Depression is the dumps. Some people suffer because they think that they are the butterfly who's going to cause the hurricane that kills thousands. Either that, or they want to be the second coming. Neither delusion is healthy. You can't confirm the former or live up to the latter. For some reason, realizing this is news each and every time life offers the revelation. And each time, it's depressing news.
There is something absurd, almost hilarious, about depression. It's a vanity of some strange sort, wanting to be the butterfly or the savior.
So, today I say be like the lion. Hunt whatever you need to survive and spend the rest of your day hanging out in the shade with people who don't mind if you don't say a word at all.
There is an art, maybe even a struggle, to doing nothing more than blinking to keep your eyes wet. Don't forget simplicity.
Be happy just being.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Tuna Melt
This is a POEM about a guy who wants to thank the creator of his favorite food.
Nothing goes better together than
tuna and mayonnaise
rye bread, black pepper, Swiss cheese,
who in the world
comes up with this stuff?
I wanna meet'm
on the terra cotta patio
of his ocean-side restaurant
on the edge of a cliff.
I want the wind to be warm
and I want to tell him
face to face that
if I could
I'd eat his sandwiches everyday.
Nothing goes better together than
tuna and mayonnaise
rye bread, black pepper, Swiss cheese,
who in the world
comes up with this stuff?
I wanna meet'm
on the terra cotta patio
of his ocean-side restaurant
on the edge of a cliff.
I want the wind to be warm
and I want to tell him
face to face that
if I could
I'd eat his sandwiches everyday.
Posthumous
This is a POEM in which the artist considers what his life's work will amount to after he's dead, comparing it all to a sea shell.
A jack of all trades is what they'll call me.
Those who bother to pick up my remains
will hold in their hands a painting,
colorful and abstract;
a poem of decided obscurity, dismissed too early;
a short, incomplete story.
They'll say "he never amounted to much
in his lifetime.
He worked at a coffee shop and may have
suffered from a mental illness."
I'd really be somebody
if their inquiry went so far
as to report on the life of my parents
or my conception of romance.
I've never been that good at math;
from all the shapes and words and philosophy
I leave behind, this will seem too obvious to mention,
if I were somebody.
But if they look from a distance
at all the trades I fell for
and where I chose to say
what I was incapable, as just a man,
to say out loud in a word,
or single act, or opus,
they might as well have plucked
a shell from the beach,
saw inside a spiral,
perhaps held me to their ear
and listened to my moan
and how I tried like hell
to be the entire ocean.
A jack of all trades is what they'll call me.
Those who bother to pick up my remains
will hold in their hands a painting,
colorful and abstract;
a poem of decided obscurity, dismissed too early;
a short, incomplete story.
They'll say "he never amounted to much
in his lifetime.
He worked at a coffee shop and may have
suffered from a mental illness."
I'd really be somebody
if their inquiry went so far
as to report on the life of my parents
or my conception of romance.
I've never been that good at math;
from all the shapes and words and philosophy
I leave behind, this will seem too obvious to mention,
if I were somebody.
But if they look from a distance
at all the trades I fell for
and where I chose to say
what I was incapable, as just a man,
to say out loud in a word,
or single act, or opus,
they might as well have plucked
a shell from the beach,
saw inside a spiral,
perhaps held me to their ear
and listened to my moan
and how I tried like hell
to be the entire ocean.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
A Study On The Space Between Actual Facts
This is a POEM that explores the science and mysticism of seemingly unrelated forms of communication.
Absorb me
Through your softest parts
Beg the words of their
Pupils.
And so you let them invert
in the light that blasts onto the big red screens
In the back of your eyes. They soak up
through cords at the speed of light
but slowed down by Ohm’s Law
So that by the time they hit a fold
In your left brain
And spread throughout to
Broca and Wernicke’s
You realize what you’re looking at
has meaning, but you’re not sure what.
So quietly,
someone is actually speaking to you:
Man drew pictures before he could
Breath delicately through his larynx
And imitate the sound of the bird
That was easiest for his son
To catch.
The apple always falls
The shortest route from the tree
To the ground and so, looking at the moon,
Newton wondered, what else is as constant?
After a few calculations the question of
Whether or not there was a relationship
Between the apple and the moon
Was laid to rest.
So does the
father exist in the bird that is caught,
in the boy who spotted it in the air,
Or in the grown boy, a man, who knows the bird by its call
And is so close to sounding it out?
When the father is gone,
is he then the law by which the bird is brought near?
Also, If the boy learns the bird's caw
Will the father ever hear?
If Newton can prove that the moon was as an apple
to his eye for an evening,
Is he really a mathematician?
Absorb me
Through your softest parts
Beg the words of their
Pupils.
And so you let them invert
in the light that blasts onto the big red screens
In the back of your eyes. They soak up
through cords at the speed of light
but slowed down by Ohm’s Law
So that by the time they hit a fold
In your left brain
And spread throughout to
Broca and Wernicke’s
You realize what you’re looking at
has meaning, but you’re not sure what.
So quietly,
someone is actually speaking to you:
Man drew pictures before he could
Breath delicately through his larynx
And imitate the sound of the bird
That was easiest for his son
To catch.
The apple always falls
The shortest route from the tree
To the ground and so, looking at the moon,
Newton wondered, what else is as constant?
After a few calculations the question of
Whether or not there was a relationship
Between the apple and the moon
Was laid to rest.
So does the
father exist in the bird that is caught,
in the boy who spotted it in the air,
Or in the grown boy, a man, who knows the bird by its call
And is so close to sounding it out?
When the father is gone,
is he then the law by which the bird is brought near?
Also, If the boy learns the bird's caw
Will the father ever hear?
If Newton can prove that the moon was as an apple
to his eye for an evening,
Is he really a mathematician?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Rendezvous
This is a POEM about the complexity of a clandestine relationship.
I can bare-
ly remember what we
said between the moment
you pulled off your
shoes at my door
And raced down the stairs
With your hands in the air, screaming
I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care!
Lunch break wasn't long enough
to confirm the truth of the love
you came here to witness and express, manifest, maybe
yes,
to confirm.
But by coming here, to me, so close we were
both exposed
To gestures, mere gestures, confessing our volumes of doubt
Concerning this thing called love.
I think it was doubt that made us sure
Of what we needed to show and how
To stick together
Since we are friends,
romantics at heart, really, whose
hackneyed script is G-rated
for our audience,
and since, for all intents
And purposes
love is like a
good,
I swear
I believe
It would never tear us apart,
don’t
You agree that we can communicate sublime,
Or at least
That sometimes we have
A long and poetic way of saying a simple yes
Or simple no,
of forgetting all our cares for the moment?
I can bare-
ly remember what we
said between the moment
you pulled off your
shoes at my door
And raced down the stairs
With your hands in the air, screaming
I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care!
Lunch break wasn't long enough
to confirm the truth of the love
you came here to witness and express, manifest, maybe
yes,
to confirm.
But by coming here, to me, so close we were
both exposed
To gestures, mere gestures, confessing our volumes of doubt
Concerning this thing called love.
I think it was doubt that made us sure
Of what we needed to show and how
To stick together
Since we are friends,
romantics at heart, really, whose
hackneyed script is G-rated
for our audience,
and since, for all intents
And purposes
love is like a
good,
I swear
I believe
It would never tear us apart,
don’t
You agree that we can communicate sublime,
Or at least
That sometimes we have
A long and poetic way of saying a simple yes
Or simple no,
of forgetting all our cares for the moment?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Astrophysicist Excommunicated
This is an ARTICLE exploring the philosophical and theological implications of a modern scientific theory.
Cape Canaveral, FL: Astrophysicist Norman Blackwell has been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, for his most recent publication in which he presents proof that the Big Bang occurred at least twice in the long history of the cosmos. He has gone so far as to suggest that the Big Bang has occurred and will occur ad infinitum. The conflict with the Church lay in the theological implications of such a description of the cosmos.
Left wide open is the possibility that humans have existed during each new Big Bang period.
According to Blackwell's argument, which assumes that the laws of physics are the same during each Big Bang that occurs, all material would expand in the same way each time. Consequently, galaxies of Big Bang One would look the same as galaxies of Big Bang Two. Even cosmic details such as stars would be composed of the same elements in the periods following each Big Bang.
Simply put, all the forms that we see in our cosmos would have existed in any previous or succeeding cosmos. This means that solar systems like the ones we have now have existed and will exist again, assuming Blackwell's hypothesis is correct.
If there have existed, or will exist, solar systems similar to ours in other Big Bang periods, couldn't they also be suitable for lifeforms?
It seems that if Blackwell is right, the human form could have existed in Big Bang One, and that it will exist in Big Bang two, three, four, five and so on.
If human beings did in fact live in a previous Big Bang, how similar were they to us? Furthermore, if scientific laws were exactly the same for each Big Bang, it could be possible that the exact same people inhabited the exact same planet, only at a different age of the universe's infinite pattern of explosion, expansion, and collapse.
This means that you yourself could have existed several times before and may exists over and over again on a time scale too great to fully comprehend.
Scientist, philosophers, and theologians are baffled by the paradox which has been dubbed by some as periodic eternity. Is this reincarnation? Determinism? Philosophers of metaphysics have speculated that perhaps each Big Bang has exactly the same ingredients. Some have gone so far as to say that Freedom itself may be a fundamental consequence of astrophysical laws.
In the words of Doris Euclid, a tenured professor of metaphysics at the University of Santa Monica, in Santa Monica, California, "Perhaps freedom is the consequence of the passage of Time, and like the formation of a diamond it can only come into existence under the magnificent pressure of a universe expanded to limits; limits that bring into being consciousness; limits that man has come to measure in the intervals of evolution, wisdom, love, humanity, spiritual communion...To know the primary cause has always meant to approach the Divine."
Dana Arlinghaus, theologian, takes a similar stance, "Maybe it is true, in a scientific sense, the doctrine promised by Christ. This theory seems to reinforce the idea that life is literally eternal."
In fact, minds from many disciplines have been moved by Blackwell's findings. Poet laureate, Sophia Grangier submitted the following proposition to an audience in Paris, "Man is formed from the stardust as the sole admirer of the beauty and order his crude constitution has finally achieved."
In his own defense, Blackwell has said to his accusers, "if we are but a moment, fine; but if that moment is repeated again and again, science says we are a Truth. Insofar as that is true, history tells us we must also be divine."
Norman Blackwell is currently living on a Russian space station where advanced studies on black holes are being conducted. His research, although not accessible in most languages, may soon be published by Doksee, an independent research firm committed to the dissemination of cutting-edge astronomical data in accordance with the first amendment rights of free speech and press.
Cape Canaveral, FL: Astrophysicist Norman Blackwell has been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, for his most recent publication in which he presents proof that the Big Bang occurred at least twice in the long history of the cosmos. He has gone so far as to suggest that the Big Bang has occurred and will occur ad infinitum. The conflict with the Church lay in the theological implications of such a description of the cosmos.
Left wide open is the possibility that humans have existed during each new Big Bang period.
According to Blackwell's argument, which assumes that the laws of physics are the same during each Big Bang that occurs, all material would expand in the same way each time. Consequently, galaxies of Big Bang One would look the same as galaxies of Big Bang Two. Even cosmic details such as stars would be composed of the same elements in the periods following each Big Bang.
Simply put, all the forms that we see in our cosmos would have existed in any previous or succeeding cosmos. This means that solar systems like the ones we have now have existed and will exist again, assuming Blackwell's hypothesis is correct.
If there have existed, or will exist, solar systems similar to ours in other Big Bang periods, couldn't they also be suitable for lifeforms?
It seems that if Blackwell is right, the human form could have existed in Big Bang One, and that it will exist in Big Bang two, three, four, five and so on.
If human beings did in fact live in a previous Big Bang, how similar were they to us? Furthermore, if scientific laws were exactly the same for each Big Bang, it could be possible that the exact same people inhabited the exact same planet, only at a different age of the universe's infinite pattern of explosion, expansion, and collapse.
This means that you yourself could have existed several times before and may exists over and over again on a time scale too great to fully comprehend.
Scientist, philosophers, and theologians are baffled by the paradox which has been dubbed by some as periodic eternity. Is this reincarnation? Determinism? Philosophers of metaphysics have speculated that perhaps each Big Bang has exactly the same ingredients. Some have gone so far as to say that Freedom itself may be a fundamental consequence of astrophysical laws.
In the words of Doris Euclid, a tenured professor of metaphysics at the University of Santa Monica, in Santa Monica, California, "Perhaps freedom is the consequence of the passage of Time, and like the formation of a diamond it can only come into existence under the magnificent pressure of a universe expanded to limits; limits that bring into being consciousness; limits that man has come to measure in the intervals of evolution, wisdom, love, humanity, spiritual communion...To know the primary cause has always meant to approach the Divine."
Dana Arlinghaus, theologian, takes a similar stance, "Maybe it is true, in a scientific sense, the doctrine promised by Christ. This theory seems to reinforce the idea that life is literally eternal."
In fact, minds from many disciplines have been moved by Blackwell's findings. Poet laureate, Sophia Grangier submitted the following proposition to an audience in Paris, "Man is formed from the stardust as the sole admirer of the beauty and order his crude constitution has finally achieved."
In his own defense, Blackwell has said to his accusers, "if we are but a moment, fine; but if that moment is repeated again and again, science says we are a Truth. Insofar as that is true, history tells us we must also be divine."
Norman Blackwell is currently living on a Russian space station where advanced studies on black holes are being conducted. His research, although not accessible in most languages, may soon be published by Doksee, an independent research firm committed to the dissemination of cutting-edge astronomical data in accordance with the first amendment rights of free speech and press.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
15 Year Old Boy Out-performs Google Search Engines
This is an ARTICLE about a young phenom who threatens to out-perform the most popular internet search engine, Google.
Los Angeles, CA: Can it be so that the mind of a 15 year-old boy can categorize and access volumes of data more efficiently and quickly than Google? Researchers have found one young man who can do just that. Rene ‘Digital’ Murray was first discovered to have a photographic memory at the age of three. By five he was able to record entire children’s books, page by page, in his head. By ten he had half of encyclopedia Britannica committed to memory. And yet he uses only 22 percent of his brain (the rest of us use between 2-7 percent).
When asked how he could retain such voluminous information, he said it was simply a matter of looking at something the right way.
Since then, scientist have been scratching their heads, theorizing how this young man, or any human being for that matter, could store and recall so much data. Recent studies led by Cornell neuropsychologist Mina Norvlavsky suggest that what young Rene said about “seeing something the right way” was not too far off the mark. In studying the boy’s eye movements, she noticed a finite pattern occurring while the boy’s eyes scanned an article or visual image. So quick and minute were the movements, it required a special video camera to capture it.
“Have you ever seen those videos of a hummingbird flying where you can see the wings flapping slowly? Well, we basically got one of those and made it move double-time,” says professor Norlovsky.
This spiral pattern is caused by what Norlovsky has dubbed the facsimile bundle, a collection of nerves and muscles that allow Rene’s eyes to move so quickly. It seems that the order in which the information is collected also helps to make the information extremely recollectable, as if his mind simply has to reverse the process his eyes used to absorb the information.
“I remember one random word, like a keyword, and all the information is in there. Then I just use other keywords to minimize the search, but I’m not actually thinking when I do that part. I just sort of happens that way.”
Norlovsky is still scratching her head over how exactly data is retrieved.
However, if Norlovsky’s speculations about how data are absorbed are true, the days of needing a computer to navigate through a world of information might be soon coming to a close. Her laboratory is already working with a nano-device laboratory, also at Cornell, that will create a chip one can attach to his or her temple to create the same impulse patterns recorded in young Rene’s eyes.
The old days of using less than 10 percent of our brains might just be coming to a close.
Los Angeles, CA: Can it be so that the mind of a 15 year-old boy can categorize and access volumes of data more efficiently and quickly than Google? Researchers have found one young man who can do just that. Rene ‘Digital’ Murray was first discovered to have a photographic memory at the age of three. By five he was able to record entire children’s books, page by page, in his head. By ten he had half of encyclopedia Britannica committed to memory. And yet he uses only 22 percent of his brain (the rest of us use between 2-7 percent).
When asked how he could retain such voluminous information, he said it was simply a matter of looking at something the right way.
Since then, scientist have been scratching their heads, theorizing how this young man, or any human being for that matter, could store and recall so much data. Recent studies led by Cornell neuropsychologist Mina Norvlavsky suggest that what young Rene said about “seeing something the right way” was not too far off the mark. In studying the boy’s eye movements, she noticed a finite pattern occurring while the boy’s eyes scanned an article or visual image. So quick and minute were the movements, it required a special video camera to capture it.
“Have you ever seen those videos of a hummingbird flying where you can see the wings flapping slowly? Well, we basically got one of those and made it move double-time,” says professor Norlovsky.
This spiral pattern is caused by what Norlovsky has dubbed the facsimile bundle, a collection of nerves and muscles that allow Rene’s eyes to move so quickly. It seems that the order in which the information is collected also helps to make the information extremely recollectable, as if his mind simply has to reverse the process his eyes used to absorb the information.
“I remember one random word, like a keyword, and all the information is in there. Then I just use other keywords to minimize the search, but I’m not actually thinking when I do that part. I just sort of happens that way.”
Norlovsky is still scratching her head over how exactly data is retrieved.
However, if Norlovsky’s speculations about how data are absorbed are true, the days of needing a computer to navigate through a world of information might be soon coming to a close. Her laboratory is already working with a nano-device laboratory, also at Cornell, that will create a chip one can attach to his or her temple to create the same impulse patterns recorded in young Rene’s eyes.
The old days of using less than 10 percent of our brains might just be coming to a close.
Bova, and the Deep, Deep Future
Boy, are we doomed. I don’t get when no body just comes on out and says it. It doesn’t mean that there will be anarchy, that fags will begin to proselytize third world countries with revolutionary love, or that there will be anarchy.
People will continue to go about their business, stealing from each other, killing each other, pointing fingers and finger banging in the bathrooms of disco techs around the world. Drugs industries would not flourish any more than they do now; in fact, nothing would change. But it should just be acknowledged, is all I’m saying, that we need to put some serious consideration into foundations like NASA and dehydrated food industries, space suits. We all know that the sun is going to blow up, turn into a white dwarf and be useless, eventually. That day has to come. Whether we are still around is up to us, really. We might wipe ourselves out way beforehand though. Maybe we’ll drown, but I doubt it. Probably the weather will just get wilder; a few more wars will set the stage for new levels of inhumanity, but nothing too cataclysmic for the perennials of consciousness that are the Peace Corp and chain of Dalai Lamas.
I’ve taken the liberty of writing letters to the people, to implore the wise men of our government to invest their dollars wisely. Our dollars, I mean. Because, as brilliant a business move that it is to commandeer countries shipwrecked, so to speak, by the trade winds of their own misguided ideologies, we can’t lose sight of the future, and the future is out there, in the stars. The future is, maybe, light years away. In the future, healthy people are fucking without contraceptives on space crafts that have minds of their own. Further into the future, that spacecraft gets to its proper destination: a planet out on a far away solar system that looks so damn much like earth.
Shit, it’ll be eerie. But I’m down. Sign me up. I read Aldus Huxley and I wasn’t scared.
But about those countries and these supposed “wars”: America isn’t fighting a war, America is paving a super highway to the stars, which are, as we said earlier, the future. You see, when people don’t use the proper terminology, the story gets told all wrong, out of context. When people call it war, it sounds so primitive. It sounds like we’ve not evolved. If fails to take into consideration the love that we are trying to force upon these people. Now, you might be laughing, thinking, “Love isn’t forced,” but you are personally invited to reach around finger bang yourself if you’re stupid enough to think so. Love is forced in the same what that you, as a little bitty virgin baby were forced out into the world.
Sometimes love is tough; all the time, love is painful. Love takes sacrifice. Look at Jesus for Christ’s sake.
So, although it is cute to see my fellow American’s crying over the lost lives over seas, I call for an end to this charade of idealism. We need to be slapped wide awake with the cashmere glove of civilized rationality. Get with the program. Shit hits the fan and some Mexican out in California comes and cleans it up. That’s the way it is because that’s the way, uh huh uh huh, we like it.
I grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, in a nice house there in the burbs. The house had an heirloom which was a picture of the Earth from outer space, taken by Buzz Aldrin. Buzz was buddies with the previous owner, whose name is Benjamin Bova and Mr. Bova is an accomplished science fiction writer. I’ve never read one of his books, but one day while I was in the book store at Cornell, I saw one with Ben Bova written in huge letters on the spine. “There he is,” I said to Karen. Karen was my girlfriend. Karen will always be my girlfriend, but back in those days we were kids, really, so she didn’t give a shit who I saw. I could have seen Franky Flippin’ Sinatra, her dream man, and she still would have said to me, “Who the frigg are you talking about?”
“Ben friggin’ Bova is who I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know who he is, babe.” Every syllable laced with condescension. I started telling myself to chill out.
“Oh, bull! You’ve been to my house. I showed it to you, remember?” My voice was all high-pitched. I checked myself. Straightened up. Breath. Chill. “He’s the guy who lived there before my family got there.”
I could have sworn that she told me to eff myself under her breath (she loved dropping eff-bombs), but maybe she just commented on the halter top Cornell Tees that we passed. We were just kids then.
“I want one,” she said. “Yes darling. I do, too, actually.” (I sometimes spoke that way then beyond my years, out of my era.) And then I paused, looked around and saw students all over. Their hairy heads here and there, looking at books, clothes, all sorts of shit they wanted to buy just for the sake of buying. Fucking cogs, man. Cogs in the fucking machine.
“What’d you say?” Karen asked.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Yeah. You’re such a dork.”
“I think we all know you’re the dork,” I quipped, rolling up the tee shirt inconspicuously by her side. “I’m the cool guy.”
And as I said that, I stuffed that tee she wanted down into my boxer briefs and then stuffed the one I wanted down there, too. My package looked huge and I showed it off to her, but she didn’t laugh. Boy, was I on the top of the world! I took her into the book racks and started trying to feel her up and kiss her next to this Asian kid whose eyes must have filtered out all light, seen only chi. He also wore a tee shirt that said “NASA” and, no doubt, knew the value of investing in space suits.
He also had so many pimples that Karen got excited before I even extended my fingers around her bum and into that equilateral triangle at the height of every fit young woman’s inner thighs. You see, pimples on other people’s faces were her bubble wrap. If you’ve ever experienced the great pleasure of popping bubble wrap, you’d understand.
People will continue to go about their business, stealing from each other, killing each other, pointing fingers and finger banging in the bathrooms of disco techs around the world. Drugs industries would not flourish any more than they do now; in fact, nothing would change. But it should just be acknowledged, is all I’m saying, that we need to put some serious consideration into foundations like NASA and dehydrated food industries, space suits. We all know that the sun is going to blow up, turn into a white dwarf and be useless, eventually. That day has to come. Whether we are still around is up to us, really. We might wipe ourselves out way beforehand though. Maybe we’ll drown, but I doubt it. Probably the weather will just get wilder; a few more wars will set the stage for new levels of inhumanity, but nothing too cataclysmic for the perennials of consciousness that are the Peace Corp and chain of Dalai Lamas.
I’ve taken the liberty of writing letters to the people, to implore the wise men of our government to invest their dollars wisely. Our dollars, I mean. Because, as brilliant a business move that it is to commandeer countries shipwrecked, so to speak, by the trade winds of their own misguided ideologies, we can’t lose sight of the future, and the future is out there, in the stars. The future is, maybe, light years away. In the future, healthy people are fucking without contraceptives on space crafts that have minds of their own. Further into the future, that spacecraft gets to its proper destination: a planet out on a far away solar system that looks so damn much like earth.
Shit, it’ll be eerie. But I’m down. Sign me up. I read Aldus Huxley and I wasn’t scared.
But about those countries and these supposed “wars”: America isn’t fighting a war, America is paving a super highway to the stars, which are, as we said earlier, the future. You see, when people don’t use the proper terminology, the story gets told all wrong, out of context. When people call it war, it sounds so primitive. It sounds like we’ve not evolved. If fails to take into consideration the love that we are trying to force upon these people. Now, you might be laughing, thinking, “Love isn’t forced,” but you are personally invited to reach around finger bang yourself if you’re stupid enough to think so. Love is forced in the same what that you, as a little bitty virgin baby were forced out into the world.
Sometimes love is tough; all the time, love is painful. Love takes sacrifice. Look at Jesus for Christ’s sake.
So, although it is cute to see my fellow American’s crying over the lost lives over seas, I call for an end to this charade of idealism. We need to be slapped wide awake with the cashmere glove of civilized rationality. Get with the program. Shit hits the fan and some Mexican out in California comes and cleans it up. That’s the way it is because that’s the way, uh huh uh huh, we like it.
I grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, in a nice house there in the burbs. The house had an heirloom which was a picture of the Earth from outer space, taken by Buzz Aldrin. Buzz was buddies with the previous owner, whose name is Benjamin Bova and Mr. Bova is an accomplished science fiction writer. I’ve never read one of his books, but one day while I was in the book store at Cornell, I saw one with Ben Bova written in huge letters on the spine. “There he is,” I said to Karen. Karen was my girlfriend. Karen will always be my girlfriend, but back in those days we were kids, really, so she didn’t give a shit who I saw. I could have seen Franky Flippin’ Sinatra, her dream man, and she still would have said to me, “Who the frigg are you talking about?”
“Ben friggin’ Bova is who I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know who he is, babe.” Every syllable laced with condescension. I started telling myself to chill out.
“Oh, bull! You’ve been to my house. I showed it to you, remember?” My voice was all high-pitched. I checked myself. Straightened up. Breath. Chill. “He’s the guy who lived there before my family got there.”
I could have sworn that she told me to eff myself under her breath (she loved dropping eff-bombs), but maybe she just commented on the halter top Cornell Tees that we passed. We were just kids then.
“I want one,” she said. “Yes darling. I do, too, actually.” (I sometimes spoke that way then beyond my years, out of my era.) And then I paused, looked around and saw students all over. Their hairy heads here and there, looking at books, clothes, all sorts of shit they wanted to buy just for the sake of buying. Fucking cogs, man. Cogs in the fucking machine.
“What’d you say?” Karen asked.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Yeah. You’re such a dork.”
“I think we all know you’re the dork,” I quipped, rolling up the tee shirt inconspicuously by her side. “I’m the cool guy.”
And as I said that, I stuffed that tee she wanted down into my boxer briefs and then stuffed the one I wanted down there, too. My package looked huge and I showed it off to her, but she didn’t laugh. Boy, was I on the top of the world! I took her into the book racks and started trying to feel her up and kiss her next to this Asian kid whose eyes must have filtered out all light, seen only chi. He also wore a tee shirt that said “NASA” and, no doubt, knew the value of investing in space suits.
He also had so many pimples that Karen got excited before I even extended my fingers around her bum and into that equilateral triangle at the height of every fit young woman’s inner thighs. You see, pimples on other people’s faces were her bubble wrap. If you’ve ever experienced the great pleasure of popping bubble wrap, you’d understand.
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