Internet (a Play) ...actually, a poem

I don't consider myself a poet, but for one of my classes last semester we had the option of getting creative and so I chose to do so. I'm self-publishing this here because current events have caught up with some of the subjects (like the Royal Baby being born) and because I like it in spite of the fact that I'm working in a format in which I am not terribly comfortable. This format was inspired by Gertrude Stein's work, and I hope it's playful while being serious. At any rate, enjoy:

I

 

Internet

Inter net

In ter net

In her net

I sink, I find

Myself after long nights

Staring at photos

 

II

 

A play should consist of acts

Actors

Sets

Dialogue

Scripts

Audience

Internet has some, but not all

Of that

 

III

 

Meet the stars of the play

Of the interplay

Of the internet

Avatars all

(and really, who uses their

Real picture anyway?

 

IV

 

Someone said

“Let there be no love poems until

There is justice between the races”

And someone else said “At night, alone,

I marry the bed”

And yet another someone said “I am Dionysus, son of Zeus, come to

Thebes, where my mother gave me birth, struck by lightning.”

 

V

 

This is where the audience applauds.

 

VI

 

            The last century saw wars, famines, genocides, religious intolerance and wholesale murder of entire groups of people. And they had the telegraph, the telephone, the moving picture, the still picture, radio, and television. You really think an email sent just in time can stop a war?

 

VII

 

Isn’t it nice to think so?

 

VIII

 

I’m Henry the Eighth I am

I got married to the widow next door, she’d been married seven times before

And every one was a Henry

(Hmm, makes you wonder

Why men keep marrying her

And why they keep turning out dead

It wasn’t a rock, it was a rock lobster!

 

IX

 

Now comes the part when I confess

Roman numerals past this point are confusing

So I’d better make this count

A conversation is a conversation is a conversation

Did I mention?

“A Poem for Speculative Hipsters”

Preach on, Baraka

Blast manifesto

Blast the manifesto

Blast the man with your festo

Fist-o

 

X

 

Okay, after this point we’ll be taking

Suggestions from the audience

Improv, improve, im-prove

Mindless chatter of the mindless classes

Autocorrect my spelling, spilling

Aught to correct Mickey Spillane

Puns, puns, puns

No fun (said Iggy, circa 1969

Ten years before I was born

I like old stuff, I make no apologies

Hipster before there was hipster

And now my hips are old

Puns, puns, puns

Crisis in the Middle East

Scott Walker in the Middle West

The Duggars breeding like rabbits

 

XI

 

Is it unfair that I’m creeped out by them? No one talks about how such a religious family fucked their way to TV fame, but seriously? Why do we assign morality to celebrity? Aren’t the two mutually exclusive? If Tim Tebow could throw a forward pass, would it matter how much he dry-humps Jesus? As I write this, “the world is waiting for William and Kate to have their next child.” I crank up “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols, constitutional monarchy means “the royals are figureheads” so who gives a shit?

 

XII

 

Truth or dare

Dare

I dare you to speak the truth

Puns, puns, puns

Truth is, I’m not a poet

Bet you didn’t know that

Love poems, love poems, I love poems

Just can’t write them

See what I mean?

Sacred Profanity

Profane Scarcity

I would love to be in love

Or at least in like

Online, on the line

Line on you, girl, hypothetical

 

XIII(?)

 

Love is lovers love to lovers love

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

See you on the flip side

The Cool Side

Standing alone at the dance, watching the girls dance

I have no business dancing

I have no business writing poetry

I have no business writing poetry about dancing

I have no business dancing about poetry

“Dancing About Poetry”

Hmm, sounds like a title

14

 

Christ the redeemer

Christ, the redeemer

Christ, it’s the redeemer

Sacred profane puns, puns, puns

Love to love you, baby

In my head, I’m Marvin Gaye, singing “Let’s Get It On”

To a girl, any girl

In reality, online, looking at her pic

I wonder if she likes or tolerates me

Or if she even knows who Marvin Gaye is

 

15

 

This was going to be a lot shorter and less neurotic

 

16

 

But poetry should kill, poems should kill

In the name of love?

Sure, why not

Or maybe love in the name of killing?

Nah, Manson-esque

Girls, girls, girls

How did Motley Crue get in here?

Well, while they’re here, confession time:

I used to want to grow up to be Slash

Or Sambora, or somebody with long hair and who could play

Guitar

Girls, girls, girls,

They seemed to like those guys when I was growing up

 

17

 

Never mind I don’t like to let my hair grow out,

Nor can I play any instrument

 

18

 

Have I mentioned this was supposed to be shorter?

 

19

 

Like, two pages, tops

 

20

 

            In the grand scheme of things, I can’t complain. I grew up not knowing my father, but my mom did a great job and my grandparents were there to help. I was not neglected, molested, abandoned, or rejected to any significant degree from my family. So how can I be a great writer? I know alcoholism runs in the family, but knowing is half the battle. I have spent time working enough customer service jobs to know I don’t want to work in customer service anymore. I’ve come close but never quite achieved deep and lasting love with a woman. I had acne in middle school. Girls don’t like pizza-faces. I’m still aware of lingering doubts about my ability to attract a mate, in my own mind. I’m funny, which is a help, but sometimes I’m too funny. Women I like might not take me seriously. Online connections are great, but I could go for the real-life ones if I weren’t so shy. Terrified. Convinced I’ll fuck it up somehow.

 

21

 

By the way, notice I switched away from Roman numerals?

 

22

 

Catch-22, Yossarian Lives

 

23

 

A friend of mine said online

The Roman Empire fell because they

Put Christians in charge

I’m tempted to reply that the Goths had more to do with it

So we should keep our eyes on Hot Topic employees

And Robert Smith from The Cure

 

24

 

I have fears that I’m more interesting online

 

25

 

This is where the audience applauds and leaves, satisfied with another great performance onstage

The Duggars Are Horrible, Horrible People

In what can only be described as one of the more unfortunate circumstances I've ever personally encountered, the news of Josh Duggar's past sexual molestation of five girls (allegedly including one or more of his siblings) broke while I was in the middle of reading Nabokov's Lolita. And for anyone who hasn't read the book but is familiar with the basic storyline, it's way more uncomfortable how much you're in Humbert Humbert's head when you're reading the book (as opposed to the suddenly not-that-bad Kubrick screen version from 1962). Ole HH is not an "unreliable" narrator; he's a pervy one. But the book is much more than just him and Dolores Haze having sex. Thankfully.

Nabokov's book is a work of fiction, and you can read it and enjoy it and not think that you're a bad person for doing so. 19 Kids and Counting was purporting to be "real life," and I can't help but think all those millions of people who watched the show could use a few thousand showers now to try and wash the stink of the Duggar family off of their collective bodies.

In the interest of full disclosure, I thought the show and the family were creepy long, long before this news broke. I remember one of the first times one of my relatives turned it to TLC and I saw this family in Arkansas who had way too many kids, all of them with names that started with the letter "J" (whether for Jesus or Jim Bob, I don't know). Jim Bob's helmet hair and Michelle's cult-member thousand-yard stare raised red flags with me almost immediately, and I tried to argue, time and time again, that this family was "not all there" mentally. Boy, do I wish that's all there was to it, that it was just a difference of opinion between me and my Socialist/Communist, anti-American ways and their borderline insane political views. Boy, if only that was all there was to it.

But of course, as we found out, it's not. The facts of the case (in dispute, but probably not by much at this point) are well known unless you haven't been following it or just shut it out because of how utterly disgusting it all is. In a lot of cases of celebrity or political scandals, the cover-up is worse than the crime. In this case, the crime is unforgivable, and the cover-up equally so. Whatever your stance on the Duggars' lifestyle choices, the fact is that they not only harbored a pedophile for well over a decade without seeking treatment or law enforcement, they did so at the expense of victims who could very well have lived in the same household with the perpetrator. How fucking Christian is that?

What's almost as sick as the crimes that the Duggars condoned with their behavior is the rush to defend them from some on the far right who see the case as "religious persecution" because the Duggars are so prominent in family-values circles. If your politics requires you to defend (against all evidence to the contrary) a person who rapes little kids, or a group who condones such behavior through their silence, you should really re-examine your life. I'm looking at you, Huckabee.

TLC is reportedly trying to work out a way to "save" the show, which is cynical in the extreme because the Duggars make them money (and all this publicity for the network). I've never been a big watcher of that channel to begin with, but I certainly don't plan on watching it anytime soon, especially if they bring back the Duggars in some form or another. It's exploitation, pure and simple.

I am not a religious person, but I do know a little Bible, and the part where "judge not, lest ye be judged" is ringing through my ears as I think and type this. But here's the thing: I'm pretty sure that I'll never do anything like what Josh Duggar has done, so I feel pretty comfortable judging him. Child molesters can't "pray" the inclination away, much as homosexuals can't "pray the gay" away. Josh Duggar needs treatment, his victims need treatment, and his parents need to have their platform taken away. That's just the way it is. Fuck the Duggars, they are horrible, horrible people.

The Five Most Underrated Beatles Songs of All Time

A little while ago, I indulged in something for which the internet is perfectly suited: namely, being a hateful jackass. I tore apart five of the songs from the musical group who, more than anyone else, has shaped my tastes in music since I discovered them about twenty years ago. John, Paul, George and Ringo could produce some stinkers, to be sure, but they also had amazing, amazing songs. You probably know the big hits, even if you don't (they're just in our collective subconscious). But what about the album filler that doesn't get the same love? Surely even the less-successful stuff has merit. Well, here are my five picks for the most underrated Beatles songs:

5.) And Your Bird Can Sing (Revolver)

This is a song that John Lennon referred to as a "throwaway," but that's unfair. On an album that saw the group experimenting, laying the groundwork for the much-hyped (and lesser) Sgt. Pepper, this was almost a throwback to early-period pop tunes, back when Lennon and McCartney really did write together (lyrically it's all Lennon, putting down someone who thinks that fancy belongings could bring them happiness, but musically it's sweet and rocking like an optimistic Macca rocker). It's a standout track on an album that is so much more satisfying than just about any of the albums that came after (and yes, I'm slandering the late-period masterpieces, but honestly who listens to The White Album all the way through, beginning to end?).

4.) Blackbird (The White Album)

I could be wrong about this song being "underrated," because I'm sure I'm not its only fan. McCartney in the late period of the group could be awfully syrupy in his lyrics (and indeed in much of his solo work), but this is a beautiful acoustic tune that, much like its side-mate "Mother Nature's Son," makes the first half of the second album in the double-album set (and on the same CD) a nice mix of relaxing and weird (if I'm not mistaken, "Helter Skelter" is also on the second disc). I tend to look down my nose at McCartney for his sentimentalism and cloying lyrics, but for once he gets it right.

3.) I've Just Seen a Face (Help!)

Remember the last time you saw someone, just a pretty face in a crowd, and immediately you started wondering what your lives together would be like? No, it's just me? Well, I don't know if I believe that, but this is the perfect song for that moment when you either see someone you want to get to know better for the first time, or when you finally realize that you want to with someone you've known for a little while. What sells the song is Paul's breathless vocals (I dare even the physically fit among you, with refined breathing control, to sing along and not get winded trying to keep up) and the slight country feel to the song. It's a beauty.

2.) I've Got a Feeling (Let It Be/Beatles Anthology 3)

I first encountered this on the Anthology 3 CD, and then there it was again on Let It Be. As contentious as the latter-day history of the group was (from the death of Brian Epstein in 1967 on, it was not a matter of "if" the Beatles break up but "when"), when they came together on a song that deserved it, the Fab Four could still blow the roof off the competition. This has the added bonus of being among the last times Paul and John alternated lyrics, with Paul taking on the gusto of the first set and John crooning about "everybody had a wet dream" in the second set. Either version is amazing (the Let It Be version is complete, while the Anthology 3 take descends into chaos and a premature halt but is still a beauty to listen to).

1.) The Ballad of John and Yoko (Past Masters, Volume 2)

"Christ you know it ain't easy...the way things are going, they're gonna crucify me." The balls of John to sing that some years removed from his "bigger than Jesus" controversy. It's a great look at John and Yoko's stormy wedding-and-honeymoon-period, during which they had "bed-ins" for peace, love, and to take the piss of the international press. Yoko Ono famously got blamed for breaking up the band, but any historian of the group could tell you that factors beyond her were the driving force for the group splintering when they did. I used to casually refer to her as a "witch," but then this little thing called "maturity" kicked in and I realized that she brought some much-needed happiness to John's turbulent personal life. This song, almost a solo project (the only other Beatle on the track, surprisingly, is Paul), is an absolutely great song from beginning to end.

Mad Men-Boys

There is a movement afoot online that you may have heard of, which seeks to address the concerns of a community long used to seeing itself marginalized and reduced to stereotypical depictions in mass media. It's a movement that has many legitimate concerns, and I for one am proud to count myself as someone who hopes that this particular movement has an impact beyond the narrow scope of simply reforming its image and has an opportunity to effect real change in the world at large.

That movement, of course, is #BlackLivesMatter.

There's another movement online, either identified as "Gamergate" or "Men's Rights," that is just fucking stupid. Do I really need to expend more time on it?

Okay, maybe I should (really short blog posts aren't my thing, anyway): Men's Rights is a movement that prides itself on addressing a problem that doesn't really exist (much in the same way Fox News has been beating the drum for Benghazi, or your local preacher might against marriage equality). The problem, according to MR activists, is that feminists are taking over the cultural landscape and turning men into emasculated "female men" who can't possibly live up the exalted ideals of men of America's past. Men of valor and courage, like John Wayne (draft-dodging-during-WWII John Wayne), perhaps. I have to admit, I'm not terribly familiar with the core beliefs of the movement, but I kinda feel like I can bash them anyway. Because they sound to me more like whiny little shits than actual men.

The Men's Rights movement is like Al Bundy's "No Ma'am" movement from Married With Children, only even less funny. It sees a world in which men (rugged, heterosexual, tree-chopping-down men) are "under assault" from forces beyond their control. And they'd better best stand up for themselves, because those forces might just win and eradicate everything that's wonderful about men. The Nazis had the Jews, Men's Rights Advocates have women (or maybe "Women") to blame for everything that's wrong with their world. Yes, I just compared the Men's Rights thugs to Nazis. No, I don't take it back.

I am a product of a household with strong maternal figures (particularly my grandmother, who will absolutely cut a bitch if she has to). I have, at times, wondered if my lack of ability to land a relationship is somehow a result of having strong females in my life and finding them intimidating as a result (it's the old Freudian concern of whether or not I "want a girl just like dear old Mom"), and I'm not saying I've figured any of this out enough to change my relationship status anytime soon. But I think I'm better than the Men's Rights advocates in this respect: I don't blame my lack of a relationship on women. Also, I can actually hold a conversation with a real, live woman, even one that I'm attracted to. I'm pretty sure a lot of the Men's Rights thugs can't say that.

By the way, I'm using "thugs" pretty loosely here, but I think for once (as opposed to Fox News's overuse of it re: Baltimore recently) it applies here: these guys are bullies. A bully is, of course, someone who feels disenfranchised, and they lash out in response. A bully online is even worse than a bully in the flesh: at least a "real-time" bully has the stones to be a shit to you to your face. What I see when I hear about death threats against female game designers (the origin of the Gamergate thing seems to be insinuations that female gaming journalists slept with designers in order to get their information, or some other such nonsense) is a scared little boy lashing out with his keyboard at all the perceived slights of the world. I recognize that scared little boy because, sometimes in my past, it's been me. I think any internet activity from my darkest personal times can testify to that.

The internet can be an empowering tool for the voiceless, or those who feel that way. But it can also be a bullhorn which is employed to silence other voices even more. I'm not inclined to say "Men's Rights advocates should be shut up," or banned, if only because freedom of speech is the most important right in our constitution (no, being able to shoot off a gun is not as important). But there should be consequences for when speech crosses the line. I think also that the more someone I disagree with speaks, the more likely they'll say something that even their followers might find reprehensible. Men's Rights advocates have a forum, and I'm sure it's as batshit insane as I think it is. Eventually their sense of entitlement will be their downfall. I have to believe that, because it's often proven the case in the past.

It's part of a larger narrative that has taken hold particularly since Obama took office, this idea that we need to "get America back" from the socialists, feminists, or other such groups who are trying to render the America we grew up in irrelevant. Fact is, I think that's more dangerous than letting these idiots speak. Ask someone who wasn't in the majority at a particular epoch in our history what it was really like, and chances are it won't be all sock-hops and soda fountains. Americans have a tendency to not see what their actual history is, but what they want it to be. That's why Reagan could appeal to the notion of the Fifties being placid and bucolic, when in reality that decade was a time of upheaval (and also the birth of the modern Civil Rights movement). Men's Rights seems rooted in a "me, too" notion of oppression, as if suddenly being a (white) male in American society is a handicap. I'm a white male, I can tell you that I've never been harassed by the cops simply for standing out in a particular neighborhood. It's a counter-argument to people with legitimate beefs about the way that society and authority have treated them, and it's a false narrative rooted in paranoia and a fear of losing whatever power you have.

Did I also mention how fucking stupid Men's Rights guys are?

Anyway, some advice to my brothers in the movement, assuming any of them can read: chill out. Relax. Try actually talking to a woman for once in your life. Don't get mad, bro. Do get out more, and let the rays of the sun shine upon your pale, asshole exterior. Keep talking smack, because eventually you'll run off everyone who even thought about supporting you by being a dick. And finally, just fuck off already.

This is your kindly Uncle Trevor, signing off.

Summer in the City (of Clemson)

This semester just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, I am happy to report that my grades were really good (better than I thought in one of my classes, to be honest, based on my admittedly half-assed final project because of exhaustion), and I am currently in the grip of a book-reading frenzy that will cause me to push close friends and family members away in the pursuit of sweet, sweet literature.

I'm being completely serious...

Since the semester wrapped up, I've managed to read all the way through at least five books (off the top of my head) and I'm in no danger of stopping anytime soon. Summer is great for reading, what with everyone else off back to their hometowns and you stuck in your hometown which is only a short drive from countless great bookstores. "The Needle and the Damage Done"? Hard drugs have nothing on books in addictive qualities.

(Note: to anyone who read that and is a recovering drug addict, please know that I am a master of hyperbole and exaggeration. I also frequently name-drop, as my good friend President Obama could tell you)

Anyway, it's summer break (if not officially summer-time: the actual season itself doesn't kick in until the end of June, much like my online Spanish class) and I am at a loss for things to do that don't require spending of money (I have a nest egg squired away and hope to keep it from going exceedingly into the red. But I *do* think my car could use gold plating, now that I think about it). So I'm riding around using "freedom fuel" and looking for cheap thrills (literally). I may look into a summer job, to be honest, more just to have something to do than to get any extra cash.

Summer in a college town has changed for me over the years. Back when I was an undergrad at Clemson, it meant that my peeps were leaving the area to go back home (a reasonable thing to do) while I stuck it out in Hogwaller, because that's where I'm from and continue to live. I'd come down to the library (I was working there at the time) and see several international students who either didn't want to go home or couldn't afford to, and we'd have a passing acquaintance. When I graduated and subsequently got a job downtown, I looked forward to the summer break because it meant that the annoying little kids (none of them my friends from my undergrad years, as most of those had long since left school by that point) were no longer standing between me and a reasonable expectation of getting food and eating it within the thirty minutes allotted for lunch. But again, a lot of the attractive girls that worked up front would leave for the summer and, well, that sucked. Some remained, of course, but it was always a bit of a crapshoot.

That reminds me: when I was working downtown and my cohorts and I would take a break or get lunch, we might spend some time sitting on one of the benches downtown checking out the girls walking by. I merely did this out of peer pressure, of course, and from a purely sociological standpoint. Okay, maybe not. But girl-traffic also went down during the summer time. Mostly it was dudes riding their bikes on the sidewalks after about the first of May. And those weren't what I and my chums looked forward to.

Anyway, now I'm back in the position of being a student (i.e., one of those "annoying little kids" I used to sneer at when they took their time trying to decide what to get at Moe's, as if there are enough options there to boggle the mind and keep one from arriving at a decision). And I'm in town more or less, while a lot of my peers (both in grad school and undergrads) are gone off back to their hometowns. A college town in summer is a bit depressing, if not also relaxing: you don't have to be anywhere in a hurry, but the odds of you running into anyone you know are slim to none. It's an interesting sociological concept to consider, if you're not busy contemplating the very sociological survey of attractive females who walk by your perch on the side of the street.

Because, you know, sociology...

I read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage in one sitting, and it's gotten me to thinking: like the title character, I've often times let traumatic experiences get in the way of present or future happiness, from time to time. I like how Murakami ends the book on a note not of certainty but of possibility. Great book, highly recommend it.