31 January 2006

let me hear your bible talk.

the famous 15th century cloistered reflective st. olivia de newton of the john once wrote, in what is widely considered to be her most plaintive and delightfully overt treatise, these simple lines: “i want to get biblical, let's get into biblical – your bible talk, let me hear your bible talk.”

now then.

i was reading the bible yesterday. going back to this same passage that has kept bound me to it for the past month, trying to qualify it in a way that allows for enough understanding that i can absorb it and go on. and i was getting there – i’d just decided to draw out a fabulously relevant parallel between elisha and tony montana, pacino’s character in scarface – when i got buried beneath these unwanted considerations about the way the story is told. about the language. what happened was i found myself thinking: we have the past as it is given to us. smacks of maxim, i realize, but consider it. in the case of the bible, particularly the old testament: just the way people described each other had an almost unknowable matter-of-factness, as when the king of samaria, in 2 kings 1, asks his messengers “what kind of man” had just predicted his death to them, they replied that elijah “was a hairy man and had a leather belt around his waist.” and dude, that is just so sweet. not “he seemed vengeful” or “he had the fire of god in his eyes” or even “he was this crazy-lookin’ mo-foh, and i mean crazy crazy,” but “he had a garment of hair and a large belt.”

but i don’t even know if that’s a halfway worthy point. because yes, our understanding of the way life happened clear back then – of what consitituted the surprising, the out-of-norm – is drawn by how the noteworthy is described. and, one thing about the bible, sometimes the parallels between then and now are really obvious. like in 2 kings, when it says that “moab rebelled against israel. now ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in samaria and injured himself. so he sent messengers.” right, of course he did. and is that really so different? just one day ago i got an email from my good friend dalton at 6:03am, which said, “sump pump gave out in the night. went down to get the baby and stepped in ankle deep water throughout the basement. so i sent messengers.”

25 January 2006

..might as well jump. jump!

can't ya see me standin' here, i got my back against the record machine
no i haven't jumped the shark, i will bounce back from this
and come out clean
balls ain't so small as they seem
you say even my "failures are contrived" but also that we're "part of a team"
well it won't be long now till you will see that i'm for serious
my inside-voice wants to scream
and my libido, it teems...
i ain't the worst that you've seen.

12 January 2006

vicious square.

i’m just positive that you’re going to be very successful.

the list of things i know for certain about myself is pretty short.

i really enjoyed our conversations together, really a lot.

one thing on there is this: people generally like me. more than not.

you were absolutely the best writer of the bunch.

another is that i’m a decent writer.

i look forward to the day when i walk into the store and pick up a book with your name on it.

i’ve a long, almost deadly long stretch in front of me if i’m to get to what i know i’m capable of, writing-wise.

the panel decided to go with someone who has more experience.

but i’m decent. right now: i’m good.

the group felt you lacked a certain level of experience.

don’t misunderstand: i’m a shit-all amateur and i know it.

the team recognized that you do superb work, but the relevant experience was not there.

it’s just that i also happen to know that on a dime i can concoct an elaborate analogy regarding the panel’s need to self-fellate – to stuff their cheeks with their own collective bureaucratic cock – and it will be more delightful and evocative than the lifetime of professional work by whichever brow-furrowed eager-lipped wrinkle-resistant fleshy-sacked cockmeister it was who had the appropriate experience today.

everybody feels sure that you’re going to be a great success wherever it is that you finally end up.

10 January 2006

finally the demon monkeys that live in my hair will have their voices heard.*

The sidewalk bends where your house ends
Like the neighborhood is on its knees

(from HEM: stupid mouth shut)


“the sidewalk bends where your house ends.” i barely made out the words over the others’ chorus of high shrieks and giggles. (awful sounds, these. as bad as you can get, tear-your-eyeballs-from-your-face-and-stomp-on-them sounds; there ought to be a word for it… shriggles?) then i heard it again, as if whispering in my ear. and indeed it was, for i could feel the little demon whiskers brushing against my lobe: “…sidewalk bends where you house ends.” it was as poetic a thing as i’d ever heard the voices utter, and it was intriguing: the voices had not before employed nuance, to any degree. now, though, during this most unlikely of times, there it was: an intriguing turn of phrase, and one that rhymed, to boot. the voices, you should know, took many forms, but in this period had elected to manifest as demon monkeys that lived in my hair. (they did this for reasons that were unlikely but also practical, eg, close proximity to the back of my head, and ease of travel, but i would not learn of these considerations until much later.) this was the umpteenth physical manifestation of the voices, and it represented a positive evolution in their quest to use me as their earthly muse: you see, i liked monkeys. as a boy i had longed to own one, only abandoning the quest when uncle leroy left for me a buckshot-filled squirrel with a little red hat duct-taped to its head. and now here they were, more monkeys than i could count, living in my hair. the only problem was that they were also tawdry little demons, squealing constantly, shriggling about how they felt overlooked, or whatever. they were of one voice, not like a proletariat collective voice or anything, but in the sense that they shrieked all differently but at the same time, and when they stopped, they ceased en total. all the more surprising, then, that one would elect to whisper to me a private message. i went and stood in my doorway, where i saw only what i expected: no sidewalk at all, but instead a moshed muddy path that ran from my aerostream, through the bramble and weeds, and over the hill into the parking lot. so it was as i expected, and yet, i could not see the parking lot, nor any other part of the trailer community, for all was hidden past the bend in the hill … if the dirty path counted as sidewalk, i reasoned, perhaps a hill was good enough to be “bends.” it was all beyond reason, my sudden to go and inspect the parking lot. but then, one must remember i had demon monkeys living in my hair; as such, reason was a relative undertaking. and sure enough: as i rounded the bend in the hill the demon monkeys started their shrieking – not the shriggling i described earlier, but a frenzy of delighted, anticipatory screams. it was a state of demon anarchy, a monkey rave happening in my hair, and as i rounded the bend and looked down at the lot below me, i knew why. there , in close circles around a series of bonfires, were grouped all of the residents of my un-gated community, plus many others, engaged in a convulsed dance. and all of these had monkeys swinging from their hair, whooping wildly as they clawed and swirled, spinning their headly perch and the rest of its owners around in circles with the combustive force of their movements. and i was transfixed by it; even the demon monkeys in my hair went quiet with the sight. for it was almost beautiful, like orgasm without forewarning, like grace without the coordination part; like the neighborhood is on its knees.



*one of my favorite patton oswalt lines.

05 January 2006

Some-thing Viscous This Way Comes

The Memoir of a Loving Man

By O.U. Didnitz


Chapter 1 – Step into da Wolf
Chapter 2 – Gay for Hey Hey Hey!: The parabolic sexual reachings of a young man whose main role model is Fat Albert
Chapter 3 – She Just Smiled and Showed Me Her Vegemite Sandwich: Some things get straightened out
Chapter 4 – Give Me the News: I’ve got a bad case of loving, you happen to be nearby
Chapter 5 – Freedom Kissing: Changing terminology instead of changing what you want from her
Chapter 6 – Prostate Tickling: Same as Chapter 5, but for pervs
Chapter 7 – What Life Has in Store for Me
Epilogue – Like Nirvana, But Without the Nuance

03 January 2006

markus erectus

i blink too hard, raise my head, lengthen my spine
and wish to find then keep my stride
i wish never to wish for time.
an empty threat, says procrastination’s side
but, says the other, that you consider a wish a threat
makes jiminy cricket look a beast of lies.


so. as i set out to find the new and avoid the same
already the old girls have announced their game:
procrastination's ribs getting poked by sarcasm's finger
(oh proud finger, strident finger)
said ribs finding strength in numbers; like all good malingerers
they cry, we can do it! and are glad for the poster
with that cute-armed woman, the riveter, she brings them together
unlike sarcasm and his dirty faux-poking pharisee of a finger
(oh sunny-side ribs, might-not-have-a-job-but-great-with-kids
will-wait-for-better-cos-we’ve-seen-worse ribs).

so many inside voices, inner children in the fold
this year's Resolution to resolve is so postmodern i've been told, and that
my at-attention posture is like a prairie dog without fur,
the college girls work so hard not to giggle when told
that their tall-but-aimless classmate is graying and thir-
tee-hee-hee hee, oh my god that is so old.

if, some night soon, your coffee tastes of sarcasm, or your cigarette rolls its eyes,
or your burger begs to stay and stay and linger with the fries
that's just fallout; just me and the girls as we sever inside ties
just me tryin' strike a match, to light the kindling in my eyes.