Theory: Critique and Response to Gusterson's Anthropology and Militarism

Critique and Review of Dr. Hugh Gusterson's "Anthropology and Militarism"
10.9.07

In his article for the 2007 Annual Review of Anthropology Dr. Gusterson writes a lucid historical overview of Militarism's influence on the field of Anthropology. The aim of this paper is to deconstruct his analysis into key points, reveal areas where his language and assumptions are inadequate or misleading, and propose more relevant question's using Gusterson's own data.


Introduction
"...anthropology has been more or less subtly molded by the priorities of the national security state and the exigencies of other peoples' wars...(Gusterson 156)"

This statement blatantly describes a fact about the field of Anthropology that I have come to accept only after four years of University study. The surprising thing about this simple assertion is that I have never heard it said or even implied in any Anthropology course, it was a conclusion I had to come to on my own. After reaching this conclusion unaided I wrote a brief abstract on the topic which I sent to many of my favorite American Anthropologists including C.M. Shaw, D. Brenneis, P. Lyndell, and others. To my surprise only one responded to my allegations and that response was an affirmative. Upon reading Gusterson's work I now ask the pertinent question: If it is the case that Anthropology has been molded by the national security state, why is this never emphasized in any U.S. Anthropology courses? It seems a vital facet to understanding the dynamics of the discipline.

To further support this assertion Dr. Gusterson has a host of historical examples:

1) "In the United Sates, anthropology emerged as the state sought to understand and administer native populations in the Indian Wars (Borneman 1995)."
2) "During World War II, a small number of anthropologists were also... involved in the administration of internment camps for Japanese Americans (Starn 1986)."
3) "By the Vietnam years a new generation of anthropologists... began to question anthropology's private bargains with the national security state (Gusterson 157)"
4) "...anthropologists covert work in the service of counterinsurgency in Latin America and Southeast Asia in the 1960's.. (Berreman 1968; Nader 1997; Price 2000, 2004; Watkin 1992; Wolf & Jorgenson 1970)"
5)"... critique of anthropologists who doubled as spies during World War I...(Boaz 1919)"

It becomes increasingly obvious that Anthropology has been consistently interwoven with the military intelligence community since it's very inception. I think it would even be fair to say at this point that Foreign Intelligence Agencies are one of Anthropology's parents. While the rhetoric of most Anthropology courses is such that a "true" anthropologist is one who can keep an objective viewpoint, we find that the reality is that this has never been the case. Possibly more disturbing is that anthropology students are not taught about these connections. This leads to malformed learning, where the student is studying ethnographies and other papers which where written from an intelligence viewpoint and , as a result, these students are being taught that the viewpoint in question is actually neutral. If the field of Anthropology truly wished to remain objective, rather than training new spies and calling them anthropologists, it would teach these historical points first. The purpose being to give the student the ability to separate true scientific objectivity from "anthropology molded by national security."

The End of The Cold War
One of the more lucid and telling points of Gusterson's article in my opinion was his reference to the work of Huntington and Kaplan, whom he refers to as "popular writers," rather than anthropologists:

"Huntington argued that Cold War bipolarity would be... exacerbated by globalization, that would throw the West into conflict with China and the Islamic world (Huntington 1996)."

Which, indeed, we see coming to pass today. Kaplan wrote an article for Atlantic Monthly, no anthropological journal by any stretch of the imagination, which was faxed by the State Department to every U.S. Embassy in the world. This is a key point in my argument. Here you see a scholar who is not tied to the intelligence community, but never-the-less, has his work co-opted by them. This is a point I will come back to, but I use it as supporting evidence for the assertion that all anthropological work serves the interest of the intelligence community, whether solicited or not.

Ethnic Violence and Genocide
"Globalization eroded the state's old monopoly of legitimate violence from above - through the 'trans-nationalization of military forces' - and from below, as force was increasingly privatized (Gusterson 159)"

Here the dynamics of the modern day global intelligence community is being subtly explained. As Victor Marchetti writes in his ethnographic biography "The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence," the Cold War was an age of so much espionage that the intelligence agencies of different countries became indistinguishable from one another. This was the result of mutual infiltration on all sides. To make a simplified example, when enough KGB agents had saturated the CIA, and when enough CIA agents had infiltrated the KGB, the two organizations became indistinguishable from each other, creating one large entity. Add to this equation "Proprietary Corporations" or private companies such as Air America, which were secretly owned by the CIA, and we have the groundwork for a global corporate intelligence complex which, although acting as private entities, are actually outgrowths of the military.
Gusterson continues to explain how this dynamic changed the effects of war on the world's population:

"Partly because these wars sought to settle the identities of entire populations, 80%-90% of the casualties were civilian - the exact inverse of the military-civilian casualty ratio at the start of the twentieth century (Gusterson 160)."

Not surprising considering that Intelligence Agencies function as Civilian organizations. What Gusterson fails to point out here is that this change in militarism is a direct result of the increase of the power of the Intelligence community. Where the historical military has been concerned with other militaries, historical intelligence has been more concerned with terrorism and disinformation, which commonly come in the form of civilian casualties. This ratio change is solid evidence that the balance of power in the world has changed from one of military might to one of Information. He then asks the question;

"...of why identities that, according to this literature, are manufactured and contingent are nevertheless so powerful in mobilizing populations for mass murder, and why when nations fractured in the 1990's they so often did so along ethnic lines... (Gusterson 160)."

The answer to his question is self evident and asking this question is misleading. A better question is: "Who molds the identities that are manufactured and contingent?" The answer can be found in "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli, Dr. Zapolsky's famous Stanford Prison Experiment, as well as a document known as "The Willie Lynch Letter." In "The Prince" Machiavelli is teaching an incoming regent how best to maintain control of populations under his jurisdictions. One of his key pieces of wisdom is to keep the people divided against themselves in order to keep them powerless to overthrow the regent. Keep in mind that this was written over three hundred years ago. This tactic has been used by modern intelligence agencies for at least a century and the fact that the "fracture of nation's in the 1990's" was due mostly to the work of the Intelligence community should be a solid pointer to the fact that these mass rapes and violence were manufactured by those in power.
Zapolsky's experiment shows very clearly how easy it is to group people into arbitrary categories and influence them to enact atrocities they would never consider otherwise.
Finally, "The Willie Lynch Letter" is a letter from European Slave owner Willie Lynch from the turn of the century. Lynch is giving advice to a group of North American slave owners about how to best control them. He counsels that the best method for control of the slave population is to create dissension between: " 1) The younger slave and the older slave. 2) The light-skinned slave and the darker-skinned slave. 3) Those who worked in the house and those who worked in the field. 4) Those who had straight hair and those who has coarse or kinky hair. 5) Those who came from the south and those who came from the north. 6) Miss no manner of pointing out to them how one is better than another, one more worthy than the other."
All three of these examples illustrates a simple truth which the controlling intelligence agencies of today have learned to master. Why this topic is rarely brought up in the academic world is another mystery to me, when it seems self-evident that this is the answer to so many of the questions Gusterson is posing.

Memory Work
"When fighting ends, collective memory of war and suffering is controlled through an institutionalized interweaving of remembrance... what Yoneyama calls "amnesiac cells" and Lifton & Mitchell call 'historical Cleansing' (Gusterson 161)."

Here Gusterson is reflecting on acts of violence perpetrated by different groups and positing what it is that causes humans to group themselves together against one another. His answer "Institutionalized Interweaving of Remembrance" sheds light on his previous question and further supports my assertion that the dynamics of human behavior are already well established (Zapolsky). Who exactly is the entity which is institutionalizing these 'amnesiac cells?' Gusterson doesn't say or even guess. This being the case, his arguments for more study of these "Memory Phenomena" seems to me to be superfluous. We have already established that Anthropology has been widely and continuously influenced by the national security state and here it begins to be unveiled that groups of people can also be similarly influenced, a point we will come back to later.




Fear as a Way of Life
The article continues to address "how violence works as a set of cultural practices and what it does to people to live in a society wracked by civil war or state-sponsored terror (Scheeper-Hughes & Bourgois 20003)".
Gusterson goes on to quote Green from 1994 with an eerily accurate depiction of modern life in America since the events of September 11th, 2001:
"...routinizing allows people to live in a chronic state of fear with a facade of normalcy, while the terror, at the same time, permeates and shreds the social fabric (Green 231)."
Although using this quote to discus the "phenomenology of war," it seems the greater implications of this theory, i.e. the possibly for planned, institutionalized, routinizing are lost to Gusterson. He gets very close to stating the truth in our next quote, but misses by virtue of two words:
"... militarist apologetics (bold/italics mine) have distorted U.S. media coverage of international affairs (Hannerz 2004, Herman & Chomsky 2002, Gusterson 1999, MacArthur 1992, Pedelty 1995) and helped shape a degraded popular culture saturated with racial and national stereotypes, anesthetized destruction, and images of hyper-masculinity (Der Derian 2001, Feldman 1994, Gibson 1994, Weber 2005)."

The term "militarist apologetics," when used to refer to the controllers of the U.S. mass media is very misleading. The people that are being referred to not "militarist apologetics," but "calculating propagandists" at best and "First Degree Conspirators" at worse. It has been shown repeatedly in the past five years that private interest groups have taken a greater interest in the molding of U.S. media. These interest groups are composed of wealthy private individuals and corporations who deliberately choose what they wish the public to hear and to know, to the end of supporting routinizing. To call them simple apologetics misses a very important dynamic in the current world situation. The views that are being fed to the public are not merely apologetic. They are manipulative, and placed with specific aims in mind.

"...recent years have seen the parallel emergence of anthropology contracted to, enabled by, or in a broad sense allied with the military (Gusterson 164)."

Recent years? In the very beginning of this article Gusterson recounts how anthropology has been closely allied with the military since it's inception. Why now is he saying it's a recent phenomena?

Gusterson's Conclusion
"Anthropology has much theoretical and empirical work to do illuminate militarism, today. If we sell our skills to the national security state, we will just become part of the problem (Gusterson 165)."
This is a pitifully weak conclusion which battles against common sense, when taking into account the wealth of information already given to the reader in this article. It is now apparent that Anthropology has been selling it's skills to the security state since it's inception. Saying " If we..." is obtuse at best and deliberately misleading at worst. Militarism and anthropology are helplessly interwoven from years of mutual interaction and ignoring that fact only serves to perpetuate it's existence.
The more relevant question that this paper brings up is "Can anthropology exist without militarism?" The answer is not as straight forward as some would think.
For example, Gusterson cites some areas which could use more "independent" anthropological studies such as "Diasporas roles in revolution" and "living near land mines." However, the data gathered by every study he suggests would be valuable to the Military-Industrial complex. A study of "Diasporas roles in revolution" benefits the intelligence sector that wishes to manipulate governments in countries with Diasporas. A study of the life of people who live in abandoned conflict zones surrounded by land mines can serve to help the military learn how to fight "cleaner" wars, but that has never and most sadly probably never will be the goal of the military. With that in mind that same study could be used to increase the instances of landmines, in an effort to create stronger routinizing in the country in question.
As a linguistic anthropologist, Gusterson does a poor job of auditing his own words. I get the impression that he already knows the truth, but is bound by institutional forces to not state it. His conclusion does not utilize, nor match, the data he provides, and his recommendations for future fieldwork play right into the hands of the national security state he claims to be trying to distance himself from. He shows how anthropology is inextricably connected with militarism, yet continues to use these same anthropological methods to study how that could not be. To borrow a page from the science of Quantum Physics there is a principle called the "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle." This principle is easily understandable to the layman and states basically that "Any scientific study is biased based on the tools used to study the phenomena. No amount of calculation can remove the bias of the tool, because other tools are then being used to measure the bias and every tool has a bias." Finally, Gusterson's only recommendations are for more fieldwork. This does not in any way address the issue at hand.
The tools of anthropological analysis cannot be relied upon to study either anthropology or militarism because they were formed by them and have continued to be strongly influenced by them. Imagine a Republican doing a comprehensive investigation of Republican politics. Do you think his or her conclusions would be free of Bias? They couldn't be. Now imagine an anarchist that was raised and educated away from politics and society doing the same study. Which do you think would be more observant? Any writer or computer programmer can tell you that others are often the best judge of ones work, because the creator is often too close to their own work to judge it objectively.

My Conclusion
Why did the State Department fax a copy of an Altantic Monthly article to all of it's embassies in the world? And why did that Anthropologist choose to publish in a "popular magazine" rather than writing an Anthropological paper on the subject? The obvious conclusion is that the author was aware of the bias of his own field and opted for trying to reveal the truth to the public rather than work within the biased national security establishment. How did the national security establishment respond to this action? They immediately co-opted his work anyways.
No study of militarism is free from co-option, regardless of the forum, and no study of this nature can exist without coming to the attention (and ultimately aiding) the national security state. Anthropology has and always will be a tool of the Intelligence agencies. No amount of additional study needs to be done on the topic, we already have all the data we need.
The only anthropological work which can be done which does not benefit the International Intelligence community is work which is closely edited by the singular anthropologist alone, while they are in the field. Future Anthropologists need to be taught the full history of anthropology's interaction with the national security establishment and obtain a deep academic grounding in ethics - both of which are greatly missing from today's curriculum. Every field worker needs to learn to see their own work, not as pure academics, but also as intelligence reports. In this manner they will be greater able to edit out information which could potentially be abused or misused.
Why is this not occurring? Why is there so much resistance to his happening? I will leave you to your own conclusions.

Letter: From a Good Friend

I understand now why you did what you did. I am sorry i ruined things between us, you were this awesome guy who told me alot about himself and i was just being this stupid kid who thought that you could be this person to fix all of my problems which i know now is and was wrong of me to think so. But most importantly i totally bitched at you when i was not supposed to. You offered me friendship and i more or less threw that back in your face and i did because i wasnt thinking i was overraught with my own problems which i tried to impose on you that was a bad error on my part. You were trying to help me and i basically slapped you in the face which is very much my fault. I just want you to know that even if you never want to talk to me again i will always remember you as i do now. I just thought that you should know that you for awhile you made some difference in my life. I kno i kno you are gonna say "how?" well i will tell you. Through you i felt this kind of confidence and learned alot and it was foolish of me to cross that. To me you will always be regarded as a friend and i hope that you will find in your life, whatever it is that you are looking for.

Sincerly,

(name removed)

Poem: Time to Lead

If it is my time to lead,
then so be it,
I conceed.
To sit and rot,
in my own shit,
is not much fun,
I must admit.

I do suppose,
my time has come,
to shun the moon,
embrace the sun.

A time to drop,
the ways of old,
to open my heart
mind
body
and soul.

To reclaim the powers,
god gifted to me;
to study, to write, to speak,
and be free.

With nothing to fear,
and nowhere to hide,
I'll shine like a star,
loseing false pride.

Poem: If My Bum Friends Could See Me Now Part 2 (Union Square)

Tony calls.
He's been kicked out of his rehab
and is back on the street.
Again.
Hanging out on the same corner
we used to be at together.

We called ourselves
"The League of Extraordinary Bums."
He told me
that I was the
first person who ever
made him feel like being a bum
was Noble.

Our Eskimo friend
Ray-Ray
called me some word
in Eskimo
which meant "Shaman."
Ray-Ray barely ever spoke
and when he did
it was usually in one syllable words.
"Mlbtylsco," he said one day,
pointing his finger at me.
I asked what it meant
and he said,
"You are Priest,"
waving his filthy hands,
"Sha-man-priest."

He only said it once.
Every time I tried to bring it up after,
he didn't remember, or notice.
Which is not unusual for Ray-Ray.

A year later Tony tells me,
with all seriousness,
that I am a street-priest.
We used to sit,
all day long,
on the street,
and watch people.
Possibly thousands a day.

And we'd laugh at the suckers.
Laugh and drink
and smoke and read
and play music
and beg.

All the while the ant-hive-sleep people
would pass by in droves,
The constant herd,
Union Square in SF.

Poem: Insomnia (part 9?)

It's time to go to sleep.
Way past time, really.
And my eyes are wide,
my mind awake.
I have no ideas except;
drink, smoke, masturbate...
Sleep will surely come,
eventually?
I know it will.
For I have endured
many nights like these.
And I'll prolly endure
a couple a more.
With any luck
I will die
having left
more than I took.
Amen.

Poem: Another Day (part 7?)

I do not want to face the day.
No other way to say it.
I'm scared of everything
and I want to go back to sleep
and die.

Another day has come again
and all looks pretty and swell.
Yet how it looks and how it feels
are two very different things indeed.

Poem: Resume #2 (dedicated to Dorothy Parker)

To shoot myself
may be quite fine,
except that it would
take some time:
To procure a gun
and license too,
on my word,
that's much to do.

A little poison
cold work out well,
if I could find
someone to sell.
But even then
it wont be cheap,
and as it is,
I'm on the street.

Maybe a noose
would do me the trick:
Find me a rope
that's both strong and thick,
hang it up high,
and down low I'd drop...
I like the idea,
but I can't tie a knot.

A knife in the chest
is a sure bet, they say.
But whoah if I missed
and woke crippled
next day.

Or how about a leap
from a building
on top:
I'd fall to the street,
a wet, bloody, spot.
But what of the chance,
that I fell by mistake,
on an innocent child,
not yet on the take?

For all of these things
are less than ideal.
Perhaps then instead
I'll just learn to heal.
But even that too
is a long, painful, path.

It seems my one option,
is letting time pass.

Poem: Not the Judge

I am a lot of things
I never wanted to be.
I am some things
I always wanted to be.
Does it equal out?
Doesn't feel like it,
most of the time.

But who am I to say?
Not the Eternal Judge.

Poem: God is on my Side

I forgot how to be happy,
and God is on my side.
Wonderin if I'll ever be free,
and God is on my side.

I feel the dull, the pain, the ache,
seeing the others
enjoying their fate.

Find nothing for me,
but longing and pain.
And God is on my side.

Poem: The not-so-mighty Battle

When the burden
seems unwieldly
and light is not enough
the gates of heaven
faltering
to Hell's great onslaught

The sword of Great Lucifer
lies deep is God's red side

Than this is the time
to do the great deed
that only you can do:

Relax, dude, and have a beer,
there's really not much else you can do
right now.

Poem: My Back

And then,
one day,
my back went out.
I was 26.

Not totally crippled,
per se,
but my life
had just been changed.

No longer would I
be able to carry
my bride across
the threshold.
Nor carry kids piggy back.
Or swing someone around in a wild hug.
Carefree sex was gone now too,
before I'd really had a crack at it.
And I was glad that I had already
slept on concrete streets,
because that's out now too.

What can one do,
but carry on and change.
I didn't see it coming,
not so soon at least.

But it's a little late
to complain about it now.

Poem: Make it so

My friends were always like that:
I guess that's why I chose them.
Always going out, making art, giving their life meaning
despite all social resistance.
God bless them all.
And I could go along with them:
to Burning Man,
to parties,
to raves,
loving their zest
for life
but knowing the whole time
that I was not like them.
Not anymore.

My freedom was spent,for the most part, in my youth.
I travelled the land, free of fears,
or aims, or burdens.
That was a long time ago.
My ability to think, dream, and plan, became...
Molded, conditioned,
into certain pathways.
Slowly, but surely creating
a mind not made for
joy and art,
but for
survival, for protection,
and quick pleasures are the only guarentee of happiness.

I need to learn to dream again:
Bigger and brighter and clearer.
he Universe is Mine
and I can do with it what I will.
Make it so!

Poem: It never was

When the blessings
outweigh the curses
how can the curses be so strong?

When so much is good
the bad can still appear strong
and with force

The good will disolve
the bad will dissipate
like it never was.

Poem: Stages of Woman

There is a way
that a young woman
moves her body
-the sexy way
and you look
at a young girl
and she moves
in the same way
but it is not sexy
yet
it is simply cute
but it is the seed
the begining
of slight movements
of the hips
tilt of the head
flip of the hair
arch of the back
and like a wine
they grow and refine
with age

A mature woman
has them mastered
under her total sway
and direction
she uses her movements
sparingly, powerfully
and always with a purpose.
Like a deadly weapon.

The young woman
flows with her
natural grace
shamelessly showing it off
to the world
which is so enamored
of her grace
the power of her sex
atracting everyone
who can see.

Poem: Sex

Good sex, like all other,
Physicals,
can be highly addictive.

I walk away from
endless moments
of sex
like a king on a cloud
and I want more

my body alive
with the sensual
every female I see
I desire them all

and it seems possible
suddenly
like they could all
be mine

if only I had the time...

Poem: I Am Them All

I am a collection
of the people
I have loved.

From each
friend and lover
I take parts
and am changed permenantly,
they always live with me
inside my head
and my heart
my books
and my music.

It is my profoundest hope
that I have made
as great an
impression
upon them
as they have made
on me.

What sorrow may be felt
on the eave of departure
is overshadowed by far
by the eternal love
and intimacy
of those who have changed my life.

They are always with us.

Poem: Opus F

Flatulence,
my happy friend,
to keep me warm,
down in my end.
Farting boldly,
through the night,
gas comes out,
to make things right.
Great Gas Bags,
of smell most foul,
drips of poop,
are oft times found.
Left alone,
to sit and weep,
for that Great Fart
that will
repeat

Poem: Of infinite Peace

The happiest sound on earth:
Pleasure moan of a young woman
in my ear
breathing and writhing in
orgasm
knowing that:
I am doing this.
I am the one
causing her bliss.
Life purpose achieved
in a female sigh
of infinite peace.

Poem: Untitled

I wish I were here with
Lachon Marie
I wish she were laying here
right next to me

the sound of her laugh
and the feel of her skin

I hope that I'll get
to see her again.

Poem: Peace Prayer

Good times stay with me,
through whatever's to come.
Let me stay in your love
for all of my days.
May memory retain
what my heart now knows.
That the Universe loves me,
like a river it flows.

Poem: A Good Vent

A Good Vent
by me

"Are you sure you aren't afraid to get hurt?"
she asked me, raising her voice slightly,
with something which sounded like hope.
"Yes," I said slowly,
"Yes, I am sure."
But as soon as I had
said it
I realized it wasn't true.
I thought about it for the next couple of days.
First I thought:
"Well, maybe it's 30% afraid for me and 70% afraid for them."
But that was not good enough,
the question stayed in my head.

Is it possible that _I_ am the one who is afraid of getting hurt?
Could it be?

Yes.

Damnit. Yes it could be.
But not so much a fear of being hurt,
as a fear of loosing control.

The Greatest Love I have yet known in this life
filled me with such a passion-
that I forgot everything else in life:
My job, my health, my future.
Everything meant nothing so long as I could be with her.

In the end,
both of our worlds had been destroyed by our passion.
I look back upon the rubble now.

I am different these days, to be sure.
I have learned and grown and prospered.

But I do not trust Love,
nor its effects on me.
In the same way a Sober Alcoholic
doesn't trust a drink.
Its nothing against the drink,
it brings pleasure to many.
But if you are the type that will let the drink kill you,
well, you get the idea.

So I take my Love in small doses, these days.
The milder side of love:
Time with friends, warm moments of innocent flirtation, a rare date.

My passion still boils to the surface from time to time,
but a good vent usually releases the pressure.

A Good Vent

Letter: To my Mother

Dear Mom,

It is my saddest burden to write you this letter. I sincerely wish I was not the one who had the responsibility to tell you these things. It's not fair for a son, it should not be my job. Sadly, it seems there is no one else in your life who has the capacity or desire to tell you and so it falls on me. Like so much of our history, the burden falls on me.

I am now going to explain reality to you. It is sad, painful, shameful, embarrassing, but most importantly it is true. Before I tell you the reality of our situation I would like to remind you that I love you. I am proud of you. I appreciate everything you have done for me, I tell everyone about your books. You are a good person who has made a lot of positive impacts on the earth and you will be remembered well after you die. I will always love you and remember you for your good qualities.

That being said, I hope you can listen to the other facts that may not be so pleasant to your ears. Here are the facts. You were born into a rich family and spoiled. Your father died young so you had no father figure. You have never managed money well. You were a flight attendant. You were/are a school teacher. You are an author. All of the money you now have was given to you by a judge in a divorce settlement. You were offered a mercedes in that settlement, but you didn't take it. You were given a 1.5 million Dollar house in San Francisco. You did not take care of it, squandered it. You moved to Los Angeles and spent the house income on "following your dream" of being a script writer. You did not work for that year, just living in luxery while I worked full time and went to school at night, totally miserable. I was 18 years old. Then you married a man just as abusive as your first husband, but stupider. He talked you into selling your house so that he could buy a house with a pool, comfy chair, and a big screen TV, in a rich area of Sacramento that you can't afford. Oh yeah, and loose $50,000 in a movie scam he talked you into. Now, your 1.5 Million Dollars has dwindled into $300,000.00 by your mismanagement and Terry's manipulations. You are scared about your future and retirement. Terry constantly terrorizes you with this fear and makes you think that it is neccessary for you to work constantly, which is false. You so not have to work, unless you are supporting Terry. If you left him and moved you Mexico you would not have to work and still have enough money to support me. You are playing right into Terry's game.

The saddest thing about this whole situation is that I am the only person in the entire world who has your best interests at heart. I actually want you to be happy and healthy. Terry stocks your fridge with food he knows is bad for you. You had to have a gastrointestinal bypass surgery because your husband doesn't care enough about you to stop buying ice cream. Terry has shown very little concern for you and he can barely take care of himself. Tom is equally stupid, sadly. I am it, Mom. I am the best bet you've got and you are treating me like crap. In all seriousness, who do you have to take care of you? Who? You have admitted that you are loosing your wits, you know that you are getting old, I'm not telling you something you don't know. This is what you should be thinking about. Not my major. I am furious and depressed that you are in this situation. I am trying my best to help you, but you keep lecturing me instead of dealing with you own problems. Please cut the crap.
If you don't trust me enough at this point to send me a check with my name on it, then you are really fucked up. I have spent the last three years proving myself and I have been proved. Go ahead and cut me off. I will be homeless again before I will keep licking your ass in denial. It is exactly what Terry wants, go ahead and keep playing into his hand. I am your last friend and it is your choice how you treat me.

Seriously,

Jane Doe

Thoughts: Working as a Student

Hello, my name is Jane Doe and I am a third year student at UC Santa Cruz. As one of the poorer students at UC Santa Cruz, I fund my education entirely through Grants, Scholarships, Student Loans, and Work Study.
Work study is awarded to the poorest students on campus as a way for them to make enough money to attend college. The work-study jobs on campus are reserved for work-study students and may not be given to anyone else by Federal law. I should also mention that if you are offered work-study as part of your Financial Aid package, but do not take a work study position, it is counted against you in future financial aid assessments.
My particular work study position is at the UCSC McHenry Library, where I make $7.50/hr, also known as minimum wage. During the school year I am given an average of 7-10 hours a week and not permitted to take anymore because my department hires so many students. I suspect the administration hires so many students deliberately and with ill intent, due to the fact that state law says that anyone who works a certain number of hours in entitled to certain rights (such as sick leave, raises, and breaks). By keeping so many students in the department during the school year, the administration is assured that they will never have to give any of their workers benefits. The fact that all of these workers are financially challenged work-study awardees makes this practice all the more questionable. Furthermore the Library does not hire students for Staff positions, I assume because that would also mean the administration would have to start treating these workers like human beings with rights.
Is it proper to use the campus' poorest members as minimum-wage slave labor? I have spoken with work-study participants in many different jobs on campus and their stories are all very similar: Hard work, minimum wage, no benefits. These are the students who are already taking out loans in order to fund their education and need money, arguably, more than those who are provided for by their families. I think it is despicable and deplorable that the University chooses to exploit their Financial Aid Students in such a fashion. This injustice should be exposed and the Regents should answer for their policies.

Poem: Impotent to Dream

It's been so long since I have dreamed,
I can't remember how.
When I try, they come out,
small, stilted, and broken
-out of practice and Rusty.

I admire the other Dreamers,
who I meet every day.
Their dreams lead them to places.
And I am sometimes jelous
and deeply saddened.
Watching their dreams,
turn into plans,
turn into life.

While my time continues to pass,
Impotent to Dream.

Poem: A New Past

I finally have a past,
again,
for that I should be glad.
A history,
to place on forms,
to prove I'm good,
not bad.

A former Boss
and Landlord too.
Bills for phone and gas
and all of it,
writ in my name,
to prove I have a past.

There was a time
I could not say
what I'd been doing when;
And every form which asked of me,
went to the rubbish bin.

And every person,
that I met,
demanded me to prove:
Who I was and whence I'd came.
Otherwise: No Food.

I finally have a past again,
I hope it stays for good.

But even if it goes away,
it only means:
No Food.

Poem: Noble Bums

If my Bum Friends could see me now,
I wonder what they'd say:
"Daamn, your pimpin'!"
and
"Look at you, now!"
and
"Awww, you fuckin sellout."

Yes, I've got it all again.
If by "all" you mean
places, functions, uses, to society.

In some ways I feel better:
Waking up to fresh coffee
having food in the fridge
a home to hide from the world
a shower
for the moment.

In some ways I feel worse:
Never-ending routines of,
Laundry,
Cleaning,
Shopping,
Gas,
and Work.

It's going alright
and I shouldn't complain.

Neither one seems to me
to be more Noble.

Poem: God is on my Side

I forgot how to be happy,
and god is on my side.
Wonderin if I'll ever be free,
and god is on my side.
I feel the dull, the pain, the ache.
I see the others,
enjoying their stake.
Find nothing for me,
but moments of joy.
And God is on my side.

Poem: Blessings and Curses

When the blessings
outweigh the curses,
how can the curses be so strong?

When so much is good,
can the bad still
appear strong and with force?

The good will disolve.
The bad will dissipate.
Like it never was.

Poem: Good Sex

Good sex,
like all other physicals
can be highly addictive.

I walk away from
endless moments
of sex
like a King on a cloud
and I want more

My body alive
with the sensual
every female I see
I desire them all

And it seems possible
suddenly,
like they could all be mine.

If only I had the time...

Poem: Collection of Me

I am a collection
of the people
I have loved
From each
friend and lover
I take parts
and am changed permenantly
and they always live wiht me:
inside my head and my heart
my books and my music.

It is my profoundest hope
that I have made
as great an impression on them
as they have had on me.

Poem: Opus F

Flatulence, my happy friend
to keep me warm, down in my end
farting boldly, through the night
gas comes out, to make things right
Great gas bags, of smell most foul
drips of poop, are oft times found
left alone, to sit and weep
for the Great Fart, which will repeat.

Poem: The Happiest Sound on Earth

The happiest sound on earth:
pleasure moan of a young woman in my ear
Breathing and writhing in orgasm.
Knowing that:
I am doing this,
I am the one, causing her bliss.
Life purpose acheived
in a female sigh
of infinite peace.

Poem: Good Times Stay

Good times stay with me
through whatever's to come
let me stay in your love
for all of my days
may memory retain
what now my soul knows
that the universe loves me
like a river, it flows.

Theory: Cultural Athropology as Intelligence Tool

An Open Letter to My Favorite Anthropologists 5/7/07

The Problem with Cultural Anthropology:

The Problem with Cultural Anthropology can be summed up in two phrases: "Que Bono (Who Benefits)?" and "Actionable Intelligence."

In the first quote we are asking the question "Who benefit's from ethnographies about cultures" but more importantly "who benefits, the most?" The Anthropologists I have surveyed say that the scientific community benefits from this knowledge. This is undoubtedly the case, but is this the only interest group that benefits from ethnographies and what is the power relationship between these different groups?

The second quote comes from literature dealing with Military Intelligence Operations. "Actionable Intelligence" is information which is gathered about a certain culture, ethnicity, region, political, interest, or ethnic group which can be used to manipulate that group to the will of the Military Operation. Hence "Actionable" here means data that can be used to perform actions. The primary duty of every Intelligence Agency in the USA (CIA, DIA, NSA, OSI, ONI, NRO, etc) is to produce "Actionable Intelligence" to be used by policy makers to better inform their decisions (cite-able).

The Problem with Cultural Anthropology is that it creates "Actionable Intelligence." I take for granted the assumption that the individual aims of most Anthropologists are ideologically pure, but that does not speak to the ideology of those who will use the information that the Cultural Anthropologist has gathered. It is my singular opinion that the power of a Global Military-Industrial Complex is far greater than that of the Academic Anthropology Society and this power imbalance influences the nature of all Cultural Anthropology Ethnography toward creating "Actionable Intelligence." In congressional research circles this is known as "Project Drift," which occurs in complex operations when one aspect of an operation begins to drift unbidden into others and eventually dominates(cite-able).

This became most apparent to me in my repeated attempts to advocate a fuller appreciation of the Emic viewpoint in tribal religious ceremonies. It seems to me a matter of simple and obvious truth, that the best way to study a culture is to become a part of it. I have been repeatedly informed that this is called "going native" and is generally frowned upon in Anthropology. Dan Everett , a noted Linguistic Anthropologist who recently returned from Brazil is being accused of similar charges and his name smeared in academic circles (cite-able). His paper was purely about Linguistics, but the fact that he has openly converted to a native religion was enough to entail a full on attack on his character in the some of the Academic Media. Smear attacks are also a historical tool of Intelligence Operations, used to discredit those who are a threat to the status quo (cite-able). It sparked the question in me: "what does the academic establishment have against knowledge?"

I have also been studying the culture of intelligence agencies for several years and it occurred to me that they share this single facet with Cultural Anthropology. As an espionage agent one of the worst things which can happen, from an oversight perspective, is for you to sympathize with those you are infiltrating. The very worst thing is for you to switch sides and join the group you are studying. This is the same tone I find widely espoused in modern day Cultural Anthropology (cite-able).

I honestly do not know what to think about all this. It's hard to see why ethnographies would not be used as "Actionable Intelligence"; it would be a waste of Intelligence capital if Interest Groups were not using them for private gain. So that leaves me with the philosophical question of whether the weight of "Salvage Archeology," which in this case includes ethnographies of quickly vanishing cultures, outweighs the harm to these very cultures by the use of the military-industrial complex. Is it possible that Cultural Anthropology is contributing drastically to the downfall of the very societies it claims to preserve and honor?

I will appreciate any and all responses. This email was sent to many people I respect in the field of Anthropology, but if you press reply it will come only to me. Thank you for your time.

Poem: From Pain to Pleasure

It's no wonder I have spent so much time:
Driven to Distraction.
In the spiral of time
I find my compulsions
(The women, the books, the substances)
Leading back to the same source:
Pain.
I have lived with it for years now,
have become adapted,
used to it.
I've dealt with my pain,
through diversion,
these years.
Throwing my all
into a new crush
or passion...

This method no longer serves me,
so well,
now that I see it in the light.
I would like to be free of physical pain.
I would like it very much.
My consciousness feels like a pin ball.
Constantly bouncing from one point
to the next.
At a moments notice,
from pain
to pleasure.

Poem: Old Man of the Mountain

The kind of day where
time just crawls.
Mechanical Universe Watch
winding down.
No way to force time to proceed,
though I wish it would.

Endurance and Perseverance:
The two wives of Patience.

Come to me, Old Man of the Mountain,
teach me your way of peace
and stillness.

That I may never worry again.
Amen.

Poem: The Center

I am the axle
at the center
of the wheel
my life turns around me

Circumstances change
things come
as they go
the wheel always turning

I am the axle
at the center
of the wheel
as I have ever been

The only thing I can
control
is my outlook

I am the axle
at the center
of the wheel

My center is empty
and that is how
the wheel turns.

Poem: One of Our Own

The Other Day
a woman was
bending over me
trying to inject
my veins with narcotics

And it was possibly
the most intimite
that I had been in
with anyone
in years

She was not a nurse
or a lover
Just another Junkie
trying to help out
one of her own.

Poem: They Look

They look out at me
from behind sad and frightened eyes
anger tightening the corner of their mouyths
But we have never met
they do not know me
still I feel the heat
of their anger weapon
directed at me

And maybe all of their life
is like this
anger and insecurity
of varying degrees

And maybe they are just
going through a rough period

If I am a mirror
shining back other's light,
those with the least
to reflect
might not want to be around me
to see how shallow
They Truely are.

One Act Play: Younger Woman and Older Man

Young Woman and Older Man
(or Love conquers not)

[A classroom on college campus, class is almost over]

YW: (He is so yummy, when will he notice me?)

OM: (Jeez, she is so hot, too bad I'm too old for her)

YW: (He doesn't even know I'm alive...)

OM: (She probobly thinks I'm a dirty older pervert)

YW: (Oh god, he's looking at me!)

OM: (Shit, she saw me looking at her, I'd better say hi)
"Uh, hi there. My name is Older Man."

YW: "My name is younger woman, nice to meet you."

OM: "What is your major?"

YW: "Literature, I'm a writer. What's yours?"

OM: (Jeez, she is so young)
"Anthropology."
(God, she is so hot! What am I doing talking to her? What good could possibly come from
this? Sure, I really want to sleep with her... but she probobly wants me to be her
boyfriend, take her out, do things with her and spend time with her friends, etc... I think
I am just to old for that.)

YW: "That is so cool, I love anthropology!"
(Look at his eyes, they are _gorgeous_, I'd totally sleep with him!)

OM: "Yeah it's a lot of fun. Where are you from?"
(Look at the way she is looking at me! She totally wants me... But I am just too old. If I
were to go out with her I'd be taking advantage of her, I just have too experienced too
much.)

YW: "Southern California, how about you?"
(Oh, and look at his arms! I get the the shivers just thinking about him enveloping me with
them and crushing me to his chest. Oh how I wish he would just sweep me of my feet!)

OM: "I'm from San Francisco originally."
(It's no use, I'm just too old. There is somebody else her age out there that is meant for
her. I would just be getting in the way... *sigh* I suppose I am just meant to be alone for
now.)

YW: "Well, um, it was nice talking to you, hope I see you later."
(Ask for my phone number!)

OM: (I think she wants me to ask for her phone number, but what then? I don't have time to be a
boyfreind. Damn, I'm sad.)
"Yeah, you too, later."

YW: [Exits class room and goes to drink and smoke pot with friends and make out with boy she likes less than older man.]

OM: [Exits class room and goes home to drink and smoke pot alone.]

Thoughts: Appearences (illusion)

Apearences are amazingly decietful and unreflective of the truth. I am constantly amazed by this fact. For example, I have been told that I am very handsome. I was even an actor on television when I was very young, for my beauty. It has been strange, being so handsome. I wear a beard now, just to cover it up a little. I can catch a person's eye and make them blush, by looks alone. I can get some people so hot, until they talk to me. See, I have an inside too, and a very unusual one at that. It's strange to see some stranger light up at seeing me looking at them. So I go over to talk to them and after some small talk it is obvious they nwre not interested in me at all, just my looks. They were happy to have someone who "looked like me" look at them. That's all. This principle works in reverse, too, though. For many days I feel almost blinded by all the sexy young people around me and i find my heart hurting as I think to myself sadly, "why don't I have one of those?"
Only lately has it been hitting me that those sexy young people are connected to minds, emotions, and souls, which might turn me off totally, once discovered. And I don't feel so bad about not having one. Still... It makes me remember back to when I used to dress all crazy, and color my hair, and paint my face, every day. If people are going to look, and judge by apearences, then let them look and give them something crazy to look at. Maybe it's partly college's fault. The heated elimi-date style of competition amoung many of the students to look hot. Add to that the unconcious message that college is "for finding a husband/wife" and you get very weird hormonal stuff going around.

Theory: Crisis as the Foundation of Relationships

Relationships: Friends, Family, Lovers, Co-workers, etc. I've been thinking a lot about human relationships lately, how they form, what makes them last, etc. I look at people on facebook and they have pictures with their friends where everyone is hugging and kissing and generally being very close to each other. I sometimes wonder why I don't have that kind of a bond with anyone and I have traced it to my lack of Crisis. All relationships are founded on Crisis, whether situational, emotional, mental, or whatnot. The more crisis which two people endure together, the closer their bond is. This is evidenced by co-dependence and the extreme difficulty many abused people have in leaving their abuser. The military, prisons, fraternities, and native indigenous religions and all well aware of this and create deliberate moments of crisis in order to make a bond between members of the group. And after the initiation, bootcamp, prison term, or hazing is over, the group is more unified for having survived.
To make a simplier example, let's say you and I are at a party and we meet for the first time and we're hanging out. We bullshit about our interests and whatnot and the night passes. At the end of the night you are very drunk and you are puking. This is a moment of crisis. You are embarrassed that you are so drunk and your a little scared. Suddenly I appear and take care of you, get you some water, call you a cab, whatever. The next morning you will feel a much more solid affinity for me, because in a moment of crisis, I was a support. Now I am a friend, when once I was an aquantance. Time goes on and we share more minor-party-crisis together, which reinforce our friendship, then one day my wife leaves me. It's a major crisis and I call you and you let me stay on your couch and help me through the divorce. After a crisis this big we are probobly very close friends because, we feel deeply, that we can "Trust" each other, based on historical solidarity.
For the most part, this is an unconscious process. The definition I have given to crisis here is esentially any altered state of consciousness. Because consciousness is fluid and constantly moving, the greater the change, the greater the bond which is formed. Think about all the experiences with bond people to each other: sex, birth, drugs, mutual experience, war, abuse, etc. In each example one's neurochemistry is changed and the more radically it alters, the more radical the bond can be.
So where does that leave me? I spend most of my life these days avoiding crisis and that removes the opportunity for me to make friends. Ah me.

Thoughts: Friends and their Lovers

What is this sick obsession my friends have about making me talk to their lovers/wives? It happened again the other night. Here I am pouring my heart out to an old friend on the telephone and he keeps saying "Why don't you talk to my wife about that? She knows all about that." But I didn't call his wife, I called him. I'm pretty much a one-on-one sorta person and I'm not accustomed to talking to multiple people at once. So despite my lack of interest I find the wives voice interloping on the phone and I do what comes naturally to me: I flirt with her outrageously. She get's very embarrassed and gives up trying to speak with me.
This is not an isolated incident. It has occurred many times with many people and it continues to occur. Why do people try to force their relationship onto me? It's their relationship and I'm really not interested. I imagine it has something to do with trying to share the love that they are a part of, trying to integrate me with their loving new community. Except it doesn't work. Ever. I just end up feeling more than ever that I have lost another friend and I will never get them back until I, too, have a "meaningful relationship" that I can share with them.
It's either very selfish of them, or else it's very well-intentioned and totally Naive to think they can add someone into my life because they are in a relationship with them. It's no secret that I am very picky about the people I associate with. And I always try to treat people as individuals, judging each person on a one-on-one basis. Sure, I respect my friends enough to trust their judgement and respect their lovers, but as I survey the long list of people I know.... none of them are ex-lovers of friends, and very few are ex-lovers of mine.
And so we come again to one of the overarching lessons about this phase of my life: People pair off. Then they try to get you to pair off, or become a part of their pair, because they cannot conceive of any other way to have you in their new "pair life." They bond together to create not two people together, but one person in two bodies. In the most extreme example of this, one of my oldest friends, invited me to play erotically with his lover and she was fine with it too. But I didn't, i couldn't. How could I? I am me and they are "Them." I miss my friends who are in long standing relationships. May they rest in peace.

Thoughts: Child development and humanity

From what I've read about the development of children who have been terribly abused or molested, it is very common for those same victims to go on to become the perpetrators of the same form of torture which they, themselves, endured.
I wonder if it is possible that the course of populations of people would fallow a similar trajectory. If we take Chaos Mathematical theory about the weather, for instance. The MIT mapping computers tell us that the weather is governed by a very complicated mathematical equation based on recursion. This is called the "Lorenz Attractor," and can be acuratly depicted as a fractel. If we accept that nature is based on this constant recursion of elements, (a fair Middle-Level bridging theory in Anthroplogy, based on the low-level evidence of Chaos Theory): Then why wouldn't human populations be based on a similar form of repetetive recursion, biologically and historically. In other words the seeming chaos of the rise and falls of human societies could similarly be governed by mathematical factors. This is hard to conceive of, with free will and all, but never-the-less it is scientifically sound ( combined with Quantum Physics one still has free-will, without any mathematical paradox).
I started thinking about all this in relation to Israel. One the one hand they were a terribly abuse people. On that same hand, they are now (speaking of the policies of the government) a terribly abusive people. Taken in consideration with the information about child psychology, it should be evident what has ocured. This also brings me to Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious, possibly being the creation of this . And besides Israel, we can look at the same recursion on a Larger Historical PErspective. Seeing the USA as a further loop in what was once ancient rome, etc...

Poem: Tomorrow will be better

Tomorrow will be better
by Me

Tomorrow will be a better day
at least that's what they tell me.
The morning new, chance again,
Afternoon fade, going down,
Nightfall – sad again.

Tomorrow will be a better day
If you keep saying it, it may come true.
Tomorrow will be a better day,
But tomorrow,
I still wont have you.

Poem: The rain wont stay the same

The Rain Wont Stay the Same
by Me

After all I've seen and all I've done
the rain wont stay the same
No matter what I've tried, no matter who I've done
the rain wont stay the same
Left alone or in a group
doing yoga or dying of croup
I keep hearing the message
and feeling the pain
Of my truth for this life
that's burned into my brain:
The rain wont stay the same.
The rain wont stay the same.

Poem: Sleeping Dragons

Sleeping Dragons
by Me

I feel the Demon Hunger
Deep inner soul lust craving
Awake in my core
demanding more
It will never be slaked
can never stop eating
Until, Death.
The darkest goal of my thirst.

I used to see it as mine
of me.
In some ways it is.
But I have fed it for years
the finest fair desire could wish.
So it grew.
Now it is expert
strong
developed.

I fear I am no longer playing
a fun little game with myself.
For both of us have grown.
So, too, have the stakes.

One of Us must rule.
One should be careful
to let Sleeping Dragons lie.

Poem: Reincarnation

Reincarnation
by Me

Pen, my friend, I'm lost again
in cycles most human.
I wonder still
crying a the thought of Redemption
that all this pain and loss
could one day be made right.
Having problems with “live in the now”
My truest inner urge
that the universe owes me more than this.
Yes, I said it.
The universe owes me.
Life seems to recoil at just the thought,
like egotism isolates.
In our naivitae we are libel
to make many fooloish bargains
Like: “Of your own free will.”

Imagine a newborn soul
on it's first incarnation
falling madly in love
and screaming to the world
“i will give an eternity,
if only I get to know
this woman!”
And the Salty-Bastard voice of
the Oldest Conniver replies
“Oh yeah?
You've got yourself a deal, kid.”
Then life after life of sludge
for the rest of eternity.
Thanks a lot, gramps.

Poem: Patience

Patience
by Me

To wait awhile,
a time,
with peace,
Reduces me,
to frothing beast.

To simply,
idly,
sit and be,
Contrives a task from Hell for me.

Some,
the Wise,
have sagely said
“To simply live, be simply not dead.”

And though i know,
and hear,
and see,
I do not find the patience in me.

Poem: Passion Skill

Passion Skill
by Me

To see a girl's to see a snatch,
a base reaction, hard to catch.
No sooner that I see her eyes,
does my mind stagger, 'tween her thighs.
With hearty blood fast to my member,
closing off what thoughts to render.
All civility stands still,
In awe of woman's passion skill.

Poem: I will not be with you

I will not be with you
by Me

Love was simpler when I was young,
I wanted it for one.
Another is that:
I did not know
these things can damage
so completely, so totally.

So now I am alone
and a little afraid.
Of what another can do to me.
I do not trust them
or myself
To keep things well
and above the board.

Am I missing it?

Or am I right?

I will not be with you tonight.

Poem: Perspectives

Perspectives
by Me

There is a sound of the slipping away.
A sound like
doing a sinkful of rotting dishes
with a queezy hungover stomach
all cottage cheese, tea-bag, and eggs
the potent smell of which
seems to infect and violate
your ears.
I can be deafening, I Know.
or sometimes, the smell of
time-gone-by
will flood the room, while you try to sleep
The odor of which is so pungeant
like the worlds most miserable woman,
as well as the wealthiest.
Alone on the floor in her tower of gold
banging her head on marble floors
because
She.Just.Isn't.Happy.
No matter how much she has.

And the Guilt of the World yawns.

Poem: Snow Falls

Snow Falls
by Me

Lonely, stranded, and blind
serving my term
for some unknown crime

I know there is fath
but fath goes unseen
beleiveing that life is
my not-lucid dream.

"I want some" and "gimme"
my only two tools
loving their boddies
but thinking their fools
working at jobs
or going to schools

Snow falls
and I know it wont last

Poem: Ode to Perfection

Ode to Perfection
by Me

Ode to perfection
the sanitary room
the hottest shower
the cleanest towel
the sharpest razer
and brand new shoes.
Meditating
yoga
always on time
clean fingernails
freshly laundered clothes
and a brand new car.
No secrets, no shame, no guilt and no harm
no fear, no vices, no dirt, good taste
everything used and nothing's a waste.
The highest of peaks, this vision I see.
The truth is, I know,
that Perfection's
not me.

Poem: Beauty-Blindness

Beauty-Blindness
by Me

The sun is nice
and so's the sea
The trees are smiling
down on me
And it's a shame
I cannot see
This beauty that's
surrounding me.

Poem: Insomnia #8

Insomnia #8
by Me

The lonliest part of the night
when every peek at the clock
is another year added to your sentence.

There is nothing for you to do
no medicine to soothe
the empty hours

so it falls to father time
the illusor, the trick
and the sun will rise
and moments will be good again soon.

As father Ra
fights through the darkness
of the serpent.

Poem: Experience

Experience
by Me

The problem with having
interesting life experiences
is that
if you mean to be honest
about yourself
and your past
you will have to re-tell
your experiences
in story form
over
and over
and over
It gets so the
very-unique-and-ever-so-interesting
story
becomes the blandest of tastes
and you may cry out
one day
"please do not ask me
anyhing about myself.
I am sick of
my infinite talking."
And she will say to you
"But I want to get to know you...." [Dedicated to Adrian R. Lamo <3]

Poem: The Date

The Date
by Me

I started getting ready two days in advance.
I walked to the lavender bush and picked the most fragrant flowers.
I put them in a jar and poked holes in the top
So that you could smell the sweetness.

I spent 3 hours, shaving my beard,
cutting my nose-hair, scenting myself with oils.
And you didn't notice.

I walked for two hours to see you.
We sat in the park.
You told me "I just can't do this."
I said "Okay."
It was our first date.

And now I am rejected.
And I tried so hard.
I remember all the other women
I have been with.
And I do not remember trying so hard with them.

Maybe that is my problem.
I must stop trying.
So hard.

Poem: I will not let it get to me

I Will Not Let it get to Me
by Me

The feeling creeps;
I should feel bad.

I will not let it get to me.

That slithering tongue,
which whispers to me:
"you will always be alone
there is no one for thee."

I will not let it get to me.

For all I've known and all I've done,
for all the pain and all the fun,
Too great a man to be mundane,
this life of glory I have made,
should make me proud and never vain,
to stand on rooftops, free of shame
and shout my truth into the rain:

"I will not let it get to me!"

I will not let it get to me.

Poem: Halloween

Halloween
by Me

Halloween is here again.
I see the masquarade posters.
There is a new word for fucking, now:
"Bone Down."
I like it, even though
I'm not participating.
Half of my poetry is about being alone
and alienated.
I asked my friend:
"What's happened to me?"
He said that I stopped liking groups.
I hate it when he's right.
Why do I pine for 'normalcy,'
when my younger goal was the opposite?
Oh how I dream of being in love
knowing that I would not be able to stand it.
Happy alone, but miserable too.
All that I do is
howl
at the moon

Poem: Special Place

Special Place
by Me

A special, little, sleepy place
deep within my mind.
Comfort, calmness, lovely warmth
bending deep inside.
A magick wand, a tuning fork,
an ugly wedding bride.

Poem: Golden Desire

Golden Desire
by Me

The Goddess bites me again
and laughs
her flirtatious glee
As my blood flows
Oh how she taunts
for me to only have eyes
again and again
I fall for the desire
And come away alone
as always
Fooled again.
What is this lonely spite
that I feel?
Why not content to be
simply I?
Because they seem
to enjoy
Because they seem
to love
Because they seem
happy to be.
But they arn't.
No more so than I am.
So why do I feel this way?
Because it is so.
There is one for me,
but I will not find it...
until i desire it no longer.
Oh my Goddess
you bring out
the full depth
of my longing...

Song: King Kong Song

King Kong Song (sung to traditional Chinese single string violin)
by Me

I see King Kong, he sing song
King Kong sing song all day long.
See Kong sing song, sing all day long,
See King Kong sing song.

King Kong see me see, Kong song
I see King Kong sing Kong song
See Kong sing song, sing all day long,
See King Kong sing song.

No sing song, do, King Kong
King Kong no more sing Kong Song
Please sing song, please please King Kong,
Please King Kong sing song.

No long sing song, do, King Kong
King Kong no long sing Kong song.
Kong need King Bong, then sing Kong song
King Kong need bong for song.

Me bring King bong to, King Kong
Please Kong smoke bong, so sing song,
King Kong smoke bong, but no sing song.
Please sing song King Kong.

I say King Kong be, Big Dong.
Ki ng Kong have bong to sing song
please sing long song, for me King Kong,
please sing long Kong song.

Me and King Kong, we, sing song
King Kong and me sing long song
We sing Kong song, sing all night long,
We long sing Kong Song.

Poem: Waltz On

Waltz On
by Me

There are other people
worse off than I
I know cause I've been there
praying to die.

But now that I'm better,
I feel much the same
always unhappy
and brimming with rage

Feeling quite wrong
for feeling quite bad
thinking about all the pain
that I've had

I scream to the sky
“why lord why”
as the marriage party
waltzes on.
Without me.

Poem: To All the Women

To All The Women I have Loved
by Me

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So many lights of heaven
in the midst of so much darkness.
As I look back upon my life
The times without you seem dull
dark, and shadowy.
But the Angels with the Light
were often there there for me.
You, my angelic beauties,
my saving graces,
Of Pleasure and Goodness,
I am still in love with you all,
And I always will be.
My tragedy is that you will never be mine
like that
again.
All I have is the precious memory
and feelings.
And your still glowing presence.
Reminding me that
that life truly is good
after all.
I am
and always will be
The Luckiest Man.
Thanks to you.

Poem/Story: The Venerable Elder

The Venerable Elder

A loveless night surrounded by gore
makes me like
an old forgotten Elder sitting on a porch
that isn't hers, but she doesn't know.
With her deeply wrinkled, yellow, greasy, parchment flesh
- old all over
And limbs so thin and feather frail
Eyes milky with Jaundice and cataracts
What small circus goes on in Her ancient head?
A mind made infinite by depth of time
But the world has forgotten her
She has no one to care
Does she even think about all the lives she had touched?
All the people she has known, men she has changed?
No, she barely knows.
Young children come up the street in stripped shirts,
on cherry red tricycles.
They pelt the woman with sharp rocks and thorned things
And laugh.
She looks straight ahead
at a markless horizon and
hums a little - under her breath
The boys stop as a particularly sharp rock
glances off her forehead
tilting her neck
as her ancient blood runs black down her forehead.
They tense their bodies - prepared to run.
But she keeps on humming to herself.
Blood on her face and dripping onto her dress.
One of the boys dismounts his cherry tryc and approaches the porch.
She's sitting in a rusted wheelchair
Iron so corrugated it probably doesn't move
thick black nylons with burrs, rips, and dust.
The left one rolled down to her ankle
showing scars and scabs on her pale legs.
He unzips his jeans and pees in her lap
with a child’s evil smirk.
She continues to hum as the other children laughed
and threw a few more rocks for good measure
As they rode away in glee.
The Ancient Venerable Elder sat where she was.
Still.
As the sun was setting, and the stars came out.

Poem: The Things Denied to those who want so little

The Things Denied to Those Who Want So Little
by Me

Candoris tales
of moon-men and mice-monsters
wandering empty streets of withdrawal
faster than a hummingbirds heart
we chance to meet others
who are sick like us
it's too bad they can't help us
in our collective sigh of run away
so many children madly dashing
stealing, beating, killing even
all for innocence
and peace
The Things Denied to Those Who Want so Little
why is greed rewarded
in an alligator's mouth
and a spider's tooth
Those who died I miss
but also envy
we simpletons who simply want good
know ourselves
While evil mega-corporate-personality-complexes
complex like nuclear DNA blueprints
Don't
But still the complex kills the simple
Hates the Simple
Attacks us constantly
never understanding their own
Ignorance

Poem: The Street We Once Walked Upon

The Street We Once Walked Upon
by Me

I thought I saw you once
But didn’t see you there
I thought I felt you once
But missed your raven hair
You came again to see me
But all the love was gone
I sat upon the street
That we once walked upon

Poem: The Shepard

The Shepard
by Me

The Shepard was a wanderer,
he moved to soothe his soul.
The Shepard was a ponderer,
to fill his cup and bowl.
He had no flock,
'cept in his head,
but no one ever knew.
He walked the stars
and slept the earth,
The Shepard that was you.

Poem: The Party

The Party
by Me

Ah the party was wonderful again!
Everyone fun and at ease.
I was well liked - admired by all,
Looking great
I sure made the scene.
And I cannot stand it.
I want to die.
Always after, always after
Always after the party
I want to die.
I hate them for having fun
I hate myself for not being able to join.
And i hate the world,
For creating me
apart, different.
me.

Poem/Story: The Jester-King Secret

The Jester-King Secret

by Me

A laughing, funning, thrilling rogue,
The slaphand Jester-King.
Demoralized beyond repair
While dancing with the Queen.
Once offered up a ghastly lark,
Which spewed the royal wine.
He sang it out with twangy voice,
But kept the verse in time.

“Of wanderings I’ve seen a few,
of women many more.
A monk, begging for holy bread,
Has shown up at my door.
I worked the trench of labor,
And washed a child’s clothes.
But nothing yet has meant so much,
As picking my own nose.”

The Queen’s retort, with glittering eye, was
“Shall I show you, then?
I must, I shall, for you’re to learn,
What means to be a man.”
And saying so she bared her chest,
For all the room to see,
Put jesters head between her breasts,
And told him that’s the key.

Comed up for air with flushing face,
The laugher, grinning, said
“I much prefer to pick your nose,
than laying you in bed.”

Poem: The Great Ego of the Earth

The Great Ego of the Earth
by Me

I sing the song
of me
to myself.
Alone as I feel
alone as I am
as we all are.
I have no friends
near
I have bare freinds
far
and I remain alone.
Those I know
have no integrity
not knowing what it means
and I am alone again
with myself
Wonderinng..
will I settle?
Will I make
'my imperfect circle of
warmth and comfort?
propbobly not.
The falsity appals me.
But what is the truth?
All the vain glorious humans
so consummed by self
they cannot see the others.
And I am not so different.
Only that I look farther
farther than they
but my looking does not assist me
except in my greiving
it gives me no one to hold close
to care for.
I think of my childhood friends
but they are gone now
And I am alone again
as I was
as I am
as I always will be
Alone, yet surrounded
The great ego of the earth.

Poem: The Good Life

The Good Life

by Me

Sad, mad, bad and worse
Living under a mummy’s curse.
A dieing spider, an empty well
wishing and praying
but going to hell.
A little lost child with nowhere go,
no one to hold, and nothing to know.
Spiraling downward in endless decline
Constantly saying “I’m doing just fine.”
Diamonds to ashes
and gold into rust
life’s only promise:
that dieings a must.
Shivering wet
and alone
in a storm
Silently weeping
while living the norm
Sleeping in filth
and washing in spit
Lying and crying and begging for it.
An innocent man,
frying in vain
Babies are beaten
and crying with shame.
How can one stop?
The killers a cop.
Always on bottom,
and never on top.
Having fun yet?
They wont let you quit.
Don’t you want more?
Life’s just starting it.

Poem: The Eternal Judge

The Eternal Judge

by Me

The feeling comes over me
That I am the eternal judge.
It happens most
when I encounter great human
pain and misery.
I know inside that one day
any day
I will be called up to heaven.
And the great god will say to me:
"Well, judge? What say you?
Should they live or should they die?
Is life good? Or shall I try again?"
And mostly I want him to wipe us out,
a great flood or burning fire,
cleanse us all and start again.
I try to think about all the good in this world.
I see flowers and love and music,
all the people I love.
Not trying to think about the bad
I have no choice.

I hope for your sake that I am not
The eternal judge.

Poem: The Daunting

The Daunting

by Me

A number of times I’ve been daunted
but never was just quite so bad
as the time I talked to my Ruby
and she wouldn’t admit she was sad
Or the one where I’d call up my mother
and she wouldn’t say nothing at all
If only the women would speak to me
how easy
how greater
the fall.

I’d crash through the earth like a comet
I’d smash all the atoms to paste
Nothing remaining but vomit
and pain with a most human face
I’d level the plains to nothing
I’d grind all the mountains to dust
Alone in my prime isolation
I’d know that I’ve earned my own trust.

But that is the path of the Boring
the Dull, the Simple, the Plain
Better to suffer in silence
Than show the whole world you’re in pain.

Poem: The Candle-Tree