Happy New Year. Stand on the neck of 2010 and throatpunch the future.

–WE

Like the title says, it’s another new year. And like the quote says, it’s time to build on our victories and poise ourselves for a surprise attack on whatever it is that lies ahead.

I’m typing this on my phone because I haven’t forked over a year of my life to the local telecom [yet]. It’s a sunny 73 degrees out. During a ride on my new [to me] bike, I confirmed that it is indeed gorgeous outside. I am sipping espresso as I sit in the camping chair that counts as a quarter of all of my furniture and confirm that life is good.

2010. In reverse order, I saw to my own departure from the place that I called home for most of my adult life; the completion of the zero draft of my second novel [and the first I feel good about]; large strides taken on my martial path [key to success: persistence!]; the roasting of a butterflied pig in my yard; the first job I had since February ’09; the disappearance of a cat that I regarded as my son; and some other stuff, good and bad.

Regardless of anything happened this past year and whether or not an event could be regarded as good or bad, they are all important because they have shaped who I am and how I am. They have also influenced how I look at the future and what I regard as priorities. Since last year, I have integrated some of my basic priorities – namely the ones that involve taking care of me and mine. But some of those priorities have shifted and still are in motion. One of those is this blog.

Started some years ago as a sort of public record or log or something or other, it has gradually fallen by the wayside. Not having home internet access may have contributed, but if I really felt the compulsive desire to update this blog more frequently, I would. Now, this departure is not due to some imagined trend regarding The Death of Blogging or some other nutty notion like that. Rather, it is a reflection of own shifts and the need to express myself in other ways. I will continue writing – the aforementioned novel needs some serious fucking work and I want to see P.H.A.I.L. in comic form. And I will continue to be out and about in the intertubes – I have that short-form thing elsewhere and there’s this other format I had previously dismissed but has started to intrigue me. If you want to know about this other stuff or anything else that comes along, leave a comment or let me know otherwise.

For now, though, I need to pull on my jackboots and slide on my brass knuckles – there’s a Past to put in its place and a Future that needs to know who’s got it by the short hairs.  

I didn’t like being on the end of this beating, but I figured that I had earned it. It had all started with a spilled beer and a few choice words. I’m not much for brawls with orangutans wearing leather vests and posing as men, but this trip was starting to wear on my nerves. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in six hours. I’d been crammed in the backset of Ford Fiesta from dawn to dusk. Then this beast had the gall to call me “a stinking hipster” after knocking my beer over. Birdy and Mary had suggested I let it go. But it was their inclination toward abandoning tough calls that got me in this situation, broken down outside of a gash-in-the-desert town somewhere in east Texas.
Between blows to the head by this animal’s mitts, I could see the two of them, sitting at the bar. Bam. Birdy finishes her beer. Bam. Some hick orders her another. Bam. Mary bums a smoke from some yokel watching the show. Crunch. The animal stops to light it for her.
Nothing like watching your comrades accept the kindness of strangers who trying to put you in traction. Whatever. If I had been wearing t-shirts as tight as theirs and torn denim skirts as short as theirs, I’d have this gaggle of inbred cow abusers buying me drinks too. Scratch that. They probably would have murdered me even before I stepped foot in the bar if I had been dressed like Birdy or Mary. A good ol’ fashioned stoning, something real Biblical. A murder for the sheriff to laugh about when he got off shift. And that would only happen if someone was too lazy to drive my corpse out to the wilderness, an offering to the coyotes and vultures and rabid deer.
Bam.
I had somehow made it to the floor. Fists turned to pointy-toed boots, dust caked in the leather creases. Who would put boots on an orangutan? More importantly, what sort of orangutan would allow boots to be placed on its feet?
I wasn’t mad at the beast. A bit jealous, perhaps. Clearly, he was better at brawling than I was. More of an immediate-action kind of man, as opposed to the cool, calculated detachment I had been cultivating since my youth. Can’t say I had much of a childhood, per se – the learning curve for this insidious game called Life had been pretty steep.
Between curt kicks to the ribs, I could make out Birdy and Mary whispering to each other, looking at the beast, and then giggling. I wasn’t really about to make out what they were saying – a persistent, high-pitched whine had been dominating my aural senses since I caught that first or second fist in the ear. But I could tell the beast was digging the attention. After each blow, he looked to the ladies for approval, grinning from ear to filthy ear whenever they giggled. He started to ratchet up the intensity of his strikes. A cowboy saving the helpless damsels from this mustached bandit in purple jeans. He started to get more careless, bending over to punch me while looking at the ladies. This was exactly the distraction that I needed.
A few well-placed fingers behind a clavicle, coupled with the correct amount of force, is enough to bring anyone to their knees. Too much force, and they collapse as the bone snaps. Example at hand: hero cowboy, laying on top of me, bawling. I struggled to get out from under him, hoisted myself to my feet, and leaned against the bar. I looked over to catch the last glimpse of Birdy, as she stormed out of the bar, through the swinging doors. Mary shook her head and handed me a beer. I nodded faintly in her direction and took a swig.
At this rate, I was never going to get them both in the sack, much less get my hands on that lockbox.

More updates will, of course, follow.

*I’ll take candles & typewriters off any reader’s hands.

In other thinking, comic book sales are strong, despite increased piracy. Could this be due to an increased readership or following the scanners’ plea at the end of pirated issues, “Like it, buy it”?

Either?

Fuck you. I want to shoot guns for fun, do push-ups until I feel my bacon dinner coming up, & play video games that possess the sole feature of ridiculous violence.

With that out of the way, back to the story:

The Front Page is basically a daily summary of the news, compressed to about seven or eight minutes. Included in the run down is what’s mostly featured on—you guessed it—the front page of the New York Times. There’s some national news, international disaster reporting news, some New York news, &c. The format is such that it’s long enough to get me up to speed on what I missed the day before, but short enough that I don’t have to sit down to listen to the whole thing. Being able to listen to it, either via the iTunes or on my phone, is a real treat.

That is, if James Barron is reading the news that morning.

The man’s voice makes the podcast compelling. It’s good if someone else is reading the news, but it is downright riveting if he gets behind the mic. I don’t know what it is about him, but when the producers started soliciting feedback on the Front Page, I felt that I should respond.*

*Not having a goddamn thing to do at work for eight hours also pushed me to use my words, lest I go insane smelling farts and listening to blathering about eating the cheese off pizzas.

To whom it may concern,

James Barron’s voice is a drug that I need to operate. Even caffeine
cannot replace what he brings to my ears. Without his reading of the
day’s headlines, the morning sky is dreary, the birds are silent, the
motorists on my cycling commute angrier. Part of me dreads the
weekends when I realize that my iTunes cannot bring me that booming
baritone.

The length of the program is perfect, long enough to tantalize me with
the goings-on of the previous 24 hours. I could do without the
occasional advertisement, but I understand the need to generate
revenue, especially at a time as tumultuous as this one (speaking to
both the transitions that print media must endure and the global
economy that is shaky at best).

Thank you for the service you provide. I look forward to many more
mornings waking up to the Front Page jingle and Mr Barron’s
transmissions.

Most sincerely,
[REDACTED, YOU NOSEY SIMPS]

I sent my note into the ether, expecting nothing at best or the cancellation of the podcast at worst. Instead, I got better than the best.

Nine days later…

When I’m having one of those days — when nothing’s going right and I need more than the usual amount of caffeine — I’ll re-read your e-mail. Thanks so much.
As for the commercials, yes, we need revenue. Your comments are a reminder to do as much as we can to keep everything compatible.
Again, thanks.
Best,
James Barron

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!1!!!one!!! James Fucking Barron sent me a fucking note [in a blue font, no less] that probably took about 35 seconds to write but blew my mind for days. I got the email on my phone at work, but couldn’t share it with anyone. Not just because they wouldn’t know who James Barron is, but because they probably don’t even know what the NY Times is.**

**Sorry, you don’t get to call me an elitist because I know about the Times. See note above.

This was a while ago, but I’m thinking of touching base soon, seeing how everything’s going with that mosque, er, community center. Maybe I can talk my way into a guest spot on the show, reading an ad for some product meant to replace Print or some service that provides a false sense of security while you use a cell phone as you drive. Or maybe I can get him to sign a t-shirt from CATS.***

***Oh yes, this is the man himself.

THE INVISIBLES
a review of the end of the aeon

I wanted to savor it. I wanted to take in each panel, each line of dialogue and let them seep into my brain and my core. I wanted a moment as I read that last panel. I wanted this last book to make me cry.* But now, having just completed the series, I sit in my chair at work, alone in the office on my break, picking pieces of burnt brown rice out of my teeth. There was no great awakening for me, no great truth, no surge of emotion as I held my breath, turning that last page.

There is only confusion, a story wrapped in metaphysical/existential/societal-analytical/astrophysical layers that may or may not be stripped away to reveal what?

But maybe that’s just me. Maybe I lost something when I did not slowly absorb everything in every panel, referencing previous issues for clarification and reiteration. Maybe it’s my fault that I did not see anything profound, even though it was spelled out for me on the last page. Perhaps I can only appreciate the simple wrap-up [say, at the end of Ellis's TRANSMETROPOLITAN or Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS] that clearly spells out the main characters final zing for the Forces of Evil or Fate or baby Jesus in a manger. Though, who’s to say that the point of it all was the conclusion? Although, it really seemed to me with the last two panels that this point of The End was the emphasis.

I think that where I got lost was about the point where we lose two-fifths of our original cell. So much of the story was about these people coming together to fight the Forces of Conformity. However, at the start of the final trade paperback [the twelve issues of Volume Three], I felt like the story was meandering. I expect and enjoy that sort of exploration at the beginning or even in the middle of an opus like this, but at the end of the story, I want see where threads are leading, but not necessarily where they end. I felt that Morrison was just meandering with most of the Division Six storyline, and any impatience I experienced was only exacerbated by the overly-cartoony art style brought in by Bond.** The switching of artists in later issues was appropriate and was used to strong effect.
As I write this, I realize that I think this all may be a comprehension issue. You-the-Reader are probably nodding your head “Of course” or shaking your head in disappointment. I think I get the Big Picture, I understand what happens to Fanny, and Boy. Gideon goes through some sort of series of time leaps to shoot the King-of-All-Tears [what a great name].

Does Robin OD or something? I thought she had leapt back to the future, to right after she left for her past. But then she’s cruising around in her drug-writing bubble in some university basement. Was that a commentary on how writers immerse their personalities into their work? Or a reveal about her role in the series?

And Jack. He touches Barbelith and then time ends? Then restarts? & what was going on with all that jive talk about immune systems and parts of a living thing gaining consciousness? Or something? And how does that tie into Barbelith? Does it? The alien abductions and satanic rituals were all coping mechanisms for contact with this thing. What is it all? I need some clarification and a Wikipedia.

There are no sides, became the mantra toward the end. A jag-off would say that the story became as obtuse as the five-dimensional crystal growing in the liquid of Time. I would say that maybe I just need to reach enlightenment before I can understand & appreciate whatís going on here.

*Not much, but an honest tear down my cheek; more valuable than any new conclusion about space-time or human nature or the illusions of civilization—honest emotions in the moment are timeless, but perspectives shift as rapidly as the winds.

**For git’s sake, please refrain from using bold lines for everything outlined and otherwise.

Wish I understood this shit better, then maybe I would appreciate the significance of this paper. I suppose reading the article in a quiet place that induces focus (read: not on phone at work while waiting for database to load) could help.

Starting Monday, I get to punch an honest-to-goodness timeclock! It’s probably been about five years since I last did that…

Taking stock of fitness level and it looks like I unfortunately must postpone my triathlon debut. My discipline has not been there and a serious lack in consistency with training would most likely lead to disaster. Good news is that triathlons happen frequently. Better news is that I can move forward with the Austrian Project…

James Barron (or more likely, his producer) is looking for feedback. I get mildly giddy when I hear the music for the Front Page starting. If I couldn’t hear this podcast in the morning, it would prolly be on par with quitting coffee…

Did live blade cutting on Monday. That shit is fun but to do it well is tough. One could always just cleave an opponent with a katana, but there is no skill in it. Plus, every time that happens, a reincarnated samurai cries in a Brazilian favela…

Consequently, rust spots have appeared on my blade. Need to research removal methods. Until then, any home invaders risk tetanus along with decapitation…

Speaking of which, been listening to Non-Phixion’s “The Green CD.” The freestyles remind me of the reason I never got into rapping: flow. Content is more about their brand of global violence, and less about drugs (which I can get into – talking about getting wrecked gets boring very quickly). There’s also lots of references to NYC, the sort of which express a grounding in their environment. “Got so much trouble on my mind / Refuse to lose” Many gems here, so many I would want to hear in the helo, right before parachuting into a battle…

In other news: poison ivy all over. Life is pain.

* * * * *

The man with hair like Roadhouse-era Patrick Swayze walks past me again, snickering to himself about how hard I’m working. Sure, I’m looking at something inane on the internet, but it’s the tail end of my lunch break and, more importantly, none of his business.

* * * * *

A long time ago [or at least it feels like a long time ago], I wanted to tear down the world around me so that it could be rebuilt in a way that reached its [our?] greatest potential. Instead, I was locked out of the blind vanguard that professed their desire for the same. A mixed blessing, I realized the extent to which one can control another. Of course, that extent varies based on what those are willing to give & take. But a truly unwilling, uncooperative party will not bend, no matter how enticing the other side sees their own offer. The will to change oneself, however, is all that is needed to convince the other party, since that other party is also the self [I think I'm going to skip the discussion on ego, id, superego, &c. today].

* * * * *

Last December, I sat down & wrote out a list. I titled it “Priorities.” I got very, very specific with this list, starting with Shelter, Food, Heat; then moved to taking care of my charges [because I still had two cats back then]; then moving on to social needs—human interaction. Beyond that, the list became somewhat vague, though the spirit was clear: what could I do to reach my potential as a human?

* * * * *

For the last six months, I’ve been working on an answer. There are steps I have started, some of them working directly toward my goal [triathlon training, taijutsu class, writing more often] and others work in parallel or enable the steps toward my goal [steady income, eating better]. The important thing for me, which is sometimes easy but sometimes difficult for all different reasons, is building up a positive inertia [emergence] on a steady foundation [i.e. not getting too big of a head about doing little tasks that don't contribute to the main goal] while battling negative inertia [entropy], such as skipping out on tasks because I’m feeling lazy. Motivation is key, not just to get to the top of those 15 steps, but to climb the next one thousand that lay ahead.