Choose Your Own Adventure

Sitting on my porch having a beer and talking about God with my nieghbor, he says, "I've told you this before, I think life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You Fuck up, turn the page and go to hell. But it's more like: your faced with a decision and even if you make the wrong one you try to hold on and make it a few more pages. Maybe God will send you back to an earlier page to start a new adventure."

Fatherhood

What reason can be given for ordering a large pizza, garlic bread sticks, and two sodas at eleven o'clock at night and after handing the pizza boy a twenty dollar bill, devouring the whole lot in less than three minutes?

I have a son. Have I mentioned that before? His name is Frodo and he is about a month old. He is a cat. How envious I am of his body. You can bend his spine like an acordian then launch him across the room. He'll spring up, prancing back for more.

I went and got a hair cut a few days ago at a beauty salon. A young woman cut my hair. She was very stylish. She asked me what I did. I said that I was on the greens crew at the golf club. For the last five years I have answered that question like this: I am a student. Most people find that interesting. I would see this look come over them as they imagined their life as a student--wondering how their lives would have turned out if they had gone to college. Instead of working ten hours a day at the salon maybe they would have been a lawyer, like Ally McBeal. Day dreams about wearing power mini-skirts to court and having sex with boy toys. That look always made me a little bit sad.

I'm sick of people asking what other people do.

And what do you do?

I sit in my kitchen and whistle the entire Braveheart sound track. I pretend that the trees at the golf course are Ents. I shake my foot at a wicked pace when my legs are crossed. I am a creature of routine. I wish I had more faith.

My parent's grandson is sleeping on my shoulders and my stomach is kneading seven pieces of pizza in acidic juices.

Gardens

I visited the faculty art show at the Western Gallery this weekend. Having spent countless thousands of greenbacks studying under these guys and in then dropping out discouraged and disenchanted by their philosophies, I came to the show with a tinge of bitterness in my heart.

The gallery walls were filled with undecipherable pieces of political, abstract, and experimental pieces. Oh what a stagnant philosophy, unconscious expressionism. Walking home, we passed some of the sculptures on campus which for the most part are masturbatory pieces made out of steal I-beams by egomaniacs.

I also noticed the unkempt state of the grounds. I applied for a job on the grounds crew a few months ago but didn’t even get an interview. The gardens were overgrown and weeds were sprouting and thriving there. The sloppy sculptures and “organic” gardens reflect the laziness rampant in the institution itself.

If I would have gotten that interview I would have told the men sitting in the shadows at the outer edge of the conference table my vision to revitalize the school. Detail would be a priority. Hard edges separating short grass from unblemished black soiled flowerbeds. Hanging gardens. Fruit trees. Ivory towers looking over the bay. I’d rip out the steam sculpture and replace it with Self-Made Man. I wouldn’t allow thistles to creep into the beds but rather strive for Eden.

The shadowy men would laugh. A nice vision, they’d say, but we take long coffee breaks mid morning and afternoon. We talk about beer and sex and watch the wild things grow.

When we got home, Jessi showed me an online gallery that made me feel so much better. Please, look at it and read this blurb at the bottom of the page by Bryon Larson. These artist, a lot of them inspired by the works of Ayn Rand, believe as I do, that man is an awesome creature capable of beautiful and ingenious feats. We have free agency. We are not withering reeds blown this way and that by gusts of psychic wind and oppressive men. We are all gardeners with a utility belt filled with magic beans and hoes forged out of blazing hot fires.

This is a Joke, Right?

Driving home after an early shift at the golf course, a crew of elfs shoveled my days wage, a short stack of one dollar bills, into the coal fires of my gas tank. A chime and jingle blended with song marked the top of the hour on National Public Radio. A woman's voice welcomed the ears of listeners who, like me, didn't have the fortune of being unconscious (or consciously dream, depending on your perspective) on this gray Saturday morning. Her voice rang with excitement her vocal cords warmed and lubricated by fruit mocha. "Good morning. Today is May 20th 2006. Scientist now believe that humans may have diverged from the apes two million years later than previously thought. Breeding between the two species is still thought to have been common before the two species split for good about five-point-four million years ago. And in Iraq, delegates..."

She said that with such joy. I nearly swerved into on-coming traffic, distracted by the flexing of those deep tissues in my brain. Straying backwards through the ages, I saw man and his computers, his factories, his plows; I saw kings and priests bent over scrolls with feather pens in their hand and candle light flickering off their searching faces; I saw fire and water and wind lapping at the earth, shaping it. I traveled down through the ages of the world--six million years--and I saw there a caveman fucking an ape. Then at the speed of thought, I traveled forward again through history, back to my station wagon and the hot coffee spilled in my lap.

I would expect such a revelation about human origins to come from a voice from heaven in the midst of a terrible thunder cloud sizzling at the edges with flaming plasma, not glazed over by a mortal anchor woman. When the question of Man's being, a topic that has given philosphers trouble for thousands and thousands of years is announced on morning radio with such casualness, beware!

Man was created full of magic and spirit. People drive around in cars filling themselves with things and thoughts that make them forget this. It seems they get all to excited when the media confirms their suspicions: they're already dead.

What Would Beethoven do?

Here is a good reason not to send your child to college.

NPR

I'm in the car with my brother. We're driving to the ball field to watch a game. The sun is going down and the oil stained pavement is releasing the day's captured heat. We're sunburned. He's wearing Carhart work pants and I'm in flimsy athletic shorts and a Nintendo T-shirt. I point out an androgynous guy prancing down the sidewalk in tight black jeans. My brother says, "Dude. You think that's bad? You should have seen this guy I saw today. He was one of those Emo guys who's listened to NPR since birth."

Pixels

I love going on dates with myself. Especially on long walks downtown at dusk when young people are standing in doorways drinking beers out of plastic cans, smoking cigarettes, talking about music and poverty.

I took myself to see a movie at the mall tonight before my walk. Lucky Number Sleven. The movie received good reviews because it had an unexpected ending. I’d haven’t given it good reviews at all. In fact, I don’t. It isn’t the cheap fooleries of art but the familiarities that rapture people.

Hollywood is dieing.

The mall is dead. A carcass in which flies and worms and other bugs (Verizon, Clearwire, Sprint) are laying eggs in the rotting flesh. When everyone has picture phones people will walk with their fingers through pictures of the mall wasting money on ring-tones and emoticons: creating identities out of sound and mega pixels instead of denim and jewelry.

After the movie I walked outside, happy to see a full moon climbing in the sky. I walked downtown which was alive for a Wednesday night. This jolly kid pumped his fist in my face shouting something about Irish pride. He slapped me on the back and told me a long tale about the newly open Hawiian restaruant. All the while Bob Marly was blasting from the speakers pointed out towards the street.

The Fifth of May

WOO HOO! I’m drinkin Corona and gettin drunk! Uno mas Cervesesa por favor!

I’m deathly ill of party holidays. I’m not a partier. I just want to wear knickers and play golf. Maybe sword fight with the geeks in the park.

When will we toast something other than the day of the month or our belligerent youthful tendencies. Where are the generals and the men of honor? Why must I drive by college kids drinking keg beer in their front yard wearing sombreros and wife beater tank tops? And aviator sun glasses.

I need a holiday to Perelandra.