Rock

Blah! Wrote this for a 15 minutes, short story thingy based around a keyword. The keyword was "rock"


"Don't rock the boat," he murmured swaying from side to side in the tattered green chair he had claimed as his. With both arms he gripped his head, barely covered with what remained of his now balding blond hair, as a streak of lightning brightened the room.

"Don't rock the boat," he muttered again.

After the sound of the thunder faded into the night, he decided there was no harm in braving a quick peek. Picking his head up, he looked round quickly through the room he had spent the most part of his thirty plus years in relative safety. It was a small single room house with a tiny kitchen and bathroom, but he had spent most of his life in it and he couldn't imagine being anywhere else. He glanced up at the windows - they were still boarded up. A storm was coming! That was what the nice man on the radio, Andy "with the manly voice" Dominics, had said. A storm was coming! At that point, the little house shook violently as a wind blew.

"Don't rock the boat, don't rock the boat...don't rock the boat!" He chanted over and over again, rocking, head in arms, until the wind stilled for a while. Sure that the house had stopped shaking, he picked up his head again. "My chair, my radio, and my bear," he thought to himself, "should be able to take care of themselves, but my books may get into some trouble. I don't think they can withstand any water battle. I have to keep them safe." He looked round again, trying to see if he could count the number of books that were strewn in a wild mess all around the room. He gave up at the next indication of the beginnings of the sound of thunder. He waited a while, until he was sure it was a false alarm. Silence reigned.

Then, just as he was feeling more assured, the wind picked up. Rocking the house as if to rip it from its foundations, it roared. Rain splattered heavily against the boarded up windows, coupling occasionally with hail.

He shrieked and resumed rocking, murmuring "Don't rock the boat," over and over. This time there was no reprieve: no letting up from the raging storm. There was a crash on the roof of the house, as though something heavy had being hurled against the building with some force.

"Don't rock the boat," he continued to moan, continually rocking. "Don't rock the boat."

The house continued to shake violently. He heard rumblings from what seemed to be every part of the building.

"Don't rock the boat!"

New sounds permeated the air: the force of things striking, sometimes shattering against the heavy iron front door; the wind finding different pitches with which to resonate; the roof, corrugated, trying to withstand the objects battering it. And each new sound scared him more and caused him to raise his voice so that his mantra was now even louder: "Don't rock the boat!"

Reading list for June

Wake up, wake up, wake up, it's the first of the month...oh, wait, where did the days go? I guess I lost a couple of days there, uh! Oh well!

So, what are my plans for June? I don't rightly know, but these are the books I have decided to read this month:

The Time Traveler's Wife
Murphy by Beckett
Catcher in the Rye
The Lacanian Subject by Fink

That's all I can think of for now. So, yeah.

Is this one of those postmodern things?

It's a day in the summer season. Sun soothing earth; light: bright. A gentle breeze caressing bodies clothed in as little as can be borne.


Sitting in my room looking through a window, dirty and worn. Looking out at as people trudge past with their cares encased in their heads, hidden away from all but themselves. "It's a day for mourning." "Where am I going?" "What am I doing here?"

I watch the cars streak by. A boom box here, a hoary shout there. "I am the Walrus?" "I can't take any more!" "Make it stop, please?"

Silent words criss-cross through my head. It strikes me as odd that I wish I were my conception of them: carefree, golden and jovial. "You can be whatever you want to be, sonny." "Opportunity knocks. Will you open your heart?" "Where's your head at?"

Silently, I gaze at them. I look up: no one is watching me. I look back down at them trudging past, paying no mind to eyes of a stranger above, looking through a window, battered and forlorn. "Morning has broken - it's the day's morning." "Where would I like to go?" "Or would I prefer to stay here?"

Through it all, the one pervasive thought in my mind is: I'm not happy. I guess that untouchable, everlasting core of joy I had buried in me has run out. That's a shame. That's troubling. Is there anything left to say? "Hello, goodbye?" "That's the standard!" "I will try to fix your achy mind."

When it's all said and done, it may just be that the coming of the Sun has brought to mind promises of romance, laughter, and dancing the nights away. I sense I'm missing my moments in the sun - days like these don't last forever. The people walking past, out of reach, just within sight, they are so far away. "You just need to get laid, by a hot lady, mind, my laddie." "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Will you hear my voice and sup with me?" "Do you remember?"

Rambling, gambling man. 2

It's one of those nights. I despise people who write lies. Those who knowingly spread falsehoods, and I despair for those who parrot stupidity. What does one say to the ardent idiot who asserts that Black people are black because they descended from Ham, the son of Noah (of the great flood myth. See Genesis), who got a curse placed on him? Is it worse that it's Black people presenting that utterance? It's saddening. How can a person swallow a claim that implies servitude due to colour of ones skin, because of a religious book? It's baffling. Worse, the message is spread around and reified. Mental slavery never had it so good.

I come from a world of fervent superstition and religious fundamentalism, but I can't still help being startled by Young Earth Creationists - you know, those people that believe the Earth and the Universe are 6000 to 10,000 years old. I have debated a lot of them on the interwebs, and it strikes me as odd that their most fundamental evidence for a short age is tantamount to counting the ages presented in the Bible. No, seriously! For them, most of the sciences, and scientists, must be embroiled in an unholy, very vast, conspiracy. Yuck!

Then there's WND. Soy makes you gay!!111!!! 4,000 out of 5,000 prophecies have been fulfilled!!!

Oh, and what's the deal with the Americans that insist Black people should vote for Obama because he's Black? Seriously? That's as stupid as not voting for him because he's Black.

Screw this, I'm going to bed. I'll have some whine with that, if you please.

(Not so) Random picture

Rambling, gambling man

I'm in the mood for writing nonsense (cue depreciating humour) tonight. The need to ramble on and on, probably the result of a desperate need to connect. I just want to do everything. I want to talk to anyone...I want to be alone. I want to be with a special someone and bask in the glory of love and affection - it's not too much to desire, is it? Maybe it is. I feel like dancing, but I can't dance...like that's ever stopped me before...well, yes, it has, but that's when I'm on the outside. Inside? I sway and do jerky movements that, if you squint one eye a little and close the other eye, look like awesome dance moves. Yeah, I'm hip like that!

Music! Lately I've been craving it more than usual. I had a moment today... one of those moments of inexplicable joy, where the I don't know hits you with a force that's all its own. It's that subtle something in music. I call it my mental orgasm...this one was one of the most powerful feelings of it, though. I like music, and music likes me. Hand in hand together, it leads me and I feed it. When I die, music will still be here, but, hopefully, it will sing me a sweet lullaby. I heart music and music hearts me.

What am I typing? I don't know man; it's the same ol' goodnews. The gospel, man! "Don't sweat the small stuff." Was that a King character? Only the final part.

I thought of an aphorism the other day, but I've forgotten how it goes. I've fallen for aphorisms, especially the vague ones that may be deep, but there's no real telling whether it is, or whether it ain't. Think Nietzsche, think Heraclitus. Yes, I can spell Nietzsche off the top of my head - you don't have to be German to not bastardise his name; ain't I great? Send a cookie. I have a hate-love relationship with the man - then again, would he have it any other way? Strangely though, I don't mind the three German H's: that would be Habermas, Hegel and Husserl. That could just be because I don't know any of them that well.

Random picture:

A return to Athletics

I'm thsick! Well, not quite, but I have a cold that will just not quit. Damn it to hell. Worse still, I have a chesty cough. I haven't had one of those in years, and I remember how freaking long it took for the last one to go, so this one should be fun.

Wonderfully, though, I'm back to athletics *takes bows*. Yup, Allen called it. I don't know what I was thinking when I left...I guess I wasn't thinking. It felt so good to walk on to the track; so good it felt like returning to that place. I so loved the feeling of being there...until I puked my guts out. In my defense I was sick and shouldn't have gone, but, meh! Whatchu gonna do. Now all I have to do is regain a good deal of the weight and muscles I've lost, and get some speed endurance (admittedly, my usual Achilles' heel), then the track can return to being one a "room of my own", so to speak.

I love this video called the "road to Beijing" on youtube. I may not make a Harry A-A type of comeback, or hope to win an Olympics competition, but it makes me happa.

Half a sketch

Al: So, what is it exactly that you do?

Bill [with a shrug]: I write a bit.

Al [incredulously]: You write a bit?!

Bill: I write a bit.

Al: You don't strike me as the kind...now, now, don't take that as a slur, or something. It's just... really, you don't strike me as the type

Bill: I strike you, how?

Al: Good with the hands, y'know? The kind that barrels through life making things. Not to say you can't think or nothing. Working with hands is respectable, y'know.

Bill: Writing requires hands; I work with my hands....

Al: Now, now, that's not...

Bill: ...there's no better barrel than the barrel than that that contains words. Writing's good for that.

Al: Look, you know what I mean...

Bill: I don't strike you as the writing kind.

Al: Yeah.

[an uncomfortable silence follows. Al begins to pick his nose, looking ill at ease. Bill stares at the ceiling]

Al: So, how did you get in here, anyhow?

Bill: I stabbed a policeman in the eye.

Al [with a gasp]: Christ! That's real bad. You know they're gonna get you bad for it. Why did you stab him, then?

Bill [shrugging] He had it coming.

Al: How?

Bill: He called me a hack.

Al: That all? I've been called...

Bill: Said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of pen than for me to write a decent obituary... He had it coming.

The past isn't going anywhere

Well, the title might be a misnomer depending on what exactly time is...besides, everyone knows that individual pasts tend to get extinguished with the passing of the person to whom they hold particular meaning, but I digress - this is not necessarily a post about the metaphysics of time ...or is it?

Yesterday, I walked by three old timers sitting, huddled together, drinking cheap liquor, laughing maniacally, sometimes looking stoic, other times forlorn, but the constant was that they kept on talking. I do not know what they were talking about - it wasn't relevant. What was relevant was the ideas they triggered in my mind. I imagined them, weary of a life spent dreaming and hoping, living and learning, and now in their "golden years" there's nothing to do but sit idly, drinking and discussing the philosophies that have influenced their nuances. I imagined they, fuelled by the headiness of alcohol, looked to the past and reflected on how things may have been different.

As I thought those thoughts, I wanted to go over to them. To proclaim, "Old timers, the past didn't go anywhere, you are all still here. Teach me your knowledge; show me all you have learnt; remind me of the mistakes I will forget! Let me drink with y'all, discussing humans and life, and together we shall drown ourselves in this moment."

But, I couldn't. My time has not yet come. There is still more to do, mistakes to be made and hopes dreamt. To sit in a circle with the old folks requires a life time of experiences. My life has only just begun - well, relatively speaking.

Then again, they could have been old fools.

Too much love will kill you

I'm in a sort of Queen mood tonight- the band, not the characteristic - and it's wonderful. Okay, not many people know this, but I'm a huge Queen fan. Freddie was just fucking beautiful, man, fucking beautiful (we miss you Freddie!). And the rest of the band were terrific in their music writing and stuff. They may not be considered the greatest band that ever lived, but, if I remember correctly, they are the only band that has had every member write at least one "number 1" hit (take that Beatles).

Right now, "in my tangled state of mind," I feel like most of the first stanza of Too Much Love Will Kill You is so apropos to my life. You know, that sense of being the "pieces of the man I used to be." Fuck, I didn't get the manual on how to be normal, so this growing up thing makes no sense, and don't get me started on not reading the signs. All which probably prompted the intervention I got yesterday.

Yeah, you know you're in a bad place when you get something of an intervention. I knew I was off the rails, but I didn't think it was that bad. So, now, I know for certain I'm the shadow of the person I used to be - and they weren't talking about my current emaciated look; I get that I need to find a way out of my head; and I've got to wake up somehow. That I don't know how to effect a change...wait, that's not quite right; I can sense how to effect some changes, I just...can't. Bleh!

On that note, I leave you with Queen's Too Much Love, etc. I like this version on youtube: it's a spliced version of Freddie and Brian May:

Hair

A little while ago, I sat behind a balding man on the bus. He was balding from the middle region of his head, and it had spread in concentric circles towards the back of his head. Hair matted where it hadn't been scorched by disrepair, the balding man's head gave me cause to pause. An idea of all life seemed to exude from his dome: despite being individuals, we become a monolithic whole in the context in which we are observed; in being part of the countless faceless, many get shaved off never to be seen in the physical, only experienced as an ever fading idea; eventually, entropy wins - we all, in the anonymity of existence, disappear, leaving a barren wasteland.

Am I morbid? Perhaps. But in that moment of almost obsessive observation of the balding man, I realised that, yes, it all must end, but while we remain the elements of a crowning feature, we might as well recognise that we live...or something.

Which brings me to suicide and the whole condolence issue. I'll do that tomorrow.

Realigning Myself

Here we are again. Another day, another means for impressing the illusion of relevance through the word. You know, the one where I pretend I'm addressing others and not myself. I like that. I lost my last couple of blogs because of my patchy memory - I'm getting older (metaphorically). Anyway, here's the deal: I plan to write a lot on here: barely completed thoughts, ridiculous Kritiks, stories and plays that will probably be first drafts, and any other dan thing that crops up. Let's obey the urge for life beyond the singular.

P.S. I need to make a LoLCat picture with a bookish cat saying "I can has ecritis?!" Yes, I'm into cats, and I like the Lolcats. Wanna fight about it?

That's it. I would post a song for the day but...meh!