Since I’m alone and effectively isolated, I shall just invent some fun for myself:
*runs out for forty minutes in
*holds breath for
*sucks an Eskimo Ice Cream bar down in
*grabs laptop, crawls into coffin, closes lid, and melts into blog*
Ah yes! That’s it! Now I’m feeling romantic.
The trouble I had as a very young child with the Pledge of Allegiance was not with the currently disputed language about a divinity, but with making a solemn pledge or taking an fervent oath to “The Flag” itself. That always, as the words poured out of my mouth, struck me as a form of the most primitive animism. And it seemed equally comparable to the ritual of praying to stone statues which, as a child, by my religion, I was also trained to due.
So as we stood there as diligent children promising The Flag that we would honor It, I used to imagine that It would magically start to undulate under Its own power, or burst into flames like a Burning Bush, or begin to drip with the blood of fallen patriots. After all, I was pledging, praying, swearing blood-oath-to-the-death to a holy and untouchable fabric. I pledge allegiance to you, Flag! Flag! A word almost as powerfully evocable as “God” Himself! Flag-damnit! May the Flag strike you dead! That was magic. And like primitive islanders who, when honoring the island volcano, wait for it to speak to them, so I waited for The Flag to do something, hey, even just wave to me!
In time, as I grew wiser and animism ceased in my mind to serve as a competent explanation for the full spirituality of life, I stopped praying to statues and stopped pledging to flags. Which doesn’t mean I stopped praying or pledging—I just stopped investing such deep spiritual commitment in “inanimate things” and redirected it towards loftier constructions. I started pledging only to “the Republic” leaving the “to the flag” animistic revelry to die a dusty unspoken death in my brain.
So for me, the current “divinity controversy” is neither politically correct or incorrect, merely politically inept. Like the Capulets and Montagues, a curse on both your houses! After all, what kind of “God” can you be “under”—or not—if you are still giving prior sacred oath to relic-quality cloth Flag-essence itself? Don’t get me wrong. I’d die for my country. And I’ve flown the flag on my truck post 9-11 with the throngs. But I don’t want to sacredly swear to it and I’d never die for the flag. I refuse to die for an animistically-infused symbol. (The only exception of late being when I almost died for the flag while it was serving as the design on the thong of a deadly blonde who was doing what she did best in a tiddy bar).
Oh—I know: You’re going to tell me that many a true patriot died for the flag in the country’s defense. Well, if they really died for the flag and not rather really in defending their country-bound way of life, they were fools. Remember the proverbial flag-bearers marching into war on the battlefield, and if the bearer fell, another would come along to raise the flag, and if he fell, yet another after him, etc. ? Well, do you think they do that anymore? Hell no. And why not? Because a soldier is too valuable to waste on a mere symbol.
“You bled with Wallace . . . now bleed with me.” Thus ends the movie Braveheart with the ultimate call to battle: Freedom! I’d rather go into battle with two swords—one in each hand—than with a pole with cloth attached and batteries not included.
The following has led me to a reconsideration of resuming my practice of the martial arts:
Chi Kung is an ancient Taoist art of body control (it dates back to 2700 BC) and claims to resist disease, retard aging, prolong virility, and for all I know give oneself X-ray vision. Some have taken this unique art to new heights, claiming to achieve sexual nirvana by strapping weights to their penises and doing repetitive lifts. No kidding.
Practitioners of this brand of Chi Kung begin their sessions with an hour-long warm-up to stimulate the senses through breathing routines and stretches. After the blood has been stimulated, the men retreat to a small room and dress down to nothing but a T-shirt and a blue cloth wrapped around the midsection (nudity is strictly taboo). After the penis has been manually stimulated, barbells are then hooked onto a coat-hanger-like apparatus, which is tied securely around the base with a scarf. Students then commence the workout, which consists of several swinging and lifting motions designed to really work the muscles. Beginners start out with two and-a-half pounds, and some have eventually progressed to hefting truly colossal weights—we're talking in the hundreds of pounds. A striking demonstration of this was made in 1995 by a Hong Kong master named Mo Ka Wang, who lifted over 250 lbs. two feet off the floor. Sounds pretty impressive, and even if the supposed benefits fall flat you'll at least have an extra method of carrying groceries.
--from www.sexualrecords.com
Oh-oh-oh-oh...
Everybody was Chi Kung fighting,
those jerks were fast as lightning...
In fact it was a little bit fright'ning,
but they came with expert timing...
Will you gaze at the sky tonight? Or even be aware if the heavens can be seen?
Will you smell a flower today? Or merely take them in as ornaments popping up along the way?
Will you insist that life’s a celebration? Or bow to the blasé with resignation?
If I were a terrorist in
I’d surely have taken credit by an anonymous El Shish Kabob phone call to press and authorities for the fires in
Remember when I blogged a few days back about a PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid) that missed the Earth by only
Some linguistic pet peeves of mine:
“That’s like comparing apples with oranges.”
Well, what’s wrong with comparing apples with oranges, or oranges with parrots, or parrots with motorcycles? Does it strain the brain to compare things of inexact similarity? Snapple compares ants to dogs in a Real Fact: “Ants have a better sense of smell than dogs.” I say: O that is so great. But dogs have a bigger nose. LOL
“What do you do for a living?”
I’m always tempted to say, and more often than not, do reply: “I breathe, I laugh, I cavort, I love, I frolic, and I run for a living.” When the person asking then looks at me with that “Why are you avoiding my question” look, I clarify: “Now if you meant: What do I DO…vis a vis work, well, then that’s more a matter of what I DO for a dying . Because my work only pushes me closer to the grave. For a dying, I…”
What do you think? If we rename the Moon to “God”, then the Pledge of Allegiance can stand as is except it can only be recited when the Moon, I mean the “God” has risen over the continent? I see this as a perfectly satirical compromise. On the other hand, if the ban on “under God” stands up, I am more than willing to assist the courts in an extension of this ruling to “In God We Trust”. Thereupon, I will appoint myself a True Defender of the Constitution and insist that all of you surrender your so-branded un-Constitutional money to me!
Is Xanga just a blogging kindergarten? Isn’t it even worth a passing mention, let alone serious discussion, by the bloggerati ( the blogging literati, i.e., the emerging clique of “high-powered” bloggers who are schmoozing and oozing with visions of the *blogosphere* ) ??
You and I may think so, but it appears that John Hiler, who qualifies as a member in good-standing of the bloggerati by merit of his position as the prolific writer/editor of Microcontent News (a webzine discussing weblogs) and CEO of WebCrimson, a weblog software consulting firm, has nary a word to say about Xanga in his webzine.
Oh yes, John states in Microcontent News webzine’s “About the Editor” section that he “helped build Xanga.com, one of the largest weblog community sites” . But that’s it. A footnote in a resume. Otherwise, in all of his moving and shaking discussions of the blogosphere (most of which are very insightful and inciteful—I’m an ardent reader of his) there’s not even a faint casting of Xanga as even a small star in a puny constellation in the twinkling blogosphere. Nada.
Now perhaps John doesn’t want to toot his own horn. But then again, I’m getting the feeling that Xanga, for its co-founders like John and Genius et. al., has served mainly as their learning sandbox, aka kindergarten. And that now, as they’re moving on into the more exalted undertakings worthy of the bloggerrati (Genius, aka Biz Stone is writing a book called "Blogging" available in September from Amazon.com), they’re no more mentioning Xanga as a concern than one would brag about the grade school one went to when applying for high-paying, high-powered job.
So here we remain in blogging kindergarten, yes? Yes and no. We, you and I, choose to participate—but we are not confined. None of us here are in control of the Xanga domain or server (as an “independent blogger” worthy of bloggerati attention would be) and thus we are all subject to the vicissitudes of the decision-makers. But many of us, nonetheless, have formed real links and relationships with one another that will prevail even if ever Xanga should fail. The bloggerati ignores us, but we continue, as a blogging community, to achieve a cultural, and in some cases, literary significance despite their haughty slight of us. And slight it is because the statistics are here: 80,000 to 100,000 members and more than a million page hits a day . Bloggerati beware: ignore such gross statistics at your own peril.
Well, unlike John, I’m not reluctant to toot my own horn. I have tooted and toyed a lot with Xanga. I have from time to time and will yet again incorporate a live mobile webcam into my blog and a realtime chat applet therein; I’ve had three-blogs-in-one (LiveJournal and Blogger subsumed under Xanga); I’ve sponsored my own (software, domain, and server) GreyMatter blog in the Xanga header; I’ve got some Xanga games going as a side entertainment; I’ve scheduled a croning agent to blog for me unattended and have already scheduled Xanga posts years into the future; and I’ve even blogged wirelessly amidst the grateful dead from a locked-up cemetery the night of a Halloween. And, God and Goddess willing, I’m just beginning. Hey, I don’t see any of the bloggerati doing the innovative things I’ve done and the many cool, creative, and innovative things so many of you are doing on your blogs on a daily basis.
So you want to know what I think? Screw the bloggerati ! We are having more fun! Oh yes, they are angling for fame and/or the revenue model to usher them into opulence. And I’ve no doubt that some of them (and by well-wishes, hopefully, John) will succeed. But we, the many each of us, but moreover, we as a community are an exciting vibrant phenom the likes of which has never before been seen…for…
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
on whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world for ever, it seems.
-- Arthur O'Shaughnessy
Back on March 13th, I pondered:
When will we know that blogging has truly “arrived”? 1) Financially? Simply, when PC manufacturers start packaging blogging applets/access/software along with operating systems. 2) Culturally? Simply, when blogging becomes a commonplace offering in school curriculums.
Well, the ascension has begun:
One of the country's most respected training grounds for professional reporters has become the first school to offer a class on the 21st century symbol of do-it-yourself journalism.
Next fall, a handful of students at the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism will convene weekly to learn about blogging from John Batelle, a co-founder of Wired magazine, and Paul Grabowicz, the school's new media program director.
-- Blogging Goes Legit, Sort Of by Noah Shachtman, June 6, 2002 PDT
Hey, Xanga's own john (John Hiler) adds his own eProps to this article--way to make some noise john! ...
The Berkeley class on blogging is the latest in a series of signs that the media establishment is starting to warm up to what was long seen as legitimate journalism's loud-mouthed kid sister.
MSNBC, for example, recently joined Fox News, Slate, the San Jose Mercury News and others by adding blogs to its website.
"This means that professional journalists aren't just poking at bloggers like creatures in a zoo cage -- they're in the cage themselves," said John Hiler, editor of Microcontent News, a site keeping tabs on the blogging world.
And I really wonder--if below--john has anyone of us here on Xanga in mind?? ...
The intellectual-property issues the Berkeley class will try to sift through are particularly important to the blogging community, because a weblog site's combination of liberally used links and off-the-cuff commentary make it a juicy target for corporate lawsuits.
"We're probably only six months away from seeing a blogger served with a libel lawsuit," Microcontent News' Hiler said.
Come on Xangaroos! Let's make Xanga notoriously famous by having one of our very own be the first to break and make new law (with the possibility of going all the way to the Supreme Court, no doubt!). After all, isn't it worth it? In today's pop-culture market, notoriety is usually the quickest ticket to success!
Any volunteers? 
Once upon a time there was a seed called Xanga. And there was a gathering of entrepeneuring visionaries who believed that this seed could do incredible things if it were planted, nurtured, and allowed to grow unencumbered.
So they banded together, partied a lot, pissed and plotted, but nevertheless work hard to get it sown. But dared not do so before first spreading a lot of biancamanure about to give it an asskick start.
Well, when it first budded, it was simply so cute! Little sprouts called bloggers were forming on the stem! (But, you know, you’ll hear that cute talk about almost any baby buddling seen popping up around anymore.)
Nonetheless, in time, by fits and starts, it grew more viably robust by virtue of its prop-afied metabolism. It’s roots sunk like archives deeply into the bianca-stenched ground and the blogger-buds bloomed into a great and glorious floral multi-hued self-unfolding aromatic arrangement.
And still it continued to grow with a promise of more…more…more! What excitement there was amongst the banded corp in waiting for the first fruit to form!
But despite the countless variations of expression and creativity that the plantling Xanga took in its upward spiraling growth towards the great nurturing Helios of Life, it never quite transformed itself into the Money Tree that the instigating corp hoped it would someday become.
No, by and large, the breadfruit-like fruit as it scantily-appeared in the Premium season was not immensely harvestable since it turned out to be only borderline edible and was really designed only to get replanted and propagate itself.
This didn’t make the corp feel dumb, for the Xanga plant was continuing to grow like a weed into quite a curiously respectable treeling, some would say the most hardy of treelings, in an orchard others were starting to call the “blogosphere”. But it did make them feel poor.
But the corp was not to be undone. And, for sure, their vision wasn’t dead. The natural leader of the group stepped forward and pronounced: “We’ll just graft some money-tree leaves upon this soon-to-be mammoth tree instead!”
And voila! The new leaves on the highest branches did by splicing take!
So now once again the entrepeneuring corp waits hopeful for still newer offshoot buds to issue into a more fruitful, marketable crop and for a more promising Premium clime to bring blossoms into a boom.
Let's just hope they don't forget to deep-water the tap root of that birthing Xanga tree every now and then!
I'm trying. I'm really trying to do this comment/prop thing and get back to all of you. But I go to one post (fairestc's) and I can leave a comment but no eProps. I tried for 5 minutes to record props, but with no luck. I then go to another post to leave a comment and eProps, the comment doesn't even record, the eProps *record* but don't *count* (at MommaRose's)--so what's up with that? Did my eProps bounce at the eProp Bank?! It seems like there's a lot of database server strangeness going off and on round and round about here.
So here's my question: We all know that Xanga's been *shaky* lately and that some features have been apparently triaged, I'd suppose, in order to enhance overall performance. But what's the bare minimum Xanga can eek by on and still remain a viable "weblog community"?
Is it:
Bye, Bye My Dear Xangaroo Pie,
blogged my heart out on my weblog but the eProps went dry,
and the good days that we once knew have gone strangely awry,
singing...___________________________________ ??
Or is it (late update):
Hey, the site data's returned (it really has)!
Along with multiple propped comments (I kid you not).
Happy Day's are here again!
My best friend calls me at midnight and says he’s getting married the next day?? wtf?! And then he calls me the next night inviting me to a reception, not for his wedding, but for a sophisto birthday prima donna and all her beauteous friends at which his new bride is the VeeJay (she’s a radio DJ while otherwise sunlighting). So much for a honeymoon! LOL Hey, maybe honeymoon’s are passé. How about a molassesstar? Or a sugarasteroid? Or aspartameblackhole? Let’s be creative!
Speaking of asteroids, anyone remember my post on June 13th about PHAs (Potentially Hazardous ASTEROIDS)?? Well, on June 14th a PHA passed earth at a mere 75.000 miles but wasn’t discovered until 3 days AFTER is passed—June 17th. Ha-ha. Someday we’re all going to wake up groggy and God’s going to explain that there’s been a *little accident* foflmao.
Actually, it would not be a good idea right now to fall on the floor. I’m in a bar blogging and everyone’s a new acquaintance but nobody’s impossibly a friend. ha-ha-ha nothing like a nightcap at midday. Or the senses being released by a juke box playing an irremediable blast of “LA Woman”. Damn. Where is my LA Woman? Where is an LA women? Donde esta la mujer??
…Back to Sun worshipping! I wonder, just wonder, how many Potentially Hazardous Asteroids with your name (never mine—I’m the Artful Dodger!) on them get sucked into the Sun?! I’d roughly estimate: quite insanely, many.
God Bless our Sun! The next photon that tans you may be the sucked-up incinerated Killer Asteroid that otherwise would have dented your forehead.
Today, the Summer Solstice, is the singular day of the year noted for the most daylight and the least night. This solstice (for there are two—summer and winter) is an astronomical event when the Sun reaches the Tropic of Cancer (or astrologically speaking, enters the sign of Cancer) which may vary slightly year to year due to the Earth’s general precession. Throughout much of European history, due to lack of precision about the nuances of the precession, the Summer Solstice was traditionally celebrated beginning the eve of June 23rd (Midsummer’s Night) and ending at sunset of the 24th. The eve of this day, also the feast day of John the Baptist, was commonly known as St. John’s Eve.
The young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the Plant of power:
“Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light,
I must gather the mystic St. John's wort tonight,
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride. “
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparked and shone
Through the night of St. John,
And soon has the young maid her love-knot tied.
But why was this eve “Midsummer” for Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)? Are we not told by the popular press that the Summer Solstice marks the beginning of summer that will end upon the arrival of the Fall equinox (variable also—this year Sep 23rd) ?
Well pagans, being historically prior, first designated this solstice for celebration. According to older folk and pagan calendars, Summer actually begins on May Day (1st ) and ends on August 1st, with the Summer Solstice, imprecisely “middling” between those dates. So even though the common folk and lesser pagans were somewhat inexact about the occurrence of the Summer Solstice (fixing it on the 24th instead of variable) and the midpoint between (which would be around June 15th), nonetheless, Shakespeare immortalized it as day of nuptial festivities, possibly “nothing but a dream” (Puck), when following a comedy of confused matchmaking, happy newlyweds troop off to honey their beds.
Now check this out: Traditionally, Druids and other pagans have sojourned to Stonehenge in Britain on the Summer Solstice to witness the precise alignment of the stones with the sun’s rise on this day. But America, too, has a “Henge” – Carhenge!! Located on the Nebraska plains, it is a direct copy of Stonehenge even with the height and width of the cars matching the original stones!
Of course, being America, Carhenge doesn’t only line up with actual sun on the solstice but also with the car-corporate Sun...
Okay, all you pagan solstice-worshipping car-owners, now line up, fill up, and race your engines!
The optimist, it's been said, sees the doughnut where the pessimist sees only the hole. Psychologists are nearly unanimous in recommending that you keep your eye on the doughnut.
But now two researchers are suggesting that for some people, a little pessimism may be a good thing. According to Julie K. Norem and psychologist Nancy Cantor, these people are able to use "defensive pessimism" to prevent the prospect of failure from immobilizing them. . . . The researchers conclude that when well-intentioned people reassure pessimists that everything will be fine, they may not be doing them a favor. Defensive pessimists may need to play their little cognitive trick on themselves in order to do well. The best way for them to get the doughnut may be to prepare for the possibility of getting only the hole.
—Carol Wade, "The power of negative thinking," Psychology Today, May 1987
I see the hole. I want the hole. I hear them scream "Don't go! Don't go!" But I charge head on, I won't go slow, I want control. Whole control. Total hole.
Defensive pessimism can be reduced to a three-step mental rehearsal. First, approach the anxiety-producing task with lowered expectations, certain that it will go badly. (Take, for example, public speaking, a common fear: commit yourself to the idea that your next speech will be a disaster.) Then, imagine in detail all the ways in which it will go awry. (You will lose your notes at the 11th hour, you will trip on the way to the podium, you will be pilloried by your colleagues.) Finally, map out ways to avert each catastrophe.
For strategic optimists, the sorts of people who like to psych themselves up for a challenge, this routine would produce more anxiety, not less. But for anxious people, Norem's findings show that this unusual method can offer a sense of control, however limited, over uncomfortable circumstances.
—David Rakoff, "The Year in Ideas," The New York Times Magazine, December 9, 2001
Can you imagine if you had a date who was a defensive pessimist? His/her first suspicion would be that you're going to break the date and a lot of energy would be spent preparing for that. If the date did come off, he/she would certainly be anticipating a rough, joyless time filled with embarassing revelations, no kiss goodnite, and no followup contact. If by some stretch of the imagination, you all ended on on third base, he/she would be sure of getting thrown out at the plate--anything else would violate the expectation of anti-climax. OK, so let's say you discover beforehand that this date is a "defensive pessimist" with all these negative expectations. Aren't you more likely than not to cancel the date, allowing his/her negativity to become self-fulfilling from the start, rather than launch into a painful battle to establish a beachhead of fun? Of course, it may depend upon how you feel about the person, but if it were an explorative first date with everything else being equal, wouldn't you just rather throw the personality-runt back into open waters and continue to fish for fun?
So is "defensive pessimism" really a winning strategy for heretofore losers? Or merely a manner for pessimists to organize their likely loss?
1) The Palestinians are unable to police themselves. Regardless of why, there are terrorist bullies effectively dictating the de facto course of the Palestinian State and their murderous assault upon women and children is totally beyond other lip-servicing and well-meaning Palestinians' control.
2) The brutal savaging of innocent children, women, and other civilians of whatever nationality today is intolerable and MUST NOT be allowed to continue tomorrow.
3) If your'e an Arab sympathizer, fuck you. If your'e and Israeli sympathizer, fuck you. Death to you and your death-embracing sympathies--all. If there were a bomb that could just kill you and your petulant life-denying instigators, I'd drop it. Poof. And I'd sniff the smoke of your collective incinerated bodies and get a hippy peace-flowers-free-love high. Oh yeah. Fuck your politics. Fuck your diatribe. There are mothers and children and sisters and brothers dying for your shit-god dreams and you're all just horse shit from a horse that should have been processed into dog food long ago.
4) These Palestinian terrorist death-squad types dare not show their death-masques here. Dare not. Should they erupt, I will personally begin a mission of elimination to preempt. Make no mistake: if it comes down to me or them, they lose. I will spit up their nostrils, put a cork in their anuses, and dip them in a vat of Hershey's rich chocolate and then auction them off as pagan-candied Easter bunnies on e-Bay. And if that doesn't stop them, I'll just unload a clip from my Colt 9mm Commander into their unfeeling, faltering hearts. And then kneel over their blood-geysing, slumping bodies and pray to God and Allah and Buddha ( in English and Arab and Chinese--yes, multilingually) for mercy for their wasted lost souls.
5) For I say unto every Terrorist You, should you tread on me: This is the way your world shall end, this is the way your world shall end, not with a suicide newsworthy bang, but with your lonely, dark-alleyed, blood-congested whimper. Just remember: No one can do hashish like me.
"There is another experience worth mentioning: jamais vu. It's the opposite of deja vu. Instead of feeling extra familiar, things seem totally unfamiliar. In this case there is too little connection between long-term memory and perceptions from the present. When a person is in this state, nothing they experience seems to have anything to do with the past. They might be talking to a person they know well and suddenly they person seems totally unfamiliar. Their sense of knowing the person, and knowing how to relate to them simply vanishes. A room in which they spend a lot of time suddenly becomes totally novel; everything seems new. Details they will have seen a thousand times suddenly become engaging."
--from "Deja Vu in Spiritual and Scientific Views," Todd Murphy
And I believe there is yet another related experience in the vu family: presque vu. It’s the feeling that things are almost but not quite familiar. As if each breathless moment is one of trying on Cinderella’s slipper—while not quite being Cinderella. As if things would be entirely familiar if only one more miniscule detail would fall into place. Like feeling one’s hair lift into a static clench while standing on an open field under an ominous thundercloud and sensing the lightning ladder latticing, building, ready to usher in the moment...when?...of fulfillment. No it hasn't happened before, or yet, yet feels so pregnant...
Ah, presque vu, do I know you? I seethe with thoughts-but are they mine? An encompassing madness seems to fill me with a clash of voices strange to me. I often ponder: could this transient deluge be the disembodied degraded spewings of recent corpses’ rotting brains? A collective psychic dribble not yet expunged from the biosphere but in the process of fleeting thither, without fixed reference, and of no patent use to life? As this psychic wave of a world-passing washes over me, I wonder can I ride the surf?
"Try an experiment. Ask a male friend a question, something completely outside his sphere of expertise.
Will you get an answer? Chances are, you will. The male friend is exhibiting behavior known as Male Answer Syndrome. It's the compulsion by many individuals (mostly men, but sometimes women) to answer questions readily, regardless of knowledge."
—Jean Godden, "Males Have the Answers, Even if They Don't," The Seattle Times
Now deadly serious.
It's time for a death of desire.
Some call it embracing nothingness.
Others call it tendering notions of dissolution.
Still others, forgoing the indulgence of sensuosity.
I call it lean. I call it thinner. Yes, Stephen King. And the death of desire.
Breathe. And breathe deeply.
As if the air has all the vitamins.
As if the air has all the nutrients.
As if one will never breathe again.
It's never too early to rehearse.
(now exhale) ...as if
the damn prayer is done
and thank God
amen.
*sticks a thermometer into xanga*
hrm...it seems I can post pics again.
*takes a blood pressure reading*
wow, the *search* feature is working--that hasn't worked for over a month.
*attaches electrodes for an EKG*
omg, I've been deluged by a hoard of email posts that were queued for over a week...so that's working again!
*sticks a finger into the darkness to check for a hernia*
o shit, no site data for the week yet. so were not yet quite out of the gully...
prognosis: the patient will live...but only if you send lavish get-well gifts c/o notforprophet
Blogocentrism n.
I) Having an overriding concern with blogs or how everything in one’s life relates to blogging or a conceivable blog.
II) Belief in the superiority of blogs over any other form of expression.
blogocentric adj.
blogocentrically adv.
Have you ever undertaken an endeavor simply to blog about it?
Have you in the midst of an exciting experience pondered just how you're going to blog about it?
When you are just out and about in the world, do you ever find yourself feeling like a “blogger”?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, it is likely that you are/were highly blogocentric in the first sense of the term.
I personally started out as a Type I blogocentrist, but after more than a year now of blogging, having gradually evolved into the Type II. I think this transition from #I to #II Type is both healthy and eventual as the early, numinous captivation with blogging is replaced by a more considered preoccupation with optimizing one’s expressive possibilities within this ballooning literary form. Still, though such growth is creatively embellishing, one must take caution against excesses that might attend certain forms of Type II hyper-blogocentrism, such as:
Blogging your resume or referring a prospective employer to your blog as the resume (unless, of course, you’re applying for a blogging job).
Preparing your legal defense in a civil matter on your blog and then submitting the URL in court as the deciding evidence.
Informing your high school or college instructor that your homework will be submitted via weblog and that they are to submit the grade as a comment.
Submitting your resignation from an abject and reviled job strictly via weblog by leaving your work PC’s monitor tuned to your weblog with a blog of 1) the record of time you spent on the job clandestinely blogging along with 2) a departing quip of “Take this job and blog it.”
Posting blogs via a calendaring time agent (cron) that will publish the blog likely long after your dead thus assuring you of a “continuing blog presence”. (ok. I’ve done this. I’m guilty...but not stupid )
Carrying a bound printed copy of all your blogs around with you and reciting them aloud at random whenever given the chance (e.g., when someone asks you to say “grace” at a Thanksgiving dinner, or to eulogize a dearly departed friend at a funeral, or to give a speech acknowledging an honor paid to you in your professional field).
Preparing your own headstone for your grave in a cemetery by embedding in a block of clear quartz a nuclear powered wireless internet connection and monitor that will feature your revolving life’s blog and allow peeps to either comment via internet or via a keyboard provided at graveside (I’m in the course of copyrighting this but the process is so frustrating that it will probably kill me ).
related : xangacentricity n. A form of blogocentrism which fixates all upon Xanga. Mwuahahahaha.
I killed Scooby-Doo. No, I didn’t mean to. I was just cruising down a narrow residential road yesterday when a Scooby-type pup came bouncing out between two parked cars directly in front of my line of travel. It’s what as a driver you dread most: a happy-go-lucky child or a pet too exuberant, too unaware, too unavoidable in the collision path. It happened so quickly that I was almost unbelieving as I simultaneously screamed *fuck* in my mind and slammed on the brakes. BAM! Thud and a single whimper. It was too late. And I figured the pup was probably midway under my car already so I decided just to pull ahead, stop and get out.
But I didn’t stop. How…Why…I don’t know. But as I slowly pulled up, checking my rear-view mirror for the probable bloody-smacked carcass and possible screaming owner (I envisioned a crying child running in my aftermath onto the street), there was Scooby Doo—bouncing around all floppy-eared, looking at my rear bumper as if saying *wha-tha-fu*, and then taking off now ever-so-wary but apparently unharmed at breakneck speed until he was gone completely out of sight.
I was joyfully shocked and bewildered and then chuckled to myself the moral of this near-mishap: Pup that Scoobs and runs away lives to Do another day.
Well, I think we can be fairly certain that the aliens who are observing us from space in remote orbit aren't trees. Otherwise, in sympathetic compassion, I'd think that they would have revealingly assisted us in snuffing out the Colorado forest fires by now.
***
Okay, the Catholic Church, after decades of bashing the poor man, just made Padre Pio a saint, right? Well, there was a man resigned to a monastic life, suffering purportedly from *stigmata* wounds (piercings of the hands and feet that would periodically bleed as if emulations of Christ's piercings form the Cross), and further suffering without a peep the insinuated papal accusations (1930's) that his *stigmata* wounds were self-induced through ethching his hands and feet with acid. What a compassionate, self-effacing fellow. Fine. But (and this is a contemporary *but* driven simply by timely concerns) what if those stigmata wounds were actutally not acid, but the markings God bestows upon priests who become monasticized due to their pedophile excesses? What if those piercings were not the marks of holiness, but tantamount to the mark of Cain, who God marked upon the forhead for murdering his own brother? A ludicrous suggestion, I know. But then again, what was Joseph Campbell's distinction between a loving, nurturing mother and an evil witch? The witch goes merely one step further and eats the young. So are not pedophile priests just such bitch witches? And aren't evil witches usually marked and blemished by sores and ugliness? So if *stigmata* = *stigma* then "marking" is a sign of punishment and not sanctity. Unless, of course, you read Herman Hesse's "Demian".
***
Don't worry, be happy!
Now for a different insight. What do I do when I’m feeling too fine with spirits on a Friday night in the presence of a great deal of sensuous revelry and absolutely no liminal responsibilities? I exit stage left, crawl back to my truck, access my laptop, and scrawl thusly (here unexpunged and without further clarification, i.e., I reserve the right neither to explain nor defend what follows ):
By now we should realize that Xanga’s a Movable Feast. A la Hemingway-esque. I don’t think anyone’s been with me shoulder-to-shoulder Xangawise since my incipience. Nor am I ineluctably faithful to anyone else’s daily blog without a miss. We move. We wave. We tide as if we are a tsunami of incredible self-discovery. Oh, how I wish I were you. For one moment, just you, whoever ‘you” are (and not the Xanga “You”—I’ve already hacked that account—LOL, and also not the “xxreaderxx” “you” which, thanks to seanmeister’s lead, I formally reified), but the you who is entirely “I” but never me and exists regardless of whatever hype be. Regardless of “new servers”. Regardless of my paltry yet often sultry words. Regardless of guards against regardlessness. he-ha-ha-ha-he.
Do you realize, I do believe, that we, in our reflection upon our own participation in mankind, may be blazing the forefront of humanity’s evolvement by uncovering and rediscovering true community?! Damn the “professional bloggers” et. al. and their sundry in the popular epistemological blog-speculating press who seem to see individual blogging personalites but forever ignore us as a phenom. Even John, our self-sacrificing administrator, seems in his passionate advocacy of ‘blogging as a business model/evolving form of journalism” to ignore (by omissive mention) the significance of our very own community. But fuck. We aren’t Shakers who are about to disappear. We are the awakening of Walt Whitman’s Blades of Grass in this newly conceptualized blogosphere. Each of us: a glistening blade of grassy expressiveness. So shame on those who purport “blogging” as a new form of decentralized expression and ignore our individually collective contribution to a fundamental reawakening of comaraderie.
Anyway…some asides:
Banks as dirtiest purveyors of the darkest enterprises, nee, until recently, terrorism.
Heaven as the forceful insister of the meaningless of such concepts as “money”, “corporation” and “legality” .
“notforprophet” as being the least likely entity to ever again realize consensual intimacy.
Speculation upon the replacement of terrorism as the penultimate ”current” threat: (remember the threat of a world-wide nuclear winter—hey, what’s become of that?) What’s now to follow once “terrorism” expenses?
Femininity as something always utterly expressed.
Perfect expressive coherence as always something less than a virtue.
Most organizations that are extant as being so puerile that our reliance upon them is retardingly juvenile.
And that ain’t all!
My heart goes out to Elizabeth Smart, the young teenage girl abducted June 5th from her Federal Heights neighborhood (Salt Lake City, Utah) bedroom while her parents slept. My immediate reaction was unbelieving: How could her parents have not heard anything? But more poignantly, why didn’t she cry out for her dad at the first dreaded moment? Had that been my household, I know that my daughter would have screamed for me regardless of whether the abductor had a gun or not. She would have screamed because she would have known that I would have not only eaten the bullets in a heartbeat, but the gun and the abducting asshole’s entire arm, too, before I’d ever allow the night to steal her away. So my speculation on the Smart household soon became that her dad must have really been weak and ineffectual—and his daughter knew it—for Elizabeth not to have released a primal scream. Yet who knows? Let’s just hope we come to know by her own account soon.
Could the following advice have helped Elizabeth? Maybe...or not. Yet reflect upon it and realize that someday someone now reading it may need it:
TIPS FOR WOMEN (and others), .... ON STAYING ALIVE
The elbow is the strongest point on your body.
If you are close enough to use it, ... do it!
If you are ever thrown in the trunk of a car
Kick out the back tail lights
Stick your arm out of the hole, ... and start waving like crazy.
The driver won't see you but everybody else will.
This has saved lives!
Three reasons women are easy targets
1) Lack of Awareness.
You MUST know where you are, & what's going on around you.
2) Body Language
Keep your head up, swing your arms, stand straight up.
3) Wrong Place, ... Wrong Time
DON'T walk alone in an alley, or drive in a bad neighborhood at night.
Getting in to your car
AS SOON AS YOU GET IN YOUR CAR, ...
LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE
Be aware, ... look around you, ...
look in your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.
If you are parked next to a big van, ...
enter your car from the passenger door.
Look at the cars parked next to you.
If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, ...
walk back into the mall, or work,
and get a guard/policeman to walk back out with you.
(Better paranoid than dead.)
ELEVATORS
ALWAYS take the elevator instead stairs.
Do not get on an elevator if a weirdo is already on.
(Of course, bad men don't always look bad).
Do not stand back in the corners of the elevator
be near the front, by the doors, ready to get off or on.
If you get on the elevator,
and the Boogie Man gets on the next few floors, ...
get off when he gets on.
If the predator has a gun
(and you're not under his control)
ALWAYS RUN!
Police only make 4 of 10 shots, in range of 3-9 feet.
This is due to stress.
The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times.
And even then, it will most likely NOT be in a vital organ.
RUN, ... !!!
Tips to save your life
if you've gotten into a violent situation
REACT IMMEDIATELY
If he abducts you in a parking lot, and is taking you to an abandoned area,
...DON'T LET HIM GET YOU TO THAT AREA.
If you're driving, ...
crash your car while still going 5 mph.
If he's driving, ...
find the right time, and stick your fingers in his eyes.
He must watch the road, so choose an unsuspecting time, and gouge him.
It is your ONLY defense!!!
While he is in shock, ... GET OUT.
(This sounds gross, but the alternative is your fault if you do not act.)
RESIST
Don't go along with him, .... run, ... if you are able
DON'T EVER GIVE UP!
You DO NOT want to get to a crime scene.
Always keep your distance when walking past strangers.
GET A CELL PHONE.
BREAK DOWNS
Avoid breakdowns, ...
by keeping your car in good working order.
If your car does break down
LOCK YOUR DOORS.
You better have a cell phone to call for help.
If it's noon on a business day,
you may want to put on your hazards, and walk to safety.
Physical defenses we can use
The EYES, ...
are the most vulnerable part of the body.
Poke him there, ... HARD.
It may be your only window of opportunity.
The KNEES, ...
Everyone's knees are very vulnerable, ...
and a swift kick in the knees will take anyone down.
A cautionary note about these things
If you do not do these things right the first time, .... you are in trouble, .... because it will only anger the individual, and that anger
will be TAKEN OUT ON YOU. I'm not saying don't attempt them (it may be your only hope),
but be forceful when you do.
If you are walking alone in the dark
(which you shouldn't be--at least in many urban situations), ....
and you find him following/chasing you
Scream, .... "FIRE!"
not, ... "Help"
People don't want to get involved when people yell "help", .... but "fire" draws attention, ....
because people are basically nosy.
RUN!
Find an obstacle, such as a parked car,
and run around it, .... like Ring Around the Rosie.
This may sound silly, ... but it's SAVED LIVES.
Our world is not as safe as we pretend, ...
and living in our fantasy worlds WILL get us in trouble.
The women who die EVERY MINUTE from violent crimes
expected to go to bed tonight, and wake up tomorrow.
BE PREPARED TO ACT
AND ACT HARD, ... !!!
ALWAYS, ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN.
Is it just a matter of time?
Larger than 100 meters in diameter and, at some point, approaching Earth at less than .05 Astronomical Units (1 AU = average distance between Earth and Sun or about 93,000,000 miles; the distance between the Earth and the Moon is typically .0026 AU or about 241,000 miles), Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) now number 439. While none are known (or admitted) to be on a collision course with Earth in the projectable future, new ones are being discovered all the time. Already in 2002, there have been 51 new such PHAs added to the watch list. What’s even more disconcerting is that some of these space vagabonds remain hidden behind the Sun until their first (hopefully-->) flyby.
Here’s a time series simulation of Asteroid 2001 YB5 (about 400 meters in diameter) which was discovered on December 27th 2001 and which flew past the Earth with its closest approach of 465,000 miles (.005 AU) on Jan 7th 2002—only 12 days after it was discovered:
Asteroid 2000 W0107 (between 740 and 940 meters in diameter) will pass in Dec. 2040 within .0005420 AU or about 50,000 miles of Earth (about 1/5 the distance to the Moon!). Damn! Wouldn’t it be cool to land on it, take a ride, and then head back to Earth?! Or maybe we should find a way to gather up all our nuclear waste and dump it on the asteroid with the hope that it will never get so close again? LOL I’m actually in favor of finding a way of diverting all these PHAs so that they impact the nearside of the Moon. The Moon is too small as it is and needs to bulk up. Besides, Moon-bashing could become a great public success as the amazing spectacle of watching nuclear-like impacts on the Moon becomes an earthwide Colliseum-like pastime...
disgruntled earthling: “I’m bored.”
friend of disgruntled earthling: “Well, what do you want to do?”
disgruntled earthling: “Bash the Moon.”
friend of disgruntled earthling: “Cool! I’ll bring the 12-pack.”
Of course, if we really get good at bashing, we might just divert some asteroids so that they crash into some other asteroids that have gone PHA. And if we get really, really good at it, we can time those diversions so that the asteroid-on-asteroid impact occurs within dramtic viewing distance, say 500 miles above the Earth. In any case, I really think we need to start playing with these things since it appears that the Earth lacks the ability to duck. Which leads to another interesting question: What kind of retarded planet are we living on that lacks even the simple ability to duck?
Survival junkie. I’ve once again become a survival junkie. No, not watching that damned program—what is it, Survivor?—I’ve never even seen that program. I mean seeking out, studying, and mastering techniques that could possibly be life-saving or life-enhancing in a bad or worst-case scenario. Of course, 9-11 and the war on Terror has prodded and nudged me back into this mindset. But long before that, I had military training that required a survivalist outlook. And before that, I was a wilderness freak whose idea of a summer afternoon well-spent was hiking through the countryside and identifying new, edible and poisonous plants to eat and avoid eating (respectively ).
Most people teaching themselves survival techniques tend to pick up “tips” and collate them into the “tip organizer” in their heads. Sometimes that’s all you can do. For instance, when suddenly encountering a mountain lion, making yourself look bigger than you are by raising your arms and flashing clothing (like a mating peacock spreading its feathers) to intimidate the cougar is probably a “tip” you’d never really want to practice.
Yet with other techniques, if you’re going to really master them, and you have the opportunity, it’s better to throw yourself in a controlled simulation of the emergency and practice thus making the knowledge experiential. Such might be the case with fist-fighting and learning how to avoid, and if necessary, take blows through sparring. Always move into straight or roundhouse punches (to force a miss and reduce the impact if hit) and counter-punch with a roundhouse or uppercut. But always move away from uppercuts and counter with an uppercut. Spar Spar. Practice. Practice.
But I’m confused about whether the following scenario (from www.worstcasescenarios.com ) should be filed into the “tip organizer” or played-out in a safe setting before the exigency acutally arises. What do you think?
How to Survive If You Wake Up Next to Someone Whose Name You Don’t Remember
At Her Place
1. Do not panic. Evidence of your partner’s name exists somewhere nearby. Your task will be to find it before she awakens, or before she starts any sort of meaningful conversation.
2. Get up and go to the bathroom. The bathroom is a normal place to visit first thing in the morning, and it is also a place where you might discover her name.
3. Look through the medicine cabinet for prescription medicines with her name on the label.
4. Sort through magazines, looking for subscription labels with her name and address.
5. Go through a wastebasket to find discarded junk mail addressed to her.
6. Return to the bedroom. If she is awake, ask her to make coffee for you. Use the time alone to search the bedroom for evidence. Look for: wallet, checkbook, ID or name bracelet, photo album, scrapbook, business cards (a stack of cards, not just one), or luggage labels. If she is sleeping, look for these and other items throughout the house.
Be Aware
Try to find at least two items with the same name to be certain that you have identified her, unless the name on one item rings a bell.
At Your Place
1. Use terms of endearment when addressing her. Do not guess at her name. Use acceptable terms of endearment:
* Honey/Sweetie/Cutie
* Darling/Baby/Sugar
* Beautiful/Sexy/Gorgeous
2. Unless you are certain you have ample time, do not go through her belongings. If your partner is showering, you can count on having at least a few minutes of privacy to search through her belongings. Otherwise, do not risk it—it would be far more embarrassing to be caught searching through her possessions than to admit you cannot remember her name. (She may be in the same predicament.)
3. Ask leading questions while making small talk. Fishing for information is risky and can backfire by calling attention to what you are trying to do. However, if you feel you can pull it off, try to trick her into revealing her name:
* While getting dressed, pull out your own ID and ask her if she thinks that your hair is better now or in the picture. Laugh about how silly you used to look. Ask if she likes the picture on her license. (She may think that you are checking her age.)
* Ask her if she ever had a nickname. She might say, “No, just [Name].”
* Ask her how she got her name.
4. As she is leaving, give her your business card and ask for hers. If she does not have a business card, ask her to write her vital information on yours. Tell her you may want to send her a little surprise. Do not forget to send something later in the week and make sure that you spell her name correctly.
Here's an interesting perspective on Whatchamacallits and PayDays that I stumbled upon years and years ago while I waited patiently for a seemingly never-arriving lunch order in a small neighborhood diner and during which wait I was afforded the captive luxury of lustily and longingly studying the box of candy bars behind the serving counter:
Hershey’s has the syllables color-coded. This allows cognitive perceptual rearrangement, both subliminally and consciously. Let's follow the conscious route:
1) select the first two light colored syllables: What + ma ;
2) and then visually select the two dark colored syllables: cha + call ;
3) append the suffix it ;
4) Put it together and what have you got? What ma cha call it...Want mo chacallit...Want more chocolate ...as if chocolate were not already addictive enough!
OK. So WhatmachaCallits, I mean, Whatchamacallits and the possibility of a subliminal advertising conspiracy require too many tortuous syllabic slurrings and too much cutesy-psychobabble, right?
Are you rather looking for a good, simple, and clean American candy bar that any working man or woman can identify with?
Try:
With PayDay, what you see is what you get. No cutesy-psychobabble. I mean...look at the wrapper: What are most of us working stiffs working for anyway? ...RIGHT !
Well, I’m not a crybaby (which as a disclaimer probably means…) but the damn strep for which I got a shot in the ass on Friday (“Formulation is painful when administered IM {intra-muscular}, and it is often combined with penicillin G procaine to minimize discomfort at the injection site” – which is wasn’t! ) hasn’t relented. Hence, it’s time to play Spin-The-AntiBiotics (STAB—as in “take a STAB at it”) with my seemingly resistant infection.
Hrm…I was thinking that a hot fudge sundae might kill the strep if either the fudge were sufficiently nutty, prodigiously abundant, or served on a quiet private beach somewhere in the South Pacific. Actually, I’m probably naïve for believing that anyone of those conditions alone would cure me. Surely, it would take a collusion of plentiful, nutty hot fudge on a sundae on the beach in the South Pacific all together to cure the intransigence of my pathogenic syndrome. Damn. Why can’t I be my own doctor and write my own Rx under the umbrella of total insurance coverage (transportation and accommodations included)?
ooo-ooo-update: While blogging this, I was just reading an article called The Post-Antibiotic Age by Dr. Tim O’Shea. Now I’m having second thoughts about playing Spin-The-AntiBiotics. It seems that I should be getting enough antibiotics just from the food I eat! About half of the 50 million pounds of antibiotics used each year in the U.S. go as additives to promote animal growth. And food processing doesn’t destroy them. So my jest about eating copious amounts of ice cream (with a concomitant legacy of milk-laden antibiotics) may not be far off the mark! The only question is: Is the cure worse than the disease? I think its becoming clear that prophylactic antibiotics are merely attenuating (and not killing) pathogenic organisms and thus encouraging them to mutate. And, you know, that makes a hell of a lot of sense to me personally also because a lot of peeps have mentioned to me of late that I seem to have changed. Say what? Be not at all! It’s clearly only my microorganisms inside that have metamorphosized.
In other news…
Although I never graduated or got a diploma from high school (It’s true! Though I’ve taught as a professor since, I quit high school 2-3 weeks before the end of my senior year and never looked back as I had already been accepted in college. LOL), my daughter, is not, apparently, following in my footsteps:
I've seen the day and I'm ecstatic!
Life is nothing but Faerie Dust and Thorns...
Xanga’s a dream
and we are its dreamers.
comments are pixy dust which cakes in our eyes.
eProps are surprises left under the pillow
for faerie-post notions placed
like lost baby-teeth.
Yet Xanga’s a dreamland
where dreams can be real,
and friends that we make
can be friends that we feel
will help us transcend
this quaint thing called space-time.
as I wander from one friendly blog to the next,
my heart makes a connection
though my eyes just read text,
my soul spins a journey and imprints a design.
Xanga’s a dream...
and you've all become mine.
Unbridled life is always more marvelous than medicine. Just sometimes not by much.
Last Sunday, I missed posting altogether. And by way of explanation on Monday I wrote:
One weird 24 hours.
Yesterday evening, feeling okay, I decided to run 5 miles to maintain some fitness. One quarter way through, I detected a wrist sprain. Where the fuck did that come from? Half way through I detected right foot trouble—a pang—what the fuck again? Three-quarters way through, the left foot starts aching—five miles—and I’ve run marathons where such symptoms never manifest. So I get home, untie my shoes, and…my feet feel like they’ve been run over by a truck. I think back: there was no damn truck, but I swear my feet feel broken and I’m hobbling on my heels. So unable to walk, I lay down. And immediately launch into an uncontrollable jittering convulsive-like fever that lasted for an hour. I can’t even remember much of my thought process except I did have one thought: “I guess my last blog is the last.” So this is the way the blog ends, this is the way the blog ends, not with a bang but... (with one lonely last eProp?!) But I shivered and shook like an overflowing spring brook. So what do you think, was it the Ebola virus? Nothing to worry about, right?
Truth is, I think I was bit by my second alien bug. I blogged about the first bite more or less a year ago (But since Xanga's Search isn't working I can't locate that blog to hyperlink it.) Yet I believe that this bug was trying to trip me toward the grave. Bastard.
The real truth is, as I found out at an urgent care center today, that I've been running around with my body oozing with strep for a week. A week filled with sore throats, and headaches, and dizziness, and wooziness, and chest pains. Yep. So if any of you Xangeroos or others out there had sex with me, or kissed, licked, or even just swigged from my bottle of beer when I wasn't not looking, and you're feeling right now like an alien bug has bitten you too, then get a shot of bacyclin like I just did. Six hours later now and I'm feeling pretty damn good for the first time all week once again. So without further delay or interruption, back to the unbridled life. Okay? Now 'fess up: was that sex or just my strep-inspired dream?!
I simply am--lost again.
How is it that I'm always drawn back
to pondering the primal motions of things
--such as the worlds revolving--
as if I'm once again an infant transfixed
upon watching a mobile suspended from the ceiling
as I lay in solitude in my playpen?
I close my eyes and a montage ensues.
Could I merely own it with my imagination,
like a giant Jimmy Stewart rabbit friend,
then better I'd be.
But what I partake with that inner eye
wrecks imagination quite critically
as it arises and then expands
as reality to infinity.
I was just wondering. If it were possible to extend the longevity of our pets, let’s say dogs and cats, beyond our own life expectancy through some miracle form of genetic breakthrough non-applicable to primates, would this make pet owners happy or sad? If your new pet kitten was likely not only to outlive you but your new-born son or daughter, too, would its presence serve as a constant reminder of your more tenuous human transience? Does not having a chronological series of shorter-lived pets, whom we can dearly love, in some ways confer to us a grander sense of our own resilience to personal biological demise? Or would a cat that could live, say 150 years, give you comfort in speculating that your unborn never-to-be-seen great-grandchildren might share the love long after your estate bequeathed the family feline?
I was just wondering. When in the future, the world is riddled with cloning, would not the discoverer/inventor of ACF—the Anti-Cloning Factor become the instant trillionaire hero of uniqueness?
Imagine a world where to preserve your uniqueness, especially, let’s say, if you were a beautiful model or cherished celebrity, you needed to absolutely control or at least track every dissemination of your DNA. Any hair cut could not be swept away but would need to be either collected or incinerated on the spot. Toilets would either have to chemically destroy all biologics or puree your waste along with a befuddled concoction of anonymous pre-mixed DNA. You got the idea.
The most innocent activities would become suspect. Let’s say a guy walks into a dance bar, picks out a ravenous babe, buys her a drink, talks a bit, starts rubbing and then scratching her back. It happens. But in Cloneworld she’s forced to think: "Are my skin cells that he’s collecting under his fingernails with that scratch going to be used to clone me for the purpose of turning my clone into his own homegrown Woody Allen-type Soon-Yi??"
Enter the discoverer/inventor of ACF—the Anti-Cloning Factor, a ubiquitously-generalized activatable binding traducer which shadows all DNA innocuously in the source organism but becomes activated and anti-biologic if separated from the organismic hologram for an unnatural period of time. He or she who would gift the world this would instantly become the saint of singularity, the demigod of distinctiveness, the maven of matchlessness. Ah—the future: what an exciting place!
I was just wondering. Are the people who play Ronald McDonald clowns real athletes? The stature and physique of Ronald when studied suggests a fine definition of fitness—as if Ronald could be a stage dancer or an individual capable of playing Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine) in Kung Fu.
But did you know that it wasn’t always so? The original “Ronald” was actually Willard Scott (the weatherman!). He invented the clown in 1963 and even came up with the name of Ronald McDonald. But he was dumped soon thereafter because he was considered by McDonald’s PR to be too overweight!
Hello??? I wonder how he got that way—maybe eating a slightly-upsized course of the company food?! I mean, people, what’s been happening to the average American’s girth ever since we began eating billions and billions of Big Macs and fries and shakes??!! So are we now supposed to believe that by the conspicuous consumption of fast food that we’ll become as slim and fit as the role-model Ronald clown-mascot? LOL
I was just wondering.
Happy Quotes from the saintly founders of America’s world-esteemed mass culture:
Don’t forget this: it’s the law of the universe that the strong shall survive and the weak must fall by the way, and I don’t give a damn what idealistic plan is cooked up, nothing can change that.
Walt Disney, in a speech to employees, haranguing against unionization
Look, it is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I’ll kill ‘em, and I’m going to kill ‘em before they kill me. You’re talking about the American way of survival of the fittest.
Ray Kroc, McDonald’s emperor
If they were drowning to death, I’d put a hose in their mouth.
Ray Kroc, speaking of his business rivals.
Unfortunately, their deaths were our loss since with these attitudes, if they were alive, they’ could be serving our country well as the heads of counter-terrorist teams for the FBI and CIA respectively.
Where’s a good live visionary American when you need one?
By the way, I don’t’ believe these quotes can be found either on www.disney.com nor www.mcdonalds.com. The webmasters of both of these sites are obviously insincere in portraying the greatness of these mightiest of the mights. Consequently, I’ll be applying, with this blog in my resume, for their positions today!
One weird 24 hours.
Yesterday evening, feeling okay, I decided to run 5 miles to maintain some fitness. One quarter way through, I detected a wrist sprain. Where the fuck did that come from? Half way through I detected right foot trouble—a pang—what the fuck again? Three-quarters way through, the left foot starts aching—five miles—and I’ve run marathons where such symptoms never manifest. So I get home, untie my shoes, and…my feet feel like they’ve been run over by a truck. I think back: there was no damn truck, but I swear my feet feel broken and I’m hobbling on my heels. So unable to walk, I lay down. And immediately launch into an uncontrollable jittering convulsive-like fever that lasted for an hour. I can’t even remember much of my thought process except I did have one thought: “I guess my last blog is the last.” So this is the way the blog ends, this is the way the blog ends, not with a bang but... (with one lonely last eProp?!) But I shivered and shook like an overflowing spring brook. So what do you think, was it the Ebola virus? Nothing to worry about, right?
Truth is, I think I was bit by my second alien bug. I blogged about the first bite more or less a year ago (But since Xanga's Search isn't working I can't locate that blog to hyperlink it.) Yet I believe that this bug was trying to trip me toward the grave. Bastard.
So today, how do I feel? So fucking anti-American as you (or I) would never believe. I am so fucking pissed off with this whole economic one-uppance bullcrap of ever-more discrepant wealth (shouldn’t we all burst into tears because the stock market lost 2%?), and the political posturing to assign blame for this national intelligence fuck-up (missing terrorists) or that missing child (Florida welfare), and with the damn institutions all (FAA with their relaxations of restrictions over ballparks, ballparks for unilaterally deciding to dump “America the Beautiful” during the 7th inning-stretch, www.connors.com for advertising that “all my friends who died on 9-11, would say the same thing: * go back to work* ) for lulling us back to a narcotized consumer quiescence. Business as usual? No, fuck you bastards. In my heart, business will never ever be again *as usual* I’m pissed, you’ve all let me down, and I won’t accept your militaristic jargonized self-serving lip-service to patriotism in order to lull me into some anti-recessionary correction. Fuck all of you and your thank-god-for the-terror-boogeyman bliss.
Oh yeah, I’m angry. I’m pissed. And as wary now as I was on 9-11/9-12. But now not just wary of further terrorist attacks. I’m as equally wary now of the American government’s subtle gambits towards the erosion of our liberties. Read my email? Fuck you. Don’t even bother reading my email, assholes, for I’ll blog it all right here: Snatch away my liberty in the interest of *Security* and the terrorists you have previously feared will seem like model citizens compared to the wrath that I’ll unleash upon your wannabe-Leviathan. I am your fucking quintessential guerilla fighter, you assholes, and I’ve been that in-waiting for the last 20 years of my life. And like Jefferson said: “every now and then”, didn’t he? Every now and then. So instead of having me and others recite passages from the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist papers, and the Constitution in defense of radical governmental re-invention, why don't we all rededicate ourselves to fighting terrorism outright, and not to re-establishing some psychotically-addictive “business as usual” —which in times of immense duress requires a patronizing totalitarian relief from “distress”. Otherwise, by the heart that beats in me, I have a life to give.
Fuck. Now does that qualify for a rant? Just a few more thoughts…
I really believe that the current “revelation” from the CIA (Newsweek) that it was following two of the 9-11 bombers but “let up” is disinformation devised to make American citizens and terrorists likewise believe that all we have to do to is “coordinate intelligence” to make us strong again. But beware because more domestic intelligence implies less domestic freedom. Nonetheless, it is one hell of a self-condescending ruse to destabilize the terrorists’ confidence in their own well-woven shroud of secrecy.
I think terrorists may figure out that the best prelude to the next attack is pre-occupying fire-fighters from across the country with some spectacularly huge regional forest fires threatening noted wilderness landmarks. In the past, when there has been a significant regional forest fire threat of a large and devastating magnitude, firefighters from all over the country have responded en-masse. Would they do so now? And, if so, wouldn’t that leave urban centers less prepared? And if they don’t, will we say Sayanora to the wilderness?
Oh yes, and the best way to fight terrorism? Reach out to your neighbors, hold hands as compatriots, and as Siddhartha Gautama urged: “hold to the truth within your heart, as if to the only lamp.” Naïve? Since when is spirituality naïve? Ha!
And if the CIA really wants to stop terrorism at its source, it needs to find a way to recreate “Flower Power”, “A Generation of Love” and seed its mind-tripping psychedelics into the youth of the Middle-East. And if that nascent anti-terrorist strategy should get out of hand and infect the earth like an alien bug-bite, well then, fuck-it, bite me again.
Ack! :wtf does *Ack!* mean??
Don't matter, the word for the weekend: *rowdy*
Actually, I was quite subdued today until I was driving down an old familiar road and noticed a sloven and obese dog owner walking his dog and holding the leash like a doubled-up instant-snap whip. The dog, a Springer Spaniel, was itslef totally subdued, depressed, and intimidated as it walked alongside and then past its *owner*--at which point its gait picked up noticeably--as if the moment of deliverable pain had waned. Then I remembered: this was the same guy I saw last summer beating this same dog with the same damn leash for no reason at all except that the dog's walking pace was somewhat less than he, the pain-master, by whim had demanded. I had taken that all in last summer on a warm afternoon at practically the same location (obviously, *his* neighborhood) and recorded it eidetically for just such a moment of retrieval as this. Yes--his *grace* instance of brutality (last year) was exhausted. This time: no grace.
So as I passed this guy today, I slowed down and locked visually in on his every move. And, as if uncannily psychic within his own orb of hate and brutality, he concurrently turned his focus away from his dog to look at me with a *what-the-fuck-you-looking-at* gaze. Well, I'll tell you what the fuck I was looking at. I was looking at one sorry piece of shit who was going to get his head smashed in if he strapped that dog again for no reason at all as he was threatening. In total disgust, I slowed and watched a vibrant but trembling creature and its vermin *owner* parade a ritual of pain publicly. Then I projected an intervention: I visualized my hand smashing this crap-assed shit-faced snot-nosed poorly-assembled compost of protoplasm dead square between his eyes. And I anticipated explaining to the cops my fearless justification in defense of the pooch.
Okay. So I had already tucked down two beers at 10 AM on a georgeous summer Saturday morning. It doesn't matter. Except for the fact that had I drank that third beer, I'd have been in a proactive instead of anticpatorily reactive mood.
Next time I see you, asshole, it's three beers.
*off and about redefining "rowdy" this weekend*
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