Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Justin Projects' LiveJournal:

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Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
6:07 pm	The Larynx Mutiny The first time I saw the anti-smoking PSA featuring this woman I was fascinated.  Her voice was amazing, and I found myself immediately imagining what it would be like to hear her sing.  Some time later, I saw some other PSA, with an older gentleman singing in a country band, with the same apparatus.  His voice was magnificently alien, but I couldn’t shake the image of a seductive diva singing in the drone of a robot.  To wit…"The Larynx Mutiny". You’re beautiful with the red painted on your lips and so dutiful I light your cigarette’s tip You suck it back inhaling seductively There goes a whole pack in the course of an evening And you just want to feel alive like those ladies on the signs you remember from when you were a child But now the larynx mutiny has made you a monstrosity and you can’t even bear to leave the house Sweet Maria sing for me like a kitchen appliance malfunctioning They took your throat and replaced it with a ring to save the life you were forfeiting With every breath we draw closer to death but some hastening lingers in the air You can’t compare to sick children or famine waifs but a cautionary tale you remain all the same And for one fitful final time you just want to feel alive like you did when you were young But the doctors and their surgeries have ruined all your revelry but that’s what got you here in the first place Sweet Maria speak to me in the burring of a bumblebee You think you’re ugly but you’re not to me Survival is really quite lovely It’s bittersweet the choices that we make are statistically the chances that we take Realistically the odds are against us all but foolishly we try to exert control And you don’t want to die alone in some moldy nursing home like those relatives you never saw But now a vain society leaves you abandoned and lonely and there’s not anyone for them to call Sweet Maria speak to me speak to me… …and a shrill, grim tone pours from the EKG (1 given fuck | give a fuck?)
Monday, June 29th, 2009
1:33 pm	50 is the new 27 This article. The ruling could give Sotomayor's critics fresh ammunition two weeks before her Senate confirmation hearing. Conservatives say it shows she is a judicial activist who lets her own feelings color her decisions. On the other hand, liberal allies say her stance in the case demonstrates her restraint and unwillingness to go beyond established precedents. My problem with all politicians: they all let " [their] own feelings color [their] decisions”.  This is why liberals adore public welfare (it alleviates their rich guilt) and conservatives damn abortion (they love babies, more babies, more money, more workforce), for two good examples.  Trumpeting morality, enforcing it through policy, this is not a function of logic, it is an emotional impulse. The race issue abides.  At this point, I see racism as another wedge, another finger in the leaky dam.  When will people realize race is simply an analogue for class, and class is basically a caste within a capitalist system?  These are hard realizations, and ones most people won’t allow themselves, or others.  But these conclusions are simple. One of the best songs I ever wrote… ( Spades ) Did y'all hear Michael Jackson died? (give a fuck?)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
4:06 pm	Heroes Convention 2009 ( The Details... ) Overall I had a pretty good time.  It was strange being on my own for the most part, and despite an impressive roster of guests, attendance seemed lighter than last year.  Also, the Small Press, Indie Island and Artist Alley sections of the show comprised more space than the Exhibitors, taking up just over half of the hall.  I can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing, or just a thing.  Regardless, it was a fine way to blow a weekend and a wad of cash, and waste some time.  Hopefully, come next year, I’ll have some copies of Art the Amoeba and Oh, Heavens! to trade.  We’ll see… Here’s the list of loot: Trades (all either $5, ½ off, or BOGO) Appleseed: Book One – Masamune Shirow Cerebus – Dave Sim Easy Way – Christopher E. Long/Andy Kuhn Fanboy – Mark Evanier/Sergio Aragones/various Flaming Carrot Comics – Bob Burden The Groo Jamboree – Sergio Aragones Jack Staff: Soldiers – Paul Grist Mister Blank: Exhaustive Collection – Christopher J. Hicks Nevada – Steve Gerber/Phil Winslade Stray Bullets vol. 1 – David Lapham Stray Bullets vol. 2 – David Lapham Stray Toasters – Bill Sienkiewicz Superpatriot: Liberty & Justice – Tom & Mary Bierbaum/Keith Giffen/Dave Johnson Marvel Essentials: Tales of the Zombie – various Trasition: Phase 7 #010 & #011 – Alec Longstreth Singles (all from $0.10 – 1.00) 1963 Book Two: The Fury 1963 Book Five: Horus, Lord of Light Teen Titans Spotlight on Aqualad (early Erik Larsen art!  Sienkiewicz cover!) Iceman #1-4 The Thing #2 Miracleman #2-6, 9 (ok, ok, these were $5 a pop, but that’s a steal) Nightcrawler #1-4 Power & Glory #1 and 3 (I already had 2 and 4) The Awesome Slapstick #1-3 (no 4, DAMN IT, but I’ve wanted this book for a while) Sludge #2-9 (more Gerber!  I was on the hunt for plenty o’ Gerber) Wildstar: Sky Zero #1-4, Born to Be Wild #1 Minicomics, Zines, etc. Cosmic Adventures: A Mini-comic for Coloring! #1 – Justin Gammon The Dvorak Zine – Alec Longstreth Phase 7 #005, 006, 012-014 – Alec Longstreth Weirdotoys – Justin Gammon   (5 given fucks | give a fuck?)
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
8:07 pm	The Sick Gets Around All this smoke makes me sick and the sick gets around All the laughter and crying the tears of a clown All the lives that are lost are the losses to gain All the stories to tell are too much to explain The brain and the body the spirit and mind at war with each other for now and all time We’re all problems problems to be solved We are the worlds we revolve around All the schlock makes me wretch and the wretch makes a sound as it falls through the air and it smacks on the ground The pains and the joys and the lines in between are fragile fine threaded and must be dry cleaned The songs that will stick and the songs that will slide are just burdens to bear that I cannot abide We’re all sins sins to be absolved We are the worlds we revolve around The word is a virus it is meaningless with no host to invade or symptom to inflict The victims are targets of lore and progress Their mouths flap like sails caught in windy edicts And at their successes the rest of us fail The powers that be must always prevail We’re all problems problems to be solved We are the worlds they revolve around In coexistence codependence abounds We are the worlds and we’re stopping right now (give a fuck?)
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
3:04 pm	A Tree Falls in the Woods... I remember once reading a statement about comics that was astonishingly obvious: they are a solitary experience.  People don’t gather ‘round a book like they do a movie or a television, or even at a show.  Reading, as it is, leaves you on your own. But, recently I have considered that all art, music, film, entertainment, whatever word you care to summon, are all solitary, personal experiences.  I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff on headphones lately, and I suppose this newfound obsession has spurred these ideas.  Because when I listen to a record like that, I’m sure I get something out of it nobody else does.  Even if someone agrees with me about a record’s value or quality, even if we discuss the particulars and still find ourselves in harmony, I don’t think it necessarily means it’s a “shared experience”.  I’m not sure there is such a thing.  It strikes me more often than not that by filtering through our senses, reality gets mutated into perception, and therefore distorted.  By that rationale, it could even be argued that “reality” by definition does not exist, except on a case-by-case basis, on an individual scale. Anyway, it’s weird shit.  I think I’ll go draw now.   (1 given fuck | give a fuck?)
Friday, May 29th, 2009
3:51 pm	Random Thought on a Gorgeous Day If reality is perception, and perception is individual, I see no clear-cut winner in the title bout of Science v. Religion.  While I do find it utterly laughable for someone to say, “I believe human beings co-existed with dinosaurs…that’s just what I believe…” I don’t see a fundamental difference between that and a fervent confidence in the accuracy of carbon dating.  Scientific knowledge is simply mankind imposing its vision on nature, and therefore just as steeped in faith.  The bases are different, but the similarities are there. (3 given fucks | give a fuck?)
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
7:27 pm	Iggy Pop - Préliminaires Familiarity breeds boredom, and boredom breeds contempt.  This is a short explanation as to why many acts with career longevity find themselves labeled by audiences and critics as tired or obsolete.  What’s rarely considered is our part in this perception.  An artist’s work is always vital, not only practically, as a living, but also existentially, as a learning experience, a chance to grow.  These insights can be lost on the outsider, the casual listener, or the hardcore fan.  Instances of such mutiny are well documented within the strata of popular music, from folk acolytes denouncing Bob Dylan’s “going electric” in ‘65 to David Bowie’s unfairly panned dance material of the early 80s.  Inevitably, any singer or band that exhibits the audacity to continue to make records and follow their muse will be met with some skepticism or hostility.  Trite as it may be, that’s how it is. Granted, such charges are not always without merit.  An extended back catalogue certainly encompasses some variation of quality.  Case in point: one James “Iggy Pop” Osterberg.  Depending on where you start counting and what, the Ig has upwards of 20 records under his belt, both solo and with his original cohorts the Stooges.  With a discography that extensive, they can’t all be gold.  Especially spotty are Iggy’s solo albums.  After a strong start with Bowie-helmed masterpieces The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop briefly courted what was called “new wave” on New Values, which felt more like a bona fide Iggy Pop album than its two predecessors.  The 80s found Pop searching from record to record for a comfortable identity, leading him through a host of collaborators and a series of records that is best described as schizophrenic.  A brush or two with chart success gave Pop some semblance of financial security, but never afforded him the stylistic foundation he needed to thrive.  The 90s saw Pop mostly returning to the Stooges formula – loud, repetitive, instinctive, vulgar – which still didn’t offer an even keel of album-to-album consistency.  Even studio reunions with his old Detroit compatriots Ron and Scott Asheton couldn’t yield Pop anything other than another notch on his belt.  Albums boasted gems in scattered tracks, but nothing ever matched the record spanning cohesion of unabashed masterpieces like Funhouse or Lust for Life. Strangely, it wasn’t music Pop needed to reinvigorate his artistic qi.  It was literature.  Approached to create music for a film about French novelist Michel Houellebecq, Pop instead opted to make a full album as a companion piece to Houellebecq’s book La Possibilité d'une île (The Possibility of an Island).  Pop had read the novel with great fervor, discovering curious parallels between the book’s protagonist and himself.  It is this understanding that informs Pop’s newest offering, Préliminaires.  Iggy Pop is often regarded as a drug crazed wild man, and in his younger years he consciously fostered this image with outlandish and aberrant behavior, both off and on the stage.  But to anyone who cared to look or listen with a little more attention, or caught an off interview with the guy, it was obvious that beneath all the savagery and bluster there was a keen, restless intellect.  Although applied with caution and subtlety to his work, it was there to be discerned.  Iggy Pop was, and is, and will always remain, a rogue scholar. Préliminaires is his definitive statement as closet intellectual.  On the surface, the album’s somber, finely nuanced ambience will likely drive away those fans that prefer him bloody and smeared in peanut butter.  But to the rest of the world, the new album is a stunning revelation that Pop’s meditations run far deeper than girls, money and drugs.  Préliminaires is a world-weary study of fame and mortality, the inhumanity of humanity, and life’s oft overlooked simple pleasures.  It opens with a French jazz standard, "Les feuilles mortes" (“Autumn Leaves”), sung in its original language (reportedly because the rights to the English version were too expensive).  Nevertheless, Pop’s sinewy baritone drawls the song out with such effect the language barrier is sidestepped, and the point is made: this is not business as usual.  In one track Pop has proved himself as much more than punk rock’s answer to James Brown. The true irony is that Iggy’s softest album is also his most defiant.  While press for the album pegged it as an exercise in New Orleans jazz ala Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton, this is an impetus, not a result.  This is fusion at its best, incorporating jazz (“King of the Dogs”), rock (“Nice to Be Dead), spoken word (“A Machine for Loving”) and electronica (“Party Time”) seamlessly, usually mixing touches of each into an exotic sonic blend.  The music comprises every mood from whimsical to bleak, dropping them gently like fresh linen, rendering the transitions imperceptible.  Sequencing is paramount, opening with "Les feuilles mortes" and reprising it at the end, and repeating "Je sais que tu sais" later on as “She’s a Business”, minus the French monologue.    The circular nature of the listening experience, whether intentional or not, is an appropriate metaphor for the themes addressed. For all its musical adventurousness, the lyrics are what truly set Préliminaires apart, both as another Iggy Pop album and an album in general.  While there are flashes of Iggy’s trademark vulgarity, in the same breath he will turn from such pedestrian concerns to bare profundity.  His work as a lyricist hasn’t been this consistent or brilliant since his early solo work.  Delivered in a well aged, robust croon over the international miasma of the accompaniment, the closest analogue Pop’s ever crafted to this is The Idiot (Avenue B, Pop’s other “jazz album” from 1999, is basically Préliminaires retarded cousin, and is to be avoided). This is heady stuff, likely to draw cries of lame or sell out from certain contingents of the fan community.  Those craving the thrash and bash of the Stooges should just spin Raw Power again.  But for those of us interested in something new and just as essential, who long for a relevant peek into the psyche of one of rock’s true legends, we need look no further than Préliminaires. (give a fuck?)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
11:33 pm	All Weapons are Phallic A brief flirtation with civilization goes sour in the hour of its manifestation Society, sobriety, lust and temptation mix into the fix that is self-realization All weapons are phallic Human arrogance galactic Let our folly be didactic lest we collapse A quick demonstration of defenestration is killing the thrills in these dark proclamations Economy, monogamy, health and gestation are crawling up the walls of all of our aspirations Overstatements of zany derangement are the sum and substance of supposed salvation Propriety, variety, spice, supplication belie the zealous cries of lurid accusation  All weapons are phallic Past and future so romantic Politicians go pedantic on the attack Anthemic exclamation lousy explanations and greater expectations suggest a lapse in the synapses A brief flirtation with civilization goes sour in the hour of its obliteration Looting then refuting the stark ramifications imbues the clever ruse that is self-preservation All weapons are phallic   (give a fuck?)
Sunday, May 10th, 2009
11:04 pm	Love for Headphones The Zombies – “The Way I Feel Inside” Billie Holiday – “Love Me or Leave Me” Counting Crows – “Monkey” OutKast – “Happy Valentine’s Day” Otis Redding – “I Can’t Turn You Loose” Ronnie Milsap – “Stranger in My House” Johnny & June Carter Cash – “It Ain’t Me, Babe” David Bowie – “Modern Love” Dead Kennedys – “Your Emotions” Buzzcocks – “Ever Fallen in Love?” Weezer – “Good Life” Fiona Apple – “Get Gone” Gang of Four – “Anthrax” R.E.M. – “Star Me Kitten” Iggy Pop – “Fall in Love with Me” Ben Folds Five – “Mess” Velvet Underground – “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” Magnetic Fields – “The Book of Love” (give a fuck?)
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
6:16 pm	Blame Expectation This is probably an incredibly bad sign, but I am almost sick with excitement to hear Iggy Pop’s new album Préliminaires.  It’s allegedly New Orleans jazz-tinged, heavy on the crooning, replete with a track sung in French (the record’s impetus lie in a book by French novelist Michel Houellebecq). Granted, 1999’s Avenue B was similarly labeled as having jazz inflections, and it was a pretty lame record.  But it was bogged down with all those lackluster spoken word bits (for Iggy’s best spoken word, Zombie Birdhouse is a slice of delectable lunacy, and the final tracks on both American Caesar and Beat ‘Em Up are hilariously brilliant).  This new one holds a lot more promise for me, especially upon reading this article. LiveJournal is behaving like a total cocksucker at the moment...   (give a fuck?)
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
2:28 pm	Your Sincerity is Embarrassing I don’t know where it came from, but I had a startling realization of late, concerning the whole prevalence of sexuality in the mainstream, how it’s come to define so much of our lives when it really is something quite minimal.  It’s one of those ideas I’ve always had, lurking just beneath the surface of understanding, dodging the hooks of logic like a clever fish. “Coming out” is an institution; pride parades a regular phenomenon.  These very public spectacles highlight an immensely private side of life.  That’s part of what perturbs me about it all.  But I’ve realized that by “coming out”, by admitting your own sexuality in such a ritualized vis-à-vis institutionalized way, it’s in fact validating that there’s something “wrong” to it.  It’s like repentance.  It’s confessing to a crime.  It’s absolution of some deep-seated guilt.  The blame can point exponentially, but at the core, pride, coming out, etc., are nothing more than counters to shame, or even exercises in it. Also, I don’t like that it’s so easy for everyone to think they know what “gay” means.  I don’t even know what it means and I’m supposed to be it!  It’s a useless signifier, purporting to a culture that doesn’t exist.  There’s no culture in sex or love; these things transcend politics and society.  There is no sense in either.  So why are we trying so hard?  I suppose it gets down to Western civilization and its obsessive impulse to compartmentalize everything, but even that I can’t buy wholesale.  There are plenty of Western cultures that are very open about all types of sexual desire (I’m thinking mostly South American here).  It’s a facet of their lives they don’t flaunt or revel in, but it’s not condemned outright.  It is what it is, and it’s let be. Some things I don’t want to understand.  Some I don’t need to understand.  That may be ignorant, but then what is enlightenment if not exalted ignorance? Another thing that’s irritated me lately is the ubiquitous usage of the word “socialism” by people who didn’t even know what the word meant nine months ago (and likely still don’t).  This buzzword du jour has worn out its welcome like an obnoxious houseguest, and I wish all these idiot pundit wannabes would find a new catchphrase to latch on to (Glenn Beck suggests "fascist").  It’s hilarious to me that people who throw words like “commie” and “socialist” around like epithets don’t think twice about gift registries or baby showers being capitalist analogues to either system.  Next time you want to denigrate someone as a socialist, think long and hard about that cute little onesie you’re giving to your friend’s new baby, you COMMIE PIG. I’m tired of everything being turned into a political statement.  I’m tired of people who force their politics into any conversation, for lack of better reasoning.  These are people that are totally incapable of independent thought.  When the mind comes to its own conclusions, it transmutes stale ideas into originality.  Do you absolutely need your partisan handbook before you open your mouth?  What’s worse, how many of these retards posit themselves as intelligent, or insightful?  Nine times out of ten they’re victims of a romanticized past with no basis in history or reality, or a rose tinted vision of the future best left to the plot of a bad sci-fi novel.  If you’ve never actually seen something, or experienced it, there is a good chance that it isn’t real. Reality is perception, and perception is individual, therefore reality is individual.  That sounds schizophrenic, but then again, I don’t necessarily subscribe to those standards.  Fuck your psychology. (1 given fuck | give a fuck?)
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
12:49 pm	Andy the Doorbum - Art is Shit Charlotte is notorious for cannibalization.  Not in the literal, humans-eating-humans, Alive sense of the word; figuratively speaking.  Architecturally, politically, culturally, this town has a strange appetite for the past, gobbling it up and shitting it out in forms unrecognizable.  It’s this cannibal factor that makes our local music scene seem bland and atrophied when graded against the national curve.  It’s what allows the button downs to function so comfortably, offering them the pastel tones and the hard lines and the granite countertops they find ever so welcoming. Certainly this isn’t absolute.  There are pockets of resistance to be found, usually in the late hours of the evening, in a smoky bar or on an intimate patio or in some fanatic’s living room.  Just beneath the surface of all this city’s blasé window dressing, there is a glorious DIY veneer, dirty, vital and beautiful. This aspect of the Queen City is typified in the music of Andy The Doorbum Fenstermaker.  Familiar as the guy who takes our money at the World Famous Milestone Club, Fenstermaker performs skewed and hilarious dirges of brazen lyrical fortitude.  With the aid of friends, The Doorbum cut a record throughout ’05 and 6, titled The Mt. Holly Sessions - a remarkable achievement in its own right - and embarked on tours both local and global. Now Andy’s back, offering an unabashed masterpiece in his latest recording, Art is Shit.  By any estimation this is an epic, comprising 25 tracks in just over an hour.  The songs range from fractions of a minute (“Burn Barrel”, “Dutch Response 1568”) cycling through tunes of a minute or three (“Join the Great Majority”, “Love Song for Cigarettes”, “Albert”) upwards to arrangements of four and five (“Catching the Moon in a Mason Jar”, “Faith Heal’t”).  Across this spectrum Andy cuts a wide stylistic swath, armed with his trusty acoustic guitar and his busker gruff voice, supplemented with drums, keys, samples and even a xylophone, melding elements into a cohesive whole most musicians ruin entire careers in pursuit of. It’s definitely acquired taste, and sure to offend the delicate sensibilities of most radio listeners, but to the punks and hipsters and rock n’ roll niggers of this banker burg, Andy could qualify as our very own leper messiah.  Although his language is at times coarse and his voice abrasive, that’s all part of the fun, and if you pay close enough attention there is no shortage to the nuggets of wisdom contained herein.  “Passion’s not enough to save the world,” Andy declares on his opener, “so fuck it, do you wanna buy some drugs instead?”  This is an affirmation.  This is a mission statement.  Andy’s strength lays in exposing not only the hypocrisy of a society that rejects his ilk, but the contradictions that litter his own life as well.  This is paramount to the joke Fenstermaker plays on his listeners: he makes punchlines of us all, but by including himself he becomes the most relatable, approachable, likeable freak at the ball. To dissect the record track-by-track is a futile disservice to its brilliance.  While no pretentious “concept album” any further than it is a really fucking good record, the thing functions best as an inseparable whole.  In this attention deficit world, filled with IPods set to random and glib quotes substituting for insight, it’s too easy to fall into that trap of capsulation.  No, The Doorbum is something of a gold standard in his timelessness.  This could easily be music made by a 19th century coal miner or something.  It truly is a relic of a time unknown, possibly nonexistent.  It is a bizarre curiosity from a junk shop, an odd relic in the attic of a dead relative, something to be treasured and absorbed on a front porch or a dark bedroom or that aforementioned smoky bar.  Passion might not be enough to save the world, but music like this is enough to save your life. (2 given fucks | give a fuck?)
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
4:25 pm	The Makers It’s the love that makes the hate the peace that makes the war It’s the money that makes the State The rich that make the poor Give them back their voice You don’t deserve it You leave them no other choice Your will won’t permit It’s the dreams that make the Gods the law that makes the crime It’s the land that makes the Lord The Sun that makes the time It’s the words that make the song and the right that makes the wrong It’s the darkness that makes the dawn the King that makes the Pawn Give them back their homes You won’t preserve them You leave them picking bones You seek new service Give them back their souls You don’t understand It’s the part that makes the whole The hand that makes a fist It’s the con that makes control the suggestion makes the gist It’s the shadow that makes the wall The tongue that makes the kiss Give them back their pride You’ve still got plenty You leave them to take sides The till is empty It’s the ring that makes the bond the foot that makes the step It’s the weak that make the strong the balance makes the check It’s the blood that makes the meat the heart that makes the beat It’s beauty that makes the flaw the gun that makes the draw Give them back their minds and be noble in this It’s the glory that makes the prime The end that makes genesis (give a fuck?)
Friday, April 3rd, 2009
2:47 pm	The Black Nurse I go to the bank to deposit my tips from the last two days.  I’m in a hurry because I have to deliver the rent check afterward, then go to work.  I walk into the bank clutching a handful of worn, fuzzy bills.  As I count them a final time a particularly weathered five tears in half.  I grouse to myself and note how many people are waiting in line.  I notice multiple tellers, however, which is of some comfort.  I pull a deposit slip from a kiosk and fill it out. I make my way into line; I’m five deep.  One of the tellers is designated for commercial transactions, so anyone with a business account gets in a special line and she gives them priority.  That still leaves four tellers.  I size up the other bank goers: an old, part-Native American guy with a cane; a white thirtysomething guy about my age and social distinction; a pair of black guys who seem to be friends, they look like landscapers; another black guy, this one a city worker in a traffic vest; an old black lady in a church dress; an older, plump white man who sweats in the air conditioning.  As the line continues back, the farther back the people are, the less significantly they feature in my memory.  I am, of course, concerned with who and what is ahead of me, because I am a selfish prick like everybody else. Other people file in and join the line, lengthening it quickly.  This pleases me, because suddenly I go from end to middle in the span of minutes.  But then another upset: one of the tellers takes a break.  Plus the old man w/ cane is up next, and old people take a long time to do anything, especially where money is involved. Then she walks in, straight from the mouth of Robin Harris.  Short and portly, but with one of those exaggerated voluptuous figures.  I know lots of guys probably want to fuck her because she has a round, fat ass.  She walks with that I’m-a-woman-with-a-job-so-fuck-you strut, which is only exasperated by her obvious attitude (no doubt originating from her I’m-fat-and-you’d-still-fuck-me overconfidence).  She’s wearing nurse scrubs with cute little cartoons on it, colored like a nursery in soft pastels, and she has one of those sassy, short haircuts that five years ago would have had some shade of purple streaked through it.  My eye is on her immediately, because instead of taking her rightful place at the back of the line, she walks along the length of people behind the ribbon, curling her lip and sucking her teeth.  One hand is pushed back on her limp wrist against her pudgy hip, shifting back and forth with every lazy, foot-dragging step.  Her purse dangles from her fingertips.  In her other hand she has whatever papers she needs for the bank. I gaze all this from my peripheral vision, all while minding the queue, to allow as little distance to gather between the person ahead and myself.  I also notice that one teller out of the remaining four isn’t taking any customers.  She’s just counting.  This slows things up considerably.  The Black Nurse has made her way around the line, as if she were going to the commercial teller, but instead walks up to the landscapers, greeting them quietly.  They talk and nod and talk.  The man w/ cane is still doing his business when the thirtysomething finishes, so the black landscapers are up next.  Luckily they go as a pair to the next available teller.  Then, instead of the city worker, who should be next, the Black Nurse walks right up to a teller before being called, and starts cashing a check.  The city worker says nothing.  The teller says nothing.  I say nothing. The teller who had been counting stops and calls the city worker.  The commercial teller, having an empty line, calls me.  The wait hasn’t been nearly as excruciating as I had anticipated, so I am satisfied with the service.  But as the teller processes my transaction, I can’t help but look over at the Black Nurse next to me, noting at closer inspection her tragic and stereotypical manner.  It makes me think about all the times I was glad I wasn’t black, because I would hate people like her for reflecting poorly on me.  It reminds me that I shouldn’t have thoughts like that, because I’m white, and it’s probably racist.  I consider how my beef with the “gay community” as it were is essentially the same, but that’s still no validation of racism, because the two just don’t equate.  In a surge these thoughts flood my mind, sudden and simultaneous. But what strikes me most as I watch this trifling, obnoxious human being carry on is the cowardice of everyone else in line.  Were the blacks letting her go because she was black, and if so, why?  Were the whites letting her go because they were as wracked with white guilt as I seem to be, or were they just terrified she’d whip out her gat and bust a cap in they ass if they said something?  I think about how every one of them are assholes for not at all protesting behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated in an elementary school, let alone society at large.  What’s worse, I’m just as big a pussy as any of them, and I totally know it.  I’m pissed, lucid, and something still prevents me from saying something, anything.  No, I’m the biggest pussy, because I'm aware of it. This makes me even madder.  She finishes her transaction before mine, and I watch her walk out.  You’re as big a pussy as anybody, you won’t say nothing to her.  You won’t say anything.  You’re just gonna stand here like everybody else, motherfucker...  If I see her in the parking lot, I’m going to…  Yeah, right, ‘in the parking lot’, just another out for your bitch ass, just another excuse.  You ain’t doin’ shit!  She laughs and talks loudly at her teller as she slides away, imposing the conversation on all the people she’s flatly disregarded, as if she were covertly bragging over her victory. I grab my receipt from the teller, thank her, and make sprightly for the door.  My ride waits outside, and I have the rent check to deliver.  But there’s also the slim margin that the Black Nurse is still in the parking lot, and if she’s still there, I can still say something.  I can still glean some small scrap of personal satisfaction here.  I can have some redemption. I hit the door, and there she is, walking up to the passenger side of a car, just one space down from my ride.  She is looking down at something, a phone or keys.  I feel a small frog struggling in my throat, and the acidic tickle of adrenaline just under my stomach.  You’re not going to do nothing, you pussy. “Excuse me,” she scarcely looks up at me as I address her in passing, “how did you get to go to the front of the line like that?”  She looks down to the ground as if my question is a nuisance, shifts and mumbles, “Oh I know them guys they patients of mine.”  The frog struggles in my throat.  The tips of my fingers tingle.  “Oh,” I return, “so I guess that entitles you to go ahead of the other twelve people that were already waiting…?”  I say this in a very friendly tone, not too obviously facetious, but just pointed enough that she raises her head, her large mouth poised to respond.  I don’t give her the opportunity.  My legs tremble as I walk past her, “That’s all right, I know.  You’re time’s more valuable than everyone else’s,” again with an even, non-threatening keel that belies the adrenal rush I’m experiencing.  Now her expression is equal parts shock and anger.  Her lips pull back off her wide teeth, like two fat grubs curling around a stick of yellowed wood.  In her eyes are the sparks of an irate tantrum.  I stop at my car, and I open the door. “You have a good day, Ms. Queen of Everything!” I shout as I get in the car.  A torrent of bullshit spills from her maw and I slam the door.  Michele shoots me an emphatic expression of WTF?  I recount the basic story to her loudly so the Black Nurse can hear it too, drowning out her unjustifiable tirade.  As we drive away I watch her wave a hand indignantly in the air, her head sliding back and forth on her neck, her mouth flying with expletives I’d never hear. This is my community service for the day. (2 given fucks | give a fuck?)
Saturday, March 28th, 2009
7:30 pm	I Can't Stand the Rain This brings a whole new dimension to “Holiday in Cambodia”. That 1 Guy at the Double Door (what a weird venue for that show)…or Yard Work at the Milestone benefit? I really don’t have the money for either, but this rain’s got me restless. (1 given fuck | give a fuck?)
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
6:48 pm	Comedian’s Request for an Epitaph Sir, please write kind words for me pretty and flowering like a garden in the spring Don’t demystify the mystery we all rely within If seeing is believing is blindness then a sin? Sir, kindly fuss over me attentive and eavesdropping like a mother meddling Don’t crucify the constructs we’re all living in If faith is so receiving why does rejection win? Win or lose love or hate support or berate Purposely arbitrarily automatic or deliberate To every side a story to every action an RE: Reality or fantasy to every lie a history Sir, please, write kind words for me silly and ridiculous full of jocularity Don’t revive the revelry we’re all dying for If the answer is a question what are you asking for? For, against loose or tense obscure or apparent Viciously surreptitiously timidly or daring To every side a story to every action an RE: Triumphant or tragic - “In Even Grief, Hilarity”   (give a fuck?)
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
8:03 pm	Let Your Weary Feet Be Your Anchor I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Keseyian notions of institutionalized oppression, systems of control with no real master or figurehead.  It seems too convenient to blame the government or the rich or the educational system or our families for these problems.  Problems are what make us human, after all, but everyone is after this state of permanence, where everything is expected, every situation handled expertly, with a minimum of fuss.  Entire industries have sprung up to service this impulse, which has been greatly exasperated by the acceleration of our media charged society.  Power struggles have become fetishized; birthing various sexual subcultures, all defended under the pretenses of personal liberty.  But at their core, when we engage in acts of bondage or domination, for example, we are in fact validating our own self-made prisons, upgrading the psychic facility like we would their physical counterpart.  The dom just as subjugated as the sub, all bent on some release that forever lingers out of reach. It’s very difficult to pinpoint the origin of our fucked up, postmodern condition.  We purport to these ideals of enlightenment, peace, progress, but we’re not so far removed from the slavering beasts that perpetrated witch trials, holocausts, inquisitions, et al.  Politics package the sides in grab-n-go bundles, philosophy on the run, no thinking involved.  Why bother?  It’s all at our fingertips for one low monthly fee. We are in serious jeopardy.  And not just the usual suspects, the obvious villains, like recession and climate change.  We are overrunning the Earth, and we raise our kids to be the same dumb, multiple choice consumer droids that we are.  We keep the rich rich and the poor poor.  We cut monies allotted to public education to beautify opulent, privileged neighborhoods where kids go to private schools.  But even they are victims of their own aberrant drives and vapid ambitions.  What is there to have that is of any true value?  Everything has a price, and if the spirit exists, surely it too can be bought and sold. Individuality is a marketing tool, the prow on a black ship navigating the cosmos, waiting to puncture other planets on its unwieldy tip.  Such a sexual metaphor.  But once we’ve fucked the world we will do our very best to fuck the cosmos, and it will shrug and we shall fall away like so much dust from a derelict mantle.  And the corpse of our ship will drift and wither and erode under duress of the void-winds, never sure of whom its captain ever was. Captain, if you are there, hear the mutiny at your cabin door.    (give a fuck?)
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
10:28 pm	A Diatribe to End All: Assessing Watchmen “It was all sound and fury, signifying nothing.” -The Monarch, paraphrasing MacBeth This quote is from an episode of The Venture Brothers [1].  In it, Monarch is describing a failed effort to void his bowels.  This quote resonated the entire time I watched Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film.  The more I considered it, the more I came to realize its relevance.  With Watchmen, Snyder has digested the source material, absorbed every possible bit of nutrition, and left a steaming pile for his audience to step in [2]. I read comic books.  I have those obvious biases.  But I can, believe it or not, divorce myself from my fierce devotion to the great work of Alan Moore.  Hence, I shall articulate my hatreds of this movie in two streams of consciousness: strictly as a motion picture, and as relating to the book from which it allegedly sprang [3]. Superhero movies are - like the comic book genre that inspire them – quite insular.  They operate on a long defined set of conventions, a common vernacular, their own spectacular iconography.  In translating these four-color wonders to the silver screen, a lot of the magic is lost.  It becomes familiar (i.e. palatable).  The movies must continuously vie to outdo their predecessors, heaping action upon action, stunt upon stunt, assailing the imagination, rendering it comatose.  This betrays a central idiom of any form of art/entertainment: audience participation [4].  Movies must be accessible to the lowest common denominator.  Therefore they are often polished to a crass sheen.  For some stories, this is a serviceable treatment.  In some characters there is no depth. The characters in Watchmen have no depth.  The Comedian and Rorschach are simplistic, antagonistic right wing caricatures [5].  Ozymandias is the dandy liberal villain, blatantly arrogant, plainly evil [6].  Silk Spectre is the token female lead to a T, never finding consistency nor variance in her personality, resulting in a presence akin to a mannequin [7].  Only Doctor Manhattan, in his superhuman alienation and Nite Owl, caged by a denial of his own design, only these two roles even begin to hint at something memorable or worthwhile under all the cacophony [8]. Without convincing, compelling characters to drive the proceedings, that thrust is left to the plot, of which there is little.  What could be a marvelous take on the murder mystery is obliterated before the opening credits have even rolled, as the Comedian’s murder is recounted through a brutal, egregious fight scene.  From the outset it is plain that whoever did the deed is at the very least the physical equal of Edward Blake [9].  Following this blunder the aforementioned credits present a compressed, alternate history of the US, using touchstones from the lives of first generation heroes the Minutemen to lend the film’s present day points of reference.  These are scarcely followed up in the film, leaving the entire exercise largely a waste of time [10].  In a movie that’s nearly three hours long, a director should have better things to do than hide Easter eggs. And that’s the central failure in Watchmen: its gross, overdone nature.  While there are moments taken verbatim from the graphic novel, they stand in stark contrast to the filmmakers’ additions and revisions [11].  This creates a sizeable gap that is never bridged.  It also buffs the peaks and valleys necessary to an effective drama down to an even plain.  At its core Watchmen is a drama, not an action blockbuster, and being approached as the latter undoes the movie’s grand potential. The gratuitous nature of the sex and violence only exacerbate the hackneyed story [12].  Coupled with stilted acting, the picture is dropped in league with so many other also-rans.  The Comedian’s attempted rape of Silk Spectre I, for example, is so overwrought that the characters’ later relationship is unfathomable.  Similarly, the catharsis of Walter Kovacs’ psychological transformation into Rorschach is eclipsed by the grisly murder that inspires it.  So many profundities are lost in the application of the Hollywood formula.  This attempt to relate to the general moviegoer will be likely met with ambivalence, simultaneously irritating the book’s ardent fans.  Zack Snyder has pleased no one but himself, and his studio masters [13]. Were the film played as a straight action flick full of bluster and bravado, it may have been easier to watch.  But given the proclamations of the ubiquitous press junket, “Based on the Most Critically Acclaimed Graphic Novel of All Time”, “From the Visionary Director of 300”, etc., clearly we are meant to expect more than a Mel Gibson-meets-Wachowski Brothers grotesquerie of this caliber.  Fortunately  I did not, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be as bad as it actually is.   ( From here on, it gets even dorkier... ) (give a fuck?)
Saturday, February 14th, 2009
1:20 pm	If You Want Change, Pay with Cash Terri Schiavo.  Thomas Beattie.  Nanya Suleman.  A common thread runs through these names.  Stars of tabloid journalism, masquerading as news proper, sensational and reactionary. This Suleman character I've been hearing about, but I've blissfully ignored the entire debacle despite my morbid curiosity.  It's come up more and more in conversation, so I looked her up, and it's really quite sick.  The woman talks of being Christian, and how she couldn't bring herself to let those precious little embryos die.  That's not God's plan, is it Ms. Suleman?  Well, neither was your "pregnancy". It is unfathomable that more people do not recognize the irreversible damage of overpopulation.  Most of humanity's most pressing concerns - famine, climate change, unemployment, et al - are directly related to the number of people crawling around on the hide of this poor, imperiled planet.  Mother Earth could really use a flea bath. I find people having an excessive number of children to be completely reprehensible.  It's selfish, shortsighted and stupid.  It's just as bad as smoking, if you ask me.  I don't begrudge folks the chance to reproduce, but seriously?  How transparently narcissistic does parenthood have to get before we say enough is enough? In other news, I was bemused by our very own county commissioner Bill James' recent comments in Creative Loafing concerning the criminality of homosexuality.  I don't have a problem with him using the word "trannies", and I don't even question his logic that gay sex is a criminal act (oral and anal sex are, in North Carolina, classified as a "crime against nature", after all).  What I take issue with is his posing as this morally upstanding, sanctimonious crusader.  Because I can look at the guy and tell he is a total sleazeball.  And in keeping with his status as scumbag politician, there is no doubt in my mind that the guy has had his fair share of back alley hummers (likely from trannies, but James would probably never know).  The pendulum swings both ways, commish.  If fags are crooks for sucking dick, then you're just as guilty for dipping your wick, no matter whose mouth it is. It seems the older I get the more unreasonable the world around me becomes.  I thought, I was told, that with age a certain reserve, a wise comfort sets in, but I find myself more intolerant, more baffled, each and every day.  My reactions may be increasingly muted, but within the same storms rage. (give a fuck?)
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
2:55 pm	Had a birthday celebration last night.  It was nice to get out in the mild, clear weather and stumble around the neighborhood in a reasonably drunken stupor.  I've been out of practice in the drinking game, so when shots started showing up I got a little nervous.  I handled my intoxication with a reserved aplomb, I thought.  We went and watched Quay do the sketch comedy at the Graduate, then parlayed to my house to socialize on the porch.  First porch party of the season, a rousing success. I'm supposed to move in with Ryan, but we're having trouble finding a place that suits us both.  I really love my house, so naturally I'm having second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts.  There's not enough room at my place for Ryan's stuff, and he doesn't care to live with roommates (truth be told I wouldn't, either, as a couple).  The whole thing is too much stress at a bad time, and too much money diverted away from immediate needs like art supplies. I showed off the first 12 pages of my comic Art the Amoeba last night, which I plan to shop to publishers once the first one is in the can.  Reactions were uniformly positive, but these are my friends, so I am inclined to doubt their objectivity.  Still, it's the best work I think I've done, and I'm pretty happy with it.  It's fairly different from anything else coming out, so that's an advantage.  Then again it might be too weird to find an audience.  I don't know.  I'm just going to do the fucking thing and send it off and what happens happens.  All I can do is my best.  If that's not enough, then what is? I guess I could be nice and show some of  you guys what I'm talking about, eh?  I usually just show this stuff to my comic buddies to get feedback, but I can toss you other pals o' mine a sop, I s'pose.  Here's the cover, plus the first five pages of Art the Amoeba #1.( Have a look, won't you? ) (1 given fuck | give a fuck?)