Redneck Suit

Warning. Some language and suggestive idears are used in this post. Please keep this post out of the minds of…

Yesterday I’m sittin’ and thinkin’ that maybe there is something to all this financial chaos that is going on via my Grand United Mistakes. It’s one thing to blame the turmoil on a certain group of morons but to actually go a step further, or deeper, searching for the root-cause of all this annihilating idiocy that is ruling the planet post cold war joy, now that’s a challenge. And so I have to ask: is this all about money or could it possibly be about the suits we wear?

What strikes me as a commonality and hence a potential answer as to where all this madness began is this.

Before continuing please be warned: Some might call this answer silly but an answer it is all the same – so there…

There is a pattern at the core of all this neo-con and republican madness that is ruling the world. Not to get too far off subject, but I’ve noticed a thing or two during my expatriate, view-from-the-outside perspective. Since I’m all alone here in Euroland with so many well-to-do welfare folk the only real source of info I have from back home is the Internets. Now say what you will about the madness of technology but at the least I trust in my ability to maintain a rational head, thoughtfulness and an interest in right being NOT equal to but above wrong. The blog world is such a gluttony of info, indeed, but if you can swim through it there is much to be revealed. For example, look closely at the information being transferred and you will see a pattern. It is a pattern that requires a bit of examination before deriving a conclusion. It is a pattern that is more than just the left is funny or the left is more informative or the left doesn’t point the finger at me and tell me what to do.

Since I’ve lived my short-ass life with the belief that knowledge is shit but the process of knowing is grand, I’m usually patient when it comes to figuring things out. It wasn’t always that way, though. I mean, I have been schooled by the same Anglo subjection school system as most. That means that I’m by default a follower. Hence the truth about how a man can become a man. He must always be a follower and he must always know that following, even disguised as leading, is still…. Well, you get the image.

Anywho.

Age and expatriation can play havoc on every mortal coil, but it can also be good for the libido – especially if you land in a country with such easy pussy. But being born of that which rules and then being able to separate yourself from it by taking advantage of others…. You see, there is hope that more will rise up and see through the facade that is “hope” and raise arms against his/her aggressor instead of relaxing behind the lie that is “change”.

Na. I’m just joshin’ you’all. I don’t mean no harm and I’m certainly no revolutionary with that “raise arms” comment. But I will say this. I have seen through the pattern that is the current political United Mistakes madness. I have seen through it because I was born of it. And I’ll rudely say this:

It’s nothing but a big tit.

As though some mystery were at the source, happenstance took me out of the tit-comfort of that world. I became a man in a different way. Yes, a man without a neo-con, republican tit. Yearning to suck it but never having access to it, you know, is quite a bending experience. I suppose some call that experience weening. But I’m not sure.

Of course, I could have gone completely bizirk and just jumped on a plane back home and ran to the first Wal-Mart and bought me a Mossberg buckshooter. But then I thought: what do you really want to do? Go back home where there is no production only the buying and selling of prefab housing or stay in welfare Europe where pussy is about the untruth that love and sex are the same?

What would you have done?

And so, before I lose myself in self-indignation, the pattern that I’ve noticed that rules the world right now with the buying and selling of housing and/or debt is about the suits the sellers wear. It did not take a lot of careful consideration to reach such a conclusion but it did take a lot of patience. I watched the quad-drillions of media clips of both the right and the left. Their arguing and bickering… – indeed a joke in and of itself! Then one day, just as I was about to throw-up for the umpteenth time, I noticed the suits and the fact that they all – and I mean A L L these talking heads – were rednecks in fancy suits.

Now get this. The greatest achievement of generations post baby-boom has been the creation of the lie that is suburban-hell America. The baby-boomers and their children had to have lots of room in order to build the gazillions of kingdoms that now are the United Mistakes of Suburban-Hell America. Seriously. I mean if that completely makes no sense to you then you are obviously not alone. But get drunk and give my little pseudo-theory a try. Look at all the talking heads. And languish in the dreamscape that is suburban-hell. A new universe ruled by fancy dressed rednecks.

The product of suburban-hell is...?

Rant on.

-tgs-

Panic House

I’m blocked. Totally and utterly blocked. In a way it’s kind of refreshing. But I so miss the sound of typing. Would you believe that I’ve actually learned to like the sound of typing on (aghast!) a computer keyboard? But how far can that sort of thing really go?

Here some thoughts I’m calling “Panic House”. Please, don’t ask me why.

Happiness is a warm typwriter...

RIP – David Foster Wallace

Some time ago I posted something here that included a link to David Foster Wallace. At the time I was very interested in him because, well, I wondered how the guy got published. (I do that a lot.) Frankly, he didn’t catch my interest at all because of the uproar regarding “Infinite Jest“. In fact, it took a while to actually break down and read a book written by someone my age that contained something like a quadrillion pages. But then when I learned he was a professor AND that he won some kind of grant with “genius” in the title, I was no longer surprised – both at the fact that he was published and that his book was a quadrillion, gazillion pages.

I found Infinite Jest very difficult to read – which lead to me to totting the thing around for weeks. The fact is, I only borrowed the book from a friend. It was the summer of 2005; I think I read about half of it. I was in the States staying with some friends. One of them told me to give the book a try; they said they didn’t get very far with it. Also, anyone with a huge reading list might sympathize with my plight here. I told my friend that I wouldn’t be able to dedicate enough time to a book that size.

“But everyone is talking about it,” she said.
“Then why didn’t you finish it,” I countered.
“Try it and you’ll know why,” she said.

When I heard the other morn that Wallace hung himself, I wasn’t surprised. He was forty-six years old. (I’ll be forty-five soon AND I prefer large caliber weaponry OR feeding myself to sharks.) What I did get out of the few pages (like five hundred of them!) I read of Infinite Jest was that, although many thought it to be a darkly hilarious book, I thought it incredibly depressing. I promised myself to get back to it as soon as I could. But I kept putting it off. But something from that unfinished experience lingered inside me. After that summer I became more and more aware of Wallace, at least via various on-line literary sources, including the Charlie Rose interview with him. Yes, perhaps Wallace might go down as a voice of a generation – but somehow I hoped that that couldn’t happen. Who knows what may come postmortem but the fact that nothing came after Infinite Jest says a lot.

I think I would have enjoyed Wallace as a prose poet. But his ability to tell a story … I mean, I love most of them really depressing Russian authors, so it’s not easy to turn me off with depressing stuff. Also, and this is gonna sound real weird, I couldn’t help but compare the nonsense of today’s political comedy shows like “The Daily Show”, and whatever sprung out of that, to Infinite Jest. It’s as though we are all over-educated characters in bad stories laughing at our own demise.

Call me a stickler or an old goat, but I don’t find reality at that level funny – I don’t care how you wrap it.

Anywho. Now I feel bad. So I ordered Infinite Jest. When it arrives two things could happen: 1) I finally finish it, or, 2) I give in to the sharks knocking at my door.

RIP Mr. Wallace.

And rant on,

-tgs-

PS Here is someone else’s post on Wallace that is more interesting.

Lost Thoughts

Reading and reading, trying to get to sleep, the time ticking but I can’t hear a thing. No, it’s not the sound of my heart that I hear. It’s the sound of thoughts. So I’m reading a play that is causing me to think. Yeah. Talk about (my kind of) fun! But all these beautiful imaginative thoughts are disturbed by reality. And that’s what we all have to live with, eh? I mean, at least I still have my imagination, right? And while reading a play last night till three in the morn that imagination was running wild. The problem is I had to eventually focus on what I was reading. The typical fight between who I want to be and who I must be ensued. Who I must be won. This then caused more turmoil and even less sleep. I had to get up, break from my reading, and jot down a few notes about the other thoughts. I usually write such thoughts down in my moleskin book but last night I didn’t feel like getting up to get it (I left it on my desk in another room). So I jotted down the thought on a used tissue. Lo & behold, the tissue was consumed by my dog this morning. He eats my ear plugs, too. So this morn I spent at least an hour and four cups of coffee trying to retrace my thoughts from the night before. To no avail. There was only the wonderful dialog by Hacks and a pretty whacked-out play that I was enjoying. But I wanted the thoughts to come back to me about that WOMAN! There was nothing. Later in the afternoon while procrastinating regarding my novel Gloria, I tried to force the thoughts out. But again: nothing.

Here’s all I could come up with hacked out on an old typing machine. Yeah, at least the typing machine was fun.

Rant on.

-tgs-

This is what happens to thoughts I wish I could remember...

How To…

It’s been a few years but I still cannot remember how many “how to” books on writing I’ve read. I’m almost sure I’ve read at least two. Obviously it didn’t help much. Since I’m not writing all that much right now anywho, I reckon here’s a little bit to pass the time with.

Mr. Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorites.

Write and Rant on,

-tgs-