May 28, 2005

This was the second time that I was having sex with her, and it was much better for our increased familiarity with each other. I had just finished off a few rails of blow in the family room with my best friends when she and I mutually decided to head to her parent's room. They were out of town. No, I was not in high school. These were just a couple of the glaringly strange points of the experience. This only happens to you if you never fantasize about its reality and never concern yourself with it becoming so. The only way to experience such striatum stimulation is to be able to say, "I don't give a fuck." It's entirely refreshing. Say it, I'll wait.

Refreshed? Ok, then.

My best-friend, who I had just been vacuuming up white powder with, lusted after this woman with a vengeance. I call her a woman specifically. To call her a chick, girl, female, baby... anything but a woman would be an insult to her classical and undeniable ultra-femininity that she wielded like a pen.

Of course I would be lying if I said that I wasn't surprised about her fixation with me. My self-doubt is too great for acceptance. Luckily, it is not too great for sex. Imagine a woman nearly as tall as a man. She could give a fuck about Atkins and discusses the finer points of Italian cuisine. She has the body of a Greek goddess coupled with the least self-conscious smile I have ever encountered. I truly believe that a host of the world's problems could be solved if people could smile without inhibition. Think about it. Most think they do - most don't. It's all in the eyes and eye-contact. When you classify a smile as beautiful, it usually has nothing to do with perfect teeth or curvaceous lips, but the absolute lack of restraint in expressing a smile that has sprouted from the bowels of the soul on a journey to the face where it expresses itself completely unaware of the world's judgement.

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Men only think about their past right before their death, as if they were searching frantically for proof that they were alive. (Jet - Cowboy Bebop)

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My best friend called me up the other day, depressed, lost, and willing to take that journey back into time to revisit the loves of his past. These foolish games are seriously an attempt to reclaim those points in our lives where we truly felt alive. Don't let the optimists fool you; sometimes you do feel dead in life, and you lie in waiting in a cocoon for life to spring upon you again. His journey was fruitless, much like the book High Fidelity, nowhere near as light and heart-warming as the movie. But, on a tangent, you have to appreciate the movie's conclusion that involves grief-resolving sex in a car between two rent persons involved in unique quarter-life crises. But music was the salvation in that story, not people. Music is the salve of loneliness, as I can attest to at this very moment.

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It is inevitable to be drawn back into human drama. (Caterine Vauban - I ♥ Huckabees)

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I loved Fight Club, no matter its backlash here, and I loved I ♥ Huckabees. Both stories seem to exhort existentialism, but in my opinion existentialism is one of the most misunderstood philosphies of our time, but that's neither here nor there. Both Fight Club and I ♥ Huckabees eventually come to the conclusion that you MUST live your life in all its shit, glory, exultation and depression. You MUST revel in your humanity. It may be difficult to become as a tree, experiencing only the now and evolving as your environment would decide for you, but utilizing your unique consciousness and deciding your own fate is making god's fingerprints your footpath.

The choices I have made have created both ultimate pleasure and ultimate suffering. My life does not exist in the middle of the road. This is hardly a lament, but rather a celebration of all of life's chaos, magic, and inscrutability surely put here to hack your reality.

The Wit and Humour of Ashley Pomeroy, him being me, the writer of this article, myself
Behind the Scenes: Fragment #34: Buzzy Bee
-
Yes, this would have gone in 'Buzzy Bee', but I ran out of inspiration at the beginning of the first paragraph, and realised on re-reading it that the last half of the first paragraph is quite dull. Good gags include the observation that the Buzzy Bee toy is dangerously misleading, and that the bee represents all that is good about New Zealand because it is "small, cute, and it is not Australia".

Although superficially amusing, this last observation doesn't really work, because Australia is not notorious or widely hated; certainly not the same degree that America is notorious and widely hated. There is a sense that Australia can still be saved, and it has produced a surprising amount of good-quality pornography, much of which gives the impression of being non-exploitative, viz Abbey Winters, Beautifulagony.com, IShotMyself and so forth, albeit that the girls are almost uniformly white, thin goth types - but then again, Australia did have an unofficial whites-only policy for a long time - not to mention two wongs don't make a white - so it's understandable.

BEGIN QUOTE
"As noted above, the Buzzy Bee is a popular toy from New Zealand, and has become the country's national animal. As a consequence, generations of New Zealanders persist in the delusion that bees are made of wood, that they can be tethered, and that they roll along the ground behind children without causing any harm whatsoever. This is clearly irresponsible nonsense, and is highly offensive to those of us who hold the bee in high esteem; of all God's creatures, the bee is the most dignified, moreso than the eagle, the horse or the Burmese paraphernalia. To reduce this most magnificent of God's creatures to a child's toy is simply wrong...

Nonetheless, the Buzzy Bee represents all that is good about New Zealand, in that it is small, cute, and is not Australia. Like so many good things it is made of wood, brightly-painted wood, and has wheels...

http://www.buzzybee.co.nz/

"Buzzy Beef" ... Residents, 'Satisfaction'"
END QUOTE

Day 7. It’s been a full week now. I mean, come on Old Man! You made the world in this amount of time and even managed to give yourself a day off. How long does it take for you to bake one baby?

We’re stepping gingerly through a bit of a logistical panic zone at the moment. Both Heather and I forgot that our son’s daycare is closed today, for the Memorial Day weekend, I guess. If we stay in this holding pattern, it’s no big deal. Heather’s not working any more, so she can look after our three-year old, but if she *does* go into labor, we’re not sure we have anyone to watch him till after 3 pm today. This is awkward. I’m pretty sure Declan doesn’t want to be in the room watching while his little brother or sister comes into the world.

Come late afternoon, early evening, we should be covered. And tomorrow my mother-in-law is driving over the pass from Spokane to help out and also to give Declan his birthday party. That’s right, his birthday is almost here, introducing the very significant probability that the two kids will share one. Heather is horrified by this prospect, while I, on the other hand, think it’s kinda cool.

In case you’re wondering, the weather is abso-friggin-lootely glorious here in Seattle. Every so often this city sheds her gray woolen dress and shows off her glorious sapphire-and-emerald nakedness. And when she does, it’s damned difficult for anyone to concentrate on work that doesn’t involve gardening, sailing or barbecue. Still, I’m stuck for the time being in my glass tower cubicle-cell, snoozing every task that pops up in Outlook.

Heather’s main plan for the day is to fill Declan’s wading pool and let the sun warm it for a few hours before he plays in it. This will represent the inaugural filling of the wading pool for the season. I’m only sorry I can’t be there to sit my fat ass down in it and hog all the water, tallboy Bud in hand.

Then again, maybe I should ease back a bit on the drinking. A martini last night, so refreshing on the spring’s hottest evening so far, turned into a glass of wine and three beers. I’ve got that not so fresh feeling this morning, and nothing but an evening watching bad television slightly buzzed to show for it. It’d be one thing if I was hurting after a night of say, shooting the unholy shit with Iceowl, but . . . I’m better off stopping at one stiff one these days if just gonna be me. I’m worn-out and it’s not like the sleep-deprivation situation is gonna get any better in the near future. Nope. I got to shape up a bit. Start working out and biking regularly again, and most importantly, meditating every day like I had been for a good long while there.

That said, I made a run to the Washington State Liquor Store earlier this morning to pick up fifths of vodka and MacCallan, just to make sure I have something eminently decent to toast my new baby with. I am what I am after all.

Update (three hours later): apparently Declan refuses to get in the wading pool because it’s not in the shade. He insists that his mother moves it. Now the wading pool filled with water probably weighs about 125 pounds. We’ve already established just how pregnant my wife is. Ergo: my son’s being a butt. But then again, he’s three, so being a butt is only natural. He’s also already had three time-outs today and isn’t even noon. Perhaps he senses there’s change in the offing?

So I’m back in Home Depot for the umpteenth time this week. Once again, I’m buying paint by the 5-gallon can.

Let me digress a bit. My mother, now residing in an ALF, has agreed to put her house up for rent. I plan to have it painted, both inside and out. A friend is now painting the outside of my own house, then will start on hers. I’ve been around the track on buying paint in large quantities lately.

I‘m in the store tonight, an hour before closing time. The paint section is busy; people are stocking up on paint for the holiday weekend.

I have a printed Excel spreadsheet on which I’ve calculated the square footage of different areas of my mother’s house and what’s still needed on mine, together with quantities, types and colors of paint for each. I’ve visited the color chart display and penciled in the paint brands, color names and codes. I’m organized.

The man who usually waits on me is not there. The guy behind the paint counter asks if he can help me.

”I have to buy quite a lot of paint. Can we go over there to the exterior section and you can put it in my cart and then mix it?”

He doesn’t like this. “No, just tell me what you want.”

”I want a number of different items. I know what I want. Can’t we just put it in the cart and then you can take it here and mix it?”

”No,” he told me. “I have to put it in the computer so I can get the right base. Tell me what you want.”

There are only three different bases, but if he wants me to tell him what I want, I will. I start out with,

”I want two 5-gallons of Behr Premium Plus Exterior Flat, color ‘June Day’, code '370B-4', and three 5-gallons of the same in color ‘Glow’, code . . . “

Once I’ve finished reading the whole list I smile at him and say, “OK? That’s what I want, please.”

He doesn’t blink. “Is all that written on that piece of paper, Miss?”< /p>

”Yes, but you wanted me to tell you, so I did.” Another smile.

He’s playing it with an expressionless face and a flat voice. “May I have the paper?”

”Of course, here you are.” Smile.

After punching everything into the computer he takes a hand truck over to the Exterior Paint section and starts loading cans. He has to make several trips. Then he starts mixing paint, using the 5-gallon, one-gallon and quart mixers.

As each can is mixed, he slaps a color code sticker on the lid, heaves it onto the counter in front of me, and announces the color. He doesn’t show me the paint inside the can or put a dab of paint on the label, as is customary. I ignore this. I’ve spotted a better one-upmanship about to arrive.

He puts a quart of mixed paint in front of me. “Tart Apple”.

He turns away and I pick up the small can, examine it, shove it to the far end of the counter. When he comes back with the gallon of “Chilled Lemonade” he picks up the quart and tells me I wanted “Tart Apple”.

”Yes, but that is Exterior Flat. I wanted it in Exterior Flat Enamel.”

He thinks he’s got me. “There is no Flat in exterior enamel. If you want enamel, you have to go to Satin.”

I smile at him again. “Fine, do it in Satin.” I point to my printed sheet. “It says Enamel on my list.”

He goes to the exterior section again and gets another quart, Satin this time. When he returns, the quart mixer is finished. He removes the can, slaps on the code sticker, and gives it to me. “Carolina Parakeet”.

”You’ll have to change that one, too. I specified enamel on all the quarts.”

He is still poker-faced. I am still smiling. Finally, all the paint is mixed and on the counter in front of me. He asks,

”Will that be all?”

”I can’t possibly lift those 5-gallon cans off the counter and into my cart. Could you do it for me?” I know he’s supposed to offer to do it, but I put it as a question.

“Of course”.

He has to come around the counter and lift all the 5-gallon cans again. He could have used my cart to take the cans straight behind the counter and then put them back into the cart after mixing them. But he wanted to do it by the book. Fair enough. All the cans are in my cart and he starts away.

”Excuse me, don’t you normally give large stir sticks with the purchase of these 5-gallon cans?”

The large paint stirrers are hidden under the computer. He has to make another trip around the counter. I smile and thank him again when he hands it to me. He is still stoic. I am still smiling. It’s a draw.

I used to think my writing would save me. I used to think my life was something to endure, and eventually, when I hit it "big" everything would be fine.

I don't think that anymore.

I can't stop it. I can't start it. When it goes, it goes, and I sit back and watch it happen.

It's my "craft", they say. It's art. It's a gift. God blessed you with this ability, you should use it, they say.

I do. I sit and type out dream girls. I climb mountains. I rescue princesses. I ride huge white horses with wings, swoop down and save Andromeda night after night. I win wars single-handedly. Wrestle bears and win. The stroke of luck is always on my side and when I am not lucky I'm smart enough to come up with and execute the one ingenius plan that saves the earth from total devastation. I am Billy Pilgrim. I am George Bailey. I am Audie Murphy. I am Perseus.

Today while I was eating my granola bar for breakfast the writing girl said to me:

If there was no you
There would be no anything

I don't hear her with my ears. I don't hear a voice in my head. An idea comes to me. Clear as day, for no good reason. I may be reading the newspaper or typing an e-mail to my boss and she'll say:

Love is
Total suspension of judgement

I'm not even sure I know what that means.

There's an author who is now pretty famous but she wasn't when I first met her. In fact, she hadn't even published her first book. Diana Gabaldon said to me, when I asked her if any of the stuff she'd written had ever come true:

"Of course. It always does. That's the writing magic."

I said, "No, not that the characters are 'real' to you, but, you know. Say you write a story about a guy driving a green Porsche. Then, you start seeing them everywhere. And the next thing you know you park at Macy's and right in front of you a guy pulls into a parking space in a green Porsche. And the license plate says, 'GOTCHA' Or something."

"What are you asking me,OwlBoy?" she said.

"Does it ever come true?"

"I told you. All the time."

Then I wrote an entire novel about a guy going to Antarctica. Then, a year later, I was there. I was standing at the bottom of the earth, scratching my head, thinking, "Is this real? Am I in my story?"

And the novel wasn't even published.

Over my entire life I've made enough money writing to buy a high mileage mostly rusted 1977 tan Ford Torino with torn bench seats. My family would starve if I had to feed them on the money I make writing. I wouldn't even have enough money to keep the Torino running.

But it comes true. It exists on a physics all it's own.

And then the physics leaks.

Someone walks up out of the very blue. Says, "Come with me."

"Where?"

"Antarctica."

"This is a joke."

"Why would you say that?"

Step off the plane onto the sea ice expecting fall to through it when it dissolves to the cobwebs of dreams. See imagined storybook scenes solid and tangible. The mind's eye becoms the optic nerve. The cold is real. The caustic daylight is warm and bites at the same time.

"Why is this happening?"

"I needed a science tech."

"But I'm not a science tech. I'm not even a good programmer. Why me? Why now, right after I finished writing this very thing in a book?"

"You wrote a book?"

Some days, I stare at the blank page and try to write, and it doesn't work. I get worried. Maybe I've become "normal". Maybe the writing has gone away and I'm just like every other person who doesn't care about being a writer. Maybe the angels have left me.

But they don't leave, ever. They say:

That would be silly.
We needed a break.
We went to Cancun.
The diving was great.
Stay away from the Cadillac margaritas, though. Whoo.

And then I have weeks where I can't stop. There are more stories inside me than outside. I can't type them fast enough.

"What if I didn't write?" I ask my weird angel.

Where I come from, we call that bullshit.
You're lucky I've said this much.

"What about all the love stories I write? What about the women? The one with the eagles and the one with the blue ice and the one in the Space Shuttle? Do they come true, too?"

Keep me in the loop. Take pictures.
Especially if people get naked.

"Will I die like the guy in my story? Full of cancer, having lost all the people he ever loved? Searching for a God who only answers in riddles?"

Do you want to?

*

Once a couple years ago while I was running on a treadmill at my company's gym (yes, I worked for a company that provided a fully-equipped gym for its employees, but not anymore) my angel told me to write, I swear to God, and I haven't written it down till this very moment:

Anger is a wasted emotion.
You were built to be happy.
You are healthiest when you have a sense of humor about things
This includes pain
You are lucky to have it
Someday you will miss it.

No kidding
You will fail at everything you do out of anger
I promise.

Anger is not a sin. It is a waste of time. Wasting time is a crime against yourself.

There was an infinity of probable DNA combinations that could have created human life the day you were born. The possibility it would be you, is exactly one. One divided by infinity is something very very close to zero. So the possibility you would be here right now is that very tiny number, close to zero. You have a better chance of being hit by lightning thirty two times in a row in the basement of a children's toy superstore than being born.

You would win every lottery on planet earth, every spin, for two hundred years, before you would approximate the odds of being born.

And here you are.

*

Things I believe

I believe in God.

I believe all human attempt to clarify the true nature of God are wrought with imperfection. God is a multi-dimensional concept which we can only perceive in terms of the four-dimensional "shadow" it casts upon our reality. Trying to understand God, or develop a mythology around it/him/whatever, is like trying to define the true nature of an elephant by looking at the shadow it casts on a concrete parking lot while it's suspended by a helicopter 100 feet in the air on a sunny day.

I believe God is the creative force from which all things emerge. The force that drives DNA to replicate is God. The spark of life that animates all things is God.

It is the act of the artist to channel the creative force. The soul is the emmisary of God--the image of God in the self which brings, through the being, creation and destruction into the physical world.

Pray you never get everything you want. Hell is having everything.

You cannot write when you have everything you want. "Having" stunts the creative act. It is the void that must be filled that drives the writer, engineer, musician, painter, sculptor.

I believe Love is the fundamental destructive force. Love destroys leaving fertile ground for creation. Love tears down all barriers. Love is the nuclear weapon of the soul. It tears down some things it shouldn't. Love is how we come to understand the duality of God and ourselves.

I believe the single greatest human failing is our inabilility to perceive the fundamental, mathematical improbability of the existence of any one of us, and so to cast judgement upon the other for beliefs or actions which are in discord with our own. Casting human judgement upon others in the name of religion, politics, or philosophy, does not contribute to human progress and so is the best definition of "evil".

I believe one of the most terrifying concepts to people is the nagging suspicion that God may not sit in judgement of anything or anyone, for any reason.

I believe the human race will either succeed or fail as a whole.

I believe I am imperfect and incapable of achieving 100% compliance to my own beliefs. I believe all people are the same to their beliefs. Imperfection is the beauty of the world, and the motivator for the creative act.

I believe later I'll have more, better beliefs.

My writing will not save me. My beliefs will not save me. I'm not even sure what I need to be saved from, but I believe I will be the last person saved. All the rest of you will be long gone by the time they come for me.

I believe I will die. I believe I have done it before.

Imperial Blog week ending 28 Meadow 4703
An Analyis of the Strategy of the Commitee of the IVth International.

₁

On the EU Constitution Referenda.

WSWS advises No, i.e. rejection of the Proposed EU Constitution on the grounds that it is a corporatist tract that represents an attack on the working classes of Europe, on their democratic rights, and is an effort to confuse and deflect those classes from seeking a unification in a form that would threaten the priviledges of the national ruling elites.

₂

On the 2004 United States Election.

SEP U.S. ran candidates at the Presidential and in a handful of small local constituencies (rural Maine, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, etc). It opposed, as it of course had from the beginning the Iraq war and correctly characterised the Democratic candidate as essentially representing the same interests as the Republican and having few if any important differences in principle.

₃

The apparent general strategy.

In general, the apparent strategy is to devote essentially all of their resouces to the articulation of what might be called Orthodox socialism's (i.e. that of Marx and Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky and lesser lights within that school of political philosophy) perspectives of current political events.

Compromises with essential principles are never seen in official positions and they seldom fail to point the opportunistic character of compromises other left tendencies make with the established social order. On any given issue, the content of the bottom paragraphs of the corresponding articles can generally be inferred and fall into two major categories: 1) punch line reports of some fact reinforcing the state of affairs reported or 2) an exhortation to form an independent political party which can serve the interests of the working class.

In addition, there are public lectures by the authors of the WSWS as well as the fielding of candidates by the various national Socialist Equality parties.

₄

Analysis

Two major criticisms seem to be unanswered over the five or six years I have observed this organization.

The first is on the matter of the possibility of having any effect, which in turn resolves to the degree of the penetration of the consciousness of any significant portion of the body politic. While there seems to be no question the readership of the WSWS has increased in the indicated period, there's also no indication of quantitatively exactly how much nor is there any indication that the political perspectives advanced are having any general effect beyond that common to tiny fringe movements.

The second is that there is little or no movement in the direction of explaining or connecting with the practical work of what the reworking of society on a social basis would entail. In particular, with nothing expressed except implicit truisms about socialism being the 'true' democracy, there is nothing to explain how a movement based on such a party would fail to degenerate into a rule of an elite, as every attempt at socialism in the previous century did. Further, with it's concentration strictly on political as opposed to technical means, and with no statement of exactly what mechanisms would replace capitalist determination of production¹, this grouping would seem to invite dismissal as yet another "usual pinko suspect"².

Since there is no other political formation known to us of comparable worth, these shortcomings are all the more disappointing. Some deeper issues are also implicit here such as whether it makes sense to have power devolve to the masses if these are incapable of even understanding their own class interests in the simplest and most obvious terms, let alone in obtruse matters of political philiosphy, mathematical economics, etc.

Does the fact of the failure of what should be the vanguard of the working class, the best trained workers, to adopt socialist and anti-capitalist perspectives indicate a fundamental unreadiness for the assumption of such power, whether it is a failure to see thru the propaganda of their masters, or a moral failure that makes them seek to become masters of the labor of others?

Our position is that it is rather the failure to articulate in clear terms exactly what a socialist transformation of society would be like that causes these would-be vanguards of the revolution to remain petty bourgeois wage labor slaves. And by the same token, it is the failure to articulate mechanisms that could assure the vision of a classless and stateless form of human society envisioned by Marx and Trotsky that are the surest basis for a suspicion that any such revolution would quickly decay into yet another rule by non-worker elites.

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¹ The general position is that production for profit (i.e. surplus value) would be replaced by production 'to satisfy human wants and needs'. A particular position seems to be implicit that markets (of any kind) are anti-thetical to socialist production.

² Epithet recently heard on Irish TV network referring to some opponents of EU constitution.