Art of Starving

Entries from October 2008

Even Pop Stars Can’t Avoid Disappearing

October 21, 2008 · Leave a Comment

The lights are going down on another day in the city of angels. It’s already dark in much of the rest of the country and now it’s our turn to join the night. Sometimes it’s a city of angels and sometimes a city of sociopaths. I’ve been digging deep into soil of my mind and its soiled, tainted, dark algae has grown over the open fields of my consciousness, I’m finding that a lot of what once was vital and fertile ground has withered, there are no strawberries growing forever and all the Beatles are either dead or disgraced or have grown boring with age. Even Paul couldn’t avoid being irrelevant. Someone pass the message along to Madonna.

It’s just a fact of life, the older we get the less relevant we are, even pop stars can’t avoid disappearing. Especially them.

Paul Newman took it gracefully. He said the world doesn’t want to see me old and awkward so I’ll stay out of its glare. And we’ll always love him for it. The spotlight loves the young and curses the old. Old people should write memoirs and columns in the Sunday paper. Look at Andy Rooney. They should stay off the T.V.

Just ask John McCain.

I’m not saying old people should shut up. In fact, there is tremendous wisdom that comes with age. It’s that the culture doesn’t have time to sit and listen. What I’m really saying is that I feel the shadow of my rapidly approaching irrelevance, and it’s fucking cold!

It’s true that everybody has a story to tell, some people just can’t tell it for shit. They close up and shut down and quit in the face of fate. Fate that they allowed to flourish and then extinguish. They don’t tell their story because they really don’t care. I want to tell my story. That’s what artofstarving is all about.

I have a very dear dream that I want to see come true.

I want to own a pet monkey.

Along with the monkey comes the riches and fabulous wealth that a pet monkey would require. I’m very American in this respect. I want to be rich. Hell, I want to pay less in taxes too. Am I a real American yet, Sarah? I’ve even been known to croon along to country songs, although sans pickup truck. (Oh shit, I’ve probably blown it with the fancy Latin)

The world has felt real dirty lately. I’ve been listening to The Clash, trying to make sense of it. I’ve taken to long, contemplative walks with my hands clasped behind my back. I sniff the jasmine on the trellis of my neighbor’s house and oddly think of Bob Dylan. That was almost 50 years ago last time I checked.

In my last post I waxed exuberantly about staying positive. Well, even a rose-tinted pisces gets a little blue sometime. Peace out.

Categories: Random

Like Is Wonderfully Silly, Silly

October 19, 2008 · Leave a Comment

I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been working like a dog with his ass caught in a wire fence.  And it’s not like there hasn’t been much to write about. Nothing like a little end-of-the-world economic hysteria to spark the imagination. Motherfuckers got real creative during the Great Depression I’m sure.

The truth also is that I’ve been trying to escape the chattering madness. Part of me thinks this is fear propaganda perpetrated by the corporate elite to scam a trillion bucks before their pal George leaves office. Like when you’ve been fired you look around for staplers and shit to steal, these guys just got some really pricey staplers at their grasp. It’s either naive wishful thinking or crass cynicism. Kinda both.

I’ve been trying to keep it in mind, that despite what the papers and pundits scream, life is still rather wonderfully silly. The weather is just now starting to relent and even allowed me to break out a sweater. That’s blustery for L.A standards. I came up with a new dish for pork and potatoes. My oven still cooks food at 350 degrees. That hasn’t changed. Dogs still run up to me and want to be petted. Life is pretty, pretty wonderful. And silly… there’s just so many silly things to do with life.

I’m thinking about heading to Joshua Tree for Halloween. Sit up with a bottle of wine and bay at the moon. Carve pumpkins and tell ghost stories. I’m a simple man with grand dreams.  They involves coastlines and love letters. Candles burning down to nubs while couples whisper their lives away.

The trees with their spooky limbs, the rocks with their haunted radiations, what better place than Joshua Tree for supernatural fright-fun?

I love creating new compound words. Wordlove runs deep like the mighty, mighty Mississippi. Even a 12 year-old can spell Mississippi but the majority of Americans can’t spell Massachusetts. Maybe that’s why all the dummies live in Mississippi while the smart people live in Massachusetts. I shouldn’t say that. There’s actually some dummies in Massachusetts too.

Just kidding. Really. I shouldn’t pick on the South. It’s a beautiful, soulful place with absolute human treasures. I love the South too. I love it all!

There’s still much to smile about, America.

We have bright days ahead. And things to look forward to.

A midnight burrito at La Cabana in Venice for one. There’s something about the unflappable disdain of the serving staff there, year after year, which is so reassuring. With black vests they drop the chips and salsa on the table in a way that let’s you know they think you’re a cockroach, with a smile.  But the patio is open-aired and the margaritas magically blended. On a Saturday night there’s no better place to end the evening. The Mayan murals on the wall remind me that there’s been other empires in this hemisphere to fall. Sorta ironic afterall.

I was with some of my longest friends, just laughing and chatting. I hate to break it to you folks, but life is still a pleasant proposition if you do it right. I’m tired of feeling panicked. This Depression is getting boring. Jeff Buckley is singing though my speakers and lives through my soul and this doesn’t frighten me one bit, sharing my soul with Jeff Buckley. And with you. And my soul wants to let loose, to swim through the boulders in the desert and forget that there’s such a thing as a Stock Market and 401Ks.

Every generation feels like the last.

The pink light of dawn always comes too fast.

Join me, in refusing to feel blue.

Changing the curtains on this view.

I’m swirling now. Writing this at 3am.

Words floating and swaying…

Categories: Politics

BREAKING: Sarah Palin Owns Stock In Pitchfork And Torch Company; John McCain Creates Zombies

October 11, 2008 · 4 Comments

I just came from CNN where they are reporting that Sarah Palin owns major stock in a pitchfork company. Could this be angry mob-profiteering from our little snow princess of the north? Perhaps she’s not whipping her zombie following into a epithet-screaming, racist riot for the political gain but the monetary. I mean, there must be something else behind it because it sure hasn’t helped McCain’s or her polling numbers. The more paranoid and ridiculous Sarah or John get, (palling around with terrorist?) the more reasonable Americans are saying to the McCain/Palin ticket, “Yuck…. Thanks but no thanks.”

I did some more research and discovered that a few years ago McCain had invested in a machine that turns human hate into life-force! It is my opinion that McCain is now sucking the wrath out of his crowds and using it to become younger. There is a chance, my friends, that McCain doesn’t care about the election but is just using it as a venue to steal my father and his friend’s already fading vitality.

Just look at the crowds going into his rallies. See how lifeless and hollow they are. See how they ambulate oddly and stiffly. McCain’s plan is working. Note how he brags about the unnatural longevity of his family tree. He is using his crowd’s disdain and hate for Obama to rejuvenate his cells.

I am not kidding. John McCain is becoming a monster and is using his campaign to do it.

While John feasts on the souls of his followers Sarah profits from the surge in Redneck Bros. Pitchfork and Torch Corp. stock that she owns.  Talk about an October surprise!

I called up my father to warn him and his friends of the danger they face if they continue to visit those  soul-draining websites, if they continue to read those brain-dead emails sent to them by bloodsucking social conservatives and fanged corporate radicals.  He didn’t pick up so I sent him an email that said, “Do not be afraid of Barack Obama. The things in these emails are lies, dad. Please think for yourself.”

His reply broke my heart. It’s too late. John McCain has stolen my father’s humanity. He wrote back, “Obama frightens us desperately, son.” He said more but none of it was human. It was horror. Something about Castro and Socialism and Terrorists. What’s so different about Obama than Kerry and Gore? How has Rove been able to turn the Democrat archetype into Che Guerva? Hmm… I wonder.

That is not my father talking. He never uses the term ’son’. Someone took away my regular, ‘I vote Republican because I’ve always had’ pop and replaced him with a slander-spewing, fact-rejecting, ‘Obama is the end of the world’ somnabulist. I’ll miss you, dad. We may exchange Christmas cards and sports facts for years to come, but 2008 will be the year I think sadly upon as when I lost my father.

We are living in dark times.

Do something to save your parents or grandparents before this happens to you.

They say Sarah Palin doesn’t have brains but she has about 40 percent of the country’s mmm… braaaaains… If ever a soulless, mindless, un-sentinent mob was created it’s at one of the recent Republican witchhunts rallies. They have sunk so low they can go no further. They are wallowing in the mud like the happy swine they are and have hit the bottom of the pit.

Look at what is happening. I’m becoming pissed and unhinged now. I’m trying to stay composed and positive, just like my candidate, but their lies and anger and slander is making my hair stand up and the blood run to my face. Anger breeds anger. That’s the dangerous contagious aspect of anger. It produces a similar reaction in its target. Have you ever been confronted out of the blue by a complete stranger and because they were irate and hostile you immediately took an unfriendly, emotional posture? It’s quite natural. Verbal assault creates a flight or fight reaction just like physical assaults. And I can tell you, Democrats are damn sick of flight.

This is what John McCain and his Vice Pitbull want. Division. Dis-Unity. All out social and racial domestic warfare. Who’s the domestic terrorist now, when your speakers incite your crowds to yell out ‘kill him’? That is a terrorist threat of the highest and most serious order!!! Threatening the life of our future president! You know, John, that one.

Even Pat Buchananon admits that what they’re trying to do is paint Obama as “not one of us”. It took a lot of prying and pulling from Chris Matthews but old wrinkly face copped to it. McCain is using that derision and fear and anger. He is sucking up his followers’ humanity one rally at a time.  I’m convinced that it’s not even about the election anymore.

The truth is much, much scarier. It’s blood-curdling.

What’s the only way to destroy this growing maelstrom of anger and hate? Love! Producing positive, hopeful vibes and energies towards our enemies. I’m serious. We need to do what Obama does. Smile and return to the issues, return to the importance of being hopeful, of using logic to win points, not the bullhorn or the epithet.

History will not be kind to McCain voters.

The more John turns into a monster and his crowds into zombie mobs the more I see a landslide coming. And deservedly. Let’s keep our wits in the face of this supernatural stupidity. Instead of yelling and arguing with our parents and grandparents, friends and co-workers that have been bit, lets just tell them in a soft and comforting voice, “Please, come home. Come back to the light”

Categories: Politics