MungBeing: Fanaticism

Forward -- Questioning My Beliefs

Nothing gets me questioning my belief system more than hearing some nutjob defending it.

This happens most frequently with political conspiracy FACTS (formerly theories) but increasingly with technological issues. The most recent example was hearing some nutjob whacko fanatic going on and on about digital photography and how great it was and how "regular" photography was SO not necessary any more. Understand that I love digital photography and use a digital camera and think that the technology is pretty neat. And that's why hearing some psycho nutjob whacko freak go on about it begs me to play the photog's advocate.
I say, "Do you REALLY think they'll be diggin' up hard drives in 50 years? In 100 years? Do you think they'll be able to thumb through our digital pictures at ANY point in our extended future? 'Cause that's what they can do now with "normal" photography. They find boxes of pictures, records of an entire city's history, just sitting there waiting for someone to stumble across them."
And "Do you REALLY think that we'll have the hardware to read the files and recover the digital pictures? Is our sense of posterity limited to the shelf life of a cd (which isn't as long as you think, by the way)?"

With every advance in storage, the permanence of our society's history is decreased by another 5 years (I just made that number up). Digital technology is ruining our ability to archive our history. Archaeology will note a very brief time when all of our records were lost expect for the crazy hand-written scribblings of the addle-brained nutjob who refused to switch over to the iForget.

I like having my beliefs challenged; it forces me to question them. But hearing a whacked out psycho nutjob spouting my beliefs, well... that's maybe just a little TOO much questionin'!

Forward -- Once Around The Sun

It all happened so fast it's a bit of a blur. Or perhaps a pre-blur. A pre-blur elf. A pre-blur elf handing me a cookie. A tasty cookie. A Cookie of Destiny.

It all started with a simple inquiry after the band Wckr Spgt. Mark Givens responded and snap crackle pop next thing you know I'm creating a cyberrag, a magalog, a weberzine, a MungBeing with him. We had visions of publishing, so we combined forces to give birth to this baby. There were synchronicities swirling around us then, and here we are, one year later, and the whirlwind has not abated.

Full circle.

My interview with Billy Childish that appeared in issue number two was completed several months before the conception of MungBeing. I brought Billy with me when I came into this project. As Jeffrey Scott Holland (who made his debut appearance here in issue two) says of him, his "work ethic is a tremendous inspiration to me... He simply is the standard by which all indie/DIY creation is measured, now and forevermore." I concur. It is the duty of the true artist to live a fully creative life in all ways. To quote Jeffrey again "I just want to put the artwork out there no matter what I have to do to make it happen."

I often feel greatly underproductive in my creative output. Depression plays a role in this. But I look back on this past year, this one full year, of Being a Mung, and I am somewhat wowed, and have a great feeling of accomplishment. And pride. I actually did a lot more work than I thought I did, or dreamed it was possible to do at this time of my life. To give credit where it is due, I owe much to the presence of Mark as a dynamic collaborator, friend and well of inspiration. In his subtle Capricorn ways, he has had a profound impact, and for this I am deeply grateful. Meeting him led me down this path. And it's one I like. A lot.

Mark and I are both fanatics. We love art. We both come from fiercely independent, way out there DIY backgrounds. As former cut n paste zinesters, we have always published whatever the hell we want. We both know a lot of talented thinkers, writers, musicians, visual artists and assorted eccentrics. We dig being able to share their works with the world. This memecasting was a key concept in the genesis of our project. MungBeing represents a synthesis of our cumulative and collective ideas blended with the unique visions of our contributors. Our entity has developed character, style, flavor. And it seems we weren't even trying. It just happened. And it couldn't have happened without all that neat stuff our MungTeam gave (and continue to give) us to fill up our pages.

So I wish to say thanks to everyone who has been part of this grand experiment, all of our scribes, painters, cartoonists, musicians, and, of course, all of our readers who spread the word and keep coming back for more. I think we've got a pretty damned good little thing going on here, and it's just going to get better and better.

Announcements -- Not For Granted

We are pleased to announce our first ever in-house promotion. In recognition of his valuable and consistently high-quality contributions to our publication over the past year, and looking forward to a bright future, David �Starchy� Grant has been named Contributing Editor. Mr. Grant is a founder and the Editor-In Chief of the periodical literary anthology The Misfit Library. We warmly welcome him to our editorial team.

Announcements -- Get Behind Me, Childish Boys

There's a battle brewin':

http://www.nme.com/news/billy-childish-and-the-headcoats/22394

Seems that Billy Childish upset poor Jack White and now there's a real life Rock and Roll Feud happening!

Yee haw!!

Announcements -- Sinister Bedfellows Book

mckenzee has released a book called Sinister Bedfellows. It is a "collection of short stories based on the critically acclaimed photobased webcomic by mckenzee" and it is available at lulu.

Congratulations, mckenzee! And nice work!

Announcements -- Pre-Pixelated Gear

David Friedman at Ironic Sans, a very cool site with some very cool ideas, has released a line of Pre-Pixelated Gear. Like Bell and Meucci, this gear rides the same thought train (or "thought current" to be metaphorically consistent) as the Pre-Blurred MungGear from Issue Three.

Check out the rest of the Ironic Sans site too because the writing is good and the photography is even better.

Congratulations, Mr. Bell, on a job well done!

Announcements -- MungBeing on MySpace

Check out MungBeing on Myspace. Connect with us in another corner of the InterNetwork.

Announcements -- Vote for Wckr Spgt

UPDATE: Voting has ended for the Snakes on a Plane contest over at Tagworld.
Thanks to everyone who participated in this little competition. Although we didn't make it to the final round, we certainly appreciate your show of support.
As far as we're concerned, you're the real heroes for voting. In fact, you're the real Wckr Spgt, when it comes right down to it.

Would you like to hear a Wckr Spgt song in the soon-to-be-smash-hit "Snakes on a Plane"?

HERE'S YOUR CHANCE!

Please visit http://www.tagworld.com/snakesonaplane and vote for Wckr Spgt. It's fun!

You have to sign up as a member of tagworld but the information they want is limited to username, zip code, some other stuff... and an email address. If you are uneasy about handing out your email address, fear not. For a limited time only, you can use an email address in the form of [yourname]@snakes.wckrspgt.com That's a real address that will send the "Welcome" letter to the Wckr Spgt site. Or you can use your real email address and join TagWorld. You have choices! Have at it!

Also, navigation is purely a "next" button clicking affair. There are two ways to approach this:
1. Limit the results to the "indie" genre. Leave the Sort order at "Random" and look for the name Wckr Spgt. At the most, you will have to click "next" 7 times but you could get lucky and not have to click it at all!
2. Limit the results to the "indie" genre and set the sort order to "by name". Now it's about 7 clicks to get to the last page and you don't even have to pay attention to the other pages.

Please pass this information around to the Wckr Spgt fans that we don't personally know. I'm sure they would both like to vote to hear Wckr Spgt in "Snakes on a Plame"!

It's that easy! It's that fun! And the end result is hearing WCKR SPGT on a motherfucking plane!

Screaming Head #3

"Screaming Head #3" by Ian Pyper, Marker Pen on Cream Paper, A3 Paper Size, 1982

Lose Yourself

C. S. Lewis once observed that those who dream of heaven do far more good and less harm to the rest of us than those who dream of utopia. In light of the millions of souls sacrificed at the altar of one utopian scheme or another in the past two centuries or so, he may have had a point. But in recent decades the pendulum has swung the other way, and the heavenly justifications for killing have gradually come back in style. Examples of the recrudescence of deadly religious passion around the world have been spectacular, such as the mass suicide at Jonestown in Guyana, the conflagration of the Branch Davidians in Texas, the various eruptions of religious violence in India and Pakistan, the suicide attacks of September 11^th, and, of course, the ascendance and re-election of a militant fundamentalist to the presidency of the United States. These events and others like them seem to indicate that the words of Lewis were far truer in the middle decades of the last century than they are in the first decade of our own.

On the other hand, it doesn't seem entirely honest or fair to blame religion itself for the resurgence of our violent hatreds even if they are being promulgated, once again, in the name of religion. Hatred is a seductive emotional state even for the best of us, and it can thrive as easily in the skeptical mind of a secularist as in the credulous soul of a fundamentalist. Maybe that's because the passion of hatred, like the passion of love, offers each of us the thrilling opportunity to lose ourselves in the contemplation of another being. This vanishing act is something that all of us not only want but need to perform, and we tend to swim with whatever wave, whether it's love or hate, inebriation or obsession that promises to deliver us from ourselves.

While religious fanatics were so-called because they surrendered themselves to the passions of the fanum, or temple, contemporary fans have the freedom to lose themselves at a wider range of venues. In other words, the unquenchable human thirst to disappear though not to die can now be almost quenched, not only by love or hate or old time religion, but also by the evanescent, sometimes sublime, and frequently beautiful creations of popular culture. And the bonus is this: the creatures of fandom, though they may be moved to scream, riot, or wait out in the rain, are much less likely to kill each other over their devotion to the products of popular culture than most people are over the issue of religious affiliation. Not that it never happens, but anyone who looks at the stats would have to concede that religious allegiance, however respectable, is a far deadlier game than devotion to popular culture, however inane. This must be, I think, because most religious votaries tie their beliefs in some way to the psychologically overwhelming concept of eternity, while even the most passionate devotees of a popular culture icon remain aware of, and are even likely to celebrate, its ephemeral nature.

During the long remainder of this century, I suppose that two things could happen. The first is that symbols of popular culture, such as Mickey Mouse or whatever, could fossilize into hardcore religious icons, so that people would one day be killing each other over images, sounds, and sensations that we today only recognize as the stuff of entertainment. That would be bad. The other thing that could happen is this: the ancient icons of religious culture could descend from their pedestals and claim for themselves some of the innocence and ephemeral charm that are so natural to popular culture. My guess is that many if not most religious people think that would be a terrible thing. The anger in the U.S. about the recent television show that had Jesus as a drop-in character and the anger in Muslim world over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad seem to bear this out. I can't be sure what such a change would look like, but it might be a very good thing if the epoch of the religious fanatic, which has been running for a few thousand years already, could give way to the era of the religious fan.

Qadaa

THE PLAYERS:

AHMAD, an Arab-American in his twenties or early thirties.

MICHAEL, a white American in his twenties.

RANDALL, a white American in his early thirties with a soft Southern accent.

BOBBY, an athletic white American in his twenties.

Scene: A Western-style hotel room in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Michael sits on a bed watching a TV, which is tuned to a loud, recognizable contemporary American sitcom, audible but not visible to the audience; the players have to shout over this background noise before Michael mutes it. Ahmad and Randall are seated at a coffee table littered with papers, soft drinks from the minibar, etc., with a couch upstage and armchairs to the left and right. Randall occupies the right chair, Ahmad the right side of the couch.

RANDALL: Where do you think he could be, anyway? He'd better not be late again tomorrow, that's all I can say.

AHMAD: This is Bobby we're talking about. He probably decided to take the stairs.

RANDALL: Twenty-whatever stories up?

AHMAD: Exactly. [A knock at the door, heavy and rapid. Ahmad gets up and walks over to it, looking through the peephole carefully before letting Bobby in.] It's about time. Did you make sure you weren't followed?

BOBBY: How the hell could I? You know I can't tell you towel-heads apart.
[All laugh; Ahmad looks hurt for an instant before he catches himself, and the sitcom's laughtrack swells.]

RANDALL: Can we get started?

MICHAEL: Yeah.
[Ahmad and Bobby join Randall at the table; Ahmad sits in his original place while Bobby takes the chair to the left.]

AHMAD: Mike, would you mind turning that off?

MICHAEL: That time, huh? [He uses a remote to mute the TV, but doesn't turn it off.] So what've we got left to discuss, anyway? We got the hardware, we got the plan, we got the time and the target. We got the best fucking training in the world, and we got God on our side.

AHMAD: And you have too much confidence, too. This is the four of us against everyone else in this country. Every single person any one of us sees between now and noon tomorrow could ruin our plans. Do you understand this?

MICHAEL: I--

AHMAD: Or are you just nervous?

MICHAEL: [Defensively] I--

RANDALL: Michael, we need to prepare not only physically and strategically, but spiritually as well. Tomorrow will be the most important day of your life, but it will also be the hardest. I guarantee you that much.

BOBBY: He's right about that, no question.

RANDALL: Most of all, we are four, but we have one purpose. Therefore we must act as one, and we must be of one mind. Could you please join us here at the table?
[Michael sighs, then takes his time standing up and walking from the bed to the couch.]

AHMAD: This is not how I hoped to get our last meeting started. We have no C.O. here to brief us and keep us focussed, so we must take that responsibility ourselves.

RANDALL: Right, almost. We are here now before the Almighty as well as each other, which we mustn't forget, but each one of us carries an immense responsibility that must be acknowledged. Now, I know I'm not saying anything you don't already know, Michael. I know you understand all this, and don't think I don't know how difficult it is.

MICHAEL: Yeah, okay--

RANDALL: It's not going to get any easier, Michael. There is no easy way out.

MICHAEL: Okay, okay! You're right, okay? I didn't mean to-- let's just get started, alright? [He finally sits on the couch next to Ahmad.]

RANDALL: Well. Before we get started talking about tomorrow, I think we should take a minute to remind ourselves of what's important, to remember why we're here. I'd like to get us focussed now by going around the table and stating our beliefs. Bobby, would you like to begin?

BOBBY: Thank you, Randall. [He clears his throat, takes a deep breath, then, somber, shuts his eyes, puts his head down and clasps his hands together, as in prayer. The others follow suit. While this is happening, the stage lights dim, and the four of them reflect in the flickering light of the TV.] I believe in the Lord Almighty and his Son the Savior Jesus Christ. I believe in a life of worship and service to the Lord in all things. I believe in my country, and I believe in my family. I believe that no matter what anyone says about it in Washington or anywhere, the Bible still tells us "An eye for an eye."

RANDALL: Amen. I believe that we can't have peace on this Earth with the Islamists. I believe that they hate our way of life, but that it is not our place to change them, only to fight back when they strike at us. I believe that the Lord has a plan for us all, that for some this plan may be easy, and for some it means sacrifice. I believe that there is no higher action than to make a sacrifice in your life to the Lord God.

AHMAD: I believe that "Allah" is just another word for "Satan." I believe-- that is all.

MICHAEL: [Smiling] I believe I'm about ready to kill just for some barbecue. This halal shit is worse than Army food. At least we got pork. [All laugh. Michael continues, serious now:] I learned in Iraq that the War on Terror can't be won by any military, no matter how strong and no matter how good. I believe that you have to fight fire with fire, and you have to fight terror with terror.

RANDALL: Amen.
ALL: Amen.

BOBBY: I believe that we are right.
ALL: Amen.

RANDALL: I believe we have no choice but to do things this way.
ALL: Amen.

AHMAD: [After a brief pause, snarling] I believe it is worth any price, ANY price at all, to wipe Muhammad's poison off the planet.
ALL: Amen.

MICHAEL: [Louder, his voice shaking] I believe in my brother, Danny, my little bro who walked into Fallujah a good man, a good American, a good Christian who never hurt nobody, and didn't walk out again.

BOBBY: [Suddenly jumps to his feet, screaming] Aaaaaaaaaa-men!
[All resume a normal sitting posture as the stage lights come back up.]

AHMAD: Let's just go over the plan one last time, now.

BOBBY: So, we wait until they start the call to prayer at noon. You'll already be inside the mosque--

AHMAD: Yes, with any luck at Gumbad-e-Khizra, the Prophet's Dome.

BOBBY: Randall and I will be across the promenade from the main entrance...

AHMAD: [Pointing to a piece of paper on the coffee table] Here and here.

BOBBY: ...until we hear Mike, um, until we hear him go.

AHMAD: [Pointing to another spot on the same paper] Mike should be here, by the wall, as close to the minaret as possible.

MICHAEL: You mean the tower. The corner. English, please.

RANDALL: Michael, please!

AHMAD: Yes, you wait until you hear Mike blow himself up, under the MINARET, hopefully interrupting the ADHAN for effect! I know this is not easy, but I think we've gone far enough that there's no sense in trying to be sensitive about it anymore. Continue, Bobby.

BOBBY: Ahmad--

AHMAD: Continue.

BOBBY: [Blows hard and long into his fist, as if trying to exhale the tension, before continuing.] Okay.
When we hear Mike, when we hear him, uh, blow himself up [Michael remains stone-faced], we run forward. Randall tries to reach the other tower on that side...

AHMAD: Here.

BOBBY: ...and I run into the crowd which should be running out through the main entrance, and even reach the doorway if I can.

AHMAD: And then?

RANDALL: Ahmad, do we really--

AHMAD: And then?

BOBBY: Okay, okay! And then, oh Lord, then we blow ourselves up.

AHMAD: Thank you. [Quickly, business-like] Again, I will try to take out the dome. I will try to wait until I've heard three explosions. If I hear the Adhan -- the call to prayer -- begin and end, however, I will go ahead even if I have heard none. Now, remember: the pavement around the mosque is marble, so don't slip at the wrong time. Randall and Bobby, if anyone asks, you're photographers from the National Geographic Society. I've already packed your camera bags with the charges, which are triggered by a hidden button in the straps. There is no safety mechanism, so be very careful taking them back to your own hotels and to the mosque tomorrow. Mike, keep your head down and talk to no one -- it's very easy to disguise yourself as one of them, but it would be even easier for you to be discovered. You only speak English, after all. And if any of you is confronted by the authorities, do not wait. Better to die this way without reaching the mosque than to be captured by this government. If they think you will be bombing, they will shoot you in the head to prevent it-- that would be a terrible waste. Still better than being captured, however. Does anyone have any questions?

BOBBY: What if it doesn't go off?

AHMAD: Keep trying. That way at least the authorities will see what you're doing eventually, and shoot you in the head. Do you understand?

BOBBY: [Blows into his fist as before] Yeah, I understand.

RANDALL: Are we all ready to do this? I mean, are we really ready? [Bobby nods, but does not otherwise respond.]

AHMAD: Yes.

MICHAEL: Yeah, of course.

BOBBY: I-- [He is interrupted by the call to prayer, ringing out across the city from the mosque. He screams, overturns the coffee table, throws things, etc:]Shut the fuck up already, you worthless, godless, mindless sand-niggers!

MICHAEL and RANDALL: Shhhh!

AHMAD: Quiet. [Bobby now stands still, seething, hands balled into fists.] This means we have exactly twenty-four hours left. [Bobby walks behind his chair and leans on it, gripping the back white-knuckled. Randall slowly stands and walks over to the window, holding the curtain aside to watch the ancient city below. Ahmad turns to look at Michael meaningfully; Michael meets his gaze only for a second before facing forward and letting his eyes fall to the floor. No one makes a sound until the Adhan has finished.]

RANDALL: So that's it. Twenty-four hours.
[Ahmad begins cleaning up after Bobby, who remains motionless, as Michael rises and begins pacing excitedly, pumping himself up. Randall turns back to face the room, his gaze following Michael.]

MICHAEL: Well, yeah! All right! I mean, here we go, really making a stand against them, finally someone doing something to show the world that America isn't afraid to fight back any way it takes. We're going down in history, man. We all are. It just makes me sick that we're the first. It's been years since Nine-Eleven, and we're the first. We've got to. We've got to do this. We're right to do this. These evil-doers have been making sure of that for a long fucking time.

RANDALL: It is because of them that I will never see my wife or my daughter again. They will be sad, and they will miss me - I already miss them - but they will be proud, and they will understand.

MICHAEL: Yes! They will! Better than that, you'll be a hero! We'll all be heroes.

BOBBY: [Quietly] We'll all be dead.

RANDALL: We'll be with God, Bobby! You know that. You know that!

BOBBY: [Slowly nodding] Yes. Deep down, in my heart, Randall, I do know that. [He lets go of the chair and stands up straight.] I know that a righteous path can only lead us to Heaven. It's-- never mind. Forget it.

AHMAD: We're all scared, Bobby, but we have to get over that. We must push it out of our minds. It's selfish, and it's weak. This is far more important than our own lives.
[Michael sits on the foot of the bed, staring off into the space between himself and the TV.]

BOBBY: [After a moment] What was it like, Ahmad?

AHMAD: What?

BOBBY: You've never told us about it.

AHMAD: I've never told you about what?

BOBBY: You know what I'm asking. You've never told us what it was like to be...
[Ahmad freezes for a moment, caught up by his fight-or-flight instinct before he subdues it and answers Bobby.]

AHMAD: I don't know. I was young. It was... it was my childhood. No matter how wrong it was, that's all it was to me then. Until I had a chance to learn better, it was just life to me, you understand? [Bobby shakes his head "no."] Well, maybe I don't understand either. Maybe I don't want to. Just don't ever say that I was a Moslem. I was too young to know!

RANDALL: How old--?

AHMAD: We moved to America when I was only three.

BOBBY: From here?

AHMAD: From Jordan. I don't remember Jordan. My pare-- my birth parents died when I was twelve. Then I was saved, just like all of you. Then I enlisted, like you. Then I went to Mosul and fought with you, and then I was discharged with you, and that's it. That's all.

BOBBY: So you were no older than--

AHMAD: [Rising to his feet] No!

BOBBY: No, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-- You weren't like them. I know. I'm sorry, Ahmad.

AHMAD: [Sitting back down] No. Maybe you're right. Maybe I was like them. Maybe they were also too young to--

RANDALL: No, don't say that! Not now.

BOBBY: You weren't carrying an AK around in Michigan. We had to sh-- We would have been-- We had to do it! Never forget that!

AHMAD: They didn't have guns. They had scrap metal they thought they could sell to us.

BOBBY: We didn't know! We couldn't! We had to--

MICHAEL: Doesn't matter.

BOBBY: For all we knew...

MICHAEL: [Standing up] For the love of--

BOBBY: ...they would've killed us! We had to, everyone knows-- If it hadn't been for the press--

MICHAEL: Shut up! It doesn't matter!

RANDALL: It was a good thing that happened. [The other three turn to look at him, shocked.] We wouldn't be here today if it hadn't. We wouldn't be here tomorrow. Maybe we didn't know it at the time, but those children-- but their death was part of the Lord's plan, just as our own sacrifice shall be. All is as it must be. If we are the Lord's messengers to the world, they were his messengers to us.

AHMAD: Yes. You're right. All that matters is tomorrow. [All are silent and tense, even reverent, as he stands and walks over to the dresser, opens a drawer, and pulls out the gear. In turn, he hands an expensive camera bag and camera (separate from the bag) to Randall, the same to Bobby, and an upscale shopping bag to Michael.] Randall... Bobby... Mike. The charge and wiring are under your new clothes. Are we all ready to do this? [The other three continue to stare at the items they hold.] Well? I won't be able to give you a pep talk tomorrow, and you'd better not need it. Are we ready?
[All answer confidently.]

MICHAEL: Yeah. You bet.

RANDALL: Of course, Ahmad. I'm ready.

BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready.

AHMAD: Good. Then you should all be going. We've made enough noise-- just to be safe.

RANDALL: One last thing.

AHMAD: What is that?

RANDALL: We should pray together. One last time, as brothers in Christ.

AHMAD: Of course, of course.
[All stand and join hands, lower their heads, and close their eyes. The stage lights dim as they do this, and as before they are lit by the flickering of the television.]

RANDALL: Lord, we come together today as your humble servants. We four Christian men pray not that you will protect us, Lord, nor that you provide for us an easy path, only that you allow us to complete your work successfully. We pray for our families, that they will be provided for and that they will understand our actions. We pray that we might be reunited not only with our families but with each other in Heaven. We pray for the safety of our brothers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We pray for the President and his staff. Most of all, we pray for all of Christian America, and for the salvation of those Americans who have not yet seen your light. We pray that the world will see how we have sacrificed in your name, Lord, and that this will begin a new day for all your children. Amen.

ALL: Amen.
[The stage lights come back up.]

AHMAD: Thank you, Randall.

RANDALL: [Smiles.] Thank you, Ahmad, for showing us this path. Without you we'd still be back home stewing in our juices, not here, where God needs us.

BOBBY: Amen to that, too. I couldn't take another day-- [He catches the double meaning and stops himself.]

RANDALL: I guess it's time for us to be on our way. [He gives Ahmad and Bobby each a "manly" hug good-bye.] Ahmad. Bobby.
[Randall picks up his camera and camera bag, carefully puts them around his neck, and walks over to the door to wait for Bobby, who repeats his actions. Everyone looks like they are about to say something; after a moment, Randall and Bobby leave together in silence.]

MICHAEL: I guess I should go, too.

AHMAD: Yes, I'm afraid you'd better.
[They embrace, at first in a "manly" hug as before, until Michael holds Ahmad tighter and buries his face against him.]

AHMAD: Mike, you're crushing me. Mike-- [Michael begins to cry into Ahmad's shoulder.] Come, now, we must be strong. Come on. We can't-- [He tries to squirm away from Michael with no success.] Stop that! Be a man, Mike! This is no time for-- [Finally, he shoves Michael away.]

MICHAEL: I'm sorry, I just--

AHMAD: Don't say anything. Just go. [He shoves the shopping bag into Michael's hands.] Now. Good-bye, Michael.

MICHAEL: [Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, hoarse] I'm sorry, it's-- It's okay. Good-bye. Ahmad.

AHMAD: [Turning his back until Michael has closed the door behind him.] Good-bye, Michael. Be strong.
[Ahmad sits down on the edge of the bed, and looks up at the TV. He finds the remote control and un-mutes it, only to be greeted by an asinine punchline and canned laughter. He turns it off, stands up, and walks over to the window, looking out for only a few seconds before sitting back down on the bed. He picks up the remote but does not use it, and stares at the blank TV screen for a minute or so instead. Finally he drops the remote, limply, and begins to weep; soon he is sobbing and wailing, his face in his hands.]

CURTAIN

Sins

Kasra leaned his head against the wall and listened. In the next room, his father hit his mother. His mother's offense had been accepting the day's mail at the door with her veil only partly drawn across her face.
His mother cried. His father struck her again.
Kasra waited to hear his father cross the carpet to his den to watch television. Quietly, Kasra came around the corner and helped his mother up from the floor. She quickly drew the veil across her face, not so much in modesty as to hide her wounds. Still quiet, he gently guided her to her bathroom, where he lifted her veil and tenderly washed away the blood. She said nothing. It was not the first time her son had performed these ablutions. As usual, she did not look at him. Was it because he had inherited his father's face? Covered once more, she allowed him to lead her back to the kitchen and prepare a pot of herbal tea.
"He was right," she murmured.
Kasra stared at his mother. Could she really believe this?
"You are a man now," she said to the thirteen-year-old. "You cannot indulge my transgressions by caring for me like this any longer."
His mouth was dry. He gulped the hot tea for strength. "You may have sinned," Kasra replied, "but my father committed a greater sin."
She looked away. "There is no such thing as a degree of sin. It is not for you to judge your father."
Kasra finished the tea. It burned his throat. "It is not for my father to beat his wife."
His mother wept softly when Kasra left the room.
His father was watching a sports program. Kasra took the remote and silenced the television. His father went limp with surprise when his only son knocked him out of his chair and banged his head against the wall. Mute with shock, he merely blinked when Kasra whispered: "Murderer."
"I..."
"Murderer. You have beaten the life out of my mother."
"She is a sinner!" he protested.
"You are a murderer." Kasra was taller now, stronger.
His father sagged against the wall. "But she lives."
"Not in spirit. You have killed her soul, which makes her precious to Allah."
"She disgraced our home!"
Kasra rammed his father's head against the plaster. "And you disgraced it tenfold!" His father cowered as his mother had done before. Kasra was glad to make him feel what Kasra's mother had felt so many times.
Life was different in their home then. Kasra had asserted his authority. Kasra's father did not dare touch his wife. And, without explanation, Kasra's mother never spoke to her son again.

The United States of Kubla Khan

"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear--fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting downsized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."

--Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "Extreme behavior in Aspen."

"Dreams are with us no more."

--Edgar Allan Poe, "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion."

andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; While walking in downtown Tallahassee this evening, I found an extension cord laying on the sidewalk. With a curious sense of serendipity, I followed the neon orange snake several blocks into what seemed an abandoned basement. When I entered, I found in the darkness a young brunette, curled up in a ball on a black futon, bug-eyes glued to CNN. Her pallor was deathly from flashing benday, but her contracting irises acknowledged she was alive. I knelt down beside her, turning on my most southern of charms.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "Good evening, Miss. I didn't mean to intrude but I was curious about this extension cord." She said nothing. "Uh, I'm M.T. Gonzaga, perhaps you've read my columns?" I flashed my press badge, holding it up in her face. Without averting her gaze from the TV, she monophonically muttered, "I am the Last American Dreamer."
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; Ha, aren't we all? I thought. But my skepticism yielded to my journalistic sixth sense; there might be a story here, or at least a bit of fun. I got out my tape-recorder.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "American Dreamer," I said, trying to sound professional and not titter. "Do you envision this new America as being stronger, more progressive in its attempts at Democracy?" With a terse grunt, her arms and legs shot out and began to writhe as her entire body convulsed. Her eyes, jiggling in their sockets, tried to focus on the ceiling. I could have called 9-1-1, but there was no phone in the place, and my cell laid on a Holiday Inn nightstand. So I braced her arms and applied pressure to her body, trying to calm her down. andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp;
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; When she stopped shaking, I knelt down by her face, and decided to pour four words, like poison, down her ears: "What do you dream?"
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; Her torso shot straight-up, her long black hair whipping me in the face. I could hear sound bubbling in her throat.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "I dream?" she finally muttered. "No, no, I dreamt!" There was silence as her head seemed to traverse the moldings of the room. She paused upon a teddy-bear with an American Flag sweater, and she gasped, speaking the rest of the monologue in an air-sucking manner.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "I dreamt people would forgo the Prodigal Son for minds capable of speaking outside of Comic Book cant and would consider the lives of his citizens and the weight of Truth over his tarnished Gold." She raised her hand, curled it around an imaginary remote-control, and began channeling her thoughts with her thumb.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "People would think for themselves and not solely within the context of religion or fear of mythology. While Jihads are threats to our national security, Crusades are threats to our National identity." Click.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "Of an enlightened Superpower that would recognize and apologize for its mistakes and truly learn from those same errors. Not a President who jigs and winks at the hysterically applauding few." Click.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "Of evolving, open dialogue. Before, Americans refused to listen, and now they are deaf, dismissing questions or doubts as terrorist sympathizers. Now, being American means washing your mouth out with the Constitution, not reading it." She shook her head and made spitting noises, her hands clambered at her tongue, and once the imaginary thing was taken out she: Click.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "Of never having to be Political, of trusting the words of the Elected, reading the Founding Fathers for inspiration, rather than primary sources for street-side debate." She paused, a look of ecstasy melted onto her face.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "Of an economy that would accept me with open arms." She put the "remote" down to wrap her arms around her tiny shoulders and her face became quite irate. Her whispers crescendoed in anger.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "That Legislators would acknowledge that socializing Healthcare won't make them, or the nation, Red-Pinko-Commie-Faggots; that everyone wants the right to life, liberty, and happiness, not sickness, confinement, and wretchedness.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "Of unquestioned equality and unconditional understanding of people by the People. Yet "Muslim" is the new derogative as "Negro" was in the 60s, "Feminist" was in the 70s, and "Gay" was in the 90s. I dreamt that there would be an end to new derogatives and that freedom's domestic enemy wasn't pursuance of happiness. That from this Huxley-knockoff nation I could go into the world--vivid, alive, awake, and vital--proud of the populace that I, by chance alone, was born into." She stopped and fell backwards into the hard futon, eyes rolling back into her head.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; Bewildered by this automatic manifesto, I stared at this inanimate creature, the zombie on the futon writhing to the words of Wolf Blitzer on the screen.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; I stopped my tape-recorder, and wondered if I shouldn't call the Smithsonian? No, D.C. would kill her, then it would all be gone, this last grain of sand from the shore of endless tides. Everything has been washed away, except this delirious vegetable in a dark basement watching stolen cable.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; And right she is--what role is left for a dreamer? Poet? Activist? Diplomat? Economist? Who listens to these people anymore? Everyone has become deaf, afraid of the quid pro status quo.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; Dreamers are talkers, and talk is cheap; a de trop commodity in an economy based on debt. If the American people can afford it, they don't want it. There is no climb in status if one lives within their means, and in our land of equality that's what we're concerned with: being better than everyone else. So, even in the cosmopolitan (more juice than vodka) of Tallahassee, no one will bother to preserve the last American hope comatose on a futon, fetalized by the media, speechless in the face of fear and nationalistic fervor, because her words are not ticker symbols, and her dreams are not timeshares but visions of a democracy not wrapped up in greed and image, but adorned in love and ingenuity.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; Her attention had focused upon me in my reveries. She almost looked normal, or serene at least, when my eyes met hers. She smiled sadly.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; "The wind cannot carry words," and her eyes grew heavy and shut.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; What would happen to her? Would a realtor, ten years from now, salivating from another boom, stumble upon her skeleton, her shallow bug-eyes vacantly staring at Soledad O'Brian desperately trying to fathom the occurrence of Revelations on our soil?
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; I grew angry. I felt responsible. I was a journalist, like these clowns, and the integrity of my field morphed and lessened with the copulation of their brand of reporting: contriving every serious occurrence into sequestered drama, so that no one will look too close, no one will fear to stay tuned for the next national disaster. So common has this "Crying Wolf" hysteria become, that no one will read objective facts, every story must have a hero and a villain, and always a Christian moral spin. But somehow, this girl could read between every word--and the loneliness of that fact was making her insane.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; But what could I do? I couldn't force her to go out into this world she fears, nor could I tell her it was getting any better, that her dreams would materialize.
andnbsp;andnbsp;andnbsp; Watching her sleep, I tiptoed to the television and found where it connected to the extension cord. I gently unplugged it, and wrapped the extension cord around my elbow following it out the door, just as I had followed it in. At the door, I took one last look at the Last American Dreamer, but the basement, robbed from its only light source, was as dark as a catacomb. It enshrouded her in shadow, and only an impression of her umbrous silhouette, and her slumbering breath remained.

Sun Moon Field

"Sun Moon Field" by Ben Muggin, color print, 2005

Declining And Falling

I must admit that I am fascinated, nay, absolutely engrossed by the century spanned by the years 180-285 in which the craft called the Roman Empire rode a stream of time attired in the trappings of classical antiquity, of Pericles and Athens, Plato and Trimalchio's Feast rendered by Petronius in a time where a mind freely wandered in the spirit of optimism, where the measure of men encompassed the world. And then, how it was confronted by an unexpected stone in the river that denied the permanence of the domain of that city on the Tiber and spewed forth an eddy of chaos, of swords crimsoned in violence, of bodies purpled in plague and minds affixed to the dictates of orthodoxy as the measure that was man shriveled away as the prey of an ineluctable beam from the east. This faux-Gibbonesque narrative hopes to entertain as well as educate and depending upon reactions, or in spite of them, from the exacting readers of MungBeing, I may continue on the narrative until even I am utterly exhausted, though with such a topic it may not be until I relate the idyll of Edward Gibbon listening to the barefooted friars in an abandoned temple to Jove in the era of Voltaire and Jefferson.

COMMODUS

After a tumultuous First Century that boasted a population of such infamous emperors as Tiberius, Caligula and Nero, of dynasties that were birthed by the hand of Hope and swaddled in their shrouds by Terror, Conspiracy and Assassination, at last, as if in answer to the positive omen attached to a raven that perched atop a temple and squawked aloud that all would be well in the final days of the tyranny of Domitian, a time of stability was at last attained. Under the Five Good Emperors (Nerva 96-98, Trajan 98-117, Hadrian 117-138, Antoninus Pius 138-161, and Marcus Aurelius 161-180) the civilization and imperium of Rome reached their zenith. Each of the emperors chose their successors, not from the bosom of their families, but from the most worthy of individuals in the greater community discerned by the Imperial eye. Such individuals represented the best and finest of the Roman nation, their attachment to virtue and service to the realm the best of recommendations. Imbued with duty and free of familial attachment and the need to service the advancement of their own kin, they could focus on the administration of the realm, and pursue a wider interest than the merely personal. Such a display of Imperial benevolence was played out largely upon a scene of tranquility, and the conflicts that occurred tended to be resolved quickly with merely the threat of the use of Roman arms. The reign of Antoninus Pius was the pinnacle of this tranquil age, which provided few materials for history and the historian save Antoninus presiding over the grape harvest and chastising philosophers for showing too much attention to their personal appearances. But this calm was deceptive, essentially an Indian Summer, a calm at sea just before an unexpected gale would arise and sweep the ship of state into uncharted waters. The army atrophied during a long period of inaction and standards began to relax as beyond the frontiers, new tribes, unaware of the power of Roman arms began to fill the forests by the Rhine and the Danube. The initial zephyr was rising as Antoninus passed away peacefully in bed. Marcus then assumed the tiller as the craft was suddenly wracked by gusts and rode waves of invasion and plague on a wide scale, which cast goddess Roma onto the floor of the ship and gifted her with a spider web of cracks thrown across the hitherto inviolate marble. Marcus valiantly attempted a patch-up job with the quickset of a series of German campaigns to add the Teuton's dark forest from which issued teeming harms to the empire, and by 180 had largely achieved his goal of domesticating the beast and adding his domain to the realm of Rome. But the Fates would not permit the German to be yoked and summoned the goddess of death Libitina to strike Marcus down. The great dream of Plato written of in his great work the Republic, a philosopher-king who combined wisdom and governance nearly realized in Marcus, who composed stoical meditations in the tumult of an army camp in the wilderness, laid down his practiced and elegant pen for the last time and was no more.
Marcus was the only member of the Good Five to have a son of his own, one Commodus (featured in the film Gladiator) who then succeeded, and despite its fanciful take Marcus meant for him to succeed and even shared power with him towards the end of his reign, carefully grooming him for the duties of state ahead. Indeed Commodus was the only logical successor, any other choice flirting with the consequences of civil war as the partisans of Commodus would have advanced his natural claim. Commodus, having been brought along for the campaign planned for the spring of 180, suddenly found himself the master of the world in the midst of a rude army encampment deep in the frosty wilderness, exposed to all manner of privations and entirely destitute of any comforts. This was an intolerable situation to one who had grown up in the opulence of Rome, days made of wine and silk under a warm sun made possible by a stoical Marcus, severe only to himself and quite indulgent to all others, above all his boy. The ministers of state who had been brought along with Commodus, shared his discomfiture and nourished them, speaking of the joys of Rome, beguiled Commodus with the thoughts of return. After some inner debate between his promise to the expiring Marcus to complete his venture and for once and all subdue the denizens of Germania and his predilections for ease, Commodus garbed himself in robes of state, strode forth between the torches and shields and declared to the massed assembly that victory had been achieved. He signed treaties very advantageous to the aims of Rome with the local chieftains and sought a reunion with the Coliseum and Palatine, to many soldierly cheers. Commodus has been criticized for not completing his father's work, but a final settlement was beyond even the force of Roman arms that would be compelled to conquer the whole of the vast wilderness whose far end only yielded to the coasts of the Pacific and the domain of the mandarin.
A grand procession of chariot and gold and velvet and a myriad of soldier in uncounted legions descended upon Rome as Commodus made his return through the main gate, thrown open by a joyous populace. Garlands were flung at the trophies of chained Germans processing behind the triumphal car of Commodus. A few eyes were raised by the first display of Imperial eccentricity, as in his chariot, Commodus was attended by a particular favourite of his, one Saoterus, whom he petted and caressed and kissed from time to time as they passed under the festooned arches. Saoterus was the first of a series of ministers who oversaw the day-to-day administration of Empire, leaving Commodus to abandon the drudgery of rule and give himself over fully to the procession of enjoyment and sensual delight. But despite this, other venerable ministers that had served Marcus remained and such was the awe that Commodus felt for them, that outside the velveted Imperial bedchambers, the spirit of Marcus remained in force for the first three years of the reign, the age of the Five Good Emperors continuing to cast a warm afterglow.

There followed in 183 a rather fateful incident. After a long day in the amphitheatre, Commodus was making his way home to the palace through dark streets lit only by the guttering torches of his Praetorian guard. Suddenly rushing out from the shadows, a dagger-wielding specimen of humanity lunged at Commodus, bellowing out "The Senate sends you this!" Commodus' guard ensured that 'would-be' would presage the term 'assassin' in this case, and thus disarmed, the assailant declared that he was part of a conspiracy supposedly on behalf of the venerable and virtuous Senator Claudius Pompeianus who was once seen as a possible successor to Marcus. The link was inconclusive, but at once, Commodus' view of the Senate was palled over by black suspicions that found scant remedy even in the application of swords to the limbs and necks of Claudius and his senatorial votaries. The warm afterglow of the Age of the Five Good Emperors was at an end. Even greater powers now redounded to Saoterus, as the Senate was yet further culled of members and his net of redress was cast over the city drawing in one and all who did not pronounce the name of Claudius with all due reverence. A stalwart sword was directed at Saoterus who fell to it, and the office was then filled by one Perennis, a grasping creature of ambition who quickly saw the Empire as his own private estate. Commodus retired fully in order to drift upon a sea of wine with concubines, obliging boys and otherwise conducted himself in a manner not seen since the days of Nero. This was a bubble of untrammeled ease set in the roiled air of cries and lamentations that the avarice of Perennis engendered by his exactions and invasions of every purse in the empire no matter how humble. His ambitions only continued to grow until he openly considered stealing away the Imperial authority for himself. Such was enough to interrupt even the embrace of the most practiced courtesan as Commodus was impelled to act. An axe was employed to demonstrate that the top position was indeed filled, and this necessity completed, one Cleander, a lately risen slave from Phrygia in Asia Minor next stepped into the sandals of the chamberlain, as Commodus resumed his sensual idyll.
Such continued until 189 when Rome was wracked by a food shortage, manufactured by merchants keeping commodities off the market in a bid to raise prices. Such a privation was intolerable to the 'mob'-the idle and jobless descendants of displaced farmers who had flooded into Rome a century and more earlier and hence citizens entitled to a free daily allotment of governmental grain, wine and bacon. When interruption threatened to lighten the burden of their bellies, the fun and frolic on the reddened arena sands was forsook as the rabble assembled themselves under the vocal and the calculating amongst themselves and began a march upon the palace. A detachment of centurions was sent to quell the uprising, and indeed their skilled swords and methods of violence drove the mob back into the congested heart of the city, a warren of crooked narrow streets where the advantages of the centurions were dissipated. From the overhanging rooftops, a rain of dart and shower of tile was cast down upon the plumed soldiers causing them to withdraw followed by the re-emboldened mob that then resumed its advance. This intelligence was communicated to Commodus by two of his favourite concubines who, bathed in tears, their hair and emotions disheveled, flung open the doors to the bedchamber and threw themselves before the Emperor. Again bestirred by events to cast aside perfumed embrace, Commodus discerned the gravity of the situation, and at once summoned Cleander. Cleander had scarcely entered the palace when a very animated sword perforated him and the head separated from the body was presented to Commodus, who seized this gristly relic of a life, and advanced at top speed to a balcony. There he threw down the head to assembled multitude below that had gathered about the palace. This at once appeased the revolt, and Commodus resolved that in future he would resume a more hands-on approach to rule, in the guise of a gladiator, a vocation that over the last several years of his ease had quite taken his fancy. As a result, his return to the public gaze was attended by the doubtful garb of helmet and greaves, grasping net and sword on the sands of the Coliseum. The Senate was frequently summoned for his performance in the name of guidance and behaviour. Once, before the venerable old Conscript Fathers, Commodus, in his gladiator garb, having decapitated an ostrich, then held the bloody trophy aloft, wagging his head to and fro, maniacal look the possessor of his countenance, thusly declared that he would deal with the Senate in the same manner. The ivory-beards used the recourse of laurel-leaves stuffed into their mouths lest they bray out laughter, a capital crime as Commodus fell into the final stage of his growing megalomania. By decree, the months of the year were renamed in his honour and gold dust was strewn about before him wherever his semi-sacred sandals strode. The capriciousness of his nature filled Rome with terror and thusly conspiracy, when, at the end of 192, he planned to celebrate the new year by moving his court into the gladiatorial barracks after making a fresh cull of humanity that affronted him, including his sister. Her sense of danger moved the ponderous machinery of conspiracy into a high gear, and poison was applied to a copious measure of the Imperial wine specially procured for the new year's eve dinner, quaffed with abandon. Soon thereafter Commodus retired to his chamber and began to struggle with the effects of poison and drunkenness, a famed wrestler of the city by the name of Narcissus was admitted into the room and strangled him with no resistance.

PERTINAX

The early morning of January 1, 193 was filled with much drama. The Senate was assembled, the venerables roused from slumber as the conspirators went out into the city. Among those roused was one man by the name of Pertinax who was awakened from slumber into a state of panic communicated to him by his servants who heeded the massed banging upon his door. There he was not offered a sword but a throne. Only after being assured and reassured that Commodus was truly dead, did he join the conspirators back to the Senate House where a bidding war over who could coin the greatest terms of abuse as applied to Commodus was ongoing. Commodus' inscriptions were ordered erased, his statues overturned, and then, by senatorial acclamation, Pertinax assumed the Imperial Purple.
Pertinax vowed a return to the days of Marcus Aurelius, and by so doing, instituted a crash program of moderation and Virtue's restoration. At once, problems grew as flowers in the showers of April, as these reforms were detested and abominated by the powerful Bodyguard of the Emperor, the Praetorians. They had been pampered and indulged by Commodus, becoming accustomed to dangerous new liberties from which they would not disabuse themselves. Such was the inevitable and ineluctable consequence of Hadrian's disastrous policy of separating a military career from a political one. Most rising young men opted for the safer political course and the army increasingly became comprised of the rural and the barbarous, habituated to settling differences through the intervention of steel, and this doomed Pertinax who sought a revolution in behaviour. A mutiny was raised against him within days of his accession and though quelled, it was already clear that Pertinax's reign would not be a long one. Emperor Nerva (96-98) had survived a similar scenario by appointing a respected and popular general, Trajan, to succeed him, but Pertinax seemed unaware of such an expedient and thus was left alone to face the coming calamity.
Such was realized when in the aftermath of a second mutiny this time quelled with Praetorian executions in March of 193, Pertinax had cancelled his public appearances for the day and was at home in the palace when a detachment of Praetorians, the most disgruntled of all over Pertinax's economy, rushed the palace. Pertinax's ministers, alerted to the danger and frightfully aware of the likelihood they would share it, fled before Pertinax, hands wringing, begging him to flee. Pertinax was a man of some bravery, having served in the army, and resolved instead to meet the mutinous troops, advanced before their massed steel and gifted them with an outstanding speech that so shamed the soldiers that some sheathed their swords and had even begun to turn away. However, one centurion, a denizen from the wilderness about Vienna, and apparently whose grasp of Latin was tenuous in the extreme, thusly remained unappeased, and hefted sword high and drove it deeply into Pertinax. Such seemed a very imitable suggestion. Soon a multitude of sword metal rained down upon the pulp that bore the condition of Imperial majesty and the name of Pertinax and, under such a violent upheaval, the head separated from the body. It was then borne aloft upon a lance, and the head of Pertinax was carried through the indifferent streets of Rome, the mob accustomed to such sanguinary scenes and without any affection or attachment to the slain emperor. The ghastly procession led out to the Praetorian camp situated in the outskirts of the city. There a truly shameful episode of Roman History was played out. The Praetorian Guard mounted the ramparts of their encampment and announced that the throne of the world was up for auction, available to the highest bidder.

DIDIUS JULIANUS

This caused a sensation in Rome, and advantage-smelling friends carried this sensation to one dandy-about-town, Didius Julianus. He suspended his gorging on an opulent repast of olive and octopus, Falernian wine and flamingo tongue, to listen to the blandishments of his guests that easily succeeded in convincing him that he truly deserved and merited the throne. After a final quaff, he quit banquet table with a feigned sigh and hastened off to the Praetorian Camp where he found one Sulpicianus, the father-in-law of the late Pertinax already bidding for the throne, shouting sums from outside the camp.
Didius at once joined the proceedings, declaiming his vast wealth, bellowing out over his strongboxes filled with gold and silver and of rewards that would exhaust the meaning of the term 'vast' if he were awarded the purple. This settled the issue for the Praetorians, who threw open the gates of the camp to Didius and admitted him amongst them. There was a sop thrown to Virtue, as the soldiers asked that the first act of his reign be the pardoning of Sulpicianus for bidding against him and allowing him to carry home the debris of Pertinax. This was assented to, and the Guard took up their shields and surrounded their new Caesar, escorting him to the palace. This shielded him the hostile gaze of the Romans who, even after the extinction of all other virtues that had once comprised the very name 'Roman' still blushed with shame over this deed. But Didius would not have minded, as these looks of reproach would have mattered little in comparison to the sight and promise of the palace ahead. Thusly there installed, Didius commanded an opulent feast to be prepared, ordering away with contempt the thin gruel and hard bread that was Pertinax's humble meal still on table, his headless body still near. A renowned Syrian dancer by the name of Pylades was summoned for the entertainment of Didius and the festivities continued long into the evening, until the guests drifted home and Didius was left alone to ponder the enormity of his situation, a throne bought, and the looks of reproach at last made their acquaintance of him, through the courtesy of a glance of even the meanest of palace slaves. Didius trembled, and for very good reason, for these glances had already began to diffuse through the Empire catching the view of various generals, with armies at their disposal, who believed that their Purple moment had arrived. Once again, civil war was coming to Rome.

Behind the Bar

The chocolate martini is perhaps the most stupid cocktail. I mean, if you want a milkshake go to Dairy Queen. But some people like them, so I make them.
Two young women came up to me tonight dressed in not much. In my youth they would have been considered hookers. In my father's youth they would have been considered naked. And they ordered chocolate martinis. They wanted them creamy like "this other guy made them once". I explained the recipe we use and they said to make them any way I wanted. About twenty minutes later they came back, told me how good the drinks were and asked for two more. As I gave them the drinks the ladies thanked me and said, "You're our God." And they left a one dollar tip, about eight percent of the cost of the drinks.
Okay cool, I'm God to the alcoholic prosti-tots. So let's say you go into a bar one night and much to your surprise who should be tending but the embodiment of your concept of the Divine. Would you tip Him? It's a tricky question. Some might be inclined to over tip. Try to win some points. Others might not tip at all, thinking that God doesn't need their money and it might be insulting. What you wouldn't do is tip Him eight freakin' percent. So, as their God, I condemn them to eternity in Hell. Ooh, that felt good. I could get used to this God thing.

experiments in spray-art

"experiments in spray-art #92" by peg leg, postcard 4x6in, watercoulour paper,stencil and spray paint, 2006

The Agent Mulder of the art world

Rebecca Quartieri: Okay, first things first: what is up with Project Egg? Are you really dropping ten thousand easter eggs on Chicago?

Jeffrey Scott Holland: Not just Chicago, but several other cities as well. And yes, I'll be doing most of the egg-laying personally, although I will have some helpers. It'll probably take years for some of these eggs to be found.

RQ: And what's in 'em?

JSH: Oh, you know, stuff, things.

RQ: Secret ingredients, eh?

JSH: Yes. Classified documents and other effluvia.

RQ: Secrecy seems to play a big part in your work, you know it? You just had a photography show with a secret date and a secret location. And you're also very secretive about your personal life.

JSH: I don't have a personal life. And if I did, I doubt anyone would really care.

RQ: What do you do in your spare time?

JSH: I don't have spare time. I pretty much work around the clock on my art and on art-related matters. When I'm not painting, I'm working on prints. When I'm not working on prints, I'm doing photo shoots. When I'm not doing photos, I'm hunched over a computer or a cellphone working on the business end of things. Gene Simmons once said "I'm even working on projects while I'm on the toilet", or words to that effect. I definitely feel that.

RQ: So your art consumes your day to day life completely?

JSH: I wouldn't frame it like that, I prefer to think that art is properly integrated into my life. I don't feel consumed by it. I generally don't spend a lot of time with people who aren't artists of some sort, or at least extreme art appreciators.... ever see the movie "Pollock", where Jackson and his wife get to the point where art is pretty much all they ever talk about or think about? That's how I'm livin'. Like a monk.

RQ: Was this intensity a gradual thing?
link
JSH: Sort of, although to some degree I've always had a one track mind. I think in order to be an artist worth one's salt, you have to have this sort of fanaticism about it. Van Gogh, Bernard Buffet, Billy Childish, all favorites of mine and all extreme fanatics about their art and about putting it all out there, along with themselves. There are so many artists I know who are technically great painters - far better than myself - who just let their art pile up in their bedroom for years and no one ever sees it. And they don't make any effort to show their art to anyone, and it's a tragedy. People need to get their art out there where people will see it. By any means necessary, as Malcolm X said.

RQ: Billy Childish is definitely a workaholic. He's put out so many records and books, it's amazing.

JSH: And he hasn't slowed down or let up, even for a moment. He paints almost every day, and his work ethic is a tremendous inspiration to me. In a way, he's almost an discouraging factor, because he's done so much. The competitive part of me has a knee-jerk reaction to want to try to top him, to transcend him. But it only takes a moment's quick assessment to realize that it can't be done. He simply is the standard by which all indie/DIY creation is measured, now and forevermore. Whereas people like me, I simply have to accept that I'm really just a deviant farmboy who won't amount to shit in the big picture. But like the salmon, I must trudge onward nonetheless.

RQ: I wouldn't go along with that. Actually, I think you have a lot more exhibitions than Childish. It seems you always have some show in the works somewhere in the world.

JSH: That's because I'm very big on getting the artwork out there no matter what. I've shown in all kinds of galleries, from big to small. I'll show anywhere, from someone's living room to a gas station. I don't care about critical respect or even getting rich from it. It isn't myself I'm self-promoting, it's the paintings. And they are independent entities from myself. I just want to put the artwork out there no matter what I have to do to make it happen.

RQ: Like the movie - what was it where Robert DeNiro kidnapped Jerry Lewis in order to promote himself?

JSH: King of Comedy. Yes! Love that. Or like the Unabomber, who allegedly blew stuff up for years and then told the media he would quit if they would publish his writings? I think that'll probably go down in history as the ultimate art-crime, unless it someday is revealed that Bush and Cheney look upon their madness as a form of performance art installation.

RQ: What were his writings about? The Unabomber's?

JSH: I forget, you weren't around when the Unabomber thing happened. Ouch, I feel old.

RQ: I was around, I was just a kid!

JSH: The Unabomber's manifesto was a long and poorly written rant about technology and technocracy inherently containing the seeds of fascism and totalitarianism, which just happen to be sentiments I agree with wholeheartedly. He also wrote extensively about "the Power Process", where he postulated that all humans have a need for some sort of activity that assigns meaning to their lives. Not just like a hobby or a job or a family, but specifically something that makes something in their subconscious mind register "I have done something important and meaningful that sets me apart from the other humans". Which is also something I agree with wholeheartedly.

RQ: But you don't approve of his methods, right?

JSH: No, not really, because I don't really think Ted Kaczynski was the Unabomber. But that's another story. I never understood how sending mail bombs to park rangers was supposed to usher in a new spiritual kingdom of mankind returning to nature. I think Kaczynski was probably brainwashed into thinking he really is the Unabomber, and then into taking credit for it.

RQ: So who did do the bombings?

JSH: Who knows? Some CIA weasels whose names will never be known. Actually, there's a wealth of independent research that indicates a connection between the Unabom case and the Zodiac Killer, and various black-ops ranging back to the 1960s.

RQ: You're like the Agent Mulder of the art world.

JSH: I like that. I can relate to that. Agent Mulder is another obsessive crank toiling away like a monk.

RQ: And you even do that website, Unusual Kentucky, about hauntings and UFOs. I'm surprised these subjects don't come up more often in your paintings.

JSH: Actually, they do. Paranormal phenomena is totally at the heart of what I'm doing. It's not always evident at first glance though.

RQ: So you're a painter, a photographer, and a conspiracy theorist, all rolled into one.

JSH: I'm pathological in many more ways than those. [smiles]

Smiley Face Devil

my holiday trip

was a return to

the land of

milk and money

where the green back

has become

un speak able truth

and eye fled to my

refugee coffee shop

of trusted local

subversion

personal truth

and a vibe

different

but, this time

eye smelled something

unholy

and in the loo

found chalk

and scrawled my

graffitti marks

on the wall

in my usual

fit of non thinking

purge a tivity

and the image

was of lucifer

with words

"kiss the devil"

not

knowing the

cryptic truth

eye had left

but

on my next day

re turn

found my devil

had been morphed

casturated

adled

to

a wal mart

happy face

and knew

my hearts eye

had felt

shadow of the land

the unacknowledged devil

the dollar within

the smiley face

that has become the

easy religion

of the masses

jesus with a smiley face

and realized the

dark truth

was the light

that melts

the smiley face devil

and brings

back the

cross

long lost

in the land

of milk and money

- January 5th, 2006

The Familiar

Joseph Maeron Hamilton III sat in front of his computer and, without bothering to wipe the stream of hot angry sweat that trickled down his cheeks, he added a smiley face emoticon to the end of an email. Joe had made a habit out of font smiles because they allowed him to be as rude as he pleased while still able to insist he was "just kidding." Typed smiles were a lot more effective than real ones, for Joe. At least his face got punched less often.

The digital peep of a watch announced the time as being three o'clock in the morning. Amber would soon be home from work, so he had better get the dishes done. Joe grasped the back of his seat with his left hand to help heave his body up and off the indented chair. As he slowly spun his self to the right, his head followed to become dizzy. He managed to lumber to the kitchen.

The sink remained loaded and reeking from the day before. Joe contemplated his cleaning strategy as he stood rolling up his sleeves before dumping an expired serving of milk down the drain. He peered into the glass to find a congealed white ring of curd clinging to the inside. Surely he'd have to soak these dishes before dealing with them further, so he turned the water on full blast and waited for the stream to get hot. His legs ached from standing.

"It's too late to start this now," he reasoned while turning off the water, "I'll do them tomorrow."

Joe dropped himself down upon a mattress on the floor without brushing his teeth first. He was honestly tired, but sleep wouldn't happen at first. Ideas and memories spiraled around the room to furrow eyebrows and entice sweat glands. Each time Joe was about to fall into slumber he caught himself. Only when he heard Amber's key entering, turning, and opening the lock on the front door did he begin to snore.

"Nice," Amber said out loud to herself after she entered the kitchen and before she sighed. Joe listened as she clomped angrily across the floor, entered the bathroom, ran some water, brushed her teeth and washed her face. As she walked out of the bathroom, she tripped over Joe's recently shed clothes but was able to keep herself from falling by feverishly waving her arms in a circular motion as the legs beneath her rushed to catch up. The journey left her at the foot of the mattress. Joe could feel her eyes pierce through his blanket as she stood over the bed for what seemed like longer than he'd been awake.

The next morning, though it was really afternoon, he felt himself leaving his dream state where a younger and happier Joe marveled at and in the world. "Dammit," he complained as he fought the sun's mocking beams and closed his eyes tight in an attempt to recapture his dream self, but Amber heard the stirring and approached the room.

"Wake up, Joe," she said coolly, "it's Saturday and you promised that you would get rid of the ant hills today."

Joe's first instinct was to tell Amber to deal with the ant hills herself. It had been her idea to move to Florida where ants were a pest, so she should have to deal with them. But then he remembered that she was the one with the job, so Joe sulked beneath the covers and in a muffled voice replied, "OK, dear."

Amber Hamilton worked as a triage nurse at the emergency room across own. Although her shift was supposed to rotate, she would frequently end up working nights because her co-workers tended to take advantage of her good nature. A conventionally attractive woman, Amber's hobbies included gardening, knitting, and spending time with her two cats. Since Joe insisted that he never wanted to have children, Amber gave her kitties, Cassy and Sage, extra motherly attention. This aftermorning, she sat with both of them belly up on her lap while she spoke baby talk to them. This sickened Joe.

"They don't know what you're saying to them," he grouched as his disheveled self plowed past her on its way to the kitchen, "you might as well be telling them that you're going to make cat stew tonight."
Laughing at his own joke, Joe shook his head as a gesture to Amber's foolishness. The kitchen was immaculate. He decided not to apologize for leaving the dishes because he did not want to bring the topic up.

"There are now six ant hills in the yard," Amber yelled from the next room, "I'm afraid that one of the cats will get hurt." Amber had read in the paper that a small dog was recently covered and attacked by fire ants. The dog died three days later. Joe just sighed at his woman's silly fears and promised to get rid of the ant hills. He would do so right after he checked his email.

Joe checked his email -- nothing but junk. He then opened a browser so that he could access his favorite online discussion forum called alt.music.locus, named after the rock band. He thought that the band's music was great but that their lyrics were a bit silly. They're your typical angst-ridden nonsense that rabid fans love to analyze, if you asked him. Trouble was, nobody asked him so he felt obligated to share his revelation with others via the World Wide Web.

Joe was thrilled when he discovered that someone had responded to his critique of Locas' female singer:

From: OneironautOne (oneironautone@nospamm.com)
Subject: Re: She's a freakin dyke!
Newsgroups: alt.music.locus
Date: 2001-06-06 8:05:24EST

J.Hamilton (Joehamilton@myhouse.com) wrote:

<<< Look, I like locus and all, but the singer is ridiculous. She writes lyrics about "fear theories" and end of the world nonsense...its total crap. Anyone who cannot see beyond this tripe is a wacko! ;-) >>>

Joe, you are only looking at the band's music in a superficial manner.
Locus' lyrics are loaded with metaphor. Most of their songs deal with issues regarding personal and/or social evolution. The song you mention, "Fear Theory 3000," is not supporting "end of the world nonsense," but is saying that if a certain theory does come true that it might be nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy. That human beings can create an end that needs not be. I suggest that you go to their website and read their lyrics before you continue to bash them.

- OneironautOne

Joe jumped in his seat. Someone had taken his bait. He feverishly typed his response:

From: J.Hamilton (Joehamilton@myhouse.com)
Subject: Re: She's a freakin dyke!
Newsgroups: alt.music.locus
Date: 2001-06-06 13:24:15EST

OneironautOne (oneironautone@nospamm.com) spewed forth the following:

<<< Joe, you are only looking at the band's music in a superficial manner. Locus' lyrics are loaded with metaphor. Most of their songs deal with issues regarding personal and/or social evolution. The song you mention, "Fear Theory 3000," is not supporting "end of the world nonsense," but is saying, if a certain theory does come true, that it might be nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy. That human beings can create an end that needs not be. I suggest that you go to their website and read their lyrics before you continue to bash hem..>>>

I have not read the lyrics because they are not included on the CD!
I am not one of those silly fanboys with nothing better to do than go on the Internet to look up lyrics. I know that Locus does not like to "spoon feed" their fans, but I like a simple meal sometimes. The fact that they force people to dig for the lyrics is ridiculous and I don't have the time for it. I'll leave that rubbish to you ;-)

- J. Hamilton

The remainder of Joe's afternoon was spent at his computer. He stayed busy by chatting in chat rooms, searching the online auctions for a new mouse, and watching an animated film about a futuristic battle between a space knight and an intergalactic dragon. Joe was so busy, in fact, that he did not realize that the sun had fallen.

"I'm going to the store to buy some fire ant poison," Amber coldly remarked as she headed out the door, but Joe did not notice that she was gone until it was time to eat. "That bitch left without saying good-bye again," Joe grumbled as he worked his way toward the refrigerator. All of the TV dinners that he had envisioned filling the freezer were no longer there, so he had to consider other options. He eventually walked into the hallway, struggled into his jacket, found his car keys, and walked out to the car.

While waiting his turn at the O'Burger's drive thru lane, Joe turned on the radio and set the dial to scan. Nothing good came around, so he resorted to the AM stations and finally settled on a talk show. The caller asked the host, "Dr. Dick, I just had my second date with a woman but she refused to go to bed with me. What should I do?" The thrice divorced host replied, "You know the Dr. Dick bedside manner...three strikes and YER OUT!"

Finally, after minutes of waiting, Joe pulled his exasperated car up to the first drive thru window where an acne-covered teenager forced a smile and asked for the order. "I'll have two Double Deck burgers, two Mega fries, two Mega vanilla shakes, two chocolate peanut cream pies, and a Mega cola." Joe wondered if that would be enough to last him through the evening, but then he remembered the bag of potato ships and the 12 pack of beer sitting in the pantry. "OK, that will be $20.12, please drive around to the next window."

Back home, Joe was greeted by two canisters of Fire Ant Termination Formula that were left on the kitchen floor. On the monitor was a note from Amber. "Went to work," was all it said. The smell of fast food filled the room while Joe placed the greasy bags on the coffee table, turned on the television, and sat on the sofa to eat.

"Welcome to Today's Entertainment," the TV boomed. "I am your host, Katie Kitty. The music charts were topped this week by the new Locus album, which sold nearly half a million copies on its release date! T.E. was able to catch up with Locus' singer..."

"That dyke," Joe chimed in with a knowing smile as he changed the station. He finally settled upon the News Channel so that he could eat his meal in peace.

After dinner it was time to check email again. Though it was the usual spam, Joe opened one ad that seemed interesting. "BARELY LEGAL TEENS," it promised, so he clicked on the link and enjoyed the show until the site demanded a credit card. Joe then decided to check "AML":

From: OneironautOne (oneironautone@nospamm.com)
Subject: Re: She's a freakin dyke!
Newsgroups: alt.music.locus
Date: 2001-06-06 23:33:18EST

J.Hamilton (Joehamilton@myhouse.com) wrote:

<<< I have not read the lyrics because they are not included on the CD! I am not one of those silly fanboys with nothing better to do than go on the Internet to look up lyrics. I know that Locus does not like to "spoon feed" their fans, but I like a simple meal sometimes. The fact that they force people to dig for the lyrics is ridiculous and I don't have the time for it. I'll leave that rubbish to you ;-) >>>

Joe, you and I have been at this topic too long. You refuse to take two minutes out of your life to go read the lyrics, yet you feel inclined to judge them (which is ironic considering that many of Locus' songs are about people being too lazy to learn things for themselves). We're going in circles. I no longer wish to read your constant diatribes so I am going to block your posts from now on. This means that I will not be able to read your reply. I am telling you this so that, hopefully, you will not waste your time responding.

- OneironautOne
A familiar sweat began to flow, but this time it had a higher content of anger swirling around in it. How dare anyone block his posts! Fuck OneironautOne! He's going to get a response jammed down his throat! Joe began to construct an email:

Subject: Here's Your Response, Asshole ;-)
Send To: OneironautOne@nospamm.com
Date: 6/7/01 1:48:04 AM EST

I don't care how much you want to defend her, that bitch is a dyke and a pathetic excuse for a musician. I only listen to Locus because I think that the overall musicianship is good, but the singer and the lyrics are ridiculous and they deserve to be ridiculed.
You can block my posts all you want, but I still have a right to my opinion and you're going to hear it whether you like it or not, little boy ;-)
- Joe

After sending the email, Joe felt relieved. Nobody can block him!
But when he checked his email again he found an automated response that simply read, "The system was unable to deliver mail to the intended recipients..." Only then did he realize that OneironautOne's email address was bogus. Joe was so enraged that his chair was forced to break under the sudden weight shift. The first part of Joe to hit the ground was his right arm, but the rest of him soon followed leaving a steaming pile of agitated man cursing on the floor.

Several minutes passed before Joe was able to rise, but he finally pulled himself up by gripping the corner of the desk with his left hand. Once again in front of the humming computer, Joe stood with his back hunched over as he entered alt.music.locus again. He started a new topic entitled, "OneironautOne's an ass ;-)" and proceeded to describe, in detail, how OneironautOne is a fool. In this way, Joe would ruin OneironautOne's usenet reputation and everybody in the world would see how Joe had been right all along. He then spent a couple of hours hitting the 'refresh' button so that he could view responses to his post, but there were no replies. "People are probably sleeping now," griped Joe as he noticed his watch, "Shit, it's 3:30 in the morning!"

Walking as fast as he could with his bruised body, Joe ventured toward the kitchen where the ant poison sat. Amber would be home at day break. He considered going out to the dark yard to treat the ant hills, but he decided that one more day would not matter. If Amber nagged him about it in the morning, he would tell her that he was sick. Yes, he was sick! His stomach did feel a bit queasy. He would go to bed after checking AML one last time.

Finding alt.music.locus just as empty as before, Joe pondered ways to seek revenge upon OneironautOne until his computer suddenly announced that he had new mail! Maybe it was OneironautOne fighting back. Maybe it was one of those other Locus zealots joining the fray. Joe hoped for something good as he opened his inbox, but the email was from Amber:

Subject: Goodnight
Date: 6/7/01 3:36:41 AM EST
From: Amber.Hamilton@mercygener.org (Amber Hamilton)
To: Joehamilton@myhouse.com (Joe Hamilton)

Dear Joe,
It seems that these days the only way to reach you is via email. I tried to talk with you this morning, but you slept most of the day away (as usual). Then tonight you were gone when I returned from the hardware store. I just cannot live my life like this anymore. When you are awake, you are either at the computer or you are being nasty to me. Something has to change.
I've decided to go home with Janet from ER tonight and will stay with her for a few days until I decide what I am going to do. I hope that things can get better for us, but you'll have to change your mind about going to see a marriage counselor with me first. Please think about it.
- Amber

"Well, I guess I don't have to play sick to get you to quit nagging me," Joe chuckled out loud and rejoiced at the idea of having several nag-free days. Cassy crept up to him, purring, and rubbed up against his leg. "It's too late to feed you now," he explained to the domesticated predator, "you'll have to wait until tomorrow."

Joe was beat. His neck hurt from staring at the monitor for so long, and his arms hurt from holding up their own weight at the keyboard. He looked at his broken chair and added that to his list of things to do tomorrow. It was time for bed. Joe walked straight to his room and crawled onto his mattress to prepare for the world of dreams. Soon sweating, he threw off the comforter. Shifting around some more, his stomach growled. Finally asleep, Joe's mind created surreal images and sounds that became an alternate river of reality.

He found a carnival guarded by tiny soldiers lined up and marching toward him one by one while a circus of chained animals performed silly dances in rings made of fire. Painted acrobats and dancers cart wheeled in and out of obscurity, but one stilted thorn-covered clown stayed in perfect view. Even when Joe tried to look away, the thorny jester was there slowly approaching and growing taller and sharper with each step. He was about to stick Joe with an already bloody spike when he turned around and walked away.

Joe felt relief before his own toes popped off his feet and began running up his legs, multiplying on their way up. By the time the angry appendages reached his chest, there were thousands of them digging their unkempt nails into his skin. The pain was so intense that the real Joe awoke from his dream to find that he was almost completely covered with fire ants! As he screamed, several ants scrambled into his mouth, stinging the inside of his cheeks, his tongue, and the back of his throat, making his yells sound more like gurgles. A human ant hill, Joe tried to lift himself up from the mattress but he was no longer strong enough to master his bulk under the weight of such poison. Soon after he realized it, Joseph Maeron Hamilton III was dead.

Three days later, the local newspaper declared on the front page, "Man Attacked and Killed By Fire Ants in His Own Bed!" The central Florida town, for a while, took extra precaution to protect themselves against future attacks by pouring grits and water over all of the ant hills in sight. The ants, who were expecting such a turn, simply moved north.

My Catholic Sunday

I was walking around downtown eating a gelato when I decided I would go to church. My feet felt like they weren't touching the ground, which can be alarming, and I thought maybe some time in church might help me feel less alarmed. Also I thought the gelato and the sunshine wove a magic thread of kinship binding me to Catholics on Sundays in the harbour towns of the world. When your feet don't touch the ground it's nice to feel like your activities match those of respectable people somewhere.

St. Andrew's Cathedral serves up the holy water in giant seashells, which seemed elegant and logical and reassured me that I had made the right decision coming to church. I liked the church immediately because of those seashells full of holy water. I liked that my Catholic credentials allow me to just waltz into a strange church and become intimate with seashells and their contents. I sat down in a pew at the back and looked at the stained glass panels, which were numerous and a pleasant aesthetic surprise like the seashells.

A hatchet-faced middle aged woman came and sat down beside me. I recognized her as the perfect distillation of everything that is terrible about the Catholic female. The Catholic female is an instantly recognizable figure, identified by the raw disapproval oozing from her every gesture. During the Act Of Contrition her voice was exceptionally loud and clear. You could just tell that coming to church and saying those words gave her a smug satisfaction, because she only partly believes she's a sinner and at any rate less of a sinner than the rest of us.

There were some readings and some singing and then came Communion. This is what is supposed to happen at Communion, as I understand it: the priest says some magic words which transform a wafer into the body of Christ. You take the wafer into your mouth and swallow it like a secret into the belly, where it blossoms into a flame and the flame is the Holy Ghost.

This is what is supposed to happen. It has happened to me a handful of times, and only when I was very young. It did not happen at church last Sunday. The wafer tasted dry and familiar and vaguely guilty, probably because it was baked by people (I wonder who) who don't believe that what they are baking will ever be the body of anybody. The body of Christ dissolved into disapproval in the stomach of the lady beside me.

I left church thinking about how the mystery and terror inherent in Old World Catholicism has been mostly scrubbed out of modern, Western Catholicism. There is an emphasis on good old-fashioned fear of God, but also a contradictory attempt to appropriate the modern Christian sects' notion of a personal relationship with Christ. The Communion ritual is fundamentally gory and cannibalistic, a symbolic human sacrifice, but in the same breath modern sermons encourage you to have a warm and fuzzy friendship with the man whose body you apparently just ate.

Keep flogging that dead horse, boys, but at the very least preserve the blood and guts.

Artwork

artwork by Mark DeLong, 8.5x11, mixed media, 2006

Deviance

She tells me they'll lynch me for this. An entire class of people, a significant subset of humanity, spend their time trying to control and suppress this that I encourage in her. She wonders if this makes our relationship unique.

"Doggy duck daddy," I say, and she throws herself face down on the bed, biting the comforter so she doesn't scream in something akin to joy, kicking her feet and whimpering. I laugh, I smile, I stroke her back. She looks up at me with a tint of mischief shading her eyes.

"Yes," she says, "yes. Doggy duck daddy. Panda budgie cuttlefish vole!" She bolts up into a sitting position and kisses my cheek. "I love you," she coos, then mutters through clenched teeth, "dipsy diver necktie whoa nelly. Whoa nelly. Whoa nelly. Happy birthday cuttlefish!" Her fists rise up above her head in triumph. She's thirty years old, and she's as intelligent and competent a woman as you're ever likely to meet.

The lynch mob she warns me about is the Tourette's Society of America. She isn't a member, but there's no doubt of her meeting the criteria. I tell her she puts the sin back into her syndrome.

They say love is strange. Sometimes I think I understand why.

Things I've Learned About Babies

Babies make people say the strangest things.

Crawling is not so much a coordinated effort but more a kinetic assortment of spasmodic flailings.

Babies react to music as if there's an inherent impulse to bang your head.

Efficient time management and a regular schedule are noble goals. Abandon them.

Don't feed your baby anything too spicy, too hot, too big, too sweet, too processed, too cold, too... aw, hell. Just don't feed your baby.

As the crawling motion becomes more fluid, the speed increases and the... WOAH! Come back here!

Remember the bassinet? Those were the days.

I'm not the mom; I'm the dad. Hell, even the baby knows that.

Telling new parents to let the baby "cry it out" is not helpful. Not at first. That will all come in time.

It's wonderful to think that you'll be able to work from home, keep a clean house, and have dinner ready after the baby comes. Good luck with that.

Fish are really fun to watch if you're really stoned or a baby.

Just a reminder: buy all clothes used.

Want a good laugh? Teething biscuits!

Some parents are VEHEMENT about raising their children the RIGHT WAY!

NEXT ISSUE: If you love your baby, set it free. If it returns, charge it rent!

Tiny Book of Smokes

After a successful tenure with the Cub Scouts, highlighted by winning the Pinewood Derby, I gave Boy Scouts a try when I was in sixth grade. I stayed with it for about two weeks, long enough to have gone on an overnight camping trip. Several notable things happened on that excursion. One was the initiation ritual of being forced to do calisthenics in the mud, and another was the requirement that I take a turn watching the fire for a shift during the night. I fell asleep. Naturally, I was berated for this the next day. Once back home, those two incidents triggered the inner question, "Why am I doing this?" Having no answer, I quit.

The only thing of lasting value that I took from those few dozen hours as a Boy Scout was that I never picked up the interest in smoking cigarettes that many of my friends did. This was not because of a lecture or anything of that sort. Gathered around a campfire, some of the campers took in mouthfuls of smoke, exhaling it back out as if they were smoking. I found it to be the most distasteful thing I'd ever done. Granted, it could be argued that campfire smoke is nothing like a cigarette, but I gave the matter no such considerations. I just swore off smoking.

Long before the current anti-smoking trend, the fact that friends were smoking caused me no distress or discomfort. In fact, I became a collaborator with a project of my own, documenting their smoking. Free of any scientific inquiry, I'd have them burn a cigarette hole in a page of my ever-present pocket notebook. Next to each hole, I'd write their name, the date, time and cigarette brand. There would be four or five to a page, and after the first few pages I started a dedicated notebook specifically for this project. I made three of them in total. The first one starts in May of 1971 and the final one ends in April, 1972. (With only three pages used in the concluding book, it seems I lost interest.) Carefully printed on the cover of all three was "This Whole Book," followed by Part 1, 2, and 3.

These are snapshots without film, journal entries not written as a traditional narrative. Some holes allow glimpses through to the edge of other holes on the following page. All the pages have an organization to them which yield their own aesthetic, accidental as it may be.

Looking through the notebooks now, I know who I was with at a specific time. With several people having burn holes within minutes of each other, it's clear there was a group of us hanging out somewhere. I obviously didn't feel a need to add information about locations to the mix, and I can honestly say I harbor no regrets about that omission now. These little books are about who I was spending time with, that's all. There are a few people who show up and never return, but most of them are from the same circles of friends. I'm still in touch with many of them, or at least I know where they are. Of the ones I've seen in recent years, very few still smoke. Several have died, none from lung cancer.

While I was engaged in this project it was met with responses from mild amusement to unabashed gusto. (I'd be sought out when someone lit up so they could be documented.) The filled notebooks always felt valuable to me. linkI could lose or discard something I'd written down, but the thoughts would still be somewhere in my head. These pages of interactions with friends and acquaintances could never be reconstructed. For three dozen years I've kept them carefully packed in a box, treating them with the same care as old family photographs.