Spit from Cthulhu Sex

I have been so busy of late. First there was Dragoncon, then the wedding, then I went on tour for a couple of weeks with the Hellblinki Sextet and I came home to a bunch of toy design work and some more shows... it's been kind of  a whirlwind. Needless to say, it's kept me from writing anything new. So, in the spirit of revisiting the past, here is a piece that I wrote in the mid-nineties (I believe) for a magazine called "Cthulhu Sex". My dear friend Oliver Baer dug it up for me since I didn't seem to have a copy if it anywhere. I could have easily reposted the photo of me drawing at Yaffa from my last blog as this piece was written around the same time as Chi-chian.

Warning... I write about weird things and I have a funny idea about what "Science Fiction" means.

Enjoy.

 Spit

by Aurelio Voltaire

He turned on the light, for whatever that was worth. A 40-watt bulb swinging at the end of a 10-foot cord swayed above him. Yellowed by time, tediously grinding past, like the rusty gears in a dying machine, the bulb screamed with every pendulous pass, desperately panting to stay aglow. The light emitted, barely a hazy halo, lit only a corner of the spartan squalor. He sat in the decrepit parlor. Greasy were the floor boards. Stained and withered was the wallpaper, peeling in slow motion like a sunburn. His vinyl-wrapped knees squeaked beneath hm. And there, did he begin to hum like he had so many times before. Drawing in a dusty breath, his splintered lungs expanded and slowly the sound began to rise inside of him. 

Reverberating through his lungs, the chant began. Purring, eyes closed, he began to rock gently back and forth. And again a breath, long, deep and calculated. He clenched his teeth as if to filter out the smell of his sour skin. For months it fermented under his clothes. And only now in the still of the stagnant room was he alone with the stench. Now he gained insight about the bitter facial contortions of those who passed him in the darkened alleys. A fact became clear. He had not bathed in months. He had lived only for the visitations. For as long as he could remember the spaces between them were consumed with the pursuit of the currency that made them possible. A long, spidery figure was he, crawling through the dank underpasses of the city in search of the euphoria-giving saliva. Tonight he had scored. In a garbage cluster behind the Weintraub plant, he found his treasure. There under a pile of rain-soaked Glad bags lay the rotting body of a dead rat. How he had shuddered with glee and disbelief. How could it have gone unnoticed? A prize such as this does not lay long in the gutters so ravishly combed by the desperate others as parched as he, so desperate for the traveling. And yet, there it was, no ordinary rat was this. This lucky rodent fattened by the lard-laden scraps of the occupying force had lived a borrowed and unusual life. Somehow it had managed its way up into the above. And there it must have gone unnoticed for months, developing a layer of flesh that hid its ribs from sight. A glorious and unusual vision in this world sucked dry. It must have fallen to its death from the above to the below. And as it lay there in the puddle, its mouth rigored into a toothy grin of bliss, it was clear to see that it died a happy creature.

This happiness would now be his, the heir to an uncommon good fortune. He had plucked up the heavy sweaty mass of rat and bore into its flesh. Luxurious globs of healthy, bloody tissue oozed out dripping onto the pavement. Plap, plap, plap. He searched feverishly. Finally, pushing aside its liver and what he could only guess was its kidneys, he saw it. Shimmering, blue and bloated in the moonlight, offering itself up like a pearl from the sea, was the priceless spleen.

With two bony white fingers, he pushed it into his cracked lips and then, much like a creature awakened, he quivered. Soon he would be ready. He ran, and ran, shin splints cracking beneath his knees with every stride until he came to the darkened alley. And there like a spider, pulled his lankiness up through the fire escapes, peeling back the rusty doors that led to the parlor.

Now on his knees, he began to chant, humming the D minor that would massage his salivary glands with the effective mining frequency. The fluid was slow to come. A desperation grew in him and he bit down on his tongue to speed the process. Still no juice would issue. He bit down harder, severing a quarter of his tongue. He spat the dry blackened mass to the ground and then, slowly like a rising orgasm, the first drops of precious saliva eked their way out of the parchment membranes of his mouth. He began to chew and suck like a motor, milling out the fluid. And feeling a small pool of spittle develop before his bottom row of teeth, he spat it out meticulously upon the darkened well-worn spot before him. And there, on the greasy floorboards between his knees, the spot began to bubble.

At first, it frothed up like a drop of water on bicarbonate. It rose for a moment into a yellow foam and then disappeared, sucked into the patch of floor. The floor was bone dry once again. He waited. Nothing happened. He reeled forward staring at the spot. His ankles creaked beneath him. And still nothing happened. He grew anxious and a desperate whimper worked its way up from the pt of his soul.

Then, it began.

Upon the patch of well-worn wooden floor, appeared a black spot. The spot grew slowly, expanding in circumference by the slightest of increments. Then, like an explosion of darkness, the spot erupted, filling the room before him. As he stared into the void, the black faded into a golden amber laced with delicate clouds. He was looking into a sky of milky plumes on honey strands of mist. Here too came a smell of sandalwood and vanilla. A world was opening up before him, a world of languid, moist beauty. The clouds, slithering in a slow spiral, were parting and there before him emerged a magnificent flying craft. A living swan adorned with golden ornaments. And on its back, a shimmering pagoda nestled between its fluffy wings of white that undulated in waves. She emerged from the pagoda. Her skin a pale violet, fresh and plump with health and moisture. Her face was round and endearing, smiling bliss upon him. She placed her soft hands on the golden rim before her. Her skin, adorned only in golden bangles and beads, glistened. “I’ve missed you,” she blew to him on the air like a perfume. And for a moment a warmth began to rise in him.

Suddenly, a tremor shook the flying swan like a ripple in a pool of water. She looked about, surprised and frightened, and she saw that the black was encroaching upon her. Like a closing iris, it was crushing in upon her world, compressing the space around her. “Virgil,” she screamed, “There’s not enough saliva!”

“No! Please!” he cried desperately.

As the gateway contracted into a bleak bitter spot in his vision, he saw her expression grow pained. Her voice was fading to an inaudible whisper one hears at the entrance and exits of dreams. She was crying, “Not...enough...saliva...”

And then blackness.

He collapsed to the greasy floorboards beneath him, pounding his fists upon the floor. With every strike they splintered and crumbled to dust. His face was the next to fall, and as he lay there whimpering a dry heaving whimper, he stared at the small pile of gray ash before him that was his nose. Between his tears he cried, “It’s not fair. There’s never enough saliva. God damn them.”

Of Faith

Voltaire drawing at Yaffa cafe in New York City in 1996

(photo by Kurt Komoda)

In the early to mid nineties, I spent many nights drinking coffee in all-night cafes in New York City. I normally showed up around midnight and often stayed until eight AM. My most frequented spot was a place called Yaffa Cafe on St. Mark's Place. I would grab a sketchbook to bring along and sometimes I would sketch in it, but mostly I wrote. Sometimes it was a short passage about how I was feeling. Those tended to be what you would now call extremely "Emo" and they were usually about unrequited love. I still cringed a little when I read those. Often I wrote down dreams that I had had and more often than not I'd write down ideas I had for films that I presumed I'd someday make yet somehow never did. One night, I walked into Yaffa. I proceeded to my favorite little table in the corner and I ordered my first of what would be several dozen cups of coffee that night. I opened my sketch book and I began to write a little tale that had popped into my head. It wasn't really a story, it was more of a little imagining, a scene at best. When the sun came up that morning and it was time for me to go, I felt that I had not yet finished my little story. So the next night, I went back and wrote some more. I didn't feel it was quite done at the end of that night either. Several weeks later, I was still writing the story in stream of consciousness style, making it up as I went along.  I guess I would call it a horror/sci-fi story that also doubles as a guidebook to understanding how reality works and maybe even hints at how to control and alter it!  I came to call this tome, "The Nothing". 

Well, at some point after months of scribbling in my sketchbook, and after I'd filled it, bought another one and filled that one too...(and my handwriting is really TINY!)  I came to a realization.  It suddenly seemed silly to me that anyone would publish a novel by me. I mean, I had never really written anything professionally before. I felt that maybe I might be best served spending my time doing something slightly more productive. So the next night, I went to Yaffa cafe but instead of writing the next page of The Nothing I began a new project. I began to draw something that had been in my mind for almost ten years already by then. It was issue number one of what would become the Chi-Chian comic book mini-series. 

I'm glad I made that choice. Creating the world of Chi-chian was and continues to be one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done as an artist. And since it got published, it helped me to be able to publish other works and it helped my career along.  But somewhere in the back of my mind, I always wondered about that half-finished novel, The Nothing. Well, at some point a few months ago, I decided that I would pull out those books, transcribe my tiny handwriting into a computer ( I should have said "Word Processor" for effect) finish that novel and publish it once and for all.

And that's when it hit me that I had no idea where those books were anymore! 

I tore my apartment apart. I even went to New Jersey and searched my mother's basement where I sometimes stash things I have no room for in New York City. They were gone and it was a mystery. Well, today they came back into my possession. At some point very soon I will begin the process of transcribing The Nothing and I may even post it here as I go along.  But I do plan to finally finish it and release it for the world to read.

In the meantime, I sit here and in my hands is one of my  sketchbooks from 1991. It was given to me by the woman who would become my son's mother. The inside front cover bears an inscription from her. It reads,

"To my Dearest Voltaire-

Another Book

Another Saga

Another Day

         of

Another Tale

Another Dream 

         of 

Yours."

I turn the book upside down and leaf through it backwards. I had run out of pages and began to write this way, upside down on the back of pages. I turn to the very last short story in the book. It's titled "Of Faith" and it's dated "11/96".  I leave you with this short piece before I begin my gargantuan task:

OF FAITH

He wandered along the edge of the canyon. Dirt, like cinnamon and cayenne fell into the chasm, pushed by his feet. And he stared off at the vast blue sky with its puffy white clouds in all of their promise of futures and distant lands and the incredible beyond.  And he wondered, "Is it me? Can I be the one?". After all, he was young and strong and tan and why not? They know that some, and every so often a bunch,  can fly and catch the wind beneath their arms like wings. And why not him? In fact as a child, did not an eagle land beside him? And once, did not a feather fall from those same blue skies to land straight upon his head so that everyone knew that if some of all are bound to be, certainly it could undoubtedly be he? No? Everyone knows it. Some will fly. No one is quite sure of the exact statistics anymore. Four out of five? One out of fifty? But all have known for centuries; engraved in their mythology it has been for as long as any have known anything. And so the next day with much fuss and ceremony, strapping one eagle feather to each upper arm for flavor, he, with a great running start did find himself, arms spread and undoubtedly off of the cliff and in the air. And for a few brief moments that seemed like all of time he did in fact fly, but all in all what  terror must have seized him as he began to fall downward and eventually and quietly out of site. His mother would mourn, no doubt. And next year more would follow in his path, all too exactly in his path because after all everyone knows that some of all will fly into that vast blue and puffy whiteness.  Only his little sister wondered why no one could name the name of one they personally remembered doing so. Ever.

The Museum of Unnatural History or Why I Love Living in Manhattan

It being summer, my son and I have lots of time to kick around and do fun things. Today we went to the Museum of Natural History here in New York City. We started out by going to the Space Show in the planetarium. The film they showed was called Journey to the Stars which was about the formation of stars and supernovas. If you haven't been, it's pretty spectacular. The entire, rounded ceiling becomes a three hundred and sixty degree screen so it really seems like you are floating through the cosmos. This particular film, sadly was diminished a bit by the narration which was done by Whoopi Goldberg. Never has a black woman sounded so much like a cranky, old Jewish man. In any case, if I had to pick a Star Trek character to guide me on a soothing sojourn through the universe, there's an extremely good chance it wouldn't be Guinan! Hell, I'd have happily taken Wesley Crusher instead or Riker, or Data or, okay, anybody else!

Nonetheless, the film was still pretty amazing. When it was over we filed out and decided to see some of the other exhibits in the main body of the museum. We were walking down a long hallway, we nearly had gotten to the end of it, when who comes swinging around the corner but Bjork!  She was with her child and also enjoying a day at the museum. She's absolutely beautiful in person, but I'm sure you can guess that. She wore a very pleasant and disarming smile. I want to believe that I smiled back pleasantly, and cooly continued down the hallway, but inside I was squealing like a fan girl!  I have to say, I never cease to be amazed by how disarming it is to come face to face with one of your favorite artists. 

My son and I continued to the new Extreme Mammals exhibit. It was pretty interesting. We walked under a reproduction of a prehistoric beast four times the height of an elephant and marveled at the tiniest mammal discovered, a half inch tall rodent whose teeth are so small one needs a microscope to see them.  

That exhibit let out in the gift shop (of course) but we eventually found ourselves walking around some of the other tried and true exhibits. I've always loved the North American animals display (which a friend of mine calls, "The Dead Zoo") and the Hall of Diversity.  

At some point, I stumbled into a display that featured the album cover art from one of my CDs!  It was extremely surprising at first, but understandable under the circumstances. I won't tell you which CD it was from nor where I saw it. but the first person to tell me what album it was from and the exact location of the display will receive a box of goodies from me.

We eventually made our way back to the East Village. We had dinner at Typhoon, one of our favorite Japanese restaurants where I had an amazing Japanese curry and a couple of glasses of a really nice seasonal or "nama" sake called, Ohyama.

What a day it's been. This is why I live in New York city, folks! 

There's Lipstick On The Toilet Paper

Upon getting engaged, I moved into my fiance's apartment;  the very next day in fact.  Living in Manhattan, space is at a premium and as it happens, her place was bigger than mine. My apartment, a small one-room flat in a run down East Village tenement building was just not going to do for both of us. Besides, it's full to the brim with all of my stuff. Every shelf is crammed with toys I've designed and samples of toys that never came to fruition. The floor is covered with paperwork, letters  and drawings. Forget opening the refrigerator for before it is a gargantuan pile of plush toys, sorted into clear garbage bags. There's nothing in the refrigerator anyway. There never has been. And the one small hallway leading to the bathroom is practically blocked by boxes full of cds and merchandise I'll sell at shows at some point or another. This is clearly not an ideal home for a newly married couple. But it will make a fine office someday if I can get it cleaned up. So despite moving uptown, I've kept this place to work in. In the very least, it's a good place to keep all of this stuff.  I shudder at the thought of what my fiance would say if I showed up at her apartment with boxes upon boxes of cds, t-shirts, plush and vinyl toys. So for the moment, my place remains, as I like to call it, "the most expensive mini-storage unit on the lower east side".

It serves another purpose as well. Located near my son's home and a lot of the places I do business, the post office, the copy shop, etc,  as well as some of my favorite cafes and other haunts, it makes for a fine pit stop throughout my day.  It's a suitable location to regroup, pack an order before heading to the post office or just take a break.  Often, I end my day there. The East Village is a vastly more interesting place to eat, drink and be merry than uptown (in the opinion of this one bohemian) so often, when I'm done doing whatever it is that I do all day long, I'll call my fiance and she'll meet me at my apartment. 

I should mention at this point that the apartment has a name. When we became engaged and it became obvious that I was keeping my place, we joked about being a two-home family. When people would ask us where we lived, we'd say, in a preposterously pretentious accent, something like, "We have an uptown residence and a downtown one where we summer."  It seemed to me that if we were going to be that obnoxious, we should give our residences names, you know, like rich, white people do. So the place uptown became "Wuthering Heights" or "The Heights" for short and my place, which is nestled on a street in the East Village full of Indian Restaurants, became "The Taj Mahal", or simply, "The Taj".

I was at the Taj one evening after a day of working on some toy designs (it was an Adventure Quest /DEADY crossover  8-inch vinyl toy for Toy2R I think). Jayme, my fiance was on her way downtown to meet me. We were going to some party, I think. I can no longer remember.  But I do remember that we were running late, as always.  Or maybe I just know that because we always are. I also remember that I had run out of toilet paper. I texted her to bring some. 

Moments later, she arrived. Since we were both on the run, she didn't bother to step inside. She simply passed me the 4-pack roll of "Charmin extra thick, pleated toilet paper with ass-moisterurizing aloe vera micro particles"  (I made that last part up, but seriously, can it be long before it's offered?).  I tossed it in the general direction of the bathroom, slammed the door shut and we scurried off into the night.  

An image flashed before my mind, something I could have sworn I noticed in the micro-second the toilet paper was in my hand.  I turned to Jayme. "Did you kiss the toilet paper?"

She looked at me incredulously,

"What?"

"Nevermind," I said.

But honestly, I could have sworn I saw, pressed onto the toilet paper, the lipstick print of someone's pursed lips. We dashed off and I didn't give it another thought.

The next day, I was at the Taj again. At some point, I had found a less than novel use for toilet paper and reached for the package that lay on the floor just under the sink. As I picked it up, there on the package, plain as could be was what I had thought I'd seen the night before,  a lipstick mark of someone's lips.  In a flash, I put together in my mind what had happened. In the last few years there has been a wave of uptown Yuppies who have discovered the charms of the East Village. Night after night, like a swarm of Izod-wearing locusts they descend upon my neighborhood, get drunk and behave in a fashion far less civilized then you would expect they themselves would approve of. Certainly one of the fillies of their flock, some drunken, disorderly, former sorority sister, must have stubbled into the local deli. And for the amusement of her friends, and no doubt the chagrin of the Bangladeshi deli owner, she picked up a package of toilet paper, pressed her prissy, pursed lips to it and planted her red Channel lip print upon it, marking her territory the way a pedigree, and common bitch alike, piss on a neighborhood tree.  And this was no doubt done either before or after exclaiming the obligatory battle cry, "Woo Hoo! East Village! Saturday night!  Paaaaaaaarty!"

Be wary of those who would use the word "party" as a verb. They go hand in hand with those who "summer". If I may for a moment use a verb as an adjective, they make me very "stabby, stabby", as my son would say.

I went to wipe off the offending lipstick when I was met with a very arresting surprise. I was wrong. It wasn't on the package. It was inside, on the toilet paper itself!

Now here was something truly curious!  Who could have done this? I mean, obviously, it had to have been done at the factory while it was getting manufactured. This act had to have been perpetrated by a factory worker. But I thought factories were all run by robots at this point? It gave me pause. Someone, some one, a person, a human being picks up these countless rolls of toilet paper every day and stacks them, four at a time into neat little piles, then shrink-wraps them into this tidy little packet. Sadly, it's not something I had considered. This paper, that one takes for granted that's, and I hope you won't mind me being frank, wiped along the most delicate and vulnerable parts of your body, is picked up and handled by someone right up until it's wrapped. That is a whole lot of trust right there that you are placing in the hands of a total stranger.

So why the lipstick? What did it mean? What was this person trying to say? Was it a threat of some sort? Did this worker wish to point out how vulnerable we are, how directly this faceless factory drone who is so totally dismissed, so undoubtedly undervalued by us could hurt us in some way if they wished to? Or was it just an act of defiance, a raspberry, a "kiss my ass!", a thumbing of the nose to those lazy, fat, spoiled Americans who would literally wipe their fat asses with the very fruits of the factory worker's labor? And one can imagine they are paid little and work so hard at such a tedious, mind-numbing, repetitive task.  Or was it something else. Was it merely a declaration of existence, a way to say, "I am here! I exist! Appreciate me!".  This toilet paper did not make itself. It was made by someone... for you. And maybe, all they wished for was for someone to know that. 

Or maybe, just maybe, the sassy owner of those red lined lips had a sense of humor. Perhaps in the staunch, gray, joyless dirge of the factory's mechanical lumbering towards productivity, she or he (the factory could have been in Brazil or San Francisco ) took a moment to infuse some laughter, some humor, some irreverence and beauty into the world in the way of a red kiss on a roll of white toilet paper.

Either way, I'm not sure I will look at a roll of toilet paper the same way again, or any other factory-made item for that matter.  I will always be reminded that behind that item there was a person or team of persons who labored to create it and to bring it to me.  I will be reminded that while I have the luxury of living the life of an artist, there are millions of others who toil at jobs they have no passion or love for.  And I hope that fact never ceases to humble me. On the other hand I think I will view these items with a little less indifference and  little more suspicion. Seriously, why do terrorist challenge themselves with monumental tasks like blowing up battleships or crashing planes into skyscrapers when they could do much more damage by simply getting a job at a factory. There's no security check, anyone can do it, and frankly, one gallon of a skin irritant in the paper-pulp bath of a toilet paper factory would keep all of America scratching their asses too long to repel an attack of any sort.

I have a friend who is a very talented artist and toy designer. His name is Brandt Peters. He has a fantastic line of vinyl toys called Serv-O-Matics that are made by Mindstyle.  At one point recently he posted a photo on a toy blog of some of his and his wife, Kathy Olivas' toys being manufactured in a factory in China. I honestly half-expected to see giant, mechanical robot arms pushing paint-drenched pads onto stencil-coverd plastic figures. Instead the photo displayed a very different image. It was of a person's hands and this person was painstakingly painting delicate little details onto a small vinyl figure.  I'm ashamed to say I was surprised. I had no idea this is how it was done.

A factory worker paints fine details on a toy by Brandt Peters and wife, Kathy Olivas

I have a lot of vinyl toys coming out this year, mostly of my character, Deady. They won't be the first toys I've made by a long shot. But for the first time ever I have a desire to go to China and visit the factories where they are made.  I want to meet the person who's hands are in that photo and maybe, just maybe, when no one is looking, we'll put on some lipstick and kiss a random toy on the assembly line.

**********

ps:   You can see Brandt Peter's amazing work here:  http://www.brandtpeters.com/

Serv-o-matics vs Scavengers production photo credit belongs to Mindstyle

Shape my blog!

Greeeeetings!

As I write this I'm in sunny Hawaii. Maybe that's why I have nothing new to post in my blog, because let's face it... when you're in Hawaii, the last thing you should be doing is sitting in the dark, blogging! heh heh.

Truth be told, that's not why there hasn't been a new blog in a couple of weeks (I'd promised myself I'd post a new blog at least once a week when I started this). I've only been here in Honolulu for two days. I came to play a show. And I leave tomorrow. So that can't be the reason.  The fact is that I've been so swamped with work that I just haven't had time to write anything in two weeks or so.  If you're curious, I've been busy mostly with toy designs. I've got a handful of new DEADY vinyl toys in the works and I've been working overtime to get the manufacturers the designs, then having to re-do them because of changes at the factories, etc, etc... Then I design the packaging and so on. It's been a whirlwind.

Hence, no new blogs.

And here were are.  Now, as it happens, as I look back on the blogs I've written so far I see that they are really all over the board. There are a couple of science fiction pieces, a couple of artist advice pieces, an announcement and a commentary or two.   I'm looking to settle into a groove here which obviously hasn't happened yet. So, perhaps you can help. 

I'm guessing some people come for the fiction, probably only those of you who are also artists enjoy and benefit from the artists advice pieces... so, help me shape the blog by throwing out some suggestions.

In short, what do you want to read about here?

Thanks, it's time to hit the north shore where sea turtles (and hopefully a cocktail or two) await!

ps: I should mention that I started the blog particularly to train myself to write diligently and regularly because my next big project is a science fiction novel and I want to make sure I'm up to the task before I begin.

Cheers,

Voltaire

Those Long-Haired Degenerates

When I was a child, there was a clear distinction between respectable citizens and degenerates. I was constantly made aware of this distinction by my family. I guess that's one of the main purposes of parents; to insure you know the difference, and to make sure you don't fall into becoming one of those loathsome scoundrels who loves neither his family, nor God nor his country.

My parents, my step-father in particular, where keen to point out that a man who had long hair, for instance, was clearly a homosexual. Even at a very young age I was at a loss because I thought that being a homosexual meant that you had sex with other men. They also pointed out to me in extreme earnest, that growing your hair would not only make you a homosexual but also lead to smoking marijuana which would in turn lead to becoming hopelessly addicted to heroine which would cause you to have sex with men for money in order to be able to pay for the drugs which would reenforce the fact that you were, as they originally pointed out, indeed a homosexual. 

This was all very hard for a six-year-old to process. 

Nonetheless, I got the picture, or so I thought. At that time, growing up a Cuban immigrant in Newark, New Jersey, I didn't know any men with long hair. There was only one man who fit the bill and he was in a painting my grandmother had in her home. His name was Jesus Christ. Well, you can just imagine what happened when I innocently went to my parents and asked them if Jesus was a drug-addicted homosexual. 

Cubans, especially back then, were not known to spare the rod, or this case, the belt. That day was certainly no exception. As I ran screaming to my room, my little, red, ass cheeks aflame, I remember crying through my tears, "But he has long hair!" There's just so much that makes no sense when you're six. 

It made no more sense to me at seventeen, when I had made the bold choice to grow my hair hence becoming a degenerate and a homosexual in the eyes of my family. I think I was still stuck on the fact that these people worshipped the image of a man who in appearance was the very thing they told their children not to be. I may have even used the "Jesus had long hair" argument again at that point, but at seventeen I was smart enough to know when to run.  And that's what I did. And I never looked back.

I've been a degenerate ever since. In other words, I dress the way I please, I cut my hair or don't as I please. I'm a free thinker and I say what's on my mind. I believe in freedom and equality for all.  I stand for a woman's right to choose, I stand for couples of any and all persuasions to have the right to live, to love and to marry.  I believe, like the founders of this country, in the separation of church and state. I believe in the inalienable right of religious freedom to openly worship one God, many gods or none at all. And most importantly, I believe in democracy and freedom of speech and in the pursuit of happiness. I believe that if you're not hurting anyone in what you're doing, you should be free to do it. In other words, I'm a degenerate.

I'm over forty now and I still have trouble understanding the distinction between what makes a person an upstanding, respectable member of society and a degenerate. I've met suit-wearing accountants who molest children and I've met sado-masochists who are the kindest folks you could ever hope to meet (or beat). Frankly, some things just still don't add up. It bogs me down sometimes, it always has. Somedays, I try not to think too much about it.

It rained heavily today. I had one of those days where you just can't get your priorities straight. I have a long "to do" list but I keep forgetting to look at it. I guess I should add "Read your to-do list" to the top of it. Today, I actually made it a point to read it and see if there were things I could get done and scratch off of the list. 

This is what the list looked like:

June 30th, 2009:

Send Chi-chian books to Framelight pictures.  6 sets if possible

Book Canandian dates!

Book Canandian flights

Visit Canadian embassy for work permit.

Record Radiohead cover

Send Transrexia Mini-DV to Carnival of Darkness

Finish Deady Belt Design

Pay electric bill

Pay phone bill

Finish Deady custom toy for Mezco

Sign release form for Mezco

Make Yoka Deady toy design

Make DEADY Dunny toy design

Call Outland about show

Make Deady/Stitch production piece layout for Mindstyle

Work on Mallow design

cut wood for air conditioner...

That's just the top seventeen items. The list is a couple hundred items long. I looked at it good and hard and decided to "cut wood for air conditioner".  My fiance bought an air conditioner and asked if I'd install it. I did that last night but felt  it needed a wooden bar across the window to secure it and keep it from falling out the window and crushing some respectable person. It seemed like the task that involved the least amount of effort so I went with that. That's the kind of day I was having.  All I needed to do was to track down my electric saw. If it wasn't in our apartment, then it might be at The School of Visual Arts and if it wasn't there, it might be at my place downtown.

Several hours later, I had torn apart all three places and still hadn't found my saw. I finally stubbled upon a handsaw in my apartment downtown and settled for that. I went outside. It was a veritable deluge. The day was gone, the weather was miserable and my mind was just as cloudy. Sometimes, on days like this, you just have to let yourself give up. You just have to cut your losses. And that's what I did.

I went to a cafe on first avenue and tenth street for a latte and a tartine; that's a grilled baguette with butter and jam for those of you not named after a dead, French philosopher. I sat down and while I waited for my meal, I started to draw my little, evil teddy bear, Deady on some scrap paper. There was a couple sitting to my left. They were speaking loudly and excitedly. The man, I divined, was an author of note. He was white-haired and retired. The woman across from him was probably in her thirties or forties. However, obviously a devotee of his writing, she behaved no differently than a teenage fan girl, bubbly and giddy, laughing at anything he said that was mildly amusing. She clearly wished to impress him. She rattled off a list of her accolades including a fancy fellowship she had won, what ivy league school she had attended and dropped the names of successful people they were mutually acquainted with and she prodded him to speak at her book club. And she mentioned several times that she was newly divorced. He in turn seemed pleased to be getting such enthusiastic attention from a younger woman. And who could blame him. They were both upstanding, respectable citizens as far as I could tell.

The subject of the conversation turned to an acquaintance of theirs who was an accomplished writer for the New York Times. "Oh, he's such a fascist!" said the woman. "We were talking the other day and he was siding with George Bush, saying that he agreed with the Patriot Act."

"Yes, I know exactly what you mean," said the man. "The Times has such a reputation for being left-leaning that I think he uses that as a shield. He figures that as long as he works there, his intentions won't be in question and he's free to spew this fascist rhetoric. Just the other day I was saying to him that under President Bush, we've all had our civil liberties slowly eroded away. After nine-eleven, everything changed. Nine-eleven was our Riechstag, you know. After the Reichstag building was burned down in Berlin in 1933, Hitler was able to suspend the civil liberties of the Germany people under the guise that it would help them hunt down enemies of the state. Bush used nine-eleven for the same purpose. 'What do you call a country that has no habeas corpus?' I asked him. ' where you can arrest a person without probable cause or due process, where you can wire-tap phones without a warrant? I call it a fascist state!' That's what I said to him."

It brought to mind a quote by one of my favorite long-haired degenerates, Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safetly."

These two people were both in the arts and had a passion for freedom. "These are my kind of people", I thought. But then the conversation took a strange turn. The woman had been called for jury duty and they began to joyfully exchange stories about how they've weaseled out of doing jury duty in the past. 

"Oh, I just get my psychiatrist to write me a note," said the man, " I mean, who wants an unstable person in the jury pool, am I right?" and they laughed. 

I honestly wanted to turn to them and yell, "How can you condemn fascism and in the same breath express how unwilling you are to do the things that keep this country a democracy?" (But I couldn't do that because eaves dropping is rude. So instead I would do the polite thing. I would run home later and blog about it behind their backs.)

Then it got worse. Apparently her efforts to get out of it failed and she had apparently done a month of grand juror duty. She was explaining to him what it was, and she clearly didn't know! She had just spent a whole month there, no doubt grumbling the entire time, and all along she thought she was sitting on trials deliberating on the innocence or guilt of suspects. That's not what the grand jury does. It only deliberates on whether or not there is enough evidence for a case to go to trail. I should know. I served. And it was eye-opening.

Sadly, what I learned was that a lot of "respecatable" citizens love to waive a flag. They love to go on and on about freedom and democracy and the American way, but the second you ask someone to exercise their right to be part of the democratic system, the second you ask someone to do their duty to uphold the values this country was built on, the complaining begins and the excuses start up. And it's not a class thing, it's across the board. When I was called for grand jury duty, which lasted a month, I sat between a very large, black woman who was making minimum wage working at McDonald's and a young, white lady who was in grad school. And I swear to God it was like a contest to see who had better things to do than be in the jury box. Everyday for a month I got to hear that large, black lady say things like, "Ah don needa be heah! I gots lottsa things tadoo!" and the uptight, white girl on the other side of me bitching into her cellphone such pearls as "I'm like, totally missing my classes right now. Like... totally!" These were just two of the twenty or so people in there and believe me when I say that the rest were not much better. Everyone loves democracy but no one actually wants to be part of it. Believe me, I understand what an inconvenience it is to be away from work for a whole month. I'm self employed. If I don't work, no one is going to pay my rent for me. But if no one in their right mind wants to do jury duty, then think about who is going to be in that box making the decisions that keep this country free. It's a scary thought.

Eventually, there won't be a grand jury. Eventually cases will simply go to trial whether there is enough evidence or not. And when it goes to trial there won't be a jury there to deliberate. Eventually, the government will let the people have their way. It will stop asking them to participate. And the people will be thrilled. They can go to their jobs at McDonald's or go to their classes at Columbia and they will be ecstatic to never be bothered again by jury duty. And when that day comes, at the risk of revealing myself for the Star Wars fan that I am, Padme Amidala will be there in the wings. And she will say, "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause."

Respectable people never cease to befuddle and confuse me. Here's a little experiment you can do on your own to get a taste of just how weird and contradictory "normal" people are. Strike up a conversation with someone you think of as an upstanding, law abiding citizen, exactly the kind of person you could imagine lambasting a junkie or recreational drug user.  Rub your jaw and say, "sorry, I just got my wisdom teeth taken out." I can almost guarantee you that nine out of ten respectable citizens will say something like, "did they give you the good drugs?"  It is absolutely mind blowing! I found this out when I had mine taken out. I swear I had everyone from school teachers to parents to police officers say this to me. What gives? If you smoke one joint, you are fit for prison but if you are completely off your tits on painkillers it's okey dokey? I know people who are on a six-percacets-a-day regimen who don't see a damn thing wrong with it. Why? Because they are prescribed by a physician. And what's a physician? That's right! A respectable, upstanding citizen! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

What the hell? Flag waving patriots trying to dodge jury duty, teetotalers jonesing for a visit to the dentist? It's all so confusing!

I really don't know what to make of it all, but I'm working on it. I know that someday soon I will have a way to explain why it is that some respectable people are such degenerates and why some degenerates are some of the most lovely and respectful people I've ever met. 

Matt Johnson of the band The The says something in his song "Armageddon Days Are Here Again" that I think we all know is true of a certain long-haired gentleman.  And that is,  "if the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today, he'd be gunned down cold by the C.I.A."  Sad, but true.

Since so many "respectable people" live their lives (or at least believe they live their lives) by the words of Jesus Christ, I will end with these wise words of His,

"The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart."

And I guess therein lies the simplicity of it, really. Actions speak louder than words. The rest, is all a facade and it don't make a damn bit of difference what your hair looks like.

V

The Robots are Winning

The Robots are Winning

(A little tale about fatherhood and video games and the end of humanity)

A few years ago, when my son was about seven-years old, maybe eight. I gave him a little bit of a scare. I had picked him up at school and was taking him to karate and all the way there he was rambling about this video game that he loves and that video game that he loves. Like any attentive father I listened and I shook my head a lot and I tried to come up with questions about something I knew nothing about. But everyone has their limits and finally after a solid hour or two of chatter about video games, I finally reached my limit. I turned to him and said, "Okay. That's enough about video games for now. I want to know about you. How was your day? How was school? What did you do there today?"

He looked at me blankly. "Nothing." he replied. 

I'd honestly love to know what these kids do at school all day that when you ask them, they always say, "Nothing". If they're really doing nothing, then I'd really like my thirty thousand dollars back. Just think of how much rum that could buy. The truth is that he didn't  do "nothing" at school. The truth is that he did nothing involving video games.

We stopped at a pizzeria on sixth avenue and twenty second for a slice. 

Within a minute or two he was back at it, ranting and raving about what race he was on World of Warcraft and who he conquered in Civilization, who he "force-pushed" in Knights of the Old Republic and he described in vivid detail his goriest kill in Gears of War. "That does it!"

I took him firmly by his wrist and pulled him out of the pizzeria and onto the sidewalk, for effect. I held out my pointer finger to signify how important what I was about to say was and I shook it menacingly towards him. 

"Listen," I said. He looked up at me a bit aghast by the whole affair. I stood hunching down to look into his eyes and he was rigid and motionless as hundreds of New Yorkers rushed to and fro around us. And I began.

"In your lifetime, there is going to be a war between the humans and the robots. And you need to decide right now what side you are on." His eyes widened. 

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now," I insisted. "Are you going to be a slave of the robots or are you going to be a master of robots?" 

He was speechless. I pulled out my cell phone and I flipped it open. "See this,?" I said. He shook his head. "This," I continued,  "is a robot."

Now his expression changed and he looked incredulous. "It is," I insisted. "When I want to make a call, I don't hit a bunch of numbers like I used to in the old days. I just scroll down to your name or your mother's name or my friend's name and I click on it. And this little robot makes the call for me. Once upon a time I used to have dozens of seven-digit phone numbers in my head. If I wanted to call my mother or your mother or the studio where I worked, I simply typed in the number by memory. But now? Every year that goes by, I know fewer and fewer numbers. Why? Because I don't have to remember them anymore. This little robot remembers them for me. And because of that, I'm dumber than I used to be. I'm weaker than I used to be and I rely on robots now to do a lot of things I used to be able to do for myself. This little robot now knows all of the phone numbers of my family and friends and colleagues and I have to hope that he will give them to me when I need them. Remember when those planes crashed into the World Trade Center? Cell phones stopped working. Back then I could still remember your mother's phone number so I ran to a pay phone to call and make sure you were both okay. Eventually I won't be able to do that. Eventually I'll not be able to remember any phone numbers at all. I won't be able to call for help. None of us will. And the robots will have won."

My son  grew up with these kinds of crazy, bizarre outbursts from me so it only took him about thirty seconds to gather his thoughts on the matter.  He looked at me very matter of factly and said, "I'm going to be a master of robots."

"Good!" I said firmly.

"And I'm going to enslave them and force them to make video games for me to play."  

It's pointless to argue with the boy, really.

That was several years ago. I'm getting married this year. My fiance and I have already moved in together. I was recently at Home Depot buying paint for our apartment. When I got to the check out line I found that they had installed a "Self Checkout Counter". I was intrigued, but not enough to use it. Nonetheless, an employee of the store came over to encourage me. She didn't say much. This chubby, Hispanic lady waved me over with the least amount of enthusiasm possible and told me in as few words as she could that she would show me how to use it. I wondered if she knew that by doing so, she was slitting her own throat.  No doubt she used to be one of the tellers and once enough people knew how to check themselves out, she'd be out of a job completely. 

She showed me how to scan the barcode. She showed me where the cash goes into the machine. And when it dispensed the correct change in both bills and coins I was truly amazed. As I was walking out I said to her, "This thing is amazing! Eventually we'll be able to get rid of those pesky humans entirely."

Her half-hearted smile dissipated leaving her looking simply bewildered. 

My son is now eleven. His love for video games has waned. He now favors the miniatures game Warhammer 40,000.  I support this hobby as it involves artistry and creativity and doing things with ones hands like painting and building.  The other day, we were at his place. We were going to have dinner with my fiance in an hour so he had a little time to get some Space Marines painted. I helped by gluing a giant, robotic arm onto a Dreadnaught.  My phone beeped. I had forgotten to plug it in the night before and it was running out of batteries.  I picked it up to call my fiance and it took it's last breath and expired.  "No worries, " I thought, "I'll call her on the land line."

And then it hit me. I couldn't remember her phone number. I mean, I knew it once. It's got a five in it and a seven and a couple of ones and I think and eight and maybe a four. I had made a point of memorizing it years ago when we first started dating, but over time I guess I stopped thinking about it and just pushed the little button on my phone that said, "Jayme".  I tried every combination of the numbers I knew were in it, but none were the right one.  And then I just had to accept it...

...the robots are winning.