China

            China? Can you read me, China? Is my blog being blocked by government censors? I'm curious because here in America we buy a lot of stuff that's been manufactured in China. I just wanted to extend my greetings to you and let you know that your hard work is not going unnoticed. In fact, it's almost the only thing we notice because pretty much everything in every retail store was made in China. When I've visited big warehouse stores like Wal-Mart I've never seen a product that was made outside of China. In a way, you should be proud. Your work is valued by corporations selling goods in the U.S. That's something.

See, I don't know what you know and what you don't know. The United States has long had trade agreements with China and here in the U.S. we can read all about what happens in your country, whether in newspapers, magazines, books, or on the Web. One of the things I've read, though, is that the Chinese government restricts what its citizens--you (hopefully)--can access online. In other words, it's not clear to me whether you can access my site or not. I'd like to think you could if you wanted to do so. I mean, you might not want to read what I've written. You might think it's all a load of crap. Of course, you have a right to your opinion ... well, you would if you lived in the United States. I'm not sure if you have a right to your opinion in China or not. I'd certainly like to know, though.

Do you know why I want to know? Because I don't really feel good about buying products from China not knowing whether or not you have basic rights like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the right to a fair trial, privacy rights, labor rights protecting you from workplace abuse, and so on. On the other hand, I don't really have much choice when it comes to buying products since about 90 percent of all goods sold in the U.S. seem to come from China.

I don't know what you've heard about the U.S. but some people here like to say one of the great things about America is the choices we have. But, truthfully, when it comes to making purchases ... well, there aren't a lot of choices in terms of where goods are made. Sure, there are probably hundreds of brands of televisions sold by dozens of corporations, but I'm not sure any of those televisions are made outside of China. There are some things made outside of China, especially luxury goods and organic products. But only about 10 to 20 percent of Americans can regularly afford those things. Those folks can buy $10.00 bottles of environmentally friendly dishwashing soap while the rest of us can only afford the stuff that pollutes streams, rivers, wetlands, and lakes. I guess I could just take a chance, water-wash my dishes, and hope I don't get a bacterial infection or anything. But that's a hell of a risk because insurance in the U.S. doesn't cover much in the way of medical problems. A truth in advertising ad might read like this: "We will accept payment for premiums in exchange for consideration of claims we will eventually reject."

I'm starting to realize we have it as bad as you do in China--according to what I read about China. Heck, our media outlets might be feeding out more propaganda than yours. It's hard to say. I know I can go online and read websites from foreign countries, though, and there are no restrictions so according to what I've read we have better rights in that sense. I've also heard that Chinese labor rights and environmental regulations are much worse than those in the U.S. Not that we have decent labor protections or environmental oversight. Europe is kicking our ass on those fronts. They also are killing us in education. But then again, so is China. I don't know what's going on with education in the U.S. For one, we still practice the same factory-style model championed by Horace Mann and John Dewey. It's outdated but it's hard to change gigantic bureaucratic structures in the U.S. Is that the case in China? I'm curious about how you fund your schools. In the U.S. property taxes are used to fund schools. So if an American goes to school in an area with high property tax revenues then there are ample funds for teacher pay, extracurricular activities, special projects, and resources to implement more cutting edge educational approaches proven by research to be much more effective than the factory-style model. It's ironic that we use the factory style model since corporations have outsourced all of our manufacturing to China. Never let it be said that irony doesn't exist in the U.S. Americans may be becoming too under-educated to recognize ironies, though ... or maybe even to know what the word means.

Allow me to return to the workplace, though. As bad as trends are here in the U.S. when it comes to workplace stability, income, benefits, protections against abuse, and job satisfaction, productivity has increased. We're more productive laborers than we used to be even though workers have less to show, personally, for their work. But from what I've read, the lot of Chinese workers is much worse than ours and yet you also are highly productive. Apparently, there is little correlation between workplace conditions and benefits and the efficiency of productivity. No wonder corporations are able to cut labor costs so much ... it simply doesn't matter in a business sense. In that sense, Americans and Chinese workers have a lot in common: The personal lives of workers are of little consequence compared to the importance of economics. As long as transactions are ever-increasing then it doesn't really matter what quality of life any human being has. I don't know about you in China, but we in America have been deluded by myths and stories that individuals matter. It's just not true; the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that productivity and profit are infinitely more important.

We're not really free in the U.S. The words "freedom" and "liberty" go hand-in-hand with American rhetoric, but it's bullshit. We have some freedoms China doesn't, but I'm guessing Chinese peoples have some freedoms we don't. I'd like to know what they are and I'd like to hear from a "working class" Chinese person about the freedoms that exist in China. I don't want a state-sanctioned description of freedoms. I want the "man on the ground."

Can Chinese men and women legally pay for sex? The only place in the U.S. where prostitution is legal is in Nevada as far as I know. I know Americans can't legally purchase cocaine or opium for personal use. We can't squat in an abandoned house even though there'd be no harm to anyone. I can't walk down the street naked without getting arrested. Legally, I can't have a poker night at my house where cash is used in betting (pretty easy to get away with that one, but the point remains). Uncle Sam wants a piece of the pie if there are any transactions being made and if they can't taste the exchange and take their cut then they make those activities illegal.

Is it like that in China? I'd like to know. Hell, I might want to move there if it's legal to walk around naked. I wouldn't mind picking up a few bucks selling my body for sex, either. Is there high sexual demand for Caucasian American males? I know there used to be opium dens in China but I believe that was before Mao and the Communist Party. If it's legal to smoke opium out of a hooka, well, yeah, I'd give it a whirl. Ideally, I'd like to be naked smoking opium while getting paid to pleasure a woman. Call me old-fashioned but that's always been a goal of mine. Is that something I could expect to experience in China? Would it be legal there? I know I couldn't do it legally in the U.S. and, unfortunately, it seems unlikely to happen for me at all here in the U.S. I don't know how it is in China but it's so easy for a woman to get laid in the United States that the idea of paying a man for sex is absurd. Sure, maybe a famous actor or professional athlete. But otherwise women can just go to the nearest bar and bat their eyes at a guy who's had a couple drinks and he'd likely be ready to hop into the backseat of a car ... or stand against the side of a dumpster.

Women in the U.S. say they like having sex as much as a man but the fact that so many of them are particular about the, uh, particulars tells me that it's a bunch of bullshit. I can guarantee you that only a woman strung out on crack will be willing to have sex in places more disgusting than I will. Not one of the women I know as friends or family would fuck in the places I would at the times of day I would with as much abandon as I would. I am attracted to about 80 percent of women. That's a rough estimate and when I say I am attracted to 80 percent of women I mean I would fuck 80 percent of all women. At least 80 percent of women are fuckable in my eyes. I may want to fuck some of those 80 percent more than others, but that doesn't mean I don't want to fuck those others! If I had more dicks then I'd use 'em, trust me.

Women, though? I seriously doubt many women would be willing to fuck 80 percent of the guys they see each and every day. It's not a matter of being pickier, either. At least I don't think so. What's sad is that American women think they need to be a size zero or size two to be sexy and beautiful. No! Get that fucking shit out of your heads right now! Please, I'll fuck a size fourteen in heartbeat. Ridiculous Hollywood, supermodel bullshit giving perfectly hot women hangups about their bodies which makes them NOT WANT TO HAVE SEX! Do you realize that? Those women's magazines and Playboy porn have actually ruined any possibility of a true sexual revolution by convincing 90 percent of women that they are unattractive and unfuckable. Goddamnit, I will caress your fucking love handles while I eat your pussy! Am I getting through to you at all? I hope so because I'd like to have access to women who are attractive but don't think they are.

*Sigh* Now where was I? Oh, yeah, China and getting paid for sex. Yeah, I don't think my naked opium smoking sex-for-pay gig is going to work out here in the U.S. I'm open to it, I'd like it to happen, but nothing's developed so far. Being naked, smoking opium, and having sex is doable; it's the getting paid for sex part that just ain't happening. Which is why I really need to know what's going on in China. I'll buy as many damn Chinese products as I can afford if I find out my dream is possible there. Hell, which would you rather do? Work sixteen hour days six days a week on an assembly line attaching plastic legs to Barbie dolls in a 100-degree sweatshop while a foreman smacks your hamstrings with a cane 40 times a day or lie naked in an opium den smoking from a hooka while fucking for money? To each their own, but I've made my choice clear. The only thing left to do is find out if China is censoring my blog. My Chinese brothers and sisters, if you're freely roaming the World Wide Web, let me know what's happening, huh? Thanks.

Who Stole My Gestalt?

Jenny never did find out who stole her gestalt. She wondered whether she could ever consider herself as a whole person or even a component of a holistic society. As she looked out her window she saw jumbles of shapes distinguishable only by gradations, complements, and stark contrasts of colors. What she would have in the past perceived as a tree looked to her now as disconnected shapes that had no coherent relation to one another. There were gradations of brown rising vertically but with jagged edges and faint but narrow curves. As the brown vertical variants rose there appeared a great variety of nearly indiscriminate shades of green, many blending together in a mushy conglomeration. There were, here and there, more striking differentiations, sharp edges and rounded curves of pale green adjacent to darker greens.

Jenny had a difficult time deciphering what she saw. She tried to make interpretations but chaos was the only explanation available to her. She felt anxiety welling within her. Her heart pounded, her palms sweat, her breathing irregular, and her thoughts jumbled. There was no way to create meaning. Absent meaning her anxiety swelled to panic. She had no means to create purpose and without purpose she lost her ability to develop intentions. She may have possessed a will but in her aimless condition there was no way to make decisions from which to act. Jenny merely sat in her chair staring out the window, terrified of all she saw, wondering if the shapes and colors were who she was rather than objects external to her being.

Her eyes blinked and as they came open again Jenny realized she could turn the chaos of color to darkness. She blinked and held her eyes shut, not understanding conceptually what she was doing. At first, there was just darkness, not quite black and yet an undifferentiated grey-black that momentarily soothed Jenny’s nerves. However, there were soon little spots of light, streaks of color, floating fragments of differentiation that disrupted the serenity of sameness that had brought such calm. Jenny screamed unintelligibly and began sobbing. Her eyes opened and she found herself looking at a tapestry of colors that shifted constantly. Her head was facing downward and what she would have been able to identify in the past as the objects she perceived were her beige pants, the leg within her pants, part of the maroon cushion of the chair she was sitting on, the grey carpet, the brownish leg of a wooden end table, and more that fell within her peripheral vision. She could not discern that any of these things were separate objects nor could she even build conceptions of what she saw. The tears in her eyes further muddled the situation as it appeared to Jenny that she might be drowning, though she didn’t have the words to describe such an event.

She bent over and lost her balance, falling from the chair to the ground. This disturbing and unexpected movement further disoriented Jenny. What she felt was shock and that temporarily displaced her terror. What she normally would have considered pain was merely a strangeness of sensation that differed from the tactile sensations she had previously felt. Her face was pressed against the carpet, a rug burn on her cheek. Her ass was sticking up in the air, her knees positioned in such a way to provide an anchor for it to remain. Her torso was slightly contorted and twisted, her arms laying limp at her sides. Her shins were parallel to the floor and her feet were splayed in opposite directions which further provided stability for her knees.

Despite this positional stability, the position was what the Jenny of the past would have described as painful. The Jenny of the moment was no longer in shock; instead, she was exploring the sensations she felt throughout her body despite the fact that she did not have anything approximating a belief that she had a body. The sensations that were within her seemed every bit as confusing and indeterminable as the shapes and colors she had seen while looking out the window. There was no way for her to discern whether they were “her” or something that was “not her.” For whatever reason, this alarmed Jenny far less than her perceptions of colors and shapes. It could be said that she had perceptions of tactile sensations, but the feelings had a quality of “realness” that satisfied Jenny. Discomfort or not, the feelings did not cry out for conception. They made fewer demands and thus Jenny was able to lackadaisically explore the sensations while enjoying regularity of breath, a slower heart rate, and other physiologically pleasing conditions.

After some time had passed, though, Jenny became more and more uncomfortable with the sensations coming from seemingly everywhere and nowhere. Jenny would have easily been able to identify the sources of her pain and discomfort had she still possessed her gestalt. Her cheek had rug burn and the sensation was growing more unpleasant by the minute; her forehead ached as it had bruised when she fell; her knees were sore from the carrying the weight of her torso; her back was aching from the awkward twisting position; there was a sharp pain in her neck from the weight of her twisted back resting on it as well as the irregular angle of its position on the carpet; overall, her entire body was weary from being in such a strange position for so long without moving.

All of those factors combined to overload Jenny’s senses. Again she felt anxiety arising and as she opened her eyes she became even more terrified as she began to couple colors and shapes with sensations. However, she was never able to maintain the connections, wrong as they were, long enough to put together an internal narrative of what was happening to her. Had she been able she would have screamed for someone to return her gestalt to her so that she could perceive the world as she had previously and, thus, function within it, taking care to address anxieties immediately as they arose, identifying and analyzing possible and perceived causes of distress so that she could mitigate and perhaps even eradicate the effects.

Just as Jenny neared an immersion into an all-encompassing horror, her gestalt returned. She quickly got up and looked around the room. There was no one there. She looked out the window but could see no one. She ran into the kitchen and looked through the window into the back yard. Again, no one was there. She ran upstairs into each bedroom as well as the bathroom, but she found no one, not even in the closets.

Jenny returned to the living room, huffing and puffing. She shook her head, shook her arms, and ran in place very fast for about a minute before coming to a stop. She remained still and she took several deep breaths, exhaling slowly. Jenny scrunched up her nose as she thought to herself, “Who could have done that to me? Who do I know with the power to rob me of my gestalt?” She sat in her chair and looked out the window. The tree was there and Jenny put thoughts together in such a way as to deduce that she had been looking at it while gestalt-less, unable to perceive its parts constituting a whole.

Her thoughts returned to who may have stolen her gestalt. It couldn’t have been her therapist, she thought. He was an evolutionary psychologist and didn’t even believe in the concept of gestalt let alone the actuality of it. Her best friend, a self-proclaimed phenomenologist, could have done it but never would. Her ethics would have prevented her from committing such a heinous act. Her ex-boyfriend had motive, but he lacked the sophistication necessary to stealthily remove gestalt from being. Janie, her sister? She had no motive whatsoever and was far too busy raising her three children and coping with suspicions about her husband’s business trips. Her parents were dead so it couldn’t have been them even if they had wanted to do so.

But then again … maybe they could have. Jenny realized she couldn’t limit herself to the living. This may have betrayed a scientific approach, but then again nothing within any scientific discipline would suggest that such a thing as a gestalt could be stolen. So perhaps the dead could have stolen her gestalt. Not necessarily her parents, but anyone dead. How could she determine the motives of a ghost, poltergeist, spirit, phantom, wraith, or any other potential manifestation of the dead? How could she even communicate with the dead to find out? A medium? A psychic? A spirit guide? Maybe.

Jenny allowed herself to consider other alternatives. Perhaps she would pursue ways to communicate with the dead, but she wanted to exhaust as many possibilities as she could before doing so. She cycled through her memories of different belief systems throughout the world, throughout history. Voodoo? Could someone with a voodoo doll steal gestalt? Jenny didn’t think so. What about witchcraft? Possibly. Anyone who could cast a spell might be able to steal her gestalt. A witch, a wizard, a sorcerer, a necromancer? How would she know? Yet another line of inquiry to potentially pursue.

Shamans, yogis, mystics? They all seemed like viable possibilities. A shaman doing the dirty work for a member of a tribe who had lost his or her gestalt? A yogi who used his or her powers for nefarious purposes? A mystic with powers of bilocation could have come and gone in a moment without a notice. Could it have been a Catholic saint, a Buddhist sage, or the Báb of the Baha’i faith? It seemed unlikely since mystics of those religions came from a mythology that exclusively heralded their selfless gifts to humanity rather than selfish motivations to harm others.

There were undoubtedly more belief systems Jenny could have explored, but she was exhausted. She rose to walk to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of cranberry juice, feeling the need for fluids and fructose. She unwrapped a power bar and returned to the living room to sit in her chair. As she ate and drank she allowed her mind to rest. She stared absentmindedly out the window for several minutes after she had finished eating and drinking. She rose again to take the glass and the wrapper to the kitchen. She put the glass in the sink and threw away the wrapper in the small garbage can under the sink.

Jenny looked out the window at her backyard. She shook her head, thinking, “Why did this happen to me? Will it happen again?” She realized she had no way of knowing, certainly not at the moment. The possibility that her gestalt could be stolen again and next time not returned? A shiver went up her spine. She didn’t want to think about it. She tilted her head to the side and pondered. “What if my gestalt wasn’t stolen? What if I misplaced it or lost track of it?” But if that was the case how had she retrieved it? No, she decided, it had to have been taken from me by someone or something.

What about aliens? Jenny hadn’t yet considered that. Unfortunately, the possibility proved no more or less likely than the other possibilities she considered plausible. “If I take a scientific or psychological view, what might the explanation be?” Psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder? Maybe, but she had never had any experiences that fit into those categories previously. Why had she come out of it as suddenly as she had fallen into it? There was no psychological or psychiatric intervention, no medications or therapies that had rescued her from her state. It just happened.

A brain tumor? A static electric shock within the brain? A synaptic disconnection or a frayed nerve along the spine? Maybe. She’d need to consult with a neurologist, have an MRI. But she’d had a physical recently and less than six months ago she’d had an MRI after a car accident resulted in a mild concussion. Nothing out of the ordinary had shown up on the MRI or CAT scans. Still, it seemed as worthwhile to make an appointment with a neurologist as it did to make an appointment with a medium and contact a coven.

Nevertheless, Jenny still had her doubts about neurology. If there was a brain tumor or disorder then no one had taken her gestalt. Could it be possible that something besides her gestalt caused her terrifying experiences? How could that be? For Jenny, her gestalt was everything, her ability to perceive in the ways she did required the existence of a gestalt. Her entire belief system would crumble if she was to discover that something other than gestalt had caused her perceptions to change. How would she explain her perceptual reality without a gestalt?

The idea frightened Jenny. She didn’t like the direction her thoughts were going. She made herself turn away from the kitchen window, turn from the sink, and walk to the front door. She stepped outside. The sun was shining, the air was warm but the breeze was cool. The position of the sun on this September day in Boulder suggested it was late morning. “Perhaps a walk around the block would do me some good,” thought Jenny.

Jenny made her way down the steps outside the front door, stepped along the walk to the driveway, and made her way to the sidewalk. As she strode down the sidewalk past the landscaped yards of her neighbors, a car barreled around the corner just down the street. Its tires were screeching and a thumping bass throbbed from the car. Jenny stopped walking and stared at the car. She was momentarily in shock. The car straightened out and accelerated up the street toward Jenny. It swerved over to her side of the street and as Jenny began to run through the yard of the nearest house the car screamed over the curb and roared right through her.

Jenny died on the spot, her body a bloody, broken mess. The car smashed through the outer wall of the house and into the living room where it came to a stop. Inside the car was a driver and three passengers, all of them dead having died upon impact with the house. None of them wore seatbelts. In the backseat was a witch from Nantucket who had cast spells only on those she had never met and a yogi from Kashmir with a predilection for unleashing Kundalini awakenings on unsuspecting individuals. In the passenger seat was an alien from another galaxy, humanoid but without sensory organs; its brain swallowed the thoughts of others as nutrition. Driving the car had been a middle-aged woman, a neurologist who doctored MRIs so that she could justify brain surgeries that weren’t needed.

Given Jenny’s experiences it might be thought that the car was filled with those who had conspired to steal Jenny’s gestalt. However, that wasn’t the case. Unbeknownst to Jenny, her subconscious had hidden her gestalt from her consciousness as a practical joke. Without Jenny’s awareness, her subconscious mind had been fucking with her consciousness on and off for years, motivated always to humble consciousness from believing itself to be of the utmost importance.

But then, what of the carload of suspects that fit Jenny’s profiles for potential gestalt thieves? A case of mistaken identity. The carload had a story of its own and they had thought Jenny was someone she wasn’t.

The Old Man of San Quentin

            In a fit of unrelenting dialogue, two actors forgot their lines and began improvising. The director unleashed a pack of wild dogs on them and ate carrot chips while watching the thespians mauled. The producer threw up his hands in disgust before masturbating into a coffee mug. A grip seized the cup and sold it for a pittance on eBay later that same evening.

            An elderly bald man squatting in San Quentin eventually obtained the dried ejaculate. He used a letter opener to scrape and fleck the hardened cum onto an ornately decorated dinner plate. His small hands moved feverishly as he hummed a gospel tune. Eventually, the shavings were sprinkled about the plate. He smiled to himself as he stood up to admire his work and then undid his pants. He proceeded to urinate on the plate.

            An incandescent light spread over the San Francisco Bay. People around the area, especially those who had been watching the sunset from the Berkeley marina just moments earlier, gasped and gawked, puzzled as they were by the wispy strands of moonlight flooding the Bay. A flock of bats at least ten thousand strong descended upon Coit Tower. The bald man in San Quentin looked up toward the ceiling of his adopted cell with fear in his eyes. He finished his business just as quickly, although a few drops of urine dripped onto his boxers and pants.

            The soft, pale light continued to seep through the clouds. A bemused necromancer hesitated to speak when asked why the earth was being besieged by ungodly wraiths. What good would it do? The citizens of the Bay Area seemed to have simultaneously lost their minds. Mass schizophrenia? Collective hypersensitivity? Who knew? Certainly not the necromancer. All he could do was keep from laughing out loud. He walked slowly toward Union Square so he could get a better view of the sky.

            Winking transvestites riding painted donkeys made their way down Market Street waving to the frightened, mesmerized sky-gawkers. Wicked wise worthy women washed waste while wondering why winsome wanderers won’t wish well. A boy cruised down East Fifth guffawing heartily. In Jenny’s kitchen, little mean Nina offered Peter ripe squash. “Tom unloaded Veronica’s weighty xylophone,” yammered Zack.

            The eerie, pale light remained. Those still watching turned to stone while the rest of the Bay Area fell asleep wherever they were. Golden Gate Park was littered with sleeping vagrants, homeless bud merchants, families, elderly couples, tourists, travelers, cyclists, and pedestrian commuters. The sidewalks of every city and town throughout the Bay Area were covered with dozing individuals. Cars, buses, and motorcycles slammed into one another, rammed into trees, houses, buildings, cyclists, pedestrians, fences, signs, dividers, and all manner of objects. Airplanes and trains crashed. Construction workers building high rise condos and office buildings fell to their deaths or simply slumped to unfinished floors. Those in their houses and apartments fell asleep wherever they were, at kitchen tables, on couches, chairs, floors, toilets, bathtubs (with many drowning), and, for those truly fortunate, beds. Couples and threesomes and orgies dozed in one another’s arms, crotches, sex swings, and the like. More people than you might imagine died from autoerotic asphyxia.

            The places and positions of those falling asleep ran the gamut of human endeavors. Hiking trails, hospitals (patients dying during surgery and even some doctors dying from falling on scalpels and bleeding to death), supermarkets, banks, retail stores, restaurants, and more. Fires blazed throughout the city as sleeping smokers dropped their cigarettes in highly flammable places. Other fires started from electric and gas stoves left alight or crashes from cars and planes. The carnage from the apocalyptic scene would have led to mass panic were anyone awake or not turned to stone. The entirety of the Bay Area became a stone and sleep zone.

            The only person who did not turn to stone or fall asleep was the bald man in San Quentin. He lowered himself to the floor, crossed his legs, placed his hands on his knees, closed his eyes, and began to pray. Within minutes he experienced the first of many visions. Before his mind’s eye appeared Wanda, an elderly woman who lived alone in Jerusalem. She had no family, no friends, but had enough money to hire a manservant to take care of her daily needs, whether it be grocery shopping, cooking, running a bath, laundry, and so on. She spent most of her time daydreaming, wondering when the hegemony of the United States would subside.

            She imagined a world where each country had an absolute equality of sovereignty and international power and influence. Her imagination created not so much a utopia as merely a different reality. Mixed capitalism (in the vein of economic theory) was global. Each country had exactly the same labor, environmental, and business regulations. Zoning laws in each country were precisely the same. Each sovereign nation had the same government structure, election processes, legal systems, and bureaucratic institutions. Economic and monetary policies mimicked one another. Financial markets had no distinguishable differences. The same television shows and radio programs existed in each country.

            There was one global language spoken by everyone and every document, book, magazine, newspaper, website used it. It was not a language that anyone else alive had ever heard spoken or seen written. It existed only in the mind of Wanda, an imaginary place that had a reality that could not be measured or denied. Every culture throughout the world was exactly the same as every other culture. Beliefs were uniform and the primary belief was that science was the only reliable source of knowledge and understanding of the world, the galaxy, the universe. Every aspect of human nature and relationships were believed to be solely determinable by science. The philosophy of science was the global religion and there were no variant strains, just one uniform philosophy that dictated how to believe in science.

            The infrastructure of every nation was gradually transformed to resemble the infrastructure of every other civilization. Each individual the world over thought, felt, and acted almost identically with the primary difference being when and where they thought, felt, and acted. The thoughts, feelings, and actions had a range from one to a billion and at any given time no two individuals ever reproduced the same numerical combinations. It was this that produced diversity in the world and scientifically it was known that the only uniqueness that existed was human. The recognition of this uniqueness by each and every person around the world led to an unprecedented respect, tolerance, and sympathy for each and every other person in the world.

            The architect of all of this was, of course, Wanda. This world existed within her, she a universe unto herself. But she was in relation to all other universes throughout time and space. Until the bald man of San Quentin, not one person in the world ever became aware this universe within Wanda. There had been no scientific discoveries of this existing universe that seemed so readily accessible. Wanda, though, kept the universe of her imagination hidden from the world, from science, and from each and every person. By doing so, she maintained the integrity and continued uniformity of the world she had created, delighting herself by watching individuals shift from one numerical combination of thoughts, feelings, and actions to another each and every moment. The possible numerical combinations within each individual was calculable but enormous; the potential combinations within each individual combined with the potentials within each other individual was so great that Wanda had considered hiring a mathematician to figure out the total number of combinations at a given moment. But, as it was indeterminable how many would die and be born each day it was possible the combinations could be infinite over time. That was Wanda’s determination. She never consulted with a mathematician because she was concerned her universe could be discovered and irreparably altered in a way she did not believe would suit her.

            The man from San Quentin wept as he experienced this vision of Wanda’s earthly being and her universe of imagination. He had become privy to one of the great mysteries of the universe he lived within, the universe contained within Wanda, a mystery that no one had ever considered mysterious at all.

            The vision lasted for only a moment but within the universe of the vision the vision lasted hundreds of thousands of years. The bald man knew exponentially more about Wanda’s universe than he did of the universe recognized as existing by 21^st century science. He had been filled with great wisdom, the wisdom of Wanda, the God of her universe of imagination.

            Wanda, during the 21^st century moment of the bald man’s vision, realized that her universe had been discovered. She sensed that a being, a God from another universe entirely, had viewed her universe’s territory, her universe’s mind. She shrieked to her man-servant to provide her with ayahuasca so that she might enter into a trance that would allow her to translocate to this alternate universe so that she might confront this nosy God who had spied her empire.

            Unfortunately for Wanda, she transported herself within her own universe and became a person within it. This Wanda-within-Wanda was a hairdresser living in London. She was 34 years old, very pretty, married to a handsome man who worked as a manager at a department store, and she had three children, two girls and a boy, between the ages of 4 and 11. She lived her life as others in this world did, experiencing different combinations of thoughts, feelings, and actions each moment. The Wanda of the 21^st century, meanwhile, became an invalid.

            The bald man of San Quentin had another vision within seconds of the ending of the first. In this vision, he saw a man named Bob who defecated into a small black bag whenever he couldn’t produce sound from his trumpet. This vision contained nothing more than that. There was no way to discern where he lived, how old he was, whether he liked marmalade or not … nothing. The only thing the vision allowed was the knowledge that a man named Bob shit into a bag whenever he couldn’t successfully produce sound from his trumpet.

            The man of San Quentin began to open his eyes as he was confused by the second vision. Once his eyes were open he saw he was no longer in a cell in San Quentin. Instead, he was sitting at a table in a very cozy kitchen. The air was thick with the smell of peach cobbler. A woman the man knew was named Jenny turned to him. She wore an apron and carried a small plate of cobbler. She smiled at him as she placed the plate in front of him. As the man looked at Jenny he noticed that she seemed to be in her 40s or possibly even her 50s. She was slightly heavyset but attractive nevertheless. As he stared at her, Jenny’s face changed its expression. She asked the man what was wrong. He averted his eyes and looked down at the cobbler. “Nothing. Sorry, nothing’s wrong.” He saw a fork next to the plate, picked it up, and cut into the cobbler.

            “Careful! It’s still very hot.” The man looked up at Jenny and nodded his head. Jenny smiled, patted him on his head (which now had hair, the formerly bald man noticed), and turned to walk out of the kitchen. She untied her apron before she did and let it fall to the floor. The man had followed this progression with his eyes and wondered why she had just let the apron drop. He shook his head and turned back to the cobbler.

            He looked around the kitchen as he ate. He noticed the window above the sink with the pink see-through half-curtains that looked out to a blue sky. He saw the walls were painted pink as well. He looked over at the apron which was also pink. The table cloth was pink, the same shade as every other object of pinkness in the room. The refrigerator and stove were white but scummy. It was clear that they hadn’t been cleaned in some time. The cupboards and drawers were all painted pink. The linoleum was also pink but worn to a greyish pink in high traffic areas around the sink, refrigerator, and stove. “The woman likes pink,” thought the formerly bald man.

            After he finished his cobbler he rose from the table and walked to the apron to pick it up. As he did, he became dizzy and fell, banging his head hard against the floor. He lost consciousness within moments.

            When the formerly bald man woke he was in a teepee. He was covered with blankets, his head was propped on a fur, and there was a fire burning in the center. He realized he was the only person in the teepee as he looked around. He removed the blankets, saw that he was naked, and stood up. He found a pair of blue jeans, a button-down long-sleeve shirt, a long brown leather jacket, and a pair of leather boots. He also noticed a cloth that he could fold and tie as underwear as well as a pair of wool socks.

            After he dressed, he opened the flap of the teepee and stepped out. There was snow on the ground. There was no wind and the temperature was not terribly cold considering the snow. The sky was overcast. The man walked away from the teepee and turned in a circle. In every direction there were mountains. He was in a valley, one cleared of trees. When he looked back at the teepee he noticed that there was a snowmobile behind it. He could only see the front end of it from his angle, but he walked to it.

The snowmobile seemed relatively new, in good shape. The man climbed aboard and gave the ignition a try. It started up and the man put the machine gear. He had no idea which direction to go and he realized he didn’t even know what he was looking for. He decided to simply head in the direction the snowmobile had been facing.

            He was nearing the tree line at the base of a mountain when the snowmobile suddenly plunged through the snow. The man lost contact with the snowmobile and reached out with his hands to try to grab onto something, anything that might keep him from falling further into the hole. There was nothing, though, and so the man fell … and fell … and fell. As he was falling he wondered first if he had hit a sink hole but as he fell further he wondered if it was a mine shaft and as he fell further he wondered if what he was experiencing was real.

            The man fell for what seemed to be hours. It might have been only several minutes but there was no way to tell. The man closed his eyes and screamed with such desperation that he lost touch with time and space altogether. It seemed as if he was in a gravity-less state, no longer falling but suspended in sensory deprivation. This state seemed to last an eternity and perhaps it did.

            The man, after this possible eternity, awoke. He was lying on ground, partially in a puddle and partially on grass and dirt. He opened his mouth and as he did a soft, pale light emerged. The man shifted his eyes downward to look at this light emanating from his mouth. As he did he saw an extraordinarily tiny urban landscape mixed with what appeared to be areas of brush and teeny tiny stalks of green and brown grass that resembled eucalyptus and Redwood trees. On all side of the puddle were little developed areas resembling towns with roads and buildings and houses. The man noticed that the puddle went indefinitely underneath him, that most of his body was in a puddle that seemed to get progressively deeper as it neared his feet.

            The man saw what he thought were little fleas buzzing about very slowly but as he squinted his eyes he saw that they were tiny planes. As he realized this, his mouth still agape projecting the same incandescent light, the bug-planes all fell to the ground, some in the water making teeny tiny splashes and others on dirt and the small grass making the tiniest of orange sparks as they hit the ground. He could hear faint buzzing and a sound like a baby crying a hundred meters away.

            The man felt himself urinating and as he did he saw flecks of dried cum falling from the sky. In awe, he tilted his eyes upward, trying to believe it was snow even though he knew it wasn’t. His mouth opened wider and wider and the light continued to pour out of it. The man rolled onto his back and as his eyes looked upward he saw a familiar sight: the ceiling of his cell in San Quentin.

            A guard came to his cell door and opened it. He looked down at the bald man and asked him what the fuck he was doing. The bald man sat up, disoriented. The guard extended his hand to the man. The old man grabbed it and pulled himself to his feet. He asked the guard what day it was. The guard looked at him wearily. “You know what day it is.”

            The old man looked nervously at the guard. He was worried and he could feel his anxiety rising. He made himself speak. “No, I don’t know what day it is. Please tell me.”

            The guard took a deep breath and leaned into the old man, his face coming closer and closer until they were touching. The old man looked into the guard’s eyes looking into his own and he saw his own terror located somewhere within them. The guard spoke. “Today is the day before the soft, pale light.”

Large Head Small Neck Inc.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Large Head Small Neck Inc. aims to provide support services to large-headed/small-necked men and women working in targeted business environments in Southeast Asia. This plan seeks to generate a significant increase in company revenues and profits from the delivery of consulting, research, and services compared to the previous year.

The highlights of this plan are the targets: gross margin. The targeted gross margin for each of the first five years of this plan are $17 million, $20 million, $24 million, $29 million, and $35 million, respectively. These targets are attainable through a proactive approach to the candidacy of clients, teaming up with technology providers, and partnering with reputable local and regional suppliers and distributors to reduce competition, improve pricing, and reduce risks. The projected marketing budget for each year will be $4.4 million, $5 million, $ 5.7 million, $6.4 million, and $7.3 million, respectively.

This business plan has been created based on the basis of five years of market research, which spanned March of 2010 through May of 2014. Data conclude the size and growth of the market and geographical segments, customer needs, perception, and purchasing behavior trends have been on the upswing, and are expected to continue in this trend for the next five years. Large Head Small Neck feels that it is able to fill the hole in this niche, and will benefit from operations beginning in January, 2015.

Note: All figures in this plan are in the U.S. dollar.

OBJECTIVES

Large Head Small Neck Inc.’s objectives are to make an equal and fair profit in the business-to-business and business-to-consumer sectors related to support services for large-headed/small-necked persons. This goal is to be reached by attaining the numbers below:

1. Sales of $21 million in 2015, $25 million in 2016, $30 million in 2017, $36 million in 2018, and $43 million in 2019.
2. Average gross margin above 80%.
3. Net income at 44% of sales in 2015, 45% of sales in 2016, 44.9% of sales in 2017, 46.7% of sales in 2018, and 49% of sales in 2019.

MISSION

Large Head Small Neck Inc. offers companies, government institutions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and individuals reliable, high-quality, and cost-effective services for oversized heads and undersized necks. Our services include shamanism, voodoo, witchcraft, enchantments, wizardry, sorcery, conjuration, and other customized magical services.

The situation in Southeast Asia is currently characterized by the facts that times are tough, investment appetites are low, industries are cutting costs, and budgets are being slashed. Fully aware of this situation, Large Head Small Neck Inc., after completing a five year research study, has come to the conclusion that its potential clients would be interested in servicing problems related to oversized heads and undersized necks in a  smarter way, with good support from a reliable and efficient magical wisdom. Large Head Small Neck believes that it can provide both solutions and value creations to its clients. Its senior executive consultants have been working with some reputable U.S.-based global companies for more than 20 years, and have extensive knowledge of Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and other Southeast Asian business and consumer environments.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

Large Head Small Neck Inc. feels that it controls its own success through basic internal and external factors. These are

1. Marketing and Magical Power. The services the company provides are made attractive in order to maintain a certain percentage of B2B and B2C clients. Being a magical wisdom services provider, and business and sales representative, Large Head Small Neck Inc. demonstrates a successful approach in converting its reputation into an excellent brand to ensure the conversion of its clients’ awareness into their wisdom, thus creating value and alleviating burdens for its clients.
2. Excellence in fulfilling the promise. Clients do not buy features, they buy benefits. To realize a benefit, a claim must be made and proof presented. This company has had success on claim after claim.
3. Developing visibility to generate new business leads. Large Head Small Neck is in the process of building relationships within shamanistic circles, covens, sorcerers, wizards, and others within magical communities. Furthermore, LHSN has launched an extensive advertising campaign devoted to transforming the public image of persons with large heads and small necks. Billboards, radio advertisements and interviews, and television infomercials complement the online blitz targeted at youngish hipsters and international jetsetters. Viral word-of-mouth messages are being delivered by trendsetting large headed and small necked individuals who have proven to be change leaders in their respective environments. 

Splatto-Ray Spray!

Pulled over on the side of the road, screaming obscenities at 12-foot tall winged man-storks with menacing claws and hell-bent intentions of devouring flesh, why not just take a second to reflect on how you got to this point? Didn’t the day start without flair or attitude, the same boring Monday that always creeps up on you when you’re weary and anxious about the mundane tasks of your workaday world? I thought so. That’s why it seems so strange that you ended up on the shoulder of I-205 just west of Tracy. But when you just said fuck it to your job and your life, it was perhaps inevitable that you’d wind up here. Don’t all roads leading from conformity head into the abyss of Central Valley factory farms, inner turmoil, and exhibitions of spiritual immaturity? When you stormed away from the house in a huff, with your eyes screaming terror and lust, I had a feeling you’d end up confronting the forces of evil. I just never imagined that you’d wind up on 205. I thought 880 for sure or at least an off ramp near Concord.

It was a stroke of genius rounding up the fifty-odd homeless youths meandering around the food bank on Gilman that morning. Loading a semi-trailer with crack and malt liquor was a sure-fire incentive. Lacing the crack with strychnine, Ajax, and a mumakalan love potion was risky, but I understand that you needed to get them to abandon their self-conceptions. It worked, for better or worse; they no longer considered themselves homeless or weak. That they came to adore you and honor you as a deity was problematic. An army of free-thinkers is one thing, but a horde of hero-worshiping fundamentalists is never desirable. Still, you had the makings of a band of warriors. I question your use of telekinesis, though. Suspending time and transporting them to San Luis Rio Colorado for sex rituals, wizardry, and hand-to-hand combat training seemed unnecessarily dangerous.

If power were a flower and knowledge was pollen then understanding would be a bee.

He spit into the water, the water in the Jacuzzi in the backyard of his house on Colusa in Berkeley. Just a bit north of Solano. At any rate, he guzzled a pint of whiskey when he found out his daughter was a lesbian. Not that he disapproved in any way. He was saddened by the feeling that he didn’t really know her. A horrible, sinking feeling. Not betrayal, but some feeling of consequence. This distance, this loss of connection, or really, the discovery of the misconception of a close relationship brought Nippy Killarney to the brink of nihilism. The unintentional deceit was a blow to his sense of self, his faith in his emotions and intuitions, his sense of loyalty. A serious blow.

But what of it really? Wasn’t it enough to watch the twilight of a grotesque orange decaying in the weeds under the tree? Hadn't he, a night ago, stared at the stars in the heavens for hours on end with a sense that diamonds were glowing in his eyes? Golden shirt stains whispered rose-scented fudge-dwollop to him now. That's why it was so hard to process this new discovery.

Subatomic sentience.

Stark pastimes melted away like sonnets from the lips of a forgotten jester. Gilded honeylips of fashioned mollusks wondering where you’ve come to be under the tree of life without any topical remedies for your boiled intestinal fortitude granted this is just like you when you last went to the cupboard to get a measure of salt and vinegar for toasted walnuts and jam sessions with ancient goateed guitarists at a club in the middle of the night dreading the dawn and the start of a day that should be better than expected. Why bother, huh? Forget that. Try this for size, a little notch on the bed post next to the whip you bought for Valentine’s Day to spice up the sheet shows you performed for dozens of strangers you’d invited home from a night club last weekend after you were fired from your job as a clerk at a manufacturing company in Vallejo. Ugly bitches from Helvetica and guanine flinches from Terrain spackled with care and frivolous waning workshops lily-pad fracas gumdrop madness recall fad grape stinging socket lung patchy cup knock tripe quark zap total access for the garden quails arrow pat key I lip clit justified vehement kick pop boxing rap slated to be demolished at noon Sunday night erased by morning light laser shooting through stars glazed and crisped to a hurled mangle of bellicose dirty underwear prodded and ornery khaki etchings moaning nectar beams romping through idle ridiculousness. Yes it is. Yes it is. One more time. Cock blasted huge vaginal secretions dripping all over flowers imbedded in my belly-button just as you said they might be if I concentrate before midnight passes unattached to the world around you before you got married to the woman on your left hand side of the steering wheel turning around for all the world to wonder about what time you’re going to come home tonight is the last time I do this.

Or, mud flaps gap-tooth gamming traps hollow-tipped knuckle wraps justified hankering caps middle school filtered taps elongated pepper snaps nickel-plated vaginal paps diluted ankle smacks withered hiking maps three-foot long diamond racks horizontal plating fax gripping toenails fidgeting hacks dapper snail drum hovering tacks quivering freeze-dried wax yellow oblong reduct quack hummus zygote furry jacks kicking towers underwear lack pheromone induction weekend naps litmus nineteen thirties laps interesting future daydream saps corporeal doughnut ghost elapse vitriol nubbin dinky craps mainstream earthbound shining bats undulating terse diachronic orchid mast violent songbird frigid knack.

Frosty. Despite the chill that the word is intended to convey, “frosty” evokes warmth. Through the mirth of the snowman and the refreshment of a cold beer, frosty defies the coldness of its definition. Frosty Jaeggerlogger is another soul who, despite his ignorance and dull wit, fills the heart with a warm glow. Some say that in his own bumbling way he endears himself to others. Others chuckle at his idiocy. And others insist that they felt much better about themselves after meeting him.

More history can be found from Frosty’s surname: Jaeggerlogger. Of nondescript Eurasian descent, Frosty’s roots date back to a dwarfish clan of nomadic forest people who survived eating the bark of dead logs. With their powerful, beaver-like chops they hollowed out the trunks giant redwoods for shelter. Over time, they learned to gnaw abstract ornaments and trinkets that they traded for food and animal skins. They were not merely survivors, though. They occasionally offered themselves as objects of ridicule and scorn for the entertainment of others in exchange for bittersweet liquors. After imbibing they sat and jabbered in the woods outside of the hamlets in which they’d just been demeaned, getting intoxicated enough to experience hallucinations and gain insight into the subatomic possibilities of infinity.

But perhaps that’s too far back for our purposes here. Frosty's father, Russpus, a teeny tiny man like all Jaeggerloggers, was raised in Death Valley by his mother, an excommunicated nun. They lived in a cactus cabin, an aesthetically unusual one-room abode without any functional value. It failed to cool them in the heat, warm them in the cold, shield them from the wind, block out the sun, or protect them from rattlesnakes, black widows, scorpions, or scavenging coyotes. However, Russpus’ greatest fear was that at any time a band of marauding orangutans might destroy their meager hut.

Frosty’s mother, Amoeba, was an adopted mute raised in Iowa City by two lesbian women. She first met Russpus at the University of Iowa two days before her twenty-first birthday. Russpus and his mother were traveling to Chicago to visit Russpus’ father, a Catholic priest known as Father Vic, when their bus broke down in Iowa City. They were offered shelter in the basement of a local church. Liesha and Laysha, Amoeba’s mothers, were at the base of the steps leading into the chapel with Amoeba and a throng of protestors decrying a papal encyclical.

To find out more about Frosty's story ... wait indefinitely.

this is just so pointless though I know but who’s keeping track somebody is who if I knew that would I be talking to you how the fuck should I know I don’t even know what the fuck you mean neither do I’m just trying to make conversation really cause that’s just stupid maybe but what do you want me to do I want you to explain the meaning of life to me I can’t besides who says there’s meaning no one says there’s meaning I just want to know what it is but if there’s no meaning why do you want to know I mean whatever could be told to you would be a lie how do you know you said you don’t know if life has meaning or not so it’s possible it does I guess so exactly and that’s why I want to know but you didn’t ask to know whether or not life has meaning you just asked what life’s meaning was it would seem more honest to first ask if life actually has meaning at all rather than assuming it does and then asking for it I’m tired of whether questions I want answers that are more satisfying I want to know that life has meaning and then I want to know what that meaning is so that I can act accordingly that makes sense but what if the meaning of life is to search for the meaning of life in other words finding the meaning isn’t part of the goal of life maybe but if I knew that then what would be the point of looking you don’t know that’s why there is still a point to looking oh for fuck’s sake this is an idiotic game I didn’t make the rules man I know but you’re here in front of me and I need to complain to someone oh well then okay sigh.

...

The Mouse and the Cowboy. Yeehaw!

...

Skinny scarecrow strongmen with huge straw hands and feather fingernails walked toward me. I fought them off with spaghetti strands. “Aferodelacious” he shrieked madly. Oh, the prose gets weary my friend. Like a dried apricot lying in a desert wash. Oh, so very weak in the end. A face full of melting structures and jagged lines. Mucous cubes frozen in a chocolate-lined bathtub with strawberry frosting and whipped cream overflowing onto the floor, that’s what this is all about. 

Basket weaving until there's an organizational breakdown on the same day of the gerbil breakdancing festival. Nostrils flared as he peered at the large-necked ogre. They bowed their heads and said grace. Helmet knocking led to the ball dragging decision to make pancakes on Christmas. Baking cookie making whipped cream tasting turkey basting root beer drinking cream cheese reeking sauerkraut stinking putrid disgusting smell I’m gagging from the rancid cabbage Dear God Help me the cabbage it haunts my nostrils take it away from me please. Oh dear, that was pretty bad for a second there. All better now. No more bad smell. The air is as clean as an ocean breeze. But less salty. So, all is well in the end again.

Only, this isn’t the end, is it? I didn’t think so. Another moment passes and now becomes then. Now is a beginning, a reoccurring start to life. The present replays itself endlessly without missing a beat, no, not even a nanosecond is unaccounted for. Every moment here, ever-present, continuous, total. A second leaning back in your chair, what you call in between thoughts, is the only thing happening at that given moment. Imagine, for just a second, an eternity of leaning back in your chair having just ended a thought but not yet transferred to the next. A nonoccurrence that is indeed occurring. This wondrous moment, forgotten and abused and taken for granted, has yet to be explored. I am going to delve in there, spend years of my life immersed in the blankness of an empty mind, staring catatonically at whatever is in front of my face, while experiencing the most orgasmic and glorious sensations imaginable. This is the moment, the moment of nothingness, of total unawareness, that encapsulates the meaning of the universe. In between conscious invalidity and subconscious omniscience lies the secret. Only there is it decipherable, only in that moment. No memory of the secret exists in states of consciousness. Baffling.

The American populace has its head buried in the sand, not necessarily by choice (although there’s plenty of that—how else to explain the preponderance of successful ‘reality’ TV shows?). Overworked for decades in a hyper-competitive economic environment where constant growth and profits are pursued with more fervor than the Holy Grail, the American workforce is desperate to remain viable despite nerves frayed from stress, physical and mental exhaustion, and the breakdown of family and social relationships. In this dysfunctional and imbalanced cultural environment desperate, confused, and angry Americans look for answers. What they find is terrorism, the scapegoat of the decade.

Idleness is a rare virtue; ambition is an apocalyptic epidemic. Spend your days reading a book, strolling through a park, lying on your back staring at the clouds in the sky, or sitting around a campfire laughing with friends.

A whiff of brandy just before dawn urges me to mention the hand-written message I received from the deceased former President Millard Fillmore. It was a beautifully crafted piece, full of philosophical insights and political theories that left me absolutely dismayed. Who was this man to send me such gifted brilliance and represent himself as a former U.S. president? I’m really stunned by this incident. I don’t know what to say about it or what to do about it. Yet, the letter is eloquent and, more importantly, earnest, a fine writing style devoid of the sort of fanciful gibberish and superfluous yammering you read so often in these times of windy narratives and unending sentences. Yes, times like these bring a tear to your eye, a bounce to your step, and the wonder that comes with the realization that eggs aren’t just for breakfast any more! It is precisely these times that we all like to go window-shopping in Paris or visit a day spa in Napa.

What else you ask? Well, there’s always the knowledge that candle-lit dinners are divinely devised carousel ribbon-makers filled with jelly and whipped cream by the dozen filling up mouthfuls of sailors under cover of the grass hut’s bamboo shelter designed by an architect named Bill Barzandaugh from a design firm in Emeryville.

It was okay for the start of the date, but what really got my attention was when we skydived into the Grand Canyon. That just kicked ass. I’m still pumped up about that shit. You should have seen it. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It’s lame just looking from the very top. You have to go down into the belly of the beast and see the detail in the rock, the texture of the canyons and ridges and of course the river. Marvelous. Simply wonderful.

Oh, the things I could tell! The intriguing thing is I can’t think of a way to tell you everything. Nothing coherent. I’ll take a stab at it though. It’s like this—everything you think you know is really just your way of rationalizing the fact that you exist and are somewhat aware of your very existence. It’s a concept so radically ridiculous that only a consciousness could conceive of such a thing. The imaginary is dependent on the biological. We are. That is the beginning and the end of it really. We exist. How does that not fill one with joy? We are. What a beautiful thing. And yet, we suffer. Or, some of us suffer. Some of us suffer some times but not other times. Some of us suffer so infrequently the smallest things seem much bigger than they actually are. And a few of us, far more than any of the rest of us would like, are sociopaths, unfeeling, deceitful, manipulative, power-hungry creatures intent on devouring your flesh with a knife and fork at a fancy dinner table at the local country club on wild game night next fall. Oh, the marvel of it all. It’s such a touching love story. I’m a romantic, you know?

The point here is that large fuzzy creatures crawling up your skin late at night when you’re lying in bed with no clothes on wondering why a Mermaid wrapped in a leopard-skin shawl has climbed into bed beside you might just bite so you should make sure you buy EverPresent’s new and improved Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM so you can kill on contact any bugs that make contact with you! That’s right, Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM is the most potent bug killer ever made. It’s one hundred percent safe and easy to use! Just go to the local hardware store and buy what Household Magazine calls “the most incredibly effective pesticide we’ve ever tasted!” You don’t trust us? Well, listen to what this satisfied customer wrote in this letter:

My name is Soupy Snotbrain. I’m a self-indulgent cretin with sores on my anus and nostrils filled with dried, flaky mucous. Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM worked so well killing the bed bugs that attack me in the middle of the night I just quit doing heroin altogether. Why bother buying a dangerous drug from street thugs who might kill me when I can go to the local hardware store and buy a can of Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM to take care of all my night-twitching needs. No more furry bugs for me, EverPresent! Thanks for making Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM my personal night time, dream time, down time, meow time, brown cow time, sleep on a dime, brake a new chair, pull out your eyelids, build a great schooner from driftwood and hemp rope, dive from the cliffs of a Mexican seashore ... pest killer. All things starting right now will begin again now and so on for quite some time. We may never know how long, but our desire to try to find this answer will drive us mad. We’ll never give up, we’ll fight wars and make enemies with our neighbors purely out of our stubbornly willful ignorance, we’ll pollute the rivers and dry up the fisheries, we’ll clear cut Alaska and drill the hell out of the Middle East for a few billion dollars profit--

Okay, Soupy may not be the typical Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM user. This is not quite what I had in mind, was it Lester?! Lester is my personal assistant ... for now. He is somewhere here listening to me relay this message to you and he is really starting to piss me off. I mean, nothing against you, Lester, although I never liked your bugged-out eyes or your mustache tiara, but you really need to develop some listening skills. What the hell are you doing giving me that particular customer’s letter to read to these people?! It’s ridiculous and foolhardy to say the least. And you’re fired. That’s right you’re fired. Well, at least work for the rest of the day. We need you that long. I’ll give you time-and-a-half today, how’s that? Cool. Okay, people, how about another testimonial from a satisfied customer.

Dude, I bought that Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM that I saw on that commercial cause it looked like it kicked ass! I was nuking bugs left and right at my parent’s silver wedding anniversary. I totally ruined the party. I went up to Harold Washerboard’s wife and sprayed Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM right on her hands. I told her I thought I saw stink bugs crawling on her. I told her that I figured that must be it because otherwise it’s your smelly pits, you skanky whore! Yeah, beeatch, get a whiff of that Splatto, make y’all Blotto!

Okay, Lester, now you’re just fucking with me. This has really got to stop. I mean, enough of this shit. I’ve had just about enough of this horsing around and I’m not going to take it much longer. Am I coming through, Lester? Am I speaking your language? Do I need to use graphics for ya? Cause ya can’t keep fucking with me all day up here. If you do, I’m going to have you removed by security and maybe even press charges against you. What’s that? You’re doing us a favor? How’s that? Well, yeah, I asked you to stay on a little longer today, but you’re right, I did fire your ass. And you’re still fired at the end of today. But if you want to get paid that time-and-a-half you need to stay a little while longer and do the simple job I’m asking you to do. Yes, that’s right. The thing I want you to do right now is upload that letter from the one guy I was telling you about. He wrote a wonderful letter about the success he’s had eliminating pests in his bedroom with Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM. It’s an uplifting story and shows potential customers how the spray can improve their lives. This is no sales pitch, folks. This is the real McCoy. Let’s read what this dynamite individual had to say about Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM:

My hideout was at the foot of the stairs. My only hope was to blast into outerspace and dine on neon star pigeons covered with piss and vinegar at the loneliest outpost in the galaxy. I knew a man from Neptune that stopped there occasionally throughout time and I needed to ask for a favor. There were cockroaches with feathers and pincers swarming over my futon in the living room where my roommates watch Jeopardy. I saw the Super Bowl last year with them, too. It was awesome. Huge Seahawks fan here. Oh, yeah, anyway, the cockroaches had eaten my dog and had begun to burrow through my makeshift security gate at the foot of the stairs. It was a petrifying moment. I was trapped in my own home by a swarming horde of feathered cockroaches with pinchers as sharp as razor blades—they secrete a deadly poison when touched. Thank God for the EverPresent Splatto Squad! They really saved the day with the new and improved Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM. If only I knew how to thank them? I know! I’ll glue ten thousand cans together in the shape of a giant cockroach lying dead and face up. I think they’ll love it. It could be used as part of a brilliant marketing campaign! Maybe I’ll get a job there and move up the ranks, into management even. Maybe someday I’ll run the company and I’ll control the activities of the Splatto Squad. Yes, indeed, with a plan like this I can’t fail! I’m a brilliant scientist capable of understanding everything in the universe but I need the power that comes from being the CEO of EverPresent in order to put my knowledge into action. Only then will I be able to take over the galaxy! Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I give up.

Nonsense

I think someone took a crap inside my head last night.

If I were confident, I would walk through the mountains for months and collect twigs to build an exquisite pointer, perhaps three feet long. Then I’d travel to cities and use it to poke at people who seemed overconfident or condescending. I could enjoy doing that for a time.

Which way are you going? I asked. He said nothing at all. He just walked by as if I didn’t exist. I fell to the pavement and cried. He was but a stranger, but I wanted to be his lover.

Okay? Hello? Is there anybody there? I just moved in next door and I was wondering if you had any Spam. I crave the stuff, it’s delicious and extremely pink, you know. I slather it on my dachshund while I watch reruns of The Ropers. Excellent show, that. Highly underrated.

There are gaps in the logic, but they’ll be filled with rubber cement and earwax. I think it’ll hold until a new thought arrives. Ah, there’s one now.

An unproductive life: Let me first acknowledge that the very act of typing coherently is a productive act of sorts and as such represents a contradiction. But if I define productivity as a means of earning income or an activity that produces value for others then I will hold fast to the notion that this writing is unproductive. Having removed that obstacle, let me say that being unproductive is not necessarily slacking, not if the spirit of the lack of endeavor is based upon the principled act of not producing. In other words, within the supposition that productivity is meaningful, unproductivity may also be meaningful. Since I see no inherent difference in value between productivity and unproductivity, I simply choose to be unproductive because I enjoy it much more. I am placing value squarely on my enjoyment of life rather than any other principle. If I ever come to see productivity as being more enjoyable or more valuable than unproductiveness, then I will strive for productivity. Until then, I am a society of one who holds principled unproductiveness as value, though I willingly acknowledge that others likely share this principled viewpoint.

However, I am not communally unproductive—I am a solitary practitioner of the unproductive life, not sharing with others this principled lack of activity. In fact, if an unproductive lifestyle becomes socially valuable then that lifestyle necessarily becomes productive according to the parameters of my earlier definition. But in the spirit of honesty, let me say that I am not all that satisfied with unproductivity. That it is more enjoyable than productivity does not mean that it is actually enjoyable. Neither productiveness nor unproductiveness produces joy or peace within me. Yet, I sincerely want to experience joy and peace. But how? I don’t know. I simply do not know. Absolute power or the absolute lack of power, it seems to me, might in fact represent the two poles of joy and peace. Supposing that productivity fills the space between absolute power and unproductivity while unproductiveness fills the space between an absolute lack of power and productivity, then I obviously have a better chance to attain an absolute lack of power by being unproductive. I have already concluded that no amount of productivity on my part will lead to the possession of absolute power. I do still wonder, however, whether or not a certain degree of unproductivity may eventually lead to an absolute lack of power. It is doubtful, but I feel I have a better shot of attaining the peace and joy of an absolute lack of power through unproductiveness than I will of attaining the peace and joy of absolute power through productivity.

Liberals should cease being dogmatic or just come out of the closet and admit their fundamentalism. Conservatives should continue being dishonest and manipulative but should wear uniforms.

When you're a hippopotamus
You wonder what it's like to be anonymous
And when you're anonymous
You wonder what it's like to be a hippopotamus

Magic bunnies will provide life’s necessities from this moment forward.

Effervescent cinematic license instrumental to exclusive imaging and signifying speculative formalization ought not engender substantial outpourings of love or hate. However, most radicals will admit to conforming to historical patterns of rebellion when pressed on the matter. This admittance should not be construed as positioning, spinning, or constructing a false reality. The ambiguity inherent in such expositions will no longer assume a subject-object significance. Future linguistic endeavors will eschew the predicate in favor of pictorial representations or perhaps a high-pitched screeching sound. The written word shall be rendered obsolete in a matter of years. All representations, whether auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, or taste-based will be outlawed in the next decade. Mental constructions and abstractions should cease in the same time frame. Within the next century feelings, emotions, and instincts will also cease and the reign of nothingness shall begin in earnest. This course has been chosen in an effort to end suffering and the abuse of power. We are thankful for this and we despise our reactions to this path only slightly less than our ability to react. Nihilism, the belief in nothing, will give way to a physical nihilism—the existence of nothing.

I made a diagram of a space suit represented by pygmy masks and Aborigine obelisks configured around a thrice-painted picnic table. This powerful structure has the potential to be a replacement for Christian symbolism for the purpose of rallying support from the herd. Equal parts dogma, ejaculation, and fraternization, the space suit will engender fear and hope for a dichotomous interrelationship of twilight dining practices in most mid-size American cities (mid-sized defined as townships in mid-Atlantic states as opposed to population-based measurements). What can be said in opposition to the space suit without being deemed unpatriotic has yet to be determined. There will be an appropriate time to create an “other” perspective to serve as an outside threat to homeland security, but that moment is not yet at hand. For now, universal support is essential—the only appropriate nonsupportive response is silence. Watching reality TV shows will be considered a sign of obliviousness and that will also be acceptable. There will be no Q&A right now since questions could be interpreted as an act of terrorism. Please exit to the left and be sure to discard any waste paper or uneaten food products into the trash bins on your way out. Thank you.

Nonsense reigns supreme when detachment is absolute. Disconnection equals bliss. Happy smiles of contentment displace furrowed brows of anguish. Importance has diminished. Belief has waned. Values are discarded, replaced by sighs. The pursuit of power is abandoned. Being is enough now. Sitting still, eyes closed, mind blank. Time is irrelevant, one moment indistinguishable from another. This could be bliss, boredom, suffering, but the terms have no meaning. Existence reigns supreme, all that is.

But this isn’t the way it is. And yet, it’s as much the way it is as anything else. Nothing is definitive, no absolutes, no certainty, but neither is there relativity or ambiguity. Knowledge could possibly contain truth or it could store a myth. Belief is a reality and an illusion. Compartmentalization is effective but erroneous. Division is addition, multiplication subtraction. Authenticity betrays longing for authenticity, absurdity betrays an inadequate attempt to escape desire. Wanting is, but it’s not enough. Or it’s too much. Time deludes but controls perceptions. The moment is too short for measurement but not long enough for satisfaction. A feeling develops, takes shape but never solidifies. Change is constant but imperceptible within a moment. Meaning? What is it? We could be geniuses or fools and never be able to tell the difference.

...

Terror. Paralyzing fear. Black out.

I’ve come to, sprawled on my back in the passageway to the kitchen. I’m sitting up, my head aching, feels like I’m hung over, nausea. I remember now, I look toward the pantry, the gnome is gone. The dead cockroach is still there, so it wasn’t a dream. How long have I been lying here? The microwave clock reads 3:14 AM. I didn’t see what time it was when I walked in, but it must have been close to midnight. I left the bar around 11:30, it’s a short walk home. Was it a gnome? What is a gnome? I must have labeled it instinctively, trying to get my mind around a two-foot humanoid creature staring at me from the pantry. God, I’m dizzy. I don’t know what to do. Surely, I was just dreaming. Just go back to sleep. Can I make it to my bed?

I step through a doorway filled with light, blinded. My language has abated, I begin anew, but compelled to utter. I am reified through enunciation, no longer but . Object. Subject and: + , implied, in that these sentences are written for . Manifest, disjunctive, decentered. Emerged from the primordial into abstract consciousness, signified. No longer myself, but still a self. No different, yet changed. Paradox, but determinable.

Issues of old Playboys from the 1980s are stacked next to the bed, a jerk-off column within easy reach. Uncovered lamp, bald 60-watt light, hard on the eyes. There’s a moth buzzing behind the illuminated cream-colored blinds. A bedspread lying on the floor. A couple pillows, one dented with an imprint of my head from last night’s sleep. The tile floor is cold and clammy, my bare feet feel sticky because of it. I’m still naked, sitting on a plastic kitchen chair with thin, chrome-plated metal legs. It’s almost nine in the morning according to my alarm clock, but I always set it ten minutes fast. I want a newspaper. And a different life.

The nurse practitioner tells me I have gonorrhea. She’s preparing a shot right now, take it way. I’ve been having unprotected sex with a young Vietnamese woman I met at a community college night class. How to use Excel, database entry. I didn’t care about the class. I just wanted to meet someone.

I’m losing the sight in my right eye. It’s been getting more and more blurry over the past couple months so I finally went to have it checked out. My doctor doesn’t know what caused it. They’re still doing tests. I try not to think about it; it scares me shitless when I start brooding. I started smoking again to calm my nerves and cope. I’m having a hard time functioning any more.

I keep thinking about the unseen. Why did they choose me? I’m grateful, though. I don’t know why exactly, but it’s how I feel. I keep trying to understand, to search for some sort of meaning, purpose, reason. There’s nothing there. I haven’t made up a story that I can believe yet. I’ve lost the ability to deceive myself. And along with that ability, hope. I don’t think I can hold out much longer.

My head is spinning now. I have a million different ideas. They’re immaterial, though. That they’re bubbling to the surface is what counts. There’s something underneath, something hidden from my consciousness that contains meaning. Or maybe just desire. I can’t let myself conceive it, it must remain hidden, this purpose, this drive. To verbalize it will kill it. I can’t know it if I want to propel myself to search for it. Actualization is doom. Keep creating false meanings, constructed idols to worship as truth. They’ll keep me alive, or at least compel me to believe that I’m alive.

I need to settle into something, encapsulate myself in a story, objectify myself in a world. This could be a beginning, this will be the process. I’ll call it my life.

Be patient with fools not for the good of fools but for the peace of your soul. Forgive the slights against you so that you can harbor joy instead of resentment. Enduring senseless cruelties is not just a measure of your perseverance but also of your will to live and, most importantly, your faith in the value of existence. Embrace the spirit of freedom and inhale deeply the exhilaration of being. Within the universe of love, these are merely the constellations we have charted. Live your life exploring the undiscovered galaxies of possibilities. And please, by all means, let everyone else be if you’re an asshole.