yatta yatta. 2015

Last entry of 2014. 12:39 AM.

A time for retrospective, but instead of looking at the past, I'll state something catchy, pithy...cliche: let's look toward the future. yatta yatta. 2015. New year. New beginnings. blah blah. New year rants are so last year.

And linear concepts of time--beginning, middle, end--are soooo Western.

Let's look East: the end is the beginning is the end. The past is present in carpe diem memories and etc etc...and the future is Kalachakra "time-cycles" which recycle, like rubbish and Phillip Dick's "Kipple," and nipples. Bloody Re-volutions a la Crass and Mariano Azuelas' The Underdogs. But if you go east long enough you'll end up back in the west and then east is west and west is east and soon "the end is the beginning is the end" is a hit song, by a 90's alternative rock band, about a rich man who was taught to fight in some type of esoteric eastern occidental fighting system by an organization called the League of Shadows.

 Circles are hell: you end up where you start.

 Lines are madness: there doesn't seem an end.

Circles and lines O-O-O-O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O ad infinitum & ∞ and so on and so on and son and father and...

...

              ...

                          ...

Antiphon held that time was merely a concept while Parmenides added that time was an illusion. I'm not sure that Pope Gregory and the 365 days a year calendar aligned to equinoxes and solstices would agree (well, I guess religion could link Antiphon and Parmenides with Colossians 3:2).

Still, time as illusion does hold some weight in some metaphysical sense; it can give hope that after death (the ultimate end to the time of one's life-span), there is another "plane", or "realm," of continuation. More lines. Heaven. More circles. Nirvana. Lines. Purgatory. Zig-Zag.

At the end it's probably a big Nike sign telling you "just do it" and go into the light, keep calm and Go Gently Into That Good Night. Relax. It'll be alright. The brain acts to protect itself, and why wouldn't it create a massive illusion, or Honest-to-God scenario (ba-dum kshh), near the end in order to remain calm and go easy into that "light." Keep ©alm and Go into the Light.

But enough about time and death and birth and rebirth--- 2    0     1     5.

(SLEEP INTERMISSION)

7:14pm. 5 hours away.

Yatta yatta. click. tap. scroll. like. post. update. omg. lol. idgaf. ... . .. .. .



.- / -.-. ..- .-.. - ..- .-. . / --- ..-. / .. -- .- --. . ...


words words words. 2015. Goodbye, for now. Headed to a "party."

Man with a hieroglyph face

The city lights flicker a pale orange as the spark plugs in the twilight night recede and die out with the light pollution that fuels the dreamless madness of caffeine fueled adenosine blocked out insomniac trippers, hopping from one drug to the next.

This one keeps you up and this one can make you go down
                                                                                                                        down
                                                                                                                        down

They both rob you of you, but who, or what the flux, r u anyway?

Here, take this, watch this, consume this, be this, you want that, you need more, more, more!
HA HA HA HA !
What do you want to be ?!
HA HA HA HA!
get a degree~ be all you can be!
HA HA HA HA!
the show must go on !
This roller coaster never ever ever ends! only you do! so do you! do you?
HA HA HA HA!

Neeeeeeeeeeext!


The red and blue neon flashes "open" as the white fluorescent lights shimmer down on the monsters, next to Red Bulls and a handmade sign advertising Tostilokos.

It's witching hour and I am too far down the aisle to realize the terror in the tomato, and I am too self-conscious to even think twice about the strawberries, tu sabes.

Down the aisle Whitman and Ginsberg frolic among the bananas, and a man with wrinkles and a hieroglyph face paces back and forth between 27 varieties of Colgate toothpaste.

I'm here, at an slant angle to the shelf, searching for Juanita's canned menudo, mm mm good. 

"caramel colored cooked beef" gum

The irony is that I'm reading about Buddhism, Śūnyatā and quantum entanglement as I step on a smelly brown dog turd and chant a common mantra of irritation: Shiiiiit!

It's 8am and I'm rushing to the grind a little earlier than usual, but lately that's how it's been---such occurrences disrupt reality and one should be in the "isness" of such moments wherein the program of repetition has been unsettled ~~ommmmmmm~~

~ॐ~

It's funny how a piece of dung has the potential to ruin a morning and call you back to reality (perhaps a "reality check" was what was the holy mission of this jumble of smelly neutrons, protons, and electrons). In an instant, that small piece of turd jumbled all of my philosophies and theory of words into a hodge-podge of shit. Sorta like that army field ration beef stew, which is made out of chewy "caramel colored cooked beef" gum and peas and carrots and potatoes that turn into one mushy brown syrup. You cringe at the flavor yet need the victuals to keep you nourished. My thoughts must've been too airy this morning.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it can be hazardous to philosophize when "shit hits the fan." It can be very difficult to ask someone to calm down when stress has got them feeling the effects of vertigo and the walls in their tunnel vision are painted red with rage. And to top it off, let's just say, they step on a piece of (metaphorical) shit...sometimes there aren't any schools of thought that can reason you back from the guttural instinct of simply shouting an expletive: "fuck."

This piece of shit was very real. And the stink of solid, moist matter digested from dog intestines was enough to make my day foul, even repulsive, evidenced through the fact that I said to myself that I must dislodge, detach...it's just shit, really.

And actually It's funny, as I stated above. It's all just shit and none of it matters yet matters at the same time. You can't completely dismiss all the shit as bull and chant a prayer/mantra and say "it's all good" and wait and wait and wait and "we must overcome;" after a while even Martin Luther King said enough (though my mentioning of MLK seems a bit random, the very randumbness of it reflects the effect of that piece of matter that distrupted my senses which has made it difficult to "stop and smell the roses," and the insertion of that "cheesy" cliché further illustrates my entropic decomposition).

“The conservatives who say, 'Let us not move so fast,' and the extremists who say, 'Let us go out and whip the world,' would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing; for they do not reach the people who have a crying need to be free.” -MLK, Why We Can't Wait

I think MLK might've been saying that extreme polarities clash and neutralize each other and thereby reach a state of impasse, Stale-mate, though I'm not too sure that is true with the current state of affairs in Ferguson and Arizona and, doubtlessly, in other parts of the nation.

In any case, what I think I'm talking about is shit in the metaphorical, allegorical, and literal senses. Dealing with shit and telling it apart from the bull. I'm dealing with the "crisis of representation" here; how we interpret "social reality," yet I think I do not posses the savvy and skill to blend it all together and communicate it properly. I'm lacking the verbosity of the cultured aesthetics underLYING the...ahhhhhh~

I need to get this shit together. badum-kshh.

Oriented in the sea of tech-no-cyberspace

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

-Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Across from me Nahuatl is being taught while I discuss the parts of Speech in the English language to everyone and no one. Everyone is present, and absent. It's a ghost town. Banshee echoes and howling ghosts. shrieks and cries and zounds. I'm thinking about the texts that I need to read for an online theory course I'm taking, and my friend sends me a text message, "dude, you need to relax and forget about dead letters. It's all about image. Nobody cares, and who can blame them? the kids just wanna have fun coz OMG skool is sooooooooooooooo f'kn boring, u know? swing by l8r. Take care~"

I get it. We live in the "insta" world. Insta-nt gratification world. The passing trend world. The post about a tragedy and show that I care world. The image world. The you tube world. The meme world. The me me world. It's a period of massive miscommunication, of massive over-communication, of Desmadrezation. 

Meanwhile...

The rhizomatic arrangement of my educational space allows for confusion, madness, and play. The class clown is a class act. The teacher, supposed ringmaster, is reduced to the hunger artists. The crowd cheers. Maniacal laughter cackles from near and far. Pearly white innocent incisors and canines shine through rosy colored sanguineous gums that continuously repeat, "ha ha ha ha ha!" Everyone is on the cusp of madness yet sanity is maintained through free-play. ha ha ha ha ha.

On top of the desk, the poster of Fernando Barragan's "A Sacred Journey" shows a picture of a family holding each other, but my thoughts are on the suicide prevention pamphlet that an old lady handed me on my way to work, which was a bit strange, though not in the least bit any stranger than the person whom was sitting next to me on the bus. People are a mystery, and when asked "how are you doing?" you can always say, "as good as the next man." You never really know what people are feeling and/or thinking. The front of the pamphlet said, "we want to help you find a reason to keep living," and I think that perhaps my purpose here seems similar.

I let go; I cannot control this, not through force and punishment at least, and who would want that approach? the force of love seems more transformative than one of fear. I wasn't placed here to be a dictator (was I?). I'm given a paper with some questions to hand out; this is called "covering material." These minds already know, they already know everything and so nothing means anything. Nothing seems new. Everything is "boring." Everything is at the tip of their fingers. Click. Click. Click. Tap. Tap. Tap. Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. Like. Like. Like. Tweet.Snap.&Chat in the insta-skype-face-snap-pinterest-kik-twitter iworld and value meals from McUniverse. Worshiping, hunched over as if in prayer to the graven images of the i-Mages. The iMage masters of sorcery and hypnotism, casting spells with wands of holly wood. Creating and setting the trends and apps that are consumed as eagerly as oxygen and that suppress and seems to expand the great void within.

Collectively, we skip from page to page to app to game, Monday through Sunday, like a schizophrenic fragmented mind altering between realities and bouncing off of paralyzing white, cushiony walls inside an insane asylum. As if consciousness, nay hyper-consciousness, is not enough to make one go crazy.

Brilliant minds. Oriented in the sea of tech-no-cyberspace. I re-read part of an essay and get stuck on the phrase, "dehumanizing practices." Above us the helicopters chop and the sirens wail outside. Across the nation, a car burns in the streets of Ferguson. Army rifles and tanks patrol the streets. A metal bird, An Md 500 series helicopter, chops from above and canines growl in the hot pavement.
ha ha ha ha ha.

Smells Like Teme Spirit

"Computers handle vast quantities of information with extraordinarily high-fidelity copying and storage. Most variation and selection [of information] is still done by human beings, with their biologically evolved desires for stimulation, amusement, communication, sex and food. But this is changing. Already there are examples of computer programs recombining old texts to create new essays or poems, translating texts to create new versions, and selecting between vast quantities of text, images and data

...This is a radically new kind of copying. The information itself is also different, consisting of highly stable digital information stored and processed by machines rather than living cells. This, I submit, signals the emergence of temes and teme machines, the third replicator" (Susan Blackmore, The Third Replicator.

Selfies explain a narcissism inherent in the binary fractal self-replicating algorithms of the universe.

The Selfie goes, "badum, badum, badum, badum" marching to that rhythm of unique sameness. Like xx-chromosome and xy-chromosome will produce xx and xy and so on and so forth, repeating and reproducing. Two parts that make a whole--yin-yang. Taegeuk. self-similarity ad infinitum, almost like a Matryoshka Doll.

Jakob Boehme, a shoemaker born in the 15th century, asserted that the Universe created a way to look at itself. How? It took a giant selfie to create its self. Well, not exactly like that, but somewhat similar. Boehme stated that the universe is like a mirror that God created so to understand himself. Some would call this the Big Bang; I prefer to call it the huge orgasm of time and space, or the Freudian Pleasure Principle in God, or Gravity jizzes on the void. But these are all mere theories based on limited, thus incomplete, observation via human subjectivity-relativity.

And then God, the self replicating algorithm, said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:26, 27).  Selfie. E-selfi: the eventual upload of the self into the "e" realm, into the great élan.

And then there came a time in history where a man named William Burroughs wrote, "The word is a Virus." A virus--a small infectious agent that is able to multiply within living cells of a host-- ideally, replicating ad infinitum.

So what's the BOG deal with all this information? the point is no point. Kipplization to re-arrange the teme machine. Information replicates with the aim of self-preservation; it seems to be a basic law of the universe (?): preserve and perpetuate, dissipate. Proliferate. Conquest. Kipple will reverse if may constitute the Telos of the Teme Machine.

For what purpose?

In the end..."the lights [start] crackling like atomics and the boot or finger-nail...[turn] into one big big big mesto, bigger than the whole world, and you [are] just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was all over..."

References/Allusion:
"The Third Replicator," Susan Blackmore, NY Times (2010)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Phillip K. Dick  (1968)
The Ticket That Exploded, William Burroughs (1962)
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (1962)
The Bible

Computers handle vast quantities of information with extraordinarily high-fidelity copying and storage. Most variation and selection is still done by human beings, with their biologically evolved desires for stimulation, amusement, communication, sex and food. But this is changing. Already there are examples of computer programs recombining old texts to create new essays or poems, translating texts to create new versions, and selecting between vast quantities of text, images and data - See more at: http://onthehuman.org/2010/08/temes-an-emerging-third-replicator/#sthash.l6hZIRhv.dpuf

Computers handle vast quantities of information with extraordinarily high-fidelity copying and storage. Most variation and selection is still done by human beings, with their biologically evolved desires for stimulation, amusement, communication, sex and food. But this is changing. Already there are examples of computer programs recombining old texts to create new essays or poems, translating texts to create new versions, and selecting between vast quantities of text, images and data - See more at: http://onthehuman.org/2010/08/temes-an-emerging-third-replicator/#sthash.l6hZIRhv.dpuf

Computers handle vast quantities of information with extraordinarily high-fidelity copying and storage. Most variation and selection is still done by human beings, with their biologically evolved desires for stimulation, amusement, communication, sex and food. But this is changing. Already there are examples of computer programs recombining old texts to create new essays or poems, translating texts to create new versions, and selecting between vast quantities of text, images and data - See more at: http://onthehuman.org/2010/08/temes-an-emerging-third-replicator/#sthash.l6hZIRhv.dpuf           df

Niño Raro

"All that is solid melts into air"
-Marx and Engels,  Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

There is a force that holds everything together. Everything, force together, holds, would Yoda say. Force everything together holds something, there is. Force the hold everything is there together. there there, where? how? which? what kind? &c...

So I'm reading about power and systems and I start thinking that without rules and a certain law to reinforce the under-lying structure(s), everything falls apart. A "force" seems to be regulated by some sort of rule(s), it seems. Sort of like sentences that have to do with grammar rules. Or, for instance, your gradual, physical decay--a matter of entropy rules. And Matter? Subatomic particle rules. Capitalism? Machiavellian rules, perhaps.

"So...what's the matter?" 

said the stranger next to the piscean eye'd man breathing out hot air,

 lost in thought (and lost indeed),  and

staring at a small peanut shell

that lay on the floor.

"Oh...just thinking that there is nothing between us---

Nothing but empty space"

"oh...but I guess that's still something"

"I guess...well, now that you mentioned it,

you're stepping on something"

Nothing as something, and something as nothing.
Abstractions and dust. Dusty abstractions.
Decorated value. Funny money.
Marionette Dummies. Bloody countries.
For Golden Honey. Simulation and Simulacra.

"What? where?"

"Here"
He pointed to the "string" reeling out from underneath his black boot
to
her black heels.

"Can you see it? here, follow my hand"

"I don't see anything. You're crazy, and weird...you know that?"

"Yeah...

my dear mother would often reminded me.

She'd say, a que raro eres, especially

when I'd go out to stare at ant colonies"

"ant colonies!?"

"yeah, I know...it's weird. And, I don't really know why.
I think it was the organization of it all:
The unity of something that seemed so fragile"

"hmm, interesting"
"meh, it's nothing. c'mon, let's go decay together and pass time"
"that's all?"
"yeah, what else do you want?"
"I'd like to make love"
"shit out of luck, I don't know what that is; I mean, in theory I guess"
"fuck your theories; c'm~oooon"

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

[...]
Surely some revelation is at hand"

-William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1920). 

Emperor's New Clothes

"The personality can do no more than look on helplessly while its own existence is reduced to an isolated particle and fed into an alien system."

-György Lukács,
Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat

"Conspiracy" theoreticians and tin foilers do not have the credentials, nor the recognition, of the flat- squared-hat & tassel club to be taken seriously. The development of their framework on a particular subject (aliens, Big Brother, Occult, Psychomagic, etc.) ranges from the well-researched to the completely absurd, yet in some ways their bizarre perspectives and cooky theories reflect the circus of Reason, which is traditionally robed in the guise of justice and righteousness.

Galileo echoes from the past that Nature continues to speak in mathematical language. There's a crazy tin-foiler (#N3ophyt3_J@ck) that argues against the genius of Galileo. What a fool. #N3ophyt3_J@ck has a theory that we (humans) emplace a mathematical language onto Nature and thus impose a structure, a mathematical one in particular, on the strangely familiar (m)Otherness of Nature. Why? to make sense of senselessness. To make sense of the (m)Other.

#N3ophyt3_J@ck are you familiar, familiar, iliar liar..with the randumbness of fractals?

N_J@ck continues...and suggests that Senselessness surrounds us in various forms of reasonableness. The senseless parades and makes fun at us through the mask atop the pulpit inside the Judge's court. It serves a life sentence to the man who steals bread while it taxes the white collar with a fine slap on the wrist. That's just ice for you, best served ice cold. Impartial. Indifferent. Just. Everyone whose anyone know "this," but not everyone is anyone, in fact, some are none, i.e., no ones, no oneness with everyone. unrecognized. Until, of course, the everyone "sees" the no one, and then everyone becomes "no one," then things may start moving. anyway....

"This is the system we emplace, impose and perpetuate; if one has effectively consumed this reality (blue pilled, as the Matrix puts it), the rest is history...we are all refractions of Alice in Wonderland wandering in search of order amid a constantly shifting and confusing world of semantics. Simians configuring senseless semantics."-#N3ophyt3_J@ck

I could've just re-watched the Matrix instead of reading N_j@ck's blast on reality.

This "cover" is nothing new nor something that I take offense with. In fact, the absurdity of cloaked senselessness is absolutely sensational: the world turns into a carnival -- and the greatest performances are usually the most exaggerated, the most exaggerated to the point of normalcy. "Reality" TV mimics life mimics reality mimics mimicry of mimi- or copies of me me me...do re mi falsetto~~~in the Baudrillardian surreality. idle worshipers and performers going round and round in the eye.

עובדי אלילים 

But at the moment what fascinates is meaning and purpose in this structure that cyber handle N_j@ck is obsessed with and thus possessed by. Reality and its mirage of illusions are essential and fascinating, #N3ophyt3_J@ck.

Meaning and purpose, dear cybernauts, that's more like the usual cup of tea: Our mixing up (and in some ways confusing) of "How" with "Why."

Curse Words

Sometimes I wake up feeling suffocated, lonely, and with a mild sense of panic. I have no "beautiful" description to convey the feeling(s), and this highlights the measure of my communicative skills, but I think it also makes me more of a human and less of a writer. My communication (and listening) skills seem terrible (or perhaps they are); they resemble a gorilla grunting and jumping up and down while from my guts I go Oo! Oo! Oo! and point to something, expecting the person on the other side to understand.




Last night a small shadow in my room appeared to disorient me as it reflected some sort of giant reaper hovering over me, which confused my sense of location. It was a simple shadow cast in the shape of an "M" inside my room. I knew it wasn't real, even though I saw it there, over me. I attributed the response to psychological projection. Demon's in my subconscious closet. I think that I think I "think" too much (do you know what I mean?), and this makes me crazy, or stupid, or both.

If I'm insane, 
It's this "game" that's made me change.

I turn to my red desk and see countless articles of GovernMENTAL power, ESPeCIAlly ones that tie plausible speculations to conspiracy theory, religious prophecy, parapsychology, pataphysics, and (f)art. On top sits an article detailing the "Georgia Guidestones" next to one about DARPA and techno-bio network systems next to one about ISIS next to another one about Isis, goddess of love. There's too much information (and shit) and my mind is scattered and shattered in bits and pieces within each sentence and paragraph that I have underlined and noted. Enumerations and itemization being schematized and systematized into a coherent rhizomatic web. For what purpose? I'll get back you on that...I'm still untangling these things as they further entangle me in a loop that ensnares in the reverb. I'm certain that all those texts swim around in the mind/subconscious somewhere.

I laid there staring up at this shadow and start thinking.

Is the lack of headlines about people dying in the streets of America making me crazy? is it? Am I a hypocrite for getting paid by the state while criticizing the state? Did I miss something in class? in life? Why don't I "get it", whatever "it" is? Why do I have so much trouble following the program? Why should I worry about the supermarket price of Fall fruits in a Califonian Winter? Why did I cry when I read aloud the Shema Yisrael? Why did I cover my eyes? Why is it hard for me to forgive my parents? What does the history of the West have to do with the way I feel right now?



Perhaps...



In the end it's all a big fuck you. All the tears and fears and the pain and feelings resemble a grain of sand that gets soaked in the oceans' ebb and flow, and you remain silent and reserved with the other grains that make up a larger landscape. And there's no reason why the water soaks you, it just does and that's the way it goes, back and forth. And then you start to think that probably Love does not exist and that the grain of sand next to you is there by chance; and that it's better off to abandon your humanity and become complete gritty sand, but there's none to abandon in the first place since it was ditched way before you were born. Someone gave a big fuck you to it a long time ago and they're giving it a big fuck you to it today. Take a look out your window. That man pushing the shopping cart that contains no groceries. Big fuck you. Lady sleeping in the park bench. Major F.U. The cop (outs) just doing a Mcjob. ALL CAPS FUCK YOU (this includes me). The game is rigged for you to say, "and a big shout out to all the fuck yous" 



But... 



then you start realizing that abandonment, the expletives, the Blaspheming, is what the obscene wants, even desires. Perhaps you realize and might question that maybe this world, the one built by genius of humanity, wants you to Curse. Wants us cursing each other. Wants you to use curse words. Wants us to kill each other slowly with spells of curse. That perhaps this world forces your solitude into loneliness, because that's when fear can seep in a lot easier, and after the fear settles in, you start cursing and casting spells on others, and, inadvertently, yourself. Cursing, which causes abandonment and cynicism, and which spells hex hex hex. Cursing your neighbor and the other, and an "other" and your brother and your mOther...until your humanity is slowly shred and pulverized that you indeed become that gritty grain of sand. Yet, even then, there is still an essence and form of "is-ness" that seems to remain "you." But, I'm not here to polish. I leave that to those that know what they're doing.

This is just as reminder--it's not a completely cursed world.

Mexican Archetypes

Nostalgic tunes
"drunken father figures playing music really loud, yeah." -El Random Hero

From "Echoic Childhood Memories"
El Random Hero's Blog
(http://justarandomhero.blogspot.com/2014/10/echoic-childhood-memories.html)

nada nada limonada

It's payday and I have performed another magic trick: as soon as the money comes, it goes--POOF! I'm back to "normal," hustling for petty change and breadcrumbs here and there, helping students with their papers about pro-choice, pro-life, and no-choice and no-life, and my life at coffee and tea shops. And, it's another 2 weeks of re-telling myself to hold on, to keep writing, to keep job hunting, and that I still have my freedom. That it could be worse. That the science steam engine still flows from my nostrils and that the steel and iron creatures of industry provide me with the motivational forces that balance my feet in the current space and time. Instead of stepping on the Nepalese rugs of the coffee shop, I could be making them.


And...around the time I'm about to lose my mind in the uncertainty of the morrow, I take to the water. The water seems to consume every fractured fiber in my nonsense conscious, and after twirling and twisting about, I am spat back out in some sort of reconfiguration. In the pool, it's the bleach. In the ocean, it's the salt. The salt is more effective at it that the bleach. Remember Lot's wife. Destruction & Transformation


Then...when I take things so seriously that they blind me and that in turn reflect a petty and comic worldview, I put on the blinders, being so lucky to have blinders, and go to sleep. Then, at meetings, we talk about what we talk about when we talk about what we are talking about when we are suppose to talk about talking. And when the workday is over, my lungs are exhausted from talking and questioning and my mind feels duller from feelings of being unable to puzzle a coherent thesis or topic sentence anymore-Just go with the list. Here is a template: if A, then B; thus, rationale. While XYZ, ABC, and therefore and thereby whereby the mess therein and the mess wherein reflects the nonsense conscious which illustrates and highlights the twilight of the nada nada limonada.

56k connections

"What is it? tell me, tell me tell me tell me!" she urged through a screen of smoke created from rolled up shag and zig-zag. The speakers played nostalgia from an era of desktop 56k connections: (dial tone) beep, beep, bop, beep, bop, brreeeezzzZZzzbongbong EEEEeeee!!! kshhhhhhhh  *~ Welcome. America Online: Spice Girls, Porn, Grunge, and check your inbox: you've got spam. The solo ended and the singers voice nasally screeched, "And if you're giving in, then you're giving up."

"C'mon c'mon! let it out!"
But he had nothing to let out; in fact, the silence and lack of words ill-ustrated a void and emptiness of useless consumption and oxygen expenditure. He was tired of words and theories and rationale and explaining and saying things that ended as sounding brass or tinkling cymbals. He then then said something about a ticking clock inside his mind and something about a gun to his head, something melodramatic and stupid. He said something about it being him, referring to his embarrassingly debilitating libido. She said he was a just sad man, a lonely sad and organized book shelve man. A hide from the world man. A not even a man man. A slowly devolving primate man. A man too preoccupied with silly thoughts man.

He wiped his glasses; then, he twiddled his thumbs thinking about words while she pinched and packed tobacco fibers into a nicely rolled cigarette. She saw through him; he had a feeling that she could do this.

Everything quivered in place. The driving of cars on the i10 echoed up to the terrace; a receding siren cried out as it snaked south. The signal tower red light bulb receded in and out of the night canvas, like the phosphorescent searing embers building a mountain of grey ash on the tray.

Rebooting:reprogramming:rebirth

A problem has been detected and windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

if this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical Information:
n0***BIOS error: 1/0 = undefined.

Beginning dump of physical memory:


ConsciousnessistheghostinthemachineConsciousnessistheghostinthemachineKonsciousnessistheghostintheいしきはマシン内のゆれいですいしきはマシン内のゆれいですいしきはマシン内のゆれいですla conciencia es el fantasma en la máquinala conciencia es el fantasma en la máquina

الوعي هو الشبح في الآلة

IamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspellIamcastingaspell


Copy&paste&repeat&recite&absorb&Iamcastingaspellofwordswordswordsthatmezmerizeandhypnotize
 
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1
John1:1John1:1

detecting drives...

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006 606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609433057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548074462379962749567351885752724891227938183011949129833673362440656643086021394946395224737190702179860943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132000568127145263560827 785771342757789609173637178721468440901224953430146549585371050792279689258923542019956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960518707211349999998372978049951059731732816096318595024459455346908302642522308253344685035261931188171010003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303598253490428755468731159562863882 353787593751957781857780532171226806613001927876611195909216420198938095257201065485863278865936153381827968230301952035301852968995773622599413891249721775283479131515574857242454150695950829533116861727855889075098381754637464939319255060400927701671139009848824012858361603563707660104710181942955596198946767 837449448255379774726847104047534646208046684259069491293313677028989152104752162056966024058038150193511253382430035587640247496473263914199272604269922796782354781636009341721641219924586315030286182974555706749838505494588586926995690927210797509302955321165344987202755960236480665499119881834797753566369807 426542527862551818417574672890977772793800081647060016145249192173217214772350141441973568548161361157352552133475741849468438523323907394143334547762416862518983569485562099219222184272550254256887671790494601653466804988627232791786085784383827967976681454100953883786360950680064225125205117392984896084128488 626945604241965285022210661186306744278622039194945047123713786960956364371917287467764657573962413890865832645995813390478027590099465764078951269468398352595709825822620522489407726719478268482601476990902640136394437455305068203496252451749399651431429809190659250937221696461515709858387410597885959772975498 930161753928468138268683868942774155991855925245953959431049972524680845987273644695848653836736222626099124608051243884390451244136549762780797715691435997700129616089441694868555848406353422072225828488648158456028506016842739452267467678895252138522549954666727823986456596116354886230577456498035593634568174 324112515076069479451096596094025228879710893145669136867228748940560101503308617928680920874760917824938589009714909675985261365549781893129784821682998948722658804857564014270477555132379641451523746234364542858444795265867821051141354735739523113427166102135969536231442952484937187110145765403590279934403742 007310578539062198387447808478489683321445713868751943506430218453191048481005370614680674919278191197939952061419663428754440643745123718192179998391015919561814675142691239748940907186494231961567945208095146550225231603881930142093762137855956638937787083039069792077346722182562599661501421503068038447734549 202605414665925201497442850732518666002132434088190710486331734649651453905796268561005508106658796998163574736384052571459102897064140110971206280439039759515677157700420337869936007230558763176359421873125147120532928191826186125867321579198414848829164470609575270695722091756711672291098169091528017350671274


אני יוצר מילה
אברא כדברא
 
Installing initial backup
...











Welcome !

*click click click
*tap tap tap
*like like like
*scroll scroll scroll

You are now back on the info-super-highway~

Upside downsidewinder cyclone

In this dimly lit room with dark red windows, the sun gradually boils me and the fan blows humid hot air into my face. I've been under a dizzy spell lately: this heat f-ills my visions with ill-usions~*~*~*~boiling and humidifying ~*~*~*~my dreams. During sleep last night, my red room turned into a time~/-/~space machine: I'm somewhere out in space traveling with Pazuzu in a black and red UFO abducting the "cosmic" race of Mextizokanos creating radioactive cultures.

Hovering above everything...sweat, blood, and tears cry out in the form of dust that has kept the ancient bones of children in its pulverized lands, slaughtered by land grants and megalomaniac dreams of holy missions. In reality, T.S. Eliot's handful of dust remains silent. Everyone knows everything: History is a blood filled rocket ship to Keppler-22 that moves like a boomerang in the hands of a neophyte. We're living in an upside downsidewinder cyclone and everyone is busy trying to self-preserve. My mom used to say...como alacranes. And I would think, we're not fucking animals Ma. I think that person was wrong.


Dehydration must be at the root of all this madness.
The Town of Our Lady Queen of The Angels and its inhabitants secured by countless mirage created by her Zanja Madre. A la chingada madre. A la chin. Al  ah. alah and her miracles giving plenty in the land of desolation.

                                                          (  ? )
                                                          (`,-'
                                                         _ o 
                                                       ( )_   
                                                       (  `\  
      .--.                                              \\//  
      )  (                                              )`")
____  |==| ___________________________________________  |  ( ____
     /__/|                                              |J |
     | | '                                               `"'

Tonight, I'm tossing and turning unable to sleep. I decide to compile my notes and enter another string into the web.

I sit to write about the frame of reference that my experience has accumulated, but I realize the blinding perspective of my very limited modality. I think I know a few things about theories and abstract principles, but next to crippling poverty and shadows of doubt, these learned things crack at the seams: that statement is empty. I do not even know myself and that is, so I've heard, the first step to recognize your frame of reference surrounding your circumstance: the background, the foreground, the lateral ground, and...whatever ground.

Identity possess' (and possess it does) a question that never seems to have an easy answer, unless, of course, one has found a sense of "self" through some sort of movement or deep self-reflection, thereby reflecting a rather bizarre morbid self-obsession, perhaps looking to others, or other things, to become like other people...those with a sense of someplace; students, cook, cashier, pilot, businessmen, janitor, etc...Perhaps the "truth" in identity is a reservoir of darkness. The truth is perpetual protest with a bunch of placards reading “fill this blank space” and "please please give me meaning and purpose!"

WE DEMAND FULFILLMENT. FILL IT UP. FILL US UP. FILL. F-ILL. F'kn-ILL.

Perhaps...the truth is temporary to our understanding. The truth will make sense and no sense. The truth is a Grotesque a la Sherwood Anderson. The truth will argue for and against G-d. The truth is a Plato full of cacahuates. That is your idea. That is your notion. That is your logic. Your mind will make something true and it can also render it false; all you have to do is believe in the idea and thenceforth you will find it in whatever you read, see, or hear and in whatever you see, feel, or touch."fake it till you make it:" the mind is a excellent thing to w.a.s.t.e.

ASCII art @ Chris.com

Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow

Manglinguisticks

I wake up with just enough time to wash the baba off my face and rush down the hills of City Terrace to ride the El Sol Shuttle down Eastern and into Atlantic, hoping that some of the regular commuters are already waiting, and not rushing like me, which will give me a bit more time.

A veterano down the block warming up his time-machine Cadillac Coupe Deville shouts out, "running late again man!"

"Nope, Just on time! Hook it up with a ride!"

"Chale!"


I raise my arm and gesture a wave that communicates both whatever and later. There's no reason to the wave. I could've gestured nothing at all and left it a Chale. It wouldn't matter. Either way, I don't stop for anything and continue the morning rush down the terrace just as the shuttle starts coming over the hill.

It's the same commuters most of the time, though mostly everyone keeps to themselves. The "Chipster" Chic-ana with her quirky hats and long nylons listening to her i-whatever. The Doña and her woven poly-mesh bags. The kid that likes anime and plasters it all over his shirts and backpack with buttons, and a few others that have become part of the El Sol canvas. We snake down Eastern, up Floral, right on Mednik, left on Cesar Chavez, right on Atlantic and into the motorpsycho vroom vroom! of the day's grind. The concerted silence illustrates the loneliness and unpleasantness of the commute that tugs and pulls you with every commuter that steps into and out of the public transport. 

I catch my breath, feeling as though I have just reached the surface from being tossed in a riptide wave and unable to reach the surface no matter how much I flail and swim.

As I approach my destination, the illuminated red sign above the driver dings and lights up the words:

STOP REQUESTED!

I have enough time (and enough capital) to buy a cup of "fair-trade" coffee, ethically and responsibly grown, from Starbucks. The NY Times shows another story about TERROR and the LA Times echoes the rally cry. I continue the rush to work, feeling good and hyped up while remaining calm and collected. It's a an-other day in the news; it's another day of manglinguisticks, but before I start work...

I reflect on the fact that it's a nice day despite the...

Sedation stations that teach domestication through pacification of disrupting narratives. (un)Sound waves of media digital radiowaves amplifying and broadcasting dizzy amnesia spells onto the spectators. Consumers consuming hypnotic stories that suggest that change cannot occur rapidly and must be achieved peacefully and gradually, i.e. "respectably." These stories that show masses facing systematic (and historical) displacement and neglect, and which suddenly must forfeit their right for drastic action while the opposite reserves their might (and right) to crush and decimate, if not grind into attrition, the razor sharp edge of cutting ideologies and practices that dispel the broad-net-cast over the sea like an electric mesh that shocks fish.

These stories that omit the invisible parties which come to light upon disruption of equilibrium due to indefinite chaos: random acts of violence. To manage such circumstances necessitates concerted effort and conductors with iron fists. The orchestra allots a part for everyone to play and partake in the grand scheme. No Jazz unless its structured Jazz.

And, Management of imagined future visions precludes the social transcendent realism of the present in this eternal march to the grave of the blind leading the blind.

Traditional handed down leftist/liberal protest methods become ingrained into the daily programming of predictable rigidity: opening and closing of...business as usual--back and forth and to and fro and banshee echoes from the land of dead into the living catalyze the live stock into temporal movement(s); buy your Che buttons and quote Emma Goldman and recite MLK, revive and pile high the corpses of the dead; this is the only real revolution--clockwork construction zones that ossify one's place in dead space.

Ding!

Your Appointment has arrived.

Ding! Ding Ding! Time's up! Ding! Ding Ding! Treat Time! Ding! Ding Ding! Good Job, go home. go sleep.

Ding!

It's morning and already the outside claws at my walls; I take a peek out my window. Down the street a jackhammer breaks into a off-beat syncopation: the conductor has gone mad and has caused cracks and scandals with his unauthorized and wildcat use of the pressured drill. Surely, the right powers will come down on him in due time.

I close the blinders and veer into another window: Status update--"it's noisy outside." A knock on my door brings annoyance; it's a young kid dressed in monochrome black handing out pamphlets promoting Eternal Fraternity. I say thank you, cut him short, and return to my laptop feeling a bit guilty. It's my day off. Please leave me alone today, but not really...Do you have a temporary fraternity pamphlet?

I nuke some oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. I head out for a walk down City Terrace to rush the El Sol shuttle again. There's a farmers market on Friday's in Boyle Heights that has a curandero stand. His space is normally empty and he has all kinds of herbs, stones, and waxes for "healing" purposes. To be honest, I don't know why I go see him; I don't buy anything. Maybe I haven't found the right item. Maybe I'm too messed up from psycho-logical operations of regular programming to see the wisdom in this crazy fools ways. Maybe I'll just ghost hunt on the shuttle today. Maybe I'll just buy something. Maybe that'll make it all go away. Maybe i'll jusy maybe all day. there's the line--here comes the purple shuttle.

Doin' the Clockwork Cockroach

"Yes yes yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal. No, it is not just being an animal so much as being like one of these malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being like one of these malenky machines.
My son, my son. When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was starry enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches I had done, yes perhaps even killing some poor starry forella surrounded with mewing kots and koshkas, and I would not be able to really stop him. And nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty on to like the end of the world, round and round and round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog Himself (by courtesy of Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers."

"This one's a doctor / This one's a lawyer / This one's a cash fiend / Taking your money [...] One year / Twenty years / Forty years / Fifty years / Down the road in your life / You'll look in the mirror / And say, 'My parents are still alive'"


Work Cited:
Burgess, A., A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Mezcafe with a little spam.

The second cup of Cafe con Leche with the shot of mexcalli threw my sense of orientation into a cohesive misalignment. The world tends to make more sense after a bit of Mezcal and Coffee and Milk. Well, it probably doesn't either way, but the concoction makes it seem so nevertheless. Ancient voodoo Aztechnomagic. nomagic. noaztech.

Illusions help dispel the layers of black majix: for a moment I become a megalomaniac and recount the counter-narratives that have been crushed by the canons of a foreign warship which decimate a people and re-structures their lands for them, or rather, for themselves. Puro desmadre. A history of desmadre.

My mind, and thus reality, is constantly shattered by narrative of destruction: Yesterday, I shamelessly crushed a cockroach with the worn down elastic rubber sole of my red Doc Martens! Death by Footwear Inc! I looked quite fashionable doing it too! wacha! I'm huaracheando now, gotta set those rubber boots aside. Fashion is violence.

And all this popoyotl hits the fan, or rather affects the mind, when the mezcal runs its course. I start to connect dots and make sense of senselessness: here and there, everywhere, all over, this place and that space, and every which way...everywhere and nowhere in ahuiclandia.

The yottabytes of information that has been kept alive through the blood in my grandpa's veins (and his grandpa's grandpa) brewed into a ceramic cup. One must have gratitude for the "ancestors" and all that cal, to quote Burgess.

"Tu abuelo...hm! no hombre!" my aunt would tell me, "sin duda, desayuno seguro con cafe y tequila".

Pura Borrachera, I used to think to myself (I mean, who else would I think to? you?). Mexicans and their drinking! Mexicans and their fiestas, quincianeras. Their "rancheras" and "corridos." oh yeah, Mexicans and their Guadalupe Hidalgo, and their Tijerinas and Joaquins and Chavez. And their lynchings. And their miseducation.

This old man, however, he plays none. He controls the drink. He would probably be a powerful sorcerer in another time. The man still lives. 79. still drinking his tequila and coffee. He visits, but I think it's bad for his nerves. I'm not sure if anyone notes this;  in the land of the free, he drinks more, and the metal bird racks his nervous system. He needs to stay in his tierra. I'm surprised this latent shaman of an old man can yet handle the shifts and travels and parties and foods that surround him when he comes; the relatives flood him with constant meet and greets. The strange thing is that he is moved about and hardly mingles while everyone else gets into the mitotes. The old man can likely testify to a history of Desmadre.

Where was I? oh yeah,
The second cup of mezCafe and milk that brings it all together...I mean, I think it does. No wait...it's really the vodka that brings it together. Whisky will sometimes do it, but tequila and mezcal will just get you drunk. Then again, the other two might do it as well.

...I don't even know what I had anymore...and whether it's corn (maize), wheat, agave, barley, grain, or potato potato, I need to get my spirits straight. To be honest (I mean, if you can really trust this narration of disorientation), the chingadera that tends to blunt me in the brain, or lack thereof, with desmadre would be the technosphere.

The netz provide an escape while casting a spell that forms a trance of my reality: I'm a laptop infojunky surfing the innerspace, and I'm a terrible surfer. I read nothing but fiction. There is a popular story going around right now about an unarmed black kid in America that sparked a potential revolution. The resulting (r)evolution of state versus the people in a clash that had never been. A story immediately expunged for containment of contamination in the nation: Federico's ghost yet sticks up the middle finger from another realm in an-other time and place.

Another one follows a former NSA operative through Moscow and his attempt to wake up people in the U.S., but since America likes to sleep, all efforts go into tracking this fellow funny man; it's quite a suspenseful story.

There's an ok one about a small country being bombed to rubbles; you really got to read in between the line in this story. 

All great fiction. And, my daze consists of figuring out who, or what, writes these stories. I've named him/her/it the Magnificent Scribe. Sometimes I stumble onto crumbs of encrypted clues that help me figure out the 1's and 0's behind the cloud and the (seemingly invisible) p1ace(s)pace(s) of the hidden codex blues. But that's a blog entry for another day. Earlier today, codename Xoaltecuhtli sent me an e-mail with the subject heading "I know what you've been reading." A bizarre e-mail, and I'm not sure why the aztec god of sleep would be interested in what I am reading, or whether Loki is really messing with me on this one. 


...


It's all spam. The world is a big ball of roundly canned spam, manufactured by fashion ink.: Huitzolopotchli decked out in celestial cybergear. HuitlzoloPocho the butcher, coming to spam your shit soon. Buy your buttons and "tune in and drop out" and all that jazz and all that fad. Cafe con Leche and a drop of Mezcalina to help you get things crooked, to help you clear away the cobwebs of smooth silk--thin and invisible to trained eyes--that often stiffens movements the more one tries to disentangle. Realigment through further disalignment coz the aligment is a black majix brought to you by fashion inc.  Check out this Roethke! Oh, you don't know Roethke? Eat this mezcafe with a little spam and explore the void. What's the matter? it's only empty space! Desmadre and Jodidas, and a little spam. 


Goodnight cyber-voyeur, goodnight.

Ommm~

I hear a faint hum in the middle of the night and wake up in search of this little noise that I think I'm hearing or that is possibly just inside my head. At this point I'm not really sure since my sleep patterns reflects a scatter plot that lacks any plot and is all scatter--hyphenated sleep followed by commas, brackets, obeli, ellipsis, asterims, and full stop periods.

Here is a close typographic resemblance:
--  zz,,,,.[      Z!]*    ÷   ...   ⁂. ©

In any case, the pattern (or lack thereof) keeps me from sleep, and I haven't had a good night's rest the whole week. This fact increases my distrust and uncertainty; how can I trust the things I am hearing, or imagining, when I haven't had a sound night of sleep in a week? I can't imagine (the fact of imagining anything at all astounds me: the only true reflection is that of a completely stupid fool taking his paranoia too seriously as though it mattered); this must be hell, no..., more accurately, an exaggeration.

mellow-drama: Te-le-vele-no-ve-L.A.

I go over to the fridge and for some ice cold water.

The fridge emits a noise itself as though it has a little lawnmower underneath; this is not the source. The fridge sound buzzes and sometimes clanks; it doesn't hum.

I go out to the deck and sip on the water to cool down in the hot summer night. I continue to hear the hum coming from behind me somewhere.

William Lee said once said that being paranoid is simply having the right information.
I'm not paranoid. 
I'm just lacking a bit of sleep.

These past few weeks have been difficult on my body; lack of nutrition has made me lose 10 pounds. I eat oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I sip on coffee to drink something other than water. I feel dizzy spells and grow faint, nearly passing out every now and then. My rent's due; the check comes and disappears, I then work a whole month toward performing my next magic trick. Dizzy spells. Magic trix. Hokus-Bogus-Pocus, lack of focus.

There it goes again: that vibrating sound. I finish the water and pour a glass of whine.

There was another shooting in the news today, but these things have become so routine that they have have entered a narrative of indifference because of being accustomed to everything that nothing really matters, or self-preservation.

This narrative occurs at work, and the magic tricks, or illusions, expose the reality of a circumstance that draws me nearer to the source of the humming noise. Somebody behind the curtain pulls the invisible strings that highlight the sideshows, and we applaud and shout hooray! Above our heads someone shines a light and we are handed a script. Everyone totally focused on the magic tricks.

The AC at work hums above our heads while we collectively configure splintered sentences.

The languid movements of my performances at work illustrate my feeble attempt to break the spell that hypnotizes...to break the depression that hysterically mocks and attempts to invade my body and soul like a virus looking for a clean and healthy host (or so I think)...to break away from the constant battering of mind and spirit in dealing with all types of energies every thirty minutes. After a while it's best to shut down and run on cruise-control until I arrive at my destination: taking you on a tour, my dear voyeur.

At night when I do not sleep, I read the Bible. I suppose that I'm trying to understand the Word and utilize the frequencies that can be emitted by the Word in order to heal. This is perhaps another magic trick illusion. Illusion layered upon illusion: ommm~

INCA.NTATIONL.AMEN.TATION: OM~

This past week, I was reading about the hippocampus, the pineal gland, the cerebrum, and the cherubim. The term cherubim comes from the Assyrian word Kiribu, from Karåbu, "to be near."

I am attempting, perhaps subconsciously, to "be near" or to at least re-cognize G-d through the brain's plumbing. The reconfiguration stems from a deep desire to want to believe in something more than the destructive forces of uniforms, metals, and punch-cards. But this attempt merely reflects a further derangement of my already disordered nervous system, and the weaving of dots and plot points fabricate into my own theory of faith.

Indeed, the obsession illustrates my derangement, yet I tend to persist in these spaces that yield no benefit whatsoever. I consistently tell myself that I should pursue practical things, and become someone, like a teacher, a garbageman, a priest, an anarchist, a human...or something like that. But those things often feel foreign, and there's nothing that makes me squirm more than a poorly, indifferently executed performance (much like this writing thing, I'm trying, but I'm not really good at it: the prose lacks cohesion; the wording turns all of it...into comedy, not the good kind, the type that makes you uncomfortable, these pieces of text lack plot and structure, and all of it reflects baboon buffonery ornery boober or a babo...so, whatever)
  It seems that I am addicted to filling the creeping dullness of routine with paranoia, which often reflects the sanity I chip away at (indeed, I at least have some sanity to begin with) in contrast to the useless, pointless knowledge that holds me with just enough buoyancy. But perhaps I secretly desire to sink and suffocate, yet I can not achieve that, still bubbling and gurgling in the intestines like a fart that eventually floats, liberating itself, and contaminating the oxygen with a foul smell, for it declares it's (neglected) presence, and brings to light the refuse in, amid, and throughout the historical neglect, reminding of the few hiccups here an there and disturbing the order in civility and properties.

Perhaps that's where the sound is coming from?

A Fool

It tended to be cold out most of the days, like the breeze one feels from opening a freezer--that sudden gust of condensing vapor: the instant, brief hint of fog.

frigid aire


No one was home, and there wasn't muchpasteto eat. He toasted some wheat bread and warmed some coffee. He sat on the warmly lit kitchen table. Dimming the light, he took a minute to look down at supper for that evening. Clasping his hands together over the dish of warm bread, he prayed, even though he wasn't very religious. He prayed to nothing, for nothing, grateful for nothing, for the nada in and of everything. He supposed it funny to be hunched over those crumbs, but it just felt right. He lit a candle and dimmed the light some more. 

Sometimes right lighting can make all the difference. 

He repeated many thanks, but most of them were directionless.

A loud knocking woke him from concentration. Tok, tok, tok! he went over to open the door. It was an old friend. 

“yo-yo, what’s up?”

“Hey!...Come in"

“Nada nada limonada..just trying to eat. Want some coffee or something?”

“Come in, close the door”
They both ate toast and drank coffee.

They talked a little about a recent LACMA exhibit: the Olmec heads—a bunch of concrete heads on display all over the museum. He recalled it being a nasty thing. He talked about how they must have been an innovative people to be able to fashion all that rock into shape, but his friend thought it a shame that the history testified to a dark past. His friend said heads are severed through policy nowadays. He stopped paying attention and wandered off in thought when his friend got into nostalgic and political words. He didn’t want to hear any of it; It was tinkling brass and phraseology to him--a speechifier and too much pomp.

“Listen, I’m going out”
“Where to?”
“I’m going to meet Hope by Dockweiler”
“oh...bad timing eh? ok, well, I came over to see what you were up to. Hey, what are they doing to the streets over there?”

Outside, the jackhammer played a symphony to a tow truck that kept rhythm.

“I don’t know...repairs”
“Well, if ain’t broke don't fix it, I always say” His friend took paranoia seriously.

“wise words there”
“You bet! next thing you know taxes will be going up! well, that being said, take care! See you later”

“...take care. goodbye”
And like that his friend, as suddenly as he appeared, quickly disappeared. 



He called twice and there was no answer. Maybe she got caught up in some sort of business, he thought. It’s always some sort of entanglement. Last time she told him she was held up by a conversation. There’s something dreadful about carrying on a conversation whilst another needs to go. Seems there is rarely any time to “stop and chat,” and sometimes many see it better to carry conversations over into some sort of a digital interface. There is something weird about the human condition when devices used to communicate isolate in some fashion—fragments, a message here, an e-mail, a picture, a disembodied voice (voicemail) there. nowhere and virtually everywhere He sent a text message: “headed out, take warm clothes, see you there,” and grabbed his jacket and car keys.

He started daydreaming about something; he didn’t even recall what though. He’d lost his wallet the prior night and was calling the bank to cancel the credit card. A recording that notified him about all the tellers being busy would occasionally interrupt the muzack. It was nice, at least, to hear that voice. It was human, even though it was recorded; there was some history there, in the tone that said, "thank you for calling." He hung up and decided to cancel online upon return; he was heading out. Driving down the 105, passing LAX, the metal machines took off and dragged clouds behind them over the blue canvas.  The days were filled with this type of useless daydreaming. The fog thickened as he neared closer to the Pacific down Imperial toward Vista Del Mar. 

He arrived a little early, or just on time, depending on purpose, which is never quite clear yet opaque as air. He parked on Vista; it was happy hour. He entered a pub and, thus, shifted the atmosphere. 

“Young mm-man,” said an older gentleman.
“Don’t listen to, -sten to him, he’s drunk” said another over his shoulder.

The young man laughed, a bit drunk, not really to humor them; his drunkenness had reached a level of looseness whereby one could forget about themselves. On the brim of Dionysian forgetfulness. 

His (e)very cell(s) was doused in alcohol. 

He checked his cellphone: nothing. There actually was a sense of relief since his clouded, intoxicated thoughts would be furthered obscured by the weak signal on his cell. 

“LL--Listen to what, to what...I am telling you! you see..see that woman over there”
“yeah, she's beautiful”
“right you are, there...lover boy! gg-go over, and ask her, if she’d like to have sex. What’s the worst that can happen? She slaps you or she says yes”

He was starting to sober up, or he needed another drink.

“1 in 99 that it might work; I even doubt that...that figure, maybe it's more like 0 in 100”
"0 in 100! see, that's what's wrong with you young man, take a risk! 1 in 99? now that zounds likepretty good, purrety good, odds, wouldn’t you say? Feeling lucky?”

“I’m not a gambling man”
“Well then you ain’t living! It feels good to live!”
“excuse me, I’ve got to take this call”
"bah!"

He stepped aside. 

“Buuuueno?”
“Hey! How are you?”
“hey-ello! as good as the next man suppose”
“you ok? hey listen, I won’t be able to make it, I’ve got to finish up some work and I'm feeling soooo so tired. I’m so sorry”
“oh? um-hm..well,"

He sighed

"No worries, no big deal. Something came up..."

He cleared his throat.

"...then something came up...I’ll see you tomorrow?” he inquired.

“definitely”

“Guess I’ll head home”
“Again, I’m sorry about this!"

“Don’t worry, we’ve nothing but time on our side. We’ll meet some other time”
“Ok, love you, goodbye”
“Take care”

Inside the bar an argument broke out and the older man was nowhere to be found. He ordered a shot of tequila, drank it without company, and headed toward the shore.

He had always enjoyed the ocean. He loved feeling the sand grains on his face and the smell of a salty breeze that is so strong one can taste it. One can get a clump of wet sand and hurl it into the ocean and imagine it breaking down into several pieces. The oil-rigs in the distance seem to float out there in space because at night the horizon blurs in with the dark, and if you squint, the faint light can imitate a star. The occasional bon-fire’s attract occasional kumbaya folk and spiritual testimonies. He didn't like it; the zeal can make you lose focus of the sand, the moonlight shimmer bouncing of the water, the breeze, and the gentle crashing of waves sending salty mist into the air.

He had all sorts of questions in his my mind. At work, the teens were reading Siddhartha, and he thought about how much in that novel he didn't understand. Out of suffering came love for the Buddah. For him, pain and suffering: it was life. But connection through such baseless feelings while some love and others despise with words like love and hate meant nothing against the names of oceans, neighborhoods, galaxies, hunger, and people.

His liver was hurting; he often, absentmindedly, mixed  painkillers and alcohol against reason, and he was paying the price for it out there. He wasn’t waiting for an answer, really. He didn’t wait to hear anything. The shore’s salty breeze fizzed in the air like fizz.

The horizon melded with the ocean in a vast canvas of darkness, and the oil-rigs in the distance flickered like a stars. All of the medicine in the world could not fix the dis-ease he felt that night; his eyes burned against the breeze.

He took off his clothes and walked into the Pacific, deciding on a swim. The shore waves hypnotized his vision with an ebb and flow of stillness. The water, he figured, was sure to set him straight. The ocean hissed ~shhhh~ and smoothed the sands; no other sound could be heard but that of a cricket, chirping somewhere in the twilight.