Better Cats and Gardens

The End of Cats and Gardens

2009-04-09T14:22:00.001-07:00

Dear Beloved Reader,

Because for all things the time comes for them to cease, and die, and live on in the next incarnation;

Because a year has passed, and more than a year, and the rains of April come again to the mountains of Oregon and Pennsylvania;

Because in the mountains of Arizona I sat with god and god with me, and spoke through one another, nor was there any separation in that time-beyond-time;

Because, reurbanized, I feel once again the poison of ten thousand soulless man-things seeping under the cracks in my skin;

And because, in the desperation of the last hours, we must fight like cornered wildcats--we who live like anarchic rats in the walls of industrial civilization;

Because of these things and other things, I have decided to end this blog, this Better Cats and Gardens. I have begun another, and the clue to where to find it is contained within the words I have just written-- I will not tell you the specific here.

Look for me in the world.

-Steve

All We Know of Heaven

2009-02-11T10:27:00.001-08:00

But I didn't entirely lie.

No, I didn't sit down and fill out my New Years Resolutings et cetera as I said, instead, I've decided--

I'm leaving tomorrow.

Right now, everything is in flux. I'm scrambling to finish things, a thousand things, last minute, the way I do--

Bu for now the plan is that I will be in Eugene at 8:00 tomorrow, & thence south, to Arizona, for 6 weeks.

What will come of it? I don't know!

See you when I get back.

Resolutions, Revolutions

2009-01-28T14:33:00.001-08:00

Or, "Things to Want in 2009."

Next year I'd like to be better than I am this year.

That's a rotten thing to say. "You think you're better than me, Steve 2010?"

"No, Steve 2009. But, I have done some things that you haven't, and that you'd like to do. It's all a process. Remember how you were in 2008?"

"That's a good point." In fact, it's the only point; the only place from which to start. What happened in 2008? What has Steve 09 added to the History of Steve?

In 2008, I:

Quit eating meat. And yes, I still go for seafood sometimes-- on a controlled and usually invertibrate level. (There are, however, 2 filets of tilapia in my freezer--tilapia, a species whose numbers, as I understand it, are not at a critical level.)

Traveled. This is a no-brainer, but it's big. I never used to travel. Now there are the obvious ones: I moved to Oregon, then spent that week in LA, then have randomly jaunted about the state. I know Portland and Eugene and the Coast pretty well; have seen Crater Lake and the Devil's Churn and other cool stuff. Then there were the two big trips: South, through S. Oregon and California; and North, through Washington. Another thing that makes these ones a big deal is that they required saving money and budgeting, and--

Learned to Drive. It's not that I want to be part of the car culture. But. Okay, driving a stick shift car is fun. And I couldn't do it before-- It's one thing to not partake because you CAN'T. It's another when it's a choice.

Learned about Grants. I cannot stand grantwriting. But the fact of being able to write a grant application is probably a useful thing.

Learned about Office Work. It's not a bad thing to learn about what you hate and are bad at.

Read a lot more science fiction and communist history. And also Paradise Lost, that was cool.

***

...So there you have it. Steve 2009's major upgrades. Join us next time, when we'll be discussing major changes in store for 2010!

A Whole New _______

2009-01-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

January 28th, not the 1st, but this year didn't begin on the first, did it?

No, it began with the move to Oregon, and the beginning of my job here with this unnamed National Service Organization, and that's how it ends, in two days time, except they're having a farewell dinner for me tonight, though I doubt they all want me to fare all that well--

And so the next Year starts now.

***

Interjection: An irate reader messaged me today. "I demand you start posting again regularly, Steve!" And I: "Certainly," though I forgot to actually send it until he'd gone away.

***

But what to post about? And this new Year, and this new -- life? -- and so, I don't know how much to write about the external world, or if I care.

(That is: I care. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the new Bolivian constitution are faraway and have little to do with whether or not I eat next month, and that has to take priority for now)--

And all this is to say, this is going to be a space filled with personal reflection for a while. I haven't walked my own mind in much too long a time. And that takes the whole thing maybe to a different sort of level, and not particularly interesting to the ones who live outside my head. But then, it's my blog, and that's what I want to do.

So next up: New Years Resolutions.

Random Weirdness

2009-01-21T14:23:00.000-08:00

New Scientist:

The holograms you find on credit cards and banknotes are etched on two-dimensional plastic films. When light bounces off them, it recreates the appearance of a 3D image. In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard 't Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.

The Man in the Yellow Hat

2009-01-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

Somebody help me.

Struck by sudden inspiration, I spent twelve hours on Wednesday writing a story featuring a villain called "the man in the yellow hat." I was immensely proud of it. Last night I was riding home from work with Girlfriend, and said something like,

"Yes, I just finished it. So I'll tell you about it. And now I can pay attention to you again, now that my mind isn't entirely occupied"--here I filled my voice with a tone of cosmic terror far surpassing its customary level of menace-- "by the man in the yellow hat!"

I looked at her expectantly.

"Um, Curious George?" said she.

"FUCK," said I.

***

The man in the yellow hat was just an image I thought was unassuming but memorable. So ... now I don't know what to do. Recolor his hat? But what color? The man in the orange hat? No, orange is too loud a color. The man in the silver hat? Well, maybe, he is (after all) a robot.

So...

Purple? Black? White? Blue? Red? Grey? I don't know! Help!

Hierocles and Philagrius

2009-01-13T11:22:00.000-08:00

This is the best thing ever.

...And, looking into it, I spent the morning laughing at the wacky antics of that world-renowned comedy duo, Hierocles and Philagrius.

A few samples:

Someone needled a well-known wit: "I had your wife, without paying a penny." He replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?"

And did you hear about the Cumaean who was selling honey at the marketplace?

When a certain person, upon testing the honey, said that it was not good, the Cumaean replied that, "If a mouse had not fallen into it, I wouldn't be selling it!"

OH those crazy Cumaeans. Then there's the no-good Sidonians.

A certain person once said to a Sidonian fisherman, "Your fishing pot is filled with crabs." And so the Sidonian replied, "There is a cancer in your breast."

Hahahahaha, hahaha, haha, ha.

Harry Reid is a Lying Sack of Shit

2009-01-09T13:35:00.001-08:00

And so are most of the rest of the United States Congress.

Al Jazeera:

The US House of Representatives has voted to endorse a resolution backing Israel in its offensive in Gaza, in which at least 780 Palestinians have been killed...Harry Reid, who leads the Democratic majority in the senate, said on Thursday following that vote: "Our resolution reflects the will of the state of Israel and the will of the American people" (emphasis added).

Rasmussen:

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans back Israel’s decision to take military action against the Palestinians, but only half as many Democrats (31%) agree. A majority of Democrats (55%) say Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first, a view shared by just 27% of Republicans.

...Well, half of what Reid said is true. The half about the "will of the state of Israel. Kind of telling that he conflates that with the "will of the American people," isn't it?

Haaretz:

Noting that Israel was bent on halting Hamas rocket fire into its southern towns, Reid said: "I ask any of my colleagues to imagine that happening here in the United States. Rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada, into Buffalo New York. How would we as a country react?"

Roughly 16,000 Americans are murdered every year. Meanwhile, the US population (~300 million) is about 35 times that of Israel (~8 million). So, the 20 Israelies killed since 2001 by Palestinian rockets would be like 700 Americans killed in 8 years by Canadians (or, maybe a slightly more accurate parallel, Mexicans)--85 per year. That's 700 in a period during which roughly 160,000 Americans were murdered.

It's difficult to track down statistics on who murders who in America. According to the far right--and, since that's the element of the "American people" whose "will" is most in alignment with Reid's, it seems reasonable enough to use their data--illegal immigrants are already responsible for at least 1,000 American deaths per year. That's--oh, 80 times what the Palestinians have managed, adjusted for population size.

Slightly calmer Eric Rasmusen gives a lower estimate, claiming illegal immigrants commit 6.1% of all crime in America. If that rate holds true across the board, then illegal immigrants commit more than 500 murders a year, and Mexican nationals, being 57% of the illegal immigrant population, currently murder at least 300 Americans a year.

I assume Reid's next act will be to a resolution calling for the immediate invasion of Mexico.

Meanwhile,

Israel bombed Gaza 'safe' house full off evacuees, says UN;

Red Cross Finds Starving Children with 12 Corpses in Gaza 'House of Horrors';

etc, etc...etc.

Thrilling Conclusion

2009-01-09T13:23:00.001-08:00

1:25

Thank you, Jay.

Saga Continues

2009-01-09T10:48:00.001-08:00

10:48

I cannot think of any reason for a squid to be smoking a cigarette.

I drew a picture of one in my notebook. It didn't turn out well.

Randomly

2009-01-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

8:57 Friday Morning

My last post was gloomy, so I wanted to write something upbeat.

But it was 8:57. I was tired, hadn't had coffee, couldn't think of anything. The only idea that came to mind was a picture of a SQUID smoking a CIGARETTE.

Then I got it:

A SQUID SMOKING A CIGARETTE WOULD BE AWESOME!!

Does anyone have such a picture? I can't find one anywhere on the internet.

Okay I'm going to make coffee.

Thoughts in Grey

2009-01-08T10:43:00.000-08:00

I think I am unbecoming brightly.

I remember a dream: I am on an island with oily black rat creatures with long noses and a village of deep-sea divers. The ocean is deep beyond the island, and, diving deep, we come up with tiny orbs of bright myriad colors. Channeling my will through the colors, the rat creatures become flower-headed creatures of a thousand shapes.

Interpret. The rats are words, black and slippery-without-context. The colors from deep in the sea are the passions of deep-in-the-mind; retrieve them, and the words are imbued with color, and take a thousand mad-beautiful shapes.

Fading to grey. I am losing even the black to write these feeble sentences, the orange to cry out in dread.

Where have the colors gone?

Better Gardens

2009-01-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

It was April the 28th when I wrote, "Yesterday I planted a garden but it will not grow."

What I had really done was to plant carrot, onion, broccoli seeds randomly in the lawn and in the flower bed.

The flower bed: I don't know what the real term for the thing is, there is a sloping concrete barrier and dirt runs along the top, planted with small shrubs. Yesterday I noticed that the rain had washed some of the dirt away, revealing three huge fat carrots.

Happy New Year's Eve!

2008-12-31T11:30:00.000-08:00

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

Well, yes, probably. But I don't think so! In fact, I think it's time, for the sake of this psyche of mine, to review the last year, and see what really happened.

Let's call it 2008: We Hardly Knew Ye.

"But Wait!," I said. "Years in retrospect have to have Best Of lists!"

"You're right," I replied. But what was I qualified to describe the best of? Unlike 2007, I don't know anything about music anymore. I only saw 2 movies.

And then I got it. Each month will have one BEST BLOG POST. And they'll all be by ME!!!

Let's get started.

January

Okay so then, this year began. I was in Virginia, and I was watching The Twilight Zone marathon. Pretty soon, I would get on a plane and go to Oregon, where I'd never been.

Highlights: Traveling across the country; seeing Oregon for the first time; meeting: Thomas, Sarah, Gabe, Lee Ann, Emily, etc.

Lowlights: Being lonely; living with the Ecclesiarchy; Roseburg.

Best Post: Random Thoughts, from January 11th.

February

Then February came, and I was pretty lonely.

Highlights: Going to Bandon and Portland for the first time

Lowlights: Valentine's Day

Best Post: Portland!, from February 27th.

March

Finally, it was time for a breakdown. This month featured the quote, "Now I am going to lock myself in my room and cry."

Highlights: Visiting Emily in Coos Bay.

Lowlights: Antidepressants; "I cried for a solid hour."

Best Post: blog through breakdown, from March 25th.

April

April turned lighter, a bit. I think based on the following decision: "Now I will drink and be merry and let the past fade away."

Highlights: Discovering the Scoreboard.

Lowlights: Discovering the Scoreboard.

Best Post: Startling Revelations, from April 18th; A Letter to the People of Roseburg, from April 16th.

May

Wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world! Not that Spring comes really to this Land Beyond the Sun, but, hints and feelers and better than nothing.

Highlights: Camping!

Lowlights: How is it this fucking cold in May??

Best Post: Obviously, This Post Is About Lobsters In Space, from May 28th.

June

May turned to June, and June, to warmth, but only for a little while.

Highlights: Loon Lake; inauguration of The Pleasures Of.

Lowlights: How is it this fucking cold in June??

Best Post: The Pleasures Of, Episode 2, from June 11th.

July

July, July. It really was strange. Changings and becomings and everything hot and new. Halfshells, cats and marines, delight in the humidity.

Highlights: Sunlight; Halfshell; New Folk arrive; poetry readings; how much happiness?

Lowlights: It all comes with a cost, doesn't it?

Best Post: And the Days, from July 2nd.

August

August, dear August. Endings, beginnings, changings. I became 25. I became other things, and only some of them good.

Highlights: Birthdays; Crater Lake; Zine launch; camping; barbecue breakfast.

Lowlights: The shadowy flowers of Orcus.

Best Post: ¿Donde está tu niña amarga?, from August 7th.

September

September is that forever mix. So much good, and yet, it's at this point that other things begin to spiral downward.

Highlights: Somehow, I don't remember September very well.

Lowlights: Fortunately, that means that I don't remember anything bad happening either.

Best Post: Prediction, from September 10th.

October

What a month, October! The season of mists finally gets underway, and the dead come a'wandering to usher it along.

Highlights: Halloween!

Lowlights: Economic crisis.

Best Post: A View from the RNC, from October 9th.

November

Remember, remember! I love you, November. This month Kat and I took off on our famous Road Trip. That was awesome!

Highlights: Redwoods; San Francisco; Santa Barbara; LAX; Pittsburgh; Motel 6; Ashland.

Lowlights: Getting In Trouble.

Best Post: Road Trip , part 2, from November 26th.

December

Oh Dear December, and winter rolling in. Alaska makes love to the Oregon coast--and what are the consequences for the rest of us! On this last day I declare, I love December 2008.

Highlights: Did I tell you how I spent Christmas? We were in a cabin--nay, a chalet--near Mount Baker in Northern Washington.

Lowlights: The anxiety of "Very soon I will not have a job."

Best Post: Happy New Year's Eve!, from December 31st.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-29T14:16:00.001-08:00

Hi I'm back.

Okay so a couple things,

First,

I'm not going to write about the time I went to California then Pennsylvania anymore cause I'm sick of it.

Then also, I want to write a bit about Christmas holiday, even though it's kind of over, but, you know, I wasn't here for it,

I was trapped in a cabin in the frozen North. So that's what I'll do.

Okay bye.

Too Big, Too Fast, Too Complex

2008-12-19T14:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a review of a talk given by John Robb.

Key is to understand that our world is too big and too connected and too fast to be understood or controlled by the way we think and act today. The financial crisis has caught all the leadership offside - they are all behind and there is not enough money in the "real economy" to cope with the damage done by all the derivatives etc that far exceed the real.

...Sparks is discontinued and I just got back from a bohemian drinkfest in Pittsburgh, but at some point soon it's going to be necessary to stop all this partying on the deck of the Titanic, to use an awesome cliche, or maybe that point was four years ago.

I AM SO ANGRY

2008-12-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

And here's why:

Maryland's Attorney General, Douglas F. Gansler, announced an agreement with MillerCoors that will result in the nationwide discontinuance of the country’s top-selling pre-mixed alcoholic energy drink, Sparks.

As part of the agreement across 14 states, the mega brewer will not produce any caffeinated alcohol beverages in the future. Sparks future was in doubt when light was brought to the Attorneys General that the beverages were being marketed to an underage audience and used misleading health-related information to help sell more cans...
If you're planning on switching to a Sparks alternative, think again. This past May, Anheuser-Busch announced they would stop producing alcoholic energy drinks, including Tilt and Bud Extra. With the elimination of Sparks from the market, nearly 85% of all alcoholic energy drinks that were available at the start of this year will no longer be sold.

The Miseries of Pittsburgh

2008-12-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Okay it's like 400 days later and I still haven't finished writing about this damnable trip! This will be the last post about it. It will be epic, and cover everything. It will be abbreviated.

Day 6: In Pittsburgh

5:00 - Arrival at the Pittsburgh airport. Waiting to pick me up was JAY.

Jay: First seen at the airport terminal, bearded and carrying a copy of the Koran. Fortunately my plane was early, so he didn't have enough time to get arrested.

5:30 - There is no better entrance to a city than the Fort Pitt tunnel.

6:00 - So there's this beer called ichor by some brewer I've never heard of. The old Italian guy that runs Grazziano's pizza place apparently got a bunch in and is selling them for cheap. Hello delicious. Also, Jay and JIM are brewing BEER in their basement.

Jim: First seen walking down the street in Lawrenceville, Jim is 96% more bearded than the last time I saw him. On the other hand, so am I.

Beer: First drunk at age 14 at Thanksgiving, Beer has since become a major staple of The Steve Life.

6:30 - Enter MISTER THIRTEEN.

13: I am proud of having christened him with this name, the same under which his article which also appeared on this blog was published in Steel City Revolt.

7:00 - Belvediere's. I remember sitting in this bar on a winter night two years ago with my friend Richie. It was a Wednesday. We were two of the only people there. The bartender, bored or lonely, struck up a conversation with us, eventually inviting us to come back the next day "for our first ever 80's night." I believe the rest is history.

11:00 - Or 10 or 12. Enter some new douchebag friend of Jim and Jay's. These two have a collection of random hangers-on, all of them unpleasant. I don't know this one's name. Probably "Standard Pittsburgh Fucktard."

Standard Pittsburgh Fucktard: Gave us a ride up the hill to the BRILLO BOX. Meanwhile he had a breathalizer in his car, for some reason/because that's the kind of thing a douchebag would have. I blew .11.

The Brillo Box: Epicenter of East End hipsterdom. The scene and source of every major insane event of the last 2 years I lived in Pittsburgh. I knew the two gentleman tending bar rather well, and I suppose they must know me a lot better (since they remember the stuff I do).

Drunk:00 - Pass out.

Day 7

11:00 - Wake up; it feels like 8. Oh, it is 8, but not really. I don't understand time.

1:00 - Finally leave the house; go to OAKLAND.

Oakland: Location of the UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH. My favorite restaurant there is Oishi Bento. I walked in; found it over-crowded; walked out realizing I wouldn't be comfortable unless I had a book to read. So I went to the campus Book Center and bought a collection of classic weird fiction (each story with an intro by H.P. Lovecraft!), thinking I could also make a gift of it for my hosts.

The University of Pittsburgh: Location of 5 years of idleness; source of thousands of dollars of debt.

4:00 - I had early called my friend MEGAN and invited her to lunch with me, but she said, "No Steve, there is a blizzard approaching, you should leave Oakland and come back to Lawrenceville before 6."

Megan: Anthropology grad student at the University of Pittsburgh; when I met her for coffee she brought me a scarf made in the Himalayas, presumably purchased on her recent trip to India. It was cold and I was grateful. One month later, I keep forgetting I own it until I go out the door in the morning and think "Man I wish I had a scarf."

6:00 - Megan and I went back to the Brillo Box and ordered dinner. My brother JIMMY and his girlfriend turned up.

Jimmy: 14 feet tall but still a little shit. Lately he has let his hair grow out, having no money to pay a barber. It was commented by others that he looks like me. I denied it. To demonstrate that it was true, he pulled his hair back from his face and scowled.

6:00-2:00: 8 hours of the fucking Brillo Box. After Jimmy, CURT arrived. It was an interesting combination. Megan said she had to go home because she had no money. I said No, stay and I will buy you drinks. 13 turned up. RYAN and BEAUREGARD turned up. LAUREN turned up. This is why I spent so much time at this bar: EVERYBODY ALWAYS TURNS UP. Jay turned up. IAN turned up. Jim turned up, I think. Let's examine some of these characters.

Curt: Delightful artist and longtime friend; the only person I know who is karmically in the black. Curt is one of my favorites.

Ryan: Only speaks in rants. In the past he, Richie and I spent a great deal of time playing Rummy and watching Bruce Springsteen live in London in 1975.

Beauregard: Ryan's current roommate; also works with Curt at a gallery downtown. Coincidences like that happen frequently in Pittsburgh. I call them Pittsburgh Moments.

I cannot handle writing anymore right now. Therefore I am going to post this as is. Still to come: Rummy; Black Velvet; and the Trinitarian Heresy. Join us next time.

The Call of Cthulhu

2008-12-15T09:54:00.000-08:00

So that readers named Gabe will be able to make an informed judgment of the previous post, here is a link to the full text of The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft.

I. The Horror In Clay
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age....

The Road Goes Ever On and On

2008-12-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

Day 6: To Pittsburgh

On the plane I read Gene Wolfe's new book An Evil Guest. Gene Wolfe is my favorite science fiction author and this book was hyped as a 30's-style Lovecraftian pulp horror story set in the future with other planets, wizards, and Cthulhu. As you can imagine, I was pretty psyched to read it.

Unfortunately, it mostly sucks.

The main character is a woman. That would be fine, even a really cool opportunity to mess with the tropes of 30's pulp fiction, but Wolfe apparently decided to import his value system directly from 1933 as well. So she mostly cries and is pretty.

Even that would be fine. It's obnoxious, but I know plenty of women who spend a lot of their time crying and being pretty. But then almost every single sentence in the entire book is dialogue, and it reads mostly like this:

"I have two questions. Wait, make that three."

"Okay, I'll try and answer them."

Invariably, only the first question is answered, and only sort of, before it's time for the next chapter.

Of course the plot doesn't make sense. The genius of Gene Wolfe is that his plots are buried pretty deep and almost never really make sense until you read the book again three or four times. Meanwhile on the surface there is enough interesting stuff going on to keep you entertained, and enough hints of the real story to force you to read the thing again. This is even true of his short stories, which is impressive and really difficult to pull off. The problem with An Evil Guest is that the on-the-surface story is not remotely interesting, and you never get enough of the real story lurking beneath.

When you do it's awesome. One chapter shows us a Cthulhu-cultist's journey to R'lyeh, where, of course, the dead god waits dreaming, and it's so freaking cool you want to crap your pants. And then another time a character talks about how there are all kinds of aliens on our world, but they never reveal themselves to us. And then he compares it the other planet in the book, Woldercan, which humans have visited and instead of lurking in shadows and swamps and ruined mansions in New England they've set up an embassy and diplomatic relations. Why isn't it like that here? Well, he explains, the difference is that Cthulhu is really the ruler of our world and he claims it as his private fiefdom or farmyard.

!!!! Holy freaking crap, right?? Unfortunately I just ruined the whole book for you because those are the only cool parts. Then I realized that I'd written a book review instead of a blog post about my trip to Pittsburgh so I got mad and posted it anyway.

Still More Road Trip

2008-12-10T14:07:00.001-08:00

Day 5:

That day we woke up in Santa Barbara, which was totally new. Sarah was at work building an airbase. I wanted to leave her house quickly because her roommates are weird and I think they make more money than me.

Sarah left $20 and a hand-drawn map of the area on her bathroom sink. It was a sweet gesture and I laughed.

The plan for this day was to get breakfast at a nearby bakery, spend a few hours on the beach, and be on the road to Los Angeles by 1 or so. Unfortunately, there is a bookstore beside the bakery in Santa Barbara. By the time we emerged it was after 1:00. We were sad about missing the beach, but there was nothing for it but to hit the road.

Glendale (a chunk of Los Angeles or suburb or something) is only an hour or two south of Santa Barbara. We should have made good time, and been at April's place in time to cook dinner. Fortunately, Kat and I both have Attention Deficit Disorder.

We'd been driving an hour or something when we saw the beach. It cost $7 to park, but there was no one working. We pulled in, and ran down to the water.

Beaches hold a special significance for me. As a child, we spent our summers in Ocean City, a resort town in Maryland. 12-15 of us would pack into a 3 bedroom condo (Don't run the air conditioning! Do you know how much the electric bill is!) (Close the damn door, the air conditioning is on!) for 3 months. During the day we children were taken to the beach at 9:00 and ignored until 5. Protestations such as "I'm bored," "It's too hot," "Can we get an umbrella," and "I have sunstroke" were generally met with rage. In such circumstances, children learn to entertain themselves, and I am grateful to my family for my ability to tolerate any level of boredome provided I can sit in the shade.

Also, Kat's and my relationship began on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, in a lovely scene recounted at Gabe's blog some time ago.

This beach was pretty awesome, but I'm getting tired of typing. It's 4:19 and I have stuff to finish before 5:00. What follows is the abridged version of the next 12 hours, reconstructed, as always, from a somewhat faulty memory.

2:00 - We got to the beach.
2:30 - Extended oceanside makeout scene.
3:00 - Back on the road.
3:15 - Lost. How the hell did we get to Ventura?
3:30 - Since we're in Ventura, we might as well go exploring.
3:45 - This coffee is really good. Oh and look, an alt weekly paper with Free Will Astrology!
4:30 - How the hell do you get out of Ventura?
5:30 - Okay, I think this is Glendale.
6:00 - Reunion Scene. New character: April.

April: An old friend of Kat's; currently living in Glendale, California. When we arrived Misty (see: Day 3) was staying with her. Upon realizing that they were all in the same geographic location, all 3 women promptly went insane.

6:30 - Visit to supermarket. Women continue acting crazy. Steve* buys himself a sixpack of pumpkin beer.
7:00 - Steve and women cook food. Women continue to act insane. Steve starts drinking.
7:30 - Women were in African-dancing-and-drumming group together in college. Reunion prompts reminiscing, dancing, video-watching.
7:30-9:30 - Extended dance scene. (Steve continues drinking.)
9:30-11:30 - (Alcoholic blur.)
11:30-3:00 - Sleep.
3:00 - Wake, drive to airport.
3:15 - With no cars out, the 20-lane highway to LAX looks like the Coruscant scenes from Star Wars. Steve, riding in the back seat, comments on this. No one notices.
3:30 - It's a good thing we got to the airport three hours ahead of time. What do you want to do now?
3:35 - Okay that woman has a cup of coffee. Where the hell did she get it?
3:45 - Thank God for Starbucks.
4:00 - What do you want to do now?

* Kat

More Road Trip

2008-12-10T13:50:00.002-08:00

Day 4:

Unfortunately, it's been two weeks, so I've forgotten a lot of the details. Fortunately, my $50,000 creative writing degree will allow me to fill in the gaps by making shit up.

So, when we left me, I was in San Francisco, and I'd just passed out because it was late and I was drunk. Oh, and I'd spent all of Kat's money. The next morning I woke up in San Francisco, but I'd already done that before.

I said to Kat, "Go into my wallet and take out all the money I owe you. I don't want to see it or know how much it is."

She did so. We went downstairs and checked out of the hostel. I remembered that the day before when we went downstairs the song Piazza, New York Catcher by Belle and Sebastian had been playing in the lobby, and that seemed significant because it was Track 1 on a mix we'd been listening to.

1. Belle and Sebastian - Piazza, New York Catcher
2. The Replacements - Waitress in the Sky
3. The Clash - Spanish Bombs
4. The Decemberists - Leslie Anne Levine

I'm not sure how it goes from there. It was a well-rendered mix with smooth transitions and Fleet Foxes, and served us well through southern California.

So anyway we spent all that day driving Highway 101 from San Francisco to Santa Barbara. I drove most of this and it was the most driving I'd ever done in my life; also, I didn't almost kill us even once.

The next 400 miles are a blur. I drove and Kat did something else. Then we were in Santa Barbara, and my aunt Sarah lived in a cul de sac. She criticized me for smoking, tried to park Kat's car closer to the curb, and felt really guilty for not buying us dinner when we went out for food&drinks.

Sarah: The second character we meet on the road; the first not named after a weather pattern. She is 31 and a retired Air Force captain. She was in Iraq for 6 months building an airbase or something and the first thing she did when I arrived was show me her marathon, triathlon, and Iron Man medals. We grew up together in my grandparents' house in Pennsylvania. We did not get along.

Later I was drunk again and we all went to sleep. Fifty thousand dollars well spent.

December!?

2008-12-10T13:50:00.001-08:00

And how is it already the tenth and I haven't posted even once yet, not even to continue my story of the Road Trip?

How terrible. I shall therefore continue this very day with Road Trip, Part 4.

Road Trip: Part 2

2008-11-26T12:57:00.001-08:00

We left at Day 3, so let's begin there.

Day 3: San Francisco

I awoke (as I described) in San Francisco, which I hadn't done before. Get up, shower, have a cup of coffee, and off to wander the streets.

The streets of San Francisco are different from other streets. They have restaurants and businesses and neat little shops. And then the next street over, instead of having row houses, also has restaurants and businesses and shops. To a Pittsburgher this was an alien configuration.

We were staying on the border of Chinatown, so naturally that's where we went first, stopping to touristly photograph all the buildings what don't look like ones we have here.

Then we made it to the bay. More coffee, a sourdough baguette, and a bit of Odis Redding on the dock of the bay, while a fat white seagull perched beside us and glared. I told Kat that I had blogged about paying $15 to cross the bridge, and she said, "No, you paid $6 and got $15 dollars change." "How is that possible?" "You gave them 21." "Oh."

We walked along the Embarcadero, intending to meet a friend of Kat's at Pier 39 and have some lunch. As we sat on another dock of the bay with another set of seagulls I started thinking about the number one googolplex, which is one followed by a googol of zeros.

A googol looks like this: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000.

What would a googolplex look like? I started thinking that if you wrote it out it would cover the entire surface of the earth. So then I thought of a planet which an advanced civilization had dedicated entirely to writing out one googolplex. 1, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000....etc forever across everything. Why the hell would they do this? I thought. Well, I replied, the planet was in fact a museum: Each number represented one life. Contained within each number is the story of one being who lived somewhere during the long history of the universe.

Now Carl Sagan informs me there is a problem: There isn't enough space in the universe to write out the number one googolplex. Oh well.

After that we were at Pier 39 with touristy seafood restaurants and docks filled up with sealions, all fat and barking and stinking. That was where Kat's friend Misty met us. Misty is from Tennessee; she was staying in LA with April. All of Kat's friends are named after external conditions, and I regretted not spending time with January, Seven O'Clock, and It's Not The Heat It's The Humidity. We went to a restaurant called The Sea Lion and, having decided to eat seafood during our trip, I devoured an entire marine ecosystem.

"San Francisco, San Francisco." Evening: And it was time for some hipstertourism. The attendant in the Beat Museum asked me, "Which of the beats have you read?" Drunk but honest I said "All of them," because I couldn't think of a single writer of the period I wasn't familiar with. He looked at me skeptically. "Who wrote Revenge of the Lawn?" I asked, because I'd forgotten (& lost the copy I owned). He told me, and said "You can find him by Bukowski. Do you like Bukowski?" I told him, "Yes, I like Bukowski, but I hate admitting this, because I hate people who are like 'Duuude have you read BuKOWski!!!!!!'" He laughed and tried to sell me some Bukowski by implying that I hadn't read his novels. I haven't and don't plan to. I bought* a copy of Atrocity Exhibition and a Brautigan collection and we left.

* Actually, I left my money at the hostel. Kat bought me the books but I paid in promises.

City Lights bookstore is right around the corner from the Beat Museum (also, a block away from our hostel, which was cool and unintentional). We wandered about. I had already spent enough of Kat's money on books but I really wanted to spend more. I jumped about and nerdgasmed and had her drag me out -- To Vesuvio's, which is a bar next door whose claim to fame is Jack Kerouac Liked To Get Drunk There. There was Kerouac memorabilia all over the place. I peed myself with happy. We had a drink. I wanted more. "I have four dollars," Kat said to me. "I'll have a Budweiser!" I said to the Bartender.

I drank it.

Road Trip: Part 1

2008-11-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

I awoke thismorning from a dream that we were on this trip. I had been piloting the spaceship in its hyperspace jumps across the galaxy because Kat -- a gigantic spider from an alien world -- was not capable of doing so. A meteor startled me and I yelled and jumped into Kat, waking both of us. And I realized then that she was, in fact, a human girl, and we were in a hostel in San Francisco.

But let's begin at the beginning.

Day One: Roseburg to Redwoods.

We started off after a morning of scrambling about on Friday from Roseburg at noon. I drove us to Grant's Pass, 53 miles south (or about 1/16th of our total so far; I spend two weeks learning how to drive a stick for just this purpose.) From Grant's Pass we took 199 to Jedidiah Smith State Park in California.

The Redwoods: Holy Freaking Crap. There is this moment where you're driving into northern California, and its gorgeous and forested and you're like "Look at those gigantic fucking trees! Those must be the REDWOODS!" But then you keep going and then you're like: Oh. No, I was wrong. THOSE are the Redwoods.

I've taken pictures of course but I can't post them yet. When I do you'll understand.

In the Redwoods I drank a delicious Winter Ale and had the worst night's sleep ever due to a faulty arrangement of bedding in the tent.

Day 2: California.

Now I get it.

This was my second time in the state, the other being a (disastrous) week in LA in January. This time, though, we saw approximately 4.88 billion miles of the state, staying always on that great highway, 101. (We tried to take 1 at one point, but found it basically impassible save, perhaps, by mule.) In any case, here are my observations about California:

1. Everyone is pretty. I mean everyone. In all the shitty roadside towns, there aren't fat American people, there are pretty people. In the cities it's impossible to look directly at other human beings without being blinded.

2. Everything is pretty. Like. Everything. Last night after 300 hours of driving we crossed the (beautiful) Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. A fat orange moon was hovering over the city, which was one of those paintings of a million lights in the distance. The moon didn't even look like it does anywhere else. It was four times bigger than it should have been and it wasn't even round. This after a day beginning in the Redwoods, driving through the prettiest natural scenery ever.

3. Everything normal costs 15-30 dollars. Our car is in a garage until Monday for $50. Entering the city costs $15. I believe the latter is a cool tax. People in San Francisco are more fashionable than anywhere else in the universe. I think they assess each car and figure out how much the passengers will add to or detract from the cool of the city. We got lucky at 15 bucks. The pickup truck with Oklahoma plates ahead of us had to pay 400. I think the actresses behind us were given a bag of pot and hotel vouchers.

By the time we got here, after (literally) two hours of driving and wandering about the city, looking for a place to park our car (1.2 miles from our hostel, according to Google maps) (God Bless You, Google), we were both so exhausted we could do nothing but stumble into our room and pass out. But today is a new day, and the sun is out, and Kat is giving me impatient "Finish your fucking blog already I'm hungry" looks, so I'm going to go have breakfast and explore this town. Bye for now!

Something Interesting

2008-11-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

Just came across this website: http://www.studentloanjustice.org/

Quote:

In 1997, under intense lobbying from student loan companies, The Higher Education Act (HEA) was amended, and defaulted student loans became among the most lucrative, and easiest to collect type of debt. These amendments allow for huge penalties and fees to be attached to defaulted student loan debt, take away bankruptcy protection for student borrowers, dissallow refinancing of the debt, and also provide for draconian collection and punitive measures to be taken against student borrowers, including wage garnishment, tax garnishment, withholding of professional certifications, termination from employment , social security garnishment, and others. According to Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren in a Wall Street Journal piece by John Hechinger , "Student-loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious."

Still More Election (& A Little Bit of Reflection)

2008-11-05T14:15:00.001-08:00

Digression: I haven't updated this blog in a while. I probably shouldn't be taking the time to update it now. But I will anyway. Reflections, for my own mind's sake.

Here's another thought on the matter...

I began blogging at the beginning of the primaries. Remember my second post? (If you're not, um, me, you probably don't.) It was written in my grandparents' basement while watching the Republican debates.

That was 11 months ago. Everything was so different.

I'd never been west of Chicago.

There was a real possibility that Mitt Fucking Romney would be the next president of the United States.

I would be leaving for Oregon in a matter of days, and I had no idea what I'd find there.

And now.

November 5th, 2008. America just elected Barack Obama president of the United States. At the end of January two things will happen: Obama will be inaugurated, and I will be out of a job. I have no idea what will happen after that.

What do I have to show for this time of this life?

I just finished revising a short story I started writing in 2005 (when I had never been west of Cleveland, written a grant application, graduated college, broken up with my first girlfriend, or placed in a psychiatric hospital.) It's creepy. I really like it.

I don't know what to do next.

More Election

2008-11-05T12:55:00.001-08:00

I'll probably regret it in the future if I didn't have anything to say for Historic Election Day. So let's do this again.

I hate the Clinton Democrats. I hate the free trade and the it's-okay-cause-no-Americans-died wars of aggression and the attention paid to ridiculous distractions like gun control. Probably none of that will change.

That said, here's why I'm happy about the election:

Because the election of Barack Obama is an affirmation, by the country, of the fact that "real Americans" are also people like me, instead of just ignorant redneck fuckwads like Bush and Palin pretend to be.

Holy Freaking Crap!

2008-11-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

I don't care. And I know I will hate the bastard within two years. But, but, you know--

HOLY FREAKING CRAP OBAMA WINS THAT IS AWESOME YAY!!!!!!!!!

Western Pennsylvania Is A Racist Area

2008-10-16T11:08:00.001-07:00

So I'm reading on CNN that

Rep. John Murtha, a supporter of Barack Obama's presidential bid, apologized Thursday for calling western Pennsylvania "a racist area."

This is the stupidest thing ever.

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA IS A RACIST AREA.

In fact, let's go a little further.

Outside the city limits of Pittsburgh, almost EVERYONE in Western PA is racist. They're racist, and they're homophobic, and they're misogynistic, and they hate intellectuals too. And they're really, really fucking stupid. I grew up with these people, I know them, and I hate them.

And just because it's not nice to say that in a major newspaper, doesn't mean it isn't so.

Debt Resistance

2008-10-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

Thought on my mind: What we need is for the mass of Americans to, as a one, declare that they won't be paying back their student loans, credit card debts or mortgages.

A View From the RNC

2008-10-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

Remember the big protests at the Republican National Convention, and the police violence that accompanied them?

Well a friend of mine -- Call him Mr. 13 -- was there, and he was good enough to send me his account. It's a fascinating and sometimes unnerving story and written in a delightful noire-ish style.

With that introduction, here is 13's Account:

***

The city might have looked nice from that park, on the outskirts above the Mississippi, the skyscrapers rising up from the flats over joggers and dog-walkers. Might have looked nice if I wasn't constantly checking the rear-view for a tail, might have looked nice if sweat wasn't running down my ribs under the nicest shirt I owned, might have looked nice if it had not been built on occupied land with blackmailed labor. Just maybe, might have.

I spit, and turn LVO around. Lost. Again. The cops closed the exit I had planned to take to get into downtown. I had hoped to discreetly slide into Sector 1 without attracting too much attention to our specific intersection.

You know, before we locked down in the middle of it.

S. had been riding around the area for at least two hours, calling in updates to our Central Comms, safely nestled away in the Rust Belt. I had tried calling him for most of that time. Not being able to get him on the phone made me even more nervous. What if he had gotten pinched? The cops had been doing a pretty good job of roughing up anybody who looked like the word dissent might be on their minds. But S. always looked like he just happened to be training for the next triathlon -- police profiles he did not fit.

I got my contact person, L., on the phone. At Central Comms, we had a person in direct communication with someone from each group on the ground - me in the car, S. on his bike, and the group gathering at a permitted speak-out. So, L. was able to lean over to S.'s contact, and ask what the hell had happened to S. All in all, a pretty efficient system.

Coming into the city, I finally got S. on the phone. He directed me to a parking lot a few blocks down from our intersection. I parked the car, adjusted my bow tie, and made certain that the sleeping dragon in the passenger seat was adequately covered by my thrift-store pinstripe jacket. "Please take no notice of that concrete-filled bucket, officer. Only examine that fancy-looking jacket on top of it. Yup; double-breasted." I got out, stretched, and sat on a nearby bench. S. rolled by; we made the briefest of eye contact. I nervously clicked the carabiner in my pocket. We were only minutes away from deployment.

It should be noted here that I had never done a lockdown. Especially one locked in a car, at a publicly-announced location, while thousands of cops roamed the streets, trigger-fingers warmed up and ready to go. We figured that a disabled vehicle, complete with an uncooperative driver and folks locked to the outside of it, was the most efficient way of holding our intersection with the limited numbers of committed participants. And how I ended up being the designated driver stemmed from separate conversations I had been having with F. about trying to make our way through the world without contributing to the systemic manipulation and exploitation of everything around us. As I volunteered to steer the car into the intersection, F.'s words ran through my mind: "You haven't given your all until you've got nothing left."

My disposable phone started to ring viciously. I answered it: Go time. I hung up and got into LVO. Two short blocks later, I was behind another car, waiting to turn left through our intersection. I saw some of my folks, standing at one corner. On the opposite corners, cops in riot gear milled about, waiting for the pedestrians to try to take the intersection. The light turned green.

The car in front of me rolled through, turned left, and ambled on to wherever. I waited a beat, gunned LVO, and stopped in the middle of the intersection. Everyone charged the car, some locking to it, others filling the intersection. I shut off the car and shoved the key down my pants. The cops started to assess the situation. They called for back up and started pushing people out of the way. I pulled on my goggles and balaclava, fearing that rather than taking the time to cut me out, they would just beat and pepper-spray me until I released myself. Someone I didn't recognize walked around the intersection, singing and strumming on his guitar as he was hustled along by the closest officers. I have no idea who he was, but it sure did a lot to comfort me to hear him defiantly playing.

One of the taller cops walked up to the window and tapped on it. He introduced himself as the sergeant on the scene. His thick Midwestern accent took me by surprise: he was polite, articulate, maybe even nice. All around him, other cops were swarming LVO, the magic words "sleeping dragon" passing between them. The Sarge asked me if I would please unlatch myself.

"Not until the convention has been shut down," I replied through the glass.

"It'll be over tomorrow," he offered.

"Well, that's when I'll leave!"

He frowned, a bit perturbed, and switched tactics.

"You know, it's going to get really hot in there. Just 95 degrees out here."

I shook my gallon-jug of water at him. The Sarge shut up.

By this time, the cops outside had figured out how to defeat the exterior lockboxes. Once my comrades started to get taken into custody, I got the idea to give L. a call back home. [Note: all phone conversations are constructed from memory, nearly a month after the fact. Any omissions and misstatements are purely my fault. For a more exact transcript, contact the NSA.]

"Hey L."

"Hey, what's going on there? Did the action go down yet?"

"It's kind of warm in here. Gonna be a hot one today. The cops have told everyone that they've been arrested."

"Who do they have?"

"Oh, not anyone yet. It was one of those verbal arrest things. Oh, scratch that." I tried to turn around to look out the back, despite the fact that my arm was locked to a metal rod sealed in a five-gallon bucket filled with concrete. "They got two of us loose." I could hear L. passing the information along to the others at Comms.

"Ok, and now they're working on the other two folks... They got 'em." Everyone in zip cuffs, orderly led from the intersection to an empty parking lot. Some city workers (presumably one of the two Cut Teams deployed throughout the city) stuck their faces up to the car window, trying to determine what was going on with my sleeping dragon, covered by my jacket. They tried to open the doors and chatted amongst themselves about the best course of action to take. Unlike all of the riot police with cuddly accents, the Cut Team had their names and badge numbers embroidered on their uniforms.

"Hey, L., want some badge numbers?" I started rattling off names and numbers, along with what they were doing. One of the Cut Team folks finally rolled up with a crow bar, a four-foot long number, the color of a cloudy day. I was given one more chance to release; I refused to even acknowledge it. As L. was trying to keep up with the badge numbers, I asked, "Want to hear a window break?" I held the phone away from my face.

The crowbar reared back, and smashed the window behind me. Glass bits exploded onto the back seat. Honestly, I expected the sound to be louder. It could be, though, that after all of these years of not wearing ear plugs at punk shows has dulled the ol' auditory nerves. Someone reached around and opened the back door, then climbed across the back seat to open the passenger-side door. Hmph. Shoulda had those welded shut, I thought. Front doors were soon popped open. I resumed reporting names and numbers, much to the distress of one of the Cut Team members. She heard her information being rattled off and freaked out. She ran over to me, pried the phone from my hand, and kept my hand in a firm grip, like a frustrated parent holding onto a disobedient child. Pissed, she was.

The Cut Team went to work, evaluating the situation underneath my jacket. They poked at the bucket, poked at the concrete, poked at the PVC holding my arm. A Cut Team member started talking to me. He seemed way too nervous of a guy to be dealing with people dedicated enough to their beliefs to lock themselves to large objects in city streets.

"Is there anything in here that's going to hurt me? There isn't a bomb in here that's going to explode when we take you out, is there? I've got two kids, man, I don't want to die." Really, his distress was so over the top that I couldn't help laughing. I reassured him that I, too, had no desire to get blown up. He started going through everything I had within arm's reach: aforementioned jug of water, hippy-ass trail mix, vinegar-soaked bandana in a plastic bag.

"What's this?"

I didn't respond.

"Oh, what, you thought we were going to gas you? We're not those kind of cops."

These jokers, along with 3,000 other cops, did a great job later of proving otherwise.

From a vehicle, they produced some sort of snake camera, complete with little television attachment. They ran it through the PVC to determine that only a carabiner kept me in place, and was stopping them from moving LVO the hell out of the way.

"Carabiner?"

"Carabiner."

A Team member disappeared with the camera, while the Nervous Guy tried to talk me out of resisting anymore.

"Now, when we cut you out, sparks are going to fly everywhere. Your clothes could catch on fire, or even melt to your skin." I shrugged. He sighed. Someone appeared with what looked like a router. As they readied the tool and Nervous Guy sweated some more, the Sarge showed back up.

"If you let yourself out, we'll act like we cut you out, and you'll get all the glory, like you want. We won't tell anyone." I couldn't believe he was whispering this to me, this ridiculous proposition that completely failed to accurately gauge anything about me. I mean, there was no expectation that this particular police sergeant should know anything about this particular maniac, locked in this particular car in this particular intersection. But, to assume (out loud) that this maniac would sit through months of meetings, drive sixteen hours, and lock himself to a block of concrete all for glory? It was too much; I laughed and laughed and laughed in this cop's face until he left me alone. Nervous Guy got the go-ahead, someone draped a canvas sheet over me, and they went to work.

Within minutes, I was standing outside of the car, posing for police photographs. Pockets searched, bow tie removed. Goggles and balaclava retained as possessions, not evidence (!). Standing on the curb, watched a giant yellow construction vehicle lift LVO like a hay bale and deposit him in the grassy patch next to the on-ramp. Photographed and searched again. This time, the cop taking the picture had on latex gloves. When he lifted the camera up to take my picture, sweat poured out the gloves. Deposited in the back of a van, driven across the highway to the County Jail. Processed in, processed out. Apart from our group, only one other person in custody; he was missing a shoe. Got free access to phone -- Cold Snap was ready for us. Got bag full of possessions, cited, deposited into another van, and released in an adjacent parking lot.

We got it easy.

Francis Fukuyama is a Son of a Bitch

2008-10-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

Remember him, the "End of History" douchebag beloved of the American Right? Here's his take on the latest crisis. It seems America still has much to offer -- cause our greatest export is still ideas -- especially to those fools in Europe:

And while fewer non-Americans are likely to listen to our advice, many would still benefit from emulating certain aspects of the Reagan model. Not, certainly, financial-market deregulation. But in continental Europe, workers are still treated to long vacations, short working weeks, job guarantees and a host of other benefits that weaken their productivity and will not be financially sustainable.

How -- I mean, seriously, how -- can you possibly brag about having long working hours and no job security? And to the extent to which the right wing and their Democratic emulators buy into this shit -- and the fact that this is considered thoughtful commentary worthy of publication in a major public forum --

I don't even know how to finish that sentence. It's like a categorical admission of "We're completely fucking evil."

Groping With A Different Hand

2008-10-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

You should go and read John Robb's blog from yesterday.

He basically says that the global economic system is too big and too complex for anyone to effectively understand it (like I said a while ago!) and, being so fucking big and complex, it is 1. constantly changing and 2. these constant changes are occurring so rapidly and effect so much that 3. It is impossible for nation-states to effectively respond to it.

The ultimate result, sayeth Robb? The ultimate failure of the state and the resulting hollow state:

The hollow state has the trappings of a modern nation-state ("leaders", membership in international organizations, regulations, laws, and a bureaucracy) but it lacks any of the legitimacy, services, and control of its historical counter-part. It is merely a shell that has some influence over the spoils of the economy.

***

In considering this I'm reminded of the systems theorist Donella Meadows writing:

So one day I was sitting in a meeting about the new global trade regime, NAFTA and GATT and the World Trade Organization. The more I listened, the more I began to simmer inside. "This is a huge new system people are inventing!" I said to myself. "They haven't the slightest idea how it will behave," myself said back to me. "It's cranking the system in the wrong direction—growth, growth at any price!! And the control measures these nice folks are talking about—small parameter adjustments, weak negative feedback loops—are puny!"

Meadows goes on to present a very interesting set of "leverage points" or "places to intervene in a system" in ascending order of effectiveness.

***

These sort of analyses allow us to step outside the obscenely narrow ideological framework of the Democrats and Republicans -- What did I call them the other day? The Corporate Party and the Other Corporate Party? -- and also the slightly expanded framework that includes Marxists and "red anarchists" and "21st Century Socialists" and other relics of the 1800s and try to understand the new world we actually find ourselves in.

What is that world?

I don't know.

But I have some ideas as to what its important features are.

This is the most important feature:

None of the important features are discussed in the major public forums (the "mainstream media," the left/right "alternative media") or by major public officials (Obama/McCain).

***

Just one example.

In 2006, American corporations received $92 billion in subsidies, according to one study.

In an article the other day, Georgia Monbiot pointed out that

USAid used to boast on its website that "the principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the USAid's contracts and grants go directly to American firms."

Good Jobs First released a study documenting at least $1 billion in subsidies to Wal*Mart.

And over the last few posts we've learned how Congress changed the rules for the big investment banks and the government sponsored industries; and how the latter pumped money into both parties (but especially the Democrats) for years; and how the people at the head of these organizations made out like bandits in consequence.

But in the "mainstream" and most of the "alternative" media the debate continues to be whether it's the Bush Administration's fault for encouraging shady loans to create the illusion of the Ownership Society or whether its the Democrats' fault for encouraging loans to poor people.

***

An incomprehensible world, led by people complicit in the obfuscation. That's what we have. That's what we choose during election year: Which set of lies we prefer to believe in.

And it continues because, for us Americans, and hey, for everyone getting richer in East Asia etc. it's really just not that bad.

Quick Note on the Debates

2008-09-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well it's a week later, but I didn't really have time to post in the immediate aftermath. But one of the things I took from the debate -- one of the things we've gotta keep in mind as we keep thinking "Oh Holy God I don't even believe in don't let John McCain win" -- is that this really is about the War Party against the Other War Party.

The War Party tells us that General Petraeus is the greatest general in American history for finally applying principles that others had been talking about for years. The War Party will continue to focus on Iraq and just maybe attack Iran as well. The War Party will achieve victory in Iraq.

But the War Party is wrong! says the Other War Party. The Other War Party will increase our forces in Afghanistan and expand the War into Pakistan. The Other War Party will finally defeat Osama bin Laden.

(And please Sshhh and don't mention the fact that the Other War Party's candidate's foreign policy adviser has been advocating an expanded US presence in Central Asia since the 1990s) (P.s. sorry I can't find a link about Brzezinski that isn't from a paranoid website) (But read his book, it's interesting/horrifying).

And of course, the War Party and the Other War Party have identical stances on whether or not Russia's retaliatory attack on Georgia was somehow "aggression."

So there you have it.

...Not that you didn't know it already.

The Big Hullaballoo Part 5: Getting Groped by Guys With Stupid Names

2008-09-24T14:03:00.001-07:00

Then there's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A big news item from -- was it last week? -- was that they were being taken over by the government. But who the hell are they, and what did they do? All I knew as of two weeks ago was that their names sounded eerily similar to "Sallie Mae," the student loan racket that owns the rest of my life.

So here is what Freddie's website says:

Freddie Mac conducts its business primarily by buying mortgages from lenders, packaging the mortgages into securities and selling the securities – guaranteed by Freddie Mac – to investors.

So, if the understanding of the Big Chain of Stupid that we learned about in part 2 of this series is correct, Freddie Mac played a massive enabling role: Paying lenders for their mortgages, thereby encouraging them to do more and more mortgages to more and more people.

What else is true about Freddie Mac? It was a private corporation, though chartered by the federal government. Its mission and its function were the same as Fannie Mae, though the latter was created much earlier, under the New Deal.

So what the hell happened? The Washington Post has a pretty good overview. The gist is that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae -- private companies, remember -- had special rules created for them, just like those other giant companies that failed.

Where banks that held $100 could spend $90 buying mortgage loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could spend $97.50 buying loans.

Also, they were subject to very little in the way of regulation. And what was the justification?

Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who said the companies served a public purpose. They were in the business of lowering the price of mortgage loans.

And

The Clinton administration wanted to expand the share of Americans who owned homes, which had stagnated below 65 percent throughout the 1980s. Encouraging the growth of the two companies was a key part of that plan.

And

The next spring [of 2000], seeking to limit the companies' growth, Treasury official Gensler testified before Congress in favor of a bill that would have suspended the Treasury's right to buy $2.25 billion of each company's debt -- basically, a $4.5 billion lifeline for the companies.
A Fannie Mae spokesman announced that Gensler's remarks had just cost 206,000 Americans the chance to buy a home because the market now saw the companies as a riskier investment.

And of course, as I guessed before even reading about it, they were in the business of buying shady mortgages, just like the guys on Wall Street.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been losing market share to Wall Street banks, which were doing boomtown business packaging these riskier loans. The mortgage finance giants wanted a share of the profits.

So what the hell does this all mean, and how can we make sense of it?

"The Clinton administration wanted to expand homeownership." So it turned to Fannie Mae (a company founded during the Depression to expand homeownership) and Freddie Mac (founded in 1970 for the same reason) to do so.

What does homeownership mean, in this definition? It means people paying a mortgage to a lender (or rather, to whoever bought the mortgage from the guy that bought the mortgage from the guy that bought the mortgage from the guy the lender sold the mortgage t0) for--what?--30 years, give or take.

And what happens to the "homeowner" who doesn't make these payments? Why, his "home" is seized, of course.

So in what way can the "homeowner" be said to "own" his house to a greater degree than I "own" the apartment that I "rent"?

There are no functional differences. But there are differences: in semantics and in prestige.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac existed to facilitate the illusion of "ownership" in America. And to increase the number of people who "owned" homes.

"Owning" a home via mortgage isn't different from "renting" a home in any way except: In how the "owner" perceives himself and in how others perceive him. Fannie and Freddie increased the perception of bourgeois or rather of "middle class" status among Americans. That's all. Nothing else.

Meanwhile, the only actual increase in wealth was at the (again, privately owned) companies themselves. Fannie and Freddie made a shitheap of money making proletarians feel like bourgeoisie.

The Democratic Party loved Fannie and Freddie. They increased the illusion of inclusive capitalism that is the Democrats economic guiding principle. And Fannie and Freddie loved the Democrats in return.

And that's the other part of the new Right Wing Narrative: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paid off the Democrats and so the crisis is Obama's fault.

And to some extent that's true. 16 of the top 25 Congressional recipients of Fannie/Freddie PAC money were Democrats, and the top 4 are Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, in that order. But the new Right Wing Narrative ignores that the Republicans were bought by the Retardedly Named Duo as well:

In the 2006 election cycle, Fannie Mae was giving 53 percent of its total $1.3 million in contributions to Republicans, who controlled Congress at that time. This cycle, with Democrats in control, they've reversed course, giving the party 56 percent of their total $1.1 million in contributions. Similarly, Freddie Mac has given 53 percent of its $555,700 in contributions to Democrats this cycle, compared to the 44 percent it gave during 2006.

Nor is Obama's the only campaign compromised in this way.

But back to this nonsense about ownership. (I'm about to say my longest sentence ever, but I've read over it and I assure you it's grammatically correct).

Looking at all this it becomes clear that the desire to be the "owner" of the place in which one lives; the prestige that is attached to that title, "Homeowner;" the constant bombardment of messages telling Americans that to be a "Homeowner" is basically the purpose of being alive and the measure of success, achievement, adulthood, America, freedom, liberty; and the willingness on the part of politicians and businessmen to both instill -- through rhetoric, through entertainment, through advertising, through the manipulation of symbol and language -- and then exploit this desire for political ("Look how many new homeowners my Administration created!") or monetary ("Hello investor, how much will you give me for these high risk mortgages?") gain that form the ultimate cause of the problem.

And that's the end of that sentence.

The Big Hullaballoo Part 4: What's the Best Way to Grope the Poor?

2008-09-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

One of the other stories about What the Hell Happened? says it's all the fault of bleeding heart heartbleeders trying to make the normally prudent banks who like to bleed their blood only in sound investments instead bleed their big, banky hearts all over the poor.

What the hell are you talking about?

Why, the Community Reinvestment Act, of course! Because I'm lazy today, let's ask Wikipedia about this. The Community Reinvestment Act

is a United States federal law that requires banks and thrifts to offer credit throughout their entire market area and prohibits them from targeting only wealthier neighborhoods with their services.

According to one of the emerging Right Wing Narratives of What the Hell Just Happened, it's this law's fault that all the bank's made bad loans: Because they were forced to by lovey-fluffy-commie girlies in Congress who were dumb enough to think poor people could pay back their loans. Some jackass at the National Review explains:

One of the reasons so many bad mortgage loans were made in the first place is that Barack Obama’s celebrated community organizers make their careers out of forcing banks to do so. ACORN, for which Obama worked, is one of many left-wing organizations that spent decades pressuring banks and bank regulators to do more to make mortgages available to people without much in the way of income, assets, or credit. These campaigns often were couched in racially inflammatory terms. The result was the Community Reinvestment Act. The CRA empowers the FDIC and other banking regulators to punish those banks which do not lend to the poor and minorities at the level that Obama’s fellow community organizers would like. Among other things, mergers and acquisitions can be blocked if CRA inquisitors are not satisfied that their demands — which are political demands — have been met. There is a name for loans made to people who do not have the credit, assets, income, or down payment to qualify for a normal mortgage: subprime.

So, you see? It's Barack Obama's fault, and it's also ACORN'S fault. But, the National Review concedes,

The bankers cannot blame CRA entirely; they made a lot of bad bets on rising home prices. But CRA did influence lending standards across the banking industry, even in those institutions that are not strictly liable to its jurisdiction. The subprime debacle is in no trivial part the result of lending decisions in which political extortion trumped businesses’ normal bottom-line concerns.

Now, leaving aside the fact that people who are editors for the National Review are retards/assholes, all of this does make some sense. So we should ask some questions like, To what extent did the Community Reinvestment Act force banks to make loans to people who couldn't pay them back?

Because this is complicated, and because understanding whether it's true would require some research, let's turn this one over to someone smarter than me. Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Gordon says:

First, consider timing. CRA was enacted in 1977. The sub-prime lending at the heart of the current crisis exploded a full quarter century later. In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman (and by Harvard's Joint Center), that activity "largely came to an end by 2001." In late 2004, the Bush administration announced plans to sharply weaken CRA regulations, pulling small and mid-sized banks out from under the law's toughest standards. Yet sub-prime lending continued, and even intensified -- at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened.
Second, it is hard to blame CRA for the mortgage meltdown when CRA doesn't even apply to most of the loans that are behind it. As the University of Michigan's Michael Barr points out, half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.
Most important, the lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending. Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, offers the killer statistic: Independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts. With this in mind, Yellen specifically rejects the "tendency to conflate the current problems in the sub-prime market with CRA-motivated lending." CRA, Yellen says, "has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."

See, look what I did! I paired a leftwing editorial with a rightwing editorial and decided that because the leftwing editorial said stuff that I like, I agree with it! You know what that makes me? Everyone in America!

The only problem with the above paragraph is that the American Prospect article included specific datapoints. In particular:

Independent mortgage companies, who aren't subject to the CRA made twice the number of high priced loans the banks and thrifts did.

Half the subprime loans came from banks and thrifts not covered by the CRA.

25 to 30 percent of the rest (for a total of 75-80%) came from "bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves."

After the slow-down of CRA activity (2001) and after the weakening of the law (2004), subprime lending continued and intensified.

In contrast, the National Review gives us the following datapoints to work with:

ACORN is racist.

Barack Obama loves the Community Reinvestment Act.

The CRA contributed in some way to the crisis, even though it wasn't the only thing.

So what are we left to conclude? My judgment, subject to change:

The CRA didn't cause the problem.

In fact it is sort of a kind of good idea, except that the idea of forcing banks to lend money to poor people as a way of increasing home ownership in poor neighborhoods is really really troubling. It can't not encourage some degree of predatory lending -- or, if you're on the other side of the fence, encourage irresonsible poor people to screw over the honest bankers who were forced to lend them money. I like the Habitat for Humanity model better.

The Big Hullaballoo Part 3: Man I Love Gropin'!

2008-09-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

Continuing our exceedingly popular coverage of What the Fuck Just Happened to America?, here are some more takes on the issue from across the political spectrum.

First up, it's Pat Buchanan. I met Buchanan once and he was real nice to me even though I was disagreeing with him about stuff and wearing a defaced American flag on my jacket, so let's quote him at length:

Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.

But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.

As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.

At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.

Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.

John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or "bomb, bomb, bomb," with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.

Who are we kidding?

What we are witnessing today is how empires end.

The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.

Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.

So, according to ol' Pat, the morals of the story are that Big Government and global economic interdependence are the problems; that Big Government includes social spending as well as war; and that we should take note that the people deciding the solution are not elected officials (and we've already seen just how compromised one of them is).

***

Okay Pat Buchanan, that was fun. Next up, former Securities and Exchange Commission official Lee Pickard puts in his two cents:

"The SEC modification in 2004 is the primary reason for all of the losses that have occurred," Mr. Pickard, who is now a senior partner at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Pickard & Djinis, said.

What's the SEC modification in 2004, you ask? Well, let's see if we can get our heads around it:

The SEC allowed five firms — the three that have collapsed plus Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — to more than double the leverage they were allowed to keep on their balance sheets and remove discounts that had been applied to the assets they had been required to keep to protect them from defaults.

Making matters worse, according to Mr. Pickard, who helped write the original rule in 1975 as director of the SEC's trading and markets division, is a move by the SEC this month to further erode the restraints on surviving broker-dealers by withdrawing requirements that they maintain a certain level of rating from the ratings agencies.

"They constructed a mechanism that simply didn't work," Mr. Pickard said. "The proof is in the pudding — three of the five broker-dealers have blown up."

So, the SEC changed the rule so that these 5 mega-giant firms didn't have to abide by the traditional debt-to-capital ratios. Unfortunately, I have basically no idea what this means, so I can't really comment. I only find it hilarious that 1. Special rules were made for companies worth more than $5 billion, 2. Those companies then collapsed and trashed the economy, and so then 3. Instead of going back to the rules, the SEC got rid of them for everyone else too. Hahahahaha.

***

Anybody else care to comment? Any more informed opinions? Oh hey, look, it's the Wall Street Journal! I appreciate them for their nonbiased commentary.

The Wall Street Journal article begins like a comic book for rich stupid people:

Huddled in his office Wednesday with top advisers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson watched his financial-data terminal with alarm as one market after another began go haywire. Investors were fleeing money-market mutual funds, long considered ultra-safe. The market froze for the short-term loans that banks rely on to fund their day-to-day business. Without such mechanisms, the economy would grind to a halt. Companies would be unable to fund their daily operations. Soon, consumers would panic.

See! Secretary Paulson is like a superhero, watching nervously as the city begins to collapse. What to do! he thinks. And then insight strikes him:

For at least a month, Mr. Paulson and Treasury officials had discussed the option of jump-starting markets by having the government absorb the rotten assets -- mainly financial instruments tied to subprime mortgages -- at the heart of the crisis. The concept, dubbed Balance Sheet Relief, was seen at Treasury as a blunt instrument, something to be used in only the direst of circumstances.

One day later, Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sped to Congress to seek approval for the biggest government intervention in financial markets since the 1930s.

Eureka! shrieked Paulson, and -- billionaire that he is -- dove happily into his giant swimming pool of money. It was so simple--so obvious--Why hadn't he thought of it before? "Have the American people pay for it!" he cried, surfacing and spitting forth a stream of dollar bills. "Bail out the ultra-wealthy with taxpayer dollars!"

Yes! Henry Paulson had done it. He'd saved the economy! There was just one problem. What if anybody in Congress had testicles? Though he dismissed the idea as unlikely, Paulson still had to address the matter.

In a private meeting with lawmakers, according to a person present, one asked what would happen if the bill failed.

"If it doesn't pass, then heaven help us all," responded Mr. Paulson.

So there you have it, according to the Wall Street Journal.

***

Here's something I haven't seen anybody mention. This business of buying and selling other people's debt, this business that lead to a whole lot of people getting really rich in the last decade: What the hell is its point?

In that NPR show we looked at last time, they interviewed a guy that was making up to $100,000 a month buying and selling securities. And he was the cool guy, living it up, hobnobbing with Christina Aguilera and Cuba Gooding Jr. and all these other fuckheads.

So here we have a guy that has done absolutely nothing to make anybody's life better and has contributed materially in no way at all to the rest of society. And he's rich. And he probably thought of himself as the epitome of the American Dream come true. Meanwhile other people do meaningful work or at the very least, make something useful, and can barely afford to feed themselves or go to the doctor.

What. The. Fuck.

What does that say about our society? About our "economy?" About ourselves, that we allow this sort of thing to happen, that we even cherish it and consecrate it and endow it with all these revered words like Freedom and Opportunity and American Dream?

The Big Hullaballoo Part 2: The Grope Goes On

2008-09-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

I just read over the transcript of this NPR show on the Crisis. If I understood what it told me, and if it was right, then this happened:

First, there were mortgages. People sold mortgages to other people to buy houses. Those other people made payments on their mortgages. The people to whom they made those payments, the mortgage brokers, then sold those mortgages to banks, or to companies. I'm not sure which. So now the brokers made a lot of money, and the banks were getting payments, but then, the banks/companies sold the mortgages to bigger banks/companies. And onward to the big big guys on Wall Street.

And every step of the way everyone was making money. And another funny thing: The littler companies that bought the mortgages from the brokers had to take out loans to do so! Hahahahaha.

And then it gets funnier. Because everyone's buying these mortgages. So the brokers start giving them, selling them, whatever the term is, to shadier and shadier people, until we're at the point (2 or 3 years ago) where someone like ME could probably have gotten one. This thing "NINA loan" turns up; No Income No Assets. WTF! They'd lend to anybody, and then the loan would skip up along this chain until it got to the top.

Other new words I learned include "mortgage pool" and "tranche." A mortgage pool, I think, is a group of mortgages. "Tranche" means slice; it's when you slice up all these groups of mortgages and sell them off to whomever.

So then things got fucked, sayeth NPR, when this happened: People started defaulting on their very first payment!

So in the beginning, it was okay if somebody defaulted and the bank foreclosed. And that's because housing prices were always rising. But all of a sudden there is all this defaulting and foreclosing, and all these damned houses, so, What? The prices fall. And so now if someone defaults and you foreclose, you lose money (by the way "you" are a bank.)

And that's why the crisis happens. The banks are losing, losing, losing money.

And they have to be bailed out. Because they're the banks!

***

Here are other fun facts.

The NPR show describes a guy getting a half-million dollar loan he could probably never pay back. The people that got this loan for him represented his income at something like 3 times what it actually was:

Mortgage brokers were walking around East Flatbush, knocking on doors, telling just about anybody: Hey, we can get you a house. If you have a house, we can get you a big home equity line of credit. This happened in poor neighborhoods all over the country. And, while the FBI and other law enforcement folks, say they don't have the exact numbers, it's clear that fraud--like the fraud on Richard's application--was ubiquitous.

The phrase "Fraud was ubiquitous" comes without source or citation, though it seems likely enough. But assuming it's true, will there be any repurcussions for any of that? Well, probably not.

***

Speaking of fun facts. Back in February, this article from Eliot Spitzer appeared in the Washington Post. Let's quote it a bit:

The OCC [Office of the Comptroller of Currency] has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

Let's restate that, huh? All 50 states tried to stop the banks from predatory lending practices that helped cause this problem, and the Bush Administration stopped them. Shocking.

I am also shocked in retrospect at how Spitzer was brought down as governor of New York. By "shocked," I mean "not surprised even a little."

And all of this would tend to make one a little leery about all this power given to Henry Paulson, a man who works for this Administration (that should be cause for damnation in and of itself) and as Secretary of the Treasury, presumably approves of its fiscal policies (see previous quotation); and who, in his previous job, was billionaire CEO of one of the companies that caused the whole fucking problem in this first place!

***

Now I'm starting to rant and speculate. I still don't probably understand the whole thing, even a little. But it doesn't add up, does it? The Big Bail Out doesn't, especially not in the way it's being done (total authority for Paulson with no oversight at all). Something's totally fucked.

This Big Hullaballoo: Groping Toward Understanding

2008-09-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

Okay I've been looking into more and more explanations of this big Wall Street crisis-thing going on, and the more I read, the more I conclude:

Nobody understands it.

The system is too big and too complex and nobody knows why it does what it does.

The only important questions then: Who prospers? Who suffers? Who takes the blame?

***

I've seen a lot of explanations of this sort:

Banks made loans to people who couldn't repay them. And that was the bleeding heart lefty government's fault, for encouraging loans for houses for people who couldn't afford them. The poor people couldn't afford their payments, and so they broke the system. Result: They lose their homes; and it's their fault; and the government's job is to bail out the banks, otherwise...

Otherwise, what? Who knows.

But Ron Paul says that the result of all this stuff should be a drastic lowering in housing prices:

When interest rates are lowered to below what the market rate would normally be, as the Federal Reserve has done numerous times throughout this decade, it becomes much cheaper to borrow money. Longer-term and more capital-intensive projects, projects that would be unprofitable at a high interest rate, suddenly become profitable.

Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand.

In this case, this manifested itself in overbuilding in real estate. When builders realize they have overbuilt and have too many houses to sell, too many apartments to rent, or too much commercial real estate to lease, they seek to recoup as much of their money as possible, even if it means lowering prices drastically.

This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners -- in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers -- builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.

The government doesn't like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated.

So...

The problem is that low interest rates caused builders to build too much? Sayeth Paul. And that should mean a drop in prices. Which should mean more people able to buy houses, etc, but real estate sellers losing money. And -- What? The real estate people, or, the homeowners(?) Have to sell their property, now at a low price because supply exceeds demand(?) But-- What? They can't repay the banks? So the banks go broke? And that's what the Fed is trying to fix?

That seems, if I even understood it correctly, like the dead opposite of the previous explanation.

***

Then there is an explanation I heard the other day from the guy that does our finances:

Banks gave people 100% loans for houses. These people had payments that were lower than their interest rates. (How?) So the amount of money they owed the bank continually increased. Meanwhile the value of their home decreased. (How?) So they now owed the bank $105,000 on a home that was worth $100,000 but now is only worth $70,000. The house being the only collateral, and being now worth less, the hypothetical homeowners abandoned it.

Who are the culprits, according to this guy? The Rich.

***

Another explanation, from a different forum:

You need money to get money. People (banks) loaning other people money is the "heartbeat" of the economy: If they can't loan money, other people can't take their money and make even more money with it. So the government can't let them crash. I look at this statement and think of anything ol' Ron Paul said:

Additionally, the government's actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.

***

The only thing that I can understand fully right now is that the government is bailing out ultra-wealthy people who made bad decisions, and that this is a pretty common pattern.

***

Writing for Asia Times, Otto Spengler gives us this delightful metaphor:

Think of America as a town with one casino, in which the only economic activity is gambling. Most people lose, but the casino keeps lending them more money to play. Eventually, of course, the casino must go bankrupt. At this point, the townspeople people vote to tax themselves in order to bail out the casino. Collectively, the gamblers cannot help but lose; individually they nonetheless hope to win their way out of the hole

Spengler goes on to, seemingly, confirm what Ron Paul had to say:

Contrary to what the Bush administration says, it is not the case that banks' troubled mortgage assets cannot be sold in the private market. Those are the so-called "Level III" assets that banks say they cannot value. But that is only a dodge that the banks use to postpone taking losses. There is a ready bid for these assets from hedge funds, in multi-hundred-billion-dollar size. The trouble is that the market bid is 25% to 30% below the prices that banks carry these assets on their books.

***

It comes up occasionally that this fellow Treasury Secretary Paulson is being given an immense amount of power and no oversight. It also comes up occasionally that he used to be the CEO of Goldman-Sachs.

***

So what's going on? An afternoon of reading and I still don't quite understand. One thing: We're told the Big Bail Out is necessary for the economy. So, what's the economy? And why does it need to continue?

A Horror

2008-09-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

It is the twenty first century, and the day was long as all days are long. Body sagging with weariness the man pulls himself up the steps to his apartment. Inside he goes directly into his bedroom, lays down in bed and plugs himself in to a series of devices. Wires extend from his ears to a machine; a glowing screen fills his vision. He is cut off entirely both from the outside world and from his own thoughts.

The man of course is me. I have just come home. I have not been home in some time. What do I do? Do I converse with anyone, or perhaps sit in quiet meditation? I go to my room, I attach earphones to my head which create a facsimile of music that is ultimately as false as it is bizarre. I type a message: "Hi, how are you?" to a friend 3,000 miles away. Communication without context, soundless, sightless; the real world, the world of the senses, entirely done away with; the human removed, nothing but the Symbol remaining.

The twenty-first century: all of it is insane and none of it is real.

Confessions, Lamentations

2008-09-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

Something is going on in America.

Everyone is freaking out about it.

I don't understand the financial system. At all.

Something's going on -- and I don't understand what!

I have some guesses as to who is responsible (the super-rich).

I have some guesses as to the nature of the government's response (socialism for the super-rich).

I have some vague grasp of what is happening (Something about the mortgage companies. Something about a trillion dollar bail-out. Something about the super-rich not having to suffer the consequences of bad financial decisions, even though they're savvy enough to at least know what those decisions were...unlike me.)

(By the way Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Bush, could the federal government maybe help out with some of my credit card debt? No? Yeah, I didn't think so.)

But all of this said. I don't, still don't, really grasp what's going on.

So somebody...

What the hell is going on?

Letting the Days Go By

2008-09-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone I know what to do -- Let's go read the News!

Here is an oldie, but I missed it at the time.

Study Tallies Corporations Not Paying Income Taxes

Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Holy shit, that's fucked! But what else is going on in the News?

Scientists Watch As Listener's Brain Predicts Speaker's Words

Scientists at the University of Rochester have shown for the first time that our brains automatically consider many possible words and their meanings before we've even heard the final sound of the word.

I originally clicked on this article cause I thought it was going be about telepathy. It turns out it's not, so I don't care. But maybe you should read it anyway!

And finally, read this neat thing sent to me by my fried B.

The eco-community in the Preseli mountains of west Wales was set up in 1993 and lived contentedly away from the rat race round a 180-acre farm bought by Julian and Emma Orbach.
In 1998, it was spotted when sunlight was seen glinting off a solar panel on the main building, which was built from straw bales, timber and recycled glass.
When the pilot reported back, officials were unable to find any records, let alone planning permission, for the mystery hillside village surrounded by trees and bushes.

So, usually the next sentence would be "so the villagers were evicted from their homes and their children were taken into custody by the government" accompanied by snideness and innuendo to the effect that people who want to live in ecovillages are necessarily insane. That is, if the story hadn't begun with "All members of deranged ecovillage cult killed in FBI siege." But not this time! Somehow a government (tellingly, not in the US) decided it was okay for people to do something different. Hooray!

By Way of Explanation

2008-09-17T12:38:00.001-07:00

It was yesterday morning, not yet 10:00, and 3 people had written demanding that I update my blog.

There was just one problem: I hadn't a thing on my mind! In fact, I haven't had a thing on my mind in days.

But I do have endless bits of old writings floating around my computer and also brain, & most of it unread by you, if you didn't live in Pittsburgh in the early part of the twenty-first century, & much of it beloved of me, all of its parent-creator. The preceding story -- which was originally in the sad sad undergrad literary journal of the University of Pittsburgh in 2004 -- is one such item, and here it is one more time, and I will meditate upon the implications of this in a later post.

For now, good day.

An Oldie But A Goodie

2008-09-17T09:45:00.001-07:00

How to be Some Sort of Beetle

Your legs clackel over soft crumbles, and your feelers twitch, and tell you the future. The future has food in it, the food that falls apart in the ground and warms the body and hardens the shell. You see with your seers the way ahead, and smaller ones cross you, and larger ones. And food is still in the future.

Continue: The ground shifts and stranges, and you can feel the empty-moving pushing down the wrong way, and struggle but the world is rearranged, and your legs waggle and wiggle but can't find a grip, and your feelers tell you that up has turned into down.

And you panic! Up must not be down never never never never never, and your legs flail and fling and your feelers twitter and twatter and your upside opens and your upside-legs whap the upside-ground and down must never never never be up--

And then it's down again, and up is up. And there is still eating in the future. And so you clakcel on. And now your legs find a crumbling ground to land on, and now a jumbled ground, and now they must pull you over stringy things and tufted things, and over fluid ground that trickles away and away to far off elsewhere.

And you can taste the future in the empty-above. And in your shell hardness you're warming and glowing in the feast that's foreseen.

And then it happens.

And then IT happens!

There are powers and pressures that punish and pinch!

There is squeezing and crunching and crushing and pain!

And up will never be down again, and up is not even up, and your legs wraggle and your tearing-face hisses and your upward-legs flutter! And everything stops being anything and nothing is anything forever.

**

Your legs clutter on hardness forever in every way. Your feelers are telling you strangeness, and others, and nothing like food. Your up-legs are telling you nothing, and you don't wonder why you thought you had up-legs, and you remember that you don't.

And onward: The future is a circle that has walls you cannot walk on, and it is filled with others and hunger. And now your feelers tell you changes, and yous ee now grass in the future, now crumbles land on your shell and your head, and everything shudders and trembles.

And now there is an other. And you see it with your seers and feel it with your feelers. And then you know:

The other is food!

And you are hot now and hotter, and hazy and hazier, and the world is the smell of eating! And your legs twirl and trample and flail and fling and your eaters are clacking and clamping, the other one writhing and wriggling and now yours! your're inside and the other is gory and gooey, you taste it now warmer and redder, fluttering hot and frenzy, it slurms through your eating place into yourself that's inside of your shell, and now you are warmer and redder.

And the world is strange. And the future is strange. And your feelers feel the others surround you and see you and feel you and taste you on the empty-above. And they move on many legs, and they move with venom stabbers, and they move with the up-legs in many directions.

And now there is another other: and this one is another of you. You feel its feelers and smell what it is, and the smell is now hunger and anger and fighting. And it makes itself larger and gnashes above, and wails its legs and crashes and clacks! And you can feel that you're cracking and your legs scramble backward, and the other is taking the food! The food must always be yours, and never never never be taken! And forward you're scrambling thrashing your eating-parts clacking your clackers and hissing and screeing, and now you crack! And the other moves back on its legs and you crack! it again with your great hardy eaters, up on your legs and gnashing the air! And the other goes back, and back into faraway and the treasure is yours, the food that warms you the goo that sustains.

And the everywhere continues in strangeness. You drag off your prize to a lump of tufts and fiber, and scree at a smaller thing already there, a one that clamps with the end of iself and scrambles down low on many small legs. It backs itself clicking away, and you burrow your legs back into the sinews. But nothing is still the same! And the world seems shifted and you can't feel what's ahead, and the future is danger in every direction, danger from frightening panicked and frenzy, and fearsome trapped hatefulness pours into your mind.

And now: there are deaths approaching. The seers that see are seeing right through you and your feelers are threatened and frightened and feel of a future of cracking and pain, and venom-strike stabbers are gathering closer and eaters to clamp off the whole of your head, and inside you grow warmer with terror and cornered, and many-claws clack at your head, and jaws that bite are biting toward you and the pattering clatter of toomany legs are clattering at you, your feelers feel fighting and killing and a clack! on your head and a snack! on your shell, a thing grips your leg and a thing grips your eeler, you flail your face cracking another thing's head, and it falls off to be eaten by some other thing else.

And now the world is burst! You fall and shift and everything stranges! You're jostled and jounced and your leg breaks away and your feelers feel less but feel broken in half, and downside turns upside and jumbles and falls, the herenow is shuddered the future is shattered, and the feelers feel nothing and the seers see no more!

**

The grinding ground crumbles with the clack of your legs, the legs that feel forward the way into Time. Your feelers feel little, and you don't wonder why, and you remember they never are very much good. Nor do you wonder the count of your legs; you remember that always you feel to one side.

Prediction

2008-09-10T11:11:00.001-07:00

John McCain will be the next president of the United States.

It will suck.

Projecting the image of the square-jawed military hero and the courageous Christian mother, McCain-Palin will usher in a golden age of horrific rightwing values. Americans will revere them even as their own lives get genuinely worse and will join them in blaming gays, abortions, pot, and blowjobs for the state of the nation.

It will suck.

Blogtheft!!!!

2008-09-05T17:08:00.001-07:00

The summer of 2008 was a fine one by all accounts, and recently there have on the internet emerged some fine photos thereof. Here are my two favorites, stolen, as always, from Gabe:

To the confused or distant:

In the first picture, Thomas has just been simultaneously drinking from a bottle of Rolling Rock and a bottle of Sutter Home. Megan and I are horrified -- though, as illustrated in photos which follow, we will both partake.

The next picture is taken on my birthday. Kat, Gabe, Matt and I engage in a group high-five in a photo taken by Ms. M____ R____.

(Speaking of my birthday, this is probably a good time to clear up certain internet urban legends that have sprung up about it. It did not, in fact, last for "weeks." Its official run is listed as Friday, August 8th until Saturday, August 16th. Attentive readers will note this is barely more than one week, let alone "weeks" plural.)

Other active participants in the summer include Megan At Law, Lexie, Sarah, Sarah, and the aforementioned M____ R____.

Final review: 8/Summer. Good job everybody!

Of Politics

2008-09-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

I watched the Republican National Convention at the bar last night.

It made me think the following things:

1.

Republicans have a completely different America from the one you and I have. They live in a completely different reality. It doesn't even make sense for us to talk to each other, really, because we can't understand each other, because we're living from completely different truths.

2.

But it doesn't matter.

3.

It doesn't matter because national politics doesn't really affect things all that much. We talk about the last eight years like they've been a nightmare, but the only bad parts of it were news. The news was all bad. But news is just television.

4.

It doesn't matter who wins because all that will change is the news. To someone like me, an American like me, the thing that sucks about living in this country: We can't afford health care. We can't afford our cars. We can't find jobs that will provide these things. We don't have access to public transportation. These things suck. They suck a lot. But Obama won't make it any better. He can't, he doesn't have the money or the will or the power. But you know what else? McCain probably won't make it any worse.

5.

The only things I can think of that McCain will do to make things worse is, with his Family Values (hahahahahahahahahahahaha) VP in tow, continue the attack on reproductive rights and sexuality. That directly affects you and me and is fucked and vicious and cruel. He might also call programs that mitigate policies like these "wasteful spending" or "big government" and cut funding for them, hahahahaha.

6.

News isn't just television to people who are on the news, like the nation of Iraq. Like that kid in Afghanistan that was crying after a US airstrike killed his whole family. But you can't do anything about those things and neither can I.

7.

What about gas prices? That's not news and that sucks. I can't figure out what is causing all of it though. Rising demand from China and India combined with war and instability in oil-rich regions combined with a declining supply? I don't know. McCain might make this worse by being so fucking belligerent on the international scene.

8.

Obama In Charge might increase funding for things that you and I like and things that actually help us. But he'll only increase it a little and it won't be permanent because the other side will always come back into power and reverse everything.

9.

By the way, if you cut the military budget in half, you would still spend more money on "defense" (hahaha) than any other country in the world, and you'd still have the most powerful military in the history of the world, and you could cut taxes while investing massively in social programs and infrastructure.

10.

That will never happen.

The Pleasures of: Episode 12

2008-09-03T10:14:00.001-07:00

Goodness, it's been a long time since we've visited my Pleasures, hasn't it, dear ones?

And yet there they are floating in that dark synaptic sea, little islands of happiness (and I think that sea is three dimensional and they are twinkling multi-colored stars) waiting to be swum to. So let's go, and there just right of the zenith is a pinkish glowing island which is in fact the story of

Orpheus and Eurydice

Why do I love this story so much? Do you remember it?

Eurydice steps on a snake and dies, and heartbroken Orpheus journeys into Hell to save her. With his sad music he charms Hades and Persephone and they agree that Eurydice may return with him to the world of the living: But she will walk behind him, and he cannot turn and look at her until they are back on the earth.

And of course, a ghost, she makes no sound as she walks. And of course, just as he is about to reach the cave-mouth gateway out of the land of the dead, he loses faith, and he turns, and there she is, and then she is gone.

Ahh the beautiful terrible of it! And how tortured do we feel in the considering. When I used to know how to write fiction I think I wanted to do my own version of it -- that having been one of my tricks or delights, retelling a traditional story in contemporary or science fictionly guise -- and I wonder how that would have looked.

As it is all we can settle for is the ending... The Maenads tear Orpheus apart and throw his head in the river, and there it floats away, still singing. Ha!

To Autumn

2008-09-02T11:21:00.001-07:00

by John Keats:

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

A Thing That Bugs Me

2008-08-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about this when I was looking up how The Dark Knight is doing at the box office instead of working: It really annoys me when people talk about how much money a movie has made, without adjusting for inflation. So that it looks like Titanic is the most successful movie ever, which it's not.

So go here.

Things That Are Interesting Today

2008-08-29T12:07:00.001-07:00

At Coffee and Conservation:

Rufous Woodpeckers are making a happy habitat of shade-grown coffee plantations in India. Hooray! Says Dr. Scientist, "It is high time that the conservation value of shaded coffee plantation, as a critical habitat for Rufous Woodpecker and other forest birds, be recognised and proper agro-ecological management practices developed and popularised amongst planters."

p.s. Maureen we should buy organic coffee for the office I don't care what you say.

***

At Global Research.ca, by way of Information Clearing House:

An article tinged with tinfoil-hat paranoia (and sloppy editing) nevertheless is a font of interesting and possibly correct datapoints, including:

Shortly before World War II, Hjalmer Schacht, a German banker, toured the United States soliciting American corporate support for Hitler’s new fascist state. U.S. corporations not only agreed to support Germany against the socialist economic system of the Soviet Union, but also declared their opposition to the strong labor movement arising in the United States and Europe.

Among the eminent business leaders backing these multinational corporations were the Rockefellers and Prescott Bush, father of George Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush. Prescott Bush worked with his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, in the family firm Union Banking Corporation to raise $50 million for the Nazi government by selling German bonds to American investors from 1924 to 1930.

***

Over at my friend Jim's workplace, someone points out that McCain's ultra-cynical VP pick (See! She has a vagina like that Democrat woman! And she's young and cute and inexperienced like that black guy!) has fewer constituents than Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.

***

On a more serious note, it sounds like this Palin woman sucks in pretty much every way except that she taxed oil companies, so that part's good. Other than that though, yeah, she sucks.

***

And on an even more serious note, today's XKCD is about Han Solo! Oh, Han Solo: One day I'll be as cool as you.

***

Oh, and last thing:

One day, it's going to be sixty years from now and George Lucas will be, mercifully, dead. And all of his lackies and retards that tell him stuff like "Ewoks are a good idea" and "You're right we really should have a Carribean frog-man with Down Syndrome as a major character" and "Hey yeah, if we make the Jew a giant fly-man with a big nose and a Jew-hat no one will know he's a Jew" will be dead too.

And on that day someone who is smart will re-imagine the whole Star Wars saga in the same way they done for Battlestar Galactica. All the attempts at cuteness will be done away with; so too all the idiotic dialog, all the wooden "acting" and senseless plots. The Ewoks, if they appear at all, will be a disturbing race of stunted tree-men, allies of necessity with their own terrible agendas and secrets. Jar Jar will turn up for four seconds and then he will be shot. Annakin's descent into evil will make sense of any kind. And I will be, um, 85, and I will go and see all 6 new movies and cry myself to sleep with joy.

A Letter to US Bank

2008-08-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

Dear US Bank,

Please go fuck yourselves.

Sincerely,

Steve

p.s. CEO Richard K. Davis, obviously a sonofabitch, can (probably) be reached at:

US Bancorp, The Office of the Corp. Secretary
Richard K. David, Chairman, President & CEO
800 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN. 55402

...Or try their corporate headquarters, at:

60 Livingston Ave
St. Paul, MN 55107

p.p.s. I think they've probably charged me, I don't know, $200 in overdraft fees by now, while initially telling me I could not have overdraft protection. (Haha stupid, say people who think banks are protagonists and people who don't know about money are wrong.)

The fun part about this:

I had them link up my checking and savings accounts to create overdraft protection the other day. This, they said, could have been done all along. They neglected to tell me that it would be a $10 fee. Despite the fact that the overdraft was actually an accident (I clicked the button to pay twice on my cell phone companies website) and hadn't actually gone through before the recipient agreed to refund it.

That's aggravating. What's more aggravating is this.

Writing this, I feel like an old man complaining about not understanding how to use a mouse or a keyboard. I don't care: the money/credit system in this country thrives on consumer ignorance, on the ignorance of people like me.

The point is, I didn't know, because it was never, by anybody, explained to me, that the bank doesn't have to allow a purchase that overdraws your account. That instead it does this on purpose, (as a hahahahaha "courtesy"), solely so that it can fleece more money (through fees on these "courtesy overdrafts") from people (like me!) who already don't know how to manage their money anyway.

Hence, ultimately, the cycle of debt and poverty that keeps this GDP up and running.

p.p.p.s. Let's look at the way we talk about things like this for a moment. The first comment on the website I linked to:

Wait a second...complicated and uneccessary? Depends on the person. I would certainly like to have that backup credit line, at $2 per my mistake, then $25-$34 fee. And let's not forget, overdrafting your bank account is customer mistake 99% of the time.

Easy, money-saving solution? Don't overdraft your account!

This (retarded) person completely misses the points that: 1. It's the bank's decision to let you overdraft your account, 2. After making this decision, they then charge you (the customer) (whose mistake the bank's decision somehow is) a fee -- for their decision.

This is a testament to the effectiveness of the propaganda system -- the thousands of messages a day about "liberty" and "individualism" and "personal responsibility" -- that a decision made by a powerful institution is in fact understood as a decision on the part of the person harmed by that institution.

Another point: One of the major tools of coercion, power, control is to give the victim of power a false sense of choice. So in this case: The retarded commenter thinks that being given a choice of a $2 fee (with an accompanying credit card that carries its own risks) instead of a $34 fee -- both fees, again, added because of a decision on the part of the bank, a decision that is, therefore, the responsibility of the bank, is somehow a good thing -- a generosity even!

p.p.p.p.s. This shifting of responsibility from the victimizer to the victim is really, I think, one of the fundamental bases of our whole society. Another example: A person arrested for possession of crack-cocaine is told "You shouldn't have done it if you weren't prepared to deal with the consequences." Of course, the consequences of smoking crack are pretty fucking severe: Let's start with desperate poverty and move on to psychological dissolution.

But: Being "arrested" (kidnapped) by "police," (armed men wearing gang colors) is not a consequence of smoking crack.

It's a consequence, rather, of a decision on the part of 1. the police officers in question 2. the police department heads or local politicians who assign patrols and so forth 3. the politicians who passed the law criminalizing cocaine. The cop decided to arrest the crackhead. The politician decided that casting himself as "tough on crime," an abstract nonsense-phrase which in reality means passing more laws which actually destroy the actual lives of actual people, was worth it to remain in power another 2, 4, or 6 years. But in no case are these people held accountable, or even described as being responsible. Ever.

The decisions and mistakes of common people are their responsibility.

The decisions of people in power are no one's responsibility: They are consequences of the actions of powerless people; they are acts of nature.

In Dreams

2008-08-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

I dreamed the other night that I was the neglectful father of a little girl. And one day she came to the apartment to ask me why I hadn't done this and that for her and for her mother.

And so I wrote her a book of elaborate, magical excuses, called "What Daddy Will Do When He Comes Home."

I would have fixed that fence -- the book read -- but on that corner of the house is a magical swamp just teeming with dragons! And so I went down with my hammer and my nails, all ready to mend that fence for you and your mom, when out of nowhere a dragon attacked! And for three days I was lost in that swamp, battling rats and carnivorous frogs and mosquitoes the size of a man with nothing but my hammer and my nails, until finally I came upon the cottage of an old witch.

And I said, Witch! Let me out of this swamp, so I can mend the fence for my poor wife and daughter!

And the Witch said, I shall release you. But there is a price. Behind the house my fence has begun to fall apart. If you fix it, you may leave this terrible swamp.

But Witch! I cried, I have only enough nails left to fix the fence for my wife and daughter!

Well, cackled the Witch, If you do not mend this fence, you will be trapped in the swamp forever. And there is more: Within my fence are contained all the dragons of the swamp. If you do not mend it, they will surely escape -- and your wife and daughter will be destroyed by their terrible dragon rage!

So I did it. I took my hammer and the very last of my nails, and I mended that Witch's fence -- because I couldn't stand the thought of you and your mother devoured by dragons or burned to cinders by their terrible fire. And the Witch kept her promise, and showed me the way out of the swamp.

It may be a week or two, or maybe a month, before I can get some more nails and get down there and put that fence back together, little one. But you and your mother are safe. And that's all that really matters.

In my dream this became a national bestseller. I remember that on Oprah they were talking about how "It's funny because it's real." I wonder if it would work out in waking life?

Staying Sick

2008-08-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

Six years ago I wrote an article about how so help me I wasn't ever going to smoke a cigarette again so long as I live. My reasoning went something like this:

My body is a functioning ecosystem.

Cigarette smoking is pollution.

Smoking a cigarette is therefore like causing an oil spill on the shores of your lungs (and how sad, I thought, would the poor vacationing family of microbes be, arriving on the bronchial beach and finding it covered in tar.)

I think that lasted for about two months.

***

Do you want to know how it happens? Here is my brain:

"Man, I don't really want a cigarette. It kind of hurts my lungs and it would be nice to be able to run more than I can -- Hey, wait a sec! --

...Holy Freaking Crap! It's the ghosts of Jack Kerouac, Joe Strummer, and Fidel Castro, and they're ALL SMOKING!!"

"Steeephennnn!" said they in their ghostly smoky voices, "If you smoke you will be as cool as we aaaaare!"

Then they vanished and I was like, Shit, I want to be as cool as Jack Kerouac Joe Strummer and Fidel Castro! So I bought another pack of Pall Malls.

***

(I know what you're thinking. Fidel isn't even DEAD yet and still his cigar-smoking ghost travels back in time to haunt me. It's crazy.)

***

So it's 6 days later now, since this hacking coughing fit began. I'm feeling a bit better. Here is the question: Will I immediately re-start chain-smoking as soon as my lungs seem capable of handling it? Or will I grow smart for once for at least a little while?

***

We shall see.

Sick Daze

2008-08-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

I stayed home sick today!

I don't know what much to say about this except that, Man, being sick kind of sucks, but, You know what's nice? Staying home sick.

I have to tell you. I haven't done this in years. My usual method of dealing with illness involves attempting to cure every ailment with beer and cigarettes. This has worked exactly once. The last two times I tried it I think I gave myself pneumonia. So this time I got myself a bunch of Bolthouse drinks and prepared a stack of comfort-food-books including:

The Bane of the Black Sword by Michael Moorcock
Litany of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
Dreamtigers by Jorge Luis Borges
A Big Collection of James Joyce

***

I'd like to dwell on these books a minute. The Moorcock is one of his Elric books. Elric is an angsty anti-hero who goes around a Conan the Barbarian-style world with an evil sword doing malicious things and brooding.

Michael Moorcock: Sometimes his work is of the highest quality -- Behold the Man, for example. Elric not so much. And yet. And yet. Reading it I'm delighted and filled with the desire -- as when I read classic pulp stuff by Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard -- to write that kind of stuff, all pulpy and campy and cliched and over-the-top and amazing.

I mean, listen to some of this:

In a city called Bakshaan, which was rich enough to make all other cities of the north East seem poor, in a tall-towered tavern one night, Elric, Lord of the smoking ruins of Melnibone, smiled like a shark and dryly jested with four powerful merchant princes whom, in a day or so, he intended to pauperize.

So our story begins. And we continue, learning about Elric's awesome sword Stormbringer:

A symbiosis existed between man and sword. The man without the sword could become a cripple, lacking sight and energy--the sword without the man could not drink the blood and the souls it needed for its existence. They rode together, and none could tell which was master.

!!!! How can you not love it!!?? especially when THIS happens:

In a smoking pit, somewhere beyond the limitations of space and time, a creature stirred. all around it, shadows moved. They were the shadows of the souls of men and these shadows which moved through the bright darkness were the masters of the creature. It allowed them to master it--so long as they paid its price. In the speech of men, this creature had a name. It was called Quaolnargn...

Ka-fucking-blang!!!!! This is so cool I nearly shit my pants. But that's the end of our free preview. If you want to know more you'll have to buy the book yourself you lazy son of a bitch.

Let's talk about my other Sick Day Books.

The Borges: I bought this yesterday. I can't find it. Did I leave it in the office?

The Joyce: The other day M. was reading Dubliners, and I picked it up (having hated A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man when I read it as a younger man) and enjoyed the first story I read. So this collected works was a buck at While Away. Score!

Gene Wolfe: Ohhhh but his greatness will be the subject of a later post!

Anyway my darlings, I'm sick so I shouldn't be committing so much energy to blogging. I should be resting! Good NIGHT!

A Picture

2008-08-22T10:55:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to Crater Lake. I like this picture of the event:

Yay team!!!

This Post Is Cheating

2008-08-21T10:40:00.001-07:00

If you want to know about awesome--or rather, awsome--things that happen in Oregon on certain Sundays in August you should go here and look at all the photos Gabe posted of a very fine day.

If you want to read about awesome things in Oregon, you should go visit While Away Books, there to purchase a copy of Flight to Freedom, a zine by residents of [this place where I work].

If you want to do something awesome, maybe you should go attend one of these.

If you want to watch something both awesome and hilarious, go here and prepare to laugh and laugh and laugh.

A Brief Note About Oregon Politics

2008-08-20T09:55:00.001-07:00

Congressman Peter DeFazio, Fourth District, Oregon

is good.

UPDATE: Okay I guess I should tell you why. That's because of the following form letter I got in reply to a message I sent about the situation in Ecuador:

Thank you for contacting me about Chevron's attempt to undermine the rule of law in Ecuador. I was pleased to author a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative questioning the actions of Chevron.

I was very concerned when I read a recent Newsweek article that suggested that Chevron is lobbying the US Trade Representative (USTR) to withhold trade preferences from Ecuador. Apparently, Chevron hopes to undermine a lawsuit brought by peasants in Ecuador seeking redress for the dumping of toxic oil waste in the Amazon. The apparent attitude of Chevron towards democracy and the rule of law in is summed up by a Chevron lobbyist, "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this, companies that have made big investments around the world." Chevron is asking USTR to pressure the Government of Ecuador to interfere in the lawsuit.

In response I circulated a letter amongst my Congressional colleagues to urge the USTR to reject Chevron's request, and to affirm that access to the U.S. market will not be used as leverage to interfere in Ecuador's legal process. Eleven member of Congress signed the letter.

It's heartening to hear all of this, & know that this is our guy in Congress. At the same time...Eleven members of Congress signed the letter. Eleven? Only eleven members of the United States Congress think that giant corporations shouldn't be allowed to fuck with democratic rule in sovereign states?

Days and Days

2008-08-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

Nearly a week since the last update; what an eventful week it has been!

Shall I try to tell the story?

I don't know that I can. Maybe you already know it. Maybe you don't.

Friday night went, if not smoothly, still excellently. It was one of my proudest moments, even, watching the kids read their work. Zines are on sale by the way $3 a copy; if you're in Pennsylvania that's $3 plus shipping.

I'm being cryptic, I'm talking around it, I can't arrive upon it.

They left the bar Friday night and it was a while before I stopped crying.

And Commissioner told me, "Steve: Reaaal Coool."

And tomorrow it's another fight and struggle. But that moment was perfect.

I can't tell you how.

I will try again another time.

Ghosts and Poetry

2008-08-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

Where do all these corpses get off using my jaws to speak?

A change in season, and, O the mists and mellow fruitfulness!

A sullen mood and now you know how much Yo ya no soy yo.

And, Heaven help me, a woman! Better talk with a mouth full of spiders and marking with crosses of fire.

Stay dead, the Dead! Rot and crumble and just be dirt! (Or, reproductive, do these sentences themselves have life? -- Memetic insects crawling through the caverns in my brain.)

I'd like to squash them. But you know I've already planned it: A coming season's nostalgia, filled to the brim with bleakest winds and long-exhausted flowers.

Middlenight

2008-08-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

Last night I woke up at 4:15 thinking the following things:

A. I brought with me to Oregon a copy of Richard Brautigan's Revenge of the Lawn.

B. Also, Frannie and Zoey, by Sallinger.

C. I not only don't remember where they are, I forgot Brautigan even existed.

D. I liked both of those books very much.

E. I'm also missing my copy of Winesburg, Ohio.

F. No I'm not, it's on my desk at the office.

G. I should read more of it soon.

H. I wish I could write a thing that was a cross between Revenge of the Lawn and Winesburg, Ohio.

I. I wonder how that would work.

It Keeps Being My Birthday

2008-08-12T16:37:00.001-07:00

And then I turned 25.

I did that on Sunday if you want to know.

I was sitting round a campfire at the time. Matt was controlling the iPod and refusing to play White Riot. I know, that's fucked. Earlier in the day we had been on the beach; the Pacific was mild for the Oregon Pacific and everyone was happy: I love it when my birthday is on a beach like it's supposed to be.

I started thinking about different ages I've turned.

24: That was a year ago. I had a party, and it was the worst party ever. Someone hit me over the head with a frying pan. Someone else tried to choke me. Then I had to get rid of the police.

23: That wasn't so bad. Everybody came out and bought me a drink. I met A. Crane for the first time that night, and I remember listening to Mr. Bungle in that insane loft/flat/thing he lived in. Then I tried to buy a shot for every person at the bar, so they cut me off and I went home.

22: A hard one. The just-been-dumped birthday. I think I wrote an essay about spiders.

21: First experiences of: 151; 3 Wisemen; the Irish Carbomb. Earlier in the night a girl had told me to Stop By Later. After they kicked me off the boardwalk for singing Clash City Rockers too loud I decided to go to her house; being a gentleman, I thought I should pick her flowers. My flowers were actually a fistfull of pineneedles, which I dropped at her roommate's feet when she answered the door. She said, "Steve, go home."

20: I worked all night at that restaurant I hate. I was cooking and Jay was washing dishes. Jay's a better cook than me but they were dicks to him. I told Danny the Manager that I was actually turning twenty-one, so (himself quite intoxicated) he made us glasses of rum for the occasion. I only felt a little bad.

19: I have no memory of turning 19. I would have been living in Ebensburg; I would have been working at Amici's. What was I actually doing? I could not possibly be telling.

18: This birthday I took my driver's license exam. My mom yelled at me all the way to the DMV for smelling bad: This was because I was not bathing at the time. I got my license and proceeded to never use it again.

I think that is as far back as my memory will even go. Did I turn any years before this? If so, somebody could let me know. But for now, it's the 5th night of my 25th birthday, so I must go off and celebrate!

Perspectives

2008-08-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

Returning from a long weekend away I am trying to piece together what is going on in the Republic of Georgia, & decide on my opinion.

Some conclusions seem obvious. The first: US condemnations of Russian actions can be completely disregarded. Putin himself pretty succinctly summarized why:

"Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages," Putin said. "And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection."

Then there's Bush's hilarious quote accusing Russia of a "disproportionate response" -- hilarious in lieu of the unconditional support given Israel during the 2006 war in Lebanon. And of course, the notion that Russia is inherently wrong in its support of the rebel Georgian provinces is rendered ludicrous in the light of Kosovo.

And all of this takes place against the backdrop of Georgia attempting (with Bush's approval) to join NATO (how would we feel if a Russian-led military alliance had a member on our border? Oh that's right, we found out about that in Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua.) And also, of course, the plans for the missile defense shield on Russia's borders.

So there's that.

But what about the Russian side of the story? I don't suppose Vladimir Putin is any more trustworthy than George Bush. I suppose that this is an imperial game, and maybe neither side is more "right" -- though that might also not be true, and that statement might be the sort of equivocating that justifies aggression. Does anyone have a balanced perspective?

¿Donde está tu niña amarga?

2008-08-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

O this wild turning, this Oregon land, this Beyond-the-Sun!

(How many thoughts to we have to think? before we can stop and have us a drink.)

(But you know it's no-nay-never, right? No never, no more!)

O my good compadre, I would love to tell you so many fine things. I'd love even to exchange my horse por su casa! But there's that crashing bitterness, waves even and fish who live in them in that sea that mar amarga and grumble to one another and frown.

(O let's never be fish. Let's just dream on our balconies, and never in that bitter sea. & play the wild rover no never, no more!)

You know I had a thought lately, which was:

What if all our thoughts were in units 5? And all our understanding of everything revolved around this: All our politics, our philosophy, our religion, our family life. All life a division of fives, and no dualisms: Rather, the fundamental opposition is the two against the three.

The Five-Headed God: The balance of good and evil, love and power. And the fifth point, the mediator: Ever unfathomable, the cosmic could-be-ness, outside oppositions, outside dualisms, there to break the tie; the nonexistence which justifies existence. The Head of Loving Evil: A spider imprisons a fly, and murders her over days: What cruelty! And yet though the spider's actions the ecosystem, love's reflection, grows and thrives. The Head of Evil Power: The dictator steals from his people, sends them to war to slaughter thousands; based on unsustainable use of resources, his socio-economic system destroys the landscape for a thousand years to come. The Head of Loving Good: Bound together by the necessary forces, the planets circle the sun, the sun circles the galaxy, and life and light for ten thousand worlds of sentient beings: Ever giving, never expecting. The Head of Good Power: Benevolent, good-hearted, but backed always by the power of the gun, the Revolutionist reclaims the ill-gotten property of the capitalist and redistributes it among the desperate mass.

& one day I sat down and wrote of all of this and so many more, and assumed it was the style of thought of a planet faraway though human, and I a missionary of the Galactican Faith, sent to learn and (as always) to convert:

But I see that it is 1:50 now, and a meeting for me at 2:00.

I will arise and go now. But not to Innisfree.

Meat Dreams

2008-08-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

I keep having dreams that I accidentally eat meat.

And in every dream I'm like, "Fuck. I guess I eat meat after all."

Boette told me this would happen. I find it terribly disturbing.

Blackhole Something

2008-08-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

So it seems that giant particle accelerator is going to be activated soon, the one that's going to discover the Higgs-Boson, and no I can't explain any of the words I just used.

But it seems there is some quasi-legitimate concern that the thing could create a black hole.

Sitting at the bar last night and pondering these facts it occurred to me:

What if a black hole is created? And what if it's small enough that, instead of destroying the world immediately, it would take a while, and we had a definite estimate of just how long it would be?

There are so many The World Is Ending Very Soon stories. What if the world wasn't ending very soon -- just sort of soon? In five hundred years, say. Two hundred? Sixty? What if the world had ten years to live?

Suddenly the story becomes not What would you do? (as all of the world-ending-tomorrow stories ask) but What would Humanity do? What sort of cultures emerge on a planet that knows that within the next hundred or two hundred years, everything will come to an end?

...Or do we already know the answer to that?

Looking So Long At These Pictures Of Me

2008-08-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

On facebook there has lately appeared this delightful new picture of me:

The question, of course, is: Should it now become my default photo for everything?

Another option, especially as a possible picture for this blog, is this one:

Drinking, smoking, and yelling about something: Yeah, that's pretty much it.

I gave the hat to Sarah, and another one of similar design to Lynsey. The beer is thought to have been drunk. What became of the cigarette is unknown.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2008-08-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

Good Morning Dear Ones,

My this has been a busy week. And so little time for blogging! Allow me to share with you some highlights:

Last night Lynsey wanted to borrow a folder containing all of her and Sarah's reports and timesheets. I said "Okay, but be sure to bring them back...I haven't even faxed those reports to the Corporation!"

After I said this they would not stop laughing and mocking me, so I knocked over all the stuff on their desks.

Among those reports was this from Sarah: "Steve made me cry today. I think he will make me cry again tomorrow."

She was being honest. This was an important learning experience for me. I would now like to share it in a new Better Cats and Gardens exclusive called

Steve's Rules of Effective Management

Rule 1: Making Them Cry is Good

Every time you can get your workers to openly weep, you win. The experience of crying on the job is so unpleasant that most people will do anything to avoid repeating it: Thus, after the first cry, you can expect at least a 227% increase in productivity!

However, do not stop here. Crying is one of the few activities not governed by the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. Every time your workers cry, their productivity will not only increase, it will increase exponentially. Thus, Cry #2 can be expected to quadruple Cry #1's effects; Cry #3 will tentriple it; until by Cry# 16 you can pretty much expect a Billion Percent level of worker productivity.

For some, this is difficult. Fortunately I've created this handy exercise! Everyone, get out your workbooks and write down:

The 10 things your workers do that annoy you most.
The 10 things that you like the most.
10 neutral characteristics.
10 things that they don't do but might.
10 things that they don't do and probably never would.

And: There you go! 50 handy items with which to make fun of them. That's 50 solid days worth of crying! Think how much you'll get done!

It is also necessary, of course, to reorient your thinking from what I call the "Blindness of Kindness" Mindset toward the "Cruelty is Cool and Funny" Mindset.

Example:

Your employee wears a particularly fetching outfit today. A bad leader would say, "I like that shirt. You look very nice today."

But thanks to my special training, you will now say "That shirt is retarded. You must come from poor genetic stock."

Cue: Tears, Efficiency.

***

Well, that's all for today. Stay tuned to this blog for more exclusive management tips and exercises. Or, for a low monthly installment of $262.50, you can have Steve come into Your Office and reorganize your workforce today!

(Make checks payable to my landlord. Void where prohibited.)

Just a Suggestion....

2008-07-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently people are killing themselves over their debt levels.

I have a different idea. What if there was a website with pictures, phone numbers, names, home addresses of everyone who worked for a debt collector? It could have links to laws regarding harassment and stalking and information on making bombs and such. I would have no thing to do with it of course. But wouldn't it be interesting?

***

In the article I linked to, Barbara Ehrenreich says:

The alternative is to value yourself more than any amount of money and turn the guns, metaphorically speaking, in the other direction. It wasn't God, or some abstract economic climate change, that caused the credit crisis. Actual humans -- often masked as financial institutions -- did that, (and you can find a convenient list of names in Nomi Prins's article in the current issue of Mother Jones.) Most of them, except for a tiny few facing trials, are still high rollers, fattening themselves on the blood and tears of ordinary debtors. I know it's so 1930s, but may I suggest a march on Wall Street?

I agree, but may I suggest that the fact that the guns must (always always necessarily always) be "metaphorical," whereas theirs are not, is why We Always Lose?

The Pleasures of: Episode 11

2008-07-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Spiders

A large and black one turned up in the tub when I was showering recently; I flushed her down the drain but did not feel proud about it. There are only two spaces I claim for Only Me: The bathtub and my bed. You can be anywhere else, little spider, but if I were to just-so-casually stroll into your web you would murder me the same.

15 years old I spent my days wandering about the yard & reimagining it; also a series of stories about the beings dwelling therein and their adventures. Little elves or fairies called nemians lived out their fantastical lives in cities under the forsythia bushes, their capital in the willow tree. And once, their queen had to go on a journey to save the willow tree's soul, which led to the driveway through the basement and into the attic. In the basement she was aided by the King of the Spiders, who though terribly evil himself was enemy of the King of the Rats.

But just because you terrify me and even though you could sometimes melt my flesh with a bite does not mean I do not love you.

In Virginia you would find my grandparents' house in a plastic nightmare suburb, and in this place find spiders, desperate guerrillas, only last defenders of wilderness.

In Texas, this is my favorite, the spiders built a web together, commune, sprawling 200 yards which is more impressive than so many human cities.

And in the recess of my mind a spider, queen of all, sits a throne in her web and watches out with glowing red eyes, grinning, waiting, one day to ensnare me, devour a fly.

Thoughts, Midnight

2008-07-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

1.

The "family" is defined as A relationship between two individuals For the purpose of rearing children because this is a) the smallest and b) most transitory grouping in which the reproduction of society can occur.

2.

"Individualism" in our society means one man or woman against the entire framework of state power. A man has a credit rating, a job, a tax burden to pay, a level of debt, an obligation to obey the "law" or become the victim of state violence. The social contract is between the individual and the whole. Today, that "whole" consists of 300,000,000 other people, a number impossible to comprehend; the Whole therefore does not consists of real living individual people, but rather a series of fictions: the government, the law, the tax code, the corporations, the churches; institutions with no flesh and blood reality but capable nevertheless of, ultimately, murdering an individual without protest.

3.

There is no law between one individual and another. Socialist "collectivism" is not different: It is one individual against a fiction; in this case the fiction is, in its ideal version at least, much more inclined to buy off the individual with guarantees of food, medicine, shelter.

4.

Over the millenia, power has become more sophisticated; fictions have become more sophisticated; fictions have been layered on fictions. God is fairly easy to see through. America (which has even less existence than God) is much more difficult to disbelieve: But maybe this has less to do with sophistication and more to do with the fact that America is currently much more empowered to murder than God.

5.

"I'm proud to be an American." Due to random chance, I was born in such a situation that I have greater access to material wealth and less restrictions over my individual choices than many other people in the world. I had absolutely nothing to do with bringing this situation about. Moreover, I would (opposing, as I do, unrestricted immigration; believing, as I do, in the fiction of "national borders") deny these benefits to others in the world. I am prepared to act with moral revulsion to someone who would say "I am proud to be White" and deny the privilege of Whites to non-Whites; who would say "I am proud to be Male" and deny the privilege of males to females. Nevertheless, I am proud to be American.

6.

The individual against an array of powerful forces so great it is impossible to even begin to comprehend them. As coping mechanisms we have superheroes and science fiction stories which show us power greater than that assembled by the governing fictions of our own lived reality, "society," "culture." They do not exist. An individual stands alone in this reality against powers unprecedented in the 4 billion year history of life on earth. This individual never questions this fact, never acknowledges it; it is beyond comprehension, too big to even be fathomable; In this situation everything any one person says or does is reduced to absurdity.

7.

It's not so bad, is it?

8.

A marriage is between a man and a woman -- the only situation in which two individuals can share the responsibility of life against power. They are only there for the ever-so-brief period it takes to raise a child to adulthood. Or, wait, maybe it can be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, too. No, it can't. Thus a massive attack on individual liberty is met by a response which is also an attack upon liberty, neither side able to argue, able to function or even exist outside the totalitarian discourse.

9.

What if seven people shared a job? What if four people paid their taxes together? What if the law between twelve friends was, by mutual agreement, different than that that governs my relationship to the state? Why does every "American" get the same right to vote, even though every person is so completely different from one another? Why am I allowed to know a presidential candidate's age, sex, or race, but not an applicant for many far, far less important jobs? Why is there only one president, one government, one set of laws for three-hundred million people, even though they all have different experiences, desires, interests, and needs? Why can't Mexicans vote for Barrack Obama?

10.

A world ruled by fictions. A corporation is not alive, or an individual. Neither is a government. Neither is a law. Neither is a nonprofit. Neither is an ideology. Neither is a religion, or its God.

11.

It's really not so bad, is it?

12.

Maybe in the morning I will wake up and it will all make sense.

Bats at Midnight!

2008-07-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a day of Batman.

First after work we rented Batman Begins. I had never seen it.

After this we went to the midnight premier of The Dark Knight. I had never seen it, either.

Reflections:

Batman Begins was troubling as all superhero stories are troubling. First we meet the Waynes, a family of billionaires who are just trying to make life better for everyone. You know, the way billionaires do. Then, of course, they're assaulted for their money by a man with a gun, who is obviously evil, because it's obviously evil for the lowest of the lower classes to take matters into their own hands and steal from the rich their illegitimate wealth.

It was a propaganda film, like all superhero movies. Look at all the crooked cops, judges, and union bosses in the mafia den! Good thing none of our corporate officials are corruptible in this way! But then of course, the Scarecrow turned up, and also the Brotherhood of Shadows, so it was time for Holy Freaking Crap and Goddamn That Is So Cool. The scenes with the Brotherhood were amazing, the story of How It Came To Be was extremely interesting, the climax was as completely boring and predictable and flashy and explosive. The nods to Lovecraft were nice.

Then there was The Dark Knight. Another propaganda film, this time with an anarchist Joker who of course is not actually an anarchist. However.

Holy Goddamn Fucking Shit, and Welcome to the Great Nerdgasm of 2008.

I don't even know where to start.

I can't. I can't do it.

I can tell you about the theater. It was crowded. Some teenagers were drunk. Megan was angry. They gave out prizes and I didn't win. One of the drunken teenagers held up his phone and shouted "My friend just had a baby!" Everyone cheered. I wondered what would happen if I stood up and just-as-gleefully shouted "My friend just had an abortion!" Sarah didn't think it was funny. The movie ended. Maybe you should stop reading this blog and go watch it now.

Conversation Overheard in a House in Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh

2008-07-16T08:37:00.001-07:00

Jay: "Yeah, when Steve's drunk you can get him to do pretty much anything."

Jim: "Except behave himself."

....Why do so many people know my only weakness??

Random Thought

2008-07-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

This has been going on for 9 years, and, I suspect, it will continue for the rest of my life.

I'll be going about my day, reading or working or (as in the most recent case) trying to fall asleep, when all of a sudden the thought will pop into my head:

My God, I fucking hate George Lucas.

In the Boredest Hour

2008-07-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

Four posts in one day?

No, I will set this to post tomorrow.

It is Monday night. I am bored. A lot.

I have become quite good at rolling tobacco in pages from the phone book.

This is as painful as it sounds, and was suggested to me by Shelby. I tried this the first time last Thursday. Friday morning I said to Sarah: "I did something really gross last night and now my throat hurts. ...It was Shelby's idea!"

As I recall, she nodded slowly, said "Yes. That's very nice," and didn't speak to me for the rest of the morning.

Tomorrow, THANK GOD, is Pay Day. I am very excited for this.

In fact the rest of the week looks to be filled with promises of excitement, possibly adventure, maybe even entertainment!

Tomorrow Aimee Mann is playing at the halfshell. Everyone who is a girl is thrilled. Today at lunch we discovered $4 bottles of wine at the convenience store. Now, I am also thrilled.

Pay Day. I owe money to at least 2 of the bars in town; quite a lot to one of them. I told this to Thomas, who was unaware that it was even possible to do such things in 2008. He then accused me of infecting Roseburg with my East Coast ways.

I sighed and thought, "If only."

The Obama New Yorker Thing

2008-07-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Gawker, you know what I like? This. It's been annoying the fuck out of me all day (since I opened my email this morning to encounter this shrieking lefty cryfest from Alternet, which can almost always fuck off but which I read anyway because of some reason) and I'm glad that every single leftish person in America isn't being completely fucking retarded and playing into the right-wing stereotype of liberals ("progressives")(I love that we even needed a politically correct term for ourselves) as a bunch of desperately shrill, permanently offended pussies who like classic cars.

(Note: The previous link will work only if Gabe bumps his this-most-recent-Friday-night-post ahead for me.)

(Note 2: If he doesn't, I will not explain the joke to you.)

(Note 3: Hahaha too bad.)

In the Middle of the Workday

2008-07-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

Actual Google Chat Dialog, 4:16 Monday Afternoon

Me: Okay, I've exhausted graphjam, passive aggressive notes, and even Crap Thing About Men, along with all web com ics.

Me: what should i do now??

Emily: http://gawker.com/

The Pleasures Of: Episode 10

2008-07-14T15:20:00.001-07:00

Ants

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love ants.

As a young Steve, I would spend hours watching them. Young, and not so young; and I remember all my brothers' friends mocking me for this. But I knew where all the colonies were in the backyard, and could still draw you a map of them today and tell you something of their history.

Would you like to hear it?

In the garden there was a large colony of Black Ants*. They lived in the west end, among the zinnias. Nearby was a colony of Brown Ants -- I mean the little and relatively cute sort, the ones that you often see warring on sidewalks in the early weeks of spring. One year I poked a bunch of holes into the ground and the brown ants took advantage of this, sending a raiding party agains the Blacks which gained them, as far as I could tell, only the shell of a potato bug.

The retaliation was swift and overwhelming. The Black Ants annihilated their brown cousins.

Summers past. The Black Ant colony thrived in their city among the zinnias. Their only enemies had been defeated; there were no threats nearby. And then the slavers came.

Slavers? I believe they are commonly called Amazons. They are red and slightly smaller than the Black Ants but extremely fierce. They have no worker caste, only soldiers, and are in fact incapable of rearing their own young or feeding themselves. So they subsist by invading another colony, killing the inhabitants and enslaving local workers.

They appeared in the driveway one summer, a column of thousands marching from the garden to the yard in which lived very small brown ants, let's call them Brownlings. They're little and unaggressive and they got their asses soundly kicked. Many colonies were overrun and their eggs brought home to--

To where? It seemed that they had taken over the Black Ant colony in the garden. But how could this be? I had seen no sign of battle.

I still don't know exactly what happened. But some days after their first appearance, the whole garden was covered by war, from the zinnias to the tomato plants some 30 feet away. (this is the human equivalent of I think 1 and a half miles. Holy crap). There were thousands of them, Black Ants and Amazons, or tens of thousands. The Black Ants fought with a courage and a tenacity I had not seen before, nor have I since. They defended their homelands against Amazons who swarmed them; and in the end they were killed, every last one, and their colony was destroyed. But in dying they may have saved others: Never again did the columns of red-shelled Amazon warriors march forth across the driveway, and the colony did not survive the Winter.

This was long ago.

I have an experience every Spring. I mentioned those brown ants earlier. So often I see them in April and May, fighting brutally against one another over cracks in the sidewalk. I stop always to look: No one has any idea why I am doing what I am doing, and I sense they don't even actually believe me when I tell them that I am watching a war between ants.

But is that the only reason I like them? Because they fight gruesome wars with one another?

Surely not.

Here is my suspicion about ants.

They evolved from wasps who lived in houses, but were mostly solitary. Over time the wasp nests became more complex; all but the queens and the males lost their wings; and contemporary ant society appeared. This is what the fossil record tells me.

Here's what I think happened:

The Wasps formed a relatively stable, Jeffersonian democracy of yeoman farmers, living in their quasi-solitary houses, killing spiders for their young. Over time, new ideas evolved about society and the role of the individual; simultaneously, new technologies of body modification were developed. The nature of work was called into question, as was the value of independence and the need for sexual reproduction.

Using advanced technologies, the majority of the population was rendered sterile. Through implants in their brains they were set to carrying out various tasks. Males, it was decided, were best used to facilitate sex; they had had little interest in much else anyway, and it did not take much technological tweaking to enhance this drive and to cause the males to die after its fulfillment. Only one breeding female, it was decided, was necessary in a given city; her grotesque, bloated body could handle the egg-laying for an entire small nation.

Time passed. The ants learned how to code the construction of their various technologies into their own DNA, so that their own cells produced the nanobots which had previously needed to be surgically implantsd. And eventually, what happened? The rulers died away, or perhaps forgot their own existence, which is most likely, and what remained? But an endlessly self-justifying population of slaves. Slaves without a master, forever serving for the purpose of serving.

This is one thought. Another: Contained within an ant colony is as much grey matter as in a human brain. They aren't smart, but collectively they are. Do they think? Does the colony think, ponder?

Does a mass have a soul?

What does that mean for us?

Either way, I think they're neat. And I'm old enough now that if anybody makes fun of me for staring at ants in the garden instead of smoking pot or playing football, I will punch them in their goddamn face!

*I usually prefer not to know these species' actual names, and don't in most cases; it's so much more interesting to understand their behavior and not only understand them as a label applied by a central institution somewhere. The Black Ants I'm talking about here are about a quarter inch long and live in relatively large colonies, they're all black, but they're not as big as the ones you see living in trees.

The Pleasures of: Episode 9

2008-07-10T04:30:00.000-07:00

Frogs!

Because I think that you already know. And it isn't the reality so much: If I could I would spend my days sitting on a lily pad with a floppy brown hat and a red fishing pole, a fly tied to the end, catching fish until the end of my days, hopping and leaping when I wanted to get about.

And then here is this thing that I wrote perhaps five years ago:

Well If I was a tortoise then I guess I'd go swimming
Down the little lake where the little lilies grow
And if they grow there on lily pads where frogs sit a'fishing
With red fishing poles and always tell you "Good morning;"

Well if all that were true then I guess
I'd go down to the bank and
Bury me deep in the reeds and the mud,
Where all the little earthworms always tell me
"Good morning."

It was a poem at the time, and it was written under these conditions:

We were at a writers' retreat. It was the third night, and every night there somebody had taken it upon themselves to write a sex poem about someone else in the room, which they would then read to the group (as every evening we had a reading). A girl named Amanda had the night before read one about me which was basically a play-by-play description/how-to guide. That third night I said to the people, "In keeping with the theme, I have decided to write a poem of my own, which I call 'To Amanda.'"

Did anybody get it? I don't know, but there they all Frogs are, all on their lily pads, all a'fishing.

A Rebirth of Wonder?

2008-07-09T22:20:00.001-07:00

Just an update:

Our first ever poetry slam was a great success, and more fun than I could have imagined.

L opened the evening with a poem from T.S. Eliot. I can't remember which (sorry), but I remember it was great.

S and I followed with that poem by Pound I mentioned a few posts back. We took it line by line, with her opening, and then recited together:

...Let gods speak softly of us
In days hereafter,
the shadowy flowers of Orcus
Remember thee.

This went well. It was followed by one of the kids reading Annabel Lee. Then another read his own works, and another, and another. It was magnificent. And some of them can write so well! There are Poets and Great Souls in the making, here, and I was overjoyed.

I closed the night with Ferlinghetti's I Am Waiting. This was very well received and then, you know, we had a grand heap of ice cream which we all proceeded to eat.

It was beautiful. It was why I came here.

Being as I am somewhat permanently stressed I am certain I will have to answer for sixty different things tomorrow and none of them pleasant, but now, tonight, was good, and I am glad, and also proud.

Hooray!

On Foodstamps

2008-07-09T11:44:00.001-07:00

Dear Roseburg Department of Human Services,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

Steve

Of Poesy

2008-07-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

I am tumbling poems over in my mind. Thinking and thinking which one to read. Do you understand let me tell you:

This Wednesday we will have a poetry slam (have I ever told you how much I hate that term) at my place of work. I will be there, my people having organized it, and, being there, should must read something of my stuff.

So I need to read something. So, I need to write something.

I am desperately tired of and never want to ever again write in the piece-by-piece perfection of the college undergrad. Look at the enjambment! That surprising turn of images! Did you know that she would say that next -- and By God that indentation!

Blah, boring, fuck, get an A. And forget escaping the shadow of Pound et al, let's pretend they were the only poets ever and just ape them til the end of time.

I'm sitting here raging and ranting and part of it is insecurity but what is the rest? I am a skilled reader and can make anything interesting but have I written anything worth sharing? I am torn, what to do, what would they accept. Some of my blog posts here can be maybe cut up and reread as poetics. Or maybe something older.

A year ago, we did a training where we read a cheesy poem about reading by some woman. After this we wrote our own poem "after the style of" it. I like mine. I also, I just remembered, a few years ago wrote a poem when someone told me that as a child she used to be afraid of Pancake Men living under her bed. That is an option too. I want to here print these things and you tell me what you think.

First, The Pancake Men:

The good little pancake men under my bed
Are singing fine songs, that fill me with dread
It seemed a delight til I learned what they said --
Those cruel little pancake men under my bed!

It seems they believe it's a cruel twist of fate,
That I have a bed while they grace a plate.
So they plot with their minds full-corrupted by hate
How they shall overcome their unfortunate fate.

The plan seems to be to slip out while I doze
And lop off my fingers, my ears, and my toes
And string me up by my neck with the garden hose
Then mash me to batter -- While I'm trying to doze!

Then they'll have the bed! And they'll rule this house!
And they'll steal my car to ca-ruise and carouse!
And they'll never be measured, nor poured by the ounce,
When I'm dead and eaten, and they rule this house!

Okay and now the one about reading, which takes a slightly different tone:

I am from shadows and necromantic whispers, Aha!,
the myriad unnamable Sea of memory and lies;
I am from the humble world beneath the garden shrubs,
of ants warring and spiders spinning visions in the dew;
I am from a fine strange cottage under the willow’s branches
by the stream, and the bone woman lives there, and the
Tulip-men, and you,
and there we danced merrily to thin white notes in the
Moonlight, when the winged dead flew down from the stars
and the Lord of Summernight Dreamtime sang in his voice
of crickets and breezes.

I am from fine old wisdom tales and the transmitted
memories in the fire’s crackling;
From a certain sunny pleasure dome and caves of ice, aha,
Beware!

From the words that spoke the sun to light,
From embers slowly dying,
and the welcoming laugh of the creek at noon (before they
drained it).

I am from endless dunes and caws of stately seagulls,
the voice of light shimmering on waves I took to be the
Voice of God;
from the ocean who made me his son as he watched my
father walk away;
the old oak tree that held us in her arms.

In the grey banality of the dying time, when color has
gone, and dreams, and music; In the place where cats
cannot speak and trees have no wisdom, Wind no soft
and loverly carress and Sun no stern but kind admonishment,
In the drunken hour hiding in the corner with forgotten light,
I am from the quiet ghost of pages rising in the mind,
singing memories of light, memories of home.

Oh and there it goes. This might, perhaps, need the original to be read first, and it was sort of a response to it; but maybe not; or maybe nothing. Dear Ones, what should i Do?

The Pleasures of: Episode 8

2008-07-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

Dandelions

Because how couldn't you? when you see them, yellow people happy colonizing lawn. And how they open to the sunlight! and how they drift so delicate on wind giving birth and granting wishes.

And such nutritious! They are a thousand fools who say "Weed" spend money to kill them, them who love they and would feed they glad with bitter vitamins.

Hear them speak to the morning, and say Gratitude to the sun for nourishment. And whisper scented words to the bees of lust and desire.

Perceiving reality this way we see the bee dance one to the next and gather pollen and alight; but this is not the only way -- and if you angle the universe a bit you and I become flowers and our lovemaking only the intercession of transdimensional insects feeding on our psychic effluvia; so is it too for the people of the lawn, I think (and what sweet spirit-honey can be brewed from two bodies entwined in the dark!)

Ever-patient returners of the dead lands back to life, they follow our footsteps across the globe and generous attempt to make amends to the soil; and left to the rule of the flowers the world would be a million better off, I think.

Happy America Day, Everybody

2008-07-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

And a cheers to the fact that, despite an obscenely unfair distribution of wealth and with it access to political power, medical care, advanced technology, education and so much more;

despite a justice system based on revenge and brutality and adherence to a magical nothingness called the "Law," overwhelmingly supported by hordes of foaming-at-the-mouth barbarians eager to See the Bastard Fry or Lock 'em Up and Throaway the Key, a system based only on hurting people and destroying lives and never on rectifying bad situations;

despite a two-hundred-year history of constant aggressive war, reaching every continent on the globe;

despite all these things this sure ain't a bad place to be

white and middle class.

Of Greeks

2008-07-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered or more likely rediscovered (as it seemed to spark something somewhere in my memory) a poem by Ezra Pound that I love, and that perhaps you remember too.

Its title is Greek, which I cannot translate & will not attempt here; the only person I know who can read it pronounces it something like "Doria" and cannot translate it either; from memory, it goes:

Be in me as the the eternal moods
of the bleak wind, and not
As transient things are --
gaiety of flowers.
Have me in the strong loneliness
of sunless cliffs
And of grey waters.
Let the gods speak softly of us
In days hereafter,
The shadowy flowers of Orcus
Remember thee.

***

(I have not yet pressed publish, but I guarantee Blogger will fuck with the format; either way you get it.) Yesterday one of the kids came into my office and we recited it to him in turns; he was only a little creeped out, I think.

It is July 3rd! and we all know what that means. Tomorrow is America Day! Happy United States, everybody. We'll see you next week.

And the Days

2008-07-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

And goodness but it is morning again.

Very soon They will be here and will drag me away from you, dear ones.

(Don't you fear They, on mornings like this?)

(And didn't you wish we had something to talk about?)

I did.

Instead there is Not.

And a My Goodness what terrible things are happening in my brain/stomach.

Should I tell you facts?

And last night there was the Halfshell. I met the new friends, which are called Cat and Marine. We all went to the Bar, and Scotty was there, or as I like to think of him, Super Mario, and last night he seems to have eaten a one-up mushroom, because he was totally and creepily hitting on Marine like he had at least 3 lives left if she stabbed him. I kind of wished she would, so that when he came back I could step on him and squash him. You know what I mean? Also, the band was good.

What else is occurring in the rambling vastness of my secretly vacant mind?

I have a vision of a willow tree, a willow tree by a pond --

A pond, or a creek? A pond, I think. Not swampy, but fetid; and scum floating on top; a stray mosquito buzzes, but has no interest in drinking us, or if he did we would give up gladly our happy blood; spiders skulk through the woodchip leafy ground and ants of course going about their tasks or perhaps having a war as they do in the leaves;

It is morning on the eighth day, and you are there with me, and everything is soft and orange and no one was ever sad or drunk or dead;

We can live there maybe in a ramshackle shack and a tomato patch and rows of beans and cabbages; honeybees, a chicken for eggs, I finally have become good at fishing and that we can grill for the supper;

When you go outside in the morning the sunlight catches in your hair and sort of sparkles in that way it only can in morning, and the morning of the world is a morning like no other morning ever can be again and thus you glow and radiate but never so that the birds ever fear to look at you;

I am kind again, and all this sin forgiven. Mornings the cat and I go and visit with the toads who call us by name, and in the evening I play little songs on a flute made of wood, little songs that have no words because words will never come to plague us; and nobody has written any books to poison my mind.

Wouldn't it be, and, oh, couldn't it be? Who insisted we learn to walk upright? Why did all these hearts transform to such sharp swords? When sunlight shimmers on the water like this, that's when I hear God whistling inside of me.

All these visions fade in a way that dreams never can. We all return to empty.

All These Recent Times

2008-06-27T11:19:00.001-07:00

Dear Ones,

You may have noticed that Better Cats and Gardens has been rather inactive lately. Beyond my apologies, I must offer an explanation, which is: It is harder to blog now, because much of my blogging is done from work, and my work has in recent days become insane.

Should I explain it to you? You probably know it. If not, perhaps the conversation would better be had in private? Either way, my office is no longer a private place anymore, nor anything resembling quiet. Today they were attempting to think of what animals they might be; I informed them that they were obviously a badger and a raccoon. Neither was very much pleased.

I am afraid I don't have many more fantastic things to tell you about. I am suddenly overcome by two desires: I want to watch Voltron, and also, I want to play Battle Masters. I'm not providing any links or images so if you don't know what they are HAHAHA YOU LOSE stupid.

Your Friend,

Steve

Things I Would Like to Talk About

2008-06-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

Politics.

This is the only real problem with talking about politics: You don't accomplish anything, but you feel like you have.

Not talking about politics -- even considering it impolite to talk about politics -- is, however comfortable it makes everyone, really kind of sort of insane, when one considers that what we call "politics" is short-hand for "matters that, ultimately, determine our lives and our deaths."

Also: It has come to my attention that there is a closet Republican in the group. I will henceforth direct all my energies toward discovering this person and outing them.

Money.

No one is comfortable talking about money.

Why are we all so uncomfortable talking about things that are so important?

Let me tell you some things about money:

I don't understand it. I don't know how to use it. I don't know what to do with it.

I have next to none of it!

Once again, in banning money from the conversation, we're removing something that, basically, determines our lives and our deaths. We're also, again, as with politics, actively taking part in hiding, denying, and, as always, denying the denial of the systematic violence of everyday life.

The existence of money is an act of violence. Period. The refusal to speak of it is not different from a family refusing to speak about the violence of an abusive parent. It's over, pretend it never happened, pretend you never pretended that.

RD Laing:

Rule A: Don't.
Rule A1: Rule A does not exist.
Rule A2: Do not admit the existence or non-existence of Rules A, A1, or A2.

I just forgot what I was talking about.

The Pleasures Of: Episode 7

2008-06-19T10:18:00.001-07:00

T.S. Eliot

I really don't know what to do with this one. Go read the fucking Waste Land.

***

Okay, you're right. I should do more. Fine then, here are some of my favorite quotes from this favorite of poets:

"I love you. I am the milkman of human kindness;
I will leave an extra pint."

"I saw two shooting stars last night.
I wished on them, but they were only satellites.
It's wrong to wish on space hardware --
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care."

"I paid the union and as times got harder
I looked to the government to help the working man;
And they brought prosperity down at the armory
'We're arming for peace me boys'
Between the wars"

"I've had relations
With girls of many nations.
I've made passes
At women of all classes.
And just because you're gay
I won't turn you away --
If you stick around
I'm sure that we could find some common ground."

***

Yes, he was a great poet, T.S. Eliot HEY WAIT THOSE AREN'T ELIOT QUOTES THAT'S ALL BILLY BRAGG!!!!1!

Dreams Before Waking

2008-06-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

6/16:

Today I awoke and poured my coffee as usual. I sat back down on my bed -- okay I sort of laid down a bit -- and drank. I got up, got ready for work, still drinking coffee, until my stomach hurt cause I'd had too much. Then I felt something hot and wet on my stomach. I woke up and realized that I'd spilled my coffee, my first cup, all over my bed, and the whole thing had been a dream.

I wish I could say this was the first time this has happened.

***

Speaking of dreams before waking, a new theory suggests that the universe may have existed before the Big Bang, and that our observable universe may in fact be "a tiny part of a primordial structure now grown so big it exceeds the horizon of the observable universe." The science of all this is impossible for me to explain, so go here and read about it.

Then think about the implications with me. For example, what does this mean for my belief that the galaxies are, in fact, something akin to amoebas?

***

6/17:

It is the next day, I am at work and feeling crotchety.

I woke at 5 this morning, went back to sleep, and woke again every half hour on the half hour until 9, at which point I was, of course, late.

During the last stretch, I dreamed that I was upset because my life wasn't like the normal American life. And I explained to a woman who was with me, who was I think a composite of half a dozen real people, that my understanding of normal American life only comes from advertising.

She informed me that the difference between me and the Americans from advertisements is that they have children, and that's what sucks up all their money.

And I said, as we entered into a classroom to meet with my high school Spanish teacher, "So for me, my drinking problem is like my children?"

Mrs. Spory was not amused.

***

And finally, some good news:

Overall, participants who downed a few cups of coffee a day had about the same death rate as those who didn’t drink coffee, despite the fact that coffee drinkers tended to smoke more, drink more alcohol, not take vitamins and exercise less.

Can you smell that, my friends? That's the sweet scent of vindication.

The Pleasures of: Episodes Four, Five and Six

2008-06-13T15:09:00.001-07:00

Norse Mythology, including the epics Beowulf and The Saga of the Volsungs, as well as Certain Other Things.

I could say, "Because of the fatalism, how they assumed that their gods would die, that evil would triumph and the world would end in fire."

Or I could say, "Because isn't it fascinating, the way the old poems reveal a world so completely unlike our own?"

Or being a bit more honest I could say, "Because I like being able to know where the names of the days of the week come from, Tyr and Votan and Thor and Frigg -- and to hold it over others' heads."

But the real truth is I just think it's cool that they had dragons and trolls and giants and elves and dwarfs and wizards and monsters -- and not only were they not all pasty-skinned sixteen year olds sitting in a basement with a bunch of books and multi-sided dice, it was their freaking religion!

Schizopedia

2008-06-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that most people in our society are schizophrenic.

And that their schizophrenia originates in their insanity about their insanity.

I am talking about work. Work. The defining feature of our culture.

People are different people at work. They do this on purpose. Their personality, their Self, at Work, which is to say, for one third of their waking life, is completely different from their Self when not at work. They pretend they are a different person. They lead -- and they do this intentionally, and even openly -- two separate lives. They are two separate people.

Schizophrenia. Schism, splitting. Split personalities.

One of the defining features of the Work personality is that it pretends that it is sane. And this is its insanity. Outside of work I may be an emotional wreck; I may be angry, I may cry and I may be drunk. At work I am someone else, someone who does not do these things, or even acknowledge that I am someone who does not do these things: The other self is denied, and then the denial is denied, so that nothing ever happened.

And the most bewildering part of it all is this: If you talk to someone about this, they will look at you like you are stupid and act like being schizophrenic is the most normal and obvious thing in the world.

***

What function does schizophrenia serve?

Allegedly, we could not work if we ourselves were there.

I don't believe that this is true. But, supposing it is, What does this say about our work?

These aren't, of course, original ideas or questions. They are questions everyone has, to the point that they are called childish. And that is very revealing: Because what we are actually saying is that they are the questions that everyone asks when they have an objective (i.e., outsider's) view of our society, and that they only cease to be asked when the cognitive dissonance becomes too much to bear.

***

Why do we need to be schizophrenic? Why can't we acknowledge that we are insane?

***

Most of what most of us do is useless.

All of what all of us do is too much.

I remember reading a document from the beginning of the twentieth century. It was an industry captain talking about how new technologies had allowed more a massive increase in efficiency and productivity. Despite this it was essential that no one got the idea that they could, therefore, work less and produce the same amount. They had to work as much and produce more.

Everything is about more.

And we make ourselves insane for it.

And I don't understand why.

***

I was thinking this as I was thinking how the lines between my "work" and "life" aren't and never have been very well placed. I only look for jobs that I like and feel good about and never make very much money. And that there are people who would criticize me for this. But that I rather prefer it that way.

What is it like for people who are businessmen? Or soldiers? Who are different from us?

I already don't understand them, and I don't know if I can.

The Pleasures of: Episode 3

2008-06-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Moon

Can you not?

Sometimes he is a skull, old and blind and dead, an idiot god grinning stupid and cruel down at the earth, wishing for a body.

(I wrote a poem about this years ago. It envisioned the moon growing body and raping the earth. I have long since lost it; nobody much liked it but me.)

And sometimes a woman, pale and lovely and cold and cruel. Observing but indifferent.

What strange minds live within her cold light?

And the skull Man walked upon, that pretended to be a desert?

The moon, pale and lovely and cold and cruel.

Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas le estan mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.

And here is my own much less worthy (in fact, somewhat embarrassing) contribution.

(If I were to rewrite it today, I would delete most of the beginning and simply write, "It is a thousand years later, and the old man steps out of the shadows." None of this business about Pittsburgh or little girls or first-person narration. The point of the story is the riddle, can you guess it?)

Pale and lovely and cruel and cold. And old, and blind, and dead.

The Pleasures of: Episode 2

2008-06-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

Sunshine

When they tell me that "light" is both a particle and a wave and when they tell me that the sun is firey burning gasses and when they tell me that plants drink sunlight to live; when they tell me too that the planet and its minerals are the pieces of the same star that died and regrew as the Sun; when they tell me things like this and I know that I also must be sunlight and therefore both a particle and a wave --

When they tell me these things I am certain we will never die.

Pictures of ----

2008-06-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have suddenly been slapped by a blast of melancholy and nostalgia, and have therefore decided to look at your pictures. Yes, you. I am stalking you through facebook, myspace, flickr, and picasa, and you probably knew that already.

I have been looking mostly, of course, at pictures that I also am in. One year ago in time, one year ago and arriving upon now: Oh, this is my quest, and so let's begin in those heady days of that year of our Lord two thousand and seven, & let us begin at July, at our July third party, this party was the favorite of my life. Here is the exemplar of the evening.

I have here seized hold of Curt, while Jane goes skulking in the background. Note the crazed look in my eye. Note Curt's clear inebriation.

July 3rd, 2007. A Tuesday night, if I recall. I would have taught class that day, taught Faye and Eugene how to do math -- Or rather, I would have sat with them, given them worksheets (which they actually enjoyed for the sake of familiarity, not that I ever so much as succeeded in teaching them to consistently add 1+1), taken them out for a cigarette; Faye or I would have brought goldfish crackers and Arizona green tea. This all only just started feeling like long ago.

The party began, I think, at seven. So early! we played boccie ball in the yard, and more and more people showed up. I remember that I kept asking what time it was, and it kept being So Early! that it was awesome. Then suddenly it was 4am and we went to bed.

Flash forward. It is October, and look!

My hair is too long, but I have continued my program of seizing! Here I have grabbed hold of my old roommate Mark. It is, it must be October 5th, 2007 -- I tell you it must because it was a First Friday. We have arrived at the house on Penn Avenue. I have disappeared inside to drink a considerable amount of alcohol. This is the first First Friday I do not live there anymore; I have moved down the street in with Rachel and Pope and Pope's horrific mangy dog. My job has ended and I am embarking upon a month of unemployment. Or, as some would have it, Funemployment.

After a while it was Thanksgiving. Man Thanksgiving is a good holiday, and Megan had everybody over at her house for turkey and other traditional foodstuffs. Here is a shot of the table I rather like:

Descending down the table are Weird Guy, Robert Smith, Boyfriend, Me, and Megan. Robert Smith's name is Penelope, and when I told her she looks like Robert Smith she was totally charmed/angry. Note that I have cut my hair a bit.

Let's linger here a bit. This is my favorite picture from that night:

An empty dish of pie and a pack of camel lights linger between two bottles of Dead Guy. This picture was taken by accident -- I think it was the Spirit of Thanksgiving foretelling life in Oregon. Later on the couch,

my face seems to have exploded. That's Robyn, Megan, me and Leigh. I miss them because they are nice. Megan is in India now; I'd post a picture she sent me of her at the Taj Mahal but that's really for her to do. At this moment in history I am working at Del's restaurant. I am a waiter and rather good at it. Jay and Jim have moved into their house in Lawrenceville and I rather enjoy being able to stroll over there mid-day and drink Jay's double-caffeinated coffee. I seem to remember them somewhere around this time having their own party at which a turkey was present. I don't remember anything else of that evening. I bet Jonas was there. I bet Boette was too. Maybe it was the night on which this occurred:

This is me fighting Boette and Sarah. I love the look on my face. I am pretty sure Sarah won.

But where are we now, oh now, o Son of the Eastern Sea?

When I arrived in this far cloudy country I looked a lot like this:

There I sit in Portland, photo taken by my brother, drinking (feel free to be shocked) a beer. Nor am I anything like happy. That was February or March, one of those months of nightmarish unending depression.

But look, a new era has dawned. Here is my favorite illustration of its nature:

...I can't remember if we are saying "Look, we cut our hair!" or, "Yep, I'm gay!" It was one of the two though.

Look, Stephen, how far we have come and, you know, What we Look Like now.

What a long,

What a long,

What a year it has been. So many convulsions, confusions -- so many friends and haircuts! But here we sit and eat an apple, we have just called our new Associates to tell them "I give you the job," and I think, and I think everything just might be all right.

The Pleasures Of: Episode 1

2008-06-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Cats!

Because in my earliest memory I am sitting with my arms around two cats -- standing, indulgent -- each almost as large as I am, while my father takes a picture.

And later in childhood I assumed that the cats had raised me. I lived in the back yard and shunned human companionship. There were three cats; we called them Stripey, Furry, and Sylvester. I do not know what they called themselves. There was a neighbor named Rudy; he and Sylvester were great friends and you would see them palling around together in gardens and under hedges.

I assumed they were a kingdom, and I knew that Stripe (to use the less diminutive form) was king, and that his empire extended across many nearby lawns and gardens which he oversaw from his perch or throne on the railings of the deck. I remember long hours spent talking only to the cats about the political issues of the day, I being (of course) Lord Stripe's human vizier.

There was the day when the Orange Cat invaded from beyond the fairgrounds, and prompted the terrible War that consumed our lands for an entire summer, from the ambush near the creek until the final victory at the Battle of the Drainpipe -- a campaign in which, I take some pride in saying, I played a critical role. After that peace came again, and time drifted onward so lazy, such a rich magenta hue, until Sylvester drank anti-freeze and died a yowling awful death.

How much later? In our apartment on Centre Avenue in Pittsburgh we had a little white cat. She was beautiful and cunning and vicious, in that way not greatly different from females of our own species I have loved. She would not let you pet her; she hid from you if you got near but when you turned away she would dart out and bite your ankles; one time she attacked a baby but at night she would curl up and sleep with me. I dreamed of her the other night in a dream in which I saw all my cats -- but she and Sylvester had melded into one. I wonder if, 50 years from now, I will still remember that they were separate beings.

In my neighborhood now there are many cats. They skulk about or loll on the sidewalks, and many come to greet me when I go walking down the street. I may start setting out food for them soon. Or I may not. We shall see.

Stuff I Like

2008-06-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

My roommate is fond of speaking in lists. I have no idea why. But it occurred to me lately that this act of listing might have some sort of therapeutic value. I have therefore decided to make a list of stuff I like. I mean specific stuff, not actions, things, the thought of which evokes feelings of joy or wonder. Start at one point draw on to the next.

So.

I like

Cats.
Sunshine.
The moon.
Norse mythology.
The Saga of the Volsungs.
Beowulf.
T.S. Eliot.
Dandelions.
Frogs.
Ants.
Spiders.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe.
The story "The White Ship" by H.P. Lovecraft.
Everything by John Keats.
And Gary Snyder.
Christmas.
Daydreams.
Christmas Daydreams.
Parties.
Rats, but only as an image, not a fact.
Forsythia bushes.
Willow trees.
Crows.
Babylon 5.
The Dying Earth by Jack Vance.
Ethnographies.
Borges.
Gardens.

***

Okay, that's a freaking list. 29 things. Here is an IDEA!!!!! 29 blog posts, each about one of those things. These posts will be a special series, which we shall call, The Pleasures Of. 29 posts, perhaps one a day, several a day, none a day when I'm lazy and, since I must now make haste to away for a meeting, Starting Tomorrow, and, some introspective What Does All This Mean kinda stuff to go along with.

I think it is a fine plan.

Thinking about Moths

2008-06-04T13:25:00.001-07:00

I've always been fascinated by the insect world, because we can watch it with something close to a God's-eye view. And watching, we see things that they themselves cannot. What would a similar observer see, watching us?

There is a species of spider that uses sex pheromones to trick male moths. Let's think about moths. Their sense of smell is so powerful that it might be fair to say that their world is composed of scents in the same way that ours is composed of sights. Believing they smell, or as we would have it, see a lady moth, the male flies toward her hoping for a night of happy moth sex when all of a sudden he is caught in the swinging web of a bolas spider, killed and eaten.

Does God see the same thing happening in our world?

I Hope You're Feeling Better

2008-06-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Oregon.

Waking today, and the iTunes left at C last night, cycle through Cu Da De wake up to the Decemberists start playing, and I am o'ercome by nostalgia.

Sad, and sad, and here we remain...

But sitting here I was thinking this thing. Wouldn't it be funny to now on refer what we have traditionally termed as Back East as the Old World, and this as the New? Then next time we're in Portland we can Discover Portland!

And this would be an awesome excuse for shoplifting from places on Hawethorne Street.

Congratulations, Stephen, this is one of your finer thoughts.

***

Speaking of finer thoughts, you know what was not a fine thought?

Okay so Roommate's friend Bro told me a joke the other day about Scottish people that involves making fun of a man name of McGreggor. I tell this joke in Bar last night and, L, G, you already know this but everyone else, what does our other companion turn out to be last named but, yeah, McGreggor -- Fuck!

I am going to tell Bro next time I see this and he is going to laugh and laugh and laugh.

***

Well my darlings, it is 7:00 and I have not made enough coffee for myself. I shall now however arise from my bed and to the kitchen, for to make a fine and semi-healthsome egg-potato breakfast. Good morning, and good luck.