Banana Republic

MUSIC LISTENED TO WHILE WRITING THIS: "Altered Course" - Isis

- List of things I want photographed and hung on my wall:

* Image begins at: driving down Ingram road. Going down a hill. Two lane street with center turn lane. Bright day. Clouds blotted in the sky with lazy brush strokes. I turn. I look to my left and have a two second encounter with people I will never know again in my life but will never forget.

Young Hispanic woman. 15, 16. Lithe, comely. Dark brown hair brilliant in the sun tied back into a pony tail. Bright shirt and blue jeans. Leans against new wooden fence. Stands next to young Hispanic boy, similar age, flirting with her with his eyes very obviously. Short cropped hair is spiked. Striped shirt. Leaning against fence with arm and is looking at girl.

The girl has a dandelion in her hands. She is blowing on it. A dozen different seeds are going into the air between them and beyond them. They are smiling very radiantly and the sun's radiance only increases the radiance of their smiles.

I am gone before I realize the impact of what I saw.

* Image begins at: driving down Culebra road. Approaching a stop light. Heavy traffic. Sky is angry, cross, and billowing with dark clouds. Four lanes with center turn lane. I notice something for about four seconds that grabs my attention.

There is a book in the very middle of the center turn lane. It is laying on its back, open. The pages are flips violently fully one direction and then to the next. Back and forth, from introduction to epilogue, it flips with no reader.

I take in this image deeply before I too drive by, leaving the book to its rhythmic dance.

* Image begins at: I just hit a bridge at 35 miles per hour.

I can still hear the rain. My music is playing. I know I am in the middle of Medical Drive at rush hour. I know that traffic is coming. I stare out the front of my window. My car is at an odd angle. I can see the damaged concrete of the bridge with parts of my car following the path my car took when it rebounded back into the street.

I am shaking. I am not shaking visibly, but I know my hand is barely shaking.

All of this information and thinking happens in a single second in a frame, on a wall, in my room. . . in my mind.

- concepts difficult to decipher: one month left in semester, 106 on a test, waking up at 9 on days I don't need to, butterflies farting, be like water.

I think I need to start blogging again. I might as well do it now having consumed one of the most depressing pieces of literature I have had the pleasure of reading in a three hour period. Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill is captivating and I'd recommend it immediately to anyone who wants to have a major episode of buzzkill in their evening routine. I had to read this particularly pungent portent of pessimism primarily for my acting class. I'm procrastinating on the second part of the assignment because, well, I can. Plus, I want to. Additionally, I'm buzzkilled. Three good reasons.

Overall I'd say my enthusiasm for this semester must still be lost somewhere in summer. I'd rate my passion for what I'm doing in class as a dull 4 out of 10. Some classes spike my interest – philosophy and english in particular, not only for their content but also because I am with classmates who have personality and spunk. It's always good to deal with spunk. Excess spunk is good.

Geology strikes me as a class I would enjoy if only I wasn't staring at a powerpoint presentation about rocks. Acting I like, but for some reason I'm actually busiest for it? Considering all the acting scores I've shat out of my printer and now reading this 160 page monstrosity of melancholy I think my biggest workload comes from that class. I hate math. Math is an enemy worth destroying with lasers.

Math is not spunky.

Hey, at the very least I can take some pleasure in the fact I'm becoming more confident in my writing and by that I'm starting to think that maybe I don't suck at it considering I have consistently created works worthy of regular review from my pleased peers.

Why am I on such a trip today of stringing together words that start with the same letter? A particularly perplexing and personal predicament.

I wrote some recent prose (“I don't”) that was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever written. I don't like reflecting on my life. I really don't. I think if I could cut out. . . most of my life before I was 18, and some of it after that, I'd be content. I can't though. Besides, that's ignoring the fact that the formulation of who I am is most dependent on those early years of searching for what exactly I wanted to be and believe.

Now I'm spunky.

I think I'd like to find a manual somewhere. I would journey. It would be a long journey. I would go over two mountains, three rivers, and through a cave with trolls. I would fight the trolls. The fight is very epic but I cannot go into details here, I do apologize. It does, however, involve a great deal of explosions.

Anyway, at the end of my journey, at the most dangerous, deepest, dankest depths I would find a manual on why it is that interpersonal romantic relationships are baffling, confusing, awesome, hurtful, and strange ordeals. I would open up this manual and instantly understand all that there is to know about relationships between boys to girls, girls to boys, boys to boys, girls to girls, and unicorns to unicorns. The unicorn chapter I expect to be a favorite of mine. I really do need to know the rest of the manual though because I can apply it in my life with the reckless spirit of a youth who finally knows what the fuck is going on. Knowledge is power!

Barring that, I suppose I will now resign myself to doing an exciting assignment provided by Professor Brady.

In closing, here's a picture at my dinner table of a pancake on hash browns:

Which compares favorably to a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head:

I consider this country juvenile. I don't think I want to go anywhere else least I find out the entire world is full of idiots. I like to sit here in my little box and imagine that there are countries out there where things operate more logically and fluidly. Maybe there is a country out there without a vice presidential pick from a major political party who is does not have a recorded instance of telling her church to pray for a pipeline. I don't know, maybe that's wrong of me. Maybe God does want us to build pipelines.. in Alaska. I don't understand the Bible very well, I suppose. I don't remember the bible verses about greed being okay. I don't remember the ones about warfare being good as long as it is for revenge or “security”. I'm also pretty iffy on the parts about loving your neighbor unless he is gay.

I think maybe my memory has slowly been going out since I was ten. I really don't recall the bible verses about celebrating your birthday or pagan holidays either. I also don't really remember the bible verses about human governments being blessed by God. I think, overall, a re-education on my part in Christianity would probably solve most of these issues.. kind of like a communist re-education, they make sure that you understand exactly how it is, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Shit, planet Earth without religion. I dunno what they'd put on their cars on that alternate Earth. I'm not sure where half of the truck driving retards in Texas would be without their jesus fish. Where would Saudi Arabia be without its ban on women driving? Traffic accidents might increase four or five fold in this alternate reality. The Roman Empire without Christianity.. imagine the problems that would have arisen if it hadn't had Christianity to weaken it. Without the dark ages, where would we be? There wouldn't be a rebirth (renaissance) without a death, so Christianity unexpectedly, by making the world a dumber place for four hundred years, was really just so that, later, there would be a Renaissance. Plus, the Dark Ages gave the Muslims and Chinese time to shine philosophically and scientifically. Sharing is caring, after all.

I dunno, maybe Republicans are right. I guess making sure corporations make the most money in America makes sense. Certainly in the last two years I've felt a “trickle down” from their pockets to mine. Sometimes, randomly, I'll find a dollar somewhere - I guess some capitalist dropped it, just for me. Also I've noticed that gas prices have made oil companies that much richer so maybe next time I'll find a fiver.

Yeah, maybe we need to ban abortion and gay marriages and outlaw Salvia and.. well, do a ton of other things. What would Republicans do without great evils to fight? Man, I can't imagine. They are waging a war against violent and sexual media, a war against drugs, a war against premarital sex, a war against gay marriage, a war against abortion, and a war against teaching evolution. I remember Democrats fucking up forty or fifty years ago with a “War on Poverty”, what bullshit that is. Now the nation is on the right track – we're fighting the right things instead of the wrong ones.

Our real wars are cool too. We've got a War in Iraq and a War in Afghanistan which are parts of a War on Terrorism. I guess we are a lot more secure now that we've gone through Afghanistan and Iraq. I mean, there hasn't been a terrorist attack here since 9/11 so that must mean that we're winning. I dunno, after two thousand killed on 9/11 I'm not sure my vengeance will be satiated until two thousand terrorists are dead. I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan will also want revenge, so we shouldn't stop now. The additional four and some odd thousand dead soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq add to the 9/11 total, so we have a lot of work ahead of us.

I guess our political culture makes sense. It's a representative republic so I am glad that I am represented by the appropriate people. It doesn't matter to me that I only have two legitimate choices, I dunno what I'd do if I had to consider a third party – that'd take too much of my time to research. I'm also glad that television ads from Democrats and Republicans are so informative. I wouldn't have known that both sides were liars, scumbags, and incapable of leading our country without these advertisements. Shit, T.V. would be boring if they tackled real issues. Talk about a grade-A buzzkill, the fuck do I care?

I've lived long enough to know not to trust ninety-nine percent of people. People are animals. People exist on an animalistic level. People care about themselves and their families, people do not care about you. I've lived long enough to watch their little routines and habits. The lone woman in a hummer. The man who ignores the homeless panhandler. The young adult who cannot talk about politics for more than thirty seconds before changing topics. The religious person who damns you in place of God since they know, they know, they know. All of these hallow beings, moving as spirits, dark and unknowing to even a glimmer of light.

All these people swear up and down they are higher beings, but they are merely higher animals. The man lusts for the woman, the woman lusts for the man, the man kills, the woman kills, the man hungers, the woman hungers, all of these baser instincts mixing with our sentience into a strange hybrid of animal and thinking being. These hybrid animals do not believe in evolution but I would pray to a God that they are not the finished product form how imperfect and terrible they can be.

People are too stupid to rule themselves. People will always been too stupid to rule themselves. They are apathetic. They are uncaring. They do not have time to care. They do not have care at all about this system. They are concerned with entertainment and making money. All this country runs on is competition between animals to earn paper that allows them to buy necessities and drown in materialism. All these advertisements I am assaulted with, all of these sales, all of this drive to consume consume consume, eat eat eat, go go go, bigger, more, bigger, faster, bigger, newer, better, on sale, limited time only, go go go go, buy buy buy.

I am lost. I want to know why. I want to know a creator. I want to know why all of this is. I want to know why all of the blood. I want to know why this all fell into place. It cannot merely be as religions say. It is not merely a test of goodness. It cannot be.

Why? Why is this here? What is the purpose of being here? Is there a purpose to being here?

Where will it all go? How will we end up?

Where does the truth begin?

I am a great person. I have done great things. I have a list of accomplishments. I am smart. I make good grades. I have long hair. I am multiracial. I am a socialist. I am an agnostic. I am happy. I am smiling. I am good for your program. You should let me in. I am good.

There are other people. You should ignore them. I am definitely the one you want in your program. They are not as good as I am, look, see, I did this – do you see that? I did that. I also did this, but focus on that more, I said this other thing just to back up how fantastic I am.

This program will make me work, that's okay. I like to work. Working is what is good for the soul, it keeps you busy and away from other things like looking at clouds or sitting down with a piece of paper to doodle. Those things aren't productive, they aren't real work. Real work makes you money. Money makes you happy. You're happy because you own things. I am happy because I own this chair, this cellphone, this X-Box, this shirt. I am very happy. I am very happy. You know I am very happy.

Graduate schools will look at this and say to themselves, wow. How awesome! I bet he would work very hard and study very hard and make very good grades and look very good at our school and give us very profitable money and enjoy things very much. Very very wow.

Consider me for your program! I have low mileage! I am new out of the box! Mint condition! Rare set! Limited time offer! Buy now, they'll be gone later! Kenneth Andrew Howell missing from your life? Now with this limited time television offer you'll not only get that Kenneth Andrew Howell but we'll throw in an additional two Kenneth Andrew Howells for your Kenneth Andrew Howell needs! That's a combined value of 59.99! You can't get any better of a deal! Call now!

In closing, consider me for your program. I am legitimate, I am ready, I am honored, I am humbled, I will study, I will work, I will lap at your shoes, I will go on to do great things, I will make little children, I will take care of the earth, I will not tip poorly, I will look both ways before crossing the road, I will stop at red, I will pet my dog, I will go to church, I will love my country, I will hug my mother, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.

I will.

So... consider me for your program.

It's the fourth of July.

I have to write an imaginary letter of recommendation in an attempt to join the Honors program of St. Mary's. No request for a real one, a mere fake one will suffice. This is a pain in the ass for many reasons. First and foremost my heart has never really been attached to college. It serves a means to an end – I want to know how to write creative fiction better, I want a safety net if it does not pan through, and thusly I find myself going to classes.

You know I didn't want to go to college? I never did. I had a friend from when I was 13, his name was Travis. He and I were very good friends – he is the only person to date that I ever felt comfortable completely being myself around. There's always a kind of filter I set up between myself and other people – a safety filter. You don't want to hear it, I already know that. Yes, I'd love to talk to you about politics or existence or human behavior, but you don't want to and I know that because over nearly twenty years the number of people that have embraced those conversations I could count on one hand.

Travis and I talked and brooded over years, and eventually we decided that we were going to try to take over the world. You know why we were going to take over the world? We were going to take over the world because of the pestilence, the sickness, the famine, the ignorance, the bureaucrats, the common man, and all the other diseases that wander across the planet as if honored guests. This was serious, we were serious. I was serious. He was serious. We wanted to take over the world, institute a kind of world-wide autocracy and eliminate the inefficient pandering of democracy. I wasn't going to go to college, I was going to go and start some kind of movement. A movement because when I think about my children I do not believe that the world is going to be a good place for them due to the current minds that hold power. The religions of the world, the democracies of the world, the nationalism of the world – all these little fragmented ants pretending their divisions are sacred lines that make a Chinese person different from an Azeri, or the nation of America an actual geographic area when, in reality, there is merely one large continent striding from pole to pole whereupon millions of little creatures scream at each other that this part of the ground is theirs and that you should stay over there or else.

I don't know why I did not go through with it. I found Brittany, I worked at Wendy's and I saw these shattered people – they weren't whole. You could see that they weren't whole – there was a hallow quality to their existences. The minimum wage life that they lead in earnest with no foreseeable cessation left twisted vines of scars across their psyche that vaguely hinted at a listless quality to their movements and actions. That scared me, but thinking on it now I am not sure that going to college has done anything to halt the feeling in my heart that I am moving through cycles of days with no end in sight, a kind of constant groundhog day wherein I awake, I dress, I consume, I attend, I come home, I unwind, and then I sleep. Nonetheless, it was born in my mind that perhaps college would be a proper way to ensure that I would never face an endless mass of decades droning on in low wage jobs, a false hope as the droning does not cease with the amount of money, but I digress.

Travis is off, trying to do all his mind daydreams of, while I remain attached to the lesser dream of published authorship. I never settled the issue in my mind, I don't know if I made the right decision. Maybe I'd be in some god awful country with all my bridges burned, alone and wondering if this “movement” was going somewhere, but what if I could have made it go somewhere? Positive forces are not born in movements of people, that is a falsity – movements of people are bred by singular individuals creating a congregation of opinion and fervor. People coalesce around other people, we are all very good sheep but not very good herders. Now I sit with this letter, similar to other congratulations, honors, and achievements telling me that I am smart and should go become comrades with other smart people as if grouping us together and ranting at us creates some sort of epiphany within. Gifted and talented was the same way – hello creative children, come listen to us and follow directions so that you can learn to be free and creative.

So I'm sitting on the fourth of July, thinking about writing an imaginary letter of recommendation, drinking a root beer, wasting away the minutes, bleeding into the hours, burning away the day, until the years run out and all I have left is a metal casket.

Content warning - contains sexist wizard, sexual situations, tobacco use, alcohol use, political incorrectness, profanity, innuendo, murder, and poor writing.

First - Contract Blues.

The rain had long ago drenched my coat, shirt, pants, underwear, socks, hat, and glasses. I do not know who was more persistent between the two of us. I know that I was the only one, between us, that was dedicated enough to tobacco to use my hand to shield my cigar. I don't think the sky has that much balls, period.

Now, I am waiting here, sitting on the edge of this road in the middle of the rain, because I am about to start the end of the world. I know that seems hard to believe, even when half of the world belongs to some kind of religion that believes that an invisible guy in heaven will come stomp around on Earth sometime soon, but the apocalypse is solely my job as of, I dunno, today.

I didn't apply for the job of my own accord. It kind of fell in my lap. I was drunk, slumped over in an alleyway with blood dribbling out my nose. They came to me because I am a wizard. Seriously, I wouldn't joke about this kind of thing. Granted, I don't wear a robe or hold a staff or have a long white beard. I talk to demons and fairies and your girlfriend and all that jazz, but it is really kind of a family thing more than what I want to do. You know, your dad is a lawyer, go to law school. Mom's a nurse, head out med school. Parents talk to supernatural beings and toss around spells, you go down the same path. Nothing unusual there.

Still, not too many wizards around anymore. That is surprising to me since everyone and their mother has read Harry Potter, yet no one really goes out and tries being a wizard. Not that difficult. Go to Target. Buy a pan set, something cheap. Hop around, grab some odds 'n ends like a wooden spoon, a book or two with incantations from your local library, ingredients, then pop it on the stove and go turn on American Idol. Bam, instant love potion or whatever you want. Kill your dog? Plenty of good poisons. Want to turn water into wine? Go for it. Lose some years off of you? Youth potion. Get a large penis? Incantation number 454, from the grimoire that Aleister Crowley had. Whatever you want man, you can find it in some corner of the Earth. Make sure you drag your Target pan set with you though because that shit isn't cooking itself.

Yeah, society really doesn't prepare the youth for wizardry anymore. I would blame the Christians but everyone blames the Christians and I don't really think it is their fault. I think we just fell behind. Shit, who needs me? People fly all the time. People spit fire to kill each other well enough. People cure wild illnesses. Innovation replaced magic, and it is politically correct – I can't exactly walk up to someone who is blind and say, hey, you know, if you talked to the Spirit of the All-Seeing Eye it could probably hook you up with some pretty sweet multidimensional vision. Good way to end up in an institution with someone spitting quasi-psychological crap at you and shoving pills down your throat – not the good kind of pills either, the kind that rape your mind and leave it in a coma so you act normal.

So, left alone with some nifty parlor tricks (I do parties – your kid would love a dragon to fly into their birthday, give me a call!), I resorted to a life of wandering, alcohol, and women. It was a terrible life that took its toll on my constantly, leaving me with little will to live except for the dream of the next drink. Haha, not really, my life is the shit ignoring the occasional police man or bar fight. Fucking women is what I do. I think I fucked a man one time too, but that was not nearly as good. Yeah, been around the world -- vodka in Russia, sake in Japan, tequila in Mexico, and all the women in between.

Anyway, that night, in that alley, I felt two sets of hands lifting me up and dragging me out into the city. To my left was this Goddess of a woman – firm breasts, auburn hair, piercing green eyes, skin tight dress, and lips begging me to come closer. Unfortunately, to the right, there was this hulk of a man with features hidden underneath a bandanna wrapped around his face and sunglasses over his eyes. He was huge, dude. Tall. Muscular. Armed. Enigmatic. Probably a bit crazy. You know the type.

I said to them, something to the effect of, hey, pardon me sir and madam, where are we going, but they insisted later I tried to strangle the woman and the man had to bring me down with a strong fist to my face. Whatever.

In any event, I woke up chained to a chair in a very Cold War-style kitchen. Flower wall print, old school stove, lovely little drapes, and a pot with a tiny little sunflower that was faced away from the window. Sunlight flooded in as I had apparently missed breakfast and lunch. In front of me was an unrolled scroll with elaborate script that, as it was explained to me, dictated that these individuals represented something that had decided that it was time to take the Earth and wash away a bit of the dirt from it. I was their cleaner, man to wash away much of the dirt to let what is left behind frolick.

I had questions, yeah. Questions like let me the fuck go, you don't want to do this, I am more powerful than you think, I really need to piss, why the hell am I chained to this chair, what is with this fucking room. I tried a fire incantation on the chick and it rebounded out the window, taking the flower up into flowery heaven. The madam was displeased, but she said that I should understand now how serious they were. Yeah, sure lady, I get it now. Being kidnapped and chained to a chair had gone over my head, right?

Still, she could rebound my shit. Charm spells were zippo, I froze the drapes in place on the next rebound, and she was yelling in my face before I finally accepted that I was not going to be able to wizard myself out of this situation. So, why me?

Well, apparently, orders of Wizards had fallen into hard times. Finances must be low, bake sales failing, the For Wizards porn magazine must have gone to shit, basically I guess I am the last one with any sort of power left – you know, beyond reading your palm or making a coin appear from your ear, I do the shit like turning a building into a giant tree. Not very useful but, really, you'd pay attention if that happened.

She asked if I was willing and I said fuck no, what the hell is in it for me? She explained the compensation was, basically, I would get to live. Okay. Live for what? Forever, she said, forever through the next world, and the next world, and the next world.

Let me fuck you, I suggested. I don't really think she expected that.

When I woke up, an hour and a half later according the black-rimmed office clock on the wall, I was still chained to the chair, but in a much more comfortable position on the floor. The side of my face really hurt. Man, sensitive bitch. I didn't say anything wrong. Shit, who wants to live forever? If twenty, thirty, forty years is boring, two, three, four thousand can't be that much better.

I heard shuffling behind me, and the beautiful madam appeared over me. She said the most surprising thing to me so far, ignoring the whole destroy the world routine. “Okay”, she said. Hot damn, that night was the best of my life and the deal was more than sealed on my end.

The contract itself was a petty smattering of legal terminology that identified me, Grand Wizard Theodore, and the two people, Jachin and Boaz, as the parties involved. I, Theodore, was granted the complete and absolute mandate to, beginning at 3 AM that morning, wreck havoc across the world as I saw fit until the human population had been reduced to “under 600 million souls”, so 100 mil for every major continent. Using my shitty math, I figured that I had to kill more than 9/10ths of everyone who was alive. Sounded good to me. I signed using my magic since I was still chained to the damn chair. In fact, even with everything worked out, they knocked me out and dumped me in some ravine near this god forsaken city still in the chair. I lost supper in that fit of unconsciousness and woke up sometime around midnight I guess.

I figured it was alright to use my magic to set myself free now without having another forced nap. BJ, as I have come to affectionately call them in my head, had a great deal of heart in choosing where to drop me off. Fuck, I was half the continent away from where I had been drunk 24 hours ago. I was in some little shit town named Winnett, Montana – population one hundred and eighty-five (they need a sign for this?), chance of significance: zero percent, chance of it existing after three in the morning: zero percent, amount of fun I am having sitting in the side of the road in the cold rain: 0 percent.

That was about an hour ago, and right now we're sitting at 2:58 AM. I got another cigar in my coat pocket, but I think it is pretty toast by now from the water. I could use some magic on it but, shit, I think I might actually be tired after this is over. Bit out of shape on chains of big spells, I guess Winnett, Montana is a good practice for me. Kind of like an appetizer before a nice big meal.

Time to go. I stand up and throw the remnants of my cigar down onto the ground. The rain will take care of it. I walk down the street, towards town. My watch goes off. 3 A.M., June 9, 2012. The twisted sound of metal lashing together into form breaks the silence of the night. Creaking moans and hesitant gurgles increase in volume until a low groan comes from behind me. I turn back and look up at the form of pulsating flesh with hints of machine that has appeared behind me. Steel golem, basic shit for real. You move pretty quickly from love potion to steel golem, trust me. It's ugly as sin, but it has the strength of Atlus. A bit of blood splutters from its mouth as it groans and I jump back to avoid an unwelcome crimson bath.

“Watch it!” I say. “I am drenched enough without having you bleed all over me.”

The golem does not contribute to the conversation then, or later as we walk towards town. Oh well, its loss, not mine. The outer laying houses of the town are before me, and purple cords of arcane energy are whipping out from me impatiently. I look up to the golem, who looks down at me with a dumb, bloody grin, and I nod. It surges forward and slams through the house, ripping the screaming occupants out of bed and crushing them into the ground. Me, well, arcane energy is basically like a knife through butter on normal matter, so the houses I dealt with were pretty much paper shredded in moments.

Winnett, Montana achieved a population of zero in twenty-three minutes, four seconds. The golem is sitting next to me, chewing on some poor sap who had hid in his old Ford Bronco but elbowed the horn as he pissed himself. The sound of bones crushing was pretty annoying, actually.

“Go eat that in the forest or something, you're too loud.”

The golem hunkers off, dragging the rest of the body behind him. I sigh and take out my cigar, using a spell to dry it out and then one to light it. I inhale and let out a long sigh of smoke.

One hundred and eighty-five down, billions to go.

ON:

The concept of “experience”

Hillary Clinton is by no means extraordinarily more experienced than Barack Obama, and certainly is not more experienced than John McCain. Her tenure as a member of a law firm, first lady, and senator does not surpass to an outstanding degree Senator Obama’s record.

What does experience bring to a President? Barack Obama has had sound judgment across his shorter track record, and, indeed, the very office of the President of the United States is not such a strong, unilateral position. The overarching bureaucracy of the Executive branch and the separate Legislative branch handles much grunt work of policy-making and governance. The President of the United States needs intellect, judgment, and some experience, but it is not as if the President is some kind of end-all, do everything within the overwhelming superstructure of the United States government.

So do not be fooled – the very office of the President of the United States is powerful, but tempered, purposefully, by a broader system underneath in which specialists handle detailed portions of the governance of the country. Hillary Clinton is not an economist, obviously. Neither is she a veteran field marshal or admiral. Neither can she claim to have been an extraordinarily adept at handling aspects of national infrastructure and transportation. Such specific jobs are delegated to individuals who, theoretically, understand and can handle that.

Corruption, lobbying, and you

The very nature of politics in these days is one of corruption. Lobbyists do influence an incredible amount of policy-making. I do not believe that Barack Obama is completely free of corruption, and neither do I think that one could ever have a single candidate who was not in some way corrupt. However, I consider him a step in the right direction, a direction away from a government influenced by corporations, special interest groups, and the defense industry.

Representative Democracy in America has failed over centuries. If it is not corporations, it is our own ignorant humanity. Why did it take so long for African Americans to be free? And of women, why is it that they too were denied such rights? Where is the freedom and liberty we laud so much when the common man works 40 hours to barely stay out of debt? Where is the pursuit of happiness as foreclosures wreck havoc across the broad spectrum of American citizens and leave them in dire straits? Where is the freedom of opportunity when such large portions of America cannot afford higher education? Whom is safe from terror in a world when many common Americans are not even safe from sickness as they cannot afford healthcare? What is moral about a country focused on material gain and afraid to give up money to the government for the national good? Where is the intelligence in a country dominated by people apathetic to the political system that granted them a voice to avoid tyranny?

Where is the power of the people as we shout at a wall built by individuals from corporations, special interest groups, and the defense industry? Exactly where is your power?

Think of corruption! The issues are important and you should, ideally, know something of where your candidates stand, but think of the corruption rampant in Washington D.C. Do not sit idly by and allow it to continue for the good of your fellow man, your future descendents, and your own position! If we must wallow in selfishness and materialism, at least focus it on something that so drastically affects you.

Who is a step in the right direction? The woman with almost a million dollars from registered lobbyists? The man who has half a million? Or the one who does not accept money from registered lobbyists, and thus far only has been seen accepting $50,000 from employees of lobbying firms?

When will you step outside of yourself and think of the broader picture? When will most American citizens go beyond their jobs, their families, their entertainment, and see the broader concepts at stake?

Never. That is when.

Me

Fuck if I know where I’ll end up. I want to be a writer. I want to write. I want to sit on top of a mountain somewhere and just waste away. I want to solve all the worlds problems. I want a soda. Want, want, want. What do I need?

I don’t know what I need. Enlightenment. Alcohol. Vacation. A day of not dealing with parents or people or bullshit. No more news. A dog that does not smell. News about my mom? A letter from my dad. My adoptive parents not saying they are disappointed I’m not a Christian or I’m this or that. Some kind of blank planet with a bunch of animals and shit. I’d walk around. There would be clouds. I’d get eaten. End of that yarn, eh.

A small puppy. A leash. A path past a waterfall. A day. A year. Ten years. A casket, a rifle, a smile, a child’s laugh. Whatever. I don’t know what I need. How do I know what I want, but not what I need?

Hey, technically, I need food. That’s a start. Food, water, shelter. Yeah, that’s all I need.

That’s all of it, man. All you’ll ever need.

St Mary’s Belltower > Bell Pepper > Fajitas

Trees > Green > Green Highlighter > I have to study :(

Guy reading a yellow book > Yellow > Man in the yellow hat > Curious George!

My watch sitting in the sun > Melting watches > Salvador Dali > Delis > Sandwiches > Melting sandwiches?

The sound of sirens > Popo on the hunt > Hot Fuzz

Wanting my girlfriend to call > Yearning > I love her!

Aesop Rock > Aesop’s Fables > Talking Animals > Bugs Bunny

I want to play some video games > Guitar Hero! > Makes my fingers hurt > Piano! > I want to get back to playing the Piano > scene of me sitting in a suit playing the piano all sexily

Boredom > Boredom > Boredom

Dear Kenneth from 10 years ago,

I am sorry you are confused. You have good parents. It is all right that you were adopted. People do not mind as much 10 years from now. Your biological mother will die in nine years, or will be presumed to be, so that one time you see her give her a better hug than you did. That may end up being the last time you ever see her. She was not as bad as you think she is, and you will end up missing her very much so in later times.

You will meet your biological half sister eventually. Do not listen to Ozzy Osbourne and get lost on the way back from the funeral when you meet her. When you finally go to her house, talk more. Make her laugh, I think she needs it more than you ever did. She is very pretty, and seems smart. I think she will grow up to be a fine person, so do not worry about that either. Just enjoy yourself.

Time is forgiving. People are very sure that life is a rush, but the next nine years will be very tenacious and hard to get through. You will be on the edge a few times in about four years, but do not commit yourself to suicide. It evens out later on, and you find a good, wonderful young woman to have good times with. Stop worrying about things. You do eventually, but the sooner you do that the better you will be. Life is very subjective. You will die, eventually, and have not died yet, but you will eventually. Just chill. It is okay to not be something, to be something, to do something, and to not do something. I think you are bit too uptight for a nine year old.

You will leave God. God did not leave you, but you, instead, decided you did not know what He looked like. You will leave your religious life, and all that you knew from before, including all your friends, and walk into a very strange period where you will believe everything from anarchy, to shamanism, to communism, to animism. You will come out a much better individual, so do experiment with all the things you wish to experiment with.

Your father is not as good as he seems, and not as bad as he seems. Your mother is not as bad as she seems, but not as good as she seems. They will not stop arguing or being on the verge of a divorce, stop believing they ever will. Stop trying to fix it also, it just puts you out there to be injured. Don’t injure yourself either, you are a better person than you think.

At the age of nineteen, you are in college. You have many things, and do not have many things. You are bleeding, but it is not enough to warrant much attention when compared to the broader world. You are doing fine. You were doing fine back then, but were too young to think about it.

So, Kenneth, you will be all right. Quit thinking things are so bad. They are, but they aren’t, and they never were. It is as it is, and really, it was always as it was, so when you believe it to be so dark, really it is more lighter, and yet still darker. One spectrum does the entire picture no justice young sir, and one spectrum thinking will draw you into situations much less suitable than you believe them to be.

20 years from when you read this, I will get a letter from myself at the age of 29. I may forward it to you for your own enjoyment, but that is hard to say. Until then, enjoy a good 10 years and I will see you right now. Goodbye.

Signed,

Yourself, now, and tomorrow, and yesterday

P.S. Your first love is a big let down! Don’t play videogames that one time instead of hanging out with her, it will be one of the last times you see her! Take my word for it, I was there!

The vines cover its dirty exterior and clutch the tombstone like it means so much to them. I have to put something on it though, man. I have the chisel and hammer right here. There are names, I said to the vines, there are so many names I have to fill out today on hunks of rock. This guy, see, he lived until a week ago and his family is very sad, but the problem for me is that I have to dress up this hunk of shit so that they can direct their grief toward something tangible.

Ya’know? A coffin or a hole in the ground ain’t enough without plastering his name all over it to make sure they can come here and weep. I ain’t sure anymore if they are weeping because they’ll join him soon enough or if it is because that, you know, they genuinely miss him. He was a good kid, they always say. Or she was so beautiful, you know that? The day is just too grim without her around, that’s what they say.

I dunno. Looks aight out here to me.

I kneel down next to the vines and brush at them gently, not to set them aside, but rather to caress them. You gotta let it go, man. I got to do this thing to it, it’s my job and I can’t help it. There ain’t another thing in the world I am better at than putting these roadsigns of death across this landscape.

 I gesture to the verdant green grass around me that mixes with the rows of stoic, gray rock lined up in columns in rows like a general is coming to review them. There is a tree here, and a bench, so you can sit and watch, or the grass is comfortable, so you can stand and watch. I do not really know which people prefer, but at a certain point you arrive at the decision that, really, that doesn’t really make much of a difference. Stand, sit, lay down, fuck it.

 Y'all gonna be down in it soon enough, right?

 The vines shake their leaves at me. The fuck does that mean? Are you saying no to me? Don’t you get it, I got shit to do man. I don’t know why you decided to clutch at this tombstone and bring it so close to your heart, but it ain’t my problem. See, look here on this clipboard- this was Timothy Warren Landers, and he was born in the good year of 1967 and died on January 22, 2008. I don’t know why they put all this extra shit.. he had two children whom, I guess, he loved very much. His wife died five years ago in a car accident. He went to college and met people, and loved people, and all that other shit, but damnit I still gotta mark where he’ll rot away.

 See here, this one time they buried this fella who had all the riches that a man could ask for. Lived in the biggest mansion you could ever imagine, smelt of rich, looked of rich, dressed like he was rich, traveled in cars worth more than my house is, man. Day he died, come around here, ain’t a single soul here to see him off into the realm of fertilizer. I put his name on his ornate tombstone, had a statue of an angel and all that shit, but I reckon there is not a single person who gives half a shit about him dying. Prolly took his money and ran.

 Poor, rich, black, white, all of them get embraced by death at one time or another. Y'all be sitting somewhere, doing something, then it will go straight black and that is all. I don’t know jack shit about if there is a heaven, or a hell, or if I give a damn, but you sure as hell aren’t going to be sitting on his mudheap for long. It is my duty, my job if you will, to make sure while they turn to dust that, if someone cares to, they can come and look at a rock with their name on it. You know, for posterity – he is under here, yeah. Man, it is so good to be just six feet away from his corpse. God rest his soul, or don’t, fuck if it matters either way.

 So, man, you’re moving, I’m sorry. I don’t have to take all of you off, just ‘nuff to make sure I can get this shit done right proper. Here, that weren’t so bad now was it? Just chill, man, chill.

 Ain’t no rush. Everyone will come here some time or another.

 
-!-

 I imagine sometimes what I will be doing when I die. I wonder when I will do something for the last time. That last cup of coffee. Last game I play. Last book I read. Last thing I laugh at. Last person to make me smile. Last drive down the road. Last radio station I listen to. Last time I take a walk just to take a walk because the entire world is too wrapped up in itself to take the time and consideration to see what is outside their doors. Last time I argue with someone. Last time I cry. Last time I feel the warmth of someone’s hand on me. The last movie I see. The last plate of food I eat. The last view, that one longing look before it all goes away and fades to black.

 I break it down, mentally, how many birthdays I might have left. If I live to 40, this one coming up will be the halfway point. 60, I am a third of the way there. 80, a forth.

 Maybe I will catch the wrong end of a car in the next two months, and I’m already maxed out at 19/19. Never know.

 The fragility of human existence has a dramatic effect upon its decisions and development religiously, socially, and politically. How easy it is for one to fall to his death. How easy it is, within our personality, to lash out at someone. How easy it is to be seduced by lust, avarice, or to be sent into fearful cooperation. How animalistic we are, so innately dedicated to basic instincts even as we entertain the delusion that we are so much mightier, wiser, and important than other creatures of the Earth.

 How fragile it all is, and how dedicated we are to avoiding to think about how fragile it all is. How very lost can one get, how very lost, indeed.

 I suppose God is all you need. Medicine, perhaps. Distractions of movies, games, and television. I do not know how many times I have lamented the fact people do not read anymore – they seem like sheep, these days. I do not read. I do not follow politics. I do not know. I do not know this. I am ignorant. I am fine with that. I have my things, see? I have my toys. I have this, I can drink this, and be fulfilled, forever.

Forever, into the unyielding horizon.