Blindside

Liquids distill mornings
and love refines intentions.

A few words here or there,
thrown carelessly over a shoulder,
errant grains of thought,
can nestle in the earth to produce leaves.

We are our generalizations, our condemnations:
the forgotten call, the unspoken state
sometimes retaliate.

And if I could tell you
what it really is,
the chance is you’d reject that truth,
an offering left for scattering
on a door step,
a bottle drifting to sea.

For Free

This connection has worn like the gold color
on a battered locket.

Stochastic encounters do not a welded bond make-
if striking out on the slick slopes of this armored pyramid,
I slip to the hot sands below
you will reign above.

But the sun is a balm,
and the sea is free, with waves that don't take to belonging,
or balances;
it takes instead, with a ruthless hand
and crushes the bricks of civilization.

Speedos, Ambidexterity, Rankism (SARs- It's a disease)

SPEEDOS, or BRIEF-STYLE SWIMSUIT (BSS)

Why I like to use the brand name rather than BSS: because it rhymes with cheeto, and cheetos are cheesy, like speedos.

So what's the deal with speedos? They're just plain wrong.

Are you an Olympic athlete? I didn't think so, Mr. I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shorts. It's just too high-def. It's not about me. It's about you and the unflattering way you choose to present yourself, really, like on a platter garnished with *berries* (never mind if that's your intention and it's not in public . . . )

What is it about speedos that reveal more than actual nudity? Nudity = natural. Speedos = abomination. It's because for many men, speedos press and create bulge, and not the good kind. It's like, "Oh look, here's what my butt looks like in a spandex vice! Isn't that nice?" It's also a pubic hair peak-a-boo show with hair sprouting uncomfortably from the groin, like weeds creeping through the cracks of a driveway.

Speedos should be used for utility, i.e. to make one more aerodynamic. There are exceptions here, but they generally don't apply. That being said, one should abstain, abstain, abstain.

AMBIDEXTERITY

What is it with the freaky people (person) writing with both hands at meetings?!? I noticed. Or maybe I'm going crazy, but it's pretty, well, unusual. I thought I was special, and then there's people who can sit on either side of the table facing forward and scribble comfortably on a note pad. How convenient that must be.

RANKISM

That's right. It's what you think it is, and it's dumb. Hierarchy is good for accomplishing tasks. But not acknowledging another human being because you think they're below you in the global/social pecking order is not. It's limited. It's a limited way of life for limited people with limited views. It is the spawn of insecurity and inflated egos, common bedfellows (one of my favorite words, I'm making a note right now to use it as often as I can). Of course I complain because I am daily on the lower end of this arrangement. And I love how people who I do good work for are too good to say hello to me in the elevator. Really, is it that difficult? I actually enjoy saying hello to such people because it makes them uncomfortable to acknowledge me as a human being; it knocks they're cool, little important world out of orbit for just a moment, and one must take pleasure where one can . . .

Girl, you got it goin on.

Girl, you got it goin on.

But please tell me why.
Why the barbs,
why the wire in your dreams
and the sharp shards
and the broken seams.

Girl, you got it goin on,
but no one sees.
They forgot the days of smoking
in the aisle.


They forgot the champagne blue
and the pills for two.
The short skirt a work unto itself,
and the designer cocktails from the top shelf.

I break a bottle for you,
against the shipwreck,
and the wreckage.

I poise a crystal glass in honor of you
and your prima donna tou tou.

Unfashionable Jeans

Give me your biggest card,
your biggest, sweetest eyes,
your soft hey in passing
your . . .

Anything

But this, this has got to go.
Nothing like nothing to make you dig a hole.
Nothing like the nothing to make you
see the things that are not there.

There’s nothing like the abyssal planes
of mundane, of another cup of coffee
of forgetting your own birth right

To Live
To Breathe
To Give in

To nothing that don’t suit your fancy
your fancy please

getting down on one knee
nothing like that last shot
of whiskey

Here’s one for you and your last soul.

Here’s one for the folks prying metal ships apart
and the watery lakes
where one grain is harvested at a time.

Here’s one for the crowd
and the stylized bars in dreams:
there we wear boots and unfashionable jeans.

Hide and Reveal

Hide and Reveal

I.

After two long days you flinch in recognition
like being confronted
with a scene from a dream
washing at your feet amid the banal.

There are thorns here, small grasses
that will cut your toes,
some powdery remnants of glass,
a tax on smiles
and a silent way of edging off the fringes of laughter.

But here it is, beyond all that:
a delicate shiver on your spine,
a twitch of the eye,
a picture on the surface of a pond,
gone in a blink.


II.

To be left, nails scraping in dirt,
an earthworm emerging after rain
attending to small tasks,
is to make a return
from a reckless voyage
where ships circled castles in the sky.

There is no end as near as here.

And there is no return like the final one,
and no solace like the bitter knowledge
that is balm rather than briar
to the prurient soul.

Anhedonia

It could almost be
a regal woman's name,
but is instead a creeping slug
made of dark matter, no, not
the kind that draws all inward,
but a cousin, like the umbra of the moon.

It is a house built on a foundation
of perpetuation
of human condition
of the ugliest, and most private despair.

It could almost be
an illustrious blue period
for the soul,
one tempered with booze,
one numbed with food and with lack of food,
one undone by silence
and one put off by noise.

It is a star leaking its light
in the sky
until only a dark point
remains,
like the period at the end of
a life like a sentence.

Letting go on a grey day.

Empty and surprised
I gave up today like an old sweater
with unraveling sleeves
and a hole in the back,
put it in a paper bag
and sat it by the door.

I let the grey light seep into it
and the wind knock it over.

Finally a cat came and drew
it out with outstretched claws,
toying at first with the loose strings
before creating new ones.

Like saying goodbye
to an unwanted guest,
I said a few words and turned to go
without looking back.

A little metatext here . . .

There's nothing lamer than ruminating about blogging on your blog, but I feel that the weight of my snide, peeved comments supersede this rule. Besides, I am the editor in chief here in my humble little universe.

This is the thing. Why does it bug me so much that blogging supplies a raison d'être for some people? Allow me to clarify. Some people record the minutiae of their daily existence on their blogs. This is what my cat ate for dinner. Oi, how I can't get this stain out of my sweater, etc. That's all fine and dandy, but what I sense is happening often is that sooner or later the anticipation of blogging, or reviewing (more on that at a later date), starts to shape not only the experiences before they are recorded later, but the perception of them while they are occurring as well. It is my belief that this phenomenon later results in doing things merely so that you can blog about them. To me, that's insincere, and disturbing, mainly because it highlights some of the existential ennui I feel when I think about what makes other people tick. It's the "look at me!" syndrome; the need to do things merely to be able to do the telling of the doing. It is disingenuous and jarringly narcissistic. Let's see. How many ways can I say fake? Phony. Artificial . . .

I think, however, that I must accept some of the blame for my ire. Why am I always searching for authenticity in people when they are merely trying to look good or seem intelligent or fashionable or successful or confident when they may in fact be none of these things? Perhaps it is the power of shaping your existence with thought, with tempering a trivial, grain-of-sand experience with a little meaning. That's meaning in the form of someone caring enough to observe and read the vain, trying recordation of someone else's not-so-interesting life.

I suppose we all want someone to care. But I don't want to want that. I spurn that want. Consider that want denied. I deny that desire because I want to have my own, private, authentic experience. But I am a hypocrite because here I am blogging about it. But it's only slightly hypocritical because no one reads this blog, so really it's just a readily accessible receptacle for inane thoughts.

Thank you and goodnight (afternoon, morning, whatever).

Life is a Tambourine!

No it's not, but it got your attention anyway, didn't it? You little mysterious, imaginary little ghosts reading my blog.

What liberation it is not to always take life so seriously. It's just life after all, folks. I don't know what everyone is so up in arms about. But they're awfully serious. They, they, they. They won't eat pastries. They neurotically check their hair in the mirror . . . because hair is an especially serious matter. They worry about their taxes. A lot. And the planning of vacations that must be tackled with great seriousness in order to set about the business of the divide-and-conquer tourism routine. They worry about reproducing, about creating little serious replicas like themselves. They frown at a lunch time beer and shiver at the thought of other similar kinds of weaknesses. They . . . well, they are American, no doubt. They won't buy cream and believe in margarine. They honk their horns in petulant ire whenever someone has the audacity to circumvent the flow of their structured little (and I mean little) universe. I could write a book about what's wrong with the way people drive, and it would be based on the premise that people take life too seriously, which you THINK would be a good thing behind the wheel, but not so, because all of that seriousness is kind of like a poison coalescing in the body that eventually metabolizes into misery, and it is that resultant misery that makes people impossible toddlers masquerading as responsible adults on the road. There, I said it.

But not to be too serious. That's my goal today, because there's nothing like Monday in corporate America to wipe the smiles off the faces of even the most jovial among us. Oh look here comes someone with a face like a jack-o-lantern. Better go . . .

A Room of One's Own

Puffy-eyed, far from center, with a coffee in hand, she sits, slumped and rumpled before a screen. A screen can portend many things, and this one is no different. It tells the story of 7.5 to 8 hours. Of email. Of listless conversation. Of looking down the barrel of another bleak few days. Of denial. Of improper syntax.

This is the story of your average maiden not-so-fair. There is nothing on her breath but the hush, hush, hush of more words unspoken. In the evenings she tries to consume with restraint and not to regard her phone. A phone is a nightmarish thing, a portal to despair, an offending reminder. Better to put her hands over her eyes, her ears, her mouth and pray silently. And move silently, from room to room, from wall to wall. Eyes roving and then resting on dry knuckles, skewed fingernails. There are sheets of something overlaying her face that she notices in her small lit mirror, also a nightmarish thing, a portal to an insuppressible reality of physicality, like wax figures in a museum. Tonight she is one of those frozen figures, caught, anatomized and splayed for the viewing pleasure of . . . well, no one, but the fine particles of air and dust, resting silently in each plastic pore.

From the sinking glut of a white couch she envisions another inhabitable space. This new space is without strictures. Loneliness emerges from its cocoon to become more sophisticated: an hermitage. A clean desk and a bookcase. A cup like an endless well with no bottom. A life within pages, within the folds of brain tissue where unrequited longing sits, yawns, stretches.

Death at the Window

From my window I can see San Francisco,
and a couple walking a dog,
the man joyfully swinging a bag of shit.

Death is a lone, friendless universe,
with no one to talk to ‘bout pending doom,
or the end of life,
or anything of any import.

Jack Kerouac was a drunk who partied in Frisco.
He woke up in hotel rooms with strangers after long wino benders.
He loved jazz. And haiku. And being a Buddhist bum.

From my window I can see the bay,
stretching landless and lightless to the prickly
San Francisco skyline.
I think of pizza in North Beach,
of noodles in Chinatown at the edges of the Financial District,
and finally of the lonely workaday hallways.

Death is something maudlin, something mundane.
Death is a plump martini
at the edge of a marble bar at a crashed gathering.
Death is knowing what you know and
not knowing what you know.

We Drink Coffee

We don't go to gyms. Not really. We coalesce, we drink things like coffee, or maybe a night cap. We don't have issues with chairs. We like sitting in them, actually, but prefer a couch.

While young our bodies may be lithe and svelte, but as we grow only a little older, emerging from our teens and our tender twenties, our bodies grow a little thicker, and a little downward. But we can still be beautiful, navigating from our desks, cup in hand.

We can sit and read forever and get up only to use the bathroom and to have snack time. We'll go hiking, but we go slow up the hills with heavy breath, smoker lungs wheezing.

Sometimes we conduct anthropological experiments. We observe passerby from a café seat where sometimes we see the other kind walking jauntily, healthfully. They run marathons and do bake sales on the weekend. We think, actually, how a bake sale would be cool. You could sit and drink coffee and eat tender pieces of banana bread and take money and maybe even smile a little.

(Thank you to Dogmilque for the beautiful coffee photo that I found on Flickr)

MONEY GRUBBING AND SNUBBING

People who scorn capitalism and the greedy while enjoying the fruits of both are almost as bad as those who devote their every fiber to making a grab at cash without moral qualms. The stance of the former is born out of bitterness and the need to be fashionable, not spiritual or intellectual superiority. And more importantly, it's hypocritical.

Sure, we can all spend all day expounding on the woes of corporate greed and the inequalities in the tax code. But how often is such a diatribe balanced with an examination of the societal benefits of corporate greed? I'm not about to say that the good outweighs the bad, I mean, what can compensate for mass exploitation of the planet and its most vulnerable people? But does that mean that you want to live in a world where market place competition is banned and we're forced to buy overpriced ill-produced goods? Would that improve the environment and our education system? Maybe. Would most of us find that acceptable? Most likely not.

Like most complicated situations in the world, this presents a conundrum, and once again I must pay homage to Voltair in saying that the "the truth is rarely pure, and never simple".

Penny For Your Righteous Thoughts

Do you ever get that feeling that you're behind? Everyone is better dressed than you, knows more about technology or art or whatever. Everyone has already heard the joke or the news bit before you.

Well, if you feel this way maybe you're just as insecure as I am. Or maybe I'm not insecure. Maybe the reason why I don't have the newest cell phone or the coolest ipod is because I don't feel like I NEED those things with the urgency that others do (or it could be because I just don't have the cash to blow). I often wonder just how much people genuinely want the things they buy or accomplish in and of themselves verses wanting them merely to show having them, to flaunt them. Folks sure get a lot of satisfaction out of flaunting, and that's not entirely bad.

For example, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to look good and have others notice. That is a primordial desire. We exist to reproduce, so why not aim to compete to attract attention, hence a mate, or money and success which is really just about sex anyway? Or power. Power and sex. People want them both. In great supply.

However, looking good is one thing. Donning a purse that proves first your ability to drop five grand on a bit of leather and hardware and second your impeccable taste is not just about sex. It is a little bit about sex, but it is more about status. Again here we come back to power. It really does seem that sex and power are the common denominators of our existence. And to think some folks feel so insulted by evolution because it places them too closely to mere animals.

Indeed I could sit here and cluck my tongue at all the outrageous foolishness in the world around me. However, I'm not so stupid that I don't realize I'm part of it, and it is the way things are. I suppose that's why religion has such a great appeal for some (that is, when it's not being used to wield power or prey on little boys or grab good ol' cash like in the old days). I'm talking about the truly devout here. The genuine saints, monks, nuns, the yogis, or just the truly good, spiritual people out there that have rare, not-so-corrupted ways of thinking. You know who I'm talking about. That is a direction that leads away from obsession with sex and power. It's heartening to think that there are folks out there that want to be led away from those things. It almost makes you want to go to church, or to an ashram (though that's way too trendy, IMO).

Pigeons Must Die

To work. That's where I'm going. Today the air is warm and gentle and I feel my thoughts easily gliding over the rooftops of the downtown buildings, dreaming of far off lands, or at least not being at work.

As I walk toward my building I see a pigeon lying on the ground with slowly blinking eyes. The bird is on the verge of death. People rush by, but I stand looking down on this lonesome, pitiful sight. This is a bird that no one wants, and no one cares in the least if it dies unceremoniously on the sidewalk. The pigeons are known to crap profusely downtown, as they perch on networks of transportation cables above intersections, leaving corners splatter painted with their white-green shit. I always approach those corners cautiously, reminded of a day I obliviously pounded the pavement in an interviewee black suit, and became appalled and disgusted to notice a white watery smear on my lapel. Yet despite that insult, I can't help but feel a small, creeping sadness looking down on this feeble bird. But, like everyone else, I walk on, though I shrug, and the air feels a little less warm.

I'm reminded of a documentary I once saw where a baby monkey who had met its untimely death as it climbed power lines and was electrocuted in the streets of an Indian city was lovingly scooped up by random passerby, who managed to cover the tiny, lifeless body with brightly colored ceremonial powders and a shrowd before commencing a brief funeral march down the street, holding the body aloft on a pyre. Monkeys, among others, are sacred animals in India. Pigeons, in San Francisco, however, are somewhere near the opposite of sacred. I try to imagine a San Francisco where pigeons are cherished and often fed treats for the purpose of good luck, akin to how it is considered good luck in some parts of India to offer a cow a bit of fruit, for example. I think the effects of such a shift in regard would result in not just a few fouled intersections, but a city blanketed in thin white excrement, because pigeons, though relegated to the ranks of other nasty pests like rodents and ants, manage to do quite well despite the lack of largess shown to them by the people of San Francisco.

The Nutri-Cig! By Schmokes

It’s finally here, folks. A cigarette and a meal in one! Introducing Nutri-Cig by Schmokes, trusted producers of other favorite stink stalks such as Shin-Dig Schmokes, the first 8 inch cigarette for those party candy smoke breaks at the club. Nutri-Cigs come in three mouth-watering flavors: Ham n’ Eggs, Taco Bell Taco and, of course, Bubble Gum, in recognition of your earliest smoke, the bubble gum cigarette!

7 Reasons Why Men Don’t Wear Lace

1. Cuz most straight men are pathetically homophobic and even fashion-conscious gay men don’t seem to favor lace. Thus, a scarcity of lace on the bods of the menfolk. A+B=C, get it?

2. Because blue and green and gray lace, for example, are hard to find. Those are manly colors, and manly men don’t want to forgo them for like-a-virgin white, nursemaid cream or pretty in pink. Duh. It’s a simple color diversity problem.

3. Because most men still don’t recognize what many women know to be true: it hurts to be beautiful. That’s right. Do you think women LIKE the feel of itchy lace on our tits and ass? Not really, but we do it because it’s pretty, goddammit. This is an aesthetics appreciation problem.

4. Lace is delicate. It rips easily. Many men enjoy how easily it rips from a female form, but wouldn’t stand for such flimsiness in their own choice of attire. Why? Because many men (oh boy, I sure am enjoying all these generalizations!) practically need to live in a brown canvas jump suit, or any other material that can handle profuse scratching, farting and not show grease stains.

5. Because Calvin Klein still won’t design lacey men’s underwear (I’m thinking steely gray, silk lace thong briefs- very sexy and simple). I’m not sure why. I’ve tried to persuade him, but goddammit, he won’t fucking listen. I just wanna see billboards of men in lace underwear. Is that too much to ask?

6. Because there’s no Victoria’s Secret for men. Really, now . . . it’s just pure discrimination. Hello! Ever heard of man-gerie!

7. Because Lacey is a girl’s name. Women don’t wear any fabrics called Bob or Stew or Herbert, so there ya go . . . it’s a nomenclature problem.

Picking Your Nose While Driving . . .

That's right, I saw you. I didn't want to see you, but I did, so now I have to sound off about this.

Here's a tip. If you're going to pick your nose and eat it while people may be watching, please have the courtesy not to display the fact that you obviously relish your little bout with rhinotillexomania (hey, there's a word for you- look it up and learn about yourself). I had an upset stomach this morning when I stopped at the intersection when I casually looked over at you in the car next to me and watched in paralyzed horror as you smiled after you popped a big messy one in your mouth. That almost sent me over the edge.

I know of the so-called health benefits touted by geeky, disgusting doctors about the supposed immune-boosting benefits of eating your mucus. Despite these claims, I still don't think it's necessary to snarf on your snot in public. Go ahead, pick till your heart's content, put it in a jar or hanky, even, for later enjoyment in the privacy of your home or some other place where innocent bystanders don't have to be subjected to your depravity. But please, please, please don't let me see a green goblin lurking at the corner of your mouth. Ever again.

10 Great Things about Popov Vodka

1. It may not be Hangar, but it's on sale now for only $10.99 at Long's for 1.75 liters. Let me repeat that, folks: 1.75 liters in a handy dandy plastic grip jug! This is so great, because you know how important it is to be able to easily grab the bottle from the fridge in the morning when you're crawling on the floor in desperate need of some hair 'o the dog. You really need all the help you can get at that point.

2. Because it's Russian, or at least that's what the mysterious makers of Popov want you to believe, I mean, they weren't kidding around with the black silhouettes of Russian style monasteries against a red background. Picture of Russian skyline on bottle and common, easily recognizable Russian surname = Russian. It's that simple.

3. Because you drank it in high school. Why change a good thing? You thought you were pretty cool then, maybe you can be cool again for only $10.99. What have you got to lose aside from a few brain cells? Don't be a pansy. Russian people don't like pansies.

4. It's a taste of Russia (see cultural authenticity above). Russian people drink vodka and they don't spend $50 a bottle so why should you? Drink up and save!

5. You can reuse the handy dandy plastic grip jug when you're done with the vodka. Really. Take it to the gym and share with friends, after all, you can put a whole 1.75 liters in that thing AND it has a cool, edgy picture of a Russian skyline. You'll have a whole slew of new friends.

6. While we're on the whole drinking-Popov-makes-you-cool thing, why not try sporting the handy dandy plastic grip bottle at other social events or in public? Make sure to keep only water in it, of course, as drinking in public is illegal. Also, brace yourself for the warm reception you'll receive from passerby, especially those sitting on the sidewalk with blankets and stuff.

7. We're talking about image here. Image is everything, or haven't you heard. Do you really want people to think you're one of those annoying connoisseur types with a Dean and Deluca spice kit who subscribes to Food and Drink Snobs of the World Quarterly? Or, do you wanna be cool, ya know, punk rock, urbane with a touch of real-world humility? You can either hang with the cool kids or go crying to your mama.

8. Once you really get down with your 1.75 liters of Popov vodka, you can then enjoy Popov 100 proof! Another member of the Popov vodka family! Whoo hoo! You're gonna need it to get your party on anyway, as once you finish that handy dandy plastic grip bottle of the beginner's stuff it's going to take a wee bit more to cop a buzz. That's just the breaks.

9. It goes really well with Camel cigarettes, or any other quick burn smoke. Really, give it a try, even if you're not a smoker, you can always start, I mean, you DO wanna be one of the cool kids right? Besides, once you drink a french jelly jar full of the Pop, you'll smoke anything.

10. I drink it, genius. So get with the program and party barbiturate bimbo style!