The Zenformation Professional

SEX AND ART, ART AND SEX: A Conversation on Lustful Living Under the Influence of Maestros

2010-03-08T18:09:00.000-05:00

"What's wrong with feeling sexy in a museum?"

- Recent online chat.

My father's brother was an artist, a painter and printmaker.

He died years before I was born, before my parents married, cancer snuffing out his future as a creator of beautiful things before he'd reached a quarter of a century on this planet.

An avid reader, obsessed with not only physical art but that of the written word, he left behind scores of paintings and sketches, a library of some of the world's finest literature.

A gift, I assume, for my father and, by proxy, my father's children - a generational legacy. Guides to the world's finest museums, full of reprints and photographs, art criticisms and histories, poetry collections and fiction in four languages, sacred texts from the world's great religions.

And trust me when I say I took full advantage of the artist uncle's last gift in my childhood.

* * * *

In a way, though I never met my uncle, he probably had just as much influence over my development in death as he would have in life. His notebooks were conversations, his paintings burst ideas upon my brain, his library an education unto itself.

For example, Titian, the High Renaissance maestro, was already a favorite by the time I reached puberty. I first developed an appreciation for the maestro studying my uncle's books on the art of the era. Of course, after reaching puberty, my appreciation for Titian's nude work grew even more - the Venus of Urbino was probably the first woman to seduce me, my first ever object of pure raw lust, years before I lost my virginity.

The second seductress? A painting by Raphael's lustful baker, la Fornarina.

I could list them all, but, well, that would take too long. But I will admit that I do not consider it bragging to admit that for all of my hundreds (yes, hundreds) of sexual experiences in life, I've never been able to shake the feeling that those ancient Europeans instilled in me sense enough to understand that a woman's body is the finest of canvas, that it is not in some maestro's strokes of a brush that art is revealed but in the canvas stroking the brush, creating the artist.

But sexual attraction is but one manifestation of an appreciation, a love, of art. So, too, was I in love with the great Post-Impressionists: Paul Gauguin, with his primitivist depictions of beautiful Tahitians and ancient themes. Henri Matisse, Van Gogh.

It was my uncle, through his enormous collection of reprints of some of the most daring naked women in history, that taught me more about the intertwining of beauty, life, sex, and art than any formal education could ever impart.

* * * *

Needless to say, I was one strange kid.

Hell, I'm one fucking strange-ass adult, for that matter.

But I know a thing or two about beauty.

I learned it through a lust for beautiful things, for fine and performing arts, for poetry and prose, essays, and pure, unadulterated, passionate thought.

And I have an uncle I never knew, who died in a sterile hospital room with cancer-filled body, to thank for that.

- # # # -

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE? WHICH CONSUMERS? On Sustainability, Need-Based Lifestyles, and the Naturally Green Choices of a Cheap Fucking Bastard

2010-02-12T20:19:00.013-05:00

The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multinational corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single, seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980s: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products.

- NAOMI KLEIN, from No Logo
(2000, Full e-Text Here)

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm not what anybody in their right mind would consider to be a man driven by consumerism.

In fact, I'm quite the anti-consumer, especially when my infrequent forays into luxury spending are weighed against the downright gluttonous behavior of a good portion of my countrymen at the hog trough of reckless capitalism.

A few DVDs, books, the occasional magazine or candy bar.

Yup. That's about it.

Not that I'm bragging or talking shit - that's not my point. I've always been like this. I've never really seen the point in spending money on things - often junk - that contribute nothing to my well-being or to that of my neighbors.

I don't buy clothes for anything as silly and bourgeoisie as style; I consume my basic wardrobe of jeans and tee-shirts as thriftily (often second-hand or in the form of gifts) as possible, based on need, digest them slowly over years until the fabric's threadbare and the holes in the pockets can no longer be restitched.

That's right. I said restitched. I'm lousy with a needle and thread, but I know at least how to sew on a button of fix a tear. I see no sense in wasting that which I have so carefully digested.

Hell, my Baltimore Orioles baseball cap - the "lucky" one (not for the Os, obviously) my parents bought me at a game at the old Memorial Stadium - is roughly the same age as my last girlfriend. And, as ratty as the damned thing is, I'll probably keep wearing it until it rots into oblivion, or I do.

I'm a notoriously cheap fucking bastard. Emphasis on the fucking bastard.

And on top of that, I'm not to big a fan of wasting natural resources simply because some advertising agency generated market trend tells me I won't fit in if I don't conform.

My anti-consumerist behavior doesn't stop with my wardrobe, either. Roughly 90 percent of all of my apartment's furnishings were either found on the street, inherited from somebody, of acquired at yard sales. The rest? Bought on clearance or off the scratch-and-dent racks.

I own no video games or consoles. I don't have cable. My microwave was stolen from the curb and the dresser in my bedroom used to belong to a Super Bowl quarterback.

Hell, I'm writing these very words you're reading right now on an Ubuntu machine, using open-source software.

My electric bill - with electric heat in a region that experiences single-digit temperatures at night occasionally - hasn't topped 80 bucks in more than two years. Thermostat's set at 53 degrees in the winter - if you're cold, grab yourself one of the half-dozen second-hand sweaters that don't fit me anymore that I keep on hand for guests.

And I don't use air conditioning. Period.

Cheap. Fucking. Bastard. I say it loud, say it proud.

* * * *

Why?

For one thing, well, it's better for the environment, better for the planet. It fucks rampant unchecked corporate greed in the ass with a greener chainsaw and keeps extra cash in my pocket.

And it's become a comfortably sustainable lifestyle.

Yes, not the media buzzword version of sustainability, not the White House teleprompter versions touted in speeches in Copenhagen or Kyoto.

We're talking My Ecological Footprint is roughly one-third that of other 30+ single males living in North America sustainable lifestyle.

Sustainability requires one to be just about as conservative as possible in resource consumption, especially of that which the consumer has few controls over the means of production, to be minimalist and marketing-resistant, consciously frugal in both purchase and usage, to make compromise not over what one needs but over what one does not.

Why give more money to the same multinational corporations that already own our politician and media outlets, defecate in the very global market capitalist buffet they feed upon, and, hell, already take my money without my consent through government bailouts and state contracts?

Sure, they naturally get some of my paycheck. I have to, after all, buy foodstuff and toiletries somewhere, still have to have a provider of laundry detergent and of consumable goods. And in rural parts of the US, like here in Oxford Fucking Ohio, some of my consumables are either purchased in the local-employing Big Box Stores or small locally-owned businesses, since it'd be, well, a waste of about a half-tank of gas to shop in the nearby cities.

But, seriously, who pays full price for such things? Wait for the sales. If such businesses are to get chunks of my paycheck, why not simply wait until I can rob them blind by binding my time for clearance markdowns?

And like I said, I'm in no way bragging. It's just how I live my life, and its not a perfect model.

I forget to recycle. Often. I drive a late-model pickup like a Los Angeleno, hitting the road for any trip longer than to the mailbox, despite being a avid hiker, out of sheer laziness. I forget to wash out old plastic containers for reuse, forget that only a hypochondriac needs plastic produce bags for a few avocados or oranges.

It's a work in progress.

But at least I'm trying.

* * * *

Which is more than I can say for a lot of people, probably the majority of that undefined bulbous mass called the Average US Consumer.

You know. That mass that supposedly holds the fate of the global economy in its "consumer confidence" indexes and other measurements of the perceived movement of wealth?

Take a trip to any large in door shopping mall, into any major retailer, even into your neighborhood supermarket. Look around you. Look in every shopper's cart, at stuff you know they're buying that they don't need to actually improve their lives.

Listen to the squeals of fat kids begging for name-brand candy and proprietary-code video games, the sounds of obsessive sports fans drooling over hi-def televisions they'll only enjoy a handful of Sundays out of the year. Watch men and women stop by clothing racks adorned by celebrity endorsements yet still made for pennies in places like Bangladesh or, worse, in conflict areas.

Or maybe, if you're lucky, you'll catch a middle-aged woman adorned in the bling of African blood diamonds and gold, lugging a rat terrier in a purse, as she shops for the latest cosmetic product tested, probably, on animals just like her precious pet.

These shopping habits? All lifestyle choices.

You will see consumption of things, many glorious gluttonous things, that are not so much bought for need but for image, to maintain the fallacy of "Free" marketplaces that dictates freedom in terms of who can acquire the most junk.

And what you'll see is in no way sustainable. Eventually, natural limits are reached beyond the ability of one to purchase them, scarcity leads to higher prices, higher prices leads to panicky conservation and state intervention. So long as consumption of resources is tied to image or brand instead of actual human need, sustainability is but a wet dream in a capitalist society.

Yes, I'm really just a cheap fucking bastard.

And the scary thing?

No matter how bad the economy gets, how much the numbers are doctored and the shady accounting sold to reflect recovery in terms of bullshit measurements like "consumer confidence," my lifestyle will rarely be affected.

Me and, well, the Amish.

Some things in life are bigger than one's lifestyle. Sometimes, there's a conscience behind such choices.

- # # # -

SHORT TAKES & SUCH: You Really Are What You Eat, "Intimidating" Kids Through Auto-Tuneless Hip-Hop, and Hating on Motherfucking Snow...

2010-02-06T20:40:00.009-05:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm a creature of habit, have my daily routines, my rituals.

I usually, for instance, get up at just before five in the morning. Unless I get to bed after 11 p.m., which like clockwork leads me to sleep in until about seven in the morning. I never skip breakfast, enjoy a nice, hot brush-and-soap shave every three days, bathe every day. And I cannot function without that first cup of stevia-laced black coffee and a cigarette - though, in late 2009, I did finally give up caffeine after nine in the morning.

But perhaps the best example of my habitual nature?

My diet.

I now consume the same things for breakfast for months, sometimes years, at a time - cage-free eggs and turkey bacon, egg white omelets, oatmeal, or, sometimes, just fresh fruit and yogurt. For the rest of the day, most meals are simple and routine, kept mainly to what my body needs to sustain itself - lots of beans, baked yams, fresh greens, whole grains, and, yes, probably four to five times the amount of soy protein than your average American eats in a week.

When I was in my early 20s, I was, in all honesty, a fat fucking slob. At my peak weight, a year or so after going cold turkey from my teenage hard drug habits, I weighed 285 pounds. A decade later I weigh two-thirds of that.

I never went on a diet. I just changed what I liked to eat. And over time, the weight fell off.

And not a month goes by without running into or hearing from somebody who remembers how big I used to be and commenting about the weight loss. Not as bad as it was a few years ago, but, yeah...

It gets annoying.

Here's the funny thing: most days, in terms of bulk, I suck down at least twice the bulk weight of what I did when I was younger. For dinner tonight I sucked down two bowls of salad, a rather large baked sweet potato, and a pint of Greek-strained yogurt.

Over the course of a mere five years, I lost an average of about an inch and a half off my waistline per year. As I was introduced to new ways of looking at the world - spiritually as well as intellectually - my tastes changed. If soda made me feel sluggish, for example, why should I consume it? If eating at a McDonalds or Wendys gave me the shits and sent me running to the john fifteen minutes after eating at a corporate enterprise model I feel exploits of the poor, why eat in such places?

As my tastes changed, my daily habits changed.

I don't drink soft drinks or anything carbonated beyond beer, avoid high fructose corn syrup like a hypochondriac avoids the leper colony, and while I do eat meat, it's almost always poultry.

I do occasionally partake of pork and wild game, but I haven't eaten beef in a decade. Hell, I don't think I've even been in a hamburger-filled fast food joint in a decade, but I do eat out at times. Those meals, too, are habitual - there are people in this town who have a better idea what I'll order for lunch next week than I do.

And yes, I smoke a pack a day. And I do have a taste for Irish whiskey, and bourbon usually leaves me in a state where I'll choke-slam an overgrown fratboy seven years my junior into the asphalt for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Hey, everybody needs a few unhealthy vices.

Ya know, writing this, I suddenly realize why I've slept with so many vegetarians and women recovering from eating disorders - my refrigerator usually looks like a hippie culinary commune exploded in there...

* * * *

"You DO intimidate people, dude."

"Chica, that's horseshit. I'm just another old guy in this town..."

In Oxford Fucking Ohio, the median age of all residents, is 21.

You're only young by local standards if you're not old enough to legally drink. Anything past 30? You might as well wear your Dr. Scholls and Snuggie of a muu-muu to the drug store, because the "Middle-Aged" in this town look at you like you're there for hemorrhoid cream and Viagra.

"What's so intimidating? I was listening to music, window was rolled down, and -"

"That... rap music you listen to? The gangsta rap...? Um, yeah. You live in Oxford, not fucking Compton."

"Well, yeah. And not 'gangsta,' just whatever was on the iPod. Heavy beat shit. MC Eiht, CunninLynguists, Beatnuts, Stoupe, some Ramallah Underground I think... Anyway, these chicks at the light next to me in a BIG hunking Daddy's Little Princess SUV LOCKED their doors when I looked their way -- "

Silence on the other end of the line.

And then a sigh.

"Jason, dear..."

"Yes?"

"Where do you live?"

"Oxford."

"And do [Local U] students listen to that stuff? Or dress all, like, white guy Black Panther? Or NOT smile?"

"Um..."

"Yeah, dude. You're in the Bubble. Entitled kids probably, yeah, thought you're a Townie rapist ready to carjack Daddy's old Hummer or whatever."

"So listening to rap makes me intimidating?... Wait... Did you just say Townie paist carjacker...? Because I listen to - "

"No... but the whole package? I dunno... if I didn't know you, I'd be fucking scared of you... Especially with that beard..."

"What's wrong with the beard? Grew it out for Manuary."

"Nothing... you just look... you know... like a scary Townie."

Sometimes, it's good to chat with a female alum - one of the chill ones - who understands the what actually goes through the minds of Local U. students better than I do.

This is clearly one of those times. I did not grow up like the vast majority of those who squat in this lovely town for four years out of their lives, in search of a degree.

But, well, at least I still have some street cred.

* * * *

I'm not a snow kinda guy.

I don't fucking ski, I outgrew making snowmen when my balls dropped, and more often than not, when it snows, I'll be driving through it.

It's not ALL snow. Nothing personal or discriminatory against the whole specie of water. I love Colorado snowstorms - awesome powdery stuff that, in all honesty, I could spend days hiking, driving, or camping in. Or even the snowfall around Chicago.

No, I reserve my prejudices solely for the slushy, half-sleet, half-powder East Coast snows like the ones we get here in southern Ohio.

And this winter, we've gotten a lot of the white shit dumped on us this winter.

Does wonders for my arthritis, my bad knee, and the ol' bad hip. Makes me feel as if I'm 31 going on 90.

Call me cranky, but does anybody know any libraries in Arizona or New Mexico that may be hiring?

- # # # -

BALLADS OF LIFE, DEATH, & EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN: A Month-Long Journey Along the Mortal Coil's Wide Paths

2010-01-15T18:38:00.002-05:00

When I first heard the news that my grandmother was dead, the world stopped spinning and my legs gave out beneath me. Within a nanosecond, from what I remember, I was on the ground. Or I fell into the kitchen table, slid down into a chair.

In all honesty I'm not sure what happened after I heard my sister's voice.

I'd immediately assumed the worst; my sister rarely calls and I rarely call her. If she's calling me, I thought, at 8:30 at night, Eastern, a week and a half before Christmas, then someone had died.

Someone important and loved by both of us.

In her sobbing, I could only make out the important part of her call. It's all I remember, really.

"Grandma was killed in a car accident this morning and -- "

I don't remember what came after the and. The shock of it all stopped my brain from processing the rest.

My grandmother pretty much raised me. After my grandfather died, I'd moved in to her house on the farm to keep her company. I slept on her bedroom floor - despite having a bedroom of my own - from age nine until I entered seventh grade.

Every morning before school, the whole family would gather at her place. We'd all have coffee and toast, then I'd kiss her and her toy poodle goodbye, and we'd head off to start the day.

My grandmother was the only woman I can honestly say I've ever loved and trusted completely, my conscience, my keeper of secrets, my most trusted advisor.

And then, of course, there were her biscuits and gravy, her pancakes, the fondness for fried okra and bass fishing alone...

* * * *

Two days later, after spending the night in Cincinnati's train station (soothing, really, because most of the building is now home to the Queen City's best museums) and an 11-hour trip on Amtrak's Cardinal line into Charlottesville, I arrived back in the ol' Home State.

The train passed through West Virginia, 70 miles north of the town where she was born - tiny Newhall, a community of less than 700 people. One of more than a half-dozen children born or adopted by my great-grandparents in McDowell County, who were themselves from large Coal Country litters of children.

I imagined the hundreds, possibly thousands, of distant relatives roaming the Appalachians all around me as I passed through the state, staring at the imposing mountaintops and pristine whitewater stretches as the train rolled down the line.

I thought about her kinfolk, her brother she lost to the mines, the one she rarely would discuss, the stories of her parents and grandparents, her father's innovative "indoor plumbing" system (he built his house atop a spring, yet until the 1960s they still used an outhouse), and the stories her brother once told me that made her blush...

I was the last person in my family to speak to my grandmother alive, for two hours on the phone, a few days before her death. The last thing we talked about was her father and the Blair Mountain War - the fight of the miners to bring justice and fair wages to Appalachia, against company, state, and even federal forces.

And that, yes, is a huge burden.

I sat in silence, staring out at West Virginia for hours, thinking about that conversation.

And I found comfort in my thoughts.

* * * *

The next week sped along a blur of emotion, funeral arrangements, and estate issues. Grief took second seat to the reality of having to dispose of human remains, to settle insurance issues, to prepare family heirlooms for shipping and furniture for eventual auction.

My father and I each delivered eulogies. As with my grandfather's funeral, I did not shed a tear; in fact, I even cracked a few jokes. I'm sure some folks thought it was inappropriate; most, however, did not.

As a child with my Grandpa's death, I was honoring a grandparent's last request - be strong, don't cry, don't grieve in public, as it makes others cry. That was, well, a wrong-minded approach - not grieving simply masks the same reality as shudder-filled sobbing. But as an adult, I've managed through much meditation to shake off many of the Western traditions associated with the often selfish emotions tied to death.

For some reason, I feel comfortable enough with human mortality to simply stand in front of a church full of mourners, to remind folks that we all die, and that we remain in this world forever so long as those left tell their tale.

* * * *

From Virginia, a five-day trek across the US, to California, on a road trip. My dad, brother-in-law, and I left Christmas Eve morning, spent Christmas Eve at my place here in Oxford, Christmas Dinner a truck stop meal in western Missouri.

As strange as it was, it's actually one of the most adventurous, exciting holidays I've experienced since childhood. The only gift granted was the hum of wheels on the open highway.

And that, yes, I view as a blessing in disguise, a reminder at how big this country is, how full of life and diverse in terrain North America is, from sea to shining sea.

* * * *

Days in California passed too quick. After a little more than a week, I returned to Ohio, to an empty apartment filled with boxes of childhood toys, trinkets from my childhood, and a large portion of the family library (containing the collected literature of five generations).

The new year, already upon us. A return to work, to life, to the concerns of the living. As December marks the death of every year, so too does the following January mark the birth of a new one.

C'est la vie.

"Because of its tremendous solemnity," the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote long ago, published in one of those works, "Death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearances."

“It is not death that a man should fear," Marcus Aurelius reported wrote again, in another one of those volumes, "But he should fear never beginning to live.”

After cleaning out the fridge, running to the store to reload on vittles, and unpacking my well-traveled bags, I sat down and closed my eyes.

A chance, yes, to catch my own breath, to rest in solitary peace for a moment.

- # # # -

"WTF? Where Are You...?!?" On Hiatus Through the New Year

2009-12-09T15:06:00.002-05:00

Due to the death of a close family member and a series of recent tragedies, mishaps, and other less-fun things around Oxford, The Zenformation Professional is on a [much needed] hiatus from December 10 - January 15.

I'll be back with something. Seriously.

I mean, when do I ever crank out something this short when it's NOT serious?

- Jason

I AM A PASSENGER; I RIDE AND I RIDE... Taking Pleasure in Life's Simplicity Beats the Alternative

2009-11-25T17:22:00.002-05:00

NEAR THE OHIO-INDIANA BORDER (ZP) -- The crispness of autumn roars through the cab, the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" rattles away in the speakers.

I turn up the volume, light a cigarette, and floor the accelerator for no reason whatsoever.

There's just something about an empty stretch of country road, something mischievous and devilish that spurns all men in automobiles to behave like your average teenager.

Especially when that man's just passed to only cop he's seen for ten miles.

The iPod, through some metaphysical link, reads my mind, telepathic biometrics. The original Generation X version of the classic "Dancing with Myself," twists my lips into a Billy Idol sneer as I bang the beat out on the steering wheel.

Asphalt eats away rubber beneath the pickup's frame. The cracked windshield - the one I've been meaning to fix since, oh, 2004 - shimmers in the bleak grayed sun.

I'm a country road devil, Satan fucking the wives of speed law legislators, the baron of blacktop flying the Badass flag at 70 miles per hour.

Cigarette smoke swirls like a dragon's hellish fart. The harvested cornfields and plowed under soy plants blur into a sea of browns and yellows.

Me time.

Just a Hoosier-Buckeye bound Don Quixote with a slab of plastic and a Ford filling in for Sancho Panza. For miles and miles, just melting horizon and the likes of Iggy Pop belting out songs like "The Passenger," bands like Biohazard bleating out covers of Sabbath's "War Pigs," Eric B. and Rakim spinning and commanding that I refuse to sweat the technique.

I catch my reflection in the rear-view mirror and feel handsome, free, cavalier.

I'm a killer. A goddamn bandito, a highwayman, a motherfucking gunslinger for hire who'll skullfuck an angel with a Louisville goddamn Slugger just for the thrill of it.

I laugh as I talk to the mirror. I'm well-aware that, for a badass gunslinger wannabe, I've got a stomach full of herbal tea and tofu - not exactly a Wyatt Earp style feast.

But the heart's full of adrenaline, brain firing on all machismo cylinders. The asphalt whines beneath the tires of a late-model pickup.

All alone. With just the road and some tunes.

Jesus Fucking Christ, what a ride.

C'est la motherfucking vie.

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS:New Wave Legends, House Guests, Dealing with Preacher Profs, & The Post-Grad Blues

2009-11-13T17:44:00.011-05:00

"I don't want to kiss you, I don't want to touch. I don't want to see you, 'cause I don't miss you that much."

- ELVIS COSTELLO,
The song "No Action," [VIDEO]
This Year's Model (Radar UK, 1978)

Because, well, my life decisions, while frustrating, are way less confusing than George Clooney's, apparently. Over 30 and concerned less with starting a family and getting married than I am about that article I read last month in Mother Jones...

* * * *

"Look, you're a man and you're a little more comfortable [with maintaining a blog under a horribly kept local "secret" online persona]. I'm a 22-year-old tiny-ass woman, skinny and light-skinned and boobs and all ... you have a sketchy-ass brother come up to you in a club, talking about how he loves what you wrote, creepin', it's different..."

"Man, what the fuck? ... You have all these books on witchcraft and demons and weird shit ... you're a librarian... and, haha, in your glasses? How can you say you're offended by being called Giles?"

- G-MONEY DA HOUSECAT,
Former Woman of Color Blogger,
On her recent visit to Oxford

So... some folks know this already, but I spent a good portion of the last month playing host to a former blogger - and ex, by the way - who made me promise not to put up a "real" post based on our time together. I did not, however, promise to not put up quotes...

So yeah, I keep things offline... sometimes.

* * * *

"Sometimes I feel like professors hide behind their degrees and classes end up feeling like... I dunno... like we're all there to just shut up, like, accept EVERYTHING they believe even if it has nothing to do with class. Sorry for whining..."

- LOCAL U. UNDERGRAD,
Via email, Nov. 12

Seriously... If you're a university student and you feel like you're in a class where the instructor's diverging from the syllabus and course description (both of which a generally viewed as contracts between grader and the graded), it's your responsibility and right (sorry... no getting anybody else to do it for you!) to meet with the instructor and air your concerns in a rational, responsible manner.

Don't wait for a course evaluation form and let a chance for real learning in a class you're paying for pass you by - in all honesty, it's the student who loses when they don't raise hand in classes to say "I disagree" or "Dr.___, what about the other side?" or take advantage of office hours - faculty can't read minds (though some, heh, librarians do read your tarot cards over beer Uptown.)

* * * *

"You guys are such pigs! Do you know how offensive and sexist it is to compare women to disposable razors that you can just throw away? Now, men on the other hand... you all are the disposable ones..."

- DUFFY McUGGS, Oct. 31
Local U. undergrad,
Bringing equality to sexism

See, there's no way to really take the sex out of sexism, especially when there's alcohol involved. Unless, well, you're one of those overly-sensitive prudes who really wishes we could just simply neuter and spay every human being with a sex drive.

* * * *

"Ugh... why didn't you, like, warn me about how fucking dark and depressing life after college is? How hard it is? It, like, fucking SUCKS!"

- UNEMPLOYED ENGINEER, Nov. 7
On the Post-Graduation Blues in a Recession

I thought I'd mentioned that, actually. Dammit. Must be getting old.

* * * *

"Ohmygosh! You're that blog person!"

"Uh, yeah... probably."

"Oh, well, that's great! [Digging through Fendi bag for a flier] Would you mind doing a blog about this? We're doing a fundraiser -"

"Um, chica, I don't take press releases. But I can get you the fax number for the paper..."

- COMMON CONVERSATION No. 238
At work a few weeks ago.

I'm not a media outlet and I generally don't take requests. But I'll be polite about it. Kinda nice to be thought of as a media outlet...

And yeah, a shitload of the Local U's female undergrads - even some of the drag queens - can afford Fendi handbags. Met a few who have one for class and one to go with their nightwear. Actually, I'm a bit worried that I actually know what the hell that means, fashion-wise.

* * * *

"Well that's just ice cream sex with a champagne moneyshot, love."

- ANONYMOUS,
Via online chat,
Glasgow, Scotland

- # # # -

COSMOPOLITAN STRANGERS: Globally Conscious Childhood Development, Without Ever Leaving the Country, Leads to Seriously Un-American Americans

2009-10-20T19:59:00.001-04:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- It's easy to tune out the rest of the world, in a - let's be honest here - rather isolated rural college community surrounded by the college-aged children of some of the wealthiest, most culturally sheltered Americans ten months out of the year.

Within the Oxford Bubble, hell, it's easy to tune out the fact that the median family income for the average Local U. student is estimated to be between three and four times that of the surrounding community, to ignore the economic and societal divides, the extreme wealth in the face of some very impoverished people...

Well, for some people it's easy. For me? Not so much, really.

A simple tour of the campus at three in the morning on a rather frigid Saturday had turned into a rather heated debate.

Personally, I blame the amount of booze we'd both consumed earlier in the night, the lovely bottle of Jack Daniels we were sharing to chase away the Hair of the Dog as we walked.

"Serious, J. - are you sure you're even a fucking American?" The Visitor said. "You don't have cable, don't know who [some pop star] is. AND NO CANDY. And working in this fucking Lalaland... I swear I'd shoot myself..."

Pfft. Struggling actors. Not only do they use me for a floor to crash on, but they just love picking arguments when they're out of work. Something about building up future emotional reserves for casting calls...

"Why do you say that?"

I was still laughing at the fact that it was the fact that I don't have cable television, nor knew who some apparently famous reality television guy was, that set her off.

"Because you don't act American. Not even like Eurotrash wannabes. What the fuck are you?"

* * * *

So here's the deal. I may BE, by birthright, an American, a citizen of the good ol' United States. But I've never really fit into my own country's culture.

In fact, during my formative years, I was relatively sheltered from it, tucked away in a remote corner of the country, surrounded by equally naturalized citizens who didn't exactly fit in, either.

But while I may have grown up isolated on a small family farm in rural Virginia, I was never sheltered from the world. In fact, if there was anything I can be accused of having been sheltered from, it'd be from the culture and customs of Mainstream America.

My father's parents - who technically owned 80 percent of the place - weren't exactly what most folks would associate with a Hillbilly-Cajun union. They'd spent four decades as diplomatic globetrotters, hitting every continent but Antarctica. After spending almost their entire adult lives in mostly developing countries, they really never seemed comfortable in retirement with the often frivolous, shallow culture of the Consumerist Patriotic Motherland.

Yes, I grew up in an isolation tank so much smaller than the societal bubble that surrounds my current home. But I was never sheltered from the greater world - my cosmopolitan kinfolk made sure my sister and I would grow up to be global citizens, without the crushing burden of Post-Industrial United States they themselves didn't fit into perfectly.

I learned to read on a steady diet of newspapers and foreign policy journals, English translations of some of the world's greatest writers, even NATO and United Nations documents. I had toys, sure, but often they were secondary to the 170-acre playground filled with barns to explore, ponds to swim and fish in, fruit trees to climb.

Growing up in the heyday of reckless greed and glut that was Mainstream 1980s America, my sister and I were probably two of the least American children in the country. We learned more about our own country's culture in the same way first-generation immigrant children learn it - in public school classrooms, through making friends with those for whom the culture was natural, through television and radio.

Imagine, if you will, being a man who though born in the United States and having never been off the North American continent, who grew up basically a foreigner in his own land, who matriculated within a culture as a child and teen but who never really was taught to look at it as his own culture.

In all honesty, it's made for some often uncomfortable, heh, assimilation issues for both my sister and myself, growing up surrounded by people who'd spent more time outside of their own country than in it. But, overall, I can't imagine it any other way, and I think I'm a better person for it...

Look at it this way. A retired high-ranking intelligence official once told me that I'd been given one of the greatest gifts any kid in the United States can receive: the freedom to be my own American without my own country's boundaries, cultural pollution, or baggage, to start with a clean slate.

My dad and his brother were given the same amazing gift by my grandparents - while their countrymen were obsessing over the Beatles and Elvis, they were climbing the Pyramids of Giza. While their peers here stateside were obsessing over Cowboys-and-Indians movies, they were running into Big Duke Wayne himself in five-star hotels after being evacuated from war zones.

Of course, well, I'm also a bit of a fuck-up, so I added quite a bit of my own baggage and the slate dirtied up fairly quick...

But, well, for every fuck-up in life, I can honestly say I did it to myself. The violence, the drug abuse, the hoodlum tendencies to gain street cred, the slackertude and solitude, even the occasional dive into either easy women, psychotic women, or, well, sometimes the occasional wife or gangbanger's old lady.

Without a net or a scapegoat.

Hell, I can't even blame the wicked metal, punk, and rap music I discovered as a teenager, the subversive literature I still read, or the fact that the closest thing to an abusive moment in my childhood came in the form of being required to watch the nightly news...

* * * *

I tried my best to explain, well, where I think the origins of my supposed American Un-Americanisms lie, how growing up in a secluded environment surrounded more by global culture than my own country's culture essentially made me a de facto Military Brat without the moving from base to base, country to country...

Sadly, I was fairly drunk by the time we made it back to my place, and my childhood tale ended up coming out a lot more rambling and long-winded than this writing.

"That's hella fucked up... so basically..." The Visitor laughed, throwing herself down on her sleeping bag on the living room floor, "... You were fucked up by your fam and you're still fucked up... but in a good way?!?"

I poured coffee into the auto-drip, flipped the switch, emptied out the rest of the bottle in the kitchen sink. (I don't keep booze in the house - and I don't like backwash liquor shots, either.) When I turned the corner, The Visitor was digging through my movie collection for a DVD to sober up to.

"Dude, you have no chick movies. This is why you're single."

"I dunno..." I reached over her shoulder and grabbed a film out of my Classics section. "How about this? The Italian chick sent it to me last year-"

" - Still single because you're nice to fucking ex-girlfriends, too."

"LOVERS. Or flings. Let's be classy here. Anyway, read the back of the case..."

Bertolucci's classic. The Conformist. Sex, death and a Fascist State.

The Visitor fell asleep 20 minutes into the film - subtitles, dammit. And too complex, I guess. No CGI, no overly choreographed action scenes, lots of talk.

I watched the film, sipped coffee, and waited for the sunrise. And afterwards, I put an indie rap mixtape playlist on repeat on the netbook, puked, had another cup of joe and a fried egg, and passed out myself.

A perfectly normal all-nighter for me.

I like being a fucking weird Un-American American.

- # # # -

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CONVERSATION WITH AN EX-OTHER MAN'S EX: Of Breakfast Meetings at Dawn, Pointless Bickering, and Growing Apart with Age...

2009-10-03T19:34:00.011-04:00

RICHMOND, Ind. (ZP) -- For a guy who's spent a good portion of his life as a professional night owl, I'm perpetually surprised at how much I actually enjoy breakfast dates.

Sitting in an ancient diner full of ancient Hoosiers, sipping weak Midwestern-strength coffee, watching the sun rise to the east. It's a thing of beauty, sure, watching shades of gray and indigo give way to reds and yellows and pinks across the lines in working people's faces...

Seriously, a few years ago, eating "breakfast" meant sucking down a greasy plate of eggs and bacon before hitting the sack, a quick, sloppy meal in preparation for a few hours of sleep - I used to be one of those guys who believed that starting the day early meant getting up before the ass-crack of noon. Now, well, sleeping in, for me, is being in bed at 9 a.m.

I've become, and without much regret, something of a morning person.

My dining companion is not. And this isn't exactly a breakfast meeting either of us what to have. But, through an odd quirk of life, we're obligated to hold nonetheless.

"Man, how the hell are you up this early? When I called you were going out drinking. That was, what? Midnight? I hit the road at two or so..."

"Got to bed by two-thirty, and, well, the alarm went off at seven."

"Um, most normal people turn their alarm clocks off on the weekends."

"Well, I'm not exactly the most normal guy."

Buttercup* swirled her coffee-flavored creamy sugar, nodded.

"You know, you're such a fucking Townie. You don't really change, your style doesn't change, and... well, in all honesty, dude, I'm not shocked you're in that fucking town. You're boring as hell..."

"Chica, I am a creature of habit. And what's wrong with Townies--"

Just then the waitress arrived with our food - huge plates of bacon and sausage and eggs, hash browns and biscuits. Buttercup immediately tore into her plate - she'd been on the road for a while after playing Designated Driver all night.

Apparently, she's doing better with the whole anorexia thing, I thought as I watched her eat.

* * * *

We were supposed to have breakfast in Oxford. Plans changed when I informed her that this was Parents Weekend at the ol' Local U, that we'd be waiting for hours just to cram into the few breakfast places Oxford has.

And, well, she'd have to make a detour on her trip from Cleveland to Indianapolis, a 60-mile detour back to a town she, in all honesty, has no desire whatsoever to ever step foot in again.

Hell, she'd never wanted to step foot in Cleveland again. But, well, a person she didn't even like had died, and, well, in true Roman Catholic fashion she'd driven back to her hometown to spend time mourning over that loss with people she can't fucking stand.

"... Oh, hey! Before I forget... Mom told me to tell you hi. Says I'm supposed to ask you about some black chick you're seeing."

"Oh, huh... well, I was seeing this multi-ethnic chick a while back, but we--"

"Heard she was a child, dude. A kid or something? Like, really, really too young for you. And what the fuck is 'multi-ethnic,' dude?"

Caught off guard. It's a trait of those with a vagina in her family.

"______ was 22, just so you know. Good kid. Just didn't work out. And we weren't dating or anything--"

Buttercup snickered.

"Oh, it was 'just a fling,' right? Like I said, you don't change."

This time, I'm the one snickering. More of a smirk, really. I've been told by Buttercup and God knows how many women I've slept with that this is one of my most condescending qualities.

* * * *

"Well, how old were you, Missy, when we were hooking up? About the same age, if I recall... but, well, refresh my old-ass memory here..."

The conversation ends for a second. We both killed off our breakfasts at the same time. And then, out of nowhere, in true Buttercup fashion, a melodramatic sigh and tossing of hair, a lesson in eye-rolling perfection.

As funny as it may seem, I once found these displays of hers to be quite the turn-on. But, well, as we sat there, I found it hard to believe that we'd ever slept together, that she'd been my first real local relationship attempt...

"Oh, well... since you didn't go all emo and blog about it - not that I read that fucking thing anymore - I guess the age thing didn't matter, huh?"

In hindsight, well, I'm thinking that was meant to cut deep.

As we talked, I just laughed.

Oh sure... it'd be kinda boring if I did put up every damned relationship, hook-up, and breakup online...

* * * *

As we were leaving, she bummed a smoke. Supposedly still a militant anti-smoker, well, she's always had this nasty habit of lecturing people about their vices while simultaneously asking to share in them - at no cost to her, of course.

I dropped the tailgate of my pick-up, and we sat there, in silence, for a long time listening to the buzzing, increasingly congested Interstate traffic in the distance.

"Ya know, don't take this the wrong way, but I can't believe we ever hooked up. I mean, EVER, dude. You're really not my type."

Buttercup crushed out her bummed smoke on the pickup bed, tossed the butt to the side, then, without asking, took another of my smokes from the pack.

"Meh... if I had a type, you'd probably not be mine, either," I said, lighting her cigarette. "I mean, maybe it's because we were just... lonely? Oxford's made people do strange things, chica."

Buttercup laughed and put her hand on my calf. As I turned my head, I noticed she had this impish look, those big brownish-green orbs on each side of her cute nose dancing with her eyelashes...

Okay, so maybe I do know why we hooked up in the first place, years ago... The eyes, well, and her Eggplant Parmesan...

I realized she was mockingly fluttering her eyelashes. Apparently, I'd stared a bit too long...

"Okay... dude... I think we hooked up because you're really smart and used to date a famous chick, and, well, let's be honest here, I'm smoking hot and kinda shallow, and we both fuck and fight like animals. But, yeah, it probably was the loneliness..."

"...And the boredom, hon," I added, lighting another cigarette. "God, I mean, we were only hanging out for, what, a few months, weeks? And how much of that was just arguing..."

Buttercup, again, does the fluttery eyelash thing. This time, her creepy, perfectly plucked eyebrows rise like the tide. She looked away, stood up suddenly. The eleven-year-old shocks barely moved with the loss of such light weight.

She had to hit the road to make it back to Indy in time to meet up with another, more recent, ex, to get the keys back to her apartment and to finalize what sounded to be a nasty break-up.

The guy in question, she said, reminded her of me. I took her statement as a compliment.

Without so much as a hug or goodbye, I watched as she sped off for the westward on-ramp...

- # # # -

* NOTE - Name changed to protect the guilty.

NEW MOONS & PALE ASSES: On Being Comfortable & Uncivilized, Meditating Naked, Alone, in The Woods

2009-09-19T04:28:00.001-04:00

Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it. It does good, though you feel nothing. Yes, even though you think you are doing nothing.

- JULIAN OF NORWICH
Fourteenth century English mystic

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- It's a rare thing, anymore, for a supposedly civilized man in a supposedly civilized society - in the world's only remaining, albeit collapsing, "superpower," as it is - to find himself drawn to a remote spot in a wood for no purposeful reason, other than to to sit and meditate in silence in a weed-filled, secluded meadow in the so-called witching hours.

Completely naked, no less, beneath a very dark new moon, alone in the darkness with nothing but the sounds of critters in the surrounding grass, a whispering breeze, and my own heartbeat to keep my bare ass company.

Needless to say, obviously, I'm not the kind of civilized man of cultural superpower leisure one expects to find naked in the woods, meditating and pacing my breath down to an almost melodious purr.

Hey, I do my own thing. And the tendency to spontaneously strip naked in a field is, well, one of my many quirks. Sue me.

Bloggers and technocrats can't be into that weird metaphysical shit, you're probably saying right now. This is the 21st century! We have Wiis to make us fit, WOW tourneys to make us magical, and streaming audio sermons and e-book bibles to help us find faith...

Trust me when I say that some of those primitive things we've given up to build our civilizations are often the ones that, well, bring us the most peace. And the more we lose touch with things like our bodies, with nature, with our spiritual bond with this here plane of existence, the less peace we will know, our children and grandchildren will know.

It takes some getting used to in our Brave New World Order built upon junk ownership and 24-hour information - the embracing of momentary solitude as a fleeting eternity, the touch of your normally cloth-covered flesh intermingling with dandelions and scratchy twigs and even ants, the whole "Trying to feel at one with the world" thing often left to New Age self-help gurus to make a profit off of at air-conditioned retreats and cult meetings down at the mega-chain bookstore.

I'm sure, well, I'm being judged right now. And I don't care.

Seriously, when was the last time you were so naked and alone, so vulnerable and exposed, and yet felt completely comfortable with it?

* * * *

Throughout the mythology and folklore of much of the ancient world, it was the darkest phase of the lunar cycle that was often seen as the more powerful and benevolent than the full moon, a time for healing and fasting and, yes, even prayers and thanksgivings.

Hell, there's a reason all of our supernatural occult thrillers involving werewolves and teen vampires, zombies and demons, often center around the full moon. Our ancient forebears used to share those same legends, sans cinematography, CGI, or good screen-writing, around their hearths and campfires - for some odd reason, they usually associated the full moon's light with mischief and evil.

The NEW moon lore, however, often gets overlooked. Doesn't make for a good movie or trashy romance novel. Stories involving pale, illuminated demons make for better suspense than, oh, say stories that often involve good omens, faith, and solitude.

Which, well, for guys like me, tends to be a good thing.

Can you imagine if, like with full moons, the same Ohio woods I've learned to disappear into on certain nights, for meditation and contemplation, were suddenly filled with goth kids playing at witchcraft, pale-ass hipsters covered in glitter and opining undead, bloodsucking heartthrobs, or hordes of crop-circle crazy housewives and spinsters in search of Divine Mother Earth crap they read about in some poorly written ecofeminist manifesto?

* * * *

I've meditated, alone, all over this country. And this rather uncivilized ritual is, of course, not limited to mere new moons, nudity, or even the mere absence of other people.

In California, beneath a live oak in an old, abandoned cemetery, overlooking a gorgeous series of box canyons and vineyards. In Wyoming, there was this sea of the most gorgeous golden grain right before a late summer storm I came upon after covering a Legion baseball game - I felt the whole universe burst upon my chest like a mortar. Virginia, well, I had this spot on the farm near the train tracks.

One of the best moments, ever, was in Denver, smack dab in the middle of Larimer Square, at four in the morning, right as snow was starting to fall. Of course, sure, I was clothed in below-freezing weather, and of course, the place was crawling with the usual homeless folk digging for scraps in the trash bins. But, oh, how beautifully still and tranquil a city such as Denver becomes as snow falls.

There's been motel rooms in Mississippi, dark, empty truckstops in Arizona, beaches in Florida, dust-choked tamale stands in southwestern Texas near the Rio Grande. Once, in a crowded art gallery opening. Another time while pulling barbed wire to repair a section of fence, perfect transendental moments at rodeos, in barber shops, even while playing chess with a Buddhist monk.

Meditation requires no ritual, no spontaneous nudity. There is no right or wrong way to do it. The magic of life is that it just keeps happening, like shit. It takes effort to slow down the self long enough to catch that beautiful alchemy in the act.

* * * *

So, well, what do I get out of vanishing into the bush, on a lark, out of stripping naked beneath a long-ignored new moon?

In all honesty, I couldn't tell you. The way that can be spoken or written, according to Lao Tzu, cannot be the way. If I put words to the few moments of calm, those moments would cease to have meaning.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: Babysitting Drunk Heartbroken Blondes, "Bald-Lay the Sex Poet," & Demon-Killing Cheerleaders on an "Old School" TV

2009-09-09T07:48:00.003-04:00

Image by Feuillu via Flickr

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- A quarter of a handle later, she says she's ready to talk about This Guy She Sorta Hooked Up With.

The sun's just beginning to sink down into the Indiana countryside to the west. After work, I'd put down four pints on an empty stomach, followed by a spinach salad. I don't need any hard liquor in my system, especially not 80-proof, kerosene-flavored booze from a plastic jug.

The vodka she's been drinking since Sunday night, in and of itself, would've turned most people's stomachs based on smell alone.

"So...okay... you 'sorta' hooked up with an asshole, chica... look, these things happen...don't beat yourself up like this..."

Silence. Homegirl stares up at the shitty, ancient tile work, head as if she's trying to stare down time itself as it crumbles the ceramic ashy grout to oblivion.

For the record, yes, Homegirl and I are sitting in her bathroom, in off-campus student flophouse, a rather run-down, tiny place. I'm sitting on the toilet, she's in the tub in her workout clothes.

(Welcome to the Local U. A girl'll blow off a week's worth of classes and showers on a bender but, hell, to not hit the Rec Center or skip the tanning bed? Please...)

It's not even eight at night, but she's three or four swigs away from beating the sunset to the blackout finish line.

All because, well, the only guy she's met since she's been at college who seemed to be one she could fall in love with, who seemed to tell her all the right things, who even seemed to understand her sometime insecurities and fears and social awkwardness...

... seemed to be, after the hook-up, just another douchebag who could seem just decent enough to play her like a game of Solitaire, just to get into her panties.

The silence continues.

We're waiting for her roommates to get home. Actually, they're the ones who called me to babysit while they went to class, to jobs. I'm not the best babysitter.

I'm looking for my out. I'm 31, it's a work night, and I'm not really in the mood to spend my whole evening with a drunk woman barely old enough to drink.

And I'm not sure if I'm just talking to fill the silence, rambling to stall until she realizes that I'm probably not the best person to talk to about why guys say what they say when they're trying to get in a girl's pants...

"You know, you're really suave for a library guy," she says. "You'reanokay...not bad looking... guy. You're, like, old, but you don't use women, an'...Hey I wanna go to the library!"

"Um, no."

"I want to go. Annnnn-da I wanna get some really sex...poet...poetry... Baudelaire... Or Bald-LAY...? I...uh..."

"Um, no."

Momentary silence again as she does the drunken internal debate thing, the mental catch-up all drunk people do.

Then the grin. Impish.

"WE SHOULD READ SEXY POETRY AND BECOME HIPPIES AND I'LL BE YOUR HOTYOUNG...Hot...Hot.. kid hippie girl..."

Fading, fading, fading fast. We need to get out and about. She needs to walk it off, move, do something other than mope and drink.

"Um, no. Hey, want me to make you some coffee?..."

* * * *

At this point, I decide to murder, in three breathlessly large gulps, the remainder of the 1.75 liter bottle of vodka, to keep her from drinking anymore while we wait.

In twenty minutes, it'll hit me. Ten minutes later, one of her roommates, one who's never met me, will open the bathroom door to find her youngest roommate & "You work at _____ Library, right?" Guy talking about oral sex, S&M, and College Republicans.

Approximately One-Point-Seven-Five hours after killing the 1.75 liter bottle of vodka, we're going for a long stroll around town, down to the basketball arena, down to the ROTC obstacle course.

I'll do 20 chin-ups on the bar, she'll do four half-ones, fake girly ones.

The feat will take about 15 minutes longer than sober.

A cop will roll by as we're walking back towards her place later on, he'll slow down, I'll wave. Being more drunk than I am, she'll swear at the passing cruiser as I remind her that, yeah, I work with those guys in those cruisers.

We end up back at my place. By mistake. Sorta. Her idea.

It will seem like hours have passed since I murdered that handle of cheap, charcoal-filtered booze.

* * * *

I'll make a pitcher of iced green tea. She'll suck down half a bag of baby carrots, stretch out on the floor, flip on my "old school," robust, tube-driven, round-screen television.

We'll watch reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer until about 10:30ish. By that time, she'll have sobered up enough to realize her new Blackberry's been going off with texts and calls and IMs for a few hours.

Roommates. Worried roommates. She'll run to my bathroom, I'll hear muffled voices and keystrokes through the partially closed door.

Right after wandering off, the other roommate I'd never met will have assumed I'm the fucking douchebag she hooked up with the previous weekend - short, cropped hair, hazel eyes, nice eyelashes and shoulders. Kinda chachball-looking, fratty, and "older" (i.e., 23 or 24 years-old, not 31). I

'll laugh as the description is being read to me from her phone.

"Oh God. They think you're T_____. Oh. Wait. Just _____ thinks you're T____. Oh God....They...Oh...My...Gosh...They think we're...oh..."

"Hahaha....Um, no."

Silence.

"Okay. I've gotta go. Awkward..."

I'll walk her to the door. We'll hug. She'll say thanks for talking, for listening, for hanging out.

I'll find out, wow, apparently, I'm good for something other than just being the Ex-Other Man in this town, that, hell, I'm not as big a douchebag as I think sometimes.

Within seconds of her leaving, I'll puke, barely having held the vodka-marinated spinach salad for as many hours as I will have done...

And I'll get electronic apologies for the next 24 hours. Apparently, well, for some reason, I'll be told that I'm even more intimidating in person for the thousandth time by a local undergrad.

Not one word about Baudelaire and his sexy poetry.

But, within that 24 hours, I'll make a note to include Baudelaire.

And the Hot Kid Fake Hippie sidekick offer.

Hmm? Maybe...?

Um, no.

- # # # -

SHORT TAKES & SUCH: Chitlin' Cough Hits Oxford Fucking Ohio, "OMG! Like, I Totally Made Out With That Online Library Guy" Stalker Moments, Etc...

2009-08-28T17:47:00.002-04:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- After a week of rumors, half-truths, and downright stupid urban legends floating around Oxford Fucking Ohio, the Local U. finally released a statement confirming what many folks already knew.

The dreaded (over-hyped) H1N1 virus - the Chitlin' Cough, the ol' Bacon Lung, the Pork Rind Plague of Mass Paranoia - may have indeed hit the local community, with as many as 25 suspected cases of Influenza A reported on campus by Friday afternoon.

Wow. Twenty-five whole cases. In a city of around 20,000 or so.

At a university with a slight on-campus housing shortage - dozens of students, at week's end, were living in temporary barracks-style units created out of residence hall lounges and cubbyholes.

Huh.

Imagine that.

A contagious disease that, well, flies around a college town full of not-exactly-hygienic college kids.

Imagine that.

Never mind that other universities around the country are reporting similar numbers, that there are 10 Alabama football players quarantined because of test results, that there are cases being reported at Colorado-Boulder, at Xavier, at other colleges and secondary schools who start classes before Labor Day.

Twenty-five kids reported. Probably two- to three- times that number currently infected who just don't feel well enough - or who weren't turned into ranting hypochondriacs last year - to rush off to the doctor or campus clinic to take a test for a virus that, really, has no 100 percent treatment beyond a few OTC medications and bed rest.

You know, as several members of the African diaspora in this country have pointed out since this whole thing began, the U.S. leads the world in pointless fretting over a virus that will, well, kill you if it kills you.

Africans should know. Hell, their home communities are dealing with cholera, malaria, genocide, starvation, AIDS, basic sanitation, lack of clean water that the Most Industrialized Nations have only given mere humanitarian lip-service to for decades ... and now the Great Super Power's media-saturated masses sweat the flu.

Some might call it irony.

Huh.

Imagine that.

Go figure.

- MORE -

UPTOWN OXFORD (ZP) -- I've decided to write off a recent occurrence as a blog lurker drinking game. Or as a really awkward momentary lapse in judgment caused by too many Red Bull and Vodka cocktails - and too much time online.

I've been dealing with Ohio's strangest stalker - a woman who hunts her prey by running up, grabbing a guy's ass while bumming a cigarette outside of a random bar, licking/kissing his neck mid-sentence, and then wandering off without so much as giving her real name.

Same very weird girl. Very cute but very, well, creepy.

At one point, we're talking three nights, consecutively. Three or four run-ins a night.

The only information she would give me was that she "knew my O-M-G, like, so not a secret," that she was an upperclassman who's "major wasn't important," and that '[Whispering] One night we're hooking up, right, like, here on the motherfucking street."

Same weird girl. At least a dozen separate run-ins in alleys, on patios, even, a week ago, at a soon-to-be demolished local watering hole during the local band Look Afraid's last set (Great show, guys!) in their favorite longtime, soon-to-be-demolished, college town venue.

Seriously, how fucking drunk and/or stoned does a junior or senior undergrad have to be to just walk up to a 31-year-old librarian leaning against a bar during a loud-ass rock concert, ask for a cigarette, then tell him she's "got a motherfucking mystery" she's planning on showing him at some future time, when he's drunk enough, and that I "can just call her Raylene" in whatever I write?

Um, yeah.

Just a little creepy.

In all honesty, it's probably my fault to some extent. I probably egged it on a bit at one point ... ah, um... well, okay... I was sorta tipsy enough to kinda...you know...

... Well, if a random 21-to-22 year-old licks your lips for you, while tipsy, most guys are going to lick back, okay? My bad. I was a bit tipsy myself.

But in all seriousness, I REALLY don't roll that way, Mystery Lady.

Ever try something like, "Hey, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I like your blog... My name's ______?"

You know.

Something less creepy?

- MORE -

CINCINNATI (ZP) -- After years of being accused of ignoring folks in the Queen City - I rarely leave the comfy bubble of life in Oxford Fucking Ohio without some motivation, to cut down on my carbon footprint - I was finally talked into hanging out with probably the most fun group of college students in Ohio.

I'm talking, of course, about the Local U.'s longtime rival in football and in scholarship, the University of Cincinnati.

There's a whole houseful of absolutely gorgeous girls down there who, well, know how to make amazing vegan food, who picked my brain about all sorts of things, in terms of both my former community organizer and [admittedly vague/sketchy] "information analyst" consulting days, in person, over way too much wine and grilled tofu.

I forgot I promised those wonderful Bearcat ladies a shout-out.

So, well... here it is.

Here's the fascinating thing: one Local U. alum, upon hearing the PG-13 version of that tale from earlier this summer, accused me of "cheating on" Oxford.

Yep, local students, my Ex-Other Man nature does sometimes lead to stepping out on ol' Oxford and its residents. And, I guess I should be honest here, I've also "cheated on you" with kids in Muncie and Bloomington, Indiana, even up in Columbus and down in Lexington, Kentucky.

I'm such a bad monkey. I know. Please forgive my cheating ass.

But when you can grill organic farmer's market corn and discuss Post-Marxist theory, Global South debt to various Industrialized nations, and culture-jamming like those lovely ladies, well, call me. I may let you spank me...

QUICK BITS

Welcome back, college students. Be glad you're still in school, else you'd be another degreed kid in the Unemployment Line.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid. That's for corporate media news junkies. Put a little booze of truth in it.

Why, yes, I have been too busy to blog a lot. Don't I get a summer vacation, too?

Apologize for calling Democrats and Republicans terrorists? Um, why the fuck would I do that?

When I see real "health care reform," I'll be sure to write about it. But until then, well, I'm content to watch the U.S. Congress and the owners of both parties' collective balls duke it out like bullies on a playground.

I respect the Dead Kennedys, sure. Oh, you're not talking about the punk band, are you?

- # # # -

"THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" AIN'T EVER GONNA BE A CAMPAIGN PROMISE: Why U.S. Citizens, Leadership Are in Perpetual War with Each Other

2009-08-12T17:49:00.021-04:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I do not, nor will I ever, trust anything in this great nation that slithers its way up through the shit-coated sewer that is partisan machinery and into the hallowed halls of Washington.

I trust not one Senator, not one member of the House. Those in the White House, in the Cabinet, those sketchy appointees and backroom reactionary poll-and-rhetoric speechwriters & policymakers, those deviants who make up the Campaign Finance Infrastructure more worthy of the label "Raiders of State" than "supporter" or "donor."

And trust me here, ye Party Loyalists and Pundits - I am in the Majority on this one, if "majority" still means anything to anyone.

Every policy and law proposed, thus, is treated as a flawed policy or law, produced by a corrupt system that will not ever be reformed without a massive disassembly of the two greatest terrorist threats to the Yet-to-Be-Free World - the Republican and Democratic parties.

Yes, they are. As were the Stalinists who "saved" the Soviets by forcing the defense of the Motherland through the Gulags, anti-unionism, forced economics, and speech suppression, as were the Pinochets and the Amins, the terrible Ivans and the Torquemadas and the Genghis Khans.

Seriously. I challenge anyone to name any two political organizations other than the former USSR or the People's Republic of China's monopolistic Communist Parties, that, since the end of the Second World War, have sponsored more dictators and madmen in the interest of its elite interests, oppressed more people into inhumanity and poverty in self-interest of its powerful, that have poisoned and polluted more of the world, that have lied to its own people and the world, that hold the global community hostage with a nuclear arsenal and massive military, through unaccountable policies and Cover-Your-Ass diplomacy.

I love my country too much to feel otherwise. Not its bureaucracies, not its myriad periods of government imperialism and fascism, its state-created censorship and mob rules of the elite and powerful. Not its politics, its propaganda-rigged elections, its Hero-Vs.-Heel closed-race puppet presidencies and governors supported by Dumbing Down Corporate Media and their Advertisers.

No, I love the PEOPLE of these United States, just as I love Mexicans, Canadians, pretty much all of North America, as brothers and sisters. As in WE, THE PEOPLE. The rest is just a struggle by a self-appointed wealth-and-power minority that, well, for decades, has only been able to hold power by tricking the majority into believing that power and wealth really matter.

Love, perhaps, isn't even strong enough a sentiment - I worship, yes, our individualism, embrace passionately our often spontaneous communal events and assemblages and protests, would sacrifice my own life to preserve the fundamental liberties and protected freedoms that, despite being created 200 years ago by a group of Educated Rich White Dudes in the hope of pacifying a rowdy people with the table scraps of a revolt against a British Crown, hold some unspeakable, transcendental truth more perfect than any god man can imagine.

While my government will never give us viable health care of its own corrupt volition, my countrymen will indeed fight amongst themselves but will also fight against whatever the government pitches as unfair, or too socialist, or too capitalist. They're once again marching to protest pretty much all forms of government "aid" - the ones that send volunteer soldiers into wars to liberate oil for our industry and the ones that steal from those same people to save "too-big-to-fail" industries that led to the wars in the first-place, the ones designed to pit a small business, mostly struggling mercantile class against the working class, working-class against the poor.

Regardless of party in charge and regardless of which version of Big Transnational Business pulls the strings, all the U.S. government can do is to be "pragmatic," and "realistic," and "powerful," while the people, despite differences in opinion between right and wrong, morality and sin, still instinctively resist the State's by-force pragmatism and realism, almost subconsciously.

Those in Power, who trade their humanity in the moment they join the ranks of State Influence, are not THE PEOPLE. Let's be clear here. They are THOSE POLITICIANS, the pentultimate global threat, the nemesis of liberty and rights, of collectivism and even dissident socialism, keepers of all property through coercion, dominion, and capital, possessed of the same I Am Legion phantom that Christ fought, that imprisoned Mandela, that killed King and Malcolm, raped the Chiapas, killed the Lakota, Sioux, the poets on the Great War's Western Front, the union boys through their Pinkertons, the slaves of Rome in arenas and our own former slaves on Southern plantations.

But THE PEOPLE, yes, through the chaos of many voices of many differing arguments, keep the authoritarian hordes of Big Corrupting Evil at bay, fight through both entrepreneurship and communism simultaneously, through both free trade and soup kitchens, church suppers and investments, protests and marches.

The citizens of this country are, indeed, a splendidly revolutionary bunch, with a proud history of both pacifism and violence against oppression - and almost all of that often built-up explosion of resistance is the result of some marginally democratic government that assumes that its power and wealth came be stripped at any time.

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, the United States is nothing more than 300 million people crowded in between seas and shining seas, with THE PEOPLE being nothing more than a euphemism for "WE have no fucking clue what unifies the Montana rancher to the New York labor organizer, We have no fucking clue how a Hawaiian hobo is really that much different than a New York reality televison celebutard, how a Harvard-educated, sherry-sipping lawyer is similar to a West Virginia pro-gun and pro-family moonshiner."

The greatest thing to dwell on now, the most important perhaps since the massive outrage of the 1960s, the rambunctiousness of the 1910s and 20s, is the return of that wondrous sense of a vast majority of often silent Americans asking themselves, together or in groups:

"What the fuck is wrong with our country? And how do we stop those who fucked it up so bad?"

God bless them all and may they first find answers for themselves before ever again accepting partisan loyalties so blindly the true exploiters of the world, the great Pale Rider Elite upon their Manufactured Consent Horses.

God bless every one. Even the atheistic academic Trotskyist and furled brow humanist faculty, even the pamphlet-wielding Trustafarian college kids, the religious nutjobs convinced some International Banking Illuminati is planning to set up Elderly Death Squads to stamp out Jesus and Free Will.

Dissent. Ain't it grand?

Now THAT, my friends, is change you can always count on in this here Land of the Free Spirit.

When Woody Guthrie wrote "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar, he wasn't talking about government, our politicians or transnational CEOs, Wall Street, Madison Avenue, or Hollywood.

He was talking about us. Each and every one of us.

- # # # -

OF SEXY BEASTS & IVORY TOWERS...:Female Readers Share Some of Their Own Erotic Tales from the Higher Education Underground

2009-07-27T15:37:00.018-04:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- A few years ago, I discovered that, yes, the vast majority of visitors to this site are women - by an almost 2:1 margin. Most, too, are either enrolled in college or college graduates.

And there's a reason, sure, that this here online homestead gained its reputation amongst college students, graduates, or even lifelong learner types of gals.

Integrity? Honesty? Heartfelt writing and amazing storytelling?

Heh. I wish.

Believe it or not, but I may just be the one librarian who, consistently, since 2005, has posted more about his often fucked-up sex life than he has about any other subject.

And there are more women who've never even met me in person, in all honesty, who have a better idea of my libidinous habits than most of the people I work with.

Kinda creepy at times. But, well, I do have my narcissistic exhibitionist streak, just like every other blogger... kinda fucking badass...

I made the female readership/librarian sex life connection a few years ago, ironically enough, while going through a rather nasty breakup I was specifically asked not to discuss online.

After the end of a really bad fling, particularly one where the ending involves a cornucopia of completely contradictory, malevolent emotions, well, I'm man enough to admit I'm one of those pace-around-all-night-and-sulk guys - I can't remember the time frame exactly, but I think I spent a month posting nothing but links to articles or playlists from the music I was listening to at the time.

And, well, I was spending a shitload of time in my underwear, online and chatting with pretty much anybody who stopped by this here site and added me as a chat "buddy." All hours of the night, days on end. My weekends were governed by visions of pop-up ads and online notification pings dancing in my head.

And then, well, I had a selfish idea - why not, in an effort to remind myself that all human beings have shitty relationship moments, ask some of these really cool chicks for their funniest, most embarrassing fling stories? I sent out a quick email, received about a hundred or so responses...

...And then I fucking lost the folder containing all of these wonderful pieces originally meant for a post two years ago.

Recently unearthed on an old flash drive found in a storage unit, I thought, Well, shit... what better way to return to the ol' Zenformation Professional? Let readers tell their sex stories for a change, pick out the best and most cringe-worthy and humorous...

* * * *

"When a girl's in your apartment and tells you she wants you to rip off her panties, it doesn't mean keep drooling and licking her tits like a fucking idiot. Tear those fuckers off, shut up, and get working. If not, she's gonna be faking it because you obviously, duh, can't follow fucking instructions..."

- MADISON, Wisconsin

"...I went home with this guy once who just didn't get that he was a bootycall and couldn't spend the night. Worst lay ever! Anyway he wanted to stay and cuddle. He smelled like fucking ass - missed that when I was wasted but when I sobered up he was, OMG, a fucking little troll... He just couldn't deal and missed all the hints, so I got up and told him I wanted to go get a frozen pizza or something. This dude got up... put his clothes on and like ran out the door - he was gonna get me the pizza. I locked the door when he left and turned the radio on real loud...Don't think he came back with haha the fucking pizza..."

- OXFORD FUCKING OHIO

"You know what I hate dude? I hate when guys who think they fucking PWN U the second they get laid. I dated this guy once who was completely cool until we hooked up. After he just turned into this ridiculous chachasaurus... no space ever... always wanting pussy... he would like cling onto me at EVERY party EVERY bar whenever I was talking to guy friends... but when his female friends were around, oh, THAT's when I'd get some fucking space..."

- COLUMBUS, Ohio

"Won't ever ever ever fuck a guy taller than 6'5 again. Long story but not long anywhere else :)"

- ATHENS, Georgia

"...Anal. I don't know why some girls don't like it. I'm like ur ex man... in the butt and I'm like good to go for hrs... sadly have you ever noticed there are guys more scared of being seen as like gay just b/c they like it? Not you but guys in general...?"

- VANCOUVER, British Columbia

...In all honesty, the best sex I had when I was in college was with myself. It's funny but I quit going [to Oxford's] Uptown right after I turned 21. Lost all interest in drunken idiots. Just me, my showerhead, and, LOL, lots of Cabernet . God, I miss that massage setting..."

- CHICAGO

"...I don't know if this is what you mean by erotic and embarrassing but I've been caught heh diddling the magic button by every roommate I've had since Freshman year... Every woman masturbates everywhere..."

- ANN ARBOR, Michigan

"...Worst funny or best funny? Both would be - plz no names - with my husband when we were dating. In Fort Collins [Colorado] there used to be this great burrito place right near campus... I dunno but for some reason Roberto's used to just make me horny... We used to go there in between classes but for some reason - ____'s so gonna kill me - we'd never make it to those afternoon classes. Don't know how we both graduated..."

- BOSTON

"...I think all of them were funny embarrassing and erotic. Dooders, that's the point of college. To learn. Put that in there..."

- CLEVELAND

"...Tried this melted chocolate thing on my partner once... ah yeah... ever seen an angry dyke rushed to the hospital with burns on her tits? Not cool but she forgave me eventually and she'll kill me if you use my name..."

- TEMPE, Arizona

"...In a tube [ London subway] once after drinking. Worst bloody lay of my life. Guy looked like [David] Bowie while rumbling south... the next morning I awakened to a guy who looked so dandy, like Tony Blair or an electro deejay..."

OXFORD, Oxfordshire, UK

"The Fat Man in Canberra... not because he was huge but because he ate at the clammie like a Chinese buffet... God the slurping still gives me nightmares...Worst naughty I have ever had..."

- NEWCASTLE, New South Wales, Australia

"... I was in graduate school... I was exchanging fruitcake sex (best Zenfopro-ism EVER btw) with another TA in our office. I don't know about M____, but our TA offices are tiny, filthy holes not fit for human occupancy. He was every bit the self-absorbed, stereotypical Jewish mama's boy... a great lay but paranoid she'd find out I was Korean... We were going at it like cats and dogs, just crazy. I was about to come when his cell phone rang... he stopped and answered his fucking mother's phonecall. I pushed him off me and told him he could fuck his mother the next time... while he was still on the phone with her."

- PRINCETON, New Jersey

"Library school. I didn't sleep alone for five semesters. I was queen of the cougars. Or my ex-husband. Which was awesome. My kids were disgusted. Graduated with a 4.0."

- [Location withheld by request]

"...Okay, well, this guy from where I work on campus. I was trolling for twinks at this queer club near where I live and I had such a crush on this guy... such a HOTTIE omg... I thought he was into the scene... GAY bar, DRAG SHOW NIGHT, PRIDE flags everywhere... anyway we hung out all night, got completely shitfaced, hooked up... OMGOMGOMG the next morning fucking sucked. He thought it was a trendy metro club or something. that I was born a fem (hope that doesn't creep you out) His first trans experience btw..."

- SAN JOSE, California

[* NOTE: And no, I've not 'creeped out' by transwomen.]

"In the alley next to - don't kill me - the library during first-year. I faked it for all 20 seconds. Fucking shit, did I just say that???? "

- OXFORD FUCKING OHIO

* * * *

Now THAT'S the most woman-friendly post I think I've written in months.

Oh wait. Correction.

Now THAT'S the most woman-friendly, first-ever "guest post" the very readers of this here site have ever told in their own words.

And yeppers, I'm back.

- # # # -

THE ZENFO PRO HITS THE ROAD: An Online Sabbatical, Rumors of My Demise, & Selections from MY Summer Reading List

2009-07-17T06:13:00.004-04:00

VARIOUS U.S. CITIES & TOWNS (ZP) -- Contrary to rumor and speculation - and probably some malicious wishful thinking - I am, indeed, alive and well.

Generalissimo Franco? Still fucking dead. So's Hitler, a few dozen or so popes, the Shah of Iran, the meddling intelligence agents who put that moron back into power and who started the current clusterfuck there, Reagan, Pol Pot, Hunter S. Thompson, Jesus H. Christ, even a mono-gloved whackjob of a pop singer.

Moi? Still kicking and as ornery as ever.

I've been traveling the country (read: raising a bit of hell and being a perfect little angel at times, too...typical) quite a bit in the last few weeks - out to Indiana, up to the Windy City, Kentucky, Virginia, out west to the New Mexico malpaís, even down to Phoenix for a few hours.

So needless to say, the offline world has left very little time (and, in the case of New Mexico and Kentucky, web access and electricity) for a decent Zenformation Professional dispatch. But I'll be returning shortly with more stories from Oxford Fucking Ohio and other parts of this ol' muddy blue marble of a planet we all call home.

No, I'm not dead.

Thanks for the concern; I forget sometimes that my principle demographic here is primarily made up of the extremely bored college kids and cubicle monkeys, sorority girls, homeless punk kids, and a few very cool stay-at-home moms and dads.

And thanks for the emails, too - in spite of the fact that if I were indeed a corpse, I'm not sure how I'd be expected to answer...

Anywho.

While waiting for a new post, here's a look at the so-not-light summer reading list. If you're interested in what you see, hit up your local library!

~ JASON

* * * *

... In the course of human history it is generally the case that the malcontents, the oppressed, and the rebels, before being able to conceive and desire a radical change in the political and social institutions, restrict their demands to partial changes, to concessions by the rulers, and to improvements. Hopes of obtaining reforms as well as in their efficacy, precede the conviction that in order to destroy the power of a government or of a class, it is necessary to deny the reasons for that power, and therefore to make a revolution.

In the order of things, reforms are then introduced or they are not, and once introduced either consolidate the existing regime or undermine it; assist the advent of revolution or hamper it and benefit or harm progress in general, depending on their specific characteristic, the spirit in which they have been granted, and above all, the spirit in which they are asked for, claimed or seized by the people.

Governments and the privileged classes are naturally always guided by instincts of self preservation, of consolidation and the development of their powers and privileges; and when they consent to reforms it is either because they consider that they will serve their ends or because they do not feel strong enough to resist, and give in, fearing what might otherwise be a worse alternative...

- ERRICO MALATESTA (1853-1932)
Italian Revolutionary & Activist

From Malatesta: His Life and Ideas.
V. Richards, ed. London: Freedom Press, 1965

* * * *

...The Internet is, for loners, an absolute and total miracle. It is, for us, the best invention of the last millennium. It educates. It entertains. It transforms. It facilitates a kind of dialogue in which we need not be seen, so it suits us perfectly. It validates. It makes being alone seem normal. It makes being alone fun for everyone.

And so it has its critics. They claim it keeps kids from playing healthy games outdoors. They say it is a procurer for perverts, a weapon in hate crimes. Underlying all this, of course, is the real reason for their dismay: the Internet legitimizes solitude. The real problem is not that kids don't play outdoors but that they do not play, the critics fear, with other kids...

ANNELI RUFUS
California Author and journalist

From Party of One: A Loners' Manifesto.
San Francisco: Da Capo Books, 2002.

* * * *

...In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Two years later, the Soviet Union was dissolved. The process of transition only secured the position of the elites. The old leaders of the Communist Party and the Communist Youth succeeded in reinventing themselves as nationalist politicians and businessmen, the owners of local concerns. One witness, Olga Kryshtanovskaya, has described the transformation from the system of state management to the new capitalist form. 'A ministry would be abolished, and in its ruins a new business concern would be created in the form of a joint-stock company (same building, same furniture, same personnel)... as a rule, the second or third figure in the abolished ministry would become head of the concern.' The transition of Eastern Europe was less violent or dramatic than the equivalent processes of 1917 or 1928-32. Yet the system that emerged was new: an entire historical epoch had reached its end...

DAVE RENTON
British Historian & Social Activist

From Dissident Marxism: Past Voices for Present Times.
London: Zed Books Ltd., 2004

* * * *

... Chilly night fog was flowing down the mountainsides. Soon the ground would shimmer with faintly luminous ground frost. Still, Gordon shivered less from the cold than from nerves. He knew he was getting close. One way or another, he was about to have an encounter with death.

In his youth he had read about heroes, historical and fictional. Nearly all of them, when the time came for action, seemed able to push aside their personal burdens of worry, confusion, angst, for at least the time when action impended. But Gordon's mind didn't seem to work that way. Instead it just filled with more and more complexities, a turmoil of regrets.

It wasn't that he had doubts about what had to be done. By every standard he lived by, this was the right thing to do. Survival demanded it. And anyway, if he was to be a dead man, at least he could make the mountains a little safer for the next wayfarer by taking a few of the bastards with him.

Still, the nearer he drew to the confrontation, the more he realized that he hadn't wanted his dharma to come to this. He did not really wish to kill any of these men...

From DAVID BRIN, The Postman
New York: Bantum/Random House, 1985

* * * *

...I think it was my second day as a Christmas temp that this big woman came out and walked around with me as I delivered letters. What I mean by big was that her ass was big and her tits were big and that she was big in all the right places. She seemed a bit crazy, but I kept looking at her body and I didn't care.

She talked and talked and talked. Then it came out. Her husband was an officer on an island far away and she got lonely, you know, and lived in this little house in back all by herself.

"What little house?" I asked.

She wrote the address on a piece of paper.

"I'm lonely too," I said, "I'll come by and we'll talk tonight."

I was shacked but the shackjob was gone half the time, off somewhere and I was lonely alright. I was lonely for that big ass standing beside me.

"All right," she said, "see you tonight."

"She was a good one all right, she was a good lay but like all lays after the third or fourth night I began to lose interest and didn't go back.

But I couldn't help thinking, god, all these mailmen do is drop in their letters and get laid. This is the job for me, oh yes yes yes...

From CHARLES BUKOWSKI, Post Office
Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1971

Now that, my friends, is a completely fucking random summer reading list.

The Zenformation Professional will return next week... probably.

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Fucking Insane Library Funding Cuts, Rattled Chains, Fashion Mishaps, & Other Nonsense

2009-06-24T19:17:00.001-04:00

"Governor Strickland, in proposing to cut almost a quarter-billion in public library funding, has essentially declared war on intellectual freedom and the public's access to information. Should this budget pass, whole generations of Ohioans will suffer in terms of quality of life, community, and public welfare."

- THE ZENFO PRO,
"Official" library blogger response
To the Ohio Democrat's budget.

Because cutting support to libraries during a recession is akin to cutting police officer salaries during a riot.

* * * *

"What the fuck?!? So is he trying to intentionally make sure Ohio's full of fucking dumb people?"

- AN OXFORD RESIDENT
& PUBLIC LIBRARY PATRON,
Upon hearing about the governor's planned cuts

One of probably a thousand such comments I've heard from folks around the state.

* * * *

Where do bad folks go when they die?
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly
They go down to the lake of fire and fry
Won't see them again till the fourth of July...

- THE MEAT PUPPETS, "Lake of Fire,"
Music and lyrics by C. Kirkwood, 1984

For the record, yes, the United states used to be known for producing great rock music NOT prepackaged by some reality television exec.

* * * *

"Do you hear...chains? I can't stand the sound of chains."

"Dude, that's just your half-black heritage reacting to four hundred years of oppression and slavery."

- BARROOM CONVERSATION,
June 23, Oxford Fucking Ohio

* * * *

"... Goddamn, I used to get an erection flying over Vietnam..."

- MASTER WANE-FU, U.S. Army (Ret.),
June 19, Local watering Hole

I'd tell his Thai hookers in Saigon story, but the man is rumored to be able to kill at fifty yards with only a plastic spoon and a rubber band...

* * * *

"We have a center-right party and a crazy party. And over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the Right has moved into a mental hospital."

- BILL MAHER, opening monologue, June 19,
"Real Time with Bill Maher,"
HBO television series

Couldn't have said it better myself.

* * * *

"California's broke as a motherfucker. In fact, it's so broke it can't afford a mother to fuck, dude."

- ANONYMOUS, May 22,
On life in the Golden State

* * * *

"Well, guys don't seem to get that painting and writing, for me, is the ultimate aphrodisiac. I think art is that way for a lot of women - hey, you stand a better chance with me in a museum or library than a fucking bar."

- LOCAL U. ALUM, Class of 2005
Uptown Oxford, Reunion Weekend

Well, with the threat of even further cuts to Ohio's libraries and museums, guess a lot of guys won't ever get that chance...

* * * *

"You're nowhere near fashionable. You're like the Antichrist of Fashion or something. Do you own anything BUT black tee shirts and jeans?"

- AN UNDERGRAD FASHION CRITIC,
On my wardrobe choices

Black tees and jeans never go out of style. But another undergrad blog lurker's critique of my "denim shorts with Dr. Martens and blue socks" ensemble at work was, well, dead-on...

- # # # -

TWO DEAD GAY POETS, A STUFFED FROG, SANTA MONICA HOBOS & ONE BORED, WELL-READ MODEL: Transcontinental Conversations in the Key of Rod Serling...

2009-06-06T16:19:00.014-04:00

I knew it was going to be an interesting conversation.

Conversations with Los Angelenos are always interesting

She started right into what had been on her mind the last few days, how it was affecting her normal party-all-night, sleep-all-day lifestyle, how growing up was, in her words:

Man, life's crimping my style hardcore right now... I think I'm turning into a fucking reclusive hermit... like you, ya know?

On the West Coast, in the all-night diner in West Hollywood from where she was calling, it was only 10:30 on a Friday evening. Traffic on La Cienega Boulevard was somehow too much too bare for the L.A. native. She couldn't make it all the way back down to the Sunset Strip for a night of clubbing after dropping her Girls Night Out dinner companions off at their respective homes.

Instead, some unseen force pulled her into her favorite hang-out, a place she used to dine at regularly when she didn't have much money, couldn't sleep, needed a comforting place to people-watch and read the free alternative weeklies and trade publications they always have in bins in the lobbies of those sorts of places.

Here, in Ohio, it was just after one in the morning when she first texted her usual "RU Bzy?" queue, the one she uses when she's looking to reach out and touch somebody. She uses the same message, all the time. I'd just gotten in from a nice quiet night out, contemplating life over a few beers at the local watering hole here in Oxford.

Bored out of my skull, well, I decided to return her call. Stupid me - I forgot how tired I was, forgot that it was still early on the West Coast, forgot that these sorts of conversations tend to go on for hours.

"I just don't feel like doing shit. Don't feel like dealing with fucking creepy guys or, ugh, the Lakers fans, or snotty bitches."

"Chica, everybody feels like that at times."

"But I feel that way a lot. It's fucking Allen Ginsberg's fault, I think."

"Uh...s'okay. Allen Ginsberg? As in the dead Beat poet?"

"YEAH! THAT FUCKER! You ever read his shit?"

* * * *

A pause, the sound of a woman who frequently makes those Name 10 Hottest Models You'd Bang lists of frat boys and Moose Lodge poker nights smacking her lips around a breakfast sausage link, and, finally, an answer.

Of sorts.

Bear with me. She was a bit tipsy, loaded up on Red Bull and coffee.

"You know he wrote this poem about, like, running into Walt Whitman in a grocery store. It was in "Howl," ya know...

"...Dude, so I saw a homeless guy in Santa Monica last week who looked just like that, so asked something like 'Where are you going, Walt Whitman?'...

"You know, from the Ginsberg poem, right? Anyway...the old dude gave me this, like, stuffed frog from his backpack... he said he, like, met Ginsberg once and, like, said Oh Captain, My Captain ...

"...And then he, like, ran away... I mean, that's not normal, right? I mean that's weird, right? I mean, it was a joke, sorta, and..."

I put the conversation on speaker, sat it down on the bed to undress. I forgot, momentarily, that I was actually in the midst of a conversation - I actually removed my contacts, stripped, brushed my teeth, all while she was telling her story.

I know. Very rude.

I apologized profusely and pledged to my late-night electronic cohort a free shot to the ol' nutsack next time we meet in person.

* * * *

"So, okay, lemme get this straight... Allen Ginsberg somehow made you a hermit?"

"No. Walt Whitman. But not like the pictures you see. EXACTLY like in Ginsberg's poem. And that homeless guy."

"...S'oookay. So, you've been reading a lot of Ginsberg, ran into a guy who looked like how Ginsberg described another old dude - like Walt Whitman - in grocery store, and YOUR guy gave you a stuffed frog--"

A burst of excitement, a girlsqueak.

"Man, do you believe in curses and shit? I think that crazy homeless guy put, I dunno, a spell on me or something. Is that, well..."

"Um, yeah. Chica...now that's crazy."

I suddenly felt very sorry for eavesdroppers on her side of the conversation, those poor, helpless bastards in that West Hollywood diner, with only bits and pieces of a conversation involving two American poets and a plush toy.

"YES! Dude, I keep having, like, dreams with, like, Jesus, this crazy hobo in them. I'm reading too much - is that weird? Ohmygod, I'm going crazy, right?"

How does one respond to such questions? Does one even attempt an answer? In the wee hours of the morning, half-asleep?

* * * *

From there, the conversation went from only slightly insane to downright absurd.

Dream symbolism, food interactions, even the existential nature of homelessness, Magical Hobo and Phantom Traveler tall tales, time travel, even hauntings and demonic possession.

Maybe Allen Ginsberg was an alien, a creator of a Whitman clone, a madman? Was Walt Whitman?

Or maybe her amphibian-wielding Santa Monica vagrant really was Whitman caught in some time vortex, appearing to Ginsberg back in that supermarket decades ago and now, to her? Maybe Ginsberg was an evil wizard, had trapped Whitman in a poem through some trippy peyote-filled magic spell?

Was the stuffed frog she still had in her over-sized diva purse really a frog? A metaphor? Alien technology, merely stamped with a beer company logo and Made in China label as a form of camouflage?

Was Space/Time Walt Whitman's alien gift somehow bleeding its Beatnik neutrinos into her MAC lip gloss?

Like I said.

From downright batshit insane to downright fucking absurd in under five fucking minutes.

Amazing the places the human mind wanders sometimes. Places where, thankfully, our very real, tangible world refuses our wild imaginations passage in this existence...

... Or does it?

We ended our long, rambling conversation at just past three a.m., my time, midnight in the City of Angels.

I'd dozed off twice. She'd sucked down enough diner coffee, fried eggs, and hash browns to send her into one of those FUCK.... four hours Cardio Sunday... Los Angeleno things.

I knew it was going to be an interesting conversation.

If for no other reason than the fact that all human beings lose some sense of reason every now and then.

- # # # -

SHORT TAKES & SUCH: Anti-Obammunist Tea-Bagging Patriots, Queen City Man Molesters, Rambling Attempts at Activism, & The Whammo Kid Strikes...

2009-05-30T17:14:00.012-04:00

DAYTON, Ohio (ZP) -- Unashamed and unrepentant, the balding middle-aged gentleman announced that he was proud of his role in promoting tea-bagging as a form of protest against what he called "Obammunism."

Ya know, for some reason, when a strange old fucker tells me how much he likes tea-bagging, it always reminds me of similar conversations in The Castro...

I'd made the mistake of opening my mouth in an airport bar. I am, at times, a dumbass.

But, well, in all fairness, it's not often a "freedom-loving American businessman" gets a chance to discuss politics with a younger dude who thinks massive public debt designed to help select elite maintain a chokehold on a monstrously large government is a bad idea.

It was the piece I was reading at the time at the airport bar, a selection from Samuel (Dolgoff) Weiner's Ethics and American Unionism, that started it. Apparently lonely and looking for conversation, the guy'd asked me what I was reading. As soon as I said "...well, it's this essay written by this libertarian housepainter from New York...," the guy slithered up beside me, slurred a drink order to the server, a round on him.

For the record, there's no such thing as a free drink in this world...

He'd been at the so-called Tea Party protests in Chicago earlier in the year, a protest of what many on the Economic Far-Right associate with something akin to Socialism and financial nationalization...

... And yes, he even defined, for a young fella like myself, what he meant when he said libertarian: a libertarian, in this Age of Regression, refers to a fundamentalist born-again Christian, gay-hating, anti-reproductive-rights, flag-waving Patriot, the owner of a four-bedroom, three-bath home in the Columbus suburbs, owner of a chain of stores that sold Chinese-manufactured goods and provided minimal employee benefits, a downsizer of the Masses who was proud - PROUD - of the fact that he'd saved the economy (i.e. his own ass) by laying off about a dozen people...

Oh sure, buddy. And when the economy was lining your capitalist pockets, you jerked off to Reaganomics and Ayn Rand novels...

And, lord, the guy just wouldn't shut up about how much he loved tea-bagging, being a tea-bagger.

I didn't have the heart to explain that Samuel Dolgoff was actually a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the man who coined one of my favorite phrases to describe the Bush/Obama bailouts (i.e. "State Corporate Welfarism"), a bona fide Wobbly revolutionary who loved freedom and his fellow workingman, an anarcho-syndicalist Jew from the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

And that guy, trust me, wouldn't have taken a free drink from a such a libertarian without an argument about how how Rush Limbaugh is supposedly right.

Motherfucker, please.

- MORE -

CINCINNATI (ZP) -- It was a clear case of mistaken identity. The woman thought I was someone else.

But, well, it's not often a middle-aged woman walks up behind me just outside of Paul Brown Stadium, grabs my ass, and bites my neck.

Well, not while sober, with nary a bar in sight, in the middle of a beautiful sunny day. I couldn't smell any booze on her breath but, well, hot chick in a low-cut blouse and whole lack-of-a-bra/ tid bit nipply there thing was sorta interfering with my perception.

"Oh, you're not Tommy's son, are you?"

"Um... no."

"You're sure? You're not _______?"

"No ma'am."

"Do you play football at [a smaller Ohio university]? I'll bet you play football...?"

I guess the question-and-answer session was her way of coping with embarrassment. Went on for about five minutes before I rather awkwardly excused myself from the discussion.

Okay, so maybe the woman was on something other than booze. But, well, from the looks of her, and given her rather obvious fondness for small college football players, well...

Whoever Tommy's son is, he's one lucky bastard if that Desperate Housewife has her way.

- MORE -

RANDOM COLLEGE TOWN, Ind. (ZP) -- I'm a lousy educator. I'm usually the first to admit it.

But I guess I'm fairly decent at bluffing my way through situations where a real presenter or lecturer would feel more at ease.

It's a gift. Or a curse. Not sure which.

The free wine and pizza helped.

The gathering's hostwwwess stood up in front of her coffee table, tapped her glass, and introduced me as "one of Ohio's most controversial bloggers, a librarian and cultural critic..."

Jesus, everybody hates a critic, I thought, trying not to smirk.

I was invited, this time, not to talk about librarianship, or blogging, or, well, being critical.

Nope, I was here to talk about life, about social networking and privacy, about how nobody, in the 21st Century, really buys that ...And the Meek shall inherit the Earth shit of sermons and puritanical patriotism.

But yep, sometimes that all overlaps with the information sciences, blogging, and critical examination of the world's systems of power.

C'est la motherfucking vie.

"Well, thanks...um...that was a wonderful introduction. Let me start by thanking _____ for hosting this great party...

"...And I'll try not to bore you with, heh, batshit and rambling stories...

"...And who owns the content of our World Wide Web? This fucking company owns that site, owns that server... but who owns the Internet? The answer is simple - humanity... The Web is bigger than any company, andy government, any one group..."

I tried my damnedest not to ramble. Honest-to-God. But, well, wine... room full of college kids...

And yes, for some reason, there's a bunch of undergrads (mostly female) in the U.S. and Canada who think I'm some younger version of Noam Chomsky because of my political rantings as of late...

Though having the chance to say I'd rather not be compared to anybody but myself, in person during casual conversation over glasses of box wine, does wonders for the ol' ego...

The Literate, the Life Scholar, and the Free of Thought have no patience for inheritance, a relic of an increasingly transparent capitalistic world filled with product-driven media, church dogma, greed, systems of oppression and coercion, and political partisanship...

That was, well, the point I hope I conveyed in what ended up being a somewhat batshit, rambling discussion, full of questions and comments, head nods and darting eyes.

Lecturing's a lot tougher than blogging.

Especially when there's box wine involved.

- MORE -

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- The Whammo Kid had me backed into a corner, two six-shooters aimed squarely at my chest.

I was a goner. I didn't even know my offense or crime. He made no demands whatsoever. His guns glistened in the sunlight.

And no one in Martin Luther King, Jr., Park offered any help. Nobody even gave my assault a second glance, in fact.

What a way to go...

The Kid's cowboy hat sat cocked to one side, his jeans dirty and shirt stained. A wicked grin cut a tight-lipped canyon in his otherwise smooth face.

"Gimme your money!" The Whammo Kid finally demanded.

"But... Kid... I don't have any money...that's why I'm going to the bank..."

Sweat was beginning to fill my own Stetson, the moisture soaking down into the brim beneath the summer sun.

"Why?" The gunslinger asked. "Gimme FIVE DOLLARS FOR ICE CREAM!"

I felt my assailant's eyes cutting through me like a thousand daggers.

"Kid, I don't have any," I said. "Is...is...eh...your mom or dad... somewhere?"

"NO! I AM A ROBBER!"

I was ready for the end. Having no money to give my preteen thief, nothing of value, I watched in horror as The Kid aimed his plastic water pistols, fired.

Squirt. Squirt Squirt.

Squirtsquirtsquirt.

It was all over in less than a second. Being nowhere near tall enough to get off a body shot, his two-foot frame had to settle for a crotch shot.

My pants were soaked.

And with his first victim a mere notch on his summertime belt, the Whammo Kid took off running, ran all the way to a blanket in the park. A young woman looked up from her book as the kid pointed my way, blushed, and mouthed a silent apology.

I laughed, waved as if it didn't matter, and kept walking towards the ATM.

Kid, be glad I don't have a Supersoaker handy.

Where I come from, we don't bushwhack another cowboy in front of the bank...

- # # # -

ZEN AND THE ART OF RADICAL COUNTRY FOLK: Twilight Brunswick Stew at a Commune, The Revolutionary South, & Resisting Culture Wars Reconstruction

2009-05-22T21:09:00.026-04:00

RURAL VIRGINIA (ZP) -- I have no fucking clue why she was being so secretive.

A large convenience store/fast food joint near the highway, an all-night place with old burnt coffee tormenting the air with the smell of its age, a dozen or so idle, slightly marijuana-eyed teenagers in baggy pants pacing back and forth at the entrance, a fat sheriff's deputy creeping slowly in a dark-brown cruiser as I pulled in.

Ya know... I told her we could just meet at the Huddle House down the road... I'm not fucking Batman... Good Gawd... I'm in the hometown to visit family, not to hunt down the fucking Riddler...

* * * *

I found a seat at a booth farthest from the door, stirred a cup of the worst truck-stop coffee I've ever had (and trust me, former reporters know shitty coffee), watched the door patiently, enjoyed a strip of venison jerky.

Not being able to eat any other red meat and now living in an Ohio town where eating Bambi is often frowned upon, I savored every bite of the forbidden deer flesh, like a man savors every drop of water in the desert. The coffee may have tasted like it was brewed with Lucifer's ball sweat, but I was glad I'd bought the venison treat earlier in the night at another gas station.

There are, of course, numerous things I miss about living in the Rural South - the food is one of them.

I had a good idea who I was looking for, despite never meeting my subject in person. I'd committed her photo to memory - or, at least, the online avatar she presented as an authentic, true image. One can never be too sure...

Four large white women in too-tight clothing, one Asian kid, a toothless man in a Stars & Bars adorned biker teeshirt, an elderly couple stopping by the counter to ask directions passed through the front doors as I waited.

I had my shitty coffee and my venison to keep me company. It's late at night on a Sunday, and I'm supposed to be on a family vacation. Instead, I'm alone and waiting for a complete stranger in a damned truck stop.

Kinda normal Sunday night for me, now that I think about it...

* * * *

Somehow, she managed to sneak by me. Into the booth slid a young woman, dressed in a black hooded sweat shirt, Capri-style jeans, and eco-friendly sneakers.

"Sorry I'm late. Please tell me you're Jason, because this'll be really creepy if you're not."

"That's me. You must be ________... because if you're not it's more than fucking creepy."

A few moments pass. My twilight stranger seems to be studying me, as if she's suddenly noticed some typo in a favorite book or loose thread in a favorite shirt, some flaw that she's never noticed before.

"You're really Jason? Oxford Fucking Ohio Jason? You know, you weren't kidding when you said you look like a fratboy or a cop..."

I get that a lot, for some reason. I pretend to be insulted, then grin politely. There are worse things to be mistaken for when one reaches an age over 30. Like, well, a senior citizen, for instance...

"Get that a lot. Don't sweat it. Hey... tell you what... so where are we going? This coffee -"

She nodded. This was, she explained, the rendezvous spot. She wanted to make sure I wasn't a serial killer, or psycho-rapist, or, well, a cop or fratboy, in a place with lots of witnesses.

Completely understandable. Use the same technique myself.

Frequently.

* * * *

We headed out to the parking lot, she gave me directions in case I found myself lost, and we hit the road in our separate vehicles down country roads I'd once navigated daily but, a decade later, seemed almost foreign.

I tapped on the steering wheel as I followed her late-model pickup's taillights. The regional country/bluegrass station was playing a familiar standard, the Carter Family's version of Wildwood Flower.

Down cracked gray asphalt and beneath a canopy of oaks and pines, I followed close behind, not trusting my sense of direction. Finally, we turned onto a gravel road, a driveway.

At the end, an old farmhouse, windows lit and welcoming, tucked inside a cocoon of dark treetops. A bonfire burned to one side, with six figures crouched around it, a keg of beer and a table full of homemade food glowing in the light...

Well, I'll be damned. Beer? Beats the hell out of hash browns and eggs at a diner...

FUCKING SWEET! I like these folks already.

* * * *

For the record, not my first visit to an honest-to-God anarchist commune.

First such trip, however, to one in Virginia, of all places, under the cover of darkness and maybe 30 minutes from the farm where I was raised.

Not at all shocking, in retrospect - it is, after all, the mainstream media who's made a big deal about the Old Dominion going from some mythological Red State to some equally illusionary Blue State status during the last few elections, that a governor of Virginia is the chairman of the DNC, that it's the influx of supposedly "progressive," educated-class white liberals from more civilized urban centers who've somehow changed the Commonwealth...

The mainstream media, for the record, knows absolutely jack and shit about the people of my home state, the nature of the Rural South, or the appeal it has for both the collectivist and the individualist, the philosophical socialist and ideological libertarian.

Instead, they've merely constructed an easily digestible version of what being a Virginian means, as if we're somehow not the descendants of Powhatan, General George Patton, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson and George Mason, Patrick Henry, as if we're all good ol' boys, toothless yokels, and former slaves in need of another fascist Reconstruction.

The powerful tend to do such things, after all, because it's easier to simply construct a stereotype than to acknowledge the true diversity and beauty of a group of people, or of individuals, or the dread unwashed masses that scare the living shit out of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Widgets and demographic-based stereotypes are easier to brand with the marks of conformity than reality.

Red State? Blue State? Good God, aren't we a nation of people anymore? Is this now the United Two-Color Crayola Box of America? Who the fuck came up with that dehumanizing jingoist horseshit anyway?

* * * *

The young woman's boyfriend, a big burly man with long hair and bushy beard, greeted me at the car. It was an honor to meet me in person after our communications back and forth the last few months, he said, and he was glad to welcome me to their little experiment in 21st century cooperative living and mutual aid.

A small group, sure, but nice enough and realistic in approach. They're not isolationists, not ideologues, not even professional protesters. My hosts, it turned out, represented folks from all sectors of society...

The boyfriend was a few years older than me, a former dot-com venture capitalist from the West Coast who'd developed a conscience and actually owned the land, the oldest gentleman held two post-grad degrees, the other man a self-described "professional drifter" who never finished high school and was trained as a mechanic. The women, too, were equally diverse - my escort was a trained horticulturist, the other two college drop-outs.

A few other folks drifted in and out from the house - neighbors. A couple of local guys were manning a spit above the fire, roasting a pig (friends of the college girls, my hosts explained) and smoking what smelled like homegrown tobacco from pipes. There were a few women quilting on the porch - one was the mother of the mechanic, visiting, while the rest were friends.

There was even, yes, homemade corn liquor in Mason jars. A fine vintage. I'm a bit of a connoisseur of homemade bootleg spirits...

My arrival coincided with the tail-end of what looked to be one hell of a neighborhood cook-out.

* * * *

It would be easy to write the group off, in fact, as just another midlife attempt at a hippie commune, an attempt to turn back the clock not to a simpler America but to that romanticized, failed agrarian reproach of the 1960s counterculture.

No, that would be unfair. These weren't folks who'd come out to the country to grow weed, fight the Man, or tune out of the modern world in favor of manufactured primitivism. All but the Charlie Daniels-looking owner of the property were from the South; half of the group were native Virginians.

"Out here, we're just able to be ourselves, free. And you're welcome to join us."

That was the common refrain of the night. The conversation was wonderful, the company good, and political debate intriguing. Discussing my own political philosophies online does, indeed, sometimes lead to some very interesting offline situations.

* * * *

A learning experience and, yes, a social experiment that as someone from Virginia, I can claim as evidence that "Change You Can Believe In" comes not from Blue State/Red State rhetoric, not from chest-beating politicians or their campaigns, not from power-hungry Washington or Richmond plutocrats but from individuals, from people.

And one of the benefits to a Libertarian former venture-capitalist and a Green Party - supporting plant expert falling I love, buying a farm in the middle of fucking nowhere, inviting friends willing to work for their supper a place to live rent-free?

Best homemade organic salsa and home-cooked Brunswick Stew (made with free-range chicken and mechanic-shot squirrel, vegetables from the garden) I've had in a long time.

Went well with the beer. And the White Lightning didn't hurt.

Sure beat the hell out of hanging out in the hometown alone, in a damned truck stop, drinking shitty coffee.

EPILOGUE

I made my way back to the lovely hometown at about one in the morning, swung by the Huddle House to use the WiFi and start writing again.

I hit the sack at three in the morning, curled up with a book of my father's, found on a relative's bookshelf recently, from his supposedly "conservative" college days, something I used to read in secret, as a teenager, more than his stash of Playboys...

...A book called Patterns of Anarchy, a literary anthology. Quite entertaining, actually. Especially passages underlined, back in the 1960s, well before I was born...

And to think... the Old Man, in his march towards senior-citizenship, thinks I gained my knowledge of radical political thought from "Communist" undergrad professors or, worse, "Liberals."

Please, Dad.

Heh, I learned it from you, Dad. Thanks for never throwing out books and encouraging me to read things other than the fucking Hardy Boys!

Maybe that ol' Rebel spirit the South is known for, well, maybe it's not dead after all.

- # # # -

VIRGINIA CONFIDENTIAL: Racial Identity, Culture Politics, Elderly Church Ladies, & Two Cartons of Vanilla-Flavored Soymilk

2009-05-18T00:13:00.016-04:00

FARMVILLE, Va. (ZP) -- The elderly woman scrunched up her nose as two kids in front of us at the checkout counter held hands.

The girl rested her head against the boy's arm - he was a good foot and a half taller than her. The boy had his arm wrapped around her, was chewing on a straw and rubbing the girl's hip.

She had that giddy look to her, blonde and athletic in build, tan already so early in a preemptive summer. The guy wore a tee-shirt bearing a familiar and comfortable emblem, that of my own high school's mascot, the letters PECHS sprawled above a gold colored eagle, its talons poised for attack.

And they were oblivious to the people in line behind them at the grocery store. They could've cared less about visiting former residents or wrinkly old women with wrinkled brows full of disapproval.

As soon as the couple were out of earshot, the elderly woman felt the need to speak her mind, as old women tend to do at times.

"I don't know who raises their chil'ren to behave like that," she said. "They probably don't get no churching at home."

I nodded in acknowledgment of her comment, not in concurrence. There is no sense, after all, in starting a debate in a checkout line with a woman who appeared to be in her late 80s or early 90s. Those debates rarely end well...

"My daddy would've taken the belt to me or my people if we were all over each other like that..."

"Yes, ma'am. Times change."

That seemed to quiet her down a bit. Old people, for the record, sometimes say things merely because there is someone present to hear them speak.

There is a certain loneliness in aging, especially in tiny rural communities where the only things one has to look forward to in those advanced years are church suppers, bridge games, garden clubs, and reading the obituaries in a twice -a- week town paper.

Sometimes feeling as if you're always right, believing that your children and grandchildren's generations are turning everything to shit, is all you have left...

* * * *

The cashier grinned. She was eavesdropping as the elderly woman talked at me, offered me all sorts of advice on all sorts of things.

Including interracial dating. She was, well, not a fan, to say the least.

"That boy probably don't know what a black woman is," she said, digging her brown-yellow hand into her purse, "Or what that does to our women when a fine black boy like that goes running around with white women."

The cashier, a mocha-skinned young black woman, who looked to be a high school kid herself, started to snicker, then choked her momentary outburst down.

* * * *

It is really funny, you know.

Here's this elderly light-complexioned "black" woman only a shade "blacker" than the "white" 30ish dude she's talking to, attempting to explain the disgrace of a dark-complexioned, well-built black kid holding hands, in public no less, with a rather attractive white girl who looked kinda like a certain bubbly, blonde, Disney-raised pop singer from Louisiana.

I kept listening, nodding, and saying "Yes Ma'am" frequently as the woman doled out her coupons, did her These kids today rant, counted out her $10s and $20s to buy her groceries.

I was trying hard to be polite, a true gentleman, courteous and respectful of my elders. The cashier, too, was trying to be polite.

But then the woman went to the one place I didn't figure she'd go.

"If that boy wanted to be a real man and represent OUR people, he'd pull those pants up and respect himself, like OUR President ..."

I lost it.

I know. Very Rude. Laughing at old people's never a polite thing...

* * * *

Ya mean the Mom-was-a-white-chick, Dad-an-African-immigrant, multiethnic, only- a- shade- less- white- than- his- redfaced- cracker- from- Delaware- Vice-President President Obama?

The one whose American family history includes a history of slave ownership but no direct descendency from what's commonly thought of as the single largest signifier of "African-Americanism," that of having been actually related to former slaves?

So a black dude holding hands and getting all PDA with a white girl is disrespecting an entire ethnic cultural heritage, and if he just pulls his pants up, finds some religion, and looks up to a "black" president whose mom was a white woman, he'll somehow... somehow...

* * * *

Somehow what?

Grow up with the same sort of belief in preserving and defending a downright mythified African-American "race," in much the same way as some white Southerners grow up believing that they're somehow preserving the "White" race by waving a Confederate flag around, going to Klan meetings, or bitching about maintaining some fairy-tale racial purity that never existed?

Hell, hasn't that sort of thinking already proved to be the biggest embarrassment to the culture of these United States? Our eagerness to cling onto our often manufactured, self-sustaining ideas on race through social division at home, while condemning ethnic strife abroad in our media and diplomatic rhetoric?

People in the U.S. often live and die by racial history like dog breeders cling to kennel club papers - a dog is worthy of a dog show, after all, not because the dog is a dog but because his or her pedigree can be proven worthy to obsessive record keepers and judges.

* * * *

"That lady's a trip," the cashier said as she scanned my purchases. "But, I mean, for real though..."

I shrugged, swiped my bank card through the reader.

"Hey, I just try to respect my elders and let old people talk. How I was raised I guess."

The cashier had these gorgeous eyes when she smiled.

"You know, I was raised that way too. And I've got aunt like that."

"Hey, we all have relatives like that. It's how they grew up."

Nice to know that things are progressing just fine in my ol' hometown, all on their own, one youthful generation and one elderly rant at a time.

- # # # -

CHARMED LIVES & TROUBLED SOULS: Of Imaginary Closets, Beautiful Nerd Girls, and Things We Hide Sometimes, in Plain Sight, from the "Religious"

2009-05-11T00:08:00.003-04:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- When she was young, other kids teased her for being flat-chested and lanky and awkward, for being tomboyish and uninterested in dolls or tea parties with imaginary princes, for being a bona fide, honest-to-God dork.

In high school, she was the smart girl, trapped halfway between being stereotyped as her school's cute but intimidating stuck-up bitch and arrogant, smart-ass Nerd Queen.

Her friends were all older, all went to other schools or were in college. Her parents overbearing, her mother a veritable control-freak of a life planner. She lettered in two sports she hated, just because her father scared her into thinking colleges only took the smart, beautiful, AND athletic...

She was quite popular with kids in her school, sure, but after a half-dozen or so jocks, cool kids, and preppy chachballs, she finally figured out her popularity was tied to her willingness to go farther than going down on somebody in a dark movie theater.

Being one of the few girls in your conservative Christian high school who failed to buy into such silly things as Promise Rings and Abstinence Pledges, well, tends to lead to such popularity - even if those equally self-righteous, pious kids refused to even say hi in the hallways or at church after sex in hot tubs and in parked cars.

And at night, alone in her bedroom, surrounded by college application essays and AP Exam practice guides, she'd huddle beneath her bedsheets late at night, well after her folks and her siblings fell asleep, she'd read about all sorts of interesting, forbidden things, in books and magazines mostly, since her parents monitored her Internet access and had installed filtering software on her MacBook.

She read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas in a few hours, Charles Bukowski's Women in one night, and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch in two.

And actually, all through college, she's been keeping those controversial literature juices flowing. She even picked up two of her new favorite authors - Michelle Tea & Amelie Nothromb - on the recommendation of some fucking shithead librarian she's been cyberstalking (joke) since her second semester.

Smart girl. Well-read. Downright oozing with sex and sultry feminine bravado. A prototypical female college student living in the 21st century.

But, in all honesty, she wouldn't be a Local U. student if she weren't driven by something unseen, rebelling in secret, living some sort of lie.

That's the myth of the Public Ivy university - everything looks ancient and traditional and conservative on the surface but beneath the decaying brick facades, on the other side of the creeping vines, at the edge of the higher education darkness...

* * * *

"And -- Ohmygod, have you ever read 'Keeping You a Secret?' It's by Julie...something...Peters. Fucking awesome."

She picks up the bottle of wine, pours me a third glass and herself a fourth. We're on our second bottle. It's 4:18 in the morning, a Saturday, and we've only been talking in her living room for a half hour.

At least one of her roommates is already home, upstairs in bed. And from the sounds of it, well, she brought home something from the bars to play with - squeaks and muffled giggles creep down the stairs.

"The first girl I was with," she whispers, "bought it for me, then turned out to be a fucking bitch so I quit reading it the first time. It was right before I came here..."

Her voice trails off as she stands up, grins, and twirls with her arms outstretched.

"...Here to LOVELY MOTHERFUCKING OXFORD FUCKING OHIO."

Hey, if there's one place in the world that can possibly create the world's most entertainingly cynical closeted lesbians, it'd be Oxford Fucking Ohio.

* * * *

"so... okay. I'm fucking drunk."

"Really, chica?" I feign shock like buzzards feign disinterest in roadkill. My host snickers.

"Oh yeah. Fucking wasted, dude. Too bad you don't smoke..."

I take out another Marlboro Virginia Blend, offer her one, light them both.

"Chica, see. I smoke. But being clean for a decade means I only smoke tobacco."

She inhales long on the cigarette, kills off her wine as she exhales into her glass. Pure sex. One hundred and ten percent. And with a body like hers, a brain, well... the lesbian community's lucky to--

"You know, I'm not a closetcase. Fuck, I go to Lexington and Columbus sometimes. Really cool scenes. I just can't fucking stand the bitches here or Cincinnati, ya know? The fucking hipsters..."

"Hey, straight dudes are in the same boat, chica."

"Yeah, but it's different. It's not like the chicks you hook up with around here ever text you to march in some fucking pride parade the next day."

She leans forward over the ratty, textbooks-and-bills covered coffee table, grabs the third bottle of wine. She knocks over my glass, right onto my first two napkins full of notes and quotes. Fortunately, I've been playing catch-up; only a thimbleful of shitty drugstore burgundy spoils the ballpoint ink...

Only lost half a paragraph, but, well, to sum up for you, dear reader, the conversation veered off into the realm of sex toys, lubricant, fingers, and fists.

Think you get the picture.

* * * *

She never did the whole GLBT student group thing, for the same reason she doesn't go trolling for women in Oxford, Dayton, or Cincinnati bars - a lot of Lesbians Until Graduation, a lot of really hot girls to make out with after last call, but, well, it's just not her bag.

"You'd be surprised how many lesbians here are just as fucking annoyed gay dudes as straight guys," she pauses to crush out her cigarette and open a window. "...kinda like the drag queen boy scouts."

And finally, I hit the tough question.

I ask when she plans on telling her roommates. After all, they've lived together a whole year. They must at least suspect...?

"Okay, look, love 'em to death but they're kinda dense. We've been friends since last year. They think I'm just kinda bi.

"And they're both really fucking religious and shit. Like Catholic religious."

Drunk, I feel myself fall off the ratty student-shabby loveseat.

Within seconds, I'm rolling on the floor, clutching my head - I caught the corner of the coffee table with my skull. My sides hurt. I can't breathe.

Every time I try to stop laughing, to catch my breath even for a moment, I hear that same giggling, followed by moaning, drifting down from upstairs, the religious sounds of "Oh God! Oh FUCK! OhYESFUCKMEYES!" praise and worship songs coming from some unseen bedroom directly above me.

* * * *

In all fairness, she gave me the finger as she shut the door on me as I left at sunrise.

"Dude, if you make me out to be some lipstick in the closet, I'll cut your dick off."

"So... can I make fun of your roommate's prayer groups? And is the other one that cute and 'religious?'"

Again, another one fingered salute. And a wink.

Best one night stand with a hot, NOT lipstick-in-the-closet lesbian in ages.

And trust me, this here dispatch is probably by far the strangest graduation gift any student has ever asked for and received from a local (hetero) librarian.

- # # # -

THE BLANK [CHECK] GENERATION: In the Age of Self-Important Microcontent Conformity, Hipster Couture Wallows in a Sea of Dull Wit

2009-04-21T23:54:00.001-04:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Four young women and three young men, all upperclassman hipsters at the threshold of college graduation, huddled together in a dismal corner of a dark bar.

The bar is foreign territory for me, outside of my normal comfort zone. But, well, every once and a while a guy just needs a little change of scenery, away from bars filled with diverse mixtures of college undergrads and Townies, miscreants and stoners and saints, former high school football heroes and occasionally starving artists (tattoo or otherwise.)

I'd already finished my business in the place, my party long gone, as younger folks tend to do here, on towards the next bar on their pub crawl. I'd noticed the rather strange group because, well, they generally appeared more interesting - and out of place - than my 30-year-old ass.

In between boisterous laughter over strange inside jokes, choreographed awkwardness, and savage critiques of the "cattle" that supposedly makes up the remainder of the student body, each hovered over iPhones and mobile Wunderspielzeug, texting and emailing digital snapshots and Googling and checking e-mail.

One would Tweet along an update to Twitter, another would upload shots directly into Facebook, Tumblring and Digging and downloading annoying indie rock ringtones. And then, as puppies do when they realize they can roll in their own shit, the group would check each others' electronic communications, crack jokes about their supposedly hip and witty microcontent.

I joined them for a moment and attempted conversation, but, well, they were just too wound up in their own self-contained bubble to be even remotely interesting. They'd been discussing their various artistic and literary endeavors, which, at first had sounded intriguing. Instead, it turned out to be merely a self-important microcontented circle-jerk.

* * * *

Jesus Fucking Christ, I thought, If there's one thing worst than scenesters, it's a technosnob scenesters...

Such is life, alas, amongst the Millennials, particularly within a subgroup of that generation I've come to think of as a Black Check Generation - a group of American and European kids who exist as if one can buy the spirit of art and literature, cultural dominance and sophistication, by playing the role of the misunderstood genius, as if the Muse sings through electronic toys or college degrees or IQ tests.

Everything in their conversation revolved around cultural superiority through their sarcastic deployment of SMS data into the World Wide Web, their superior musical prowess thanks to this torrent site or that piracy site, how they couldn't live without RSS feeds or TMZ or any media, well, that pretty much supported their very restricted worldview.

Technology, the arts, media, and a steady stream of condescending dull wit directed at the Fratboys, the Sorority Sluts, the Preppy Kids, the Rednecks, the Trailer Trash, the Townies...

I mean, I can be an arrogant bastard at times and sometimes, yeah, I fall into my own limited perception of couture du monde, but I try to at least maintain some connexion to the rest of humanity... ... Try at least to understand the organic wholeness of things, the egalitarian nature of life, maintain a sense of awe at the differences and my own cultural limitations...

... I fucking hope...

One even mentioned my blog and how, yes, in an unsolicited literary critique, I should all-out condemn the supposed stupidity of supposedly 90 percent of the uncultured "sheeple" that attend the Local U.

Sheeple? I said to myself, Did this kid just say fucking sheeple?? Well, pour me a Frappuccino, slap a Wes Anderson flick into the Blu-Ray, and color me Espresso Bar and Sushi Bourgeois ...

* * * *

Another kid - an aspiring performance artist who, well, hasn't ever really performed anything before anyone outside of the group - asks about my favorite writers. When I answer that, well, literature-wise, I have too many to name, he INSISTS that every serious writer or poet MUST have a Top Five that includes Jack Kerouac and Chuck Palahniuk.

"Look, I don't rank authors, and right now, I'm sorta on a political science and early 20th century history kick..."

Besides not being even remotely interesting, the group, I've noticed, has been tying up a table in this crowded bar for four hours. They weren't really really drinking - and from what the bartender said while I'd ordered my beer earlier, they weren't tipping shit, either.

I can understand the cheap beer - when I was a student myself, I was fond of a libation called Lucky Lager, the sweetest elixir then available to Pacific dwellers with a hankering for suds and no money.

But in bars, even when broke, I tipped. I had friends, raging alcoholics, who would tip out before buying that blackout drink, starving writers who'd order only a cup of coffee at all-night diners just because, as well, they just wanted to make sure the cute waitress ended up with their last dollar...

No sense, I figured, in pointing out to the table of hipsters that, well, not tipping is the ultimate sign that they are not writers, not artists, not even remotely talented beyond maybe a job at a bookstore...

...Or as shushing librarians, maybe small, empty art gallery owners, as curators of shitty metropolitan museums, perhaps?

That, certainly, made me chuckle. The kid who'd inquired about my favorite authors thought I was laughing at some crack about a kid from the local trailer park's neck tats.

Well-read, dressed in prefab distressed, faded clothing, beards strategically unkempt, but their attempts at looking like starving artists served as nothing more than a reinforcement of their packaged suburban rebellion.

* * * *

I found an excuse to make my exit. The bartender "who'd been rude" was waving me over - he had a question about library hours and printing policies. Discussing work at two in the morning on a Saturday. Beat the hell outta dealing with culture snobs.

And I seriously considered letting Mister Neck Tat know that there was this scrawny, mop-topped literary critic, in that dark corner over there, homes, who'd just called him an Eminem wannabe who probably couldn't read anyway...

And, actually, Mister Neck Tat enjoys Edgar Allan Poe and reading about the U.S. Civil War. And he fucking loves the film version of Fight Club, too.

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Politics, Philosophy, Obscenities, Baseball, Sex, Virgins, White People, Economics...

2009-04-08T17:30:00.006-04:00

"The revolution will not be televised, but it may be hungover the next morning."

- THE ZENFO PRO, April 2,
During a conversation at a bar

Amazing how alcohol can foster discussions about Marxism, Economy, Anarchism,Classical liberalism vs. Rousseau-esque points of philosophical individualism, Capitalism, Mutualism, Federalism, Jeffersonian ideals, Trotskyism...

Heh. Story of my life lately.

* * * *

"The problem with mass protests like [the G20 Protests] in London and [the NATO protests] is that half the folks who show up think there's such a thing as a bloody football riot for peace or circus sideshow for progress..."

- Fellow round-table participant,
At a recent "Anti-Conference"

Um, yeah. The biggest issue with mass protests is that they don't necessarily foster mass resistance to established policies in meaningful ways, often reinforce stereotypes of small-s solidarity by refusing to do anything more than wave a few signs for the cameras and brick a few windows to intentionally force the hand of an equally exploited-by-the-system police force...

* * * *

"So when are you going to quit being such a whore and hooking up with eighteen-year-olds?"

- HAMPSTER McSPACY,
Female friend, March 30,
Over usual lunchtime discussion topics

C'mon... I haven't slept with an eighteen-year-old in months. It's not like I go trolling for young women - it was my 30th birthday and, well, the Big Three-Oh does lead guys to make some bad calls.

* * * *

"Mom, THIS is Oxford's OMG BADASS librarian, the blogger guy Dad likes! He's like a [Local U] legend."

- TINY LIL GREEK, March 27,
Introducing me to her mom during
a Sorority Mom Weekend

I guess blogging for five years was bound to have some interesting side effects. Let me tell you, it is a very humbling experience to be introduced to an undergrad's mother, only to have the mother critique your "anti-conservative" influence on her traditionally Republican family AND buy you a round.

* * * *

“This crisis was caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.”

- LUIZ INACIO LULA de SILVA,
Brazilian President, March 26, London,
On who crashed the Global Economy

Well, it ain't like El Salvadorans, Algerians, or Mongolians were investing millions in overpriced Florida and California real estate, or buying into Ponzi schemes...

* * * *

"I AM.... SENOR BUKKAKE!"

- The strangest thing I've ever heard
a COMPLETELY SOBER FRAT KID
yell across a street at a woman

* * * *

"Economists are educated more in what doesn't or used to work than what will work today or tomorrow. It's like our policy is in the hands of everybody who ever failed a freshman econ class."

- FLEX FURY, economist, April 4,
On how our "the best American minds"
are "solving" the global recession

Said while Flex was rather lit up on Jägermeister. And it makes sense on so many levels.

* * * *

"At what point does a girl give up and buy stock in vibrators? Like seriously? All guys want is...ugh... pussy and a place to sleep."

- UNHAPPY SINGLE GIRL,
March 21, Hamilton, Ohio

Well, not all guys...

* * * *

"You have a marvelous virgin."

- HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. Secretary of State,
During a recent diplomatic mission to Mexico

No comment. Actually, still choking on my coffee. Hold on...

* * * *

"Age is like the ultimate creeper, dude. It follows you around, acting sketchy, and freaks you out at night when you think about it."

- VERY WISE SECOND-YEAR UNDERGRAD,
April 2, on why she's not as excited as her
friends at the thought of turning 21...

* * * *

"As the Reds go, so too goes Cincinnati. And as the Indians go... Cleveland will probably just set Lake Erie on fire again."

- ANONYMOUS, April 6,
On the start of the baseball season
for both of Ohio's major league teams.

You know, if there's one thing I love about Ohio, it's the wit, dedication, and warmth of the state's sports fans. Some of the best in North America...

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: You Know... The "Radical Activist" Librarian... The One Who Looks like a Cop, Wears a Stetson, Likes Cold Beer & Tom Waits...

2009-03-28T19:44:00.019-04:00

"Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking."

- Bhagat Singh (1907-1931),
Freedom Fighter & Indian Independence leader

LOCAL U. (ZP) -- The crowded, cavernous dining area of the local student union building swallowed all of the outside world, and there I sat, waiting on a college student at seven in the morning and sipping horrible coffee.

Jesus Christ, I told myself, what the hell kind of advice can I offer a student who thinks I'm THE local radical?

I'm not, for the record, a radical - at least from my standpoint. A minimalist, an anti-consumer, sure. Well-read and thoughtful, too. And I do have certain political and social views quite askew from the norm for a generally ultraconservative college town. But most of my fundamental political philosophy is based on, well, ideals that have been fostered organically, are rather undogmatic and, well, more Whitman and Emerson than Che or Trotsky.

I'm not some half-petrified New Left yuppie stuck in nostalgic dogma wrapped in "Activism," not the stereotypical, media-construct Virginia-raised Good Ol' Boy conservative in a cowboy hat, either.

* * * *

Ever since I outed myself as something more, well, philosophically libertarian and collectivist than your average Democrat or Republican, I've been overwhelmed by the number of responses from younger folks concerning the exact nature of my politics. What is a "left-libertarian?" How does one become one, what does one read, study, believe?

And I don't look like the stereotype of someone with such views. The more one digs online into left-libertarianism and socialist libertarianism and anarchism, the more one finds images of mostly upper middle-class white kids sporting hemp-suits and dreads, bandito-style bandannas and quirky protest signs at rallies.

Ain't too many of us who, well, get mistaken for cops and Marines and frat boys more than hippies or stoned granola-heads, guys who hate hacky-sack and the over-commercialization of reggae, or who really believe that mass protest is less important than conversations between friends at bars...

* * * *

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
Russian novelist, Christian Anarchist,
Founder of the modern non-violence movement

Swallowed within a writhing body of unwashed students and building maintenance guys, faculty and vending machine delivery guys and cooks and custodians, I wait patiently, face buried in the day's Cincinnati Enquirer.

What the fuck am I going to tell this young woman? Worse, what does she want to ask about me, and what am I going to ask about her?

What about my personal philosophy does she find so damned fascinating?

The conversation I am to have involves yet another young woman from a rather conservative, unpolitical background... likes some group called the Jonas Bros., shoes, and sundresses... DVRs Lost and House and Gossip Girl... belongs to a sorority... mother's really religious... reads, duh, blogs in her boring gen-ed classes...

Yeah, what the hell is a chick like this doing seeking MY advice? I'm quite the fuck-up...

Fuck, I'm the librarian who used to date an adult entertainers and once worked as a bouncer at a friggin' strip club... watch Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica... have to be told by friends to watch "cheese" TV once and a while... and, yeah, I BLOG in my spare time...

I have no clue what my querent looks like, other than brunette. She's an online chat buddy, an electronic phantom. I told her I'd have a paper and my Stetson; she said she'd find me.

And she did, indeed, plop down at my table, a few minutes late, dressed in pink sweatpants and a printed white tee, purple bra strap twisted like a pretzel and poking out through a hole in the cotton. Beautiful young woman, looking quite stereotypical and so non-political, not even scenester hip but, well, everyday normal, un-radical American.

"Wow, you're really here."

"Yup. Kinda weird, huh?"

She paused, nodded, looked around.

"Don't sweat it. It's kinda, ya know, normal around these parts."

Haven't heard a girl with that sort of snicker-laugh in a while.

Sad but true... these days, I'm a lot less worried about my "public image" than I am about the privacy of my subjects...

* * * *

"So you're fascinated by my... politics? Why?"

And that was all it took to get a rather intriguing conversation going.

Despite her coming from a die-hard Republican family and having identified herself as a moderate conservative for most of her life, she'd been going through a crisis of political identity since she started college.

She can't relate to the Republicans anymore - too religious in all the wrong ways, too profit-driven at the expense of working-classes, not compassionate and no longer conservative. No way in hell could she side with the Democrats. She tried a campus Libertarian meeting during the last presidential election and, well, no go, either.

"I dunno, I just started Googling some of those guys you quote sometimes and said, 'Hey, these were some cool people... why don't we make cool people like that anymore?'"

"Really?"

"Yeah. Weird but I actually asked this professor last semester about that Zapata guy and the whole land and liberty thing..."

"What happened?"

"Ohmygod, she freaked out! Like, it had nothing to do with the class but she thought it was, like, weird coming from..."

... From someone in a sorority who likes the Jonas Bros. and shoes and sun dresses, who prays regularly and who tans almost as frequently.

I spent two hours chatting with a college girl about such things, over shitty coffee and a couple of pastries charged to her meal plan. About drug legalization (agree), legalized gambling (agree), over-politicization of the most absurd things (agree), and the tendency of academicians to bias their curricular material without knowing it (agree)...

* * * *

Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
American poet, essayist, and orator,
from the poem "The Rhodora"

Amazing what a young woman who looks like a preppy collar-popper and a librarian who looks like a cop can talk about in two hours.

For the record, yes, I have the most attractive college-aged readers of any online writer in Ohio.

Brilliant, well-spoken, and fascinating.

And in that mass of people, of professors and custodians and students and food service folks, all of us wallowing in the cavernous belly of a rather ugly student union, I wonder what the casual passerby thought of the pair of us.

Dollars to those shitty pastries they thought, if anything, we were talking about Jesus and beer pong. Or, well, maybe they thought we were discussing a late-night hook-up, or a new prayer group, or a crush party.

Revolutions, you know, have this nasty tendency to start not with protests but with conversations.

- # # # -

HOMINUS EX MACHINA: The Somnambulist Worlds Man Hath Built for Caligari's Hard-Wired Children

2009-03-11T17:19:00.005-04:00

"The electric things have their life too. Paltry as those lives are."

- Philip K. Dick (1928-1982),
from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Somewhere in time, on some drunken night of mayhem, he'd shattered his iPhone against a brick wall.

Chunks of ancient red dust from some unknown facade filled the crevices in the broken screen. The machine's guts dangled from the back of the white casing like intestines from a disemboweled medieval criminal.

And in the living room, a laptop notebook, state-of-the-art and sleek and monstrous, streamed digital music via some hidden wireless router somewhere, some Internet radio station broadcasting cyborg binary compression waves that the notebook's software deciphered into something that resembled heavy metal.

The large flatscreen television was on and flickering the splash page of some video game, one of those escapist first-person shooters where the user is allowed to recreate their normal real-world self into something heroic and futuristic and noble. Three different game consoles were wired into the television, as was a DVR and a DVD/Blu-Ray player, a stereo system, too.

Scores of movies, crammed together and yet without any semblance of organization, lined the shelves of the entertainment center. Bookshelves, too, had been conscripted to house the media collection. No books were to be found anywhere, save for the odd textbook or course-required novel.

The walls are lined with various posters - not of anything interesting but of posters of bikini-clad women, creative advertising for liquor companies and bands - and one portrait of his roommate's girlfriend, a laser-printed image on stock paper, yellows in a frame on the dinette that doubles as a beer-pong table on weekends.

Such a bland life it must be, to be consumed by a living room of electronic things and to be without anything of human civilization beyond that which can be digitized.

Alas, a side effect of the balm of the Information Age. Instead of liberating ourselves through our advanced technology, we simply cocoon ourselves inside cathedrals built for the gods in our machines and call that creation "life."

Why should man ever travel to Mars or actually dedicate ourselves to exploring the universe? I tell myself as I stare at the television screen, When it's simply easier to let an artificially-created virtual android like Master Chief fight other illusionary space monsters on our television screens?

Does Master Chief dream electric dreams of real people, when the game's paused or the plug pulled?

Or has the virtual world merely taken control of reality, with a hardware upgrade here and a software patch there?

- # # # -

ONE WOMAN'S SPRING BREAK IS ANOTHER'S BACK RENT: The Differences Between Working Class Women and Female Undergrads as Measured in Dollars...

2009-03-03T22:19:00.000-05:00

- PROLOGUE -

"Can you fucking believe that?" the undergrad said, crushing her cigarette out beneath the heel of her Uggs. "Not only do I have to FIND a job but NO SPRING BREAK!"

"Well, maybe your folks are having a tough time... getting a job's not--"

She put her hand in my face, almost burnt her hand on my cigarette.

"Please! This is [the Local U]. And I'm a girl. You don't understand - they're supposed to pay for Cancun... "

"Twenty-five hundred's a lot of money, chica."

The undergrad stares through me for a brief second, a look I'm accustomed to around these parts.

"Not for them. Mom spends that on shoes, like, easily."

Now I'm the one staring through the undergrad. I don't think, over the course of my entire life, I've even owned $2,500 worth of shoes. And, hell, I never expected my mother and father to send me anywhere on Spring Break when I was in college...

For a second, well, I guess I forgot that for a large segment of the Public Ivy Local U's student population, feeling poor - even middle-class - is as completely foreign to them as the idea of a $2,500 week trip to Mexico in the middle of March is to me...

* * * *

HAMILTON, Ohio (ZP) -- Her child is the only thing that matters.

Her child and survival. The most important of all maternal instincts.

She lights an off-brand menthol, tugs her shirt down as it rolls up over her stretch marks. Her daughter sucks on a dirty thumb in the car seat. The growl of the young mother's voice crackles with the remnants of childhood as she speaks through the driver's window.

No job possibilities. Child's father nowhere to be found, possibly in jail. Government assistance barely covering the bills, a few missed rent payments away from homelessness.

But fuck it all. Fuck her run-down rusty primer gray sedan, fuck her parents, her best friends, her boyfriend. Fuck the Congress, presidents, governors, and bankers.

Her child, she says, is the only thing that matters. And she'd kill for her daughter - rob, trick, sling meth, burn down the world to keep her. Damn whatever Social Services says about her being a bad parent, her grandmother for calling her a whore...

She asked for a light as I climbed out of my pickup. My act of kindness, well, instigated her confession.

I listened contently because it's pretty self-evident that nobody in America really pays much attention to teenage mothers in parking lots.

She didn't mention money, didn't panhandle or beg. I just gave her the forty bucks in my wallet, made her take it under the threat of wounding my honor, my manhood.

Yup, gave a total stranger my grocery money. And I ate a shitload of celery and peanut butter all that next week.

Hell, I had plenty of celery. But that kid didn't have diapers or formula. No sense in letting a single mom go to jail for shoplifting...

* * * *

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- They cut off her gas back in December, the water in January.

And she's been living off a wood stove and bottled water ever since.

Throughout one of the worst winters in recent memory, she had all the water she needed - God, Mother Earth, or whatever, had dropped enough snow into her yard to at times flush the toilets, to boil and to cook with. And the wood for the stove her family had brought her, green and smoky as it was, still kept the single-digit weather at bay.

As we sat at her kitchen table, smoking and talking, a dog lay under the table, chewing on a three-eighth inch socket from her wrench set.

The dog, she says, keeps her sane when she's alone. and she was glad I stopped by to talk, too...

- EPILOGUE -

"Well, uh, good luck with looking for a job," I said to the undergrad, putting out my own cigarette. "Need to get back across the street and back to work..."

The undergrad didn't want to end the conversation. I wasn't trying to be rude, but the conversation had become circular, a trap, one where she was looking more for affirmation of righteousness in regards to her plight and not for any actual understanding.

It's not her fault, really.

"But you're, like, good a giving students like me advice. You know, just everyday girls..." her voice dropped to a whisper, as if the people passing by were spying, "... like on the blog?"

"Honey, 'Good luck looking for a job' is my advice..."

- # # # -

SHORT TAKES AND SUCH: Of Being a Thirtysomething Senior Citizen in a College Town, Amateur Boxing, & Sweet Hitchhikers

2009-02-24T07:06:00.011-05:00

“You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens..."

- Angelina Jolie (1975- ),
Actress and Adopter of Orphans

* * * *

"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution."

- Emma Goldman (1869-1940),
Anarchist and Feminist

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- He's a regular Killer Diller, walking the streets towards sexual oblivion at three a.m., a cackling buffoon of a bottle blonde in six-inch heels leaning into him to avoid slipping on the High Street ice.

Killer and blonde were, as is often the norm for the local undergrad population, overdressed for a night out in a town where the "nightclub" hot spots tend to resemble the mail-order-bride filled discotheques in some former Soviet republics.

And, being a college town with not a whole hell of a lot to do after dark, well, they were beyond hammered. At that all-too-common, black-out-and-horny point, the benchmark where responsible, consensual sex becomes merely a quick couple of grinds, a squirt or two, and a convenient amnesiac hangover a few hours later.

Like I said.

The norm in this here college town when the undergrads are the only creatures of the night making anything but sweet music.

I myself have been struggling to get a female friend to my pick-up. Not, well, because either of us were drunk and horny.

No, we were simply done for the night. And she needed a ride home. Her car died a few months back, and her new puppy was eagerly awaiting his late night piss in the snow.

We were supposed to be heading to a party afterwards but...

As we pass Killer and his red meat, I can't help but laugh. The blonde's got what looks to be piss running down the back of her leg - homegirl's so drunk, she's just letting it rip and asking Killer if he really thinks she's the sexiest thing alive.

As one gets older, wiser, more mature, one learns when "one more drink" partying often leads to nothing but a head over a toilet, or a dick in the wrong vagina, or worse.

Like "pissing yourself in designer, cunt-cutting leggings and being dragged home by a Neanderthal looking motherfucker" worse.

- MORE -

With a devastatingly fast left hook, the 175 pounder's nose burst like an overripe tomato.

Headgear, even top-of-the-line amateur gear, offers little defense against a natural murderer, a butcher of cordoned battle.

Trust me. Had my eye split open, had geysers full of red life pour from my own nose in the bouts - headgear ain't nothing but putting a quilt over a steak and waiting for the meat tenderizer.

The other fighter, a kid from a Catholic university down in Cincy, pure raw glistening ebony, could barely find a neutral corner - even he seemed to be surprised by the blow.

Crimson drops beget purple dots on the canvas. The referee began the count. The bell rang the end to the first round not a moment too soon for the Ketchup Kid.

Saturday night was fight night on the Local U. campus. And the local amateur boxing club managed to pull in a half dozen other collegiate boxing clubs for a tournament.

Murderers. Tomato cans. Killers. Bleeders and white-knuckled gloves and Everlast mouth guards galore.

Glorious! Hosanna in the Highest!

"I can't believe you'd go watch boxing over going to the Charter Day Ball," she said in a text, "I mean, you can afford $50 for a ticket...I could've found you a date..."

There were a few hundred of us, spectators to the Higher Education carnage, willing to pay a donation of five whole dollars to watch a good dozen fights that night.

"Boxing is so stupid... how can you watch that shit?"

Yes, boxing isn't a sport of civilized men these days. No, Americans have no stomach for anything but corporate-owned mixed martial arts and television wrestling.

We are CIVILIZED these days, CULTURED, SOPHISTICATES! That's why we clamor over celebrity gossip, reality television, and let talk show hosts pick the president!

- MORE -

"So, tell me," the lovely Czech hitchhiker began, green eyes aglow in the natural dusk light of the apartment, "You are... really from Virginia? Originally?"

"Yeah," the other woman said, lighting a cigarette, "[The Italian Ex-Fling] said you grew up a cowboy or... is it... country bumpkin?"

Two young European women, the Czech included, and their Afro-French traveling companion were crashing with me for what was supposed to be a night and a day - my apartment ended up turning into a bit of a hostel for foreigners for almost two days and two nights, due to winter weather.

We sat around in a circle as freezing rain fell on top of the snow outside one Sunday evening, smoking cigarette after cigarette. It was six at night, a few days after getting over the flu, and I was doing my best to be a good host - giving tips on roads and cities to avoid, offering insight on the places to eat, things to see...

I'm not going to lie. It was lust at first sight, on my end, in terms of the Czech.

As annoying as it was to have a bunch of twenty-something European hippie-ish strangers squatting in the ol' Fortress of Motherfucking Solitude, I admit to being smitten with the ex-fling's flatmate - didn't help matters that she liked to shower with the bathroom door open and wasn't fond of bras in my nipply-cold apartment.

Hey, it's been a while, dammit - and ain't no crime in, ya know, looking. Alas, she brought her boyfriend with her on their North American walkabout.

"Yep. Grew up on a farm three hours south of Washington, DC."

"Really?" The Afro-Franc chimed in, "We haven't been there yet but we're hoping to see Monticello. It's in Charlottes...town?"

"CharlottesVILLE. Beautiful fucking place. Jefferson, for all his faults, was really a fucking badass-"

Suddenly, the Czech sat up in her sleeping bag and started laughing.

"________ warned me you had a toilet mouth. Very American."

"Bad American?" I was flirting. "Or good American?"

"No," she seemed to be flirting back. "Very, just, I'd say more fun than I expected. You talk like a teenager..."

We talked for a good six hours straight, she and I, long after her traveling companions fell asleep.

And I think, yes, I laid it on a bit thick. And she was flirting right back. Czech women, for the record, are some of the most dangerously fascinating women I've encountered to date.

Dammit.

Or do piče, to be more precise.

Why did couldn't she have left the boyfriend back in Europe?

- # # # -

ZEN & THE TRANQUIL PHILOSOPHY OF AN OLD SCHOOL MOSH PIT: The Importance of Space, Privacy, & Boundaries in the Batshit Information Age

2009-02-14T16:35:00.012-05:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Sometimes the world spins, the floor rushes up from the bottom of the mosh pit, the ceiling blurs into fleshy hands and arms all around you, and you realize that, in that perfect quixotic moment, where you stand on every issue in the universe.

Such a liberating experience, the old school mosh pit.

I was more of a philosopher when I played in punk bands, when I was still physically able to take the auditory strain of pogoing amongst sweaty bodies up near the amplifiers and the P.A. speakers, able to cockfight and breathe within the stifling irradiated heat of The People.

But, alas, I ended up "growing up," like everyone else, blowing out my knee, tearing ligaments in my shoulder, and being forced closer towards the entropy of eventual maturity and decay.

To this day, I believe watching the Ramones live, one of the last concert-goers in the States to see the legendary punk act during their final tour in 1996, changed my worldview forever.

Blame Johnny's right-wing militarism and Joey's New Left, wallflower idealism. Blame all the other punk and hardcore shows I've been to, the mohawks and the spiked collars and the post-show malt liquor and the straight-edge militant Vegan lectures at four in the fucking morning.

Wouldn't trade it for the world, really.

Kids today get a lot of slick marketing and corporate manipulation from so many bands, even a few decent songs to sing along to in the shower. But they will never see anything as beautiful as the simple absolute of the Ramones.

Every human being is an individual. And sometimes individuals get along, agree with one another, form communes, political parties, ideologies, movements, even governments and revolutions. All men and women are equal in their independence, in thoughts and of separate bodies, detached except in moments of conjoined birth defects and copulation.

And when we disagree, ideologically or through different conclusions, we fight or we are conquered.

We are alone, even when amongst many. And without time alone, private time outside of the pit, the beast that is humanity swallows you whole and leaves a bloody carcass on the floor for the stage hands to clean up.

That, my friends, you learned in the pit.

C'est la vie.

* * * *

For the past few weeks, my normally solitary Fortress of Motherfucking Solitude had become a home-away-from-chaos for several local students, siblings of exes, polite yet boundary-challenged blog readers from four different universities, a couple of friends of the Italian Backpacker Fling needing a place to crash on their own American trek, even random drunk girls who mistakenly blacked out in my pickup on subzero nights.

Finally had to institute a new set of rules - no "dropping in because you're in the neighborhood" or sending mobile emails from PDAs saying that you're in Oxford, looking to find The Zenformation Professional and to have a couple of beers.

It sucks to be a dick about it, but, well, sometimes a dude just needs a bit of privacy. It's nice to have company at times, even for loners such as myself. But, well, I have my limits.

I'm good at playing the extrovert online. My solitary self, however, needs time to recharge and recover.

* * * *

Don't get me wrong: I appreciate the fact that so many folks think I'm a decent guy, that I write interesting tales and make a rather ho-hum podunk American college town sound like a higher education pulp novel.

And I find meeting the people who read this - people other than friends or subjects of some posts - fascinating. I'm grateful that folks still read my rather random bullshit.

But we're not buddies or pals simply because you may read this site, and my home and certain private details concerning relationships are not open to you. I'm probably not the best person to rely on to spill your guts to about relationship problems or roommate issues, not some sort of online/offline hybrid confession booth.

Sure, we can hang out, maybe grab a beer or a cup of coffee - when our schedules sync. I'd love to meet you. And maybe we'll hang out again after that.

I'm not, however, Oxford Fucking Ohio's all-seeing guru of knowledge and wisdom, I probably won't like your friend's band's demo, don't respond to "media release" emails asking for endorsement of groups or causes, and I'm generally annoyed when people I don't know off this web site try to play motherfucking matchmaker.

(Friend's cute, chica, but, yeah, kinda creepy.)

I'm just a 30-year-old librarian with a slightly skewed take on life. And I blog in my spare time, earn no income off of this, and, well, when things get hectic offline or I need some space, that's my No. 1 priority.

Sorry, again, if that makes me sound like an asshole.

We all need our personal space in order to survive, establish boundaries to keep ourselves sane, and generally like some privacy for ourselves.

Including me.

Okay? Okay.

- # # # -

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-OTHER PROGRESSIVE: Of Bedridden Soul Searching, Emails from Sorority Militants, & Other Fuckings with the Man

2009-02-07T15:35:00.018-05:00

Politics, the environmental crotch rot,
Whole forests destroyed while
the world's too hot to Live in...
Where the fuck do I begin?

A baby is dead from an overdose,
Mama tried suicide after suicide
But couldn't get close enough to meet
the Big Man in heaven,
The TV sliced and diced God down
to sweet meats sold in a goddamn 7-11.

- Spoken word performance notes,
"Unus Marx," Greeley, Colo., 1997

[Sick Week 2009 soundtrack by Demago]

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- In a previous life, I reminded myself recently, I was more of a free spirit, an artist and a troublemaker.

I spent the better part of last week in bed, burning up with fever and shivering inside a cocoon of blankets, trying to remember what that was like - to be full of wanderlust, radicalism, passion.

To be free again, an artist, a rebel...I really used to believe...we'd build our children a better world...

And as I stared at my netbook screen, blankly trying to recall that part of my past in an attempt to write something coherent, I was forced to acknowledge one of the most terrifying aspects of "adulthood."

Somewhere along the line, I sold out.

Sorta.

Man, just like the goddamn Baby Boomers and my own generation and every generation before mine. Like the Socialists and Anarchists who took refuge in the Democratic Party in the wake of Joe McCarthy, like free-market libertarians sought shelter in the Big Government Republican Party.

I simply did what every adult does when the status quo autopilot takes over - I took the acceptance cookies the established, entrenched powers-that-be waved in front of me, hopped in their van of conformity, and let myself get skullfucked by the blood soaked clown suits of industry in the name of some bullshit American Dream I can't afford.

We all sell out.

As I lay in bed, sick with the flu, I couldn't figure out if it was a high body temperature making me shiver, or if the ideas running through my mind...

* * * *

At one time, in what sometimes feels like another life, I was a poet, a painter of abstract curios and refurbisher of curbside furniture, a fun guy to invite along on a trip to the local cooperative for green tea and social justice debates. I played guitar, dammit, in punk bands and around campfires and on porches surrounded by Mexican women!

Potlucks with farmworkers and attending lectures by former Black Panthers! Volunteering to pick herbs for holistic practitioners! Working with street kids to help keep them from getting raped or to escape abusive parents!

Man, I was a bit of a radical back then... damn fever... messing with my head...

Once upon a time, I shared a stage with gay men who wore the most beautiful flowing dresses and proud dyke wordsmiths, performing spoken word in front of small crowds in equally small college student housing. I'd attend protests and riots and create my own scene, wherever and whenever...

I wrote for 'zines, published a small campus satire, held court in hotel rooms along the Central Coast with self-described Art Fags and performance artists and free verse fratboys and surrealist painters who worshiped Captain Beefheart and Brian Eno...

... Jesus Christ, all those nights talking to hookers and drunken fishermen... going back to a cheap motel room with friends to change American literature forever... God, we were such dreamers...

And then, yes, I sold out.

Writing for 'zines under assumed names gave way to writing for the better paying mainstream media, my own poetry became a rambling shit stain across a thousand spiral-bound notepads, and then, yes, I became a librarian when the last vestiges of my militant independence drove me from a rather amusing career as a sports broadcaster.

I shivered and shuddered beneath the sheets, fever raging through my body, thinking such things.

Well, then there's the blog, right?

You sold out, Jason, but that sweet militant bastard is still in ya, somewhere....

* * * *

After the fever broke for good, days later, by the time I'd caught up with work enough to even look at Zenformation Professional shit, I came across an email from someone who I'm sure will read this sometime soon - an undergrad lurker, a sorority girl and, simultaneously, a newbie campus agitator spurred to action by those "stimulating" clusterfucks the Man keeps peddling down in Washington.

Apparently, my double-fisted "Fuck You!" to the Bailout Buddies during Authoritarian Presidential Erection 2008 earned me some serious campus street cred with beyond-mainstream college students, especially those who thought that I only write about drinking, women, and other fucktardish things.

Yeppers, my political views make it hard (sorry Dems) to distinguish between two sides of the same Benevolent Dictator coin. And my opinion hasn't changed a lick - and I don't give a flying ratfuck about Aretha's goddamn hat, either.

Anywho...

The longtime reader, who I'll call Miss Panhell, wanted to share with me her own double-fisting tales, thank me introducing her to both open-source operating systems and a couple of really great bands that helped her get through a nasty break-up...

There's a sorority girl who's reading Emma Goldman and Noam Chomsky these days, exploring a world she didn't even know she could explore on her own, as a person and not as an output widget in some Higher Education Degree Machine.

Haha wow you're not old! You give me hope because you never sold out, a line in her email read. Sometimes I feel like I've been selling out my whole haha baby life.

And, as I sat in a coffee shop responding to her email, I laughed and remembered my feverish fits of self-doubt and fluish self-assessment:

We all sold out. You, me, everybody. If you think otherwise, well, you're a fool.

But we can always steal that shit back...

And the visual of a sorority girl going to a frat mixer and bringing up things like the international banking industry's exploitation of Third World workers and the rights to breastfeed in public I've got running through my head right now?

The perfect camouflage in this increasingly batshit Kapitalist Kingdom.

You go, girl.

If you hadn't emailed, I probably wouldn't have had the balls to write this.

- # # # -

RUMORS OF MY DEMISE...Illin' Like a Villain

2009-02-03T16:34:00.004-05:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I sure get the flu a lot.

At least once a year.

Goddammit.

Once I finish my "Virus Removal" regimen of elderberry tea, orange juice, and enough dried acai/edamame, flavonoid-rich trail mix to kill this motherfucker dead, I'll return to blogging.

Seriously, right now, approximately 40 percent of everyone I know in Oxford Fucking Ohio is recovering from either the flu, severe sinus infections, strep, or some other foul thing.

That's the lovely thing about living and working in a tiny college town - illness travels fast.

Back to bed for me.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL:On the Dangerous Situations Women Put Themselves Into at Colleges and Universities Every Weekend, Everywhere...

2009-01-24T21:54:00.012-05:00

A RARE PROLOGUE

"So what you're saying..." said the drunk undergrad earlier in the night,"is tha...if... if I was completely naked and all over you right now, you wouldn't fuck me... because I'm wasted?"

"Exactly," I whispered back in her ear. "But you can call me when you're sober."

"That's fucked up."

"Well, maybe, but women usually appreciate that one fucked-up thing more than the others..."

And with that she wandered off, disgusted, and started grinding her very fine ass into the crotch of some other guy.

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) – So I found a drunk college girl passed out in the bed of my pickup last night.

Found is an understatement, actually - at a stoplight at three-thirty in the morning on a frigid Saturday, on my way home from the bars, I looked in my rear view mirror just as she knocked on the back glass of the cab from inside the camper shell.

So a zombie of drunk-ass, Oompa Loompa tan chick gave me a fucking horror-movie perfect scare, almost gave me a goddamn heart attack when she realized she'd passed out in a strange dude's truck WHILE the truck was moving...

That would be a way more appropriate way to start off this dispatch from the Rich White College Kid Holy Land.

You had to be there.

Better that you weren't, actually. I ended up gunning through the light by mistake, almost running into a government building in my rush to stop the truck.

* * * *

Poor kid was so wasted she could barely communicate anything beyond repeating that her friends had abandoned her and that she'd lost her purse.

Too drunk to explain coherently how she'd come to black out in my truck. Too drunk to provide me with any directions to get her home safely. Too drunk to give me any information beyond calling me Chad, apologizing for being too drunk, and telling me that she pissed herself.

So long story short...

I ended up adopting a petite, brunette, 19-year-old puppy for the night.

And no, not like that.

Please. For the last time now: I. DO. NOT. DO. BLACKOUT DRUNK GIRLS.

* * * *

Tough call, actually.

It was either give her a place to crash or drop her underage ass off with the Po-Po.

I chose the route that would get me in bed sooner rather than later, the route involving no paperwork, no questions about pressing charges or testifying-if-needed.

I helped homegirl to the passenger seat, drove home, and carried my impromptu boarder up a flight of stairs to my apartment. I laid her out on the kitchen table, positioned her head over the trashcan, gave her a blanket and a pillow.

And then I went to bed. Alone.

* * * *

When I got up at 11 o'clock, she was still there, snoring. She'd puked, missed the trashcan almost completely. Rather than wake her up - or eat my breakfast surrounded by the smell of vodka-tinted vomit - I went back to my bedroom, hopped on my new Ubuntu OS netbook, and surfed the web.

Eventually, I heard a thud in the kitchen, followed by a string of profanity and a call of Um...hello?

That, yes, was my cue to walk out and make an introduction to someone who, hopefully, got the shit scared out of her.

She was so embarrassed that she pretty much cleaned my apartment while waiting for her boyfriend to come fetch her.

Waiting for her boyfriend. In a strange older dude's apartment. After a night of drinking that she can't remember.

How'd ya like to be a fly on the wall in the ol' Fortress of Motherfucking Solitude for that knock at my door this morning...

* * * *

Like I said, long story. You just had to be there. And it's better that you weren't, really.

But the story probably wouldn't have ended as well had she passed out in some less honorable guy's pickup.

Oxford Fucking Ohio is, after all, a college town. And not everyone here is as honorable or ethical as certain sorta local blogebrity types...

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Ringing in 2009 with Donut-Covered Boobs, Ranty Emails, and Destroyed Lucky Jerseys...

2009-01-18T15:26:00.008-05:00

"I'm not drunk, I'm surreal sober. Now put that somewhere... wait... did somebody take my bra off?"

- Recently minted Local U. alumna,
On her last weekend in Oxford

Yeah, we'll leave it at that. Fun first weekend back in ol' Oxford Fucking Ohio, really. And I can honestly say that I've never eaten a donut off of a drunk woman's tits before last Friday night.

* * * *

"Hey, it worked in Blazing Saddles..."

- A Buddy's Facebook Status,
The Day After the U.S. Presidential Election

True enough. Maybe Hillary will unite the world by holding a chili bean fart-off in an effort to end the Iraq fiasco?

* * * *

"Until I was fourteen, I divided humanity into three categories: women, little girls, and buffoons."

- From Le Sabotage amoureux (1993),
by Belgian novelist Amélie Nothomb,
English translation, 2000

One of the most disturbingly hilarious French-language writers living today. A blog reader recommended this book to me before Christmas; I haven't laughed that much while reading a European writer in a long time...

Ha, while Tom Waits may be big in Japan, apparently I'm big in France...

* * * *

"Baltimore Ravens fans are all murdering egomaniacs. You suck, The Wire sucks, your team sucks, and you're unOhio for being a Ravens fan."

- A Cleveland Browns fan/Ex,
via drunken voicemail, Jan. 7,
On my choice of sports teams

Hey, it's not my fault Ohio's pro football teams are, well, pathetic. Blame the ownership. And while I may suck, The Wire is one of the best urban crime dramas ever. Thanks for returning my Ray Lewis jersey, albeit vandalized, after three fucking years.

Hope you enjoy the remnants of your Grady Sizemore jersey. The delivery driver who picked it up said his company often returns boxes full of ashes to loved ones. Especially Cleveland Indians baseball fans...

* * * *

"This presidential inauguration is brought to you by your starving friends at Corporate Welfare. Remember: for the price of a few hundred billion in taxpayer bailouts, you too can accomplish wallet-padding Change CEOs Can Believe In (by privately financing Rick Warren and Oprah's pet goat.)"

- The ZenFo Pro, via email,
To someone "shocked and appalled"
he "refuses to trust and accept change..."

The natural enemy of the People is the State, I told my Republican-voting mother over Christmas, And the moment the People's Hero becomes the State, he becomes not a savior but the same old incompetant tyrant in a new suit.

Best not to bring that subject up with someone who is completely not buying the Hope shit. I think I've made that pretty much clear as day. I'm, politically, a Libertarian Lefty - why would I change my views to accommodate yet another flavor of American Neoliberalism?

* * * *

"Just you watch - one day, those motherfuckers are gonna start having Martin Luther King Day sales...Free At Last, Buy One Get One Freedom sales..."

- Angry Black Activist,
On What's Wrong with MLK Day.

No explanation needed, really. And I wouldn't put it past retailers.

* * * *

"I think I may have broke my penis."

- C'mon, who HASN'T slammed
a that in the car door before?

-# # # -

ON THE ROAD 2008: Welcome Back to Caliporn...Er...California! May I Crush You with my Boobs?

2009-01-06T03:51:00.004-05:00

PASO ROBLES, Calif. (ZP) -- I didn't think anything of it at first.

A group of very drunk women in the midst of a pub crawl, eight in all, with one hollering something about knowing me from somewhere, staggered past me as I pulled cash from an ATM.

These things happen. Particularly when there's drunk women involved.

I look like a lot of people. Sometimes famous, sometimes high school boyfriends, and once - from the mouth of an ex - I was told that I resembled a favorite coach at a Catholic school at the worst possible time a woman could bring such a thing up.

Rarely does anybody ever tell me that I look like, well, me.

I laughed as the women passed. One woman - the one who claimed to her friends that she knew me - reached out and grabbed my shoulder.

"YOU! I knew it!" the strange creepy gal yelled. "Oh Gosh... did you used to date _____?"

Her English was accented, northern European. An appropriate voice, too, given the fact the woman slurring into my face looked like Thor and Barbie's lovechild - luscious blond hair, full red lips, fair and spotless complexion, and enough surgically enhanced boobage to keep custom bra manufacturers in business for years to come.

Funny thing. Though a few years older, she looked familiar to me, too. I must've stared for a good twenty seconds, without blinking and head cocked to the side, like some Cocker Spaniel watching its master shit for the first time.

And, well, I did once date somebody with the name she'd given me...

* * * *

Wait! I think I know this drunk chick! my neurons screamed. Hmmm... ____'s friend? Name?

Think! DAMMIT!

Okay... breathe... I'm thinking Vegas... 2005... The Venetian's pool ... Don Julio shots... jumping jacks...

Yeah, now that was a fun morning swim.

...Got IT!

* * * *

I shoved my forty bucks in my pocket and smiled back. I had a name, dammit. Even if, well, I couldn't figure out why a SoCal-based actress just happened to be in Paso Fucking Robles, California, two days into the New Year.

"Well, look at this shit! _____ ______, in the motherfucking flesh! How are the fuck are ya, honey?"

The tall blonde not-so-stranger shimmied towards me, skirt riding up her thighs, an army of latex marching across battlefields of porcelain leg. A quick hug and a peck on the cheek, artificial double-Ds crushing my ribcage, holiday greetings exchanged with all the honesty and sincerity of a faked orgasm on a junior high prom night.

Seriously.

Few things outside of organized religion are as plastic and ritualistic as the Los Angeles Hug-Kiss-Kiss.

* * * *

"Wow! I almost didn't recognize you! Cheri, hey, this guy used to date ______. And he lives in Cleveland..."

"Um, well, Cleveland's on the far side of the Ohi-"

"Oh gosh, you just look AMAZING! How ARE YOU? I heard you were, like, dead or something."

"Gee, thanks, chica. Looking pretty hot yourself. So you're still in the adult busin-"

"Oh my God! You remember? Wow! Gosh, like, you probably don't know this but..."

She went on for twenty minutes without pausing for a breath, oblivious to the fact that we only hung out one night, years ago, in Las Vegas. I now know more about her career, sex life, her dogs and cats, and her ex-boyfriend's little premature ejaculation/fidelity problem than I ever wanted to know, really.

In the one place in the world I generally expect to NOT run into THAT ex's friends...

Wow, I thought as she pecked my other cheek, The Central Coast really is looking a lot more like the San Fernando Valley every fucking year.

* * * *

I'd been on my way out for the night; the group of women were done for the night, headed back to their hotel. And they were all pretty much too drunk, by their own admission, to head back out to the few bars Paso Robles has to offer.

Thank God. No offense, ladies.

Last time I hung out with Ms. Double-D, I woke up in bed next to four women, complete with a Nordic-pale leg wrapped around my neck, somebody's ass beneath my head, and the then-girlfriend's passing out with her twat in my slumbering face.

Long night. And equally long story. These things happen. Especially when there's drunk women involved.

But, well, there's a reason I have no desire to ever return to Las Vegas.

- # # # -

ON THE ROAD 2008: Where the Homeless Are To Be Chased Out Like Garden Pests, One Always Finds All the Progressive Chic of Nazi Germany

2008-12-31T11:59:00.009-05:00

People living in poverty have the least access to power to shape policies - to shape their future. But they have the right to a voice.

- Nelson Mandela

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (ZP) -- There he sits, this wretch of a rogue, this public menace so foul that the local city council was forced to ban sitting on public benches for periods longer than an hour, to pass anti-loitering laws.

The wily beast grunts to himself, his natural odor fills the air with an animal's stench. He's mumbling to some invisible friend named Danny, laughing about some ethereal joke.

And he's smoking - DEAR GOD! THE CHILDREN! - a half-charred butt, leaning against his army surplus knapsack, and strumming a guitar with four out of six strings unbroken. He's got a coffee cup full of those other smokers' leftovers, half-used menthols and lights.

Mothers pull their children nearer as they pass him. A few local frat boy types walk behind him, mock his muttering. One suit-clad automaton makes a point of walking a half-moon around the unwashed, whiskered creature as he babbles into his Bluetooth earpiece theories about how the local real estate bubble is crashing like a wet paper airplane.

And in San Luis Obispo Fucking California, they're debating another round of smoking bans, too - bans on smoking on sidewalks, on those same One-Hour-Or-Less park benches, even in parks. For the children, of course. Community health and well-being, too.

These things are IMPORTANT, you know - not only does it make the health nuts happy, it veils yet more excuses to chase the idle homeless from their benches, their parks, from their very sight.

Wouldn't want to pick up any bad habits from creatures like that wild beast of a man sitting on that park bench. I mean, his simple pleasure in the open air home the world has dealt him surely harms all...

* * * *

It's not like homeboy has anywhere else to go, really.

In a county of almost 250,000 people, there are 2,500-4,000 homeless residents (San Fransisco County, by comparison, has an estimated 4500-6,000 homeless amongst its 800,000 residents) spread out in communities like Paso Robles and Nipomo, in Morro Bay and Pismo Beach.

And there's only two volunteer-run shelters, providing about 125 beds to sleep in, for all of those folks throughout the county without anywhere else to sleep, one day center for thousands spread out across a county twice the size of Rhode Island.

Yessir, they sure have their priorities straight here in SLO.

* * * *

"You must miss living here," the old man said. "I can't imagine living anywhere else."

I sipped my coffee and tried to go back to reading my graphic novel in peace. But, well, he wouldn't let up. His gray ponytail probably too tight, his bong at home to full of fucking pixie dust. An armful of progressive magazines, the NO MORE WAR! and OBAMA/BIDEN 2008 pin on the jam band tee, the token sandals and socks and patchouli stench of your everyday, Overgrown California Baby Boomer Hippie variety.

Welcome to San Luis Obispo. Mother Jones meets Dot Com venture capitalist, Emma Goldman meets the corporate raider Democrat, New Deal meets the Soccer Moms and $1,000-a-month slumlords.

"It's sad, you know. We have all these vagrants and not one of them ever seems to get the idea to move to a more... accommodating place... like to San Diego."

"I dunno. Maybe they like it here, too. Or maybe they can't afford to move, maybe they're stuck here."

Silence. Thank you all that is fucking hol-

"Not to be rude, I know you're trying to read, but they could hitchhike."

"Yeah, well... maybe they're all too fucking tired because they can't catch a few FUCKING winks in this town!"

Silence. Again.

"Sir, you don't have to use such language. It's bad for your health, man. And there's children-"

I look out the bookstore's window. The homeless dude's still sitting there, mumbling to himself. Completely oblivious.

"You think words are worse than what ya'll let happen to guys like that? Yeah, fucking regular utopia here, sure. Regular Orwell-Meets-Jerry-Garcia."

The freest of animals, an honorable, innocent beast, while I sit trapped behind glass with his self-absorbed, blind shepherds.

- # # # -

ON THE ROAD 2008: On Getting Caught Checking Out a Woman's Ass, Rich Old Wives and Old Worried Hubbies, & Being Anything But a Gentleman

2008-12-22T03:41:00.014-05:00

Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for Woman.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

NAPLES, Fla. (ZP) -- The old man stood there, staring into the storefront, mouth gaping.

"Good lord, she does this every goddamn year!"

Inside the store a woman looking roughly half his age stood at the register. It took not one or two clerks to bag her purchases but four. In one bag went the pairs of hundred dollar jeans. In another went the boxes of shoes. And in another two or three went the blouses and sundresses and skirts.

He bummed a cigarette as he explained the ritual. His wife was in her early forties, attractive and smart enough to qualify as Wife No. 3. But while his first wife died, and his second was addicted to booze and painkillers, Mrs. Tres was sucking his seventy-year-old moneyed ass dry.

In the bedroom, sure. That's acceptable in the Viagra Age. Suck away. But in the Economic Clusterfuck Age, well, mass consumerism amounts to nothing more than bullshit comfort and protection, an equity line condom full of holes.

"I love her to death," the old man said, not to me but to the storefront. "But that woman's dumb as shit when it comes to understanding that buying for the grandkids comes first."

He adds that, yes, he has a half-dozen grandchildren to shop for and his wife, well, Mrs. Tres just blew an easy three grand without spending a dime on the kids.

Four fucking hours he'd been waiting for her to finish buying for herself. The sales, she said! Never mind the kids! The sales!

He started pacing, told me that the Marlboro he'd just bummed tasted marvelous. First cigarette in 15 fucking years, dammit. Fuck the cardiologists. His wife's greed - yes, he called it greed - would kill him first.

"Son, take my advice and be poor and single."

"Hey, that shit's the reason I don't believe in marriage."

* * * *

TAMPA, Fla. (ZP) -- I wasn't looking to get caught.

But, well, it was a very nice ass, and the way her white linen skirt clung to her as she bent over reminded me of fresh cream atop a cup of hot chocolate.

"You know, that's really rude."

How that woman knew I was checking out her ass, behind her back and bent over packing away her laptop, I'll never know. But, yes, I was caught red handed.

And I don't know what I was thinking when I responded. I probably should've just shuffled on around behind the newspapers.

Instead, something just came out of my mouth, an audible demon between my teeth, escaping.

"Your dress holds you well."

Huh? What the flying monkey fuck does that mean?

It was a nice ass, sure, and the dress definitely complimented her rather curvy frame. But women wear dresses. Dresses have no arms or hands, so simple white fabric cannot hold anything (bras notwithstanding).

"Um, thanks. Bought it in Puerto Rico last week."

And with that she rolled her eyes and wandered out towards the departure gates. At least, well, I'd been caught in the airport and not, say, in a church or at work or at a wedding by the bride.

I don't blush often. But as she walked away her hips did, indeed, seem to sway a bit more than they had before. I saw her reach for her phone, dial, and turn to glance at the ass-staring freak once more.

And she winked.

Good God. One day I'm going to get slapped in an airport.

* * * *

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (ZP) -- She'd left me scores of messages, all over the place, asking - begging - me to get a hold of her as soon as possible. It was an emergency, after all, a crisis, the biggest thing in the world.

In her messages, she made it sound like she'd just walked in on Death herself going all reverse-cowgirl on Satan in the living room. A life-or-death situation, go-time on the reality gridiron, a world-shattering event of such importance...

"J, you're, like, cheaper than my therapist. And you make me laugh."

She's just a tad drunk. It's 2:30 in the morning. I'm in Florida on vacation, sober yet full of Scotch, perfectly prepared red snapper and a dozen raw oysters.

And she's just kicked her cheating douche of a boyfriend out of her life, for good this time, out in Southern California. Sent some of his shit to the ex-wife, some to charity, and some, well, she just set on fire in the back yard. It's 11:30 p.m., her time.

"Death and Satan screwing. That's just sick, dude."

I'm sitting out beneath a full moon on the phone, smoking a cigarette on a park bench on no-smoking resort property. I'm supposed to be one of the nice guys, a good catch - I'm supposed to help her sort through went wrong, to offer insight into how to date decent guys...

Ha. Now that's fucking funny. Oh well. Life's just one quirky-ass motherfucker sometimes.

"Chica, look, men are like fucking potato chips. Don't like the BBQ ones, pitch the bag and get another flavor," I tell her. "Hey, look at me. I love being fucking single-"

"You're such a liar. And you don't really treat women like potato chips, do you?"

"Worse. I treat women like heroin addicts treat empty needles. Not gonna lie."

Silence.

Yeah, trust me. I know my weaknesses pretty well, thank you very much.

- # # # -

THE ZENFORMATION WIRE: Culture, Arts, and Reviews From Oxford Fucking Ohio's Biggest Dork

2008-12-07T23:18:00.011-05:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Bringing back a popular 2007 series because I apparently intimidate the shit out of some of the hottest college students in this here town.

Had a reader's roommate tell me that a supermodel - looking blonde is scared that she's not hip enough (my God, looked her up on Facebook and choked on my coffee...) to roll with yours truly.

Me. Seriously, I'm the least hip person, the biggest dork in town. I drive an old pickup, buy clothes at thrift stores, and spend way too much time online.

I'm a fucking librarian. I just do my thing. But I did, however, get a kick out of hearing from your BFF that you're afraid to make eye contact and think I'm some arrogant Radical Chic blogebrity motherfucker.

~ JASON

MUSIC: Sounds To Intimidate Chachballs

WASH, RINSE, REPEAT
Iller Than Theirs
Free Online EP, 2008
[ZIP FILE via Radio Belly]

A few months ago, I gave one part of this stellar New York based act, Tone Tank, a shout-out in a Quotations post for his earlier solo online release.

And, well, the duo of Tone and Kray are back with a dangerous assault on the ol' sound holes, complete with killer beats, lyrics for the working world, and flows so tight you'll pay to download the rest of their catalog.

RADIOHEAD RAINYDAYZ REMIXES
Amplive, with guests
Free Online Album, 2008
[ZIP file and Artwork here]

One of my personal faves of the last year, because it combines to almost completely foreign sounds into something perfect. Amplive brings together the likes of Too $hort and Del the Funky Homosapien to create a sonic masterpiece that redefines international artistic boundaries.

DUMB IT DOWN [MP3]
GO BACK HOME [MP3]

The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir
From the album Ten Thousand (S.A.P., 2008)
Available online via iTunes

One of my favorite discoveries this year, courtesy of a North Dakota reader who thought, well, since I like Tom Waits, old shitkicker tunes, Delta Blues, and Old Crow Medicine Show, why not introduce me to Calgary's best kept secret outside of Canada and the Border Badlands?

She described the band's live shows as, and I quote, the closest she's come to being seduced by an upright bass in forever.

ONLINE VISUAL ARTS: Controversy For Change

TUBESTEAK EXPOSES OBAMA
Online Series, Parts One, Two, Three, Four
The Super Rumble Mix Show,
via Boondocks Bootleg Channel
By Aaron McGruder and others, 2008

You know, if there's one thing I can't stand, well, it's my White Liberal Elite countrymen who are still running around, living in that "Yes We Can!" propaganda a month after a historic election, completely unaware that the election of the first brown-skinned president in this country means nothing more, at the end of the day, than just another career politician gaining a position of power.

Yes We Can! ... be the last country in the Americas to gain a non-white person as head of state. Even Canada beat us, people. By a decade. I mean, it's not like this day wasn't a foregone conclusion, given that the U.S. is only just now accepting that it's never really been a Nation of White People...

And, Jesus Fucking Christ, get a sense of humor. McGruder, the creator of the lightning-rod perfect Boondocks comic strip and animated series, has thrown the first real satirical punch at the President-Elect with this equally historic web series, featuring an actor calling Obama a sell-out Po-Po, dissing Bush with snarky subtlety, and mocking the Thuggin' Brother stereotype, simultaneously.

Well, ya'll wanted change you could believe in. How's that?

FILM: "I can Legally download that for free?"

Ever wish you could just sit around and watch classics like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead or the film noir classic, D.O.A., on-demand and in high quality digital video, right at your desk?

Or that you could find public domain footage of historic events to use in ad campaigns, marketing presentations, or, well, to put together a kick-ass multimedia project for a class, without having to worry about copyright issues? And you're, say, a broke-ass college student? Or unemployed?

Well, thank you, Internet Archive folks, for making life so much easier for the rest of us. I've referred more patrons to this one online source more in the last three months than I think I've ever referred anybody to a single site.

Seriously. And it's legal. Just watch those Creative Commons licenses.

THE KNOWLEDGE WEB:
That's a Grant-Funded Remix, Yo!

FOLK SONGS FOR THE FIVE POINTS
Digital Artist in Residence Program, 2008
The Lower East Side (NY) Tenement Museum

One of the most engaging and unique interactive online museum exhibits ever, the Folk Songs for the Five Points project was created in association with the Tenement Museum's Digital Artists In Residence Program (DARP).

Folk Songs for the Five Points truly is what it claims to be: a celebration of cultural diversity and change, using “folk songs” as a metaphor to explore immigration and the formation of identity in New York’s Lower East Side.

I spent a good four hours fooling around on the site and, yeah, I'm still loving the use of interactive maps and recorded sound to create a self-interpretive aura, one without any answers or definitions but with enough emotional pull to allow for a wonderful user experience.

DARP, one of the most intriguing and dynamic digital media residency programs in the world, is funded through grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and other organizations. The Five Points project represents the first phase of the The Folk Songs Project.

One of the coolest things about being a librarian, by the way, is the fact that I get paid to play with stuff like this.

- # # # -

WHAT'S SO LONELY ABOUT SPENDING A THANKSGIVING ALONE, ANYWAY?!?: Of Cioppino Over Turkey, Long Hikes, Solitude, and Movie Dates with Oneself

2008-11-28T07:59:00.014-05:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm not a Thanksgiving guy. Haven't been for some time.

The simple truth of it is, well, I quit looking at the holiday as anything more than a day off long ago because, well, when your family has spent so many years spread out all over one gigantic continent, it ceases to hold any other importance.

Back on the ol' family farm, back when I was a kid, the day meant something: mornings full of deer and squirrel hunting, afternoon meals with every second- and third-cousin within 200 miles, afternoon football games in the apple grove. But I'm no longer a kid, the farm's long gone, and the bastard we sold it to cut down the grove to make room for his Arabians...

My family, for the most part, quit celebrating the holiday a few years ago. My mother, in fact, had a monumental revelation: she's never liked spending all day cooking while everyone else lounges around, doing nothing and waiting to gorge.

This year, she and my father went to Denny's. Gotta love 24-7 roadside dining. Instead of some overblown feast, they went on a short vacation, just the two of them.

As for me, well, dating a few members of indigenous tribal organizations over the years, and a few foreigners to this country curious about why Americans drape themselves in ancient English Puritanism in the guise of Native American feast, probably hasn't helped, either.

* * * *

I do give thanks on Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong here.

I just prefer spending the day doing my own thing, alone.

This year, for instance, for my feast, I went for a culinary form of gratitude to the numerous immigrants who helped build this country, who've helped feed the world by coming to this often hostile land to raise fruit of the chaff and vine, pull fish from our coasts, and who helped better diversify America for the better - as opposed to those pesky religious nuts near Plymouth Rock, who came here to conquer for a damning White God as British exiles.

Rather than turkey - not being able to eat beef, well, turkey's already a staple of my diet - I went with a meal more fitting to a John Steinbeck novel than to a Cotton Mather sermon. Cioppino, a seafood stew originally developed by Italian fishermen along the wharves of 1800s San Francisco, seemed way more satisfying and spectacularly American to me than the usual dead bird and stuffing.

I put the seafood, broth, and veggies on to simmer over low heat shortly after breakfast, turned on the stereo, and cleaned the kitchen table to the sounds of The Knux and Positive K.

Trust me. My spending a family holiday in solitude is a good thing. Spares folks the embarrassment of having to watch me attempt to dance in a bathrobe.

* * * *

People often ask me if I ever, well, just shut up. I do, offline, tend to talk a lot. But in truth, I can go days without saying anything to another human being, without speaking a word. And I'm one of those people who revels in days like that, the solitude, the alone time...

Hell, I'm a loner.

While the immigrant stew simmered, I went for a seven-mile hike, watched all sorts of wonderful subtitles - for - my - uniligual - ass films I'd been meaning to see for years (from Srđan Dragojević's Bosnian War classic, Lepa Sela Lepo Gore, to Volker Schlöndorff's exploration of Nazism, Der Unhold, to Bruno Barreto's Brazilian political thriller, O Que É Isso, Companheiro?), before, finally, dining in workout sweats, in perfect, contemplative silence whilst reading last month's Harper's Magazine.

Completely alone.

Reminded me of those chilly November mornings as a kid on the farm, sitting in a tree stand, shotgun in hand, meditating on all sorts of adolescent things (mostly girls) and listening for the sounds of broken twigs and crunching leaves.

It was a perfect Thanksgiving, really.

At least by my standards.

- EPILOGUE -

"How do you do it?" she asked. "How the hell do you cope with being alone on Thanksgiving?"

This was her first holiday away from her family and, despite spending Turkey Day with a friend's family, she felt so horribly, miserably alone. She couldn't afford the plane ticket home, couldn't afford to miss what could be the biggest opportunity of her life.

Her first big photo shoot in two years, scheduled the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Fate is sometimes nothing more than a tiny plate of food during someone else's feast. Not that she needs to lose weight.

"Well," I typed back, "I kinda like the peace and quiet. Life's too hectic not to have some downtime from the world."

"You're one of the strangest people I've ever met, you know that? It's kinda cute but, dude, hella freaky sometimes to read about."

She told me she still had my cell number in her phone, that she'd been trying to call me all day. It was then that I realized that, yes, indeed my phone was off and there were quite a few missed calls logged in the damnable thing.

Without missing a beat, I cleared my throat and waited for an incoming call. I guess I am a strange dude - for a moment I'm actually annoyed that a hot (chica, you know you are) fashion model is bothering my solitude, wanting to call and chat and have somebody other than her roommate's cat to keep her company...

"Happy Thanksgiving, Jason! Haha, thought you wouldn't really answer."

Call me an asshole, but I almost didn't.

- # # # -

THE PERPETUAL CURSE OF THEPERPETUAL EX-OTHER MAN: Of Strange Women, Nosebleeds, Morning Bitchslaps, & Tom Waits During Sex

2008-11-23T18:05:00.016-05:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Mark your calendars, because this doesn't happen too often.

I ran into a situation this weekend so fucking batshit, so completely and utterly strange and drama-filled, that I'm not sure I'm able to find any words to describe it.

Other than something like, Jesus H. Christ! Now that, dude, is fucked up.

Oh well. Lemme give it the ol' college try...

* * * *

It started out with a simple, awkward-as-hell run-in with the Fruitcake Sex ex-fling on a frozen sidewalk in the middle of the night, with her current boytoy. That one cruel act of fate beget an awkward breakfast Saturday morning, just the two of us, and my inviting the pair to a friendly dinner at my apartment that afternoon.

Things were fine until, well, my Inner Asshole realized that the new beau - one of those lazy, wealthy Limousine Liberal, Trustafarian types - was both a nosey bastard (the guy routed through my bookshelves, CDs, and DVD collections like a cracked-out raccoon - totally unacceptable) and extremely intimidated by yours truly (he kept reminding me how rustic and Southern Gothic I seem in person - apparently, he'd heard a bit about me.)

Things went downhill after dinner, particuarly after the second bottle of Chardonnay.

How a conversation about how all three of us liked listening to Tom Waits after (and sometimes during) sex quickly devolved into a melodramatic circus of hurt feelings, bruised egos, periodically crying/pissed ex-flings, and, yes, even the panties she left in my apartment last December ended up getting thrown in her face after Mr. Novelist Wannabe found them in my bedroom closet is beyond me.

Confused yet? Don't worry, join the club. I'm still confused myself.

* * * *

I can't even begin to explain the impromptu make-out session in a crowded bar late Saturday night, eight hours after the fucked-up dinner and after the Local U's home hockey game, the one where I literally walked into the place where she and the beau were having drinks, grabbed her by the hair, and shoved my tongue down her throat - five feet away from the guy.

Yeah, an asshole move. I know. My bad. Had nothing to do with being possessive, or jealousy, or anything of that sort. I did it, my own bruised ego and drunken rationale aside, to see if I could get the guy to take a swing at me.

The guy pissed me off to the point where, yeah, I just wanted to have a good brawl with a dude with a law degree who grew up in a Gated Community somewhere back east.

Those guys are like punching bags for the working class. Seriously. But the fucker, well, just stared like a goon, fumed. He wouldn't bite.

I didn't expect for her to grab my hair, shove her hand down my pants, and kiss me back. I think, yeah, she expected her pussy of a beau to be just a tad bit more possessive - you know, do the Boyfriend driven into a Jealous Rage thing - than your average bar stool warmer.

Anywho. I left without a word...

Didn't think anything more of it, went back to drinking and skulking alone, went home and crashed.

And then, Sunday morning, I answered a knock at the door, only to find a red-eyed, angry young woman standing there, alone.

She kissed me and then - out of the fucking blue - slapped me so hard that my nose bled for a good hour after she stormed off.

Didn't offer an explanation, didn't say a word. Just a kiss on the lips and a firm open palm to the cheek.

* * * *

Like I said.

Not sure how, really, to even begin describing this weekend...

Enjoy the Tom Waits video. For some reason, that's all I've been listening to for the last few days, and I'm feeling, somehow, like somehow I'm up Shit Creek again.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: Of the Global Economic Collapse, Mexican Revolutionaries, Insomniac Ponderings, And Making Out with a Stranger

2008-11-17T00:55:00.002-05:00

"Es mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas."

- Gen. Emiliano Zapata,
Mexican Revolutionary Hero,
Wearer of "Cowboy Stuff"

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- It's three o'clock in the morning.

And I'm neither drunk nor sober.

I'm simply enjoying a cold November storm, in fact, a lovely late night stroll through the rain, my gray Stetson sagging beneath the weight of a thousand cold water droplets.

Smoke from my thirtieth Marlboro of the day forms wispy plumes around the brim, water seeps down my jeans into my boots, the baptismal waters of a man deep in thought liberating the soul as Ariat heels clickclack down miles of sidewalk.

Good God Almighty! I say to myself, eyes closed, leaning against a telephone pole, There's just nothing quite as liberating as a man's thoughts, alone, in the rain.

Personal freedom, just like money, seems to be in short supply these days.

* * * *

I'm thinking, for some odd reason, about a different approaching storm - the shit blizzard of a failing global economy that, yep, my country's elite and their backroom financiers have unleashed, a Pandora's Box full of sub-prime demons, bailout monied monsters, and reckless, destructive capitalist devils of all shapes and sizes.

And, for some reason, General Zapata popped into my waterlogged head, a ghost from some long ago learned history, ¡Tierra y Libertad! now less of a rallying cry and more of a ominous echo against the bad debts of the Gringo Nation.

Hey, these things happen, market collapses. Especially when things like consumption as status and not of function has been encouraged for more than two decades...

Well, goddamn, you've gotta quit reading so much, dude.

Yeah. Head like a slingshot, really. Put the right pebble in, pull back, and release. It's self-loading.

* * * *

Suddenly, from nowhere, they're upon me. Two very drunk women, bundled in Northface jackets and impromptu rain gear, stagger out of the shadows from a side street, their heels clicking away an off-key collegiate chant.

"Ooooh. It's a cowboy!" One girl says.

"Ah.... ah... A CUTE cowboy!" The second girl says, too drunk to realize that the cute cowboy is right in front of her.

I stop, tip my hat, smile. A welcome disruption.

Some things, well, are just too damned depressing to dwell on for too long. And I don't know of a single straight guy or lesbian who doesn't appreciate being called cute by two mysterious, albiet drunken, hot women in skirts at three in the morning, either.

"Mr. Cowboy, I love your BOOTS! I, like, love, ohmygosh, cowboy stuff!" The first girl says.

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

The second girl bums a cigarette and begins what I call the Wasted Girl Play - the attempt to indicate, through wobbly eyes meant to be seductive, the convienient throwing of dead weight meant to be a casual arm around the waist, that, if I'm willing...

"I LOVE cowboys! When I was in Texas once... And I hooked up with a cowboy. I like... reVERSE COWWWgirl...."

The first woman, by the look on her face, is both the more sober one and the one most embarrassed. I laugh and discreetly slide out of the way-too-desperate girl's grasp. The first woman, too, bums a cigarette.

" We're kinda fucked up, sorry," The first woman says.

"It's okay. Happens. So's the world, if fact."

Again, I laugh. Another welcome distraction.

* * * *

The first woman and I chat - turns out she's been sobering up for hours as her now babbling friend had been getting more and more wasted - for a bit, over cigarettes, as the second woman rambles on, in fact, to the same telephone I'd been holding up before I'd surrendered it to her.

Also turns out that her father just found out he's being downsized after Christmas - hefty early retirement buyout from the sounds of it. He's been with the same firm since before she was born and, well, he's already put her on notice not to expect as much help with college expenses as she'd like.

So, she explains, she figured she'd better go out and get drunk with her whore of a roommate before the real world kicks her family in the ass.

* * * *

"Um, this is kinda silly, but can I try it on?" The first girl asks.

"Try what on?"

"Your hat. Looks Mexican or something. Like gunslinger, you know?"

I take off the hat, start to plop the soaking wet thing atop her head. And then, well, I don't know if it was the soaking wet hair, or the way her shivering skin shuddered beneath a cold street light, but I asked for something in exchange since I'd be giving up my shelter from the storm...

She didn't even hesitate. I guess, well, either I'm a good salesman or it was merely a good deal worth taking advantage of, when the money's getting tight.

And by kissing a stranger, yes, by even embracing and turning a peck into an impromptu make-out session, we were able to both share warmth and the brim of an old Stetson in the middle of a November rain. A hot mouth and a warm body beats shivering in the cold alone.

Drunk Girl No. 2? As the telephone pole proved to be too sober for her, she fell to her knees just in time to puke up all sorts of foul stuff, including what looked like semen.

Right in front of an ATM machine, down the street from a real estate office.

Land and liberty, General Zapata's fighters used to chant. There are, of course, still other things in life that are free, are open to better negotiation and barter and open free market exchange than our countrysides and our freedoms.

And yes, it is better to live and die on one's feet, even in the rain, than it is to live on one's knees spitting up a stomachful of vodka and jism.

Even in hard times, a fair trade in an open, honest marketplace, where each party uses the other for something in exchange for something, beats the alternative.

* * * *

Hey, chicks dig the hat. And the "cowboy stuff."

What more is there to say, really?

Really wish I'd bothered to catch the woman's name. Or to have given her mine.

That's a market where I'd consider investing again.

- # # # -

PRESIDENTIAL ERECTION 2008: Voter Independence, Political Ideals over Parties, and Other Dispatches from a Media-Construct Battlefield

2008-11-07T17:14:00.019-05:00

Left-libertarianism combines the libertarian premise that each person possesses a natural right of self-ownership with the egalitarian premise that natural resources should be shared equally. Left-libertarianism holds that unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common, believing that private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources.... Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner edited a primer, The Origins of Left - Libertarianism: An Anthology of Historical Writings. This text places Hugo Grotius, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Spence, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Henry George in the left libertarian tradition.

- TEXT COURTESY WIKIPEDIA
GRAPHICS POLITICAL COMPASS

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- You know, it's funny.

I've somehow managed to confuse (and piss off) a lot of folks, simply because, well, for as much as I sometimes ramble on about politics, I've never really made it clear what, exactly, my ideological views are or which party I support.

My bad.

Personally, I prefer the term Sandburg Socialist, since that great Midwestern bard not only influences my writing, but whose ideals also serve as the basis for my political views. And, no, I don't fit either the graph above or the wholly separate, more theoretical wiki definition, either.

I always figured people would pick up the clues I've been dropping on this site for years...

Nothing personal. I'm a Man Without a Party, militantly nonpartisan. And there was no chance, period, of me voting for either Millionaire Right Authoritarian Guy. I swing for the opposite corner when voting for president - it's only in local or congressional elections that my sense of populism kicks in and I'm willing to compromise for the sake of regional stability.

If your choice won, good for you. Here's a cookie. If your choice lost, well, good for you, too. And you get a cookie as well. Hey, I get a cookie as well - I voted and, yep, my choice even got something out of it.

I voted based on principles. And I've done so, well, for most of my adult life. I don't give a shit who won or lost the White House. Democracy isn't a football game - unless you choose for it to be. Though, in all honesty, given the Hank Junior performance on CNN election night and the fact that this election season led to all candidates spending nearly a third of the GDP (exchange rate) of Afghanistan on marketing...

I was shocked that anybody thought I was a Democrat or a Republican, actually - seriously, I keep forgetting that most folks read or hear "Left-leaning centrist" and think "Democrat." And wow, a lot of folks not only think I look like a cop, they also think I apparently vote like one. Just because one reads the word Libertarian on a computer screen does not mean I ever considered voting for the Republican Reject Party candidate.

And, yeah, it's been quite enjoyable hearing about it and seeing some folks' reactions. Don't worry about offending me - hell, I've got skin like a rhino's ass when it comes to political barbs. Gets the adrenaline flowing, it's good for you.

Again, sorry if I confused you. And kudos to the slightly more than 60 percent of the eligible voting population in these United States that actually voted for something, anything.

Even the 500 or so folks who showed up in protest throughout the Rust Belt to vote for the real winners this Fall - baseball's Philadelphia Phillies. Now that's a protest vote.

Yes, I really did vote for one of those candidates down in the Green Zone in the graphic above. Took the Political Compass survey a few moments ago and, well, guess what - that's where I fall and, nope, despite a Democratic Party win, still the same.

And, no, I never considered either major party an alternative.

* * * *

Needless to say, there were some seriously funny quotes this Election Cycle about my presidential choice and political views:

"Wait... am I drunk or did you just say you're centrist because you're between an anarchist and a socialist? Dude... that's ...that's fucked up..."

- Obama supporter

"You voted for the Socialist? I shoulda known you were a Commie..."

- McCain supporter

"Dude, you're the reason she took down the Obama stuff and voted for Nader? God, I knew it - you're a Republican, you fucker."

- No, it's called choice.
I just helped her find more options.

"Aren't you guys supposed to be like, not voting? Fucking French faggot. This is America. Leave."

- McCain supporter and
Obviously not a Log Cabin Republican

"Fuck yeah, dude! ... FUCK! Can I write down that "Camouflage in the Capitalist Kingdom" shit.."

- Intentional Nonvoter.
Steal it, man. Hell, I stole it.

"Man, shit. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not crazy and not the only one refusing to buy this bullshit anymore."

- A Guy Who May Just Vote
Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich in 2012

"Jason - Ohio could fall because of your callous disrespect for this country with those stupid posters. This is not FUNNY!"

- Ex, Obama Supporter

"Man you're still the same arrogant fucking righteous prick ... when it comes to politics. Fuck you and that wacko Liberal Socialist bullshit."

- Another Ex, McCain Supporter

By the way, Ohio folks cast roughly 85,000 independent or small party votes for a Third Party President this cycle, somewhere between an estimated one and a half to two percent of the ballots cast for that office in the ol' Buckeye State. I'm far from the only one. It's nothing new.

Camouflage. Capitalist. Kingdom. And there are quite literally millions of us out there, who will never, ever vote for Thing 1 or Thing 2. Don't feel bad - it's the American Way.

* * * *

Oh well... Thank all that is holy that we - as well as the citizens of the world - survived another run-of-the-mill election year in the United States.

God bless America! Hosanna in the Highest! Let freedom ring! Hell, Yes WE Can't! or whatever the Obama folks were screaming all day... so exciting, so riveting, so...

Damn, something about Election Season just...

... Just...

Wow, sorry about that. Don't worry, the bastard pops up whenever I get excited. Six, seven times a day. It doesn't bite, no, but watch your eye.

And your back. Once slipped into an awkward position with someone, yeah, it's no fun taking the chick you're seeing down to the local Urgent Care because she told you to go in easy and then your arms gave out, thought you may have accidentally torn...

Horrendous experience. Forgot her purse, thus had to call one of her roommates. The official story the roomie got was, well, she'd slipped in my shower and somehow landed on the plunger.

Oh wait...

I forgot, we're not talking about Erection Reasons, are we? Sorry. Distracted. Cute girl just walked by in front of me. Dead ringer for the girl I was just talking about.

Damn, why do presidential races in the country always remind me of somebody getting fucked in the ass? Oh, that's right. Voting for the President, in the United States, usually turns out to be much dirtier and less seductive, at the end of the day, than your average guy-girl anal sex mishap story.

If this had been a midterm election year, I probably would've thought about that time after an all-night house party, walking into a kitchen, seeing two lesbians tossing dildoes at a blow-up doll. Like lawn darts. I laughed, one of the women went sidearm my way, and I caught a hard shot right in the ol' nutsack.

Hey, don't ask me. That last one just popped into my head.

* * * *

God Bless America, you dirty, dirty girl. That's right, spank me. Like that. Slowly, gently... Ow.

And here, have another fucking cookie. All outta strawberries and melted dark chocolate. Just, please... no crumbs in my bed. Frankly, if the ball drops this time, well, you get to clean it up and wash the sheets in the morning.

You know, let's not ruin that audacity of hope afterglow or whatever they call what we just did to Democracy.

It feels so, you know, dirty. But we'll always have the memories.

- # # # -

EPILOGUE: Yes, I know I promised a lot of folks I'd abstain from political writing during the 2008 Election because, well, I tend to irritate people on the Right and Left equally with my crazy "cynical idealist" politics. But, Good Gawd, what the fuck just happened? Don't worry, folks, I'm putting the Political Blogging Beast (HA!) back in the box - she's all yours again.

Congrats to ya'll Obama folks and McCain folks, too - voting is, after all, the ultimate sign of courage in this world and it's nice to be reminded that even dirty-politicking has become truly about the campaign and not skin color.

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Of Voter Choice, Crab Fries, Murder Rap, and Staring at a Woman's Nests in Private

2008-10-27T23:21:00.008-04:00

"God gave Americans two middle fingers to put up because, well, dammit, he knew our crooks would give us two political parties ."

- VERY WISE OLD MAN,
Oxford, Ohio

While I will not endorse any presidential candidate, I will say that this one quote is the reason that I'm voting my conscience this year.

And if you're one of those people who thinks there are only two people running for ol' POTUS, well, you're going to be extremely disappointed.

Quite frankly, the politicos can go fuck their Battleground State shit because I'm tired of stepping over their corpses, their shattered homes and livelihoods and worthless promises. And actually, I'm looking forward to extending my own double-barreled, one-fingered salutes to the minions of The Party (Why give the same corporate product packaged two ways different names?) as I exit the polling station.

Your party? Your problem. Not my bag of worms. But please, if you're able to vote, vote for who you believe in - not who you think looks best on TV, has the prettiest posters, or who's got a MILF for a running mate. And, Jesus Fucking Christ, ignore all that political insider blog chatter - it's just background static put up mostly by biased viral marketers meant to get you, the voter, to conform, obey, submit.

* * * *

" Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors."

MARCUS AURELIUS (121-180 ACE),
The Meditations, III. 7, Hays trans.

Yep, another very wise (albeit long dead) war veteran who influences nearly every ballot I cast. Always blows my fucking mind how fortunate I was, as a child, to have my grandparents' library.

* * * *

"There are two things the wise man must never do in a college bar - one, don't ever let your friends catch you making out with married hairdressers from Kentucky, and, two, never challenge do Irish Car Bombs with those guys."

- THE ZENFO PRO,
Who is not a wise man

* * * *

"Dude, unless you've got tortillas, organic eggs, and some decent chorizo, I ain't getting out of this bed in this hella FREEZING apartment to fix your pinche ass breakfast. "

- PETTY DEL ÁTICO,
Sunday House Guest

You know, it's been years since I've heard a woman holler the words Dude, chorizo, hella, and pinche at me, all in the same breath, from beneath a ball-shaped mass of my pillows, blankets, sheets, and, yes, even the horse blanket.

I used to think it was just a Latina thing. Now, years after I first noted the Night Owl Nester phenomenon, I'm convinced there's some secret international women's organization that regulates such behavior. Hey, not my fault you almost missed your AFTERNOON flight, chica.

* * * *

"I wouldn't say you're sketchy. No... you're too weird to be sketchy."

- BETTY BADSHROOM,
22, Local U. undergrad,
at an Uptown Oxford bar.

* * * *

"You listen to... oh my god...these murder rap guys are, like, rapping about shooting, Oh my God, people! Like, don't you ever listen to, like, John Lennon?"

- A VERY DRUNK BLOG READER,
As I was once again played Designated Driver
(And she was too drunk to remember)

Well, no. I mean, after all, John Lennon's dead. Murdered. A wealthy British ex-pat who was shot, actually, by a true American Psycho in the streets of New York, one of the deadliest "civilized" cities in the world during the 1980s, because the shooter had voices in his head tell him to do it.

Those rap guys just document what guys like Lennon never seem to get - the world's a fucked up place, and, sure, while "Give Peace a chance" sells a lot of records to middle-class kids, it's a tired remnant of a dead, overplayed, mostly white collegiate 1960s counterculture, about as relevant to people from working-poor backgrounds, especially those who live in mostly urban areas in fear of things like police cutbacks, cuts to social services and after-school programs, drug wars, and drive-bys, as - no pun intended - a fucking hole in the head.

Besides, I just dig Celph Titled and Jedi Mind Tricks more than I dig the Beatles. Especially after midnight. I'm a bit of a Johnny Cash at dawn to rockabilly by lunch to hardcore hip-hop by dusk sorta guy, really.

* * * *

"Seriously, I feel like a Pilgrim that was just shown how to make popcorn by the natives for the first time. Why did no one ever tell me about these Crab Fries before?"

- BIG LEAGUE STEW,
from the post Oh Crab Fries, you're already
a World Series winner in my book, Oct. 27

Most. Entertaining. Sports. Blog. Ever.

Seriously, even if you're not a baseball fan, these guys are just too good at finding the stories that really matter to the online fans of America's Pastime.

- # # # -

SHORT TAKES AND SUCH: Life From the Other Side of Rock Bottom, Of Strange Crises of Identity, & How Fate Sometimes Invites Drama Queens to Lunch

2008-10-19T16:08:00.019-04:00

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Miss Poison stirs her drink, laughs loud and defiant, as her boyfriend - a boisterous wild man named after an Outlaw Country singer with a similar reputation - bounces around on his bar stool, singing along to a 1980s heavy metal song on the jukebox.

Everyone at the table has a drink, in fact. One woman's drinking a cocktail, I have a plastic cup of Bud Light, the boyfriend has his beer bottles lined up like steadfast, perspiring tin soldiers from some Hans Christian Anderson story. Another woman nurses her British import, not quite sober but not drunk, and makes a comment about how she just can't stomach domestics anymore.

But one drink is different, however, a ballerina of a booze-free cocktail amongst the trollish Jack-in-the-Box of libations. Miss Poison proudly displays her new tattoo, recently acquired to celebrate a milestone. It's been almost two years since she chose to rebuild her life as a clean and sober woman.

Having been free of cocaine and PCP for more than a decade now myself, well, I can still remember how each day those first few years felt first like the reconquest of a stretch of battlefield long held by an entrenched enemy, how around every corner I'd find booby traps and snares lying in wait.

Some friends were supportive; some took it personally or just couldn't understand it. I walked my path back to being drug-free alone and, had I not been so stubborn, well, it might have been a bit easier to simply go to swallow my pride and go to a few more meetings than I did. I would've learned about things like root causes, triggers, and acceptance in less, shall we say, awkward ways.

We each walk our paths and choose our footing each step, whether we accept it or not. Back in my hardest days, on one of my many soul-searching trips up and down California's Central Coast in the late 1990s, I met a former Buddhist nun who said those words to me.

Still true, after all these years.

Holy shit. I could've been dead by now, a corpse in some Colorado cemetery. Instead, I've traveled the country, watched sunsets over the Pacific and danced in New Orleans streets during Carnival, dined with pro ballplayers and even held the hands of an award-winning actress as she confessed, in tears, how much she hated Hollywood.

Life's too damned fun to be a goddamn addict, man. You're even a respected member of --

Suddenly, to my left, a camera's flash breaks the darkness. I'm out of my introspective moment, just in time, to turn and wink as the photographer shoots another digital image. Miss Poison's boyfriend is fetching himself another beer, another cocktail for her friend. The other woman at our table is sipping her drink and staring into her PDA, texting away the night.

The juke's even playing one of my songs - the dark rumble of Howlin' Wolf explodes through the speakers, "Evil" seeping into the ear canals of unsuspecting college kids and locals. I look around the now packed bar and see the look of shock on the middle-aged patrons, who suddenly smile as they realize someone young played something so classic and old.

And there sits a happy Miss Poison, begging the photographer to snap pictures of her in her glam rock outfit, new pics for her MySpace page. She's smiling and striking poses and laughing, grabbing her tits and tilting her head this way and that as the flash goes off again and again and again.

Yeah, life really is fucking good when you've got something -anything - to live for, especially when you're one of those people blessed enough to get a second chance.

* * * *

LOS ANGELES (ZP, via World Wide Web) -- She confirms what it seems like everyone here in Oxford Fucking Ohio has been telling me lately.

Something disturbing. About my appearance. My mannerisms. How I carry myself.

She's an expert, after all, in appraising these sorts of unfortunate things. In fact, she frequently spends her days hunting down people afflicted with similar issues - and offers them jobs because of it.

"Jason, it is with deep regret that I must inform you that, yes, you do indeed look like, at least in these shots, a cop."

She's laughing. It's a painful diagnosis. I am not amused.

"You're fucking shitting me."

"Nope. Actually... I think I could even get you some background action work, maybe even a few limited core gigs or a few lines. Would you be interested?"

"You're fucking shitting me."

She's no longer laughing.

"Hey, casting for things like police dramas, you look for a lot of the qualities you have. Jawline, eyes, demeanor, and build. And you, my friend, look like a bonafide police officer. At least a TV cop."

I guess I should provide a bit of embarrassing background here. Last weekend, an undergrad walked up to while I was contently sitting on a bar stool, sipping a beer. The chick called me "Officer," apologized for bothering me while I was "off-duty or whatever," asked if I'd talk to pair of her guy friends at another bar, who were about to get into a fight. Even after explaining that I'm not 5-0, she still insisted that I walk next door to calm down her friends.

Funny, yes, but, well, as I relayed the rather amusing story to several friends, I discovered that a lot of people in this town think I look more like a cop than a librarian. Kinda freaked me out a bit, to say the least.

"So, hon, what about as a librarian? Or as a blogger? Would you -- "

"Jason, seriously. Do you really think anybody is going to mistake you for a librarian?"

"You're fucking shitting me."

"Hey, I call it as I see it. You do know chicks do tend to find that extremely sexy, right? Quit bitching about it."

Okay, so maybe looking like a cop's not a necessarily a bad thing.

* * * *

RICHMOND, Ind. (ZP) -- She did, at one time, think I was "The One." Women know what I'm talking about here. The One.

And then I threw her out of my apartment after I made it clear that things weren't going anywhere. Sure, she'd compared me to Jack Nicholson in terms of sexual liberation and freedoms, and sure, she'd basically tried to force herself on me after I'd made it perfectly clear that I wasn't really in the mood for her.

It was more than that. She broke my Golden Rule for friends, even lovers, within my own home. If I catch you, say, cutting up some white powder in the bathroom, and you lie to me about what it is, well, you're gone.

No hard feelings. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

But now she knows better. She called me, in fact, under the pretense of a friendly lunch in her former hometown. Just as friends, to see how I'm doing, to catch up, to even apologize in person for how she'd behaved back then.

I'm old enough, experienced enough, to the point where I should know better. Against my better judgment, I agreed to meet her. I walked into that Hoosier Country cafe and knew, as I saw her fumbling with what looked like a color printout of a web page, that I'd probably be walking out before I even had a chance to order.

"Yeah, so my sister told me everything. Actually, she let me read it."

"Chica, look, I'm sorry if you're upset. And I haven't seen you or ____ since. It's just a stupid blog..."

She always had a flare for the dramatic. She waited, in fact, until those elderly folks were seated at the booth behind us, in their Sunday School finest, to throw the printout - all five pages and the folder - into my face.

"So were you fucking her when we were together, or just playing both of us? She thinks this is fucking funny... Do you think I fucking think this shit is funny?"

"Well, one, I don't care what you find funny. And two, no, ___ and I never hooked up. Three, it's none of your fucking business."

And then come the real fireworks, the angry verbal A-Bombs over all time's personal Hiroshimas. I let her lay it into me, just sat there listening, like a rational adult.

She didn't believe me about the whole I didn't fuck your sister thing, didn't like the fact that I hadn't been completely honest about my reasoning for kicking her ass out of my life back in 2006, didn't like reading about it years later.

Hell, I don't like reading about it. I didn't like living it. And, well, we're talking two years ago here.

And if she hadn't called, I probably wouldn't have wasted the gas driving to Indiana on an amazing Sunday morning for a brunch that never came.

As I drove back, I stopped at a gas station a few miles from the Ohio border, grabbed a granola bar and a cup of rather shitty coffee, sat in the truck and ate a simple, quiet lunch all by my lonesome.

Ya know, I could've faked it if she hadn't been a fucking cokehead. Still using. Fuck, she was high in that fucking diner. And, hell, her sister was the cooler one, hot and down-to-earth, too.

Man, life's too fucking short for that shit. Drama. Too much fucking drama.

- # # # -

HOODLUM EMERITUS LECTURES AT THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Hustlers, Youth, Politically Incorrect Humor, and other Vulgar Desplays of Wisdom

2008-10-10T19:48:00.032-04:00

CINCINNATI (ZP) -- Brother Lexus pushes up from his lounge chair, two sable-colored, tattooed arms raising him from the most comfortable seating in his tiny two-room apartment.

I've been talking shit for a good five minutes straight at this point, trying to get a rise out of the supposed born-again pacifist and sometime adherent to the Five Percent Doctrine.

"Man, how your Old Negro ass pray to Mecca when you can't even get out a motherfucking chair? What you gonna do? Throw a TV Guide at me, Uncle Remus?"

It's been ten years since I last had a chance to jive on the great Brother, once one of my home state's hustler of hustlers, grand teacher to many young juvenile delinquents of all things good, hard, and motherfucking hood - including certain former punkass white kids from rural Southside.

I've heard stories - still have a few nightmares, in fact - about what can happen when some college - educated, cracker-ass jester makes the mistake of calling him a racial epithet outside of the proper circumstance. It's not pretty and, well, it's true what they say about hydrogen peroxide being the cure-all for bloodstains.

And now he's pushing 40, an old man too young, living in one of Cincinnati's worst neighborhoods, working shitty day jobs and waiting for the day when his healthcare professional girlfriend finally says I Do! and they head off into the West as man and wife.

Okay. So I was just hoping I hadn't read the man's face wrong and wasn't about to end up a missing person. Not gonna lie.

We're a long way from Virginia these days, in more ways than either of us would care to remember.

* * * *

He's not smiling as his tree-sized legs straighten. I hear the leather of his Timberland boots squeal as he makes it to his feet. His bootblack Under Armour tee strains in agony as his ebony chest and shoulders expand to almost twice the width of mine.

He's almost a foot taller than my five-nine ass. In fact, he's always been taller, bigger, stronger, older, and, well, much more of an O.G. than I could ever be, thanks in part to a series of state-sponsored vacations. For a brief moment, I feel like a child about to have his ass handed to him by the neighborhood bully.

After all, Brother Lexus was the man who taught me which end of a crub (slang - a modified short crowbar, easily concealed, painted black and covered with grip tape) brings the pain all up on a motherfucker and which end is best used to bodyshop up on a ride, taught me how to fight dirty, hard, and quick, yet also encouraged me save that money, not to flash or flap gums, to go to college and to not sully my adult record.

We're both men of peace these days, well-read, and long past of fighting primes. But, well, we both still know how to take a pound of flesh off a cat if push comes to shove. I may still respect the man, even more so for changing, I tell myself, but I will step to his ass and represent Southside.

Three giant's steps and there's a large fist pushed into my chest, a meaty black digit driven into my sternum like a railroad spike. His biceps, honed by thousands of hours logged benchpressing away years of confinement, each are roughly as big around as my neck.

Oh well, so maybe representing Southside won't last long.

* * * *

Without smiling, he explains that, well, before I come all up into his castle and disrespect, I'd better be grateful that he journeys now, mostly (he does still drink beer, after all, but doth not dine on the swine), along the path of a peaceful and learned disciple of the principles of put forth by the teacher Allah the Father, Clarence 13X. And 13X, you see, was a man born and raised upon the same Virginia red clay that had once fed and nurtured in the pair of us the idea that all men were equals and brothers.

Yes, he says, he can overlook the fact that last century's prophets of Gods and Earths were mostly wrong about the nature of white folk and their supposed devilishness. In the 21st century, it has become imperative that we move past race and embrace Africa as the Original Home of all men. But in HIS house, he says, no one of the Caucasian Persuasion is allowed to forget that it was Europeans and their pale North American and Oceanic descendants who brought the world two hot wars and one cold war, exploited the Motherland and South America and Asia almost to the point of complete destruction...

"Well, amen Reverend. Now you gonna preach it or bring it?"

He stopped and looked suddenly lost in his own mental notes, like a physics professor at a dinner party who suddenly remembers that he's lecturing over the wine and cheese. I wasn't sure where he'd picked up his Poor Righteous Teacher act, but, well, personally, I appreciated it more than what I'd expected to be a much more painful hook to the jaw.

"Sheeeeeeit,* we been through too much for me to hate up on you. And I know that deep in that big white head of yours, mos def, you meant no disrespect."

"Dude, I am so sorry. I just, you know, like just we were kids, man, No offe-"

He pushed that finger harder into my chest. I suddenly felt ashamed, self-conscious of my ethnicity and familial history, embarrassed over the fact that I've spent much of the last decade living as a free, middle-class white man.

"Hold on now. I know you think your academic shit don't stink, but you better listen when I'm schooling your peckerwood librarian ass..."

* * * *

I stared up at him with the same wonder and humility I'd felt when I first met him, back in the day, back when this monster of a man interrupted a rather boring night at a fast-food joint in my hometown.

I'd been studying an opponentless chess board - my regular partner was tied up with woman problems. I was hung over, melancholy but appreciative of the time alone, on a Friday night. Five minutes prior, everybody in the joint had run out to the parking lot. A fight, I'd heard, and some cat had put a piece to some other cat's head.

Hey, none of my fucking business. I had my Mc-Fucking-Nuggets, a shake, and no chess partner. I only hoped they finished their beef elsewhere. I was, however, quite annoyed at the fact that somebody couldn't get that screaming sow of a woman outside to shut the fuck up before the Po-Po rolled by...

He was a suave motherfucker back then, in his Karl Khani jeans and silk shirt and black leather duster, with his gold chain and matching tie clip. He sat down and calmly asked if I was looking for a game - he'd learned to play in a housing project in Jackson Ward, never imagined that us country folk knew how to play.

We talked for a bit, about all sorts of things but mainly about why I hadn't moved from that booth, how I was able to focus surrounded by shoutin' niggas and fools. He liked my answer, appreciated my strategic non-involvement, ability to observe my surroundings, how I could give him the names, describe the faces of every last single person in the dining room without looking up...

After he'd wiped the board with me, was up a good few games, he made me an offer - to play a different sort of game of skill. He said he sometimes had cash-money work for smart white boys who understood things like chess, the strategy of sacrifice of pawns to gain rooks and Bishops, the need for discretion and stealth.

A lot of people, where I grew up, heard the stories. About that midnight - colored sedan with the tinted windows, cruising the countryside between Richmond and Southside. There were sightings everywhere, rumors about all sorts of things, inner-city occupants, hustlers, yes, ballers even. Maybe some of those stories were true.

Maybe the one-time owner of that sedan was always more of a Scientist, a Teacher, than a simple hustler. He taught many young bucks, of all colors, how to defend what was theirs, how to put up the appropriate fronts while not losing one's soul. And he was one fucking hell of a ghetto-trained chess master.

And maybe, yes, that same Teacher was about to renounce his peaceful ways and lay me out like a cheap suit. I knew that if he did, well, there'd be a lesson involved, somewhere.

* * * *

He suddenly smiles wide, ivory white teeth contrasting perfect and bright against his black chin.

"The Negro Community fuckin' frowns upon your shenanigans, son. Now quit acting a fool an' trying to get a rise outta me."

He shakes a smoldering Newport and two fingers disapprovingly, forces his face into a frown, just like the central figure in that highly controversial Internet image.

The lesson, this time, was that wise men, regardless of ethnicity, knows when to behave as serious, educated adults and when to take rather childish, patently offensive race jokes in stride.

Why be angry? Life's too short.

I'd pushed it. And now the war was on.

* * * *

He was down to his last resort - the short white dude jokes. A whole plethora of material, everything from When you stand up like a man... Oh shit! You are standing! one-liners to Man, look at you... I didn't know they made an Albino Smurf jabs.

"Sheeeeeeit, big man." I continue to shit talk, still prodding like a cattleman. "Motherfucker, you saying I didn't get you all worked up? Lookin' like Uncle Ben jumpin' off the rice box, shufflin' up at me like a zombie."

"Sheeeeeeit."

"C'mon... that all you can say? Disgracing the Race, homes. I may have to have a talk with your mama once she's off my dick."

"Maaaan, your dick so small..."

Believe it or not, but this is just how most Southerners handle race relations amongst themselves, as friends, behind closed doors. Snapping on a friend, playing the dozens, even jokes about how your dick is so small, you could fuck a Cheerio and not feel it, tends to be a lot more enjoyable than a goddamn sensitivity-training workshop.

Great desensitization exercise, playing the dozens. Helps people down on their luck, broke, or, just, well, tired of dwelling on all the shitty things they've experienced, times when nobody else gives a shit where they've been, what they've done.

* * * *

"Wigger, I let you stay breathin', and you still can't shut that monkey-looking mouth. And listen to you! A master's degree, a motherfucking scholar, and you talking like you got game? Sheeeeeeeeit!"

And then, time catches up and there's a momentary burst of intellectual, adult conversation. We talk about what Over-The-Rhin e's black residents really think of Oxford Fucking Ohio, along with the Local U. - i.e., the state's largest "Color-Free Zone." He fills me in on the recent "urban renewal projects" in OTR, which many working-class residents - including Brother Lexus - see as nothing more than white liberals taking advantage of cheap real estate, pushing out everybody too broke to fight gentrification.

"Fuck it, man. Let's go grab another sixer an' finish this."

He points to the chess board set up on his coffee table. Our first chess game in more than a decade. This was why I was here - he remembered that last game, when he was at his most-dirt covered, sitting in a Section 8 lot and lording over his kingdom, getting his ass handed to him by one of his Boys from down U.S. 360/460, getting beat by that country-fried Fa'mville Cracker.

I have just enough beer in me to suggest that, well, he's just getting old and that we should, possibly, hit a bar and introduce my single ass to some of OTR's legendary Around The Way Girls...

"Man, you ain't changed at all, has you? STILL looking at my people's women like you stand a chance. Please."

In all honesty, I've always looked at all people's women. I mean, who really wants to drink white milk, when one could just add some chocolate or a little caramel syrup, maybe some plum flavoring from Beijing or honey from Cairo?

* * * *

We played two more games before I hit the road. He had me in checkmate within twelve moves each game. And, at thirty bucks a game, well, I left with an empty wallet. It's hard for me to overlook the irony, given the fact that years ago, back in that McDonald's, he actually paid me - a nice, crisp Ben Franklin - just to talk, to hear out his indecent proposal, and to (ha!) let him win a few games.

Brother was once one of Virginia's hustlers of hustlers. Even pushing 40, legit, and out of the game, well, he's still able to make paper off a sucker.

Glad we didn't go for dominoes. He'd have taken me for rent.

Sheeeeeeeeeit! One more lesson, I guess.

- # # #-

* NOTE - The obscenity "SHIT" is pronounced "SHEEIT," "SHEEEEEIT," or "SHEEEEEEEIIIIT!," depending on use, throughout the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, from Philadelphia to Charlotte, North Carolina, but most predominately in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Maryland.