Taking a break

I have thought this over for what seems like forever. But today I resolved for good that there's only so much the Gnu-Headed Oracle of Whatever (for lack of a better pen name) can accomplish on the internet. If there's a threshold for the bizarre, I've passed it and then some. So on July 4 I am going to take a vacation from this blog. I'm riding off into the sunset because there is simply no reason to continue. Whatever battle I have been fighting since February 29 of last year, I have won won won.

From July 4 on I'll be working on something new, which I've already mentioned. I hope it will be lovely and good (lovely and good is all anyone should ever try to be). I'll still be kicking around; I'm a pretty easy guy to find.

This blog is intensely personal and patently foreign. I've done my best to blow minds and coax thought. To accomplish that I had to blow my own mind, and make myself think, to double-think, to meta-think, to pre-think and anti-think; to think on the fly, to think strategically and compromise among contradictory thoughts; to think about words, sentences, paragraphs, whole posts, strings of posts and how they all fit together and to never stop or submit to horrible and fatal cliche or thoughtlessness. The result is this mixed tape of a blog, and it is glorious and awful and stupid and huge and delicate and I love it. I put many demands on my readers because I owe them that respect as intelligent human beings. I left out autobiographical details of my 'real' life, because to me that stuff wasn't as interesting. To me, imagination is more interesting, more real and powerful, and so that's what I wanted to share. In deliberately avoiding my personal details and anecdotes, I surely alienated a huge chunk of my readership - hell, I half scared myself to death with this shit - but I stand by everything on here. A lot of people tuned out a long time ago in bewilderment, and I understand that of course. There are a lot of voices on this blog, but all of them are mine. As some poet said: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am a man, I contain multitudes."

Believe it or not, I agonized over every syllable, with few exceptions.

Will I ever come back and bake more cupcakes for blogger? I hope so. I believe I have already won the battle. Ms. Rhythm has lost and I have won. But if any of her sisters come kicking around, then just flash me the cupcake signal and I'll come back to finish them off.

For now, it's time to move on.

At some point I'll put up a list of my favourite posts. Which is completely self-indulgent, but hey.

I'll say it again in 5 days, but thanks so much for reading.

xoxo


ps "Freedom is a cupcake"? I wrote that sentence with my eyes closed and half-asleep in the fall of 2003. I'm still not sure what it means, but I think 'FIAC' means you can choose something warm and delicious, or you can choose something that rots your teeth and gives you cancer. The freedom to grasp at a small delight is at the heart of freedom and the philosophy of joy. Joy is something you can find if you think long enough about it. If you find yourself in a fog, or a situation that doesn't make any sense, as I did and we all do, you can make it make sense. While you have a brain there is hope. All we've got on this pale blue dot is our words and our thought.

beat you up real bad

I gotta smack ya

gonna take you and dump you in the river

things could get ugly

it won't be pretty

gonna hafta mess up yer face

rearrange your features

get riled up

you got my buttons now

you been talkin poppycock far too long

imagine me. now, imagine me with a hammer.

clear out quick before I drain this place of fools

all roads lead to me flipping you inside out

I might hafta go half-bugs on ya

u dam dirty fool

you'd make an excellent piece o' dogmeat

my fists are set to tenderize

duck-and-cover won't save a sorry buffalo like you

revenge? best served cold, with a side order of humiliation

call me up when you're ready to get whipped

cuz it's ring-a-ding-ding for a jerko clown like you

I eat you for breakfast

The meaning of the meeting summed in a smile, the finger pointed down the aisle... and you, when you shop around you don't waste a second; you put your head down and run a three-minute mile. Everything possible, everything inevitable (Although, you said, it might take a while).

She said, I need discipline. So beat me down every minute. I will thank you for it. I take what you teach me and feed it down your throat.

Chewing on cinder blocks. My teeth are sharp. My mind climbing mountains. My spine is stronger. Sometimes I do handstands, I fall on my head, upside down, I crack my neck in half - I've gotten used to setbacks. But I'm tired of repeating myself, tired of opening my sorry guts to be sifted, sorted and dismissed. So today's the last day I ask you for a takeback; tomorrow we're even steven. It's been six long years of agony, and tomorrow, old friend, I will take you down.

(Yes.)

lend me a clover

(title of post written by accident, so I figured I'd attempt to flesh it out... don't read if you can avoid it)

There's a dance tonight at the local barnyard, and I will be in attendance. I'm trying to devise a nifty new number to wear. It boiles down to this: clover-based decorations are said to be the in thing; somebody whose opinion I respect told me anyone who's anyone will be wearing a clover. Ergo I must have one. I want to shine like no other dancer so I have need of clovers. Three-leaf, four-leaf, I'll even take a two-leaf. Find it bursting forth in a meadow, find it growing out the cracks in the pavement, or pluck it from the teeth of a grazing heifer - whatever your means, please do shut your piehole and distribute the cloves in my direction! If I'm seen without a clover tonight I will die of mortification. Clovers shall signify my worth, for it is said they are markers of sophistication. Indeed if clovers are what it takes to win the hearts and minds of the people at this dance, why then call me the most clover-seeking man in the land.

So please, brother, can you spare me but one clover?

(as arbitrary as any other fashion?)

For __, wherever I may find her

It's the one-year anniversary of what is probably the only truly autobiographical poem I've posted on this site, aka the 'girl with the green jacket'.

Five minutes waiting for the bill

Buddha sits on a triangle in the corner, a midget floating six feet above the Java House; he serenely blesses each plate of french toast. On the wall a pair of thin women clutch fabric, dressed so pale by a great master (I've never seen such soft undulating lips). Outside a red bike rams a taxi, on purpose, and leaves a dent in the door. Emotion, how unexpected! A shouting match, fists shake and tires squeal - so catty and bitchy. (Now that's a vexatious velocipede!) Cars rule these streets, but nice try. Meanwhile passersby diligently feign oblivion. Observe the scene reluctantly and shake your head; don't get sucked into the Queen St. vacuum. Then I hear two voices, Italian, and suddenly I'm in Calabria ... where can I find real fresh fruit, delicious and good? The Colonel across the corner has a mud-covered awning; he's not ashamed of his fried chicken anymore (I remember him before he was an acronym). And Pam can't save her feathered friends; people learn for themselves, but go ahead and try to preach - in this city we listen to anything. The telephone pole's bulleted with staple-holes; word-of-mouth and underground is still the way. But how can anyone feel at home here? These kids live like animals; I can't walk a half-block without getting an assful of skateboard! But I don't say sigh, it's too sunny. We hope one day for beauties on the boulevard, but for now chewing gum catches my elbow; Mack trucks shift all through the downtown, and the natives get high and drink the moon.

14 words that don't exist but should

brank
quonus
mervile
jope
sproctagonal
nyrex
voomenance
worl
ictuous
shub
gyzyzygyzm
krelp
ognify
miramel

does this sound like you?

(probably not)

She was tall and thin, a licorice stick, a twirled urban whim, a toothpick. He was round and rough, a squat peg, stocky and sturdy, like a wooden leg.

They met at bars, in cafés, they talked hair removal, wax, Ben-gay. She told him all about her vases; he was a tax lawyer, preoccupied with the most obscure clauses. They talked a little about yesterday, not much about today; they made plans for Friday. They called each other every other day.

Evenings they met, puffed on separate cigarettes. The bill would come, they'd go Dutch; neither of them liked it all that much.

There was tension, it was raw, their gazes cut like a band saw.

She had tattoos, and he was neat. He wore lots of sweaters, and she had sparkles on her feet.

She danced a lot - the meringue - he would trip on sidewalks. They spent a disproportionate amount of time sighing, on their walks around the block.

He looked about at waitresses, she often rolled her eyes. He complained about his dull winter shoes; she suggested a larger size? He looked at her and sighed.

She had a thing for diamonds, he was turned on by her anklet. She loved pressed flowers and any recipe with walnuts; meanwhile he knew nothing about colour co-ordination.

He had an aversion to politics, the Romantics and obstetrics – the mere mention of fallopian tubes could make him sick. But she wanted to have his baby. And she kept a test tube in her purse.

(run run run!)

Life and times of Lt. Froghab

(another story begun and wisely abandoned)

There was a military man in the great American hills who went by the name of Steven Frogface Haberdashery-Piggles. He was a lieutenant in the army, he had a wide grey face and a favourite shoeshine called ‘Polish Polish’, which was made in Krakow. He served in the army for 21 years, the last 7 as a lieutenant. He was self-satisfied and agreeable, rarely involved in fisticuffs and altogether a source of calm consensus within his group, the 75^th regiment, 6^th platoon in Uncle Sam’s Southern Cadets.

Steven Frogface Haberdashery-Piggles (hereafter Froghab) never killed a man, rarely ever took a hill, but he could clean a rifle and dig a ditch, and did both in such an agreeable way that most people found themselves asking “why take a hill, when I can relax, and dig a ditch?” Froghab had that effect on people, he made them see his point of view. For example his advice on real estate was prized as untoward and just mediocre enough. He never made waves; rather he made friends, lots of them, friends by the barrackful. And he was upheld to his peers as some kind of model officer.

Frogface had trained under Sargeant Stewart Ray Grognex, who was an albino accordion player in a previous civilian life and in general a more lenient taskmaster than most regiments in those years had seen. Grognex perhaps, with his musical turn and whimsical extemporaneity, imparted some of those same qualities onto Froghab, and the latter’s lieutenantship was not pockmarked by incidents of divisive or controversial nature as was, say the infamous and apochryphal officership of Lt. Hustings MacPhiction, of the same 75^th regiment, a half-bull, half-man who once drove an entire platoon into Mexico, had them strip, bury themselves in sand and beg for water as an exercise in teambuilding. But this is not MacPhiction’s tale, and even if it were, Lt. Froghab’s mere presence dilutes it from being edgy and poignant to merely strange.

This, then, was Lt. Froghab, a man completely bereft of conflict; a man whom no author could hope to base a story around. There was no hope of a story, that was, until a new captain arrived at the barracks, and then things all went to shit. This new officer ‘sullied the windowpanes’, as it were, and it was left to Froghab to clean up the mess.

A single glance at Captain Clark C. Scorchwumper-Sagittarius was enough to confirm him as a wretched husk, a poorly soul at best, a new sap on the tree with little hope for success or acceptance, a man who had lucked out and knew it, and made everyone else suffer for his whelpish fiendish self-loathing. Scorchwumper-Sagittarius was a West Point man, full of theory and protocol, insensitive to the circumstances or locus genii (or is that genius loci?) of any particular situation. This made him a stultifying egghead loser and he admitted this fact as well, wearing large pocket protectors into battle and otherwise smiling whenever someone mentioned trivia gameshows. Also the new captain was a gangly, groaning sort; a fellow with one eye and three legs, and simply put he cut a hideous and asymmetrical profile. The men were at once all over him and raising heck.

Cptn. Scorchwumper-Sagittarius hailed from the meadows, a town called Flopsy; his hometown-handle alone would gain the captain a share of grief. Examples of resistance the captain ran up against: The ghoulish frankness of Major Clockhurler, the sweetass calumny of the MPs, and the total impudence of the privates firstclass Klavier and Walnut; all these things made for an awkward atmosphere in the otherwise sweet fields of Texarkana which is where all this takes place. Lieutentant Froghab had to overcome his own difficulties, sure enough: there was that one episode with a rake, where a large corporal named Swallows stepped on a garden tool after quitting a platoon hike early. The fat cretinous slackass gashed his forehead and Froghab had to take him to the infirmary. And so similar insubordination was ruining morale all across the barracks and turning the men’s lives to a stinky undisciplined cesspool.

Now enter Capt. Scorchwumper-Sagittarius, with his twelve sausage-eating flamingos.

(at this point enough was enough)

things that rhyme with toga

(as requested by E-dawg)

Interrogate a toga? Please no ma, it's a 'no va' rogue assault, a mocha slogan and surrogate toe gash, all grog and locus, a no-good nougat like Hulk Hogan towing a Shogun, Moaning Gunther crying "oh no, mo' guns!" It's rogaine to toads; gauze, hoes, grommets and soda, taupe goggles and Yoda...


more requests?

Things that rhyme with hula hoop

Rule the goop and school in a paratroop, this is the joule scoop, the moolah stoop, like Ferris Bueller cooped up and fooling his groupies. See Sue Shoop and Buddy Dupe on the Shule loop? It's all Stoolie bloopers, gruel and sloop, and you, spooling drooping mules and rupee pools like Yuletide Betty Boop - ah yes sir, you are crueller than Tupac and full o' poop! You skew the group, you who outflew Zeus and snooped uncouth, slucking snails from a soup; you and Lula Duke - you'll whoop -de-doop and duel a RuPaul-impersonator, a cool ewe-loving koopa-troop, and who'll heap vituperatives then? As the French say, we, the fluffy ie nous, les fluffes!

(Other rhyme requests?)

fight temptation

Consider why we are here:
1) gratify every whim
2) maximize dopamine
3) do not put up with any delay or hassle
4) erase all memory of any cognitive experience
5) disintegrate attention spans
6) instant feedback instant feedback, positive feedback, vicious cycles
7) a substitute for caffeine
8)

why do people in the tech industry switch jobs every 18 months? because 18 months on the internet is like 18 lifetimes in meatspace. your children are


I love the internet

Jealous of your veal zeal

When I see someone like you, who loves to eat veal so much, I can't help but feel envy. You love that baby cow flesh, I see the delight on your face - it makes me want to buy a cattle ranch and set up a 'veal-enjoyment laboratory' so I can ascertain what makes you grin. You? Yes, you - how you light up whenever you eat a veal sandwich! You make a most wonderful face; your pelvis contorts and undulates every which way: unpredictable jerks of ecstasy that I construe as veal-derived and veal-dependent. How good can that sandwich be? Is it the growth hormones that produce the flavour? Is it better to go grain-fed or organic grazer? My curiousity is piqued; send a word of inquiry to your delicatessen, I want a piece of that joy for myself. And in the meantime - can I please have a wee bite of yo' bread?

I just killed a hornet

You know what makes me?

A hero.

Suppose that hornet had lived - what good would have come of his life?

Nothing. Hornets are only good for stinging old ladies in the butt and freaking out teenagers.

Suppose that that hornet was Dracula in disguise... that kinda makes me like Buffy.

Suppose Sarah Michelle Gellar were in this room with me right now... what would I tell her?

I'd say, "Sarah Michelle - please put me on your show!"

Suppose she rejected my request, since I wasn't a member of the Actors Guild. How would I react?

By getting my union card.

Suppose unions dues were too high?

First I'd make a few upset phone calls. If that didn't work I'd burn Hollywood to the ground.

Suppose hornets and actresses were interchangeable. So the next time you put a rock through a hornets' nest, there would be no more 'Oscar night magic'...

Know what that would make you? A mass-murderer, and probably a hero.

Tis wondrous strange, yes...

Unlikely dilemma

Imagine yourself strapped in an electric chair, convicted of egregious body odour. The electric chair is covered in peanuts. Now pretend you are a hippopotamus, in the electric chair, and like an elephant you love peanuts. Unfortunately your hippo arms and legs are all tied up, and you can’t reach anything. This is supposed to be your last meal, but - not being an elephant - you have no prehensile snout with which to grab the morsels.

Do you -

a) beg the governor for stay of execution?

b) demand an elephantoplasty, ie a high-risk operation to become an elephant, not unlike a sex change?

c) thrash your 5-ton girth against the shackling irons and hope to break them?

d) fry like the greasy smelly hungry hippo you are?

Hmm...

(I was asked this very question in a job interview... the correct answer is c)

hors d'oeuvres anyone?

(back to weird)

The sweetness of the season is the sweat. The beatniks bees're buzzing 'round the bush, the curdled applesauce is crueller for the kids, the rounded raisinfaced ex-magician returning for a greasy rumble, the rain/mud and stains of blood, the woken man hissing at a baby pram, it's well-deep and shallow shivers, leech lips and swollen livers.

It comes and I run, this wet-electric flash of light, a brilliant tunnel-staircase so Byzantine, an archetype, a twisted complex, like age-old best friends who never met; it drives the flesh home to the roosting spot, this twisted knot, binaural and seismic, a transparent secret guarded by a highly-emotional robot.

Golden honey combs her fair, a scalp refreshed with scent of pear; roses red adorn her hair, flower patterns everywhere. And laughter is light upon the air, her eyes? half-closed, but I just stare.

Helmet for bikes, pads for knees, guard your mouth and asking please, spit off a bridge and shake a hand; in between become a man. Pay your debts, monsieur (leave this earth with no regrets), puff at a cigarette, and build a shelf for your old cassettes.

Dry your hair and coat your face, touch your toes and bust the race. Please! Less chatter! More pelvic thrust; lean on a leg and kiss the dust; swivel your navel in a 45-arc, pick a spot to call your mark, lift one foot, keep your balance, do one-armed pushups like old Jack Palance.

It’s telescope and slippery rope, sight destroyed by lack of traction, boulder pushing dissatisfaction, in hell, oh well - maximize capital, plan for the worst, trust your rustproof instruments – a well-built dam will rarely burst. Climb your mind; inside is both slime and grime and pristine cleanly shine, all things great and grey inside you, the universe is there too - you are human, and you are you. You are a crowd, a crew, you contain the multitudes.

To do list - June 12

• eat breakfast: yoghurt + honey
  
• twirl 6-7 times
• impersonate Ancient Greek hoplite, but first, research hoplites
  
• cran-call saxophone factory; ask 'how much for sax?'
  
• denounce local magistrate; get all 'grassroots' in his face
  
• make a gimp necklace, do not snicker about 'gimp'
  
• contemplate globalization for a bit
  
• realize no one understands globalization as well as you do
  
• momentary intellectual depression
  
• overcome fear of thumbtacks; use psycholinguistic conditioning, ie think of tacks as 'benign corkboard support devices'
  
• phone aunt - ask after 'crab legs' recipe
• nickname your goldfish 'Crab Legs' - this time, make it stick
  
• cobble together lunch from what's in tupperware containers
  
• realize you possess WAY too much tupperware
• brainstorm fashion line made from tupperware ie Tupperwear
  
• get all caught up in latest professional athlete steroid scandal
• stop saying 'bling bling', this time for good
  
• do laundry; separate 'darks' from 'whites'; affect a Southern 'Klanner accent' and make a speech about the wonders of segregation
• feel guilty re above
• get over guilt by realizing 'hey I'm just as persecuted as anyone else!'
• hang laundry on line
• think long and hard about renting a rug cleaner, then get distracted
• apply for work at a local NGO - Nate's Golden Oldsmobiles
• tackle that bathroom reading
  
• investigate upgrading from 'Mach 3' to 'Mach 3 Turbo'; end up waiting till Mach 4
• use wisdom of Shakespeare to defuse gang violence
  
• make to-do list for next week

More urban haiku

(super-extra cynical)


1) Neat and tidy

Sidewalk cigarettes,
food wrappers and used condoms
- the sludge we walk through


2) Glitterati

Look - a billboard. Sweet!
I envy them, such happy
anorexia.


3) Seduced by air-conditioning

Don't park here, you'll pay
Leave the car five miles away
...I wish I could fly.


4) Viral pathology

My hair is spiky
my shoes are red Campers, I
fake-talk on my cell.


5) Educated philistine

Watch the game? We won!
The other squad was much worse
Join our team or die.


6) Rat race

My resume is fake
my debt is very real
I live right downtown


7) Sacred rituals

Coffee beans kick ass
they percolate dawn to dusk
sweet life elixir.


8) Tough love

I don't give handouts
I tough it out all the way
Get behind me, bum


9) NIMBY

Garbage strike? Oh boy
I'll have to do Muskoka
Heat waves make me puke


10) Means to an end

Who built this tower?
Ugly as sin, but so what
That's progress I guess.

Urban haiku

(I know I said I was done with poems, but here's just a tease)


1) Meaty!

A man eats grilled steak
digestion overtakes him
he collapses, snores.


2) Annoyance

Ancient buttocks sag
I'm trapped in crowds of seniors
please geezers - don't fart!


3) Despondance/despair

Umbrellas do break
cold rains will envelope you
hailstorms dent your skull.


4) Peevish

Pizza is often hot
except when nimrods eat it -
they forget to thaw.


5) Find your niche

Anatomy is hard
math, chemistry, physics too
I will vend hot dogs.


6) Baddass

I enjoy kung fu
the cool sound of snapped femurs
I'm super lethal.


7) Unapologetic

My aroma? Fab.
Showering is not my bag
Do not lend me soap.


8) Yabba dabba

Mother Goose is dead
assassinated by Shrek
who's next? Mickey Mouse.

piccolos vs dobermans

Um, I haven't the foggiest. Sorry.

Wait! I got it.

Maybe it's that piccolos are high sounding and geeky, while dobermans are dogs and therefore capable of hearing high-sounding squeaks, which since it is an extraordinary ability, makes them geeky. Because anyone with ability is a geek right? And because they're dobermans it makes them way better than a piccolo, because never in my life have I seen a piccolo fetch a thing.

So we have piccolos and dobermans - almost identical, but when comes to a fetching crunch I'll take the dog aka man's best geek.

Any suggestions for my next comparison?