Standard Deviation

2005-11-27T02:13:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-11-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-26T02:03:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-08-22T20:05:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-08-12T18:16:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-08-11T16:45:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-08-07T17:28:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-08-04T15:23:00.000-06:00

A Deep Sleep

A creeping feeling of poisoned bliss
This hot and confused paralysis
Enamored of this place and time
Contrary thoughts and savory wine
Contemplation of my mortal soul
Reason blinded by desire to be whole
"Sacrifice" the call of Fate
Hope delivered, like a head on a plate
"Misunderstanding!" I cry in vain
Distract my mind from dissonant pain
Persecution keeps my mind free
Projected demons deliver me from me
And I go back to sleep.

2005-07-25T02:11:00.000-06:00

Hypnosis

A maddeningly hypnotic form struck my subconscious at the level of archetype, drained me of my rationality like a an overzealous barber balancing bodily humors, left me weakened and confused and ill. I clutched at my cure-all and attempted to blur the apparition, to rob it of its powers by starving my mind of its presence. But my efforts came too late, my mind swimming with the syncopated swaying of form, a mystery of sweetness and fleeting caress, a potion that left nothing to laudanum, nor Vin Mariani.

My vocal centers swirled in confusion, brain activity peaking in the kind of generalized electricity typical of ecstasy and madness. Words poured out of me quite beyond my control, passion tripping over stupidity, racing after an elusive and prized prey.

Occupied with mental struggle, the tenuous control of my frontal cortex over that more primitive me disintegrated from a full-fledged containment unit to a sieve, violence and lust streaming from my limbic system, drowning every part of my rationality, killing the me that is tender and sweet, eroding that part of me that feels empathy, leaving me an ambush predator, a starving, raving monster.

I hated her then, as only a hunter in the heat of bloodlust can love his kill. Her submission only heightened my hatred, only fueled my need to destroy her, consumed restraint as wildfire consumes oxygen, enslaved me to her will.

2005-07-24T21:39:00.000-06:00

Consumer Christianity

Consumer Christianity is the flavor of the day, and it's a flavor with a decidedly evangelical palette. The capitalist approach to religion has produced organizations that tell their followers that it is God's will for them to be successful, that the wealth of our country is the result of the same. Which makes sense, in an inevitably corrupting way. Telling people that what they want to do is Right, even Sacred, is a great way to fill the seats. Telling people that they can trade their vote for salvation, no troublesome guilt required, is bound to be popular. Hell, that kind of idea sells itself.

It's even better when you can wrap it all in the traditions of the past, when you can claim that this is the way things have always been (even if that isn't the case). You can tell them that everything is black and white, that We are acting Righteously, that our opposition is Evil. Surely, the enemies of God and civilization deserve death, and destruction, and torture? Not even God would deny us our hatred of the groups we don't understand, would he?

I thrill at the irony that these ultra-christian Christians follow a set of traditions that look nothing like the Christianity of Jesus, that they follow a church calendar of pagan holidays reappropriated and repainted to look like Christianity. A set of beliefs adopted and shifted ever so slightly to make Christianity appealing to the people of an earlier Europe, with their already established pre-Christian beliefs.

But the facts don't matter (they never do) when you can appeal to fear and selfishness and ignorance and exclusion and say they all work to the greater glory of God. Christianity as a spiritual approach may be fine, but as a political and social movement it is fascism by another name. Any movement that touts its own infallibility and its own monopoly on Right is fanaticism and self-delusion, nothing more.

2005-07-19T17:51:00.000-06:00

Low Tide

Fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist evangelical Christianity are two movements custom made for one another. Both are political systems based on a blind following of religious authority, both seek a return to a fictional past characterized by their own greatness, and both are struggling for relevance in an increasingly interconnected and rational world, where the mythologies of the past just don't stand up to rational, academic scrutiny.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, gave both groups precisely what they needed. For fundamentalist Christianity in America, it was an opportunity to trumpet the xenophobic, nationalistic message that in other times had served the causes of segregation and the limiting of women's rights, while focusing its vitriol on the morally indefensible enemy of terrorism, embodied conveniently in an unfamiliar ideology and an unfamiliar people. For fundamentalist Islam, the attacks demonstrated the will of Allah to bring the infidels to their knees, and the accompanying invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq fell neatly into their conspiratorial ideas about America and Israel working in concert to try to destroy Islam.

Both groups, by accidentally working together in their desperate fear of modernity and change, have accomplished a resurgence that would otherwise have been impossible, because people simply don't turn to fundamentalist belief systems when they are thinking rationally. But by tapping into irrational fear, and nationalism, and coupling those with theologies that fail to recognize the legitimacy of any other belief system, they have each assured their continuance as a political force, until the next wave of reason crashes down on them. How long can these tidal forces deprive us of renaissance?

2005-07-13T23:01:00.000-06:00

Freedom is on the March

Please pardon this meandering and unfocused portrayal of a world rupturing and contaminated by the infectious substrate of nurtured ignorance, oppression, and hypocrisy that have come to underlie very nearly every institution of this once proud nation. You see, my exposure to the aforementioned pandemic has begun to corrupt my perspective, has initiated a secondary infection of sorts, a cynicism, and an anger, and an impatience that refuses to respond to treatment, no matter how radical the methods used.

Extremism and partisanship are the curses that have infected our country, and the prognosis isn't good. You see, polarization is a positive-feedback mechanism, a force that feeds on itself in an ever-widening, nearly exponential, swath of destruction. A force that promotes a kind of ideological reflex to every problem presented, replacing thought with obdurate obedience, coaxing fear and nationalism out of otherwise reasonable people, promoting a mentality of opposed forces in mortal struggle, cutting divisions into the body politic that threaten to bleed the nation of its idealism, to rob it of its strength by dividing us along lines of fear and misunderstanding. Things need not be this way.

Divide and conquer, that was the secret of the Soviet ability to dominate the annexed republics of the Eastern Bloc, but it is a secret no more. American democracy has been subverted by our willingness to see all political questions as existing within a base-2 system, whilst simultaneously failing to realize the increasingly incestuous nature of those two parties, or their shared dependence on the dollars of multinational corporations and the expediency of replacing diplomacy with ill-considered military action.

Freedom is on the march, but its vector is decidedly away from here.

2005-07-13T02:32:00.000-06:00

Word Victim

I long to be your word victim. Your words and your ideas have violated my consciousness, and I will never be the same, electrons fired, neurons rearranged, ideas clinging precariously to their underlying precepts with a desperate kind of modesty.

It's too late, though. Too late to protect my innocent conceptions from the corrupting influence of your Chaldean erudition. Too late to wish things otherwise. Too late to avoid a violent reappraisal of Reality, and Truth, and Wisdom.

My whole body shudders, as if trying to shake off the effects of this newfound state of things, as if in withdrawal from the lingering narcotic effects of my rapidly metabolized delusions. I repeat my precious mantra a thousand times over, but it has lost all its power, and its repetition only fills me with sadness. Sadness at the loss of this thing that had been such a part of me, this thing that I pretended was sacred, until I believed it was sacred.

Now, that is all lost to me, and I am free. Free as I have never been before. Free as only the wise and the dispossessed can be. Free and strong and whole and human.

2005-07-08T03:17:00.000-06:00

My Chamber Door

A pounding at the door filled me with a terror of unfathomable depth, resonated at a frequency that caused my very bowels to tremble. Three times, the knock had sounded, and now my mind spun with probabilities of my own doom. I was barricaded in my cell to the best of my abilities, and a staleness permeated the room, infused with mildew, and unwashed laundry, and the smell of trapped fear.

I dared not approach the door, my greatest vulnerability, and my greatest fear. That's how the fuckers would get me, no doubt. Unless they got me in one of the million other ways that they might. Really, the one certainty in this god forsaken world was that they would, eventually, get me, in spite of my best efforts to protect myself, but I'd be damned if I would give them an easy kill.

So I held my breath, and covered myself as best I could, and looked for some kind of weapon, anything that might fend them off, no matter how briefly. Just so long as I could give a good accounting of myself, at least my defeat would mean something.

I braced myself, armed myself with a ball point pen, and, very quietly, I let the UPS man leave the package behind my door.

2005-07-07T01:51:00.000-06:00

Beatification

As the process for beatification of the late pontiff procedes, I can't escape the very personal dissonance that I feel in the midst of the Catholic-y goodness permeating the bureacratic mechanisms of bucolic madness involved therein. You see, I knew Pope John Paul II as Karol Józef Wojtyła, or simply "Wojo", as we, his friends, used to call him.

Wojo was a crazy fucker, even after his election to popedom. I suppose that shouldn't have been a surprise, though; I mean, once you're infallible, why wouldn't you booze down, coke up, and bang hookers--you can't really go wrong, at that point. And, let's face it, it's really in keeping with the tradition of the office.

But the thing that frustrates me about this beatification business isn't so much Wojo's love of the sweet taste of a 17 year old Romanian whore who we all called "Sonja the Sodomite". My frustration grows from knowing that Wojo was a dedicated Phallusist. Hell, he went to all the same secret meetings as Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, Patrick Swayze, and the rest of the sworn enemies of World Peace.

Phallusism, for those of you who are unaware, is a Mithraist sect that worships patriarchy, as well as the physical and spiritual power of the penis, in all of its myriad and beautiful forms. Phallusists can usually be identified by the patriarchal, misogynist policies that they follow (as well as an extreme aversion to birth control, which robs the male organ of its otherwise immense power to impregnate), and their latent homosexual tendencies. Once you recognize the power of the cock and balls, why wouldn't you want to snuggle up to one or two of them? But these men, these patriarchs, aren't gay. God no! It's only gay if you fall in love with a guy. Or maybe a girl. If you just celebrate the unrivaled power and beauty of the cock, there's nothing wrong with that.

Anyways, my point here is that Wojo wouldn't want some formal beatification process to glorify him, what he'd really want is for a few of his good friends to get together and party, and maybe score some hot, hot hookers. So how about it, Catholic church? All we need is a little cash, a blessing, and some atonement, and me and the rest of Wojo's posse could give proper tribute to the man. Patrick Swayze has even promised to lick a dog's balls for the event (although, let's be honest, that's pretty much a regular day for that sick son of a bitch).

So, the offer stands. Let me know if it's a possibility, Benedict XVI, if that's your real name...

2005-07-06T00:34:00.000-06:00

A Dream

I dreamt a dream of fleshy protuberances and luxuriant folds of silken warmth, an inviting foreign landscape of dunes in which I quickly became lost; in my agitation forgetting my intended destination, forgetting, even, that I had a destination. A pungent sweetness, such that it made my eyes water, overwhelmed me, and I followed the scent to a fertile oasis overflowing with voluptuous varietals and a sultry oppressiveness that filled my lungs with overwhelming flavors at every breath. "My god," I thought in my panic, "how can I escape this trap?"

It was clearly all an illusion, not so much a mirage as a carefully constructed web. Not that the fruits of these plants were poisonous, that would be far too easy. In fact, they were sure to be delicious and nourishing, a kind of ambrosia such as I had only imagined, therein lay the snare. How could I ever hope to feel sated anywhere else? How could I ever leave this refuge once surfeited by its treasures? I longed to cocoon myself in the tranquility of this place, to indulge my appetite for its abundance, and to sleep a blissful sleep. Instead, I forced myself to flee.

I gorged myself on whatever I could, whatever fell to hand, and departed quickly. No fool, I made sure the flames would engulf my coveted oasis, would destroy any hope of return, would set me free of my ecstasy, free to wander the desert without threat of solace. Picking a single flower, I turned my back and never again gazed on the scorched destruction that once conspired to steal my singular suffering, setting off into the harsh unknown.

I awoke to a feeling of intensely familiar solitude, still haunted by the lingering smell of my picked flower, my prized and hated rape blossom.

2005-07-05T02:26:00.000-06:00

The Wailing Wall

Boy, I feel like I'm among the wall of sound wailing (would that be the Wailing Wall?) for attention in the Blogo-rarium, already.

Let's be really clear about this thing. This blog isn't for other people. It's just for you. Other people would probably be offended by the profanity and adult (read: sexual) themes present in this forum. You won't want to recommend this to other people. They might judge you. We don't want that. We don't want to shock other people. Thoughts are dangerous. But not as dangerous as words. Words are bad. Let's pretend words don't exist.

But, as long as we're here, let's share some precious, filthy, words, and maybe some ideas, too. No one will know if you don't tell them. It'll be our secret.