...and I shake the Dirt from my Sandals...

Here's an interesting article my friend sent me-- I didn't write it. The guy who did (and credit is definitely due) is at the bottom--Robert Jensen.

There's a link at the end of one of the paragraphs (this one:http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2). Don't overlook it. It will shock you as well.

There is no freedom in war.


***

ZNet Commentary
Constraining history/controlling knowledge August 14, 2006
By Robert Jensen

One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for certainty and control over knowledge.

By that standard, the members of the Florida Legislature marked themselves as the folks most terrified of history in the United States when last month they took bold action to become the first state to outlaw historical interpretation in public schools. In other words, Florida has officially replaced the study of history with the imposition of dogma and effectively outlawed critical thinking.

Although U.S. students are typically taught a sanitized version of history in which the inherent superiority and benevolence of the United States is rarely challenged, the social and political changes unleashed in the 1960s have opened up some space for a more honest accounting of our past. But even these few small steps taken by some teachers toward collective critical self-reflection are too much for many Americans to bear.

So, as part of an education bill signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida has declared that "American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed." That factual history, the law states, shall be viewed as "knowable, teachable and testable."

Florida's lawmakers are not only prescribing a specific view of U.S. history that must be taught (my favorite among the specific commands in the law is the one about instructing students on "the nature and importance of free enterprise to the United States economy"), but are trying to legislate out of existence any ideas to the contrary. They are not just saying that their history is the best history, but that it is beyond interpretation. In fact, the law attempts to suppress discussion of the very idea that history is interpretation.

The fundamental fallacy of the law is in the underlying assumption that "factual" and "constructed" are mutually exclusive in the study of history. There certainly are many facts about history that are widely, and sometimes even unanimously, agreed upon. But how we arrange those facts into a narrative to describe and explain history is clearly a construction, an interpretation. That's the task of historians -- to assess factual assertions about the past, weave them together in a coherent narrative, and construct an explanation of how and why things happened.

For example, it's a fact that Europeans began coming in significant numbers to North America in the 17th century. Were they peaceful settlers or aggressive invaders? That's interpretation, a construction of the facts into a narrative with an argument for one particular way to understand those facts.

It's also a fact that once those Europeans came, the indigenous people died in large numbers. Was that an act of genocide? Whatever one's answer, it will be an interpretation, a construction of the facts to support or reject that conclusion.

In contemporary history, has U.S. intervention in the Middle East been aimed at supporting democracy or controlling the region's crucial energy resources? Would anyone in a free society want students to be taught that there is only one way to construct an answer to that question?

Speaking of contemporary history, what about the fact that before the 2000 presidential election, Florida's Republican secretary of state removed 57,700 names from the voter rolls, supposedly because they were convicted felons and not eligible to vote. It's a fact that at least 90 percent were not criminals -- but were African American. It's a fact that black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic. What conclusion will historians construct from those facts about how and why that happened?http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2

In other words, history is always constructed, no matter how much Florida's elected representatives might resist the notion. The real question is: How effectively can one defend one's construction? If Florida legislators felt the need to write a law to eliminate the possibility of that question even being asked, perhaps it says something about their faith in their own view and ability to defend it.

One of the bedrock claims of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment -- two movements that, to date, have not been repealed by the Florida Legislature -- is that no interpretation or theory is beyond challenge. The evidence and logic on which all knowledge claims are based must be transparent, open to examination. We must be able to understand and critique the basis for any particular construction of knowledge, which requires that we understand how knowledge is constructed.

Except in Florida.

But as tempting as it is to ridicule, we should not spend too much time poking fun at this one state, because the law represents a yearning one can find across the United States. Americans look out at a wider world in which more and more people reject the idea of the United States as always right, always better, always moral. As the gap between how Americans see themselves and how the world sees us grows, the instinct for many is to eliminate intellectual challenges at home: "We can't control what the rest of the world thinks, but we can make sure our kids aren't exposed to such nonsense."

The irony is that such a law is precisely what one would expect in a totalitarian society, where governments claim the right to declare certain things to be true, no matter what the debates over evidence and interpretation. The preferred adjective in the United States for this is "Stalinist," a system to which U.S. policymakers were opposed during the Cold War. At least, that's what I learned in history class.

People assume that these kinds of buffoonish actions are rooted in the arrogance and ignorance of Americans, and there certainly are excesses of both in the United States.

But the Florida law -- and the more widespread political mindset it reflects -- also has its roots in fear. A track record of relatively successful domination around the world seems to have produced in Americans a fear of any lessening of that dominance. Although U.S. military power is unparalleled in world history, we can't completely dictate the shape of the world or the course of events. Rather than examining the complexity of the world and expanding the scope of one's inquiry, the instinct of some is to narrow the inquiry and assert as much control as possible to avoid difficult and potentially painful challenges to orthodoxy.

Is history "knowable, teachable and testable"? Certainly people can work hard to know -- to develop interpretations of processes and events in history and to understand competing interpretations. We can teach about those views. And students can be tested on their understanding of conflicting constructions of history.

But the real test is whether Americans can come to terms with not only the grand triumphs but also the profound failures of our history. At stake in that test is not just a grade in a class, but our collective future.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org/. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu .

The Philosophy of Comedy

We are in a room, taking a test. The first question on the fourth page, the first page of opinion-based questions (completely optional, so as to get a random sampling of those that are taking this test… We'll call it the XMAS exam), is thus:

Choose the MOST offensive sentence, (a), (b), or (c)

A) "that dumb nigger is just as stupid as any old kike. they're running this fucking place."

B) "you dumb cunt, where did you learn to fucking write like that? who the fucking hell taught you that kind of gutter language? my god are you a pussy or what!"

C) "god is dead."

To some it may have been A, the most racially offensive of the three; or B, the one with the most "foul language;" or C, the one that proclaims the death of one’s religious head. The point is that swearing is different to different people, more offensive to some than others, and other words more offensive to some than others.

I believe that swearing is a merely contextual pact between a person and his fellow man—the understanding that to some nigger may be offensive, to some spic, to some fuck, to some cunt, to some faggot. Not all offensive words are offensive to all people at any given time. For example, I'm not offended by any of the words in this essay.

But as it goes, because of color, derogatory terms like Gook or Spic or Slant-eye, or cracker or nigger or Jew may be offensive; because of stature, midget may be offensive; because of orientation, Faggot or Homo or Gay or Fag-boy or Nancy-boy may be offensive; to some, because of up bringing, shut up and stupid and Satan and liberal and democrat may be offensive; to a government official, Marxist or communist or sadist may be offensive.

Now were you offended by all those words? If you were, then you need grief counseling, because one word should not affect your entire day, that is just absurd. Sentences, sure, they can be offensive, but one word? "I hate you," has more weight than "I" "hate" and "you" alone, just as "fuck off" has more weight that "fuck" has alone or the phrase "go away" even. The only exceptions to this rule are the words in answer (A), derogatory words. I'm completely willing to allow anyone to go ape-shit on a racist—you have my blessing.

Another thought is in comedy--that great enigma where a person can get up on a stage and say anything they want. There are comedians who stake their career on the racially offensive like Carlos Mencia, who has had jokes about Holy Wars and Arabs owning 7-11's and the like; there are those like Dane Cook who stake their career on the stupidity of people; or even Dave Attell who stoops for laughs by utilizing the cultural sexual awkwardness when he talks about romantic masturbation and Glade Plugins making a bathroom smell like "Lemons and Assholes." The entire comedic philosophy is to "know your audience," that is: not all jokes will work with all audiences, that some audiences are more sensitive than others; and that's what I believe Paul was calling us to do in Ephesians 4:29 when he stated, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." According to their needs is the middle phrase, those words that are beneficiary. And, often, said curse words are not helpful but merely passing words to give time for thinking. Thus, the only universal curse words, for now, are derogatory terms, but even those are relative--we could list all the words for all the races in all the languages in all the world, and even then it wouldn’t cover sign language. Therefore, there is no universal derogatory statement either, only that which is known and used by regions and hemispheres.

Curse words are those four-letter English words that are supposed to be deplorable to all of American society. You know the ones. You know how they're used (ie: fuck the fucking fucker), and are these either beneficiary or derogatory or negative in any way? No. They're just cultural words that are inserted for fucking emphasis, or to describe the way some bitch was acting, or how God should damn something, or to insinuate rough copulation, or how shit's on your front porch, on fire or to describe a woman's vagina or how much of a cunt someone is or pussy or twat or dick.

Then why do we have an Federal Communications Commission that fines tens of thousands of dollars for what is offensive? It is a panel of presumable white, upper-class males who can only think of what they wouldn't say in front of children or in front of their friends on the golf course. But in all reality, should this decision be in the hands of a panel of government workers? Or should it be in the hands of the parents, the pastors, the congregation, the self? Although I am under the impression that all humanity is too stupid to know their face from their ass (myself included, I get them confused all too often), I still think that there need not be any social restraint--control their money, sure, tax them out the ass, but don’t tell then what they can and cannot watch! I mean, how many people really care about a TV-MA rating when it’s truly the advertisers that control the entire situation? On HBO, an additional-pay-channel, they can have a TV-MA show like "Carnivàle" and show full frontal nudity on a weekly basis, but a TV-MA show on basic cable like "South Park" dare not even say "fuck" even though they could show vaginas with that rating--why don’t they? because the advertisers would not support a show that people would consider pornographic--because the advertisers control the line. And on channels like ShoTime and HBO and Starz, there are no advertisers, and thus no line.

The FCC is bullshit.

Then you have to take into account that people are more sensitive to nigger than faggot, and why is that? Aren't they both on the same level--the same offense? If someone is born gay, and someone is also born black, then aren’t they of the same caliber of offense? There seems to be too much fucking emphasis on those tired colloquialisms that we don't take time to emphasize and teach about all racism--sure, I knew nigger was bad, but what about spic and faggot and gook? They're as obscure as discussing foreplay during the sex talk. Too awkward, let him figure it out on his own. The little cunt probably won't learn it until he at least 13. Then it's engrained, then it's cultural, then everything uncool is homosexual, then everything cowardly is vaginal, then everything tough and mean is phallic...

According to my needs as a writer, the common anachronism for the cocksucker with too much gall and too much self-loathing, I am supposed to point these things out. Not all swearing is bad, you know, just that which, if you adhere to Paul’s aphorism, does not uplift.

So, then, you've just gotta know your audience. And you're mine.

Little Miss Sunshine Review (Spoilers ho)

Last month, I went to see an Inconvenient Truth (another movie I can recommend, and not just because I'm some socialist cunt), which carried the trailer for Little Miss Sunshine. I was psyched to see it from the moment I heard Olive, the little girl, say that Steve Carrell's falling in love with a boy was "silly". I was hooked and, aside from the threat of global warming, it was all I thought about after the movie.

And so, hearing that it had opened this past Friday in Los Angeles (Wide release August 18th, about 600 theaters), I decided to drive the fifty miles into Hollywood to see it at the Arclight, quite possibly the best theater I've ever been too--totally worth the extra dollar-fifty to not see any cheesy advertisements or hear shitty music before the movie (take note AMCs and Regals). The ushers began to walk away, and then one went to the front and announced, personally, the whole "Silence your goddam cell phones" instead of the Cingular sponsored message on screen or those cheesy faux movie scenes that are "ruined" by a cell phone in the audience. Quaint, yes, but the whole personal touch of someone requesting it made me want to shut the fuck up that much more.

The trailers were forgettable, nothing about The Fountain, and I was too psyched about the movie at hand.

Then the movie began. 105 minutes of pure dark-comedy in its greatest form. Abigail Breslin, who plays Olive, performed wonderfully, as did Steve Carrell as a homosexual uncle who tried to commit suicide, but not about his own homosexuality--his whole explanation of his situation is rather sad but you can't help but laugh. The way in which this movie played out, not doping up on heavy subplots about morality and the acceptance of homosexuality or silence because of Nietzche or some shit about another girl that MUST be beaten, was a wonderful execution--all that was expected to dredge the movie was relinquished.

When Grandpa dies, and they sneak him out the window and stuff it into the trunk--that was gold. I was laughing my ass off along with everyone in the theater, then how they had to push the car to get it going out of there because they didn't have time to get a new clutch. Pure, unadulterated laughs.

When it all ties into when Olive dedicates her final performance to her grandpa, and when the announcer asks her, "And where is your dad now? Is he in the audience?" and she emphatically, happily replies (as if it's normal), "He's in our trunk." It was quite possibly one of the most contextually funny things I have ever heard.

Everything played off well, and I can't really think of anything that was done wrong. That's honesty. I've held off on writing this review so I could try and find something wrong with it. Nothing. Greg Kinnear played well as the determined asshole father who turns around and propels the movie with reason to why he's doing it.

Much better than the last Sunshine film I saw...that one with Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey...

I guess it's simple: Get your ass to a showing of Little Miss Sunshine. (10\10)

mewithoutyou

and mewithoutYou at Cornerstone 2006, performing a new song, possibly their best yet:

Gentlemen

I had a justifiably inclusionistic (a term for a movement that acknowledges and accepts all known viewpoints pertaining to the origin and purpose of mankind, unless proven false by the scientific method) thought yesterday, and I figured I'd share it with you guys, at least you guys who are opened minded. If buddhists think that all people are part of God, and if Christ is God, then doesn't that mean that all Buddhists have Christ within them? If Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and he is within all Christians and Buddhists, then isn't Buddhism and Christianity the same save the reincarnation aspect? Perhaps we believe in the same deity and no one is willing to pronounce it?

Deeper, if all "enlightened (accepted Christ)" Christians are Saints, as it says in the New Testament (Ephesians 1:1), and if all enlightened Buddhists are then called Buddhas (working through meditation, investigation, and spiritual cultivation--much like all Christians go through before they accept Christ (Matthew 7:7-8)--are all Saints Buddhas and Buddhas Saints in God's eyes?

Is there justification for Christian reincarnation if all will have the chance to see God's salvation (Isaiah 40:5)? What patience must abound in the life of a tree of a thousand years!

With Love,

The Kiosk in my Temple is Shaped like Rosalynn Carter

I thought this was interesting. Pithy statements concerning how I feel about these subjects:

History: Events and Perspectives melding together to offer a caveat against what our future could become.

Organized Religion: The clitoris of modern society: that which stimulates and quickens our connection with God.

Marriage: The greatest form of linkage between two people; to be revered by-and available for all (yes, even the homosexuals.)

Sex: The carnal admittance the marriage bond.

Society: The allowance to deny who we really are.

Animals: God's creatures to be both eaten and cared for.

Earth: The whipping boy for life's capital gains; the bitch to GDP.

Economy: An easily manipulated facade that tells us where the money isn't.

Government: A necessary evil (oh how trite)

Global Warming: A trend caused by Economy, Earth, and Government.

Movies: Entertainment and..or education. To be good, you must entertain; to be cinema, you must educate.

Standardized Tests: Milk can be homogenized to remove bacteria; Public and Private Education cannot.

Music: All sound aleatoric, improvised, and composed.

Money: The justification for our actions.

God: The deity which knows..sees..thinks..contains all.

Dodgers' Baseball: Common ground that allows for actual conversation with my father.

Cynicism: Negativity grounded in Reality.

Holy War: Oxymoron; bullshit.

Love: Enigmatic reasoning into and out of what we think about another person; both a suffering and a blessing.

Amontillado!--I have my doubts

Art is completely selfish for me. I will never make movies for Production Houses or the MPAA. I will never write poetry or books for Publishing Houses. It is selfish. It is for me and my God. For me as release and for my God as praise for as vulgar as it gets, he will know it's all for Him.

Olmedo Saenz eats children

I was told just recently that I'm never at my worst in these blogs? Then my thinking kicked in: what is my worst? When I'm cynical and negative and passive and critically unaclaimed? No, that's every day. I spent most of my day at the beach quietly because I knew that anything that spilled forth would have been negative fodder strictly because the ocean water made me want to gag with fits of remorse. Hate hate hate. But, then again, Ernest Hemingway said it best, as observed, "Happiness in an intelligent person is the rarest thing I know." and Woody Allen to said, "To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness." We're basically fucked.

Weight. All this weight of all the epiphanies and all the truths that are always so covered up by our fucking insecurities. I'm laying it all out:
I'm an embarrassed, tired, dissonant, young man who has only live an overture to a life to come. And that life, too, will end close enough to the beginning. And then maybe I'll come back as a tree to live for two thousand years in forest only to be cut short by the logger's of tomorrow. Or I'll go to heaven...
"There's your karma, ripe as peaches."

The Dodgers lost tonight in the 14th against the Cardinals (3-2). Odalis Perez was allowed to pitch against Pujols. Bad decision, seriously very bad. Lost the game. What a wretch is that? Here's to a Padres' loss tomorrow.

With love.

Father--Yes, son?--I want to kill you.

People will drift in and out of your life. It's up to you to drag the outs back in and to push the ins out. Otherwise, all will drift.

And so I sit with a dirty feeling in the pit of my stomach--that feeling of loneliness that has often become ubiquitous of late. It's coupled with the recent realization that those which I met in High School are not the end-all be-all at all. I still have a solid 80 years of my life depending on medical discoveries, and I know that I will find new friends, have new relationships, become something new.

And last night, as I sat alone at the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest 1201 showing, which was mostly teenagers and early-20's college-kid-can't-let-goes, I realized how much this detachment has taught to be an independent person... I don't have to put on pretensions for the sake of pretensions. I can be esoteric and okay with it because I know that I won't always be the same as they or even we... I don't have to wear my hair long with the mild flip while wearing the tight shirts and pants, accompanied by a girl. I don't have to always talk. I can just observe. I can feel the world so close as miles away--a detachment created for the sake of self-epiphany--to realize that the best is always yet, and the best as of late will be the worst as of 2016.

Fuck pretensions, is what I'm trying to say. Fuck trying to pull the outs back in... The drift upon the tide is what creates a person--or at least this person.

Maybe this stems from feeling like "the forgotten friend," the one never called back, the one that drifted out and wasn't pulled back in? And the wonder is that I'm okay with that. I'm okay with accepting the fact that large groups depress me, that modern Christians depress me, that people depress me. And this depression is naught but a blessing.

For so close is all so far away.

--
As always,
with love.

So Think me Naive

Metered Destruction of this Good Earth

I

If the Earth you chance to see

from a craft of cement and aluminum

You will view the key

of all the problems

As ants in the universe

we see the urban sprawl

as greatness though perverse

but the truth is that we crawl

II

Have we already reached our

apotheosis?

We suffer

in this the Oil Age,

Dissonant,

moving,

we have turned Eden east

and stated We desert you.

Cain was the ephemeral microcosm prophesy,

a progeny, a prodigy

the young devil that models

todays greatness

the backstabbers accelerando.

Oh if only tomorrows greatness

could warn

todays weakness

Why Cant it just be fixed?

theyd ask.

Weakness replies,

Were tricked! but fixing this Earth

is a daunting task.

III

Oh Mother!

Mother of Green and blue and brown and gray!

Mother of the air!

Mother of the sea!

Mother how have we forsaken you!

We fuck you in our factories,

push you up upon steel

and tear open your mussels

your cavities,

your labia folds,

and force our members in,

our Cain refineries,

our smog,

we ram into you with no desire

no desire but sin.

We fuck you dead as road kill

upon our highways,

driving you blind,

planting our asphalt,

cutting you face,

scarring you forever,

spewing carbon into your atmosphere,

leaving our seminal dust

upon your dying bushes

We fuck you from our lounge chairs

sucking out your energy

for a nominal fee

We fuck you, we fuck you,

but we never love you,

never send you flowers,

never apologize.

Mother Earth,

you are your childs Bitch,

raped and fucked so Freudian.

Oedipus would be proud,

Father time wont stop us because hes afraid,

and Father God is awaiting apocalypse

and now

IV

Flesh is not forever

and we are eating out alive,

sucking the color out of the ice.

This third planet will be the first to go

for the gas giants will whirl

and protrude,

expand,

explode out of haiku cocoons.

For the 1^st convector

will heat us and keep us

away its odd

time signature

melodica songs.

And the moon,

in a turn ironic,

will no longer be refuse,

but take in refuse

when sticks and stones

when human bones

chew apart war after war

and we knock knock knock on Saturns door.

There will always be a planet for us,

for in far off quantum Andromeda

lies the next populous victim.

V

We must love Mother Earth

the third planet,

for in its dying fatigue,

there is mirth,

theres debt,

there is need.

--

With love.

After this my Lungs'll be so fucked up!

In English class this past year, David Chernin posed the question to me, asking about poetry, of "Why can't a tree just be a goddam tree?" And I never had a viable reason why a tree just couldn't be a tree. It seemed possible since, y'know, a tree itself is great what with its cycles and its leaves and its life and its trunk and the trauma of the chainsaw; however, I finally have the reason why a tree isn't just a tree to poets.

I don't like the term poet, as an aside, it sounds too coffee-house cliche. But whatever. I have no choice. So, poets often deal in terms of those ineffable things in life--those things which cannot be described, cannot be made known by any language, except the language of imagery. A poet may see a tree in Winter and see the accumulation of his life: dead-for-now, threadbare, and either surrounded by dead grass or snow or mud or what you will. Any person can see these things in life, any person can think in similes.

Any person can think on a higher level, can understand themselves better, all they have to do is look out their goddam window. And that's why a tree isn't just a tree, David.

--
A Tangent: Go see An Inconvenient Truth. It's not as leftist, crazy, as you'd think it'd be...

Or boring, what with Al Gore being the lead and all. I absolutely loved it.
Go See it at the AMC Ontario Mills. It's playing there. But not the Victoria Gardens... It's under the little "AMC Select." Definitely worth watching. It even has some sweet previews.

--

Love,
Evan

An Observation

Today, I was sitting on our patio in the backyard that looks south towards the rest of Rancho. You can't see that, though, because of all the trees. Big trees, some Eucalyptus, some unknown, some Pine, you get the idea. Anyway, as I was sitting there, watching all this, there was an eastern breeze which is typical now this time of year.

The trees were swaying with the breeze, and birds were chirping and all that sappy stuff. But what I noticed was that everything taller than a blade of grass and less dense than a bush, trees and tall things and fruit, y'know, sways with the wind, sways with give and take of the wind, with non-resistance to the breeze.

But my house did not. It was stagnant, with no sway, no give, just stagnancy. No movement and no give to the greatness of the earth around, nothing. Just rigid, blatent, stubbornness.

I'm not a tree. I'm a house.

With Love.

I'm No Sort of Fabric.

I'm out $110.09. I'm going public with the whole book thing. Prelude to Postscript, formerly The Purple Calligrapher's Angeles Step is the title and that's the link. Uhm, it's different from TPCAS in that it has a different last poem, some extra revisions and an added poem I wrote entitled Shades of Blues. I italicized it because it's more like a novella. Goddam. It's this poem that was going to be a book, but I lost interest in it the moment the tassle went from left to right. It's about HS. and all the shit-crap I got my whore-ass into.

I spent 110.09 in order to get an ISBN and a barcode and to be put into databases used by Barnes and Nobles and Borders and Amazon. I have a copy in the mail which is so that I can revise anything that needs revising, and then from there I push. Push with self promotion. Things like putting a sign up on Posterboards in that Outdoor Sporting Store near Circuit City, putting posters up around the city, that kind of thing.

This is the first step in the long journey to me winning the Nobel Prize. That's my ultimate goal: to be put into the league of Hemingway and Steinbeck and TS Eliot and Faulkner and Beckett--or at least to be nominated and lose like F. Scott and Twain (who beat Mark Motherfucking Twain?!). I want to be that good, I hope to humbly place myself into the writing community as that blasphemous Christian with the religious undertones yet the harsh overtones. That kind of thing. But who knows, life is so phlegmatic and writing is so liquid that it could shift and shape any plastic bottle or glass vile I am in at that time, allowing my soul to echo in even the darkest caverns of the soul.

Fuck fuck fuck. Here's to hoping, here's to wishing, here's to Prelude to Postscript.

With love.

I'm just so close to my menstrual cycle that I could scream!

"After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs." - Annie Hall, 1977

So, okay. Self-mutilation comes in all forms, not just cuts--it comes in the form of relationships and bad decisions and trying to impress someone and all that neo-classical bullshit they call life.

Right now, though, the mutilation comes in the form of coping--coming to grips with the fact that no one wants to hire me and that it'll probably be another five to ten years before I even get considered for publication. I've applied at nine seperate places, some multiple times, and I haven't been hired yet. I'm probably doing something wrong, or I don't care enough. One of the two. It's probably the latter. I'll be honest, I just don't give a fuck about working a part time job, serving the wealthier-than-thou disillusioned peasants who of course need either the young or the mexican to do everything for them so as to feel like they are the ones caught in this caste of systematic "never-getting-anywhere-but-Rancho" thought process.

Uhm, I guess when the water is boiled, and the harmful bacteria is eradicated (maybe that shit that came out was high school), I'll be okay. We'll see. I'm just not gonna worry. I opened a savings account today. So that's okay too.

And I've still got God who himself said, "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." No. Wait. That's not the detestable thing we're talking about--not worrying, that's detestable since to worry is to be human and to not worry about shit is caustic. However, the other Testament does state, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"

So, yea! Who of you, by worrying can add a single hour to their life?

Love is all I've got to give.

Honest to a Fault

So here it is, ladies and gentlemen, June 14th. The day which the class of 2006 graduates from Los Osos High School. And I sit and wonder, "Was it all me? or was it all God?"

I know the answer, that it was all God, because I don't think that I could have connected with such amazing people without him. I don't think my memories would be as sweet. I don't think I'd be as nostalgic right now. I probably would be able to sleep past 5:45. But it's like I'm a child going somewhere exciting. I can't sleep.

Nostalgic, terrified, and horribly morose, I rise to face this day so epochal and triumphant in my life. Milestone #1 of my adult life. It all starts today when it all ends, when everything that I know ends, everything I understand ends. It's staggering to think that perhaps the best years of my life are to come and are not behind. However, the best years of my 18 years of life have definitely been the last four. And it's all because of you guys--

You, who lifted me up, supported me as Social Atlas's, tireless pulling my world when I was down. You, whom I learned so much from. You, who molded and shaped the blunt edges of a man to come, a man to be. I am a reflection of every single g-ddam one of you. And I'm grateful.

I'm grateful I never succumbed to anger or hate or hermitage, passing up all that being sociable has offered me. I enjoyed laughing and joking and eating and dancing with you guys.

And now it's all over. And that's good. It never grew old and it was about to. It never grew out of my hands, and it was about to.

So it's over. And that I am happy for. I can go on to live my next 60 years of life with the sweetest memories of just who you all are.

And when we walk away from Grad Night unto the greatness of new life, carrying the weight of then-life, I will think of you and how you were bigger than me in my own life.

"never thought this day would come
you threw the bricks that built this wall
amantillado! at the top of your lungs.
and i cant hear you anymore"

Goodbye to all I love!

Sphinx of Aluminum

I've figured out why we're so fucked up. It's that when we get what our id desires, our ego wants our desires to happen faster. And our basic needs? Shelter, warmth, food.

Fast food is ruining our lives. We can walk into a warm shelter and satisfy our hunger in 10-15 minutes for a minimal price. Suddenly, we're satisfied. And we want want want to the point of non-contention, never satisfied. Our ego suddenly bursts with the thoughts of "same day delivery" and email and contact and reaching out with no lag. Seeking without really wanting, just seeking more and more for the sake of masking our boredome, for the sake of hiding the fact that we aren't supposed to satisfy the id in ten to fifteen minutes.

Fast food has tricked us into gluttony, tricked us into upsized combos and upsized desirous wants--I guess you could say that fast food causes many rapists to do what they do since they aren't willing to wade through a courtship to possibly get sex. They want it now now now, and they'll take it however they want. Same with pedophiles. Can't wait for the child to grow up. Take it now. Within ten to fifteen minutes.

There's still no justification for beastiality. No matter how much money it brings.

She'll never Stay as long as you still run

Is there a difference between Christian and Christ-like? I would think so even though Christian is supposed to mean Christ-like. But most Christians as of late succumb to darkness and non-camaraderie, non-brotherhood which Christ called us unto--to love God and one anothers above all else.

And so I must wonder, why aren't Christians often following their definition? Is it because it's just word? Because just the word does not define just the beliefs? Are we as Christians overly judgemental about people who swear or masturbate or are sick..tired..POOR..dirty..minority..lost (I am guilty of all.)? Do we treat others as we wish to be treated?

Or are we too bored with the Bible, God's patient timing, in our world of instant communication, instant answers, drive-thrus and countless, needless, medications? Are we drugged into a comatose state that allows us to just lay in bed, as Aaron mentioned in his blog posting from June 3rd, and allow the world to pass us by, when if you were to look out your window and see perhaps a tree and all the life it--oh. right. Out your window is a Wal Mart. Out your window is a billboard. Your window is a television.


If we were to just immerse ourselves in God's life, God's creation instead of the concrete malpractice of the suburbs, we could see and feel and think and know just what it is to be alive--just what it is to be loved by a God who created the infinite amount of stars and who loves little, finite, us.

Or are we waiting for God to come to us. For God to reach out and grab us. That only brings us so close for seeking is what will bring you closer--asking will bring you into his wings.

Let's go down to river to pray.

In Your World my Feet are Out of Step

So okay. This one's about God. He hasn't come up in awhile and that saddens me. Mostly because I haven't had any revelatory thought involving him for almost two years--until last night.

The lead singer of the band MewithoutYou was giving a sermon at Cornerstone 2005 () and in it he mentioned concerning the word God--that the G- Ah and the Duh are merely sounds that are the truest humanizing of a God we cannot understand. For in those three letters, there is no subtext, pretext or context that is wide enough, deep enough, tall enough, to describe who..what..why God is. And God is our greatest attempt for the word invokes revelry in something bigger. It invokes the thought that we aren't alone, that God is there. This is why I've come to the conclusion that the only true swear word is God for utilizing it incorrectly blasphemes all that it meagerly represents. The truth, though, is that no word however long or short can describe God in a box. We can say God is great, yes. But the truth is that God is. He just is. God is___. I mean, the word God enough is evocative enough to left the sentence a fragment, the tail end grammatically skinned away for trial and error in our seeking for what's beyond the is and inside the God.

John 6: 53 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.'" Think about this. The Catholics take this literally with the Eucharist and that whole ministry which those not Confirmed cannot take part in (right? I could be wrong and that's okay too.) and the Christians do with occasional communion. However, think of the bread--his flesh. Jesus (Another word unable to fathom the God of man of God) is within us all and we are all within him. The terror is that the bread, the flesh, is made of wheat, that which we are, crushed and risen--much as in life we crushed, having tragedy and demise and morose sorrow carve out a hole for Joy and the joy of Christ God to fill. We are crushed and risen together, in heat and fire, and then given to be broken again in remembrance of just who God is. Dust to dust.
And the grapes, just as that, we are each one grape to be crushed underfoot in order to leave the juices--his blood--to ferment in waiting for us to become exactly what the blood of Christ is--his lifeline. We are to eat his flesh and drink his blood--eat each other in camaraderie, as one in the body of Christ, and drink each other as in camaraderie against all things sectionalized.

This brings us to the bureaucracy of Christ--the sects, the hierarchy of churches--and how it has pushed us away from the truth of God. John 9 is the story of a man born blind and made to see by Christ. The Pharisees, in this story, are the antagonists, the bad guys. However, in their day, they were revered as those that knew the most, thought the most, had their shit most together. However, this beggar, born blind into a leper's life of melancholy, is now the greatest witness to his friends about the power of God, the power of the Son of Man.
The leaders, those in suits and screaming at television cameras and congregations of thousands, reaching out and "healing" have created this bureaucracy, this rift, in God, forcing them to a life in Christ with the sole purpose of bringing others to the Cause--though our ultimate purpose is first to love God and second to love others, the rest should fall into place--and suddenly, we wonder why this world is torn.
Sometimes, it's those that don't have their shit together, their clothes on straight, they hair done nicely and their bible written upon, that have their shit together... For outer image does not reflect that which is inside. As MTV's show "Diary" states, "You think you know. But you have no idea." You got that right.

Monotheists and Polytheists alike should not be torn, but brought together in the true thought that God is so unfathomable that you may be right, I may be right, they might be right, we might be right. God is so inherently beyond our comprehension that perhaps it is that each philosophy of East, West, and Central is merely another interpretation, another side of the stratagem that is God. For no one is left out.

--
I am blind.

Blood on the Median like a Boat Without Oars

The detriment and sacrament of the Septuagint and the vile Torah! Torah! cry of the sweet graey skies of the lesser tomorrow.

With 13 days of High School left, I have to wonder whether or not I'm sad to be leaving or sad to be going... I wonder if I am afraid of life and what it holds for me and how I have to find a job and all that shit... I want to just write but I know that just writing will find me as a failure in the eyes of everyone--a hobo that lives with his parents and doesn't work. Appeasement, that's what it is--and oh how I've learned of that term!--and how I have to practice is to get anywhere in this facade we call Life and all its virulent consequential denials. To make money, you gotta have money. Vicious cycle.

Speaking of my writing, I've been re-formatting and retitling The Purple Calligrapher's Angeles Step in an attempt to get it ready for the next step which is to self-publish and mass produce. The new service I'll be using allows for my book to be sold at Barnes and Noble and Amazon and Borders et al, giving it an ISBN number and perhaps a chance for everyone who says they're going to buy my book to actually buy my book (except for you Max, you rule. And you'll get a free copy of the remade version for buying my book the first, albeit shitty, time around...)

So it takes money to make money and henceforth I need a motherfucking job.

nothing ever changes
except your scenery arrangements
in the affectionate hands of horsepower assault
you best keep your pants on, boy
behind the armor of fault
homeless makeshift triggers
you'll never walk again, you'll never walk again
-At the Drive-in - Shaking Hand Incision

I suppose we make plans in order to give us some sort of truth in our life, make it seems not so trivial or meaningless... We make plans to break plans, we are birthed to die. We are we Are. I believe that things are changing and will change, dear Brethren, and at the helm will be great new thoughts and ideas create by you and they and me and we. So strike forth and live with vigor!

Trashing Days

There's no such thing as proper grammar. There's no such thing as proper art. Books that tell you how to write are fallacies that try and homogenize vision, try and create a western block novel, trudging from plot point to climax to anti-climax, so as to dredge the human mind of all creativity.

We've all used MS Word, right? The little squiggly green lines. "Verb Usage" Fragment, consider revising." All those bullshit remarks that make it seem like you've made a mistake. Maybe they'd be correct if it were an academic paper, for then I can understand some sort of homogeny since you want a good grade.

The red lines tell you that you've spelled something incorrectly. So what if I make up words? Religiousity, Humanal, absurdism are all non-words that need to be words to me because they work better. Bending rules for art is not a sin, it's merely creating your own voice in a crowded world of shouting children so malnourished.