Wolf vs. Vulture

Desperate Times Presents: An Evening Rant

Remember when Facebook used to feel like a safe place; a place where you could rant, bitch, kvetch etc. with abandon, without fear of repercussion or consequence? No, you don't? Then you were born in the 90's. Back in it's infancy, Facebook sublimated my anger and rage - I could rant about the futility of existence without fear of someone emailing me, or "messaging me" about every little unnerving Status Update.

It used to be a fun tool; Facebook. You could (and still can) use this tool to manipulate your fantasy of what you think others will think about your random thoughts; wantings - ravings - ecstasies - wins - losses - Who Cares? I don't know. I guess I care. I have a bunch of "friends" - over 500. I don't see more than a dozen of them in a given week.

Facebook has given losers everywhere at least one friend

The problem with this manipulation (whether conscious or not) is in the execution.

I just had a very invasive Facebook experience involving an inter-loping vulture. I'm no dead meat - but this experience left me feeling chewed and swallowed. Without going in to specifics (for fear of reprisal) This particular Vulture felt the need to insert itself, uninvited in to my Wolfpack (life). The vulture felt the need to critique the Facebook Manipulation of my life that I had created, to the point that this Wolf could bear it no longer. This Wolf never expressed anything (to his knowledge) to the Vulture that the Vulture could ever misconstrue as a close, personal comment, remark or invitation in to the Wolf's existence.

This is no ordinary Vulture. This Vulture is strange, because it doesn't feed off rotting carcasses. This Vulture feeds off the living. In fact, this Vulture is more like a Vampire, or a Valkyrie. Vampire. Vulture.

When is it ever ok for a Vulture to talk to a Wolf anyway? We don't even speak the same animal language. Point being - This Wolf never wanted any contact with the Vulture.

This Wolf had seen this Vulture feed off of other members of his Wolfpack before. Luckily they had extricated themselves from the Vulture's fangs before it was too late.

This Vulture was/is a Facebook Junkie.

I dunno - I blocked the bird.

I felt stalked by this bird... and I'm a Wolf.

The madness has to end somewhere. I think the road out of madness leads out off facebook as well. That being said, the inverse is equally true.

In the end - I let the Vulture have it - I tore the bird to shreds with my vicious Wolf jaws. Blood in the snow - dripping as I walked away. The Vulture lived to fight another day.

The Wolf unfriended and blocked the Vulture and he hopes that his Wolf Pack will not suffer any repercussions.

I am Jack's momentary sense of relief.

Stupid social network.

I'm going back to the woods.

The Philosopher Pistol

Desperate Times Presents:

The Philosopher Pistol (Part 2)

I wrapped my fingers round the cold hard butt of my revolver. Squeeze, don't pull. Squeeze don't pull. They had drilled this mantra into our heads during training. If you pull the trigger, as opposed to squeezing the trigger, you'll miss high and over their heads. Halfway to Najadima - a little village in the middle of the desert - What it lacked in size, it made up for in villainy. They say only two kinds of men go to Najadima. Men who are fixing to kill, and men who are fixing to die - I headed where the work was. And the work was in Najadima. Evil lurked around these parts. I had been walking through the desert for days - water running low, no natives to speak of, no hope to be found. No, my only prospect was a bounty hunter named Floyd who'd gone off the reservation, started taking out high-ranking military officers. Now Floyd had a bounty on his head so high, he couldn't take a piss without somebody informing on it.

The general let me go. It was either I left, or his brains all over his desk - his choice. I made him sign the form and hightailed it out of Cairo as fast as I could. Three years, and dozens of bounties later, I was on my way to Najadima, with Floyd on my mind.

Next (Part 3)

Glibbery-Blibble-Bleck

I don’t like gooky mess. Does that sound gay? Whatever, maybe that sounds gay. I don’t care – I can deal with a mess – I’m a bit of a mess – but I hate – yech – that gooky feeling of sticking your hand in a pumpkin, removing the guts and seeds and juices and whatnot so the pumpkin doesn’t rot - (Yech) - it’s that awful swirling gloopy bubbling feeling of something alive that shouldn’t be alive squirming around in your hand some Glibbery-Blibble-Bleck trying to suck off your arm – y-know what I mean? Disgusting. Absolutely gross.

I didn’t remove all the guts – that was three days ago - and now my pumpkin is rotting on my kitchen counter… I carved the interlocking NY that the Yankees use on their caps into the pumpkin. It kind of looks more like the interlocking NY that the Mets use on their caps. My stomach turns. I gaze into the pumpkin that should have read “[interlocking NY symbol] 2010 World Series Champions! Suck it Philly!” And my stomach churns. It turned out all wrong – I’m admittedly not half as handy with a knife as I like to boast. But half as handy as I boast is still quite handy indeed. The Pumpkin doesn’t look right. My stomach burns and I run to the bathroom to blast off.

The Philosopher Pistol

Desperate Times Presents:

The Philosopher Pistol (Part !)

There doesn't see to be any artillery sir?
But there Must be artillery!
How can we fight a Goddamn Bloody War without Goddamn Bloody artillery?!

The general was fuming at this point and i was glad to get out of the room before the winds of politics swept in a foul thunderstorm. I left with my charge, ahead of the supply boy and with my pistol in hand. I thought this quite amusing. I'm not one to carry my pistol in my hand, but my experience in the General's office; being handed my first real assignment on my own, had my heart pumping. Perhaps I pulled my sidearm out of it's holster, who knows how or why these things happen. I promptly re-holstered my weapon and set off on my journey.

I slept for a night on the beach - i took in the smell of the sand, the sound of the water lapping against the earth, like matter smacking against time. I thought about time slowly falling away in to a deep well hole in New England; only to be retrieved by a man who once sold his daughter to a Street Performer for September 1968. Time couldn't be easily caught, or held on to for that matter. And after the Street Performer intercepted time, it quickly got away from him. Never to be caught again.

I walked a desert road for a time. I felt like a man on a mission, but what mission, I did not know. I held my gun up above me as I walked. The reflection of the Sun against my pistol warmed my soul the way the company of another human being never could. I guess it was my manner. My way. I'd never been one for company. Strangers sure. But I'd never kept company well and I wasn't about to start now. That's why i left. To get away from everyone; To find out - after all my awful misdeeds and sins, he trail of tears and broken lives I've left behind me; who I really am.

So I walk along the trodden trail - the only trail a man who's low can know.
I sing my song to no avail, for on my path, if I choose to sing it's for no one
I choose to sing to no one.

Send me a mountain to climb to the top and jump off and explode and then fly in to hell and do battle with satan - and crucify Christ - let them whip me and rape me and burn me and hate me.

Next Time on Desperate times Presents - PART 2

Sitz Probe

Sitz Probe tonight

That is all.

Proof

What do i have to do to prove myself to you? I don't understand the way you hold my hand then fling me away cross the room

Why do I feel, like my soul's not quite real,
If I don't get the job that I'm right for.

What do I do to sabotage myself in your eyes - what can I change? My range?
I'll rearrange my range to my change my rage in to something more manageable/less frightening. I'll sing you a tune and you'll clap, bodies swoon to the sound of my voice in the night.

But cheers grow dim and subways stop and your trapped with your thoughts in a tube with no way out - no way out - trapped with your brain gone insane on the train in the tube no way out -

And i think:

"What did I do to betray you? What did I do to make you lose your confidence in me?"

Why can't I be what you want me to be? I thought you used to like me - I thought you used to like who I am - the number one man to have in your band

Brothers we were - what have we become?

Silent lies abound and what have wrought?

Whence thou travel down the path of misdirection, a stake between two humans you have planted.

Lazy Saturday

It's a lazy Saturday Afternoon. That old lonely feeling sneaked up on me - jumped me when I wasn't looking. Now I'm looking for an angry fix - traversing rooftops in Prospect Heights, looking for a better view, while sitting in my living room; counting down the hours till the Yankees play (6 1/2), pondering the futility of existence.

There is laundry to be done, floors to be cleaned, and my brain could use a good washing. I feel a bit like Fiona Apple in the 'Criminal' video. Does that mean I feel like I'm wearing purple satin underwear? Maybe? Does it mean the dark spots under my eyes aren't going away anytime soon? Probably. Dark circles have taken up permanent residence under my eyes. They have an infinite lease. They're not leaving.

My head tells me to get up, go outside and enjoy the sunshine, but my body is not responding. My mechanism is worn from a night of walking the long lonely road from somewhere-ville to inbetween-land.

My eyes are black and I have left my body. Oy - what a cruel fate we're consigned to. Endless thinking and worry and wait. From outside my body, I recognize the folly of my choices. If only I could go back in time a decade. I would tell myself to go to sleep early... Then perhaps these dark circles would have never come.

And I think, perhaps I am not human. Perhaps I am not dynamite. Perhaps I am not a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas. Perhaps I am a corporeal representation of a cosmologically consistent perception of light.