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

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...

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?

- # # # -

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

"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

- # # # -

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

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.

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

"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...

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...

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...

- # # # -

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

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...

"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...

- # # # -

ZEN & THE TRANQUIL PHILOSOPHY OF AN OLD SCHOOL MOSH PIT: The Importance of Space, Privacy, & Boundaries in the Batshit Information Age

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.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL:On the Dangerous Situations Women Put Themselves Into at Colleges and Universities Every Weekend, Everywhere...

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...

"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?

-# # # -

THE PERPETUAL CURSE OF THEPERPETUAL EX-OTHER MAN: Of Strange Women, Nosebleeds, Morning Bitchslaps, & Tom Waits During Sex

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.

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Of Voter Choice, Crab Fries, Murder Rap, and Staring at a Woman's Nests in Private

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