It's one year to the (not-at-all-facetious) End of the World...

...do you know where your children are?

Recycling Jobs

Beep, beep, beep that incessantly chipper robot sound reminds me I'm still here. “Hello, how are you doing today, sir?” As though anyone gives two shits about anyone else these days. That reminds me: “Would you like paper or plastic?” I mean, I once had a goal or a dream or some reasonable facsimile thereof. I once had credibility in the career world and now look at me. I'm starting from the bottom again. It's not that I'm better than anyone else, but for fuck's sake, I've done this before – a very long time ago. Back when I was a shy teenager, a mild twenty year old. But now I'm salty; salty and comparatively wizened as well. I've done things – seen things – that some of these people can't possibly even conceive of, but I'm the one who's stuck here, wrapping up their meat; placing it far away from their potatoes. Perhaps some of these people, this constant line of people, have accomplished things I can't fathom. Its possible I'm bagging a Vice Lord's chicken pot pie or placing a container of Juicy Juice into the bag of a Tech CEO whose code powers my cell phone. But that's not the point.

What is it that makes this American dream tick? Were some in righter places than others at the appropriate time? Did they have the requisite degree program or drive or ambition that I supposedly don't? Did they have better opportunities than I do? Because here I am, doing things I long ago thought I'd never have to do again. It has to be the economic downturn, right? It must be my lack of skilled labor. I mean I'm not alone here: Pete over there is pushing fifty, still popping buttons on a keypad, shoving produce past an infrared scanner. Carmella has to have a stranglehold on her mid-forties, yet she's running around the store like a speed-freak chinchilla, gathering discarded items and voiding purchases. How could this “land of opportunity” go so far south?

Did we fly to close to the sun on those fabled wings of wax – our egos spoon-fed by chain restaurants and the rusted laurels beneath our own asses? Empires always seem to falter when they find themselves too stuffed on their own entrails to watch the chair sliding out from under them – a sort of colossi sight-gag. It's no different with our own flaccid dynasty than it was with the Greeks cum Romans, or the Mongols cum China, or the Zulus cum the English cum themselves. The serpent eats its own tail, a fact littered like confetti throughout history, yet ignored to this day by those who write history in their own gilded images. A fact perhaps ignored by myself amongst others who thought that their might and understanding and abilities would preclude them from the same fate befallen those who came before them; those who dared think such ideas themselves.

And here I stand, “Thank you for shopping with us, sir,” among those who chewed the fat until fat became bone and the marrow was all but sipped away. Its far from the end of the world, but with continual ignorance it easily could be the end of our shallow dominion. “Have a great evening.” Am I thankful to be working? Yes. Am I pleased to be on a recidivist career path? Hell no. But until I have nothing more than the shirt on my back and the empty shell of a house for shelter, it still keeps food in my refrigerator and the lights on. “Hi there. Did you find everything alright today, ma'am?”

Beep. Beep. Beep...

Lovely California Home (fiction in 55 or less)

She hired the hitman, paying him ten thousand dollars. The hitman splattered her lover’s wife across the wall of their lovely southern Californian home. Now their love could flourish. On his way home from his “business trip” he collapsed. The cancer was stage four – he had a week to live. No happy ending for them.

What is Absurd anyway?

The question may arise in the course of this blog - what exactly do I mean when I refer to the Absurd? Well, allow me to elucidate.

The Absurd is, by its very nature, a personal condition. In classical philosophy, the Absurd often refers to the thin, filmy division between the logical/rational world, the emotional world and the search for meaning in a world without any intrinsic purpose. In the works of Camus, amongst others, our world is a place containing no coherent reason for existence; one which hinges upon our observations and the constructed realities of those around us (as witnessed by Camus' Stranger, who acts according to his own desires, mostly due to his disconnect from other people; or the heroic characters of the Plague who choose to live and thrive in the face of overwhelming odds).

Philosophic absurdity stems from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard - also recognized as the father of atheistic and theistic existentialism - and represents his attempt to understand the nature of this seemingly meaningless universe. It was his positing that, in the face of such bewildering situations human beings could turn to several different outlooks, the primary ones being: either accept that meaningless and seek to create meaning for ourselves, or we could choose to make a "leap of faith" (Kierkegaard is recognized as the first to coin this concept).

But the polemics of philosophy aside, what does the absurd mean to us? To me? Well, it represents a conscious understanding that our world is boundless and shapeless beyond our own understanding of it. It suggest that we construct our comprehensive view of our world and our life from our observations, as well as from the constructs others have built - the infrastructure of culture so to speak.

This notion of a self-made world, can help us to understand why one person grows up to become a dentist, and the other a serial arsonist. Now of course Absurdist ideas don't account for the influence of heredity, and this may be a modern chip in its armor, but that's a topic for an entirely different essay. That aside, Absurdism remains an intriguing worldview, one which sets aside the notion of a contrived, circumscribed universe and allows our observations to mold the shape of the universe. Our universe is not necessarily static and rigid, like the one prescribed by culture or religion.

But most of all, it reminds me to seek out other people and other cultures; to broaden my ideological and emotional contact with my world. For if we never explore beyond ourselves, we risk becoming one-dimensional entities in our self-defined universes.

Eleven Reasons Austin is Kick-Ass

1. There is a brilliance to downtown, especially when it shines through a hazy November night.

2. T-Shirts and shorts are not-irregular accoutrements in December.

3. How many different shows could I go to on a weekly basis in Madison, WI? 10-12. How many shows can i go to in Austin on a nightly basis? 10-15. Sweetness!

4. Bats under a bridge - fuck yeah!

5. Did I mention muthafuckin' shorts in mothafuckin' December!

6. Hungry around bar time? Walk down the street, towards the nearest mobile cart to burritos, pizza, veggie dogs, gyros and various other moderately overpriced delights all from the comfort of your boozy swagger.

7. The drive time from Madison to the Gulf Coast is approximately 23 hours. The drive time from Austin to the Gulf Coast is approximately 3.5 hours. Once those oil balls dissipate, its time for some serious coastal action.

8. You get a free gun when you buy a hundred dollars worth of booze (just kidding Austinians!).

9. Pizza made with beer in the crust!

10. Because to my difficulties navigating in new places - perhaps due to my easy directional disorientation (yes, I was one of those kids that made the L and backwards L in school) - I appreciate cities with street layouts and names that make sense: one of these being Willie Nelson Boulevard!

11. Terror Tuesdays at the Alamo Drafthouse!

Song 2 (electric boogaloo?)

(and now...I return to the music of my formative years)

Operation Ivy - "Sound System"

"Sound system gonna bring me back up yeah
one thing that I can depend on"

That line burned a small hole in my psyche the first time I heard it. While the song itself isn't linked to any specific event or moment in my life, it does represent the bridging of two musical time zones for me. It also caused me to become a life-long OpIvy fan (despite the naysayers, including my lovely girlfriend).

Late in high school, my life, despite my growing absorption into punk subculture, was ruled by ska. It was the early-mid nineties after all. My very first non-auditorium show was a Mephiskapheles show at the Rathskeller - a Madison free-show bastion - at the tender age of fourteen (yes I know I'm a late bloomer).

By the time I left for my first collegiate endeavor - a less-than successful one - ska was slowly being phased out of my life, in favor of an growing lust for punk. It was during one of those early, fanatical lapses when I was struck with the realization that no particular musical style had to be remanded to the periphery. You'd think this was common sense, but somehow I misplaced that mentality as an upstart teenager. Some people just get sucked into a realm which saps them of their desire to indulge in anything beyond the sonic smeldings which most appeal to them. I became one of those people. In any case, Operation Ivy reminded me of that fundamental understanding: that aphorism which mentions something about variety being highly preferable when seasoning life to taste and enjoy.

The first time I heard "Sound System," I was hanging out in my friend's basement, contemplating shaving my first mohawk; something which didn't actually happen until college. Several years later a similar moment occurred, when lounging around my friend's dorm room, as he fanned his fiery red mohawk, this minor epiphany struck upon me. Unfortunately, any philosophical development was temporarily shelved, as the conundrum of 18-year-old kids acquiring beer drastically outweighed enlightenment.

That night, we listened to that CD nearly constantly as we rode to the punk show, top down in his restored 68 mustang, mohawks flapping in the breeze. Ever since that evening, a warm glow spreads through me every time I hear this song, and Operation Ivy in general.

Happy Hour's Over

Our calm was washed out to sea by the anger surging across her face. His eyes reflected a tired shadow cast from broken windows; jagged remnants of demon teeth in his brain. I'd been drunk since clocks forgot how to tick and was itching severely from Sebhoritic Dermatitis. She clicked her heels three times, mentally, trying to rid herself of the fantasy world we all seemed to dwell in. His rectum clenched, preparing for the inevitable harbingers of metaphorical stormy seas; doomsday-tsunami tombs. I loosed a river of vodka down my throat, burning, yearning for something insufferable and insoluble (perhaps ineffable as well). Her machete gaze readied on the back-swing, poised to unleash heads - spurts of emotive arterial spray. His watch hadn't worked in months, but he glanced at it anyway. I leaned my head into my hands, a ruse to dispel any notions that my ears were, at that moment, stretching ever closer to their auditory inferno. That I was, in effect, pulling up an eavesdropping stool. Her teeth grimaced almost individually as her jaw ground back and forth. Her eyes quivered sullenly, pretending to forget everything they'd been privy to. He slid his self-deprecating shield into place and readied his facetious foil, yet remained there, poised above his defeatist dagger. I sucked fire through paper-rolled tobacco, abetting the smoggy ambiance while fluffing at my short-long (now far less business in the front than party in the rear). I motioned surreptitiously to the embroiled, bartender. He slid anxiously down the bar, as though I had asked him a huge favor. She wavered above that razor's edge of the moment, hovering like a swaying cobra's hood, as he recoiled in de facto horror. And I sat there, erect, at new-Army-recruit attention (a feat mimicked by other bystanders). Her imminent strike held us white-knuckled, clutching our respective pints, shots or carafes for dear life. Then, in an appropriate anti-climax, she sighed - a sound far bleaker than an sub-arctic winter morning, plodding out the door with a squeaky clank.

I dare say we all felt deflated as we returned to our drinks; the remote twang of honky-tonk on the jukebox trickling across the suddenly lunar landscape.

Not-so-triumphant return to Cult.

It has been nearly two years since I deigned to call myself a blogger. I can't believe this site hasn't been utterly shut down. I owe it primarily to Google for itself pushing Plex (user-wise). So, since I'm still here - why not still be here.

So here I am in Austin, Tx (would you believe it!). This from someone who ten years prior promised himself he'd never live in Tejas. Man how the years change a person. Worst of all, I pretty much like it a lot. Of course Austin is a far cry from Texas Proper, i.e. shoot-outs, lynchings, Alamo defending, and gun-rack couture, which is itself a far cry from anything but loophole extremism. And that's just fine by me.

So, here I remit to old habits, to persuading myself that I have the courage to blog again. I rise, not so much like the Phoenix, but more so like the dung beetle from the compost heap, once more into the world wide web of self-promotion and irrelevant data overload. For what is one, if they are not a self-deprecating fool?

Confidant, I suppose.