another super Sunday: the American Male 1.1

A foul-odored creature shuffles forth from his den. Defining disheveled with every step. An odd stench of soured grain and dried spittle clings to the air around him. An odd stench whose source is advertised by the red-round imprint displayed proudly on the beast’s forehead. An imprint that would give a forensic artist ample inspiration to reconstruct the 12 oz. aluminum can that undoubtedly did the damage. A patchy pelt achieves nothing in its halfhearted attempt to cover its wearer’s quivering paunch.

Typically this species can be observed in his Sunday’s Best: a stained, ill-fitting pair of boxer shorts whose waistband slips exhaustedly down the ample, shapeless frame that has demoralized what was once a spry and resilient example of elastic engineering. The specific specimen being observed is undoubtedly a sophisticate amongst his breed: an immense terrycloth robe lopsidedly drapes his shoulders and sways jauntily about his black-stockinged feet.

The creature seeks a newspaper, and no unkempt personal appearance can hope to restrain him from venturing out into the wilds of his front porch. Once back inside, our subject takes on a squirrel-like tenacity, cleverly peeling away the refuse of protective packaging ensuring the sanctity of the sought-after Sports Page. A bastion of journalistic excellence, the Sports Page guarantees to contain the same information as the 3 hours of Sportscenter each of its readers will have consumed the night before.

It seems other creatures are now astir in different parts of the domicile. Groaning, the residents’ clawing exits from the state of slumber threaten to disturb the sporting feast. Not to worry, for years of shirking familial responsibilities have steeled our creature to unwanted impositions—to the point that he can disable his sense of hearing seemingly at will. After finishing the morning’s literary exploits, calculated indifference ensures fatherly duties will intrude on the day for at most fifteen minutes. Then the Pregame Show initiates a 10 hour engorgement of all things gridiron.


This is the first in a series of similar pieces I've sketched out. I would much appreciate your feedback and comments. Enjoy

our country is mad at your country

or: my dad could beat up your dad, et al.

Recently, influential countries have been exerting their power to promote change in the world. Social injustice and international unrest abounds, but now major players on the global stage are standing up to ensure the righting of these wrongs and conquest of these evils. Iran remains embroiled in protests and violence stemming from alleged election improprieties. North Korea continues a foreign policy strategy of intimidation and calculated posturing. Countries, such as the United States, and collective governing bodies, including the United Nations and the G8, achieved this monumental advance by...expressing their displeasure?

Several stories stuck out within the past week describing the responses of supposedly powerful and influential countries to other nations' aggressively antagonistic or repressive actions. An emergency meeting--followed by the customary protracted debate--of the U.N. Security Council resulted in promises for sterner sanctions against North Korea and an 'Angry Letter' detailing the unhappiness caused to the U.N. by Korean missile testing and nuclear threats. Similarly, the United States recently strengthened its reputation as global watchdog with regards to Iran President Ahmadinejad's repressive and reactionary handling of post-election protests. President Obama's condemnation of the developing situation in Iran precedes the G8's expected "statement to deplore post-election violence". Apparently world leaders have yet to find an alternative to passing a nasty note--a practice most people give up as childish and ineffective sometime during middle school. How do broadcast journalists report on such stories and manage to maintain a straight face? What could possibly be the purpose of putting such dross on paper or having it clog up the newly analog-free airwaves? No angry letter will change course of an offending country's actions. More likely these proclaimations purpose to pacify politicians' consituencies and the citizens of the nations that issue these letters in the first place. But even this plan seems irreparably flawed. It's doubtful whether any G8 nation's citizens would have have thought their nations approved a free-speech infringement and voting inequity before the issuance of their official disapproval. Likewise, it probably did not require an official U.N. statement to clue in most people in the U.S. and elsewhere that lots of countries are not greatly pleased by North Korea's nuclear showmanship. The U.N., the G8 and the United States all remained consistent by achieving nothing of actual consequence in their reactions to current events in Iran and North Korea. Instead of paying international postage rates, maybe organizations and governements should find pen pals that are actually interested in hearing from them. A quick perusal of my local paper yields a promising "SWF, 40+, looking for special someone". The U.N.'s officially important time would be better served by sending her a letter, angry or otherwise.

a horizon comes to you

every day the present slips away,

the past recedes further into the distance

Only the future gets closer, ever closer

moment by moment

can you feel it.
can you wait?

Gas-Guzzler

picture in picture

eight talking heads

four tickers

.quicker.

Heart quickens, blood thickens [patches pavement]

evening news,

a day in revue.

Rats? Rats! Rats...

Power went out for our computers, phones and other communications devices for a while at work today. Took our internet a while to return, so Microsoft Paint was about all I had to work with. This is my representation of what my technical expertise led me to conclude had caused the outage.

Paperwork's Antithesis

Is paper shredding the logical antithesis to paperwork? 9 hours of cleaning out files yesterday followed by 2 hours of shredding today led me to pose this question.

Certainly each piece of paper I selected for destruction was, at one time, deemed important. Each sheet represented a job, done years ago. Communication, vital and necessary at one point; now incriminating, outdated, irrelevant or space-taking. Research, personal information, money, time--lots of time. Paper that once determined whether or not humans received healthcare, benefits, promotions. Now hoping only to become celebratory confetti or perhaps live out it's days of carbon-decay compressed into building material with millions of its closest friends. Seems the shredder acts perfectly as an agent of entropy, illustrating the physical principle of [paper]work degenerating into chaos. Momentary importance succombs to a final flurry of incoherence, emerging as senseless chaffe. What if we were to consider what the products of our 'todays' will be fit for in five years?


outrageously,

J. Luke

The Airports

Went to see Tommy, the musical based on The Who's album and movie of the same name, at the Rep last night. The show rocked (& opera-ed, I guess), but the best part of the night came on the way home. Michael and I mutually made a life-changing decision...

We will now be starting a band called the Airports. Naturally, with a name like this, we will singlehandedly revive the hair metal genre. This is the synopsis of our career, as told from the future:

• Takeoff--our debut album rockets us to the top of the charts. Meteoric rise puts us in the company of both N*SYNC and the Wright brothers.Our high-flying jams and sky-high performances quickly propel the band to cruising altitude. Superstardom, E.T.A.: now.
• Crash & Burn--met with harsh criticism, our sophmore-slump offering never really made its way out of the gate.
• Turbulence--roughly received by music elite, but hailed by headbanging concert-goers. Album cover warns of potential storms ahead, so you know you're in for a wild ride.
• Descent/Landing--This is the point when you realize we've finally arrived.
• Taxi--we were stuck in a holding pattern for a while, but this album takes the seatbelt warning light off our career and carries us safely to the jetway.
• "Final Destination"--unflappable ballad that slingshots our reunion tour and garners us a window seat on the return to the stratosphere.

effervescently,

J. Luke

The Allure of the Ascetic Aesthete

I'll probably write more on this later, but let me know what you think about it so far:



Van Gogh, foregoing food to afford oils and tobacco, choosing to paint in privation. Dickens’ artistically evocative ragamuffins. Bone-weary fingers, sallow-eyed, slack-jawed. Scratching out verse after wrenching verse by ubiquitous dullflickering candle. The tortured creative mind, appreciated only in death, living well only posthumously. Always in appositional opposition to their contemporary and colloquial ‘sellouts.’

Need the artist starve to death? Is wizening only achieved through withering? Must the lifetaking knife be rusted, blunted—requiring multiple brushstrokes to finish its gruesome gouache? Or do we merely hang this downtrodden story as a conventionalized backdrop to creativity, constructing separation to excuse and assuage the consciences of those who choose to never create?

Summer Project

Making my own version of this contrast collar and placket shirt will be one of my first projects this summer. And making the face in this picture will not be my second.

(Pic: Marc Jacobs Fall 09, from NYTimes)

working stiff

M.B.A., P.h.D., I.O.U.

clitsch. schling.

Mechanized. Petrified.

A tree ungrown, undead for a thousand years.

Sedentary.Caged.

Staged. Aged. Age-ed.

Ageless, aimless,

less less, less.

Processes: reality-disconnected-action.

Causes: effect-robbed.

Effect, responsibility: absolved.

Each human a blip

On [un]Nature's assembly line.

Value-added DNA.

And making a living wastes a life away.