A walk down memory alley

December 11, 1988, Sunday

Four days of
foreplay
and by the end of the week ...
Is no one real anymore? or anymore real?
I touch and tease and talk,
But I don't see him when he's not there.
And when he's here his face is not familiar.

Moving in dreams,
And yet I lack sleep.

December 13, 1988, Tuesday

I met a damsel in distress
Who fought dragons with broken wine glasses
She moved in shadows of candlelight
She showed me sights without a sound
And broke the silence with laughing gods
I'll build a tower for my lover
Keep her safe from herself

Instead of throwing myself under the academic bus this afternoon, I decided to drag out that old yellow spiral-bound notebook and see what kind of crazy shit I wrote almost twenty years ago. These were two particularly poetic passages that stood out from that cold December; the first entry was for Todd, the second for Melissa. Funny how I never wrote anything readable before then, and sad how even then what I wrote was pure shit.

The uselessness that was Todd (although I still sometimes mistype his name as Tod, German for death) dragged on till late the following summer. The bizarreness of Melissa petered out sometime in the spring.

After a few more pages--on the level of "I still smell you on my clothes"--we get to this:

December 14, 1988, Wednesday

The moon wasn't right tonight, but I was. And I remain hungry. If I get on your nerves, just brush me off. Both of you are pretty good at it already, and you're such great teachers. Perhaps I may one day brush you off like the dandruff you left on my sheets or like the mud caked on my muffler after we trampled it in your car. I may just fucking wash my hands altogether and be done with it.

And then there's some Russian phrases. We three were studying Russian together; in fact, Melissa and I met in Russian I my first semester at UTA. I was smitten. Todd was in a different section, but the subsequent spring semester we were enrolled in the same section of Russian II.

If I remember correctly ... and I do ... that double-whammy significantly contributed to my almost flunking out of college:

Fall 88 GPA: 4.000
Spring 89 GPA: 2.385

But how exactly did I manage to earn my one A that term in Russian II? The one class I only went to when I was drunk and depressed? (My one D was in PHIL 2311 Logic, as if my personal life needed that little reminder! Too bad there wasn't a PHIL 2312 Fucked-Up Crazy Shit that I could've drunkenly aced!)

Now I rarely write bad poetry (or poetry at all). Bad relationships no longer inspire me. And I don't compose verse as I'm getting laid. I only pray I have the good enough sense to burn all these notebooks (as well as push this big delete button) before I die.

Bullet-Point Friday

• Today is Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan. After (only) two years in Japan I still have no idea what that means or what is celebrated. But I was always thankful to have the day off from teaching.
• When did the day after the US Thanksgiving start being referred to as “Black Friday”? It seems like I’ve heard that phrase before, but it’s only been over the past couple of years. What a horrible thing this over consumption is: people feeling as if they have to buy gifts for one another, a nation’s entire economy based solely on over consumption and reckless spending for a so-called Christian holiday, and then the utterly useless news reports about over consumption and greed and then the interviews with poor people who can’t afford to buy what they want for their children and then the interviews with self-proclaimed shop-oholics or compulsive buyers! It’s enough to make me run screaming, especially when the soundtrack to this shopping season—tinny carols about some Jewish baby born in modern-day Palestine—comes over the PA!
• In honor of the Japanese holiday, I declare myself thankful to be counted among those who labor to make this world a (little) better place.
• I always enjoy teaching Marx in my classes. When I taught government, I would spend about a week on political ideologies, slowly introducing socialism in small doses until the majority of my students would insist on knowing why we in the gloriously free United States didn’t fully embrace Marx’s philosophy. I had a similar experience teaching Marx in my philosophy course a couple of weeks ago. One student exclaimed, “I’m poor, and I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s saying!” Another student questioned, “Why were we taught that he was the enemy?” My answer: “Why don’t you write your president and ask him?” I’m all about pushing the limits.
• There is no free market economy. It’s a lie and a myth and a delusion all rolled into one. A free market economy in principle would not allow monopolies to exist, would not insure bank deposits, would not bail out corporate failures, etc. etc. The only good thing about the US economy is all of the Marxist-inspired policies we have implemented to protect consumers and workers and the public. And we have a long way still to go.
• "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Proletarians of all countries, unite!"
• My favorite new story this evening: the First Baptist Church of Dallas was robbed last night (on Thanksgiving Day). The thieves got away with eight plasma televisions plus a lot of other crap. I think God’s message this holiday: stop watching your fucking TVs when you’re supposed to be worshipping me! (I wonder if Homeland inSecurity will come knocking on my door if I declare that any church that has eight plasma televisions deserves to burn.)

One Old Message, or Little Frankie's Big Gay Dallas Election

Yeah, this shit was left on my answering machine Saturday. My commentary is in brackets.

Hello. Crime, education & homosexuality are the three hot issues in the mayor’s race Saturday, June 16th. [Actually, the hottest issue of the Dallas mayoral election is to keep douche bag Tom Leppert out of City Hall.] Did you know that the crime rate in Ed Oakley’s city council district is eight times higher than the rest of the city? His district also has one of the highest dropout rates among residents. [The use of such statistics only obviates the real issue while revealing Leppert's "classist" (that is, elitist) and racist bent. I can only assume that if elected, he will tear down all bridges that connect downtown to the southern sector. (And yes, I meant that figuratively as well as literally.) His views on South Dallas/Oak Cliff are just as bent. Check out this website for a little background.] And the Dallas Morning News reported that Ed Oakley would be the first openly gay large-city mayor. [First off, that is non-issue, especially in this election. Secondly: 'bout fuggin' time, I says. Who cares that Ed's a big 'mo': he's experienced and has proven to be a leader, the kind of leader that this shithole town needs.]

We encourage your vote for Tom Leppert—a Christian, married, father of three children. [It's easy to get lost down the rabbit hole (not warren, but ass) of this "logic": "Christian" and "homosexual" are not mutually exclusive categories, as evidenced by the largest gay Christian church in the world sitting on the other side of town. I guess Tom ignores the north side as well.] For more information, go to www.isuckthedevilsteet.com. That’s www.isuckthedevilsteet.com. This call was paid for Heritage Alliance PAC. [Of course, some of the most revealing anagrams of "Heritage Alliance" include "Alienate Each Girl," "Ethical Reel Again," "Cheater Nag Ail Lie," and my two favorites: "Eager Anal Itch Lie" and "Anal Rage Lie Ethic". I don't know if this is important; I'm just saying.] Thanks, and have a great day.

I'm beginning to see the sense in firebombing telecommunication networks if not headquarters of fascist organizations. I mean for fuck's sake: I have paid to be put on do-not-call lists so I wouldn't be harassed by telemarketers but campaigners for Satan himself can still call and peddle their political shlock and version of salvation?!?! Instead of trekking down the stony path of a terrorist, I decided to merely blog my frustration. I hope you've enjoyed.

Oh, and if you're interested, you can call Heritage Alliance at 214.348-2220. Go nuts!

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

So this is what tries to pass itself off as political discourse in the good old US of A: plastic doll Ann Coulter—who tries to pass her brand of uninspired anti-intellectualism off as conservatism—essentially calls Senator John Edwards a faggot. Then she proceeds to enlighten us by declaring, “It isn’t offensive to gays. It has nothing to do with gays. It’s a schoolyard taunt, meaning wuss. And unless you’re telling me that John Edwards is gay, it was not applied to a gay person.”

Overlooking the fact that one of those self-styled conservatives finally admits to being the equivalent of a schoolyard bully, we can’t pass on the fact that according to that useful and erroneous logic, it must be exceptionally acceptable to call said trash-talking bimbo a whore because she isn’t one. Or maybe—even better: how about any of the other inoffensive terms she allegedly isn’t. Nigger? Spick? Chink? Gook? Jap? Wetback? I guess as long as we don’t call her a bitch or a cunt then we’re in the clear. Yet somehow it still doesn't feel appropriate, no matter how inoffensive they appear to her and other bullies who would use them.

The only thing more annoying than that travesty is her sidekick Matt Sanchez, formerly known as gay porn star Rod Majors but currently known simply as Major Tool. Now that he’s been washed in the blood of the neo-con agenda, he declares, “I don't like porn, it reduces the mind, flattens the soul.” I’m thinking that if after such stellar performances in such films as Touched by an Anal, Jawbreaker, Beat Off Frenzy, Laid to Order, Lunch Hour 2: Sweating Grease, Man to Men, Secret Sex 2: The Sex Radicals, among several others, if porn was flattening his soul then perhaps he wasn’t doing it right. Semper Fey, you stupid cocksucker. And remember: it’s only offensive if you are.