2/20/22

Funked, God, Journalism, The Cosmic Egg & The Fat man

 




You, he said, are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world,

and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.


                                                                        Emilie Autumn


Unemphatically— I don't believe in God. As for Prayers they loiter in your mind because there's no Superman in the clouds hanging on your words

The practice of Atheism centers on free-thinking, the average person couldn't be bothered with free-thinking, preferring to watch TV or play Canasta.    


If you’re looking for the truth ask a journalist. On the internet, the news is in your face 24/7. People are concerned about the news and believe it— when Walter Cronkite said it, it was law.


Like most, I'm a sucker for the news, world news mostly. I like world leaders you aren’t supposed to like— Yassar Arafat, Castro, Hugo Chávez, Gaddafi, all were first-class clowns.


Bad news sells and makes publishers rich and powerful. And saves their asses at times.


Take Rupert Murdoch, married to Jerry Hall, she didn't marry him because he was a stud. Nobody named Rupert could be a stud. 


Or the Wag the Dog Syndrome— writing stories, lies, to divert attention from bad-boy rich and famous caught fucking around on their wives.


Reporters can’t write freely because they are shackled to the Journalistic Code. Shit like, 


We’ll do our best to avoid error and methodological criticism of the law. 


There’s no room for bias in our profession. 


We will avoid aspects damaging to the very core of journalism.


The Journalistic fairy tales.


Big city newspapers aren't art. But, some journalists are artists, to name a few— Hunter S. Thompson, PJ O'Rouke, or Bukowski who was the most unjournalistic journalist in history, constantly at odds with the editors of the LA Free Press.


Last night I dreamt the cosmic egg shattered, something akin to the Second Coming— more fun though.


A recalcitrant God, Bocephus, finds the key and opens the gateway of universal consciousness. 


Pervading particles travel to earth on raindrops and a psychic event occurs, equipping the average Joe with Martian powers. Shit like shapeshift, telepathy, invisibility, Martian vision, and super strength.


National boundaries are impossible to maintain, people travel astrally. 


Crime and money disappear.


Computers and the World Wide Web become obsolete.


Drugs and alcohol are no longer needed, folks can't get any higher.


People have fun being invisible, they spy on people they hate and spread nasty rumors. Some become peeping toms.


Everything needed to be known is known, so schools close.


Cars, planes, and boats become a thing of the past with the advent of astral travel.


Traditional energy sources, fossil fuels, and electricity are no longer needed.


Animals are thankfully spared, people gorge themselves on  Martian insects and truffles.


Overall the cracking of the cosmic egg is a real hoot, a welcome break from the past.


I’m Free Writing these days. 


Most writers use Free Writing to loosen their chops, like an athlete warming up, until they feel ready to write. 


Free Writing is conceptual for me.


Keith Richards said something like this about playing live in front of thousands of people. 


there’s a point in the show when the music takes on a life of its own, we play unconsciously. 


When I Free Write, I let the story find its own way.


Sometimes I  finish a nine or ten-page story, in four or five hours, sometimes it takes weeks. 


On the homefront, I’ve hit bottom— depressed for months. 


Catholics believe suicide is a mortal sin, but it’s a way out for those who direly need it. 


I don’t have the balls to commit suicide— it’s irrevocable, you might miss out on something down the road.


Psychic pain is cold-blooded, it’s a perfect storm of every form and dimension of bad shit loitering in your mind and body. 


When I'm funked primal instincts kick in— I'm paralyzed, lying in bed for days, the black-hearted funk is my low-down roommate.


Writing when you're funked is medicine though, it works instantly, unlike anti-depressants.


Maybe I'll wake up and find the funk was a nightmare.


I see people, people who don’t have money problems, living quasi-normal lives, famous people or friends, and I feel a disconnect. 


Looking at them, at a distance, they’re the lucky ones. Then it hits you— there are no lucky ones. The shit is gonna hit them too.


I’m writing on empty— wondering if this business is readable. 


I lost a bit I wrote, The Fat Man. It was here, on this page and it vanished. I think there’s a Pack Rat living in my hard drive. Here’s The Fat Man bit.


I was in Jake’s at the bar, the best rib joint in Key West. 


A fat man walks in and Jake seats him in a booth, realizing he won't fit on a chair or barstool.


The fat man is the fattest person I have ever seen. He is dressed well and has whopping great hands. The size of a large finger of bananas. As the fat man sips water he looks over the menu intently.


People in Jakes eyeball the fat man, making snide remarks to one another.


The writer in me is curious about the fat man. I go to his table and ask, 


may I join you, friend? 


Sure fella, my name's Gordo, what's yours? 


I'm Henry.


Gordo has a strange way of speaking, breathing heavily when he speaks like his body fat is pushing against his lungs.


When the waiter shows the fat man says without looking up from the menu, 


Let’s begin with a Greek Salad, and then a bowl of soup with some extra bread and butter. Two racks of ribs, and a bowl of scalloped potatoes. 


I order a Rueben sandwich with Coleslaw.


The fat man says to me, 


Believe me, Henry, I don’t eat like this all the time. I say, 


I like to see a man that eats and enjoys himself Gordo. Then the fat man says indignantly,


Do you know what it’s like being a fat man, friend? 


The waiter places another basket of bread and butter on the table. Then Gordo says,


Fat man is written on people's faces when they look at you. We are freaks, oddities. Our bodies become deformed, our feet turn outwards when we walk, it takes great effort to walk. We have trouble finding clothes and shoes that fit. We sweet in the winter, and summer is hell for us.


We, fat men, live in a world of our own, it's impossible for others to imagine.


As I finish my sandwich, Gordo is chewing on his second rack of ribs, he orders another bowl of scalloped potatoes and asked for the dessert menu. I ask him, 


Gordo may I speak frankly? 


Yes, Henry, you seem like a good fellow.


Why have you chosen the path of obesity? 


We fat men call it fat logic, we see the world as terribly false. So we eat to forget it.


2/11/22

The Truth isn't Important to Me





I regularly download eBooks from the Internet Archive. 


In dictionary speak— IA’s a nonprofit digital library, preserving and providing access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. 


I've found writers I love, Cheever, Parker, Carver.


I’ve been reading The Andy Warhol Diaries—nobody could name-drop like Andy.


Andy was as tight as a tick, throughout the book he documents expenses in parentheses—


In the morning I rushed to Dr. Li (cab $4).


Went to a place with pinball machines and played them for a while ($10)


Got up, packed, (cab to the airport $20, tip to package guy, magazines $8)


He valued money.


I’ve written the oddest stories, the worst of the worst, shit— Chelsea Girls, 15 Minutes, and this, The Brewing Junk-Factor, a few paragraphs. 


He scratches himself, paralysed in bed, smoking a Chesterfield King, trying to tune his Grundig radio, scanning the dial for Chicago  scribbling junk-ie poems on a cutting board, writing this,


                         Andy Warhol, the Brewing Junk-Factor. 


Everybody will have fifteen minutes of fame.

The fame inflamed stand for blocks on 231 East 47th Street, it's

snowing, they're lined up like soldiers, hungry, loaded on LSD, and hot saki.


The Gothic crowd's electrified, dancing slowly, close, body to body, leather to leather, grinding it out in the FActory.

On June 1 of this year publishers— Hachette, Penguin Random House, Wiley, and Harper Collins sued Internet Archive for copyright violations— they want their money to boot suing Internet Archives for copyright infringement. 

Well-heeled, cry baby authors— Malcolm Gladwell, John Grisham, Elizabeth Gilbert, Douglas Preston, and Neil Gaiman (you see him on Facebook peddling his bogus writing courses), issued a joint statement claiming, 


the wholesale scanning and posting of copyrighted books without the consent of authors, and without paying a dime, is piracy.


Oh goodness, the priggish Internet Archive, Blackbeard of the eBook world— a national emergency library founded so school kids good get books when libraries were closed because of Covid.


As you would expect the ogres of the publishing world and the sniveling authors won. 


I will miss IA. I lost boxes of books, moving from Milwaukee to Hawaii, and finally Asia.

Anyway, pledging,


I will never rent or buy another book or eBook from the publishing companies who gunned downed IA for a few shekels, and ego.

Why is it that people are dicks when it comes to money? 


Jesus's,  R A D I C ALism appeals to me, His view on commerce was,


beware, guard against every kind of greed. 

Two hundred years ago an anonymous Sioux Elder said,


Life isn't measured by how much you own. 


He meant that physic experience is more important than money.


Here's a cute bit written by an anonymous kid, 


if we were less greedy the world would be less needy. 


And the last anonymous Sioux Elder says,

God gave the Ska-man enough, and yet he wants all. Such are the pale faces.


Breathe outwards rhythmically, do the same inwards.


I don’t hate the rich, they own a peculiar genius and work ethic. 


What we see today, rampant hustling for pesos isn't new. 

                                  A Brief History of Hustle


Silk Roads 1st century BC to 5th Century AD


luxury products from China started to appear on the outer edge of the European continent in Rome, 


besides silk, the Ancient Chinese bring firecrackers, Peking Duck, straw thumb cuffs, and chopsticks.


Spice Routes 7th to 15th Centuries AD


Sephardic Jews in flocks traveling west selling carpets, humous, and what was it? Fenugreek.     


Age of Discovery 18th Century


Truly global trade kicked off and somebody discovered America, it’s irrelevant.


Globalization 19th Century to 1914


The Brits invented the steam engine, resulting in the Industrial Revolution, a wretched time for factory workers during the heyday of imperialism and, a hoot for the Brit aristocracy who was on top for a while.


The World Wars— I and II


massive destruction and millions of deaths drove hustling underground for most.


Second and Third Wave of Globalization


forget it, nothing important here.


The end of World War II 


ushers in a new era of hustle, nylon’s invented and plastic becomes the spurious material of choice. 


Globalization Four 


Where we are now, the computer age, the

 internet, the world wide web, where porn is king.


Life intrudes from time to time, things change. It's a crapshoot hanging on luck, it's everywhere at once and nowhere, it resists you mostly.


Nobody here is indispensable and anyone can be replaced. The earth spins with or without you.


If a famous interviewer, say, a Studs Terkel or a Benjamin Fong-Torres asked Henry about his work he'd say,


I write for art’s sake, truth isn't important to me.