Musings of the Reverend Meduri and Dr. Jackass
Experimentations in Literary Groin Punches
A Feeble Attempt...
With all of the accelerating momentum that seems to be occurring around us, I find it difficult to pause and survey the landscape. Life seems to be imbued with a cyclical happening of a recognition of an new epoch... or perhaps the percipice of that epoch.
It actually happens too often (or maybe just these days it does), that we no longer fail to acknowledge it. We are constantly returning; constantly referring; perpetually regressing into our own subjective scrapbook of experience. We do it because "what comes after" is unknown and frightening. That is not to say that "what comes after" is always valuable (or, for that matter, is always invalid), merely that it establishes a contrast with it's predecessor. The individual judges the merits of that change.
But, for our purposes, time moves in one direction. All movement in the Universe does so, necessarily, from the influence of what came before. There is an Inertia that is inescapeable and ontologically sturdy. Any moral or ethical judgement about this Inertia is invalid; it is simply the tide of existence.
I realize I am ever the child. This 'calling-out-to-Mother' that forces us to look (and look again) at what's around us takes me by surprise.
'Tis an exercise I thought I had long outgrown, until my arms fit through the sleeves and the belt buckled again.
Did I Fall; or Was I Pushed?
Perusing through a local used book store (that until last week I didn't know existed) with my friend Carlos, we were immediately assaulted by the great deals on very new, well-recognized releases. I mean, we're talkin' 2 bucks here. Most notable was the last few installments of the 'Left Behind' series. Carlos held up a copy and gaped "Two bucks!"
A feeling of immediate revulsion overcame me as I marvelled at how anyone, even a rational Christian, could ever buy that nonsense (even if it was cheap nonsense. After pausing to ponder, I exclaimed "Y'know, those Fundies have a wonderful way to subliminate their fears about the apocalypse:" (of course, everyone has those fears to some degree, secular or religious) "instead of being a source of enormous dread and the extinction of mankind, they look at the end of the world and think, 'wow, Jesus will come back and everything will be paradise,'" This, obviously, in stark contrast the rational minded folk who think that this is pure bollocks and that the apocalypse is something to be avoided instead of hastened. Hell, they even call it the 'Second Coming' so as to spin the negative connotations of 'extinction' and 'global death.'
At this moment, a portly fellow browsing the used CDs walks over and says to both of us: "I just can't wait for the apocalypse so all of those Christians will disappear and leave us alone." I remember saying something to the effect of 'Well put,' belted out a chuckle and moved on. But, this leads me to a bigger revelation (with a small 'r'): if self-sacrifice is such a key tennet to their eschatology, they should preempt (an action popular with Fundies these days) and just off themselves en mass. They'll get what they want: paradise eternal in the WalMart-in-the-sky; and we'll get what we want: peace and fucking quiet!
An Appeal for 'P'ing Sweetly
Over a drink at the local watering whole, I made a case for the 'Bold Leap.' To the unfamiliar, my concept of the Bold Leap is that action which one makes, acutely aware of risks and uncertainties, for the purpose of stimulating necessary changes in one's life. It's relevant in that it seems to be a tool and a concept that I share with Mr. John Rivera. He has since taken the leap himself; and, in my opinion, made the change to better his life. And that awareness has given me a not-so-insignificant vigor and resumed confidence in my own decision.
So, instead of rehashing what doesn't need to be said again about my own Big Choice, I'll use this opportunity to delineate my admiration for the man.
All that can be summed up about John ('Johnny Asshole'/P. Sweetly) Rivera is best, and most poignantly illustrate by the movie First Blood with Sylvester Stallone. In some sense, John looks at John Rambo (same first names???!) as an abstraction of himself. It certainly a wildly disparate abstraction, but an abstraction nonetheless. Rambo, like John, is the reluctant hero. His sense of ethics and his drive is borne out of external forces: namely the overbearing and unjust ostracism of the authority. In First Blood, this is typified by the stogy and excitable Sheriff (played by Brian Dennehy) who takes every opportunity to coax Rambo into a confrontation.
Throughout the film, the conflict is escalated again and again as the callous and malicious intent of the Sheriff (and by extension his minions) as he views the 'outside influence' of Rambo's presence and unwanted and harmful. Rambo is constantly pushed even further into antagonism against all reason. This movement is so intense that the inevitable confrontation being stoked is bound to be a distrastrous one (and in True Tinseltown Fashion it is accentuated by large explosions and gunfire). I can see many parallels between John's favorite film and elements of his own life, elements that may be too obvious to extrapolate here.
My final synthesis on this is that this fictional character perfectly mirrors the two sides of my friend and comrade Mr. Rivera. He is both strong (in constitution and character) and vulnerable. His principles are just and his actions are forged out of a dire necessity to negotiate the slackroped-spanned precipice of our lives. Most especially, his affable sincerity compels you to root for his causes and lament his tribulations. But, in the end, he is singularly human, so all of his accomplishments are balanced by humility and self-deprecation.
He is like Rambo, not just in name, but in Quality. But, to diverge from the fantasy, my feeling is that John WON'T be led away in tears to a horde of police cruisers. I believe John will survive for many sequels, the next more irreverent than the last.
God speed sir.
A Transition; Estuary
Within the dull, anesthetized haze of a morning hangover after poker night, I was hit with a feeling of finality. Most of the ensemble from the previous night were sitting down together for breakfast to detox and I was swept up in the infectious joy being passed around between ourselves. I found myself growing silent and experiencing a partially-realized thought wash into my consciousness. It felt empty. In a second my attention was snapped back to the topic at hand, and the feeling subsided into the fuzziness that was engulfing my head.
Later, I recalled that I had sensed this in myself before: when Cameron left for Seattle. There were too many feelings about that incident to be able to identify them all adequately, but the ethereal sensation of loss was memorable enough to remain. It was a transition that I had not only dealt with, but, I think, turned around what could have been crippling listlessness and turned it into a time in my short life that I fused into a lively, beautiful and productive time. The friendships forged, the hardships endured and the life I lived since then have elicited changes and fortifications in my character that, now, I could not live without. These are results of the contributions of SO many friends and acquaintances who either knowingly or not, helped carry me through that expansive emotional chasm over which I was walking.
I wish I could say that all of the experiences were positive and progressive, and also that I had not behaved in childish and regrettable ways. The biggest regret of all seemed to be that I didn't have enough time to fulfill my responsibilities to those around me to my satisfaction. It, at once, seems merely a work in progress; left expectantly waiting like the blinking cursor. There is some (little) comfort that my northern migration does not mean the termination of these relationships, but instead just another inevitable change that permeates everything in life.
When I'm feeling particularly depressed about this, I try to look back at my family for the first model of this phenomenon. Even though there are seemingly vast deserts of time between visits to my family, it seems as of late, that I (and my family) have been making more attempts to commune and interact with one another. The unfulfilled wish to be able to visit on a more frequent basis seems to burn less knowing that I can still communicate to them that I still care and that they can reciprocate the same.
No more is this more pronounced than the
other part of my family: the red-headed massagist. I could never convey how fortunate the bond that Cameron and I have that allows us to exist relatively free of distress because of our parting. The scattered handfulls of visits we've been able to scrounge up over the past year or so have all been wonderfully euphoric and bittersweet. And every successive visit kept reminding me that the ineffable life-sustaining nectar that Cameron's affection gives me would need to arrive sooner. I took strength from imagining that every day that I spent down here, working, playing, living, would better prepare me to rejoin Cameron and return to our partnership with new vigor and a fresh appreciation for what I am so fortunate to possess.
Right now I feel much like a salmon, waiting in that pool where you can taste both the freshwater and saltwater washing around me, with the indeniable, overpowering instinct to swim upstream growing stronger by the day.
I think I'm just about ready, so give me a little room.
THE ANGST LIST
(OR
Things that make me want to flip out and kill people [like a ninja])
- Award Shows
- Wearing Pro Jerseys as daily clothes (esp. soccer)
- Ignorant and Uninquisitive Persons (esp. Americans)
- Tourist Accumulation
- American Cultural Hegemony
- Ubiquitous Corporate Advertisements
- Ontologically Exclusive Idealisms
Musings from Abroad
Inspired by a Dutch Coffeeshop*
It all went on too long;
Too many people, too many bad choices
And never enough mitigating circumstances.
Then it all burned down;
Traded totalitarianism for Tyranny.
Then the Weak built it all back up again,
But were denied the spoils.
They fought for them, and won.
Glutinous, they multiplied endlessly.
It all went on too long.
*
After which I played the best game of Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble ever!
Communion
To the Dearest Most Dreaded,
Without much time to spend on the undevoted, I offer you only the occassional glint of true labor in its most refined species and an understanding that money is only a medium. The question I first pose to you is What would you do with limitless wealth? and, secondly, What would you do if there weren't any wealth?
I look forward to further engagements. I wish only the best for you.
Drive safely,
John the Apostate
Hep hep, hep hep
Come and get it!
Once it's deregulated, it'll be a feeding frenzy.
Sharks in black suits battling burnouts in tiedye.
Soros'll be there, waiting with arms wide open;
Stock to be shelved.
An entire generation's generation breathing a wheezy sigh of relief
And the Fast Food King's 'Divine Right' will be secured another reign
of 10,000 years.
eternally crass
Motherblog you bloggerfucker!
Sleep now in the fire
Akin to la Luna, these days seem to wax and wane
The circardian spiral jabs and pulls me
All I seem to recognize is that these days seem the same
Underneath an all-to-static surface
An indignant straggler seeking to pry free
The horse-whipped dowanger put in her place
The mercury boils
and I'm left, half-feverish
waiting for my conscience
to reconcile my subconscious.
Neglected Verbology
Ten Words LEAST Used In the English Language (apparently):
-conquistador
-recrossed
-workless
-carniola
-tangency
-multilingualism
-lauro
-golgotha
-homemakers
-savills
-tella
Tella? Who'd a thunk? I question the validity of these results... I don't even think Lauro is a word... let alone a seldom used word. It's country suffix on the web site is from Italia. Once again, we see another instance of Italian cultural hegemony trying to supercede our hard-fought, down-home, red-blooded American lifestyle. If the Italians want to invade, rape our daughters and take over our burgeoning service industry, they'll have to do better than 'carniola!'
Source
-DrJ
If those don't turn out well...
Weishapt's legacy paraded and mocked like a grotesque punchinello
An undulating, merciless behemoth overtook me
It was a trembling fever that grew exponential
while I waxed philological
neutron-bombed eschatological
While I spilled my guts out on the pavement;
sunbleached, sandy, worn, sterile by La Mer's gentle whispers and Titan's eternal erosion
where did I go when I heard only myself amongst the aural chaos and looked into the eyes of a broken Black Man,
brainwashed, belligerent, subservient
where did I think I was while spitting, spiting and smiting?
why did I end up there?; chasing an unconquerable Infidel Moor down in the Crusades of failed infallible logic
he told fables, and lies... I exploded with viciously severe truth and unassailable unChristian vitriol
I felt the power of his impotent messiah lose Face, Fellate, capitulate in disGrace
I stood, in a singularly peaceful, shining vignette, under the Ra's great Eye, comfortable and completely refreshed;
bathed, Baptised and reconstituted in the greater certainty of my unfailing Fortitude.
For a moment I saw the fear gestate within him,
and His Will had come undone.
-DrJ
Manic Thursday
Once again, another
story that makes me hopeful... then depressed.
Even making 1,200 V2G Electric Cars won't turn the tide of the hateful, global plunderers. Makes me weep.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040802fa_fact
-DrJ
Future of Wikipedia
Slashdot.org has an
interview with the founder of
Wikipedia about it's future. Wikipedia is the beginning of the liberation of all humanity (or something like that).
-DrJ
Poor Rich; Rich Poor
An often-used legal disclaimer in Power of Attorney designations:
"When the context so requires, the masculine gender includes the feminine and/or neuter, and the singular number includes the plural."
Either this is some kind of legal/cultural/societal movement toward androgyny and collectivity, or I'm losing my goddamn mind.
-DrJ
