Night of the Living Dave

It's been two years since the original invasion of my privacy became the scarily public notice that Newtonian physics had been overturned. To a large degree, it started and ended with an appreciation for Dr. Martin Luther King, whose work, musical tributes, and national holiday played large parts in the lifetime of my last residence. I figured I should do something more substantive about his legacy than rely on the personal ignorance I had sadly accepted for so long.

I started reading Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. on the 5th and it has been beyond satisfying. Here is a man who saw a fellow human being in pain and stopped to commiserate, who stopped to say "I know it hurts, and I am with you". Someday the public might know how an "inanimate" book could perform such a duty as the books I've been lucky to find these past months, and if that ever happens they need to know that Dr. King's autobiography has been one of the best ones so far.

"A CONCEPTION AND IMPRESSION OF RELIGION DRAWN FROM DR. EDGAR S. BRIGHTMAN'S BOOK ENTITLED A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION"

It is religion that gives meaning to life. It is religion that gives meaning to the Universe. It is religion that is the greatest incentive for the good life. It is religion which gives us the assurance that all that is high noble and valuable will be conserved. Such fruits of religion I find to be its greatest virtues, and certainly they cannot be ignored by any sane man. I must now conclude that any atheistic view is both philosophically unsound and practically disadvantageous. How I long now for that religious experience which Dr. Brightman so cogently speaks of throughout his book. It seems to be an experience, the lack of which life becomes dull and meaningless. As I reflect on the matter, however, I do remember moments that I have been awe awakened; there have been times that I have been carried out of myself by something greater than myself and to that something I gave myself. Has this great something been God? Maybe after all I have been religious for a number of years, and am now only becoming aware of it.

- Chapter 3, From a course paper submitted at Crozer Seminary, March 28, 1951

"O THAT I KNEW WHERE I MIGHT FIND HIM"

I can remember very vividly how in my recent seminary days, I was a led to strengthen my spiritual life through communing with nature. The seminary campus is a beautiful sight, particularly so in the spring. And it was at this time of year that I made it a practice to go out to the edge of the campus every afternoon for at least an hour to commune with nature. On the side of the campus ran a little tributary from the Delaware river. Every day I would sit on the edge of the campus by the side of the river and watch the beauties of nature. My friend, in this experience, I saw God. I saw him in birds of the air, the leaves of the tree, the movement of the rippling waves.... Sometimes I go out at night and look up at the stars as they bedeck the heavens like shining silver pins sticking in a magnificent blue pin cushion. There is God. Sometimes I watch the sun as it gets up in the morning and paints its technicolor across the eastern horizon. There is God. Sometimes I watch the moon as it walks across the sky as a queen walks across her masterly mansion. There is God. Henry Ward Beecher was right: "Nature is God's tongue."

- Chapter 3, Reminiscence about Crozer years, ca. 1953

These twelve months have not at all been easy. Our feet have often been tired. We have struggled against tremendous odds to maintain alternative transportation. There have been moments when roaring waters of disappointment poured upon us in staggering torrents. We can remember when days when unfavorable court decisions came upon us like tidal waves, leaving us treading in the deep and confused waters of despair. But amid all of this we have kept going with the faith that as we struggle, God struggles with us, and that the arc of the moral universe, although long, is bending toward justice. We have lived under the agony and darkness of Good Friday with the conviction that one day the heightening glow of Easter would emerge on the horizon. We have seen truth crucified and goodness buried, but we have kept going with the conviction that the truth crushed to Earth will rise again.

-Chapter 9, Desegregation at Last

I can't settle on just a few quotes to place here to remind myself of this last period of wandering, but I had to start somewhere. If today is a religious holiday, and religion having such a bad reputation these days, I decided maybe I could start with these.

I spent the months of January and February completing my book, entitled Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community? In March I met with Al Raby and Chicago's other outstanding and committed civil rights leaders to evaluate the progress of our several ongoing programs and to lay plans for the next phase of our drive to end slums.

It was clear to me that city agencies had been inert in upholding their commitment to the open housing pact. I had to express our swelling disillusionment with the foot-dragging negative actions of agencies such as Chicago Housing Authority, Department of Urban Renewal, and the Commission on Human Relations. It appeared that, for all intents and purposes, the public agencies had reneged on the agreement and had in fact given credence to the apostles of social disorder who proclaimed the housing agreement a sham and a batch of false promises. The city's inaction was not just a rebuff to the Chicago Freedom Movement or a courtship of the white backlash, but also another hot coal on the smoldering fires of discontent and despair that are rampant in our black communities. For more than a month during the marches we were told to come to the bargaining table, that compromise and negotiation were the only ways to solve the complex, multi-layered problems of open occupancy. We came, we sat, we negotiated. We reached the summit and then nearly seven months later we found that much of the ground had been cut from beneath us.

I could not say all was lost. There were many decent respected and sincere persons on the Leadership Council who had not broken faith. I pleaded with those responsible and responsive persons to take a good long hard look at the facts and act now in an effort to regain the spirit of good faith that existed when we began. It was not too late, even with the failures of yesterday to renew the effort and take some first steps toward the goals pledged last August. Open housing had to become more than a meaningless scrap of paper. It had to become reality if this city was to be saved. Our minds and our hearts were open for some real good faith reevaluation and determination to move on, but we also were ready to expose this evil. I had about reached the conclusion that it was going to be almost necessary to engage in massive demonstrations to deal with the problem.

I am thinking now of some teenage boys in Chicago. They have nicknames like "Tex" and "Pueblo" and "Goat" and "Teddy". They hail from negro slums. Forsaken by society, they once proudly fought and lived for street gangs like the Vice Lords, the Roman Saints, the Rangers. I met these boys and heard their stories in discussions we had on some long, cold nights at the slum apartment I rented in the West Side ghetto of Chicago.

I was shocked at the venom they poured out against the world. At times I shared their despair and felt a hopelessness that these young Americans could ever embrace the concept of non-violence as the effective and powerful instrument of social reform. All their lives, boys like this have known life as a madhouse of violence and degradation. Some have never experienced a meaningful family life. Some have police records. Some dropped out of the incredibly bad slum schools, then were deprived of honorable work, then took to the streets.

- Chapter 28, The Chicago Campaign page 311-312

You know Jesus reminded us in a magnificent parable one day that a man went to hell because he didn't see the poor. His name was Dives. And there was a man by the name of Lazarus who came daily to his gate in need of the basic necessities of life and Dives didn't do anything about it. And he ended up going to hell. There is nothing in that parable which says that Dives went to hell because he was rich. Jesus never made a universal indictment against all wealth. It is true that one day a rich young ruler came to Him talking about eternal life and he advised him to sell all, but in that instance Jesus was prescribing individual surgery, not setting forth a universal diagnosis. If you will go on and read that parable in all of its dimensions and its symbolism you will remember that a conversation took place between heaven and hell. And on the other end of that long distance call between heaven and hell was Abraham in heaven talking to Dives in hell. It wasn't a millionaire in hell talking with a poor man in heaven, it was a little millionaire in hell talking with a multimillionaire in heaven. Dives didn't go to hell because he was rich. His wealth was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he allowed Lazarus to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he allowed the means by which he lived to outdistance the ends for which he lived. Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty.

- Chapter 31, The Poor People's Campaign

...Having to live under the threat of death every day, sometimes I feel discouraged. Having to take so much abuse and criticism, sometimes from my own people, sometimes I feel discouraged. Having to go to bed so often frustrated with the chilly winds of adversity about to stagger me, sometimes I feel discouraged and feel my work's in vain.

But then the holy spirit revives my soul again. In Gilead, there is balm to make the wounded whole. If we will believe that, we will build a new Memphis. And bring about the day when every valley shall be exalted. Every mountain and hill will be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

- Chapter 31, "The Poor People's Campaign"

Two Fridays in a row now the police have asked me to do something about the location of the WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE RANCID SLEEPING BAG, my home office during this enforced vacation away from the old place. This morning I suddenly remembered after a few weeks' amnesia that this was supposed to be my official name for the mobile unit, and when I was about to say the words out loud, a nearby ladies softball team whacked a softball directly at me where I was sitting atop the sleeping bag by a tree. I had to leap quickly to one side to avoid getting beaned, and when I'd got maybe five feet away turned around and saw the ball hit exactly where my books had been. I cheered them for being so good with their aim and they cheered me back for moving out of the way so quickly. It was all rather funny. The problem though aside from actual projectiles is that I can't stay there too much longer probably, now that I'm starting to exhaust the warnings.

And I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable. We are commanded to do that. And so we, like David, find ourselves in so many instances having to face the fact that our dreams are not fulfilled.

Now let us notice first that life is a continual story of shattered dreams. Mahatma Gandhi labored for years and years for the independence of his people. And through a powerful nonviolent revolution he was able to win that independence. For years the Indian people had been dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated and humiliated by foreign powers, and Gandhi struggled against it. He struggled to unite his own people, and nothing was greater in his mind than to have India’s one great, united country moving toward a higher destiny. This was his dream.

But Gandhi had to face the fact that he was assassinated and died with a broken heart, because that nation that he wanted to unite ended up being divided between India and Pakistan as a result of the conflict between the Hindus and the Moslems. Life is a long, continual story of setting out to build a great temple and not being able to finish it.

Woodrow Wilson dreamed a dream of a League of Nations, but he died before the promise was delivered.

The Apostle Paul talked one day about wanting to go to Spain. It was Paul’s greatest dream to go to Spain, to carry the gospel there. Paul never got to Spain. He ended up in a prison cell in Rome. This is the story of life.

So many of our forebearers used to sing about freedom. And they dreamed of the day that they would be able to get out of the bosom of slavery, the long night of injustice. And they used to sing little songs: "Nobody knows de trouble I seen, nobody knows but Jesus." They thought about a better day as they dreamed their dream. And they would say, "I’m so glad the trouble don’t last always. By and by, by and by I’m going to lay down my heavy load." And they used to sing it because of a powerful dream. But so many died without having the dream fulfilled.

And each of you this morning in some way is building some kind of temple. The struggle is always there. It gets discouraging sometimes. It gets very disenchanting sometimes. Some of us are trying to build a temple of peace. We speak out against war, we protest, but it seems that your head is going against a concrete wall. It seems to mean nothing. And so often as you set out to build the temple of peace you are left lonesome; you are left discouraged; you are left bewildered.

Well, that is the story of life. And the thing that makes me happy is that I can hear a voice crying through the vista of time, saying: "It may not come today or it may not come tomorrow, but it is well that it is within thine heart. It’s well that you are trying." You may not see it. The dream may not be fulfilled, but it’s just good that you have a desire to bring it into reality. It’s well that it’s in thine heart.

- Chapter 32, Unfulfilled Dreams

Mister Herzog, you are a madman, and I mean that in the best way.



I had been meaning to see Fitzcarraldo for years and never found the time, but I guess the time finally found me.

Last night was a double feature of two of your "river" movies, and then this morning the front of the weekly paper has a feature on how the dirty nasty river in Portland needs a cleaning.

It's an issue very close to home ever since that day last Summer when I recognized the cityscape from my old drawings in high school. When I saw how they'd built the structures by the riverbank here the first thought I had, aside from the amazement, was that I was certainly now in a lot of trouble, because this was so big that someone along the way was probably going to get mad. Who do I think I am anyway? But then eventually I remembered who I am. It makes perfect sense to me now.

Anyway, thank you for the entertainment. You are going on the list of good guys since my bad luck in January, and it is a pretty amazing list so far.

JACK
Me? When?

TYLER'S VOICE
Tonight.

EXT. FRONT PORCH - LATER

Jack, Bob, and two other Space Monkeys step out the front door, laden
with boxes and equipment.

SKINNY SPACE MONKEY
"We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world".

The group of four steps off the porch and heads for a VAN.

EXT. PARK - NIGHT

A piece of ART adorns the top of a hill: a metal TOWER, wide at the
base and a hundred feet high, in design somewhat similar to the Eifel
Tower. At the top is a giant GLOBE made of circular poles and wires.

Jack, Bob and the other two monkeys attach the explosive packets to the
globe; wire the packets together; use sandbags to cover the packets.

EXT. PARK - LATER

The group of four huddle behind some bushes, staring at the globe. Bob
holds a small metal electronic box with a button -- a detonator. He
presses the button.

A RAPID SERIES of EXPLOSIONS runs from the base of the tower to the
top, along the four main structural supports. They are contained,
shaped blasts. The tower crumbles straight down. Bob turns to smile
at Jack.

BOB
Exactly the way it was supposed to work.

PG 100

The globe falls free, bangs into the top of the hill and begins to
roll. When it gets to the street, it bounces onto the top of a parked
LIMO -- and becomes a FLAMING, raised "GUTTERBALL" -- it never hits the
street -- it rolls over one parked limo or expensive luxury car after
another, crunching the roofs, causing the windows to explode outward.
Fifty cars get this treatment.

Then, it arrives at the lobby of a HOTEL, BROADSIDES a couple of limos,
CAROMS off them, TURNS and rolls directly into the front of a large
(closed) STARBUCKS, SMASHING DOWN the windows and the front door and
setting the place ON FIRE.

EXT. PARK - AERIAL VIEW

As Jack, Bob and the two other Monkeys FLEE, LAUGHING hysterically at
their handiwork. They split up and move in different directions.

MOVE IN ON JACK, sprinting, keeping hidden by bushes. SIRENS can be
heard. He's stripping off his ski mask, his gloves, his combat gear --
as he runs. Underneath are street clothes.

JACK (V.O.)
In that moment I "clicked". I became what Tyler wanted. I was his
limb, his appendage -- an extension of his will, nothing more. And he
knew it. I could feel him knowing it.

( What did you expect? )

Heard this one this morning and finally got it. Ha ha. I kept seeing the video with the football players in my head and wanted to post it to an Obama article about all the basketball he's been watching. Dude like sports right? No offense but Amnesty International already knows I'm kept artificially broke, and like, no offense, but I would rather not have to die in a park cuz the dude was too busy watching basketball. Not that the Church isn't far more responsible than the politicians of course. The Church should have fixed my situation ages ago. Which one you ask? ALL OF THEM.

Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies
Be-Bop-A-Lula, Baby What I Say
Here comes Johnny singing I Gotta Woman
Down in the tunnels, trying to make it pay
He got the action, he got the motion
Oh Yeah the boy can play
Dedication devotion
Turning all the night time into the day

He do the song about the sweet lovin' woman
He do the song about the knife
He do the walk, he do the walk of life, yeah he do the walk of life

Here comes Johnny and he'll tell you the story
Hand me down my walkin' shoes
Here comes Johnny with the power and the glory
Backbeat the talkin' blues
He got the action, he got the motion
Oh Yeah the boy can play
Dedication devotion
Turning all the night time into the day

He do the song about the sweet lovin' woman
He do the song about the knife
He do the walk, he do the walk of life, yeah he do the walk of life

And after all the violence and double talk
There's just a song in all the trouble and the strife
You do the walk, you do the walk of life, yeah he do the walk of life

Dude seriously, you don't have to pay me to vote for you. You have my vote already, you should pay me for services rendered, that is all I'm saying. Everyone knows all about the psych torture and the being followed and all the death and everything else. Just make it possible to survive this so I can actually get around to voting okay? Or ask your boss, maybe he will help.

The night before Xmas I visited my friend who used to be in the Navy, and his girlfriend was there, and her son was there with her, and I recognized him as a rock star I used to listen to quite a bit, except not the same guy, a clone, a relative, a look-alike who knew me up and down before I ever knocked on the door.

When I tried to report a recent theft to the cops he tried to reassure me, saying the monetary value of the missing items was small, and that there would soon be a rewarding situation showing up anyway, just don't worry. I didn't know what that would be yet, it wasn't until a few hours later when I went to the television at 11:30 rather than going to sleep that I saw what I think he was talking about.

Some dude named Benedict was on wondering out loud about whether God was cruel somehow, or if the meaning of Christmas was so rudely obscure that our feelings might be hurt if we looked at it closely enough.

He had a speech which accompanied my movement around the apartment and I realized that this man who likes cats so much was being a shadow, an unshakeable being tracing me around my space, what was this guy doing anyway? It was so enjoyable to witness however that I didn't complain.

Five days later the stalking and harassment in the building started up again, and then a few days after that was when the administrators of my building, apparently with the approval of people very high up decided that an unlawful and sudden eviction was the correct approach toward insulting the world's religions properly, so I was pretty much fucked in short order.

I am still seeing these articles about religion and government disagreeing in relation to birth control and it seems pretty distracting. You should be talking about clone armies first before you get sidetracked with contraception. They make vast populations of people in warehouses these days and lots of people know about it, but that doesn't show up in any public debate about health care or what have you.

I wound up settling over near where the computers are, where a few friends still remain after I've avoided contact for years due to the violence that never stopped following me around. I discovered last night that one of the neighbors at the place I've been haunting is a band I used to enjoy very much, and when I heard they were home and maybe even practicing some tunes I considered knocking on the door but then I didn't know what to tell them.

I could tell them that my birthday is June 14, like the line in Karma Payment Plan, I'm the guy you were singing about. I was either the kid or the scarecrow in your video, or both, I don't remember now. I am still being tortured and scapegoated by my government for apparently turning on a bunch of officials who grew to be terrifying monsters. I knock on the door of the rock band and wonder if they have a couch for reverse torture purposes, where maybe I can get some normal rest. Then I look up their songs and see they have a song about this already...

It was on the rotating eyes
It was all on the same postcard
It was all on the same damn shirt
Said to sleep in the same Sear's camp house
It was all in the great state parks
It was all on the same Greyhound
It was all so many miles
Beneath the dirty brown dirt
Twenty miles down the islands
The biggest mall on Earth
It was all in the same rest stop
It was wall on the same damn shirt
It was all on the same Greyhound
Sunspots
In the house of the late scapegoat
Be aware the paint's still peeling
All muscle cars made of lead
I got myself a fine, fine, fine, fine friend
It was all in the next gray ghost
It was all in the same damn place
The parts to pound attractive
Your feeling you owe on your size is bleeding
Sunspots

So if they know already, then what?

Are they going to get run down on their bicycle like some cheap Gene Hackman?

I AM HOPING NOT!

I AM HOPING THAT SOMEONE CAN THINK OF A SANE REACTION TO ALL THIS.

ONE THAT DOESN'T REQUIRE MY FILLING A SEPULCHRE IN THE NEAR FUTURE WITH MY DEAD SLACKER BONES.

Who can even read this thing anymore. Is it still open to the public? It seems hard to believe.

I was doing some thinking last night, remembering that afternoon I wrote to my friend about the Upanishads, and the next day there was that earthquake on the Nepalese border. For the sake of basic comfort I make myself forget a huge list of atrocities, and then listen to all these weird personal attacks in the meantime, reminding me of the bit in the Rolling Stone interview with Julian Assange I read a few days ago. When his group provided proof that the U.S. had killed at least 100,000 innocent bystanders essentially out of boredom, he was assailed in the NY Times immediately afterward as a rude person, as some kind of narcissist with hygiene problems, and those 100,000 be damned because they don't please the effete sensibilities of the New York gentleman.

It was a relief to see the calm reaction of Mr. Assange to this effect, to keep eyes on the prize and continue pointing toward the innocent bystanders, so you wouldn't lose sight of the real issue involved, which is that we live in an age defined by atrocity dressed up in nice clothes, and there is no reasonable way to proceed given the facts that some people have at their disposal.

I was used as part of a targeting system for some advanced experimental weapons systems, things which sound utterly crazy when not explained by someone with better credentials. People used my modeling concepts and general assessments in order justify using devastating force on many many populations of totally innocent bystanders, and then tried to get me to ignore these facts by trying to make me feel like some kind of hero.

At first I was like most of the world, and I loved the Obama administration to bits, and as far as Republicans go I still don't see a suitable alternative. When I am busy over here documenting body counts and a list of abuses directed toward me from the people Obama has put in charge of my torture, I click over to a news page and see the Mormon robot closing in on some irrelevant primary somewhere, or Newt with his impeachment smell, discussing treaty violations on the moon. The actual fact of hope seems lost, the people who watched their families crushed or drowned or blown up look at this situation and wonder how it got so tangled, and what am I to tell them? It is better than when Bush was here? Because that is probably true. Just a few years ago one of the major human rights issues we all dealt with was how to get out of Iraq before everything crumbled, before the Army literally broke and we were to be stuck fighting off 40 different nations while poisoned and impoverished. Now the Iraq war is done, and this is a good thing, and the one in Afghanistan is on track to be done at least a year early due to the recent actions of the Defense Department. I sit back in awe that we finally got something accomplished.

Then I wake up in the cold, wondering what happened, piecing it back together that I am considered some kind of dangerous leak because I will tell people what I saw on television, because I will tell people what I know about these experimental weapons systems used all around me all the time.

A lot of this technology is used in such a way that people like myself simply sound insane when discussing it. I am lucky therefore that I have had so many witnesses. I am lucky that Facebook employees can easily index my correspondence with the "natural" disasters I am referring to here, I am lucky even for people like the oft-despised President of Venezuela who coined this term "geo-weapons" to describe the devastating force of the technology wielded by my government. I am lucky because of Comedy Central who saw what I saw, I am lucky for a series of musicians who know the full emotional range involved in personal recovery from seeing such destruction. I am lucky for those with geiger counters to measure what we did to the ocean after being all rude to Japan last year. I am lucky for those who trapped our government into demonstrating in front of witnesses the kind of choices they are capable of making.

I do not know how our military connects to our executive branch. I do not know how much any President can actually decide in light of this safety imperative which makes an Executive Branch possible. I do not know who made these choices about Haiti and Japan and Chile and Nepal and so forth, I only know that someone did, and that the earthquake in Joshua Tree this Christmas seems almost humorous in that context.

I am constantly surrounded in operatives sent to foist any number of different agendas given the day and season and popular issue being publicized. At the apartment all my television was a carefully manufactured military psy-op, and here online I wonder if I can believe a single thing I see, including the public existence of this blog, which as far as I know is now the product of domain spoofing and hackery like almost everything else I am allowed to see.

What I know is that I am still being tortured, whether you understand it or not, and humanitarian forces you might expect to assist are currently picking fights about birth control because they simply don't know any better. They are old perverts too insane to understand divinity or kindness in the first place. They will certainly not try to rescue anyone from any actual evil, they will not struggle to "save your soul", they will struggle to expand their property and their assets so they can afford attorneys for their Hague experience.

Not to be picking any fights myself, but if the Catholic Church had been anything approaching polite in the last few weeks then the situation would be very different. Being purposely driven into a trap by their words and actions I thought I should just point out they are only catching up at best, and may as well just shut their pervert faces about birth control unless they have some other objective in mind by embarrassing themselves so publicly.

It's not like television, which has also laid its traps for me, has shown up for a rescue, as it is obvious that neither have Obama's opponents, nor anybody else who has been allowed to know about my current state.

What I know is that whatever is responsible for this administration's use of WMD, is acting much much nicer now that Republican candidates are creeping around with their Keystone and their reminders of what pure evil actually looks like. Elements of the military are now fully aware that both the Afghan and Iraq wars were based on complete falsehood, and that we lost all these soldiers for no reason, and they are apparently just as upset about it as I am. The best thing that happened to Admiral Mullen in years was probably that he got to retire.

I do not know how to proceed under these circumstances. I think sometimes, that if I just shut up and rot to death in peace then maybe Obama's people will eventually do the right thing under public scrutiny, I mean, you saw Mr. Panetta's plan to end the war right? A few years ago that would have seemed impossible and now it is the fact. I wonder if my own needs are unimportant compared to the needs of the world, and if I can just let our current crop of war criminals be, then maybe they can do some good.

But what about when the campaign is over? Remember Fallujah when that one campaign was over? Fun times right?

The only light of hope I have felt in this whole wretched experience was when Stephen Colbert mentioned that maybe he would run for President, even if he wasn't being serious, it was one of the first moments in years when I thought something was actually trying to rescue us, that people who know the facts, who are informed about the mass murder perpetrated by both parties, are actually able to partake in the process and save the fucking world before we are all dead.

Then he retracted, said he would not run, Colbert looked at it for a few days and then backed away, and it started to get quite cold outside, and the first few bloody footprints I left in the snow afterward led to the nearest television where I could be found wondering where he went.

I am endorsing the hell out of this man for President, I am insisting that if he continue to shy away that he be drafted for this job, I am insisting that someone inform the world about the things we have seen in the last two years before I am way too dead to say anything myself.

There is no Democrat able to get the nomination while the incumbent is around, there is no one in the current staff willing to fix what is broken where I am, and there is no Republican of any kind who should be allowed near the controls, the only person even remotely qualified, remotely informed, or remotely able, is that funny dude from cable television who has stuck by the truth no matter how ugly it has been.

Stephen you don't have to respond directly, but I want people on your case right away, and to all you buttholes who would try to hurt my brother Stephen I have some special socks for you to sniff, I have a special trench for to put you in, I have some special tritium and some special iodine for to make your nights much brighter, I have a condo made out of dead Haitians where we can have a nice talk about how you failed to be nicer to Mr. Colbert when you had the chance.

- Sunday, February 12, 10:00 am

Hollywood where are you? One minute it was the Golden Globes and the guy dressed up like my furniture, and the next minute everything went weird and looking like the cover of Royal Scam.

My lawyer, the one I've been prevented from contacting properly since 2010, has passed away. Gives a moment of perspective on my own problems. Condolences to everyone involved.

By the way there is a pretty serious emergency going on over here still.

I remember now
late night phone call from the tavern
you would meet if I agreed to buy the coffee
you said this thing
in response to my suggestion about 40 blocks specifically
I was complaining about 40 blocks.

You said
the problem with going back to the way it was
is that we lack a time machine.
I said it was only 40 blocks
You said it was needing a time machine
I could not figure it out.

The bus would obviously go 40 blocks
I could ride a bike 40 blocks
It was not a lost era
insofar as it was a house you could visit
But you were adamant.

You said this
in the bar that eventually found it's way into the song from 1974
on the album about the pretzel.

So now I understand.

That must have been late 1999 or early 2000
Autumn perhaps, it was dark out, with wet leaves
and you cried too when you saw me
that was the other thing we talked about.

Why did you say we needed a time machine?

I must have written it down.

I started looking for my own writing but Public Broadcasting found it first.

It's funny that you are called the "public".

It's about as funny as how I am called "bardic".

Now I remember that evening.

It was the first time you'd seen me after I was supposed to be dead.

Wrote a long preamble to this which might get put here someday, but I don't want good people to get in trouble so it'll take some work. I haven't looked at this email in many years though I guess it's been out there since before I was forced to be in nearly every movie and television show produced since mid-2010 at least, without pay, certainly without permission. There are other emails from this period which are just as disturbing, and one in which I apparently invented the word "snark" in February 2001. Currently I am laughing at someone's pronunciation of "dick taters" in reference to various land acquisition schemes. Might have to listen to some Devo later. ;)

From xxxx@columbia.edu Thu Aug 17 00:59:17 2000 -0400
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 21:59:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: "David V. Daly"
Subject: tangle. tangent. tangyentl. tan gentle. tan gent ill.

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a
statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more
glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through
which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the
day, that is the highest of arts.
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"

So let this man tie up those loose ends for now.

********

How are your itches? Are they itches of superlative lacking? Are they
blood and cell wanting more to breathe? Are they tingles that won't abate?
Are they scratches that won't heal? Are they are they are they flannel
shirts and its too hot for flannel? Are they wool sock itchings and
they've spread around a bit too far? Up the leg and through the spine?
Are they the itches on the nose when you have to sneeze and you put your
nose in direct sunlight and it makes the sneeze arrive? Are they the
itches on the sole of your foot when you're almost asleep? Are they the
itches from the belt tied a notch too tight? Are they are they?

Kip Kinkel in a little known episode once disrupted a class while shouting
about the feeling of bugs crawling on his skin. He said he could feel
itches on his arms and legs, bugs everywhere. He was sent to detention for
a similar episode, but I don't know what happened that time. The time I
know about for sure, he stood up in the middle of english class and
shouted for those fucking voices to get out of his head, and they sent him
to detention and made him write a letter apologizing for the use of the
word "fuck". His parents had to sign it and everything, he was in big
trouble for swearing.

Fuck those people.

**********

You know I see my friends on television, they come in every shape,
sometimes especially looking like the real people who are my friends.

It so confusing trying to decode the world through this screen,
everything is a metaphor for something else,
I used to be able to keep track of months worth of hypotheticals
and when it crashed
I used to imagine a giant mile-high library
shelves of flat clean surfaces
bookfaces part of a long drawing
all cracked and ripped and distorted.
In shards like glass
mile high shards staring back down at me.

I imagine a giant building which is myself
and a long time ago
in a daydream
I once pretended it was a real dream but I know I made it up
I once encountered something that looked like a meteor crater
a giant scoop taken out of my collossal edifice
a monument to damage,
unfixable.

Look at it
its so huge
It would take an army of people just to understand it, its so huge.

an idiot I mentioned this to once told me
fix it.
you have no choice but to fix it she said
you better get started.

but she didn't know what she was saying
This was an important site
the crater had to be preserved as a lesson to future generations
the crater was a lesson in architecture that
no Tower of Babel was immune to a huge collision.
that there was no way to fix some things.
Some things are big for a reason.
Then she took a torch to my library.

How do you "fix" the grand canyon?
Its not even broken.
Its a huge hole in the ground, but its supposed to be that way.
Do you fill it up with cement and say you fixed it?

So I used to imagine wandering around this mosterous eternal building and
spending lots of time in the library, the dark bottomless library, the
library at the end of the world or something, the library before she
torched it, it was the library that contained everything I remember.

I've imagined myself going through the old books
all the wreckage and evidence
I've imagined myself going over every little piece and part
like reconstructing an exploded airplane
except almost all the parts were still there somewhere
I just had to find them and put them in the right place.

I've spent all year going over the crash zone
looking for gears and parts
actually facts and clues as to how I got here
what am I supposed to be doing
waking up every ten minutes to the same questions
What am I doing?
Why am I here?
What am I?

after a long time
I saw myself as tangled
not shattered
My condition had moved from critical to stabilizing
I saw myself as strands unwinding
a rope reforming itself around a coil of more rope

My thoughts were misdirected
like a miswired machine
I told the doorknob my phone number
and I entered my password into the toaster
but I kept trying
sometimes by giving up completely
but I was always trying, I'm not in control of that
we're all on automatic with some things.

and eventually the word parts re-formed
the spiders weren't spy doors afterall
the morons weren't more on anything
the coffee wasn't the price of coughing.

I almost miss how ingenius the melting of the speech centers sound to the
outside, I almost miss having that nirvana all the time,

almost.

because it hurt. it really did.

But that's not the point.
The point is I know an untangling when I feel one
and I can keep feeling it happening
and I want to shout "holy shit!"
"I can think clearly!"

I can see I can see!

Is it the beautiful day?
Is it the illusion of progress because I might have a job?
Is it the feeling
the normal and healthy human feeling
that I'm allowed to enjoy my summer afterall?

All I know
is that the view of the hills from the sidewalk
was just so damn beautiful today
I could see so much detail in all the buildings and trees
It was so good to be here today

How do I tell this to anybody but you?

Roger, I heard about these messages, they are called "ambush proof", I believe you are correct about this one, and I believe high command can grow up if they really want to. It is martial law over there now because all the administrators keep resigning, and I think someone floated them some bad science, they want to keep me away from the fuel rods artificially just to establish their own authority, rather than let nature take its course. Something tells me this is a bad idea.

Many of the long stories I found buried in old music all suddenly stop when the principal character gets to that screaming I used to do, I am told I need to be sorry for being so loud, and I am also told I would have been thought too loud even if I had whispered. Cliff Robertson says "It doesn't need to be this way", Redford responds "Of course it does". If I had thought faster than the arranged history, which has happened before, I would have been called too loud even if I were asleep.

Today I remembered December 1, 1998, clear as day, the engine fire, the Violent Femmes reunion, why no one had ever heard of Soul Coughing until the radio showed up one day saying they were the best live band ever. I was waiting all day for the new laptop which never arrived and spent the afternoon ruminating over the lyrics, I understand why Mike hates that band so much, I understand why its final song was all about the shouting. I understand why I grew to be such a fanatic, and I understand why a knowledgeable person would get shivers being asked about the old days. I also understand that Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock was probably the best live band ever, but hey.

I was supposed to file a police report on some extraterrestrials today so I could get my lock changed for free, but I took a nap instead and wondered why my old housemate never showed up. He knows where to get filtered smokes in Hillsboro for $2 a pack. I wondered why that had to be the limiting reagent all these years, I thought if I only worked for smokes it would be considered a good deal, instead I have to fight for the smokes and the good deal is when the lady in the front office is gone for the day and I can finally show my face outside.

The funny thing about not being allowed to go home is that I will be stuck permanently in the curriculum for as long as there is still a school, it can't be erased, or even vandalized too seriously, like when Tarkin squeezes the galaxy, all those systems slip through his fingers. The best argument I've heard so far is that I need to be replaced by a female, I can actually almost understand this though it seems like it would be difficult to find the perfect female Dad, who could only pretend to be me anyway. They could find one of my sisters maybe but I don't think they'd be interested. They don't even live in this country anyway.

I think they still believe there is something about dramatics and simulation which makes them think I can be replaced. Maybe they also think they can repair the San Andreas fault with concrete. Maybe I'll get to be like R. Crumb and move to France and escape this stuff, but apparently in the end I move down south?

I don't yell so much anymore, I kind of like the quiet actually. What was that band from Douglas Adams that could only perform by remote control from orbit because their music was so loud? Did you know that they don't even drop bombs from B-52's to actually hit targets, they use them to make big scary noises instead?

Today I waited all day for a new laptop so I didn't do anything serious.

I heard there was a weed arrest and a missing child at Occupy Portland this afternoon, I'm not sure people understand what that %1 is willing to do just to resist the boredom. I wondered what Springfield would do with Mr. Burns if they ever got tired of his releasing the hounds on everyone. That one time, Mr. Burns actually blotted out the sun. Something tells me the sun probably wouldn't stand for that kind of thing. Besides, everyone knows solar bonghits are the best.

To bring the boys back home though would obviously be better.

One of the metal statues at the place today was called "Flyers", and it was funny because it wasn't even about airplanes.

Go away. You'll get
your rent money tomorrow.

l got the money.

You left us flat.

You dumped us when we needed you
the most. You tricked us.

lf l'd have stuck with you,
Stanley would've hurt you and lshmael.

What happened to McCracken?

l never went with him.

l just made those phone calls
to throw Stanley off my scent...

and maybe give Big Ern a little payback.

grand.

We can split it three ways.

We only had half that.

Yeah. Well, uh...

we doubled it.

He bet against you.

But l'm ready to start betting on you.

Yeah, well, too late.

What?

Half a mil?

Trojan condoms. You know, Rubber Man.

All l have to do is a commercial...

show up at a couple trade shows
and pharmacies...

and give a little talk
at Vassar College orientation.

That's great.

Yeah. lt is great.

And this is only getting divided
one way.

l can't face them.

l wanted to be the hero for once.

l wanted to be the one to save the day.

Brother, everyone knows you meant well.

What are you two doing here?

l'll tell you
what they're doing here.

They came to tell us the truth
about your trip.

They tell you everything?

Yes, Roy told us everything.

He told us about the booze
and the lusting...

the late nights, the lying...

and the gambling.

And he told us how you got him
to quit all that...

how you got Roy to straighten
his life out and how you got...

Claudia to quit being
so much of the whore that she is.

Roy told us how every time he wanted
to quit, you wouldn't let him...

how you quoted the Scriptures
to give him strength.

Yeah, son, he's told us everything.

And we're mighty proud of you.

What about the bank
and the foreclosure?

That's all been taken care of
by Brother Roy and Sister Claudia.

They put $ in the bank.

Our troubles are over!

You guys!

l'm going to have to watch you two.

l knew you'd come back.

Thanks.

Thanks for everything.

You know
that old centurion's faith thing...

about you saving the Amish people?

Well...

that was baloney.

lt wasn't them you were saving.

lt was me.

You lost me. What?

Come on.
Everyone's waiting at the party.

They want to hear about the missionary
work you did with Brother Munson.

Okay, Miss Rebecca. Bye.

Bye, lsh.

Hey, Roy.

l have something for you.

Wow.

You got it working.

Yeah. l wound it.

Oh, it has a winder?

Well, look at that. A little ladybug.

You should make a wish.

All right.

You know what l wished for?

What?

Bye, Brother Munson. Bye, whore.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-23-2001/club-med-genoa

Dumb with astonishment and amazement which bordered on stupefaction, they fled the forest. Instinctively, they made towards the Lidenbrook Sea. Discovering a rusty dagger on the beach, and the carved initials of the explorer before them on a slab of granite, they realised that they were once again treading the route of Arne Saknussemm. Following a short sea journey around a cape, they came ashore where a dark tunnel plunged deep into rock. Venturing down, their progress was halted by a piece of rock blocking their way. After deciding to blow their way through, and setting the charge, they put out to sea for safety. With the explosion, the rocks before them opened like a curtain, and a bottomless pit appeared in the shore. The explosion had caused an earthquake, the abyss had opened up, and the sea was pouring into it. Down and down they plunged into the huge gallery, but on regaining their senses found their raft rising at tremendous speed. Trapped in the shaft of an active volcano they rose through the ages of man to be finally expelled out on a mountain-side riddled with tiny lava streams. Their journey was completed and they found themselves 3000 miles from their original starting point in Iceland. They had entered by one volcano and they had come out by another. With the blue mountains of Calabria in the east they walked away from the mountain that had returned them: the frightening Mount Etna.

We were celebrating but everybody scattered anyway. I let the modem contact the wrong phone line and then everything was gone.