August 3, 2003

Sick. Tired. Sick and tired. That disgusting mix of Sartre infused existentialism with good old-fashioned befuddled amazement. Nausea. It’s everywhere I look. I feel it like a hot clam and salami sandwich moving in my gut. What excites? What stimulates? What tantalizes the god given senses of man? When did the rational pseudo-beast that we call society think it was appropriate to spill its putrid entrails on the sidewalk of life?

I almost think the current trend of unemployment in the United States will bring about something amazing. People will no longer be driven into the ground with the idea that what they are here to do is eat, sleep, work and fuck. This free time can only let people realize that the serfdom they’ve indentured themselves to is the most thinly veneered sham they have ever encountered. It’s about time we realize we are more than vessels for the gain of a few and recognize that the very people who drive their blood soaked luxury over the soft and complacent masses would be nothing without those who anoint them on the alter of capitalist greed.

*Sigh*

I thought by now we would all be connected. Every soul from Venezuela to Vietnam would have a voice on the stage of human evolution. Yet nobody knows the name of the peson passing them on the street or the underpaid service worker dishing out their daily latte. I hoped we would all writhe in glory as we participated in the communal soup of exchanged ideas and global understanding of hyper-personal connection. We could get all of the sick worries off of our minds and have a sympathetic ear five thousand miles away sucking in a slightly skewed version of the same trials and tribulations we were experiencing. We could transcend beyond daily worries and debate substantial reasons for being. I hoped for a time that espoused being beyond the dictated norms of society or the fervently enforced doctrines of religion.

Yet, people keep spinning cyclically in hopes of demonizing something new. “It’s the government!” they say. “It’s the Corporations!” they say. “It’s the church!” they say. No. Ask yourself this: “Who makes up all of these institutions?” Your neighbor? Your daughter? Your mother? Yourself? Change starts from within. If you keep telling yourself that this is the way it has been and that this is the way it will always be, then you’ve already submitted to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s why I say whenever you write or say something; make sure it’s dangerous. Dangerous like Marxism, dangerous like a spinning Disney mobile covered in razor blades over a newborn’s slumbering head. If what you’re thinking and what you’re doing doesn’t shatter the normal missionary sex style view of the way things should be; then go back to square one and try a little harder. New ideas should pound their forehead into the soft sternum of a complacent and stuck society. If what you’re saying falls in line with what others have said before you; then you’ve fallen into a 45-rpm trap of banality.

Wake the fuck UP!

Please excuse the profanity.

This is a silly litle short story I came up with, after some acid and 1942.

Once again, I have awoken strapped into the cockpit of this plane. My eyes pried open, my hands glued to this control pad. I remember nothing before this. I live only for destruction. They just want to dance with us I am the winged angel over the pacific, and these japanese zeros on the horizon are sinners to be cleansed. What exactly are they guilty of? I can't remember anymore. It makes my head hurt, and there are more important things to worry about.
We engage, and the first group of fighters breaks left. I bank, and lead appropriately with my guns. I mash the red button marked B. I can almost hear their nonsensical cries of rage as my cannons work their way across their formation. One, then the next, then another plane explodes in a hail of lead and gas and flames and metal. I hear whistling coming from somewhere.
No time for hallucinations, there's another squadron coming right at me. This time, they fan off to either side of me, and execute evasive maneuvers, firing the whole time. yellow and black shot pulses past me. I wonder what we must look like to the islanders below. What islands are these, anyhow? I've never seen any maps of this area.shut up. no time for this. Destroy them!
I return to my senses in time to see three pulsating balls heading towards me. Not enough time to dodge them. I slide my thumb over to the button marked A, and prepare for evasive maneuvers. The G forces almost rip the controller out of my hand, but my intensive training has once again paid off. I loop straight up and head back down without a nick on my fighter. Composure returned, I immediately return fire. Three of theirs go down, and the rest fly past.
They're not your enemies. Look, they're dancing. Like butterfliesno. they're angry bees. they want to sting you! DESTROY THEM!!! More whistles.
And then there is only droning. I can hear it through the cockpit glass even before the air fortress drops out of the cloud cover. Armored like an armadillo, bristling with guns like a angry porcupine. It saunters in front of me, shrugging off my gunfire like a bear shrugs off mosquitoes and spitting cannonballs and heavy artillery rounds like an incontinent man at a chili cookoff.
I zig when I should have zagged, and find myself in the line of fire. I know it's too late, but I reach the A button. There is a cannonball meters away from the nose of the plane. I can see the imperfections in the surface, warping my reflection. My expression is surprisingly serene, for somebody facing imminent death and then it's over, without a sound from me. My plane does all of the vocalising for me. glass shatters, my involuntary muscle spasms fire off a few rounds before the fuselage explodes, flames roaring, engine whining as it sinks into the ocean and the nameless islands below. finally, peace.
Once again, I have awoken strapped into the cockpit of this plane. My eyes pried open, my hands glued to this control pad. I remember nothing before this.I live only for destruction. They just want to dance with us

Gorgonzola does America in a Month

Day 4: Madison to Sauk Centre: Tedium in Wisconsin leads to Frustration in Minnesota. But I did get to see a camel.

(Day 3)

The first order of business was getting the hell out of downtown Madison, winding between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona and various constructon detours back to I-94. Next stop, Baraboo. I should have just taken US 12, I know, but this way I drove Wisconsin 33 through the Lower Narrows, a 500 million year old river gorge which was buried at the bottom of an ocean then eroded back out by meltwater from the last Ice Age.

I waste half an hour following signs towards a little county park that never appeared, then headed south to Devil's Lake. This is another loop of the same river gorge that was blocked by a terminal moraine. Then it's the Circus Museum on the Ringling Brothers' traditional wintering grounds. Camels and circus wagons and a giant Human Cannonbasll Cannon, now that's something!

Heading north out of town, I pass the Ho-Chunk reservation, a square mile off US 12 with a casino shoehorned in. Back on I-94 heading north into the Wisconsin Dells area. Halfway through a hike through Rocky Arbor state Park it begins to rain; just as I get back to my car the rain stops. As you go north, you begin to drive through very flat country with sandstone towers poking up here and there. If you stripped the vegetation away, it would look a bit like Monument Valley. 12,000 years ago, Glacial Lake Wisconsin filled the whole area and deposited sediments to make the area flat. The mesas and buttes stuck up as islands out of the lake. I begin to hike up Millf Bluff but it really begins to rain in earnest.

A few miles up the road, it begins to rain so hard everyone has to pull off onto the shoulder, stop, and wait it out. Further along is a rest stop built on top of a high spot overlooking the Black River valley. A hiking trail takes you to a high point overlooking the Black River valley. As I climbed higher, the view widened more and more, but at the top was a couple trying to make out, so I beat a hasty retreat. I thought perhaps I'd stop for something to eat in Eau Claire but decided to push on instead.

One of the rituals of my journey was the acquisition of a state highway map the first time I entered a new state. I'd been lucky so far, but that ran out at the Minnesota Welcome Center, left unattended on Sunday afternoons due to budget cuts. Curse that Jesse Ventura.

I am at a low point here, having invested four days and 1500 miles with little to show for it. In this mood, I zip straight through St. Paul and Minneapolis, have dinner at a Chipotle in St. Cloud, and push on to my motel in Sauk Centre without even taking the Lake Wobegon Tour.

(Day 5)