A Segue of Laziness

I really shouldn't miss blog days. Not only do I feel guilty about not writing, but I see the numbers on the blog-o-meter and notice that a whole bunch of you have been subjected to the same useless tripe. I wouldn't want to load my page and see the same damn words that I left the day before staring out at me. To be fair, I was a bit busy, and I did have problems getting the computer back from Kapo. Actually, that's not entirely true. I wrote about a page and a half (1,300 words) of an idea that was mulling in my head, but I haven't had a chance to finish it, nor have I a chance to reference all the allusions and facts that I quoted. There are quite a bit of comments that need referencing, so it (the planned blog), won't come up until some time tomorrow afternoon. That's probably a good thing. Who would want to read two, well thought-out, well documented missives from me back-to-back?

No worries. I'm not getting all serious and technical on you, just yet. If I did, I wouldn't be any different from any other news/blog/rant site out there on the internet. I'm not sure if I am that different from any news/blog/rant site out there, but I do try to leave a touch of myself in my writing; something that is uniquely Jon. No other blog has the touch of Jon, so this site remains mine, and yours as well.

Pablo Neruda, who happens to be one of my favorite poets, once penned in a poem the following line: "I write with your life and my own." That has since become one of my favorite lines in poetry. I'm thinking of having that tattooed somewhere on my body, possibly on my left wrist. I'm not quite sure what the design would look like. The tatto on my right wrist is quite compatable with the tattoo on my right bicep. The lines weave and point in a similar manner. The tatto on my left shoulder is not about lines, but about gradients. Were I to have a gradient on my left wrist, it would look more like a sleeve than an actual tattoo. I don't think that would be a problem, but the symmetry of my arms would be kind of creepy looking.

That, however, is besides the point. The essence of that favored lines lie in the demarcation between reader and writer. People tend to approach text as if they were approaching an opponent, or something mystifying that needs ciphering. Words are to be wrangled with, not caressed. Meaning must be torn from the semantical inferences leeching from each sentence, rather than coaxed. Volumes of text are seen as obstacles to overcome, rather than visions of potential enjoyment. How many of us have flipped through a book and sighed at the number of pages left to read? It's almost as if we were driving through lush country, filled with unparallel beauty, and wondering when our next exit comes.

This kind of approach to literature creates walls between the reader and the writer. Do good fences really make good neighbors? The wall denies us the capacity to completely envelop ourselves in the beauty of the written word. Technical writers and business writers aside, most writers put pieces of themselves in what they write. This can be said for any art form. Art contains the artists soul. A particularly moving dance routine is such because the dancer becomes the dance. An actor strutting and fretting his part on stage is his character because he has merged his being with that of his lines.

These art forms may be exemplar examples of the human properties of aesthetics, but none, I truly believe, match up to the boundless qualities of writing. Theatre, dance, photography, and various modes of art all deal with very much concrete elements. Dance is the human body in motion. Art is using physical objects to represent rather abstract notions, or concrete notions. Photography is simply showing the world what a particular frame of time looked like at a particular instant. Writing, on the other hand, deals with arbitrary language and arbitrary structures for conveying non-concrete forms and ideas. Writing, baby, is an attempt to make language concrete.

What is writing? It appears to be lines on a page. What do these lines represent? Tarzan thought they were little bugs. Obviously, they are not little bugs, but they could be little bugs to someone who stumbled upon strange, small characters on a parchment. Because there is no way to really classify what the small lines that create letters actually mean, we can safely define them as meaningless and arbitrary. An A consists of three lines: two diagonal and one across. By itself, it is void, but by using our experiences and knowledge, we can pronounce it A. This is the essence of hermeneutics, and the foundation of deconstructionist thought. Having attached our experiences to A, we are able to deduce that it is, in fact, A. We then can attach it to other letters, and through our experiences, mark them as their individual characters. A P P L E, standing alone means nothing, but APPLE is a juicy fruit which, when eaten every day, keeps the DOCTOR away.

In order to get the idea of a juicy fruit in our head, we must first conglomerate each individual letters, acquire their meaning, and finally, compile the ultimate meaning from the whole. It seems like a lot of work, but we do this as a natural process. Remember, though, how hard it was when you first started reading.

I believe the most beautiful poems are those that are short, and poignant. One of my favorite poems is one by William Carlos Williams, entitled "This is Just to say." It reads:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

Wasn't that pretty? The poem seems short and mediocre, but the real love comes from the individual meanings of the words in the poem and the experiences we apply to them. The best way to explain this is to look closely at the last paragraph. How were the plums? Well, the plums were delicious, sweet, and so cold. The textural imagery is quite prominent. Have you ever eaten a plum? Doesn't the last paragraph force you to imagine eating a plum? Weren't they delicious, sweet, and cold? If you think about delicious, sweet, and cold, what other images come to mind? I happen to be thinking about white nectarines, fresh from the counter, and the cold bite of an autumn wind that swings and enhances the visceral joy of everything. Perhaps I think a bit too much, but the imagery remains constant and overpowering.

By forcing me to imagine the plum, Williams is, in fact, using a bit of my life to transmography is poem. He is, in a sense, writing with his life, and my own. That is the essence of Neruda's statement.

I have that line, "I write with your life and my own," hanging above my desk. I wrote it, in my best calligraphy (not quite so good) on a piece of cloth, and framed it. It's a constant reminder that anything I write will have emotional implications beyond what I intended. It's a reminder that anything I write will be embellished and enhanced by the lives, the memories, the experiences, and the emotions of my readers.

In a sense, I'm not actually writing. I'm just putting arbitrary notions on the computer. It's you who's actually writing. So, tell me, have you written well?

Jon is a meanie-face poopie-head.

I was looking over CNN.com as I am wont to do when my DTs kick in (which is usually a few hours after my latest news fix) when I noticed, near the links directing me to a story that contained a bit about Powell being shot at, and Bush trying to get eskimo pussy (good for me! good for you!), a blurb about the Laci Peterson trial. Apparently, Laci's mom yelled at Scott. I should've been surprised, but I wasn't. You'd think that the haute crowd of CNN readers would be above such drivel, but we aren't. I've clicked on links relating to Brittany Spears' weddings before. But, Brittany's many liaisons are at least mildly amusing. I fail to see how people are interested in whether or not Laci's mother cracked on the stand. Perhaps if she stood up, and in her best James Cagney impression muttered something about dirty rats killing her daughter, the news would be worthy. Unfortunately for we Ninja Turtle Movie fans, she wasn't that neat. Instead, she simply, according to the article, raised her voice at Scott and admonished him for killing instead of divorcing. The powers of her voice were such that several jurors were surprised.

This makes a funny image in my head. I'm picturing a withered, old blonde crone cracking her foundation in a fuzzy attempt to appear intimidating. Perhaps her voice resonated around the room, slowly gathering power until it unleashed it's ultimate, final, mega-come-upperance to Scott's ears, and a few nearby Jurors who have never heard rich lady screams before.

I probably shouldn't joke about such things. I mean, what if it were my daughter who were killed and thrown into the bay? Well, if it were my daughter, I wouldn't scream at the murderer on the witness stand. I'd probably dole out justice with a rusty grapefruit spoon. I hear they do nasty things to testicles. Chest-pounding aside, if it were my daughter, CNN wouldn't put a blurb about my simpering on the front page of its website. There most certainly would not be almost two years of constant news coverage. My daughter might have a little missive in the back of the obituary page. I don't think my daughter would be rich enough, or WASP-y enough for the national news media.

Let's take a look at statistics. Laci was killed around December of 2002. In 2002, alone, there were 16, 110 reported homicides in the United States. I stress the word reported, not every homicide committed is immediately known to police. Also, according to the same report, one-third of female victims of homicide were killed by husbands or boyfriends. The report stresses that 11%, or approximately 1772 victims were killed by intimates, 74%, or 1311 of that number are women. One-third of 1311 is 433. In 2002, 433 women were killed by their husbands or boyfriends. The article did not show any statistics for the number of pregnant women killed, but I'm pretty sure at a few were.

Now that we've crunched the numbers, we can ask the questions. Why Laci, of all those women? What makes her so special? Are we drawn to chaos in supposedly picture perfect, rich, suburban lives? Does the media over-estimate our attention span?

Since Laci was murdered, 1,255 American Soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Where is their constant news coverage? Why doesn't every individual soldier have a link on the CNN front pages, showing their angry families screaming at our government? Since Laci was murdered, approximately 16,750 Iraqi citizens have died. I have yet to see that number in American print news. Since Laci was murdered, if 2002 statistics have held, 32,000 Americans were killed by homicide. Has CNN noticed? Have we?

I'm not trying to detract from whatever pains the Laci family feels. I'm simply marveling at people.

Does anyone remember the Jon Benet furor? It was bad enough that the short-lived, although very good band, Eyes Adrift (Bud Gaugh of Sublime, Kurt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets, and Krist Nolosevic of Nirvana) composed a song about it. If an underground, left-political rock group wrote songs about Jon Benet, we had problems.

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I was talking to M. last night about my future. I told her that one of my many plans for life involved living in a small Big Sur (California) shack, and writing about the small things in life overlooked by people. I had to step back into myself after telling her that. Have I been noticing the small things in life?

A few weeks ago, I was walking in the quad, when I noticed a girl squatting near a tree. Usually, if I see a girl squatting near a tree, she's urinating and does not want the extra attention. But, girls aren't wont to urinate near trees in the middle of the day. I went for a closer look.

She was talking to a squirrel. The squirrel was fat and probably eyeing her delicious figure for something edible. Every so often she would smile, and the squirrel would chitter nervously and make cheek-stuffing motions. I'm not sure what they were conversing about, but it must've been interesting because it lasted quite a few minutes. Neither of them noticed that I was standing by a far tree, watching intently.

I felt like a voyeur; like I was overhearing something intensely personal. It was slightly erotic and entirely exciting. That, friends, is a holy moment. It was quite beautiful and something I replay in my head every so often.

Ain't that sappy? Were this a scene in a movie, it'd be akin to the most beautiful bag in American Beauty. Honestly, I felt a kinship with that scene until I watched Not Another Teen Movie, which ripped on the American Beauty Bag Scene. Then, I just felt silly.

Beautiful moments and overlooked moments and holy moments and vivacious moments and all these moments that compile the minutes of our lives are, at their core, amusing.

G-d is my laugh track.

Fandango? Please?

It snowed today. I'm not happy about that. I'm even unhappier that it rained before it snowed. I'm downright miserable that the rain became sleet. I left beautiful Phoenix, where the sky was blue, the weather was warm, and the women were scantily clad, just the other day. And now, I'm dealing with the birth throes of winter. This must be some cosmic justice meted out because I spent a week in warm weather when I should've been shivering and complaining with the rest of Central Illinois. If that is the case, I wonder what will happen when I finally move to Phoenix. Will winter chase after me like some kind of demented banshee? Will I sit in my white, plaster house and hear the belated howls of a million snowflakes yearning for the chance to turn brown under the soles of my soaking sneakers? Will I watch Phoenix drivers spin stupidly through streets filled with smashed sedans? Will I ever stop alliterating when the use for it has clearly passed? Questions leap at me with the fury of frenzied fanatics frantically fawning fastidiously (Alright already!).

Can't you tell that I haven't had much sleep in the past three days. When sleep shies away, my mind turns quite vapid. I stutter in class. Teachers call on me and I answer with very blank stares. I lust after girls that are better left men with six-packs in their stomachs. I titter. I simper. I write poorly and use words and language antics that probably amuse only myself and the voice that jabbers somewhere to the left of my frontal lobe.

In any case, it snowed. I wasn't happy. I told J., I wasn't happy. J. seemed surprised. Wasn't I impressed with the big, fat flakes floating (I know!) through the air? It was so quiet too. Believe me, that's a big admission for a deaf person to make. Generally, most things seem quiet to me, although my super-duper machine of a hearing aid can increase the ambience quite a bit. Actually, I probably should not make such a comment. I don't hear enough to know whether or not the ambience has been properly increased. For all I know, I've gone through clicks of sound, when I should have gone through clacks of sound. But, my quiet is familiar to me. The snow brought a different kind of quiet; a soft quiet that resonated through out the quad and filled it with the quintessential being of winter. Really, I wax poetic about something quite simple. Frozen water wafted through the air and we all goggle about it as if it were something more than frozen water. I suppose the sheer majesty of its simplicity is all we need to simply savor the holy moment. Ah, there is a G-d, because snow exists.

Thus, J.. She did have a point. It was beautiful. I still wasn't happy though. The peaceful white snow that I saw was quite cold and wet. I walked a mile through it. That, alone, is a small thing. I can tolerate a little cold and wet. Hell, I ride motorcycles in the winter for the fuck of it, although this year, I put mine away because I don't have health insurance. Yeah, you read that correctly. I don't have health insurance. Please don't hurt the Jon. He's so very pretty and will wither quicker than a starlet's movie career if you so much more than tap him.

Pretty as snow is, it quickly turns to slush. Slush is an implement sent by the devil to beguile us and uglify everything. Slush is just so slushy. I know. My vast command of the English vernacular allows me to appropriate the appropriate adjective to the appropriate noun. Hence, slush is slushy. It's also black, or brown, or even yellow. It slushes when you walk on it, and it slushes when you look at it. That, combined with the cold and the nasty gray sky sucks the happiness out of me. Sometimes, on a rare morning, when I wake up happy and ready to go, I venture outside and the slush on the ground sucks out my will to live. Then, the bed feels so compelling and the world is safe from Jon's dominion for a little bit longer.

I'm telling ya, though. I'm going to miss the snowfalls. Luckily, if I desire to see snow, I can drive two hours north into the mountains. Plenty of snow in the mountains. And, if I see slush, I can simply turn tail to warmer environs. Ain't that grand?

----

I listen to The Dresden Dolls every so often. My sister kind of turned me on to them while we were driving from Phoenix to somewhere southeast of Los Angeles. They're an interesting band. I'm not really sure how to classify them. I guess you could say they're goth-cabernet. The lead singer has a beautiful voice, but tends to sing off key in order to add a sense of whatnot to her songs. But, the backing band consists of a piano-drum combination, which has to be one of the most rocking combinations in rock history. We're talking 88-keys and a very punchy bass line. Hey, it works for greats such as Ben Folds, Rufus Wainwright, and Leonard Cohen. But none of them are goth-punk-cabernet. So, ah, give The Dresden Dolls a listen. Sure, most of the songs are girl oriented, but they're so damned catchy.

I also chanced to catch a whiff of the newest Jason Wilber CD. Wilber plays a mean guitar, but a friend ruined a very pretty song by detailing the lyrics for me. They are, as K. said, very cheesy. She topped off her insults by calling him a cheeseball.
Yeah, you know you can't write good songs when you're being compared to a puffed corn chips covered in succulent, savory, sumptuous, salacious powdered cheese (I know. I got carried away again. Cut me slack, willya?)

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I didn't mean this entry to be about snow and music, but that's how it turned out. I think I might write something a bit more meaningful tomorrow, but only if I can snatch a semblance of sanity, or at least enough to write something meaningful. It's hard to be coherent when your eyes galumph gleefully in your head and bits and pieces of Lewis Carroll fly madly about the room.

I'm out like the Chesire Cat.

All was mimsy in the borogroves, and the mome raths outgabe...

Joff the Road and Then Some

I vacillate, wildly. A half hour ago found me stuffing my face with cheap, local Chinese (fried tofu with secret sauce and vegetables!), and blasting Beatles songs, because if a locus is needed after careening across the country, it’s bound to be found in food and pop. There’s something entirely settling, like, fix-me-in-a-fixed-point-of-time settling, about comfort food and catchy hooks. Baby, Lennon really does make time visceral, and when you’re groping for coherency, he comes in handy. I could do without Revolution 9, though.

It’s 6:45pm, and although my body isn’t sure whether it’s 6:45, or 5:45, or 4:45, day, night, evening, whatever, I can take comfort in the knowledge that the turmoil in my stomach, and my impeding rush to the bathroom is quite scheduled. I may have made it from Los Angeles to Hicktown, Illinois in the most haphazard manner possible, but dammit, something’s going to be regular here.

I probably should clarify. My family left South Los Angeles at 2pm Pacific Time. We drove through the desert (I slept!) and arrived back in Phoenix at 6pm, Mountain Time. I was able to salvage five hours of rest, which mostly consisted of me bitching about my travel itinerary and stuffing my face with low quality greaseless pan pizza. We, or rather I, reluctantly left for the airport at 11. I spent two hours groping for sanity while meandering about a fluorescent airport. My flight left at 1:28am, Pacific Time. It landed at Midway at 5:35am, Central Time. I quickly, as far as quick goes when you’re haggard, snatched my luggage and hopped on the L’s Orange Line. The L dropped me off at Adams and Wabash, after subjecting me to the kind of humanity that flotsams itself on public transportation at 6am. I then walked about ten blocks to Canal Road and ran through the gauntlet of homeless that congregate outside Union Station and blemish the stones with their stench, feces, and hopelessness. Somehow, I managed to procure a ticket for the 8:25 line back to Hicktown. I waited an hour in the lobby while mean-faced, wart-filled, squat-titted, butch-wannabe-sexless-heterosexual train employees glared at my abject, tired deafness. Luckily, I was able to restrain (or the sight of several very large policemen whose presence screamed “tossed salad” helped restrain) myself from eviscerating them and even successfully boarded the train as well. The train deposited me in Hicktown at 11am. I walked a mile home, made some ramen, and promptly died at some point.

I would be asleep, but I do so love writing philosophy papers on nothing particularly important. Also, I was kind of horny and spent a bit of time scanning my buddy list for potential booty calls. I’m never one to let a sea of away messages discourage me.

In the mean time, I’m picturing myself on a boat in a river. With Lindsay Lohan. Hey. I love redheads and she’s legal. Right? Right?

…

Don’t judge me


If you’ll kindly look at the comments section from my previous column, you’ll notice that M. left a very kind letter. I’m never exactly sure what to do when someone writes something that nice. Standard par for course is to deny that I have anything that resembles writing ability and to enthuse on my general suckiness until each comment he made is properly negated. I won’t do that. My writing is the only thing I have going for me (other than my rock-star good looks, my dark, brown, curly locks, my winning personality, my surprising humility, etc) and I won’t deny that I can write passably well. I’m not sure I’m a better writer than most, but it’s good enough for me and it had better be good enough for you or I’m going to have to cry or something.

There aren’t many options left for the appeaser if self-castration is removed from the list. I suppose I could blanche, turn red, clasp my hands behind my back, and grind my bad leg into the ground like a bad Loony-Tunes caricature, but that wouldn’t do anything and the sight of myself doing that in one of my many mirrors could damage my fragile psychological health. One would find me crawling in padded rooms, babbling something about wiley wabbits and hunting for tossed salads.

I could also simply say thanks. But, isn’t that a gyp? The guy spends a bit of time writing something nice and all he gets for his efforts is a “thanks, dude. You like, totally rock and shit.” The term thanks bothers me. Someone takes the time to do something nice and for his or her efforts, get something that doesn’t take much to give back. It’s kind of like getting the crap beat out of you in grade school, and for your efforts in dragging your mangled body to the disinterested lunch lady, who’s too busy combing her mustache to notice the fact that you’re bleeding all over her Keds, you acquire a half-hearted sorry from the captured bully. Sorry doesn’t give me back my left testicle, and thank you doesn’t give him back his pride. Hell, he just complimented me. That would wound anyone’s pride.

So, instead of anything, I’m going to relate a particular incident. It’s not really interesting, or exciting, or even amusing to most, but it’s M. to the letter.

I do so adore intelligent people. Not only can you talk to them about most subjects, but also if they are truly intelligent, they can make intelligent subjects amusing. Even if you aren’t talking to them about anything particularly intelligent, their insights on situations are spectacular and opulent. M. is quite intelligent.

I was seated in M.’s summer adobe at Krug dorm, a few summers ago. Krug is the general mishmash dorm on Gallaudet campus. It was designed, I think, to hold juvenile delinquents. If the 60’s style tiling and large cement walls don’t scream comfort and toothbrush rape, I don’t know what it says. In any case, its denizens, who included me at one point, do what they can to make everything homely and less nerve-wracking. I spent too much time listening to Nirvana and riding my motorcycle. My roommate was too busy being Mormon to do anything but pine for his promised girl, who was busy being religious and boring back home. M. set up his toiletries in bizarre formations. M.’s roommate, lined his shoes in formation.

The shoes were astute. They were numbered by colour, function, style, and value. Each was set, heel to the bed, and toe to M, in a perfectly straight line. The shoes never left the line. Occasionally, a pair would disappear for a bit, but they always managed to reappear in formation at random intervals.

One afternoon, M. and I were chatting when I noticed that he couldn’t stop looking at the formation. I tried a few times to get his attention, but to no avail. The shoe line had M lined up. Finally, the grandiose entrance of M.’s roommate, the original rich, Californian, gansta white-boy, broke up this play.

M. drew his eyes from the shoes to the man.

M: How can I fucking concentrate when this line of shoes is looking at me all the time? I wake up in the morning and immediately want to go back to sleep because I know I can’t measure up to that damned line of shoes?

Ladies and Gentlemen, M., the only man I know who couldn’t compete against perfectly formed lines of shoes. Actually, he managed a lot longer than I would have, Eventually, I would’ve taken to crawling across the floor in the middle of the night and tapping shoes out of line just to mess with the sheer perfection of it all. Ain’t that a bitch?

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According to the Beatles, I Feel Fine, so I'm going to get back on time and head to the bathroom.