THE ALCELOGUE

Read-Whatcha-Got Challenge: An Update and a Confession

2012-02-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

First the update:

~~12. Thomas Wolfe "Look Homeward Angel"~~

While I did write this name on my list and strike a line through it, I didn't finish it. I started it eagerly and after about forty pages, I just couldn't go on. Wolfe's prose is full of energy and crammed with ideas, but is just one shade off of purple, which is far too close for me. Let's call his prose violet. Next!

~~19. Deborah Harkness "A Discovery of Witches"~~

Easily the smartest vampire/witch/etc book I've ever read. Detailed world-building and humanly-drawn inhuman characters make the book very easy to get lost in, which is the way a book about monsters should be. What I didn't like about the story was the pacing. Far too long and lingering in the wrong places. The heroine, a witch who doesn't know how powerful she really is, spends too much of the story not knowing how powerful she really is. The damsel-in-distress act gets repetitive. While it is crucial for an author to love her characters, she must be ready at a moment's notice to drag their asses through Hell. Harkness mollycoddles her lead characters for three hundred pages and just when things get interesting, the book ends and we are told to wait for the sequel. Which of course I'll read, but I won't be happy about it.

~~34. Janna Levin "How the Universe Got Its Spots"~~

This is a wonderful diary by an astrophysicist/cosmologist as she pursues the shape of the Universe and explains how she came to the field. It's a treat to be inside a mind like this. We see her work and her life and along the way learn the ins and out of cosmic topology, relativity both special and general, and why the Universe might be a finite place. I'll admit that a couple of times the math shot right over my head, but for the most part Levin takes care to avoid that.

~~23. Mary Doria Russell "Doc"~~

An well-told story - no, yarn, in the best sense - about Doc Holliday and his life before the OK Corral. In Russell's hands, Doc is a living, breathing (painfully, due to the tuberculosis) human being. He is a deep soul, who spends each day with Death and in true Southern form, greets him with a drink and witty joke. The story shifts skillfully from one character to another, getting in their heads without having to rely on first-person narrative. It's a highly crafted narrative technique that Russell makes look effortless. This is NOT an easy thing to do and when it's done well, the reader doesn't even notice. I also loved the fact that Doc's Georgian accent comes through crystal clear without reading like dialect. It brought me back to Savannah every time he said something.

And now the confession: I bought a new book. Yes, I know, but the thing is, I'm going to read it before April 1st. My only saving grace is that I have to read it for work. No, that is not cheating. Why? Shut up! that's why.

Rant For The Week: Booze Is To Drugs Like Milk Is To Cookies

2012-01-03T22:27:00.000-08:00

It comes down to this: no one was smoking crack in Akron, Ohio in 1935. If they were, the first Twelve Step program would not have been called Alcoholics Anonymous and seventy-seven years later you would not see "sober" people smoking weed between meetings.

Alcohol is a drug. Put it in your system and it alters your consciousness, impairs your body, and makes you think you're extremely interesting, a great dancer, an unbeatable fighter, and able to drive home even though your right eyelid won't open for some reason. Maybe you can't stop drinking it even though you desperately want to. But when you say you're an alcoholic, you can still think of marijuana as something outside of your alcoholism instead of inside of your addiction.

Alcoholics - drug addicts - are already people prone to self delusion and hypocrisy. When you tell them that alcohol is different from drugs, you are giving them an easy out. When you label their condition "alcoholism", you are giving them an external focus instead of forcing them to confront themselves. The problem is not the liquid in the bottle, it is the shit in their brains.

I don't believe that addiction is a disease. Bill Wilson and the other founders of AA called it a disease because that was the best explanation they could come up with at the time. They did not have access to brain scans and the other tools of modern neuroscience. When the people of ancient Sumeria saw a comet, they figured it was a message from the gods. When the people of 1935 saw a man take a shot of whiskey minutes after his doctor told him one more drink would kill him, they figured he had a disease. It was a logical assumption at the time. Today, it's no longer an accurate conclusion based on the given evidence.

In my opinion, addiction is self-programming run amok. We are self-programming beings. If we learn to deal with overwhelming emotions by shutting down our central nervous systems with a six pack (or two), then that will become our default behavior. Eventually, we will literally not be able to do otherwise. Until we learn a new program.

I believe this idea of being able to re-program the brain keeps the responsibility of recovery on the addicts, while also giving them active hope. Addiction as an incurable disease is a depressing premise. Addiction as a reversible set of programming is an open invitation to a new way of living. And it doesn't make me roll my eyes when I hear it the way I do when someone tells me "alcoholism is a disease just like cancer is a disease." Is that so? Then how come I don't see cancer patients driving their cars into telephone poles after they take their medicine?

To The Book Depository!

2012-01-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

January First: goals have been spoken aloud, auto-da-fe have been handed down, and gauntlets have been thrown. The Annual Read-Whatcha-Got Challenge has begun (yes, I re-named it!).

As the ancient Mayan prophecies foretold, it is now 2012 - the End of the To Be Read Pile!!!!!!

It can be looked at as a literary housecleaning, a feng shui re-orientation of your narrative spirit. The rules are simple: from 1 January until 1 April, you will read no new books. Read my blog: No. New. Books. You can only read books you have already purchased and which, quite frankly, are beginning to lean precariously over the edge of your nightstand, threatening to topple over onto your head while you sleep (most likely dreaming of all the books you're going to buy, you insatiable bastard).

You must read only those books, and read only those books you shall. It is a challenge, it is a goal, and it is an endurance test. It will be long. It will be grueling. You will curse the day you ever agreed to do something so publicly stupid. You will go mad watching all the shiny, new books rolling by. The endless "Best Books of 2011" lists and the upcoming Tournament of Books will be especially torturous. The way is dark and lit only by the flaming bodies of those who have fallen before you, but...

Don't be discouraged! We'll get through this together and be better readers for it.

To get you started, here is my personal Ball & Chain List:

1. Joy Williams "Honored Guest"
2. Grace Paley "Enormous Changes At The Last Minute"
3. Warren Ellis "Crooked Little Vein"
4. Marcel Proust "Swann's Way" (Lydia Davis translation)
5. Tom Rachman "The Imperfectionists"
6. Diane Ackerman "A Natural History of the Senses"
7. Lisa Lutz "Curse of the Spellmans"
8. S. J. Perelman "The Most of S.J. Perelman"
9. Haruki Murakami "1Q84"
10. Kevin Brockmeier "The Brief History of the Dead"
11. Rick Bass "The Ninemile Wolves"
12. Thomas Wolfe "Look Homeward Angel"
13. Katherine Porter "The Collected Stories"
14. Lewis Thomas "The Lives of a Cell"
15. The Dalai Lama "Healing Anger"
16. John McPhee "Coming Into the Country"
17. John Steinbeck "Journal of a Novel"
18. Thomas Browne "Religio Medici" (don't ask)
19. Deborah Harkness "A Discovery of Witches"
20. Brandon Sanderson "Mistborn"
21. Rainer Maria Rilke "The Notebooks of Malte Laurid Brigge"
22. William K. Krueger "Iron Lake"
23. Mary Doria Russell "Doc"
24. Don Winslow "The Power of the Dog"
25. Josh Ritter "Bright's Passage"
26. Ellen Datlow (ed.) "Teeth"
27. Teddy Wayne "Kapitoil"
28. Virginia Woolf "The Waves"
29. Karl Marlantes "Matterhorn"
30. David W. Page "Body Trauma"
31. Stanley Fish "How To Read A Sentence"
32. F. Scott Fitzgeral "Tender Is The Night"
33. Terry Pratchett "The Color of Magic"
34. Janna Levin "How the Universe Got Its Spots"

Three months and thirty-four books? I don't know if I'll read all of these (in fact, I know I won't because the previous sentence equals a little over two books a day), but I intend to stick to this list for any and all reading pleasure. No matter what.

May God have mercy on our souls. Now go, and buy no more.

Dear Wynton Marsalis: Shut the Fuck Up

2011-11-27T01:25:00.001-08:00

I just watched a great documentary on the new face(s) of (jazz) called "Icons Among Us" and it made me fall in love with this music all over again. It also made me feel: curious, inspired, angry, frustrated, happy, and full of bilious rage at critics, professors, so-called jazz purists, and Wynton Stickindabutt Marsalis.

This is not a retread of the usual debate of Traditional Jazz versus New Jazz. This is an examination of jazz losing it's way in order to find its way. Jazz transcending jazz to be...I don't even know - cosmic improvisation? tathagata-jam? The definition of jazz is not expanding, it is evaporating. The musicians in this documentary play improvisational music built on a number of influences beside the tradition of Jazz. They're soaking in the world and living a philosophy of improvisation within community, treating the music as a living organism. The music is incredible! Hip hop jazz orchestras, metal blues bop, and freestyle rhythmic vitality. The music is alive and well and going in new directions.

But then the purists step in and embarrass themselves with the same old stock "This isn't Jazz!" bullshit. A writer says, "Jazz today has no clear message, no clear identity." Marsalis says, "We're not producing the same caliber of musician." Harrison says, "If you haven't shared the stage with a Blakey or Gillespie, you don't have the foundation to move this tradition forward."

The new musicians respond in kind. Robert Glasper says, "If Charlie Parker came back from the dead, he'd say, 'You're still playing the same shit I was - what the fuck are you doing?" Robert Shipp says, "I don't have to view music through the prism of 'Bud Powell played it like this' or 'Bill Evans played it like this'. Fuck those guys. I do it my way."

That to me is the spirit of this music: that which does not grow is dead. I love the way Bill Frisell defines music. He says it's "a place where no one gets hurt and you can do whatever you want." I think that's all the context/message/identity you need. Now pick up that goddamn horn and say something honest.

Head Full of Pages

2011-11-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

During a break at a recent writing event, a favorite Reader question was asked in a playful, get-to-know-you way: "If you could live in any book, what would it be?" Normally I would skip this line of inquiry in favor of inscrutable silence, but the NaNo folks are a kindly lot and I decided to join in. Without giving it too much thought, I said the Hobbit. This was immediately seconded by a dozen other people and gave way to one of those intense nerdalogues wherein the pros and cons of a completely fictional concept are scrutinized in detail. Where would you live? What species would you be? When would you live - before or after the first or second defeat of Sauron? What would you do for a living? It was all going swimmingly until I broached a practical question to the would-be Hobbit contingent, namely, what kind of sewer system is employed in a Hobbit hole? Bilbo Baggins lived under a hill in a multi-roomed, one story house with one-sided ventilation. Where do you put the toilet in that layout? Next to the windows? IN the center? Where does the waste drain out? Middle Earth is basically a Medieval era world which means, er, garderobes at best, privies at worst. Bag End, as we all know, was the epitome of Hobbit comfort and coziness, but let's face it, it's still a hole in the ground. Once you hit that bathroom, that place is going to smell like Hobbit crap. And those little dudes are way too fond of rich food.

The Hobbit contingent countered that their favorite species is a very industrious and resourceful one and surely they would have invented some sort of Roman aqueduct style of sewage. Perhaps. But if anyone in Middle Earth is going to do that, it would be those stinky but clever Dwarves living under that damn mountain.

We were all in agreement on this.

The Luddite In The Meatlocker

2011-11-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I sat in on a writing group which had convened for NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month. It took place in a library at CalTech. A small, freezing room full of scientific journals at the end of a hallway cramped with cold storage lockers and cabinets full of empty beakers. I loved it. Froze my fingers off, but I loved it (though it was so cold, the guy across from me asked, "What is this? NaNoGitMo?")

We started at ten and wrote until two, with a couple of breaks to step outside and warm up. They also kept track of everyone's "word count" and awarded various prizes for Most Words In An Hour, Fewest Words In An Hour, and the very special prize, made up on the spot, of Negative Word Count. The last was awarded to a guy who forgot to save his first couple of pages.

The awards were a nice way to break up the day. I didn't mind the interruption like I thought I would. The whole energy of writing in a group of people who are just writing to have fun and reach 50K words in a month is pretty infectious (Hunter Thompson once said that writing is like sex, in that it's only fun for amateurs - he was only half joking, I think). There is a lot of criticism of NaNo for the "gamification of novel writing" (actual fucking quote), but I think it's wonderful - people are writing books! What could possibly be wrong with that? Yes, yes, agents and publishers are less than a month away from being swamped with sloppy, unedited books which are all inexplicably only 200 pages long, but so what? That's what slush piles are for. On the other end of those books are happy people who have fulfilled a dream. May the Great Scribendu bless them and keep them.

I was an oddity in that room, being the only one not writing on a computer. I was immediately branded a Luddite, and given a free sticker. But what can I say - the first draft for me must be physically exorcised with pen and paper. The computer is for the later, refined version. Plus it felt fun making all those scratchy-scratch sounds on my legal pad while everyone else was gently plinking away on their keyboards.

All said, I had a blast. This idea of a daily word count is working, because if I'm going to get anything done, it has to be measurable. This is a concept from the fitness world which I have come to believe in wholeheartedly. 1,667 is the magic fucking number today and everyday until this nightmare is in the can. Follow it up with some heavy December editing, some last minute character revisions, a little bit of Old Negro Wisdom, and we'll have ourselves a Novel!

Vox Populi

2011-11-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

I am a shy, skittish man at times - no more so than when I am speaking to a large crowd (large being here defined as five or more people). But if I am reading to said crowd, I feel calmer and more in my element. I am connected to the words like an anchor. I have noticed, however, that this is the exact opposite of most people.

The context I am speaking of is my meetings, where people are regularly called upon to read from the Big Book. Rarely have I seen adults who are comfortable in this role. I think it's because for most folks, they have not had to do this since high school English class, reciting Eliot or Shakespeare in that disinterested monotone so beloved by students the world over. Called upon to recite as adults, they stumble, stutter, and hesitate, unsure of their rhythmic footing. They also seem to unable to pronounce certain words which they could probably use in casual conversation without a problem. The biggest offenders?

1. anonymity
2. autonomous
3. regularly

Read these aloud if you have any doubts.

Why the struggle with the public voice? Pressure. Most likely from old fears and social expectations. My advice is to have fun with it. Listen to your voice - no, dance with your voice. It's an instrument of expression. And this is not to say that I recite all my readings like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, or Sean Connery - though of course I so wish that I could. No, even when I fall flat vocally, I still enjoy it. (Put another way, yes, I do enjoy the sound of my own voice!)

So relax, o speakers and readers! For your voice is buried treasure, here unearthed and strewn at the feet of a awestruck populace!

(No, I don't know where that came from, I'm just having fun...)

Madre de Dios!

2011-10-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

Friends! I was so tired today and needed a boost to keep working, so I decided to hit the local coffee spot for a shot of espresso over ice. But between the coffee place and my destination, there is a wonderful little Mexican restaurant that makes wonderful little cups of...horchata.

It was a moment of pure inspiration.

Pouring the espresso into the cup of horchata, I felt I was on the edge of a great revelation. With the first sip, I heard the beating wings of mighty angels and felt the warmth of the Coffee God's smile.

Now, I'm sure this drink already exists somewhere and it probably has a badass name in colloquial Mexican-Spanish, and someday I'm going to find out what it is but until then, I will make it my mission to share the GOOD NEWS!

A Change In The Wind, Says I

2011-09-29T07:55:00.000-07:00

I hate change. I know I'm supposed to be some wild and free, bohemian, groovy, go-with-the-flow, jazzy-jazzy, writer-poet-free thinker, but...I'm really not. Sometimes I am an obstinate, stubborn mofo who wants everything to stay the same: nice and safe and goddamn predictable. I don't want to get off the couch, I don't want to change my clothes, let alone my mind, and I don't want to have to learn contrary habits and actions. Change my Habits?! Are you kidding me? This is a joke, right? I've spent years - years! - sculpting and crafting those habits. And I'm just supposed to chuck them out the window now because they don't work? Call me Bartleby, but I'd prefer not to.

But what happens when you tell the Universe you don't want to change? Everything changes. Your grandmother dies. You have to find a new place to live. You have to get a new job. All your resistance does is place an emergency call to the Tricksters Union (Local 247). Coyote sneaks into your room and pours a bucket of cold water on your head at three in the morning. Eleggua is waiting for you in the alley with a two-by-four to the dome. Hell, Bugs Bunny even gets in on the action and suddenly you look down and realize you're running on thin air. And there's nothing you can do about any of it.

Stopping the flow of change is as impossible as stopping an oncoming wave. And you look just as silly trying.

The upside is that after you've been splashed with water or mugged by a few Tricksters, you get to see what they were really up to. You get to see the world in a new way. Yes, a grandmother leaves, but a niece or nephew shows up. Life is change, change is good, and therefore Aristotle, life is good.

And that is all ye know and all ye need to know.

This Just In

2011-09-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

Via Roses:

"Yeah, I'm scared. But you know what? Fear and excitement are right next to each other and they mean I'm doing something different, something a bit risky. And fuck it. I'm going to do it anyway."

I believe I shall inscribe this one upon the wall...

The War Against Common Sense

2011-09-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

The terrorist's war is a war he cannot win
because terror does not give rise to fear,
terror gives rise to courage, solidarity, and gratitude
for all that is not lost.

The terrorist's war is a war he cannot win
because the memory of those we love
is more alive than the hatred for those we do not know.

The terrorist's war is a war he cannot win
because the death of one innocent
is the birth of a million human hearts.

The terrorist's war is a war he cannot win:

because our greatest lessons come from our enemies

because one day we'll remember that we all want peace

because you cannot fight for an illusion you can only die for one -

but you can live
and fight
and win
if you take every single breath
for love.

In Defense of a Phrase

2011-09-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

"It is what it is":

What incredibly vapid, stupid and unoriginal people say when they cannot construct a proper thought, retort or sentence.

-Urban Dictionary

Why has this phrase fallen so far out of favor? And why is it considered something "stupid" people say?

Let's take these one at a time. It has fallen out of favor because it sounds dismissive and escapist. I think the critics are hearing it but not listening to what it means. It is about accepting reality as it is; surrendering to reality instead of resisting it. It is a simple and profound zen statement on the nature of existence: you cannot fight the truth, no matter how much you want to, because you only make your life harder if you do. Reality will not change to suit you. You will struggle fruitlessly until you accept life on life's terms.

It is considered something "stupid" people say because people ignore the rich history of this phrase. It is not one of those recent, oft-repeated, meaningless phrases (like everyone's favorite whipping-boy "At the end of the day..."). For example, I often heard this phrase in my youth from the mouth of many a wise old(er) black man. When I whined and whinged about the unfairness of the world, someone would smile, put a hand on my shoulder and say gently, "It is what it is, man". What I heard was: accept it, deal with it, and move on. An older generation may have told each other, "You can't fight City Hall", while a younger, less serious, generation might say, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" - but the message is the same essential wisdom. Fight reality and reality will win, every time.

So what is one to do? Don't spend your energy worrying about/trying to change/stressing over things that are outside of your control. Focus on what you can change: yourself. This in turn will change the world. When life seems unfair, take a breath, relax, and remember: IT IS WHAT IT IS.

For Colored Artists Who Are Considered Simplistic When the Rainbow Is Not Simple Enuf

2011-08-16T20:22:00.001-07:00

Sunday I went to a multi-act performance at The Last Bookstore in Downtown Los Angeles. It good, bad, baffling, inspired, funny, and I enjoyed myself immensely. I also caught myself exhibiting that bemused smile I used to see on the faces of adults when I was young and furiously naive in my politics. I am on the other side of all that now and it is an interesting perspective.

The first act was a troupe of three interpretive dancers/performance artists/high conceptual dramatis personnae intent on saying something profound about race and I'm trying to finish this sentence without becoming a condescending ass but I can't avoid it. The start of their piece was actually really cool. They took turns playing sad, simple music with voice, drum, and plastic accordion while they ritualistically dressed each other in junk and rags. It felt as if they were enacting something sacred through the guise of the homeless population that lives in Downtown; maybe finding something dignified and ancient that exists in gesture and song regardless of outward appearance. Very cool. But then they tore off the clothes and launched into some bafflingly outdated routine about racial stereotypes. They went out into the audience and asked everyone, "Can I touch your hair?" They chanted, "Race fondue! Race fondue!" while decrying the ills of racially insensitive dialogue and moaning "I'se tired, Lawdy! I'se tired". They - well, if you were born during or immediately after the Sixties, you get the point. And you understand my bemused smile.

The next act was conceptual dance - a woman, a melancholic violin solo, and some melancholic dance signifying perhaps the trapped emotions inside us and the great mute divide of emotional understanding between us. I reach out to you. I turn away. I reach out to you. You turn away. Etc. I liked it. Though at this point I couldn't get "Race fondue! Race fondue!" out of my head.

Then there was a woman literally dancing her way out of a plastic bag while an NPR report about an oil spill played overhead. I didn't see all of this piece so I can't comment. I did see her sit in my brother's lap at one point and I noted the weary, annoyed expression on his face.

Next up was an incredibly talented flamenco dancer named Mercedes Ibarra who blew everyone away. She was backed up by a guitar player and singer (and introduced by some sort of Poet-fellow reading some sort of Poetry) and ripped up the stage with power, grace, and controlled fury.

After Mercedes was a singer/actor doing a musical monologue about her journey of empowerment as a black woman performer who will not be limited by society's claustrophobic vision of who she should be, how she should regard her sexuality, or how she should feel about her posterior. I know, but it was pretty good. She was funny and had a great voice. But to be the grumpy, old fart for a second: she's going to be much more interesting ten years from now.

It's Good To Focus On Similarities Instead Of Differences

2011-08-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

This Old House

2011-07-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Consider your self a house - your body, your mind, and your spirit are all contained in this house. What is the state of your house? Are you taking care of it? Do you live in all the rooms? Do you invite people in?

My house is an old Craftsman style home. I've owned it for thirty-seven years and I used to love it just as it was built: full of cozy rooms, hidden staircases, and lots of quiet spaces. But I abandoned it for a long time. I reduced my daily routine to just a couple of rooms in the back and the let the rest of it fall in to disrepair. I pulled the blinds. I ignored the doorbell. When visitors got too insistent and demanded to be let in, I sent the butler to open the door. He looks just like me and has a pleasant, if somewhat vacant, smile. While he stood in the doorway and mouthed the expected responses, I hid in the library and read my favorite dusty old tomes. No one was ever allowed any further than the foyer (yes, I have a foyer!).

Today I'm remodeling and renovating. I've changed over the years and I want the house to reflect who I am now. I still love the basic design of the house, but I'm knocking down a few walls to make the rooms bigger and I'm adding some big windows on every floor to let in a lot more light. The basement and the attic need some serious cleaning out. The exterior could use a little, let us say "slimming" refinements around the middle floor. I'm also re-wiring the electrical system because it's not up to code and the lighting is damn depressing. Change your wires, change your life, as Bob V. might say. Most importantly, I'm inviting people inside. It's kind of messy and I admit I'm a little embarrassed when company comes by, but I tell them I'm in the middle of making some big changes and they usually understand.

It's a good house and worth keeping up. But I could on and on about the renovations! How is your house coming along?

(Thanks to John for the butler line! I stole it and I'm not giving it back!)

HAPPY MOOSEDAY TO ME-E-E-E-E

2011-07-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

Thirty-seven years old today. Feeling pretty good about it, too.

To continue with a recent birthday tradition, here is what I have learned in the last three hundred sixty-five days of continuous living:

1. I am responsible for my own happiness, just as I am responsible for own misery. There is no one to blame and there is nothing to forgive in regards to my past. It is all about today and today it is my choice: do I want to be happy, joyous, and free? or do I want to be miserable, discontented, and a slave to my own negativity? I don't need anyone's permission or approval to answer that question. It's completely up to me.

2. I am revising my definition of "cool" (and I'll probably ditch the entire concept as a whole before too long). My old definition of cool was superficial in that it was all about surface appearances - how you look, how you dress, how you talk, where you live, what kind of music/movies/books you like, etc. I have met some very cool people recently and they are not fashionable, hip, or alternative. They are varied in their appearances and interests, and neither of those things define them. What makes them cool is they are self-aware, at peace, and interested in growth and experience. They don't pose, they don't try to look good, and they honestly don't care what I think of them. They are not cool, they are inspiring. That is waaaaay more important to me.

3. Animals can help us heal! I used to laugh at the idea of "therapy dogs", until I saw one happy little dog help a suffering woman more in one afternoon than two years of drugs and therapy. Emotional connection is the key to our mental and physical health. Drugs help sometimes but are not THE solution, they are only part of the solution.

Well, that's all I've got. It's hasn't been a great year, but it's been an important year and I have no regrets. I'm learning a lot, I'm feeling better than ever, and I'm happy today. What more can I ask for?

(Okay, I can ask for more books, as usual...)

In the Sense of, What Do You Want?

2011-07-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

What do you want?

In what sense?

In the sense of, what do you want?

You're talking about goals?

If you'd like.

I want to be a bridge of words.

Excellent. What else?

I want to see the beauty of everything as it is. Just as it is.

Yes. Keep going.

I want to be well fed and well read.
I want to be a poem.
I want to see the sunlight through the trees
and hear the laughter of the leaves.
I want to feel the chilling caress of the ocean on my face.
I want to run until my legs are cold fire.
I want to be spoken of in dreams
and remembered with knowing smiles.
I want my words whispered in bed.
I want the world in my skull and the world outside my skull
to slam together in a high speed smash collision
and show the scientists the instant of creation.
I want the magic in the rocks and the song in the waves.
I want the quiet roar of life in my heart.
I want to live each day like it's my first
and discover the world when I open my eyes.

You want to live.

I want to be.

Line 217 Through Bear Country

2011-07-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Rising up off the pavement,
climbing his way onto the bus;
recently hibernating in an alley.

Curling into the seat
in front of me;
mumbling into his fur (growl).

And me downwind
sniffing for bearings
and a proper response,

a scent on the air:
dirt, coffee,
smoke and salted crust,
booze, rusty dreams.

It is the smell of a man
gone wrong.

Gray plaster flecked
in tatters across his forearms;
work dried up.

But now my thoughts have invaded his head
and -cursing me, my kind, and the Cosmos-
he moves to the back of the bus.

"Damn tourists and poachers, hrrrmmm,
whyowncha watch it
and step lightly for a change."

My eyes settle down
on the rolling street
and the night so full
of threats and laughter.

Cobbled Together From Wire and String

2011-06-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Hi!

Let's see, who am I? Who am I? Hmmm. Okay, I'm a kind man. Except when I'm not. I'm a warm and caring man...except when I'm not. I believe in compassion and easing the suffering of my fellows. Except I don't always do that.

Wow, this Self is hard. Let's see. I really hate when people do Yoda impressions. Especially late at night when I'm tired and just trying to wind down. I'm stretching and yawning and getting ready to end the day and then some jackass starts in with his Yoda voice and it just goes on and on. Then someone else has to chime in with their Yoda voice and the two of them start egging each other on. Then I have to go to my room and shut the door and drown them out with my headphones.

What else have I got? I really like it when people smile at each other. Especially on the bus where everyone seems to wear a blank frown as their default facial expression. Then some abuela gets on the bus and smiles kindly at everyone and a feeling of warm sunshine spreads down the crowded aisles and we all wake up and take notice, like, "Hey - we're all human beings right now!" Or maybe we just all love a smiling abuela.

Building a viable Self is an act of faith and creative writing. I am currently building one with some driftwood I found at the beach, a couple of old notebooks, a pound of coffee beans, a bottle of ink, the Tao, and lots of pipe cleaners, tackling wire, duct tape, and action straps. It's not pretty, but it's mine.

Call It Innocence

2011-06-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when a kiss
was the entire world?
The heat of shared breath,
the intoxication of an earlobe
and the fine hair on the slope of a neck;
a whispered scent so other and so right.
We knew the joyous inability
to register the reactions of strangers,
a sweet rebellion of two.
It wasn't indulgence
because we didn't know deprivation.
We claimed the right of sunshine on the face
and the rule of abundance without time.

Or at least until curfew.

Dialogue of Two Old Guys Watching Spiderman 2 While Waiting For the Game to Start

2011-06-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

OLD GUY 1: Whoa. That sure is some strong web. He stopped a train with that stuff.
OLD GUY2: Wonder where he bought those hand shooter things.
OG1: Store bought. He knows a place in Queens.
OG2: Yeah, probably a good deal. But they getcha on the refills. That's how they getcha.
OG1: Yeah, like toner.
OG2: Crooks.

*

OG1: Oh look, he ripped up his pretty little suit.
OG2: Musta been made in China.

*

OG1: That Doc Ock has gotta be an alkie. He's swaying like a wino.
OG2: Nah, look at him - violent, dirty trenchcoat, talking to his hands - definitely a meth-head or somethin'.
OG1: Love to see him doing eight different drugs at once.

*

OG1: Okay, now they got all the cliches on one train. The construction worker. The business guy. The pregnant woman.
OG2: Yeah and every single race is represented. All for Spidey's big moment.
OG1: I don't see any Puerto Ricans. This is New York and there's no Puerto Ricans?
OG2: The Puerto Ricans are the ones who stole his mask. They hopped off two stops back.

*

This has been another installment of Old Guy Theater! Thank you for joining us! Goodnight and "go blow it out your hole"!

The Rigors and Rewards of Pack Life

2011-06-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

I am waking up again to life and starting to remember what it means to be a human being among human beings. Left to my own dubious devices, I isolate, I run away, I disappear. I stray from the herd, following some misfired instinct of self-preservation. And as we have learned from National Geographic specials, bad things happen to the pack animal who goes off on his own.

Don't worry, I didn't have some wild epiphany on the joys of conformity. No: what I am talking about is communitas. Human beings need each other, and despite what my head tells me, I am a human being. Living in a recovery house and interacting with my roommates reminds me that I need - and want - real human contact. I benefit from talking to other people, laughing with them, helping and being helped. I benefit from sitting in group therapy or meetings and letting myself be seen and known. I feel like the crazy dog Cesar Milan throws in with his emotionally balanced pack of dogs - the crazy dog calms down and learns how to be a dog again.

On a very real physiological level, we need each other: our nervous systems regulate and balance themselves when we are around other people. It's a fact, so you might as well accept it and return a smile or two. I know it's not always easy. I was raised on westerns, war movies, and detective fiction, so the idea of the lone wolf is still appealing. But the empirical evidence of my life has shown me that that is not who I am. I get strange without people, I get stuck in the attic in my head with all the dusty furniture and anachronistic machinery. Being the lone wolf almost got me killed. Q.E.D.

So I'll wake up tomorrow and try not to wake up my roommate while I get ready. I'll make a full pot of coffee so the guys down the hall can have some too. I'll speak up in group and find out how the others are doing. I'll listen and be present for them. I'll go see my friends and be "a friend among friends". I'll run with the pack and when I need to go off on my own, I'll leave in good cheer, because I know they'll be there when I get back.

The Next Right Thing

2011-05-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

My day starts with movement. I wake up early and put everything I have into that first step of getting up out of bed. I know that if I can do that right after the alarm goes off and resist the urge to lie back down, I will keep going. From the bed to the coffeemaker. From the coffeemaker to the push-ups and the sun salutations. From there to the bike and the ride to the morning meeting. Once all that happens, the rest of the day flows like a river. Don't think, just move. Right now it is all about momentum, so really it is all about the first push.

Ahh, but in order to get that first push, I have to ask for help. Although every time I do, I get it. Call it the God of Early Mornings. My contact with a force stronger than me is what is keeping me moving and taking action right now.

And I just want to say thank You.

Thank you.

Thank you.

"Verily, we have granted to you O Mr Moose an Alarm
that you may turn to it and be awakened,
shutting it not off nor allowing thyself to snooze -
now leave thy bed and partake of thy morning elixir!"

(Surah al-Gauawah)

RETURN OF THE OOMPA-DOOMP!!

2011-05-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

Let's start over, okay?

My name is Mr Moose and I'm an al - well, let's not dwell on what I am or what I am not. The important thing is that after tearing my life down to the ground, reconstruction has finally begun! I'm setting the foundation right now (oops - was I supposed to stub out the plumbing first? Somebody get the goddamn foreman on the phone), and it's a totally new design for my life. I'm slowly becoming the person I always wanted to be. Granted, I didn't think this would be how it happened, but these days I can vouch for neither the accuracy nor the usefulness of my plans and my various bright ideas.

It all comes down to the Commitment to act on behalf of my best interests. It was my behavior that got me here (in a recovery house in a town down by the sea) and it is up to me to change that behavior in order to get myself out of here and into where I want to be (in a house with my wife in a town up in the hills). My family helped me see that - that I am free. I don't have to wait for anything or anyone else to save me. I don't have to live like I lived before.

Oh, what do I mean by that, you ask? Depressed, stressed out, isolated, unhappy, hopeless, run by negative thoughts and a brain that told me I was a piece of human garbage. I was on the way to an early death and I didn't even know it. As Raymond Carver said, "And that sweet light I spoke of? That's gone too." Cheery, huh?

Today I have nothing and I have everything. Today I have my whole life ahead of me. It is fucking unbelievable.

It's also fairly simple. All I have to do today is:

1. Meet an outpatient counselor for an intake interview
2. Go to a farmers market for the week's food
3. Write some more on my "homework"
4. Go see my new therapist for my first session
5. Come home safe and sound

I will now be shutting off my thinking-mind and going about the business of living.

-end transmission-

I Felt Old Just Hearing This

2011-02-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

Mom: When I was your age, I kept a diary.

Daughter: What's a diary?

Mom: A little book I wrote in every day.

Daughter: What did you write?

Mom: Oh, anything really. What I did that day, how I felt, crazy things I saw.

Daughter: You mean like a blog?

Mom: Yes, kind of a like a blog. Except I wrote it on paper and no one else was allowed to see it.

Daughter: Then why did you write it?

Mom: For me. Just my little secret place to write things.

Daughter: Yeah but why keep a blog if it's going to be a secret?

Mom: Well, I suppose it was...I mean, I guess I just liked writing down my thoughts.

Daughter: But no one else could read them! That's just talking to yourself.

Mom: Hmmmm. Maybe you'd like to keep a diary?

Daughter: Mooooommmmmmm!

I Feel Like We've Been Here Before

2011-01-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

Drift Gently Into Mental Illness

2010-12-07T23:26:00.000-08:00

We'll Meet Again

2010-10-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving today for an extended mental health break. While I will physically remain in the same hamster wheel, my mind will be far away from here. Where will it go? High above the mucky-muck is as best as I can describe it.

My brain is breaking down. If I don't fix it soon, the crazy-fluid will leak into the frontal lobes and I will start behaving...unpredictably.

No one is happy when a Moose runs amok.

So until further notice, I bid you alce alce arrivederci.

I'm Just Sayin'

2010-09-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

James Bond Is Dead

2010-09-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a lot of spy fiction recently (currently "Agents of Treachery", edited by Otto Penzler), and all I've learned is that James Bond was an asshole. Do you notice that he never follows anybody or does any real surveillance? Or that he never runs agents or in any way tries to actually gather intelligence? Why is that? All he does is go lightly, nay, casually, undercover. Even then, it's no big stretch: all his cover identities are suave, well-dressed, playboy types. The villains always figure out who he is fairly quickly. "Hmm, a well-dressed Brit who enjoys baccarat and shaken martinis. Somebody run that data...Oh, James Bond, you say? Yes, I thought he looked familiar." What a dick.

But maybe I'm being too hard on the old boy. In the last couple of weeks, I've tried out a few of the techniques myself that these operatives and field agents put so much stock by. You know what? It's fucking impossible! Let me share with you just exactly how I failed Tradecraft 101:

1. Following People

Following people on foot through the downtown area of a major metropolitan city is fairly easy. I tailed my subject for ten blocks and he never once looked behind him. But then he went into an office building with a security guard at every one of its three entrances. And I lost him.

Following people by car turned out to be just as successful. On a busy street, I stayed a few cars behind my subject for a couple of miles. Then he turned off the busy street onto a residential street and I was the only other car behind him. After two very slow turns, I think he figured it out.

2. Being Followed

In the books, the operatives like to turn to one another and say, "I think we picked up a tail." They also enjoy saying, "I felt like I was being tailed, so I flushed them out into the open and then shook them off." Oh, you felt like you were being followed? And what exactly does that feel like? Let me tell you: I couldn't spot a tail unless every time I turned around or looked in one of those convenient slanted store windows, there was a seven foot tall man dressed all in black walking RIGHT BEHIND ME. I've tried walking around my apartment and noticing who was directly behind me and it's impossible. If someone was tailing me, all they would have to do is stay a block back and I wouldn't spot them.

If anyone doesn't feel like walking, don't worry - I'm much easier to follow while driving. I tried counting cars (Leonard Chang, "Over the Shoulder") and almost had an accident. Again, if that seven foot tall guy is driving a bright red Humvee, I'll probably spot him. Short of that, I could have S.P.E.C.T.R.E., the NKVD, and Ernst Fucking Blofeld behind me and I would never know.

Maybe next week I'll try going undercover (with my lousy poker face) or "turning an asset" (given that I can barely convince people to do things they actually want to do). I don't hold out high hopes for a successful mission. I think I'm better suited to the anonymous spy support team which hovers in the background and does the heavy research.

Besides, I've given up martinis.

Adventures in Domesticity

2010-09-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those days which I can look back at and say without any doubt, "dammit - we got something DONE!" I felt like Hannibal after a battle, surveying the destruction and savoring the victory. No, not the general, the colonel. He led the A-Team? No? Nothing? Okay, moving on.

Four months ago (Four?! Allah preserve us!), we moved out of our apartment and office and into a house two hours away from civilization. Then we waited for the cover of night and quietly skulked away, leaving a garage full of chaos, insanity, and boxes of old clothes. Well, yesterday, we opened that garage and brought order and rationality to what was once thought lost forever.

In the space of a two car garage, we had stacked and piled boxes and boxes of samples, inventory, shelves built and unbuilt, rolls of fabric, banker boxes full of bidness, and various tools, tables, and chairs. In short, we had a shitload of shit.

Add to that my father-in-law's collection of old boxes, papers, and mystery packages. He has a slight hoarding problem and yesterday was very hard on the poor guy. I pulled a lot of his stuff out of the garage with the other stuff destined for the dump, but he slowly brought it back inside piece by piece when he thought no one was looking. Apparently, although he agreed to throw it away, he never intended to follow through on that agreement. Silly me, I figured broken cardboard boxes were useless and could be thrown out.

After four hours we got everything squared away and I felt a physical sense of relief. Like I could breathe suddenly. It made it all worth it. And by it I mean scrubbing the piles of rat poop and rat-urine soaked nesting out of the corners. We also ran into a two foot long California King Snake sleeping in a box of extension cords (which made me wonder if it was looking for a snake sex doll...I kept that thought to myself though). Everybody flipped out, but I surprised myself by picking up the box, dumping it on the grass, and then driving the snake away by beating on the ground next to it with a four iron. The snake was actually quite beautiful. Kings are vicious (they eat other snakes, which is how they got their name), but they're not poisonous. I didn't get a picture, but here's a reference:

We're supposed to hit the living room today. I wonder what will jump out at us in there?

"You want to know what I do? None of your f*cking business!"

2010-08-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hey, whoa. Sorry about that. Kinda amped-up today. But what else is new? I believe it was Goethe who said, "Never hurry, never rest". He pointedly did not say, "Hurry hurry, never rest, get up now you lazy bastard." No, he was not that kind of guy. I need to relax, dammit!

All of this to say, I'm busy. Very busy. Too busy, in fact, to finish this sent...

What? Oh yes, busy. I had something else I was going to say, but I put my words down on my desk and can't find them. I believe it was Ozzy Osbourne who said, "We're going off the rails on the Crazy Train." You will notice he did not say "I" but "We" are going off the rails. We're in this together - ahhh, at last no longer alone.

Okay, this is it. Really gotta go. I believe it was Alexie Sherman who said, "Every word on your blog is a word not in your book." As any fool can plainly see (insert appropriate answer here), there are already enough words on this blog today to make a an introductory paragraph in a chapter of my book.

A very boring paragraph which would only have to be edited out later. I'm just sayin'.

Adios!

Happy Birthday, Mr Moose - Now Back to Work!

2010-07-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! I'm thirty-freaking-six years old today!!!! Or if you prefer, one score and sixteen.

According to my birth certificate, I was born at four a.m. on a cold Ohio morning. What was that day like, I wonder. Did my parents stay up the rest of the day? When did they go to sleep? Did I spend my first night at the hospital or did I go home? Where were my brothers during this important event? When did I meet them?

How different it is thirty-six years later: I was fast asleep at four a.m. today and dreaming of pleasant things. I will spend the morning writing and the day working in the office (deadlines loom like storm clouds). I won't have time to celebrate until the weekend, although last night my wife took me to see "Inception" and it was the most awesome movie I have seen in quite some time.

So, once again, thank you mother and father for giving me the chance to come here and see what this place is all about. Rock on, the botha ya's.

(Hmm? Oh, yes, well, on the whole, it's a very strange but intriguing place and while not always enjoyable, it's certainly always interesting...)

This Conversation Is Over

2010-07-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

There are no more words in the word barrel.
There is no more hope on the hope-on-a-rope.
There is no more air in this tiny tiny room.
There is no where left to hide from the big giant mirror.
There is no more room in my luggage for all my baggage.
There are no more cracks in the wall to squeeze through.
There are no clouds overhead to explain the rainy day.
There is no poem like the one in my head.
There is no changing your mind because there is no hole in your head to get it out. There is no way to explain.
There is no reason to.
There is no Dana, there is only Zuul.

Narrative File Compression: Negative Scalability of the Word

2010-07-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

I don't have much time to write these days, as the Beasts are at the gates, so I find myself scribbling (yes, actually scribbling) notes to myself all day long. Sometimes they make it to the notebook, more often they end up on the backs of receipts or folded up index cards. It makes me think of Sam Shepard writing plays on the dashboard of his car as he drove across country. He said it forced him to write meaningful dialogue because he could only dash out three or four words at a time. Unfortunately for me, I wear cargo pants and can stuff my pockets full of blathering notes. But the notes themselves do tend to be boiled down to key ideas. Maybe I should just write stories that can fit on index cards (I wonder if that's how Amy Hempel starting writing). One paragraph stories, or even one sentence stories.

Of course, I would have to contend with Hemingway's famous (and a favorite of my father's) six word story: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Did you know that Gertrude Stein set out to beat him and wrote a four word story? "She stayed away longer." It's evocative, but in a much more subtle way than Hem's. That means I'd have to do it in three or less. Pretty tough. See, the great thing about the baby shoes story is the immediate arrival upon reading it of the entire life of a relationship. I tried for a few minutes this morning but all I got was: "Fatally, he'd misunderstood." Misunderstood who (whom??)? There is no arrival of the story.

I could try for a two word story, but I'll need some more time. I don't know what the standard for this one is. Maybe, "Jesus wept." Although, for this story to be powerful, you have to know who Jesus is. If you don't, you'd think, "Who is this Hay-zeus fellow, and why is he weeping? Ah, those passionate Latins!" Humbert Humbert's summation of his mother's death is a good one - "Picnic. Lightning." - but you still need the backstory to get it.

As for one word stories, all words are one word stories, so it's just a matter of placement:

"There..."

Or something like that. Maybe "Nevermore!" is the standard here.

I completely skipped the option of a five word story. There's a twitter site devoted to this (find it yourself, hyperlink junky). I liked this entry:

"Intro. Crisis! Tension!! CLIMAX!!! Denouement."

But I have to say my favorite was, "And then we had sex." That's the ending of a lot of stories guys tell each other. It takes the place of saying "the end". So to end this nonsensical entry:

And then I wrote books.

Heard in a Dream

2010-06-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

"Stand up like a man and lie like a rug!"

Unreal Estate

2010-05-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

There is an ugly house for sale in a beautiful neighborhood. It's cold glass and gray stucco; it's over a million dollars and it's going to sell. A man and a woman will move in and arrange lots of uncomfortable furniture just so. A designer lamp will be placed in the large window overlooking the street.

They'll drink white wine in the afternoons and bicker in short bursts of frustration. She'll leave first. Not physically of course, but emotionally and deliberately. She'll find a small place in another neighborhood where she'll store her heart. He'll leave too, but he won't know he's left until the bulb burns out in the designer lamp and he feels no inclination to replace it.

Chapter 36: In Which I Become A Published Author

2010-05-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

Friday Outposting

2010-02-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

If you want to pay your sales and use tax quarterly fees to the State of California's Board of Equalization and you want to do so online, you have to use a third party payment center. This payment center has a Facebook page. You can also follow the payment center on Twitter.

I notice also that the payroll company which sends my paycheck has a Facebook page. You can follow them on Twitter too, if you are so inclined.

I think if Mark Twain were alive today, he would have a blog, but he would not be on Twitter. Somebody would probably manage the blog for him because he would refuse to learn anything more than the basic operations of a computer.

Oscar Wilde, however, would have a blog, a Facebook page, and would post on Twitter every half hour.

I don't think Shakespeare would be an active blogger, but the Globe Theatre would definitely have a kickass website.

Can't Talk - Lost In A Good Book

2010-02-24T08:47:00.001-08:00

From an Interview With Matthew McConaughey

2010-02-15T20:40:00.000-08:00

ELLE: You wrestled cows to prepare for your role in Reign of Fire. Would you wrestle a croc for the woman you loved? A grizzly?

MM: Rather not. But if you can catch eye contact with a mammal, you can buy yourself some time—because as another mammal, you can communicate. You can’t trust a reptile. But I have thought about how to win that fight with the grizzly.

ELLE: Do tell.

MM: I believe right as that grizzly gets to you, he’s going to rear up, open his paws, and come down on you. You’re going to have to shoot the gap, go in straight to the chest, and take your bowie knife to the gut and pull up through the rib cage. If it’s a death shot, that grizzly’s going to fall on you. The real trouble’s going to be getting out from under it.

ELLE: I’m stunned by the amount of thought you’ve put into this.

MM: Oh, I have dreams about this kind of shit. I don’t want to wrestle any of these things, but I’m just saying, that’s what I’d do if the situation arose where I’m just sitting there and I go, Oh, look there. That grizzly has got my girl and child. How we gonna work this out?

It was "Fuel for Mayhem"

2010-02-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

I miss beer sometimes.

Man Speaks

2010-02-11T15:56:00.001-08:00

Trying to change the flat tire over here
and feeling like a man while I'm at it

But I can't get the damn lugs loose
so I got to call triple a.

Watching this guy who knows
do what he knows how to do.

Still feeling like a man though
because I've done all that I can.

It's a Midlife Crisis, Charlie Brown!

2010-01-31T21:35:00.000-08:00

As he did every year on the anniversary of Snoopy’s death, Charlie Brown went out to the backyard of his parent’s house to lie atop the doghouse. With the peeling red paint beneath him and the wide blue sky above, the troubling present faded away and thoughts of the past blew in gently on the wind. Charlie closed his eyes and listened. Almost immediately, he heard Snoopy’s familiar high-pitched giggle, which always made him smile. How often Snoopy had laughed at him over the years, lovingly mocking him for some latest bit of self-pitying bumbling.

And how Snoopy would laugh if he could see me now, Charlie mused. Another marriage down the drain, another book deal fallen through. Charlie had hit the bestseller list some years back when the book he had written mainly for the academic world, “Good Grief: The Therapeutic Value of Mourning Rituals”, had become an unexpected popular hit. Although it revived his professional life, it had come too late to save his train-wreck of a marriage to Peppermint Patty. But nothing could have saved that, which Charlie had to admit. As Snoopy had warned him when they started dating, she was the wrong girl for him (technically, Snoopy had closed his eyes, turned up his nose, and given a brief but forceful shake of his head, but Charlie knew exactly what he meant). Five years and five thousand arguments later, Patty walked out the door. “Jesus, Chuck,” she sneered, the contempt palpable in her eyes, “get yourself together.”

With the success of his book and the blessings of the reigning talk show royalty, Charlie became the go-to expert on mourning, loss, and general tragedy. He was on all the networks after a school shooting or plane crash, and a sound bite from Dr. Brown was the definitive last word on any story of emotional complexity. But Charlie didn’t achieve true critical acclaim until his televised talk with Snoopy’s grandson, Snoopy Jr, III, aka Snoop, about the young dog’s involvement in the tragic death of much beloved Woodstock. Snoop had broken down twenty minutes into the interview and opened up completely under Charlie’s gently insistent questioning. It was later hailed as a moment of national healing.

Heady with his professional success, Charlie went after the great unfinished task of his youth and romantically pursued the aloof and tempestuous Lucy Van Pelt, with the very private intention of “finally kicking that ball”. Lucy, who never re-married after Shroeder’s bizarre secret life was made public and the couple’s acrimonious divorce was front-page news for a month, returned Charlie’s advances eagerly. Almost as if she had been waiting for him.

For Charlie, their romance was like a wonderful gift from a world that had finally chosen to embrace him. Lucy was a world-class psychiatrist and though she was not a popular celebrity-author like Charlie, she was at the top of her profession and enjoyed the admiration of her peers. She and Charlie married three months later and Lucy insisted on accepting the numerous press requests for coverage of the ceremony. Charlie, blinded by his own happiness, never saw it coming. Two years after their wedding, Lucy divorced him, publicly ridiculed his professional credentials, and quickly published the book she had been working on throughout their marriage about the psychological damage done to the public by underqualified, fame-hungry therapists. Her former husband was the subject of the entire third chapter of “The Doctor Is Out: The Hidden Dangers of the Self-Help Media Industry.” Charlie’s celebrity status crumbled overnight, the offer on his second book was quietly withdrawn, and he was ushered off the stage of public life with little fanfare.

“Dammit,” Charlie muttered, watching Lucy laugh with Katie Couric, “why do I always let her do this to me?”

Charlie slid off the doghouse roof and brushed himself off. I should have been trying to kick her all those times instead of the ball, he thought, and immediately felt guilty. He laid his hand on the side of Snoopy’s old home. “See you next year, old buddy,” he whispered.

A few days later, he is in the coffeehouse two blocks from his newly rented studio apartment, staring out the window and wondering what to do with himself.

“Is this seat taken?” a sweet, clear voice asks behind him. Charlie turns to find a red-haired girl standing by his table, smiling like an angel.

Guest Post: I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YA'!!!!!!

2010-01-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

To one and all, detractors, defamers, sychophants, backstabbers, and weasels:

Ye are hereby put on notice that the erstwhile gent ye knew as Mister Moose is full sails and twelve guns to the horizon. What will become of him, only time and the Devil can tell. He whom the tyrannical Lord would punish, he first drives mad - which is a right fair description of our barking friend as ever was penned by a blackguard like me. And as the good Alce himself is fond of saying, "Many is the deep dark night that I have looked over my shoulder for the avenging Furies of fate - ye can only run so long". Aye, tis true.

All I know and ye need know: keep a weather eye open and a flintlock handy...

From the black pits of Hell,

My pirate name is:

Dirty Roger Flint

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

The Search For Alternative Energy Continues

2009-12-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

Moose: I'm sick of this truck. It drinks gas and it's killing the environment.

Jeff: Yeah, it's like you're driving down the street saying, "Fuck the environment! Horsepower!"

Moose: I need a hybrid or something. Biodiesel. Green energy.

Jeff: You should ride a bike. That's better than green energy.

Moose: No, I should ride a horse. That's better than biodiesel.

Jeff: What if I rode an ostrich? Just rode down the street on an ostrich. Like, "You got a problem? This bird will peck your fucking eyes out."

Moose: See, that's practical.It's also a low carbon footprint. Unless of course the food you feed the ostriches has to be imported.

Jeff: No, I would just have a whole garage full of 'em. Just ride them until they die and then get on another one.

Moose: Then we could feed them to my horses.

Jeff: Would a horse eat an ostrich?

Moose: I don't know. I could ride elephants. I'm sure they'd eat an ostrich.

Jeff: Yeah. Elephants don't give a fuck about anything.

No, I Don't Know Why Either

2009-12-04T23:33:00.000-08:00

"Guinea pigs are social animals who prefer to live in small groups. If you keep two or more females together, they will become great friends."

That's from the ASPCA website. It just made me chuckle.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

I'm up in San Francisco with my wife and her family and there's lots to talk about (national security, green fuel, dentistry, child-rearing practices, etc.), but I can't get to it right now because I have to get ready for a long day of sightseeing, familial navigation, and serious, champion-level protein consumption. So for right now, I'm going to follow in the steps of my hero Yasmin and name five things I'm grateful for today:

1. My loving wife
2. Sunrise
3. Parents
4. Hot coffee on a cold day
5. The Golden Gate Bridge

I leave you with some Rumi sent to me today by Peace Quotes...

Those who don't feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don't want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.
I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,
and sleep.
- Rumi

(p.s. - I love that, "I given up on my brain"!!)

Bah Humbug: A Pre-emptive Christmas Strike

2009-11-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

I had to leave the laundromat this morning before the towels were even dry because some rat-bastard left the radio tuned to the all Christmas music station and I just couldn't take it any more. The worst part is that living in this country you can't help but know all the Christmas songs and when they come on part of your brain sings along and you hate yourself for it. It's like the Bible verses you know even though you're not a Christian and never go to church. Some of the verses aren't bad and are even worth knowing but all those Christmas songs are a plague upon mankind.

Your obstinance is an inspiration to us all

2009-10-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

There are those of us who, when faced by the Overwhelming Schedule Of Daily Life, retreat into that most secure of refuges - golden silence - only to find that silence is neither golden, being at the most a shade of muddy chartreuse, nor truly silent, given that we live in a world of innumerable avenues of communication and such a deep rooted sense of interconnectivity that to not hear from someone is paradoxically the surest sign that they still exist, and so our only remaining choice is that simplest of responses, that distillation of the entire mad voyage of our species into one word, that is to say, "Yes."

While You Were Out

2009-09-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

New York, Las Vegas, Escondido, Atlantis, Pluto, Planet Ten, The Fourth Realm: it's been a busy few weeks of traveling and it's good to be home. Some things I learned on the road:

1. The New York Public Library on 42nd Street - the one with the two lions out front - is not the place to do any serious work. You need the Manhattan Central Branch right across the street where there are no Italian tourists taking pictures of themselves in front of the card catalogs.

2. Three days of rich, starchy Vegas food + high desert temperatures + no water = serious gut troubles.

3. Armenia was the first Christian nation, not Rome. Also, when Constantine finally did declare Rome a Christian nation, he put an image of Jesus on the coins based on verbally handed down descriptions of the guy - coins which are currently sold in the antiquities store in the Venetian Hotel.

4. For any left-handed writers out there who really want to use a fountain pen but are sick of driving the nib into the paper and losing all ink flow, I suggest trying out an Oblique Medium nib. I do not, however, suggest trying this at the Mont Blanc store unless you have the money to purchase one because you will only walk away looking over your shoulder longingly with a single tear drop sliding down your cheek.

5. Express Checkout is a way for the hotel to screw you when you are in a rush to leave and aren't watching your back. Constant vigilance is required when traveling through the lands of the Sand People!

500 Days of Bullshit

2009-08-13T22:27:00.000-07:00

I will say this once for any delusional young hipsters living here or on their way here because they just saw some stupid movie called "500 Days of Summer": Downtown Los Angeles is an interesting place with a rich history, but it is not nor will it ever be Brooklyn, no matter how you dress, what you drink, or how hard you ignore the native, non-white population.

Sorry, but I just had to get that off my chest. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. It doesn't really matter.

The Persistence of Time

2009-07-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Check this out: a while back, my watch stopped working. Again. After a couple changes in batteries, it just up and quit one more time. Instead of going back to the watch shop I just shelved it. Two weeks ago, it started running again. Like time just crept back into the watch and hoped I wouldn't notice its absence.

And now it's my birthday and I'm thirty-five and my watch is finally working.

Amen.

Bar and Jelly

2009-07-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

Feeling pretty low-low down today.
Somewhere between the curb and the asphalt road.
Felt rocks falling on my head since morning.
Sad bird noises in the back room upstairs. Very annoying.

Andthensuddenlydoughnuts!

Aye, doughnuts today, spontaneous and unscheduled
(the two best flavors of doorknobs yaunderstand),
and nothing I could do about it really, completely out of my hands,
happened to come upon them, what can one do, et cetera, et cetera,
so maybe it's the sugar talking - perhaps the caffiend
(for doorknobs and cappy gang together dontcha know)-
but I really think everything is going to work out,

perfectly.

And yes of course because we live in the world with doughnuts but also
because I saw a mailbox at the corner
with a question mark spray painted on its side.
"You got a problem?" said the mailbox.
"No, sir!" said I.

Hooray!

2009-06-08T02:52:00.000-07:00

Hooray for me! It's 3:00 in the morning (well, three o'clock at night, come on now) and I can't sleep! Hooray!

Okay, this time I'm going to see insomnia as a gift. A gift from the gods of sleep and wakefulness, bestowed upon me that I might come closer to cracking the code of night.

What?

I'm not going to waste this precious gift of extended consciousness by watching television or reading some book I won't really digest.

I'm going to feed this blog, so that it will grow up big and strong. I'm going to take out my pen and write a letter. I'm going to finally switch the beds (don't ask).

Rumi says that in the middle of the night we are closest to God.

(Oh, blow it out your ass, Howard.)

Always

2009-06-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

There are always more movies to watch.
There are always more books to read.
There is always more work to do.
There is always someone leaving.
There is always someone arriving.
There is always someone I haven't spoken to.
There is always another mile to run.
There is always a pad.
There is always a bad joke to make.
There is always something I wish I hadn't said.
There is always something I wish I had said.
There is always a decision to make.
There is always a mistake to make.
There is always a victory to claim.
There is always a way to show love.
There is always someone who said it better.
There is always another smile.
There are always more tears.
There is always another lesson to learn.

There is always always always.
And it is always alright.

The Happy Virus

2009-06-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

Why isn't there a Happy Virus? Someone coming back from Mexico or Bali brings a case of acute happiness with them and when they get off the plane they sneeze on someone else and that person gets dangerously happy within a matter of hours. Is that too much to ask? Or maybe somebody is really good at balancing their checkbook and they cough on me and the next day I'm really good at balancing my checkbook. Although that virus has probably mutated already and the new strain would make me a whiz with Quicken. But the point is, why do all these viruses have to be such assholes? Where can I catch the Motivation Flu? Where can I contract Sever Acute Realization Syndrome (first symptom: everything makes perfect sense)? I'd even settle for a flu which makes my hair grow back or a flu which only attacks the fatty deposits on the sides of my stomach ("aggressive lovehandlia depletion syndrome"). But no, I have to settle for Swine Flu. Swine Flu! Even the name is insulting. Not Porcine Flu, which sounds kind of classy, but Swine. Everything about these viruses is annoying. Also, viruses attack and kill their hosts. How rude is that? You come into my home, slap me around, eat all my food, and then you kill me and burn the house down? Why would you do that? I was going to make espresso....

I Dreamt I Was Living In Scandinavia

2009-05-26T08:16:00.001-07:00

Interview With a Vampire, Part 1

2009-05-22T08:46:00.001-07:00

For this interview, Alcohol and I met at a local coffeehouse. He was twenty minutes late and came stumbling in, apologizing and waving his hands about. When he sat down across from me, the couple sitting behind us wrinkled their noses and moved to a different table.

Mr Moose: Long time, Al. How are you?
Alcohol: Pretty good, pretty good. You know me. Always busy...having a good time!
MM: I'm not going to give you a high-five, if that's what your waiting for.
Al: Okay, okay, that's cool. I get it. Mr Respectable now.
MM: If you say so. You look uncomfortable.
Al: It's this place. Coffee and I aren't such good terms these days. She's changed.
MM: Sorry to hear that. Do you want some of my tea?
Al: Tea?! Don't get me started on that motherfucker!
MM: Forget I asked.
Al: So it's great to see you again and all, but what's up? You haven't called me in five years. Want to hang out again?
MM: No. I just-
Al: Jesus. You didn't even have to think about it, did you? Were things that bad between us?
MM: Well, I suppose you don't remember, but it didn't end well.
Al: Yeah, my memory is kinda fuzzy sometimes. I remember lots of late nights, crazy conversations, dancing like a madman, laughing like a hyena. We had fun, man.
MM: Sure, we did. Right up until the point when I threw up, said something stupid or inappropriate, or just blacked out.
Al: Hey, I live a crazy life. I don't make any apologies for it.
MM: I know. I'm not blaming you. I just don't want a crazy life anymore. I'm not twenty-five. The idea has lost its romance, if you know what I mean.
Al: I get it. You want to be boring.
MM: Boring? What's more predictable and boring than getting drunk, having the same conversations over and over, getting the same hangover, and always feeling like shit?
Al: Your problem is, you never truly appreciated me.
MM: No, I didn't. That's true. I used you.
Al: You did. But I get that a lot.

The Epistolary Burden

2009-05-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

Cocooned in my busy life, I seldom see my friends. They're all within ten miles of me, but it doesn't matter. Add to that list the friends scattered across the country and the globe and there is an entire company of people I don't see. But wait! There's no need to worry, I'll just shoot a couple lines of email at them, surely I have time for that. Oddly, no, I don't. (But I have time to write this pointless blog entry?)

That parenthetical is actually the point. And the point is: priorities. I have not made my friends a priority and for that I am sorry. I miss them. My life is less without my friends. I catch glimpses of what they are up to on Facelook, I a get melancholy and wistful. It feels like I'm watching some grand party on the other side of the park. This must end.

Think of this then, not as a confession, but as a resolution.

I'll be in touch.

Where Have I Been You Ask? Well...

2009-05-19T08:42:00.001-07:00

You are The Hermit

Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.

The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.

The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.

The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Would Everybody Please Calm Down?

2009-02-27T08:59:00.001-08:00

I'll admit it: my cell phone means very little to me. I haven't connected to it, I don't relate to it, it is not a part of me, and to be honest, I kind of resent it. So every so often, my cellphone and I are separated because I forget to take it with me. Everyone is always surprised by my utter my lack of concern. When I don't freak out and immediately stop what I'm doing to go and retrieve my phone, they are stunned at first. Then worried. No one more so than my father-in-law.

When he discovered that I left it at home (again), he proceeded to give me a ten minute lecture (which I think he had practiced) on the dangers of being without a cellphone. "What will you do in an emergency?!" he challenged. I don't know, maybe use another phone? LIKE WE ALL USED TO DO BEFORE CELLPHONES WERE INVENTED!!!!!!! Sorry for shouting, but does the presence of a portable phone always mean the difference between life and death? My father-in-law is over seventy years old, surely he has not survived this long on sheer luck and the vicissitudes of landlines.

Let's all take a deep breath and step away from the technology for a few minutes. Take your phone out of that dorky holster on your belt, take the earpiece off your head if you're not actually on a call, and let's all calm down. There was a time when people sent letters to each other and did not expect a response for two months. While they were waiting they did things like discover electricity and invent calculus. So I think I will be okay without my phone for a day or two.

Today's Lesson: KEEP IT SIMPLE

2009-01-31T13:37:00.000-08:00

The Definitive Authority of the M.E.D.

2008-12-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

As the sole and senior editor of the Mooseford English Dictionary, I feel a sense of responsibility and love towards the ever-evolving linguistic map of the alces alces herd. The guiding philosophy here at the MED has always been inclusive and descriptivist. I feel that languages should have open borders, especially English, which has always been a big pot of gumbo served round the clock at Ellis Island. Give us your weird, your wacky, your huddled words yearning to breath free. If a word is useful, let it in. If not useful, at least entertaining or amusing.

In that spirit, here are two of the latest additions to reach the home office:

1. "EYE-GRAB"

I coined this at work to describe the attribute of being eye-grabbing or eye-catching. I would have gone with "eye-catch", but that sounds like a disease. "I'm afraid you have acute macular degeneration, known in layman's terms as eye-catch". Rather, when something's got eye-grab, you can't help but look at it - you don't know why, but you can't look away. Cut to the design room, after several hours of grindingly slow progress: "What do you think about this, Moose?" "Dammit, that's got eye-grab! I say we GO with it!" Note: The use of the word 'eye-grab' works best if you're smoking, drinking whiskey, and dressed in formal clothes from the late 50s - early 60s.

2. "DUNCH"

This word was invented by my lovely wife, who wanted a word to describe a meal between lunch and dinner. The word needed to be as useful for invitational purposes as its mid-morning mirror 'brunch'. As in, "Let's meet for dunch tomorrow afternoon." We road-tested "linner", but that sounded too thin, too unsatisfying. Dunch is filling but not heavy, and easy but not quick. Dunch menus are typically lunch based but with a few dinner options thrown in. You can have the big salad or the chicken sandwich, but you might want to go for the pasta. Hey, it's dunch, it's cool - have whatever.

Scattered But Here

2008-12-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

It's the work schedule. Or lack of schedule combined with hectic pace and odd hours. There's so much to do and so little time, sometimes I get scattered. But I'm not alone. Yesterday I listened to a crazy edition of "This American Life" in which they tried to cram as many stories as possible into a one hour show. It was inspired by a theater group called the Neo-Futurists, who perform thirty plays in one hour. I also ran across a story project at Smith Magazine called Six Word Memoirs, in which (you guessed it) people sum up their lives in six words. The first collection is called "Not Quite What I Was Planning", which is a wonderful life and one I can relate to.

A six word life. Can you do it? Mine was not quite the encapsulating haiku-like entry of the title story, but it sums up a lot about my journey thus far:

Am I dreaming?
No, I'm not.

True dat.

I Need A Laugh And So Do You

2008-12-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

The Best of All Possible Worlds

2008-12-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

So I made it through a case of bronchitis and not once did I take any of those damn antibiotics my doctor tried to foist on me (just say no to drugs, kids!). Antibiotics are his answer to everything. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill some more. He probably weeds his garden with napalm.

I stuck to ginger tea, marshmallow root, sleep, green food, and got used to the idea of coughing up lots and lots (and lots) of phlegm. But that's what the body is supposed to do - get rid of whatever is making it sick. But for some reason, we are led to believe that we must never, ever, ever feel bad. Not for one second. Have a cough? Suppress it. Have a runny nose? Make it stop! Don't let your body cleanse, it might be...uncomfortable. Well no thanks, Dr. Quackenbush.

I think this idea has permeated the rest of my life as well. I've been so afraid of confronting painful situations such as arguments and confrontations that I've forgotten that it might be useful pain to go through. For example, maybe I get into an argument with my wife but maybe I come out knowing something new about how I feel or what I want. If I keep looking at arguments in isolation, I'll never learn that seen in the context of my life's continuity, there is always something to be learned from them. I'll avoid the argument, miss the growth, and make the situation worse than when it started.

Maybe it's an American thing. Maybe we carry around a sense of entitlement to always feeling pain-free, trouble-free, and without any obstacles to our own desires. The right to pursue happiness is sacred, so screw everything else.

Or maybe it's just my hangup. I'm willing to own that.

Our name is Nerd, for we are many...

2008-11-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

Fall Backward

2008-11-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

Daylight Savings Time!!! A-whole-nother hour to do whatever I want! I took that extra hour and I got up out of bed and I put some music on and I danced like Moses before the Lord! (He didn't? No, I'm pretty sure he did. Maybe it's not in your version)

What a day. I woke up and it was cloudy and drizzling - which is a thing to be relished in Los Angeles. I took my lady and spent the morning at a farmer's market (farmers' market?), where the skies cleared up and we shopped for real produce beneath real blue skies. In Hollywood, no less. Everyone was in a good mood due to the weather. People were smiling, smelling the fruit, dancing to the street musicians, and trading suggestions for what to do with sprouted lentils. I walked down to Amoeba records afterward and picked up a used copy of Jack Johnson's last album.

Which turned out to be surprisingly serious.

I got home and we did the dishes, the laundry, and still had time to go see a movie (Mike Leigh's "Happy Go Lucky" - good movie). During the previews, I heard the line, "This family thinks they're normal but they're not!" and I realized that the great thing about my family is that they think they're not normal but they are. I love them for that.

What a day. I wished it rained every night.

We Fired the P.R. Department After the Crash

2008-11-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

I went to the bank on Halloween and all the tellers were dressed in bright red devil horns.

Somebody should have said something.

Have the Panties Stopped Screaming, Clarice?

2008-10-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I am at work my head fills with poetry for no discernible reason. Flipping the pages of my notepad while cradling a conversation on the phone, I think, "the army of unutterable law has triumphed and truth is vanquished at last". I have to ask the person talking to me to please repeat that last part and I wonder: when poets are at work, are their heads suddenly filled with lines from sales reports or the current price of a yard of rayon fabric?

As My Mother Always Said...

2008-09-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

...sometimes only a video will do. So THIS is my theme song these days. Hallelujah!

Ex Nihilo

2008-09-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

"I don't think I could live in another country," she said with a laugh.
"M'lady, you can," said the waiter, "it takes a special kind of person to live anywhere."
The table looked up at him in one unified movement, shaken out of their appetizer-induced trance.
"Did you see the news today? About this experiment in Switzerland?" asked the waiter in a soft, clipped Arabian accent.
"The super-collider? They said it would create a black hole!" said the man on the end. Bits of endive shot out of his mouth as he laughed.
"I do not think in those terms," said the waiter, "But it reminded me that we create something out of nothing. Can you imagine? Man is going to create matter."
The table was silent with imagination and confusion. Forks dug slowly and silently under chunks of fish, lifting food to mouth as unobtrusively as possible. The waiters eyes saw distant nebulae crashing and burning with life.
"It is like my own story. I am Palestinian. From Israel. I live here now. Something from nothing is entirely possible." The waiter smiled down at the diners.
"How long since you went home?" asked the old man in the middle of the table.
"1989," said the waiter, "I have two sisters there. I bother them when I can. My brother lives in the San Fernando Valley."
"Oh. That's so...", said the woman to the waiter's left. He lifted a hand, palm out.
"M'lady, I will tell you this. I think of a line from a tenth century Egyptian poet, who said, 'I am the desert, the sword, the paper, and the pen.' "
With a short, quick bow, the waiter disappeared.

Let's Make Litter Outta These Literati!

2008-09-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

Six, eh? Let's see how the Moose sizes up...

And so here’s the list, complete with the following instructions:

* Look at the list and embolden those you have read.
* Italicise those you intend to read.
* Underline the books you LOVE.
* Reprint this list in your own blog.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Why is this here??? Hell, I've read it though, so...)
6. The Bible (Jesus rocks!)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (the best catch there is)
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (Complete? No. Best? Probably.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (Good first line. Good sign)
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot (One day I'll read it and make my sister proud)
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (So far, I'm waaay behind on my Dickens)
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (As Le Guin said, if you haven't read this - why not?)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (This Dickens fellow was busy)
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (Not gonna happen)
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Why this but not Dickens? Shut up! That's why)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (Again: why is this everyone's favorite book?)
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (I find crowds madding too)
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (This is the one about wizards and muggles, right?)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - I was going to read this but didn't (Picnic.Lightening.)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (the best cristo there is)
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (don't believe the hype)
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (no more my maddened hand and splintered heart are set against this wolfish world...and something about whaling, etc.)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (More Dickens? Seriously, there's only so much time in the day)
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce (I've heard it's not as hard as it sounds)
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (Started then stopped. Made me want to stick my head in the oven.)
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Could you please. Stop. The Goddamn. Hammering!)
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (I didn't read this but I did smuggle it into the States in my bloomers)
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Not to shabby. But I think Dickens is related to the person who made this list.

Lock the Door and Unplug the Phones

2008-08-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

One week in New York, spent at a tradeshow. One day home, spent at the office. Three days in Las Vegas, spent at another tradeshow. My body is bloated from oily buttery meaty restaurant food and my mind is mush from business speak and hotel television. But now I'm home and thanking the gods. Home is quiet time at night and in the morning. Home is my books and desk. Home is real food and water that doesn't come in a bottle. Home is my bed and my pillows. Home is California, where there is a real ocean, actual trees, and the hills always watching over us like guardian angels. Home is Los Angeles, where the sidewalks are not packed with fast-walking, tense-faced assholes shoving you out of the way. Yes, home is Los Angeles, where the sidewalks are in fact blissfully empty. Home is family just a few miles away. Home is the hope that someday very soon I might actually have time to see that family.

You know the thing about New York? It's exciting, it's full of things to do, it's got great restaurants - no doubt. But it's a fucking stressful place to be. New Yorkers in Los Angeles always complain that nobody walks here and nobody interacts and I say, that's right, goddammit, and if you don't like it go back to your sardine can island and catch a goddamn cab to Hell.

You know the thing about Las Vegas? No, I don't either. Seriously, what the hell is up with that place? We were there for three days and never once went outside. And I didn't even realize it until the last day!

But I digress. No, actually I don't, because I'm not really going anywhere with all this. I'm home, I'm well-fed and well-read, and everything is copasetic.

Ugh

2008-07-30T15:56:00.000-07:00

I'm tired, I'm angry, and I stink of fear and coffee. Welcome to the happy place.

Thirty-four Years Old: Ho-Hum

2008-07-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, Mr Moose is another year older today. Thirty-four whole years on this planet Earth. What have I learned?
1. Nothing is ever as good as They say it is.
2. Moral relativism is useless.
3. You can't judge a book by its cover but you can judge a book by its first sentence.
4. Everyone is making it up as they go along.
5. You always have a choice.
6. I am incapable of saying anything real.

Good night folks!

Miles Davis vs David Eggers

2008-07-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of literary disappointment. In every recent novel I've picked up, the writing is more concerned with drawing attention to itself than with telling a good story. I keep wondering if the writer is waiting for me to say, "You're SOOOOO clever! Look at the clever little writer!" I know writers are needy people (trust me, I know), but dammit, they still have a job to do. Just tell me a story, you bastards. Give me some characters I'll love and remember, give me some gestures and sentences to roll around in my head. Don't give me your precious little premises and your narrative quirks. Don't give me your writerly asides and your plotless plots. And above all, do not give me your oh-so-forcefully ambiguous endings! What's so wrong with a damn story arc? You think you know better than Aristotle?! Oh, I get it. Too commercial, too predictable. No, you write literary novels. Literary meaning here, "without a beginning, middle, and end".

Okay, before I start really ranting, I'd getter get back to specifics. Several months ago, I started reading some wonderful hype about "Atmospheric Disturbances", by Rivka Galchen. It's about a psychiatrist who is treating a man who believes he is a secret agent of the Royal Meteorological Society. This man goes missing just as the psychiatrist becomes convinced that his wife has been replaced with a perfect look-alike. The book follows his wonderful descent into oblivious insanity, told through his delightfully droll self-analysis.

Fifty or so pages in, I began to wonder how much time I really have on this planet and how I should best use that limited resource. This led me to recall the advice my freshman English teacher gave me. He said that every time you write something down, you should read it over and ask yourself, "So what?" As an analytical tool, it will force you to keep thinking over your positions and assumptions. As an editing tool, it will force you to question whether anyone else will want to read the crap you've been putting onto paper. Did Galchen ask herself this question? I don't know. But I did. Then I stopped reading her book.

I need some real writing in my life. Crafted storytelling. I've had enough of these posers and stylists. I want to enjoy contemporary fiction. Somebody help me!

Meme Hell

2008-06-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, Ma. This is for you:

1. One movie that made you laugh: The Big Lebowski
2. One movie that made you cry: I Am Sam
3. One movie you loved when you were a child: Robin Hood (hoo-de-lolly!)
4. One movie you’ve seen more than once: The Hunt for Red October
5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Gladiator
6. One movie you hated: Little Miss Sunshine (really, wtf?)
7. One movie that scared you: Lion of the Desert (I was seven, people were run over by tanks...)
8. One movie that bored you: Knocked Up
9. One movie that made you happy: Touch the Sound
10. One movie that made you miserable: The Wind That Shakes the Barley
11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see: Titanic
12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with: Dylan Sanders
13. The last movie you saw: Indiana Jones and the blah, blah, blah
14. The next movie you hope to see: War, Inc.

He's the Wiz and He Lives In Ozzzzzzz

2008-06-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

The problem with praying is that I don't know who I'm talking to. "Dear God", doesn't mean anything to me. I believe that the universe is alive and I believe that everything and everyone in it is connected (either by the wave/particle duality or simply by the Great Spirit). But who's driving the bus? I don't know. Maybe there is no bus. Maybe there is and we're all driving, like those extra set of pedals in the passenger seat your teacher used in Driver's Ed.

Is Someone listening? I don't think so, it doesn't feel right. That is, it doesn't square with my sense of the divine. A great living, breathing universe is not something I can address a prayer to as I would a Creator. I don't know if you've been around traditionally religious people when they pray. It was a new experience for me when I first heard my in-laws utter a very personal and very specific prayer on my behalf. "Dear God, please be with Moose as he drives home and see that he gets there safely..." I've never talked to god this way. I've never talked to God at all. (Also, because of my knee-jerk habit of referencing movies, every time they pray I want mutter, "Get Lazlo in there!")

The question is: do I really need to address the divine? Prayer is a way of focusing your intentions and directing the positive flow of your heart and mind. You do it because you believe your actions and intentions will change your reality. So do I believe my reality is malleable? Yes. "With our thoughts we make the world", said the Buddha. And he didn't talk to God either. He found his own way of praying. I guess I'm still looking for mine.

Actually, the question is also: does the divine address me? Yes, it does. Sometimes through nature, sometimes through other people, sometimes through random but meaningful song lyrics that pop into my head just as I am searching for a solution to a problem. The living universe is talking all the time whether I talk back or not.

Maybe this blog is a prayer.

Praise be to HTML, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the blogosphere;
Most immediate, Most accessible;
Master of the Age of Information.
Thee do we laugh with, and thine memes do we seek.
Show us the typed way,
The way of those on whom thou hast bestowed thy accounts,
those who portion is not gossip,
and who go not astray.

Forgive them oh Lord, they know not what they blog.

Heaven - Have You Been? It's Paradise!

2008-05-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

Happy Sabbath! And even though I am breaking the rules of Sabbath by wishing you a Happy Sabbath via the intra-web, I mean it just the same. Besides, I'm Muslim (can I get a amin?!!) and we do our sabbathizing on Fridays like all civilized folk. Surely God - who is Great like Tony the Tiger - should understand denominational differences better than anyOne.

And speaking of Muslims (ha-rumph!), how cool is this. Go watch it then come back so you can laugh properly when I tell you that "broccoli is my personal jihad!"

I'm in an unbelievably good mood and I don't care that I don't know why.

Selah!

Enough Is Enough And I Cant Stands No More!

2008-05-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats," said H.L. Mencken. For me that time is NOW. My business, my work, my relationships, my life - it's time to fight, and fight dirty. On my signal...unleash Hell.

In These Rooms

2008-04-17T23:54:00.000-07:00

To fill the silence on the way to the meeting, he turned on the radio and a spacey electronica groove flooded the car. "All my frieeeeeends get hiiiiiiiiigh". The Universe is having a laugh, he thought.

The meeting was in a back room on the first floor of a hospital he had driven by a million times but never been in. He was ten minutes early so he waited by the door. The meeting room was occupied by a group of green-scrubbed hospital workers throwing a cake and paper plate office party for someone's birthday. As the hallway begin to fill up with addicts impatient to continue the recovery process, the party was brought to a hasty conclusion. He followed the others in and took a seat in the corner. The others immediately went to work assembling the room with well-oiled efficiency. Table opened, literature set out. Chairs in a circle, close but comfortable. Coffee brewing, doughnuts released. Let the healing begin.

Directly across from him sat a ragged scarecrow dressed all in black. The scarecrow's forearms were tattooed in large block letters. Left: GIMME. Right: DANGER. He thought of Iggy and the Stooges. He thought of what led the scarecrow to carve that on his body. He thought of where the scarecrow ended up. Lord, gimme danger, but not yet.

The meeting began with the ritual incantation of the Message. "We are a fellowship of men and women who lives have become unmanageable due to drugs..." Then the room hushed and a woman with long beautiful blond hair and a missing tooth began to tell her story. "My war's been over for twenty years," she said. She talked about hating herself and the daily contemplation of suicide. She talked about keeping life simple. She talked about staying humble. She looked at him while she talked. "All I can control," she said, "is my actions."

The circle nodded. When she stopped talking, the circle shared. Broken lives, smashed lives. Lives picked cleaned, lives drained by vampires. Yet these lives continued. Shredded of everything, these lives walked on, bare bones and beating hearts. He wanted to shed tears for these lives. He wanted to shed tears for his own life. But everyone was smiling as they talked.

He looked at their faces and watched how they shook hands and hugged each other. Thank God, he thought, thank God we have each other. Thank God we have tomorrow.

The Great Thing About a Conversation Like This Is That You Only Have To Have It Once

2008-04-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

What a piece of shit is a man, how lacking in reason, how
finite in faculties, in form and moving how clumsy and
unbearable, in action how like a donkey, in apprehension how like
a squid! the bore of the world, the parody of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of delight?

Over the past couple of days, I've been feeling very low. Overwhelmed, scattered, and unsure of what to do next, I woke up early yesterday morning with a knot in my stomach and a crease in my forehead. But suddenly, like a fever, it broke and I snapped back into my life. I got out of bed, went running, drank some tea, called a loved one just to say hello, and ended up having a pretty cool day.

I feel as if my body got impatient with my brain's inability to accept reality - the reality of who I am and where I've put myself - and decided to bypass any and all cranial authorization for action. My body simply went about the business of living. "You can lie here and pull out what little hair we have left, o brain my brain, " said the body, "but I'm going to get up and go see how the sunlight looks coming through the trees. Have fun stewing in your own juices!" All the doubt and fear and negativity pooling in my mind was not forgotten, it just wasn't given undue importance.

It was a good lesson. Whatever fear I have about meeting the challenges today will bring won't stop me from meeting those challenges. I cannot erase those fears and I cannot pretend they don't exist. All I can do is keep moving.

Emma Woodhouse Vs Steve McQueen

2008-04-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Now that I wear the One Ring, I've come to see the value of communication. Honest, open, active communication. I've learned the hard way that not wanting to talk is fine, but not saying out loud, "I don't want to talk right now" is not fine. Sooo not fine. It took a few lumps and bumps on my thick skull before the message got through, but I get it. I am not a silent partner in this partnership.

That being said, it still amazes me how differently men and women define communication. I took me a while to get used to it mainly because of the amount of questions involved. Men rarely explain themselves to each other. For good or for ill, we just don't feel the need. Say I'm watching television with a guy and something makes him laugh. If I ask him, "Why did you laugh just now?" he's going to tell me one thing and one thing only: "Because it was funny." Yes, but why was it funny? Why did you find it funny? Why? Why? Why? At this point, I will get one of three responses:
1. "I don't know, I just did."
2. "Who cares? I just did."
3. "Do I have to kick your ass?"

End of conversation.

I know that my wife asks me questions in order to know me, to share experiences, and to know that I know myself. I cherish the fact she wants to do that. It just makes me wonder why guys don't care about that stuff. I have a friend I have known just about all my life. I consider him my brother and I regard his family as my family. But I don't fucking care why he does the things he does. I just want to be there when he does them or hear him tell stories about them if I wasn't. Either way, I'll probably end up laughing my ass off.

Greatest Invention Eh-verrrrrrrr

2008-03-27T20:38:00.001-07:00

Greatest human invention? Hands down, the Metaphor. I used the tried and true relationship-is-like-a-roadtrip (tired and true?) metaphor today and had the wonderful post-metaphor moment when everyone says, "ahh, um-hmm, um-hmm", and you just know you broke through the fog and built a bridge. And look what I did just now! Even mixed metaphors are enjoyable! I love Metaphors (!):

"Hey man, look - I don't know jack about computers, so I don't understand what you're trying to lay on me about this server jazz. What? Oh, it's like central air, you say? It's like a water heater? Hey, wait, yeah that makes sense. I can dig that."

Who once said that we are metaphor machines? Whoever he/she was, find 'em and give 'em a drink on me. We are metaphor makers, we are the dreamers of dreams. Okay, I'm starting to ramble, but it breaks down like this: ideally, everyone should be able to talk to everyone. When language falters, it is image and imagination that carries on. We each have a rich storehouse of common imagery and the god-given gift of using it to make sideways leaps of logic and connection. We have the tools to break out of our own heads.

And I just think that's awesome.

But where did metaphors come from? What was the first metaphor used? It was probably about god. The oldest music, the oldest poetry, the oldest art really, is usually about god. Picture it: a farmer stands in his recently locust-blighted field surveying the damage and wondering about his place in the Universe. The village shaman ambles up, sensing that this is an important moment in his friend's spiritual development. "What is god, o wise one?" says the farmer. "Well," says the shaman, "god is like the rain..." and that simple farmer looks up at the sky and down at his fields and suddenly - click - he gets it.

Although, maybe that's where this whole god notion went off the rails. It wouldn't be the first time one of our great inventions proved to be one of our great failures. Because before god was a metaphor, god was a simile. Before "god is like the rain" came "god is the rain." In that "like" there is a loss, there is a distance. I like the notion that god Is, rather than god is only Like because we have no way of truly understanding god. The Great Unknowable is also the Truly Useless.

To be fair, as much as I may wax romantic about the simile god, it can be rather confusing. Metaphors can pile up and never collapse. God can be like a million things. How many things can god actually be. "You said god is the rain. Now you're saying god is the light. But god's also love. Dammit man, I'm a farmer, not a theologian! Tell me what god is so I can get back to growing your damn dinner!"

Ahh, metaphors. Metaphors are like that first moment you sink into a hot tub...

Wherever He Laid His Sax Was His Home

2008-03-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

I've got itunes on random again and my brain is spinning in a different direction with each tune. Right now, I'm listening to a killer version of "Song For My Father" by Sir Richard Groove Holmes and it is flooring me. Not just with its sly and subtle rhythmic play, but with memories of the Old Man. Pops, I miss you. You're on the other side of the world and far from home, but as always, you are never far from my thoughts.

You would appreciate this - the random spinner just spit out "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" by Slim Gaillard. It's making me think of Fred Sanford crooning, "If I didn't caaaaaaaare..." That always makes you laugh. You should channel some Fred Sanford tomorrow and scare the shit out of the Chadians. Shake your fist and shout, "Muhammad - ya big dummey! You gonna git five of these!"Why not? They already think you're crazy.

Post, Re-post, Contre-riposte

2008-03-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

Edwin Markham sent me this via the cosmic wires after reading my last post:

"For all your days, be prepared
and face them all alike.
When you are the anvil, bear.
When you are the hammer - strike."

Thanks Eddie, I love that. Although I think The Stranger said it more concisely:

"Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, he eats you."

Since this blog, like all blogs, will consist of 30 - 40% of bitching/moaning/wailing (hereafter known as the BMW Quotient), I think these lines will keep things in perspective. Many are the days I am the anvil. But I bet I am far more often the hammer and lack only the ability to see it.

Hammer strikes bear - checkmate!

Without Work There Is No Play

2008-03-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

A study in balance, perhaps. A long day of work and worry, production snafus, undependable contractors, higher than normal rates of employee zombie-ism.

Sigh.

And then I come home and the cat says hello and my wife changes into her pj's and the neighbors bless us with their peace and quiet and finally I can take a deep breath and say,

Ahhhh.

A Block Past Normal

2008-03-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

Now there's a phrase I haven't heard since I was knee high to a jitterbug. Normal. Which way to Normal? It's a shifty little burg right over the horizon. Hard to pin down, not on any maps recognized by the Army Core of Engineers. No. You might find Normal on a dusty parchment map penned centuries ago ("Here be monsters!"), but as soon as you can point to it and gleefully exclaim eureka, that map will crumble into your fingers and blow away with the four winds.

It doesn't have to be this way. Drunk driving. High protein diets. High fructose corn syrup in everything (why the hell is it in bread, for Muhammad's sake?) Bottled water. Prescription drug abuse. Juvenile diabetes. Cell phones.

That's right I said cell phones!

Jump!

2008-03-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

In order to jumpstart this blog, I posted a bunch of my entries from the previous incarnation of the Alcelogue. Normally I wouldn't dump so much on you at once, but time is always against us and I'm feeling impatient. One should really unfold oneself slowly, a day at a time, in this most hyper of hypertext marked-up languages.

One should also avoid the impersonal, but what is one to do? I said good-day, sir!

The Greatest Living Writer

2008-03-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

No, not me. But thank you so much! I was actually referring to an article I read today about Philip Roth. I haven't read enough Roth to decide whether he is the greatest living writer, but imagine what it must be like to read that phrase in a sentence about yourself. How frightening. It sounds ominous to me. 'He's the greatest living writer I know. Therefore, we must find him and execute him immediately. I'm sorry, but for the good of his reputation, he must join the great static ranks of the dead wordsmiths who have come before him.'

Why must the living contend with the dead? Then again, why must the dead contend with the living? It's hardly a fair fight and quite frankly, it's undignified.

Besides, I think we all can agree that the greatest writer living or dead is L. Ron Hubbard. (Thought I was going to say Shakespeare, didn't you?) Okay, he wasn't the best on plot, dialogue, or even sentence structure, but Hubbard transcended the whole idea of authorship. He wrote himself into the stories and merged with his books in a way Hunter Thompson and Charlie Kaufman could never dream of even in their wildest flights of neuroses. He didn't turn himself into a character in one of his science fiction stories - he turned his whole life into a science fiction story and then the story came alive and consumed other people, whole buildings, even an entire industry. What other writers can say they so completely erased the borders between fantasy and reality?

Okay, sure, those people who wrote the Bible and the Koran. Credit where credit is due.

Valdosta Terminal

2008-03-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

Beleaguered, betrayed, I creep through Valdosta.
Thoroughly unhinged, I sweep through Valdosta.

I'm on my own and my life is sky blue.
Passageways out are cheap through Valdosta.

There's no where to go, the station's still closed.
I'll open my eyes as I leap through Valdosta.

Your heart was born pumping, your brain was alive.
The history of madness runs deep through Valdosta.

The heat and the sun are the stillness of time.
With a soul full of lava, I seep through Valdosta.

I can't but accept these feelings as mine.
Like a broken down robot, I beep through Valdosta.

The laughter in sadness: the joke's still on me.
Spitting up tears, I weep through Valdosta.

Don't ever tell me that love will stand still.
My promise to god I'll keep through Valdosta.

Whoever said that stillness is real?
The fruits of my sins I'll reap through Valdosta.

While the fate of the world is still up to you,
the hill to forgiveness is steep through Valdosta.

Listen:

2008-03-16T11:06:00.001-07:00

Inside the system there is a room,
inside the room there is a computer,
inside the computer there is a typewriter,
inside the typewriter there is a man,
inside the man there is a woman,
inside the woman there is a teardrop,
inside the teardrop there is a hundred thousand years.

Let's Take A Moment to Love

2008-03-16T11:01:00.001-07:00

I read this recently:

"Right now you believe that your worth depends on your behavior. Metaphorically, you see yourself as an empty vessel that must be filled, drop by drop, with your achievements. The truth is that your value is your consciousness, your ability to perceive and experience. The value of a human life is that it exists."

Now isn't that beautiful?

On The Subject Of Poetry

2008-03-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have been researching the life of John "the Craze" Masefield and have discovered that in addition to being a sailor, writer, and poet laureate, he was also a devoted bodyboarder. In fact the original version of his most famous poem, "Sea-Fever", was actually entitled "Sponger-Fever". As you will see in the opening stanza of the first draft, Masefield knew all too well the joy and longing which haunts the blood of many a wave-rider:

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a good board and a wave to ride her by,
And the fin's kick and the wind's song and the inner rail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and double overheads breaking.

Then as now, bodyboarding was derided as the lesser of wave sports, having taken a back seat to surfing ever since Rudyard Kipling penned his immortal "The Longboarder's Burden". Masefield caved in under pressure from his editors and retooled the poem as a sailor's song, thereby securing his immortal fame and burying his secret heart.

The Road To The New World

2008-03-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

I saw Buddha in the road today, but I just didn't have the heart to kill him. He'll be back tomorrow I'm sure. I'll run him down then. Laughing all the way-ha ha ha. Isn't Buddhism a ballsy religion? No Muslim worth his kufi would ever say "If you meet Mohammed in the road, kill him." A lot of Muslims probably want to say it, but they're too aftraid of getting hacked to pieces by some asshole in a big beard. (I once had a dream where the Saudi religious police were all exiled Santa Clauses) But I think Mohammed himself would appreciate the sentiment. He didn't want to be worshipped any more than Buddha. Though I think Buddha was more deserving of misplaced worship. To quote Taqwacore: "I'm so Muslim, fuck Islam!"

Ohmigod! Oh fuck! Someone just shot me in the back!