how to buy love

You can't buy love.
Many misguided individuals repeat this phrase, denying themselves love for any number of reasons.
I'm too ugly, they say, or I'm just not a nice person.


Nonsense.

It's true, you can't actually exchange money for love at the brokerage next to the Friendly's on Locust Street. But you can buy nice clothes for someone, take them on fancy cruises, pay for their haircuts, support their hobbies, and put food in their bellies. And if you're cruising and feeding and supporting them, and you are there with them while these things are happening, that person will love you.

It's human nature.

Now, they might just love you on that day, or for the week after you bought them a new sweater, and they might just love you physically with their hands or their mouth, but they're still loving you.

Suck it up. Learn to love yourself, and the rest will fall into place 

But don't waste your efforts on someone who knows how terrible you are - spend it on a child.

Impregnate somebody, adopt, or buy the child. Human trafficking is bigger business that drug trafficking these days, so it shouldn't be too hard to pick up a cute little tyke at one of the crack dens you frequent. 

Don't be afraid to ask. You'd be surprised.

A child will love you no matter what you do.

You can say terrible things to it and call it racist names - it will love you.

You can abandon it in Wichita, and when the police return it to you, it will still love you.

You can feed it junk food until it gets fat and has diabetes, but it will still love you.

It doesn't have a choice.

But seriously. All you need is some sort of plan and a bit of disposable income, and you can buy someone's love. They might leave once they figure out that you're a cunning, deceitful fake, but there are plenty of fish in the sea, my friend. And what's the difference between fake love and real love, anyway?

As long as people are being born, you will have a fresh batch of people whose love you can buy once they come of legal age, every few months. And if you impregnate one or two of them along the way, or get pregnant by this or that person, then you'll have a child to love you, and you won't have to spend so damn much money.

There is no consensus on what constitutes love. Priests say one thing, scholars say another, and drunks say something else entirely. There is no way to explain love, no way to share the extent of the chemical reaction in your brain that occurs when it hits, so why not just keep things simple.


Lower your standards, don't get your hopes up, and start loving yourself.

You'll thank me eventually.

X

hope floats - commies don't

LOCK your windows, and close your doors - there are commies about!
Commies, short for the communist or socialist scum who are infiltrating American society, are evil and should be killed on sight.

As the headline suggests, a dead commie thrown into a river will not float - his body is made of a fibrous material similar to asbestos. Remove the dead commie from the water as soon as possible. His body will quickly rot and pose a hazard to shipping lanes.
As of press time we have not been able to catch a live commie to dissect his body in its living state.
We know enough not to let him live.
We kill the commie before the commie can kill us.

Wily and suspicious by nature, the commie can be lured into a trap only if it is properly camouflaged. He will trash wildly once captured, so have your killing implement at the ready. Preferred bait is mechanically-separated meat product with a high sodium content mixed with stale gingersnaps.
Remove the head of the dead commie as soon as you can. He might be faking death, and there is nothing worse than a wounded, half-dead commie spreading chaos behind your defensive lines.
Wounding the commie will only enrage him - he will still be largely combat effective.
AIM FOR THE HEAD.
Shooting off a leg will only slow the commie; it will not stop him.
Immolating the vile scum will only enrage him. He will charge your position and do everything in his power to burn it down.
Think of your loved ones.
Think of the children.
Do not hesitate.

Avoid public libraries, public transportation, and public universities - these are all socialist institutions funded by taxpayer dollars that provide services to all Americans equally. They are crucial to the socialist ideal, and must be avoided.
Commies have been known to participate in local elections, where they support valuable services such as police and firefighters. Furthermore, the commie will, on the local or national level, support programs that provide assistance to the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.
Anyone who votes for such programs is a commie.
Do not trust.

The Commie uses public roads. Interstate and intrastate highway systems would not exist without taxpayer support. They are socialist services that are dangerous to the American way. Switch to privately funded road systems whenever possible.

Every step toward communism is a step away from the American Way of Life. We must band together to stamp out the aforementioned socialist institutions. We must close our schools, tear up our roads, disband our emergency services, and burn down our libraries.
Only then will we be free of communism and its bastard cousin, socialism.
Only then can America flourish.

Know your commie. He may seem peaceful and well educated, but he is likely an atheist and a believer in sacrifice for the common good.
Fear the commie - you life may depend on it.

Ultima Ratio Regum

X

man-shit

one of the best things about my current location is the amount of man-shit to be done.
i haul two hundred plus pound logs down the valley on my shoulders or by dragging.
i use chainsaws and axes.
i ride a tractor.
i climb onto the roof to check the chimney for creosote buildup.

but a man has many needs, desires and urges that cannot be met with such brutish and manly activities. where are the ladies i was promised (i have the flier that guarantees a minimum of three ladies per month)? where is the utopia that was so often spoken of out West?

the roads here are not laced with platinum, and the streams run water, not milk or honey. can i expect the fabulous plunder and hordes of complacent slave women i was promised? should i wait for the others to arrive to begin the spree of raping and pillaging?

no word has come. i cannot track their progress. are they stuck in the great divide, toiling among the defiles with their packmules laden with provisions? have they crossed the plains, hounded no doubt by the packs of red indians i encountered along the way?

oh if only word would come, or the shipment of slave girls would arrive. then at least i could wile away the days in peace and contentment, siring bastard children and sleeping until noon.

please send word. time grows short.

X

the high cost of boasting

Boasting of my abilities or accomplishments must stop. For some people I know, boasting has a positive affect, boosting their motivation to achieve.
For me, boasting has a decidedly negative affect. If I boast about quitting smoking, I will start smoking within a few days. If I boast about the progress I am making with my writing, I will stop writing. It will take me days of internal adjustment to get myself back in the right mindset to want to write.
For me, boasting tricks my mind into thinking I am doing more than I am. I slack off and think I am making progress when in reality I am getting nothing done.
Lao Tzu gets it right in #24 of the Tao when he says, 'One who displays himself does not shine. One who justifies himself has no glory. One who boasts of his own ability has no merit.'
American society accommodates a large amount of boasting. It is expected of us. We parade our success in from of cameras and in blogs.
I would like to break from this unhealthy tradition. My actions shall speak for me.
ultima ratio regum.
X

BMG book recall

The Bertlesman Group (BMG) issued a recall today of approximately 1000,000 books.
As of press-time, our agency has received unsubstantiated reports of books bursting into flames when placed next to caustic household objects, such as bleach and ammonia.
At a press conference this evening, the VP of marketing for BMG, Samuel Chryst, approached the subject with caution, urging customers not to overreact.
"It seems as if there is a chemical reaction occurring when the books are exposed to bi- trimethyl - godammit, I'm not a chemist. Please, just don't store any books printed in the last two months in your fucking chemical closets," Chryst said. He then immediately asked an aide, "do people even have chemical closets anymore? What kind of idiot stores books in a closet, anyway?"
The books appear to be contaminated with an substance that ignites when placed in an enclosed area alongside common cleaning materials and then exposed to sunlight.
"I was reading the newest edition of 'Going Rogue', sitting in my sunroom, when I started smelling smoke. I thought the roast was burning, but it was the book smoldering in my lap," 80 year old Margaret Vills said. Vills claims that the book kept burning even after she doused it with the garden hose.
It is unclear how this recall will affect the company's sagging sales. A rise in internet viewership and the arrival of electronic books, or e-books, on the scene is crippling BMG's ability to compete in an over-saturated market. To further complicate the matter, the US Postal Service (USPS) issued a statement warning customers not to return the books by mail due to their hazardous nature.
"I don't want want these things starting fires in our sorting facilities," an anonymous USPS employee said late Wednesday. "We have enough problem with idiots bringing fucking guns in here."
Preliminary reports show that all books printed by BMG or its subsidiaries since December of 2009 are contaminated.
A call to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to inquire if the contamination was possibly a terrorist plot went unanswered.
"All I wanted to do was learn how to program my new Mac," Delaware resident Jason M. said. "But my 'Idiot's Guide to Macs' just burned my house down. Now I need a new Mac and a new house. Somebody's gonna fucking pay for this."

on specialization

Specialization, in a profession, field of research, field of study, or in a blog such as this one, seems to be the name of the game. Some bloggers write about something with which they have frequent contact, like whale watching. Others blog about their illness, their children, or clever ways to make money. Family blogs allow widely dispersed kinsmen to stay in touch.

My blog, LieSmith, is a vehicle for me to express my feelings. I can attempt to be witty or insightful here. I post portions of my book that wallow in the aether, seen and read by none. Is it because I am a scatter-brain? Is it because I do not yet see the need to maintain separate blogs on different subjects?

Perhaps once by book takes off, I will have a blog to connect with readers, another to express my feelings, and another to write about random stuff, such as this post, that pops into my head at midnight on a Friday in January.

In order to make more money in your profession, you obtain education that allows you to fill an niche in the market. As a researcher, you choose one area of study and immerse yourself in the minutiae of that particular field.

Is this trend toward specialization necessary because there are so many more people on the planet? Are there so few jobs to go around that you have to focus on one area and become its master? Arguably, the great polymaths of the past were self-made men who exhibited boundless drive and curiosity. Gone are the days of Ben Franklin, publisher, inventor, statesman, humorist. We are hard pressed to find today a Newton, or a Socrates. Would Charles Darwin, a man of myriad talents besides naturalism, be able to combine his various interests into the seminal novel that founded the theory of Evolution? Or would he have focused in on one area, for example ornithology, and ignored all the things that crawl and swim?

Is specialization a bad thing? A technician with many years of experience making electronic displays will, when faced with the challenges of making a new idea work, know the fundamentals of the field and be able to skip a lot of blind groping. A researcher will know how certain chemicals react with certain materials, and will be able to complete her project more efficiently.

The goods we use and the lives we live are made cheaper and better because of specialization. But are we losing today's great minds to the demands of shrinking margins?
Perhaps the time of the generalist has passed.
Perhaps we can find ways to expand our expertise in more ways than one.
Let a million flowers bloom (without, of course, the subsequent executions).

Ultima Ratio Regum.
JP

an iron beast in my home

There is a beast in my home. It fumes, sputters, creaks and groans. Vapor rises from the plate atop its head, and it has an insatiable appetite for dried plants. Its surface is too hot to touch, and it requires daily cleaning.
This beast, if you have figured it out (and I hope you have, since I am not very good at being subtle), is a wood burning stove.
After researching the telltale signs of creosote buildup, and climbing up onto the roof a half dozen times and shoving my head inside the chimney, I have fired up the faithful old beast. The house used to be warmed (briefly and inefficiently) by forced heated air. After watching the oil level in the big steel drum in the basement fall steadily, and, rather than spend money on buying more fuel, I risked the chance of a chimney fire and fired up the beast.
The tally of mummified animals at the base of the chimney - four. One partially decomposed rat and three fully decomposed blackbirds. The byproduct of their decomposition had piled up to a stately six inches, a soft, fluffy material resembling insulation. For lack of a proper place to store this curious and painfully slow experiment in mummification, I have placed it in the wastebasket.
For anyone seeking a warm, crackling hearth and pleasant companionship (I will be away for the next few days but some very nice people are stopping by later), do feel free to pay a visit.
from the Bamboo Bowl,
many affectionate greetings. JP

The Cat That Does Not Laugh

Memory is a terrific function. Memory has at once the power to preserve and to torment. I remember with accuracy one night in Germany when I was watching TV alone but for the cat. I can still feel the room‘s temperature (toasty warm). I can still see the time of day (magic hour, just after sunset). My breath catches when I remember my eyes flashing in the reflection in glass of the balcony door (a combination of internal lighting, external darkness). In my memory, something funny happens on TV. I laugh and turn to see if the other person in the room is laughing too. There is nobody else in the room, just the cat. The cat looks at me and closes his eyes and starts purring. I can still now feel the disappointment that no one was there to share the humor, and that the cat didn’t laugh.
My father laughed when I told him this story, aptly titled The Cat That Didn’t Laugh. He died recently, of unknown causes. His death was sudden, but not a complete surprise; he had been engaging in unhealthy activities all his life. He smoked. He drank. He worried constantly. He worried so much it would wake him up at night. Worry became obsession, and other people began to notice. One day about a year ago, he announced to me that he was replacing worry with concern. His vague explanation was that he read in a magazine that worrying could kill you, so he reasoned that being merely concerned would prolong his life. I remember the twinkle in his eye that told me he was joking. I remember his wide eyes and grasping hands when he needed a cigarette (I rolled them to cut costs and control consumption). He reminded me of Gollum obsessing over the Ring, that one thing that would forever hold him in its sway.
The memories I bear of my father are so strong that sometimes I think he is still alive, and that I can ask him things. Has the chimney been swept in the past decade? Dad will know. How old is the pump that draws water from the well? Dad will know – I will call him right now. I am slightly shocked every time I catch my mind filling in the blanks with “Dad will know.” He probably would have known if he had not smoked, drank, and worried himself into an early grave. My hand reaches on impulse for my phone when I want to talk to someone about life’s difficulties.
I very soon remember that Dad is dead. He cannot return my calls. His ashes are in a box deep underground. There is no one around to share in my laughter, my joy. I cast about for him but he is gone, forever.
Dad is now the cat that does not laugh.

Requiescat in pace, GHWR.

being nice can kill you dead

a new study indicates that containing your feelings after an argument can lead to an early death. to sum up: the nicer and more accommodating you are, the more you are tolerated in the short run, but the more you damage yourself in the long run. I will hazard that a number of factors have led to an increase in niceness, and thereby premature death, in our society, but the most damaging of those factors is the Political Correctness (PC) movement that started in the late nineteen eighties.

I cannot provide hard data to directly back this up, but it would be reasonable to assume that PC has led to increases in lying and dying in this country, as people resort to PC standards rather than expose their true feelings. I am convinced it has also led to more men being pussy-whipped and to men dying younger (for, if my hazy memory of the summary of the study is correct, men are more likely to swallow their true feelings during a fight, especially in the corporate world). recently, following the maxims of Brutal Honesty and other philosophies that trounce PC and champion Truth, I have experimented with freely telling the people around me what I really think, not what I think they think I think they think I should be thinking.

the result? after an initial shock, people tended to more directly address my concerns, they spoke to me as an actual, unique person, and they seemed to have more respect for what I had to say, even if, like most things that escape my lips, what I was saying was churlish balderdash.

niceness is a sickness. too much niceness, like too much sugar, can kill you. I hereby motion to designate one day out of the year, preferably in winter when everyone is cranky anyway, as Angry Day, Trouble Time, or Day of the Flagrant Asshole. the name has to be catchy and, especially, marketable, so that marketers can market the crap out of not being nice and convince a million people to pin a frowny-face on their lapels. just look at AIDS awareness day, or autism awareness day. the people making the stop-AIDS t-shirts and teddy bears with tiny stop-autism t-shirts on them are making big, big money. there are nationalized events, 5k's, telethons and sit-ins (well, no sit-ins, but you get the point). sickness is business, baby.

it is important that we study the negative effects of niceness, and encourage Americans to be less nice going forward. join me, John Paul Roggenkamp, in my quest to spread awareness of the dangers of Mandated Societal Niceness. together, we can repeal the negative effects of Political Correctness. together, we can transform America back into the honest, dreadful, hard-scrabble, speak-your-mind-freely place it once was.

do your part; make the effort to be not-nice to someone today. once you get started, it's hard to stop. it wasn't so long ago that people dueled to the death over words. hey, at the least we would have fewer idiots to have to listen to.

virtuously,

JP

p.s. I'm not a doctor, but you're just going to have to trust me.

late december

I trudge through the melting snow. birds scold and scatter, flying low to the ground. cardinals, chickadees, and sparrows. they do not trust me, although I fill the container that keeps them alive. they are right not to trust me, for I am man, and man kills. the dead willows are pretty where they lie, felled, by the stream. the blisters on my palms from working the dull ax have become scars.

the tractor won't start. i tried to buy a battery charger but the walmart was, strangely, closed. capitalism should not rest on pagan-inspired holidays. we have electric lights now and need not fear the sun disappearing. the miraculous life of Jesus matches exactly a previous story written by the ancient Egyptians. the hero in that story was called Osiris. his mother was a virgin. he died and rose from the dead three days later. he died to save others and pissed excellence just like old Hey Zeus. don't tell the fundies, though, for they might pull a jihad and stone you to death or curse your seed ad infinitum. beware: any type of fundamentalism, religious or otherwise, is dangerous to society. DO NOT TRUST.

some honey locusts up the stream need cutting. I will give them a taste of the ax when the snow melts and the ground firms up a bit. curse this warm weather. it should be cold continuously, not eight degrees one morning and twenty five the next. all you tens of thousands reading this had better not follow any of this advice. do not believe anything I say. these words are for madmen and for those who generally seek questions, not answers. go see a holy man for answers. do not cry though when you realize you have been duped. do not cry when all your money is gone and the holy man splashes puddlewater onto you as he is driving by in his new sportscar. that was your fault. for trusting him.

I hope I someday have the foresight to teach my kids that they will be betrayed and left in the lurch by those closest to them. complete and total self-reliance is the only sane way to approach life. friends and family are good. they will betray you. they will not come to your aid. they will abandon you and take all your joy as soon as it is convenient for them. they will die on you and leave you in the lurch. this is normal. this is to be expected. therefore, do not trust that anyone will do anything for you, ever.

**BUT**

you must always be there for them. you must never stop giving. never expect thanks, or gratitude. always be reliable. always think ahead and be ready for someone's request before they make it. this will impress them. this will lead to friends. but friends will leave you. or die on you. or make sex to your girlfriend. so just don't trust them. in fact, don't even trust yourself. remain suspicious of your own urges. doubt your own intentions. this is healthy. this slows you down, gives you time to think about what you truly want.

happy holly jolly. JP from Ödenburg, PA, out

Governor-elect Blithe - a short story

The newspaper hits the hardwood flooring a moment before the coffee mug. The handsome ceramic shatters, spattering the front page headline with freshly ground Arabica.

"Governor found with mistress bound"

A grainy but unmistakable photo shows Governor-elect Ryan Blithe in a swank hotel room giving a handcuffed young woman a taste of the lash. The article states that campaign funds were used to rent the hotel room. Furthermore, in an interview, the young woman claims that "this was not the first time, not at all," and that "Ryan has always had unusual... tastes."

Governor-elect Blithe tears at the paper, reducing it to limp, stained shreds. Bits of paper get caught in his snow-white bathrobe, staining it. He slumps against the kitchen's marble countertop, his eyes wide as he peers through the wooden blinds for movement in the yard. Who knows where those bastards might be hinding, he thinks. He sinks to the floor and runs a large, soft hand through his greying hair. He slowly removes his finely wrought reading glasses.

"Honey, I'm going to jump in the shower. Could you leave me some coffee?" his wife calls from the top of the stairs. Panic grips him as he lurches to his feet. He shuffles down the hallway, past tastefully framed snapshots of his life, faded gap-toothed smiles, a sun-drenched sandy beach, his first law firm. A snow-white slipper lies abandoned on the kitchen floor, soaking up cold coffee.

The study is cold. The dark wood paneling seems to suck the heat from the air. An orderly stack of pamphlets and folded posters teeters on the desk. "For your files," a note stuck to the top reads. Also on the desk is a bible, opened to Corinthians. The book slams shut and falls to the floor. Re-opening, the pages settle on Leviticus. The stack of papers flies against the wall, fluttering to the floor to pile in chaos. Ryan Blithe glances at the topmost flyer. A full color picture of his face grins back above the headline,

"Vote Blithe - Vote Community - Vote Family"

Pipes stop humming and a door opens upstairs. "Are you all right down there, dear?" Ryan smacks his large, soft hand over his mouth to muffle a whine. "What was that, dear?" his wife asks. "Nothing, Julie, nothing," Ryan yells after a moment. He falls back into the large leather office chair. I'm finished, he thinks. The is the end. She won't forgive me again. Not after Charleston.

The election. Campaign funds. Hotel room. Vote Family. Handcuffs.

The rear screen door slams shut behind him. The combination lock on the shed, normally stubborn, opens on the first try. A stubbed toe does not register as pain, but as annoyance. The cylinder is oiled, its action smooth. All six chambers are loaded. He removes a package, a fancy beige jacket for his wife, from a shop stool and puts it on the workbench behind him.

The heavy gun barks, spattering the new beige jacket with freshly spilled lifeblood.

the folly of trying

I have noticed a recurring theme in movies especially but also in books with an American protagonist. The theme is as follows: a person has a dream and doesn't want to follow it or doesn't know what that dream is and but someone close to him convinces him to follow that dream at all cost regardless of the consequences or the validity of that dream whence the person follows his dream and everything comes up daisies. If only this scenario were more realistic. In 99.99999% of the cases in which someone actually tries to follow their dream, that person runs face first into the Reality Wall, realizes that society at large does not give a fuck about their dream, understands that they will not be able to eat or otherwise sustain themselves on their current path, and gives up. they wash out and go back home to shitsville and Nobody gives a fuck about the fact that they even tried because even if they did try they were not good enough or lucky enough or well connected enough to succeed.

I am currently trying something that will more than likely fail, unless there is some serious mojo in my future. I have failed at this many times in the past, mostly because i have not even tried to do it, and i mean really doing it while saying fuckall to the critics and to the world. I have failed before I even started because I am as scared of success as I am failure, consequence of an alcohol father in my youth and an escapist adolescence, which I am now trying Really Hard not to use as an excuse to let myself off the hook. a word to the wise: don't have kids if you're a druggie (and I'm talking ANY drug here, including and especially booze), and don't marry druggies and have kids. the repercussions are vast and never ending and you'll have a kid who Wants to do something revolutionary with his life but who is so afraid of his own Potential that he runs around in circles like a chicken with his head cut off trying to finish a short little novel. Then why am I still doing it? Because I am sick and tired of being a fucking failure, not in the eyes of others, but in the ever-present, all-seeing eye that sees everything I do and gives me no rest if I'm slacking - i.e. my undying inner virtue, my soul, the dozens of facets, the snippets of personality that collectively make me who I am.

The media rarely portraits the actual series of events in the lives of the majority of the American population (i.e. the people living in the boonies or in Flyover country or anywhere that is not a major metropolitan area): 1) you are born. 2) you go to school. 3) if you are lucky, you have smarts or are beautiful or someone recognizes a talent in you and fosters that talent [if none of these apply to you, you are Fucked - skip to step 6]. 4) you leave the boonies to pursue a career involving smarts, beauty or your talent in a major metropolitan area. 5) you spend your life doing what you are simultaneously good and and love to do 6) you die, or wash out and move back to the boonies, which are basically the same thing.

Remember Icarus, and keep on dreaming, kids.
X

east coast drivers

someone once said about driving in Los Angeles: either you're the bitch, or you're the bitch's bitch. this statement sums up a lot of what Basin driving is all about - the inches-to-spare merging, multiple-lane changing, drive-it-like-you-stole-it, take what's yours and defend it at all cost mentality that makes driving in the city of Angels so much damn fun. the slightest hesitation is ruthlessly exploited. not only are you maintaining your own vehicle's velocity and vector, but you're watching the five people around you to make sure they don't get too close or decide they suddenly need to take over your lane to save themselves from a threat you can't even see. there is so much stimulation on the road that you don't have time to get bored, unless you're stuck in the nerve-grating monotony of motionless traffic. there are so many crazies and power-hungry wannabes, and your time is so important, that unless you actually get in an accident with someone, the last thing you want to do is chase someone down and get in his face about cutting you off or not letting you merge. in LA, you just might get shot. in LA, people know that it's just not worth it.

Pennsylvania, however, is a totally different animal. true to my training in LA, I merge when I feel like it, take what's mine, exert my right of way to the fullest, and forget about the transgressions of others almost before they happen. But I was recently tail-gated for miles coming out of Harrisburg by an irate grandmother who shook her fist at me and drove menacingly close to my bumper, all because I merged in front of her legally in order to jump the line onto the freeway. not a few days ago I was confronted by a young man in Adams County who was furious with the fact that I didn't give up my right of way in a roundabout. I saw him waving and motioning to me in the rearview, and, thinking he might have hit my bumper, I pulled over. he started complaining that he had been waiting to get into the traffic circle and that it had been his turn to drive, not mine. after I explained the rules of right of way to him, he said he wanted to fight me because I had cut him off and hadn't apologized for it. I explained to him that unless there was some sort of contact between our vehicles, I was going to leave, upon which he started calling me many nasty names, all the while shaking like a leaf. I pointed this out to him and he took it as a challenge. when I told him that his words meant nothing to me and that he could kindly go fuck himself, he responded, "no, I want you to fuck me. I'm not going to fuck myself, I want you to fuck me." I pointed out that I was not gay, at which point his face lit up and he sputtered, "but you look like a fag, you fucking homo. Let's fucking do this. I will fuck you up so bad."

I laughed at him and apologized for refusing him the chance to get fucked by me, upon which he said, "I would so love to break you right now, I would beat the shit out of you." I looked at him and wondered why he hadn't thrown the first punch already, and then it all became clear. He was waiting for ME to start the fight. I had already conquered him in the roundabout, I had no fear of him, I was not shaking in the slightest, I had been polite and rational. My thoughts went back to dozens of arguments I have witnessed that could have been Fights but were instead just Long Talks in which the two parties eventually kissed and made up. After hanging out with the Cali Grunts, I know a thing or two about fights, and if the Other Guy doesn't swing after the third or forth verbal exchange, then you either turn and walk away or hit him as hard as you can, without the slightest warning, in the face. I was analyzing the angles when, thankfully, the guy from the Uhaul place came out and asked us what was going on, to which I responded, "I'm really not sure. This guy wants to fight me about something." The Uhaul guy said we had to leave, so I jumped in my car and drove for the exit, only to find the young man blocking my way. I let the car idle and stared at him as one would stare at a minor inconvenience, like a homeless person taking his time crossing the street, or a three-legged dog stumbling blindly into the road, until he moved out of the way. He threw out his arms as if to say, "I'm right here, let's fucking go." I rolled down my window and said very calmly, "go get laid, dude."

So I made this guy my bitch in the roundabout and his method of dealing with it was to call me all sorts of names and NOT swing on me. to anyone from LA traveling in the country who might just read this (although i doubt if anyone at ALL reads this besides ME when i'm making corrections) do not change your driving habits, just know that people here will not know how to handle your behavior. also, never stop for any reason other that a) you think you hit someone or something, or b) there is a mechanical issue with your car. Basically, stay in LA at all cost. Sincerely, homesick for the terrible majesty of el Pueblo de Nuestra Seniora, JP

yurt

i really want to burn all the shit i don't need and bulldoze the house and set up a yurt on a platform in the back near the bamboo and have small fires in a small woodstove that vent out the top of the yurt into the night sky and for electricity set up a waterwheel over the stream that will charge a battery that i can use during the nighttime. of course bathing would kind of be a problem in the wintertime but only if you're really concerned about hygienic cleanliness bc you'd have to boil the water over the small woodstove that vents out the top of the yurt and then probably bathe outside so as not to soil the floor of the yurt which would be probably some soft bear skin or other animal hide making it necessary for you to remove your shoes before entering the yurt. it's depressing going through the boxes and finding thousands of pictures from the nineties when everyone in the family was skinny and healthy and alive and making facial gestures and not cooling their cinder heels in tiny boxes six feet under the ground on long island.
fucking shit i'm really missing my dad right now if only because i want to show him that i'm not a failure and that i do love him and that at some point my life will be on track but probably not the track he would have wanted but a track of my own choosing and one that will bring happiness to me and those i choose to have in my life. it just sucks that he smoked all his life and it was cut short and i'm selfish for wanting him to be alive but i loved him as much as i hated him and being in this house with all these memories emerging from boxes is not easy but i really don't have any other choice although i do believe i will be heading back to LA sooner rather than later if for nothing else than to visit friends and people with whom i want to become better acquainted. but i've made the first step really and as Lao Tzu says the journey of a thousand miles starts from where your feet stand and now that i am again working on my book and figuring out how to turn into reality all the changes i have been working out in my head it's a very relieving and very terrifying experience.
and i can't help but think that i killed Dad by asking him for money because the next day he died and i keep thinking it was because i broke his heart by being a failure and not being able to support myself financially and by me asking for money it took his last shred of will to live away and when thados came knocking he just didn't have the stuffing left to tell him to go fuck himself for at least a little while longer. and it's very selfish of me to think these things for i hope they're not true but no one will ever know and such thoughts are counterproductive but they're helping me cry and that's good because i need it right now what with being all alone and quitting smoking and not having a car and not being in great shape and being unwilling to set in stone a plan for my future. i've started talking to myself again but that's better than not talking at all and sulking or something and i keep laughing out loud about stories that i've heard recently or remember suddenly especially Kevin's story about calling the guy Frodo and telling him to go find his ring after the guy got all tough and punched him in the sternum when he was really trying to punch him in the throat. and to top it all off that being the Second fight Kevin was in that night and he being with the married lady who thinks Kev has downssyndrome who ditched her child and family to meet up with him for thanksgiving.

fucking classic, stuff of legends, the stuff that the average man's bad dreams are made of but it only makes me laugh because Kev is such a nice guy and he's so irreverent and he would give you the shirt off his back unless you fuck with him in which case he will fucking break you. that's Cali Grunt mentality right there - kind 'till you cross us, can't ever boss us around, pound for pound can't out-floss us, mind ur biz not ours hoss, plus this rhyme just crashed into the ground. wish i'd have had that one spit in time for T's show at the Cabana tonight, oh well i'm feeling better for getting that terrible rap down and for talking about my feelings towards Dad and all that so i'm going to do some pushups (maxing 300 today) so bigup yourself, respect. X

the drug dealing state of Pennsylvania

The state of Pennsylvania is one of the highest volume drug dealers in the world. the state moves so much booze and beer and wine and the sale of these items generates so much money that you have to wonder why they don't branch out and start selling other drugs too. a drug is any substance that causes addiction, habituation, or a marked change in consciousness, according to Messieurs Merriam and Webster (m-w.com), yet so many people who use alcohol do not consider the substance to be a drug. i always remind people of this and they will fight tooth and nail and get really mad because i call them drug users and make toasts to drugs and how wonderful drugs are and they leave the room and shun me for the rest of the night. this argument is going nowhere but i am fomenting plans to bring a motion before the PA state assembly to change the name "Wine and Spirits Shoppe" to what it should be called, something like "Ye Olde Drug Den" or "Drinkable Drug Shoppe" or "Legal, Addictive, Poisonous Drug Shoppe." Just so people know what they are getting into and so they will maybe just maybe think twice before demonizing users of other substances and look at themselves and go "oh yeah i'm doing drugs right now too *sip* maybe i should just shut the fuck up and soak my head a bit more" but of course no one ever does that because it's so much more fun to poke fun at and criticize others than it is to actually get one's own fat ass in motion and stop all the bad things that society lets you do (and some of the things it doesn't let you do, like sexually pleasure your spouse in whatever hole you see fit in the privacy of your own home).

blah blah a nation of big old hypocrites claiming to love freedom but not granting it, spouting liberty at the same time that legislatures restrict their citizens' ability to act as they see best fit to act. this country can do better. America can do better. every day that this hypocracy continues is a victory for the fatheads at the top, the people pulling the strings and doing as they please, immune from their own laws, laughing at the struggling teeming writhing masses who could in a week retake the country for their own. the hard part is setting up a government that keeps the power out of the hands of the few, like our federal system was set up initially, and prohibiting the alteration of this system by powerful individuals (such as has occurred with our current shift to a strong executive). dear god this kind of writing could get me in trouble. X

immersion

i immerse myself in the minutiae of this place so that i don't climb the walls and eat the stuffing out of the chairs. this is not a mechanism for me to flee from the pressures of the brain or the lurking darkness of worry, rather it is a coping mechanism for the somewhat involuntary nature of my current situation. those motherfucking bastards. expletive expletive so expletive stupid shit at some point this blog had to go clean and now that it's fueled solely by the methane coming off of the garbage heap out back (it's a big heap) this motherfucker is GREEN. jk the garbage heap is in front of the house. holy god none of this is true but i just convinced myself for a second there that is WAS true and i was designing a duct system to convey the methane gases into a turbine on the other side of the house that would create energy. i need a car if for no other reason than that i want to go to the goodwill and pick up materials for making my bamboo lighting fixtures but in Reality i probably have all the necessary shit here but it's probably buried somewhere under twenty
year's worth of accumulated junk.

seriously, for anyone reading, do yourself the favor and throw half your shit out (or sell it if you have nice shit), wait a week, comb through it again, and repeat the process until you can fit your possessions into bags that can be carried with relative ease on your person. i'd say about eighty five percent of the shit people have they never use let alone look at or admire so why the fuck do you keep it? with the old daddygrins now died and buried and me going through his accumulated tons of shit i'm finding just ridiculous shit like napkins from an ocean liner cruise in the late fifties and who the fuck cares about that shit? and then i go through my boxes of shit i sent back for LA and i'm finding pictures from the late nineties of girlfriends long since gone and married to others and why the fuck do i keep this shit other than perhaps vanity or a sense of longing for the past? the past cannot easily be accessed from the present, just as the future can be shaped from the here and now but ONLY if you're pure and honest about it and you don't really try but just kind of try and then only if you're not really paying attention and don't really care even though you have to care a great deal. it's very tricky and very difficult and it's good that it is because otherwise you'd have motherfuckers making themselves rich or giving themselves Ford broncos or something fucktarded like that.

it's so hard not to ramble because i'm here all by myself and the walls don't speak and the cats are all dead or stolen and dad's fucking dead too and the sibs have lives of their own and i am hiding out here like a bandit but all good things come to those who keep their eyes and ears open and i think i'm getting close to a breakthrough with the book but i can't push it because it's a very subtle thing but soon soon soon i will have it and then sky's the limit. ultima ratio regum. X

tyrant capitalism

a tyrant is haunting the world. the tyrant capitalism! the mightiest nations in the world have fallen before it's promise of worldly riches and temporal power. the milling masses worship no longer at the altars of godly might, rather at the boutiques of consumptionism, offering up their dearly earned wages not for the promise of eternal salvation but on the fleeting satisfaction of the newest communications device or this season's clutch-bag. to protect their wealth and property, the richest few arm themselves and build high walls around their homes. to obtain this wealth some arm themselves and scale these walls and stop at nothing, not even killing, to take from these richest few what they think they need. a wise man once said, "locks only keep out friends." the only way to make your house reasonably safe from bandits is to board up all the windows and doors and never leave but sit by the front door with a shotgun in your hands, shooting first and asking questions later. this of course makes the house unlivable and is a total waste of time if for no other reason than that you can't be outside your house making money to buy more things.

the capitalist financial system operates like a drug addict, never satisfied with the status quo, always looking for the next spike in profit or pleasure, without regard for long term safety or the condition of those it exploits for cheap labor, without regard for the damage done to the land by strip-mining or pollution. the laws of the most powerful nations are written to protect the wealth of those closest to the wealth-teat, and even when they destroy, in their greed, the livelihoods of those beneath them, the powerful and well connected allow their companies to fail but not before bleeding them dry and thousands are plunged into ruin while the few wallow fat and bloated with more money than they could possibly need to survive day to day.

those who were not born with great wealth rarely if ever obtain it. those who must work everyday for their bread and butter are subjected to a constant barrage of images of the wealth and easy life their labors could provide for their grandchildren if only they and their children work themselves to death and save every penny and live wretched hopeless lives in squalor. rarely do they consider the hopelessness of their situation, for hope springs eternal in the minds of the proletariat, even when they earn barely enough to eat on a day's hard labor.

should hundreds of thousands of children go hungry in America when on the same day a fathead buys a single car that is worth more than their parents will make in five whole years? all men are not created equal, not in the eyes of capitalism. though they bear no titles, the richest one percent of America's millions are the new aristocracy, laughing while the rivers burn, purchasing entire islands while a single mother counts pennies to buy food for her prematurely born baby. ultima ratio regum. X

i don't really play that game

it's not that i don't play that game, it's that everyone plays the game but few know they are playing it and some have actually convinced themselves they know the rules and are beating the system when in reality they are completely and hopelessly ensnared in the grinding tearing cogs. many times during the day i see people and watch them enjoying simple things or shopping for things they don't need or things they think they need and i see joy on their faces or satisfaction and i feel the need to vomit because they are so pathetic in their simple little ways but it's not really their fault because they grew up seeing everyone else around them acting in the same way and trying to find joy and satisfaction in life when in my reality i try to crush joy and stamp out satisfaction so that if it does happen to stumble across my path it will be a pleasant but fleeting surprise and i can bring my inner self back to emptiness and nothingness and yearningly hopelessly work on staying out of the rut and smiling like an amused infant or staring blindly like a child which has not yet smiled and this runon sentence is very long but no one reads this shit anyway so why the fuck do i worry about form or syntax but i have to because i'm a fucking writer and a professional transcriptionist and this is what i DO. X

emptiness

and so here i sit now in westwood, one of my more frequent stops on my second goodbye tour through LA in the past year. i just can't seem to manage to stay here. some might call it a sign, but i don't believe in that bullshit. i love this city and i have given a lot to her and she has given a lot to me. just like with Leslie, i have given a lot to her and she has, perhaps in her own particular way, given a lot to me. that whole situation is pretty messed up, mostly because she has stopped speaking to me altogether for reasons i can only guess at.

i said some things i should not have said in the days before my father's funeral and mentioned that i was thinking of going to south east asia next year. i made a comment about her situation with her father, something i should not have because i will never be able to fully understand her situation with her father and because i don't have a father any longer so my frame of reference is all screwed up.

the way i see it, there were four things causing stress in her life. the first was her car, which had been damaged in a wreck. the second was her tooth, which she had chipped eating a pretzel. the third was her job, a stressful occupation in sales. the fourth was me. so i totally understand that she chose me as the easiest way to remove stress from her life. that doesn't make it any easier to deal with her total Funkstille, but what the hell am i supposed to do? i have left text and phone messages and attempted to contact her on social networking sites, all to no avail. and the reason i can't just forget is because i pledged my fealty and support to her before the powers of the universe, on my virtue and honor, and that is not a pledge that you just violate any time you want to because it's my fucking honor and virtue on the line but if she won't talk to me then what the hell am i supposed to do? i refuse to stalk her or wait outside of her office at closing time and try to waylay her or anything because that will only make things worse and make me feel and look like a scumbag.

but she really didn't give me much to go on the second time around, and all my advances were roundly refused and every time i tried to do anything it would just be awkward because she wants to be free and party and fuck young guys right now and i really don't mind that she wants to do that, but i'm afraid now that there will not be a third chance for us because of something i said or mentioned in the depths of my grief from my father's passing and because she's not talking to me. so i have decided to write a letter explaining my position but my track record with letters isn't great and it will likely only make things worse but i miss her so much especially in the mornings and this morning was really bad because i woke up dreaming that she was turning away from me and ignoring me totally which is what is happening in real life but now that it's happening in my dreams too it's not letting me come to peace and just move on with my life. i very much want things to work out so i think i'll just give it a year and let her have a JP-free life for a while and see if she's ready at a later date and then maybe we can have some semblance of a normal or healthy relationship without all the miscommunication and walking on eggshells all the time.

but i need to send her a letter reinforcing my pledge to her so she doesn't think i have abandoned her or anything, even if she rips it up and never reads it i still need to send it on the off chance that she does read it and knows that i'm still faithful to my pledge even though i said some stupid things and was stressing her out and even though she has stopped talking to me and is likely raging right now and out at the clubs and doing whatever the hell she pleases.

the situation is all kinds of messed up and i feel really bad for saying what i did and postponing my arrival in LA by two weeks so i could go out and get busted and put on probation but that's the way shit works sometimes and i can't apologize to her because she won't talk to me but maybe she'll read this and if you do Leslie please know i'm sorry and my pledge still stands (as you are the only one who can absolve me of it) and i miss you terribly and hope that maybe some time in the future we can make beautiful hoppa kids together and have a great life together. ulitima ratio regum. requiescat in pace GHWR. X

the wages of trust

How is it possible to miss someone so much as I miss Eliza? If I do not get this constant yearning under control I will mess things up in some way, call her too much or text her too much or just plain miss her too much and make my life a constant state of torment. I must be an adult about this. I must pull myself together, concentrate on the task at hand, and trust in the fates to weave their skeins as they see fit. But I yearn so for her presence, for the soft simple words from her which I so long to hear, the words that will seal our futures into one. I cannot explain why I love her so fiercely, why I bound myself to her the night that I swore on my virtue to the Universe that I would never abandon her side. It was the right thing to do then, and it still makes sense to me now. I pledged my eternal allegiance to her that night, before the Great Unknown, and I must come to terms with the fact that said pledge was given without demand of recompense, that said pledge was given purely, from the deepest regions of my soul, amidst the purest blossoming of love and the under the banner of ardent sincerity.
By giving that pledge, I abandoned any sort of control. By presenting that pledge to her, I placed my life, my soul, in her hands. I entrusted to her my virtue, and now, in this trying time, in this moment of weakness, so far removed from her presence, my trust in her must be absolute. The future is just that, a dim possibility, the faintest, tiniest chance that all the effort and resolve, all the tears and torment will lead to happiness. My feelings for her are unequaled in my life. I have never met anyone as perfect as she is to me, her simmering humanity, her sharp wit, her twinkling smile, her cunning, her kindness, her fragile strength. If I should find myself without her, if my efforts have been in vain, I will live out my life in tragic discontentment, knowing always that the Perfect Woman chose another man over me.
I will not lay blame. I will not point fingers. My virtue will be intact until the day I draw my last breath. I will never abandon your side, Eliza. Under neither duress nor coercion will I lay aside my proclaimed duty toward you. My heart is in your hands. It has been broken before. It has been crushed many times. A spark burns within it, however, the spark of loyalty, of kinship, of trust. I put that spark there the night I made my pledge, and only the Eternal Tao can stamp it out.
Sleep well, my darling. JP

milkweed

My mood today has been strangely stable. I have not had to rebuild after a devastating attack of self-torment. I can suddenly feel my future stabilizing. The lines of fate spreading from the present appear less torturous and knotted than those stretching into the past. I have not suffered a wave of sorrow regarding Eliza. Perhaps this is because I understand her reasons for calling things off. Perhaps I finally trust that she and I will one day be together, regardless of how much I want it to happen immediately. Perhaps I have finally stopped trying to control the future, and have come to terms with the fact that things will happen as they are supposed to happen.
Just a few weeks after my father passed away, I now inhabit his country estate, a verdant valley packed full of deer, frogs, hawks, and all manner of insects. A thousand different shades of green assault the eye each morning. Buzzing, clicking, and chirping insects fill the air with constant sound. The good dark earth parts easily under my spade. The stream, clear, swift, and full of tiny living things, gurgles twenty feet from the front porch. The light blue paint curls and chips off the pine shingles, and a small bush is growing out of the rain gutter over the rear patio.
I am separating the wheat from the chaff, the things of emotional or material value from the detritus accumulated over time. My father was a child of war rationing. His house is full of things that would be useful if the world went to shit tomorrow. The barn is full of tools and books for planting and maintaining crops. The .22 rifle, with scope, is lovingly oiled, a box of bullets nearby. His ashes sit in his bedroom, fifteen feet from where I now sit. I have placed his flag and Navy officer’s cap atop the small but heavy wooden box, something I think he would like. I miss him dearly, more than I ever thought I would. I still expect him to come through the front door, or come stumbling out of the bathroom in his robe, but those memories will fade with time.
When I moved here at the end of last year, a single milkweed had sprouted from under the concrete in front of the basement door. My father explained what the plant did, and made it clear that it was not to be disturbed. Today, after rebuilding my modest wattle-and-backfill dam across the stream, I stopped to examine the plant. What started as a small plant not four feet tall has grown into two stalks eight feet high, each sporting numerous healthy pods. A bit of movement caught my eye. On closer inspection, I discovered five Monarch butterfly caterpillars lazily drinking sap, their tails wiggling every so often. I take this as a final nod from my father. This is his last gift to me, the glorious transformation of these small wriggling things into stately masters of the air, right on my doorstep. I will monitor their progress. I will protect the plant, and when they depart, I will rejoice as their red and black wings bearing my father’s soul to rest in heaven.
Requiescat in pace, GHWR. X

shifting fortunes

How does one deal with shifting fortunes, with the highs and lows of daily life? My first instinct is to blame myself, falling into patterns of thought and behavior that lead straight to heartbreak and woe, self-torment of the most vicious and destructive sort. How do you let someone go who you consider to be the ultimate person, that woman with whom you want to spend the rest of your life? How do you act when she tells you that she is not ready for you now, that she enjoys her life without you in it more than she would enjoy it with you in it? Is it courage that keeps me from calling her, that prevents me from reaching out, or is it the knowledge that any action on my part will lead to naught, to further damage to our potential common future?
I am exhausted from her constant refusals, from the weeks of hanging on a thread, hoping beyond hope that she will come around and say to me that she is ready for Us to begin. It was selfish of her to keep me guessing, but I am also to blame, as I refused to read the writing on the wall and accept her unwillingness to commit. She has always had every right to do what she pleases, and I was a fool to hope I could convince her of my worth, my ability to provide her with a bright and shining future, just by being around her, by sharing time with her. Losing my job did not help things, for my ability to invite her to dinner or pay for activities virtually disappeared. I have never been good with money, and I did not reach the point where I was saving enough each paycheck to allow me not to have money for any extended point in time.
For these two events to occur so closely together is a blow from which I am still reeling, a shock to my self-esteem, my self-image, my faith in myself as a functioning member of society. I need her in my life. Her presence gives me great joy. I love every ounce of her being. It has been extremely hard for me to visualize my life without her. Will I settle for a lesser woman? Will Eliza find another man, one who can fulfill her needs without placing any demand on her for the fulfillment of his own needs? Or is it something about me that kept her from committing? Is it my lack of a career, of a clear and chosen path which I will follow? Why has my writing been suffering so? Is it because I was so focused on winning her that everything else in my life took second fiddle? Perhaps. Constant refusal leads to constant reevaluation of self. I cannot imaging working on the book in any serious capacity, although I know it can be successful, that my desire to transform America as we know it still burns deep within my soul. The confidence to work on the book will come with time. As the pain of losing her creeps out of my heart of hearts, I will be able to pour more effort into a more practical future, the realization of my dream of life as a writer. For now, however, I will ease my way back into it. This writing is a start. I wish her the best. Her happiness is more important to me than many things in life, and if this path leads to the fulfillment of that happiness, my loss and my suffering is worth it. May the winds of fortune shine upon you, Eliza, and may you remember me fondly. Perhaps we will make a fresh go at it, a new start at what we both know could be a bright and happy future. I cannot hope for you to return to me, only that I can find the reasons to love myself enough to be ready if you ever decide that you are ready.

Tao chapter 48:

To win the world, one must renounce all.
If one still has private ends to serve,
One will never be able to win the world.

the storm abates

Now that the storm of torment is broken, I realize that, in my selfishness and undignified manner, I have neglected to consider that Eliza could well be having as a hard time dealing with this whole situation as I have. Lost in the forest of my soul wrenching butchery, I have blinded myself to the greater purpose of my life, and the beauty and wonder all around me. After all, it was she who suggested we should part ways, as her situation would not allow for intimacy. It was she who, in what I realize now to be a very brave and kind manner, told me all the things that are hardest to tell someone you hold dear.
Perhaps she yearns for my company as much as I have been yearning.
Perhaps her heart is as confused and sad and lonely as mine has been.
Perhaps she wonders, as I wonder, what the future holds in store.

At least I have passed the hardest test, the perhaps cruelest form of punishment known to man - shameful self-loathing. Bones heal, skin mends, but a weakened, tortured soul destroys itself in the end.

"Only simple and quiet words will ripen of themselves.
For a whirlwind does not last a whole morning,
Nor does a sudden shower last a whole day.
Who is their author? Heaven-and-Earth!
Even Heaven-and-Earth cannot make such violent things last long;
How much truer is it of the rash endeavours of men?"
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 23

kalaalit nuunat

there lives in the far north, in the wild expanses of that vast island known as green, in a cave of shining crystals, bedded on a great white bear rug, encased in an eternal shell of clear beauty, a quiet but beautiful young beast, whose tender hands tell tales of past and future, never once hinting at the present, but calmly regarding the world through her steel blue eyes with the languid pleasure of one who knows that the precious essence of man lies within.
hope springs eternal
X

on dolphins and famous people

Dolphins are similar to famous people in a few ways. First, as air breathing mammals, they both bear live offspring. Second, they both live in isolated, highly structured social groups. Third, their personal space should not be violated, but if they seek you out, mingle.

Certain laws in Hawaii govern such interactions: while dolphins are not to be harassed, proximity and petting are allowed if they approach you and your friends having fun in the water. No laws exist to regulate the average person's interaction with famous people, but similar codes of conduct apply: chasing famous people is unwise, as they will flee and shun you; cornering famous people is dangerous, as they will protect themselves.

If you have succeeded in attracting a dolphin or famous person, you can't slack off and hope they will stay – you must keep things interesting! Keep the heavy duty fun-making just below the surface, as a reward of sorts for the attracted party, ready to unleash at a moment's notice. But be warned: both dolphins and famous people are highly attuned to deception, and will quickly sniff out a ruse, so keep things honest. Be prepared to welcome the famous into your midst at all times, and do not display shock or giddiness at their arrival. If there is one thing famous people detest more than fawning, it is giddiness. Do not act like a schoolgirl cornered by her first crush – take things on the cuff and retain your ability to make full sentences. Most famous people are intelligent, good-hearted people who wish to be treated with the same respect and cordiality one reserves for close friends. Avoid excess shrieking and other signs of insanity.

Breaking bread is a memorable occasion that deepens the bonds connecting individuals. Carrying a sack of dead herring while swimming in coastal waters is impractical and potentially dangerous. Dolphins have been known to attack and kill sharks, but why risk it? You wouldn't drag a deer carcass into bear territory in hopes of attracting the bald eagle, now would you? Do not serve herring to famous people, unless it has been preserved in a nice mustard sauce. Lighter, more palatable fare is preferred, but stick to foods you can quickly prepare. Have an assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages on hand, with enough cups and ice to go around. Nothing keeps people around like tasty snacks and fine drink. If the food is as good as the company, you are on the right track.

The coveted party will often appear without warning, drink his fill of the foolishness, and promptly leave. Cherish such short encounters as you would a child's first laugh or a perfect sunset: covetousness leads invariably to trouble. Remember: relationships cannot be rushed; they are built over time. Invite the famous person to your next gathering, and offer to keep them on the up and up – you just might get their contact information.

Now that you have a few tips on how to attract famous people, the next question is where to set up shop: start with New York or Los Angeles. Attracting dolphins is fairly straightforward: go to Hawaii and play in the water. If you and your group are fun to be around, a bit of foresight can pave the way for close encounters, even lasting friendships – as long as you don't lose your head.

Fists of Jagged Concrete

Let us start at the beginning. It is a very good place to start. I however do not know the beginning. I only know what the young man told me. When you are forced to share a cell, it is hard not to tell all. Mostly it just happens. You talk to forget the pain, the hunger. Something clicks and you have to talk; you might be dead tomorrow.
I slowly came to hate him in that cell; he hated me from the get-go. Something about my face, he said, being just plain boring. I always look now, for the boring, fearing I too will one day see it. I hated him because he never accepted his lot as cast. Ever. He never just did things the easy way, the way I had done my whole life. I slowly came to love him in that cell; he loved me from the get-go. Something about my soul, he said, shining bright and pure but always secretly yearning for the Big Sleep. I loved him because he refused to forfeit his integrity but, in the end, always managed to do just that.
He was a mess; so am I. We talked about the way things had been. The girls and the booze and the stagnating wonder of America in a dangerous new century. The days were theirs; the nights belonged to us. In slivers of moonlight I taught him chess on chips of concrete marked in our own blood. It was all we had, really: concrete and blood and the dry Southland heat.
We had only been trying to help, to clean up and rebuild after the San Andreas Fault had finally shifted, and churned the Los Angeles Basin into a froth of concrete and twisted steel. The aftershocks had been fierce, relentless. Our Sons of the American Revolution chapter had called up a ‘Phoenix Brigade,’ thirty fearless men eager to help their most desperate fellow countrymen, regardless of color, craft or creed.
We were ambushed in the smoldering rubble somewhere south of James M. Wood. Scrambling they came, the mad rush of a fearful starving mass. The very earth seemed to spit them forth, machetes flashing in the sunrise.
Why the two of us were spared is unclear. We were tortured, but what could we realistically have told them? That the Valley was still burning? Simply look to the hills, to the north, for that still-expanding wall of smoke. That FEMA was now hopelessly overwhelmed? That agency hadn’t been right since Katrina. With wildfires and extreme weather ravaging the Union, their resources had been already stretched far too thin. Maybe our captors enjoyed the torture; perhaps it becomes easy, if you push a man far enough. Maybe, they did it because someone told them to do it; maybe I will never know.
I would fix his wounds as well as I could. One day he found a needle. He learned to fix me up too, but my stitching always healed better. We scratched the walls to mark the days. They stopped feeding us. We didn’t really miss the burnt tortillas, but food is food, plain and simple. Desperate, we ate cockroaches and drank our own blood. We sucked fresh air through stress fractures in the reinforced concrete walls. Water seeped up sometimes from a broken pipe, to pool in the corner.
Like a warrior couple of antiquity we nursed, scolded, wept. We had bared all and shared all: our bond was complete. We were as close as two men can become and not want to fuck each other. Weak from hunger, we knew the end was nigh. “Jump them with fists of jagged concrete,” we whispered to each other in the dark. “Kill or be killed; at least go out swinging.” Secretly we each prayed to die defending the other. Our hearts were noble and pure and sang as one.
“Tomorrow... tomorrow.”
The next morning, twenty days after the ambush, the young man was gone. The steel door to our cell stood ajar. Drag marks and splattered blood led outside. Sparrows erupted into blinding early light, scolding me in their fright. Shifting mounds of bricks. Rubble and smoke. To the east, the Library Tower rose tall and straight amongst its crooked neighbors. I cursed myself for not having awoken in time. Wailing and tearing at my hair, I fell to my knees, cutting them among the jagged red brick. Tears rained down to mingle in the dust with the fresh blood. Gasping, my heart broke. I grabbed a brick and slammed it into my head over and over.
When I awoke the sun stood at azimuth. Blind hope flooded my being. I stumbled back inside. “He’s just hiding,” I repeated to myself, “he’s still here.” I searched for hours in the dusty heat. The needle was gone; he was gone. The crude chess pieces scraped and rattled in a pocket of my tattered fatigues; I dug a small hole and buried all but one.
As the last handful of soil drained through my fingers, I vowed to all things right and true to keep his memory – his stories – alive. Fresh tears welled. The shard of concrete marked with my blood, his blood, our blood, pulsed in my fist. I searched the heavens for some sort of sign: spotlights stabbed suddenly skyward into the failing light, caressing the Griffith Park Observatory in slow circuits.
“If only I can make it there, I will live,” I thought sadly to myself.

My name is Colonel Reginald Steele. I dedicate this to you, Luce Baine Jutland. Forgive an old man if he misses a detail or two, here and there.
If you still live, know I love you.
If you are dead, may you rest in peace.

at the precipice

when circumstance dictates your happiness

and your soul is only a sham

an amputated cesspit of loneliness

sadness far-reaching and grand

and daily you struggle with hopefulness

and daily destroyed are your plans

and you find yourself at the precipice

where future and nothingness meet

then hard is the task of restarting

your life on its daily repeat

and courage must come from the notion

"it is I who determine defeat"

Exodus from LA - Day 1

Time: 3:55 pm
Grand Junction, Colorado. They exited into intense, Death Valley heat. Reginald set out for a quick walk, something to get the blood flowing again after fifteen hours of sitting. By accident he followed a few rainbow hippies wearing greasy baseball hats. When they ducked into a bar he kept right on walking. He had given up the sauce recently, due to realizations gained during an intense bout of hallucinations (a result of food poisoning from eating street tacos in Tijuana, Mexico). His soul hovers above him in space, a lozenge of cool bright neon… the components of his life like milky comets spinning slowly down and away from it. The How and the Why and the Wherefore of each event is suddenly, overwhelmingly, clear. His fifteen year affair with booze is linked to every major source of woe and failure, a thick spine running the length of many ribs.
He’d added “no more booze-houndin’” to his List of Rules.
So far, avoiding the sauce had been remarkably easy.
Grand Junctionians lounged in the shade along a newly constructed pedestrian shopping corridor. They stared at him as he passed. In LA he had relished the flamboyant anonymity, confident that people would not trouble themselves with his presence. But that is no longer the case, old friend, he thought as he walked among them. So let them stare. Take it as a compliment – no sane person would ever wear sunglasses like these.
The bus was not ready when he returned. Charlene had changed clothes. Her gaggle had dwindled to two diehards. Reginald munched generic Runts candy (a perfect early dessert) and waited with the other passengers. The candies are cheap and if you know how to wiggle the dispenser just right, like Steele does, you can get more of them than intended. Separate little groups of travelers all watched the news together: recycled political videobites; and updates on the latest national disaster…
Captain Fearmongery, may I introduce, Her Majesty – Lady Despair.
The combination ticket counter/snack bar was closing down with a kind of hopeful reluctance. The bus departed twenty minutes late.
They eased back onto the road, dipping and climbing deeper into the Rockies. Reginald had been tempted to talk to a few of the cooler-looking hippies in Grand Junction but was afraid he would burst into tears at any moment. The earplugs had remained in place. They were working quite well as single-serving friend repellant.
A rumble passed through his gut. He drank the last of his water and concentrated on the hunger, felt it, followed it along the peripheral nervous pathways all the way up to his brain and forced it to go away, to stop bothering him.
Hunger is weakness, and the Poor can’t afford to be weak.
A few hours later, in Glenwood Springs, he bought a bag of chips and a candy bar. Denver was still a good way off. He yearned to be there already, to be away from Charlene and the rainbows sneaking off to smoke weed, away from people who needed nicotine so badly, away from simple conversations and lighthearted banter. Something deep inside him knew that Denver was the fulcrum, that place where things would change, where he wouldn’t have to be so damn sad all the time.
Thunderclouds were passing low overhead, creeping westward. He hadn’t seen rain in months – summers in the Los Angeles Basin can be quite dry. Static discharge flashed and rumbled through the deep surrounding valleys. The air had that unique post-rain coolness to it. He stood by a bunch of trees to one side of the gas station’s gravel parking-lot. It occurred to him that he could be hit by the lightning and should seek cover.
The internal war was brief – his depressive mind won. I’ll just stand out here in the open by these tall trees for a while with lightning flashing overhead, he thought. Just then, the setting sun burst through an unseen gap. It set the fringes of the dark flashing thunderheads aglow in a riot of orange and gold.
His heart leapt and he was cheered. He realized that it mattered not if he got hit; nor if he got back on the bus; nor if he ever saw LA again.
The beginnings of an actual smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
If I do get hit by lightning, he thought; at least I’ll have seen that.

Focused Ramblings of a Sad Sad Little Monkey

I woke up for the fiftieth time this morning and finally realized why I had been woken up the other forty nine. My smoke detector had been chirping and beeping throughout the night, ripping me from sweet repose into a sort of half waking over and over again.
To add to this I’ve been in perpetual torment since last Friday when I went on a date with a wonderful gorgeous college girl in Westwood. I had brought up my mom being dead now seven years and went from thoroughly enjoying her presence and the evening to catatonic despair, fearing she would see that I have emotions and things I haven’t worked out yet and would not want to deal with it. As we left together and parted ways, I froze like Bambi facing a semi and DIDN’T go in for the kiss which I could tell she wanted. Her face fell and my heart broke and I just wanted to die right there on the spot. She hasn’t gotten back to me since sand I’m killing myself inside, cursing my foolishness and lamenting the loss of such a being perfectly shaped to my highest standards. Oh woe is me. I’m out of Aderall too and can’t picture leading a successful and productive life without it and the constant struggle I face with addiction and my desire to write but difficulty doing so and today’s been not great.
I’m lost and sad and curse myself every second for not being good enough or quick enough or just plain stable enough to begin a good relationship with this knockout chick. And then in all my grief I think back to the day I got busted for heavy armed robbery and my dad sat me down at the dinner table with my mom and sister and proceeded to categorically break me down. He broke me all right and I snapped and have since lost that burning driving confidence and love for self that I see shining in so many other people and had to build my psyche and self esteem back up but I think I messed up along the way. I didn’t ask for help and no one offered it really and now when my chips are down and I’m depressed I can’t help but thinking thoughts of death and just plain wanting to give up. But I can’t give up because it would break my sister’s heart and my brother needs and loves me too so I push on and try to write, try to find some meaning in my life or some sort of goal. But I keep crying and just started again and am wearing sunglasses not so people won’t know but so they’ll leave me alone. I’m a selfish bastard with tears on his cheeks sitting on Prospect and Vermont trying desperately not to fall in love with every gone girl I see and trying to write shit down and make some sense out of things. And all I want is a nice pretty girl who’ll LISTEN to me and accept me for who I am mostly and I saw her on Friday but my mind got in the way and totally fucked me over, and now that it seems I’ve lost her I just want to get shanked in some street fight over something trivial and die in an alley forgotten and unloved or steal a car and jerk the wheel into a goddam bridge embankment.
I’m still really mad at my dad for what he did and should tell him and explain the consequences of his selfish act and forgive him and maybe love him again and I have to hurry before his lungs give out and he dies too. But I may never forgive him for how he tormented Mom on her death bed, complaining over and over about her wanting to die in the States close to her family and how thing’s would’ve been much better had they stayed in Germany. But she’s dead now and I miss her so much and just want to make her proud but it’s too late for that and who the fuck cares anyway. People do care but I can’t seem to care for myself enough to get real help from a professional and try to get my head straight because every time something good seems to happen in my life a deep dark part of me licks out and sabotages it and I downspiral into self pity and - loathing. I don’t talk to people about this because I don’t want to burden them but I have to if I want to be sane and productive, and my whole life I’ve been trying to be accommodating and nice but that gets you nowhere and you just wind up sacrificing yourself for others’ sake and then they leave you or you leave them or they forget but I never forget and then they don’t appreciate you anymore and that just freaks me out too.
I sold a bunch of stock recently, mortgaging my future per se, but I used it to pay off a lot of debt and thought that would reduce the stress and help me focus a bit but it hasn’t really yet because I’m still stressing about a lot of other stuff and feel powerless to fix it. Things like my apartment in gang territory and all the roaches and stopped-up sink that plague me there, and the fact that I’m not pursuing some career at some bullshit corporation like society tells me to and which I could have been doing but now can’t even bear thinking about. - I had to come inside just now because some fag with a high nasal voice started talking right in front of me and checking me out and normally I don’t mind gays at all but I almost went over and shoved my pen in his eye. - So I’m a sad sad little monkey today and just fell in love but won’t talk to her because I’ll probably just start sputtering and cry and she’ll laugh at me or just ignore me and leave.
There are three main aspects to my personality: a) the wolf b) the jester c) the scholar. Not long ago I realized the scholar had gone bye bye for a bit and I’d been running on jester and wolf, who are good for smashing and maiming and insults and showboating and boasting, but a tripod can’t stand on two legs so I’ve been coaxing the scholar back but I think he’s scared, still reeling from the tumult and chaos of my life recently. I’m scared too but together we’ll march on, two steps forward a mile back, never giving ground but always losing it. The moments pass and I sit here and see everyone and watch no one and try to find room in my heart to love myself again. Oh woe is me.

JPR 4/30/‘08

HAIKU

under cloudy skies
raindrops become pleasant mist
kissed by rising sun

damn the eyes of the curious

Damn the eyes of the curious

Searching with clandestine affect

As simple changes wield unexpected results

Adding the hint of unspoken lust to a stolen glance

Choose the retrograde, the rough path

Undauntedly challenging each crag and defile,

Each moment a tangle of the past woven

Into the roiling chaos of next moment's wakening

Steering confidently into the future

All the while grasping for a rain soaked pearl

Peace must be made, the three conjoined

And what emerges; bright gleam on humanity;

mudscraping whore; cannot be foretold

ultima ratio regum. X

interlude - project inferno - "on purpose"

As far as I can put things together, there is no predestined fate, no red thread that you've been dragging behind you all along. Far from unintentionally leading to a way out, to some sort of salvation, this string can become tangled along the way, and get you in far worse trouble than you would be without it.
The damn thing about a sense of purpose is that it is unequally distributed among us. Some possess of it from the start. They inhale it with their first breath. But for some, it must be learned, earned. And in a way, I'm happier for knowing that I must earn it, that it will not be vomited into my lap. Because otherwise, the confidence and drive would be neither so savory, nor so elusive.
Life in this foul, fast world however conveys a false sense of purpose. So easy is it to set your standards to that which you can achieve. But the unattainable must be targeted, must be the apple of your eye. If you reach it, and have got what you desired, and are happy with that, well done and many proud slaps on the back. But at times along the way, something else pops up, and looks more interesting, perhaps even easier. So follow that path, see where it goes, find that trough of muddy gold.
Many troughs lead off of the main way. They promise many things, many nice things that you might very well be happy with. But those paths tend to disappoint.
What happened to the dusty, gritty days of this country's youth? When you had to hammer/shoot/drive your way to the heart of the American dream, your own worst enemy? I say those times haven't gone. The dusty, gritty days are upon us, and you'd best specialize in something, dentistry, hogfarming, CNET IT solutions, whatever. No one wants a jack of all trades. They want someone with a clear set of characteristics that they can understand. but don't give them that luxury. keep them on their toes. send one volley after another of predictable response, then dive off into the utterly insane. be sure to come back, though, quick, so they're not sure if they're going batshit, or if you are.

ulrare. JP

the antediluvian

The Antediluvian

In the land of the pretentious, the humble man stumbles
Upon the need to become self consumed.
Choosing flashy new clothes, he ignores the rumbles
His stomach makes, so as not to be marooned
On an island of discontent.

Blind he seems to other and virtuous paths
That on his death bed would give repose
Instead the easy life beckons, drugs and laughs
Cheat him of a shining glory that once rose
From his presence, when darkness in twain was rent

What far-off goal beckons past the borders of this land
But the sum of his life’s choices, each small path
Running over the next, so any slight of hand
Could one day see him exalted, the other an epitaph
Worn by ages, its message spent

Whence take the guidance to choose a course
If those around make decisions just as rash?
Seek then the primal, like water yearn to sluice
Ever lower, with slow violence down to crash
The flimsy pillars of conviction proven bent

Perhaps he on his white horse will claim you first
And the pains of life will cease for good
Then that patient wrath will cook your blood
And leave the soul to wander, evermore, in constant thirst,
Worn by apathy, its options spent

Stumble then, onward, never admit defeat
Hold ye close of knowledge every bite
And from your idea of self not one step retreat!
Of advice, be it quick, sharp or light
Be wary, for wrong directions it may have lent

So rest now, fain wanderer
For just a moment; look up, search the sky
And give us a newborn’s smile before you die

Mahalo. JPR

LA and some of her people

Recent developments in my understanding of Los Angeles and her people have put me in the mind to record one or two of same, at some point in time, perhaps now, perhaps later.

the apartment is a mess, clothing covers the floor, empty pizza boxes litter most surfaces, and a grey Chinchilla has been loose for weeks, his droppings everywhere. We play pranks on people on the street, filming from above as one after the other reaches down to pick up the seemingly innocuous dollar bill, only to discover that the “down” side is covered with fresh, human shit. The preparations for this stunt included many instances of near vomiting, much gagging, and the supercautious air people take on when handling others’ fecal matter.

Having been picked up and not taken the bus this time, my skateboard is not with me, and the prospect of having to bus it home, and not thrash the four odd miles all downhill does not excite me. Buses in Los Angeles are doable, they actually aren’t that bad, but still, you’re taking the bus. Immediate major negative cool points. Not that anyone’s counting, but Everyone’s counting, and that’s all that counts. The good and bad of this city is that everyone is watching you, judging you, talking about you at all times while trying their hardest to ignore your very presence. Strange. Hard to pull off at the best of times, impossible to remain outside of it once you’re here long enough.

As a compromise I take my friend’s board, a brand new deck with sick trucks and Bam wheels, which is slipperier than I’m used to, which almost costs me my collarbone on the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica, but I get the hang of it, and don’t crash once. Back home, I make my way about things for a few hours, then get a call that my buddies are on the Promenade, and that I should come. Dutiful as ever, I find myself on the bus, heading west at a healthy clip, skateboard in hand. People can’t seem to stop looking at me, must be the new shades or something, so I pretend to be very distraught but trying to do my best to hold in the fury, which is a lot more fun than just sitting there. The anger creeps up behind my eyeballs, cuts the waste from my movements, and sees me through to my stop.

None of us really buy anything, besides jock shirts that look good but really aren’t normally part of the wardrobe, and we jokingly question our reasons for coming so far for basically nothing. The question seems irrelevant, so we drop the subject, and head for the beach. We smoke a joint by the life guard stand, and I watch him on his binoculars on each hand off, just to be sure. Hungry, we decide on Bubba Gump’s on the pier, get a shitty table in the back, are seated without a waiter, and I finally get up and let the oblivious wait staff know of our predicament. Apologies come grudgingly, but a young guy comes up to serve us, and we browbeat him into serving us drinks without checking ID. Doesn’t matter in my case, but my companions are both underage. Dinner’s alright, especially with three boilermakers apiece.

We finish our food, pay, and take our drinks to the bar, so they won’t card. They do, but luckily she asks the only guy who’s packing a fake. Time, about five pm. Closing time, about ten pm. In the ensuing five hours, two of us including myself have another dozen boilermakers, bringing the total in six hours to fifteen, or the equivalent of about 30 beers. We’re so drunk we each spill at least one drink, but the tenders keep ‘em comin’ and we don’t complain.

The shopping bags are abandoned three separate times within the eatery, I lose the skateboard and a pack of smokes with the last green in it, Brian gets the hot tender’s number without even asking for it, and Danny almost gets slopped up by some girl sitting next to her fiancé who’d been all up on his junk all night.

They finally kick us out, but by that time, another five of our people have showed up, we acquired a football, and I’m blacked out. The bartenders kick us out, locking the doors behind us but watching us through them , and Brian, in an attempt to impress the hot one, throws the football hard at a couple walking by, then proceeds to hoodslide a cop car parked out front. We play football on the pier, and catch, smoke more, and I’m abducted by a friend who convinces me to buy 40s, which some guy actually sells to me. I’m in t-rex mode, where shiny things catch my eye, the speech centers are on idle, and I can’t approach something without first aligning my whole body toward it, then stumbling over.

One of our old friends shows up, saying we can stay at her house. She lives with her mom and sixteen year old sister in Venice, and there’s no drinking in the house. Staunchly ignoring this warning, I sneak my half finished 40 into the house on the third try, and promptly pass out in someone’s room. Luckily it’s the old friends’, but in the night, supposedly in an attempt to forgo pissing myself, my body wakes me up and leads me to the bathroom, where I regain consciousness for the first time in ten hours.

I have no idea where I am, whose house this is, what time it is, what city I’m in, where my wallet, cellphone, and keys are. Still very drunk but awake, I tiptoe from room to room, finally locating my buddy on the floor in the younger sister’s room. It seems like a good spot, so I grab a stuffed animal and curl up next to him. I wake up to sunlight and the shakes, I’m so cold. I see that the girls have left, so I take my pants off and get under the sweet smelling covers. The old friend’s mom comes upstairs to get everyone to come down and have some pancakes, but I’m so painfully hung over and her heavy French accent is annoying so I hide under the covers, and fain incoherence and partial sleep when she discovers me. The pancakes turn out to be bland and undercooked, but the younger sister is chainsmoking at the table, so that lightens things up.

Finally someone comes upstairs to wake me, and we leave, but not before I puke all over the bathroom while trying to take a piss, catching most of it in my hands and shoveling it into the toilet. Ten minutes later there are no traces of recent pukage anywhere to be found.

All of my most valued items (cellphone, wallet, &c) have been kept safe in a shoe box, and are redistributed to my various pockets. The old friend’s mother insists on seeing us outside, and on giving Brian some things he had left behind at the old house, which he must take or else they will be thrown out.

We make our way toward Westwood, debate going to class with our old friend, but I veto the notion, as I can barely see and have one of the worst headaches in years. So we make our way toward our respective bus stops through UCLA. One of us asks everyone he meets where he can score meth, weed; I’m highstepping along checking out every girl who passes and voicing my opinion; we all look like homeless guys with shoe boxes, bags, and few brain cells left.

Having thus terrorized the campus, we enter our buses, and are swallowed up by the vast capillaries of LA Metro.

Selah. JP