A Poem for Your Sore Eyes

english war

“or when he performed it.”

“what?” I said.

“that sentence doesn’t even make sense!”

but she wasn’t listening to me;

she was already onto her next victim.

_

From the Vault: High School Presidency

My freshman year of high school I decided to run for class president.

I'm not sure why I had this desire--I came from a small primary/junior high combo school and was unfamiliar with the vast majority of my classmates, I had maybe three friends (only one of whom would probably vote for me), I hated public speaking, and I was a great big dork--but I did and so I threw myself face-first into the shit.

I collected the necessary signatures to get on the ballot from people in my honors classes who couldn't care less. I filed the paperwork. I made ugly little posters in anticipation of the day we were allowed to plaster the hallways, in the home stretch of the campaign.

That day finally arrived and my mom dropped me off at school early. I started hanging posters at one end of the large, three-floor school, planning to zig-zag my way through, weaving up and down the multiple staircases, strategically choosing my placements along some vaguely scientific lines.

Not long after I started taping up posters that probably said things like "Charlie is the best!!!" and "Vote for Charlie!" surrounded by shiny colored stars, my doting guidance counselor spotted me in the hallway and insisted on helping out--"Together we can do it in half the time!"


As we chit-chatted awkwardly--I hate chit-chat; she was my guidance counselor--the halls began to fill with students arriving for the school day. We made our way up the main hallway, doubling back over some covered ground to hit one section of the second floor we missed earlier.

As if pulled from an afterschool special, two big, loud football players grunted, shouted something about how my rival ruled, and tore down all my posters we hung ten minutes ago, oblivious to who I was, what I looked like, or the fact that I was standing right behind them.

It was pretty humiliating.

It would have been bad enough had I witnessed the offense alone, but the presence of my no-doubt-stricken guidance counselor only made matters worse. What was she thinking about me now? What was she thinking I was thinking about me? What was she thinking were her options as far as what to say to me, immediately, in an 'awesome guidance counselor' way? What should I have said to her?

I don't recall what was said; my hunch is that neither of us said anything.

From there, things only got worse.


On Election Day, I was required to participate in four or five debates, held during the four or five different lunch periods at our school during the middle of the day.

The good thing was I was excused from most of my classes for the day. The bad thing was I had to debate a really popular girl from a huge feeder school whose confidence and constituency dwarfed mine as a giant would a fly.

I had prepared myself for all matters of policy, chosen my stance on all potential issues, prioritized the bullet points of my platform...and faced a barrage of questions like so:

"If you were a candy...what kind of candy would you be?"
Her answer: "M&Ms--I melt in your mouth, not in your hand."

By the third round, I didn't give a shit about anything anymore. It didn't matter whether I went first or second--her answer was always better. I'd already been embarrassed in front of my older brother, my teachers, most of my classmates, my friends, my enemies...for what more had I to live?


Cue Senor Palacio, my Honors Spanish teacher and the head of the Freshman Cabinet, who stepped in to watch this round. The pressure should have been on, bigtime, but it wasn't. I had already surrendered, was already defeated before I even stepped on the platform two hours ago, before I hung my first poster.

This girl was from a huge junior high, she was popular, she wanted it badly, and once the debate started, it seemed as though she had practiced for this exact situation. It would be one thing to be beaten in a pure game of numbers--this girl had me flat-out out-played, as well.

By the time the moderator offered up "What is your favorite part of your body?" I had nothing left. The two guys who made fun of me relentlessly for four years, for fifteen minutes every morning, were sitting in the front row and made a suggestion: "Your dick! Your dick!"

"My dick."

The microphone and speakers performed excellently--I thought the word would bring the walls down. The audience was aghast--even my tormentors were speechless, didn't think I would actually say it--and Senor Palacio turned his head, disappointed.

Did I have any regrets? No. I could never have won that election and, thus, it didn't matter what I said out there.

Did I wish I would have devised a more successful campaign? No. Once I realized what the actual duties of the President were, I was relieved they were not of my concern.

I was right where I wanted to be, it turned out--I was the nerdy guy who said 'Dick' into a microphone in front of 250 people at school and got away with it.

_

The Most Fascinating Time I've Ever Been Pulled Over

I was eighteen years old. I had just dropped off my older brother at a revolutionary war reenactment at Cantigny, and had to speed the thirty miles back to Skokie for a friend's birthday party.


I was driving a black 1992 Mercury Tracer LTS about 120 miles per hour, weaving between cars on the tollway like a downhill skier slaloms flags, blasting Simon & Garfunkel's collected works, singing at the top of my lungs, with all the windows down.

I was having a great time.

I'm not sure how long he was following me, but it was probably for much longer than he would have liked. When I finally saw him in my rearview mirror, I was understandably pissed-off, but not terrified or anything like that--I'd been through this many times before.

I pulled over to the left shoulder and waited.


When I saw a 6' 4" musclebound black state trooper dressed like Smokey the Bear (but with clothes on) heading toward me, my confidence dimmed somewhat--I think it was his unbelievably erect military posture that did the most damage. And the hat. I think that's why they wear them. Most of the rest of my confidence disappeared as soon as he spoke.

"You were drivin' like a ASSHOLE out there!"
"Sorry..."
"Why you drivin' so fast?!"
"Well, I'm late for a friend's birthday party."
"That's a piss-poor excuse for goin' 95 miles an hour."

I smiled to myself--he only got me at 95? Thank god...

"I know, but it is the truth..."
"Step out of the vehicle."

I do. He walks back to his patrol car, gets in, closes the door, rolls down the window, grabs a notepad.

"Who's the owner of the vehicle?"
"What?"
"WHO OWNS THE VEHICLE!"
"My dad, I guess."
"Name."
"John Smith."
"What's his phone number?"
"847.555.5555"

Then he set down the notepad and rolled up the window. Just before it closed, I said something I would never believe I would ever say, if I didn't know that I have already said it:

"Aren't you gonna give me a ticket?"

He rolled the window back down and smirked at me.

"Oh, you won't be drivin'-- your daddy's gonna get a call."

And with those parting words, he blasted off down the highway. I stood on the left shoulder, buffeted by the violent surges of redirected air from the left-lane speeders blowing past me, in sheer disbelief of what just happened, crunching the situation like a Cray supercomputer figuring out pi.

'So...huh? He's going to call my dad? That's his plan? That's his plan!!! WHAT?! He could have revoked my license! He could have given me a huge ticket! Speeding! Reckless driving! He hated me, and he let me get away? It makes no sense!'

I got back in my car and slammed on the gas, merged over into the left lane, and cruised at the speed limit for the rest of the ride to my friend's parent's house. I was late.


I realized my parents would still be on vacation for at least the next week or so and my strategy was therefore a simple one. I never answered the home phone and kept vigilant watch over the ancient answering machine. One day, there was a brief message from the state trooper, asking 'John Smith' to call him back.

I erased it. And I never heard anything about it ever again.

_

Notes from Tanzania: Kilimanjaro

9/23/08 - Uhuru Hostel, Moshi, Tanzania

My legs still ache from the climb. Or was it the descent? Probably both. Max and I are sitting at a table in the courtyard here, watching a 4.5'-tall maribou stork strut his stuff for the other birds as we write; when he landed, it sounded like a small airplane. A crazy man rants nearby.

Kakasii (our guide) dropped us off here yesterday afternoon, after picking us up from the Marangu Gate at Mt. Kilimanjaro--with three ice-cold Kilimanjaro beers standing by, as promised. It was our first drink in over a week. Not quite as impressive as Adolpho's streak (2 years, broken when we offered him one in Uswaa village), but probably a personal record for the three of us.

As usual, we all had to cram into a small vehicle--me, Max, and Clemence, six days overdue for a shower, wedged into the backseat--but at least all the windows were down and some charming Tanzanian music was blasting. Talk delightfully impossible, we all just enjoyed the scenery and tunes as Kakasii attempted to break his own land speed record.

It was hard not to think back on our recent trek. Day 5--Summit Day--which occurred on Sep.21, was one hell of a test, a true emotional yo-yo of a day, during which we experienced both the high and low points of our six-day trek.


Kibo Hut. 4750 meters. Our day began at midnight. After a few hours of sleep and a few hours of watching time pass in the moonlit darkness, without a clock, thinking about the day to come, breakfast arrived.

The porter with a red bandana--whose name we never got, since we were not allowed to mingle with the porters--brought in a plate of cookies. That was it. That was our sustenance for the longest, most intense leg of our climb. Cookies.

We suited up for the bitter cold (-15 Celsius?), filled Ralph's daypack with our self-purified bottles of water and some trail mix I had on hand, and waited outside for our guide.

Clemence was nowhere to be found--other groups were already departing for the summit, a string of headlamps in the distance, and our guide was AWOL.

Clemence finally showed up, we took a few photos, and headed out. Spirits were high for the first couple hours. As we plodded zig-zag up the endless gravel slope, passing all the players in this comedy, one by one, each briefly illuminated in the moonlit semi-darkness, I could not shake the feeling that we were in some sort of Fellini dream sequence.

First, there was the Spanish couple. She wasn't feeling ‘well in the head’ when we woke up, and the expression on her face now implied matters had only gotten worse. I said "Hola" and we chugged past. I hoped they would make it to the top, since I actually like them--which I couldn't say for most of the other climbers--but I didn't think it likely. [He made it; she didn't - Ed]

We passed the three annoying Polish people I thought were Russian, who kept us awake our first night on the mountain until I pounded on the wall of our hut and shouted “Shut the fuck up!” with conviction, the large group of Austrians...and others I can't remember. Our methodical, 'pole, pole,' style, with only a few short breaks, was proving successful. I was getting excited about being the first ones on top, owning the fabulous view for at least a few exhilarating minutes.

Then the sickness started. Nausea, accompanied by the nearly-overwhelming need to shit, followed by alternating cold/hot sweats, dogged me the rest of the way up. When it got unbearable, I would stop for a quick rest, then press on despite my desire to shoot myself in the face.

I took off my hood and the handkerchief covering my nose/mouth, and tried to breathe in the fresh cold air in giant gusts. I worried about frostbite, especially when my toes went numb and my hands seemed irretrievably frozen in my gloves, but wasn't sure what I could really do about it. I had to press on and I just hoped everything would turn out okay. I hoped I wouldn’t become the next Beck Weathers.

The endless gravel zig-zag finally ended and we were met by a similarly-endless, nearly-vertical pile of boulders. I couldn't believe it--this, too? Clemence started up, choosing his path as he went, and we followed. Slowly.

Our breaks became more frequent, our bodies completely exhausted, barren of energy. I staggered around like a drunk, only my desire to not fail keeping me upright. How do all these old people do this? How do all these overweight people do this? How the hell did Jimmy Carter do this in 2000, at age 76? Why are we struggling so much? When will this end? Should we give up? How can we give up? How can we not do this? We can do this!


By the time we got to Gilman’s Point--5685 meters, atop the crater rim--I was ready to fall over and die. Luckily, the view saved me. An eternity of red, ethereal clouds spread in every direction. As cheesy as it sounds, it really did seem as though all of Africa lay before us, that we were gods looking down on the human comedy. We watched the sun break the horizon. A vast bowl of volcanic dust and snow, topped by the striking profile of a glacier wrapping around the other side of the mountain, awaited us in the other direction. Stunning.


All the hard work, the misery, was redeemed. We sat down for a few minutes to soak it all in, then Clemence said we had to press on--it was still an hour and a half to the actual summit, along the crater rim. Ralph asked me if I thought we should stay there to watch the sun rise, and I said we’d probably be able to see it periodically along the way. I regret not staying there.

The slog from Gilman’s Point to Uhuru (the summit) was murder. Slow, painful, roasted-on-a-spit MURDER. Barely able to breathe in the thin air at 19,000 feet, our muscles in surrender mode, our heads swimming in oxygen-deprivation, our stomachs dangerously empty, teetering precipitously over the edge of the crater rim, the 1.5 hours felt like forever.

In the distance, we saw (and heard) countless people in matching orange jackets prancing around jubilantly. They must have come up a different route, since we were the first people up ours, and, from the looks of it, their route was a lot easier. Some of them were even running up and down the outside slope, burning off excess energy. Everybody was smiling, laughing, exuberant; we were miserable and, therefore, immediately hated them. There was no way I could have smiled; no way I could have run.

In fact, ever since we hit Gilman’s Point, I had become unable to stop sobbing uncontrollably. Happy, sad, exhausted, proud, whatever--I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t speak, since my voice would immediately crack into a sob, so I remained silent as much as possible. I thought about shooting a video when I got to the top, a simple one where I would tell Melissa I loved her, and the thought made me cry again. I didn’t think I would even be able to say “I love you” without crying. 'What is wrong with me?' I wondered...and cried...

The last stretch dragged on. I could occasionally see groups of climbers in the distance and their location destroyed me all over again each time. How could it still be that much farther? When will this end? I finally saw the top from a distance; an agonizing distance. I turned to Ralph:

“Don’t fucking tell me we have to go all the way over there. What the fuck?!”

We did have to go all the way over there. Extremely slowly. The incline was minimal, but unrelenting. Ralph seemed to be dealing with it okay, but Max and I could only go 20 meters or so before we would need to rest. We didn’t understand what the hell the rush was, but Clemence kept pushing us along.

People on their way down--full of life, energy, smiles, springs in their feet--made me sick, unfairly filled me with hatred for them. How could they have done this and not be on their deathbeds, as I felt. How?!

By the time we made it to the official summit (5,895 meters)-- a circus of activity dominated by middle-aged American assholes whining about lack of cell reception--I was so pissed off that I didn’t even care. Five days of hiking, five days of eager anticipation, months of planning, much money spent...and I didn’t even care that I was standing atop the roof of Africa.


We three sat on some rocks and rested, totally spaced out. It was 7:30am. Clemence pushed us to hurry over and take our pictures by the summit sign before more people arrived. I didn’t see the point of hurrying--there were already like a hundred people on top, a steady flow on the way up, so what did it matter? There would always be a line, so why couldn’t we just chill the fuck out for twenty minutes?

But we gave into our guide-cum-slave-driver, once again, and posed for two or three photos. Max held out the Terry Plumbing flag in all of them, which annoyed me when I realized it later. In all the commotion--picture bitchy suburban parents fighting about how long somebody’s kid has been sitting on Santa’s lap at a shopping mall, actually saying lines like this: “Oh, so now we’re taking two shots? Hmmph!”--Max and I both totally forgot to pose with the leopard he had been toting around since Zanzibar, expressly for this purpose, so we could give our niece and nephew a toy leopard that had climbed Kilimanjaro with us, along with photos taken along the way to prove it.


I also would have liked a solo photo, but didn’t feel like fighting to make it happen. All I wanted to do was leave this madness behind and sit down somewhere for a while, eat some trail mix, catch my breath, rest, improve my emotional state a bit before the inevitable, grueling descent to Kibo Hut.

But Clemence would have none of it. “We need to go now--the sun is too strong here.” All I could think was: 'What the fuck does it matter? It’s so damn cold I don’t even have any skin exposed!!! Does it burn through down jackets, you asshole?!'

But, once again, we pressed on as instructed. I think we were just too beaten down to argue. The trek back to Gilman’s Point was like a Trail of Tears. We demanded to stop there for a while to rest and eat something. By this point, Ralph, who earlier complained that he was falling asleep while walking, was so devoid of energy that he fell down TWICE while trying to sit on a large boulder.

Gilman’s Point was super crowded at this point, and everybody was in high spirits. They must have had more than a handful of cookies before/during the 20,000-calorie climb/descent. After a brief rest, we continued down, hoping to simply put all this behind us.

Down-climbing the boulder wall was difficult and time-consuming. Our legs were still weak from the climb up, our stamina waning due to continued lack of sustenance. Descending the eternity of gravel beyond the boulders was agonizing.

I literally skied down on my boots, using the walking poles like ski poles, slaloming around large boulders. It easily took over an hour or two--a hell of a ski run, and hell for the knees. After a slow start, Ralph took off and flew down the mountain, passing me at some point and not stopping until he got to Kibo Hut, where we were to rest and eat lunch before continuing another 12km down to Horombo Hut for the night.

What was it that filled his sails so suddenly, so vigorously? The overwhelming need to take a shit.

By the time I got down, Ralph was in bed. I borrowed his packet of diaper wipes and raced off to the pit toilets myself, having had to shit since we started the climb 13 hours ago...

Now, I have to tell you these pit toilets were disgusting. As I dirt-skied my way around the final bend, the scent riding the robust wind could have wilted a rainforest. It's no wonder there’s an alpine desert up here...


The unthinkable--using these pit toilets, which were literally just a hole in the ground, surrounded by piss, shit, dirt, and altitude-induced vomit--became reality out of pure, unadulterated necessity.

Nothing lowers standards quite like the need to go to the bathroom. When your choice is between filling your pants or using a disgusting bathroom, it is no longer even a choice. How many days does it take before a new prisoner shits on a filthy, seat-less toilet in the middle of his cell, in full view of his creepy, violent cellmate(s)? Well...how many days can the human body hold it in? It is but a matter of time--eventually, everyone gives in and performs.

In case you were wondering, it’s not easy to squat over a hole in the ground, trying to keep your pants clean, after a grueling 12-hour ascent/descent. My legs were quivering, ready to acquiesce to gravity at any second. My lungs frantically huffed and puffed, searching the polluted air for precious oxygen.

All went well, luckily, and I crashed out in my bed after changing into some dry clothes.

A couple hours later, I think--we never had any real concept of time--the porter with the red bandana woke us up for lunch. What do you give three starved mountain climbers after a soul-destroying, energy-sapping, 12-hour climb on a nearly-empty stomach?


Easy one--a plate of cold toast, old fruit, cold fried-eggplant patties, and horrible onion soup. That’s it. That’s the lunch our crew slaved over as we climbed. That was the fuel they thought we needed. I took a few bites and walked away; Max didn’t even touch it.

Clemence walked in shortly after lunch arrived, alarmed that we weren’t ready to leave for Horombo Hut yet. I wanted to punch him in the face so badly. Not only because of the slave-driving climb and the shitty food, but because he never even told us to be ready at a specific time, yet here he was yelling at us for being late.

We took our sweet time packing up and resumed our descent. Surprisingly, I was in a pretty good mood--partly because I had slept a bit, partly because Clemence decided to carry my pack, partly because the hike was relatively flat. I had some good conversation with my brother, as well as with Ralph. It was hard to believe we had stood atop Kilimanjaro not long ago--much like the machete mugging in Arusha, I felt a surreal detachment from the reality of the moment. Was I up there? Really? What did it feel like? I don’t really know...

But what I did know was that we were heading down, down, down--and that was a good thing. Off the mountain. Finish camping, ditch Clemence, move on.


After a shitty dinner of banana stew at Horombo Hut, crammed onto the end of a table full of Japanese climbers bitching in broken English about not having any boiling water, we hit the sack hard.

The next morning, we hiked 12km to Mandara Hut, most of which I did by myself, at a breakneck pace, rocking out to 24 LCD Soundsystem tracks, dodging porters going up and down, staring out into the crazy extraterrestrial landscapes.

At Mandara, we waited easily 45 minutes for our lunch--french-fry omelettes and steamed vegetables. Huh? I wolfed it down. We pumped some water from a nearby faucet and hit the trail again.

Clemence told us he would catch up. We couldn’t tell what he was doing when he said this--it looked like he was either shitting in a ditch or washing his ass or something. As it turned out, we think he was changing his clothes, awkwardly, in semi-public, since he was wearing different clothes when we saw him later on down the trail.

We flew down the last stretch--partly to stay ahead of/away from Clemence, partly to just finish this thing already.

Clemence tried to stop us occasionally to point out things, to make us think he deserved a better tip, due to his bottomless knowledge, and it reminded me of how he had seemed super intense during our first meeting, surprised that we had not prepared any questions about the local plants, as if he was some kind of insane nature expert. I don’t think he pointed out one fucking thing on the way up. We might as well have been led up the mountain by an auto mechanic. Yet, here he was:

“See that thing on that tree?”

Where? What tree? What thing? We’re in a fucking rainforest, Clemence! You can’t be that vague! Can you give me a color? A shape? An adjective? There is a veritable smorgasbord of vegetation here, for Christ’s sake... Oh? The bee’s nest made out of a log? Yeah, already know all about it, Clemence. They’re all over the place. Thanks for filling us in on some insider-secret. There’s an extra five cents in your tip jar, now leave me alone!

Even if his intentions were more innocent, we just didn’t care. We kept going, sweating our way toward those three ice-cold Kilimanjaro beers and a one-way ticket off the mountain.

Do I regret the adventure? No. It was an irreplaceable experience and the highs, if not more abundant than the lows, made it all worthwhile. Would I have done it differently? Hell yeah. Will I ever do it again? Hell no.

Las Vegas, T.I. pool

It's about 140 degrees by the pool right now. But it somehow feels good, soothing, cleansing. I like it. The imminent dive into the water will be equally and oppositely enjoyed. The Yin & Yang of a desert oasis. A vodka lemonade on ice could save my life right now.

It did. And now I'm thirsting for another. Isn't that always how it goes?

I wonder if the management at T.I. chose the sickly-tangerine color of their towels as a precaution against theft, or if they're just stupid. Either way, as I scan the watering hole to soak it all in, locate beautiful girls in bikinis, etc, I can't help but feel it's the late '60s, early '70s--something about those tangerine blotches permeating the view, as well as the vague '60s vibe the mere idea of Vegas conjures in my head. The brazen excess of Baby Boomer America, the 'desert air' health theories that prompted locust-like migration to the Sun Belt, and the tolerated corporate crookery, nee Mafia crookery, that lords over the city as a hurricane lords over its volatile eye. But I like the '60s. Well, the idea of the '60s, music and other products of the '60s, etc, seeing as I wasn't even a twinkle in the universe's eye when the decade drew to a close.

Bill and I are supposed to start work on a treatment for a movie we want to write, so of course we got high and lazy and distracted and soon-to-be-drunk. We'll see what materializes when he gets back from his expedition to retrieve magazines and cigarettes from our room. Not promising.

I just got a yard of vodka lemonade because Bill asked for 'big ones.' My mouth might be permanently puckered after today. I also might be as red as a lobster. I might never leave. I could look for lounge-singer openings down on Fremont Street. That'd be the life. "I sing at the Lucky Leprechaun, Tuesday and Wednesdays, from 11am to 1pm. Kill me!"

Our waitress' skin reminds me achingly of caramel. Bill's buying two Fosters Oilcans right now, to have two chances at winning a cabana full of Fosters tomorrow. I guess it'd be cool if we win, and it's not like we can lose.

Speaking of, I lost $80 at roulette last night. That usually doesn't happen. Tonight better be...better.

(From the Vault---6/2/07)

_ 

The Only Dream I've Ever Written Down

I often have ridiculously wacky, intense, complex dreams, but rarely remember much of what happened once I wake up. Here is a glaring exception:


Dream I Had the Morning of November 20, 2004


I was trying to sell some scripts/ideas with my friend Kenny to a guy who ran a production company in a huge, opulent, modern skyscraper with a hotel, casino, offices, and condos. I had all the paperwork in a bag on the end of a fishing pole or something, that’s how I was carrying it, for some reason. Security was tight and I couldn’t get down the hall to the man’s office from the grand staircase. I was hanging out on the landing, waiting to see if Kenny could sweet-talk the doorman into letting us in. We were determined to see this guy.

The lobby was huge and old-fashioned--dark wood everywhere, kind of like the lobby to a swank hotel. Some guy came up to me and asked what I was doing there, what was in the bag. I told him it was full of great ideas and scripts for movies and that we were trying to meet with the guy at this production company to see if he would buy them. The guy was really pessimistic about our chances and said that we would never get in to see him and even if we did he would just steal our ideas and not give us any money. Office-type people kept breezing past us on their way up or down the stairs. I kept looking down to make sure my bag was still there, on the end of the fishing pole-thing. I kept looking over to see how Kenny was doing. And looking at this guy next to me who seemed to be waiting to see how it all turned out. Then I looked down at my side and the bag was gone. All our ideas! I got pissed. I ran down the stairs and told Karl the bag was stolen. The guy who had been hanging out with me, watching, came with me. “I just had it on the end of this fishing pole and then I looked down and it was gone!”

The doorman follows us as we walk slowly up the staircase and then run past the security guards just in time to see Skeletor pop out of a room, look at us, and immediately run away, turning the corner, leaving a trail of evil laughter. We chase after him. As soon as we turn the corner, we see this petite woman dressed kind of like Peter Pan. She is Skeletor’s second-in-command.

She doesn’t actually ever attack us, I don’t think. But she seems to be in charge of making sure all the evil things keep after us (flying things, snakes, etc.). She runs into a door and we follow-- the doorman and security guards are now not really chasing us, but on our side against what they immediately identify as pure evil.

When we enter the doorway, it leads immediately to a rickety, old, narrow staircase in a house in the rundown suburbs somewhere. There is a window and it is open. The petite Peter-Pan-girl floats outside the window, above the driveway, watching. I am now alone. I come down the stairs and everything starts to shake, things are falling over, kind of like an earthquake. There is a chest of drawers with a display case/glass-doored-cabinet thing on top of it, on the next landing below me. Things start falling out of it and crashing to the floor. I’m dodging huge stuff that suddenly starts flying at me. I grab a brick and heave it right at the Peter Pan girl, knocking her to the ground. I race through the doorway on the lower level and into a narrow hallway.

The hallway leads to a huge open area on one side of a large, modern office building that has a wall of windows looking out over the city, kind of like an observation deck, but not; there’s probably one on every floor, just an open area with desks, tables, chairs, lamps, kind of a lounge. The other five people (Kenny, the watcher, the doorman, and 2 security guards) are suddenly with me again and we run into this area. All kinds of huge flying insects start coming at us. Thousands of them. Some are big, some are smaller, they’re sort of not easy to see, almost transparent, and you can really only see the flutter of their wings.

I pull out a Nerf Dart Gun and start shooting them out of the air. The Peter Pan girl watches and laughs, in charge of all these bugs. Everyone else starts shooting Nerf Dart Guns and throwing anything they can find, and just trying to kill them all, and we seem to be doing a good job, despite the fact that we can barely see them and there are thousands of them. I keep shooting the darts at them and the dart carries all the way to the window and smashes them against it. I am amazed at how accurate we are. But some of them miss. I only have three or four of them, so I have to repeatedly run over and pick up or peel off the window all the darts and reuse them. I keep doing all these unnecessary somersaults and barrel rolls and looking over at everybody else, in the shit, swarmed by them, but killing them slowly and steadily. We finally kill them all. Peter Pan still floats outside, chuckling deviously, unfazed.

I go to pick up a dart by an overturned desk and see a bunch of the bugs in some kind of cocoon/larvae stage, clinging to the underside of the desk. “Oh, shit, guys. Check it out. We have to kill all these before they mature.” I lean in to get a good shot at one of them and hear a hiss and see movement. An enormous black Cobra snake is coiled up menacingly in the shadows. “Fuck! Look out for snakes!” We start killing the larvae but some of them shed their cocoons and fly out at us.

I decide everyone here is fine, they’ll kill them all eventually...maybe I should keep up the pursuit of Skeletor. So I run out this door at the other end of the U-shaped hallway/lounge area and suddenly find myself in the same old rickety staircase, staring out the same window, at Peter Pan, the earthquake happens again and I throw a brick at Peter Pan and run into the hallway and find myself in the same lounge, with everybody still fighting off these bugs. I keep doing this, in a loop, over and over, and every time I keep asking if anyone’s killed the snake yet, if anyone’s seen the snake. And nobody answers me and I keep expecting everyone to be killed by this scary big snake the next time I run through.

One of the times through the staircase, I hear Peter Pan say something like “one of these times you’ll make a mistake, you won’t be so lucky.” And then I hit her in the face with a brick, but I’m scared. Wondering if my accuracy will fail me next time. Then I run into the hallway/lounge and see the snake slithering off the way I have been running my laps, towards the other door. I run up behind it--I’m running super fast, by the way, barely even touching the ground, breaking all laws of physics and my shoes have wings on them now, like Hermes/Mercury. I catch up to this rapidly escaping snake and stab a letter opener through its neck and keep flying by. It hisses and flails around, pinned to the ground, and I get the feeling that it isn’t going to die for some reason, from this should-be-fatal wound. I run through the door again and this time I’m outside, in scrubby grass along an empty rural highway. I’m flying right above the ground, all I see is this patch of grass, as if I’m in a speeding car and just looking out the window at the grass on the side of the road as it whizzes past. I don’t see any farms or buildings or sky or anything. And I see a huge rat running along in the grass. And I hear Peter Pan say, “He doesn’t even realize that he’s the rat now.” The rat is Skeletor, I say to myself. And I’m right along with it, moving at the same speed, flying above it, and I don’t know what to do. Should I swoop down and catch it in my hands? What do I do next? What will happen? And then I woke up.

Evidence That We Are Fucked

A newspaper article from September 29, 2004, that I, for some reason, copied into a Word file many years ago, and which seems to support my claims in the 'Vault' entry which follows this one:

Family Chicken Feud Turns to Gun Battle

BLUEWELL, West Virgina (AP) - A family meal erupted into a gun battle after a father and son clashed over how to cook chicken.

The two men argued Sunday over the best way to prepare skinless chicken for dinner.

"It started out as a physical confrontation, but it escalated until both of them were shooting at each other,'' Detective Sgt. A.D. Beasley of the Mercer County Sheriff's Department said Monday.

Beasley said each man fired a .22-caliber handgun at the other. Harley Shrader was struck by a bullet that went through the upper part of his right ear and lodged in the back of his head. He was treated at a hospital and released. The elder Shrader was not injured.

Jackie Lee Shrader, 49, was charged with malicious wounding and wanton endangerment. Harley Lee Shrader, 24, was charged with wanton endangerment.

...I wonder who they're gonna vote for in the upcoming primary. Is Larry the Cable Guy running? How about Jack Meehoff?

From the Vault-- Thoughts - 11/14/05

Not quite sure where to begin here, except to say that right now I feel I am holding on to my sanity like a hopeless bum clings to a fifth of bourbon, as he huddles next to a fiery trashcan in a filthy alley on a blustery Northern night, wrapped in a urine-soaked Army jacket. I know that’s all so poetic and exaggerated, as I sit in my comfortable, tastefully-decorated Los Angeles apartment, listening to good music, drinking bourbon and Coke, and typing on my thousand-dollar laptop. All the same, the sentiment rings true, the emotions are there, for however long they may persist, and there you have it. From the heart. Honest.

I have some work lined up for three days this week and plans to drive up to San Francisco to spend Thanksgiving among friends, so it’s not like I am going to lose my shirt and/or starve to death and die alone and be forgotten. But there’s just such a dreary, world-weary, give-up-the-fight, what’s-the-point-of-trying-to-make-it-in-this-shitty-world wave of emotion riding up through me that I can’t ignore it. I must explore it, I must put it to paper and see where my thoughts lead me.

To clear up a point, I am not suicidal. In fact, as I sat through “Good Night and Good Luck” this afternoon, as the report of one of the newsmen’s suicide came across, I thought to myself “what the fuck is the point of suicide? Why would anyone choose to give up on life? Why not live for your ideals, live for yourself, live for the possibility of something better to come along?” Move to Mexico, hide in the mountains, and live off the land.

I say this because I feel just as cynical about the world today, a world far worse than the world of McCarthy-era Red Scare politics and the fear of nuclear war, if you can believe that.

Because I live in a world--“we” live in a world--that has swallowed that whole now-hilarious episode and not learned from it one bit.

Because we live in a world that is, in actuality, MORE vulnerable to nuclear annihilation, or some other worse fate our beloved scientists might be dreaming up right this very moment--beneath a football stadium near you!

Because we live in a world where people believe what their corrupt politicians tell them, what their corporate-biased news anchors tell them, what greedy deranged televangelists tell them, and what their own debased morals and warped thought-processes lead them to believe all on their own.

Because we live in a democratic world where the majority rules and the sad reality is the majority of this country, and the world, aren’t intelligent and tolerant enough to prudently govern themselves. Not that I’m saying I know of any political system that would rule more effectively than our American pseudo-democracy--I’m not that arrogant or deluded--but rather that this world has arrived at a point where we are unable to effectively function at all, under any political system, with any ruling class, elected or otherwise.

I was reading “Point, Counter Point” earlier this afternoon, as I could say of almost any afternoon for the last two months because it has been taking me an inordinate amount of time to read through this particular Huxley novel, and not for the first time, a passage struck me as particularly astute, even today, many decades after it was written. The two most intelligent characters, of the dozens that play a part in the story, were having a discussion about the future of the world, the future of society, the future of man, and the causes of the problems man and society are facing. A very broad topic that essentially boiled down to the fact that, over the last several hundred years-- or more, but at the very least since the onset of the industrial revolution-- man has been systematically bringing about its own demise with great ignorant glee by subjugating itself to the machine and absurdly specialized labor, all in the name of progress.

One of the characters, Mark Rampion, suggested that if the world is to be salvaged for his children, then we must abandon the machine and the youth must be taught to exist as “natural beings.” In other words, as I understand it, as men and women who are able to survive in this world by themselves: hunter-gatherers, free-thinkers, versatile laborers, consummate social beings. They must learn to have emotion, tolerance, free-thinking critical intelligence; they must know how to love and respect and provide.

Decades later, things are much worse than probably even Huxley could have imagined. Men and women across the globe have master’s degrees in useless fields like “communication consulting” and “public relations” and “financial management.” Where would these people be, should the fabric of society be rent irrevocably and we were to subsist on our individual skillsets? If money couldn’t buy you respect and admiration and survival? They would starve to death, they would have no idea how to survive on their own, and, ironically for some, no idea of how to actually, effectively communicate with people who aren’t begging to be TOLD something, to be brainwashed.

“Communications” today is a one-way street. People study how to convincingly TELL people what they want and how they can give it to them for X dollars. The American people, and by extension all those in Europe and Asia and beyond who have become an extension of the great corporate-conquistador, America, no longer devote any time to actually thinking for themselves, doing research, DOUBTING what somebody in authority tells them, thinking critically about issues of political, social, or moral importance. They are too busy consuming, keeping up with the Joneses, escaping into one of the many products put forth by the $10 billion a year video game industry, or the inane world of homogenized television sitcoms or forensic dramas or tough-cop series or manipulated-“reality” shows. They are too busy racing cigarette boats across man-made reservoirs or sun-tanning on billion-dollar cruise ships or downloading crappy over-produced drivel from the corporate music industry or being scared of terrorists or trying to survive after a hurricane wiped clean their life’s slate. Or, as is the case for most, too busy working two or three minimum-wage jobs to afford baby formula, McDonald’s cheeseburgers, and a volatile tenement home.

We shake our heads with disbelief at a time when McCarthyism went unchallenged by the popular media (til Murrow), without stopping to realize (most of us) that we live in an even MORE restrictive media environment today. One that derides “leftist” protests against our President or our Congress or our nation’s foreign policy. Any attempt to question a matter of policy, or speak out against an alleged wrong, is met with dismissive ridicule. Rights are violated, speech is suppressed, events are fabricated. These “crazed leftists” (read: Communists! Terrorists!) threw stones at honest blue-collar policeman! They hate freedom! They wish Al-Queda lived in the White House! They all read these ridiculous things on the Internet, these lies, these fabricated stories that say your government is dishonest, manipulative, greedy, selfish, and hypocritical! Never mind the truth behind it; the truth will never get out. Nobody believes the educated and honest minority.

At least, until they become the majority. As soon as the opinion poll of 100 people at a North Carolina NASCAR event reveals that 51% of the “country” doubt their President’s integrity, wheels roll into motion. The “hard-working, truth-seeking” press that “works for you” suddenly starts to question the President and our government. But not before, because until that number breaks fifty those 49% are all communist quacks who hate freedom and don’t believe in God. Why? Because, as an obscure man named DJ Quik once said, “if it don’t make dollaz, it don’t make sense.”

Our media panders to the majority because that is where the money is. They are businesses. The media is not unbiased, can never be unbiased, as long as they exist to make money. They are, in fact, INHERENTLY biased. They depend on advertising revenue, which is based on viewer/readership. Why would they report unfavorable information, no matter how true? Do you think FoxNews would ever report that NewsCorp was found guilty of tax fraud? That would be absurd. Do you think Universal Pictures would ever release a movie that showed the world the environmental atrocities committed by its parent company, General Electric NBC Universal?

Media aside, however, the scariest thought I had today is that even if 100% of the country thought our President lied to us, and our government helped him lie to us, and the media and corporate world conspired to help them all accomplish this, what recourse is there? Are we to fire our entire government and start over? Are we honestly to believe that this new government wouldn’t eventually end up equally as arrogant, manipulative, and selfish? Who, when given the power men and women in government have, would not end up serving their own interests?

And what does it all matter anyway when the country is actually ruled by big businessmen who are not elected, people who never do the time for crimes even when they’re convicted? Occasionally, when offenses become too egregious, are too obvious, can actually be proven, accidentally get leaked to a rival media conglomerate that acts out of pure self-interest, corporations go down (Arthur Anderson, Enron, WorldCom, etc.). But do the orchestrators of these massive swindles ever truly “pay the price” for their arrogance and deceit? Nope. They get a slap on the wrist, pay a fine equal to perhaps 5% of what they stole, if we’re lucky, and then move on to head up some other company, the taxpayers foot the bill, if any, and we all collectively forget.

We forget because nobody in the media follows up or demands that anything be done. Because the entire system we have set up feeds into the corporation. Who funds political campaigns? Powerful corporations and the individuals who are rich as a result of working for or owning stock in those corporations. Who owns the media? Powerful corporations. Who pays for television shows, radio programming, newspapers, magazines, websites? Powerful corporations, through advertising dollars. Who can afford, in this competitive environment, to lose a sponsor? Who wants to shoot themselves in the foot?

How do we expect anyone to serve justice when everyone lives only to serve themselves? When everyone strives to make it rich at any cost? When job security preempts any moral judgment? How do we ever expect to change this? Socialism? Right. The mere word would cause 80% of this God-fearing, terrorist-fighting, “freedom”-loving nation to hurl rocks at each other until we all lie bloody and cold.

And yet, socialism is no worse and no better. It is just as flawed. Why? Because at the heart of it lies faith in your fellow man. We would have to have faith that everyone does their fair share, that those who work for the state have the interest of the people at heart, that nobody will become corrupt, that nobody will take advantage of anyone else. How on Earth would that ever happen? Man is too corrupt, too selfish, too lazy, too gluttonous by nature to ever allow any kind of fairness into the world, to ever allow harmony and ‘goodwill toward men’ to actually overpower the evil within us.

And so here we are...hopeless. Pessimistic, negative, demented...or is it? Has there ever been an organization of men that could prove wrong anything I have said? Has there ever been a period of man’s existence where there was no war, no fighting, no back-stabbing, no gluttony, no dishonesty, no selfishness? How could we ever think that by INCREASING the population, INCREASING the ethnic, religious, and political diversity, that we would have a BETTER chance at peace and harmony? Who would ever think that by downgrading every man, woman, and child to a cog in the wheel of industry, we would increase happiness, satisfaction, morality, and honesty? The only way we can combat the dreary conclusion to the human experiment which at this point is, more or less, unavoidable extinction by our own hands, a suicide of sorts, is to, as Mark Rampion, and by extension Aldous Huxley, suggests-- rewind to a simpler time. Forget the machine, forget specialization of labor, forget “progress.” Get back to nature. Invest in man, instead of the machine, instead of profit. Would it work? Doubtful, but it seems our only chance.

Do you think we’ll take it? Do you think 51% of the world would ever request that opportunity? Doubtful.

Why? Because there ain’t no money in it.