arrogant american

2009-05-21T18:43:00.002-06:00

there are two cats pissing on each other
in the alley behind the casa tonight,

screaming with rage and claws out
with interval bites and growls. an opera

of sorts, better than a high school drama troupe
stuttering shakespeare behind acne

scars and poor body image.
my akita stirs up, nervously paces

the living room floor, not the peace maker
she wants to bring shock, and awe

to the back alley,
tear the rawkus into silence, then

saunter back to her corner, sleep
until dawn.

2008-10-28T17:20:00.000-06:00

Copyright & Politics Don't Mix

2008-10-21T20:28:00.001-06:00

NY Times
October 21, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix
By LAWRENCE LESSIG

THROUGHOUT this election season, Americans have used the extraordinary capacity of digital technologies to capture and respond to arguments with which they disagree. YouTube has become the channel of choice for following who is saying what, from the presidential campaign to races for city council.

But this explosion in citizen-generated political speech has been met with a troubling response: the increasing use of copyright laws as tools for censorship.

A recent dispute in a race for New York State Assembly is a perfect example. A Democrat, Mark Blanchfield, is challenging the Republican incumbent, George Amedore, in the Assembly district that includes the upstate New York city of Schenectady. Last month, Mr. Blanchfield released television and radio advertisements that included a clip from a video interview with The Albany Business Review in which Assemblyman Amedore said, “I don’t look at the Assembly position as a job.”

Mr. Amedore complained that the ads took his remark out of context, and the newspaper’s lawyers sent Mr. Blanchfield letters calling the ads “an infringement of our client’s exclusive copyright rights” (redundancy in the original), and threatening Mr. Blanchfield if he didn’t cease using the material. Never mind that Mr. Blanchfield’s use couldn’t possibly have harmed the financial interest of The Albany Business Review. Whatever the newspaper’s motive, the result is the censorship of Mr. Blanchfield’s campaign.

This problem isn’t limited to New York Assembly races. It has directly affected the presidential campaigns. Last year, Fox News ordered John McCain to stop using a clip of himself at a Fox News-moderated debate. Last month, Warner Music Group demanded YouTube remove an amateur video attacking Barack Obama that included its music, while NBC asked the Obama campaign to pull an ad that included some NBC News video with Tom Brokaw and Keith Olbermann. No doubt, these corporations are simply trying to avoid controversy or embarrassment, but by claiming infringement, they are effectively censoring political speech.

Senator McCain has taken a lead in responding to this copyright extremism. In a letter addressed to YouTube last week, the McCain campaign rightly criticized the Web site’s decision to remove work that is “clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine” of copyright law and called upon YouTube to be more protective of political speech by conducting a more extensive review of material before it gets taken down.

Copyright law has become a political weapon because of a statute passed a decade ago: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That law tells carriers like YouTube that unless they quickly remove material posted by users that is alleged to infringe copyright, they themselves could be liable for the infringement. Understandably, YouTube and others have become quite vigilant in removing allegedly infringing content. Indeed, the Web site has gone beyond the requirements of the law and has begun to shut down the accounts of people alleged to have violated copyright just three times.

The digital copyright act gives the alleged infringer an opportunity to demand that the content be restored. But in the height of a political campaign, even a few hours of downtime can be the difference between effective and ineffective. The law thus creates a perfect mechanism to censor political speech during the only time it could matter. Recognizing this, campaigns and their allies are beginning to exploit this weapon.

The answer to this problem is not to abolish or ignore copyright. Instead, the law should be revised, bringing focus to the contexts in which its important economic incentives are needed, and removing it from contexts where it isn’t.

After all, a 95-year copyright on “Wall-E” may encourage Pixar to make innovative movies, but we can be confident our presidential candidates don’t require any first-to-the-market advantages before they agree to debate, nor is there a need to protect their answers as though they were record albums or new technologies. This is why both Senators McCain and Obama joined in a campaign to persuade the networks to make the raw feed from their debates available free of any copyright restrictions.

What content owners need to recognize is that in the long run, it’s unwise to ask for a definition of “fair use” in the middle of a presidential campaign. Judges are very unlikely to find copyright infringement in a political ad, and a law of “fair use” expanded to allow such uses could well weaken the legitimate claims of musicians and Hollywood studios.

It would be far better if copyright law were narrowed to those contexts in which it serves its essential creative function — encouraging innovation and ensuring that artists get paid for their work — and left alone the battles of what criticisms candidates for office, and their supporters, are allowed to make.

Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford, is the author of “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.”

2008-10-16T19:49:00.000-06:00

2008-10-05T16:18:00.003-06:00

2008-09-30T12:18:00.005-06:00

"All current strategies boil down to this: passing around the debt, the credit, the unreal, unnameable thing you cannot get rid of. Nietzsche analysed the strategies of God in these terms: in redeeming man's debt by the sacrifice of His son, God, the great Creditor, created a situation where the debt could never be redeemed by the debtor, since it has already been redeemed by the creditor. In this way, He created the possibility of an endless circulation of that debt, which man will bear as his perpetual sin. This is the ruse of God. But it is also the ruse of capital, which, at the same time as it plunges the world into ever greater debt, works simultaneously to redeem that debt, thus creating a situation in which it will never be able to be canceled or exchanged for anything."

-Jean Baudrillard

2008-09-28T01:00:00.001-06:00

Palin

2008-09-27T00:16:00.002-06:00

The Revolution Will Not Be Organized

2008-09-26T00:16:00.001-06:00

The revolution will not be organized,
the revolution will not be organized.com,
the revolution will not be Yahoo Grouped, Meetuped,
downloaded, uploaded, QWERTY'd, or blogged.

The revolution will not be handled by webmasters,
think-tankers, authors of policy position papers,
authors of anti-policy position papers,
secretaries, executives, executive assistants,
insiders, whistle-blowers, informants, counter-informants,
committees or sub-committees.

Your neighbor with excellent leadership qualities
will not lead you into, through, or out of the revolution.
The revolution will not be inspired, instigated, managed
or controlled by him, her, or them.
The revolution will not be organized.

No matter if you eat at McDonald's and can barely walk,
no matter if you drive an S.U.V. and rarely walk,
no matter if you were public school indoctrinated,
vaccinated, humiliated, ostracized, terrorized, minimized,
no matter if you live in a house owned by BofA,
no matter if you eat cat food, dog food,
Puppy Chow for your inner child,
no matter if you shop at Salvation Army, Saks, TJ Maxx,
when the Cold Hand of Power touches you,
it touches revolution.

They will come to chip you, rape you,
tell you you are theirs, imprison you in FEMA camps
because you spoke out,
because you doubted the official story,
because you looked with your own eyes,
spoke from your own heart.
They will come for you in black uniforms, black helmets,
swinging black batons, symbols of the New Authority,
and you will say,
"No, my children and I will not come with you."

You will say no — not because Charlie Sheen
inspired you one night on FOX News
to look more closely at falling towers.
You will say no — not because Alex Jones
led you through the darkness with a bullhorn.
You will say no — not because Howard Zinn
handed you the Book of Truth on a silver platter.
You will say no because you are your own
star of truth shining the way.

At your unique hour, in the dark,
beneath a burning paper currency moon,
the Cold Hand of Power will touch you and revolt you.

At your unique hour,
when they come for you because you asked questions,
because you did not lower your eyes,
because you did not bow down,
at your unique hour,
in your unique circumstance,
you will find yourself in the grip of a courage
you have not known but which you are.
You will stand in front of black helmets with invisible faces,
and you will say,
"No, my children and I will not come with you."

Daughters and sons of revolutionaries,
blood burning for freedom,
eyes set toward tomorrow,
each of you alone in the darkness,
beneath tender constellations burning gold and silver,
each of you will remember the path to take
when the Cold Hand of Power comes for you,
each of you will make your way without direction or encouragement,
as those before you made their way without direction or encouragement,
forging history, embracing destiny.

You will not march in file.
You will not march.
The revolution will not be organized.

In your darkest hour,
beneath the burning moon,
you will pledge allegiance to the truth,
as those before you pledged allegiance to the truth.

The truth cannot be organized.

Jock Doubleday (24 September 2008)
http://therevolutionwillnotbeorganized.org/

Raoul Vaneigem Interview

2008-09-25T09:41:00.000-06:00

April 30, 2008

interviewed by Guy Duplat; translated by Jordan Levinson

"May 68 has only just begun...." — Raoul Vaneigem

Introduction

Forty years after May 68, one of the gurus of the era, Raoul Vaneigem, situationist author of the cult book, ("Treatise on Good Manners for Youth"), has come out with a new book. In this explosive interview, he retains the spirit of May 68.

If anyone still fully incarnates the spirit of May 68, its revolt, its hopes, the choice made then for life and enjoyment, for a refusal of all oppression, it is certainly Raoul Vaneigem. Born in Lessines in 1934, and still living in Belgium, he was one of the leaders of the Situationist International, along with Guy Debord, from 1961 to 1969. It is to him that we owe the existence of the book The Revolution of Everyday Life, read by many a rebel in those times, as were books such as One Dimensional Man by Marcuse, or the books of [Ivan] Illich. Vaneigem hasn't changed a bit, unlike many of the leaders of May 68. He still calls for "life, not survival", and enjoyment rather than alienation at some job. He invites his readers to fight for a world where solidarity, respect for nature, that which is human, and freedom would finally win out over the society of the spectacle, economy-above-all-else, and the "reification" of persons.

If there's such a thing anymore as a libertarian, anarchist voice in this world, free, subversive and joyous, his is certainly one.

We talked for a long while, and readers will find a breath of fresh 1968 in the content of our interview here, a magnificent and torrential use of language worthy of a Bossuet, with curses, cries, and love. If some may reproach him for his utopianism or "leftism", his voice certainly has the merit of being a voice that liberates and forces us to shake up our neurons. He is personally completely indifferent to the media society and to whatever may be said about him and his thoughts.

In his new book, Between Mourning the World and the Joy of Life (Gallimard), he gives a impassioning breakdown of May 68 and what's left of it. And he repeats that as for what anyone might say about his thinking or his actions, he is as indifferent to it as "a downpour washing traces of puke off a sidewalk". He refuses all normal interview requests. But he did accept to answer our questions by email, as long as we promised not to edit his answers at all... and to have a drink or two with him afterwards. In the name of Life.
Interview

Duplat: We've been celebrating the 40 year anniversary of May 68 in a kind of art restoration-type atmosphere. You say though that May 68 was a "first scream of alarm" that changed the world in a durable way. What's left of May 68 now?

Vaneigem: Nothing for the Trotskyo-Maoist sixty-eighters that even then already had all the qualities required to recycle themselves into the business world. But everything, on the other hand, for those who saw the beginning of a revolution in the May 1968 occupations movement, in its early infancy. We have still not been able to measure to what extent we are in the very heart of a mutation, in which the perilous passage from a millenarian commodity civilization to a human civilization is taking place, a human civilization quite often sketched out and always repressed (the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, the workers councils of 1917, the Spanish Anarchist Collectives of 1936). What was expressed with the lucidity of a brusque and brutal revelation in 1968 was no less than the refusal of survival in the name of Life. The sacrosanct table of patriarchal values was definitively smashed: it was the end of the exploitation of nature, work, exchange, predation, separation from the self, sacrifice, guilt, the renunciation of happiness, the fetishism of money, power, hierarchical authority, scorn and fear of women, the subordination of children, intellectual ascension, military and police despotism, religions, ideologies, repression and its mortifying releases. I'm not testifying to this, this is something that's going on now. And that experience has no need of commemorations. It only demands more vigilance, more consciousness, and more solidarity with the Living. We need to regain our foundations in order to rebuild on a more human footing this world ruined by an inhumanity spreading everywhere the commodity spirit and the cult of short-term profits.

But commodity society, "debraining", the "society of the spectacle" have triumphed over everyone, even including the old sixty-eighters. It's the reign of money still. We are witnessing the bankruptcy of a system founded on the greedy exploitation of man and nature. We are in an economy that's destroying itself while it destroys the planet. Instead of investing in the modernization of primary sectors, capitalism sacrifices to stock market speculation the very industry and public services that it only yesterday glorified itself by promoting. The predominance of salability and the urgency of profit have given rise to a nihilism where the wrong side is worth the same as the right side, and to a despair that the consumerist frenzy accrues and exorcises simultaneously while buying power goes down more and more. The cult of money, more than merely giving rise to complicity, establishes a kind of spiritual communion between the crooks that attack the poor and burn schools and libraries, and the brutal businessmen that accrue profits while destroying the public good and social gains that have been won over the years. Those who give themselves the title of director have never before attained such a high degree of incompetence and stupidity, and never has the "less than nothing" that they're so infatuated with ever been so easily passed off as "something", so much does the prejudice that people aren't capable of acting autonomously and creating their own destiny perpetuate itself. Political clientelism has corrupted the democracies, which are all now firmly under the iron heel of the multinationals. There aren't any ideas or beliefs left anymore that aren't stripped of their meaning, eviscerated, and reduced to carrion for the resentment- and despair-blinded masses to feast upon. It's the ultimate predation; the anguished search for some slave job, the impression that existence itself is simply absurd — all this is favorably disposed toward the development of many-varied suicidal behaviors (the Columbine killings, massacres in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, islamist barbarity). But despite the stylish obscurantism that propagates insensitivity, servility, fatalism, the law of might makes right, and the law of most fooled makes right, nothing will keep radical thought from making progress and clandestinely undermining the spectacle where existential misery is set up as a virtue. How could what was already so intolerable in 1968, when the economy was flourishing, not be even more so today? Do we really need to be some kind of prophets to foresee that the will to live will soon sweep away this ruined world, where everyone feels like they're just vegetating in the very absurdity of their non-existence? The criteria of life (love, friendship, generosity, solidarity, creativity, a desire for happiness and enjoyment, an avidity for knowledge) absolutely must replace the old criteria of the patriarchal power of days past!

Duplat: Can recuperation be avoided? What does situationism still offer us today?

Vaneigem: Situationism is an ideology, and the situationists always refused that term. Whoever refuses all power, and doesn't accept governing or being governed, doesn't enter into the "spectacle of life wherein life is denied", and does not separate his or her ideas from his or her own everyday existence, prefers being to having, and prefers the authenticity of his or her desires to their consumerist falsification; and that is irrecuperable.

Duplat: You have criticized a certain aspect of ecological movements that, you say, would replace one kind of capitalism for another...?

Vaneigem: Even financial capitalism's promoters know that it's doomed to implode sooner or later. However, from beneath its sclerotic form one can see a capitalism that's been re-dynamized, that is making big plans to commodify renewable energies and make us pay a high price for them even though they're free. We are "offered" bio-fuels on the condition that we accept genetically engineered rape(seed); ecotourism will facilitate the pillage of the biosphere; wind-generating complexes are set up with no real advantage given to consumers. And it's in that realm that an intervention is possible. The Earth's natural resources belong to us, they're free, and they should be put in the service of the freeness of life. It will have to be the responsibility of individual groups of people to ensure their food- and energy-indepedence, in order to stay out of the grip of the multinationals, and of the States that they're subjugating everywhere. Now we've got our chance to appropriate natural energies for ourselves, while simultaneously reappropriating our own existence.

Duplat: Are people now more than ever trying to survive rather than to truly live, and, at least, are they now confusing these two concepts more than ever?

Vaneigem: Survival is a part of the animal condition. Truly Living is a specific characteristic of humanity. By distancing ourselves from animalness we acquire the ability to create our own destiny and to constantly recreate the world. Of course the need to work lowers us back to the level of beasts of burden.

Consumerism only permits us to survive if we live less. But the price of consumer goods never stops going up. The survival of the planet's various species, humanity included, is being threatened. That's why I'm counting on a great leap by the will to live. There's never been any society in history, no matter how devastated, that hasn't been able to lift itself back up out of its own ruins.

Revolt has become difficult, since the authorities already appear rather weak. Alienation, to use a marxist concept, has become internalized. Without even any bosses, priests, gurus, or "despots", everyone seems to think "there's no alternative" to a world that everyone nonetheless is feeling the mortifying downward spiral of (environment, inequalities, the pressure of work, etc.)

Voluntary servitude has certainly never been so immense. The business mafias profit off the visceral fear they give rise to, which curbs the masses as if they were being shot at by an imaginary military platoon. There are however certain collectives and individual initiatives that attest to the presence of creative forces, but outside of boutique interest they are kept under a veil of silence. Individual creativity and the will to live better can give birth to a self-managed democracy capable of revoking the democratic imposture gives us the tyranny of free trade, claims the right to pillage the public good, and pulls off a clientelist manipulation of the electorate, and dares to call it "freedom". On the walls of existential dullness that the fellow travelers of global business build all around us, I would like to see painted the words spoken by Loustalot in the times of the French Revolution, which have lost none of their insolent novelty: "The great only appear great because we're on our knees! Let us rise!"

Duplat: Can commodity labor be escaped?

Vaneigem: It certainly must, because it's escaping us more and more. Those who call upon us to work ever more and harder are the same that close down the factories in order to play around with them on the stock market. They give favor to parasitic work, proliferating useless services, and bankrupt the primary sectors (schools, hospitals, metallurgy, textiles, lodging, transportation). Only a creativity that develops natural energies and puts them in the service of the citizenry through a network of self-managed collectives will make possible the end of exploitative work and the recovery of both human and earthly nature.

Duplat: What do you hope for? Another May 68? What should the youth of today do?

Vaneigem: They should learn to live, not to sell themselves. And they'll manage to do so by themselves when they realize what slavery awaits them on the job-dupe market. When they refuse competition (the economic mechanisms that make robots out of us), ambition, and the worship of money at all costs, they'll at last give priority to the love of Life and to their love lives, to getting to know what is Living, to improving their environment, to coming up to their potential, to the only real wealth there is: the wealth of being and not of having. When they realize that it's not a question of being the best but of living better. When they refuse to support governments that build prisons, and suppress schools instead of proliferating them. When they rise up against a concentration camp educational system that favors violence and goes against the very meaning of a truly human education: learning in order to give your knowledge to others. Life has every right, predation has none... Don't be surprised that the battle has only just begun.

Between Mourning the World and the Joy of Life by Raoul Vaneigem; published by Gallimard (Verticales); 26 pages; approximate cost is 17.5 Euros.

2008-09-24T20:59:00.000-06:00

A Note of Appreciation from the Rich

2008-09-22T19:26:00.002-06:00

By Author Unknown

21/09/08 "ICH' -- - Let's be honest: you'll never win the lottery.

On the other hand, the chances are pretty good that you'll slave away at some miserable job the rest of your life. That's because you were in all likelihood born into the wrong social class. Let's face it -- you're a member of the working caste. Sorry!

As a result, you don't have the education, upbringing, connections, manners, appearance, and good taste to ever become one of us. In fact, you'd probably need a book the size of the yellow pages to list all the unfair advantages we have over you. That's why we're so relieved to know that you still continue to believe all those silly fairy tales about "justice" and "equal opportunity" in America.

Of course, in a hierarchical social system like ours, there's never been much room at the top to begin with. Besides, it's already occupied by us -- and we like it up here so much that we intend to keep it that way. But at least there's usually someone lower in the social hierarchy you can feel superior to and kick in the teeth once in a while. Even a lowly dishwasher can easily find some poor slob further down in the pecking order to sneer and spit at. So be thankful for migrant workers, prostitutes, and homeless street people.

Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work!

You also probably don't have the same greedy, compulsive drive to possess wealth, power, and prestige that we have. And even though you may sincerely want to change the way you live, you're also afraid of the very change you desire, thus keeping you and others like you in a nervous state of limbo. So you go through life mechanically playing your assigned social role, terrified what others would think should you ever dare to "break out of the mold."

Naturally, we try to play you off against each other whenever it suits our purposes: high-waged workers against low-waged, unionized against non-unionized, Black against White, male against female, American workers against Japanese against Mexican against.... We continually push your wages down by invoking "foreign competition," "the law of supply and demand," "national security," or "the bloated federal deficit." We throw you on the unemployed scrap heap if you step out of line or jeopardize our profits. And to give you an occasional break from the monotony of our daily economic blackmail, we allow you to participate in our stage-managed electoral shell games, better known to you ordinary folks as "elections." Happily, you haven't a clue as to what's really happening -- instead, you blame "Aliens," "Tree-hugging Environmentalists," "Niggers," "Jews," Welfare Queens," and countless others for your troubled situation.

We're also very pleased that many of you still embrace the "work ethic," even though most jobs in our economy degrade the environment, undermine your physical and emotional health, and basically suck your one and only life right out of you. We obviously don't know much about work, but we're sure glad you do!

Of course, life could be different. Society could be intelligently organized to meet the real needs of the general population. You and others like you could collectively fight to free yourselves from our domination. But you don't know that. In fact, you can't even imagine that another way of life is possible. And that's probably the greatest, most significant achievement of our system -- robbing you of your imagination, your creativity, your ability to think and act for yourself.

So we'd truly like to thank you from the bottom of our heartless hearts. Your loyal sacrifice makes possible our corrupt luxury; your work makes our system work. Thanks so much for "knowing your place" -- without even knowing it!

I love this movie.

2008-09-19T16:32:00.001-06:00

2008-09-16T21:22:00.002-06:00

Colonialoscopy on Black Monday

2008-09-15T20:18:00.006-06:00

I am giddy from all this financial crisis.

I suggest you listen to some police in helacopter smoke some sensi and let the waves come crashing in-

2008-09-11T21:39:00.001-06:00

2008-09-08T17:35:00.003-06:00

The Revolution of Everyday Life

2008-09-07T22:20:00.005-06:00

"...in capitalist countries, the material profit gained by the employer from both production and consumption is still distinct from the ideological profit which the employer is no longer alone in deriving from the organization of consumption. This is all that prevents us from reducing the difference between manager and worker to the difference between a new Jaguar every year and a mini lovingly maintained for five. But we must recognize that the tendency is towards planning, and planning tends to quantify social differences in terms of the ability to consume and to make others consume. With the differences growing in number and shrinking in significance, the real differences between rich and poor is diminishing, and mankind is levelled into mere variations on poverty. The culmination of the process would be a cybernetic society composed of specialists ranked hierarchically according to their aptitude for consuming and making others consume the doses of power necessary for the functioning of a gigantic social computer of which they themselves would be simultaneously the programme and the printout. A society of exploited exploiters where some slaves are more equal than others.

There remains the third world. There remain the old forms of oppression. That the serfs of the latifundia should be the contemporaries of the new proletariat seems to me a perfect formula for the explosive mixture from which the total revolution will be born. Who would dare to suppose that the South American Indians will be satisfied with land reform and lay down their arms when the best-paid workers in Europe are demanding a radical change in their way of life? From now on, the revolt against the State of Well-Being sets the minimum demands for world revolution. You can choose to forget this, but you forget it at your peril...

...as Saint-Just said, those who make a revolution by halves do nothing but dig their own graves."

-Raoul Vaneigem

2008-09-05T21:46:00.001-06:00

2008-09-02T21:13:00.006-06:00

"As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress."

-Jean Baudrillard

las vegas, nevada (august 25,2008)

2008-08-28T14:55:00.008-06:00

in vegas
between shots
of whiskey,
chronic blunts
and psychedelic
drugs people
passing by
have conversations
in nearly
every language
security guards
walking german
shepherds on
casino floors
models with
no origin
propped everywhere
this is
the desert
of the
real, oh
really blinding
neon bright
one hundred
seven degrees
where all
the work
seems hidden
while vacationing
laborers play,
seduced by
situations with
no beginning
or ending
only the
middle, a
xerox copy-

2008-08-21T23:05:00.001-06:00

We're Back.

2008-08-19T22:26:00.003-06:00

2007-11-26T18:10:00.001-07:00

2007-11-17T20:23:00.001-07:00

195 - check the diagonal

2007-11-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

peep this: some perspective
that I just don't see going around much

cause the way things are
are the way things aught not be

bling bling, use the blood of patriots
to power my suv, bling bling

use the blood of la migra
to scrub my kitchen floor,

ring ring, razor wire and humble
prayer for service, no ring

ring cause this tunnel is dark
and there's no telling when I'll get out.

194 - poetics (or how kool g rap changed my life)

2007-11-03T17:22:00.000-06:00

“I’m lookin’ for change
while my man wants his change—
in a cup.” -Common Sense, “Resurrection”

I heard this shorty sitting
at a bus stop, while walking by
on route to the coffee shop,

saying how she felt people in America
were never really gonna change
their ways unless something catastrophically

tragic happens to a vast portion
of our population; but she wasn’t sure
if she meant environmental disaster

or Dubya’s nu-cu-lar-terror-attack.
And I stopped for a moment,
as if I wanted to speak, but

for some reason, or another,
words would not
make their way out my mouth.

At the coffee shop, I bought a paper
and buried on the cover page
in small print away from the headline,

an immense ice shelf
breaking free from the Arctic,
before resting alone in the Belford Sea.

My friend who only gets his news
from left-wing conspiracy internet sites
tells me how two nuclear bombs

got “lost” by the USAF during a flight
from North Dakota to Texas, it seems
the pilot and co-pilot

had no idea they were carrying
weapons of mass destruction, left
the plane unguarded on an open tarmac

for hours, some one must have carted
those bombs away. I tell him
I’m more worried about the pain

in my gums than some fiery
annihilation. There are things
we worry about, and then

there is the thing itself;
there is love under autumn leaves
and there is death in late spring.

2007-10-31T00:02:00.000-06:00

193 - wiseblood

2007-10-29T21:02:00.000-06:00

it goes to show
what a shit I am
that I can't remember
names of old friends
yet their affect

lasting
forever
changing

my (per)(son)(al)(ity)

like the one who chastised
me as I was about
to put a bottle of Jameson
into the freezer

what are you doing? are you
fucking crazy? Jameson you leave
warm, serve it on the rocks
so it can blend with the ice!

motherfucker-
whatever his name was, he was sure
as hell right-

and I pass those words
of sublime wisdom along
most particularly
to the young ones
like my brother just
turned 21

wish I could give a homey
more credit tho-

like I said
it goes to show
what a shit
I really am.

192 - emasculated

2007-10-29T13:11:00.001-06:00

never had a father he
up and split in '85

the year doug e fresh
ushered in the show

rap birthed an old school
the new style went la di da di da

it was reaganomics, pops unemployed
but what'd he expect

being just another farm town boy
moving to the city

those days the blue collar
was so broke, most

had turned to smoking dope
laced with crystal meth

pornography went from dingy
theatre to vhs

and the whores began to look
like pop princesses

in egyptian stance and neon
america felt on the cusp

of something great
we just couldn't tell if it was

great change, some sort
of new becoming, or great

disaster likened to the fall
of other imperial monstrosities

decline
amidst unprecedented wealth

under a military behemoth
and prison industrial complex

they emasculated us all, dad, with
moisturizer, shower gels, and tanning beds

with xanax, ritalin, and viagra
seventy-nine cent gas when I was seventeen

with a.t.m.s, debit cards, and sub-prime mortgages
by preferring to show gratuitous violence on television

over an honest and sincere moment of love
with anti-cigarette ads, pro-life rallies, mass on sundays

by enforcing hysterical drug laws to keep
a prison economy growing, and with

text messaging the latest NFL™ scores,
instant updates, news flashes on standby

for the next terror attack
it occurs to me,

this generation of men
in America

are the most pampered, most privileged,
most educated in history

we have the most instantaneous
access to information

and yet
we are the most arrogant, insincere

violent and mysoginistic,
still well groomed, different pair new shoes

to match our outfit every day of the week
call myself a man, but i really mean-

consumer-

191 - this is totality

2007-10-26T19:56:00.000-06:00

I.
I am a simulation
of myself. An
individual object
of the system,
subjected to orders
of desire, but not the
subject of my
own. I am panel art

II.
that’s tattooed
modified
with Lasic™ eyes
six pack abs from
pilates class
uv-bed toned skin
in January
bottle-bred sun bleached hair
gelled carefully disheveled

III.
so I look
like I don’t give a fuck.
I get ulcers drinking
too much and popping
prescription pills
the effexor,
xanax for the times
I lose focus on the mission
How can I market
myself
better? How do I market
myself
better? My values

IV.
amoral
weighted down by monetary
chains, I am valued
like a billboard,
product placement on my t-shirts
and jeans
my suede shoes
and fitted ball cap.
I am always changing,

V.
but I will become
nothing.

2007-10-25T09:00:00.000-06:00

2007-10-16T09:09:00.000-06:00

190 - love pome (for rosie)

2007-10-15T21:01:00.000-06:00

I got drunk tonight
and pondered the father
I should have been
but for my cowardice,
self-loathing and insecurity.

I got drunk tonight
and pondered the abortion;
the hormone injections, pills
and miscarriage that left you
curled up and cramping, weeping
because you were such
the devoted Catholic.

I got drunk tonight
and pondered if I would have been up for the task
had we gone through
with our original plan
to keep the child, get married
and move into the basement
of my parent's house.

I got drunk tonight
and pondered your broken heart
and mine,
the rage I felt
because your parents wanted so bad
that you terminate the pregnancy,
rage that would have been better
aimed at myself (maybe).

I got drunk tonight
and pondered the shit way
I treated you after
one argument over the phone,
the way I let you slip
into oblivion.

I got drunk tonight
and pondered on the truth
of if I really love you,
searching memories of lust so throbbing
at 3:00AM
pushing your panties down
not even sure if you were really

awake-

189 - swinger

2007-10-15T19:11:00.000-06:00

starve yourself, ma
see how long you can do without a bite at all

or gorge yourself
and puke it out later

whatever's best
your complexion cheating death

faces painted
high heel blisters that go pop

in the night
plastic lips and inked up

small of back
teener in glass vile

xani bar to level out
so you can lull away to sleep

perchance to-

188 - entropy

2007-10-15T08:30:00.000-06:00

still denial
communication
ain't easy baby
blue tooth
pink or yellow
ring tones distinct
e-mail
instant message
drive-thru banking
diebold machines
callous intervention

187 -

2007-10-11T23:19:00.000-06:00

The rain
started
slowly, with very few
clouds
in the sky.
Each drop
big, and each splash
displacing dust
in quick
puffs before
settling down
to mud.

186 - neon skies

2007-10-10T22:46:00.000-06:00

when the lights go out
and begins
their orchestrated
armageddon
there will be no
riots
in the streets
nor looting, murder
and rape

for we will all be
enchanted
by how many stars
we were not able to see
how infinite
our universe truly is
and how esoteric
our existence
tho ever perfect
tho ever fleeting

185 - august birthdays

2007-10-09T23:01:00.000-06:00

I asked her, if she'd ever
read Yeats?

After being scolded
on my incessant negativity.

The news was an orgy over
Paris Hilton going to jail

for driving faded. Analysis
on her breakdown before the judge.

Network news caught up in advertising.
In Iraq it was another massacre

this month alone American
soldiers near 100 dead,

collateral damage, Iraqi citizens,
dead in the thousands.

And it pissed me the hell off,
see

baby, I'm not negative one bit
for thinking this money-crazed culture

so pathetic. My buddy Zach, a two-tour
veteran recently back from Iraq

told me of a sign
hanging on a wall on base, "America

is not at war. The Marines are at war.
America is at the mall."

Classix Archive

2007-10-08T23:19:00.000-06:00

184 - the earth moves for you

2007-10-03T08:38:00.000-06:00

i can't apologize
nor would i
most likely
even though my conscience
plagues me with guilt
for the crimes
and sins that i have committed

but i'll conceede
the earth moves for you

and everytime
ground quakes towers
floods break levy
fire consuming hearth
and home, i'll
take cover

2007-10-02T09:44:00.000-06:00

183 - anniversary

2007-09-27T00:04:00.000-06:00

...defy the system with a gift to which it cannot respond save by its own collapse and death.

she hooked me
through the chest
and arms
where she'd marked
with dots
of iodine
blood only coalescing
around the stainless
steel
chatter about
using the same 10 gauge
bait hooks
through the cheek
blue rope rigged
to pentagram base
and pulley

never doubt
i would pull a car
with my taint

for you-

182 - "inappropriate remarks or jokes about security measures will lead to your arrest."

2007-09-25T23:15:00.000-06:00

if security
were personified, in its
passports with rfid,
government databases
cataloging
every number
of bags checked, flight
destinations, credit card purchases,
cell phone logs,
terror alert color
schemes,
automatic weapons, tasers
and warrant-less
searches

he would look
a lot
like a washed-up
car salesman,
bad posture and beer
gut, wrinkled ralph
lauren blue
cotton button up,
his arteries clogged
with nicotine,
grease and insecurity,
a washed-up smile
feigning exhausted narcissism
eyes shifty, twitching
hands no good
unless
a swig of gin.

2007-09-24T23:02:00.000-06:00

181 -

2007-09-24T20:50:00.000-06:00

"she loved every minute of it."

and I'm like, "yea?"

"yeeeeeaaah."

and I'm like "how you know?"

"the way she took it, man. the way she moaned."

and I'm like, "did she come?"

"yea. hell yea."

and I'm like, "how do you know?"

"i can tell."

and I'm like, "why? was she a squirter?"

"a squirt? man that's disgusting!"

and I'm like, "you never seen a girl squirt before?"

"no, bro-"

and I'm like, "shit, I used to have a girlfriend that jizzed more than I did-"

"are you serious?"

and I'm like, "fucking buckets, dude-"

"I seen that shit on the net, but goddamn..."

and I'm like, "if you ain't made no girl squirt, then how do you know you made them come?"

"the way they moaned and moved and shivered and shit-"

and I'm like, "a girl can take an acting class and learn all that."

Classix Archive

2007-09-18T23:36:00.000-06:00

180 -

2007-09-14T13:23:00.000-06:00

i know you broke
up with me
this morning, because
you were too
lazy
to clean
the sheets
before
i came
to pick you
up, take
you
out to lunch.

i could see
the cum
stains
while we talked
on the pillow
case, and also
lustful fingerprints
stretching
to the edge of
the queen
sized

bed.

179 - elegy

2007-09-11T21:51:00.001-06:00

six years can feel
a lot
like one week

xerox copies of suicide
planes in .flv format
decomposing

symbolic violence (them)
begetting
simulated violence (us)

the shock wore off
finally, rigidly
chaffing away like scabs

yellow alert periodically
raised to orange
ruining the outfit I'd picked out

never enough time
to enjoy the fireworks show
called Shock & Awe (and now)

all of this, this poem (especially)
meaningless, for
there should be nothing left

to say on 9/11-

2007-09-09T17:12:00.000-06:00

178 - (my)self(divine)

2007-09-06T20:54:00.000-06:00

when i die, i want
my head
to explode, that
way if you
are right about
the soul
mine
will be thrown up
in a sublime dis-
sipation of
flesh and blood,
brain and bone
maybe so high as to
break
the atmosphere
float away
into the vast
nothingness

2007-09-05T09:31:00.000-06:00

177 - "they say water came to earth by way of comet..."

2007-09-04T22:55:00.000-06:00

black water is worth
more
than clean water

black water valued
in
blood

black water is mech-
anical, no
trace of organic

black water transcends
state power (that)
shoulders its heavy burden

black water does
well
in market testing

black water slang
tweak
to exhausted soldiers

black water won't do no
harm
to that reputation

black water if we can't
convict you
we'll see you in hell

176 - cancer biopathy

2007-09-04T09:56:00.000-06:00

i'm courting death
a dance, seductive
with aberlour and lime
cocaine and cab
calloway crooning
the only time desire
seems effortless the only
time it really feels
like desire (is when),
it feels dangerous,
slightly airbrushed, clone stamped
into integral
perfection, backed up
on network drive
firewall waiting-

for a virus
to slip inside
make us into

monsters.

175 - obligatory birthday pome

2007-09-02T20:02:00.001-06:00

what more is there to say, but
that we are all, simply put--

a mistake --a giant e-
volutionary conundrum

to which we make due with wine,
and song,

(un)conditional love,
the occasional one night stand,

resentment of our fathers,
mothers too, but

most persistently with
solitude-

and it is very true
that from the moment we are born

we are thrown into this world
utterly alone,

won't matter how much nurturing,
the amount of rearing and protection

the essence of that truth
is that we die alone too-

2007-09-01T02:03:00.000-06:00

174 - part one

2007-09-01T00:19:00.000-06:00

I'm a terrible lover, but occasionally
a good fuck. We were at our best
drinking decade old scotch, a soundtrack
of Tom Waits on five disc shuffle
with Leonard Cohen's songs of hate
and love, Nina Hagen, Nick Cave
and those Bad Seeds, a quiet and aching,
maybe strung out Billie Holiday to
round the evening out. You didn't believe
in light bulbs, instead illuminating
the apartment with Christmas lights along
the ceiling, and a whole wall covered
by an aquarium, neon green with purple,
white light shining above the water
like heaven. Its residents, a school of piranhas
to which we'd delight in watching, the tiny
monsters ravage raw beef and chicken, bones
and all leaving only a feint pink cloud
of particles, dust underwater. I'd ask
if you wanted me to wear a condom, you told me
you had a very deep understanding of the hindu/yogi
science of breath, how you were so in tune
with your own body you'd know when
your were ovulating and when you were not.
I knew you were too innocent to have any diseases,
and I was too young to know better-

173 - never cared much for whiskey (or how to find promised transcendence in sinster consumer plots called tax-free weekend)

2007-08-31T15:22:00.000-06:00

yea, brotha it's a fact
living
is so much harder than
dying

this whole country,
a gutta-

can't blame it
on hillbilly
heroin (or)
gonzo porn (and)
e-z cred it,

we got distracted, maybe
manipulated
brainwashed into blaming
the symptoms,
all the while the virus
kept thriving-

there's something
to say about
our decline,
the way
we dragged
nature
kicking and screaming
into hell
along with us (I

haven't yet
figured
what that something is), the intellects
now de-
pressingly optimistic:
to save our selves
we'll breathe
on machines, mind and body
plugged (logged) in-

it will be too banal a reality for a movie version

yea, brotha it's a fact
living
is so much harder than
dying

this whole country,
a gutta-

the dumpster
full already, and
they just picked up
yesterday (call
the national guard)
they deported all the wetbacks
that used to be
our maids,
but the terrorists
they say
are slipping through
our gates-

please pass the
blunt,
there's thirty stones in the fridge,
maybe later
we'll crush up some
pills, snort
drink and be merry

yea brotha, it's a fact
this whole country,
a gutta-

living
is so much harder than
dying.

172 - reflections on desire (or how i got lost meandering through consumer guides, oh the sublime choices!)

2007-08-29T23:11:00.000-06:00

I.
i am fear and paranoia.

II.
i am the son of god.

III.
i am a martyr (for the people).

IV.
i am a robot, i am a clone.

V.
i just need to upgrade my entertainment center.

VI.
i just need to find a wife-

VII.
i just need to join a faith.

VIII.
i just need to fuck your asshole.

IX.
i just want to pull out and jiz on your tits.

X.
i am the son of god, you are a playboy centerfold.

171 - you made me

2007-08-24T01:51:00.000-06:00

i can't shake
this paranoia
you made me crazy, baby

i can't shake
this anxiety
you terrorized me, baby

i can't shake
these obsessions
you focused my emotions

i can't shake
these demons
you made me go to church

i can't shake
this sense of self
you made me feel fat and ugly

i can't shake
this poetry
you made me have to write-

170 - the riveter

2007-08-24T01:41:00.000-06:00

i got this lump in my throat,
deluded, i just hope it's cancer
when really I know it's a broke-

n heart.

2007-08-22T09:14:00.000-06:00

169 -

2007-08-21T23:12:00.000-06:00

there's a tumor in my jaw
i can feel it
every day growing a little bit bigger
dunno if the government implanted it
or not
but i do have my suspicions
think it beams out information
to some satellite above
mirrored back down to some computer
networked to the white house
do they listen when i masturbate?
have they seen or
heard my darkest moments?
are they planning to raid my apt?
steal my files
chaotically kept crumpled and folded
out of order, some torn to pieces
it moves around my jaw
this tumor so i can feel new pain
in new places
down to my chin before up behind
my ears
i can't pop it like a zit
blood and pus and dead skin
for the microchips are resistant
this tumor here to listen
until the moment i take
my last breath

2007-08-21T16:05:00.001-06:00

168 - the culture industry

2007-08-17T11:50:00.000-06:00

when the corporations finally
get their way
conglomerating into one elite class
of executives, bankers and politicians
one logo and flag to fly over Wall Street
and the White House
they will release one movie
a year, one soundtrack
which we will all voraciously consume
watching and listening to the same
songs over-and-over, the same
clips on endless loop at youtube.com
their will be no alternative,
for they will have wiped out
the underground
taken away our tools, locked down
communication
they will put a ban on public displays
of art without proper credentials
there will be no
independent voice no
question of authority-

167 - office space

2007-08-16T20:54:00.000-06:00

"Can you work on Sunday morning?"

"No."

"Come on! Don't give me some lame excuse. It's just for a couple hours."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I teach Sunday school."

"Sunday school?"

"I teach little kids about Jesus."

"Who was Jesus? Oh wait. Wasn't he the the guy that killed all the Jews?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, no wait. That was Hitler. I always get those two mixed up."

2007-08-15T13:57:00.000-06:00

166 - act like one

2007-08-14T21:29:00.000-06:00

'Man, you know the CIA killed eazy-e. gave him full blown a.i.d.s. and shit just because a brotha was gettin' too powerful.'

'oh, yea?'

'shit yea, man. shit yea. how many niggaz from the hood you know dying of full blown a.i.d.s.?'

'well. i know h.i.v. and a.i.d.s. are pretty damn serious problems in african american communities.'

'shit, yea. cause the CIA planted that shit. they got a virus they made up just for the projects in America. they got virus they made up for Africa. they got one for India. shit they cooked one up for the faggots even. they lumpin' up niggaz with queers and everyone in between to wipe us out. they want joe blow cracker running shit for ever-'

'why do you say nigga all the time? you're white.'

'yea man. but i'm part of the hip-hop generation, nigga! i'm part of the struggle-'

'so when the CIA gonna give you a.i.d.s.? i mean aren't you a traitor to their cause. a white boy from some gated community, thinks because he listens to rap he can be down with the people. how many other kids you think are sitting up in their bedroom right now listening to N.W.A. thinking the exact same bullshit dribbling out your mouth? where you live, Tanoan, right?'

'man, i ain't even trippin' on hataz like you anymore. you ain't my nigga. you don't know me-'

'i know. your an individual, right?'

165 - onward christian brother

2007-08-14T20:55:00.000-06:00

for there are many like me
to save
to cure of their evil ways
the drugs and booze
infanticide to supernatural forces
our pilgrimage to all the wrong places
our piercings, our tattoos
the way we make love on a whim
our fanaticism and our mores

and if we can't be saved
kill us
with crucifix, with firing squad
drop precision smart bombs
drag our bodies out to the streets
prod us with pitchforks
strike torch to gasoline, watch us burn
please pray
content to know we rot now
in your hell

164 - poetically, man dwells

2007-08-13T21:48:00.000-06:00

there's a warm breeze
it's sunset
overlooking northeast burque
from top whitewash
not even halfway up the sandias
the clouds are grey with
hollow threats of rain
pink tinted by fire crescent
just behind volcanoes
the sky, clouds and mountains
a shade as that of fake blood
not quite washed completely
off the skin

it is true, I hate nature poems

plus the urban landscape
between these mountains
and that sun
the burgeoning skyline uptown
neon downtown just about to ignite
the crucifix where I-25 meets I-40
packed with traffic like
plaque clogged arteries
it all hardly lends itself
to the sublime
this park with a fence
thirty yards off declared 'wild'
a pitiful zoo
prairie dogs wandering about
a blue tail or sand digger
scurrying about cracks in rocks
deer feces the only remnant
of the twelve or so white tails
still in this area
and later if
we're lucky, maybe hear
a coyote howl now and again

nothing i'd call wild

it's too late anyway to do
a damn thing about it though
might as well look forward
to what dwelling will be
in this computer age
we'll have to plug in or die
more sooner than later, mark these words
soberly, and somberly
grateful for now
we can still breathe without
the respirator, resigned
to its eventuality

looking forward to when the crows
return to the city in october-

163 - today is only now

2007-08-13T21:28:00.000-06:00

today is only now
is only this moment
is only this very sentence
is only once you realize
poetry is a waste of time
reading it even more so
and still you go on writing
if only because you
are compelled to-

2007-08-13T11:54:00.000-06:00

162 - interlude

2007-08-13T01:01:00.000-06:00

I was dead
with you once
before birth
do you remember?
don't call it
a past life
by any means
it was death
and we shared it
like two lovers
share fluids
only maggots
scurried
across our tongues
as we kissed
our fingernails still
growing breaking skin
wrapping tighter
our clasped hands
stillness delivering us
from the horror show
of thought
decomposing more perfect
than love

161 - normalcy

2007-08-12T23:09:00.000-06:00

one more please
doctor
for the road and

for the morning
maybe smokes
at lunch and beer five

minutes after work
this is not bloodletting
it's the way

we cope

160 -

2007-08-12T14:34:00.000-06:00

if I ruled the world
we'd make a day
for destruction, pull
the electronics
that give us grief
from our houses into the streets
and burn them
club them
into toxic dust

reveling this first time
we truly see our neighbors faces
hear their voices

159 - exterminating angels

2007-08-11T18:12:00.000-06:00

she brought absinthe from over seas
hashish manufactured in morroco
fine tobacco,ecstasy pills and lab grade cocaine
panties worn by some eighteen year old girl
a polaroid of her wearing the pair as proof

she said she'd been fisted for the first time
done anal and dp with some austrian hunks
sucked off a stranger on a train ride to paris
given hand jobs to a soccer team of italian teenage boys
brought a video camera but never remembered
to charge the batteries before she slept at night

there are angels that need exterminating, she pleaded

158 - month to date report

2007-08-11T18:09:00.000-06:00

would have thought
she had
a degree in finance
for how many times
she swore
she'd written me off

157 - tragedy

2007-08-11T16:43:00.000-06:00

the road home
was bumpy

potholes, cracks
from expanding slush

at winter
the tires muddy

shivering cold
though defrost

on high
shoulders slouched

the clouds grey
reminding me of blood

156 - hetero-da-fe

2007-08-10T12:56:00.000-06:00

they say, 'hallelujah.
holla, hallelujah.'
because they feel empty
inside
where god once resided
but years ago
just went and died.

'hallelujah. holla,
hallelujah.' right to life
and trials might
be good for mothers
abortin' 'em.

they say, 'hallelujah.
holla, hallelujah.'
the president done
claimed he talkin' to God.

'halellujah. holla, hallelujah.'
war in israel
means Christ is comin'
and bombing baghdad
fullfills a prophecy.

they say, 'hallelujah.
holla, hallelujah.'
save face
in case
this is the end of all things.

'hallelujah. holla, hallelujah.'
they say, 'hallelujah.
holla, hallelujah.'

2007-08-09T22:10:00.000-06:00

155 -

2007-08-08T22:08:00.000-06:00

my conscious mind
weighs
a ton
strapped with suicide vest
an ape
on my back,
a gibbon
singing a song
pockets
filled with cash (maybe)
throwback jordans
kicks
from the threepeat era
back
pocket a book
of poetry
by mao
my license to conceal
my gun, a
bookmark

living in the moment
no regret
no unconscious mind, no repressed
sexuality
no definitions at all
no orgonomics and no psycho
analysis
no prescription drugs
please
the big secret
of psycho
analysis
is
that it legitmates
the repression
it claims
to
alleviate

no question
i'm sick, my
head
i'm nauseous, gagging
the pollution
the dirty water
the mindless sales pitches
that assault
my senses every
where i go
media terror and ecocide
we should
be curing our minds
with mcluhan, throw
freud, all his cronies

to the dogs

154 - gun for gun

2007-08-07T23:29:00.000-06:00

the evening news tonight
had this story
about ammo shortages among
police departments
so it goes

bullets are on backorder
cause they need billions
of rounds in iraq

other economic implications
being the price
of a twenty round box increases
every month

how sad
how terrifying
that our police and protectors
would be waiting months
up to a year
for their bullets to arrive

then i think about
the four young kids
shot this week in newark
nineteen and twenty years old
heading off to college
this fall

shot execution style

and it's not enough to say
they were in the wrong place
at the wrong time

fuck the media
it's for god damned sure
there's no shortage of bullets

in the ghetto

2007-08-07T14:11:00.001-06:00

Classix Archive

2007-08-06T09:48:00.000-06:00

Obama?

2007-08-05T13:37:00.000-06:00

If you read this blog (and I know how few of you there are) you will remember my pledge of support for Barak Obama. I even went so far as to change my party affiliation from Independent to Democrat so I could throw in my vote during the primaries.

However, Obama's recent threat of possible military attacks against Pakistan are starting to push me away.

Edwards anyone?

153 - epidemiology

2007-08-04T20:12:00.000-06:00

undress me
before you chain me up
at very least
tear my clothes
I need riot gear pressed
to my cheek
my nostrils burning
eyes flooded with tears
legs spread
gucci bag scattered
disarray in dirty gutter
diamond earing ripping
bloody my ear lobe
versache skirt hiked up
victoria secret bust
draped in fragmented
paris hilton top
thigh digging thigh
forearm barred across neck
detain me
indefinitely

152 - they say zombies are crawling on viequas

2007-07-26T11:53:00.000-06:00

my buddy in the u.s.a.f.
once swore to me
by blood over a cross
the reason
we drop bombs
off the coast of puerto rico
'cause viequas is cursed
some voodoo shit
used to scare the americans
away after grenada
left the island crawling
with undead
determined to eat the flesh
of imperialist pigs'

151 - untie me

2007-07-24T03:46:00.000-06:00

please stop juggling
no more bowling pins
I can't take it
put away the unicycle
the kittens in their cage
chain the elephant to iron ball
untie me from the wheel
thrown dagger struck close
this time just under
my arm near enough

to my heart

48HR Film Project

2007-07-19T16:47:00.000-06:00

Below is a copy of UYL Production's submission to this year's 48 Hour Film Project. You can visit our myspace page here. KUNM radio's Adrian Martin followed us around all weeked doing a story on our team's progress. You can download the results until KUNM realizes I'm leeching from their server and kicks me off.

Comments are welcome and voraciously solicited. You may leave them here with the arrogant american, or you can go to the myspace site.

I produced and edited this film, so show some love!

drink (2007)

2007-07-18T13:26:00.000-06:00

2007-07-18T00:53:00.000-06:00

Classix Archive

2007-07-11T07:24:00.000-06:00

2007-07-10T07:02:00.000-06:00

2007-07-07T22:24:00.000-06:00

150 - structural materialism in avante guard circles (my margin cost more than your margin)

2007-07-07T11:12:00.000-06:00

I and I
give thanks
no more
but praise jah
cause I and I
listen
to Bad Brains
I and I buy
clothes with hip
logos
I and I logos
is I and I egos
I and I eros
is I and I
alone

they say buy more so
I and I buy

more

Classix Archive

2007-07-06T19:03:00.000-06:00

149 - smile now child, just smile

2007-07-04T14:37:00.000-06:00

I ain’t gonna trip
cold pretend
it didn’t hurt how
you didn’t wanna
have my kid

but I’ll get over it
I’d be a shitty dad
I’d be a shitty husband
and maybe you
most simply put
knew it

I ain’t gonna trip
cold pretend
it didn’t hurt
when you told me
pack your bags

but I’ll get over it
I was a shitty roomate
I was a shitty lover
led trash into the bed
I picked up out the gutter

I ain’t gonna trip
cold pretend
I’m standing solid
most days
that’d be a lie

but I’ll get over it-

Right in the Head

2007-07-04T13:55:00.000-06:00

"I hope my little brother puts a call in today
I hope he don't forget where he came from
I hope he never has to deal with wrongin' someone

'cause I lived with many ghosts when I was younger
and I will live with many ghosts until I go

I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
even if he has to wrong someone

I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
even if he has to wrong someone

and I hope his guardian angel puts a gun in his hand
if ever they get ambushed or pursued
I hope she sticks around when he does dirty in this dirty duel he's brewed
and though the names will get changed to protect the innocent
he said, "I hope the names will get changed to protect me."

I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
even if he has to wrong someone

I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
I hope he's right in the head
even if he has to wrong someone

'cause I lived with many ghosts when I was younger
and I will live with many ghosts until I go"

by M. Ward

freedom ain't free (the spirit of terrorism)

2007-07-03T22:45:00.001-06:00

"...the idea of freedom, a new and recent idea, is already fading from minds and mores, and liberal globalization is coming about in precisely the opposite form --a police state globalization, a total control, a terror based on 'law-and-order' measures. Deregulation ends up in a maximum of constraints and restrictions, akin to those of a fundamentalist society.

A fall off in production, consumption, speculation and growth (but certainly not in corruption!): it is as though the global system were making a strategic fallback, carrying out a painful revision of its values --in defensive reaction, as it would seem, to the impact of terrorism, but responding, deep down, to its secret injunctions: enforced regulation as a product of absolute disorder, but a regulation it imposes on itself --internalizing, as it were, its own defeat."

-Jean Baudrillard

Classix Archive

2007-07-02T21:20:00.001-06:00