Artaud

There is a song by a lovely little band by the name of Okkervil River that mentions the handsome devil above. In this little tune they discuss someone who has wealth, lots of wealth, and then they bemoan the fact that isn't it a pity that life gave the person shit else. A know or have known a couple of people so afflicted. They have wealth and fuck all else. No talent, no grace, no intellect, and very little class. Yet, these people are, in many respects, better off than me. All because their mother had the foresight to screw someone with money. It seems that the wolf that raised me has even more crimes to answer for than I originally thought. I mean would have really made that much difference to hold out giving it up till a rich fellow staggered along? Apparently that was too much to ask. Not that I am overloaded with talent, grace, or class, but really you can clearly see that these people have NO other saving grace(s). Sad in some ways, very frustrating in other ways. Mommy and Daddy's money can buy just about anything. Heaven forbid if junior gets into trouble with the law, or does something eye watering stupid at work. Money can fix that no worries, to whom do I make the check payable to? These little "acts" are worthy of being included in Artuad's Theatre of Cruelty, though not quite in the way he intended it. Of course, in some respects these people are a victim of their own parent's success. What should they do? Refrain from getting that private school education in order to rub elbows with us public school plebs? Being a man of the people is all well and good as long as you can afford to keep the people at a safe distance. I suppose we should not begrudge them the "luck of the draw," or the "accident of birth" that made them have a gold plated childhood. The true crime is the ones that waste it. Though in my limited experience I have come to the conclusion that all our parents fuck us up in one way or the other, and rich kids parents can just afford to fuck their kids up on a grander scale. May they feel the need to atone for being rich by making their kids lives so very "easy." Who knows, and at the end of the day I can not fathom why I cared enough to write a post about it. Other that the fact that it gives me something to post about. I feel some sort of renewed vigour to post now days. Not that I think I have gotten much better at it, but their is one theory that does state practice makes perfect. Maybe if I keep pecking away I will achieve something in the general vicinity of decent product. Perfection always needs to remain a goal, if it isn't then why bother trying after you achieve it? Sort of the ending on a high note theory of George Costanza. Always leave them wanting more, and make sure you do not bury you shining moment under a mountain of gaffes, mistakes, and down right blunders. The irony of this post is that my previous post celebrated, in my own limited way, my "talent" and here I am writing one of the most unfocused, meandering, pointless posts I have every managed to write. Guess I am saving everyone the trouble, and writing my own comeuppance.

Mover of Mountains

I can move mountains, you know, I can with just a few minor keystrokes move mountains, make animals roar, children cry, or the universe fold in upon itself. With those little hand movements that we all take for granted, and with the time to unshackle my imagination all sorts of wonders can be unleashed. Disasters can be either averted, described, or slammed into head first. All sorts of yummy sights, sounds, and flavours can be unleashed. Little mundane things that most of us overlook in the day to day grind that is our lives can be made into the most glorious, important, or terrifying thing any of us have ever seen. All of this I (at least believe) can do. With mere seconds of preparation, and a firm grasp on the spell check button I can transport myself to distant lands that I will never be able to visit. I can, if I think hard enough, go back in time, or zip into the future. All while just sitting here in my ass groove in my favourite chair. Those happy few amongst us that wish to come with me are more than welcome. I, of course, do not pretend to believe there are that many, nor do I think that the trip is always well received or planned. I suppose at some level that is not really the point, though a terribly executed trip is certainly something to be avoided at all costs. One should not over pack for a journey, but one has to be careful to bring along just enough clean underwear to last. Sometimes it is very, very difficult to move these mountains, or wander amongst these clouds. Other times it seems to be the easiest, most natural thing I have ever done. I, being the person that I am, usually look back, and think "damn I could have done that SO much better if I had any talent." Once in a blue moon, I indulge myself, and think "wow, that is certainly a lovely job, and I should be proud." I sometimes move the same mountain twice, or I sometimes fail to move the right mountain, or I move the damn mountain too much, or too little, or in the wrong direction. I suppose these are just some of the pitfalls of mountain moving. Sometimes you just have to let the mountain go where it wants to, and try to enjoy the ride without getting buried under the stones that you, yourself broke loose. Of course it is not just mountains. Given enough time to think things through I can provide you with many more things than just mountains. You like rivers, swamps, alleys, or multitudes of gleaming armed men willing to die for a cause? No worries, I can up to a certain point pull them out of the proverbial hat. Just make sure your expectations are not set too high, and I am fairly sure I can meet your needs. Sometimes it is just that easy. Of course, other times I can not conjure anything of value, and those are the times that life just is not any fun. We all have our crises of faith, and dry spell afflict even the best of us, but the trick is to keep the lines of imagination open. After all, everyone loves a good mountain story.

The Peninsula War

"I feel as if my life has become what the Peninsula War was to Napoleon." Kind of cheeky I guess quoting myself, but it is how I have felt the last few weeks or so. I did consider making that the entire post, and leaving my hordes of readers to decipher what I meant by that murky comment. However, since I not exactly sure what I mean by it either, I figure that perhaps writing it out would help. At least that is what my therapist(s) Dr. Kronenbourg and Dr. Duvel say, but who knows how much grasp they have on reality? The fellow above one Louis Suchet was one of the few of Napoleon's military men to come out of the Peninsula with his reputation enhanced. I fear that my war will not enhance, but destroy my (albeit already shaky) reputation. I had this brilliant idea about this analogy last night, but in today's overcast light it does seem much more difficult to put into what passes, for me, coherent thought. Napoleon, he of the excellent love letters to his lady Josephine, I am not. I have not sent legions of my men/minions across the Pyrenees to their doom. Mainly because I do not have legions of minions, nor am I anywhere near the Pyrenees. Legions of minions would be nice, they might be able to deflect, or at least soften the blows that I have taken lately. Granted, some of them are self-inflicted, but the majority are from outside sources. However, all my disasters are, to me at least, just as brutal as Salamanca, Fuentes de Onoro, and Bailén where to the French. Napoleon called his little Spanish adventure "a bleeding ulcer." Well I can feel his pain, here I am two hundred and one years later reliving it for him. Unlike him I have several Dukes of Wellington aligned against me. If one can defeat Napoleon, imagine what several have been, and still are doing to me. It is not pretty, it is not fun, and it is not safe. There is, as far as I can tell, no escape the violence of my ancestors (I can almost trace my family fruit tree back to one of Napoleon's generals) is coming back to haunt me. The bill is due, and I am the one having to write the check. I am quite positive that I am not equal to this task. I can only hope that the flimsy gates that I have erected keep the barbarians at bay long enough to salvage something. I certainly do not expect to be exiled to a nice little island off the coast of Italy as my punishment simply because, to me, that would not BE punishment. The ship of my state has sprung several leaks, and I do believe I will be forced to continue sailing until I sink it. Perhaps I am, like Eeyore, being a touch too gloomy, but at the moment it does not seem that way. I suppose, that at the end of the day, I have little choice but to soldier on, after all, surrender terms have not even been considered. I am not sure my Dukes of Wellington are interested in surrender. I think they may be more of the burn and annihilate types. One in particular has expressed his hatred of me and my kind, and seems to be "in it to win it." There is both good news and bad news concerning this. The bad news is that he has minions, well-placed minions that could, if they choose, crush me like a bug. Hey, I did say it was bad news. The good news is that his publicly expressed hatred of me serves as a sort of a ralllying point, an inspiration to not surrender but to dig in, grit my teeth, and blast away with all my remaining strength. Even better news is that this "Duke" is several years my senior. In a war of attrition this is important. After all his path to the grave is, in theory, shorter than mine, and that might just make all the difference.

Good News, Bad News

I read, I read a lot, and I read a lot of various things. For the last year or so I have been noticing a disturbing trend in my readings. Not the topic, they are still as varied as ever, but I have begun to notice that I have real problems with character(s). There has been in almost ever book I have read in the last two years a character that I absolutely LOATE. A character that I wish a quick, painful, brutal death to on every page they appear. Characters that make me want to put down the book, and stop reading altogether. Characters that when they show up make me start to just skip pages, not skim, but SKIP. Great swathes of pages that I can not read because the character is such a pain in the ass that it makes me want to puke. I had begun to be really concerned about this a couple of months ago when I figured out that almost all the characters I loathed were female characters. Granted I am an unrepentant misanthrope, but have I sunk to misogyny as well? There were female characters that I wanted to boil in oil just so I would not have to read any more of their blathering. In my mind, I begged the author to kill off this character for the sake of Western literature. Of course, as usual with these things, invariably the character that I loathed not only survived to the end of the book, but was, of course, the heroine of the day. Generally, the one who gets the boy, the castle or whatever, the title, and lives happily ever after to my general disgust. This usually made me even madder, not only did the lousy character live, but lived to the very fucking end of the book. One of the characters was in a EIGHT book series, and I loathed her from the first book. Imagine reading SEVEN more books itching for her to die an agonizing death and having her live to the last fucking page. This is the bad news that not only do the characters I hate seem to be predominately female, they seems to live forever. I have become a misogynistic pig. Great my mother will be so very proud. But then along came Karsa Orlong a character in a series of book entitled the Malazan Book of the Fallen. A series of (so far) about ten books. Mr. Orlong puts in his appearance in book four titled House of Chains, and let me tell you I LOATHE him. He is like superman, batman, and God all rolled up into one. Can not be killed, can not be harmed (if he is accidentally wounded he heals super fast), can not be wrong. His character is about a deep as a mud puddle, though part of that may be on purpose, but whenever he shows up large amounts of people die at his hand by his superhuman, godlike ability, and he just strolls away. It is disgustingly bad, and somewhat sad because the rest of the books in the series that I have read, have been fairly good books. However, Orlong made reading House of Chains both a chore, and eventually quicker. When he put in his appearance I could just skip about 15 pages of him killing about a hundred heavily armed people, and no sully myself with reading about it. Watching superman/god cut through normal humans like butter gets really, really fucking old about the 12th time it happens. I mean this guy is amazing. I am really not doing him justice calling him superman/god. I am pretty sure Mr. Orlong would beat god to death with superman's head after he lopped it off. However, the good news is that at least he has solved my earlier problem, he is ALL MAN, ALL THE TIME, and my loathing of him at least sets my compass back to mere misanthrope. Of course, I am quite sure that he will survive, and conquer until the bitter end, which is this case is a mere six (thousand pages or so per) books away. D'Oh!

In Vitriol

Very rarely can any one point to one moment in time, and with the remarkable clarity that comes from 20/20 hindsight, realize that there, at that precise moment, it all started to go horribly wrong. However, there are we few, we unhappy few, that have that gift bestowed upon them. I am one of that band of brothers. For me, the date is September 29th, 2006. That is the day on which my life went down the path marked "SHIT ZONE AHEAD." Funny, how clearly it is to see the mistake(s) that I should have known I was making. That was the day that I purchased the money pit/death trap in which I currently reside. I loathe it. There is, in fact, not one good thing about it. I can't even say, with any confidence it will not leak or collapse, that I have a roof over my head. There in lies part of the reason for this vitriolic post. The roof that was "redecorated" by the tree that tried to kill me, and one very crooked, crackhead contractor later, is STILL not fixed, and needs to be completely redone. The joy of home ownership is one of the biggest fucking lies perpetrated on the American people in a hundred years. There are no joys. The "tax break" myth is absolute bollocks. The money you save in taxes is more than made up for by the constant lawn work, the plumbing leaking, the painting that needs to be done, the updating of the kitchen that you need, the heater breaking, or the fucking trees that try to murder you in your sleep. All in all, I would just rather pay the fucking taxes. Let good, old Uncle Sam buy a ten thousand dollar toilet seat with my money. Some government official or local politico needs to have a comfy place to take a crap right? Why not let me pick up the tab for it? After all at least then I would not have to worry about doling out the extra money to fix the fucking toilet when it starts to leak. Of course the money pit/death trap, while being by far the largest mistake I have made since that fateful (fatal?) day, is not the only one. After all, why do things in half-measures? If you are going to ruin your future make sure you do it right, no need for just fucking up half way when you can shoot the moon. The beauty of these mistakes are that they are all encompassing. There are horrid personal mistakes, glaring career mistakes, shocking financial mistake, and just down right stupid fucking everyday mistakes. I am like the Baskin-Robbins of mistakes, 32 flavours, and then some. The sad part is that on some level I had some vague notion of some of this mistakes, and yet I made them anyway. I feel like I should adopt the George Costanza approach, if every instinct I have is wrong, then the opposite MUST be right. Like some bizarre world where up is down, and left is right. Perhaps the opposite of whatever my next decision is will be the right one. The one that gets my life out of the aforementioned ten thousand dollars crapper, and on the road to recovery. One never knows I suppose until, of course, almost three years later when they put two and two together and finally, after multiple attempts, get an even number less than six, but more than two. Wisdom comes late, or so they say, and trouble when it comes, comes not as a single scout, but in battalions. Well it appears I have battalions of young, unwise idiots piloting my brain ship into the shoals of disaster. Somewhere I am depriving a village of a perfectly good idiot. I say this with complete honesty, and in no way motivated by a desire for any sympathy. Sympathy is for the old, the weak, and the feeble minded. Oh wait I am old, and appear to be feeble minded, perhaps a LITTLE sympathy would not be such a bad thing. Actually, it probably since I am so feeble minded it would just be lost on me anyway. Whatever this disease is that allows people afflicted with it the ability to see, but not learn from, or repair their major life changing disasters, it is certainly one that you don't need.

This War

See those lovely brown spots? They are not some ancient symbol of infertility, or some crop circle some slack jawed farmer in Iowa found one day while out milking the cows. No, those sweet, sweet brown spots are what happens to my lawn after about ten days of 101 degree heat with no rain. Not even a mist or some dew to slacken the raging thirst of my grudge against the world grass. After Mother Nature's attempt to assassinate me, war was declared, and has been progressing quite well for my troops. You see without rain, i.e. water green shit dies. It dies a slow, painful, horrible death. Slowly withering away to a brown husk of its former self. Tough, and I am sure that if grass could feel pain (here's hoping) it sounds like a painfully shitty way to die. As I previously posted nothing green can stay, and Mother Nature's head on a silver plate would be a lovely way for this war to end. Once the rains of May give way to the sizzling heat of June, and the mind numbing heat of July my forces(meaning myself and various tools of minor destruction) will be triumphant. Until Mother Nature decides she has had enough, or brings the rain, I control the water supply that my lawn, and it various minions of Mother Nature receive. Would you care to guess how much water that is going to be? Let's go with none, nada, rein, zilch, the big ZERO. I am not a cruel man. The thought of perhaps giving the lawn a snippet of water once a week has crossed my mind. Sort of a new, improved water torture. Give it just enough water to not die, but not enough to keep it alive. Fairly wicked of me it is not? However, mercy is a sign of a civilized man, and I am the model of civility (ask anyone they will tell you). I do not wish to prolong the death throes of Mother Nature's denizens on my property, in fact the quicker they wither and die the better for everyone involved. This was never meant to be fun for anyone. It simply became a test of wills, and a matter of principle, and while the civility comment above might be horseshit, ask those same people if I have principles shot through with an iron will to achieve what I set out to do. I will leave Mother Nature high, and will leave Mother Nature dry on the property that I own. I repeat for her benefit nothing green can stay.

We are the Nearly Men

Nearly men, the ones that ALMOST made it big, the ones that ALMOST got carried around the village square on the shoulders of their fans, the ones that ALMOST got that ticker tape parade in New York City. It seems I am a fan of nearly men, possessing a unerring ability to pick them out, and hitch my wagon to their almost star. The nearly men I speak of are, of course, sports teams. Hope you did not think this post was going to be some deep political, or philosophical discourse on the nature of ubermen. I have already chronicled my sad love affair with the Minnesota Vikings, and the four super bowls they have lost in my life time. This does not include their other near-misses going to two NFC championship games in the last decade or so, and losing. Once again nearly men. Then there are my soccer clubs. The picture on this post is of my latest "nearly men" the Swedish Under 21 team that just lost the semi-finals of the European Championship to perfidious Albion on penalty kicks. The fellow with his head in his hands is Guillmero Molins, and the reason he is on his knees in despair is because he just clanged his penalty shot off the post, thus ensuring that the douche bag keeper's team, i.e. England, get to play in the final. I know it is odd for a full blooded American to be a fan of the Swedish football (soccer) team, but I never claimed to be normal. I have been a of Swedish soccer since their senior side were nearly men in the 1994 World Cup. Finishing third after losing to those samba bastards Brazil. Beginning my love affair with Swedish soccer in general, and Henrik Larsson in particular. Even before I was born (many, many moons ago) they were nearly men in 1958, losing in the final to those bastards Brazil and Pele 5-2. Seems Brazil just has my number. Even the women's soccer team managed somehow to lost the World Cup final to the stinking Germans in 2003 2-1, after leading 1-0. Then there is my EPL team, Arsenal. The team that has the most 2nd place finishes in the Premier league since its inception in 1992 (5). Granted I have not been a fan of Arsenal all my life but they have one exactly one thing in the years I have. Even managing to lose in the Champion League final in 2006 to Barcelona and my favourite player Larsson. Nothing like watching your favourite player rip the heart out of your favourite team on a big screen TV. Of course the Swedish hockey team has been nearly men a few times as well losing in the Under 21 finals to Canada in 2008. Though they did to be fair win the gold medal and the European Championship in 2006. The only team that I support that has climbed to the top of the mountain is the North Carolina men's basketball team. Winning the title 4 times in my lifetime (1982, 1993, 2005, and 2009). Of course they have made the Final Four 13 times in that time. So four out of thirteen not the best odds in the world, but at least they won something. Maybe this is some sort of character flaw of mine, or maybe I just like a bunch of fucking losers. All these nearly men moments leave me a bit like M. Molins up there, head in hands despair coursing through my soul, and the realization that we were THAT close. I guess at I should be encouraged that at least my teams are there at the end. I mean losing the FINAL, while gutting, does mean that you were in the final to begin with. It could be much worse I could be a Cubs fan or a Tottenham fan (shiver).

Nothing Green can Stay

"I would like to report a crime please." The desk Sargent looks up from his paper with a bored expression on his face, slaps down three pieces of paper on the desk in front of him, and asks "your name?" "My name is GI," I reply a bit shakily since the crime in question had happened a mere few minuets ago. "Name of the person you are complaining against, and the nature of the crime." "Simple," I say "Her name is Mother Nature, and she just attempted to murder/assassinate me." That gets his attention he looks at me through narrowed eyes, and says "look buddy, I do not know, nor do I care, what fucking drugs you have to take in order to make yourself believe that Mother Nature tried to murder you, but this is a police station, not a lunatic asylum." "Filing a false offense report is a felony, so why don't you just get up, and leave, and I will pretend this did not happen." "Sir, I am serious." "Not more than 48 hours ago that bitch Mother Nature tried to kill me." Now if I were a better writer of dialog, I would continue to tell the tale of my attempted murder along this story arc, but since I suck at it, allow me to explain why this post is being written. I have a small yard at my house, and it is a constant source of angst for me. It seems I have grass that grows like it has a grudge against the world, and therefore, requires mowing at least twice a week. It is amazing. I LOATHE yard work. I went to nearly a decade of school(s) so that would no longer be forced to do yard work. In my opinion the day I was handed a diploma I said goodbye to yard work. Being fantastically wealthy I do not feel the need to nurture the world by making shit grow. In fact, I get a certain sense of sadistic pride in cutting shit DOWN. Trees in my yard are not safe. I purchased a handy dandy tree lopper just so I can lop off trees heads like Robespierre during the Reign of Terror. I lop them with undisguised glee. However, of course the bastards just grow back again. Thus, my unending war against all things green. I have big plans for this war. Large swathes of my fee simple are going to be laid to waste, and sown with salt to ensure that I win this war. Well, on Friday Mother Nature decided to fight back. The photos above are of my house and the huge fucking tree that the bitch lobbed with evil intent onto my house. As you can tell, it was not a small tree, and as of this writing is still on my house awaiting some lunatic with a crane, a chain saw, and a death wish to come remove it. All for the low, low price of around $1800 American dollars. Good times. A hole in the roof, and a rainstorm or two has added to Mother Nature's crimes. I need roof repair, gutter repair, and a stiff drink. The drink was necessary because the kicker of the tree attacks house story is that not thirty seconds before the tree "fell" (or was pushed) I was standing in its landing zone. Good thing I did not drop any of the items I was carrying into the house, or this post might be written as an obituary. It might not have killed me, but it certainly would have given me a peek at the other side. Thus, my complaint that Mother Nature, that dangerously insane cunt, is trying to kill me. So war it is, and it is going to be a long one. I understand that she has forces at her control that can pick me up like a rag doll, and toss me miles away, or forces that can crush me like a bug. Legions of animals at her beck and call, can devour me whole as a snack (and I am not a small man). Whole acres of ground can open up and, swallow me at the wave of her outstretched hand. Plagues, diseases, fires, pestilences, and all sort of nasty things are at her disposal if she wants to rid the world of my stain. My power pales somewhat in comparison. However, I am stubborn as an Army mule, and I hold a grudge. I have reestablished plans to build a particle accelerator in my bathtub in order to arm myself with nuclear weapons. All I need is a little plutonium, and I am set. Until then, I will have to do with my tree lopper, weed whacker, lawn mower, and an indomitable will to win this war. Consider this post to be my declaration of war on good old Mother Nature. I plan on turning my freehold into Hell's Half Acre for Mother Nature. Until one of us quits, or is crushed like a bug (or by a bug), within my dominions (i.e. my house and small yard), Nothing Green Can Stay.

See, This is why we can't have nice things

“a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

The above quote is from the newly nominated Sonia Sotomayor. Nominated, that is, for the Supreme Court. You know, the top one, the one that there is no appeal from, the one that is pretty much the final word, the one you are appointed to for fucking life. The court that pretends its wisdom is so very much better than everyone else. Now, I can only hope this comment was taken out of context, although there is no evidence to support that hope, because this offends my tender (white male) sensibilities. If Justice Scalia were to say that a white male with his rich experience would reach better conclusions that a Latina woman he would be nailed to a cross on the Washington Mall. True be told, I do not care. I am not some white male supremacist. I do not care, I dislike all humans for the most part up to, and including white males. We are not a particularly bright group, and have buggered up pretty much everything that we have touched since we began touching them. That being said quotes like the one above makes us want to "circle the wagons," and start lobbing out racist/sexist remarks like it is Custer's last stand. I would assume that Sotomayor is speaking of herself as a wise "Latina woman." Perhaps she is, perhaps she is the smartest Latina woman in the world, but with comments like that I somehow wonder about that idea. After all, there have been a couple, just a couple, of wise white males that have sat on the Supreme Court, and there have been total white male morons there as well. The thing is that in today's world we all (in theory) have richness of experiences, and the key is now days to realize that just because my experience is as a white male, and yours maybe as a Latina woman, they are both still rich. One is not better than the other, different certainly, better not so much. I am certain there are situations that a Latina woman's experience would enable her to make a more informed conclusion (not necessarily better) than a white male's experience would. However, if that is true then so to is the reverse which is a some point something will arise that will allow a white male to make a more informed (not necessarily better) conclusion that a Latina woman. Certainly we all want a level playing field, and certainly it has been titled one way for decades upon decades, but the solution is not to tilt it the other way, and call it fair. We can not escape our past no matter how fast we run, but we should certainly be able to, if we are to survive as a species, to learn from it. Finally, I know this post goes again type, and I am sure it offends people. Fear not. For one thing I don't care if I offend, and lastly it will be my last post on some topic that is, at the end of the day, so very, very unimportant.

Ah! Leonardo!

"You don't understand me because I am a Renaissance man, and you have never crossed paths with one before." Click and a dial tone. Hmm odd reaction this was a local call on that antique we call a "land line." Must be some sort of mistake, I thought. Re ring the person whom I was having yet another of our landmark fights with, and nothing. No answer, no response, nada, rien, not jack shit. Well I suppose they are a little peeved, and will eventually come to see that they are over reacting. Call back another couple of times, still nothing just an answering machine. Well then I see this is going to be more awkward that I first thought, too bad. Here I thought we were getting along like a house on fire. One little off the cuff, smart ass remark later, and it dawns on me that perhaps things were not sailing as smoothly as I thought. Hours pass, and I am not counting rehearsing all the very bad things I am going to say when they call back. Not going to be a pleasant time for them certainly, might just have to throw some oil on this bridge, strike a match, and watch it burn from the opposite shore. Granted the entire "relationship" that I have had with this person has been usual. From the way I met them till the moment the phone slammed down in my ear after my glib remark. Mostly a distance relationship, both geographically, and emotionally speaking at least at first. However, at the time of the hang up we are local to one another. Should I drive to her house, and ask what the blue fuck is wrong? Why are you taking one silly remark, and making it your "last stand." Seems a bit of a waste to me, but then again I have never really understand either the depth or width of this relationship. Of course I have no clue, after all relationships are my kryptonite, the one thing (yeah right just one) at which I am naturally bad at. Lucky for me huh? I would at least hope the other person would have some clue, but they seem to be unavailable for comment at the moment. In fact, they remain unavailable for comment for almost a year. Nothing for almost a year! All over one comment. Geez, talk about holding a grudge. Things were not all sunshine and teddy bears when communication is reestablished either. Needless to say I have my own grudge nursed up to a fine pitch after a year. Things remain a bit tense for a bit, then the Great Thaw. A trip almost around the world, and things for a brief time are right in the world. Then as usual for these kinds of things, I manage to hit the red button that is clearly marked "DO NOT PUSH." Just to be safe, let's push it twice. Off I go to flake ville, a place in which I have a summer home, and now it is my turn for radio silence. Gads what is wrong with me? What is it about this relationship that just can not seem to take flight? First it is me, then it is them, then it is me again. Jesus H. Christ what kind of buffoons are we? This is not rocket science, how hard can it be for two fairly intelligent people (one a Renaissance man) to put two and two together, and get four? Man can walk on the moon, but we can't have a decent, normal time without someone pulling the plug, and walking off in a huff like an overwrought actor? Well this calls for absolute revenge. This time it is my turn to wander off into the wilderness of silence. Even going so far as to pen a obituary for the friendship that could not be. I will show this fool how to maintain radio silence! Bah to them and to all their kind. Who needs them? But now she is dead, and lying in a pine grove, and I am left here to sort out the remains of the day. Clearly, this was not meant to be, but did it have to end on such a sour note? Ponder on that the next time you and your beloved get into a tiff about who should take out the trash, and you say something cruel to them as they walk out the door on the way to work. Are you ok with the idea that the last thing may ever say to them is "go fuck yourself!" At least kiss and make up before your partner hits the door with anger in their heart after all nothing is scared we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

Enemy of the People

Not actually an enemy of the people, but my own personal enemy. One of this person's stated goals in life is my downfall. They are not (in my opinion) a nice person, someone you do not take home to meet the mum and dad. This person is adroit at creating problems for me that would make the Riemann's hypothesis look like a breeze. Entangling alliances are this person's meat and drink. They (it could be a he, it could be a she, it could be a dog) are a right honour less bastard. Everyday since we became sworn enemies (we had a little ceremony with a high tea afterwards, it was very nice wish you had been there) oh so many years ago, this person has caused be untold (at least until now) amounts of grief. Every half way decent plan I manage to come up with, this person is there to foil. They are like Boris and Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle except that they are remarkably competent. So maybe I am more like Boris and they are Rocky. Damn and blast all my plans turning to dust gets old after a while. I really have to wonder at this person's ability for and stamina at causing my ruin on a daily basis. They are amazing, better than a magic act. Making the Statue of Liberty disappear would be child's play for this person, if, of course, they were not so focused at bringing about my ruination. The problems this person creates can not be solved by listening to some Dave Ramsey seminar, they are profound problems that are going to take a crane, and a construction crew several days to sort out. I am certainly incapable of keeping up with the pace. I am always about three problems behind, and those I can only half way sort out before the next calamity strikes. It is like a train wreck in a tornado that a plane lands on top of in the middle of an earthquake. Just too many things are going batty at the same time. It is more than I can bear. I am of too delicate of a constitution for all of these cluster fucks. I wish that an apology, where I a big enough person to offer one, could solve this grudge, but it can not. No amount of "I'm sorries," is going to make this person into anything but what they are already. I know not to implore them for mercy, not to beg them for forgiveness, and not to appeal to their softer side. They do not have a softer side, and truth be told, I prefer it that way. If you are going to have an enemy, not that I recommend it, you might as well have a dedicated one. After all, you have to appreciate this person's dedication to their art, even while your wheat fields are burning merrily away. They are like the love child of Genghis Khan and Ming the Merciless, not a pleasant person that you would invite over for you weekly games of canasta. Though I am not quite powerless before this disaster laden juggernaut, I do not have much more than a cardboard sword and shield with which to "keep it close, so that it is not such a blowout." This is the depressing part of it all, knowing I do not stand much of a chance, but being tossed in there anyway because I at least have to give it a shot. Who knows maybe the person will laugh at my misery so hard that they choke to death. Here's hoping.

My hero of the day

I have mentioned this author before, and I can not recommend him enough. He is Sandor Marai, and he is fan-fucking-tastic. Reading him is a lesson in humiliation. Even in translation (he wrote in Hungarian, and mine is a bit rusty), he makes sentences that make you want to cry. He weaves a paragraph like a magic spell, and lures you into his world, the Hungary of the 1930's, 40's, and early 50's with astounding ease. I generally read very quickly, and I read a lot. I just read about three pages of his "latest" book; THE REBELS, and had to put it down because it is so good I don't want to finish it. Also, reading it has "inspired" this blog post. I have not read enough of the book yet to get a good sense of the story, but right now I do not care. It is not the story, but the way he recounts everyday things like a conversation between a cobbler and a new graduated military cadet. It is sickeningly good. It is so good that you forget to breathe. It is better than chocolate coated sex with Nicole Kidman. Not that I would know mind you, and I might be exaggerating a bit. You could not give this book to young, aspiring writers, it would make them give up in despair, and become ditch diggers. It is truly a work of art. It makes me want to delete everything I have ever written, and hid my head in shame. I have been told I write well by a few people whose opinion I trust, and grudgingly I took that compliment as a sign of progress in my intellectual development. Maybe, just maybe, I do write fairly well, and am not churning out complete mindless drivel after all, but reading Marai is like a kick in the crotch. On my best days with the help of a hundred editors, and Shakespeare himself I could not write something half as good. It is a lesson in humility, and a painful one at that. It is amazing how he takes something as simple as words, and turns them into something transcendent. It is almost scary when you read it. It is like he says to his reader "here is my genius, here is my soul, here is my art, enjoy it you unworthy bastards." I feel like I am in an art class, and I have just drawn a pretty acceptable stick figure complete with stick pet, and stick children, and the bastard next to me just did the Mona Lisa. How, for fuck's sake, am I ever going to compete with that? Of course the truth is I can not, and I would be a fool to try. After all, a man has got to know his limitations. Just like I am not going to challenge Michael Jordan to a slam dunk contest, or take on Albert Pujols in a home run derby. I might as well learn to fly while I am at it, I will have just as much luck with that as I would with trying to write like this guy. I highly recommend staggering to the nearest bookstore, or library and finding everything this guy has ever written that has been translated. He almost makes me want to learn Hungarian because most of his stuff has not been translated, and the wait is painful. I guess I should thank the dead bastard for showing me that progress or not, I am not worthy of holding his pen. That is a hard lesson to take, and sure a lot of authors give me the same feeling. However, there are a lot of books that you read, and have to think "how in the blue fuck did that dross get published." That will not be the case with Marai, you will more likely think like I do "how in the blue fuck can I ever write again without feeling like a midget standing next to the Jolly Green Giant?"

Trained Professional(s)

I am a trained professional. Not particularly in the job I am presently holding down, but in other things. Perhaps one thing in particular. I am no Thierry Henry by any stretch of the imagination, but I am able to hold my own amongst other similarly professionals. Sometimes I even manage to be the last one standing. Sometimes not so much. The problem is that I expect a lot of others, and sometimes that leads to misunderstandings. My theory is that if I can do it, it can't be that difficult, and others should be able to do it as well. I guess that is unfair to both myself, and to the other people. I should probably realize that maybe I do have a modicum of talent that other people do not possess, and not expect so much from other people. That is a huge problem of mine. I have extremely high standards for certain things, and do not tolerate it well when people do not meet them. The hypocrisy of it all is that I seriously doubt that I would be able to meet my own standards. The nerve of me! How dare I set the bar so high (for other people) that I myself would not be able to clear it. It is not a pretty part of my overall makeup, and I am far from proud of it. However, it seems that I am unable to stop myself from doing it. I suppose that admitting you have a problem is the first step, but this is a deep rooted issue that I do not expect to conquer quickly. The sad part is that I have latterly been exposed to other, better trained, professionals in this particular field. It is not like I am the top of the pyramid. However, I hope that I did not turn in a performance that humiliated myself too much, and that is the problem I have. I expect a level of semi-competence, and when the other person does clear the first hurdle, I have little sympathy. The disappointment I feel is palpable, and I do not attempt to hide it. I am not especially good at verbalizing it, but it is like the 900 pound gorilla in the room, everyone knows it is there. I still have the occasional "off night" myself, but I try to limit the damage as much as possible by isolating myself as quickly as possible. Certainly no one, myself included, is prefect, but I try not to expect perfection. Just do what you are trained to do, what you say you can do, what people expect you do, and everything should be fine. No drama, no crying like a school girl, and no obviously stupid moves. Any "talent" that I posses can be attributed to the fact that I had some excellent teachers, and I paid attention to them when they taught. I was far from the star pupil, but I was at least able to learn enough to hold my own. I have no students, and I offer no teachings on how to "be like Mike." I just want a similar performance from other people to match my own. On the other hand, if I do detect that you are about to go off the rails as it were, and I offer my advice or opinion on how to steady the ship, please do not ignore my advice. That will just make me angry and sad. We all go around the twist from time to time, but for pity's sake if someone is tossing you a life jacket, or offering you advice on how to keep from sinking take it. Clearly, this is an issue that I have had in the past, and does not appear to be sorting itself out soon. However, perhaps this little post has helped put some perspective on the problem, and shone a little light on my own contribution to these train wrecks. Maybe next time every one will have those Windsor knots tied properly, and everything will come off perfectly.

Of Ennui

"Gads this is so boring." That was the message flashing across my screen, as a certain pal of mine expressed their feeling about whatever activity they were doing at the time. This led me to thinking about how much of our lives is boring. How many times a day do you say "God, I am bored?" or "this is so dull." Maybe if you are fucking supermodels on a pile of money the thought never enters your head (either one). Or maybe you do not stop to think about it because your day is so full of excitement that you never get bored. I suspect that for large amount of people boredom does creep into this petty pace from day to day. Then what happens? Do you rush out and play in traffic for the adrenaline rush?, or do you just struggle to stay awake for the rest of the work day until you can go home and snore away the afternoon good and proper? Then ponder how much time you actually waste on any given day. The argument can be made that right now as I am typing this I am wasting time. If not mine then someone else's. Maybe someone will waste their time reading it as well. A school of thought exists that says that only immature minds get bored. I am certainly guilty of having an immature almost childish mind. So perhaps that is my problem. In theory I should be able to engage my mind in some activity (perhaps even do some actual work) that would fight off the boredom monster. All this time wasting can not be good for you. We only have a certain amount of time on this mortal coil, and wasting it seems to rise to a criminal level. I have been reminded of this in the last day by the death of a colleague of mine. Fuck that he was more than a colleague he was a friend. He was bulletproof, or so I thought, and when he got sick (leukemia) most of us thought he would pull through. Sadly, he did not, and he was only about 11 years older than I am. I am fairly certain that if you totaled it all up I may have wasted, or been bitching about being bored for 11 years of my life. That is also sad. I wish I could say that I have been inspired by his passing into a Carpe Diem! attitude. However, that is probably not so either. I am so hungover from toasting his life for about eight hours last night that I feel like death eating a cracker. I did not know him well enough to know how much of his life he may have felt he wasted, or if he ever got bored, but as the group of his friends of which I am proud to be a member struggle with our grief, and mourn him, I would think that he got the most out of his time on the planet. Being bored, or pissing away my time now seems just a bit more senseless. Days go by, and life (for some of us) drags on, but time seems just a bit more important. Of course he would not be impressed by this maudlin moment I am having, and would tell me to get my head out of my ass, and do some work for a fucking change, and he would be right. One of his closest friends put it best in stating that "he would have said something like this." "I got leukemia, it is a deadly fucking disease, and I died." "What is so hard to understand about that?" Certainly not hard to understand, but one motherfucker of a concept to deal with. I suppose in some respects I should thank him because he has solved one problem for me at least for now. Grief is anything but fucking boring.

Pachyderm(s)

Hemingway wrote a story titled "Hills like White Elephants" in which a man and a woman have a discussion about one thing, but are really talking about something completely different. White Elephants have had a bit of a bum rap since then. All sorts of images are used in the story, and the hills along side the Ebro river (where the story takes place), are used as a metaphor. They could be interpreted to stand for a woman's breasts, or a woman's extended belly during pregnancy. In the story the woman is pregnant, and the man is trying to talk her into getting an abortion. Children are the white elephants in question, and the man wants nothing to do with having one. Of course not a whole lot of this is made particularly clear in the text, some knuckle head of a critic had to sort all the deep meaning out for us great unwashed. Sylvia Plath wrote a poem in which she compared herself to a house, it was also about being pregnant. Once again not obvious from the text. This led me to thinking about literary critics, and their place in the world. What if just for shit and giggles, good, old Ernest did merely stop at that train station by the Ebro one day, and think "damn those hills look like white elephants." Nothing else, just a story about some hills that remind me of white elephants, and I will place them in some vapid story about abortion just to see if I can "work them in." I have experienced this a couple of times in my own "writings." Some of my more intelligent, or less drunk readers sometimes ask me about a blog post, and credit me with far too much metaphoric ability. Sometimes a blanket is just merely a blanket, nothing else. No deep philosophical meaning, no great analogy meaning I had a cold, and distant mother during my childhood, and just want to be held. It would be a great larf if Faulkner, Poe, or Flaubert somewhere in literary heaven or hell, are sitting around laughing themselves stupid about how their stories are being used to mean something entirely different from what they themselves meant when they wrote it. What if "The Fall of the House of Usher" was about some poor carpentry that Poe had to endure, and pay for while building an outhouse? Here we are generation up generation of students who have had all this "deep meaning" crap shoved down our throat, when it is possible that some of these stories mean nothing more than what they appear to mean on the surface. All those pretentious bastards who sip Merlot, and disclaim about how Hawthorne symbolises Yankee ingenuity would be shocked out of their Ann Taylor knickers. Of course an alternative theory is that the critics got it exactly wrong. Perhaps all this time white elephants stood for man's inhumanity to man, and the operation mentioned in the story was to have her tonsils removed. That would be a laugh riot as well. The author in all his earnestness meaning one specific thing, and it getting misinterpreted to mean something entirely different. What a sad fate for any author. To be forever identified with one idea when what you really meant was the exact opposite. Like being shot out of a cannon, and realizing that some goofy bastard forgot to set up the safety net. Of course this takes the piss out of all of our icons. Can we really live with the idea that Ernest was just taking the piss out of us by writing about hills? Nah, let's not knock them off the pedestal that we have carefully placed them upon. Better to put the gloss we need on them, than to know that perhaps like Anais Nin they were writing porn for a dollar a page because they just fucking needed the money.

ilska

Anger is the one thing that I seem to have an abundance of. Ask people who know me, and they will tell you that I seem to have an anger grudge against large portions of the world at large. I wish I could say that was not true, but it is. I have enough anger to make the 12 Angry Men seem like kittens playing with a ball of yarn. Generally speaking my anger is over with quickly. I finally get enough of it built up inside of me, and I blow it off. Quickly, suddenly, and with any real damage done. Screaming a few curse words is quite cathartic, and good for the bowels. In fact, I am rather angry right now. The keyboard is replacing the throat of the person(s) I am at which I am angry. Rather to type it out than to wring their neck(s) like a chicken. Maybe this way only feelings get hurt. Not that I am overly concerned about too many people's feelings, my own included. Hopefully, this beer, and perhaps the next two will calm the anger I feel welling up in my heart like an ink stain spreading out over paper. If not, well then I guess I will have to finish the six pack, and hope for the best. In spite of published reports I have no problem managing my anger, and directing my anger can be quite productive. There exists a theory that if you make me particularly mad, you get the best out of me. I can not really deny that either. At times, my anger has been the driving force behind some of my best ideas/work. Sad, but true, it sometimes take getting me pissed off in order to get a reaction out of me. Not something to be overly proud of, but there it is. My anger is not the anger of injustice. No one has been so evil to me that I feel as if I have been hard done by. I am not a victim of some massive conspiracy to keep me "down," and in my place. It is just that I do not suffer fools. I used to say that I did not suffer fools gladly, but as I get older I am beginning to think that I should leave off the gladly part entirely. My anger is not that type of anger. Mine is the slow burn type of anger that is set off by people doing things I consider exceptionally stupid or annoying. It is a subjective kind of anger, and it does smack of "who the hell made you the god of deciding stupid or annoying." Well, in this case, I did. After all, it is my anger I am talking about, and I think I should be the one deciding when to let it loose. Generally it blows over like a summer rainstorm, but every once in a great while it festers like an infected wound. Luckily for me, it does not turn to hate. I have found that hating someone/thing generally only is bad for the person doing the hating. It is much better for the soul to let the anger out, and try to direct it as well as possible. Notice I said generally there are people/things, besides Tottenham, that make my eyes narrow, and my blood pressure rise. They are few and far between, but they do exist. There are grudges that I bear, and no real amount of deep breathing will help. These grudges are like a warm, familiar blanket that I can rely on for warmth, and wrap myself in on cold days. In fact, I do not want to lose, or manage my anger. Some days it is the only thing that keeps me from falling into despair. My anger is not to be confused with rage. It is an entirely different animal. Sort of like the difference between having an affair with a married person, and just fucking them. More subtle, more complex, and in some respects, more dangerous. Rage is like morning dew, a few hours of sunshine and lollipops will make it all go away. Anger is like permafrost. The sun may come out, the birds may be singing, and spring may have sprung, but anger is still there grimly holding on to whatever niche it can. My anger is easily misinterpreted, do not mistake it for caring. I am a proud, card carrying, misanthrope (see MSS below) and, do not confuse my anger for me actually caring about the human race. It is quite easy to be angry at someone/thing and, still not be overly concerned if that person/thing exists. The sheer number of people and things in the universe assure that if I am not angry at you/it, there are innumerable other people/things to raise my ire. Some misguided souls actually think it is fun to get my anger stirred up. They consider it some sort of (blood) sport, a bit like bear baiting. It is not a particularly good idea. I am not some "bad man" whom you should not dare to fuck with, but I do not forget things like that. Have your fun now, but rest assured someday, somewhere, and somehow my revenge will be shoved, none too politely down your throat. This is not a threat, it is not posturing, and it is not said with any evil intent. It is merely a fact, part and parcel of who I am as a person. Perhaps it is not the most pleasant personality trait, nor do I wear it like a badge of honour, but there it is.

2429

As the door creaked open, I heard the tinkling of the bell. Gloomy, dusty, and dank the interior of the store did not instill confidence. "The Time Store" was clearly not thriving. Oh well, no matter I had something to sell, and they hopefully had the will and the money to buy, or rather the time to barter. That was why I was hear to trade/sell one my last possessions for an hour, maybe two (if I was lucky) of time. The time to go back, and fix one of the major errors of my life that put me in this situation to begin with. A bit of a paradox to go back, and fix what got me here would mean I never got here in order to go back, and fix the error. This is what time is a great big paradox. Either way, I had to at least give it a shot. After all, this was about the only item of value I had left, and my landlady was not "running a charity for losers" as she reminded me on a semi-daily basis. All sort of detritus lined the shelves of "The Time Store," other people's prized possessions sold off for a chance to buy enough time to make things right, or at least better. The old man behind the counter looked up from reading his hologram, and gave me the same look a man give to eggs after discovering they had gone off. Not a good beginning to what, for me, was a desperate transaction. "Excuse me, Sir, but I have this for sale." I laid the last possession my great aunt Julia had left me me from her all too small estate. The old man picked up the dusty tome I had laid on his counter as if it was toxic. Very gently by the corner, and with only his index finger and thumb. "And what, pray tell, is THIS exactly" he sniffed. "The collected works of the Grand Inquisitor" I said, then added none too proudly. "My great-great-great uncle on my mother's side." "I see," the old man replied. "The Grand Inquisitor?" "Your blood relative?" "No wonder you look as downtrodden as you do." "You're lucky that your family survived the purges of the '70's." I sighed not this again "not all of us did, but that is a family tragedy that I do not care to discuss today." "How much for the book?" "Surely the paper alone has to be worth something, even if the writings are dribble." "Dribble?" "Well certainly the GI was no Poe or Hemingway, but he had his own niche in literary history." Even managed a few decades of fame, long after his body was found floating by the Quai des Beoufes." "So of course, it did him absolutely no good at all, but such are the twists of fate." I released another sigh "Look Mister, all I know is my great-aunt gave me the book, and said it was valuable." "I have not bothered to read it, nor have I ever heard of the fool that wrote it besides the story of him being some wacko distant relative of mine from centuries ago." "I have my own problems, and just want to know if the damn book is worth two hours of time or not?" The owner looked shocked "never read the damn book?" "Tsk, tsk, the poor GI dying in poverty, and then cursed with relatives without a sense of history." "He would roll over in his grave, if any knew exactly where it was nowadays." "You lad need to at least understand what you are trying to pawn off for a mere two hours of time." "Sit your sorry ass down, and listen for a few minutes while I give you the lesson your mother should have given you a long time ago." I bristled "my mother is dead, you bastard, she died bringing me into this shit world, so don't preach to me about her failing in her duties." He blinked "ah, sorry lad, clearly I did not know." "Tell you what you listen, and I will give you two and a half hours, fair enough?" "Fine," I muttered not like I have anywhere else to be at the moment. "So go ahead and regal me with the story of my famed ancestor." He chuckled, and said "far from famous, but a minor celebrity, but like I said much too late to do him any good." "He was not a particularly good man, your uncle, but he did have the good sense to realize it, and use it to some small advantage." "He was the generation that first discovered what they called "blogging" some new fangled way of pouring your heart out on the Internet for a bunch of your friends to read, and make pithy comments about." "Never really understood what all the fuss was about myself, but it caught on and was all the rage for about 75 years or so, until the long winter came, and took care of all that fancy technological stuff." "Anyway, your uncle earned just enough minor celebrity with his blog posts to become famous enough to be included in the Archives, when the Commonwealth rebuilt the grid of the old American empire." "Not the most famous blogger in the world, but one deemed worthy of keeping a copy of in the archives." "Seems he was a bit of the Baudelaire of his set." "Of course since the original Baudelaire's writing were completely lost during the long winter, I guess the Commonwealth decided to take what it could get, and use your uncle's writings as the archetype." "Not the most uplifting of writings, and he certainly was not a lover of humankind, but he did manage a dedicated following in his time." "Not that I expect you to appreciate any of this, but at least you should have some idea of what you are selling before you sell for a mere two and a half hours." "Tell you what, you take your book home read it for a couple of days, and if you still want to sell it, I will buy it without any further pontificating." I sighed "fair enough I suppose." "Guess I should read what the old codger was on about all those years ago."

That was 2429. It is now 2630, and the desperate fellow in the story above was my great-great grandfather. The above story is from his diaries nothing further about this particular incidence survive. I don't know what he did to get the two hours of time he needed to go back, and "fix things," and I not sure I want to know. The old guy was considered a serious black sheep in the family, but he must have done something, because before he died, he took me aside, and gave me the "dusty tome" mentioned above. Making me promise never to sell it, and never republish it, but to keep it in the family for as long as there is a family. I kept that promise, and will lay the same duty upon my son, and he will do the same to his son as well. Of course no one now reads the Grand Inquisitor, but for some reason the book seems to be a good luck charm for the family. Perhaps that is the irony of it all. The poor sod that wrote it never reaped any benefit from it, but his ancestors thrive and prosper because of the babbling of a man without qualities.

In answer to Tidy's challenge. This was the hardest of the three by far, and I am not sure it went the way you requested, but sometimes these things happen. Now it is time for you to send in the clowns.

--GI

Gold

"For the thousandth time! Silence is GOLDEN!" "Can your defective little mind not wrap itself around that concept!" Those words shouted by the normally mild mannered Sister Mary jerked me out of a lovely daydream about the number fourteen of all things. Luckily for me, at least this time, Sister Mary's wrath was directed at some unfortunate classmate of mine, and not, as usual, at me. Fear of the ruler that the Sister wielded like a sword usually kept most of my classmates in line, but not G__. G___ was a talkative soul, and even managed to have something worth listening to every once in a while. The problem for G___ was that the Sisters did not want to hear the majority of G___'s blather even the stuff worth hearing. The Sisters were not hear to listen, they were here to teach, and if that did not work, well they were here to punish. Quite simple really listen, learn, or get the ruler. You would not think that a 110 lb lady could inflict that much pain with a ruler, but Sister Mary was a true artist. She must have finished top of her class in the "making them squeal like a pig" at her university. She knew where to hit, when to hit, and precisely how hard to hit for the maximum amount of agony. Surviving her lashings without screaming was considered a rite of passage. Sadly for G___ the talkative streak he possessed also made him a bit of a screamer. Sad for the rest of us too. Hearing the thunk of the ruler followed by the yelp of pain from poor G____ was beginning to grate on my nerves. It only took me a couple of times being teed up by Sister Mary before I figured out that talking could be, and probably is vastly overrated. Which is why today I am usually described as laconic or taciturn depending on who is doing the describing. I have also been compared to a stone wall, and we all know that stone walls do not have a lot to say for themselves, or to anyone else. The trick is to be well spoken in ten words or less. If you can pull that off, then people will begin to believe you are much smarter than you really are. Notice I said trick. It is not a gift, or a talent, it is at its most fundamental level a trick. You are fooling whatever audience you are around into something. Not showing off some mental feat of amazing skill. It is the old coin from behind a child's ear stuff. All flash no fire. Something to distract attention from the fact that you could really give a shit less about whatever conversation you have been drug, kicking and screaming, into against your desire to just be left alone to get drunk. Most of us spend our day talking our proverbial heads off, most of do not realize that people are really not listening. Like telling a "bad beat" poker story to a friend. Yeah, yeah we all have them, and halfway through yours the bastard you are talking to began to remember, and burst at the seams, to share HIS bad beat story. Which of course, is much more entertaining because it is his story. His story, history pretty damn close don't you think? Sexist, but still close. Poor G___ never learned this lesson, at least not while he was in the "arc of pain" that constituted Sister Mary's wingspan. Pretty much everyday day G__ would blather, and Sister Mary would exact her revenge. We tried to explain, in as few words as possible, to G___ that talking was only an avenue of pain, but he just did not seem to be able to keep his trap shut. I suppose he saw silence as a void to be filled, and if no one else was brave enough to do it, he would boldly stride into the breach. There are those among us who think that silence is not golden, but awkward and needs to be filled before it grows uncomfortable. I am not one of those people. I refer you to the title of this blog for example. I guess the irony of being a "man of few words" is that I write overly long, complicated, convoluted blog posts. Maybe it is just easier to type, aside from the spelling thing, than it is to talk. Though at least if you write people do not have to listen. All they have to do is not read. Still being ignored, but at least they do not have to sit there with a fake interested expression on their mug while you blather on about whatever you think is important. The better proverb for me has always been better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and prove everyone right.

In acceptance of Challenge's challenge. Not exactly what you were looking for I am sure, but I never said I had any talent. Merely tricks, and not even magic ones at that. However, I gave it a shot, and undercurrents abound. Sometimes the gold is buried under a mountain of dross. I made the mountain, you get to shift the dross. Careful all that glitters is not gold.

Theatre/House of Pain

Darkness, complete and utter darkness. Hmm where did that come from? There should be at least some light coming in from somewhere. Then I remember, oh yes the struggle, and the hands grabbing me pinning my arms to my side, and then the bag over the head, and darkness. Body found floating by the docks is the only thought that I can form as I am wrenched out of bed, and manhandled down the stairs. I go limp, there is no use in fighting, no hope of expecting an explanation so I might as well let these bastards earn their money by having to drag my dead weight, fat ass along. An indeterminable time later, I am thrown into what seems to be a rather hard, straight-backed chair. Well this is the usual drill is it not? I have been on the other side of the bag often enough to generally expect what will happen next. However, expecting it and being ready for it are two separate things, and as the bag is whipped away from my head the light is typically blinding. Lovely, I knew that was going to happen, and yet I was still too stupid to keep my eyes closed. Blinking is not the way to meet whatever nemesis has managed to put you in your present condition. As the vision returns, a familiar voice greets me, "Well, well the Grand Inquisitor himself, welcome to my little kingdom." Damn but that voice sounds familiar. Shit I know this person! The blindness fades, and I look across a small table to see my old friend Inquisitor Wooten with a not so friendly smile on his face. "Junior Inquisitor Wooten how pleasant to see you" I say with much more nonchalance than I feel. "If you needed me to continue your training, all you had to do was simply ask." "There was no need for the enforced trip just for a bit of a refresher course in interrogation." Glancing around I see the familiar (large) shapes of Mr. Williams and Mr. Catron looming over my colleagues shoulders. Well at least it is not the docks yet. "I think my training is complete" Inquisitor Wooten says with entirely too much confidence for my liking. "Now you get to see just how well you did train me in the gentle art of persuasion." Shit, fuck, damn! I did train this ape, and a few other besides, but he was the best of the lot, born to ask the tough questions that no one wants to answer. "Bah, you never could get the questions in the right order Wooten, no matter how many times I tried to tell you." "At some point, I would assume, you are going to clue me in as to why I am here, and why a junior Inquisitor has the temerity to drag a Grand Inquisitor out of his bed in the middle of the night?" "Oh I think you know that is not going to happen, I do not give answers, I ask the questions, YOU give the answers," he said as he pulled the all too familiar plain black case from somewhere, and placed it on the table. "You know the drill my boy, time for the instruments." He opens the cases, and I see the bright, shiny instruments of our trade, MY trade, exposed. Gruesome looking things that are intended to frighten just by sight, the pain they inflict makes people scream like schoolgirls. "Of course there is the alternative," he says, and produced the little brown pill that looks like it would choke a horse. Alternative? Pain or pain which would you prefer? "You always were a bit of a bastard Wooten, perhaps that is why I liked you." "Noticed the past tense." "Give me the pill you jamy cunt, I will not give you the pleasure of screaming for you tonight." I swallow the pill with some difficulty, and wait for the effects that I know are coming. No real choice really, but that is the point now isn't it? As my eyes begin to go heavier, and heavier I think well at least I will still have my looks after this is over. Small comfort, but it is the only one I can cling to at the moment. Sleep takes me as it is supposed to do, and off I go to confront the terrors that my colleague has dreamed up when he manufactured the pill.
Starts out pleasant enough, (then again don't they all?). A old classmate and I are at a fairly swank hotel for some conference or other, and are enjoying a lovely swim in the pool. Odd, in real life they would be fishing me out of the pool, my people sink they do not swim. Wrapping a towel around myself, I begin to walk across the lobby towards the elevator to my room. That is when I saw her from a middle distance. A quick double take confirms my belief. Damn them! Of course they would have to bring someone like her into it. How fucking original. An ex-girlfriend of course who else? From about a decade ago, and one that I treated a bit badly near the end (a shock, I know). Well this is just peachy isn't it? Might as well get the screaming, cursing, and the inevitable slap across the face over with. Our paths are just so conveniently going to intersect anyway so might as well stop, and pretend this is a surprise. I stop, and begin to form the words of a pithy greeting, she however sails past me like I am invisible, and continues on her journey. This is my punishment? Being ignored by an ex-flame that I have not spoken to in ten years? Really Wooten, you must have made a mistake with your formula. This is almost fun. I shrug, and continue on my merry way whistling a Wayne Newton tune as we all are apt to do from time to time. Of course that was too easy, as I get on the elevator a stranger get on as well, and slips me a note. How quaint. Where did you get this idea Wooten? Watching too many late night film noir again? It merely has a place, time, and is signed "B." What a surprise the old flame's first initial just happens to be "B." I sigh as I look at the time of this rendezvous. Ten minutes from now? Jeez, where is the rush? No time to change since the damn meeting is of course as far away from my room as humanly possible. Great my first meeting with this girl in a decade, and I am in swimming trunks and a towel. Oh well, nothing I can do, but show up and hope for the best. Surprisingly enough, there she is at the right place, and at the right time. How do you just jump into that conversation? Where do you start something like Hi, how are you? I know I sort of fucked you over ten years ago or so, but hey water under the bridge right? Hallmark does not make a card for this situation. Oh right sorry about wearing a towel to this meeting I thought it was informal attire. What's that you got married did you? Well congrats on that I am sure he is a lovely fellow. Oh really divorced eh? Well you have to be realistic about these things I suppose. Me? Oh I am just fine and dandy. Can not really try to explain that actually I am tied to a chair somewhere, and this is a dream. That is what is happening isn't it? After a few minutes of this nonsense I decided to cut to the chase, and ask the important stuff. You know like why the hell did you ignore me in the lobby, and why the hell all this cloak and dagger stuff? She said "well my mother is with me, and I did not want her to know that I was meeting you." Ah yes, your mother large, ungainly woman with a marked distaste for being in my company. Yes it is for the best that we do not cross paths. Then of course the nice little A-bomb that my colleague Wooten had designed this little passion play for gets dropped. "Umm, I have been thinking about you a lot since my divorce, and I missed you a great deal." "In fact, I found out you would be here at this hotel on these dates, and that is why I am here." "My mother tagging along was not in my plans at all trust me." Okay this has potential to end in tears. Maybe this is not a dream. She certainly felt real when she pressed up close to me at the end of that pretty little speech. Some place private you say? Well I am not really dressed for going any place, but back to my room to change. "Oh back to your room was exactly what I had in mind and, dressed does not matter so much," she replied. Well clearly this is a great idea, and off we when in some haste to my room. Here the details get a little vague. Of course they do. Why would Wooten want me to remember the good, juicy bits of this experience. The parts I do remember where a) quite nice, and b) felt quite real. Well now, this part of our relationship does bring back some good memories, and then right on cue, bright, searing, painful light. What the hell, did I finally die whilst having sex? Do I walk towards the light or what? Of course not, just me snapping back to consciousness in the same room, tied to the same fucking chair. Once I had figured it all out, and that it was a dream. I look up to see my old friend still sitting across the table. "Well Wooten, I told you that you needed more training." "That dream had a happy ending you wanky bastard!" "Oh, I dont think the good bit has happened yet," he replied. "Perhaps you should just nod back off, and wait for the ending." "Hah" I sneered, "not bloody likely, you can't just resume a dream where you left off." "Going back to sleep will just start the process over again, and by then the pill will have lost its effectiveness." All well and good, but damn it all I am feeling drowsy again. Eh, maybe just a 10 minute nap. Not like I am going to resume the dream where it stopped anyway. Wooten is drunk on his own sense of power. "I should get back to my room, mother will begin to wonder where I have gotten off to." "Huh" I mutter "What about mother?" "Who the, what the." Bollocks seems Wooten is smarter than I thought I am back in the same dream at the same place in time, but it seems our location has changed to my actual house. Walk her to the door like a good gentleman. A kiss or two on the cheek before parting, and a wave as she climbs into her car to drive off. Who knows how many decades before I see her again? Then as she gets to the end of the block, tires screech, metal grinds, and an very loud, violent crash occurs. "Son of a bitch" I scream, and run to the scene. Twisted metal and a bit of smoke make it difficult to find her, but eventually there she is, thrown from her car lying in the grass. No last dying romantic words of loves labour lost, just an ex-girlfriend whose neck is clearly broken, and just as clearly is dead as a doornail. Then a sensation of drowning as I sputter awake to find Mr. Catron standing in front of me, bucket in hand, grin on his face. "From the screams, and the thrashing about we figured it was time to wake you," say my pal Wooten. "Guess you got to the good bit at the end after all." "Damn you all to hell," I mutter. "Don't you bastards have someone that is actually guilty of something to torture?" Then another sensation this one of a cool wind on my face. Now what are they putting me in a wind tunnel to see if I am aerodynamic enough to sink? Body found floating by the docks. No not a wind tunnel just the gentle breeze caused by the fan next to my bed, as I wake up very confused as to what the hell just happened. Was that a dream within a dream? How the fuck is that possible? What is it time to go to work already? Damn I just want to lie here, and be sad. For exactly what reason I am not sure, but I certainly do not feel in the most chipper of moods. Well, perhaps I will just have to get over it. After all, it was only a dream, and at least this one did not feature any crows.

All the Muck that's Fit to Rake

"Morning Ralph" those were the first words spoken to me by another human being today. The human doing the speaking was the owner/operator of my local news stand, a elderly fellow by the name of Sam. I thought his greeting rather odd, since my name is not Ralph, but I put it down to his old age, and bad eyesight. "Morning Sam" I grunted as I bought the local rag to read on my leisurely stroll into work. Apparently I was in no particular hurry today, and I chatted for a few minutes with the old dodger about sports, politics, and of course the weather. Speaking of which, when did it get so cloudy? Was it this foreboding when I staggered out of my house without either my raincoat or umbrella? Years of watching my father obsess over the weather, and determined not to be like the old man, had lead me to generally ignore the weather forecast based on the theory that I can not change it so why bother? Well, as the wind picked up, and the cloud begin to roll in I realized that I might not be able to change it, but surely I could at least pay enough attention to prepare for it. Clearly my 20 minute stroll to work might be a little wetter than I had planned. Living in a town with a dearth of public transportation, and realizing that the newspaper I just bought had exhausted my supply of actual money, I had little choice but to wrap up my small talk with Sam, and toddle off to work. As I begin my stroll, I passed a friend of mine (with his umbrella the cheeky bastard) who greeted me, and queried whether I had read the paper. "Not yet, is there something earth shattering in there?" He laughed, and said "not earth shattering, but you made the paper. "Near the back of course" and off he went on his merry way chuckling. "Near the back" I muttered. If the bastard only knew his wife was rogering the postman he might not be so cheerful. Puzzled as to why I would be in the paper except as a misprint, I paused to open up the damn thing to take a gander. As I did cursing a bit as the ink smudged my hands (how can they not invent an ink that does not smudge? Man on the Moon, and all that shit, but I still have to have ink on my hands from reading the daily news?). About the time I shuffle the pages to "near the back" the skies decide to finally ruin my (so far, brief) day by opening up, and begin pissing straight down on me. Blast! It appears I have bought my only protection from the rain, and I quickly placed the newspaper over my head as I ran for the nearest shelter. Luckily it was not too far away, but the rain had ruined my newspaper. Oh well, I guess at least the water cleaned the ink off my hands. I threw the soggy paper into the nearest trash can, and waited for the rain to stop thinking that at least my last seventy five cents managed to keep me dry so not a bad return after all. Eventually after a few minutes the rain slackened to a drizzle that I figured I would just have to endure, and I continued on my way to work. Making to my building not quite soaked to the skin, but still rather damp, I was greeted by a co-worker from across the foyer with a "hey, you made it into the paper!" "I am aware" I replied, but before I could ask to see his paper, neatly and dryly tucked under his arm, he flounced onto the elevator, and was gone. I shook what water I could off myself, and trudged to the bank of elevators to make my up to the floor on which my office, or rather cube, was located. I stepped onto the elevator and pushed my floor, and as the car begin to fill up I noticed a woman reading her paper just a bit in front of and to the right of me. I craned my neck to see if perhaps she had made it to the big article about me, but she seemed to be reading the results from the local dog track. I had, of course, checked the coin operated paper stand in my building's lobby, but as usual it was full of yesterday's newspapers. Jeez who knew it would be so hard to find a current newspaper. It is not like there is some "Dewey defeats Truman" headline that would cause a idiotic public to begin hoarding copies like canned goods before a nuclear holocaust. Getting off the elevator on my floor I walked into my office hoping that at least the online edition would be available for me to see what news I had made. As I waited the 7 to 10 minutes for my computer to boot up, I begin to wonder exactly what it was I could have done (clearly without knowing it) to get my fool name in the paper. I had not, to my knowledge, robbed any banks, or saved any children or cats (both of whom I detest) from burning buildings, foiled any terrorist attacks, or been caught with my pants down in a public park. After a little grinding noise, my computer finally made it to the point that I could access the internet, but as I clicked on the proper icon all I got was a blue line, and a connecting, connecting message. Motherfucker! Those guys in IT are depriving a perfectly good village of an idiot! Of course, they will not stagger into work for another hour at the earliest. Must have had a rough night at the X Men convention, or perhaps they had to alphabetize their Battle Star Galactica playing cards till the wee hours of the morning. Well now not only can I not solve the mystery of my paper appearance, I can not do any actual work. Well, the boss is not around either, those wild nights at the "country club" where they have pole dancing assures me that he will not be in for at least two hours. I suppose I might as well make the best of it, and take an early morning siesta. I lean back in my rickety ass chair, put my feet up, and begin to nod off. Just as I was beginning to get good and asleep a co-worker comes to the corner of my cube pale as a ghost, and clearly shocked about something. Before I could get fully awake to ask what she backs out of my cube like she had seen Hitler's ghost dropping her newspaper. Well she always was a bit weird, I can sort out her issues later, but for now at least I have the paper. Looking down I see the article she had folded her paper over to. A little chill started to run down my spine as I saw she was reading the obituaries (I said she was odd), the intercom on my phone begins to buzz, buzz, buzz, as I read with absolute horror why she was acting as if she had seen a ghost. It seems that she had. The obit she was reading was mine. Funny, I don't feel dead. Is this why my news seller called me the wrong name. Will somebody stop that damn buzzing!!!! I collapsed back into my chair paper gripped tightly in my hands as I read the news of my demise. What the fuck? Then I feel a sharp jab in my ribs. Turning expecting to see some guy in a black robe with a sickle in his hands, I gasp half in relief, half in surprise, to find it is just my girlfriend muttering for me to turn off "that bloody alarm, and go to work." "Oh" she mutters as she rolls over to go back to sleep (the bitch) "you might want to take your umbrella, it is supposed to rain today."

For Cynnie loyal reader, and one nice lady. I hope this piss poor attempt has honoured your request for a post about newspapers. It stinks, but I did the best I could.