failed song

(or, the unrecriminational anthem)

Know how some writers say they have no idea whether something they've written is good? That's not me - my record for recognizing greatness is considerable. But this song was my first lesson in hardcore fallibility. I practiced it for months and thought it was brilliant, even if only the kind that makes one dedicated fan say "THAT's the great song, not the fucking single!" But after performing it multiple times and getting NO love, i reluctantly gave up on it as a concert piece. I tried fixing it (earlier drafts were, um, longer), i still practiced it to put on an album...but finally abandoned even that ghost. Too much faith in my lyrical brilliance? It's basically an all-purpose song in which i crammed notions that didn't fit anywhere else. I made it fun and silly (i thought) with oo-ee-oo-ee-ooos, but at long last i bumped it from any consideration for any life anywhere. So i CAN write a bad song, apparently.

I can't relate to people who drink
I can't relate to people who don't
Reach in my pocket, there's a kitchen sink
In dreams you will, but in life you won't
For there are no saints, there are no sinners
In ways of wisdom we're all beginners
Capitalism is a capital crime
and no one loves like a midget mime
Oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-ooooo
Beedly beedly beedly beeee
I need a hug!
No, i need three!

Having too little or having too much
are both spiritual assassination
The end of psycho-sexual alienation
starts when we criminalize recrimination
Forgive ourselves, we know not what we do
We see the damage, not the dangers
We're blind to what we do to me and you
We barely see what we do to strangers
Oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-ooooo
Beedly beedly beedly beeee
Squeeze my bottom!
I'll giggle with glee!

Tell malcolm and ali
i spurn my slave master name
Condoms cause depression
Made-in-Taiwan is my maiden name
Outlawing slavery
protects only naked bipeds
But bonobos have magic vulvas
and sleep in rainbow bedspreads!
Oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-ooooo
Beedly beedly beedly beeee
Rub my belly!
And i'll rub thee

A fuck and a handshake
are different only in your head
Barbarians wear tuxedos
Chivalry was always dead
Is intolerance tolerable?
Let's turn wine to water
I am not YOUR son
but i might be your daughter
If it weren't for being mindfucked
i'd never be fucked at all
It's time to burn the jails
and go over the waterfall
We're so afraid of wimyn
we cover them in makeup
We're so afraid of life
we let doctors carve us up
Oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-ooooo
Beedly beedly beedly beeee

If you're not depressed or suicidal
you have a heightened sense of denial
I'm a sociopath, so are you
How did it happen, what can we do
Racism ain't about white or brown
Only the green that ain't spread around
Prehistoric people practiced radical sharing
Reintegration requires radical caring
Perpetual greed or need, that's not living
Radical healing needs radical forgiving
Every skulking thief
No recrimination
Every racist belief
No recrimination
Every murderous deed
No recrimination
This endless greed
No recrimination
No recrimination
Every abandoned child
No recrimination
Every lawsuit filed
No recrimination
Every betrayal and lie
No recrimination
Everyone who made you cry
No recrimination
Oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-ooooo
Beedly beedly beedly beeee

For Disney boys don't share their toys
And Disney girls will eat your world
Take off your clothes, wave your feet
Feel your mind swirled, feel your toes curled

There are no saints, there are no sinners
In ways of wisdom we're all beginners
Capitalism is a capital crime
And no one loves like a midget mime

"I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)"

S.T.H.O.L.T.B.I.D.
(songs to hear one last time before i die)
-by donald fagen
-by howard jones
Both of them. Yes, both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sogYgHlNnqo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9F979uJVTI

dreamscrape?

Last night i had one of the most beautiful dreams of my life.
A dream so breathtaking, i would be devastatingly tempted to live there if given the chance, forgoing this "real" world and all the good i might be able to effect like no one else.
Was it a vision of a world where all are free, secure, and loved? Where no humyns or other animals are raped, exploited, or genocided? A far-off planet of gentle aliens who take us into their care?
No, nay, nope.
It was sex! A vision of carnality so searing, that i'll be distracted for days to come. A womyn appeared naked inside my personal space (i too was naked, of course). She was a fair representative of the dream lover i've carried inside my touch/love-deprived mind ever since adolescence. She was, um, asian (well...). Thin, smallish, with long hair. Deep eyes of light and pain (one of the wounded ones...but aren't we all?). Her intrusion into my space was followed by hesitation. Carnality consumed me like nothing i'd ever known. She seemed to feel the same, as she began holding me...yet the shadow of some third entity was pulling her away. I held on. It became almost coercion - i would not, could not, let go. We achieved shallow penetration, and still she paused.
Then i awoke, with 5AM morning wood burrowing into the softnesses of my bed.
I had to get up for work in an hour. Should i go back to sleep, to be better rested for the day ahead? My erection was so intense and the dream ripples so searing, that i reached for the oil and an hour of self-love...
...and then arose into a world in which i'd recently learned that i was a pedophile. Or rapist. Or both.
I've been reading about neoteny, the retention of childhood characteristics into adulthood. Humyns are one of the most neotenous animals on the planet, more creatively playful than adults of other species. And wimyn are more physically childlike - they're shorter, with more body fat and higher voices. Less hairy, with smaller noses and brows and chins. Their eyes show more white. What's the point of infantile physical features? A baby's big eyes, soft curves, and high voices trigger protective, adoring responses. And just so, the infantile features of wimyn trigger protective and adoring responses from males. Nature is far smarter than you or i, and is implacably single-minded. What nature wants is babies, but it also knows that child-bearing wimyn are vulnerable, so...their appearance screams "adore and protect me"!
As a male, do i mind being manipulated like this? Nah.
What does trouble me though, is the thought of full breasts and wide hips COMBINED with infantile features...doesn't that make all straight men basically pedophiles? And if some get confused over where the boundary lies, they at least deserve pity and understanding.
I'm not excusing pedophilia. It's a behavior you can only find in a species horribly out of balance with its own needs and nature...which is exactly where humynity finds itself. For the past twenty thousand years, we've drifted further and further from the communal, sexual nature we'd developed since we split from the other apes. It's spiraled exponentially since the industrial revolution, until now we're just walking caricatures...confused, repressed, fearful, uncomfortable in our skin...and at that juncture, there is no perversion or abuse that won't occur.
The natural neoteny of the female is magnified if she wears eye makeup. She's super-babyfying herself (even if she isn't aware of it). She's basically shouting "Hey you pedophilically-inclined folk, get a load of THIS hot stuff, cha-cha-cha!" As for those sick fucks over at japanimation, the less said the better.
Anyway...
Understanding the neoteny of wimyn may bug me out for a while. When i see them on the street now, i shout out in my head, "AAAAAANH! You're just frankensteinian baby-adults!! What laboratory of horrors MADE you?? I would be disgusting to be attracted to a BABY-ADULT!!! You're just so...oh, oh look at you, you're kinda cute..." (kissy noises)
Did you know that the brain doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality? That on the synaptic level, doing something or just imagining it trigger identical brain patterns? So on a primal level, the brain doesn't know that dreams aren't real. Ergo, i have had the most beautiful sex of my life with my (literal and figurative) dream lover.
Except...i forgot, it wasn't exactly "most beautiful". There was a touch of coercion, which makes me on some level...a rapist?
Yes? No?
Get the fuck out of my head, you fucked-up world!!
I hate longing for lost ignorance.
During that hour of self-love, i didn't ejaculate. I rarely do. I bring myself to the sexual peak, then plateau without going over. It's a taoist thing, so the body can reabsorb all that energy and nutrient. Maybe it's hooey, but i like it. I've become reluctant to ejaculate at all, because i don't like the empty feeling that follows. For hours or more, a male who has ejaculated doesn't feel that keen edge of lust. This may be perverse of me, but i don't like not desiring sex constantly. Objectively, post-ejaculation peace should be a window in which i can focus on creativity and friendship without distraction. I SHOULD enjoy that...heck, maybe i should want it all the time. But i hate not being hungry for sex. Maybe it's the desperation of being middle-aged without having found the greatest lover of my life. Maybe it's a reflection of how wounded i am, especially where my mistreated, malnourished sex drive is concerned.
I don't know.
I love you all.

"Sunflower Cat/It Takes a Lot to Laugh..."

S.T.H.O.L.T.B.I.D.
(songs to hear one last time before i die)
-by bruce hornsby and the Noisemakers
Chugging, thumping, grinding, but gently pulling your heart away from your body with off-rhythms...then it flies away to the stratosphere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyGq_CTq-3M

mission statement

(or, the abnormality of normalcy)
We live in a culture of desensitization, touch deprivation, and psycho-sexual alienation. The average child witnesses over 200,000 TV acts of violence or murder, instilling in us a normative attitude toward physical or emotional brutality. Desensitization is far older and deeper than cathode ray tubes, but that's the glaring tip of the iceberg in which natural humyn compassion is anesthetized.
Around the age of two, the ample touch infants enjoy is replaced by strict delineations of "personal space". We eventually learn that the only arena in which this society allows us return to that level of copious, unmeasured physical intimacy is romance - as a result, its importance is forever inflated exponentially (and destructive relationships less easily abandoned). At puberty, our bodies need a new kind of touch, but instead of teaching our youth safe and loving sexual associations, we deny them any outlet.
We indoctrinate them into a culture where love and security are never guaranteed, the only person you can count on is yourself, and the price for "losing" is deprivation or far worse. Over the most basic necessities, our children learn only paranoia, fear, and merciless competition.
The resultant swirl of escapist behaviors, control/commitment issues, maladaptions/fetishes, projection/compensation, and outward (or inward)-directed violence are a cocktail that could never be unraveled by a million therapists. By adulthood, the damage done to the average person is so profound that you never have (and never will) meet a healthy humyn...and few of us can even imagine how such a person might look and act.
Pushing our species back toward sanity and health thus becomes the primary goal of any thinking, feeling person.

(I've chosen writing as the method by which i might best help. I've written hundreds of essays, and a collection of fairy tales that might one day be your favorite book. And most recently i've turned to songwriting...trying to maintain my artistic goals while being first and foremost an entertainer. So far, the results are promising. In my dreams, this struggle wouldn't dominate my life. I just want to receive all the love, security, and community that any humyn needs, and simply live in the wonder of existence. But that doesn't seem likely to happen soon. I love you all.)