Dare To Dot (Quintillism, yo)

 HEY FRIENDS,

Have an iceberg.

It is the last in my experimental installment of ice portraits.

What I’ve learned is, it is hard for me to tone down my tendency

to enliven the page with color, to saturate

the world with dots densely…. to create these sublime, borealis-type

colors w/out spoiling the white space…  that was indeed the challenge…

and I didn’t seem to meet it 100 per%cent,

but I am better informed than I was before… so i am pleased anyway.

Hi. There. Friends. I know I promised — at New Year’s star-like apex —

that I would post at least one blog-per-month for your feasting, drooling

eyes,

but, , , , , l ,   I…. I…may not be able to deliver on that. I’ll try still. But

but but but but

you know…  I may have to take a mental health month once in awhile,

such as May 2022. When I return, it will be with dots of my

quintuplet family, whose last name I’ve decided is Khan-Dare (yes,

a hyphenate) and upon seeing it typed, looks so much like Kardashian, 

it makes me sad

on a sadderday…no less)

Okay…what else is new? Spring here in the Middle-West United-States

is progressing as mother nature intended…with little white blossoms

giving way to green stumps, which twist into

real leaves as if branches are the original 3D printer we all wish we owned…

W/ bull dozers razing the public library & instead of an ice skating rink

constructing a tacky apartment so unlike a toy village it makes me 

insane the day before Easter…

no bunnies in the yard yet, but BUT… BIRDS in the laundry hose!!!

BIRDS, clogging our dryer with twiglets & egglets & wing tips & goo

We cleaned their kindling kindly & no one died, though someone

may have been orphaned…I don’t know yet…

I hope the resurrection brings you shade & by that

I do not mean

the snidery of frenemies, but the cool relief 

of the pill after days on the cross (made by Stryker), by the 

spritz of consciousness when you faint on the 

eroticon dance floor, & no one bids on your body

at auction…  I will come out as an autoandrophile

when the rabbit leaves…

iceberg lettuce…

pray.

Stream Of Derogatory Demagogical Delight

FRIENDS,

What's up in the O-diary? Just catching up w/ a backlog of creative writing that I need to share or I'll explode. Mostly daily streams of consciousness that seem worthy of being read. But also this summer I'm going to treat you to my epic masterpieces.

Back in 2011 I wrote a series of epic poems. I always wrote short dinky poems & I wanted to try to write something like Howl or The Odyssey or Romeo & Julius Caesaret. So I wrote some long poems and though they were not great I called them epic. And I shared them with you, and you actually liked them. So I'm going to share those again. Then….

I have written 4 new epic poems that are so epic they make Howl look like a haiku. I will share those w/ you this summer if I can get them all typed up by Sept 21. 

Sorry for not doing any new art. I know the kind of art I do isn't really considered "ART!!!!!!" in its newest sense. It leaves me wondering, 'Why bother doing art anymore?' I have made so much art in my life it's practically pollution. And yet I still want to tell visual stories.

We'll see what happens with art. 

We'll see what happens with the life it imitates.

This year has been a trip--I never knew I could feel so normal. Just when I'm about to become a freak on the outside I feel so normal inside. (No, I'm not calling trans people freaks, I'm just anticipating that that's how I'll be seen by some folks). I look forward to being confusing. Just don't shoot me.

I feel great. But there's this shadowy regret lurking. How did I waste decades of my life trying so hard to be something I didn't want to be? To make other people happier & more comfortable.

Cispeople: SICKO!!!

Transpeople: YOU'RE NOT TRANS ENOUGH BECAUSE YOU TRIED TO LIKE BEING A GIRL TOO LONG!!!!

[I'm writing a play about what's in your heads. I miss my early 30s when I was a true creative genius!! (It's okay, I'm not a genius anymore so it's not stuck-up of me to say I was.)] Remember,

Genius is often temporary

Sanity is always temporary

You don't get to keep that shit.

********************************* 

STREAMS OF DEROGATORY DEMAGOGICAL DELIGHT:

Would you rather err on the side of paranoia, or be the clown full of bravado teetering on the cliff's edge? The clown is fun to watch for awhile, flailing and juggling and silently chewing the scenery. The paranoid's blather draws some disciples but alienates the largest portion of public pie chart. One fine day the clown's jagged axis takes a steep hike and down he goes, audience left gawking at an empty skyline. And the paranoid's poetry comes into focus as a neon brand of psychic self help scripture.  9-28-15  [AN OLD ONE!!!]

*********************

Guns v. Cats>>>the purr report>>>the coiling recoil of a tail>>>swatting your shoulder out of joint>>>the catnip magazine loaded and shoved into place on the scratching post>>>stream of distemper and litter box rage>>>caught in the crossfire of knit ammunition>>>the intarsia pattern of probability>>>how many children in their fuzzy Fall sweaters will  catch a claw in the face>>>how many red blooded Americans will volunteer to loosen their heart valves around Thanksgiving by picking up that ball of fur and aiming it at their laps>>> 10-22-15  [another old one!]

*********************

Excessive force from the spirit world. As opposed to a war in the flesh it is appropriate to bare all. To lay all your cards on the bathroom floor and wear your uniform in the shower. Unlike hand to hand combat there is only one mortal in the game---and you're it. In both types of war you must be on high alert, listening for bootsteps, crunching leaves, pindrops or IEDS. But spirits will show you pictures in your dreams, and you must follow their command. There will be no shouting sergeants or practice raids. Only a soggy pillow and the haunting sense of deja vu--you've done this before in broken frames. Now you have to do it in one take. 11-9-15

Fucking gorgeous!

***********************

Found the missing photographs. My life when it was lived by others. Now I live with others, for others. Myself is another. Pour me one. Poor me…I'm too happy to belong to your sad massacre. I have obsessed over Memories & Mysteries like a 33rd degree Mason. Right in the middle of life when everyone else had cut those ties I went rappelling down into the core of my forgetfulness. The edge is impressive but the depths are where the answers lie & lie in tongue-tied wait for the gun the engine that could wait no longer. Treasure that glistened with indignity fooled me once, and saved me twice when it taught me to fish for life. What I've learned: fuck milk. Dip your Oreos in iced tea. 11-15-15

***********************

We were not born together but we've met at an intersection that will soon be the crux of a brand new culture. You always lived in my right brain where nothing is real. You've migrated left-- and now I can feel you outside my skull. We share this brain so beautifully. I slosh around in the deep end. You stick your finger in. The results are the same. We both win. Hypodermic crotch-candy, epidemic bed wetness. Couch potato mash-up parade of slanted raindrops torn fluish mucus membrane ring finger unadorned but wrapped around two explosive tentacles avoiding legal channels calling 'here pussy, here pussy' til the double secret agent peeks through the crack and gathers intel your lopsided skull is perfectly functional deep in those trenches it still fires when enemy cells divide into three separate entities. 12-14-15

**************************

All the purple velvet and artificial rainbows in the world could not prepare me for 1999. What an exciting time to be alive! And I'd waited so long, ever since the radio waves of 1982 turned my inertia toward this ultimate future. My century, nay my only millennium, was going to be cut from me. A juvenile malignancy. Of course in 8th grade I never thought I'd make it to that aurora borealis. I assumed I'd be viewing the Northern lights from the nosebleed-brain hemorrhage seats. Or I'd be the mother of twins--a single gemini child shy en route to the bash but full of the extra stardust that blesses double spirits. Making them sneeze so hard they transcend their very skin. It's not courage, it's their bonus strands of lavender nerve tissue. The metallic elements of our system braided and cabled, entrapping our human conditions; this single doublet carries the overload of information and releases it in the notes of a Billboard hit. 4-22-16

[A little something I wrote for Prince 6/7/1958--4/21/2016]

****************************

All right. That's all I want to share with you today. I reached pretty far into the archives. You are welcome. 

O-TOWN OUTSIDER

FRIENDS!

"Pastry cafe in the heart of danger

Off-off Disney, behind tinted glass in 

This town that's been in the news

For everything but terror…"

This is the beginning of a poem I wrote on Nov 24, 2015 called O-TOWN OUTSIDER. I do not think it's one of my clairvoyant outbursts though. I remember when I wrote it thinking, what could be more horrific than a massacre in a theatre, an elementary school, a church, a concert in Paris? Because I knew that even after Paris there would be no change (here in America) in gun control legislation.

And I came up with Disneyland. Maybe if the Magic Kingdom took a hit we would all wake up. It is not the most original idea. I'm sure Carl Hiassen wrote a book about it in the 90s. But I started a poem about terror in/at/around Disney & then as poems do it became more of a statement on overpopulation and violence and greed. 

Anyway… I have no words yet for what has happened once again in our country. As with every massacre this one has levels of horror that surpass the ones before it. And the quadratic arguments are going round: It was guns! It was mental illness! It was toxic masculinity! It was homophobia! It was terrorism!

It was all of those things. But mostly it was the deadly weapons in the hands of an enraged, unstable, self-loathing homophobe.

After trans issues--and possibly ahead of them--gun violence is my main concern in this world. I have my own stories of gun violence (some of which I recounted in my "manifesto") and I believe that guns need to be removed from our society as a means of self defense. Guns should be for soldiers and law enforcement only. Actually, no guns for soldiers either, or law officers. And oh yes, I mean ALL guns. Handguns to automatic cumblasters. No guns for you! I am the gun nazi! I don't care if you hate it. Come & get me NRA.

**********************************

All right. Now that we have that taken care of, here is more stream of consciousness:

When my mind is an ocean I can see alphabets and formulas. Colors and futures. Today there is a swamp in my skull. Sloshing with microbes and alligator teeth. An unseen inbred master holds my chain-of-consciousness so I look for a headline to howl at. To bark my jaws against, only sharpening tone but dulling the sound bite. It's idiom as curious as an opaque surface erupting in bubbles. Hark, who breathes there? Who insists upon life where souls are made of mud? The stream-of-command handed down in rusty brown genetic codes. Green is the only color that disobeys. I am flooded with Floridian blood in this Federal Republic; I abandon femininity in favor of no flavor. Traversing the glade with no weapon but my blissful ignorance. 3-3-16

****************

How Monday begins with such uncertainty when Sunday finished in first place? The reset that occurs between 3 a.m. and its next-of-clock kin. The Start Over button in the temple gets pushed by moonbeams. Dreams compiled on quicksand assure no default setting becomes the Establishment. How I wake into this week of waiting, my own head a ringing telephone. How I wake without a trial, how I RSVP the host of my modern era. Sorry I can't be there until the end. I have to leave early so my soul can be parsed into unwanted pregnancies. I have to sing like an angel to earn my wage, to win my war on femininity. I wore it well past its freshness date. It expired on my back, all around my bones it wrapped like a lost weekend. It expired on my watch and it can't be reset. There will be no answer, there will be no message left. 3-7-16

*****************

Tepid waters…loosened shark teeth, urchin spikes. Soft mind dragging tender feet along the shoreline. Can we have enthusiasm for a life that will never live up to this exotic metaphor? Our hospital getaways, our cubicle destinations don't ionize our stardust. We rot tooth-first into a green burial. Enough! Enough of this lament--it's so last century and that's where my fossil is buried. The single-boned organism that was me while I was here. After I departed from the stars and landed in my solitary skin cell. I've had some glory here--I've seen candy, I've touched love's private doorknob, I've listened to fingers exploring forbidden sockets. My current sensory overload--you in your carbon cross-legged sentence. Pulling acoustic nerves from my neck…denying my existence while copying its molecules' sequence. The colors I shovel at your goggled pupil, the baby steps you take in retrograde. I would have gay trans man sex w/ you for sure.

3-11-16

**************

Riots in Chicago. Friday ruptures. Centipede activity. Each segment extending a hand, a prickled leg, from recent history to a future so bloated and slimy--call the coroner. Call the cops to the corner where the first root slithered underground. It's a warehouse full of plants. The skeletal sunflower scientists shout from their tall vantage but the baby's breath never gives up suction. Strangle of the middle class, weeds so mediocre, such bland demographic putting its numbers behind the maybe of its existence. Thrusting its shoulders into fluorescent sun, illuminating a podium where hate speech will be supported, where obscenity will lean like a wounded soldier beside it. I saw you picking cactus very carefully, coercing pansies and petunias with little resistance. I saw you digging up the snapdragons, flamboyant and belligerent. Sure, we'll join your riot. Tell us when to exhale and stand by with socialist hoses. Save your bullets for the Easter bunny. 3-13-16 

************

In the telling of my life story there is an echo. Over and over a reverb sensation squeezed through a throat or hallway, choking on the script. The bullshit scripture stapled haphazard, ripped, red pen hatching over the nest of truths I can't say. Truths I bit down on; interior shark attack. Deep tissue message--I am not a willing disciple. I won't play this role; I won't be cast. I will break every bone and barrier. I will live in a different time signature, I will carry myself like a tornado. Through nursery school fire to upper management isolation. Solitary confinement in a soul mate's embrace. A bridge covered in starlit fog, blockading our lift-off. Lifting our carbon corpses from the fuel tank. 3-18-16

****************

Whats up w/ her?

When my head won't give up its clouds I fill it with anchors. Get down from there I say, it's dangerous. "But I can see everything from here!" it protests. Everything's not yours to see, I tell it. Now sink down to sea level, drain your heart of curiosity, return to this tomb of a body. This is what you signed up for when you volunteered to leave the womb. We gave your soft little cloudhead a squeeze and you agreed--to serve in the karmic forces of the 21st century. There must be profit in misunderstanding. We'll find reasons to bomb McDonalds, we'll make a pinata of the church, a matchstick murder of skyclad moneyscrapers. I steal from the headlines because your wallet is in jail. I steal names and drop them from the radio tower. I steal and steal and steal and no one realizes all the freedom lives in my fist. All the joy is clenched in my throat. 3-24-16

****************

Good-bye friends. I love you all. Take care of yourselves.

Stream of Tropical Mania

FRIENDS,

How are you liking this rain? I am loving it. I hope you are too.

I also hope you're loving this storm of carefully arranged words I've been dropping on you. The drought is over, sort of. I still don't have any art. I sat down & tried to doodle the other day & I couldn't even draw a face. How the fuck does that happen? Kind of like how I forget to how to play guitar if I stop playing for 2 weeks. The I have to learn all over again.

Bizarre. I wish I could pull my brain out & look at it & tweak the parts that are malfunctioning. But alas, I don't have that kind of access to the inside of my skull. I hope you all do.

Here's some Streams of Standing Rainwater rolling down the streets of your selfhood:

***************

Months without dreaming then this: a saturation of color bombing the pillows. Panning back and forth across a timeline only recognizable as mine because the dream data was in place. Embedded somewhere below the images was the script. There is clutter in my head I cannot access til I sleep, and this morning I swept and swept. I'm cleaning the hoard of several decades. The grief hoard. The identity hoard. The ways I can't afford to think anymore. Even the kittens and butterflies whose fleeting antics kept me distracted from larger beasts' authority--they've run out the door. The brush of the broom would break their wings, disrupt their whiskers. Antennae so sensitive to evolution. The straw that broke the kitten's back? A pin-drop from an old black hole. A drop of hormone on the floor. 1-29-16

***************

The history of WEIRD: Before, it was living in a freakshow of a body but having a sound mind. Then, it was having enough dough to buy the freakshow. It became throughout the ages something to hide behind suit & tie. At times it was something to flaunt. With just a touch of genius, madness was a way to make a living. In this Gregorian future, weirdness is alive and well, taking many cloud-like shapes. Let's have a peek through the screen: 

He's ugly and alone--weird! 

She's not afraid of her own mind--WEIRD. 

It's been four years since he got laid--sad. But weird! 

She prefers the company of cats. Or dogs. Or ferrets. Or donkeys. Way fuckin' weird. 

He or she has done a lot of drugs and survived the flat line of the soul. Groovy, wild, high-five, you're really fucking weird, man! 

She was born male but has volunteered for that ultimate pay cut. Too weird for my taste. 

He was born female but thinks he deserves a promotion. Not cool at all, man. Get the fuck outta here before I show you who's boss. 1-31-16

****************

I've been having a torrid affair with my subconscious lately. Don't tell anyone, but I've had dreams as lucid as Tokyo for a straight week. Not the crescendo of nightmares that wouldn't stop for the sun, wouldn't stop for anything but the soft yellow pill. These are the dreams my brain was born to produce. Character-driven with SPF/X so hi tech they can afford to be subtle. They don't insult the intelligence of the dreamer. And the porn…so saturated with tenderness for the whole person. Not -centric. No harem of Barely 18 15-year-olds getting plunged & squirted in the face by the Lord. Hetero-scripture is a gospel too sad for candlelight. But I know what love is, I know what it looks like. Pitch black with dancing neon pixels. Press your meaty hands against your eyelids and listen. That is love. 2-1-16

*****************

Hey! Punxatawney Pete here. Strapping on my microphone and my ice skates. Waiting for Pittsburgh Philomena and Philadelphia Pris as they prep for their supporting roles. My co-anchoring concubines need a lot more work than I do, what with the face spackle the eye paint the nose shadow the chin waxing the Brazilian deforestation the eyebrow flagellation the mascara (oh please don't skip the mascara) the lip grease the nail residue the boob scaffolding the bling fix-it the wardrobe fire drill the test shots fired at the spectacle until it's viewable annnnnd….the clitoral rhinestones. It's a helluva an effort for our team of special effects rodents but it sure makes me look like a vision of authority, a streamlined no-nonsense news messiah, a voice of reason between two eager-to-agree beavers….AAaaahhgghhhh!! What's that? Six more years of backlash before history has its Hegelian synthesis!  2-2-16 

********************

Can I write inside this tube? Will I hear my own thoughts beneath the headphones blaring "Chicago Now!" Morning responds to the news break: airplane hole leaks 55-year-old death passenger. Fuzzy exotic animal curls up with 99-year-old sleep citizen. The murder of 13-year-old Match.com liver transplant recipient child was committed by slut-shaming 18-year-old athlete nova and complicit dick-whipped amateur grave-digging 19-year-old female. Suicide bomber v. female suicide bomber. Stripper v. male stripper. Pocketbook v. manbag. "It" v. "they." One is offensive; one is trending. The only one offensive to me is "she." 2-3-16

********************

Floors made of fire, sidewalks of ice. Just keep the dirt swept under the rug. Good work if the wind can find it. Roof tops made a statement, ceilings closed the argument. No one gets through the door without an exclamation, "Why this is so unfair!" Heart's made of seafood, brain's made of gravy. I could load the boat with bananas but I'd choke before I slipped on the peel. Head over gristly heel, hand over succulent fist. What is your name? Cut like a cookie from the master dough boy? No. I am not shortening, I'm a brand new breed of bread. My name means wine in French; yours means moon in ancient Greece. Have you ever drowned in ammonia? Have you ever shot yourself with the opposite sex? 2-6-16

*****************

Okay, that's enough for now. Like I said, I write a paragraph of gibberish every morning when I wake up. So maybe that's why it seems like it doesn't make sense & you hate it. Have you ever considered that?

TARANTULA VACCINATION

FRIENDS,

I've been threatening to write something serious about mental illness/depression/anxiety for quite awhile now. This is a topic that everyone should have an opinion about, if not a firsthand account of.

I was a person who struggled pretty hard against depression & anger & gender dysphoria all my life. Sure that sucks, but the beauty I now see in it is that I was ABLE TO STRUGGLE AGAINST IT. I fought it on my own with a very determined nervous system, a heaping self-prescribed dosage of alcohol, and ART of all kinds.

On top of (or in spite of) all that, I found someone to be in love with and to share the dreams and disappointments life serves up in unscheduled increments. In other words, I was finally able to feel that thing called "happiness"--the thing I saw other people enjoying all around me for years. The thing my mom practically demanded of me but I could never deliver. Happiness.

I treasured my happiness, and I even took measures to guard it from the world by retreating more into the love & art and backing away from society's noise. 

I believed that as long as I was surrounded by art & love & quietude, the happiness would keep paying its dividends into my nervous depository. And it did for a long time.

Beautiful cherries

Then in 2014…something happened. I don't really know what. I won't even try to describe it, but something in my nervous system went haywire and no art, no love, no amount of positive thinking, no amount of delirious exercising or exorcising could make it go away.

And though I'd sworn off the mental health professionals many years ago (for good reason), things finally got critical enough that I surrendered to those very professionals. I probably surrendered to them in the nick of time too--I couldn't have gone another week without the medication I was given. I wouldn't be here now writing this enchanting & profound piece of bloggery.

[As unserious as that sounds, I am totally serious.]

But here's what I'm seeing & hearing all around me: more people than ever struggling with a degree of depression or anxiety that cannot be conquered in old familiar ways. 

We all struggle. Struggling is what we do most. But we're usually up to the task. We don't like it, but we put one foot in front of the other until we can have that drink, or call that friend, or gaze at that porn video rubbing our gooey crotches until they explode.

All that self-ministration is failing to deliver the needed respite from stress levels that can barely be graphed.

Alien ministrations

Here's another thing--I see men struggling more. More than women. More than I've ever seen men (admit to) struggling. 

I think mental health is something women may have a leg up on because they've historically been allowed to explore it. To be vulnerable, needy, or emotional. To seek help. I see women more able to handle stress in these times because they have done the hard work of evolving through the stigma of it.

I don't want to "genderify" mental illness too much. But in this age of the "internet confessional" I have feasted my eyes on lots of male vulnerability I didn't know was there. I've read your manifestos, bros.

And I feel your pain. I am a feminist who also champions men's rights. Or am I a "masculist" who champions women's rights? I'm not sure yet. But…I've slipped & slidden across the gender divide many times and I get that society places a lot of pressure on both genders to be a certain way. 

I can also see how these enforced, abstract gender roles can easily go from complementary to antagonistic. This is another thing I've seen flying around on the internet too much--lots of rancor in the binary. 

It makes a genderqueer like me very sad. But I'm also hopeful that this is just a big paroxysm of evolution. Women have fought hard to have their voices heard, to be granted the rights and the protections they've been granted. And I have been in that fight from the time I was a small child who was told that girls & women were some sort of "inferior other." 

Gender roles as presented to me when I first arrived on Earth

Now women are tough, bad ass bitches--though there is still much to fight for. 

I think we've reached a plateau where women will not be able to advance until men are able to fix what is wrong on their side of the binary scale. These sprees of violence perpetrated on large groups of people and often ending in suicide, this backlash against political correctness, the abuse of power in business and law enforcement, the fact that we've been at war for 15 years--

--these are all largely "men's issues." And they have grown to monstrous proportions. These things will not change unless men are allowed to let their inner momma's boys be heard. This may be quite annoying until we get used to it. Remember how women were called "shrill" when they spoke up about abuse & inequality? Well…men will probably be called "whiny" if they speak up about what they need…I have heard/seen the word "whiny" applied to men who speak up about…anything.

We don't like a whiny man in our society. Just like we don't like a shrill woman. Too bad. We need to whine & be shrill when the greater good is at stake. So…next time you hear a man whining---listen. Try to respond with something besides "Stop whining & man up."

In the 90s & 00s I remember the benevolent "male feminists" who fought alongside women in their riot to be heard. Sure they may've just been in it for the sex, but I think we've evolved past that insipid pay-off mentality, (haven't we??) I think it's time for women to "woman-up" and be "female masculists" or whatever we want to call it.

Fight for the rights of all of us to be equally tough/ equally vulnerable/equally paid/equally responsible for the human race. Fight for the right of all of us to be sane & healthy & at peace with ourselves so that we may be at peace with each other.

Well…that was my big important blog about mental health, as always viewed from my gendery microscope. All opposition in the world begins & ends with that most fundamental double standard of all…

********

AND NOW!!!! If your attention span is not spent like a $1.97 at Wal-mart…here is some stream of consciousness:

Excessive force from the spirit world. As opposed to a war in the flesh it is appropriate to bare all. To lay all your cards on the bathroom floor and wear your uniform in the shower. Unlike hand to hand combat there is only one mortal in the game---and you're it. In both types of war you must be on high alert, listening for bootsteps, crunching leaves, pindrops or IEDS. But spirits will show you pictures in your dreams, and you must follow their command. There will be no shouting sergeants or practice raids. Only a soggy pillow and the haunting sense of deja vu--you've done this before in broken frames. Now you have to do it in one take. 11-9-15

*****

Yesterday,

I was injected w/ tarantula venom. Those of you who think I always speak in code be gratified for this is code for something. And those of you who know the code--I accept your congratulations. Code is metaphor for code; metaphor is code for metaphor. But it's all imagery to me. And it's powerful & evocative & disruptive & clever & it's not quite as forgiving as political correctness, yet it's not as fascist as blowing hard just because you can afford to get sued by a globeful of people and not be eating from a dumpster.

Hooray for tarantula venom!

XO,

Today 12-8-15

********************

Cecil & Pixel

Bye, folks, bye! bye! bye!!! I'll see you next time in the Octopus Squishery

STREAM OF SOLEMNITY

Friends,

I hope you are alive and well.

Today I was going to launch the Serious Topics series with a ramble about the stigma of mental illness. But some events have taken place in the world and I feel like I should say something about that:

Terror, people. If it takes a well-coordinated, large-scale attack on a city that is the designated hub of culture and romance on this planet to get people to understand that ISIS is everywhere, then I won't be upset about the "selective outrage" that follows.

I understand that most people in the U.S. don't dream of honeymooning in Beirut or have close friends spending Thanksgiving in Kenya. Beirut & Kenya are not hubs of romance, and that's okay. But ISIS did strike those places too and it didn't quite make the headline news here. And if it had made the news, would we have cared so much? No, we wouldn't.

In the last week though, ISIS has been very busy and very successful in doing harm in many places, including (now confirmed) planting a bomb on a Russian airplane, killing 200+ people.

And ISIS is here too, people. In our country. Right now. Masterminding the next big strike on their Playstation grapevine. 

Anti-Culture Conversations w/ Vin and Juliet. Realistic panel.

What can we do? Well, for one, we can all get on our Playstations and become citizen spies. We can all stay home which is a good idea but would contribute to the death of society {Meatspace!). We could censor ourselves and never talk about what a douch-y prophet of god Muhammed is, but then the terrorists would be winning. We could outlaw all religions, but that wouldn't stop people from doing things in accordance with what they believe.

Or how about this--We could live in a strict police state where everyone was heavily surveilled and every enclosed space was patrolled by "good guys with guns" and metal detectors and bomb-sniffing pooches.

If we want to know how to live in a world where radical terrorism could overshadow the "lone gunman who never got laid" at any moment, we could ask an Israeli or Palestinian how they live in such a world.

The fact is--there are too many people in the world. Until we understand how to populate the earth in direct proportion to its resources, there will always be an overflow of humans into the margins where anger, poverty and desperation live. Hoplology 101.

Cartoony panel. With visible brain activity.

********

There. Sorry to get preachy about shit that has yet to affect me personally. But I truly do see the potential for it to affect everyone (American, Canadian, Venezuelan, Australian, East European, British, South African, et al…) Global threat. Hoverboards be damned. Jet packs too.

Surreal panel. Enjoy.

NOW HERE'S SOME CREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS (CONDENSED):

I can't decide which I fear most--the world or my mind. Lately I'm caught in this full-size Chinese handcuff. A painful isolation drives me outside to see other faces, hear other voices. But what I see & hear is humanity's fading beauty, skins with customized lesions & shrapnel caught in the throat. Monstrous Humanitor, cackling inhumane at itself in the mirror. Robbing itself at grin-point. Selfishness ringing in operatic mezzo-soprano sing-song conspiracy notes. A cordial baritone dictatorship linking the food-chain to the fence. I run barefoot and destitute back to my cavernous skull, where once I found whatever I wished to be true. Where fantasy now meets solitary confinement.  10-14-15

Don't dilly dally with that ball and chain. Step right up to the plate glass sunrise. Answer your phone on the first prophetic ringtone to take down dictation to a crumbling dictatorship in an Arabian Springtime for Hitler--what a jerk! Get to work on your new screenplay about the guy with the car, and the gun, and the ego. Be sure to find time to masturbate to your coworker's wardrobe malfunction, whatever it may be--running hose, missed tampon, open zip bar code for I'm in the closet but get and come me in the bored room. 10-23-15 

Morning grey as a twisted spine. That's more like it, November. I've slumped in this waiting room crushed by eye contact and body odor so long I can't remember how many times I sang Happy Birthday into debt. Copy right, copy left. Over the shoulders of dying doctors shake the salt. Put some pepper in your step and in your diet to live forever. I only have the appetite for waiting. A trapezoid once so triangular. A mountain moved by humans becomes a plateau. A tablet crushed and snorted becomes your wild imagination. 11-10-15

**************

Good-bye Friends. I send you love through my computer screen, because that's the best I can do right now.

You Said Words

Hey Friends,

How are ya?

Here is a little Stream-of-Consciousness and terrible art to hold you over til we move into our new house & get settled.

Fair Trigger Spoiler Alert Warning: Once we settle in, I have some more serious topics to delve into here. Just you wait. It'll be good to bust our brains a little bit.

**********Serene Little Babbling Streams of Conciseness*******************

Yesterday I remembered who I was--(me). Yesterday I found myself in the exact spot I left myself over a year ago--(in my head). Yesterday I felt the way I did when I was me--(happy). Yesterday I could savor all my memories as if they were still mine--(thanks). Yesterday I could see a future with me in it--(wow). Yesterday I could process my regrets without crashing--(software update?) Yesterday was now and it was all I needed--(enough). 10-2-15

******

Bad Halloween art. Haunted House

I read the flags' crimson, scarlet fevers. He told us exactly where he was headed. He led us to the minefield like our minds' canary-colored welcome wagon. His tail not tucked between his legs, but bobbed for fighting. And winning. I growl at this momma's boy, but never enter his cage. I'd rather die of mange, me and my fleas against the world, than see if I can force change with tooth and brute command. My tail hangs low, a tired limb, atrophied and unfriendly. But my gait still strong, my jowls still curling with hope. !0-5-15

******

I'm always told 'Don't gaze into the abyss' And I always want to say 'But I live in the abyss.' It's hard to gaze elsewhere unless I crane my neck to the sky. And often I do. The sky is the great angled mirror that lets me know who's come to call. Who's ready to pay and who's just looking. The abyss and the sky are partners in crime, but I see how revered is the one and feared is the other. I've put the lotion in the basket and earned my salvation, but back into the abyss I fall again. It is home over and over. It is the spider web photoshopped to look like sleep. But remember how the sky was all dark matter until we came down to see it from below? You garden variety trolls can't move your stiff anatomy between elements like a storm, like a worm, like me. 10-6-15  

*******

TRIGGER WARNING: I have my finger on your little metal clit and with those two small but powerful parts we could own the world. We can get those pigs to baa-aah like sheep and fly in every direction. We could seize the hippocampus of the entire campus. We could make the tallest power couple fall to the floor. My finger, your clit--what do you say? Thelma & Louise? 10-9-15

Bad halloween art. Zombie.

Okay, loved ones. I'll talk to you from my next destination.

Stream of Textual Nectar

Hi Friends,

I have more stream-of-con and inexcusably bad art for you! 

I hope you are all doing great! I'm doing half-great. Mostly I am as freaked out as ever at this whole "human condition thing."

My mind is being mauled by two junkyard dogs named Venus and Mars, and my ethylene levels are dangerously low...

**********

TO DO LIST 9/24: Wake in my comfortable skin. Declare myself President. Run 2 miles on hamster wheel. Fondle myself in the shower. Catch up on correspondence. Eat more ketchup. Call Vladmir Putin and become best friends. Nuke Kim Jung Un because he has better hair than me. Pack for my golfing tour of China. China, China, China. Call Kanye with Fantasy Football picks and hot investment tips. Fly to refugee camp in Texas and weed out ugly ones. [Stand firm by my decision to make America beautiful (& great.)] Do interview with Vanity Fair and take a bejeweled shit. Sneeze a Hitler-moustache into existence. Spew charismatic gibberish at the the minds and hearts of unattractive americans who are making us look bad in front of the world.  Smack my daughter's ass and board the crappy plane that comes with the Presidency. Fly to China to examine their Wall. Know in my heart I can build a better one. [Losers] Die of massive brain fart. 9-24-15

*********

Friday stream of disillusionment--where are you?--where can I find the ears that burrow into big dark open minds?--where to find hearts pieced together with black tar and molten gold? --where to find that in this crowd of 7 billion who all know empty beehive syndrome and drone on?--where are the ears?--where will this irony deficiency refill its prescription?--I have your meds--I put them in my fuzzy black & yellow backpack and climbed to the top of the tree--You just have to listen for me, softly laughing--Then bursting into a cloud of cumulative despair--come on, you can't miss it 9-25-15

*******

Willow figurine c. 2006

Am I to trust that there is balance in the world when my meds make me so dizzy? Am I to trust that gravity will hold me down when I want to jump into the soundproof clouds and never have to hear the voices of those who are so sure of themselves? How do I compete with the ones who were blessed by the stars, fortified with earth or hardened by flames? Today I am full of questions, not punchlines. Today my dots are not connected but my doubts are. I can only dig and dig into the deep blue sky for proof of the universe's equity. 9-27-15

*******

Take my image off the wall and tweak it with your tools. You think I can't feel it. That molesting a photo with digital dicks and a garden of pubic abundance is karma punching up. Mounted by a tarantula, my expression never changes which makes it even funnier. Drowning in files of bananafish, I gasp in my sleep at your lack of originality. Manipulating what you see in me instead of seeing you. Have you ever asked why I resisted? Your atonal lullabies? Your attempts to shill with a throat full of sludge and eggshell? Have you ever wondered why I plugged my ears with tampons and learned to fight in writing? 9-29-15

Self-portrait at sunset. From this summer's daily drawing challenge--this quick watercolor was a big failure.

********

Psychiatrist Parking Lot v. Housing and Urban Development: child left alone, crying in car. A 21st century felony. I look around for witnesses, ABC's 'What Would YOU Do?' cameras. No one sees my brief consternation, my decision covered in skullbone--leave it alone. None of my business. How many hot cars did I sit in, sweat beading on minor hide, and survive? This personlet had open windows for its screams. So I chose deafness of character and drove away. Are we there yet? Road rage so far from highway euphoria--we will never get there. 9-30-15

*********

Bye Friends…I'll talk to you soon (in writing). 

Pixel & Eloise not caring

Digital Distractions & Analog Rebellion

Hi Friends,

I hope you are well.

This Fall is all about waiting. Patience. Sitting still with all this loose adrenaline and crass cortisol pumping through my veins. Not just mind over matter, but mind over its own chemical output. Meditating in a garden of wasps. OMMMMM…

Each morning I do little exercises in stream of consciousness to get my mind in a more fantastic space. It seems to work and so, here are a few:

*******

From forgotten dream to spiking anxiety, a day that only says, "Wait." Wait in the room with chihuahua microaggressions pumping through your nervous & lymphatic systems. Wait for the benefit of the vet printing 3-d parts for your unconditional lover. Breathe backwards (or inhale) and count to seventy-two while chanting the word your babysitter gave you to chant while she was busy evolving on the phone... 9-19-15

Creepy chick molesting a guy's hand with her bare tits...

********

Good Morning, Pope-star:

I look forward to your words. You're the kind of Pope who speaks not just to the ears but into the microphone of the soul. I like that you want to cure the Earth's cancer and the church's child porn rash. You disavow my dysphoria, but here's how I deal w/ that: I motor over to the Town Shopping Center and buy a hat just like yours ($9.99 at H&M). Now I feel like a pure white cock tucked in the crack of Donald Trump's bible. I love you like a brother, Human Pope-star. Here is my question for you: Is it better for a child to wash ashore in red or in a plastic bag? 9-20-15

...

*********

Morning migraine brings alternate universe into focus. Pain is good for that. I see the me I could've been if I'd taken all the forks in the tightrope…I'm glad I took this one, but now is now and then is losing its clout. The tightrope keeps on splitting and I can see its veiny hand lying flat on the documents that release me from the world. Stay on the right ropes and I will get there, unsafe, unsound, signing on the bottom line: Do Not Reincarnate  9-21-15

ewwww...

**********

My doctor died. He was 61 (which is the new 16). Last time I was in to see him, I could hear the voice of the patient in the adjacent room. It got weird as I realized he was getting a digital rectal prostate exam. Weirder still---I recognized his voice & knew who it was. I could barely hear the doctor's hushed tones, but I could hear everything the patient was saying. When the doctor finally came in to see me, I was a little unnerved by what I'd heard. And when I get anxious or stressed my voice kind of fails me. The doctor went over the results of my blood test as usual. I could tell he was not feeling well. When it came time to say good-bye he said, "It was good to see you again." And, because I was so anxious and stressed, all I could say was "urrghhh." When I found out he died, I was so upset that the last thing I said to him was "urrghhh" that I cried for 52 minutes. He was a really good doctor. Sorry this is not a stream-of-conscious masterpiece, but more of a prosaic tribute.

9-22-15

.

**********

Have a good weekend ya' all.

The 7th Sense (In The 21st Century)

Funny Little Friends,

How are ya all? I am fine. I mean, I'm not really fine…but I know that's what you expect me to say. That's all you can handle, because YOU'RE not fine & you don't even want to deal w/ how unfine I am.

So now that we got that formality out of the way, let's talk…about The Senses. There are 7 of them:

1. Sight

2. Hearing

3. Taste

4. Smell

5. Touch

6. The Sixth Sense (clairvoyance, ya know)

7. Sense of Humor

As I age I've noticed I'm losing ground with Sight & Hearing. That's to be expected. But I also think that I'm losing my Sense of Humor!

This scares me, because along with music, art & literature, Humor has always been a cherished survival tool for me. One of the things that scared me about "adulting" was that it seemed like to be a proper adult you had to stop laughing. And I was against that.

I always wanted to see the silly, the ironic, the cartoonish side of life. And I think I still do…but it doesn't seem as funny anymore.

But I also wonder, is it ME or is it THE WORLD? Has the world gotten so ugly, are there just so many people fighting to be heard & treated fairly that irony & cartoonishness have gone by the wayside?

I write this on the post-cusp of Robin Williams' suicide anniversary (& the pre-cusp of Joan Rivers' negligent plastic surgery death). I write this as Bill Cosby stands accused of drugging & raping women throughout the 60s, 70, 80s. I write this one week after John Stewart's retirement from The Daily Show. I write this at a time when comedians are refusing to perform on college campuses because students are so easily offended, especially by social issues & the jokes that may arise around those issues.

This is disturbing to me. First of all freedom of speech is important to me, and I believe in using that great gift to keep social justice alive and well, and I believe comedy is a great vehicle for keeping social issues in the ear-canals & brain centers of the Universe.

I realize that comedians sometimes cross the line or cut to the very edge of serious issues to make their points. And that is okay--I can usually take it. I usually understand where the zings & zaps are coming from & that they are meant to make us sting, think & evolve.

It is rumored (I wouldn't know for sure)-- that the generation called 'Millennials' are so coddled & padded & blindered from the jagged edges of this world that anything reeking of satire is perceived as taunting, mocking, bullying…

…thus the reluctance of comedians to perform on campuses.

But I find I too have become over-sensitive to certain types of humor. There is much rancor between genders & races (particularly black & white) right now. So I am very sensitive to any humor that slams women (or men). And I have gotten a little bristly when I hear about how horrible white (or black) people are--even if presented in a comedic context. I kind of wish we were past such "obvious" joking-points.

But we aren't--there are still a lot of layers around gender & race to unpeel before we get to the real equality at the center of the onion.

One thing that does suck when social issues are too touchy to joke about is--we resort to the lowest forms of humor. NO I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT PUNS. I mean colon/bladder humor and of course, dick jokes.

I said it before, penis jokes are fine on occasion, fart jokes are definitely funny especially when well-timed. Penises & farts are pretty funny! Noises that come from your butt--hahahaha! Spongy, mushroomy flaps of flesh that harden up & look like Darth Vader made of liverwurst**? Hilarious.

OCCASIONALLY.

But…I really do get sick of old unattractive white guys (like John Oliver & Bill Maher & Ellen deGeneres) using their dicks as metaphor for all matters from corporate greed to invasions of privacy (& invasions of countries) to gun violence to dentists killing endangered lions in Africa… 

Ie, EVERYTHING. [Also, do you see what I did there? ^^^ I added Ellen to the list of dick-jokers because it's totally ridiculous on one level, yet makes sense on another level--Ellen does kinda look like an old white guy & she does make (non-political) dick-jokes on occasion]. I just learned that type of humor is called PARAPROSDOKIAN. And I like it.

[And I hope I have offended no lesbians born between 1987 & 2001].

So…what kind of humor DO I enjoy now???

When I'm not being slapped in the brain by bologna-dicks, or being fed boring stereotypes---"Black people be like this" "White people be like that" "Bitches be like…" "Dudes be like…" 

I always appreciate clever word-play and punnery (sorry I don't find that to be low-humor at all), 

I like good delivery better than raunchy content. Clean humor can be hilarious is if it is cleverly packaged (oh no--I said "package")

I love the twisted & the surreal--shit that's just outrageous & probably inspired by drug use : ))) Aqua Teen Hunger Force, TV Funhouse, Absolutely Fabulous, Uncle Grandpa….ADVENTURES IN REALITY!!!!!

I love animals-doing-human-things humor. My new favorite is BoJack Horseman, which features animals & humans co-existing as if they are all the same species. It is an animated satire on the very essence of Hollywood, the Bizness. It balances the crude & the intelligent with finesse. And …did I mention Animals Doing Human Stuff???

(And even though I do love Animals-as-People humor, I absolutely hate…HATE…that movie TED. Ughhh…that is a FAIL in my favorite genre. I would like to beat the stuffing out of that bear's head & then menstruate all over it.)

Oh! Speaking of menstruating --which I hardly ever do anymore-- Vagina Humor was fun for a moment (if only because it was a welcome relief from Penis Humor). But it really is difficult to make vaginas funny. They do all the hard work in this world & get little credit for it.

(Tee-hee…I said vaginas do all the "hard" work. That's ironic!!) But I do think vag's could be used in that metaphorical way that dicks are used by Oliver, Maher, et al…if any women hosted political satire shows on cable. Maybe someday…but, I'll admit I was getting pretty sick of vag humor too, before it went underground like a good little beaver.

OKAY. I'm tired & need to eat lunch. This has been a good discussion about humor & sensitivitiy & the Seven Senses. One of the things that made me laugh the longest this year was a line from Orange Is The New Black, when Pennsatucky was talking about her favorite ice cream flavor--Double Fudge Chocolate--and she said, "I don't get it. How can you take chocolate…and then fudge it…and then double it?"

ROTFLMAO.

?????????????? I don't know why. It was just too silly.

**************

I hope you noticed the artwork I've included in this post. I force myself to draw something--anything--each day, even if I don't feel like it. This is kind of an experiment to see if I could actually "be an artist for a living" with assignments & deadlines & such. As you can see, some days I can't quite get inspired : )))

Hermaphrodite Skeleton wearing eye-phones & saying Orange

** If it is a white dick. Black dicks just look like Darth Vader. (oh no…I just made a too-obvious race/gender joke…sigh…I'm so offended)