the obligatory wal-mart rant

i pray that this offends less than half of the population...

the question continues to nag at me...how worthless can a human being become?...i know what you're thinking..."worthless" is a fairly absolute term, and once a thing becomes worthless, its journey down the scale of value has come to an end...think again...a stool-softening examination of our modern society necessitates the modification of words such as worthless...walk into a wal-mart...anywhere in post-shame america...and you will find it crawling [in some cases literally] with the most disturbing specimens of what i call the "ultra-worthless" segment of our species...anyone who has ever been scraped with a stick, from the shoe of common decency walks these aisles in the same sweat pants that they have been wearing since the last time their food stamp card was loaded...awakened by the sound of their children preparing their own lunch, they rise from bed every day with no greater purpose in life than the ingestion of another bottle of ranch dressing...these people have consumed more of the world's ink supply in prison-quality neck tattoos than they have in paychecks bearing their names...but, i get a bit bored just hurling clever insults at the obvious...perhaps a moment of scientifically unconventional thought is required to shed some new light on the rather trite subject of uncensored, unsanitary, unabashed americana...
in order to properly ponder these people, i found it necessary to develop a new form of mathematics...a system whose functions more closely mimic the inner workings of this grotesque group... a form of math that is completely devoid of any logic and whose existence has no meaning or purpose...there is no name that can sensibly describe this new math, because to truly contemplate it, one's mind must be completely purged of all sensible thought...for the sake of simplicty, we will call it appalachiabra...
with the proper application of this set of asinine axioms, one can derive an appalachiabraic formula for determining the extended worthlessness factor of a person, which describes the degree by which they have surpassed traditional worthlessness...now, sharpen your pencils...add the number of future-morbidly-obese, illegitimate children that they have; the number of partners with which they have had these children [these days, it's actually possible for the second term to exceed the first]; how much they owe in back child support; the number of prison tattoos they have [neck tattoos count as 1.5] and the number of times the police are called to their house each week...divide the sum of these five terms by the product of how many books they have actually opened in their life and how many times they have held a job for more than one pay cycle...the studious among you will note that if either of the two terms in the denominator are zero, then the person is infinitely worthless...[division by zero is undefined and effectively yields infinity for those of you reading this from a wal-mart wi-fi hotspot]...

                                                        (kids + partners + child support + tattoos + police)
extended worthlessness factor =                           (books) (paychecks)

another chilling point well worth considering is the rate at which this portion of humanity is expanding...the growth rate of this group can not be accurately determined even with the mindless mechanisms of appalachiabra...mainly because the true value of the ignorance contagion factor [which is vital to the rate equation] has yet to be discovered...some of the leading researchers have theorized that the value of this factor may be equal to the difference between infinity and the smallest possible number because, as they have stated "it's definitely a friggin huge-ass number"...like all growth/decay rates, this equation appears to be logarithmic...however, instead of  the natural logarithm, it is based on the recently discovered unnatural logarithm, which appears in all equations used to describe anything that is nauseating and vile...
of course, a full treatment of the theory and application of appalachiabra is beyond the scope of this text...this has merely served as an introduction to this vastly useless area of mathematics...it is my hope that the next time you are at wal-mart [purchasing the garbage that your television ordered you to want, with what's left of the money that you got for your soul] you will find yourself taking a fresh look at the science behind the mind-molesting abominations of human decency that you must inevitably face...

disposable

i threw away my lighter today...i gave it a morsel of respect and considered its useless carcass for a moment...i just bought it eleven days ago...it was so young and full of life...by my math, it helped me to consume nearly 350 cigarettes [that's at least a few steps closer to the grave] and enough of other chemical enhancements to keep me from making something respectable of myself for eleven days...i owe it a great debt of gratitude...oh, we were happy then...but tragically, i failed to examine the most important facet of our relationship...the package clearly stated "DISPOSABLE"...i ruminated, as i often do; chewing the very essence of reality from life's gristle until i gag on it...to deem a thing "disposable" is to say that it is garbage when you begin your relationship with it; save for its usefulness for a short period of time...an odd life i thought...i wondered how it must feel to exist for the sole purpose of being used up and then discarded...to know that your only connection with another will have no more emotional significance attached to it than a simple exchange of services...and to have the details of this deal so openly and honestly understood at the outset...is there no shame left in the world?...no self respect or decency?...still, it was a good deal...a true symbiosis...the lighter served its purpose, and i paid the tribute necessary to justify its existence...i think of all that it did for me and the great times that we had together...but, now i frown at my unlit cigarette as i stand here with something that can no longer satisfy my needs...it has been future garbage since the beginning of its days, and the future is here...i will miss it greatly...if only it could have done more for me..."worthless piece of shit" i mutter with disgust, as i forsake it to its fate it in the trash...

falling...finally

the tree stands too long...
longer than life should allow...
emptied and hollowed by the heartless elements...
battered and broken by the endless gusts of fate...
no memory of purpose...
no hope for healing...
a shameful spire of senescence...
a mocking monument to the irony of strength...
in desperate need of a merciful gale...
to end this futile stance...
finally...
its here

mea culpa

Im sorry for who I am

Im sorry for who I could have been

Im sorry for who I just wouldn’t be

Im sorry i didnt do more of what I should

Im sorry i didnt do less of what I did

Im sorry i laughed at the weeping

Im sorry i wept at the laughter
im sorry for my fear and doubt

Im sorry for my jealousy and envy

Im sorry for my foolishness and delusion

Im sorry for trusting and believing

Im sorry for wanting and feeling

im sorry

outrageous sobriety

Well…that was interesting…I spent this past weekend sitting in the lobby of the geneva state park lodge selling my pictures…this has been previously been referred to as “fruitstanding” [see the slings and arrows never felt better] and has never been attempted without that infinitely vast tool chest of marketing…alcohol…but, I made promises and trudged on without the usual drunken idiocy…those of you with whom i have interacted even slightly will not believe me, so feel free to skip the remainder of this and visit what is currently your favorite porn site…I have a rich history of getting drunk and obtuse whilst fruitstanding, so I was curious to see if I could weather this sudden gust of sobriety…it was odd at first…I found it very difficult not to make references to auto-erotic asphyxia or black tar heroin…fortunately I was enhanced in ways other than spirits… enough so, that the few times something did slip out it was mumbled incomprehensibly and met with confused grins of indifference…serendipity, I guess… I felt dull and inanimate…lobotomized by decorum…I worked around it…like a one hundred pound convict on his first trip to the shower, I accepted the reality of the way things were to be...i took the vanilla ice cream that I was handed and ate it…things began to get better…I found it easier and easier to play that person that the world wished I was…are you ready?……..just by keeping my mouth shut!!...ok…obviously, I didn’t stand there mute…not only would that have been far creepier than my usual showing…but, I believe that the possibility of my total silence would somehow violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in some way… all I did was omit from what I was actually saying, all the things that I actually wanted to say…seemed to work out pretty well…I sold quite a few pictures, made decent money [by my standards of course…some people sell one picture and buy a new car…im happy just to get back some of the money ive thrown down this endless rat hole so Im not making soup out of my belt this march], but most of all I met some really cool people…I could tell they were cool the minute they bought my pictures…seriously, the money really doesn’t mean as much to me as does the idea that one of my pictures will be hanging on someones wall…I have a vision of the not-so-distant future…a future devoid of my presence…but I will live on through my work…someone will point at one of my pictures on the south wall of the den in some palatial vacation home and ask “Who did that?”…in my vision, the proud response from the owner of the picture and caretaker of my memory is always the same…”some……..guy, I think”…and that’s reason enough to continue...

someone else's sunshine

Under an eternally dismal sky, I am pulled from my timeless purgatory of solitude by a crack in the opaque shield of endless grey clouds…

A speck of translucency quickly growing into a brilliant window of hope…

Could this finally be the sunshine for which I have waited so long?

My soul soars with future-tense visions of a happier me, blissfully embraced by the warm and beautiful rays of my sunshine…

As the blanket of gloom finally tears and the rays burst through, my heart takes a light speed plunge back to reality…

The sun is shining, but not on me…

My eyes follow the heavenly beams downward…

Away in the distance I see a well-dressed man glowing in the light of my sunshine…

I want to despise this man…

I want to believe that he is malicious and undeserving of this ethereal beauty that was meant for me…

But it is not the truth…

He is a better man than I…

I know that the sunshine will be more content illuminating his life…

I know that I cannot hate him for taking something from me that was never really mine…

I hope I can enjoy the foolish dreams of my bright future…

I hope he enjoys his sunshine.

who's there?

where have I gone?  where can I be?

When I look in the mirror it just isnt me

I hope I return before its too late

I just cannot live with someone I hate…

“fuck you!” he said to the man who says “fuck you!” to him every morning…

As has become the norm, he stares at him with disgust and a twisted sort of wonder…

he seems to do a great deal of wondering about this man…

why does he torment him so?

Why must he stand there behind the glass and scrutinize his every thought and action ad absurdum?
Why can he not allow him the somnambulistic bliss that others enjoy with such ease?

judge not lest ye be judged he said to him…

but did he truly understand by whom?

his egomaniacal addiction backfires and belches upon him the narcissistic flames of his own private hell…[as if there could be a public hell]…

The mutually hateful gaze continues as the battle of “who do you think you are?”/ “I know who you are!” escalates…

Gone are the days of the physical crescendo…

When the air would momentarily fill with a shower of broken glass, rusty razors and beautiful pastel dots that marked the end of his resistance to cosmetic psychopharmacology…

the war now languishes in a sorrowful stalemate of passive loathing…

which ultimately ends in a synchronized surrender…

and a return to the social distraction.