Dry Drunk as a metaphor. Clinging to the sources of our needs, living familiar only to wanting. Possessing anything becomes alien. Possession is left nine tenths of the laws that apply to those other folks-- them remaining of society. What really can't be unfortunate.
Dry Drunk as a metaphor. It wasn't until recent that I really cornered the concept. Archie Bunkers, men afraid of tomorrow. Living and dying, afraid of tomorrow. Old dead Uncle Wallace will tell you straight, all the things we leave behind are covered with the claw marks of our trying to keep hold.
Dry Drunk, that's an idea. We can change the behavior by will alone, but leave the source flowing same as it ever was. The source the same. Need is a pistol, sure thing. Same as it ever was, cold rifle grease lipstick kisses dotting the nape to the neck. A need to speak, needs to be heard, needs to possess.
It's fear. That dry drunk. That cyclical behavior and repeat to history. Those familiar glass cups, a familiar fight. I stood at Kelly's square the other night, trying to talk down one set of fists. But too bad, there are others. His nose was broken against the car window and the blood flattened out like a clown around his lips. Ollie was an ass and did something to deserve it. But we all watched from the corner in the rain, as he screamed and swore through his broken nose. Like a gargle. He knelt down in the middle of the street and washed off the blood from a puddle against the curb. That was beautiful to see, like Jesus doing feet. Tiffany said he deserved to die, with the conviction of a Pentecostal snake whisperer. I'm not sure if that were true or if she was autistic. She was autistic.
Who can be sure, Ollie was mostly guilty of smuggling gin in his pockets.
The Romans said, half our problems are sourced in mistaking one cause for things built of many.
Maybe we aren't nearly so good as the take we operate from. Maybe that's fine. Cutting faces into the hill clay with safety razors-- a night is a thing like that. It's neither a straight line, nor is it a cycle. Maybe just a single cut that tends to stumble. But either way, there is one time to it and it's easy to knead out the same possessions rather than stake down those fears of tomorrow.
Dry Drunk, Alright.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
Bail
Drying out tonight. Getting harder and messier picking up the puddle pieces days after a wet spree, goddamn it.
It has been raining for days, all week rather. Looking out the window seems the days were stuck on repeat-- same ol' mess of wet and yellows.
I went down to the Hotel for singing night-- I bumped into a guy named Ryan in the street.
He has the waist length Metal hair and a waist long Metal beard-- Ryan was supposed to be in Portland, Oregon with his band but his grandmother had died two hours before. We had talked about his grandmother when she was dying, before his tour-- her first husband was killed by fascists in Italy when she was 17. She immigrated alone as soon as the war ended.
There was some sort of autism to the air that night-- a girl was very upset a certain friend wasn't with me, she told me about liking Bob's Burgers and her fetish for feeding skinny looking men, how she had shredded threadbare pajama pants off in a fit of passion the night before, how shitting makes her feel empowered and how people frequently tell her she looks like Alanis Morissette. I honestly didn't see a resemblance.
A dealer with a bowl-cut admired my jacket. It was actually a work shirt from back on the farm, and the mistake confused me. Double so when he kept returning to comment again, nervous that he may have only imagined our earlier exchanges.
An old man named Kenny admired my shoulders and wanted to touch them. He touched them. He had the easy-comfortable bearing of a pedophile, the articulate and delicate aura of a man who'd burned live animals trapped in gas soaked sacs. He wanted us to be friends, and wanted me to know that I should always say hello if I saw him and that I should never avoid his company if we met in public. He wanted to hear me sing, and then touch my shoulders again.
I have taken to singing a sort of repeating repertoire of re-interpretations of good old favorites: Faster Than a Ray of Light by Madonna, Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox, Proud Mary by Tina Turner and Bad Blood by Neil Sedaka. I tend to sing like Tom Jones having a Bruce Springsteen sort of aneurism-- tinged to a Morrissey-nian sense of shame.
I frequently worry that my reputation as a heterosexual man about town has become a penny stock.
I drank and sung.
Millie has deep mental handicaps, she is a middle aged woman who walks around the bars and sells gimp bracelets. She gets impatient when her marks take too long with their change, but will smile and say "Yeah that's me" if you give her a cigarette. The sort of person who quickly embarrasses her altruistic defenders with fits of aimless violence. Millie and I danced to some song I cannot remember-- we spun each other in circles. Kenny said oh! a regular Clark Kent! American as apple pie!
I left out some back door, and then woke up this morning.
It has been raining for days, all week rather. Looking out the window seems the days were stuck on repeat-- same ol' mess of wet and yellows.
I went down to the Hotel for singing night-- I bumped into a guy named Ryan in the street.
He has the waist length Metal hair and a waist long Metal beard-- Ryan was supposed to be in Portland, Oregon with his band but his grandmother had died two hours before. We had talked about his grandmother when she was dying, before his tour-- her first husband was killed by fascists in Italy when she was 17. She immigrated alone as soon as the war ended.
There was some sort of autism to the air that night-- a girl was very upset a certain friend wasn't with me, she told me about liking Bob's Burgers and her fetish for feeding skinny looking men, how she had shredded threadbare pajama pants off in a fit of passion the night before, how shitting makes her feel empowered and how people frequently tell her she looks like Alanis Morissette. I honestly didn't see a resemblance.
A dealer with a bowl-cut admired my jacket. It was actually a work shirt from back on the farm, and the mistake confused me. Double so when he kept returning to comment again, nervous that he may have only imagined our earlier exchanges.
An old man named Kenny admired my shoulders and wanted to touch them. He touched them. He had the easy-comfortable bearing of a pedophile, the articulate and delicate aura of a man who'd burned live animals trapped in gas soaked sacs. He wanted us to be friends, and wanted me to know that I should always say hello if I saw him and that I should never avoid his company if we met in public. He wanted to hear me sing, and then touch my shoulders again.
I have taken to singing a sort of repeating repertoire of re-interpretations of good old favorites: Faster Than a Ray of Light by Madonna, Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox, Proud Mary by Tina Turner and Bad Blood by Neil Sedaka. I tend to sing like Tom Jones having a Bruce Springsteen sort of aneurism-- tinged to a Morrissey-nian sense of shame.
I frequently worry that my reputation as a heterosexual man about town has become a penny stock.
I drank and sung.
Millie has deep mental handicaps, she is a middle aged woman who walks around the bars and sells gimp bracelets. She gets impatient when her marks take too long with their change, but will smile and say "Yeah that's me" if you give her a cigarette. The sort of person who quickly embarrasses her altruistic defenders with fits of aimless violence. Millie and I danced to some song I cannot remember-- we spun each other in circles. Kenny said oh! a regular Clark Kent! American as apple pie!
I left out some back door, and then woke up this morning.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
The Comedienne: Part Deux
Apparently I've been sleepwalking.
One of my roommates caught me the other night. Standing in her room, stuffing towels and tissues and her dirty panties into a dresser. I was muttering "it's not my fault, I just rented the shirt" over and over again. Mom was pretty freaked out (that's "Her" name by the way).
The next night, my other roommate ("Dad") had an early shift and was taking a shower. He was all dried off, doing the towel around the waist thing and opened the door-- a small grey and blue spotted snake was coiled up outside the door! There on the second floor, in America no less! In a paniky animal sort of mindset he mashed it to death barefoot. Mashed it! Barefoot! Right into the stained hardwood floors! Can you believe it? Well, that's how it happened. So me and "Dad" buried it in the sleepy morning haze (so the dog wouldn't get it). That would be a mess. We had to scrape up the wet snake bits and stuffed them into a plastic grocery bag-- as we carried it outside a clear-reddish mucus dripped off the bag's corner onto my foot. I have to assume that all of this is correlated somehow. The sleepwalking, the bloody snake oil dripping onto my foot, the drunken sleep apnea, the Civil War in Ukraine, the Gaza strip. Ferguson, Missouri. In America no less!
You sir, you know what I mean right? Of course you do, you got the professionally medicated eyes of a 30-something with a "bowel movement journal." You see it clear as anyone, but hard to recognize aint it? That vague rocky coast lurking through the fog? Eh?
And you, hello Sister. Out alone tonight? Be honest, is tonight any exception?Replacement blew, cant remember original. Well, that's fine. I got the look too. We need to stick together, build a formal sisterhood. A coven, or something like that.
I've been looking into buying cemetery plots online. I think it's important to always have enough cash in the bank to cover, you know, "The End": all the boxes and hinges and nails and after the fact landscaping. Eternal candles. Roadside crosses. I have $12.50-- that's enough for a cab from here to the east river, right? That's my price horizon these days. I mean, I could afford that much.
'Cause here's the thing-- (house, I'm gonna need another drink up here)-- I think organ donor's are idiots. And I mean that as kindly as possible people, they've been cornered by this shame-mafia into giving their future dead bits away-- for FREE! Can you believe that? They hack and pack your kidneys, heart, lungs and skin and bones and Young Jewish Craigslist Eggs or whatever into coolers and then insurance agencies trade $100,000s of dollars back and forth with hospitals over who "gets" stuffed full of your bits. And they charge, and they itemize the bill.
I thought about it a lot and for the kind of cash they pull over organs-- after "aquisition fees", transportation, administrative costs and before-death risk of damage-- I think $2000 is what it's worth. I'd sell my future dead organs, now (I'm saying, as in Today), for $2000. I could afford a little burial-at-East-river for that. I'd lie in a second hand dingy, pulled behind a trash barge. As we passed by Williamsburg, my friends would half-assedly toss sun-bleached wreathes stolen off the graves of 1990s gang-shooting victims. As we passed the Statue of Liberty they'd cut my dingy loose-- to lazily drift down the orange gold of that Atlantic sunrise (or to sink and resurface off a Jersey City shipping dock)-- the Staten Island Longshoremen would all be in a row along the beach, weeping. One of 'em that looks a lot like Artie Lang would shake his head and, wiping a tear, say: In America. No less.
**The Comedienne Bows**
G'night folks, you've been a great crowd!
One of my roommates caught me the other night. Standing in her room, stuffing towels and tissues and her dirty panties into a dresser. I was muttering "it's not my fault, I just rented the shirt" over and over again. Mom was pretty freaked out (that's "Her" name by the way).
The next night, my other roommate ("Dad") had an early shift and was taking a shower. He was all dried off, doing the towel around the waist thing and opened the door-- a small grey and blue spotted snake was coiled up outside the door! There on the second floor, in America no less! In a paniky animal sort of mindset he mashed it to death barefoot. Mashed it! Barefoot! Right into the stained hardwood floors! Can you believe it? Well, that's how it happened. So me and "Dad" buried it in the sleepy morning haze (so the dog wouldn't get it). That would be a mess. We had to scrape up the wet snake bits and stuffed them into a plastic grocery bag-- as we carried it outside a clear-reddish mucus dripped off the bag's corner onto my foot. I have to assume that all of this is correlated somehow. The sleepwalking, the bloody snake oil dripping onto my foot, the drunken sleep apnea, the Civil War in Ukraine, the Gaza strip. Ferguson, Missouri. In America no less!
You sir, you know what I mean right? Of course you do, you got the professionally medicated eyes of a 30-something with a "bowel movement journal." You see it clear as anyone, but hard to recognize aint it? That vague rocky coast lurking through the fog? Eh?
And you, hello Sister. Out alone tonight? Be honest, is tonight any exception?
I've been looking into buying cemetery plots online. I think it's important to always have enough cash in the bank to cover, you know, "The End": all the boxes and hinges and nails and after the fact landscaping. Eternal candles. Roadside crosses. I have $12.50-- that's enough for a cab from here to the east river, right? That's my price horizon these days. I mean, I could afford that much.
'Cause here's the thing-- (house, I'm gonna need another drink up here)-- I think organ donor's are idiots. And I mean that as kindly as possible people, they've been cornered by this shame-mafia into giving their future dead bits away-- for FREE! Can you believe that? They hack and pack your kidneys, heart, lungs and skin and bones and Young Jewish Craigslist Eggs or whatever into coolers and then insurance agencies trade $100,000s of dollars back and forth with hospitals over who "gets" stuffed full of your bits. And they charge, and they itemize the bill.
I thought about it a lot and for the kind of cash they pull over organs-- after "aquisition fees", transportation, administrative costs and before-death risk of damage-- I think $2000 is what it's worth. I'd sell my future dead organs, now (I'm saying, as in Today), for $2000. I could afford a little burial-at-East-river for that. I'd lie in a second hand dingy, pulled behind a trash barge. As we passed by Williamsburg, my friends would half-assedly toss sun-bleached wreathes stolen off the graves of 1990s gang-shooting victims. As we passed the Statue of Liberty they'd cut my dingy loose-- to lazily drift down the orange gold of that Atlantic sunrise (or to sink and resurface off a Jersey City shipping dock)-- the Staten Island Longshoremen would all be in a row along the beach, weeping. One of 'em that looks a lot like Artie Lang would shake his head and, wiping a tear, say: In America. No less.
**The Comedienne Bows**
G'night folks, you've been a great crowd!
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Office Life?
7:00am: Almost simultaneously my alarm clock goes off and my dog pushes the bedroom store open to let me know it is time to arise. I want to hit sleep and push him off of me, but his rear is making this odd jiggly motion suggesting if I don't open the front door his bowels would evacuate like morning commuters rushing out of the subway stairs late for work. So, I open the door and he runs outside but then just turns around and runs back in. Sigh.
7:15am: Feed 2 cats and 1 dog. Coffee is on. Is this what it's like to have kids? Nancy Pelosi is on MSNBC talking about the Middle East and the Malaysian plane that was shot down in the Ukraine. Too early to be this depressed. Switch to the Today Show. Some teenage/tween boy-band called "Summer Forever" or "Forever Summer" or "7up Forever" or something like that is about to perform. Too early to be this depressed.
8:00am: The cab I called to take me to the train station is 5 minutes early. EARLY!!!! WHY??? Now I'm going to be 20 minutes early for the train instead of my planned 15 minutes. Sigh.
9:20am: I arrive to the office early (again) and looked for a coffee shop nearby to buy an iced coffee, but there is only McDonald's on the block. I think about it. The word "McCafé" literally runs through my mind. But alas, snobbiness (healthiness?) will not allow me to pass through the doors. Fitting, since yesterday I had an argument with a friend about Applebee's and chain restaurants in general. He defended it, and called me a yuppy for refusing to go to chains, but he's the one who got married and moved to the Pennsylvanian suburbs - where they only have Applebee's - so really I think he's the yuppy. Or, is he just American? Do yuppies eat at Applebee's? I wouldn't think so. Maybe that I have to ask proves I'm not one (small victory for me!). Side note, is it possible to be a hipster and a yuppy? I was accused of both during this conversation. Or, does he just not understand the difference? Or, is there a difference? Or, are they both just meaningless labels? Or, do I just not understand the difference myself? Probably that last one.
9:30am: I arrive at my office for the day. Fit-modeling is an easy, but incredibly boring (and in my opinion, meaningless, although I'm not complaining) job. I am here to try on outfits for perspective buyers, but I mostly sit on my computer and play addicting, mindless online games and write inane blog posts when I should be writing emails looking for more "real" work. Perhaps even more inane, or insane, is that I am doing so from the storage closet of the office here because there was no desk space. One might think that if people in an office knew that the next day there would be an extra person in said office, that accommodations may need to be made....but then one might be over thinking. "The Office" is now a much more understandable television show.
10:45am: The first prospective buyer of the day wants to see me in a pair of jeans. "It's relaxed-slim-fit." the sales-woman tells him. "Oh! How modern!" exclaims the buyer. Back to the storage closet.
1:00pm: One of the random emails I sent, while not playing mindless online computer games or avoiding depressing current events, resulted in the hunt for a large sailboat for a photo-shoot. So, that is how I spent most of the morning not logged here - using social media and whatever other resources available to me to procure a sailboat for a photo-shoot for I don't know what, with I don't know who, on I only vaguely know when. Although I'm currently working on the how, I definitely cannot asses as to the why. Stay tuned for updates later in the day. In-between all of this I tried on another pair of jeans, and a shirt too.
2:00pm: After having been told I could take lunch at 1 o'clock, then at 2 o'clock, then back to 1 o'clock, then "Go eat now, but be back at 1:30 for an appointment!" (1:15pm) I left in a hungry hurry to get my food, and some non storage closet air. I wanted a sandwich, but I felt pressure to be fast and also did not want to spend too much money. It being midtown at lunch hour, those two things were basically impossible. Needless to say I ended up with Japanese curry-rice bought in Korea Town and eaten in a storage closet.
2:30pm: IMPORTANT UPDATE! I know it has only been half an hour since my last entry, but this must be recorded. I have been allowed to move into the main room of the office! That is to say, the storage closet is now only storing my belongings, pens, clothes, and other things that go in storage closets when they are not being occupied by 27 year old fit-models. It appears I've managed to move from storage closet to corner office in the span of an afternoon. Now THAT is fit-modeling. So to the storage room, I'd like to say the following:
7:15am: Feed 2 cats and 1 dog. Coffee is on. Is this what it's like to have kids? Nancy Pelosi is on MSNBC talking about the Middle East and the Malaysian plane that was shot down in the Ukraine. Too early to be this depressed. Switch to the Today Show. Some teenage/tween boy-band called "Summer Forever" or "Forever Summer" or "7up Forever" or something like that is about to perform. Too early to be this depressed.
8:00am: The cab I called to take me to the train station is 5 minutes early. EARLY!!!! WHY??? Now I'm going to be 20 minutes early for the train instead of my planned 15 minutes. Sigh.
9:20am: I arrive to the office early (again) and looked for a coffee shop nearby to buy an iced coffee, but there is only McDonald's on the block. I think about it. The word "McCafé" literally runs through my mind. But alas, snobbiness (healthiness?) will not allow me to pass through the doors. Fitting, since yesterday I had an argument with a friend about Applebee's and chain restaurants in general. He defended it, and called me a yuppy for refusing to go to chains, but he's the one who got married and moved to the Pennsylvanian suburbs - where they only have Applebee's - so really I think he's the yuppy. Or, is he just American? Do yuppies eat at Applebee's? I wouldn't think so. Maybe that I have to ask proves I'm not one (small victory for me!). Side note, is it possible to be a hipster and a yuppy? I was accused of both during this conversation. Or, does he just not understand the difference? Or, is there a difference? Or, are they both just meaningless labels? Or, do I just not understand the difference myself? Probably that last one.
9:30am: I arrive at my office for the day. Fit-modeling is an easy, but incredibly boring (and in my opinion, meaningless, although I'm not complaining) job. I am here to try on outfits for perspective buyers, but I mostly sit on my computer and play addicting, mindless online games and write inane blog posts when I should be writing emails looking for more "real" work. Perhaps even more inane, or insane, is that I am doing so from the storage closet of the office here because there was no desk space. One might think that if people in an office knew that the next day there would be an extra person in said office, that accommodations may need to be made....but then one might be over thinking. "The Office" is now a much more understandable television show.
10:45am: The first prospective buyer of the day wants to see me in a pair of jeans. "It's relaxed-slim-fit." the sales-woman tells him. "Oh! How modern!" exclaims the buyer. Back to the storage closet.
1:00pm: One of the random emails I sent, while not playing mindless online computer games or avoiding depressing current events, resulted in the hunt for a large sailboat for a photo-shoot. So, that is how I spent most of the morning not logged here - using social media and whatever other resources available to me to procure a sailboat for a photo-shoot for I don't know what, with I don't know who, on I only vaguely know when. Although I'm currently working on the how, I definitely cannot asses as to the why. Stay tuned for updates later in the day. In-between all of this I tried on another pair of jeans, and a shirt too.
2:00pm: After having been told I could take lunch at 1 o'clock, then at 2 o'clock, then back to 1 o'clock, then "Go eat now, but be back at 1:30 for an appointment!" (1:15pm) I left in a hungry hurry to get my food, and some non storage closet air. I wanted a sandwich, but I felt pressure to be fast and also did not want to spend too much money. It being midtown at lunch hour, those two things were basically impossible. Needless to say I ended up with Japanese curry-rice bought in Korea Town and eaten in a storage closet.
2:30pm: IMPORTANT UPDATE! I know it has only been half an hour since my last entry, but this must be recorded. I have been allowed to move into the main room of the office! That is to say, the storage closet is now only storing my belongings, pens, clothes, and other things that go in storage closets when they are not being occupied by 27 year old fit-models. It appears I've managed to move from storage closet to corner office in the span of an afternoon. Now THAT is fit-modeling. So to the storage room, I'd like to say the following:
Over the course of the morning we grew close. Although initially dismayed for being forced upon like a wingman on a fat sister, I think in the end we did great work together. I found work (in boats) and love (in online games) and we even shared a meal. In the end I had to move on. You're doing what you were made to do now, and I think it's better for you. Just don't be sad when I have to come back at the end of the day to get the stuff I left there the in the morning.
With love always,
PM
3:30pm: I am back in the storage closet. Like a dog that shat on the rug I've been relegated to my crate. After the briefest glimpse of open fields and endless chew toys I'm back to confinement with nothing left to do but spin in a circle of despair and find a resting place until I'm let out again.
Hi there again storage closet. I'm back. But you always knew that I would be. I could never leave you, not for long. Let's start over. Start fresh. A clean slate. It'll be like nothing ever changed.
Thankfully yours,
PM
5:30pm: 20 minutes ago I had a cup of coffee because I had nothing else to do and my head was starting to hurt from internetting for too long. Now I'm feeling neurotic and worried I will be up all night and late for office day number two tomorrow. Also, I know I got here at 9:30, but isn't the point of a 9-5 that you're done at 5? It's now 5:30pm, we're all still here. Even if you account for the half hour shift, I should no longer be here. I do not believe I understand Office.
6:30pm: I am finally done and leaving the office for the day. Running home to feed and walk my dog who is probably doing more weird jiggly things with his butt since he has not been walked in nearly 12 hours. Hopefully he hasn't shat on the rug, I'd hate to have to put him in the storage closet.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
A Handle
Eric and Tony play knives by rivers under bridges.
High above, a bridge spans across the river valley-- treetops barely reach halfway along the towering concrete supports.
A cold river cuts the middle. Shoes and socks piled at the banks, jeans rolled to their knees--
Eric takes Tony by the hand and they wade to the river's center.
Tony shivers from the cold, slowly he turns his palms to Eric-- who takes the kitchen knife from his pocket, runs it deep, across middle. Blood spreads through the creases of his hand like a red city map.
Eric and Tony hold their breath, as the blood drips and falls. Blood dips thick heavy drops into the river. Where it touches, the water boils.
Thick smoke grows from the bubbling river and rises to the boys' faces. Black fog fills their eyes, ears and nostrils. Eric and Tony cry, tears ragged as can lids.
One, then the other, the boys plunge their heads into the roiling river waters. As their faces touch water, cords of smoke solidify in their throats, beneath their eyelids and down their ear canals, curling as roots burrowing through hillsides.
Then vision:
A spanning tree reaches above, its branches thick with leaf-veins' skeleton frames. In the tree's shade, an elderly mother crouches-- her hand gnarled around as a hook, gouges at her crotch, teeth set clenched as though masturbating. An old father, kneels over a puddle-- tearing flesh from his torso and legs, shaping them carefully, and adds the bloody clay to a half finished mask of his childhood face.
There is a sound, like the unhinging of jaws. A strained rumble, like the swallowing of stones.
The tightness passes and the dark lifts-- the boys, Eric and Tony, drift down stream.
High above, a bridge spans across the river valley-- treetops barely reach halfway along the towering concrete supports.
A cold river cuts the middle. Shoes and socks piled at the banks, jeans rolled to their knees--
Eric takes Tony by the hand and they wade to the river's center.
Tony shivers from the cold, slowly he turns his palms to Eric-- who takes the kitchen knife from his pocket, runs it deep, across middle. Blood spreads through the creases of his hand like a red city map.
Eric and Tony hold their breath, as the blood drips and falls. Blood dips thick heavy drops into the river. Where it touches, the water boils.
Thick smoke grows from the bubbling river and rises to the boys' faces. Black fog fills their eyes, ears and nostrils. Eric and Tony cry, tears ragged as can lids.
One, then the other, the boys plunge their heads into the roiling river waters. As their faces touch water, cords of smoke solidify in their throats, beneath their eyelids and down their ear canals, curling as roots burrowing through hillsides.
Then vision:
A spanning tree reaches above, its branches thick with leaf-veins' skeleton frames. In the tree's shade, an elderly mother crouches-- her hand gnarled around as a hook, gouges at her crotch, teeth set clenched as though masturbating. An old father, kneels over a puddle-- tearing flesh from his torso and legs, shaping them carefully, and adds the bloody clay to a half finished mask of his childhood face.
There is a sound, like the unhinging of jaws. A strained rumble, like the swallowing of stones.
The tightness passes and the dark lifts-- the boys, Eric and Tony, drift down stream.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Foreskin Papers
It is a shabby mind that allows room for coincidences. After only a moment's thought, spider webs of truth shine like gold in the sun. Every rock casts a shadow, but every shadow can hide a murder.
--Charlemagne Elm
A doctor, a friend of mine, through a sad sense of humor decided to name me executor of his estate years back. At times it feels like a stroke of convenience, these momentary favors we provide one another, but I signed the proper paperwork. Remembering the casual circumstances of that agreement is only natural after his death-- like looking down an extension chord to where it is plugged to an electric outlet.
In his office, I guessed rightly the numbers of the combination lock guarding his files (54321), files that were already my own property-- as per the arrangement.
What follows, in brief, is the most "sensible" re-construction of the notes, reflections and confessions that my dear friend, the doctor, left to this world.
-----
I have spent my entire 25 year career within maturity wards, as an internist, assistant, as a specialist and then finally lead perinatologist. It was only in the past year I have come to be ashamed of 25 years spent complicit in what must be called a Crime. Crimes too humanly literal. In this past year, I became aware of just what part I have played-- a revelation that spurred me to peak behind the veil, to try and see how deep the pit of this world lies.
It begins and it ends in the foreskins of infant boys. So often an ugly truth veils a greater more terrible reality. Foreskin by foreskin, a nightmare was built. On the average day our maturity ward collected 10-20 penis tips (numbers well within the mean average for a hospital servicing a small city). It was casual knowledge that these bits of skin--these miniature chicken necks-- were the most desirable form of "medical waste." Packed and preserved, a weeks worth of foreskin was collected from the hospital each Monday (strategically planned, I'm sure, so the inevitable plethora of weekend births would provide a host of the freshest foreskins possible). It was known that the Cosmetic industry was eager for the commodity, used for all manner of facial cleanses, cover-all and rejuvenative washes. It was common knowledge. But as leading perinatologist of the ward, as I became more involved in budgetary planning-- I peaked a page too far. I was startled to find that nearly our hospital's entire operational budget was provided through these skin sales... all other modes of payment, carefully filtered through insurance companies, ended as pure profit checks in the hospital trustee's pockets (hardly a revelation to anyone). But, learning that a multi-million dollar institution might be run through the price of foreskins-- I was astounded!
And so I dug deeper. To protect my family and sources, I have outlined as best and unattributedly what information I have found:
Foreskin's curative and anti-aging aspects are decidedly their least desirable trait. When separated to their molecular elements they produce other, near miraculous, results. These qualities have been known, closely guarded and cleverly employed for nearly a century. It was a Polish scientist, Alojzy Adamczak, who first discovered these attributes-- he then mysteriously immigrated to Hoboken, New Jersey in 1919 apparently fleeing the aftermath of World War I.
Adamczak's discoveries sent silent ripples through his adopted country--it was no coincidence that the United States was first to embrace an Industrial model for its hospitals. Numerous health and wellness campaigns throughout the early 1920's cultivated a cultural climate perfect for industrial-level circumcision. By the mid-late 1920's an entire social apparatus had been constructed for the purposes of foreskin production. Yet in this time, the world's other major powers had discovered the secret of foreskin technology-- an international scramble began.
Germany's relationship to the foreskin will perhaps be noted as one of history's greatest ironies. The racialist theories of Aryan propaganda engendered cults of Teutonic phallus worship that made foreskin collection all but impossible. It was for this reason, that the German Wehrmacht turned upon minority cultures with predilections for circumcision. In the early days of World War 2, Germany applied foreskin technology in their Blitzkrieg offensive with devastating effects. But as Allied shipping blockades slowly smothered the resources of Germany, the country's foreskin production collapsed-- leading to the development of synthetic foreskin alternatives. These proved ineffective.
The United States, at the forefront of foreskin technology, swept across Europe-- using foreskin by-products as key components in everything from early radar systems to precision aircraft. However, it was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the true power of foreskin derived technology was displayed.
It would be ludicrous and childish to depict the mastery of nuclear fission as a simple derivative of foreskin discoveries, but the molecular elements did serve key functions in triggering/amplifying these massive nuclear events.
Foreskin politics came to define the 20th Century. The United States, with their early investments and commitment to "natural" foreskin resources rode at the forefront of a brutal pack. The Soviet Union, discovering late Nazi research in synthetic foreskins tried numerous hybrid natural/synthetic foreskin systems(projects eventually abandoned, reconverting to pure natural foreskin resources), lagged behind. As nuclear stockpiles swelled, the research continued. The same properties that made foreskins a key components in atomic weaponry proved invaluable once again in the development of micro-processors and modern computer hardware.
Geo-politically, the foreskin race has run without cease-- industrialized foreskins, became synonymous with power. The United States, Russia and Israel stood at the tip of Western foreskin technology. However, rising nations were taking notice and seeking to amend their station in the world. The latter half of the 20th century has been a tale of two nations-- India and China. Through the manipulation of old cultural mores they reinvigorated a modern cultural preference for male children-- the race for foreskins in the Eastern Hemisphere began. These countries' population swelled nearly to bursting, as did their skin resources, in a grand gambit for foreskin supremacy.
This coarse outline... this foreskin history of the shadows. It's darkest chapters echo here... in the United States. In the dark days of World War 2, where the modern ordering of this world first began. Even as it's food resources and synthetic foreskin's failed-- Germany's brutal bureaucracy scraped out the necessary foreskins, through the regimented efforts of the S.S. (short for Schutzstaffel or "Short Staffs" when translated to English). After the war's end, through Operation Envelope-- the same effort that smuggled clandestine German scientists to the United States to work in the space programs-- key members of the German S.S. were brought across the Atlantic to lead a new domestic program. Re-purposing the faded and irrelevant Secret Service, these key Schutzstaffel officers developed new efficiency programs, ultimately overseeing and protecting all US foreskin collection efforts and applied foreskin technology .
These things I have learned. 25 years a doctor... I have silently abetted these crimes in a criminal world. To act now is to die a martyr, earning only a symbolic defeat. But let it be done. For weeks, I have stolen and destroyed every foreskin from our ward-- a small act, but specific enough.
Let them come.
-----
Thus ends the notes and words of my friend, the doctor.
He was too curious a man, and a bit idealistic. But what's done is done.
No tears will be shed. Good doctors are like foreskins, there's always more.
--
Elmer Rosenblatt,
First Officer
Investigations and Enforcement Department
--Charlemagne Elm
A doctor, a friend of mine, through a sad sense of humor decided to name me executor of his estate years back. At times it feels like a stroke of convenience, these momentary favors we provide one another, but I signed the proper paperwork. Remembering the casual circumstances of that agreement is only natural after his death-- like looking down an extension chord to where it is plugged to an electric outlet.
In his office, I guessed rightly the numbers of the combination lock guarding his files (54321), files that were already my own property-- as per the arrangement.
What follows, in brief, is the most "sensible" re-construction of the notes, reflections and confessions that my dear friend, the doctor, left to this world.
-----
I have spent my entire 25 year career within maturity wards, as an internist, assistant, as a specialist and then finally lead perinatologist. It was only in the past year I have come to be ashamed of 25 years spent complicit in what must be called a Crime. Crimes too humanly literal. In this past year, I became aware of just what part I have played-- a revelation that spurred me to peak behind the veil, to try and see how deep the pit of this world lies.
It begins and it ends in the foreskins of infant boys. So often an ugly truth veils a greater more terrible reality. Foreskin by foreskin, a nightmare was built. On the average day our maturity ward collected 10-20 penis tips (numbers well within the mean average for a hospital servicing a small city). It was casual knowledge that these bits of skin--these miniature chicken necks-- were the most desirable form of "medical waste." Packed and preserved, a weeks worth of foreskin was collected from the hospital each Monday (strategically planned, I'm sure, so the inevitable plethora of weekend births would provide a host of the freshest foreskins possible). It was known that the Cosmetic industry was eager for the commodity, used for all manner of facial cleanses, cover-all and rejuvenative washes. It was common knowledge. But as leading perinatologist of the ward, as I became more involved in budgetary planning-- I peaked a page too far. I was startled to find that nearly our hospital's entire operational budget was provided through these skin sales... all other modes of payment, carefully filtered through insurance companies, ended as pure profit checks in the hospital trustee's pockets (hardly a revelation to anyone). But, learning that a multi-million dollar institution might be run through the price of foreskins-- I was astounded!
And so I dug deeper. To protect my family and sources, I have outlined as best and unattributedly what information I have found:
Foreskin's curative and anti-aging aspects are decidedly their least desirable trait. When separated to their molecular elements they produce other, near miraculous, results. These qualities have been known, closely guarded and cleverly employed for nearly a century. It was a Polish scientist, Alojzy Adamczak, who first discovered these attributes-- he then mysteriously immigrated to Hoboken, New Jersey in 1919 apparently fleeing the aftermath of World War I.
Adamczak's discoveries sent silent ripples through his adopted country--it was no coincidence that the United States was first to embrace an Industrial model for its hospitals. Numerous health and wellness campaigns throughout the early 1920's cultivated a cultural climate perfect for industrial-level circumcision. By the mid-late 1920's an entire social apparatus had been constructed for the purposes of foreskin production. Yet in this time, the world's other major powers had discovered the secret of foreskin technology-- an international scramble began.
Germany's relationship to the foreskin will perhaps be noted as one of history's greatest ironies. The racialist theories of Aryan propaganda engendered cults of Teutonic phallus worship that made foreskin collection all but impossible. It was for this reason, that the German Wehrmacht turned upon minority cultures with predilections for circumcision. In the early days of World War 2, Germany applied foreskin technology in their Blitzkrieg offensive with devastating effects. But as Allied shipping blockades slowly smothered the resources of Germany, the country's foreskin production collapsed-- leading to the development of synthetic foreskin alternatives. These proved ineffective.
The United States, at the forefront of foreskin technology, swept across Europe-- using foreskin by-products as key components in everything from early radar systems to precision aircraft. However, it was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the true power of foreskin derived technology was displayed.
It would be ludicrous and childish to depict the mastery of nuclear fission as a simple derivative of foreskin discoveries, but the molecular elements did serve key functions in triggering/amplifying these massive nuclear events.
Foreskin politics came to define the 20th Century. The United States, with their early investments and commitment to "natural" foreskin resources rode at the forefront of a brutal pack. The Soviet Union, discovering late Nazi research in synthetic foreskins tried numerous hybrid natural/synthetic foreskin systems(projects eventually abandoned, reconverting to pure natural foreskin resources), lagged behind. As nuclear stockpiles swelled, the research continued. The same properties that made foreskins a key components in atomic weaponry proved invaluable once again in the development of micro-processors and modern computer hardware.
Geo-politically, the foreskin race has run without cease-- industrialized foreskins, became synonymous with power. The United States, Russia and Israel stood at the tip of Western foreskin technology. However, rising nations were taking notice and seeking to amend their station in the world. The latter half of the 20th century has been a tale of two nations-- India and China. Through the manipulation of old cultural mores they reinvigorated a modern cultural preference for male children-- the race for foreskins in the Eastern Hemisphere began. These countries' population swelled nearly to bursting, as did their skin resources, in a grand gambit for foreskin supremacy.
This coarse outline... this foreskin history of the shadows. It's darkest chapters echo here... in the United States. In the dark days of World War 2, where the modern ordering of this world first began. Even as it's food resources and synthetic foreskin's failed-- Germany's brutal bureaucracy scraped out the necessary foreskins, through the regimented efforts of the S.S. (short for Schutzstaffel or "Short Staffs" when translated to English). After the war's end, through Operation Envelope-- the same effort that smuggled clandestine German scientists to the United States to work in the space programs-- key members of the German S.S. were brought across the Atlantic to lead a new domestic program. Re-purposing the faded and irrelevant Secret Service, these key Schutzstaffel officers developed new efficiency programs, ultimately overseeing and protecting all US foreskin collection efforts and applied foreskin technology .
These things I have learned. 25 years a doctor... I have silently abetted these crimes in a criminal world. To act now is to die a martyr, earning only a symbolic defeat. But let it be done. For weeks, I have stolen and destroyed every foreskin from our ward-- a small act, but specific enough.
Let them come.
-----
Thus ends the notes and words of my friend, the doctor.
He was too curious a man, and a bit idealistic. But what's done is done.
No tears will be shed. Good doctors are like foreskins, there's always more.
--
Elmer Rosenblatt,
First Officer
Investigations and Enforcement Department
Sunday, June 15, 2014
New York City Man
Bloated and summer
Don't know that I can say the start to the finish of it
I still have yet to come to some term with what I can and what I have ready
Mornings are fine, afternoons grow forward grotesque
Where's there some edit, some pen in hand to shape present as it's lived?
Any one cut seems far too monstrous, far too quickly
So that none is never made
Right back to start,
And so
we continue and we boil
And nothing much seems to change besides date and weather.
But rolling, some new comes to mind.
New avenues, new songs and new angles
New energy, new projects, new faces, new conversations, the next beer
New numbers, new rhythm, a new line.
If this can't be new than nothing else,
Can't we start someday?
Fresh as we're old, ripe as the calendar states
Permanent as the cigarette.
Malleable as candles in cake.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Narrative, Pt. 2
This is a letter.
Fall asleep and dream through it. Nightmares and others pass, some affect and others end with dreaming. And wake and rise in black strange rooms.
It's only night, and it comes to go, for now until the end.
A monstrous plow pushes, whatever came first pushes into that to come, in one great line.
Field to field, from their end to end. If I am not me, I am nobody. If I am only me, I am nothing.
A line, or a tangle of thread, merely.
I call this a line.
And all lines loop and knot should we look away for too long. This Narrative thing-- it is, I feel, our only means to struggle with time. It's the summation we walk home with: all our cause and effects, laid loose as necessities and choices. Narrative is a nervous faced Janus-- one wet mouth to watch memory, one dry mouth to mission-- a conflicted head twisting both at once for a better view.
Within each head Narrative sits guard to the myths that dot our time, it's thread touching each point backward and then draping loosely onward, on to the next.
Fall asleep and dream through it. Nightmares and others pass, some affect and others end with dreaming. And wake and rise in black strange rooms.
It's only night, and it comes to go, for now until the end.
A monstrous plow pushes, whatever came first pushes into that to come, in one great line.
Field to field, from their end to end. If I am not me, I am nobody. If I am only me, I am nothing.
A line, or a tangle of thread, merely.
I call this a line.
And all lines loop and knot should we look away for too long. This Narrative thing-- it is, I feel, our only means to struggle with time. It's the summation we walk home with: all our cause and effects, laid loose as necessities and choices. Narrative is a nervous faced Janus-- one wet mouth to watch memory, one dry mouth to mission-- a conflicted head twisting both at once for a better view.
Within each head Narrative sits guard to the myths that dot our time, it's thread touching each point backward and then draping loosely onward, on to the next.
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