Bear Down....BEAR DOWN...

Bear DOWN…BEAR DOWN….

“If things came easy, then everybody would be great at what they did, let's face it.”
Mike Ditka

The horrible images of Derrion Albert being viciously beaten by his peers raging uncontrollably high on a gangster culture embedded into them since birth have consumed my thoughts for the last few weeks. Every kick after kick, punch after punch, and blood curling yell after blood curling yell replays in my head until Derrion Albert is dead on the cold hard cement in the city of big shoulders, my Sweet Home Chicago.

Zombies, werewolves, and monsters at least kill out of necessity, while these children did so for pleasure, acceptance, and entertainment value in a world that values entertainment often times more than life and actuality. The camera caught it all, and the news played it ten but film no longer develops clear enough to see the big picture anymore and the image of horror were soon replaced by Paranormal Activity and Halloween. Every time I replay the image in my head I get sick to my stomach and wonder where the outrage is? I’m helpless and removed from the issue by space and race leaving me with that disgusting fucking word I keep hearing over and over since the dawn of the new millennium, hope.

That same sickness I had for the Albert murder was the way I felt as the Cincinnati Bengals demolished the Chicago Bears last Sunday in one of Chicago’s worst performances. I wanted to do something. I wanted to help. I was outraged and angered and bitter and fucking frantic at the mauling taking place on my television. I threw a bottle of Beam at the wall watching it shatter in reality as the escapism I tune into every Sunday was failing me. Nothing could be done, so I just watched on as helpless as the team on the field.

It was bad hoss, the kind of thing that makes you want to burn everything orange and navy blue you own. The kind of bad that makes you ask questions of your own faith and your own belief systems. I wanted to turn it off, or look away, but like a car wreck on the Kennedy I had to see all the horrible details of twisted metal, broken teeth, and white sheet covered stretchers. Plus what if my hopes came to fruition and they fought back and won the damn thing. What if I hit the lotto? What if somebody stepped in to help Derrion Albert. What if…aka hope.

This last week the sporting press has done their jobs of questioning every morsel of existence in the Bears organization (or lack of). The coaching staff has a lot of middle fingers pointing at them and rightfully so as overly aggressive stock brokers yell into their Backberry Storm2 9550 phones to provoking sports radio hosts. Cedric Benson looked amazing and everybody is now questioning if it was circumstance as previously accepted, and unchallenged, or piss poor talent evaluation and no coaching. The latter seems to be the favored opinion of Chicagoans this week.

Gary, Indiana just 25 miles from downtown Chicago was once a bustling city and the home of the Jackson family. It was a steel factory town and Indiana’s second largest city. It was full of hope and promise as it rose in population and jobs. But the steel melted away and desolation moved in. The people put their hope in their politicians to help recover the town. The city with so much promise just ended up rusting. Gary, Indiana is now a ghost town long forgotten after Michael Jackson and the factories faded away. Just violent criminals, immobile poverty, and shanty houses remain. A sad portrait of real America you never would see Norman Rockwell illustrate. The kind of place roaches search for motels to kill themselves in. Leadership is to blame for sure, but the people have to help themselves too.

Tommy Harris was a spit fire out of college and a much needed addiction to the Bears defensive line. He seemed like the final piece in a masterful building process. So young, so dominate, and so perfect Bears fans rejoiced after his rookie year where he showed power, speed, and determination. But now he’s turned into a crybaby who favors being either lazy or dishonest hiding in injury. He’s falling apart and the Bears fans are outraged.

The black and white ink on Tommie Harris paints him as a stubborn and lazy malcontent who hates his head coach. He was benched during the beat down due to a ‘knee injury’ just about everybody has admitted doesn’t exist. You can see desolation setting in the eyes of Tommie Harris. The reason this lump was benched was because he hasn’t produced much of anything despite all the money the Bears have dumped into keeping him. He needed a message. A wake up call. This week he’s back in practice for the first time all year and talks of a big game against one of the NFL’s worst teams the Cleveland Browns. I hope he can turn it around. I really do.

Webs site message boards are exploding with fans who want to cut or trade Tommie Harris as fast as we can. Try to get some value out of him is the logic. The city is in a complete and utter bitchfest over the Chicago Bears in general. It’s nice to see everybody motivated a level of collective disenfranchised feelings for the first time since Obama left town. Nobody is happy and everybody has an opinion and is more than willing to shout it. Even the non-fans know what’s going on and they too are steamed like a Chicago Style Hotdog bun. The Bear’s organization hears the fans loud and clear and will react.

I was walking in the rain thinking about the Bears when I looked up to take in the sight of the half naked tree when I slipped on its magnificent display of already fallen brown, orange, and red leafs. I laid in that discarded pile looking up at its branches listening to the rain fall between the leafs still hanging on. Somewhere in there I found a moment of clarity and tranquility. Sometimes you need the fall to see the beauty of it all.

The Bears have all the time in the world to turn it around, and they will. I hope it starts this week against the Browns, but we’re probably looking at next year for a real turn around., but we will preserBEAR and win it all. It is just to bad Gary, Indiana can’t do the same and its very sad Derrion Albert never will see the Bears turn it around. I hope we the people can.

Alfred Ferdinand Larcher III

Mass Confusion in an Age of Mass Communication.

“I'm tired of runnin' 'round lookin' for answers to questions that I already know
I could build me a castle of memories just to have somewhere to go
Count the days and the nights that it takes to get back in the saddle again
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
Start talkin' again, when I know what to say’”
--Blaze Foley

I didn’t want to get off my fat ass but my friend who goes by Martin Luther (he’s always tacking notes to doors) had been nagging me for awhile now to get back involved in a cause. Causes like love, memories, and cereal start out great but if you’re not quick enough they get soggy, messy, and lose their magic. After years on the wrong side of losing political battles I considered myself apologetically beat off and ejaculated out of the realm of debate and participatory interest in politics. It is after all where most American’s reside and comfort is the new freedom in an age of inaction.

Government has become so large we are all nothing more than replaceable parts. The individual serves the master in return for a few luxuries and filtered cigarettes. I wish Woody Guthrie would have asked for just a bit more as feel as ripped off as the Native Americans who we also promised comfort and security too. Right now I’m nothing more than a rushed assembly line Model-AL that somehow got passed off as ‘ok’ by inspector #33, who was drunk on a sick cruel sense of humor, and rum. But here I am 30 years later a little broken down but still running. Running, running, running. Running from bill collectors, running from commitment, running from responsibility, running from causes, running from authority, running from madness, and most of all running from myself. I’ve spent my whole life running. All the running and looking over my shoulder does keep me semi-healthy and well stretched. Half of anything really is all a man ever needs.

This morning tacked to my door was a note that simply read:
“AFL, if you died tomorrow would anybody give a shit?”

Death and impact are heavy things to digest with a bum, freshly removed gull bladder, and a pint of whiskey already brewing deep inside. I tossed the note with a perfect Cutler like forward lob right into the trash bin by the mail box, as a black cat watched on unimpressed. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one but at that point…signs and direction meant I was back on the highway finally getting off that road nobody was traveling. When you’re on a strange road all alone the humanity in you seeks danger and you take the curves as fast as you can with a maniac laugh and deranged stare.

Net Neutrality, killer Flu Epidemic, and Health Care are the major issues of debate in this country right now. I’m going to be honest with you as I’m either stupid or to tired to lie pretending I understand these issues. I don’t know anything about any of these topics. Nothing. What I do know, is nobody seems to know what the fuck is going on and mass confusion is spreading like a California brush fire. Lady Liberty is way too busy filming a reality show based on tired and weak immigrants making a life here to mail back home to even try to decipher the madness. The American Dream is now an export made her and shipped off where home really is. I’m confused and completely uninformed for the first time in my overly opinionated life on the day’s topics. Not by choice either, as I’ve scoured the web and the news programs for answers but every piece of information has been written by the best liars money can buy. Information is no longer based in fact or fiction but rather spin and targeted demographics. Everything is owned and all the owners are now players in our toppling Democracy.

So here I sit an undereducated, under employed obese blob of Chicago confusion watching angry pus filled monsters spiting halitosis fire from their snarling grotesque dragon mouths as they fill the televisions and debate halls with their wickedness. Nigger, Kike, Honky, racist, Rape, sexual abuse, child abduction, pedophiles, murder, Democrats, Republicans, lairs, faggots, pig, cunt, Valarie Jarrett, Rush Limbaugh. Whichever word causes you the strongest feeling and makes you the maddest is exactly the kind of rhetoric the monsters are engaged in yelling as veins pulse and bust splashing everybody in the process contaminating them with a virus much worse than N1H1. Vicious ugly words now used as bombs causing so much noise decency cannot be heard over the explosions maiming the innocent and killing the indifferent.

A cause? How can a cause be found and fought for when every opinion or idea is trademarked and bought out by even bigger and more powerful company? This includes the news, the unions, and every other group whose responsibility is to protect the individual from the institute. We’re all volunteering for high priced designer label straightjackets. Grassroot causes are impossible to assemble without selling out to a ‘sponsor’ or collapsing in angry debate amongst itself. Who does confusion benefit? Confusion befits the fine folks already in control. A distracted nation is an easy nation to rule control and craft.

I don’t mean to sound like one of these fucking babbling conspiracy nut jobs but something doesn’t seem right. Perhaps it’s schizophrenic paranoia, fear mongering, or whatever vicious language and judgment you wish to write me off with. God’s greatest power was instilled into us –deep shit when you put your brain power to it -as we all have the ability to commence judgment. Maybe it’s time we start to examine how we use this ultimate power as I don’t think we understand its full impact yet.

The richest people of the left and the richest people of the right are crafting a brilliant dinner theater show that we’re all engaged in; just enough to pay attention, but not enough to get up from our overcooked Chicken Cordon Bleu and Rice. Fuck it the new season of LOST is starting, and this season stars you my liberal friend and me your conservative enemy. Will we ever get off this island without killing each other first? The battle of us versus them has turned magnificently into us versus us.

Yesterday I was at a diner I enjoy at the edge of my Gothic home of Chicago. A middle aged lady was having dinner with her aged mother. The topic of healthcare popped up and the older lady was against it, and had facts and reasons why. The daughter wrote it off as crazy talk and asked her if she’s been watching FOX news. The daughters face turned into a sour lemon grimace as she just shook her head in absolute disgust. “Yea, but they are the only ones against universal health care,” the mother said with such conviction.

The old lady nailed it. No matter if you hate FOX News or love them; if they vanished tomorrow only one side would be heard. Sandpaper is Democracy and when something is feed into congress the two sides’ fine sand it using friction and repetition until it’s something we all can agree on. Without opposition I assure you we all will lose. That’s true of both sides, without a liberal sanding this nation would have very little feeling, emotion, and would probably collapse under some evil corporation.

Hey, wouldn’t an epidemic causing health fears throughout the country benefit a side looking to pass a health care bill? I’m just kidding. But seriously both sides need to STOP ignoring other INDIVIDUALS because that’s the same thing as ignoring an image in the mirror. Anybody in Chicago whoever wants to sit down with me and talk issues or try to reach an actual middle ground my door is always open. Labels are a dangerous thing, and unless we start shedding them or devaluing them or pissing freely all over them until the ink smears and erodes into illegible nothingness, resentment is only going to grow between all fellow travels of this fine nation. Stop listening to the news. Stop listening to the parties. Start listening to each other.

Real communication is my only cause right now. Maybe Martin Luther is on to something with these door notes.

AFL

Irrational Anger in an Agitated Age

Irrational anger is the worst enemy of democracy as all our filters are shut down and the inmates control the asylum in the most animalistic of styles. The wise manipulate and trigger these moments of blind rage as it causes the very cover needed to push their agenda of control and power right by our beer commercial attention spans and half blind guard dogs. Stop the ignorance and stop ignoring just because you are comfortable in your surroundings.

I was on the Irving Park bus and I’ve learned if you ride route 77 long enough you’re bound to see a woman who looks exactly like a witch. I mean so close to the real deal you sit there and rationalize how this person can be and can’t be a witch. This older woman got on the bus and she had the weird hair, strange nose, crooked smile, and mole. My mind started routing me back to the right track telling me how ignorant and judgmental I was being thinking such silly thoughts about a poor old woman. Just as I was about to shame myself she went flying forward making the funniest witch face I have ever seen. Her face was something right out of a horror movie with a witty writer and a non-existent budget. She was sitting in the three way seats facing me and the acceleration of the bus threw her off balance for a minute causing her to fly forward before grabbing on. Any control I had over judgment I lost as I started laughing like a madman. She started pointing at me and yelling gibberish which just made me laugh harder now to the point of tears. I think I’ve been cursed as some of the things she was yelling at me sounded dark and evil, but it really wasn’t my entire fault.

When I first heard about Enrique Gonzalez this sick, gang banging, lowlife I wanted nothing more than to hunt him down and pour bleach into his eye sockets while chanting game show theme songs loudly in his ears. A painful exit seemed appropriate after hearing this maggot of a man held his seven year old son down and tattooed a gang sign on his hip. A membership into the early grave club before the kid even has a driver’s license. Not a great start and a baseball bat bash to the head of the father seemed logical, even if a bit violent.

Richard Heene made his son lie to authorities and media just to gain exposure to try to get the world to look at him yet again in his attention drug fix. American’s poured positive force into a negative story while real kids suffered and were ignored. Its true balloons, white people, and hillbillies; trump blacks, poverty, and guns as a ratings grabber or money grabber for that matter. It was a disgusting reflection of our own image after a twenty year drug binge full of greed, excess, and orgies Just because you keep the garden cozy and give to charity every month doesn’t mean horror doesn’t exist behind the white shades of perfection you present to us.

Both men damaged their children in way’s we all, regardless of political sides and moral ideologies, can agree is child abuse and disgusting. We can all agree punishment is needed. As it stands right now Richard Heene is facing six felonies charges with a maximum of six years in prison and a 500,000 fine. Enrique Gonzalez changed with aggravated mayhem faces life in prison. What is fair and who decides?

One’s a Mexican gang banger in California the other is a white media hound from Colorado. Sure you can argue one is more dangerous to the world as a whole then the other, but to me the crime is in the way the children were hurt. It’s a case of lifestyle. I always cringe when people cheer when drug laws that favor the rich are removed in favor of the same harsh laws that punish the poor. Why not change the laws so they reach the protective levels of the rich instead of the other way around? Irrational anger goes such a long way in limiting our own freedoms. Reasonably, I think in both cases the courts need to figure out if the child needs to be placed in foster care or if the situation can be fixed by responsible members of the families. After the child’s safety is determined both men need only a year in prison and lots of rehab. But of course that’s not the way the world as we are oh so comfortable with the way things are.

I’d rather take on the witches curse then Enrique Gonzalez’s judge’s sentence.

AFL

Elephants, Donkey’s, and Gypsy’s.

"Our culture's adjustment to the epistemology of television is by now all but complete; we have so thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane. And if some of our institutions seem not to fit the template of the times, why it is they and not the template, that seem to us disordered and strange."
— Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business)

What I learned in this last week was there is still at least one billionaires club of old white men so exclusive even Rush Limbaugh can’t get membership. I don’t know if I find that refreshing, or a sad reminder of how exclusive the world really is and how powerful those in power really are.

The United States has exploded into one massive traveling big top circus full of the lowest common carnie folk, Elephants, Donkey’s, and gypsy’s. STEP RIGHT UP AND WITNESS A BOY IN A BALLOON LIVE ON CNN AND FOX! See as the world watches with baited breath possibly witnessing a tragic death or a happy ending!!! Either way it’s all you need to know as THIS IS THE NEWS.

We’ve all seen Webster fly away holding onto the balloons in the opening credits of the show Webster. As a kid that always seemed fun and I wanted to get myself a bunch of balloons to make the same trip. As I listened to what the ring master was barking and the scary tone he was using I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry at the situation. I was waiting, and waiting, and waiting for my chicken sandwich to finish at Franksville as everybody else in the restaurant was watching the TV as the balloon slowly touched down. We all silently judged if it was hard enough of a landing to kill, which I thankfully didn’t think it was. The authorities searched the balloon and it was empty. Yikes.

The speculation was maybe he fell out the balloon if he was ever in it. The police started searching the ground the balloon covered in its 70 mile journey looking for the possible fall out boy. Meanwhile back outside of the tent a Chicago High School is giving away fright passes, only these have nothing to do with Halloween. The Chicago Public School System is offering Fenger High School parents; transportation vouchers or attendance into Carver Military Academy if their children are too scared to return school after Derrion Albert was fatally beaten by a gang of angry thugs.

The nation is now coming together to pray for the safety of the little bubble boy as the news commentators take on a sad disposition. The child, appropriately named Falcon Heene has groups of law enforcement agencies searching for him. Words, no matter how perfectly crafted are only as strong as the people who read them and Heene has the best of the best reading his story winning over the people.

While the broom mustached ring master crafted the story of young Heene --back in Chicago, Romel Handley, a disgusting freak show of a man was sentenced to spend the next twenty years in an overcrowded prison. The tough guy begged for ten years calling himself a dumb kid. Dumb kids fly in balloons, Romel Handley brainwashed children as the head recruiter for the street gang the Insane Deuces. I number two for sure. This monster of a man gave guns to children and instructed them to kill; and murder is what they did. Twenty years…how many lives did he ruin? Teach your children well? What happened, where have we gone wrong?

A day later it appears as if the boy in the bubble was nothing more than a hoax. Just like most circus magic, what we saw wasn’t the full story just the fun parts they wanted us to see and hear. Where and what is the responsibility of the media to tell the stories that matter? What matters anymore?

I walked to the bakery to get a pumpkin pie and as I was thinking I started to crave roller skates. The ability to glide through the sidewalks and roll with the times has a certain freedom that just seems right. Maybe the world should start wearing more roller-skates. Maybe we wouldn’t take Rush Limbaugh so serious if he was on roller skates. Maybe Derrrion Albert would still be alive as the world is a little more cautious near slippery sloops while on wheels. Maybe small kids would skate away from monsters like Romel Handley. Maybe the news would report what mattered. Maybe…maybe.

AFL

Labor Pains on Labor Day, The Death of The American Artist, WTF TMI

"I had a kidney stone after giving birth to two daughters," one writer said. "Childbirth has nothing on kidney stones. When you are in labor the pain is like a wave. With a kidney stone it is constant. I would have 10 births before ever wanting to go through the pain of a stone."
--Testimony from witness in a move by John Gotti Jr. to get out of prison early due to Kidney Stones and cells being cruel and unusual punishment.


I’ve never written horror and I’m not to start right now but with the continuing pain in my sides shit is about to get scary. I do pretty well with pain for the most part as I’ve always prided myself on the old world mentality of take what’s given to you and get back up stronger and more determined if not a little bit bruised and sore. I’ve experienced most of the worst from a mental angle and a lot of physical pain but never what is described as the worst. The worst is one of the few things in this world that lives up to its reputation like heavily recommended cake or under performing politicians it often delivers as its name describes.


For the past three days I have felt a sharp consistent pain my right side just under my rib cage. It has since split to both of my sides it often feels as if I am on fire or being stabbed. I guess the best way to describe it is the moment you get your bearings back after just being socked in the stomach. It hurts like hell but it’s now manageable and the light is in sight. I’m not sick. I still have an appetite and I’m yet to get a fever or nausea. I’ve also kept all my appointments and have outside of the discomfort causing a lack of sleep I have functioned as normal as an Al can function.


According to the ever comforting, always accurate, and always opinionated voices of the web what I’m experiencing now is a 4 on a pain scale of ten. When this bad boy gets rolling it will shoot up to a 10 as it will feel as if a super nova is exploding inside of me. I will fall to my knees asking God to deliver on his promise of redemption as tears will roll down my fat cheeks. Years of fatty food and sin will deliver vengeance to the most innocent moment in my life and I will be ushered into to an emergency room where they will drug me back to sanity and decide if the rocks should just roll out of my uninsured pecker or if a lazar will assist.


The paradox of the situation is I don’t believe in a Government health care system yet right now between jobs I am uninsured. Believe me when I tell you thoughts of rusty needles inserted into my last muscle of pride have been dancing through my head like a taunting seductress who has no interest in me yet I can’t keep my eyes off. If I had insurance I would have already seen a doctor and considering options. Without insurance I have to wait till the crash so that I’ll be so full of rage and pain they will no option but to treat me or put me down. Either works at this point as I’m not picky and always interested in how the story ends. Best cause scenario is this is just the body correcting itself and it will all pass without assistance in the next day or so. Until then I search the web for what to do and where I can find a free clinic. For the record this is my cross to bear and I still don’t support a government run medical system. I made my bed and now I will yell in it.


I don’t mean to bore you with the actually of the world and the real struggles of real people. It’s silly when there is so much information about so many celebrities on Wikipedia that we can instead be talking about. I’m sure many politicians and celebrities can relate to a guy without insurance about to face the worst pain know to man. I feel like I’m on death row sorta like a modern day white Tookie Williams waiting for a call from the Governor. Maybe a few Hollywood hotshots will stand up for me and throw benefit in my honor. Time is working against us here boys, but I assure you I’m as morally truth worthy as Tookie ever was and I would appreciate it.

I never wondered what space smelled like until I heard an astronaut talk about. To me space never had a smell because we can’t breathe it so who the hell would sit around and think about such a thing as smell or taste? But science does always smell and space does indeed smell like gunpowder. When the astronauts would come in from the space walk they would have the scent of the atmosphere on them, and that is how you smell space. To me this little bit of information adds a whole new element to how I view space. I understand it more as a process and as explosion just like a gun and just like the elements we share. The simple added information of smell opened up space to a new layer of my mind.

Why this is important and what the hell am I ranting about with pain on my sides and grass on my brain anyway? A conspiracy theory of irrational reasoning perhaps would be the best way to describe it another way would be cultural genocide, un-sewing the fabrics of society, Lady Liberty falling on her own sword in final poetic notion of artistic depravity. The end of art is near my fellow travelers and it’s not government, radicals, PBS, or Jay Leno that you need to blame but rather you and I.

WTF? R U nuts? WTFDYJS???? W8 TMI.

Long standing code and symbolism being thrown to the side for an easier language is the sign of progress throughout history of our world. Most all of which was brought on and encouraged through art and literature for it is what binds society. From fashion to music to the written story we come together under not just government and religion but also the arts. The ability to write started with mad cave men phased by the best drugs the good berry pusher had to offer ranting madly in a cave carving the walls to make a point to his wife. Gangs of graffiti artists tagged up Egypt with hieroglyphics of their kings and queens and crypts and bloods. The Mesopotamians figured out cuneiform writing using symbols to make up words and a sort of pronunciation system that was easier then consistent drawings. Finally an alphabet was established using pronunciation to create words with meaning through the sounds we make. Laws and order were given in order for it to be uniform so all can understand it from the rich to the poor. Now that’s a shitty over view of the whole story that takes us to our Alphabet ignoring a lot of history in the process but this isn’t a history lesson and I could be experiencing the worst pain in the world any moment so time is of the essence.

So changes in how language is laid out has been consistent in its progress of society and it seems it forever will transform as better and more simplistic ways of communicating are found. You can argue that this internet short hand is a move toward the future. You could also be an idiot. I’m not the judging kind. Why it can’t be considered as progress is because Ebonics and internet short hand move to destroy progress and rules in order to be less expressive and detailed. In no way is it logical and it’s in many ways putting a lot of faith and power into what the internet is and what we and it will become. Lets understand the partnership before we give in completely to it.

Every aspect of our technology has lead to sacrificing quality for quantity. We use fewer words to avoid charges or save time or to fit in. We read less because we are presented with so much more information it overwhelms us and long and detailed is often thrown aside for a summery or a cliff note. We prefer short web features to longer better written better produced material. We champion the single and seek out the independent ignoring the albums and burning through music at amazing rates. Our news is so cluttered with everybody’s opinion from the meaningless such as mine to actual informed opinion that truth which was always been hard to find is finding a much easier time hiding in the clutter.

It’s like willingly killing your own free speech using fewer words and ignoring more detail to maintain you’re high-speed lifestyle. Thought can’t be constricted, debate shouldn’t be lessened, and detail cannot be sacrificed. WHAT THE FUCK (WTF) are we thinking selling out structure and science in favor of fifteen minutes of fame? Now when it comes to English I’m no expert. I’m a failure but I’m embarrassed by it, not proud of it. You should never EVER say something is too long to read IF it’s interesting.

The system has become overwhelmed and all we can do is accept it. Let us watch the death of creativity as in the process of mass appeal the threads of similarity will become more and more present as culture thins out. How can you teach a child the value in the book, “Boss” by Mike Royko, versus simply spending fifteen minutes on Wikipedia to read about Mayor Richard J. Daley. How can the boring stories of the past impress a kid in the world where every aspect of media is at their finger tips? How can we find compromise on issues if everybody has lame men political writers who write only what the reader wants to hear as absolute fact? It’s not good the direction we are going and I wonder how long before news stories such as the smell of space dissolve from our radar and all we are left with is Perz Hilton drawing jizz markings on the latest popularity craze.

With so many people writing with no depth the true spirits of the words are being lost in the plastic of the keys on the keyboard. The young cultural revolutionaries cannot fail in their job as cultural book binders because if they do so more and more structure in our society will fall to the government or the cooperation’s as we all enslave ourselves to mediocrity. No generation of American artist has failed yet, but the writing is on the texts.

AFL

What happens at the Hilton stays at the Hilton.

"This hotel room's gotta lotta stuff
Laundry bag and a shoe shine BUFF
Thirty two hangers and a touch tone phone
Well a light that comes on when I ain't home

I ain't home
I ain't home
You better leave a message 'cause
I ain't home "
--"Hotel Room" by Steve Goodman, (1975)

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything of substance and I need a getaway for a man living in slack it may sound weird or strange to need a get-a-way but if you spent any time in my head you would understand. Forget walking in my shoes try wearing my cap. The story sometimes finds you, but most the time you have to find it. You can live in a bubble and that’s fine but when doing so you also have to understand the world goes on without you; and your opinions and suspension of the world lack experience and become less relevant. Except it or cowboy up tends to be the only two options so I booked a stay at the Hilton in a rich suburb just outside of Chicago for some adventure and time to write a story with a self imposed deadline.

Putting a deadline on things is important because the mind has a natural curiosity to wonder. The mind knows that what we are doing is not important or interesting in the grand scheme of thing so it does everything it can to distract us to find something more relevant in its big picture understand of the world. Keep it busy and occupied with rules and order and the mind stays happy and works with you instead of against you. So that is why I needed a deadline and why I imposed one on a story that is for nobody but myself. After all these are selfish times and I’m a product of my environment.


Being a night walker has caused me to live my life in spurts. Most Americans live their lives in moderation. Moderation is very safe, you get a consistent flow of money, and you are frugal and responsible -saving for the leaner times while enjoy the good. Right or wrong the quality of life is always the same. Safe and simple, yet stagnate and predictable. Usually it’s not that exciting, but yet very comfortable and a pretty damn good life. These moderates work hard and earn the ability for a yearly vacation into debauchery; not to crazy rather very nice, and fairly safe. Like Cancun, San Diego, or if you’re living dangerous, you hit up Vegas.

A hotel is the perfect place for a spurt surfer as you get to see how the other half lives and rub shoulders (or other things) with them while remaining the poor fellow traveler you really are. Thanks to supply and demand even the most expensive hotels have cheap rooms during slow seasons. Everybody on the move has a story and every story has a character and every character has a passion and every passion is always on display in hotels. Well passion and loose morals.

Because of two amazingly written songs by the legendary poet song spinner and fellow Chicagoan Steve Goodman; I think of him and his life and the way he faced death every time I stay in a hotel or ride a train. When you get older you start thinking about your legacy and how you will be remembered. Steve in my mind will always remind me of a hotel room and a train which are a good set of things to be remembered for. Especially if you’re famous enough to be remembered for anything at all as most people aren’t and a crowded funeral a few stories is all they get.

If I’m lucky, I’ll probably be remembered for razor sharp wit, and always coming just short of success. Fuck man, Steve Goodman always got the good ones. I wish I could be remembered for trains or Hotels. Well all the good ones except the Leukemia that took him way to soon as he rode the great "City of New Orleans" to the golden depot in the sky. Good morning America how are ya? Not too good Steve in a world without you.

I know I’m ranting again, I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you what my goal was to discover in this little stay at the Hilton, or at least what I thought it was thirty-two or so hours ago when this journey of discovery, adventure, and simple relaxation began. What I wanted to find out was simple; how disturbed is a hotel and what is it hiding—mainly from a deviant sexual aspect.

I know that filth of the worst kind happens in hotel rooms. If you’re going to pee on somebody it’s going to be in a hotel room. If you’re going to get a hooker to live out your sick, twisted, inhumane, unspeakable sexual fantasies; you’re probably not going to do it in the same house you kiss your kids. So a hotel room it is.

After all you got perfect cover as that conference removes you from your family on an ‘official’ business trip. It’s the kind of business trip that is needed to maintain the comfort of the life style your family is accustom to. You need to take these trips to maintain the moderation of the middle mundane class you shoulder. Now you’re all alone with your secretary and the built up sexual tension that has been constructing for the last year and now is finally ready to swing open its doors for a GRAND OPENING. It is begging to come undone like the belt of a fat man on Thanksgiving and there is not much you can do too deny it. Something has to give and it does--Wooooooo meow!

You get my drift a hotel is a disgusting decadent place disguised as a place for families to stay. You can bring a wife, a child, a mother, a father, a mistress, a whore, a date, or a hostage and it’s perfectly appropriate and nobody will question who you are, or who you are with. Hell a judgmental prick like me would look down upon you if you didn’t bring one of these types relationships into a hotel. Twisted and corporately perverted like Disney Land only without the media buy and direct marketing to the kids is exactly what a hotel is.

That’s what I thought I was going to find but like life, it never seems to go as you plan it. After I left my suitcase full of my dental floss, sweat pants (warm and comfortable), bathing suit back in the hotel room closet I headed out armed with only my tape recorder, complimentary hotel pen, and complimentary hotel tablet to seek out this dissoluteness. Sometime between the slamming of the door and the ringing of the elevator action I came to the realization I had no drugs on me and I was feeling the want and need of the craving.

I knew somebody who possibly could hook me up but I needed to act on what I intended to seek out. This is why I set goals I’m a very sporadic, sloppy, and an unadjusted man; but you already knew that from my structure-less writing. I hate rules. Fuck’em. Law should never restrict a man’s words no matter if the law is self imposed, civilly imposed, or in our case culturally imposed. If what is put out there grabs you then one should never worry about how clean the hand is that is doing the grabbing. Just be happy somebody is touching you and if I was right in my theory I should hear plenty of tales of touching throughout my stay in this sin sanctuary.

With my shit in my room and adventure on my addictive brain now was the perfect time to scout the hotel out. I needed to see what I could discover and figure out in the various hallways and ongoing activities of this Hilton masterpiece. Where could I find drugs, and where is all this filth happening? Like a young Buddhist monk who was violently hazed by his brethren, I had questions that needed answers but yet I had to ask them in a way that didn’t make it seem like I was asking them at all. Did this filth involve call girls working in the lobby of the hotel mocking authority right in its perfectly uniformed face? Was it done through phone orders and internet ads in the seedy underbelly of electronic freedom? Did they have those awesome little finger sandwiches in the lobby as they do at the Hilton back home? I had to know, I had to get to work, I had to stop asking so many damn questions loudly into my tape recorder as the staff was getting nervous.

Before I can find a story I needed to know every room number, every conference happening, and every empty room and closet in the place. Hours of researching just roaming the hallways is always the best tactic. I needed to know what the staff looked like, where they break, what they eat, and so on and so forth. I had no choice but to cover every avenue and angle as this is the difference between seeing your environment and understanding it.

I started by scouting the lobby which was very large and open serving its purpose of being welcoming. Four couches and four chairs filled the center of the room with a pastel blue coloring mixed with a floral design giving it a corporate home type feel. Lots of floral designs in hotels I wonder if they get a deal on buying in bulk but that is not the question at hand. The two couches and the two chairs faced each other with a table in the center so travelers waiting for their chariots can chat. This was done back to back splitting the furniture arrangements into two small chatting and waiting areas so now no two parties are forced to deal with the humanity of each other or others.

To the North near the front door a gift shop stood out and it seemed to have an ample supply of carbonated beverages, chips, localized souvenirs (so you can make it seem like you left your room when you return to your family), and naturally given the surroundings condoms. Across from the gift shop sits the main meeting place for lovable losers, hopeless lovers, business tycoons, horny travelers, and faux writers. The hotel bar.

Next to the bar was a classy barber’s shop that reminded me of a place where old men would get their hair cut and would really enjoy it; both for reasonable pricing and the witty conversation that came along with an old barber who has nothing but time and hates his wife. One of the tricks of any good barber shop is to load the window with pictures of autographed celebrities giving the illusion that the celebrity gets their hair cut from the nice old man sweeping up around the chair. Most of these guys buy the autographs off the internet or trade shows. One autograph always seems reasonable and you can picture that guy actually getting a hair cut at this shop mainly because it’s not a major star like Tom Hanks or Brad Pitt. In this window it was a picture of the big guy who played the Russian in the ‘Rocky’ movie. The more I thought about it the more I started to buy into the fact he probably did get a hotel hair cut from this guy and my first thought was, "I never really thought about his hair before". My next thought was, "Well you know I’ve never seen him with a BAD haircut.” That’s all I needed and a few moments later I was getting a trim infused with witty conversation from the barber about the distain he has for his wife.

The barber was a nice man with a very thick Russian accent. It’s that thick kind of accent where you just laugh lightly at whatever he says, and agree with him every time it seems as if he’s proposing a question. For all I know I had just converted to communism, or perhaps bought into some kind of Ponzy scheme which would mean I was at least involved in something of importance which is hard to come by these days.

I’ve been looking for inclusion in anything lately which is the first sign of boredom. After being laid off my job, my word went from stress to relaxation, to a feeling of failure with absolutely no ability to help the world in any way. So interaction and adventure keep me sane and both are drying up like a trucker’s elbow, American values, oil reserves, dogma, and the feeling of hope.
I hope I can find one more dance of structure before I give up and fade away. But I, like any kid playing a carnival game want to win the big prize in front of God, family, and most of all my friends and fraternity and perhaps it’s that big dreaming that will lead to my massive failure. The risks we take are just as important as the ground we stand firmly upon and lately even that has been shaky.

Vegas just called and I’m not even a long shot to find fame or fortune. I’m a no shot. Perhaps faith is dead and hope is all we have left, and I really am just a lovable loser. It’s a scary thought, but it could very well be the truth, and if that’s the case no crime/no foul I burn out early just as everybody is predicted. But for a moment I have to wonder what if. Now I wouldn’t dare try to paint a word woven picture of "IF" I’ll leave that to talented writers like Rudyard Kipling, but really what ‘if’. The truth is I’m not sure I even have the faith in myself to actually find success but I’ll give it that old college dropout try one more time.


Enough about me, I kept searching and I found the hotel had a basement where most of the action was happening in its conference space. To my dismay the main renter of the hotel was a college aged Christian ministry called Interfaith who were on some kind of yearly Holy Roller meet up. The good news was the hotel was packed with virtuous young virgins whose crosses bounced so innocently between their perfect young breasts; I’m sure Christ would indeed rise again. I was really considering a conversion at this point. Heaven. Hell. Either way was fine with me as long as those girls were involved and at least it was a direction. The bad news was they really, really, really dug Jesus and probably weren’t packing up any drugs or whips and chains which didn’t help my theory. I needed to get to the bottom of, or on top of that later, but first I needed a whole perspective of everybody whom was staying at the hotel.

I further investigated the cork bottle board which listed all the conventions and what rooms they should meet in. One group just had initials and that didn’t really stand out as anything important so I ignored them. Ignorance is the first mistake of all great (and not so great) journalists, cultures, and businesses. The other conference was written in Russian, and also didn’t interest me and at this time of writing I’m not sure why. I discovered later it was a kind of pyramid scheme where people sell them their gold for well under its market value (people hard up for cash) and not surprisingly their target were Americans. Lady Liberty was raped a long time ago, and not to defend those who attacked her, but I think she was kind of asking for it. Have you ever seen that toga type dress she wears? I don’t know, and I knew I didn’t have time to question patriotism so I moved on. I searched down the list and the other group on the conference center listing was "The Foot Lovers Seminar". Bing! Kink, grime, and the kind of filth I could really dip my big toe in to. Finally I had something to attend.

I stopped in the bar for a taste of whiskey before heading into the conference room with "Foot Lovers" on the door. As I walked in the room I did so with a certainty and with an egotistic aura that I belonged. I had my note pad in hand, tape recorder out, and I was all ready to learn about the foot fetish and all it entails. I have in my time sucked a toe or two and who knows what I have to offer these people.

I figured my perspective would really be the key to getting these footlovers and their stories out to the masses of unknowing readers who didn’t hate feet, but certainly didn’t love them. If I had my way Footlovers would no longer be relished to hotel seminars, at least not on my watch. After my story hit the unsuspecting readers these footlovers would get the same love and respect as politicians, scientists, and journalists. Come to think of it they already get treated that way. Never mind. At the very least I could help get their fetish’s foot into the door of mainstream America. Sorry I couldn’t resist.

After an hour and a half of near death boredom I realized that the ‘foot lovers’ name was very misleading. I stood up demanding a refund and was quickly thrown out by two very large chiropractors who reeked of rum and money. You see the conference was a product unveiling to Chiropractors from them to sell foot inserts into shoes that would help straighten the back. Hell they even had a pitch that this simple insert could add points to your golf score (or take away, whichever one is better). Fucking rich people are worried about a golf score while I’m still trying to find a boot that doesn’t hurt while I walk. Spurt surfers rejoice.

On the other end of the hotel near the back parking lot was a single stair well that lead to area that according to the sign was used for corporate training. It like me was a little out of place and weird so I followed the twisting stair well down to the depths of the unknown brainwash centers below. The blue and green carpet and cold red brick wall was hypnotizing me on the way down. If I was on acid I would have died in the oddity of the decoration but thankfully, although against my own will, I was as sober as a Jesus loving college student staying at a Hilton in Illinois.

The basement was perfect as it had a desk, a plug, a comfortable chair, and a tight setting, plus a private bathroom. There was only one conference room and it was empty. This would be the base of my operation where I could take people, interview them, or just escape and write. A pot of ice tea and my laptop was all I really needed to complete the office/war room. All of which could be set up later when I was ready to inscribe this tale.

I returned upstairs to the sitting arena in the lobby where I kick backed for an hour or so and observed. The Christians are an interesting cult. They talk openly about their leader and tell wild stories that even my twisted and disturbed mind could never imagine. Killing brothers, talking snakes (must be referring to the Daly Administration), punishing a man to prove his faith, and on and on. God damn, did I really need to burn a bush, and I’ll take either the sexual or drug innuendo that statement conjures up in your own perverted mind. I’m not a judgmental soul just an imaginary reporter there is a difference as thin as it may seem.

Most of the groups of Jesus Lovers are young: that is the one thing they all have in common, besides Jesus of course. A few older people I noted have been walking around; most conspicuously of these creatures is a man in his mid-thirties who seems to be in charge. A few of the older church ladies kept walking by, but with all the young tail it’s hard to concentrate on them for more than a moment. This is perfectly enough time for the mind to determine that these old bags are disgusting in appearance, and to quickly write them off in our beauty obsessed world. Sucks to be them. Most of these old hags have that ugly old church lady look of conservative hair, too much make up, and almost a masculine appearance. I tuned them out and simply kicked back and watched as people came and went.

An Asian kid with an eye patch that made him almost look robot kept hanging around with a gay black kid both trying their damndest to fit in. I guess it really is a new church although some things never change as the two of them seemed like outcasts. Waves of excitement came and went and were usually caused by the most simplistic of stunts within the faction that are then matched by others in the same tribe in communal displays of cult like behavior. For example a young girl put her hair up so that it looked like it was in a Mohawk. All the other kids flocked to her; they all laughed, took pictures, and within the hour another gaggle of girls had their hair up in the Mohawk fashion being greeted by a similar reception. This process came and repeated most of the night till just about every girl had their hair in a mo-hawk styling. Things were getting heady in my sober state of confusion.

Education is key to the strength of the entire organization. None of these kids are stupid as all of them appear to come from different colleges. Penn State, University of Illinois, Notre Dame, Princeton, William and Mary, are all well represented by warm sweatshirts. Education is encouraged, and is often the crux of most conversations between the Jesus lovers and the older staff.

It’s not a bad strategy as the church has failed in recruiting the mass number of kids it used to. Sex scandals, inability to modernize, and a changing attitudes among adults has resulted in a major blow to a once dominate institution. If you can’t win through sheer public appeal to the masses then restructure and focus, on what, and who matters most to your organizations survival. Why not start with the leaders of tomorrow, as those with dollars are the ones with the loudest voices as money talks and the rest of us are forced to listen. Influence out ranks mass numbers in our system, and drafting influence is the church’s strategy and it’s well placed.

It’s a smart tactic, and whomever the leader is of this interfaith cult knows exactly what he is doing. At one point in the night the guy I assumed to be in charge sat down near me and I listened to him talk about his own kid to some old lady for about forty minutes. I wished and prayed very hard that one day both him and his daughter would visit a crazy lady with a drug addicted monkey whom was going through withdrawals angered by their presence the monkey would lash out in withdrawal rage and tear their faces off. Not sure how soon God gets back to you on those kinds of requests, but to my knowledge it has yet to happen. This guy went on to tell this lady how cute his daughter was and how he’s going to have a problem with the boys because she is so cute and…sexy. Mind you the kid is no more than five years old now. The leader monster went on to debate himself in an arrogant and self serving debate trying to figure out if he should send his kid to a public school, or home school her. Not because of religious reasons, he was very clear to point out, but because she is sooooo smart she might be bored by the slow kids and teachers of the public school system. Please God send the monkey’s as soon as you can.

The marketing is brilliant as capitalism and Catholicism have always been bed room buddies. One shirt had the "GAP" logo on it, under the logo it read, "God Answers Prayers". Pardon me once again. God this is AL can I please live out the American Dream. Thank you. Anyway tons and tons of logos were bastardized by the Jesus marketing team probably by old Jews left on staff from the Old Testament days. Why the hell not, we all got to eat and Jesus hasn’t been very busy lately at the fish market. As a matter of fact if I ever do marry I have to be sure to invite him, I hear he’s great at weddings.

I walked around again still exploring, still seeking, still wanting to find the kink and filth I KNEW was in this hotel ,and no Jesus loving freaks could change that. Most of the rooms had small gold name plates that explained what was happening in them agenda wise. Room titles such as "transformation", "inspiration", "faith and FILL IN THE BLANK", occupied the labeling slots. One small room was dark and packed with media in a sect like brain-washing fashion. It was unoccupied so I sauntered in looking to learn. Well, that or steal some of the unguarded laptops. These kids got to learn somehow that God’s faith doesn’t include health insurance or theft.

The room was truly creepy, yet interesting. Bulletin boards filled the walls asking two very contrasting questions hoping to make a connection to both by use of stars as votes. Let me explain it a bit better than that. Basically it was plain white poster board that had been split by two questions. On the table were star stickers (the kind a teacher would put on a good paper) and you would place a sticker anytime you experienced or agreed with the question. If the two questions had equal stars then they must be assumed to have a connection. If one is, then there for the other is: that type of brain wash thinking. A very dangerous and misleading way to bridge issues as it implies free choice. However people looking at it objectively can understand two options is not free choice. How about those elections?

Have you ever known somebody who was beaten? Have you ever known somebody with a drinking problem? I HAVE I HAVE!!! Have you known somebody who had an abortion? Have you known somebody who killed themselves? Yes. Have you known somebody who did drugs? Have you known somebody who got into fights? Ummm are they spying on me!! Have you known somebody who stopped praying? Have you known somebody who had cancer?

I found the last one to be kind of funny and it made me laugh loudly. Cancer? Jesus Christ he really is a vengeful god isn’t he? It is very clever and very well crafted, as kids would come into this room in packs and no doubt give in to peer pressure not wanting to stand up and say, "most of these questions are problems, yes; but they are not all related". God forbid somebody had a voice other then what they want you to say or think.

The only thing that really offended me was a board where the kids would write on sticky note pads what they thought was the reason for everyday problems. No, Christians were not an option. The question was about the poor and most of these ignorant drones attributed poor to lazy. What happened to not judging? Anyway the truth is the poor are often a product of lack of opportunity. Most poor are born into poverty, it’s not something they asked for or volunteer to accept. It’s like getting the stink off your hand after a misjudgment while wiping. It just doesn’t go away no matter how hard you scrub. It’s a stain and a smell that stays with you. I wrote a nasty note and posted it and moved on.

I was getting nowhere fast so I decided to take a nap which turned into a few hours of sleep. When I got up I headed to the hot tube for a soak. I was hoping for the pool area to be packed with cute girls in bathing suits forgetting Christ for just a moment or two. But like everything else in my life it against didn’t go as planned. This is a common theme in these tough times of economic despair and deep depression where dreams are fading and shackles are gaining while I just slowly just lose my mind and nobody cares. It seemed the church bells were ringing and all the young ladies were in some gospel ho-down in the big conference room near the front of the hotel.

I petrified myself by reading the warnings on the wall outside of the hot tub and fairly quickly removed myself from that death machine. Yes, I enjoyed drugs, booze, sex, and worry about heart issues all apparently bad things to enjoy if you want to use a hot tub. I started to think I was having a heart attack in my hypochondriatic state known as sobriety. I demanded an ambulance and very hard sedatives but no life guard was on duty, everybody else was at church, and my throat was a bit hoarse so like my prayers my pleas for help went unanswered. I returned to my room and took a hot then cold shower before grabbing my laptop to type up this story you are reading now as my self imposed deadline was approaching fast. At least that’s what I thought I would do when I started heading down to my writing area.

The hotel was empty it was like a ghost town or high noon in a Gary Cooper movie. Only a few staff members roamed around wishing their day would end so they could go home, hoping and praying I wasn’t going to cause too much trouble before that point. But trouble is what I was seeking, just not at that moment and certainly not with their cautious eyes upon me. With all the kids in church service my investigation was thrown for a curve.

I got the urge to turd after a hotel restaurant cheeseburger finished its digestive process. Now was the time to capitalize on my clandestine basement area with the private bathroom and good typing atmosphere. At the very least I figured I could start the story and fill in the rest as I found it, surly it was only a matter of time before the kink and perversion would come out of the shadows as it was almost ten o’clock . What I found in the basement was neither private nor clandestine as a group of church ladies were occupying its once empty sole conference room.

Something was odd about the whole damn scenario and that didn’t sit very well with me. Why were they not in church with the rest of the loons? Why were they in this cut off area away from the other conference rooms? Why was enchanting horn heavy music and loud cackling coming from their room?

I went back up stairs and looked again at the board that listed all the conferences and discovered it was not church folk but rather that weird group I wrote off earlier because of their weird initialed name. I needed to discover what it all meant and In the process learn my lesson not to judge a book by its cover. I went back down stairs to investigate further. My plan was simple I still had to dump that cheeseburger off in the private bathroom which was right next to the room these ladies were cackling. So all I needed to do was get close enough to peak in, or wonder in, and investigate further.

I opened the men’s room bathroom door to a women standing at the mirror with a dudes hair cut and a females wig in her hand. These were not church ladies they were transvestites!! How could I have been so blinded by them? They were not the kind of tranny you see on day time TV, or that one that looks like Brittany Spears. These were old, wrinkly, transvestites dressing like Dustin Hoffmann in Tootsie or like any waitress you’ve ever ordered eggs from half drunk at a small dinner at three o’clock in the morning. Fuck I need to get back on drugs I’m falling apart.

Finally I found what I was looking for right in front of me was weird sexual deviants. In shock I shot the door and back away I sat down in a hallway chair just an ear shot from all the action and weird music. I listened, and listened hard, but the lady-dudes spoke quietly and I had no idea what they were saying. I will never forget the laughter that came from that room. It was husky like a bears roar, but yet manacle, confused, and demented. For the first time in a long time I was actually scared. I don’t know why I was frightened it wasn’t a fear of pain, emotion, or threat. I think it came from the general weirdness and inability to understand what the fuck was going on, and when the mind is confused its default emotion is fear.

At that point with the deadline for this piece fast approaching I had to act fast. Truth is I’ve been putting off writing and investigating thanks impart to a deep depression. For the past few days it’s been a task to get out of bed. The kind of dark, dwelling, depression that makes watching TV a task. I hate it, but I can’t run from it, I can’t avoid it, I can’t escape it, I can only do my damndest to sleep through it which is the only thing that beats the alternative of giving in to it.

My story will be loved or it will fail but it still weighs heavy on my mind. You win some you lose some. Life goes on. So on and so forth. That’s my attitude, but I have to admit this spell has been particularly rough, dangerously dehabilitating, and harder than most. I guess it could be worse, and it will get better. It always doe’s, doesn’t it?

If I was going to make this interesting I had to mix the Jesus kids with the old trannies. I’m not sure what I thought would happen but I was sure it would be something interesting. Would the trannies and the Christ warriors engage in a battle of moral decency and acceptance? Would there be bloodshed? Would this usher in revelations? Did Jesus Christ die for nothing? We all would soon find out, or at least that was the plan.

I went upstairs and again studied the cork agenda board. The trannies and the Jesus freaks were both having a party at 11pm. The plan was simple, as the best plans always are. I just needed to schedule both groups to meet in a ball room in the basement for their party at 11pm. A truly wild accidental experiment conducted by me for your pleasure.

I re-printed the fraudulent agenda from the hotel business center computer and pasted it where all could see. It was time to catch a few winks of depression and return to my experiment right around 11pm. I slept and dreamt a delightful dream where I became a famous actor and the world loved me. President Obama was so impressed he named me the countries new Drug Tsar and I single handily ended the drug war against our own people, saved Mexico from civil war, and in turn our economy with legalization. It was high times for all in the land of plenty.

Fuck. Me. Hard. The clock said it was two in the morning meaning I missed my experiment. Everything I built up to is lost, I’ve failed. I have failed yet again. My story is ruined and you probably are going to cancel your subscription to my meaningless blog. I went down to the ball room, but it was empty with no signs of war, struggle, love, decadence, filth, or even any signs of life. It was clean, pristine, and empty which also described my soul.

I went back to my room and I slept some more, just to get up to sleep some more. I was wide awake but I couldn’t get out of bed it was like I was tied down but I wasn’t. I was free as a man in a country of repression entrapped not by a political oppressor but rather my own dark mind. I finally got up because I had to finish this story and the trannies are now long gone, the Jesus Freaks have checked out, and I’ve failed you as the phony journalist that I am. The editor in my head is screaming that I have about an hour before this story is due. A DEAD line. I guess I could sit here and apologize to you, but that has never been my style.

Truth is the one thing I’ve learned is you are who you are and you can’t change that. Money can help, love is amazing, and ice-cream is comforting but at the end of the day the man or woman in the mirror is all you will ever be. Most don’t like what they see and I certainly am most. I wish I was younger, I wish I was smarter, I wish I could write better, I wish I could lose weight, I wish I could win more life battles, I wish I had a better and more influential role in the world but I don’t. I most likely never will. I’ve blown chances and I don’t regret the choices I’ve made; which in the Sudoku puzzle that is life it makes it very had to put the numbers in the right places. Happiness will never be something I can obtain and I accept that.

I came to this hotel looking for filth, for evil, for the sick underbelly of the worst kind. To be truthful I didn’t have to look upon or judge others, I just needed to find a damn mirror. That really is the answer to most of life’s problems it’s just such a horrible solution. What I found in this hotel was something much deeper, something realer, and something more innocent and righteous. What I found was faith. Nothing more and nothing less which is really a good thing when you think about it.

The Jesus folk have a very real, a very strong, and very interesting blind faith. I don’t know if I agree with it but I certainly understand and appreciate it. They give their life, their time, and part of their earnings to a cause greater than their own self interest. They have created a community with in a society where together they can move forth their goals, dreams, dogma, and ideology. They are dreamers sharing the same course to the same place in the sky. It really is magical.

The lovable Footlovers. I was bored to dust by them but they were passionate about their business. It was their identity, it was their lives, and it is who they are. They define it in their names going by ‘Doctor’ a proud and noble title. We all for the most part become what we are in our similar search for survival. I am a satirist and I share that bond with my worst enemy and my best friends in the business. Like us these foot lovers have created a community they have bonded as friends, and they have seen the highs and lows together. They have a definite faith in their profession and have chosen to dedicate most of their lives to a job that provides for them and their families.

Even the Russians with their gold pyramid schemes share a common bond. These men and women are just seeking a better life even if it is at the cost of others. Let’s be honest what in our world isn’t at the cost of others? Some break the laws, the powerful go around the laws, the really rich re-write the laws, and all of us speed. Putting faith in the vulnerability and vanity of fellowman and human nature seems seedy and wrong, but not to them. It’s bad, a shitty way of a life but a way of life none the less. They are just as much victims as those they seek to victimize. It’s hard to understand the faith of others if you’ve never walked in their shoes or in the case of the trannies their heels.

Here are a group of people that have so much faith in their sexuality they are willing to become pariahs of society. A group of people who are so sure of their own strange feelings they are willing to make the world a very hard place for themselves to live. I personally don’t get them but my god man their faith is a testament to us all. The hotel is their one place for them to come and be themselves which oddly to the rest of the world is them not being themselves. Odd times, but I guess that’s the way the world goes around, huh?

I don’t know if any young catholic boys ended up with the shock of their lives and a sore asshole. I’m not sure if any confused girls took another girl to their room to explore sexuality just to find a surprise that really makes them confused. I don’t know if anybody was pissed on, if toes were sucked, or if nothing happened at all. I just don’t know. The only thing I can be sure of is that faith was exercised over and over throughout this hotel.

Did I just find the faith I lost in myself years ago here in this hotel? I don’t know yet, but I can tell you before this story started I had little hope and little faith in my skill or chances to reach my dreams. Hell I thought faith in man was dead. Now here I am days later and I think I might have found the faith I had no idea I even lost. That’s the funny thing with faith it’s like a hot bath, you know it’s hot when you first get in but at the end hours later when it’s cold you hardly notice because it consumes you and the gradual decrease never allows you to feel the temperature’s true state. I had lost all faith in myself and didn’t even fucking know it and coming from a gypsy like me that is very sad. But now I will say I have found faith and conviction in a hotel and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, perhaps even years that makes me happy.

Wish me luck, and go check into a hotel and live a little on the edge because you too might find the faith you didn’t even know you lost. I’ll see you on the flip side.

AFL

I reject the premise of the American Dream: A mental midget buys a ladder and peers over the fence in the dawn of the age of voyeurism.

I reject the premise of the American Dream: A mental midget buys a ladder and peers over the fence in the dawn of the age of voyeurism.

When I lost my job I decided to seek out and find the American dream. I always thought my failures as a man can be traced back to accidently seeking the Armenian dream after misreading a Government produced pamphlet sometime after highscool, a mistake made by many fine Americans who skim instead of reading the fine print. Now some ten years later, I like George W. Bush found drugs, in the pursuit of finding God, in pursuit of seeking the White House, in pursuit of my unknown death.

I do my best thinking when I’m alone and walking. It’s where I’ve lost and found myself time and time again throughout my life. It’s where I find the most peace in this world, where I’m free from the pollution of culture, comfort, and dim witted conversation with my own self dialogue. The best part is no matter where I am, I can always walk somewhere and let my imagination flow.

I let the cracks of the cement hypnotize me in a swell head spinning anxiety that’s better than any drug I’ve ever taken except the ones I really like. To think every block of cement is a pre-negotiated right of passage through many different individuals private property is an example of how well we really do work with each other as a society and the usefulness and necessity of government. When a blizzard strikes the ‘city of corruption’ a few hours after the storm you’d be hard pressed to find a sidewalk not plowed, shoveled, or salted clean. Neighbors help neighbors’ and the city that works gets the job done no matter how high the snow or the people shoveling get. People who think community is dead need not do more then walk down a Chicago sidewalk after a snow storm to truly understand communal partnership.

Chicago is one of the few cities (the only city I actually know of) where an old chair defines a priority right to a parking spot that said chair owner shoveled out of. It’s true our politicians are all corrupt, back room dealing vampires; but us day dwellers do fine dealing with one another in the coldest and hardest times in our yearly romp into the depths of the arctic. When you work hard in the frigid conditions to get your car out of its burial crypt that spot becomes yours and that chair is respected just as much as any law or bureaucracy conjured up in city hall.

Sometimes I like to walk to a predetermined destination, and sometimes I walk just to think. My destination during this particular walk was to that Mecca of corporate failure mixing a free sprit carefree attitude with a bustling business known as Boarders books and music. It’s an eclectic group that mooches off of the free words they leave on their shelves as they indulge in over priced coffee while sitting in the reading area. Half the crowd is college kids working on their future, another forty percent is the retired remembering their past, the rest is a mix between euro trash, business trash, and just plain trash.

While searching through the social science books I found a book about some twenty five year old who took a year to find the American Dream. I thought about reading his book as a fellow traveler seeking the same question and answers I do. Then it occurred to me. Who the hell is this kid, and who the hell am I? What is the American Dream? Why is not defined? Who cares if it’s dead? Why the hell do people come to a book store to talk on the phone? All fair questions in unfair times.

It never occurred to me how lame of a search the America Dream was. It never occurred to me that I should reject the premise of the question of, ‘is the American dream dead’. After all to give in to the thought or idea of an America dream is to give up individualism. One man’s American dream tends to differ greatly from another’s based on whom they are and what their social status is. Some may seek out marriage, a career, and like a good shampooing a rinse and repeat carrying the family name on. Others seek wealth, power, fame, and decadence while others are just happy with a joint and a willing woman. None are wrong yet all our right in their vision of the dream and that must be respected as outlined in our cultural motto of, ‘pursuit of happiness’.

So to say the American Dream is dead is to not point at the collective whole but rather at the man in the mirror with the dark rings around his eyes. It is us who creates our own dream and it placed upon us to seek out the midget at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes when I look in the mirror I don’t know who the hell I’m looking at anymore or do I remember what it is I’m searching for. The American dream is not dead, it did not fail me, in reality I failed it. Too much God damn pressure if you ask me, but what do I know I’m a failure in the eyes of society.

I started explaining this to some lady who probably was polish and didn’t understand because she quickly gathered up her books and rushed away. The only way to get through to anybody in this day in age is to message them with a phone, post on an on-line social gathering site, or rant like a lunatic and hope somebody puts you on youtube. Direct communication is discouraged as it might become awkward or strange and we’ve become way to comfortable to deal with others. In order to really get the message out I figured standing on a book ladder would be the best route to getting the world out on the American Dream. After all it’s a good message that one would think the authority figures would appreciate letting the sheep know they must take control of their own dreams and destiny.

A short few minutes later the authority figures had arrived no doubt too take notes on my rant and engage in their own journey of self discovery. Unfortunately for them they must have forgotten their pens and instead of asking for a copy of my rant, they ordered me to shut up and leave. I’m sure they just wanted me to continue at a later point when they were more prepared its really the only logical explanation. I thought that was a nice gesture and complied like we all end up doing in the end. The authority figure started his own rant but I couldn’t hear him over the germen guy yelling into his phone in one of the aisle. It’s odd what the world finds acceptable, and what they don’t anymore.

I walked home with my new found information and turned on the TV in hopes to wipe out any thoughts or motivation that the walk created. The rays from the television burned and battled my ambition as I zoned out watching the Simpsons in their colorful wit. After it ended it was time to find out what was going on in the world based on what the world wanted me to hear. We’ve all lost control of the who when it comes to storytelling as were force fed what the corporations want us to hear.

ESPN and FOX NEWS both are sounding more and more like each other every day as the escapism of sports is now engaged in a heavy battle with the United States Government in the war on drugs. It’s nothing new, in 1973 as the chairman of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce Harley Orrin Staggers released a report that sports were sinking in drug abuse and if it wasn’t stopped we would all turn into spawns of Satan. He wanted to drug test players but that idea was soundly rejected as unconstitutional, yet here we are in 2009 watching as organization after organization rolls over to the ever powerful government. We have allowed the authority to control us and wage war on us instead of those vile drug dealers over seize. Truth be told they were never what the war was about it was the vile power brokers of capitol hill that sought out ways of creating more power.

Much like the question that asks what noise a tree makes when it falls in the woods when nobody is around to hear it; I often wonder if nobody asked the question of drugs in sports, if anybody would have really cared. But this is the dawn of the age of voyeurism and we are all willing participants in this live action reality show where we have it so good, all we have left to do is claim our own fame.

Most Americans as children idolize sports stars and if the government can get those heroes to submit to their rules and laws in a public forum, what message does it send to the youth? Obey or be taken down. Submit to an over aggressive government or pay the price of jail, or at the very least career suicide. If the government can find ways to force private companies to drug test then how long are we really going to be free or more so are we still free THAT is the real fucking question. How long before the same witch hunt of joculent McCarthyism sweeps Hollywood, the music industry, and the factories of our nation?

Appalachia is one of the poorest sections of our country and for the most part always has been. White inbred hillbillies roam the hills bare foot and dirty. Honestly it’s probably one of the last places in our country one can go and have a true American adventure. Despite the poverty some very good jobs exist if one is willing to risk his life for monetary reward. A first year coal miner earns around sixty thousand dollars and just about anybody regardless of education can obtain these jobs. Most would assume that these jobs are tough to get with a long waiting list but that is not the case. It turns out that in order to get this job one must be drug screened but the majority of the people of the hills like to smoke grass therefore plenty of jobs remain open. Most of the locals choose to remain poor but high, instead of risking their lives for more materialism and fiscal stability. I’m not really sure if that fact helps or hurts my point but it does force the question of what right the government has in protecting these people. It’s ok to ruin your lungs in the pursuit of coal but not ruin your lungs smoking dope. Odd.

Our government has failed in fighting the war on drugs in our streets and boarders so now they are taking it to the people. They have turned their attention and have learned to play with in the media crazed society we have built and our doing so brilliantly. We don’t care, but yet we can’t turn away in the same rubbernecking demeanor usually reserved for fatal car crashes and freaks walking on the streets.

Voyeurism is quickly becoming the national pastime quickly replacing television. It’s not the first time our culture has sought out voyeurism as a means of entertainment it’s just it’s never been to this mass degree. Not to sound like Theo Kaczynski as I love technology and what it affords me, yet at the same time I’ve extremely weary and concerned about its unregulated growth. Not regulated by Government but rather by the individual as our nation buries the cowboy image as we all slowly turn into little Mrs. Gladys Kravitz watching our neighbors and friends from a safe Facebook distance.

Most people in the 1980’s were too busy taking vacations on their credit cards to care about the size of government. The ideology of the nation was often summed up with the question, “how does this affect me”. When the affect wasn’t immediate and didn’t interfere with the individuals spending spree then it was often shrugged off. Two decades of plastic vacations and people has come to a quick end. Now we are back to work but most of us are too damn tired to fight a government that didn’t take a vacation but rather expanded its role making us more and more obsolete.

The days of hitchhiking, causing trouble, doing drugs, and being free is over. We were too busy doing nothing to fight for it and most of us truly believed we would be safer without it. We allowed them to tie us all together through laws and loopholes so tight that if anyone of us died we would all have to drag the body. Now we are carrying the dead weight and enslaved to a system begging our masters for relief. We cry to them that we need healthcare, we ask them to cut some of this deadweight by tying us tighter, and every day we give in more and more because we’re too fucking consumed by comfort to fight. Maybe if the comfort vanishes we will one day rebel, again, and take back our country. Till then beware Mr. Phelps, watch your back Mr. Rodriguez, and be ready to piss in a cup.

AFL