I've overdosed on myths, lies and disbeliefs. Must be sex, drugs, Rock 'n' Roll for the columnist. As rock stars use the crutches they skip to fame and back with, I glutton myself on information of the pure as well as the stank kind. This contributes to a lack of good memory. Not too unlike Rick James remarking "cocaine's a bitch", I often slink into the proverbial K-hole of cable television news, and then I get stuck there.
I try telling myself that I simply choose to remember some things more than others. Whatever. Convincingly, I tell myself I'm an asshole who just doesn’t pay enough attention while you’re talking. Besides, you could never get the sentence you’ve just told me to roll back at you without several glitches.
But there is one very personal detail about you I do remember. It's coming up to the front of my mind as if I'd just walked into a surprise party. It happened on 4/19. 4/19? 9:03am? Almost 20 small children killed shortly after their parents had left them at the Murrah building’s day care center? 168 people dead (an unidentified leg still remains, suggesting 169 actual deaths)? 800 people seriously injured? SURPRISE!
Wait. Weren’t you sitting next to me in Mr. Bonifer’s history class, in 1995, when he told us to watch what was happening? Don’t you remember him standing under the US flag, pissed off at “Towel Heads”, until the world discovered, an hour and a half later, that it was an average white veteran of the Gulf War who had planted the rental truck full of explosives felt from 30 miles away? Didn't you turn to me, after one of the actual crooks had been taken in, and say that you were "glad it wasn't a real terrorist?"
No, not you. Of course you didn't. You know not all terrorists are of Middle Eastern descent. Reminds me of another time and place concerning someone I knew personally, not you. A young gangly guy from Afghanistan who loved flirting with white women in Farci, and was really proud to be American. This was, afterall, the place where he could swindle the government out of a weekly unemployment check and sell dime sacks of weed all at once.
He was killed in New York City on 9/11. We’ve been programmed to never forget that date. Wonder if it has something to do with the faces of our enemies rather than their comparative damage and the deathtoll. On that day he chose to take pictures of the Twin Towers, because he’d only seen them from far away, and since he didn't have to punch a clock, he got up early just for the trip.
The debris of steel and bone came caving in on him. He was not the enemy, and neither are millions of other people at the other end of an imperialist ethnocide at the hands of the US. Of course, not all Arabs are terrorists. They’re victims. And yet, more than a decade ago, our initial mug shot of the perpetrators behind terrorism had nothing to do with Timothy McVeigh and everything to do with some deranged version of the Iron Sheik. Today, even though it was proven that Oklahoma City was wrecked by some redneck fiends, it’s no different.
The profile of a terrorist is popularly worn out by those who know better, yet refuse to accept the idea that there is a difference between a culture and a monster. That’s the sort if illogical infection that leads to a Brazilian immigrant getting shot in the back of the head by the British police. The suspicion tends to overwhelm our common sense.
The only benefit in this dumbing-down of our societal lexicon is that it counters the immediate post-9/11 fervor, and particularly the USA PATRIOT ACT (yes, a big-ass acronym). At that time, the same people responsible for allowing one of the world’s deadliest days ever were busy at defining who could be a terrorist and, therefore, subject to phone taps, non-warranted searches and seizures, torture, etc. The list not only included random olive-skinned dudes with bushy faces, but protest organizers, anarchists, alternative media publishers and producers – anything even remotely related to a subversive or seditious idea. Me.
Why should we stop there? Put in the all the organized mafias that get away with murder daily and the wack-ass street gangs that constantly manipulate high school students to do the dirtiest work of which they will never be rewarded for. Terrorism is everywhere! We need an increase of troops to handle some drunk heteros getting ready to pound a defenseless queer! That cracker who wants to abort black babies needs to get sizzled in Guatanamo tonight!
The Oklahoma City bombing was my first encounter with the word terrorism. I was a late bloomer. At that time, my government was still bombing places all over the world, and it was still chasing after Osama bin Laden. But when Bill Clinton addressed the nation, he didn’t do any overseas finger-pointing, and he didn’t declare any wars that day. Instead, he spoke about the careless media, which influences thought in the Heartland even more than the Bible. He made references to radio talk show hosts, like G. Gordon Liddy, who had encouraged people to shoot at federal officers. Clinton asked us to be wary of of powerful groups, such as the National Rifle Association. He suggested that they might have indirectly given the militia mentality, which swept America following the Branch-Davidian fury in Waco, Texas, it’s manifest identities and ammunition.
Mr. Bonifer asked us to discuss what the president had alluded to in his brief speech. Some of my classmates thought Clinton had done something wrong by mentioning the NRA, because they had nothing to do with the actual explosion on 4/19. Others thought Clinton was wrong for not saying more about the security mistakes that were made, and not being personally accountable for them. I, however, remember being the only person who thought Clinton was wrong for not allowing people to reflect and mourn on this occasion.
I had that same feeling a dozen years later, when George W. Bush reminded people how important it was to go back to work and not reveal our weaknesses to the terrorists. We were instructed to swallow our tears and move forward in anger. And so, on 9/12, I went back to work and I began to bury the psychologically terrifying images that kept me awake all night. Just like after the Oklahoma City bombing, my heart was heavy with grief and despair, but it must've been so much more important to go on about the very important business of . . . umm . . . I just can’t seem to remember.
The machismo it takes to tell people to get back to work after something truly horrific has occurred has nothing to do with fortitude and leadership, and everything to do with greed and politics. If everyone took just one day off after an act of terrorism had silenced our entire country, I don’t believe the stock market would take a subterranean plunge due to the inactivity of the masses. I also don’t feel like taking a little time out to think about harvesting more love in our communities will cripple the big-boned American stamina. Holding back the tears only allows them to boil and swell with the vengeful rage which draws us toward more catastrophic events.
It always happens, sooner than later, like reruns on the History Channel, we end up doing the same stupid shit over and over again until, SURPRISE! Another smoking crater at home, filled with the shadows of society.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
We don't need another hero . . .
Comic books use explosive chemicals. The symbolic and ironic events occurring between the bubbled dialogues capture our imaginations and don’t let go. A reader of any age may be glued to the illustrated novellas. They blow you back, submerge you in suspense or lift you up.
Imagine -- you’re a costumed guy with many superpowers. You’re faster than anyone else. You blow things up easily. You see and hear things that normal people can’t. However, you also have a dark streak. You’re the vigilante type that makes it hard for civil authorities and other guys with superpowers to work with. You only listen to others when they’re saying the things you want to hear.
Nearly four years ago, you saw an opportunity to finally kill your archenemy. Your co-workers, a legion of superheroes, asked you why. So you drafted up some evidence about the villain’s doomsday weapons. The other superheroes said that they’d prefer diplomacy, and they began investigating the villain’s several kingdoms to determine whether or not he was actually trying to use some sinister devices against you, in the event that you’d be caught by surprise (the way an infamous crime syndicate was able to catch you a couple years prior).
When the legion of superheroes told you they didn’t find any doomsday devices, you called them some bitches. Then you struck your enemy, and everything around him, without provocation. You planned on making the bad guy surrender quicker than that one time your father beat him up. But this time proved not to be so easy. Your archenemy enlisted the help of gangs, warlords, other super villains and people who just didn’t like you. The persistent ambush has crippled you, and the onslaught goes on.
Nevertheless, when your morale, resources, energy and support are at its lowest -- you, the wounded and confused, super-powered vigilante, decide you’re going to SEND 21,500 MORE TROOPS TO IRAQ!!!
Sorry, must’ve stepped off the framed action sequences of my comic there. In a world where life is constantly imitating the classic pulp and sensationalism of a graphic novel, we should be extremely worried with the United States president’s thought process right now. He's opting to administer the conflict cycle with an entire region that’s more hellbent on jihad now than ever before, and he’s doing so out of pride.
With the democrats in control of the congress, the republicans have been able to puff out their chests a little mockingly, because their opponents do not have a clear plan for what to do in Iraq either. So George W. Bush is going down in a blaze of glory. He wants us to believe that we weren’t really beating up the bad guys because of weapons of mass destruction, but because the liberation of their society was always the number one priority of America's capital, which cozily rests 6,200 miles away from Baghdad. We need more young American soldiers marching in like saints with machine guns in order to secure democracy and peace there.
Rather than allow our political representatives to waist more years and lives thinking up a plan, let’s come up with one right now, shall we? First and foremost, the people brokering any agreements with the Iraqi government must be passionate about affirming peace. The face of the US needs to bring a feeling of compassion and logical progression with it in order to build the meaningful alliances necessary for this situation. That means Condoleeza Rice should either get her Mother Teresa on, or get the hell out the way and restore faith to the peace process with someone who actually gives a damn about peace.
Then congress should come to terms with a truly different approach to the policies of this war that go way beyond firing Donald Rumsfeld. If we send more troops to Iraq, what will they do? I believe we need a shift in priorities that abandons the current defense identity altogether. The people who want to fight us most may find it harder to do so if we focus on rebuilding the things we destroyed, or concentrate on ways to commercially share the limited amounts of oil we’ve confiscated on their territory.
It’s idealistic, which is equivalent to foolish for most, but if the oil is what this is really all about, then it just isn’t worth it. The message we’ve sent to the people we’ve talked about liberating is that oil is more precious to us than they are. How many oil refineries and pipelines in that country are not secured by our military? Why are their hospitals and mosques and schools experiencing a ridiculous amount of bloodshed daily while oil companies, and the contractors they shake hands with, able to conduct business as usual?
Next thing we need is a timeline. I sure don't like working at my job without knowing for sure when I'm going to be able to leave. Bush set up a commission of his well-trusted cronies to take a look at the problem, they said it wasn’t working, now we need to focus on a finish line that has several checkpoints of accountability along the way. If we say we have one more year left of military intervention, it puts the pressure on the new Iraqi government to get itself stabilized by that point. When the year expires, our presence there should instantly go from occupation to embassy. Without a clear deadline for how much longer the US forces will remain, not only will the conflicts intensify, but the Iraqi officials will continue to pimp our soldiers into being the police of their nation, rather than using the troops to take qualitative measures for preparing their own.
We can’t expect to win a war against terrorism with terror. We can’t “shock and awe” and torture the Middle East into submission. We’ll never set that nation on an independent path toward positive growth, and we definitely won’t be able to “defend our freedoms” the way Bush repeatedly says he intends to do by engaging the extremists and militias of Iraq into further conflict.
But you know how the story goes. The sort of teenage foolishness our super-powered vigilante continues to display toward the entire world signals the beginning of his end. Whenever there's a problem, he throws a tantrum instead of finding a way to heal and deal with a global community that he’ll undoubtedly have to rely on for help once his debt and dirt get the best of him.
The last impressive protest against this war was the first: February 15, 2003. Coordinated between cities all over the world, it was the biggest of its kind, ever. When the smoke had cleared, however, Bush arrogantly referred to the millions of international dissenters as a “focus group”.
Now we have to believe that public demonstrations do make a change and we have to keep on beating the streets until those changes occur. We can’t be complacent with having our pictures on the front page for a day. We can’t wait in protest pins and allow the police to control our every move. The world can’t afford to go through more wars and 9/11s, just because the bubble above our main characters’ heads say, "they started it". We must confront the beast behind our government, its strengths and weaknesses, before the pages stop turning.
Imagine -- you’re a costumed guy with many superpowers. You’re faster than anyone else. You blow things up easily. You see and hear things that normal people can’t. However, you also have a dark streak. You’re the vigilante type that makes it hard for civil authorities and other guys with superpowers to work with. You only listen to others when they’re saying the things you want to hear.
Nearly four years ago, you saw an opportunity to finally kill your archenemy. Your co-workers, a legion of superheroes, asked you why. So you drafted up some evidence about the villain’s doomsday weapons. The other superheroes said that they’d prefer diplomacy, and they began investigating the villain’s several kingdoms to determine whether or not he was actually trying to use some sinister devices against you, in the event that you’d be caught by surprise (the way an infamous crime syndicate was able to catch you a couple years prior).
When the legion of superheroes told you they didn’t find any doomsday devices, you called them some bitches. Then you struck your enemy, and everything around him, without provocation. You planned on making the bad guy surrender quicker than that one time your father beat him up. But this time proved not to be so easy. Your archenemy enlisted the help of gangs, warlords, other super villains and people who just didn’t like you. The persistent ambush has crippled you, and the onslaught goes on.
Nevertheless, when your morale, resources, energy and support are at its lowest -- you, the wounded and confused, super-powered vigilante, decide you’re going to SEND 21,500 MORE TROOPS TO IRAQ!!!
Sorry, must’ve stepped off the framed action sequences of my comic there. In a world where life is constantly imitating the classic pulp and sensationalism of a graphic novel, we should be extremely worried with the United States president’s thought process right now. He's opting to administer the conflict cycle with an entire region that’s more hellbent on jihad now than ever before, and he’s doing so out of pride.
With the democrats in control of the congress, the republicans have been able to puff out their chests a little mockingly, because their opponents do not have a clear plan for what to do in Iraq either. So George W. Bush is going down in a blaze of glory. He wants us to believe that we weren’t really beating up the bad guys because of weapons of mass destruction, but because the liberation of their society was always the number one priority of America's capital, which cozily rests 6,200 miles away from Baghdad. We need more young American soldiers marching in like saints with machine guns in order to secure democracy and peace there.
Rather than allow our political representatives to waist more years and lives thinking up a plan, let’s come up with one right now, shall we? First and foremost, the people brokering any agreements with the Iraqi government must be passionate about affirming peace. The face of the US needs to bring a feeling of compassion and logical progression with it in order to build the meaningful alliances necessary for this situation. That means Condoleeza Rice should either get her Mother Teresa on, or get the hell out the way and restore faith to the peace process with someone who actually gives a damn about peace.
Then congress should come to terms with a truly different approach to the policies of this war that go way beyond firing Donald Rumsfeld. If we send more troops to Iraq, what will they do? I believe we need a shift in priorities that abandons the current defense identity altogether. The people who want to fight us most may find it harder to do so if we focus on rebuilding the things we destroyed, or concentrate on ways to commercially share the limited amounts of oil we’ve confiscated on their territory.
It’s idealistic, which is equivalent to foolish for most, but if the oil is what this is really all about, then it just isn’t worth it. The message we’ve sent to the people we’ve talked about liberating is that oil is more precious to us than they are. How many oil refineries and pipelines in that country are not secured by our military? Why are their hospitals and mosques and schools experiencing a ridiculous amount of bloodshed daily while oil companies, and the contractors they shake hands with, able to conduct business as usual?
Next thing we need is a timeline. I sure don't like working at my job without knowing for sure when I'm going to be able to leave. Bush set up a commission of his well-trusted cronies to take a look at the problem, they said it wasn’t working, now we need to focus on a finish line that has several checkpoints of accountability along the way. If we say we have one more year left of military intervention, it puts the pressure on the new Iraqi government to get itself stabilized by that point. When the year expires, our presence there should instantly go from occupation to embassy. Without a clear deadline for how much longer the US forces will remain, not only will the conflicts intensify, but the Iraqi officials will continue to pimp our soldiers into being the police of their nation, rather than using the troops to take qualitative measures for preparing their own.
We can’t expect to win a war against terrorism with terror. We can’t “shock and awe” and torture the Middle East into submission. We’ll never set that nation on an independent path toward positive growth, and we definitely won’t be able to “defend our freedoms” the way Bush repeatedly says he intends to do by engaging the extremists and militias of Iraq into further conflict.
But you know how the story goes. The sort of teenage foolishness our super-powered vigilante continues to display toward the entire world signals the beginning of his end. Whenever there's a problem, he throws a tantrum instead of finding a way to heal and deal with a global community that he’ll undoubtedly have to rely on for help once his debt and dirt get the best of him.
The last impressive protest against this war was the first: February 15, 2003. Coordinated between cities all over the world, it was the biggest of its kind, ever. When the smoke had cleared, however, Bush arrogantly referred to the millions of international dissenters as a “focus group”.
Now we have to believe that public demonstrations do make a change and we have to keep on beating the streets until those changes occur. We can’t be complacent with having our pictures on the front page for a day. We can’t wait in protest pins and allow the police to control our every move. The world can’t afford to go through more wars and 9/11s, just because the bubble above our main characters’ heads say, "they started it". We must confront the beast behind our government, its strengths and weaknesses, before the pages stop turning.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Yo' Mama
8am.
8:03. 8:06, mild. 8:08. 8:11. 8:14. 8:16, mild. 8:20. 8:23, and so on. The rhythm of Florencia’s contractions, much like the events taking shape around the world, are leading toward an event which juxtaposes chaos and tranquility, despair and divinity, cries of unknown horror with the tears of joy which follow.
Mother Nature was always some bullshit I heard about on Earth Day, and I never really cared much for getting to know her beyond the type of cliché she represented. Suddenly, the epiphany came, realizing that the ebb and flow of the pure bone-crunching agony the planet is experiencing must resemble the scene of our natural home birth. Like baby’s mama, pelvis popping and locking into positions the muscles around them maneuver with, the earth dramatically shifts, breaks and melts with the climate changes that have marked this era as the most exciting, yet desperate, in Mother Earth’s history. I feel compelled to educate my readers on this topic with historical context, and some kick-in-the-ass advocacy to boot.
Millions of years before cavemen and brontosaurus burgers, our two continents most molested for their resources, Africa and South America, were pressed together to form a single continent known as Gondwana. The unexplainable continental divide was like a big bang on earth, taking whatever biodiversity existed on the planet and mixing it with the terrestrial and atmospheric calamities Mother Nature’s personality soon adopted. The birth of natural disasters.
Seventy years ago, synthetic chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were invented, mainly for refrigerators and air conditioners, but it wasn’t until 30 years ago scientists noticed that CFCs were greatly responsible for burning a hole in the ozone layer as well. The most dangerous effect of ozone depletion isn’t just a little sunburn in autumn, but the possible suppression of immune systems. Imagine the Bubonic Plague cloaking a city already crawling with sticky people, like New York . . . that’s not cute.
What combines the unpredictable power of natural disasters with the deadly impact the sun’s rays can have once they directly hit the earth lies at the heart of climate change: the acceleration of the greenhouse effect. Now that a pattern for releasing carbon dioxide and methane emissions in the present day is predicted to be double what it was a century ago, there is a chance Mother Earth’s temperature may increase by way more than she can actually handle.
Allow me to simplify that even more, for those of you too smug to give a damn about the future of the planet, or so clueless, you’re looking forward to wearing a bikini during a Kalamazoo winter -- by the time they should be partying like it’s 2099, there will be too much apocalyptic climate shock to deal with.
Not only will the hurricanes be more violent, but they’ll eventually bring along migrating tropical diseases with them, because the places where guys like Malaria used to persist will go down like Atlantis. Of course, the flooding and nastiness will wipe out most plant and animal life, but how many of us have stopped to think about the tumbling dominoes the world’s climatic zones also influence? Communications capacities, the quality of our clothing fabrics, the construction and stability of buildings we live and work in; nothing would be the same.
Jean-Marc Jancovici, a French expert on climate change, believes that since the emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for the mutation of global warming are coming from all over the world, the entire global community must act to halt the process. One suggestion he has for doing so is to create “emission rights” for each individual throughout the globe that would be equal. That way, someone from Los Angeles would not have the casual ability to damage the earth more than a villager in Namibia. Calculating the output on a global index, this means the United States, producer of the most dangerous amounts of atmospheric badness, would have to be accountable for making sure its citizens reduce their consumption of oil, gas, coal, etc. by a factor of twelve.
Cue the ominously suspenseful music you’d hear in a horror movie here . . . can Americans use one-twelfth of the bad energy they currently do, and still find a way to survive? I didn’t mean any harm in taking several flights a year, or chilling under my air conditioner on a hot day, or ordering car delivery from the infinite number of restaurants with agro-toxic vegetables and farm-machined meats and dairy on their menus.
No one is perfect, but don’t let that stop you from at least being a little more aware of what your simplest actions are doing to the world. If you’re slightly more conscious about the situation facing the planet’s future, your conscience will seize you, spiritually.
After the contractions, the vomiting and the blood, I touched the beauty. Kayen was born Saturday, January 6th, 3:12 in the morning. A quiet night in a big city. She came from a passionate and loving mother. What fate shall spring forth from Mother Earth? Even though we are standing on shaky ground, there is still enough time for an awakening in each of our hearts, before the dark reckoning our future may be forced to face.
8:03. 8:06, mild. 8:08. 8:11. 8:14. 8:16, mild. 8:20. 8:23, and so on. The rhythm of Florencia’s contractions, much like the events taking shape around the world, are leading toward an event which juxtaposes chaos and tranquility, despair and divinity, cries of unknown horror with the tears of joy which follow.
Mother Nature was always some bullshit I heard about on Earth Day, and I never really cared much for getting to know her beyond the type of cliché she represented. Suddenly, the epiphany came, realizing that the ebb and flow of the pure bone-crunching agony the planet is experiencing must resemble the scene of our natural home birth. Like baby’s mama, pelvis popping and locking into positions the muscles around them maneuver with, the earth dramatically shifts, breaks and melts with the climate changes that have marked this era as the most exciting, yet desperate, in Mother Earth’s history. I feel compelled to educate my readers on this topic with historical context, and some kick-in-the-ass advocacy to boot.
Millions of years before cavemen and brontosaurus burgers, our two continents most molested for their resources, Africa and South America, were pressed together to form a single continent known as Gondwana. The unexplainable continental divide was like a big bang on earth, taking whatever biodiversity existed on the planet and mixing it with the terrestrial and atmospheric calamities Mother Nature’s personality soon adopted. The birth of natural disasters.
Seventy years ago, synthetic chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were invented, mainly for refrigerators and air conditioners, but it wasn’t until 30 years ago scientists noticed that CFCs were greatly responsible for burning a hole in the ozone layer as well. The most dangerous effect of ozone depletion isn’t just a little sunburn in autumn, but the possible suppression of immune systems. Imagine the Bubonic Plague cloaking a city already crawling with sticky people, like New York . . . that’s not cute.
What combines the unpredictable power of natural disasters with the deadly impact the sun’s rays can have once they directly hit the earth lies at the heart of climate change: the acceleration of the greenhouse effect. Now that a pattern for releasing carbon dioxide and methane emissions in the present day is predicted to be double what it was a century ago, there is a chance Mother Earth’s temperature may increase by way more than she can actually handle.
Allow me to simplify that even more, for those of you too smug to give a damn about the future of the planet, or so clueless, you’re looking forward to wearing a bikini during a Kalamazoo winter -- by the time they should be partying like it’s 2099, there will be too much apocalyptic climate shock to deal with.
Not only will the hurricanes be more violent, but they’ll eventually bring along migrating tropical diseases with them, because the places where guys like Malaria used to persist will go down like Atlantis. Of course, the flooding and nastiness will wipe out most plant and animal life, but how many of us have stopped to think about the tumbling dominoes the world’s climatic zones also influence? Communications capacities, the quality of our clothing fabrics, the construction and stability of buildings we live and work in; nothing would be the same.
Jean-Marc Jancovici, a French expert on climate change, believes that since the emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for the mutation of global warming are coming from all over the world, the entire global community must act to halt the process. One suggestion he has for doing so is to create “emission rights” for each individual throughout the globe that would be equal. That way, someone from Los Angeles would not have the casual ability to damage the earth more than a villager in Namibia. Calculating the output on a global index, this means the United States, producer of the most dangerous amounts of atmospheric badness, would have to be accountable for making sure its citizens reduce their consumption of oil, gas, coal, etc. by a factor of twelve.
Cue the ominously suspenseful music you’d hear in a horror movie here . . . can Americans use one-twelfth of the bad energy they currently do, and still find a way to survive? I didn’t mean any harm in taking several flights a year, or chilling under my air conditioner on a hot day, or ordering car delivery from the infinite number of restaurants with agro-toxic vegetables and farm-machined meats and dairy on their menus.
No one is perfect, but don’t let that stop you from at least being a little more aware of what your simplest actions are doing to the world. If you’re slightly more conscious about the situation facing the planet’s future, your conscience will seize you, spiritually.
After the contractions, the vomiting and the blood, I touched the beauty. Kayen was born Saturday, January 6th, 3:12 in the morning. A quiet night in a big city. She came from a passionate and loving mother. What fate shall spring forth from Mother Earth? Even though we are standing on shaky ground, there is still enough time for an awakening in each of our hearts, before the dark reckoning our future may be forced to face.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Pop goes the Jesus
In Buenos Aires, the holidays are full of pop. Champagne corks, fireworks, sausages on a grill, and pregnant bellies are ringing in the new year all around me. This is a time to get down off the soapbox and shake some bootie (your own, or a pair of glutes in close proximity). Therefore, I give you these three wise poems, crafted in just one week, for all the freaky and fantastic people who have been getting into this young blog. Don't worry, I haven't quit the column-writing world of talking shit about people for a good cause yet. I just wanted to step into '07 without having to worry about the best and worst of '06, and the therapeutic art of poetry is an ever-evolving and fresh way to move ahead. I'll see y'all next year . . .
Godfather of HEY!
So fly,
you waited until Jesus was born
to die. I don’t believe
a coke-snorting wife beater
attains sainthood modestly.
The legacy goes down, sweaty
& too weak to finish.
The cape laid on your hump
-- suddenly -- the funk pops back! HEY!
You fire Sex Machine, bragadocious,
you need those hits
you need those hits . . .
when they hit you, the cap on your cock
announces bad-ass is up in here
& then it peeks out,
like the fists of Black Power
afro-picks. The white man
still can’t handle it, but you saved Boston,
so they humor monkey business
-- suddenly -- his kid hears Payback
in a car commercial
& decides to be a pimp for Halloween.
Chest hair too nappy
to do the amber waves of grain,
or blonde bodies rising with their best
gospel palms up in consecutive sections
around the baseball park.
Nonetheless, All-American,
You charge for free. I got to see
the hair, the tight pink leather,
the splits, the voice calling me
through the other side of a box fan,
the JBs ain’t taking no mess
& everyone behaves splendidly
for an encore.
30 pieces of silver, Judas
got a good news bible
got an amen
got Eucharist/thanksgivings,
penning the book of lies
on consignment
unabridged, horny
take it all off
tell-all
star child made me do it
Matthew,
Mark, Luke
& John, ordinary white children
today -- not at all related
to the New Testament
martyrs prancing
into an afterlife
the empire can’t persecute
fast enough
martyrs never renounced
the Christ
the Sith of the Jews
the envy of Constantine:
bipartisan (not a sell-out)
for Christ’s sake on his shields
for the Sun God
his money
treason until Revelations,
for 30 pieces of silver,
Judas snuck a shaggy-bearded
God’s copyright law
to his crucifixion --
now wash astringent blood
between your teeth,
break the boy’s body
& allow some disintegration
under your tongue
for big men
Christmas came, but not you --
love making mistakes
gone, going ahh-uhh-ohh
to the softcore beat
every time one of these
skinny actresses raise themselves
on top of the dick
you’re not allowed to look at
& not allowed to want to look at
the dick that makes it look easy
from that angle, making it look
like an accident
gone wonderful, going in
& out of her butt.
the restlessness drizzles
the tin roof, time
to slink the roads of town
Quilmes: nationalism’s kind of beer
a liter of cerveza brewed to crystal
for the river to run right out of you
& satisfaction's chepest in liters --
one gets gulped
in synchronized flushes --
beside this cantina a TV belches
for attention until highlights
balls make goalies look stupid or
someone opts for pounce beat
on the radio instead.
Quilmes, and the pueblo
owning that same name
underwater, on a motorcycle
without your helmet
with your next bottle, forgot
the storm would pick up
& the wife is dead tired pregnant --
by the time you get home
it’s broken, the shanty villa
flooded; mold already,
somebody else’s mama’s boy
scared of the rising ditch --
there’s no one to monitor grief
& Papa Noel just missed you
so there’s no one
in Quilmes owning a single
dry thing to write on.
Godfather of HEY!
So fly,
you waited until Jesus was born
to die. I don’t believe
a coke-snorting wife beater
attains sainthood modestly.
The legacy goes down, sweaty
& too weak to finish.
The cape laid on your hump
-- suddenly -- the funk pops back! HEY!
You fire Sex Machine, bragadocious,
you need those hits
you need those hits . . .
when they hit you, the cap on your cock
announces bad-ass is up in here
& then it peeks out,
like the fists of Black Power
afro-picks. The white man
still can’t handle it, but you saved Boston,
so they humor monkey business
-- suddenly -- his kid hears Payback
in a car commercial
& decides to be a pimp for Halloween.
Chest hair too nappy
to do the amber waves of grain,
or blonde bodies rising with their best
gospel palms up in consecutive sections
around the baseball park.
Nonetheless, All-American,
You charge for free. I got to see
the hair, the tight pink leather,
the splits, the voice calling me
through the other side of a box fan,
the JBs ain’t taking no mess
& everyone behaves splendidly
for an encore.
30 pieces of silver, Judas
got a good news bible
got an amen
got Eucharist/thanksgivings,
penning the book of lies
on consignment
unabridged, horny
take it all off
tell-all
star child made me do it
Matthew,
Mark, Luke
& John, ordinary white children
today -- not at all related
to the New Testament
martyrs prancing
into an afterlife
the empire can’t persecute
fast enough
martyrs never renounced
the Christ
the Sith of the Jews
the envy of Constantine:
bipartisan (not a sell-out)
for Christ’s sake on his shields
for the Sun God
his money
treason until Revelations,
for 30 pieces of silver,
Judas snuck a shaggy-bearded
God’s copyright law
to his crucifixion --
now wash astringent blood
between your teeth,
break the boy’s body
& allow some disintegration
under your tongue
for big men
Christmas came, but not you --
love making mistakes
gone, going ahh-uhh-ohh
to the softcore beat
every time one of these
skinny actresses raise themselves
on top of the dick
you’re not allowed to look at
& not allowed to want to look at
the dick that makes it look easy
from that angle, making it look
like an accident
gone wonderful, going in
& out of her butt.
the restlessness drizzles
the tin roof, time
to slink the roads of town
Quilmes: nationalism’s kind of beer
a liter of cerveza brewed to crystal
for the river to run right out of you
& satisfaction's chepest in liters --
one gets gulped
in synchronized flushes --
beside this cantina a TV belches
for attention until highlights
balls make goalies look stupid or
someone opts for pounce beat
on the radio instead.
Quilmes, and the pueblo
owning that same name
underwater, on a motorcycle
without your helmet
with your next bottle, forgot
the storm would pick up
& the wife is dead tired pregnant --
by the time you get home
it’s broken, the shanty villa
flooded; mold already,
somebody else’s mama’s boy
scared of the rising ditch --
there’s no one to monitor grief
& Papa Noel just missed you
so there’s no one
in Quilmes owning a single
dry thing to write on.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Doo Doo Pudding
Merry Christmas. Now let’s talk about Muslims . . .
I recently received an email that had been forwarded around the world and back again. The type of thing I usually wouldn’t open, assuming that downloading a picture of some stupid shit, like a kitten in a hamburger bun, would be a waste of precious patience. But the subject line, “AMERICANS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THESE THREATS!” was all the peep show I needed to read on.
“The attachments are photos from a so-called ‘peaceful’ Muslim demonstration in London. These are pictures not shown on American TV (as they might actually help Bush's War on Terror), but were forwarded to me by a Canadian Friend who thought Americans ought to know!”
When I opened the attachments, I saw scenes of a very emotional protest. There was lots of ferocity in the eyes of these men and women, and among the most vicious signs were BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM and EUROPE, YOU WILL PAY, YOUR 9/11 IS ON THE WAY and BE PREPARED FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST.
A message accompanied the photos, imploring, “Please look at these pictures and pass this on to as many people as you possibly can. Americans need to understand why we are involved in a war against terror.”
For real? Is an entire heritage and culture hellbent on killing me just because of the place I was born? Is that the reason our government uses bombs and bullets to force the Middle East into democratic bliss? Are terrorists, like those responsible for the 7/7 murders in London, really powerful enough to stage such rowdy protests without breaking any laws?
Being led to believe these ideas are truly what sustains war. Nationalism isn’t enough to carry a country through any crisis. Every empire has manipulated the power of informing its masses in order to proceed with the business of killing and conquering in the name of whatever they deem righteous.
For example, when the Romans were in the thick of war with the tribes of Gaul on the West Bank of the Rhine, the republic was told that their enemy employed dirty war tactics, such as using women and children as frontline fodder and claiming kidnappings of Roman officers who were already dead in exchange for their own members. It was never the truth. The Pharaohs of Egypt were also cunning enough to utilize a few fibs in their favor. Any time an ecumenical council raised moral questions about slavery, the ruler and his family would stage public conversations with the gods. After a couple minutes of speaking in tongues, the celestial approval was all the proof they needed to put the Jews back to work.
Simple investigative research (a Google search, for Christ’s sake) was all it took to realize that the pictures in this desperate email about buckwild Muslims were actually taken almost a year ago, during a protest over the Scandinavian journals that published cartoons of Muhammad. Not just any cartoons of the prophet’s sacred image, but a depiction of him with a bomb resting on his head, and another letting suicide bombers know he has run out of virgins for them to bone in the afterlife.
Aren’t we beyond the information age at this point? Shouldn’t we be empowered enough to inform ourselves about what is happening in the world around us? After downloading photos and forming an opinion about their images, it seems as if we’ve advanced just enough to forward them to someone else. Coming from someone who still needs help using a microwave, that’s a shame. Not only are the hundreds of people who have been passing around these outdated photos convinced that all this stuff happened yesterday, but they’ve also digested a serving of paranoia in the form of Muslims dominating the world.
Tongue-in-cheek, the caravan of forwarders comment, “Why would anyone think we should be at war with such nice, peaceful Muslims?” These photos are real, and their placards are inciting terror, but I guess I’m a little too numb toward all that. I know first-hand that the Ku Klux Klan's been saying the same stuff for 150 years, and nobody ever dropped a bomb on a civilian territory in Alabama, established Abu Ghraib-esque prisons for mobs of skinheads in Arizona or, Heaven forbid, desecrated their sacred swastikas and confederate flags. Am I supposed to start shaking in my britches now?
I don't defend hate speech when it’s coming from brown folk either, but I honestly don't feel like the people in these photos deserve my attention nearly as much as the people who exploit my taxes for a war I don't support, tap my phone conversations, and put 50 bullets in my ass for no reason at all.
For the last 60 years, the USA has assumed an empire’s roles and responsibilities. The government has made it top priority to talk its citizens into accepting its global and domestic actions ever since it decided to nuke Japan. Today, however, we are fortunate enough to have other sources of information for a deeper understanding of what’s going on. Alternative, independent and socially conscious media aside, everybody has a damn cell phone with a camera and a walkie-talkie on it, so it isn’t much of a stretch to say that anybody could be a reporter.
Maybe we’re just too overworked and underpaid to care about the world around us, so rather than act on our journalistic impulses, we leave that part up to the corporate media entities that eagerly quench our thirst for knowledge with quick and easy news snacks.
If we want to hear something about the war in Iraq, they’ll show us a picture of something on fire and they’ll interview a politician, but who will give you the historical context necessary to follow such a complex situation? Who will remind you about the reasons Iraq was invaded in the first place?
If we want to get some expert opinions on the subject, not trusting ourselves with good conscience, then the broadcasts will fluff up their pundits and the periodicals will squeeze a column around their advertisements, but who will infer the meaningful ideas that relate to you personally? Who will wonder that if the 9/11 attacks had never happened, maybe we never would've attacked Iraq, or, if we never attacked Iraq, maybe London would never have been bombed?
There isn’t an effective formula for informing the masses any more. A dash of war with a scoop of celebrity shenanigans are intentionally mixed together to keep us misinformed, disenfranchised and uninspired. People, please, don’t let Fox be the last source of news you digest before going to bed, just because they broadcast at 10 and you have to wake up early. Please don’t go a whole day with nothing to balance out the headlines from the New York Post, just because there was a copy sitting next to you on the subway. Please, make an extra effort to find the same stories told in a more elaborate, or different way.
Doo Doo Pudding. My grandfather used that expression once. I’m sure that the noble person who first forwarded these photos from their “Canadian friend”, was really trying to enlighten us on a very difficult topic, but we can all learn a lesson from their foolishness. Search for the truth beyond the sensationalism, because when you leave it up to everybody else to serve you up a dish, it might look good, but if you don’t know all the details involved in its composition . . . let’s just say it could be a little hard to swallow.
I recently received an email that had been forwarded around the world and back again. The type of thing I usually wouldn’t open, assuming that downloading a picture of some stupid shit, like a kitten in a hamburger bun, would be a waste of precious patience. But the subject line, “AMERICANS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THESE THREATS!” was all the peep show I needed to read on.
“The attachments are photos from a so-called ‘peaceful’ Muslim demonstration in London. These are pictures not shown on American TV (as they might actually help Bush's War on Terror), but were forwarded to me by a Canadian Friend who thought Americans ought to know!”
When I opened the attachments, I saw scenes of a very emotional protest. There was lots of ferocity in the eyes of these men and women, and among the most vicious signs were BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM and EUROPE, YOU WILL PAY, YOUR 9/11 IS ON THE WAY and BE PREPARED FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST.
A message accompanied the photos, imploring, “Please look at these pictures and pass this on to as many people as you possibly can. Americans need to understand why we are involved in a war against terror.”
For real? Is an entire heritage and culture hellbent on killing me just because of the place I was born? Is that the reason our government uses bombs and bullets to force the Middle East into democratic bliss? Are terrorists, like those responsible for the 7/7 murders in London, really powerful enough to stage such rowdy protests without breaking any laws?
Being led to believe these ideas are truly what sustains war. Nationalism isn’t enough to carry a country through any crisis. Every empire has manipulated the power of informing its masses in order to proceed with the business of killing and conquering in the name of whatever they deem righteous.
For example, when the Romans were in the thick of war with the tribes of Gaul on the West Bank of the Rhine, the republic was told that their enemy employed dirty war tactics, such as using women and children as frontline fodder and claiming kidnappings of Roman officers who were already dead in exchange for their own members. It was never the truth. The Pharaohs of Egypt were also cunning enough to utilize a few fibs in their favor. Any time an ecumenical council raised moral questions about slavery, the ruler and his family would stage public conversations with the gods. After a couple minutes of speaking in tongues, the celestial approval was all the proof they needed to put the Jews back to work.
Simple investigative research (a Google search, for Christ’s sake) was all it took to realize that the pictures in this desperate email about buckwild Muslims were actually taken almost a year ago, during a protest over the Scandinavian journals that published cartoons of Muhammad. Not just any cartoons of the prophet’s sacred image, but a depiction of him with a bomb resting on his head, and another letting suicide bombers know he has run out of virgins for them to bone in the afterlife.
Aren’t we beyond the information age at this point? Shouldn’t we be empowered enough to inform ourselves about what is happening in the world around us? After downloading photos and forming an opinion about their images, it seems as if we’ve advanced just enough to forward them to someone else. Coming from someone who still needs help using a microwave, that’s a shame. Not only are the hundreds of people who have been passing around these outdated photos convinced that all this stuff happened yesterday, but they’ve also digested a serving of paranoia in the form of Muslims dominating the world.
Tongue-in-cheek, the caravan of forwarders comment, “Why would anyone think we should be at war with such nice, peaceful Muslims?” These photos are real, and their placards are inciting terror, but I guess I’m a little too numb toward all that. I know first-hand that the Ku Klux Klan's been saying the same stuff for 150 years, and nobody ever dropped a bomb on a civilian territory in Alabama, established Abu Ghraib-esque prisons for mobs of skinheads in Arizona or, Heaven forbid, desecrated their sacred swastikas and confederate flags. Am I supposed to start shaking in my britches now?
I don't defend hate speech when it’s coming from brown folk either, but I honestly don't feel like the people in these photos deserve my attention nearly as much as the people who exploit my taxes for a war I don't support, tap my phone conversations, and put 50 bullets in my ass for no reason at all.
For the last 60 years, the USA has assumed an empire’s roles and responsibilities. The government has made it top priority to talk its citizens into accepting its global and domestic actions ever since it decided to nuke Japan. Today, however, we are fortunate enough to have other sources of information for a deeper understanding of what’s going on. Alternative, independent and socially conscious media aside, everybody has a damn cell phone with a camera and a walkie-talkie on it, so it isn’t much of a stretch to say that anybody could be a reporter.
Maybe we’re just too overworked and underpaid to care about the world around us, so rather than act on our journalistic impulses, we leave that part up to the corporate media entities that eagerly quench our thirst for knowledge with quick and easy news snacks.
If we want to hear something about the war in Iraq, they’ll show us a picture of something on fire and they’ll interview a politician, but who will give you the historical context necessary to follow such a complex situation? Who will remind you about the reasons Iraq was invaded in the first place?
If we want to get some expert opinions on the subject, not trusting ourselves with good conscience, then the broadcasts will fluff up their pundits and the periodicals will squeeze a column around their advertisements, but who will infer the meaningful ideas that relate to you personally? Who will wonder that if the 9/11 attacks had never happened, maybe we never would've attacked Iraq, or, if we never attacked Iraq, maybe London would never have been bombed?
There isn’t an effective formula for informing the masses any more. A dash of war with a scoop of celebrity shenanigans are intentionally mixed together to keep us misinformed, disenfranchised and uninspired. People, please, don’t let Fox be the last source of news you digest before going to bed, just because they broadcast at 10 and you have to wake up early. Please don’t go a whole day with nothing to balance out the headlines from the New York Post, just because there was a copy sitting next to you on the subway. Please, make an extra effort to find the same stories told in a more elaborate, or different way.
Doo Doo Pudding. My grandfather used that expression once. I’m sure that the noble person who first forwarded these photos from their “Canadian friend”, was really trying to enlighten us on a very difficult topic, but we can all learn a lesson from their foolishness. Search for the truth beyond the sensationalism, because when you leave it up to everybody else to serve you up a dish, it might look good, but if you don’t know all the details involved in its composition . . . let’s just say it could be a little hard to swallow.
Friday, December 15, 2006
The Wildlife Society
The elephant’s trunk blows, and that trumpet rolls waves over its lush savannah. Every blade of grass timbers as the megaphone pounces from nature’s amplifier to the belly of brilliant cities. A subway rattling away from its transfer leaves the same ticklish hum on the earth as a thunderous running of horses without fences. How groovy is that?
I can think of only one fundamental disconnect between these two places. The wildlife world shall involuntarily ebb and flow in favor of the scavengers, while the one I’m typing you from will hunt and kill you for pleasure, or to uphold laws commanded down to the public from some boss, or simply because somebody got pissed off . . .
Who the hell we callin’ wildlife?
Our society has evolved quite unfortunate characteristics from our uncivilized beginnings. We’re afraid of the savages. We hate the symbolic, as well as the flesh and blood things which ancestrally link us with nature. The premise for growth and development we associate with culture has nothing to do with progressive improvements and everything to do with figuring out who’s deserving, and who isn’t.
Obviously, when the conquistadores started erasing indigenous tribes across the Americas, they could tell themselves that the savages didn’t deserve all this. Obviously, the fetish for slavery in the United States never distracted considerations of the men who wanted to be freed from the fist of their own colonial bully because slaves just didn’t deserve all that. Obviously, when Augusto Pinochet filled up a football stadium with people he planned on executing, he knew deep down that his political rivals didn’t deserve to be seen or heard.
Why retreat toward these ugly old bookmarks on historical injustice? Surely, our contemporary examples will illuminate it all the more clearly if you don’t know what I’m getting at yet, or if you don’t want to know.
Obviously, the desire for rent control and in a city like New York isn’t nearly as loud as the construction of the high-rise condos next door, because poor people don’t deserve to live in the capital of the world anymore. Obviously, Jamaican thugs have no problem killing an infant, pulling out its entrails, and stuffing it with drugs to be smuggled to the US, because their business is much more deserving of a chance to grow and be prosperous than a baby. Obviously, when Hurricane Katrina had cleared from the skies, but not the streets of New Orleans, George W. Bush rehearsed the monologue of the deserving as he purposely allowed the situation to spiral out of control.
That’s right. I said it. Katrina didn’t fuck up New Orleans, my government fucked up New Orleans! And these are, mind you, only surface level examples of the point I am trying to get across here. Natural resources belong in whose hands and for what end? Whose diseases will get enough fiscal support for us to keep on fighting and which ones will go unnoticed? Show me who truly deserves to sit under an air conditioner all day, freezing in the middle of the summer, doodling with a videogame on a big-ass TV with the million-watt stereo on full blast; while the power escapes a whole block of housing units proven to harbor twice as much mental illness and social inequities as a suburban area, “the projects” – or an entire grid of a city trapped inside of the earth’s majority, “the third world”.
Sympathy aside, let’s get savage. Let’s stop complaining about the way news is covered, and stampede the broadcasts behind drums and howls. Hell, I’d stuff a bone in my nose, throw a Bush twin over each shoulder and dance a little jig on Fox News just for the riot. But seriously, the need to empower our people (who I imagine are not entirely comfortable with living in the world as it presents itself today) is tremendous.
If the education system, for example, does not meet your standards, use the village curriculum to let them learn from the sort of productive citizens you want your children to become. If a hospital isn’t handling your health properly you shouldn’t have to rely on the punitive damages system for accountability. Instead, an alternative hospital of community health representatives would have a greater investment in the condition of one of their own.
Create a list of assets, ills, and institutional dimensions within you perfect neighborhood or town, and move from there. Any ideas? I want to hear them and work out their kinks together and then media blitz them to leaders and pundits and heads and soldiers until the common exchange of the ideas becomes common practice.
So, I’m dedicating my life to creating at least one village, either from the cultural ruins of one that used to have the mosaic pulse of an artistic and social oasis, or more figuratively, a community of voices all over the world that share knowledge and strategy before spreading it to their respective outlets.
The truth hides somewhere – between the margins – one, this hippy-ish manifesto that declares we are connected to every person and thing and fiber of existence that should, therefore, make greater contributions to sustain it in a family way. And then there’s the contradictory darkness washing over us, intellectually, informing us over our shoulders to take what we can while we can, because we can’t handle being on this planet in any other capacity.
I’m only a writer, a father, a schoolteacher, a journalist, a lucky bum from Louisville, a lover without a permanent place to live and build . . . surely, there must be others out there who are just as deserving as I.
I can think of only one fundamental disconnect between these two places. The wildlife world shall involuntarily ebb and flow in favor of the scavengers, while the one I’m typing you from will hunt and kill you for pleasure, or to uphold laws commanded down to the public from some boss, or simply because somebody got pissed off . . .
Who the hell we callin’ wildlife?
Our society has evolved quite unfortunate characteristics from our uncivilized beginnings. We’re afraid of the savages. We hate the symbolic, as well as the flesh and blood things which ancestrally link us with nature. The premise for growth and development we associate with culture has nothing to do with progressive improvements and everything to do with figuring out who’s deserving, and who isn’t.
Obviously, when the conquistadores started erasing indigenous tribes across the Americas, they could tell themselves that the savages didn’t deserve all this. Obviously, the fetish for slavery in the United States never distracted considerations of the men who wanted to be freed from the fist of their own colonial bully because slaves just didn’t deserve all that. Obviously, when Augusto Pinochet filled up a football stadium with people he planned on executing, he knew deep down that his political rivals didn’t deserve to be seen or heard.
Why retreat toward these ugly old bookmarks on historical injustice? Surely, our contemporary examples will illuminate it all the more clearly if you don’t know what I’m getting at yet, or if you don’t want to know.
Obviously, the desire for rent control and in a city like New York isn’t nearly as loud as the construction of the high-rise condos next door, because poor people don’t deserve to live in the capital of the world anymore. Obviously, Jamaican thugs have no problem killing an infant, pulling out its entrails, and stuffing it with drugs to be smuggled to the US, because their business is much more deserving of a chance to grow and be prosperous than a baby. Obviously, when Hurricane Katrina had cleared from the skies, but not the streets of New Orleans, George W. Bush rehearsed the monologue of the deserving as he purposely allowed the situation to spiral out of control.
That’s right. I said it. Katrina didn’t fuck up New Orleans, my government fucked up New Orleans! And these are, mind you, only surface level examples of the point I am trying to get across here. Natural resources belong in whose hands and for what end? Whose diseases will get enough fiscal support for us to keep on fighting and which ones will go unnoticed? Show me who truly deserves to sit under an air conditioner all day, freezing in the middle of the summer, doodling with a videogame on a big-ass TV with the million-watt stereo on full blast; while the power escapes a whole block of housing units proven to harbor twice as much mental illness and social inequities as a suburban area, “the projects” – or an entire grid of a city trapped inside of the earth’s majority, “the third world”.
Sympathy aside, let’s get savage. Let’s stop complaining about the way news is covered, and stampede the broadcasts behind drums and howls. Hell, I’d stuff a bone in my nose, throw a Bush twin over each shoulder and dance a little jig on Fox News just for the riot. But seriously, the need to empower our people (who I imagine are not entirely comfortable with living in the world as it presents itself today) is tremendous.
If the education system, for example, does not meet your standards, use the village curriculum to let them learn from the sort of productive citizens you want your children to become. If a hospital isn’t handling your health properly you shouldn’t have to rely on the punitive damages system for accountability. Instead, an alternative hospital of community health representatives would have a greater investment in the condition of one of their own.
Create a list of assets, ills, and institutional dimensions within you perfect neighborhood or town, and move from there. Any ideas? I want to hear them and work out their kinks together and then media blitz them to leaders and pundits and heads and soldiers until the common exchange of the ideas becomes common practice.
So, I’m dedicating my life to creating at least one village, either from the cultural ruins of one that used to have the mosaic pulse of an artistic and social oasis, or more figuratively, a community of voices all over the world that share knowledge and strategy before spreading it to their respective outlets.
The truth hides somewhere – between the margins – one, this hippy-ish manifesto that declares we are connected to every person and thing and fiber of existence that should, therefore, make greater contributions to sustain it in a family way. And then there’s the contradictory darkness washing over us, intellectually, informing us over our shoulders to take what we can while we can, because we can’t handle being on this planet in any other capacity.
I’m only a writer, a father, a schoolteacher, a journalist, a lucky bum from Louisville, a lover without a permanent place to live and build . . . surely, there must be others out there who are just as deserving as I.
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