GOOD NEWS!!!

I have another blog. Re-partnering with my Batman Bryan, we have joined forces to chronicle the Great Narrative of the Basketball Season and every facet of intrigue. 

This blog means: 

1. A daily reason to write that doesn't stem from the soul's inspiration 
2. This blog will refocus on matters intrinsically philosophical and primordial while providing an outlet to satiate my deep desire to become a Sports Journalist. 
3. A reason behind every Amir Johnson blocked shot. 

Check it out here. I anticipate some of my best writing to be about something many of you know nothing about. 

WWW.TACOBLACKOUT.BLOGSPOT.COM

http://tacoblackout.blogspot.com/

http://tacoblackout.blogspot.com/

Found Poetry

I shift myself from the constant focus of watching the mailbox in futile hopes that my tenori-on will arrive....

A few months ago, when my New York Times essay got published, I felt like the king of the entire world. Nothing could touch my ego and I bought up many copies of the famed periodical.

I stashed these papers underneath our coffee table where people often lay their feet. Today I looked down and found a scrap of paper torn from my headline on the front page.

It reads...

Love
About Me?
So Creepy
Walkowski

Truer words have never been spoken.

You Must Be A Protestant

Don't be fooled. It's simple advice but hard to heed and even harder to heel if you're already heeding. The Maps--the most trusted form of pure information--are lying. I look at them in their swatches of red and blue states, and come upon a stretch of land widely considered to be the Bible Belt.

According to the map, the Bible Belt ranges from the Southern States past the Mississippi and into the outlying regions of the Southwest. The Belt ain't a bad place. It's filled with good, god fearing people, but something is amiss when those people are everywhere. I can't step out of my little locked in closet without stepping on a Protestant.

They're the ones who got in my way but they've got some guff. Looking up with beady soulless eyes they dare to ask "Why did you do that? What were you thinking?" It's laughable but they expect an honest answer.

I shoot straight with these folks every time I come into contact with them, an event occurring with near harrowing frequency. "Hey. The soul got a little big and needed to shake itself out. I'm sure you understand."

They don't. Emotion is a threat to them. Any feeling aside from the cautious angst stemming from the fact that something might change is unwelcome in the parameters of their brain. Do something to affront them and they'll rise up but not towards you. The little squeamish folk whisper to each other in hushed voices: "I can't believe they did that.", "He needs to grow up" or their favorite "that's really unprofessional." They've got one standard and have to stick to it.

These people want to fill my veins with drugs until I walk in line and order potted plants in the window sill. I've been running from that, the group think, the idea that anything downright ANYTHING can trap me in its consequences. I've come to conclude that it can't but that doesn't stop the little folks from trying to make you a little bit more like them.

The scary thing about the new breed of Protestants is that they don't even need to be Protestants. They could be anyone. They might be your buddy, someone to share beers with, even a hippie. You could even think of them as good people, lord knows I've fallen there before. At the slightest sign of duress they burrow out of their holes and try to bury you in their ways., Sniveling noses snort in disgust at the vestige of the human spirit. You try to run but they cling to you with their grubby little hands and cool hard reasoning.

"Things aren't how they should be!"
But it's how they are. Deal with it. Move on. Get down. Sing and make a Vodka Melon.

I've always been afraid of this Earth. The moment you break free, something tries to pull you back from whence you came. Kesey saw it. He called it the combine. I see it, I fear it, I fight it. I call it the Protestants. I call it the General Malaise. It's gonna come and suck your thoughts out if you aren't careful. Ever found yourself caring so much about drywall? Well get ready to. They'll harp until you care like they care. "Your heart should be blackened" is what they'll say. Then they'll comb your hair, fix you a jelly sandwich, and make you afraid of something else.

I don't know what's going on. This isn't the desert.
In the desert, everything makes sense. Looking around, evolution is palpable. In a place filled with death some found a way to make it work. They rose from nothing and made it their own. The structure and order of everything can be understood in a vision. The beauty and the death are there together, reminding that both are not so far from reach. The desert reminds one of how easy it is to attain the impossible. Just like we can do. Just like we don't.

Here? Nothing is up and nothing is down. A friend lies catatonic on the bed. Another screams. Another cries. There aren't much happiness around and little is being done to find any. Breaking free would be so easy if not for them, the small harrowing voices.

"Stop" they whisper.
Stop you do.
And so on and so forth until the day you decide to Go Go Go Crazy.

A new morning beckons. I think I'll have eggs.

We Could Not Be More Simila; We Could Not Be More Different

I have recently played with the idea of writing a book of Philosophy. I play with notions so often it has become my trademark, but the thing many fail to realize is that I mean each and every gesture with the honesty of an eleven-year-old boy pursuing his first kiss. I have sort of studied philosophy over the years, it has become a sort of guidance in the same way that basketball has. Though I bone up on recently released texts, I can't find any recently released philosophy that professes itself to be as such. Everything that aiming to examine the vehicle of modern thought fails to acknowledge it's aim. I believe Malcom Gladwell to be the foremost philosopher of our generation, but even Gladwell demures from this distinction from writing on topics that are more easily classified as "self-help" or "economics".

Someone should write a book of philosophy. There is quite a bit going on this days, atr least in the world as I see it. Decisions are made for no palpable reason (especially in myself). Giant structures spurt up from the ground without provocation. It seems the world has begun to govern itself via the rationale of "For No Reason At All" a thought process easily explained by the phrase "why not?". Of the external forces slowly seeping their forces into each and every one of us, none possesses a beauitful message. All is riddled with fear and expectation. I can't read Gladwell without thinking myself as a vehicle of pure shenanigan. To understand any of the forces at work I must delve backwards into the murk of elder-eras.

These seem good, but why is it that no one has taken to professing the joys of being human. Eating, runing, screwing, and somehow capturing thought in word form is the most dynamic thing one could ever ask for. I would like nothing more than to find satisfaction in my human needs, but such things are of little importance to the general populace, at least according to book sales.

Every meal we eat is a fantastic endeavor.
Every tryst is a wonderful moment of bliss.
But no one is concerned about this.

Race/economy/racial economic relations and other tawdry terms seep into our understanding of human life. These thigns are important-in a long run scenario- but do little to assuage the guilt and trepidation associated with day to day monotony. This general malaise is paramount to our problems and without striving forward to rediscover the joy of living, we will be left waiting for our lives to begin while forced into the motions.

I have been toiling to produce a novel under rthe duress of producing a novel. Along the way I have come to disregard the words and appreciate my journey. I know the words will be good but they will ultimately pale in comparison to the process that got me there. As a human being the 1000 strategies, the endless peptalks, and ways of trickery harbor more meaning than anything I could ever produce.

My greatest hope is that the after life consists of a ledger listing all thoughts and emotions driving human action. I know the past year of my life would be a wonderfully resonant narrative, but have no way to explain my journey to others. The decisions enacted in the creation of anything are more meaningful than any finished product. Real, raw though. Untainted emotion. Such is the vehicle of understanding. If we are forced to look at life through the parameters of finished art, money, and love, we fail to acknowledge the driving force of desire.

There is want to do something. Like all human desires, it takes an abstract route to manifest itself.

Writing this made me think of my friend Pete. We are drifting a part but our lives have been wound together through the strings of the Great narrative. As young men seeking to encumber great tasks we toil under own minds, seeking release from the cycle of proving ourselves. I know we are both near the finish line. We might thrust our works unto the world, but I think he'd agree that nothing could compare to the feeligns we felt at the onus of our project. If we could bottle these feelings and sell them to the masses, we'd be millionaires. Since there is no economic demand or scientific possibility for contained human emotions, we deign to toil under individual duress, hopeful the fruits of our labors will exude from us.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don't .

Empty beer bottles, a chair full of worry, these are the images that have come to represent me. I am reasonably sure Pete has his own talismen. Fret not old Pete, regardless of the end product, if the ledger exists we will be forever cast in glossy form.

It is great to be human and we've been so human,

When The Man Comes Around

The black man sped in on his moped. 

Then he sped back around. 

Such is the state of suburban affairs

When Roy Williams lives in town. 

White Lions guard his driveway 

and the pizza crusts in his trash

Trips to McDonald's before a lay

 Texas tappin' that ass. 

He delivers pizzas on his off days

The surefire antidote for pro sports stolid malaise

He might be cocky, so rude, so brash, 

but there's room in my heart for a bit of the flash. 

In a land filled with doldrums, 

Roy is the gum drop king. 

Solving another first down conundrum

Performing his mighty celebratory swing. 

First Down Lions! 

Growl Grrr Growl 

The aerial attack is flying 

With Mega and Legend on the prowl

Footballs caught with one hand

Another snagged with the nose. 

When Roy takes the field,  men strike up the band

While women wet their panty hose. 

He doesn't know how to carry the pigskin

Or where to take a date. 

But on  occasions where he guarantees a win. 

The Lions tempt their fate

But hence such hate? 

As thou sayeth Roy ain't great? 

Receiver speed, but plays physical like Gates

Such a specimen take the cake. 

We might not have been the best. Strike that we were awful. 

The team sure stunk, but we always had funk

In Roy, the complete opposite of bashful. 

Goodnight sweet prince, may you sleep with the stars

T.O., Romo, and honky tonk bars. 

You leave us behind at 0-5 

and without you no hope is alive

Sure we may win

But is it a sin

To rather lose with a smile

Than get a win so grim? 

And so you depart, for a hero's return 

To your beloved Lone Star State 

Don't you dare spurn

The proud fans of the Lions, chanting forever "Roy is great!" 

******

My name is Jim. I love my brother Mark to death, but even I realize that he doesn't deserve much of the joy he's encountered. He kills beauty. He accidentally destroys World War II monuments. 

Mark is a bit of a fuck-up. He keeps a fifth of whiskey in his desk drawer at work and a porno magazine in his briefcase. He isn't a sleaze-ball, just naive enough not to realize that somethings are fundamentally uncouth. Mark dates a string of floozies, loose pool hall types who seem like a tempting enough fling before the relationship inevitably ends in tragedy. 

Cindy seemed like a good girl, but she was simply too insecure to enjoy herself. 

Karen was so promising at first. The relationships first days were electric and full of hope. She even showed up to Thanksgiving dinner and brought a delicious stuffing that everyone agreed was sublime. Later we found out she was on Quaaludes and stole half of our wallets before later returning 2/3rds of them. 

Lisa was chubby. Chubby and lazy. 

But Mary Beth, she was something special. 

She burst into Mark's life and it seemed too good to be true. Would this be the rare woman to turn Mark's life around. her brilliance was enough to manifest itself in Mark from time to time. He started showing up for work on time and occasionally making it awake through an entire work day. She was a gift. We were all in awe of her. She brought her man flowers. She baked him fresh made pies. We waited for Mark to return the favor and help Mary Beth blossom into the special creature she was meant to be. 

We wait. Mark begins to fuck up. Mary Beth gets frustrated. Mark is dragging her down. She starts dropping hints about her displeasure. Finally Mark dumps her, sure he's doing the right thing. 

This could have been the girl of his dreams. Now we're all going to watch as she becomes an ultimately splendid creature while Mark keeps drinking at work. 

The break-up was the best thing that ever happened to Mary Beth. 

Today's trade was the best thing to ever happen to Roy Williams. Watching him for the past four years, he has become one of my favorite athletes of all time. His gifts are indisputable but he couldn't succeed in Detroit. I waited, hoped, wished for his breakthrough year but it never came. 

Now he's a Dallas Cowboy. He'll immediately become a superstar. How does one react when four years of emotional investment gets flushed down the drain in some bizarre house cleaning operation? Well it pains me to say this but "HOW BOUT THEM COWBOYS!" 

Knock 'em dead. Show the world what we knew all along. Escape the Detroit sewer and catch beautiful touchdown passes from Tony Romo and win Super Bowl MVPs. 

Godspeed mon frere. 

I'll miss you. 

A Party Down In The Docks Where You Where A Lot Of Frocks

People get down on themselves. This conundrum of self loathing fuels depression, suicides, and binging (on drugs, on food, on tacos made of heroine)--but much of this can be traced back to too much free time. The mind is an active center control system scanning all functions of the body including that of potential. When the brain is inactive or say daydreaming in French Class for the sake of argument it is quite easy to examine the possibilities before deciding that yours is the most undesirable of options. This thought probably wouldn't get thought if you were a) skydiving b) really into puzzles and were hard at work on a three dimensional puzzle of the Lourve c) just dropped something and were trying to catch it before it fell to the ground.

Unabated to a challenge (I use this word because football referees think it when discussing plays occurring "unabated to the quarterback"), the mind might turn to slush and the days into mush, but thinking back to days when I thought myself lazy, unproductive, or covered in a flesh eating virus, I realize that I always envision myself as happy, casting my former life in a golden sheen I'm certain wasn't there at the time. For one thing, everyone in my mind wears bandannas and dances the tarantella at the drop of a hat. I am not Malcolm Gladwell and am thusly under qualified to explore this phenomenon, but it is powerful. And wonderful.

Why be unhappy now when you realize you'll be happy later?
Today's problems are tomorrow's footnotes.

Nothing exhibits this phenomenon as well as food. You can learn quite a bit from a pound cake. Food indicates mood, feeling, and expression as well as I don't know an author who does those things quite well. This should be so. Outside of food and sex is there anything that links us all so inextricably. If one isn't on the brain, there's a good chance the other is. If you're especially dynamic you might even find the two intermingling. (Author's Note: Yeah, I could dig that).

When I was a little kid my Mom ate a dessert that looked a lot like a tarantula. She stopped eating desserts that looked like arachnids when she decided it was time to lose some weight. Losing weight was attacked on many measures-peer support, walking, keeping a journal of food she ate. It succeeded but I was left wondering what someone would gain by writing down the food they ate. Was it because my Mom loved food because she really loves food. Returning home from a date or foreign land her first question was and will remain "What'd you eat?"

Perhaps Mother's love of food did not root behind this equation. Maybe she'd stumbled onto the realization that everything looks good in hindsight. She could read the journal relishing in the relish, textured vegetable protein, and dates comprising her diet. On the other hand, she could have had the opposite, adverse realization. Reading of her dalliances with Dilly Bars (that reference goes out to my cousins), entire cartons of ice cream, and hot dogs fished from garbage cans (I made that one up), she embarked on a guilt trip down memory lane.

Undoubtedly, Mom will read this essay and deign to answer. She is quite the correspondent and I can expect a phone call, youtube video, or some article clipped from the New York Times that somehow sums up her feelings on the matter. Little does Mom realize that her clippings are often misunderstood. A note reading "Follow your muse" was attached to an article about television shows canceled after one episode. I read about "Emily's Reasons Why Not" and "The Rich List" before throwing the article to the ground in a fit of confusion. Then I saw that the opposite side had a piece on David Foster Wallace's control of the English Language.

Answers can be slippery. For truth one must peek inside at the demons and miles of intestinal tract. I don't have a good memory these days, a few too many concussions will do that, but I will analyze some of the meals I remember and try to figure out exactly what is was Mom was trying to figure out.

Tuesday October 14, 2008

2:00am.
Two Toaster Strudels, kind of cold in the middle.
I thought Toaster Strudels were too hard to cook until a week ago. On sale at Ralph's the prospect of spreading my own frosting was no longer so daunting. And nor should it have been. I have been spreading my own frosting on Cinnamon Roles for years. The convenience of the toaster induces a craving for immediate satisfaction.
I ate the first 3 in the box while watching the Today Show in hopes they would have another reunion of long ago movies. The piece on Airplane a few weeks back was simply sublime. I spread the frosting while they were still in the toaster oven. I tried to pick them up but could only make it to the kitchen table before they burned my hand. Dan walked inside after seeing a Black Widow outside.
"You eating Toaster Strudel?"
"Yeah. I guess so."
[The two take a moment to analyze the Strudels]
"God the frosting really looks a lot like semen."

Monday October 13th
11:00 PM
A bowl of Honey Nut Clusters, a knock off of Honey Bunches of Oats. I eat them in bed while reading an unexpectedly erotic novel. I feel tinglings of revolution in the form of paper bag communities in places it doesn't rain. God, it'd be great to be homeless in Los Angeles. It'd be great to teach English overseas. It'd be great, fucking great, to make another feature.
I try to talk to Nick, Appu, and Justin about the eroticism. I realize Lesbian Scenes aren't very beautiful or insightful when I read them.

8:30 PM
I eat a bowl of Ramen and it is perfect.
I make another bowl of Ramen.
I make two sausages and put them on top of the Ramen. I hand one sausage to Brock but it is too hot for him to hold. We dip the sausages in Mustard and Ranch Dressing. The Ranch is very good, damned tongue tickling treat of the God's good, making my disdain for Ranch grow a little bit more. In my mind Condiments should be complementary. While I love Ranch dressing, it is the boy in school who overachieves and outshines everyone else. Yes, we know you're great but can you let someone else have a speck of the spotlight for once? It's addictive stuff that Ranch.
The second bowl of Ramen doesn't taste nearly as good.

4:00 PM
Talapia with Tahini on Everything Bagels made on a Panini Press.
Talapia is a very crumbly fish. I struggle to spatula the fish from the grill, wondering if this is why Talapia is so cheap. I eat the two sandwiches and have the best studying of my life for tomorrow's French Midterm. Fish truly is brain food. Tahini tastes like an exotic land good for honeymooning.

10:00 AM
Bowl of Honey Nut Clusters.
This cereal business isn't half bad. I can see what Appu and the Squirrels in the commercial are talking about. Just another instance of Appu enriching all of our lives. I eat this bowl while conversing with Appu making it a defining Appu experience. We decide to walk to school together but circumstances do not permit. No matter, with Nut Clusters in my tummy Appu is with me every step of the trek. It doesn't seem as long as it usually does.

Sunday October 12th

8:00 PM
Pineapple with Cinnamon, Hot Sauce, and a touch of Mrs. Buttersworth over rice.
My old Mormon roommates tried to make a similar dish because "Mormons have a lot of kids to feed and this is cheap." I attempted to look up the recipe but can't recall the proper name. I eat it while half-dreaming half-watching television. It is unquestionably delicious but the pineapples have dropped the "pine" portion of their flavor and taste merely like "apples". Tasting like apples makes them taste like autumn. I hearken back to wonderful moments spent at Apple Orchards growing up...
1) Dan and I drove to an apple orchard when I was 18 and he was 11. We hit pumpkins with golf clubs and stole a bunch of signs promoting the "New Baltimore Apple Fest". We replace signs for Bush and Kerry with signs for the "Apple Fest" in doing so Dan grabs a sign covered in Motor Oil and ruins his jacket. He complained about this for over a year.
2) Mom, Dad, Tess, Boon (our Thai exchange student), and myself go to the Apple Orchard for a fun filled afternoon. I read Rolling Stone magazine on the way back and know what the cutting edge feels like.
3) Numerous times eating fresh donuts and drinking hot apple cider with Fall's first frost on the ground.
4) Way back when my Mother took her class on a field trip to the Orchard but forgot to confirm with Apple Charlie, the orchard's C.E.O. if orchards had C.E.O.'s. It is much better than calling him the farmer and slightly better than calling him the Orchard's Entrepreneur. She calls the Orchard at 10:00 pm, rousing Apple Charlie from his sleep. He confirms that they can visit. Mom is mortified by waking him, luckily unaware of the hard hours of an Apple Orchard Connesuir.
5) Gathering at an Apple Orchard for a fight before a sudden blizzard. Whoops. That was in a book I read.

Nick comes in and proclaims "It smells delicious." I would offer him some but it is almost gone and I have trouble giving food to someone who hasn't gone grocery shopping since August.
I finish my dish and get a crippling stomache ache. Karmatically induced, of course.

11:00AM
A bit of this that and everything.
At Barney's Beanery to watch the Lions Game and eat a tremendous breakfast I am disappointed when my Huevos Rancheros come covered in Peppers and Onions fajita style. I appreciate their flavors but can't get over their disruptive texture when eaten with other foods. I eat the entire meal wishing I ordered something else. Thankfully, Nick lets me eat the crust of his breakfast calzone.
Later, we get a free order of cheese sticks and I get a glass of Miller High Life to celebrate the Lions first victory. They promptly shit the bed.

Saturday October 11
McDonald's
The clerk tries to buy my Lil' Wayne shirt with the boobs on it.
We can't stick the Monopoly pieces on the game board. I could when I was little.
This is the 5th time Appu ate fast food in the span of two days. He is still little in many regards. God bless.

The Source Of All Unhappiness

I moved to California 21/2 years ago and everything has changed. The first impulse is to say that things are somehow "worse" now, but any consideration renders this feeling ineligible and mute. Things are better than they have ever been. It's the boy who's changed. All the California transplants have changed by now. Nick no longer possesses the manic energy he used to have. Joel has lost his sense of direction/purpose. Dan...

Well, Dan is a little smarter, a bit wiser, but more or less the same. The biggest difference is that he doesn't talk about penises as much. I trust he's counting on Prague to do some of the work and infuse him with a myriad of sexual experiences and the unique opportunity to be Dan without boundaries (though I couldn;t imagine him as anything else).

Some things will always stay the same. Nick will always be a bit too pensive. Dan will always defy explanation. As for me? I will always be the fragile one.

My fragfility is not of the emotional or metaphysical sense. I am physically fragile. I'm sort of physically a tank, but any physical ailment is enough to knock me off my game. In this regard I am inextricably my Mother's son. As a child I would hear her complain about the slightest, slightest ailment and scoff t the fact that it mattered at all. How could it? It was jusrt a tweak to her physical form, nothing more, nothing less.

As a child I distanced myself from my parents, thinking I had nothing to do with them I went through life as Jolly Joel, a creature that did a lot of strange things in hopes of somehow going someplace else. Dad might have been mournful and Mom might have been meticulous but that shit had nothing to do with me.

Then I grew up...

I saw Spider-Man 2 with a beautiful girl who was my on and off girlfriend for three years. During the film, like it always goes during the best films, I got a poporn kernal caught in my teeth. I saw the rest of the movie, realized it was a really great film, but wasn't really there. My mind was occupied by the shell of corn lodged betweeen two of my teeth.

The rest of the night was a typical Dearborn circa 2004 night. We drove around in my 1993 Mercury Villager (the greatest gift that has ever been granted). After dropping off (I don't remember the details but I'm willing to guess) Nick, Dan, and some combination of John/Pete, we settled outside my house. This was the point where we wopuld usually make out. I suppose she really wanted to. I couldn't do it. I was physically randy but unable to go any further because of the damned popcorn kernal. I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about the popcorn kernal. I went inside my house and brushed my teeth. It didn't work. I went back to her and informed her that "I can't kiss you because of the popcorn kernal in my teeth". Even if my life leads to an extremely messy divorce, I know no woman will ever be as angry at me as one was then.

I feel like I'm 47 years old.

Today I awoke with a horrible eye infection. I had to miss class (b/c it was contagious) and wear an eyepatch (that or get a horrible headache). I'm wearing this thing because I thought it would be fun. It isn't. My vision is slightly altered,. It is good enough to see, fair enough to recognize, but I can't get past it. This one blip on the scale of humanity is enough to doom me for the rest of the day. I can't do shit with this shit on. Seeing incorrectly is driving me to the brink of insanity.

I knew I wanted to work on the ol' Novel today. That isn't happening today. Not with this eyepatch. If a beautiful woman burst into my house riding a unicorn and offering true love, I would demure because I can;t think of anything except this damned eyepatch.

I truly am my Mother's son.

Love to all. Love to everyone.

Joel CULLEN Walkowski

An Honest Portrayal of What One Person Thinks At A Given Time

[Author's Note: I think every day feels a little bit like this. In a good way. Extracted from the personal journal I rarely use.]

Art is the easiest thing in the world to do, you open the drain and let it all spill out. Being the plumber is the hardest thing in the world to do.


After this I draw a prison.


If only...

I could trade brains w/ Matt.
Be content like Nick.
See light like Jeff.
Stay calm like John.
Be naive like Nico.

But no, you cannot dream of another's traits. This creature is the one you'll inhabit-for better or worse, until the fascinating release of death. You'll continue to be this creature and it is best to exist in its confines and not look for some extrinsic solution that will only be unsatisfactory when it arrives.

I didn't share that much humanity forever. Mostly, I looked at girls. The good pussy was out today.

Went to school, wandered, watched, drove, and desired.
Listened to a CD that mixed every popular American song of the past twenty years together. I now know what it's like to go to Red Robin on Acid.
Dissatisfaction is a good way to sum up the current state of affairs. That isn't entirely bad. I think it is entirely bad. AT ALL. One must go in want and search to fill the void, filling it at the first solution would be the meaning of meaningless. Of course I knew this. College is nothing if not a brain on mortgage.
When I was 18 I thought I'd have quite the a®tistic life. Here I am in crayon colored walls, studying sports like breasts, and I don't allow myself to appreciate the trite beauty of my life. That's fucked up. I'd appreciate it in anyone else.

I took care of the ants today. They were crawling into our kitchen. They are no longer crawling through the hole in the floor, up along the counter, & under the microwave to feast on crumbs. I'd like to write about ants. I'd like to write about anything that would produce a dialogue between me and myself.
Sundance was a great time. So was Spring Break... wooooo

IMAGINE:
*Selling off all my possessions
*Working odd jobs
*Spending lots of time in libraries
*Eating lots of Cake
*Visiting friends often
*Striving for something

What is right and good? I've been waiting for a change for so many years. I've had hints, but at this rate I suspect it will never come. The change only flirts. I know I have to commit to totally bang this bitch. I drift through days unwilling to recognize the desperation. I don't want to be 40 and in polo shirts to appease some in-laws.The call I am waiting for is the call that tells me I don't have to care. The call that informs me I can do whatever I want.

What do I want?
Love, food, occasional laughter, music, and drugs.
Sports are very good but they aren't this much...
I often say "I don't want to work" I am beginning to suspect that this isn't archetypical bravado, that I actually mean it.

I'd like to write novels, big beautiful novels that set the heart ablaze, but aren't condescending while they do so. Like so much of the stuff that qualifies as stuff.
I want to give as much laughter as much as I can.
I want to see the Thai sun set w/ a Thai woman in my arms.
Movies are...kinda cool, I guess.
Not like Stevie Wonder.

The passion is the only thing worth chasing. As far as I can tell the only good thing about working/living is seeing the same people day in, day out.
How can I write novels/study/play when there are so many thoughts that are much more important to consider?
Anysthing seems possible when I just strip myself away.

There you go. Complete honesty. What more can you ask for? Nothing.

You Can Only Go To The Snozzle Once Before You Get Glooped

The last three months have been dedicated to repair...
Ample sun, sets up
Eager to wake, ready to shine
Where do the rays go? Do they exist?
If so, why don't they stay in my jar.
The path of the Theravada Buddha leads to blisters, evenmoreso when the path is followed in only one shoe. The sea cliffs of Easter Island, sharing the abutments with my big-headed friends, the rest of the world seems but a fleeting blip on the horizon that everyone knows to be Chile, but in our frame of mind, Chile can't be held as a bother. Not much can.
I stood on the cliffs, whistling and whittling for three weeks straight. Eating a diet of beans and wild grown rice, I sat and contemplated the nature of gravity and waiting to see the Whales emerge and shoot their spouts of mist above the ocean.
I have returned from my path, eager to discuss my journey. I arrived in St. Louis, Missouri eager to visit my Great Aunt Ethel, always a source of inspiration and free seafood dinners. Auntie Ethel only eats seafood, it is one of the the things I admire most about her. For a woman to be so fearless of Mercury after all the sanctified studies, shows the woman loves what she loves. I arrived at her home late on a Monday Afternoon. Aunt Ethel was not the same.
Me: Aunt Ethel I have arrived for a visit. I have so many wonderful things to tell you!
Aunt Ethel: Not now Dartmouth, the economy is crashing.
Me: But that's happened before and will happen again. Institutions must crumble in order to re-invent themselves.
Aunt Ethel: But this is much bigger Darty boy, all Wall Street is crashing all around us, even Fannie May.
Me: Not Fanny May, my favorite purveyor of turtle based confections.
WWW.FANNYMAY.COM
Aunt Ethel: No, the financial institution!

Everything is coming to a crumble and it seems to be the only thing we can talk about. It is beating us financially, but also morally and spiritually. At this rate a life in Shantytowns will be the best thing to happen to the American Conversation since Truman Capote.

Let us go forth, speak in dreams, and fish hot dogs out of garbage cans.

Amen.

I swam into a whale's mouth and y'know what... sorta disappointing.

Akon Ain'T No Criminal: The Devalued Face of Street Cred

Man/Dude/Any String Of Platitudes, 

I'm tired to the death and loving it.  I've been dabbling with the tactic that being tired makes me happier. It does. Kind of. I've been reading about 300 pages a day and most conversations have been fueled by great sincerity. For the first time in my life, I've given haircuts an honest moment's consideration. 

Being tired has it's downsides though. A) I'm always tired B) My life has been boiled down to me just staring at shit. In class today I looked around the room and studied each person's mouth. C) I don't remember anything

Did you know? Every person's mouth sort of pops out of their face like some last minute addition. It is as if evolution gave us a jaw and digestive system, but forgot the orifice of entry that would crank the gears of the entire operation. I've concluded that I have more in common with a fish than I could have ever expected. 

Fatal Familial Insomnia is a disease that begins with a plaque growing on the brain. It deprives one of their ability to sleep. They begin to get restless and sleep deprived for a few weeks before moving on to hallucinations before finally falling into a catatonic state. I think this would be the very best most wonderful way to die. The moment one finally fell asleep would be the best feeling in the annals of human feeling. No orgasm or triumph could possibly compete with the euphoria of falling asleep when the previous years had been dedicated to falling asleep. 

You'd probably have a lot of pent up dreams as well. 

This was supposed to be a sports post and I'm gathering that I should get the machine back on track. In the pursuit of a better basketball experience my cohort and I are trying to analyze and pin the league down to a T. This begins with trying to understand each and every team so we might uncover their meaning in the great narrative of basketball and thus recognize the patterns and parallels of the careers of individual players. Using these players, games, and outcomes as a "code hero" we hope to unravel something of ourselves on this myriad journey we are taking. 

Rasheed Wallace and I are born of the same star. 

Today's Team: The Charlotte Bobcats

As young Brock Alter is finding out, there are a great many reasons to follow professional sports. There are games to watch. There is a vague sense of camaraderie with the sort of people you would never really want to talk to given their natural ability of playing a game. Also, if you see someone wearing your team's gear you get to high five them. 

There is the joy of professing love for your geographic region. The study of trends from year to year, and the neighborly quality taken on by those who have stayed a part of your team for a long while. Joe Dumars has been a part of the Pistons organization since 1983, that makes us almost neighbors. 

There are a great many reasons to hate professional sports. I hear these all the time but the only reason I can understand to hate sports is the Charlotte Bobcats. 

If pro sports offer a bastion of possibility, potential, and what it takes to become a success, then the Charlotte Bobcats are staying in your hometown after graduating high school as a prep superstar. The cool kids stay the cool kids, and you stay whoever you were and try to block out the depressing truth of wearing your varsity jacket as a morbidly obese thirty-year old. 

The Bobcats are epitomized by the group think of complacency, offering no insight other than "Hey it's happened before." 

The Bobcats primary owner is Bob Johnson. A magazine mogul who named the team after himself. Is a Bobcat intimidating? I guess so, but that doesn't excuse your entire franchise reeking of vanity. 

The other two owners of the Bobcats are Michael Jordan and...Nelly. Nelly. That Nelly. The one who wears a band-aid. In the basketball hotbed of North Carolina, a former athlete and rapper were the two best candidates to take an ownership stake? Nepotism without the convenient adhesive of bloodline is the overwhelming underlying philosophy of the Bobcats. 

Forgetting Jordan's massive failure as an executive, he was put in charge of the team's personnel decisions. What did Jordan do? Pick the player with best college pedigree, especially if they attended college in North Carolina. The good ol' boys have come back home and proceeded to shit the bed. With the exception of Gerald Wallace, their careers are the basketball equivalent of getting a job as your former high school's assistant golf coach. 

Emeka Okafor- Famous for being an African College Basketball Player

Adam Morrison- Famous for crying during a college basketball game. 

Raymond Felton- Famous for being an above-average basketball player

Sean May- Famous for being a college basketball player who frequently dressed up as the Michelin man and sneaking into local bakeries. 

Grow up Bobcats. I won't be like you. 

Their coach wears a catheter.