fiddle

Some times life is slowly ticking forward
Broke like the hands on an old pocket watch
Left for eons to the man three generations down

These times life is borrowed and licked towards
Smoke like the man with an old frequent lock
Best to be left to the makers simply drawn sounds

We write when we laugh to the time locked forward
Smoke like the band that left us here in a knot
With three thousand miles we have lost a friend

Drastic dreams that are crafted like a notion of sorrow
The pages turn as we run with a sacred book caught
In the life before we drop it passing a corner round

Wondering hermits finding the last of the torn pages
Wanderlust for the rest to pick up the pieces
The breast plate a metallic shade for us as sounds

Lessons taking from what a grand magnet decides
The term stolen and to the want not to have some
The pages with everything seem lost between the trees

I have already sent the letter, sir
I cannot change the whims of the worlds
I truly wish I could learn to speak for them
I cannot change the whims of the worlds

Simple poem. Back to writing

Night to fly through us
Life is what we can
Type to try useless
Playing in a band

In every statement of fact
We find two statements of farce
In one to find reading helpful
We act in statements of life

So lined up at a coffee shop
And able to pray useless
The rivers have left us
Liable to be undressed

The Title of This Article Should Be Taken out of Context.

When one is writing they should find their inspiration in the surroundings. To write satire one often finds themselves re-reading and changing their template many times. When finding such inspiration from your surroundings the writer is able to make a figurative mirror to read into their own psyche. This results in people reading many different things into the writings of a satirist.

Writing about the act of writing is an exercise this writer uses to leave a state of ones writers block. This seemingly comes from the human mind being distracted. It is usually a bunch of muddled thoughts covering up the ones that feel they can produce art naturally.

The primary goal of advertising is to convince a viewer to buy a product. If one would like to feed their dog Purina brand dog food they are told their animal will be a smarter, happier and healthier dog. This is the idea behind any advertisement. When advertising cocaine, the television suggests that it is a wonderful way for one to become smart, witty and very rich. This is a suggestion that many young men and women who think venturing towards a humble trade such as cocaine use.

Due to the advertisement of the sincere grand lifestyle that comes with cocaine use a young writer is sometimes suggested to turn to drugs to find their inspiration. Many famous speakers have boasted about this form of inspiration. When one finds that these chemicals are nothing but blinding and a mask for ones own internal issues, they usually speak out against them.

When one is writing satire the meaning of the written text is normally found under the surface words. This is the art in writing. One should not write like a robot, but find the inspiration using the five senses. The words will come from the air around you. It is like when one plays music in a jamming fashion. The plan for a song is a simple few chords and words, but it is open to improvisation. This is like when one is fighting writers block. If the writer finds a few simple words to start they can soon turn these words into a nice succinct article, or at the very least the beginnings of one. This can turn into a very different piece of writing very quickly.

A Little Mad Boy

I called it afternoon

I dropped down to the basket
Asked her to confuse me
Spoke like a sliding ape

The little mad boy mumbles at me
Nobody else can see him
But he is right beside me
His hair is greasy and long
He buried an American flag
Crossed his arms and wiped them off

I called it afternoon
But it was mid morning
I stammered while I was corrected
It was the tone of the voice
That tore me

The little mad boy jumps to his feet
He puts on his hat and belittles my space
He twists his cane bat and drips from the chin
He holds me in chain and slides me all in
He takes a rhyme scheme and trusts I don’t live
The devil himself
That is who he is

He told me it was morning
The little mad boy
Swore I never seen a vice
Laughing he clasps his hands twice
Here to set things right
I felt the same
So we got up to leave
Coffee and cigarettes were nice

Random Poetry

But I lost the rhyme scheme
Dragons told us of leftovers
But we refused to believe them

But I did lose the rhyme scheme
It fell out on the trail back there
The bag with everything is between the trees

We walked down the trail
Trying to find our little lake
But I did lose the rhyme scheme
I can't find it, 'twas our fate
We are lost without structure
Lost with impending hate

I cannot find the rhyme scheme
But there are others to be found
Found inside the dress to hem

I cannot find the rhyme scheme
It has been lost for quite a while
The bag with everything was lost
Between the trees

A Troubled Man

A troubled man walked into my diner last Monday. He had a black baseball cap pulled tight on his head and he was hiding his face. His sweater was also black, with a logo I was unfamiliar with on the front. It looked like a dragon with flames behind it. He sat at the bar and ordered a cup of coffee. I handed it to him and asked for one dollar. He handed me the loony and opened a cream container.

He slumped down and pulled the hood of his sweater over his head. The man he sat beside stood and turned towards the door. He waved goodbye and left. I waved back at him because he is a regular. I had never seen the troubled man before. He had a rough goatee, thin and black. He had a feeble mustache above his lip and dark brown eyes. He rapped at the counter with his knuckles aimlessly. He seemed upset.

I didn’t want to impose on his personal life. I had never seen him before. I didn’t ask what his troubles were. Between the beat of his knuckles on the counter he would whistle a tune I had never heard. Then he would smile to himself and close his eyes. He sat at the counter for about twenty minutes, nursing his cup of coffee. He stood abruptly and walked out the door. I thought nothing of it at the time.

At the end of that day I was left alone, cleaning. I had closed the diner about a half hour before and hadn’t seen a customer near the place since. The lights were off in the front, but the neon sign continued to flicker. I was startled up from my mopping with a knock at the door. There was nobody behind the glass. I looked out the window for the creator of the knock, but only saw a man with a briefcase stomping passed in the opposite direction.

I finished the mopping without incident and pulled the bucket to the back of the place. I poured the water into the industrial sink and rinsed the sink out. I put the bucket back on the ground and wheeled it towards the closet. The closet door was open, although I was sure I had closed it. I must have closed it. I mopped the other end of the hall. I stuck the bucket back into the closet and shut the door with a thud.

I walked through the kitchen slowly and felt a pain in my mouth. It started as a dull ache, but I quickly noticed my mouth filling up with blood. The pain came strongly and in waves. I ran to the sink and spat blood twice. I hurried to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I had broken my tooth in half, somehow. My left front tooth was split up the middle. I watched in horror as blood fell from my mouth.

Before long, and as quickly as it had happened, my tooth stopped bleeding. I stood in the bathroom, staring in the mirror. Blood was all over the sink, all over my shirt and all over the floor. I wiped at the blood with paper towels, cleaning most of it up. The pain in my mouth had left me, I felt fine again. I finished cleaning the bathroom with a bottle of disinfectant before looking in the mirror again. My tooth was still split, but now amazingly painless.

After I had the place clean again I walked into the main dining area of the diner. I again heard a knock at the door, but the second time I assumed it was my tooth. This was all in my head, of course. I glanced at the door and saw a shadow of a man on the pane of glass. The shadow stood tall, coming from a light across the street. Where there should have been a man lay nothing. I was a bit unnerved by this but decided to think nothing of it. I checked to make sure the door was locked before walking to the back rooms in order to escape. Everything was as it should be in the front.

I walked through the doorframe separating the front and back of the diner and saw the troubled man from that morning. He was hunched over a shotgun, stumbling towards me and muttering in low voices something unintelligible. I jumped with shock and ran towards the front door. The man stumbled behind me, following me into the next room. He vanished once I passed through the doorframe.

I entered the front room and the tables had been flipped on their tops. They were sitting in their regular spots, upside-down. My tablecloths were blue or white. They were tied together, strung around the room. They were hanging like curtains along the inside of the restaurant. A yellow light was coming from the jukebox on the east side of the room. It started to play an old Dixie tune, something I hadn’t heard on the jukebox before. The man was standing outside the windows, holding his shotgun.

I heard a blast and the front window shattered. The glass fell to the ground with a crash, breaking into a million pieces. I turned around and when I looked back the man in the black baseball cap was stepping through the window. The gunshot seemed to stop at the window, never hitting anything inside the shop. The man pumped his gun, laughing manically as he stepped towards me.

I thought to myself, “This is it,” as the man from this morning slowly walked towards me. He was muttering and laughing. I began to shake. He then turned to me and said, “We wouldn’t want anyone to see this.” I stammered and told him, “Take the money in the drawer, man. I have kids at home.” I pleaded with him for my life and he stepped ever closer, holding that loaded shotgun under his arm.

He stopped and looked at me. He moved his left hand in front of the barrel of the shotgun and pulled the trigger. The gun recoiled towards him and he caught the bullets with the palm his hand. Dropping the gunshot on the ground in front of me he said, “I love that smell of sulfur. Don’t you?” I was too terrified to speak. I backed into the kitchen, aimed on finding a knife. He didn’t follow me.

I grabbed a knife and ran for the back door. I pushed it but it would not open. It had been barricaded from the outside. The dumpster had been pulled in front of the door. I turned and saw the young man. He was not carrying a gun. He was near the oven, and I saw him turn the oven on. He was muttering to himself. I saw him grab a steak knife that was sitting with the cutlery.

He spoke to me, but I could not hear him. He spoke again, muttering louder, but I could not understand him. He pounded the cutting table with his fist and opened his hand. He looked at me and held the knife straight up in the air. I was shaking in fear and told him something to the effect of, “The cops are on their way.” He laughed at me, pointing the knife at me. He said something and pointed the knife towards the ground. He then stabbed through his left hand, which was flat on the table.

He moved his right hand away from the handle of the knife. He then looked me in the eye and pulled his left hand away from the table, showing no sign of being cut. With a smile he said to me, “Life is eternal, they say.” He walked into the front of the restaurant. I walked past the cutting table and looked at the knife stuck in the metal sheet. There was no blood to be seen.

I walked into the dining room slowly, looking for the young man. I found his gun sitting on the bar. I didn’t see him, but I grabbed the gun. I was holding it under my arm and pacing around the room, looking for him. The tablecloths had fallen to the floor and were in three separate piles. The tables we back on their feet, with the chairs turned on top of them. The window was no longer shattered, but the neon signs were off.

The sign on the door was turned to open. The door was unlocked. I opened it and looked outside. The street was eerily quiet. There was not a soul out there. I stood in the doorframe and held the front door open. I was holding the gun under my arm and noticed lights coming around the corner towards me. It appeared to be a taxi. I hid the gun as the car slid by, then walked into the restaurant again.

I tapped the window and it was as strong as ever. I flicked the neon lights back on and began to search the premises for the troubled man. Carrying the gun, I searched every corner of my diner and did not see him. I locked the doors and cleaned up what was left from the confrontation. I hid the gun in my office in the back and walked to the front to leave.

I walked passed the bar, and noticed a half a cup of coffee on the bar. The dish it sat on was not one of my plates. The cup was the regular kind, white and with a handle. I was tired and scared and walked by pretending not to notice. Unlocking the front door I slid outside into the calm summer night. I locked the door quickly and moved down the street, shaking.

I turned and saw the lights on in the restaurant. I kept walking. I walked home, tired after a long day. I did not get a wink of sleep that night. The next morning I showed up at the diner and the cup of coffee was still in the spot I had left it, emptied overnight. I put it in the back and went to my office. The shotgun was still in the spot I had left it. The bullets had been emptied, and there was a shotgun blast hole in the wall. The young mans body was lying in my office. That is when I called the police.

The small child stood in a daze, watching me drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. He remarked that his mother did not approve of smoking and that he thought it made me smell like a soiled mattress. I told him that I was not his mother so we wouldn’t have a problem. He stood with a limp arm holding a toy dump tuck and another arm holding a juice box. It looked as if I told him the tooth fairy didn’t exist. I don’t think he had ever heard a reply quite like that.

“No, your not Mom,” he said, “Where is she? When is she coming back?” The sun was just falling behind the large fence in the back yard. I finished my cigarette and looked at him. “Your mother went to the mall with her sister, remember? She will be back soon. Until then we can find something to do.” The child laughed. It looked like he felt independent and old. I leaned against the railing and smiled.

“Well what do you want to do?” I asked the little man. I raised my cup to my lips and realized I was drinking the last of my coffee. I placed the cup down and the ring of grounds settled into a new moon shape. I played with my cigarette butt and said, “I have to go inside now, you coming?” The child jumped towards the door and opened it. We walked up the one step and into the apartment. I put the cigarette butt in the garbage and the child said, “That’s where it belongs to be.”

I remembered doing the same thing as a small child. I was an outspoken non-smoker as a child. My mother had asked me to think like that. Now, I barely remember not being a smoker. I am beginning to feel the harmful affects of my addiction. I hope the same fate doesn’t reach this child. Perhaps he will be brighter than I was. I should have listened to the folk who refused to buy them for me. Rules are there for a reason. I should know that by now.

It is evening now. Still I am staying alive with coffee and cigarettes. I place my empty cup on the counter and exhale. “Is that all you can breathe?” The child shouts. I am taken aback a little before saying, “I never inhaled.” He laughs and shouts, “Lets have a breathing contest. Whoever breathes biggest wins, smoker versus non-smoker.” I laugh and say, “Ok, but I have bigger lungs.”

We breathe deeply for a few seconds, and then the child laughs and says, “I win. I breathed deeper.” I agree, and look for more coffee in the pot, there is none. I click the pot of the burner and debate making more coffee. It is evening now, the child’s mother will be home soon and she’ll have no need for it. Perhaps, I think, we can stay up late drinking coffee and being adults. It was a nice thought.

The child brings his truck to me. It is one of the yellow metal dump trucks we used to have in my sandbox. It is large, but not rusted like ours were. He places it in my hand and says, “This is you.” He then runs and grabs a red sports car. It was oversized, one of the kind you see on stands in the library of an auto mechanic. The stand is gone and the wheels spin freely, so we are about to race.

I ask the child, “Where is the course?” He says, “All the way around the outside of the room, then up on the couch and back through the coffee table. Then we do it once more.” And with that, the child is running, racing around the sides of the room with a car in hand. I chase after him and drive my dump truck barely able to catch him. He reaches through the legs of the coffee table in a professional manner and starts his second lap. I reach the table and get stuck. My large stature is in no way helping the cause. He reaches the outside wall and flies up the now banked corner.

I realize I am outmatched but continue to chase him in vain. He reaches the couch and his car jumps across to the coffee table. He waits for me to catch up, with a look of glee in his eye. As I am about to reach the couch he throws the car between the legs of the coffee table and bursts into laughter. The red sports car his the glass door between the kitchen and patio with a crack. I jump, but we were lucky, no damage.

The child walks over and grabs his car from the floor. I am breathing heavily and the child looks at me and laughs like a hyena. “See, you shouldn’t smoke. You can’t even drive a car without breathing heavily.” I catch my breath and say, “You make sure to remember that you told me that, and never start smoking. I only smoke because I started smoking and now I can’t stop. It’s a strange addiction.”

The child looks at me and asks, “What does addiction mean?” I explain to him it is when you don’t want to do something but you have to. It is because your body needs the chemical you are addicted to, you have grown attached to having it around. Because of this your body chemistry changes and you become dependant of the chemical. The child remains confused and says, “I’ll never have addiction.”

I tell him he should remember he told me that as well. “Do yourself a favor,” I say, “and never have an addiction.” I end the thought with the phrase, “Vices.” The child questions what the word vice means. “Vice,” I tell him, “Is when you know something is bad for you but you do it anyways, because you enjoy it. Like eating candy.” The child smiles and says, “Oh, I like vices.”

I stutter and say, “No, no, vices are usually addictions.” The child says, “Actually I have an addiction. My vice is candy. I’m addicted to it. And sometimes I need to have candy or I’ll die. Seriously.” I laugh and retrace my steps, explaining candy may not be a vice. I mention that vices are sort of like candy, in a way. I have always been and strong advocate for stimulants of all kinds. Maybe someday he’ll be a coffee and cigarettes kind of guy. They are always the best people.

I am swimming in this thought and he asks, “So cigarettes are like candy?” I fight the urge to chuckle and say, “No, cigarettes are a vice. Candy is just sugar.” He seems to understand, “But cigarettes make you feel like you ate candy? I like that feeling.” “No,” I reply. “That’s more like coffee. Cigarettes are like sucking on a tailpipe.” He laughs and asks, “Why do you do that then?”

I don’t know how to reply. I have no reason to smoke that I would want to tell a vulnerable child. I think I should be honest. I smoke because I enjoy every one I have. I smoke because I thought it looked cool in grade school. I smoke because my friends did, but they have come and gone and what I have left is a full ashtray. I smoke because I am unstable, because I need a crutch. I smoke because I cannot go a day without them. But I can’t tell a child that, I’m supposed to be a role model.

The reply I give him is stammered, “Because I’m addicted to it.” I begin to tell him about all the horrible things cigarettes do and he says, “I know, Mom told me that.” I then explain that cigarettes are not like candy because candy is rarely connected to any of results of lifelong cigarette addiction. He looks at me and says, “I don’t like vices.” I tell him I don’t like my vices either.

I ask him if he wants to go outside for a smoke, like an adult. This is partially because I think its funny asking a six year old to smoke with me and partially because all the talk of cigarettes made me think of having another. No more coffee with this one, I’ve decided. It is probably for the best. The sun has gone down and his mother will be home soon. Maybe she would like some coffee, I thought.

I cough and the child says, “Don’t smoke.” I am halfway out the door with a cigarette in my hand. I look at him. He looks as if he has been hurt. “You just finished telling me how those cause cancer and strokes.” I pull him outside and light the cigarette. I think about my vice. He is still talking, telling me all the things I told him about the horrors of tobacco use. I puff on the cigarette and exhale the white smoke.

“Is it true you cough up boogers if you smoke?” The child asks me. I clear my throat and state as clear as the day, “Its grosser than that.” The child squirms and asks me to clarify. “They are like big, gray boogers.” He laughs. “Except they are wet and sticky. They fly out of your mouth and cover your hands.” He screams in disgust and asks, “Why do you smoke then?” I don’t know how to answer his question.

I take a drag from the cigarette and say, “Ok, you are a smart kid, right?” He says quickly that he is. I explain the chemical I am addicted to in the smoke is called nicotine. I tell him that my brain cannot bridge a gap in my daily life without nicotine, now that I have tried it. I explain that when I was only a few years older than him I tried smoking and thought it would make me cool. I explain that once I had made a conscious decision to begin smoking I lost the ability to not smoke.

He pretends to understand me but I knew he couldn’t. I dock the cigarette at the halfway mark and tell him I shouldn’t be smoking around him. What would his mother say? He claims she wouldn’t mind and she would be happy that he is learning new things. He tells me they told him that once in school so it must be true. I open the pack and find I only have one and a half cigarettes left.

The child walks into the apartment and shuts the door behind him. I try to open it and find he has locked it. I hear him say there are no smokers allowed inside the house. I knock on the door and ask him nicely to open it. He laughs and runs across the room. He jumps on the couch and starts bouncing, laughing. I knock on the glass and he jumps from one cushion to the next. He falls on the armrest and rolls onto the floor. I knock on the glass one more time.

I am helpless and out of ideas. There is no other way I can get in to the room. I struggle for a moment but am saved quickly as his mother and aunt walk into the room. She laughs and shouts his name, unlocking the door and letting me in. She is laughing and asks me, “How long have you been out there?” I smile and tell her it was just briefly. She scolds the child and sends him to bed, telling me it has passed his bedtime.

She tucks him in and comes back from the hall. I am sitting with her sister talking about our mutual friends. She sits next to me and laughs. “Kids,” she says. I tell her she has a smart kid, a good conversationalist. She smiles and says, “Isn’t he just a big bundle of love?”

I look at her and ask, “He doesn’t know you smoke?” She laughs. “I have a half a smoke here,” I say, “Lets go for one.”

An image of relations to a level in which I do not want to behave or believe that a woman such as that would exist. We have convinced ourselves that we do not exist.

Triggers

Triggers on the back of works of technological art, that help a child learn touchy hand-eye coordination are drastically changing the working world. The newspaper told this to me one time, explaining how the use a video game are creating a breed of incredibly talented and efficient surgeons. This was good press for the video game industry who very soon after came out with a version of the board game “Operation.” It comes in a red package with a clown white man with a messy Afro lying on a panel of cold steel. The video game was actually that of a Zombie killing dentist who needed to make his way across Gotham City to save the life of his child.

Silhouette

Temporary employment in the ethereal world, for a half step up or down for the Tao of Willie Nelson is my succubus. In a bleak lit hotel room a man steps next to a falling girl the children of weeping parents strung over the black light of a dominatrix peephole. In habit the nun weeps in heaven and understood the only hotel room the vice had wrote was that of a smoking gun and failure. The young hurt tired and lame in wheelchairs standing tall for the peace of a Muslim named Jew. Casually he stumbles with the filter as he puts his hold on one more cigarette. A Cuban cigar when 40 million people banned them, and the unholy dreadlock bandage that has bonded us. Words are a brilliant reciprocal that we, humanity were asked to use quite some time ago.

Morbius.
Hitler, Bush and more Bush were standing in platform heels on the silhouette of the stockades on first day of Ramadan. The number 6 was higher than four stiletto heels of their individual primeval delusion. The irony was that they cussed a succubus, the partial platform of Red, White and Blue. Although, the Blacks know the blues and the White never had it.

The new formula:
1. Two peaces a day
2. Grey matter
3. Love, love, love
4. Save yourselves
5. Read books
6. Think for yourselves

Jerry Garcia this told me one time, in a dream that I had.
I tried writing words that leave over the rest they left me out.
Homo Sapiens
Homo Sapiens
Homo Sapiens
I know nothing of satanic worship, or even what it means. Perhaps it is a quest for fire or the apathy of slavery as a cigarette but yes, it is vice we convince ourselves is necessary for our survival in a horrible brutal and twisted world. But my friend, you must learn that we all carry our personal demons and delusions with us. Everyone has every day issues and life in not easy. So if we sit tight, perhaps maybe everything will turn out for the best.

Dreamtime
Lucidity
REM
Sleep
Rampant phone calls
Questions
Where do we go?
You are someone right?
Am I imagining this, I had that mint julep at Smithy’s?
Who are you?

“Stranger,” she smiles, “Dire need of self realization.” “I forgot,” I space, “It must be somewhere out in the ether. I’m pretty sure you have everything you could possibly exist about and more in your pocket too, before this.” Devon smiled from the corner as the past persuasions slipped between the lines.

And you know what, I believed her.

this I believe

This is what I believe:
For Preston Manning

By Jon Pelletier

I believe in magic, not so much in rabbit out of hat illusions but in various isms, which allow me to be characterized and labeled in specific ways according to my personality. I believe that we should do precisely what we are told at any given time because those who seek power always know best. I believe that prohibition of firearms would cause 4 Billion people to attack my country and that we must be afraid of a terrorist attack at any time. At any time, a terrorist or intruder could enter my home and rape me, kill my wife and steal my children. I believe that fear is a tool for control. It allows me to control myself.

I believe that drugs make black people as crazy as they make white people and that in comparison, various races would probably have the same amount of fuck-ups lying on the street making money. These are the men we should be afraid of. I fear men with guns. I believe they carry the weapon in order to feel more confident and appear stronger. I believe small men drive clean big trucks. Big trucks with guns on them are the three-way orgy for manipulative in the closet, child molesting senior citizens like the American government. I believe that evil men become more and more delusional the more horrible things they do. It is my own philosophy that we should all try and make the world a better place. By bettering our own world we make ourselves happier.

level sprite, the water spirit.

There were three days until the meeting at the moor and he had just arrived in England. His heart was still in Venice, melting over a large chair in a rose-colored teahouse but he must breathe this air for the moment. He held a small pouch of sand, brown leather with red string wrapping the open end tight. A bundle of sage was in his left hand, accompanied by a fine bottle of red wine.

Level sprite, a water spirit, came to the dock and whispered in his ear “Sir, we must talk about these papers.” The only boat he could see was the barge just unloaded from the planks he was standing on. It was maroon in color, help together by a pattern of sheet metal. The paint was beginning to fall from the front, onto the dock and the ocean below.

With such urgency in her voice he knew he had to listen. He bowed and lowered his ear to the small beam of light. “They have been drawn up quickly, there is a lack of consideration for another tribe,” she said in a tender, soft voice. He breathed in the dust surrounding her body and laid his bottle of wine out before her. “We must trust our neighbors to the north,” she added, “And they must be able to trust us.”

He took his hand and placed it on top of the radio on his chest. He turned the dial to the off position and rose to his feet. He smiled at the small being and took the papers in his hand. “I shall return, with one key in mind. I believe you. I need more time, I suppose. You have so much wisdom.” He bowed and backed away until she vanished beneath the wooden pathway. The ocean air moistened his brow and he looked back towards the bay.

The Intellectual Scourge of Earth.
......

“indeed, we both continue to present this image, though useage of our superb nomenclature. Pehaps we'll have intreging conversation on nothing,”
-Jackson Parker (MSN racket)

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The reason I am writing this article is to help us become more aware of the world we live in. It has come to many people’s attention that the Internet community, Facebook, has been selling all our information to third party recipients. The people running the site were able to make a large amount of money by tricking people into voluntarily handing over information as personal as friendships to corporate giants.

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It is a simple exercise in rewording a well-established book that is defeating our human minds. That is to say, we are wasting our time reading intellectual garbage that is impossible to dissect and even more difficult to translate into understandable terms. We all have read these documents, whether it is some terms of use agreement hiding a third party informational sales agreement or simply an inbred Bourgeoisie hiding his lack of motivation and skills behind troubling words. This form of writing has been around for as long as literature itself. For as long as there have been class structures to maintain, self-righteous, overeducated professors have been reiterating common themes and ideas in difficult to understand ways.

So, I was thinking aloud and stomping about my flat, debating the merits of the nature of my existence. I tend to understand this sort of writing by filtering out the useless, pointless and redundant phrases. This makes me an intellectual sophisticate in training, I assume, but I will not go down without a fight. I’ve tried to ignore my self righteous garble about the erroneous use of enormous words and find myself mixing another cup of black coffee. An album I do not enjoy was spinning around the turntable, but as Fleetwood Mac runs quickly out of steam I decide to finally write this piece.

Intellectualism is the curse of the upper echelons of urban society. Education is a wonderful thing; it allows one to regurgitate cumbersome variations of simplified, basic philosophical ideas. It is the idea I acquired from Noam Chomsky on a blissful summer day at a music festival. Paraphrased, Chomsky wrote that one does not need to know anything or break new ground to be a highly respected intellectual thinker. Academic writing is simply an exercise in redundancy, an assignment in which you find who the audience is and state their opinions in a difficult to read manor. We have all seen documents that prove this form of writing is transparent.

It is those writers who attempt to be respected through this uninspired work that should be addressed with this simple theory: If you are writing by using words only useful for confusing the reader, you have nothing to say. You are trying to weasel your way into respectability by alluding to your wisdom and educational track-marks by using phrases and thoughts that you do not understand. If you understood what it is that you were attempting to write you could do so in plain English, without the extensive thesaurus hopping.

I have found a simple formula to find if an article, book or essay is useless. If I cannot understand it I attempt to translate the words into readable English. This is done with the use of a brain or a thesaurus. Words such as “Erroneous” can be translated simply as “Wrong.” This use of language is an easy way to confuse a simpler reader enough to scare him from the passage and place the writer on a pedestal above his assumed grasp of literature. It is a simple way to sound smart, when nothing is being said. Many have read this as the language of the learned, but it is the polar opposite.

This mockery of insecure socialite rhetoric serves very little purpose besides allowing the few able literate fellows another topic to argue. The reason for pursuing a topic as broad as this is to pull away those who are misfortunate enough to believe that redundant overuse of superfluous adjectives is another word for being smart. It is a mockery of language to use these phrases and draw from unnecessary philosophical questions in relation to simple, every day ideas.

This is a common trend when the writer is generally unaware of what the writing assignment is or is genuinely apathetic about the quality of the piece. This is the work of a writer who knows very little besides previously declared ideas and is working at filling space on a page, not a breakthrough in thought provoking material. Even though this style of writing is frowned upon and we are taught to avoid it at all costs it is far too simple to slip through the school system with obscure ramblings unchecked.

One can say more in simple terms than in obscure phrases and therefore we should be aware of these devices. Confusing terms are often intentionally placed in documents for less than noble reasons, whether it is to sound wiser or to confuse a reader into signing his bank information over to a wolf-like businessman.

a month old article that was hacked to bits for the school paper...

We were drinking red wine at a small yellow restaurant and discussing the finer points of art and literature, or perhaps an odor, until we walked in a stupor down the road to the finest bar in town. A central location and lakeshore hotel kept the clients high grade. The music hutch was two blocks from the bar on the water, but they seemed worlds apart. There was a lot of money in the latter, and a lot of cocaine.

It would be safe to assume the drugs tonight had been provided by a group of three Red and Whites. I remember the three of them as loud, powerful and hate filled. The drinks were flowing and there was a pile of cash on the table. I remember a small man of large stature with beady eyes and a broken nose becoming very upset as three women left his table. The leader of their pack swung down upon my friend and I and offered her a drink. She politely declined, on account of my reservations about their personalities, which led to an angry burst from the man’s nose as he stormed away.

A few minutes later I was relieving myself in the men’s room the beady-eyed man stormed in on me, smiled and punched me. This leads to a small confrontation of words, in which I somehow managed to outwit the monster. He raises his fist again and smiled as I washed my hands in the sink. He mumbled something about how I was about to “get it” and storms out before I do. I follow behind him and join my friend, who is chatting up some real estate agent.

The large man stomps over and sternly invites me to join his table, and I obliged. My new best friend sat me down and showed a large stack of money he was very proud of to have. The bouncer is near by as his friend shouted, about the money, his car, his gang banging lifestyle and how “he don’t need to drug a hoe’s drink,” due to the money. My pal from the restroom has a white rock on his left nose hair, but I didn’t mention it. He finishes his part of the conversation with a fist swinging towards my head, which I narrowly escaped.

I begin to speak and one of the men tries to call the bouncer over, but he stands in one place. The man on the far left appears sad in the deep of his blue eyes, but holds the money tight and interrupts me. He asks if that’s my girlfriend, and I answer no, and the large man asks “The why did you send back our drink?” I did not know the correct answer to this question. He again mentions the thirty thousand dollars on the table and his yellow Corvette.

I apologized for disrespected their way of life, and excuse myself for a cigarette. I am on the patio and it is mid winter, the waves are crashing but the heaters are on and a small man, like a young boy walks up to me and we begin talking. He explains he has my back, which eventually spins into “They are not allowed to be here.”

This was my first taste of organized crime. I knew it existed, I knew there were bad people in my neighborhood, but I did not know the extent of the crime. It seems years of preaching non-violence and D.A.R.E. kid campaigns have created an underbelly of twenty something’s that are elevated in the drug trafficking world. A contempt for others and racism only paralleled by their own hard drug use.
I remember when crystal meth took over this town. I remember the zombies, lost in their own delusions and the 30 year old drug dealers they looked up to. These speed addicts eventually become dealers and the money, prestige and power turn young boys in drug-addicted buffoons, with minds as narrow as their eyes. I suppose you would always be happy if you continued to do the things you enjoy. This theory makes sense logically, but I saw a very different story coming from the shallow blue eyes of the youngest of the three.

It is said that humans only hate others if they threaten them. I think this may go back to our primal territorial instincts and it is apparent nearly everywhere. I was sitting in a smoking room at a different club on a very different night, when a friend and I were served free drinks, I suppose because the bartender thought we were someone else. Offended by our presence and the women who were impressed by us, a twenty-one year old skinhead was set off, screaming and knocking tables over asking if we had a problem “here.” His territory was apparently the smoke room in this particular dive and he did not need two hippies stealing “his” women. I was told the next day the man had taken out whatever drug-filled rage was building inside him on a native man at about four in the morning, sending the man to the hospital.

This is the type of man who becomes a successful drug-dealer. It is a business built on intimidation and the suffering of others. These are the men that fill our high schools with wannabe gangsters and fill East Vancouver lunatic drug fiends. The person, who starts buying cocaine in eleventh grade to be the king of the smoke pit is the same man stumbling down the street at noon, pale, cut, bruised, hurt and only a fraction of who he could have been. The men who thrive on this pain are sitting in the best hotel in town on a pile of cash with the bouncers at their command.

On Sunday night my neighbor was kidnapped. A skinny white man, who stayed in the shadows, drove his obtrusive black truck behind my building and calmly took both people who lived there away. He had the help of a sedan who stayed in the lot across the alley. Whatever transpired, new people have replaced my neighbors. I have seen one wheeling around in my neighbors’ wheelchair as I pulled into my parking spot, but they quickly ran inside. It has been three days as I write this. I knew my neighbor had, at the very least, a drug problem, but I was unaware of the extent.

These things happen every day, and we can blame anything we want to. Their parents were not around. The TV and video games teach children this behavior is great. I enjoy blaming the “gangsta rap” music, the 50 Cent’s of the world, exposing how excellent the gangbanging, drug dealing, bitch slapping life is for everyone involved. But I know that Nancy may have lost her fingers, if not her life. She has a family. She had people who cared about her. She had peaceful eyes. But I suppose none of that matters if she owes you a few dollars. All this type of thinking is so primal, so thoughtless and so disturbing.

Dealers do hard drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and speed. The world is their oyster, the speech impediments are real and the nights never end. It is a way of life, something I will never understand. The dive bars and abandoned factories used by these men have a certain stigma attached to them, through movies such as “Analyze This.” I believe this is why the underworld always intrigued me. I used to want to live in abandoned factories on large pillows with grassy fields outside. I’ve always wanted to be a hobo, riding the train cars through the mountains and over borders. The real world has turned my view upon this seedy underworld somewhat grimmer.

Families in our town get torn apart for a game of power and influence. It is similar to the board game Risk. Another man dies of gunfire in this town, the body is never found and the family does not hear for months. When money and drugs come together, death becomes involved. It is a blessing on the surface and that is how one is dragged in to the world. It is an attempt to be tough and respected, to have power over millions and women at hand, just because you have the needs for their night.

There is a bigger issue here than the personal need to self-indulge. Those who use are searching for something unattainable. I have worked at a large rave for the past two summers, and see about 10 000 seekers, dealers and very few decent, reasonable people. The grown men and women at this event eat and drink as much as they possibly can and dance all week. The peaceful ones stare blankly at black light stencils of religion and let their eyes play tricks on them. It is a wonderful time every year, with the right soul. But a failed seeker is the one that looks to PCP or MDMA for enlightenment. Not even Hunter S. Thompson felt the door to enlightenment could be found in drug use. An addict, he wrote extensively about the failed generation that was the sixties. To paraphrase him, one cannot sit around and just talk about change, in order to change the world one must act, and the only thing drug use truly does is make one inert. I digress.

The dealer is the man who sells heroin. This is the man bringing the ten-inch hunting knife and seven-inch diving knife “camping” at a music festival. This is the man doing large lines off toilets at 50. He is the man selling a starving father crack-cocaine. The youth get tied up in the image and the bad attitude to steal from the world. The flower turns into just a lower back tattoo or a green pill. I doubt these people are happy. Does the man smile righteously as he pulls away in his minivan?

I understand that there will always be crime. As long as heroin is illegal and junkies are willing to pay top dollar for their apathy, there will be increasing numbers of vigilante businessmen who sell the drugs to their welcoming users. I do feel that the police may waste far too much time arresting Rastafari for growing personal pot, and letting the true criminals free on bail. There should be nobody above the law and no man should have the right to destroy families, minds and respectable people.

I have seen the effects of drug addiction in my short life. I have many former friends who have been wrapped up in the high life of crime. I have a very good friend who has battled with crack-cocaine for 2 years, going to Narcotics Anonymous weekly and only finding that it was a great place to get his next hook-up. I have sat in a room with another man who was unable to buy crack and who punched me in the face, head butted me, attempted to stab me and finally held the small knife to my throat. By kicking the wall I was able to wake our mutual friend’s roommate who helped me escape.

Drug addiction leads to mental collapse. The delusions of power I experienced at the Barking Parrot that strange Tuesday night are a common thread throughout all heavy drug use. This is something I’ve always thought interesting, but have never been able to submit myself into being a part of. It is a thread of dreaming lucidly, never sleeping in order to achieve steady waking REM states. These lead to horrible delusions, which are acted upon. Megalomania and delusions of grandeur are common. Yet these men are above the law of whatever scale they exist at. Whether it is the bouncer slipped a gram of coke as an entrance fee or the politician paid off due to the current depression and war in the country growing the raw product, these men have complete power and control over a situation. It is what the men lust for. It is what the women lust after. If you had the opportunity do make yourself that man, would you?

Take a long deep breathe and look at the small guy in the room, jibteking in a corner while his ex-wife is screaming obscenities about how he should be killed and their daughter is in a crack head’s care. I never have, and never will feel the need to be responsible for this. The men are responsible for these scenes and that is a horrid shame. The money is made on making people feel miserable, whatever the cost. I know this article will most likely not change people’s minds about this issue. People will always want to do this; the fantasy of wearing the most expensive suit in a palace with a thousand friends and women will always be there. The mentalities of human beings will never change, but things will always be better than before.

funny joke

This use of language is an easy way to confuse a simpler reader enough to scare him from the passage and place the writer on a pedestal above his assumed grasp of literature. It is a simple way to sound smart, when nothing is really being said.

this is a blog and I failed at my attempt to write in serial, I went on a trip to Vancouver, and interesting on at that. Modest Mouse was a wonderful show, a space age jam that was second to none. I laughed as I heard people walked out because of the changes from the recorded versions of songs. I touted myself as Captain Sobriety the entire concert, declining all but one sip of wine. This may have been a foreshadowing to the rest of the week.

On Tuesday I found myself wandering around Commercial Drive in Vancouver and came across a wonderful little hole in the wall with incredible sausage meals for 5 dollars. The beer was a reasonably priced local Brewery, Granville Island Pale Ale and I found myself in graceful company. I wandered away to find jazz and wound up in the Libra Room listening to a jazz pianist accompanied by some great horn players. The music stopped. After enjoying their final song I was informed by the last few notes I was in the wrong bar. This fear was stamped and delivered by the two men gazing forlorn into my eyes. I left this bar.

I wandered aimlessly back to Falconetti's on 2nd and Commercial and listened to the Morgan Child Trio, who were accompanied by some young cat on Clarinet. This jazz was something truly west coast. The steady rhythms pulsed around the narrow bar effecting each of us separately. My friends arrived and I was infatuated by the saxophone, conducting below the table like a madman drinking alone. I had a smoke with a nice man from Turks, and rolled back in to Falconetti's. The drums powerful emotion dropped my eyes below my head and I drank happily with some new friends.

Toots and the Maytals was incredible. I drank far too much. I harassed bums and offered them help changing. I stumbled in circles to the Roots jam in a drunken smash, barely able to keep my drink afloat. I spilled a tables worth of somewhat free drinks over myself and the ground. The mayhem and sin and the clash against love created a foul dynamic with smiles all around. Its crescendo was the moment I found myself gushing to the lead guitarist "You hit them notes that don't even exist man.. The ones you stumble away from!" and turned away, took two steps and hit the bare dance floor. A friend reached to pick me up and a hopped to my feet.

I had a good time in Vancouver,
Good fun had by most.

The Miles to Go

This here a quick post of that story i am attempting to write in serial.

Part Two: Bagel Shop Barter Faire


The taxi pulled around the corner, nearly knocking the paper-boy over. He jumped out of the way, and the driver had missed by inches. He yelled, “You fucking paki-pig terrorist son-of-a-bitch!” The cab stopped. The boy’s eyes opened wide, but he felt safe when a large white man got out of the car. His name was David Franklyn. He wore a black suit, with a white shirt. His tie was blue.

David walked up to the boy and said, “Eh, don’t worry kid, I didn’t tip him. I saw that too.” He threw the boy a quarter. The boy just looked at him, the quarter landing on the ground and rolling to the gutter. David walked into the bagel shop and sat at the bar.

The shop was like any other in this neighborhood. David was immediately given a coffee, and he watched the cream swirl in his cup as he threw the plastic cup to the side. “Bagel” he said. The young man behind the counter, tired and overworked, tossed a sesame bagel on a white plate and asked, “Butter?” David smiled, “Not today. I feel like staying healthy.” He handed the young man a five note, and had another in his hand. “Give this to the paper boy, and keep the change.”

The young man walked out to the street. David’s eyes went back to his coffee cup, which was half full now. As the young man returned to his post behind the bar, David smiled through half his mouth and asked, “Say, kid. You know that janitor, Earl Stevlin?” “No, that’s not familiar.” The young man replied quickly. “Why’s that?” “Oh, he’s just an old friend, I heard he lived next door.”

Franklyn sat down to write. He opened his pad and took out his pen and watched the bugs flap around outside his window. He lit a cigarette and the smoke fell to the ceiling. He smiled and sipped for he was tired yet content. He stared blankly at his paper trying to reason with it.

The day was damp. The lights from down the road fell loosely around a painting on the wall. Mother Mary was holding Jesus, and tears of joy ran down her face. She looked at him and smiled. The rusty chains on the swing near the porch squeaked. He thought the street seemed loud. He squeezed his hands and threw his pen towards the coffee table.

The Miles to Go

I was trying to figure out how to post this, whether to finish it and post it last section to first, or to post in in serial headed in the wrong direction.

I decided to post it in serial, every Wednesday. Sounds like a fun project, and I have too much time on my hands anyways. I find myself on a regular basis sitting at my computer at 2 in the morning, not sure what to do and rambling into the illiterate computer. He doesn't understand me but he sits diligently in his place, just as I left him, happy to take any and all input I find the inspiration to write.

Anywho, here is part one.

----------------------------------------
The Miles to Go
by Jon Pelletier


Part one: Morning Sun


He woke at 7 am that day, to the cold air flowing through the cracks in his window. His hair hung low around a tattered collar. He rolled over and sat on the side of the bed. He looked to his left and noticed the feet of a small woman, red toenails against the spilled wine on the sheets. He looked to his right, and a half bottle of Stilvanna vodka lay in the mirror. He picked it up and took a heavy pull. He coughed and reached for his cigarettes.

He stood up and looked outside. The sun was just barely over the horizon. The clothesline swung loose at one end. Free two stories down from him and scraping a window across the street. He thought he could hear it, but it may have been his tick. The girl rolled over, “How about a cigarette, dear.” She emphasized the “dear” in such a way that he just grunted. “The clothesline is loose.” He said, smiling, and tapping his finger on the window.

He felt like getting high. He hadn’t been high in ages, but today he needed something to settle his nerves. The grey sky looked down on him as he looked at the grey city below. Three cars drove in one direction, stopping at the light on the corner. A young man jumped out of the first one.

The young woman jumped out of bed. “What’s wrong?” she whispered in his right ear. He turned around, muttering. She looked at him, and stepped out of the room saying “Don’t worry, I’ll put the coffee on.”


In his reach, while sitting at the table, he had a teaspoon. It was about four and half inches long, with a shiny silver bowl, and a carving in the head of it. A sparrow. The man had always liked sparrows. So small. Had not seen them recently though, perhaps they were going south for the winter. He sipped his coffee. He turned on the radio, but soon turned it off after all he could hear was static. His eyes browsed around his dirty kitchen. The sink full, grime on the cupboards, which he had never noticed before. He looked at the pile of newspapers on the table. He picked up the top one and opened to the crossword. He then closed it when it reminded him of the morning he tried to solve it.

He had been up all night. He wanted to sleep but could barely close his eyes, so he walked down to the ground floor and to the twenty-four hour bagel shop. He wasn’t hungry, so he grabbed the paper and ran back to his home. Sitting there four hours, he mused, and only found 7 words.

He sipped his coffee, sitting for a moment and achieving a peace. He then lit a cigarette. The young woman sat across for him, her red hair in a mess around her face. “What you thinking’ about?” she chirped. “You have to go, you get out of here. I’ll deal with this.” He was tired and dirty and anxious to get her out of his apartment. He tried to stifle the thought of his daughter while looking at this girl. She walked into the other room.

He got up and opened the fridge. He gave up after noticing three balloons floating by his window. He walked over and opened it. It creaked but gave way. He stuck his head out and looked left. He then jutted his head back to send his eyes straight up in the air. He couldn’t find the balloons.

When he turned on the shower it sputtered and then shot. It’ll be a minute, he thought. He went to the kitchen and turned off the light. When the steam started pouring into the room he sat and sipped his coffee. He got up and walked to the next room, shuffling out of his clothes, he went in to the shower headfirst. The soap fell off the side and he cussed.


He walked outside, the boy on the corner tried to peddle him another newspaper. He replied with a gruff no. He then checked his eye colour in the window of the next shop. An older lady saw this and smiled and the man looked down towards the cement. Counting the lines in the sidewalk, he clipped a parking meter. He ducked quickly into an office building.

Three seven six.
A monolith of a structure, he thought, 48 floors. He cleaned it all with one mop. He was proud of that.

He had originally gotten the job at seventeen years old. He had to pay his rent, eventually the child support was the only reason he kept it. He told himself that anyway. It helped him feel satisfied with the sandwich he had at noon. It helped him enjoy the cup of coffee he had at two. He enjoys the walk home; more so on the days where the wind threw him around and the frost burned his cheeks. He looked out the window and smiled for a second, but at the first glance he noticed in his direction he went back to sweeping the floor.


The young woman walked by 376 quickly, down to the corner and she turned left. She walked two blocks towards the bay and sat on the corner. She fixed her lipstick in her reflection on the window. She crossed the street and found her number. Five forty two. She looked at the menacing staircase triumphantly. She smiled as she opened the door and walked inside. Two minutes later she came to her floor.

She opened her door with a creak. She was tired, but only collapsed on the couch. She pulled off her skirt and stockings and began to unbutton her shirt. She got up abruptly and fixed her hair. She lit a cigarette, her lips puckered against the filter. She watched the smoke roll out of her mouth and against the broken window.

Tired, thoned and weak

My heart turns one meter of silver to an ounce of gold, and earth still revolves around the sun.
Poetic Nothingness.
My luck lately has been spectacular, but I am still bouncing between failing and passing my grades in college. I hope I do. I hope I pass all of them, learn some time management skills and am able to continue to better myself, because I have the opportunity to.

I heard one time, John F. Kennedy was misquoted in the way he spoke German with a Boston accent. Instead of the German form of "I am a Berliner," he told the crowd "I am a pickle."

I've attempted to swallow the brown pill, allow myself to sit and be complacent. I wrote a story about a man unable to get published, running around, typing of himself mocking himself. It was filled to the brim with absolutely nothing, some horrid writing and an art house feel. I describe it as a satire three times, once claiming it is a satire about writing a satire. I find it to be a random mess of words, segments from my life at that point. I find it to be a stab at nearly every self righteous intellectual. Them types, who spend their mind making a twisted, intellectual myspace, learning wise words from fellows and reusing the same garbage over and over. I enjoy watching them try and impress people, its like a twisted car wreck. I was very proud of my story, and I hope it wins the contest.

Blogging.

Another example of my luck is the number thirteen. From thirteens asking me to escape from "Ye Old Pit of Crime," Calgary to the numbers of pages in essays I've written for school. I failed horribly in both occasions, but made very nice art. The essay was my best work I feel. I had two extra days to do it after I thought it was done and I figured it was good enough, so I left two brilliant editorial mistakes, my mothers typed "(Really?)" and "(Maybe you should explain this better?)" right on the first page. There was one more on the second. I felt like a dumbass and now I must get a good grade on the final, in order to pass.

I found myself with a 26 song double album about a month and a half ago, and was dizzy for two weeks until I recorded two new songs.

This Friday the Thirteenth the Harlem Gospel Choir is making a stop in Penticton. I bought a ticket. I had to, it will be brilliant. All I hope is I hand in the report I am asked to do on it and pass my classes for the next few days.

Ok time to get serious

My name is Jon Pelletier and I am a Grateful Dead fan. I enjoy Nirvana as well, though they were before my time. I am 22 years old and live in Penticton, BC, Canada. Right now I am a student at the local college but I've decided to take it on myself to become more productive, in the real world. I make music daily and blog quite often, over at the love forsaken thing Myspace. We don't really need to get in to our relationship right not.
I have a penchant for the strange I doubt I will ever escape from. I have a curiosity which allows me to try make sense of things I cannot understand. This has gotten me in trouble more than once, as I tend to be anti-authoritarian, sometimes simply for the sake of it. This is a bit of a bad habit, it comes with being too impulsive I think. For example, this morning I found a video on youtube.com in which a young Arab woman was speaking with a child in Arabic. From the subtitles, it was a scathing review of a story from the Koran explaining the Jews tried to kill their prophet and how they were of different Gods. It was meant to be an "insiders underground video from Saudi Arabia" but it wasn't. It was horribly racist towards Muslims, filled with lies and such, and the words the small child and host were using for Jew kept changing. When they mentioned Pepsi was boycotted due to the Jewish board of directors I could only think, gee, Coca Cola set up its first ever bottling plant in Afghanistan only 4 or 5 months ago. The speakers also didn't say Pepsi. I digress.
I attempted more than once to post comment about the video because I had a Koran at hand, a Penguin Classics Blasphemy Edition (joke), and quotes a few lines on the contrary to these claims, out of the verses of their Bible. It is on my other blog, and I've got like 25 views in the last few minutes.

This is the plan:

I feel if I put my stories and articles and opinion pieces on a more reputable blog I wouldn't have the shame of posting on Myspace. I enjoy writing and want to be able to do this as a career, thinking, reading, learning, teaching, believing and sparking even just a tiny little piece of hope in people's eyes. I'm a strong believer in the utter beauty of our planet and I hate to be redundant, restate what others have or say things over and over again, but if we don't quit destroying our world, we won't have anything left. Love is key.
I'm trying to get published in like, paper things some folk read.

jp