An Almost Fatal Accident At The DMV

I needed to renew my drivers license so I made sure I was dressed nicely. I shaved and was wearing my favorite eyeglasses, since I know the picture on my drivers license is representative of me as a human being to those who do not know me. I realize that potentially, in certain situations, this picture has the potential to make or break me.

I arrived at the DMV early so as not to miss my 10:10 am appointment. Because I am often miserable in the mornings, I stopped first to get a sugary oat scone and a cup of coffee to lift my mood. Once I arrived at the DMV, I began the process of loosing my personalized identity and becoming just another body in a sea of other bodies. A man in a uniform directed me into a line where a bunch of other bodies stood patiently waiting. There were beeping sounds and an Orwellian computerized female voice announcing numbers and letters over the intercom. When a bodies number was called, they launched up from there plastic chairs as if someone had just lit a match under their ass.

I gulped down my large coffee as I stood in line and felt the oat scone that I inhaled cleaning the insides of my colon. I was called up to a counter that said START HERE on it and a black man behind the counter asked me some questions in the same way that he talked to all the other ten thousand bodies he encountered in a day. I stuck my thumb on to some kind of digital scanner and once my identity was verified I was given a peice of paper with F080 on it and told to take a seat until my number was called.

At the DMV it does not matter how cute you are, how cool you are or what you do for a living. The DMV is a living example of how equality is still alive and well in a world that seems to indicate the opposite. Everyone becomes a body that needs to stand in-line and wait it’s fucking turn. Other than the abundance of germs flying around in the DMV I enjoy sitting there, observing the multicultural sea of bodies that come through the place. For us humans the DMV is the cattle processing plant- the place where bodies are identified, updated and registered legit.

As I sat in my plastic chair watching bodies and waiting for my number to be called, I felt the oat scone and coffee mixture make it’s way down into the depths of my stomach. Immediately, I was overcome with an unavoidable urge to shit.

Sometimes there is no reasoning with my bodies need to eliminate whatever is inside. When it has to eliminate it gives me very limited time to find a location to plant my ass. I have had bowl movements in numerous public places where I was just not able to beat the clock. These experiences have been embarrassing and humbling because they make me very aware of the fact that no matter how hard I try, I have zero control over what my body ultimately wants to do.

I knew I was fucked. My stomach demanded release no matter how hard I tried to tell it to wait until I was finished at the DMV. F078 was just called and even though a near fatal accident was about to occur, I did not want to miss my turn. I felt my anal sphincter expanding like gates being opened. As hard as I tried to hold those fucking gates shut, I could not. I shot up out of my seat and was so frantic to poop, that I did not even bother to find out where the restrooms were. I headed for the nearest tree. As I was running through the crowd of bodies I unbuckled and unzipped my bealt and pants. The first thing that vanishes in emergency situations is your concern about what other people think of you.

By the time I got to the tree my pants were ready to be pulled down and the coffee, oat scone and whatever else was in there was already half way out. I pulled my pants down, squatted on the ground and let out a huge sigh of relief as I surrendered to my stomachs demand. A white inter-con security car idled a dozen or so feet away but the officer inside was way too absorbed in his cell phone to notice the body of a well dressed, middle aged gentlemen who was squatting with his pants down behind a tree on DMV property.

As I walked back into the DMV with a lightness and a joy for living that can only be attained after a person has made it through a potentially fatal incident, I heard the computerized female voice on the intercom announce F080 go to window 16. Sometimes everything just works out that way.

Interview With Myself #2

I am again sitting at my round breakfast table. The time is 10:42am and I am preparing for my second interview. Since I awoke at 6am this morning and then went back to sleep at around 7:30am I am getting a late start. My German shepherd is currently resting beside my ankle eating a biscuit of some sort. The morning is overcast and there is a breeze that is blowing leaves off the trees. I think my dog is impatient to go for walk but she will have to wait. There is dog hair all over my dark hardwood floors. My hair is a mess and I am still dressed  in my pajamas when this interview begins.

 

Interviewer: Good morning Randall.

Randall: Good morning.

Interviewer: Good morning.

Randall: Good morning.

Interviewer: Good morning.

Randall: Ok. Good morning. Let me make myself a cup of green tea real quick.

Interviewer: Take your time.

[Randall gets up to prepare his tea. Ofcourse his dog follows]

Randall: Ok lets begin this interview. I have a lot to get done today so let’s get going.

Interviewer: Yes it is already late.

Randall: It is.

Interviewer: Just out of curiosity what do you have to get done today?

Randall: Well I have to take my dog for a long walk. I need to water in the garden and possibly finish a drawing I have been working on. I want to do some reading and I need to spend six minutes doing my shake a weight. I also need to shower and get dressed, do a bit of meditation and check my bank balance. I am also driving into Pasadena with my wife today so that we can go to the art store and visit a vintage furniture store that we like. We will probably have dinner in Pasadena tonight.

Interviewer: Sounds nice.

Randall: Yes.

Interviewer: What are you reading at the moment?

Randall: I have actually had a difficult time finding things to sink my teeth into latly. I have an extensive book collection and have been picking books off the shelves trying to get myself into one of them. I have tried to read novels by Haruki Murakami, Tom Robbins and William Burroughs but I seem to have little interest in reading fiction right now. I have also tried to get interested in some non-fiction. I have started to read a book of John Cage’s essays called “Silence” and I have also tries to read Damien Echols memoir called “Life After Death” but I have not been able to get into either of these books. Last night I picked up a book by Gabor Mate called “In the Real of Hungry Ghosts” and like what I read so maybe I will be able to go deeper into it.

Interviewer: Why do you think you are having such a difficult time starting and finishing books right now?

Randall: I’m not sure. As you know, we have always had a really difficult time finishing things. I think that the reason why we enjoy reading literature so much is because we would often finish novels and that would give us that much needed sense of completion. But as you also know for every novel we have finished there have been two that have gone unfinished. I am not sure if as I have gotten older my attention span has shortened or if my use of the internet has caused me to develop ADD, which makes it much more difficult for me to be attentive enough to follow a narrative for hundreds of pages. I find that after ten pages of reading I am easily distracted and check my facebook or get up and do something else. Then I come back to reading. This makes it difficult for me to really sink into a narrative.

Interviewer: Have you finished a book recently?

Randall: I have. A few weeks ago I read Victor Frankel’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

Interviewer: If I remember correctly that is a rather short book is it not.

Randall: (looking a bit embarrassed) It is, yes.

Interviewer: Have you finished a longer book recently?

Randall: What do you mean by longer?

Interviewer: Say longer than two hundred pages.

Randall. Hmmm. Let me think. Yes in fact I did. About a month ago I finished a brilliant book of short stories called “Orientation” by Daniel Orozco.

Interviewer: How many pages was that?

Randall: (now looking a bit indignant) I believe that was around 160 pages.

Interviewer: Only 160 pages?

Randall: Yes.

Interviewer: And how long did that take you to read?

Randall: Probably a week.

Interviewer: A week to read 160 pages?

Randall: (silent)

Interviewer: Any books OVER two hundred pages?

Randall: A few months back I read Spalding Grey’s novel, “Impossible Vacations.” I believe that was just over two hundred pages and the print was small.

Interviewer: Is it safe to say that you have a difficult time reading books?

Randall: (some what rhetorically) What do you mean by this?

Interviewer: I know this may be a difficult question to answer since at one time you considered yourself to be a prolific reader. Now it seems as if you struggle through a two hundred-page book.

Randall: (taking a deep breath) Well I suppose I do. I don’t quite understand it myself. When I sit down to read I just feel distracted- as if there is other things I should be doing. I have trouble sinking into a book as I once was so able to do so easily. I don’t know maybe as a man grows older he feels like he should be spending less time lost inside the pages of a book and more time in his life.

Interviewer: Or maybe you have developed ADD?

Randall: Look what is this interview about? Did you come here to criticize my reading abilities and to point out how I have developed a mental handicap in my older age?

Interviewer: First of all I did not “come here.” I am already here. I live with you on a moment to moment basis so I am well aware of the inner turmoil you experience. I know that lately you have really been struggling to immerse yourself in a work of literature and I thought I would use this interview as an opportunity to get to the bottom of it.

Randall: Ok. Ok. I am well aware of your good intentions and I appreciate you wanting to help us out but I suppose I am not in the mood to talk about it at the moment. It cuts to something very deep and personal for me.

Interviewer: And what might that be?

Randall: (silence)

Interviewer: We don’t have to talk about it if you do not want to.

Randall: (after a moments pause) I guess it is that I am changing. That I may not have the same interests as I once did. Maybe I am just not as interested in literature as I once was. Maybe I am not as interested in writing or needing to be an artist as I once was. It is strange and I am trying to figure it out for myself.

Interviewer: Or maybe you have developed ADD?

Randall: Look I don’t think that is it. I realize that I have a difficult time concentrating but that may have more to do with lack of interest and facebook than it does with ADD.

Interviewer: Lack of interest?

Randall: Yes.

Interviewer: What are you not interested in anymore.

Randall: It is not that I am not interested, I just have a more difficult time losing myself in a book now. A part of me prefers just being in my life: walking, listening, communicating with others, gardening, listening to music and just being. I often feel as if reading gets in the way of doing these things. Reading takes up a lot of time for someone like myself.

Interviewer: Because of ADD?

Randall: Look there are still few things that I love more than sitting down with a good book. I just need to find that book which will keep my interest and allow me to feel like I am not wasting time. This has nothing to do with ADD.

Interviewer: Ok, I will let you believe what you want. We will agree to disagree on this point.

Randall: Fine.

Interviewer: Well I think these are all the questions that I have for you today. Anything else you would like to add?

Randall: Nothing. I need to take the dog for a walk.

Interviewer: Ok well thanks for speaking with me today. I look forward to doing it again some time soon.

Randall: (silence)

If You Build It They Will Come (i hope)

I am glad to see that 43 living human being visited my blog today. Even though the biggest blogs have hundreds of thousands of visitors a day I am content in knowing that a few, a select few are reading what some consider to be the writings of a mad man. It is not often that I am told this but it is less often that I am told I am sane. It is my belief that I oscillate between sanity and insanity. My faith is entirely constructed upon the meanings which can be extracted from this strange nether world in which I reside. I have faith that over time, maybe many many years- others will come to my blog in search of a space that is beyond common sense or rationality. My convictions tell me that I am no fool, no ordinary mortal- and that what I have to say may change the minds of more than a select conservative few. Maybe I am intoxicated by too strong a belief in the words (rhetoric) that I write, but I know that some day I may be seen by the many as one of the sanest, more frequently read and studied bloggers on planet earth (i hope).

An Invitation To A Beheading.

I used to love sitting alone in a chair and reading a good book. Nothing brought me greater pleasure. I would read a novel a day while enjoying the background sounds of birds chirping and cats meowing. Nothing was as effective in diminishing my stress and anxiety as a good book. No matter how bad the conditions of the world or my life- the printed words on a page could lift me out from my psychological squalor and re-plant me in a space of wonderment. I look back upon these times with utter envy. I even become emotionally enraged towards the man I was in my twenties. I am not only jealous of the large chunks of time that he had to drift of into the pursuit of knowledge but I am furious that it has all gone away.

Now I cannot read a book without having to get up and do something after twenty minutes. I become aggravated, nervous and I am distracted by these demons that seem to be hovering over me and disrupting my concentration. My thoughts begin to race and I struggle to stay focused upon what ever story or non-fiction work I have chosen to read. But no sooner than I can get past a few pages is there the loud voices of little demons that whisper scary things into my ears and poke sharp objects into my chest making me fearful what might happen next. I try to tune them out and push them away with positive visualizations or a smile- but they are ferocious and do not easily relent.

I know nothing good lasts forever, but there are still so many books left that I want to read. I want to return to that time when I could read peacefully for hours, day upon day- without the little brats whispering in my ear: “is your heart beating irregularly?” or “shouldn’t you be doing something more constructive.” Some times these little demons keep shouting things at me like “watch out, watch out- your head might explode!!” or “run, run, run for your life…death is coming, ha ha!!” My own inner monologue is not loud enough to silence these intruding voices and rather than continuing to read I give up and go do something else.

I have not been able to read a book from front to back for months. These little intrusive demons are getting the best of me. They also sneak into my head when I go for walks and drive my car. If I am not constantly reciting a mantra in my mind or singing a song- they will sneak into my silence and cause me great anxiety and grief. The little demons are wearing me down, forcing me to drink more wine and taking me away from the one thing that has always been of great importance to me- my intellectual life.

Without my practice of diligent daily reading my intellectual acumen has become as watered down as a cheap cocktail. I have not been able to think or write upon the great themes of philosophical dialectics or cultural theory like I had once planned upon doing. I have not been able to write great novels that compare with the best of works by Tolstoy, Kafka or Bernhard. I have not been able to go into my career as an honorable college professor who specializes in Ontology and Samuel Beckett. Rather- to defend myself against these little demons and attempt to save my own life I have had to go towards the New Age. I have had to practice meditation, do Yoga, recite mantras and start wearing beads and stones to defend myself against negative energy. I have had to seek out healers and been told by many that I must get out of my mind and start to become more grounded in my body. The very thing that I put so much work into cultivating has become my demise. My intellect has become the very portal from which these demons can access my nervous brain causing me such scary afflictions as to make me consider taking medication. These voices and disruptions get louder and louder every day- if it continues I may send out invitations to my own beheading.

photograph by Keith Purdy.

The Man With A Moving Nipple

I know this may seem strange but I am suffering from a moving nipple. It is my left nipple and it gesticulates and twitches like a firecracker. At the moment, the uncomfortable movements of my nipple have become chronic with little intermission in-between. This discomfort has become a part of my life, another bewildering ailment that I must learn to live with.

My nipple began to move after I was in a very upsetting argument with my father. He was in a hospital bed recovering from a surgery and we managed to fight with one another about what, I cannot remember. Consumed with guilt for upsetting my father during his darkest of hours- I left the hospital in a terrible state of mind. The stress was causing my chest to constrict and I remember having difficulty breathing. It was when I turned on my car engine that I noticed my left nipple beginning to twitch. I placed my right palm upon it, as if I was trying to comfort my broken heart. I drove off into the night trying not to think about my moving nipple. Little did I know then that this was the beginning of what would become a full-blown dis- ease.

As the days passed my nipple picked up speed. The twitches would come in unpredictable spurts and I was often forced to have to sit down and try and relax when the episodes would begin. The twitches turned into strange gesticulations that would wake me up at night and force me to place an ice pack on my chest. The moments that my nipple would not be moving became like tropical vacations for my weary mind, which was being over worked by the torment of my moving nipple. The sensations were like aggravating tickles combined with what felt like pinpricks that seemed to leave me feeling like I was a man being slowly crucified from the inside out.

As the weeks passed my moving nipple became more chronic. It rested little and began to control my every waking hour. I had read some where in Greek mythology of a character that had suffered from a very similar ailment as I was. His moving nipple became so violent that it slowly began to make its way onto his forehead and announce all of his private thoughts to whomever was around. Not only did this character suffer the humiliation of having a talking nipple on the center of his forehead but also he was unable to think without the nipple revealing his every thought! Of course it is not difficult to understand why this character took his life by forcing his lover to cut off his head. Once he was decapitated the nipple did not stop talking for over an hour- it told his lover of all his previous affairs!! Ever since I have read this tale I have been terribly worried that my chronic gesticulating nipple is going to break free from its root and make its way onto my forehead!! If the world were able to hear my every thought I would certainly loose everything that I love!!!

Last week I visited a Doctor who knew not what to make of my condition. He told me that he had never seen anything like this before. He recalled reading in a medical journal many month back about someone who had suffered from a similar ailment for most of his life- but he could not remember which medical journal it was in. The Doctor wanted to put me on some medication to see if he could relax the tissue but the side effects for the medication seemed to great to take the risk. My Doctors conclusion was that I was suffering from a stress-induced ailment that was causing calcium build up around the nerves of my nipple tissue-, which is putting pressure upon my nipple. The ensuing twitching and gesticulation is the result of this pressure. If it did not go away in a month he recommends surgery.

In the mean time I still have to live in this world. I have to make a living so that I can continue to have a roof over my head. As much as I want to hide away in my closet and write poetic lamentations all day- I cannot. I have a mouth to feed.

It is not difficult for you to see my ailment, or what I have come to call my crucifixion. There is what appears to be a constant vibration and rotation under my left shirt pocket. When people notice this they immediately ask me if I am okay. I tell them that I am fine, that what they are witnessing is an annoying muscle spasm. My high school students make fun of me and refer to me as a freak. They all want to touch my nipple and when I let them there are loud uproars of “EEEEEEWWWW,” or “That’s so disgusting!!!!” Whenever I go out into public people stare at my nipple as if they had never seen anything like this before. I feel like an aberration, like all eyes are condemning me to constant judgment. Now I know what it must feel like to be a big-breasted woman.

The only thing that I can do is learn to live with my ailment. Every night before bed I put a chamomile cream upon my nipple, which seems to relax it a bit. I also wrap my chest in a towel before bed, which seems to reduce the annoying vibrations of my moving nipple, allowing me to get some sleep. There is nothing that I can really do (besides having my nipple surgically removed) other than accept my current situation. I see this condition as an opportunity for me to deal with the various causes in my life rather than the effects. If I can learn to change the stressors that have caused my moving nipple than maybe over time my nipple will stop moving. I believe it was Pascal, Socrates or Emerson or maybe Nietzsche- who said that an unexamined life is a life not worth living, so I am examining my self- trying to understand the various ways that I have caused my own dis-ease. Maybe, through this process of self-examination, I will eventually become the only man who can set myself free.

“the falling sky”

I was talking to my grandfather today (who still does head stands and smokes at the age of 91) and he told me that he was glad that he was not my age in this day and age. I asked him why and he told me that it was because times seemed really hard for most decent people. It almost reminded him of the depression. “Everything is so expensive and everyone has to work all the time to afford to live in this society. Government does not care about the people anymore, politicians are greedy and the environment is saying enough is enough. This ain’t living it is more like a perpetual state of worry.” I could not disagree with him but I had to mention that yes for most these were very trying times (violence and disease rates are at an all time HIGH- the effects of stress) but lets not forget that the few, the very few- the rich are living like kings and queens as we speak. This is what is inherently wrong- there is a great imbalance between rich and poor and this imbalance eventually will tip the boat. My grandfather said “you said that right” and then proceeded to do a head stand with a cigarette in his mouth.

Thoreau said “that the cost of something is the amount of life that you are willing to exchange in order to have that thing.” The bigger the pond you swim in or the more advanced the technology is on your automobile or computer system- the less time that you have to live (free from work or worry). Those who are unfortunate enough to have mortgages or car payments that they can barely afford are the ones who are being robbed, literally of their life. Those who have more material possessions to up keep have less time to live. This is what many theorists refer to as the myth of capitalism. It is a trap.

I try to ride my bicycle whenever I can. This not only gives me much needed exercise, but I also feel as if I am waging my own strike against high gas prices and the epidemic dependency upon cars. Yesterday as I was riding my bike I was thinking why not sell my car, sell as many things as I can and live simply? I decided that it was more important to me to have time to live (to take naps at three p.m. or to play my guitar at a cafe around noon with not a care in the world) than to work. Am I trying to afford not only my social status but also the very things that have given me a sense of self or would I rather have less but gain time?

When one starts to identify themselves by the things that they own or the work that they do…some form of basic life is surrendered for work (the need to make money). As I rode my bike past all sorts struggling to get back to work after their lunch break, I thought of my grandfather standing on his head. I giggled and thought to myself- it does not need to be so difficult, just live simply, need less, learn to value what you have (for the long term) and ride a bike or walk when possible. If more people could do this the end result would be the solution to the social, psychological and environmental catastrophe we all now live within. My grandfather likes to call this catastrophe “the falling sky.”