Erase Me

Nine Inch Nails, "Eraser"
2005/2006 Tour Visuals
Artwork by Andrea Giacobbe (www.andreagiacobbe.net)
 

My Violent Heart

You and I only look the same
but we are very far apart
there's bullet holes where my compassion used to be
and there is violence in my heart

into fire you can send us
from the fire we return
you can label us a consequence
of how much you have to learn

(you can try but you'll never understand
this is something you will never understand
can you hear it now?
hear it coming now?
can you hear it now?)

on hands and knees we crawl
you cannot stop us all
our bones, our skin
we will not let you in

you have set something in motion
much greater than you have ever known
standing there in all your grand naivety
about to reap what you have sown

time will feed upon your weaknesses
and soon you'll lose the will to care
when you return to the place that you call home
we will be there, we will be there

on hands and knees we crawl
you cannot stop us all
our bones, our skin
we will not let you in


from year zero
 

take the trash out

As if the news
of Anna Nicole's will
or Britney's bald pate
weren't enough to clog
the air
and one's throat
with trash
back home
there
in America,
it's also enough
to clog the air
and one's throat
with trash
here in Ukraine
too.
 

He Probably Would Have Written A Different Poem

In class, you leaned over to me, showed me your

hand, and said, "There's a bug on me." And as I watched

your small, green, plump visitor, all I could think

was "And?"

Kill it.

Blow it away.

Cock your finger and

flick it. But

you just sat there and looked at it, as if there

were a great weight on your shoulders, as if

I had severely misrepresented the situation. Maybe

you were contemplating something larger

than myself, something more cosmic than I ever could

grasp. Or maybe not, I thought, as I watched you

spit a puff of perfect air at that little green stranger,

pushing him from the precipice of the back of your

hand and into the great beyond.

Postcard

The whole thing

in

New York and you

gonna be on a plane.

I was crying until

like

11:00

so

I didn't go to school today.

I miss you already.

What If?

I shudder to think
what it would mean
if the president wore paint
if a prostitute was queen
what would happen then
how would the world change
if thick became thin
and the world was rearranged
if the rains brought down the moon
and daylight was feared
and the sun rose too soon
and then just disappeared
if dogs became kings
and the pope chewed gum
and hobos had wings
and god was a bum
if houses became trees
if flowers turned to stone
and there were no families
and people lived alone

if buildings started laughing
and windows cried
and feet started clapping
and out came inside
the mountains fell in slivers
and the sky began to bleed
and blood filled up the rivers
and prisoners were free
if the stars fell apart
and the ocean dried up
and the world was one big heart
and decided to start
the children grew up happier
and they could run with the wolves
and they never felt trapped
or hungry or unloved
and cats walked on water
and birds had bank accounts
and we loved one another
in equal amounts


--lucinda williams, "what if?"
 

Bombs Unveil Breakthrough

North Korea's clothing stalls in session.
21,500 mannequins encouraged their people,
screamed "I'm shattered! Increase! Increase!"

Upside-down political parked cars,
debris, and blackened pools of blood scattered,
fueled nations at 2 AM. Overwhelming.

Thunderous Monday people battled 78
President Bush steps. Dense. Buildup Iraq by six.
Triggering firefighters, smoke, nuclear lawmakers.

--
Breakthrough Comes in North Korea Nuclear Talks
Car bombs blast Baghdad marketplace
House Democrats Unveil Anti-War Bill

(This is a 3by3by3. 3by3s use a conglomeration of words from three current news stories, turning them into a poem. Anyone can write them, and you'd be surprised by the results. Visit 3by3by3.blogspot.com to learn more and submit.)

 

McCain Taps Cash he Sought to Limit

By John Solomon
Washington Post


Just about a year and a half ago, Sen. John McCain went to court to try to curtail the influence of a group to which A. Jerrold Perenchio gave $9 million, saying it was trying to "evade and violate" new campaign laws with voter ads ahead of the midterm elections.

As McCain launches his own presidential campaign, however, he is counting on Perenchio, the founder of the Univision Spanish-language media empire, to raise millions of dollars as co-chairman of the Arizona Republican's national finance committee.

In his early efforts to secure the support of the Republican establishment he has frequently bucked, McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures, forces and tactics he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists in elections. That includes enlisting the support of Washington lobbyists as well as key players in the fundraising machine that helped President Bush defeat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.
 

Why Did We Bother?

I used to wonder, why did you bother?
Distance from one unto the other.

Listen here my sister and my brother,
what would you care if you lost the other?
I always wondered why did we bother—
distance from one unto the other.

Oh, oh the sweetness follows.

It's these little things they can pull you under,
Live your life filled with joy and thunder.
Yeah, yeah we were all together
lost in our little lives



Michael Stipe, R.E.M.
 

Lobotomies for Republicans

It's disgusting, really, when you think about it. If you bother to. It's disgusting that so many senators think you're stupid enough not to notice they are saying one thing and doing another. I mean, it's shocking.

Or perhaps you haven't heard? Republican John Warner voted against his own resolution today—the non-binding Iraq escalation one. That's right: he drafted it himself, introduced it to the floor, and then voted against it.

It looks like somebody has taken the bumper sticker to heart and started lobotomizing Republicans. They got to John Warner sometime this morning, right there on the floor of the Senate—sterile smocks, white nursing shoes, scalpels and all. They got to him and the other dozen Republican senators who've been vocally denouncing Bush's Iraq escalation plan (the one sending 48,000 soldiers instead of 21,500 as Mr. Bush lied) and yet proceeded today to vote down the resolution doing just that. Non-binding and merely symbolic though it would have been.

In the words of bloggers everywhere: What the fuck?

It's bad enough this administration isn't being impeached; it's bad enough the House isn't doing its job and ending funding for Bush's frat-boy foreign policy disaster; it's bad enough all the newly elected congress appears willing to do is throw a metaphorical temper tantrum in a grocery store aisle; now we see even the amputated will of the legistlative branch is just a phantom limb—there's nothing there, the neo-conservatives cut it off and threw it away. And we just might never recover the America we used to know.

Maybe, just maybe, it doesn't have to do with lobotomies; these people lobotomized themselves a long time ago, when they decided to become Republicans first and Americans second, when they decided to abandon their consciences somewhere on Interstate 495 on their way to a political fund raiser, when they made the decision to tell their constituents one thing and do the opposite—betting on the stupidity of the very people who elect them.

But my mild tone belies my anger. Frankly—while I can't decide whether to vomit or scream—Senator John Warner and his spineless, worthless companions have really pissed me off. These slugs should be removed from office and sent to some lonely island in the Pacific to starve their miserable existence away. Fuck the whole lot of them. And you can tell Homeland Security I said so.
 

Just for the Record

There's been a lot of nose thumbing at Windows Vista these past few days. Since it shipped in late January, I've heard folks on blogs, gaming sites, and in person (yeah, I still get out now and then) talk smack about the new operating system. Some of this no doubt has to do with people's knee-jerk disdain for Windows—although I've never quite understood that tendency, since Bill Gates does great things as a billionaire and Windows is as "fair" a company as Apple.

I've kept quiet as I've listened to people call Vista "buggy," "worthless," and "unsafe." I've kept quiet mostly because I wasn't using Vista—even though the reviews I read weren't echoing the concerns these people had. Sure, Vista isn't perfect. It will take at least a year for the first service pack to be developed—ironing out whatever wrinkles remain. There are bound to be bugs (but "buggy" is something different). And yes, the new operating system demands lots of RAM (at least 1 GB, although 2 is better).

Now that I've received my new desktop system and am elbow deep in Vista, I can speak up about my experiences first hand. And I'm happy to report that not only have I had a totally smooth transition to Windows Vista—with not a single peripheral, software, or hardware conflict—but the new operating system is functioning beautifully. Vista is smooth, sophisticated, and is a vast improvement over XP.

At this point I should share that my new desktop is a muscular Dell XPS system which includes a clean install of Vista—that is, it was not an upgrade from XP. I should also point out that my system contains a gargantuan amount of RAM (at 4 GB), a powerful nVidia graphics card, and a competent Intel Core 2 Duo processor. My system certainly allows Vista to perform at its best, but it cannot correct for bugs, bad design, or poor driver integration.

Which is why, just for the record, I want to report that Vista is a lovely operating system—though it requires a real investment in system resources (you should not try to run Vista with less than a full Gigabyte of RAM, or with anything inferior to an Intel Core 2 Duo processor)—that will quickly become the new standard. It is safe (so far it seems hyper sensitively so), it is completely backwards compatible (I've even installed a 16-bit program originally designed for Windows 95 without even a hiccup), and the new search functions, directory organization, windows management system, and Aero design all work together beautifully. Not to mention the soon to be enjoyed benefits of DirectX 10 and the added ability of the video card to utilize system RAM instead of being limited to its native memory (my copy of Civ IV: Warlords runs like a dream!)

So while I wait for the Vista bashing fad to blow over (much as I waited for the XP bashing fad to die down), I'll be quietly enjoying my version of this well engineered operating system.

Just for the record, I thought you might like to know.
 

Editor's Choice

Traveling Sitting Still has been selected as an Editor's Choice book by iUniverse. This opens the book up to better marketing, and entry into contests which writers cannot enter on their own. It is a nice distinction that is difficult to earn. I am pleased.