies." Find your interest somewhat dissolve. Read the sub-headline. "She is one of 25 to get $500,000 'genius grant.'" Have your interest pique again. Read the first two paragraphs. Stop in disgust. Here's why: "Just a couple of years ago, I was an out-of-work academic eyeing my bank account wondering when I'd have to give up and become a paralegal [italics mine] or a bartender..." Throw the paper down. Flush.

Go about your day, bitter, groggy, tired.

Realize this will go on your blog.

Return to said bathroom to relieve yourself once again, this time knowing you will read the entire article. Read the rest of the article, fully braced, and become upset... again. "Her first book, 'The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933,' was published in 2002 to critical acclaim..." Hate Emily Thompson for doing nothing and getting $500,000 ("Like most winners, Thompson has no idea how or why she was chosen or who nominated her because the process is secret"). Flush.

Emily may be odd, but she always gets [an] even [$500,000 over a five year period].

Post this on your blog.

Just Deserts

About four years ago---No, not that long ago. It was Labor Day weekend. I had the Monday off (thank God...) and headed up to visit the former roommates. We had quite the time. Part of the time was spent playing ping-pong and darts, part of the time watching things that I needed to watch (viz. Cakeboy, Violent Femmes videos, and other strange videos by some dude named Michel), and then part of the time was spent out in the desert, road hunting, cruising, whatever. These are pictures from that.

Ping-pong and guns, ping-pong and guns

Boy was this sign wrong!

This was out there

Time to ride the snake

The biggest banded gecko... ever

D(ead)O(n)R(oad)

Nature abhors a vacuum

No animals were harmed on this trip

I Got Sold Out

I took a nap at 4:30 post-meridian today (my half day) and woke up a little after 5:30 post-meridian. I woke up disoriented and looked at the time. I first thought it was 5:30 in the morning, but it was too bright outside. Utterly confused, I realized that it was the evening, and immediately thereafter I thought I had slept through work. I got so mad at myself at first, then scared I would get yelled at or something. Then I realized that I had just taken a nap on my half day; I had already gone to work.

I wonder why I got so mad, and then scared, when I had thought I had slept through work.

I think I got sole doubt.

New Link

I d0 not know how long this was going on, but Julia apparently has a Xanga. I've linked to it here, here, there, and here. And it's on the side-bar.

Just discovering this, and 100 other small things that transpired yesterday in a heat conducive to perspiration, adds up to making me feel like an idiot. Not just an "idiot" but an idiot (with all the connotations and intonations of Napoleon Dynamite).

Today, it's 10:15 am and it's 102 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

Happy Birthday To Me

It's my birthday and I'll do what I want to
Fuck you, it's my birthday.
A special holiday only for me,
So do what I say.

It's my party, I'll make you cry if I want to...
Or leave.
Fuck you, it's not your birthday,
So do what I say.

For 24 hours you're wishing me well,
364 days I'm in hell,
Oh well.
Happy birthday to me

Alone, on my birthday,
I'm going to Denny's 10 times today.
No tip! It's my birthday,
So do what I say.

Thanks mom you didn't have an abortion,
Or my birthday wouldn't be today.
But I guess it's my good fortune,
My birthday's today, OK.

For 24 hours you're wishing me well
364 days I'm in hell
Oh well.
Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to me.

(Spank me.)

Oh well, happy birthday to me.
I can't believe you forgot my birthday.
It's my birthday and you're wrecking it.
Now it's just like any other day:
You didn't do what I say.

How could you forget my birthday?
That's really immature.
Fuck you for forgetting my birthday
You didn't do what I say.

24 hours no wishing well,
Now 365 days I'm in hell,
Oh well.
Happy birthday to me.

~The Vandals

You Can Try to Save My Soul

Though written poorly, the latest post on my sister's Live Journal brings up an interesting topic. The comments are especially worth noting because a nascent argument arises between me and my sister, the idealist. (Note: if you cannot tell from my blog heading, "Exspectamus Pessima" means "Always Expect the Worst.")

Pot-Pour-ee

I've started reading The Intuitionist because I needed a book to read, and another Burgess book might have been over-kill. Sometimes one needs to torture oneself. I thought of posting quotes to prove why I do not like the book, but I'll gather it together later when I've read more and have a better understanding of the book. See? I'm open-minded (whatever that means).

I've just finished watching Napoleon Dynamite, which is a very interesting movie. Devoid of drama, it takes a rather typical high school movie (albeit with very interesting characters) and makes it original. I don't think I've seen a movie quite like it. In a way, it was kind of like an episode of Seinfeld, except in high school, and with more bizarre characters (believe it or not). A definite must see, even if it's out of curiousity.

I also saw The 40 Year Old Virgin, but that's not really worth a comment.

And this guy was about how old I am. Death can come at any time (in case you weren't aware of that before).

I haven't done any real editing to my story yet, but it will eventually be posted on Ochius! So if you want to read it in its entirety and don't feel like searching through blog posts, then head there soon and it will be up. I just don't know how soon.

And that's all I really feel like posting.

Anything is Better Than Nothing

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/22/obit.elliott.smith.ap/

Girls suck.

Fin

****

The two opponents had turned over their cards. The client had two jacks in his hand—a four of a kind. Only one hand could beat a four of a kind. Darius sheepishly showed his four card flush, hoping, praying, knowing that it would turn into a royal flush. The client was laughing. The client thought he had Damien beat.

"How did you get in the club anyway?"

"Yeah, you don’t belong here."

Maybe it was the incessant harping of both of the professors that brought it about. Maybe it was the ad hominems and complete lack of academic discussion. Maybe it was because they were right. Damien didn’t know. But at the concurrent moment that the card flipped over, revealing that beautiful queen of hearts, the absolute best hand in poker, the sign that he had finally won—finally triumphed over the client, Darius got up, grabbed a poker violently, and yelled, "I’ll show you Wittgenstein!"

It happened so fast. A swing at the jocular professor, which he dodged dextrously, and the point made contact with Damien’s skull. Damien did not feel a thing except warm, viscous liquid running down his cheeks and neck. He became blinded by white; his ears were ringing. He began to feel that he was falling, and even when he hit the ground, he still felt he was falling. Pretty Mary K. began crying now somewhere in the white which began to fade. Her crying went above the ringing, and made sounds discordant. He called out to pretty Mary K., a call which sounded like a gurgle to the five men (the dealer too stood in shock) who had gathered around him. Damien’s sight faded to black. The ringing stopped, but he heard not the desperate cry, "someone call an ambulance!" The last, dream-like image that passed through his mind (did Damien "see" it?) was rosy-fingered dawn exploding into fire and brimstone, and Mephistopheles, coming forth from the eruption, smiling—forever smiling—and crushing a heart-shaped locket.

Nine: For the Lost Cause

I forgot about posting the story. I was just so relieved to have the damn thing finished, that I thought there was nothing else to be done. I apologize to those who waited anxiously, wondering what was to become of our dear friend Damien. This is page nine, and page ten will finish the story tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

****
The loss of the player did not stop the discussion, which was slowly growing into a debate: Darius’s constant attempts to join the conversation were soon rewarded. The professors began to pay attention.

"I think Popper sufficiently shut down the Vienna Circle," Darius licked his lips in anticipation, "because Wittgenstein’s theories had no basis in reality, in science." He stressed the last word with the air of academia. The two professors balked. They had never heard such blasphemy.

"Popper was a megalomaniac, he just wanted to take credit for bringing down the Vienna Circle. Anyone with any background in analytical philosophy could have saw through some of the faulty theories of the Vienna Circle." This was probably the professor who told the Hume joke; he was bald, stocky, with bushy eye-brows and circular spectacles. He was something of a spectacle himself.

Damien started to lose interest in the card game, but he could not follow the discussion. Damien was also sufficiently up in chips, having just taken out the kid and having three of the players just continually blinded off. Darius would occasionally play a hand or two, but he would back out at any bet. Darius’s client would basically give the affect of listening, but he too was bored, and he was significantly down in chips. Damien thought it was time to take him out. After a few more hands, the discussion turned to the debate that had occurred on October 25, 1946.

"It’s clear that Wittgenstein won the debate. He was the better man: he walked out."

"The only reason Wittgenstein left is because he couldn’t take being proven wrong." Darius was smiling. The other professor was shaking his head.

Damien quietly asked the dealer the time. It was two thirty in the morning. At this point Damien really wanted to leave. The client was yawning, and the card game was almost ignored by the three philosophers. When the cards were dealt yet again, Damien peeked to find an ace and king of hearts. He raised $50,000. Only the client called. Damien watched for the flop intently.

"You know, you’re just like Popper, you can’t accept genius." The other professor, a smaller, skinnier man, said.

"Wittgenstein was a crock. He only wrote one real book. Everything else was junk published posthumously."

"Popper might have been a prolific writer, but he hardly had any impact on philosophy."

"He does have an impact on philosophy. Wittgenstein is only famous because it’s chic to drop his name. Hardly anyone that talks about Wittgenstein knows anything about his philosophy."
Darius was always smiling. Smiling always with teeth gritted tightly.

The flop came out as a jack of hearts, a ten of hearts, and a jack of spades. The client bet $60,000. Damien thought for a moment.

"What are your credentials, by the way?" The Hume-comedian asked.

Darius was caught off guard. He realized he was in the hand and he folded.

"I—I—I didn’t..."

"You never went to school." The other professor smiled wide.

Damien called. The turn showed a six of clubs. Damien knew he needed one card to take out the client for good. Damien also knew that any heart would give him a flush, and that might beat him.

"You have just wasted our time debating something you have no expertise in."

"Do you even know what we’re talking about?"

"Yes, I do." Darius wasn’t smiling. "I’ve read the same book. I’ve read the Tractatus. I’ve also read The Open Society."

"So? I’ve read Jane Eyre. It doesn’t mean I could deconstruct the text with Derrida."

The client went all in. It was a good move if he was bluffing. Damien saw pretty Mary K. naked on the grass and called.

"You should not get into discourses of which you are unfamiliar."

"You’ll only prove yourself to be an idiot."

Darius was flushed. Damien looked up at him and realized he had never seen him so angry. His face was distorted horribly since his mouth was so used to the upward curve. Frowning was unfamiliar and ugly. Darius was also dangerously silent.

I Forget What Eight Was For

The story is just about done. I'm going to be emailing it later tonight to Nathan, just after I finish it up and look over errors. The rest of the story will be posted on here day by day (it's ten pages, so it will be done around Wednesday), but if you want a complete copy, leave me a comment with either your email address or some method of contacting you, and I'll send it to you.

Sadly, it does not look like Nathan has finished his story. We will hopefully meet up this weekend, and he might have his story done by then. I might post something about it, if it's interesting or productive or both.

Enjoy.

****

And thus, on this certain night it came to pass that the final table of Hold ‘em held six people. Darius. his client, Damien, two professors, and the kid sat at the table closest to the fire place. Darius was right next to the dealer, and to Darius’s right was his client, the kid, the two professors, and then Damien. Darius was seated closest to the fire place. A fire powered by gas was going—the night had become somewhat chilly. Damien noticed that the pokers standing on their rack were useless, only vestiges of a more difficult time that had passed. The fact that they were ornamental now seemed only to mock those times when they were necessary. He let it pass. They were just pokers.

Damien switched his attention to the players at the table. Although he had played well this evening, he found that he was easily distracted by the slightest things, and on the final table it was important to focus. Damien turned to watch the kid. Anyone could take this kid out quickly, because although he was good, he lacked focus. He missed obvious things. Darius’s client was more formidable, because if he kept getting lucky, then there was nothing to be done. Damien thought about Darius’s speech about the gambler’s fallacy; he figured the client could not be lucky all the time. Damien was not sure about Darius. He had played Darius before in Hold ‘em, and Darius could get unpredictable. Damien did not seem to mind if he lost to Darius. The professors seemed easy enough to beat. They were colleagues teaching philosophy at the local university. They had mostly talked all night about different aspects of philosophy (one of whom—Damien did not know which—made the joke about Hume), cracking esoteric jokes and discussing different methods and such. This talking served as a distraction, and could be used against them. They mostly talked among themselves, not expecting anyone to understand, but Darius felt the need to interject every once in a while. The professors tended to ignore him. Darius would just smile.

After an hour of playing the final table, the professors had moved on to the great "debate" (if it could so be called) between Dr. Karl Popper and Herr Ludwig Wittgenstein. It was clear that both the professors were of a Wittgensteinian leaning, just by the tone of voice they used when referring to Popper. Apparently one of them had read a book about the debate. Damien, as well as the kid and Darius’s client, were just focusing on the cards being played, and were lost in their own thoughts. Darius, however, was listening intently to the conversation, opening his mouth partly as if to say something, but letting no breath escape. The discourse was so riveting that Darius and the professors were blindly placing blinds, folding as soon as someone bet, and not even looking at the flop, the turn, or even the river.

This distraction was infectious, and Damien found himself finally pondering the events leading up to the present moment, though probably not causally leading up to the moment. Damien thought about Mary K. and their strange encounter. He found himself wondering whether, in all this spontaneous caprice, if that wasn’t planned. Darius was so insistent, and she acted so strangely... Damien just lost the hand. Top pair had taken him. It was the kid. Damien needed to focus. But Mary K. returned momentarily in his mind’s eye, dressed in the scarf and vestments of a Queen, the locket around her neck now enlarged and ruby-colored. She was holding her scepter and laughing. He could not be subjected to this. The flop came out and it was horrible.

The kid put in $20,000 as a bet. Damien folded: he could not lose again.
"In all honesty, Popper was just jealous of the genius that was Wittgenstein."
"I beg to differ," Darius said in a demanding tone.
"I think you’re right to some extent. Why would Popper turn down a lectureship in Cambridge unless he knew he would be outshone?"
"Yes, he belonged in New Zealand, out of the way."
"That’s unduly harsh, gentlemen." Darius spoke with a smile.

The kid went all in. Damien was staring at trip aces. What was this kid thinking? The kid looked to have the other ace. Something about his smile told him so. Damien called—sure enough, the kid had the last ace, and, since they were about even in chips prior to the call, the kid was knocked out of the final table. The kid got up and shook Damien’s hand, but he looked very tired. Damien thought he almost looked relieved to be out.

More Punk Than Me

Check this out.

P.S.-Sorry, no story, but I'm working on it.

Seven: For No Tomorrow

Yeah. Here's an incomplete page seven. There most likely will not be a page eight tomorrow unless I managed to somehow pull it off. We'll see.

****

After the fire that spontaneity had instigated burned out, a new burning began on the long walk back to the casino. It was the burning of the dream, of being tossed by the queen into the depths of an embracing hell. He walked in silence next to pretty Mary K. They did not hold hands. Damien looked intently on the ground, watching the grass and dirt that had betrayed him. He felt dizzy, and hot, and charge-less. Ionized into neutrality. He could not look at her, and he knew that she would not look at him. The term that he so loathed, the feminine term that rang of purity could no longer be applied to him, a product of reproductive loss. He decided that all there was left to do was play poker.

Thus, after poking her, he played poker. After holding her, he played Hold ‘em. He saw no away around it—Darius had forwarded the buy-in of $10,000 (business was very very good he seemed to say with a wink from across the table), and he could stand to win $250,000. He played Hold ‘em often, often enough to pick up the ins and outs of the game, how to read the amateurs, when to fold.

He liked the game. The outcome was hard to anticipate and somehow predictable, it was individual and communal, it was easy and yet complex. He could not explain the joy he got from winning a hand when it was just dumb luck, nor could he explain the feeling of loss when someone else had dumb luck. Damien considered himself good at the game. It required more skill and know-how than betting on sports, but it was more of a gamble. Maybe Darius was right.

There were a majority of amateurs at tonight’s tournament, pretentious and pretending that they knew what they were doing. The dealer often had to tell one of the players at the table, laughing at some abstruse joke about the David Hume’s death being the birth of our nation, that he was in the big blind. The player would then put in the wrong amount of chips, and when the dealer corrected the error—"sorry, sorry. I thought we were further along in the game." Damien, annoyed at the poor affect of this player, decided to take him out as soon as possible. A spade flush dug him his grave. Damien knew that this old, rich man would not see it coming. Damien relished in his dumb luck.

Darius was a good poker player as well. He was on the conservative side, but when he had it, one could never tell. Darius was sitting next to his "client," so Damien assumed, and Darius would occasionally whisper to the man on his right and laugh. Darius’s client, a youngish man of about thirty, was not much of a poker player, but he continually got lucky, knocking out various players with straights and sets and flushes. Darius semi-bluffed on a pair of twos and took a big pot, nonchalantly showing his cards afterward to get the guy sitting next to the dealer on tilt.
"I had a pair of kings!"
"You shoulda called." Darius smiled. Darius always smiled. Even when he lost a big hand to this twenty-one year old kid (most likely a son of a member) three seats down, a set of twos falling to a full house (nines full of twos), Darius smiled. Darius doubled up when the kid did not see a four card straight on the table. Darius was like that, smiling, but vengeful.

Have You Seen Her?

I finished page six, and there looks to be a page seven for tomorrow.

****

She showed him the casino. She took him inside the plain building, and found plain art-work sparsely littered about the room. There were eight to ten rounded oblong tables, indented on one side to mark where the dealer sits, black rims encasing a green sea as smooth as velvet. There was a fireplace directly across the entrance, with fancy pokers off to the right in a golden holder. That was all that was in the casino. Damien noticed the stark contrast from the hall and the casino, and Mary explained that members had complained of too much distraction while gambling—they even had to remove the bar (it instead being replaced with a register to cash in one’s chips). One could, however, still order food and drinks from the dining hall. He nodded in a vacant agreement. The casino had a wonderful view outside of the man-made lake near the sixth hole of the golf course.

She showed him the pool area, the massage parlor, the sauna. She showed him the garden with its botanical marvels. She showed him the walk-in humidor. She showed him the stables with the faux race track, and the trails that extended into the hills of the 158 acres. She told him that some of the members would hunt those fields, killing small game. She showed him the monument to the original members and the owner of the club, a huge bronze Xerxes, fiercely holding a sword high in the air, charging at nothing but stuffed bank accounts. She showed him wealth, status, and power. She showed him a superficial life, where caprice was the order of the day. She showed him a life that he very much despised, a life that Darius very much wanted to lead. It dawned on him fuzzily that he and Darius would soon be parting ways.

The sun was about to set when pretty Mary K. said, "there’s one last place I need to show you." They left the inaccurate monument, (Xerxes fought no battles, but would rather watch the results from afar) and headed past the casino toward the golf course. Damien was more sober: his steps were sure, although he was now holding Mary K.’s hand. In the cool air he felt flushed, hot, and charged. He felt like lightning striking; he had a feeling of falling fast, faster, fastest. He was being pulled downward by a gravity that only sobriety would recognize.

They headed toward the sixth hole, onto the green, the rough, and then out of bounds. They were behind the lake, past the bushes, and came upon a tool shed.
"How do you know about this place?"
"I started here as a caddy; you discover things when you’re a caddy."
"How old are you?"
"Old enough."

They embraced. They kissed. They removed garments as if they were on fire, and they were on fire. Damien was no longer tame or shy, but alive, electric. Everything was moving—the sun setting, their hands, the bushes in the wind—everything was mercurial. They did as spontaneity mandated, and it mandated much. It ordered them to thrust, moan, rise, and fall. It commanded them to live and die. It pushed them to know each other. It coerced them into frantic motion, a silly, awkward dance stuck on repeat. And when they thought they were finished, spontaneity demanded it again.

Pretty Mary K. was more beautiful with her eyes reflecting the rising moon. She didn’t know his secret, or at least he thought she didn’t—he never knew what women knew when they knew someone. He noticed a locket in the shape of a heart around her neck, and said, without thinking:
"You’re my queen of hearts."
"You should go, it’s almost time for the tournament." She got up and began dressing.
"Okay." He followed suit.

I'm Already Full of These Useless Stories...

Time is running out. I am running out of pages to post. This fifth one here is complete, but I have not yet completed the sixth. I may be able to get to the sixth one done by tomorrow, but I do not know about the seventh, eighth, ninth, etc. I don't even know how many pages this story will be. I have five more days left until this is due, so conceivably it could be about ten or eleven pages total. However, there is only one more scene I have to write (with some summary), so it could be shorter than that. I guess I can only try as best as I can and see how it turns out. Do not be surprised if a day goes by and I have not posted another page. I may have to keep posting pages after August first until the story is complete. I don't know. Enjoy page five.

****

Damien was confused, "I thought you were paying."
"You didn’t get her number, therefore you have to pay."
"But you said that all I had to do was ask her, and I did." His voice steadily rose, despite Mary K.’s presence. Courage uplifted while the body made low.
"Well," a moment’s hesitation this time, no drama or philosophy, "I’ll pay you back. Can you get this one for me?"

Darius had never done this before. Darius was one for his word, albeit he rarely made a promise to anyone. If he told you he would do something, he generally would do it. Like the time that Damien had placed a bet on the San Diego Chargers in some play-off game. It was obvious that they would lose, given the history of the team with the opponent (Damien could not remember the team now), but he placed the bet anyway. Darius told him, "if the Chargers win, I won’t take any cut– you get the whole enchilada." The Chargers had won by one. A field goal in the last quarter– gripping, really. Damien didn’t have to pay for lunch that day, and he got all the money due to him.

Now that he had to pay, the blurry tab looked like $250, Damien felt confused, and all the more so because his head was reeling. He had lost. Mary K.’s eyes were dancing between the two guests, but her expression was flat. He conceded. He pulled out his wallet, a plastic card, and handed it to Mary K. who in one sweeping motion took it and walked away to swipe the card.
With that, Darius smiled, got up, and left heading right. He passed Hermes and some nudes bathing, down the great hall to disappear into greatness. He did not care where his bookie was going. Mary K. returned, smiling somewhat. She was certainly old enough now. He smiled. He sighed as he signed. He asked where the bar was.

"You’ve had enough."
"Well, I have been abandoned, so I will drink with abandon."
"Cute." She smirked. "Why don’t you go home?"
"I’m here for the Hold ‘em Tournament."
"Ah. Well, my shift ends in an hour. If you want to meet me afterward, I can show you around."
Damien didn’t fully realize the situation. He nodded.
"Where?"
"Just go out the hall, exit from there," she pointed to a door at the side of the building that Damien did not notice before, "and walk around behind the building."
"Okay...okay." She left him, and he was alone.

He stumbled to the place where he thought they would meet, and found her a hundred yards off, waving and laughing. He had found the bar in the meantime, and drank with the abandon of the zealot alcoholic, drowning the dream with the hope of a delirium tremens. Every sip made him hate this place more. Every sip made his dream more clear, and the world more blurry. Every sip made him and destroyed him. Every sip was billed to Darius.

"So you found the bar." She was smiling fully now, exposing perfect teeth in a perfect mouth, made less perfect by jaundiced eyes.
"You seem happy... to be off...of work."
She giggled. How old was she?
"Let’s walk around and sober you up."

Page Four

****

"She wants you."
Damien finished the rest in a gulp, and let the oxygen and carbon dioxide escape in invisible bubbles from his head through his mouth. He felt his blood pressure drop. It would be a long lunch, much longer than any they had ever had.

They ordered their meals, and plenty of wine, even though Darius whined plenty about the Bordeaux. Mary K. would glance or glare (slightly inebriated, Damien did not know which) while she served them, and she spoke little. Courage rose swiftly as the drinks were poured downward, and Damien found himself speaking to Darius, not whispering.
"So why’d ya bring us here?"
Darius smiled.
"Poker tournament tonight."
"Hold ‘em?"
"Hold ‘em."
"What time?"
"Eight thirty."
"We’re going to stay here until then?"
"Yeah."
"What are we going to do?"
Darius paused before he answered.
"Well, I’m going to meet with a ‘client’ [Darius made scare quotes with his fingers, Damien’s pet peeve], I don’t know what you’re going to do."
Normally, being thus abandoned would have made Damien upset, but he was still mildly drunk, and accepted his fate.
"Where’s the casino?"
"There’s a map somewhere. You’ll find it. Wander. Err. Become a planet. Have an adventure."
Darius was looking at his watch now. It was a much nicer one than Damien had known him to have in the past. Things were looking up for Darius. He probably suckered some high class businessman into gambling or gamboling or gaming. Darius probably became buddy-buddy with said businessman, hence the invitation to such a grandiose country club (that verged on empire). And Darius not knowing what to do with the guest of a guest pass, as he was girl-less and knew no one that liked him enough to join him, suckered Damien into playing at the tournament. So much for spontaneity.

The meal was finished in silence, with Darius glancing at his watch more and more frequently. Damien had lost interest in whatever it was that he had ordered (or had ordered for him) and focused primarily on the wine. He found himself staring uncontrollably at pretty Mary K. whenever she stopped by to retrieve dirty dishes or refill the wine. It might have been the torpor of the stupor, but he could not turn away. She either did not notice or did not mind. His reactions became sluggish. He began to think that he had had too much. Darius looked slightly different through blurred eyes. Movements seemed faster, time seemed slower. Hermes was mercurial, the maidens seemed unseemly. Like Darius, Damien was all smiles. He could not help but smile, and his mind did not mind this situation.

Mary K. brought the bill, hesitated between the two, and, following a nod from Darius, handed Damien the bill.

Just Starting to Make It My Obssession

I have finished "A Dead Man in Deptford." I don't know what to read next. I have about two more books from Burgess that I could read, but I think I need to read someone other than Burgess before I start on those--I think that would balance things out. I could read the new Harry Potter... Any suggestions?

This is page three.

****

"Take you for instance," again pausing, this time for dramatic effect, "What do you do for a living? You’re a gambler!" He spoke too loud. Far too loud. Damien looked to see if any one was looking. Darius edged close to him from across the table, nearly upsetting an empty wine glass.
"You, sir, take advantage of both aspects of life, merely by your existence. You accept the gamble of life, as it were, by gambling. And in gambling, you are making a gambol of life. Do you understand?" Darius’s near whisper somehow did not comfort him.
"Yes." He whispered, feeling sheepish and somewhat troubled by this conversation.
"So, why don’t you ask what’s-her-name for her number?"
"I don’t know." Weren’t they supposed to order now?
"If you ask her for her number, I’ll pay for lunch."
"Okay, I’ll ask her."

Damien figured that would end this awkward debacle of a conversation, and he would get rejected and prove to Darius, once and for all, that this matter should never be spoke of again. He also figured that they would not see the maitre d’ until the end of the meal, on their way out possibly, though he held a suspicion that this would be something more than a meal; that this was no ordinary lunch where he and his bookie would go about their lives afterward. He did not understand the whole "day pass" situation, and the thought of not knowing a key detail, and not having a good idea about the outcome left him uncomfortable. Why the Club Persai?

Lost in thought, he wondered why they still had not ordered yet. Darius was blabbing on, something about philosophical puzzles and Wittgenstein–Darius began to scoff, and Damien began to sweat. What was taking so long? The obligation of asking the maitre d’ was bearing down on him, and he could not bear it. He could only play with menu for so long, the linen tablecloth having lost his attention. He thought about his dream, his nightmare. Darius looked like one of the devils glad in his despair. He felt like he was falling again. The sweat was poring in copious amounts now; he wondered if anyone noticed. Darius did not. Darius never noticed anything. He was trying not to retch, despite how wretched he felt. The queen, the near omnipresent queen, forever pervading his thoughts, flashed behind shut eyelids, and when he opened them...

"I’m sorry for the wait, gentlemen." There was ice in her voice. She was not sorry at all.
"We are a little short-handed today, and we just noticed that your section of the restaurant has not been served yet. I will be your waitress this afternoon. My name is Mary."
Pretty Mary K. She seemed older, and it seemed like ages when he first saw her. He felt he already knew her, and that she already knew him, and they already hated each other from previous experience. He couldn’t ask. But Darius would not let it go. He knew that Darius would not let it go. They ordered wine first: a Bordeaux for Darius, and Pinot Grigio for Damien. Damien would need a lot of wine. When Mary K. left, Darius said, "You didn’t ask for her number."
"I was taken off guard."
"I won’t pay for the meal if you don’t ask her number."
"By when?"
"The next time we see her." Darius was intent. It may have been the first time Damien had not seen Darius smile. Hesitantly, he responded.
"Okay. Okay."
She came presently with the wine, and he asked. It was a fumbling, stumbling, mumbling request, followed by much wine. A half glass in a gulp. She responded by walking away. Darius was smiling villainously.

Page Two (I Wrote It By Mistake)

Two notes before I post page two. First, I bought "Figure 8." Second, I have about five pages done. Comments welcome, as always.

****

While waiting for the maitre d’, He whispered to Darius:
"How’d you manage to get us into this place?"
"Don’t you worry about that dear friend," Darius said boisterously, "I have connections, and business is good. Business is very good."
The volume of Darius’s voice attracted the maitre d’, an attractive girl who looked no older than sixteen. Her name tag read, "Mary K." Darius winked and nudged him, and smiled. He smiled and smiled. From behind blue eyes she asked, "Your day passes gentlemen?"
"Day pass–"
"Right here." Darius stepped forward and produced two cards, followed by a driver’s license. Mary K. looked them over and cooly said, "You didn’t register your guest."
"I did, I called in an hour ago."
"I need to see his identification." Darius looked at him.
Baffled, shocked, and somewhat ashamed, he pulled out his wallet and clumsily handed his license over to the girl.
"Damien... Aleksey?" Her brow furrowed, making her seem angry at the name.
"Yes," was all he could mutter.
"Let me check the records." She stepped away, down the hall to disappear in the greatness.
"A day pass? Why are we eating here?" Damien was still whispering, as if he didn’t deserve to speak.
"You check out the fox? You should get her number." Darius was smiling and looking down the hall to see if he could see her.
This comment cut the conversation. He could not stand when Darius would suggest that he call, talk to, or stare at women. Damien would not admit it, but he was still a virgin. The term itself was so feminine, he felt emasculated just thinking of it. It was a pure term, and yet it was something that left him ashamed. He remembered the smile on the queen of hearts’ face. He remembered the fall. Suddenly pretty Mary K. appeared.
"Yeah, he checks out. This way, gentlemen."

"Life," Darius paused for philosophical import, "is but a gamble, a gambol."
They were sitting at their table, waiting. They had not yet ordered. There were two glasses before him, a salad plate, an excess of forks and knives and spoons. There was a fine linen table cloth that Damien could not help but play with, and he was distracted because Darius was affected. Darius was always affected when he played philosopher, always discoursing gambling, its honors, its virtues. One lunch he spoke of probability. He called upon Karl Popper’s theory that probability is a propensity in nature, that it exists, and Darius concluded that one should accept it. He spoke of the gambler’s fallacy at another meeting, and Hume’s treatment of induction on yet another. Damien knew that he didn’t really know what Darius was talking about when he was thus affected, but nodded and agreed. Damien liked it better when Darius would talk about scores, or politics, or religion. Damien continued playing with the tablecloth while Darius continued, oblivious to Damien’s obliviousness.
"One must understand this, and take advantage of both aspects of life. The gambling, and the gamboling." Darius was pleased with his pun, so he would iterate it ad infinitum.
"I guess." One of the glasses shuddered from the movement of the tablecloth

Page One, Page One...

This is the first page of the story that I am writing that will be due on 1 August 2005. I don't have a title yet. I have three pages so far, but I won't post all of it at once, as that might make the entry too long. I will try to post a page every day until the story's end for those of you who have nothing better to do than check my blog every day. Let me know what you think of it.

****

He woke up gasping, reaching, retching. He was soaked in sweat (piss?), a vinegar-like film that made him smell and slip. He slid in his own sheets, the dream still real in the fuzz of new dawn. In his dream, He is about to fall down a rabbit-hole; he is clutching the dirt, twigs, and grass for dear life, for below was the City of Dis, ready to consume him in flames that torturously burned the heretics, the pagans, the atheists. In his dream, he ends up slipping down because the queen of hearts (an apparition most apparent) sentences and sends him there, much to the glee of Beelzebub and Mephistopheles. He falls into the burning light, and awakens.

This dream occurred and recurred, a current current in the streams of sleep. He would usually wake up relieved, glad the near-real was denied by the real, and go about his daily business. But he felt off this morning, still hot, the dream a little more fresh than usual. He could not efface the smug smile on the queen of hearts’ face, still vivid in a mind capable of producing and reproducing images; the fall itself; and the intense heat just before wakening. They were all uncannily real. A cold shower would help.

His daily business was not truly a business, other than it kept himself busy. He would wake up at dawn, sweating from his dream, and, in a dream-like stupor, smoke a cigarette for breakfast. After a shower, he would check the scores in the paper, or on television, of all the teams in various sports on which he had placed bets. He would call his bookie. He met is bookie daily for lunch at a sports bar, or a grille, or a fast food chain—whichever place that spontaneity mandated. His bookie would pay for lunch or have him pay for lunch, and they would discuss politics, religion, philosophy—whatever spontaneity mandated. At the dinner hour, he would head towards the nearest casino at the reservation and play Texas Hold ‘em into the early hours of the next day. He would go home, drunk, tired—whichever his spontaneous body mandated—and would sleep, perchance to dream a different dream. He never dreamt a different dream.

"So, the Club Persai?" He almost forgot that he was on the phone with Darius, discussing lunch plans.
"I guess. Have I eaten there before?"
"No, I thought we’d go someplace different. I feel like being spontaneous."
"Okay. We’ll go then."
"Great. Get dressed up, this place is high class, and you’re payin’!"
Bewildered, he checked the scores for the Red Sox game; they had lost, which meant he had lost.
So, two hours later, donned in a black coat, white shoes, and a black hat, he met Darius in the parking lot outside the Club Persai. Darius was all smiles, all the time. He never lost, no matter who won. He would take a hefty cut from winnings, and he would take all from losings. Darius fixed his tie, patted him on the back, and then led him inside.

The Club Persai was a large, grand hall, filled with fine tables, fine china, fine people. There were intricate, baroque paintings of maidens in pools or rivers or oceans all over the walls; there was a bronze statue of Hermes or Mercury with his shield and his shoes with their wings, and he stood still, posing for an infinite minute. The Club Persai was a country club that looked over a vast country of one hundred and fifty eight acres. It had a golf course. It had a casino. He was impressed with the place, unlike any place he had ever been to, and yet very familiar.

Before and After

Here are the pictures, as promised.

Before


After


Before


After


Before


After


Just an After

Clogging

Should I even link to this?

Doe-Rae-Mi

Beware leechers of wireless networks!

On another note...

I saw something that made me angry. It was a Toyota Prius with the following bumper sticker:

Tax the Rich
SUV=WMD

Aside from the non-sequitur, and the obvious problem with equating two abbreviations, it just seemed superfluous to have a bumper sticker such as this on a Prius. By driving a Toyota Prius, you are already making a statement about your political philosophy: who would want to drive an expensive, hideous, and powerless car other than those who really want to stick it to their SUV driving peers? And why would someone want to "Tax the Rich" when he spent an inordinate amount of money on his Prius? It boggles my mind.

On yet another note....

Here's the first draft of Mike's logo for the graphics/clothing company he wants to start; he wants to call it "Stellas."



I wanted to add something about language and pronunciation, but it's late. So all you get are my three notes, which, if turned into chords and sped up, might become a horrible punk song.

Creatively Non-Creative

I have not been very good--or creative--these past couple of days. Maybe the past couple of weeks. My posts evince this. Fortunately, one of my good friends sent me something via email that will serve as a post.

"I believe in adventure. I believe in backpacks instead of rolling bags despite the bruised hips and shoulders. I belive in hostels and internet cafes run by German-Indian men with bad b.o. I believe that one can live off of salami, cheese and bread and drink only water for weeks on end. I believe in the kindness of the Irish, the hospitality of the Swiss, the French, the Canadian, the Dutch, the Belgian, the English and the German. I believe in beautiful European children. I believe in falling in love over and over again with the world around me. I believe in spending long train rides with my MP3 player watching the world go by or sleeping on someone's shoulder whom I met three days earlier. I believe in stuffy noses, headaches, sore backs, tired feet, cuts, mystery bruises, sprained ankles and blisters. But I also believe that those things are nothing that a hot shower and a nap can't fix. I believe in Guinness, rosti, chocolate, waffles, crepes, anything with Nutella, coffee and bread for breakfast, and ice cream. I believe in love at first sight and kissing under the Eiffel Tower like a 1960's French movie. I believe in meeting someone and changing your plans for them. I believe that 5 weeks on your own can make you realize that everything you thought you wanted is not at all what you want. I believe in wearing the same outfit for three days in a row and the same jeans for three weeks. I believe in giant bags of Haribo gummy bears. I belive in being strong, independent, outgoing, kind, brave and lovely. I believe in deciphering strange keyboards. I believe in mountains, beaches, cities, museums, cafes, bars, clubs, pubs and parks. Ultimately, I believe in the right to travel on your own and the courage to do it. "
-Berlin, 2005
Meredith Sherwin
International Nomad

And if that doesn't get your mo-jo going, then I guess some of the links I added might.

The pact, however, is still in tact. So, by my word, I must produce something creative, complete, and good by 1 August 2005. And, as far as I know, pictures will still be coming soon, maybe within the next week or so.

Happy Birthday, Suleyman

Hung up here on a web of comfort
Taking off with nowhere to go
Standing tall with but your new cloak armor
Making out like it's all been done
It's harder than it seems
You slip but never fall

They'll take you, when you wont come back to me

Tearing down what we built up so well
Layin' low as you came my way
Look alive with your head on backwards, goin off when there's nothin wrong
It's only in your dreams, but it felt like it was real

They'll take you, when you won't come back to me

Hang loose, my friend dont walk away from me, because i really think you're cool
Is it worth turning back despite these open hands?
You're tearing me apart.

They'll take you, when you won't come back to me
(you need to find yourself).

~Jimmy Eat World
Seventeen

(Ironically--fittingly--that is how old my brother is turning today.)

Independence Day

future butterfly gonna spend the day higher than high
you'll be beautiful confusion
ooh once i was you
i saw you caught between all the people out making the scene
and a bright ideal tomorrow
ooh, don't go too far
stay who you are
everybody knows
everybody knows
everybody knows
you only live a day
but it's brilliant anyway
i saw you at a perfect place
it's gonna happen soon but not today
so go to sleep and make the change
i'll meet you here tomorrow
independence day
independence day
independence day

~Elliott Smith

The Nymph

"Kit read the title from the ill-ordered manuscript Raleigh took from his ill-ordered table: The Transformation of the King of Triniidado's two daughters, Madam Panacea and the Nymph Tobacco. He said:
-- This last name, which I do not know, seems not a feminine name.
-- Well, she may at first strike you with a masculine buffet, but thereafter she is gentler than love. And all that Hariot says is true. You know Hariot? No, but you will. There are many that you are yet to know. Are you willing to yield to the nymph? You look doubtful. Well, I will demonstrate.

And Raleigh opened up a cabinet under his window. It held rows of long tubes, as he showed, curved gracefully and ending in a shallow bowl. Clay, he said, as in Virginia, but here I have one especially fashioned in silver. It glinted in the firelight. And here is the nymph. From a drawer of the cabinet he took a fair pinch of a herb, strands of yellow, brown, black, and stuffed this in the silver bowl. Smell, he said, proffering. Kit sniffed. Heady, outlandish, altogether new. And now, Raleigh said, her enlivening and curative spirit riseth in smoke. He took from a pot a spill and enflamed it at his fire. Then he inflamed the herb, the herb smouldered, he drew in smoke and, in a blue jet, emitted it. The aroma sidled towards Kit; Kit coughed gently. Aye, you will cough more when you kiss her. But the cough will be in the manner of a cleansing, a disgorgement of the grosser humours, you may even vomit them up. There is a bowl beneath that table. And then no more coughing, only the bliss of inhalation. Curse it, my talking has doused her. And he refired his spill and relighted. The blue jet bore his words: Will you try?"

~ Anthony Burgess
A Dead Man in Deptford (pp. 126-7)