Alright, fucker, so here's the deal. Or, at least, a question. Perhaps a rhetorical one. Why does political affiliation in this country fall along the lines of an assumption of pro-authoritarianism, despite the fact that this nation was founded on classical liberal, anti-authoritarian principles? It seems to me that the political debate is dominated on both sides by pro-governmental authority, pro-federalist wonks that have a vested interest in ever-expanding federal authority.

And a follow-up question. How is it that Americans have accepted the notion that their federal government can extort legislation out of state governments that the people don't want by holding hostage tax dollars? Can the ideals of freedom really be bought off so easily? And why are any of us still paying taxes to a federal government that routinely violates our civil liberties in the name of such elusive foes as "drugs" or "terrorism"?

I don't buy it. I think neither of those enemies exist. They are an excuse for expanding police powers, in a way that would otherwise be unjustifiable. A way that is still unjustifiable, but that can be built upon the irrational fears of cowards and fools.

I'm tired of the propaganda. Tired of it all.

Where has America gone?

I've allowed the dark forces of entropy to envelop me in unproductive laziness for far too long. And so, I make those first awkward, unbalanced steps to regain my creative balance…

There have been so many projects that I've neglected, vis-à-vis words and images and concepts, and the only way to put my recent acedia behind me is to engage those neglected parts of my frontal cortex and to fight through the torpor of depressive, contented, mindlessness.

Never mind the evident inanity of our system's malicious turbidity, nor the calamity of self-serving calumny that most assuredly defines the hypocrisy of our potentates. Representative government….Pah!

It's election season again, which means another birthday approaches, and I find myself as disillusioned as ever, no less frustrated with the status quo. Perhaps it's merely an affliction illustrative of my own contrarianism, but I find myself almost completely at odds with the direction of our governance, in almost polar opposition to the majority opinion on damn near every major issue facing our republic.

I should probably qualify all of this by saying that I'm a leftist libertarian, according to politicalcompass.org. Of course, within the context of my family, I could be considered pretty right-wing fascist. What can I say? I come from people who fundamentally recognize the rights of the individual and the shortcomings of the state. And the responsibilities of the state.

But really, all this verbiage only stands in effulgent symbolism of my supposed rededication to this self-indulgent self-expression. Hopefully, that'll work out for me. Wish me luck.

My Deepest Apologies...

In the current climate of hastily-written apologies for religion-based calls for violence, I would like to extend my own insincere regrets for my previous comments on the controversial topic of Cheez-Its. It seems I may have gone too far in stating my preference for Cheese Nips. Let me assure you that I had thought a "fatwah" involved a celebration of diverse cracker inclusion.

I'm certain that the problem of opposing cracker viewpoints is something that could be easily remedied by American Special Forces troops, probably by supporting the spread of democracy with laser-guided precision.

Broken Mirror

Life is an analogy for her,
waiting to be discovered and enumerated,
Nature an analog copy of an analog copy
of her beauty,
and I am a mere theorist,
a dreaming, hopeful, aspiring
explorer and cartographer of
the hidden landscapes and
the uncharted depths of
her great and mysterious and overwhelming perfection.

I dance this dance of trying to appear
not to want her desperately,
not to ache for her attention,
not to need the melody of her voice,

the accompaniment of her mind's resonance
the rhythm of her sweet breath,
and the swaying of her form,
symphonic metronome to balance
the chaotic dissonance of existence

Outside of her.

But I dance it poorly, constantly
battling the dread that she will find
another partner, one that can speak
of her perfection without becoming lost
in awe, one that can feign disinterest,
or perhaps feel disinterest, one that doesn't
feel so perfectly unqualified to match her
dance, to mirror her perfection.

Cheese Nips and Truth

Alright, let's get on the same page right at the start of this thing. Any product called "Cheese Nips" is bound to be delicious. There's just no way around it. It's virtually a mathematical identity, for chris'sake. On the one hand, you have the "Cheese" element with the wholesome goodness and calcium-rich nutrition of dairy, coupled with the ancient craft of the cheesemaker. Counterposed to the aforementioned "Cheese" element you have the "Nips" element, which in a literal sense may refer either to Neural Information Processing Systems or may be a slang term for nipples. Given the implicit dairy-ness of the product, the nipple-y meaning may be the best bet; however, I believe that in either case, the term is intended more as an expression of transcendent goodness and, therefore, tastiness.

It was the sweet goodness of a nip of rum that refocused my attentions on the salty goodness of the ambrosia of these "Cheese Nips", the "Nips" portion thereof perhaps catching my eye due to the more aphodisiatic properties of the booze. The nipple-y cheeseness of this new mistress drew me in and beat me about the consciousness with its wily position at the base of the pyramid, flailing its taste around in a way that was, frankly, quite lewd, and in the process hitting me squaw in the taste bud region with amazing violence.

More rum was the only solution to this alimental problem, and I threw myself into the work with abandon. But more rum demanded the attentions of more Cheese Nips in an exponential cycle of comestible re-balancing. Eventually, this problem of balance was solved when I lost my own sense of balance and tumbled to the ground in nipple-y drunken bliss. Cheese Nips saved my life that night. They could save you too, if only you'd listen to their siren song…and rum. Don't forget the rum.

Safety Dance

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
--Helen Keller

All-out velocity is the thing, man, triple digits and a directional vector, your mind battling against itself, rationality begging to let go of this insanity before the great cosmic croupier comes to collect the house's due. In moments of extreme personal danger, that's when it all makes sense, but fleetingly, elusively, like secrets whispered to you in the hypnogogic state and lost forever in the transition to consciousness. No fucking way can the experience be replicated or bought off or otherwise cheapened, either you stare the devil in the face and press over the edge or you blink and nose the beast in a safer direction. But once you've been out on that edge enough times, the tendency is to toy with it a bit, push your luck, revel in your mastery of your own fate, and push it a little further still.

I've yet to find my personal limit out there in the blackness with an engine and the wind roaring all around me, though I've come damn close. There's a part of me that considers it a great dishonor to have avoided the edge, a part of me that will always assume it was some latent cowardice that kept me planted on the pavement and safe from the wiles of the Great Mystery. There's a fine line between self-discovery and self-destruction, a concept that seems lost in these days of illusory safety above all else, these days of projection and denial and fear.

My fears don’t come neatly wrapped in an unfamiliar culture or lifestyle, I'm unable to pin my fears to some quantifiable group of the dispossessed and the disenfranchised, so I'm excluded from the group catharsis of this great nation's current fear-mongering. What I fear is authority, those little people with little minds and little opinions that think they know better than any of the rest of us what Righteousness looks like, those people who think they are the only ones qualified to make the decision of how I should live my life, those people who consider anyone who lives differently a degenerate and quite probably a criminal.

Those people don't speak for me, and they ought not speak for America. This country has been called the land of the free and the home of the brave, but I see little in the current direction of our politics that speaks to those virtues. I, for one, am not afraid of a few little Arab extremists, nor am I afraid of their little ideas or their little feelings of persecution. What I fear is the willingness of Americans to sell their freedoms wholesale to politicians who will take whatever power they're given, to grant greater powers to already power-corrupted police and DAs, to turn this country into a bureaucratic monster that devours our liberties whole so that the risk-averse sheep penned up in the suburbs can feel safe as they sit in their homes hypnotized by the flicker of reality TV.

I'll take my chances with terrorists any day, at least they pay some price for their assertion of control. Those in positions of authority are unaccountable for their actions. That's a hell of a lot scarier to me.

Faith - Not of the George Michael Variety

It seems many assume me to be godless. Let me assure you they are wrong. Faith need not arise from a rejection of facts; the strongest faith is unshakable because it is built on an honest acceptance of fact, an honest appraisal of fiction, and honest introspection. But it would seem to be dishonest to call myself a man of faith, either, given the way that phrase is commonly understood.

I find no truth in religious structure, I find no solace in shared delusion. A relationship with the sacred infinite can only be forged by the individual through a diligent pursuit of truth, an acceptance of fact, and a desire to feed that part of human existence that remains unquantifiable.

I believe that the beauty of the human experience lies in the balance of that experience along the multiple planes of our existence. What makes me uniquely human is the intersection of rationality with irrationality, the mental with the physical, the spiritual with the carnal; like multidimensional geometry, the intersections of these planes forming a figure that I can hardly comprehend, even as it makes sense of my own experience, my own existence, my own contradictory person. I believe equally that it is possible to balance these divergent traits, to accept and integrate all those parts of ourselves, and to still remain fundamentally moral, fundamentally ethical, beings.

Faith should never be the turning off of thought, the rejection of fact to keep spiritual experience simple. Fill me with doubt so that I can rediscover my faith again, upend my assumptions so that I must reevaluate my opinions, test my generosity and my empathy, and I will find God in the answers. It is this process of continual challenge, continual self-discovery, that is the spiritual path. However you find that path is Right, whatever keeps you from that path is Wrong. May you find your own path and your own answers and learn to celebrate your humanity as it exists in the mirror of every person you meet.
May we all.