Walt Mink the Movie

When I Googled myself recently, I found my name listed on the blog for the Walt Mink documentary. If you don’t know the band Walt Mink, this won’t be so interesting, but it was strange and good to be transported to the past. I dropped out of college after my freshman year spent in Portland, OR at Lewis and Clark College (Monica Lewinsky’s alma mater, though I think she arrived the year after I left.) A friend of mine was going to college at Macalaster and playing music in Minneapolis, MN so I thought I’d try it there.

He was my brother’s friend really, and he went on to be one of the best drummers in the known universe, playing for Beck, REM, and other records you’ve probably heard. His name’s Joey Waronker and I went to his wedding with my then girlfriend and I actually got to share a cab with Beck! After that, my star-struck girlfriend called it the "Beck wedding." Sounds like I’m name dropping, and maybe I am, but these celebrity moments are few and far between.

So I moved in Minneapolis and lived a slacker’s dream. 100 dollar rent, cheap used music stores, many other slackers. If it wasn’t for the snow it would be one of the best cities to live. When I lived there, there was a blizzard on Halloween and it didn’t stop until May.

I lived in a house with a bunch of other musicians. I played bass in a band of my own. All told I think this was one of the best times of my life. 1991, the year punk broke. I remember "Nevermind" coming out. I got to see them at a 1000 seat venue for the "Nevermind" tour. Chris Novaselic did all the talking. I actually saw them for the "Bleach" tour as well.

Walt Mink were the band in the house that were destined to be rock stars. It seems in my life that I have been close to bands that were destined to be the next big thing. Walt Mink sounded like the Smashing Pumpkins before they existed. Beatle-esque with big guitars, incredible amazing guitar riffs. I remember being with John Kimbrough, the lead guitarist/singer/songwriter, when he listened to the Smashing Pumpkins for the first time, and him saying, "He beat me to it." That was probably one of the most depressing moments of his life. Billy Corgan was asked what songs should go on Walt Mink’s CD. He told the record company to leave off the two best songs. I guess he was threatened, which means I don’t trust Billy Corgan. He basically sabotaged his rival.

But this was JK’s fault as well. He let the record company decide what songs should be on the record, what the record cover should be--he was so eager to be a rock star. Maybe people could read this. He also had this chipmunk-like voice--like the chorus of "Ziggy Stardust" except more so, a lot more so. It didn’t sound like it came from his macho gut like Eddie Veder or Chris Cornell. "Walt Mink" isn’t the greatest band name either.

The band I was in, The Delores Haze (Lolita’s real name), had the same problem. The lead songwriter, Eve, was so eager to be successful when she started a band in NYC that she turned the distortion way up because it was radio-friendly. It ran totally counter to her songwriting. She’s another person who’s immensely talented who never made it. Finally, I was in a band called Montag led by a songwriter who really should be the next Lou Reed and Elvis Costello. I’m not just saying that. I’m serious. Again, our band never got a break. There was also an issue with drugs and fear-of-success which wasn’t so helpful. Perhaps there are thousands of stories like this.

Just getting down this moment from my life. Walt Mink are a good story for a documentary: the band that should have been rock stars. My second novel, "Dishwasher," is about washing dishes at a cheap Italian restaurant and living in that house.

When I Google myself I also find gravestones and some guy who loves fireworks.

Iraq Election

Just watched some news coverage about the Iraq elections. Stupidly, I watched the late local Fox news. I was watching a "Simpsons" episode and the news came on and I thought I’d see how they were covering it. Depressing, of course. It sounds like generic paranoia but it really does watch like propaganda. Everything was only about people’s joy, cut with an American saying, "That’s just the price of freedom." I’m sure you could find an Iraqi family who would say it’s not fucking worth it, especially those families who have lost children. The entire spin was positive--a brief mention of the 40 people who were killed. This is why I have vowed to not watch the news for the next four years--we are not getting even half the story. Is there anybody on earth more disingenuous than local newscasters--those people who are supposed to be telling us the true story about the world. They report every story with the same indifferent smile.

While I’m happy for those joyful Iraqi’s and hope for stability, this story is far from over. But America is wishing for a Hollywood happy ending, an instant fix. My main fear about this election is that it is like another election for George Bush. He does not need more power, in his own head or anybody else’s. It struck me like a second inauguration. I don’t know what the hell my opinion matters about this major situation but I needed to write something.

Post Secret

In the absence of real blogging, here’s an amusing link. I successfully murdered fifteen minutes with it. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s going around a lot, but here’s another place where you can find it.

Postcard Confessions

Everybody’s got something to hide except heroin addicts. Uh, that’s a John Lennon reference--"Everybody’s got something to hide except me and my monkey" which is an ode to dope. Monkeys, horses and dragons are all dope slang for some good reason.

Leave your confessions in the comments. I'll start: I am J.D. Salinger.

(via Blog of the Day)

Epilogue

The epilogue to the Sew post:

Olivia Frances

...

My favorite picture of my daughter, from her second birthday. I know I’m just asking for comments like, "Oh, she’s so cute!" but really, isn’t she the most hauntingly beautiful human child you have ever seen?

She’s off from daycare this week--something called Winter Vacation--so I won’t be able to do much blogging. A warning to those addicts, such as myself. It will be good to take a step back, as I’ve been getting very entwined in this site--checking referrers, hits, comments. I feel a little spark when I see someone has stopped by and then I want to feel that spark again. I never thought I had an addictive personality, but I was wrong. Time to be a good father and take my daughter to the park.

The Opportunist

I want to talk about something that was hinted at in a recent comment--how I should be happy to have a published novel and not lament so much that I don’t have a career. That’s not what the comment said at all, but that’s what it got me thinking about. I’ve probably talked about this before. I get the feeling that I repeat myself sometimes, I mean whole sentences, verbatim--but what can I do, these thoughts are core to my every day. My answer is: no, having a published novel is not entirely enough.

I wrote the novel that’s been published when I was twenty years old. I wrote the first draft--200 pages--in an insane month in a dirty room in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. My agent at the time, who was trying to sell an earlier novel about being a slacker in Minneapolis, MN, didn’t know what to make of it. She sent it out reluctantly. "I do not see a market for a book that is slight and lacking in any meaningful message," said one editor. Three years later I added forty pages to it and decided to try and get it published myself. Soft Skull Press decided to take it on. At that time they were publishing books at Kinko’s. Mine was their first full-color, professionally bound book.

It was a great experience getting it published--vindicating, made me feel like a writer, which is a great feeling. I went on a book tour, there was a book release party, I had a girlfriend, I felt good. Soft Skull didn’t have any distribution at that time so the book kind of stayed in place. It was great to have a book to hand out to people, and it was an impetus for writing another book, but it’s not like it launched me anywhere other than my own mind. I broke up with that girlfriend--actually she broke up with me, not because we didn’t like each other, but for other sort-of-dramatic reasons. So I was a single, self-loathing 24-year-old. I started writing another novel in this atmosphere which would last me three years.

All in all, it was a very fucked up experience writing the next book: it owned me. I thought that was proof that I was writing something profound, important, but maybe it was a learning experience--never write like that again. Never drown yourself in a book. I tried to find an agent for the book, got rejected, found one who would take it on, and then the book was rejected by many publishers, even small independent publishers. I can hear you thinking, Maybe it sucks. It doesn’t suck. It needs some help, but it doesn’t suck. Not getting that book published nearly drained me of my will to write. What’s the fucking point to suffer like that and have nothing come of it? Rejection letters aren’t just about vanity. I know there is much worse suffering, but these problems are real to me. I need to keep writing, keep submitting, same old story.

In the past, editors would take on writers who showed promise. They took on careers. Not today. If you’re not an instant success, or can’t promise it, you’re nothing. All right, moving on. Cut to: Wilmington, NC. I start another novel while my wife is pregnant. I try to write something that has more chance of selling. I can’t write something completely mainstream because nothing will come out of me, but this book is less of a long character piece. It’s called "North of Sunset," and it’s about Hollywood--vanity plates are a big part of it, but I don’t want to get into the plot. It’s sort of like Tom Wolfe except more fucked-up and less uptight. I think this license plate should be the cover. Everybody who reads the book loves it, they say it’s a page-turner. Except for the people who work in publishing. Agents say it’s hard to sell a Hollywood novel. I say, Hollywood is the capital of America, and America is the capital of the world, so this shouldn’t be an issue. The novel’s about more than the movie business. But agents reject it. I go with my original agent who says he’ll try to sell it aggressively.

The book gets rejected twenty or so places. Then it’s done. Keep in mind that I am a new father, an unemployed new father. I have worked very hard on the novels I have written and I have little to show for it. I have had little morsels that have kept me afloat until the next piece of good news. Of course, some people are dying to get an agent, etc. but I am past that. I’ve got a kid to support, I have written five novels, I am working on my sixth, I am a writer who writes. I am sorry to bore you with my self-pitying and un-unique tale, if you've made it this far. Given the subject of the last post, it may seem like I’m whoring out my depression. Really I just have to vent this shit every once in a while.

So, to conclude…this blog has been enormously important to me. To have smart people actually respond positively to what I’ve written, in real time, is a great experience. Thank you. It’s progress.

Inauguration Day

I’ve gone and done it. I put a Paypal button on this page. I am tired of poverty and there’s always the chance that a philanthropic millionaire might stop by this site and feel generous. Exceedingly, absurdly doubtful but a small chance is better than nothing. I need some help with my habit for living.

Why.

The date arrives. Some fucker is doing something today. It won’t be very hard to not turn on the TV.

Old Neighborhood

Thanks to Ebway, City Rag, and Amy Langfield, who all linked to the Sew story. Glad that Sew is getting her online due. I wrote to Ebway.org about the Sew story--I was curious if anyone remembered her. I didn’t think that they would link to it. I have learned from Ebway that the Seward Park neighborhood is teeming with new Wi-Fi coffee houses and old staples are being torn down. Strange, but it also makes me feel like I am missing out on the city, which is something I haven’t felt for a while. When I moved to the Seward Park neighborhood, my building was filled almost entirely with Chinese families. It used to be a Jewish neighborhood, and then Chinatown started moving eastward. Before I moved into my apartment, the rent was $100 a month, rent controlled for fifty years. I actually took my crooked Polish landladies to court because they were charging me $800 and refused to give me a lease--if they registered the apt. it would have been shown to be a rent stabilized apartment. I won and the rent went down to $525, phenomenal for NYC.

Here’s a story: one day I got home and the chain was locked on the door. A stranger took the chain off and let me into my apartment. A man and a woman who I’d never seen before were sitting there. They had moved a bed into the living room, a TV, dresser, pots and pans in the kitchen, and even food into the refrigerator. This was the landlady’s son and his wife. Their claim was that my girlfriend and I had been subletting the apartment alongside the husband and wife, so we had no claim on the apartment. My girlfriend called the cops, who promptly kicked the man and the woman out--the cops were smiling, saying to the couple, "What the hell are you doing?" An incredibly stupid scheme. To be racist: those landladies made me believe in Polish jokes.

Soon, the Chinese families moved out one by one and the hipsters started moving in, as well as new bars. I always knew that it was going to become the next East Village. It’s a great little, self-contained community with its own park--the last undiscovered area of lower Manhattan. I’d like to go back and see what’s come of the old neighborhood.

Mystic

Here are some links with which to fake being mystical:

Ask: I Ching Connection
Psychedelic Paint Program: Rainbox
Fractal Generator: XAOS

Actually that’s being too cynical. The fractal generator is mind blowing. The paint program is also like being on drugs without being on drugs. And I admit that I’ve gotten comfort from the I Ching program, especially when it tells me that there will be progress and success (if I cross the Great Stream.) They’re Macintosh programs but you can find the equivalent on these sites.

Also Tarot.com has good free tarot readings, if you believe in that sort of thing, which I do, if it’s not abused. Making a website out of the Tarot seems like a form of abuse, but the readings are well done. I am not overly credulous about these things--I just don’t believe anything is arbitrary. Like most people, I grab onto what’s accurate and discard what’s inaccurate, or stretch an insight so it pertains to my life. You have to take it seriously for it to work, and probably shouldn’t do it over and over again. I like the Tarot and I Ching because it’s more personal than astrology, especially newspaper astrology, which is not to say I don’t check my horoscope. I go to Tarot.com when I’m feeling shitty and I need some small hope, even if it’s a false hope. Usually I keep these things private, but as most of my thoughts are made public on this site, I thought I’d dive in again--it’s validating to feel like it’s not a seedy, little secret.

By the way, I’m a Cancer--which seems appropriate, a disease with the sign of a crab.

Seward Park

I want to talk about the most ruling dog. This blog has been great for getting down things from my life, and this dog deserves an ode.

When I lived in New York I stayed in the same apartment for most of the ten years. It was a great apartment that looked over a park in lower Manhattan. Rare for such a shitty little apartment to have a park view. Every once in a while I’d see this stray dog in the park. Once I saw her catch a rat in the ivy. "That dog crazy," said a local Chinese girl.

The black dog was a fixture in the neighborhood. Squat, muscular, she looked more like a muskrat. I didn’t see her for several years and I thought she had finally died or had been taken away. I didn’t know how she could have lived through so many New York winters. One winter, I started seeing a lot more of her out my window--walking around, barking at nothing, people petting her, buying her a can of dog food. The next time I saw her was in the dead of winter--she was lying in the park, her leg was broken and bleeding and she was shivering in the snow. I gave her some turkey which she ate quickly. I went back to my apartment and started crying. Something about a wounded animal can be more affecting to me than wounded people.

I was thinking of taking her in, but then she disappeared again. I figured she had died for real and I felt terrible that I hadn’t taken her in immediately. I was worried about the responsibility, the expense, if the dog could be diseased. A couple of days later I saw her in the park again with a bright red cast on her leg, as if she had been resurrected. A woman had taken her to the vet. She couldn’t take the dog permanently and so I offered to take her. When I brought her back to my apartment, she screamed and howled and clawed at the window, trying to get back to the street that had almost killed her.

Vets suck miserably. I took the dog to a vet who said, smiling, "Let’s bring in Dr.____, she’ll get a kick out of this." Could you imagine a doctor saying this about a wounded child? He then told me I should put her to sleep. She had a massive hematoma on her stomach which could burst at any moment, killing her. I decided to pay for surgery. When I picked her up after surgery, she screeched and howled in fear. "Is she OK?" someone asked in the elevator. "She’s a stray," I answered, overwhelmed. She was shaved on her stomach where they had performed the operation, and her neck where they needed to monitor her heart. She looked bad and she was in pain from the operation.



Pretty valiant of me, I like to admit. Carrying the dog up and down the stairs, giving her medication and vitamins. Taking her to her favorite place, Seward Park. I named her Sew (a dog named Sue) short for her home. Soon, people would be stopping on the street. Everyone knew her--she was a local celebrity. She had many names: homeless people called her Bell after the church bell at the church parking lot where she sometimes lived--the reason that I had been seeing more of her was that she had been displaced from her parking-lot home because they’d started erecting a luxury apartment building in the lot. Many people called her Blackie. Chinese restaurant owners called her Lily. Others called her Lady.

I befriended some homeless people--a guy named Smiley, who had around four teeth and sold crap on the sidewalk. He said he owned her for four years. A lot of former drug addicts hung out in the park--a guy named Ito, like the O.J. judge, who told me Sew would chase away the rats when they slept in the park. A church worker told me that Sew would walk the nuns from the parking lot to the church doors, and back again, every day. A retired cop named Louie said he would always bring the leftovers of holiday meals to the parking lot. A Puerto Rican man told me about taking her in and giving her a bath every once in a while--he took care of her when I went on vacation. An old gay jogger brought her beef hearts once a week which Sew would throw up soon after, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him because it made him so happy. One woman told me she thought Sew had been a Buddha in a former life. They were all happy I’d finally given Sew a home.

She was a very special dog. She had an incredible warmth and serenity and she had lived a harder life than most people have ever known. She was probably around 17 when I took her in. I can’t imagine the things she had been through. She’s the only dog I’ve known who actually purred when you pet her. She had the greatest smile, and crazy gray hair all over her face, coming out of her ears, on her stomach, everywhere--she looked wise.

My girlfriend and I eventually moved south to Wilmington, NC and Sew was able to have a real retirement. Good weather, a porch, a backyard, and we took her to the local park which was a heaven compared to Seward Park. She had a good, warm last three years. My girlfriend got pregnant soon after we moved to Wilmington. We got married three months after our daughter was born, and that same weekend Sew began to die. Her legs gave out and she refused to eat. It was like she was waiting for me to find some stability of my own, and then she was done. We had her put to sleep, crying mightily. We went to her favorite park and had a ceremonial funeral, releasing the fur from her brush. A flock of geese flew by, squawking, and that felt very meaningful.

I always had said that taking care of Sew was good practice if I ever had a child--joking, of course, because I never thought it would happen. "You’re going to be blessed," many, many people told me when I walked her around Seward Park. Yeah, yeah, I thought. After my daughter was born--beautiful, smart, and healthy--I thought about all those well wishes in NY.

A very long entry, but Sew deserves it.

Annoying Moment #3

I once played drums in a band that played sixties-pop type songs. The songwriter saw me play drums in another band and asked me to play in his band, which was flattering. We once toured through the South, including a stop in Panama City, Florida, home of MTV Spring Break. Four hard-up guys, surrounded by drunk, screaming, unfriendly frat-girls. Thousands of rugby shirts. We played a show in one room to ten people while hoards of people watched a Stone Temple Pilots cover band in the other room. That’s actually an annoying moment but not the one I’m writing about. In a crowded elevator going up to our practice space, the songwriter told me, "Usually I can read books very quickly, but reading your novel was like walking through molasses." The other people on the elevator--strangers--looked embarrassed. That was annoying.

John Coltrane

Abomination

When I was watching football last weekend, I saw an advertisement for this hideous thing. I actually yelled out in horror when it came on screen. "Fried egg, crisp bacon, hash brown nuggets, cheese, ketchup and a charbroiled all-beef patty on a sesame-seed bun." I’ve wondered when they would manage to make a sandwich that would incorporate both a cow and a chicken. Every major meat group is represented. It almost seems like a joke, or a test to see just how much Americans will consume. It’s the most sloppily American thing I have ever seen.

Speaking of meat, the Jets won a very cool game and the Mets got Carlos Beltran. I am a happy transplanted NY sports fan. I am a red-blooded American male, but there should be protests against the Breakfast Burger.

Links

It doesn’t exactly need mentioning, but I changed the layout of my links. The list was getting way too long. For some people, I didn’t know whether or not to put them as "Writers" or "Blogs." All bloggers are writers to some extent, and a lot of bloggers write other stuff on the side. You don’t need a published book to be a writer. It’s mostly about how people see themselves, and I don’t know how all those bloggers define themselves. I’m probably being too careful. Let me know if any of this makes you want to kill me.

Demons by John Shirley

I dug this book. Somewhere between The Da Vinci Code and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum (look at me, I figured out how to underline.) The Da Vinci Code is too simplistic while Foucault’s Pendulum is far too academic, even encyclopedic. But I love secret society, spirituality, truth-seeking books. One review called it a mini-masterpiece and I agree with it. Gave me nightmares. Humanity is pretty damned demonic so the cartoonish depiction of demons is not really all that more outlandish than how humans treat each other.

The book is split into two separate novellas, written at different times. I admit that I didn’t finish the second novella. I found myself not liking it and checked the Amazon reviews. Most people said it was tedious compared to the first novella. There’s enough to read without trudging through something. The first novella is worth the price of admission. I linked to John Shirley’s blog on the right to keep tabs on him.

I wrote to John Shirley once, in regards to my other blog, TABOTD. I’ve pretty much abandoned that blog for the time being. I’ve started writing the novel from the beginning. I haven’t thrown anything out, but what’s there is a skeleton. Shirley wrote back a curt reply, "I don’t believe in UFOs," which seemed like a dickhead reply from someone who writes science fiction laced books. He is a good writer, I’ll give him that. I got some pretty cool responses about that blog. Charles Tart, Paul Krassner, and Douglas Rushkoff all wrote back.

I also got David Mitchell’s Number 9 Dream out of the library. I don’t know how far I’m going to make it with this one. It seems like another one of those novels that writes around its subject rather than writing directly. It seems over my head when I want it to be in my head. On page 9 came this sentence: "I act a young man driven by flattery failure into digging a deeper pit." What? Is there a word missing? That’s when I put the novel down. I’m probably not trying hard enough. I checked the reviews on Amazon again and most people said that they loved Mitchell’s writing but couldn’t get through this one. I’m not done with Mitchell by any means. I’d like to try Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten.

After that I picked up Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. It’s kind of too simplistic in the other direction, but it’s readable. What is it about mainstream, supermarket-type novels that they seem to flow like water and you forget that you’re reading? That’s not always a good thing. I have the same experience with weightier mainstream books like Richard Price’s Freedomland. I’d like to read something by Gaiman so I might just finish this one.

Homophobia

I must be a homophobe. As if racial controversy weren’t enough, here comes something else. James from Hot Blog and Relish asked me to put a banner on my site for Love and Protect Life Week with two men sharing a condom. My first reaction was to not want to do it. One, it’s not my style to advertise my support of certain things by wearing ribbons, putting bumper stickers on my car and the like. It feels somewhat related to wearing a brand name like Tommy Hilfiger or Gap emblazoned across your chest--thinking you can be represented by a slogan like "I’m pro-choice and I vote." There’s that great moment from the "Crumb" documentary where R. Crumb is walking around San Francisco and says, "People have become walking advertisements." For some reason, that’s stayed with me most from that movie.

I also was struck with a feeling that homosexuality might creep me out a little bit, somewhere deep that I still can’t avoid. I get uncomfortable when I see two men kissing out in public. But then I thought, I also get uncomfortable when I see a man and a woman kissing in public. It depends how they’re kissing--if it seems like they’re showing off, I get annoyed. Maybe gay men and women are more defensive and self-conscious so it seems like they are parading themselves a bit more. More likely, they are living their lives normally and this has everything to do with my perception. Maybe it’s because gay men tend to find me attractive--I’ve got a boyish thing and look younger than I should--and I’ve been hit on in uncomfortable ways in the past. But then, there’s just as many gay men who find me unattractive and like very masculine men. I have wondered that it must be difficult to maintain a relationship with two men. It’s hard enough maintaining a relationship with one man in a relationship, but men are more aggressive on the whole and two men must lead to some pretty hard fights…

Then I thought I was responding to the anti-gay zeitgeist in America. I have nothing against homosexuality whatsoever. They should get married and have all the rights of anybody else. I remember Dennis Kucinich being asked in a debate, "Should gay people be allowed to marry?" And he answered, quickly, "Of course," with a look of disdain, as if it were obvious--as it should be for every politician. We’re living in the dark ages where gay rights are concerned. Still, it is hard to not feel some pull from the collective will of an entire country. Something that has built up over my 32 years. I have not had many gay friends in my life. But that’s not saying much: I have not had that many friends. More often, I have had omnisexual friends.

Sounds like I’m trying to drum up controversy here, but James sent me an email just as the racial discussion was going on in the "Jung Country" post. This might seem like a lot of bullshit build-up, but no one’s going to argue that I don’t overthink things. Of course, AIDS is a worthy cause and I shouldn’t have hesitated. Happy Love and Protect Life Week :

Blog of the Day

Thanks to Arthur Coddington and the Blog of the Day folks. Crazy to see myself on my Yahoo homepage. All the new people let me know if you like it or hate it here. I’m asking for it.

Jung Country

(via Posthuman Blues)

This man writes so I don’t have to. A Jungian analysis of George Bush by Paul Levy. There is something beyond normal bad about George Bush. He represents a general human spiritual and intellectual crisis, best typified by American aggression and basic stupidity. Anyway, let the man talk. From his very long article:

"One good thing I can say about President Bush is that he's gotten me interested in politics. Before he came to office, I was mainly interested in spiritual matters, and considered politics a 'distraction.' There was something playing out through George W. Bush as president, though, that not only caught my attention but strongly triggered something in me. In his campaign he promised us a foreign policy with humility, yet his actions seemed so arrogant, so full of hubris. I sensed a deep underlying incongruity, as if some unfinished psychological process was unconsciously enacting itself through him…The truth now needs to be uttered. George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It’s an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it’s an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially hard to diagnose…In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist in isolation. We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Wolfowitz, etc), as well as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the media that they control, the voters that support them, and ourselves as well, as interconnected parts of a whole system, or a 'field.' Instead of relating to any part of this field as an isolated entity, it’s important to contemplate the entire interdependent field as the 'medium' though which malignant egophrenia manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs to be contemplated as such. Bush's sickness is our own."

Antiques Roadshow

Watched some of "Antiques Roadshow" last night. It was a greatest hits show where they showed the most valuable antiques. Everything was worth over $100,000. I used to like this show a lot more before I was struck with a form of dirt poverty. If not poverty, then hitting .500 every month. Good for baseball, bad for recreation. Now it’s sort of insulting to see a spoon that’s worth $300,000. It’s nice to see that people appreciate old, well-crafted things, but a spoon shouldn’t be worth more than my life. I admit that I always wish for a big pay-off: I’m American, and I’m slightly disappointed when the number’s low.

But hell, I’m a Communist (in theory). A rug worth $500,000? It’s fine if you want to put it in a museum, but almighty there are people suffering right now and overvaluing a rug seems primitively trivial. In Thailand/Indonesia the problem isn’t about the number of dead, but the number of survivors, people who have lost family. Now children are being raped and sold into slavery from refugee camps. Terrible, incomprehensible, fuck. For those America haters out there, Hitler wasn’t American, Pol Pot wasn’t American. Iraq sucks but it doesn’t actually compare to some of the things that have happened on this planet. Which isn’t a lesson in moral relativity--if it’s not AS bad, it doesn’t matter. Just to suggest that America’s getting most of the blame now, but abuse is not an American problem, it’s a human problem. That’s a pretty patriotic sentiment from someone who thinks America actually is the problem. We are a rich country, we could do a lot more than we are with our money. We have a lot more $300,000 spoons.

On a lighter note, in Paris I used to watch the British version of "Antiques Roadshow," as well as the British version of the show "Trading Spaces." Kids would have their rooms redesigned and call it, "Brilliant." You have to trust a child who says "Brilliant." I also watched a show called "Ready, Steady, Cook" where two cooks are given household food like a can of tuna fish, a potato, and a bottle of ketchup and they compete to make a gourmet meal out of it. I loved that show. They should bring it here. I love watching anything made from scratch. I’ve watched a lot of "This Old House" and cooking shows in my life. Not speaking the language in Paris, I was grateful to hear some English. This led me to watching some very bad American shows. I thought these were shows that were too terrible to make it in the States and so were being given a second life in Europe. I was very surprised when I came back to find that "Ally McBeal" was actually popular.

Block

This picture used to be on my desktop because I believe in things. UFOs are real, Goddammit. Or as it said on a Minutemen record, "Dreams are real, motherfucker." Maybe that was a Black Flag record. Either way, it was Raymond Pettibon. Last night my daughter picked up an old Black Flag "My War" tape saying "Ringo, Ringo, Ringo," about the little Hitler character with a knife, if you know it. Here it is:



She probably shouldn’t be playing with little Hitler characters. Nice that she has a crush on Ringo Starr.

Anyway, I got nothing. Nothing to write about. No subject. I could write some movie reviews but I don’t wanna. State of the world. No. New Year beginning slowly…All right, I wrote some sentences, I feel better.

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