tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15254896317779548102024-03-08T09:24:54.897-08:00RadzillaWHEREIN I WAX PATHETICNO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-36274451834519699292013-05-21T02:41:00.001-07:002013-05-21T02:41:46.235-07:00Of HopesBuried deep in my heart of hearts is a brief list of hopes and dreams.<br />
<br />
Many of them are Star Wars-related. Here are some of them.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I hope that they find someone new to choreograph the lightsaber duels, because they have been plainly amateur of late.<br />
<br />
I hope that they do not shy away from characters with the complexity we saw in the original films; we all want to be Luke, but we know that Han is the most interesting one.<br />
<br />
I hope that the right people understand that puppetry is charming and timeless, that CG is icy and inhuman.<br />
<br />
I hope that this movie, whether I like it or not, will ignite a generation as its forbears did.<br />
<br />
I hope that the least possible amount of acknowledgment is given to the prequels, because they were aggressive and destructive to a dream that underpinned my entire childhood. We want to think that somewhere out there, injustice will be righted by a robed caste of warrior-monk space-witches, that adventure comes to every backwater. We want to believe that someday, if we wish hard enough, that we can be whoever we want. We say that this is Luke or Han or Boba Fett, and the exemplary wonks among us may long to wake up and find that they've been thrust into the body of Kyle Katarn or Kit Fisto; but if I am being honest, I must admit that I think it's far more likely that I'd be a washout TIE-fighter pilot, or a glitterstim addict, or a barely-sensitive would-be padawan, or a nameless stormtrooper, taking his helmet off the exact moment that Moff Tarkin's eyes, perched on his immaculately chiseled cheekbones, gazed upon Yavin IV for the last time.<br />
<br />
We all want to believe in a better world.<br />
<br />
I approach the promise of episode VII with renewed buoyancy.<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-14900511349171507082013-01-08T02:08:00.000-08:002013-01-08T02:12:23.063-08:00Of Year's EndI've spent the last week or so thinking on what I had to say about last year. It has been difficult; I actually don't remember the vast majority of it. The first two months of the year were absolutely without equal in my life, easily the happiest I have ever been--but it did not last, and I spent the rest of it drifting between misery and paralysis, suffused with utter confusion.<br />
<br />
Mostly, I wound myself up on election news and played a lot of Diablo 3.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
In this blur of demon punching and electioneering, I was struck by how none of it seemed new. With our frighteningly stupid yearlong elections, every day was more of the same: more heads saying that Obama is a Marxist Maoist Socialist, that Romney secretly hadn't paid taxes for ten years; more disturbing developments of government oppression both here and overseas; more news of Israel creeping steadily toward their own Final Solution for Palestine; more reports of police brutality here in Seattle; more things to undermine and paralyze and enervate the worthwhile, thinking persons of society.<br />
<br />
And as a background to all of this, we were presented with a succession of Republicans screaming into women's vulvas with a sort of two-fisted, hysterical grip on their Fallopian tubes. It is these men with their raw stupidity who are in charge of this country.<br />
<br />
My walks to the bodega where I would get my daily bottle of tea were the times when I was most hopeful; I would walk in the sun through my quiet little corner of Seattle, humming so that only I could hear, smiling to the sky and looking into the middle distance. Once, I saw a little girl sitting at a lemonade stand, arms crossed, staring daggers at an equally adorable girl sitting at another lemonade stand directly across the street. The days seemed sadder afterwards.<br />
<br />
Later, after the rain started, I saw a man singing to a room full of motorcycles and no-one else. Then it seemed like we could not go a week without someone killing a bunch of people.<br />
<br />
I do not understand why these incomprehensible things keep happening.<br />
<br />
I do not understand why everyone hurts me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I do not understand this world.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I'm tired.<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-38311924229511948952012-07-23T14:40:00.001-07:002012-07-23T14:45:24.791-07:00Of DaydreamsI have a few recurring daydreams, most of which are pure escapist fantasy; I like to pretend that this life is just the dream in between my adventures in space.<br />
<br />
Over the past few years, though, most of those daydreams have been supplanted with one very detailed and unpleasant fantasy. It goes thusly: I am a talk show host. Essentially everyone watches my show. It is a political talk show, much like most of those that you can already watch, with a few key differences: First, my show consists almost entirely of one interview per hour-long episode. Second, I have some infallible means of compelling my guests to tell the truth. Third, when I ask someone to come on my show, they are legally obligated to appear. The questions would vary depending on the guest and why I want to talk to them, of course, but the first question I would ask every one of my guests is, "Why are you such an asshole?"<br />
<br />
That's also the title.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Much of this daydream is simply adding new names to the list of people I'd like to villify on my show. Here are some, presented in the order they came to mind: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Lloyd Blankfein, Hank Paulsen, Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, Milton Friedman, Dinesh D'Souza, the Koch Brothers, the Pope. There are many more.<br />
<br />
I create both sides of these interviews in my mind. They're essentially wish fulfillment, with me asking Dick Cheney, "When you lied to the world about the WMDs in Iraq, did you feel guilty, or did you share Bush's 'moral clarity'?"<br />
"I thought that what we were trying to accomplish justified the methods we had to employ."<br />
"The ends justified the means? <em>Really?</em>"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"And what were those ends?"<br />
"Continued American economic dominance in the region."<br />
"Because Saddam Hussein had been in talks with France and some other countries to move Iraq's frozen assets from American banks, and to start doing business in the Euro instead of the dollar, and you didn't want Iran or any other country to get any ideas."<br />
"Exactly."<br />
<br />
I ask the Pope, "When did you first decide that you didn't have any problems with pedophilia?" I imagine he gives some arbitrary date; it doesn't really matter when.<br />
<br />
And so on.<br />
<br />
This daydream always always <em>always</em> puts me in a funk. It reminds me that nobody who makes the world a worse place by any means aside from small-scale murder or petty thievery is ever held accountable. And it forces me to inhabit a mental space where I am professionally furious.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
Longtime readers may remember when I wrote about Tim Kreider's book, <em>Twilight of the Assholes.</em> It's a harrowing bunch of comics, drawn in the second half of George W. Bush's administration, when it seemed like this country was going steadily more insane with fear and safety obsession. He has since given up political cartooning, and it's easy to see why: that kind of invective can't be sustained without poisoning your whole persona. Now, he writes essays, and recently published a collection called <em>We Learn Nothing.</em> There is very little discussion of politics; instead, Kreider uses each essay to discuss some specific aspect of humanity. The book reads like a love letter to his friends; most of the essays involve them in one way or another, and nearly half of them focus on one of them specifically.<br />
<br />
Kreider <em>tries</em> to be bitter with the book, but the raw vitriol of his comics just isn't here. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's just, <em>We Learn Nothing</em> was written by a much happier man than the one who wrote <em>Twilight of the Assholes.</em><br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
There was an article on Rachel Maddow in a recent <em>Rolling Stone*. </em>After reading it, my advice to any fan of hers is, "Do not get attached." Everything about her says to me that she cannot keep this up. She's a perfectionist and she gives a fuck, which would be enough right there, but she also hates being on the inside. And not only is she paid to be angry, like every other pundit, she's paid to be angry and then pretend she isn't.<br />
<br />
This is a recipe for a breakdown.<br />
<br />
I hope I'm wrong, and she keeps it up for the next twenty or thirty years.<br />
<br />
* <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rachel-maddows-quiet-war-20120627">http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rachel-maddows-quiet-war-20120627</a><br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
The kind of person who can sustain focused hate and fury for more than a few years is the kind of person for whom those things either already were the norm or became so because they spent so much time with them. This is why I do not believe that people like Rush Limbaugh are faking it; I find it far more believable that he is exactly what he appears to be: a racist, a blowhard, an idiot, and above all, an asshole. Which would explain why he has like a thousand divorces.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
This little dream of mine only started after I made an effort to pay some damn attention. When it became clear that the people whose job it was to unfuck everything were being paid by the people who profit off of fucking everything, I built a context that would let me deal with that.<br />
<br />
I'm a little worried that my daydreams will warp me; if the cost of being informed is constant fury, I'm not sure I want to pay it.<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-88136988337434040832012-06-10T03:42:00.000-07:002012-06-10T03:42:32.690-07:00Of Poems IVBindings<br />
<br />I run into an old flame.<br />We stand and look at each other:<br />her with what I hope is that mixture of<br />pain and regret and sadness<br />that comes with love’s sabotage;<br />me with what I can only imagine is<br />bitter medicine.<br />she raises her hand in a half-gesture—<br />mouth turned in a half-smile—<br />brow arched in a half-sympathy—<br />but I’m looking at her thigh:<br />spun around it is a tattoo,<br />three peonies,<br />black and yellow and red,<br />so vibrant I can’t<br />hear anything else,<br />see anything else,<br />feel anything else.<br />
<br />
I’m waiting for resolution,<br /> cold and hard and final.<br />I’m looking for vengeance,<br /> served with warmth unbearable.<br />I’m fumbling for love,<br /> hotter still, burning inside out.<br />
<br />
She comes back in a flash,<br />with a tangled skein woven<br />around her,<br />filaments flowing from<br />me to her, heart-strings that bind.<br />I pluck one—the note is<br />totality of feeling.<br />I listen, and she listens,<br />we’re caught up in<br />everything we’ve ever been together,<br />until the wave breaks,<br />and rolls back;<br />the web around us fades<br />so slowly I don’t notice,<br />and every day I’m<br />weaving, weaving, weaving.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-85536253668597508182012-05-06T04:31:00.003-07:002012-05-06T12:48:35.585-07:00Of Works, VIIIHere is something I've been working on for quite awhile.<br />
<br />
I'm just about ready to abandon it. The title is a placeholder.<br />
<br />
Deserts<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
It's a very specific freedom, born of blue sky and a horizon that just <em>goes</em>, a landscape without reaping: after six months in Iraq, Interstate 10 is more than just cracked concrete. West Texas is more than a sun-blasted wasteland. It assumes a new abundance, defined less by what it is and more by what it <em>isn't</em>: Flick your cigarette out the window; the route isn't compromised. Get lost; dawn is not your enemy. Take this exit; nobody dies.<br />
<br />
Drive for days, and nothing matters.<br />
<br />
Blue sky for miles and the kind of heat that scorches and kills but doesn't stick, an ethereal, shimmering heat that you can't remember at midnight for the cold that grips you.<br />
Deserts.<br />
I tell you.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I drove away and told the smallest possible number of people where I was going. Tuesday, I was cleaning my rifle in the armory. Wednesday, I hit the road. I drove through Mississippi, Louisiana, to Texas. Chiefs called:<br />
Interstate 10.<br />
Texas.<br />
Driving.<br />
Home.<br />
No, I'm not gonna do that.<br />
What are you going to do, kick me out of the Navy?<br />
I stopped answering the phone. Just drove.<br />
<br />
I ran out of gas between Houston and San Antonio. I started walking east, red sunset at my back, surrounded by scrub and sand. A haggard pickup ambled past, then stopped, little clouds of dust following it off the road. I walked up to the window, looked in, saw a heavyset man in the half-light, wearing a cowboy hat that may once have actually seen the world from horseback.<br />
"That your car back there?"<br />
"Yep."<br />
"Flatonia's not too far. Hop in."<br />
<br />
We drove for a bit. His radio was tuned to a station that played only the sort of old country that might have been rebellious forty years ago. He turned it down and started talking. His name was Ted. He was a retired welder. He was on his way into town for "a halfway decent steak".<br />
"Where you headed?" he asked.<br />
"Home," I said. "Washington."<br />
"If that's home, what's here?"<br />
"Nothing," I said. I looked out the window.<br />
He grunted and waited.<br />
"I just got out of the Navy."<br />
He nodded.<br />
"I was stationed in Mississippi."<br />
"Seabee, then?"<br />
"Yeah. Surveying and whatnot."<br />
"They send you to the desert?"<br />
"Yeah."<br />
He changed lanes. "How 'bout that."<br />
I nodded, listened to the rumble of the truck. Ted drove. The sun set. He leaned over and turned the radio back up. We listened to Johnny Cash for the rest of the ride. We pulled up to a gas station. I got out and turned back to the window, Ted looked me in the eye, and nodded, then hit the gas and drove off. I waited for the dust to settle, then went inside to see about getting a gascan.<br />
<br />
I got as far as San Antonio before exhaustion took hold.<br />
<br />
On Thursday, I drove west for hours without seeing another living thing. The Ten led me through nothing. I chain-smoked while I drove, flicking butts out the window. I stopped when I ran out of cigarettes. It was some dirty town hundreds of miles from relevance and minutes from ghosthood, still alive for the trickle of travelers off the Ten. I bought a carton of Spirits at the town's only gas station, and while I filled my tank, I watched the dust clouds and tumbleweeds roll across the road and into the hard-packed desert, disappearing. The pump clicked off. I stood and imagined walking after the tumbleweeds, into the desert and out of life, lost in rock and sand and light, my passing marked only by a footprint, erased by the wind in a heartbeat. I came to with a start. I'd been staring out at the waste for at least ten minutes. More tumbleweeds rolled across the road. I got into my car and drove, smoking, all the way to Tucson.<br />
<br />
In the morning, I ate huevos rancheros before the heat became actively hostile, while the sun still seemed like it might tolerate life. I left Tucson with the sun at my back and sleep in my eyes. I drove through the malevolent Arizona desert for hours and saw nothing but bad road and worse land, the only part of the country where asphalt improves the view. In California, a brown, dome-like haze gradually appeared on the horizon, menacing, hooked at either end, miasmic and spectral.<br />
<br />
I opted to drive around LA.<br />
<br />
The route went through canyons and over mountains, roads that turned into corridors and closed me in. As the sun began to set, the rock walls fell away and became soil, then farmland. The rolling green Mediterraneaneity was almost too much too quickly; in full daylight I might have wept. I made it to San Francisco around midnight. I showed up unannounced on a friend's doorstep, beleagured, unshaven, reeking of cigarettes and the accumulated sweat of three days. She had a wary look that didn't fade when she saw me.<br />
"Lana," I said. "It's me."<br />
She squinted. "I don't--oh, my god! Rory!"<br />
She threw her arms around me, and for a moment, my hands seemed stuck in my pockets, like I couldn't remember what to do with them, but it passed and I put my arms around her and squeezed, then picked her up while she laughed.<br />
"Good to see you too," I said.<br />
"How are you? Jesus, you smell like a roadhouse bathroom. Get inside, you need a shower, do you have a change of clothes..."<br />
She didn't give me time to answer, so I let her questions roll over me. She led me to the bathroom and I stood in the shower, watching the water slide down the drain, grey and heavy. Lana was waiting for me when I finished; she took me to her couch, now covered in blankets. I laid down and closed my eyes, but I was full of the giddy faux-energy of the exhausted traveler. I thought of the desert, and sleep came gradually; I dreamed of Iraq.<br />
<br />
I get out of my rack and now I'm carrying my rifle to work, now I'm sitting in the concrete cube where I do whatever anyone tells me to, Chief Cook is telling me to update the flight schedule, now unit accountability is short and nobody knows where Petty Officer Slate is, but we're at chow anyway and I eat the spicy brown middle eastern food nobody else touches while Constructionman Lane talks about Radiohead and purple skies and pussy, then I look up and the sun is setting while the convoy team talks and laughs about everything, and nothing. My back is to the picnic table proper, the voices of my unit batter me like tides, over and over, I look over my shoulder and it's night, nobody is there, but I look forward and the sun has yet to set and the voices are there again, and I'm worn into the ground, then the sun sets but I don't go anywhere.<br />
<br />
I opened my eyes and sat up on the couch, tried to remember where I was. Lana sat in a chair next to the couch, watching the news, muted, captions on.<br />
"Morning," I said.<br />
"Good morning! Get up, we're going to breakfast."<br />
"Okay."<br />
<br />
We went to a bistro not far from her house. We ate; she talked about her job writing advertising copy, about life in San Francisco, the little things that had happened since we finished college.<br />
"So," she said. "What are you going to do now?"<br />
I poked at my eggs. "Go home."<br />
"And?"<br />
"And I don't know."<br />
She sipped her coffee, looked at me over the rim. "Tell me about Iraq."<br />
I shrugged. "What do you want to know?"<br />
"What were the people like?"<br />
"I don't know."<br />
"You were there, weren't you?"<br />
"Yeah."<br />
"So?"<br />
"So..." I sipped my own coffee. I glanced around, suddenly nervous, the sound of silver on plates deafening. "Let's get out of here."<br />
<br />
We went to Golden Gate Park, found a secluded bench. I leaned back and looked up at the sky. Lana sat, looking at me. "Where were we?" she asked.<br />
"Movies."<br />
"Iraq."<br />
"Were we?"<br />
"It's just a country, Rory."<br />
"No. It isn't." I laid down on the bench, closed my eyes, and took a breath; I smelled cut grass. "It's another planet," I said.<br />
"What do you mean?"<br />
"Everything wants you dead," I murmured.<br />
I opened my eyes and watched the clouds slide across the sky.<br />
"Rory?"<br />
"One night we were escorting some trucks west of Fallujah and we spotted a guy passed out by the side of the road. We stopped, woke him up, took him to the nearest base. He was an older guy. Cooperative. Friendly. Knew a little English. Turned out his hands were covered in dynamite residue. Once they figured that out, he spilled everything. Apparently he'd gone out with some other guys to set up a roadside bomb, then had a seizure. His friends left him for dead."<br />
I lit a cigarette, let the first drag settle.<br />
"This sixty-year-old epileptic was trying to kill us," I said, exhaling a plume of bluish smoke. I watched it roll around, then took another drag. Lana stood up and took my hand, led me to a shady spot in the grass. We sat down. She put her hand on my shoulder, pushed me down to the ground, then put her head on my chest, over my heart, one leg over mine. I fell asleep in her warmth.<br />
<br />
We woke up around noon, and spent the rest of the day wandering around Fisherman's Wharf. She cooked for me that evening, and we ate around the firepit in her backyard. Lana's roommate joined us as we ate.<br />
"Tracy, this is my friend Rory."<br />
"Hey, nice to meet you," she said.<br />
I smiled, and waved.<br />
"He doesn't talk much," lana said, laughing.<br />
"Clearly!"<br />
I shrugged. Tracy sat down next to the fire. She looked at Lana. "I talked to Wes and Rafik earlier, they said they'd drop by tonight. They should be here soon."<br />
"Great. When's the last time we saw them?"<br />
"Not since Burning Man last year."<br />
"Right, yeah."<br />
I finished my hamburger and started on the strawberry rhubarb pie Lana had baked, while they talked about their friends. The two of them showed up right as I finished. Lana stood up, hugs were exchanged. They sat down and Lana said, "This is Rory, a friend of mine from college. He just got out of the Navy."<br />
Their eyebrows went up. "Yeah? What ship were you on?" Wes asked.<br />
"I wasn't on a ship. Ever heard of the Seabees?"<br />
"Nope."<br />
"They're like combat engineers in the Army, but we build stuff instead of making it explode."<br />
"Cool. So you went to Iraq, then."<br />
"Yeah, I just got back a few weeks ago."<br />
"How long were you there?"<br />
"Six months."<br />
"What did you do over there? Lot of rebuilding to do, right?" Rafik asked.<br />
"Actually, I was on a convoy security team for the first four months. We drove around at night, escorting trucks."<br />
"Trucks full of what?"<br />
"Stuff. Food, supplies. Whatever."<br />
"Did you kill anyone?" Wes asked.<br />
"Wes!" Lana shouted. He threw his hands back, palms out.<br />
"No, it's fine...I didn't shoot anyone, not that I'm aware of."<br />
"Would you have?"<br />
"I don't know. Probably."<br />
We all looked into the fire.<br />
"What did you do for the rest of your time there?" Rafik asked.<br />
"They stuck me in the combat operations center. The woman they had in there before me got pregnant by some jarhead, so she had to go home. I was the lowest-ranking guy on the team and the commander didn't much care for me, so I spent the rest of the deployment doing clerical stuff. updating whiteboards, communications, that sort of thing."<br />
"Well thanks for your service, man. It's not an easy thing to do, joining up like that. We really appreciate it."<br />
I thought of my first conversation with my recruiter: <em>What are you doing after college. I don't know. Why not join the Navy? Sure, what the hell.</em><br />
"Hey, no problem, buddy. I'm here for <em>you,</em>" I said. Big laughs.<br />
"You want a beer?"<br />
"What've you got?"<br />
"Tecate."<br />
"That'll do."<br />
I drank while the four of them reminisced. When the flames died down and nothing but embers were left, Lana led me to her bedroom. I sat on her bed and she wrapped her arms around me, kissed me, and her tongue found its way into my mouth. She pulled back, licked her lips. "Mm. You taste like pie," she said.<br />
"You've only yourself to blame."<br />
She laughed and started undressing me, down to my boxers. I got into bed and watched her outline as she took off her clothes. She slid under the covers, over me, all warm curves and soft skin, and reached down to take off my boxers. She stopped with her thumbs hooked into the elastic. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked.<br />
"Yeah," I said. "I am."<br />
<br />
In the morning I dressed while Lana slept. I stepped out of her house and shivered, touched by a chill the sun hadn't yet burned off. I walked a few blocks to the west, crossed a battered highway, and came to the ocean. I listened to the waves break and heard my dream. I turned on my heel and went back to Lana's house. She was still asleep, on her back, arms behind her head. I watched her for a moment, amazed that anyone could sleep like that. I undressed and got back into bed.<br />
<br />
I spent one more day with her, with Lana, watching forgettable movies, tangled together on her couch. I told her I'd be leaving in the morning, going north.<br />
<br />
"You can stay longer, if you like," she said, as we stood next to my car that morning.<br />
"I need to go home."<br />
"Okay...come back sometime?"<br />
"Yeah. Soon."<br />
I leaned against my car and looked at her eyes. Fiddled with my keys. She hugged me, hard, pressed herself into me.<br />
<br />
I could still feel her, hours later, weaving through the Oregon mountains. I crossed the border into Washington, into light rain. The exit for my hometown came, and went. I drove east, up and over the mountains, into the rainshadow. I pulled into a rest stop and slept. I got out of my car with the sunrise, sat on the roof and watched. It bled over the horizon, soaking the wastes. This was my ocean.<br />
<br />
In my life I have never been freer than in those three days driving across the desert.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-56488988638542958152012-04-02T04:02:00.001-07:002012-04-25T13:59:17.890-07:00Of Works, VIIAn examination of the last decade. It is fiction, despite appearances, despite real elements. But it is also true. Here is<br />
<br />
Grownups<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
In the year 2000 I played at least a thousand hours of video games.<br />
<br />
In the summer of 2003, I read Kurt Vonnegut’s entire body of work. Parts of Bluebeard, Breakfast of Champions, and Slapstick have all run together in my head.<br />
<br />
I was desperate to be taken seriously.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
***<br />
<br />
I lost my virginity in 2003, as a direct result of buying a Playstation. I maintain that she only slept with me because she was losing at Risk.<br />
<br />
Before having sex, it was all I could think about. That didn't change afterward, but it did acquire a certain note of frustration: I'd had it, but still needed it, still didn't know how to get it, and never asked for the hunger to begin with.<br />
<br />
In 2001 my family started a pool to see when my uncle George would come out of the closet. They’re still waiting. I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s one of that rare species, an asexual. I’m extremely jealous of him.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I got married when I was nineteen. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, like the sort of thing we were supposed to do.<br />
<br />
I joined the Navy on a whim in 2004.<br />
<br />
I heard about the 9/11 attacks in the car on the way to my high school. “Well,” I said. “That isn’t good.”<br />
<br />
In 2008 I took on an affected nostalgia toward the 1990’s. It’s easy to fake. Just listen to Nirvana and quote Wayne’s World at every available opportunity.<br />
<br />
Will and Steve, on the other hand, are obsessed with the 1980's.<br />
<br />
For the most part, we're indifferent or hostile to Nirvana, but we can't stop listening to Radiohead.<br />
<br />
I started drinking when I was seventeen. I downed six shots of 100-proof vodka at my first party. My friends did not tell me this was not a good idea. In the morning, I didn’t have a hangover at all. For years, I thought this was normal.<br />
<br />
My parents never grounded me. They took away my computer instead. On these occasions I’d usually go drinking. When they found out about this, they didn’t seem to mind.<br />
<br />
I didn’t go to my high school graduation. Instead, I got sloshed with my best friend in the back of his Volkswagen bus. It had shag carpeting.<br />
<br />
I knew a few people who went to college and got irrelevant degrees in fields they didn't really care for. Amelia wound up with a degree in microbiology, not realizing that it was of no use whatsoever without a commitment to grad school. She works retail now.<br />
<br />
Other friends got business or English degrees, and have the sort of job that nobody wants to hear about.<br />
<br />
The presidential election seemed to be the only thing people talked about in 2008. I paid lip service to Obama but I would have been happy with anyone other than Clinton. I tell people this is because she’s a secret Republican, and she used to be a lawyer for Wal-Mart. Really, the main reason I don’t like her is that her neck reminds me of an iguana’s and this makes me uncomfortable in ways I cannot explain.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I believed that, for all its faults, I lived in a universe that was fundamentally just.<br />
<br />
The recession had literally no personal impact on me whatsoever. When I heard about people losing their jobs and houses, I was mostly just perplexed.<br />
<br />
When George W. Bush was re-elected, I lived deep in the forests of Missouri. My friends and family called to lament the state of affairs. I told them it was disappointing, but never mentioned why: in Bush I saw every weaselly bully's sidekick who stood by and snickered while I wept on the playground.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I got out of the Navy in 2006. I found a job at a bookstore and did nothing but shelve books and goof off for four years. I wanted the least possible amount of responsibility.<br />
<br />
After high school, and the Navy, my friends and I spent most of our time watching cartoons and playing video games. We drank, got tentatively high, sometimes.<br />
<br />
It became clear that Jim couldn't hold down a job. He'd usually last about six months, then show up drunk, or not at all.<br />
<br />
In 2009 Jim was dumped by his girlfriend of six years. His drinking had become a problem. He joined the army but washed out in boot camp.<br />
<br />
It took him about a year to drink himself to death. The gun was just punctuation. We were sad, but we were not surprised.<br />
<br />
It seemed like the only people I knew who wound up in a meth-induced tailspin had lost control at birth.<br />
<br />
In 2009, the vast majority of my friends were people I had met through the internet.<br />
<br />
I moved back in with my parents twice. I'm not preparing for a third time, but neither do I consider it unlikely.<br />
<br />
We can't seem to grow up.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-70323030283324250592012-03-05T15:34:00.004-08:002012-04-12T01:05:44.810-07:00Of Works, VIMy writing teacher calls this a guilty elegy. Without further explanation, here is<br />
<br />
Apocrypha<br />
---<br />
I had a few days' warning before the hurricane hit--but I am perennially ill-prepared. I woke up that Sunday and thought to myself, "I heard something about a storm. I should probably look into that." I flipped to the weather channel, where a demented man attempted to stand on a beach in spite of the rising waves; he talked about how nobody should be anywhere near where he was. A category five hurricane was heading directly at me.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I called my boss, asked him if I should be worried.<br />
There was a pregnant pause on the line.<br />
"Yeah, man. You need to get the fuck out of there."<br />
"Is there a shelter on base?"<br />
"I think so, yeah."<br />
<br />
I waited out the storm in a stout brick building used to store construction vehicles. I set up my cot against a wall, behind a grader. Nobody could find me.<br />
<br />
When the storm ended, most of the coast had been swept into the gulf. Nothing stood between the water and a line about a mile inland, marked by mud and the remains of houses.<br />
<br />
Wednesday, I went to my friend Brian's house. He lived a few miles to the north and therefore his home still stood. Brian had a generator, which we were trying to get started in the early evening. He had entered the most crucial stage of this operation, that of profanity, when a young man I didn't know walked into Brian's front yard. Brian didn't seem to know him, either.<br />
"Something I can help you with?" Brian asked, as the man approached us.<br />
"Yeah," he said. "I'm <i>taking</i> your generator." He put a hand on the machine.<br />
"No, you're not," Brian said, and pulled a .45 caliber pistol out of the back of his jeans, pointed it at the man's face. I looked at him first--he was more surprised than scared, hands just beginning to twitch upward, like they could do something. His eyes were wide, but one of them had just started to squint. His mouth was pursed, trying to say something that might make this play out differently. I tried to look at Brian, but only got as far as the pistol: the slide moved back, and then forward.<br />
<br />
I didn't see the action, only the aftermath. He was no longer recognizable.<br />
<br />
Police came, eventually, and took our statements.<br />
Yes, I would say that there was a threat of implied violence.<br />
No, I did not see a weapon on him.<br />
No, I did no know Brian was armed.<br />
No, I am not armed.<br />
<br />
No, I did not know him.<br />
<br />
Brian was not arrested. The body was collected, wrapped in a blanket and placed in the back of a pickup truck.<br />
<br />
Later, I watched crows pick at bits of bone and blood in the grass.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I try to avoid telling that story. People tend to react with disgust, not at the content, but at me. One friend wouldn't let it go:<br />
"Are you defending him?" she accused.<br />
"No. Just pointing out that what he did wasn't illegal."<br />
"And that makes it okay? Slavery was legal!"<br />
"Please don't be hysterical at me."<br />
"I don't understand how you can be so blasé about this."<br />
I shrugged. "I guess I'm just broken."<br />
<br />
What I do not tell them is that most of it is a fabrication. I was in a hurricane, a bad one. But I never saw anyone murdered. I wrote the story after hearing a rumor about an event that happened more or less as I've described above. I've no idea if it's true or not. We heard a lot of rumors like that after the storm hit.<br />
<br />
Here's a true story: A woman carrying an infant is walking along a road about a quarter mile from the gulf. I'm with my friend Cody. We're taking water to refugees. We stop and offer her some. We notice that her infant is dead, and she looks like she's crying, only she's not, because she can't anymore. This story is also a rumor.<br />
<br />
Another true story: A young man joins the Navy, gets sent to Mississippi right before a storm wipes out half the city he's stationed in. He winds up getting tasked with cleaning a few hundred cubic feet of muck out of city hall. Shortly before the task is complete he accidentally buries a spade in the neck of a corpse. Black mud floods out of its mouth. He vomits. This is not a rumor.<br />
---<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-10031840889392821582012-02-27T15:57:00.000-08:002012-02-27T15:57:36.989-08:00Of Works, VOrders<br />
-----<br />
Member is directed to report no later than 1800, December 16, 1985. Failure to report could result in birth defects.<br />
<br />
Member is directed to be carefree for not more than ten years.<br />
<br />
The member's training will consist mostly of mistakes.<br />
<br />
The member will be remanded to the custody of his parents from the date of his report for a period of time not to exceed the number of seconds it takes for his father to become fed up with his mother, at which point his father will detach. Member is then directed to report to his mother for the duration of his training.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Member advised: Do not hold your father's absence against him.<br />
<br />
The member will become obsessed with females and their reproductive organs after not more than fourteen years, and is directed to remain so for not less than XREDACTEDX.<br />
<br />
The member is directed to being worrying at age sixteen.<br />
<br />
The member is directed to avoid alcohol, though we recognize that it is the solution to all of his problems.<br />
<br />
The member is directed, at age eighteen, to detach from his familial unit.<br />
<br />
Member advised: Avoid maternal contact when possible. Member is further advised to present a unified front to this enemy with any sibling units.<br />
<br />
The member will undergo a series of tests.<br />
<br />
The member is directed to affect nostalgia toward cultural movements he never participated in.<br />
<br />
The member is directed to engage females whenever possible. We acknowledge that he is under-equipped for this evolution.<br />
<br />
Member advised: Contact your nearest medical department representative for counseling.<br />
<br />
Member is directed to serve for a period not to exceed XREDACTEDX.<br />
<br />
And, when directed, detach.<br />
-----<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-23224474666995351412012-02-12T04:32:00.000-08:002012-02-17T11:46:48.476-08:00Of Works, IVThis is a collage piece, and it will be the death of me.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure if I'm finished with it yet.<br />
<br />
In another universe, I'm still writing it, will always be writing it.<br />
<br />
Diseases You Get Through Consumption<br />
-----<br />
Prion diseases have an unknown incubation period. It can be anywhere from a few years to five decades. Maybe more.<br />
<br />
We drove to the edge of the Mojave and started looking for a dream.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I stood and imagined walking after the tumbleweeds, out under the scorching sun, into the desert and out of life, lost in rock and sand and light, comfortable in the knowledge that my passing would be marked only by a footprint, erased by the wind in a heartbeat. Later, not even the ground would notice, and I'd just drift, a phantom, never wanting, only waning.<br />
<br />
In Upton Sinclair's <em>The Jungle</em>, a man falls into a vat of lard and gets processed with the pork fat. It's impossible to know for sure how many accidental cannibals were made. How many are at risk.<br />
<br />
Out of the melting pot emerges a race which hates beauty as it hates truth.<br />
<br />
In parts of the world where human cannibalism is practiced, the meat has different names. Sometimes it's <em>cabrit sans cor</em>, which translates as “goat without horns”. Other times, they call it long pig.<br />
<br />
I've seen so much porn that I've lost all context for breasts. It's like when you become overly aware of your tongue, and start thinking about it far too much. Fixation turns into obsession, but if you're lucky, something distracts you along the way.<br />
<br />
Is that why you are laughing, Darl?<br />
<br />
We keep coming back to the end of<em> Planescape: Torment</em>. The culmination of everything is a confrontation with your own transcendent soul in the Fortress of Regret. This is not a metaphor. But, it is a metaphor.<br />
<br />
I says to them, Darl was alright at first, with his eyes full of the land, because the land laid up-and-down ways then; it wasn't till that ere road came and switched the land around longways and his eyes still full of the land, that they begun to threaten me out of him, trying to short-hand me with the law.<br />
<br />
Michael Bay's <em>Transformers</em> put me through an existential crisis. At the end of the movie, it becomes clear that the giant cube is about to transform. I yelled out, “I bet it transforms into a smaller cube!” You know. As a joke. Then, it did. I laughed, because I had to.<br />
<br />
You can only get prion diseases in two ways that we know of: either you eat the brain or spinal material of an infected animal, or you eat someone of your own species.<br />
<br />
Darl is our brother, our brother Darl. Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his grimed hands lying light in the quiet interstices, looking out he foams.<br />
<br />
I tell people my father is a cyborg. What I mean by this is, he's got a mechanical heart valve. It used to be a pig valve, which wore out. I visited him in the hospital after his surgery. I asked him what kind of heart problems he had, twenty-five years ago, asked him how he knew something was wrong. He shrugged, and said, “It's hard to explain.”<br />
I looked at the floor.<br />
“Hey,” he said. “Did you hear that diarrhea is hereditary?”<br />
“Really?”<br />
“Yeah. It runs in your jeans.”<br />
We laughed.<br />
<br />
At any given moment, on any given day, I am a hair's breadth from weeping, one instant from a total collapse of will. I feel like I'm fighting a battle with my memory, and it's winning, throwing the worst bits of life in my face. Things that echo back through years of sorrow and regret.<br />
<br />
This world. I tell you.<br />
<br />
Creutzfeldt-Jakob, or Mad Cow disease in cattle, is the most famous prion disease, but there are others: Kuru is from Papua New Guinea. They call it the laughing sickness. Patients become terribly depressed but are seized by sporadic fits of laughter. Then, they die.<br />
----- <br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-55984940753381969222012-02-05T21:53:00.000-08:002012-02-05T21:53:07.852-08:00Of Works, IIIStage Magic<br />
-----<br />
“If you ever want to see your blender again, you’ll call me back,” he says, over my shoulder. I turn around, ready to fire my incredulity, but he’s not looking at me: he’s on a cellphone, face deadly serious. He looks like he’s trading Brazilian teenagers for cocaine. I imagine a blender tied to a stool under a bare-bulb lamp in the office of an empty warehouse by the docks. Two neckless goons stand by, popping their knuckles, ready for the appliance to launch its daring escape.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>I decide not to ask the stranger what he’s talking about.<br />
<br />
I realize that my wife, Eliza, has said something and turn around, look across the table. She’s staring down at her plate of scrambled egg whites and dry toast. It is five in the evening.<br />
<br />
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask.<br />
<br />
“It was cold today.”<br />
<br />
“Yes. Yes, it was. Did you just hear what this guy…?”<br />
<br />
“What?”<br />
<br />
“Never mind. How are the eggs?”<br />
<br />
“They’re fine.”<br />
<br />
“Great. That’s excellent.”<br />
<br />
I gulp half a glass of water in one go. I watch the couple over Eliza’s right shoulder: they’re having an argument. Or conducting opposing symphonies. Over her left shoulder is an elderly couple. They’ve both got newspapers open over their surf and turf. One of them passes a basket of dinner rolls to the other. Not a flutter of newsprint or spoken word accompanies this motion. I look back at Eliza. Her eggs are almost gone. My steak has gone cold; it was overdone.<br />
<br />
“Shall we get the check?” I ask.<br />
<br />
“I suppose.”<br />
<br />
I raise my hand and signal for the waiter. I pay the bill and say, “Happy anniversary, honey.”<br />
<br />
As I drive our car home, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see a message from Lily, one of my piano students. She comes to her lessons without underwear. I know this because she just told me. An oncoming car swerves off the road, narrowly saving us all—I yank the wheel to the right amid an orchestra of blaring horns.<br />
<br />
“Who called, dear?”<br />
<br />
“What?” I puffed.<br />
<br />
“Your phone buzzed, Warren.”<br />
<br />
“Right. Uh, that was Jim. He needs to reschedule his lesson.”<br />
<br />
She makes a vague <em>hm</em> of acknowledgement. I drive us home, thinking about Lily’s crotch. I try to determine how she shaves it, if at all, based on what I can remember of her wardrobe.<br />
<br />
Later, in bed with Eliza, it’s Lily I’m thinking of: Lily’s breasts, no stretch marks; Lily’s hourglass, no cellulite. Eliza, middle aged mother of zero, sighs when I enter her. Lily moans and pushes back. I fill in her blanks with the centerfolds of 1970’s playboys. I’m still thinking of her when Eliza collapses on top of me, panting.<br />
<br />
“Well,” she says. “That was different.”<br />
<br />
I wrap my arms around her and she falls asleep on my chest for the first time in so long I’d forgotten she had ever done that. I soon follow suit and dream of Eliza. She looks like Lily, would be Lily to anyone else, but I know it’s Eliza, in that way you <em>know</em> things in dreams.<br />
<br />
In the morning, I sit at my piano in my pajamas, finger hovering over middle C for a few minutes before playing the <em>Maple Leaf Rag</em>. When the tune finishes, I call Lily.<br />
<br />
“I was hoping you would call.”<br />
<br />
“Were you?”<br />
<br />
“Yeah. I was thinking about your hands—“<br />
<br />
I cut her off. I explain that I’m married, happily so, and I’m surprised that I mean it today. I tell her that I’ll no longer be able to give her piano lessons.<br />
<br />
“Are you sure about this?” she pleads.<br />
<br />
I think of a blender in a warehouse in the bad part of town.<br />
<br />
“Quite sure.” <br />
----- <br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-28448057636181439002012-01-23T03:34:00.001-08:002012-01-24T21:23:51.502-08:00Of Works, IIThe Gears<br />
<br />
One moment we’re riding our bike and the next we’re on our back, trying to figure out how the sky got down there. Nothing hurts, until we try to move, then everything hurts, so we lie on the ground until we can handle breathing again. We sit up and assess the damage: the front wheel of our bike is toast. It looks like a strangely stylized letter D. Thinking without thinking: Destruction. Dimwit. Derriere. We stand, heft the frame onto our back, and start walking home.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
We’d been staring down, straight down, at the shadow of the gears on the ground, cast by the sun, animated by our legs. Chain dragged along by teeth, turned by our feet. A point of rotation: man/machine meet and work and flow into one another. <br />
<br />
Go fast enough, you can’t tell them apart anymore.<br />
<br />
We didn’t see the tree root, ancient, gnarled beyond belief.<br />
<br />
Demolition.<br />
<br />
Later, we’re in the tub, soaking our everything. Still thinking: Damp. Drown. We fall asleep in the water, near hot enough to burn, wake up when it's tepid. We dry and dress and go to the garage, and take another look at our bike. The chain has flown off the rings, the front wheel is a total loss. We get our tools, and unfasten the wheel, then pull off the tire. We hold the bent wheel and think: dismantled. Defaced. We set it aside and pull a spare off the wall, attach a new tube and tire, then start inflating it. As we work, our hands go through the motions without direction, and we think about the last thing we saw before the sky. A moment, frozen but fluid, where all we see is a shadow, chain and legs spinning together, running together. Our hands finish their work and the new wheel is on the bike. We slip the chain back onto the teeth of the sprocket, then spin the pedals backward while we soak the chain in oil. It dribbles off the chain in fat black drops, then clarifies, becomes amber rain. We wipe off the glut and run the chain through our hand, curved links blurring into one texture. We hit the garage door opener and clean off our hands with a rag while it slides up. The sun has nearly set. We take our bike onto the road and pedal madly, working the gears in a frenzy, take it almost to the top, then look to our right: the low sun casts our shadow onto a retaining wall, a solid surface for our speed, and we watch the gears whirl, just stare, our mind is blank, looking for that moment again, legs berserk. We feel like it's so close, almost tangible, ready for us to reach out and grab it—the wall comes to an abrupt end, and we squeeze the brakes hard, hard enough to leave a dirty black streak on the pavement. We turn around, get up to speed again, but the sun has set and we see nothing but concrete. We ride back to our garage, and as we pull in, we see the bent wheel on the floor. We think: Dismount. We pick the wheel up and hang it on the wall. <br />
----- <br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-16988039862862480032012-01-16T05:03:00.000-08:002012-01-25T00:04:58.565-08:00Of One Year Gone2011 has slithered off into the nether regions of history and I, for one, am glad of it. For me, it was a year marked mostly by heartbreak (at my friends shuffling out of my life for one reason or another) and frustration (at the incessant fuckmuppetry of humanity in general and our government in particular).<br />
<br />
It isn't that nothing good happened; it's that those moments were mere punctuation in the novella of raucous bullshit that was 2011.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I've been in the habit of watching the Daily Show for a few years now. I should probably stop, because the cost of being informed (even by fake news) is unending rage. There is no good news to come from our capital, be it state or nation. Politicians are the idiot alchemists of humanity, turning success into failure and inevitable triumph into sure defeat. We ended Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a policy which is eminently disgusting. I will let Admiral Mike Mullen, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speak on this: "No matter how I look at the issue…<strong>I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens</strong>…For me, it comes down to integrity – theirs as individuals and ours as an institution." Emphasis mine. This is a no-brainer. There is no valid argument against it, none whatsoever. And yet it required a hard-fought battle in our cretinous Congress. In fifty years, when the greybeards are still giving us the benefit of their ripe stupidity, children will read about this in school and be mystified that anyone was ever able to look at the idea and think, "Yeah, that is both just and fair." That is, assuming they teach it at all; this country has a disturbing habit of pretending that the uglier parts of our history didn't happen.<br />
<br />
We learn nothing.<br />
<br />
The Arab Spring was truly heartening, but in this country, people seemed obsessed with deciding whether to ascribe responsibility to Bush or Obama. This is a stupid question, so obviously stupid that I'm forced to wonder if it's all a big joke (a recurring theme of the last decade, by the way). Are we so arrogant, so starved for success, that we must claim victories from thousands of miles away as our own?<br />
<br />
Even the death of Osama bin Laden, what should have been a catharsis for our nation, seemed to divide us. You do not need for Bush to have been responsible (as he clearly wasn't; he repeatedly said that they weren't even trying to get him); you only need <em>someone</em> to have been responsible.<br />
<br />
"Mess with the US, and we will shoot you in the head, then throw you in the ocean."<br />
<br />
That should be enough.<br />
<br />
Like the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement was encouraging. I thought, for a moment, that this might be my generation's Vietnam protests. I dared to hope that, unlike that movement, our leadership might listen. And when the media reluctantly covered the story, they claimed that the movement had no message. I would suggest that only someone with a horseshoe-shaped divot in their skull could honestly have this opinion. I want to grab hold of Bill O'Reilly's reptillian neck and squeeze and squeeze, shaking him crazily, screaming, "How can you make that claim? Were you struck by lightning? How is it possible for a person to be so willfully obtuse?" Achewood will serve; this is the shortest possible way to explain what the Occupy movement is about, in the tone most appropriate to this most braindead question:<br />
<a href="http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/deaconblues/?action=view&current=dinner.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/deaconblues/dinner.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
What followed, after the movement exploded, was a blatantly unconstitutional series of police breakups. Some of them persist; here in Seattle, they soldier on, though the group has been completely co-opted by our homegrown anarchist kooks. Early on, when forced to abandon Westlake Park, Mayor McGinn offered to let the group camp in City Hall. The group declined for reasons I'm not aware of, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that it probably had something to do with the vague distrust of The Man that is the hallmark of anarchists the world over.<br />
<br />
They recently held a vote endorsing the use of violence in their protests.<br />
<br />
I am no longer hopeful.<br />
<br />
2011 was the year before a presidential election year, which brings with it a particularly sinister brand of insanity. The media spent the year pretending that Mitt Romney won't win the nomination, giving the spotlight to a cavalcade of crazies, not one of which has convinced me they know which end of the spoon to use. Excepting Jon Huntsman, who, in a thinking universe, would win the nomination without hardly trying. He is the only one in the clown car who seems to have any idea how to drive, the only one who isn't proudly hostile to science, to the very <em>idea</em> of thinking. If memory serves, he just came in third in the New Hampshire primaries. Mitt Romney came in first; the media tried their hardest to act like this was surprising, like the wealthiest, most business-friendly candidate has a chance of losing without any hilarious flameouts. Romney, more than any past candidate for any election I can think of, represents the politician stereotype: a rich old white male who says whatever he needs to say to whoever he needs to say it in order to get elected. I doubt very much that even in his heart of hearts he knows why he wants to be president, or what his opinion on, say, abortion really is. Newt Gingrich, that perrenial bogeyman, has tumbled into the national spotlight once more. I have little to say about him except that I find it both hilarious and disturbing that he is the GOP's semi-official Smart Idea Guy. One example is enough: Newt Gingrich has suggested that a good way to combat poverty in inner cities (by which he means, a good way for black people to combat poverty) is for schools to employ their students as janitors.<br />
<br />
The rest of the field is utterly unworthy of specific mention. Suffice it to say, they are uniformly stupid and possessed of nothing less than the most <em>spectacular</em> hypocrisy.<br />
<br />
Tim Kreider, cartoonist, polemicist, and one of a handful of men I would want to have a drink with, has suggested that Plato was right, and the best form of government is an oligarchy of philosopher-kings. But he acknowledges that there aren't any left; "Johnny Cash and Carl Sagan are dead." We lost one more this year with Christopher Hitchens' passing. I did not always agree with him; in his old age, he became uncommonly hawkish. But it was always obvious, even to his worst enemies, that he was a <em>thinking person</em>, and a complicated one at that. This is what we need, and I fear that his passing has left us with precious few.<br />
<br />
Locally, we privatized our state liquor in the dumbest possible way. For consumers, liquor will wind up costing more unless you've got a Costco card; that company wrote the legislation and in so doing included exemptions for themself from the extra costs that will be levied against anyone else who wants to buy or sell liquor. The state will lose money. Consumers will spend more. This during a billion-dollar budget shortfall, which has succeeded a year with a <em>multi</em>-billion-dollar budget shortfall. And we are currently under the effects of Tim "Piece of Shit" Eyman's legislature-neutering antitax initiative. What's particularly frustrating about that vile parchment is the fact that everyone in Olympia knows it's unconstitutional, that they could ignore it if they wanted to. But they do not, because they can point at it as an excuse for accomplishing nothing.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the state supreme court has ruled that the legislature is failing to meet their constitutional obligation to adequately fund basic K-12 education. Shocking.<br />
<br />
But onward, to the good, that little punctuation, then ever-so-quickly we'll be back again to my bread and butter.<br />
<br />
When the year started, I was optimistic. My associate's degree was nearing completion and I seemed to have a good shot at getting into my university of choice. As it turned out, I was right; the acceptance letter from the UW was the high point of the year. Winter and Spring quarter at EDCC went quickly, filled as they were with the sort of class that you take when you've gotten most of the required, instantly-forgotten wankfest classes out of the way.<br />
<br />
I wrecked my car shortly before finishing at EDCC. I see this less as a spot of frustration than as a mixed blessing--not having to pay the costs of driving is nice, but not having transportation in the heart of suburbia essentially means that you can't leave the house, at all, ever. Luckily, the bus stopped close enough to my house to get me to school. I tend to space out while I'm driving, anyway. I'm better off; so is everyone else on the road.<br />
<br />
The UW is incredible. I take classes with interesting people who <em>want</em> to learn, who do not look at school as a chore to be gotten out of the way. I overhear arguments about Nabokov and feminism.<br />
<br />
And I live in Seattle. I love it here, so much. My bed is under a skylight; most nights, I fall asleep in cloudcover, lit a soft orange. Our days are mostly half-lidded, never really waking up, until one morning you go outside and the sky is so blue you can hardly stand it, and you stare at it as you walk to the bus stop, just wanting this one moment to stretch out forever.<br />
<br />
Life is not without its comforts.<br />
<br />
And I need them. I started the year with two of the best friends I've ever had, the <em>only </em>friends I've had that I truly felt like I belonged with, and now I haven't got either. I'd hoped we'd be friends for life, and when the year began it seemed like this wasn't unlikely. But one of them seemed dead-set on forgetting about me; I couldn't handle the heartache, and I walked away. The other walked away from me. Hardly an hour goes by in which I don't think of them.<br />
<br />
I miss them both so much.<br />
<br />
Such is life.<br />
<br />
Lately, the music I listen to seems always to be about We: We Built Our Own World; We Broke Free; We Still Kill the Old Way; We Both Go Down Together.<br />
<br />
We Carry On.<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-67593980071944890122011-11-19T02:13:00.000-08:002012-01-16T05:07:27.672-08:00Of VegasWhen I finished Fallout: New Vegas, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my motivations were for playing. I realized, about halfway through the game, that I had subconsciously developed a narrative for my character, independent of the framework of the game proper. I started the game and set out on the main quest reluctantly; as I walked through the wasteland to the Strip, each step came down with the force of a heavy sigh. I did not want to be involved with the machinations of this man who'd shot me in the head. I wanted to be left alone, and so it seemed that in order to live my life peacefully, I'd have to do what I could to stabilize the region. To that end, I aligned myself with House. I did not want to involve myself with the NCR, as they merely wanted to reinstate the broken democracy that led the world to its current state of decay. Caesar's ideology was intensely repugnant; I cannot abide slavery. I think of the idea of owning people and something inside me recoils and snaps, hissing and spitting. I could have seized power for myself, I suppose. But no. No, I did not want the responsibility, and in the vacuum of my inevitable abdication, there would have been only more strife.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
House, then. The autocrat whose motives are pure but cold. Yes, he'll do me fine.<br />
<br />
As I wandered through the waste, righting wrongs and making the world an incrementally better place, I made it a point not to take followers with me. I did not want the company, did not want to be put in charge of anyone. I would do well enough on my own. I forsook even the company of Mr. New Vegas' voice of liquid charisma, turning the radio off altogether after the fifth time I heard Ain't That a Kick in the Head.<br />
<br />
I did, eventually, take Lily with me, because she was a giant psychotic supermutant grandmother. Which was pretty endearing.<br />
<br />
I approached Caesar's camp as twilight set in, killing all the guards before any of them even knew I was there. In the end, Caesar's Legate was no match for me at all. I killed him with six .50 caliber armor-piercing rounds before he could even touch me. Shortly thereafter, the NCR's General Oliver stupidly felt it would be wise to turn down House's order to withdraw from the dam and the region. He drew steel, but with a literal army of bloodthirsty robots on my side, I didn't even have to.<br />
<br />
Lily and I parted ways. She returned to Jacobstown and, eventually, went West to California. I took my weapons and my tools, then set out into the desert. The sun was not setting; I left at night, and only the coyotes and radscorpions saw me walk away from the city, bathed in its orange, neon glow.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
My goal in playing was to create a circumstance wherein the character I played could be left alone. I'm not entirely certain why things played out this way, though it's definitely something unique to New Vegas; in Fallout 3, I made it a point to participate with whatever civilization was left, attempting whenever possible to encourage people to work together. In New Vegas, though, I took only the quests that seemed to help the region as a whole—I'm sorry, madam, that some people owe you money, but I can't be bothered to help you.<br />
<br />
The key difference, I think, was the inclusion of the Survival skill. In Fallout 3, you can only survive through participation—in trading, in work, in society. You will not survive otherwise. New Vegas, on the other hand, gives you all the tools you will need to wander off into the desert and never see another living soul ever again. Food, water, shelter—it's all out there, if you want it, if you can find it.<br />
<br />
Fallout 3, then, represents civilization as the inevitable triumph of humanity. Despite the setting, a post-apocalyptic wasteland created by the shortcomings of mankind, it manages to paint an overly simplistic version of civilization as an unmitigated good, pitted against the savagery of near-feral slavers and tribals. Fallout 3 can end only with the victory of the Brotherhood of Steel and the inherently co-operative, militaristic society they represent.<br />
<br />
New Vegas, much like real life, is harder, more complicated and more nuanced. None of the three main power groups in the game are perfect. None of them could categorically be called “good” in any moral sense. Even the “evil” one, Caesar's Legion, still has some qualities that make a good case for siding with them: unity, purpose, and the promise of eventual stability. The game leaves it up to the player to decide, at any given moment, which of his or her limited options is best, and while the argument can be made that this illusion of choice is the essence of the art form, New Vegas takes this idea in a unique direction. This, I think, was the fatal commercial misstep of the game: they created a situation where non-participation was a very real option.<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-36017992518375005242011-10-10T00:09:00.000-07:002011-10-10T00:09:18.844-07:00Of the 53%I have spent my adult life thus far working to feed, clothe, and house myself.<br />
<br />
I have faced hardship and adversity on occasion, and done so with a small amount of grace.<br />
<br />
But I am a thinking person.<br />
<br />
As such, I am capable of recognizing a few things:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
* I would not have had the means to overcome life's challenges were it not for the opportunities provided by a fundamentally co-operative society.<br />
<br />
* Whatever success I have had in this life, however meager or robust, does not invalidate the life of anyone else.<br />
<br />
* Sometimes, life-shattering things happen to people through no fault or action of their own, and some of these people, for whatever reasons, cannot extricate themselves from the resulting poverty, or pain, or hardship, no matter how hard they try.<br />
<br />
I think those people deserve help.<br />
<br />
I think the people who caused their troubles should be punished.<br />
<br />
And, I think we should try to keep it from happening again.<br />
<br />
<strong>I am the 53%.</strong><br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-53044543678151240272011-07-27T05:44:00.000-07:002011-07-27T05:44:48.113-07:00Of a Brush With FameI probably met a porn star once.<br />
<br />
This was while I was a register biscuit at a used bookstore: I was at said register when a strikingly familiar-looking lady came in and started browsing the science fiction section. I stared at her for a minute or two, wondering where I knew her from; eventually, I realized I was having a hard time recognizing her because I'd never seen her with clothes on. Obviously, the next step was to talk to her.<br />
<br />
This presented some difficulties.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
First, I couldn't be sure of who she was without asking her. And <em>how</em>, pray, does one ask that question? It's not like I can just walk up and say, “Excuse me, but have you ever taken a dick on film?” There's no precedent for this; normally, when you think you recognize someone, it <em>isn't</em> because you once saw a video of them getting nailed against a van by some blowjob wearing a pair of Newbalance sneakers and a Kanji ass tattoo.<br />
<br />
Second, any compliment or statement is suddenly pregnant with implied filth. She knows exactly what I've seen her do; she knows I've seen her <em>butthole</em>, for fuck's sake. I imagine, then, that anything I could ever say to her would have this raw sexual subtext where even the most mundane and innocuous phrases suddenly become the most suggestive phrases imaginable. Observe:<br />
<br />
“I really like your work,”...<em>especially the way you work the undercarriage.</em><br />
<br />
“You're a very pretty lady,”...<em>when you're getting pounded.</em><br />
<br />
“I'm a big fan,”...<em>of your vagina.</em><br />
<br />
Ultimately, I decided that conversation was out of the question.<br />
<br />
So I just asked her if she needed help finding anything.<br />
<br />
Turns out, she didn't.<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-2444052042710683152011-07-25T02:34:00.000-07:002012-01-24T21:26:02.324-08:00Of Freedom: Director's CutThis is a paragraph that I wrote about <em>Freedom</em> for my last entry but didn't include because it didn't fit the tone. I still think it's pretty funny on its own, though, so here you go.<br />
<br />
I just finished Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It had this strange, constant dramatic pressure that would build as it subsided, so invariably congruous that it could not be said to be cyclical. Reading it was like taking a dump that never stops, just snakes endlessly out of your ass into the luminous depths of your hyper-toilet.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-88995729664080892832011-07-14T23:42:00.000-07:002011-07-15T02:29:20.860-07:00Of FreedomAfter two weeks, I'm finally done with Jonathan Franzen's <em>Freedom. </em>In an alternate dimension, I'm still reading it, and will be reading it forever, just like in another, altogether different place, I'm still watching <em>The Sound of Music</em> and listening to <em>American Pie.</em><br />
<br />
The takeaway, in short: I'm amazed that Franzen was able to build a book that I was unable to stop reading out of settings I don't give a shit about, characters I uniformly hated and themes that were old hat in the fifties.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
If I were to use one word to describe <em>Freedom</em>, it would be "distilled". It has the focused density of Kundera with the endurance of Tolstoy; it reads like what once was a much longer work, boiled down to the bare essentials. Every sentence, every phrase, and every piece of dialogue bears a crushing import, and this combines with the undeniably riveting nature of the book in such a way that there isn't really a precedent for in real life. I imagine it's what being force-fed five pounds of steak would feel like, which, if it were really fantastic steak, probably wouldn't be a huge problem. <br />
<br />
Sadly, this is not the case. The characters are invariably petty and small and <em>hateful</em>, hateful even in the way they love each other, so much so that I cannot feel sorry for them and instead start to feel sorry for Franzen--what life has he led that this is the kind of person that populates his mind? I can only assume that Franzen is as obsessed with perfection and the ideal life as his characters, that the soul-crushing state of dissatisfaction his cast inhabits is projected, that he himself has let the inevitable disappointment of living hijack his creativity; or, perhaps, that's where he gets it from.<br />
<br />
It's kind of academic at this point.<br />
<br />
It's a book that would have been perfectly at home, would have in fact have been earth-shatteringly relevant, in the 1950's. America's consumerist orgy ran unabated; this is a time when dissatisfaction with near-perfection (because it's just<em> not perfect enough</em>) wouldn't have been so laughably obtuse, would instead have been shockingly appropriate. Trying and failing to achieve perfection in one's life isn't something one should be disappointed about, nor is this something that should ever need to be explained to someone.<br />
<br />
Though today, maybe we just would never have tried.<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-53683667290735018222011-06-13T20:27:00.000-07:002011-06-15T14:25:40.725-07:00Of Poems IIIOne poem, two forms. The first is a sonnet, the second is free verse in triplets (and one couplet).<br />
<br />
<u>I'd Forgotten What I Said About Her Hair</u><br />
<br />
I had a dream wherein I met a girl.<br />
Her world died, inside out, while I watched.<br />
I saw the last light fade, then unfurl<br />
and fold back in on itself, worn and notched.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Awoken, dreaming done for now, I wait:<br />
Remember this, she says, and points her fair<br />
hand at a lock, a ray of light, one plait.<br />
I'd said something then, about her hair.<br />
<br />
Forgotten words; they follow, clear and bare.<br />
I'm focused on doors now, always when shut.<br />
They draw me in. I see their outlines flare,<br />
and I'm concerned: I feel this in my gut.<br />
<br />
The words I need are here: I can't recall.<br />
She's waiting, singing, ready above all.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I had a dream<br />
that I met a girl<br />
in a dying world.<br />
<br />
She asked me to remember<br />
her hair.<br />
The last light of that place struck it <em>just so:</em><br />
<br />
it scattered, bronze and gold, metal and fire,<br />
mounting beauty,<br />
a liquid that held me as it burned me.<br />
<br />
I'd said something then,<br />
something important, something<br />
rarefied and diffuse.<br />
<br />
Awake, dreaming done for now:<br />
I remember the feeling but<br />
not the look.<br />
<br />
We've become overly concerned with doors:<br />
they give us pause,<br />
a glimmer lying<br />
<br />
in wait for us, quietly subsiding.<br />
We reach for the words: they come easy<br />
just before awakening<br />
<br />
but now, and always, they hover at<br />
the edge of consciousness: I'd forgotten what I said about her hair.<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-31537902135585381402011-06-09T00:39:00.000-07:002012-01-24T21:26:39.479-08:00Of Poems IIA new poem. Not my best. It'll do.<br />
<br />
Photographs<br />
----<br />
We have four pictures.<br />
It is my father's family<br />
or mine or<br />
us or ours.<br />
It is Halloween,<br />
and it is not. and not and not.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
We are costumed. We are a clown, or<br />
our mother's idea thereof.<br />
We are focused with bespectacled Kathy, half-<br />
lidded, concentrating.<br />
<br />
Now: We ask ourselves,<br />
what of Halloween?<br />
We say, "I dressed as a hippie."<br />
We aren't sure what that is.<br />
We don't know what to say.<br />
<br />
Not-Halloween: our hand hovers<br />
over a fish on the counter,<br />
menacing and desirous,<br />
caught on a hook in the moment.<br />
<br />
This is any day<br />
and every day<br />
repeating,<br />
coming back to us through years of void and regret.<br />
-----<br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-6872997045321365872011-05-14T14:03:00.000-07:002011-05-14T14:03:46.663-07:00Of PoemsHere's a poem I wrote.<br />
<br />
Candles<br />
-----<br />
I light my candles<br />
and nobody touches me.<br />
I am thus privileged.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
They ask what I remember:<br />
hot breath and cold sweat,<br />
the rustle of robes, hitched high,<br />
<br />
and his voice, bass, <br />
when he gave them to me.<br />
“Thine vestments,” he<br />
<br />
said, a secret curl on his lip.<br />
A moment of cresting<br />
ugliness rolls over me.<br />
<br />
It breaks, and rolls back,<br />
and he lets go with deep whispers.<br />
That is what I tell them. My words make dust:<br />
<br />
it blooms like summer pollen, silent and tenuous,<br />
then settles<br />
in slow motion<br />
<br />
while I watch and<br />
wait, trapped in my life,<br />
half awake: I'm a winter sky dawning.<br />
<br />
In the end, he leaves how he came: quietly, candles flickering.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-37058652261498945552011-04-27T21:31:00.000-07:002011-04-27T21:38:31.824-07:00Of PersonaI had to write a poem in the voice of a historical figure. Naturally, I chose H.P. Lovecraft. I wanted to give it some richness and modern relevance by working in some reference to the Rothschilds and their tentacular management of world banking, but couldn't do so without using imagery that was more Christian and European than Lovecraftian. We'll see what we can do in a second draft.<br />
<br />
<br />
The Dreams of Lovecraft<br />
-----<br />
I have been inflicted<br />
with a succession<br />
of frightful dreams,<br />
most details of<br />
which blessedly escape me<br />
but whose closing haunts<br />
me yet.<br />
<br />
My first sensation was<br />
a brazen sky,<br />
molten and roiling,<br />
and under this untenable thing<br />
did I first see<br />
the countenance of unreason.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
My surroundings were that<br />
of a ravine,<br />
boulders red and cracked, throbbing as hearts,<br />
and I began<br />
to pick my way among the terrain.<br />
<br />
I came to a sickened building,<br />
its columns twisted as of<br />
a creeper,<br />
its portal projecting not<br />
light, but<br />
its own material blackness.<br />
<br />
Though its vileness was clear,<br />
my heart soared,<br />
for never before had<br />
my dream forced me through<br />
its penumbra.<br />
<br />
But my limbs,<br />
seemingly possessed<br />
of a baleful intelligence,<br />
compelled me ever forward.<br />
<br />
Through the darkness<br />
I went, wherein I<br />
felt, with<br />
crawling certainty,<br />
that all blossoming joy<br />
would forevermore be<br />
an unreachable winter's gasp.<br />
<br />
The shadow subsided,<br />
and I came to a chamber<br />
lit by the sky<br />
and all memory from now<br />
was poisoned,<br />
<br />
For there was a cyclopean beast,<br />
fleshy and viscid,<br />
wreathed as a lion with<br />
grasping, furious tentacles,<br />
their rending hooks a-shudder,<br />
seated on a throne alive<br />
with the writhing<br />
of great worms, thrust<br />
into the earth.<br />
<br />
I awoke with<br />
a scream, slick with sweat,<br />
and paramount<br />
in my concern was<br />
this: the nightmare's end<br />
draws ever closer.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-41709128761552444762011-04-09T14:29:00.001-07:002011-04-09T14:29:32.785-07:00Rejection Register, Part the Second<a href="http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/deaconblues/?action=view&current=scan0001-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/deaconblues/scan0001-1.jpg" /></a>NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-75265045999311263862011-03-07T02:48:00.000-08:002011-04-27T21:38:55.777-07:00Of AmericansThis has been a very trying twenty-four hours.<br />
<br />
I made the mistake of purchasing <em>Twilight of the Assholes</em> by Tim Kreider at the Emerald City Comic-Con yesterday. Like most of my best literary finds <em>(The Myrkin Papers, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, et al.</em>), I picked it up based mostly on the strength of its title. The accuracy and truth of the obese hag replacing Lady Liberty on the cover merely sealed the deal. This is a theme that would repeat itself throughout the book; Kreider has an uncanny knack for drawing the ugliest parts of this country.<br />
<br />
It represents, essentially, the concerted efforts of a thinking person to keep himself from going<em> completely batshit insane</em> during a time when his country has already lost that fight. And I do mean <em>his</em> country, because it is clear that, despite all the vitriol he flings on the idiot public and our elected officials, he has a deep respect for the ideals that this place ostensibly stands for. In one essay, one downright<em> harrowing</em> essay, he asks what happened to the country that he grew up in. Typically when people ask this, they are wondering why it is that Kids These Days wear their pants so gad dang low, or why Them Faggits are suddenly allowed to touch each other in public. When Kreider asks, he wants to know how we went from a country where an anti-war comedy was the most beloved program on television to a country where people routinely suggest that 150,000 confirmed Iraqi civilian deaths are acceptable losses in the War on Terror.<br />
<br />
It is a salient question.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
It is answered, in part, by welfare. The right-wing hate machine has successfully turned the term into a curse. If you ask someone if they are for welfare, it is statistically likely that they will say they are not. However, if you ask them how they feel about each individual element of social programs, never mentioning that these are the pieces of welfare, they are far, far more likely to be in favor of them. The difference is truly shocking; people are something like 60% more likely to be in favor of welfare if you simply call it something else. There are a lot of conclusions to draw from this.<br />
<br />
But I am a cynic.<br />
<br />
Accordingly, I immediately spot the most unpleasant conclusion: education and knowledge are incredibly important to justice, fairness, and the democratic process- but most people simply do not have enough of either.<br />
<br />
The book builds to the 2008 election and then erupts in elation, with one of its only genuinely sweet illustrations: the author standing with his friends at Barack Obama's inauguration. Those of us with the benefit of hindsight know that this was, perhaps, premature. Even a scant few weeks later, Kreider knew, deep down, that this was nourishment for a body too far gone: "The Republican Party will be resurgent sooner than anyone would like to think. Like herpes, conservatism lies dormant in the nervous system of the republic, waiting for times of stress, for our resistance to weaken, when it will erupt scabrously anew."<br />
<br />
<br />
The beginning of the end is decompression, written during the idylls of Obama's first summer in office. Kreider's prose becomes hazy and apologetic, then, finally, resigned: "We have fulfilled our national destiny according to our own ideal: we lived fast and died young. The corpse, however, may be less than beautiful." <br />
<br />
Really, this is the cusp of the matter: the truth of the American public is too disgustingly ugly to be admitted. <br />
<br />
That's all for now.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-63184222351001977902011-03-02T23:00:00.000-08:002011-03-02T23:00:27.395-08:00The Rejection Register<a href="http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/deaconblues/?action=view&current=scan0001.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/deaconblues/scan0001.jpg" /></a>NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1525489631777954810.post-49470221595137199302010-12-04T17:32:00.000-08:002011-05-16T18:08:09.673-07:00Of LaborMy twelve-page research paper for English 102. The longest thing I've written to date. It turned out alright, I think, if you can make yourself care about the source material. I could easily write an entire paper just on the Pinkertons, but I'll save that idea for another assignment.<br />
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Triumph and Failure: the Dichotomy of Labor in the East and West, 1870-1920<br />
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The mechanization of industry in the United States was a necessary step in the country's history. It allowed for us to achieve the economic dominance that has served our country so well, while also allowing us to avoid the overt belligerence that eventually proved to be the downfall of the British Empire. However, it was not without its costs: it exacerbated the already-inflamed labor disputes that had been brewing since the turn of the 19th century. It wasn't until the 1870s, however, that the labor disputes became routinely violent, as “the workers rose to protest violently against what they considered to be their ruthless exploitation by employers” (Dulles 108). For the next fifty years, the country was swept up in a class struggle that affected every worker from coast to coast, from factory worker to logger to coal miner and everyone in between. The 1920s were an era of relative calm, as a series of victories by the employers of the country had demoralized and weakened the unions, and the first great wave of American consumerism temporarily obfuscated the plight of the common laborer (Dulles 232-3). While the labor disputes from 1870 to 1920 in both the East and the West contributed to the eventual adoption of fair labor policies, the disputes in the West were fundamentally less successful than those in the East, due to more government intervention and stronger negative public opinion.<br />
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The economic depression of the 1870s touched off the first national labor disputes: “The depression of the 1870s ushered in one of the most confused periods in American labor history” (Dulles 108). It was during this period that employers first started to actively combat the efforts of the labor unions. Up until this point, employers had been mostly reactive, crushing or starving strikes as they arose and doing their best to block legislation mandating ten- or eight-hour workdays (as opposed to twelve-hour or longer workdays, which were the norm at the time). However, the founding and early rise of the first major nationwide labor union, the Knights of Labor, in 1869, convinced many businessmen that they needed to take a more proactive approach against the efforts of the workingmen (Dulles 122). This, combined with the recent legislation in many states that allowed railroads to employ their own police, and with the newly-famous Pinkerton National Detective agency ready to go to work for them, resulted in many violent strikes, uprisings, and riots (Churchill 11). The 1880s were more economically stable, but the Knights of Labor were at the height of their influence during this period and “...the future of American labor in the mid- 1880s appeared to lie with the Knights of Labor” (Dulles 120).<br />
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The 1880s were just as turbulent, if not more so, than the previous decade. Membership in the Knights waned toward the end of the 1880s, but this did not dull the fervor of the labor movement going into the new decade, as “labor disputes reached a peak involving even more workers...than the strikes in 1886” (Dulles 162). The depression of the 1890s served as an impetus to the movement; this same depression fell particularly hard on Washington State and would have serious and fatal ramifications in Everett 1916, and again in Centralia in 1919. The most important labor events of the 1890s, though, were the two “great strikes” of the era: first in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and the Pullman strike, the latter of which covered a large network of railroads primarily in the West (Dulles 157).<br />
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The turn of the century marked America's first real foray into Progressivism, with many Progressives achieving real political power, especially in the West. These were men and women with the goal of “...building a better society” (Anderson 250). This era lasted until 1917, with some entrenched progressive politicians staying in office through the Great Depression (Dulles 175). Western Progressives were mostly in favor of labor reform, but when strikes occurred, “middle- and upper-class Progressives refused to support them” (Anderson 264). Significant steps toward labor reform were made during the Progressive era, but public opinion in the West was slanted against the largest unions at the time, the American Federation of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World (colloquially called the Wobblies for reasons that are to this day unclear), and as a result, state government complicity in (or outright support of) violence against striking workers and union members became the norm. While the federal government for the most part recognized the importance of cooperating with the unions during World War I, a series of incredibly violent strikes and labor fights still rocked the nation between 1914 and 1919. The American press sensationalized these events and distorted them beyond recognition, blaming the Wobblies, foreigners, Communists and Socialists for instigating the fights, even when clear eyewitness accounts showed that the local governments or citizens were the aggressors (McClelland 88). Finally, in 1920, American business launched a concerted effort to break up the unions with an open shop movement; union membership declined and because Warren G. Harding's Presidential victory convinced most Progressives to abandon their efforts, the labor movement no longer had any friends in government (Anderson 282). The unions were forced onto the defensive, and spent the 1920s holding onto the advances they had achieved during the Progressive era. The movement had not ended, but for the first time in fifty years, it met welcome, if grudging, peace.<br />
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The Eye That Never Weeps<br />
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The late 1800s were a difficult time for law enforcement in the US; railroads made it easy for criminals to run from one state to the next, and, outside of the odd US Marshall, there were no federal police officers, as the FBI wouldn't be established until 1908. This was true across the country, but particularly so in the West, as it was only relatively recently that it had been settled. The railroad companies had had enough of their trains being robbed, and because the federal government both was the only body with the authority to enforce law over all of the land covered and had proven themselves inept at doing so, the railroads encouraged states to enact laws that would allow the railroads to hire their own police. These railroad police were given their power and authority by state governments, just as civil police, but were employed and directed by the railroads. Railroad police were mostly hired from private detective agencies; there were many of these agencies, but the true powerhouse of the market was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. The Pinkerton symbol of an unblinking eye and their motto “We Never Sleep” would be ubiquitous in America for many years to come. As the lawlessness in the West became less of an issue, and the railroad management “[sloughed] off of dependence on Pinkerton detectives”, Pinkertons were hired more and more to combat the strikers and unions (Morn 94). A Pinkerton detective, for instance, was single-handedly responsible for destroying the Molly Maguires, an Irish radical labor group (Morn 94). The Pinkertons were, from the 1870s to the 1920s, essentially a private army directed by the railroads and any other business that could afford them.<br />
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Because they operated nationally, the Pinkertons are uniquely positioned to offer insight into the difference between Eastern and Western labor movements. The Homestead strike in Pennsylvania, for example, was particularly violent; while it was not completely successful, it was noteworthy in that it was one of few cases where the Pinkertons engaged the strikers and lost. Homestead, Pennsylvania was the site of a Carnegie Steel plant, and in 1892 the local manager tried to cut the wages of its skilled workers. They chose to strike, and in response, Carnegie Steel sent in three hundred Pinkerton detectives to act as guards for the strikebreakers they planned to bring in. This was perceived as a direct challenge by the strikers, who waited by the river for the Pinkerton barge to arrive. When it did, the strikers fired upon the Pinkertons, who attempted to return fire but, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, they eventually surrendered with the agreement that they would be given safe passage out of town. However, “When the Pinkertons came ashore, they were again attacked and had to run the gauntlet of an infuriated mob of men and women armed with stones and clubs before they were safely entrained for Pittsburgh” (Dulles 159). It is no coincidence that this event was the first of its kind to be investigated by Congress – despite the eventual breaking of the strike, it could not be ignored that a mob of citizens had felt so strongly in favor of the union that they had attacked a group of armed mercenaries (Morn 102).<br />
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Conversely, the miner strike in Northern Idaho in 1892 was a complete failure on the part of the unions, ending in their dissolution and resulting in an irrelevance that would last for years to come. This region of Idaho, the Couer d'Alene river valley, was the site of many gold and silver mines, worked by about two thousand skilled and unskilled miners (Lukas 101). Years of small wages at long hours had encouraged the miners in this area to organize unions in 1887, and the thirteen mine owners themselves formed the Mine Owners Protective Association of the Couer d'Alenes (MOA) in 1891. That year, the MOA asked the Pinkertons to send them an agent to infiltrate the union (the separate unions had agreed to organize and essentially operate as one earlier that year). The Pinkertons sent Charles Siringo, a man who had proven himself as a cowboy detective in Colorado (Lukas 102). With no support, he infiltrated the miner's union in early 1891 and reported on them until he was discovered by a former acquaintance in July of 1892; later, his testimony would be integral in the conviction of thirteen union leaders for contempt of court and conspiracy (though a federal court would later overturn all of these charges). Siringo's discovery, though, triggered an uprising among the unions, who lashed back at the owners and used dynamite to set off explosions at several of the mines. Idaho's Governor, Norman B. Willey, declared martial law and ordered the Idaho National Guard into the county, and asked President Harrison for federal troops. These two forces then proceeded to escort non-union workers into the area and to arrest anyone suspected of being in the union, most of whom were released after months without being formally charged. These men were allowed to return to work if they swore off the union completely. This would not be the only time that both local and federal governments, along with the Pinkertons, would directly oppose the miners and their unions in this area.<br />
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In 1899, tensions between unions and mine owners in the Couer d'Alenes were again rising as the threat of a strike combined with a Democratic governor in office (and Populist politicians in most local positions) convinced most mine owners to raise wages. The only holdout was the Bunker Hill mine, which refused to raise wages in addition to illegally refusing to hire any unionized miners. Then “the WFM and/or Pinkerton provocateurs responded by dynamiting and burning Bunker Hill & Sullivan property” (Churchill 26). This prompted the new governor, Frank Steunenberg, to again send in the National Guard and ask for federal troops, repeating the series of events played out in 1892. The Guard once again arrested all suspected union members, incarcerated them illegally, and forced them to renounce their ties to the unions in order to return to work. It was a bitter denouement for the workers, whose faith in the Democrat Governor Steunenberg had been proven to be unfounded. The Pinkertons would continue to work with railroads and mine owners against the labor movement even after the formation of the FBI in 1908, until the Wagner Act of 1935 necessitated a change in their business focus. As for the unions themselves, “the repression of the strike broke the WFM in the [Couer d'Alenes], and unionism remained insignificant in the area for years” (Goldstein 71).<br />
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Blood in the Forest, Blood in the Sand<br />
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The Industrial Workers of the World, (or “Wobblies”, as they came to be called for no evident reason) never had a membership that was, taken by itself, large enough to suggest social significance; their membership at the peak of their influence was only one hundred thousand, compared to the Knights of Labor membership of over seven hundred thousand (Renshaw 1-2). However, their importance is more readily represented by their vocal radicalism; they were a populist, progressive union at a time when that was an incredibly dangerous position. They represented a direct and obvious challenge to the status quo, and the public response differed by region. Extreme violence against labor groups in the West was not limited to the Wobblies, however – the unions attacked in the Ludlow massacre of 1914 were strictly local organizations. No region, though, was as hostile as Washington State.<br />
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Washington was the site of two major attacks against the Wobblies; the so-called Everett Massacre of 1916 and the Centralia attacks in 1919. Historically, the two cities could not have been more different; Everett was founded by businessmen as a prospective West coast Boston equivalent and became a dismal failure, barely surviving the depression of the 1890's, whereas Centralia was more or less created by one man, who had the foresight to claim exactly the sort of area that people would want to settle in (McClelland 3). However, the press atmosphere in Washington as a whole was largely anti-labor during the first part of the twentieth century, with many newspapers accusing the Wobblies and other unions of communism and of getting their living without work (McClelland 2). The unstable economy and press bias catalyzed the public resentment toward any perceived threat to their hard-earned way of life and ultimately led to the violence in Everett and Centralia.<br />
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Everett in particular teetered on the edge of disincorporation throughout the depression of the 1890's. The cause was simple: a group of men, John D. Rockefeller among them, had decided to build a new city, then pulled out when their Eastern interests became troubled. The town was reduced to such poverty during this period that some citizens were forced to eat garbage thrown from restaurants (Clark 36). The vast majority of Everett citizens worked very hard simply to survive; they fished, they cut firewood, and grew whatever vegetables they could in the sandy, acidic soil of the area. Their salvation, as it were, came in the same form that brought their hardest times: a new group of investors. A new mill, new infrastructure and new money brought Everett from the brink of ruin. To these people, the success of capitalism erased its failure only a decade before. Their dependence on the businessmen of the area belied their dalliances with Progressive and Socialist politicians during the early 1910's. So, when the Wobblies became active in the area in 1916, the first response from the city government was to throw any and all of them in jail. Donald McRae, the Sheriff at the time, had an arrest-first-ask-questions-later approach to any Wobblies he found; his typical action was to arrest them, hold them overnight, and ship them out of the county in the morning. Tensions rose from July 16 when a Wobbly speaker was jailed and then deported for simply speaking on a street corner; the Summer and Autumn months were heavy with police brutality and speech suppression on the part of McRae, the odd labor riot, and a strike on the part of the shingle-weaver's union. The finale to all of this unrest took place on November 5th, 1916. Two boats full of roughly 250 Wobblies (and two confirmed Pinkerton detectives) departed Seattle for Everett; the first to arrive, the Verona, was confronted by McRae and several hundred of his deputies. After some words with the foremost men on the deck, shots were fired (there is still some debate over who shot first; it is certain that at least one of the casualties on the Sheriff's side was from friendly fire). There were two casualties on the side of the deputies, five on the Wobblies, and over fifty wounded. Now, such an event would no doubt be a shock; then, after twenty years of seesawing between prosperity and poverty, the massacre was swiftly forgotten, and similar events played out in Centralia three years later (Clark 232-3).<br />
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Centralia was celebrating Armistice Day in 1919 with a Legionnaire parade when tragedy struck. Much like the events in Everett leading up to that city's own massacre, Centralia was, as the newspapers of the time might have put it, plagued with Wobblies, and their gadfly-esque demands for basic constitutional rights prompted a group of Centralia Legionnaires to raid the Wobbly hall as they marched in the parade. Unlike the Everett Massacre, witness reports are quite clear and unconflicting in regard to who fired first: it was undoubtedly the Wobblies. Because raids on Wobbly buildings had been commonplace in the state in the years up until 1919 (raids in which the aggressors “took everything that could be lifted and burned or smashed it”, according to McClelland), the Wobblies in Centralia had taken to setting armed guards in their building, so when they saw armed Legionnaires marching to their building who had publicly discussed a raid on the Wobblies only days before, they acted in defense of their property (66). Legionnaires attempted to break into the Wobbly hall and several were killed as soon as the shooting started; the rest flooded into the hall and began to overpower the men inside. One Wobbly, Wesley Everest, ran out of the back of the building, but ultimately failed to escape while killing at least three men. All of the Wobblies, Everest included, were rounded up and arrested. During the night, Everest was pulled out of the city jail by an angry mob, then beaten, castrated, and lynched. The coroner's report listed the cause of death as “suicide”. No effort was made on the part of local law enforcement to identify and prosecute those who took part in the lynching. Newspapers were unflinchingly on the side of the Legionnaires and the lynchers, with one paper in particular remarking that the lynchers displayed “commendable reserve” in not murdering more of “the assassins” (qtd. in McClelland 86). What is truly telling about the public's venom against the Wobblies is that not only did it take place after the massacre in Everett, it also took place after the massacre in Ludlow, Colorado, an event which achieved national notoriety, and convinced even John D. Rockefeller, Jr. that something had to be done to address the “labor question” (Gitelman 16).<br />
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Rockefeller owned Colorado Fuel & Iron, which operated, appropriately enough, in Colorado. Rising disputes between the operators and the miners were based on these complaints, listed succinctly by Zinn:<br />
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...that they were robbed of from 400-800 pounds on each ton of coal, that they were paid in scrip worth ninety cents on the dollar...that the eight-hour law was not observed, that the law allowing miners to elect checkweighmen of their own choice was completely ignored, that their wages could only be spent in company stores and saloons, that they were forced to vote according to the wishes of the mine superintendent, that they were beaten and discharged for voicing complaints, that the armed mine guards conducted a reign of terror which kept the miners in subjection to the company...casualty rates were twice as high in Colorado as in other mining states. (Zinn 188)<br />
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The mine operators ignored any requests for mediation. Perhaps inevitably, the miners struck, and a series of brutal attacks by mine guards and, later, National Guardsmen culminated in an attack on the Ludlow tent colony where the miners were living with their families. For roughly twelve hours, the Guardsmen (who at this point were mine guards drawing mine salaries but wearing Guard uniforms) fired a hail of bullets into the tent colony, then set it on fire. At least nineteen people were killed, most of whom were unarmed women and children. The press reaction was national but neutral; the New York Times held the strike leaders just as responsible for the deaths as the men who ordered the attack on the tent colony: “Strike organizers cannot escape full measure of blame for the labor war” (qtd. in Zinn 200). It is perhaps not altogether unsurprising, then, that in a social climate where the murder of over a dozen women and children is blamed equally upon their attackers and defenders, the same conditions in an idealistically similar setting would reap the same results.<br />
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The Relevance of the Worker's Plight<br />
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The results of all of this conflict were indeed far-reaching. Rockefeller Jr. himself recognized the importance of proper labor relations after the Ludlow debacle. Public opinion in the East had been slowly creeping toward the side of worker's rights since the dawn of the progressive era; however, it was in the West that unions found the most resistance to their efforts. It was during this time period that the West was acutely susceptible to economic depression; Eastern investors would cancel their Western ventures at the first sign of depression in the East. Risk was simply unacceptable to them when the economy dipped. This business skittishness, combined with the structures that were used for the repression itself and the public's dependence on capitalists made for an environment that was intrinsically hostile to the efforts of the labor unions. It is truly unfortunate that a region so abundant with natural resources was also built in such a way that the people who extracted those resources were also the most oppressed in the region. Geoff Mann says that “The particularity of work and workers in the U.S. West is not merely a product of geography and history; western geography and history are themselves a reflection of these workers, their work, and the way they politicized the wage relations that constituted it” (167). It is of utmost importance to understand and acknowledge this – the very history of the West was forged through these conflicts, and the truth of the matter is that they were caused by some of the things that America holds most dear: nationwide business, autonomous state governments, and capitalism.NO-ONE of CONSEQUENCEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14190195921465736502noreply@blogger.com0