Blue Vein
I wandered into a museum on a side street. There was a door to a dank basement. Behind a shut metal door was a room equipped with shelves upon which sat specimen jars of various animals and, perhaps, fetuses. In my head I heard singing…as the faces might have lapsed into song:
Freaks we are, freaks we are
In glass jars on the shelf
Yet most freakish of them all
May be none other than y’self
We relish our existence
As hideous as it may be
For in our deformed depravity
We’ve found new ways to see
Impish and grotesque
Peering through to look at you
Horrifically repulsive
Nature was not kind, it’s true!
I ran from the room—mounting the stairs with great haste—and retreated from the museum through a back door, finding myself once again on the street.
•••••••
Then, through the smoke-filled haze I caught a glimpse of her, obscured by shadows, suggestively treading those cool, benign waters of casual indifference. We made eye contact, and I seized the opportunity to offer my introduction. She sat alone, invitingly, at a table in a dimly lit corner, her male acquaintances somewhat conspicuous in their absence, as though perfectly oblivious to her charm.
Her lips played hopscotch, unscrupulously toying with a cigarette rolled between her nimble fingers. She spoke first.
“I’m lady.” She paused, accenting coolly underneath a shroud of smoke. “What are you?”
I smiled and, abstinent in my reaction, cheerfully retorted, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
She appeared slightly defensive, and this only intrigued me further. “You gonna sit down?” she snarled.
I accepted her invitation and made myself comfortable at the table, strategically seated. Her taste for hard liquor had become all the more apparent.
In a moment I felt the forces of my power at full throttle, as I had the uncanny notion of a shared experience vaguely situated in my sinewy past.
By now it was no secret that I had fallen for the bait cast by the clutches of her dismal allure.
She granted me a considerable excuse to examine her physique. Upon closer inspection I could hardly help but notice the detail of a rather large tattoo emblazoned on her right thigh, partially hidden by her shoddy, second-hand miniskirt.
Sensing that I had become curious to see the rest, she yanked up the edge of the skirt, revealing the hidden half. The immense scope of the ugliness had surprised me. It was larger than my fist, and looked as if it had been left half-finished by some drunken barbarian as a cruel practical joke.
sIcK
Blue Hands
Thousands trod, jogged, slogged, sauntered, staggered, schlepped, limped, or otherwise passed Lane and Habib each day. A few became regular contributors even though Lane never uttered a word. Once in a while Habib would reveal to people some tidbit about Lane with all the auspiciousness of a shaman interpreting goat entrails. Lane had long since ceased listening to what people said to him. It was only through Habib’s care that he had any human contact, and indeed survived at all. Human speech had become noise to him, but the everyday sounds of a huge city had become an ethereal space music, filling him with wonder and joy. Sound became liquid caused by the pulsations of liquid. With each breath Lane inhaled liquid, with each glance he emitted liquid. Approaching footsteps were ovals of liquid lightly kissing squares of liquid. It was through liquid that the thoughts of others visited Lane and he learned to read minds.
Some slowed when they passed him, most didn’t notice or denied themselves the sight of him. Those who looked at him, who saw, gave over to him in an instant. As the multitudes streamed by, Lane’s heart swelled to almost bursting: ‘…if you’d only invested… live chickens empty onto a conveyor belt that leads to a darkened room… under Section 2524.2 (c) the Landlord is still prepared to accept your… Who asked you to butt in, Charlie? Mother! Why don’t you just let me live my… resources it needs to undertake this necessary expansion… when the shark makes its first attack on Quint! Circle Line Sniper Shoots Tourist… is a model and avid dancer… refused to respond to questions about her husband’s infidelity… khaki linen three button… citing CNN as the worst offender…’ Lane could not stop or control the flow of humanity’s inner babble. It was all he could do to surf the constant tsunami of emotion and psychosis that had become his eternal here and now. Of course none of the pedestrians of our fair city realized that for two or three seconds they’d become a minute reality bite, a spec in the giant Seurat painting of Lane’s existence. It was purely his own Hell. And it was the kind of Hell he felt he alone was uniquely suited for.
‘…Bronx’s chief sanitary officer… slid steadily against the yen… too shaky for the return of refugees… thanks to an experimental prostate implant… listen to the purr of its 24-valve in-line six. Christ, baby I’m doin’ the best I… softened the rhetoric through the prism of his good-guy persona…’ On and on the ceaseless chatter continued. Lane had heard it all. And within the hearing there was knowing. And deep within the knowing there was feeling. Buried feelings of hurt and loneliness and the remembered snubs of a million variations on a few simple childish themes. Feelings of inadequacy and yearning. Yearning for meaning or justice or love/happiness/contentment or plain simple relief.
Then it happened. It slid liquid into his nostrils, then entered his brain through the long neglected proper passageways and began rooting around in musty drawers for its own name, finally discovering it: blueberry. Thousands of skeins of crusty muslin are rent as they are pulled across a thousand pairs of unblinking reptilian eyes. Perfect dusty indigo spheres dance across the kodachrome Disney lawn of Lane’s memory. Particles of liquid light swirl in a tornado as delicate as moth wings, forming in Lane a totally new human emotion. This clot, this knotty nimbus then speeds out those same liquid passageways and arcs across six and a half feet of Broadway airspace and into the mind of Benny Moscowitz, on his way back to Flatbush with his box of fresh blueberries purchased moments before at a Korean deli up the block. And yeah, just then somehow Benny feels a little better. ‘Not bad, really, considering the shitty day I had. Can’t quite explain it but who’s complainin?’ Benny gazes up at the clouds in the sky, pans down to a windowbox of blazing vermilion geraniums three stories above street level. Benny appreciates the clear autumn light as it illuminates the fabulously symmetrical one-point perspective of Broadway, and catches his foot in an eroded part of the pavement. A single blueberry tumbles from its place under the cellophane, bounces off some random elbows, evades heavy foot traffic to jump up onto Lane’s chest. With tapered translucent fingers Lane brings the orb to his lips and smashes it against his soft mossy teeth. Lane smiles up at Benny, blessing him with spiritual healing, love and acceptance. Benny stumbles to a halt and stands transfixed and baffled. He is unable to hate, indeed forgets how to hate this man on this afternoon. ‘Weird, this kind of creepo I normally go awf on…’ In those few seconds Benny’s hate molecules start to break down. The chemistry of the dissolving helixes warms his brain, beginning an irreversible process. On the subway home Benny even thinks about it some more.
What happens next is one of those ‘only in New York’ urban phenomena of the late Twentieth Century. You see, Benny’s a very superstitious guy; that night he hit on the Pick Six. “Eyyy, no Getty, but $2,168 aint nothin’ to sneer at.” He tells his whole family the Koreans’ blueberries on lower Broadway brought him luck. Benny has a BIG family. “Pretty soon Moscowitzes from all five boroughs AND Jersey is buyin’ blueberries on lower Broadway like there’s no tomorrow!” And though none of them realize it, they all walk past Lane on their way to the train. And soon enough, they all start to feel great. They tell more people (those Moscowitzes are a kindly lot) and so on and so on. Lower Broadway becomes a swirling mosh of warm & fuzzy. Viperous Soho art-hags unpinch their faces and get over themselves, NYU students decrease their rhetorical inquiry, skateboard kids have their clothes altered to actually fit them, and seventeen squeegee bums pool their quarters and charter a one-way bus to Idaho. The Village Voice dispatches its new Lifestyles cub reporter to write a puff piece on the whole scene. Her name is Mimi.
Pretty Girl, Good Lay
First Incident with LAPD
I felt like a degenerate poseur, hanging with a crowd of starfuckers. One drunken Saturday night I went out dancing with a wannabe model to Club Sugar. My hair was in braids and I was sweaty from dancing. We went to an after party. It started getting lesbian and I bailed. I was driving home at three a.m. on Sunday. My clutch went out and I broke down on the 110 near downtown. I called a tow truck, but the police made it first. There were like, ten squad cars there. Arrested on a DUI. I called Mr. X from jail and he made me laugh. He wouldn’t come pick me up because I was in Compton. I took a $50 cab ride home. I went to court , sitting there reading scripts and periodically laughing out loud in front of the judge. They reduced the DUI to speeding in excess because my breathalyzer was .08 and .09.
I was written up for being visibly drunk at my Christmas party. Mr. X told me to sober up. I took a cab back to the studio, got into my car and realized about three miles into it that I could not drive. I pulled over in front of a church and passed out. I woke up in full daylight, the sun hot and glaring into my windsheild. My head was pounding and my silk and velvet gown soaked. I frequented the clubs and bars late night. I attended after parties and dinner parties. I started feeling disenchanted with Hollywood. I went to Lilith Fair and tried mushrooms. They had no affect on me, so I drank and got lost in the parking lot at the Rose bowl. Mr. X had a girlfriend and was cheating on her with me. He was fired for insubordination and he sued for anti-Semitism. They used our emails in court. I think I wrote some really nasty de classe stuff like “You have a big dick and you know how to fuck.” I started to drink every night alone at my place. I was frequenting bars alone and hanging out with strangers. I discovered the drug ecstasy at a moonlit rave in the desert. I really, really liked it and if it was around, I was on it. I think I called into work saying that my grandmother died at least three times.
Mr. X impregnated me. I ’m very fertile; I’ve become pregnant, even while on the pill. It just happens. He said he would hate me and the baby. He took me to have an abortion and then went to play golf with his girlfriend. I was absolutely pathetic during this time and I had no morals. I was drinking vodka on Vicodin that day. I started therapy once again. My therapist asked me if I thought I was an alcoholic. There was no doubt in my mind that I was. He told me to take advantage of a trip to a treatment center. He stated that I couldn’t be fired if I went to rehab. So I went.
Zebras and Giraffes - July 1999
The Treatment Center had an amazing program and I was educated on addiction and alcoholism by the finest. I was directed not to read the newspaper because I was too sensitive as to what was happening in the world. I met people that I probably would have never met.
I spent 31 days in the desert. I grieved and left the memory of my father there. I grieved and left my unborn children there. I forgave everyone who had ever hurt me. I let my sisters be my sisters, my brother be my brother, and I let my mother be my mother. I was radically changed by my time in this place.
Raw with Little to No after Care
I returned to my apartment in Los Feliz. I was back at my job and communicating with Mr. X. I was drunk within 60 days. There was one episode in particular where I met Mr. X at “Lush. I got very drunk. We went back to his place, had sex, and then he threw me out.I hopped onto his balcony. I banged on his sliding glass door and he whipped it open and put his hands around my throat. He let go and I curled up in the fetal position on his kitchen floor. He poured a pot of water on me. He threw me out into the hallway and I stumbled across the street to a 7–11, where I hitched a ride home with a random dude. I had lost my keys, so I put my hand through the window of my apartment. I ended up losing my job when I relapsed. (I credit this to not having changed my relationships nor my environment) I cannot blame anyone or anything for my poor job performance. I had started painting quite a bit by this point. Functional pieces like bookcases, chairs and pottery. My art and partying had taken priority over everything. I just wanted to drink and paint.
Homunculus
Close up on a pair of pudgy pale hands as they unzip a black knapsack and withdraw a crowbar and small sledgehammer. These implements are brought up deliberately to the heavy rusted padlock which hangs from an equally rusted ornate iron door. A light rain falls. It is early morning, 8:30 am to be exact, precisely the same moment that our Harry is having his little anxiety attack. Dull clangs ring out as a lone figure toils unnoticed by any living thing at the far end of the old cemetery just out of town. Cyndra takes a break, leaning against the mausoleum wall. She chugs her own home-brewed tea from an old Snapple bottle. Ahh, it’s good to be alive! Takes out a point and shoot, sets date and time, and holding the camera at arm’s length, snaps off a few of herself. These will turn out quite well, her jet black big hair looks really cool against the marble; you can actually see the beads of moisture on each heavily sprayed and teased tendril. Plus if you raise your arm slightly and point down, at the same time scowl slightly at the camera, this’ll help conceal your double chin and give it that album cover effect. A girl learns a few things, you know? A couple more whacks and the padlock’s kaput, a heave and the door’s open, Cyndra’s in.
“I suppose you’re all wondering why I asked you here today…” she chuckles to herself. She places the empty Snapple bottle on top of the massive crypt in the center of the dimly lit chamber. She lights an ancient yellow candle, all the while humming some weird Latin shit. Suddenly she freezes and cocks her head. The faintest dry fluttering can be heard in a far corner. In one phenomenally quick move she spins and hurls the candle with deadly accuracy at the source of the noise, then gleefully pounces on her prey. You’ve never seen a girl this size move like this. Cyndra raises a maimed and twitching brown moth to within an inch of her nose for close inspection. Its wings posses giant black eyes in typical insect anti-camouflage. To Cyndra these eyes are the windows to the collective souls of this hallowed vault. “Hello, little man. I am your seer-seducer, sent to help you navigate that treacherous journey from the light unto the dark.” With a flick of the wrist she snaps it into the Snapple bottle. She then does a methodical sweep for various bugs and spiders which she also deposits in the bottle. As she stares at her victims, Cyndra becomes aroused and begins a slow striptease, exposing the folds of her pasty white flesh to dozens of shiny compound eyes. She’s moaning now, waving her arms around, smelling and licking herself. Unable to wait until her return home, she upends the Snapple bottle over her gaping mouth, hungrily munching the bugs that fall in. The others she crushes and smears on her large slack breasts. A wing fragment with the eye lands squarely on an engorged pink nipple. She grabs her camera and takes more photos of herself. Then, yielding to a sudden and powerful urge, squats and lays out a huge moist black eel of a turd on the stone floor. Our plump little witch relishes her act of transgression as well as the warm sense of vacuity she now experiences in her colon. She turns and gazes at the product. It seems to stare back at her wetly. Arrogant, magnificently formed, sleekly obsidian, fat with incipient truculence, it appears to challenge its creator in a kind of surly defiance, while nonetheless standing in mute testimony to the best that is within her. Cyndra is a bit fearful but proud, indeed exhilarated, and decides to take one last picture. Still crouching she moves in close, composing the shot so that date and time will nicely stamp the lower rear quarter of the mass. Ever so quietly she murmurs to herself, “Free Willy.”
Jeff Spencer
Dear Kraut Midget
Iraq Armchair War Diaries
Child of the ‘60s! Casualty of the ‘70s! Gag me with an ergot
suppository! And whence this notion of the ‘50s as a sad, grey,
conformist decade. The Beats, in fact, were only the most extreme
symptom of the spirit of enterprise, invention, imagination and, yes,
rebellion that permeated the ‘50s—a spirit of which the early
‘60s (moon landing, etc.) constituted, in many ways, the payoff. It
wasn’t till the late ‘60s that the “Watch me, daddy!” finger-painters
started clamoring for their right to be taken seriously whether
they’d done anything, endured anything, conceptualized anything worth
doing, enduring or conceptualizing. I must say, though, that I like
Jeff Spenser’s phrase “mytho-dilletantism.” I think in the case of
those who actually claim to believe in gods and goddesses—versus
donning them, as you seem to have, as an accessory to Jungian
psychologizing—it most often starts out as the merest affectation
of polytheism, a means of getting noticed or layed or something, then
hardens into something else when, inevitably (and quite properly),
people start giggling over what they now profess to believe. Of
course, there are probably those who are addle-brained enough to hear
talk of god, demigods and woodland sprights and think, “Well golly,
sure, that makes sense!”
I do believe the neocons were sincere when they said the U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes and their brutality had been a factor in our unpopularity, therefore we should make every effort to install and support more democratic and humane governments. And I do think Junior is a moral creature, whereas Senior is an outright reptile. But U.S. power is always used in that narrow window allowed by the consent of its people, who are at core isolationist. That leaves the military with less time and resources than it really takes to do the job humanely. Eventually the American people tire of the effort and the easiest thing to do is install a brutal puppet govt. It’s happened time and again and I don’t know why I ever believed the neocons could make it happen any differently.
On Jul 27, 2004, at 11:39 AM, Jeffrey Herbert Spencer wrote:
Read Amazon reviews. Doubt this item surpasses FRONTLINE doc
on Panama which was free of polemics and , for that reason, as hard
hitting as a cruise missile. No doubt there was something rotten in
Denmark re Panama, but I doubt, as one reviewer put it, it all comes
down to money. Noriega was a potential embarrassment to Mr CIA,
Bush Sr. I heard a strange story from the father of an Air Force man
about planeloads of cocaine being moved from Panama to secret
locations on U.S. Air Force bases. Of course, the biggest travesty of
Panama was the number of hapless Panamanians slaughtered due
to the use of the AC-130 gunships on Panama City. And, as we all
know, the dastardly attempt to hide the carnage by bulldozing the
bodies into secret graves. I am convinced Bush Sr is a rat without
doubt. Not at all certain Jr is. Blundering doesn’t let you off the hook,
but it is not malice and callousness.
On Jul 27, 2004, at 1:38 AM, John Dentino wrote:
Just saw it. Now here is a real documentary. It’s about the Panama invasion.
That Bush Sr. is a real piece of work. I urge you to order it from amazon.com.
There are some very disturbing patterns similar to Iraq.
john,
i just wanted to let you know that you are welcome to fill my email inbox
with all of the “liberal paranoia” you want to. in these times, it is my
humble opinion that we need to maintain our reason, compassion, and sense
of shared humanity with the rest of the world, and not lapse into
simple-minded canarads about good and evil, or being “with us or agin us,”
and we most certainly should not fall into that catastrophic 20th century
moral failure of “just following orders,” ie, (blindly) supporting our
leaders in such times. ah, if only we had leaders of the stature and moral
capacity worthy of being followed! we are americans, not “good germans.”
warmest regards,
marc
BUSH MAKES THE CALL
**Exclusive**
President Bush on Wednesday night was to make the ultimate call whether
to strike and invade Iraq with military force, the DRUDGE REPORT has
learned.
A top White House source offered few details, but did reveal the
president would make a “defining decision” by morning.
The news comes just hours after Bush discussed top secret battle plans
at the White House with his national security team and Army Gen. Tommy
Franks, the man who would lead American forces in Iraq.
"The sleep of reason
brings forth monsters."
Info
Join the S+C
Mailing List
Recently
Monthly Archives
Categories
RSS | 
Atom |
Login | Register | Forgot Password