karma.
When I was 17 and broke as fuck living in Hollywood, I finally landed a job. I met with a diverse group of mostly white people in Beverly Hills who worked with an environmental canvassing agency. We hit the streets after a brief introduction to the paperwork, with a fast intro to door knocking tactics and salesman approaches from a Kiwi who reminded me of a retarded Aussie lumberjack. Commission.
We walked for hours, knocking on doors independently and asked people to donate money to our cause. Our cause. Here. let me read you a speech someone wrote for me about my cause... Imagine the outpouring of donation.
I walked about 3 to 4 miles from Hollywood Blvd to Rodeo Drive on the way to work and on the way back. I listened to my walkman. Black Flag, Falco, Godflesh, Cro-mags, Severed Heads, Cocteau Twins.. whatever.
I was starving at the time. I literally could afford two bags of potatoes and four pounds of coffee a month.
In the car that drove us to our begging positions one day (may have been the first and last day I was employed with them), a fair skinned young woman sitting in front of me in the car, slipped five dollars to me. I don't know why or what caused her to do that, but there is one thing I know. I gave some kind of protest to her generosity and she said, "Don't worry about it. Karma".
I had not yet truly been introduced to the concept of karma, but her strange encounter with me would change me.. forever. I needed that 5 dollars. I was starving and hadn't been able to ask anyone for help. AND for the kicker-I never saw her again.
Haunted.
That is why I give "beggars" money even when I have none. Because Karma is a bitch you can never repay. Nothing has made me more driven than being in need. When I say I was in need, I mean.. considering breaking the law to find food and eat enough to stay alive.
Here is the real deal with KARMA:
You can never pay back what you receive in this world, and only those who suffer should lead.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
the Weak in News
My generous nature has bestowed upon me a year's subscription to Newsweek magazine; or in other words, Chicago Public Radio gifted me the subscription in thanks for my monetary support.
I've been the ungrateful recipient of this subscription once before under the exact same circumstances. I found the magazine insulting for the amount of fluff and its high school level writing style.
This time around the magazine has devolved even further. Every single article, column, page is consumed with statistics to the point of meaninglessness. Every point made in the magazine begs a question. It's a mere headache to read.
There's a piece in the current edition about Immigration and how some Somalians saved a dying Maine mill town. What the article doesn't explain is exactly what these new immigrants are doing there. There's talk of new Halal grocery stores, African clothing stores and things like that. But a community doesn't survive on providing the basics - there has to be some other means of employment to keep those retail stores going. Did the Somalians take over the mill? I guess I'd just rather read an in depth article than a one page wonder story.
Anyway I'm addicted to reading magazines that show up in the house, so I'm troubled as to what I should do at this point to avoid a weekly headache. I might have to get a puppy or a bird.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Hardy Fuckin' Har...
The PBS series, Make 'Em Laugh, currently running, is the usual public television take on an American institution, which in this case is the history of humor in our culture. It's an overview of what America thinks is funny, told (so far) in a pretty entertaining way.
Honestly though, with such a deep subject it's no surprise that there is much that is going to be overlooked in their series. I won't say what I thought was overlooked so far, I will only say that what they do cover, they cover well, and the interviews are both informative as well as often very funny.
The line Billy Crystal quotes at the beginning of the series, from Mel Brooks, is not only golden, it's a great way to represent the way I see the best of humor in America: smart, sharp, sarcastic, and full of attitude.
Mel Brooks: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
I had the incredible honor of being able to meet one of my very few heroes in this life, Bill Hicks. Ramon Medina, while working the local show over at Rice University's radio station, KTRU, came up with the brilliant idea to have us "interview" Bill Hicks for KTRU. That Ramon thought of it at all was brilliant enough, but when Hicks' publicist gave us the thumbs-up I was stunned. Now we had to think of something to say.
My introduction to Bill Hicks was through one of the many stand-up comedy show that used to run late at night on the weekends back in the early 90s. I am a fairly big fan of stand-up, big enough in fact that I would sit through the endless parade of unfunny hacks on these shows, hoping against hope that just one of them might actually be funny.
The impossible happened the night that Bill Hicks was on one of those shows. He did a few short minutes, not his best stuff at all, and by the end of it I was in tears. Not long after I was driving past the Laff Stop and noticed Hicks' name up on the marquee.
I watched him twice in one night and in the process laughed so hard I thought I was going to have to leave the building just so I could breathe. I distinctly remember that only a few people in the crowd actually got much of his material. Comedy clubs, in case you don't know, are centered around selling drinks and not around promoting funny people. Enough wife-uses-too-much-toilet-paper material and you might be able to get a gig at one of these places. This low level of expectation is reflected in the two-drink-minimum crowd that goes to these shows. The place, on any given night, is packed with jocks, business people, and all manner of drunken morons not wanting to actually think about anything but merely to chuckle about nothing in particular.
Hicks was provocative, confrontational, biting, brilliant, relentless, and absolutely hilarious. Without a frame of reference (i.e. a brain), you might have a hard time sitting through one of his sets.
Hicks never quite got the audience he deserved in this country, too close to the bone maybe, and while he carved a niche for himself here in the states, it was in England where he really was able to enjoy success.
Now you can find a whole breed of comic weaned on Hicks' brand of vulgar and intelligent material. Unfortunately, almost none have even come close to his level of ability, if you ask me.
There's David Cross, Patton Oswalt, and the whole group of comics associated with them (Brian Posehn, Fred Armisen, Zach Galafianakis, and others), there's Mitch Hedberg (dead), Louis CK, Dave Chappelle, and then for me it starts to get pretty thin.
And then there's Dane Cook. Dane Cook is a comedy phenomenon. Detested by the more clever and more edgy comics like David Cross and the like, Cook has nonetheless become a megastar in the world of stand-up comedy. His albums are among the top selling comedy albums of all time. Personally I think that Cook has a clever way with the language, and is able to take the most meaningless subject and make it somewhat funny, sometimes. I also think that when he isn't funny, and that is often the case, that is he very, very not funny. Still, I believe there is more to why he is so despised by so many, and I would venture to guess that not being funny has almost nothing to do with it and has more to do with who he appeals to and what he represents as an individual.
Ultimately, to me, the promise of a challenging and intelligent future for stand-up practically died with Bill Hicks. I think David Cross has the potential to mine something as close as anyone, and after him that's about it. I know that level of quality is out there, I just have no idea where or when it will come out.
Sketch comedy thrives here as does TV sitcoms, but as for stand-up it's still a tough road.
For a broad overview of the history of comedy in America, mainly through the window of television, Make 'Em Laugh is great entertainment.
In a country that seems so humorless, so self-important, it's hard to imagine we would be able to not only laugh but be funny as well.
Honestly though, with such a deep subject it's no surprise that there is much that is going to be overlooked in their series. I won't say what I thought was overlooked so far, I will only say that what they do cover, they cover well, and the interviews are both informative as well as often very funny.
The line Billy Crystal quotes at the beginning of the series, from Mel Brooks, is not only golden, it's a great way to represent the way I see the best of humor in America: smart, sharp, sarcastic, and full of attitude.
Mel Brooks: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
I had the incredible honor of being able to meet one of my very few heroes in this life, Bill Hicks. Ramon Medina, while working the local show over at Rice University's radio station, KTRU, came up with the brilliant idea to have us "interview" Bill Hicks for KTRU. That Ramon thought of it at all was brilliant enough, but when Hicks' publicist gave us the thumbs-up I was stunned. Now we had to think of something to say.
My introduction to Bill Hicks was through one of the many stand-up comedy show that used to run late at night on the weekends back in the early 90s. I am a fairly big fan of stand-up, big enough in fact that I would sit through the endless parade of unfunny hacks on these shows, hoping against hope that just one of them might actually be funny.
The impossible happened the night that Bill Hicks was on one of those shows. He did a few short minutes, not his best stuff at all, and by the end of it I was in tears. Not long after I was driving past the Laff Stop and noticed Hicks' name up on the marquee.
I watched him twice in one night and in the process laughed so hard I thought I was going to have to leave the building just so I could breathe. I distinctly remember that only a few people in the crowd actually got much of his material. Comedy clubs, in case you don't know, are centered around selling drinks and not around promoting funny people. Enough wife-uses-too-much-toilet-paper material and you might be able to get a gig at one of these places. This low level of expectation is reflected in the two-drink-minimum crowd that goes to these shows. The place, on any given night, is packed with jocks, business people, and all manner of drunken morons not wanting to actually think about anything but merely to chuckle about nothing in particular.
Hicks was provocative, confrontational, biting, brilliant, relentless, and absolutely hilarious. Without a frame of reference (i.e. a brain), you might have a hard time sitting through one of his sets.
Hicks never quite got the audience he deserved in this country, too close to the bone maybe, and while he carved a niche for himself here in the states, it was in England where he really was able to enjoy success.
Now you can find a whole breed of comic weaned on Hicks' brand of vulgar and intelligent material. Unfortunately, almost none have even come close to his level of ability, if you ask me.
There's David Cross, Patton Oswalt, and the whole group of comics associated with them (Brian Posehn, Fred Armisen, Zach Galafianakis, and others), there's Mitch Hedberg (dead), Louis CK, Dave Chappelle, and then for me it starts to get pretty thin.
And then there's Dane Cook. Dane Cook is a comedy phenomenon. Detested by the more clever and more edgy comics like David Cross and the like, Cook has nonetheless become a megastar in the world of stand-up comedy. His albums are among the top selling comedy albums of all time. Personally I think that Cook has a clever way with the language, and is able to take the most meaningless subject and make it somewhat funny, sometimes. I also think that when he isn't funny, and that is often the case, that is he very, very not funny. Still, I believe there is more to why he is so despised by so many, and I would venture to guess that not being funny has almost nothing to do with it and has more to do with who he appeals to and what he represents as an individual.
Ultimately, to me, the promise of a challenging and intelligent future for stand-up practically died with Bill Hicks. I think David Cross has the potential to mine something as close as anyone, and after him that's about it. I know that level of quality is out there, I just have no idea where or when it will come out.
Sketch comedy thrives here as does TV sitcoms, but as for stand-up it's still a tough road.
For a broad overview of the history of comedy in America, mainly through the window of television, Make 'Em Laugh is great entertainment.
In a country that seems so humorless, so self-important, it's hard to imagine we would be able to not only laugh but be funny as well.
Tom Cruise Will Save America from Evil
During an interview for his latest film, Valkyrie, Tom Cruise said that when he was growing up he used to fantasize about killing Adolf Hitler.
When I was a kid, I fantasized about things like avoiding embarrassment, surviving high school, and keeping as anonymous as possible. All, I'm fairly sure, common youthful pursuits.
And unless you grew up in Europe in the thirties and early forties, you most likely were not fantasizing about killing Hitler.
I think it's interesting for two reasons. First of all, if you consider that later in his life, Cruise would actually grow up to play a Nazi officer complicit in the plot to kill Hitler, things get interesting.
Look at it like this. It would be like my growing up to make a movie about a white teenager horribly uncomfortable in his own skin. Basically I would be a middle-aged man trapped in a John Hughes film. Sort of like Breakfast Club meets Big. Totally creepy stuff.
I also find the Cruise admission interesting because it goes fairly far towards defining the breadth of Cruise's madness.
While other kids were masturbating incessantly, stealing candy, watching TV, and eating Toaster Strudel (not me, of course), Cruise was scheming to somehow place himself back in time in order that he might be able to assassinate the leader of the German National Socialist Party before being able to wreak havoc across the world.
Noble pursuits indeed.
I am amazed at the amount of chain afforded this walking husk of an actor, which I can only attribute to his being perceived by many as being handsome (don't see it myself), and charming (again, lost on me).
Beyond those two things I am drawing blanks on Cruise. The guy has proven himself to be completely out of touch what with his strict adherence to a pseudo-religion widely know to be a front for a lucre scheme to fleece pathetic and sadly willing disciples in order to line the coffers and perpetuate the horseshit scam that is Scientology. Many rumors have circulated about his erratic behavior and his controlling antics. Better still, as he has grown more comfortable with his beliefs, he has repeatedly displayed himself to be an utterly goofy loop job.
He isn't without talent, however. He was actually great in Rain Man. He was also quite good in Risky Business (painful though his undies dance may be). Beyond that, he has been decent in a large number of other films.
And then there's his role in Tropic Thunder. Pure genius. That's the Cruise I want to see, not the usual overly-serious dogma pusher, therapy hating lunatic, or finger pointing media critic (unless of course he is the one on the receiving end of fawning attention from Katy Couric, beneath a weeping willow, in the breeze, through a soft filter, in his biking shorts, with his bike, as if they just happened to run into each other, her with a camera crew at the ready).
Yes, despite all our best intentions, some people are just too annoying to handle.
No sane person would argue that Hitler wasn't the epitome of evil in human form. And yet, claiming that killing Hitler was your childhood dream is about as crazy as anything Cruise has done in his roller coaster of goofiness. Hating what Hitler represented, sure, wishing he didn't exist, fair enough, wishing you could kill him yourself? Just plain goofy.
It begs the question, "What's next, Tommy Boy?"
When I was a kid, I fantasized about things like avoiding embarrassment, surviving high school, and keeping as anonymous as possible. All, I'm fairly sure, common youthful pursuits.
And unless you grew up in Europe in the thirties and early forties, you most likely were not fantasizing about killing Hitler.
I think it's interesting for two reasons. First of all, if you consider that later in his life, Cruise would actually grow up to play a Nazi officer complicit in the plot to kill Hitler, things get interesting.
Look at it like this. It would be like my growing up to make a movie about a white teenager horribly uncomfortable in his own skin. Basically I would be a middle-aged man trapped in a John Hughes film. Sort of like Breakfast Club meets Big. Totally creepy stuff.
I also find the Cruise admission interesting because it goes fairly far towards defining the breadth of Cruise's madness.
While other kids were masturbating incessantly, stealing candy, watching TV, and eating Toaster Strudel (not me, of course), Cruise was scheming to somehow place himself back in time in order that he might be able to assassinate the leader of the German National Socialist Party before being able to wreak havoc across the world.
Noble pursuits indeed.
I am amazed at the amount of chain afforded this walking husk of an actor, which I can only attribute to his being perceived by many as being handsome (don't see it myself), and charming (again, lost on me).
Beyond those two things I am drawing blanks on Cruise. The guy has proven himself to be completely out of touch what with his strict adherence to a pseudo-religion widely know to be a front for a lucre scheme to fleece pathetic and sadly willing disciples in order to line the coffers and perpetuate the horseshit scam that is Scientology. Many rumors have circulated about his erratic behavior and his controlling antics. Better still, as he has grown more comfortable with his beliefs, he has repeatedly displayed himself to be an utterly goofy loop job.
He isn't without talent, however. He was actually great in Rain Man. He was also quite good in Risky Business (painful though his undies dance may be). Beyond that, he has been decent in a large number of other films.
And then there's his role in Tropic Thunder. Pure genius. That's the Cruise I want to see, not the usual overly-serious dogma pusher, therapy hating lunatic, or finger pointing media critic (unless of course he is the one on the receiving end of fawning attention from Katy Couric, beneath a weeping willow, in the breeze, through a soft filter, in his biking shorts, with his bike, as if they just happened to run into each other, her with a camera crew at the ready).
Yes, despite all our best intentions, some people are just too annoying to handle.
No sane person would argue that Hitler wasn't the epitome of evil in human form. And yet, claiming that killing Hitler was your childhood dream is about as crazy as anything Cruise has done in his roller coaster of goofiness. Hating what Hitler represented, sure, wishing he didn't exist, fair enough, wishing you could kill him yourself? Just plain goofy.
It begs the question, "What's next, Tommy Boy?"
Saturday, January 17, 2009
J.R.R. Tolkien is a Dick
Hear me out, you loser pussy bitches of the geek underworld.
There's this new person at work and she is an admitted fan of fantasy fiction. She came right out and told me about that and also about practically every other facet of her brief life in rapid, machine gun fashion. I am amazed at the way with which some people can rattle off useless drivel without the slightest concern for whether or not the poor fuck on the receiving end actually gives a shit.
While I caught the distinction of her saying "fantasy" and not including "sci-fi" in that run-down, I took the high road and didn't reflect on it. In fact, I went one louder and completely ignored her. Therefore, when she went on with her uninvited treatise on J.R.R. Tolkien, I came back while she was taking a breath to make some comment on her love of "sci-fi."
"No, no, it's fantasy, not sci-fi specifically," she reminded me as if I hadn't caught it the first time.
I know the difference. You know, for the record.
Then, to my dismay, this led into her brutal and unyielding monologue on why she can't finish the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'll spare you the horrible details. Suffice to say that it isn't for her but that she is a firm adherent to the "You must worship Tolkien because he created an entire universe" theory.
You know, you don't actually have to do any such thing. In fact, fuck Tolkien for creating that horseshit nightmare and then expunging it onto the unsuspecting world.
Apparently, Tolkien used his interminable and utterly dull trilogy to (among other things) decry the folly of war.
That's cool enough. I'll admit that. But still. Did we need entire races of shit like Orcs and Elves and fucking Dwarves, and new languages, and entire worlds and cultures and la-di-fuckin'-da to go with all that? Probably not.
That anything he did might beat a path toward Laurel Hamilton is reason enough to have him scratched from the record of humanity.
If that Scandinavian cock-eat invented fantasy literature then he deserves to be forgotten for eternity.
I keep wondering when that day will come when it dawns on the world that Peter Jackson can't write a compelling story to save his life.
He's great at genre-bending spectacle, camp, and humorous set pieces and scenarios, but when it comes to actual characters and dialogue and the like, forget it.
The end of the last LoTR film is the gayest thing I have ever seen and somehow no one had the balls to tell Jackson that.
It's a shame.
It's a shame because Tolkien is a dick.
There's this new person at work and she is an admitted fan of fantasy fiction. She came right out and told me about that and also about practically every other facet of her brief life in rapid, machine gun fashion. I am amazed at the way with which some people can rattle off useless drivel without the slightest concern for whether or not the poor fuck on the receiving end actually gives a shit.
While I caught the distinction of her saying "fantasy" and not including "sci-fi" in that run-down, I took the high road and didn't reflect on it. In fact, I went one louder and completely ignored her. Therefore, when she went on with her uninvited treatise on J.R.R. Tolkien, I came back while she was taking a breath to make some comment on her love of "sci-fi."
"No, no, it's fantasy, not sci-fi specifically," she reminded me as if I hadn't caught it the first time.
I know the difference. You know, for the record.
Then, to my dismay, this led into her brutal and unyielding monologue on why she can't finish the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'll spare you the horrible details. Suffice to say that it isn't for her but that she is a firm adherent to the "You must worship Tolkien because he created an entire universe" theory.
You know, you don't actually have to do any such thing. In fact, fuck Tolkien for creating that horseshit nightmare and then expunging it onto the unsuspecting world.
Apparently, Tolkien used his interminable and utterly dull trilogy to (among other things) decry the folly of war.
That's cool enough. I'll admit that. But still. Did we need entire races of shit like Orcs and Elves and fucking Dwarves, and new languages, and entire worlds and cultures and la-di-fuckin'-da to go with all that? Probably not.
That anything he did might beat a path toward Laurel Hamilton is reason enough to have him scratched from the record of humanity.
If that Scandinavian cock-eat invented fantasy literature then he deserves to be forgotten for eternity.
I keep wondering when that day will come when it dawns on the world that Peter Jackson can't write a compelling story to save his life.
He's great at genre-bending spectacle, camp, and humorous set pieces and scenarios, but when it comes to actual characters and dialogue and the like, forget it.
The end of the last LoTR film is the gayest thing I have ever seen and somehow no one had the balls to tell Jackson that.
It's a shame.
It's a shame because Tolkien is a dick.
You Continue to Let Me Down. Again. I am Getting Up.
What legacy will I leave my children? You know, as they are left with this brutal, and yet, all the while, cripplingly beautiful world? Will I have been able to impart the microscopic shards of wisdom that I have been so lucky as to dislodge from the cliffs of monotonous and finite daily life? Fuck, I sure hope so. I hope the relationship they have with who I am for them - in my remaining life as well as after my death - is one that allows them to see the blip on the radar that is human life as a time to take in the scenery and never, ever shut their eyes, tune out their ears, or turn their backs on what it means to be whoever they are at any given moment.
Beyond that, what more could a father really want?
We have traditional ideas instilled into our minds that come from our station in life. It might be sourced in heredity, culture, history, and simple temporal interaction. We have a fairly distinct idea in this country of what it means to be happy, and to be successful as a man, as a woman, as an American, as a _________ (fill in the blanks).
Anyone who knows me at all knows that not only am I not a subscriber to traditional American values, I find them to be completely abhorrent.
While I am not so arrogant as to assume there can be nothing more complex than the human mind, I can also admit that there is also nothing more presumptuous (not to mention offensive) as assuming that whatever is out there, beyond our comprehension, is not only sentient but all-powerful. Don't we deserve better?
My children do.
My mother left me with some invaluable gifts.
Through my mother, I learned the value of unconditional love. Maybe this is something rare, maybe not. Either way, to know what it means to be raised snugly within the heart of someone who will always love you for who you are despite all your weakness and stupidity, well, this, my friend, this is something so essential that without it your life is virtually over, and you are virtually a fraction of a man and little more.
My son struggles. He's five; five-year-olds struggle. But what is he struggling over? Is he a walking indictment of the past and a walking testament to an uncertain future?
I sure as fuck don't know.
Do I want him to have money in his pockets, a degree under his belt, a nice car in the driveway?
Honestly?
Honestly, I don't give a fuck either way as long as he is confident in who he is, conscientious of what we all foster in potential, sensitive to the will of those around him, and most important of all, able to find beauty under the heaviest rock, behind the ugliest monster, in the pockets of the most crooked fool, because maybe these are the places of purity and we are too busy searching out the obvious in front of the brightest lights. It's amazing what lies in the dark, as hungry as anything you could imagine, and just as beautiful if only you know how to see it.
I am a lover of film, a lover of music, a lover of the word.
For me this is art. For me art is nothing more that the appreciation of what is beautiful.
Define it as you wish, and then throw it all away and start again. Go back to where you started. Forget it all. And again, and again, and again...
Life, in all its horror, in all the empty terror that I have never been able to shake, in the face of all of the above, still, and more than ever, is beautiful. Life is the very very idea of beauty, so intensely pure and unyielding that there is only one way to grasp it at all and that is through diversion.
Diversion?
Yes, the distractions of time, the clouds of place, of routine, of cyclical rebirth. In only this way can we be able to take what is essentially nothingness on the grandest of scale and see it as the source of all that is not only good, but all that is. Only a man could be so bold, so stupid, so weak, so vulnerable, and so very, very doomed.
I will never forget it and when I do, I am dead. When I forget this I am reduced to less than nothing.
What legacy am I handing down to my children?
A world that is dying, or a world that is perfectly willing to use us as blind and mute fodder in the place of tripping and losing the plot.
The legacy of loneliness, of emptiness, of fear, and of impossible separateness.
This is the life I have passed on to them.
Is it worth it?
In light of murder, of rape, of hatred, of rage, of apathy, of loneliness, of failure, of doubt?
You better fucking believe it.
Someone is reading this, someone wants to say something. Say it, whoever you are. Send me a post. Put yourself into it. Stop being a worthless fuck for one moment and make something real happen. Do it anonymously if you have to, it's only important that it gets done.
It won't.
It doesn't matter.
I hate this life.
It's the only life worth living. I'll keep it.
Beyond that, what more could a father really want?
We have traditional ideas instilled into our minds that come from our station in life. It might be sourced in heredity, culture, history, and simple temporal interaction. We have a fairly distinct idea in this country of what it means to be happy, and to be successful as a man, as a woman, as an American, as a _________ (fill in the blanks).
Anyone who knows me at all knows that not only am I not a subscriber to traditional American values, I find them to be completely abhorrent.
While I am not so arrogant as to assume there can be nothing more complex than the human mind, I can also admit that there is also nothing more presumptuous (not to mention offensive) as assuming that whatever is out there, beyond our comprehension, is not only sentient but all-powerful. Don't we deserve better?
My children do.
My mother left me with some invaluable gifts.
Through my mother, I learned the value of unconditional love. Maybe this is something rare, maybe not. Either way, to know what it means to be raised snugly within the heart of someone who will always love you for who you are despite all your weakness and stupidity, well, this, my friend, this is something so essential that without it your life is virtually over, and you are virtually a fraction of a man and little more.
My son struggles. He's five; five-year-olds struggle. But what is he struggling over? Is he a walking indictment of the past and a walking testament to an uncertain future?
I sure as fuck don't know.
Do I want him to have money in his pockets, a degree under his belt, a nice car in the driveway?
Honestly?
Honestly, I don't give a fuck either way as long as he is confident in who he is, conscientious of what we all foster in potential, sensitive to the will of those around him, and most important of all, able to find beauty under the heaviest rock, behind the ugliest monster, in the pockets of the most crooked fool, because maybe these are the places of purity and we are too busy searching out the obvious in front of the brightest lights. It's amazing what lies in the dark, as hungry as anything you could imagine, and just as beautiful if only you know how to see it.
I am a lover of film, a lover of music, a lover of the word.
For me this is art. For me art is nothing more that the appreciation of what is beautiful.
Define it as you wish, and then throw it all away and start again. Go back to where you started. Forget it all. And again, and again, and again...
Life, in all its horror, in all the empty terror that I have never been able to shake, in the face of all of the above, still, and more than ever, is beautiful. Life is the very very idea of beauty, so intensely pure and unyielding that there is only one way to grasp it at all and that is through diversion.
Diversion?
Yes, the distractions of time, the clouds of place, of routine, of cyclical rebirth. In only this way can we be able to take what is essentially nothingness on the grandest of scale and see it as the source of all that is not only good, but all that is. Only a man could be so bold, so stupid, so weak, so vulnerable, and so very, very doomed.
I will never forget it and when I do, I am dead. When I forget this I am reduced to less than nothing.
What legacy am I handing down to my children?
A world that is dying, or a world that is perfectly willing to use us as blind and mute fodder in the place of tripping and losing the plot.
The legacy of loneliness, of emptiness, of fear, and of impossible separateness.
This is the life I have passed on to them.
Is it worth it?
In light of murder, of rape, of hatred, of rage, of apathy, of loneliness, of failure, of doubt?
You better fucking believe it.
Someone is reading this, someone wants to say something. Say it, whoever you are. Send me a post. Put yourself into it. Stop being a worthless fuck for one moment and make something real happen. Do it anonymously if you have to, it's only important that it gets done.
It won't.
It doesn't matter.
I hate this life.
It's the only life worth living. I'll keep it.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
All of a sudden
Its "All of a sudden", and not "All of the sudden." Apparently you can also say, "on the sudden."
Below photo is from a Haslem ghost town industrial structure, which we visited this past weekend.
Below photo is from a Haslem ghost town industrial structure, which we visited this past weekend.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Jasper, Haslam, and East Texas Proper
Taking advantage of having an extra paid day off for New Year's Day, we here at Blind Butcher went on another of our growing series of jaunts into the Texas wilderness to relax, escape, hide, and explore ghost towns and various elements of the dark Texas underbelly (something that is relatively easy to find, as one might expect). Camping is something that we find incredibly satisfying.
For this trip, our fourth such outing since October, we headed east to the Piney Woods region of Texas. Speaking for myself, I am a total bitch for pine forests. Fucking love 'em.
We chose Martin Dies State Park, which is east of Livingston, off 59 North, about forty miles from the Louisiana border. More importantly, Martin Dies lies just on the outskirts of Jasper, which, for those not in the know, was the home of James Byrd Jr., a local resident who was the victim of barbaric and idiotic modern-day lynching at the hands of a trio of white men who picked Byrd up off of a local Jasper street late on the night of June 7th, 1998, took him behind a convenient store, beat him with a baseball bat, and then brought him to a remote back road, stripped him, chained him to the back of their pickup truck, and dragged him three miles to his death. Once they were done with him, they disposed of his headless, one-armed corpse at the site of an all-black cemetery at the end of the same road. Supposedly, from there the three went to a barbecue and celebrated their brutal and inhuman crime.
According to the autopsy, Byrd was dragged for two and half miles, fully conscious and fighting to keep his head up right up until the truck rounded a corner and Byrd was thrust into a cement culvert at the end of a driveway. This impact with the culvert resulted in decapitating Byrd and also tearing off one of his arms. The murderers dragged his lifeless corpse another half of a mile before dropping him at the Huff Creek Memorial Church.
The next morning a local boy was walking the street with his stepfather when they happened across Byrd's corpse.
When the police arrived on the scene they found somewhere near 75 pieces of Byrd's body along the road. They also found a wrench inscribed with the name of one of the murderers as well as a lighter with the nickname "Possum" inscribed on it (also one of the murderers). After questioning the suspects, police quickly knew this was not an everyday murder and called in the FBI.
The case drew well-deserved national attention and showed that the scope of hate related violence in the US is just as ugly and stupid as it has ever been. And the outrage that followed took a small, racially integrated town and turned it into a caricature of America's infatuation with Southern racism and violence. It's unfortunate because in our short time in Jasper, we found people to be fairly friendly and open. We also found black and white people living together with little drama.
Then again, what the fuck do we know?
I think it's safe to say that both C and I are drawn to places at which humanity reveals itself to be as base, selfish, and hideously deplorable as we are always trying to convince you we are. We spoke about why we were drawn to places of such ugliness, and I think that for me it boils down to my need to face that which is a part of me. If any man can do these things, than any other can do them as well, and what does that say about us? How can we ever hope to rise above our station if we are forever as noble as our lowest member?
We can't. That is my point, and it is this fact which dominates the way I see the world and my place in it.
How can I ever claim to be above this behavior when another man relishes in expressing it so happily, so unrepentantly?
So on Friday we drove to Jasper. First off, we went to the Casa Ole which is more-or-less the location at which Byrd was picked up while trying to get a ride home. It turned out he knew one of his murderers. From there we located Huff Creek road, a small county road just east of town. The weather was overcast and it was a little chilly. As we drove we took in the houses that lined the winding, brushy road. Huff Creek Road is somewhat hilly, and honestly more than a little depressing even without its history. Once we reached the Huff Creek Memorial Church we stopped and went to take pictures in the cemetery.
The cemetery itself was interesting. Many of the graves were hand inscribed, names crudely scraped into the wet cement with sticks. Some graves had personal touches like flowers encased in the headstone or tea settings pressed into the cement. Many of the graves gave the date of birth as the "sunrise," while the date of death was labeled "sunset." For a guy who pretty much thinks cemeteries are a waste of space, this one left me with more than the impersonal sterility of most others.
In fact, the cemetery Byrd himself was buried in was of the impersonal sort. In the middle of town, and just off the downtown center, Byrd was buried in a fairly modest black casket, partially above ground, with a silver plate covering the top. The grave itself was surrounded by a small iron fence to deter the vandalism that always seems to follow famous grave sites. There were some flowers, some poinsettias, and a Christmas wreath, and that was about it.
Byrd's murderers languish away in a Texas prison, the two main motivators awaiting their execution on death row, and the third, the getaway driver, the apparent dupe of the bunch, serving his life sentence without parole.
As we walked the cemetery, a man came out of the church and walked over to see what we were doing. I knew that seeing white people in the all-black cemetery would arouse interest in anyone who happened to come across us, and so I felt it best to talk to the man. It turned out he was the vice president of the Church. His name is Billy Adams. C thought he was saying Billy Idol, which is priceless. I found Billy to be gracious and patient with us as we were obviously there for one reason as far as he was concerned. I did my best to put him at ease, and we spoke about the cemetery, Byrd, and the attention the town received around the crime. Billy told me that the house at which Byrd was decapitated was Billy's cousin's place. I was amazed to see the dignity with which he told me, a total stranger, such an utterly horrible piece of information.
I realize that Billy is the embodiment of why I refuse to give up in the face of such senseless, and frankly, easy violence. I realize that it takes both the horrors of Byrd's death and the immovable strength of Adams to define who we are as a race, and that it is this tightrope that we all have to walk every day.
I will always look on people with distrust, I think it's just in my DNA, for better or for worse, and then I'll just leave it at that.
As for the park itself, the place was well-maintained, but it suffers from what I call the swamp syndrome. Basically, you can't go into the wilderness in eastern to southeastern Texas without finding yourself in some sort of a damn swamp, and Martin Dies is no exception.
Our campsite was directly at the foot of a swamp. They call it a lake, but it's full of murk, cypress knees, bugs, turtles, gators, and earthy stink. That, my friends, is a swamp.
Another issue I had was that we are smack dab in the middle of hunting season, and our site, as luck would have it, is just on the outer edge of a nature preserve, which apparently in Texas means hunting ground. This meant that we were wakened each morning with the sun and sounds of shotgun fire carrying across the water. Choice. I guess the traffic on the road directly on the other side of the lake wasn't loud enough.
Now, as for the lady who ran the nature center, that woman was awesome. She knew her stuff. When we walked in, I immediately noticed the tail on the counter. It was a freshly removed tail from the looks of the meat peeking out of it.
When the woman came out of her office she noticed the tail and while grabbing it said, "Oh yeah, one of my guys brought this in from the road. It's a coyote! I cut off the head too! I'll clean it and use the skull in an exhibit!"
Notice a theme?
Next up was a quick, several-hour jaunt west to the Caddo Mounds site out near Crockett. The Mound People built these huge burial mounds around 900 AD as a way of honoring their elders. Then they would sacrifice entire families to accompany the elders to the burial mounds.
The history is fascinating. The site itself, not so much. It's basically a giant field with three hills on it. Have a nice trip!
We took photos, cursed the angry bitch at the counter counting the seconds before we left so she could close up and, I'm assuming, go meet up with others of her kind (whatever her kind is). In case she ever reads this (which she won't), "Hey lady, fuck you!"
Sunday was wide open. We debated going home, but then our wanderlust got the best of us and off we went in search of a ghost town. Haslam was one of those places in the world where hubris led man to the end of a plank and then somehow got behind him and pushed. The town was built as an apparatus to the Pickering Lumber Company at the turn of the 20th century. To support the logging operation, Pickering built several cement structures, a hotel, housing for its employees, log ponds, and other facilities. Eventually, by the 40s, the wood was all gone, and with the wood went the business. On the site today there are only two visible structures, a water tower (severely rusted over and long overdue to be pulled down before it falls on its own), and a number of massive cement foundations easily four feet thick.
The structures themselves are absolutely fascinating. For some reason the developers of Haslam thought it would be best to build the structures to pretty much outlast the apocalypse. The damn things are a foot-and-a-half thick, reinforced with twisted steel rebar, and buttressed on both sides. The first thing that comes to mind when you see these buildings, roofless, overgrown with brush and winding trees, is that they are like churches to the gods of decay. The site, for me, was breathtaking, and I couldn't shake the feeling of being in a sacred place. It's stupid, I know, because the whole sit is now owned by an oil and gas company, and they have obviously just built their work-site around the ruins as if to ignore them. Not that they would have any say in the matter since it would take a nuclear bomb to tear them down.
I can't say enough for the power of these massive structures. Pure cinematic beauty. I was in awe. I hope the photos do it some justice.
I will be returning to East Texas as much as I can in the coming years. I get the topography, and I seriously get the tall pines. Until I can relocate to the Pacific Northwest and its more desirable climate (to me anyway), the Piney Woods region of Texas just may hold me over.
Yay, another workmanlike and ultimately dull account of my life! Do wonders never cease?
Here are some photos.
Enjoy.
For this trip, our fourth such outing since October, we headed east to the Piney Woods region of Texas. Speaking for myself, I am a total bitch for pine forests. Fucking love 'em.
We chose Martin Dies State Park, which is east of Livingston, off 59 North, about forty miles from the Louisiana border. More importantly, Martin Dies lies just on the outskirts of Jasper, which, for those not in the know, was the home of James Byrd Jr., a local resident who was the victim of barbaric and idiotic modern-day lynching at the hands of a trio of white men who picked Byrd up off of a local Jasper street late on the night of June 7th, 1998, took him behind a convenient store, beat him with a baseball bat, and then brought him to a remote back road, stripped him, chained him to the back of their pickup truck, and dragged him three miles to his death. Once they were done with him, they disposed of his headless, one-armed corpse at the site of an all-black cemetery at the end of the same road. Supposedly, from there the three went to a barbecue and celebrated their brutal and inhuman crime.
According to the autopsy, Byrd was dragged for two and half miles, fully conscious and fighting to keep his head up right up until the truck rounded a corner and Byrd was thrust into a cement culvert at the end of a driveway. This impact with the culvert resulted in decapitating Byrd and also tearing off one of his arms. The murderers dragged his lifeless corpse another half of a mile before dropping him at the Huff Creek Memorial Church.
The next morning a local boy was walking the street with his stepfather when they happened across Byrd's corpse.
When the police arrived on the scene they found somewhere near 75 pieces of Byrd's body along the road. They also found a wrench inscribed with the name of one of the murderers as well as a lighter with the nickname "Possum" inscribed on it (also one of the murderers). After questioning the suspects, police quickly knew this was not an everyday murder and called in the FBI.
The case drew well-deserved national attention and showed that the scope of hate related violence in the US is just as ugly and stupid as it has ever been. And the outrage that followed took a small, racially integrated town and turned it into a caricature of America's infatuation with Southern racism and violence. It's unfortunate because in our short time in Jasper, we found people to be fairly friendly and open. We also found black and white people living together with little drama.
Then again, what the fuck do we know?
I think it's safe to say that both C and I are drawn to places at which humanity reveals itself to be as base, selfish, and hideously deplorable as we are always trying to convince you we are. We spoke about why we were drawn to places of such ugliness, and I think that for me it boils down to my need to face that which is a part of me. If any man can do these things, than any other can do them as well, and what does that say about us? How can we ever hope to rise above our station if we are forever as noble as our lowest member?
We can't. That is my point, and it is this fact which dominates the way I see the world and my place in it.
How can I ever claim to be above this behavior when another man relishes in expressing it so happily, so unrepentantly?
So on Friday we drove to Jasper. First off, we went to the Casa Ole which is more-or-less the location at which Byrd was picked up while trying to get a ride home. It turned out he knew one of his murderers. From there we located Huff Creek road, a small county road just east of town. The weather was overcast and it was a little chilly. As we drove we took in the houses that lined the winding, brushy road. Huff Creek Road is somewhat hilly, and honestly more than a little depressing even without its history. Once we reached the Huff Creek Memorial Church we stopped and went to take pictures in the cemetery.
The cemetery itself was interesting. Many of the graves were hand inscribed, names crudely scraped into the wet cement with sticks. Some graves had personal touches like flowers encased in the headstone or tea settings pressed into the cement. Many of the graves gave the date of birth as the "sunrise," while the date of death was labeled "sunset." For a guy who pretty much thinks cemeteries are a waste of space, this one left me with more than the impersonal sterility of most others.
In fact, the cemetery Byrd himself was buried in was of the impersonal sort. In the middle of town, and just off the downtown center, Byrd was buried in a fairly modest black casket, partially above ground, with a silver plate covering the top. The grave itself was surrounded by a small iron fence to deter the vandalism that always seems to follow famous grave sites. There were some flowers, some poinsettias, and a Christmas wreath, and that was about it.
Byrd's murderers languish away in a Texas prison, the two main motivators awaiting their execution on death row, and the third, the getaway driver, the apparent dupe of the bunch, serving his life sentence without parole.
As we walked the cemetery, a man came out of the church and walked over to see what we were doing. I knew that seeing white people in the all-black cemetery would arouse interest in anyone who happened to come across us, and so I felt it best to talk to the man. It turned out he was the vice president of the Church. His name is Billy Adams. C thought he was saying Billy Idol, which is priceless. I found Billy to be gracious and patient with us as we were obviously there for one reason as far as he was concerned. I did my best to put him at ease, and we spoke about the cemetery, Byrd, and the attention the town received around the crime. Billy told me that the house at which Byrd was decapitated was Billy's cousin's place. I was amazed to see the dignity with which he told me, a total stranger, such an utterly horrible piece of information.
I realize that Billy is the embodiment of why I refuse to give up in the face of such senseless, and frankly, easy violence. I realize that it takes both the horrors of Byrd's death and the immovable strength of Adams to define who we are as a race, and that it is this tightrope that we all have to walk every day.
I will always look on people with distrust, I think it's just in my DNA, for better or for worse, and then I'll just leave it at that.
As for the park itself, the place was well-maintained, but it suffers from what I call the swamp syndrome. Basically, you can't go into the wilderness in eastern to southeastern Texas without finding yourself in some sort of a damn swamp, and Martin Dies is no exception.
Our campsite was directly at the foot of a swamp. They call it a lake, but it's full of murk, cypress knees, bugs, turtles, gators, and earthy stink. That, my friends, is a swamp.
Another issue I had was that we are smack dab in the middle of hunting season, and our site, as luck would have it, is just on the outer edge of a nature preserve, which apparently in Texas means hunting ground. This meant that we were wakened each morning with the sun and sounds of shotgun fire carrying across the water. Choice. I guess the traffic on the road directly on the other side of the lake wasn't loud enough.
Now, as for the lady who ran the nature center, that woman was awesome. She knew her stuff. When we walked in, I immediately noticed the tail on the counter. It was a freshly removed tail from the looks of the meat peeking out of it.
When the woman came out of her office she noticed the tail and while grabbing it said, "Oh yeah, one of my guys brought this in from the road. It's a coyote! I cut off the head too! I'll clean it and use the skull in an exhibit!"
Notice a theme?
Next up was a quick, several-hour jaunt west to the Caddo Mounds site out near Crockett. The Mound People built these huge burial mounds around 900 AD as a way of honoring their elders. Then they would sacrifice entire families to accompany the elders to the burial mounds.
The history is fascinating. The site itself, not so much. It's basically a giant field with three hills on it. Have a nice trip!
We took photos, cursed the angry bitch at the counter counting the seconds before we left so she could close up and, I'm assuming, go meet up with others of her kind (whatever her kind is). In case she ever reads this (which she won't), "Hey lady, fuck you!"
Sunday was wide open. We debated going home, but then our wanderlust got the best of us and off we went in search of a ghost town. Haslam was one of those places in the world where hubris led man to the end of a plank and then somehow got behind him and pushed. The town was built as an apparatus to the Pickering Lumber Company at the turn of the 20th century. To support the logging operation, Pickering built several cement structures, a hotel, housing for its employees, log ponds, and other facilities. Eventually, by the 40s, the wood was all gone, and with the wood went the business. On the site today there are only two visible structures, a water tower (severely rusted over and long overdue to be pulled down before it falls on its own), and a number of massive cement foundations easily four feet thick.
The structures themselves are absolutely fascinating. For some reason the developers of Haslam thought it would be best to build the structures to pretty much outlast the apocalypse. The damn things are a foot-and-a-half thick, reinforced with twisted steel rebar, and buttressed on both sides. The first thing that comes to mind when you see these buildings, roofless, overgrown with brush and winding trees, is that they are like churches to the gods of decay. The site, for me, was breathtaking, and I couldn't shake the feeling of being in a sacred place. It's stupid, I know, because the whole sit is now owned by an oil and gas company, and they have obviously just built their work-site around the ruins as if to ignore them. Not that they would have any say in the matter since it would take a nuclear bomb to tear them down.
I can't say enough for the power of these massive structures. Pure cinematic beauty. I was in awe. I hope the photos do it some justice.
I will be returning to East Texas as much as I can in the coming years. I get the topography, and I seriously get the tall pines. Until I can relocate to the Pacific Northwest and its more desirable climate (to me anyway), the Piney Woods region of Texas just may hold me over.
Yay, another workmanlike and ultimately dull account of my life! Do wonders never cease?
Here are some photos.
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