$40 famous

That's right, boys and girls.

I'm a published author.

More direct link: Anthony's Room

How you like them apples?

I mean, to be fair, I was published once before.  But that didn't earn me any money and is therefore not worth mentioning.

Just kidding.  Money isn't everything.  It just separates the successful from the...bloggers.  BOOM! Take that, Huffington Post.  And me.

So this is kind of exciting.  It's at least a little shot in the arm for my publishing attempts.  I feel confident enough to pay $15 of the money I just made to enter a writing contest I definitely won't win.  Don't worry, a few more crushing defeats and I'll be back to self-righteous posts about sadness.

GO TEAM ME!

Bittersweet tastes like sick

God, I hate all this bittersweet drama in movies nowadays.  Not because it's badly done.  Because badly done bittersweet ends up looking something like this:

OH MAN, I'M SO PRETTY, BUT, OH, MY HEART!

Fuck you, Justin Timberlake, nobody thinks you have human feelings.  Celebrities operate in a realm of superhuman emotions, where their problems are exquisite delights for us ugly commoners.

No, what I mean is shit like Crazy Heart and 500 Days of Summer.  The kind of stuff that is specifically engineered to make you feel absolutely miserable.  But it's okay! They're SMILING at the end.  They got absolute fuck-all of what they wanted, but hey, ain't that just the way life is?

No, fuck you, Hollywood, I want the best job, the best family and I want to be the smartest and most talented person in the universe all without putting any real emotional investment or effort into anything.

I'm starting a new genre.  It will be called "Screw you, I get everything".  I will film the protagonist breezing through life with girls throwing themselves at him and Fortune 500 companies chasing after him with lifetime contracts.  Banks will error in his favor, always.  It will never rain on his parties, his outdoor excursions or his parades, because there will be parades, the man will have however many parades he damn well pleases.

Even better, he will never want anything he can't have.
He will take what is given to him, shit-eating grin about it.
When people bump him in the street, he will wonder at how the stranger knew that he wanted to be bumped exactly that way at exactly that time.
When another man steals his girlfriend and fills his harddrive with videos of them having sex, the man will sit and watch every video marveling at how perfect a way this was to fill an afternoon.
When he's fired, he didn't want the job.
When he's bankrupt, he'll think about how unimportant money is.
When he's shivering starving in the street,
He'll smile,
Nod his head,
And say
"This is just what I wanted."
Dramatic music.
Fade to black

I hate movies.

This is why we write

Inner life is one of those things.  A thing that's so all-encompassingly important, yet you can't touch it, you can't taste it and you only see flashes of it in the drawn-out silhouettes of your dreams.

We can measure brain waves.  Oh yes we can.  But it doesn't mean a damn things, it is a paint-by-numbers approximation that, yes, red goes here, sometimes, in the right conditions.  It's not the magnetism of our blood.  It's not the radiation in our veins it is painfully unreal.

I guess what I mean is you can think whatever the fuck you want and it's okay.  Because on the outside, you are still white boy age twenty six smiling surely.  I mean, if you're me.  If you're not me, the overlay might get a bit more problematic.  Our faces are like burqa, honestly.  More than that, because sometimes you can't even see our eyes.

It is 2 AM and I can't sleep, my head like an inflatable mattress, it's never comfortable too full.  I need to open the valve and catharse.  Is that a word? Verb form of catharsis? The internet is no help here and I'll be damned if I turn to the OED.  Bootylicious? Really? I mean, I know no one uses you anymore, but this is not the way to get attention.  It's like the loser kid at school smoking pot to be cool.  Then going on to major in English and History and eventually go to Hopkins.

See what I did there?

Can't let an entry go without insulting myself.

(This inanity brought to you by David Oshinsky, who recommended that everyone write 300 words a day.  Don't worry.  This kind of can-do inspiration usually wears off after a couple days.)

The effects of rejection

So, let's get back to the writing stuff.  If I wanted a livejournal, I would have opened a livejournal.  No, this is Blogger, it's held to a higher standard.

Now, I've been rejected so many times from so many different magazines that I've started trying to guess what the rejection will say.  How will they start, with the bland sort of

"I hope this finds you well"

Or will they tell me how incredibly small my chances were of getting accepted in the first place

"We receive so many submissions"

Will they soften the blow?

"And while your submission is excellent"

Or will they just go at it

"This is not what we're looking for"

Will they wish me well?

"We wish you luck in your future endeavors?"

Or will they do something like

"Cheers!
- The Drabblecast Team"

Yeah, that last one was for real.  Cheers! You're rejected.  It's like breaking up with someone and nudging them going "Good knowin' ya, eh?"

Or nice while it lasted or something like that.

Anyway, one of the side effects of rejection is acceptance.

I got accepted to be published in Underground Voices Magazine, which is not so much a magazine as it is a website.  But it's something! It's $40 of something.  That's right, it's my first time getting paid for my writing.  I'm gonna go spend that money on booze and drugs.  Just like a real artist!

Another side effect of rejection is this:
"Dear Mixer Magazine,
  I'm not going to lie to you.  This story will be published someday by someone.  That someone could be you.  That's the opportunity I'm presenting today, the opportunity to publish this story.  Think about how you'd feel if later on in life you woke up, had your morning coffee and set about reading your daily intake of literary magazines and suddenly BAM! There's my story.  Printed in a magazine that is most definitely not yours.  How would you deal with the regret?

  So do yourself a favor.  Don't live a life filled with regret.  Publish this story."

A writer's apathy is a fearsome thing.

Aggressive impersonality

There is something aggressively impersonal about online classes.

The drop down box says I can laugh
Raise my hand
Applaud
Or agree.

The professor can deny my request to speak.

If this is where higher education is headed, count me out.

Actually, don't.  Now I want to be a professor even more.  I can give an hour of lecture from my couch and get paid six figures.  Cha-ching!

My stars and garters

That expression is peachy keen.  I just watched the last bit of X-Men 3, which is actually directly related to my travel blogging.  On the flight back, I watched "The Fighter", which I mistook for "The Wrestler", thinking I was watching a movie that everyone had recommended.  I also watched the first half of X-Men 3 and was thoroughly unimpressed.  But some latent masochism in me made me watch the rest of the movie.

Beast says, while flying into the final conflict with the big bad guy and almost certain death: "My stars and garters".

Sometimes I think the people who write these big budget movies are just constantly drunk.

Anyway, I wanted to post a quick update to show I am still breathing.  Grad school has started, and with it a dizzying amount of social interaction.  I never realized one could actually have trouble hearing themselves think.  But after 8 hours of telling people where I'm from, what do I do, what's my goals, I needed to flee the room just to have a few inane thoughts to myself.

More to come.

Portugal Day 5: Why Couchsurfing is the most amazing thing in the world and you are incorrect for thinking otherwise

So I spent my last day in Portugal running up and down hills, which is essentially how I spent every other day in Portugal.  Technically it wasn't my last day, today is.  But today I went to the waterfront, sat down and found everything else I wanted to do today suddenly become a lot less interesting.  So here I am.  Writing a blog.  Because that's what first tier tourism is all about.  Doing the same thing in a different place.

I went to Sintra, which is a little city outside of Lisbon and home to one of the most elaborate, confusing castles I've ever seen.  This one, right here:

The picture doesn't do it justice, but in there are essentially three styles of castle: Arab, Medieval and Gothic-esque.  It's called the Palacio Nacional de Pena and was built to be the summer home of King Ferdinand II in 1842.  So, a kind of new castle, all things considered.  Apparently, it was home to the first indoor bathroom in Portugal.  High-tech, y'know.

I should actually say we went to Sintra, not because I feel royal today, but because I was picked up from Lisbon, driven to Sintra and guided up the hill by a Couchsurfer who turned out to be the nicest man alive.  He not only inundated me with Portuguese history, he guided me around the whole of the park around the palace, which consists of stuff like this:

And this:

So.  Valuable guide.  The whole park cost 14 euros, which made it essentially theme park price.  That's why I felt entitled to climb a few piles of rocks and whine that there was no cotton candy.

The second picture is of an old Moorish fort called, Castel Do Mouros.  It's much more my style, as the Pena Palace (Which translated to Pain Palace, ha ha ha ha ha) is a bit too modern, a bit too clean, a bit too full of tourists smelling like suntan lotion and cultural ambivalence.

Castel Do Mouros is like "No, screw you, there are stairs and they are steep and uneven and you just have to suck it up." Just like the Moors.

Back in Sintra, we had some tasty pastries.   One is called a Queijada, which is a kind of cookie filled with a cheese-related sweet mixture and the other is called a Travesseiro which, from what I can tell, is made out of crack cocaine.  It's flaky and sugary on the outside and filled with this sweet nutty goo that I wanted injected directly into my veins.

If that wasn't enough, the couchsurfer asked if I wanted to see the coast.  There's only one answer to that question and so we were off.  Within fourty minutes we arrived at the most western point in Europe.  Face with the full majesty of the Atlantic unfurled before me like a second sky I immediately put my thumbs in the air and said:

"Wassup America!"

Later, we went back to the couchsurfer's house and he cooked a really traditional Portuguese dish called Bacalhau à Brás which apparently means Bacalhau with potato chips.  Don't get me wrong, this was the most delicious substance I had ingested in all of Portugal.  But it kind of blew my mind that one gets it from adding potato chips to frozen fish.

Then I went to sleep in the amazingly comfortable bed the couchsurfer had prepared for me.  Honestly.  I'm not going to say that anyone who thinks couchsurfing is a good idea needs to get their head checked.  That's a bit too much.

I will say that they're wrong.  And I have a SD card of amazing pictures and a belly full of cod fish to back me up.

Side Note: Stories from the hostel

Let me set the scene.

There's some beers being passed around.  I'm in the middle of a conversation with someone when I guy I haven't talked to brushes by me.  But before moving past, he puts his hand on my stomach and begins to rub it.

It took me a second to realize this was really happening.  And then another second for me to remove his hand and tell him flatly, "Don't touch me, man."

He responds by looking both surprised and hurt, neither of which he had reason to be, and he begins to move on his way.  But, before moving completely out of view, he steps back and says:

"I'm not gay."

Well, what's important is that he tries.

Portugal Day 4: That's right, I forgot I'm still traveling

So I'm back in Lisbon, and let me tell you...

I forgot I was traveling.  And that traveling = stress.  Even in a spot as cool as Lisbon, if there's stress to be had, I will find it and rub it all over myself.

I got myself a fancy hostel as a reward for being so thrifty, which I guess defeats the purpose.  The hostel is posh, with scrambled egg breakfasts, a lounge with jazz playing and iPads to rent.  Yes, iPads.  No, they couldn't just let you borrow a functional and portable laptop, they need to give you Mac products.  That's the kind of posh this hostel was.  Mac product posh.

But I didn't even stay for a minute, I jetted out to see more of Lisbon.  The woman at the hostel advised that I take care as Lisbon is not just number one in hostels.  It's also number one in pick-pockets.  So, that little seed planted in my mind, I started suspecting every person that got too close.  I shoved my hands in my pockets and gripped my belongings as if these thieves had the capacity to phase through the fabric of my pants and steal.

I went to the Tower of Belem, which used to be a fort and prison and is now a bastion for ripping off tourists. Five euros to get in and wait in hallways as other tourists took pictures of each other in front of cannons.  On the way back, I ran into a random band playing in the park.  And, unlike most random concerts I run into, these guys didn't sound like they were holding instruments for looks.  Even more, they were GOOD.

Then I went to get pastries at this place that was famous enough to have an aggravating line of whiny white tourists bustling at the door.  It's called a Pastel de Belem and consists of a little custardy mess held by a flaky crust.

It is delicious.  There's not another word for it.

Next came the mistake.  Across the river from Lisbon is another city (technically, apparently it's sort of included in Lisbon, but people in Lisbon don't like to admit it).  From the waterfront of Lisbon you can see a statue that looks reasonably sized from that far away, but is actually an enormous stone Jesus with his arms outstretched as if asking why the fuck did they decide to put him in the middle of no where.

Because that's where he was.  I rode the ferry over, waited a half hour for a bus, got harassed by crazies on said bus, wait another half an hour while the bus navigated narrow streets with all the color and variety of canned meat and then finally I arrived at the top of the hill.

And the park was closed.  That's right, an enormous park with beautiful views of Lisbon is closed before sunset because fuck Portugal.

I remembered, then, that I'm traveling and as a result, periodically I have to hate my life.  The bus driver laughed at me (good-naturedly) and I contented myself to take pictures from behind the gate and kick the door.

I spent the night in Barrio Alto and continued to be impressed by how cool it is.  Looking back over this entry all that happened was I saw some sights, listened to great music and ate pastry.  Which doesn't, I guess, give me any reason to be stressed.  Sometimes I forget that I'm on vacation.

Portugal Day 2 and 3: Now with Pictures!

I missed some blog entries due to surplus of coolness. Lisbon turned out get gradually more awesome the more time I spent there. My first night I went out to Barrio Alto, which means High Neighborhood which is not just a name. The neighborhood is, in fact, elevated. To get there you either take a graffiti-ed trolley or you walk up a monstrously long, monstrously steep hill.

Then you get this: 

So people climb.  Every night. Because Barrio Alto is amazing. The same twisty windy streets and architecture which just oozes history, but dotted with a bunch of bars selling cheap cocktails which people tend to take with them to the many scene overlooks that dot the neighborhood.

It's sickening how neat the area is. Like, actually makes me nauseous. And no, that's not just the cocktails, though they are delicious.

The past two days I spent in Lagos which is, in every sense of the word, a beach town. What locals there are, having no real place to go for vacation, are high-strung and kind of rude. All of the bars/restaurants have English menus with London prices. It still manages to have the cool streets and buildings, but underneath it's the same as any Jersey shore neighborhood. A land where time stand still during the winter and allows everyone to develop a keen sense of haughtiness that fizzes on through the summer.

Doesn't stop Lagos from being beautiful. 

There's not just beaches, but these enormous cliffs casting themselves in various dramatic formations out over the water. There are beaches to be sure, beautiful white-sand beaches with clear blue water. A number of the beaches can only be reached by boat and are therefore very secluded and therefore filled with naked people. I always am struck with wonder at how a woman with their boobs hanging out can just walk around like it ain't no thang. And how the husbands resist the urge to form a full body shield around their wife.

The hostel was filled with characters. And by characters, I mean 20-year-olds. I've finally hit the age where people stop saying “Oh, I thought you were older” and instead just nod and smile encouragingly as if I had just told them a story of how I conquered heroin addiction. Aw, you're so brave to be 26 and in a hostel.

I hung out with people until I remembered why I like to travel alone, and then I did. Not that I didn't have fun with them, though. Together we discovered why Port wine is so popular and later discovered why the streets are empty during most mornings. It was a beautiful thing.

But I'm ready to be back in Lisbon. I got a taste and I'm hungry for more.

Portugal Day 1: Lisbon and the Concussive Kisses

Sitting in a hostel eating fresh cherries and watching flies drift lazily about feels like vacation.

I arrived in Lisbon full of confidence.  I had found my way through Madrid, a city so twisty-turny it seems actively engaged in getting you lost.  I had traversed Marrakech, which is specifically designed to get you lost in the souks until you spend all your money.  How hard could Lisbon, the capitol of a country a third of the size of the others, be?

The answer is fuck Europe.  For some reason Europeans have decided they're too good for street signs.  All that carrying on an telling people where they're going, nooooo, that's too easy.  Too...American.

So after not sleeping for a night, I bumbled into a city that would make a mapmaker commit suicide, if he could ever find a cliff to throw himself off of.  The sidewalks are painfully narrow, the cars are blindingly fast and the streets are made out of what looks like bathroom tile.  It's slippery enough without rain, I have no idea  what people do when it rains.  Maybe they just all live downhill.  The rain's like some kind of new public transit system.

But once I showered and made myself a real person again, I started to really get into the city.  What Spain does with mountains, it does with giant plazas.  Lisbon is, I'm going to venture a guess, 50% plazas.  I ran into at least ten of them, all with enormous columns with Greco-Roman statues doing dramatic things.  One of them, which I now can't find the name of, is a guy uppercutting two horses.

I kid you not, it's the most badass statue ever.  There's two angry horses on either side of him flanked by two giant vipers.  The name was the spiirt of Portugal or something.  Apparently Portugal is hardcore.

This fact is borne out by the Archaeological Museum.  It's situated on a cliff (like everything in Lisbon) and fills the ruined shell of an awesome gothic cathedral.  The exhibits contain random bits of ruins as well as mummies and arrowheads.  I don't know why, there's not really any narrative to it, but it's awesome.  It's like an action movie museum.  You don't need to understand to go "oooo" and "ahhhh".

But anyway, the title of this post pertains to something I've noticed about both Spain and Portugal.  Spanish and Portuguese couples kiss VERY loudly.  I was sitting on a subway and I see this couple getting all close and I'm like isn't that cute.  And then their lips touched.

At first I wondered if it was terrorists, if they had set some kind of public display of affection bomb, a PDAWMD if you will, set to go off when the two lips met.  The sound was something like two wet microphones being slapped against each other, it was deafening.

 I've never been so nauseated and turned on at the same time.

Then I thought, think of the weapons potential here! Rather than drop bombs on other countries, all you have to do is line up a few amorous couples in front of the enemy.  The sound will be enough to end any struggle.

This realization has made me somewhat frightened by the double-kiss.  Now I know within Spainish and Portuguese lips hide explosive potential.  Kissing that close to my ear could deafen me instantly.  Who knows if they need a matching pair as a catalyst?

Oh yes, be afraid ladies and gentlemen.  Hispanic lips carry a terrible secret.  And who knows.

You might be next.

Special Edition: Sleeping at Airports or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and HATE EVERYONE.

You know, the mind is an amazing thing.

It has the capacity to come up with creative new kinds of charity, ways to convert one's one satisfaction into worldwide happiness.

It also has the capacity to turn even the most innocent, doe-eyed, kind-faced wizened old woman into Satan's best friend.

Given the right situation, everyone's an asshole.  Lying in a desperate fetal position on a cold marble floor while an announcer drones on in two languages about the importance of keeping an eye on your baggage...it's the perfect asshole storm.

It really wasn't that bad, in the end.  I mean, the sleeping part didn't really happen, but I did, you know, survive.  It was actually funny to walk past all the bodies strewn all around.  People tried everything, sleeping on their luggage, spooning their luggage, using their luggage to wall off their sleep space.  There was one group that found a standing circle of luggage wheelie carrier things and had formed a kind of group cuddle puddle.  I wondered, for a second, if I could join.  Whether an airport at 3am knocked down some fundamental social boundary.

It doesn't.  The woman at the cafe said I couldn't sleep in the chairs.  Presumably because I was taking up space from their VAST clientele.

Yes.  She was doing her job and she's an asshole for it.  You see what I mean?

Madrid Dia last: Touring the suburbs.

Stop being pretty, Spain.

It's annoying.  Like, every goddamn town and park is so scenic, up on hilltops looking over sprawling vistas, it's really just disgusting.  You try too hard, Spain.  Get over your beautiful self.

I got a bad case of the lazy today and instead of going to Roman aqueducts and castles and stuff, I went to the suburbs.  Madrid has a very interesting system for getting people in and out of the suburbs.  It's like the subway, except, you know, not sub.  It's a system of 8 or so trains that come regularly and are a bit more outfitted for long-distance travel than the subway.  It seems to work pretty well.

EXCEPT.

Whatever European design genius decided to make it so all the seats face each other.  Like there are four seats and two by two they face one another so you are forced into this awkward staring contest with the random shmuck across from you.  If that's bad enough, the seats are close enough that your knees are almost touching.  And I couldn't think of the translation for "Get your fat knees off me".

But the ride was short and I arrived in what looked like the most boring, dirty suburb ever.  A few blocks cured that, of course, and I ran into a bunch of medieval-type architecture and winding streets.  You know, like ya do in Spain.  I walked for a while, eating my bread and chorizo out of a plastic bag (I'm starting to enjoy it).  I eventually got to a park with, you guessed it, beautiful mountain vistas.

Like, stop it.  Enough with the gorgeous, sprawling mountains, Spain.

Madrid Dia whothehellknows: Too much Jesus

Today I came up with the question: How much Jesus is too much Jesus?

And I also answered it.  I have had so much Jesus today I'm suffering from an upset stomach.  And my palms and ankles kind of hurt.

It occurred to me that there are a buttload of pictures of Jesus dying.  Like, the guy seems to have done nothing of consequence in his life except come to the brutal end of it.  He's constantly on crosses, being taken down from crosses, coming back and looking somewhat confused.

Furthermore, he almost always looks shocked.  Shocked that the Romans are beating on him, shocked that he's getting crucified.  But if he's the son of God, shouldn't he have seen that shit coming? And if I were him, I'd be pissed.  I'd come back not with staffs and poetry but machine guns and machetes.  Your Saviour's back, and he's here to clean house.

Anyway, the reason I haven't updated is because fuckalll happened Saturday and Sunday.  I'm in Toledo now, which is a little town on a hilltop that should appear next to the dictionary definition of "quaint".  It's got these twisting medieval streets and this high Gothic architecture and everything costs so much money.  Really, it's 7 euros to get into the center cathedral and I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend my food budget for the week on some hoighty-toighty God shack.

But it's a very pretty city.  Honestly, just walking around getting lost and elbowing tourists makes the trip worth it.  There's gorgeous vistas in every directions, archways and plazas and it's all so nice I didn't even feel guilty eating my ham sandwich out of a plastic bag while the stench of two-day-old clothes repelled clean-shaven tourists.

Ah, travel.

Morocco Day Five: "Snail soup"

Last post was a long one.

So this will be short.

I just ate snail soup.  It's not what it sounds like.  That is, if what it sounds like is that they took snails out of their shell and mixed them with veggies and other stuff to make an interesting treat.

No.

There are snails.  In their shells.  Boiled in what looks like mud.

I ate it because I hate myself.  And snails.

Morocco Day Three and Four: "Been through the Desert, but the camel had a name"

So I smell like sand and camel shit.  It's truly second tier tourism.

Here's how I see it.

First tier tourism: Major cities and vacation resorts.  All the modern comforts, no street without a conveniently placed McDonalds or Starbucks.  There are signs, people tend to speak your language or have the capacity/motive to communicate with you, not so much traveling as it is spending lots of money to sleep somewhere else.

Second tier tourism: Out-of-the-way places and cities that, for one reason or another, are unattractive.  These reasons may include hot temperatures, pushy salespeople and a general feeling of desperation.  In these places, expect to have to wash your clothes by hand, trust that the chef is not taking a shit in your burger and communicate in a series of angry gestures to a half-asleep tourist police that you're lost and it's hot and you're tired.

This is traveling in the sense that you are seeing something different, which happens to be wholly uncomfortable and will make for great stories later when you're in a bar trying to impress someone who can't believe you're 26 and not successful or married.

Third tier tourism: Cities that people go to exclusively to drink penny beers and have sex with penny prostitutes.  You're lucky if you get a bucket of water to wash yourself with and even then that bucket of water is probably filled with Malaria.  You eat well, because you are a fat American tourist and can basically have people cook their pets for you if the price is right.

This desert trip was second-tier and edging on third-tier tourism.  I hop on a bus half-expecting to be surrounded by families and children and hating my life for two days.  Instead it's all young attractive women and everything's okay.  We get on the road and realize our bus driver only speaks French.  Okay, no problem, they wouldn't be this disorganized, there's probably a guide meeting us on the road.

No.  There isn't.

Cue a series of confusing stops where we vaguely understand (through the help of one girl's high school French) what we're supposed to do.  At each of these stops, there appears to be the same souvenir salespeople.  Like, the exact same.  They're even on the fucking mountaintops.  I've come to the conclusion that they grow out of the ground and bloom like flowers in the presence of tourists.

We arrive, finally, in the "desert" And by desert, I mean rocky wasteland dotted with bits of brush and powerlines.  Yes, I shit you now, our desert expedition took place in view of a highway.  And streetlights.  It existed in the limbo of second and third tier tourism, where hot showers were possible, but they were simply being denied to us.

The camel ride was not only not intolerable, it was a lot of fun.  Helped somewhat by the camel's faces themselves.  They manage to look both slightly bemused and completely idiotic.  Which is still one-up on how we all looked on top of them.  There was another group with three Mexican girls who looked like they were on the verge of being thrown off an animal moving a whole 2 miles per hour.

And me?

I had my hands so tight on the saddle that I think I fused my skin to it.

We got to the camp where we would be sleeping and were entertained by the "Berberes".  Now, I'm sure these guys authentically have been raised as Berberes, but the fact that they knew American TV shows and that a couple of them were wearing Guess jeans makes me doubt the authenticity of the whole thing.  The experience took on a feeling of them capering around for our entertainment, "Oh look at our ridiculous hats and how we play drums that look oddly similar even though we insist that they weren't made in a factory down the road."

The experience took a sharp turn towards what the fuck when the Berberes coaxed the women in the group away to play the drums in private while leaving the men alone by the fire.  It got even stranger when I decided to follow the women.  The berberes employed every trick they could to get me to go back to the fire "Oh, I need help with something by the fire, let's go!"

Now, men being sneaky about women is no big deal.  But these were men who were entirely in control of my chances of getting home alive.

So, yes, a little uncomfortable.

I did get home alive, in fact, in case you were wondering.  All in all, even though the trip seemed as though it had been organized according to the philosophy "Now that you've paid me, go to hell" the fact that the places we went were so beautiful overshadowed all poor planning.  So it was a great trip, I'd just advise they replace the Berberes with hot showers.

Morocco Day Two: "Welcome to Morocco!"

This hotel keeps being awesome.  My room is a beautiful little alcove with a window over the street and a huge double bed.  The hotel has a terrace that looks over the big square in the center of the city.  The guys who run it keep getting nicer.  One of them took me into the souks today and ran me around to the best shops in town, the ones down little streets where tourists fear to tread.

Like I'm so intrepid, I realized how walking around with someone to his family friend's store makes me essentially obligated to buy one thing or another.

And that brings me to "Welcome to Morocco".  It is, without a doubt, the phrase I have heard the most in my time here.  It's a close second to "Hello" or "Bonjour" or "Salaam".  It seems like whoever first translated this phrase meant it to replace "I have no idea what you're talking about" and "Fuck you".

I argued for twenty minutes with a guy over a price and finally got a somewhat reasonable price.  He gives me my change and says "Welcome to Morocco".  Which I think translates to "I just ripped you off, stupid tourist."

I got annoyed with a guy who wouldn't let go of my hand even though I didn't want a tour of the street I was walking down and he lets go and says "Welcome to Morocco".  Translation: "Suck it up"

I was trying desperately to explain that I wanted help buying a hat so I don't burn my face off in the desert and the guy at the hotel throws up his hands and says "Welcome to Morocco".  Translation: "I don't speak English."

So.

Desert tomorrow.  Involves a 1.5 hour camel ride.  When I have children, they're going to walk with a limp because of this.

Morroco Day One: Learning to say "No" in three languages

Wow.

Okay, so it might be I'm not cut out for long trips.  This might be because of any of the following reasons:
A) I end up living like a poor person (Example: Eating a cheese sandwich in front of the grocery because it costs money to sit down)
B) I don't sleep.  (Example: Twelve people in a room.  Odds are, at least one of them snores.  Loudly.)
C) I don't have a nail clipper one day.  Or shampoo another day.  Or a toothbrush another day.  Right now I don't understand why I'm being asked for money, beggars should be handing me dirhams.

Marrakech is incredible and so so different.  From anywhere I've visited I mean.  The people act differently, the back-and-forth of selling/buying rolls differently, the air smells differently (mostly donkey shit).  It's really exhausting just to keep my eyes open for all of it.

Also, Moroccans seem to live life on the edge.  That is, the edge of being run over by a moped.  There's all these motorcycles and things careening down the street.  And when I say street, I don't mean demarcated lanes for traffic in and out along with crosswalks and sidewalks.  No, by street I mean strip of dirt.  This ranges from the size of everyone passing comfortable to so narrow that a donkey and a moped are likely to cause pileup.

I think all the stress of travel has hit me because I'm exhausted and would like nothing more than a bed at home with a bottle of iced tea clearly marked with a price.  It didn't help I spent an hour or so today either convincing people I wanted to buy their shit or I didn't want to buy their shit.  Some people get pushy.  Like, aggressive pushy.  One guy actually put a fabric over my face and was surprised and upset when I was surprised and upset.

But this hotel has really been a saving grace.  It's 8 bucks a night and I have my own bed overlooking the street from a few stories up.  In other words, I can flop around, sleep and eat and nothing will bother me.  It helps that the guys that run it are super nice.  Within minutes of checking in they told me to come with them to the construction site of their new hotel and eat tagine.  The tagine, by the way, was incredible, zucchini, tomato and chicken.  After a week of eating ham and bread, this was manna.

So my plan is to spend a day here and then go on an overpriced trip to the desert.  We'll see.  Anyway, more to come, I'm sure, unless I get run over by a moped or garrotted by an angry scarf salesman (That's for you, mom).

Dia Cinco: Spanish Customs

There are three, all of which are completely new to me and have never been mentioned to me outside of the country. They strike me as slightly important, as they involve the way everyone greets everyone else, the way everyone eats and the way everyone talks. These, typically, are important parts of staying any length of time in a country. That is, unless your stay involves talking to no one, eating nothing and staying completely silent.

Anyway.

First. Greeting people. I've been calling it “los dos”. It's where whenever I am introduced to a girl, instead of shaking hands like normal people, I am to press my lips to a complete stranger's face not once, but twice, one on each cheek.

Having only recently gotten used to the one kiss, this is a bit nerve-wracking for me. This is because of the danger zone.

As you can see, a normal one-kiss greeting involves dodging the danger zone only once. “Los dos” on the other hand, involves dodging it once and then having to come in for another pass. The zone is dangerous because if you for any reason mess up your lip trajectory, you are now making out with a stranger. This is especially bad if you are in front of their significant other. This is even worse if you are in a country whose language you don't speak and that boyfriend is Spanish.

Not that it's happened. But I can't help but brace myself for impact every time I meet someone.

Second. Ham.

So. Much. Fucking. Ham. There are ham stores. Stores that sell exclusively ham and ham related products. Every convenience store has some variety of ham. Ham comes on bread. On salad. With eggs. And sometimes it just hangs out on a plate on its own. That's right, you go to a bar, order a nice beer and get a side of HAM.

There's a restaurant called “El Museo del Jamon”. The museum of ham. This is a real thing. It's also a real thing that has branches ALL over the city.

Third. “Vale”.

Every other word out of a Spanish person's mouth is “vale”. It means “okay”, essentially, and from what I can gather, it's the only way Spanish people can exhale. Inhale, silence, exhale: “Vale”.

I kind of love it.

Dia Quatro: Overheard in Madrid

Said angrily: "Siempre estas allegre!"
"You are always happy!"

This was said by a hipster boy (Yes, hipsterism is an international disease.  They are called "modernos" here.) to a hipster girl.  Which strikes me as weird.  Because hipster people aren't supposed to EVER be happy.

It's also a strange thing to say angrily.  "You're so happy, I can't stand it anymore!" I fantasized that the guy was breaking up with the girl, saying he just can't be with a girl that's going to ruin his carefully manicured sense of self-loathing with her "happiness" and "general good will towards things".

No, the world is awful and you're awful for being happy in it.

I went to the Museo Nacional de Anthropologia today.  It cost three euros and consisted of three small exhibits of the drums of various indigenous cultures.

Try as I might, I couldn't think of the polite way to say "I want my fucking money back."

Dia Dos y Tres: Realizations.

Couple new things struck me in the last two days:

Madrid is not a place to spend more than a week in.  Apparently this is well known to everyone except the people I spoke to about my trip.

Madrid is expensive.  Like four dollar cup of coffee expensive.

People do not speak English in Madrid.  This, again, another fact known to everyone except the people I spoke to about my trip.

Pork can be really expensive.  On the other hand, pork in Madrid is delicious.  Eggs are cheap.  Pork and eggs are delicious and cheap.  I haven't had vegetables in three days.

So everything is going really well, I've seen quite a bit of the city.  I'm realizing I've seen almost everything, save for the Prado museum and the casa de campo park.  I'm faced with the fact that coming back to Madrid will involve me running around the sites I've already seen.  So, now I get to rearrange a trip I'm in the middle of.  This sounds bad/irritating/confusing, but actually, it's kind of fun.

I travel the way I live.  By the skin of my teeth.

Madrid Dia Uno

Lessons learned:

Do not, after spending an entire day moving all your worldly possessions TWICE, do NOT try and save money on a hotel by picking one an hour walk from the metro.

Do not attempt to use a wheely suitcase...without wheels.

Do not, after getting a better suitcase, throw out the broken suitcase without checking that you've taken everything out of it.  You might be missing something important.  Like your goddamn passport.

Sitting in the middle of the middle row of seats on a 7 hour flight SUCKS.

Related: If you find yourself in that situation, take TWO tylenol PMs.  Because unconsciousness makes everything better.

But I'm here.  I'm jetlagged, a little sick and a lot confused, but I'm here.  It's a really beautiful city.  Things that surprised me were how different the city looks from anything I've encountered before.  It definitely has an old feel, with narrow streets and cobblestones and all that retro crap.  Also, people in Madrid either don't speak English or don't want to speak English, so you either gesture frantically or spout broken Spanish at them.  Or both.  It's both for me.

I ordered something called a tosta which I can't even really describe.  It's essentially toast, smeared with sauce and covered with something.  In this case, a big heaping slab of cured ham.

Oh, one more lesson: Asking for tylenol will get you a confused look.  Asking for "Tee-len-ol" will get you what you want.  

Work with me, Spain, come on.

Esta cambiando

I'm still bad at blogging.  But this time I have an excuse.  Well, four excuses.

Number one: My job ended.  Well, I guess I ended my job.  I hate to say "I quit my job" because that implies a sort of romanticism that just isn't there.  I'm not riding off into the sunset.  Unless that sun in setting in Baltimore and involves a $60,000 debt.

Number two: I moved out of my house.  Nothing too exciting there, just kind of weird to think how quickly everything moves in life.

Number three: I signed a lease on a house in Baltimore.  It's not great.  I might even have been able to do better, but honestly, having everything set up and just being able to move in and start school...kind of worth it to me.

Number four: I'm in Madrid.

Que sopresa, eh? Aqui estas, leyendo mi blog y BAM! Este esta escrito en Espana!

So, for the next month or so I'm going to be updating about my trip.  Because, honestly, there aren't enough travel blogs in the world.  For that matter, there's not enough writer blogs in the world.  For that matter, there's not enough politically motivated soapboxy exhortation blogs in the world.

I'm like a pioneer of cliche.

Hasta luego!

Rollback

So today's my second to last day at work (it would be my third to last if I weren't a lazy bastard taking tomorrow off.)

In times like this, little things take on meaning.  Little things like deleting stuff off my desktop.  You know, both my digital desktop and my analog desktop.  I look at the files I have scattered around and unearth months of work.  I dig out the roots I've set in and I want to watch the gap I leave heal itself.  Watch the machinery turn on regardless.

These things happen.
And they happen without ceremony.

We are always accelerating, entrenching ourselves and digging ourselves out.  My files are scattered all over the hard drive now.  It's the last days work to pack them into bundles, zip them up and copy them over.  What needs to be saved is saved.  The surplus spills out, gets lost in trashcans.  Somewhere there is a pile of shredded paper with bits of my name on it.

The B of a research credentialing document.
The E of a IRB memo.
The N of an unfinished poem.

Our paper trails are our threads of Fate,
We spool them out until our packet runs dry.
The printer beeps beeps beeps.
Waits to be reloaded.  Restart.  Renew.

I'm bad at blog.

I was doing so good there for a while.  Had some regular writing shit, some regular political shit, sprinkled some nonsensical mspaint and randomness.  And now? A whole week without an update? What kind of immoral, heartless monster am I?

I guess I just assumed the rapture was coming.  There's no blogs in Heaven.  Or maybe it's like the Islam thing with 72 virgins.  Except it's 72 blogs.

Or 72 sturgeons.

Actually, because I have too much time on my hands, I looked up the whole 72 virgins thing.  Apparently it refers to the "Houri" which are described as virgins with "swelling breasts" that "do not sag" and that they that are "delightfully passionate" with their husbands.

Also, there's an interpretation that suggests that, rather than 72 virgins, virtuous Muslims are promised 72 delicious raisins.

Well, that was a quality post.  Job well done.

Fun with pseudoscience

This is why people distrust science.

Now to be fair, Psychology Today isn't exactly the foremost authority on the science.  They've featured such rigorous scientific studies as "Interacting with Women Makes Men Stupid" and "Why Politicians Get Laid More".  But honestly, you'd think there'd be one person on the editor's staff that would raise the red flag at "Why are Black Women Less Attractive?"

I'm all for pop science.  Stuff like Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer make for great reads that are both fascinating and accessible.  But dumbing down science into sensational, completely misleading snippets of kinda-facts? That's just playing into the media's view that the American public is a bunch of slack-jawed yokels.

This article is particularly damaging because it further emphasizes the stigma that psychology has the interest of Great White Father in mind.  The National Alliance on Mental Illness rattles off a list of how African Americans under-utilize and are under-served by mental health services.  And these shmucks at Psychology Today go off running an article by some asshole who'd already gotten in hot water over saying that people are poor because they're stupid and advocating nuclear holocaust against the Middle East.

Come on.  There are people proving memory isn't written in permanent ink.  Others proving that all it takes to improve your condition is to breathe differently.  Others working on solutions to our deepest and most fundamental psychological issues.

And you're talking about whether people really do, in fact, like big butts?

How to heckle a poet

This is a fun word:

Poetaster - An inferior poet.

It's like Poet + Disaster.  Poetaster.

That's right, from now on, every time you hear a bad poet, you stand up and say "Give it up, Poetaster!"

Or, "What a poetaster!"
Your rhymes are a tragedy!
Your rhythm a travesty!
You're the Chernobyl of pith,
The Hindenberg of myth,
You're on stage in your underwear,
While your wife's off having an affair!

Or something like that.  It'd actually be really hilarious if someone came up to me and called me this. 

And by hilarious, I mean traumatizing.

Gettin' Slammed

So last night was the Beltway Grand Slam! Ten poets went in.  Four poets came out.  Followed by the other six, who were somewhat disappointed.

Congrats to the new team, Joseph LMS, Chris August, Twain Dooley and Drew Law.  They all earned it!

As for me, I came in 8th, which isn't terrible, but I really wish I had done better.  I definitely went much too fast with my first piece and managed to redeem myself somewhat with the second.  But oh well, next time! Back with a vengeance!

How a Republican deals with obvious public disapproval

So there was this.  Where Republicans (And at least one Democrat) proposed a bill that would only allow funding for abortion in cases of "forcible rape".  Meaning that a woman would only be able to get health care funding for abortion if they were raped forcibly.  So no funding for any of that friendly rape, where someone playfully has sex with a woman against her will.

Of course, women in general rose up against that bullshit and it got removed.  One of the Democrats sponsoring the bill said: "The language of H.R. 3 was not intended to change existing law regarding taxpayer funding for abortion in cases of rape, nor is it expected that it would do so."

Which is the political equivalent of "Oh, well, we didn't really want it anyway."

Now, having faced a powerful public outcry, you'd think the Republicans would back down from this issue and try and go another route towards turning women into chattel.  But then you'd be overestimating Republican resourcefulness (and intelligence).

Yesterday, Republicans (and 16 anti-choice Democrats) passed a bill that redefines rape coverage for "forcible rape", imposes higher taxes on women, creates "abortion audits" in the IRS and bans DC-funded abortions.

I'm trying to think of a way I can write the sound that this made come out of me.  It was a combination of "Whaaaaat?!" and "AGH!!" and "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"

Something like WhaaaarggghhARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!

I'm not exactly sure what Republicans (and 16 Democrats) are trying to do with this.  I feel the need, by the way, to add the Democrats part, because these 16 should be immediately impeached and chased out of their state with fire and pitchforks.  That may sound extreme, but SO IS THIS FUCKING BILL.

It's just confusing.  Republicans have shown a strange dedication to doing exactly what the majority of people are against.  Not that this is surprising, but they seem so focused on digging themselves a hole it's surprising that they even bothered getting elected.

These people?
They are the enemy of women.
Ever since they came out of one,
They've been divided,
Raised in households where MAN WAS KING
WOMAN COOK DINNER
MAKE SEX
RAISE BABIES.
It's a tragedy
Watching them get educated
Watching them get jobs
Do them better
And make more money,
What a twisted world we live in.

These succubi shred our moral fabric
As they shatter glass ceilings,
They wear the tattered fragments as bikinis
Show a body they are no longer ashamed of,
While these men fashion legislative burqas,
Yearn for the days when women processed anxiety disorders
Into delicious homemade pies.
Left them cooling on windowsills
So they could check on Billy and Sally,
Who play house in the backyard,
Billy beats Sally silly,
While she collects the broken fragments of what used to make her human.

No, Sally,
You are no human
You are woman.

These people?
They are afraid of women.
They see vaginas with fangs,
Framed by unshaven legs,
Unbound breasts.
They create perfumes to mask that humanity,
The smell that, yes,
They're human.
More than human, they are mothers.
They hold within them the spark of all life,
And for all mankind's Parliaments and Presidencies,
Man will always just be seed
A woman is the Earth.

So they flounder,
Throw law when it works,
Punches when it doesn't,
But the Earth is a hard thing to escape.

Besides.  Liberated women are better in bed.

Let's get together and celebrate someone dying.

So Osama is dead.


LET'S PARTY!!! WHOOO!

I don't really get it.  Someone's gonna need to explain it to me.  We spend something like $400 billion in Afghanistan, lose a little over 2,000 soldiers, kill about 20,000 Afghani people and we're celebrating that, whew, what a relief, we killed some 54-year-old religious nutbag?

This is not a time for celebration.  This is time for solemn reflection on what we've lost and a reevaluation of if, in fact, this was worth it.  What message did we send to al Qaeda with this? A former CIA agent said back in 2010 al Qaeda is stronger now than before 9-11.  Whatever lesson we think we're teaching al Qaeda might be lost behind the lines of new recruits streaming in.

But what really gets to me is all those images of people partying in DC and NYC like someone's death is something to celebrate.  Our nation ended a life last night, and I'm hard-pressed to understand why that's worth celebrating.  I mean, I can understand why people want to celebrate.  We've been at war for 10 years, spending billions while a huge portion of us can barely afford medicine and rather than progress, we've just seen the progressive decay of both countries we invaded under corrupt and ineffectual governments.  We need something to celebrate, just like we needed something to celebrate when Bush pulled one of these:

But that doesn't make it right.

Death is terrible.  It is the end of us, it is where we become powerless and are reduced to little more than the wood, earth and stone we regard as tools.  Our agency is gone and everything that makes us, us has vanished and will never return.  Osama was not a good person, but he was a human being.  And that we can celebrate having put at end to his being human just shows that something's gone wrong in these ten years.  Something that resulted in the kill teams in Afghanistan.  The Abu Ghraib torture in Iraq.  The My Lai massacre in Vietnam.  The Japanese internment camps on our own soil.

War is unnatural.  It is an abomination.  And it causes what we're seeing all around us.  Poverty, mental illness, injury, death.  And after 10 years, it's taken a toll on our psyche as a nation.  So here we are.  Celebrating someone dying.

We lost this war a while ago.  Now I'm just wondering else what else we're going to lose.

NaPoWriMo 30/30 Last one!

Whew.  That was tough.  I mean, the 20 poems I wrote were tough.  The ten haikus were not so hard.

This one's called Real America.  And it needs work.  But the other one I wrote was inconceivably depressing, so fuck that.

Real America is magical place.

Where peace, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

Are tattooed across every new soul,

And in Real America there are no rapes and there are no regrets,

Every soul is carried to term.

Women are finely-turned baby factories

Cranking out children like sausage machines,

Having finally realized that a womb is a wound

That needs to be filled!

And there are no gay men, because

As Ann Coulter says,

This (fingers fighting)

Doesn't work.

So they stopped sword-fighting with their cocks,

And went to work producing what makes America great:

An unsustainable birth rate

And a cheap, easily exploit-able workforce.

NaPo...Just kidding, April's person who should at least be locked up.

That's right!

It's not a poem!
It is
  Yet another
Political piece
To pick up the pieces
Of shattered news stories.

Fuck, sorry, I've been writing in short lines so much I'm starting to forget how to do prose.  Anyway, so I really wanted to do this fuckface today:

But then I realized I don't care about him.

I decided I'd go a bit more small-fry with this one.  Because I feel like this asshole hasn't gotten the spotlight of criticism shined on him enough.  He comes from the great state of Arizona, well known as a haven of tolerance and respect...so long as you are not brown.

Representative John Kavanagh from Arizona's 8th district.  Note, that's Arizona House of Representatives, not the Federal House.  The Representative in the Federal House is one Gabrielle Giffords.  Yes, it is strange that a left-leaning district elects this wackjob for state legislature.  But I guess every district has its white-washed suburbs.

Anyway, Rep Kavanagh is known for being one of the leaders in the anti-immigrant streak of legislation that's been washing over Arizona like a tidal wave of racism.  He is leading the charge on a bill that would require one parent of a child being given birthright citizenship to be a permanent citizen.  Of course, this requires an overhaul of the 14th Amendment, but people like Rep Kavanagh won't let something like the bill of rights get in the way of progress!

That's right, Kavanagh is tough on immigration.  He was one of the sponsors of SB 1070, better known as "it's okay to harass citizens so long as they're brown" law.  And let me tell you, SB 1070 has really helped Arizona's economy.  Not to mention struck the fear of god into those terrible, evil illegals, who contribute nothing to the country.  Except, you know $11.2 billion in taxes.

The thing that turned me on to Kavanagh is this whole fiasco.  Rep Kavanagh felt that more important that Arizona's 10% drop in tax revenue and 7.4% unemployment rate were not as important as scrubbing a Sikh man's name from the 9/11 memorial in Phoenix.

The man? Singh Sodi,who was gunned down four days after 9/11 by a man who said to police that he was lashing out at Arabs after watching the twin towers fall.  Apparently, the shooter's only knowledge of Arabs came from watching Aladdin, because he took Mr. Sodi's turban as an indication that he was Arab and not, you know, a completely unrelated ethnic group.  Not that this is surprising.  Islamophobes tend not to be the brightest crayons in the box.

Apparently, Kavanagh had used something called the "internet" for a few minutes and found that it was "unclear" that Mr. Sodi's death had anything to do with 9/11.  Based on these findings, he suggested taking Sodi's name off the memorial.  I'm just surprised Kavanagh didn't follow that up by saying "Also, I found out that 9/11 was an inside job.  Probably Mexicans."

Kavanagh did finally meet with Sodi's family and apologize for introducing the bill, saying he "misunderstood the case".  Just like Sodi's murderer misunderstood that Sodi wasn't Arab.  Not to mention misunderstood that his actions were anything but idiotic and violent.

Yet.  Sodi's murderer is in prison.  I think, for consistency's sake, it might be worth tossing Kavanagh in there for a few years.  Maybe scrub his name from a few political positions.

But that won't happen.  With the amount of money he's made for the correctional institutes, they'd probably build him a separate luxury penthouse to serve his sentence.

A pity.  In any case, Representative Kavanagh, you should (at least) be put in prison.

NaPoWriMo 27/30: Crazyland

This got emotional, real fast.  It's also a true story.  Weird, huh? Maybe my life is interesting, who knew?

Crazyland.

A planet floating lonely in the middle of space

Or, floating surrounded by other planets

It depended on how social I was feeling.

It spun slowly,

But sometimes quickly,

Because there’s no astronomy in third grade

And I didn’t know what gravity was,

How it pulled invisibly at all times

And kept everything close to the ground

Like some cosmic lawnmower.

NaPoWriMo 22/30: Cupful of Apocalypse

That's not the name of this poem.  But I thought it sounded funny.  Which is appropriate because this poem is actually weirdly sad.

Whether the glass is half full

Or half empty

Doesn’t matter to the empty half.

It’s still unfulfilled,

It sits next to occupied space,

And it’s jealous.

Half-full, half-empty,

All disappointed.

The gloating, bloated half

Fat with liquid,

While half the glass stays dry,

Feeling only a trickle

When a glass is tipped,

Emptied.

Inches more unsatisfied,

Still wet with lost dreams.

Cha-cha-changes!

Some blog style changes here and the addition of a self-aggrandizing banner.  Badass, huh? It's what happens when I get excited with photoshop.  There's like every filter ever designed on that thing.  I think that makes me a good artist.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions for how to make this blog more...I guess, legible, let me know.

Also, all apologies for posting nothing but bad poetry for the past few postings.  Whatever writing time I have is taken up by this NaPoWriMo stuff.  But, I mean, you got a Lincoln rap out of it.  So, you can't really complain.

And yes, I'm aware no one comments on this blog and for all I know, no one reads it.  But talking to myself sounds so much more official when it's typed up online.  There's the POTENTIAL that someone might, you know, read it.

NaPoWriMo 19/30

Oh good lord.  What have I done.

This is what happens when I write 19 poems in a month.  My brain just says "Fuck it."

Four score and seven years ago

Our forefathers…

Got funky.

(Start beat)

Yo I’m the rockin’ Abe Lincoln

And I know what you’re thinkin’

Man, forefathers didn’t rap

What the hell he been drinkin’?

Well, my style is wack, but my beats are phat,

From size 14s to my stovepipe hat.

So if you feel my flow and you feel the burn,

Then sit right back cause it’s time to learn,

NaPoWriMo 15/30: Writing an anti-war poem

Whew.  This was a little exhausting to write.  It needs work, but I'm liking the concept.

When writing an anti-war poem

It’s important to be abstract.

10 thousand soldiers killed.

Put on their uniform

To do their duty.

10 thousand men and women.

Try not to think of them as mothers,

Fathers, brothers, sisters,

The family opening the letter

Typed with flawless political -correctness

And how the world feels when it’s taken out from under you.

NaPoWriMo 11/30

Oh hell yes:

Update 4/13: Added a title.  Also, realized that everyone in Japan's last name is NOT Akaiwa.

Aita 愛他

Hideaki Akaiwa proved something.

So did Susuma Sugawara.

And the Fukushima Fifty.

They proved that no matter the odds

When disaster strikes…

People go absolutely insane.

NaPoWriMo 8/30: Dirt Hill

Hm.

I don't particularly like how this started, but I kind of like what it became.  True story, actually.  I could conceivably turn this into a story-telling bit, I think.  For now, a poem.

The hill was torn down.

As much as a hill can be torn down.

They carted it off by truckloads

Mounds of crumbling brown like chocolate cake

Speeding off down the road

To wherever dirt goes to die.

Dirt depots.

Grime garages.

I didn’t see it, though.

I just came back one day

Walked through outstretched branches

Empty bottles and used condoms,

Past the broken brick of the old school,

Through the criss-crossed dead trees.

And there it was.

Or, wasn’t.

The field was empty, still littered with brown

Like the world’s most popular dog park,

The sky too empty above me.

The first time I saw it,

I hated it.

A pile of dirt obscuring the green grass.

It was pollutant,

Thick brown pox sickening the sky

The choking smell of earth.

I climbed it,

Because that’s what you do as a kid.

Whatever you don’t like you stand on.

Show it who’s boss.

And the view changed things.

I saw the world unfold at my feet,

Watched the cars I couldn’t drive,

The kids that teased me,

The adults that knocked me aside.

All of it shrunken toys beneath me and my mound.

And I thought

Hey, this could be fun.

Depression interlude

Just thought I'd take a break from all the good stuff happening and all the crappy poetry to express my complete awe-struck horror at some news I learned about last week. I didn't really want to get into it in the middle of an already eventful week, but now I'm free to stress myself out about it.

This shit. This horrible and, worse, not unexpected shit.

Our soldiers taking pictures of themselves after killing and mutilating innocent civilians.  Like they're so hardcore, man, gunning down a small child from behind cover must take REAL guts.

But the truth is, it's not the soldiers.  It's the situation.  The torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the water boarding of detainees in Guantanamo, the bombing of civilian targets during the Persian Gulf, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.  That's just a few of the AMERICAN atrocities.

And what's the common denominator? It's not the people, what is socially acceptable changes constantly.  So does leadership.  So does the setting.  So does the enemy.  The common denominator is war.  The fact of the matter is that there is no way to wage a humane war.  You put people in insane situations, you can't be surprised when they act insane.

You have to be crazy to kill someone.  Murderers are either placed into impossible situations or are just completely insane.  War cultivates this insanity and we act surprised when our soldiers return and are all kinds of fucked up.  We ENGINEERED that crazy and called it basic training.

The thing that's worse about this is that Obama's still harping on the same tired "America is making the world safe for Democracy" bullshit, when the only thing we show the countries we are safe-izing is a barbarism that puts to shame any of the dictators we oust.

Our soldiers gunned down innocent people and smiled about it.  I think a situation like this deserves a few years of reflection on what we're doing to our people.  Something's gone wrong here.  We've created something toxic in ourselves and until we fix it, the only thing we're spreading is misery.

NaPoWriMo 4/30

I wasn't planning on putting every poem up here, but I'm kind of happy with how this one turned out:

Lost Words
Words are never lost
They are delayed
Clog the pipes of flowing thought
Washed like sediment
Make words taste tangy, metallic,
They find their escape.

Words are never forgotten
They just get stuck.
Pushed to the edges of a smile
Lurking in the parentheses of what you say.
They pulse like stars
Light up the pathways of lost loves and angry ancestors
And they sparkle electric
Never forgotten, sharp and crackling until the day your power is cut.

Words are never defeated
They are just patient.
They are not censored,
They are versatile.
You guard against them,
But they do not relent.
They press at the boundaries,
The edges of your vision
And you can see them.
The lost half of your half-truths,
The full flow of your lies,
They never leave you.
They thicken your blood
Make your heart pound faster
The farther you remove yourself from them
The harder they pull.

Words are inevitable
They never get winded
They never get hungry
They never get angry.
They wait.

But words are not sinister
They’re just not chumps.
You can’t push them around
They come to you for a reason
Because your mouth can shape them best
Because your hand can trace them the way they want.
They’re more than your resumes
Your test answers
Your annual reports.
They’re yours.

And when you touch your hand to paper
They flow from you like blood,
The ink of them drying against the air.
They pass through us like air, like food, like love
Give us life
And then return to a circle older than us.

Our pages, our voices
Complete the circuit.
So you can offer your resistance
But the current carries through.
You are powerless against it
But it is powerful within you.
Plug your feet into the Earth
And let the sparks fly from your fingers.
Because bones decay
But words will stay.

Clips from Spit Dat Feature

Building a Bridge:


Pills Poem


More to come!

NaPoWriMo day 3

All right.  I lied.  I'm going to put this up here.

Sometime between her left hand on my thigh and her right hand on the girl’s breast

I realized it’s hopeless.

We are freaks.

We are masochists on Mondays

Transformational on Tuesdays

And just…weird on Wednesday.

The day-by-day tick of our mortal clock

The resounding sounding of our lives counting down

We do anything to drown it out.

We listen to Justin Beiber.

Pay people to get on stage and talk about their feelings.

Turn the volume up on our impulses

And go to bed with people whose names we don’t know.

We make mistakes with the regularity of insanity

Doing the same thing expecting a different result

Because hitting the ground hurts

But falling feels so good.

We can’t just have a burger

We need it double, with cheese, extra bacon.

We can’t just have our portion

We need it super-sized.

We can’t just walk

We need to drive

We can’t just drive

We need to fly

Rage against the atmosphere

And stick flags into the moon.

After all.

Survival was never enough.

We made guns and bombs

With nations to use them

And signs to protest.

We made condoms so we can fuck more

And churches so we feel bad about it,

Installed God all-powerful

And bit-by-bit are taking his job.

We freaks march to no certain beat

Walk the knife-edge line of good and evil

Eat every goddamn fruit in the garden

And smoke whatever weeds we find!

We are the descendents of bad decisions

Of evolutionary screw-ups,

Living out our tradition of shooting first

And asking questions always.

So stay freaky.

Life’s too short

To just survive.

In other news, I have a youtube channel!

ALSO: NaPoWriMo DAY 1

Since, honestly, I don't have enough going on in my life, what with the Beltway Grand Slam coming up, the month-and-a-half West Coast trip, the move to Baltimore and the starting of my intensive MPH program...

Scratch that.  Since, honestly, I hate myself, I've decided to take up the challenge of NaPoWriMo.  National Poem Writing Month.  Where I have to write a poem a day for all of April or consider myself a failure forever.  I'm doing it with the rest of the DC peeps, so anyone interested should definitely sign up here.

But anyway, this is day one.  I'm probably not going to post everything I write, but for now I'm excited about it (and actually getting it done) so enjoy:

(The italics are sung to the tune of "God Bless America".  That's right.)

While stormclouds gather across the sea

Stormclouds!

Like the specter of revolution

Spreading from Egypt

Like the plague of locusts

Stormclouds!

Like socialized medicine

Spreading from…

Well…

Every first world economy.

And most second world ones.

But there’s nothing more American

Than dying from easily curable diseases.

Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free!

Free like your choice between paper or plastic

Like you can have your toilet paper quilted

Like you can have your Oreos in 100-calorie-doses!

Free like expressing yourself

Within the negotiated boundaries of your permit

And not too loud,

People are sleeping.

Let us all be grateful for a land so fair!

Fair like giving personhood to corporations

And taking it away from Mexicans!

Fair like the beaches of the Gulf…

Um..

Fair like skyscrapers!

Like super-highways!

Like mega-malls!

Fair like thick gray fogs

Because honestly you can see blue skies anywhere!

As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

CHRISTIAN prayer.

George WASHINGTON founded our country.

Not George HUSSEIN.

Or George Feldman.

God Bless America

Land that I love

Like a woman.

But not sexually.

Not until marriage.

Stand beside her, and guide her

Through the night with a light from above.

The light of Democracy

We shine like beacons

Like…

Like the end of assault rifles

Like the burning tails of ICBMs

We deliver barrages of freedom

Rain liberty like hellfire

Roll tank-tread jack-boots

Over countries with strange names

And we never are to blame

And we never are ashamed

We are stars and stripes and flame

From the mountains,

Especially ones with coal

To the prairies

Except during the dust bowl.

To the oceans, white with foam

And factory run-off!

God Bless Americaaa

And FUCK everyone else!