I don't believe in bacchus, midas, jesus, or cinderella
(women think me a most queer fella)
I believe in casanova and mae west
(i fail those magazine mating tests)
I'm devoted to karl as much as harpo
(my love life is no way, no how, no go)
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Monday, June 29, 2015
letters from lovejoy
(A poetry rub cafe on the planet Lovejoy, 2073. Amanda and wrob talk while receiving massages.)
WROB: I know, i know! Don't agonize, it was a million years ago.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Where is this coming from? Do you need penance, or absolution? If it's the latter, you know you've had that...always.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Okay...it was dehumanizing. Have you ever had your humanity assaulted? Or negated? Well, of course, everyone has. But it was like this demon child was out there screaming "You're not a human being! You thought you were a human being, but you're NOT!! I rip the tongue out of your fucking head! You don't exist!!!" It was like you wanted me to do something stupid, so you could rationalize rejecting me. And when i didn't take the bait, you acted like a mudslinging politician and accused me of doing it anyway. It was a tough year. Eric erased me, shane did the same...which is the way everybody acted back in those days, so big deal. But it was such a mindfuck, because you kept dropping these horrible bombs. We'd meet accidentally for twenty-nine seconds, you would say something disconnected from reality...and even though i knew intellectually that you were making shit up because you felt you had to say something, there was a tiniest nugget of uncertainty over whether you might actually believe what you were saying. If that were so, then a simple, short talk at any point would have fixed everything. And maybe "fixing everything" meant you needing to end our friendship...which was fine, of course.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: There's only one that sticks in my mind...when you told me you thought i'd had expectations. To spend fifteen years offering one message above all - "i have NO expectations". Everyone you'd ever known, every lover or friend or family member, had crapped their expectations onto you. But not me, i wasn't going to do that. Ever (except the ones you asked me to hold). I knew that if a hundred bloodhounds went back over every word i'd said, every deed i'd done, they would never find the tiniest whiff of expectation. So, yeah, boom - the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to me. Ain't life funny.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Exactly. You were a surgeon. You were syd barrett. And you couldn't stand the thought that someone saw you. You needed that illusion of control you'd always so carefully maintained. But it's not like it was so bad that i lost perspective, or the ability to laugh. There were one or two hysterical moments. I laughed for an entire day once, when i listened to an alanis morrisette song and realized you had behaved exactly like the man she was trashing. I mean...that's funny.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: No, dumbass, i don't remember the song.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: I was always proud of my yearly ritual - once a year, on your birthday, i would climb in my biplane and skywrite over your house "IT'S NOT HOW WELL YOU LOVE OTHERS, BUT HOW WELL YOU LOVE YOURSELF".
AMANDA: You did no such fucking thing.
WROB: I didn't? Could've sworn i did...
AMANDA: You can't even remember when my birthday is, dipshit!
WROB: Not true. Starting the first year you ignored me on van's birthday, every year after, exactly nine months before your birthday, i fucked nine fertile women. Don quixote got nothin' on me...
AMANDA: You did that for me?
WROB: Damn straight.
THERAPIST: (to amanda) Would you like the happy ending?
WROB: Been wondering that since 1998...
WROB: I know, i know! Don't agonize, it was a million years ago.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Where is this coming from? Do you need penance, or absolution? If it's the latter, you know you've had that...always.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Okay...it was dehumanizing. Have you ever had your humanity assaulted? Or negated? Well, of course, everyone has. But it was like this demon child was out there screaming "You're not a human being! You thought you were a human being, but you're NOT!! I rip the tongue out of your fucking head! You don't exist!!!" It was like you wanted me to do something stupid, so you could rationalize rejecting me. And when i didn't take the bait, you acted like a mudslinging politician and accused me of doing it anyway. It was a tough year. Eric erased me, shane did the same...which is the way everybody acted back in those days, so big deal. But it was such a mindfuck, because you kept dropping these horrible bombs. We'd meet accidentally for twenty-nine seconds, you would say something disconnected from reality...and even though i knew intellectually that you were making shit up because you felt you had to say something, there was a tiniest nugget of uncertainty over whether you might actually believe what you were saying. If that were so, then a simple, short talk at any point would have fixed everything. And maybe "fixing everything" meant you needing to end our friendship...which was fine, of course.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: There's only one that sticks in my mind...when you told me you thought i'd had expectations. To spend fifteen years offering one message above all - "i have NO expectations". Everyone you'd ever known, every lover or friend or family member, had crapped their expectations onto you. But not me, i wasn't going to do that. Ever (except the ones you asked me to hold). I knew that if a hundred bloodhounds went back over every word i'd said, every deed i'd done, they would never find the tiniest whiff of expectation. So, yeah, boom - the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to me. Ain't life funny.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Exactly. You were a surgeon. You were syd barrett. And you couldn't stand the thought that someone saw you. You needed that illusion of control you'd always so carefully maintained. But it's not like it was so bad that i lost perspective, or the ability to laugh. There were one or two hysterical moments. I laughed for an entire day once, when i listened to an alanis morrisette song and realized you had behaved exactly like the man she was trashing. I mean...that's funny.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: No, dumbass, i don't remember the song.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: I was always proud of my yearly ritual - once a year, on your birthday, i would climb in my biplane and skywrite over your house "IT'S NOT HOW WELL YOU LOVE OTHERS, BUT HOW WELL YOU LOVE YOURSELF".
AMANDA: You did no such fucking thing.
WROB: I didn't? Could've sworn i did...
AMANDA: You can't even remember when my birthday is, dipshit!
WROB: Not true. Starting the first year you ignored me on van's birthday, every year after, exactly nine months before your birthday, i fucked nine fertile women. Don quixote got nothin' on me...
AMANDA: You did that for me?
WROB: Damn straight.
THERAPIST: (to amanda) Would you like the happy ending?
WROB: Been wondering that since 1998...
Saturday, June 27, 2015
pinheadio leftovers
One of my favorite lines from Pinheadio, is one that nobody got to read. Oh, i tried leaving it in, along with a humorous parenthetical about it being brilliant but also brilliantly racist...but i finally went with my dictum that less is more, and cut it.
The question is, was it brilliantly (or even just middlingly) racist? Before answering my question, here's the line:
"...but pinocchio was swept ashore as geppetto was swallowed by the colossal catfish, who was immediately swallowed by the dastardly dogfish, who was immediately swallowed by the lumbering lucasfish, who was immediately swallowed by the draconian disneyfish, who was immediately swallowed by the giant jewfish, who was immediately swallowed by the awful antitrustfish."
The question is, was it brilliantly (or even just middlingly) racist? Before answering my question, here's the line:
"...but pinocchio was swept ashore as geppetto was swallowed by the colossal catfish, who was immediately swallowed by the dastardly dogfish, who was immediately swallowed by the lumbering lucasfish, who was immediately swallowed by the draconian disneyfish, who was immediately swallowed by the giant jewfish, who was immediately swallowed by the awful antitrustfish."
It was the jewfish bit that got cut. A surface reading of the line admittedly sets off racist alarms. So why do i find it funny? Because walt disney was allegedly an anti-semite! Add to that the fact that Disney's most famous CEO since walt died, was jewish (along with at least two others CEOs), and it becomes very funny. Add to that the fact that, unlike the lucasfish or disneyfish, there actually IS such a thing as a jewfish, and it becomes hysterical! Call my sense of humor perverse, but the fact that there's an actual animal called a jewfish, is entertaining to me. I might also giggle if you told me there was a wopfish. I'm basing all that on the assumption that the original intent of the naming was in no way a slur.
Intelligent people have long known that one way to separate the stupid from the smart, is in how they react to "bad" words. Intelligent people know there is no such thing as a bad word...only bad intentions. Any word can be good or bad depending on the context, but if you automatically make a word dirty or demeaning, you give that word automatic power over your emotions. Instead of controlling your words, you're letting them control you.
The belief in "bad words" exists in inverse proportion to intelligence.
And the original sequence would have been even funnier if i'd ended it on "jewfish"...but doing that would have actually felt a touch anti-semitic! Having the line end on "antitrustfish" send the proper message...that michael eisner has no monopoly on slimy business ethics, and that he and all his predatory ilk are an endangered species.
Just as is, coincidentally, the jewfish itself.
So by any correct reading of authorly intent, the line wasn't racist...yet sadly, a lot of people might have thought it was. And it's not even being misunderstood by well-intended folk that bothers me, as much as the thought of actual racists thinking i was one of them.
There are, of course, any number of emotionally-charged, hot-button words which draw immediate censure regardless of intention or context. "Jew" is mild, compared to some. Some words are so hot, you can't even say a word that sounds similar. I'm appalled that some public figure recently was censured (perhaps even fired?), simply for using "niggardly" in its proper context. Call it my perverse sense of humor again, but niggardly has always been one of my absolute favorite words. My brother and i even invented "the niggardly game". It's quite simple, and can stretch out over years. At some sort of annual social gathering, a contestant must conspicuously (but properly) inject "niggardly" into the conversation. The following year, it's the next contestant's turn. This goes on until the group at large finally reacts in some decisive way.
There are, of course, any number of emotionally-charged, hot-button words which draw immediate censure regardless of intention or context. "Jew" is mild, compared to some. Some words are so hot, you can't even say a word that sounds similar. I'm appalled that some public figure recently was censured (perhaps even fired?), simply for using "niggardly" in its proper context. Call it my perverse sense of humor again, but niggardly has always been one of my absolute favorite words. My brother and i even invented "the niggardly game". It's quite simple, and can stretch out over years. At some sort of annual social gathering, a contestant must conspicuously (but properly) inject "niggardly" into the conversation. The following year, it's the next contestant's turn. This goes on until the group at large finally reacts in some decisive way.
Hysterical, i call it.
If you find that in bad taste, you're perhaps in some kind of denial over how screwed up this world is. But this world needs in-your-face humor, nowhere moreso than where emotions run highest.
Often when i'm out in the world doing some sort of solitary activity, i'll sing the theme song to "The Niggar Family" from CHAPELLE'S SHOW. One of the most brilliant satires ever - i'll be laughing at it for the rest of my life.
I know, of course, that should someone overhear me singing that song and not know the source, they might think me a crass racist. Or if a black person overheard me, even were they to recognize the song, they might find my behavior inappropriate or insulting. That's a risk i'm happy to take. Humor is the sanest reaction to an insane world...and if everyone embraced the sensibility behind the song, we would all be well on our way to healing.
And poor authors would never need pull their funniest lines again.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
not-ends 28
Give a man a fish…and i'll show you a fish who's having a really bad day.
If you have a job in which you never sing while you work, it's time to take a hard look at your life.
In group sex and gunplay, it's nice to be missed.
I have trouble mustering outrage over the fact that government and big business have transcripts of every phone call and e-mail we've ever made, and that satellites photograph our every move. The desire for privacy is found only at the lowest levels of the spirit path.
Blondes have more fun? Debatable. Here are the hair campaign slogans that were rejected - "Redheads have more bedhead", "Brunettes have more babies", "Afros have more bravos", "Baldies get more head", and "Mohawks have moherpes".
Brilliance + isolation = clarity.
I spent the first half of my life wondering why i was so attracted to the wounded ones…until i finally realized there ain't no other kind.
The four most destructive words in the history of human language? "It's in god's hands".
Why do people love horror films? Many reasons...and most of them unhealthy. But also because we're a society living on the edge of insanity, and horror films foster the illusion that insanity can be controlled. In a horror film all the people are, for one brief moment, united in a common cause...incapable of all the despicable things we otherwise do to each other. Subconsciously, we know that this is how we're supposed to live...so we want to escape to that world, not consciously realizing that the true horror is the "normal" world we return to when the popcorn is gone.
The most common spiritual mistake is trying to answer the final questions before the thousands that come first.
If you're mean to a caterpillar, do they remember your face once they're a butterfly?
If you have a job in which you never sing while you work, it's time to take a hard look at your life.
In group sex and gunplay, it's nice to be missed.
I have trouble mustering outrage over the fact that government and big business have transcripts of every phone call and e-mail we've ever made, and that satellites photograph our every move. The desire for privacy is found only at the lowest levels of the spirit path.
Blondes have more fun? Debatable. Here are the hair campaign slogans that were rejected - "Redheads have more bedhead", "Brunettes have more babies", "Afros have more bravos", "Baldies get more head", and "Mohawks have moherpes".
Brilliance + isolation = clarity.
I spent the first half of my life wondering why i was so attracted to the wounded ones…until i finally realized there ain't no other kind.
The four most destructive words in the history of human language? "It's in god's hands".
Why do people love horror films? Many reasons...and most of them unhealthy. But also because we're a society living on the edge of insanity, and horror films foster the illusion that insanity can be controlled. In a horror film all the people are, for one brief moment, united in a common cause...incapable of all the despicable things we otherwise do to each other. Subconsciously, we know that this is how we're supposed to live...so we want to escape to that world, not consciously realizing that the true horror is the "normal" world we return to when the popcorn is gone.
The most common spiritual mistake is trying to answer the final questions before the thousands that come first.
If you're mean to a caterpillar, do they remember your face once they're a butterfly?
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Sunday, June 14, 2015
naked nurse 7
SOOTHING OUR SOCIAL/SPIRITUAL/SEXUAL STRIFE
Dear naked nurse,
If i had a nickel for every time i scared a woman off by telling her i loved her the first time we had sex...i'd have some nickels! What's wrong with people?? Are we really that neurotic?
-lovelorn in little rock
Dear lovelorn,
If you're going to answer your own question, why am i even here?
Asking people to be relaxed and open and accepting (or giving or nurturing or agendaless) any time sex is involved, is like asking slugs to dance - even if they do their best, no one's likely to notice or care. But give us another century or two, and we'll get our caca conjoined.
Right now, there's just far too much at stake when sex is in play. Aside from money, nothing else defines our lives so thoroughly...and for most people, especially women, our sexual choices determine our financial well-being as well.
Nothing could be more natural than telling your lover you love them! It seems a no-brainer. But (again, especially for women), the sex game is all about long-term strategies, so a "premature i love you" throws us off. Ironically, it can sound...shallow. Insincere, instead of truthful and natural. Of course, part of the problem is hormones. Any time we're caught up in the swirls of falling in love, our brains are simply a perplexed passenger. Instead of sensibly kicking them to the curb and enjoying the ride, we try to CONTROL...ourselves, our partners, our precious self-images.
And to play devil's advocate for a moment, an "i love you" in the heat of hormonal passion, is arguably not as objectively truthful as it might feel. Is it truly the other person we love, or simply how we feel with them? To some extent, those realities overlap. Yet often as not, a brain awash in endorphins can wake up a year later and realize that their beloved annoys them no end. Never, ever, ever make life choices while in the first eighteen months of falling in love (of course, to the misery of all, this is precisely the time most of us DO make life choices).
Is there a more honest alternative to the "premature i love you"? How about "i love this". While that has the merit of likely being the most truthful option, it makes a far too shallow clang in our ears. Perhaps "i love us", then? It still has a high degree of honesty, while maintaining a semblance of healthy perspective.
I love us!
I promise, that's not just the hormones talking.
mirthful mountings,
the naked nurse
Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!
Dear naked nurse,
If i had a nickel for every time i scared a woman off by telling her i loved her the first time we had sex...i'd have some nickels! What's wrong with people?? Are we really that neurotic?
-lovelorn in little rock
Dear lovelorn,
If you're going to answer your own question, why am i even here?
Asking people to be relaxed and open and accepting (or giving or nurturing or agendaless) any time sex is involved, is like asking slugs to dance - even if they do their best, no one's likely to notice or care. But give us another century or two, and we'll get our caca conjoined.
Right now, there's just far too much at stake when sex is in play. Aside from money, nothing else defines our lives so thoroughly...and for most people, especially women, our sexual choices determine our financial well-being as well.
Nothing could be more natural than telling your lover you love them! It seems a no-brainer. But (again, especially for women), the sex game is all about long-term strategies, so a "premature i love you" throws us off. Ironically, it can sound...shallow. Insincere, instead of truthful and natural. Of course, part of the problem is hormones. Any time we're caught up in the swirls of falling in love, our brains are simply a perplexed passenger. Instead of sensibly kicking them to the curb and enjoying the ride, we try to CONTROL...ourselves, our partners, our precious self-images.
And to play devil's advocate for a moment, an "i love you" in the heat of hormonal passion, is arguably not as objectively truthful as it might feel. Is it truly the other person we love, or simply how we feel with them? To some extent, those realities overlap. Yet often as not, a brain awash in endorphins can wake up a year later and realize that their beloved annoys them no end. Never, ever, ever make life choices while in the first eighteen months of falling in love (of course, to the misery of all, this is precisely the time most of us DO make life choices).
Is there a more honest alternative to the "premature i love you"? How about "i love this". While that has the merit of likely being the most truthful option, it makes a far too shallow clang in our ears. Perhaps "i love us", then? It still has a high degree of honesty, while maintaining a semblance of healthy perspective.
I love us!
I promise, that's not just the hormones talking.
mirthful mountings,
the naked nurse
Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
naked nurse 6
SOOTHING OUR SOCIAL/SPIRITUAL/SEXUAL STRIFE
Dear naked nurse,
How do fat-bottomed girls feel about the song "Fat-Bottomed Girls"?
-wondering in Westphalia
Dear wondering,
What, you can't just let them make the rocking world go round, and leave it at that? Sigh. Okay, this is the closest i'll probably ever come to dissembling, but...there are probably as many different answers to that question as there are fat-bottomed girls (er, women). Now, you got a smart-ass follow-up about babies and back?
rumpalicious reveries,
the naked nurse
Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!
Dear naked nurse,
How do fat-bottomed girls feel about the song "Fat-Bottomed Girls"?
-wondering in Westphalia
Dear wondering,
What, you can't just let them make the rocking world go round, and leave it at that? Sigh. Okay, this is the closest i'll probably ever come to dissembling, but...there are probably as many different answers to that question as there are fat-bottomed girls (er, women). Now, you got a smart-ass follow-up about babies and back?
rumpalicious reveries,
the naked nurse
Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!
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