I Am Not An American

I am not an American. I just live here. I live here because I was born here. I have never made any concerted effort to live anywhere else because I do not particularly care to give up the huge investment I have made in learning the cultural mores, dominant language and social structures of the society that I grew up in. In other words, I am lazy and indifferent to the whole damn shebang. Wherever you go, there's still people there.

I am not an American. I just live here. I do not have a problem with America. I am not anti-American. I am not pro-American, except inasmuch as I live here and American interests can coincide Venn diagram-like with my own. But I am not an American. I am not proud to be an American, not because I am ashamed of being an American but simply because I am not an American. I am proud of my accomplishments, my achievements -- not that I happen to have been born within these lines on this map. I do not believe in countries, I do not believe in nations. I do not believe in laws, borders, or governments. There might be clear delineations between different species (there aren't) or between the land and the sea (nor these) but everything else is some human-created nonsense. Including America. As a human myself I am free to toss out the rules and ideas that were laid down by those that came before me and build my own world from tabula rasa. You should try it sometime.

I pay American taxes. I follow American laws (or rather I follow my own code and am smart enough to not get caught where that happens to be illegal under local conditions). According to the records, I am an American citizen.

But, nonetheless, I am not an American. I just live here.

memoirs found in a pants pocket

"Through the protective barriers of my sunglasses, the tinted sun-roof and the thick gauzelike clouds, I stare directly at the sun."

An Open Letter To The Fresh Crush Crew

Dear Fresh Crush Crew,
cc: Grand Wizard Bumble Bee Nice (Burgess Waxman)
cc: MC Chocolate Lover Larry (Elgin Lawrence)
cc: Cool Skee Bop (Darius Radcliff)
cc: DJ Redpack (Emil Bedford)

          I have to tell you, I am like your biggest fan ever! I mean, I know you guys must get that a lot, being the legendary old school hip-hop crew straight outta Buffalo, but I have to tell you that I really mean it.

          I have every vinyl single you ever released, including the rare radio station-only release of “Cold Bust A Party” with the photo of all four of you cheesing in Bumble Bee Nice’s barbershop imprinted right on the vinyl. Paid a pretty penny for it on eBay, and that’s no lie. Then last summer my friends and I hitchhiked to Buffalo for the weekend so we could walk the streets you guys walked on and rapped on. We even stopped by the mural on West Chippewa Street. That’s how hardcore of a fan that I am. I think you guys are great. After you broke up in 1983 is the day hip-hop died for me, and for other people as well. For years I would hear an artist or an MC and say, that guy’s alright, but the Fresh Crush Crew had crazy science.

          Now, I know you guys must hear this all the time, but when are you going to get back together? I think now that hip-hop is dead would be the perfect time for the four of you to come back together and bring it all back to life. Know what I’m saying?

          I have to admit, I have no idea what you guys are up to these days. For a while there was a Wikipedia entry for the Fresh Crush Crew which I took as a good sign since there were no other mentions of the Fresh Crush Crew anywhere at all on the Information Superhighway we call the World Wide Web. Then a few months went by and the entry was taken off. The wiki-douche who marked it for a speedy delete had these condescending remarks to make:

“[N]o claim of notability, they wrote a song, and dissed some folks. Not even Google has heard of them.”

          Can you imagine? What an awful epitaph for such a storied and historical career! Wouldn’t now be a good time to come back together like the Voltron of this shit and show the Wikipedia Thought Police what a bunch of clowns they are?

          In that vein, here are some thoughts I have on how the Fresh Crush Crew can become relevant again in the twenty-teens:

• Do a diss song about 50 Cent. These days, it’s practically a rite of passage for any rappers worth their salt. Plus I think that if you guys come with the same blistering wit and lyrical fury you had on your landmark diss record “Party Pussies” you will be getting bumped on iPods nationwide.


• Do a song with T-Pain. For some reason the kids love that off-key computer Auto-Tune sound. That’s why, after you do a song with T-Pain, you should go ahead and record a whole album worth of singing in T-Pain style.


• Invent a dance. Not like that time in 1979 when the Fresh Crush Crew adopted the Charleston as their official dance for six months in honor of your slain and fallen member Rodney “Rodney C” Carver. Come up with a new dance and make a song about it. The dance doesn’t have to be good, the song doesn’t have to make sense. The kids just like dances.

          I actually have much larger ideas and plans for the Fresh Crush Crew than merely a musical revival, including a biography, a film based on the biography, a tie-in videogame based on the movie, and an album release of the videogame soundtrack featuring all the classic FCC jams like “Disco Party Rap” and “My Man Rodney” re-recorded for the jaded ears of Indigo children. But for right now just getting back together at all would be a great first step towards your future, and mine.

          Oh, and reality TV too. Everyone loves that crap.

Sincerely,
Noel Rogers
ITC Talent Management Inc.

Fuck Saint Patrick's Day

Yes, I know, St. Patrick's day isn't for another week or so, but in honor of the bullshit-ass St. Patrick's Day Parade they had in Wappingers today that shut down all local traffic and made my commute home take like 45 minutes, here is once again my classic ode to that lamest of lame holidays:

FUCK SAINT PATRICK’S DAY

          You know what? St. Patrick wasn't even Irish. He was something else that I am too lazy to look up (or not -- he was Welsh) and was taken from his family by marauding hordes of Irishmen. Whether they were painted green history doesn't record but they were probably as drunk as the marauding hordes of Irish assholes getting all puffed up because it's getting to be St. Patrick's Day. You know what really pisses me off? When someone says "On St. Patrick's Day, everyone's Irish!" What an arrogant and presumptuous statement. What other holiday has the balls to be so culturally insensitive? Can you imagine it elsewhere? "On Yom Kippur, everyone's Jewish!" "On Earth Day, everyone's a hippie!" "On Nasmas, everyone loves Illmatic!" Name another cultural group that gets a special parade for their holiday.
          And I know, I know, the real reason St. Patrick's Day is such a crossover success is because it’s a reason to drink a lot. Who needs a reason? You want a reason to get stinking drunk? Try looking in the mirror and realizing that your entire life is a big fat lie. No, seriously, go try it. I'll wait. Tap tap tap. It's a sobering thought, isn't it? Shit, I think I'll have something to drink now too. Gulp, paranoid stare around the room.
          Fuck Saint Patricks Day, and fuck Irish Pride. You love Ireland so much? Go the fuck back, they got that potato problem fixed now. There's some guy shivering in a box right now who would love to take up your eco-social slot when you go back to the Motherland, and I'm sure he'd be proud to be an American unlike you, you ungrateful little shit. Yeah, you, I'm talking to you. No, not you, the bitch sitting next to you. Yeah, you, bitch, you. Whatcha gonna do about it? Huh? Huh?
          Goddamn I get belligerent while I'm drunk. Where was I? Oh yeah, fuck Saint Patricks' Day, and before you reply to disagree know that I already know what you're going to say and I think you're an idiot. Yeah, you, the fat kid in the back. You dumb fatso. I can read you like a book.

Blood: A Tone Poem Shoehorned Into Prose

           I was coughing blood today. No lie. Not a lot of blood, sure – I was in no danger of losing precious liters – but it was blood nonetheless. Little specks that stained my tissue, like red snowflakes against an all-white sky.
           I was coughing blood today. No lie. I guess it’s the chickens coming home to roost. For the sickly child I was, I’ve abused my lungs too much, for too long. I smoked marijuana daily for like seven years, and that's not exactly past tense behavior. For a long time I smoked cigarettes too – and unfiltered Luckies, no less. During a dark and desperate time in my life I was a fiend for nitrous oxide. I’ve smoked PCP. I’ve smoked opium. I’ve smoked salvia divinorum. Christ, I’ve even smoked orange Tic-Tacs, or tried to though they refused to burn. Did I miss anything? Oh, cloves. I also smoked clove cigarettes – again, a dark and desperate time in my life. The point is, if my childhood was marked by various respiratory ailments, my adult life has been characterized by my complete and utter lack of concern for said respiratory ailments. I always joked that I’d know it was time to quit when I started coughing up blood. Now that I have...
           I was coughing blood today, no lie, and now I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to get it checked out, for two reasons. First, because I am scared that this is the beginning of the end, that I have finally done one stupid thing to my body too many, that these specks of blood represent the punctuation at the end of my sentence. But I am also afraid that it won’t turn out to be anything fatal or terminal or even anything serious at all – that after all the coughing is said and done, after the blood has all dried up and the tissues are long discarded, it will be back to business as usual, and I will still have to wake up every day as I get older and more bitter. That I could still live long enough to see my fire die slowly instead, from flame to ember to ash.
           I was coughing blood today. No lie.

I'm Not Here

I’m not here. Wherever here is, I am usually somewhere else. I don’t live in my body, I live in my head. Nitpickers will point out that be that as it may, my mind inhabits my body so I still live in it like it or not. I woke up the other morning at 4am from awful back pains. As those began to halfway subside I was wracked with a bout of explosive diarrhea. What I’m saying, and too much information be damned, I know that I live in my body all too well.

And nonetheless, I live in my mind. I’m not here. I am hiding out, between and behind my thoughts. The real world intrudes like a loud voice in a theater or an alarm clock’s ring. I react with panic, with terror, with confusion, as if I have just woken abruptly. I have developed defenses against this. I have trained my body to act on its own in all but truly critical tasks. I have trained my body, like a dog, to go through the motions mindlessly; an ontological zombie. And like a dog, my body is not very smart. I find myself walking in circles a lot, forgetting what my tasks were, and needing to consciously re-intervene, interrupt my thoughts, to set it back on its way. I have also learned pre-canned verbal responses, like a parrot, to hold my own in simple conversations with no thought necessary.

I’m not here. I am not in this moment. I am not in this spot. I am somewhere else.

Elegy For A Black Cat

Noir died three years ago today. This is a memoir of sorts, a reminiscence of our time together, and a cautionary tale about how you treat the ones you love.

Noir was born on October 16th, 1998, in Philadelphia, though I didn’t meet her until a few weeks later. She was part of a litter of kittens that my brother’s cat Salvatore had given birth to. I was visiting around that time and I had decided to take one of them. All that was left was to decide which one. I chose her. Partially because she was solid black and partially because… to tell the truth, I don’t know what drew me to her. Call it fate or call it a sixth sense, but I knew she was mine. I held her tiny body in my hands and she fit perfectly.

Noir grew up to become a beautiful cat, the statuesque and regal kind the Egyptians had worshipped as gods. From the right angle, the light reflecting off her black fur made her look like she was carved from obsidian, and you could understand their point of view. Noir was something. The two of us shared some similar personality traits – to strangers we could be aloof, even hostile; but quite loving and affectionate when around the ones we trust. Then there were also the quirks that were hers and hers alone, like her thing about plastic bags. Noir loved to play in plastic shopping bags. Couldn’t get enough of them. On more than one occasion she would get the handle of one stuck around her neck and run off while I chased after her, terrified that she would choke.

When I moved away to Philadelphia I took Noir with me. Instead of seeing it as a homecoming, a return to her place of birth – and how could she – Noir saw it as an upsetting change to her routine and environs. After a few weeks of her being unable to adjust to her new surroundings, it was with great sadness that I put her in a cat carrier and sent her back home to live with my parents. I often wonder even now if Noir knew something that I didn’t. But for the next two years, Noir was distant with me when I visited, as if she hadn’t quite forgiven me or wasn’t sure what I might do next. Once the life I had built for myself came crashing down house-of-cards style, and I too had to return home, Noir opened right back up to me. All sins forgiven. At that low time in my life when I didn’t know who my friends were and who I could trust, Noir was there for me.

And me? I loved her in my way. I loved her as best as I could. Translation? I was an ungrateful little shit who took her love for granted and often, far too often, reacted to her signs of affection with annoyance and impatience. It made sense to me at the time – I would be at my computer, playing a video game, and all of a sudden Noir was up on my desk, in my face, on my keyboard. Invariably my inner-Cartman would come out: “Goddammit, kitty!” Like I said, it made sense to me at the time. Like I said, I was an ungrateful little shit.

A little over three years ago Noir got sick. I didn’t even know it at first. I only caught on when I realized that Noir had been hiding somewhere for the last twenty-four hours. Once upon a time I had a dog who got sick and we did nothing and we waited too long to get him help and in the end nothing could be done. My dog was put to sleep and I never saw him again. I was determined not to make the same mistake, so I brought Noir to the animal hospital the next day.

And it was too late.

They said it was a congenital problem, and indeed some of Noir’s litter-mates had already died from one thing or another. They said it was going on for a while, that by the time it became apparent it was already too late. They said they could put her out of her misery. I nodded, and I told them they could kill my cat, who had loved me and I had not loved back enough. Now there was no more time. So I stood in the examination room and I cried. I kept myself in check, fighting back tears in an unsafe public place, but in my heart I was burning with a conflict of emotions. Grief and sorrow that my cat was going to die. Empathy or sympathy for the cat’s suffering – each pained yowl Noir made sent a chill through me. Blind and white-hot rage at a world that permits death in the first place, at God for filling creation with beauty and then systematically destroying it all. But mostly I just felt guilt and shame. All I could remember was my impatience, my ingratitude. I sobbed in silence and I wished desperately that none of this was real. Then I drove home, and threw out the litter box. She wouldn’t need it anymore.

A year or so ago I dreamt I was sitting on my dining room couch. The shades were pulled and the light of the autumn sunset was coming through the window. Noir was on the couch, in the spot where there was light. I sat down next to her and I cried and I cried. I told her how much I loved her, how I missed her, and how sorry I was that I hadn’t been more loving to her when I had her there to love. Even in my dream she said nothing. Then I woke up.

I held her in my hands, and now she’s gone.

Emerson & Pete in None So Blind

(Okay, I totally lied. Here's another one of the short pieces I generated for this project the Crew Elders are working on. Based on an idea I had in my late teens, which was based on an idea I had as a child:

EMERSON & PETE in: None So Blind

          Pete is my friend. Pete is my only friend. Let me explain. Before I met Pete, I was the social pariah of the fifth grade. Mostly because I am the only kid in the fifth grade who knows what “social pariah” means. Then I met Pete. Now, I’m still the social pariah of the fifth grade, but I don’t really care anymore.
          See, Pete and I have been on dozens of adventures of exactly the sort you read about in boys’ magazines. Hidden pirate treasure, lost dinosaur islands, intergalactic intrigue. That was the fun stuff. Mad scientists, with their convoluted schemes and inescapable death traps, not so fun.
          Guess which we were doing today?
          “I think this is the end, little buddy,” I said to Pete. The two of us were hanging from thick steel chains, suspended above an ominous chemical concoction. Gears ratcheted, and with every click we were lowered closer and closer to the vat. “I don’t see any way out of this.”
          Pete nodded in agreement. “Sheesh,” he said. It was all he ever said.
          I almost forgot to mention – Pete is a four-foot tall bird-looking alien with blue feathers and a green beak. His kind mostly only communicate through a complex scheme of body language. The best he can manage in human vocals is “sheesh.”
          We make do.

          I first met Pete when his spaceship crashed into the woods next to my house. At least I think it was a spaceship – it was pretty smashed up by the time I saw it and all I’ve ever been able to get out of Pete by way of explanation is “Sheesh.” He was a stranger to this world and he needed a friend. I was, as I said, the social pariah of the fifth grade. In no time at all we were inseparable. Eventually I learned to understand his sheeshes, to interpret their subtle nuances into English – though occasionally he made simple errors like confusing “causal” with “casual.”
          Pete was a misfit, like me, and neither of us really had a place in this human world. So we became freelance adventurers, journeying to the last street at the edge of my development or to the last star system at the edge of the galaxy. Once, the two of us defeated Sid Viscous, the Not-Nice Goo, a nasty mucusy little bully that fancied himself Emperor Of All Creation. We found a miniature scale model of an A-bomb (capable of throwing fallout in a six-inch radius) and dropped it on him. Princess Arlissa of the Vandaloo gave us medals for that. And we got back in time for supper.
          My parents? Clueless. They know Pete is my best friend, and I swear they can see him and everything but somehow they never notice how he is a four-foot tall bird-looking alien with blue feathers and a green beak. Or, even worse, maybe they do know – and they are just so glad that their only son finally has a companion that they ignore the fact that he is an alien that can only say “sheesh.” Did I mention that I am the social pariah of the fifth grade?
     The death-trap we found ourselves in today began the way most of our adventures do – me and Pete had been in the woods near my house, digging for old Indian arrowheads. Occasionally Pete would pluck up a centipede with his pudgy feathered fingers and pop it in his mouth like a piece of popcorn. With legs. Suddenly there was a roaring sound all around me, like the sound of the ocean played through giant subwoofers. I think I heard Pete say “Sheesh,” and then I blacked out. We came to chained up in a broken-down warehouse, dangling over a cauldron of bubbling liquid, slowly being lowered in.
          “I think this is the end, little buddy,” I said, and that’s about where you came in.

          An old man with a bald spot, a lab coat, an eye-patch and a mechanical hand entered the room. “I assume,” he said in a thick mad scientist accent, “that I have the pleasure of addressing Emerson and Pete, fabled adventurers?”
          I tried to put a brave face on. “That’s right, you old meanie. I’m Emerson, he’s Pete. What’s the big idea?”
          “The Emerson and Pete? The ones that vanquished Sid Viscous? Defeated the Sky-Pirates of Mystery Island? Uncovered the smuggling ring disguised as a circus?”
          “Same, same, and same. Why are you doing this to us? If I don’t get back before sundown, I’ll be grounded!”
          “That is the least of your concerns now, my boy. My name is Dr. Infamy. Perhaps you have heard of me.”
          I had. “Sure. Some big-shot mad scientist villain for a few decades. Retired before I was born. They say you were one of the finest minds of the Third Reich.”
          Dr. Infamy scoffed. “That’s like being one of the tallest Munchkins in Munchkinland. Those fools, with their half-baked theories on race and a hollow earth… don’t get me started.”
          This whole time Pete and I were still ratcheting closer and closer to our doom. I decided to mention this. “Look, Doc... can I call you Doc? What are we doing here? And why? And, um, so forth.”
          The old man smiled. “The chemicals below you are a peculiar invention of mine. You are familiar with the principle of petrified forests, yes? Over time water brings in minerals which slowly replace the organic structure of the tree, down to the individual cells. It takes centuries. This silica solution I am lowering you into will do the same thing in minutes.”
          “What? Why?”
          “I can explain it to you and I think you’ll understand. You are like me, you live outside of society. We are not bound by its conventions and customs. We are free to choose our own path.” Well, I was free to choose my own path until Dr. Infamy chained me up, but I let that one pass. “Not so my brother. Yes, my brother. Bob Infamy. While I was born with a twisted genius and a hunger to build lasers on the moon, Bob is the very picture of normality. And next week, he is getting married. She’s a lovely girl, a hair stylist from Ithaca, and I really want them to be happy together.”
          “Um, I don’t mean to be rude.” Click. “But I don’t see how that has anything to do with me or Pete.” Click. “And it’s not exactly like we’ve got all day for the story.” Click. “So how about cutting to the chase?” With each click we were nearer to becoming instant fossils.
          “Yes, very well. I need a gift for the wedding. But nothing that I have will do. What would they want with the steam-powered robot that once fought the Golden Paladin to a standstill in the ‘50s? What use could they have for an anti-gravity gun? Or rocket-powered boots? So instead I decided, get them something for their house. A nice tasteful decoration. But what?”
          “Wait. I think I understand. Lifelike statues of Emerson and Pete.”
          “Indeed! And none more lifelike than the originals, petrified and preserved for the ages!”
          At this moment Pete, who had stayed silent through Dr. Infamy’s monologue, spoke up with urgency. “Sheesh,” he said.
          He had a point.
          “But Dr. Infamy,” I said, explaining Pete’s objection, “if Bob and his wife are normal people, won’t they be mad that you killed an innocent ten-year-old boy?”
          “Sheesh!”
          “And an innocent bird-looking alien?”
          Dr. Infamy looked real thoughtful. Then he reached over and turned a crank. The ratcheting stopped. We were a few inches from petrifaction but it was still a relief. “You know, I never thought about that. I have lived outside society for so long that I no longer even consider their hypocritical and cowardly values.” He paused, rubbing his chin with his mechanical hand. It sounded like tinfoil crumpling. “That completely ruins my gift idea! Say, do either of you have any other suggestions?”
          “A fondue kit?” It came to mind quickly because it was so obvious.
          “That’s too obvious, no?”
          “Sheesh!”
          “Say, Pete, that’s a good idea!”
          “What did he say?”
          “He said, how about some nice ice cube trays? That’s something any new home needs!”
          “Why… that’s brilliant!”

          So Dr. Infamy let us down and untied us. He was real apologetic about the death trap thing. He even gave me a lollipop. I guess he really was a doctor. Then he drove us home. As he dropped me off he asked where he could get ice cube trays. I suggested the mall. Then me and Pete played a couple rounds of kickball.
          That night we had tacos for dinner.

To Be Recited In A Gravelly Tom Waits Voice

My defense, if I felt I needed one, is that I always tell people far in advance that I am really not a very good person, and I am not to be held responsible for those who don't believe me until I show them.

A Thought For The Day

When you focus on the differences between the past and the present, it seems that we are living in the future. When you focus on the similarities between the past and the present, it becomes apparent we are still living in the past.