Friday, April 29, 2005

DECOMPRESSING

I finished my piece. That doesn't mean that it's done, though. I need to submit a picture of the piece by the 29th, and this is it. Hopefully the columns of my blog will be big enough to house the photo properly.



Right now, the working title is La Lluvia del Juarez-- "the rain of Juarez". Hey, it's my first painting and the subject matter is very serious, so much so that I might make the next thing I do something with some humor.

I won't add too much to it. I don't want to radically alter it anyway, since I'm sending a pic ahead. I'd say it's 90% done-- there's some details I'm going to change here and there.

Check out www.400portraits.com/art to see some of the works that will be at the UCLA Feminist Majority's auction on May 15th, 2005.

I feel like I'm coming out of a funk, shaking off the remnants of an active depression. There wasn't anything in particular that I was depressed about, but I did feel tightly wound a few times.

I like painting. As I learn more and get more comfortable with it, I think it may help me in unexpected ways.

This is my last night of doing the night shift-- next week I'm alive again, and not dead to the world, delirious.

I gave my cat some catnip today. He fucking lost his mind, rolling around like a crack fiend.

I have work to do but I don't want to do it. I'd better get to it.

If I don't blog again today, have a wonderful weekend.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH LUIS BUNUEL

When asked why he made movies, Luis Bunuel answered, "...to show that this is not the best of all possible worlds." Pondering this quote, I think of Voltaire's Candide, the satirization of proper society and manners, and the luxury of dream logic.

Humanities curriculum: Mr. Accardi, the Cleveland High School Art History instructor, screened Un Chien Andalou for a classroom full of egg-headed near-geniuses. I sat among them, as one of them, in the dark, entranced. The name of Salvador Dali rang a large bell between my ears. A razor blade slid against the rheumy curve of a woman's eyeball, slitting it in two, with a vision of the moon superimposed upon it. I made the connection between this iconic cinematic image and the lyrics to "Debaser" by The Pixies... my first Bunuelian epiphany.

As an adult in North Hollywood, barely an adult at least, pretending to be a man, I stayed up late one night as I was wont to do and saw The Exterminating Angel on PBS. Paulie and I were very stoned and he protested the movie because he didn't understand it. I didn't understand it either, but it was intriguing to watch, and the name Bunuel and the movement of Surrealism always opened doors in my consciousness whenever their syllables were pronounced. I came away from watching that movie with a deep impression left upon me. The party guests couldn't leave even if they tried, and when they finally made the break for it, they ended up in another cage...

Sherman Oaks--unlocked doors at night, isolation and space to breathe, free time squandered against the pursuit of leisure... My friend J from NYC asked me if I'd ever seen Belle Du Jour and when she mentioned Bunuel I jumped at the opportunity. Catherine Deneuve's face was positively beatific to behold, doleful sadness weeping from her lashes invisibly. The mysterious tinder box, the juxtapositions of the Belle's fantasy with reality, the man at the foot of the casket... I noticed that there was barely any music, and the action was slow but elegant. An enormously interesting film.

Yesterday I rented The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie from the library. I knew nothing about it except that it was Luis Bunuel, and the spine told me nothing other than cursory plot notes, the kind that serve only as departure points. Hilariously droll, refreshingly unimportant and yet making light of universal themes, despite the focus on six upper-class Europeans and their collective N-supply. Dreams within dreams beget realities within dreams and clash with objectivity... again, little or no music, and even more curious: deliberate obscuring of important dialogue, perhaps to keep the audience locked in the moment of watching a movie, the urgency of not being able to hear what is being heard, and in the credits I see that Bunuel mixed the sound effects himself... I can see why Hitchcock declared him his favorite film director. The colors, the pacing, the atmosphere, the sets, the actors toeing the line between playing it straight and straight-away playing. Stephane Audrane is gorgeous, urbane and witty in her role, a vacuous turn-on, the shallow arm of blistering beauty.

I still have to experience L'Age D'Or, That Obscure Object Of Desire and Tristiana, as well as other lesser-known films he made in his long career. I like the films of Luis Bunuel, because they are the kind of films that I wish I had the talent and guts to conceive, let alone create. They are unmistakably clever and affiliated with his Jester stance-- friendly pokes with sharp, steely daggers...

They all have subtitles.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

DEAR SEX

An Advice Column That's Short On Advice And Long On Columns...

by DR. SEX!!!



DISCLAIMER: Dr. Sexton Seamus McGinty III is NOT, nor never was, a licensed physician, psychologist, or psychiatrist. He's a fucking quack is what he is. He is, in fact, a 'pataphysician, which is just a roundabout way of saying that he's a BULLSHITTER...


I'M BAAAAAACK!!

I bet you all thought you'd never get one of these again. But lately all of my bitches have been calling me out of retirement, asking me this and asking me that... one thing led to another, and now I'm back on the scene, doling out advice to the lovelorn, the sex-starved, and the crazy brave.

As you may have noticed, Ledhed's usual dirty illustrations do not accompany this column for now. He's on vacation in Europe, making a living drawing sketches of whatever he spies underneath the skirts of women walking on the street. The minute he comes back, he's going to be glad that the column is back in semi-regular rotation... and he'll also be bummed that he has to be back in the States at all!

Until he comes back, I'm writing these columns solo.

Enjoy.



Dear Sex:

What's the deal with circumcision? Are you for or against it?

Peter Schlong,
Perinuem, CA



Dear Peter:

The deal with circumcision is that, much like orgasms in the modern married couple's household, it comes and goes with the times. One minute, it's good to whack the extra skin off of a kid's wee-wee, and the next minute, people decide that kids need that extra skin in order to feel whole.

In my day, we had to de-smegmatize all by ourselves. My mother used to nag me about washing behind my ears and also underneath my foreskin. We didn't have doctors cutting the skin away for us as a convenience. Today's kids are nothing but a bunch of slackers, really. Lazy, unmotivated, needing everything done for them... no wonder this country's going down the toilet!

When it got popular to cut skins again, I volunteered as an adult to have the procedure done. I was in a tremendous amount of pain for two weeks after that-- I guess it's good to do it when you're young and stupid, kind of like getting a tattoo with your beloved's name on your ass.

After the pain subsided, I felt a whole lot better about it, because all of the pornos I watch feature circumcized penises and I like feeling like I'm part of the crowd.

The downside is that my penis is smaller and shorter than it was before the cut. Instead of being 5 and 3/4 inches long, it is now 5 and 1/2 inches long. This has affected my notions of manliness and masculinity. I've decided to have my foreskin restored, but first I need a donor. Anyone out there have an extra foreskin they don't need?



*/*


Dear Sex:

Why are men so obsessed with what a woman looks like? I see fine girls with ugly dudes all the time-- they all can't be gold-diggers though... it seems to me that women are less picky than men. If so, why do you think this is?

Hal Bellow
Upstate NY



Dear Hal:

Men are obsessed over a woman's appearance because men possess two sets of eyes. The first pair are used for things like seeing what's in front of you or stopping at a red traffic light; the second set are what my old friend Sharky used to refer to as his "dick eyes": they're used strictly for mentally undressing women out in public or anywhere else besides the bedroom.

The "dick eyes" are not in the same category as "beer goggles". Clearly, "beer goggles" are caused by drinking massive quantities of beer, whereas "dick eyes" are a natural occurrence in all men, regardless of sexual orientation.

When a man meets a woman, they look at her with their primary set of eyes. However, at some point during the meeting, the "dick eyes" start scanning the female form in order to find appealing aspects, i.e. large breasts, tight ass, long legs, etc. (it all varies depending on a man's particular fetish)

This can be traced back to the caveman days, where the survival instinct resulted in cavemen trying to find cavewomen who were fertile enough to reproduce offspring... unfortunately, the cavemen would eventually eat the young as soon as they were born. Thus, cavewomen had to start dressing in more revealing animal skins in order to keep the cavemen from eating their babies, which in turn led to the population explosion that we are experiencing today.

Mark my words: the minute child-eating comes back into vogue, men will be less inclined to judge women based upon their physical attributes. By that point, it will be all about how much salt they used in the recipe instead of how high a push-up bra can elevate the female breast. So ladies-- start boning up on your cooking skills. Going back into the kitchen is the only way to be a strong feminist nowadays.

There are those, however, who take a different tack-- groups of women are, on a daily basis, causing irreparable blindess to "dick eyes" by wearing clothes that they should never wear in public, on bodies that prove the nonexistance of a merciful God. This includes thongs on women who really shouldn't be wearing thongs in the first place.

I myself am not picky. I say, if you don't look like Brad Pitt and some girl thinks you are the bee's knees, you should be fucking happy and grateful that she has a pulse and all the other necessary parts.

Yes, women are less picky than men. But that works to everybody's detriment: ugly men take advantage of the kindness of women by giving average-looking men the false hope that they too can land a Claudia Schiffer lookalike, if only they just believed in themselves or had lots of money.

That's because a man who sees an ugly guy walking down the street hand-in-hand with a fine piece of ass is looking at the man with his normal eyes, while he is looking at the woman with his "dick eyes"... that is, unless he's gay or bi.

If you are interested in combatting what we professionals refer to as Dick Eyes Abuse, please send a SASE to: Ladies Against Dick Eyes (L.A.D.E.) c/o Sex McGinty, 2222 Twin Oaks Way, Pacoima, CA 91331. Send $5 with that SASE-- you won't get anything back, I just want to make some cash off of this.

Okay, that's enough for today. I don't know when I'll be back again. Possibly wherever it is that people cry for sound medical advice... I'll be there to steer them the wrong way!

PEACE

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

THE CULT OF N

N.

I'm sick of writing out the word "narcissism" or "narcissist". Too many esses and eyes. I never know if it should be capitalized or not.

If I'm going to bleed this sucker dry, milk it for all it's worth... then I need to go shorthand.

N.

Capital n. From now on, it's all about N.

N is everywhere, in this country. N is especially prevalent on your TV.

TV gives you a POV full of N. After a while, you can see how everything in the media, popular culture and public affairs is affected by N.

I was watching Oliver Stone's The Doors on VHS. I used to be a great big fan of Jim Morrison, until I saw this movie. It was rated 'R', and I was 16 or 17 when I first saw it. Seeing Stone's interpretation of the life of an interesting rock performer was a travesty, because it said nothing to me about Morrison's life, or my own life for that matter. It spoke volumes about Stone's life, however, and so it qualifies as N.

Jim Morrison was an N, for sure. What I thought were attractive qualities in the man turned out to be my juvenile fascination with his all-encompassing N.

I watched Mighty Aphrodite for the first time earlier today. It's one of Woody Allen's best, but he's an N also. His movies are ripe with N. That's why so many people dislike his movies-- because they're all about him and his little world.

Seinfeld owes a lot to Woody Allen in its exploration of the N in four different New York individuals. Jerry Seinfeld is an N but he's a gracious N-- the show was named after him and yet he was always willing to let his co-stars share the spotlight... because they were under his name! And NBC, well... they have N in their acronym.

N is in all things. But N is running rampant in your mirror.

Go take a look at yourself in the mirror. What do you see? Do you see yourself? No, you don't.

You're seeing N.

You're seeing what you want to see. You're ignoring the things that lower your N-supply: the love handles, the blemishes, the crow's feet, the open pores, all of it...

You stay focused on the things you like: the way your nose curves at the tip, the slight bags under the eyes that give it a world-weariness that you couldn't buy for all the money in the world, the arch of your upper lip...

Long live N. I'm taking it to the Nth degree, and running with it.


*/*


The painting is coming along swimmingly. I did half an hour today and I forsee that I'll be done, at this rate, by week's end. After that, I have this screwy notion of starting a series of portraits. All of the subjects will be women I have either dated, loved, or been loved by, and I will title it my "muse" series....

This is tricky territory, you know. I have to appeal to a woman's sense of N-supply, and that can take a long long time. A woman's vanity is a prized possession. I must be careful about how I go about it, and also I must keep the paintings under wraps until each one is done-- I don't want people claiming favorites or anything like that.

Most of all, I have to capture the essence of each woman in a way that doesn't condescend or offend. It's going to be tough, but also I imagine it will be fun, and even therapeutic for me.

If anyone out there paints or wants to take it up, I highly recommend listening to jazz when you do it. I played the Miles Davis/Bill Laswell CD again as I started on the second phase of the painting, and it is really inspirational to me. It helps me to establish a mood. I will try out The Best Of John Coltrane on my next painting, or maybe towards the end of this one, when I'm retouching and adding details. Painting a picture to the sounds of "Naima" or "Equinox" will be a treat, to say the least. I used to have a copy of A Love Supreme on CD but, in a fit of anti-jazz obsession late last year, I sold it.

I know this sounds pretentious and pompous, but for the first time in my life, I feel like a real artist. I have the easel up in a space in the corner of my apartment, with a large dirty sheet covering the carpet and brushes strewn about; I have paintngs from artist-friends on the walls; I have the weed stash on the coffee table next to the glass bubbler and I have very little food in my fridge; I have an electric guitar in the corner and a picture of Earvin "Magic" Johnson on one of my living room walls; I have rows of books in my bookcases and a line of vinyl records on display...

I don't want to glamorize the hand-to-mouth living and the slight seediness, but at the same time it seems to go well with the whole vibe. I realize that part of me is living out some weird sort of fantasy where I struggle to make ends meet while also living under the radar and existing in a Los Angeles of my own creation, but it isn't delusional. I understand that my life is getting stabler, even as it seems to have the chaos that I thrive on...

I just want to look back on this time in my life, ten years from now, and throw my fist in the air and nod my head and say, "Yeah... now that was living!" I look back on those reckless days in North Hollywood, with Paulie as a roommate and scores of musicians, patrons and passerbys paying visits to our slummy apartment, and I marvel over the daily adventures that went down. It was exciting, and I guess I want that excitement to sustain itself somehow, even if it's on an infinitely smaller scale...

I think part of my enchantment at my current predicament has to do with being proud of where I've come from in the last two or three years. Going from being on my own to down-and-out and back on my own again has done wonders for my self-esteem. I am in love with life again, and art has been instrumental in this personal renaissance.

So, I will get back to work now, and then I will go home and sleep it all off, and awaken and paint, and then go out to The Garage and work, and then go home and nap until it's time to work again, and in-between I'll be daydreaming, like I always do...

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:





Your Brain is 46.67% Female, 53.33% Male



Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female

You are both sensitive and savvy

Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed

But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve





Just as I always suspected...

PEACE

Monday, April 25, 2005

PAINTING

On Sunday, April 24th, at 3:18 PM, I painted.

This is my first real painting. I did stuff for my Humanities classes in high school, and I did artwork for some cash here and there when high school let out... but that's it.

I've had the paints, the brushes, and the palette for about two weeks. I've had the easel and canvases for months. Yesterday, I finally had the time.

I set the mood, made it ritualistic. I smoked some marijuana and then smoked a cigarette, to induce the Gods of Smoke. Then, I played this CD of Miles Davis' jazz-rock fusion as remixed by Bill Laswell, Panthalassa, and prepared the two colors I was going to work with: Black and Fleshtone.

The paint is cheap acrylic shit. I diluted some of it with water. I started with the two biggest brushes, to get the broadstrokes out of the way.

I forget how big the canvas size actually is-- I'd say it's an average size for a canvas, not too big and not too small. Specific measurements elude me-- once I removed the plastic wrapper, I didn't look back.

It was exhilirating. It was like music, especially as I was listening to Miles. The rhythms, the nuances, the strokes... like making love, like getting high, like laughing until you cry real tears... all of those pleasurable things...

I got ahead of myself, painting over shapes that hadn't dried yet. I stopped after twenty minutes, because I'd gotten further than I expected. I work very quickly, and I underestimated my speed. I am more than halfway done, with just the two colors I put down.

I had an idea of a disembodied woman's face, blindfolded, tears streaming down onto a desert landscape, pink crosses enclosed within each teardrop as they decorate the sand. The theme of this is painting is the women of Juarez, Mexico, who have been murdered and their bodies left to rot out in the open. Pink crosses are erected at the site of each body, now totaling over 400.

I have to pace myself. It feels good to explore this medium-- I have a lot to learn and yet I feel like I am a natural. It was special. It was magical.

I am working the night shift for one week, so when I get home, I will paint, then sleep, then paint again, then sleep again, every day this week until Friday, when I submit a digital picture of the work to the UCLA Feminist Majority... they need to approve my work for the auction to raise funds for a Juarez rape crisis center.

Wish me luck. There is the possibility that my very first work will be purchased, with the money going to a good cause. If that happens, then a goal will be met and I will be happy. Where it takes me from there is anyone's guess, but I think I'll stick with it.

Anyway, I will most likely blog later, but right now I'm just killing time until my shift actually starts. I just wanted to announce that I started painting, and so far I like it.

PS: This link will end up being incorporated into Chapter Six of the online novel. It's right up that alley...

Friday, April 22, 2005

"THE COUNCIL MEETING" (work in progress, chapter five)

There was nothing remarkable about the boardroom in the slightest. It was plainly adorned, with nothing except for some generic-looking still lifes mounted to the walls. The long table with accompanying chairs spoke to no particular style, and the view outside of the room gave no spectacular vistas to behold.

Even less remarkable were the men in black suits who filed into the boardroom and sat down. Although they were all of different races and ages, they were all nondescript men with nothing else to set them apart. Some wore glasses, some had their hair slicked back like Pat Riley in his Lakers-coaching days, and some of them wore their standard-issue black suits uncomfortably.

As they sat, Fabian Rourke entered the room, dressed in pinstripe grey, standing out decidedly from the rest. He sat at the head of the boardroom table with a briefcase that he opened on the tabletop.

After perusing through some papers, he shushed the murmurs of the other men and proceeded to begin the meeting.

"Thank you all for making it out here. As you all know, it's the end of the second quarter and the shareholders are anxious to hear the quarter-end reports. I'm going to skip the minutes from the last meeting-- you know, I never got that whole 'minutes' thing to begin with. I mean, I know why it's done, but why call it 'minutes'? Why not call it 'all the shit we talked about last time?'"

The rest of the men laughed freely. Fabian's youthful vigor and sense of humor often kept the Council meetings from divebombing into banality.

"We'll start from the bottom this time around. Nimbus, what you got?"

Mr. Nimbus began to speak nervously. An expert in his field, he was nonetheless ill-equipped for public speaking.

"Ah, yes, well, the pop cultural barometer has been, uh, swinging... in quite healthy ways. After the Trial Of The Century took people's minds off of current events such as Rwanda and Kosovo and Bosnia, I instructed my staff to focus on more celebrity trials... it, uh, seems that we've hit some sort of jackpot in that area, because as all of us here know, celebrities are-- on the whole-- dirtier and more decadent than normal folk. This can, er, be attributed to the special privileges that Council Corps affords them. No doubt Mr. Latham--" Nimbus motioned to the man seated to his right --"will brief us properly on that when his turn comes up... but as far as I'm concerned pop cultural affairs are swiftly moving towards a greater divide between our, um, agents, and the other side. We have training programs, um, in effect at the moment to breed new cultural icons in the near future. Depending on, er, whoever takes over the White House in 2000, we have a slew of agents-in-waiting, fully unaware of their purpose until it's, um, trigger time. Council Corps sponsors these up-and-comers, of course, but we are never sure whether we're going to be working for Red or Blue, so we... we cultivate potential operatives for either side. It's a way of, uh, hedging our bets, so to speak..."

Nimbus fumbled with papers and coughed and seemed completely unprofessional, but this didn't faze Fabian Rourke.

"Good work, Nimbus. Latham-- hit me with your report."

Mr. Latham, in contrast with Mr. Nimbus, was cool, calm and collected.

"As Nimbus pointed out, my division keeps the world's powerful people-- the rich, the famous, the influential --in check by doing what the CIA and FBI used to do, before the work was outsourced to Council Corps. For example, we have Gates in our pocket, for sure, thanks to information that we gathered on him a while ago. If he knows what's good for him, he's with us. But we had a slight breach recently, no thanks to this whole Lewinsky thing... why she is playing for the other side is still unclear, and most likely she was merely sloppy as opposed to treacherous... I think Tripp's tape recordings made it hard for us to send out discreditors."

Fabian asked Latham, "Is Tripp from the other side?"

Latham replied, "As far as I know, Mr. McGinty, no. I have my men looking into it. Nimbus and I have been working an angle in the press, though-- I mean, have you seen what this Tripp looks like? She looks like a fat man in drag. Totally unappealing."

Chuckles in the boardroom abounded.

"Luckily, Nimbus' people are developing Operation Makeover for future implementation, and she won't be able to benefit from that because it's our territory. Paula Jones taught us a lesson-- never let them reinvent themselves. I mean, Jones was still dog-ugly after all the work, but now that we have the plastic surgery industry in our camp, Tripp won't be able to get out from under the campaign we have ready for her."

"Can we get her to stay on our side?"

"No, Mr. McGinty. I don't think she can be trusted."

"Obviously, neither can Lewinsky, and she was with us," Fabian replied.

Latham furrowed his brow. "I wonder about that, sir."

"You think she was a double?"

"Possibly. I'll let Strindberg fill you in on that. But as far as my report goes, we are keeping an inventory on all of our blackmail materials. Video technology has allowed us to gather more and more incriminating evidence against people who know too much, or just people with big mouths. The great thing, though, is that most of the surveiilance we do is voluntary-- thanks to Nimbus' campaigns, Americans are becoming more and more vain. Thus, they videotape themselves doing the most insane things-- illicit things. Sex with underage girls, drug dealing, murder even... we don't have to send spooks out into the field. All we have to do is send plumbers. Thieves. Burglars. It's as if these people want to be put into compromising positions-- they're doing half of the work for us!"

Fabian Rourke laughed. "As Mr. Burns would say, excellent!"

Latham laughed, being a Simpsons fan himself. "Thank you, Mr. McGinty."

"Okay," Fabian continued. "Next, politics. That's you, Strindberg."

Strindberg stood up to deliver his report. "First of all, Lewinsky was not a double agent. I can verify this with the following briefs, of which I took the liberty of making copies for all of us to look over. " Strindberg passed stapled Xeroxes of the briefs to everyone else in the boardroom. "Unfortunately --and this is no disrespect to you, Mr. Nimbus, because I admire your work and have seen its effectiveness --unfortunately Lewinsky can be considered an example of Nimbus' campaigns being too successful."

"How do you mean?" Nimbus asked, out of turn and with a tinge of hurt.

"Well, in Lewinsky we have the perfect Narcissist: a woman who was so self-absorbed and centered upon herself that issues of national security went out the window when it came time to fulfill her fantasies... fantasies that are a direct result of Operation Vanity and all of your work, Nimbus. Like I said, it's not meant as a dig... if anything, it means you're just too damn good at what you do."

"I don't take it as an insult, Mr. Strindberg," Nimbus replied. "But it scares me to think that a breach of this magnitude can, er, derail our progress. It's counterproductive. But, I'm glad you are bringing it to my attention, at least... now we can work on, um, ironing out the kinks. I apologize if I seemed a tad, I dunno, upset."

"And I apologize for coming off accusatory," Strindberg remarked.

"Okay, enough of the niceness," Fabian said. "Continue, Mr. Strindberg."

"Thank you, Mr. McGinty. Now, if you look at Lewinsky's psychological profile, which is on page 22, you'll see that the young lady has a predilection for men in power. Coupled with what is commonly referred to as 'daddy issues', we have a woman who saw an opportunity to achieve a pure narcissistic state... unconsciously, of course. All of our work is done on subliminal levels, so Lewinsky is just as confused as to why she did what she did as anyone else. People in these situations chalk it up to 'passion' or 'emotion' but since we here at Council Corps have empirically proven that there are no such things as emotions and passions, we can only conclude that it was a reaction to our own technology. Lewinsky is a Frankenstein monster, if you will, a creation that turned on its creators... only she doesn't know that she turned on her creators."

"Interesting," Fabian Rourke said, his hand scratching his chin. "What is the likelihood of this happening again?"

"Mr. Yoyo can take over on this point," Strindberg said, as he sat down.

The mere mention of Mr. Yoyo's name made the entire room go silent. The stocky Asian man, who sat quietly as the others waited to hear his report, let the silence ring out for a good deal of time, until Fabian Rourke had to prompt him to speak.

"Mr. Yoyo, we're waiting."

"You will not like my report, Mr. McGinty."

Fabian Rourke did not smile. For the first time since the beginning of the meeting, he was angry. Mr. Yoyo evoked strong feelings in people, and Fabian knew that, even though Yoyo was allied with Council Corps and everything they stood for, to trust Mr. Yoyo completely could be disastrous for all involved.

Plus, even though he didn't mind being called "McGinty" by his unsuspecting staff, there was something about the way Mr. Yoyo said it... as if he knew that it wasn't Fabian's real name.

"Try me," Fabian said to Mr. Yoyo.

Yoyo sighed. Then, he reclined in his chair, his fingers bridging each other, and began to speak.

"The likelihood of something akin to the Lewinsky affair happening again is very high. This is not a reflection on your work, Mr. McGinty, nor is it a reflection upon the work of your intelligent and industrious staff. Council Corps has succeeded in its goal for over three decades thanks to people like us, who know that out of chaos there must be order. We set the standards, we organize the folders, we keep the numbers level... but I have always thoroughly rejected the science behind your assertion, Mr. Strindberg, that emotions are nonexistant. I reject it because I believe in chaos-- that is why I head the Mayhem Division. It is a dirty job, and I am well-suited to implement its policies. And in my line of work, there are a few things that I have learned.

"One of those things is: you cannot underestimate human incompetence. It is incompetence that makes the world go 'round, not efficiency, not progress, not order. Although I agree that we as a corporation must keep the reins of power firmly in our hands, I do not agree that human error can be eliminated. That is the reasoning that the other side holds dear to, and look what it has done for them-- nothing. Their victories over us are miniscule compared with their errors. Likewise, our minor triumphs over their forces only keep us from acknowledging the one absolute truth that binds all things together."

Fabian, exasperated, asked, "And what is that truth, Mr. Yoyo?"

Yoyo smiled as he answered. "It is this: The more things change, the more they stay the same. And if we continue to delude ourselves into thinking that we can change the course of humanity, through mind control, through media manipulation, through lies and deceit, then we are no better than the sheep that we herd daily through their mundane lives. We must avoid falling prey to the very vices we accuse the masses of indulging in. Maybe Nimbus' vanity campaigns are taking a toll on us as well as on their intended targets."

Nimbus became outraged and screamed, "Yoyo, you're full of shit!"

A clamor arose in the boardroom. Murmurs and mumbles filled the air. Finally, Fabian "McGinty" Rourke calmed everyone down and began to speak.

"Okay, okay, okay... Enough. Now, listen here. Yoyo, don't you think those thoughts haven't crossed my mind? Don't you think that I havent contemplated that line of logic when I was working my way up through Council training? I am not ignorant to the dangers of our work. Maybe in Tokyo they do things differently, but over here, we have to toe the line and work with what produces results. Nimbus' work is far from perfect, Yoyo, but he gets results. If we are to create a completely narcissistic society by the end of this millenium, if we are to reach our goal before the other side makes a play, if we are to reach our destination in order to subvert all of the other ogranizations out there who want to throw their hats into the World Domination ring, then we have to keep our focus. We're not doing this because we are power-mad, Yoyo. We are doing this because people out there in the real world don't know any better! They make horrible decisions based upon their desires... they have thrown logic out of the window and are strangers to consequence. The collective IQ of the United States alone is pathetically low, and so we have a lot of work to do. We need to reintegrate the world into a new society that they won't be able to transit into unless we supply the psychological cocoons necessary to soften the blows."

"I understand, sir." Mr. Yoyo's face betrayed no sign of what he was thinking.

"I hope you do," Fabian continued. "As a Mover, your job is far more field-orientated. You take big risks constantly, and I know that it is more stressful than any other post here, save my own. But I need you to do me a favor and get that notion out of your head. It won't help you in this line of work. In fact, it will hold you back-- it will handicap you. I don't need someone making moves for me who thinks it's a fruitless affair. You can't carry out assassinations or bring down puppet governments while thinking that way, Yoyo."

Fabian wiped his brow. Then, he smiled again.

"Is that your report?"

Yoyo said, "I wasn't done. I apologize for digressing."

"Well, finish up."

"Certainly. The main thing I have to report is that there is much uprising in the Arab community, specifically the radical Muslims who see America and the West as 'infidels'. Something is being planned, that I can tell you. An act of terrorism, perhaps."

"On par with Oklahoma?" Fabian asked.

"Bigger," Yoyo replied. "Harsher. It is bound to change the game 100%. We might not know where we stand if the Arabs make their move."

Fabian turned to a man named Simon who sat to his left. "Simon, what's the military lowdown?"

"Yoyo's telling the truth. However, we are in the dark. We're thinking it may be another attempt on the Twin Towers..."

"Yeah, that worked out real well," a man named Corsair said aloud. Everyone except for Fabian laughed.

"We got lucky with that one," Fabian noted. Simon nodded his head in agreement and continued to give his report.

"Indeed, we did. Our ties to the feds & the spooks were stronger back then. Nowadays, the military is reluctant to work with anyone because of what President Clinton has done to the military budget. Luckily, Council Corps isn't seen or viewed as being partisan in any way. That's what's kept us alive for the past ten years or so."

"Are the Arabs in cahoots with the other side?"

"No, they're in it for themselves. But you can thank the other side for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the first place-- remember how we said Lewinsky is our Frankenstein monster? Well, terrorist groups like The Core are the Frankensteins of the other side. They are the results of their intervention into places like Iran and Afghanistan, the offspring of the drug routes in Pakistan. They are more likely to bite the other side's hand than ours. In fact, the Twin Towers bombing was supposed to happen on Bush's watch, not Clinton's, but they were a little behind schedule and at the time they saw no difference between the two camps..."

"There is no difference," Mr. Yoyo chimed in.

Simon, annoyed by that outburst, replied, "Yeah, well, we know that. Thankfully, the average citizen doesn't."

Fabian smirked. "This is one regard where I will sort-of agree with Yoyo, people. Keep in mind always-- there are no party sides. Don't get wrapped up in thinking that the other side is that much different from us. Only in tactics do they differ-- they prefer to treat the masses as inanimate objects, subjecting them to soul-crushing experiences as opposed to redirection. The other side props up morality and religion and values but it's just a charade. They want the same thing as we do. As for the radical Arabs, they actually believe the Qu'ran and all that shit. That's what they want-- to set mankind back a thousand years. It just won't work."

"So what do we do?" Nimbus asked.

After a pause, Fabian Rourke said, "We turn up the ratchet, that's what we do."

Fabian's staff concurred. "Yes, Mr. McGinty," they all said in unison.


CHAPTER SIX COMES NEXT WEEK...

Thursday, April 21, 2005

THE NEW SOCIETY

Let's say the world was going to come to an end soon.

Is there something wrong with that?

Is there something wrong with nuclear annihilation, the megadeaths of billions upon millions of human beings, and the destruction of everything we, as a race of beings, have worked on so hard for the past who-knows-how-long?

I wouldn't be sad.

For one thing, knowing my luck, I'd survive a nuclear holocaust. I'd mutate, thanks to fallout, into a three-armed, six testicled, five penis-having supermonster whose only role in the New Society is to procreate and spread his seed in order to rebuild the population of the world.

What a world it would be: all of the world's population would be my sires. I would be like Adam, in a weird, psychedelic Garden of Eden, where I'd name the animals according to my own whims (and also according to how they mutated)-- you don't wanna know what I'd name them. You think Ligers and Wolphins are odd? Just you wait until the end of the world...

Who would be my Eve? Any woman whose uterus is still functioning... possibly a mutated uber-uterus that can incubate up to a dozen eggs at a time.

The first order of business, after repopulating the earth, would be to go to Washington D.C. or Camp David or wherever it is that the leaders of the world hid out to save their sorry asses... and kill them with my army of mutated babies.

Any Secret Service men still around would be no match against my horde of bloodthirsty, cannibalistic spawn, all of whom would answer to me and only me, their Father, their fearless, three-armed leader. I'd castrate George W. Bundy and incinerate his scrotal baggage to ensure that his reptilian ancestry never gets passed on to the New Society that will arise out of the ashes of the Old World.

All of my subsequent writings ('cause you know that, with three arms, I'd be writing a lot more than I do right now) would be compiled in a book that would replace The Bible as the spiritual guide for all of humanity... except I would put a disclaimer at the beginning that would state that nothing contained within its bindings should be taken seriously.

I say all of this because I woke this morning from a beautiful dream where I met and fell in love with a kind-hearted porn star who loved me for who I am... only to hear the babblings and trappings of people stricken with fear.

I watched TV and recoiled in disgust at the notion of global idolatry, evident in the obsessive coverage of Pope Benedict XVI.

I browsed online and read up on prophecies and predictions for the end of the world from people who don't seem to realize that the end of the world has been coming since long before I was even born.

I recall all the Y2K hysteria about a pentad ago... very rational and sensible people bought into that horseshit. I didn't.

I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household, where concepts like the Book of Revelations and the Rapture all got equal play. I have yet to see what it all means.

Yes, it may seem like the world is going to hell in a handbasket right now, but just you wait...

Fox News Channel will change their tune.

The Bush family will go away, hopefully forever.

The world will not end, unless it's in the manner I described above.

People will be less afraid.

That paradigm shift in 2012? It will be postponed by the same astrologers and magicians who said that the world will end in 1997.

I will live to be 99 years old, and I will laugh at all of you for being so afraid of the very real notion of a little radioactivity and lawlessness in the wake of World War III.

Fuck World War III-- I'm afraid of World War VI, because I will be too old and conservative to care at that point.

Right now, I'm young, and I want to fuck and smoke and drink and party and live and work and fall in love and love back and all of that....

I ain't got time to think about the end of the world.

Besides, it's not the end of THE world that we fear-- it's the end of OUR PERSONAL worlds that we are so adamant against.

We are afraid that, in the post-apocalyptic landscape, there won't be any TiVo, or ATM machines, or even a simple dial-up service for your by-then obsolete laptop.

I am looking forward to mankind stepping backwards, regressing to a time when things were harder, more dangerous, less certain...

It would be a fitting end to a disastrous attempt, on our parts, to prove to the other intelligent life forms in the Universe that we deserve to know the answers to the questions of all existence.

Wouldn't it?

I'm in a rare mood today: happy and yet totally giving in to my sardonic impulses.

btw: I made up a music page. Here's the URL-- www.myspace.com/nsupply...

These are my own songs. No one else helped me with them, and no one else seems to care at this point. Enjoy.

PS: Take a look at this... hopefully it'll make you chuckle, if it plays for you.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

THE FOOL'S SECTION

My friend J from NYC sent me a link to a page that contains the entire Straight Outta Compton album by N.W.A., edited to include only the explicit content.

It's fucking funny.

And it made me realize that, after years of learning how to edit audio digitally, I can do something like what that link has done in a snap. In fact, I used to do things like that all the time, when I was a kid with a stereo that had two cassette players.

I had an early model that allowed both tapes to play simultaneously. Later models allowed only one tape at a time to play, but I made good use of the early model's anomaly and learned how to edit tape-to-tape.

Nowadays, programs like Wavelab make editing a breeze. I may be doing some sonic experiments of my own soon.

In the meantime, I have four original songs ready to post onto a My Space page. I mixed these songs down as part of a snail mail package that I'm sending to my latest pen pal. I suppose they are strong enough to put online but first I have to wait on hearing back from the Library of Congress regarding my copyright applications.

Lately, maybe due to being older and remembering things I'd forgotten about long ago, I've been waxing nostalgic... but not for pop cultural artifacts.

I am thinking about grade school and junior high, and the radio skits me and my friend Mike Kelly used to make up, at my house or on the school bus. I recall that our school bus route was full of fun and games, fighting with the Mexicans who sat up front, impersonating teachers and quoting Monty Python, making parody songs about girls' breasts (or lack of), writing dirty slogans on pieces of notebook paper and holding them up to the bus window for passing cars to view, sneaking people on the bus who didn't have transfer slips, singing choruses of "Bang Bang Rosie" until our throats bled, quoting from any Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movie that we could, re-enacting Cheech & Chong routines, doing impressions of classmates we disliked, playing Truth or Dare, listening to taped copies of Dr. Demento's radio show, reciting the words to "Weird Al" songs, playing 2 Live Crew for my white suburban friends for the first time, and generally just acting like the dorky Magnet school kids that we were...

Those days didn't suck. Those days made me who I am. I sharpened my wit with those kids. I drew cartoons to impress them. We wrote songs not because we were musicians but because we wanted to be funny. We were trying to make each other laugh and were willing to outdo each other if we had to, and it was all fun.

I still giggle at all the in-jokes: our Biology teacher's impossible accent, the idiocy of some of our fellow students, lines from movies reappropriated as double entendres, what it would sound like if so-and-so and what's-his-face had sex... we took each joke to its illogical extreme. The sillier it was, the better.

They say that we'll never have days like that again, but I tend to disagree. If you have good friends and if they have great senses of humor, you can keep that magic alive even as your hairline recedes and you get old and go gray. Laughter is so important, especially nowadays where people have little to laugh about.

I don't care for a high school reunion, but I would love to see my friends from junior high school again. They were funny people. It was the time before my parents divorced, before I found out about Reality, before I discovered that things were not always as they seemed on the surface... the laughs were genuine.

And every attempt at laughter from those days on has been an effort on my part to get back to that point in the past, where we were delirious from the hilarity, from our collective ability to be funny and silly and absolutely retarded.

I think that's why, in high school, I strayed away from the pseudo-intellectuals and fell in with the Theater Arts crowd. They were just like those kids on my junior high school bus route: full of jokes, looking for laughs, performing for their friends, unafraid to be silly and foolish. I grew bored with the cynical kids, with their hypercritical outlook on all things cool, who could never fathom shedding their carefully crafted images for one second, lest they risk looking ridiculous.

I have no need to be around people who are too afraid of looking uncool to express their hearts. Lead me to the Fool's Section, where we can dine sumptuously and sip from the Cup of Laughter, with a feast large enough to feed a starving world...

A QUIZ

I found this on Ayelet's blog:




Your Linguistic Profile:



55% General American English

20% Dixie

20% Yankee

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern


Tuesday, April 19, 2005

NON-SEQUITIRS

My cat Otis is a mellow, fun-loving cat. Male cats are very affectionate, but Otis is a straight-up attention-whore. Anyone who has ever met him, especially females, know how flirtatious and touchy-feely he is.

Well, for the past week and a half he's had a guest in our home: his sister, Jenny.

Jenny is my friend Beth's cat, and it was Beth who gave Otis to me so many years ago. Jenny saved Otis recently by donating blood for his transfusion, and they lived together at Beth's apartment for over a year when I was living with my family-- none of my family members wanted to take my well-behaved and adorable cat in, so I had to lodge him with Beth and Jenny until I had my own place.

Anyway, the first three days Jenny stayed in my closet, hiding out, as cats are wont to do. Otis would try and see her but she would hiss and scare him away.

I remember one time, when I lived in Sherman Oaks. Beth brought Jenny by my apartment to visit. Otis and Jenny hissed at each other at first, but after about ten minutes Otis warmed up to her. He pulled out a crumpled-up piece of paper and pawed at it in front of her, inviting her to play with him. She didn't bite-- she was too skittish about not being on her home turf.

When Beth left with Jenny, my poor little Otis ran all over the apartment, looking for her.

He's such a lover.

When he lived with her, he was okay with it. The only problem was that Beth's roommate at the time was my ex, Amy Coates. And Amy had an awful, ugly, overweight cat named Puppy who was disagreeable to say the least. Otis and Jenny had to team up in order to deal with Puppy's tyranny.

My theory here is that cats are very much like their owners.

The other day I came home and saw that Jenny was now out of the closet and socializing with Otis. He has been a gracious host, and he really cares about his sister. I caught him licking the top of her head as she slept one night-- it was too cute for words.

Still, Jenny is not comfortable being away from home-- the only reason why she is with me is because Beth had to move, and didn't want Jenny freaked out over the move until everything was settled. Tonight, Beth is coming over to pick Jenny up, so I will no longer have to watch over her.

Jenny and Otis had it out this morning, because Otis loves her so much that he forgets about respecting the personal space of others. He gets in her face with good intentions, and she gets mad and shoos him away.

And that, for all intents and purposes, is how I am, as a man: I get too close, I make the girls freak out and get hissy, because I don't know my own limits and I tend to be intrusive without thinking about how people will react.

Poor little Otis is going to miss her, I know it. Tonight and for the rest of this week I'm going to have to show him extra attention, show him more love than I normally do. The little guy just doesn't understand that, sometimes, other beings (myself included) need some time by ourselves. I find myself shooing him away often, when I'm trying to read or play music, and I hate it because I really love the furball but he gets in my way often.

He can't help it-- he has a lot of love to give.


*/*


I've been thinking about different types of narcissistic personalities. I find that there are two notable extremes: that of the practical joker, and that of the serial killer.

On the one hand, you have people like Hugh Troy, a famous practical joker who attended Cornell in the '30's and is a legend for his elaborate pranks and jokes. He would do things like purchasing a park bench from the city, then wait for a policeman to walk by as he and his friends would pick up the bench, in a park or on the street, and walk away with it. When detained by the cops, he would wait until the right moment to produce the receipt, which would exonerate him and make the Jakes feel dumb.

A classmate of his owned a wastebasket made from the foot of a rhinoceros. The classmate was throwing it out, but Troy asked to keep it. During the snowy season, he stayed out all night, leaving rhino tracks in the snow leading to a hole in an icy pond. The next morning, scientists were dispatched to investigate the tracks, and when it was revealed that they belonged to a rhinoceros, people started to complain about their water tasting like rhino.

His most famous (or infamous) prank involved setting up an exhibit of his own at a museum in New York which was debuting the works of Van Gogh for the first time in America. His exhibit: a piece of dried meat in a wooden box, with the caption "This is the ear that Vincent Van Gogh cut off and sent to his mistress" or something to that effect. Crowds of art patrons gathered luridly around the exhibit, which was proved to be a hoax within days.

That last one is reminiscent of some recent jokers who have placed their own works of art in museums as of late. The value of that prank never seems to get old, and in a way it is a work of art unto itself.

From Alfred Jarry to Andy Kaufman, artists and performers have straddled the line between their art being a joke and their jokes being an art. What makes Hugh Troy notable is that his jokes, while sometimes having a sobering effect, seemed only to perpetuate the myth about himself that had grown with each prank. The practical joker, in his attempts to show the hypocrisy and absurdity of modern life, has to constantly outdo himself, and in a manner that is unexpected. If the joke is easily attributed to the person who perpetrated it, the value lessens. There is a constant need to take things to the next level, to the furthest extreme.

This points to a personality at odds with society, an anti-social personality. The jokes are friendly manifestations of this need to be outside of society's norms and expectations. Surely, Hugh Troy felt no pride more rewarding than pulling the wool over the eyes of people who normally garner respect and admiration from the rest of society. It was his way of thumbing his nose at what he perceived as injustices and biases in the world.

Never is this more evident than in one of Hugh's better pranks. He was studying art at Cornell and was invited, along with other artists, to attend a swanky party held for the stinking rich and town elite. The hostess of the show wanted the artists to create works right there on the spot-- she even provided canvases and paints. But her condescending attitude irked Troy, who decided to add some spice to the formal proceedings by painting, in big block letters on the largest available canvases, signs that read "WELCOME TO THE CARNIVAL! FREE RIDES! BRING THE KIDDIES! FREE DRINKS FOR ALL! PICNIC PARTIES WELCOME!"

One of my favorite punk rock singers, Jello Biafra, once said, "Anyone who doesn't use art as a weapon is not an artist." I agree with this assessment, and apparently Hugh Troy would've concurred.


*/*


On the other hand, you have the narcissistic tendencies of the serial killer. A good example of this type of personality is Theodore "Ted" Bundy.

I was watching A&E Biography last week, where the emphasis was on serial killers. They profiled Jeffrey Dahmer, who was a curious sort of serial killer in that no one knows exactly what drove him to cannibalize his victims. It's hard to put him through the narcissistic lens because he avoided the limelight most of the time. In fact, it was Dahmer's lack of an ego-driven personality that allowed him to get away with his heinous crimes. He was close to being caught a couple of times and got away with it, not by virtue of his outward charm but because he didn't seem like he could hurt a fly.

The well-known tale of how one of Dahmer's victims escaped and went to the cops, who were convinced by Dahmer himself that it was a bout of rough gay sex that got out of hand, is less a study of a deceitful mind at work than it is an indictment of the cops, who wrote it off mostly because the victim was Filipino and barely spoke coherent English. Had Dahmer chosen an articulate victim, maybe the cops would've seen through the story and investigated it. But if it seemed like a gay lover's spat, the police probably felt it wasn't worth their time.

On the contrary side is Ted Bundy, a good-looking, well-spoken, politically active college student who aspired to be a lawyer. It was all a mask that Bundy projected to hide his insecurities. As a boy, he had a stutter and was abnormally shy. In the Biography segment, it is said that Bundy's first victim was a preteen girl who lived down the block from him. The fact that the teenage Bundy was never suspected of this crime must have had some type of effect on him, possibly causing him to believe that he could get away with murder.

As he grew older, he experienced mature relationships with attractive women and outgrew his shyness. This was part of his reinvention as he entered college, but no amount of making over could undo the damage in his mind. To make matters worse, he discovered the truth about his family: the woman he had thought was his sister for all of his young life turned out to be his birth mother, and his parents were really his grandparents.

(It bears noting that Jack Nicholson, a celebrity who has had reportedly violent brushes with women as well as deserved fame and fortune, underwent the same discovery in his own family at a formative age... and I think it's safe to say that Jack, as cool as he is, qualifies as a narcissist of the highest order)

Such a violation of the fragile sense of identity that Bundy possessed no doubt caused him to go crazy and start killing women, especially after the first woman he ever loved dumped him. She was one of his first adult victims, and the physical description of almost all of his subsequent victims were similar to hers-- straight, long brown hair parted in the middle, same age range, same features...

Here is another personality at odds with society, thinking himself to be better than others, almost as if he is above the law and entitled to more than he has been allotted. What's funny (or unfunny) about Bundy, though, is that he chose to try and adapt to the society he loathed by incorporating himself into its trappings. He helped Republicans raise funds for their campaigns. He studied law, and in fact he was also working in forensic science fields when he was at the peak of his killing, an occupation that allowed him to stay one step ahead of the authorities at all times.

When he was caught, he escaped from jail a number of times, which built up his image as an outlaw and allowed friends, family and supporters to feel that he was wrongly accused of a crime he didn't commit. He went so far as to defend himself in court, acting as his own counsel.

Ted Bundy had groupies during his trial and even after his conviction. It is said that he fathered a child with one of his groupies shortly before he was executed January 24, 1989, two days after my 15th birthday.

Even the trial judge, in his reading of the sentence, said to Bundy that it was such a shame that he was found guilty, because he might've made a good lawyer one day. Obviously, he wasn't that good of a lawyer, but it certainly took some balls to even attempt it in the first place.

I have a hard time believing that Ted Bundy felt any remorse for his actions. In contrast to Dahmer, who was very forthcoming about his problems after his conviction and actually demonstrated some remorse to his victims' families, Ted Bundy seemed to be content with the path of his life. He accepted it as such and made the most of it. If he had to kill a bunch of people along the way, it was worth it to him.

Yet, in the minds of many, Jeffrey Dahmer is the bigger monster, because his crimes were so unspeakably gruesome that human beings have a hard time sympathizing with him. We find Dahmer repugnant and disgusting because he ate his victims and had sex with them when they were dead, sometimes keeping their remains in the apartment.

But Ted Bundy often went back to the crime scene, before the bodies were discovered, and did equally horrible things to them. As terrible as Dahmer's deeds were, you get the sense that Dahmer was a man with absolutely no understanding of himself. With Bundy, you get the sense that not only did Bundy understand himself, but that his self-loathing fueled his desire to take as many people with him as he could.

Jeffrey Dahmer never advanced beyond a certain stage, whereas Ted Bundy advanced past that stage and into a whole other state of being.

Dahmer didn't know how to control himself, and might've done something about it had he known what to do. He candidly spoke, in jail, of not being able to stop the thoughts that entered into his mind. It was as if he was programmed, against his will, to commit the atrocities that he did. His murders were hardwired to his sexual desires, like Bundy, but in a compulsive manner that someone like Bundy would've considered weak or decadent.

Ted Bundy didn't care about stopping the violent thoughts, or rather, he figured the only way to make them momentarily stop was to kill women.

What's ironic is that Dahmer's jury found that he was not insane, because he knew the difference between right and wrong. Bundy argued that he was innocent from beginning to the end-- to plead not guilty by reason of insanity was a worse fate (in his mind) than pleading complete innocence. Therefore, I have to wonder if he knew what he did was wrong. If he thought his actions were not wrong, doesn't that make him insane?

With Dahmer, I feel pity and compassion, despite the fact that he showed neither to his victims until after it was too late. With Bundy, I feel anger and resentment, because he really did have it all going for him but he couldn't escape or correct his warped pathology. His ego wouldn't allow it.

Even their respective executions are marked by contrasts: Bundy was murdered by the state, an institution he would've surely belonged to had he not been exposed as a serial killer; Dahmer was killed by a black inmate whose nickname was "Christ", a fitting sobriquet because Dahmer admitted that he often thought of himself as The Devil.

But the thing they had in common, besides homicidal urges, was their narcissistic detachment from the rest of the world. Dahmer's personal hell was hidden from view, Bundy's was seemingly out in the open, but both of them were tyrannical rulers in their imaginary realms. They had the power to take away human lives, and in their minds there was no conscience to restrain them from doing what they did, no voice in the back of the head telling them to stop before it goes too far. The narcissist, because of his attachment to his own desires and fears, never knows when enough is enough.

If only they had been artists-- maybe they would've channeled their demons into something positive. Remember, Adolph Hitler was an aspiring artist once upon a time, but his full-blown narcissism couldn't deal with the rejection. The true narcissist cannot accept their own shortcomings, and they make desperate ploys to compensate for their inadequacies... sometimes at the expense of the world as we know it.

I feel that our current President is a narcissist, in many ways. He has never had anyone challenging him in his life, and so it is no surprise when he says these inhuman things and expresses these banal sentiments that so often slip from his mouth like dry turds. He has no empathy, and he possesses an exaggerated notion of his actual abilities. He didn't get elected President because he was a good candidate-- hell, he didn't even get elected!

Therefore, as an artist who wants to use this forum as a weapon against injustice and bias (and who also wants to feed his own narcissism), I say we adopt a new name for our President.

I've been calling him President George W. Nixon for some time, but it hasn't caught on. How about we call him President Bundy? That seems to fit, for more than one reason.

Or maybe President Serial Killer. How about President Sociopath?

Naw, he might enjoy being called by that last name...

President Bundy it is.

Monday, April 18, 2005

ATTENTION

What do you get when you fall in love?
A guy with a pin who'll burst your bubble
That's what you get for all your trouble
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again



She called me early Saturday morning to tell me she had the latest work available for me. I was groggy and surprised to be hearing from her because lately she and I have been keeping a friendly distance. Of course I wanted to see her, and she said she'd stop by.

She walked in, her eyes to the floor, her hair pulled back and her face as lovely as the first time I ever laid eyes on it. I must've looked like a damned fool, in my lazy boxer briefs and my uncombed hair matted into the shape of a conical Mohawk. I sat down at the computer and took a look at her work. So detailed, so complete... she took something that I had thrown together in Photoshop and made it into a digital work of art, not a masterpiece but a minor miracle nonetheless...

We shared a few laughs. I like her laugh, because it embodies the word "mirthful". It is more like a low-pitched giggle, like a hum emanating between tightly closed lips. If something is hilarious, she'll open her mouth wide and guffaw, but I prefer her quiet hum-giggles, akin to the cartoon character Barney Rubble but less Neanderthal.

I asked her if she was hungry; she said, "I could be." What the fuck is that supposed to mean, I asked myself. Sensing that she was going to decline, I told her that I was going to pick up my friend Down Low and get some food, and that if she wanted to come along she could. She said she had to be at her brother's place nearby, but I suspect that, if I had invited only her, she would've come with me.

I asked her about her ex, and she said that he called her recently to let her know that he has found a new girlfriend.

"Did he say that to make you jealous?"

"No, I think... I think he said it to let me know that he's moved on, in a weird way."

"I can buy that. Men have no tact when it comes to that. In some strange way, yes, you might be right."

She saw a painting on the wall and asked me if it was mine.

"No," I said, "that was done by The Gypsy. He gave it to me. I haven't started painting yet. I haven't had any time."

I appreciated her asking me about the painting. One thing about Eve that I like is that she asks about those kinds of things, and it tells me that she is still interested in my life and what I do with it. Unfortunately, it always catches me off guard and I end up sounding like it's not a big deal, even when it is.

I wanted to kiss her and hold her right then and there, grab her by the shoulders and throw her onto my couch and lean in close, sliding down her neck to her collarbone, making my way back up to decorate her mouth, fingers through the hair gently, my right index finger tickling her jawline...

Instead, we said our goodbyes for the day, and maybe some day soon she and I can sit down and talk about what we mean to each other. But for now, she's still getting used to being on her own, in her own apartment, with her own job, driving her own car and living her own life, and I have to let her have that. I must let her have that, because it isn't fair that I've had all the time in the world to cultivate this for myself and then to expect her to come along for the ride without having anything to show for it for herself...

I have been meeting new girls here and there, but in a very real sense I'm waiting on her, and as long as it doesn't get me down I think I can handle it.


*/*


What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, he'll never phone ya
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again



Down Low and I hung out at his mother's fiancee's house in the Encino Hills. We had brunch with his mother, the fiancee, his aunt, and his cousin Jamie outside on the patio overlooking the southern part of the Valley.

Jamie is 21 and cute but not drop-dead gorgeous. Low told me that she looked "ethnic", code for saying she looks Jewish. He also said she has low self-esteem, because she is a party girl and wants a boyfriend but is too "easy". I told him that she will figure it out eventually, and as long as she doesn't get involved with a bad crowd she will be fine.

Jamie was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was raised in the Detroit suburbs, isolated from the harsh reality of the streets but exposed to the banal boredom of the middle-class. At a young age she learned that men wanted to sleep with her, and so she has done what most teenage girls have done: ditched school, experimented with drugs, had sex, and tried to fit in.

When I saw her, I could tell she wanted my attention. I can always tell when a girl wants my attention, but it's not the same as lust or desire. The wanting for attention is something they are not aware of, something in their eyes that they cannot hide, no matter how good of an actress or how they act on the exterior. I confirm this by catching them sneaking glances at me. She is curious, because she is moving to L.A. in two months and wants to know what to expect.

I know what she can expect: insincere pickup lines in bars, competing with impossibly made-up women, lying men and cheating boyfriends, narcissists and ego trippers, the shallowest of the shallow, one-night stands that end badly, exchanged phone numbers with no callbacks...

When I speak in a conversation, I know how I sound: educated, intelligent, informed. This helps girls like Jamie to open up to me. But what catches them by surprise is how much restraint I show, how many questions I ask, how many times I offer them the opportunity to talk as I listen.

I have no intention of making a move on Low's cousin, but if she ever needs a guy friend to talk to, I would be more than happy. If I knew a guy who'd be good for her, I'd arrange it. If I had any advice to give her, I'd offer it. There's something about a young woman, unsure of herself, anxious to get out and live a life, that touches a soft spot inside of me.

There's a line in The Godfather about how only women and children are allowed to be carefree. But it seems to me that, nowadays, the cares of women and children surpass those of a man, in many ways. Yes, they may be allowed to be carefree, but are they able to spend that allowance?


*/*


Don't tell me what it's all about
'Cause I've been there and I'm glad I'm not
Out of those chains, those chains that bind you
That is why I'm here to remind you:

What do you get when you fall in love?
You only get lies and pain and sorrow
So for at least until tomorrow
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again



I received a phone call from a female acquaintance yesterday. She wanted to know if I'd go see Dave Matthews with her in August. I said I would, even though I don't really listen to him. I dislike his singing voice, but over the years I've come to appreciate his guitar playing.

This girl and I have never been intimate, and in many ways I am the man she goes to when she is tired of the other men in her life, the ones who only want sex, the ones who play games, the ones who leave her high and dry. If she has to go somewhere and doesn't want to show up by herself, she calls me. Likewise, I call her when I don't want to show up stag to an event.

She asked me about Eve-- the last time we talked I mentioned that Eve and I were back together. I explained the situation and she seemed to be understanding. Then, she proceeded to tell me about her dry run, how last year she met 6 different guys but this year has been a bust so far. I listened but I must admit that my attention wandered, due to smoking some weed known as The Garlic that had my nostrils flaring and my head spinning.

I was supposed to go to some housewarming party with this girl on Saturday, but I had to flake out because of my cousin Pete's surprise party. Pete's girlfriend ordered a stripper-- how could I resist?

I guess I could always try to make a move on her one day and see where it goes, but let's say that I did and it worked-- where would that leave us? I would be just another guy who wanted to get some and who said what was necessary to get it, and then I'd be on my way. I don't want to do that. I've had enough of that, especially when I hear about how these "sure things" she hooks up with always go sour.

She's my age, and she still hasn't figured it out yet. Maybe if she made someone wait, they wouldn't be in such a hurry to leave after they get what they want.

I can wait forever, though, and it looks like that's why women trust me. They know that I just don't give my love to any old girl, despite my willingness to do so. They know, from talking to me, from candidly hearing my hopes and fears, that I am a shelter for them. I want nothing from them. Maybe they wish that I would demand something from them, to make them feel "sexy" or "desirable", but that's exactly the problem: they keep falling for that fallacy, they keep thinking that getting a man to pant and drool over them is some extraordinary accomplishment.

It is not. To arouse a man is not some sort of science. It is rudimentary biology. It is simple chemistry. It is easy.

If this girl really wanted to make me happy, she'd tell the next smooth operator down the line that they have to wait. I don't forsee that happening any time soon.

So, for at least until tomorrow...

Friday, April 15, 2005

NO ONLINE NOVEL ENTRY TODAY...

I have never read any of the Douglas Adams books, even though I grew up surrounded by avid fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and other titles.

I know all the basic concepts behind the series, and I know it used to be a British radio program, and I know that Adams was friends with Graham Chapman from the Monty Python troupe, whom I adore, and I know that the books are insanely funny...

...but for some reason, they passed me by.

Usually, I duck pop-cultural phenomenons because I want to be different, but Adams' books passed me by, I think, because nobody ever grabbed me by the collar and urged me to read them. I think people also assumed that I had read them when I hadn't.

Anyway, because of the upcoming movie, I have picked up a paperback copy of the third book in the four-book "trilogy", which is entitled Life, The Universe And Everything. I started reading it last night.

It's fucking brilliant.

For a practitioner of 'pataphysics such as myself, I can't believe I never got into this shit. It's funny beyond belief, a mixture of Kurt Vonnegut and Alfred Jarry's Doctor Faustroll, with some Python-esque absurdity thrown in for good measure. It plays like Futurama as if it were performed by Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore.

This is one of those times when I'm actually glad I missed out on it the first time around, because I think I appreciate this kind of bizarre sci-fi surrealist humor more at this point in my life.

Plus, now I am not obligated to watch the movie until I read the other books. Not that I don't think it will be good or bad-- I have no feeling towards the movie. I'm sure the movie will ruin the books, but then again it might improve on other aspects.

We'll see. All I know is, until I finish reading this book, I'm not going to post another online novel chapter. And why? Because this is where I want the novel to go. I want it to progress into pure insanity, slowly but surely. So far, I've been setting up the premises, but unsure of where to take it.

Thank you, Douglas Adams, for pointing me in the right direction... and from beyond the grave, no less!


*/*


We have Direct TV in the News Office now. I get to watch TV shows and movies, but mostly we have it tuned to CNN en espanol and other lives news sources.

Watching CNN in English a few minutes ago, I couldn't help but notice that, during the Anderson Cooper show, all of the outgoing music beds were really cool tunes from new-wave bands of yore.

I recognized "Marquee Moon" by Television as they broke to one commercial break. In case you never heard of Television, they're the band that critics like to compare to The Strokes, even though there isn't any comparison to make. For one thing, Television were a great band who knew how to play their instruments very well, while The Strokes are a lo-fi rock version of a boy band.

Anyway, the next commercial break turned my head because the music was Siouxsie & The Banshees' cover of "The Passenger" by Iggy Pop.

Whoever is doing the music cues on Cooper's show over at CNN: Keep it up! You rock!

Last night, I saw a TV commercial using "The Mountain Song" by Jane's Addiction. I was upset at first, but then I revelled in the subversity of a band like Jane's Addiction (hell, a band with a name like Jane's Addiction) licensing their songs for TV ads. Next thing you know, there's gonna be ads for Methadone on TV, in between spots for the latest pharmaceutical drugs...

Gen X is coming into its own, no doubt.

Now I'm watching Sixteen Candles on the Family Channel. Edited for basic cable, yes, but still a potent, hilarious depiction of '80's-era teen snot. Oh shit! There's Joan Cusack, sitting in a bus seat across from Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. Cusack is wearing some major dental hardware.

My ear detects that John Hughes couldn't get the rights to Madness' "Our House" for the first school dance scene. He was able to get Art Of Noise's "Peter Gunn Theme" featuring Duane Eddy, and Spandau Ballet's "True"... but who can't get the rights to those songs? Even P.M. Dawn was able to sample the latter.

No, Hughes had to settle for a sound-alike track, the kind of music that sounds just like a recognizable hit but with crucial details left out. The songs are tweaked just enough to render them "original"... and just enough to squeak by the recording artist's lawyers without incident!

Ah, now I hear a little Oingo Boingo... we all know what became of Danny Elfman, don't we?

And The Specials? Man, this movie is better than I remember it!

Memory Lane, looks like I'm taking a walk all over you...

Okay, I'd better go now-- need to finish these projects I have open before my shift is done...

If I don't post again tonight...
HAVE A NICE WEEKEND, FOLKS!!

Thursday, April 14, 2005

RANDOM THOUGHT SWIRL: THE MUSICAL

I couldn't resist.

For years, I've been tempted to take the Scientology "personality test", just to see what kind of absurdities could be divined. I found one online (no link) and got 40 questions into through it, then I skipped ahead to see how many more questions there were to answer. I eventually realized, by Question #120, that there was no discernible end in sight!

The questions are of the type where, no matter what you answer, you will always be deemed eligible to try out Scientology at the end of it. But what's really telling is that you don't get the results right then and there-- you have to go into a local Scientology center in order to retrieve your results.

To do this, you have to give them your vitals. So I gave them a fake name and address, because I have no intention of giving them my info. And I'm never going into one of their centers, because I fear that (strong-minded as I am) they will brainwash me as soon as I enter their facilities with some form of Bop Gun, not unlike what the Star Child used on Sir Nose D'Void O'Funk in Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome... except this Bop Gun won't make me dance!

Here's a sampling of the kinds of questions they ask you:


+ means yes or mostly yes

? means maybe or uncertain

- means no or mostly no


Do you make thoughtless remarks or accusations which later you regret? + ? -
When others are getting rattled, do you remain fairly composed? + ? -
Do you browse through railway timetables, directories, or dictionaries just for pleasure? + ? -
When asked to make a decision, would you be swayed by your like or dislike of the personality involved? + ? -
Do you intend two or less children in your family even though your health and income will permit more? + ? -
Do you get occasional twitches of your muscles, when there is no logical reason for it? + ? -
Would you prefer to be in a position where you did not have the responsibilities of making decisions? + ? -
Are your actions considered unpredictable by other people? + ? -
Do you consider more money should be spent on social security? + ? -
Do other people interest you very much? + ? -
Is your voice monotonous, rather than varied in pitch? + ? -
Do you normally let the other person start the conversation? + ? -
Are you readily interested in other people's conversations? + ? -
Would the idea of inflicting pain on game, small animals or fish prevent you from hunting or fishing? + ? -
Are you often impulsive in your behavior? + ? -
Do you speak slowly? + ? -
Are you usually concerned about the need to protect your health? + ? -
Does an unexpected action cause your muscles to twitch? + ? -
Are you normally considerate in your demands on your employees, relatives, or pupils? + ? -
Do you consider that you could give a valid “snap judgment”? + ? -
Do your past failures still worry you? + ? -
Do you find yourself being extra-active for periods lasting several days? + ? -Do you resent the efforts of others to tell you what to do? + ? -
Is it normally hard for you to “own up and take the blame”? + ? -
Do you have a small circle of close friends, rather than a large number of friends, speaking acquaintances? + ? -
Is your life a constant struggle for survival? + ? -
Do you often sing or whistle just for the fun of it? + ? -
Are you considered warm-hearted by your friends? + ? -
Would you rather give orders than take them? + ? -
Do you enjoy telling people the latest scandal about your associates? + ? -
Could you agree to “strict discipline”? + ? -
Would the idea of making a complete new start cause you much concern? + ? -
Do you make efforts to get others to laugh and smile? + ? -
Do you find it easy to express your emotions? + ? -
Do you refrain from complaining when the other person is late for an appointment? + ? -
Are you sometimes considered by others a “spoilsport”? + ? -
Do you consider there are other people who are definitely unfriendly toward you and work against you? + ? -
Would you admit you were wrong just to “keep the peace”? + ? -
Do you have only a few people of whom you are really fond? + ? -
Are you rarely happy, unless you have a special reason?



You get the drift by now. I couldn't take anymore.


*/*


I watched Never Scared, Chris Rock's most recent HBO special, on DVD last night. It was funnier than when I first saw it. Most people I have talked to have commented that it wasn't as funny as his other specials, but I liked it-- he's going on 40 and he can't keep talking about the same old shit.

Recently, on Hip Hop Music.com, there was a discussion about whether Rock is a self-hating Black, because his targets are mostly people like Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson and R. Kelly. I say "No", because really what Rock represents is the court jester, the one who checks everybody at the door and cuts egos down to size.

And he's really good at it too.

Most people on the Internet pride themselves on being no-nonsense, but then they get offended when someone like Chris Rock nails their bullshit right on the head. Chris Rock is an anti-narcissist, in the sense that his comedy isn't self-glorifying or a vehicle for him to fill us in on his personal life. He does make light of himself: his looks, his star status, his position in the world... but luckily he's not so full of himself, otherwise his attacks on people like Marion Barry and black people who buy excessive jewelry would ring hollow.

He's a social commentator, in the strictest sense, and in Never Scared he crosses over into straight-up politicizing, with the vocal cadence of a Baptist preacher... and it's long overdue. I'm glad Chris Rock is around, because when I laugh at his jokes, it is in recognition that what he's talking about (out of its comedic context) really isn't that funny.

I often say that I laugh at certain things in self-defense, and I get the feeling that Chris Rock makes jokes in self-defense, to keep himself from shedding a tear over things like crack addiction, the battle of the sexes, and the sad state of rap music.

For those who admire the early Chris Rock, Never Scared features (as an extra bonus) his very first HBO special, Big-Ass Jokes. It's a marked contrast to the new special because he still hadn't quite found his voice yet, even if his brand of humor was wholly evident.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

RANDOM THOUGHT SWIRL VI: A NEW BEGINNING

I visited the blog of someone I used to e-mail and communicate with, someone who had similar interests in conspiracy lore and mythology. I used to be linked to his site, but after an on-and-off series of arguments in my Comments section, I decided to cease communications. I still have it linked to my blog, because this person goes to great lengths to dig up obscure info and tasty morsels of arcane trivia. I check out his blog every once in a while, leaving no comments. I just got sick of arguing with someone over who is more esoteric and argumentative.

Then I had the stalker, which I chalk up to "cyber karma", cosmic retribution for my online fight-picking over the years. But he hasn't come around since I put up that picture of him on my old blog URL.

Since I've been contemplating my own narcissism and the narcissism of others lately, I have come to conclude that both my stalker and this one blog person are narcissists. Is this a case of misery loving company? No, I don't think so. It has to do with recognizing in myself the tendency to rob others of their N-supply, because I am so aware of how others do it to me.

I went to the old blog this morning, and someone added a comment, under the 'anonymous' banner, asking when I was going to update the blog. Is it possible that I had some readers who weren't on my e-mail list, who didn't know what happened to me when I up and disappeared? Or is it the stalker, trying to get me to redirect him to this blog?

I must admit, I deliberately lured the stalker to the old blog, so that I could at least have him answering me on my terms. I didn't intend to leave the spot, but I just got tired of reading the same old shit from him. I thought that we were going to have exciting back-and-forth battles on my blog, but all he wanted to do was the Web equivalent of "I'm rubber and you're glue"...

Visiting the blog of the former cyber-buddy, I detected the same logic at work: he received some hate e-mail, posted it with a line-for-line refutation, then posted the e-mailer's address in the Comments section so that his small cadre of readers could make snide remarks.

It's something that I would do, which is why it makes me sick to think that I used to get off on it.

Hell, who am I kidding? I still do get off on it. Who knows how long it will be until someone comes around, looking to stir it up with me? I wouldn't be surprised to find an anonymous remark in the Comments section for this post, trying to get my blood boiling.

But, I'm making an effort, I think, to restrain myself. And part of it stems from realizing that going through all of the trouble to combat someone online is really pathetic. It doesn't take much to get someone's goat online-- all one has to do is attack the False Persona, and the curator of said Persona will feel that their sense of self (their source of N-supply) has been infringed upon, and they will respond by trying to make themselves look good, as opposed to making valid points of argument.

It's ego gratification, not debate.

Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back really resonated with me, I guess...


*/*


For those who don't like hip-hop, skip this. However, I think you should read it.

50 Cent's new album The Massacre is a butter platter. I thought it was going to be a bit soft, because L.A. rap radio station Power 106 did a sneak peek a few weeks back and it sounded like 50 was going the L.L. Cool J route: buffed rapper spittin' love rhymes and all that...

Naw, dog...

The Massacre is a straight-up gangsta masterpiece, and 50 proves that he is the Man of the Current Hour. The beats are stellar, the rhymes are witty and catchy (50 is one of the few rappers who actually sounds good when he's singing a hook), and a few of the songs raise the bar lyrically.

Case in point: "A Baltimore Love Thing", produced by Q Beats (whom we will no doubt hear more from in the future), a song where 50 raps from the point-of-view of heroin... you know, the drug?

I've never done H, but I like songs about it, from Lou Reed to Kurt Cobain. But this is the first time I've ever heard a song like this. To quote the lyrics doesn't do it justice, because the magic of rap is that the music, beat, vocal delivery and lyrics all conspire at the same time to create an atmosphere, as opposed to delivering a song with a melody, rhythm and structure. In this sense, rap is not music as we know it-- it has a more cinematic function, perhaps hallucinogenic. It forces you to visualize the action, much like old-time radio dramas.

It demands that you use your imagination, even if the language sometimes leaves nothing to it.

I think that's why skits between songs are so prevalent in hip-hop-- they function on the same level as the rap songs themselves, recreating a mood instead of singing you a song.

As for the drug angle, it may seem like an exploitaive angle for 50 to take, what with his public admission to not being a drug-user... I have a hard time believing it, but then again 50 used to slang crack, and what's the second rule of drug-dealing? Don't get high on your own supply...

(By the way, the first rule is: Never underestimate the other guy's greed.)

Still, whether 50 has ridden the White Horse or not, his lyrics in "Love Thing" equate a love relationship between a man and a woman to drug addiction. It's very convincing, very chilling, and it elevates his raps to another level of awareness.


When we first met, I thought you never doubt me
Now you tryin' to leave me, you never live without me
Girl I'm missing you, come and see me soon
Tie your arm up, put that lighter under that spoon

[Chorus: repeat 2X]
We got a love thing
Girl you tried to leave me but you need me
Can you see you're addicted to me?
We got a love thing
I can take ya higher girl
Fuckin' with me, you can be all you can be



How many women out there have been with a guy who was like that? How many men have been through that with a woman?

I raise my hand. Right now I'm withdrawing from Eve, and it occurred to me, as I listened to "A Baltimore Love Thing" last night, that she is my drug, my heroin. I was clean for a while, not even thinking about her. Then I fell off the wagon, and binged for a few months... and now I'm back on my own, fiending, waiting for a fix, anxious to get back to where I was with her...


After that first night she fall in love, then chase the feelin
I hung out with Marvin when he wrote Sexual Healing
Kurt Cobain, we were good friends, Ozzy Osbourne too
I be with rock stars, see you lucky I'm fuckin' with you
I chilled with Frankie Lymon and Jimi Hendrix crew
See this is new to you, but to me this aint new
I live the lavish life
Listen if the mood is right
Me you and ya sister can do the do tonight
I never steer you wrong, if you hyper I make you calm
I'll be your incentive and your reason to make you move on
Let's make a date, promise you'll come to see me
Even if it means you have to sell ya mama's TV
I love you, love me back
No one said lovin' me be easy



Love is a drug; that is to say, it causes a chemical reaction whose source is the brain... therefore, it is a natural drug, like adrenaline... but it's still a drug, and when we fall in love, we are merely reacting to a combination of chemicals in our brains.

Our hearts have nothing to do with the love high-- it's just a blood pump, and our brain is the nerve center that regulates that pump. Our hearts are empty symbols to express our emotions, but really-- we are all chemical drug addicts.

If there is someone in your life who makes you feel bad when you are not around them, someone whom you feel you need to depend upon, as a crutch maybe... then you are addicted to them, and you need to go cold turkey.

It's easier said than done. I keep trying to get her out of my mind but I end up calling her, leaving stupid voice mails that sound like I'm trying to pretend like I don't want her so badly. Does she care? I don't know-- I think she has her own drug issues to deal with... real drug issues, not metaphorical ones.

I think I am more addicted to women than anything else. I can leave a joint alone and not feel edgy, but whenever I start getting some, it's hard as a motherfucker on me when she leaves me... and believe me, they always leave me.

And if they still want me in their life, they don't want to give me the ultimate love fix-- sex. Sex is to love as crack is to cocaine-- it's a harder, more intense version of its source. Sex is purely chemical, and it's no wonder that there are so many people online, looking for quick sex fixes because it makes them feel good.

I'm not saying I'm a sex addict. I'm just saying that, when a man gets it regularly and then it gets taken away, he goes through a panic, and he finds himself willing to do almost anything to get it again.

I'm in that rough spot, where I think I'll fuck anything that moves. But I've been here before, and I know I just need to tough it out, weather the storm. When Jeanie and I broke up in 2000, I kept my notebook next to me to remind me of how badly she treated me, just so I wouldn't be tempted to go back and beg her to fuck me.

Maybe I need to start re-reading my blog entries from the end of last year, to remind me of how far I strayed from my goal of achieving closure with Eve.

Thanks, 50, for making that song. It got me thinking about my desires, and it shed some light on something I've been pondering for a long time.

That's what a good rap track can do, if you let it.