To believe is human (to doubt, divine)

He’s not what Freud meant, but close.

   I heard a preacher on TV making fun of professional mourners. You know, the people in olden times who got paid (PAID!) to cry at a funeral. This television shepherd of living room sheep thought that was dumb and I found that ironic. He missed the connection. So, I made a mountain out of a molehill and called them (their number was on screen) with a parable. 

Who wants to see something shitty about themselves?

I.

   There was once a young minister sitting in his house on a Sunday afternoon who was disturbed by a frantic banging at the front door. Upon opening, he was confronted by a distraught member of his church. He was exhausted from running and on the verge of tears.

   “What’s wrong?” asked the minister.

  “Please, can you help?” replied the man, out of breath. “A kind and considerate family nearby is in great trouble. Husband lost his job, wife racked with health problems and they have three young children. The man’s mother lives with them and is need of constant care. They are one day late with the rent and despite having lived there for ten years with no problems, the landlord is threatening to kick them all onto the street if they don’t pay in full by sundown!”

    “Why of course we will help with some money from the church fund,” replied the minister as she got her coat. “How is it that you know these people?”

   “Oh,” replied the man, “I’m the landlord.”

II.

If your first instinct is to become angry with the landlord, you are protecting yourself from what you don’t want to know. If your next thought was, I want to write like N. your getting worse. Defense mechanisms are there to keep us from changing.

III.

It was Freud who suggested that we cannot escape our daily anxieties. They will come to haunt us in our dreams. A famous example he recounts is of a man who falls asleep while keeping guard over his son’s coffin in the next room. In the ensuing dream, the man is confronted by his son, who proclaims, “Father, can’t you see I am burning?” At this point the man, who feels profound guilt over the death of his son, wakes up to the smell of smoke and discovers a candle has fallen and ignited the coffin.

You might be tempted to say, well, the smoke influenced the dream and he was awakened because it didn’t fit. Why is there smoke? Oh shit! Wake up!

But one could also say, as Lacan and Zizek do, that the irritation of smoke resulted in the mind digging deeper to maintain sleep which led to the fathers direct confrontation with his deeply hidden guilt: his responsibility for the death of his son. An experience so traumatic that he sought escape by waking up.

In order to keep on ‘dreaming’, he woke himself. The confrontation of ‘the real’ in his sleep was more powerful than reality; faced with the horror of his guilt he awakened into reality instead.

IV.

Church folk love to wag fingers at late night partying, drinking, drug taking and fornication but these are not attempts to make a mundane, shitty existence pleasurable as they accuse. Rather they are often futile strategies to ward off the horrifying real that awaits us in our dreams and moments of reflection. 

   They (as well as workaholics, constant church activities, porn) can act as a protective screen that shields us from a direct encounter with what really matters to us. What drives us (often guilt). We avoid the truth of who we really are. In dreams we are confronted with everything we have hidden from ourselves during the day. Your insomnia and your black outs are not symptoms. They are your defenses.

V.

I’m no theologian but it seems to me that a Pastors job would be to lead his/her congregation into the emotional turmoil of having faith. The breaching of the many defenses we all have. Facing who we really are, during the day, so to speak. 

   In essence, they are leading believers to confront the horrific, the real, the self and the infinite. Facing death and what it might mean, sucks. Most avoid it. Facing a God who was crucified seems worse. So if you are going to do it, you had better address the anxiety of loss and abandonment, despair and forsaken-ness. In a word, Doubt.

When they DON’T do this, they create religion. Which, as we are all familiar, is just a happy, campy way to do whatever we want while also claiming an (unreflective) belief in the proper dogma. You see, says the landlord, I don’t really need to face my guilt or do anything about it like, say... engaging in practices that follow this god since you will do it for me preacher. You believe and I can leave here feeling righteous. I don’t have to actually do anything so long as I claim that I believe the right things too. Just like you. See ya next week. If I say I believe, why that’s good enough. Ah, living the dream. Narcissism: the religion of self, where actions don’t matter, only intentions.

And my intention today is to kick out some no good, delinquent renters! But I need some way to not deal with the guilt of hurting them...

VI.

Which brings us back to the professional mourner. People paid to act one way so that I, the on-looker could act another-- go about my day and always be the onlooker. The mourner paid to cry at the funeral is a substitute. A substitute for me so that I don’t have to enter that story.

   I don’t have to care for my fellow man or the loss of her. Others are paid to do that. Now I can spend my time making money, which they get a cut of, and consuming. I can be a landlord and go to church and be well respected but never have to consider how I might actually actively comply with the god I claim to believe in and care for others more than myself. Because thats risky. Better a proxy do it instead. 

By design, the minister on stage does it for me. The modern day paid mourner. The dancing clown with a tear in his eye. The louder he is, the greater my belief must be, right? Without a commitment to a lifestyle that gives me my identity... I’m left with folksy songs about how awesome we are and hatred for infidels next door because they ain’t sheer awesome like us. 

   If you reduce something to insignificance, don’t be appalled when your flock thinks it, insignificant. At least that’s what I told the polite person who answered my call.

   The priest/mourner has learned, no, not strong enough... capitalized on how to facilitate our narcissism, whose #1 defense is identity preservation (#2 is JizzHut.com if you were wondering...).

 Most of us are aware of these issues. Add in, ecological disaster, financial inequality, racism; it doesn’t matter because we refuse to confront them. Hell, thats why we are here. 

We are the landlord. Just, whatever you do. Don’t go to sleep.

The right reverend,

N.

Roach coach lady (Never lukewarm)

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Another world is possible

Violence operates largely thru the imagination.

I.
A single psychopath may torture and kill and NOT want his actions known and discovered, at least initially. But they all still want to penetrate our imagination. 
There are never enough bullets so the next best thing is to shoot some in a way that inserts you into the cultural imagination.

State power always wants others (the other) to know. That is the point of the torture or execution. 
If you think execution is just about eliminating that one person for his crime, you are that person. 

One could say this is the case whenever one side clearly overpowers the other. Power wants to communicate to you (and by extension, others) the stupidity of contesting it via your imagination. 
You do the heavy lifting (fear), and as always, power collects the benefits (obedience).

When the sides are more equally matched this is less so. Violence is about effectiveness. 
Two boxers, evenly matched need to anticipate their opponent. Defend for his strengths. Develop a plan to capitalize on his weaknesses. 
In essence, knowing the opponent is necessary.

A tyrant however, doesn't need to know squat about the man in the noose. What motivates him. Why he chose to fight. Hell, if he's even the right guy. 
What matters is that his defeat communicates, largely thru your imagination, futility. Aspirational anxiety. Promotion dangled for those in the machine while worse consequence await resistance should you imagine it. 
None of that has to be real because its all in your head.

II.
When men say that women are unfathomable, unknowable...that may be because men, in general, don't have to learn about women. The power structure is lopsided. 

Women know men because they have to. 

Likewise minorities often seem strange and unfamiliar to the majority. Minorities often have the pulse on the majority however. This is because of the power structure. 
When you are unevenly matched, the powerful side doesn't need to know you and usually doesn't. The weak side knows you all too well. 

III.
This is the meaning of institutional violence. Structural violence. Its built into the system. Systemic. It doesn't occur occasionally. It is the system. 

It takes a lot of structure to maintain this unbalanced facade. And its an expensive, mind numbing, imagination crushing facade at that. If you work in a bureaucracy,
married into money or belong to a minority group, or turn on your television at any point, you know of what I speak. 

IV.
In order to subvert this, rupture it, displace power, break open and recreate...the imagination has to first be reawakened. 
To deconstruct and reassemble what it is you are seeing in the first place.

To dream anew. That requires a certain...prophetic touch. 
Which itself is a subverting and recreating art. For language itself must be re-imagined. The smooth everyday violence that is symbolic, rests on language.

V.
No, prophets have nothing to do with 'such and such will happen' at 'such and such time'. My god, grow up already. 

VI.
The task of prophetic imagination is to cut through the numbness, to penetrate the self-deception, to bring people to engage their experiences of suffering and to nourish them with the absurd. 

If you find it hard to imagine a world without say, capitalism or your TV or culture wars about gay sex, this is because your imagination has been turned down like a dimmer switch. 
Slowly, ever so slowly. But down.

If you are some of those asking, "Why in the world would I WANT to envision a world without capitalism, my entertainment system or hours of facebook posts about gay sex?" 
Than there is no dimmer switch as not only has your 'power' been off for some time but your hut has blown away. 

The battle is for your imagination. When you dream it, see it with the minds eye and have faith that yes, it is as possible as it is absurd, nothing can stand in the way. Which is to say everything will.
Because you inevitably act. When you don't act, you didn't imagine. This is known. This is why your imagination is being turned off, violently.
Ṇ

If hope is an impossible demand, then we demand the impossible. 

A good hand is hard to find (Like pulling teeth really)

I liked how we began. The ending? Not so much.

So I answered an ad for a masseuse with high expectations for a happy ending. Turns out this "professional" didn't have a license or a key to her own "shop". 
When I mentioned the words HPV vaccinations, she said, and I quote, "What?". Your probably thinking-- So. What could go wrong with that scenario?

After climbing through the window, she opens the door and speaks to me as if she is seeing me for the first time, despite the fact that I picked her up at her apartment and she rode with me. 
"Hi. Welcome. Come on in", as she mats her hair back into place. 

As I entered, there appeared to be a massage table, lotions, candles and towels all neatly in place. A positive development except, that is, for a giant poster of a penis covering a door. Ignoring as best I could the penis poster, 
I started to relax.

As I unzip my jeans she drops to her knees and tries yanking the Little N. out.

"Hey! Easy. Kinda want the therapeutic first, then full session..."

She was annoyed and while I disrobed she haggled over the money. So I finally said, "Half now, half when we are done." After a few back and forths, she agreed.

As I announced already, it started quite well. Possibly better than expected. I was feeling pretty loose. I did faintly notice the buzz of drills or at least what I could make of it. Maybe next door. 
Oh yea. She flipped me over and within a few she had grabbed my erectness and began to jerk smoothly and deeply. Not bad I thought. She leaned in to whisper as she continued to pull and tug.

"You gonna pay me the rest of my money?"

Now there are precious few questions I want to entertain during sex. 
An even shorter list for sure when my cock is in the hand of someone I've known for all of 20 minutes. 

Which ones you ask? Well, some questions I would allow for instance would be... "Can you pull my hair and choke me?" or "Can I get my sister and her hot friend to join us?" 
or even, "Can you only put it half way in? I just can't take it all." 

These are questions I would not only accept but welcome, seeing as like the last one, its yet to be asked. However, "You gonna pay me my money?" is not one of them. 
As I pondered all this, her grip intensified.

So, I did what any male would do if his purple BFF was taken hostage and threatened. I picked her up and chucked her across the room.

Now... listen, wait just a minute...She was lighter than I expected. Possibly I was just eager to 'free Willy' and so I went overboard. She went higher, farther and faster than I expected and so the impact was just that much more intense. 
Wasn't my intent...but overall a bronze effort maybe. Bouncing off the wall then the ground might get me the silver, but it was close and we all know how China would vote.

"I was going to pay you Dammit. No need to go Al Qaeda on my genitals."

That you got up was pretty impressive but what had my FULL attention was the sawed off shotgun you seemed to pull out of your ass. 
It came from beneath the massage table I later determined but such things seem frivolous when a women is pointing the heat at you from several inches away.

I pretended to see something awful behind her and began to slowly say, "What the F..."

And it worked! She turned just enough and I knocked the gun upwards and bolted for the nearest door, the penis door, as the gun went off. Deafening. 
Fine particles of suspended ceiling tile filled the air. Choking. And I hit the door with all I had.

The drill sound made more sense when I stood up. Dental drill. I was now in the hallway of a dentists office. Halfway between the waiting room and the billing station. 
Other than my pants, which I was holding in my hands and the giant penis poster at my feet, I was naked. An old woman nearby popped her teeth in and said, "Well, hello there young man."

The sound of the shotgun reloading hit my eardrum and I bolted out the door and into the Honda. 
For anyone one that saw me running naked...the dentist's office was really cold. Just sayin'.

Moral of this here story being: Do not take a penis poster to a gun fight. Or a masseuse to a dentist. Or something like that...

Ṇ

Your boob was in my face (Chemical warfare)

The way you pressed your warm breasts into my face was exhilarating. Your breathing rhythmic in my right ear. 

Your name tag said Melanie. 
And it too was pressing into my eyebrow as your arms came from behind my head and gently settled around my chin.

You looked beyond my iris and spoke to my soul. It was if you were looking at particular thoughts I had so painstakingly hidden. 
You combed through each one, meticulously arranging, parting and cutting. I felt naked.

You lightly brushed my chin, ran your fingers thru my hair and slapped your double D's against my face without caution. Your aroma was intoxicating. 
Finally you spoke.

"Do you want me to trim more of the sides or is that good?" You sprayed disinfectant on your clippers as your feet worked the chair pedal. Swinging me around to face the mirror.

"I think thats good, Melanie. Might I inquire as to the fragrance you wear?" 
I had a hard time disengaging from the mirror image of myself. I love mirrors.

"That is marlboro lights, banana latte coffee and hair spray darling. I was in a hurry this morning."

"If that is your rushed scent, I must partake of the finely tuned version Melanie."

"Your sweet. $15 please." We both approached the register.

"Come now. I felt a connection between us." I gave her a $20 and motioned for no change. 
"Mostly my left cheek and your right tit but I guess every journey begins with a first step."

"You like hearing your own voice don't you?" She returned me $5.

"Yes, there is that but what I share is sincere." I slipped the $5 back across the counter. 
"Lets disconnect from our play faces and go for full on nudity. Me, you, my honda, lots of orgasms..." I motioned for the door.

You briefly stared at me and then glanced around me, "Sir in the red...your next..." and back to me whispering, "I'm a Lincoln Navigator kind a girl." You smacked your ass for emphasis. 
I licked my lips.

"Not at this pay scale your not." I accurately noted as she walked away. "But If shooting for the moon is a regular thing for you, than I'm. Your. Man." 
And then, I could not help myself. I really couldn't. Meaning, my hand stretched out almost involuntarily and slapped her ass as she walked past. Instantly I thought: Too hard, oversell, and exit.

As I drove away, I could hear the sirens coming closer. 
I imagined myself taking on the sins of Gotham and bearing this shame for the better of the city. The dark knight being pursued but never caught. 
But my eyes were watering too heavily from the mace to savor that thought much and now the honda smells of it too.

My Melanie Melons. Sweet cutter of the follicle and deft dispenser of mace. I should have known your fast, scissor fingers would be my undoing.

But know this...Honda's are smaller yes, but far better on gas mileage and longevity. That is to say, more bang for your buck.

N.

They do not know what they are doing (But they are doing it)

I.

As we all know, there is no Santa Claus but we continue the illusion because, well, we are not really sure why. Something about the children and then tradition and before you know it, we are angry and need a drink.

II.

So you tell your children there is a Santa though you do not believe it. You want them to believe it but not really. A child who really believes in Santa is considered kinda slow. The child that suspects this is a lie but conceals this is considered smart. And why not, as they be imitating us. The child who refuses to STOP believing in Santa as a teen is called an american. Wait, what?

Most children do not believe in Santa but want to. They also want the parent to think they believe so they pretend to not notice presents in mommies closet and late night wrapping and hushed discussions over credit card bills with daddy or the person we call daddy now.

As the facade breaks down with age the disappointment grows but everyone involved is pretending and never quite sure why. They do not know what they are doing but they are doing it.

III.

Real, true believers, in anything, are always suspect. 

Consider the true believer of say, the soon end-of-the-world by rapture Jesus. Even the christians who buy the novels of this theology do not believe it. They still make long term plans and worry about long term problems. But when someone quits there job, moves the family to a hilltop and waits, why that man is considered looney by even christians. He must be crazy because your not supposed to believe that as REALITY. 

The belief in rapture Jesus, in Santa, in the invisible hand of market capitalism is proxy for something else. It serves as ideology. A belief construct (usually belonging to some other person like the oft quoted but never found “They”) to explain something else, namely-- what I am doing at any given moment. It is illusion.

“The experience that we have of our lives from within, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves in order to account for what we are doing, is fundamentally a lie—the truth lies outside, in what we do.” - Zizek

IV. 

But If you believe the illusion is reality, you cannot function continues Zizek. The ancient Greeks were not idiots. They didn’t think if you climbed Mount Olympus that you would find Zeus naked, laying divine pipe to a lovely Nymph. To ACTUALLY believe in Santa is to be unable to fully function in the world. To actually believe ideology is to be so busy climbing your very own olympus that you cease to be any worldly good. We call those that actually believe, insane. 

This is how advertising works. We know damn well that the juicy burger on TV will NOT look anything like the drab, flat, shitty burger we get in the restaurant. We don’t even complain when it happens. We know damn well that name brand clothes don’t change our character or convey status. Yet! Still we allow the belief to continue though we claim not to believe it ourselves. We don’t have to. The others belief will do. 

I do it because the kids think its true. 

Yea. Sure. What-ever. Always the other. Believe me, I know. A ton of books I bought sit just waiting to be read. Still somehow just owning them tempts one to feel as if the knowledge is imparted. I can act as if I read them because to read them ALL, why, thats, insane.

V.

It is not necessary for anyone to literally, subjectively believe that eating or not eating at Chick-fil-A conveys status for it to function as a status symbol, it is enough that everyone presumes that someone else believes in it. 

Even if I “know very well” that Chick-fil-A is just an ordinary eatery run by teens that has been suffused with signifying power through advertising (positive and negative), it still produces its desired result for me if I believe that everyone else is naive. It doesn’t matter if you hate Chick-fil-A at this point or love them. That isn’t the point. But alas you are so busy climbing olympus (to prove or disprove it) that you don’t see it. 

But you will continue to act as if the owner really does have higher status – Whether as a racist fundamentalist or a faithful, servant of God. You will go there to kiss your same sex partner or show solidarity with the purchase of the #2 meal deal. Because you do not know what you are doing, but by golly, your gonna fucking do it! 

Despite no-one really believing the idea of Santa Claus, rapture jesus, or commodity branding-- it has its effects. So long as someone else might think it true we allow ourselves to buy into ideology without then becoming idiots. Or so we like to think. Even though, ironically, it was ideology that killed jesus, santa and my fly, no shoe laces Adidas sneakers, circa 1986. 

Oh, You bastards.

N.

“Everyone is deceived by our marketing. Buy our product or don’t, and everyone will think that you really are what we say you are.” - Lucy4

This is not about me (Its always about me)

Just a shot out to all the supporters, fans, haters, emailers, straights, bi and tries and of course those too high, wasted or ignorant to put together coherent sentences. 
You are all loved. To thine own selves be true.
I will see you and yet, not see you over the weekend. 


N.

Wanna make it wit chu (mostly its the same)

I was killing time by the loading dock. Waiting for that bastard, the time clock, to let me off the hook. The days sweat had soaked my shirt and my tats glistened on my sleeveless arms in the unyielding sun. 

Across the parking lot, in the several business’s tucked away there, your white mini skirt hailed me from a wicked daydream like a brakes locked - screeching car. 

You strode with power and purpose. The heels never buckling even slightly under the long strides. You were all leg and the boxes you carried seemed to float out from your breasts.  Which were teasingly kept close to your chest but the sheer volume suggested a more perky and pointed handful.  

I cracked a smile at your plight. Dress down and your a prude, show too much and you’re a whore. You can’t win. Games rigged. But you knew this. All women not idiots do.

A necklace of some sort is sending me bright morse code. Something about...come dot- dot- dot- ravish me.

Distance too far to determine if bling is on the wedding finger. Like it matters anymore. These mysteries of life just ain’t my thing.

The only thing I knew for sure was what I wanted to do to you. And how good I would look doing it.

I suppose I should mention that I was also on the dock guiding a truck in. The driver inexperienced both in spoken english and the art of jacking an 18 wheeler into a tight 90. The latter being of immediate significance. So I probably should have noticed he was off course. Way off course. But that would have required caring.

The sound of impact startled your lovely melon which popped up and scanned my way. Blonde hair flinging out as you felt fear and forgot your composure, even if just briefly. I feel privileged somehow to have been apart of the sneaked intimacy. We shared a moment that you no doubt don’t ever let others see.

We are bonded. As tightly as my erection is too my jeans.

“What the fuck was that!!” The human voice intruding our cosmic encounter belongs to upper management. You can tell without looking because its squeaky and always in the form of a dumb question salted with anxiety. 

“That, was the sound of your future. Times up. I’m out.” Me heading towards exit.

“Now wait a minute N., this is...who the hell is that....”

Not your future.

N.

Hope in common (Scapegoat)

I thought you were waving to me as I filled up the Honda.

But you weren’t so my wave back to you was awkward to say the least. You were with your friends and so you all had a good laugh at that. In fact you all walked to your car mimicking my wave and yucking it up pretty good.

One of you yelled for me and then waved as if mentally handicapped. Pretty much everyone at the station at that moment was in on the hilarity. Even an old man seemed amused and tried explaining the whole episode to his wife still seated in the car. Being hearing impaired meant they used their loud voices.

“That dummy over there thought those girls were waving at him, I think...No Mildred, he doesn’t appear to be drunk...”

That set off a new round of jokes, laughs and finger pointing from the dozen or so patrons now just milling about. I wondered what happened to the proletarian revolution as I waited an eternity for my tank to fill up. 

The attendant came over the loud speaker. “Pump six, your set for a wave. Sorry, I mean pump 5. That was intended for pump 5. My bad.”

The now moving car full of girls almost wrecked upon hearing that. And as you drove away, over the curb, everyone waving out every available window, I saw the way you looked at me.

Behind the disdain and contempt lay a genuine smile. A young girl who just wanted love like I do. A moment not alone in the brutal, exposing light of humming fluorescent bulbs.

“Ultimately, “the revolution”, however conceived can never really go away, because the notion of a redemptive future remains the only way we can possibly make sense of the present...” - David Graeber

N.

White lightning (Broken sidewalk)

This will not end well

I.

So why are the bulk of serial killers white males? 

If a brown or black male kills just one person, their entire race and ethnicity is called into question. What is up with arabs, hispanics, blacks and immigrants? Ole Sameer who shot up Akiko’s last Friday on Bardstown road also torched cars back in June of last year. Are they violent as a people? Do they hate us? Is every one of them a potential killer and rapist?

The answer, if you are white, is of course they are. Goes without saying really. 

But when a straight, white, male shoots a dozen plus people, no one asks what is up with white males? What has them so lonely, violent, and bizarrely methodical?

What (Dis)connection are we missing?

II.

When you play a video game, most allow you to choose a difficulty setting prior to playing. Rookie/easy, experienced/medium and veteran/hard are three typical setting levels, right? There are more of course but these will do.

If you select easy, you can expect the game to allow for your mistakes. The games built in opponents don’t seem that organized or good at hitting you or capitalizing on your errors. At the hard setting they are all over you. The game opponent is exacting. Make a mistake and forget it. They pounce.

Being a straight white male is like having the setting put to easy at birth. It’s not a guarantee that all will be easy, only that life's built in opponents are not automatically set against you with all their abilities. You can fuck up and still reach the power ups, level ups and prizes. Shit is in plain sight for you. 

Being a black male for example is like having the setting set to difficult at birth. It’s not a guarantee that you will fail but your not getting any breaks anytime soon and if you slip up, shits coming down on you fast. Your going to have to move twice as fast to reach the same level ups as the easy setting. More is hidden. Penalties are steeper. (Credit to John Scalzi for the construct)

Don’t agree? Chances are that’s because your white, male and straight. “But, it was still hard!”, you will say. Of course it was. No one begrudges you that. Maybe you even had it on medium setting but lets not begrudge those who have the setting preset to difficult shall we? If they could choose easy, they would. 

But for the sake of a bigger argument, lets say the above is true. Or true enough. Remember the word like doesn’t mean is. Just means resembles or has the same characteristics. 

So put that AK-47 down for Christ’s sake you loony. Sit still and eat your chic-fil-a.

III.

If its so easy, why the angst and mass shootings? What has young, white, males so bent on destruction of what appears to be random victims?

Part of the answer lies in how you see media. All media. When you see shows like “24”,  and movies like “Taken” as indoctrinating/training videos, you will understand more. “Battle L.A.” was a recruiting video. What?

You heard me. Only then does the randomness fall away.  But as yet, you are not there. Its just entertainment, right?

War in Syria? Shoosh. American Idol is on.

IV.

The documentary “Confessions of a Superhero” will astound you. But you haven’t seen it because documentaries are boring and very little in them explodes with fire or orgasms. I only watched it because I had masturbated myself raw and needed a break. It follows four failed actors who have assumed their costumed heroes identity and panhandle for tips on hollywood boulevard’s sidewalks. 

   The failed- security guard- character of batman tries very hard to convince you he was once a bad man. Not to be trifled with. But as empty as that myth is and as embarrassing as it is to watch him try to convince us and himself, he can’t give it up. Its who he is now. And since he values that myth, he figures you must to. When anyone ruptures that myth, he gets angry. Really angry. And arrested.

V.

The original ending of “I am Legend” had the zombies allowing Neville (Will Smith) to live if he returned the zombie female he took- back to them. The ‘others’ weren’t mindless fiends. They had a culture. Screeners didn’t like it and it was altered for your palates. 

We want our monsters to be monsters. 

Non-straight, white, males know this all to well.

VI. 

When you have too many options and nothing to define you...You get anxiety. The fact that you DON’T have defining monsters actually makes it worse. The easy setting becomes a haunting ghoul. You don’t know who you are, what you want or what you shouldn’t be doing. Freedom suffocates you. God is dead. The training videos have you hungry but nothing you can spend your money or time on fulfills. The ads say you should be happy with hot chics fighting over who can grope your crotch first. But no one wants you. Increasingly you are portrayed as the bad guy on screen. No one misses your connection. Not even here. So, you invent one. You long to be loved like the character you love. To fill the chasm of who you are- verses who you want to be, you drink. A lot. Or worse...

VII.

The narcissist loads the clip, dons the outfit and heads for the mall unawares that others might not want to be in the next gruesome scene or two. But, someone has to be. Fate decides that, not you. Randomness is your confederate from guilt. They say that the Colorado shooter wants to know how the Dark Knight Rises movie ended. Such a question could only mean that he wants us to know he’s so much more than what we see. 

Aren’t we all. 

N.

E-harmonious (small wager)

N: So, yea, hi. I stalk you on over four different dating sites but none of them let me contact you unless I pay. I really want to meet you though. 


Vegas: Not enough to fork over the money apparently.


N: Good one. Now lets do the math since I'm not a cheapskate but if I forked over $19.95 every time I met a girl I wanted to chat with, we are talking bail out numbers.


Vegas: The idea is you pay one site, meet people and eventually it pans out. You just want to skip the important part. Seeking.


N: Clearly you don't know the work involved in stalking a female via an alias from a dating site, thru social media with a partial email and only a zip code.
If you did, you would realize I'm the seeker and your just lazily waiting for Mr. right to land in your inbox. 


Vegas: I'm lazy? I work and pay for the use of dating sites but your a hero because you bypass the rules and find me anyway? Girls don't want to be found by creeps like you.


N: You say you want a rule breaker in your bio but when one shows up, you get all capitalist uppity. Good thing dames like you are looking out for the corporate interests else, heaven forbid, what would they do? I suppose you also want a strong, silent type male but then cry to your friends that "he never talks to me"...


Vegas: You'll never know seeing as your actually none of those things. Your just a cheapskate. 
Probably wearing a stained wife beater to round out the image.


N: They are called tank tops god dammit.


Vegas: !! You are a miserable human being. I'm not even kidding. Good luck stalking your next ex, loser.


N: I take it then its a no for sending a pic or two?


Vegas: FUCK. OFF. 


N: I'm going to go ahead and send a pic of my penis anyway. That way if you change your mind or want to do some comparison shopping, you can.


Vegas: What is it with the penis photo? Seriously that is the LAST thing anyone wants to see. Guys are way obsessed with that. Its beyond explaining. 


N: So you would rather meet? Have some coffee...then see my penis??


Vegas: Oh for fucks sake. Will you just die.


N: For fucks sake is literally the point of all this...


Vegas: Logged off


N.

Sex at dawn (Bent)

Like all great stories, this one begins with me. 

I was sitting by the coffee shop window pirating music and hacking gift cards when you drove into the drive thru.

The amount of hair spray needed to keep your hairdo in place seemed to me at least, extraordinary. So dark, rich and poof-ee. The air in your car was blowing your bangs back and I was enthralled. 

You crept by the window as you fiddled to put your card back, put the receipt away and keep the kids in the back from mutiny. Then you saw me. The tingling started in my toes.

That moment when I register, that you register that I exist. It’s gut wrenchingly delightful.

Those few seconds so pregnant with possibility and potential. The multitude of universes that could suddenly now become reality. A slow motion love fest of dreams and whimsical fantasy, all rolled into the small neuron firings in the back of our mushy brain housing for the length of not even one minute. Time bends and whatever sense one has of the moment, the real, the eternal, becomes evident. 

Its as if I am able to imagine sex with you in all its intensity and in every position I think I could put you into. The looks that your face might make when you orgasm and want at that moment for me to see you, know you, be one with you without fear or rupture between us. The feel of your thighs, the crease of your body bent. The warm crevice of your vagina and the luscious taste of your lips as I suck on them.

My sweat rolls of my tattoos and down onto your belly, which in turn roll around your waist and down the plump, fatty roundness of your ass cheeks.

I imagine the numerous noises you would make, the loudness of your moans as well as the attempt to muffle your own intensity. Hold back but-you can’t. The sudden flow of your juices and their scent. Beds break, headboards snap, Tables smash. Our clothes shed like they contained an ugly insect. They are still floating down to the floor as my tongue enters you.

A lifetime of smiles, encounters, sex in dangerous places is captured in the time it takes your vehicle to roll ten meager feet. I can still see your chest lift as you breath in. All that is good and wholesome in this life seems to rest in between your breasts and starched hair. 

You check both directions. Scan me over once more. Pull down your sunglasses and roar into what might as well be lunar orbit. 

Did you envision me as I you? Where did you go? Will you return to thoughts of me later, when time permits a moment to touch yourself and visit that other dimension that might have been? Hope springs eternal.

N.

Nemesis (Pan the horizon)

Nemesis (Pan the horizon, in vain)

Wake up Neo...The greatest enemy will hide in the place you least expect.

I.

The Tarc bus shooting has no relation to the McCarthy drug ring takedown. Just look away. Don’t notice. Click something else. Miss that connection.

Described as respectful and soft-spoken, Michael A. McCarthy Jr. lived quietly with his girlfriend and children in a $353,000 home on a one-acre plot in a Spencer County subdivision.Thomas Gorman, the DEA’s assistant special agent in charge for Louisville, said McCarthy didn’t flaunt his wealth and ran a disciplined operation. - CJ’s Andrew Wolfson 

II.

Even though that storm came in May, the fallout from this has taken some time. Lets not even mention the news agencies who sat on the story at the behest of its masters. 

 Pawns only really draw attacking power from the stronger pieces behind them. Position. Power. Time.

 In Chess, time is the factor most overlooked. What? You thought the drug trade would cease now? White people are so quaint. The gods of your capitalist religion are just moving pieces. Game on.

Louisville attorney Frank Mascagni III represents the alleged ring leader and says he doesn't fit the profile of someone who is the head of a drug cartel. - again, CJ’s Andrew Wolfson

That’s because he isn’t. Check but never mate. There is always a bigger fish. Lets call him Pan. I’d wish them luck catching him but they don’t want to catch him. Attorney Frank is known as “the ego” in my circles.

III.

We all die though. Echo did. Now is not the time to fear. That comes later.

That is where you find out who you are though. In the thick of it as death looms. Against nemesis you will be brought. The outcome? Who knows. Such things are rarely if ever up to me. If you win he will only come after you again, and again and again.

   We can only do. Now. What is in front of us. Your plans, beliefs, hopes really don’t matter if you don’t act on them in the now. 

   Not sure what to believe in anymore? I know, I know, so many Netflix titles...so little time. Easier just to “like” on Facebook and give us all some profound quote. Like is now a verb. An action. 

Instead. Just once. 

Try doing the next right thing. Wether you like it or not. Then repeat. Start small. 

IV.

Your still here reading? Than it was meant for you. You have missed the connection and the matrix still has you. Oh, I’m well aware that any moment now the door will kick in and the REAL movie (with appropriate theme song) that is your life will begin in earnest. And you will show me by golly. Weeks fly by yet days take forever. 

Your greatest enemy hid very well. No, not in the TARC bus, not in the shooter, not in the bigger bloody coup of bishops and knights in the drug cartels nor their well paid lawyers. Not even in conspiracies that involve high powers and principalities. Yes god dammit there is always a bigger fish but these are pawns.

All those places one would EXPECT to find nemesis. Think harder.

V.

Except thinking is what got you here. In fact it’s your thinking that is now in doubt. Under suspicion. Are you seated? The brain’s thinking can’t-- won’t conceive of this because it is your brain. 

No con game could be this big? Could it? The last place you would ever look...

Too busy not flaunting its brainy wealth and running a disciplined operation. Nemesis is you.

VI.

...And your picking up your phone to call your attorney Frank the “ego” even now.

N.