Léon de Poinete du Sec

You can't forget to take time out to laugh at yourself.

Laid Sundae Addition

Hover over the image for a chillinger version of the no-secret from the crypt and reel foto fun!

Semmelstelle

Sonntag früh, hab Hunger. Ich glaub, ich geh mal so'ne Grippe hol'n.

Dank an Dr. Nexus

________

Die Sensibilität wird wohl mal gelobt, als Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber dem Anderen wahrgenommen, wird aber auch als eine Schwachstelle im Kern der Persönlichkeit des Trägers begriffen.

"Du bist so rücksichtsvoll." und "Das ist lieb von dir."
aber
"Steh mal auf, Mensch!" und "Stell dich nicht so an."

Diese, wie jene, von Demselben verspürt und geäußert.

An dieser Stelle denken nat'ch Viele, dass es ja eine differenzierte Ausgewogenheit geben kann. Sonst kann die Sensibilität, zugleich übertrieben, von der Einsicht in die Empfindlichkeit rutschen.

Ist es aber nicht so, dass genau die Person, die über so eine Einfühlungskraft verfügt, genau dieselben Persönlichkeit ist, zu beurteilen, ob jenes Zuvielsein im Gefahr der Ausgeglichenheit wäre? So oder so, wenn ihr wisst, was ik meene, meene lieba (deutsch-verstehende) LeserInnen.

Versteht ihr? Oder formuliere ich schon wieder halt 'n Hää?

Rue Bicon

Long crossed, there is nothing else to say. Yet I can't resist commenting on the Stade of the You&Yinz. Just a few days ago I was unable to beckon the belly to bother barfing about it. Now that I've given it more serious retching over, I can imagine nothing better than to toast the triumph of the will.

To obliviousness! This is the purest virtue, reserved for believers of all stripes.

To indifference! Though I'm not quite there yet.

To the willful whitewash of the masters' bloodstained bravado! Imagining a better world in which everyone just follows the example of marching boots.

On the above: To either "...then we'd be hurray-O-kay!" or "He's just saying that cuz he has to." What better way to explain to impressionable children what we're drinkin' to?

To pretending they're not our masters at all!
That we are not soaking in it, after all.
Loyalty given freely does not belong to Caesar.


Back to that question of impending citizenship
Seriously: it costs four hundred fifty fucking bucks to leave Club Old Glory. And I never joined (notwithstanding having recited The Pledge over a hundred times in kindergarten and dedicating some of the best years of my life to the club's moral and monetary bankruptcy project).

Relinquishing membership at COG is required if I wanna join Club Schwarz-Rot-Senf. Unfortunately, short of having transoceanic begetters, the only way to qualify for passbook-carrying membership in both clubs simultaneously involves being a tennis pro or marrying - are you ready for this? - a Grrr-man.

Since I won't be in both clubs, I either give up the 450 Washing Tonnes, and pay 255 Eurobucks to switch royalties...
... or I could live club-less, which entails forgoing "the protection of any government".

Decisions, decisions.

There's always the status quo:

To government protection!
Double-crossed with smoke,
mirrors, blood and propaganda.

States of Water

The best music and poetry [and bleggalgazingest] site hipped me to this:

Kate knows water. And ice. And snow. Even if the Eskimos don't really have 50 Words for it.

Oh. And Payne got a hold of a video of the SotU speech [bastardized link deactivated] before it was even given. Proof that it's all a ruse.

Wozu Hokku Hari-San?

Most infernal one
Clouded and conditional
Here it comes...

dank an Vasilia für die Spieldose

die Zwangsräumung

Just before the end of the squat, at a bittersweet celebration of great times soon to be over, in they come: an olive-drab clad clan of about a dozen of what is known as a Hundertschaft. Their physical build is deceptive, with flack jackets broadening their shoulders, and their combat boots and helmets giving each easily another ten centimeters. The riot police.

Though one of the functions of a Hundertschaft is to cause the riots to justify their existence, this time round they don't do more than a strut-march through, eye-balling the squatters and guests. They'll garner no reaction; everybody knows what's sitting out front.

Not that there isn't plenty of evidence indicating an already ripeness for pickin'. But if they were gonna start clearing us out now, they'd've picked an obvious troublemaker from amongst the mass and started giving him or her shit.

This is a reconnaissance mission, establishing how many, how drunk and/or high, and how physically imposing they think the crowd might be.

And how we react.

It doesn't always run this smoothly: Somebody spits, they crack a skull, the crowd breaks loose, followed by all hell. They do what they want as long as they have the power and determination.

Depending upon their assessment, the crackdown will come somewhere between two to five hours from now. Considering the size of the party, they'll probably wait 'til sunup.

The law doesn't apply. They are not the law. They are the power. Tonight's sequence of events is all about a disciplined execution of that power.

Lark Ascending

According to the scribe at the New York Guitar Festival:

"2012 marks the 30th anniversary of Brian Eno's landmark tribute to the NASA moon landings, Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks."

I could've sworn (and still would) that it was recorded and released in '83.

No matter. The album was "re-imagined" a couple of weeks ago live by a group of musicians obviously inspired by the work created nearly thirty years ago by Eno, his brother Roger, and guitarist Daniel Lanois.

The following video is me doing a cover of 'An Ending (Ascent)' from that album. It is the first song I ever taught myself on the Roland Handsonic. I've probably played better versions [thumping it like a drum the last few years has had an effect on the touch sensitivity and dynamic range of the instrument], but thought I should document it before Apollo turned forty.

Anarchy in the Image Nation - living at the end of a rope

"You've built this grand structure all by yourself, my son."

Ein-Gebildet Genug, BCE

Let's went:
The solution to having homeless sleeping in the vestibule of the bank is to completely bar access to the ATMs from the end of banking hours on Friday until they open again Monday morning. The problem that required this solution was not the homeless sleeping in the cash-station vestibule; this was, rather, a solution for the homeless who'd found a place to sleep.

If you are a part of our überkultur, you can guess what the problem from the bank's perspective might've been and, indeed, describe it in detail, perhaps based on personal experience. Interpretations will vary. Of course.

Then what's my friggin' problem?
The machines and one's need to access them, as well as our inextricable ties to banking in the modern era, are both a micro- and macro-view of what it means to have technologies for our convenience dictate our relationships to one another. Like the ring-tone through Mahler's Ninth, so are the days of our lives.


Is this situational irony?
A guy banned from the Volksbank turns his life around and finds a job. He soon discovers that the only way he can get paid is to get an account with that very same bank.

Would it have been possible for the bank to show solidarity with the schmoes who gotta schlep the late-sleepers away when they open up in the morning (most of them are gone by 10am anyway) without prohibiting passage to the cash altars? Where are we to go to worship on Sunday?

You might be thinking, "Why don't they use the common era key card access approach?" Technology has the solutions to all of our problems. Or you might've been thinking, "Why don't you, if you're so concerned about the homeless, let them sleep on your floor and leave your community bank out of it?"

Touché away!

Nothing tippy-tapped here will mean much to my comrades who spend their days in the library and their nights cubbyhole (s)hopping. And, yes, I could give them a fish. But I'm here to tell ya from personal experience that if anyone can teach anyone else how to catch one, it's they me.


I have met the solution. Pity it's me.
Still, the extent to which I narrate the unspeakable horrors of life is surely a classic example of leftist moral behavior.

I know me, you see. I know how I live my life. I know the trade-offs that I have made and and I know the trade-offs that I have not made. If I want to contrast the worthlessness of on-line ranting versus the utility of helpful suggested action towards an alternate way forward in meat-space, then I need not pick on any sociopath other than myself, given that I have thousands of words of my own to choose from.

Not that I don't sympathize, mind you.

Now that's irony. So pathetic on my part, perhaps.


Apropos SOPA
Is Bo Rama's *the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordination at the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Technology Office, and the Cybersecurity Coordination for National Security Staff's recent response to petitions a heroic declaration of opposition to the "risk of online censorship of lawful activity" or more akin to veto promises to be broken at a not-to-distant future date?

Is it campaign rhetoric, or the appeasement of a consTWITuency too large to ignore? Do LOLcats matter more than writs of Latin distinction? Depends on who you ask, dudn't it?

I can tell you this.... no, wait. I can't tell you anything.

Worst Sunday Paper ever.



* For me, anarchy's best arguments are the arguments against it, the megalithic governmental orgs listed herein being an exception.

Die Kopfweh Meldung

Tote Rosa,
ich zieh heut' nicht mit
zur Hoffnung deines Friedens,
sonst andersdenk' an dich.
Keinen roten Schal von mir getragen
wenn auch mit schwarzem Strich.

Ich bestaun deinen Scharfsinn
zu sagen, was ist.
Ich bewundre deine Stärke
zu hinken so fit.
Ich beneide dich um deinen Geist,
doch heute zieh nicht mit.

Hearts & Minds of the Invader

Rue the day when your countrymen all vote for vets:

"There are no words to express my disgust at the video making the rounds today, of U.S. Marines apparently urinating on the dead bodies of the Taliban."

That's VoteVeteran Jon Soltz via AriannaOnLine®, speechless at the apparentness of it all. He does find words though:

"That's why I'm just as disgusted by right wingers like Pamela Gellar, who said, 'I love these Marines' and joked, 'Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.'"

You see, it's those right-wingers undermining the effort again.

"No matter what one thinks about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (and I have been plenty critical of them and how they've been waged), one indisputable fact is that most troops on the ground have tried their best to build the trust of the population. Believe me, it isn't easy."

Especially when you gotta go! Get it? It's a pun. If only everyone were indisputably critical. 'Cuz no good warrior...

"Understandably, Afghans and Iraqis looked at us pretty skeptically, if not outright as invaders."

Outright invaders? You don't say!

"Think this video isn't circulating in Afghanistan already? You think some young Afghan male who was on the fence about the insurgency won't be knocked off it?"

I can think of a few things that might disturb someone's balance in a war zone. Videos don't come immediately to mind.

"Trying these Marines, and laying down harsh punishment will be the next step in trying to prove to the people of Afghanistan that America, as a nation, is not represented by these Marines. There is no other choice."

Choice? No choice? Who the fuck is he talking to here?

"Those who would cheer on the disgusting actions of these Marines, only serve to compound the damage already done by them."

Oh. The right-wingers again.

No one will ever be able to get it into the thick skull of the do-good-war liberals (I never met a liberal who couldn't be eased into a few good wars) that without the killing fields, you got no pissing match. Circular justification aside, at least the "right-wingers" get that.

Secretary of State Fair Picks Pissing Pigs for Distinction

There will be no teachable moment aboard the MS Embassy.

Marines behaving badly? You don't say! I'm shocked. Why, these guys are giving modern warfare and YooToob a bad name!

From the AP via the Atlanta Constipation Urinal:

"'First they killed the Afghans with mortars, and they then urinated on their bodies,' Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said of what is shown in the video."

Notice how he first pointed out the killing, then the pissing. Some might say that the killing is a given. Maybe both are a given? From the same article:

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed 'total dismay' at the video and said it was 'absolutely inconsistent with the standards of behavior that the vast majority of Marines hold themselves to.'"

I assume "total dismay" were her words and not the AP's Robert Burns lampooning her reaction. Anyway, I wonder how Hills knows what is consistent with Marine standards of behavior. She got more video we're not privy to?

I'd say there is enough evidence to show that this behavior is pretty fuckin' consistent. At least consistent enough to end the goddamn field trip and bring all of the darling standard bearers back to their mothers' basements where they can piss all over themselves after beating up their girlfriends and passing out.

But that's not what war is about, is it? We're not gonna let a few rotten apples stop the pie eating event.

The priNtin’t’fYT® media corporation manages to illustrate that that same spokesperson has no illusions about what this means:

"But the Taliban spokesperson told Reuters that despite the shocking nature of the acts depicted, the video was unlikely to affect negotiations between the United States and the Taliban on ending the war in Afghanistan. 'This is not the first time we see such brutality,' said the spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. 'We know that our country is occupied.'"

Someone needs to tell the occupiers who "express dismay" at the killing machine's engaging in extracurricular pissing contests. I'm sure they'll be relieved.

That Dark Place

The dark place is not a reference to having my head up my ass. Though the sentiment is comforting. Blissful even.

The darkness has nothing to do with loneliness. They just happen to concur. The perfect relationship. Whenever I am amongst the many - almost invariably, at least - I long to steal away to our secret spot. The darkness. The loneliness. As cruel as they can be, I know they understand me. They always know what I'm thinking. They sometimes complete my sentences before I'm aware of whatever it is I wanna say. They're always there for me and will never leave.

Sad loneliness really is identical to being in love. Without the intoxication. When you really focus in on the melancholy, the ennui, the only thing that's missing is the giddy haze. Okay - and the "sharing". But you don't need romance for that. If you'll pardon me: That's what friends are for.

Of course, there is the sex. But that's not sharing. Sharing masturbation maybe. If you find yourself thinking, "I really like pleasuring her/him," don't forget to add, "because it gets me off."

If I have a biggest aversion to the romantic relationship, it's that it takes the selfishness of a normal friendship and ratchets it beyond repair. If I have a biggest fear as it relates to being in a relationship, it's that I'll finally lose my mind. But with somebody else in the room.

Bridge of Sighs - Scheringringbrücke, Wedding-Berlin
(title suggested by Alice Lee)


bottom gif: origin unknown
(kontakt davidly for credit/removal)

MeMockLazy

My last entry has garnered quite a response: sympathy, confusion, delight. I'll take the former, unless you're hiring (I don't wanna play any more parking lots); the confusion is understandable; and I aimed at a touch of the amusingly insightful, but hadn't imagined it a yuck-fest.

I hold no pretensions about being correct or having the right perspective about anything. I tell the truth. I don't lie here. I fictionalize occasionally. I stumble from sarcasm to seriousness way too inelegantly. And though I'm not just making shit up, I am wholly aware that I reveal a faulty way of going about things.

I'm bitter. Apparently. And that's part of the point. If there is one. There probably isn't. My bitterness is not news to me. And I know it gets me nowhere. Bitter bitter bitterbitter bitter b-bibbittererer. B-but it's my diary. My catharsis. I got nothin' else. Well, I got stuff. But it doesn't get any better than this. Bitterness is my life.

But not only do I not harbor any something-or-another about something-or-another else; I am not delusional: I was never really any good. Sure, there are worse getting an awful lot out of their worseness, but everywhere I looked, I was able to bear witness to actual talent. That's a hard witness to bear when you're striving for better than not being picked for the game.

And here's the kicker: Yes, the recollection of my experience in the theater was the truth. It happened as I told it. But (and at least one person got this): it's a metaphor. Aptly analogous down to the dreadful detail. Yes. I am. Just that. Pathetic.

Speakin' o' which: Why oh why are you people throwing my vote away!? Freedom isn't free! If you don't pony up the pesos and pay me to compound your influence in the most successful democratic experiment in the history of history, then you have no right to complain!

Mask to Mask: water under the bridge chokes me up

My shortcomings as an actor were that which prevented my becoming a better one: Too thin-skinned to suffer repeated rejection, I regularly left auditions with my intestinal fortitude exposed, swinging to and fro to the rhythm of my simulated stride. Even when I'd felt I'd nailed the test phase, no manner of excuse could lessen the extent to which an ultimate rejection felt personal, me being the person rejected, after all.

Granted, the reasons for not being picked were as often as not something I wouldn't've been able to change, yet, still, you cannot get good at doing the play if you never get chosen to do it.

Worse: Justifiable and understandable reasons for not being chosen have a way of feeding upon themselves, magnifying the undesirable.

I realize that there is little sympathy in life for the weak. Showing weakness is NEVER endearing. And since, as an actor, pretending is your business - you go in pretending to be strong. You simply have to present strength or you're dead in the water. Master the art of feigning confidence and you at least have a chance at a callback.

After some effort, I managed to get good at making the cut. The unfortunate result was never rising above being the second choice. As a matter of fact, for a brief period I kept pounding the pavement after leaving Chicago and I even got the following call from my agent here:

Agent: I wanna make sure you're available for all the shoot dates.

davidly: Um... sure. That's what I indicated on the form.

Agent: I know. It's just that I haven't been able to get a hold of their first choice. You're their second choice, so be ready; I might be calling you over the weekend, if I'm still not able to reach [the other guy].

I never heard from her again. Nor she me.


My sour grapes are pre-emptive
This is obviously learned behavior. Conditioning is hard to undo; if you don't want to undo it, impossible.

I think I need to clarify that last paragraph vis-à-vis retrospective sour grapes: Looking back on a negative result in a positive light is healthier than simply lamenting one's failures; thinking "It wasn't meant to be" or "I will learn from this experience", for example, is much better than convincing yourself that you didn't want that thing anyway.

But what if the thing that you learn, over and over again, is no matter how positive the selection process might have been, the ultimate rejection renders it lamentable at the very core of your being? Is it really sour grapes to have conditioned yourself to believe - that is, to actually believe - that it simply wasn't and, hence, will never be worth the effort? I mean, honestly, I just couldn't swim in that pool anymore.

Regarding the aforementioned audition: I'd long since forgotten it, and subsequently given up on not just that particular part, but the whole shebang. Then, they go ringing me up, getting my belly all aflutter. I even vaguely hoped for someone else's misfortune when I'd reckoned that that's what it came down to.

Every inch of the Earth's surface is a performance plank. But this play is just an audition. Ain'no legs I wanna break, so don't be calling me as your backup.

The Right to Remain

Bo Rama has expressed having "serious reservations" about signing the bill which establishes Serious Reservations. And being the greatest wordsmith in the history of material existence, he's able to cut the ribbon to an indefinite detention complex, while promising not to have any Yanks thrown in it.

His signing statement gives his loyalists plenty of points to argue, for sure, even if they are only on behalf of the president AND NO ONE ELSE. What they won't admit is that they used to be opposed to the application of the very policies in this law irrespective of one's status of citizenship.

This shouldn't surprise anyone with critical thinking skills. We live in a world where one country's testing of a projectile is bigger & scarier news than another country's using explosive missiles as a matter of routine to actually kill barely countable, if not countless living human beings.

Put simply: The Rama's supporters are the scariest of the scary, because they are more dishonest and further gone than all the other bogeymen combined.