Neo

     Modern man/woman is in a predicament unlike they’ve ever been in before. I refuse to call this the “travails of the information age” because before technological advances made information as readily available as watching the evening sunset, there was still the fact of the over-abundance of image in need of processing and this feat has been no small one by any means.

      What I mean by being in an altogether new predicament comes from my belief that not only are we being given information, but the competitive human spirit is tying the assimilation of that information into our economic well-being.  The onslaught of the computer age has left most people grateful, and yet perplexed, as to not only how to use its machines but what the meaning of these machines is.

      There is no easy answer to this quandary. Man has given himself a mechanical brain, a brain that disseminates information, if not in the same way, then in a way that mimics it. This predicament, some would say, is no predicament, but a joy, a way to make it so that our own brains do not need to work harder than it has to.

      Unfortunately, our brains are also our minds and our minds continually seek, but irrationally. It does not seek to know like a computer, but to feel, to experience.

      The artist is an example of both the victim and victor over the chronological mindset of computers and the almost virile power that this heightened mechanical process can inject into the previously virgin soul.

      We are supple beings. We meld into the latest thing as if we were born ready to fall into its arms even if when we were born it had not yet existed. The utilitarian power of computers is undeniable, but can we really ask ourselves to strive towards a purely rational mode of thought when perhaps the creators of this world, its leaders, mentors, sages were among some of the most psychedelic of minds?

      Can we ask the two worlds to merge in Peoria?

      But the worlds are merging. We are becoming softened to the realities and being given a chance to say either “yes” or “no” to them via the images of internet and t.v. We have given ourselves over to the wiser powers. Those of us who want money or prestige attempt to break into the inside circle of software-creating hives where they will be accepted by a fearless leader whose original vision came anywhere and everywhere but from a computer.

     In a way we accept the “trips” that others have taken at the expense of taking our own. Timothy Leary understood the nature of computers, saying in essence that it is the new high for the coming millennium.

      But there is something false in it. Just as a word cannot be what it connotes, we, too, cannot be where we “go.” In fact, we go nowhere except into our own minds.

     True, the computer we use is our tool, where images are given to us and we grasp or duck them. The accepted images cling to us like burrs to our socks. The dreaded ones pass on only to be accepted by somebody else. When we are thus so well fed then how can we turn away from our feeder, the giver, the mother?       

There is no straight line walked simply in this world unless it is away from something. That which we accept needs be taken deeply into the soul.

     A Buddhist, when he sits, often does so facing a blank wall. A modern man needs the pictures. The artist needs the rounding out of the pictures in a search for meaning or structure.

     The philosopher needs to turn off the screen.

     I use a computer to write. I have a screenplay writing program, a graphic-design program and I have been an avid user of e-mail. This is not about using the computer. I’ve watched children stare in amazement at educational programs. I do not want to rid the world of a scourge which is not a scourge.

      My aim is to perhaps make one person who needs to, consider the nature of their modern existence. Perhaps my first concern is only for myself. When my faculties of discernment become too thinned and I insist on placing more and more food on my plate as if to devour all of the food in the world in the shortest amount of time will make me healthy, happy, wise and strong, then I am fooling myself.

      The mis-education in our society is not that we learn too little, but that we learn too much. We don’t take the time to sift through what we’ve already got and allow the natural connections to unfold in a manner that we may see.

      I don’t blame our educational system per se, for we only want what everybody else wants, teachers included, that is, to give to children the necessary tools that they need to live productive and happy lives.

     But there are too many accidents. Too many deaths. Too much violence. Too little acceptance for difference. Too much hate stemming from too much pain. There is no one panacea for our societal ills. There is no one answer. We are ill-equipped to ask the proper questions whenever two or more are gathered. One mind believes in reality as such and the other believes in a different world. All that we can ask is that “we get along” as Rodney King so poetically and simply stated it.

     We need to unplug our worlds at times and ironically enough, after we do, we then need to plug back in and take a few more strides towards the ever flowing stream of technology, political kindness which some would perhaps call an oxymoron and the rosebud, never to be picked mind you, of an infant dream where morality is as the whirlpool and our greatest feat is not to dive, but to hold sacred without knowing fully or even expecting to in this life, its answer blurred yet glistening like a diamond in a stream.

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Published in: on September 26, 2022 at 10:10 pm  Leave a Comment  
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the soul

The soul by fargo kantrowitz

We all have a soul. Some of our souls are rotten. We can’t see out of our own eyes. Why are they rotten? Because we are afraid to see out of our own eyes. Why? Because if we see we see or expect to see something horrible. We were disappointed somewhere along the way by something.

 There is ultimately no way to stop not just the next word but the next place to go, the next step in the feeling of your soul and when times get hard, sometimes one’s soul clenches down underneath the flesh of the person’s body and sits there while their body fights for them and sometimes ends for them. Then what?

 We like to think that the soul is forever. But there is no going there where the answer is. Past mistakes make people want to live better, to make them want to send out their best stuff to the best people, all of the time. But there is pain and confusion and their rotten souls, which aren’t really rotten, it’s the person’s life that is rotten and that can be changed or made worse depending on numerous soulical and physical and social things.

The body clamps down hard on the soul against the world.  That’s where you see people and you think that they are rotten. That they have rotten souls. But they don’t. Their soul is hidden. It is just that they are afraid and they automatically close up like clams. People always know when someone else is going through a bad trip and they pretty much just stay out of their way. Everybody has some memory that makes them close down and if they don’t, which some might not, they are lucky beings. I wish I was beautiful said the Counting Crows.

 Allow yourself to be. And you will start to become. Even if you are flawed. If your soul seems sometimes rotten. Allow yourself to be. With your words which are your actions. Allow yourself to be by being the best person that you can be and fixing yourself where at least you know for sure that you can be fixed and do it.

You’re going to get muscular if you actually do exercise and what they say is actually true that the better you feel the happier that you are. Elementary science. Believe in science. Believe in you, your soul, even when you are in your body. Even when you are in and of your soul in your body.

As you are aware that you are a spiritual being in a physical clamshell and sometimes people who seemingly have bad souls are just like those clams too, they just shut down quick and sometimes it hurts others or maybe you are the predator, oh, yes, that’s right, you are the predator, oh yeah, you forgot. Sometimes life isn’t fair.

This is when the world rises up without you and you float down further and further from enlightenment and, yet, it is all untrue. You have been gaslit you have been made to think that you are CrAzzY! Wonderful way to steal. That’s why I’m poor actually.

The world is alright today, today the world is alright. If the world weren’t alright then what would be the point? Why would we want to be here? Oh. Because we must go on. It is true! We must go on, but must we? Could we stop? This is something I find most people don’t want to talk about because they don’t know about the extent of the mystery of existence and you just confuse them about everything. Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. Stay happy. But the soul is real.

But what if it weren’t. What if the soul was nothing at all. Was a dump truck on the way to figurativeville. Everything made up. In fact, we are various glands and brain tissue and organ that makes us who we are. Hey bob hows the hypocampus going today? Pretty good, Stan, how’s the amagydala? Makes you feel like a giraffe sort of, sort of stilted and stuck. So, we have souls. Well, well, well, welcome to the party.

Now you may not want this soul but you got it and how do you know you got it, why, you got it because you know you got it. Simple. I’m am because I know I am. What does to know mean then? To, uh, know that you know that you know. But what if you forget the question? Uh. Cut!

We exist. We do. We actually exist. And we all process it differently and we all get stuck and we all do our lives in the exact opposite of how we wish we were doing our lives and we’re just plain stuck. But don’t fret. For 14.95…you see, we all want simple solutions. We all want to just go home. There is a world of wonder and a world of glee and we just want to go there. Just want to be free.

So, we know, but we don’t do. We are clamshells all waiting to be clammed up. Quick. Some of ‘em even carry guns out there in these here United States. I say here because I know that people with country accents are proud of it. So, hail! Heck. Am I doing it right? Well, nobody knows.

There are fewer of us in the world, but we exist too. The ones who are silently watching on from the sidelines, making jokes to ourselves to amuse ourselves, waiting for more quiet or more noise, always waiting, silent, nice, respectable.

But we don’t know our task in this life. We hover over what is real and don’t know where to enter. So we see and we feel and we drift and we hide and we get lost and we get found and we get scared and we get anxious and we fear so we clam up.

And sometimes others fall off our sides. We are Gods in that way, psychologically speaking, we are gods in that we are giant clams on which civilizations build cultures and when we clam up we shake some off our sides. Some want to shake everything, psychologically clamlike off their sides, like anti-social/pro savvy win at all costs business people.

We must recognize the power that we have when we consider our own needs first. Yes, we can go off in our own direction, but we cannot sacrifice others to get there, to our safe space, our Gary Vaynerchuck’s New York Jets or Elon Musk’s little home on Mars.

If you’re scared all of the time you can’t do the things that you want to do and when people seem like they have rotten souls it is because they are chasing their dreams and being chased by their dreams too and the results of their attempts: family (payments) haunt them. They must make money! But remember that person making money is the outside you. You are hunkered down for the ride on that one. You like to think you steer the ship, but you’re being bumped around just like every emotion in this big clunker’s head. He won’t listen to you.

Do you expect the monster rotten souled person he’s talking to to listen to you? Don’t be daft. You are you your soul, your “cool guy or gal.” But you don’t know that. You’re not stuffing your face and worrying about money and wondering if your life is over, you’re all washed up. Do you stink? But you? You are sitting there in your essence picking at grapes upon red plush pillows and wondering when you’re going to have a good view again. Will this person ever calm down? Seems like you’re in it for the long haul. But you’re always nice. Get it? You. Are always nice. It is the wrapping around you that gets confused.

 True, you control the wrapping to some degree by keeping its view steady, making it know that you are there just like a stupid dog its master. But when stuff goes down, well, hold on to your grapes. What to do? What was the question again? Do you have a rotten soul. Can your soul be rotten. No. But your life can be rotten and drive you to doing things with rotten consequences hence the idea of a rotten soul can be transferred back to you in others opinions of you.

For all intents and purposes, socially, you have a rotten soul because the anger of being a victim of a hasty, unthought out, malevolent action does not allow the victim to overcome their anger very quickly and when you secretly hate somebody you hate everything about them, especially their damned soul. We try to be “Christians” in that forgiveness is required, but we can’t get over it. We were wronged and somebody with a rotten soul did it to us. We can’t shake the image. Perhaps with time people learn how to forgive, truly forgive. I imagine when they do they will feel of great relief that the anger has truly been washed away. They no longer care, truly care. They are free.

But life goes on. You forget what you were going to say. We are not always connected with our consciousness. We are blind. This is where the questions come. We are trying to come back into contact with ourselves. We realized that we have lost our way and that we need help and we seek out our true selves to find the way. Some may have become so cynical that they refuse help from themselves and that’s why we see all of these people with their heads in the sand these days.

We are kind. Don’t fear kindness because it leaves you vulnerable and you don’t want to cry out loud for everybody to see. Allow your kindness to overtake you, to enfold you, to embrace you. Say a kind word because of it and don’t feel ashamed. Kindness is not weakness that must be destroyed.

And when we recognize that we’ll all be alright. We will accept ourselves and feel free to come out of our clamshell. Then good things can happen again and hopefully we learned from our lesson that it isn’t fun to be mean because you think kindness is weakness. It all sounds like preaching, I know, but it isn’t. It’s for your own good. You can’t live in that clamshell forever. Think about it.

You like to think that you can come to an end on a subject like the soul, but you can’t. Your soul is immense and it never ends and when you think just know there will always be another thought. We fill our world with dreams that we paint in our minds 24 hours a day. After we are safe and taken care of then it is our turn to open our clamshells and enjoy the world all around us.

Published in: on June 28, 2021 at 4:34 pm  Leave a Comment  

What’s Happening?

There is a lot of stuff going on these days. Stuff. Can something actually happen? What does it mean to happen? If something happens what does it become, the thing that happened? An ongoing happening? A million consecutive and fluid happens? Anyway, I guess we’ll never really know whether or not something can happen. Anyway.

 

Okay, so people say “this is happening” as a joke. This is happening, Stephen… I get it now. Something that happens can take time. It must be some sort of strange sort of thing where time is mixed in with space and within that funnel is a happen, but it can be long, years maybe. Maybe there is a larger bit of space rather than just the moment that something happens. Maybe a happening can last thousands or even millions of years. It’s good to think of time like that…long. It releases you. The Hindus have calendars in the millions of years. Time. This too shall pass, they say, this too shall pass.

 

Mostly it’s darkness. Clouds whispering in winds cooly wrapping round vents in the waterless sea and falling. You see. You don’t see. You keep going. All that you can do is just survive. All that you can do to help yourself is stay alive. Rush.

 

But I know there is more than that. I know this. This world is not meant to be wasted and family should not fight and that goes for extended family which means everybody in America and the wider world. Everybody. Everybody love.

 

 

Published in: on June 20, 2020 at 9:05 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Of Psychonaughts and Perspicuity

We’re in the middle of something and then bam, wow, watch out! Here comes something totally random. Ooh, just around the corner a long word that makes no sense, a portmanteau word is what they call it. He wishes so that he could have made up the word portmanteau because it is the near perfect word, but alas especially after Joyce he knows he is just another psychonaught on the way to perspicuity. Ah, c’mon, man, you say. Perspicuity? Really? And then you laugh and you go on your way and say mommy did you see, he said perspicuity and you’ve got your brownie points and so you’re all over a cheeseburger or something whatever you do at the fargo kantrowitz’z literary campsite sort of thing and all that, but anyway, the moral of the story is this: the fklc delivers some of the finest (see I’m trying to illustrate it to you) writing per se in the world today. The fklc is proud to present a whole plethora of writing plethorianations that will tan your hide. Find out more. For $14.95 you too can make all the difference in the world. Suport the fargo kantrowitz’z literary campsites fund for cool words that will never, ever matter to anyone) or something ike that. Gaaaawd!

 

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Published in: on September 18, 2019 at 11:24 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Jai la Jai la Jai la and the hunmphs

Somebody told me to write something. Something. Anything. Something new. Something else. Write something. Something. Anything. Just write.

So, I decided that I would write something. Not look something up on the internet, but write something without any connection to the internet. That’s “research.”  Well, here I am back again. Now what? Cleaned up the yard. Wow. What now? Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah!

 

The world is alright today. Today the world is alright.

 

What do you want? What do you want? Then why do you want it? Why do you want it? What worlds are alright? What worlds are alright? Everyworld. Everyworld. Taste. Taste. The worlds we’re led into through taste. Taste. Taste in every respect of the word. Taste. Respect. Respect taste.  Your best works will be written by angels weeping for you. Your best works will be written by angels weeping for you. Wandering Jew. Deny literature! Rustic ways already as you reach for words and the hunmphs have already come. The hunmphs have already came. Wild wandering Jews words wandering forty days and forty nights. Wilding wandering Jews ways away into the sandy day. The hunmphs came. The hunmphs came.

 

Good, never thought I’d get out of that sentence. Sometimes it’s like sentences are chasing me and I’m looking back and they’re gaining on me and I keep running or, er uh, typing and when it stops I stand there breathing hard and suddenly there is this place, the sudden place and you are stopped and you don’t know where you are really or even hardly what you are but you stop and you look around and you think about why you’ve been running and you see the letter A standing there shaking his head like “ you shmuck” and he comes up and gives you all of the great things about the letter A that you’ve ever wanted to know and it’s cool and stuff, you know, coupons and samples and stuff and then B and there’s just so many of them and you don’t know where to put it, but you take their samples and some coupons for a few dollars off at a cool coffee bar or something and you go there and after it is all said and done and you’ve met the entire alphabet, you can then go use those letters for your own advantage, like you make money off of them and use them as tools and make things right with them and some people can really screw things up with them, but this is America (I hope) and all kinds of things and because you listened in school you make No money, but if you hadn’t and had just started working on engines and been a bad, non-caring student you could be having a nice big house and a wife and kids and four by fours and really cool things, but no, you listened in school and tried to “take it all in.” Thank God for a sense of humor to debug the reality of our modern education system. If you’re going to teach a kid English it’s important you’d better also tell him that man does not live on spirit alone either. Everybody needs a little dough. So, the “smart” ones, they make it to the top in law and government. We’re the ones left out so we’re trying to make the best of it. Because we’re good with words we lead the discussion about politics, religion, law, war and the difference between “right and wrong.”  But if only we had worked on our own engines! What if we hadn’t “learned” what “they” said was important. Maybe we wouldn’t be dreaming up all of these silly reasons to “fight.”  And I do use the word loosely. I would like to see some of these trumpeters of war in a fistfight. They would look silly, so, instead, they send a kid who thinks that since someone’s gotta do it it might as well be him because he is the “strongest” person around anyway and here goes and yeehaaaW….gunk. plerp.  I wanna go….hOme.

 

Right off, the paragraph size thing is off. Second, the words, the words, they aren’t clear. They’re scattered come on, man, wake up! Third, well, there is no third I guess, but if there was you’d…..well, anyway. I can’t let my anger get away from me. Jai La, Jai la, jai la.

 

 

Published in: on June 17, 2016 at 6:38 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Neville, Wilma and Charlie – Albert

Charlie stooped down to pick up a multi-colored pencil. Just then a bullet flew over his head. Right where his head would have been. A man stared at him holding the gun. He still pointed it at Charlie who simply looked up.

-Can I help you?

-You stole my Wilma!

-Your Wilma? What the hell is a Wilma?

-My wife!

-You must have me mistaken for someone else…

-No, you’re the guy.

-What’s his name?

-Who?

-The guy who stole your wife.

-I don’t know, but I know you’re it.

-How do you know that I stole your wife if you don’t even know his name? What if my name was Ron, but the guy who stole your wife’s name was Stan?

-I saw you coming out of that building.

-That’s my building.

-224 sound familiar?

-I’m 222.

-Do you know Esther?

-Esther?

-224.

-Mrs. Williams?

-Yes. That’s my sister. She seen you.

-Seen me?

-Yes. Seen you. She seen you going in and out of the apartment with my wife.

-How? From where?

-The laundry room.

-How do you know your wife and I hadn’t perhaps come to the same point in the same hallway at the same time and entered the two doors at the same time. They are right next to each other, and it looked like we entered the same room from the laundry room which is a good ways away down the hall, I might add.

-She said it was you.

-Were we in my apartment or Esther’s?

-Yours.

-Didn’t she go back and find your wife?
-She was gone. She was in your apartment with you.

-I see.

-Well, I guess you better shoot me, because that’s some pretty heavy evidence.

-I’m not going to shoot you, the gun just went off.

-Well, you almost shot me.

-I just wanted to scare you. I don’t want to go to jail.

-You don’t think there’s a charge against waving a gun in someone’s face even if you’re not planning on shooting them?

-I guess so, but I didn’t care.

-Because I’m cheating with your wife.

-Right.

-Well, why would you think she’s cheating on you?

-She doesn’t like me anymore.

-That doesn’t mean she’s cheating on you.

-I’m soft.

-Soft?

-Yeah, soft, weak, filled with fear, afraid I’m going to lose her, obsessed. Stupid, stupid!

-Don’t take it so hard. So, you’re soft. Everybody goes limp now and then. We can’t all be superman all the time and as for your relationship, maybe she chose you because she was having a fight with a mythical mother in the distant past or a father who hated her or something and realized that she got into a relationship with you because she was afraid of turkey or something.

-She ain’t afraid of turkey.

-I didn’t say that. What I mean is, what if she loves you, but she doesn’t love you the same way anymore, but she still loves you and you guys just need to figure out how you love each other as you both keep changing in this world. I’m sure you’re not a total shlep. I’m sure you’ve got some good qualities or she wouldn’t have married you in the first place, but I have to tell you, you’re blowing it with this gun bit and all.

-I’m sorry.

-It’s okay. Sheez! Will you at least put the thing in your pocket or something.

-Sure.

-Okay. Good. Well, now, have we got it established that I didn’t cheat with your wife?

-Yes.

-Good. Well, then. I’ve got to go. I could call the police, but I won’t because I can see that you have had a setback into insanity and I’ve had a few of those myself, not quite like you, but I’ve had them and I won’t call the police.

-Thanks.

-Well, I’ve got to go.

-Wait.

-What?

-What’s this?

-What? What?

-This picture.

-What is that. Give me that. Jeez, porn.

-Not porn. That’s you.

-Let me see.

-That’s me?  Are you sure.

-Positive.

-But he has red hair, reddish brown hair and my hair is black, dark brown.

-Same cut.

-But you can’t see half his face and that is definitely not my nose. A button. See?
-Close enough.

-I thought we’d established….

-Look, you talk a lot. I can respect that. But I know what I know and I know that you slept with my wife.

-But I thought you said…

-Forget what I said. That was to shut you up. Get the fear out of you. Now you got to pay.

-You are going to shoot me.

-Probably.
-Great.

Pause

-Oh well. Okay, I might as well fess up. I did it. I don’t know you’re wife’s name but if that’s her in that picture then I certainly must have enjoyed it. I think I’ll always remember our night together, the way that she weaved and bobbed for me and then insisted I take her laying down from behind…

-Wilma. I told you. Wilma.

-Then she said that she couldn’t stand it anymore and then I really let her have it…

-Fear…

-Fear. You’re filled with fear. Everything you do is filled with fear. From the way you hold that gun to the way you stand there looking at me right now. Fear. Fear fear fear fear fear. You’re filled with fear. I’ve never met your wife. Definitely never fucked her if I never met her, although I’ve heard such things have been attempted.

-You never met my wife…with your clothes on…

-You can’t learn can you? You don’t get it. I didn’t fuck your wife!

-Then who is that in that picture?

-Some guy fucking your wife.

-You!

-Who looks like me!

-Who is you!

-Who looks like me.

-Who is you.

(removes gun from pocket)

-Oh, so now you’re going to really do it aren’t you?

-I don’t know. You look like him.

-I’m not him.

-Esther saw you. Wilma was gone after.

-She wasn’t anywhere near me. She may have been near my apartment, but she’s never been in it.

-Charlie!

(Charlie turns)

-Charlie?

-Neville, what are you doing here?

-What are you doing here? And why are you calling this guy Charlie?

-Because he’s Charlie. God, Charlie, I missed you.

(She snuggles close into him)

-Excuse me!

-What!

-Who are you!

-Oh, God, Charlie, what?

-Wilma!

-Oh, God, Neville. I forgot for a second.

-Forgot what?

-God, I’m so sorry. I just forgot.

-But we’ve been married five years!

-I know.

-And why did you lie to me!

-I’m not lying to you! I’ve never seen this woman in my life except for in that picture.

-Charlie, just tell him.

-My name’s not Charlie!

-Charles.

-That either.

-Chuck?

-No.

-Oh, Neville…it’s you.

-You’re drunk!

-I was at Esther’s. How was that Charles?

-Great. I guess I’m Charlie after all. Good enough. I’ve got to go.

-Wait. I’m not going to shoot you. It wouldn’t be right and I don’t want to go to jail. But if I ever see you around her again I will do it and next time I won’t be kidding around.

-Great. Awesome. Groovy. I’ve got to go.

-Just a warning to you.

-Bye, Charlie.

-Bye, bye, “Wilma.” Bye “Neville.”

-Remember the warning.

-Roger that.

Charlie exits.

-So, Nev. We going to go home and make love?

-I don’t know. I don’t feel it anymore. You make me weak. I don’t feel strong. I feel full of…fear. Fear. That’s it. I am full of fear. I can’t do anything anymore.

-Why?

-I don’t know why. I don’t trust you or myself or something. I don’t trust that you love me anymore and maybe I’m seeing too much into things and you’re drunk and you’re not usually drunk and that guy and why did you just melt into him like that…

-I don’t know. I just did.

-That’s what I mean. You just did. You just did. And I’m weaker for it and fearful and cold and, I gotta go. C’mon.

-Okay, but I can’t go yet. You go. I’ve got to get my stuff at Esther’s. I’ll be right there. Make me a bath, okay?

-Alright. Okay. Be quick. I gotta go. I’m sick of this. Sick of this fear.

-Just go and make me the bath and it will be alright.

-Alright. Fear. Fear. All this fear.

Neville walks away. Wilma walks into the building when Charlie meets her.

-Christ, what a bastard. Almost killed me.

-Just kiss me and get me upstairs. We only got a few minutes this time.

-This is getting ridiculous.

-I know. But what are you going to do?

Published in: on May 19, 2016 at 5:30 pm  Leave a Comment  
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The Product

Dave, Jenny, Marta, Johnny, Peter, Brenner and Janey sit together in a storefront.

 

Dave

Okay. You, Brenner, you’ve got the existentialist shit, you know, the cloud of unknowing, we’re all going to die, but don’t worry be happy.

Brenner
Why do I have to be happy dying and you guys…

Peter
Because Peter will be handling that.

Brenner
You know I asked that before Peter even came along.

Peter
Look, Dave, I can give up hedonism. I could go with Epicurianism or something.

Dave
No, no, you’re covering hedonism. How the hell else are we going to…

Peter
Be bad?

Dave
Exactly. Look, some of the coolest cats in the world have tackled existentialism and come out okay: Sartre, Camus, Kierkegaard…

Brenner
I know, I know, okay.

Dave
Jenny, you’re the rationalist.

Jenny
Are there a lot of numbers?

Dave
Sometimes, but you can bring to it what you got.

Jenny
Can I make my beads?

Dave
Ask yourself.

Jenny
No.

Dave

Good. It’ll work then. Marta, you’ll be covering the darkest night thing, way beyond existentialism. This will make you ultra cool, though. Can you handle it?

Marta

I’m not sure how my mother will feel about Nihilism.

Dave
She’ll love it. Rather, don’t tell her about it. It will be okay.

Marta
Okay. I feel depressed.

Dave
Good. Johnny…

Johnny
I know. Idealism.

Dave
That’s right. It’s a sunny day. Everything is going to shit, but it’s a sunny day. We’re all going to be okay. The meteor isn’t going to hit. Cows will eventually talk to us and tell us that they like us.

Johnny
Do I have to smile.

Dave
Yes.

Johnny
I’m going to end up wearing a nametag a lot, aren’t I?

Dave
I’m afraid so, but we need you. We have to smile when Marta pipes in.

Johnny
Okay, I can see the importance in that.

Dave
What are we missing?

Jenny
What about Janey?

Dave
Janey, you’ve got all religious ecstatic motivation, got that? You got the ear of God, that sort of thing. Totally effulsive, mind blowing God exists type thing.

Janey
I feel like I’m getting bigger.

Dave
Don’t talk in tongues. At least not yet. This thing could blow out of control, but you will exist in this form. You know that you know that you know. Got it?

Janey
Hallowed be thy…

Dave
Keep it. Now. Everybody. Go!

They all sit silently not knowing what to say.

Dave:
Jenny?

Jenny:
Oh.

Jenny runs to the window and turns the open sign around. She returns and all sit once more in silence. Then the door opens. A man, Robert, walks in.

Robert:
Hello?

Dave:
Come in. Come in. How can we help you.

Robert:
I was walking around outside and I saw your sign.

Dave:
We have no sign.

Robert:
It says “open.”

Dave:
You’re right. We have a sign.

Marta:
We can’t really help you.

Robert:
Why not?

Johnny:
(stands) Of course we can help him. Come in. What’s your name?

Robert: Robert Mayhew.

Johnny:
(Shaking his hand) Gosh, it’s good to see you, Mr. Mayhew. Isn’t it wondrous how things work out? Here you are. Here we are? The world is out there. The world is in here. But, in here, (he points to his heart) all things are possible. Wouldn’t you agree?

Marta:
That is if you believe that this turning world is not a diseased soon to be corpse patiently awaiting self styled annihilation. You see, Mr. Mayhew, we are on a downward spiral and it’s going all the way down this time. Corruption, sin, evil ways produce enough ugly corroding acid to assure that this world, including the one in your heart, will not last the millennium. Have a nice day.

Robert:
Perhaps I should go.

Dave:
Go? No, how could you go? You came in, did you not? IN has nothing to do with out and…

Robert:
Just what do you do here?

They all just stare at him with blank looks.

Dave:
Do?

Robert:
Yes, do, what do you do here. Why am I here?

They all look at each other.

Brenner:
May I respond?

Robert:
Of course.

Brenner: Look, I can see you came in here looking for something. I’m afraid that you’re not going to find it. There’s too much to find. Ultimately, and I know because it is a universal thing, you’re probably looking for answers, meaning, maybe even “God,” universality, foreverness, whatever. Look, how do I say this…

Robert:

Do you have a product? Maybe I’ll take one. Sure. I’ll take one. Give me one of your product.

Silence again.

Brenner:
Okay…Look, as I was saying, maybe you came in here looking for something. Maybe a “product” or something. Something to hold on to. Something tangible that will let you look at your life and feel good inside, some lasting promise about something good, some sense, maybe, that this life is not the only life we’ve got.

Janey starts to speak, but stays quiet.

Now, Janey may have a different opinion on the matter and I can respect that, but in forming the business we, I think, and I don’t know how it could be refuted, it is evident that the product that you seek would not make you happy because attached to every product is the promise of that product’s demise. Do you see? You are really, I’m sorry, wasting your time here because, really, nothing lasts. But that’s okay! That’s okay!

Robert:
Then I guess I’ll go then.

Peter:
Wait!

Robert:
You have no business, you have no product, yet the product I would have purchased here had you had one would not have satisfied me anyway. So I guess I’ll go…

Peter:
Wait. Wait. You can’t take his word for it. You cast aside something that does not work, namely, buying a non-existent product and what do you have left? That’s right…a reason to totally party!

(Dave, Brenner and Peter break out in guttural laughter. Janey, Jenny, Johnny and Marta remain silent)

Robert:
Right. I gotta go.

Dave:
Wait. Wait. We’ve got something for you.

He scans the people in the room and then nods nervously to Janey.

Janey:

Thank you (relieved). Hello, Robert.

Robert:

Hello.

Janey:
Robert?

Robert:
Yes.

Janey:
I love you.

Dave:
There’s something. We’ll find it guys. We’ll find it. There’s gotta be a product somewhere that we have. Something.

Marta:
Prostitution is as good a way to go as any, I guess.

Janey: I love you with my width. I love you with my height. I love you with my morning. I love you with my night. I love you when all love seems withered. I love you if you don’t love yourself. Imagine a universe of holy love. By being here you are inside of this universe. Your soul floats on the starwagon hitched to eternity.

Marta:
Oh, Christ. You think, guys? You think? What are the odds…wait for it…

Janey: oh lalabadanallallapoalapolafolawalaoshkalasa…(speaking in tongues)

Marta: (singing) and we all go down together…

Dave:
Janey….Janey!

(Janey wakes up from her trance)

Janey:
Do you see, Robert? Perhaps you can call almighty universal Love the only “product” that you need. I can.

Peter: Here here, as long as you share it with your friends.

Marta: You holdin?

Peter: Hell yeah!

Peter goes for his stash, but notices the stern disapproving look of Jenny. Instead, he and Marta run offstage together.

Robert:
Why do I feel…

Jenny:
Confused?

Robert:
Yeah, confused. That’s it.

Jenny:
That’s normal. If you think of the amount of confusion that you deal with on a daily basis you will soon come to realize and see the threads that if you follow will lead you out of your confusion. Regardless of what some people think, there are things to know. The basic process of living is enough to keep your mind occupied happily throughout a typical day. You really don’t need much more than this: Life, Love and Happiness. But you’ve got to start somewhere. You’ve first got to get your ducks in a row. Make sure everything you do is going to get you somewhere. If you don’t you’re going to get stuck and then if what Janey says or anybody else is true then you will have come to it on your own. Just keep your eyes open, Robert.

Robert:
Miss…

Jenny:
Jenny.

Robert:
Jenny, you make sense. Can I ask you then, what exactly can I buy here?

Jenny looks at him with a blank stare in her eye.

Dave:
That’s not important right now, Robert. There is something to buy, I’m sure of it.

Peter and Marta return. Stoned.

Peter: Sure we’ve got something to buy.

Dave:
We’re selling, Peter.

Peter:
Selling now? Oh. We’ve got something to sell. Imagine it, Robert. Starting with a nice 1972 rieseling to compliment the Oyster Marmaduke in a slightly reversed onion and tangerine sauce. Beef Wellington and asparagus tips sautéed or braised, your choice, in an eastern Ethiopian frame of which I could speak all day followed by a port so influenced by the French that the Italians after years and years of trying finally outdid it. Of course I’m talking about Dell’callabrezia, oh 1982, possibly 1983, followed by hand rolled spliffs from seeds imported from Holland and grown in cat feces, I know, I know, it sounds horrible, but the high…

Marta:
I can attest to that.

Dave:
Robert, of course we aren’t selling drugs.

Robert:
You’re a restaurant then?

Dave:
No.

Robert:
He’s high, right?

Dave:
You got it.

Robert:
Then what? What! What am I doing here? I’ve gotta go.

Dave:
Wait!

Dave jumps up and does a quick dance number before sitting back down.

Dave:
You like? You like?

Robert says nothing.

Johnny:
God, Robert, it’s all right here! The future starts now as they say and the heights that you can climb if you only start when the world wants you to start! Instead of doing this or that, battling that thought against that thought and always spinning your wheels, just accept that life is Good. Got it! Life is there for you. It’s as high as the sky and this future does not need a nice meal or a good joint to make it a real fact as long as you embark. Take off! Go! Be with You and all things will come. Your loves will appear to you and the next step will always be followed by another and one day, one day, Robert, you will quite simply, be sitting on a cloud.

Marta:
Or in burning embers.

Janey:
And his Eyes will behold you and His demeanor will state to all that you are worthy for the entering of the light and once the light is shining upon you the world will bow to the goodness of your soul until you disappear into the light and all questions will have been answered. Nothing else will ever be needed again.

She closes her eyes and is about to speak in tongues again.

Dave:
Janey.

Janey opens her eyes, smiles, and acquiesces to the request not to speak in tongues.

Marta:
So, your sitting on a cloud, right? Robert, listen. So you’re sitting on a cloud and God comes up to you and sees you. You maybe masturbated earlier that day and maybe cursed your neighbor because your neighbor is brain dead and deserves to be cursed and then suddenly it’s like wham! Off you go. No more. Sayonara. No more high-rise cloud living for you. Down you go. Falling. Falling. Seven, eight, nine miles until you land flat on your back in the land of the doomed. It was nice to think that you could make it to the cloud planet but ultimately you’re just like the rest of us imperfect specimens avoiding points from a pitchfork and watching full time the type of things that got you in hell in the first place.

Brenner:
Hell is other people.

Marta:
Not for Robert it won’t be. For Robert it will be full time anguish. Gnashing of teeth. Ticks, electric shocks, abject fear, blackness, death fucking death fucking death. It’s not going to be nice.

Brenner:
Robert, at least you don’t have to believe in fairy tales while you’re here. We may not have a product.

Dave:
We have a product!

Brenner:
Okay, maybe we don’t know if we have a product.

Dave:
We have a product!

Jenny:
Well, technically, Dave, while we have a lot of desire to have a product we don’t really, as of this moment, anyway…

Dave:
Sssh!

Brenner:
Okay, we have a product, but right now…anyway, if you want to listen to Nihilist Nancy over there I can go get you a rope from the store right now and you can answer all of your questions yourself.

Janey:
Go on, Brenner, testify.

Brenner:
Or if you go to Saint Janey’s school of perpetual elation you’ll end up being as dumb as an ox. No, listen. There is a product, but it isn’t what you think. The product is…Now. Eat, drink and be merry la la la for tomorrow we die.

Peter:
That’s what I’m talkin’ about. But it’s a science, man. A goddamned science!

Marta:
I need a new rat.

Robert:
I see. I see. Well, thank you. I really must be going.

Dave:
Wait!

Dave jumps up and goes off stage. He comes back with a dirty rag.

Dave:
Here. Here it is. Here’s our product, Robert. Thank you for your patience with my salespeople. It’s a rather new staff that I’m still mostly training.

Robert:
You’re joking, right?

Dave:
No, no, not at all. This isn’t what you think it is.

Robert:
It’s not a rag with oil stains on it?

Dave:
No, not at all.

Johnny:
It is an emblem of all that you can be when you wipe clean your past and start anew.

Brenner:
It is a testimony to the fact that you will not be a victim to nothingness after you have asserted yourself into the truth about life, that you are born to die, but that shouldn’t put a damper on things now should it? You will still have this as soon as your personal assertion is made. There are really very few, if any, products like this one.

Janey:
It is what you will use to wipe the feet of the Universal One when your time comes. It is the flag of surrender that you will need more than anything else when all spiritual embodiment comes to compliment your hereafter. It is a valuable lifeline.

Marta:
It could sop up your blood when I kill you.

Dave:
Marta!

Marta:
Oh, never mind.

Jenny:
It’s a rag…

Dave gives her a stern look.

A very nice rag if you ask me.

Peter:
It’s a start, you see, when you harvest there needs to be a certain amount of moisture held within the soil and by placing this over the cat mixture essential nutrients will remain. This is how it is done in the casino districts of Somalia.

Dave:
There you have it. It’s only a dollar.

Robert:
You sold me. I’ll take it.

Dave hands Robert the rag.

Robert:
Thank you, Thank you. I’ve so wanted a rag just like this. Well, gotta be going. Appointment at four. Thanks again. Bye bye.

Robert exits. The group sits around and says nothing

Dave:
(to Marta, disgusted) I need a new rat…

Published in: on April 26, 2016 at 9:17 am  Leave a Comment  
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absurdity- king saint finnerty the festive

absurdity is when the bad guy wins and everybody then laughs at you, the bad guy’s nemesis, because they didn’t understand either.

absurdity is when nobody understands but you and you are actually right and not the standard fool they expect you to be.

the world is absurd when your idealism destroys you

absurdity is when the world insists that you stand in the wrong line

absurdity is the victory of moral wrong

absurdity has no patience for the elimination of the status quo

absurdity wouldn’t mind if you die

absurdity is insane and always right and earless

absurdity is brushed off as protocol

absurdity often is protocol

absurdity is mean

people accept absurdity to get what they want

absurdity says black may as well be white if that’s what everybody wants

absurdity is an easy ride for many, but not victimless

if we do not see absurdity as a powerful force then we will be its victim eventually

the law can prove that the absurd is not absurd which is just another example of absurdity

god, if loving, is the grand master of all absurdity

is absurdity pure evil? perhaps, but only if it creates casualties

absurdity is like a toxin that debilitates its victim. in this way it is used as a weapon since there is no way to respond to its brash, forceful assertion. it is the equivalent of its progenitor saying : my way or the highway, end of story. it’s a coverup most of the time, a ruse, a weapon closing off all debate because you are made to believe that you just don’t understand and will never understand because you are INEPT.

builders of absurd paradigms don’t believe what they are saying. they are simply building citadels of power that will not be contested. in this way thievery is made easy.

all it takes to create absurdity is to insist upon it

we all live within the strictures of absurdity

absurdity is most keenly felt by the highly moral

the fact that most of the paradigms we inhabit are actually games ruled by sensuality makes fools of even the smartest of us.

our many hungers as humans create many absurdities, flawed arguments based only on the fulfillment of that hunger instead of the fulfillment of a higher need benefitting more people. we dance in absurdity and swim in it.

that the strong gather everything and the weak nothing when the need hierarchy is exactly the other way around is an example of absurdity.

the victory of absurdity creates hopelessness

a sense of absurdity arrives with the end of eras in a person’s life. coping is needed. new vistas must be discovered. the vision must be reapportioned. reality must be heeded. new happiness must be found and it can be.

the fact that absurdity defeated you is what leads most to regret. regret is deep sadness.

gather here all ye who thought they knew and did know but were told they were in error – king saint finnerty the festive

Published in: on April 14, 2015 at 1:18 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Fine, Great – a short short story by Albert Jones

“(moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneynmoneymoneymoneymoneymoney) Fine, great, thanks for asking. How are you?”

Published in: on March 17, 2014 at 1:38 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Cars — Short Story (unpublished) – Albert

There are no hills really in Las Vegas just a lot of crazy people. The crazies go there from other places. Plius, short for Pliusen, a name given to him by a father who had discovered mushrooms in the 1960s in Denver, had a thing now against cars.
In Las Vegas there is no real society. There are just people in cars. The famous Las Vegas strip is not a society. It is a tourist destination. It is not walkable. It is there for tourists only. A local would never go unless for some special occasion. A native Las Vegan like Plius was left with the society of automobiles.
He himself drove a Chevy nova, 1988, just enough air conditioning, just enough new paint sensibility but shitty enough to evoke a sense of dread in girls who might look Plius’s way accidentally. Vegas girls are famous in Vegas for being slow, dim-witted whores who live for the big bucks. Everybody knows this in Vegas. Plius himself knew it not to be true having grown up there, but it may as well have been for all the interaction with the fairer sex that he had.
Plius lived in East Las Vegas. This is close to Henderson, old Henderson which became Green Valley and suddenly lost it’s reputation for being the trailer trash capital of the world. Green Valley was like Summerlin only older; new stucco, neon shopping malls. Wonderfully new apartments and condos and houses that only those who move here from elsewhere can afford. It is a wonderful world if you can get it, but Plius couldn’t get it, working at the institute that he worked at. The institute was quite silly. The Institute for Furthering of Consciousness also known as the farm. At the farm, a unique situation for Las Vegas, he was the guy who dumpster dove at the health food superstore to feed the retarded men and women who made didgeredoo’s for sale all over the nation. The farm had flowers, corn, pumpkins, beets, squash, peas, tomatoes and lettuce. It’s owner was a fat cow of a man named Rumply, Jude Rumply, of Michigan, whose father Tom had once killed a man with a butcher knife while working at a butcher shop. Accidentally, of course. He made seven dollars an hour, but didn’t know what else to do with his life. This was good enough. The world was a world of cars.
Plius pulled into Michaels, a craft store, because he had to make Jesus out of a sock for a friend’s play about nonsense. He got what he came for, a white pipe cleaner that he would turn into a halo. He would cut a little of his hair off and make the beard and glue blue glitter on for eyes. At the counter an old woman rang him up as he stared at a nicely shaped woman looking at baskets one aisle over. All of these women were married or if they weren’t were taken by someone or if not taken by someone reserved for someone destinywise who would definitely not be Plius. Because he knew this he never initiated conversation. But they were there. The tall vixen at the thrift store who dressed like a whore, but perused alone 25 cent novels in the middle of the day, the girl who ate at the college coffee house, old enough to be considered a woman, but more still a teenager. The only difference was that older men like Plius, 32, could stare and she couldn’t totally dismiss him as a pervert. By that age she’s supposed to know how to deal with it. The pair of budding young nightclub vixens who walked nose to back almost in fear of their sexuality which had grown way beyond any turning back point. All these women disappeared back into their cars, first exiting through store doors to disappear forever, only to be replaced by another. At this breakneck speed Plius felt he would drown in possibilities that weren’t possible. Something would have to change. He would have to stop being shy or something.
The sun blinded his eyes as he exited Michaels so he put on the sunglasses he had hanging from his shirt. He walked across the driving path to his Nova. The car stank of old car stink and he threw the little bag on to the seat next to him. He cranked her over and pulled back, turning down the radio that he had left blaring when he’d gotten out of the car. The Cars were playing. Candy-O. A treat, a rarity for this particular Cars to be playing, almost as good as if All Mixed Up had been playing which was an obscure cut from that record. This put him out there, which was really in there which was nowhere really, back into traffic, back into the endless line of cars in the budding heat. Then the drive.
There was no desire to go anywhere, but go somewhere he must, back to the farm where the workers were all working and he had a little room and a day off where he could make Jesus. When he got there nobody was around. He parked the car in the parking lot. The gate latch was unlocked and he opened it and went to his bungalow, a four walled room with a window and an air conditioner. Good, nobody had seen him. He went inside, turned on the light and lay on the bed and looked up. What was it for? Leaves played upon the wall, sunlight moving around, form. Life wasn’t all about anything that he could do. It was all about all that he could not do. He did not like living like this, but it was all that he had. He could not help thinking that his solitude, his silence, his existential predicament were lost inside of these exteriors of the moving leaf and light on a wall. There was nothing anywhere. His mother had died. His brother hated his guts. His dad was there for him, but was involved in his own senior citizen world. Kay had left him for a guy with a boat. Brenda loved him, but wasn’t willing to take any more chances on his changing ass. Ally just lived off in some far away land holding a baby and a real live Jewish husband, which is astounding seeing how Greek she was.
Underneath these memories lived real silent void, air, black then blue then deeper blue then air again and nothing, never, to stand upon again, a lifting of the hope and then a realization that it would return downward into him, leaves again, light again, this solitary room, cars.

Published in: on December 16, 2013 at 4:17 am  Leave a Comment  
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