Ghiven by God

Let me be clear and unequivocal: the price of a gallon of gasoline has nothing to do with human rights, implied or otherwise. It does have to do with human activity - greed, ignorance, complacency, decline of the frail condition that's been constructed by the master builders of American society, and fraught with contradictory proclamations. Indeed, what happened to Kansas? Who is Michael Diamond and why is his name now Clarence?

With no doubt or prejudice, but with a fair amount of derision and accusation, it should be said that complaints coming from the exurban centers of American prosperity and clean living as to the market price of gasoline are rooted in decisions. Decisions as to proximity to place of work. Decisions as to method of transport. The decision made to buy a large vehicle so that "we could have space for the kids". Decisions operate and interact in the arena of trade-offs and the architecture of cost. As the historically acceptably-sized space of American cities has been clouded and lamented by today's frontiersman's yearning for the lost masculinity that comes with chopping wood and triumphantly riding a tractor mower, the predictable (and well-documented) flight to geographies in excess of fifty miles from places of work and entertainment has worked its way into media accounts of a new lament: it's a frightened cry from the fringes of the metro.

What's lost in the frenzy to build a ceiling on the market-determined price of a commodity is the absurdity of the notion that there are enforceable human rights attached to foolish and self-serving decisions made in the absence of coercion. And that there's an "entitled" range for the price of the commodity in question; this range being ultimately not defined according to the lifestyle decisions made by the individual consumer, but rather elucidated through a pick-and-choose style of political rhetoric that is at once free market and ruggedly individualistic, then wrapped in complaint, while ironically throwing the full weight of the liberal regulatory regime behind the continued operation of an SUV along the clogged and crumbling interstate route of a 100-mile commute.

The god standing behind the American flag so spangled may or may not have laid down a set of commandments to the Justice Department, defining when and how to form a council or a task force, or whether or not to start an "investigation". But this god has been installed into the halls of power by an electorate that has overwhelmingly voted for the resident and disingenuous soothsayer. And the Republican soothsayers are not interested in price manipulation, unless it's lip service paid while leaning on the podiums of the outer-suburban town hall. You've picked anti-abortion and deficit-financing for geopolitical disaster. You've chosen to be Ayn Rand's biggest fan, in the abstract, since you don't read books; a temporary and illicit enrichment of populism, a lie which harkens back to the days when progressives in Kansas not only called for government intervention to prevent hardship (on those less fortunate and constrained in their consumer decisions by the rape of their humanity), but also took the bus.

Scheduled Description

I'm an alcoholic, but I really rarely drink. But really, what defines that alcoholism? I have a bitter fuse, born May 20, 1992. Born in a manger, with hopes that can so easily get carried away. I love Michele Bachman for her altruism. I love people saying what they mean. I love the love that comes with mean. I live somewhere between the averages and the Vornado fan. I've made records. I've put down lines through a TL Audio, and although it was kicking and crying, I had no pitch transposition courtesy of MXR. These are the hidden promises. Superficial secrets which are kept for their secrecy. For the art of oceanic sublimation.

Those who live the life of irony are forgiven only the transgressions they commit against themselves. Tossing and turning for the sake of the casino. Blasphemy in the name of San Pedro. Drifting in the name of the quaint overdrive of a long forgotten preamplifier. Arpeggios for the sake of dusty VHS tapes. Who doesn't want to fuck Sarah Palin? Isn't the Ombudsman of the New York Times included in the excess?

The poor on the 63 bus have the savior faire that Mitterand came into his bathroom sink. Scooped up by the aggregated PTSD of sunshine dancers, weaving themselves through the appropriate headlines.

At the forty yard line, irrespective of my distaste for football, I'm solving for x.

The Regal Pro, by Sloan

I never expected to be printed on quality paper. And I never anticipated actually reading about the Regal Pro. All I've had access to are tidbits of information, and the attempt made by even the most slovenly acolyte are surely worth even the smallest hand pulling back the sheet. Behold! The date of manufacture. Unleashed! The droplets of condensation. Just passing by! The dilapidated houses of East 3rd Street, a brilliant diorama of diseased lungs.

It's often raining when the poor advance masked. The Regal Pro stands in as an analog deck and the mind plays tricks, the ones heard through the damp din of the BBC. There's a warm hamlet out there somewhere, two men expressing the confusion of war and the intricacy of the daffodil, and taking breaks right overtop the Regal Pro. All herald Sloan's profit margins. Burn coal to light a vacuum tube, to ponder the daffodil and to piss with the Pros.

Formula for Geographies

I create novellas every day, writing a stream of fiction in my head that somehow turns out to be art offering up an explanation, a description and a celebration. Sometimes I put some music to it. Fragments of Motley Crue most of the time. I have a need to rock, to ingratiate myself with solid output from the inputs of introspection. It's a core team of multicolored editors, flamboyant teamsters picketing the inbox of a migrant achiever, presumably all for the sake of posterity.

The translation of geographies from one person's list into something I can use and leverage for my own benefit brings up thorny questions; the philosophy of living is at once compacted into the study of the translation, and expanded into the universality of formulaic expression. In and through the process of devising and constructing the formula(s), the significance and the absurdity of the translation explodes on the scene: a collection of posers - browsing and shopping and snooping at the behest of consumption and lying about the true result of the transaction. The implication is a new geography, one that can be used to satisfy the silo-ed interest group occupying the other half of the floor and no longer relegated to the guest bedroom.

Multiply this by one hundred and we have a new meeting place.