The Infertile Brother

Hubert met his sister, Jackie, for lunch the other day. It was going fine: a fancy restaurant, a bottle of wine, a bowl of spaghetti, a rack of lamb, an Italian singer regaling them with songs of the old country, and the feeling of filial love unique to all siblings.

Hubert drew deep from the air in which he breathed. Something was troubling him, which was immediately evident to his dear sister. He took a long sip of wine and then began: "Jackie, as you know, I'm your only brother and, as such, am the only person that can thusly sow seeds of familial lineage. Without offspring to my name, we are but a period, ending the sentence of our generational name; it is only if I have children of my own that this won't be a death sentence, but a never-ending one of life"

Jackie patted Hubert lightly on the arm and gazed deep into her brother's eyes. "Hubert, this is true. It is a burden of brothers throughout the land. The pressure: high. The stress: immense. Those fears of our glorious family name being blown out like an eternal candle," she then blows out a table candle for dramatic effect, "make me shiver in the wind, the same wind that blows out another candle," she blows out another candle, "and creates discord through bringing this ancient tremor to the forefront where all we want is to banish this exigence to the other nightmares of old: snakes, goblins, dragons, vampires, but instead it comes crawling back like the aforementioned snake on its belly crawling through fertile grass, or what we hope to be fertile, but instead perhaps a barren wasteland where snake flops like worm and burns out our family name like the Sun extinguishing its eternal flame," she blows out yet another candle, "thereby creating a black hole where we once burned brightly, like butterflies in the terribly lonesome night sky with no stars to light the paths to the North, the eternal North, now dead and gone like the candles of our dreams," she blows the last candle out.

Hubert grasps in the darkness. "I can't see you anymore. I feel like the first caveman in his first night in eternal darkness! Will the Sun ever rise again! Will I have a son to raise ever! Ah, my sister, I am barren as the wasteland you so poetically described with your beautiful words in the deadest of air, or shall I say dead heirs, for we will have none to carry the light of our name into perdition. I'm infertile and an ill-planter of seeds of creation. Forgive me!"

The singer finishes her song, gives them a frightened look and runs away to get away from this carrier of blackness. Her brother is fertile as the great plains, so she cannot emphasize with this sibling dust bowl.

The Death of Air

Rolando Martinez piloted the plane like a banshee out of a sticky Tijuana swamp. He was the first Mexican to ever fly a plane, and was given the Martin Luther King Jr. certificate of Justice for Trailblazing! (MLK was the closest thing to a trailblazing Mexican, it seems). Martinez wore this certificate proudly on his sombrero to show his joy at being so honored. Unfortunately, the sombrero fell over his eyes and stuck to his face. "Argh! Mi sombrero es stucko on mi cabeza!" Old Richard Lexington chuckled from the copilot seat. "Got you good, amigo! I superglued it, so it would stay on your head the whole journey."

Martinez gaped in horror: "You didn't need to do that. I would have kept it on anyway. I was to wear it to show my joy of being the first Mexican trailblazer ever, but now I can't see. You will have to fly the plane!"

Lexington's jaws dropped in fear. "I'm blind! I can't fly planes anymore."

"Then why are you my copilot?"

Lexington beamed in pride. "Do you see this shirt I'm wearing?"

"No. My sombrero is over my head. Do you see it?"

"No. I'm blind. But I know what it says."

"What does it say?"

"It says that I'm a trailblazer for being the oldest person to be copilot...and there's a picture of Martin Luther King, who is the closest us old people have to being a trailblazer."

"That's really great. Congratulations!"

"Gracias, Amigo!"

They shared a look of friendship, albeit blind friendship, and waited for the northerly winds and the puffy clouds to provide the plane a blanket forged from the whispers of eternity, for all was dark but the light of their trailblazing friendship: the first old person and Mexican to ever be friends.

Cue trophy of Martin Luther King Jr. hugging a mirror.

The Cat Hunter's Dilemma

Please, gather round, my jury, my judges, my lawyers, and, especially, my bloodthirsty press. Listen to the words that will spout out of my deliciously round mouth, as I try to prove the innocence of a man who's only guilty of loving too much too fast. A man with a dilemma, or, if you prefer, a mission. A man who knew not what you know now today, this gravest day, my interrogators. But enough poetry: I will now lapse back into the plain-spoken dialect that us Cat Hunter's must use to stalk our prey.

Meow. Scratch. Rarararow. Scat.

Ah, I see that I have aroused the furrowing of brows with my speech. Allow me to translate, my friends--if you allow me to call you friends in a touch of pathos to make a tenuous connections that hopefully my story will solidify or fossilize into something more permanent; I'm dropping this anchor of friendship now and hope that the chain is deep enough to plunge into your sea floor, marrying me to your habitat and thereby proving my innocence!

I will say it again:

Meow. Scratch. Rarararow. Scat.

This is my story, but here is the translation in flowery and borderline pedantic prose. No, you say? You instead you want me to tell it plain-spoken without the incessant hissing? Your wish shall be granted by yours truly: me. That's still a little foppy for you? Foppy is too foppy for you? Well, then I won't tell my story. Hang me from that tree over there. No. That one; not that one. That one. Meow.

Us Flies

Ah, what loving scene do us flies on such sticky walls have the joy of seeing on this hot, firewood-burning night in December. Hot it is, but only due to the aforementioned firewood, you see we are in Alaska, but it is ever-so comfortable and we are presently watching George Larkin read his two young ones, Sara and Jake, A Christmas Carol, while they sip on hot chocolate and snuggle in a bear-skin blanket...a bear that George killed himself that very day with a hatchet; after which he skinned the bear, sowed a blanket, fried its innards for dinner stew, and also clubbed its orphaned kids to death for the pure sadistic joy of it all. Ah, but perhaps I shouldn't have said 'orphaned' so fast, for what do we, us flies on sticky wall, see through the window, but mangy bear, a late bear, coming back to his lair, his den, expecting a dinner of antelope stew (similar to bear stew, but without the cannibalism, or cannibearism in this sordid case). Instead, he finds his two bear children clubbed like measly seal (which ironically is what Bear was bringing back to his den...perhaps for tomorrow brekkies), he saw a menstrual blood (bearstrual?) trail leading to the comfortable cabin of the Larkins. Do bears howl at the moon in anger after their life is torn from them? All us flies on sticky walls know is this: 1. Bear howls at moon 2. Bear is howling at moon 3. Bear is howling at Larkins. We watch through glass window from sticky walls as Bear prowls to door. Will Bear be polite, we think amongst ourselves giddily...will Bear knock on the door? Bear on hind-legs: knocks on door: knock knock.

Dead as a doornail. Wait, Father. A screaming from the door. That is a knock, Sara, not a screaming. It is both, Father. It is both.

Ah, my sticky brethren, now is the time to swarm the warm cider, the juicy crumbs of pudding pie, the stuffed goose, for soon Bear will howl, disembowel George (but not kill him, oh no, just tear out his intestines so he can watch Bear take his wife Brenda to wall, to our sticky wall, and eviscerate the skin, to wear her skin until it pops, for wife will not fit over Bear, is she on her period, will it be tit-for-tat? will she have any tits or tats after Bear is through?) the kids will run screaming, hot chocolate overflowing, Tiny Timmy was a lucky SOB, as the Bear preys on these seals, these demonic eskimo children, George pushes in his lower intestine to no avail, but struggles to get up, oh how he struggles, a shotgun in the next room, as us flies on our sticky walls watch, while we engorge ourselves on fallen entrails of George, and soon the rest of the family, flies and bears unite soon! but first open the door, George.

George getting so close to the door, Bear on hind-legs. George pauses. Why? What's in his hand? Flyswatter! Fly, my brethren, fly into the cold night, fly until you see light, fly until you...SWAT! And all is dark on this wall, our wall, our sticky wall...

lala

We now are on the eve of Oscar night...but really, who cares? Slumdog and Mickey's redemption. Bleh. I am more excited about my netflix que and the movies I will be attending in the near future at revival theaters. Hell, there are even a few interesting movies at the regular theater (by regular I, of course, mean arthouse fop theater). I now am fully submerged in film. My pores are sweating out theories, plots, narrative arc, dialogue in strangely satisfying ways. I know about comic timing, about dramatic pauses, beats, rhythms, algorithms etc. This applies to tv, as well. I can watch any episode of any dramatic show and tell the one sitting close to me who will be the killer, whom not to trust, who will be the love interest, when the narrative will go off-track, on track, etc etc etc. Poor people who sit by me!

Season 1 in Dexter. There is one shot of a seemingly neutral character, a handsome doctor, and immediately pegged Mr. Man (Dr. Man) as the serial killer. How did I do this? Well, the serial killer can't be just some random person who pops out of nowhere in the last episode. The serial killer has to be an established character, so we can have that wow effect. Up to that episode, there were no characters that were viable suspects; the one person we thought to be a killer was too obvious. But this doctor--handsome, charming, non-threatening--was so obviously not obvious that my obvious bells started obviously ringing. Oh sure, the writers threw him at Dexter's sister, but, again, this was a tad too obvious. So without a doubt, I made the prediction that the shit-balls insane suspect is innocent and Dr. is the killer, even though there was absolutely no evidence to prove it! Boy, how that thrilled the people watching the show with me after I ruined the suspense.

Also, I can tell, by the way the camera lingers for perhaps a millisecond too long, whether a character (or dog) will live or die. Especially dogs. It will always be a neutral scene and the character might refer to the dog, whom will run happily into the owners arms. If this has no narrative function then the dog will meet a terrible end; well-structured screenplays have no fat on them, every single moment in every single scene is there for a reason, so if you ask yourself "why is the writer wasting fifteen seconds with a dog", you know that the payoff will be coming shortly--see Audition or Damages for examples of this.

I'm not saying I'm a genius or even an autistic weirdo; all this proves is I am fluent in this language.

The Class

The Class

The class was finally in session. Our favorite teacher, Mr. Belfry, loped to the front of the room (he was hunch-backed, you see). Well, favorite is a rather cunning choice of a word—Mr. Belfry was our only teacher; as such, we could also denote him as: our worst teacher, our sexiest teacher, our teacher most resembling a pedophile etc.

Anyway, Mr. Belfry stationed himself behind his powerful, wooden podium and surveyed his class: fifty rows of students, from A to XX, all riveted and staring at his Kurtzy bald head, so shiny, as the spotlights accentuated the luminescent powers of his brain heat radiating from a vigorous cerebral workout. His gaze of us students lasted for about fifteen spellbinding seconds. We could hear the beats of our neighbors’ hearts as we fixated on his aforementioned head; his eyes were much too visionary (scary) for us to linger on for longer than a furtive glance—even that glance felt impure, as his red eyes (lack of sleep? Demonic powers) would find us and transmit insecurities to the brave souls that ventured close to this oracle. He created the illusion (so prevalent in 19th century portraits) of looking at each and every one of us. Quite impressive when you do some simple math: 50 rows multiplied by 20 columns equals a hell of a lot of students to be keeping an eye on (or two in this case). After we were thoroughly spooked and chastened, he opened his cavernous (or cadaverous) mouth and began his lecture:

‘Children of the new God, listen close. Our world is spinning out of primal orbit and will soon be floating in unchartered ether. We have no anchor to plunge into the Sun, nor have we a compass to map our progress. This is of our own doing and will soon create our own undoing—our demise, my children, my pets. Individual choice has proved a flawed idol that we can throw on the fires, forever burning, of our previous smashed Gods made of stone. This new idol cannot even be considered stone; straw being a substance more comparable to this: individual choice that we’ve held above all else. Now that we have purged our souls of a false daemon and float with no destination, we must decide where to go. Yes, we are passengers to an unholy eternity. Yes, we are destined to be destitute. Yes, things will never be the same. But all the same, can we not still define what we hold sacred?

‘You smart students will undoubtedly think to yourselves: how can we choose when individual choice is a fantasy, a falsehood, a lie? And yes, you are correct in this line of thought; individual choice died a false death as soon as that first caveman evolved a cerebrum. But what didn’t die and what shall rise from the ashes of false idols like a phoenix in the night sky is collective will. This is real; the collective movements that swing through history like a pendulum cutting across time itself. This urge to submit yourself into universal memory and destroy the individual, this will be our new God, our new mandate, Goddate. This is how we begin: renounce the individual and drop the anchor together, polarize the compass with our blood united and our will eviscerated into puzzle pieces that will fit together when we come together for the reign of harmony soon to be upon us. We are nothing alone, but everything together; a syllogism to lead us into our new orbit with enough gravity to outweigh the Sun and pull it into our orbit. This is how mythology is created. This is how constellations are made. This is how idols apotheosize.'

The Glamorous World of Young Professionals Dating

The Glamorous World of Young Professionals Dating

To be a young professional on the dating scene. Ah, what images spring into our head as we picture glamorous twenty and thirty somethings meeting at a dimly lit fancy hotel bar in the artist quarter of the downtown (which is obviously where they work). The girl orders a Chardonnay and the fella gets Chianti (thanks to the plug from Hannibal the Cannibal which has survived these fifteen years and engendered a love of Chianti to last his lifetime! How debonair). The conversation spills out like the ever-fleeting wine and the witticisms roll off loose tongues like a Howard Hawk’s screwball comedy circa 1938. After the quick-witted patter, they decide to grab a bite to eat at an unpretentious Italian place (in the style of a small kitchen) across the street. They can tell its cool, because they only accept cash. The unfortunate souls that come in with an American Express card are branded as out-of-town hicks. Luckily, our heroes have the cash on hand for a fine evening: nary an awkward moment. The pauses: natural. The conversation: polite, but mixed with bold comic timing. Afterwards, they make their way back to the lady's house and have very tasteful (yet adventurous and safe) intercourse with no condom related conundrums. Cigarettes are rolled and the night ends with what ostensibly is a hip, ironic detachment, but what really, beneath the surface, is the joyful feeling of connecting with another soul in this lonely and fragmented world, if only for this night. This beautiful night. May it never end. A once in a lifetime occasion…until the next hookup.

That's the way young professionals date. Right?

No. Not at all. Not ever. Here's the truth. The ugly, deplorable, odious truth:
We will give our professional couples names: how about Chad and Sylvia? That works. Well, "The Chadder" (as his friends call him) is a young up-and-comer in selling airplane parts for a supplier. Sylvia? She is in consulting for management strategies pertaining to maximizing efficiency and streamlining data. They obviously will have a lot to talk about, right?

The date starts off with Chad eying Sylvia in the green skirt she said she'd be wearing over the emails they exchanged from the “Young Professional” dating website. She sees him coming and her heart has an initial quickening impulse, but her training as a professional kicks in and her autonomic system is subdued. They shake hands and talk at the same time.

"Hi, nice to finally..." "Hi, it's great to.."

They laugh. He blushes, she smiles weakly and they decide to order drinks. He thinks about buying this first round, but she can tell by the glint in his eye his intention. She decides to surprise him and pay for the both of them. Well, they both have their wallets out at the same time, which confuses the poor bartender. They both put their wallets back in respective pockets and then notice that nobody has paid until they get them back out and meekly pay for their own drinks. Chad: A gin and tonic. Sylvia: a coffee. Both of them are embarrassed by their choices and also curious about the choices of their counterpart.

They stretch their lips at each other in a simulacrum of a smile and hold it for one second, two seconds, three seconds...hmmm, when will they connect. The Chadder takes the initiative.

"I sell Airplane parts to companies."

An answer from Sylvia:

"I'm in consulting. Maximizing efficiency."

That is when it dawns on them. They have absolutely nothing else to say to one another. These fifteen hour days of excel charts and power point presentations have made them wonderfully articulate and engaging speakers of the fascinating subjects of airplanes parts (“Modern commercial jets use a 50/50 mix of outside air with recirculated cabin air to produce greater fuel optimization”) and of efficiency (“Have an area of your office that is dedicated to housing your marketing materials. Even in this age of web sites and synergy, prospective clients still want to see your marketing materials in person. You need to have your promo sheets ready to go, with envelopes, shipping labels and any other materials you will send out. You should try a shelf organizer or some other sorting device from your local office supply store”), but after this innovative look at their industry...what can they say?

Chad compensates with a sip too many of his gin and Sylvia nervously fills up her coffee which makes her even more nervous. Oh, how she could use a drink. Chad boldly proposes that they get some dinner at that cool Italian restaurant next door. Sylvia doesn't want to go to Buca di Beppos, but acquiesces to Chad's will. When they are finally seated in a family booth, they come up against a conundrum: where do they sit? It's a vast, huge booth, as the restaurant is a vast, empty restaurant (hit hard by the evil monster of the recession). They could sit across from each other but then five feet would separate each other. If they sit too close, it will be awkward too. By now, her coffee has worn off and left her tired as all hell and the Chadder is losing his buzz. The waiter takes fifteen (silent) minutes to find them and by then Sylvia has decided to fake a phone call (which she accomplished by SOS texting her bestest friend discreetly). It appears that there is an emergency in efficiency at her business and she has to leave. The Chadder understands and would love to see her again. It was a lot of fun. I'm sorry that I wasn't myself. Yeah, you know, long day. Yeah, I tell you. Well, great meeting you. Yeah, we should do this again. Yeah. .. .. ... ... Hug or handshake? Hug or handshake? Hug or handshake? Hug or handshake? Hug or handshake? Hug or handshake? Kiss? NO! He goes hug and she goes???You guessed it! Handshake! Yay for professional dating!

Rise Above

Rise Above

Bring me your bewildered. Bring me your confused. Bring me your obtuse, your insecure, your plodding, your weak, your dismayed, your diffident, and your nervous: Bring me your humans.

Set a pot to boil on a circular stove of an 18 foot diameter, cut down deciduous trees from the darkest forests, clustered in the tremulous mountains where the vicious clouds behead the summit of ice and the sharp, glinty Sun gets eternally lost…unless one can break through the callous cumulous and forge a path of fire to shield from the ice clustered on this Mountain. Break free from these clouds and breathe again (but only for a transient moment, only for a fleeting second, this breath: your first above and your last below as the wind, the barren air blows you back from where you came, from where you climbed, from where you cut the trees which are now sitting in the cauldron, burning away untapped energy in this circular, cyclical stove from which a plank fifty feet up and jutting out from a slave ship, is hanging above the bubbling pot, and the humans with their weakness, their thoughts, their pains, their fears, their hate, their sorrow, their neediness, their lies, their cunning, their manipulation: the humans walk one after another into this cauldron of burning, screaming trees.)

The fifty foot drop provides them for one glorious moment where the thoughts exit and a new feeling, compassion, ever so briefly, enters into this empty vacuum. All the damages, all the burden, all the weakness is pushed away, is purged away and melted into a meta-skeleton of what we once were. This new man, this falling man, with none of the pressures, with none of the routines, with none of the thoughts (only the fall) only seeing the fall for what it is, embracing the fall and eschewing the past while bringing the future of burning trees into the forefront of consciousness. And what’s this, but people falling at the same time, all going to the same cauldron, the same shrieking cauldron, obstinate in its inevitability and secure in its promises, its burning promises, the trees wavering, vacillating back and forth, mouths gaped open, tongues out, falling man grabs falling woman and pulls her to him, pulls him in her, while falling, no ground, no foundation, they create it! They live it (they die it) they fall, they shriek, they dig their nails into each other and tear away the flesh, they engorge themselves on each other’s bodies before the cauldron can touch a fleck of skin, they dig burrows in their intestines and masticate their eyes while pulling away, while falling apart, falling down, toward the cauldron.

Before they hit hot water, before they completely melt away, a foundation of bliss, a ground, unshifting, is found in each other, on each other, through each other, for this last moment from the airs between slave ship and burning cauldron, a momentary connection, as they have rearranged identities and devoured desires through the fall, for the one moment, in the one moment, in the one person: THE TREES REACH INTO THE NIGHT AND DRAG YOU AWAY FROM HER, MOUTHS WET, MOUTHS DRY, THE TREES, BURNING, THE POT ENCAPSULATES YOU, FALLING MAN CAPITULATED ON BOILING ABYSS, SUBMERGED IN THE WATER. but what is left to burn? what is taken away? redigested food for the trees, for the pot, the cauldron, all skin torn away through the fall, nothing left, nothing there as you melt into the cauldron, which is where I find you again, swimming in the ancient water, which is where I grab in you again, reclamation, reunion, rejuvenation, which is where we evaporate into our senses and rise above this cauldron, rise above the shrieking trees, rise above the slave ship, rise above the cruel forests, rise above the menacing clouds, rise above the mountain, rise above the Sun, rise above the heavens, rise above falling man, rise above falling woman: RISE ABOVE.