New Short Story - Engineering Sloths

By Donovan James

It was there, all day, staring back at him. He, in turn, stared back at it. They were soulmates, in a way. The screen was his only company. Sometimes his master would come by and ask him to do something with the screen—move grey blocks to the grey box, or blue blocks to the blue box. It was mostly arranging things that his master’s masters deemed important. I’m sorry, I’ve misspoke. Of course Tim agreed that it was all very important. I wouldn’t want to imply otherwise.

All the Engineering Sloths worked in the screen farm. They drove to work from boxes they spent their nights in to a larger box that held tiny boxes for them to spend their days in. The tiny boxes were cubes and held their screens. They sat when they drove to work, and they sat when they were at work. And the state, all for the benefit of the Sloths—of course—offered relatively cheap screens that would play images and funny stories to them in their boxes at home. This way, they rarely, if ever, needed to have meaningful contact with another Sloth. And this was all for the better too, because who knows what those Sloths may have figured out it they actually talked to each other.

And so the screens provided everything. At night, in their box, the Sloths would make love to the screens. Not as they would another Sloth—that is, if they ever made love to another Sloth (which they didn’t)—but as a parasite. The Screen would play images and sounds that the Sloths liked, and the Sloths would shake their rumps until they made a mess, and fall asleep under the soft glow of their Screens.

Tim was a Sloth like any other Sloth, and so he had all these boxes and screens and therefore was as happy as he was told he should be. He didn’t really think much during the day, and this made the day pass relatively quickly, as did every unthinking day before and after. This was expected though, and strived for among the Sloths that Tim worked with. After all, who would want any day of their precious lives to be different then the day that came before?

Tim wasn’t particularly fat, nor particularly funny, nor particularly intelligent. He was perfectly average, and because of this averageness, The Powers That Be had begun to take notice. They were going to offer to make Tim one of them. No longer an Engineering Sloth, but a Master Sloth. They were going to tell Tim, in essence, that’d he won the race of the Sloths. For these Sloths raced as safely as they could to make it to their deaths.

But first, he had to train his replacement, for there was always another Sloth to fill every box.

“Tim?”

Tim turned in his swivel chair to the opening of his box. It was his Master.

“Sir?”

“How’s life?”

This question was, of course, a ruse. Tim couldn’t answer it honestly, at least not how he wanted. See, although Tim appeared perfectly average, he actually held a few rather original ideas in his head. I’ve misspoke again—many average Sloths hold original thoughts in their head, and therefore weren’t average at all. However, that’s what the Screens were for—to suppress these original thoughts. Who knows what would have happened if these Sloths with original thoughts spoke to other Sloths with original thoughts? Certainly nothing good!

But Tim’s original thoughts concerned the subject of all those boxes and screens that he surrounded himself with every day. He thought something was wrong with all of this, but he couldn’t quite articulate what it could be. And so these thoughts expressed themselves as a general feeling of unease, mixed with a dash of ennui. The worst of it, was that despite the warm glow he felt when staring at the Screens, these thoughts and feelings just kept pouring into his brain. Not he, nor the Screens, nor his Masters could silence them. How persistent his original thoughts were!

And so, when his Master asked him this question about his life, Tim could not say what was on his mind. He could not say that he’d begun turning off his Screens at home and staring out into the city. He didn’t want to, at first of course, seeing as how his chair at home was so comfortable and getting up and moving to the window took so much effort, but eventually those thoughts and feelings riled him out of his comfy chair and safe life, as they always tend to do with men who are destined to annoy The Powers That Be.

He stared out into the city and did something that, unbeknownst to him, no other Sloths did: he thought. He didn’t try to direct his thoughts at anything in particular, or figure out a problem that was bugging him; he just let them come and go. And he noticed, that as they came and went, that he wasn’t quite happy with the way things were. No, he thought, something was wrong with the Screens and the Boxes and the Masters and all of it. But he couldn’t quite put into words what it was.

And so, he simply replied with the standard saying of the time:

“It is what it is.”

And his Master replied with the standard reply to that standard reply:

“Glad to hear it.”

And thus his Master continued with his actual purpose for visiting Tim’s box:

“Tim, we have a new hire here today, and I’d like you to show him the ropes. You know, take him around and introduce him to everyone. Then, show him what he’ll be doing.”

“What will he be doing?”

“Your job. You’re being promoted.”

“Promoted?”

“Yes, you’re becoming a Master.”

“Oh.”

“…that is, if you want to become one.”

“Um, of course, I want to, I’m just surprised.”

“Very well then. We’ll start your training tomorrow.”

“Great.”

The Master left and Tim turned back to his screen. The day passed very quickly, until the new hire arrived, and Tim thought very little about becoming a Master. He saved all of his thinking for his box at home.

****

“Mr. Tim?”

Tim turned in his swivel chair to the opening of his cube.

“I’m Daniel.”

Tim slid over and shook the appendage of young Daniel.

“Nice to meet you. Where are you from?”

“East of the Large Rock.”

“Near the Doorstep?”

“Yes sir.”

“No need to call me sir, I’m not your Master.”

“Oh, ok.”

“Did you go to school over there?”

“Yes, si—yes.”

“How’d you like it?”

“It was what it was.”

Tim nodded.

“Well, let me show you what you’ll be doing here.”

Daniel slid up beside Tim.

“So, you’ll have a screen like this—have you used one of these before?”

Daniel nodded.

“Good, so it’ll be set up like this, and you’ll type in your Sloth Security Number. Do you have a SSN?”

Daniel nodded.

“Good, so after you type that in, this screen will pop up.”

“And then what?”

“And then you’ll wait for a work order.”

“What’s a work order?”

“It’s where a grey or blue or red block will come in, and you’ll have to place it in the appropriate box.”

“What if there isn’t an appropriate box?”

“Then you create one.”

“Then what?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“….That’s it.”

There was a pause.

“Let me show you an example.”

“Does everyone do the same thing that you do?”

“No, someone has to send me the colored shapes.”

“I see.”

A work order popped up.

Tim looked to the screen, “Now let’s take a look at this work order. This is a red block. So it goes,” he paused, deciding to test Daniel, “Where?”

“In the red box.”

“Right.”

“You…you do this every day?” Daniel asked.

Tim withheld a sigh. “Yes.”

There was a long pause as the screen mirrored there motionless bodies. The screen did not think, it did not move, it did not utter a word. It hummed softly, like the technological equivalent of breathing to the Sloths. The hum politely signaled to the world that yes, the screen was alive.

In the upper right hand corner, the lettering read: Current Jobs In Queue: 0.

Daniel finally broke the silence.

“Why?”

****

Tim stared out of his window to the city, with Daniel’s question still circling his mind.

“Why?”

What a simple question, he thought, yet so persistent! Why do I do it? I don’t necessarily enjoy it—no, he was already lying. He grinned to himself; this is what he most enjoyed about thinking—catching himself stating the rationalizations that the Masters gave him for what he did. He didnt enjoy it at all! He actively disliked it! But then why? Why did he do it?

He’d been offered to become a Master now. This was important—to the other Masters. But was it important to him? No. It simply didn’t interest him. But what did? He didn’t know. He just felt something in him that was directionless and angry. That wanted to lash out, but at what exactly, or for what reason, he had no answer.

He looked to his pleasure screen, its oddly dark glass staring back at him. It reflected a distorted image of his box with him in it. This frightened him. And so, he went into his room and found the gun he’d purchased months ago on a whim. He’d been at a festival of sorts where they sold all types of guns, and he’d found one, the human equivalent of a double barreled shotgun, and for some reason, he’d bought it.

So, he sat down in front of his pleasure screen, cleaning it. He’d look up from his work frequently to the screen, and smile. After it was clean and fully loaded, he set the gun beside the screen and went to bed.

To the Powers That Be, the most dangerous thing in that box was not the double barreled shotgun, but the thoughts inside of Tim’s head.

****

In the morning he awoke, showered, and dressed as usual. Then he went over to his pleasure screen and caressed it. There was tinge of uncertainty, of doubt within him, but also—and this surprised him the most—of remorse. He almost felt like he was about to harm something that was alive, that was an actual living being and friend to him. And this feeling, this dependence on the screen, frightened him most of all. And so he aimed the shotgun at his screen and fired.

****

When he arrived at work, he entered with the shotgun. No other sloths noticed however, as they were fully engrossed in their engineering. He walked into his box, where Daniel sat, waiting. He ignored him, pointed the gun at his screen, and fired. The screen exploded, sending shards of glass and pieces of plastic throughout the air. There were screams and Sloths sliding about with surprisingly agility. Tim ignored them all, however, and moved to the box beside his. The Sloth in that one appeared very frightened, but Tim merely smiled, pointed the gun at his screen, and fired. Then he went to box after box doing the same. He made it through twelve boxes before the security guards his Master had called fired two shots into his brain, killing him.

Punk Rock & Politics - Violence

Couchsurfing and viewing this fine country from the dashboard of my car as it all goes rolling, rolling by.

I’m currently in San Antonio, Texas with a buddy a mine, at a ridiculously nice hotel. It’s weird. It’s weird cause Sunday night I was in Tallahassee, and I found the cheapest hotel I could, and it was, of course, sketchy as fuck. Like, it was built how you’d imagine Ikea would build a hotel if Ikea was made by crack heads. The floors were cheap and thudded as I walked over them, the doors were that cheap ground wood that Ikea uses, and it all felt like somebody had haphazardly pieced it together like a giant Lego kit. There were old cars outside, just sittin’. No idea why. The guy at the counter barely spoke English. The bed covers were plastic. That sort of thing.

Monday night I tried out Couchsurfing for the first time. This blows people’s minds when they first hear it, so here goes. There’s a website called Couchsurfing.org and basically you create a profile (like Facebook) with all your interests and stuff about you (the layout of the website greatly encourages that you write about yourself rather then 'choose' what interests you like facebook). You verify your identity and location by sending them a copy of your driver’s license or whatever. Then you message people on the site and ask if you can crash on their couch, or people message you and ask to crash on yours.

So, I stayed with a really cool chick Monday night, she was a recent Political Science major and a soon to be Peace Corps volunteer. She described herself as a ton of ‘-ist’s’—environmentalist, feminist, vegetarian-(ist?) and so on, all of which are a type of abbreviated shorthand for "I am a progressive, intelligent individual." Anyway, I show up at the place, and she’s at work, so her friend lets me in. Her friend, with the ‘only in the south but sweet as iced tea name’ of Lesley Anne hands me an air mattress (there’s no couch). I think, even better! These things are comfy as hell. At least the air mattress was that I used to hook up with a girl in Myrtle Beach during Senior Week 8 years ago, and surely air mattress technology has improved since then.

Anyway, so then she hands me a blow dryer and says that they lost the pump, but this works pretty well. So, I’m sitting on the floor, holding a blow dryer up to the much smaller hole of the air mattress. Amazingly, this worked. I had to blow it up at the end using the incredibly evolved power of homo sapian lungs, but it worked. And the air mattress was comfier then any bed I’ve slept on since probably an ex-girlfriend's (cause women, unlike men, will not put up with an uncomfortable bed).

So, last night I stayed in one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever been in. It’s southern style and organic, meaning it’s not a skyscraper surrounded by cement. It’s a three story, sprawling building with pools, a lazy river, wide open atriums with trees and parks, and on and on. It just emanates wealth. Pretty crazy spectrum there.

Also, Texas is a beautiful fucking state. When you look out your window at it, the actual ground, the actual road in front of you, is only about an inch high (physics and angles apply here). The sky is every thing else that you see. Like, it’s all sky. It’s all this beautiful blue sky with fluffy clounds that goes on forever, in every direction. It’s insane. I’ve seen it twice, and it’s fucking awesome.

Losing My Virginity

The first time I had sex was on my eighteenth birthday. To top that off, it was prom night. I was so fucking (get it?) ecstatic from it, that afterwards I called up my friend Ben (after I dropped her off) and bragged about it (he was still a lowly virgin). I remember bragging about it to a girl at High School too, and she was all like, “Aren’t you suppose to do that with a girl you’re dating?” Talk about shitty on a rose bush.

Anyway, I’ll never forget this part. I firmly believe everyone has some weird aspect of their first time. So…this is mine. We’re making out in my parents basement, on a pull out couch (by the time I moved out, that couch was disgusting in it’s genocide of would be James' that lay slain across it). And we get all good and naked, and then I pull off her panties and lean down to eat her out (foreplay, gentleman, is essential). And as I lean down, I see a piece of cotton or paper or something. Like, it was right in between her labia’s, just resting in there. And I kinda just stared at it, cause I thought, should I pull it out? What if it’s attached to something, like her tampon? Is that how those things work (I was 18, give me break)? Wait, does that mean she’s on her period? I don’t want to go down on her if she’s on her period but I really want to have sex, so I’m probably going to anyway.

Well, this poor girl sees my confused face and looks down, says something like oh, how embarrassing or I’m sorry, and pulls it off. It wasn’t connected to anything, so I assumed she wasn’t on her period, and went at it.

Um, I really wanted to get laid.

To this day I'm not sure why there was a piece of cotton. It never happened again. Anyway, I lasted four green day songs and we did three sexual positions. I was proud of this at time.

Violence

I’ve been driving across this country, running into people in gas stations, hotels, restaurants, bars, homes, and friends of friends. And after meeting all of these people, it begs the question, Is anyone happy in this country? More accurately, is anyone content with their lives and their society in this country?

I saw a family in this hotel, and by most standards of life, they had it better than any other family I’ve seen on the road. Now, no family I’ve seen on the road has been happy. But here, at this wealthy hotel, was the best chance of seeing a happy family. And what did I see in that family? A distressed, unsatisfied mother hoarding the two children (who looked instantly bored with everything) together so they’re not lost, and a pissed off father, who honestly had the look on his face of a man who would have given every goddamn dollar in his bank account to have been woken up with a blowjob this morning. What did all this money get him? A place to take his kids on a vacation he doesn’t want to be on?

The point being, I think money will make you happier to an extent (I'm using happy as a synonym for content). If you don’t have to worry about your car breaking down or your rent being paid, you will be happier then most others. However, if you’re life does not have meaning or if your country’s identity as a people is collapsing, then it won’t matter how much money you have, for you won’t be happy either.

I think the past ten or so years are starting to break people. We had the first major terrorist attack in our country, which was devastating to our national psyche (even though we’re the leading cause of State Terrorism in the world, but that’s a topic for a different day). After that we started two wars (that we’re still in), and that we all know solved nothing, and in general, made things worse--we're a bankrupt country, we've lost the world's respect, we've increased the likelihood of terrorism, and above all else we've made people's lives worse. We all know that we never should have gotten into these wars, but now the grey area is how to get out.

Then we have the torture we all approved of through our silence. Did we think, prior to it occurring, that we as a people were torturer’s? Did being torturer’s, having a debate on exactly what is and is not torture, not effect our national psyche? Did it not effect each of us individually?

Then came the countless Iraqi and Afghani causalities. Deep down we know that these are simply human beings. And deep down we know we are killing them. Let those two sentences sink in. We are the bad guys. We are the invaders. Whatever good intentions we may have are worthless. They do nothing to assuage murder.

Then came the further corruption of our government. After the wars were found to be bullshit, the torture authorized by them, the killing of innocents, no one went to jail. Then came the collapse of the economy. This was perpetrated by banks like Goldman Sachs, who made money on the stock market going up, than actively invested in it collapsing. But no one went to jail for this either.

Then the years of no universal health care and not investing in our infrastructure caught up to us. There’s no safety net for young people of this country--they're simply slaves to whatever job will give them health care. And there's no safety net for the elderly; they die in their children’s homes, taken care of by them whenever the children have time when they’re not at work. I’m not only talking about my Mother here—there were people at Northrop Grumman that also suffered silently by watching their parents die in their own homes, with no outside medical help. Is this not something we can all agree should be given to us as a people? Some sort of medical care as we’re dying? Is this not a basic right in a wealthy nation? Or are the poor so undeserving of our respect, so far removed from the wealthy as people, that they deserve this sorrow; that they deserve to die in a pile of their own shit atop a child’s Transformer sheets, with no medical help?

Then we elected politicians who promised to change things: Obama in 08, the republicans in 10. But they changed nothing. They were the same old shit. They were cocksuckers ready to get on their knees for whatever lobbyist placed a dollar bill in their G String.

So then they tried to pump us full of bullshit. They gave us reality TV shows, they gave us yuppie dramas, they gave us Superhero blockbusters, Ipads, and magical dildo’s and on and on. The reason no one gives a shit about these things anymore is because they don’t reflect our reality, the reality that we live in on a day to day basis. They’re just sugarcoated bullshit images of a nation we once were. Just like our advertisements. Old Navy is selling me $20 jeans through a commercial during CSI by a happy, white, American family. Where is this family? Who the fuck is that happy?

All of these things combined have destroyed the image of who we thought we were. We’re not nobel liberators. We’re not free here. There’s no prosperity. There’s no justice. There’s no American Dream. There’s just getting by until you fucking die. The best you can hope for in America today. Does anyone disagree with me? Does anyone think any part of our society is going well? And how fucking resonating to your soul is it that that answer is no

New Punk Rock and Politics: The Road

Posted on Aug 14th by Donovan James

So saddle up your horses now and keep your powder dry,

because the truth is you won't be here long, yeah soon you're gonna die.

So to the heart, to the heart, there's no time for you to waste,

cause you won't find your precious answers by staying in one place,

Frank Turner - The Road

My Current Living Situation

As a box of random shit spilled said random shit all over me as I tried to reverse birth the duffel bag I live out of into the car I also live out of, I realized that I haven’t yet described how I’m currently living. I left my job earlier this month, and am now driving across the country, jobless and homeless. It’s a pretty awesome/terrifying/liberating feeling. But my car is literally jammed full of shit, and I'm living in cheap hotel rooms and people's couches. I filled the trunk with luggage and boxes until the only room left was the small areas between the car and the boxes, so then I jammed shit in this space (books games, dvds, ps2’s, whatever). In the backseat is clothes, my box of mementos, two huge boxes of books, and so on. In short, I get some weird fucking looks when I go through fast food drive through windows.

I've also realized there is a monumental difference between traveling in Europe and traveling in America. Namely, we don't have a hostel system. There are some hostels here, but absolutely nothing like Europe. There is a culture of hostels in Europe; people privately own hostels everywhere, renting out spare rooms, and mostly college students but also people of all ages stay in these hostels, meet the actual owners of the house or town home, and meet other people. It's a community that supports getting to know other people. In other words, hostels force you to talk to and be with other people, which helps to educate the traveler on the world, on customs, on tolerance and being humble. Here, you get your own private hotel room (which for only 10 or 20 20 bucks more then a hostel, is sort of impressive) with a TV and a bed and a private bath. So, it does have perks. But you're also alone, and you meet know on interesting, because this system of hotels in America does what many things in this country do--help separate the classes. If you're poor here, you're staying by yourself in a dingy hotel with creepy, sketchy fucking dudes. If you're poor in Europe, you're staying with all other classes in this hostels. It's the norm for travelers to stay in hostels in Europe. It's the norm for people to stay in at least decent hotels here in the States. If you don't, this is another way the country makes you feel like shit for being poor (other ways: apple products, having the coolest device, the nicest car, the highest status job, and so on). Neither the poor hotel or the rich hotel give the sense of community that hostels give in Europe, but you're not looked down upon when you stay in a nice hotel in the States.

Other side note: hostels are generally privately owned, but hotels in the states are generally corporate owned. So you most likely support a corporation of some sort--and therefore not a family business, and most likely some horrible environmental or labor issue).

Also, Europe also has a better train system. Our flights and scenery are more or less on par with Europe though; although the Italian country side is awesome, but so is the part of Texas where the sky is huge and practically engulfs the land. German scenery sucks but so do our strip malls. And so on.

Bond actors are a satire of the President at the time

Roger Moore was bumbling, goofy but sort of charming older version of bond. His movies stretched the believability of the series (remember when he went to the moon?). Ronald Reagan was senile—and therefore goofy—and stretched the believability of our country and its place in the world through trickle down economics and an actual Star Wars Program.

Bush Senior was an evil, unfunny, bird like man who started an ‘official’ bullshit war. Timothy Dalton was the darkest bond up to that time, who wasn’t particularly funny (like Roger Moore), or particularly charming (like Brosnan), and killed more people ruthlessly than any other bond up to that time.

Clinton was a womanizer; a charming as hell, slick haired, smooth mother fucker. Pierce Brosnan. Enough said.

Bush was a bumbling, aggressive idiot who didn’t like to participate in diplomacy and started two ‘official’ bullshit wars. Daniel Craig’s bond is a dark natured fuck up, who bumbles his way through missions, kills relentlessly, and barely talks in either movie.

They haven’t made a Bond movie with Obama in office (MGM has been in bankruptcy), but my guess is that the bond of this age would be thoughtful, classy, still capable of killing some people but probably still inexperienced. His villain would probably be the biggest threat to the world any Bond had ever faced (due to the massive amount of shit that poor bastard inherited (note: just because I acknowledge the massive amount of shit Obama inherited from Bush doesn’t mean I condone his right wing policies).

Any port in a storm.

So, my friend danced his ass off the other night. Not only was it rhythmic (which for a white dude, is really the only barometer of success, cause we are awkward as fuck on the dance floor), but it was innovative. I just watched, well, because I hate dancing (um, I have tats bro, I don’t dance), but also because it was actually really good dancing.

The next day, as we nursed our hangover, my friend and I watched the Colbert Report. He had on some 65 or so year old woman to talk about her book (what happened to America? I mean, back in the 50’s, back in the good old days of this country, this woman would just be in the kitchen, making me a goddamn sammich. But now, thanks to those goddamn progressives and gays, here she was writing a book. A book!) Anyway, she was sort of attractive—like you could tell she was really hot back in the day (see above). So I asked my friend, would you bang her? His response:

Any port in the storm.

“You two fucking shitbags.”

So, I got drunk with two long time friends Tuesday night in Greensboro, NC. We’re straight, southern raised young men with a propensity for intelligence and, every once in a while, the more artful interests on this rock, and therefore we spent the night playing chess, making fun of each other, and drinking beer, before later going out and getting smashed. What the hell else would we do? I thought about writing a short story about it. It was going to be called, “You two fucking shitbags.” And it was going to go something like:

“I fucking hate you.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Suck my goddamn balls you faggot.”

“Ooooo is my hair perfect??? Oh wait, I don’t have any.”

“Don’t mind me, I just started drinking Jack and Coke at 8 am this morning!”

And so on. But I don’t think it would translate well from the experience to the printed page.

Support Local Vegan and Vegetarian restaurants!

I ate an awesome local diner called Ethos Vegan Restaurants in Orlando, FL. The menu was completely Vegan. I got a breakfast burrito stuffed with tofu scramble, sautéed with onions and seasoning, grilled tofu sausage, and hash browns, wrapped in a tortilla and covered in gravy. It. Was. Awesome.

I think Vegetarian restaurants (and therefore vegetarianism in general) would be much more popular if there was a capitalist incentive to create them. But there’s not. Corporations are paid to grow corn. This is what they mean when they say corn is subsidized. It's just an Orwellian trick. What it actually is, is socialism from the poor to the rich. We pay taxes so that some of those taxes can increase the profits of the corporations that grow corn. (Note: this is also why Fox News Zealots call Obama's moderate policies socialism. He wants to reduce the amount of tax payer money corporations get by a little, and so, from their point of view, it is socialism. The poor are giving less money to the rich. Don't look at the actual definition of socialism in this conversation though, cause your head will fucking explode).

Corn is subsidized in this country, and therefore we make fuck tons of food out of it. We feed our cows corn (that’s indigestible), we feed chickens corn, we make sugar out of corn, we make calorie free sugar out of corn (hello aspartame), and on and on. Since we pay people to grow corn, people grow a shit ton of it, and therefore we’ve created all sorts of chemicals form corn and uses for corn. Corn and meat also increase the chances of all cancers, obesity, diabetes and so on.

So, if you paid people and corporations to grow and research vegetables and fruit, they would be cheaper. Not only that, the populace would be healthier because they could afford healthy food. As it stands now, healthy food is a privilege for the rich. This is a very easy solution to a very important we as a country face. Meat and corn consumption make people sicker, which in turn raise health care costs. We pay corporations taxpayer money to grow corn and engineer meat (I refuse the to use the word raise, cause those animals are treated like nothing more then a product). If we stopping paying them to grown corn and engineer meat, and instead paid them to grow vegetables and fruit, this would decrease the cost of vegetables and fruit, and increase the cost of meat and corn. Therefore less people would buy corn and meat, and more people would buy vegetables and fruit because they're the cheapest.

This exact argument also explains the problem with oil and clean energy. We give taxpayer money to oil companies so that they can increase their profits on oil and lower the cost of oil to us. Companies are not paid as much for clean energy as they are for oil. Therefore, companies have a capitalist incentive to just keep drilling for oil and not invest in clean energy. Reverse this trend, and pay them to invest in clean energy and stop paying them to invest in oil, and see what happens.

The NFL is back!!! Yay!!!

I am a 26 year old male in Orlando Florida, slightly drunk from PBR (that’s a shout out to all you perpetually sad hipsters out there. What’s there to be sad about anyway? We’re riding a sinking ship that runs on the fuel of dinosaur bones turned diamonds and our slowly dying dreams). What follows will be a rant, with no revision, no purpose at the start.


I’m glad football is back. Who thinks the US government had a role in ending the lockout? Or, to put it a different way, who thinks that the NFL is a brainwashing arm of the US status quo, similar to but different then the nightly news?


The news depicts itself as the giver of information. It investigates, finds out something from different sources and from compiling evidence, and then reaches a logical conclusion. Then it tells us this conclusion. The problem, is that the news doesn’t actually do this. We all know that. No one that’s reading this actually believes that Fox News is fair and balanced (and that’s not because my reader ship of two dudes is just soooooo much smarter than everyone else (cue Jon Stewart and aforementioned PBR at their side). It’s because it’s obvious as fuck that they slant right wing (or neo con at this point). And all of the rest of the news is the same way. It takes most of their information from the government, goes no further in verifying or double checking this information, and then repeats the governments talking points (it’s daily messages to the people) as fact. As news. As what you need to know as ‘citizens’.


Now, let’s think about this for a minute. The government tells the news institution points A,B, and C. Let’s say these are:
Chipotle is awesome.
Beer is good.
Brad Pitt and blah blah blah.


Fox news says: Everyone who doesn’t like Chipotle is a terrorist. Only Budweiser is a good beer. And Brad Pitt and Blah blah blah blah blah.


MSNBC says: Chipotle is made with the freshest ingredients and humanely grown meat. Here are some beers, they are awesome. And Brad Pitt and Blah blah blah blah blah.


And so on. And since none of us, no actual citizen can get on the TV airwaves since the TV channels are corporate owned, we have to take this as the only news there is. So, the most common form of the transfer of information in our society is corporate owned, and no citizen of our supposed democracy can create their own channel or become involved in this form of information.


Now, this is why the corporations want to pass the “Net Neutrality Bill.” It’s not net neutrality at all, that part of the story is simply congress calling a bill it’s exact opposite to make Orwell proud. The Net Neutrality bill would actually let the corporations rule the internet, and make all privately owned websites inaccessible. Thus, no citizen can participate in the internet, just like they can't participate in TV now. We will simply be told what they decide we need to be told. In other words, they're keeping us out of the discussion, and framing the discussion in topics that they wish to discuss. This is why gay marriage is an 'issue' but US support of Israel is not.


So the news pretends it’s giving us the information we need to know (which it is, sort of. Not to be citizens, cause they don’t want to us to be active citizens in our democracy. If we did that, then we would shake the columns of power and potentially disrupt the status quo. And who has more to lose, those of us with no power, or those of us with all the power? Right).


So the news pretends it’s giving us information. That’s their purpose in society. They fill that plug so that we can all go about being good little citizens. The NFL has it’s own purpose as well, and it’s to entertain us and get us to the bars and get us drunk, but more then any fucking thing else:


The NFL gives men something to talk about.


We are currently in two ‘official’ wars (you know, cause that ‘official’ status matters. Like, when you weren’t officially dating that chick, but got her pregnant, and the child totally didn’t matter cause it wasn’t ‘official.’ It’s the same way with the Libian and Pakistan children that we kill. Their deaths aren’t on our hands cause those wars aren’t ‘official.’)

Our country is in debt, ruled by bankers, unemployment is at record highs, and the inequality disparity in this country is that of a Banana Republic. Most people have some sort of deep sorrow in their lives which they keep to themselves, and find their job completely meaningless. This is the current state of our nation. But what do we as men, as potential intellectual players, do with our words, with our conversations? We talk about whether Tebow should start over Orton (Tebow totally blew it in training camp!) We talk about if Vick will stay healthy of an entire season. We talk and analyize and investigate and memorize stats and dedicate so much of our fucking brains to football, that it outstounds me what could happen if we put this much thought into our country, into our nation, into those that corrupt our institutions to rule us.

The fact of the matter is that there are serious issues that we must confront as a people, as a nation. Those revolutions in the middle east? Those riots in England? Those protests in Athens? They are a sign of a people attacking the problem, however sloppily, however haphazardly. I’m not saying we must do exactly what they’re doing, or that their method of attack will work for us. Most likely it wont. But we must face the problem. We have to talk about the elephant in the room. We have to talk about the problems that face us.


But, you know, whatever, Tebow looked pretty good in that preseason game, right?

What the fuck did D.A.R.E. stand for anyway?

So, there's this drug called DMT. Wait, back up. I want to do mushrooms. Wait, let's go back again.

Whenever I get high, meaning smoking trees--with no alcohol involved--I get wicked introspective. I start analyzing myself and the choices I've made and who I am and all that. Sometimes I get freaked out, cause I view me and my actions from such an outside perspective. I think, jesus christ, what is that guy doing? What the fuck is he thinking with *whatever* ? But after the high goes away, I realize, no I wanted that choice. I wanted to do that. But when I'm high, I can view it from an outside observer. I can look at my own self and my own actions from an entirely different perspective.

So, people say that when you do mushrooms, you see shit differently--like the floor move or light on a wall dance like flames--and you think of shit differently. It's an hallucinogen. They even did a study where mushroom gave people a better outlook on life. They were accepting of other people and their choices, happier in life, and less anxious. I think this is because mushrooms give you a taste of the Buddhist idea of enlightenment.

Before I go further, enlightenment, according to the few monks that attempt to put it into words, cause it supposedly cannot be put into words, is something along the lines of: looking at reality with no preconception. With no framework, no idea, no personal spin on it. Everything simply is, and you are simply doing whatever it is you're doing at this one moment in time. No other moments exist. That's why they say, "Enlightenment is eating a tangerine."

So, DMT is basically a way more intense version of shrooms. You release shit tons of it when you sleep. And supposedly, you release shit tons of it right when you die. When you take it sober, people say time dilates--you're only high for 20 minutes but it feels like 3 hours or a day or 40 minutes or a week or whatever. And during that time, sometimes you talk to your own version of a power animal--an all knowing wise creature that gives you answers. What answers does he give you? My guess is steps closer to achieving enlightenment.

Joe Rogan describe coming off DMT as your mind being a desktop of your computer, with only one folder on it, and it's labeled, "All my old bullshit." And you either start making new bullshit, or you don't. Most people make new bullshit. And he said after the 5th time of DMT, you don't make any new bullshit. In other words, you can view life without a framework, reality without any preconceptions or ideas. No old bullshit. Just enlightenment. Just an ape on a rock eating a tangerine. Nothing more. So maybe doing DMT lets you achieve full enlightenment all the time. Or maybe it makes you retarded.

Uh, so, where was I going with this? That's why I want to do DMT, cause all of these things of who we are and what we've done and the future and who you want to be and who all these other people are and the war and politics and social issues and the ghettos and the corrupt politicians and the distracting culture and all of this huge fucking circus that goes on to distract us, maybe there's a way for DMT to help us see it for what it is and see us for who are. What it is being the reality we were born into, but one that I think is still worth trying to change. And us as a bunch of lonely apes killing each other and playing games to give our lives meaning to distract us from the fact we're gonna die.

Mind, Blown

Funny People, with Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan, and so on, is a loose adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

Mind, blown.

I am unemployed and homeless

So, my last day of work was Thursday, and par for the course, I got drunk that night. Good times, played shuffled board with some friends, drank the last Natural Bohemian I'll have for a long while. I met this girl who, after five minutes of meeting her, started talking about how her goal in life was to meet a man and marry him. She said something like, and I'm not exaggerating at all, "My place is in the kitchen, with dinner made, and no panties on underneath my skirt." I mean, my liberal coffeeshop sensibilities were appalled at the anti-feminist nature of the comment, but my penis was intrigued by the pantyless skirt. And so it goes, my philosophical quandary on this planet.
But whatever, to each their own. She sounds like she'd make a perfect wife to a good ole boy, and then they could pop out some kids that I can hopefully brainwash into socialists when I become a professor (kidding!).

****

As I was packing up my car, I dropped my bong on the ground, and the female piece of the actual pipe shattered. So I picked up the bong (which was perfectly okay, in case you're worried), and then leaned down further to pick up the small, broken pieces of the pipe. But I couldn't find them, cause the street was littered with random broken glass. Ah, Baltimore.

****

I ate my last meal in Baltimore at Sip and Bite, a local 24/7 diner in between Canton and Fells that's been there for approximately 100 million years or so. It is an awesome fucking place. It's run by these Greeks (no shit, Wire fans), and so all their local friends were coming in, talking in Greek and some other guys were talking in Spanish, all to the staff who spoke both languages. I watched the cook make my Veggie Omelet and potatoes, then I loaded up two thick pieces of toast with butter and washed it all down with two cups of coffee. Goddamn amazing hungover breakfast.

And then I left.

Gramps

By Donovan James

Dad was drunk. That meant Mom was gonna be pissed. Second thought, Mom probably didn’t care enough to be mad. She understood. Kids are left all alone to process things, while adults get to indulge in a good solid drink or ten.

Everybody ready? Everybody ready?

It’s always like we’re amassing a brigade, and there are only four of us. Timmy’s the odd one out. Two adults, myself on the cusp (even though I think I’m an adult, I doubt Mom or Dad would, and if you can’t legally drink, does it really matter what you think?) and Timmy. Poor Timmy. What’s he going to think about this? Maybe this will be that day. You know, the one in your youth that finally kills the innocence. The one that you probably don’t remember (or maybe you do, maybe you told it while fishin’ for pity on a therapist couch. I don’t judge you though, life is hard. What’s wrong with wanting someone to talk to? I don’t judge. I simply try and understand). I don’t remember mine, but it’s probably rooted firmly in my brain somewhere giving birth to my fetishes.

Back, years ago, when I was fourteen or so, I knew Gramps. Sort of. How much can you know an 80 year old as a teenager? It’s like different species of anthropoid trying to relate. There I was, all cocky and pissed off, full of piss and vinegar and infinite erections, not that I’m much different now, but I’m pretty sure I was worse. Working your way through community college kinda kills the cockiness of a young man though. So be it! Let it all burn! Let me die a thousand times before my death!

He’d come by, like, we’d be in the same room together. So I knew him? Not really. Did he know me? Probably. Seems like the old kinda have a 4th dimension they see in—they see in wisdom. They see all the ways you’ll be crushed and hurt and fucked as your life goes on, and not only can they not stop it, they don’t want to. Cause that’s how they became who they are. Hell, that’s how they got to see in wisdom. And once you see in wisdom, I’m guessin’ you think it’s the greatest thing ever, and you want everybody to see the same. That or just suffer the same. It’s the opposite of sitting on that therapist’s couch.

Imagine wisdom as crackhead nirvana injected into your eye sockets with a needle barnacled in rust. It’s the mind giving up. It’s the outcome of a life fully fucked. It’s the mind ensuring itself that it does understand. That all this makes sense. It doesn’t, of course, but being so mentally fucked that you delude yourself with wisdom, well, that’s better than senility.

I guess.

The real question: can you drink yourself into wisdom? Well, Dad is trying to find out. If he fails, I will be more than ready to follow in the family calling.

We load up into the car. Timmy doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s playing his Gameboy. Oh, to be young! What a full of shit little shit I am. I am young. For now. Dad’s head is rolling back and forth as the car takes turns. We go right, his head goes left. We go left, his head goes right. He’s awake I think. Am I?

Mom’s driving. What a trooper. Her hands are shaking. This is motherhood. Fatherhood is intimidating a daughter’s boyfriend or teaching a boy to throw. Motherhood is driving your family, since your husband is completely sloshed, to see their dying grandfather and trying to hold it all together when all you really want to do is breakdown and cry.

We park in a parking deck and walk to the overpass. Tiny slots for cars. Tiny rooms for bodies. The overpass has glass walls and crosses over a small road. Cars pass by beneath us. The overpass is air conditioned and cold. The sunlight doesn’t pierce the glass—not any real form of it. It’s filtered a dozen times by that thick glass. It’s like an airlock, transporting us from the land of the living to the land of the dead. What’s Timmy doing? Running his hand across the glass, fingers dancing along it, making smears that someone will have to clean up. What a bastard! What innocence!

We pass through the second set of airlock doors and enter the hospital. Gramps is in the critical care unit. He’s been here for months, but we haven’t come to see him yet. I have an excuse—college. Timmy does too, I guess, in that it’s always hard for parents to choose to kill their son’s innocence on any given day. I don’t know why Dad hasn’t come before, and Mom has—actually I do know why Dad hasn’t. He’s a coward.

We take dozens of right and left turns through the hospital. I look into the rooms that we pass and there are two beds separated by a curtain. On the opposite wall a TV rests between them. Who gets to choose what’s on TV? I hope I do. I don’t see any heads or the tops of any bodies, only the legs buried under mountains of blankets. No wonder they need all these blankets, it’s goddamn freezing.

Sometimes I see fingers above the blankets. They dance and move. What are they connected to? What are they dancing to? Maybe the wisdom is playing a swan song, something minor and slow before these people become cadavers, before the stoppage of neurological processes turn them from honorable vessels of life to cadavers of meat.

We get into the elevator and hit five. Another airlock. The walls are mirrors. Why have mirrors in a hospital elevator? Who wants to see themselves? Dad, apparently. But that’s not unusual; all drunks are in love with themselves.

The doors open. Should we take off our space suits or wait till we know that the air is safe? I decide to wait. Better to be on the safe side. You can’t be too safe!

Another half dozen right and left turns. Then we finally enter the critical care ward. Only Mom knows the way. We pass by open door after open door. What’s in all these doors? Toilets. How weird is that? The rooms are way smaller, and there’s only one toilet in the center of each one. No TV either, just something hanging over the toilet, I can’t tell what.

We get to Gramps’ room. My father puts his hand on the door and steady’s himself. He’s sweating, a thick panicky sweat. Mom studies him, and places her hand on the back of his neck. She loves him. That’s something, isn’t it? She looks to Timmy, and then me, and says, “Wait till I tell you to come in.”

Timmy and I sit down outside the door. The doors opens, they enter, the door closes. I watch Timmy play his game boy. I’m kinda jealous to be honest. He gets all the credit of coming here but doesn’t have to pay attention to anything or talk to anyone. He is the sacrifice though, so I guess there is a downside. I look down the corridor. Sometimes nurses pass. Mostly no one though. There’s a janitor at the far end. He enters a room. After a while he exits and goes into another. I hear toilets distantly flush. I’m bored.

The door opens and Dad walks out, stumbling away, his eyes red and his face puffy.
“Come on in,” my mother says.

The door is cracked, I can’t see inside. I just see some dim light escaping. I tell Timmy to wait. I walk to the door and push it open with one hand, and peer in. Mom is sitting in front of the toilet, the only thing in the room. It’s hooked up to a series of wires and cables and IV’s and sounds like its running. I let the door close behind me.

“Come see Gramps.”

I creep forward. There’s nothing in the room. What is she talking about? There’s no bed. Where’s Gramps?

I creep forward. There’s just the toilet, and the water’s running. I look into it, but I’m too far away and I can’t see in. I just see the water cascading down the sides. Hanging above it is a crib toy—tiny plastic stars and half moons hanging by strings. They slowly turn clockwise, then counter clockwise, then clockwise, and so on.

I creep forward. Mom is sitting in front of it, looking down. Her eyes are watering. Her hands are clasped together, the whites of her knuckles gleaming. What is she looking at?

I creep forward. I see Gramps. He’s a tiny shriveled head in the toilet, no body, only a thin spinal cord skeleton that extends down from his head. He has almost no hair and his eyes bug out far—they peer at everything. They search the room desperately, looking around in a panic. They see Everything. The mouth is a shriveled asshole. The nose is two pin prick dots on his head. His ears have rotted away. His skin is a rotting grayish purple. That’s what the running water is for. To keep him wet. To keep him alive.

“Gramps, Tim’s here.”

Gramps eyes roll around his head. They see Everything. He’s looking around for me, but he can’t focus. Then his eyes lock onto mine. The head bobbles in the water and the thin pieces of spinal cord flutter like the fin of a fish. He can move some, which is nice. At least he has that. What hair is left floats in the water.

“Isn’t it nice that Tim came, Gramps?”

Gramps eyes budge and peer out. What do they see? Do they see me? Do they see anything?

What’s the view from a toilet bowl?

“Is the water warm?” I say. I don’t know why I ask this.

Gramps makes some faint squeaking noise.

“It could be warmer,” Mom says, pointing to a temperature display on the side. I look at the side and up the wall where the toilet is connected and see all these wires and cables and pumps and machines. There’s a thousand numbers monitoring different things. Blood pressure, hydration level, salt intake, and so on. What number measures human dignity?

I leave. I’ve seen enough. I walk outside of the room and Timmy is gone.

I remember one time with Gramps, we were playing Dominos. I dunno why, cause I had a Sony I could be playing but, you know, Gramps wanted to play Dominos and the game really wasn’t so bad. So we were playing, and he’d beat me some, and I’d beat him. The TV was off and no music was playing, so it was just us playing Dominos. We didn’t talk much—what was there to talk about? Just him sitting in the chair across from me, sipping on his dark coffee. It was silent. We just played Dominos.

That’s something, isn’t it?