Say. That’s a great title for a play. “Slow Death Broadway”. Of course, it’d be a great title for a play after Broadway is long dead. Or?

If only there was more TRUTH in the things Mr. Irons says in the video above. Or maybe truth is the wrong word. There should be more substance. No. Stick with truth. Why? Because there’s very little dynamic to “truth” – there’s just it’s opposite. But “substance”. Now go off on a blog-post tangent and try to explain the substance of theater?

Anywho.

If the things Jeremy Irons says are true, how long will it take before Broadway dies? Personally, I could care less if Broadways dies. It would make no difference to the theater world. Upon its death it will only cause a few already loud-mouth actors to raise their voices. Is that, then, the real truth about Mr. Irons remarks here? Is Broadway already dead? Or is this all we can expect from the intelligentsia of acting?

When it’s all over the fat lady will come out and sing: whoopie. Seriously. Of course, how can one expect an actor to address the inherent problems of theater? He should go back to earning his millions and shut the fuck up…

OK. Some of the stuff Mr. Irons says about London theater might be true but the stuff about NY theater…? At the least, I would miss London theater. And that’s because it’s not “Broadway”. Of course, as I’ve complained here and here, I believe that theater deserves everything it gets. In this world of visualization-pure the essence of theater has long been surpassed. Reason? The writing. In fact, I believe, once humanity gets over itself, the most important pillar of theater, the writing, will make a comeback. There really is nothing like seeing a stage come to life – via the written word. It is not just a pillar of theater – but that of humanity.

Or maybe not. Stop dreaming Tommi!

I used to go to the theater all the time. No matter what city I visited, no matter what country I went to, part of my agenda was always: where/what show can I see? Even when I’m not traveling I used to think about just sitting in a theater audience – and, of course, dreaming about my own work being on that stage. But not anymore. Now it’s just the lie of dreams. And so…

Fuck Broadway. The one thing Mr. Irons doesn’t mention in this clip is the real problem with theater these days. Like movies, theater isn’t even about the money. It’s about the egos of the producers and the actors. Nothing else makes any difference – goodness knows it would be hard pressed to get any cultivated person living in a major western city to provide the names of any leading playwrights. For me, that’s… nuff said.

There is one good thing about The Death of Broadway: (potentially) (finally) OFF (OFF) Broadway (might take over); there are actually writers still struggling to write for that venue. Thank goodness.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Note: sorry, but, due to my disposition before, during and after putting this post together (including the time on my Letter 32 w/pica), I’ve had to make various corrections to it (the blog post, not the pic text). Thank you for your (worst)reading patience. And BTW, the typed/scanned material in the pic requires less effort to write. Seriously. So much for technology, eh?

Read through my old (college) copy of Beowulf last night – it is part of one of them anthologies of classic lit. Also included (but not in the old anthology) was a bottle/belly full of wine. As the night progressed I also started thinking about one of my old nemeses:  The Cain Tradition. (Which had nothing to do with college.)

Hiccup.

In Beowulf The Cain Tradition is not mentioned – it is instead part of the various/numerous”collegiate” undertakings that are supposed to interpret this ancient text. The thing is, Beowulf haunts me and so too does The Cain Tradition. Either that or both amuse me to the point of boredom (if that’s possible). Still, my motivation with this ancient text and the even more ancient tradition lies NOT in Beowulf and that whole Nordic heroism B.S. but in the whims of the plot generating sub-characters: Grendel and his mother. (Hence what I consider to be The Cain Tradition connection to this ancient story.)

Indeed, the old testament fascinates me. But does it fascinate me as much as it fascinated men (in this case the anonymous author of Beowulf) so long ago? You see, there is so little value in actually learning about humanity these days. Value has become something else, right? But if one gives stories like this, stories stemming out of the chaos that would eventually be the honed and horrid tradition that is today’s monotheistic religious nuttery, well…

Nomatter. Burp

Every once-a-once I get caught up (again) in trying to learn. Some men just get drunk, you know. They call it avoiding or an ersatz for the meaninglessness of life. I think getting drunk is quite the opposite. Shutting down and/or manipulating all those nerve endings with such a variety of fermented juice… Yet I still haven’t tasted mead. But when I read about mead it’s almost as though I (can) taste it. Other than that, I dream of the halls in which it was (all) drunk so many hundreds of years ago – during a time when real men still walked the earth instead of the cowards we have today…

Wait. Hicc…üüüüp. (That’s one of them hiccups that includes stomach phlegm. ;-)

Don’t get me wrong. When I say “real men” regarding a time long past, I am not trying to claim that it/they was/were better. But it does seem that the pagan rituals of Nordic kings and tribes from so long ago held some kind of honor. There was an honor to how they lived and, perhaps, how they died. Therefore, in my il-logic, I am motivated to wonder (at times) if it is the advent of Christianity (as we know it today and as it is so frivolously mentioned in the Beowulf text) that has lead to this less honorable way of living – minus, of course, the blood & guts.

Yes, indeed. The blood & guts of then has been replaced with the comfort of useless eaters today. Or… Well… Maybe… Maybe not.

Whatever. Big gulp.

Rant on.

-tgs-

What's in a name?

Like I said, she was something like a nice old bitch. To have met her when I was young would have been better. I’m sure that we would have gotten along out of bed then. But that mother-driving force behind all lust… Where can it lead, you ask? To the stillness or an injection of antibiotics. There is no denying that without her life is that much less than better. She’s since gone the way of all old MILFs and GILFs. Beyond the grave to the firery blades of cosmetic enhancement. There is no denying that this quick, if not immediate relationship lead to something profound. At the least it lead to my brother who is also my son. But I tried to keep that from those that would read what comes from my Olivetti. Yes, indeed, she was, if not in me, than upon me. Yet I still can’t help but to forget her.

Rant on – sometimes.

-tgs-

Nonsense is nonsense, right? Maybe not. But can nonsense be creative?

Many years have passed and I’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about two things: being an expat, being creative. And so I ask: will this foreign living ever end? And: it can’t end because it helps me maintain some level of creativity. Seriously, it took something like ten years before I started to become homesick. The thing is, once you’re always sick, once you start to enjoy the sickness… there’s no going back. Of course, when I say/refer to “creativity” I probably mean something quite different than what is referred to in this study which I recently found via this article at the The Economist:

Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers: The Relationship Between Living Abroad and Creativity (PDF)

The study is interesting. Shame, though, that the PHD dudes that wrote/researched it misunderstand creativity – even though they define creativity in such a scholarly fashion at the beginning. Seriously. I’ve got some news for you/them (them). I’ve defined creativity once or twice. Be assured, my definition is less scholarly.

Creativity is  not what most are accustomed to thinking it is. Seriously – it’s something much bigger, better and never part of useless, meaningless coercive behaviorism that makes up most of  modern western culture today. But don’t get me wrong – I’m not a vocabulary tyrant – nor do I wish to stop the bizzy-body-ness of hobbyists. So please indulge me and pay close attention to what I’m about to write. This is (worst)writing at its worst/best:

Creativity is never about what you do. Creativity is always about what has been done.

I guess that’s why I belittle, in my own elitist kind of way, shit like “arts&crafts” (i.e. hobbies) – which, btw, is code for what The Haves (w/jobs) actually do in their useless corporate lives. (Or maybe it’s not code.) Anyway… Too many people refer to creativity as making-a-living. At the least, we live in a world that can/has easily changed not just the way we use language but also the meaning of everything. But that’s life, right?

When people refer to the meaninglessness of their lives as “creative” I cringe. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Sure, have fun fiddling with shit. I don’t care. But fiddling has nothing to do with doing something that actually has meaning – especially when there are so many examples in both history and (even) our day & age of people who actually do do something useful with their lives – which can be seen, read, felt, etc. I won’t bore you with examples of what I consider to be creative – but I will say this: it has nothing to do with what someone is doing at any particular moment.

So what gets under my gander here (in the pdf above) is what needs to be addressed based on the assumptions made in this scholarly effort by so-called academics that, probably by some coercive power greater than their own (greater than the academic world that financed it), had to address this subject matter. They also, like so many other academics, have to make use of their scholarly titles. But that don’t mean they be right.

Any takers out there that want to cut the academics up to shreds?

Obviously the published study has a corporate bent to it. More obviously the funding to do the research came from somewhere, e.g. just over the corporate rainbow. And that’s OK. I don’t mind. Even if corrupted by corps and the people that work/live for them produce this kind of nonsense, I can still see through it – and even learn something from it. So let’s all call an apple a spade- or an orange a deck of cards – or the other way round. Full stop.

The thing that gets me about this study/article is, after referencing research that comes straight out of MBA case-study bullshit, they compare the creative powers/genius of Hemingway and Beckett to the nonsense of working in a corporation and solving some nitwit problem that stems from inherent dysfunction. I’m not aware, other than perhaps Andy Warhol, where something creative has ever actually been derived from inherent dysfunction.

But I may be wrong – as usual.

Rant on.

-tgs-

It’s hard not to think of things to write about. In fact, it’s my dilemma. A boring dilemma, indeed. So when I sit at/with my Hermes Baby the question is never where/how to start but when/how to stop. I’ve read that W. Burroughs’ biggest problem was that he wrote so unconsciously. That is, he never wrote thinking about what he wrote. No. Maybe that’s wrong. I think what I’m trying to say is that W. Burroughs had a hard time getting published on account when he wrote he didn’t really care to make what he wrote… readable. Does that make any sense? Anyway. Writing and coming up with things to write about is never a problem. It’s doing it all so that one can meet the requirements of another. OK. This is going no where. And, as usual, I might be way off base here with Mr. Burroughs. The thing is, if only I could somehow put all these thoughts down in some kind of order then maybe…

Anywho.

The twins mentioned here (above) were/are almost as real as it gets. I did get to share some of their sloppy seconds once. The perfect world mentioned is real fiction.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Some will say that wanting to own wood is wrong. And perhaps it is. But the thought of continuing on this path… It’s too much for me. And so earth day passes just like every other day. I’ve tried to make the claim that truth is but the first casualty. Yet all is hidden in the fun of a holiday-like day. So what audience do I deserve if the truth is desperately trying to get out? We do not need such a day, you know. If we could only be a bit more responsible. Yes. There. I’ve said it. The truth is about responsible. Not so much responsible in the morale sense of right and wrong. But in the lateral movement of evolution. I mean, come on, is there really a difference between looking up to the sky directly or looking for it at the end of a horizon? No matter. Most of the/our attention goes to some form of fictional characterization – like the cuteness offered by Hobbits or forgotten unicorns and let’s not misplace big eared mice that have a political agenda. No. I won’t forget yesterday because it didn’t really happen – although we think/imagine it did. How can it happen with all those big bad wolfs in the desert that used to be our forest?

Just some after thoughts. After writing. Typing. Dreaming. Searching out (my) pickled brain.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Some pretty good advice from the horror master Stephen King. Even though I’ve only read about 2.5 (out of how many?) of his books I really admire this guy. Well, actually, I admire anyone that can get published these days. Anywho. Here’s Kings list of How-To regarding gettin’ published:

1. Be talentedThis, of course, is the killer. What is talent? I can hear someone shouting, and here we are, ready to get into a discussion right up there with “what is the meaning of life?” for weighty pronouncements and total uselessness. For the purposes of the beginning writer, talent may as well be defined as eventual success – publication and money. If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.

   Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

   Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We’re not talking about good or bad here. I’m interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who’s good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check’s been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented. The biggest part of writing successfully is being talented, and in the context of marketing, the only bad writer is one who doesn’t get paid. If you’re not talented, you won’t succeed. And if you’re not succeeding, you should know when to quit.

   When is that? I don’t know. It’s different for each writer. Not after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six thousand pinks, it’s time you tried painting or computer programming.

   Further, almost every aspiring writer knows when he is getting warmer – you start getting little jotted notes on your rejection slips, or personal letters . . . maybe a commiserating phone call. It’s lonely out there in the cold, but there are encouraging voices … unless there is nothing in your words which warrants encouragement. I think you owe it to yourself to skip as much of the self-illusion as possible. If your eyes are open, you’ll know which way to go … or when to turn back.

2. Be neatType. Double-space. Use a nice heavy white paper, never that erasable onion-skin stuff. If you’ve marked up your manuscript a lot, do another draft.
3. Be self-criticalIf you haven’t marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don’t be a slob.
4. Remove every extraneous wordYou want to get up on a soapbox and preach? Fine. Get one and try your local park. You want to write for money? Get to the point. And if you remove all the excess garbage and discover you can’t find the point, tear up what you wrote and start all over again . . . or try something new.
5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draftYou want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right – and breaking your train of thought and the writer’s trance in the bargain – or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don’t have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it … but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don’t do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.
6. Know the marketsOnly a dimwit would send a story about giant vampire bats surrounding a high school to McCall’s. Only a dimwit would send a tender story about a mother and daughter making up their differences on Christmas Eve to Playboy … but people do it all the time. I’m not exaggerating; I have seen such stories in the slush piles of the actual magazines. If you write a good story, why send it out in an ignorant fashion? Would you send your kid out in a snowstorm dressed in Bermuda shorts and a tank top? If you like science fiction, read the magazines. If you want to write confession stories, read the magazines. And so on. It isn’t just a matter of knowing what’s right for the present story; you can begin to catch on, after awhile, to overall rhythms, editorial likes and dislikes, a magazine’s entire slant. Sometimes your reading can influence the next story, and create a sale.
7. Write to entertainDoes this mean you can’t write “serious fiction”? It does not. Somewhere along the line pernicious critics have invested the American reading and writing public with the idea that entertaining fiction and serious ideas do not overlap. This would have surprised Charles Dickens, not to mention Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Bernard Malamud, and hundreds of others. But your serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way around. I repeat: if you want to preach, get a soapbox.
8. Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?”The answer needn’t always be yes. But if it’s always no, it’s time for a new project or a new career.
9. How to evaluate criticismShow your piece to a number of people – ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story – a plot twist that doesn’t work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles – change that facet. It doesn’t matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I’d still suggest changing it. But if everyone – or even most everyone – is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.
10. Observe all rules for proper submissionReturn postage, self-addressed envelope, all of that.
11. An agent? Forget it. For nowAgents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you’ve done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King’s First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don’t need one until you’re making enough for someone to steal … and if you’re making that much, you’ll be able to take your pick of good agents.
12. If it’s bad, kill itWhen it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.

Source: http://mikeshea.net/Everything_You_Need_to_Kn.html

Rant on,

-tgs-

Perhaps I should title this post: My Confusion. Here we have two completely opposing thoughts that have busied my morning. Oh, the waste-of-time.

There is a certain amount of desperation in the air these days. I can feel it from my homeland to this side of the pond. Thick it is, and only slightly different from that which I ran from. But like the word “hero” now the word “crisis” must be abused. Obviously there are many who are falling through the cracks these days – but where do they fall is all I ponder as the heroes and the crisis dance? It doesn’t matter if someone stands up and tries to explain anything that is going on. Perhaps that’s due to the fact that it’s been so…

PERFECTLY IN THE MAKING.

It reminds me of an old man I once knew. He was missing two fingers. When asked he said that the fingers were taken from him and ever since he wished he would have not given them up so easily. Then he added that their loss did find vengeance.  He admitted it was all due to a stupid mistake on his part. A very stupid mistake. And then he added:

“And these days we give up so much and we do it so with so little apprehension. Mistakes aren’t what they used to be. Isn’t that right young fellow?”

The truth is, he lost those fingers just after he hit the ground and found himself buried under his parachute. That’s one of the things you learn when you are drafted as a paratrooper.

“Don’t get buried under the parachute!”

I think he said that he landed somewhere in Belgium. It wasn’t very windy but a gust must have caught him. It was the early spring of ‘45. Two jump-mates tried to help him and one fell before he could even clear away the parachute. The other man took a bullet, as well, but it was only a flesh wound. At that point he had no idea that he was bleeding. In fact, about fifty yards away from his landing site he hit the ground and recalled his training and, along with all his comrades, prepared to fire his government issued rifle. As he began to find a target in the midst of the hell-fire that ensued from the invasion he noticed the two missing fingers that failed to cup the bottom of the forestock of his rifle.

“The fingers must have been shot away,” he said. “That’s the only thing I could figure out about how it happened.” And then he said: “A crisis situation can really influence how you judge things. Luckily my training kicked in and I got over my mistake. Of course, I caused the death of a mate and almost lost another. But later I was told that it was a gust of wind and it blew me way off course. The Krauts would have got me clean if it weren’t for being covered by the parachute. Anyway. I wrapped those two slaughtered fingers in a rip of my undershirt and went about my duty. Now let me tell what it’s like to kill three Krauts…”

Yes, indeed, confusion is rampant this morn. And so…

Rant on,

-tgs-

Perhaps the title of this post should have been: “Never say never – but…”. With that in mind, once again I’m going to leave this blog. I can’t remember exactly the last time I left it but I have left it at least twice. That is, I’ve said to myself: I’m gonna leave you baby… The funny thing is I remember leaving but don’t actually remember returning. Oh well.

I am not a child of sin. Hence one of the reason I despise religion. It’s also one of the reasons I despise what so many people – due to the influence of the philosophical answers of playboy centerfold questionnaire sheets – like to call optimism. What is clear in this day and age is that there is simply no opportunity anymore – unless you have a “perfect” body. There is especially no opportunity for those who prefer to measure life and what one makes of it devoid of the result of “perfection”, i.e. money. Oh to be so poor, comfortable and yet look maaaaar-vuuuuulus….

It is said that the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins is pride. Oh, how I disagree. I also disagree with the other six. To me there is only one thing that humans inherently do that is bad. I call it self-pity. Seriously. There is no murder, no thievery, no politics, no marriage, no human-anything… WITHOUT SELF-PITY. Even the great ones, the humans that have achieved in this life, have done so via self-pity. Yes, so much for living in an over populated world.

Perhaps I should leave the thought to someone who can spew it with less WorstWriting.

Once again having an unproductive period where I wake in the morning yelling at Vaclav Havel – or someone else. If only I could be a blind optimist and just go about my day as though it were (actually) my day. No. Again. Thank goodness there are so many like me (failure) to make the rest of you (winner) feel as though life is really kind of neat…

It took a few years after moving to Europe to realize (my) fate. The thing about such a change (in life) is that it takes awhile to get a hold of it. The thought: “I’m no longer living in my country” doesn’t really mean anything until you wake up with tears in your eyes and desperation filling your lungs. Then, suddenly, life really is a complete waste of time – unless you’re either one of the HAVES or you can go about it all as though you’ve never woken up to the fact that you can actually see (with something other than eyes).

In order to calm myself down from the anxiety and the stress and desire – that is/should be life – I turned to (a) drug. Yes. Indeed. Even “optimism” in its most minuscule form just might reveal something worthwhile once the human experiment story has been told. Yes. The loneliness of (real) change is only a hop-skip-and-jump away from pulling the/a trigger. I suppose the secret to survival is to keep your optimism under control and to keep getting up (in the morning). And then there are all the other waste-of-time compulsions that drive us.

Anywho.

One fo the things I missed during my first few years of expatriation was standup comedy. I’m not referring to krapp comedy like the shit from Bob Hope or Bill Cosby. Fuck them and fuck all superficiality in life! A lot of people might not have liked the 1980s (perhaps including me) but one thing did come out of that waste-of-time-period that history might show as the beginning of America’s über-gluttonous behavior. Thinking comics. I’m referring to comics that don’t just make you laugh but also… Well, you (should) get the picture. The origin of thinking comics probably has to be credited to Lenny Bruce. Then there’s George Carlin . But my favorite is Bill Hicks. Talk about comedy.

Thinking comics are one of the reasons that I don’t like Jon Stewart and his Daily Show. But that’s another post.

Living in a place absent of humour isn’t easy. To compensate for not being funny, Germany is an amazingly comfortable welfare state. I guess, at least, it’s a good thing that the Brits aren’t all that far away. Germans have slowly started to catch on to the stand-up comedy format but they will always be bogged down by so-called cabaret (Kabarett). Traditional European cabaret contains comedy – and a lot of pretentious, over-educated but very talented folk “perform” their cabaret skits (or whatever). I guess, what I’m getting at (and will obviously fail to get at) is that cabaret is… different. I prefer well written comedy handed over by someone who can “deliver” it – I guess. With that in mind, there are some talented folk in the German cabaret scene but you have to like that sort of thing or be born into it. No. Seriously. I’ve honestly tried to follow some German acts but I’ve given up. There have been simply too many things during my expat experience where the Germans have asked for too much. (And the comedy stuff is the least of the worst of it.)

Yeah. Lots of posts there, eh…

What’s really funny, though, is that last summer a German stand-up comedian named Mario Barth (German link only!) filled a stadium with 70,000 Germans. I have no idea what was actually funny with this guy but the fact that he is credited with some kind of world record (for filling a stadium with 70k people) is hilarious.

All is not lost. I do realize that it is my fault that I don’t think Germans are funny. (Or?) There are some cabaret-comedians, like Hagen Rether, (this guy has an English wiki page and hasn’t filled a stadium with 70k people!) that do catch my ear every once-a-once. Below is a clip of Hr. Rether w/English subtitles. I hope you can follow the text/translation. Although this clip is political, there is comedic potential here and this guy really shows the cabaret format (perhaps at its best).  Also, I know this sounds really pretentious of me (if not obnoxious) but just look at the audience in the clip. The clip is current but the audience looks like a bunch of cheaply dressed bureaucrats with jackets and ties from the 70s. So much for contemporary German TV, eh! I suppose there is something to the adage that an audience makes the performer. Yes. Indeed. Perhaps with a different audience Hr. Rether could finally open up and… Well, who am I to judge.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Today of all days was just like the rest except… I saw this old lady fall down. Now this old lady didn’t just trip and fall like I’ve seen happen in the past. I don’t know what it is about Europe (or maybe it’s just Germany) but old people fall all the time here. Heck, my grandmother fell a few years ago. She was just walking along and suddenly she plopped right over. You didn’t even hear a thud or anything. She just laid there on the ground. Then I looked into her eyes. My grandmother broke her knee-cap, her left elbow and separated her right shoulder. She was was eighty-one at the time. (She’s eighty-seven now.) Well, today, I’m not quite sure how old the lady was that fell. I suspect she was pushing eighty. It’s a busy time in Germany these days. That silly holiday is upon us. Keep in mind that this isn’t a holiday like any other holiday in Kraut-suck-ville. This is one of the three or four top-of-the-hierarchy holidays in Germany. There’s a gazillion other holidays and the weight of each in the hierarchy determines what I call the “freedom” factor. That is, the time that people get free of their employment. It’s not as though a lot of people actually “work” in corporate-welfare-state Germany. Just go to any big city on a Friday where you can witness at around 11am all the Beamte going home – and I mean every (your)godforsaken Friday! I don’t know why people even claim to work five days a week in this country! But before I get too far off subject… There are way too many “holidays” in Germany and on top of those days are the written-in-stone religious holidays – the one coming up being one of them. So this old lady was dallied up in her fine winter clothing, a pretty red scarf around her neck and some nice fancy brown shoes that fit perfectly to her long, thick overcoat. As I initially saw her, right at about a blink-and-a-half, she fell. For a second I thought: boy, she looked knocked-out even before she hit the ground. She just lay there on her belly, her face in the cold ground, like a stump. Oh no, I thought, is she dead? Then I woke out of my shock and ran over to her. And let me tell you – in all that stillness, the stillness that is the mind of this ridiculous holiday of TAKE (and no give) – I was the only one to do anything about that woman. People were just traversing as though nothing happened. “Are we stealth,” I thought. Finally someone else came over and while they saw me trying to help the lady they called a doctor. Then another person came along. Luckily she was fine – just in a slight state of shock and, unfortunately for me – bleeding from her face. I must have missed something during that blink-and-a-half. Her fall was stopped by her face. I think she broke at least two teeth. Old people blood – you know the kind – the stuff that flows like water as opposed to young people blood that still flows like crude oil – was gathering in a pool under her. As the blood darkened on the cold ground it began to match the redness of her scarf. After a short while it looked as though her scarf was simply wet with water. But then I noticed one of her teeth. It was dangling in her mouth as she told me to watch her purse. I kept asking if she had hurt any bones because I thought it best to turn her over. I think she mumbled that I should go away. It was probably best that she remained face down until the ambulance arrived because then the blood had a place to go. It mixed well into the cracks of the brick-layed walk-way. In some cracks there was the green of peat-moss mixing well with the red of dying blood. Tis the season to be jolly – eh. And may the merriment of illconstrued gift-giving bring this old women some new teeth. Anyways. The odd thing about the whole afternoon ordeal was that the old lady was really kind of pissed off at everybody that was trying to help her. But I think I was the only one she yelled at. And so, this confused holiday season the words: “Was wollen sie von mir!” will somehow mix well with all the other seasonal words/thoughts. Of course – the image of that old lady and her almost broken head will also be large in my holiday season thoughts. Part of which I managed to jot down just a few moments ago.

It was my (ill)intention to write something completely different than what came out here. But as the saying goes: it ain’t over till the skinny boy brings out the marmarlade. Or something like that. The point of (my) typing, I suppose, is never to actually say/write something. It is truly a part of the compulsion that I live every day. With that in mind… Even if my compulsion(s) mean absolutely nothing, at least they aren’t half as bad or worthless or useless as most of the western worldly work force claiming to actually do something each day. Anyway, before I get too carried away hating fucking xmas and those that keep supporting the ultimate gluttony that leads to the gluttony of our (western) daily lives, here something completely not worth reading. I guess.

Holes Atop Head

Rant and type on.

-tgs-

Well, it’s that time of year again. What do you think of during this time of year? I think of the dying needles of pine trees, human corruption and how much I’ll enjoy leaving it all behind when the lights finally go out. Of course, I also think of failure – as in not being able to spell. At least there are ways to fix such mistakes. How odd that I can so easily fix something like misspellings (in the title of nonsense) and lawmakers the world over “fix” nation-states with little more complexity. No. Let’s not go there. Instead, see doc “Brown Needle Bound(a)ries”. I mean, I haven’t been writing much lately. It should be full of more errors.

There actually is something in the doc below. But – as is the case with everything else I write: it does not matter. Nothing matters in an over populated world where gluttonous politics, gluttonous economics and the ignorant masses rule everything through ambivalence and rust. Speaking of “rust”. Rotting pine needles on the floor(s) of the earth are a metaphor for something. If only I knew what that something could be. If only I knew who/what put them there…

Brown Needle Boundaries

Rant on.

-tgs-

Losing one’s faith (in religion) is one thing. Losing faith in ALL (of humanity) is another. I don’t suppose that the gist of life hangs on the thread that is (the concept of) faith – although the superficial point-of-view might indicate otherwise. Recent “change” in my former home country has caused at least a spark to once again be released (in my mind’s eye). Oh, what a slight spark. Shinny to the eye that has seen so little of it (the spark) in recent years. Dull to the eye(s) that see their spark burn bright every day (in the form of consumables and credit). Indeed, it is certainly not enough to question the loss of anything when a single moment and/or day in time (Nov. 4, 2008; or the clarifying morning thereafter) presents so much for posterity.

The brilliant marketeer-ploy of rhetorical change reminds me of the days when I witnessed other leaders rise to their peda-stool (others might call them mountains). Did you know that the raised golden stool (I prefer the high-chair metaphor) has a hole in the middle? The senators were given enough room underneath the stool to huddle and gather and perhaps have a cup of tea. Little holes the world over grant visual access to the gonads and sphincter of those who would sit upon it. We are thinking, of course, of the days of Pope Joan – or? Make no mistake, my liberal friends, you have fallen for the trickery one too many times. What shall you now do in a world that stands alone on the pillars of tricksters? Yes, you will find reason to hope anew. So please be(a)ware!

And so… I was (finally) reading some words of the father of Virginia Woolf. Yes, my literary procrastination pays off in ways more than not. If anyone wants to know why Leslie Stephens was also a mountaineer, then all they have to know is that he also fathered Woolf. Some men will drown on their way to the bottom of the ocean for a child – and others, like Stephen, will get high on Matterhorn. The question is, I suppose, is it actually possible to pass your mind on to your child? I mean, the way they wrote, these two mountaineers…

No. No matter.

At the least I was motivated. So I sat at my Hermes Baby with espresso and had a nice morning. I think. The result…

For those interested you can read Leslie Stephen’s “An Agnostic’s Apology” here which made me think/imagine there were Gnostic Ghosts singing to one another or hanging around or jostling their unlife as though it were as worthless as life truly is…

Whatever.

Rant on.

-tgs-

This is "Beckett"

09:26; Weather is overcast and reflects perfectly the attitude of an entire nation-state-folk; sour-puss Teutons passing by my window make me think of a stroll the dog and I recently had and something else completely (un)related.

So, like, the other day I was walking along the Rhine with Samuel Beckett (not the (in)famous author but my gf’s dog). It was a (German) day like any other day. That is, the weather sucked and it was all I could do to avoid Germans by finding some speck of land that isn’t full of them or isn’t either their office space, welfare housing or a parking lot for corporate/government subsidized luxury Audis, BMWs or Mercedes. (Which means that there’s a few hundred yards of land on either side of the Rhine River where you can actually get away from them! Well, almost get away.)

At first glance it seemed to be a leash-free zone. You see, as I’ve improperly mentioned through out this cornucopia of hippy-sweet-smelling (worst)writing nonsense (this blog?), Germany is a land of obnoxious, pretentious, snotty, rude, nasty automatons that cannot think for themselves but instead must rely on a perverted and ugly grandmother that is called Fraulein Ordnung to govern/manage their daily lives. I guess that’s OK since I’m only half-related to the old bitch – which means it’s not as easy as I’d like it to be to avoid her (them).

Wait. Maybe this quote from Marx might help:

Good natured enthusiasts, Germanomaniacs by extraction and free-thinkers by reflexion, on the contrary, seek our history of freedom beyond our history in the ancient Teutonic forests. But what difference is there between the history of our freedom and the history of the boar’s freedom if it can be found only in the forests? Besides, it is common knowledge that the forest echoes back what you shout into it. So peace to the ancient Teutonic forests!

09:29; Still overcast; the flat, gray sky that is just above your head looks down upon you as though it’s mood could rot your soul.

On this day Beckett got in the way of two bicyclist who insisted on yelling at me about how IN GERMANY dogs HAVE to be on a leash. Like any conflict with the Teutons their post-modern pacifism dis-enabled my rightful American aggression and we all ended up just yelling at each other about mannerisms – the full-bred Germans, of course, being better versed in the laws dictated by Fr. Ordnung. When the nasty exchange ended Beckett and I went on our way trying desperately to avoid any more of them. Either that or Beckett stood between the whole silly ordeal and wondered where those blond labs were going with that hot German MILF in tow. BTW, when my gf got him I suggested he be named Guido – The Killer Pimp Pug.

09:38; Gray weather continuing for the rest of my dismal life, or at least while I live in the land of well-dressed but still barbarian Teutons

I guess, in a way, I’m… I can’t use the word “happy” because I’m sure that I wouldn’t know what that is even if I didn’t HAVE to live in Germany. I guess, in a way, there is a sense of acceptance regarding the fact that I (HAVE to) live in Germany. More often than not I get up in the morning and stroll around this welfare state singing…

OH THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME LIVE IN YOUR WORLD
OH THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME LIVE IN YOUR WORLD
OH THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME LIVE IN YOUR WORLD
OH THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME LIVE IN YOUR WORLD, etc.

Often I imagine what it would be like to live elsewhere. For example, NYC. I would love to live in that city. But how can an expatriate or an irresponsible, failed redneck live in New York City? Obviously there is no inheritance in the thread that is/would be my life. There is no natural intelligence or LUCK here either that would enable scholarship via Yale or Harvard, etc., which in turn would provide some assistance to living in the world’s greatest ruined city.  There is nothing in who/what I am that could open up the golden windows/doors that let backward folk like me (Obama?) into the world that is so shiny even when Wall Street riches turn bitter. Yes, I am (almost?) middle aged and the cards have been dealt. Yet I still dream like a school boy. I dream about so many things that are cut off by the bridges I have burned…

09:52; The sky has darkened and so too have the sour-pusses which seem to coincide with the tanning salons that prevent them all from being sooooooooooul-lessly white.

One of my favorite places is New York City. It’s not my favorite because of New Yorkers. It is my favorite because it is the non-plus-ultra when it comes to measuring arrogance, pretentiousness, or a great example of how excrement sometimes doesn’t stink. In fact, the city is like Germany (where I HAVE to live). Seriously. If you want to somehow compare the arrogance of Europe and/or Germany with anything in America – you can’t really do it these corporate/September 11 days by comparing geography or borders or tax systems or profitability or even individuals. You can only compare the things that are the same. Yes, arrogance is the same the world over, right? I guess what I’m so rudely trying to say is: I’d rather live in the arrogant stink of NY – if only I had such a privileged choice.

09:58:03; Haven’t seen a sour-puss passing by my window in approximately three and a half minutes; the gray sky has gone from darkest to less dark.

2-300 yards beyond street and trees is the Rhine.

So the other day (the same day where my gf’s dog was almost attacked by bike riding, sour-puss Teutons) I read an article about Malcolm Gladwell. Yes, indeed, Mr. Gladwell would/could represent something quintessentially New York-ian. Or? I mean, isn’t he awesome! They are now calling him the father of “Gladwellian” thought. Wow.

Don’t ask me why I’m promoting his book; I thought “Blink” was stupid. Why does the world today need another book about selling shit. “Shit” being the world we live in and what humans have become. (Or?)

Here to get a bird’s-eye-view of what the father of Gladwellian thought is all about or to be somewhat more informed about popular culture or to see/read what CEOs read – yes, that’s how this guy got so popular – just check out any of the bookshelves of CEOs or wannabe CEOs and you’ll find a copy of “Blink” (his previous bestseller). Oh yeah, any “good” but low-ranking “marketeer” will also have “Blink” because that’s how good the book is in helping those that make nothing but sell everything get by in this day and age of getting rich.

Seriously. I’m so honored and privileged to live in this world – this world of arrogance, this world of privilege – this world of nothing else. How ’bout you? No? Am I really over doing it with all the bitterness that has built up inside me because of the bridges I have so willingly burned? Here I would ask if I had the opportunity to do so: Are we born evil requiring a savior or are we simply born with bitterness that only awaits its overcoming? OK. I guess I’m gonna go for another walk with Beckett and try to avoid all of … them. Yes. Avoid!

Shouting back to the Teutonic forest: Oh, I cannot express how thankful I am for you allowing me to live in your world.

Yes, the other side of the/my window...

Rant on.

-tgs-

A bit of self-promotion that won’t cost you a thing…

I finally got around to posting about my writing for The Naked Classic and Verlag André Thiele (German publisher).

I don’t know about you but the only thing that changed after September 11, 2001, was the political landscape on which Western culture has been gorging itself. To say the least, it hasn’t changed for the better. I tend to think that change was on its way in another direction after the fall of Soviet Communism. But I was wrong. Say what you want about skyscrapers being ripped out of the sky or of the conflicts in Iraq, Afganistan, Dafur, etc., etc. Say what you want about Bush and/or the various United Mistakes of Amerika Republican/Neo-Con fanatics (that in my book goes back to the 1970s) that almost – A L M O S T ! – equal that which we are supposedly fighting against.

The only change post 911 has been in the continued distortion and deterioation of the concept(s) of liberty and self-determination that are the foundations of modern democracy. With that in mind, my curiousity about Europe – or the origin of all things rotten in western culture – has peaked. By chance I’ve come across a former enemy to Western Gluttony. I’m gonna try to have a bit of fun writing about him – and maybe, at the same time prove that you can – if you really try and concentrate and focus – get naked in some of this blog technology.

As mentioned here, I’ve been given the opportunity to write about Peter Hacks (an East German playwright). Since we now live in a new era where authoritarianism, totalitarianism and collective rule have easily merged with what is left of “democracy”, writing about a die-hard believer in Marxism might be fun. Either that or it might get me in some trouble.

What ever – I’m gonna keep running on this freedom-joke until the fat lady sings…

If you have the will or the desire, please visit my writing. Get it while you still can for free. Links are available here or you can go directly to The Naked Classic forum.

Good luck and rant lots,

-tgs-

PS if you accidently link to any other André Thiel site or get lost in the archaic forum interface and find yourself looking at some strange language that makes you caugh and choke. Don’t worry. It’s only German. Use your back space key or come back here and start over. (Again, good luck.)

Only once or twice have I slipped in this blog and directly posted about the/your (outside) world. More than not I have posted stuff about my own little world of failure. If you haven’t noticed by now, it’s called (Worst)Writing. I suppose the reason I do this is because, well, maybe I’m trying to raise the art of complaining. The thing is, every once-a-once something happens that digs so deep under my skin that I can explode.

I know, it’s a sign of weak character to blame others all the time for your problems. But I’m a firm believer that things are connected (you know, connected as in at the quantum level n’all). If things are connected then that means that much of what happens to someone is dependent on those connections. Having been reared and schooled in the pipe-dream known as the USA I absolutely understand the recent financial meltdown happening in the world. Of course I’m not going to get into any details of the meltdown here – there are plenty of other sources that can describe the whole mess much better.

The thing that gets under my skin is that so few people put any effort into grasping what is actually going on these days. Either that or people do get it and they are just a bunch of chicken-shits (to do anything about it). I mean, it’s probably always been like this, right? You know – the masses subjecting themselves to blissful ignorance because their credit card wasn’t rejected this week. It’s not as though this is the 21st century and for the first time in human history such a large portion of the population has access to so much information in order to judge a situation and yet …

OK. I expect too much by thinking that more people should understand the financial derivatives market. But how do so many people manage to get to Las Vegas every day? They can understand Vegas but not Wall Street? We live, swim, breath, eat, shit such inadequacy – and somehow we’re all kind of smart. (Yeah, right, compared to apes.) So you gotta ask yourself in this day and age of gluttony galore – where human beings have probably not reached the pinnacle of imitating mice running on one of them go-nowhere wheels – can it get any worse?

I’ll be the first to admit that I live off of other people. In fact, I am John Galt’s worst nightmare. The thing one should (re)consider (before judging me) is that my situation is not necessarily one of just choice. That is, I choose not to participate in this mess but that’s because there are so few choices. (See quote here from Henry David Thoreau.) Does that make any sense? I would rather wilt away and fail as a wannabe writer than work in a world of McJobs – no matter what John Galt proclaims.

The thing that John Galt (Ayn Rand) completely misses in his famous speech is to mention how “opportunity” can be turned into a commodity and hence used to quail the masses to dollar submission. I, for one, am more than willing to participate in this quagmire of gluttonous living but NOT if opportunity is owned by someone else.

So shove that up your ass John Galt!

Tip: go work in the “corporate” world and you’ll see that there is no opportunity left; there’s just the classes of college “elites” fighting over the non-existent left-overs of a fictionally extended, really grand, misconstrued thanks-giving-dinner.

The honest thing about my way of life is that I don’t it wish upon anyone else. As long as I keep myself clean and maintain a certain posture my girlfriend doesn’t mind, either. I guess it helps that I’m also pretty good at cleaning her house and cooking and walking her dog. So I suppose I kind of live in a world of luxury – less any personal material gains. If I am John Galt’s nightmare I am also Marx’s dream. Yes, indeed, everything is connected and I’m the only one to have the luck to live that connectedness.

No matter.

So many people in the deteriorating West have jobs and houses and cars and income and retirement plans and bank accounts – or they all have some form of welfare. They have all that because, for whatever reason, they thought it was their right to H A V E. They all like Christmas and children and toys and, and, and. The only thing those people will leave behind are their children. So much for the self perpetuation of self, eh. With so little history to look back upon, to avoid, to de-educate, why does it all repeat itself in the name of squeezing watermelons out of wombs?

It’s not the economy, stupid!

Take for example “Joe the Plumber“. Or what about Gayle Quinnell, the crazy lady at the John McCain rally? In my life-time (born early 60s) I’ve never seen so much human idiocy pushed to the forefront. These are indeed pretty scary times. The thing that gets under my skin is that the ignorance doesn’t stop with the so-called whatever classes – where it should probably stop. That is, the ignorance doesn’t stop with those that supposedly cannot understand (they can only talk). If the people mentioned here represent the worst of the worst then where is the – dare I proclaim – the best of the worst?

Ever hear of the likes of Andrew Lahde? Are you clueless to what a “hedge” is? As in hedge fund? Andrew Lahde recently quite his life as a hedge fund manager. He did so in grand style by writing a fairly sophisticated letter and publishing it on the web – and it has gotten quite a bit of attention. For your reading pleasure here a small outtake and here (pdf) the letter in full.

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth,
might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

Unlike the dips (Gale and Joe) mentioned above, Mr. Lahde is college educated and, I think, earned something like multiple-millions of dollars managing hedges (not the shrubbery). What gets under my skin here is how the boundaries of human ignorance merge – or connect – no matter what your class. For the first time in history it’s finally clear for everyone to see that the so-called elites of the world are obviously as stupid as the non-elites. But I guess I’m the only one to see it. Yes, for a brief moment in time, the classes have blended and become one. It’s one of those rare moments where the connectedness can be seen. George Bush (Yale), Andrew Lahde (State University), Gayle and Joe the Plumber (dip-shit talking eaters). You dig what I mean?

All connected!

I will give Mr. Lahde credit for this: he has beaten me to raising the art of complaining to new heights. A privileged man yet under-privileged when compared to those he complains about from Yale/Harvard/WallStreet, etc. (Remember, he went to State university and not a private one.) Of course he hides those complaints in greater-than-though rhetoric. Or have I incorrectly read between his lines? The cream of the crop are truly the ones that get it all and yet they are not worth spit – they are only worth the phlegm of a screaming tantrum and a really big fuck you on a shocking bank statement. Yet do we have any other choice but to let them rule this/your world?

Obviously Mr. Lahde is able to quit and then laugh at those left behind. Boy, do I really feel like a failure now. I guess it’s time to pray the bull … I mean God … I mean …

Rant on.

-tgs-

Here, here and here other posts on Frankfurt Book Fair.

Oh, I remember the first time I went to the Frankfurt Book Fair. I was full of so much writing energy while walking around the fair-grounds – and perhaps I was bit drunk on optimism then, as well. How times have changed, eh? Since the fair doesn’t really do anything for me anymore – today it’s nothing more than a Vanity Fair – at least I can say that I was part of the breaking of an old record. Saturday, 18.10.08, visitors to the infamous party of publishing greatness put together by z’Germans exceeded something like 78k. Let me tell you, I was in the middle of it all. Walking around so feverishly, sometimes the hallways connecting the various exhibitions felt like greenhouses. For those who cannot fathom it, let me try to put the size of this thing in (Tommi) perspective.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is so big that after three hours I wasn’t able to see a quarter of the exhibitions. Section 8.0 (see map below) is where USA and other (let’s call them) “Anglo” publishers resided. Would you believe that you had to go through a security check reminiscent of an airport to get in? It’s true – searching rucksacks n’all! You’d think that housing the American contingency of publishers something like two-miles away from the rest of the Fair would suffice in preventing THE TERRORISTS from threatening a bunch of bookworms.

Anywho.

It’s pretty neat to see the big guns (like Random House) placed next to obscure publishers specializing in stuff like Kabbala or Pugs (as in the dogs). Section 6.x, 5.x and 4.x (see below) housed other “International” publishers (no rucksacks were checked there). You can see the activities of publishers from Guam and Peru or Pakistan and Venezuela. The gem of it all though – at least for a wannabe writer like me – is section 6.2. The entire floor is dedicated to Literary Agents. Here the high-nosed aristocracy and holders of the key(s) of fate reside with all their wheeling and dealing magic. The problem is, you can only get into 6.2 by invitation. Unless you bribe your way in like I once did. Even if/when you buy the expensive ticket to get into the fair you can’t get into section 6.2 because it’s horded off by an encompassing red-carpet and high-brow walls.

Boo-fuckin’-who, eh!

Floor plan of 08 Frankfurt Book Fair

Pretty much everything in publishing is covered at this Fair – except for something that I tend to think is missing. I mean, there’s a Comics section, a Film Rights section, Illustration & Photography Centre and a very cool Antiquarian section where some books are on display that are like a gazillion years old. But don’t go there as an unpublished writer thinking that you might make a connection and finally get your book published.

The saddest thing about the Fair is that it has absolutely nothing to do with WRITING. As stated above, this Fair is about industry vanity. It is completely absent of THE STUFF. There is nothing – and I mean absolutely nothing! – at this Fair about writing. Sure, some writers are profiled – but that’s so that more of their already written books can be sold. I don’t know about you but that seems kind of odd. I mean, where do all the books come from? Would it be too much to have a section for stuff to help aspiring authors? Or what about having something like a registration of wannabe authors and then having a day where they can go and meet with those all-knowing deciders of fate: LITERARY AGENTS? Don’t lit agents need authors? No? OK, maybe they don’t. What do I really know?

Yeah – the biggest book fair in the world and it has nothing to do with where all those books come from. Vanity is a powerful thing, eh?

Anywho.

For those aspiring writers out there I’ve decided to provide a little help instead of just complaining about being a failed (i.e. rejected) writer. The pics below are scans from both sides of the LITERARY AGENT LIST from the ‘08 Fair. When one of of the pawns-of-the-oppressor was looking away (the dunces that work the front desk and check entry passes of section 6.2) I grabbed this list. And so this is my token to all other aspiring writers out there with a chip on their shoulder for lit agents. Big fuckin’ deal, eh. The only thing I ask in return is that you treat the agents with respect. Sure, we failed writers get turned down by these agents and they ruin our days regularly, but they are pawns as well (read my rant on agents here.) Do the research and find out what is required before contacting them or submitting your work. Searching their names and checking out their websites is all it takes.

LIST OF LITERARY AGENTS ATTENDING THE FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR, 2008.

Literary Agents 08 Frankfurt Book Fair, Page 1

Literary Agents 08 Frankfurt Book Fair, Page 2

Good luck,

-tgs-

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-

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...

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.