I am older than you are. But I’m not dead yet. It took nearly 3 years of burn- ing to face this. To “say” it. Who cares, right? So, when you sing your song about old men, no matter the look on your face, I’ll think ‘glorious!’ I’ll think that it must be true— my every dream! Well, not all of them. As for my additional dreams, tonight the moon weeps for each of them. They will each take time. And a little bit of death, shall we say? Yes, death. But what’s a little death for but to enthrall, invigorate, in- vite introspec- tion. The pun’s on me, and why not? I’m not a- fraid of myself. Nor what I’ll find. Some may say that’s a bit naïve. But not me. I have plenty left of my sleeves, clumsy as I may be at finding I’ve lost nearly half of what I was carrying up in there some days. Goodnight, you gloriously sad weeping ball of cheese. I’ll see you tomorrow night. And that's something you can count on for certain.
“Suicide bomb, that!” Says the guy playing the elevator music on his cellphone (for everyone in the ele- vator to enjoy). “This can’t be helped,” he says into the phone for whatever reason. (Everyone else thought surely he was going to terminate that hogwash with “can’t be happening, but it seems these thoughts were similarly spare of any real foreboding.) Not being a movie, this sort of string of incidents does not lead to tragedy. These things just do not occur in real life. Nevertheless, the pregnant woman began to moan. The elevator inhabitants were on their way up. The moans were barely a blip in anyone’s mind. And they were silent enough that it did not seem disturbing that no on was paying attention. Visibly, any- way. But each person in the shaft did believe they caught an audible “birth” and “fuck” . . . . Ah, mumbling. This is most definitely not what the occupants of elevator number five were thinking, but how could they not know, given the cast they encountered in the miniature fleet- ing home in which, come to think of it, we all spend an awful lot of time as its occupants are zipped away to another home (whether zipping down or up, as it turns out); to one that’s a bit less miniature and a bit less fleeting. Ah, home.
Back to our story. With, I’ll admit, an intended level of suspense, since I do know what hap- pens next, even fifty-one years hence (as I type this). How could I possibly forget? Who could? I exited the elev- ator and sort of staggered to my desk at my less fleeting home, after noticing that everyone else in the el- evator had the most unusual sunburn. “These people are so not careful,” I remember think- ing as I stumbled toward the coffee machine. Pay no heed to that. It’s simply my job to think. Because I’m the agent, after all. So, at that lost in thought moment of swagger and impending coffee, whether it was a bomb or not, I instinctively re- moved my phone from its holster (these things have been trending for weeks now; trust me, just look it up!) and I sent one quick text: “you still mean the world to me, nick!” I hit send and quite fortunately made it well toward the outskirts of floor forty-two before the massive explosion on floor fifty-one.
It’s “pretty cool” to get exposed to fine arts at an early age, like Kid Rock’s doppelgänger, we each decide, here in The Quiet Room of the homeless shelter in which I’ve “resided” for the better por tion of two years. And then Mr. Lucid for the First Time in the Six Months I’ve Known Him, he’s my bunk neighbor, adds “and so are interpersonal relations.” Nobody had a clue what to say for a long while after that. We made it true by just being silent. But, inside, I’m giddy. Because this lies at the very foundation of my value system; which been blown to smithereens the past couple of years, but yet clearly remains somewhere in here. Scrooge just claimed in a very poignant moment that interpersonal relations are, well, pretty cool. I’ve really no idea where the other minds here earlier have wandered, but I can hardly contain myself. Which, as anyone who has spent more than, say, fifteen minutes with me knows, is not that unusual. Biting my tongue being near impossible for me. So it’s tough to speak, and this happens to me next to never. A couple of minutes pass (or perhaps thirty?). Then Scrooge, aka Mr. Lucid for the First Time Since I’ve Made His Acquaintance adds, as if he had only just seconds ago made the previous observation, “Yeah, and you most definitely talk too much.” He’s looking at me (duh!). So the moment is gone. The subject veers momentarily to other subjects, like earthquakes. Apparently one hit Napa Valley the previous Sunday. A 3.8. I learn a lot from the guys in The Quiet Room. And relearn just about as much. Things with which I’ve been out of practice, like regaining control of a sustained type of optimism. This, and, another example, the art, the sheer necessity, of being social (I’m speaking for myself here, of course). I tend to usually add here that I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety, am on regular medication for it. Particularly social anxiety. But yet I’m also a clear-cut extrovert, in the Myers’ Briggs sense. So, I get my energy AND my anxiety from people. They’re a necessity and a curse (to which I usually add that I’m a Gemini). But, this can’t be that abnormal. Is it? I don’t know. It’s just me. And every day is learning to deal with it. I stop my meandering thoughts long enough to listen to the directions the conversations have gone in the room. How San Francisco sucks. How it’s a fantastic place to be (whichever, it’s home to me, and I do love it, or wouldn’t be sitting in a home- less shelter discussing such an absurd subject). Next up: our favorite spots to sleep when we are literally “on the streets.” Mine happens to be Ina Coolbrith Park (named after a poet!), a relatively untravelled diagonal block on Russian Hill built on one of those avenues that give way to a vehicular dead-end for a block or two due to how steep it is (or how wealthy the neighborhood, I suppose). My mostly six months on the streets coincided with the longest contracted job I’d had for nearly a decade, when (during the earlier time) I made enough money to take three and a half years off of paid work and live the life of what I considered at the time either a luxury I never thought I would have, or that of a bohemian artist. I loved the park because it was relatively un-trafficked, I had my own cul-de-sac built of boulders to sleep within (a fortress, if you will), and, night or day it had one of the most beautiful vistas these eyes have encountered. I got to wake up every morning, pre-dawn, to the view of the gorgeous new Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, and my “home,” of sorts, the Financial District, with its familiar buildings down below. As I spent my last night here at the barracks (as I called them), a place appropriately enough called Sanctuary, which stands inconspicuously at the corner of Eight and Howard Streets in SoMa, feeling the need to record yet another small record of my existence, this more straightforward (truthful?) than normal hello to the world, or the minute part of it that might take a listen, I am content. Tomorrow, I shall move on to better things. Finally. May it be an uphill swing for many years to come. If I had small glasses and champagne to distribute on my last night in The Quiet Room, I’d send us all a simple cheer. On to the next. May it never be as consistently grueling as the recent past.
It’s 2am, Tuesday morning. We’re six guys around a table in ‘The Quiet Room,’ which is never really quiet, but tonight it’s quieter than usual. New faces, old faces. The crazies, the dependables (such pigeonholing in the crypt of pigeonholing is always relative; more relative than you’d know for a long while, were you even stuck there as I was, assuredly). One guy I’ve never once seen lucid (he sleeps on the top bunk next to mine; I call him Scrooge, but a better description of his night- time ventures might more app- ropriately garner him the nick- name Gargoyle. Yes, these are some of the things that have occupied my mind during my stay here of nearly two years but for the 6 months break when I was working (and, lucky me, living on the streets simultaneously) – anyway, this is my first time experiencing him quite lucid, and we’ve been bunk neighbors for half a year. He’s the life of the party tonight! And party it is. It’s my last night here. I scan the “barracks” (as I call it here) in an attempt to envision this small tucked away enclave of a room a profligate (in the best possible way) cul-de-sac of lasciviousness. Our “Sanctuary” was home (apparently) to a bath- house. In the Golden Age of those mostly remnants of nostalgia here in San Francisco. The men sitting here tonight defy sex. That’s pro- bably an unfair assessment based on my own perspective. But they do defy sexuality, for certain. Except one, who’s a dead-on doppelganger for Kid Rock. And yet, he “got exposed” to “fine arts” at an early age, which, as he keeps saying (and I certainly keep agreeing), was “Pretty cool” . . . .
The days go by and I go without them. —John Ashbery
Finding crazy means you’re lost. And we all care not to be too lost, with cert itude! There are circumstances, but.... “The curtain and a curtsy!” the barmaid would always snort after pouring the five kamikazes. (She’d use ‘cinco’ for inadvertent but appropriate 1990’s faux multiculturalist unknowism.) Those might have been the days, ponders the one who thinks he’s actually in the know. Prox imity to the hole is always important.
Short List Poem w/Actual Names of WiFi Networks O_BIRD_BOYS The ALDER PeeWee ticklemypickle Lmarcum authentic Manman molasses M flower Dave Standard Cognition ThePug memebox
Peripheral Vision I was going to puke once I realized we were not even halfway through the month. So. I’m truly sorry about the spectacle. But the fireplace is original. Sometimes memory is funny that way, serving no purpose but to remind us what idiots we are. Hence signifying the value of reclusivity and of running away from hardcore emotions or refusing to do laundry on do-or-die date. Obviously, there is an overarching fear that we might break our already fragile selves; become our own communal guiding light? Nice lighting in any environment is gener- Ally helpful. And 'nice' is not exactly det- ermined by the eye of the beholder here (if you follow my supposition) (distantly). A keen awareness of one’s environment can be helpful, if not crucial. I have heard about the wide disparity in how the periphery of each individual human’s vision can be. Deceptively tall embank- ments on both sides of an intersection toward which you are driving (one ex- ample) before which thick vegetation obscures an intersection warning and, a few meters forward (i.e., directly in front of the intersection), another shrub- covered stop sign. These are not life- shortening or life-altering entities in and of themselves. Two or three nar- ratives of any shape or size suggesting logic via the narration of each. We play along. People are somehow fine with this routine. But, as for me, I believe to do so is the way of a cretin. For one thing, people get terribly con- fused regarding their own part in their own event; and especially confused, say, when one of their friends are also at said event, there is massive confusion,\ in general, over who did what? Who hosted? Who was the most fun? The funniest? Etc.
The Gutless Breed (circa late today to early tomorrow)
A little death can be a lot of fun if you take care not to mix too much business with your pleasure. Pleasure is fine, too, as far as that goes (Mar- coni’s masochism completes the genetic injury to the Marquis’ original chain — et voilá! — it’s more like a rev- olution than mere bobbysox evolution, wouldn’t you say?), but for the excruciating lack of any flinching or clenching (Gasp! Whatsoever?!). A pity so pat; a yawn almost. Another dawn’s fre- netic spiral through the electric funnel until (touché, voilá) down it’s gulped by the drain — right on calendar — directly before its last (woefully mal- content) belch of the day.
Henry Hock the ham, Henry! It’s gonna be a ragtag year! My mom was a member of my hometown’s Eastern Star group, which was the ladies’ version of the Mason’s. Both groups used the same lodge, and one was clearly meant to be subservient to the other, but there wasn’t much of that Masonic mystery when I was a kid. At least that’s not my memory of things. But I do recall that Mom had to participate in some sort of inaugural or hazing event in order to qualify or be- come a member of my hometown’s Eastern Star group. I’m not sure whether her materials were mandated or whether perhaps she got to choose from a list, perhaps of ladies of the Bible, but I remember that her presentation was on Ruth. She had to memorize a monologue. And I helped her do so. Or probably
more like annoyed her while she tried to do so.
The presentation was done in the first person, by which I mean Mom played Ruth; it was a performance of some sort. And that’s about all I remember of that. It was a time, as I recall, when most Henrys had made it back from the war(s), but rarely would any make it to Sunday church service (save Easter and Christmas, of course). Maybe they were all making movies, as several of the Henrys had the pronounced features of a leading (or pleading) man that would appear like clockwork on the silver screen for every Sunday matinee. It was small- town Arkansas, back when even every small town had its own cinema; so, presum- ably, there were many Henrys floating back and forth on many silver screens on Sunday afternoons across the nation. While all of these large Henrys were appearing larger than life all over the nation, there were a lot of Henrys daughters, too. And it is purported that daughters of Henrys often had a predilection toward deviant behavior. Much to the chagrin of the Henrys. And of particular distaste and alarm to the moms of Henrys daughters. Of the deviant daughters, perhaps they were all (or mostly all) over the fact that most everyone in their worlds were smitten by Henrys. And, ew, Henry was dad to each and every Henrys daughter. There was even a candy bar. O Henry. Which, by the time of me and my aware- ness of such nonsense, always seemed just a bit out of fashion or old fashioned to my senses. Aged. In much the same way I thought of my grandfather’s Old Spice bottles, of Sadie Hawkins dances, of Vicks Inhalant or vapor rub (of which my great grand- mother’s bedroom drawers were full) and of Tarzaan (in any incarnation), I thought of O Henry and, truth be told, of most Henrys? Yeah, probably. I had an Uncle Henry. I had a lot of uncles. But only one Uncle Henry. Uncle Henry seemed rarely to ever move (to me, anyway). Except to pack his pipe or pick it up or smoke it a bit. And de- spite being the patriarch of a fairly large and (again, to me) very active family, many members of whom would always be present, it seems, whenever I saw my Uncle Henry. Wherever I saw my Uncle Henry. Generations of them, always there, keeping Uncle Henry company. He did not seem either happy about that nor irritated by that. He would just stand or sit, barely moving, looking super tall and thin (he was both) whether sitting or standing (also, by the way, almost always wearing overalls). But the pipe. It’s the first thing that comes to mind the moment I reminisce about Uncle Henry. Perhaps because it was such a foreign item (it wasn’t until I was older than the Henry era that Dad started smoking one), and surely also because of the very distinct and pleasant sweetness that came from it. Uncle Henry’s pipe. And the ritual of it all. While he never seemed to move, the act of getting the pipe ready to smoke and then smoking it was pyrotechnically dazzling, in that subtle Uncle Henry way. But dazzling, for sure. Dazzled, I was. By Uncle Henry’s pipe. This, I think in the early hours of this morning, in a place many miles away from those times, and lots of other things in between that time and place and this one in which I am now writing to you my memories of Uncle Henry and the Henry Era. I can almost smell the sweet smoke from his pipe’s tobacco. And wonder, presently, what occupied his mind while he so silently and contemplatively smoked it.
ILLEGIBLE 💙 Note to self (And the rest of the kingdom):
No More Bags On HeadS
“No. I am And also, coronate Lance Bass the (do not blame the King. This King!” came to me in a DREAM)
Mega Mania!! Lo
See! Hi! Hello! Retry for ME. as King of this Kingdom.
PROCLAMAIONS*:
1. No court jesters necessary (the savings are incredible!) Also 2. No more rubber soles Etc. 3. Eliminate all spoons 4. Alveoli 5. Smartphone speaker holes will ALWAYS BE TIGHT
*which are kind of like proclamations without the t’s ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sally Field Is Now Head of Air Transportation
And also…
All lefties will henceforth Be regulated to the Stockyards.
Oh, I don’t think you’ll be laughing long.
Neighing Perhaps. Neighing perHAPS.
It’s a sad day in the kingdom for anyone who sees illegibility in the King’s SACRED PAPYRI.
Show To Mother (Stephen Colbert sticker poem VII*)
I found two quarters and two nickels on 8th Street (sidewalk) yesterday. She’d be so proud that I bothered to stoop over to pick them up. Madoc, on the other hand, would probably have found them before me. Or, if by some odd chance he did not find them first, he’d most certainly need to know the date in which each coin was minted…if they were pennies, anyway. I wasn’t hopping from interview to interview when I found the coins. Not like I’m doing today, when I learn I haven’t quite enough money for a cheap lap- top (you can get one for $100 these days, I’ve just learned. One that works. That’s cheaper than most mobile phones, just for some con- text or perspective.) Then I real- ize that I can have $40 more if I return the keyboard I just bought here two weeks ago (I’m once again at Best Buy), so it might yet be possible for me to walk home with my very own laptop, the first one that I’ve owned since my second night home- less over twenty-one months ago (a cold night when I slept on the sidewalk a block down from what was my apartment, our apartment…. The problem was I put the large piece of lug- gage hastily packed full of what I decided quickly were my most important possessions, which included several iPhones, my laptop, a few of my favorite clothes, a few bathroom sup- plies, Coco the Loco, who was a cat who for nine years had never been my sole responsi- bility, was never even my idea to adopt in the first place be- cause someone else beat me to the punch shortly after Sepia the Cat passed away. All these were in my large suitcase, along with some completely random items from the apartment – stuff I’d been able to gather from the bulk of all that was in there, one third of which was not mine but had been left there by the deadbeat terror, another third of which was mine or- iginally and the last third be- longed to me and the dead- beat cumulatively – like Coco the Loco – like the apartment itself, the lease of which had both our names, even though I’d paid by far the larger share of the rent and the rest of our expenses for over five years while the deadbeat eased his way through college). And of this disparity of items, I’d been able to pack up and get to the UHaul truck about one third of the material
that resided in the apartment
with me, with us. And that
included only a portion of what I had accumulated in my 50 years of living, which was perhaps a third of what had been in the apartment, before being assaulted by the apartment manager simply because, thanks to the most extreme panic at- tack I can recall, I said I need to take a quick trek to the emergency room. As the manager, a guy for whom I’d sung praises for being the best, empathized with his work, spent hours talking with him about AC/DC concerts, and who had gotten intimate with some of the stragglers who invariably stayed with me during their hard times (I am told some of the advances were unwant- ed, but cannot attest to the veracity of that), had me in a neck-hold lifting me up to the roof of the cabin of the U-Haul truck, refusing to let me take the short 5 block trip to St. Francis. At least until I screamed “POLICE, POLICE, POLICE…” at the top of my lungs and lo and behold the police very quickly arrived and I was able to escape the horror of being there excav- ating the history of my life
while being bullied and beat
en. Once I was able to leave,
I pulled in to the St. Francis parking lot until I stopped hyperventilating, then drove in- to the Sunset to sleep for the night in the UHaul truck (where I discovered the next morning that I had a flat tire). Backing up a bit, I’d only gotten about a third of the material that was in the apartment in which I’d lived for 13 years, about a third of which was mine in the first place, but all of which I paid to be stored for a year, only to have it all auctioned off (My entire poetry library! My every journal! All of my photo books, including those few I got from my grandmother’s collection, and the quilt my other grand- mother made me, along with the many items that had no- thing whatsoever to do with me, except that I had lived for a decade with their right- ful owner, their rightful resp- onsibility. They’d just been left for me to take care of. And after a year of making payments while homeless and jobless to keep the items in storage, I lost every item after missing a couple of months’ payments, after which all of the items were apparently taken and auctioned off in some horribly im- personal manner to the highest bidders. But back at Best Buy, and upon contemplating all too much of this craziness that had led to me needing or wanting badly or just being here seeing it would be poss- ible for me to finally get a new lap- top, in a new age where they could be had for cheaper than most mobile phones, I became full of questions so big I would never have thought they’d exist, these big questions; they had not even crossed my mind. So I called Mom to ask her what she thought of the sit- uation I was in, or perhaps it was a di- lemma. I ask her what I should do, what she thought about all of it, but her response was a familiar lamentation about how she feels so terrible that she can’t help me financially. “Mom,” I say, “you just sent me $50 for Christmas,” or I wouldn’t even be considering what had, given the last couple of years, been an outrageously delightful dilemma. She does her curt little chuckle and I then recount how my week between Christmas and New Year’s has been thus far, and began to feel almost giddy about how much more pleasant it is, despite all that I’m still currently living through that is, well, sub-par. After this final exchange (which is much more me than her), I hang up happy to have gotten the opportunity to listen to a few of her complaints–who’s passed away, who’s
in the hospital, etc. –and I chastise her
for not sending me any sweet treats from
the holidays this year (neither from Thanks-
giving nor Christmas, both of which al- ways include the best, sweetest desserts my family is capable of concocting – and I’m serious, for the most part, having hinted surely so much that she had to know it was a serious request). But this welcome and trite conversation with Mom has opened me up to the realization, more than ever, that even though I’ve endured what has been five years of horror, the past year finally saw a tic upward rather than downward, and remembering last year’s holidays reveals how significant a difference the present holiday season is, since it’s one in which I remain mostly upbeat, positive, motivated and even happy – a stark con
trast, it turns out, to my mother’s general disposition, to her outlook on life, at least as she so clearly presents it. It’s not the only reason that I’m happy to have had the conversation with her. It’s also that there are so little conversations at all these days; in my life. Whatever the reason, it certainly lifted my spirits, which weren’t horrible in the first place. Perhaps part of it is a bit of a cocky relief that my spirits, my generally positive outlook (one which was almost impossible to find during the four years previous, since the de- parture of the deadbeat without even having the balls to tell me anything about it to my face, having to face the horror of the truth on my own after he disappeared…and well afterward), that my disposition was formed substantially in rebellion to my mother’s endless complaining and proud pessimism. I suppose that the same could be said of my aspiration to stay happy, al- most to the point of hedonism; to generally avoid any serious materialism; to refuse to even feel or even attempt to under- stand or relate to the concept of ven- geance in any real way; and it primarily explains the fact that I have remained a staunch pacifist my entire life (as it has existed thus far, in any case), never hav- ing hit anyone – well, besides, as I have often been told, my twin brothers, upon coaxing, on more than one occasion, my parents or one of my less aware relatives into allowing me into the boys’ playpen – some impulses are apparently impossible to control. These optimistic, pacifistic, happy, hedonistic, non-vengeful, happy-go- lucky impulses began, at first, it seems to me, as nothing more than cliché adolescent or teenage acts of rebellion: those impulses which were against authority, particularly those of one’s parents or extended family. I’m not perfect. I certainly compre- hend that. But speaking with Mom makes me happy. And today, it made me very happy. Not in an “I’m so glad I’m not like you” manner, either – even though the story of my day may come across in such a one- dimensional manner. This feeling reiterates for me that it’s enlightening to be close to those who are unlike you. I truly believe that. And, sure, it’s funny that “unlike” might apply just as intensely (if not more) to family members, to those closest to you, as those from the opposite end of the earth with whom you’ve not even language in common. Family, like perfect strangers from radically different cultures, we have so much in common. And boy, are we different. Way dif- ferent. But, when you think about it, as I am at the moment, we’re related to each person on this planet. Imagine the commonality, and what we might learn from the differences. Mom reminds me who I am every time I have the joy of her presence, be it face to face, flesh to flesh, or, as it most often is these days, ear to ear. Happy 75th birthday, Mom, a couple of weeks early (Dad would have been 75 today, in fact). Here’s to as many more conversations as you can withstand. I love you for who you are and for who I am and I always will.
*(the title of this poem is from a page from Stephen Colbert’s I Am America And So Can You which has a set of “STICKERS,” each with a phrase which he recommends using to show that you are the “man in charge” or that “you’ve got it all under control” – I assume to be used especially when the man-reader actually has no clue, or simply isn’t interested or even paying attention)
On that day, the five dozen volunteers walked over the edge of the precipice, stopped for a moment, huddled in front of it, then, as directed by the first in line, moved forward, following him, one by one, into and completely through the massive oval of ancient rock that had been sacred to the planet’s inhabitants ever since as far back as their recorded history, and no one knew how long before that. But no one, at least in recorded history, had ever dared to go where no Vulcan had knowingly gone before; as far as Vulcanity knew, no one had ever passed through the Sacred Portal on the Great Precipice. The line of individuals making their way to and through the Great Portal were each volun- teers, mostly made up of academic veterans of research along with a few of the eccentrics who lived further up the mountain upon which the precipice and its “portal” stood. Each indi- vidual who passed through the chute made of sheer rock (which burned a bright shade of bronze on clears days such as this one, which was due to an admixture of heavy metal along with the planet’s dusty mantle), once on the other side, found that they had entered a void filled with nearly blinding solid white—not quite light—that was thicker than it could possibly be; in fact, it was so dense that as each of the travel- ers looked back to observe the side of the portal from a perspective that, to their knowledge, no Vulcan had ever seen, no trace of it could be seen. There was nothing but the intense bright white. Each Vulcan learns at a very young age that, even with ardent and open-minded, steady non-stop focus in one direction or at one thing for any significant duration of time, any con- clusions implied by logic about what was seen might be about as far from the reality as imagin- able. In other words, logic does not always win. There is and will always be the inexplicable, the unexplainable; illogic. Nevertheless, what with imagination being one of any typical Vulcan’s weakest link: what does one use to make any progress with a subject encountered that with standard logic is only misunderstood, inappropriate- ly managed or dealt with, or worse, is an udefeat- able enemy to civilization and harmony. Vulcans become both palpably disturbed and very curious when they encountered this sort of oddity. So, by the time the seventy explorers had each passed through the sacred, hollow rock and paused long enough to glance back toward where they at least believed they were moments earlier, the thick white non- fog had in an instant become a seemingly imperm- meable hue of pink. A Vulcan bathed entirely in a sea of pink is a sight to behold (reference for example, the master swimmers in the T'Paul Sea in the late spring). It is the color for love, pink; and their color for grief. And to immerse oneself in it is to encounter within oneself the dichotomy, that primary conflict which the proud race had all but successfully quelled for as far back as the established historical record goes. When bathed in this present pink light, each individual experience was deep and unrelenting, it was pure emotion. And emotions are illogical. To express them, to even allow them even sparingly into consciousness was lowbrow, if you will. Yet oddly, it was the primary ritual, catalyzed by walking into the hallowed caverns where inside nothing existed except a vivid pink intensity which could somehow, upon being temporarily sealed (in an airtight manner) allowed move- ment and breath within. Each Vulcan father would ex- perience for a day, a night, and another day until dusk, directly after the birth of his first-born. Several of today’s volunteer explorers had never even experienced this ritual, this rollercoaster through heartbreak and ecstasy and everything in between. A few hours after being lowered into one of these pink caverns, there was what was termed in Vulcan something that, roughly translated, was the reversal, a moment when all of the passion-inflict
ing rosy light began to subside and then slowly disappear altogether. Nothing is left. Perception is momentarily eradicated. Nothing is perceived – by either of the seven Vulcan hypersenses. There is no negativity, no positivity. There is no love, no vengeance; neither pain nor joy. There is only the nothingness through which the trajectory of the genesis of life soars to its culmination, to its inevitable extinction. The drop, sheer as it was, wasn’t actually a drop at all. What was perceived as precipice was rather the mere top of what might best be described as a swarm of poisonous green blood that co-existed with the mighty pulse of existence, the unusual longevity of a race that had always evolved, and swiftly, toward some ideal. The swarm, however, had also pre-existed, and had moved beyond ideal. And it would outlive the pulse. There was no sensation, to be sure. There was “I know who you know” and there was “I feel what you feel.” Representative of the entire race, these explorers had grasped, in unison, that which was to be normally quelled and yet experienced unto numbness only in proximity with life’s most precious and poignant moments,
which, when combined with each like experience, was the
summation of every Vulcan’s ritualistic journey from everything
into nothing. Their thoughts, as the beings each flew or fell into the nothing of all nothings, were melded with those of the green swarm. And all that remains of the event are im- permeable notions. Love defies and denies logic. No love, except that which extends indefinitely, exists. There is no existence. There is an irrevocably pure, fathomable simpli- city that is and will always be toppled by duplicity, or un- being. These notions are held true by millions of hollow words in thousands of fictive languages. The green swarm always bleeds to death. The expanse of altruism is a boiling vengeance. I see what you see. I feel what you feel. And how would either of us ever know any of this or even throw a wrench into the enor- mous machine that creates and then contains and then perpetuates these notions, when we each choose no- thing but to keep swimming desperately just off the shore of hope, in the dark confounding sea of denial?
*(the title of this poem is from a page from Stephen Colbert’s I Am America And So Can You which has a set of “STICKERS,” each with a phrase which he recommends using to show that you are the “man in charge” or that “you’ve got it all under control” – I assume to be used especially when the man-reader actually has no clue, or simply isn’t interested or even paying attention)
Trivial Pursuit (1980’s Version) #3 PER* Question: What US association considered a seal of approval for low-cholesterol foods in 1989. Answer: High Anxiety
ENT Question: In what mountain range does Dirty Dancing take place? Answer: The Catskills NEW Question: What two young brothers joined together as dark, unsung, gun- slinging anti-heroes in a 1988 Australian western? Answer: Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze TL Question: What long-running musical is based on T.S. Eliot’s deepest, most intense and thought-pro- voking volume of poetry. Answer: Cats SL Question: What is created when you throw Diplo into a bowl of Skrillex Answer: Jak Ü
WC Question: Anastasia, Sheena Easton, Shu- hada Davitt (Sinead O’Connor’s new Islam name), The Time, the midnight singalong of Purple Rain (Thank you, Peaches!), Nothing Compares to? Answer: U *Category key PER: Personalities ENT: Entertainment NEW: In The News TL: That’s Life SL: Sports & Leisure WC: Wild Card
PER* Question: Whose campaign aides warned “A vote for Anderson is a vote for Reagan”?
Answer: Jimmy Carter’s
ENT Question: What brand and style of condoms is the favorite of Freddy Krueger, Ozzy Osbourne, Nancy Kerrigan and Dian Fossey?
Answer: Red and black striped Trojans
NEW Question: What sent Carter-Wallace stock from $61 to $150, coinciding with the be- ginnings of the AIDS crisis?
Answer: Trojan
TL Question: What country’s military squeezed out $9,000 for marijuana-laced, freeze dried urine?
Answer: Martha Stewart
SL Question: How many inches long are the razors Freddy Krueger uses on his victim, a) Dustin Hoffman; b) Jack Nicholson; c) puck chaser; d) Carl Bernstein or e) ...it “ranks right up there with the Mountie and the beaver,“ eh?
Answer: Wayne Gretzy (It‘s a sports and leisure question, so what were you thinking?)
WC Question: Years before Nicole Kidman followed suit, whose daughter married Danny Keogh, the son of a Scientologist?
Answer: You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, and oh what a cruel one at that. But you always love me tender when I’m caught bouncing on Oprah’s living room trampoline.
*Category key PER: Personalities ENT: Entertainment NEW: In The News TL: That’s Life SL: Sports & Leisure WC: Wild Card
PER* Question: Who did Teddy Kennedy say he admired for not getting involved involved in the Reagan administration?
Answer: Ronald Reagan
ENT Question: Taylor Swift?
Answer: Taylor Dayne
NEW Question: What Disney character, whose video was released in the early 80s, is first cousin (at least) to the present day ruler of the free world?
Answer: Pinocchio
TL Question: What body part did Ronald Reagan have skin cancer removed from in 1985, 1986 and 1987?
Answer: His nose
SL Question: What kind of juice, with pits, was thrown up ad nauseum in The Witches of Eastwick?
Answer: The Juice, Juice Newton and Oran Juice Jones
WC Question: What Billy Joel song most closely depicted the future of American politics with the lyric “…but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for…”
Answer: Pinocchio
*Category key PER: Personalities ENT: Entertainment NEW: In The News TL: That’s Life SL: Sports & Leisure WC: Wild Card
