1. All the emails I received commenting about my "It's Not Gonna Be OK" essay from last week
    Thanks. I have never received more thought-provoking email for anything I have written on this website... ever. I was going to print some of the emails... but I don't wanna start a war. The comments tended to be divided into three camps... about an even number of each:
    1. THE SECOND BEST: I got a lot of thanking praise about the piece. A lot of the compliments tended to be "confused" - in other words it came in the form of questions and thoughts proposed - with my essay serving as a kind of launch pad. Quite a few said they were very inspired... especially those who had experienced some kind of loss in their lives. Some said they felt I had "opened a door for them." These were the most thought-provoking emails. Get the Kool-Aid mix 'cause I'm going to start my own cult now.
    2.  THE WORST: I also obviously got quite a few calm, carefully worded,  "mature" dismissals and parental-style "I feel sorry for you"-ish letters from some people that obviously have never had a real event happen in their entire lives, in the truest sense of the word. These emails were not thought provoking. They ranged from the calm but obviously angry, to the naively cheer-y to the point of nothingness types of emails. Did they read the essay? Did they realize they were proving exactly what I wrote about? By the way... I find non-streaking Windex and paper towels are great for cleaning surfaces.
    3. THE BEST: The best emails were from people that didn't really take a side... but that praised me for thinking for myself. And as a true cult leader... I want you all to think like me thinking for myself.
 
 
 
 

2. TechTV's "Wired For Sex"
    TechTV's "Wired For Sex" program starts this Wednesday at 9PM Eastern time... and runs for 13 Wednesdays. TechTV is a digital cable channel so if you have digital cable you've got it. I am featured a lot in one of the episodes (which exactly I don't know - I think the third one though, 'Come Chat with Me: Cybercruising' on May 14th) talking mostly about my "The Cyber Crush/The Cyber Crutch" essay and my "objectum-sexuality" bond with my computer hardware when I was "cyber dating" Bryan (from ChaosInAustin.com) - and I think I am also spread throughout all 13 episodes.
    They interviewed some major players in the whole technology-merging-into-flesh-evolutinary thing... my story actually sounds kind of dinky compared to some of the people and groups they were talking to. At first I felt totally exploited when they were interviewing me "...I am in love with my computer! It's a case objectum-sexualis! I am a walking Cronenburg film!" and felt like a freak show. Then I heard about the other weirdoes they were talking to. One guy they talked to won the Nobel Prize once. He invented computers that can mimic famous painting artist's (like Van Gogh) style "perfectly" and create "new works" by that particular artist when hooked up to a robot arm with paints and a brush and canvas. He also has done the same with dead musicians (which he apparently performed on the Ed Sullivan Show eons ago). He now is some kind of swelling-brain super genius that lives totally cut-off from society and is devoting his life to the quest for human immortality - which he claims beyond a shadow of a doubt he will achieve via nanotechnology. The director was telling me that their experience with this guy was hysterical and mind-blowing. The series is full of stuff like that... I think the whole "Wired For SEX" title is a ratings attempt (although the first episode takes place at some porn convention).
    I felt like the opening credits of "That Girl" because they filmed me in my apartment and a bunch of buildings and streets all over New York City (even inside a crowded, moving subway car - see my #9 'Top Ten' entry for 2/3/03) talking talking talking about my essay and what I learned from my experience with "cyber dating" Bryan for a year.  (DIRECTOR: 'Now walk down St. Mark's Place and talk about sleeping with your computer screen... and then stop and look at that 'We Do Piercings' sign and ponder it as you do.' ME: 'I would never look at a piercing sign.' DIRECTOR: 'Okay then look at sunglasses and gloves... yes... gloves!' ME: 'Okay.' DIRECTOR: 'Action!').  It was a fun experience working with people like that. It's either going to be the funniest thing in the world or the most humiliating thing ever (my life in a nutshell!) For those that like my comb-over... I'll assure you that it is in FULL effect during the interview. I just hope they don't just edit out everything I said except the parts where I was talking about my first sexual experiences as a kid in abandoned sewer pipes on construction sites back in Plano, Texas.
    I am a big fan of World of Wonder (who produced the series) - so I am very excited about this. Oh... and also... the World of Wonder people are coming BACK to my apartment this Wednesday (the 30th) to film me some more. They need MORE footage supposedly. I will have my webcam live during this time (see my front page). YES you heard right... my webcam will be live this Wednesday the 30th as the World of Wonder people are in my apartment filming me. How long has it been since the cam has been live? A zillion years? Anyway... if you're one of those people always writing me complaining that my cam isn't live anymore... well it's gonna be this Wednesday the 30th. So tune into my site this Wednesday as I cram a whole zillion years of ego gratification into a few mere hours... watch my cam filming me while I'm filmed and photographed by TV. It will be a mind-blowing, multi-layered, Warhol-ian example of the self-referential fame/ego electronic media mirror syplexian zzzzzzzz.....
    Isn't it interesting that the entry where I plug myself for my appearance on digital cable TV ends up being so far the longest and most in-depth entry in this week's "Top Ten" (the first one was a mig maserbatory ego stroke as well)? I think being on television will be good for my cult. I will be like Dr. Oblivion from "Videodrome". I can't wait to see it. I need to find someone with a real job that can afford digital cable to mooch off of. I'll bring cherry Kool-Aid.
 
 
 
 

3. Jim
    Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim JIM jim J-I-M j-i-m jIm jiM miJ.
    I guess Jim and I are getting closer and closer and closer. We have been going out for well over a year now. That's a VERY long time for me. We have entered a stage where the occasional conflict is inevitable... and how we act upon it is crucial. I guess this is all a learning experience for me. I feel like I could really fall in love with Jim (yea I know I take the acclimation of those emotional states pretty slowly). We get along so well... but we have this problem where sometimes if we spend more than three whole days together we start to get on each other's nerves a bit. Although these incidents have been few and far between, even better is that we are both getting more skilled at talking it out and working it out afterwards and both walking away from the situation feeling good.
    I love to brag to people about Jim and show him off. I tell people he looks like Matthew McConaughey... and I love introducing him to people. On the deeper side I feel a real bond with him and it kind of freaks me out a little. Sometimes I look at Jim and feel like the luckiest guy in the world... that can be very good but scary. Kind of like sky diving.  The other day when I had his penis in my hand I looked up at his incredibly handsome, wincing profile and thought "I could raise a child with Jim." Could we live together in the country inside an underground cave house made of tires and old aluminum cans and Plexiglas with a wood-burning stove and a kick ass front porch and an even more kick-ass DSL cable line and a garden of vegetables and pet chickens... spending our days making macramé Klein Bottle re-creations out of discarded extension cord wires and M.C. Escher re-creations in needlepoint out of discarded raccoon hair weaved into thrown-away McDonald's styrofoam Big Mac containers - and then riding out bikes into the nearest village to sell them to the local tourists along with our single tit cupcake and and reflexology service along with banjo bluegrass accompaniment twofer one special? That's one of our dreams. Are we just dreaming? Do young couples ever reach their real dreams? Is there something there? Could it work out? I'm beginning to think so more and more.
 
 
 
 

4. Total genius re-enactment of Tiffany's crime story on FOX TV's "America's Most Wanted" (4/26/03 episode)
    While watching my second favorite TV show; America's Most Wanted (America's Funniest Home Videos is my first)... I was lucky enough to catch one of the strangest re-enactments of a crime I've ever seen on that (often) excellent show. It was like Mulholland Drive, The Burning Bed and I Love Lucy all rolled into one. It was a story told by the victim of the crime herself ('Tiffany' - an alias name) and was created to spur a nation-wide hunt for one Rufino Castaneda. The re-enactment was one of the very unusual cases where the show lets the victim themselves play themselves in the re-enactment.
    Apparently the night of November 1st, 2000, at a strip mall bar in Mishawaka, Indiana was a simultaneously unlucky and lucky night for the buxom and beautifully blond "Tiffany". 20-something Tiffany was with friends (male and female) at the pool table area of the large, semi-crowded establishment playing pool and having a good time. When she left her clique to go get another round of beers for her friends... she was verbally harassed by a handful of surly Latin guys near the cigarette machine by the end of the bar. "Hey baby you wanna puff of my blunt?" and "Hey blondie you wanna go for a ride with me and my pals?" ...you know the drill. Tiffany was kind of trapped at the end of the bar as she waited for the bartender to get her beers... so she kind of laughed and acted friendly, you know - tried to go along with the party and tease them right back, show she wasn't afraid of them and diffuse any genuine menace. This is usually a smart move, except in this case... the group's ringleader was one hot-tempered and very sexy Rufino Castaneda... charged with several violent crimes even before this incident. Tiffany grabbed her beers and laughed off their comments as she attempted to get past them and back to her friends. Rufino and his friends... amazingly... were able to surround Tiffany and pull her out an exit door right by the cigarette machine and into a car parked outside in a matter of several seconds... with no one in the bar even noticing. It was one of those bizarre situations where you feel warm and safe one second and the next minute you're fighting for you life and terrified out of your mind. Alfred Hitchcock made films about these situations all the time.
    Excuse me as I continue the amazing re-enactment I witnessed this last Saturday night on TV. I was on the edge of my seat during it and I may get a little carried away while relaying it:
    With Rufino sitting on Tiffany's face in the back seat (quite literally) to muffle her screams for help, him and his pals sped away full blast into the barren town, as they argued amongst themselves about what they had just done and the seriousness of it. Rufino demanded that his brother, who was driving... take them to his ex-girlfriend's house where they could do what they wanted with the terrified Tiffany. Tiffany, in the meantime... was squirming and screaming and fighting for her life while screaming underneath Rufino's gorgeous, round, denim-covered Latin ass. By the time they reached a few blocks from the bar... half the crew (including Rufino's brother) had abandoned the car in disagreement over what had occurred. The car was left with Rufino sitting on a still screaming Tiffany (hearing all the arguments muffled through Rufino's ample butt cheeks) and one friend of Rufino's... whom he demanded take over the driver's seat and take him to his ex's house... knowing she was not at home. The friend obliged and drove Rufino and the screaming, vertically challenged Tiffany there.. then abandoned the car in disgust at Rufino in the alley near the house. Rufino was able to get a struggling Tiffany out of the car, through a series of alleys and yards, and into the back of the house.
    Cut to interview with a very beautiful Tiffany being interviewed and doing the voice over for the re-enactment (cutting back and forth between each). Tiffany says that while she "...did everything she could to remember where Rufino was dragging and pushing her through the alleys... looking at everything around me to remember visual markers... dumpster... locked tricycle... yellow wall... wooden fence... abandoned car... fried chicken bucket... hubcap pile..." These kinds of words kept repeating over and over via Tiffany's urgent, sultry voice-over as footage of the very sexy and dangerous-looking actor playing Rufino yanked the real Tiffany around the backs of houses... all blue lit with tilted camera angles and Tiffany's large white eyeballs scanned back and forth... back and forth "...rake... chicken coop... sprinkler... clothesline... sno cone cart... metal chair..."
    By the time Rufino has dragged her to his ex-girlfriend's place... there are shots (tilted) of an impassioned and yelping Tiffany holding onto the door as Rufino literally has to pull her into the dark home. Tiffany screams and screams as the camera picks up shots of her long, bloody nails scraping the drywall and her voice-over says "...it was literally like the cartoons you see where a cartoon dog is pulling a cartoon cat and it won't let go of the door... and it's claws are leaving scratch marks on the walls." With Tiffany now sideways against the door and screaming for her life... (all camera angles from this point on are tilted... with blue under lighting) Rufino takes one final yank and she goes flying into the kitchen and onto the floor. *SMASH!*
    Rufino locks the door in the dark room and turns around... face covered in sweat and deadly, lustful determination. A screaming and now hysterical Tiffany grabs a frying pan and smacks Rufino across the face *POW!*  with the pan flying out of her hands airborne then to the ground and against the window. Tiffany screams and screams. Rufino hits the ground with a bloody lip in a great camera angle looking up from the floor looking like Ash from Evil Dead II. Tiffany starts to run... but Rufino captures her leg and down she goes. He then grabs the same iron pan and smacks her a few times with it back and forth... *WHAM!* "Is that how you like it?!" he sreams at her... *WHAM!* "Is that how you like to play huh?"  Tiffany screams and screams and screams. Rufino grabs Tiffany's luscious blond locks and drags her through the dark house into the bedroom. He slams her screaming head onto a bare mattress... her curly platinum locks bouncing all over the place. First he tears her blouse and bra right off their seams. Cut back to Tiffany's interview: "I just kept thinking... let this end... let this end..." echoes Tiffany's voice-over as Rufino tears off her panties with his muscular arms... holding the torn lace next to his maniacally, under-lit face as he cackles and guffaws in her direction. Shot of Tiffany's face... tears and fear flash across her eyes. Tiffany's voice over echoes again... "Let this end... let this end..."
    Then Tiffany's voice over takes a change in tone as events in the deadly dual turn... "...as I was on my back... I decided I wasn't gonna let this scum win... so I lifted my legs over my head, wrapped them around his neck... and pushed that son of a gun across the room as hard as I could!" Cut to Tiffany's interview "I decided right then... this... ends... now..." Cue dramatic music as a totally nude and gorgeous Tiffany runs frantically through the hall... cut to Rufino's ruggedly menacing good looking face being thrown all googly-eyed as his head hits the back bedroom wall after flying across the room. Cut to nude Tiffany in the darkened living room looking around frantically... cut to Tiffany's interviewed talking head... growing more animated with each passage of storytelling "I don't know where I got the strength... but I grabbed an entertainment center in the living room... by the corner... and h-e-a-v-e-d it over in front of the door!" Shot of very naked and shapely and blond Tiffany pushing over huge entertainment center over like the Incredible Hulk. "Then I ran to the door... I couldn't... believe... how... many... locks... were... on... the... door..." Cut to bouncing Tiffany facing a giant, Alice In Woderland-ish door with many bolt locks on it. Camera moves in close on her Cindy Sherman-esque face as she struggles with the chains and bolts... and keeps looking back and forth behind her for the White Rabbit... I mean Rufino.
    "I just couldn't believe how many locks were there!" Cut to Rufino... having collected himself from being kicked out of Tiffany's vagina and across the room... he pounds across the blue-lit living room, tossing fallen furniture aside like Godzilla in tossing tanks in Tokyo. He corners the unable-to-escape Tiffany... who terrifyingly turns around to greet him. Rufino puts one arm straight out and grabs her throat. Holding it there. Tiffany claws helplessly at Rufino's strong, masculine hand as he chokes her throat tighter and tighter... her blond head pushed tight against the row of locks on the shut door behind her. "Suddenly I felt everything around me getting darker... and darker..." Tiffany's voice over says as the camera tilts and a computer-generated, black morphing ring shape form surrounds the screen's edges and blur-ily closes in on her face. "I felt like there was a darkness coming from outside of me... into the inside of me... getting closer..." Shot of Tiffany struggling more in vain. Shot of Rufino's face with fierce determination... a bead of sweat lilting over his amble brow. "Closing in... closer... closer... darkness..." Shot of extreme camera angled Tiffany's Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks-ish face... struggling harder... shot of Rufino... Tiffany... Rufino... Tiffany... "I heard bones in my neck cracking... the ring of darkness was coming inside of me... " Spinning camera as ring of darkness computer graphic effect closes in on Tiffany lovely blond face... "Closer... closer..." Spinning... spinning...
    "Suddenly" says Tiffany's voice over "I don't know how it happened... but I was able to get one last ounce of strength and lift my legs up... as I was pinned against the wall..." Shot of Tiffany's shapely legs and a peek-a-boo of her blond crotch hair lifting up and kicking Rufino's manhood like Wonder Woman kicking Bigfoot. Rufino flies once again across the room and lands on the toppled entertainment center.
    Tiffany somehow opens the door and bolts into the yard. Shot of nude and buxom Tiffany's ivory skin set against the night alley artificial light-lit backdrop "I remembered everything I had seen before... but in reverse..." shot of Tiffany's teary face scanning back and forth... back and forth... "Metal chair... sno cone cart... clothesline...  sprinkler... chicken coop... rake... " Tiffany's crouching, white nude body and fluffy, falling locks of platinum hair poke their way through the night-lit grass and concrete... retracing her steps... shaky terrified face scanning back and forth... close up of mascara-ridden eyes... looking left... right... left... right... "Hubcap pile... fried chicken bucket... abandoned car... wooden fence... yellow wall..." Shot of eyes and crouched nude figure tip-toeing along... back and forth... back and forth... "Locked tricycle... dumpster..."
    Shot of Tiffany's panic stricken face as she reaches a dead end - a rust-colored fence. "I reached a dead end." says Tiffany's voice over "Again... I don't know where I got my strength from... but I reached up my feet and kicked the fence right down!" Shot of now bionic Tiffany karate kicking the boards of the fence off the hinges with her bare feet and giggling nude body... looking like another scene from The Bionic Woman or The Benny Hill Show. Shot of Tiffany squeezing her ample, pouting chest past the opening she created... and into the alleyway. Shades of Russ Meyer.
    "I finally reached the alley..." Pulled-back shot of totally nude and barefoot Tiffany... tip-toeing down the sparsely lit and overgrown with green weeds alley... her arms outstretched and battered like Isabella Rossellini in the scene in Laura Dern's front yard in Blue Velvet... her blond head bobbing in sobs and gasps... hobbling down the center along the small stream of water in the alley's center..  crying and and screaming at the top of her lungs in vain... her nude center body pixilated... "I kept screaming and screaming as loud as I could... I couldn't believe no one... not anyone... came to help me!" Shot of Tiffany looking back in the direction of Rufino. Shot of Tiffany looking over at a dumpster area overflowing with trash. She scurries over behind the narrow opening between the dumpster and the wall... her blond, barette-ed hair catching highlights from the overhead light. "I hear Rufino coming behind me so I hid behind the dumpster... not wanting to make a sound."
    Shot of Rufino... now walking down the alley in the spot where Tiffany was just seconds ago... creeping slowly forward and tauntingly calling her name like you would call a cat "T-i-f-f-a-n-y... T-i-f-f-a-n-n-n-y-y-y-y-y-y... " Shot of Tiffany's now schizophrenic face and nude, trembling body crouched down behind the dumpster... biting her knuckles... her eyeballs (close up) looking under the dumpster to Rufino's crawling feet lurking past her... "T-i-f-f-a-n-y... T-i-f-f-a-n-n-n-y-y-y-y-y-y... T-i-f-f-a-n-e-e-e-e-e... "
    Rufino gets well past Tiffany... still searching. She sits down her bare ass on the nail and broken glass-covered pavement. "I knew I had to get where some people or traffic was" Tiffany's voice over says "So I looked around the trash for something... anything... to cover myself with!" Shot of Tiffany's mascara streaked head darting back and forth amongst the black shiny trash bags and rolls of discarded carpet. "I looked for something to cover myself with... I found a cardboard box!"
 ...a cardboard box
...a big one... like for a TV set.
    No bikinis made out of Big Mac containers and discarded extension cords for her! Shots of Tiffany teetering like a little Barbie doll wearing a barrel out onto the street. Remember that trendy feminist photographer in the 1990's who had those black and white photos of women's shapely legs coming out of objects like candy boxes and telephones? She looked like one of those. She tip toes like a doll into traffic... holding the top of the big Magnavox TV-size box with her nimble hands... her fingertips just reaching over the edge... amazingly no one stops for her... "Help! Somebody help me!" she yells. "I kept yelling for help and no one would stop!" Tiffany's voice over echoes.
    Then... still wearing her box... she spies a phone booth. Amazingly, she is able to fit into the booth and shut the door while wearing the box. She dials 911. The transcript of the call plays on the show. The screaming, desperate shrill rush of her emotions coming through the telephone as she explains to the 911 operator that she is "...on the side of the road nude in a phone booth wearing a cardboard box!" and "...I'm alive oh God I'm alive... it all happened ten minutes ago... I'm wearing a box! Please help me!!!"
    The police arrive and comfort Tiffany (they give her a nice blanket to replace the box) and she demands to be taken back to the scene of the crime to prove to herself that what just happened was real. While slowly moving through the back alley in the back of the police car, her mascara-stained eyes spy the fence she kicked down and she looses it "Oh god! There's the fence! The fence I kicked down oh my God! Oh God BAW-HA-HAW-HAW..." (spastic sobbing commences).
    Apparently Rufino split town immediately. If you want to help look for him... click here. While the search is on... Tiffany agreed to a full interview on America's Most Wanted and acted in her own re-enactment and did the voice over for it. She says she wants to let Rufino know that he didn't hurt her and that they will find him (indeed both appear to be true). Her performance was B*R*I*L*L*I*A*N*T... and she's not bad looking at all.
    This re-enactment on America's Most Wanted was one of the most well directed and acted things I've recently seen on broadcast television. It was simultaneously funny and harrowing. It lay somewhere between David Lynch and a Cindy Sherman photograph,
    It was total genius... and a good example of why COPS and America's Most Wanted are two of the greatest shows on TV..
 
 
 
 

5. Pete Drake - inventor of the "talking steel guitar"
    You know that famous part of the Peter Frampton song "Can't Take That Away" on the Frampton Comes Alive II album where his guitar starts "talking" during the solo and sounding like a vocoder and the audience goes crazy? Although famed country musician legend and musical instrument inventor Pete Drake's "talking steel guitar" appeared on many other famous musician's recordings... that was the most world famous exposure it ever received.
    Pete Drake not only invented this instrument... but he recorded many albums during the 1960's (and on) showcasing it. Apparently he invented the multi-dimensional-sounding contraption because of a five year search for a way to make his guitar "talk" - drawing inspiration from a desire to communicate musically with some deaf and mute neighbors of his at the time. Before you say "Deaf mute people can't hear or sing" read on: You play notes on the guitar and it goes through the amplifier. A driver system replaces the speakers and the sound goes through the driver into a plastic tube. You put the tube in the side of your mouth then form the words with your mouth as you play them. You don't actually say a word. The guitar is your vocal chords (even if you can't use them), and your moving mouth is the amplifier.
    The result is a very unearthly sound that sounds oddly alien juxtaposed with country western songs. It's like a cross between a vocoder and a theramin (due to the steel slide). It sounds way more vibrant and rich than even the best vocoder, however can't match a theramin's strength of sound. Drake's covers of "Lay Lady Lay" and "Blue Velvet" are some of the weirdest things ever recorded. Jennifer Sharpe of the most superb and very excellent SharpeWorld.com turned me onto Pete Drake via a write-up about him on her site, and recently sent me a CD with 32 of his songs (which I have been listening to obsessively ever since - at one point Domenic zombie-ly walked out of his room and looked towards my speakers with wide eyes and a blank face and said 'What aaaarrrree you listening to Mr. Allen?'). It's one of the dreamiest and weirdest recordings I have this side of Joe Meek's I Hear a New World album. It's totally great stuff.
    Sharpe has an mp3 of Pete Drake's eerie version of  "I'm Just a Guitar" in her mp3 archives. Visit them by clicking here.
    There is also an mp3 of Drake's "Happy Tracks" over at the great ShowAndTellMusic.com which you can hear by clicking here.
    Here's an interesting interview with Drake.
    Some accounts of this instrument complain that the tube "rattles your teeth"... and Jim (who's obsessed with guitars) told me he once saw one in a used instrument store and was really curious about it... until he went to put the tube in his mouth and saw that it had about four decades of dried mouth goo in it. Ewww.

 (Thanks to Jennifer over at SharpeWorld.com for turning me onto this)
 
 
 
 

6. Neil from the film "42Up"
    I recently caught Michael Apted's documentary "42Up" on late night PBS and was very impressed. Having been going on for some odd 45 years now... the filmmaker has followed the lives of eleven people who live in England from the age of 7, up. He zooms in on them every seven years to see what's going with them (the titles are '7Up', '14Up', etc.) He's now up to the age 42. Some have decided to drop out of the film as it has gone on... but there is still a hearty group left. The film itself harks back to an older style of "reality" documentary... (I was reminded of the 'An American Family' doc from American television in the 70's - which I have seen clips of) and has an energy that is entirely missing in today's "reality" TV shows and movies. Everything is unflinchingly real and often dull... just like real life. It takes guts to show reality even when it's dull. But this is actually what's so interesting in the film... as you follow the lives of all these people... and also look back on them at different 7 year stages... the ordinariness of their lives (albeit with their own unique twists and turns) is just that... REAL. It's so hard to look at it's like you're watching videos of animals getting tortured. With no sensationalism... and these people's lives put on a full, brightly-lit, bald, getting-fatter, dreams never realized or only partially realized stage with everything in a most lurid and dull and real light... you want to look away and can't. It's horrific. It's boringness that's so hard to take it's like torture. And more proof that gossip columnists and entertainment show sensationalists are the true WIMPS. I'm now convinced that the "__Up" films are pretty remarkable... as before I had seen them I thought they sounded kind of gimmicky and dull. The aren't gimmicky - but they are fascinatingly and compeling-ly dull - brilliantly so. It takes a strong stomach to watch them. Especially if you just watched the premier of FOX TV's "Mr. Personality" on the same night.
    But I ust say that the one person in the film that lends itself to sensationalism is Neil. But in a way that is simultaneously harrowing and heart breaking... but then weirdly inspirational. Neil started out as a happy, playful and outgoing child. But as time got older and so did Neil... he did not share his other docu-character's penchant for getting jobs and having kids and dealing with their own rather ordinary crises and twists and turns of interesting but definitely "normal" behavior. The last two entries ('28Up' and '35Up') found Neil not doing too well. Basically roaming the streets and sometimes remote villages in the northernmost part of England... without any "real" life to call his own... Neil was homeless and seemed mentally disturbed. When asked in "35Up" where he thought he would be in the next film installment... seated in front of a gorgeous northern England lake/mountainscape, and while going through various physical twitches he seemed to have acquired over the years... he thought about it and said "Roaming the streets of London begging for food I think."  When asked if he thought he was going insane... he ran his dirty fingers through his lack-of-nutrition thinning scalp and, after a slight shake or two stated with confidence "Yes... oh yes I am. Of that I am absolutely sure. I am sure that I am loosing my mind." It was heartbraking to watch someone whom obviously had a highly intelligent mind go through such hardships. You could tell he was a good person... and very smart... just not of the mindset to make any sort of ordinary life for himself... cast adrift in the world blowing around like a leaf.
    But in "42Up"... amazingly, Neil had turned himself around somehow. Now a politician in London for the People's Independent Democrats (or something like that - can't remember the name), Neil has been elected twice to serve the people, and works in office to help along laws having to do with the mentally ill and homeless and poor. He still is unpaid and lives off the dole (yes it's possible to do this and still run for office) and claims to never have really had a job his whole life. And he still exhibits many of the twitches and eccentricities and odd clothing and non-social behavior ...adoring attributes if you ask me. I found Neil's story to be uniquely touching. Often in my worst moments in life I feel like I'll end up like Neil... and sometimes in my best I feel like I'll end up like Neil... it's a weird mix. An extreme emotion - but I really did identify with his character (as perhaps many have - as he is the most talked about character).
    On top of this I must say I find a bit of attraction to Neil (who is straight - just apacolyptically shy). Even just as a friend... he looks like someone I would love to get to know, more than anyone else in the series. People are always asking me what attracts me to guys... like what kind of guys do I like. I'll tell you: guys like Neil from "42Up".
 
 
 

7. Eric K. Drexler... nanotechnology pioneer and author of "Engines of Creation"
    Here's another one I find very attractive. Damn he's fine. Go over to Foresight.org and look around and you'll know why. It's an institute in Hawaii dedicated to nanotechnology... which will be involved in the next phase of evolution of mankind in some shape or form. Foresight Institutes goal is to ...quote: "...guide emerging technologies to improve the human condition. Foresight focuses its efforts upon nanotechnology, the coming ability to build materials and products with atomic precision, and upon systems that will enhance knowledge exchange and critical discussion, thus improving public and private policy decisions." As you can see by the last sentence - the unbelievable power of what nanotechnology could accomplish will have to involve politics. But before that political nightmare happens... Eric Drexler and people like himself are true forward-thinkers who recognize the fantastic and mind-blowing possibilities of nanotechnology... and propel it's development with unflinching, optimistic enthusiasm. If you are still reading this and are all "Mark... what exactly is nanotechnology?" then I highly recommend Drexler's totally great book "Engines of Creation". Written in 1987... and still a great, simple, laymen's term reference for a highly complex science... it is one of the best places to learn about nanotechnology from the ground up. Many say it's dated (even Eric himself)... but in my opinion it's the best place to start. And the entire book is free, online, in any text form you want...HTML, PDF, ect... just click on the title I linked above. I read the highly informative book over the period of a month... just bookmarking the last page I finished on my browser and picking it up again when I felt like it. The book is hardly a masterpiece... it's basically a textbook that goes off on philosophical tangent from time to time... but trying to write a masterwork was not Drexler's goal. Getting the word out there about this new technology's potential was. Bookmark it and check it out when you feel like it, you'll be glad you did.
 
 
 

8. An unforgettable mid-1990's interview with Nina Simone
    As I'm sure you know... the great Nina Simone died last week at her home in France. She was 70.
    In the American remake of "Le Femme Nikita", called "Point of No Return" (starring Bridget Fonda and Dermot Mulroney)... Bridget's character plays Nina Simone CDs all day in her secret government underground hit-for-hire spy assassin lair and listens to Nina just before donning a wig and disguise and going out and assassinating a world leader at a posh restaurant with a machine gun hidden in a purse. Bridget's tormented character says that she likes Nina Simone's music because "...you can listen to it whether you're happy or sad... it makes sense both ways, even the same song." This is indeed true... and remarkable. I've always felt the same way about most of Sonic Youth's music.
    Speaking of the "point of no return"... I just have to share one of the funniest and most jaw-dropping interviews I've ever heard in my lifetime. It is indeed with the great Nina Simone... and was done for radio some time in the 1990's. It's about twenty minutes long... and has been immortalized for all time on the infamous "Celebrities At Their Worst!" bootleg CD series (volume 2.9 'Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!'). I immediately ran out and bought a copy of this CD once I heard the abrasive and ballsy and a tad kooky (she's obviously getting on in her years) Simone hold the poor interviewer (obviously expecting a formal, ass-kissing, proper entertainment interview with his lifetime idol) in his own private Hell as she screams and yells at unbelievable volumes about racism and the genocide of black Americans by the Jews and forbids any calls from listeners.
    "The switchboards are off the scales Dr. Simone!" the interviewer quiveringly spouts to which Nina screams back "I TOLD you I'm not gonna do that I'm ILL!!!". When you hear the interview you'll know why so many people were speed-dial calling the station. Ho boy is this one a doosy! Her spoken voice at this point in her life sounds like a cross between Louise "Weezy" Jefferson from The Jeffersons and William Burroughs.
    At one point Dr. Nina Simone starts talking... no, screaming about how she doesn't believe in interracial marriages - using Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson as examples; "Quincy Jones married a white woman... then Michael Jackson married a white woman... and had a WHITE BABY!!!"  When the interviewer inquires about Nina's past marriage to a white man - thinking he may have found a hole in her argument, Nina shoots back without missing a beat "My god that was a MISTAKE! He was a CREEP!!!" Dr. Simone's not-so-kind take on rap is also interesting; "I DON'T like rappers!!! They say the same thing I did 50 years ago and they only play drums and TALK!"  Despite the screeching rant - in the end you're actually on Nina's side as you slowly witness her reduce the phony, sanctimonious interviewer into a squirming puddle of goo.
    You can listen to it via an archived show at WFMU.org (not the original station the interview aired on). The totally great Kenneth G. plays it occasionally on his Wednesday night WFMU show "Nothing Special" whenever he feels the need - as he did recently to mark her passing. It is truly one of her most unforgettable works - I'm serious! To listen to his 4/23/03 show (in which the Simone interview is the second thing in the playlist) click here and then click on the RealAudio or mp3 "listen to this show!" link. Turn up your speakers and be prepared to be blown away by wild winds.
 
 
 
 
 

9. More to the obnoxious Starling bird hanging around my fire escape mystery (see #4 in last week's 'Top Ten')
    Okay... here's what Domenic and I have figured out: A) It is definitely more than one Starling (however there seems to be one in particular that sticks around more than others). B) These are baby Starlings - like not baby chicks but maybe pre-teen Starlings (Domenic knows because of the quality of the feathers). C) The nest? It was their nest, their birthplace... and the parents are long gone.
    There were never any other birds. the Starlings are not "stealing" the other bird's nest. It's all good. The Starling birds were born here, literally right under our window... and now are just kind of hanging around in their post-leave the nest state... which has got to be some kind of odd, direction-less limbo once the "big moment" has passed. This makes sense because on closer inspection... we see that the nest is in total abandoned disarray... and it's materials are dwindling daily. The folks? Gone. Sometimes the Starlings take materials from the nest and play with them (like a kid saying good-bye to a security blanket?).
    The original bird I was talking about hangs around the place the most. He's the one that I noticed first and the one that's always around (pictured above in mid-take off after being startled by my flash - isn't my bird poop covered fire escape so lovely and sanitary?). He's not afraid to let me get really kind of close... and, I'm not kidding... I am able to "whistle" back and forth to it - we have whole conversations. I am NOT kidding. He dances for me sometimes too and I kind of dance back. Here are two more pictures I took of them here and here.
    I guess it's not really that the birds can't leave the nest site... I just think it's central to everything they need so they don't really leave. I hope they stick around... I like the one that I can talk to and eat with. He's fun. Somebody please kill me.
 
 
 
 
 

10. This is a real graphic on the side of a Budget Rental truck I saw in Brooklyn
    I took a picture of it because I thought it was funny.
 
 

Mark Allen's Top Ten Things
for April 21st, 2003

1. It's not going to be OK
    If you've had something really, really horrible happen in your life... like if your face got mangled in a fiery car wreck and you now look like The Incredible Melting Man, or you are the one survivor of a big plane crash and had to eat people to survive and are now nuts, or you found out you had terminal cancer and are sitting around in a hospital all sick and bald and shakey... or any other kind of apocalyptically traumatic or like life-altering physical or psychological damage stuff like that - then I've got news for you:

    The saying "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" is a lie.

    The truth is this: "What doesn't kill you is going to fuck you up really bad, for a really, really long time... and you'll be lucky if you ever get it back together again."

    After things that heavy, your life is gonna take an irreversible turn in another direction. It's going to be worse, perhaps much worse, than what you have been used to up to that point. This is actually a serious double bummer because, rather than being stronger (which would help you in dealing with your newly lame-er life) you are actually going to be weaker and more vulnerable, especially in the beginning, and especially in the head. A lot of the time you'll feel as if the natural order of things wanted you to die. But you didn't for some weird reason, and now you're being made to live out your non-life as a ghost in carbon-blob limbo with no cherubs with harps to look after you... and no lucky breaks for you sad ass. You will spend most of your days confused, frustrated, scared and lost.  Most nights will be distorted-wincing-like-orgasm-face-gushing-tears depressing. That's if your face still has muscles or tears after the burn accident. Whatever way you deal with this whole awful, rotten situation (or don't) - that ends up being is what your new life will be.

    The sound of a person saying "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" is the sound of a mind closing in on itself and retreating to it's battle stations. It's a primal response to a stimuli... like a crab retreating into it's shell and eating poop sand, or a chicken getting feed by pushing a button with it's beak at a side-show attraction. A mind says this repetitive phrase to itself and others because it knows it will get a reward: hope. Humans have to repeat to themselves that if something bad does happen... they are going to get some kind of "reward" afterwards (like Heaven). Duh. However, what's interesting is that they not repeat this mantra to themselves... they "teach" it to others. That's how they get the endorphin-rush of hope flowing through their brains... by "helping" others with advice. And if confronted with someone who has, oh... say... been gang-raped in a park and is now pregnant and has AIDS and is catatonic in the corner of a well padded booby hatch dreaming of razor blades - well they've hit on the opportunity for a mental crutch bonanza. If that person is you, get ready for the mind games olympics.

    Your post-trauma state is going to place you in a new mental dimension where phrases like "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" are going to loose all meaning. In fact - those kinds of phrases and the people that spout them are going to annoy the fuck out of you. Which is sad because most non-tradgey-happened-to people are going to bombard you with them.

    Want to see someone on a calm, desperate, kamikaze mission to have the last word in an argument? Tell a non-damaged person that your Parkinson's disease (or surviving intense torture interrogation, or loosing your arms in a tractor accident, or whatever ordeal you suffered) has left you weaker and more frightened than ever. Tell them that as time goes by, you really don't feel like you are stronger at all... and you don't see any real upswing to your future because of  your predicament. Tell them you think that the whole "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" mantra is a myth perpetrated by people who have never experienced truly fucked up shit, for some reason having to do with delusion or fear of the unknown or something... that it's basically a lie... and that since your bad thing, your life really sucks in a big-ass ways that, during moments of true clarity, you are beginning to realize are irreversible.

    Now if your Parkinson's disease allows you to lift your arms up, or you even have arms at all due to the tractor accident, then hold up a shield - because it's gonna be a light-speed diarrhea monsoon of bullshit coming right at you... garnished with parental smiles and knowing nods. You have just razzed one of the most sacred shields against fear in the collective unconscious, and it's blasphemy in it's purest form. You might as well given a pearl necklace to the fucking Pope. The person you have chosen to share this with will disagree with you. To put themselves... opps I mean you in your place... this person is gonna have to do whatever it takes to get those chemicals flowing back through their brains again. They will basically just keep repeating those phrases... they may find some analogies... it will all be words, words... regardless of how you feel or what you think. Actually, the fact that you have lived through what they are blabbing about, and therefore probably are speaking from real experience, will be a less than nonexistent reality to them. They are gonna be all calm and polite and "me so wise" but ruthless - you are a litmus test for them. They are gonna try to break your handicapped, leg-less, eating-through-a-tube, colostomy-bagged-ass down in their desire to see you fail in your attempt to be honest with yourself. That's what cults do.

   If you listen to them too much, their words will start to command the way you think... and instead of making you think realistically... their condescending blabber will make your ordeal a million times worse as you grasp like a trained circus seal (in your weakened state) for something that just isn't there. The last thing you need in your state is dunderheads yapping at you and trying to win you over to their side. My advice: nod and smile at them the way people nod and smile at sock puppets. Deep down, you've made them play peek-a-boo with the specter of death (a specter you are B.F.F. with now because of your predicament)... and they need to block that view. If you stand your ground, and in the end they feel can't prove their advice to themselves, then they will classify you as "nuts" because of your tragedy. It's not that they aren't going to go down without a fight - it's that they aren't gonna go down at all. So if you keep standing your ground, ultimately they may say that you're "sad" or "damaged". And you know what? They're right. You are. There... you've won.

    I mean - in a way you've caused their reality check to bounce. You could have some fun with it. It will be one of the unique joys you will get in your new horrible existence... watching people like them squirm. Hey, it's more fun than wearing a pig nose and dancing in the street for crumbs... which is definitely an option in your state.

    If you're lucky enough to meet other serious tragedies like yourself who have the luck or wherewithal to think clearly and aren't scared to call it like they see it, and you discover a bond with them... then good for you! Aren't you special! Trust me, this is a really positive thing. It's kind of like you used to be white and you wake up one morning and are black... like that guy in the movie "The Watermelon Man"... and you find you like to hang around other blacks now because they "get" you.

    There are other seriously damaged people who will betray this truth and openly lie about it, and actually benefit from it. They are the really smart ones. That wheelchair-bound gimp who's spine was severed by a stray bullet and now has to type out the words "At first I thought my life was over, but I have now realized the true rewards of life... this accident has made me a stronger person. Every day is a gift" with one eyelid on his little speak-and-spell thingy in front of a crying, applauding Oprah audience... he is a total fucking sell out. Plus he's a total fucking genius. His therapy is to repeat the biggest selling lie for the biggest audience and get maybe some fame or money... possibly a book deal... or a really screwed up girlfriend with a nice rack who has such low self esteem that she seeks the approval from sad, troublesome vegetables that can't get in a car without a crane lift because it makes her feel good about herself. People eat that kind of shit up. And damaged people with the balls to pull off that kind of charade and score big may have found a way out.

    So anyway... I mean, if people don't have hope, then what do they have? In a way, non-damaged people NEED you, they need your melted-skin, iron lung-wearing ass to nod obediently when they tell you that everything happens for a reason. Their ability to suppress their daily urge to go to work tomorrow and blow everybody away with a .22 caliber rimfire relies on you. So... again, in a way... you control them. Maybe...

    After you've realized all this, is there a way out? Are things going to get better? Will this end up being "the best thing that ever happened to you" when you look back on your life? Hell no. If you now have to wipe your ass with your mom's hand and process your vowels through a vocoder because you got hit by a car... your odds of getting your life back the way it was are about the same odds as you getting hit by a plane. You're the last link in the chain of a healthy delusion that helps the human race breed - you have no one left down the line to exploit to obtain your own sense of being "centered"... you've reached the end of the line buddy. If you were an animal, your pack would have coldly abandoned your ass to die a long, long, loooong time ago. You're an evolutionary fuck-up. And a fuck-up that the non-damaged like to subconsciously toy with in order for them to feel like they're "keeping it real".

Who can you post-tradgedy self rely on now? Who can you go to for advice and re-assurance?

Drugs? Alcohol? Dead ends.

Religion? Another dead end.

You have only yourself.
 
 
 

NOTE: The information written in the above rant is based on things I learned
from my long experience with testicular cancer eight years ago.
If you don't like some of the things I wrote or
don't think I know what I'm talking about,
then feel free to drop fucking dead.

ALSO: My friend Larry Massett over at HearingVoices.org (he gave me the Barf detergent) looked at this essay and offered the suggestion to add the word "Unfortunately." at the very end... a great idea! I was unsure whether to add it or not though... I really grappled with it... but I don't like stealing other people's ideas... so I just decided to give him credit here in this strange footnote way.

 
 
 
 

2. "Mr. Element"
    During last week's brief cold wave here in the city... I decided not to stop wearing shorts. It was an act of defiance because I hate cold weather.
    I had a friend in Texas that was the same way. Texas is funny in that it does get cold, even freezing and below in the Winter... but it's always a brief visitor... and it isn't a very confident condition in Texas' bossy, territorial, naturally warm climate (the vise-versa is true of New York). My friend, Ray formerly worked at UPS (he's the same one that explained the football game to me in college and helped me home after I had a heterosexual-sports-induced migraine afterwards - see 4/703 'Top Ten' - below). His favorite outfit at all times was sneakers, pants and a T-shirt. He wore it always... even in freezing cold. He refused to give in. He hated coats and stuff like that. During February he could be seen striding across the massive, empty parking lot of UPS towards the building... the little sleeves of his T-shirt flapping in the freezing wind and his glasses getting fogged and covered in cold rain. People would stare out of the glass from massive, glowing yellow window of the heated second floor employee lounge area near the front and say "Here comes Mr. Element." That was his nickname at that time... "Mr. Element".
 
 
 
 

3. Eggs
    Since last week's "Top Ten" was such a cacophonous blender-omlette of nails-and-broken-glass-on-chalkboard sticky dirt chaos... I decided I wanted SIMPLICITY this week. Not MINIMALISM mind you... but SIMPLICITY. Or perhaps I shouldn't have typed "simplicity" like that. How about typing it like this:

s    i    m    p    l    i    c    i    t   y

    Now that's simple! How a bout a picture of an egg? Ohhhhhhhh... so simple! I'm in simple heaven! How about a picture of an egg with Domenic flipping it the bird? Ohhhhh... brilliant! So simple and perfect... I call this photo "Man Trying In Vain To Offend the Simply Un-Offendable Natural Order of The Simple Universal Things (Egg)" or maybe "MAN'S EGO: The Straight Line That Plowed Through Nature and Missed It's Target Anyway (Egg)" ... what a statement! No bells or whistle... just perfect balance... ohhhh... ahhhhh...
 
 
 
 
 
 

4. The bird outside my window defending it's territory or trying to fuck me ...but whatever it is it's doing it to the viscous, bloodthirsty, fighting death
    Right outside my bedroom window, there's this bird who has built a nest inside where one of the decorative bricks has fallen away and made a little "cave". It slowly adds to it day by day... and I think there is another bird, or birds, inside in the nest (it's too deep inside to really get a good look). So this bird... whether it's the male or female I don't know... sits out on my fire escape all day long and makes the most intense and amazing bird calls I've ever heard out of a small black winged animal ever. I mean, if I would record this stuff and release it on some Japanese avant label CD it would probably be reviewed by noise artist critics and be called "brilliant". I mean... who knew little creatures could make such unearthly and ear-shattering and piercing and BIG sounds!? Sometimes it's annoying and other times it's really fascinating. Usually, if I open the window and birds are on the fire escape... they instantly fly away in a panic... but not this bird. Now that it has a nest to guard, it has all the death-defying strength of an Al Queda suicide bomber. It just sits on it's various perches on the fire escape and ruffles it's feathers and does this weird shaky little dance and goes "SQUWEEEEK-EET-EET-EET- Coooo... coooo... cooo EPP!!! EPP!!! EPPP! SCKRAWWWWWAAAACKCKCKCKC!!! beepbeepbeepbeep beep beep beeeeee... eeep! BOO-doo-doo-doo DOO-WAHGH! DOO-WAGH-NE-NE-NE-NE-NOO-NOO-NOO!!! Noop! Noop! Noooooop!" I wonder what the Hell he or she is saying? If I come to the window and look at it... it turns around and fucking faces me and does it's obnoxious thing. I can't really tell if it's warning me to stay away or it wants to fuck me. Once I put part of a corn muffin on the ledge and watched it devour it and then get right back to squawking and dancing at me. I have literally stood at the window and "whistled back" to the bird (it loves when I do this) and it and I have had back and forth "conversations" for as long as up to 20 minutes. Me standing at my window whistling like a retard to a violently dancing bird on my fire escape. Oh yes it's quite spastic and "special" and it's fucking hilarious to my neighbors.
    Here's Domenic's two cents:
    Domenic says: "That bird is very annoying and it wakes me up in the morning and I would like to kill it." Domenic also says: "The bird doing all the noise making is a Starling... but the nest is a Sparrow's nest." He says he has seen Sparrows in the nest but doesn't know whether it's a nest in waiting or if the Sparrow has chicks in there. He thinks the Starling is just harassing the Sparrows and stealing it's nest material.
    Possibly the Starling is stealing bits of the nest for it's own use (I've seen it with bits of the nest it has plucked away in it's beak - toying with it). Is he tormenting the Sparrow's nest (which has recently been created) out of a primal need to harass and steal? Are the Sparrow's squatters? Is it an inter-species relationship?
    This violent horny thief bird is becoming my close friend. I'm gonna see if it wants to go to the movies with me.
    I'll keep you posted on the "Nature of Omaha"-ish situation.
 
 
 

The 1871 Great Chicago Fire - which apparently started around 9 PM Sunday October 8, 1871, when a cow in the O'Leary barn inadvertantly knocked over an oil lamp
(from Harper's Weekly, from sketches by Theodore R. Davis)

5. Spontaneity
    The other day I was riding my bike through the East Village when I decided to "spontaneously" drop by the erotic bakery and visit Jim. Whata delightful day it ended up being! The weather was beautiful and Jim and I spent the afternoon hanging out in the grass in Tompkins Square Park and walking all over the place and having coffee in some loud coffee shop and then realizing the new film "A Mighty Wind" had opened that very day and ran to the Angelika only to find out it was sold out until the next millennium and then strolled through SoHo and came back to my place and made delicious pasta sauce with red wine and then went to a friend of Jim's house. What a fun day ( a day we weren't even planning on seeing each other)!!! The next day we were planning on seeing each other, and did, and ended up not having such a great time together.
    Spontaneity means you open up the door to unknown things and take a chance and the sum of it is that memories inadvertently happen. Inadvertent is a good thing.
 
 

6. Some hackers altered Madonna's official site on Saturday
    According to the "unofficial" Madonna website Madonnarama.com:

Madonna's official site - madonna.com - was hacked into yesterday. An organization known as "phrack don't give a shit about dmca" hacked into the site and removed the normal pages, replacing them with a page titled "This is what the fuck I'm doing". A clear attack on Madonna's anti-piracy stance, the hackers provided links to some high quality MP3s of the new album, radio mixes of the single and some non-authorised remixes. The issue has now been resolved.

    Indeed this info is correct. Leading up to this: for the last few weeks, global extrovert Madonna and her obedient record company, with no help or advice from the RIAA, has been uploading fake songs from her forthcoming album onto popular file-sharing programs. When one downloads the song by it's title... instead of a song there is a sound clip of Madonna saying "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" over and over (a clip destined for sampling immortality). Pretty cheeky and so obvious it's a wonder no one has ever thought of it before... maybe they did, but decided not to because it would be stupid. Yesterday's hack was a mean rebuttal... and a bit pointless since the album is coming out all over the world this Tuesday (April 22nd) and it has (officially and with M & Co.'s approval) been streaming in it's entirety (low-ish quality, with brief spoken interruptions during each song) on MTV.com's "The Leak" and also the Spanish site Los40.com for a week now.
    When you fuck with people, even in a symbolic, shallow, attention-needy way... it can have annoying repercussions because you make yourself a target and you get people's attention and they are gonna want to fuck right back with you... even if it's pointless. If you speak your un-censored mind and treat yourself with un-flinching respect... expect a war (boy have I learned that lesson in life). Sometimes it's funny and it all depends whether or not you feel like hopping aboard the non-stop Drama Train. Or should that be Drama Drain? Trauma Train? Stupid Lane? Brain-less Plane?
 
 
 
 

7. Me being the sole witness of a Kim Gordon performance art piece outside on the sidewalk of her "STAIRCASE (IS IT MY BODY?)" solo art show at Participant, Inc. the day before it opened
    On the total other end of the pop culture spectrum... I learned that Kim Gordon is having a solo art show at a gallery just down the street from me.  So the other day, I was riding my bike down the lane and I decided to stop and see where the gallery was (a brand new space). I stopped in front of the address and looked through the massive gallery glass front and saw what looked like a raw, freshly gutted space full of junk and old dusty crap and no art whatsoever that looked far from "gallery" or even "show" or even "space" and seemed to say "abandoned" and "super closed forever and ever" ...surprising, especially since the opening for the show was the following evening. As I stood there on my bike wondering how in the Hell they were going to get the walls painted and the place even walk-in-able I looked down and saw Kim Gordon herself, having been there the whole time, sitting down on a step next to the gallery front, alone (looking totally great by the way) and fumbling with a cell phone and trying to get it to work and pushing lots of different buttons and opening and closing it as she talked to somebody all "Hello? Huh? Wait I just checked my messages and the phone rang... weird... wait... *beep* ...hello?"
    Was that the show? Was it a wild performance art piece with Kim sitting in front of the closed-shop gallery and talking on a cell phone saying something like "Hello? Is this the gallery people? Where's my show? Hello?"? Brilliant! Could you imagine the opening reception? It turns out she was probably waiting for someone to help her set up her art as... later the very same evening as Jim and I walked by...  we peaked in the windows and the walls had been painted and the show looked almost installed. Instant art!! I went by to see her show once or twice since but Participant, Inc. always seems to be closed (even when it's listed as open). Maybe it's one of those appointment-only things. Maybe that's part of the on-going performance. I gawked in the windows like a stalker though and it looked pretty nutty and interesting, all instillation and graffiti-ish and class-free and dream form.
    Here's a link to some Stefano Giovannini photos of Kim's "Staircase (is it my body?)" exhibit at PARTICIPANT, INC.
    Here's a link to the show's press release.
    Here's a link to some of Kim's art (and a Quicktime movie of some of her paintings and stuff - click 'play portfolio film')
 
 
 
 

8. Look what I found in the trash!
   No more embarrassment for me anymore at the baggage claim area as my black Glad bags with twisties ties fly down the conveyor belt chute at Linate Airport in Milan! I'm now traveling in unspeakable style with this very large, bright turquoise blue with coal black trim, genuine pleather mock alligator skin SUITCASE!!! Gasp!!! Complete with straps and big metal buckles!!! Swoon!!! Found in New York City on the corner of Delancey and Ridge streets (caddy corner to the live chicken mart) at 2:15 AM. Contents: empty. Possibilities: limitless!!!
    Experts say that "fashion" and "style" are two wholeheartedly different things... and I agree!
 
 
 

9. U. S. Bunkers "Life Assurance - Not Life Insurance"
    I want one of these things SO BAD. It would be nothing but dream-like perfect days and camp-out nights and blue skies and sunshine forever as far as I'm concerned. I'm not joking... I flipped out when I saw this. Go here to learn all about them. My dream is to move somewhere in California or Plano, Texas and buy a really nice small patch of land... and just live in this thing. You can have all the A/C, heat, cable, dsl, whatever you want... it's fully adaptable to electricity and all that crap - it even has a toilet (a porta potty-style one, not great... but re-thinkable). Small plumbing with a small drain for a sink would be so easy to install it's not even funny. Shower? Outside with a hose! It's bolted down to the ground via the legs and has a door thing that you walk up in and out of. It's small and has no windows (only drawback) but it does come with an option of surveillance cameras with little monitors inside that "act like electronic windows" - hey, windows where you can adjust the color, tint, contrast and horizontal on your natural surroundings! The size is weird but, in a way... with something like this your lawn becomes your house. I would love to live on a lawn. My crapola apartment in Manhattan isn't this big and I've been in it for seven years! No kitchen? I can count the number of times I've cooked here in my NYC apartment in the last year on my fucking weiner.
    These things are totally inhabitable and very secure... go check out the site. They are made of concrete (the inner walls of the structure), steel and special poly-fibers and plasticisers. The legs are a series of steel shafts imbedded into the concrete basses in the ground. It's made by the U.S. Army so I don't have to worry about any lefty hipsters cramping my style. Bliss. I'm serious... somebody hook me up with an endorsement deal with one of these things in Cali and I am so there. It's like "Goodbye frozen maze of death city" and "Hello perfect world forever sunny UFO lawn!" I'm not kidding... somebody please get me out of here!
 
 
 

10. Jim

Copyright 2003 Mark Allen

BONUS!
some week-old notes to myself for the4/21/03 "Top Ten":

- SIMPLICITY SIMPLICITY SIMPLICITY
- photo of defiant legs walking, "Mr. Element" story
- an egg
- screaming bird nest perseverance
- write and take pictures of me in Jesse Helms giant condom house TAG tape
- people's zombified horror tapping into own fears reaction to Farrah tape
- draw picture of Kim Stairway (is it my body?) exhibit, draw pic of bike me seeing her sitting in street w/ shaky cell phone problems
- plastic army dwellings thing my new home forever in Cali
- Pete Drake and Jennifer mailed to CD lathe saw is nice compliment
- change your identity banned FBI alien head spam email order now is interesting marketing ploy
- nice spontaneity w/ Jim day (w/ pic of Great Chicago Fire)
- MIT wearable comp guys thing finally
- Vermonster
- lyrics to The New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis"

 
 
 
 

Mark Allen's Top Ten Things
for April 14th, 2003*
* note: this was one of the most confusing, harebrained and baffling "Top Ten" entries I ever wrote. I started the entry by placing the photos first, then allowing people to write in what they thought the entry would be on based on the photos. The emails poured in... then I changed my mind or got uninspired about some of the entries. Then I completed 5 of them. Then some of the photos were already included in other entries. Then I changed my mind. Now it is an abandoned, windy ghost town and a dusty, nostalgic relic - channeling the halcyon daze of a once-wonderful, week-long eon that people probably scan and ponder why no lucky promised-by-me prizes were handed out (to people who guessed 'correctly'). It was fun. Thanks to everyone who took a "stab" at guessing. There are some interesting things I tried to write about buried amongst the cacophony. What?
All guesses are below each entry in blue, the final entry is in black... #4 and #3 and #8 and #7 and #6 are the only ones completed.

1. What is it?

Here were what people guessed the entry would be about based soley on the picture (the guess that came the closest was #3):

1. "I wish you people would keep your alternative lifestyles to yourselves. You people make me sick."

2. You witnessed the first male birth?

3. Your weekly visit to your therapist.

4. Twister for crystal meth junkies. - Chad

...and this monolithic guess by insufferable wit Dan-o:
5. Attempting his latest interview with a disabled person, Mark catches the biggest of them all: a schizophrenic homicidal manically depressed transgender double amputated lactose intolerant dyslexic hermaphrodite (with herpes.)  For the sake of this brevity and clarity in this email, we'll give him the pseudonym "Lefty".    Pressed for time as usual, Mark forgets that he has once again triple-booked and attempts to take the interview along with him while he goes to another massage client, goes for a quick jog to Brooklyn, listens to more mind-numbing music on his Discman, meets with Jim enroute to a small private party they had already R.S.V.P.'d, meets with Gregory just to touch base as friends.  Fortunately and not surprisingly, the disabled interviewee (and all his personalities) agree(s) to accommodate Mark's slap-dash arrangements, slips on his straight-jacket, and is "ready to roll."

All went well for the first three steps of the journey until Lefty took a header down the first eight flights of stairs in Mark's building.  Ooopsie!  Assisting his interviewee, Mark helps Lefty regain consciousness and they continue on Mark's way now having lost precious time.   Four hours into the multi-tasking rushed frenzy, Mark gets a cellular call from Jim reminding him to "pick-up a little something" for their hosts.  Damn, another side-tracking!  Something will just have to be cut out of the schedule.  I suppose it'll have to be Gregory.  Oh well, he's used to it.

Fleeting at the last precious seconds, Mark was completely unable to obtain anything for their hosts when he meets Jim at the door of the apartment for the gathering.  Not to be upset by small improprieties, Jim is more startled to see the straight-jacketed loony that seems to have followed Mark to their rondez-vous.  Not that Mark hasn't been stalked by loonies before, it's just that this is the first one to dress the part, making him an unmistakable loony, as if a label had been pasted on him reading "100% Pure Loon".  After Mark explains the situation, Jim sighs that oh-too-familiar sigh and resigns to the hope that maybe they can pass off Lefty as a gift to the hosts, possibly a form of entertainment?

And so it was.  Lefty became a sheer hit at the party, quickly gaining popularity among the guests that were want to have him at their next soiree.  Lefty kept them laughin' with anecdotes of his truly tragic life, card tricks, and of course the team Twister tournament (see caption photo for entry #1.)

By the end of the evening Mark was both proud and just a tiny bit envious.  "Why can't I be lucky like that?" Mark asked himself.  Count your blessings, we are all favored in our own unique and special ways. - Dan-o

6. A review of "Puck from The Real World's Guide About How To Get People To Pay Attention To You At Parties" Now in paperback!!! - Marc

7. In a move perhaps ironic "Mike the Perv" was placed into a straightjack- it yet again, presumably to protect him from being mobbed by victimized bystanders. When given a chance to comment he only had this to say. " I promise to stop force-masturbating everyone I see. I'll keep my hands to myself, really I will." - Brock

8. This is what happens to all your "massage clients". After you collect money from the "client", the "client" winds up in your basement, in a straight jacket while you & your friends sit around, drinking beer they bought with the money you took from the "client". - Coye

9. Mark returns to Wonder Bar to pick up HX and Next! LOL! - Neal

10. You attended a preview on the highly-anticipated avant-garde one man show, "SPERM:  Death In The Vaginal Canal", starring the underappreciated has-been Ryan O'Neal.  You snapped this pic at the dramatic climax (so to speak) of Ryan's excruciating death scene.  If only "Death In Venice" had been so provocative. - Arg

11. Judging from the pompadour, Reverend Billy has taken up escape artistry?? -Bill
 
 

2. What is it?

Here were what people guessed the entry would be about based soley on the picture (the guess that came the closest was #5):

1. Uh, Farrah Fawcett appearing as a contestant on Wheel of Fortune? - Carla

2. She needs some more New You Shop on those eyes.

3. When curling iron's go wrong! - Chad

4. Farrah Fawcett has been chosen as the new chairperson for the National Cross-Eye Foundation. Afflicted members at the announcement dinner she attended were surprised to witness that Farrah has a twin sister. - Brock

5a. Rare misprint of Farrah on her shampoo bottle that Jim found in the garbage for you.
or...
5b. Rare headshot of Farrah that was actually submitted by her soon-to-be ex-agent for the casting call of Logan's Run.
or, better yet...
5c. Jim found this in the garbage for you... a rare misprint of Farrah on her shampoo bottle that her was actually submitted by her soon-to-be ex-agent for the casting call of Logan's Run. - Coye

6. Farrah's embarrassing appearance on Late Night With David Letterman in late nineties? What's that thing in central park David? An Embankement? Is that a real window David? - Christopher

7. You're referring to the following comment FF made on Letterman a few years ago when she seemed especially wigged out over (or on) something:
When Dave asked her about getting older, Farrah's answer was: "You know Central Park? Oh, of course you do. Well, I went and climbed up a...it's not a wall...but it's like a wall...and some of them are big and some of them are little...oh. oh. oh. ah. ah. OH! embank...I...EMBANKMENT! It's called an embankment." - Matt

8. "Farrah Fawcett-ex-Majors, the newly appointed Ambassadoress to the Golan Heights in her Rose Garden appearance with her appointor, George "Don't Make Me Invade Syria Too" Bush.  Meanwhile, Ms. Faucet had mistakenly understood she was invited to the White House to display her Bush." - Arg

9. "I gotta see that plastic surgeon" - Mario
 

3. Homemade raw ginger water sipped all day = inner tube peace
    Ever feel hung over? Peckish? Nervous? Murderous? Regretful? Discombobulated? At the party Jim and I were at Saturday (see #4 below) the cute redheaded girl who lived with her boyfriend in the great house in Chapel Hill that we (I at least) salivated over told us about something she does at the Japanese restaurant she works at when she's feeling kind of blah. She takes a giant hunk of raw ginger (which you can buy in most grocery stores for like 10 cents for a whole bloby branch of) and slices it up into tiny pieces really fast with a knife or grates it (be sure to wash it first like you would a potato)... then she steeps that pile in a cup of boiling water for a few minutes or at least until it's turned into a strong brew... then she pours that (chunks and all - don't worry you can eat it) into one of those giant water pitcher jugs you see at restaurants and fills the rest with ice water. Then she just sips from that giant pitcher all day long. Within an hour she's feeling fan-friggin'tastic (as Peggy Hill would say). The actual thing that ginger does to your body is that it speeds up the re-generation of the healthy, normal lining inside all the tubes inside your digestive system... making them strong and hearty on the inside as a trampoline... and ready to take on gravel or nails (if you felt like eating that - which you probably could after this). I tried this the next day... the ginger I used for it cost me 35 cents (see my little picture of my big cup full of ginger chunks in the transcendental checkerboard above)... and afterwards I felt ravenously hungry and robust and able to jog 100 miles and horny as hell... what could you possibly want in life?

Here were what people guessed the entry would be about based soley on the picture (the guess that came the closest was #3):

1. Transcendental Checkers?

2. Whatever it is it will probably be the dullest entry this week.

3. You're going to have a photo exhibit at the East Iowa Community College just outside Cedar Rapids. - Rich

 4. Left over images you found on your digital camera from the "Jar" experiment. - Coye

 

4. Jim took me to a party in Brooklyn Saturday night and the whole fun evening reminded me of college...
    Jim took me to a big party in the basement of a block-wide loft space building in Brooklyn on Saturday night. We had a good time. The whole night really reminded me of college:
    We watched a bunch of free-form musicians perform (just like college)...
    We watched an escape artist break out of a straightjacket(just like college - except replace the words 'escape artist' with 'ourselves' and replace the word 'break out of' with 'break into' and replace 'straightjacket' with 'cadaver lab in the science building' plus add the words 'stoned out of our minds' or perhaps replace the words 'escape artist' with 'me' and 'straightjacket' with 'deadline')...
    We drank tons and tons of beer out of a keg (just like college)...
    We got lost in the basement area of the building and wandered around like Scooby and Daphne looking for fake spooks, and set up my camera in the darkness to take out picture (above - don't I look sad? Just like college? Sometimes?)
    ...and got lost in air conditioning vents (just like college - except replace the words 'got lost' with 'lived in')...
    We almost drank bottles of pee... (just like college!)
    We were amazed at the amount of gushing pee that poured out of German girls with punk hair, leather pants and knit scarves who yank their pants down and squat next to giant industrial heaters (sorry no picture - oh and that is so college - no word replacement needed)...
    We talked to people about "getting out of town" (just like college)...
    We smoked pot (just like college - except add the words 'other people's' before 'pot')...
    We wanted to get our portrait done by one of those wacky charicature artists who was there - like the ones you see at Great Adventure or Six Flags but "couldn't afford it" (just like college - except replace 'our picture done' with 'dignity back' and keep the rest the same)...
    We watched a girl hold a bottle of beer in her mouth and make string art (just like college - except our conceptual philosophies in performance class would critique it afterwards)...
    I met 1,803,143 of Jim's music friends (just like college - wait, huh?)...
    We watched the band Marmalade play (just like college - except in college the band names would have been The Whirligigs or Monster Island Plus or Mystic Jugs)...
    We walked pregnant friends to cabs in the middle of the night because it was the right thing to do (hmmm... replace the word 'friend' with 'ourselves' and 'cab' with 'dealer's house' and it's got college written all over it!)...
    We listened with enraptured, salivating delight as people talked about living in huge one bedroom homes in Chapel Hill for only $500 a month (just like college - except replace the word 'one bedroom house' with 'East Village shithole' and "Chapel Hill' with 'New York City')...
    We got into debates about certain paintings in the space and different musicians' performances from the night (like college - except replace the word 'debate' with 'fist fights')...
    We watched in strange awe as people performed odd keroke-style, Udo Kier-esque ballads while hiding behind scrims (like college except replace 'people' with 'Udo Kier' and 'Udo Kier-esque' with 'Udo Kier' - in Berlin the summer we backpacked through Europe)...
    We suddenly looked the other way and suddenly saw someone we had to talk to on the other side of the room when the keg donation bag was passed around even though we had four beers each (just like college - except replace the words 'looked the other way and suddenly saw someone we had to talk to on the other side of the room' with 'plunged our fists into excitedly' and replace the words 'keg donation bag' with 'pillow case half full of pills someone just got back from Mexico with' and replace the words 'four beers' with 'four tabs').
    It was a blast and also a blast from the past... in the future!!!
    It was a fun night - and I got to meet lots of Jim's Brooklyn music friends who were all very cool. Afterwards Jim and I deposited our last subway tokens ever (a little sad - it's a tactile method of subway currency we both prefer over the Metrocard - now gone after 52 years as of April 12th, 2003) and got lost on the 3AM subways... a little drunk... making out every ten minutes... all the way home...

Here were what people guessed the entry would be about based soley on the picture (the guess that came the closest was #5, with #6 a close second):

1. You and Jim are being held as POWs in Bagdhad and are forced to drink each other's pee!

2. I think I see the faint image of a ghost shape standing to Jim's left!

3. The Blair Witch Project 3

4. You and Jim finally got yer beefy thighs crammed into your camoflage jammies and yer trying to not show off yer camel toe! - Chad

Dan-o strikes again:
5. Finding both the time and expenses to be the call for necessity, Jim and Mark finally concede to the idea of living together and have found in idyllic little "fixer-upper" on the upper East Side near Sutton Place.
     Advertised as a "Charming studio, exposed brick walls, built in cabinetry, central heat..." they were only taken back for a minute to find that the "exposed brick walls" were the only thing that the wrecking ball hadn't missed, and the rest of the apartment was exposed to the outdoor elements by gaping holes where it hadn't.  "Central heat" meant that the steam heat radiator was located in the center of the room.  But like all loving couples, the two were much too much in bliss to see the loft's shortcomings and quickly snatched up the lease.  The realtor was only too happy to sign them in after finally finding a viable couple to win her favor over the one and only other applicant with the wild-eyed frenzy look on his face, who seemed always to perspire and salivate constantly, and who she had heard mumble once "...and it's sooo wonderfully close to the United Nations!"  The last comment hadn't alarmed her so much at the moment, but it did connect in her mind later when he had enquired about the buildings terms of agreement on fire arms and explosives.
    Here, (picture #4) Jim and Mark pose for a camera option during their first house warming. - Dan-o

6. That picture of me sittin on the metal thing makes me look like a progeria patient and you're my caregiver. - Jim

7. You & Jim in the bnasement before your "massage client" arrives. Also, an excuse to show off what a cute couple you two are and how sexy you look in a pair of camouflage pants. - Coye

 

5. What is it?

Here were what people guessed the entry would be about based soley on the picture (the guess that came the closest was #1,000,000):

1a. You and Jim got lost in an air shaft vent?
1b. You and Jim ate magic mushrooms and grew really big?
1c. You and Jim visited Willy Wonka's factory and walked down that optical illusion hallway thing-y?

2. You have been decapitated or you and Jim have joined the same heads onto one body? I haven't seen Jims body -but I hope it's your body you used-grrr...

3. You and Jim are trying to gain public sympathy by falling down a well.

4. Your heads have been cut off and tossed in a dumpster and now you and Jim are walking headless around the lower east side bumping into things because you can't see anything. If these are your heads in a dumpster then who took the photo?

5. Back to the new couple's apartment: here (picture #5) Jim and Mark find out the awful truth about the square hole in the ceiling that they had mistakenly thought was a skylight is, in actuality, the waste disposal system for the apartment above them.
    Although the exposed plumbing through-out the building was at first thought "quaint", it proved to be more of a problem when they found out it was completely unserviceable.  Their one and only working faucet did manage to render some fluid that could be considered "water" if one includes the definition to accept a brown and rust colored, dead insect contaminated chowder to be called "water".  Over-night guests were warned not to drink it, and to be sure to wear shoes in the shower.  As theirs was not an apartment with a working toilet, they had never suspected the problems of their upstairs neighbor.  Nay, they hadn't even suspected they had a neighbor above them as they were under the impression that theirs was the top floor.  Their nativity was short lived.
    Here (picture #5) upon surprise house warming gift delivery from the upstairs neighbor,  the boys find that "Santa Fe style bathroom décor" refers not to city, but to the railroad line. - Dan-o

6. You and Jim accidentally drove your Jeep into what you thought was a ravine, but turned out to be a rift in the space/time continuum which hurled you into an alternate universe where you became trapped in poster advertisments for the movie "Willard"(1971 version), and were consequently hunted down by an army of giant and vicious rats that live in the air conditioner vents, and who are loyal only to their nerdy master. The fifth entry is going to be about your daring escape. - Justin

7. The time I (Mark) found the fabled thru-land route to China, and lost (the left one) of my favorite Clogs when I stumbled over the partially decomposed (but oddly still recognizable body of Al Capone and fell into a dark crevice, just like college, except replace crevice with acid induced fugue that when finally coming out of I knew with utter certainty that I was God's gift to everybody and that I had a responsibility to make sure that gift comes with a price tag, or that it will never be marked down or exchanged with a different item of equal or lesser value, or that as a gift one must realize that even though it's the thought that counts it's the gift that pays for itself whenever possible, if not in every case, but hey this is college, not the real world and what am I gonna use my degree for anyway, and if I have a choice I want to be thought of as a giver, not a taker, but that's beside the point although I've forgotten what the point is at this point, and only want to make sure Jim and I can make it back to the surface so we can tell everybody about this awesome find that seems oddly useless when you think about it because who wants to walk to China anyway considering they are Godless communist and are probably responsible for creating SARS even though it seems silly that if you can create a deadly strain of something, wouldn't you want it to be something more than just a wimpy little cold variation that only kills very old people and those who were considered ugly by their friends and acquaintances anyway, but that also is beside the point since I was supposed to be telling you about this hole we found that obviously, when I think about it, isn't all that impressive, so together we walk (I limp) to the opening and make it back to my apartment where we will spend the rest of the day playing bored games and making prank phone calls to our friends, because even though those college days may be over, who says we have to grow up? - Brock

8. The view from the changing room (a.k.a. booth-with-trap-door-that-opens-to-chute-which-leads-to basement where your "massage client" is asked to strip down. - Coye

9. "Mark & Jim discover begrudgingly that Gregory's sugar walls do indeed lead to China" -Arg
 
 
 

6. "What do they want for their buck fifty? Eternal life?" *
    This photo has no real entry, and has absolutely nothing to do with Dumpling House, which I decided to make this entry about... I just liked the way this stuff in my apartment looked against my white wall - so I took a photo of it and I was right, it looks great against a white HTML background!
      But I WILL tell you an update to my Dumpling House (in lower Manhattan at 118A Eldridge St., between Broome and Grand) entry from #9 in the 3/31/03 "Top Ten". A lot of my friends have been going there since I blabbed about it, and I have been eating perhaps a bit too much of their fine products. But here's the sometimes problem: It often gets crowded in the cramped space... and the friendly staff gets flustered sometimes. Still friendly... but flustered. It seems that if you don't make your presence known... even after they have taken your order... sometimes more than once even... they might forget your order and give it to someone else (everyone basically orders the same thing).
    The first time Domenic went there, he came back later and said "I was at Dumpling House for twenty minutes and they ignored me! I eventually left!" He's not the first to report this. It's even (almost) happened to me.
    The next day, Domenic figured out a solution to the problem so simple that no one had thought of it. He walked in the front door with a beaming smile and said "I discovered the solution to getting service with a smile at Dumpling House Mr. Allen!"
    "Oh really? What? "I asked.
    "I waved money." he stated bluntly.

*line stolen from the film "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3"

Here were what people guessed the entry would be about based soley on the picture (the guess that came the closest was none... how could you possibly?):

1. Marcel Marceau has a new speaker balancing act?

2. Are you writing a story about your one lonely speaker? - Domenic

3. Er, how Michaelangelo got his groove back. Fuck that's corny. - Carla

4. The new Speaker of the House, David, says he will work to bring a sense of shock and awe to the position. Perceived by some as being stoned all the time, David maintains that even though he may be the head of a separated and possibly dysfunctional body, he will work to facilitate sweeping changes such as America has never seen. Many feel his hard-headed approach is a welcome change from the infighting and self serving ways of the past. Others believe he will be just another "talking head" with no real power to effect a body of consensus on issues such as tax relief and homeland security. Regardless, David brings to his new position 300 watts of power to use as he will. - Brock

5. The cover photo for latest interview in Blueboy magazine. - Coye
 
 
 

7. The sad fate of our universe - WHAT DEPRESSED AND SUICIDAL COSMOLOGISTS NOW KNOW!!!
    On a recent late night Sunday, April 13th episode of "Nova" here in NY on PBS channel 13 appropriately titled "Runaway Universe"... I learned some rather distressing, layman's terms facts about the fate of the universe around us. The episode was all about the latest that scientists and cosmologists know about the nature of our entire reality... more clues about the "big bang", what makes our universe behave the way it does, and... most importantly... where it is all headed.
    Here's the latest:
    Now, if you were to make a pie chart of the matter that form up our universe... the percentages would go as follows:
    - 5% would be made up of "_________matter" (I forget the real name), which is what the Earth, other planets, stars, rocks, etc. are made up of.
    - Roughly another 25% would be made up of "dark matter" - an invisible and only recently understood (even then, barely understood) matter that seems to "hold everything together" kind of like Jell-O. This discovery of "dark matter" is what has lead to other recent theories like "string theory" or other "unifying theories" that aim to tie everything in our known reality into an understandable formula. Einstein apparently spent a lot of time prophesizing about something such as "dark matter"... but later discounted his own theories of such a kind of "glue" - calling his own ideas a "mistake". Many scientists today wish he were still alive - so he could know that one of the few theories he later changed his mind on turned out to be true (based on discoveries using today's modern technology which Einstein didn't have). Even so... "dark matter" is still very mysterious and controversial... and it's existence is still debatable amongst more conservative cosmologists... but as time goes on more and more scientists are agreeing that it exists in some form. Still, they know almost nothing about it. AND IT MAKES UP ABOUT 25% OF EVERYTHING!!!
    - Okay now for the even worse news: the remaining roughly 70% of the universe is now believed to be made up of an even more un-understandable and almost incomprehensible thing called "dark energy". "Dark energy" is very cutting edge amongst cosmologists... but, much like "dark matter" is being more and more accepted into the scientific community as the main ingredient in everything we know. And they know even less about it.
    Pretty bitter pie huh? Yum...
    One of the things that lead to discovering this very new "dark energy" that no one knows anything about was the now generally accepted fact that our universe is not, I repeat NOT expanding necessarily because of momentum left over from the "big bang". But is generally expanding because of the very nature of "nothing" in our universe... and that is to EXPAND. That's right... NOTHING EXPANDS. Those two words now go together like ketchup and freedom fries. You see... all that vast area in the universe between stars and galaxies and super novas and black holes... you know all the empty space that looks black because of the distance? Well it contains way, way-beyond-microscopic ions... and any patch of empty space, whether it has atmosphere or not (even the space between your eyes and the computer screen in front of you) contains ions that are in a constant state of appearing and disappearing and re-appearing all over the space faster than even the speed of anything we know like light (ions doing this are the reason for that failed 'Super Collider' giant ring machine thing in Texas and are partial evidence for some scientists trying to prove alternate dimensions and time travel - but that's too much to discuss here). All these infinite numbers of ions doing this in every square micrometer of space in the universe do something... that's right... they cause in infintisimal amount of friction. What does this nothingness friction do? That's correct... push everything outwards from itself... expand!
    So... this means that some cosmologists' older theories that the universe as we know it, once it stopped it's momentum from the big bang, would begin to "reverse" and go backwards and eventually billions and billions of years later "implode" into a state that it existed in before the big bang (a tiny dot) and wipe out any evidence of anything that existed in it ever - is NOT the case. Since outward momentum seems to be the nature of "dark matter" and "dark energy" (which, remember no one knows anything about)... that means that, you guessed it... the universe is just going to keep expanding forever and ever forever and ever forever and ever forever and ever... you get the idea. Scientists have already accepted the fact that the empty space surrounding our known universe is infinite... that's old news. But NOW depressed and Prozac-seeking cosmologists everywhere are grappling with the frown-inducing discovery that our universe will just keep going and going outwards and outwards and getting thinner and thinner and thinner and everything growing farther and farther apart forever and ever. In other words, if mankind were to have inhabited the Earth 10,000,000,000,000 years from now instead of now - and invented telescopes and satellites and stuff... they would look out into the universe and see ONLY the Milky Way galaxy that we exist in... and none of the other zillions of things we know are out there because we have invented things like the Hubble telescope to see and photograph them. Because by that time everything would have expanded out so far away from each other that everything would be too far to see... like 100 million times the distance it is now. It would be all... "Is that it? Just this one little galaxy... well that's the boring universe as we know it! Oh well..." How sad is that? AND IT JUST KEEPS GOING!!! That means the ultimate answer to the universe is this: isolation and loneliness. Yep.
    One cosmologist on the "Runaway Universe" Nova show literaly used the words "eerie, cold and very creepy" to describe this new realization about our reality.
    Scientists everywhere are hanging themselves because they now realize it would be better to at least think that one day the universe may reverse on itself and implode and stop existing... but now the fact that it's just going to keep going outwards forever with everything getting farther and farther apart from each other until everything is more isolated and lonelier than any lonely kid who was every alone on the playground at grade school because he liked science instead of football. Pass me a gun...
    You know all those morality plays and "Twilight Zone" episodes where someone is granted eternal life? And at first they are all happy and content and then it shows them 1,000,000 years later still alive but driven to madness and insanity and trying everything they can to die because the thought of lasting forever is worse than any Hell they can possibly imagine? The state of the cosmologist and scientific community right now in a nutshell.
    Go have some fucking pie.

Here were what people guessed the entry would be about based soley on the picture (the guess that came the closest: all of them... think about it):

1. You started painting your apartment again.

2. Mark, are you inhaling paint fumes again?

3. You watched more Dallas Cowboys games with straight people and are having another LSD trip migraine headache.

4a. The book pictured was so bad you vomited and put it in the Jar.
4b. The Jar has returned to claim you.

5. You got a secret sex change and dyed your hair and a huge eyeball with glowing green rays coming out of it is following you around all the time and bugging you. - Eric

6. Cindy Wilson of The B-52's gets severe brainwaves from the reincarnation of her late brother Ricky, which sends her to the real Planet Claire hidden in the reverse-image nebula to her left.  As she's flying through, she sees the nebula as it really is just like Keir Dullea did in "2001: A Space Odyssey". - Matt

7. You held one of those crime scene investigation ultraviolet lights to your bedroom ceiling, just before a huge discorporate eyeball blinked open amongst the mess and melted your soul. - Justin</