january 10, 2007

I had been hoping that things wouldn't get this ugly, but then they got more ugly than even they had been. I just watched Bush, and it was depressing. More troops, more war, and not even the promise of anything much better to hope for. He even says that even if the plan goes exactly as planned there will still be more violence and the killings of Iraquis and Americans. What every responsible news operation should be doing is keeping track not just of the American deaths but the Iraqui deaths as well. What's weird is that there's an absolutely precise number of American dead but they act as if the Iraqui death toll is some totally unknowable figure. "Oh, it could be anywhere from 3000 to 100,000," they'll nonchalantly toss off.

Bush looked scared there tonight. It was the first time I've seen him looked scared and not smug, the first time that smirk was turned decidedly frownward. I felt like I was watching a TV show like "The Sopranos" and that Bush was the puppet politico who had just been hung out to dry by the bosses. I mean, admitting that you're ultimately responsible for everything that has gone wrong with the war in Iraq is pretty self-damning. I can't understand how there isn't more widespread resistance to this man, who seems to operate in a realm of reason-less motivation, that is to say action unpredicated on thought but rather determined by some other force, such as Bush's intuition, for example, or perhaps his connection to God.

I can not understand what is expected of us Americans. Do they want us to expect a miracle? Is that the challenge we're hearing that's keeping us all pinned by their anti-logical rhetoric? Are we being asked to feel sorry for a man who's done his best, to forgive him his sins and let him have another chance to do the right thing. Never mind the fact that with his second chance he is doing something not markedly different from the wrong thing he did originally. Instead of "stay the course," he's moved on to "stay the course PLUS," which might fool a lot of us into thinking that they're doing something dramatically different.


NOVEMBER 13, 2006. Monday. Brooklyn.
The weatherman said it's an ugly day out there. They hardly ever say that about a day. They're usually at least somewhat optimistic. But today they're just calling it like it is, ugly. And not even endearingly ugly like Ugly Betty--just plain, uncharmingly ugly. It's hard not to be depressed in this.

Outside my window the last leaves cling, in terror it seems, to the newly skeletal trees in the distance. In the foreground on the fire escape sit three little Christmas trees that Nico has just purchased, to be planted there on the fire escape in the place of the now deceased spreading petunias from summer. With the Christmas trees will be planted little green and purple cabbage plants. It's going to be amazing to look out at.

I heard there's a big Cubby essay contest in the works. I'll keep you posted with details.


OCTOBER 28, 2006
START OVER NOW

Don't live in the past,
'cause it doesn't exist;
start over now
is my general gist.

Moment to moment
I steal some more time;
only my body
must pay for the crime.

I've verged upon madness,
got burned at the brink,
hatched resolutions
hunched over the sink.

And one thing is certain
though i don't know how
I 'm here 'cause it's time
to start over right now.




AUGUST 1, 2006
SAVE PARIS

10:55pm: I was doing a sort of every-week thing and then i took last week off. so it's been two weeks since my last post to this page and in that time one thing has changed dramatically. I went from hating paris Hilton to loving her.

It all began when my boss Dark Mark played Stars Are Blind for me on his iPod. I actually really liked the song, and I was so happy, because I had up to that point felt like PH had no value as a person, which was just too sad to contemplate. The point is that i watched several consecutive episodes of The Simple Life on Saturday, and I am a changed man. My tepid embrace of Paris after my first hear of her song has flowered into a full-blown frenzy of frantic fornication (metaphorically speaking). I love Paris.

Other than that I'm just really anti-war lately. And that means i'm not sympathizing with the Blimmeotrodes or the Semiphillacious Crusts or the Scad Wiblows. I'm just Pro humanity, anti-killing, anti-killing condoning ideology, anti-coercive theism, pro existence.

I would like to start a brand new political party, the True Peace Party, that would draw attention to the fact that so much of our national resourcefulness is being squandered in the service of religious beliefs and affiliations. The True Peace Party would aim to create a democracy of post-theists, of individuals of sufficient intellectual capacity to imagine BEYOND whatever God concept they intherited. these intellectually independent individuals would then form a government based on rational thought, as opposed to the one we have now, with its voodoo rodeos and witch hunts.

Future people, i again beseech you to remember the rest of us, the cowed silent types who stood by and watched helplessly as the unenlightened kicked up shit and killed and died and wrecked the planet.

* * * This isn't a blog. This is a series of transmissions from New York City as filtered through the World of the Cubby. * * *

JULY 18, 2006
SAVAGE IS

11:30 pm: The storm came and the storm went. It was a scary sky over new york city tonight, like in "ghostbusters."

there was a lady on the F train this morning wearing a lime green outfit. everything from ribbons in her hair and THE HAIR ITSELF all the way down to her shoes was the same shade of lime green. She wins the Jol award for best dressed today. First runner up was the guy walking down 2nd avenue at about 2nd street with tight beige trousers, so tight you could see his package perfectly. on top he wore a body-clinging white tank top, and you could see the clearly defined muscles of his back and the sweat on his torso soaking into the top . It was about 107 degrees out when he passed by.

People are saying that World War 3 is on. There's some Hezbollah thing going on, and i must say i'm not interested in any of it. why won't people set down their religions and coexist? why the superstition and unreasoning hatred? It sucks that as a citizen of this world I have to be needlessly bogged down by such concepts. i can not imagine what people of the future (if that doesn't turn out to be an oxymoron) will think of this time when they look back upon our ruins? will they wonder at how savage we were?

indeed, savages are wreaking havoc, and i beg anybody reading this in the future to consider for a moment the rest of us-the quiet, the passive, even the enlightened-who live in the world of the savages, unable to curb the momentum of such profound hatred and blind obedience.

and for the rest of us there are options for emotional escape: to change the channel, hit the bars, beat off. the rest of us resist to some degree the version of reality being presented on the news, and we choose to focus elsewhere, refusing to allow the savages to dictate the terms of our reality. but how long we can hold out is unknown.

so please, future people, remember the rest of us. we're not all savages.

JULY 11, 2006
THE MADCAP LAUGHS NO MORE

11:54 pm:Syd is dead. Already his Wikipedia profile has been updated with the death date, which was a few days ago. The news wasn't released for a few days, a rarity in today's world usually reserved for when Dick Cheney shoots people in the face.

Man, it's hard to say how much I loved Syd and wanted to be in a band with him. David De Maio and me had it all planned out. And so a dream dies along with a man. And the madcap laughs no more.

The good news is that while visiting with the gay neighbors' cats I received a rare cell phone call from Brian Weaver, and we decided we're going to start having cubby saints on the web site. Syd will definitely be one of the first to be inducted into the Cubby Hall of Saints.

JULY 5, 2006
RELYING UPON THE KINDNESS OF FAMILY

8:57 pm: it must be remarked that these words are being written thanks to a gift provided by mrs. c.p. of Fresno, California, my hometown. That woman has a dear significance, not only to my wallet but to my mind. For she is my mother, and she has never gotten over me in 34 years. she just turned 60 and i went to visit her, and it was a great time altogether. She was the "she" and it was the surprise that I referred to indirectly in my previous entry.

We just finished the light of our last day of vacation. We came back a day early due to scheduling miscommunications, but Nico eventually got over it and watered the plants. On the way to the gym I saw Minneapolis Mark on the subway on his way in to work. i tried to do the right thing and not go right over to him on the train, potentially creating the need to chit-chat for 5 stops or so (it's just such an inopportune setting for a conversation!) so instead i resolved to wait and then waited till we got to our shared destination, and i walked him-with umbrellas raised, to be sure, for it was pouring torrentially-to the store and then even HELD HIS UMBRELLA while he physically turned the knob that operates the device that opens the metal grate over the window and officially opens the store each morning.

i just came back from d&f's house, where we looked at pictures of Madonna that f had downloaded from his visiting friend a's camera. a got seats in the third row and took great pictures of Madonna, even some with his head in them. And he sat right next to Chelsea Clinton, who looked at his digital pics and asked him to email them to her.

Currently listening to: "STAR WARS" score by JOHN WILLIAMS, available on CD.

JUNE 23, 2006
A QUEER VOYAGE EMBARKED UPON

1:51 pm: i am about to embark on a queer (strange, different, odd) voyage that will entail serious risking of life and limb (my own, unfortunately) and the leaving behind of many familiar rituals for the sake of some even more familiar ones. if i should by some wonder of modern aviation survive the next 12 hours i will be compelled by gratitude to begin the next season of this unfamous column. please keep your fingers crossed if you're as obsessed with me as i am. and so, you are well appraised. but alas, if she should read this, how dreadfully the surprise would be ruined!


APRIL 8, 2006
RANDY MIRACLE DOCUMENTED

3:53 pm: nico had an adventure dream last night involving him and randy and this weird creature. i don't really remember what it was. he told me this morning when he woke up. i didn't realize until afternoon that it's randy's birthday today. nico says he never dreams about randy, and that this is the first time. i think it's odd that should happen on randy's birthday.