7.28.2008
7.27.2008
Fame, Ho!
After you dance all weekend, after you gambol in the pulsing heat on a makeshift paper stage, after your pants soak through like a thing swum in and the duct tape holding your sleeves together gives way beneath the sweat's assault—only then can you commence with the cremes and heatpads.
Stretched out on a couchlet like the supreme martyr diva, you summon water glasses of wine from the next room, ply backrubs out of the odd passing visitor, and loudly lament your loss—this grand sacrifice you make of your body for joy alone, friends, for sheer, unbridled joy.
After the visitors leave, you pull a dog-eared wad of bills from between the pillows of the couchlet—the true spoils of your sacrifice—and as you count them once again, their rustle takes on a kind of beat, and you smile down at your crumbled-in arches and your battered calves, humming along to that terrible beat, that godawful insistent and seductive beat.
To the Mall!
But before the dance can begin, you must lay in provisions. Costumes must be procured—fright wigs and bulbous pants, bits of shiny metal that glint and wink as you move them beneath sun- or strobe light—you need dancing shoes, dancing socks, wicking breathable dancing underwear, several faces worth of makeup, and by then you are just beginning to get underway. I know, I know, it's a shame you cannot just throw on a wrestling singlet and go at it. I have tried before, and the results were just disastrous. Perhaps this would fly in Sri Lanka, but here, in America, folks like their entertainment gaudy and overblown, an assault on the senses so entire that it leaves audience members whelmed and disoriented, filled somehow with a vague urge to purchase something, anything.
7.23.2008
Humanifesto
I am learning to embrace that childhood self that hollers "Hey guys!" while gyrating on a tabletop in a too-small shirt for the camera's loving eye—the self that grabs his nascent crotch and thrusts into the air repeatedly, not knowing the significance of the act, knowing only the vague and odd sense of power that comes from it—that same self that again screams out "Look! Look!" before falling down a carpeted flight of stairs, pantomiming injury.
Somehow that self went sour and disappeared. It slowly closed up, grew humble, learned to listen, to quiet his chattering mouth.
But I must reclaim that self. Proud imbeciles parade about in broad daylight, shouting their knock-kneed philosophies, their numbers growing week by week, their voices growing louder, more obnoxious. Meanwhile, the quiet scholar sits at home, greedily drinking in his solitude, certain he's above the common fray. Both appall me. Let me find my place somewhere between the two, half-wise and half-mad, not overvulgar but no longer underheard goddamnit, not content to nod my platitudes toward another bit of blathery pretending at conversation.
After all, I owe it to them, don't I? These poor souls would rather be entertained than drone on about their latest breakup, their rough day at the workplace, the rising price of free-range eggs—I, for one, refuse to live in a world where chicken products dominate the conversational landscape! You—fools, boors, lovers, friends—you need me, you need this temporary joy I bring, even if it is mere escape, even if later we will sit down and rehash your latest break-up. For now, hear my song, delight in my dance, and we will both be carried off on the legs of this slight and fleeting ecstasy.
And when my legs break down from dancing, when my voice goes bald and wilts to a croak, I will still have these hands, and from the page I will scream "look at me" and then ask 3 cents a word to watch. To some I will be a carnival sideshow, to others a simple diversion, but for myself, I will be the author and mastermind of a life spent wallowing in sensation and recitation, an author in full, and never again a mere spectator, content to watch as life strides by in its imbecile parade.
Somehow that self went sour and disappeared. It slowly closed up, grew humble, learned to listen, to quiet his chattering mouth.
But I must reclaim that self. Proud imbeciles parade about in broad daylight, shouting their knock-kneed philosophies, their numbers growing week by week, their voices growing louder, more obnoxious. Meanwhile, the quiet scholar sits at home, greedily drinking in his solitude, certain he's above the common fray. Both appall me. Let me find my place somewhere between the two, half-wise and half-mad, not overvulgar but no longer underheard goddamnit, not content to nod my platitudes toward another bit of blathery pretending at conversation.
After all, I owe it to them, don't I? These poor souls would rather be entertained than drone on about their latest breakup, their rough day at the workplace, the rising price of free-range eggs—I, for one, refuse to live in a world where chicken products dominate the conversational landscape! You—fools, boors, lovers, friends—you need me, you need this temporary joy I bring, even if it is mere escape, even if later we will sit down and rehash your latest break-up. For now, hear my song, delight in my dance, and we will both be carried off on the legs of this slight and fleeting ecstasy.
And when my legs break down from dancing, when my voice goes bald and wilts to a croak, I will still have these hands, and from the page I will scream "look at me" and then ask 3 cents a word to watch. To some I will be a carnival sideshow, to others a simple diversion, but for myself, I will be the author and mastermind of a life spent wallowing in sensation and recitation, an author in full, and never again a mere spectator, content to watch as life strides by in its imbecile parade.
3.30.2008
3.19.2008
Soy Protein Isolationist
The devil talks to me. He brings out food on silver trays and whispers softly as he fingers improbable lengths of bacon--skeins of pork belly unwound from a spindle hidden in the room's northern corner. He clucks out creaking folk songs with a rasping throat, songs of feasting and bacchanal, of flesh and lust and crushed animal bones. As he sings he twirls a round of chicken asiago sausage gingerly on his four-knuckled finger, taunting me.
A cow is led into the room. The devil begins to procure hamburgers from its side, steaming blackened things piled high with horseradish and guacamole, packed with cayenne, fresh ground pepper and pressed garlic. He takes a fist-sized bite, and as he chews, the barest flash of pink dances on his tongue, and I know I am lost. Before he pours the cups of spicy mead, before the dancers arrive, before the orgy and the orchestra and the filet mignon stuffed with foie gras-stuffed truffles, he has got me.
Early the next morning, glutted and debauched, I will stumble up the rocky path toward daylight, guiding the cow by its thin silver chain, my tongue a tiny flash of pink behind sharp teeth.
A cow is led into the room. The devil begins to procure hamburgers from its side, steaming blackened things piled high with horseradish and guacamole, packed with cayenne, fresh ground pepper and pressed garlic. He takes a fist-sized bite, and as he chews, the barest flash of pink dances on his tongue, and I know I am lost. Before he pours the cups of spicy mead, before the dancers arrive, before the orgy and the orchestra and the filet mignon stuffed with foie gras-stuffed truffles, he has got me.
Early the next morning, glutted and debauched, I will stumble up the rocky path toward daylight, guiding the cow by its thin silver chain, my tongue a tiny flash of pink behind sharp teeth.
3.15.2008
Lullaby
The hair on her back was unbelievable, clumped as it was in irregular patches that shifted and re-formed while she slept. On a given night, the clumps might resemble a blotchy Rorschach test--she would see an ominous thunderhead in the mirror, I a loveseat--but by morning they would have transformed into a working map of the Philippines.
I admit, I was taken aback when I first saw her naked, but she wasn't ashamed--no, she was proud of her brilliant pelt. She just smirked with a shake of her head and guided my hand over the coarse blond prominences. The feel was almost electric.
Later we would follow the changing maps on her back into stifling jungles to capture rare albino lizards; into burnt-out holy cities in search of Moses's toenail; into an Arctic winter so cold it took three fingers from my right hand, just to recover a stone said to cure hunger and the occasional gallstone--we would grow rich several times off the black market fantasies of her glorious and curséd pelt. But that first night I knew nothing of the future. I only sensed the strange power that radiated from her as she snored away, the shocks of hair taking shape with a dull rustle beneath her comforter.
I admit, I was taken aback when I first saw her naked, but she wasn't ashamed--no, she was proud of her brilliant pelt. She just smirked with a shake of her head and guided my hand over the coarse blond prominences. The feel was almost electric.
Later we would follow the changing maps on her back into stifling jungles to capture rare albino lizards; into burnt-out holy cities in search of Moses's toenail; into an Arctic winter so cold it took three fingers from my right hand, just to recover a stone said to cure hunger and the occasional gallstone--we would grow rich several times off the black market fantasies of her glorious and curséd pelt. But that first night I knew nothing of the future. I only sensed the strange power that radiated from her as she snored away, the shocks of hair taking shape with a dull rustle beneath her comforter.
3.08.2008
Meme Journal
In the dream, we are walking through labyrinthine corridors at a small college east of here, searching for the auditorium. We finally find it, but when we walk in, it is more like an enormous barn or ag center, with rough unfinished walls and dull dirt floors.
We sit in our front row seats--frayed lawn chairs--and the house lights dim. A hush falls as the main attraction is lowered to the stage on guy-wires. He's billed as the last long pianist, but his instrument resembles a cross between a harp and the sail of a small boat. As he descends, his assistants--two squat women in drab custodial uniforms--begin to play the National Anthem. It is halfway over before I realize that everyone is standing, the entire barn reverberating in a massive chorus. I have been sitting stock-still, entranced by the stubby and inexpert finger-plucks of the two squat women, thinking I could easily be the next last long piano protegé.
Immediately, the older black man beside me becomes enraged at my lack of patriotism, and says so, firing tiny flecks of chaw-spit from his mouth. I launch into a lengthy explanation of my hard day at work (babysitting a neighbor's iguana) and my well-deserved exhaustion--how I just finished watching six hours of National Geographic (Goes Wild!) before the show--while, unbeknownst to me, my father approaches the long pianist to make a request. The next thing I know, I am at center stage, singing an African-ish acapella into a bulbous phallic microphone, with the older black man hyping me to my left, and the squat female assistants backing me up on hand drums.
As I reach the finale, Merritt Moseley approaches the stage with his infant daughter, and I drop to my back and hump the air emphatically as the crowd erupts. At least that's what I hear. I can't imagine anyone could doubt my patriotism after such an act, but as I return to my lawn chair, blushing, I hear my mother screaming "Let's see you do any better" at the restless jeering crowd behind her.
We sit in our front row seats--frayed lawn chairs--and the house lights dim. A hush falls as the main attraction is lowered to the stage on guy-wires. He's billed as the last long pianist, but his instrument resembles a cross between a harp and the sail of a small boat. As he descends, his assistants--two squat women in drab custodial uniforms--begin to play the National Anthem. It is halfway over before I realize that everyone is standing, the entire barn reverberating in a massive chorus. I have been sitting stock-still, entranced by the stubby and inexpert finger-plucks of the two squat women, thinking I could easily be the next last long piano protegé.
Immediately, the older black man beside me becomes enraged at my lack of patriotism, and says so, firing tiny flecks of chaw-spit from his mouth. I launch into a lengthy explanation of my hard day at work (babysitting a neighbor's iguana) and my well-deserved exhaustion--how I just finished watching six hours of National Geographic (Goes Wild!) before the show--while, unbeknownst to me, my father approaches the long pianist to make a request. The next thing I know, I am at center stage, singing an African-ish acapella into a bulbous phallic microphone, with the older black man hyping me to my left, and the squat female assistants backing me up on hand drums.
As I reach the finale, Merritt Moseley approaches the stage with his infant daughter, and I drop to my back and hump the air emphatically as the crowd erupts. At least that's what I hear. I can't imagine anyone could doubt my patriotism after such an act, but as I return to my lawn chair, blushing, I hear my mother screaming "Let's see you do any better" at the restless jeering crowd behind her.
3.07.2008
A Man and His Animals...
Stumbled across a brilliant comic earlier today, and thought I'd share it.
It's called garfield minus garfield.
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.
It's called garfield minus garfield.
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.
It gets worse.
The next day, I was still on that bathroom floor, but this time it was not so whimsical. Too homebound to retrieve the litter scoop from my car's trunk, I dug in the ammoniac sawdust of the catbox with a badly burned piece of toast, rooting out a fresh deposit as Orlando looked on, cockeyed and curious. Dishes mounted in the sink. Torrential rain had called off work once again. Shuffling room to room in my dingy bathrobe, surprising the neighbors with short bouts of half-clothed calisthenics, I resembled nothing so much as a grown bachelor twice my age, biding time before my shows.
The day Ilena left, I was like an adolescent boy who'd come across some crude philosopher's stone--it all came back to me in a rush, the rub of my flesh against worn cotton as I left the airport, the dozen near deaths as I drove one-handed around the crippling curves of Barren Creek, the ejaculate, finally, sweet liquid pearls who shocked me with their volume. The novelty faded quickly. Now my limp johnathan nodded sadly against the belt of my loose robe as I ate bowl after bowl of cold cereal.
The day Ilena left, I was like an adolescent boy who'd come across some crude philosopher's stone--it all came back to me in a rush, the rub of my flesh against worn cotton as I left the airport, the dozen near deaths as I drove one-handed around the crippling curves of Barren Creek, the ejaculate, finally, sweet liquid pearls who shocked me with their volume. The novelty faded quickly. Now my limp johnathan nodded sadly against the belt of my loose robe as I ate bowl after bowl of cold cereal.
3.01.2008
Earthly Delight
With Ilena gone, I revert to absurdity. Lugging my sprouting kit around the house like a knee-bruised child, finding just the right spot of sun or warmth to coax the mung's white fruits out from their olive casings. I carry it into the bathroom with me and read Carey's Illywhacker aloud, my breath fogging the bright green plastic. At room temperature and with a lot of light, the directions read, the seeds will germinate visibly. See me, wrapped in Ilena's fuzzy bathrobe, on all fours on the bathroom tile, watching my charges as intently as a child watches a seething anthill.
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