Twas the Night Before Senate

Twas the night before Senate, when all through the house
Not a phallus was stirring, not even that of a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas' legs would soon fill their air.

The Senators were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of ontological danglers danced in their heads.
And Senator in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
Senator sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window he flew like a flash,
Tore open his robe and threw up his sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a little Toyota, with all 5 gears.

With a little driver, so lively and caddy,
I knew in a moment it must be Senate's Daddy.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Nero! now, Po-Mo! now, and Senator you vixen!
Great phallus, hold your coke can on Po-Mo so smitten!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dried tissues that before the wild air made fly,
When they meet with Nero's floor, and mounted to the plies.
So up to the house-top of the cul de sac they flew,
With the car full of whiskeys, and beloved Daddy too.

And then, in a twinkling, they heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As they drew in their heads, and were turning around,
Down the chimney Senator came with a bound.

He was dressed all in blankets, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of cigarettes he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was full of drool with a sag,
And the beard of his chin looked like it belonged on a vag.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round coke can,
That shook when he laughed, like a cold homeless man!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had everything to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his ride, to his team gave a call,
And away they all flew to his phallus like Nero's face to my balls.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Senate to all, and to all a good-night!"

Post-Modern Triumph of the Phallus

I feel as if it is time for something little different here on the Senate Floor. I wish to make a post more like the celebratory spirits of the ancient Senators on whose shoulders we stand so proud. I feel they must have had a custom to honor special and extraordinary individuals who practice virtue and excellence to such a high degree that they warrant special recognition for their greatness.

Let me continue and get to where I am trying to go.

I have recently found great joy in the past couple hours educating myself in the greatness of Dustin Hoffman- sparked by a revisiting to his role in the Tootsie. Here I will help you in that process.







Now let's revisit another Dustin Hoffman role as handicap derelict pimp for a "Midnight Cowboy."







And lastly, the thing that dare I say proves his Senatorial prowess, a 2008 interview on Letterman talking about his role in the film Tootsie and the fun he would have with it. (Please focus on facial expression to the reaction from his punch line after he tells a dirty anecdote.)



Hoffman = Smug satisfied smile , Dave = embarrassed face-palm , Paul = loss for words

Cheers Senators and I hope you enjoy this tribute to Dustin Hoffman.

William S. Burroughs Thanksgiving Prayer - Senate Style

William S. Burroughs
Edited by Nero for 2010 Thanksgiving Holiday
 to be fit for the Senate Floor

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts


Thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison


Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger


Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot


Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes


Thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through


Thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces


Thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers


Thanks for laboratory AIDS


Thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs


Thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business


thanks for a nation of finks — yes,
- "Just remember this. All agents defect, and all resisters sell out. That's the sad truth, Bill. And a writer? A writer lives the sad truth like anyone else. The only difference is, he files a report on it." William S Burroughs- Naked Lunch

Thanks for all the memories… all right, let’s see your arms… you always were a headache and you always were a bore


Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.


OK OK OK! I know, ban Nero from embedding videos. But I felt it was warranted given the Holiday Celebration. And remember ....

I. Am. Not. Dumb. Now.

Let's celebrate the human spirit!

And Wouldn't You Know It...(Just Like That): A Prequel

the travesties of the economic slump had left me, the post-grad, in a state of great despair. work was no where to be found -- save on the farms of Western Mass where time had long stood still and the ash of cigarettes continued to grow but never could be flicked off in that way that collegians make look so cool on the campus green.

too much time to myself and too much time for late night whiskey filled ramblings. still though, i grew to know myself. know myself in ways that must had been tucked away deep within my subconscious, coming out here and there in the occasional collegiate experimentation. a late night thought, a 3am photo shoot for a fellow roommate with a Q Lazzarus soundtrack.

Halloween always gives the freaks a chance to be themselves in the public eye, free of ridicule, under the guise that they are in costume, hiding behind some Nietzschian front of a mask. i'll never forget that first time i put on the tight red flight attendants dress. leggings were much more comfortable then i had thought they'd be. still though, i had to put on a good front for the boys...and the girlfriend.

so for the time being i had to tuck that part of myself away, but i knew i wouldn't be able to fight the urge to tuck myself between the legs for very long.

Just Like That

Everything worked out just fine. Three years after a minor hiccup, economy reality once more met expectations- national books once more balanced. Neither worries nor complaints justified, and each go-getter got their earning. Mortgages and credit cards, Loans and paychecks, Dividends and investments. Life is an equation. Add, subtract, multiply, divide- equals- a life to live. The faithful receive the rewards of their faith.

Fire for the chaff.

My mistake, loving a man like him. Jason worked as an immigrant must and I loved those hands.
My pet and my beast. I remembered overhearing from a dog trainer once, and I followed her stolen advice. Whenever cooking for him I mixed some of my urine in with the olive oil. Scents and pheromones- mine would be a good dog.
Darling, I tell myself now- let your loss be your lesson. What am I going to do with these wigs and stockings, blouses and heels?
Little sister, -I tell myself- you'll wear them.

Rene Descartes, What Have You Done?

too old to die too young to live that man just sat there the way he always had: in his antique arm chair, arms at his side, brow wrinkled, tv blaring its white noise into his ears that had long gone deaf from the years of droning. every so often the train would go by the fifth story window as he sat motionless, unfazed by the vibrations. yes, he was quite oblivious to most things.

his friends and family equated it to years hidden in philosophy books reading about ontological danglers and schematisms. they say that those texts forced him to take very seriously the questions of consciousness, the questions of reality, the quest for the truth that edifies, the objective truth, the idea of Truth, the truthiness of it all.....they say that he was consumed by the journey that these questions draw one into, without even so much as the promise of a destination.

before he had assumed his catatonic state of existential crisis, he had filled his apartment with dark red candles, whose essence that he was so desperately trying to discover, had long since caked themselves to table tops, desks, chairs, mantles, books, porno magazines, even those old records he used to wear the needle out on.

it was all his friends could do to get him to eat. they managed to force him onto a liquid diet of milkshakes and apple sauce. sustenance for substance. "if you don't feed your body your mind will starve and then it will die", they'd say. they did not understand his odd metaphysical concerns. he just brushed them off as anti-intellectuals who didn't understand the real power of logos.

and so he devoted himself to to thought, to reason, to logic -- the way the great thinkers had. "hell, Kant never even left his home town....i've at least been to Europe", he thought. and if someone ever managed to scrape all of that wax off the forrest of books that had grown in his apartment they'd see the complete works of Kierkegaard, Aristotle, and even Nietzsche, for when he was feeling hip and rebellious. it was not just the books of the thinkers themselves that littered his rooms, but books on the books, and books on the books on the books, and articles in periodicals by professors on the books. yet, for whatever reason, it was the Meditations of Descartes that he could not escape. that same little pamphlet that bores every intro to philosophy student out of the major, and that every major and grad student thinks will never just disappear -- yes, that is the one that ultimately led to his downfall.

"it's all laid out like instructions. through introspective thought upon introspective thought, and reasoning ad infinite, I can come to know God; come to know myself!", he would think excitedly. oh how that cheeky little mantra "cogito ergo sum" played back and forth in his mind like a metronome to his thoughts. and he sat in that arm chair and meditated. his plan was to meditate on small concrete objects at first and graduate to larger more abstract concepts, following his mentor. he thought on the chair he sat in, the book he held in his hands, the rug, the toaster in the kitchen, the remote control, the television, the train outside his apartment, and the wax. he thought endlessly on the wax.

he became so consumed in his meditations that he eventually failed to notice anything else -- anything outside of his own mind. for him, there was nothing outside. the tv stayed on, blaring its white noise. the trains went by, shaking his apartment. the wax melted and melted until it had coated everything, and he sat in his chair and he thought.

The Transporter - Part 1

Transporter 2 - Hospital Fight Scene | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

I enter room 376 at Good Samaritan Hospital to transport an older gentlemen to the ultra sound department for some testing. I am immediately hit with a wall of shit stench, it knocks me back a bit but I step forward. "Hi, I am with transportation here to take you to ultra sound for testing." The old man sitting casually in front of his bed says slowly in a low crackly voice "OK ... that sounds good. Thank you so much young man." So I move the stretcher into the room swimming through the shit stench which is stronger now and ask him if he can stand up and get on the stretcher on his own. He replies calmly "Why, yes I sure can." I lock the stretcher and lower the railing and bed to make it easier for him to get on. "Anytime you're ready Mr. Brake." "Hold on, Hold on, give me one minute young man." "Is there anything you need help with sir?" "Oh no, I just need to go to the bathroom." "Oh, that's fine. Would you like some help getting there?" "Oh no, no, no. If you could just hand me that roll right over there." And sure enough there it was, a roll of toilet paper on the table next to me. Then the whole situation came into focus. The old man was crapping on a plastic toilet in front of his bed the entire time I was in the room with him, carrying on a conversation no less. I can see him now, sitting nonchalantly with his gown on draped to the floor, perfectly covering the plastic toilet he is on and happy to talk to a young man who just entered the room. I hand him the roll and quickly unlock the stretcher move outside and tell him to holler when he's done. Soon enough he says "All ready." and I get him situated and we are off to ultra sound.

More adventures to follow....

An Older Senator?

Age Ode

Turn dead bolts, nail the particle board, set cement, prop chairs against the doors How do you hold on to what isn't yours The big boy who broke the diving board, is dead-- also his goatee is still warm The woman down the street, is dead too, her husband asphyxiating in the garage as the car runs No Dinner
What can be said over ashes
Problems, too young to have become this old Have they heard down on shrewsbury street Decked in acid washed button-ups, diets and heels They're too old to be this young?
What happened, what can be done
Buy ten percent less energy, buy local vegetables, buy garden seeds, buy more used clothing, buy a compost kit, buy enlightening books, buy an accordion, buy an engagement ring, buy a house and land to put it, buy a crib
And a child is put in it.

To Bottomless Manhattans for All

We start with the philosopher's protagonist
Hiding in the pages of a blasphemous sermon
A thought, an inkling, a form

The check's on the table
The number is on the line

He remembers that phrase
A profound piece of philosophical rhetoric
A speech, a dialogue, an argument

The money's coming soon
Bills must be paid

These ideas shall take hold
An orator made famous
A change, a chance, a condition

Everything must sparkle
Everything must shine

The Past - Part 1 & 1/2

Ol' Joe Garner did it for the last time. His hands quick-tied behind his back, his chin slumped onto the squad car's roof-- red trickled and dripped down through his white beard. Eased back, the officers popped the door and slid the old man across the hard plastic backseat-- his rights read to him through the sliver-cracked window, Ol' Joe leaned back his head and stared off.



His wife, Juniper, was silent and did as she was told. When she ran inside screaming, the trailer door ajar, Ol' Joe had reason enough to stand up from his chair. It stayed peculiarly warm that August-- looking 'round the swinging door it hardly surprised Ol' Joe to see a black bear, full grown, tearing through the moose meat he'd left smoking over the fire pit. Hand on his belt-gun, Joe wheeled over to the weapon-chest. Tugging out his twelve gauge, Ol' Joe slid one sharp point slug in and chambered-- he pocketed some spares out of habit.

Brisk walking through the still open door, Ol' Joe shouldered his gun and strode across the dirt-yard. Without so much as a breath, Ol' Joe walked right over close and then blew 3/4 of solid steel through the animal's side-head. Spitting into the blood hole at his feet, Ol' Joe started to curse then stopped-- he'd come upon an idea.

Carl Black Elk over at the Native Furrier's owed him a favor-- now he'd pay out in full. Walking outta town two weeks later, Ol' Joe wore a tall black fur hat, a fine black fur wide-collar, black fur cuffed gloves and a pair of black fur-lined boots. There weren't finer clothes Ol' Joe had ever worn nor seen.

That winter it became clear to Ol' Joe-- he himself sure had some sense, and Juniper, certain, had enough sense to stay quiet-- then his shit-senseless daughter must have fallen from some other line of seed. Ol' Joe's daughter had run-off outta state years ago, settling in with one of the wife's shit-ass brothers in some East state. They'd sent his girl to some college. Now she'd sent a letter saying she's getting married to some senseless city-shit-- and Ol' Joe and Juniper were both invited, airplane tickets and all. That about did it. She, this daughter could run around all she wanted, but with all this talk she musta forgot what type a man her daddy was-- and Ol' Joe wasn't about to let any daughter forget that.

Ol' Joe went alone. And Ol' Joe wore his best. The plane finally landed in Concord, New Hampshire late the night before the ceremony. Eager to enjoy their rehearsal dinner in Manchester, the wedding party left a cousin to pick up the bride's estranged father. Ol' Joe held his wedding invitation-- UNH Chapel at 10AM-- in his black fur cuffed gloves. The cousin waited by his car, amid a line of cabs, outside the arrival gate. Ol' Joe took one look at this androgynous boy-man, cocking a pose leaned against the open car door. Joe pushed the boy with wood-iron fists into the car, slamming the door--Joe walked up and slid into a taxi.

Pulling onto UNH campus Ol' Joe saw quite a commotion going around. Half-dressed-till-naked kids pranced and rolled about painting each others' bare skin. Loud noise pounded outta speakers around them. Ol' Joe pulled off the TSA's restraints from his weapon-bag and slid into place his belt-gun.
The Cabbie was paid with perfect change.

Stepping onto the concrete rotunda with his black fur-lined boots, young eyes turned on Ol' Joe. Straightening his hat, pulling tight his gloves, flattening wide his collar-- Ol' Joe would look his best when he reminded that daughter what type of man her daddy was. But curious young feet slapped the concrete-- walking closer. They stared at him. Ol' Joe sneered at their painted nakedness and youth.
The kids started shaking their heads and getting indignant.

A girl stepped outta the bunch shouting

Hey Asshole, Fur is Murder

the girl arched underhand and a full tin of red paint slapped against Ol' Joe's tall black fur hat, his white bearded face and black fur collar. The painted crowd around the girl gasped.

Ol' Joe stared at that girl as though she were a bear.

The Past - Part 1

A buick rounded the corner onto Harbor Way, roaring between miss-fired engine strokes passing Chanslor Ave-- bottoming out in the alley across from St. Mark's Hall.

Jared lurched the car into park, launching the boys across the dashboard and cracked leather interior. He grinned at Cole beside him: "What?" Chris laughed from the backseat as John rapidly picked out his flattened hairdo. Rust cratered doors slammed behind Jared as he strode out into Richmond California's purpling night, adjusting his polyester ensemble. Rubbing a hand around his beard, Jared watched as a group of girls hustled across the street and joined the line packing into the hall: "Let's get laid boys."

Drums rummed off the linoleum-white walls, warm like the yellow light-bulbs inside, it bounced into the street. Jared smirked as he caught Cole dipping his walk to the beat. Pushing past some white folks shuffling around the door, the boys slipped into the dance hall.

Jared and Chris gave the fat doorman two dollars they earned working the concrete plant. Cole gave $2 he got resurfacing highways, John paid with money he filched from his lady the night before. "Put on your dancin shoes baby 'cause this' pretty fast." The accordion hit on, and Jared swaggered across the floor-- starting to bop up his shoulders in 2/4 time. When catching his eye-- and reaching his arm round a slim girl dancing to herself, Jared spun off with her across the wood floor.

--His tonight

Humming to himself, Cole eyed a young girl from behind-- John got a woman six times his size out the back door-- Chris sat in the men's room swearing it was something he ate. Jared to the beat slid round his girl, taking her hand and dipped through frantic spins-- pulling her closer. With big white eyes she smiled up, hooking her hips in fast circles to the music-- her skirt tossing around Jared's polyester pant legs.

The band stopped and started, then started again faster, as dancers packed it in tighter.



Set between streetlamps, three men sat alone-- perched on the curb. John's face beamed behind a cigarette as he told Cole about what sorts of things you can fit in a back-alley. Chris clutched over his stomach muttering. They waited. Maybe an hour, or a few.
Then they started the walk home.

Candy Four Breakfast

We awoke that morning the same as we always did: one at this hour in the afternoon, the others rising slowly there after in one order or another. Yawning, scratching, itching this nook and that cranny, we all slowly poured into the living room to debate about what kind of cereal or instant oatmeal we'd be having that day. The TV was on in the background, serving more as white noise to our static minds then anything else. Good day time television was hard to come by in those days.

Outside it was bitter cold. There was frost on top of the previous days frost that lay hardened on top of a few feet of snow. When the wind blew even the trees seemed to shiver more then usual. We had all slept in too long to enjoy much sun light. Not that there was much to be had that day.

Grunts and gestures served as primary forms of communication, like an early scene from A Space Odyssey. One member of the household was perhaps more ape-like then the rest. He rarely wore clothing, save for a loin cloth and a rag around his shoulders. There was also that wool hat that never left the crown of his head; and of course, his wire-framed glasses.

We other primates weren't much more evolved, although they liked to think so. One's arms were so long that his knuckles dragged across the floor, and he poised himself accordingly. Another could hardly feed himself, and when he did, he fed mostly on a Freudian substitute for mother's milk. And the last one carried himself with the air of the village idiot who thinks he's actually mayor.

Every household has its members, and those members all have their morning routines. This was ours--and that morning was no different then any other. It was simply four devolved humanoids bantering in grunts and whistles, sipping breast milk, and watching the snow on the TV and the static through the window.

Forced to Live Like It's a Curfew

translation: it means I 3> you.



daddy can never leave the senate. he just takes vacations. like forrest gump's dad.

A Glad Day for Surfing

Here, (right here) the senate transcends the capacities of the human body to locate itself. In the byzantine corridors of these blog posts we are lost in a big hotel, filled with glass elevators and numbered rooms off into infinitum. Where do we go? What do we write? Shall the irksome sound of silence descend upon the intarwebs blog stain we have smeared? What values do we hold here, if any? Power?

"As God as my judge I am not guilty"
"God is not your judge, I am. You get six months."

WTF has happened to senate? Terry Shivo anyone? Do the eyes of our blog follow the doctor's balloon? e-euthanasia? I think we are (here) on this page to learn how to be immortal, or better, learning not to be mortal, to refuse finitude and disavow death's poisonous breath. To desire this immortality is not the mastery of death, but the very limit of philosophical thinking. Or as Plato put it so many years ago, 'To philosophize is to learn how to die.' Together we surf, in postmodernist hyperspace, make a post and a glad day for surfing.

Babycakes, Every Picture Tells a Story

Howdy gang, I'm calling out one line of sand for myself tonight.
To borrow a phrase, my ol' authority voice has gotten a bit out of hand lately--
so maybes I'll shelve that guy for a bit. Just taking a bit of a break
ya know, try out a couple other ways of talking.

Status report: My errant cig-butts kinda took over the entirety of the front yard surrounding my porch spot. There's this one bush, you see, and I kinda squirrel my wasted soldiers down there in piles of ash and filters. So Pops put out grampa's old crystal ashtray, i am now living quite large.

There's been a lot of electronic-conversation action this evening, but boys, keep an eye on your phones for some voice time, I'm looking at you Po-Mo and Daddy (And Nero, babycakes, your in there too).

On to about cig # 13-15, I think? Hell, I dunno. This is at least whiskey and ginger ale #3-- as always, only stiff ones. There was a beer in there somewhere.

Oh and plenty of:



Let's make this into one of them fireside chats:
Gang, the grand scheme moves forward-- today I got me a job on a farm.
Nourse Farm

I'm all full of shit, but quantifying/qualifying each and every aspect of a neurosis didn't do a damn thing for me but entrench these things further.

One evening, on this very porch I'm writing you all from now, I realized--shit,
I am absolutely unemployable now.
The track I'd pinned my plans along just didn't have room for a person of my position. Shit, its probably my own doing-- but I'm going nowhere by trying to fight the current.
So here's to the slow start toward baking our own brownies-- its not as if there's much to lose.

On this theme: I remember a night or two some years back, someone saying "Goddamn it, the april plant festival is only days away and we haven't built jack shit. Call the boys, we're sitting down and doing this tonight."

I get the feeling these days we've just about reached that point-- time for a bit of calling in and chicken-wire.

The ass arrives, beautiful and most brave

I write this post senators in the hopes that we haven't lost our way as much as I fear we have. While our posts on our philosophies have conviction, I fear that they are that of brave group of asses. Lost on the e-pages of the future, we press plastic keys that appear on hypnotizing monitors in order to find some scrap of Truth that we as friends, we as Senators, can enjoy together via Google Blogger. However, it has come to my attention that our senate floor has become something akin to a kitty litter box where we bury our own shit in e-form so it doesn't stink up our owners house - and what tasteful cat goes digging though kitty litter for their friends loaf.

In seeking truth (e or otherwise) one must ask "What in us really wants truth?" We do not know where this urge for truth comes from, but still have it none the less is evidenced by the plethora of posts on various theories, anecdotes and rantings. Even more complicated, "accepted" truths passed through time and forged by a sum of human relations and enhancements such that they become obligatory to people as masses; it is sad for me to recognize that this has become true even to us noble senators. Instead of lying to ourselves and each other according to our obligation of the fixed conventions of this post-modern world we must question the value of truth, "Why not rather want untruth?" The value of truth has blinded us senators, we have lived too excited by the questioning of truth and gotten lost, truly lost.

The worst error I have seen on the Senate floor recently is one myself has been a part of. The shifting of "gears" from the aesthetic to the ethical to the stoic. Now to start the problem I have with this I will illustrate the underlying values in the two dichotomies. In the Stoic we have good and evil, an opposite value system that seems so useful and so very 'right' but it makes the mistake of the religious, it has the distaste of faith steeped in it. This faith I speak of is that in opposite values. This belief that the world can be divided into opposites (good&bad,truth&falsehood, even aestheticðical as well as the material and the immaterial) is nothing more than that, a belief. The relation between these so called opposites is far more complex, and even involves interdependency. Even Kierkegaard knew this in his work Either/Or, where each state of sphere of existence in effect represents a distinctive answer to the question, "What is it essentially to be a human being?" The radical nature of the choices of A/B (a seeming opposite value system)lies in the fact that in choosing one of the stages you are also choosing the kinds of reason available to you for defending your choice.

We with our philosophical prejudices have been baptizing our truths on the intar-webs and have been very far from having the good taste and the courage to let this be known, but that does not make our Google blog really a kitty litter box for the occasional e-loaf. This senate floor is and always will be a confessional for we four philosopher kings, giving the entire intar-webs insight into our character and maybe the occasional youtube video. However, the goal of a mass (Google) communication culture is enlightenment in reverse.(Thank you anti-intellectual E-crop rotation).



Now I hope this post has not come off as a condemnation of the senate as a whole, for every philosophical work is that of a memoir based on personal assertions, but instead I hope this post pushes us to make a new dawn of personal assertions. Ones that are truly for the future, one that are fit for a Senate blog and are beyond good and evil and all opposite value systems, a true post-modern memoir. I want this group of proud senators to immerse themselves in Roman love, for when you are in love you are in freedom, for e-expression is a gift and 'every age and every year has its own flowering spring.'

Now I hope that anyone that understands my words, eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them-as steps-to climb up beyond them. (he must so to speak, throw away that ladder after he has climbed up it). He must transcend these writings and thoughts, and then he will see the world aright.

"You Are Dead to Me"

Dearest Daddy,

I've tried for years now to satisfy your ambitions of me; your ceaseless and tireless yearnings for me to transform into something I can never, due to my own nature, fully become. I reach out to you time and time again--hoping for a glance, a nod, any gesture of pride to burst through your black framed glasses from your dark brown eyes and shoot directly into my soul. All of my studies, my travels, even the girls I've brought home, they were all for you really in the end. To show you that I am a Man. I am worthy of your love, your affection, and your honor.

I know that things are different now. We aren't as close as we once were. I know my abstractions and obscurities try your patience time and time again. But Daddy, without you my life is shallow. It is a shadow of an idea. An idea a grand man, no, grand Senator had at a time when a bond of friendship seemed so dubious as though it would not last the aesthetic spring, the ethical summer, or the stoic fall. But the seasons of our lives will always change. Even for those of us who live in season-less hells central to the wang of our country. The days of our lives will play out. Those Senators chairs that sat with such phallic poise in the foyer may come to grow cob webs. The artwork that adorned the Senate walls of old may grow dusty. The stains left by a Post Modern friend on Daddy's blanket for Bears may grow crusty. And the shattered porcelain remains of a violent outburst between Senators may come to be the ruins of a once proud empire that ruled a cul de sac. Confounded images of a raucous Buffalo Senator will dissolve as Goodbye Horses fades to silence.

I ask you Daddy, was this not all for your love? These things may come to pass like the discarded soiled tissue Nero thoughtlessly casts aside after folding his laundry, but my love for you will not. I will one day make you proud. One day make you love me the way you loved me in the quiet, forgiving dark of a London hostel. And you will come to see that I am not the man you thought or hoped I would become. But I am the man you love.

With love and reverence always,

The Senate

Stoic Fruit of Summer and Aesthetic Fruit of Winter

Aesthetic Oranges, Ethical Apples

The most recent dialectic on the senate floor has launched me into an earnest study of the aesthetic and the ethical. As Post-Modrnerer has already written, "you are two one entity split into the timid and the boisterous, the apologetic and the proud, but regardless of how different you may approach things, you both always arrive at the same destination." A very astute observation of the work of Either/Or, the constant choosing that is life, to be ethical or aesthetic, as both suffer from the melancholy and boredom as they are similar and one could argue arrive at the same destination. Both married man and prancing aesthete ultimately come to the point in the previous book the Diapsalmata where it states "I feel like a piece in a game of chess when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved." But the arguments of the Judge have seem to grown more attractive in the years following undergraduate. The Judge writes, "The only absolute Either/Or is the choice between good and evil, but this is also absolutely ethical. The aesthetic choice is either altogether immediate, and thus no choice, or it loses itself in a great multiplicity." The judge believes that the aesthetic has its place, but as the servant of the ethical. It would seem that Kierkegaard thought that both the aesthetic and the ethical had their place as servants of the religious because of the final sermon at the end of the book. Now I haven't taken the step to the religious as Kierkegaard did, at the end of his life becoming a minister as his father always wished him to be, but instead have found new fancy in the realm of Stoicism. My new curiosity with the Stoic philosophy is not in vain as a little internet research has lead me to this fact; Kierkegaard contemplated adding the following postscript to the second edition of Either/Or (1849). "I hereby retract this book. It was a necessary deception in order, if possible, to deceive men into the religious, which has continually been my task all along. Maieutically it certainly has had its influence. Yet I do not need to retract it, for I have never claimed to be its author" (Journals, X 1 A 192).

Can the Stoic replace Kierkegaardian ethicist?

Instead of being tricked into the religious by Either/Or can one adopt the Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius and live in the sphere of the ethical and armed with indignation a Senator here in the senate so deserves. I would like to think so, mainly because the season of Stoic fruit is wrapping on my wind ceil. Trapped here in what Post-Moderner has called the "the bigoted burn hole of the old that is central florida" I cannot help but feel a great divorce has happened between myself and the liberal arts playground that is Skidmore." The universe is flux, life is opinion (or poise)." Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good." "A man should be upright, not kept upright." "At dawn of day, when you dislike being called, have this thought ready: "I am called to man's labor; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?" All these Marcus Aurelius quotes seem to ring with me and truly edify me in a great way. It seems that the seasons have changed from aesthetic dance parties at off campus bars like Brunos in the winter time and been replaced by Stoic days of earnest intent to be upright. Now it is easy for me to say that the seasons have changed and the Stoic can replace the Kierkegaardian ethical (as of course only the truth which edifies is truth for you), but I change season with hesitation as I am unsure that all senators can see the leaves changes. I would hate to find out that this truth edifies only me and not my fellow senators, especially when armed with the cultural diagnosis of the immaterial and material particularly with reference to the alternative you. Cheers Senators and I pray this post has not fallen off the cliff to the pit of academia, rather i hope it is a continuation of the beautiful dialectic posted below.

The Dialectic Continues: A Post Modern Discussion of The Senate Part 1 (names and events slightly modified)

Post Moderner

did you and Nero just decide to joint text me

Senator

yeeeees

<3

Post Moderner

what are you guys talking about

or are you just bored

Senator

no

we had a threes company mix up on senate

and we have been discussing how afraid we were that we philosophangered our fellow

Post Moderner, did you know that Nero and I are faggots?

Post Moderner

that secret flew the proverbial coop many senate meetings ago

Senator

i caught Nero's crazy disease and we've spent almost an hour frettin

Post Moderner

are you concerned that im the only one not getting the reach around in the senate centipede

Senator

we want you to join our gay sandwich and not missout on gravy

our

ahahahahhaha oh jesus

Post Moderner

yes?

Senator

we

we love you Post Moderner

i have a link you can check out if

you know

your into it

a little fileshare of about

12gb of Nero & Senator action

you know

if your into it

Post Moderner

are there cock knives?

Senator

on belts that are not holding up pants yes

now that my spasm of inner middleschool girl is spent

friday

most decent!

Post Moderner

yes most decent

Senator

i was both drunkly and appeased, your thoughts?

Post Moderner

i was happy from the moment your crotch appeared in front of me whilst standing upon a table surrounded by 1,000 material pose minded hipster aesthetes demanding thou cock be sucked for thou own ignorance of the modern city and ethical world (most likely from life spent dug far too deep into a farcical aesthetic life)

to Appalachia!

Senator

Post Moderner

love

yes yes yes yesss

truth

truth served is beautiful truth

The Dialectic Continues: A Post Modern Discussion of The Senate Part 2 (names and events slightly modified)

Post Moderner

did you and chris just decide to joint text me

Nero

maybe.....

yes we did

and we are both sorry

Post Moderner

what are you talking about

or are you just bored

Nero

both

i mean

our seante post

where we condemed the aesthete

it was accidental

i thought ur post was done by chris

im so sorry

i wouldnt have known unless Senator called me

and commented about my comment

Post Moderner

he called you over it?

Nero

yes we butt fuck

Post Moderner

i need to re-examine these comments im so confused

Nero

noooo nooo

dont reexamine

i mean

go ahead

but

dont take them to heart

Post Moderner

one's been removed!

Nero

im makeing a post about the transiton from aesthticism to stocism

it was Senator

he felt bad it was about a spear piercing kierkegarrd

Post Moderner

whats all this about a Jewish ethicist

Nero

its just an extrememe example of the ethicist

like

the most ethical i suppose

Post Moderner

so instead of A/B

its A/Jew

Nero

like the homosexual aesthete

another extrreme

yes exactly

Post Moderner

Homosexual/Jew

that must have been what Kierkegaard was going for

Nero

thats what i meant at least

Post Moderner

so there can be no Jewish Homosexuals?

or

Homosexuals are too afraid to abandon their crazy seductive lifestyles for the real challenges of Jewish Ethics

Nero

something close to the latter

but there just extremes on the spectum i use for hyperbole

its better to abstact them to the aesthete and ethical to avoid problems of prejudice

Post Moderner

sir i believe it is time you left the bigoted burn hole of the old that is central florida

Nero

im here to stay for while i think

but i want the senate floor free from hate

and Senator and i are sorry

even if theres no reason to be

we love you

Post Moderner

except between the jews and homosexuals

which i am neither

so i am saved

thank senate!

Nero

self aligned with god

free from despair

Post Moderner

truly

Nero

i just have been talking with Senator about stoicism and marcus aerilous alot and weve kinda adopted the ethical instead of the aesthtic since (for me) lack the context of liber arts campus to prance merrily on with sherry

and didnt want to destroy something that you find edify

i mean his post was almost indeciferable

i got more from phone convos and wiki quotes

or as ben stiller says, i shot some skeet

ok im so sorry

Senator and i are having butt sex

call it that

and well be ok

The Cup Runneth Over: The Opening of a Dialectic

A literary example of pose/poise (perhaps):

"Instead of asking how things are in fact, and how one could possibly find out, one wonders mostly whether one has got the author's point; and if one thinks one has, one may even feel superior to those who have not.

Speaking in Kierkegaard's terms, one might say that Buber makes it all too easy for his readers to avoid his ethical challenge by adopting an aesthetic orientation."

--Walter Kaufmann (Preface to Martin Buber's I and Thou)

Does the hipster, (term here used as a substitute for any/all alternative youth lifestyles), adopt an heir of superiority because they believe that they understand the ubiquitous author's point? Have they thus adopted an aesthetically oriented life that is masked by inauthentic ethical, or social aims, lifestyles, and means?

I posit that this may be the case not only of the alternative youth, but the acting puppeteer behind the complacent state of the country's marionette populous as a whole. Kaufmann continues to say that Kierkegaard is guilty of the fallacy as Buber. We as Senator's are perhaps the strongest proprietors of the aesthetic life in our romantically ethical outbursts against our peers, our education, our technology, and our age. And of course, are damn proud of it.

The Cup of a Carpenter

"The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle. "

To assume an affected pose.

Luxury, perhaps, is to be afforded the opportunity to concern oneself and reflect upon the immaterial. So consider from luxury.
The underlying principle I am concerned with is pose, or to pose, or poise-- choose your favorite iteration.

Aurelius said, "Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." I substitute pose for perspective-- Everything we see is posed, not the truth.

I posit, identity is derived from responses to demands: both material and immaterial. One's response to the question of need: abstinence/indulgence: shapes, qualitatively and quantitatively, their identity.
A twentieth century example: orthodox Jewish ethicisism and homosexual aestheticism.
Poise. Identity has developed, from material emphasis to an immaterial emphasis-- with the satisfaction of material necessity in Majority-American life.

As preemptive response: It is marketing's 20th century victory that material goods have been abstracted to immaterial worth-- the connotations of item are as perceptibly valuable as item itself-- if not frequently more so.

Identity's dependence on immaterial has offered, (postmodernism), the opportunity to shape a malleable self identity--for export. To control the presentation of one's desires' and necessities' satisfaction. One can wonder endlessly which receives precedence, self-affiliation or group acknowledgment-- but in the argument's confines, each rely upon abstract immaterial indicators.
A painfully cultural dependent example: identity connotations between clothing items, flannel & spandex or oil-stained Jynco jeans & faded ICP logo printed on an american apparell 100% cotton t-shirt.

Identity has entered an implicit crisis. (Class is the unmentioned elephant, that for hermetic simplicity we'll leave for the moment) For the visible portion of the population material necessity has never been more distant, though even for the invisible portion-- cultural saturation has demanded their conformity to an immaterial model.
Poise and the Crisis of Identity. With the freedom to control and choose, from admittedly limited commercial options, identities have been chosen and summarily purchased.
Identity, however, exerts pressures upon its individual-- ascribing patterns of behavior and perspective in exchange for the immaterial indicators it provides. Individuals must live into the identities they purchase.
Opportunities for existential friction abound. Or do not, their occurrences perhaps in proportion to the benefits identity association provides the individual.
However one reacts, control and production of these immaterial cultural indicators is ample power for many competing agendas.

Poise. In delving into identity, it has been my purpose to examine the difficult cultural question of the hipster brand-- the very word's visceral response in majority individuals has passed into cliche. While an unassociated grouping of young individuals they represent in their varied and multiple iterations a common response to the underlying questions of identity.
Young people lumped into this group, still operate through immaterial cultural indicators but aspire to material identities that satisfied necessity has made irrelevant.
Material associations are fetishized. Material indicators of identity are perceived as more valid indicators than immaterial indicators. The words Authenticity & Authentic. I withhold judgment of the validity of these desires. Although, I might point out that attempting to align oneself with a preferably perceived material based identity is as abstractly an assumed pose/poise as the majority immaterial indicator.

Again, to clarify: attempting to resolve a crisis of navigating an immaterial identity, hipsters and young people have sought to identify themselves through the methodology of satisfying their material needs.
Hence, in some cases cultural phenomenons of vegetarianism/veganism-- deferentiating oneself from the majority through food choices.
Hence, a preference for material career aspirations: cooking/restaurant business--providing food; taxi/bus/public transit careers-- facilitating transportation; construction-- facilitating shelter, aid/nonprofit/not-for-profit-- facilitating material necessities of others; etc.
Career Addendum (employment genre is of itself a strong immaterial cultural identity indicator --even when employed in a material job sector) : Even should an individual be employed in majority-immaterial concerns, individuals yearning for material association often pursue other activities perceived as indicative of the material identity: i.e. pass times to distract after labor or violent voicing of pent-up frustrations/stress perceived as indicative of their meeting their material necessities -- drinking, concerts, vandalism, release through violence, group protest, sex, general rebellious acts-- and through abstaining from these activities.
(When abstracting choices to affiliate oneself with or differentiate oneself from a group, whether indulging or abstaining-- it is in terms of these material {and immaterial} need satisfaction indicators-- resulting in that desired identity.)

Associations through these means might be the most prevalent, case in point through aphoristic example: "Yeah, Casey's a lawyer, but she's cool. You should see that girl drink. She went with me to the guerrilla show downtown, she didn't bring money for the cover charge and punched the bouncer in the gut and slipped into the club! She swears like a sailor! She was at the vegg protest at the butcher shop!"
In this case, Casey works through immaterial means (possibly enjoying its benefits within other social spheres from immaterial identity association) but shows her aspiration for a material necessity based identity by acting examples of culturally associated behavior.

Even should an extreme example grow their food and butcher their cow, they'd never know to need it- necessity has been preceded by the supersaturated availability of industrial agriculture. It would be to assume an affected pose. Identifying themselves by material satisfactions that cannot, through circumstance, be their own necessities.

Sleeping on a park bench- if there's the option of a home behind you, there is no identity of necessity.

And if there is no home, you've certainly many jealous friends longing silently for and presently absorbing the awful cultural identity rays of authentic material necessity.



The cup of a carpenter, be humble:

"We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that. "
-M.A.

The Future- Part 3 (6/14/10)

John gave his ten year old daughter four dollars from his pocket, the year is 2020. The blonde girl snatched the bills and hopped across the fair toward the lily pad booth. Chris stood off a few feet, cigarette smoking between the lips and his three year old daughter sitting on his shoulders. Sighing, John looked through the concession stand trailers and stuffed carnival prizes as he leisurely pursued his blonde little girl bounding ahead. Beyond the fairground, cars parked on grass fields broiled in mid-afternoon sun. All Rhode Island was packed into the small Woodstock County Agricultural Fair for one last weekend of summer.

John rounded the corner of a fair-alley and he paused, a concessionaire-- wearing a yellow striped Dr. Seuss hat and a backpack overflowing with styrofoam-sponge lizards on wire leashes, long plastic horns and tiny confetti coloured stuffed dog keychains--knelt as a large woman dug through the backpack for a tweety-bird doll. After waiting a minute, John skirted sideways against a sausage stall and slipped past. John could no longer see his daughter, the lily pad booth was little distance ahead but she was not there. Children banged wood catapults with miniature sledgehammers trying to launch rubber frogs onto lily pads. John stuck his hands into his pockets.




The sky reddened and afternoon passed. Behind a sun bleached circus tent, Chris stood with a juggler and several clowns on their break. His daughter slept, a green plastic horn against her stomach, sitting on her father's shoulders. They laughed as one of the clowns joked about the woman running the sausage stall. The juggler looked middle aged, he pulled out a glass bottle he had perched in the elastic waist of his costume. Laughing, the juggler talked about his many children. Chris took a drink from the bottle.

John circled through the fields around the fair. Coloured lights had begun to flicker throughout the fair. He stopped a moment and watched as concession stands flipped on their flood lights. John hurried past as Chris, daughter on his shoulders, and two clowns urinated along the back of a circus tent. John grabbed a concessionaire with a striped yellow hat and begged him questions. Turning off and staggering down the carnival alley, John stopped and braced himself on a stall and gazed off at the Ferris Wheel's lights.

Post-Modern Oedipus Rex

This post is an answer to all the troubles of a young Roman citizen in the world of today and e-tomorrow. Poke out your eyes to rid oneself of e-despair. See only through the Self within the self. Here is the seat of the post-modern philosopher king. The post Cartesian pineal gland, the post-modern housing of the soul. After blotting out the eye sockets, that if used over zealously can reveal deep e-despair in the modern man (something I am ashamed to have ranted about as much as I have here on the senate floor), one's soul is brought in true harmony at all levels. In a state of such harmony one can stand with a gaze into all the bizarre HD screens of today and tomorrow (pocket or otherwise). 720p 1080i all become acceptable and of great pleasure, as when living as the post-modern Oedipus Rex all ill fate is removed from the self and only harmony with the true Self remains. One might be quick to call this a sort of e-freedom, but I think that is a misnomer as it overlooks the true tragedy of the whole undertaking. We are free, but only as free as a man who denies himself true vision for sake of a harmonious soul. Poke out your eyes to rid oneself of e-despair, live harmoniously in the true Self. Become the Post-Modern Oedipus Rex.

Seat of the Philosopher-King

A Preamble

The bells of the Senate ring again. Come senators, gather once more. As our fore-senators claimed-- "Men exist for the sake of one another"-- so it shall be. Gather again for both ourselves and our fellows. One wave of the many senate seasons has passed beneath us, another rises ahead. New days, new tasks to fill them-- but none so great as those now before us.

Again I quote the philosopher-king, "Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts." Roll your shirtsleeves and let us coat our forearms in dyes.

Of Angry Young Men

Young passion has been much maligned, not always justly. "Anger cannot be dishonest," so say our fore-runners. Youth and the present are ours-- fellow senators, let us not waste these precious days of honesty.

Though our own strength is unequal to the task of Senate, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within our own compass also. Otherwise has spoken, Senate stands still. Rise and meet our task.

Out of The Desert

Gentlemen of the Senate, we hold discourse above a desert void. Blazing from the wasteland we move forward. Hiatus concluded, the Senate has re-opened.

Senate now, forever Senate.