Something Dark is Loose

'America is full of good people, but something dark is loose. There's a free-floating anxiety that easily metastasizes into paranoia and hatred for the same enemies always targeted by authoritarian populist movements: homosexuals, urbanites, foreigners, intellectuals and religious minorities. Rationality is losing its hold; empirical evidence is discounted as the product of a secular world view or a scheming liberal elite.'

 - Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming, p22

'The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will.'

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 2 Chapter 10

'And he that hath no sword, let him sell his clothes and buy one'

-Jesus, The Bible, Luke 22:36

They’re Burning Books Again

The fairy tales

Of Imaginary ‘Gods’

Are pounded into the soft heads of children

By a mother's whisper

And so are built the shoddy planks

Of a rotting  reason
On which we sail

Above the frightening void

‘Vanity, Vanity, All is vanity’

It says so in Ecclesiastes

And lunacy sweats out from their pores

Like honey comes from bees

They’re burning books again

This time in the sunshine state

Got the whole world’s media really quite irate

First Black President on the phone

First Nazi Pope on line two

President of Iran waving his shoe

Muslim world rioting

A starving army with nothing to lose

Save the word of their ‘God’

The embodiment of their hope/truth/beauty

Planted in their eye at birth

By their beholders.

Hypocrisy Hypocrisy

All is hypocrisy

The truly devout

Wear silly hats

And prance around in skirts

The truly devout

Rip their flesh and pray until it hurts

In old dead languages

They cry out

A million humbug spells

And in their reaching out to ‘God’

They crush us like eggshells

They’re burning books again

In Florida this time

But if you’re after burning books

For spreading misery and hate

Shouldn’t the Bible
Be the first upon the BBQ plate?

The Nazi’s were Christian

Put Jews in ovens while praising ‘God’

And the Catholic Church killed millions

In its own inquisition

Yet try and hold them accountable

And it’s an outrageous imposition

Christian armies have slaughtered the indigenous

Across the rolling plains of the Earth

So how much more killing
Are these ‘Gods’ really worth?

The subjugation of women

The infallibility of Paul

Wouldn’t it be funny

If there was no ‘God’ at all?

And now we learn of the rape and torture of children

By priests

It’s nothing new

What can we do?

The religious claim Holy sanction

For the evil in their hearts

We should make them join the Skoptsy

And cut off their private parts

And the sheepish flock to them for protection

Casting others into a hell

And the minds of little children

Are thrown down the wishing well

‘How dare they want equality

To marry who they please’

You clasp you clasp your hands together

And fall upon on your knees

If there was a ‘God’ in heaven

Who knew your mind and heart

The reeking contents of your thoughts

Would hit him like a fart

They’re Burning Books Again

This time it’s the Qur’an

Who some believe to be the word of ‘God’

As dictated to Mohammed

A military leader who grew tired of seeing his people put to the sword

By Jewish and Christian armies

So he made up his own Lord

Propped him up on top of Jesus and Abraham

(Even copied the footnote injunctions

About eating pig and lamb)

And began to pay the zealots back

They say 9/11 was an ‘unprovoked attack’

But people have short memories

When it suits them.

The Ku-Klux-Klan hid behind

The burning crosses of Christ

While black men were hung from trees

On Sunday they all went to Church

Singing Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah!

Drop your mind down the wishing well

Terrorists are inspired by the Qur’an

And the Bible

And the words of priests

Popes

Presidents

Mullahs

Charismatic Gurus from California

Five star Generals

Colonel Chicken

Captain America

The Wailing Wall

Television Personalities

Arab billionaires

Social inequality

Fake Buddhists

Real Buddhists

Jewish Settlers

Texas Ranchers

Hungry stomachs

Greedy desires

And a million other

Types of liars.

It’s a Bible law to demand ‘An eye for an Eye’

Mark Chapman killed John Lennon after reading

The Catcher in the Rye

Tomorrow it might be a grocery list

A tax bill

A stoplight

A celebrity magazine…

We’re a violent race of idiots

Easily convinced to kill

The honest admit they do it for money

The wicked for a cross upon a hill

I really couldn’t give a fuck

You go and burn this or that stupid book

The Al Qur’an, The Bible
Or even the Holy book of Spoons

You bunch of dumb baboons

Burn them all if you must

Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

Then throw each other

On the fire

So this lunacy can end

And leave the world, Oh please leave the world

For the secular to mend.

A.N.

Touche Turtles

Been swimming with Hawaiian Sea Turtles. The big island is rife with them. Old grumpy looking faces reminiscent of bad poetry and travel delays. Water wrinkled and camouflaged to look like coral and the interplay of light on the water, the volcanic sand on the beaches. The armored shell does not allow them great mobility either on land or at sea. Their beach crawling is invalid and painful while underwater, big waves come and roll them over so they struggle to right themselves with a slow and weary waggling of the flippers that is only slightly more efficient than my abysmal Pinball ability. Fortification or speed? That was the question posed in the distant days of evolutionary development. The tortoise and turtle collective opted on the shell, the body armor, the home body castle. So now they move like old people struggling down the aisles of a baffling and faintly ominous supermarket.
At the Kona Village Resort there is a reef covered with algae just a few feet out from the beach. It's like a big green salad bar and dozens of them hover over it munching as the tide rolls them slowly from side to side.
All around the island are signs issuing warnings to give them room and let them be. There are fines for touching them. You are supposed to stay twenty feet away but there are a lot of them, it's tough. If they ever enforced the ruling seriously, the turtles would be able to herd us all onto the sharp outcroppings of volcanic rock where our feet would blister and our faces twist into Tiki grimaces. 
Other sun bleached signs relating to the ocean that we witnessed: 'Do Not Throw rocks at the Manta Rays', 'Tsunami Evacuation Route this way',  'Do not harass the Dolphins' and 'WARNING: Kraken Sacrificial Area'.

Summer Cycling

   It’s been a strange summer for cycling in San Diego. But then again, I have been cycling more than usual so maybe it’s always been strange and I just haven’t noticed?

   I’ve had four flat tires. I was tupped by a Chrysler Grand Cherokee. A dim witted Grad student locked his beach cruiser to my bike on campus stranding me for a couple of hours. I’ve seen the hardcore cycling community up close. I’ve found a couple of Hobo encampments on the river banks in PB. I’ve been strangled by an orthodox Jew.

   I ride an old orange Huffy that I bought at a garage sale in Chicago five years ago for ten dollars. Big fat tires. The three working gears are as sticky as glue. It’s not good on hills. But still, I’ve started cycling home from work twice a week. It’s twenty miles but it’s amazing. Most of the route takes me down hill, right past the bay. I work in La Jolla (the jewel) and like much of San Diego it’s intensely beautiful. Palm trees wave in the breeze. The bay water sparkles in the sunshine. Jet skis chase each other from pier to pier. Pelican’s circle in the sky. The sea breeze is as tasty and wholesome as a gourmet wrap full of shrimp with lemon and piquant sauce.

   I fixed three of the flats myself with my puncture repair kit and a bowl full of water. I saw my brother do it once, circa 1984, in the front room of our little terraced house in the North of England. He didn’t exactly show me how to do it, there’s four years between us and he regarded as a total annoyance for most of our youth, but I must have seen enough to remember how it’s done. You drown the inner tube in water to locate the puncture hole. Then you sand it down a bit and glue on the bull’s eye sticky patch. After the third time I decided to replace the whole tire, the protective outer layer had worn thin in several places. The novelty of fixing your own bike punctures wears off pretty quick.

At the bike shop in Mission Hills the stoned hipsters who work there joked with me about a naff pop song that was playing on the radio. One of them screamed that he hated the song and wanted to kill everyone associated with the record. He hadn’t realized I’d come in and was stood at the counter and he became a little embarrassed, the roles of shop worker and customer hovered over us, the specter of conformity.

“You’re probably like friends with the band or something…” he said when he discovered me.

“It’s my favorite song of all time,” I joked. “AND I’M NEVER COMING IN HERE AGAIN.”

They laughed and fit me a new tire in about three minutes. It’s a cool shop, a bunch of them work there and it’s like the record shop from High Fidelity, but with bikes. Bike Fidelity. They eat pizza from the great place next door and stand around talking and mending bikes. It’s kind of idyllic. They’re always busy and they really know their shit. They take care of business in a swift and efficient way that is a pleasure to behold.

It took me an hour and a half to get the police to come and cut the lock on the beach cruiser that was chaining my bike to the rack. I would find out later from campus security that the bike belonged to a numb Grad student who didn’t even realize his lock had been cut and attempted to just ride it away right from next to where the cops were gathered, wondering what to do with it. Note to self, a Kryptonite U bend lock is the only thing that will stop a theft, the cop cut through the plastic coated chain of the combination lock with a small pair of wire snips, it was way too easy.

At the bottom of Gilman Drive the Grand Cherokee blocked the bike lane where it enters the cut through to the path by the train line. I had a green light, but I had to dismount to lift it up the curb in front of the jeep. Just as I was doing it the driver took her foot off the brake and hit me up the curb.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE DOING?” I screamed at her. She wound down her window, claimed it was a mistake.

“I didn’t see you,” she said.

It made no sense at all. She was in her 50’s. She was listening to an ipod. She had a pair of big shades that covered most of her face.

The adrenaline turned me gargoyle. I was rightly angry. It could have been so much worse. SoCal drivers are terrible. The jeeps and SUV’s are the worse. They have a reckless sense of entitlement. As a cyclist, at certain intersections and at certain places, it feels like you’re dicing with death. Cars kill pedestrians and cyclists all the time. You know what cyclists do to cars? They slow them down a little bit. It’s not even close to being a fair fight. But I wasn’t hit exactly, more like pushed, jarred.

“Are you OK?” she said. I realized I was and turned away from her in disgust.

I listen to podcasts on my ipod as I ride. New Yorker short stories, This American Life, Radiolab, Wiretap, The Best Show. Sometimes I switch to music. Mingus is getting a lot of playtime.

On the underpass, on the Rose Canyon trail running next to the river and wetlands from PB to the bayside there are a few places where the homeless gather. The camp off Balboa has an edge to it. Alcohol, Meth, I don’t really know. It could be a set from Breaking Bad season two. Desperation hits you like squid ink, there’s always a gathering of sad shark eyed folk, zombie groaning, deeply tanned, passing bottles back and forth. Sometimes they have a little fire going. The underside of the bridges on Grand are the nesting sites of the lost men, bag ladies, Vietnam vets dragging dirty shopping cats. At the corner by the golf course and basketball court a couple of these characters live. Fisher Kings. They stink of urine, dirt, shit. You cycle round a corner and the smell hits you like a fist. In my mind I have called them the Mud Turtles. They are cocooned with all their worldly possessions. So far they have always been asleep as I fly by and I have not clearly seen their faces. I the opportunity arises I will help them somehow but I think they just want to be left alone.

On the cycle path by the bay and along Friars and into downtown I am often passed by the serious cyclists on fast road bikes. They cut through the air like razors, their profile as thin as paper, a harmony of muscle and machine. Sometimes however they are not so thin. Sometimes it’s an old man cyclist with calves like knotted rope but huge bulging bellies of beer. It’s possible to cycle and be very fit and yet still carry an extra thirty pounds of stomach around your waist. These guys have passed me going up steep hills, barely breaking sweat, the energy and appetite of old bulls, of medieval kings. Legs like athletes, stomachs like pregnant gorillas.

After I was hit by the Grand Cherokee I couldn’t help brooding that I should carry a lump hammer on my bike to beat out at the cars when they get to close. They may take me down. But I will go down swinging. Daft. I stopped by the bay, took some deep breaths and waded out into the water, calming myself, clearing my mind, choosing to let it go, enjoy the moment. I was OK. It’s all OK.

Near the Hilton on the bay there is a section of the park with a couple of hills that are perfect for kite flying. The wind swoops in off the ocean and there are always people out clutching string tied to all kinds wondrous multicolored, boxes, birds, and deltoids. There’s the park, about ten acres, then the bike path, then another thin strip of grass verge with palm trees and the occasional BBQ pit and picnic table and then there’s the water. I cycled on the path, mile twelve or so on my homeward ride, and then I was clotheslined. A string suddenly wrapped around my neck. It happened in a second, it coiled like a snake and bit in. I hit the brakes and clawed myself free. The string flew off me up into the air. I looked around for the offender. A man was flying his kite, not in the huge acres of space where everyone else does it, but on the small verge next to the water, right across the bike lane. Nuts. The park has hills. The verge does not. The verge has trees. He was flying his kite at a stupidly low angle, less than forty five degrees. He was with his son. They were orthodox Jews, complete with black suits and yamacas and long curlicue sidelocks. He smiled at me, I can only think it was through nervousness. We looked at each other.

“GO OVER THERE,” I shouted, pointing to the clear open acres of park.

“Sorry,” he said but he didn’t seem to be too helpful. In fact, he continued to fly his kite, struggling with the low angle and the breeze. Silly goofy grin still fixed to his face.

“GO OVER THERE,” I shouted again. He still did not move. Another man, a witness, a Latino doing tricks with a football, shook his head at me in sympathy. Madness. I rubbed my neck, there was a thin rope burn. It was like something out of Curb Your Enthusiasm or a Coen Brothers film. He could have moved ten feet and been out of everybody’s way. He could have at least asked me if I was alright. I called him a ‘prick’. He son stared at me like a startled owl. What can you do? Carry scissors for the kites and hammers for the cars?

To paraphrase Gertrude Stein about Majorca, San Diego is paradise, if you stand it.

Good Advice

Good advice from the wall at MOMA. I immediately thought of my brother. He's a very fetal sleeper. I posted the pic to his Facebook page.

Life Sized Chocolate Man

My wife had a dream the other night. We were throwing a party and I had come home in a state of high excitement. I’d purchased a telephone booth with a life sized chocolate man inside. I was so happy that people would be able to eat the man throughout the night.

After she’d told me I couldn’t stop thinking about it for quite some time. It would be a great addition to our next party. I can just see it now, all our friends carving into the chocolate man. I’d borrow a crème brulee welding torch from a neighbor and melt an eye or ear for the dipping of biscotti or fruit slices.

I’ve now completed a search of local businesses and nobody has such a thing for sale. There was a life size chocolate Lionel Messi available in Barcalona but it’s out of my price range and the thought of eating an actual effigy of a person is unappealing. The closest thing to San Diego was a chocolate bust of one of the stars of Twilight. Again, no good. It has to be a full size chocolate man. In a telephone booth.

A new quest has begun. Let me know if you find anything.

The History of Yosemite Through the Medium of Dance

Granite face. Time as comb. The seasons move. Water comes in fluming white God beards. Stones fall. Indians slaughtered in what is now a beautiful Alpine meadow.

The pack represents John Muir filling himself up with acorns in an orgiastic worship of nature. The fedora was much criticized by Isherwood in the Times. It was a daring choice but I answer only to my muse.

Food was stored at all times in bear proof containers. Bears were stored amongst the bushes and fallen redwoods.

Room Service Report July 2010

My recent trip to Vegas allowed me to check on my sources at the front desks of the major hotels. The following is a list of special items requested from room service in the past year. I had expected the recession to impact the frequency and eccentricity of special requests but if anything, the financial collapse has inspired more wanton profligacy than we have seen previously. This could offer further support to Chomsky’s ‘Last Days of Rome’ hypothesis.

Changes in desk staff at some hotels have led to an absence of data for several months from The Mirage, Treasure Island and Binions. The usual problems continue as to the recording of the data. It is a tricky endeavor spanning many hotels requiring the participation of hundreds of employees working both day and night shifts. Where possible I attempt to personally verify the stranger items with the desk staff who took the request but with the staff turnover it is not always possible. I have chosen to add additional comments in speech marks that have come to me from the staff members when they prove illuminating.

Here are the highlights, the complete list will be available from The Bureau in May 2011 for the usual fee.

Caesar’s Palace

One Whole Pig, roasted in the Hawaiian style.

‘A selection of Song Birds that will wake my wife in the morning.’

Unicorn Horn, ‘real ivory not some tacky piece of plastic crap’.

12 whole grapefruits

A bottle of Jagermeister inside a chocolate cake. ‘An actual bottle inside a cake, not a Jagermeister flavored cake, an actual bottle. Hidden like a file being smuggled into prison.’

Basket of live Alaskan King Crab.

Lucky rabbit’s foot. ‘On second thoughts just send up a whole rabbit’.

The Bellagio

Gold plated toilet seat.

A Keebler Elf. ‘One of the real ones this time, not some midget from Omaha in a Santa hat.’

The Koran, in Yiddish.

The Venetian

A Bonfire.

Soiled Underwear

A Pond Witch

The Complete Works of Karl Marx

Canaletto’s disgust at this tacky monstrosity.

Opium, ‘as much as you can get’.

New York New York

Leather pants.

Giraffe Print gun holster.

Bengal Tiger.

Tickets to the Opera.

Top Hats, various sizes. 'From finger puppet up to Rocky Dennis'.

Paris

8 Pints of O negative blood.

A Cherry Tree

Waldorf salad in a tramp’s boot.

Samurai sword.

Cheeze Whiz Icecream

More televisions, at least half a dozen.

The Mirage

A Plankton Sandwich.

A Smug Yoga Teacher.

A smile from an old lady.

Shiny Happy People holding hands.

The Excalibur

Dildos shaped like Impaling Spikes.

Wax apricots.

Frog Buckets.

The Palms

Jackie Kennedy, 'OK, I’ll settle for a Jackie Kennedy type.’

A new hip.

Oxygen.

Donald Trumps stupid goddamn wig.

Luxor

Binoculars

Rope

Hunters Knife

Can of Mace

Jar of Golden Girl Anal Lubricant.

3 Quarter inch telescopic rifle sight.

The Four Seasons

‘The whole four seasons, Summer days on the lake, filled with cold white wine and lazy bumblebees, Autumn, with Keat’s mists and mellow fruitfulness, Winter with snow falling like a bridal veil, words taking form like ghosts, the hardened nipples in the après ski sauna. Spring, pollen and tides and lamb on the menu.’

Binions

MORE TIME

‘Some kind of gifts for my ex-wife’s kids. Nothing too good, some crap.’

Divorce Lawyer.

The Flamingo

‘Please send up an actual flamingo.’