TheCantinaburyTales

The Color Behind My Eyelids

2006-01-04T06:37:00.000-08:00

Last night as I slowly spiralled downward into the bliss that was sleep, the intermittent death rattle of my girlfriend disturbed a revelation that I was experiencing in that state just before sleep that every idea I ever have seems like genius. I remember once in this half awake state I knew that I was on to something that involved ice cream that would not only bring great wealth to its creator, but would make a little peace on Earth for anyone who partook of it's wonderfulness. I can't exactly remember the brilliant algorithmic visions that I was having last night but it involved these geometric figures that corresponded to people. I will use myself as an example, I correspond to the shape of a square... wait, too easy, ok, I am a rhomboid, and within this polygon that represents me is everything that I need in day to day life and it is also like my symbol, this is my rhomboid, there are many like it but this one is mine. One's polygon was all at once a plaything, an expression of identity, and finally a personal revelation that continued to evolve with us on a day to day basis and shows something else new about ourselves every day. What shape are you?

THE MIGHTY WEATHER MACHINE

2006-01-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the last week stuck inside of the house. My "partner" wanted to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium oh so bad so we had to go. I was losing a lot of sleep hearing her complain about it so for a fortnight of peace I was ready to schedule a trip into the deep Congo if it would have made her shut up for a few minutes about anything. The trip was nothing really to talk about except for the notable dearth of quality radio broadcast programming throughout the entire coastal region of the state, save San Francisco, which must be populated by a collection of aging hipsters and hold outs from the 70's, soul warriors who haven't bothered to listen to any new R & B since the early 80's. Can you dig it? I certainly can, new R & B sucks. Oh and a bunch of wannabe indie punk rebels who don't really have a war or anything to rebel against. what is so fucking punk rock about an ipod anyways? Everyone has them, even the chief's of the headhunter tribes in indonesia have them. It's more of a universal now, not so punk anymore, is it art punk? Anyhow, back at the aquarium, a bunch of old people slightly younger than my parents and about 10 years older than me, a sort of lost generation who are breeding like sewer rats now were there complete with their offspring in tow, and one of the little beasts infected me with one of the most miserable flu's of the season. So for the last week I have slowly filled the shower drain with an ever hardening ball of sputum that I will most likely have to clean out whenever I can get my "partner" well enough so that she can shed about five pounds of hair into the drain and then blame it on me. When is my XBOX 360 coming anyways! happy new year. Oh, The MIGHTY WEATHER MACHINE, I guess my dad was right when he said that the Terrorist's have managed to create a weather machine that they are using to aim this succession of naturally disatsrous disasters at our shores, first Katrina now this fucking torrent threatens to bear me off to sea while I sleep like I was little nemo or something, sailing out on a somnombulistic wave generated by terrorists into a happy realm populated by sea horses made of cinnamon and fairies that crap out powdered sugar. Variables, OUT!

The canterbury tales

2005-12-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

Now I am regretting ever having made contact with that must old document known as the Canterbury Tales. In a lot of ways it is useful to me though, much in the same way that medicine can be a relief, this class is very much the same way. Hasn't really done oodles for my grammar but that isn't the kind of class that it is. I wish that the whole class would go get swived for all I care. I am so glad that Gamestop is getting huge losses this quarter. I detest the entire institution of the specialty store. There was a time when you could go into EB Games and return anything, new or used within 14 days for a full refund. This was sort of at the time that cd burners were coming into the social consciousness out of the periphery and began to be more accesible to the commoners. I guess this might have led to a change in their policy. In a way I must bear some of the responsibility, on a grass roots level for their disastrous policy change. I understand that businesses are all about bottom lines but I don't have much to be nostalgic about and the fact is that Fry's sells new releases for up to 20-30% off within the first two weeks of release. I can't really understand then why anyone would shop at one of those crapholes unless it is the only place that one can find people that one identifies with on some instinctual level. I never found that to be the case at my local EB games. Seemed like it was filled with disinterested teenagers or aging gamers who wanted to tell me about what games they are playing with their wives. Bastards, pathetic really, I wonder how they managed to convince their women to play games with them...

Hurtling into the void

2005-09-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Each day as I walk down the street thoughts of insecurity about the future, my own and that of the "world" come to me. Mostly I wonder what the world will be like when I am ready to begin withdrawing my slice from its once fertile, now less fertile loins. Then there is a hurricane and I wonder if what I have around me and over me are enough for anyone and I am defying god's order when I think about myself all the time everday. This is our original sin. Our lusts and desires. What can I do against it. When in fact I don't believe at all in that sort of thing. God is dead, god is a dj. Whatever your god is I hope that he is kind to you and doesn't give you the uncertainty and doubt that my godlessness has inflicted on me.

the question

2005-06-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

its the thing you see with your eyes
the words on your lips
its in the actions people do
a wave of simultaneousnous
even at odds both parties
pursue the same agenda
against each other or the state
like apes in a cage
the sensation ripples through us
waves of concurring intent
the state does what it can
order runs outside its lines
blood falls and its enraging
even as we tear each other
the reason lies behind the eyes
in my eyes you see it
and i in yours
each of us squeezing it out
no answers are pulped out
the eyes dull and the idea dies
sounds can't capture it
hands can't grasp it
mouths can't devour it
communicated through touch
formed by our union
our mingling describes it for a moment
the subltleties are revealed
bodies writhing in colored sounds
we give each other meaning
human touch

desire

2005-06-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

the buddha knew something when he said that desire is the root of everything that causes pain. not to have the drugs the women or the fame. these are all at the root of my pain. damn that american dream for making believe that these things were my birthright and to not have them is the denial of that inaliable right that i was born with. the rage that this causes me is indescribable, yet ironic because none of those things are what i really need. what i need is so elusive that no matter how many items i purchase i can never seem to find the right product to fill that need and no matter what i smoke i haven't found the essence of that elusive something that will at last put an end to searching. what is it, what is its name and where is it to be found. surely not in the farthest reaches of the southern pacific because i looked there and certainly not in the cradle of life because i was close to that rich nexus of life that vagina where the tigris and euphrates gurgle out the stuff of life. i am almost certain that what i am looking for is not in the old world because a friend of mine recently returned from their and he reported that all there was to be found was herpes. so indeed this certain something which everyone apparently has can't be found in the stuff that makes us and the earth. it has no atomic weight or no order of molecules to be assembled to give it substance. nor can any thing be dissolved into a solution to yield the stuff. Goddamit just give me the peace, not even 5 million from the death of a loved one in the most horrific terrorist act can bear this elusive fruit. a cure, a remedy give me peace in pieces is fine.

Insufficiency

2005-06-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

i read and i watch what is going on on the media here in the USA and i have to wonder if the conspiracies are true. Not given to irrational fears about a government i served honorably for six years, i have begun to realize that something is afoot that i can't see from the grass roots that i inhabit. obviously there is a bigger picture that is forcing certain bodies to move in certain directions in relation to the trajectory of our country that are summed up more concisely elsewhere. instead i think of the responsibility that i bear when i inform myself and essentially become witness to the surrealistic skirmishes and insurgencies around the globe. i tell myself that there is nothing i can do just yet but that if i get my education i will then be able to effect some small change or perhaps a greater one. inside me when i look around at the people who walk around on the streets without homes or food and i see the defeat in their eyes, defeat that is registered by the rest of us and disdained in regard to our own comfort.

in order to continue to get up and go about my business i tell myself a fairy tale that these things will resolve themselves and that i shouldn't worry and to continue to pursue my slice of american pie. still as i walk to my apartment i see the eyes and i feel guilty for having the things i have while these have nots wait outside in the melancholy downpour. i used to think that injustice was when innocent people were held accountable for a crime they didn't commit. more and more i consider injustice something that is committed everyday by myself and the people who go roaring by in SUV's as i open my car door.

equality of opportunity, yet this isn't quite true either when you consider a child who is born into a home with both parents and enough disposable income to populate that home with every sort of flat-screened, hi-definition, posi-tractioning sort of convenience. The children play soccer on sundays and the parents take cruises during the winter months to remote tropical locations that gladly displace indigenous populations to make way for the tailor made memories that reality tv is made of.

then i see the opportunity of the child who never knows his father and lives in an area of town where drugs and money change hands in a never ending handshake where the hands change but the outcome remains the same. inside of their one bedroom apartment which is furnished in hectic motley of color, the mother waits impatiently chewing alternately on fingernails and cigarette butts wondering whether or not she will be able to sneak out later to see her boyfriend who is married to another woman. you can hear a woman banging on the wall as if to tear it down. she doesn't really know why she does it she only knows that when she takes her pills it makes her live in a hazy facsimile of reality that is attenuated and drained of color. on the other side lives the couple that from all appearances should part company as soon as possible. sometimes the child can hear the voices rise in a crescendo of garbled fury sometimes followed by the sounds of a body hitting a wall or dishes breaking themselves against the walls of the apartment.

this is the slow burn that the underprivileged simmer on. a type of equality that is composed of opportunity to remain in a social stasis. the lottery tickets stack up in a mounting pile of frustration and misplaced hope. we drink the insipid placebos that are broadcast and around the country heads nod when they see justice meeted out in a courtroom that is only just because it is arranged to be that way. the real courts are not so swift nor are they so certain of the judgements that are reached. i can't claim any knowledge of the cases that have passed before any court this year, yet i can recall disctinctly that a certain white man who was once a black man is being tried for the crimes he committed. i know intimately the girlfriends side of the story in the case of the man who murdered his wife yet i know next to nothing about the judgements passed when ceo's are caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

i want to perceive beyond the filtered kaleidescope of images that are deemed appropriate for my consumption. i want to know why hundreds of millions are shot into space riding on giant rockets destined for planets that so far are orbiting with little commotion due to their distinct lack of human life.

i am chaff

2005-06-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Once a long time ago if you can imagine it i was a person who considered themselves clearly earmarked by the powers that be to be a particularly brilliant piece of animated carbon clinging to the back of a blue green planet of mostly water like a tick. Charming i know, anyhow i was certain that somehow someday my destiny would find me and if it hadn't yet it must have surely lost its way at that left turn for albequerque or just missed me during one of my agonizing late night burrito cravings. needless to say little of the above has changed, i still cling to the earth like the ungrateful parasite that i am, tenacious in my lassitudinous attitude towards the circle of life or evolution or whatever you want to call what we humans strive for. I got no small amount of pleasure out of tormenting my dad today which shows you that you can honor your parents with more than good behavior and still be richly rewarded for the pains you take with them to make them. Destiny if you are out there reading this i promise the next time you come knocking i will stave off any late night cravings and dutifully await.

The Big Picture

2005-05-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

In our American society i think that we take everything we get as sort of our cultural inheritance. We deny ourselves nothing because we as americans deserve the best. or so we tell ourselves. I feel a cold fury when i look at what our priorities are as a nation and i can't help but feel a tiny twinge of self loathing when, just as i am furiously typing in my favorite american idols numbers into my text messaging, picture taking, female breast appraising, bread-slicing and egg beating mobile phone, i happen upon a page in the NY times:

http://nytimes.com/2005/05/05/international/africa/05togo.html

there are a million soundbites that would fit perfectly in at the end to promote just what a free thinker i am but nothing really can be said that would distract from the horrible truth. we like to think we can pick our battles but sometimes the grotesqueness seems to cry out to us and we must answer what our little power animal in side tells us to do. my power animal whispers to me that this sort of horror is occurring all around me at all times. see me through this dark night oh mighty power animal capybarra.

7 precious ingredients

2005-05-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

I have been harboring a secret desire in my heart, the desire for the 7 precious ingredients contained in the eponymous 7 precious ingredients entree at your local noodle chop house. That magic sauce I'm seeking is the kind that pours out of the mind, through the pen and becomes what everyone wanted to say but didn't have the words to say it. To the governator, his seven precious ingredients are all of those that don't expose him for the fakinator and ineffectualinator that has made his term into a mockery of the governorship. yet who is really to be held responsible when we were the ones who put him there? lots of questions but im searching for the answers my doves, my lovelies.