Micro Fiber the new Polyester - Pink Camoulage and the Chameleon

Up early to walk the dog – even if you stayed up late drinking with the kids. The Duck (that another new name for him – ark ark urgle – we also call him Gismo, The Flying Monkey and Slick Rich –rhymes with Nick Nick which is what he was called when I inherited him) is quacking. He likes all the other dogs – they are all girls (the three of them), but much much bigger then himself. When they’re around his attention is focused and I can let him loose, but other wise he wanders off. Even with a hangover you have responsibility – you gotta walk and feed the dog. Big party tomorrow – the tent is up, the kegs are on ice, signs about the parking have been posted. Forgot the toothpicks for the Jell-O shots – have to lick the rim and pop it into the open gullet with the head held back – too many and you’ll fall over backwards. I don’t do shots – last time I did I regretted it – that was in Portugal. But go ahead – silly activity, getting silly – putting silly bandz where they don’t belong.

To understand evil, one must speak its language, and to speak its language is inherently compromising – Stacey D’Erasmo – New York Times Book Review (Jan 17, 2010) p15

Ah, to talk admiringly
     And with and intensity
           To elicit collaboration
About that which
     One detests
How else is one to connect
      With any sense of reality
Knowledge needs to override
      Our base emotions
      To survive
In the case of passions for
       Motor sports - varoom, varoom
If could just as well be
        Dog grooming or even scrapbooking
There is a degree of self-importance
That will turn its back upon you
        If you persist or even hint
        At any contrariness

He remembers being born somewhere, having believed in native errors, having proposed principles and preached inflammatory stupidities. He blushes for it.. and strives to abjure his past, his real or imaginary fatherlands, the truth generated in his very marrow. He will find peace only after having annihilated in himself the last reflex to the citizen, the last inherited enthusiasm – Joseph Ceravolo – The Green Lakes is Awake, 1994 p61

The clack of the locomotive and the hum of the steam driven press – but soundless is the paddle wheel on the horizon trailing its plume of smoke – but now you can’t escape the racketing mechanical clatter of mankind – there is no distant horizon for noise anymore.

We are going the park. / There are swings. / There are rocks. a sand bed. / The flowers rest / the bed. The flowers / rise. We are fatigued – Joseph Ceravolo – The Green Lakes is Awake, 1994 p53

You gonna marry that Thai girl. Mark asked Tom. Tom got up and went to the other side of the bar. Tom is easly put off by Mark. Last time I had to listen to Tom tell me about what an asshole Mark was. It’s one of the problems with being a regular. I just asked if he was going to marry the girl. His conscious must be bothering him. He goes off to Thailand to fuck that young pussy and he won’t even marry her. She loves you, you know Tom. How many kids have you got, Mark asks me? None, I tell him, and don’t want any either. I’ve got seven he slurs, been married… Oh…times don’t matter. Damn Tom. I was just being honest. He can’t stand it.

Mark buys me a round - another Doppel Weisen. I just won two thousand dollars, he says. It’s the least that I can do. Them that want the least, win. Noise, noise, noise and blues - blues melds with the bar babble to form a rhythm. The two are complementary, adaptive, synergistic like television without sound. I love to drink, Tom says, but I hate the drunks. What is this that I’m drinking? An Albatross?. Not me. The guy at the end of the bar. He’s been gone to Tijuana since December. He’s just back. Did it hurt Hellboy to have his horns clipped?

To be young and horney - Pulling braids, kicking lamp posts and hunched over in laughter. Tilda, tilda, tilda…hey hay, hay and an occasional voice rises above the din. It’s that song by the spade in green - Neanderthals wondering by - tida, tida, tida … with that jerky jerky hippness. And we are all pinks here. Tida, tida, tida and on and on endlessly on until the track ends … tida, tida, tida…fade out. Fat tourists with shit faced grins wonder in. Mark says that in thrity days “In thirty days,” he says, “I’m off to the Philippines to get me some of that young pussy.”

The advantage we have over the younger generation is that we have had to unlearn more than they have ever learned. The disadvantage is the we have to go to Thailand or the Philippines. One learns from one’s mistakes but you have to unlearn methodically

18 Buddhist monks in brown with recently shaven heads - a Sunday morning ritual? And two more, making twenty in all. And two more with placards around their necks. They are not all male. This you can only tell when you hear them speak. Oh, to be young monkish and in love. They are all gone now. There is not a brown robe or bald head in sight. Then an occasional straggler. And then an older monk dressed in crimson and gold walked by in the opposite direction. He was wearing brown street shoes rather than brown sandals like all the rest

At stake is a language that does not aspire to germinate meaning – Michael Tuassig

Money is endlessly
     Vulgar
Creating the unnecessary
     And tasteless
Domineering, defensive
     And inauthentic
But certainly not
     Inarticulate


Drink Coca-cola
     It blinked
     On and off
            On and on

Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns – Pres. Jimmy Carter (1979)

So much of the theater
      Of modern life is denial
There is no roaming the factory floor, the
      Soldiers barracks or the office cubicle
      - Authorized Users Only
All of this (power and production) is backstage
      Opened only for the video camera
      Crews of reality TV
      And only after being properly staged

Well, while I’m here I’ll / do the work - / and what’s the work? / To ease the pain of living / Everything else, drunken dumbshow – Allen Ginsberg

Proust viewed photographs the same way that Socrates read texts

God created his image. / I love him like the door/ / Speak to me now. / Without god there is no god – Joseph Ceravolo – The Green Lakes is Awake, 1994 o p33

I picked two ticks off of the dog today – he howls in pain sometime when I pick him up but I can’t locate the source – he doesn’t limp and scampers about like normal – maybe its an insect bite. He ahs been spending a lot of time in the tent napping as of late, maybe it is the insects. He overheats quickly – he spread-eagles on the path, he just stops and flops down. Sometimes I just pick him up and carry him along. Other than the heat, his endurance is better than mine. Hold it Trail Dog. Hold it – and I take a break especially when ascending.

Man’s strongest emotion is, without any doubt, fear. It is endemic, constantly gnawing at him. Some say that it is greed – man is naturally greedy (I disagree, I think that greed is natural but socially re-enforced). Greed is just another manifestation of fear (fear of want, fear of power, fear of not being loved, fear of anominity, fear of fear).

The professional appears when it is necessary for the craftsman to leave his class and ‘emigrate’ to the ruling class, whose standards of judgment are different – John Berger – Selected Essays, 2001 p295

A professional is someone who has been trained to cater to the taste of the ruling class. An expert is a professional intellectual.

The longer you spend with them, the more mysterious all visual images become – John Berger – Selected Essays, 2001 p210

And the less time you spend with an image – well that is the objective of advertising, the more subconscious it becomes

He stopped me to explain
How good the herring (kippers) were
      With crackers
He was counting the cans that he held
       In his hand. There were
       At least eight, maybe ten
There are only so many items
       That can be counted without
       Enumerating them
This is also true of concepts

So this couple get on the bus. He was wearing a pair of desert camouflage pants and she was wearing the same only in shades of pink. I understand the utility of his garb, but urban camouflage should imitate litter, but I could not understand under what circumstances she was going to blend into any background. I was reminded of the time that I saw the blind man on Fillmore, tapping along with his cane - his entire ensemble include back pack was camouflage. Except for his cane which was government-issue red and white. How would he know if he was invisible and who was he supposed to be hiding from? Some mysteries are just not meant to be comprehensible. Then their was Chameleon lady crossing Van Ness in the rain with humming bird metallic glitter of an iridescent blue shimmering into green as it reflected the ambient light. She was outfitted head to tow in this iridescent rainwear - not only cap and coat but also a modularly designed back pack. I was not able to see her footwear. And what is anyway about coordinated backpacks?

Walter says, there you go Linda, you need to sell pink camouflage. We sell everything else, she says. Camouflage double knit jump-suits might be a good idea – both retro and forward looking - - pink camouflage double knit jumpsuits. Do they still make double knit apparel? Maybe at Goodwill, she says. But you know, she add, polyester is back in only now we call it micro fiber these days.