UP YOURS

by
ROBERTO ROMEI ROTONDO

www.robertorotondo.com

 

2016

up your killer suzuki tomatoes

So now Suzuki (politique de gauche, voiture de droite), not content on making millions off his witches’ and warlocks’ donations, has got in to high-rise-farming (no doubt he’ll keep the roof-top free for his gas guzzling chopper).

Ever wonder what his ‘greens’ will taste like? As insipid as his 'greenie' counterparts?

Personally, I prefer my Chianti grown in soil, sprinkled by the rains, shaded by cloud, and sun-kissed gradually from dawn to dusk. But taste and potential health detriment aside, farmers around the world are finding it hard enough competing with un-fairly traded cheap inferior imports without addtional competition from Suzuki’s genetically engineered, all of a kind (hence beautiful? since when is homogeneity beautiful?) tasteless inexpensive tomatoes. Is that environmental? About as environmental as killing the seal hunt thereby forcing Newfies to abandon their homes and head west, and see their beloved ancestral Grand Banks transformed into sea-rigged oil revenue gushers. Is that environmental?

I see the day when ‘real’ tomatoes will be as expensive as the finest wines. And again it will be the wealthy who’ll demand and afford the BEST, who’ll keep the peasant in business, as they now do the vintner and the tailor.

The aristocracy keeping tradition alive? What would les Revolutionistes, the Robespierres and Dantons say to this, I wonder? That it has gone too far? That it was not in their plans?

Vive la tradition! Okay. But does that then mean Vive les riches? Certainly seems like it, if Suzuki has his way!

Be that as it may what is certain is should Suzuki have it his way both you and I will be eating SUZUKIAN GARBAGE soon . . . And more than just his words; his food as well. Is this environmental?

Which tomatoes, I wonder will Suzuki put in his salad?

There ain't a fucking thing that narrow-visioned prick does that I like.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your hi-jacked dreaming

The Greek god of dreams was Morpheus (from the Greek morphe, meaning form, hence Morpheus as the maker of forms).
Has there ever been a time when mankind was more bombarded by IN-FORMATION than today?
Are we therefore more dreamy today than in the days of Arcady?

Perhaps, though today the source of our dreams is for the most part externally conditioned and superficial (and, which is not quite the same despite the analogy, superficially imposed). The Greek notion of form was akin to Plato’s eidos, which is to say, intellectual form, and not pattern, and the ensuing modern day extension of form into the term IN-FORMATION, which, as the term literally suggests is a kind of templating of man and, by consequence, society as a whole.

In olden days dreams were the blending of sensual experience with transcendental possibility (imagination), and as such, the "stuff dreams are made of" was then the gift of the muses, not the crafty lure of lucre and lust.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your shameless media bias

So maybe Trump groped a few dozen dames in the course of his life.
What to say except that guys will sometimes give it a go if they feel they have a chance.

Evidently the Donald always had a good read on the field as not a single one of the “offended” madames went after him legally at the time of their alleged “assault.”
In fact they all seemed to have allowed him to pursue his advances
for minutes on end -- some in the public domain no less -- without so much as a grumble!
And now, decades later, they emerge from their obscurity weeping head in hand and we are somehow supposed to not only feel sorry but believe them to boot?

This is the opposite of political correctness.
This is defamatory exaggeration.
A good spanking would serve well these fame-seeking, gold-digging opportunists. (And yes, let's bring back the bitch word).

And shame on CNN for airing the garbage ad nauseam 24/7. They are not a journalistic institution but a propaganda machine

 

up your forgiveness

Hardly a month goes by without someone coming on TV weeping for the loss of her dear one who then proceeds to say that despite the hurt she forgives the conscienceless bastard responsible for the senseless killing of her daughter.

And if it sickens you to hear this kind of sanctimonious magnanimity it’s because it goes counter to every human instinct.

Forgiveness is at the core of Christian teaching, but for a mother to willy nilly forgive a killer, immediately after the loss of her child -- without the creep responsible for the butchery showing any sign of contrition and never even asking to be forgiven -- is incomprehensible and repugnant, if not outright inhuman.

If the lady needs approbatory attention she shouldn’t be using her child’s death to flaunt her moral loftiness.

I wonder if her daughter from way up high in her eternal abode has forgiven the demonic freak.

I doubt Christ has.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your pure reason

While judgments shouldn’t ultimately rest on mere intuition, the intelligence of instinct should not be under-valued either. There are in fact situations where we have nothing but instinct to go by.

The bear fattens up in late autumn, relaxes instinctively into hibernation for the frigid, winter months, and weak, slim and hungry, but alive, happily awakens to the warmth of spring.

The swallow travels oceans away to seek the sun and always finds it.

The squirrel gathers and buries his nuts which will see him through till the thaw.

And man has since the beginning of time looked up to the heavens wandering in wonder . . . ...or he was not man.

Of course the ultimate act of trust is the blow-job, but this is totally irrelevant.

Or is it?

 

up your ape

He tore the coconut apart from outer shell to pulp with mere incisors
and the brute strength of jaw.

The deep dark eye.
The garden of black curl.
Muscle and brawn.
Swift energy.
Merriment and rage.

He tore the fruit but little else engaged his impulse.
Peacefully retained.

A sudden unfamiliar rustle.
The peering stare, the stillness and a growl.
The wind no doubt.

Curiosity appeased, the gorilla tore another coconut apart,
then scratched and yawned and lying on his back looked up,
perhaps in thought, though more than likely not.

Unperturbed, the little ones pulled frantically at the her toes.
A mum no doubt.

up your script-sclerosis

Politicians should be pressured if not outright enforced to
say their thing unscripted, off the cuff. A few side notes are OK, but certainly no teleprompters.

As is, the whole thing’s little more than a reading-ability test.
That Trump, the most straightforward, candid politician America
has seen in decades, should have been FORCED to read from a prompter says much about America’s obsession with appearances.

Despite the sanctimonious veneer America shuns sincerity; will find a word poorly chosen, a slip of the tongue, however innocently , thoughtlessly or mistakenly uttered, more offensive than outright lies; and the media will seek out and exploit every flawed utterance and ride the airways with it for days on end at the expense of substance.

“Whited sepulchres” indeed! The lot of them hypocrites should be whipped off their bloody stage.

All but one. Donald J. Trump.

Like him or hate him, we here have a guy who speaks plainly, tells it spontaneously and as he sees it, until he too is suddenly diminished to talking-head status, delegated to reading from a screen instead of speaking from the heart. No flubs permitted. Nothing but scripted perfection will be tolerated from a system and national mind-set bent on the semblance of propriety.

If democracy thrives on the promulgation of appearance as the ultimate reality,
then nowhere is the political fantasy, the democracy, more vibrant than in the United States of America.

The only consolation is that old habits die hard.

Should the Donald carry the day we can find comfort in knowing he’ll be telling all deserving of it to go fuck themselves all over again, and go about straightening up the mess we’re in as he sees fit.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

up your labrador

This road goes on forever dude. If this is the promised land God’s a joker. Chill out. You’ve got all your priorities mixed up. Who said anything about paradise. It’s the Big Land. It’s alive. It’s the four elements in their purest form. It’s a hundred million beasts smelling and looking at you out of everywhere, unseen and silent. Unobtrusive beasts, when you come down and think of it. We’re the ones making all the noise. We’re the beasts. The animals? They got manners. Little finesse, but savoir faire. They are euphorically at one with this land of openness and hiddeness. It’s the north dude. And the blood doesn’t flow any thicker and hotter anywhere else on the planet.

We’re not dead. We’re in Labrador. Spruce and lakes and moose and pine and rivers and falls and bug spray, as vital as the oxygen we breathe.

Yeah but it never ends. The Lord must have had a creative block when he conceived this land. It just never ends. It would be the eternal recurrence of the same, if not for the occasional jaw dropping moment of absolute magnificence.

Creative block you say, eh? It’s cause your mind is limited. You think small. The Lord thinks infinitely. Does the evening sky bore you in its vastness? Look, there, Andromeda, and Venus, and all the dippers you could possibly imagine, stars as far as the horizon. Big Land, Big Sky, and very fucking cold, and the 257 car train carrying the iron ore into the midnight sundown, and no one within miles to see and smell it but the moose, the partridge, weasel, and bear, and us, in our vehicle heading somewhere hypnotically far.

And water, water, everywhere, and every drop to drink. The force and nutrient of the nation, pumping its vital fluid along an endless labyrinth of rivers, roaring swiftly along, like monstrous aortas towards the damn, the turbine, the force keeping folks as far down as Texas alight, hot and cool and ever in a glitter.

And the road, all to ourselves? Give it time dude. Look, there’s a pickup truck . Enjoy fishing and hunting and ski-dooing, and driving ? You’ve come to the right place. And salmon, trout crab and Big Macs, Hersheys, and coke, too, of both kinds. The Inuit hunt the beast but love the junk, of both kinds. Yeah, and a whiff of Off-Spray for fragrance.

Cut the sarcastic cynicism. Expand your mind dude.

Look. There’s Big Mel, he runs the union and hangs out at the pub and has got a kind heart. Imagine a guy calling up his wife after you’ve told him the local fishmonger ran out of smoked char and she shows up minutes later with a big vacuum-packed fish in her hands. What’s the odds of that happening anywheres else, eh?

They got hearts of gold the Inuit do. Métis? Are they really? Don’t matter. The Inuit takes over. The wild always reigns over civilization. The throwback comes through when you least expect it. That’s another reason they call it the Big Land, cause the natives got big hearts that’s why.

But they’re no fools. They spend summers in road side shit hole shacks to qualify for on the land benefits but drive 80-grand pick up trucks and live in half a mil bungalows in the winter. Conquest my eye. They won the lottery when Columbus and Caboto sailed their way. Yeah, many a wrong got done but I’d say they seem to be doing pretty good now -- by my estimation anyway, for what it’s worth, soberly speaking, as it were.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your open bord-errors

If the EU experiment is falling apart it is because it was never conducted in concert with the will of the people, or, which is the same, with common sense, with human nature.

It just so happens Britain was the first to leave, but no great enthusiasm for the European venture existed in other nations either.

Stubborn headed, mostly unelected, EU architects, one world dreamers and bureaucrats, have since decades forced their personal ideological illusions onto Europeans, totally ignoring the peoples’ plea for restraint.

When all nations' borders were torn down the house of cards was bound to crumble .

You can only force doors open for so long before the dwellers retaliate, demanding the privacy they deserve.

 

up your 'think you got issues? and worst of it it all makes perfect sense to me

The deed had been completed but I’d not received legal papers on account of the notary’s secretary having resigned that very day. And so I found myself, deedless, intestate and confused on the football pitch holding on to a red plastic ball which I presented to the ref hoping it would meet FIFA standards. But I got kicked out of the stadium instead and was now out of a job to boot.

At a loss for better alternatives I hopped a cab and made for the north end of town where the sharpest mobsters hung out. A classy looking guy dressed in sparkly whites handed me an envelope full of money. I want you to be my new used car salesman, the last guy drove me nuts and got fired, know what I mean?

All this of course made no sense to me so I ran fast as I could, left the pitch and fly-jumped onto the outdoor suspended chess board immediately adjacent to the “Spectaculars,” a local pub frequented by Vietnam draft dodger lunatics on the lam.

A double Havana straight up please, I asked the barman. Don’t say that, he said. I am not your mate. Just hand over the certificate. Allright, no need to shout, I replied. No need to shout? He rebutted Did I just hear you say no need to shout ? Can't you make a leap of logic you fucking dim wit. I’ll bet you haven’t even checked your e-mail? No, matter of fact I haven’t. why should I have? I put in. Has it ever occurred to you you’ll need to provide the PW in order to open the file. Which password I asked. The Afghan’s minister of defence son’s name, who else. Ah, hopeless, said the guy, shrugged me off and left the joint.

It was a long assessment. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Too much medical and all written in pig-French. To hell with it. Besides, I wasn't feeling ill. So I chucked the papers out and tuned in to the sound of the falling rain instead. It was then the thought crossed my mind of wearing my cock-crested family emblem hat at my father’s ceremony leading to the town’s cathedral.

Wrong thought. It was the thought which broke the camel’s back. Imagine me parading up the boulevard looking like Chef Boyardee. No fucking way, I mumbled, and skipped town.

And so here I am, a long ways from home, deedless, destitute, intestate and exiled all because I couldn’t quite get the gist of the secretary’s letter, who happened to quit her job cause she couldn’t stand hearing me ask her mob boss questions about her chess champ boyfriend’s whereabouts on the very same night when the football champions league finals were held and the underdogs won, which is of course how I got sent asking questions, inquiring into the possibility of foul play about the mob-driver having gotten sacked or fired or both in the first place. Anyway, I knew they couldn’t pin this one on me and if nothing else it was comforting. Hadn't the Afghani ref rejected my red ball? And if fly-jumping ain't an alibi I don’t know what is. ^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your fragrant butt

Fart-busters: don’t leave home without them.
Comfortable, unobtrusive, easy to insert, and they come in all colours and sizes.
Will transform any accidental barn burner into the air tulip of your choice.
Will muffle all anal-audio to virtual silence.
No more embarrassing Yoga classes.
Try our Paco-Raban special of the week. Why waste the cologne when you
can harness and learn to back-draft it on cue. That’s right folks, on cue.
Purchase our six fragrances FB package and we’ll give you Dr. Bomber’s latest book, Fart Control Technique on Release, for free. Purchase within the next 15 minutes and we’ll throw an FB Cleaner Brush and disinfectant into the bargain.
Fart Busters: So gratifying to the senses you’ll want to give these life changing suppository filters to your family, colleagues and friends.
So why wait, call now.
(warning: consult a doctor should you experience rim-rash, anal throbbing and irritation, redness and tenderness, puss discharge, constipation, itching, anal fissures or warts). ^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your clockwork orange

Science has taken most of the poetry out of car racing (out of just about everything, including science itself actually).
In the old days drivers were welcomed at the pit stop with a warm espresso and a smoke. They’d get out of their cars and stretch their legs for a few moments, have a sip and a puff before hitting the road again. They did their own shifting and tire evaluation assessing. No automation, no pit-driver-radio messaging, no electronic rear-brake control systems, nothing of the sort.

True, they didn’t go as fast as today either, but when they missed a curve they paid the ultimate price.
Nowadays the car takes all the impact, the driver walks off unscathed, makes the front page of the sport mags -- not the obituary column -- and collects his millions. Sort of like a matador fighting a cow nodding rubber horns. All flash and skill but minimal risk. The method is applauded, not the daring.

Science is about keeping it efficient and clean. Don’t want to shake up the plebs. We leave the killing for the bad, whoever they may be, and we do it from a distance and the victims are mere numbers. Blood? The day will soon come when blood will be as illusive as the heavens.

Only stars most city kids get to see nowadays is watching the Discovery channel. It’s all fantasy footage and the kids know it, but who cares if it’s fun watching, eh! So why should it be any different when it comes to sports. Why should the danger factor be real if the illusion is surreal? Besides, it was a hell of a lot more dangerous flying around the globe back in the ‘old days,’ too, let alone circumnavigating the oceans à la Magellan.

So no, I don’t mean to dismiss science. We’d be lost without it, as we and the science of the day are one, as it’s always been, regardless our understanding of ‘her’ ways. Do we understand the ways of the lungs and the liver? None perfectly, few at all. But we’d be fucked without these organs regardless, wouldn’t we.

And so Vive La Science! I am not a luddite. Far from it. But couldn’t we keep some poetry at least in our pleasures, or will kids soon be carrying hormone-detector gadgets to grade the gals sex accessibility potential ratings so as to maximize their pick-up odds?

Don’t laugh, it’s coming folks. Technology is governing organics. Great for the blind, the cripple and the deaf. But not good for our pleasures, our fancies and our sports.

The day will come when soccer players will be wearing head phones, getting radio
coached from the sidelines, much in same way American football is now.
The fact that a F1 race is won or lost on millimetric precision, on millisecond
timing out of the pit attests to the diminishing worth of the pilot. The driver gets the trophy but the science wins the day.

And there’s no stopping the Borg! Yet guys like me continue bitching about it.
Guys like me who liked it better when it was worse.
Why?
Because we just did, that’s why.
And I don’t care for any smart ass scientific explanation for it either.

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your deep sleep

Like urban cocks.
Always the first to announce the dawn.
The last of the regulars wailing out loudly the last of their beer, some into barf, some into the fresh of morning.

Kiefer pushes his sycophantic head hard against
my armpit and sniffs and meows.

He wants me out of bed.
He likes his food warmed up.

I shrug him off. He persists . . .

Insistence formed by immemorial routine
sometimes wins out,
and sometimes a whack to the rump
and he slips beneath the covers and waits.

Patience is a feline virtue.

Distinguishable sounds erupt abruptly out of the city dark.
Every movement is an echo. The shuffling of feet. A smoker’s cough.

A car door slams shut. An engine roars fast up the sooty boulevard fading to a murmuring hiss into the distance. She blurs out that he get a life. He cries out "you never even fucking loved me,” and another yarn gets woven in the bright.

A can gets kicked off the curb. A neighbour goes through his ablution rituals, clears his throat and spits.

The gulls screech past my window. A squirrel chitters .

The flush of a toilet. High heels tapping pavement.

And then again she flushes. Why couldn’t city planners, with all their fucking socialist nanny-state bi-laws enforce state of the art insulation in modern day living?

Ommmmm! I sigh the dawn.

Soon all vibes will blend into an indistinguishable noise.
And I’ll awaken.

To sleep past the dawn is to ignore the dizzying ways of first light into glow.

Shadows will dissolve feverishly until the ninth hour then slowly wane to a halt beneath the invariable veil of noon.

And soon the slow of evening comes.

 

up your high prayer

Yellow-green they hang and Mary drags her skirt across the quenching soil beneath the porch
where Joseph sits rocking and drinking and burping and farting and hissing and wishing he were the lass’s bicycle seat.

Autumn at last and the harvest.

Lavender dirt glaucous pregnant kernels in dozens to the bunch torn delicately off the vine and squished into must
where it lays and boils in oaken barrels fermenting into spirited juice.

Ah, the joys of living known best by satisfying the thirst, and most graciously bestowed upon the skinny harmlessly meandering drunks. ^{YOUR COMMENTS}

up your anonymity

All aiming is illusion.
The wise enjoy simplicity.
a shadow scent,
a breezy whisper or a nod.

Ambiguous was her glance. For me?
He wondered still, a life gone past.

Anonymously she dwelled.
They fight to name her still.

And what of them, the buccaneering Vikings?
Lodbrock
Hvitserk
Sigurd
Ivar?
Of them no man truly knows and so the legend grows.

A nobody you say you are?

Rejoice my simple soul.
You’ll be remembered still when all else goes.

 

up your alanus morissette

Just became aware that the song “Hurt” written by Trent Reznor, first released on Nine Inch Nails' 1994 album The Downward Spiral, received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Song in 1996, only to ultimately lose out to Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know."
Alanus who?

Well, so much for Awards, eh!
The consolation is that the market can only legislate taste to the innately ‘tasteless,’ i.e. the majority.

Good were the days of the elites, of the aristocracy, where kings and queens were advised by their knowledgeable at court (mostly underground punks no doubt) what to wear, listen to and read.

Nota bene: In 2002 "Hurt" was covered by country music star Johnny Cash to commercial and critical acclaim.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your french kiss

We’d only just met.
Her breath redolent of smoke and Chianti.

She looked wonderful in the dark.
Bony but proportioned.

She invited me to her place for a night cap.
Why not. I was flat broke and thirsty.

But when she removed her dentures I knew I was in for an odd one.

“It’ll feel like velvet, honey," she whispered in my ear, then launched a thigh off the couch, threw back her head alludingly, cat-walked to the turn table, bent over for an album, curving her back so affectedly you’d think she was engaging in some yoga pose.

The flaunt was unmistakable. A peacock in heat.

By now I’s thinking of an excuse out, but how?

And then it spun. And from the very first note all anxiety of kissing toothless gums vanished to nothingness.

. . . Beauty sleeps in time,

. . . Sound and fury play,

the sound Andromedian . . .

I’d never before heard anything like it.
I was drifting.

“Like it?” she lisped. “Won it at a scratch and win at work. We hold these every Fri . . . ”

Shhhhh!

I begged for her to hush up. I was away, to where music sometimes sends her own.

She sighed, she crawled, she moaned, she hissed, and caressed, all to no avail. The Highlands had the better of me.

“Okay, that’ll do,” she suddenly howled, sprang off the chesterfield, slipped her plastic snappers back in her mouth with the unabashed ease and normalcy of someone putting on their glasses, and, still yelling, urged that I get the fuck out . . . as of now, tu comprends!

Without hesitation, though I hadn’t quite planned it this way, I gulped down the last of the scotch, and happily hustled down the stairs, the witch still screaming her spleen off, the song still in my head.

A close one I thought to myself, enjoying the freshness of a cool thin Celtic autumn rain.

But she wasn’t done yet. And don’t forget this,” she screamed from her balcony and flung the disc at me, like it were a worthless frisbee.

Fortunately it fell intact.

Still have the original Sons and Fascination LP , and every time I spin it, though 35 years have past, I picture Joelle, she and I a Semi-Monde apart; a girl whose name I’d otherwise have long forgotten.

As for Simple Minds they remain, to this day, among my very best favourite bands ever.

 

up your Pope-ulism

In 1633 the Church forced Galileo to recant regarding his take on the way of the stars or suffer the consequences.

Today we have Pope Francis all in a whirl telling a reporter anyone who thinks his encounter with Bernie Sanders was politically motivated should seek the assistance of a psychiatrist. Just days before the New York primaries? What else are we supposed to think Francesco?

But this aside, for you, Your Holiness, to suggest psychiatry as a source of mental (spiritual??) healing is nothing short of ANATHEMA.

If there is any one discipline which more than any other has distanced humanity from the Transcendental it is psychiatry. A false science, the sophistry of which Dostoievski so majestically makes clear in the "Grand Inquisitor" from The Brothers Karamazov.

A slip of the tongue is a rare thing from a learned Jesuit. A recantation would be in order, Your Eminence.

Either that or we’ve just witnessed another Ecclesiastical compromise with the “Times.”

And the world wonders why Ratzinger stepped down?^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your cheers

Long time no see, what’s up, oh yeah, how nice, and how’s the wife? really?

Sorry to hear it. Oh, I see, I’d misunderstood, for sure, one of these days perhaps, why not, yes I’ll definitely mention it. Oh, their doing fine, you don’t say, straight A's, eh.

Wow, no, never been to Florida, yes I can imagine, oh yeah, I see, wonderful, okay, yes gotta be off as well, anyway nice talking to you, best of luck.

I love winter.

. . . and so on frigid cold days everyone’s so covered up and in such a rush to get to wherever it is their going that you very seldom recognize anyone in passing and if you should a quick nod and a smile will do, and you keep on your path skipping the artificial greeting cordialities and other niceties, which, let’s face it, most of us rather do without.

No, why would you you think that? I’m actually quite congenial.

I consider myself a social person.

I have a friend. I attend to his grave daily.

 

up your size

Big country, big business, big deal, big mac, big guy, big problem, big solution, get over big, big send off, big idea, big head, big plans, big cars, big city, think big, and yes, big time -- even this most elusive of metaphysical notions needs expansion.

America’s favourite adjective is BIG. We’re addicted to it. Big is our biggest aspiration.

When was the last time you heard a politician or socio-economic guru of any sort make a speech without alluding to growth (just another word for more and bigger).

Quantity at any cost, quality included, sadly. The truth is we cannot make planet Earth grow bigger. Our resources are limited as is our space. So what to do?

How could we consume less and enjoy the same as now and perhaps more without further pissing off our already quite irritable greenie friends? Well I suggest a radical mind-change.

How about THINK SMALL!

If we cannot augment the size of the Earth surely we could shrink down humans?

A world of well proportioned dwarfs is the only way to global salvation.

We’d never notice the difference as we’d all be shrinking proportionately anyway.

And since human intelligence is a constant, like the speed of light, neither increasing

nor diminishing regardless brain size, this is quite doable.

The advantages are humongous . . . really really big!

And (due to mathematical factorials which go beyond the scope of this writing) if we all eventually shrank by say half we’d be consuming tenfold less and more. None of this is far-fetched.

If the average height has increased by more than 10% over the last fifty years (without intentional human intervention, mind you), why not have it go the other way round. So all of you scientists out there "stop" wasting time and energy with theoretical bullshit and get practical.

Modify foods, graft our genes with pigmy DNA if you must, and artists cinematographers stylists and geeks, I urge you all to promote and celebrate shortness as the ultimate in aesthetics.

The Hobbit is our best hope to a better and healthier future.

Before long we’d be housing four times as many people per cubic foot of space, consuming ten times less of everything, driving smaller vehicles, smaller cruise ships, fewer traffic jams – sanitary departments won't be so much in the deep, and, come to think of it, even our space capsules would require less space and emission fuel . . . and on and on, the pros as limitless as our imagination.

So let's get on with it.

Think small.

Shrink down. ^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your billybuster

Bill was bossing a huge warehouse . . . i was working on a painting hanging up on one of its north walls. he looked the same old self but very much concerned with the logistics of the dark oak wooden crates being moved in and out of the joint. we ignored each other. i painted, he directed traffic. i’s curious as to the crates’ content but i thought it best to mind to my business and paint. occasionally Bill could be heard asking questions to what i assumed were his surrogates, questions somewhat political in nature, hypothetical questions regarding the consequences of outcome as opposed to the benefits thereof. “yes, it’ll fatten up the eastenders for a session but piss off the southlings. And guess who’se gonna pick up the slack.” Exactly, lord sanctimonious Himself. No that won’t do. Move those fucking crates and leave the thinking to me, he shouted out, his eyes suddenly assuming a fiercely glare, unsettling to say the least. He then moved towards one of the main pillars crossing the immense Prussian blue scarlet expanse above, and sat down resting his back against its greyish crusty flat, pulled a cigarette from his shiny silver holder out of his arse pocket instantly lit by a snow white black haired girl in tight leathers by blowing on it with pursed lips. The stench grew unbearable. What was he smoking? It smelt organic and rotten. It smelt like all the guts and mucus and snots and every living thing that oozes cringed and gasped for an unlikely whiff of oxygen. It smelt of death. I looked Bill’s way. Our eyes met. I felt extremely uncomfortable within the horrid surroundings but feared him not. I knew I held the upperhand and so did he. We stared his damnest stare at me. I sat looking back with the serenity of innocence. I would not yield. He got up, approached me, picked up some brushes threw them up in the air, but I would not react. I don’t like him, said his wench pointing her finger at me, at which time I told her to shut the fuck up. That this was between Bill and me. She vanished, I presume forever. Bill’s eyes were on fire, red like coals, but I didn’t fear him. He wasn’t completely possessed, not quite yet, not quite done for like the dead creatures inside the crates doomed for the farthest edge of the southerlies. He ran the joint which meant there was still a chance for an escape. Cut the hissing and sit, I told him. He raised his head towards the seemingly infinite darkness of ceiling above and shouted to the top of his lungs. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, his diction a mixture of syllable, spittle and dribble and cough. MAKA, MOKR, MOCKR , , , Did you say mocker? Mocker? I swear I never mocked you Bill, I was never derisive. The fire left his eyes, but not the madness. He looked at me grinding his teeth grabbing on to my jacket. Never mocked you Bill, I swear it, though I did believe you were delusional. Delusional? He yelled out. Is this a delusion to you. Yes I said. The whole thing is just a dream Bill. Step out. Let the devils be and they shall flee from you. He sighed and let go.

Upon awakening I looked at the canvas hanging on my bedroom wall.
It was white. Painted white. A keeper.

 

2015

up your Pope Francis

A religious institution is not a charity-based conglomerate.
Christ did not die to feed the flock but to strengthen and invigorate its Spirit with hope.
“Man does not live by bread alone.”
The Promised Land is an ideological place -- not a soup kitchen.
Does the Catholic Church practice charity?
Most probably more so than any other institution on Earth. But this is not her primary mission.
And so I have no problem with Francis preaching unity, brotherhood and love.
But he goes too far. He compromises principle. And so, for instance, when asked what he thought of the Hebdo massacre he cavalierly answered, raising his fist: horrible, BUT, if someone spat on a photo of my mother I might punch him in the nose as well.
A foolish response and, quite frankly, in the immediate aftermath of the senseless killings, quite
insensitive and offensive to the victims.
There is no justification to horror. Never. Categorically none.
Christ never sucked up to anyone, not even the clerics in the temple; and he got nailed for it.
Francis? A goody-goody two shoes opportunist.
And don't the world love him!

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your John Lennon [This entry was published in the Daily Gazette, N.Y. on Nov. 22, 2015].

And so the streets of Paris are yet again stained red with western blood, and, in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, only yards away from the spot where the butchery took place, outdoors, in Place de la Republique, surrounded by a crowd, some nitwit at a piano begins to sing IMAGINE.” -- and no one reacts?

Have we westerners all gone mad or merely all turned stupid?

“Imagine there’s no country?”

Is this what Parisians want?

No France? Cause if they do the terrorists are complying.

Your nation has been bled to death right under your noses by an alien force bent on annihilating you and you allow some moron to chant “Imagine there’s no country?”

Confused?

Okay, so “imagine” this.

Outsiders intrude into your home, kill your parents, brothers and sisters and minutes later, some guy whips out his guitar , and sings “ Imagine there’s no family, it isn’t hard to do!”

Would you find this consoling? Would you sing along? Or would you crack the guy’s guitar across his sacré serenading head?

Wake up you western wussies. Don't be duped by smooth-talking one-world ideologues and dreamers, or you’ll soon find yourselves homeless in your own home, strangers in your own land.

It is what the terrorists wish for.

It might even have been Lennon’s wish.

Do not make it yours.

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your clock

We always have time when we don't want it.

 

up your whine bottle

Never think of being more than a mere one by merely being loud.
Drunkedness is the enjoyed illusion of the drunk.
Which ain't at all bad when you come down and drink of it.

 

up your anti-trump

If the Trump phenomenon has taught us anything, it’s that all attempts at changing human nature are destined to fail. His candid authenticity is cathartic, which only goes to show that political correctness is forced and unnatural behaviour, mostly imposed by left-minded media, that, in the name of some phantom (bogus), misguided humanism, now finds itself ship wrecked on the shores of a relativism that embraces every personal quirk and perversion, where every evil is tolerated and once punishable crimes are now regarded as medical conditions.

Trump is a dissenter, a "despiser" of political correctness. He can afford to be, just as he can’t be bought. Trump will most probably soon be thrown off his agenda by a media bent on self-preservation. But the seeds of rebirth Trump has planted will not have fallen in vain, and, in the words of Zola, sooner if not later, “their germination will crack the earth asunder,” and not with a whimper but a thump. Will America show itself smart enough to play its only Trump card.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your fiat

He zig-zagged through traffic like the gazelle dodging the cheetah.

I sat on the passenger seat, my arm resting on the open window when it rubbed against the side of an uncoming minivan.

Fuck you doing Carlo, I shouted. I’ve chafed my elbow damn it.

What's it look like I’m doing.

Pull in your arm.
I’m driving’s what I’m doing.
Every inch counts

 

up yours, fido

I wasn’t in a particularly good mood yesterday.

And then the thought crossed my mind things could be much worse, that in another world or dimension I might have been a dog, in which case I’d be going about sniffing every other dog’s behind and, even worse yet, enjoying it.

And so thinking I took a deep breath, filled my lungs with the freshness of the morning and smiled, thankful for being alive

 

 

up your inertia

The old man swished along for years, and then I heard a thump.
A wind suddenly slapped the awning.
Ashtrays flying.
I held on to my pint.
A plant fell onto the street from a balcony up above.
Dirt across my face.
Best finish her off, I thought to myself, and gulped the beer down in one breath.
A Vespa parked by the curb got knocked over on its side.
I considered straightening it up, then thought it might be best leaving it.
It wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

Which reminded me of my high-school physics class, the time I went to pick up my pen off the floor as Brother Slattery was lecturing on the laws of inertia, slowly pacing the room from corner to corner, then suddenly fell silent in mid sentence, his glance raised at the ceiling, bringing the blackboard chalk to his lips, deeply dragging and blowing out in my direction, as if sucking on a cigarette.
I knew then I’s in for trouble.

Movement, he proceeded to say, is action. And when I lecture, you do not twitch a muscle, do you hear?
Yes Bro.
Well now, is movement interruption?
Yes Bro.
Well, not necessarily, only if abrupt, correct?
Yes Bro.
As in what?
Impulsive acceleration.
Impulsive what? You’ve made that one up haven’t you? You do understand physics has little if anything to do with poetry do you not?
Yes Bro, very little.
At which point, apparently appeased by the approximate veracity of my response, (which response no doubt spared me getting whacked across the head), he moved away from my desk mumbling to himself. He then paced the front of the class and paused and continued in a now more congenial tone.Aren’t you glad you’re studying physics? You might even get to befuddle a lass or two over the course of your existence with expressions like that.
And were you in motion or were you still prior to bending over to pick up your pen?, he proceeded to inquire .
I was still bro.
Yes still, inert, as was your pen lying on the floor. And things which are still do they not tend to remain that way unless disturbed?
They do Bro.
It wasn’t going to go anywhere was it? So why the urgency?
Learn to stay still when you must and most importantly learn to listen. A most noble activity.
Inertia is sometimes good you know, sometimes excellently good.

Well, if always precarious, the Brother’s lectures were seldom unexciting. He lectured on physics but in a flexible sort of a way, never discouraging student initiative, however ‘poetic’ the thinking.

And so as the Vespa wasn’t about to go anywhere I thought it best to leave it undisturbed.
Besides, why risk catching blame for being a good Samaritan?

The blameless nature of inertia.
Morality as inadvertent inaction.
Perhaps I should neither have bothered to gulp down my beer? (at worst the wind would have fanned it away ) or answer back when reprimanded. Had Brother Slattery been keener and in a less accepting mood he might even have cuffed me (all in the name of physics) citing the principle of minimum exertion, explaining mere nods would have sufficed.

. . . As if things, however seemingly still could ever be truly inert anyway . . .

The wind quieted down, or so it seemed.
An old man lay supine by a garbage bin on an alley next to the terrace where I was sitting.
I hurriedly jolted his way and picked him up off the ground.

up your wimpy men's soccer

If you enjoy the beautiful game catch the Womens’ Soccer World Cup being played right here in Canada.

Believe you me, the girls can play -- and no theatrics. No diving, no whining, no squirming on the pitch like shrivelling worms, no stripping to the waist every time a ball finds the net (occasional wardrobe malfunction acceptable), no jersey switching at half time, no caressing and kissing, none of that effeminate (?) stuff, and no, no biting either.

None of the Ronaldo, Suarez, Neymar play-acting nonsense.

These girls play a masculine game -- if you get my meaning -- the way it’s meant to be played.

But what’s with the artificial turf? We grow, smoke and sell more ‘grass’ in Canada than just about anywhere on the planet. You’d think we could put up a patch for these glorious young ladies.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up kodaikanal

The bus trundled along the stony path hugging tight to the side of the mountain on its right with nothing in places but a few inches of dirt to the unguarded precipice on the left below.

A windowless vehicle.

I sat somewhat nervously at first but as the ride progressed I blended with the joyful chatter and laughter and confident ease of the locals on their way home.

A baby cries. The mother passes her child to me, and why not, as I was the closest to her, and proceeds to slip out her teat for her other babe to feed.

Meanwhile the music from the speakers up front is blasting full out, almost as loudly as the blast of the klaxon bleating at every turn.

A man in his thirties is chewing paan, spitting the red juices out the window. A spittle accidentally splashes my shirt. I tap him on the shoulder. A row of blood red teeth flash radiantly into a smile as his head bobs regretfully from side to side. Very sorry, very sorry. Do you have school pen for my child?

I stand to stretch my legs. I glance uneasily to the right.

Not to worry, yells out the driver. We’ve been this way a thousand times before.

Besides, if its our time there’s no preventing the karma.

There are dozens of little effigies dangling above his dashboard. So which is your god? I ask. Oh depending on my disposition, but my favourite is Kali. A devilish one, he says, giggling. Catch her in the wrong mood and she’ll chop your head clean off. Just like the wife, eh? Ahh, yes yes, absolutely correct, just like the wife. And yourself? Do you have a god? Yes, Jesus. And what does your god say? Oh, basically to treat others good and have a little faith. Ah, I like your god, I think I’ll put him up with the rest soon as I find an icon of him.

I think we need all the gods in the heavens, I tell the driver. It's very misty up ahead. Hard to see, don’t you find? Not to worry. I go by feel. Besides, we’re driving through clouds which means we’re there. Welcome to Kodaikanal.

 

up your zeros

So yet another painting, this time a Picasso, sold for 106 million, to someone for whom the cost is a mere single digit decrease in a multi-billion ever increasing numerical figure quantifying his monetary worth.

And so, for instance, imagine a guy with a full pail of sand throwing Sotheby a grain and gets his Picasso delivered at his palace.

And then you’ve got an artist who sells his painting for a mere 106 dollars to a guy whose pail is not only empty but mortgaged to boot.

Seen from this perspective the meaning of a painting’s “worth” takes on a completely different meaning.

Does it not?

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your health

I want to stay healthy enough to enjoy all those unhealthy things which make life worth living.

 

good cop bad cop

There's the rotten 10% in any group, whether priests, rabbis, gurus, psychologists, proctologists, coaches, teachers, and yes, even cops. Hiring policies?

You can never get inside a person's head from an interview.

No, there will always be bad cops. And besides, let's face it, you've gotta be a bit of a kook to consider a carreer as a cop anyway.

Warriors and enforcers, whether on the fields, on the ice, in the deserts and the skies, and yes, even in the ghettos, can't be expected to be chosen from an average population. Most have got issues, something to prove, whether to themselves or their loved ones or society as a whole. And whenever and wherever there is need for approval there is imbalance and fragility.

Which is why you don't ever mess with cops. Yes madame, thank you very much, is always your best bet. And let's face it, society needs them.

Give them a wide berth, let them do their job, swallow your pride and be respectful despite their attitude and they'll leave you alone.

Expect more and you're missing the point.

Get it!

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your gender, jenner

Regarding those at either extremity of nature's standard deviation curve, I look at it this way.

You are not normal? Not your fault.

But this does not license you to promote your life-style onto others, nor does it endow you with special automatic entry into institutions which have since time immemorial objected to your ways. And so, for example, if you are coprophagic, this does not entitle you to open a restaurant catering to those whose favourite delights are similar to yours. Or, assuming you enjoyed humping your goat (provided, of course, your goat offered every semblance of consent), this wouldn't give you right to suggest your sexual predilection as a legitimate life style to grade school children.

Same holds true for other types of deviant behaviour.

In short, do whatever the fuck you want, but do it in PRIVATE.

Meanwhile I can't even take a piss on a full bladder any more without getting fined for indecent exposure. (new city law = $1000 fine -- hear about it?). Before pissing (uh! I mean passing) municipal ordinances of this sort city had better build urinals at every street block, damn it. .

What was that mayor? As a preventive measure against perverts whipping it out at school yards? Well, freaks like that ought to be neutralized and their trophies fed to the pigs.

But to make the innocent piddler pay for society's creeps doesn't seem at all right.

In fact it's perversely un-civic.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your repetition

Like a good quip, catchy and to the point, that quickly generates upon repetition into an annoying cliche, so it is with simple tunes.

Should we therefore conclude complexity a necessary condition to all good art? Or might not the opposite be true, that the most excellent art is perhaps meant to be seen or heard but once, that all other renderings must be provided by memory and imagination alone?

Perhaps it's why the Sun likes not been seen, for fear we might grow tired of it, too.

 

up your technique

Kant defined laughter as "an affectation arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing." In other words the element of surprise arising out of a sensible contradiction, (i.e: a paradox) is at the root of laughter.

The aesthetic experience is very similarly constituted though not at a rational but emotional level. And so melody, which is at the root of all aesthetic experience, is asymmetric equilibrium, a balancing of sorts which, as asymmetric, is both a paradox and by necessity, unexpected.

While accustomed to thinking of melody as strictly musical we find it also in the plastic arts as well as poetry.

This joyful harmony characterizing all good art (as opposed to kitsch), while extremely difficult to attain is very often extremely simple in its constitution.

And so for instance, the difference between a memorable, touching melodic line and one leaving the listener indifferent, if not outright 'tuned off,' could be as simple as the difference between a major and a minor chord, a half note, a single fret, or a grace note acting as link between otherwise discordant musical phrasings.

Similarly, the difference between, say, a painting awakening in the gifted/knowledgeable viewer a sense of aesthetic appreciation and one which does nothing at all can be as plain as a lengthened line, or toned down colour, or diminished form. The same is of course true of poetry, where a mere word in the right place will suddenly engender an inspiring metaphor.

And so, despite opinion to the contrary, creativity has extremely little to do with technique and much with vision.

Which is why, though performers and critics abound, true artists are far more rare.

Which is why, in his unique ironical way, Nietzsche commanded that above knowing ourselves we first and foremost acquire good taste.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your hair of the dog

My yoga instructor succeeded in eliminating my early morning hangover.

Had a few too many last night watching the game with the boys but decided to attend yoga practice regardless. I couldn’t even manage the child-pose I was so wasted.

And then Antoine suggests the most important things are often those we strive to shun, that recognition is in effect little more than an embracing of what we wish were not. An interesting paradox, I thought to myself, and experimented by seeing if I couldn’t somehow embrace my willies.

Well wouldn’t you know it. Gone. Instantaneously. And my balance doing the tree pose -- seldom more stable.

I am still incredulous to it, but it bloody works.

If only I’d have known the trick earlier in life I'd have wasted fewer evenings staying sober.

 

up your cause and effuckt

There is no rationality in beauty.

Only fools invent reasons to the flower’s glory: to attract the bee they say. And if the flower had no scent and the bee would be attracted to it anyway they would invent some other reason for that too, perhaps suggesting the bee has some magnetic biochemical disposition to petals fluttering in the wind. Hot air. All of it. Any sensible peasant knows that.

Just stop and listen and see and smell beauty for what it is, and be content in the experience. “If I were but a nostril I should be happy as I’d have an opening to the World,” said Merleau Ponty.

Feel beauty.

No life has a reason. Being has no reason. Or, to adopt a biblical explanation, the wisest, in my view, closest to the truth, we were made for God’s pleasure. It is what it is.

Justice? There is no justice, and every attempt at levelling out the playing field through human imposed retributivist measures only creates more injustice. She’s smart and beautiful and you’re sporting more than a sufficient nose on your big dullard’s head. And so it is. No reason to it whatsoever.

Of course someone might try to convince you that, as the tree with the erraticly spread out branches draws more attention than the perfectly straight one, so does a defect enhance a human countenance. Perhaps, in some instances, assuming the defect is minor, but otherwise, again, a bunch of hot air, and the lass with the artichoke nose knows it, smiles, and takes in a long big breath. Why? Cause she can, that’s why. No, there is no sensible way to rationalize injustice. Which is why it is said that vengeance is of the Lord. And then there is love.

Ever hear of unconditional love? Or, to put it otherwise, to love for no reason whatsoever, not as my cat loves me, because he knows I’ll feed him, but for nothing.

To love for no reason. Can you embrace so much irrationality? Hope so or you’ll waste away seeking reasons which do not ON THIS PLANE OF BEING exist, and miss out on the show, on the Magical Mystery Tour we call LIFE.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your official charity tax deduction

I’m filing my taxes.
In the hood I’m known as Grub.
I’m always giving hand outs to the local strung-outs.
I ask no questions.
Those good enough to fool me into thinking they’re losers though they’re not ,well, what to say, good on them.
But for the most part I think I’ve got the field well pegged.
Anyway I do my fair share of sharing, or, donating, to put it in fiscal terms.
But no, I’ve no receipts to prove my Catholicism.

Can’t expect me to ask Joe Squeegee for a receipt every time I ‘throw the bum a dime,’ or, then again, perhaps I should?

If the government provided the less industrious among us a receipt booklet, not only would they (the street bums) offer an example of simple living to the greedy rest of us but also provide an opportunity for more people to give without concern about their monies ending up fattening some double-crossing Red Cross 6-digit-salaried CEO.

Truth is most fat-wad ‘donators’ don’t give two fucks who ends up getting their hand-outs; their only concern is tax write offs. In fact they never do dip their hands into their pockets. It’s all digitally done, very mechanical, all arithmetic, no heart, mostly executed by their chartered accountants; all very clinical.

But they do get tax write-offs. I don’t, damn it. No matter. Hell with ‘em all.

I speak to the simpletons of the world. The innocent. The wise. The clean in spirit.
I tell you this. You give a buck to a bum you’ve given a buck’s worth and you’ve given well.

What the bum does with it is no concern of yours. He can drink it, shoot it, blow it, name it, no difference. What is important is he’ll know there are good people out there willing to help him out.

After all, charity is not about quantity but care. And for most street kids and others alike it’s what they thirst for most. Care.

So give to them and fuck the feds.
No donation tax credits for me again this year?

As far as the feds are concerned I’m just another donationless tight-wad cheap fuck?

The hell with them. Who are the feds anyways? They don’t feel, they only calculate.

Jimmy down the street? He knows me. And that‘ll top a tax write-off off any day.^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your fall

Autumn wet grey afternoon.

A rustle beneath my feet.

The slippery swishing traffic grieves along the red leaf-laden boulevard.

Brief fitful winds puff up fragile fallen tree-wings.

Some spin and dance in whirly elegance then rest aground awhile then rise again.

A quieting muffled hush.

Then suddenly the scurry of a squirrel, and then not.

Two ravens shrill and dive within the branches' deep -- then rest observantly and still.

Sky naples-yellow through rusty maple trees ignites to orange-mellow.

A lone dark cloud whips fast across beneath a woolly silvery heavenly mantle beyond it up above.

Yet not a stir way down below.

And then another flutter and then none.

Nature’s last sporadic triggerings of tremulous excitement
before she spreads in white her peaceful frigid calm.

 

up your fear-not

Regarding the Catholic church’s position on contraception why is so much being stirred up out of nothing? The church preaches and teaches its fold to be 'natural.'

So when you’re banging the wife clock the cock, pull out a wee bit sooner, or stand on a pail while doing it and ask her to kick it when you’re on the verge, or whatever. In other words man, show some control, some balls, some imagination.

Of course if your too much of an unimaginative wuss and can't hold in then yes you’ve got 'artificial' options. You’ll not burn in hell?

You’ll not find no condom wearing Dicks in Dante’s Inferno, so where’s the worry?

Whether it's your mother, or your teacher, or your Church, or anyone who cares for you, they’ll always raise the bar, inviting you to comport yourself according to the very highest standards? But that’s as far as it goes.

Not wearing a nodder is not the eleventh commandment.

Yes, the Catholic Church is all about natural versus artificial.

Every happy-hat lefty should get this.

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your fish teeth

I hobbled along the stony slabbed waterfront where one of the fishers reeled up a two-footer. A trout, by the looks of it, though it might have been a salmon or even an overgrown sardine or a baby tuna perhaps. Not being an ichthyologist, I couldn’t quite be sure as to exactly what kind of fish it was, though it most definitely was a fish. Anyway, the fisher held the fish up by the gills, looked at it in the same way one might inspect a handkerchief after one has blown in it, or straight threw it, as often occurs with paper kerchiefs, or across it, as often occurs with small kerchiefs, or when the kerchief isn’t so small but the nose in question is enormous, or, which would indeed be most unfortunate, both a small kerchie and a cauliflower sized nose, and also depending on the various types of symptoms accompanying the cold, and, not unimportantly, also very much depending on the pulmonary force of the person doing the discharging, as well as the environment in which the nasal releasing is performed; after all, one would not quite expect a dainty mademoiselle of refined pedigree attending a dinner to blow with the same intensity and spirit as a pig-farmer at a he-ha folk festival, and so, having quite deliberately inspected the fish, the fisherman threw the fish my way. For you, he said. As the trout flopped about the pier one of the boatmen yelled out that I should lay my knee on it and pin the slimy thing down, which I did. The helpless creature panted for air, or whatever it is fish pant for when out of water panting , flashing a sharp set of pearly white teeth… Were the teeth extracted from the fish before their heads ended up boiling in the pot? Or were they left to slip off their gums straight into the broth for flavouring?

These questions and my missing socks were enough to keep my mind in a whirl for the better part of the week. For you see my socks had vanished. Now we all of course have had our socks gone missing in the course of our lives. But why of all my socks only the yellow ones. And why had they gone missing -- again.

And were the trout’s teeth left intentionally on its head for flavouring the fish head soup, as I had initially suspected, or might there not perhaps have been some other, more exotic, oriental reason for this strangest of culinary inclusions?

Were the teeth left in as a ‘hardening’ agent . . . for aphrodisiacal purposes? Perhaps not as cherished as a rhino’s horn, or porcupine bezoars, or even pangolin flesh, or gecko’s skin, but certainly more accessible to mariners and way way cheaper.

Might this be why over the centuries sailors had acquired such renown as lovers? Is this why the most beautiful Canadian women live in the Maritimes?

Is the sailor’s celebrated virility attributable to fish teeth in his soup and not, as the literature would have us believe, from being months on end out at sea, womanless? In fact one might very well make the case that having been weaned on toothy fish soup our sailors’accented sexual prowess got the gals chasing after them boys so hard their only way out was sailing the high seas.

The more I contemplated the more questions popped to mind, though none as perturbing as the sudden disappearance of my socks. And why only my yellow ones.

From my bed where I lay, sleepless, I glanced searchingly into the offing.

The moon was long past the full, a beautiful round yellow moon, as yellow as my socks when quite suddenly I heard a screech in the night. I gingerly approached the window sill. And there he was. Don. My Chinese acrobat neighbour swinging from my clothes line. But of course, it now all made perfect sense . . . all those hours at the gym, honing his acrobatic skills . . . to steal my socks -- no doubt attracted by their colour to match his complexion? It would never have occurred to me had I not seen him with my own eyes.

And they say crosswords sharpen the mind? Rubbish. It's scrabble for me from here on out.

Or did the fisherman throw the fish at me cause he thought I might need a little toothy fish soup of my own to energize what he interpreted as an otherwise less than seaworthy masculinity?

Questions and more questions. Damn me and when I get to try linking words up.

And what if yellow socks, for some strangest of reasons, were as desirable to the oriental persuasion as the seal’s dried penis?

No. No bloody way. No more doing with word-link of any sort, no more.

Scrabble's out as well I thought to myself, sniffing at my last remaining pair of yellow socks.

 

up your reductionism

Husserl’s 'bracketing' (époqué) went further than merely eliminating 'accidentals,' hence the term transcendental reduction. He was more concerned with the mindfulness of experience, with presence, and whereever there is mindfulness and presence there can, by necessity, be no room for judgment (past experience, conceptual baggage of any sort). Which is why the artist, while in his phenomenological mode, does not see the tree as tree but as mere colour and form (not easy when drawing the nude).

In so doing the artist's experience is in no way obstructed by his notion of what a tree is 'supposed' to look like. Hence the word phenomenon -- that which appears as appearance. I suspect every woman who visits her gynecologist trusts that he too is in the phenomenological mode while visiting her.

2014

up your bombay dawn

It was a bumpy landing that I’d never experienced before. The plane skipped on the strip like a flat pebble on water. I attributed the ‘miss’ to the night and let it go at that, grumbling.

Must have been 30 Celsius and the sun wasn’t up yet. My shoes stuck, squishing off the tarmac with every step towards the main building. Inside hundreds of immaculately coiffed Indians all in white shirts, flashing radiantly welcoming smiles. I felt happy to be there.

And desks everywhere laden with tons of paper, dusty roped-up stacks of tawdry documents lying forgotten on the ground, stacked in shelves up behind and beyond. No, you didn’t want to get mixed up with the law, not in this bureaucracy; you’d be forgotten and left to rot. Everywhere paper. Forests of the stuff. These were, after all, the seventies. No computers to speak of. Only paper.

And crows as big as cats flying overhead. And a lady clad in all the colours of the rainbow walking straight and proud alongside her goat. This was a weird-wild place, no doubt about it. I’d hardly got there and I already loved it.

Soon I’m out and hustling for a cab. I arranged to share a ride with a couple of guys from my flight into town. It was an old Bentley, worn down but spacious and classy nevertheless. Being a Montrealer, with the worst streets of any big city on the planet and the most run-down taxis anywhere, this was an unanticipated treat.

It was still dark out but the first light of day was streaking the horizon. The roads were poorly lit. Shadowy figures lying beneath a tree. Homeless dogs running about, seemingly anxious and confused. And the occasional cow, scrawny and bony, chewing newsprint. An intellectual beast.

Look, said Dean, pointing to the left at a wall, some 8 feet in height, that seemed to go on forever. Squatting on it were dozens of people, one next to the other, their bare asses pointing our way, dumping. I gaped in disbelief. The cabbie, who until now had kept silent, said: squatters colony, as if to remind us that it wasn’t all like that, that this was an undesired anomaly, that he wasn’t part of that, that they belonged to another caste, on and on. He wouldn’t stop lecturing, explaining, justifying. But so what. I then thought to myself. No different from our shit-huts up north. So they’re short on sewage. No fault of theirs. It would all get fixed in time, modernized, sadly.

We rode on. And the sun rose higher, and there she suddenly appeared, the Bombay Bay looming in the distance, spreading out far beyond a thousand sails, masts and ships moored forever along the shore, the warm white-yellow light surrounding the city like a halo, the skyline a wonder of Hindi-Brit architecture, the eerie birds swirling up high and above the ubiquitous spires, and the magnificent colourful scent -- no other way to describe it -- as it smelled like everything at once. One does not know the nose until one goes to India -- tantamount to the severely daltonic discovering colour.

As we drove closer to town the streets grew populated. Cows halting traffic, the drivers calmly accepting the wait. People everywhere, some leaning against the side of a building chewing paan, their coal-red teeth betraying their habit, others sitting about in a small circle, taking breakfast on a banana leaf, and jittery monkeys pouncing the rooftops erratically like a thousand superballs let lose upon the earth from way up high,. The urban monkey is coy and agile. There she is. And now she’s gone. And the pungent smell of spice. Spice is everywhere. India is spice. Everything smells like spice. You cannot get away from it. You become it. Spice.

And of course the early morning scrubbers, brushing their teeth with huge brushes, with thick bristles, brushes big enough to floss a camel, vigorously brushing, foaming at the mouth, walking about, holding their metallic water filled cups, sipping and unabashedly spitting out as though in a spit-the-farthest competition, loudly clearing their throats, inducing vomiting, as is the Hindu’s wont, part of their morning ablution ritual, a way of keeping it clean, of cleansing. They may wear tattered rags but they are a clean people. Always and everywhere scrubbing, washing and bathing. All kinds of people doing in public what we all do privately.

India is a public reality. It is an organism too concerned about survival, about the truth of life to worry over the niceties of western privacy. To the street-Hindu privacy is death. When he finds it, it is too late.. He is no longer wanted. Shunned. Even by his very own. He is contagious. Infected. A goner. And so he doesn’t t bother. He huddles up in his private spot, and dies, silently and acceptingly, as he must, for the sake of the rest, of the organism, of INDIA, an organic indestructible reality . Should a nuclear cataclysm, a global Armageddon occur, India would survive. The Hindu excels at survival. All other options are inconceivable to him.. His love and respect of life and of divinity too great for him to ponder over alternatives.

To the Hindu, that we are all merely passing by is a given. Everywhere the little statuettes of their gods, Shiva, the transcendent Lord who creates the cosmos, maintains it and destroys it over and over again, the ubiquitous Ganesh, the elephant god, the remover of obstacles, and Vishnu, one of the main deities, the perseverer and protector, and Kali, the Hindu goddess associated with empowerment, Shakti, and Hanuman the monkey god, and many many more, all fascinating and tremendous in their own way, making up the most colourful mythology the world has known, and of course Braham, the highest and indescribable reality. And before their many gods are offerings and burning incense and solemn prayer, and powdered drawings.

To the Hindu there is nothing eventful about a ceremony. The ceremony begins at dawn and ends at death. To the Hindu life itself is a ceremony, a thanksgiving and preparation for the other side.. All this, driving the streets of Bombay, and it was still only dawn.

We decided to stay at the Seashore Hotel. We were led to our room, a spacious opulence affording a spectacular view of the Bay. I was tired. We all were. One of the guys, Marc, rolled a joint. Copped a tola (the weight of a silver rupee), he said, from the bellboy. Ten grams for 100 rupees, a mere ten bucks. I lied down and fell asleep, the morning’s impressions running through my head kaleidoscopically, and the cabbie’s last words before dropping us off, that it isn’t as ugly and bad as you might suspect – those people are happy.

And in time, having spent several months in India, his words proved prophetic, though after only having been there for a mere few hours I already knew

And I still remember how everything smelled like spice, but then you grew used to it and it smelled no more, and you missed it.

 

up your melody

Led Zeppelin's incomparable Jimmy Page compacted melody -- the essence of music -- in the tightest ways possible. No other band or guitarist has approached that kind of purity of expression, or plenitude, or musical equivalent of singularity.

 

up your misplaced civility

There was a time when I could take the subway home after a long day hanging out at the pub, grab a seat, read the paper and relax, or even take a snooze for that matter.

No more.

Before every stop, at every stop and before leaving every station, I’ve got to be loudly reminded by the same automated speaker voice of the name of the same bloody station about to be left or approached. Very annoying.

Yes I know, all for the benefit of the blind. Or is it?

Do the blind who perceive sensory stimuli much more sharply then the rest of us visually un-impaired, who can feel thread so discerningly that the best darners are blind, who can read brail, whose attention to auditory cues is so refined as to identify a person walking far behind by the most subtle of scents, fragrants or otherwise, who can tune instruments as precisely as the most state of the art technological gadget out there, and on and on, do you think they, the blind, need be reminded of every next in line subway stop? I suspect most blind persons find this very condescending, and as damn annoying as the rest of us.

You want to assist the blind? Boost up their pensions. Now that I am all for. But to drive the likes of irritable me off the rails every time I hop a subway train? No, that isn’t civil.
And besides, since for every blind person out there, there are literally thousands of neurotics (i.e. normal folk), numbers alone should dictate that a bit of peace and quiet be provided, at least on the ride back home from wherever.

Enough to drive even the most balanced, measured and restrained of souls to drinking.

reader comment
The announcements aren't for the blind but but for people who are reading their newspaper or book and can't be bothered looking up all the time to get one's bearings, or someone who is seated in rush hour and can't see above the bodies and heads of the crowd and relies on the public announcements.

blogger riposte
Humans went about their day for millions of years without needing reminders.
Now even my elevator must inform me as to which floor I am on. There are only three damn it.
Staying with it, being aware, is healthy and civic.
In olden days one didn't need alarm clocks to get out of bed. And one certainly didnt forget to water his orchard, feed his cattle, or he might starve.
And mums certainly didn't forget their kids locked up in cars, or carts, or whatever other space.
I’ll admit, I would find it problematic memorizing a self-destructive tape à la Mission Impossible. But knowing where to get off?
Even sheep and goats know how to get to their barns unattended at sundown. And chickens have no problems finding their coup.

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

up your stink

Are you willing to sacrifice your nose for the environment? Because unless you stink, you see, you’re not a true greenie. Here are some of the reasons why. Just the basics facts, really.

The average cost of a ten minute shower in Canada is around $2. Fifty gallons of H2O down the drain.. That’s a lot of waste, and for what, to smell a little less for a little while longer?

Health concerns? None. It’s not unhealthy to stink. In fact it’s absolutely – you gotta love this -- ‘natural.’ Yes. You heard right. Natural: every tree-hugger’s favourite buzz word.
Additional costs? None. No additional medical costs out of the nation’s piggy bank. Not that environmentalists ever cared about costs of any kind. They are so generous they are willing to sacrifice literally thousands of jobs today for the possibility of a fraction of a degree increase in temperature a century down the road. Now ain’t that principle. Of course their largesse would resonate all the more if they themselves took a cut in their personal, tax-subsidized salaries, but that'd be stretching it, wouldn’t it? Every principle has its limitations.

But stinking? It wouldn’t cost a cent.

Not showering (and this is only a personal non-scientific theory, but a sensible one nevertheless) is good for both circulation and skin. Dirt would induce scratching, which would enhance the exfoliation process as well as blood flow, in turn rendering skin more elastic and naturally ruddy, thereby reducing usage of facial ointments, pomades and a whole variety of skin-care products, materials, lest we forget, all harmful to the environment. Also, the inevitable ensuing rise in the need to scratch-off occasional itches in far reaching parts of our body would serve as stretching exercises. No stretch would go wasted. Very healthy and ‘natural’ in-deed.

And with all the talk about humanity turning decadent, I’ll bet much of the kink infecting our society would inversely and proportionally diminish with increasing levels of body odour. But this is an aside.

We are here concerned with keeping it green. If ‘green’ be our mission, to STINK is our motto.

You want clean? Then ‘stink’ damn it. It’s small pain for so much gain. Besides, who is to say that in time you might even get to enjoy it, the stink that is.

So STINK UP or SHUT UP.

reader comment
Enjoyed this very much. Not 'sucking up.' You could put a certain talk show host to shame. Or maybe be his writer!

up your CBC on Ghomeshi

I never much cared for those who welcome all things new merely for the sake of change, or, to put it cynically, for the obsessive desire to topple tradition.

I would characterize ex CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi as one such “dude."

So when CBC gave him the boot I wasn’t in tears, though I do sympathize with the man as I feel he is the fall-guy for a movement bent on pre-emptively punishing any semblance of wrong done to the gentler sex.

Let me clarify.

Ghomeshi is into S&M (sadomasochism). Rough sex. I personally could never quite wrap my head around the supposed thrill in getting my testicles squeezed like a lemon. Nor has it ever so much as crossed my mind to inflict physical punishment of whatever kind on any of the many ladies whose fortune it has been to share the comfort of my bed (ah ah). But that is just me, isn’t it? Who am I to judge?

In a world whose primary mantra is “everything goes if consensual” then why not have someone tie you up like an Italian salami till you turn blue in the face and then, to make matters worse (or is that better?), insert the object of your choice into the orifice of your choice. I once read of a guy at an emergency ward with a toaster up his ass. One can only hope it was a rounded cornered piece of appliance -- and that it was switched off. In any event, if that can be passed off as ‘normal’ behaviour, however electrifyingly eclectic, so should consensual S&M.

I was watching Anthony Bourdain on CNN just a few weeks back. Seems most Japanese are into rough sex, and their society doesn’t seem to have suffered the worse for it. So S & M must be alright if consensual. And herein lies the key to the tale: consensual.

Did Ghomeshi’s gals engage in the dangerous games consensually? If yes, then the CBC had no business firing the guy. In fact, in so doing, the CBC indicted not only Ghomeshi but everyone indulging in S & M. Not too cool for a broadcasting institution whose mission has for years been to go out on a limb in defending all manner of sexual orientation.

And now, after an extended quiet period in her life, we have actress Lucy DeCoutere who, and only after the scandal broke, has come out testifying that Ghomeshi slapped her about while putting it out a bit, and that she hadn’t approved. Hmmmm? Was this before or after she squashed Jian’s balls? But this aside, are we to believe her? She is, after all, the same Lucy who played the part of Ricky’s wife on Trailer Park Boys, the gal whose favourite pastime was ‘cutting a little lose,’ as she was wont to describing it, hanging out at parties, getting pissed out of her ‘fucking’ gills, and why not, rubbing it up with whomever took to her fancy. Yes, that Lucy, the actress whose director thought her true to life persona so close to the role he never even bothered changing her name, which obviously suited her just fine?

So are we going to believe Lucy or Ghomeshi, who claims the other girl who snitched on him did so out of revenge for having been jilted? And what about the dozens if not possibly hundreds of other gals Ghomeshi might have ‘hit on,’ -- pardon the pun -- over the years. Why haven’t they also come out?

I don’t know who to believe. What I do know is until the whole truth is out Ghomeshi should not have been sacked from his post. The CBC acted out of fear of reprisals from the women’s lobby. It acted pre-emptively, cowardly and hypocritically.

Justice is the cornerstone of western thinking, regardless of political leaning. And western justice states that one is INNOCENT until proven GUILTY; and as a sparrow does not the spring make, neither does Lucy’s lament nor the anonymous clamour of the spurned lover make Ghomeshi a criminal. He might be a deviant, and most probably a "victim,' but no, not a criminal, at least not yet.

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up your nihilism

ONLY A GOD CAN SAVE US NOW, was his epitaph.

And for as long as the sun shall shine upon this earth Heiddeger’s reminder shall resound as a warning to all and a blessing to some.

Heiddeger was too brilliant a thinker to shout in desperation.

To the contrary, his was a message of hope, a Zarathustrian cry in the wilderness, a message "for everyone and no one."

 

up your assisted suicide

The only people who should be assisted are those physically incapable to end it themselves. As for the rest, if they haven't the courage or imagination to do it on their own (which is what suicide etymologically means) they’re not legitimate candidates.

If the Japanese of old could perform hari-kiri (paradoxically transforming the act into a glorious event), surely us westerners should have enough “guts” to overdose on pills, a shot of heroine, or do the ultimate bungee jump with a joyous hurrah. The real McCoys, the Peter Moroses of the world (a personal friend who got it right first time) do not ask nor wait for superior court judges to pass the assistance law. We’ve turned into a society of pampered wormish wimp -- perhaps a good argument for total mass suicide. But who should we then ask to pull the trigger?

 

up your eye-poke-arsey

Old clocks running fast
Beggars consulting menus
Priests scheduling confessions. The guilt ridden sinner arrives late and slits his throat.

Billionaires preaching morality
Anarchists demanding rights
Querulous female cops in army get-ups bent on keeping the peace
Priapic pedophiles beat the rap as the psychologist applauds.

The rich abet the poor to fatten up still more . The poor man’s lard appeases wealthy consciences.

Newspaper eye-bites weave the mantra.
High-jacked grave digger seeks redemption
SPCA hires chicken thief.
Six digit salary CEOs running charitable organizations.

Dumpster divers, pan handlers, can collectors, grocery-snackers, skin carvers, drunks and then the buskers, posers, whores, transfags, pimps and sleeky vendors glad-handing everywhere seeking favour.

A helter skelter and factitious morality.

A damsel and her pit on a summery afternoon stroll along the boulevard, delicate long anemic ivory skim-milk-white fingers twirl the handle of a pink parasol.

String theorists shooting craps
A diaphanous moonlight veils the evening sky.
The rabbi scuttles hurriedly to Friday prayers then pays a routine visit to his local massage parlour.
And the cock-eyed Cyclops throws another stone, and misses yet again, and blinks, and the fortunate miserable wanderer winks then slinks.

Psychedelic logic breaks the frigid silence with bad noise.

Sleepy felines mind the zone.
The mice were giving a lot of whingeing to the rats.
The mice were thinking the felines might have been fit to run on to the rodents.
But the cats weren’t having any of it.
They remained patiently indifferent.

Rain now coming down hard.
Jaundiced hands cling on to wet rail
I watch the flowing waters.
I miss the ocean waves. I sense they are inviting me to follow them along.
A mere illusion. But illusions help to keep the soul at peace. And then a slumpy fall and wrinkled skin and green monsters slurping down their bloody mead.

up my modus operandi

My inspiration could arise from something as trivial as a wet pebble on a beach, or a sulking donkey, or the rusty hull of an abandoned boat dry docked by the side of a lake, or even a young she goat frolicking about in the meadows.It’s all out there.

The palette of every artist is nature.

Themes? I am not as concerned with themes as I am with putting something together pleasing to the eye. If the work should invite viewers to revisit the seemingly ordinary with renewed interest, all the better. But this is purely incidental. I am not out to tell stories, provide morals, correct past wrongs or in any way change the world any more than the musician.

And as in music, whose beauty transcends significance, so with art. A painting need not mean anything for it to touch us. A piece of marble is beautiful not because we recognize something in it we can name, but because of its harmonious blend of colouring, texture and form. Art is in fact all the finer when it means absolutely nothing.

Style? When the artist leans too heavily on acquired technique style becomes imprisoning, and the work annoyingly repetitive.

Myself, I like changing it around. I am not a cookie cutter artist. When I become too comfortable in a genre I grow bored and go elsewhere. An artist must be an explorer, never for long content with his newly found abode, always pushing further, and absolutely never producing to please an audience . . . .or he’s no artist at all, at best perhaps a craftsman or a cook.

Which is why I prefer not to be pigeonholed stylistically.

What now? I am currently working on a series of aerial paintings. I was flying over the Prairies last spring. It was a clear crisp day. Not a cloud up in the skies. Below all was flat. Nothing recognizable. Not the silos, not the farms, not the produce of the fields, not the combines, trucks and barns. Nothing down under except for a seemingly erratic coloured patchy quilt, as only mother nature can weave. You asked for a source of inspiration? Well this was definitely one.

Where to next? I was thinking of going up to the Yukon . I love the sparse silent vastness of our Canadian hinterland, where light travels unimpeded towards ever distant sun-splashed horizons. And the way the skyline subtly blends with water and land in explosive hues of light vibrating colour. Yeah, I think I’ll be painting abstract north-scapes sometime soon.

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up haute cuisine

Here we are most of us fat if not downright obese. Yet every other billboard adorning our streets and highways is an invite to dine out.

Cooking TV shows by the dozens from morning till dawn. The medics, to their credit warn of the dangers of overeating. But why aren’t the environmentalists out in full force on this one.

So you think bovine flatus shall pierce the ozone layer beyond repair? Obscured by farts is a tragic epitaph to be sure. A sad legacy our descendants will be loath to forgive.

Okay then, go tell it to the cooks who transform the helpless quadrupeds into irresistible slabs of haute cuisine and stop picking on the cows why don’t you.

Cooks? They promote gluttony is what they do. And the better they’re at it the worse.

So yes. Up Chef Boyardee.

And now I must go.

Got a little tongue and cheek on the boil needs minding!

 

up your translations

“The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original. ”

And of course Joyce was right.

And of course he was alluding to the musicality of language which by necessity gets lost in translation.

The hell with meaningful literature if it lacks musicality.

Which is why, for all my efforts, and I've given it three tries over the years, I can't for the life of me get past the first 30 pages of Marcel Proust’s English translation of A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu (Remembrance Of Things Past). Even in translation the work is as profound as anything you’ll ever read. But it reads dead flat.

So for all you guys losing it trying to enjoy the classics in translation, here’s my advice to you. Read only as far in as your patience carries you and no further.

Besides, it's not as though any people in particular had a monopoly on wisdom.

If it's meaning you’re after you’ll find it in just about any language, I am sure.

But if it’s the artistry, the musicality you fancy, then best go with the original.

Or, if your dead bent on reading foreign literature learn the foreign language.

Or if languages are not your thing then go right on ahead and read the bloody bit in translation, but don’t expect an easy flow.

Myself I’m hard at work on Le Passe Simple, that would be Past Simple in English, a misnomer at best as it’s anything but simple, or am I missing the beat?

 

up chaos

Scattered waters gather forming rivers.
Simplicity is the latest evolution of chaos.

 

up your pit bull

Just back from a pawn shop on old Craig Street, now Saint Antoine. In the old days most of us wanna be rock star kids used to hit the Craig Street pawn shops in downtown Montreal on a regular basis, scouting out the joints for a guitar that didn’t put your wrist out of place when holding down a bar chord. But them good old days are gone.

No, what I got myself today is a sturdy Gerber DMF Automatic, fast action switch-blade; the kind of knife that’ll get you in trouble with the authorities should you so much as flash it.

Thing is I don’t want no trouble, but you see, way I figure the only chance I got against a pit-bull attack is to stretch out an arm as bait go for the knife with the free hand , press the release button, switch the blade open and proceed to cut the beast’s throat straight clean. Pit bull attacks have been compared to shark-attacks: “pit bulls inflict more serious wounds than other breeds. They tend to attack the deep muscles, to hold on, to shake, and to cause ripping of tissues.”

A mere stab in the chest won’t do it. Pepper spray will only piss it off even more. No, unless you’re Crocodile Dundee you’ve gotta decapitate them mothers. OK, so you’ll probably never again have full use of your leg or forearm, but you’ll not be a cripple or a corpse.

In my exposed neck of town, it seems every second dog on the block is a pit. I’ve been lunged at twice in the last year alone. Fortunately both times the savage beasts’ owners were strong enough to hold back their drooling toothy monsters. Not so today.

“He never did this before. Must be your damn aftershave. He hates sharp smells,” she managed to yell out as her pet dragged her some twenty feet as I high-legged out of there. And that’s when I made up my mind.

The hell with the law.

If people can walk the streets with an unmuzzled beast by their side I‘ll carry a blade. The law is an ass? I am not.

As for those who blame the master for the dog being aggressive, may be so, but who gives a damn once my head’s bit off. What are we gonna do anyway? Have every dog owner undergo a psychiatric exam followed by a one year dog training course before granting Madame license to purchase her four-legged, foaming-at-the-mouth, witless body guard? Not very bloody likely. Until them pits, Rottweiler and the like, no less than tigers, lions, panthers, bears and crocodiles are banned from strolling city streets, I am carrying a Gerber.

Only persons who should object to this, other than the owners, are the plastic surgeons.

So take my advice, arm yourselves and your kids with a switch blade, or even a bloody pistol, for that matter. I’d rather have a thousand switch blade carrying gals walk past me than a pit bull brush against me any day.

And don’t wear cheap after-shave lotions, not ever, not in my hood.

^{YOUR COMMENTS}

 

up global warming charlatans

Just saw this guy on the BBC showing footage of melting icebergs warning viewers that if this tendency continues the Arctic will have all but vanished in some 1000 years from now.

So lets assume the global warming preachers are correct, and the Arctic will melt in 1000 years, and the Canadian prairies will dry up in a 1000 years, and coastal cities will get swallowed up by the seas in a 1000 years, and the air will be too hard to breathe in a 1000 years and, and, and . . . and how about all our tax money getting spent on all that whacky black hole quantum theory mult- dimensional bullshit.

If your so damn convinced we’re all gonna fry in a thousand years, and there ain't nothing we can do about it short of rubbing sticks together to build fires and go back to spearing buffalo for breakfast why don't you put all of your supposed genius at work and find a way for our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand children to get the hell out of here, if and when the time should come, instead of badgering us with your nonsensical far-fetched theories about big bangs, multi-dimensional universes and the likes. Build a modern day arch. Get practical. It still takes me nine fucking hours to fly to Europe. You can't even forcast tomorow’s weather, and you have the audacity to tell me what it's gonna be like in a thousand years?

Also, ever ask yourself why Global Warming religionists never show footage of the Arctic in the middle of the winter, or even the autumn, but wait till late spring instead. EH!

 

up your self-righteous

Just heard Putin’s boys were out east in Harrisburg, PA., manifesting with American anti- fracking protesters.

Putin owns Gazprom. It's all about energy.

Italians are smart here. They buy nuclear created energy from France at 3-times production cost them but vote against nuclear at home. The only mega-nation on the planet without a slice of yellow-cake. As if radioactivity will stop at the Alps should anything abroad go wrong. And then the very same left wing no-nuke baffoons parade across the peninsula blaming the government for the crisis?

You wanna go back to the horse and buggy days? Ok. Learn how to milk a goat and make some stinky cheese, buy a hoe and dig, grow some eggplant and tomatoes, swap your Armanis for a pair of overalls and gather some manure, and when your done, go feed your pigs instead of buying your pork from the Slavs next door.

Either that or put up a nuclear plant, cut your hydro bills threefold, switch on the tele, pop open a bottle of cheap Albanian wine, be happy and shut the hell up.

 

up your ancient evenings

The history of the world is the history of self-interest and conflict.

International ethical rules evolve in response to conflictual afflictions, they are consequential to conflict and not the other way round.

If wars have taught us anything it is that a land belongs to a people only as long as they can defend it.

Just as I have no claim over a park bench or a fishing spot merely because I have been its sole user for the last two decades, equally I have no claim over a territory, regardless how long I've been tenting or hunting on it, unless I can defend it.

A notorized contract is worthless unless the authorities which make it binding can keep out the envious foe. Which is why nations’ defense budgets take up such a big chunk of their GNP spending. Which is why world maps are constantly changing. Everyone should be able to grasp this self-evident truth, even our political science students attending our prestigious universities at taxpayers’ expense.

And so for certain peoples to forever gripe over ancestral lands lost centuries ago to invaders from abroad is a bit ridiculous. Which is not to say every measure shouldn't be taken to accommodate those wishing to keep their traditions and language and teachings dynamically active within their communities.

But to forever be seeking apology?

It’s like asking your next door neighbour to apologize for having eloped with your wife . . . . and long ago to boot. Perhaps not very nice, but whacky nevertheless. And besides, should he tire of hearing you ask and apologize, all the while humping your ex, would you believe him?

No, apologies won't do. So why not cut the bitching and start the screwing instead, multiply the nations in big numbers, no less than a dozen kids per family, but you’ve gotta keep it as a family, or you’ll only breed disorientation, and that’s no way to make it home.

Us westerners have become a greedy bunch seemingly only good at firing blanks. So multiply, invade from within, and before long, you’ll constitute the majority and will have taken back what once was lost.

You see there’s more than one way to lose one’s ancestry, and more than one to get it back.

If western greed has robbed you of your lands, may western greed engender, generate its own downfall.

 

up the vertically challenged

I’m around 5'10, no one’s ever calld me a dwarf and I never gave my height a second thought, not even when I’s staying up in Sweden with the Norsmen.

And then I hook up with this guy Mike. Smart easy going guy we share similar interests, have similar tastes and get on good except he’s got this nasty habit of cranking up his neck whenever we’re chatting it up, stretching it to its maximum to get the additional 16th of an inch out to top our otherwise quasi-identical heights.

It’s all good when we’re sitting at the pub having a beer, or driving about or whatever, so long as we’re benched. But the moment we’re standing he gets as near me as possible, sticks out his chin for maximum leverage, and starts craning that fucking neck of his all the while sporting a little snicker as if to say "topped you again haven't I." So what d’you say to a guy like that? I mean it’s not like I’s hung up about my height, and besides, I’m not even sure he is in fact taller than me. It’s all a matter of millimetres really. Yeah I've thought about pulling up as well but that would be giving in to his obsession. It would only create more, how shall I say, tension?

I've hung out with midgets and giants. Never an issue. And now I've gotta have this guy check my heels whenever we’re out and about making sure I’m not sizing up.

This raises the word ridiculous to a different 'level.'

 

up the Ganges

She lay thin upon the pyre. There was a lull in the air. The sun melted scarlet at the horizon. The Ganges ran on.

A dead dog’s leg floated past the bathers. A topless buxom woman drank of the river, gargled then swallowed then spit.

A man knee-deep in water frantically rubbed his wet face with the palms of his hands. He then swam some ways, pushing a metallic urn used for the cleansing ritual.

The sound of water splashing and voices murmuring everywhere.

A dizzying sweetness filled the air like an atmosphere. A scent of incense and all else.

The ghats teemed with folk of all walks, both locals and pilgrims on their final journey, come from afar, everywhere life, people shaving, combing, grooming, smoking, massaging, drinking, eating, praying.

A blue boat drew past a pier by the pyre.
A wiry Hindu descended carrying a parcel wrapped in cloth.
Soon the chanting and a billowing smoke, a crackling fire, and a sending off into the early evening dimming distance where life’s vanishings resolve invisibly anew.

Indifferently solemn yet all in good form.
No big deal.
Just another day in the life on the Ganges.

 

up George W.

George Bush Senior's villa was some place to behold. More like a cosy castle with windows offering lush views of Venetian courtyards than one might expect of a Texas ranch.

I don’t know why of all people I should suddenly find myself his guest when I never even much liked the guy, but there I was, being poured wines and liqueurs in posh surroundings with none other than President Bush and his predecessor President friend Ronald Reagan himself

The two of course referred to each other as Mr. President but it was evident from their demeanour they were as close as peas in a pod. They chatted to one another for some time, talk to which I was not privy, state matters no doubt, but were otherwise cordial to me.

Myself, I was engaged admiring what appeared to be miniature Etruscan sculptures when I heard a swishing sound followed by a quick good bye and good luck by a rather agitated President Reagan hurrying for the exit door. Some beedy-eyed guy also lived with the President, but he rather kept to himself, looking over my way from time to time, smiling radiantly, quite content sipping champagne in these rather extravagant settings, hitting golf balls into the citadel below through bay windows adjacent to the library, each successful strike followed by a short self-approving yep-grunt accompanied by a mischievous snicker. Think nothing of it, he never did like Reagan much, did you George, said President Bush chuckling, who then proceeded to his chamber for his afternoon nap, though not before inviting me to make myself at home and not hesitate to fill my glass, which I must have done several times over for all I remember after that is being down in the gardens below with a terrible headache surrounded by a sea of Titleist balls and President Bush Junior wearing a T-Shirt with I love golf printed on it.

And now that it's over and done and my head has cleared and though most particulars escape me I find myself suddenly liking Old man President Bush, which only goes to show that the imaginary world does affect wakeful reality more than we might suspect. As for President George W. Bush Junior, I still think he's a nasty belligerent prick.

 

up Sir Felix of Weston

. . . unfortunately most never really got the chance to know the brilliant side of Felix, his uncanny ability at interpreting life situations, politics, theology, literature, people, name it, with the perspicuity of the philosopher/poet, and the unintentional innocent wit which alone is the mark of all great poets. Though I doubt he ever read a book cover to cover, there are few he isn't acquainted with enough to intelligently expound upon. And the best of listeners and easy at conceding position whenever reason prevailed.

If Felix lied he only lied to himself, and always out of pride. He could leave you stranded alone at a stadium if he found a better seat for himself but could also crumble over at the slightest touch like the beautiful autumn leaf he was. Which is why, despite his psychotic drivellings, Felix could write. I can go on. It’s too damn bad. I’ll always love Felix, but short of shoving pills down his throat, I’ve had it with him. I wish I were wealthy and could then send him a ten million dollar cheque courtesy of Mum (the Queen), for his services to the crown. But I’m just another Sancho whose grown tired and weary of picking Quixote up off the floor.

 

up meaning

If phenomenology has taught us anything it is to cleanse ourselves of all pre-conceived notions to fully engage in an aesthetic experience. To see the same over and over again and to never see it twice the same as it in fact never is twice alike as both we and the thing before us are ever changing.

The instinct to possess things by naming them is indeed strong and hard to undo. And yet who among us hasn't picked up a pebble on a beach, or an autumn leaf, or admired a fiery sky at sundown or the rusty hull of an old abandoned boat dry docked somewhere, and admired the colourings, forms, textures without desire or need to give the experience a name or meaning?

 

up capitalism

International capitalism, or the border-free world, or anti-national non-protectionism, in short, globalization, as it has come to be known, was supposed to bring people together, liberate markets and by extension, man, from the shackles of domestic monopolies. The international historical compromise? Well not quite. All it has done, aside from having provided ubiquitous tax havens for the filthy rich, is given mega-nations with mega-economic clout license to do as they please to their neighbouring smaller ones with impunity. International free market greed has all but rendered ineffective that balance of power between nations which more than anything had served to ensure, since the days of the Caesars, security for the little guys (e.g. Ukraine). It's a mess. Internationalism doesn't work. The weak pay the brunt of the cost of the One World Image Mirage.

 

up music

An earworm is a self-inflicted punishment for shunning silence.

 

up André Gide

Read Gide ages ago . . . .a brilliant writer, a modern day Wilde with rather similar inclinations.
Don't remember particulars but I do recall his writings leaving me with an awkward sense of dangling on the abyss between perversion and purity . . . .making the imponderable ponderable, like that Canadian film Kiss, a mind-boggling film which remains to this day etched on my mind as if I’d seen it yesterday.

Don't know about the Arabs living their art, but they do appear to live their folklore moreso than we westerners do, or do they? Is not all their singing and dancing in effect little more than appearance, with Dionysus well guarded behind a 500 year curfew few dare publicly break; all they are left with is a lame Apollonian flaunt, .a kind of jesting which could never reach the ecstatic sensuality of Greek Tragedy when pain transforms itself into joy at that precarious edge where morality dares its bounds. And of course Arab women not being allowed to partake in the flaunt makes their dance all the more farsical, although I doubt André much minded their absence -- might in fact have suited him rather nicely.

 

up art criticism

Art is that which touches you without you having to touch it . . . . a defintion which finally does away with all of them fucking cooks trying to pass off as artists.

 

up socialism

Separating the wheat from the chaff should be a no brainer. Unfortunately socialism is not grounded on common sense but on a delusional notion of egalitarianism, precluding selection of any sort. Blaming teachers is missing the point, especially when teachers themselves are not appraised according to worth but seniority and popularity.

No, selection is a privilege enjoyed exclusively by those who can afford it: institutions such as Manchester United, Barecelona F.C., or The Metropolitan Opera House, or The Royal Bank of Canada, to name but a few. Of course these are not socially based but entrepreneurial realities.

No, our 'youth' is too cheap a commodity to be 'selected.'

 

up wimpy soccer ballers

So they lose one in seven years to injury. Miners, construction workers, carpenters, seamstresses, and probably poets and artists, too, from hypersensitivity and anxiety, not to speak of pimps and whores and all good people without much expectation and little precaution, all these lose at least as many and don't enjoy the ones they don't half as much as do their millionaire (billionaire) heroes. No one worries over the nobodies, eh. So why all the fuss ? Ali lost his mind, Senna and Villeneuve their lives. That’s the risk you take for money and glory. And then there’s the Napoleons, Alexanders and Caesars of the world. No sorry. I dont feel one bit sorry over 20 year old illiterate billionnaire footballers getting a banged up knee or a bruised toes from time to time. Play the game like a man. I got banged up as a kid, as I am sure you did, too. It’s a manly sport, not a pansy poof show for strung out pensioners on a dream.

And as for hockey players they should remove their helmets. Jacques Plante killed hockey. Let’s Worsley up the game. And if every five years or so someone loses a tooth, or even an eye so be it. You like stats? Well check your stats then tell me who suffers more injuries, working class joes getting paid a pittance or our millionaire heores who give us mortals oh so many headaches while out playing, having themselves a great time.

.

 

 

 YOUR COMMENTS

Email (optional)
Author or Title

 

All works © Roberto Rotondo