The Palin Mistake, the Putin Solution

John McCain was straightening his underwear when Sarah Palin walked into the room. Ever since winning the election in November, he’d switched his preference in underwear from briefs to boxers. Boxers made him young, his wife had told him a week after the results were in. The youngsters of America were wearing boxers, and, in order to maintain at least an air of youthfulness, McCain decided his wife was right. So the next day he’d sent a servant out to the marketplace (a local Macy’s) with orders to select several pairs of “fancy, stylish, hip” boxer shorts.

“Ms. Palin,” he said, stiffening his posture, “what can I do for you?” The problem with boxer shorts was their tendency to become stuffed in places he didn’t much care for anything to be stuffed. The extra material became bunched between his legs and his slacks. They rode up into his butt, making him prone to anxiety and edgy.

I like the new John McCain, his wife had said as he stood before her that first evening, when the boxer shorts had arrived. Clad only in his new undies, McCain had done a twirl for his wife. She had clapped, bouncing up and down on the bed, excited to have a young husband again. They make you youthful, she kept saying.

“John,” Palin said, fluffing her hair. She was blushing. She bit her fingernail. “I made a mistake.” She sat in a chair, mimicking her commander-in-chief. “Oopsie. Right? But mistakes do happen, I mean, that’s what we’re here fer.”

McCain stared at her, somewhere below her chin, but just above her bellybutton. “What kind of mistake?” he finally said. He hit a button on the phone console. “Bring me my jar of pickles,” he shouted.

“Well, ya know, I’ll just come right out with it. You’re a straight-shooter, Maverick, so I’m gonna come right on out with it.” She winced. “It seems I kinda pissed off Puttin.”

“Who?” McCain asked, leaning forward.

“Puttin.”

“Putin?”

“Oh, yah,” she said, nodding her head. “Putin.” Sarah Palin twirled her hair. “Oh yah, I did. You see, well, he called fer ya, John, and you were getting yer massage, and he wasn’t very nice on the phone. Ya see, in Alaska, people are nice to—”

“What’d you tell him?” McCain frowned.

“Oh, ya know, just about what I thought of them sneaky Russians. It was more of a joke, ya know, than anything, about Russians bein sneaky, but he hung up on me.” After a moment of silence, she said, “Rude of him, huh?”

John McCain held his chin in silence as Sarah Palin squirmed on her seat, unable to find a comfortable position. A knock at the door made her jump.

“Your pickles, my lord,” came a voice from the other side. A servant entered and set a jar of pickles on McCain’s desk. The servant opened the jar with a pop, pulled out a pickle, cupped a hand to catch any drops of pickle juice that threatened to fall to the floor, and carefully inserted the end into McCain’s open mouth.

Audibly crunching on pickle, McCain looked at Palin. Through a mouthful, the Maverick spoke. “You know what you’ve gotta do now, don’t you?”

“I spose so, John,” Palin said. “I spose so.”

**

“Does you vant a cigarette?” Putin asked as Palin rolled to the other side of the bed. He lit up one and offered it to her, but she shook her head. Sarah Palin pulled the blankets up to her chest. She was breathing heavily.

“Whoo! That was a doozy. Whooey! That was like a shot of your famous Russian vodka.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “Dontcha know that smoke is bad fer your lungs? It’s a sin, too, ya know, to do yourself bodily harm.”

“Vhat about what we just do?” Putin waved a hand, holding the cigarette. “Wasn’t that sin too?”

“Oh,” Palin said, wiping sweat from her forehead. “That was anything but sinful.”

**

The Maverick was pleased to announce in his State of the Union address that relations with Russia were superb; better than they’d ever been. And he couldn’t thank enough his Vice President, for her tact and absolute hands-on approach, at bringing the largest, most at odds nations to peaceful agreement.

“And there were some,” McCain was careful to say in his speech, as he surreptitiously adjusted his underwear behind the podium, “that scoffed at my VP and her lack of foreign experience. I think she’s buried that criticism and made those naysayers into fools.”

And, of course, at the end of the speech, he “God-Blessed” America.

Make-up McCain

Senator McCain sits in a lavish chair before a great mirror. Two beautiful and well made-up women work on his face in the heat of bright lights. They twirl brushes, periodically turning to a large cart behind the Senator’s chair to dip into more product or to change make-up instruments. Various, well-dressed people scurry around the outer edges of the room, some talking on cell phones, others talking with each other. One man talks to the wall, emphatically waving his hands.

Make-up Girl 1: Oh my God! We’re out of make-up.

(She scrapes her brush in numerous make-up receptacles. Her face takes on a look of horror as she realizes what she said is true)

Make-up Girl 1: Oh my…we really ARE out of make-up. Oh…God!

Make-up Girl 2: Seriously? (She looks at the make-up cart and gasps) I thought you said we had enough…

Make-up Girl 1: Well, I thought we DID have enough. What are we going to do?

(She looks around, tries to wave down one of the many important people in the room) Excuse me? Excuse me, sir? Ma’am?

(Hopeless, she turns to the other girl and holds out her hands)

Who would have thought he’d need so much?

Make-up Girl 2: Tell me about it. Good GOD! And we’re not even half finished. He can’t go out there and debate like this.

Make-up Girl 1: No, he can’t. Then they’ll know how old he really is.

(McCain begins snoring lightly)

Make-up Girl 1: We’ve got to do something.

Make-up Girl 2: But what? If we at least had more plaster, we could make him kind of OK.

Make-up Girl 1: Excuse me! Hey! Excuse me! Anyone?

(The man talking to the wall suddenly punches the wall with his fist)

Make-up Girl 2: I’ll get their attention.

(She moves make-up cart and twirls McCain around in his chair to face the people walking in and out. Loud screams come from those who happen to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Men and women in business suits begin entering room with concerned looks on their faces.)

Men and Women in Business Suits: What? What’s going—

(More screams, someone begins wailing)

Random Man in Business Suit: (Pointing at McCain) Good God!

(McCain still snoring, his head hanging forward)

Pretty Woman in Business Suit: What’s that?

(More people enter room, screams continue. Man who punched the wall steps up, calm and collected, points to McCain and says)

Man Who Punches Walls: Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the GOP!

(A spattering of claps, cheers, and whoops from the gathering)

Portals of Prayer - July 2nd - "Liars Lie!"

Liars lie. That may be redundant information in its own right, but it is also very juvenile, espcially when considering the text is working with the war-driven, nomadic Israelites, who justify brutality with the supposed will of God.

The July 2nd devotion kicks off with the old ploy of the underdog stealing victory. "The mighty Israelites seemed certain victors over the tiny town of Ai. Yet the Israelites were defeated in battle..." And what defeated a mighty, blood-thirsty tribe such as the Israelites, whom had just slaughtered all the men, women, and children of Jericho? God's wrath over the Israelite, Achnan's, supposed lie. Achnan had "pinched silver and gold," from Jericho, so the God of Israel got his justice by handing the Israelites defeat.

The final paragraph hands the reader a saying from Psalms 51:6: "Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being." The text then asks the reader how anyone can ever speak the truth with lips that have spoken so many lies.

What's disturbing about all of this is the seeming neglect over the other sins the Israelites had committed. God, as this devotion has it, hates a liar, but revels in plundering and destroying entire populations of people. At least that's what the lesson might imply. God will forgive our "Liars Lie!" mentality, as long as we confess our sinful lies to him, but, if we're truly his people, as the Israelites were, and should still be, by rule of thumb (but that's a whole other issue), God will not hold us accountable for brutally killing scores of people, and maybe raping the females of the crowd, if there is time.

Of course, not everybody can kill people, only if God tells you to. Like the woman who drowned her small children in the bathtub because they were going to grow up as sinners and unbelievers in Christ. God told her to drown them, before they could grow up wrong. Is that any different than God leading his Israelites over the hills and through the blowing sands to create gory horror scenes of violence?

Hey, it's all in the plan, right? And the killers were the chosen ones, after all. They weren't just anyone, they were God's very own people. I'd take comfort in that, except it is the same mentality of someone like, say, Charlie Manson.

Portals of Prayer - July 1, 2008

Today's Christianity is destructive and degenerate, but most people knew that.

The Portals of Prayer is a quarterly publication that focuses on providing a simple devotion corresponding to a Bible verse. It is meant to be read by Christians who may or may not be too busy to read the Bible, but want something encouraging to read. The Portals of Prayer is a small booklet, and each page represents a day, i.e. Jan 1st is one page, Jan. 2 the next page, and so on. For Christians, this small devotion provides a thought to be gnawed on by the mind throughout the day, and to give a little spiritual courage to the Christian soul that doesn't feel quite at home in the heathen, pagan-swelled world.

Having had the Portals of Prayer publication read to me since I was a small child, I had given it up after I left home, despite the encouragement and almost coercive pressure placed on me by my mother. So I picked it up again, July 1, today, and was nearly appalled by what I was reading. The Portals of Prayer is not a positive message, nor does it show Christians in a positive light.

The title of the devotion for July 1 is "Parading Trumpets." The opening paragraph hooks the reader by the placement of a historical fact. It says, in a nutshell, that Canada was created by the British North America Act in 1867, and that Canadians, "celebrate this anniversary with cricket, picnics, fireworks, and parades." This is a positive first paragraph, showcasing a simple, historical fact, painted with the feel-good images of celebrating Canadians. The pith of it, however, is that Canada, on July 1, 1867, was officially created. Now, I don't know how you like Canadians, or what your feelings are toward them, but this is something to be proud of. And Americans should know, since it is close to our Independence Day.

The second paragraph is where a drastic turn is taken in accordance with today's devotion. I understand that space is limited, since the Portals of Prayer publishes a mini booklet every quarter, and only gets about three, maybe four paragraphs with which to make their point, but today's segue goes from black to white, creative to destructive, positive to horrifically negative.

"With resounding trumpets and a great shout, Joshua's army brought down the mighty walls of Jericho, and the Israelites conquered and celebrated." Is this even close to the lure of the opening paragraph? The reader is transported from a sunny field, where Canadians are celebrating, to the sound of war trumpets, blown by the warriors of the biblical Joshua's army. The next line hammers home the realization that Joshua's army was not invading to have a cup of tea or shake a few hands. "Everything in the city was given to destruction by fire..." Violence has now officially stolen the stage from the birth of Canada, which was centered, and focused upon by the first paragraph, as a positive, creative event. But destruction by fire? The doesn't sound good for the citizens of Jericho. But the destructive act of ravishing everything in a city with fire is only given the tiniest glimpse in this devotion, as the reader is passed off to what should be the good news. The good news: ..."everything [was set on fire] except Rahab the prostitute and her family." Rahab was "set aside by God's Word" as she trusted in it, and was safely escorted out of Jericho and brought back to the Israelite camp for safe keeping. This sentence, then, confirms the fates of the her fellow citizens of Jericho. If Rahab was set aside due to her belief in God, then the other people surely perished, and probably with fire, as the devotion implies by incorporating the word, "everything," when mentioning the destruction of the city.

Is this what Christianity is about? Is this Christ's message of unforgiving love from his (and our) Father in Heaven? And what about that initial paragraph? Is the murderous and disastrous fire set in Jericho by Joshua and Co.'s hands supposed to be linked by the reader to the fireworks of Canada's July 1 celebrations? How can something so commonplace and, hopefully, enjoyable for human beings, such as celebratory recreation, be juxtaposed with such a ghastly, disgusting event as what went on in Jericho? Or is it the title, "Parading Trumpets," that links the first two astringently different paragraphs together as the former mentioned parades, and the latter mentioned trumpets? But how, might the reader ask, does this make anyone feel good, or deliver a positive message? Perhaps this devotion might have been kicked off in a more appropriate manner with an austere description of war-torn Iraqis, or the ruins of Baghdad. And THEN move into Joshua's war trumpets, and the flooding of Jericho with soldiers and warriors, come to do God's bidding by setting "everything" on fire.

The third and last paragraph skips ahead to the future, when Jesus is going to return to earth, and a "trumpet will sound with the voice of an archangel." So the trumpet theme has been preserved from the second to the third paragraph, but a happy day out with the family is left far behind. When Jesus comes, "everything...will be given to destruction...everything save the holy Bride of Christ." How, though, do we become a member of the Holy Bride? It's not a secret society, so don't worry, you haven't been missing anything. The advice is to "Listen for the trumpeting of God's Word, for in it is your rescue and relief." That's a positive message, sort of, considering the majority of the second paragraph.

Questions arise, however, such as: What if you're deaf and you cannot hear that trumpet. What if you have a predilection against the nasally sound of a trumpet? What if you're simply not listening? What if you were born and live in a country whose music has never featured the trumpet? What if every trumpet seems to be that trumpet? What if you sincerely prefer the saxophone?

These questions are not in jest, and are not trying to dodge the so-called "good news" of Christ, or even of this devotion. Seriously, what if one misses the metaphorical trumpet call? Is the sin of not believing in Christ as Savior worth a firestorm, set upon us by other Christians? Or even by the hand of God? And can an all-loving, eternal being really not think of a better way? After all, he created us, did he not? As far as humanity knows, nobody is asked if they want to be born, and to which earthly location assigned. How is anything in this July 1 devotion positive, or comforting? And even if one is certain in his/her belief in Christ, and "knows" of the guaranteed salvation, how can that person live with the fact that everyone else is going to be set ablaze due their logical thinking, ignorance, deafness, or their geographical location? I guess that accounts for the individuals on the street handing out their version of salvation printed on little booklets.

Why doesn't the Portals of Prayer just omit the first paragraph and start with the second paragraph. Don't give Christians nice mental imagery, and then hurl firebombs into their peaceful thoughts with references to biblical passages.

This might not be fear-mongering, as the writers of these dubious devotions no doubt genuinely believe what they are preaching, but the text certainly lies in a bed of fear. Why do we love Jesus? For the Christian awaiting the trumpet call, it's because of fear. Fear of the purported firestorm. Fear of not being included in the Holy Bride of Christ. If that fear is taken away, do the majority of "believers" still believe? Do they still love Christ if the reality to life is that death is the end of body, mind, and soul?

Maybe we should only read the first paragraph in the July 1 Portals of Prayer entry and leave it at that. That's a nice enough image, even if it is simplified and completely devoid of facts or intelligence. It might be worth skipping over the Portals of Prayer publication all together.

Love of Ages: Kerouac, Betty Friedan, and Paul Dirac

Another night of sleeping, except I left my body in the corner, and my consciousness found itself tucked into a corner, witnessing:

Pasty Kerouac, soaked with booze, unable to move fast, drunk through and through, sopping with euphoria. He removed his shirt. He was alone in the basement. A couch was pushed up against one wall. He sat, rubbing his fat white belly, then unbuckling his pants. A single bulb, burning unhindered, lighted the subsequent action. "I'm Jack," he kept whispering, "Jack Kerouac." His pants were caught at his shoes, which he now bent forward to reach and untie. It was filled with an effort unwelcome to Jack, for he cussed, "Goddamnit," and proceeded to fumble with the bows on his left shoe. "Fuck it," he said, tearing both shoes off and hurling them across the room. They hit the wall in the opposite corner of the basement. He pulled off his socks and sat in his underwear. The couch creaked every time he shifted his weight. He couldn't sit still, scratching his arms, his thighs, rubbing his nose, itching his crotch through his white briefs.

The presence in the room was suddenly heavier. I saw her, an adumbration at first, but becoming real. Materializing. "Hey, Jackie," she said, coming toward him on the couch. Her lipstick was smeared around her lips, in grotesque strokes of inexperience and indulgent lechery. "Jackie."

"Call me Big Sur," he said, not smiling, not nodding, but twitching. He pulled on his nose, scratched his forehead, slicked back his greasy black hair. "I'm Big Sur, and nothing else. Don't you dare get off calling me more or less."

"And you will call me by my name, Big Sur, and that's Betty Friedan. No derogatory names this time, nothing at all like that. It will be yes, Ms. Friedan, or no, Ms. Friedan."

He shifted around, squirming, putting one hand over his growing erection. Ms. Friedan removed her top. Her breasts, pointy and barely average, held Jack's attention. Soon her clothes were completely removed. She put two fingers into her mouth and licked them. Ms. Friedan took extra care in swabbing her tongue with those fingers, and let the spittle drip from them before she buried them between her legs. "I'm wet, Big Sur, if you care."

"I care, sure I care," he said. He sneezed. He coughed. His hand was bloody after three hard hacks. "Fuck," he said, "this shit keeps coming up."

Ms. Friedan came to him, kneeling on the couch, hovering over Kerouac. You won't feel nothing while I'm here, you big fat writer."

"Hey!" he yelled. "Fuck you," he said. "I'm Big Sur, and nothing else."

"I forgot. I'll make you forget." She lifted his bloody hand and put her tongue to his palm. She slid her tongue over his hand, leaving a trail in the red that was dripping down his wrist. She swallowed, licked her lips, and slapped his palm onto her chest, making a handprint, of sorts, before dragging it down over her belly. "I'm a writer, too, you know." Friedan leaned forward to lick his forehead.

"I love your sleepy, drunkard eyes," he said. "Uh-oh, you got my blood on your cooch."

"I don't care, Love," she made his fingers work between her legs. "I don't...really...care." She licked his forehead again, letting his fingers take on their own endeavor. Her breasts found his face, and Jack lifted his head so he could suck on a nipple.

Ms. Friedan reached below, where tension and heat were churning, and popped Jack's Kerouac free, letting it stick up high, throbbing with anticipation. "This," Betty Friedan announced, "is what I call The Feminine Mystique." She inserted Jack's Kerouac into her hole and squeezed her muscles tight. Jack let his head fall back on the couch. "Do you like it? Do you like the Feminine Mystique?"

"You're fucking the King of the Beats," he said, sleepily, "and that's the best you can do?"

Ms. Friedan worked him hard, using her thighs and hips, smashing his face into her chest. She used her arms for leverage, she varied the motions, speeds, frequencies, and styles, yet his face remained calm, unperturbed, unaffected. "I should be blowing your mind," she said. "I'm the Fountain of this Age, the one and only cognizant female." She was out of breath. She slowed, trying a new approach, letting her lungs catch up. "Life so far, for the female, hasn't been that great. But I'm the female of the age, the fountain of bettering our women."

"And I'll fuck all of em," Jack said. "They're all housewives, junkies for cooking and cleaning, and that's okay." He was falling asleep. "I don't hold it against them."

Ms. Friedan slapped him across the face. His eyes opened. She hit him with her fist. "How dare you say that about women!" She rode him hard, violently thrusting, hitting a new fierce intensity.

"Ahh," Jack said.

"This goes Beyond Gender, you realize." She kicked and scratched, nearing orgasm. "This isn't about gender, it goes beyond. This affects you fat white males, too. This affects the WASPs, the writers, the businessmen. You alcoholic piece of shit."

"Ahh," Jack said. His reached orgasm without flinching. And another figure materialized in the corner. He wore a suit, very professional and unexpected. His hair was short and curly and very dark, the same as his moustache. He sat on the cement floor, cross-legged.

Ms. Friedan felt the explosion inside of her, and would have normally enjoyed it, except for the fact that she was pissed over the statements her lover had been making. She hit him, in the face, with her fist. Jack closed his eyes and leaned back into the couch. She removed herself from him and screamed upon seeing the long, juicy string of semen hanging from between her legs and Jack's Kerouac. "You fucking imbecile. You goddamn shit to come inside a lady, a lady like me. To come inside Betty Friedan. Don't you know!" She was belligerent. "Don't you know you never, EVER, come inside a lady of status!"

"It's either that or in your face," he said.

She began wiping away the sperm with her hand, and rubbing it on Jack's chest. Betty Friedan was gagging, narrowly holding back a stream of vomit, as she cleared away a colossal load of beatnik semen. "What do you call this!" she shouted. "Huh? What do you call this?"

"Stringy. Super stringy," a voice came from the floor. "A theory of strings. A super theory of strings. No, that isn't right. A Superstring Theory." He nodded, smiling, licking his moustache. "Yes, that's more like it. No, in fact, that IS it. Not like, but IS."

"Who the fuck are you?" Betty Friedan yelled from Jack's lap. "And why are you here? Can't you see we're trying to be alone?"

"You're not alone," he said, lightly leaning forward, "you're together. And I'm Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, and I've just come up with a brand new theory. I'll call it the Dirac Equation."

"How does it go?" Jack asked. Ms. Friedan slapped him.

Paul Dirac sat quietly, looking at the floor.

"At any rate, you soiled me," Ms. Friedan said, punching Jack in the gut. "And you didn't even make me come."

"That's hardly his problem," Paul Dirac said.

"So are you going to fix it?" she asked Jack, licking his lips, his nose, around his eyes.

"Yes, I suppose, yes."

"Then do me a second time, and let me get off, and then maybe I'll let you go again, like you did the first time. You bastard." She looked at his cock. "Are you ready, or do we have to wait? I'm surprised it works with so much booze in it."

"No problem. It's no problem, like Neal said one day. It doesn't affect real men like us."

"So, are you ready?" Betty Friedan grabbed her tits, rubbing them, pushed them up, let them drop. She tugged at the nipples. Jack, in the meantime, spit in his hand, making the dried blood turn wet again, and held his penis. He stroked it, rubbing up and down.

"Gotta re-energize it," he explained. "Gotta give it back its interior charm, let it know what it's missing, what it's going to get, again. I'm the King of the Beats," he said, motioning to his working hand. "King of the Beats. Father of the Mad."

"Are you ready," Betty Friedan said, "for a Second Wave of Feminism?" She didn't wait for an answer, but forced Jack's hand out and pushed his Kerouac inside. "You never gave me the opportunity to show you the full Women's Movement. We can move our hips differently than men, you know." She sighed, happy with her progress. Jack grabbed her ass. He leaned forward, nibbling her nipples.

Paul Dirac had been crawling toward the couch the entire time. On his hands and knees, he made slow movements, careful not to rip his suit.

Betty Friedan shrieked when Dirac's tongue poked itself around her anus and slid its way between her cheeks. A moment later she was crooning, welcoming the arrival of another partier. A writer and a scientist meant she was at the top of her game.

"This is what I call anti-matter," Paul Dirac said, licking his moustache and sucking in lengthy gasps of air through his nose. "I now believe in God." He viewed Jack and Betty, their lascivious movements, reflected on the individual gain for pleasure. "This is quantum mechanics at its pith. This is the pinnacle of how problems arise, and how they might be resolved." Paul Dirac snuffed, for he had allergies and this sex in the air wasn't good for his sinuses. "If this is how they want to do it with two, what about adding a third? DxRxJ=B, but that would be B to the second power because of a glitch in simple arithmetic. And it wouldn't be that simple because the angles are not right angles and the contours, of course, are constantly in flux." He licked his finger, looked at Betty, who was heeing and hawing, and said, "This is a Negative Probability." He bent low, angling his head to get a better peek. "Simply because I know nothing about what is going on." He stood, turning from the copulating couple. "I'll give one quarter of my nobel prize to the person who can accurately map out that one." He cocked a thumb at their bodies, shaking his head. "I've had my jollies, that's for sure. And it's left a funny taste in my mouth. That's all too typical, in the lesson of equality. For pros equal cons, and with good comes bad." He walked through the wall, his voice echoing, "But, I'm satisfied."

I left with Mr. Dirac because I'd seen enough. I re-entered my body and tried to write off what I'd witnessed as a dream. I blamed it all on a wicked, disastrous subconscious.

HEY Hey! Lemon Tree...

Beyond introspection, circumspection, and overt suspicion, rising mightier than footfalls of egregious thunder, planting and tending dismay in the hearts of former derelicts and prized-fighting pinheads, along with the other more illustrious, lucrative individuals, bent on traveling with a macrocosmic understanding of something rather microscopic, tends to unravel anyone's finest sweater, and begins to tug on the hem of the old Jesus robe tighter than expected.

And everybody cringes.

Make it work.
Build a dome and shield everyone's head, as long as that head belongs to a normal, societally functional trunk and set of appendages, with a smile, then inclusion comes at last. For under that dome, held up by highly technological walls that breathe in good air and exhale the used, dirty stuff. It's a tiny sanctuary of unrivaled safety, and above all, more hallowing and noteworthy is its predictability.
For this sanctuary only exists in the minds of certain peoples, and sometimes like the rain can be controlled with a switch. Every Thursday, at 9PM, it rains. Miss clear weather?

Miss Clear Weather.

Missy Weather Clear has a problem with that time? Well, when would SHE like it to rain?

And everyone is safe.

Basically, it's become evident that people, each individual, wants a personal bubble, maybe constructed out of lambskin, so it still feels good, but offers a standard type of protection. Right? Of course, there are tiny viruses.

Oh.

Lambskin has flaws, after all. It allows flow, don't you agree? How tightly woven is tight enough? A tight, genetic bundle of over-under weaves would keep out the most ghastly decorated illnesses.

And this is why I do what I do in my spare time.

Repeat: This is why I do what I do in my spare time.

Random things from which I once suffered: lemon trees, rubber bands, bygone memories. It took the effort to stop trying to save myself that eventually granted liberation. The lemon trees, I thought, were obvious in their quest to strike me with grief. All of that vivid yellow on green. The luminous yellow orbs, alive and overwhelming, decorating a solid leafy green with such force and efficacy that lesser men than I might have simply been swallowed. I persevered, but with twitches and spasms more grotesque than any horror flick. Frighteningly, as I imagine it, walking down the street, seeing my face from a distance, and, upon taking a closer look, viewing dancing eyebrows, jerky ears, and an ever-settling mouth. That was I thinking about lemon trees. How much uglier it became with a strong cup of coffee is a figure or estimate that remains elusive to me. I knew I was twitching my face almost inside out and imagined the skin on my nect stretching while the front of my face migrated in jerks and skips to the back of my skull.

And, yet, the ears, due to their location, would have been more or less all right.

Thinking like that is childish, and too imaginative, easily overstated, and drunkenly cliche. Like Jack Kerouac? Nah, not like Jack. Like Neal? Cassady? Jack Cassady. Neal Kerouac. A match...made in Heaven. Piano, cue.

What actually needs to be said is taht my face was hardly able to be still, due to all of the overstimulation of lemon trees galore. Garish, spindly, ingrates. ! Especially in conversation to another living being. It was just lemon trees, and their beauty. Lemon trees fuck with all the senses -- sight, they burst in taste lik an exploding chunk of DayGlo rock, touching lemons' lightly goosebumped skin, or scratching your face on the bark of its trunk, and the smell, oh the smell, causes me, at least, to suck in and in until my nasal passages are raw, my sinuses spitting venom, and I know, somewhere under that plethora of citrus, true cleanliness lies. The lemon tree's dynamicism really, truly, brings forth a human's mortality, and screams, "you will NEVER be able to experience ME fully (FULLY!), you FOOL!" And you think, oh, that's right, I am going to perish, and really, on a larger, more expansive world scale, I'm going to experience a fraction of the smallest percentage of everything. And the lemon tree becomes a metaphor, turning into a portentous, and beautiful boil. Nei! Oh...

Mr. Kerouac. You haven't escaped. I've mentioned you, too. Lemon, anyone?

Hail! Jack Kerouac

Mr. Kerouac, where do you reside? With your beer-soaked breath, and your fat white belly; wherever did you go? You left, misunderstood, not fully appreciated, and with a scowl on your face. You were mad, spitting drunk, and you died from a little blood, let loose to flood your organs and give you up to the mad hatter Creator you believed in so fervently.

Jack, Kerouac, come; come wherever you are.

How does one summon Jack Kerouac? Mr. On the Road; Big Sur, Haiku(s). Mr. Dharma Bum. How do you speak with Kerouac, and ask him why the hell he fucked up so badly. Why he left his family. Would you like to just say he meant a lot to you, even though you read him almost forty years after his stupid, immature death?

Well, you can summon Jack Kerouac by buying two liters of whiskey. To begin, you will want to drink the first liter, tainting its kiss with nothing except a grimace and a sigh. Next, you should break something, like a lamp, or a vase, or a mirror. Break something loud, dramatic, and, hopefully, regretful. Next, sip on the second liter of whiskey, and begin to cry. Whisper to the dark room, where you sit by yourself, that nobody understands you, and that you're not afraid to die, you're just too goddamn religious to do it yourself. Whisper that. Think of Jack, and whisper those things with full-on meaning. He'll come. He'll be there any minute.

And if Neal Cassady shows up, ask for his help. He's likely to spit in your face and ask you where your sister, or your mother, or your wife, is at. Don't tell him, because he'll make good on your "offer."

If Jack doesn't show up, don't despair. He hardly ever shows his face anymore. It's too bloated, and whiskey(ed) up. It's okay to scream how much you hate him. It's all right to yell a little, and holler about why he's so damn elusive, and enigmatic all of the time. Tell him, he hasn't heard it before, that he could have had such a long, prosperous life, living as long or longer than Allen Ginsburg. He could have slept with Allen. They could have been lovers. The hippie and the conservative. Ishmael and Queequeg. Leg over leg, arms entangled, genitalia nobodies business.

Offer an incantation: To Kerouac, how they loved you. To Jack, how we do still. You aren't ever going to go away. We'll burn your words and send the smoke, offering you praise, but hang our heads in shame.

Peoples Eclectic

I've been toying with the idea of writing short essays on the various people who have captured my interest of the years due to their idiosyncracies, ideas, and life history. I am in love with characters who wandered around this vast planet fully tuned into their own ideas and awareness. People like Paul Dirac, who took every statement literally, and lived his life on an entirely different plane; away and above the common public. Dirac didn't seem to want to be different as much as he came off confused about what everybody else was doing around him. He was known to climb trees around the campus of the university, where he taught theoretical physics, in his business suit. He didn't pay attention to social order and propriety because, in my opinion, he was too smart. That is simple, but seems very well to be the case. Paul Dirac was too smart and too gifted to worry about what might seem weird or strange. His behavior was not threatening, nor was it dangerous. He was a man living in a different realm than most other men. Did that make him greater or lesser? He was a very gifted physicist, but most likely lacked many other skills, evening him out and putting him on par with the rest of humanity. He did, however, steal the stage on which we, the audience, constantly judge and predict what the human characters are going to do. Dirac lowered himself from the ceiling, so to speak, when his direction was to enter stage left.

These kinds of people are going to be my focus for a series of writing that I'm going to call, Peoples Eclectic. I will draw inspiring, and rather odd, characters from all walks of life, from different professions and backgrounds, who hold polar beliefs and walk in the extreme.

I will be publishing these essays soon, hopefully by the beginning of June, at:

www.associatedcontent.com/adamluebke

It shall be fun.

Editing Kerouac

Jack Kerouac is famous for his two week tryst of benzedrine and coffee fueled writing, which led to the breakthrough 'On the Road.' The infamous picture is of a writer, hunched over his typewriter, typing furiously, taking pills and slugging cups of coffee, in the confines of his private room, telling a tale, spontaneously as it came, depicting the prior four years of his life as he criss-crossed the United States with the unforgettable Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). His manuscript of 'On the Road' is a scroll, taped together and worth big bucks. It unrolls over one hundred feet, and is really an American relic, produced by one of the most mysterious writers the North American continent has ever produced.

But is it all true?

Jack Kerouac is famous for his supposed belief of no revision. He is said to have written spontaneously, and whatever he wrote remained, untouched, and ready to be published. He loved the errors and all. But that is untrue. Pertaining to his American opus, 'On the Road,' Kerouac revised many times, contradictory to the legend. He actually worked on that piece for four or more years, compiling notes and journal entries from his travels. It was his work in progress. And while it may be true he sat down and hammered it out in the space of a few weeks, the majority of the plot and memories had been recorded and written down, needing only to be patched together and put in a coherent manner. And Kerouac revised like hell. He worked on his manuscript like any other author would have, and even sent it away to a friend to read first. The friend suggested Kerouac provide more centering on the story's main character, Dean Moriarty. Kerouac understood his friend's critique and put Dean center stage.

The misconception of Kerouac being the great Non-Revisor might have originated with the fact that the author refused to let the editor at the publishing house make certain changes to the 'On the Road' manuscript. That somehow became the genesis for Kerouac not believing in revision to his work, and keeping 'On the Road' as is, with no care or concern for criticism. Like any author, Kerouac was obstinate on what keeping 'On the Road' as he'd sent it to the publishing house, and not as it was after he supposedly slapped it together in the space of two weeks. In truth, the manuscript had been worked and reworked, in pieces and sections, for at least four years.

But the legend remains, and it's a beautiful one.

Kerouac's 'On the Road'

A possible reason to enjoy and write about Kerouac's 'On the Road' lies in its use of hyperbole and folkloric feel. Kerouac delves into the antiquated art of telling a "tall tale" when he writes on the road and, more importantly, sketches the bigger than life character, Dean Moriarty. Kerouac speaks of highs and lows in life, surrounding his narrative on the characters, based on real people, that enter and exit his life like a stage show. Carlo Marx, who is understood to be the real world Alan Ginsburg, plays the angry, mad poet, designing words and spitting phrases that come off as anti-American, anti-imperialism, and anti-society. He is only one example of a character who reigns supreme in his own right, and holds his ground in the reader's mind, even though he never gets the attention that other characters do, like the illustrious, Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty).

The tall tale is important to keep in mind when reading Kerouac's 'On the Road' as it could be compared to a debaucherous Paul Bunyan tale. Kerouac speaks of Dean, the crazy, maddest character of them all, infamously driving through the treacherous Sierra Nevadas without using either brake or gas pedal, but simply coasting, shouting "Whoo-ee" the entire way as his jalopy swings and dives around sharp turns and corners, nearly careening over the edge. Kerouac mentions that he feels safe, as long as Dean is at the wheel. This is only one small aspect of Kerouac utilizing the "tale tale" effect when describing his traveling days.

Another tall tale element derives from a wonderful paragraph written by Kerouac as he describes the fervor with which Dean travels from East to visit Jack in Denver. Dean has heard, through the grapevine, that Jack (Sal, actually, in the novel) is going to go to Mexico. Dean, who has finally decided to settle down with one woman and his child, picks up seemingly in an instant, and descend his magical character force upon the West. Kerouac describes this as following:

Suddenly I had a vision of Dean, a burning shuddering frightful Angel, palpitating towards me across the road, approaching like a cloud, with enormous speed, pursuing me like the Shrouded Traveller on the plain, bearing down on me. I saw his huge face over the plains with the mad, bony purpose and the gleaming eyes; I saw his wings; I saw his old jalopy chariot with thousands of sparking flames shooting out from it; I saw the path it burned over the road...destroying bridges, drying rivers. It came like wrath to the West. I knew Dean had gone mad again.

This paragraph manifests Kerouac's desire to paint Dean Moriarity as something transcendant of human quality, moving over the earth like a specter, like the "Angel" of death, doing what he is best at doing: going mad. Again. Kerouac uses descriptions like, "shuddering, burning, frightful," "huge face," and "jalopy chariot," giving Dean an otherworldly presence.

This would be a great paper topic, especially when combined with a polished understanding of what a tall tale is, and being familiar with some of the famous stories that have come to be known as "tall tales."

Another Blog

I'm not certain if I am going to waste vital mental energy on maintaining another blog. It is free to sign up, however, and since I don't think it can hurt anything, I'm going to do it. For now, if I happen to do any writing meant to be read by friends and family, I will post it at:

www.associatedcontent.com/adamluebke

I do have a lot to say, unfortunately, it consists of the same material most individuals have to say.

Thanks, and good luck.