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Solitude, Hope and Bacon

Tonight, Barack Obama secured the presidency and all I can think about is Francis Bacon.

It is a momentous, auspicious occasion for America. For everyone in and around my sphere of knowledge, in fact for the world. For me. The first vote I cast, my first word as a babe in politics was to say yes to this man. He won my heart with some of the most powerful oration I've ever heard and gained my intellectual respect with solid, cogent ideas.

Obama's campaign was based on the concept of change, in large part, but what really struck the core of me was his call for unification. He seemed the loudest voice of this cultural choir clamoring in harmony for togetherness, for understanding, for inclusion. These are the most powerful words one can utter in a society, I believe, because of the very definition of society, of humanity, of life itself in all its myriad, brutal wonders.

You see, every bit of life is only alive because it interacts with other bits of life around it. The more complex the life, the more complex and diverse its interactions: electrons swirl around protons and neutrons, e. coli bacteria swirl in the stomachs of rats, rats in our grain bins, brokers at the NYSE, soldiers in smoldering cities. They all exist for and because of each other.

So on this night, the fourth of November, two-thousand-and-eight, I sit amidst the syncopated clicks of backlit keys and extended horn blasts fading in and out like the bell of a red-faced jazzer's trumpet passing in slow ecstasy over the mic, then comes a woman's voice belting out "Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus!" with an exuberance I'd previously only heard in Mahalia Jackson or Nina Simone. Despite this, I am alone in my room with my dear friends scattered across the country. I've nobody with whom to share this celebration cadenza and so it dies in me before I squawk its first gleeful notes.

How can the majority of Americans be celebrating what I myself celebrate, yet I am alone? People known and unknown to me around the country, around the globe and around the block where I'm trying to fucking sleep: they're all whooping, gesticulating, drinking, loving, all in the throng together. Yet, I am alone, somehow suddenly outside of everything I once felt so profoundly as inside myself. That's when I know I'm truly human. In Bacon's words:

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

I certainly don't feel any sort of deity or demon. On this, the eve of Barack Obama's victory procession, as he is borne proudly by my generation on a litter of hope, I find myself locked away under the stairs, starved for society. I lie still in the dark, concentrating on my breath as I have big plans and need my rest. Perhaps tomorrow I will get to eat. Perhaps we will all be fed at long last. Every single solitary one of us.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
– Francis Bacon

Beautiful Dogs... For President.

Saw these 8 beauties advertising their astute choice for future
president Barack Obama as they walked down a main strip in South Miami
Beach.

Stolen Dreams

The dogs ate all my valerian root.
Got into it one day when I was out
And just had a big old time
And a great big nap afterwards.
Guess it smelled like a tasty find.
And I know the feeling, but now
I've got to make do without.

These dogs, I love 'em no doubt
And if you've heard my name
You'd know it too.
Sometimes though, you've got to watch.
No, always eye that goat path,
That's how lion kings are slain.
Even your best friend can take
your good sleep on the sneak, man.
And your hand goes down
to the pouch at your hip
Where you keep healing magic
But it's empty, ripped.
Then where are you?

Then, you're in this old chair
Late into your sleepytime,
Scratching out a path to rest on
And near the end of the page
You realize you've got to go it alone
From here on out
To the crusts of your bread.

Maybe you'll find some secret stash
When you root through the trash
One day
And have a big old time
Before you sleep it all away.
Until then, just sack out
on the front doormat
waiting for the key scratch.

One day, maybe.

Jesus Saves

Walking down to Voodoo Donuts in Portland I was accosted briefly by a dirty vagrant dressed in leftovers from the GothKid collection at Hot Topic. She was panhandling, dragging a little puppy behind her. In her hands was a thick red-covered bible open to the early chapters.

"Can you spare any change?" she asked with a vapid, Christian stare.

"No, sorry. But I hear Jesus saves: maybe you should look into it. Or did you not get to that part yet?"

The McLeod Residence

I went to The McLeod Residence, a pretty cool art gallery and music space in Belltown to see my friend Caleb perform some on the guitar this past Wednesday (9-3-08) before I headed down to Portland for MFNW, or Music Fest Northwest if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

To the left is a pic of Caleb doing his thing, with a backdrop of The Neverending Story playing behind him. Yeah, it was kindof like the whole Dark Side/Wizard of Oz synch-up deal, cause Falcore was mouthing along with Caleb's singing. Trippy, man. There were other examples of synchronicity, but they were thematic in nature with his lyrics and the images onscreen.


Additionally, my new profile pic is from an installation in the bathroom there that composites photos taken over time to display a with some custom code by the Barbarian Group running on a Mac Mini (I know, you'd never have guessed). Click here to read about the interesting tale of its creation.

I'll take Creepy for a thousand, Alex...

This. This is truly one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.

Hopefully there is a movement of Kaufmanites that are posting the most ridiculous things on the intertubes. Maybe it isn't just the world's biggest slug, trying to lure a woman into close proximity with promises of physics tutoring and carpentry. I find very often, when in the market for a custom bench or auto repair (distinguished helpfully from "fixing") one is seldom also in need of assistance unraveling a calculus boondoggle.

Blag-O-Quote-O-The-Day:
"I buy you things and give you a little money."