Memories of Class

So I'm at this party last night with the rich girl I’ve been seeing. You know, one of those girls into constant mawkish cigarette smoke, spilled gin and fast meaningless sex.

Cue the fake mildly self-deprecating titter favoured by the bourgeoisie. Maybe, it is better to keep silent, I think. My disconformity embarrasses me. She doesn’t seem to mind. But then again she may not even know I’m here. She is having a deep conversation with a not-especially-intelligent, ex-dropout 23 year old California Boy who just graduated law school, and I’m feeling inadequate, and the increasing rapidity of their multisyllabic words is frightening.

Obstreperous. That’s a big word. No average middle class comic/blogger should know that one.

“Oh hi! Yes good evening.”

“youre that masked guy!”

“I am.”

“i like your comic,” cough.

He reminded me of one of those Bill Nye the Science Guy loving overachieving wunderacne kids from high school.

I shift through the disorienting room of nice clothes and relentless boasting to find myself in an empty doorframe. Suddenly very tired, left entirely alone, I lean against the door of sleep and look upwards, a noble gothic column scrolls itself up to the ceiling through a tangled web of mystical crosier trellises and rich marble scepters, all man-made forms meant to mimic the world of plants. A shaft of Rococo severity that pierces into a flamboyant gold dome, wrought with delicate iconography and mystically glowing Renaissance chandeliers. An endless sea of fading lights and aural vacuums. The synergy from the two opposing forces of light and sound create a third hybrid hyper-reality that…

“Oh hello. I have been busy.”

"Between the mock trial, grades, and living in sin, me too! PRESSURE PRESSURE STRESS! You know?"

"I do know."

She reminded me of one of those droning, reserved, motherly girls back in high school.

This bitter night cocktail is miles away from satisfying. Classically pitched words churning uproariously under this chandelier of stars. Oblivious and decadent, they make me long for days when I didn’t have to live a life defined by my actions.

Back when I was 18 and dumb. Some sort of wannabe jazzpunk dork with a droney voice and plenty of misdirected straightforward energy. I was all about the girls. Schoolwork typically got buried in the shuffle.

Back when the girls weren’t all tiptoeing taut waspy aristocrats in cocktail dresses and diamond slippers, but raggedy teenage exuberent teatering theatrical indie messes.

Back when I had a thing for somebody in my class. Literally. She was in my grade. She was in drama with me. And I would occasionally stare at her while she was at lunch, or with her friends before school. Sometimes I would change my path to class just so I could pass by her in the hallway. Her hair was always tied back in a ponytail, and she had this very angelic-like uncliche face.

Those were the days when I was free. I was uninhibited. I could do anything. Anything in the world. Except talk to her.

“Huh?”

"i asked if you’re ready to go.”

“Yes, I am ready to go." I was ready to go a long time ago.

Photo Caption Game-a-ganza

Leave a caption for this...

...and all will be well with the world

... and you will be on my good graces

... and you win a chance at the grand prize!

-D'M'dM

Talking with the Lost

“One night at the Cedar, O'Hara became
more and more incensed at the injustice.
Finally he said to Kenneth Koch,
'Kenneth, we've got to do something.
He's a great poet and the Russians aren't
going to let him accept the prize.
I think we should send him a cable.."
-Brad Gooch, Frank O'Hara; City Poet

SO THERE I AM, GETTING PROGRESSIVELY overwhelmed in the $3 bus to Marin, chatting with a man with no lips and the hands of a baby, who's insisting on telling me about his escapades in the city even though I really don't want to be talking to him. And he tells me it costs twenty dollars to see a pornographic movie in San Francisco.

"IT COSTS TWENTY DOLLARS TO SEE A PORNOGRAPHIC MOVIE IN SAN FRANCISCO!" he hollers at me, sitting right next to him. I whisper "yes, yes,” hoping he will lower his voice. This bus is full of old women and young South American looking school children who I'm not particularly keen on drawing the attention of as 'The Guy Who Is Sitting With The Letch' dangerous gambit, this hush-up-his-lonely-dissertation maneuver. It could misfire seriously. I try a sort of last-ditch effort to focus on the weather. "Doesn't look like the fog is going anywhere," I comment, never pealing my eyes away from the clouds ghosting around the Bay outside my window. "Hopefully it'll be gone once we get to Petaluma. You might think they would have different pornography magazines in the city than they do back at home but they're all the same. Taboo and Hustler. That guy Larry Flynt prints both of 'em. Ha Ha Ha."

He does not understand that I might not care. But now I've done it, I have to feign interest and comprehension as he fires off more inappropriate topics in never a more inappropriate place. This guy won't shut up.

"So it costs 20 bucks for a movie at the video store?" I ask him, relenting to the inevitable.

"No. No not the video store, at the pornography theatre on Turk. MY FRIEND TOLD ME I SHOULD CHECK FOR PORNOGRAPHY ON TURK STREET. But they charged TWENTY DOLLARS just to sit and watch one of their pornographic movies! And they keep them locked back on a shelf so once you pick the one you want to watch they have to go get the key. They make you wait while they go get the key to unlock the shelf. TWENTY DOLLARS! I couldn't believe it!"

"Everybody’s got to make ends meet." I grumble, looking around to make sure no one hears me. He laughs. Any differences between us are completely blotted out in his mind. He's having a serious conversation with me and I am an understanding and involved participant. Perhaps I've misjudged this situation. It's not about me at all. It's about this lonely lipless old man from Petaluma. I wish I could write this man down. Record him for future uncaring participants to stare at even while I look the other direction, repulsed by his lecherous laugh, his effeminate mannerisms, his tiny dotted eyes, his babysoft hands and his cracked lipless mouth.

"That Larry Flynt used to really do some work on The Man back in the 80s. He exposed how George Bush Senior had a roll in the Kennedy assassination, and showed his ties to the C.I.A. and fascist mideast oil cartels. Now his son’s in office so all that Fourth Reich stuff seems pretty right-on.”

“But nobody ever read it.”

"Only the guys buying into nudie girls."

We are not bound to porn, see? We can talk politics. Publishing rights. When he sat down he told me about Bridgestone Tires exploding at the the Indy 500. He told me about the Carnaval in the city. The Bay Area's treacherous weather. This might be alright. Maybe I can talk to him like a civilized human being, I think. Then that's when he puts his hand on my leg.

It's pink baby moisturized skin in stark contrast to the white chalky flesh caking dryly around his wide yellow-toothed and lipless mouth.

"WHERE ARE YOU HEADED TO, SON?" he asks me.

"Uh," I stammer, "Mill Valley."

"Then this is your stop," he says helpfully. "It’s been real nice talking to you."

SO I GET OFF THE BUS, FINALLY Free of the old letch with no lips and a volume control problem. I sigh a deep breath of relief. I guess he wasn't so bad after all, but he made me uncomfortable. I am glad to be off the bus. But as soon as we get ourselves out of one tight situation we find ourselves wedged firmly within the confines of another.

Namely: Where the hell am I?

“Is there anybody going to listen to my story?"
-The Beatles

GWB & Co., Village Vanguard Paint Supply

A thought crystallizes in my head at that moment:

Any profession, any occupation is merely a series of decisions. Educated or not.

Competence only rests on an understanding of the Events at hand.

And in that vein, our president is similar to any no-name Soho avant-garde artist ever.
To create a great work of art you let yourself go.
Surrender to your muse.
"You just go on your nerve"

Just like our President.
The Decider in chief.
"The Truthiness of those Facts was derivatory."
We're fighting Terrorism until we win. 'Cus it's the right thing to do.

He's just an artist. Just a guy making decisions.
It doesn't matter if they're the right decisions.
They're his. His job is to create.

Did we need to invade Iraq?
"Posterirty will be the judge of that."

Is that painting any good?
"Time will tell."

-Dmm

Drag

Shoulda finished to college.

I was not a diligent Student.

But back when I was grappling with studies and almost dead, I was happy.

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of my MBA-attaining peers the footsteps that were next to me have gone their separate ways and I've seen enough to know that beautiful things don't always stay that beautiful. I've done enough now to know this beautiful place isn't everything they say it is and sometimes evil comes disguised as cities in California where you go to escape your life but find yourself farther and farther from the light.

... damnit.

I have many good traits.

i'm unique... just like everyone else

i'm intelligent. i have book and street smarts.

I’m inenergetic and sardonic and dilatory and languid and---

Actually these are not good things.

Caught in a dizzying array of thoughts--

A broad rainbow column of confusing ideas.

Should I go back? Should I try it again. This life is not the life I want to lead. But when I was in college I was miserable, too.

Realized how far I have come. I’ve become more confident, can express how I feel about the relationships I have. Can analyze and think about my emotional state in a productive way. It's encouraging. Realize I have a lot more work to do, but feel I can handle it. Feel ready for the challenge.

But unbidden I remain a sloth.

I could probably spend the rest of my life surfing through Youtube, restin’ on m' laurels...

So it's good that I have a place to work. A place where a byzantine set of documents procedures and guidelines set forth hugely complex chains of triviality. Where boring useless hierarchies and bureaucracies essentially use me to waste time, money, and other people's resources.

After "work" today went to the gym where I grunted around heavy objects for a while, listening to old Material Issue songs that I hadn't heard in years. There is nothing like doing stomach crunches, holding a 30 pound weight and listening to dense, rich, manic powerpop. It reminded me of happier days when I would go to the good gym at school, in Maxwell Hall. Rockin’ out to Jimmy Eat World and Good Charlotte… I faithfully went to that gym for months. Wonderful, blissful, and all-too-short months.

Stay in school forever.
Take a masters degree. Hell get a PhD in something. Anything!

“I Don't Wanna Workology"

Whatever it takes.

-DMM

Perfection Eludes

• I have loved a statuesque girl with thoroughbred blood.  She dribbled French into her sentences like a salad dressing
  
• I have loved a girl who I dreaded like the April Rain, because she was the rain and she came down hard and constant.   Following her own razor sharp rules of love, and expecting me to swim or be swept away.
  
• I have loved a girl for days at a time and pendulously hated her in swirls of emotion that to this day I cannot readily explain.
  
• I have loved a girl who made me want to punch orphans.
  
• I have loved a girl who's only word to me was a whispered "Goodbye"
  
• I have loved a waifish green eyed girl poured into the smallest hottest clothes you've never seen. She had a calm demur, but I don't think those sharp eyes missed a detail, they were dangerous, intense.   I never saw a thing when she was near me, but she saw everything, in a momentary glance.
  
• I have loved  a girl who was a resovoir of  useless information.
  
• I have loved a cute younger girl who was stolen away from me by a cuter younger guy.  I didn't even fight for her.
  
• I have loved a girl who could only speak 3 consequetive words audibly.  Every fourth word was muted.
  
• I have loved a girl with the fullest breasts imaginable, and only loved her because of them.
  
• I have loved a girl I told myself I would not miss.  But I remembered what it felt like to lay beside her from the faint hint of female perspiration in the bedsheets we had shared, and I missed her in earnest.
  
• I have loved a cold, detached zombie of a girl in the day who became a savage inamorate ragelove at night.
  
• I have loved a chainsmoking girl.  Her kisses were xeronic.
  
• I have loved a brunette, a blonde, and a redhead... all in one girl.  That girl was a weirdly-retro new-age hair-dying spazz, but now she works in a church.
  
• I have loved the perfect perfect girl from across a crowded room, and lost her before I could even say hello.

Concerning the Historie and Nature of White Collar Communitae

We're apretty close-knit crew in America. This community of desktop webjunkies, all hurling ourselves out of boxed beds and into square cars on our way to cubical workstations. Over 60% of the American workforce is white collar jobs. By and by we're a pretty lackadaisical crew. You never really hear us publicly complain, sure we have our unions but when we don't get what we want we don't have and MLK to stand up for us or a Bob Dylan or Woody Guthrie to write ballads illuminating our plight.

No generally we grin and bear it. Laughing at our own small foibles and quietly, stoically content with this non-labor-intensive avenue, which winds itself toward the on-ramp for the American Dream.

We stand by our watercoolers, 180 million of us, discussing Paris Hilton's Buddhist Bald Beaver and Sanjaya's screeching songstylings. Reading Slate articles about Jewel and People Magazine articles about Keith Urban, feasting on Youtube’s regurgitated buffet items from our common cultural salad bar: 30-second clips from Happy Days, Music Videos by Crowded House, and all the 80s Saturday Morning Cartoon Shows you can imagine (and some you didn't want to).

We're a community, despite all that divides us. Culture, politics, class… The corporate hegemony of non-harassment mandates, dress code policies, and lawsuit liability prevention keep us in our place. Keep us on the same unlined-deskjet page. Our children go to the same schools, our wives watch the same how-to shows on HGTV, our husbands watch the same games on ESPN.

We bat back and forth the same messages, instantly, on IM. Coax our collective sentiments through forwarded Chain emails. Listen to the same Top40 radio stations, read the same newsfeeds, shop at the same outlet malls…

And yet we don't rally together do we? For all that we have in common, we're still driven by the principal of individual success rather than communal survival. Maybe.

I might be wrong. I'm still young. Just in case I am going to get a hot cup of tea and discuss it with the weirdos down the hall. They're just like me.

Das Macht Nichts

Derivation of the term "Weird" in original Old English context is actually translated as "fate"

think I've been eating and sleeping too much.
I must stop reading ghost stories before bed. If I need to close windows, blinds and doors and LEAP into bed in order to keep an imagined something from grabbing me, obviously I am unsettled.

But I Can’t Close the Window. See she told me that the ghost was Invited In, but they were too scared to ever complete the ritual to exorcize it, so it stuck around. It remained in the house, incarnating various forms, as insuperable ghosts are prone to do. Thus, I leave the window open, hoping he will find someplace else to go.

And the thing is, Ghosts Never Leave. I called home yesterday and my sister tells me:

“Mom and I were talking about you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, she decided that the reason you get depressed is because she had Fries and a Milkshake when she was pregnant with you that had gone bad.”

“Mom’s in tune with different kind of stuff than the rest of us.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“No seriously. You let even one possessed entity into your body and it’ll stick around until you find some way to get rid of it. Those bad fries could explain everything.”
...“Are you finished?”

“Haha, yes.”

In other news, it is very windy and I smell smoke. I don't want to sleep 'cause 1) yay ghosts! and 2) I'm half afraid that there's a fire and it will burn me to cinders before the smoke detector detects anything.

keep waking up at 5am because it's too cold to sleep with the window open, but I CAN’T close the window so I just get up and work. I go to bed around 1am. When I finally DO sleep, the ghost subverts all my dreams with his own hyper-realistic narrative branding, like a Caligari Nightmare. Casting his garish self as one kind of villainous adversary or another… like Fire, or Smoke.

Getting tangled in a web of nowhere near surreality and floating through a convulganisms of all sorts takes its toll. My poor head is burning up like a toaster oven and I know that there is no such thing is ghosts but then again that’s bullshit because I smell smoke and nothing is on fire, I checked. I checked twice, and ran rushing back to my bed both times because I don’t want something jumping out and grabbing me!

Must have been a dream that crossed over into my waking, walking & talking world. Or some sort of somnambulistic confabulation. WTF! This has been happening so much lately that I can only deduct that External Forces Are At Work. It would really scare me (it DOES, right before I go to sleep) Only right now, its really awesome. Haha, things end up not being real.

haha. damn it

So now I’ve got this tally started:
its like unreal 4
real 0

Kind of makes me nervous. And when I get nervous I eat. And when I eat too much I get tired.

I think I've been eating and sleeping too much lately.

Maybe I'll go read a ghost story or something, to keep myself awake.

antiacediaic affairs

It's time for DMM's exciting, adventurous, glamour-filled, down-home country, tax-deductible Blog for Friday. As you recall, last Friday boldly blazed new territory when I logged on for 5 minutes, checked my mail and got something to nibble on and drink...

Precendent set! The Bar is pretty high! Let's get to work.

This weekend my plan is to leave the house -- a valiant knight errant -- armed with nothing stronger than a black hooded suit of armor (by American Eagle) and a short lance of flame (by Camel) to thwart my foes. Dashing!

Saturdays=24 hour Waffle House so that's probably where I'll end up. There' were like 20 people at IHOP last week at 2AM so that should be a fun audience to practice my Electronic Juggling Yodeling Rodeo Act for. I yodel until I get hoarse and then juggle found objects (plates, glasses, chihuahuas) until I've extorted enough change to pay for a Mexican omelette I then eat.

That's right. No cheap tainted egg substitutes for this Masked Man. This is a man with gravitas.

After that who knows... as President Harding once said "The world is my goddamned oyster, so bring me a pearl sandwich."

Although I'm not sure I trust the veracity of the man who attributed that quote to him...

Now I'm going to go do something manly to counter the fact that the only content of this post is comprised of a few corporate product placements and an embarassing aside about my burgeoning yodel pastime.

Nice job this week team. We got a lot done. Have a grod weekend and don't do anything I would--

dmm_OUT

sTOP-sTART

i.e. Pioneers of the Right Alignment- And Three Poems along the way

“a pile of language, carefully disorganized
so as to obscure a lack of content.”
–Dr. Carolyn G. Guertin

Blame Sesame Street. Those 20 second spots that killed the attention span of three or four generations, before mainstream TV took over and put the nail in the coffin of words with more than 5 syllables or sentences longer than six words.

Refurbish/Molest

Nurture/Supress

Awaken/Get some Rest

Hold Quietude/Express

Make it compelling. This stop-start method of writing is not a reflection of my lack of understanding the concepts of writing. That is why my plans to be a College Student were foiled. Ephemeral columns of words, signs, signals. - A whole exotic language embossed with colors, each a personality, a distinct concept. All there to up the ante. To keep you engaged.

B7NG!

A stranger in these parts
A stranger in my parts
Apart, of thee Estranged
My Stranger, partner, strange
Stranger to my parts estranged
Strangers parted, stranger start
estranged these partners
strange to start
Parts in stranger, strange in parts

This can help restart. When the clutter chokes it’s best to strike back unprovoked. Sweep it under the carpet and resume anew. What better way to lose yourself than reading a piece full of more holes than a colander. Like leaves down a sewage gate.

Roaming Untrekked paths
A rest reveals ancient Stones
Carved: “No, not the first”

Maybe the holes lie in my excuses not my technique. Maybe the thematic color weaves are a distraction and the spastic alignment bursts are more disconcerting than helpful. Maybe I’ve lost you already. Aw hells.

...8, 9, 10, Begin Again...
As William Tell apocryphally said over some incestuous blood sausage and applesauce: "It was worth a shot."